In Germany people have good faces. It seems that women know how to do their hair and make-up nicely. They appear very serene and have severe clothes to protect them, which makes me uncomfortable and them much more superior. The TV is very, very bad here. And the food is meaty and sometimes so tasty it's tasteless. I like the tasteless food. I wish I had some boots and a black leather jacket and could speak enough German to think insults inside my head and never say them out loud. I think this would change my facial expressions for the better. I wish that when I met a German person I didn't focus on the lilt of their "hallo" more than what they said after. I wish I didn't worry so much about how the older women dyed their hair or how they sell the most incredibly ridiculous jeans to people at seemingly normal stores. I wish that when we were walking in the nice shopping area by the Dom it didn't make me feel really shitty that some guy was playing Damien Rice songs in the street and lots of people lined up to listen. This guy had a red guitar AND a velvet blazer. AND he was singing Damien Rice songs. Even Deb stopped to listen and danced a little. "Man, this is a good song, I don't care what you say," she said to me. "No, nono," I said back but couldn't think of anything more. I meant, no, you can like the song if you want, I don't care, but it sounded like I meant, no, I like these songs too.
Anyhow, she goes to the bakery in the morning and buys us rolls and doughnuts and makes coffee with whipped milk and cinnamon on top. She makes a lot of noise in the kitchen when she wants us to wake up and tries to fake surprise when I walk past her to go brush my teeth. I don't think she would feel badly that I'm saying these things. Deb also normally makes a lot of sense.
We went to a party the other night and I made friends with a woman named Jennifer. She was very fun. She was from New Zealand and we liked talking about ex-lovers and people my age. She would say, "You know, for women like us..." or, "As we both know..." or some such variation which was funny because she was acting like because we were both blond and tall we'd had lots of the same experiences or, I don't know, we'd come to the same conclusions about men and money and stuff. She said she had a nursing license but she'd been enjoying being a housewife for the last three years. She said she loved her garden and her dogs and her husband. "He's very cute," she said. I didn't mind how she generalized us, put us together but it was funny for me as well. Jennifer used to be a man. I had a suspicion early on but after talking for awhile, I was quite sure. She was beautiful and I liked her tight, silky top. I liked her thin, sculpted nose. I liked her oddly huge black heels, her manicured nails and the enormous wedding rings she wore. Somehow I felt like she deserved whatever wealth she found herself gorgeously flopping around in. When the night ended she went home with a cop. He was so much more into her then he'd been into his tenth Murphy's. He looked at her and looked at her and he must have decided it lust and followed her to a bar called Roxy. I hope they had passionate sex on the subway as Jennifer is the exactly what men want a women to be, a big sea of mystery with some very fashionable ideas.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
We leave, we come back, we talk about leaving again
She was sleeping with an older man when her father had his first heart attack. She felt much differently about sickness those days. She asked her lover for fruit, he returned with cherries. The shape and pit were too much for her. She left the blue bowl quiet at the end of the bed and starting pushing the pillows around on the other side. When she got up her tee-shirt had twisted, two long legs, a fragile insect, something flexible, was tucked in the tight wind of fabric on her hip. After ten minutes of consulting the ceiling she knew she had to pee and she would have to call her mother again, as wrong as it felt to do so.
She peed and inadvertently pulled the cherry stem from her shirt, let it fall into the pool of piss and clean water below her legs. While flushing she noticed it and found it funny that the fruit would leave her this way.
The cherry legs floated along, along the dark intestines of the city, catching on mold conglomerations, pulling free with a hunk of pampers. They moved well in the stream, up and down, delicately stepping. They looked like tweezers. The shit build up and wax of the stems gave them a metallic sheen. Perhaps they were prepared for such a journey, drank their pesticides with a more empty belly.
At a certain point in their travels the stems were filtered and trashed. In large barrels of waste so soft it was happy to denigrate into the ground the stems were moved outside of the city to a dump. The trash was evenly spread, the stems were thankfully able to sun themselves on the ground, hardening their outsides.
For six weeks the legs stared at the sun and tried to be grateful for everything that had gone on. Everyone's life must take a path, make a course. They knew it would end here and it would have to be ok.
Missy had worked at the dump for almost an entire decade and didn't enjoy it, for many obvious reasons. The amount of waste made her feel terrible, she hated being faced with so much destruction every day. She was eating so much. She was only thirty four and was twice the size she was at 28. Missy walked the brown terrain each day, drove a little truck in and out of the piles. She spread air-conditioning chemicals, she read romance novels, she looked at the bizarre combinations of trash, the most ironic comparisons of worthy and worthless. Some of what she did didn't matter but Missy found certain points important, like noting the decay process of 700 rolls of unused toilet paper or old bed sheets.
