Crowning
Pyramid visioned
Moments...Hallucinations?
First, the highlight of tonight was having Tarah and Alex surprise me by stopping by for talk and laughs and hugs. How blessed I am. And a soak in the hot tub + good phone conversation with several friends, IM'ing my mom who's in Italy, with dad, studying Italian, 11 pm Friday night here and 7 a.m. Saturday there. Talked to my brother Patrick via cell - he is a tech writer and long distance runner who lives in San Jose, CA - while I rollerbladed the neighborhood for 30 minutes; we are going to see the poet/musician Leonard Cohen there on my birthday, Nov 13, along with my brother John, and their respective girlfriends, Laura and Kathleen. Tarah tells me she talked to my brother Jerry, a D.J. and computer graphic designer who lives in Silver Lake (L.A.) a few days ago, and he'd been out having too much fun on a work night (I've been doing it for 20 years, don't worry about me.) I've been trying to get over the visit him on a weekend for about two months but he's so cool he doesn't sweat a thing.
Oh yes, and I am proud to announce that the Fall, 2009 version 4.0 of the Inlandia Writers workshop, which commenced last night and has a group of a dozen or so repeat attendees, making the evening feel cozy, warm, and commuinity - my idea of a great workshop! This session also has the excitement of enjoying the youngest-ever participant, the two month old son of Amy Floyd, who has been in the workshop in utero from conception and is now attending in his stroller! What a joy for me, to teach my workshop and get to hold the baby, who slept through the entire two hour class! He's welcome to scream anytime he wants. Now, our age-span covers the gamut from pre-birth to 80 years old, the latter would be Wally Longshore of Mt. Rubidoux Manor, who provided the Summer, 2008 version 1.0 workshop with humor, dignity, wisdom and inspiration. And afterwards a fun get together at Denny's on University (near UCR)
attended by friends/writers Mario, Wendy, Mike and Cyrus. And me. Fun fun fun.
Now, I loop back around....to the obsessive compulsive desert book stuff!
Forgive my obsession...just me and the PC and I have to shout it out somewhere! Hurrah! the new-ness of book editing for me...sorta like giving birth after a prolonged labor -- getting all the help, guidance, love and wisdom I could realistically extract from so many writing friends, editor & publisher, family, associates, and diverse others, including one devout from-start-to-finish friend who I feel safe to moniker "permissions-wanding wizard.
My love and thanks and gratitudes to ALL of you without who this project would have been unimaginable and impossible to complete-- along the way. This is your book as well as "mine," and I also must give a nod to all of the authors whose works are reflected in the mirage I've somehow managed to glue down in space + time.
And at last, impossibly, unbelievably, can it be? Completely alone and finally investigating at my solitary reflection in rare desert waters, mirroring back to my youngest childhood days, at a series of desert oases, some with scant water - a thousand crossings and overlays on every ancient Indian trail, later turned to spring-to-spring covered wagon and later vehicle roads....in the middle of summer....actually late last winter...got it done....dehydrated and have had months to replenish, cut the umbilical cord myself with my own fingers, and...this!
Could it be? A whim from nearly three years ago, when I preposterously proposed the concept to Malcolm M. at Heyday Books...little old desert isolationist me? A lifetime culmination of all my private readings and dreams...ready for public purview in the more populated population centers and readers...an act of loneliness births itself from the desert and finds a home among the civilized and degenerate reader alike, come to the party as you are!
The baby is born.
Almost. I'm handing you over to the morning glow, see there over the limned desert peaks to the east? Just past the Colorado River, adobe red hues, blanketing the long open Mojave....wink...smile....cry....almost there, full sun...your pyramid hour come round at last... Sorta having in case you guessed, a Yeats-inspired phantasmagorical moment. Off to pet the dog.
FRONT COVER
[Cover Done]
SPINE
Nolan
No Place for a Puritan
[Heyday Logo-Cal Legs]
BACK COVER
Literature/Anthology
$21.95
A man foolishly and arrogantly collecting live rattlesnakes…
A lone woman striving to make a home in a remote desert canyon…
A blooming romance by the desolate Salton Sea…
To the uninitiated, the California desert is a parched and unforgiving place, but to those who know it intimately, it is rich in plants, animals, people, and a seemingly endless variety of geography. It also abounds in stories—tales of human folly, courage, aspiration, struggle, and at times heroic delusion.
No Place for a Puritan brings together eighty writers and poets to pay homage to a land that has been feared and romanticized throughout the ages. From the traditional stories of the Cahuilla Indians to Joan Didion’s acerbic cast of characters in Play It As It Lays, from Mary Austin’s meditations in The Land of Little Rain to the writings of today’s young and emerging authors, this anthology unfolds the many stories of the California desert with freshness, drama, delicacy, and surprise.
from advance reviews:
"You could argue that the great California desert is such an idiosyncratic landscape that stories of lives spent there there are too regional to have universal meaning. But, as this thrilling and necessary collection attests, you'd be wrong. A landscape that captivates writers as diverse as Joan Didion and John Steinbeck, that provokes unexpected works of literary beauty from obscure Spanish missionaries and Chemeheuevi Indians must be a place that reflects something deep and true about us all."
- Marisa Silver, author of the New York Times Notable Book, Babe in Paradise, a collection of short stories, and the novels No Direction Home and The God of War, finalist for the Los Angeles Time Book Prize.
“With voices as varied and untamed, as resilient and beautiful, as the landscape itself, this anthology maps another misunderstood and too often overlooked region of our state.”
—Alex Espinoza, author of Still Water Saints
[Put this on the side instead of below the quotes]
Writers:
Mary Austin
Gayle Brandeis
César E. Chávez
Joan Didion
Juan Felipe Herrera
James D. Houston
Aldous Huxley
Jon Krakauer
Barry Lopez
Sylvia Plath
Rebecca Solnit
John Steinbeck
Susan Straight
Hunter S. Thompson
Wakako Yamauchi
and more…
[Heyday logo-Cal Legs
ISBN: 978-1-59714-098-0
barcode
www.heydaybooks.com]
Friday, September 25, 2009
National Hispanic Month Poetry Reading Friday, October 2nd @ 6:00 pm
CELEBRATE NATIONAL HISPANIC MONTH, October
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2nd, at 6:00 p.m.
Barnes & Noble - Westfield Shopping Center
72-840 HWY 111, Palm Desert
PRESENTING Associate Professor RUTH NOLAN of the College of the Desert, who will give a brief history of Hispanic writers and poets, reading their poetry, as well as her own. Also reading, will be Hispanic students from her creative writing class who will be reading their original poetry in English/Spanish.
