A pour instead of a saucepan and a stove.
A heart to heart between you and you; and
in the morning you culpably measure
the bottle's level. And swear.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Vanity is a desert
In the microdunes of makeup dust, a bent and basking hairpin hides
beneath the hand-mirror that has seen 20 years
of pouty scrutiny, back and sides.
beneath the hand-mirror that has seen 20 years
of pouty scrutiny, back and sides.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
I'd be up to write more
...but there's this little problem.
I dream at night not of sex, or satisfaction, or allaying of hunger - but of feasts.
Nothing is sufficient but the possibility of excess. The pick and the choose, not the settle or the sufficient.
I do not know how to strangle the need for the overblown, overeaten - so I choose to never start.
The table is laid with a thousand fatty, beautiful delicacies and crisp haunches but instead of choosing - I walk away to the corner and listen to the music, watch the dancers and the eaters.
I dream at night not of sex, or satisfaction, or allaying of hunger - but of feasts.
Nothing is sufficient but the possibility of excess. The pick and the choose, not the settle or the sufficient.
I do not know how to strangle the need for the overblown, overeaten - so I choose to never start.
The table is laid with a thousand fatty, beautiful delicacies and crisp haunches but instead of choosing - I walk away to the corner and listen to the music, watch the dancers and the eaters.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Stupidly happy tonight
Which means I will no doubt write like shit.
Who wants to hear how much it means to light 2 candles, a stick of sandalwood incense, talk to your parents for an hour, say hello to the D (who still wont talk on the phone because he thinks he voice sounds wrong), listen to whatever you want from your playlist, plan out your weekend of book-buying, and fall asleep on the couch with a book on your chest?
Happy is only interesting when it is in the past.
Who wants to hear how much it means to light 2 candles, a stick of sandalwood incense, talk to your parents for an hour, say hello to the D (who still wont talk on the phone because he thinks he voice sounds wrong), listen to whatever you want from your playlist, plan out your weekend of book-buying, and fall asleep on the couch with a book on your chest?
Happy is only interesting when it is in the past.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Drafting in Exile, Part 2
I have always dreamed of escape. The run-away, the other side, the long drive to somewhere else - and I've done that.
Many times.
Whatever you can fit in your heart and your backpack - and then you're off, elsewhere.
These three years? Kinda starting to learn to live with as-it-is. Learned that there is beauty and virtue and strength and not hating where you are.
"Your mouth to god's ears" - we said this at least 3 times a day. Every pipe-dream had this coda.
Even after we got D back, as we sat at the Greek restaurant in Lauderdale by the Sea, eating feta and hummus and skordalia, in celebration with wine and laughter - we still wanted more.
Always something more to want. Always something for which to petition.
Your mouth to god's ears. Whoever is listening has something else in mind, and perhaps it is this:
You don't have to stop believing it can be better, or different, or elsewhere - but you can stop living your life as if you are waiting for it all to change.
The real meaning of this time was not how to escape, was not deus ex machina uplift from a poorly-dealt hand - but a realization that the hand was just that - a hand in a game that made you fold, perhaps, but not crushing, not the end of all good things. That there will always be another hand, the dealer deals and that the game goes on, always.
And you have to love playing, or there's no point.
Many times.
Whatever you can fit in your heart and your backpack - and then you're off, elsewhere.
These three years? Kinda starting to learn to live with as-it-is. Learned that there is beauty and virtue and strength and not hating where you are.
"Your mouth to god's ears" - we said this at least 3 times a day. Every pipe-dream had this coda.
Even after we got D back, as we sat at the Greek restaurant in Lauderdale by the Sea, eating feta and hummus and skordalia, in celebration with wine and laughter - we still wanted more.
Always something more to want. Always something for which to petition.
Your mouth to god's ears. Whoever is listening has something else in mind, and perhaps it is this:
You don't have to stop believing it can be better, or different, or elsewhere - but you can stop living your life as if you are waiting for it all to change.
The real meaning of this time was not how to escape, was not deus ex machina uplift from a poorly-dealt hand - but a realization that the hand was just that - a hand in a game that made you fold, perhaps, but not crushing, not the end of all good things. That there will always be another hand, the dealer deals and that the game goes on, always.
And you have to love playing, or there's no point.