Missy wore coveralls, boots. Sometimes she crouched on the mounds, examined the face of a watch, the curl of a molding veggie. Her new shape fit the coveralls, fit someone's idea of a huge toddler when she crouched. She was stomach and knees and totally unaware of herself.
At once two cherry legs found themselves attached to soft denim that was beginning to fray. It was the spot next to her knee, the bit that protruded when folded. Tucked carefully into the skin of her uniform the legs moved on, beyond the dump.
Missy takes her coveralls off in the locker as is protocol. She says she does, anyway. She hates the soap they provide in the locker room and the lights bother her, the mirrors. She just has one for her face at home and she still enjoys her face.
Missy takes a shower while sitting in the tub once home, some more childish crouch, some adorable masturbating behind a thick green shower curtain. She mostly imagines the sun, being nude in a restaurant, eating all the trash, taking everything in for real now.
When finished she emerges into her room, slips on a robe, heats up more food, watches something on television. Her trailer rocks softly in the wind. She listens to the movements of her neighbors, their naughty children, their tight drug habits. She wants the trailer in the back to blow to prove to everyone that it can and will happen.
Soon she cleans, she hangs the towels, washes the dishes, eats more cold meat from the fridge, wipes down the counter and sink, hangs her work attire on a hook because she doesn't wash them every night. Who would?
The stems loose all their grip and at once fall to a brown carpet floor. Dark as the fibers are the stems are safe, now a lightish brown themselves from the bleaching sun. Missy steps down hard in the direction of the stems. She stubs her toe and runs the pointed tips where the cherries once were deep into her arch. It's amazing how heavily the stems were able to insert themselves in Missy. All those chemicals, all that time drying and being covered in chemicals again. These stems were full of something completely unoriginal to themselves.
Missy cursed and laughed, being tough for no one. She sat down and looked at the little spots of blood, long brown tails. She had to pull them and did and it hurt more then stepping on them had.
Missy went to bed, after a Dove bar from the freezer. She laid down. She let the blood dry and felt something coming up through her neck. Sometimes she was anxious. Someone at work gave her some literature on the anxieties of working where she did, but it wasn't anxiousness. She lifted her throat to cool but it was moving back, over the hump of bone on her chin, her square forehead, pooling under each follicle of hair. Her stomach was separate, could have been on the floor. Her hips hovered below her. She didn't think about anything but feeling the different feelings coming from her body, stemming from her foot.
Missy died that night from the puncture wounds from contaminated trash. She was pronounced dead with a cute little smirk on her face in a big florescent room where people could see her entire naked body. She was fat, they thought.
The stems finally fell apart. They weren't able to agree with one another, they didn't make sense. The little bits broke further and further apart, spreading around into water, air, still as mixed up as ever.
She peed and inadvertently pulled the cherry stem from her shirt, let it fall into the pool of piss and clean water below her legs. While flushing she noticed it and found it funny that the fruit would leave her this way.
The cherry legs floated along, along the dark intestines of the city, catching on mold conglomerations, pulling free with a hunk of pampers. They moved well in the stream, up and down, delicately stepping. They looked like tweezers. The shit build up and wax of the stems gave them a metallic sheen. Perhaps they were prepared for such a journey, drank their pesticides with a more empty belly.
At a certain point in their travels the stems were filtered and trashed. In large barrels of waste so soft it was happy to denigrate into the ground the stems were moved outside of the city to a dump. The trash was evenly spread, the stems were thankfully able to sun themselves on the ground, hardening their outsides.
For six weeks the legs stared at the sun and tried to be grateful for everything that had gone on. Everyone's life must take a path, make a course. They knew it would end here and it would have to be ok.
Missy had worked at the dump for almost an entire decade and didn't enjoy it, for many obvious reasons. The amount of waste made her feel terrible, she hated being faced with so much destruction every day. She was eating so much. She was only thirty four and was twice the size she was at 28. Missy walked the brown terrain each day, drove a little truck in and out of the piles. She spread air-conditioning chemicals, she read romance novels, she looked at the bizarre combinations of trash, the most ironic comparisons of worthy and worthless. Some of what she did didn't matter but Missy found certain points important, like noting the decay process of 700 rolls of unused toilet paper or old bed sheets.
