Tetilla

I want to write down the names 

of all of the mountains around Santa Fe

Sangre de Cristo

Cerillos

Ortiz

La Tetilla

Jemez

and the hill to find our house by

Cerro de la Cruz

our hill

as a teenager

mom could march out the back door

through cholla and desert sage

straight up to the top of the rocky hill

without a single property or fence in her way

now you have to walk along the frontage road

past scrappy houses

yards with the big gates open

and the dogs in them knowing not to leave

and lots of trailers for sale

to get to our hill

our hill, our dreams

my grandma named the house

Nuestros Sueños

so corny but it’s like Mrs. Ramsay

in To The Lighthouse

musing about seeing oneself in inanimate things

finding solace in that

claiming the beams of light from the lighthouse 

as herself, her beams

I want to be connected to those mountains

I want to share something with them

their immutability

their command of the landscape

they belong there, and I so want to belong

I like that Tetilla means breast

but the shape isn’t a crazy huge breast

just a slight one like mine

it’s affirming that it's...

worthy of the name breast?

and I think, of course this place

would be affirming of that

Hatha with Nora

I wish I was reliving a dream right now
at noon, reading it back even a bad one
there's something nourishing,
knot-opposite in the waking reflection
on loss of control

this morning I picked Ocean
as the life-affirming source
to meditate on
it was a glitching thing
the way my vision of the sea
was spliced with dirty life
flickering away from me

touching my neighbor's fingers
in a voluntary twist

crying given the chance
just to think of the ocean

cvs 2018

bleeding all over self-checkout
from an orange papercut red
blood hope no one thinks I
put my pack of gum on top
the drops I'm laughably nasty

what if I was making them up
an infestation hallucination
a prompt
just sucking my time's blood

BS Dust

Hannukah came and went

as it does

a quirky background/

alt idea for December

the little girls I babysit

shitting on the random Jewish holidays

that they get school off for

no one even celebrates them 

someone should at least tell the kids

what, why, etc.

I would love the most

adult job

to balance my time spent

with children

something 21+

something not just any warm 

body could do

any scarecrow

dream ad

I’m watching a 1970s
advertisement for a brand of wigs
a woman with strawberry blonde
feathered wig on a pinkish backdrop
snow is falling in big perfect flakes around her
and the tag line says
See How Naturally It Falls
referring to both the snow and her wig

Peace ROSE

the stamps I bought to mail our checks
to pay for our apt
PEACE ROSE
they say
with v vaginal pink rose image

mundanity woes
sitting in traffic
googling atms
to deposit cash
making myself
carsick

everyone’s yelling
when I get home
it’s very
relaxing

song song

this morning pulling into
the parking lot at work
there was a song of a sunrise
waiting for me to see it
pull right up to it
yellow mixed with faintest blue
angel singing clouds
so this is east

at the Little Ladies exhibit of Victorian fashion dolls
there was the tiniest pocket watch
tiny clock on one end then a gold chain
leading to a tiny five-petaled flower
on the tiny other end
what is it with that miniature feeling
it's like the way these letters look
on this page
could even break my heart

 t
  i
n
 y

the accessories are the best
better than the dresses
tiny hairbrush, mirror
sewing kit, earrings

I dented my car on a concrete
pillar in the parking lot
of the museum
big crunch
my car is not so tiny
not so tiny as I thought
in that moment

after work, turning back onto my street
the sun again
setting right at the end of my block
like another song
and that is west
a cartoon bookended day

like I just bop in my car
work east home west
jump into some striped pajamas
turn out the light and
go to sleep
with tiny z's

Orange Paper 4:30 am

we were going to the sea
me and my mind?
we saw J laying on a plastic bench
a gusty ferry deck
I'd seen this as a photo before
he had a small Italian sister
who I had just gotten to know

later I was on a walk
down Via Marisol
I picked up one of those
basic, poison berries
and ate it

I had to babysit at 1 pm
but I was on a time strike
so there was no way to know
if I'd be late

I gagged and spit the berry
onto the sidewalk
now transformed into
basically, tar

was I with my mind or
was I my mind?

later
I threw some kind of linen
onto my mom's big brass bed
and inspected the duvet crumbs
for bugs

was my mom my mind?

