{ instrumental. }

I'm sitting on the front porch. Up to my eyeballs in daydreams and fuzzy thoughts. It was a simple day. I did simple things. Here is a list of them: dentist, sandwich, play with kittens, computer, made a bed, watch football, made a pizza. I am presently adding drink bourbon and smoke cigarette, and will polish off the night with clean kitchen and fall asleep. My sleep schedule is a disaster. And my dress is too tight and too short. I'm wearing a jacket, a coat, a stocking cap, and flip flops. I just read about astrology and then felt stupid. So here I am now. Listening to dogs bark in the distance, the evenings eternal cricket song, and the hum of traffic a long way off. I want to write about my Grama, but I can't do that right now. I want to be held, but that won't happen right now. I want to feel beautiful, but the point is mute. I want to see my friends, but they are all far away in some direction or another. I want someone to play me a song, or read me a story while I fall asleep. I want a lot of things that I can't quite put my finger on, and that cumulative sensation once again draws me back to that ever encroaching hope for eternity, which might not ever make a lick of sense until I die. But I don't want to die. Not yet. I feel the urge to drive around the country and drink coffee incessantly.

So, to follow course, here is a list of things I do have, which presently please me: Time with my family, a nice, stiff drink and a smoke, (albeit, gads, one of these days... nevermore.) a lovely sitting space, food in my belly, roof over head, hands, feet, eyes and ears, walks to the river, and a God who keeps tugging at my shirt tails, even though I have the tendency to be an obstinate shit. Lord have mercy, I am a selfish woman. Drawn by the caprices. Whimsy whimsy whimsy. Wondering if she will ever be satisfied.

The phrase that has been passing through my head for the past 34 hours has been "The man who tries to save his life will loose it, but that man who looses his life will save it." It's big, that thought, those words. They mean a lot, and I have been masticating their purpose in my life. My dad said that to me the other day, and I don't remember why. But he has a history of saying the right thing at the right time. 99% of the time.

I'm sorry for getting lonely and thinking too much. I'm sorry for always wanting to be alone and never quite realizing in that moment that it's usually an ill-conceived idea. I'm sorry for currently having a negative outlook.

If I'm honest with myself, all this is very exciting. There is much before me. A smorgasbord of good, good gravy. I can smell it. And it's chock full of drippings. Sit still little mind, and take a load off. Worry is a liar and a thief. And life is good. I'm sorry I forget that often. Such a child.

Part of all of this anxiety is my strong, unending desire to share my life with someone. I know a lot of people don't think this way, or pretend that they don't, but confound it, I sure would like to get married. That just sounds really nice. I have very rarely thought of what that might look like, in the material sense. You know, how girls dream of what their wedding might look like, I don't mean it like that. I just want to dish it out with someone, and fight and love and make chicken and drink water and pull stray hairs and take naps and get pissed and be sorry and tell someone how I'm feeling even though I know they might not get it and have someone shave my legs for me and brush my hair while we watch movies and miss someone and get drunk with someone and sing songs with someone and drive to stupid places and flirt and have them tell me what I'm bad at and bite my tongue and run my thumb across eyebrows and rub feet and kiss shoulders and own commitment and have some kids and be very very very naked in all ways possible. I want all that to play out until I'm all old and ugly, while I watch someone I love get all old and ugly, and love them for it.

My mom says she has some ideas. I told her to pray I don't marry a douche bag.

Sometimes I feel like a sucker. And sometimes I want to live in Mississippi again. Or at least the south. Man, do I like elements of the south, like any other place. But right now I miss Portland. And I have added listening to The Microphones, drink more bourbon and smoke more cigarettes to my list.

{ death may be a handsome man. }

These days creep away in slow motion. I feel they get the better of me sometimes.

