break away:

Hospital thoughts part II

2010-05-07T21:08:00.006-04:00

5.He peered earnestly over his bottlecap glasses. “Ears are the window to the soul,” he whispered and eyed the orderly looking but not listening to us. They had taken his shoelaces too. “You know. Ears are the window to the soul.” I looked out the window at birds moving that I couldn’t hear through the thick sealed glass. I run my thumbnail across the garden scene but it finds no purchase; not a

Hospital thoughts part I

2010-04-27T11:25:00.011-04:00

1.Driving through this clapboard rural world we see the seedier side of the lord. His highway side cardboard signs scrawled, TRUST JESUS in unsteady sharpie. The crucifixion painted in rusting strokes on silent hulks of Chevrolet. A large and tattered faith indeed. 2. In the rain I let the blue roll down my face. Cold steel water runs through my nose and across my tongue with the taste of

my baby passed me by

2010-04-26T13:07:00.003-04:00

o my baby passed me bydeep on the road somewhere in oregon. I put makeup on in the rearview. A bracelet and mascara in my eyes but o lord my baby passed me on. I just stood next to the asphalt, clouds rumbling and me wishing I couldve put some sunshine in my step, if only I couldve smiled and lit him up in the dark.

INTERLUDE

2010-01-01T07:48:00.000-05:00

time slips. ***********

acedia

2009-08-23T23:00:00.005-04:00

We werent getting a ride. Standing dirty in front of the mcdonalds, reeking of campfire and sweat, we sure as hell werent getting a ride. meanwhile two boys observed these two idiot girls from behind the dashboard, big mac wrappers in hand. finally, pityingly, one rolled the window down. where yall headed? into the woods, bout 20 miles that way if you could spare it. shit, why yall goin there?

sloth

2009-08-23T15:10:00.001-04:00

id cultivated the sin called idleness, of laying for uncountable stretches of time calmly with my eyes closed or open. practicing. tonight rats or something else hungry banged around the cooking pots, which id forgotten to put up. i was thinking this small thought, of getting up and putting them up and id almost commenced it but the vacancy of the long hours filled me too heavy to move except so

wrath

2009-07-12T14:24:00.005-04:00

Hard to tell, on account of the gray sky over the sun, exactly what time it was when we collapsed into the shelter on the other side of thunder ridge mountain. mustve been mid afternoon. every peak on the ridge was a cycle of sweating up switchbacks then shivering on the summits in the low violent clouds. for a few minutes we just sat quiet on the dusty wood platform under the roof, digesting the

2009-06-01T20:53:00.002-04:00

we'd been walking, you see, through this field. next to a bridge an old woman had splayed herself in the green grass. her eyes were closed. we circled like big hungry birds wheeling in the blue sky. i touched her:Maam, are you alright?she started awake: my my, I'd just got so...tired....so very tired in this heat.thank you kindly. reckon I'll get on home. she had a haze of holiness--or was it

to be wild

2009-05-07T14:24:00.012-04:00

next time you need me. i’ll be standing at the edge of your town, brown, behind heaving swarms of june bugs as the sun sinks. when you need me with your skin soft and perfumed on the concrete, i will will myself to forget your form from behind the trees. i will drop my words and my gaze with my dripping sweat like any old bastard, take a second look at my battered boots that are breaking up in

May dreams: Under the falling sky

2009-05-05T15:43:00.002-04:00

I woke up and it was revelations, my body ablaze with insects, the meek standing hungry at the threshold.some of us known this day was a long time coming, the weight of so many days like this finally breaking the back of a world whose bruises and fractures had already mottled its skin past the turning point. but upon rupture there was also this last rapture:a brief moment of reckoning, of seeing

paradise

2009-03-24T02:09:00.003-04:00

at last the tide comes in bringing the empty bottles to shore. the sand polishes the lables till the glass glistens like jellyfish or other smooth treasures wreathed in tangled seaweed, fishscales and the rest that been cast aside. now their small mouths call to me above the surf, begging my lips for a kiss, and god willing these spirits would wet my tongue and burn down my body.i am so

the trapper

2009-03-05T13:19:00.003-05:00

he was always walking in like he ownd the place, looking deep into every pair of brown eyes with this deep desire to take: with long strong hands he would be grabbing them up, holding his mouth closeto breathe in and out their scent of unconquered forests, heavy lidded &thick green.he struts another step forward, consumed with greed to grab her wrists, which snap like a tree fallingand it is then

days of a g**

2009-01-12T20:29:00.005-05:00

god knows you could get used to this--the new heft of some .38 heat stuck down your jeans. hell, it couldve belonged to someone’s dead grandfatherand maybe you traded a drunk a bottle of hootch for its cold oiled barrel digging into your skin. upon contact with the revolver's worn wooden handle, your body goes electric with a great reckoning of scale: life and death shrink and grow like the plain

your woman

2009-01-02T18:00:00.010-05:00

is waiting for you with shimmering eyelids and soft plentiful body under rough cotton sheetsback home. so why you always finding yourself here with these skinny white girls instead? they look about to disappear like thin threads of opium suspended in a dark room just before someone opens the door.and maybe thats it--you was just dizzy with the smoke, unable to speak once wrappd in the bony arms