Missy wore coveralls, boots. Sometimes she crouched on the mounds, examined the face of a watch, the curl of a molding veggie. Her new shape fit the coveralls, fit someone's idea of a huge toddler when she crouched. She was stomach and knees and totally unaware of herself.
At once two cherry legs found themselves attached to soft denim that was beginning to fray. It was the spot next to her knee, the bit that protruded when folded. Tucked carefully into the skin of her uniform the legs moved on, beyond the dump.
Missy takes her coveralls off in the locker as is protocol. She says she does, anyway. She hates the soap they provide in the locker room and the lights bother her, the mirrors. She just has one for her face at home and she still enjoys her face.
Missy takes a shower while sitting in the tub once home, some more childish crouch, some adorable masturbating behind a thick green shower curtain. She mostly imagines the sun, being nude in a restaurant, eating all the trash, taking everything in for real now.
When finished she emerges into her room, slips on a robe, heats up more food, watches something on television. Her trailer rocks softly in the wind. She listens to the movements of her neighbors, their naughty children, their tight drug habits. She wants the trailer in the back to blow to prove to everyone that it can and will happen.
Soon she cleans, she hangs the towels, washes the dishes, eats more cold meat from the fridge, wipes down the counter and sink, hangs her work attire on a hook because she doesn't wash them every night. Who would?
The stems loose all their grip and at once fall to a brown carpet floor. Dark as the fibers are the stems are safe, now a lightish brown themselves from the bleaching sun. Missy steps down hard in the direction of the stems. She stubs her toe and runs the pointed tips where the cherries once were deep into her arch. It's amazing how heavily the stems were able to insert themselves in Missy. All those chemicals, all that time drying and being covered in chemicals again. These stems were full of something completely unoriginal to themselves.
Missy cursed and laughed, being tough for no one. She sat down and looked at the little spots of blood, long brown tails. She had to pull them and did and it hurt more then stepping on them had.
Missy went to bed, after a Dove bar from the freezer. She laid down. She let the blood dry and felt something coming up through her neck. Sometimes she was anxious. Someone at work gave her some literature on the anxieties of working where she did, but it wasn't anxiousness. She lifted her throat to cool but it was moving back, over the hump of bone on her chin, her square forehead, pooling under each follicle of hair. Her stomach was separate, could have been on the floor. Her hips hovered below her. She didn't think about anything but feeling the different feelings coming from her body, stemming from her foot.
Missy died that night from the puncture wounds from contaminated trash. She was pronounced dead with a cute little smirk on her face in a big florescent room where people could see her entire naked body. She was fat, they thought.
The stems finally fell apart. They weren't able to agree with one another, they didn't make sense. The little bits broke further and further apart, spreading around into water, air, still as mixed up as ever.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
split moon months
we made one moon on our back,
different pieces, slices of half-moon months.
then full bridal moons for parties,
different shades for cops.
the street people hang on them
and water their eyes,
milky-moon iris.
oh please, the older man said,
smoke the moon like dope,
hold the darling candle closer,
and he light his whole head in soft flame.
no moon of mine, the other heap responded,
comes close to my mouth,
way low to my toes and opens like a table,
a smart coffin for bats and evil practices.
it's mostly a game, the heap admitted,
something i play to feel closer to
my old man moon,
my push-apart dad.
a tall girl who deserves it, some say,
put moon in a drink,
in her dark clothes, her smooth skin.
i get them this way, she coddles her macho moon,
and they forget why they came, she says,
stay on to look for it again.
she knows they actually don't,
says it just to hear it with her own full moon mouth.
we made one moon on our back,
different pieces, slices of half-moon months.
then full bridal moons for parties,
different shades for cops.
the street people hang on them
and water their eyes,
milky-moon iris.
oh please, the older man said,
smoke the moon like dope,
hold the darling candle closer,
and he light his whole head in soft flame.
no moon of mine, the other heap responded,
comes close to my mouth,
way low to my toes and opens like a table,
a smart coffin for bats and evil practices.
it's mostly a game, the heap admitted,
something i play to feel closer to
my old man moon,
my push-apart dad.
a tall girl who deserves it, some say,
put moon in a drink,
in her dark clothes, her smooth skin.
i get them this way, she coddles her macho moon,
and they forget why they came, she says,
stay on to look for it again.
she knows they actually don't,
says it just to hear it with her own full moon mouth.