MARIA ELENA BOEKEMEYER,
TONY AGUILAR
DIANNA SERNA
Host: Patricia D'Alessandro
760-329-6130
or email Ruth Nolan at: runolan@aol.com
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2nd, at 6:00 p.m.
Barnes & Noble - Westfield Shopping Center
72-840 HWY 111, Palm Desert
PRESENTING Associate Professor RUTH NOLAN of the College of the Desert, who will give a brief history of Hispanic writers and poets, reading their poetry, as well as her own. Also reading, will be Hispanic students from her creative writing class who will be reading their original poetry in English/Spanish.
MARIA ELENA BOEKEMEYER,
TONY AGUILAR
DIANNA SERNA
Host: Patricia D'Alessandro
760-329-6130
or email Ruth Nolan at: runolan@aol.com
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Inlandia Writers Workshop Thurs Night 9.24, 6-8 pm
Manzanar Free Press
a real sign commemorating a real building and a real newspaper at the Manzanar WW2 Japanese-American Internment Historical Site, painted fresh as of summer, 2008
words flow like rocks from
mountains to river: bouldered
slopes catch the news
my little late night, post-rollerblading-at-twilight try at haiku - think I'm getting the use of the colon in hand. "By the time I came out of the birth canal I was black and blue," writes one of my freshman composition students in his "this is me" essay. Boulders also shoulder passages. Some of them, razored lava rock tubes.
Only one way through. Dark chocolate-covered almonds or peanuts. Take your pick. I have samples of both. I don't know if I'm tired or inspired. Both. Late night haiku writing (or my efforts at it) has a way of rejuventating me.
The fall edition of the Inlandia Writers Workshop, Version 4.0, begins Thursday, Sept 24, from 6-8 pm at the downtown Riverside Library. Free to all, come as you are, bring paper + pen or a laptop if you'd like. I'm the instructor, once again. This workshop is sponsored by the Inlandia Institute and a generous grant from Poets and Writers/the James Irvine Foundation. IWW Version 4.0 will meet for six consecutive sessions on Thurday eves, with the exception of Oct 1 and Nov 5. This session will focus on the California deserts - including the Mojave - as the basis for a regional writing exercise.
a real sign commemorating a real building and a real newspaper at the Manzanar WW2 Japanese-American Internment Historical Site, painted fresh as of summer, 2008
words flow like rocks from
mountains to river: bouldered
slopes catch the news
my little late night, post-rollerblading-at-twilight try at haiku - think I'm getting the use of the colon in hand. "By the time I came out of the birth canal I was black and blue," writes one of my freshman composition students in his "this is me" essay. Boulders also shoulder passages. Some of them, razored lava rock tubes.
Only one way through. Dark chocolate-covered almonds or peanuts. Take your pick. I have samples of both. I don't know if I'm tired or inspired. Both. Late night haiku writing (or my efforts at it) has a way of rejuventating me.
The fall edition of the Inlandia Writers Workshop, Version 4.0, begins Thursday, Sept 24, from 6-8 pm at the downtown Riverside Library. Free to all, come as you are, bring paper + pen or a laptop if you'd like. I'm the instructor, once again. This workshop is sponsored by the Inlandia Institute and a generous grant from Poets and Writers/the James Irvine Foundation. IWW Version 4.0 will meet for six consecutive sessions on Thurday eves, with the exception of Oct 1 and Nov 5. This session will focus on the California deserts - including the Mojave - as the basis for a regional writing exercise.
Monday, September 21, 2009
No Place for a Puritan @ UCR Writers Week
I am stoked! Just found out today that a panel presentation/discussion for No Place for a Puritan will be on the schedule for UC Riverside's writer's week, 2010, next February. Hurrah! More details to come, closer to the date.
Sept 21, autumn is loose....sort of
so I turn my attention to my blog - writing here is so good for me, my staggering earlier-in-the-day migraine instantly disappears, and I'm finding my Imitrex in preparing more pictures from last Thursday night's smash hit reading event to post - so many friends came from locally and afar. The event symbiosed in such a beautiful collaboration of true community spirit that it's taken a few days to wrap my head around it, so to speak....there I was on Wednesday, sweating literally and figuratively at home in Palm Desert, too nervous to work on my online classes and other "school" work - the books had not yet arrived at 3 pm, I couldn't reach our printer in San Diego by phone, except for the high-maintenance (but nice) phone calls I left, and I had a big reading featuring two magazines and many readers scheduled for the very next day.
Oh yes, and three possible sound systems - my friend Mike, an Inlandia writers participant from this past summer, had gone to radio shack and picked up a $20 microphone bearing his name; Henry, from the local bands Mute Point and Polite, had offered to show up with a good mike; and I had been promised by a friend of Jen, of Riverside, that there would be an amplifier and mike ready for us by 4 pm. However, being 60 miles away from the Grind until the day of, an hour before, not to mention a very full teaching and work schedule right up until Thursday afternoon, made it impossible for me to nervously So, I had no idea what would happen even once I reached Back to the Grind in Riverside on Thursday, or even take time to make phone calls to follow through! Luck, grace, and many outstanding people collaborated on poetry-time to bring this event together in the way that the very best community happenings just happen to....gel and vibrate shimmering electronic light!
Thanks to Darren, owner of the Grind, for allowing us the use of his basement!
Marion from the Inlandia Institute along with the new intern/assistsant, Cyrus, who did so much legwork making posters, signs, publicity, and helping set up and make book sales!
JEN, who set up the sound system hours early on Thursday, arranged a stool and table and taped-on flowers to the mike, and left me not only a gracious note about how to use the sound system, but also a lavendar plant! My favorite. THANKS, JEN! And thanks, Wendy, for connecting Jen to our event.
Jean, coming all the way down from Idyllwild in a bright red shirt.
Laurie, super-poet of the desert, for joining me to and from Palm Desert to enjoy the read...
Mike S., for buying a mike that he will have to return to the store.
Henry, who I just met last weekend, for also bringing a mike AND for packing Jen's amplifiers and equipment in my car, up a flight of stairs (along with his Mute Point bandmates, thanks, guys!) and for attending our reading!
Julie, who shared her own amazing poetry and brought CSUSB students
Mike C., for bring students from RCC and also giving a dynamic reading performance of his poetry
Dr. Harki Dhillon, for gracing our reading with his memoirs!
Mary for her wonderful reading and presence...
Joan, for reading, sans Gilligan the loyal workshop dog-comrade....
