Pussy + Biome

Saw picture of a cat in a terrarium with the text “pussy in the biome”. I thought what a great title for a collection or a poem. I am putting on Shaggy. What’s the horniest poem I can write about spring.

T-H-I-C-C foliage
draped dangerously in green
pillow lush leaves teasing
bulbs nipping through the coat
breeze brushing against petals
giggles stamen erect
spring me baby lplease

Swallows + Frankenstein

Even between the powerlines, collapsed and rusting, the swallows sing and swing their bodies, dodgeballs on an invisible tether.

Motion tied together, the chords getting shorter by the hour. What need was there to tether in the first place. Once can only imagine the maw that holds the end of the chord.

△ △ △ △ △

I cannot do home improvement
I can only do home unimprovement
I hammer nails crooked
Every project in demolition
Each board reveals new creative solutions
previous owners used
the house has been described as Frankenstein

Nothing + Matters

I found this band called The Last Dinner Party. They have a track called Nothing Matters. The act of doing something like nothing matters has such polarized motives. To perform and produce the motions of an action, to bring ourselves from beginning to end out of some odd necessity is sort of dark. While doing that same activity without a care in the world is so pure. Setting aside the worries of the day, setting aside even other loves and the attention they draw, to focus intensely and give ourselves entirely to the act, is quite a release. That is how I wish to live and do what is in front of me. I hope to make a sandwich with the same passion as anything I find myself passionate about. Perhaps the amount of focus and energy is what eventually sparks creativity.

This song that this band wrote has a refrain that flips tense from future to past and then to present, the swapping of tenses is really compelling and active and sort of jumps you all over as you unravel what is happening. I really want to play with tense dynamics in my writing.

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Grammar Woes

I hear the comma
but when asked to place them
the sentence is a forest floor
thick with brush, hiding semi colons
my muscles tense or are tensing?
and my footfalls crack a branch
in conjunctions a sound behind me
sparks the hair on my neck
the thickness leads to darkness
somewhere there is another side
where I will be feeling the sun
lush of the woods behind me
future perfect continuous

Workshop + Moss

Attended a poetry workshop. I paid $75 to attend this workshop, through an organization who I’ve taken classes with before. I am the youngest person in the room, there are lots of orthopedic shoes. We talk of sound maps, synonyms, submissions.

Someone read a poem that said “the soft moss of their mouths”

that line was worth it.

Bambi + Squirrels

“this is enjoyable so enjoy it” - Kat on being a creative person.

Cheese bread for Bambi
huffs of desire beneath the curio
curiously ununderstanding
how the ball with
treats vanished
Retrieved by my hand
relieved and excited
my effort her triumph
she parades the living room
between paws of delight
tragedy again strikes
and under the TV stand
the huffs of desire wander

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Fat Squirrel

When you run across the fence top
your rodent fingers stretched
the length from nose to tail
is over half a fence section
when you stop you truly take shape
rounder than round when you’ve sat still
your body slowly inflates
a softball
yet you nibble still on a nut you’ve discovered
monstrous and natural, gigantic but unconsuming

There’s this subreddit where people only post pictures of fat squirrels. If I’m going to spend time online it should be on the fat squirrel subreddit. There is such simplicity in that kind of joy. That is what I need more of, uncomplicated happiness. That is probably what everyone needs more of, I doubt it could cut. More fat squirrels.

Chair + Wear

I never thought I could hate a chair as much as I do. The chair I work from is awful. My whole dining room is tainted by having this working chair present at the table. To any visitor’s eye the chair appears to be the same as the other three chairs on the other three sides of the table. I’ve even gone through the trouble of rotating the chairs at the table, worries about the wait on a single chair that I work from. Still the doppleganger remains, always a work chair that I hate.

Worried about the wear
on the one chair that
I work from I rotate
the dining set and yet
the chair sat in position
at which I work
looks the same

Break + Oblivion

I’ve spent the last three weeks not writing. Thinking about voice and style. My theme for this year is consistency (in retrospec the theme of consistency when not writing for three weeks feels a little ridiculous). I believe the consistency in style and voice is a missing part of my craft. The sun has started to rise before 7am which is helpful to my writing. My mornings are my only hour to write among the noise that is this doorless house.
Two people recently told me they enjoy my poems and writing but having met me expected the work to be funny. That’s what I spent the last three weeks wrestling with. I think funny is likely a simplification of wit. The poems I’ve written that would fall under that label is the letter to the conifer society. I like that letter aspect, we’re quickly losing the idea of the complaint letter/email. There’s something so funny about a futile topic. We draw these lines in life of what is acceptable and what isn’t. I suppose we do this for comfort, maybe that is what the point of the letters are, reading the lines of comfort and recognizing the pointlessness. Maybe I should try writing letter poems for a few weeks and see what comes out. I imagine the hard part is generating the friction in a pointless topic.
There’s some tragedy in comedy, I believe that is inevitable. What makes life funny is the futility of our time, even in the best moments which are important and that is what we strive for by living. There is oblivion waiting.

