Home at last

Not everyone has their eyes to the street—

where people who don't have much to offer

sit and talk into cellular telephones

conversing about sexual evolution

and the spiritual nature of addiction—

where passersby walk by the person that was a once a girl with big gapped teeth

who had a penchant to play

kung-fu with your son
while we lived one big happy family
at the Paradise House—

leans back on a wall

legs stretch all the way to my unlaced boots

I understand I said nothing

as I smiled into your eyes and those of your husband

but maybe you mistook my empty coffee mug for something it was not

or my vintage sunglasses case for my kit

and thought my pouch of rolling tobacco was a euphemism for weed

Or maybe the last thirty years of meditation 

have dulled your senses

and you didn't see me smiling into your eyes

and all you saw was a junkie on the street 

whose empty cup 

was their lot in life.

I don't know what you saw

you didn't see me

sitting soberly in the weak sunshine

discussing the development of the heart mind

through acceptance of shame 

allowing vulnerability

understanding the ability to accept responsibility for action

but since I don't meditate enough

and meat has passed my lips

and I tend to give money and cigarettes to people that don't ask but I know that they need

and I sleep around

and I put drugs in my mouth

yet I get the sense that I see people

even when they don't see me

but you have always treated me a little off

because when you meditate

and freely give a tenth of your day to your living master

you gain a clarity of vision

into yourself that allows you to see people

and accept them with neither judgement

or fear

because you will know

that they don't meditate

and that you are working your way towards paradise

Mostly, I would wear suits and carry a pistol

I stopped at a wicker chair outside and empty chinese restaurant and pulled the perfect pair of black pumps out of my bag. Walking two miles in heels while doable is murder on the shoe taps, so it's best to be smart and save yourself a trip to the cobbler and change just before you get *there*.

One boot was off. My hat covered head angled down as I slipped my foot into the narrow suede creature a group of young rowdies walked by waving their arms, shouting, the boasting conquistadores of valencia avenue.

Be careful how you walk man, one friend said to another, you almost hit that dude in the head. 


It was the best compliment I've received in weeks.

let me dream in the color of forgotten love

In kindergarten

at the top of Paradise Lane

I lived in the Paradise House

just below the irrigation ditch that stretched from Ashland to Talent

I walked lazily up the long roads 

finding new ways home from school

the park where I would stop to gather red berries

that I would throw at invisible foes

or through the church parking lot

with tree roots breaking through the asphalt 

or I would stop and feed grass to the pony at the bottom of the hill

I walked

dreaming and I was alone and if you lived in the Paradise House that was rare

I tell my mom stories she never knew from when I was a girl

I sang the pack of dogs away

circling with hackles bristling and yellow eyes watching

One by one those six dogs departed—

I could see my house up around the bend

only the final gravel driveway and then maybe a banana—

until the one mean final dog that had been watching show—

the one I had not seen—lurking in the balcony

waited till the other dogs allowed me to pass

before in leaps and bounds came charging

teeth and fur and leaping saliva flowing onto the ground

as his owner swooped in and arms circling and lifting snapped me up into the air

just as teeth closed around the fabric of my sock

and my mom

said I never knew about the other dogs

the ones you sang away

so that you wouldn't be eaten or torn to shreds as the circled you—

your knees and shorts and elbows at right angles—

It is no wonder you were so upset

because at the Paradise House

being charged by a beast 

and having clothing torn from bones and legs

to just in time the stranger arms are too soft and

whose mouth says—

usually the children have all been by here already,

I wait to let her out till they've all gone home—

sweeps in and saves me stitches and pain

is ordinary 

Transvergent Peripheries

This morning I found my glasses. They were made to help me read, more, I find, they help me focus.

Red mud rides up the hem of my pant legs and soaks through down to my socks and into my bones. I push against physical exhaustion with the determination that deliverance is a town somewhere south of here.

My house is cold as wet rocks. The firewood is slow burning and doesn't really catch rather just sits about smoldering for hours not producing much heat. The freeze happens between midnight and morning.

