Tuesday, December 26, 2023

oct - dec

lost contact with my dreams
tall apartment/ vertical shopping mall Chinese signage 
all the images I cut out from National Geographic
raspberry jam on toast again
everything from that store tastes like that store
he doesn't know but refrains I'll figure it out
I was just liking the cutting 
lost in the cutting so 
I had nothing to say

a translucent snail emerged from the tiny white shell 
days after M brought it home from Greece
she feeds it cucumber and eggshells

there are only 5 places to go here
try to notice things
the sunset on the way home
October light, definitely different
definitely shifted
me, the clone of my mother
sharing my tiny bed with her
the two of us reading side by side
the two of us sleeping

strip mall on a mountain
in a bathtub at one point but 
I could see beyond the walls 
of the space in my mind's eye/
was in two places at once
woke up with the headache I had in the dream 
wearing a red gingham jacket
my hair long again
there was rain and other obstacles
like no money? or just darkness?

working in a new restaurant that was hidden 
in some sort of subway system but had a giant dome
restaurant inside an unbroken eggshell
trying to figure out what to do about the swings
hanging from the curved ceiling 
hitting the tables when they swung
something shady about the owner
I was concerned the room was too big to fill
these days a continuum 
like waking life isn't enough
to take away dream solidity 
pieces come to me and 
I can't even distinguish them as such

I ran out of potions and have to pick up more today
I want to be stronger and more sparkly for everyone
pearls around the window
sunset in the letters
you send just an orange heart
sensed I was thinking about you?
I want to be big and sparkly for you
I want to be the one you call

15 days of war on Palestine
screen time average nearly 4 hours a day somehow
we were in a band and had a metal shelf between us 
that held up our cigarettes and also water dripped from the shelf 
and when it fell it sounded like violins 
the shelf with the smokes and water dropping was our instrument
and I was playing a simple riff on a red electric guitar
wearing a very little dress
we were practicing and it was going well then it was abruptly 
the actual performance and we got out of synch 
and couldn't get through our set everyone cleared the room 
so we took our half smoked cigarettes outside

finally got ahold of you
followed gravity downtown while we talked 
on damp streets the rain had stopped but it was misting
wish I had ideas in my head

everything on guitar is sounding the same to me
how to push through and trust again? play?
or did I ever trust? hard to say
remember crying in frustration on the farm

tiny deer standing on my bed
it was smaller than a cat
looked like a doll/ toy I sang to it while petting it
and walked around it in circles filming
something happened to the tiny deer
I saw images of butchered meat but
not fully real mostly imagined 
I found just her collar which was patent leather
bright red with metal grommets 
I was in a bathrobe
it was all an art piece?
at night in my bed I think about Gazans
trying to sleep waiting for bombs

a music class with keyboard 
and songbook and time to practice
looking for the key that will unlock 
whatever the next thing to get me going will be
an entry point to the world
some way to stay in it

Chinatown walking around
buying egg custard and metallic purple Beatle boots
with two dogs, a giant wolf and a mini wolf
steps down to the beach at the end of University Ave in Berkeley
the waves crashing so high
covering the entire beach and all the way up to the cliffs
the rest is very slippery
very very slippery
resistance fighters broke out of Gaza
into an "ugly modern world"
with wide avenues and bars with lights on

how many things can I do every day?
war dreams, separated, all alone, distance and death
dilapidated structures
I was raising a child alone
I was applying black and white temporary tattoos to my stomach
a masked face of a friend
layered tattoos on my stomach to express my love
but feeling so alone
barred from tenderness by war

thinking about how walking used 
to feel in my hometown
thinking about how reading used to feel 
in the dark winter on a humming train
in the segment of tunnel under the bay
between Oakland and SF 
Nijinsky's diary
how writing used to feel in my hometown

I work in an office building surrounded 
by empty industrial fields of grasses and cattails 
and crows and from certain windows you can see the ocean

in my dreams I am bleeding
I am walking to get something to eat in a Japanese structure
summer camp pagoda bridge over a dry riverbed
groups divided up of people with bottles 
of champagne with beautiful labels
holographic red and pink photo of cherry/logo/star
there is a porridge with icicle covered candy in it
I am showing you a secret trail I know about
I am making memories in here