Last gasp
Someday I will be too old reinvent myself again. And someday I will be too old to wink and smile and banter and flirt. Someday I will forget things, and be aching and confused. But I hope I will never be too old to be playful with the world.
When young you think at every point of realization or landmark "This is it - I'm done. I am who I will always be, yay, no more trying". But, thus far, it has never been that way. I've been so many things that I thought would forever define me, but year after year they simply accrue - nothing is left behind.
What frightens me most about getting old is that I will be DONE. That there will be no more chances. No more last gasps.
I do not want to live in the past, but rather to create the present as I always imagined it could be.
When young you think at every point of realization or landmark "This is it - I'm done. I am who I will always be, yay, no more trying". But, thus far, it has never been that way. I've been so many things that I thought would forever define me, but year after year they simply accrue - nothing is left behind.
What frightens me most about getting old is that I will be DONE. That there will be no more chances. No more last gasps.
I do not want to live in the past, but rather to create the present as I always imagined it could be.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Well, that is my largest fan base.
"He thought very highly of you, though he was a mysogynistic sociopath."
Friday, March 25, 2011
Spirit of the staircase
One step, granny glasses, a cardigan, the next
step a strapless black satin and mincing shoes.
You teeter down; then block-heeled, a brown
smock brushes your gait at ankle height;
one step more and you skip
barefoot thunder down the stairs, two at a time, your entrance
awkward, loud.
No one cares about the banister or
elegance. They only see you slide into place.
step a strapless black satin and mincing shoes.
You teeter down; then block-heeled, a brown
smock brushes your gait at ankle height;
one step more and you skip
barefoot thunder down the stairs, two at a time, your entrance
awkward, loud.
No one cares about the banister or
elegance. They only see you slide into place.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Drafting in Exile - first pass
November, 2008
I am here because of a lie.
I am here because of a truth.
You leave, you close the door, you fly 1500 miles away and you think - that's it.
You dance with your son at the baggage carousel because you are FREE. Embarrassed, afraid- but FREE.
An efficiency hotel suite by the ocean; on a pull-out couch, the day I get D back - he falls asleep draped across me. I don't know yet where it goes from here. I can hear the palm leaves sawing at each other, and the distant music of the Lauderdale-by-the-Sea street festival, and I walk outside for a smoke on the balcony. Burnt tourists come back to their rooms, leave their flip-flops sandy on the mat.
I don't know yet that there are years ahead and not simply weeks. I don't know yet that I will move a few doors away, and make a life with borrowed furniture, just one parking space away from where I first found out I was going to have a baby.
I don't know that I will sit on a playground park bench, kicking at big fat fallen leaves and losing faith. I don't know yet the erosion of words, or that I will learn to build the castle back up after the tide has come and gone.
I only know that D is back, and from this moment on I think no further than the next hour.
It stays that way, for a long time.
The colors never mixed to THIS on the palate of my anxiety: process servers, dicey lawyers, cops with notebooks, court dates and affidavits and false accusations.
And then, just as the last leaves are raked from the yard, you are on a plane. Back to paradise. The smell of sand and a suitcase, of mold and margaritas.
The place everyone dreams of being - and you are here, and you feel nothing but captive.
It's far ahead now - From my porch I watch drunk people walk their dogs at midnight. D asleep in the bottom bunk of his bed, his own room, no longer sharing the pull-out couch.
The false accusations - of drug abuse, of incompetence, are long since thrown out.
The only way to escape limbo was to accept the palm-fronded necessity of where we are now.
But still we are not done.
If a lie can force me back here, a truth can make it right.
...
I am here because of a lie.
I am here because of a truth.
You leave, you close the door, you fly 1500 miles away and you think - that's it.
You dance with your son at the baggage carousel because you are FREE. Embarrassed, afraid- but FREE.
An efficiency hotel suite by the ocean; on a pull-out couch, the day I get D back - he falls asleep draped across me. I don't know yet where it goes from here. I can hear the palm leaves sawing at each other, and the distant music of the Lauderdale-by-the-Sea street festival, and I walk outside for a smoke on the balcony. Burnt tourists come back to their rooms, leave their flip-flops sandy on the mat.
I don't know yet that there are years ahead and not simply weeks. I don't know yet that I will move a few doors away, and make a life with borrowed furniture, just one parking space away from where I first found out I was going to have a baby.
