Faces on Facebook want you for a friend on strict lists; they're being collected like fossilized sandollars, how many can you find after a storm? For me, there seems to be less air. If I haven't seen you since school I flush and breathe faster when you step over the threshold. Or that part you played in all those years of family, those holidays when hearts would race.
On Facebook you can type it or read it, but you can't catch the drift, the scent, the breath taken in. How can I be a friend to a computer screen staring full force at me too brightly white?
There is no emoting while typing and I can't see your face. I can't see your feelings flicker across that face, eyebrows raised, eyes squinting. Squinting by itself doesn't tell me what you are. A downturned expression? Criticism? Concern? Apathy? Please not apathy, no. It's just too hard. Am I somehow misunderstanding? But here, next to me, a twitch of the corners of your mouth; now I can read the whole book.
Can you care on the web? I can't see you on the web. I can't speak that you can hear my concern which is now dulled. I want you to know how I say it. Witticism or wisdom or howling, I can't mouth these to you on this keyboard. I want to react, not reply, I want to jump at your tone, eyes waterning with worry. Are we all stymied by the new on off on off on off in some binary code? zero one zero? 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0? Will generations x, y and z speak by pictographs? This on and off may one day send mind messages, only my generation will be deaf and blind.
So speak to us carefully, communicate with sign language or touch; we don't quite hear you, we just don't understand.
........
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Dustbath
...
A soft dove colored dove pair settle into the breezy spot of sifted dirt on the lawn, bare of green. They preen and stretch out a leg and a wing, nudging the other, wife or husband forever, warm in the sunny summer heat, content as monkeys' midday snoozing in wild, faraway tree limbs.
Sunflowers sink with a thud into gopher holes, stump chewed neatly, sharply. Tasty underground parts are up for grabs if you're down there, watching an edible candelabra dancing above in the ceiling. We know they'll come, sniffing and scuttling dirt aside with little hands curled and digging, heaving neat, pebbly soil behind. Holes so deep they're bottomless. Listen as chunky sharp gravel rattles down the perfect circular sides.
I think of the traps near the poisonous stinking poison for sale at the too bright hardware chain warehouse store. And poison itself, ready to end the ruination of my garden. I think of the traps so it will be gently organic, but how can gentle describe decapitation and then stuffing the bloody thing down a hole to warn the others. I drowned one once, horrible, but practical. Brutal big cats and bears kill for dinner. I kill for vegetables.
Wire nailed on a frame, tipped over and filled with freshly composted, steaming fluffy, dirt; brand named "feather light" for used chicken feathers proliferating in this town. For now I poke in peppers (sweet) and squashes (zucc), started from seeds from who knows where. In Fresno or Bakersfield in flat neat robotic rows under pure flat hot sun, drip lines standing by, computerized for perfection, for clean bright distribution. Wholesale to resale to me to dirt to hope for a flourish of green in my garden.
I could buy my veggies for less. Far less. Iron and minerals, trace though they be, and C and maybe niacin, from my own dirt feeds me while D comes from outdoors while tending little, green, cellulose-bearing vegetables. I strive to fill up my belly with five servings of something fruity, dark leafy, something my animal stomach doesn't always want, except maybe at dinner; steamed to go down easy.
Watering is my favorite, but weeding makes demands as does trimming and watching for bugs (sow and pincher) and snails; organically because we're going to eat the plants. Chase those jays who want peanuts, who will hop, hop, hop on springy legs for sunflower seeds, but may mistake a seedling for food. This expensive vegetable garden joins us to our Eden. That magnificent solar system flies by ignoring Adam's work. Tender sunny hands reach like blind moles forced out of mounds, my turn to reach, to pat that hot, dark, shreddy mulch. Then sprinkling; keeping the blowing dust down and elements in.
...
A soft dove colored dove pair settle into the breezy spot of sifted dirt on the lawn, bare of green. They preen and stretch out a leg and a wing, nudging the other, wife or husband forever, warm in the sunny summer heat, content as monkeys' midday snoozing in wild, faraway tree limbs.