So this is it. I'm trying to be in the moment. Which has forever proven itself to be difficult for me. It breeds too much intellectual planning and little result. I lay down for a nap next to Grama and the dog. I am so tired and wish to daydream along the edge of sleep. Like a walk on the beach. But that isn't where I am, I'm not on the beach. I'm in the bed I slept in as a child with my cousins. All four of us together, drawing straws to see who received the untimely fate of slumber on the edge of the bed, next to the closet we dredded. It brought us to tears, as it was full of bullfrogs and raccoons. They only came out at night.

I don't think I ever lost the draw, but I usually sacrificed, and took the edge.

Twenty years later I am lying in that same bed. Next to my Grama and her labored, curdled breathing. "I am here," my mind enters the present, and I take its hand along with my Grama's. And we rest for hours.

Upon wake, drowsy I stammer, "Grama... I dreamed I was in your orchard. We were all in your orchard. And there was a handsome man chopping wood. I didn't get to ask his name... But he was so handsome." She smiles and asks for water.

I don't know where this is headed. In some ways I do. Death is creeping. Before I fall into sleep I wonder if He is in the house. If the dog barks at Him. If He is kind and gentle. I look for Him as my eyes close. I am keeping watch.

I sit on my Grama's front porch and she rests inside, along with my mother and aunt. I am trying to move towards sleep. But lately, the laying down portion doesn't come so easily. I am in seven different worlds at once. Leaning on them all for support. And I don't know what I look like.

So let's stop thinking about all this for the night. Let's rest our eyes.

Give Grama her morphine at 2am.

Wake up at 8am.

Have a glass of milk.

Take some pills.

Get her dressed and bathed.

Read her the letters they are sending.

Feed her toast.

Walk to the river.

Read the Bible.

Say a prayer.

Do the laundry.

Empty the dishwasher.

Bake a pie.

Feed the Brothers.

Check the mail.

Take all of this, one day at a time.

Because that's all I've got.

That's all anyone has.

{ where we are from. }

"It's Saturday, right?" I ask my dad as we drive.

"'Fraid not. It's Sunday."

"Really? No way." It feels like Saturday, but then, come to think of it, I don't know what day it feels like.

"Oh it's Sunday alright." He chuckles as the corn streams past the truck like a sea of gold ripe for the plowing. Soon the combines will be out. I can already smell burning leaves in the evening. And the cicadas have all died, their simple songs hushed for another season. It's almost 11:00 am. We were supposed to leave at 10:00, but I took my sweet, sleepy time, still acclimating to the three hour difference. Ate the omelet my dad made, checked my email, took a shower, made some coffee.

The matriarch is dying. And I've come to the Midwest to take part in the reverent process of death. It has a rich feeling. So rich everyone is tired. She looks twice as tired as she did yesterday. Lying in her bed, doped up, adorning silk. The dog sits at her side, staring up at an unfamiliar master. I rub lotion on her cold legs, and she says how nice it feels.

"I've had this movie sticking to my mind..." she says.

"What movie?"

"I don't know.."

"Who's in it?"

"I don't know that either, it's just sticking in my mind. It's so lovely. That's the hardest part. Not being able to put the pieces all together. Not being able to connect the dots."

I rub lotion on her feet, and she falls asleep. I kiss her forehead and hold her hand.

"I love you." she says.

The house is thick with family and well-wishers, bringing pies and casseroles. I have known these people all my life. They enter the bedroom and kiss her forehead. They enter the room and say such lovely things about love without talking. The neighbor comes over, the one with cancer, redheaded and eighty-five, "I went to church today, for the first time in 10 weeks, and I prayed and prayed and prayed for help for us little old ladies... you know how much I love you." This love is hushing. It grabs your heart firmly and kisses it with warm and gentle lips. I feel my throat close and I stop breathing for fear of tears. Not yet, I say. Not yet. The grandkids are almost all here, looking at pictures, flooding the kitchen and eating the cookies. She would love it. She would be making us all tuna sandwiches if she could. She would say, "How the hell am I supposed to feed all of you?" and inwardly adore the preparation. That's how she is, absolutely snarky and all love. Don't you ever forget that.

