i was talking to a friend earlier today about how we must censor ourselves every time we post on facebook.  and now there's a crazy child shooting and everyone is conscious of the injustice of life.  but if we could see into other countries or even the streets of our own country, we would feel the sorrow that humans experience every day.  the bottom sorrow of not being able to feed your children or being afraid for your life.  it is good that we- the ones who will read this- do not have to think of these things every day.  it is good that we were born into families and societies where we have thrived.  many of us have new children.  we have learned to be scared to bring others into this world, and as i look into my child's eyes, i don't want to show him.  but i have to think how i used to think when i was a starchild teenager, intent on saving the world.  that we are born holding all the knowledge that the generation before us accumulated.  that we are born ready to carry it on and to embody the magick that is our birthright. that we are here to save the world. i did not save the world.  and i am raising a child into the same world that still shocks and poisons me.  but this is what we have built.  and there are all sorts of opportunities--   music and robots and electricity and fucking irrigation.
and i feel angry at those- maybe me too- who tell me i should not bring another into this world; this beautiful being whose heart will break, his perfect pure beautiful heart will break, and he will feel everything that i have felt.  but maybe i will give him a little more direction than i had.  and maybe he will look back at his life one day at 30, after the heartbreak, the suicidal years,  and see like i see now the meaning of it all.  because i still feel that i chose to be here.  no, that i asked to be here. and i still don't know how to end a story.  but i can fucking begin one. and my life is not over

i thought of scrapping it all and starting something new.
leaving this in the void of the cyberabyss
but though it seems i have lived so many different lives
it is really just one
fluid
light waning like the moon, then new
and waxing toward fullness.

get the fuck out of my cocoon. and don't ask me such commonplace questions. what use is there in smalltalk? it seems to shout the things unsaid. i'd rather feel silence, the wind, the spinning curl of my son.

your eyes once
dewy and full
touched my life

drying now
I spit it out
unlooking

in sunlight
on the gravestone
bake my bread

in a changing shell

last night in the bathroom a drunk girl put her hand on my belly.
"I was pregnant once," she said.
"My boyfriend didn't want me to have it, so..."
tears glassed her lit eyes and she ducked into a stall.

tonight you are napping beside me on the couch
and the wind through the glass blows loud like words
and despite small mourning for things lost or changed--
a tiny avalanche of kisses, a word from far away--

i'm grateful.  thank you for being brave
and standing strong where others ran,
where i could not on my own except in looking back.

a tiny storm in flutters now, and eyes that speak in colour.

i've been scanning old notebooks

a house to myself.

a way to reach you: a tag-team of frequencies.
(here are some verbs to map them:)


beat 
fire
twitch&press
click; zoom


(zoom=computer nerd words i will learn soon so that i can write
computer nerd poetry.)
had that idea last night and then someone posted this: News Poetry


fuckin yes.


my body is sore and my brain's in the meaningfully-oversensitive phase of sleep dep, and i have a space with no spiders to engage my vices, to free it like i know how, to eat it up while it's hot.
oh i starve in between sometimes and i know my next step is to do it organically--
sleep at night,
exercise, yoga,
rice and veggies and all that routine that will make it a constant--
i know i'll force myself, i have to, i am thirty now, you know,
this body needs its maintenance, repair,
the carrying out of allthosegoodthings i know how to do for it.


but until then and now i am grateful
for the tools of fools, for the spills that remind me, for the soft cloth
that sops up uncertainty, for the way your hands
softly touch my muscles.


oh and you taught me something last night
all of the sudden i realized
where to start.


since i was introduced so roughly
to the meeting of two hands (without- first-
the meeting of two hands) i have 
mourned for the gentle
didn't-have
but now 
i think maybe i'm only just ready;  because suddenly (slowly)
you touch me to feel, not to Do-- from here to now, not to 
get somewhere.
i can feel the science 
transmitting heat, electricity, 
information so out of the league of words that i laugh
and look at you to share, and of course want to say, and can't say,
and oh no i don't want to say.


i don't want to have to SAY.  i say what do you feel and you say what do you mean 
and i mumble and trail off and lean my forehead back
against your forehead.


