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Nostalgia
Posted 1:28 PM, Apr 27, 2005 |
I thought I should write you something because I haven’t written to you here lately except about oranges and sleeping and pirates.
I am going on vacation for 6 days. Don’t expect any new posts here until I come back, and even then, I’ll need some time to get myself back together. So maybe by June.
I started to feel nostalgic the other day, looking at a 2-year-old photograph of me and a couple other guys at a hockey game. Two of us, the two that live here in Minneapolis, have some sort of beard now and so we look, well, young in that photograph.
Well, that was a good time, anyway, is my point. Good times are hard(er) to come by, it seems. The relationship between good times and age is an inverse one. The older we get, the more baggage we carry around. The more baggage we carry around, the harder it is to set that down and just have a good time. At least that’s been my experience, and something tells me that even I am too young to think such a thing.
Maybe life isn’t supposed to be all serious.
Or, better: Maybe life isn’t supposed to be serious at all.
Things would be way easier if we were all dumb as newts. Sure, more of us would get hit by cars and stuff, but we wouldn’t worry about catching airplanes and how we were going to pay for next month’s rent.
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The Last of Sleep
Posted 8:33 AM, Apr 26, 2005 |
last night, i pressed all the sleep
out of my body, squeezing
away the last of it like a stack
of anvils on a fleshy orange,
leaving only the rind, dry
and narrow.
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I Am a Pirate Artist
Posted 12:24 PM, Apr 25, 2005 |
you were the best artist i ever saw,
sitting in the bow, masts extending
from your paper, almost casting shadows
across the page. i watched your hand
slide in loops and mark straight
lines in swift cuts. i tried to copy
your hand, sitting next to you, a splinter
through my breeches, when you looked
me in the eye with your one eye,
the patch hanging like an eclipsed moon,
and everything became clear.
the next day, at sunup, i crawled from my cabin
and sat next to you, curled paper collecting
sea mist on my lap. i smiled and you winked,
or blinked, at me, and i winked back and reached
into my pocket. i pulled out an eye patch,
the black loop of string dangling
like an oval frame through which i could
watch your wizened face.
i have never been a better artist
than the times when i wear a patch.
i see everything in two dimensions,
my depth perception collapsed into a black
ball the size of a period. now i just
write what i see, like a perfect speller
taking transcription.
sometimes, when i’m having trouble sleeping
in the rolling cabin, i draw without
an eye patch, everything coming
out crooked and bent and wrong,
and i know that those drawings are my heart,
spilled onto the page in thin, wavy lines
of black blood.
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Oranges
Posted 10:23 PM, Apr 24, 2005 |
I
the first time we met, i noticed your
shampoo had the faint smell of oranges.
the first thing i thought of was laying
in freshly-cut grass in an orchard, a gentle
rain starting to fall, the drops rolling along
the pebbled orange peels like crystal
comets racing around the sun.
II
the last time i saw you, you spilled your
beer on me, using an awkward hug
as an excuse. my leather jacked smelled like hops
for the rest of the night. when i picked
it up from the cleaner, he held out an orange
rind he found in the pocket, shriveled
like my grandmother’s skin.
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Beard
Posted 9:14 AM, Apr 21, 2005 |
The beard has been described as being:
scruffy, handsome, ratty, and distinguished.
Oh, and itchy. Don’t forget itchy.
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M&Ms
Posted 12:28 PM, Apr 18, 2005 |
How do you eat your M&Ms? When I get them, I like to sort them by color, mentally if possible, and then start eating the most plentiful ones. I like to eat enough of the most plentiful ones to bring it down to the level of the least plentiful. Once each color has the same number, then I eat one from each color, around and around, until they’re all gone.
I like to keep all the colors on an even playing field, I guess is what I’m saying.
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Ghost Story
Posted 10:27 AM, Apr 14, 2005 |
i broke my arm in sixth grade
and the teacher sneered as she hunched
over me, her nose scrunched at the lime
green smell of sulfur slipping from the inside
of my hollowing bone.
when i was in ninth grade i walked
through the stage curtain in the hardwood
gymnasium. the hanging velvet tickled
my liver and my blood passed through
like water through a screen. it was after school, so
nobody noticed, nobody
but me, nobody at all.
the summer after i graduated, i swung
my feet out of bed, the sun casting
a pale diamond on the floor. my feet
melted through the carpet, cold at first,
then warm. the inside of my house
was a great lake into which i slid.
now i walk between rooms, sitting across
from my parents eating cereal and reading
the paper. my mouth moves and my mother
stands to close the window, complaining
of a slight, icy breeze.
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Quiet Calculus
Posted 9:42 AM, Apr 12, 2005 |
I
the molecules of my body
are deposited across chairs and clothes
and wound bedsheets. i have left
an indelible imprint where i live,
leaving pieces of my heel, a sliver
of fingertip along the wall,
an atomic smudge beneath the lightswitch.
II
i hate my chemistry,
the long, lean lines
of chromosomes, the genetic
material stretching like ribbons
around family photos. it’s all curled
up inside, the genes for my upset
stomach tying themselves in quiet
knots, twisting around my finger
and reminding me not to forget
everything that happened before.
III
i have shed the last element
of my adolescence. my body
is a manmade compound, put
together by the thick cords
of marriage. the ropes are flimsy,
like those laying across a circus tent,
flat on the grass in the predawn morning,
yellowing the trampled lawn and wet with dew.
IV
the quiet calculus of chromosomes
pushes from the past; the science of change,
the mathematics of evolution.
i am the product of a thousand numbers,
each glowing briefly and then extinguished,
each ancestor a prayer candle that has long
since dripped into a smooth pool
of wax on the underside of my foot.
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More and More
Posted 7:43 AM, Apr 6, 2005 |
More and more of my posts are things like, “I’m still here, don’t leave,” or, “I’m really busy, keep reading.”
Today, I’m opting for:
I’m still here, keep reading. Also, I’m really busy, don’t leave.
Well, I’ll be back, maybe tomorrow, with more excitement… if you can handle it.
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Quote of the Day
Posted 3:35 PM, Apr 1, 2005 |
“The candy dish of my soul is empty.”
- Me
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