The fall of standing cloud

2008-12-10T21:52:00.004-05:00

I was still soaking wet from a hot shower when you called. “Natalie.” you deadpanned. “I am hangin down with these people, Puerto Ricans maybe, and they was jokin about my friend who jumped under the train a few years ago. I told you about that. And now they fuckin jokin about him. Natalie. I am tired. I am old and tired and I aint sober and I lost my higher power. And Darnell jumped in front of

the Denver gentlemen

2008-11-30T00:02:00.006-05:00

"Hey girl, what are you drinkin, and why you lookin so down? Come on, make that fine face of yours smile, it's more becoming!Oh, youre workin out on the rez huh? Hows that goin for you? chaos, right?and welfare! What about you, surviving on charity tonight like the rest, right? I bet you want me to buy you a drink. Shit, I bet right now we're on sacred land stolen from the indians! [laughter

eagle killer

2008-11-24T16:59:00.010-05:00

is an epithet around here. An eagle killer cant wait for the feathers to fall-one-by-one from the sky; no, he needs needs needs a whole sacred handful now just like them first pale washichu who stalked the land.and sunday I was walkin down by the cattails and the geese when I seen a pair of bald eagles sitting still by the water in a naked oak. They were calm, well-fed, but as I moved towards

into the deep freeze

2008-11-22T15:44:00.001-05:00

Well, you see, Id noticed a recent element of instability in her movements—she was of late prone to pacing in the evening like there was worn out gears under her hunching back. 'you gonna fall, gonna fall, gonna fall, you pathetic fucking disgrace,' she chanted and chanted as she eased her failing legs across the living room boards. As I recall, they creaked loudly in the cold under her weight.

the brass plate and a drum memorial

2008-11-16T23:01:00.011-05:00

Outside the old 4H building the farm equipment is slowly sinking like dinosaur skeletons into tarpits. Even with their flat tires and diesel engines heaving towards the ground they are still things that look hungry and howl as the north wind blasts through their gears and scythes carrying their cold metal in its teeth. the wind breathes up dirt and almost-snow to blow it through the long pens to

rush turn

2008-11-09T23:08:00.003-05:00

a wolf indoors is not a dog. a wolf indoors is still a wolf: striped with scars from the fights, eyes that seen kills, a nose that been buried in things spilling apart back in godless black night allyways. its gray tail might wag on the kitchen floor-- but a wolf indoors is not a dog. I just turned off the tv and looked up behind me to find that the tail has stopped and its walkin soft now in the

the white horse [revis'd]

2008-10-24T00:54:00.012-04:00

growing up I remember some scripture saying satan and his horses was pale. so I always saw him as pale and fine-boned with the eyes a dead giveaway.now his sister—a deadringer if I ever seen one—is standing in the kitchen with cheekbones that could cut glass, staring at me, running her narrow tongue across red lips.the way the light filters through the heavy nylon curtains and fills the hollows

vacilando heart

2008-10-16T03:10:00.003-04:00

blues like your worn out shoes in the dead tired end of main st. town with its battered plywood windows,blues like the bar with no sign but Bud Lite alight behind the glass,and them real hard time blues like your woman with her neck wrung and still steaming down by the James headwater this first freezing night of the fall,behind your trailer which is coming down on itself in this prison scented

and thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed:

2008-10-11T22:35:00.004-04:00

Leaning against his dented truck, this old timer runs a tired hand through his gray whiskers and pulls up his jacket against the wind which is cutting its first fall teeth. Behind us the husks of STRAIN RB34™ are rustling behind their laminated trademark placard. Each row has a different trademark and all the plants are dead, except for a spray of insubordinate white wildflowers on the other side

Back to Donna

2008-10-10T00:16:00.007-04:00

The phone rings in the kitchen and I answer it and stay in view of the stove so I can watch the meat fry. You say, Oh Donna’s real sick, blood coming out of her ear, I tell you she just doesn’t care even with her kidneys shot she’s still out there drinking margaritas. Well now she has one of those, what do you call them, an-yer-isms, maybe a few, and she called and said she has blood coming out

RAPTURE

2008-10-09T22:23:00.012-04:00

shes a silverhaired woman on the porch looking down at the old buffalo run that once was. shes standing on an Everest of years with a heart as light as a pebble. this lightness it is spilling out of her like it was water over the brim of a drinking glass held to catch a waterfall and she speaks and it washes over me cold and clean and I cant say nothing else. we’d all been inside all day for two

the itch

2008-10-08T09:44:00.000-04:00

Everyone gotta lose it sometimes," you say, and laugh a sooty laugh. "We'll smudge your room tomorrow, get out those bad dreams thats haunting you. You sure its not anxiety from the sober life? You going sober, getting that anxiety? ..Everyone gets the damn itches sometimes."you another light one, hitch up your fading plaid shorts, and ask me to check for lice in your cropped hair."Even me, I got

bitch!