(the word forehead is very unpoetic.  i'm sure there are much better ones in other languages.)

words to look up in other languages:

communication

forehead

dark (the shade)

and a girl i knew for minutes on a grey day by the waterside, smoking and searching for coral, holding our shoes and stepping on wet dark rocks, told me her favorite book and i read it in kansas and learned
this word:  hongi
     
:'A hongi is a traditional Māori greeting in New Zealand. It is done by pressing one's nose and forehead (at the same time) to another person at an encounter.

In the hongi, the ha (or breath of life), is exchanged and intermingled.'

i realized that i don't know how to blog.

it might work better if i uncensored it and posted all the ones i saved as drafts.
but-- but what?  i'm afraid of being judged, i guess.
HA

why?

but really maybe i think much of my emotional wording is useless to you, dear reader.
i write to express when i have a brave impulse to share and then tuck it back in my heart,
that was all it needed, just the sharp hit of the air for a second, just one maybe two pairs of eyes.


if you read it, i wish you would say something.  anything, one word.  it makes it become something new.

i know all children spin,

most children spin.  but the girl who is named spice and colours newly two years old in the kitchen spun counterclockwise with her right hand cupped towards the ceiling like receiving, she spun towards her left hand gracefully bent towards the earth like transmitting, the easy bloom of small hand dipped towards the kitchen floor the fluffy grandfather dog like giving.

i learned to spin like that in a wooden octagonal room with a high vaulted window.  i watched and listened and mimicked and faster as i turned into the fear of imbalance the fear of faster i spun faster and felt the letting go like a gasp, saw the spike of light pierce my body from crown to toe.  the momentum leaves me trembling every time and i do not ever need to feel that needle light again.  the stitch was through the center.

i read yesterday

that to love the self is the most difficult thing in the universe.

she is a genius:

i cry a little every time.

red, yellow, black, white.

 singing ringing in my brain, thoughts not in words, for once, finally
again.

just one day is enough. two nights.  we can sleep tomorrow.  i will sleep now.  i'll dream with you.


someone just told me this video existed-- i guess it was five years ago, the year with the baby foxes.
an excerpt from writing class. i guess that was just the time that everything changed.

my voice sounds strange to me!  but i like it.

and yesterday:
 naked well water in the moonlight.  giggling like toddlers.  spinning like toddlers.  a new circle, new eyes. <xx0xx>
today
a hug from my father, the heartbeat of a baby boy. girls voices that are womens voices.
green.

nothing for you

i ran.
i laid on
the grass.

once you said
i was real.

we live until we die
and we make it hurt.

the things that didn't break

free

it's free, i tell you

<(@)>~

it is safe here.

I can talk and say

"I want"

or "I don't want"

but that is the future.

It is only here right now.

Joined in a room,

separated by an ocean,

connected by a gaze or

disconnected by words,

it's only right now.

Forever

and all the time. 

Do not expect much from friends. 

Why must they be as you want them to be? 

They are not made by you. 

They are as they are. 

You must try to be for them what they expect you to be. 

It matters little if your friend proves to you to be a friend. 

What matters is, if you prove to be a friend.

-Hazrat Inayat Khan

Monday

I walked outside today and breathed in the rain hanging.  
Smelled like Spring for the first time even though it's been official for almost a month.
I walked outside today and turned my head, that brave neck stiff from sleeping.


I like sleeping so much lately.  It's cause I'm scared.


In my dream we were in a big hotel-- all of us, and mostly strangers-- i hung from the ceiling, it was covered with fun things, i grabbed at them.  I was lost in elevators.  Late and wandering deep carpets.