Mae, for her awesome reading
Michelle, hurrah hurrah for the freeways of downtown!
Cindy, for reading her visual poetry
Brandon, a famous San Diego poet, for making the long trek - and ditto to Debbie, coming from Pasadena...
Celeste, for her hard work helping the summer workshop and her contributions...
Peter and Lorraine, for reading their outstanding short stories and giving our reading a delectable edge
Mario, our photographer-galore
and everybody else, all the workshop participants and readers, and friends, and others who wandered in, or sat through the entire thing....I am so fortunate to have been there, too!
April! We missed you! Everyone LOVES both books, and you did a fantastic job. Truly the unsung hero (though I did my best to laud your praises) of our evening.
And Terri - thanks for shipping the books at 4:45 pm (all is well, and to heck with UPS for botching up your previous shipping order...THANK YOU!)so I'd have them by 11 a.m. on Thursday - I was sleeping in...heard the doorbell...and there they were, three neat boxes stacked on my doorstep. Truly, the 11th hour. The best way for these kinds of things to take place.
More pictures coming soon. It takes time to resize them so I can post, and there are many English 1B discussion questions (I have three sections, 100 students there, not to mention English 1A in real-time, 35 there, and creative writing in real-time too, another 35. Wipe the brow again and again.)
And now, I must tell you, the palo verde tree that was at least 10 years old and quite small when I bought my house 7 years ago and split in two from being top heavy this June and had to be cut down....is now transforming itself into a palo verde bush. Tarah and Alex came by yesterday to go out to a late lunch, and Tarah and I were laughing our heads off, looking at the oddity this thing has become. It survives by its own new brand, it never did conform, living in half, it tells me what happens after things fall apart and then begin again. With its own humor and tenacity.
Plants in this desert, all 110 degrees (or more, it may have been, it was 106 degrees at 6 o'clock!) of today in a late summer/early fall heatwave not uncommon for this part of the world, yes, our first day of fall, and someone's dog was barking when I took this picture and it wasn't mine, Brindle had some problems this past weekend (digestive and too delicate to detail on a public blog) but he is now doing fine, and being very loved in a wonderful home by terrific people I can only hope to repay some day, somehow.
It was a weekend that also involved a major $$$$$ shopping binge at Ross Dress for Less - me and Tarah - she helps with fashion sense, thank God, but also loaded up the cart with a few clothes for her, and Alex, and makeup...for me, as well as nail polish kits....how can I turn my only and beautiful and wise daughter down? Dresses, jackets, jeans, blouses, sweaters, wallet, pricey pastel shaded faux snake skin shoulder bag, 5 or 6 new pairs of one of a kind shoes for me - as Tarah reminded me, you can never have too many pairs of shoes, and she learned that from me - I even let her "do my eyes," I trust her so much...until she started curling the eyelashes. I still can't believe she didn't actually pull them out. Beauty = pain. I thought it was beauty = truth - she knows Keats as well as I, and I can't WAIT to see the new movie "Bright Star." IM'ing my mom, who's in Rome, Italy, after being in Ireland for two weeks, with my dad.
They are both taking Italian classes and will be there another few weeks....my dad showed a copy of the desert anthology to our extended family in Killibegs, Ireland, a beautiful fishing village on Ireland's western coast, and he said they really enjoyed hearing my mom read them the preface. Reasons to return to Ireland (was there in 2002 for a family reunion) - my grandmothers' hometown is just an hour's drive from Sligo Castle, Yeat's legendary western Irish home. One of THE all time knockout poets! Last time, we were rushing for a train and only could stop by for ten minutes, imagine my agony.
And I somehow made it through the Badlands and back again this weekend to the Riverside Mayor's Ball on Saturday night, surprised to see kobe beef burgers on the menu and so many people I already know. Dancing to "Sexy Back" in my red high heeled shoes - my daughter just rolled her eyes when I told her how silly I must have seemed, but guess what. Mom's the new version of ping pong ball and the game seems to be going well, not much different than tennis and much lighter as well.
Oh yes, and three possible sound systems - my friend Mike, an Inlandia writers participant from this past summer, had gone to radio shack and picked up a $20 microphone bearing his name; Henry, from the local bands Mute Point and Polite, had offered to show up with a good mike; and I had been promised by a friend of Jen, of Riverside, that there would be an amplifier and mike ready for us by 4 pm. However, being 60 miles away from the Grind until the day of, an hour before, not to mention a very full teaching and work schedule right up until Thursday afternoon, made it impossible for me to nervously So, I had no idea what would happen even once I reached Back to the Grind in Riverside on Thursday, or even take time to make phone calls to follow through! Luck, grace, and many outstanding people collaborated on poetry-time to bring this event together in the way that the very best community happenings just happen to....gel and vibrate shimmering electronic light!
Thanks to Darren, owner of the Grind, for allowing us the use of his basement!
Marion from the Inlandia Institute along with the new intern/assistsant, Cyrus, who did so much legwork making posters, signs, publicity, and helping set up and make book sales!
JEN, who set up the sound system hours early on Thursday, arranged a stool and table and taped-on flowers to the mike, and left me not only a gracious note about how to use the sound system, but also a lavendar plant! My favorite. THANKS, JEN! And thanks, Wendy, for connecting Jen to our event.
Jean, coming all the way down from Idyllwild in a bright red shirt.
Laurie, super-poet of the desert, for joining me to and from Palm Desert to enjoy the read...
Mike S., for buying a mike that he will have to return to the store.
Henry, who I just met last weekend, for also bringing a mike AND for packing Jen's amplifiers and equipment in my car, up a flight of stairs (along with his Mute Point bandmates, thanks, guys!) and for attending our reading!
Julie, who shared her own amazing poetry and brought CSUSB students
Mike C., for bring students from RCC and also giving a dynamic reading performance of his poetry
Dr. Harki Dhillon, for gracing our reading with his memoirs!
Mary for her wonderful reading and presence...
Joan, for reading, sans Gilligan the loyal workshop dog-comrade....
Mae, for her awesome reading
Michelle, hurrah hurrah for the freeways of downtown!
Cindy, for reading her visual poetry
Brandon, a famous San Diego poet, for making the long trek - and ditto to Debbie, coming from Pasadena...
Celeste, for her hard work helping the summer workshop and her contributions...
Peter and Lorraine, for reading their outstanding short stories and giving our reading a delectable edge
Mario, our photographer-galore
and everybody else, all the workshop participants and readers, and friends, and others who wandered in, or sat through the entire thing....I am so fortunate to have been there, too!
