Some stanzas for today

A Writing Survival-Machine

You said that you feel gun-shy to pressure,
but I have seen you barrel between two worlds—
one refining your finger tips, the other, grinding
your tree bark hands.
Where did you come from? I ask,
as you let me pull the horn of the diesel truck.
How did you end up the way you are? my knees
rattle as we drive past the dry crops.

******

Dinner with your family moved in rotations

of knife clinks against the plate.

Your sisters cut, and tore, and pulled into slabs of sinewy

beef while the head of the table

tucked a napkin in the neck of his Sunday shirt.

His wife steeped creamed corn on her plate, while I followed

the Cotton Woods dancing outside the window.

I should have known

the potatoes came from the farm,

dipping my rueful finger in Kool-aid.

"Homesickness Isn't Really About 'Home'"

"We get homesick because "there are things that we love," said Thurber. "It's the byproduct of the strength of our attachment. If there were nothing in the world we were attached to, then we wouldn't miss them when we're away." Derrick Ho
 "You're not literally just missing your house. You're missing what's normal, what is routine, the larger sense of social space, because those are the things that help us survive," Klapow said.

To my mother

Before My Grandfather Died

A little girl walking up the stony
Street, her hair tied in two cream ribbons
Her shoulders exposed to the early, blue
evening. The street lights begin to glow,
but she doesn’t need to be home.

When the blares of an ambulance drills
Through her ears, my mother collects a handful of pebbles
Storing them where no one sees.

I wish that I could take your little
Hand. Lead you far away from 3778 Forest Street
And the black telephone ringing on the wall. Stones
spilling between her fingers.

You wouldn’t have to see the stretcher
Pulling white sheets—like your cotton dress—
Over a man you only had for ten years.
I could lay my sweater over your bony arms
And stroke your dark brown hair.
Tell you that I would be home after school
And you wouldn’t need your own set of keys.
Your mother could work, and we would build feasts
In the avocado kitchen: things that you taught me to make.

You might still smell his fumy cigarettes
On the brocade couches and see the ash trays
Free of smoke stains.
Photos of him placing you on his knee as he promised
You the world.

I will tell you that you are pretty,
And comb the tangles from your doll’s hair.
I will walk you to the bus on the foggy mornings
And stitch up all your busted pocket seams.

Just an image for today. . .

The House Underground

My house is planted underground.
No one hears our whistling tea pot
And no one catches the lavender scent
hanging in the windowsill.

You can press your ear towards the musky earth
and hear the quiet muffles of our lives
like the history a sea shell gives.

Prelude to Pea Coats at the Gym

The gym swayed from its normal gray
to the peak of soft yellows
as five men in long, tweed coats
dappled into the gym.

Their heads buoyed slowly
from left to right
like bobbles on a string.

They spoke in waves
amidst each other as they strolled
around the machines in dress slacks.
Most with white and one with reddish
brown hair stood with hands in their pockets.

The peaceful sentinels huddled
around a treadmill, examining the buttons,
ruminating nothing.

They left lazily against the sweaty rhythm
of students, like a ball of cotton
floating in a whirly wind.

Mourning Dove

I caught a glimpse of the Mourning Dove
dancing with the snow,
an apparition of something holy.
Her cloudy feathers shook
the remaining leaves from the cotton
wood’s branches. Her lamenting call
floating upon my shoulders.

So you like the same music as me?

It’s not just music. It doesn’t just stop there. Music and other things we are drawn to are manifestations of what we value. There’s a reason why we like certain things, not just because it sounds cool.
Often times it resonates inside of us, and we are shaped a certain way.
The music, or any type of art, shows our philosophies, our life styles, and our culture. Someone who is drawn to a similar art form usually has some common human understanding-- which makes it easier to relate. Two people can identify on a similar truth which they found bubbling up in some art form.
Also we are not just pulled to a sound or an image, it’s what that music symbolizes or represents. It’s the idea behind it. That’s why you don’t normally see white collar business men at a Rage Against the Machine concert.
Those philosophies can fade from a person over time, but the art we are engaged in shapes and explains the principles we live by.

an Ander Monson sort of day

Today, I decided to reread some things from Ander Monson's website/writings called Vanishing Point. He wrote an essay called "Assembloir: That Which Is True of Others Is True of Me." In the essay, he composed lines and ideas from different memoirs in which he identified.
These are the parts I really liked.

