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thingiely not, sir [19 May 2013|09:32pm] post comment

hpvd [14 Feb 2012|10:10am] 2 comments|post comment

look lock [02 Nov 2011|05:03pm] +++ honey bees, burnpile, new cell service, renting out, new jersey bud - boots still on, bed not made no apple sauce post comment

big silver ball, lots of teeth [24 Aug 2011|01:27pm] post comment

keep the basturds [20 Jul 2011|11:48am] with a straight face, every instrument turns color for fall and winter. long necks, longer legs and somehow all i want is for the day itself to be the longest. the sunlight to last just another few hours, a few minutes after four'o clock to stay suddenly very still. i will, i will, i will. "i will give you older brothers." i could turn myself inside out, i could hold my hands so high with my fingers split so far, i could spend and spend until my bank account was in critical condition. i could drive the truck into the ground, off the bridge or into a wall. i could, i could, i could. i never call you, i think i gave in before i gave up. i gave into this damned body, spine cut up into sections that might as well just fucking wither away. rot, rot, rot. headaches and shoulder pain, bee stings and sunburn. "you can keep your last name if you want to." if there is one thing i want to do it is to just drive on. keep the gears up in my brain going, my hands moving, my legs carrying me somewhere. solid? i don't know anything about any of that. i work anywhere i want to. i laugh in the comfort of strange. i don't want you to touch me, but i wouldn't mind being a wish on that shooting star, your eleven eleven or nine to seven, handwritten eight to expand your investments. hopeful is pretty; she is romantic and whole, but she doesn't move. she doesn't leave or come, she just melts into your hand, your lap, your heart and her arms drape your neck and her mouth tells you no sweat, darling. don't worry, honey. you're the best damn thing. but she doesn't come from anywhere and she sure as shit won't take you anywhere. less and less are the memories of you, or, well... the potential of it all. who you were supposed to look like, who you'd listen to most. you leave me more each day and i bite my lip harder, trying harder to just remember something. is that where your mother went? did she leave it somewhere? i wish you and i could get together, laugh a little and bring her back. in my dreams, it all makes sense. i am not lost or losing it and you are happy, with me, and she is safe -- here. but the reality of it is she isn't, you aren't, i'm not. to space. post comment

untitel [06 Jul 2011|10:05am] i have been dreaming of dear, lately. flashes, images of tail and toe of a velvet's sweetheart doe. my fingers curl, they drag along dirtied sheets until - mascara on her pillows, fingernails flipping pages of a book that is about to fall into pieces. outlined in red, backed in black and obviously the bind in silver. my wrists ache more than they ever have, my stomach triangulates in a circular space. smile, please just smile. one of the barn cats was bit by something. at first, anne thought it had just a uti but we found her tongue had pulled back hair at the base of her tail and there were the two holes left irritating her back end. peroxide, let inside to sleep on the steps. wine fermented at the winery in baltimore and i have no further interest in their games. their he/she/they said/did/would not/should. bossman out of town this week ( a trip to paris doesn't sound so bad ! ) and the pool at his place left in my hands and to my side. i confuse often the memory of her and the consistency of most women. 2 comments|post comment