I haven't smoked in a few days. This is my trial for a specific epoch, to quit smoking, to take care of my Grama. But tonight I drove around for an hour, five different gas stations, asking for a pack of American Spirit cigarettes. Driving down familiar back-roads. Everything is familiar and distant when you come home. So many lived and forgotten things. So much silt of memory accumulates and forms a bedrock behind my brain. And presently it is breaking through. Sometimes it seems like I remember everything at once, and I hit it with a pick axe. The scent and sediment of it flying forward so fast into my thoughts. I am struck with such a specific and peculiar sense of living one life. It wells up here, like a dream I know I lived. How much was on purpose, how much was on accident. And where is it going? In this time and place I haven't the slightest idea. I am still so freshly fallen from the world I was living two days ago. A home I enjoyed, a few friends I loved, a man, the music, the food, doldrums of work, too much whiskey and smoke. It feels good to be home. It feels good to have purpose. But it is so very hard to place a finger on life and say, "This is it. This is where we are going." At times that notion of inability makes me wonder heavily, at others, it causes me to stir with the greatest hope.

{ she holds a phantom. }

We speak the common language of hope,
and this specific tongue exists everywhere.
The world breaths it in.
All the time.

Lately I have been hoping again in the dream of much good love. Heaven help me. There are so many songs about love, and half of them are about fools in it. The majority are lamentations. Sincere beseechings. I often feel my hopes are misdirected.

When the air cools, and the leaves turn, the ebb of summer approaching, I get the fever. A chill of the skin breeds a desire for otherness, closer proximity, a human cloak is my hope. The hairs of my arms stand on end. All the while, a stillness hums beneath my breast reminding me that the fire in my gut can't be quenched. Nothing will satisfy my eternal pining.
Nothing on Earth. Heaven help me.

At present I am sitting in a golden closet.
It is suitable and pleasant. Dim and delightful.
I came here to drink a golden drink
And attempt to make a wealthy worth of lonely thoughts.
Cultivate hope. Press through the longing and the darkest parts of day.
I don't feel much like going home anymore.
There is a handsome man on my mind, often of late.
It is very possible I am just bored.
As autumn sets in, so does the cold and the wanton sigh for warmer hands.
The ones that don't belong to me.
This man I understand little about.
I don't know him, his friends, his opinions or positions on anything or everything.
I'm haphazardly crafting affection for a mystery, simply because it is a mystery, and the warmth of its unknowings soothes me. I confess, I kindle and quell. My heart creates a tide pool of artificial adulation, and as much as I work to fill it, I work similarly to flush it out. For the sake of my sanity. My thoughts, one part whiskey, one part water, plant a kiss on the bank of burdened feeling. Plant a kiss on the hope of my individuality, that a separate mind might take note.

If nothing else, I gladly wonder at God, for creating such a handsome man.


I would love to sit with you.
Just to know.
I would enjoy that quite a bit.

I haven't been writing, because it is so difficult to express myself in ways that don't seem so trite. But come back to the hope, that I can do it well enough for someone to listen. And for the both of us to know I mean for the good of all parties.

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently" -Romans 8

{ the basement. }

It's mostly quiet. The dogs are having dreams.
I've learned to use my dad's cigarette machine. But I pack them too tightly, and they are difficult to smoke. Everyone is in bed by now. My hair is longer. It keeps falling into the glass of bourbon before me; I suckle alcoholic strands, and everything is gold. Everything is quiet, to the point where my ears begin to fabricate cricket fiddles. What makes the brain create counterfeit sound? I did see many crickets today.

Flies are buzzing by my face down here in the basement. I am awake.
I'm trying to be right here. Which is why I must quit drinking. Most days everything within me wants to be somewhere else, a dream, a waking life, the prospects of other places arouse. I do have a real dream now. It pumps through me. It is building an artery beneath my blood, and I have no idea where it will take me. Or how I will arrive.