Sunflowers sink with a thud into gopher holes, stump chewed neatly, sharply. Tasty underground parts are up for grabs if you're down there, watching an edible candelabra dancing above in the ceiling. We know they'll come, sniffing and scuttling dirt aside with little hands curled and digging, heaving neat, pebbly soil behind. Holes so deep they're bottomless. Listen as chunky sharp gravel rattles down the perfect circular sides.
I think of the traps near the poisonous stinking poison for sale at the too bright hardware chain warehouse store. And poison itself, ready to end the ruination of my garden. I think of the traps so it will be gently organic, but how can gentle describe decapitation and then stuffing the bloody thing down a hole to warn the others. I drowned one once, horrible, but practical. Brutal big cats and bears kill for dinner. I kill for vegetables.
Wire nailed on a frame, tipped over and filled with freshly composted, steaming fluffy, dirt; brand named "feather light" for used chicken feathers proliferating in this town. For now I poke in peppers (sweet) and squashes (zucc), started from seeds from who knows where. In Fresno or Bakersfield in flat neat robotic rows under pure flat hot sun, drip lines standing by, computerized for perfection, for clean bright distribution. Wholesale to resale to me to dirt to hope for a flourish of green in my garden.
I could buy my veggies for less. Far less. Iron and minerals, trace though they be, and C and maybe niacin, from my own dirt feeds me while D comes from outdoors while tending little, green, cellulose-bearing vegetables. I strive to fill up my belly with five servings of something fruity, dark leafy, something my animal stomach doesn't always want, except maybe at dinner; steamed to go down easy.
Watering is my favorite, but weeding makes demands as does trimming and watching for bugs (sow and pincher) and snails; organically because we're going to eat the plants. Chase those jays who want peanuts, who will hop, hop, hop on springy legs for sunflower seeds, but may mistake a seedling for food. This expensive vegetable garden joins us to our Eden. That magnificent solar system flies by ignoring Adam's work. Tender sunny hands reach like blind moles forced out of mounds, my turn to reach, to pat that hot, dark, shreddy mulch. Then sprinkling; keeping the blowing dust down and elements in.
...
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Again
...
Take the mailbox off. Off from the side of the road where it stands for 20 years or so. Once plowed down. Twice replaced.
No bats this time, mowing off one by one down the avenue, leaving letters scattered. No crumpled box in pieces littering the miles. Just lifted up, straight up off the cemented 4x4, straight up in the air and gone.
This time we're alone, unlike the baseball batter's tour.
Prank?
Need?
Appreciation?
With paint and brush and spraying can, silver and green and blue dripping. Liquid steel squeezing out, frosting like slurpy dollops of rubber-bronze. Like kisses, with a spring on top. That box came into it's own. Art and immaturity.
Now don't think more thought, not about targets, vandalism or convolution; nor kids nor men nor in between. Thinking must be locked tight.
The new gray utilitarian is up. There.
Numbers sticking and sparkling like cracked opals.
Reflectors walk on the sides.
Too clever to be boring.
Too different to escape notice.
That's who I was and am.
Danger comes with notice. But, please still care. Don't steal me straight up into the air and away. Like I dream and wake in false tears; reality just a stuffed head, but my dream in day has me falling, stolen.
See the mailbox, odd but bright?
A slight turn of the head ok,
but leave it.
...
Take the mailbox off. Off from the side of the road where it stands for 20 years or so. Once plowed down. Twice replaced.
No bats this time, mowing off one by one down the avenue, leaving letters scattered. No crumpled box in pieces littering the miles. Just lifted up, straight up off the cemented 4x4, straight up in the air and gone.
This time we're alone, unlike the baseball batter's tour.
Prank?
Need?
Appreciation?
With paint and brush and spraying can, silver and green and blue dripping. Liquid steel squeezing out, frosting like slurpy dollops of rubber-bronze. Like kisses, with a spring on top. That box came into it's own. Art and immaturity.
Now don't think more thought, not about targets, vandalism or convolution; nor kids nor men nor in between. Thinking must be locked tight.
The new gray utilitarian is up. There.
Numbers sticking and sparkling like cracked opals.
Reflectors walk on the sides.
Too clever to be boring.
Too different to escape notice.
That's who I was and am.