xtra [21 Jun 2011|09:27am] they are in and out not at all likes thieves, void of malicious intent and all smiles thru their bad habits. most are nearly homeless, nearly jobless, nearly hopeless but while times are hard, there is something else beneath this roof. i go no further south for occupancy, only a fishing trip in the keys that involve night dives. i cannot leave this place again, this canopy of fruit and song and humid comfort. so our shirts stick to our backs, so the college kids all think they can draw, so what if my boss hasn't watched television or owned one in years. this grime building up in the lines of my palm can be scrubbed away with dish soap but the smell of soil and vine are permanent. the girls and the guys offer up rent, hand me twenties in return of a place to sleep, some good bud, a big dinner but i can't think when it sits in my hand anymore. i just have this memory of lewis' wife bringing me coffee on father's day and asking but not asking and that tightening and then loosening from my collarbone to my shoulder. like some sort of release, some sort of spout of... of - so we held hands for a moment, but it was mostly just a generous squeeze, a polite good morning and small question. how are you? i avoid misery as anyone else should, other than my own eyecrusts. i eat breakfast with a guy who has owned this piece of land for years and years and years. a guy with more guys who all know what the fuck they're doing. no one here putting in hours they never fucking did a bubble test or cleaned out the bottling line. every now and then they bring in interns, typically french girls who are too lazy to shave (not that they DON'T) and german girls who aren't timid with their adjectives. they're pretty but totally out of their own world so they're either silently going insane or willing themselves the hell out of america. they all have nice hair and legs and their eyes and voices do things most guys would beg of an any girl after getting it only once. so things are nice and everyone's polite, but the best morning is my old boss and breakfast, and in the evening it's tea with honey from his goddamn sweetest old wife. i go home to savannah and i avoid the bundle of wannabe beats but truly: they are all harmless. they are just tight jeans and bad haircuts - jeans they will eventually outgrow, heads of hair that will do the same for their noggin. i stretch my legs and wonder if i am any taller come my birthday. i extend my arms to welcome anyone who needs it, and when they are healthy, happy and gone - i manage myself somehow. i eat, i sleep, i write, i work. throw in a few cigarettes and cups of coffee. i meet interesting characters (girls in long skirts and sandals, guys who fly air balloons) and i meet rats, the ones that at one point in time were given some kibble, and are handed it again and again from other unknowing folks so eventually it becomes expected. i send no cards and i receive none this month, but still wish the best for those that just are as they are and hope that whatever it is you do, you do it well. the grapes aren't ready, but the zucchini are huge. a girl in the wine tasting room is somehow sweetening up lewis to invest in a beagle to be trained to keep deer and rabbit off the property. post comment

[11 May 2011|11:17am] bottles of bricks tug hard on my nerves. the machines run well, the vines sit high and most have begun to sprout at least some color. we might pick mid-summer, waiting longer than that is a huge, huge risk i don't think the winery could afford. georgia can't embrace a grape the way california or virginia can. the climate is too dense, there are too many pests. i went to market on one of the islands, and saw the hugest house i think i will ever see. the couple were newly engaged, going for a balloon ride and talking endlessly about their trip to the bahamas. no envy of what they have, because in some form i have had it all too. oversized houses, large lots of land, a ride to just about anywhere, someone who grabs for your hand and makes plans. now, i am poor in those respects. my truck has a solid block of an engine but there isn't a week where i don't run out of gas on the highway. i have practically given away all property, most of my belongings. cameras, camping/hiking gear, boards, appliances, clothes, some tools. my companion no longer sleeps at my feet, she no longer noses under and inside my elbow the way someone reaches out for your hand. quietly, but in full. no numbers on speed dial, no hand-written letters. no gifts of glossy paints, no wrapped paper messes or baked goods. but at least alongside your snide comments is my realization of how trapped someone becomes, by themselves even, when once considered in a relationship (of any type). alone in one mind, i venture into others with no means of defense. smile as it is appropriate, clean up because messes are real. years spent taking, seemingly endless months giving. when she has that question on repeat, "why?", it will never be in reference to me. rather her current and apparant future surroundings. i let go of her hand now every afternoon, and it is the strangest place in the mind to miss someone you will never see. so i crawl out, back up to the top of that hole and sit. a recollective moment before i am something more familiar and i get up and walk away. not into some routeless forest, but forward onto the road of productivity. where my hands are always dirty and my back never heals. there is something quiet in my residence. small, almost frail, save for those large eyes. no questions here, just a small and quiet companionship who laughs at a few of my jokes and watches me remember how to cook. i literally cringe in the presence of women who ask questions, who costantly tut about as though to fix or at least flutter something around them. demands to be entertained, dyes her hair, will not remove top. no contentment in self, no acceptance of is. horoscopes and pictures and men who talk like babies. let's go somewhere, let's find travel. 4 comments|post comment

