15/30

4/15/13
From Rachel McKibbens blog - writing exercise #96:  http://rachelmckibbens.blogspot.com/




I opened you, lonesome child
and inside was a breathless crow.
I opened the crow and inside was
a broken crayon.
I opened the crayon and inside was
a bottle of gin.
I opened the gin and inside was
a stage.
I opened the stage and inside was
ashes and cigarette butts.
I opened the ashes and inside was
nothing.
I opened nothing and inside was
a palm.
I opened the palm and inside was
my son.
I opened my son and inside was a
field.
I opened the field and inside was
morning.

14/30

4/14/13

Dirt

I dug a hole
with my fingers.
The soil was
not soft, it fought
and scraped
and embedded
itself deep
under the nails.
I only stopped
when it was deep
enough to fill
with all this
idle time.

13/30

4/13/13

Springtime in Ojai

Spring came dizzy and laughing.
The bougainvillea caught fire,
the orange trees put on their best
white; suffused the whole town
with their perfume.  The doves,
drunk on sunlight and dew,
warbled and fussed in the oaks
while a crow, unstirred by all
this bustle, croaked a hoarse
rebuke from the green, green lawn.

12/30

4/12/13

Pantoum for my 5 year old.


Stories bloom like primroses in her mind
sometimes the design arrives too fast to speak
she sings and paints and dances it all to life
disregarding the weight of watching eyes

Sometimes the design arrives too fast to speak
she stutters and crinkles a frustrated brow
disregarding the weight of watching eyes
she collapses in on herself like a neutron star

She stutters and crinkles a frustrated brow
her inner siren begins its wailing cry
she collapses in on herself like a neutron star
tears and knots and knees and clay

Her inner siren begins it's wailing cry
she sings and paints and dances it all to life
tears and knees and knots and clay
stories bloom like primroses in her mind.

11/30

4/11/13


How to hold your son for the first time


Fold your arms into blankets
his head will fit in your palm
like it is supposed to; you do
not think at this point, just be.

Be still and wait for his eyes.
The moment they open, that
fleeting instant, is the first
and the last time you will both
see something new together.

10/30

4/10/13

When a voice ripens
it's not always gradual
sometimes it comes ripping
from the throat with serrated
teeth and iron claws,
sometimes it brings the heart
with it, pulsing and spraying
anyone near enough to hear.

When this happens,
every word spoken before
that moment is cleared of
the dust and shit that
has collected from so many
years of swallowing before
speaking.  Every word
is a bear trap, taught
and gleaming.  Every word
shouts its own name.

9/30

4/9/13

This headache,
sits like a crow
between my brows;
feels heavier
than it should.

I don't sleep well
don't drink enough
water don't exercise
chase coffee with
alcohol write poems.

If I close my eyes
I see a haloed white
rectangle. It is the
headache, it is the ghost
of the computer screen.

I bite my nails while
typing; the keys
don't feel right
without the entirety
of my fingertips.

I shake my head
periodically, it
fixes the equilibrium
and I enjoy the
rustling of feathers.

8/30

4/8/13

From Rachel McKibben's rad writing exercise for today.  http://rachelmckibbens.blogspot.com/


Here,
in the room of my life
a vial of donated blood
sits upended on the desk,
leaking a slow drip onto
the hungry carpet.  It pools
over a stain set since the
beginning. A corduroy
chair with arms like dead
sea lions has been pushed
into an awkward angle, a
snake sleeping on its faded
cushion, eyes open because
everyone knows snakes don't
have eyelids. There's a
hummingbird clearing its ruby
throat against the drawn
window curtains, wings beating
so fast I might lose my mind.
I do.  I'm fine. I put the rubberband
gun under the bed in a box with
striped ribbons, but it's gone now.
The girl with crooked eyes held
it against her head and said "Bang!"
right before she opened the curtains
and turned into the sun.

7/30

4/7/13


My neighborhood has no sidewalks,
the speed limit is 25. This is appropriate;
it's a slow homicide.  The houses barely
tolerate each other - they go: rusted car, rock wall,
Matilija poppy, wrought iron, oak tree, meth lab.
Our local legends are dogwalking old women
with headwraps and five chihuahuas.
They pull with bull mastiff strength against wrists
mottled and veiny like expensive cheese.
Down the street we have three markets.  None
sell anything other than soda, cigarrettes, beer and
unrefrigerated meat.  There are peppers,
but they hide from gringos like me.
The summer comes quick and leaves late
every year.  It arrives as a heavy mallet, smashing
and overpowering with a heat dry and bloody
nose inducing.  The smell of orange blossoms,
that had made spring so beautiful it felt unfair, 
has long gone in the summer.  Sulfur instead.
Fitting for a place as hot as hell.

6/30

4/6/30


Rib cages are awful metaphors.
Mine simply contains a heart,
some lungs, a liver.  Just the
things that keep a man moving.

I cannot love with these things.
cannot feel pain with them; better
to use the mouth, the fingers, places
where nerves end, where heat can be felt.

The eyes are nothing but metaphor,
light collectors that wander and stare.
Use eyes as you would the pencil,
the paper is so bright, it is.

5/30

4/5/13


Edit of "This Town"

This town stands on aged and ruined legs,
calling its beauty out through pursed wrinkled lips;
prickly pear tongues purring empty pink moment promises.
this Ojai Oasis, such a beautiful place to go to die.