Danger comes with notice. But, please still care. Don't steal me straight up into the air and away. Like I dream and wake in false tears; reality just a stuffed head, but my dream in day has me falling, stolen.
See the mailbox, odd but bright?
A slight turn of the head ok,
but leave it.
...
Sunday, May 24, 2009
digging in mud
...
It's not just soft, it's smooth and plastic, though plastic would not describe mud well in those days. Smooth if there are no rocks or splinters in the aggregate.
Mud soothes.
Some wrapped it on a bee sting.
That or damp bicarbonate of soda.
To draw out the poison.
Both were muddy enough to pinch onto that stick of a finger, but not too wet or too dry, because the patch would slip and drip off or crumble to no use.
The bee was attending to pollen when I squashed it and how my foot swelled and my hand that other time. Swollen to such a concern that I would have taken my daughter to the ER. The reaction suggested other things. Breathing. But breath came in and out steadily while I couldn't sleep. Scared of that thing that was so swollen, my foot or hand or finger.
Stick it in the sink in cold water in the night, let it run, summer moon lighting the open window. Jump up and down so as not to scratch, for the itch was powerful enough to keep you awake, but quietly, jump quietly. The family is sleeping on beds and couches out where we are altogether in the guest house at my grandmother's. And my grandfather's, but he was passive, asleep in the red leather chair down the hill, while we tried to make money renting our house. Those people smashed my red china doll and let the pool go.
At school soak a mud colored paper towel, fibers stretching and breaking down to a pulp, stick it like a bandaid clinging to my not so thin finger. And wish you were home in that heat, not in your desk sweltering, a faint threatening, dabbing the wet mushy paper on your forehead, over and over, wetting it again.
Silly girl, bee stings, breathing, heat exhaustion, stop this silliness.
This is nothing next to a father going insane and a mother sloppy drunk, whispering something to other men, not my father, with a door locked to make it suspicious, to survive, to keep going for the girl who's hand itched so powerfully. terribly all night long in the other room.
...
It's not just soft, it's smooth and plastic, though plastic would not describe mud well in those days. Smooth if there are no rocks or splinters in the aggregate.
Mud soothes.
Some wrapped it on a bee sting.
That or damp bicarbonate of soda.
To draw out the poison.
Both were muddy enough to pinch onto that stick of a finger, but not too wet or too dry, because the patch would slip and drip off or crumble to no use.
The bee was attending to pollen when I squashed it and how my foot swelled and my hand that other time. Swollen to such a concern that I would have taken my daughter to the ER. The reaction suggested other things. Breathing. But breath came in and out steadily while I couldn't sleep. Scared of that thing that was so swollen, my foot or hand or finger.
Stick it in the sink in cold water in the night, let it run, summer moon lighting the open window. Jump up and down so as not to scratch, for the itch was powerful enough to keep you awake, but quietly, jump quietly. The family is sleeping on beds and couches out where we are altogether in the guest house at my grandmother's. And my grandfather's, but he was passive, asleep in the red leather chair down the hill, while we tried to make money renting our house. Those people smashed my red china doll and let the pool go.
At school soak a mud colored paper towel, fibers stretching and breaking down to a pulp, stick it like a bandaid clinging to my not so thin finger. And wish you were home in that heat, not in your desk sweltering, a faint threatening, dabbing the wet mushy paper on your forehead, over and over, wetting it again.
Silly girl, bee stings, breathing, heat exhaustion, stop this silliness.
This is nothing next to a father going insane and a mother sloppy drunk, whispering something to other men, not my father, with a door locked to make it suspicious, to survive, to keep going for the girl who's hand itched so powerfully. terribly all night long in the other room.
...
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Sliding Down
Sliding.
Down is no good but for sliding.
Up is ok except for mania.
Even is just plain dull, but catatonic is worse.
Isolation in a black tank ruins your perceptions, someone studied.
Prisoners in isolation go crazy.
Send socially unfit humans to be packed in cages; then they go crazy so put them in solitary confinement where they slide through the inescapable cement; down below the topsoil where nothing lives.
I want isolation.
Social isolation.
Interacting, I am nowhere, somewhere below the topsoil, wishing a huge abyss would appear to slide me away, leaving behind babbling incoherency and/or visibility.