Friday, June 29, 2007
all the unsolid ways
fork up, curl two noodles into a streamlined mess.
i'll esteem you for protocol in just one, two ways.
one day and you're somewhere new. and you spent
all your money on gold. money, money, same rate.
some people have sex these days, clothes on, and
silly how the bubbles come, you clubber, you bone picker.
i saw her swallow the mdma and said she rubbed the skin off her nose
as a joke. it didn't hurt just then.
it took all ten fingers to follow. i caught them touching
the road, the wicker baskets for shoes.
these digits are always ten steps ahead,
holding up a sign, just to the left up here.
one day and you could leave everyone behind.
one day and a smaller story was told.
for weeks i waited like plain old mysteries,
knowing no spare climate, no spare stories for sale.
i'll esteem you for protocol in just one, two ways.
one day and you're somewhere new. and you spent
all your money on gold. money, money, same rate.
some people have sex these days, clothes on, and
silly how the bubbles come, you clubber, you bone picker.
i saw her swallow the mdma and said she rubbed the skin off her nose
as a joke. it didn't hurt just then.
it took all ten fingers to follow. i caught them touching
the road, the wicker baskets for shoes.
these digits are always ten steps ahead,
holding up a sign, just to the left up here.
one day and you could leave everyone behind.
one day and a smaller story was told.
for weeks i waited like plain old mysteries,
knowing no spare climate, no spare stories for sale.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
we leave, we come back, we talk about leaving again
find your towel now, holding down some young eyelid.
like any other day as a sink setter,
as a hand washer, as someone who holds doors,
can't learn a goddamn thing about flesh,
can't capture a little word to hold you.
i am yet a fragile mix of memories,
fresh fruits and black tar tongue.
i speculate about the man next door,
the feelings of inconsistency,
the brush touch of lovely life, lovely rage.
like any other day as a sink setter,
as a hand washer, as someone who holds doors,
can't learn a goddamn thing about flesh,
can't capture a little word to hold you.
i am yet a fragile mix of memories,
fresh fruits and black tar tongue.
i speculate about the man next door,
the feelings of inconsistency,
the brush touch of lovely life, lovely rage.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
flack attack
i saw this thing crawling across marshall ave last sunday at dusk. i was on the porch, having a cigarette in the lovely evening weather and this creature moving with such an eerie air crawled across the street. at first i thought it was a paper bag, as the back half looked flat, then i thought it was a mole or some such variation, with flexible flesh for tunneling, but then i saw that it was a common squirrel that had been run over, his hind legs dragging, his torso paper thin.
he moved across the street in a determined fashion, but not quickly. he was almost hit by two other cars on the journey, disappearing under their carriages only to emerge again still moving, still carrying his dead body. and once he made it to the other side he wasn't able to hoist himself over the curb. he couldn't even rest his little squirrel elbows on the ledge, as i'm certain that his other bones would fold, crumple beneath him.
he finally found a way to slide sideways, over the pretty, cream cement incline. families and couples and dogs (oh god, the tiny nightmares that passed through me when i realized the long-leashed dogs might sniff him out) passed him by, just a few feet of sod and this thing was starting it's own terrible death rot. the yard he was able to perch himself on was vast, quite scenic. a woman in khaki shorts, a hat, was gardening just next to the porch and squirrel continued to press forward, almost like he wanted to reach her.
how terrible it would have been. she'd be in a serene state of mind, probably using one of those beautiful gardening tools to smooth the soil around a hydrangea bush, maybe humming or revising a conversation she wanted to have with her son about the slut he was dating. in a pause or in between breaths she'd turn, before she even know why or how for, and there he'd be, this wild, wicked pet of death. his mangled body, his little teeth.
i wasn't able to watch him finally die. i couldn't take my eyes away for several minutes and then, i just wanted to leave it all alone.
he moved across the street in a determined fashion, but not quickly. he was almost hit by two other cars on the journey, disappearing under their carriages only to emerge again still moving, still carrying his dead body. and once he made it to the other side he wasn't able to hoist himself over the curb. he couldn't even rest his little squirrel elbows on the ledge, as i'm certain that his other bones would fold, crumple beneath him.
he finally found a way to slide sideways, over the pretty, cream cement incline. families and couples and dogs (oh god, the tiny nightmares that passed through me when i realized the long-leashed dogs might sniff him out) passed him by, just a few feet of sod and this thing was starting it's own terrible death rot. the yard he was able to perch himself on was vast, quite scenic. a woman in khaki shorts, a hat, was gardening just next to the porch and squirrel continued to press forward, almost like he wanted to reach her.
