February 2012
5 posts
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twenty one fifty nine
in a foreign named town in northern oregon i exit the freeway and drive through a thick fog to meet a friend. our truck is left on the street in front of trevor’s mother’s house, its bed piled high with possessions; yours, mine, ours. it’s not quite night, but evening, and everything is grey, glowing dimly in the cloud, pulsing with soft light.
we drive through the town in...
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what things want
You have to let things Occupy their own space. This room is small, But the green settee Likes to be here. The big marsh reeds, Crowding out the slough, Find the world good. You have to let things Be as they are. Who knows which of us Deserves the world more?
-Robert Bly
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set in sand
just hammered out a very tentative travel schedule for march, april, and may. if you find yourself in any of the following places around the same time i aim to be, or want to come hang out for a bit, let me know.
my life is an open ship. come and join me for a while.
march 22: leave tokyo, japan for kuala lumphur, malaysia
march 23-25: singapore
march 26: leave kuala lumphur for paris, france
...
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dust of snow
The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.
-Robert Frost
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underground
I also had some major doubts about love. When I was around 19 I thought long and hard and came to the following conclusion: pure love for another person, and what people call romantic love, are two different things. Pure love doesn’t manipulate the relationship to one’s advantage, but romantic love is different. Romantic love contains other elements - the desire to be loved by the...
January 2012
27 posts
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friday
i’m drinking dos equis in a mexican restaurant on top of a building. we’re in tokyo’s fixed gear district which may just mean we’re in the fixiest of all fixed gear districts across the world. a chandelier modeled after some mythical mayan serpent covered with feathers snakes down in enormous spirals from the ceiling. the restaurant is aptly named hacienda del cielo, when i...
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words for friday
I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands.
In the course of the experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign to her newborn.
Baby, drink milk.
Baby, play ball.
And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby,...
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years passed.
a house on the edge of San Diego, white and empty, cold through the winter.
bicycles hung with hooks on the living room wall, a large blue fish opposite.
a thirty mile walk to the ocean, through the hills of northern california, cigarettes, sandwiches, and poetry in a backpack.
sailing through clean blue water, wearing a jacket, dolphins jumping in the wake.
typhoon saloon, the cat lounge,...
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another airport
she sleeps on the floor of the san francisco airport.
her head rests on my jacket, i took it off for her.
these places are so full of windows, light washes over everything.
two small children enter the bathroom with their father, a girl sips water in yellow shoes.
there is little for me left in the place we are going.
a city by the water, one i will return to many times in the next few years,...
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i can't remember
we listen to mirah on your record player.
you live with your cousin? i can’t
remember.
the summer is dark and green,
people drink beer outside.
this house has high ceilings,
wood floors, cracked white walls.
outside, bugs on fire stream through
the night, blink off, on, and off again,
disappear into the bushes
at the far end of the yard.
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lately
it turns out that shoveling snow is not one of those things that a half decade hiatus can bring about a renewed appreciation for. lately, it’s been snowing like all hell out here in the nagano mountains. when i first arrived last year i remember asking about winters, specifically, the snow. oh don’t worry, they told me, it rarely snows here, and when it does, it’s just a few...
“And I thought about Paris, which I’ve never seen but which I’ve visited once or...”
– The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolano (via kilibird)
read this book.
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Comet Hyakutake
Comet Hyakutake’s tail stretches for 360 million miles— in 1996, we saw Hyakutake through binoculars— the ion tail contains the time we saw bats emerge out of a cavern at dusk— in the cavern, we first heard stalactites dripping— first silence, then reverberating sound— our touch reverberates and makes a blossoming track— a comet’s nucleus emits X-rays and leaves tracks— two thousand...
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things the cold has taught me
this is another list.
i’m sorry.
i won’t bullet point, because i think it’s ugly.
and i know this is stupid, but because i’ve only had passing association with winter for the last seven years, i’ll endure it.
i’m sorry again.
clarity
wearing a hat indoors keeps you warm
installing a heater at the top of your 10 foot bedroom wall doesn’t make sense
...