April! We missed you! Everyone LOVES both books, and you did a fantastic job. Truly the unsung hero (though I did my best to laud your praises) of our evening.
And Terri - thanks for shipping the books at 4:45 pm (all is well, and to heck with UPS for botching up your previous shipping order...THANK YOU!)so I'd have them by 11 a.m. on Thursday - I was sleeping in...heard the doorbell...and there they were, three neat boxes stacked on my doorstep. Truly, the 11th hour. The best way for these kinds of things to take place.
More pictures coming soon. It takes time to resize them so I can post, and there are many English 1B discussion questions (I have three sections, 100 students there, not to mention English 1A in real-time, 35 there, and creative writing in real-time too, another 35. Wipe the brow again and again.)
And now, I must tell you, the palo verde tree that was at least 10 years old and quite small when I bought my house 7 years ago and split in two from being top heavy this June and had to be cut down....is now transforming itself into a palo verde bush. Tarah and Alex came by yesterday to go out to a late lunch, and Tarah and I were laughing our heads off, looking at the oddity this thing has become. It survives by its own new brand, it never did conform, living in half, it tells me what happens after things fall apart and then begin again. With its own humor and tenacity.
Plants in this desert, all 110 degrees (or more, it may have been, it was 106 degrees at 6 o'clock!) of today in a late summer/early fall heatwave not uncommon for this part of the world, yes, our first day of fall, and someone's dog was barking when I took this picture and it wasn't mine, Brindle had some problems this past weekend (digestive and too delicate to detail on a public blog) but he is now doing fine, and being very loved in a wonderful home by terrific people I can only hope to repay some day, somehow.
It was a weekend that also involved a major $$$$$ shopping binge at Ross Dress for Less - me and Tarah - she helps with fashion sense, thank God, but also loaded up the cart with a few clothes for her, and Alex, and makeup...for me, as well as nail polish kits....how can I turn my only and beautiful and wise daughter down? Dresses, jackets, jeans, blouses, sweaters, wallet, pricey pastel shaded faux snake skin shoulder bag, 5 or 6 new pairs of one of a kind shoes for me - as Tarah reminded me, you can never have too many pairs of shoes, and she learned that from me - I even let her "do my eyes," I trust her so much...until she started curling the eyelashes. I still can't believe she didn't actually pull them out. Beauty = pain. I thought it was beauty = truth - she knows Keats as well as I, and I can't WAIT to see the new movie "Bright Star." IM'ing my mom, who's in Rome, Italy, after being in Ireland for two weeks, with my dad.
They are both taking Italian classes and will be there another few weeks....my dad showed a copy of the desert anthology to our extended family in Killibegs, Ireland, a beautiful fishing village on Ireland's western coast, and he said they really enjoyed hearing my mom read them the preface. Reasons to return to Ireland (was there in 2002 for a family reunion) - my grandmothers' hometown is just an hour's drive from Sligo Castle, Yeat's legendary western Irish home. One of THE all time knockout poets! Last time, we were rushing for a train and only could stop by for ten minutes, imagine my agony.
And I somehow made it through the Badlands and back again this weekend to the Riverside Mayor's Ball on Saturday night, surprised to see kobe beef burgers on the menu and so many people I already know. Dancing to "Sexy Back" in my red high heeled shoes - my daughter just rolled her eyes when I told her how silly I must have seemed, but guess what. Mom's the new version of ping pong ball and the game seems to be going well, not much different than tennis and much lighter as well.
Friday, September 18, 2009
pictures from reading last night
Phantom Seed issue 3 is out and already burning the fireline. Awesome reading last night at Back to the Grind in Riverside, love the basement there. Friends came from all over: San Diego, Pasadena, Palm Desert (me + a friend) and so forth. 3 hours of nonstop glory. Also Slouching Towards Mt. Rubidoux Manor #2 release, from the third installment of the Inlandia Writers Workshop, which I teach.
with my friend, poet + professor Julie Paegle of CSUSB
my friend Cyrus with Slouching Towards Mt. Rubidoux Manor + some homies from a local band, friends of his cousins
Ruth and the cool guys from the band who loaded up the amp + equipment up the stairs and into my car + Phantom Seed Issue 3
at back to the grind
with my friend, poet + professor Julie Paegle of CSUSB
my friend Cyrus with Slouching Towards Mt. Rubidoux Manor + some homies from a local band, friends of his cousins
Ruth and the cool guys from the band who loaded up the amp + equipment up the stairs and into my car + Phantom Seed Issue 3
at back to the grind
98 is the new 42
so Brindle is now back from the vet hospital in Orange County. I had him from Sunday-Wednesday, and it was a flashback to the early Tarah years. Brindle is doing better, and definitely did NOT want to be confined to a blocked off space in the bedroom. He made several escapes, by pushing the wicker chairs aside - remember, he's a hearty 10pound dog - and actually crawling under my bed. NO Brindle, don't slide under there, you'll hurt yourself! Not easy pulling him out and keeping him from knocking his back on the metal shelf. Like a small child, he doesn't understand the danger he is in. And, he think he owns my bed - as in, jumping atop my rather high mattress and claiming it for himself. Yes, he does pretty much fit all the way across its queen frame when stretched out for a serious nap.
The bedrooms are the only carpeted rooms in the house, you see, and tile, with its slippery slide, is a dangerous surface for him to ambulate his still-loopy back legs. His front half wants to run - strong chest and shoulders - yet his back half is in recuperation from his spinal cord bleed, and the legs give out. He still needs to be walked outside to do his bathroom duties, and held up with a sort of harness. 6-8 times per day, and wanting to jump on my (HIS) bed in the back room - it was not going to work for me, with my chaotic schedule. I had to keep him AND Shasta in the back room the past three days, because if SHE got to come out and be with me on my living room computer, then HE wouldn't quit barking. No wonder I call them "the little kids."
So, I'm happy to report that I've had the great luck-blessing of finding a temp.home for him while he continues to recover. One of my students, Beatriz, an amazing woman, has taken him in to her home in Cathedral City, not far from my house. Lots of love, in-home care from her young adult children, and most of all, Beatriz's warm generosity for Brindle, and by association, me. She only needs to keep her puppy chihuahua away from tantalizing the big guy into hazardous pay. Thank you Beatriz + family for your extensive generosity. I miss my "baby" but he continues to get well and hopefully will be back home soon again.