Monday, December 11, 2023

bitten by angels

 













my pills do my sleeping for me
our love is growing up
a dial tone deep in my ear
who is the god that lets the leaflets fall
I want to be stronger than the office building
the proper name of god is a list
don't forget to move your hands to reach the notes
don't forget backwards music
set up the dripping laptop at the desk
and leave it open to capture

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

60 days


 

















realism brandished
as a weapon against meaning

something warm
that breaks up surfaces

vigorous, unending
my future













Monday, October 23, 2023

/ˈlakrəˌmōs/

the design of the pelican which has 
remained largely unchanged for 30,000 years

the cruelty of the world was tranquil
the murder was deep

attempting to fill my head with 
things of beauty and value

imagine leaflets falling from the sky
but at birth I was bitten by angels

I'm afraid when my alarm 
goes off in the morning





Wednesday, October 4, 2023

irresistible experience



dream of seeing you in your life

dream that everyone looked old

dream that we congratulated each other


guess who’s opening their heart 


guess who

is opening their heart


there was a crescent moon tonight made of paper

a digital sky


a dream that privacy felt scarce

dream i had time to bring my hitachi


but dream i was at your party too late looking for containers

to bring everyone home and


dream my identity was impossible to conceal so


i choose you 

as my archivist

and you, my archeologist

excavate my photo booth

and faithfully, wash the gossip


dream we did it together when


a pure bold longing 

to be gone filled him


and i said dream! it has filled me too

but it has 

filled me too


and i spilled that it’s my last life


spilled it’s my last life all over your bed

as my conscious and un- met in one horizon

one horizon bobbing and blue 

and you wept, for what?


but, i said, i just wanna fuck 

and dream no one is home


i just wanna fuck because

i can love you from there


guess who 

can love you from there 



fortify me


don’t 11th hour me,

fortify me!


the easy slippage

of You—

(god)


all of you, with your milks


fortify me, bones, let me 

sign your constitution 

tour me around 

your reality


walk me down the road and up the hill

bring me back to the staring sheep


churn to fuel the painfully simple


and draw my shadow with 

confidence in the sun


don’t 11th hour me, convect me!


don’t let my dread whittle to an edge 

don’t let my obsession get so smooth 


waterproof my pants in the machine

and 


kiss me like, like 

I kiss you


let me play in the alphabet soup!

let me find language in the drain!

and on occasion, 


save me a slice of joy from the spreadsheet 



(Pleasure) Poem 1


must be

systemless

the circuit itself tired 

a sound sculptural shell


who am I? to love

the mountain hanging over me


to drink its snow


she says deserve  dear god,

 

as long as i’m evicted from myself

make me a silver ray of light


make me finish the body scan

make it all right side out


quitting the whole time til thighs


my nerves as pants no socks 

mocked by the waterfalls I lay 

on you in easy gratitude for your 

bones, hold your feet 

in my hands




Friday, September 29, 2023

55 n 11th st

at Brighton beach 
swimming towards the moving buoy 

we're definitely a piece
but we're only a part

watching our progress through Cherry Hill on Google maps 
passing the liquor stores that line the turnpike
 