Mouth + 1/2/24

On the points of your teeth, words wait to drip onto your tongue. Conversation dances around the sharp edges, dodging the words that would light fires. Conversation sprinting along rows of molars looking for phrases that sing songs. The mouth waits to gnash while your voice laughs. All the words of the world fill your cheeks, pushed up into the corner of your gums is the right phrase to say in this situation. The skill is in the tongue to find those words, hug past those blood hungry teeth and in the soft dark protective pink and discover the words you actually need.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

How gray you seem for something new
a second day in muted pause
morning in a suspended state
even the wind is absent
if I stepped off the porch
would I fly into this world waiting
the air is as if someone has slapped a face
everything pauses and
the color drains from the scene
stuck in the borders of a comic panel
our advantage is only in having to understand
what is directly in front of us
last year swung a fist very hard
color coming in the bruises we carry
purpled and magenta, sickly green skin
into spring
winter carrying over feels unfair
ending a year only to be bridged
with a season built for reflection
Now we wait in gray for weeks
months with the only relief being
white blankets that may never even arrive

Modern + Monastic

prompt: modern monastic

As I enter the monastery of a Saturday night at home
committed as I have chosen to become
no longer belonging to the early morning hours
I will fast in the form of pan made meals for two
living simply among the cushions and pillows of the sofa
reflection and thought divided between what to watch
when I finally recline into reflection
I will cast judgement across the reality contestants
pray the sitcom cast finds love
listen intently to the documentary
my vows replay as subtitles on my eyelids
the subscription services my saviors

Home + Violence

Against my house I choose Violence
Not the soft unseen until the aftermath
Claw hammers and sawzalls
Keeping no trophies
Pieces in black plastic garbage bags
Evoking gore in every room
Sheeted plastic from ceiling to floor
Nothing muffles the grunts
After great acts of violence
After all acts of violence
The rebuild is the hard part
Assembling new from the old
Functioning fixtures of a home
that once was

Smash + Grab

Doors and plywood built walls instead of storefront windows plastered with poster signs for whatever concert is coming to town. Made to look abandoned to prevent smash and grab moments in the middle of the night.

smash and grab moments

not often in life we’re presented with the opportunity to grab what we want and run. High risk with no type of guarantee type moments. Tough the stove and find out type moments. Maybe instead of a burn, this time the stove fulfills your wish. Taking is tied to consequence though. Unknowns on both sides of a decision. Am I brave enough to smash and grab what I think I want vs am I willing to accept the consequence of what I want potentially not being the answer I need. Can I spend the bravery I have on that moment?

○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Keep a wish in your pocket
push it deep into the bit of lint
snug safe never forget what’s kept
because the moment will present
when the words of the wish
could cross your lips
fall out of your mouth
be sure to juggle them
keep them off the floor
if even a single word gets stepped on
that jeopardizes the wish
and questions start getting asked

SFO + 5 Stars

Again in an airport, SFO again, E gates again, Thursday night again, waking up tomorrow to again log in to my computer. So much effort going into these work trips but the motion is becoming ingrained in me, even the flight times are always same. The whole evening feels like catching a glass falling off the table. I sense less intrigue in the airport though, perhaps the novelty of possibility is growing dull. I hope not, I hope I’m just hungry.

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5 stars for Lobsang

You tell me in the Uber ride
so sad so sad so sad
and you say the phrase three times
each for a different way
the city has beaten you down
nothing so so so sad though
because you live everyday
because you know to favor an alley way
to cut around the traffic
the bay your homebase
when your car was towed
and held for a $650 fine last week
you paid the city and said the lot
was bumper to bumper cars waiting
to go to auction, you could barely walk
so sad so sad so sad
you were towed because of a new zone
made for a diplomat’s visit
when they arrived the city towed cars
flushed the streets of garbage
took the houseless and pushed them into hotels
you hoped they had a party, indoors
with hot water, warm for a few nights
until the city pushed them
back out into the street
so sad so sad so sad you say

Experience + Sidewalk

Really appreciating experiences tonight. When I had my wisdom teeth pulled I asked not to be knocked out. It would be the only time in my life that I would have that procedure. What a blessing to know ahead of time that a once in a lifetime opportunity was right around the corner. How valuable our experiences and how unaware we are of the experience we’re living in. Suppose gratitude is the core of what I’m feeling, leaning into that.