I woke up with a scratchy throat
(poison berry)

lavender kashmir

do you ever feel like
a slave to your hormones?
so taken on a ride
at this point when I’m feeling good
I just wait
for the rug to get pulled out from under me

there are castles and
mansions all over Pennsylvania
its wild you can just bump into them

Tuesday, Dream Map contd.

I was in Italy with
Dad, Jake, Maris
I knew lots of people there
we were on a kind of train car
with low walls on very narrow tracks
between two bodies of water
it became a rollercoaster ride
a big stomach drop

Flannery delivered to me
a funny piece of reflector
something for safety

I wasn't alone in wishing
I was alone

without knowing all the people

someone thought blown out

I saw gravel coming up and
remembered my shoes were
two hours away
which is close sometimes
but not for shoes

I thought
a concentration camp
is 4 hours away

Europe, crumbly,
women, sleeping,
disappointment, marriage

a spam call from NJ
woke me up from
Part 1 of this dream
that I really wanted to stay in
I can see the shapes
but no faces, no content
something was beautiful
or someone, a good prospect
a feeding?

Part 3:
Sex in the City
Lenu goes to
Sarah Lawrence

Jefferson Park, Pasadena

paid but a smidge
in the dark library
I show her r crumb
she is unphased
I read audre and look at
addictedMEapartments
pictures of carpet on other
screens

parked illegally in the right lane
on this big street at rush hour/
happy hour I wait
my car hazards flashing
I imagine someone
driving straight into it
crushing it like a soda can
the thought hurts my body


Mind-Body Class for 5th graders

anatomy
cross section/layers
biodegradable doll making
self-portraits
shapes
clothing
mind-body wigs
chair
body extensions
pillows
safety costume
casting
digestion
exquisite corpse
cake body
clay organs
draw on skin
date/coconut bodies
doll burial
pea shoots in grave

l'isola

the line of fur on
my dog's stomach
like a seam on a stuffed
animal also he is a pink
spotted piglet

looks like he's buried in the sand
at the beach I can't 
think about you driving off to leave 
barely awake
to take a little nap 
while the road is straight...

I start to sing in my head
because Cowboy is
always languid at night
like a sunbather
and his coloring like
a sandy melon

Sunday Sun Down

it happens so fast
this time of year
the light goes
inside one of these
beautiful, curated homes
I change my mind to
match it

the kid hasn't napped
and begins to resent me
with the night

I putz around
explaining Hannukah
set off by the lit fireplace
and family casually
swirling

I leave their world, paid
for another luxurious apartment
a party with a wine table

we play dreidel

put one in
take half
take everything
or nothing

--

what will home do?
affirm loss?
postpone an exorcism?
dad's getting married?

I've lost my appetite
with each bug
dead or alive
we need that dog to tell us
give that dog a job

in over my head and folded
like dirty laundry

but it's the morning
so I try and do a spine stretch the right way
to stave off defeat

transform self-pity
into an exhale

le scarpe

Andrea Zittel in a 2001 interview
in Bomb Magazine says
she's very organized but she hates cleaning
because it just undoes itself
the semblance of activity
but nothing is actually made

I cleaned too much today
the kitchen in the morning just to use it
the living room
literally cleaned the ashes
out of the fireplace like Cinderella
(oh poor me)

the women in Ferrante world
are always setting tables
ironing shirts
Lenu studies so she won't have to
but those things are given such weight
such importance

Consideration

I actually fell
wearing the baby
a puffy green bruise
on my knee, the baby
doesn't mind, smiles
the bruise gives me
a fever and I think
of new shoes

I dream of new pants
listless, molasses
aversed to work
a hot slog through
a denim dream, a loop
cargo pockets
tight on my ass
falling perfectly
at my new?
shoes