2008-09-28T19:38:00.002-04:00

YOU FUCKING WHORE, FUCKING BITCH!She accosts the shadow at the window. The shop downstairs is boarded up and there's not another person in sight all the way down the empty main street.There is something simultaneously hopeful and cynical about her appearance—the way her jean skirt barely clears the curve of her ass, the platform shoes, the painted-on eyebrows. Tonight at the mirror, before all

the eagles touch down

2008-09-28T14:58:00.002-04:00

The saturday morning football game is a big deal for two schools bristling with generations of rivalry and racial suspicion: Here we have the Eagles from the rez vs. the Pirates from the farm town.Our junior high boys filed out of a beat-up bluebird schoolbus opposite to the grandstand.Their shoulder pads were reconditioned. No one had pants that were the right size, and several of the yellow

field trip

2008-09-22T11:49:00.004-04:00

put on those old black jeans with the splitting seams, wipe your running nose, and take your hands out of them empty pockets. today it dont matter cause we are gonna ride past the smashed bottles and tarpaper roof that is peeling like an old blister.we're gonna burn a trail out of these blue few miles all the way back to the wide open rolling plains. i dont care how hot it is, how the sun's heavy

A mid-Sept. Cautionary Tale.

2008-09-18T19:16:00.011-04:00

You had better wake up while you can or you just might end up wearing a ratty sweatsuit on the filthy floor of a truckstop bathroom in nowhere, Nebraska, with your insides being eaten alive by crystal meth and bits of your stringy hair stuck in the corner of your dry mouth screaming how god did it come to this o lord jesus just let me die with dignity not right here next to the toilet that

the manicure

2008-09-16T23:05:00.003-04:00

she eases down into the cheap folding chair, and starts to unconsciously drum her fists on the table while we wait for the boss. her knuckles are tattooedB-A-B-Y B-L-U-Eatop hands that hold a highway of lines and a lifetime of shifting horizons. their tectonic power is quite evident: these hands have long known a weary strength like the Mississippi slowly wearing down the rocks of its

wind madness

2008-09-14T16:30:00.006-04:00

the air never really stops out on the plains. today it started whistling blue from the north in earnest, knotting my hair and making the kids ask for sweatshirts.when the settlers first came in grim lines of white like hungry teeth stretched across the horizon, this same wind teased the pale sails of their covered wagons. all the bearded men in dirty buckskin were obliged to walk with heads down

dream journal, sioux reservation, no. three: the swine

2008-09-13T20:36:00.006-04:00

today I woke up laughing so hard.I recognized an old boyfriend of mine—one who caused much grief last year, and who entered alcohol treatment at the end of the winter. We sat in a dark pub and I asked him why he was drinking. He said he was learning to limit his consumption to three beers only. Even in real life, I would have laughed. After the first beer, I realized he was slowly expanding until

dream journal, sioux reservation, no. two: the horse

2008-09-13T20:35:00.002-04:00

I woke up twisted in my blankets and full of anguish.I was riding a fast white horse bareback with my long hair flowing wild behind me. as the plains were flying by, a teenage boy—the son of someone important—stepped out with an ax and struck the horse down.we tumbled and I rolled to a stop and saw the horse's body disappear before my eyes, leaving long elegant bones but for the head whose flesh

dream journal, sioux reservation, no. one: the lion

2008-09-13T20:33:00.003-04:00

I woke up with the feeling of feline teeth pressing gently on my neck. I had been holding a large mountain lion by a piece of rope wrapped around its neck. It kept turning, snarling, jumping on me, trying to bring me to the ground. I was standing in a gully with the blue sky and rolling dry country silent all around me.There was the achy feeling that everyone had moved on and that I was left

..into the desert

2008-09-05T23:31:00.008-04:00

manaña slowly turns the san juan valley into a frying pan till the sun boils dead overhead and the hot air sucks the water right out of your skin like a lover greedy with the need.out here the mountains overwhelm the steeples, so that believers bow instead among the cactus,yucca, and other razors of faith.redtail hawks float spread-winged in the electric blue sky like archangels above this

leavin new england

2008-08-28T23:29:00.000-04:00

swept the last of everything out of the house in amherst. dusted my dust of the mantle, gathered the hairpins and worn shoes, dragged my battered bags to the curb. gathering my possessions has taken on all the cheer of dressing for a wake; loading them is like pulling the coffin.but it is done and we are sweating a little on the grave in the latent, weary, slanted end of august sun. i wish it

relief

2008-08-18T11:47:00.001-04:00

'..and then you've got your opioids.' she sits back and cracks her beefy knuckles satisfactorily, which causes her huge breasts to swell forth and strain the fabric of her faded beach-scene tshirt.'you can take them through the three points of power,' she indicates the soft corner of her elephantine elbows, her papery mouth, her dripping delicate nose.'opioids have been shown to give you the

