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Let’s Stay Awake & Afraid Of This
Don’t underestimate how the complexities of human character become cartoonish over time. Doubt your version of your best friends. Let them impress you like strangers. Let’s live forever like we just met.
Selections from my Love Letters to Saint Francis:
The Impossible Ladder
The elegant plan, the simple inarticulate hope
the incessant dusting, the uncovering that hovers here
the unremarkable rungs of the impossible ladder
that you think of these things at all.
The cups that are clean, then filled, then cleaned
the nowhere fear, the terror of arrival
the sad spaces in front & above, the sap of happiness
the matter-of-fact alleyways
the proper thing to do or say at the wrong time & place
that you think of these things at all.
The honest beggar, the blinding white lie of language
the stubborn smokestacks & on-ramps, the dull ache of static
the bored understanding of traffic patterns
the unspent plea, the common cold openings
the nature of torn pockets, the multidimensional smile
that you think of these things at all.
Here’s To Life…
& all the happy little deaths of time.
To being clothed in a dead man’s sweater
in the dead center of summer.
Where the hills of this town touch the shimmering hand of god
& god doesn’t notice.
Where I muster up the hesitation, resolved.
& all dissolving in the shivering dream of bliss…
& the nondescript slobber of numbness.
This Part Of The Big City Is A Small Town
Love, this is your neat summer
The twinkling twilight of near unconsciousness
Open affections tucked away in the park
The women there, tending babies. You see
the large church at six, six, six on Filbert
Old men lining up at Mama’s for breakfast
All those lovers in the foreplay of morning
Ghosts in nondescript cars going crazy
The chorus of Chinese clearing their throats in the alley
Heavenly, heavily
we heave our bodies forward into sight. Then
we leave them in the night, where we found them
Cradled by our mothers, crying & laughing at once
Born as the bells ring & singing as they die away
We are among saints
We are bothered by crowds, choked w/wings & coughing
Projected on the streets like stars
Wrapped in the season & still: a secret.
Eating An Orange Incorrectly
If time reversed, sunsets would sunrise & sunrise would set,
& we’d wake up so tired, we’d fall asleep full of rest.
But still there’d be dark, there’d be light. Thunder, then lightning.
& room after room of such waiting…
In Somnie
A wall of green blooms serenely near the river. Près de la Parc du Champs de Mars
I am there, eyes wide, mouth sharp, in another year, long from now, far far from here
& old Paris seems so complete, so completely covered in concrete & meaning
I’m only bone-tired & ready to be swallowed up again by the din of Europe’s evening
Reborn as a Basque tour guide, or a pigeon on a park bench facing the seaside
… never leaving. My Mediterranean mothers & the gentle nudging of Italian weather.
Impressed by ordinary men less than humbled by the overwhelming obesity of time
Who go on, set apart from location, station to station, & fashion some sort of home
In love like long rambling walks w/no destination, safe from deadly games & favorites
Teach me the language, let us live in fantastic vacancies, explosive pleasantries
Run out my weakness on the roads of history stretched out to infinity & still arriving…
A thriving marriage of humanity & patience. I am there, Paris, unthinking.
Until the sober cathedral bells shake me & reclaim me from my dumbstruck stupor
Here are the paved sand dunes of my poor California, America’s bold boutique future
Here are four hard years of tracks, from hill to bay & back, & one dull wall of plants
These nights lit like fires in the center of stars die out entirely. Morning in ruins, running
Two tickets to Istanbul & then the Serbian countryside & then… nothing.
& finally, that life can still be like this.
Noah Kalina stopped by to help w/the housework.
After days of feeling pathetically helpless & stupidly overwhelmed by the staggering tragedies in Japan, I tore myself away from the news (itself a sort of intangible tsunami) when I realized I’d been listening to endless, hopeless broadcasts & staring distrustingly at the bright blue bay water out the window for an unknown amount of time. The thing that shook me “awake” was a coffee mug falling from the sky, straight down as if god tripped on his way for the morning paper, & shattering in the street somewhere below.
