Item 8: Full Text Transcript (240k)

The small apartment smells a little from the windows being closed against the
humidity.  I don't have any place to put the butts from the ashtray and I
really don't want to waste my time doing domestic things anyway.  Time seems
too valuable for that.  But the job of cleaning now has become overwhelming. 
I hate living in an apartment and not on the road because messes remind me of
stagnation.  I am stagnating and the garbage reminds me, the ashtray, and
the clothes I have to smell before wearing.  This is wearing thin.  My
writing is going just fine, but I am not following Eastern Daylight Time, but
Hawaiian Time.  I have been away since bright and early at 2:30pm and shall go
to sleep in an hour or so, around 4:30am.  Its certainly the typical hours for
work in downtown Honolulu.  Maybe Los Angeles.  Okay, LA, but I'll never
admit to having to do anything with that place.  

The Mark of the octopus from that day were as flowing and dynamic as the
patterns dancing on the flesh of the Seattleite.  Half-shirts, tank-tops,
halter-tops, no shirt at all.  The dancing of the image on the flesh; the
tinkling of rings and jewelry.  The clicking against the teeth as the boy
absentmindedly plays with the silver barbell in his tongue as he pulls you
off a shot of espresso.  

She craves them now, those accents she tried to hard to lose, folding
around her like an overwashed comforter, tucked about sleeping babies on
the couch. Instead there is the blinking cursor and the ringing phone,
and outside the window the last of the summer tourists, sharing the
Washington sidewalks with lawyers and bureaucrats and bagladies and
t-shirt vendors, 3 for $10.

The freeze-dried ice-cream reminds me of my father's ashes as I emptied them
from an oak box into the midnight blue sea off Waikiki. The freeze-dried
icecream reminds me of the ashes held tight by a Boston family for all to share
later, when everybody has all but forgotten.

McLaughlin
John F. 1893- 1967
Gladys E. 1903 -

At the end she'd said she wanted to be buried with her parents instead.
And then with both her parents and her husband. "You can't do both," they
told her, "unless you're cremated." "Oh, how wonderful. I can be
scattered to the winds." Or, more precisely, "scattuhed."

No Waikiki seas for Gladys -- just the box with Dad in St. Joseph's
Cemetary (the stone filled in at last, 1903-1997), a bit under geraniums
with her parents, a spoonful sprinkled over the Wishing Rock at 41
Addington Road (the room above the porch haunted, the present dwellers
tell us, in the house that is always home in our dreams), a thimbleful on
White Horse Beach, a pinch or two set aside for whenever her Mt. Shasta
calls.

And as we spread her dust, we brought our own to her, small baggies of
dirt
from our scattuhed homes, emptied into the grave. And, of course, a
handful of M&Ms for Dad.

The boat rode low, there were so many people chain-smoking Viceroy Golds and
drinking scotch out of tiny paper cups. Little chips of ice rachetted at the
hollow plastic bottom of the several ice-coolers on the boat.

The lights of Honolulu and Waikiki sparkeled. On clear nights, it always
appears that lava is rolling down the mountains from the Koolau mountains, down
Manoa Valley, and along the ridges of Pacific Heights and Hawaii Kai. The
light of homes along the ridges mimic this flow. The coursing streetlights and
the softer lights of the homes, of lava hardening.

Inside the oak box (there is no gravestone, no marker except in our hearts, in
his images) I was surprised to see a gray platic bag. I felt strangely like
a consumer as I untwist the wire and tasted the ash as it wafted up from the
brisk tradewinds off shore.

We held our Glasses high, some of the amber fluid leaking. Someone wanted
to pour some whisky into the box. Some wanted to give the ash a cigarette.
I kept the box close and insured that the ashed where deposited into the sea,
none of it to be kept. I gave the box to his partner. My mother looked
quite affronted by the burial. Not by the burial, but rather by the drunken
dandies and hussies making such a spectacle of themselves, offering booze and
smoke to the remains, the ashes of a man who had died.

All the while a gentle breeze, the flowers riding the waves having been thrown
in after. The leis slowly wilting on the string: carnations, orchids, tube
roses. Thrown to the waves and little fish, the eels, turtles, anemonies
taking the ash into their bodies. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Bleary-eyed, out the door, an hour early. Pre-dawn. Dawn. My backpack and
the quarter for school lunch. The paper bus pass. Walking from the apartment,
down the slope of Punchbowl. Even Honolulu is chilly early. Rubber
slippers, backpack. Waiting there at the bus stop before the eternal flame
(for the dead men of the war).

Hawaii is blessed with the most wonderful bus system. The fares are cheap and
the people are all friendly and bright and the bus driver always takes care
of the kids. There are always very young kids taking the bus to better schools
away from their area, supplying addresses from their auntie or cousin as
their own -- anybody who lives in that school district.

I was lucky that my bus drove straight to Salt Lake, where the school is. And
then Walked down the small slope and to the little orange room where we
picked up the reflective tape and vests, silver whistles and batons for
stopping traffic for the kids coming to school hours after we did.

No, I never took a yellow bus, except when going on field trips to the
Aquarium, to a theme park, to the youth symphony. Funny, I took TheBUS
everywhere, even earlier than 11, but commuting on the bus at 12 seemed very
menacing and awfully mature. I loved it and it excited me to no end.

School life and the life carried out on the yellow school bus was very
different there . . . .

But the morning haze. Is it fog? It shrouds the river. The water fowl
come to sight in grand grey silhouettes. the icy dense humid air swallows
the songs. makes morning even earlier.

The yellow of fog lamps. The hong of a horn. The wail of a siren. Only
these abominations remind me of rush hour.

These and the bloated grey carp, their bellies cut and rotted, bobbing
along with the current. The knives cutting, the singles pass. I am not
ever certain if the racing shells are physical or am I seeing things.
They never make any noise. When I rowed in an eight, there was grunting,
there was a coxwain and a cox box and a coach in a skiff and the clank of
the oar in the oarlock.

But not these singles. These knives. They are to electric cars as eight
man crews, the sweeps, are to the inefficient inline eights of the old
american gas guzzlers. Faster, yes, but an inelegant gracelessness.

Why? From the high rocks, we can only imagine: the stretch of muscle and
wits. The adrenaline. Dancing with the
river gods, and with the half dozen ghosts reborn in this gorge every
year.

And, of course, feeling superior to the rock people, who will turn away,
soon enough, to the tug of a small hand: "Can we go now?"

"Soon, soon."

The other night, running through the close boughs
of the forest, the fingers picking at my clothing;
the bugs biting through skin and into vessels, I
caught sight of several irridescent beetles darting
several steps off the trail in a small bright
clearing.

I changed my course, away from the strong river,
and came upon wild mushrooms formed in a circle.
The bugs were gone and the trees were still. Even
the birds had decided to zip their mouths.

On my wall is a drawing of my dream corner in Mill Valley where I hope to
dance over the hills into the headlands and view the bay and San Francisco.

Right now I am working on a retreat to Ogden, Utah where I am conversing
iwth a real estate development project on how to thread a sense of community
and health. I should be landing there some time in the next 2 weeks and
maybe get my first real peak of snow in 6 years.

But even old dreams evolve, from ruled pads and pencil, to notebooks and
fountain pen and inky fingers, to typewriter, to this keyboard and carpal
tunnel twinges. New to the dream, along one wall there is a low table,
with a row of paintpots. No brushes. On the white walls I have taped my
fingerpaintings, and my images and words are starting to dance together,
like the lights of the city over the waters of the bay.

and there is the time of the day when it is already spent and you call of
the dogs and make sure you're set up for the next day for another time
with other people. did i miss not kissing this year. no. did i miss not
fighting? no. being with the people was all it was about this year.
seing the two sets of lover kiss. good enough for this bechelor.

want the scene from harry met sally. want the tuxedo and the lbd, want
the cold NY apt and the balcony or the roof. want the brownstone. want
the flights to paris. want the seine. want the metroliner and the
washboard stomach and the dresses that press and pull and move and
restrict and the touch of lips, the sharing of wine through the lips.

the saline solution of love. the movement of timespace thrugh the veins
and out the skin in a musky agent. the attraction unexplained or
explained matters not. the soft but firm flesh at the hip, the smooth
hairless skinn looked at scrutenised -- there is always a peach fuzz. it
can be seen after the body is lovingly painted in watersoluble paints
under a high sun.

as the night effects not the room but inks out the windows i listen to
music telling me it'll be okay. the screen on the telly is blue. the
vcr isn't feeding tape. if it did it would be the film _Breathless._

new york herald tribune! new york herald tribune!

bugatti said, "cars were made to go not to stop"

i talked to a photographer today who told me how to sue based on
copyright infringement. the song is over. i believe its going to be
okay because it always has been before and 1998 is cake. and at least i
am not hearing voices.