The bedrooms are the only carpeted rooms in the house, you see, and tile, with its slippery slide, is a dangerous surface for him to ambulate his still-loopy back legs. His front half wants to run - strong chest and shoulders - yet his back half is in recuperation from his spinal cord bleed, and the legs give out. He still needs to be walked outside to do his bathroom duties, and held up with a sort of harness. 6-8 times per day, and wanting to jump on my (HIS) bed in the back room - it was not going to work for me, with my chaotic schedule. I had to keep him AND Shasta in the back room the past three days, because if SHE got to come out and be with me on my living room computer, then HE wouldn't quit barking. No wonder I call them "the little kids."
So, I'm happy to report that I've had the great luck-blessing of finding a temp.home for him while he continues to recover. One of my students, Beatriz, an amazing woman, has taken him in to her home in Cathedral City, not far from my house. Lots of love, in-home care from her young adult children, and most of all, Beatriz's warm generosity for Brindle, and by association, me. She only needs to keep her puppy chihuahua away from tantalizing the big guy into hazardous pay. Thank you Beatriz + family for your extensive generosity. I miss my "baby" but he continues to get well and hopefully will be back home soon again.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Claremont 9.9.09 + Empty Mom
I had a very enjoyable evening this past Wednesday at Casa de Salsa restaurant in Claremont, CA, home of the elite, private Claremont colleges and one of the most literary and hip spots on the west coast. I gave a lecture on California desert literature, embedding poetic selections from No Place for a Puritan and a few of my own poems into my talk. Nothing's better than to read, connect with people, and share the desert-as-I-feel it. Also got a chance to share and promote Phantom Seed lit mag, issue #3 is coming out next week and our newest issue is the grooviest to date.
here I am with some new friends and wonderful Claremont people, Barbara and Mark Ashworth and Barbara's son...they are also avid fans of the California desert.
It was nice to see a number of poetic friends: Lucia Galloway, a wonderful poet who lives in Claremont; Bruce Williams, another desert poet who teaches at San Antonio Community College in San Dimas; Mike Cluff, another poet-professor who's at Riverside City College, RCC, and my friend/writer Cyrus Emerson, an aspiring audio-novel innovator. I also made a few new friends, and basked in the joy and sublimity of spending an evening with people who enjoy poetry!
and here is the hostess with the mostest, the incomparable Helen Graziano, Claremont poetess laureate....Helen is a standout poet and indefatiguable coordinator of many stellar poetry readings and events in Claremont. She is also a contributor to Phantom Seed.
Thanks, Helen, for inviting me!
And so, another blissful poetic synchronicity, the making sense of what randomly holds me at the edge of abyss - for a night, and through today, the edge smoothed, a salve provided for the "shock and awe" of starting back to teaching fulltime (many more students, many fewer classes,) as well as the ongoing....numb and oft-disoriented coping with "empty nest" and this strange, silent house I find myself in, 21 years of fulltime house-sharing, with the lovely Tarah, of course, and now, the cord's cut, or should I say, yanked out so hard I'm kinda staggering around - staying sober, good girl. Hm, haven't lived alone since I was 23. Then, it was fun, because I was "leaving home" and the quiet, after growing up in a raucous Irish family of 6, still space meant everything, "my own" small house was a real achievement. My 1930's adobe cabin on Nancotta Road, owned by an Australian man named Mr. Brindle, and the namesake of my dog Brindle (who is yet in recovery from his tragic and inexplicable spinal cord injury at a vet hospital, but slowly regaining use of his back legs.) I had pistachio trees and an outdoor adobe brick fire pit on my 3 acres in then-remote Apple Valley, and my friends and I had some terrific parties under the close-neighbor stars....all for $100/month!
Now - the achievements seem so passe, and I often find myself kind of wandering around the house on California Drive, wondering "how did this come about? My mortage is many, many times more multiplied than my first, modest rent. I'm in a designer desert town filled with shopping glitz and the occasional Rolls Royce, in my closeted (stucco-walled-in) 3 BR, 2 BA (at the urging of my former boyfriend Rob, a former realtor who told me just what type of house is most saleable, of course that was before this housing disaster), 2 car garage, pool + hot tub, fully desert landscaped yard....Oh yeah, I moved here for that fulltime job 10 years ago, and much of my decision to move to Palm Desert was based on moving to a place that worked best for Tarah (i.e., grandparent proximity.) This big house? Did I BUY this thing?" A sort of child or young adult, sustained in this newness and oddity by my own adult creation...it seems impossible that I did it: raised Tarah mostly on my own, built a career, bought a house, made a home, edited a desert lit-book. A life. And I had sand dunes, four square ancient miles of them, behind me, inviting long views to Mt. San Jacinto, now obliterated by golf and mansions....all of which has brought me to...some new kind of "here" that I want to run screaming away from! I step back and "see" how closed in I've gotten, that open space has eluded me, and I've always relied on houses that give good porch and wide nature views. Of COURSE I'm stifled here! I'm an open-desert and mountain and desert river and lake (yes, there is (mostly pilfered) water here....canoeing woman!
Realizing everything was filtered through the Tarah daughter/Ruth Mom lens for 21 year, and now that identity and sense of orientation has shifted radically, and a mix of fatigue, satisfaction, and loss, not to mention more than a bit of fear and confusion over how to (re) invent myself as a "single 46 year old woman/adult" person. Walking across the large-tile floors, from one bedroom to the next, they're mostly empty (master BR = furniture stacked in it) and the hallway is way too long. I can't even muster the heart to mop the floors, or tear the dead weeds from the garden. Yeah, one of the palo verde trees fell over and we had to cut it apart and have it hauled away for an outrageous $$ sum, but it's bushing back out again and I don't know wether to let it grow shaggy and weird or keep trimming it back before those sharp limbs get too big to cut w/my modest tree clippers.
My brother John, 48, an unmarried man with no children, who also teaches in Oakland, CA, says, "just enjoy it, now you only have to work and take care of yourself." Well, I say, I don't think I ever really learned how to take care of myself - I've always taken care of Tarah." Not to mention - what IS a single adult life? In one's 40's, not early 20's (I had Tarah at 24.) Anchored by the culmination of college degrees and career creating, and now unachored at the hip, the navel station, but still with the adult baggage, and without the adult-child responsibilities that were a driving force for me for so many years - a reinvention that must involve all parts of development, age, experience, and inexperience. Even the way I interact with people is different now. I feel glimmers of being a confident and professional 46, and shimmers of being an awkward and shy 23. Half my age and then doubled, and confused by it all.