I don't know that I will sit on a playground park bench, kicking at big fat fallen leaves and losing faith. I don't know yet the erosion of words, or that I will learn to build the castle back up after the tide has come and gone.
I only know that D is back, and from this moment on I think no further than the next hour.
It stays that way, for a long time.
The colors never mixed to THIS on the palate of my anxiety: process servers, dicey lawyers, cops with notebooks, court dates and affidavits and false accusations.
And then, just as the last leaves are raked from the yard, you are on a plane. Back to paradise. The smell of sand and a suitcase, of mold and margaritas.
The place everyone dreams of being - and you are here, and you feel nothing but captive.
It's far ahead now - From my porch I watch drunk people walk their dogs at midnight. D asleep in the bottom bunk of his bed, his own room, no longer sharing the pull-out couch.
The false accusations - of drug abuse, of incompetence, are long since thrown out.
The only way to escape limbo was to accept the palm-fronded necessity of where we are now.
But still we are not done.
If a lie can force me back here, a truth can make it right.
...
In which we investigate personal multitasking and diplomacy
How many conversations can you carry on at once? 1? 5? 72? At what point do they all blend together? How honest do you need to be for all your various conversations to be interchangeable? Or is it just a matter of mental adroitness?
Do you WANT all your conversations to be interchangeable, or is there merit in exploring someone else's point of view, even if briefly? Empathy is sometimes the (perhaps brief) suspension of honesty. And a cruel opinion is not, entirely, the same as honesty. Opinion is often the result of blind faith in your beliefs, without regard for the dissenting view.
Without such an ability to suspend personal truths, how would we enjoy the humour that we do?
Do you WANT all your conversations to be interchangeable, or is there merit in exploring someone else's point of view, even if briefly? Empathy is sometimes the (perhaps brief) suspension of honesty. And a cruel opinion is not, entirely, the same as honesty. Opinion is often the result of blind faith in your beliefs, without regard for the dissenting view.
Without such an ability to suspend personal truths, how would we enjoy the humour that we do?
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Happiest Depressed Person on the Block
Someone, I don't remember who - maybe it was me - some years ago described me thus.
I think that, for a certain type of depression, "passing" in the real world requires feats of mental energy that can only be achieved by being allowed the occasional periods of withdrawal.
It is not that you put on the happy like a mask; the happiness is not an act. Happy is what you are, and what you want, but chemicals, circumstances, wiring beyond your control fight to suppress this. And each day you wake up and fight back. Because you are angry, because you are determined, because it is a case of wanting and loving life so much that each day you have to arm yourself to engage with it.
But this comes at a cost. We live in a world where people are expected to be A (normal) or B(abnormal) at all times. But not a one of us is defined by a letter or a diagnosis.
To get through, to get by, to hold down a job or enjoy a relationship or be a parent - all of us, to one degree or another, need to extend an effort when we get up each day because the world does not abide by "I can't do it today".
But sometimes, you CAN'T. And I know that, for me, the hardest part is wanting to not just BE there, but to be HAPPY there.
I think that, for a certain type of depression, "passing" in the real world requires feats of mental energy that can only be achieved by being allowed the occasional periods of withdrawal.
It is not that you put on the happy like a mask; the happiness is not an act. Happy is what you are, and what you want, but chemicals, circumstances, wiring beyond your control fight to suppress this. And each day you wake up and fight back. Because you are angry, because you are determined, because it is a case of wanting and loving life so much that each day you have to arm yourself to engage with it.
But this comes at a cost. We live in a world where people are expected to be A (normal) or B(abnormal) at all times. But not a one of us is defined by a letter or a diagnosis.
To get through, to get by, to hold down a job or enjoy a relationship or be a parent - all of us, to one degree or another, need to extend an effort when we get up each day because the world does not abide by "I can't do it today".
But sometimes, you CAN'T. And I know that, for me, the hardest part is wanting to not just BE there, but to be HAPPY there.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
My random images, in no particular order
My only child
My first guitar
My favorite shirt
My leaning shelf
My open book
My chipped mug
My lost cat
My recycled watch-fob
My old car
My dusty journal
My bitten pencil
My first guitar
My favorite shirt
My leaning shelf
My open book
My chipped mug
My lost cat
My recycled watch-fob
My old car
My dusty journal
My bitten pencil
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Unedited poems, part 1
This little camera takes
pictures incognito, blurry
a sidewalk step away,
so close you could see the gum on my shoe
pictures incognito, blurry
a sidewalk step away,
so close you could see the gum on my shoe
Friday, February 25, 2011
Too long for Twitter, too short for a book
The compiled random thoughts of a person you never see.