Dream of holding a baby at the bar where everyone worked- Jake, Khae, Jooki...it was family style. The baby bundle in all black, it was worrisome. I considered getting a job. 

windflower

do you know what I mean?
the vertical sidewalks of winter
my legs in tights my feet in loafers
I'm tiny out there
it's paralyzing
force myself to walk my dog
it's not so bad
but far from special




Saturday mornings I wake up and avoid
the big house for as long as possible
look up how to make Korean style grilled mackerel
listen to Pharaoh Sanders
feel the sun on my skin through our window
does anyone else feel trapped on a Saturday?
I know everything I want to do
but I can't cut out a space for it
dot dot dot

spill

I can't write just one line

I have to spill

my therapist encourages my interest in cleaning houses 

I reread "A Manual For Cleaning Women"

spill spill

untenable winter, everything dark

"The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think."

when I get home from work

it's like the sidewalks have gone vertical outside

I have to keep still to be safe

go for walks

Mary told us a a riddle 
or was it a clue from a cross word?

it turns into another story

the answer is

a spiral staircase

I’m enchanted by that

walking the road behind Kayla’s house
behind this urban place 

with some shops on a strip

it mysteriously curves
slopes up and around 
to a beautiful LA vista

a surprise rural canyon
rolling hills empty and gold 
a couple pointy junipers
and dry yellow grass

climbing the clean sidewalk is like
marble
a spiral staircase in a fairytale castle

up into air smelling like eucalyptus, magnolia

we've been singing songs from 
Snow White and Pinocchio all day

I'm weeesshinng
walking in a wispy wonderland

pink sunset then mist over the moon

we talk about Rebecca Solnit’s essay

on Virginia Woolf’s “darkness”

it's about walking, and hoping
and her "the future is dark" quote

we keep singing 
I'm weeesshinng
I'm weeshing
between talking
and I do wish
I do hope

Twin Star 60 PCS Oneida Flatware Never Used Vintage SHINY

I wonder if all my poems are household poems

they're all about plants grooming bedding

the things that keep me going

in anticipating moving I'm collecting dining things

a pink glass dinnerware set

a red glass dinnerware set

both say "MADE IN FRANCE"

a marbled blue and white enamel dinnerware set

all the sets have 4 dinner plates 4 salad plates 

4 bowls 4 cups

also the 4 Mexican clay dishes

with painted white and green flowers

that I bought at the freaky flea market in MD

and 8 thin bubble colored goblets 

with clover shaped mouths 

and the type of hollow stem that holds liquid

they remind me of Glenda the Good Witch 

I just ordered a 60 piece silverware set 

the 1960s "Twin Star" design by Oneida 

I can't stop thinking about how nice 

it will be to host with them

it keeps me going truly I am fantasizing 

about the day we can go to Wing Phat Plaza

and buy a humongous bag of rice

and thinking about buying bulk dry goods

for my pantry

for a kitchen where I can obsess about minimizing waste

where I will never use paper towels and will have

all matching kitchen towels 

that I wash once a week

call me crazy but 

I feel infinite peace thinking about it

Sunday Prompt: A Household Poem

A Household Poem

sounds like it's something

for everyone in the house to hold

like a household dog

something shared

I imagine it on the fridge

it could be like rules or

a chore chart cooking

has been reheating

recently

I think of the old Christian Guys

who founded Hermon scary

around the fireplace in 1912

rats probably maybe harmony

my grandma's pet rat Georgia 

lived on her kitchen counter

she was tan and white with

red eyes and now I need

clorox wipes

my grandma has already

visited me in every dream

I've almost given up on 

sleeping don't count on it

need to cushion the ends

of it with pillows but

they are still suffocating

in garbage bags outside

which reminds me

I need to take out the trash

tonight

tonight's sleep cushioned 

on either end with the 

grumbling of trash can

wheels and then the

chaos of garbage truck

it's hard to believe 

they don't crush cars

with the claws

yesterday, I read a children's book

called Trashy Town

there was a lot of repetition and

it was about a real garbage man 

named Mr. Gibby

routine unseason

eye of the tiger

blasting in the lyft 

heading home to

bed bugs and 

Spookytober

he even turns up

the volume

have a great night

could be a nice, clean send-off

I ask my head rhetorically and

barely agree

I can’t remember it resonating

except 

for a clear, black winter night

I can’t remember the last time

I felt cute, last night,

in my scrubs?