When I drive through the country I know that I am supposed to be there.
It presents a right feeling. I'm not a city girl. I thought I could be once, thought it would be nice, enjoyable. But I'm not a city girl. I require God's country to tell me what to do, and I will readily bow my knees at the dirt in reverence. At soil's very edge I recognize my size. My minuteness becomes so real, my breath so deep. "Dust to Dust," I think, as though I could dive right in. Here I will lay. Here is where many have found their fleshy rest.

Back to the earth. Back to the bone of creation.

But I must keep this dream in the Really Real.
I can't allow it to be like the others, those imaginative revelries. The fabricated story I wrote on the back of my brain for no reason, save it pleased me momentarily. I can still remember very many of them, the ones that kept hold of me the longest. They never were. I'm almost sorry that I made them. I didn't really need their company amidst this extraordinary life, as simple as it is, as human as it is. I still like it. I'll like it better as I begin to take it up to a higher place. Or allow that Higher Place to lift me up.

{ alone in a lonely world. }

This is where I write my saddest songs. Where the constancy of time pretends to hum me towards direction, where I drift into the distraction of waking sleep, far from home. Where I heap up all the empty feelings, and hope tomorrow can place them in the compost, on the altar, and anticipate regenerative matter and fertility. Tomorrow seems a long way off.

Alone in a lonely world the phone rings. Thumbs instigate ignorance. Where is the ache, I say, Leave me be, can’t you see I’m aching? Let me ache. Sorry soul and what a pity, to think that there is such freedom at fingers length.

My Goliath is so tiny. He comes in 12oz bottles and little boxes of twenty. He flits through the spark of ill-conceived synapses. Makes a bed of my tongue, settles in the lung, so minute, like a virus infiltrating the finer fibers of being. I wail, bemoaning all good things, I drown in effervescence and smoke; this dream, this reality. This is my Goliath, too small for me to harness, too chemically immaterial to capture or comprehend. I alone, in a lonely world, cannot.

Here I am and dreaming. And within these dreams, beyond them even, I hear the wispy song of betterment softly purposing my heart; a soothe totally separate, and anything but wrought within myself. And this betterment creates the howl, makes me fondle my Goliath with confusion and awkward love. I’ve written my Goliath many letters on rice paper. Many modest proposals beseeching the relinquishment of my secret spirit. But these letters are burnt up, along with all the oxygen. So I’ll sleep till Sunday, I say, Forget the in between, it’s all over. Am I such a Magdalene, I wonder.

Here, no one can see my sad blood. No one can taste its truest meaning, its insatiable appetite for substance. Tonight I will sing so loudly all my sorrows to you. I will shut all the blinds, turn off all the lights. It will be so unrefined and beautiful. I almost wish they were here to see it. But beloved, you are. And they could never be. It is my dream that someone would, and love me for it. But this time is too raw.

Far off I hear the sounds of fireworks. Later I will wander these worldly streets. Watch the slow and stunning smolder of all earthly life, in great sadness and anticipation.
But for now, let me sing to you.

{why ache so large. why ache is nothing at all.}

taken by the whims of the world. by revelry and birthed bad habits. like ugly babies we found and held as if they were our own. we eyeballed each other in the dark alleyways of narrow thought. of hopelessness. on the path I took farther away from the preexisting severed Spirit of divinity. I was mostly formless then. and stuffed this stepchild down my dress. fused it with the breaking bone. sending out doomed synapses to the Spirit. wept and watered till it grew to something. anything at all. what can I make that is mine, I thought. it continues to crave those actions. begs for my breaking body. empties all the cupboards and drawers. of any Larger living. baby feeds me bad breast milk. baby barks out orders. until I'm all emptied out and hollow. everything resonates so loudly, everything gets so damn loud I can hardly hear myself think. this is what I have cultivated and clothed. being wrought in all my most silent moments. this is my form of creation. making it so i can't listen to know where to go from here.
but there became differentiated breaking. the flesh can break itself. and just as much as i shudder to tell myself it isn't cold, I cannot seem to convince the Spirit.