Test out the waters in my stream of consciousness. It's chilly, but you get used to it.
Test out the waters in my stream of consciousness. It's chilly, but you get used to it.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Gun Street Girl - Galway, 1988
I get off the last bus, return trip from Dublin.
Walking back in the empty damp,
hands jammed in pockets, fingering the change.
The soundtrack is what i found
in the left-behind tape deck in my rented flat,
with its view of the bay, and its cold shower down the hall.
I carry the downtown old beer and chip-shop smell through
the barnacled dark.
Walking back in the empty damp,
hands jammed in pockets, fingering the change.
The soundtrack is what i found
in the left-behind tape deck in my rented flat,
with its view of the bay, and its cold shower down the hall.
I carry the downtown old beer and chip-shop smell through
the barnacled dark.
After 40
While gravity and time and stress might take its inevitable toll, it is more than compensated for by the lack of giving-a-shit that comes along with it.
All the bullshit lectures you pretended to listen to at 16 when you hated yourself are suddenly sounding prophetic.
But still - you are smart to cultivate your wits and your passions, because time takes longer to cart those away.
All the bullshit lectures you pretended to listen to at 16 when you hated yourself are suddenly sounding prophetic.
But still - you are smart to cultivate your wits and your passions, because time takes longer to cart those away.
Publish Post
One more day
When I was first landed in exile, I only bought small containers of everything, thinking there would be an end soon and I didn't want clutter in the cabinets.
At some point limbo must become reality. Life cannot be lived trial-sized.
You buy the economy size 1/2 and 1/2. Big packs of paper towels. A rug for the floor, a bookshelf, new towels. Things you can't pack in a suitcase.
You never stop wishing you were somewhere else, never stop believing that you will someday escape - but you stop living your life as if the only important thing is getting out.
If your bed has been made, and you must lie in it - it might as well be comfortable.
At some point limbo must become reality. Life cannot be lived trial-sized.
You buy the economy size 1/2 and 1/2. Big packs of paper towels. A rug for the floor, a bookshelf, new towels. Things you can't pack in a suitcase.
You never stop wishing you were somewhere else, never stop believing that you will someday escape - but you stop living your life as if the only important thing is getting out.
If your bed has been made, and you must lie in it - it might as well be comfortable.
Would I read a blog that has me as a member?
Privacy is held up as sacred - this is nothing new.
Privacy is deliberately massacred - also, nothing new.
We've written this book before, it just took longer.
So where, exactly, does honesty live? (I was going to say "Where does honesty lie?" but, even though it wasn't intentional, it seemed far too contrived).
The only place it can truly reside is in your head.
We give ourselves away to a greater or lesser degree every day of our lives. Not always by choice - it's often difficult to fully consider the effect that folding your arms while in conversation might have, or blinking too much, or looking briefly sideways, or tapping a pencil.
If you know where to look, no one is private.
Everyone knows that when you write in a diary you assume that someone, someday, will find it. Even the purging of your deepest darkest weirdnesses - why would you write it down at all if it wasn't for the possibility that you will be not just heard, but understood.
Our need for privacy is forever at war with our need for acceptance.
And with that, I begin.
Privacy is deliberately massacred - also, nothing new.
We've written this book before, it just took longer.
So where, exactly, does honesty live? (I was going to say "Where does honesty lie?" but, even though it wasn't intentional, it seemed far too contrived).
The only place it can truly reside is in your head.
We give ourselves away to a greater or lesser degree every day of our lives. Not always by choice - it's often difficult to fully consider the effect that folding your arms while in conversation might have, or blinking too much, or looking briefly sideways, or tapping a pencil.
If you know where to look, no one is private.
Everyone knows that when you write in a diary you assume that someone, someday, will find it. Even the purging of your deepest darkest weirdnesses - why would you write it down at all if it wasn't for the possibility that you will be not just heard, but understood.
Our need for privacy is forever at war with our need for acceptance.
And with that, I begin.