The birds are nesting: starlings build their nests in the eves of the arena
woodpeckers shoot
their rapid fire tat a tat tat on the metal girders and it is gunfire.


Dry Creek is turbid and rolls boulders and trees noisily down the banks. I watch the river rise in feet as it rains in inches. Spring pushes up and out and the rain washes parts of the road away.

I searched thirstily for the glass beside my bed
My arm and hand numb
unable to grip
the glass slid from my hand
shattered on the bare floor.

And, Fuck all Anyways

my heart bridges time and space
and alone together
there is neither theme
nor melody
to this love song

the constant drizzle of the mid march rain is a solace to this heart; the grey softens the edges of my eyes
and I find that the wide open hole in my chest where my heart beats
is blanketed against the storm
which blows in and out and up and out again
a lover between the sheets

and I single all of you out
for listening to the silent music
and for ignoring my pleas
for seeing
and believing but not trusting

the wind
enough to take off your shirt
and pull down your skirt
and let the rain and the wind and the mud
cover your knees and coat your belly

and fuck all of that silent approval
and the nods of affection
of doing what is right
to be the one
who makes all the good feelings happen
so that no one feels small alone afraid
in this world of peas

and, fuck all of that

Blow Me Away

The storm in my chest beats thunder in my ears
I feel blood in my veins pumping after the storm

****

late in the evening when I've got nowhere to go
or someone to meet
I stop at a Circle K or a 76 gas station for coffee
and the black tar water that fills my cup satisfies
the part in me that grows weary of the perfection and artifice of
small batch hand picked and roasted coffees being sold to me across sterile granite counters—

it's all drugs
and driving and drinking
this swill mixed with ten of those little half and half creamers and two of the flavored ones
I know I am onto something

the bottom line
buying sunglasses in the gas station
because it's going to be a long night and I know that tomorrow when I wake up
my eyes are going to burn in my skull

and my legs are going to be lead
but I will be awake and the coffee's always hot
and they're never closed and always open
which suits me and I am not afraid to enjoy the shit because

it's drugs I am after

keep adding ingredients to the batter

We lost adventure with puberty, lost passion when we discovered alcohol. We traded innocence for experience and experience told us to grow the fuck up and behave; we listened. Afraid to change anything because if we change even one-little-thing everything might change, and the world may crumble to dust at our feet before we are able to see the sunrise sober with hot coffee in one hand and a tightly rolled tobacco in the other, standing alone on the sunrise with dawn and day being sung into being by thousands of songbirds and the heart says, one more day to be here, thank god for all of that lost passion, adventure, innocence so that now I know how to breath at all. I am not too good with words but my sense is that all of this life just gets us closer to life if we let the wind into the wind and let the dust out of the heart and just soar and say why the fuck not to the biggest dreams of now and tomorrow and let's forget yesterday because though it happened and I love it is gone and never to be repeated neither its perfection nor its imperfection, all of that gone for good, thank god.

black, white, and the thin grey line

Last night the wind howled. It was proud and warm at three am, tree limbs twisting against the rushing stars was music and it filled in my ears. I stood outside in my pajamas and a down vest, tucking a few pieces of firewood under my arm. The night smelled of blossoms, wet warm dirt, and I felt spring in that thick frenetic air. The fire needed to be banked and the dog let back in. He came up to my bed and rested his nose on the edge. I slapped the bare open expanse, the west side of my duvet, he is nimble for a big dog and he settled into that ocean of space filling it up with his rhythmic inhalations.

Rabbit Rabbit and Fox Fox Fox

My eye lids are sand against my eyes. I cannot believe that quarter to five is a reasonable time to pull myself out of bed, so I sit there on my cushion focusing on my inhalation for as long as I can before springing forward up and out into the day. The result of an overly active pituitary gland, or my metabolism is in hyperdrive, or I just have an abnormal relationship to time and my body seems to be ruling my mind these days.

Rain has come to the farm: The wet grass hits my leg mid-calf; the clay based soil becomes soft and dangerously slippery underfoot. I bundle and wrap my body for this and am grateful for the rain and for the gray which is soft on my eyes.