It quakes.

bleeds for Better Love. And breaks by Holy Blood. I have asked, Where is the Master? And I am not it. I don't bless myself ever. I am lazy heart and wanting wanting. I am always the back door of reason. and I don't know shit.

pray for me as a Father. as a Farmer. am I not discouraged? am I not always almost half way there? but forever moving forward. I ache at dislocation. fear the body's malfunction. do doves still coo for me? does the day break on my behalf? my greatest disappointment is no wonder. nor is my eternal enchantment. the magnitude of not myself. there is yet glory and grace in the wilderness. there is the Love letter of day. the soft kiss of sleep. and Everything in between that is not me. this is me. that is You.

I am not home but here. and waiting. learning to not feel this way.

{ always back and onto something. }

Life in itself is definitive. As I write these words. As I drew those pictures. As I ate the left-over millet. As I smoke a cigarette. The mind and the body and the spirit are all interconnected and working together to create this epic adventure. This casual experience. The story that has been written and is being played out in each breath, an exhausted sigh, a break of dawn inhalation, grunt. They are all transpiring over the span of time I am here, existing. And when I am gone, birds will yet sing from the tops of trees and pick through moss for breakfast. Orange rinds will accumulate in compost. Pretty girls will drink beer for the first time. Kindergartners will forever be fascinated by the loss of teeth.

Lord, I want to be so good. And "good" is such an adulterated word. Spoken more from the mind, than the heart, where it should rightly reside. And this ache to be thus has so consumed me in all differing categories of life. It has devoured me like yesterday's fresh baked bread. I am now the partially digested mush mulling around the stomach lining. And I want to purge.

I have seen many things. Ingested life not altogether pleasing. Constantly looking back at these visions in a state of wonder and confusion. Allowing them to hand me identity, sorrowfully wrapped in the funny section of some obscure newspaper from 1998. And I don't get the jokes. Or maybe they're just not all that funny.

Lord, I want to be good. And I look to the future with a great hope of someday this and someday that. As though life will truly begin at that specific fabricated point. After the 400 millionth breath. When I'm better. When all is made right with the body. Or the mind. Or the spirit. And my brokenness is inadvertently perpetuated by all these dreamings.

Life is now, and life is short. And I want to be so good. I am sorry. I am so so sorry. Life has been standing next to me, staring at its wrist watch, pointing to the passing time, while I've desperately tried to collect my things. But keep falling asleep by accident.

{ Mercies Knew Each Day. }

I lived alone for many years.
Quit early on.
Fairly Fresh gave into distance,
absence, and the Disquieted days of Drought.
captive to Caprices

Spirit became large and ill-proportioned
in all the wrong places
filled by meals of mammon.
bloated on the roadside
still very much alive.

And O!
Kisses on the Lips
Supreme Softness came from nowhere.
so sorry spirit buckled,
White Knuckled,
braced for impact
and burst, bleeding out.
both by my own hands
and the seeking sucker punch of sweet Divinity

I never saw this Destiny,
imagined such reparatory ruin,
or realized those wrought wrists
would also rotate.
while writhing in obstinate prepubescence,
like a drunken leopard,
mauling the freshest Fingers of my Sooth,
spoon-feeding my loose lips the Firstfruits.


daily he came calling
to break all the old bones
and begin to build a new frame.


panic strikes soft
soil throughout withdrawal
we wept together quiet
yet so audibly internal portions quake

still
with wet kisses to the cheek
a mighty oak palms the jaw line
caressing sickly skin
brought back by the hour
a lost and lonely babe
walking wobbly, the legs awaken
to New Life, after too much sleep.
And nothing
has ever
Actually been so tremendous
as rerouting every burnt-out synapses,
and allowing peace,
being free for the first real time
since a breath caught the lungs.