१२:००(repost)

2008-08-16T16:26:00.003-04:00

in bed my eyes wander outside. moonlight has turned scars to pearls and rimmed our unslept undereyes with precious onyx.this evening the silent silver highway outside my door could go anywhere and its strewn garbage could be gleaming undersea treasures wrapped in the weeds of these forgotten farms.our overripe moon is bursting above the clearcut meadows which are still exhaling copper dust from

madeline-mary

2008-08-16T16:08:00.002-04:00

i could sleep, but someone is tapping gently and persistently on the other side of the basement door. behind my squeezed shut eyes the door yawns open into empty silence breathing old air. it is punctuated now with the delicate sound of fingernails scraping painted wood. i do not get up to answer it.

old man of king st.

2008-08-08T14:15:00.003-04:00

even now, as you read this, he is probably sitting on his front porch.he sits unmoving through the hot afternoon, as the lengthening shadows stripe his grizzled face, as the wind picks up and the afternoon rain soaks his stained trucker hat. he blinks eyes that are focused on some far-off time, and the water drips down his sunspotted nose, but his hands don’t move.darkness comes, obscures him,but

"I love you

2008-07-27T23:52:00.002-04:00

." he says to me. I look up, startled, hide the bottle under my bag. I am sitting alone on a park bench in Northampton. The sun is setting. I remind him he doesn’t even know my name. He apologizes. Asks my name. I say if I tell you, I imagine youre gonna start making all kinds of declarations. He has a moon-shaped smooth boy face on a man's body. His hands are lonely, anxious, bunching and

the tourist

2008-07-08T23:39:00.000-04:00

the light comes into focus. i am not supposed to be here, clutched like this between the tired hip brick walls of williamsburg. the tiny window frames a sky of steel painted sepia with smog.i am still coming down. i am descending into the subway with my done deeds on my back in lieu of the bags i didnt pack. life perseveres down here, but it is brown and crumpled as the liquor store bag

gestation

2008-06-25T19:16:00.003-04:00

tiny flies bud and burrow out of the mud. the oily film of the ground outside the sawmill behind my house coats them and they leave trails of it as they crawl across my naked skin. the sun heats us and the dirty water steams out of the sawdust and the sound of their hatchings clicks in my ears. i fall asleep and dream that my eyes and tongue are covered in clutches of wasp eggs, that i am

hall pass?

2008-06-25T18:48:00.010-04:00

whered you get that circle, girl?He looked at me again, accosting, refusing to let me drop my eyes.you been fightin?I was sitting with my legs crossed on in the back of the colfax bus, and he was cross-armed in the seat across from me.why arent you in class right now?I was 14 and wearing knee high combat boots, stockings, piercings and all the rest. I wouldn’t listen to interference.dont have

the gulf stream rains no tears

2008-06-19T02:28:00.000-04:00

the night i met you i couldve no more resisted your gravity than i could stop a freight train with afeather or a hurricane with a whispered plea to our lord. i couldve been something but you were alreadycoming dark and hot like katrina roaring up over the bayeou:there was those last moments on dry earth before you forced me down with your jaw sharp in the dark and your promises slick on your lips

nuit blanche

2008-06-11T14:21:00.002-04:00

maybe two hours into laying open-eyed again in the sweltering night,the sweat of your unsleeping brow begins to melt the dust off memoriesand other things that had been long buried। all you can do is laythere twisting in the unmoving air, feeling the hot mouth of june atmidnight begin to issue its ghosts: they come with eyes like emptywindows and spread themselves on your soaked sheets with

thirsty

2008-05-28T00:49:00.000-04:00

oh, i tell you, that love was the kind where you love and they take it like it was water in a bucket fullve holes. you pour and pour and the ground gets wet alright.it was on such an occasion that me and my muddy feet woke in a daze some days out from the trail. with the yellow sun shining my eyelids red i just lain there awhile thinkin how funny it is to be born barefoot for carrying water in a

the firing squad

2008-05-07T22:08:00.001-04:00

my eyes hurt from studying all night and the morning light is damaging their already precarious state and my brain and body are fighting a losing war with eachother—i know what is coming and draw it out by walking as slowly as possible to the office at the end of the hall. more fortunate prisoners are taunting from behind the lab benches'dead man walkin dead man walkin'my professors invite me to