After yoga this evening, my neck still stiff, but now aware of the other tension in my body, and the breath of the "who-am-I? Don't know" which makes me want to laugh, as real things often do.  I took a wrong turn and drove slowly through a street marked "farming community."  The rain was still hanging.  I stopped in a cemetery, found a nice round tree and sat beneath it.  The headstone in front of it-- a freemason and his wife-- he died the day I was born.


I come back to this house where today a strange man lingered in the backyard.
He saw me see him through the blinds.  I come back to this house where I hide in this box that lights up from within.  Is it cause I'm scared?  
I roll my neck back and forth.
There are stacks of boxes.
It should be easy.
The rain hangs.

tonight i want to erase it all.

all the blog posts, chemical or emotional.
the pages upon pages of homage to love and its tortures, the journals,
take a big square eraser down my facebook page, everything i've ever
posted on your wall, the paintings hanging
in my father's house.
i'll scrape the stickers off the pickup,
wash my face, delete the voice mails that i save
just in case i need to hear your voice.

give me charcoal in big chunks
cracking in the grip of staining fingers.
powder, war-paint.  give me an old piano,
out-of-tune, and let me find where the dissonance hangs on the air
and fits.

it's time for another glass of water.
and you?

the world is falling apart.  i used to write war poetry,
peace poetry, passionate
and unkempt.  then i learned more
about the world.  i am trying
to laugh.  i would be there with you dancing. 
i would go explore the dark windy streets, but the door
might wake my father.
i am trying to laugh and holding
myself just barely apart like magnets,
looking for the mirage.

give me red clay.
don't trip over my body.  it's a trick.

from the margins of the day planner

I.

the sun comes out.
the license plates change.
every day i wake into
the same dream.




II.
driving rhymes


the secret that we sprouted from
the things i said when i was drunk
another day without the sun
another drive alone


i hold the wheel between the pen
and cigarette.  if the road bends
i follow through.  i feel it in
my brain and in my bones.


start the songs again at 1
check my cell phone with my thumb
i miss the heat, don't miss the sun,
it just gets in my eyes.


i drive down cement pale and thin
to a house you'd like to keep me in 
and i can't hold it in my skin
i love until i cry




III.
waiting room rhymes


i love him till i almost cry
and then i almost laugh.
i broke myself in two but i 
can't bear to give you half.


it's so unfair!  your song unsung--
the pillow of the grass--
it itches me,  the feathers hung
on wings that don't unclasp


a window so the day comes on
in tiny lines of light.
a feather bed to lay upon:
the wings are spread at night.

edit

Whiskey just isn't the same as it was out in Erbie.
Wet pants on a couch; 5 am; dark windows in streetlight blinds.



Walk through the rain at night as it turns to snow.
Covers the morning.
Under the white sky then it melts as it falls.

It isn't words that heal--
It's motion--

God ticks like a clock to make you feel safe.
God is the math that makes the world.
See?
Maybe it's the skin in the way. Move your eyes closer.

See?
My heart's dyed radioactive. In the dark electric blue galaxies enter your skin
soft as breath.


I know that you love me, too.
I remember now. I am proud of the scar.
Thank you for feeding me and putting me on an airplane with a fever.


In the crowded restaurant I saw the jade seep in--
For months you let it out coughing
until you laughed.

the meaning of a word

a sound in your breathing:

a moment when

there really is nothing that could say it.  a sound.

it does not capture;  it lets go.

in the moonlight first shaded by morning

she walks to the deck and i meet her there.

we say hi and mean it, our faces washed with smile.

i pretend to be

a baby dragon, explore my new

body, the smoothness of the joints,

and the heavy tail!  how does it balance--

"those big fancy cats-- they've got it all figured out!"

and her face is so expressive,

light blue and above the jungle, 

she's waving her arms and opening her eyes

and i try and then i stop trying 

to speak 

and rock back and forth 

through the air,

move every last piece of me.

we giggle 

and then we laugh.

midday i escape from an adventure walk

led by a brave child.