"clean up you pad for your guests. good call on the gift for mum -- she
knows you love her now that you finally gaver her the movado. the useum
watch, the love, the swiss movement and the battery that has to be changed
in 2000. clean the wndows alone, do it and realise that everybody but you
has the style enough to collect all those matchbooks begotten at the
restaurants and arranged into linedry art long the walls. then you will
be able to invite guestst over to enjoy the brazillian collection of
music, the eddie murphy album, the vynl and enjoy the love affair you
devote to a happy despressive blonde. the blonde who lights up your
life.. the boy who perfoms the spear chucker dance as the music from
brazil which sounds more indian or thai than anything from a portuguese-
speaking south amaerican nation has the right to.

"my name is not noraa and i want to see you again soon; my name is not
noraa and I want to see you again soon; my name is not noraa and i want to
see you again soon. I dvorce you; I devorce you; I divorce you. Three
strikes and you're out.

Truth is, I'm deep in the heart of deadline deadlock. Can't quite remember the
last night of uninterrupted sleep. Reality sidesteps, tangoes with Harry
Houdini, and suddenly the only thing left is the keyboard and the screen.
Everything else is smoke and Swiss cheese.

It does take over, you know. No matter how prosaic the task of creation, still
it calls your all to the fore. Artist's joy, artist's terror: while you are
an artist, there is nothing else you can be. Not friend, nor husband, nor
lover. Not neighbour, not enemy - nothing but a font. And one can but hope that
the water is untainted.

So this is where I am. Trapped rabbitwise by the headlight white glare of
the square eye. Outside, in the world my imagination paints there is a sun that
shines, there are insects chirring in trees I have created especially for the
day. There has been sweet rain, and the air is fresh. I have friends not far
away, dancing in sharp wine and laughter.

If only everything remains when I have done.

head full of cleaning fluids. the oven still leaks brown fluid from the
clean. spray foam all over inside of oven, starting at the top, and close
and leave until morning. wipe with warm water, repeat.

two women coming. no deadlines except one. hopkins wants a letter of
intent from me. only 2 pages long but my how I have avoided it. masters
in writing. masters in baiting. cleaning the sheets, keeping the wndows
open for the air outside mirrors closer than not the fine breeze of dirk's
summer. T-shirt weather, 4 Jan 1998. Stayed inside and mucked around.

writing to me is just as it said. the pressure of the journal's leaves
and where to make another mark. pencils like to break off their leads and
although my pelikan writes smooth on the cotton bond, the days of movement
empty fountains into you pocket or all over the pages.

spilled ink and blotches, rubs and smears make a journal. and this little
lcd screen looks up to me in its grayscale. begging me to return to pen
and paper. wondering what I should do with my manual typewriter and would
it be pretentious if I tried writing on it? Tried starting a novel in the
most novel manner?

a surprising number of contemporary authors still use manual typewriters;
a sizable number of writers still use their old reliable selectric II.
And how is that direct response of paper and wrtten notes and white out?
Is that more real and if proust and joyce and hemingway and fitzgerald
could hobble along on their enameled portables.

just ordered the complete poems of hemingway. what an odd thing to buy.
i have zero exp[ectations. and radiohead is speaking to me and saying
that I should fade out again; and fade out again. the words fill the
townhouse and i am so wanting the neighbors to call the police. it has
been a boring day.

two jumps in a week i bet you think that'[s pretty clever don't you boy/
flying on your motorcycle watching all the ground beneath you drop/ you
kill yourself for recognition you kill yourself to never ever stop/ you
broke another you are turning into something you are not/ don't leave me
high don't leave me dry/ don't leave me high don't leave me dry. drying up
n conersation you will be the one who cannot talk/ when all your insodes
fall to pices you just sit and wish you could still make love/ they're the
ones who hate you ... lost the lyrics -- cant keep up...

The sky is clear and there is the notable warmth. El nino. The Child. I
smelled vomit in many places and am wondering if it is me. Am I decaying? The
black children stand near their intermediate school on Pennsylvania Avenue, SE,
near the Eastern Market. The low morning sun paints their smooth skin yellow.
I envy that yellow. My face will always looks jaundiced under that light.
Their faces, golden. It takes evening light, the light from a red orange
sunset to paint the white face gold.

The funny thing about the group Radiohead is that whenever I have an
epiphany (for the past two years), there is some semblance of their album
"The Bends" playing.

Especially that song I insisted on transcribing from the live broadcast on
99.1FM, "Just Passing Through."

"two jumps in a week i bet you think that'[s pretty clever don't you boy/
flying on your motorcycle watching all the ground beneath you drop/ you
kill yourself for recognition you kill yourself to never ever stop/ you
broke another you are turning into something you are not/ don't leave me
high don't leave me dry/ don't leave me high don't leave me dry. drying up
n conersation you will be the one who cannot talk/ when all your insodes
fall to pices you just sit and wish you could still make love/ they're the
ones who hate you..."

When I was younger and was first initiated into magic, I really needed a level
of guidance my friends in college couldn't provide. As a diver, all my
metaphor revolved around the sea. When I plunged deep into the depths of my
mind and my not mind, I would swim energetically as deep as I could and the
quicker the better.

Sometimes, I would be abandoned at that depth. I would get spooked and
would kick off the floor (or rather, merely a ridge -- I don't think anybody
has really plumbed it truth depth) and shoot like a missle towards the
glimmering dapple of the clouds.

I would feel the bends. I would feel as thought the pressure inside me and
the surrounding environment were imbalanced. I could feel the fizz in my
blood, an opened bottle of seltzer.

I would panic. I would realise there were only minutes until the air would
form bubbles large enough to block a vein, to traumatize my brain.

It was times like these I would really unsderstand what panic was, what
vulnerability could be.

@!KAT

At the turn of the year, I made silent vow to myself to find some actually
organization and focus in my disorderly, turn-of-the-adult world. Funny when
I think about it at times of reflection, I can picture the world inside my head
rather ever-changing. Light and dark, cool and warm, more like the weather
around this ZOO in the 'Zoo. Lime greens and bold purples, then soft blues
and homely yellows, circular dreams and square realities, vines of the jungle
among the cobwebs of my inspirations.

Home among my books and summer weather in my un-insulated room and spring
weather in the backyard, the tarot cards and cd's, candles, many, many
candles and dark panels. Here I am safe and here I am me.

@!KAT

i am a data plumber and mac plumbs pipes, lead, filled with immovable shit.
my data collisions and his turds. the a/c, the turd, urine filled vats
yellow viscous and stinking.

a boy told me he must suffer so suffer he shall; a boy told me his life is
gravy and delicious and it is it is. poor fools poor fools but i cannot
blame them because look at all their friends and parents and world and school
and look at the darkness of the clothing.

rather, vivid colors. rather, catch a rainbow. rather, embrace the vibrating
illusion. i won't accept your downer bullshit cause it might infect my sunny
disposession.

Late at night, the only thing alive is my mind and my writer's voice,
sometimes a whisper at the back of my mind, other times a shout I turn
frantically for but no one else hears. House settling, vent rattling, clock
chiming the hour, quarter after, half-hour, quarter to...every fifteen minutes,
part of my life is gone away. I used to waste away the hours, no one to share
them with, why do anything? Old habits die hard, as I now have many people, I
still sit alone when they are not there. alone, together, flip-sides of the
same mirror. When you are with people, you long to belong, when you are not,
you still wish to be with them.

Tick-tock....tick-tock....tick-tock....mind shuts off and soul uncovers the
cloth...

Sometimes, I just want to dance. I want my feet to jump and sweep along the
old carpeting of the confined space that is my living room, feeling my arms
stretch out and my legs twirl me around and around. I want to move my arms
and legs and twist about and feel graceful, feel immortal, with my dreams
hanging in the ceiling and my fallings-out in the basement, forgotten for the
moment. Sometimes...

@!KAT

and fly..

Wait your turn. Never miss your mark.

anyway, off to the ground level, the surface. ate a tuna sandwich. a pickle.
some chips. an herbal tea drink. still had 40 minutes left. sunny day but
its raining. spritzing. clear sky. where's the rain coming from? no answers
but refreshment and a prize.

a double rainbow loomed above the city, causing people to stare dumbfounded
into the sky. the sky behind the bow was almost purple. i could have sworn
i could register ir, uv.

people in suits stood stansfixed. people in skirts stood transfixed. the
site seduced me away from the route. i walked up 15th street, towards
mcpherson square. the bow topped my present movements. drawing me from NY
towards K.

sunny's surplus; espresso; soft spray of rain from a cloudless sky. woman
in earth tones. her long skirt sliced up to the hip. the most aluring tease
of movement. the shiny leather heel, the sheer stocking, and the slit, the
thigh less visible than in a pair of shorts or a swimsuit of the most
conservative cut. less is more. less is more, and its all in the delivery.

that thigh was absolutely desirable. more than an exposed breast, more than
bending from the hip or the low cut shirt, more than the minidress or the
daring lbd, more than sheer or transparent. the quick peek of the knee, from
the heavy wool skirt wrapped like sarong, falling to the ankle. rushing the
light, the soft white dough of the inner thighflash thighflash until she passes
from view and i sit and compose, sit and compose.

the fire is usually dead until spring. the weather of winter ala el nino is
stoking flames better left deep within the protective bog of the everyheating
compost heap.

then again, when I hit fifty...I'd like to be as energetic as they are... ;)

(: RED :)

tired again tonight, but a craving to write burns bright inside me, so bright,
it's a dancing temptation. a curse for the uninspired, a blessing when in
need of self-expression...sex, sex, sex...seems the word is all i hear and
never do, but 'tis not a bad thing. when i lie with him, when he touches me,
when we hold each other, kiss, hug, caress, massage, we make love...just not
the scientific definition, just our own.