la abuela habla muerte

2008-04-28T20:24:00.001-04:00

someone's abuelita died. donning our blue rubber gloves, we unceremoniously lifted her tiny corpse which was folded up like a child in the fetal position waiting for comfort.but in the dream version we dont have a gurney for some reason, and carrying her of her humble house becomes a procession and we are lifting her light bones high above our heads, me secretly wishing she will just be assumed

riverside portrait I

2008-04-26T20:20:00.000-04:00

he is thin as thread and grizzled as the flagstone sidewalk hes settin on. 35 and lucky to be alive, he preaches now to his brothers down by the river who are always sneaking slugs of colt forty five between their amens.he absentmindedly traces his trackmarks, watches those wretched men wash themselves with water full of the sky's clouds. when they catch a hint of their staring reflection they

for judas

2008-04-22T16:59:00.004-04:00

the other day I met the Big man behind the biochem lab where I'll be doing research this summer. he smiles, gestures, welcomes me as a new acolyte; projects are discussed, chemical reactions go up on the white board. i politely resist the urge to say thatit strikes me, increasingly, how quick stainless steel and plastic entirely replaced stained glass and iron crosses as the ornate monument to

monday

2008-03-10T02:43:00.000-04:00

amongst all this toil, all i want is to be reincarnated as a june thunderheadblooming blue above them red mountains

in rambling,

2008-03-04T14:11:00.001-05:00

longshanked highway runnerslive to fix their vacant eyes on an empty horizon,never holding nothin but a cheap butterfly knifetween them and the dark wet places flying by beside the road.

apple & farmer

2008-03-02T12:55:00.012-05:00

i got these tattoos,electric imprints beside my breast, the skin surface changed forever --i will be drawn to rest someday as an old oak cut with the easy scars of verdant sapling youth.any spring tree could tell you that nothing grows back quite the same after each frost. its new april-green chorus is shaped with notes of misshapes that are their own memorial:the freshly marred bark flaws mark

put me in the ground

2008-02-27T01:26:00.001-05:00

of late i find myself dreaming of bones, living and dead:and these days, i am afraid to open my mouth fearing that my ribcage may fall through; i could never live down the embarrassment of spilling such personal things all over my professor’s floor. what would become of my bones' mess spattered there on the linoleum,?—aint no reverence in science; &i could never put em back myself. their new

gambling

2008-02-24T13:51:00.000-05:00

sometimes i catch a faint tendril of your scent—your discarded t-shirt in the bottom of my dresser i keep aiming to wash but never quite do. i open the drawer andyour tan face suddenly glimmers flushed and sharp like a casino’s neon lights rising like knives out of reno coming forward from the cloudless brown desert.

dream a highway

2008-02-17T13:45:00.003-05:00

i do not know if the way memory fades like so many tungsten faces is a blessing or curse, only that now it has twighlit some august night just short of the end of days, back when you could smell the girl so ripe in the dusky heat with her sweat dripping like honey to stickthe bees down towards her naked toes sunk deep in the red mud. it is almost enough to know that junipered hillside wont never

sunrise on route nine

2008-02-11T13:40:00.001-05:00

there are two motels on route 9, not so far apart but spanning an entire lifetime of mine: i can yet see the green carpet at the hadley inn, us the rapturous and unwashed gazing at the lampshade’s new hole where it hit the floor while the laboror’s pickups idled outside in the dying night. down the street on the other side of that dream there is a hotel chain’s cheap façade with a window facing

FLOOD-new orleans, 2006 (previously published)

2008-02-10T23:27:00.001-05:00

The bottles had been underwater long enough to soak the labels off; they were dark and anonymous. We lined them up on the floor next to the mattress we had dragged in and then we lingered in the electricity-free silence for a few minutes. Dead computers surrounded us and their associated hopeful vocabulary—modem ! keyboard! url!—was tacked up on the wall and peeling. Rescued religious statues

Alone in apartment 89

2008-02-10T23:24:00.001-05:00

at midnight I closed my eyes on the weary sodium lamp yellowing my cellblock-sized bedroom, falling asleep to the most curious feeling of tiny seeds unfolding under my skin. things were moving, pushing through, there were green thorns splitting my flesh. i had no choice but to tear a hole in my t-shirt between my breasts and let the wildflowers push out of my chest, fragrant and dripping from the

after eden

2008-01-28T13:04:00.000-05:00

and what of adam? these days you'll more'n likely find him cursin the lord jesus, laying in a bed of fleas he made himself with hands full of murder and seed spilled on his shrinking belly, reeking of dread and emptiness.as for her, eve, the new whore of babylon? she is still wet from the fuck, all slimy with snakespit, mascara running in the mud and smelling of her rebirth in a den of feral dogs.

a humble ode

2008-01-25T12:14:00.000-05:00

in denver back then it was all threadbare houses and drinking cheap tequila deep in the chill of july midnights. id been desperately in love with her, with that supernatural gleam and ancient tragedy weighing and lifting her skinny brown body. id always wanted that night, out there by the bonfire in a weedy backyard. she was yowling like a bony allycat under a red moon some old blues song.