These mountains, they loom like overprotective parents,
holding chloroform palms over young mouths,
Sunny southern California blindfolds -
who cares if the kids are hurting
soiled fingers stuck in ears anticipating something dirty
Hear no evil
See no evil
Speak nothing if you're under thirty

know your place,
shut your face,
pull your pants up
turn that shit down
why you always gotta be so loud?
button that up
button it to the neck
tighter, I can still hear you breathing.
In fact, shouldn't you be leaving?
don't you have some white dragons to chase
some shattered dreams to freebase?
we already locked up the purest, so
rather have you poppin pills since you're just
obstructing the view of elderly Los Angeles tourists.
Sweep you under the rug, make it easier to step on the poorest

But I'm calling bullshit on this false paradise
searching for a pulse in veins drier than the Ventura River
a breath of life in this ghost town surviving on antique shops, rookie cops and celebrity sightings.

But it's here, this faint heart beat - here in this candlelit cafeteria,
surrounded by the black and white faces of the past we have the future right in front of us.

when I sit at the table with these kids
these Monday Misfits,
Shangri-Lost young people
struggling to find a purpose in a town
designed for retirees and weekend money,
My heart staggers and lurches;  a bit off time, but loud enough to echo in my ears.

When they speak, through voices shoved back down their throats by
people they've trusted the most, I hear lightning bolts and steamrollers;
pain ripped from the lowest parts of their chest and held out gingerly like a mended wing
they read from smashed phones and iPod screens, crumpled papers and shaking hands.

All I can say is hold on. 
Your voice is all you have; it's your lifeboat in this sea of indifference,
your battle-axe; your backbone; your fucking Obi-Wan Lightsaber
Hold on.
Stand firmly in place; shout to dislodge the hearing aids

We are not this Southern California doldrum,
this Ojai 
 We are not these palm tree wooden stakes in hearts
These arcade arch cages
Hold on
and Dream louder than your surroundings,
dream further than this county
Dream till your feet touch down where they were meant to be,
where your life feels like yours, your voice sounds like yours,
echoing off walls that feel like home, not prison.

Hold on,
This town does not own you
This town does not define you
It only holds you for a moment,
it will let go -
so will you. 
When you do,
please enjoy the fall.
I still haven't landed -
I'll let you know when I do.

4/30

4/4/13

"When I die," writes the
famous poet and musician
2 Chainz, "bury me inside a Louie store.
When I die, bury me inside a Gucci store."

This may be fine for Tauheed Epps
AKA 2 Chainz, AKA Tity Boi, 
 but I have slightly different ambitions.

When I die, drape me in the love letters 
written and spoken by the woman I married.
I would gather them around me in that long
night, for warmth.  For repose.

When I die, have my daughter grind the bones
of my first finger into a powder fine enough 
to mix with ink, so that she may draw whatever 
solace she need find.

Have my son collect all the buttons from my clothing
and sew them on everything and anything he may desire.
Have him take my veins and create a map 
which he may choose to follow or burn, 
either way they will have served their purpose.

When I die, place my body somewhere 
with a view of the clouds, preferably obscured 
somewhat by the limbs of a sprawling tree. 
Prop me up and say goodbye, make no marker, 
just bones and leaves and sky for me.

3/30

4/3/13


When the body wilts and wanes;
the barreled chest of youth and health
gives way to birdhollow bones,
the hands understand only metal,
only wires - the braces and posts
that hold this sagging and diminished weight.

When the machinery of wellness,
the chimes and blips
the ceaseless drip
replace the music in your gut,
the ear begins to transform this mechanized
dissonance into one single note.

That note is will. 

If it is not heard, that is fine,
the body will pass however gently
from this place.  It is fine.

If it is heard,
no matter how faint,
it will grow riverquick
and surge to a roar in the ears.
It will propel limbs brittle and worn,
brighten muddied eyes.
It will become a symphony of yes and now,
swelling enough to engulf
everyone near in purpose,
even if only for a minute.
Even if only for now.

2/30

4/2/13

Ran to the door in the middle of the night -
the wind blew savage and obstinate;
oak pollen swirled in the light of one crooked lamp
near the street. It gathered against the curb,
alongside the lawn's edge like oddments,
forgotten things.  The leaves spoke in cutting tones,
most likely to the moon itself. I was just an observer
in the midst of it all, unnoticed but for the mockingbird
who trilled once, then gave up, realizing its call
was swallowed by the wind.

By the time the wind stopped
and the leaves quieted their quarelling
and the moon slid softly into the mountains
I knew I was the bird, I was the wind, the leaves,
the pollen.  I was the moon.  These are my mountains
to slide into,  my wind to lose a voice in, my curbs
to sidle against. This is my night.

1/30

4/1/13


 I left Oakland almost a year ago,
the grind, the traffic, the murder rate.

I left with my family, for a place less
dangerous, less angry, less broken.

I left a group of children I promised otherwise
in confusion, in dirt, in the hands of those I don't trust.

My kids play outside now; in the grass
they run, they twirl, they play

The children in Oakland slap treads to concrete
chain link, boarded windows, gunshots.

At night when I begin to dream:
The children, the children, the children.