life will begin again

with long hair

certainly 

electricity in some joints

like a doctor poster 

in places like knees, 

I feel so much a sack

waking up

fuck napping 

waking up

worse off

but

just laying

in nothing

I love

I can count the times

I’ve done that

lately I don’t

do that 

I walked today

I can count

steps too,

you know when the sun

is just above eye level

a harsh sheet

walking the blasted sidewalks

everyone seems discombobulated 

in a Halloween way, limbs hanging

around randomly car doors

swinging and slamming hoods

glinting  and my photographic memory

is a car parked on the SIDEWALK

are we in Europe or

was it a Bird and who cared?

it’s literally a blur

I wrote

Drink Chartreuse on My Birthday

and everything went downhill

from there

my favorite color

shirt and ribbon

shredded on

hot and high

the dates are haunting

i.e. on October 14th

Mima was still alive

do you know what I mean?

the following Friday she wasn’t

all the fine lines 

between life and death

what else?

I can’t lose ____

I can’t lose ____ !

but we lose it all

on the path

to a full shed

very interesting/

what’s the point

`·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.· 

                 `·.¸¸.·´´¯`··._.·

the couple outside of Cookbook

dressed as little kids

maybe middle schoolers

tights and socks and

a small purse

she’s swaying nervously

but ironically

he has fluffy hair and

baggy track pants

with skate shoes

they’re embracing a lot

by the parking sign

the October wind 

RR

Everything, Evening

This Very Precarious Moment Makes Me Want 

To Give Everything A Title, To Keep Things As Clear 
As Something With A Name
Seasons, The Cold And It's Unease Are Seeping In
But This Isn't Just A Season, I Want To Find Tactics As Clear 
As Giving My Life To A Monastery
Scrambling For A Name For The Feeling

And An Action For The Name
All I Know How To Do Is Write Draw Sing Sew
So I Just Do It, Frenzied And Fine

Titling Is One Action To Take
Calling Myself An Artist Without Hesitation
A Curse Or A Blessing? A Power Or Weakness?
The Vibe And Visuals By Chance And By Choice For This Precarious Moment

Are They Important Or Arbitrary
E.G., Billowing Sateen, Syrup On The Passenger Seat

Evening Dress French Silk Metallic Thread Glass

Everything / Evening 
Everything As An Evening Gown
Painting A Gown In The Evening As My Everything
Does It Matter If That Makes Any Sense

How Irresponsible Is Or Isn't It
To Document This Human Frivolity And Beauty
To String My Friends' Names Into A Song
Beauty Because Beauty Because Beauty

I Keep Trying To Sum It Up

The Last 25 Years Have Been So Important

9/11 Iraq Obama Occupy Arab Spring Trump And UN Climate Report

It's Called "The Post-Truth Era" And Also "The Anthropocene"

I Know Several Newborn Babies And There Is This Ultimatum Of Twelve Years

In My Life Of Making Things 
I've Named Things With Nouns And Subbed Nouns For Notions
Nouns Feel More Active Than Trying To Make A Statement

Flower Puppet Silver Puppy Wave Whirl Etc.
Because They are Immutable Symbols, Immutable Vibes?

Because We Are Collectors?