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words of encouragement
a partial list of, up until now, words i’ve scribbled in red permanent pen on fifth grade phonics worksheets.
epic
kind
most kind
kindest
gnarly
nicest
sweet
rad
bueno
gold!
awesome
super (in all its infinite placements)
good job
dry
i silence the phone in my pocket, a sign at the entrance asks us to do so.
my father orders appetizers, he only does this when he’s happy.
we drink wine. well, you and my mother do.
the sun drops low outside, comes through dirty windows, shines against the dust inside.
people line for ice cream and spill into the sidewalk.
it is summer. it is dry.
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automatic teller machine
If you work at a steady rate you may reach the river by nightfall and if you have the will a canoe will be waiting by the ash factory for you to take upstream to the takoyaki shack where you can eat delicious food and drink as much beer as you like until late into the night. In other words you have your whole life ahead of you and no one can tell you what to do or how to act or what to say or...
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canons
it’s snowing right now, huge thick fluffy chunks of ice, coming softly down to the ground. i finished work and walked to my car, it was covered in a few inches of snow. this is all new to me, working and living in a place where snow is a constant reality. growing up in seattle, it was cold, but it rarely snowed, we were just too close to the water. but here, in the mountains it always seems...
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listen listen.
it’s so much gold.
osaka
in osaka for the next few days. it’s the first place in japan that i’ve honestly felt like i could get stabbed in. there are pigeons eating garbage in the street. plastic bags floating around in the wind. food and beer everywhere. canals between the streets.
i like this place.
be home to nagano in a few days, will recap and do some photos then.
hiroshima
seven hours more, the trains move further south.
we pass through cities that make me think of food: kobe, osaka, itozaki.
a bridge stretches across the bay to the east, suspended and dark. hung with cables, it is enormous.
i sleep now next to the water and ferries pass this channel in the night.
glowing softly with a light contained within, they are like insects in the summer, drifting...
December 2011
28 posts
year
happy new year from kyoto friends.
please excuse my absence.
i will be home shortly.
hasta pronto.
first night
seven hours, on five different trains, to travel half the length of honshu. we arrive at a house with five steps, down the length of an alley. chinese food with friends of friends: vegetables, pork, spicy tofu and rice. we have a room on the roof, to get there you must pass under the day’s laundry, sheets and socks. it warms with us inside and in sleep there begins a rain.
holiday
off to kyoto, nara, hiroshima, and osaka.
see you next year.
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december
snow falls.
i walk ankle deep,
my hand unravels into another’s.
we stand on a rock under a street light,
hop down and continue on.
at the beach the water is grey and green, churning in the snow.
a woman in the distance bends to the ground, squats a moment,
finds a stone she favors, and throws it to the waves.
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christmas
off into the mountains of nagano for christmas.
christmas with snow, not a hundred degree beach like last christmas.
thank god.
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fork with two tines pushed together
It’s fast and cool as running water, the way we forget the names of friends with whom we talked and talked the long drives up and down the coast. I say I love and I love and I love. However, the window will not close. However, the hawk searches for its nest after a storm. However, the discarded nail longs to hide its nakedness inside the tire. Somewhere in Cleveland or Tempe, a pillow still...
lunch with 8 year olds
a boy takes a stringy mushroom out from his bowl, screams, and tosses it at the girl across his table
the kid i’m sitting next to hits me two times in the crotch when i’m in them middle of eating my food
i turn to see a mouth opened hippopotamus style four inches from my face, the young girl in possession of it is wiggling her baby teeth, the ones about to fall out
i get a...
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thursday
notes in a desk, leftover emotion from high school.
i read them and feel like i’m peering down at a life not my own.
it is strange to think: i used to be capable of such things.
my finger swells, balloons, it is twice the size of its other.
i cannot write and imagine the nail tearing off, dislodged by the pressure below.
i wake thirsty in the night and drink water from a tap in the...
in dark bars
In dark bars with modest fires, John talks of love and whether one can have it despite the multiplicity of self. Believe it, John! I say, though I do not yet. We stuff ourselves into the photo booth, using our faces to elaborate on the moment as though time has already truncated it. I cannot answer John’s question, and turn up missing from the prints.
Science will say that the peak-end rule...
the coast
camping on the coast,
snow lies beneath our trees.
their leaves have thinned,
the branches drop.
wind blows in off the water,
it shakes outside, rattles the tent.
a fire burns,
the branches gathered,
give themselves up, break
and snap,
form an embrace against the cold.
morning light rises out
from beneath the water,
burning clouds grey above the
swell.
i will be
i will be the eaves,
that you hang your words upon.