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Water river running curbside waves up from bus wheels pushing through with no way to move forward my feet are forced to move back stepping carefully to avoid the swell rushing above the curb washing away the soft gray color of the sidewalk I stand waiting on

Travel + Scrooge

How funny a small amount of change can be. What feels brief and unimportant can sometimes be the first domnio falling. Change has been very obvious lately, in my life, a lot of flux in my job, I can hear the dominos clatter. I’m once again back in San Francisco. The hotel I’m at I’ve loved before but I think is under new management. There is no longer a complimentary breakfast. Sleep was evasive last night but I don’t know that I can blame new management for that. The one unchangeable part of the hotel is the grandiose space of the lobby. Walking up the short wide flight of plush carpeted stairs to the vaulted open air lobby with the small check in desk. There are still hints of the old hotel, touches of art deco that were too charming to change. There’s more blue paint, which poses a steep difficulty in making anyting look good. Even the waitstaff uniforms are dressed in blue, trimmed with black but that feels almost stapled onto their presentation.
I’ve never been a fan of San Francisco but being here in December, the warm weather, everything is too disconnected. Home is too busy to celebrate, our decorations are up but don’t make any sense, we haven’t found a tree yet. The whole end of the year feels jumbled and I’m doubting there is time to unravel it. Perhaps this year I am the scrooge. There is always time before Christmas to bounce back.

Crime + Rave

The cities with the seedy underbelly, the ones that require vigilantes to right their wrongs and protect the innocent. Those cities, without question, have the most banger raves. Without looking it up, surely a correlation exists between spikes in crime and how hard the bass drops. In these cites warehouse space is unrentable. It isn’t tech bro startups or new age vintage shops taking up the space. Behind every roll up door that doesn’t immediately reveal some illegal smuggling or counterfeiting operation, pulses lights and swirling music, deep and so up tempo that time is lost. This is every day of the week, while hundreds of people sweat away their paychecks on overpriced cheap liquor and tabs of pills they can’t name a masked crusader breaks the nose of a dock worker.

Jurassic + Christmas

I’m rewatching Jurassic Park. I imagine the Christmas after the park incident to be very awkward for the Hammonds. Maybe the Hammonds treat Dr. Hammond with the sort of inevitable respect we give the elderly. That unspoken acknowledgment of decades lived beyond ourselves but it comes with a slight coat of distain for all the continued years they will be in our lives. Perhaps their Christmas celebrations weren’t awkward, the money the man has. Perhaps no harm no foul was enacted, someone gifts Dr. Hammond a toy dinosaur and the room laughs. Maybe the jest, the slight of the joke, all the expense itches a scratch in the back of Dr. Hammond’s mind. An itch that itches more once the room quiets down. He forgets the fear of losing his grandchildren, the carnage, the names of the people who never left the island. He sees the possibility now, begins to solve for the errors he identified, someone refills his glass of eggnog.

Killing + Joy

I imagine the turmoil and loss of having to kill off an entire circus to be crushing. Not only opposition to joy but your livelihood, the outlet of your craft. I don’t know that I would be strong enough to handle that level of tragedy and by mine own hand.

Istanbul + Skulls

They keep finding skeletons under Istanbul.
A full circus, bears, elephants, monkies.
The graveyard of delight unanswering.
Tent fabric fraying, sliced through by shovels.
Fragments of a shattered juggling pin.
Somehow cotton candy comes through the mud.
Pink fluff chunks compacted around the rocks.
The smell of a fryer in each shovel of dirt.
Feet gather around the pit to see the first skull.
Dusted with the care of a makeup brush.
Powder floating in the spotlights.
Entirely intact, gently the crowd applauds.

Wishing + Wishable

Often we wish to no one or to nothing. Not quite a prayer, I feel as if in prayer you’re putting the responsibility of the result on a deity. When you wish you just send the thought out to fate. Feels very human to experience happenchance and say okay but what if this happened also. Maybe in the momentum of the event, the turning of a year, the fleeting astral light, the wish is tapping into that momentum of change.

Instances in which you could make a wish:

• eating the last pickle from a pickle jar

• when receipt paper run outs halfway through printing

• when you pop the tab on a soda and the tab snaps off

• pulling the last poop bag from the roll while walking the dogs

• at the sound of a record skip

• if you snap a shoelace

• when you manage to catch a sneeze

Pickle + Wish

I realized there may be opportunities to make wishes that I’ve been missing. Yesterday I plucked the last pickle from a large jar and thought this feels like an opportunity to make a wish. This instinct and reaction isn’t one I’ve had often. Once while camping I looked up at the night sky and saw the longest shooting star I’ve ever witnessed. The only reaction I could muster was a drawn out wooooooooow. By the time the last w punctuated my statement Kat looked up, the sky was still and black, faded hazy from the bonfire smoke. Even then, beneath the magnificence of that celestial event, the idea of casting a wish didn’t occur to me. Maybe the vinegar of the pickle brine, so uniquely contained in the jar, gave me a sense of resealing something ancient. Perhaps extracting the pickle as some sort of final token unlocked the potential of a wish. Today while checking out at the grocery store the receipt paper ran out halfway through printing our receipt. Kat looked to me and out loud said “make a wish”.