@!KAT

camel haiku

Smoke curls, like kisses,
gather dangerously... Then,
slowly, I exhale.

numinous mornings
intertwined dreams, and dreamers
septisensual.

(: RED :)

her words on the screen. x-sender. x-reply. x-header. she at work, me
putting off the rower. the words. "how can you remember all of this?" she
asks, "or a you making it up as you go along?"

Arising from beneath the cool water, I splashed and held my breath inbetween
moments...at a pool in January. Stress of exams over until thwaveades arrive at
my mailbox...

@!KAT

x-nutsack: x-bozo: x-girlfriend return tcpip dkny.

communication; communication. i wonder as i masticate in the tub how your eyes
at this moment look -- irises lashes lids heavy lidded soft dusk. how
insesnitive playing, stereo. how can i remember all this? remembering your
orgasms, how can i forget?

hmmmm, donut. jelly.

mike reads a book. abbey sleeps on her favorite pillow curled into a ball of
white fluff next to him. i reach through the wires wondering what part of my
presence adds to the beauty i find here. feelings of unworthiness,
inadequacy always walk in my hand clasped with sadness.

and then it turns to just a feeling of being blessed, to know warmth, real
love, new and lifetime friendships, what else is there to happiness?

it is grey outside for another day. it wraps round my soul.

But what about the rewrites? And it looks like three of the nine chapters
didn't make it through the e-mail gauntlet, but that's all right, because the
printer in the publisher's office is down for the count, so you've got at least
five days. To put in that extra 15000 words you really wanted to.

And don't forget to show up for the publicity shots on Friday, oh no - front
steps of the Art Gallery, you and Birmingham. Trying to look cool in black in
the heat and glare from the too-white angled concrete wasteland of the Museum
complex, and meanwhile Natalie's on night duty, so no sleep by night, no
sound by day, and I just remembered, only just now that on Friday I will be
thirty-two years of age...

van to take kids to omaha is cancelled, it's always something, wood burning
stove needs so much clearance in my new home office it now stands in the middle
of the room and will scorch me if i light it i am sure...too much heat in my
life. dust is everywhere, in my eyes, choking the breath from my throat, my
lungs wheeze and i think of the vaporizer and its calming shoo, shoo, i slept
to all my life as a kid, and i miss it's comforting sounds, and i imagine
hope and her children singing...and i want to be a child again, with someone
rocking me to sleep, feeling safe, warm, loved and unworried about deadlines or
dead pets, or dead children, or building inspectors or superintendents who wish
to ooogle my office tomorrow.

it is still grey, but grey fits and strangely comforts.

He's complains that I am not nice enough to him. I took his coke at lunch
and wouldn't let him have any..he never said "please"..he just grabbed, as
usual, only this time, it was the coke bottle he was after, not my ass.

But I'm not his slave, not his whore now. I won't give him the coke, and
scratch him to the point of drawing blood when he tries to take the bottle from
me. "Fuck off! It's mine!" We sound like preschoolers in the middle of the
cafeteria.

He claims that I am immature....I'm not nice to him....I'm a bitch.
Course...I'm 15 and I smile broadly as I think, "I could land his ass in jail
if he's not careful."...I'm a bitch

(: RED :)

day of new classes, confrontations, work and coming home to realize no one
cares and i am alone in this fight for who i am. why are the simplest things
the hardest to accomplish? i try to do it my way and you come home and tell
me i'm just wasting my time. how many times have i longed to pack up what i
need and leave, hitching to another place, only to drown the thought in a
corner of mind out of fear of anger and resentment because i did what i wanted.
why is frustration so hard to overcome? why can't i make myself understand?

why do i cry so hard?

@!KAT

"challenge your man," she told her child, "with crying. tell him you will not
feel truly close to him unless he takes you in his arms and has a good cry.
comment openly on the president as he cries -- mention how real men cry, and
how crying is healthful and removes all the toxins that lead to premature
heartdisease. you'll catch him, sooner than later. if he does, if he really
lets loose beside you, clutching to you and holding you tight enough to bruise,
he is weak. he is a weak man and he will never stop once he has started. wait
for a stoic man, a man who can be more of a rock, more of a safe harbour within
which your family is secure."

And I spent twenty years being the stoic one, sane and stable through the
tears and the euphoria and the rages. I made, by sheer force of will, the safe
harbor, the secure family.

Now it's safe for me to cry, and I no longer need to.

"Now it's safe for me to cry, and I no longer need to."
". . .a toilet paper commercial, for chrissakes, what's up with that?"
"Every tear I've shed has watered my dreams,. . ."

every word has brine infusion; every desire we feel comes from sadness. i
know i am melancholy no matter what anyone calls it. people say the word
"weep" too often, it has lost its meaning, like the word "love." what does
that word mean?

can we trust the tear? i know people who can fake it.

"seduction," sayeth beaudriard, "is a forever-changing dance: first one
lover leads, then -- given one misstep -- the other."

what i want is a love relationship with someone who will allow me to not
have to fight for lead but also not shirk from my desire to be lead. i am
a damned good harbour and will be a fine husband to a wife and kids, but i
don't want to be afraid that this is all i can be.

the day is bright. the calves of city girls flash in my mind, from behind
the slits in the stretching fabric.

i have been accused of loving all women. was this a compliment or a
warning? i have been told i must be gay, is that because i love all women?
i have been told i am a womanizer. i have been told i am a lover of women,
all. i have been told i have been antisocial. i have been told i am too
social. i am told i am confidant. i have been told i am hung up. i have
been told i am insecure. i have been told i am an eccentric, but mustn't
someone be much older and richer to hide behind this label. merely mad?
sainted? creative? all these monikers both blessing and other. what is
there to believe?

I don't cry unless it's something really, really important...i can't, I won't.
Crying is a weakness, and I don't put up with it at all..

(: RED :)

Watching, thinking, listening makes me realize my own inadequacy in
thought...how can one make the mind understand all these wonderful things
that it refuses to decipher? How does one go about disciplining the mind from
thinking what you don't wish to think? Sometimes I feel I am to burst out
crying thinking of all I lose every second and other times the frustration of
failing makes me want to run through the walls.

Ahhh, sanctuary in the arms on a couch, trading stories of learned trials
and crafted art. The one thing I miss during the long hours of conforming
hell is the way I am when surrounded by those arms, those thoughts, that
laughter, those eyes and that smile.

It's when I realize everyone else, that I realize how small and average I am
and how much learning I need to do of my own and not that of textbooks.

@!KAT

"I know!" he says cheerfully, grinning at me, his large eyes shining.

Freshmen....

I pull out my walk man and start to untangle the headphones. He
reaches across the aisle and snatches the machine. "What are you
listening too?"

"Alex!!" I whine, reaching for it. "Give it back!"

He grins and sets it back on my seat and sits back...so he wants to
play...damn...

It's not that I don't like him, I suppose...he had really long hair at
the begining of the year, so April and I always called him Pretty Boy.
He's 16, runs track, was on the wrestling team too...he wears shorts
in the winter and falls over backwards into the snow on purpose when
he gets off of the bus, just to make us all laugh.

"Here, this is what I'm listening to." I toss him the head phones.

"Lemme guess," he says excitedly. "Manson? ICP?" I shake my head.
"Both?"

"Nope."

I press play and I can faintly hear the beginings of Nine Inch Nails
intro to "Get Down, Make Love"...and original song by the late Freddy
Mercury of Queen...but an excellent remake all the same.

Pretty Boy puts his bag on the floor and I slide across the aisle
without Mr. Walker seeing it.

"It was so weird seeing you in the hall today without all your hair."
he says, as I pull off my hat. He reaches up to touch it, then thinks
better and puts his hand back down. He cut his hair off shortly after
getting on the westling team..April and I were very annoyed...but I
was even more annoyed...I loved his hair that way...

We talk as usual, about anything that comes to mind. He tries to make
me laugh and I frown until I can't help it anymore and burst into
hysterics, calling him an asshole for making me lose control. He
thinks it's great and does it again, just because he can. What a
bastard... but I;ve never meant it seriously....

"I'm tired. I'm going to sleep!" I announce suddenly, and lean my head
against his shoulder.

"Ok." he says. I was expecting him to shrug me off...

After a few minutes: "You're shoulder isn't very comfortable." I
murmur softly. He drops his shoulder down a bit and says "Better?" in
a low murmur...what the hell? I nod. He's looking at me funny, so I
close my eyes and pretend not to notice.

We pull into the trailer park that's his stop. I sit up and let him
out of the seat. He hops out of the bus and then, standing in front of
my window, he flops over backwards into the snow, looks up at me and
waves....

dirk consoles red; red flirts with pretty boy; never enough hours in the
day, says kat.

i raise my hands, unable to delete any more, anymore. words are words and
editing is not the proper way of the white man to remember history.
herstory.