wade in the water

2008-01-22T12:14:00.000-05:00

only thing worse than seeing someones eyes too full is seeing them too empty. when the soul is a forgotten gray rock sunk in some cloudy pond.after the eyes go, all you got left is your pulsating blood in a fraying body. soon it is tripping down the asphalt sticky from the heat, bellydown draggin slower and slower away from the demons,heaving into porcelain till everythings thin and brittle as

a hustler's lament

2008-01-17T17:28:00.000-05:00

“strippers only wanna fuck and get high—an down here they want you ta think they wanna fuck jes you SO THEY GIT MORE MONEY!!!” the lonely man hollars in the parking lot to nobody in particular, alternately exhilarated and cynical.inside the rest of them are still twisting in their bar stools feeling lusty and nervous. they are married, religious, or otherwise, and they are buzzing from the bud

down the river phlegethon

2008-01-16T18:21:00.000-05:00

He was shaped as a mole, with a hunched soft body and a sharp nose. beneath the large, balding forehead his skin had the permanent pinkening of a white man who has languished too long in the sun. he’d caught wind of my politics.“you fucking terrorist,”he snarled, accosting me with eyes long deadened by whiskey and cocaine. even his drawl was reminiscent of something washed out, faded, shriveled

hobo tomb blues

2008-01-14T18:11:00.001-05:00

I was walkin down the old train tracks by the bayou and after an hourI had to pee. I turned toward the scrub sticking out of the retainingwall, and lo & behold, a cinderblock house half-sunk into thehillside. the sea had aged it past its years but it was solidly builtwith a concrete slab roof wreathed in empty cigarette packs. I peeredthrough the tiny glassless gap of a window, which revealed the

the sky meets the sea

2008-01-14T00:25:00.000-05:00

Wandering down the chilly beach today, trying to think peaceful thoughts, I came upon a large heron in its last hours. it was disconcerting to see such a formerly majestic bird laying on its back, spread as if on a crucifix beneath the sand with its feet pointed toward the ocean and its head resting on its chest staring wistfully at the sky.it gave a small cry as I approached but said nothing

'shopping'

2008-01-12T01:15:00.001-05:00

clutching giftcards from distant relatives, we descended into a carnalhaze of capitalism that blazed gloriously with pink neon and overfullbodies. the shopping mall was perplexingly large and misshapen, withno natural sunlight or landmasses to offer reference or shelter.I hadn't been in one for some time and felt a pavlovian panic as theheard moved through its linolium-glazed hunting grounds.

sepia

2007-12-19T00:07:00.000-05:00

i am listening to music from a simpler time—the days of fire and indian sunsets—and i remember that it didn't always have to be this heavy. the day will come when the lonesome train will lurch underfoot again, when the sunshines hot and the stars are hazy with midaugust delirium, when my tongue takes to an unfamiliar language and everything passing in front of me is bright in its simple

freefall

2007-12-09T16:25:00.000-05:00

the news sinks in and everything dissolves of color.I am in a rage so red i can’t see the door in front of me-- but i stumble through it, drunk and sobbing with my first victim,who is already as good as dead: the television has been asking to be thrown off the roof for some time. it explodes as i scream at the top of my lungs. next a vacuum cleaner; the fucking thing never gets used in this

wolf like me

2007-12-09T04:10:00.000-05:00

dreamt this morning:the sheep were standing huddled together under the starlight until one of them cried out. it started to come apart, its face splitting grotesquely in half, until the wolf’s undercurrent became visible.he woke up wet from the flesh surrounding him and was electrified by the smell of the skin of his own brethren; he fell upon them greedily until all the snow beneath their soft

duel

2007-12-06T07:03:00.000-05:00

The midnight oil always burns off just before the sunbeams begin to show above the ground. today their first hints refract through all of the ice on the sidewalks and trees, momentarily turning this emptiest of hours into an unreal glass sculpture.i stand on the roof of my building above this beautiful, horrifying domain, face-to-face with my heartless adversary, whose relentless whispers tempt

the waves

2007-12-04T22:11:00.000-05:00

i get called to the scene, nothing specific except ‘she’s hurt’. i walk up the stairs already pulling gloves onto my hands.i size her up.she is young, a freshman, with flawless skin and dangerous curves but a face that betrays her continuing ignorance of these powers. her eyes are burning wide with horror so that she looks precisely like a deer in headlights. she doesnt want to tell me what

if these wings should fail me, lord won't you meet me with another pair

2007-12-03T00:37:00.000-05:00

I wake up with a start and a sheen of sweat from one bad dream or another. the morning has come and I don’t even remember falling asleep. something even worse than the quiet dread of watching another faint arc of the sun over purgatory settles in my gut. something feels wrong. I pull out the cheap plastic earplug I shoved in my ear the previous evening to silence the house party in the apartment

can't fight the tide

2007-11-25T21:09:00.000-05:00

No country for old men left me reeling in the street with mycompatriots, smoking silently while being gutted with the distinctive sharpness of a cold wind that has been meticulously carved by pavement and steel. and since one can only pause for so long during this late november manhattan wind, we soon ducked down the nearest MTA stop.I was the first one to enter and didn't realize the others

