I must've known you were to flit, careening pitter-patter down the hall and on Rooftops, Contemplating Jazz

you slipped so sullenly through the slivers
between my fingers some summer
and i suppose it wasn't so long ago now
if you hadn't already been planning
your way away as a rum runner
my frightening you might've taken the helm at the bow.

you slid through my synapses
like heavy molasses
too rich and thick to bear
and by the time i caught wind
the sails were all hol(e-)y
(but it was too late for me to not care).

you'd been around since... i now can't remember...
during a season of humid debris-
and departed, only to resurrender
('til the deuce of September)
to the mundane and hot cavity.

such a nuisance it was to run into you!
like a delicate cobweb unseen
(nearly) unknowingly foiling
plans over which you'd been toiling
and these strands of yours upon me still cling...

because despite my fortuitous blunder
you quit me with quiet calm, and left me to wonder
what to make of our whole affair
that thrived in confused, murky sentiment where

the air was moist-
and the season its hottest.
did what we share only blossom to die
at the end of that August?

Pas de Deux

I'm just a Gatekeeper half-grimacing
With other half-of-face not as convincing.
As Matron of the Misplaced
I only ever get a taste.
Any semblance of permanence
Is just another endless distance-
And the time that I do get
Only ever goes to waste -

fear not, i do not beckon to rocky shores...

If you can make it through the gate
And not just evaporate
And if my Endless woe you might abate -
Then for you I vow I'll wait.
If you can fathom my unearthly station,
Yet still behold me, void of trepidation,
Or care to spare a moment of shared elation -
Then I'll swear I can be patient.

But if it's due to your weak resolve
That you simply must dissolve,
Or sink into the Swamps of Sadness of my sway,
Then I'll look toward some other day.
Where some unknown courageous Cavalier can with unsheathed weapon the thorned thickets clear
And bestow a kiss upon this frozen Miss and the shroud of fog from her labyrinthine scene lift...

For so many sailors who forgot to steer
Have left me quite marooned down here.
So, please, good sir, be bold at those Tragic Gates,
So this Siren and her Sailor
Might share their happy fates.

pinball cocaine blues

And just when i'd try to do my best to express it all,
You'd cock your head towards the sliding glass door and ask,
"hey, you wanna play pinball?"

Cause I was your girl.
The one with black hair and sad eyes
And a kind heart and soft hands.

You said, "no, babe, don't pull back on the spring,
You gotta hit it like a man."

And you cupped my hand into a fist.
It's funny -
The things you find you miss.

with no river to skate away on

i'm wishing i were even further gone

for whene'er in my mind there breaks a dawn

i smother it with flat black krylon

palm trees alight as evergreens

for in angeles nothing ever is as it seems

and so we'll kiss in between our dreams

and put away other eyes that gleamed

last Christmas there was joy in you

over all the doing that we'd do

in all the seeing that we'd seen

all the adventure you thought i'd bring

but it seems now that i've let you down

you've no interest in escorting me 'round town

i had trouble even getting you here

so i've little left for cause of cheer

but it seems to be the qualm we all fall in:

what is habit, what is genuine?

what happened to that love we shared

one year ago upon a poolside stair

when happiness hung in the air

and your interest piqued in being there - 

and if i could only go back now

i'd put forth more effort in committing to mem'ry how

your face looked and your voice changed

the first time you told me that you felt the same

because I simply can't remember that -

but if i could go anywhere,

that's where i'd be at.

"You're such a pinball, yeah, you know it's true. There's always something you go back running to ..."

I've been having the strangest most tumultuous dreams as of late. There's a big change coming, I can tell, and I believe most of its repercussions are unforeseen. 

I dreamt of the Land last night, of being back there with my grandparents and having the knowledge that I'd be back again and again, making the stop there while on the road or for the holidays. But they're not there anymore, no one is, and there's only that wilting rotting flower of a love from my youth to keep me connected to it - to tie me to that awful one-horse town. "The town's called Mariposa, but there ain't much here that flies ..." A ballad I wrote long ago when my distaste was piqued. But that place is no more alive than the dead butterfly's soul I stole before. Ah, spurned such as I, the parasitic papillion,  what makes me so different from a hated era or a dead insect lying in the street?