"He thinks it's great and does it again, just because he can."

email and _bound_ all evening with a former lover. the woman hurt me, but i
asked for it. now her friends root for us. i haven't been an us for a
long time. emails back and forth, telephone rings past my bed time. i
answer, its she.

_bound_ -- she and i are attracted to the same women. I say this, she
replies for me to be careful she might be jealous.

virtual girlfriend. the woman who broke my heart, the woman i broke my
heart over. blunt bob, thin features, smooth lithe cream skin. creamy.
little, better say petite. elle est tres petite.

She is C&S.

"He thinks it's great and does it again, just because he can."

Dirk says, "Red - better a moment of weakness that passes as the tears dry
than days of the pain and effort it takes to conceal the
sadness. Once you've wept, the tears are gone, but the struggle not to weep
binds you for long, long... "

I say, there is always an ember you can ignite if you have the patience and
are willing to spend the vital energies.

i remember: the line of her body when first i removed the clothing. the
place behind the pillow where she kept her pajamas. the crooked back from
the scoliosis. the little fingers little hands. the firm budding. the
blunt hair, hark and rich.

a friend told her, "he cared for you, pimples and all."
this friend is "rooting for us, for you for me."

ben and jerry's is an ice cream store.
they sell ice cream to women
they sell ice cream to hope.
in an old post office
next to the pennsylvania
river...

"saying that they were going
to put my dog down sometime that week"

"I ran into a wall when I was a baby. Really freaked my mom and my big
brother out, but I don't even remember it. Now, where were we?"

I hold him down in the emergency room, pinning his trunk and
legs with my body. His arms are wrapped in a sheet so that he can't
flail, but his small fists are clenched. The nurse
holds his head while the doctor slowly, so slowly ties those precise black
knots, five of them, one after the other. And he screams, and screams,
and screams,
his face purple, and the doctor blots the blood.

"I don't even remember it. Now, where were we?"

They had put him down last weekend. My dad had called to tell me Saturday
morning that they had given him a sedative and that he'd gone peacefully.
He was old. His time was near. It was the right thing to do....yeah...

I know. I'd had him since I was seven years old. Rufus, a 45 pound red
whippet, almost the color of my hair red. He slept with me everynight and
often tried to bulldoze me out of bed when I was younger and smaller. Once
he managed to dislodge my head from the pillow and I awoke with my head in
the wasterpaper basket beside my bed.

But he wasn't there now. He was dead and gone and there wasn't anything
that would bring him back. The other two dogs came close to me and I shyed
away from them and went upstairs. He wasn't on the bed, like he should
have been...the bed was neat and made and no one had touched since I had
last been there.

I went downstairs to fix something to eat. I wouldn't touch either of the
other dogs. Didn't acknowledge them. I pulled the quiche out of the fridge,
careful to avoid looking at the photo of rufus on the freezer door. I was
standing at the microwave, humming to myself and waiting for the quiche to
heat up, when I felt a familiar nudging at my foot.

RUFUS!!

But when I look down, it's just Mario. I withdraw with a hiss and start
backing into the corner.

"Go lie down Mario." I tell him harshly, but he's not listening, he wants
to sniff my feet. I keep backing up until I hit the corner. "Jesus fucking
Christ, go away!" I'm starting to shake. I don't want him to touch me. I
can't back any farther. I'm trapped. "Go lie down!" I yell. He's nearly
touching me. "For christ's sake, go away!!" I shriek at him.

Just then, my step-mother comes in and grabs his collar. "Common Mario."
she says light heartedly and leads him out into the living room...

I relax a little, open the micro wave door and start devouring my quiche..

Who am I tonight? Who will I be tonight? Who will give me a name?

Listen... I think I can hear them now.

Today, probably spurred on by the memories of a loved dog, his mind wanders to
his last pet. His only pet really, a small silvery goldfish stuck in a foot
high cylindrical plastic bowl. It swam back and forth, around a green
plastic plant for almost two years. I fed it irregulary, assuming, as I do
today, that it was more natural. I cleaned the tank three times. Only when it
died (by hang it self by the gills on the sharp end of one of the plant's
branches while I was at school one day) did I realize it existed.

Fish ain't cuddly, nor good companions. Lucky Me.

They died, of course, as fish will when you don't know what you're doing,
and I bought more fish, and they pretty much died too, and I learned a bit
and now the fish mostly stay alive except when they kill each other or die of
old age (how long does a fish live anyhow?) or splashing toddler fingers and
gifts -- a stick of bubble gun, a walkie talkie -- tossed into the tank, or
benign neglect brought on by the passive aggressiveness of knowing that when
I leave my house I will leave the fish behind. Just as I close the bathroom
door so I can't hear the incessent dribbling in the bathtub that will no longer
be mine, so too I let the algae and the nitrate levels grow unhindered, and
feed them just often enough to mostly keep them alive.

The stories of starving, fighting, drinking, singing Irish families..my
families. I hear the names of familiar towns that great great grandmother's
hailed from...I can see where I get my violent nature from, my wit, my
insatiable tendencies to drink, the stubbornness...or bitchiness, as people
like to call it...my fondness for dancing... All from these people.

I listen to their history, my history, while typing idlly at a computer
screen...over 100 years later, this world is so different, and I am so the
same.

(: RED :)

They say all my fights are merry and all my songs are said, but the dead are
always the same when we carry them home. Near a thousand years, now still
carrying the dead home, where they crowd the rafters, tittering and giggling in
the smoky dark above the lanternlights.

How many dead? How many for Brian Boru? How many for King Billy? How many
for Bloody Liza? How many for Black Cromwell? For Pearse and Collins and de
Valera? For the Green, the Orange, for the North and the South, for our wars
and for the wars of the world? How many for the year our crops turned black
in the fields? How many?

And all over the world, the sound of pipes, and flutes and drums. And all over
the world, we carry our dead with us, crowding the rafters, playing
catch-as-catch can with our shadows, dancing through our stories and our
songs until there's no more room for the living, only the endless procession of
the dead...

I wonder, sometimes, at the power of this remembering, this taking the ancient
grudge out of your pocket every so often to pet it a bit. It's rather like the
old songs and jingles that clutter your dark recesses, slipping out every so
often, completely beyond your control. Back, back, foul demon, to the pit that
spawned you.

i have faced my deamons, i am sure that's more than many of you can say.
we work along the same roads now, the low road, the high road, and I don't
know if the point of the game is to exorcise but to cohabitate. been told
the deamons are self. reading a book on seth. seth. seth.

"irish catholic boys from RC school
are rife with just a host of delicious
hand up hung up fuck up and amen"

Hope wrote, "'And this one?' she asks, and idly traces the faint white mark
on his forehead, with the gentlest of fingertips,' and I could feel the
finger. The fingertip, the tenderest pad of sworls.

The vortex, the complex. the tampex. being told how much the period can
hurt, how the woman is hit up for $250/month while men are charged but
$103. That's what my insurance charts say.

in saint petersburg, babuska would approach holly and beg her, child, to
get off the ground, get off the cement child, the cold rock -- it kills the
womb, it injurs the uterus.

a land that treats woman.
women are not men with breasts, boys.
can they not be equal if they aren't?
hat only equal if men with breasts?

expand.

my copy of _ulysses_ was signed by the poor trinket salesman in county
galway. important to me. galway kinnell was named after galways and i
love james joyce so it all seemed to fit like pieces to a cliche.

dunn, judge. county mayo, county cork. the high street, dublin.
the darned green busses in dublin's fair city, where the girls are
so pretty...

"no nay never no nay never no more..."

some of these irish pub, who's meme took hold in Baltimore and Houston St
long before they arrived here, are more irish than ireland; some of the
french cafe's here are more french than in france. some say, french
baguette: gone to merde.

merde. ) Re

divine grace.
my most important concept
at the moment.

divine grace
or just grace
i muse upon it
as a romantic
thinking it
will fix everything.

to be graceful
to have grace in
word and touch and
response and tongue.

divine grace as
came to amy in chasing
amy, so I am told in
a nyt review.

director smith says
he is "really into jesus."

Hope said, "I wonder, sometimes, at the power of this remembering, this
taking the ancient grudge out of your pocket every so often to pet it
a bit."

yes.

i was told my a wise man:
always forgive, never forget.

The body flails;
the uterus spasms;
the labia are pink
or painted with
stick; the cigarette
burn still shows
the phlegm is page
the work is easy
the tongue is green
and there are odd warts
in back and the auckland
chinese herbal doctor told
me i am strong and there is
luck there because one day
i will not be so strong and
i will be taken by the
power of my ignored
fevers.

Amongst the men of Maeve, who came as foes to the fief of Ulster, where the
Hound held his home, there were the sons of the Wizard Calatin. Many were they,
yet one. And they bore with them a bright-bladed spear, with weal to work.

When the wild warcries rose about them, the sons of the wizard Calatin gave
the spear to a warrior, and spoke: "This spear shall slay a king," they said.