how terrible it would have been. she'd be in a serene state of mind, probably using one of those beautiful gardening tools to smooth the soil around a hydrangea bush, maybe humming or revising a conversation she wanted to have with her son about the slut he was dating. in a pause or in between breaths she'd turn, before she even know why or how for, and there he'd be, this wild, wicked pet of death. his mangled body, his little teeth.
i wasn't able to watch him finally die. i couldn't take my eyes away for several minutes and then, i just wanted to leave it all alone.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
a drip (adrift)
i keep writing posts that get ate up by the dark pit of this lame-brain computer. i could kill it dead most days.
the preparations for year abroad (year o' broads) continue in the small, slippery steps they offer. i feel very ready to leave most days and then something will happen and i'll feel completely unprepared, naked to the concept of getting up and going. mostly i'm excited and the standard jitters add to the overall experience.
for instance, this morning i was walking to my car from my love's apartment. i was feeling dingy as there were no clean clothes, i didn't have time to shower and i generally felt sickening. i walked down the flannel carpeted hallway and into the cheesey 70's entryway and once out on the street it was so gloriously springy. the last few days of rain have made the plantlife lush and sumptuous with color and body. it's like a woman coming out a depression and eating again, laughing again. the warm, yellow sun, the shiny blacktop still a bit saturated.
yesterday when i was walking out to may car i found a bouquet of lillies positioned in front of my driver's side door. honestly! it was like someone had come to place them there but i think someone dropped them there on accident, or threw them from a window. i put them in my car, brought them to work and cleaned them up and put them in a little gold vase that i found in one of the break room cupboards. it has an embelm on it that reads "thanks", which i find appropriate. now my desk smells like the outside world i wish i could lounge in all day.
the bad things about getting ready to leave are the helplessness, the necessity. money, days ticking by, these things don't help. friends who call and say, "you're leaving and i'll never get to see you. you have to come hang out tonight." this is dumb, well intended, i'm sure, but dumb. so say i do go meet said friend for a drink or something, under the pretense that we'll be apart for a long time and it's in order to drink this drink together, the entire event is revolving around something sad and disappointing. it isn't a natural, relaxed good-bye. besides the fact that i was pressured into it. oh well. it's still nice to see friends and feel the sad good-bye.
there is still so much i'd like to do. i have to fix my computer and my camera. i have to buy a fucking expensive as shit backpack from rei and maybe a little roll up sleeping bag. all these things are tied up in how ready i am. so i have to go. bye.
the preparations for year abroad (year o' broads) continue in the small, slippery steps they offer. i feel very ready to leave most days and then something will happen and i'll feel completely unprepared, naked to the concept of getting up and going. mostly i'm excited and the standard jitters add to the overall experience.
for instance, this morning i was walking to my car from my love's apartment. i was feeling dingy as there were no clean clothes, i didn't have time to shower and i generally felt sickening. i walked down the flannel carpeted hallway and into the cheesey 70's entryway and once out on the street it was so gloriously springy. the last few days of rain have made the plantlife lush and sumptuous with color and body. it's like a woman coming out a depression and eating again, laughing again. the warm, yellow sun, the shiny blacktop still a bit saturated.
yesterday when i was walking out to may car i found a bouquet of lillies positioned in front of my driver's side door. honestly! it was like someone had come to place them there but i think someone dropped them there on accident, or threw them from a window. i put them in my car, brought them to work and cleaned them up and put them in a little gold vase that i found in one of the break room cupboards. it has an embelm on it that reads "thanks", which i find appropriate. now my desk smells like the outside world i wish i could lounge in all day.
the bad things about getting ready to leave are the helplessness, the necessity. money, days ticking by, these things don't help. friends who call and say, "you're leaving and i'll never get to see you. you have to come hang out tonight." this is dumb, well intended, i'm sure, but dumb. so say i do go meet said friend for a drink or something, under the pretense that we'll be apart for a long time and it's in order to drink this drink together, the entire event is revolving around something sad and disappointing. it isn't a natural, relaxed good-bye. besides the fact that i was pressured into it. oh well. it's still nice to see friends and feel the sad good-bye.
there is still so much i'd like to do. i have to fix my computer and my camera. i have to buy a fucking expensive as shit backpack from rei and maybe a little roll up sleeping bag. all these things are tied up in how ready i am. so i have to go. bye.
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