"bambi learns chaos"

2007-10-16T00:00:00.000-04:00

Tonight I will stand in a room, telling a bunch of idealistic students how to rinse the tear gas from their large doe eyes when it's time. I'll teach them triage techniques, but I don't want to discuss the probable winner in a collision between a machine and a human being.. besides, i'd probably say that physics never did account for the wooden clog held in the man's hand, anyway.

midnight

2007-08-01T00:55:00.000-04:00

the hours drain me, the thick august limbs pullin me down, whiskey kicking me past hope till my knees bloody from atonement upon the rough boards outside the front door.i finally fall dizzy toward sleep but cant find peace in the face of grotesque dream steps through the rotting innards of this house. his arms dont give me comfort and alone in the dark the deafening silence of my heart wont

instant recollection of last night's dream

2007-03-21T15:04:00.000-04:00

The first bomb hit Boston in the late afternoon of a chilly and overcast day—very much like yesterday, in fact. The malignant, brilliant scarlet of the erupting mushroom cloud illuminated the slate gray sidewalks like a flashbulb on a tired woman's face. For one second the city reached a stunning and beautiful crescendo as each lonely soul was brought finally to glorious light. Then the

17 Street Liquors

2007-02-10T21:33:00.000-05:00

Tai holds his face like a poker hand behind the steel bars and bullet proof glass that crown the walk up-window of his corner liquor store.His carefully cultivated expression greets all customers equally: from the young student who comes in to buy 8$ bottles of wine almost every night on his credit card, muttering excuses and apologies, to the disheveled woman who arrives in the early afternoon

enforcement of broken values

2006-12-16T05:00:00.000-05:00

one thing which has become apparent because of the large gaps of time between when i am in denver is the increased police presence; in the collective two weeks i've been here i've been pulled over twice.my impression of them is entirely one of Predators.i remember driving home one warm summer night (that car begged for trouble with its busted speedometer) and seeing the emblematic silver and blue

drive till the gas run out

2006-12-12T16:29:00.000-05:00

all i know is, unlike the puritans, i will die with a huge fucking grin on my faceon the day my brilliant luck finally runs out; remembering all that mischief and mayhem,the glorious vistas from untold miles on the road, the midnight-to-dawn discussions with my brethren when we thought we had the weight of the world on our shoulders, the torrid love affairs, the nights we got so drunk the earth

icarus

2006-08-27T06:41:00.000-04:00

american accents. i heard one or two over the course of the summer but nothing to prepare me for the nasal, bullhorn-esque quality of the waymy countrymen project their vowels.then i was astounded to find myself shocked at the bare flesh women of all ages rep; it had been a while since id seen babyboomer tits and flabby legs squeezed into last summer's JC PENNY short & tanktop combo.And god, the

the comedy & the tragedy

2006-08-24T16:27:00.000-04:00

I am fairly convinced that what makes this country so vivid is the way that heaven and hell meet so exquisitely on earth. Correspondingly, I have had moments of the highest moral clarity and moments of absolute depravity. I'm rolling with shock at the cross-continental itinerary looming ahead of me, at the fact that this is over--no more talking with the doctors, living alone with the

the edge of the cliff

2006-08-24T02:57:00.000-04:00

there is a sign on the door that says boldly TRAINING ROOM. inside we are talking about revolution; they have been telling me that NGOs are slaves to the agenda. the chalkboard is always covered in furious scribbles; the last few days, the conversation has been as agitated as i feel--i commence the great journey west at one am. but right now im sweating and i can smell the sewer and the

ride the white horse

2006-08-22T03:09:00.000-04:00

title comes from this song that is ubiquitous in the bars at this time and has hence become a bit of the soundtrack to these fleeting weeks. its been a while since the internet has been available; life has been busy. last week my enthusiastic freshly minted doctor friend took me to the OT in the hospital one night, told a lie or two to the front desk, disguised me with scrubs and a mask, and

que rica

2006-08-15T09:54:00.000-04:00

'atlas shrugged' has been making me think a lot about the concept of 'humanitarianism' in the contrived manner it is usually delivered in. the hand out, the 'donation' the 'charity' wrapped in cultural genocide and all of that crap. but nonetheless my purpose has never seemed so clear as this moment when one of our teachers, a doctor, was finishing an afternoon session on village work. he was

after a satisfying afternoon nap safe from the monsoon.