Assembloir: That Which Is True of Others Is True of Me

"Most experiences as they are lived claim an importance beyond their real significance. Each new friend, new place, new love seems spectacular at the moment of inception. In retrospect, few stand the test of time."

"I have another drink, and then I learn, for the hundredth time, that you can’t drown your troubles, not the real ones, because if they are real they can swim."

"Finally, perhaps, it is an accumulation of small things that changes us, the unexpected and unnoticed incidents that signal moments of transition, pointing us in an entirely different direction, almost without our knowledge, often without our consent."

"Today I wanted to go as fast as I could to the worst part of the storm, feel its fury, shake my fist at its threats. I felt like one of those invincible folks who throw parties instead of evacuating when a hurricane’s storming down on them."

"I understand that what was missing could not be found in my parents’ house, no longer my home, in that house empty of everything except memories; could not be found in Berkeley, in Cuba, not even here, in my present home, could only be found in my own being, the cells of my own body, my own mind."

"Today, I decided to reread some things from Ander Monson's website/writings called Vanishing Point. He wrote an essay composed of lines from different memoirs which he felt were true for him as well."

I would like to discover where each of these mysterious lines came from or whose story they belong to, but I guess it really doesn’t matter. What really matters is that these conglomerations of ideas are truths that we can all relate to.

Tuning In and Turning to the Arts

Percy Shelley's stated that art is, “penetrating the veil of familiarity.” Therefore,
"art brushes aside those everyday cobwebs cluttering our lives and clouding our vision, permitting us to stand in awe of a new truth, fresh and startling, or to marvel once again at the emergence of an old truth long forgotten."

"Astral Weeks"

"Ain't nothing but a stranger in this world
I'm nothing but a stranger in this world
I got a home on high
In another land
So far away"

I listened to this song at the gym yesterday. I love those lyrics.

And Now My Brother

Then,
He reminded me of the zombie
in the movie
I watched the other night.
He was a stranger to me: a thin vegetable
growing out of the sofa,
and his sunken eyes
fluttered with sleep.
He snored like a lonely hole,
suctioning all the life from us.

I wanted to snap
him out of comatose.
I wanted to shake off his cigarettes
and cheap cologne.
Instead I slipped
down the stairs
brushing him off my fingers.

Now,
He calls me on the phone
and I swear
we talk with the glass
pieces from our old house,
and we let those rub at our hearts (ears).

When I finally hang up the phone,
my head sinks,
I have forgiven him once, twice,
bundles of times.
But he can’t seem to ascend
above the unnecessary drivel.
He is cemented in shame.

New Years in the Opa Lounge

He ordered me a diet coke with a half moon lime and two skinny straws. “You remembered,” I smiled,sipping the fizzy perfection. We talked about W. Somerset Maugham books, and we laughed at the woman shoving her backside around the room. Behind us, a screen showed a music video of an exotic girl twisting and weaving. The room spun with suit jackets and silky dresses as I waved my hair in circles, my cheeks pulsing warmly. You took a shot and grinned for the disposable flash. I threw my arms around Jessi, and we danced until our feet grew numb. There were so many steamy embraces when midnight flooded. I stood next to you waiting. The girls they kissed your cheeks, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t because all the desire spun inside me. I wanted to forget about the changes strewn upon me from the last six months. Instead, I safely juiced the limes into my drink.

The Jasmine

One can study long enough to breathe
in the nocturnal scent.
A latent flower of the night
time hides her sickly
branches, and pushes
strips of greasy hair in a lilac shall.