Sometimes I don't know how to drive to the grocery store, which is 2 miles down from my road, without any turns, and Albertson's, bless its familiar-aisled heart (food for one: organic skim milk, fresh orange juice, Thompsons sourdough muffins, fat free mozarella cheese, organic coffee and tea, organic oatmeal and healthy crunch cereal and flaxseed to add, a bit of sliced turkey meat, pre-cooked, thin-crust CA Pizza Kitchen pizzas, salad greens and spinach and broccoli, avocados and grapes and bananas and a stack of tabloid magazines, and oh yeah, bottles of Perrier - this is the simple diet, and I eat at all odd hours now anyway.) What is this? A skillet? What in this drawer? Why these piles of silverware. Too many cups. Dishes only once/week? Weird weird weird. Cooking, other than microwaving, making coffee, pouring milk or juice, and using my toaster oven to make pizza or english muffins, is entirely out of the question. There's a reason I buy pre-made salad mix.
Of course I'm still Tarah's MOM, but I'm a distant figure now, one reachable by phone and for guidance on life's little things (what do you do when you run out of $$ before the next paycheck? I can't get the college classes I wanted. My boyfriend is pissing me off. The cat has ringworm. Black water is coming out of the apartment faucet.) I've become #1 advice dispenser, via cell phone. Sigh, sigh, sigh.
Okay, back to the fun-relief of last Wednesday night! Good vibes....it's all good. I'm learning to be my own mom. "It will all be okay, and it will all work out. Don't worry." At least the washing machine hasn't gone entirely out, tho it doesn't spin the clothes dry enough, and the pool guy, my friend Dave, keeps coming to keep the chlorine floater afloat, and sits to talk with me when I'm available and knows that when I'm not, I'm probably asleep at 1 pm and he doesn't knock, and my water timer is working so everything is getting watered. Shasta demands a doggy bone every morning, but other than that she's completely quiet and keeps to self, sad that HER little boy, Brindle has been gone, and at a loss herself of where to put herself for condolence, other than beneath my bed or curled always at my feet wherever I happen to house-be at the time. And big clouds out the window, I've opened it for view, hint of rain, if 108 degress on 9.11 is hot enough, over the desert mountains, to wring moisture from the sky and bless thunderheads, zig-zag-zig electricity for midnight inspiration. And so I write.
here I am with some new friends and wonderful Claremont people, Barbara and Mark Ashworth and Barbara's son...they are also avid fans of the California desert.
It was nice to see a number of poetic friends: Lucia Galloway, a wonderful poet who lives in Claremont; Bruce Williams, another desert poet who teaches at San Antonio Community College in San Dimas; Mike Cluff, another poet-professor who's at Riverside City College, RCC, and my friend/writer Cyrus Emerson, an aspiring audio-novel innovator. I also made a few new friends, and basked in the joy and sublimity of spending an evening with people who enjoy poetry!
and here is the hostess with the mostest, the incomparable Helen Graziano, Claremont poetess laureate....Helen is a standout poet and indefatiguable coordinator of many stellar poetry readings and events in Claremont. She is also a contributor to Phantom Seed.
Thanks, Helen, for inviting me!
And so, another blissful poetic synchronicity, the making sense of what randomly holds me at the edge of abyss - for a night, and through today, the edge smoothed, a salve provided for the "shock and awe" of starting back to teaching fulltime (many more students, many fewer classes,) as well as the ongoing....numb and oft-disoriented coping with "empty nest" and this strange, silent house I find myself in, 21 years of fulltime house-sharing, with the lovely Tarah, of course, and now, the cord's cut, or should I say, yanked out so hard I'm kinda staggering around - staying sober, good girl. Hm, haven't lived alone since I was 23. Then, it was fun, because I was "leaving home" and the quiet, after growing up in a raucous Irish family of 6, still space meant everything, "my own" small house was a real achievement. My 1930's adobe cabin on Nancotta Road, owned by an Australian man named Mr. Brindle, and the namesake of my dog Brindle (who is yet in recovery from his tragic and inexplicable spinal cord injury at a vet hospital, but slowly regaining use of his back legs.) I had pistachio trees and an outdoor adobe brick fire pit on my 3 acres in then-remote Apple Valley, and my friends and I had some terrific parties under the close-neighbor stars....all for $100/month!
Now - the achievements seem so passe, and I often find myself kind of wandering around the house on California Drive, wondering "how did this come about? My mortage is many, many times more multiplied than my first, modest rent. I'm in a designer desert town filled with shopping glitz and the occasional Rolls Royce, in my closeted (stucco-walled-in) 3 BR, 2 BA (at the urging of my former boyfriend Rob, a former realtor who told me just what type of house is most saleable, of course that was before this housing disaster), 2 car garage, pool + hot tub, fully desert landscaped yard....Oh yeah, I moved here for that fulltime job 10 years ago, and much of my decision to move to Palm Desert was based on moving to a place that worked best for Tarah (i.e., grandparent proximity.) This big house? Did I BUY this thing?" A sort of child or young adult, sustained in this newness and oddity by my own adult creation...it seems impossible that I did it: raised Tarah mostly on my own, built a career, bought a house, made a home, edited a desert lit-book. A life. And I had sand dunes, four square ancient miles of them, behind me, inviting long views to Mt. San Jacinto, now obliterated by golf and mansions....all of which has brought me to...some new kind of "here" that I want to run screaming away from! I step back and "see" how closed in I've gotten, that open space has eluded me, and I've always relied on houses that give good porch and wide nature views. Of COURSE I'm stifled here! I'm an open-desert and mountain and desert river and lake (yes, there is (mostly pilfered) water here....canoeing woman!
Realizing everything was filtered through the Tarah daughter/Ruth Mom lens for 21 year, and now that identity and sense of orientation has shifted radically, and a mix of fatigue, satisfaction, and loss, not to mention more than a bit of fear and confusion over how to (re) invent myself as a "single 46 year old woman/adult" person. Walking across the large-tile floors, from one bedroom to the next, they're mostly empty (master BR = furniture stacked in it) and the hallway is way too long. I can't even muster the heart to mop the floors, or tear the dead weeds from the garden. Yeah, one of the palo verde trees fell over and we had to cut it apart and have it hauled away for an outrageous $$ sum, but it's bushing back out again and I don't know wether to let it grow shaggy and weird or keep trimming it back before those sharp limbs get too big to cut w/my modest tree clippers.
