Riverton

gravity

such an entreaty, an invite

to walk in the snowdrifts,

in the magic of the clouds.

to be there is to loosen gravity

and breathe less density;

a lightness of head and

an eagerness to see above

the world, knowing that

all of it is happening below.

life carries on, but looking

up at the sun is the smartness

of the smile on a face for no reason.

the worries greet everyone

upon waking, but in the clouds

an imagination can carry

all of the dross away.

just as a flower dies apart

from the tree, vine, or bush

when cut and placed in water,

so shackels and cages of gravity

limit levity from getting off the ground.

a hindrance is better met

and dealt or it will be a monster,

because people don't live

in the snowdrifts of the clouds.

not yet, not yet.

your great butt

i want you in my life
the way cocopuffs is part
of a balanced breakfast:
only an ingredient
in a balanced meal.
don't tell me a story
to clean it up,
make it uncomplicated,
when really it's just
latent apathy on the cusp
of total avoidance.
hope that attitude works
on the way to where
you're going.
another did this
very same routine,
and maybe he was sorry
when he ate his words:
"you're great but."
one day you just might
wake up, and know
what was here;
i won't be found sitting
on the edge of your bed
waiting.

the vagrant

the janitor named her "wander,"

which means look at son,

you're coming undone

God knows when,

but you're doing it again.

the idealism of greener grass;

the cliche of a better place;

the adage of never knowing until you try,

have taken this girl on many adventures.

boxes, a stationwagon, and wandering soul.

why can't she settle in one place,

and trade in her tent stakes

for a foundation and some green grass?

she's been a vagrant, a rogue,

vascillating and mitigating to and fro:

her standards set higher than reality,

as though one day she will actually fly.

roving, meandering, running,

away away away.

last night she heard a voice say,

"you are not ready to leave this place,

until you leave the place in your head,"

and clarity rinsed the dirty sink

like summer thunderstorms bring

vistas, so fresh and clean, out of the haze.

"it's all smoke and mirrors, this mindset,

keeping your thoughts for companions:

they will drive you mad."

she had been deep in the forest,

wrapped in a desultory plan,

so intently analytical of the trees

that she couldn't see the prisms of light

scattered through them, shards of the sun.

it was the memory of seeing an open field,

feeling the warmth of daylight laid waste

in the back of her mind, which tormented her:

she had isolated herself, apart from everyone

and nearly everything that she loved.

how could that be better than staying?

she had been waiting, spinning in circles,

through the years of trial and error,

ebbing on the tide of mood and emotion;

silly girl, going on and on,

and now her impulses were clear,

like the path out of the forest,

aglow in bands of warm light.

out of body

weightless,
mirthfully powerless,
lying in my bed,
removed a pace from reality:
alight in my feelings
I am reduced to molecules
as small and weightless as air,
life drains from my head
like sand, like gradients
drifting upward then hovering static.
only the awareness of my fingers,
and roof of my mouth
hold me to the ground:
I am apart from my body.
such a feeling could be frightening,
and yet there is comfort all around:
as though I were a little girl again
floating in a tidal pool at low tide,
water humming in my ears
and gently holding me.


*the ending of another poem which deserved its own poem... have you ever experienced this?

turn the page

*this regards my homecoming, and is the opening of a joyous embrace of being Southern. rest assured I am not bemoaning my present life; rather I am happy to keep going and see where the story takes me.

what happens,
where my eyes cannot be;
words are spoken, and thoughts pass
in the absence of me.
were you thinking of something,
because I was thinking of you,
holy city, of the suprises in a world
I tried so hard to give up:
my hometown, I was humiliated to return,
broke and saddened, that I was,
in my pride, greatly persuaded
to leave you for good,
and yet we never left each other.

these things, these ideas they wax and wane
in a felicitious circle of light in my head:
they are always with me, a daydream.
oh, right job in the wrong city,
a list of reasons a mile long
leading me away from here to there,
to that place which exists right now
in the absence of me.
I am Kate Chopin's heroine
striking the landscape at water's edge:
I am stripping myself of it all,
bare of all my anchors
as I step into the sea.
I am ready to swim into that ocean,
looking forward to the horizon,
never Lot's wife gazing back
as life passes into shadow.
music and laughter lift me
from sinking; I can almost hear
the page of the next chapter turning,
in this brazenly bittersweet story,
and nearly experience that place
waiting, existing, in the absence of me.

make it funky

This weekend, I had the esteemed privilege of spending a night in the accomodations of the Microtel Lake Norman. If you have an imagination about you, you may well have an inkling to the expectations of a room whose rate is perhaps a third of the standard rate going these days. Still, my mother was in an art show and her hosts gave her a discount... it was a roof over our heads, a bed to rest our weary bodies, and an experience.

Mom started off the day with a feat of attempted messing with my head. She described the peculiarities of the inn, stopping always to tell me to wait and see. When I suggested the procurement of a room deodorizer, she dismissed me quickly with an, "Oh, no! I'm into it." It being the faint smell of sausage, though no sausage would be found anywhere on premises. The aroma of stale curry in the hallways also provided no hinting as to its whereabouts.