PLUM AND GOLD [16 Mar 2011|10:50am] painting seashells took up what seemed like an entire year. the only span of time where brown and grey could exist together. hours and hours of lines, of swirling and curving until circles were made. when the air turned warm, the boy painting seashells spread his hands. he crushed his palms into grain, cringing between each wrinkle until the noise was nothing but a soft hum taking over the beach. he dived into her, nearly swimming against her grit until he realized he was more of the thing rough surrounded by some soft comfort created by her sands than she. my hands swell by the end of winter, engulfed by rain and steel and glass. they throb while cuts caused by broken bottles and metal corners scar over my knuckles, between my fingers, beneath my fingernails. it is always so good to get back to the vines, to be snagged and stung. i cannot imagine any other sensation more breathtaking than losing blood or sweat. the aftereffects are simply reactive, but continuously astonishing nonetheless. i sold most things down south. elijah helped me with a few tools, reminding muscles lining our backs that we would still need them another year. i have never met someone as tired as i had felt for so long. our exhaustion brought other winds beneath us, a contrasting response for the other. an awakening moment in our own dream - and then it was monday and we were done pacing, we were done ranting, we were done shaking and just wanted to turn off the camera, the tv, the lights and just sleep. i have lied loyally, i have misplaced expectations and have managed to displease the faintest of hearts. when you get past twenty, when you drink yourself into twenty three and sober it up until twenty-four to only inhale every white substance you can take to turn it all grey... you wake up a couple months later with an enormous headache, a couple of handwritten notes and dark undereyes that if you were any younger you'd probably just claw until they were that perfect peach color. pay your bills, turn off your phone, get out of every comfort zone you have found. you can do it all, but one day you will wake up right there, right where you thought you had escaped out the window, hand in hand with peter pan himself. i can't say i'm at war, not even on my worst days. i'm not spiritual in any idea of god; there is only the future as this endless unknown, our own materiel selves existing as the faith possibly still standing there years later. every hour clicks off as we pencil others in, erasing them out if we get the itch that just maybe we know a little bit better than to allow it again. the tide comes in and washes out every marked circle. it climbs over, pulling along the surface before sighing itself into retreat, leaving nothing but beaten, bright shells. 6 comments|post comment

most of my friends are rescues; sitting thru lectures, therapists on speed dial. [25 Feb 2011|11:16am] sleep sweet, little city soul. 4 comments|post comment

yourself, clean [15 Jan 2011|09:09am] weeks in and out, i slip past the speed limits while inhaling coffee, fidgeting with a cigarette. i have noticed nobody stops me anymore, is this the universal moment, everyone's arms up in the air? politics turn to firearms, to the jobless and the old. i shake my head, a habit i have picked up and can't seem to actually shake right off. hours and hours of unaccounted for work, i dirty between my knuckles just so others will not feel it in them to reach for my hand. i fall asleep on our couch after feeding the animals, ignorant of moments thought in only skin. sometimes i hear that baby, but most nights i am too deep, too gone, too far away. mind's sight, a little in hindsight. my roommate and i fill our living room with smoke; we laugh and laugh, we cook. things are easy, everything is so easy this way. the only headaches i suffer are recurrent from the cold. arms spread, back bending - we all twist our spines, but some of us for others. i've sold a lot, but my true companion is consistent. padding around now in her older age, eyes quiet but years taken off with a simple turn of her head and the scent of something worth a taste. we have traveled so far, but what all have we seen? everything true, from a distance. post comment

dismissed [18 Aug 2010|07:02pm] we used to live together, this girl who could bake and i. the setup, the process, the smell i can only bring to you by raising my voice with the word. our paychecks went toward flour, eggs, oils and syrups. whites and wheats watched blackberries and peaches replace sweet peppers and eggplant in the fridge bins. sheets of sugar took on color, some days just for the laughter that came with the sight. i could call her up and send her your request but i won't. have you ever even heard of a blueberry buckle? the variety of treats she could pull from an oven tickled me. her system amazed me. no apologies for a darkened crust, just another late night wake up to go over one more recipe. every dessert was her last, like the last criminal a cop would shoot down and that was it. the badge would go and the gun turned in by sunrise. to create mystery and closure, somehow they fit together and not at all. she stayed for months, she was the last person i spoke to before i left georgia. it was no romantic comedy, but she shifted my life and instead of thanking god or her mother, i let her stay and i didn't rob her of sales made when i found her quietly running a cashier at a bakery last week. i am reminded that everyone changes, that we are given a hefty amount of time. this isn't the part where i ask by whom, or wonder how long is long - accept the karma of what is. our tastes deteriorate, our sense of self can do just the same. i smile and settle for different reasons than i did a year, two years ago. my morning coffee is not the same, but i watch the same amount of television. was last week a few years ago, i would've spit and cursed, scared everyone out of that bakery. i would've hated her right then and swore it for the rest of our lives. do i say this makes me grown, more of a man? it makes me less of the monsters, less tired. i simply age while she counts her drawer. harvest is early this year, the hands at the vineyard groan it in the morning but i think by winter everyone will be pleased and eager to fill next year's glass. 16 comments|post comment