My brother John, 48, an unmarried man with no children, who also teaches in Oakland, CA, says, "just enjoy it, now you only have to work and take care of yourself." Well, I say, I don't think I ever really learned how to take care of myself - I've always taken care of Tarah." Not to mention - what IS a single adult life? In one's 40's, not early 20's (I had Tarah at 24.) Anchored by the culmination of college degrees and career creating, and now unachored at the hip, the navel station, but still with the adult baggage, and without the adult-child responsibilities that were a driving force for me for so many years - a reinvention that must involve all parts of development, age, experience, and inexperience. Even the way I interact with people is different now. I feel glimmers of being a confident and professional 46, and shimmers of being an awkward and shy 23. Half my age and then doubled, and confused by it all.
Sometimes I don't know how to drive to the grocery store, which is 2 miles down from my road, without any turns, and Albertson's, bless its familiar-aisled heart (food for one: organic skim milk, fresh orange juice, Thompsons sourdough muffins, fat free mozarella cheese, organic coffee and tea, organic oatmeal and healthy crunch cereal and flaxseed to add, a bit of sliced turkey meat, pre-cooked, thin-crust CA Pizza Kitchen pizzas, salad greens and spinach and broccoli, avocados and grapes and bananas and a stack of tabloid magazines, and oh yeah, bottles of Perrier - this is the simple diet, and I eat at all odd hours now anyway.) What is this? A skillet? What in this drawer? Why these piles of silverware. Too many cups. Dishes only once/week? Weird weird weird. Cooking, other than microwaving, making coffee, pouring milk or juice, and using my toaster oven to make pizza or english muffins, is entirely out of the question. There's a reason I buy pre-made salad mix.
Of course I'm still Tarah's MOM, but I'm a distant figure now, one reachable by phone and for guidance on life's little things (what do you do when you run out of $$ before the next paycheck? I can't get the college classes I wanted. My boyfriend is pissing me off. The cat has ringworm. Black water is coming out of the apartment faucet.) I've become #1 advice dispenser, via cell phone. Sigh, sigh, sigh.
Okay, back to the fun-relief of last Wednesday night! Good vibes....it's all good. I'm learning to be my own mom. "It will all be okay, and it will all work out. Don't worry." At least the washing machine hasn't gone entirely out, tho it doesn't spin the clothes dry enough, and the pool guy, my friend Dave, keeps coming to keep the chlorine floater afloat, and sits to talk with me when I'm available and knows that when I'm not, I'm probably asleep at 1 pm and he doesn't knock, and my water timer is working so everything is getting watered. Shasta demands a doggy bone every morning, but other than that she's completely quiet and keeps to self, sad that HER little boy, Brindle has been gone, and at a loss herself of where to put herself for condolence, other than beneath my bed or curled always at my feet wherever I happen to house-be at the time. And big clouds out the window, I've opened it for view, hint of rain, if 108 degress on 9.11 is hot enough, over the desert mountains, to wring moisture from the sky and bless thunderheads, zig-zag-zig electricity for midnight inspiration. And so I write.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Tarah birthday pictures
I surprised Tarah at work - she is a front desk receptionist for Dr. Younis in Palm Desert - on her 21st birthday this past July 28.
Tarah turns 21..ice cream cake + proud mom and a little Hannah M...
Tarah and Velvet...the doctor's pet, who goes to work every day...
Tarah turns 21..ice cream cake + proud mom and a little Hannah M...
Tarah and Velvet...the doctor's pet, who goes to work every day...
Friday, September 4, 2009
Slouching Towards Mt Rubdioux Manor + Phantom Seed Reading Back to the Grind September 17
if you click the picture.....it gets bigger and you can everything on the flyer.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
everything is dandelion
so the day goes auto flying...that is, on pilot....a wonderful English 1A class and I enjoyed our discourse....ended up asking them to all sign up for twitter accounts so I can easily text them if and when class is cancelled....save a parking spot, sleep in.
off to teach creative writing, my plum and joy....waited nine years to get this class and it's a splendid evening assignment, with already 40 people signed up - either I'm really popular or classes are so packed that people are taking whatever they can get. Maybe both.
I want to add a disclaimer to my friends and fans (tongue in cheek on that one) for bearing with my kvetching of recent past. If you haven't and don't want to read it, it is the posting from Aug 30, titled Post Partum Professor. It's shouldered off now and the cord snapped off and I'm holding up better than I'd ever have thought I would, even managed to get a few poetic inspiration lines scratched and caught up on my texting during an Ed Tech meeting, reconvened with a few longtime friends/colleagues, my friends Claudia (librarian) and Bina (Information Systems Administrator) and....
I have a fresh pot of coffee cooking in the empty faculty lounge, guess I'm the only one in our division besides our Italian teacher Prof. Sottile to be teaching an evening class. And as my older brother John convinced me on the phone last night, hey...now, I only have to work for me...so it will be all fun and parties when I'm not at work from now on - no pressure to run a household and be a fulltime parent. What has haunted me now seems like opportunity. At golden, heat compressed last.
off to teach creative writing, my plum and joy....waited nine years to get this class and it's a splendid evening assignment, with already 40 people signed up - either I'm really popular or classes are so packed that people are taking whatever they can get. Maybe both.
I want to add a disclaimer to my friends and fans (tongue in cheek on that one) for bearing with my kvetching of recent past. If you haven't and don't want to read it, it is the posting from Aug 30, titled Post Partum Professor. It's shouldered off now and the cord snapped off and I'm holding up better than I'd ever have thought I would, even managed to get a few poetic inspiration lines scratched and caught up on my texting during an Ed Tech meeting, reconvened with a few longtime friends/colleagues, my friends Claudia (librarian) and Bina (Information Systems Administrator) and....
I have a fresh pot of coffee cooking in the empty faculty lounge, guess I'm the only one in our division besides our Italian teacher Prof. Sottile to be teaching an evening class. And as my older brother John convinced me on the phone last night, hey...now, I only have to work for me...so it will be all fun and parties when I'm not at work from now on - no pressure to run a household and be a fulltime parent. What has haunted me now seems like opportunity. At golden, heat compressed last.
September 1st
ah, that the poet shapes the landscape
first, in case you missed it, here is the Heyday Books advance PR blurb for No Place for Puritan.
http://www.heydaybooks.com/upcoming/no-place-for-a-puritan-the-lit.html
so the poet
engages it, dances it, gathers it, lies back on it and shapes storylines...narrative arcs on sand dunes, rain where dry lake beds mock the lonely lover, and a straight lined highway engulfs the poet in its square arms, what of my recursive path? Circles for me. I missed a deadline for the poets and writers California writers exchange, I assumed materials could be sent via email, like most everyplace else, but alas, when I went to meet the Aug 31 deadline at around 10 pm last night...it was a surprising snail mail deadline. I can console myself with the usual....there are probably 10,000 people applying for it and therefore your chances were slim...but...damn.