Living along a garden trellis,
she thrives best in steady sunlight;
Not in shady corners of the home.
From a fruitful diet of fizzy cokes
and pumpkin seeds,
the flower does most of her falling
in Autumn. When many of the common
Jasmine killers have gone.

One must remember to avoid pooling:
or over-watering this fragile plant
will cause root-rot—
when she can’t seem to focus her energies
on growth.

Cultivated solely for her fragrance,
one couldn’t possibly do without
this ambient and mystic plant. She hopes.

My Creation for Today

Plano, Texas

We walk through a trailer park,
the heat piping our pocket openings,
garment edges, and seams
characterized in Western wear.
We trip on nauseating waves of feverous air
by combining elements of jazz, blues, and soul.
In each screen door, we shout "Toasty!" in a flushy
falsetto: an impure matter that forms or rises.
Just two of us, we are both parching
in a variety of sizes. In a pulsing
language, I barely know.
Season us with herbs and spices
in this scummy air
because nothing says “home”
like warm-from-the-oven
desserts and breads.

The kids are full of carmine inks,
a deep red, among the flowers—
even the little stewing ones—
and the sticky paint, routinely added to
food products.
Bring towels for our removal method
just as clammy
as the first time,
but I could never leave this place.

More Things. . .

Rexburg or Something Like it

The cold air is fine.
I am fine, inside
this bedroom I am building.
Just through the double doors,
just one moment and
A blast of naked air
Strips me of my husk.
I cry,
now.
Not from any tears of my own, but
tears this wind gives me.
The gusts jostles and spirals
in waves, as I weave through
concrete.
Lifting, even straining my face
upward, there are stars: nothing but
little holes.
My knobby knees crack like music,
at the tea stained house—
with every Siracha night—
a tuft pummels the air
from me.
I’m swimming, even
wishing you could pick me up.

A Collections of Things I do not Wish to Write

Singing John Prine in Jackson Hole

I have hated plenty of men like you:
ones with Telecaster hands,
and jiving James Brown
laughs.
You hug me with gravel,
the kind used to melt snow.

I’ve hated you like Teedman’s Thrift
where you bought the see-through shirts.

I’ve stepped on tiny moments in book
stores near the waking Bay, I
cried on pallets, you called your bed.
(the crawling Ear Wig
told me this was wrong)
This is where you made a home for us.

I’ve poured ink upon
the docks, where I still lie,
in Jackson.
The gray haired man with his family
around his neck,
He smiled at your stacked guitar cases
in the back, pointed a curious finger
at our banjo.

They asked us for a song,
And You reminded me not to sing “hell”
in “Angel From Montgomery”
as they filmed what they knew
of us.
They didn’t see so much.

Yet, I have burned off all the edges
of the breakfast made in Reno
and escaped from any Christmas
we felt near the pines.

I’ve quieted all the apparitions
in the west lands which hid
like leaves in my hair:
scratchy and unnoticed.

Somehow, even after mountains of time,
I keep the paper daisies you cut
from coffee filters with me.

In Jackson, they didn’t see the lake bed
where you and I took disposable pictures of perfection.
They didn’t see my hunches turn to tears—
from all the hurt and dark between us.

A Poem About Today

The Gym

I wake up to a bitter smell of patchouli
and cold
I’d like to leave before things
get bad
I roll over on hunger from night
time, and it empties out my head.
My eyes feel thick and my back
seems to crumple:
I’d like to leave before things get bad.

It makes sense with this make up
and my baggy body huffing
through a sea of grey.
They would like it if we looked
the same. We can easily look the same.
Yet, my stomach creases
in a back and forth, back and forth
motion, which should be the same.

However, there are blonde girls in push-ups
and olive skinned little vines
stretching out on perspiry mats, but I
don’t hate the gym.

A dewy eyed smidge of please
don’t worry about me. I am the fleece
jacket inside that cubby hole:
not worth claiming.