Gleaners, Just Like How The Bee Documentary Described Bees

The Documentary Said The Flowers That Are Beautiful To Bees 
Are The Same Ones That Are Beautiful To Us
The Flowers Whose Scents We Find Pleasing
Are Also Their Favorites

all leaves/more midnight

nomad in my own house

what's storage

what's cute

what's about to crack in half?

she said she was living 

on borrowed time 

in her old house

on the faultline --

our house has its own fault lines

I’ve taken to grooming to doing 

something daily

if only the floor was clean and

didn’t make its own 

dirt

but I’m not scared anymore 

of the dirt or of the death

beyond it

and I can’t shake the sound 

of crashing glass

the shards in the coffee grinder

do I still use it? a leaf too

old, from a season

art as suggestion

art as email me if you want more

thick, veiny legs

nearly 26 and kind of

disappointed

if I'm being shallow

in my own house (body)

didn't think I'd get here so fast 

but it's not a thought ever

the truth of time 

is never a thought

there are shiny hairs

I scrutinize 

blond or 

silver?

Aspen said blond in a husky

voice and I don’t believe her

she was a bro and she gave

me a mom haircut 

I went with a Groupon and left

in tears 

I cut my armpits with 

dull blades

at weird angles

I bleed like a faucet a blood

blister becomes a permanent body part

who can help?

——

I like to be surrounded by the options

for documentaries, you know

accidental playlists

the internet 

it’s sticky af

——

even more midnight

——

I get hot thinking about

my new drawing

but dream that my art was worse

the posterboards had thick and dirty

foam edges

how am I gonna hide this in a frame?

and that squeaky thing

tiny danseur

is this 'biological clock'?
all the baby dreams
you can hand me that baby






waking up with babies on the brain
and also thinking about
an acquaintance that I wish I knew better

it feels poignant
missing this would-be friend








the poetry in me is skimpy atm
please listen to Debussy,
2 Arabesques: No. 1, Andantino con moto

* * * **** ** *







falling of notes like rain







the humidity weaves a web of mold
in and out and through everything
and it stalks out onto the walls
and the underside of my big desk
fat green leopard print










all of the would-be friends
that I know
and faraway friends

do they wonder about me?



I'm here if they need me
at my spotty desk












we all have passion fatigue
discussing the *current situation in politics*
it seems so blatant, so surreally obvious
the hell and the hand-basket of it all





can we take our government back?
can we make it work for us?
as it never truly has






the mounting dramas of each day
we have never been 
what we say we are
Great U.S.A. the best









there is a type of bug on my desk that I've never seen before
who seems to like Debussy

his movements are extremely fluid
and he tiptoes then pauses, bobbing his head slowly
like a tiny danseur





his antennae cast a shadow
two decorative serifs 
on the white watermarked paper he dances across

job or baby

PT1

dream I was Andrea's baby
getting woken up continuously
in a dark room
she was bent over me
like in a crib
rubbing my belly
and I was plagued
with the heaviest sleep
I can imagine
or
I was carrying her baby
for her, sleeping on duty
it was partially OK
but it was time for her to lay down
I had to get off the bed
in my sporty clothes,
slightly raised belly &
ankle socks

she was sage-y
reappearing again and
again like a witch
I'm hot and can't breathe and
can't imagine being awake-
job or baby?


PT2

I'm in a car on a scary dark road
with a gun pointed at my face
because it's an area for some
civic duty
I was exempt, tried to show my heavy fur
by pushing my chest forward through
the unbearable sleep
Val Verde or something

when I come here I say hella
and he just writes in with a knife
in toast

USA

all I want is to take the high road
to make jokes on a Tuesday
lead by example
you can be that stair step person to those around you
cos think about how boring

DM (dance music)

jealousy
Eugene
a bar
too many pretzels
the whole time
a man yelling
a different person
another country
lots of weather and
a big friend
Payton getting a pillow signed

when a dream can be signed neatly away
like a pad of butter vs. when
it's a tangled section of hair
a tangled section of reality

what I need to stay up
keeps me fat too
the mountains supple
they know
I'm looking
posing

life as a soft backdrop
for miniskirts in the fall
tights and excitement

fuck the system till you die
or
die a little all the time

cat/cow
sitting
Henry
handshake

the seasons move
so fast now that
their perils have
no flavor no
roots
in one time
or another




but a hot second of fall
going fast on speed bumps
catching air, there's a window
glowing orange
in the stucco A-frame
the street lamps are thoughtful
more yellow than white
on the tree-lined street
scheming for Halloween
returning home from CVS
on a school night

and I'm jealous of the 10-year-old
with the clean bedroom
in the empty apartment
the bedside selzter
the KCRW lullaby she said
i know its weird because
its like dance music