So here, in its lieu, in lieu of much missed lovers and daughter and dog and poetic stream of consciousness - it is late summer, fires scour the mountains and eat houses and a few people - what about the couple who tried to ride it out in their backyard hot tub? Reminds me of friends I hiked into Deep Creek with a few years back, who refused to hotfoot it out of there when I saw a major fire break out, downwind from us....they refused to leave and very nearly died while the fire burned over them later (I pretty much RAN up the steep hill to my car!) and they huddled low in the creek, wet towels over choking faces) - I can't wait to go to Burning Man, in fact my friend Van, one of the Deep Creek Fire survivors, is an avid attendee.
Now, to embrace the joie de vivre, here is a lovely poem by Bukowski that I found while leafing through piles of teaching materials, in preparation for my 12:30 pm Eng 1A class today (that is a little more than an hour away, and I've got to yet leave the house), and no apologies for being a poet and a bit off the worn path, as Morrison said, "out here we is stoned, immaculate" and tomorrow I have a very coveted appointment to meet with the renowned Juan Felipe Herrera (what a forever generous person and true poetry hero!) for a poetry get together and I know this will shot-arm me into my poetic and prosaic pulse, my fireline escape route from the flames, and in fact, my redemption and power. I've given up on comma splices, as you may have noticed, have seen so many students using them inadvertently over the years that it's become my latest poetry technique.
Made a Mistake
charles bukowski
I reached up into the top of the closet
and took out a pair of blue panties (ruth: worn-so-much-by-me gray dickies t-shirt that it's shredded with holes)
and showed them to her (him) and
asked, "are these yours?"
and she (he) looked and said,
"no those belong to a dog."
She (I) left after that and I haven't seen her (him)
since. I keep (not) going there, leaving notes stuck
into the door. I go back and the notes are still there.
I take the Maltese cross (Indian dreamcatcher)
cut it down from my car mirror, tie it
to the doorknob with a shoelace, leave
a book of poems.
when I go back the next night everything
is still there.
I keep searching the streets for that
blood-wine battleship (beat up car missing a rim on drivers wheel) she (he) drives
with a weak battery, and the doors
hanging from broken hinges.
I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.
a confused old man (um, still young, not yet siliconed or liposuctioned or botoxed and proud of it 40 something woman)
wondering where the good luck (the hikes and poetry glitter) went.
sorry Bukowski, but I sense that you would understand.
off to teach - the wizard - ceiling fans are my best friends today - it occurs to me I haven't been on the earth nearly enough so it's time to go sit beneath the big trees in the mountains, the ones that were spared the slaughter of last century logging due to their remoteness, and have claimed and maintained their spacious identity, the big tree in fact where I've seen huge mountain lion tracks in the snow whilst I've cross country skied, in the Mt. San Jacinto wilderness. Yes, that's where I must go, soon.
first, in case you missed it, here is the Heyday Books advance PR blurb for No Place for Puritan.
http://www.heydaybooks.com/upcoming/no-place-for-a-puritan-the-lit.html
so the poet
engages it, dances it, gathers it, lies back on it and shapes storylines...narrative arcs on sand dunes, rain where dry lake beds mock the lonely lover, and a straight lined highway engulfs the poet in its square arms, what of my recursive path? Circles for me. I missed a deadline for the poets and writers California writers exchange, I assumed materials could be sent via email, like most everyplace else, but alas, when I went to meet the Aug 31 deadline at around 10 pm last night...it was a surprising snail mail deadline. I can console myself with the usual....there are probably 10,000 people applying for it and therefore your chances were slim...but...damn.
So here, in its lieu, in lieu of much missed lovers and daughter and dog and poetic stream of consciousness - it is late summer, fires scour the mountains and eat houses and a few people - what about the couple who tried to ride it out in their backyard hot tub? Reminds me of friends I hiked into Deep Creek with a few years back, who refused to hotfoot it out of there when I saw a major fire break out, downwind from us....they refused to leave and very nearly died while the fire burned over them later (I pretty much RAN up the steep hill to my car!) and they huddled low in the creek, wet towels over choking faces) - I can't wait to go to Burning Man, in fact my friend Van, one of the Deep Creek Fire survivors, is an avid attendee.
Now, to embrace the joie de vivre, here is a lovely poem by Bukowski that I found while leafing through piles of teaching materials, in preparation for my 12:30 pm Eng 1A class today (that is a little more than an hour away, and I've got to yet leave the house), and no apologies for being a poet and a bit off the worn path, as Morrison said, "out here we is stoned, immaculate" and tomorrow I have a very coveted appointment to meet with the renowned Juan Felipe Herrera (what a forever generous person and true poetry hero!) for a poetry get together and I know this will shot-arm me into my poetic and prosaic pulse, my fireline escape route from the flames, and in fact, my redemption and power. I've given up on comma splices, as you may have noticed, have seen so many students using them inadvertently over the years that it's become my latest poetry technique.
Made a Mistake
charles bukowski
I reached up into the top of the closet
and took out a pair of blue panties (ruth: worn-so-much-by-me gray dickies t-shirt that it's shredded with holes)
and showed them to her (him) and
asked, "are these yours?"
and she (he) looked and said,
"no those belong to a dog."
She (I) left after that and I haven't seen her (him)
since. I keep (not) going there, leaving notes stuck
into the door. I go back and the notes are still there.
I take the Maltese cross (Indian dreamcatcher)
cut it down from my car mirror, tie it
to the doorknob with a shoelace, leave
a book of poems.
when I go back the next night everything
is still there.
I keep searching the streets for that
blood-wine battleship (beat up car missing a rim on drivers wheel) she (he) drives
with a weak battery, and the doors
hanging from broken hinges.
I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.
a confused old man (um, still young, not yet siliconed or liposuctioned or botoxed and proud of it 40 something woman)
wondering where the good luck (the hikes and poetry glitter) went.
sorry Bukowski, but I sense that you would understand.
off to teach - the wizard - ceiling fans are my best friends today - it occurs to me I haven't been on the earth nearly enough so it's time to go sit beneath the big trees in the mountains, the ones that were spared the slaughter of last century logging due to their remoteness, and have claimed and maintained their spacious identity, the big tree in fact where I've seen huge mountain lion tracks in the snow whilst I've cross country skied, in the Mt. San Jacinto wilderness. Yes, that's where I must go, soon.
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