on indolence [17 Feb 2010|02:38pm] nothing to do with the fire (may) so i drag them around a bit. through the heat, and under a smoldering hand. were they all as smothered as the look on my face? i stopped drinking tea after my third herb head. these people are from places in california i refuse to admit exist. jenny and i go back to chugging glasses of water on the deck, the dogs getting away with all trouble behind the house and down the hill. she is almost as tall as i am, the only intimidating factor about her. she's talking about getting horses, she's talking about chickens and more dogs. it's wedding season and the white is driving her toward the most obscene colors. she's only a few years younger than me, and for the first time in some time i notice how hungry we are as humans at that age. does the sleep cake our eyes, or does the smoke just soften the looks we give over time? her parents are talking about selling the vineyard, i absently discard the stink of business and section the property behind closed eyes. i am going to uproot it all and start anew, and when it's done maybe i'll pick up religion and occupancy with more deadbeats and boaters. whatever happens, i can't go back to that sleeping place. i live beside aging comfort, i leave those in and out of love alone. i smile and touch until it aches but i sleep and work even harder than that. dinner with charisma (april) most of our lives are made up of waiting. in some countries, all that is asked for is comfort. food, water, shelter. the basic necessities. in others, we are waiting to be full. to have it all, and then some. some of us appreciate the science of sunlight, the art of waiting, the idea that existing in itself is a total thrill. i don't know what to call sufficient, but i know i am happy in only a handful of places and i know few are permanent. i don't worry about what is enough, i can't think of the times where i have placed whatever was emptiness and whatever was just too much. i am very much so in a place where i have always believed i belong. the world is simple, and some of the most difficult people i have come into contact with now breathe their lives in a way they never imagined themselves. it's funny to be right, it's hilarious to be alive this way. not out of necessity, not this one. living here people make it out sort of like a cartoon. the visitors laugh, smile when you mention los angeles, when you drop san francisco and even go so far as to mention the few hour drive to tijuana. they are suddenly full of information or demand it all. these are all the same people, just with less to do. their long sleeves go away just a little quicker, their sandals dirtied a little faster. nothing major other than the jump from ice to dust. there hasn't been a single sensation to be called familiar in the past few weeks. car rides are held in silence, and my mind finds nothing bothersome in the low levels of service my phone receives. is everyone used to speaking softly, smalling the curves in their vowels even when written on paper? this morning, my silence belittled me for the first time in however long it is before i start forgetting events and the people attached to them. the rain is nice here, the snow doesn't ruin any weekends. my mornings are out in a field, surrounded by dormant vines and a patch of emptying apple trees. this time of the year is where the houses and whatever surrounds require some attention. the deck has been my favorite project, and i feel as though it hasn't been looked even under in some time now. the end result only reminds me of what trust should resemble. coffee mug in hand and the sun here but not there, i remember my shirt in the truck and that gracie would rather i didn't work in flannel pants. my seat is warmed already by the sun and i'm stuck for the time being, happy in the morning quiet i am and always have been grateful for. robert francis is hollering in his most apologetic voice that he's got to get out. there are those lines that hint the old cliche. all for the best, honey girl. the women yell just as loud in the south as they do upstate but i don't linger very far into darker hours. letters go unread, gifts unwrapped. is it possible for a past to come across as heartwarming the way they do in movies? was it the coffee or the volume of the stereo that sent me hauling down the hill, through the front door of the vineyard cafe to pummel the closest and earliest yuppie group with how incredible the sun was this morning? my stomach is sick in all of the calming places, little heard unless my heart is racing. how often do i fall asleep during total consciousness? i hate when eric and joey smoke cigarettes in the house so by lunch time they're back to bong hits while i'm scrubbing what looks like cat vomit off the wood panel floors. we don't own a cat and queen's been out back chasing the little brown birds. when everything slows down, the pit rebuilds itself in my gut but i'm lucky when the guys ask when the last time we made fajitas was and i legitimately can't remember but know it's one of the few dishes i can remember how to make. post comment

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