Let me go, let me slide down, like children zipping down a winding slide on the playground, two at a time, though it's against the rules. No running, no games of tag near the jungle gym. No swinging left, only right so no one gets bumped, lest someone is injured in play. No bad words, no hurting shouts of denigration, no play fighting.
You know it, but you do it.
I do it again.
The wrong thing.
I want to say, "I didn't know!", but I had an inkling.
Yesterday I learned that we are subjugated to our supervisors. They may place us in this class or that, teens, young adults, against your will, infants, preschoolers. Where do I fit best I think, sitting in offices listening, supporting the bad childhoods of the little smart mouths.
How do little ones know about bad childhoods? Where did they hear they're having one. Childhood is sweet ignorance, not self knowledge of a bad life.
Hit where it hurts. No. Because never, never to let another child hurt cannot be done. "You hurt your family, who love you very much, but they don't like you, so cry for that now, because discipline opens that door."
Sliding down first, bracing with feet rubbery with basketball soles, then climbing up to hysteria, to the top screaming, throwing flaming, fiery play weapons. Now that will solve it all.
...
Black Drizzle
...
You sneak in, through some signal, though how you two figured it out, who knows. You, you planned this deceit, breaking a trust that was rusted brittle. Don't take this child, who isn't yours, in narcissism.
Belonging cannot be stolen.
You two go out in the night, cold, slipping into black drizzle, no footprints visible in silver damp. Off in the dark for nonsensical pleasure, but it's one sided can't you see that?
Dragged back. You bring back a wrung out child, too exhausted for the next day's life.
Selfishly you break hearts, each one. In spite, you are not aware of the core bond inside, deeper than the gut, deeper than the heart, the marrow. You don't know this can't work.
Except for this.
You leave exhaustion wherever you were.
We send the bloodhound, millions of receptors tracking, none finding the revenge steps. Panting home to wait.
...
You sneak in, through some signal, though how you two figured it out, who knows. You, you planned this deceit, breaking a trust that was rusted brittle. Don't take this child, who isn't yours, in narcissism.
Belonging cannot be stolen.
You two go out in the night, cold, slipping into black drizzle, no footprints visible in silver damp. Off in the dark for nonsensical pleasure, but it's one sided can't you see that?
Dragged back. You bring back a wrung out child, too exhausted for the next day's life.
Selfishly you break hearts, each one. In spite, you are not aware of the core bond inside, deeper than the gut, deeper than the heart, the marrow. You don't know this can't work.
Except for this.
You leave exhaustion wherever you were.
We send the bloodhound, millions of receptors tracking, none finding the revenge steps. Panting home to wait.
...
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Sand
...
What is it about a sandy,
fenced-off piece of land.
...
Sugar sandy in the wind. Chocolate sandy in the rain. Dusty is the real word, but why use dusty when food is available. Watery, swirling sand, under hard hooves, changes each step to a slipper quiet, a tiptoe, of the 12oo lb. beast.
...
I float, thinking, on bobbing waves, sun soaking, easy.
...
Old Frankie, on the ranch all his life, walks with a very slight totter, huffing at the work. I gather up the reins. Chins? In for him, up for me. First the signal. With a heel. Then we glide over days; the fusses, the fidgets, the mistakes. We ride above foggy sand, dreaming of floating.
...
Floating on the Earth.
...
Float, while Earth floats
on it's hot orange crust!
...
What is it about a sandy,
fenced-off piece of land.
...
Sugar sandy in the wind. Chocolate sandy in the rain. Dusty is the real word, but why use dusty when food is available. Watery, swirling sand, under hard hooves, changes each step to a slipper quiet, a tiptoe, of the 12oo lb. beast.
...
I float, thinking, on bobbing waves, sun soaking, easy.
...
Old Frankie, on the ranch all his life, walks with a very slight totter, huffing at the work. I gather up the reins. Chins? In for him, up for me. First the signal. With a heel. Then we glide over days; the fusses, the fidgets, the mistakes. We ride above foggy sand, dreaming of floating.
...
Floating on the Earth.
...
Float, while Earth floats
on it's hot orange crust!
...
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