"Well it shall be," answered the warrior, and the spear was cast at
Cuchulainn, the Hound of Ulster. But the spear did not hurt him, striking in
his stead his great horse, the Grey of Emain. Hardforged steel struck true
the steed's heart. Bright blood burst from his mouth, and the Grey of Emain
died there on the field.

Then the warrior retrieved his spear and turned to the sons of the Wizard
Calatin.

"Now you have slain the king of horses," said the Sons of the Wizard
Calatin. "Cast again. You shall yet slay a king."

Once more the bright spear flew at the Hound of Ulster in his chariot, and
again it turned aside from his battle fury, cleaving the chest of the
charioteer Laeg.

And again, the warrior recovered the spear.

"Now you have killed the king of charioteers," spoke the Sons of the Wizard
Calatin, "but cast again, and watch! You will slay a king indeed."

A third time the spear flew, and this final cast was more true than those
before. It entered the belly of Cuchulainn, and it is written that all his
entrails fell into the chariot at his feet, next to the body of his charioteer.

But the battle-fury was upon him, and Cuchulainn cared nothing for the
wound. He took up the spear and cast it back, and the warrior who had first
thrown it was driven into the earth by the force of the blow.

Even the Hound of Ulster must know his death wound, though, and even thus it
was with Cuchulainn. Gathering his entrails into his body, he took up the
body of the Grey of Emain, and his second horse, the Black of Macha drew the
gore-stained chariot to a nearby lake.

There it was that Cuchulainn washed himself, and combed his fine, black
hair. And when he was again clean as a warrior should rightly be, with a belt
he bound his body to a stone that stood on the shore, and with sword in hand,
waited the will of his foes.

They were not long in coming. The host of Maeve gathered around the body of
the hero, but none amongst them dared come close. About his head the hero-light
yet played, and though his wound gaped wide, his eyes were bright and the sword
was steady in his hand.

Then at last, a crow landed upon the white shoulder of the Hound, and with
courage no man yet knew, plucked an eye from its place in the head.

Surely the Hound of Ulster was dead.

Some say that he's black
And some say that he's bonny
But the fairest of them all
Is my handsome, winsome Johnny...

We are well and living comes easily, with the blood young in our veins and the
good malt and amber beer cold as wickedness across the questing tongue. We
sit in comfort as the breeze comes from the west with the breath of mountains
on it. The talk is bright and laughter comes freely.

We plan the overthrow of the state, a movie starring Kiefer Sutherland and
Michelle Shocked, the downfall of world capitalism and a comic novel about
Elvis. Mountains move as easily as flowers before our grain-scented words. In
the strength of youth and health and friendship, we fear not fire, nor foes,
nor yet what lies before us.

But all as the sun walks west across the wide blue world, somehow I hear a
distant drum and know the fear of flags.

the miniblinds striate light
thinking of the yellow morning
on black faces, up turned.
seeing the dc as cc, seeing the
day as night. seeing lovers
blush from touch, in the parks,
when i never notice the noise
around, never concern the people
and their picnics and children,
not a concern the riff raff in
my periphery.

"the train leaves in an hour,"
she says as she reads from the
schedule, "do you think we can
make it?"

we were to rush to gretna green,
nearby enough in scotland, the vegas
of britain, to become wed by a scottish
elvis, maybe in a gingerbread house;
perhaps our nuptual bed would be 90%
water and in the shape of a jelly donut.

"love, do we have enough time?"
in my head, she was the brave,
she willed me to decide, she needed
me to make the call. she 19, me 21.

i remember words,
"We were in Summer-heat, that Winter.
Me, freshly free from another
Dog-house stay on Valentine's day . . ."

i was protecting myself, i was frightened.
i was spineless. i was jealous of my future.
there was nothing to be jealous of, its real shite.

in my arms, this rose anglais, this petite femme.
blond, gangly, smooth-bodied, limber, flexible,
bright, quick, sensual, bilingual as we worked
together in the half sleep of lovers, in the
student cell in the narrow attached student house.

in the uk, it is easier to bathe than shower
in the uk, it is easier to take cold water than hot
in the uk, tea warms better than the showers,
little electric kettles on the wall, heating
the trickled shower spout, heating enough not
to make so much sick, but sickly -- or strong.

in the attached student house, the cell, the bed.
her hair up in a bun, her pale soft british thighs,
rich white chocolate made of cadbury,
pressed to the wooden chair, the soft cotton
pj's, the little bears, the little figures,
the sweet innocents of soft cotton pajamas.

working on german trans; EUR, the school.
scratching alien words on alien landscapes.
showing me the english, showing me the words,
jumbled from her lips, like tossled blond hair.
the german verbs, the heavy haze of sleep, the
soft lilt of the voice, soft lips passing thick
aryan words, passing like fire hose pressure.

sleep and her voice, sleep and her words,
"what? what was that?"
"you're not listening are you?"
"Yes of course, i just missed that, what you said," i lied.
"its almost valentine's day"
"yes, its almost valentine's day."

some dreams are borrowed.

But I was baiting him the whole time. Hoping to hit a nerve. To make him
angry, to make him hurt like I do.

And how would you react to someone emailing you and telling you, through a
machine, that you were a mistake. He loved someone else and that everything
that had happened had been a bad call. Funny, he seemed to enjoy himself at
the time.

I almost feel like crying, but I won't...I can't. Not for him. I can't feel
bad. I had reasons. I was justified. There are a thousand and one terrible
things I could do, to ruin his life right now, much worse than having a dew
people email him and tell him what an asshole he is...

And he deserves it. So many lies, all of which I swallowed obidiently, so as
not to upset him, are being wretched up. So many of the things he did justify
everything I did. He dispises me, he was embarassed...

so why do I feel so sad?

There are those that watch. There are those that care. And yet -

Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?

in bed, the clacking of steam through floor vents. the miniblinds closed to
the
street light blinking in the alleyway. a smile on my face from the voice of
the
petite woman who wants to share my bed, my life.

how many licks does it take to get to the center of the tootsie roll tootsie
pop?

the duvet, the maroon cover, the pale blue fitted sheet. the bottle of
evian by my
bed. the copy of aureole, by carole maso, dog-eared on the night stand.
the slight
smell of chris having returned to the gym, the odor of chris reclaiming his
body.
bringing together the divergant team of mind and body.

the blue kayay. the red girl. the careful boy. the autralian pilgrim. a
land
rejecting a queen. a california covered in H2O. a boy, el nino -- the child.
a
washington. a petite woman with heavy black hair, with a smooth belly, with a
curved
flank, with a downy touch, with a past and a desire for a future.

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?"
"I'm almost sorry...sorry for what I did."

I always sleep for an extra 5 minutes

"so why do I feel so sad?"

the waters rise
The levies fail
The sea has overstepped its bounds
I've often thought I'd never fail
But for the flood

(by Shane McDonald)

My emotions
that little warm ball of fluff
come out on this cold febuary monday
sniff the air
peer at the ground
before turning with an annoyed grunt
and returning to their burrow
signifying another
lonely Valentines Day

I stare up at the night time sky, letting my eyes slowly adapt to the
darkness. Over an hour, I discover the universe, wandering from Ursa major, to
Canis Major, down to Leo, over to Auriga, and across Gemini. Suddenly,
appearing in the sky somewhere around the Pleiades and shifting through
Orion, is a dull red ball. It isn't blinking, so is probably a satelite.

Somewhere, a young woman watches that object with the same amazement- a
curious appearance to an untrained eye. But as she does, she wishes that she
had someone to share it with her, curled up here under the stars. An extra
pair of arms to hold her, an extra body to keep her warm, and a chest
containing a rapidly beating heart as a pillow. Maybe she thinks of me.

Who saw it all tonite
but just for a second.
Hawking, Einstein, Newton
all satisfied and smiling
While the white rabbit with his watch
shakes hands with the
Catapillar and his hookah
and laughs.

Time, space, and energy
all shifted into a simple
beautiful
picture.

The answer to it all is "How many..."

I roar with rage at the alarm clock's sneering cry. I walk over to it's
leering face, hit it once and sink back on the bed. All that remains of my
dreams is a heart filled with vast lonliness, and a stomach lined with
melancholy.

Now they are bringing her a mate, and she will bear young. Will she teach them
to talk? And if she does, how will we feel about all those gorillas we keep
in cages?

the united states with the largest
sum paid out to the prison systems
are texas and california.

we have no problem, we people, of
placing old people in care, we have
no problem putting people with really
radically different POVs into cages
filled with leather straps, padded
cells, straight jackets, cups of white,
pink, mauve, blue, red, green, yellow,
pills.

we feel not alot about the people who
are in their own cages, prescribed by
a doctor, in a bottle the aforementioned
little pretty pills, like a little girl's
painted fingernails. bright. garish.

detox, rehab, looney bin, clink, home,
hospice, home arrest, jail, prison,
juvie, death row, prozac, cuffs, anklets,
orange jumpsuits, pink clovers, blue
diamonds.

let the gorillas rot, club the seals,
put down the lame curr, pick off the
eagle, rape the forrest, net the porpoise,
eat the red roo, ranch ostrich, take
drugs, put orangatans in movies with
burt reynolds, toss dwarves, bomb clinics,
eat shit and die, kiss your first cousin,
lie to the jury, sleep with an intern
(or don't sleep), get away with murder,
sell crack, share needles, eat shit, get
on prozac, start smoking, drink and drive,
eat shit, wear pink, kick ass, spit, swear,
curse god, deface churches, sacrifice lambs,
sacrificial lambs, (Apes and monkeys sleep
about 10 hours a day, by the way -- lazy ass
life forms, deserve to either be poached for
archaic chinese remedies or put in cages for
our amusement) inject Karla Faye with some
Texas hospitality, listen to the European
squeal, listen to the pope pious, listen
to the ape ape the ape, showing love and lies.