Too strange to think about… So I left the apartment w/no real destination in mind & ended up running into Demetri Martin (<- genius). True story. What is this place?
Notes - Saturday, March 5, 2011
The atmosphere is hazy now, the bay looks like a pot of dry ice in a Halloween display, but earlier the sky was clear & I was overdressed for a Saturday morning. I stretched out on a warm bench in the park & watched the little black birds move across the grass… & I could see that they were once giant dinosaurs chasing terrified prey across the plains in another time. At the top of a small hill, the birds passed beneath a tree w/absolutely no leaves, but a full canopy of flowers. I watched the odd petal fall into white-pink piles on the hill until I was distracted by two elderly Chinese women in wheelchairs who parked themselves nearby. For the next half hour I watched them pass prescription drug bottles back & forth. When they left, one of them winked at me & I found myself nodding in mysterious agreement.
Later, in the sculpture garden atop SFMOMA, I removed my glasses, balanced an espresso on my lap & shut my eyes long enough to forget where I was. In such circumstances, you become the warmth of light on your face & the sound of wind against the city. I heard someone say “unless it’s a cooking emergency or a Spanish translation, no one ever needs me.” The cafe on the roof has a dessert shaped like a penis (serious) & covered in chocolate. Only middle-aged women buy them, according to my observations… but, to be fair, one of the women thought it was a finger. Selah. A metric ton of humanity in that little building not even counting the art.
This afternoon feels right for rearranging furniture, so…
OVERHEARD in SF. Dude on a cell outside Bob’s, smoking.
Could it be possible?
First things first. The great San Francisco snowstorm of 2011 never happened… bastard bought a ticket, told everybody in town & then never stepped off the train. Hell, it hardly even rained. I was having a delicious sandwich in the park during “the worst” of it, & I couldn’t remember a nicer lunch. The sun was strong & the air, somewhere south of 50 degrees, felt deeply refreshing. Selah.
Now I’m home listening to Van Zandt’s gorgeous take on Cocaine Blues & the church bells are ringing & the sailboats are out again on the saltwater. Earlier I returned a biography of E.Hopper to the Chinatown library & then stopped in at the Fairmont for coffee on the way back up. This is where the incident took place.
As I was leaving the hotel, a small crowd waiting for the taxi queue blocked the main exit so I tried to pass through the valet line & ran squarely into a clusterfuck of three bodies spread evenly across the path - a man, a woman & a dog. I was high as a satellite on coffee & didn’t mind the inconvenience. But eventually the woman noticed me & realized her husband was blocking my path. I didn’t want to be rude (she was about to pull the classic shoulder tug on the poor fellow), so I cleared my throat & said “excuse me.” When the man turned his head to hiss at me & my stupid smile, I couldn’t help but recognize the face from album covers, from Bridge School 1999, from Seattle 2004. Suddenly only half aware, I pushed between him & the dog & didn’t look back until I was across Huntington Park & couldn’t possibly see a thing.
Those who predict the weather are seeing snowfall in city streets this week. Snow hasn’t drifted in these corners since long before I was born… we’ll have to see to believe. & anyway there was plenty to go around in the attic of America/the great Canadian basement where I outgrew childhood. For now, the sunlight is still heartbreaking & golden in the magic hours. I wonder how the light will look all lit up like fire & stone-cold as ice?
……………………………………………………. San Francisco, February 2011
Discontent
The wind blew violently last night. The windows rattled & the iron of the fire escape shook, trying to hold together (after a point, that’s all any thing or anyone can do). I know this because I was there, but also because the two women in front of me are discussing the event while waiting for coffees at the Fairmont. They converse like there were a mirror between them. In fact, they each have a small, identical dog on leash. One is licking the bottom rack of a fruit stand. He seems happy.
The women talk about the wind, gardening, the effect of wind on a garden & then, irritated at the interval between payment and goods, the revolution in Egypt.
The Experience of Art in the Dead of Winter.