{ ... }

{ An Ending Ascent. }

The old man was dying. Up until the week prior he had been seemingly lucid, still carrying the burdens of age in his motions, all very slow and calculated, quieted by the accumulation of time. His days had been the same as they ever were; still accompanying the hunts, honing the skills of young Bow and Arrow men, reciting tales to the children. But by week's end, his fever had developed, and he was no longer taking food. Pippipanga took to the old man's bedside for three nights, neither eating nor sleeping, washing the old man's body in ash and eucalyptus oils, paying special attention to the right arm, which for years had fallen limp and crippled at his side. The old man had been a father, his right arm being proof dedication. He had lost use of it while attempting to save Pippipanga's own father from a prowling Tiger during a nightly hunt.
Until that loss of limb, the old man had been the best Bow and Arrow man the kindred had seen in generations. And taking in Pippipanga, the old man had schooled him in all delicate ways of the Bow and Arrow. Sometimes at night, they would hunt together for the Purple Buffalo living in the forests surrounding their cob structures. Pippipanga was a Bow and Arrow man, but these were the only times he enjoyed the hunts, alone with the old man. When the other men joined, he could hear all the blood among them and the Buffalo boiling in unison. Before the strike he could taste the endangered, metallic viscosity of Life's internal fluid on his tongue, and smell its sharp odor. He did not like it. And on occasion, found himself so intensely dizzied by the experience that he would fall to the earth, only to awaken with the sweet, gritty taste of soil pressed against his teeth and upper lip, the whooping sounds of young men in the distance. He would lay there for a time, the cool dirt and leaves pressed against his beating chest, rolling the earthly essence around in his jaws, scooping it up with his tongue and allowing it to caress the roof of his mouth, until all nuances of its minerals filled his palate. There was such a satisfaction to it, a real history that felt like tasting all the good memories that ever were. And sometimes, due to impact, his own hot blood would mix with this sensational flavour, creating an entirely new and heightened sense of what he could only fathom as a certain love. He felt the soil press into the split skin of his lip, and the brush of legs against foliage would rouse him from this dream, as he rose the meet the clan.
The old man knew of Pippipanga's disdain for the hunt. But neither man made mention of this difference. And now, as the thin web of smoke grew from the hearth beyond the two bodies, the young man felt content with this resolve. He loved the old man, and the way he would delicately direct his arms and fingertips, depicting how to enact the most ultimate precision of the Bow and Arrow. He loved his quiet strength, and to watch the old man in contemplative moments, while they washed wool together. He recalled tepid, autumn days when he and the old man might sit at water's edge, making claims on just how beautiful the day actually was. And all the good thoughts swarming like delicious honey bees turned to stings, as Pippipanga relished these memories so possessively. "But he is mine..." he thought. Of all the old men living in this world, this one belonged to him. This one had cared for him, and when time crept up, the roles reverently reversed. Everyone in this world has theirs to care for, and no one cared for the old man like Pippipanga, so he cannot go, "He is mine."
"Sow the earth," the old man hushed, breaking Pippipanga's thoughts asunder. "Sow the earth, and keep it."
It had been several days since the old man had spoken audibly, not the mutterings of a fever. And at this Pippipanga could muster no response. It seemed a window of his mind had been burst open, and the winds of thought strew all intelligible words and phrases spinning about within him. He took the old man's mangled right hand and placed it atop his own bowed head. Gazing down at the bony chest before him, Pippipanga watched its slow, shallow inflation, the brittle bones partially expanding, then contracting, the sag of pectoral muscles and the wrinkled belly. He imagined a young chest, the chest he had known as a boy, so thick and robust. He thought of how he had soothed the old man's arm with remedial oils after the Tiger attack, how he had cleaned the old man's fingernails around the nightly fire, washed his feet, and watched in devotion as the old man relayed stories of a world still raw and supple, as an adolescent breast. He thought of their hunts, and walks through the forest to watch the yellow thrushes. He thought of the old man's solemn face the day he had returned from his father's fatal hunt. And how as a boy, he had felt his face gradually implode, as the old man placed his sovereign hand on Pippipanga's bowed head.
Pippipanga's eyes pinched shut with such force. The thick summer air filled his lungs to capacity. And he exhaled. Allowing his eyes to burn slightly, then relax into tired grief. The old man inhaled the same as he could, deliberate, depthless. And he exhaled. Pippipanga watched as the breath left the body. So necessary. So fully externalized it became, until the last waft of thin air. He could smell the breath. It reminded him of the ripest apples. And of the earth mixed with honest blood. The old man's oiled skin glistened in the waves of his wrinkled body, so much like the soft moon on a black, silken lake. It reflected the dim light, resonating like such real life rested within. But the blood of the body was already undertaking the task of stagnation, and even if the heart were pumping, the residing spirit had hence departed, making no matter of beating blood. Pippipanga could only imagine in the moist air that release of spirit. It felt very true, and real, almost tactile. His eyes narrowed to a sting and his face fell, while hands became alert with the rite of reverent duty. Sad pleasure welled up in the backs of his sockets, as he combed the old man's thin beard, cleaned his nails and oiled his body, all for the final time. His heart beating hard and heavy as a burial drum.
At last he covered the old man's vacant body in a shroud, then walked to the entryway of their hut. Looking out, he could see the shade of lavender creeping along the crust of the earth. He filled his hands with dewy soil and massaged the richness around his neck and forehead. The yellow thrushes were beginning to sing, melding into harmony with the somber song of the mourning doves, who's cooing had an air of wonderment and longing. Pippipanga's own right arm began to ache, and he gripped it softly, then tighter with memory. The ghostly haze of fog fell over distant furs, and an infant moaned for breast milk. He imagined mother's heavy rising, the plod of sleepy feet, her swollen eyes and body, ripe and ready to instill such nutrients into the mouths of babes. There was a greatness now within him too, fed from someone else, a gift worth receiving, and then giving away. He dreamed of the old man in eternity, the broken arm mended, clutching now a Silver Bow and Golden Arrow, the withered chest filled once again with a form of life. He imagined his own father and the old man together, youthful and laughing. Now the lavender had ascended in the sky, and a pink rim was indicating on the horizon. The din of all natural things seemed to hint at abstracted laughter, so Pippipanga sat, hearing it, all the while holding to that specter of the dead men, and waiting for morning to present itself.