2006-08-12T07:10:00.000-04:00

im staying in a place whose squalor is reminiscent of gorakpur, only im so FREE to do as i please so its great. plus the cucarachas are a mere thumbnail size, instead of the Deluxe model ive previously had to share quarters with. my new cheeky classmate rohini--shes fantastic-- took me out again last night to a club where we were to meet her friends. when we arrived at the door, we were

darkness and light

2006-08-08T08:04:00.000-04:00

im in a dark internet cafe where someone has just started blasting Ace-of-Base and suddenly I'm back in 1994 or so. oh shit it switched back to hindi, nevermind. ive started the health fellowship with the community health cell in bangalore (which, ironically, you have to cross a gaping river of sewage to get to); besides the fantastic workshops and teaching sessions we have every day, i also am

customized

2006-08-06T01:49:00.000-04:00

im losing touch with my born nationality: 1. my perspiration now smells like garlic and indian spices2. im beginning to speak with a strange indian accent; at first it was to be understood and last night when i was talking with a fluent english speaker i realized that my intonation is getting more unpredictable every day and furthermore my grammar has fallen to shambles. 3. i drink the water

daaahling!

2006-08-03T02:13:00.000-04:00

so this week i have been doing 'exposure training'; and though this is generally less obscene than it sounds, it involves going with community health and social workers into the 'field' ie, the slums to visit high-risk groups. Hijras, for those unaware, are sort of the Third Gender of indian society; they are a group that consists of those born as hermaphrodites, those who were castrated, some

if it dont bend it breaks

2006-08-03T01:20:00.001-04:00

this note shouldve appeared last week.---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Date: Jul 27, 2006 5:17 PM so the proverbial mental house, i think, has been torn down; that strangled cry last week was the sound of the roof finally falling through the foundation. now i have freedom.. the rebuilding has begun & the new version already features many more windows and a

bring the motherfuckin ruckus

2006-08-01T05:51:00.000-04:00

saturday night was not all it had cracked up to be, so i was forced to bust out the monster under the bed; i downed approx 400ml of it and made my to the roof to chainsmoke shitty indian cigarettes under the moon. soon after i was seated, a mosquito alighted on my arm. i shouted: your insatiable bloodlust, sir, will be your undoing! ..and i killed it. a curious washerwoman, upon hearing the

oh yah, and

2006-07-24T04:13:00.000-04:00

after the second censure from one of the priests, and nearly causing a motorcycle accident out on the road in the same day, i decided that maybe my clothes really ARE too tight for these rural folk. so i buckled and purchased 3 sets of the salwar kameez; a modest tunic and leggings combination which is also worn with a breast covering scarf... now i look the fucking part.

to bow and to bend we will not be ashamed

2006-07-24T04:07:00.000-04:00

i called up some backpacker who'd left me a message on bootsnall (travel network), met for an excellent few beers during which he helpfully listened to the storms come pouring out of my head (thanks) in the swarming and yupped out centre of the metropolis and then i had a bitch of a time trying to navigate the 20 kms home with a radiotaxi driver and no common tongue. i was an hour late and the

ps

2006-07-20T02:20:00.000-04:00

the indian government has blocked blogspot.com in some kind of political aftermath of the terror attacks on the 11th, so consequently i have no idea if these are getting through. if not, its a moot point then,isn't it?

it's a deadmans party

2006-07-20T01:38:00.000-04:00

this morning i had seated myself at the humble table, at the equally humble hour of 7:20 am, and regarded my bowl of potato?/onionish curry, unable to take the next step of lifting it to my lips. so i sat unmoving in silence. the others were happily babbling away in kanadaa, glancing at me and giggling. glancing then pointing. their goddamn language. i took a breath and squeezed my eyes closed,

the goddess of plenty

2006-07-17T07:14:00.000-04:00

today is attempt number two to discern the crowded mystery of the local bus system. the buses are pitiless and move with high velocity violence and the eternal sound of metal dents being made and remade; the timings and stops are known only to great scholars who spend years contemplating the (government-issued) texts. traffic was, as usual, in a horrific snarl and the dust and pollution burned

love in a time of

2006-07-14T05:45:00.000-04:00

CHOLERA. which is what a man died of on sunday while the nurses were in church. then another went in the night. what is strange is that people here seldom die alone, always in twos or threes on the same day..im convinced its because the hand of death is heavy. and after wandering the abandoned corridors at night, i can also attest that this place is swarming with ghosts. i also sense them in

shiva luna

2006-07-08T08:40:00.000-04:00

settling into a sort of routine here.. visited the umbrella community health/clinic in bangalore that initially referred me to the centre & checked out many more books to compliment what i am seeing with my eyes. large burn on leg from careless dismount of boss's motorcycle. the Penguin (thanks Jake, Elwood) accidentally opened the bathroom door while i was immersed in a bloody and epic