some remembrances are no longer useful
slide down the back road to the rock on the cul-de-sac's edge
the dirt path forking around both sides
i always used to think the side i chose gave the day its shape
up through the trees and near the reindeer farm
how i would get spit out onto pavement again
right next to your house
staying on streets would have stretched the journey out by miles
i remember how

or a list of spots for roof access
where i could take kissers or
those whose youth i wished to crow
and
earlier
chants of victory poolside
the order in which she'd pick up our vegetables
the hot touch of plastic seats
the scantron's roving eye

small deaths refusing to be integrated
you looks so young - i've been born so many times
after the incidents down by the back board and the lunch table
chain-link passageways and alleys turned driveways
the hard champagne sun

um

can you even DO that--

(yes)
7 minutes left here on the jefferson county compity comp and it's DARK at 8pm these days like i've seen it brighten and darken slowly this summer. last night i watched the moon move, millimeters at a time. i watch plants grow i watch pigs fatten i watch blueberries get bigger and bluer and smaller and purple mummified shrinkly curply fall to the ground. the ducks get their big teeth-oily feathers in and they still aren't sure how to eat a weed. i put the little plantlings, comfrey starts and jerusalem sage and yerba buena, in the ground that i have been cooing over in the greenhouse like a good plantdaddymama for a month plus or so and so...and summer has just begun and perhaps it will frost in the low field on the full moon...!
(almost often someone is somewhere waiting and
i am not sure if i will arrive)
the idea of ideas excites me, the memory of the taste and smell of
theoretically dense tangles of tendrils and
inspirations that turn coffee into mud and
mud into madness and back again.
picking blueberries i swear i have ideas that might shake california loose from the u.s. and by the time i leave the field they're gone, reduced into zucchini relish (which is still good)
i love this life for now
i love much
i forget often
i am curious
i want much
27 seconds--

Bits and pieces on my mind

Revisting:

the songs woven into my brain under the dust of many years and putting them back where I can see them

from grandad:

• The Skye Boat Song (and inevitably the dream of Scottish nationalism)
• I Belong to Glasgow
• Ma Cabane au Canada
• Beautiful Dreamer
• My Old Man Says Follow the Van
• Hashivenu
• The Well Below the Valley
• I Painted Uh
• that one about Jerusalem that's in Russian and is now only a trickle of music

from endless car rides through the wiggles of road, from assemblies and services:

• Regina Angelorum! (seriously please ora pro nobis)
• Golden Slumbers
• Lying Eyes
• he chastens and hastens his will to make known, right?
• I'm Just a Poor Wayfaring Stranger
• chunks of Porgy and Bess
• Non Nobis Te Deum
• Dou Robyn
• Alice's Restaurant
  

my ears
and my voice
were built and trained
to hear and sing
only
songs about
fear so crippling it makes you cower
ecstatic relief in moments of reprieve
loss of home, hearth, country, self
remembering wars centuries gone but still stinging
of next year in another city
and a dirty ditty or two

THANK GOD I DISCOVERED ELECTRO

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A and B are standing at a bus stop. A is homeless and looking for something to eat.

A: rata-tat-tat i fumble my bumble
have you got a penny to spare
so i can buy a new shiny bangle
and each one'll be part of a pair

B: can't you ask someone else?
i'm concerned about the tingle in the ether
i'm worried about my quickening pulse
things aren't getting any easier

A: we've all got problems
but you've get less than me
your glittery eyes speak volumes
about a house where they serve a lot of tea

B: tea and coin will be forgotten
don't you smell it in the air?
these warm days tell me something is comin
for both of us things will not look so fair

A: quoth she! quoth she!

B: disbelieve me if you want
there's no stock for me in your faith

A: quoth she! quoth she!
ring out the bells, we got a seer on our hands!

B: wait and see, the sky will press down on our heads and squash us all. no matter the coins in our pockets, we will all be crushed indiscriminately between earth and air. we cannot leave this lump of rock.

A: that may be, but i'd like to see the sky float away into nothing just to prove you wrong.