There were none so strong they might resist your grey-tongued onslaught.
More fell than steel, the deadly drone of your dust-dry catechism, pitilessly
reasoned genocide.

One by one, or in their numbers banished. Jack himself fell prey when you
abolished all his giants, live and dead alike.
And Arthur: hauled from unsuspecting glory in far Avalon.
Excalibur could not cut your chains.

Whole worlds. Barsoom and Shangri-la Hy-Brasil and Lyonesse the Lost, and O:
the towers of Tir na n'Ogth, the golden spires of Atlantis, spurned beneath
your heel.

Careless of your conquests, you made no shift to save them, throwing dust
across their shattered lovely bodies as you passed, relentless in your massacre
of innocents.

One by one, or in their numbers gone forever: bright Dragons, brave tailors,
wicked witches, talking beasts.
Condemned all frogs everywhere never to become princes
Unhorned the unicorn, drowned the mermaids, wrapped everything, cutting
corners, edges neatly trimmed,
in precise and mathematical shrouds.

And in your wake we picked amongst lathe and tinsel, cut glass and tin,
thick-stringed puppets sagging on the tawdry stage. Clockworks, drunken
whirring innards splayed.
Springs unwinding: tick-tock, tick-tock tik-tok to stillness.

deep down in the caverns of me, whoever she is, this nameless being i inhabit,
i feel a hole. i feel a road underneath my feet as i walk to school, to
class, to the car, to the parking lot, to the bathroom, to sleep, but it's
taking me somewhere else, somewhere i cannot imagine.

once i am there, if i ever arrive, will i have all the answers to my
questions? will everything be worth it? will life regain the meaning i
thought it had? or will it return to being the everyday sort of thing that just
appears now and then? oh, i forgot-that's life.

maybe i will break free from this illusion. nothing can happen to me...i'll be
fine...i'll graduate, i'll get the marks, go to the college,
become...something...i'm invincible-i'm eighteen...maybe i'll finally realize
that eighteen doesn't equal invincible...say, when i'm 28.

oh, how i have missed.

@!KAT

warm crystals falling from the sky, almost like the earth needed a bath,
according to the sky, or maybe the heavens are crying for us. rain finds the
quiet in me, i feel still, solemn, actually divine when it rains. people in the
hallway stare, friends ask what;s wrong; nothing, i reply, slow smile. it's
just the rain.

one year this week...how to explain the feeling i still have for this one
person? every day, thoughts rush into me, just marveling, just amazed to have
someone, to be with this person, to have all that we have together:
friendship and relationship, friends, writing...each other.

@!KAT

My real life is a perfectly good one; today was quite magical, ambling
hand-in-hand through the city through alternating warm driplets and
sunshine after we missed the matinee. And yet, I cannot sleep when the
voices call.

there was anger on the wall. there was a word there, placed by a weak hand, a thick marker, the kind they don't sell to kids any longer. the wicked fat one that smells like sniffing glue.

Walls, walls and windows, for paintings and photos and crayoned graffiti and
pencil-marks measuring growing boys and for letting in sunshine and the
breeze and keeping out the rain and cold.

Real walls. Of my own.

onto the bike. stiff-framed. steel. slick tires. bar ends. bar cut two inches. running the asphalt. back and forth to work. right pant leg rolled up, bag over my shoulder. this time, shorts, t, movement of my body through traffic. of course, never a helmet. brain bucket. never had any brains in the first place. up 11, left onto mass, then to k and then finding mark and the walk to frank's where the blue plastic kayaks -- matching pair -- lie waiting for our shoulders, to be taken down to the water, placed in with the waveletts slapping the hull, lower down, push away and pull through the smooth glassy ripples away from georgetown and towards the lincoln. tour boats with spot lights. delicate singles like waterbugs. the rower is incidental. a training barge for paddlers in the tradition on hawaii. one paddle two paddle three paddles four to take me home, fourteen on the left fourteen on the right, take me to hawaii-nei, no ka best. and the shoulder don't let me down. and the arms are like steel springs. the back is straight. pulling me strongly. watching the herons pass overhead. the lincoln is lit, the stairway into the potomac brilliant in the indigo of evening sky over rosslyn's affront. brilliant blue clear cold sky, landing lights queued up into the distance: infinity. slap slap, thonk thonk. the water sounds. river water feeling bright and clean streams down my arms from the blades. my blue plastic canoe. mark to my right. head to head. last summer i trailed his strength from health and me the sickly giant, the wheezing zeus. now, the fire rekindled. love? gym? confidence is a part of this, and the beauty and cool air of the spring with the spires of gt, the span of key, the grandeur of memorial. arlington cemetery. rcs bldg. macnews bldg. tour boat, his light scanning the shore, like on the seine. on the seine, there are lovers to spy on, but washington has no lovers, save one and he is awaiting is other.

leigh words, not chris words: i had a massage sunday evening. church. shadowed light planking in low through a cracked half-shaded window, north dupont circle. wafting incense, softer wafting classical compositions. i was a beautifully threaded bead necklace. all my parts differing sizes shapes colors, all strung together limpy together in his hands, lying atop the table as if atop a dresser, dangling comfortably around the neck of the world as i departed.

@!KAT

sport. sporty sport. sport-ready. a girl in jog bra and short shorts walks a black dog with white marking, white sock. sniff sniff sniffing down along the bark of trees, under the afternoon shadow of the diamond head. the field. the drummers and the shell, where the kodak hula show amuses and the public can watch watch watch people move their pelvis back and forth. the the girl walking quickly swinging hips, tight black under shorts: sometimes lycra and close-fitting, sometimes baggier, often black, the pale tummy, the crescent navel, the contour of the ribs, the slender paleness of leg-above-sneakers. a leash. a leash law. the piss that burns grass, the scent of other canines. alpha dog. alpha male. heat. spring. sunny. after work business, rushing in a car for the two miles. in the center of the park there is a diamond, there is a pitch. hotshort, sliding shorts, shorts, uniform number 10, knee socks, cleats...helmet and glove and now in the rain again, drops kissing their faces. jagged shoes dig into grass and mud of the outfield... she, the walking girl, the hawaiian girl, the girl with her doggie dog, tight-fitting black lycra life, is a beautifully threaded bead necklace. all her parts differing sizes shapes colors, all strung together limpy together in my hands.

easter. on the phone with mdn, and it was not great for her: tiles, barracks, linoleum, beer, bbq, schofield, military, comingling, easter is made for the east coast, even the mid-atlantic. i look at the picture of me in Paris when I was mid-twenty, 1990. even then i knew that for me, europe was hollow alone. i saw the sites like i was preparing my life as a tour guide for her, for she. for the partner who would like to travel with me, to allow me to show her the paris jewish ghetto, the little gay neighborhood, shakespeare & co. the evening light, the wine, the bastille and its opera house. people on the rue, on the walks, crowded in pens of cafe tables. le louvre. the centre george pompidou. even lyons, cherbourg, around and about. the buzzing enduros and our buzzing, our own humming. paris not as a romantic destination but as a place to be, as a place to enjoy to just enjoy each other. no real sight seeing for us! now, its all about being there together not sigh seeing, not walking our feet off, not climbing the radio tower just to see the grim tops of the low low old town-cum-city. no, instant intimites, with friends from Uni and the night clubs costing US$30 for the unsuspecting. the turn of her hip, the way paris invites a woman to walk, a woman to dance, the way she eats her strawberry or touches the silk scarf around her neck. the way she touches me, each other, kissing like school kids along the seine as the voyeuristic dinner show barges barrage us with spotlights, illuminating out expert hands. our knowing touches. this is the paris for which i was prepping, the paris exposed in trite editorials in the new yorker, the same paris eaten in gulps by hemingway. not the ruined paris -- we shall ignore her ripped tights and smudged lipstick -- but the youthful daring city, ripe and flush, breathing heavy with a bountiful chest and apple ass.

It's times like these that make me forgive him when he forgets to call I
"I forgot."
he'll shrug and apologize.
No excuses
He just asks forgiveness without any bullshit 

He says "the eyes are windows into the soul"
That he gets lost in mine
they're so deep
Funny how I've never taken time to look into his

Into them float tiny grains of pollen -- tree pollen, grass pollen, flower
pollen. Oak, cherry, maple, hickory, apple, zoysia, fescue, Kentucky
bluegrass, crocus, daffodil, tulip, windflower.

My soul is sneezing.

I don't really recognize Her, the real her, since it's not the MJCL President,
cool, professional, and charismatic that I met before. This is Kira,
smiling, friendly, alluring. Tour guides move off in seperate directions,
and we part ways with unknowing smiles.