{ hello world. }

Maybe I'm just tired. And maybe I just work too much. But I feel funny. So much processing. I feel like a processor. Always processing all the time. Maybe it's my period. Or the rice I just ate. Or life. Can't say what feel like. Not making sense. Can't put finger on brain. Not here. Not now> save/ Yourself.

{ eating your words. until the technicolor yawn. }

it is the point in the evening where I find myself. seeking out the solitary place where they won't find me, and if they did, it would be important and good. a soft good. like when a dog stays put. or when a small child writes a letter correctly for the first time. old voices somehow sound like sad time gone by, which isn't to say the times were sad. good things happened, but the memories sag like tired breasts. and it feels like the voices shouldn't exist anymore. as though they had been a dream. and so often, this is how I feel in my existence; each present moment echos like a memory. there are many songs to play through bombastic speakers pounding out the sweet sound of living, very intense as I stand in slow motion, underwater, breathing in eighteen different cigarettes at once. I need oxygen. people try to dance, but think too hard about it. faces become the furnishings of my memories. conversations to forget. sometimes I will recall them later for no real reason; then wonder how much space bad conversation takes up in my brain. my heart beats in these moments, like the drumming before the guns are fired. and I crave substance. no bread beats at the door of this voluptuous life, no not really. it's just a bleak reminder of a refreshment that existed at the beginning of an awareness. we can't relive it, no not ever. anymore, it doesn't exist. anymore, I am far from it. and the recreation is so adulterated and disappointing, I want to forget completely. I do believe that this may be the last of these days. I knew it was coming. it relieves my future memories and calms my present nerves. I sit alone regardless. I always sit alone for now. something smells like a past time I cannot place. maybe in a bed. in a trailer park perhaps. like someone's body. the memory is mine, but it's near impossible to place where it derived. whatever it was, is long gone by now.