i wander my legs through the pull of the ocean.

i open my voice and make a song.

it has not many words.

i sing them over and over.

now i try it again, but where'd the words go?  
all that repeating, and
i've left them there

in the hot trails of sand on my soles,

near the geometric section of lobster shell

curved and smooth-jointed by its own bone, 

gravestone armour decorated in math:

pink and purple and

white.

the words were glyphs on the lobster shell,

and here is that song again.

tu fui, ergo eris

it seems they mostly look for god.  the poets,
or is it just the old ones?



i hear my own breathing.

it seems

that there is something to say but all the words are not enough.

life is stuck in my neck again.
i have the tools but some of them are down the street,
like the grapefruit.  substitution:  beer,
and your electric bill works fine instead of a notebook.
the stairs are cold but my body warms from the inside.
the sky is white today, thank god.  thank god it's white, i couldn't bear
any more brightness.

someone changed the time.
cold water and so many things to know.  i just want to take
pictures.  i feel way too
serious; it's supposed to be
fun, even though the world is
terrible; we have hands to
clutch in the dark, we have eyes to
prove to each other what came before,
what's always been, what grows
and bends.

every little sound seems so loud.
i break and bend.  my eyes are sharp.
without my glasses your skin is all i'd ever need to look at;
i would never get bored.

how can there be too much--
how can there not be enough--

maybe i will lock myself
in a tiny room
and practice unclenching my jaw
and maybe, warm in the dark,
eventually i'll fall back to sleep

just because i have time

i spent the day outside today, since sunrise,
walking and carrying books, house numbers running through my head
like a meditation.

faces with no words.
emotion with no words.

walk, walk and carry, stand up straight,
lift with the core, hide from the hail and
feet wet in puddles.
now
it's off with the bra and on with the fur coat.
my warmest clean socks have a hole 3 toes big.
suddenly i hear the wind.

the sky becomes a darker shade of white.

"the greater pull of what you really love"--

i could be more specific.  and i might,

just like they taught me to-- if i can shove

the colours each to one side of the box,

say this is a red square, it measures two

and two-tenths inches when the sides are locked:

it is a perfect shape, and orange is for you,

and green was once my favourite, and blue

is the wrong rhyme in the wrong place.  so no,

i can't be more specific as of yet.

plus you're not orange, more like deep maroon

that fades to purple.  little glints of light.

it's time for patterns now.  i've got to build

some structure.  i'd be happy with a tent

of bedsheets in the corner of a room,

houseplants like ivy, music playing low.

my wrists are sore.  where the sun went, i go.

let's backtrack a little...

after the sun sets in santa teresa
the orange dirt road fades to grey
and the men bring out big barrels of water and molasses
and set them along the road.
two at a time, they dip long-handled plastic brooms
and sweep, sweep, sweep
the sticky liquid into the dust.
the air smells warm like a sweet potato
baked too long in the oven,
smells sharp like the brown skin that would crisp and crack.

all the way to las cruces,
the weight hangs on our flip-flops.

it's been a week

...how strange.
it seems like two long nights, a sunrise, and afternoons that crisscross
like the sun, one side of the street
to the other.

i think it rained for a while.
i know there was snow; it lingers in muddy pools in the park.

i saw you cry.  maybe more than once.
then you got strong and so
my own tears can fall.


put the yellow books in the yellow bags.
wash the laundry.
call my mother again.


little beads of salt leave a body
and move towards the center of the earth;
their path can map its pull.