going back on my word here I am
wanting to invoke Banana Ice


Wednesday, September 6, 2023

honeying malice





a brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella

rings for your fingers a drink for your heart


Friday, August 25, 2023

it was a nun they say invented barbed wire

again pepper's ghost
advanced technology
folded away in the memory 
of nature with her toys
at work listening to Ulysses 
A LibriVox Recording
I'm falling back into Joyceland
my strange addiction 
I'm so superstitious 
everything a breadcrumb 
and then a packet in today's 
post from a lawyer 
who shares your first name 
which in Iran is maybe 
very common but to me 
it's only yours
as I scan the packet I think 
or think I ought to think 
that no matter how in agreement
two people are and no matter 
how intent they are to try 
it's dumb to think of love as possess-able
it just won't be possessed
but the way he jumps like a cat
to keep the balloon off the ground
the way he climbs his roof to sweep 
the redwood needles from the corrugated 
plastic skylight the way he touches my back
as I wash my face in the meantime
the cubicle the mail room
the printer room the inbox 
it’s a lot of alone
I think this life the runaway train
can only be slowed by obsession 
full immersion full absorption with detail
like the scientists on the radio
today one says humans when egged into 
existential dread or fear of mortality
are more comforted by a story of 
our uniqueness as individuals than
a story of solidarity with all animals
but if we’re told animals are special too
we feel better or something like that
or we are driven to compassion perhaps
I want to know the set up for these experiments
what they use to prompt the dread
then how they take it away
rare and mythic vs senseless thrum
insufferable Anais Nin says 
she loves her nightmares
that she doesn’t understand why Henry 
is trying to be a philosopher that philosophers 
are merely preparing for death 
classicists are dying as they try to dominate life
with philosophy while romantics are living it
but still, how to be big enough
when what scares me is so simple
inertia and irreverence
not caring when I should 
slipping backstage to just
project my hologram off of a mirror
and then eventually just 
leaving a statue in my place 
to do the reflecting

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

soul shoppe

between birth and death
between eight and noon
between noon and one
between one and five
yes, the office could be 
described as "climate-
controlled" my back
to the windows where 
the day morphs without 
me in it a silent time-lapse
the cleanliness of it all
how I've been cut and
pasted into this cubicle

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

red fleur

between birth and death we get lost for a while
in the corner market across from the beach 
there is a very cheap perfume in a dusty box on a low shelf
I'm trying to wiggle the bottle out to take a photo 
but I keep pulling just the top off which is clear red plastic 
shaped like a flower and the bottle itself drops back into the box 
I don't want to make a scene so I just peer in and can see 
the liquid is also red and I wonder which no. dye

Monday, August 21, 2023

normal






it's a little too normal I'm trying to think 
beautiful thoughts between noon and one
debating phone calls / walks / purchases
to make but don't choose any in time 

Friday, August 18, 2023

~?


I stomp on the parking break and don't push the door open far enough 
for it to not start to close on me
I put my left foot on the curb and look up at a v of geese

trusting desire the desire for some language over the curve of a moment
my self the marble rolls off the table again and keeps going
why do I get stuck sideways this bad attitude

another school dream an auditorium but where the stage would be is a wall of aquarium glass
and the ocean directly against it and the type of seahorses that look like seaweed but the size of dolphins
we can't leave the school because the ocean is rising so rapidly

Thursday, August 17, 2023

********** * * * * * * *th






what happens when you're bitten by angels
my life went nowhere but my hair grew very long



Wednesday, August 16, 2023

the size of a marble

glass slippers on crystal stairs
you appear to be happy, you ash in a puddle
I'm jealous of myself 
for the way I felt then

the wax on the bottle 
is holding the candle
that's burning like true love 
in the middle of the table

dream of a worksheet of questions
numbered with cut out and pasted squares
reminiscent of ice cubes all haphazard kindergarten
searching a dvd's special features for the answers

go to sleep with a potion
wake up with an alarm
I'm in trouble in the dream
I'm always in trouble at school

I don't even know
half the time how I feel
dot dot dot perfectly centered
symmetrical kisses

I didn't want to do harm 
to a creature we made
however deadly and unviable
the size of a marble

Friday, August 4, 2023

public access poetry




nighttime is in love with candles
knowledge porridge nail polish
bespoke the flowers

what if who I wish I was
is in the house 3 blocks over
and I just have to get there


Tuesday, August 1, 2023

august 1 i'm afraid i won't remember how i feel


knowing it is the hottest year in human history
I still want every day of summer to rhyme with slow 

I still want the heavy air that shifts my mind
even if the shifting is my double helixes uncoiling

last night at the boys' house we sat on the old couch out front
I felt gentle with the pink sky framed by the wisteria 

he said he wished he could purchase time
an extra 10 hours per day

this morning we woke up naked in the bed
that I'll share with my mother this evening