Sweetie sweetie sweetie Darling

screen

I hate that I'm thinking
about the meme
that says essentially
work = looking at "bad screen"
and
"can't wait to go home
and look at good screen"

so fucked up I think
as I check good screen again
this little lifeline
to where?















types of parties

hustling in the rain in a silky outfit
click click click grab an armful of flowers
from Produce Junction
oh how I love it I wish I could stay a while
and take pictures of the seasonal scarecrows
for sale only $5! click click click to the car

radio is playing a song that in many other contexts
I may not like but
oh the rain and the flowers
please all I ask is that you come around
and see me
and it has a synth line that sounds like
the melody of a standard church bell chime

what is the sept Spring line about
showing up to the party
early and in costume

I was the first person at the party
well, baby shower
as well as the last

when it's just me and KP left
we talk about choosing art
vs. choosing other things
she says it's like, 
you do have to choose
or life chooses for you



























choose choose choose

look at that word some more
choose choose choose

Intrepid Trips

I envy the free spirits and
empty people

another walking poem

turns out I needed a walk
more than the dog
there are more men and 
there is more trash 
so I don't look down anymore

everything is dead
turns out I just 
needed to go back
to the neighborhood
to see the light on the mountain
the gasoline trees have grown
over the sidewalk
walking in the street instead 
is basically how I feel

--

it wasn't so romantic this time
with my foot on the pedal

--

feel like a spring onion not
unlike the flower blooming 

the train whistle reminds me
I'm just a guy who gets
unsettled, and spooked 
by life sounds and travel 
sleep has been revealing 
such averageness

--

jerking off to the place where 
purple and red meet
crying at the textures 
of those fabrics 
the moisture
the bleach stain on clean laundry
sex near the pond in the rain
no hat

--

I feel like god is kissing me
wake up and a dog
is kissing me remember
that horror story 
who was really under the bed
but really I'm walking again
on the loud gravel
in the warm breeze
and the radio is reading my mind
I'm crying and it always
will be 

the beach is always my favorite place no matter what

the girls at the beach

all have blankets of hair

the same brown blanket

brushed and flopping

looks hot in both ways

blanketing their same

outfits of shoulderless

puffs and sporty thong

bottoms I stare at their butts

in disbelief forgetting they’re 16

they play volley-ball with a

foreign gusto, shrieky games

of capture and chase

flirt through braces

spitting ice cream, I remember

Though I was never

closer than this

no one envies me with this haircut

no one wishes they looked how I did

I hear the blanket girls think:

I would never cut my hair because, obviously

I am a blanket girl

brushed and flopping

and obviously I am hot

In both ways

I wanna know if they’re saying

the same stuff that they say

at the Jersey shore like shut

the fuck up when a scrawny

boy has you above his head

are you really squeaking fuck you

in your thong in the town center?

are you really

constantly yelling

I also want to say shut the fuck up

and just wait for life

but also

I want to be them all too

to be so taught on display

calling attention to such

smooth, blank skin

no one envies my shorts my

slapdash tomboy beachwear

and I’m free

bleeding because I can’t deal

don’t mind me just walking

up the stones in my wet, red shorts

I’m just planting seeds

filling up and blowing every dollar

to be elsewhere

on the 3^rd day I search for the girl

in the red bathing suit because

she’s the best one and actually

the only I imagine when I imagine

the blanket girls at large this one

has heavy chains around her neck

and also braces so she literally shines

seemingly aware of her figure in space

the tourist teens pale in comparison

as if they have happened upon their

bodies by mistake standing at the edge

of the water like they’re waiting for

something cool to happen to while

they talk but mostly look around

and adjust their suits and I get hit 

in the head with a soccer ball

and decide to leave the beach since

the shadows are long anyway and

the sand blows in stinging swirls