And so, each sees the unspoken reflected in the other's eyes...

p.s.

you can also download from the stars.

the moon just laughs.

hi

i'm a newborn baby dragon,
out of my shell seeing the world for the first time.
drinking the water, feeling it feed the cells in my body,
stretching my muscles, flexing my claws to grip, my armour shining silver and green,
light purple eyes in awe of this jungle, this fantastic place.

what are you?

my friend woke up

and downloaded from the sun.

it's all right here

words fall from the body
drops of sweat
syllables on the ground, the cement
letters crash and break and trickle down into cracks
into the spaces between molecules
the gravity

if i close my eyes to see you

will you look back

if i cannot give you words

will you understand

so close and so far; everything's

been said but not been done

and my arms are long so i can reach

so i can push and pull

there is nothing left to do but play

with my body and mind;

i left all other tools behind

and my fingers keep a little purple log

of the days.

i'm antsy

grasping through the spiderweb one time before a break

torn between types of connections

hoping you'll understand but knowing what has to be

needed; wanted but

i can not always reach you how you want me to reach you

so let me reach you from the center

in a new way; an old way

in the right way

all these words have been silly and distracted.  the emails rushed

the thoughts scattered

but your words touch me like fingertips

like light like darkness from your eyes

so i understand

i keep going and going because i don't want to stop.

it is the pain in my back that will move me from this spot today.

to stretch in the sun.

to move things with my arms.

to take down the tent and roll it tight

and maybe revisit the tears that rise

like sweat

to fall and break

like little

ceramic

cups

to punctuate the moment and then

soak down and evaporate up

sink and raise

i love you; i miss you

what does it mean

i know you; i have known you

i will know you

i love you

i know you

i love you

i see you

i've seen you

i've been you

and even now

when i sit to strengthen

the pictures in my mind

it is eyes

that i see

that look back at me

02-01-2011 (what i learned this morning)

G R A V I T Y

is the means

for all creation

and manifestation...

just form the intention

and gravity

pulls

it

into form

how strong

it makes so much

sense.

turn off your cell phone sometimes.

keep your own field strong.

in other news,

i'm broke

haven't showered in about 4 days

and i saw monkeys

<(o)>  <(o)>

there will be time

to dig through the basement and unearth the useful.


to write them and ask, to write them and let them know.


to put it all in ziplock baggies.


to stop and stretch.  to fill the lungs.


to roll the clothes inside each other.


to leave things as they are, and not to wonder
how they will change in a string of days.




and after coffee, then water.
and after water, food.
and after food, motion.
and after motion, rest.


only in the middle can i see the before and after.  only in the midst. 
and then the will-be and the were don't matter.


no goodbye, no hello, just recognition
no going-over-last-night,
no how-will-it-be,
just today.


i run towards tomorrow because i like the way it makes my legs feel,
i like the way the cold air almost hurts when it fills my lungs.
i take long steps to stretch my hips.


there is no need to miss you.
to feel far.
we have always been, and so we are.
together, apart, together.


moving within
without
and burning
burning 
bright little suns

Hazrat Inayat Khan

"The wise man should keep the balance between love and power; 

he should keep the love in his nature ever increasing and expanding, 

and at the same time strengthen the will so that the heart 

may not easily be broken."

swimmingly

Because I borrowed the book at least a year ago,
and forgot to read it until now when it's time to return it to its owner,
you get to read a random Rumi poem
out of which I have edited the G-word
for human consumption.
(feel free to substitute your personal synonym) :

It's a habit of yours to walk slowly.

You hold a grudge for years.

With such heaviness, how can you be modest?

With such attachments, how do you expect to arrive anywhere?

Be wide as the air to learn a secret.

Right now you're equal portions clay 

and water,  thick mud.

You are so weak.  Give up to grace.

The ocean takes care of each wave

till it gets to shore.

You need more help than you know.

You're trying to live your life in open scaffolding.

Say Bismillah,  In the Name  of [   ],

as the priest does with a knife when he offers an animal.

Bismillah your old self

to find your real name.

dear Rumi,

two days before Christmas I sacrificed the animal.

on New Years Day my blood flowed again,

this time from laughter.