Thursday, July 27, 2023

home q

 

home 1

can’t put my foot down 

on anything hard the bone that sticks out 

until the alarm I cheat

pushing clouds from a central core 

of blue sky in an organless body 

with doves if I’m lucky


home 2

the sunny corner of a wooden table

before the kitchen window I will look out 

in love, depending on strength the hardwood 

I apply years of wear now how I want years of—


home 2a

the shop table from a grade school fully tagged

how Katya put it in her kitchen it’s soft surface

where I make your birthday card and sing oh

california so home especially when sung


home 3

I've been so dust to dust

as medicine for detail fever

or love as ancient knot, plus

the way you say lifest life


*home 3a

allergic to scope too like

bigness repped by one *word

it’s dizzy the circles I write

around, for instance,

the labyrinth on the cliff


wind, etc

tbc



Wednesday, July 19, 2023

A Mini Course On Time Management

 





mind is a year
heart in a button-down
how to look haunted and afraid
lightheaded smelling the jasmine
selfhood is nowhere to hang a hat


Friday, July 14, 2023

girl go




around the edges she's still with me
my soul external
like peter pan's shadow
tripping up the stairs
lagging behind
girl, go
anywhere you want to
thirteen years later 
crying to this song in my cubicle
she's still with me my soul 
lagging behind the others
I know my place 
leave life to the living
I still can't claw my way
into 3 dimensions
or suspend disbelief
long enough to stay there

mirror to my nearing birthday
with Grandma Rebecca's sudden passing
I'm turning 30, she was about 3 times that 
photos of her as a young girl
the sparkle in her black eyes
I know her, I want to know her
the pain and fantasy in her heart just then
her soul and how it corresponds to my own

girl, go
anywhere you want to
wondering about 
herding cattle
knowing geography
hopping trains
shows and lovers and parties
finishing books 
drugs 
working summer jobs
fixing my own car
playing in a band

girl, go
around the edges I'm done
over being lost 
with my selective memory
irreverence and rootlessness
dear diary this
isn't a poem

Friday, July 7, 2023

We Jam Econo


the wind whipping the empty fields 
through the windows on all sides of the office

the crows and me
we walk in this place no one goes

how did I know that the pretty jingling was the metal tag 
on an electricity meter box blowing in the wind

the daily leaving-my-body-here
and following-my-mind-elsewhere

down a gunpowder spiral there's peace in it 
I'm a simple girl I don't need much





Thursday, July 6, 2023

for me, anger (or july 5)


it is poetry ultimately that grants survival
to a degree beyond pure function

breaks up the fight and
and cuts the scheme for the next 
kitchen window which I will look out 
in love

anyway there is sun dancing here
in this 6 pm, or there was

the kitchen window I will look out alone
depending on strength the hardwood 
table top to which I apply years
of wear now
 
how I want years of

but the way tonight joins with 
ln, fused in one still of the sun 
setting through bamboo

and yet, there is the shop vac
the compost
the radio

I know a me poem now grown 
on edge and medicine

at best, I devise 
a tattoo with a shadow

here is the cat's grave
her name written in rocks
unspelling itself

there is the oregano
the exterminator 
the phone
it's power

for me, anger, July 5
and one orange left on the tree

Friday, June 30, 2023

poem for dad on his birthday 6/26/23


today my cells turn in

with narrowed eyes

your birthday is basic, but flying

it’s green and blue

and the orange lily that grows this week

your birthday is a backyard

how random is it who we love

as I’m putting down this 

particular cat


yesterday the orange lilies at mcdonalds

and my soft serve in a cone


today mom is getting cancer scraped off her nose

while I talk to you from her backyard

every cell narrow eyed and

swimming away with

my info


I get mom a sandwich wrapped in pink paper

from the Italian market with the old hunchback man


I touch the cat’s fur through the screen and I'm thrown 

by our eye contact

how random, who we love

or orbit, and if you’re 

prone, if your sleeve

has a heart


you wear something like

the time you have left

but you used to draw us 

hard mazes in the shape 

of a brain


you just are 

the lilies in June


and your special name 

gets me over the gulf


(imagine) all the contents

of the gulfs between us and 

who we end up loving

the crosswords


the low voice as tool

something gentle

dry, some hint 


now there is a lizard at my feet and

I’ve seen your eyes widen for creatures

your patience surface with youth



**


yesterday they removed the angel sculpture

at the end of my street who’s plaque read

and the angel wants to go back and fix things


it’s from a Laurie Anderson song and 

everyone knows you’re Lou reed


and the angel wants to go back and fix things

to repair the things that have been broken

but there is a storm blowing from Paradise

and the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future

and this storm, this storm is called Progress