When you have been standing in 90+ degree heat in the company of yuppies and hippies, and enough blonde pregnant women and their little blonde kids, you want to find yourself in a happy place at the end of the day. My first clue was the icicle lighting across the front gable of the Microtel: it's June, people. Standing in the lobby were coin machines hearkening back to the early 1980s, still offering plastic eggs filled with treats, including "metal" jewelry recently recalled for its dangers to children. I should have bought the damn thing out. Inside, we found the patriarch of the family lounging with his sons. They were courteous and friendly, with eyebrows like catepillars. This is a family owned establishment, and the degrees of separation from mother India were quite apparent. The owner's grandparents clean your room for you, make the bed. I was harassed for carrying too many bags and an extra pillow. The lone elevator took us to the third floor, although I cannot explain to you the structural elements making it possible for the building to stand atop spindly columns and a parking lot. Purple carpeting. Odd ice maker. Curry. Lots of curry. Darkened hallway to the room.

You know you're in another place in time when the sink is in the room with you. New amentities: unplugged microfridge, television. Everything else looks like Michael Douglas in 1989. Wall to wall glass above the beds. A single, humming, gridded, neon light. Floating vanity between the beds, mounted on the wall. Combination desk/chest/tv table features a chair rolled right out of 1972 and recovered with a gray matter replete with a suspect stain. My favorite? Toss up between the shower curtain that probably shouldn't be exposed to water, the leaky comode, or the zinger... a windowseat. Not just any windowseat, mind you: an elevated windowseat above a vibrating a/c unit. You know, so you can look at the back of a strip mall outside. At first I was certain we were back in time, about 15 years. Then it became clear. This Microtel in Lake Norman was actually a porthole into the Pakistani/Indian border. Westernization only goes so far. To about 1985. Somebody'll sell somebody's cousin a television or a computer, but that's about it. Close your eyes and the curry just takes you there. Aaaaah. Yeah, I'm into it. What a blast.

tomato picking at the farm

by midday the cicadas are screaming,
their wings rasping in the trees,
but could you be bothered
of such noise, such business
when it is indicative of summer?
leave the hair product and sweet
shimmery moisturizers far behind,
as the mosquitos are so inclined
to sample the tasty fool found
without deep woods deet.
perspiration treads steadily
down your spine, beads mounting
on your brow and behind your knees:
then there rolls a steady breeze
to keep you on your feet to pick.

dark earth, gloppy from the rains
adheres to everything, at times
freezing you in your last step.
tomatoes are waiting on vine, in rows
along the highway beyond the sunflowers:
some fermenting with a grouping of flies,
others as green as the foliage,
but the ripe ones are also there,
ready to be twisted and twisted away,
into the baskets of pickers.
the air is salted in the tartness
of the saucy tomato, fuzzy from the plants
and delirious with the many kinds
farmers have planted this year.
cherry, beef, yellow, and ugly,
each for taste and looks apart
as different as the pickers out
in sunhats and old clothes,
some on their hands and knees,
others coraling children to the tent.

ugly tomatoes, heirloom variety,
the nice Greek man says,
are tucked in the middle and back
of the fields, where no one is looking.
try them, he urges, you won't regret it.
ugly tomatoes, dipping tersely on the vine,
their puckered girth astounding,
weigh more than the other kinds.
it was not until later, when sliced and served,
that we became aware that each was gold.

taste sweetness again

Why would a person keep such a things:
Acting a fool, being sentimental,
When I’d forgotten you, gone apathetic.
For so long what happened
Was filed and locked away a “mistake,”
And you disappeared on your way;
Until something reminded me of you,
And your name came out
With a bitter aftertaste.
You aren’t worth that thought
Or the things I found tucked away;
Who knows why, child.
Do you carry every sadness with you;
Every hour your heart was broken;
Every night the fear and darkness
Lay down with you?*

Open is the plastic bag
For the refuse I needn’t carry
Another step, another fleeting waxed nostalgic.
In you go, and with you the boycott
On every man whose name begins “D.”
Somebody else named them,
And you needn’t stamp them an ass
Just because you turned out to be.
The friendly garbage men will toss
That part of my life into the landfill,
But I stopped caring when you stopped
Returning my calls, and seeing you
Meant not seeing you anymore.
I knew it’d all pass, when I was ready
To taste sweetness again.

*lyrics borrowed from “Halfacre” adapted by one of my favorite bands, Hem

cage of the mind

there are many phobias
within the human mind:
a person could be terrified
of heights or failure or plague,
but i writhe at the thought
of my little silver cage.

i have always been found
out wandering where
i supposedly should not be,
but it is social confinement
which keeps me from normalcy.
i would rather walk barefooted
than ever be laced down;
the very idea of "this is your life"
produces gray hairs on my crown.
a person can either embrace
a free spirit, when they pass through,
or push them back into a cage,
the only cage they ever knew.