bwap
Current mood: blessed
Category: Life

an eXXxxXXxtreme day today in patti-land. brought to you by mountain dew and fear.

i was at lake solano, dinking around in the rapids. due to a very strong, swift current, i got pushed into a tree overhanging the water. i got tangled in the branches and brambles and then finally i flipped into the deep, cold ass water.

i don't know how to swim. i'm a very experienced kayaker and i've even done this exact same rapid stuff before. but still: can't swim.

i was wearing a life vest. good good. but i still had to dunk under the water again to get around the tree from below and it was cold and the current was trying to force me to lose hold of the branch and pull me under. i couldn't get to the bank beside me because of the crazy current and also because the bank was covered in thorns and brambles and mud-- i'd just fall back in and i couldn't reach it anyway.

i must have went under 5 or 6 times in the heavy current and it was just so fucking cold my brain was starting to act funny and it was hard to control my movements. my friend amber finally got to me and i held onto the back of her kayak and forced our way to a shallower area. when we did finally get to the shore, there was a little black fish floping around in my pant leg. i put him back into the water.

today was beautiful but also terrifying. ken and amber were really there for me when the shit hit the fan. for this, i am very thankful.

the kayak is still lodged in the tree. we're going back tomorrow with rope. we'll see.

even an experience swimmer would have shit their pants.

moral of story: wear a life vest & don't trust trees.

Currently reading : The Sighted Singer: Two Works on Poetry for Readers and Writers By Allen Grossman

5:53 AM - 8 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

overlooking sac river
Current mood: quiet
Category: Writing and Poetry

overlooking sac river

at least from the bridge,
sun is a no-show;
the dawn's shot.

happily: it is the time for giving
up. without, the shadows

want for haven,
cry thin & apart like our

day-to-day selves,
the hollows that answer

to endless names, mostly to
you who can't remain.

defunct, the poets lie useless;
our human troubles drab as sky.

lack is the answer we all reply—
the river fled,

tongues wavered on the ebb.
there are no mouths
for speaking,
or nothing left to say…

i have gaps, you see,
leaning from the bridge,
forgotten
everything;

those words that can't be
spoken

already winding
toward sea.

Currently listening : Profane Fetmilch Lenzt Elf By Bethlehem Release date: 2006-11-20

2:38 AM - 89 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

sunk
Current mood: sad
Category: Writing and Poetry

sunk

her body brims in white
scales, fins jetting

to innards and lousy
shadows. that floating sickly

too-light feeling; failure
swimming horrible tunes,

bumping ragged with
each and other, millions;

or one

leviathan with miles
paling, thrashing cold her

throat, to free.

it's better than drowning
but not by much—

if she widens a cave
for mouth,
what shapes will pour

to gray the world
and stay too long,
singing a rising sea.

Currently listening : Lurker of Chalice By Lurker of Chalice Release date: 2008-04-15

11:41 PM - 89 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

at Fort Point
Current mood: drained
Category: Writing and Poetry

at Fort Point

no one wants to hear about fog,
the faces just want to float;

not to be told,
but find out by skin,

flicker themselves
brief in the gray.

from the point:
windshapen forms
line above the shivering

waves, where some of us gather
with too-heavy eyes…

            between the bridge
            and beckoning bay,

            gently the fog
            leaps and appears
                                        free.

Currently listening : Defective Epitaph By Xasthur Release date: 2007-09-25

10:19 PM - 89 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

the fall equinox is on september 23rd
Current mood: peaceful

for the equinox

long past dried miles,
into autumn some of us know.

newborns scream in circles;
and the old ones stir
less and away;

what happens between
is rain passing through.
is the withering time.

this, too, deserves song.

Currently listening : A Passage in Time By Dead Can Dance Release date: 1998-07-07

11:24 PM - 89 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

childhood
Current mood: quiet

childhood


alone that feeling,
(4 years old) open

as the window; standing
on a chair, looking outside,

where a rainbow
curves for my first time,

cutting through the gray.
i smell the after-rain and think:

i will draw
what i've just seen,

and give it to you
for keeping.

***
next morning: we walk.
mother, we walk to a first

school day, and the honest things
scatter among curbs:

cautious alley birds,
on their way too.

***

that feeling again.
of beginnings and light,

of floating in the eyes;
i think back like tunnels

and first words learned—
you all come glinting through.
along, i've been spelling you wrongly:
rain, window, and mother.

and further, past me,
there is no one here to keep this,
no one here to keep.

Currently listening : Bread and Jam for Frances By Switchblade Symphony Release date: 1997-09-16

11:59 PM - 89 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

King
Current mood: indescribable
Category: Romance and Relationships

King

you've begun to count the days as syllables,
rummaging past a thousand or two,

then smaller, fuller, before a mask
swarmed; doubting mask, weighty to don.

it returns, it returns. all of it now:
a cyclic shade, a dream—

except it's a life, what's
happening in your machine.

faring the coffins, there's struggle;
and that struggle makes a chasm-sound.

yet you know what it is for…
you've even started to call it song.



for your heart drums a name,
and it's almost a river.

sound it out: you're open-mouthed and it makes
a ring— one that stays, that even shines.

deathless, the love that ripens to never.
deathless, the name you both drink from.