Another chance meeting on the balcony of the hotel the next night.
Conversation about nothing and everything for an hour while we watch the
twinkling lights winding around Vesuvius, and busily ignore the gaggle of
British 12 year olds.

Meet briefly next two days, hand slaps of recognition seem to linger a bit. I
decide to start looking. More conversations, drinks with friends, more smiles.

As we load buses on the last day, I fumble out a half-excuse about why we need
each other's phone numbers, scribble mine on a scrap of paper, and wave good
by.

Her phone number is sitting on my dresser now, watching me pace across the
room. Should I call? Was there actually something there? Or was I reading
too much into the whole mess( as a lonely mind is wont to do), and guilted
her into exchanging phone numbers? What business do I have getting myself
involved with a girl an hours drive away anyway? What's worse: abject
rejection, or thought's of what could have been?

must nectar be sweet? must it pulp and
leave residue? must nectar be squeezed or
blended, must it be diluted before the buds
of the tongue can enjoy? what is this
nectar and why must it be sugary, that the
diabetic must beware?

no, it is the sweetness of the waters
downed in large gulps from the cool tap in
a far off place. lapped from the hands set
deep into the kitchen sink when mom isn't
watching, when the girlfriend is in the
other room, taken in big guilty draughts
from the pitcher in the cooler, taken with
a squeeze of lemon, with or without ice,
but cold and most certainly flavored not by
citrus but by earth and molecules.

I saw them,
sprawling across her skin for an
          instant
before looking away  

She wore the usual long sleeved shirt today
But I could still see them
I had memorized their places  

She wears them with shame,
unlike the other girls who make it public their abuse
"My mother did that to me."
one proclaims proudly
pointing out a thin white line on her upper arm.  

But she hides her skin
wearing jeans in the summer,
while I walk around
shameless
in my low cut tank top and shorts.  

Does she grow green under her layers
when the rest of us show off our bodies
or wear our abuse like a crown jewel?  

I saw the scars on her arm
and burnt them into my mind.

my sister's razor
clogged with armpit hair
how beautifully the blood
obscures the water

In my own house, cracking paint over peeling wallpaper over creviced
plaster, layers over layers. Who knows what signatures lurk beneath? In
demolishing the upstairs walls, the carpenters find a worn 1920's dime (a
serious loss back then), a box of shotgun cartridges, an editorial extolling
the virtues of Calvin Coolidge and predicting that the roar will last forever.
Just like Lois and Wally.

I remember when, after Grandfather died, the family all gathered in the
small living room, eating deli provided by the place down the street that
Grandfather helped finance because they had proper thick boiled Irish corned
beef instead of that transparent New York stuff. There, in the center,
Grandfather's chair. There were perhaps thirty of us there, sons and daughters
and grandchildren and friends, mostly stnading, a few on the couch around
Grandmother, a few on the dining room chairs. But no one else had ever sat
in Grandfather's chair, and it sat, empty, all afternoon, yearning for a good
cigar, three or four newspapers to swear at, and a lightly chilled manhattan.

I sit on the porch, watch the forlorn chairs, all lined up along the
sidewalk for tomorrow's trash pickup, hope that some one of my neighbors will
take them home. A homeless-looking man and woman pushing a shopping cart
that already has a scavenged chair stop by and look them over, take only the
curtains.

I think about Grandfather.

I buy a bedroom set -- two dressers and a bed -- and an extra bureau, and
split a dining room set with my sister. I take the table and chairs, she takes
the hutch and credenza. We write checks to her neighbor Benny on the other
side, a lawyer who's always seemed tough and cynical before. Today he is
near tears, talking about Mr. McLaughlin. He saved a secretary, just in case
Mr. McLaughlin recovers enough to move to assisted living.

My grandfather (Dad, who haunts 41 Addington, not Grandfather, who sits and
smokes cigars in an empty chair) was John McLaughlin too, dead thirty years
next month. I remember introducing Ruth's neighbor to my grandmother: John
McLaughlin, this is Mrs. John McLaughlin. They both cackled.

How much for the dining set?, we ask Benny.

I dunno. A guy told me it was worth as much as $800. I was hoping for five.

Done. We'll pay six.

I like writing checks to John McLaughlin. The bed is too small, the table and
chairs not my taste. And I don't have either the space in my
construction-zone-house or the money. But it feels right.

The bins were full. Filled with black bellows and boxes and film canisters,
large mylar sheets and silk parachute fabric. Enormous black and white
construction paper seamless rolls and the eccentric Japanese men came out of
the woodwork: the local amateur photographers with penchants for antique 4x5
cameras and silver oxide processes. The rank sting of blix in the trachea.

Mark and Tomas, collecting fist fulls of dollars and the odd check and it
was a profitable afternoon for the salesmen, but then I found a box filled with
original proofs, expensive and silvery, the smooth rubbery face of a bottlenose
dolphin.

To be sold for $35 a print. Not one was sold, but my heart broke when I
considered his last images passing into the homes of these nerdy little men,
into their scanners, onto USENET, into any number of home pages, and then I
kept them close. I wonder which was the right thing to do?

My mother's voice chimes pleasantly as she opens the shades covering my
window. "I know you didn't get back home last night until late..."

"six"

"Whatever. You need to get some homework done."

I moan a bit as I shift noncommitally under the flannel sheets, so I can watch
my mother pick up the pieces of the rental tux which are scattered over the
carpet. "What movie did you see last night?" she asks as the strap-on fake
bowtie falls to rest on the hanger.

"Les Miserables" I reply. "They did a pretty good job, but nothing stood out.
Kira liked it." Kira being the girl I met in Sorrento, who was suddenly my prom
date a couple weeks later.

My mom turns toward me, a thought cued by my last comment. "Was Kira wearing
any of that glittery make-up. There was some on the seat in your dads car."

"I guess so."

My mom squints at me, and adds with a voice of surprise thinly veiled by the
tone of motherly concern that "There is a bit of glitter on your face too."

I respond with a nonchalant "Huh." resonating with the wonder I still felt 7
hours after a friendly post-prom embrace at her Grand Rapids home suddenly
shifted into a long, tender good bye kiss filled with love and hope.

With sudden energy, I slide out of bed, grab the robe off the back of the
door, and head downstairs for breakfast. There, while stuffing spoon after
spoon of Cheerio's into my mouth, I ponder my first real kiss, the end of my
life as a high school student, hopes for the summer, and a still rising long
distance phone bill.

sweet sixteen and never been kissed...

hee hee hee...what a crock. It all started at 7:40 this morning. "Happy
Birthday!!"..."thanks..".. back to sleep.

"Where's the birthday girl?" my mother says, coming through the door concealed
behind a vase of 16 blood red, long stem roses. All for me. "Happy 16th
birthday!" she sets them down by the bed and kisses me. The clock screams at me
that it's 9. The smell of fresh roses hits me just before I stumble back
into sleep.

The phone keeps ringing. At least once an hour. Can't a girl get a decent 12
hours sleep around here?

"Happy Birthday!!"....

gee tha-...

I get up around 11, take a shower with the music BOOMING. Dry off and put on
my "bombshell" dress. Hell yeah, I look good...I also look about 21, and my
mother tells me to put a sweater over it before my father gets here. She
doesn't want anyone dying on my birthday this year.

Then there's the usual cake, ice cream, prezzies and the lot of "Happy
Birthday, sweet heart! My, she looks so grown up now."

Then I say good bye to my daddy and he walks out the door to drive 5 hours
back to Milwaukee. At least he came...

Then it's off to the hot tubs with my boyfriend. First time having
sex...legally. Coming home and falling asleep in his arms until one. Then he
has to go home.

Funny, I was so tired before, and now that he's not here, I can't sleep
anymore.

(: RED :)

@!KAT

How do the boxes get built? I watch my boys, so very different. Aaron is a
firstborn: manipulative, creative, cuddly and fiercely independent, deadly
serious yet addicted to puns and wordplay, swinging between wildly outgoing and
neurotically shy. Jeffrey is the baby: athletic, easy-going, fearless to
the edge of recklessness, quick to see the humor in any situation, stretching
up his arms to any smiling stranger for a hug.

Aaron is my miracle boy, born after years of infertility; Jeffrey is heart
of my heart, the chosen baby at a time when a baby made no sense.

"Who do you love best, Mommy? Me or Jeffrey?"

"I love you because you are you. I love Jeffrey because he is Jeffrey."

No boxes.

@!KAT

He acts like a three year old. He curls up between my legs and rests his
head on my stomach while I talk on the phone to a long lost friend,
occasionally flipping channels, or lifting his head to say something to me that
I don't pay any attention to. I stroke his black hair and smile indulgently
at him and try to keep him under control in public, as I have often seen
mothers do with young children. He makes me feel wanted.

and needed..

just a little. He works in the deli at Hardings, and everytime I come to see
him, he smiles his little boy smile, full of slightly crooked teeth, wraps me
in a sweaty, bloody hug before returning to wash the dishes and sweeping the
floors. They always let him off early when I come around.

Even when we're just walking to his house, or to his friend's house, he
keeps his arm around my waist. He insists he owns me, and that I own him
right back. Perfectly fair. He likes to be submissive and doesn't mind it
when I playfully bite him on the neck. He wears a collar I gave him that says
"SLAVE" on it and my ring and boasts to his friends about me.

He makes me feel wanted...he calls ME everynight, instead of me always
having to hound him. It's nice for a change...

(: RED :)

But, somehow, I love him.

@!KAT

Words are too easy, analysis too facile. I will not put this great gift of
a man into a box of words.

"Talk to me," he says. "Tell me what you are feeling."

"I am feeling," I say, "beyond all words."

I laughed.

From the hurt tone in his voice, I must have laughed too long and too loud. It
hurt him a little, that I didn't take him seriously.

He always lavishes compliments on me, even when I try to laugh them off. but
today, I think I hurt his pride a bit. When I was finished laughing, he said
quietly "I'm serious."..And almost immediately I felt sorry..

it would be nice to believe him....

(: RED :)

8:214) Elizabeth Lower-Basch 29-MAY-98 11:30
I think the best thing we ever did was make up new words to replace "love."

We didn't mean the same thing by "love" and so we kept on hurting each other.
I said "I love you" and I meant "I have given you a part of my soul and you
will have it forever, an intangible connection between us, whether we remain
lovers, remain friends. If I never see you again, I will always have this day,
these dandelions, this dizziness as I roll down the hill." He heard "I want to
be with you forever," and was scared.

My word was "shike". I think his word was "pash", but I don't really
remember, because by the time it mattered "love" was good enough.

It's a whole new me, dark and broad and heavy-footed. I keep him
jekyll-and-hydden away, but he's down there, oh yes, down in the cellar where I
can hear him breathing and feasting on rats and spiders and the scent of sweat.
Never knock on his door. Never rattle his windows. Never shorten his sleep as
you value your life.

I do not like being angry.

Nobody else likes it very much either.

I lay in my bed listening to the scream of trees in the late of night to early
sunrise. I cannot sleep. The phone rings in the dark,

"This is the Sheriff's Department".

(: RED :)

I hate being put on hold while he double-checks his records...

@!KAT

He looked at me and said, "Shawn, the thing about life.. well, life is
*wicked*, man."

Most of it is lists of accounts, the costs of bread and coal in the
1920s, monies owed from the boarders, all in picil. A woman's hand, I
am sure.

But on the flyleaf, in pencil, it says:

Birds I saw at the birdbath Saturday May 1930

Tanager, Robin.
beautiful longtailed brown thrush
Smaller speckled thrush bathed and preened his feathers
2 catbirds. Blue jay.
I can't imagine a place being more heaven than my front porch, morning,
afternoon or evening, in May. I wonder if there is such a thing as being
too thankful. Seems I was before I lost dad and I was so thankful. It
seemed I had come to rest.
Even when your body sits still and rests your mind goes on automatically
thinking dreaming wondering ---

****

Later, on the same page, in ink:

This house is cold. Why? Oh I think winter is the time to visit. Of
course one does not have the comforts of home. If I go some where or if
some body comes here we don't find it like home in any way, and of course
we are bound to howl. But since howling is our nature, why not?

***

There is no more.

I MUST find out who this woman was. And, of course, I must build a pond,
if only as a birdbath...

@!KAT

I love you. He says it almost everyday. hints at it, sometimes comes out right
and says it directly. I snapped at him and told him to knock it off. He sounded
so sad on the other end of the phone.

I wore his shirt today. The track and field one from Parchment. It wasn't
the same thing as him, but it was better than nothing. I was warm even though
it was cold outside.

He said he didn't want to fight anymore, about whether or not he loves me.
He didn't like to fight with me about it. It mad him sad that he said it and
all I did was yell at him. He didn't know how I felt. That's when i started
crying.

Ozzy is not a good thing to be listening to right now.

Why can't he be like the other ones? Why does he have to insist that he
loves me? Why can't he just take advantage of me and leave, like everyone else.
It's only been two weeks...it feels like years...or at least more than 14 days.

"..Time after time, line after line you broke my...."

She called today. Mortality had slapped her in the face. Skin cancer. She said
it so matter of factly, as if it wasn't the important thing. It's just there.
On to the salvation of a community that was nothing without her. I wrote it out
and posted it like she said. No one else seemed to notice either. Maybe not a
big thing, since it's so easy to remove...but still... I felt as if I was the
only one crying....

Where did those three years go? Where were you? Where was I? I really
cannot account for 1997. I am sure it came to pass because this is 1998. I
know I was on a plane, living off of stock returns and a passport, in 1996.
1995 was a year of change, a year of mourning, a year of sickness and
madness, or tight body and crazed eyes. A dark time. 1996 was a time of
embracing and hurting and the bright wet red pulpiness of open wounds --
spittle and puss, healing this way and that, showing jagged scars and a rough
wound. Words of death, of love, of melancholy intercourse abroad and
cigarettes, wine, whisky, debauch, poetry, ashtrays, trains, ships, planes, and
whatnot.

1997. fuck. don't know.

1998. Bob's death day passed and on that day I made images of Willow with
Mary, a friend of Bob, and held my love in my arms, held her and rejoiced.
Never really mentioned it, but writing words for Bob is meaningless. Burning
film, flexing the Nikon, shooting a model in Honolulu, being with Mary,
making image is the way to go. Let go. Remember but let it go. Feel and
release.

But to love. To care only of the future, to feel the present completely, to
feel touch, to hear word, to see body, eyes, hair, nose, brow, teeth, chin,
tongue, chest, shoudlers, back, arms, legs, feet, hands, fingers, ring. Let
the past go. Be egoless. Be selfless. Love for love's sake. Expose the
belly, expose the neck. Sleep soundly. Love completely. Feel the ring on the
ring finger of the left hand and let its weight and silver circle remind me,
enamour me, seduce me, excite me.

Appreciate. Explore. Want. Desire. Know. Enjoy. Love.

Wednesday afternoon, I shall embrace a roomate soulmate partner lover love
girlfriend friend into my washington, into our apartment.

what luck, what a lucky fuck am i!

A man is sitting a couple seats behind where I'm
going on the subway. He is obviously retarded,
eyes uncrossing and crossing at my entrance to
the almost empty car. He grunts and blinks as I
smile and nod in his direction as I do for
everybody who I see. He talks to himself loudly
throughout the ten minute ride,but all I see of
him is a brief glimpse over my shoulder. You're
not supposed to look around you see? I risk
this subway taboo, making an exception for this
odd man. In his hands is a small coupon
advertising an ornamental knife. His eyes widen
slightly when he notices what he is holding. He
smiles slightly, and smartly flicks his gaze
toward mine. I turn as he drops the piece of
paper onto the subway's carpet.

As I sit, the subway stops and lets in a new
batch of passengers. A young man walks in. He
is about 6'1" and obviously is very strong, with
muscles straining at the seams of his shirt. He
twirls his bloated wallet apon a pivot created
by his thumb and middle finger. As the train
screams toward the next stop, he notices me
stand and gather my things. I meet his gaze,
instead of dropping it like I had for the
'friend'. His answer to my instinctual
challenge? To step over to his left one half
step, into the space near the door, insuring
that I would have to break into his personal
space to get near the door. As the door opens,
he steps out, and up the stairs without a sound,
probably subconsiously satisfied that he had won
that battle. I catch myself doing the exact
same thing seconds later in line for the
outbound side of the ticket processor.

On my way back home tonight, I saw a couple
kissing as they parted on the train's doorway.
I yearned to ask the next attractive girl on the
subway 'where you from?' 'where you going?'
'whatch up to?' as I had with the girl in
Sorrento, and the fellow freshman at western
who's room number now burns insistently in my
back pocket. But on the subway, I know the
answer. She's from the last stop, she's going
to another stop, and she is busy playing the
sport of solitude in the big city.

when i open the wooden gate and lock it
behind me, i must pass pots of budding
plants. consciously toeing into the
stairwell, squeezing past the a/c, standing
before the glass-faced door.

always cool inside. always dark and quiet.
always getting light from above, always seeing
designs on the floor from branches moving, people
passing, rain falling.

the dark, the quiet -- never enough O2, always
a little sleepy. If we were to ever leave on the
gas after making a stir fry, we would be goners,
my shell and i.

have yet to turn on a PC; have yet to login, check
in, read in, jack. just touch. just looks and seeing
and the warmth of cooked food, the cold of perspirant
class, the slickness of body aroused, the tightness
of tired bodies looking for the sleep, protected from
the EMF, protected from the sirens and public passions
of trumpeting city busses, ambulii, engines that could
and doo.

soon, a dog named sue; soon, soirees and whole food and
the slickness of body aroused; the harsness of a body
aroused, the swallowing of self: the gate swallowing
you and me; the stairs taking us, the coolness of under
ground consuming, the sheets, the bed, the eating,
matications, taking onto lips into mouths, the flick
of a pink tongue, and then the swallowing only to merge
and find not death but restful sleep.

Patrick Martin Thomas Langello is three days old. The cycle begins, and ends,
and begins again.