My name is Max.

the sunset

is blowing my mind right now.
a pale purple bruise and blood mixed with light, 
colours that aren't in the text box, too bright,
spreading in streaks and silhouetting branches,
a thin line,
changing so fast i can't see it change,
moving so slowly i can't see it move.

day into night, and
a tiny kiss lifts another horizon.

it is not the movement, this thing that i can see;
frame by frame in a fluid dance
everywhere, outside and in, micro and macro,
but mostly it resembles your eyes,
that uncoloured light,
that changing
living
>thing<


slowly in circles
a tingling pang stirs me
like a wooden spoon

from their kansas to our kansas

things that happened tonight:

1. random drunk jolly mexican sits down beside me...
    him (in a jolly way):  "you just don't give a fuck, do you?"
    me (after taking that in for 2 seconds):  "no, i don't!"
    (fistbump)
    him:  "do whatever the fuck you want! cuz you only live once!" and walks away.

2. unattractive drunk guy #1 leaves the dance floor and comes up to my short-haired ass sitting next to my hot sister...
    him:  (points at hot sister) "let me holla atchur girl!"
    me:   "no."

3. unattractive drunk guy #2 leaves the dance floor and comes up to me as i'm talking to my sister's hot friend...
     him:  (points at hot friend) "can i steal her for a minute?"
     me:  "no."

4.  my butt was likened to a weather-vane.

things i stole

happy new year

1-1-11

the portal has been opened.

doesn't make it any less real

a place to reach into

yesterday when i opened "women who run with the wolves"
the story was about blood
and when you look inside yourself and see the carnage there
what lies chewed up and dying
the scream of that blood stains everything you wear

so, it's normal.

next:  find the predator
and take away his food until he (or she) lies weak and lifeless.
dismember the predator.
then his power is yours.  yours to Use.


regardless of its relevancy,
as i vomited water i dumped the vial of blood.
little dots little dots dark little dots
i'll find something better for the time capsule
something more
inspiring

make something with the blood,
the part that pumps,
something my grandchildren will understand.

something that moves and will still move
will keep moving when this body stops

i am not afraid of death.

of where i'll be when i am not rebekah,

of what i'll be.

i am afraid of not-being while i'm here, while i'm this now.

rebekah is strong and beautiful

and max can tear the ugly world apart

so together we should be ok

he will be her protector

and hold her weeping womb with vibrating hands

and she will look up from the pool of tears in his lap

look up with diamond eyes

'do not struggle. the sense of danger will pass.'

i'm going on a trip today.

i've got a master list,
a hangover,
a second cup of coffee.

found my old passports,
my indian card,
food stamp card.

laundry's done.
he washed most of the dishes.

the plants will
miss me
and i'm slightly embarrassed
but it's nothing a couple more tomorrows won't cure.

seeya when i seeya

A Song Once

call and answer:


                                                       Open Your Eyes


                                                                                                      -<0>  <0>-            


                                                                                  
                                           My Eyes Are Open

too much

.hcum oot raf ma i 

.emit eht fo tsom neve semitemos

.yppah eb ot em llet t'nod os

yawa og ro em ta kool rehtie

circa 2000 blue book character sketches

daniel johnston

in a lifetime


you wear a lot of socks
see a lot of shows
pee a lot of fizz


in a lifetime you
chew a lot of gum
drink a lot of pop
watch a lot of tv


but what we got here
doesn't happen very often
no it doesn't happen very often
what we got here


in a lifetime
you take a lot of shit


in a lifetime
a lot of things come natural
a lot of things not so natural
a lot of things never come


but what we got here
doesn't happen very often
no it doesn't happen very often
what we got here

before i go to the traintracks

i'll take my old tooth fairy silver dollars

and go buy a harmonica

bird ppl #2



collab under construction



androgynous max

a picture is worth

a scanner cord a printer i haven't yet thrown across the room

4 AA batteries

fingerprint on the lens
a piece of light

your message has not been sent.

your message has not been sent.

drool, nako.

lunar eclipse over alaska.
where my sis and bro live now.

srsly!

interfuse

the black book characters

                                          

meet the magpie

The Magpie's Diary