I'm moving out of the house where I've been living for a year and where I've made a new family of sorts, and although I'm rejoicing about my newfound freedom I am of course saddened by the shock I'll endure when the quiet has finally settled on my ringing ears. On another point, I've gotten used to the planes constantly going overhead and the train roaring nearby. I used to detest that sound of the trainhorn, back in those Orange Days on Lemon Street, where I dreamed so close to those tracks ... I hated it because it only reminded me of all the places I wanted to go and explore. It was fate's taunt, its beckoning - and now it only makes me nostalgic - 

those cold bluegreymorningsinhissockskissingmegoodbyewatchinghimdriveawaynotknowingthenexttimewhenwillthenexttimebeisthereanexttimewontyoucomedownpleasecomedownineedyoutonightnoicanttonightyouknowicantijustcantdothisanymoreletsfigureitoutwhenyoucomebackcantyoucomeback?

or

thechildofriversandrailroadtrackstheresatraintakingusawayfromherethatdragsmealongwithyoutowardssomewhereicannevergoyoullneverhavemethiscantbeimeandontgetmewronglexithinkyoureabeautifulgirlbutitseasytofallinlovewhenatrainsdraggingmearoundiamthekidwiththesharpknivesandswordswhereareyounow?

or

willyoucomepickmeuptonightandillgetinyourcarandwellgotomyplaceandgetrightinbedandgetrightbackoutandgotoyourmothershousetakeawalktotheliquorstoreandhurtourlungsandeachotherandfightandgetbackinbedagainandyouwontsleepoverbecauseyoureafraidofyourselfandyouwereafraidofmeandistillseethecurvesinyourshouldersandhearthatcursedtrainroarbyknowinghowfutileephemeraltemporarywrongthiswholethingisyouarentitandimnotitimnotwhatsmissingfromyourlifenowitssomuchbetterthiswaycantyoufeelitiwasnevermeanttobeamotherandcertainlynotyours

and

tiptoesoquietdontletherbewrongandilostmyfloweronthosetrackswhileyouwerecravingyourownnomorebottlesupontheseaalwaysbeautyimsosorryalongloveleftuncleanandsomanythingsleftundreamedusedtobeoneoftherottenonesandilikedyouforthatcursemeoutinfreeversewrapmeupandreversethismaywenotnestlesafelyinadarkeneddrawer?

but all those things are gone now. just single pages in my flipbook mind that i can't help but keep revisiting because all my annotations are so vital to me now. And there are so many more, more moments like that that i'm enduring now, that i'll have to write about later because that's my nature, and if i had to only revisit it again and again in my head i'm fairly certain i would start to believe these people and these things never existed at all. ignorance is bliss my friends, but my sentimentality is my mortality.

when we entered florida last summer there was a storm. huge black cumulus clouds like i've never seen. taller than any height i could fathom yet so close and foreboding. we camped near the water later and while it didn't rain, the wind was swirling around us. i like to call these instances snowglobe moments, because when it happens you know you'll revisit it again and again, it will remain timeless and perfect in your memory, and every time the wind rushes around your head you will be reminded of it. I am a basketcase packrat with too many of these moments stuck in my head, but this one was quite beautiful.

j. and i ventured away from the site along a path that looked ordinary by day, but in the moonlight and in our greatly inspired spirits they looked rather extraordinary. i explained to him my snowglobe mentality, although probably not using the same phraseology, and we walked down this glistening white road that had seemed like nothing so special only a few hours before. Arm in arm we walked and chatted, feeling the closest we might ever possible feel with each other, and as brother and sister and friends we shared this beautiful adventure that will live on amongst the others so difficult to top - even if it does only lie on an imaginary shelf in my reverie, but i bet you that when we feel far from each other and from other things perhaps, we shake it.

There are many planes to take, traintracks to cross, white roads to follow, and winds by which to be encompassed, and despite my fears and my ceaseless nostalgia, there is much more room on my shelves.

To Boston, then Space, and home again.

strange stars
hanging from liquid silver beams
stratus clouds perpendicular as telephone wires
transmitting confessions from beyond
in their unnoticed buzzings
every drop of gutterwater synonymous with the nightbirds chirping
and in time
the train against the tracks
a soundbowl whirring its purrs
in a swirl above my head
destined from its remote origin
i should be writhing
i should be writing
the wind is in unison with the freeway
cars are machines in their rightful place in the dark leafy streets
and every cigarette butt you're about to put out
is a microscopic giant of a volcanic mount
that actually does exist somewhere in hell.
but his elusiveness annoys you
so you must do away with him at once
sending all those sultry smoky
cloud banshees back to their
cages within your blood stream
boiling and hollow

the colors weep, for reasons
you cannot ascertain
no matter how much you try to reconcile with the objects
upon which they are resting -
as the water evaporates
back up through the tiny tubes sustaining the stars dripping wet
with tears back in the sky

but anyway, the glass was quite
clear and direct with you in the first place
regarding its contents.