( + )


the unidentified gratitude of days.
a fool sometimes sits outside
embarking on specific delinquent thought patterns
sparked by un-constituted feelings of loss
allowing the presumed bad deck
of dirty cards
to be taken in gusts gradually.
timely winds eat them up
one by one or in handfulls
while the witness stares,
a silent plea bleaches the teeth.
and frustration sometimes wells up
in the eyes
as they dance unaffected
down red brick roads

passively watching
desiring control
that fool waits for their absence
and does nothing.

the day dreams dance away
like fleeting physical attractions
they may as well be leaves
let's allow them to be leaves
because in nature
life always comes back around
after a season.
let's pretend they are the leaves.

( = )

these I wrote a while ago. I am supposed to be in a meeting. but I got all distracted writing stuff... it's only a meeting for the school auction. they won't miss me too much. I'm taking a writing class through church. it is good. I enjoy it. I want an adventure... three day weekend. who's comin'?

{ OH MY GOOOOD!! }

Sorry I haven't been blogging. I have been Writing a lot of Stuff where you can't Read it though. The above Clip has been playing in my Head all Day.

{ agenda. }

I Just want to read. All the Time. Books and Books. And eat Raw Food so mah Belly don't hurt. And Smell new Smells. And Hear new Songs. Nap in my Clean White Bed. Covered in Cotton. Ride that Blue Bike all around Town. And watch The Sun Go down. Thank You for this day.

{ we the sleepless.}

we the sleepless nights.

{ foot-in-mouth. }

You know like, when you're trying to make friends, and it seems the more you try, the more you fail at making friends? Like, when you put yourself out there, out on the line, all naked and shit, it is at the most inappropiate moment, inadvertantly, that you make your move. Or say your piece. Two cents. So everyone looks at you like you're the most malapropo person ever. Yeah. It's funny, because I often feel that way when attempting relationships with Christians. Which may or may not be true. I tend to over-emotionalize things. And treat people like they really don't like me. Regardless of what they say or don't say. God, where is my mind. Have I mentioned lately how much I don't want to drink anymore. And how that's all I can think about right now?

{ of loss. }

we lost him
along with all the others.

a sense resides among the living
that when we are to die
it is notably referred to as
"a loss" of someone

as though they wandered off
into the woods
or sailed into stormy seas,
never to be heard from
or seen again.

and what a wonder
when so often
we will profess
that at the end of life
peace expounds.

did we then misplace anyone
or did they simply find
a better life
in losing us

{ I am tired still. }

this Life is hard work, I say. Thirsty and sleepy. not as it should be. I have been feeling very low. very unhealthy. very spiritually irresponsible. I hate feeling this way. things are difficult at the moment. and I am pining over hope. I have some, but my Thirst seems to be distracting me. but Thirst too, is good. so I shall sleep now. and Tomorrow is brand new Day, alongside the tender Mercies. Pray for me, if you do pray, and if the mood should strike.

{ Joe or Casey; the Dead man. }

a diabolical breath fill the lungs of this sorry sailor. a Man died today. another servant of our alcoholic mistress. there was a party on his behalf. his ship finally came in. his ship did sail. and now, he stands at the foot of God. pleading his case. like We all will.

I did not know this Man. but he was alive at the same time as myself. we may have met. I don't know. nor would he. but he is dead now. and for a while, I am still here, with the living, at his death party. I hope that when I die, there is just as much ham, in my honor.

I have had three hundred death parties of my own, and for myself. each one spent alone. with a drink in my hand, ringing in the new age, the reinvention. after each one, drunk, I tell myself I am dead, and Tomorrow is the first of many Brighter Days. come morning, I wake to the same swollen eyes, still who I was, still who I am. still alive.

tonight, I drink to the old Man I didn't know. who I will probably never know, at least not here, amongst the living.

thank you for the ham.
.
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