Currently listening : Empires By VNV Nation Release date: 2000-05-16

2:04 AM - 89 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

september
Current mood: thirsty
Category: Writing and Poetry

september

summer goes then, the knife
in the eye, a word past skin.

hovels have been made
of the home in you,

shackles fitted just
right to your hinges—

across two mountains,
something has been streaming

toward you and alone;
those attentive heard it

in the west wind's creak,
in the way silver fins

expose selves to surface
in fog and eager storm…

all of us have known
save you, dark and closed,

but leveled, taken in.
what might be loosed here

are your prisons,
the ones you've rinsed

a mouth out with;
and what's been streaming

now arrives: with it,
the bright pain shines.

Currently listening : The Three Calamities By Switchblade Symphony Release date: 1999-05-25

10:25 PM - 89 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

neithers
Current mood: vexed
Category: Religion and Philosophy

just thoughts... not so much verse.

neithers

first it was the death cult,
more than black drift

to empties that lure;
then life affirmations,

the forced joy that comes
with love or purchased chemicals…

a mind, so one hears, falls
into the other or one:

an image of ending,
the glow of now—

but what if it's the neither
one can be drawn to,

not even an in-between,
no gray coma-wishes;

this breathing and not-breathing
game or serious matter

loses its shiver
after rotation or two—

it's the options that tire,
the choice that isn't even there.

Currently listening : Bad Moon Rising By Sonic Youth Release date: 1995-04-25

11:46 PM - 89 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

concussion
Current mood: stalked
Category: Dreams and the Supernatural

concussion

every hour, one must wake
with pupils ready to be checked;

aunt says the head
grew a goose-egg,

and all night, things
arrive. dreams of reality

t.v. schemes, huge dance
numbers, glittery/horrible,

dragons or herons
mountain-sized, pissed,

book-burnings, food-hoarding,
all our babies shriveled blue-up.

that color of cold:
it can't be shaken,

at least for a while…
one could call the bulk of it
hatching,

the inner eye folding back
its lid, revealing a woman

running through tired rooms,
stranger-filled, her skin

falling in sheets to the carpet,
skeleton unsheathing—

who is she: fleeing
to look one time behind her,

opening throat as if to scream,
then stopping herself before she tries,

remembering she is the dream.

Currently listening : In the Flat Field By Bauhaus Release date: 1998-07-07

3:22 PM - 89 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

symbiosis
Current mood: annoyed
Category: Writing and Poetry

symbiosis

crushed splinters—what
crushed them?
limbs, snagged skin, friendless

night. but in the bays, a smile
wreaked by cruel. woman speak.

one could be unmade, you know, forced
here, and here, emptied!

…to pry a thought from violence,
to cleave past animal drive—

i'm no good.
at that:
bait sings to me,
and even by moon,
with dry hill witness,

i have damned
the fields by blade,
stabbed moist earth
repeating dull names;

only shadows
notice,
deepen in the wane.
so to speak.

Currently listening : Paranoid By Black Sabbath Release date: 1990-10-25

12:49 AM - 89 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

to sleep in
Current mood: restless
Category: Writing and Poetry

to sleep in

once on a river
we sat with mouths
open all night

awe awe stars
at seeing us
broke

open their light
spilled as seed
on desert tongue

when finally
we spoke
we could not.

Currently listening : Creatures By Clan of Xymox Release date: 1999-04-13

1:46 AM - 89 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

after a meteor shower
Current mood: animated
Category: Writing and Poetry

after a meteor shower

the aftertaste of a suburb
morning, that dumb
palpable silence just

before clean cars, utility
trucks creep to street,
stir with the coming sun;

we, unslept, are moving
bitten toward the bay
to meet that promised rising;

to meet that coming
in the dark of selves,
lap our eyes in cold-hued

tides.
we try to linger,
but it's hard…

dawn noises flicker,
usurp owls & stars.
with sharp machine-sounds,

day intervenes.
now, on dock,
our bodies arrive—

in black, we greet the newborn light.
in black, we fathom the glint
of waves,

the clamoring scales of a thousand fish
evolving toward shore.

Currently listening : The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust By David Bowie Release date: 1999-09-28

10:02 PM - 89 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

sunlight
Current mood: betrayed
Category: Writing and Poetry

sunlight

we're leaden with ghosts,
with doors that won't stay shut.

we never knew how many bodies
would come and go;
would mostly go;

how many times we'd have to stand
in gray-sharp rain,

digested without voice.
no days enter without knives;

no faces exit without trace.
beside and among me, they

reside—the ghosted
ones, the former loves.

in blinking lives, we only know
our single sun.

and even that honest light
fails.

Currently listening : Let Love In By Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Release date: 1996-02-13

10:07 PM - 89 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

strains
Current mood: argumentative
Category: Writing and Poetry

strains

weeks go by with no
phone calls, no words

with other women.
crows in the mulberry

trash-talk sunsets,
shadow the edibles

every time.
and every time,

i cannot leave
these rented rooms,

a shelter that stays
only awhile. were i

to pry my dense
red door to dirt-lit

halls, that light would dull
straight through me;

would lift me to the limbs
of fruitless trees,

where nothing can be gathered.
one joins the petty caws
of other dimming souls—

Currently listening : Explorer Series: Mexico - Fiestas of Chiapas and Oaxaca By Various Artists Release date: 2003-07-15

9:01 PM - 89 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment