Hearts of Palm

2-21

Suppose I asked you if you would have done anything differently and you said “yes.”

You, who have been my adopted mentor for about longer than I’ve been a functioning human and I realize even now how wholly I would accept your teachings, granting “words of wisdom” as a tag to any that you’ve thrown my way.

Explain the pang I feel then, being outside looking in, watching your sidekick scribble by flashlight as the music surrounds us, drawing us together. I can clutch the hand of my sweetheart but yours is at home, and I presume you are separated by the mundanities of adulthood that can now only be escaped one at a time, with someone always left behind to shoulder the load.

Do you wish for full escape?

I wonder if you are here only halfheartedly, the residue of responsibility ever simmering on your back burners, making your time here bittersweet.

Or, perhaps, this is everything you’ve dreamed.

Perhaps the dancing ponytail of a ten year old girl was the perfect date,
the fulfillment of twinkling eyes now by your side for Thursday night blues rock shows.
I do like to think you’ve always been meant for old houses filled with guitars,
the loudness of happy children, dusty books of poetry
with spines bent and bent again.

I’d be lying if I said that same arrangement didn’t lay heavy on my mind.
A halcyon dream, a vision that once filled my skin with excitement, the blood lust for a baby of my own... but now I wonder when I place my lips against my lover’s if one day our union will cause the same separation, that these pockets of weeknight outings will be experienced alone.

Your date dances with the apathy
of youthfully ignorant bliss,
but I wonder if you’d rather kiss
a lover’s lips.

Valentine

Sometimes I think I purposely avoid writing about important things that occur, in all of their many-splendored levels of absurdities, because these moments don’t even feel like they belong to me. As if during these moments I am living someone else's life in some other era.


 

I guess that’s what happens when I encounter situations that half of me, greedy and instant, hungers to be a part of and signs on enthusiastically only for the other half to cower in fear at these brazen occurrences that rip me out of my comfort zone.

I am a toddler edging closer to the laughing edge of the water with only the dim recognition that at any point the waves might surge and, well, take me.

I am afraid of the water... but I am more afraid of missing the wholesome warmth of sun on skin, of smiling seagulls cawing after the crusts of sandwich lunches, the freest of feelings.

So as my car pulls up to driveways and my hand hesitates on the gearshaft with a clear and immediate “what the fuck are you doing right now,” I try my hardest to think of cool pink lemonade on salty lips. If I can just imagine the feel of sand between toes then I can gather myself up from the beat up Kia and go knock on a stranger’s door.
 

Hustler, Baby

   

I must admit, as I look on the things I have seen and done this weekend, that I must be an abnormal person.

Surely a normal person would get upset at being charged twelve dollars for two thin hot dogs and then watching as the Canal Street vendor tried to shortchange me, “just another tourist,” but I can’t. I can’t be mad that I got to participate in such a swindle as even that interaction feels so beautiful, felt so beautiful as the parade floats rounding the corner turned the street into a chaos of color and sound, casting glows onto the dark weathered face of my hot dog vendor. 

Perhaps I was just intoxicated on revelry and merriment but I stared him in the eye, waiting for him to divvy up the rest of my change, watching this schooled hustler’s face for any sign of disappointment, watching how quickly he recovered saying “oh you handed me a 20, that’s right that’s right.” How could I be mad at such a skillful artist? 

I stood there with a grin on my face, imagining all of the stumbling-slurring fools that ended up paying 15-20 dollars for a hot dog that was already marked up to a ridiculous margin...

Sleepy Feat

2-8

We pulled into the slowed-down city
at 4 in the morning but we -
eyes wide with weariness and wanderer’s blood lust -
stayed up a little longer
lingering through half deserted streets
until the shining branches dripping down
with disco balls sent us the call
to find our set of sheets.

Porch Swing

2-10

I have to try to do this justice.

I don’t know for certain how long this house has been here, this renovated New Orleans farmhouse, but the thin long lines of wood flooring on this porch look as if they have been here before brick buildings and planned city grid lines though I know they are incapable of having such an age. I feel as if they have watched as the creatures of the swamp pooled together and rose, forming such a city as this - watched as the neon-colored bulbs of smoky jazz clubs gave way to the hollow glow of so many LED lights, as the alligators slunk back into the mist and the sorority girls claimed the streets to roam at night. 

I feel just as old as this house, awake unreasonably early and settled into a porch swing, listening to music and setting myself adrift. Everyone else is sleeping, cloistered off in solitary pockets of unconsciousness, and I am here staring at the way these roses wrap through the old wood balustrades painted white with a hint of seemingly-intentional dirt and grunge.

Figures

 

written 2-1

I can see the pages lined up before me,
blank except that on closer inspection I can see
the faintest lines of sketched charcoal begin to emerge.

The word “emerge” begs the question -
have these lines been etched into my skin already? Have they always been here?
I am trying to train my eyes, taking care to note the details of each and every thing I see...
including these lines, hand drawn by Clotho herself.

The word “emerge” begs the question -
have I simply been submerged? Perhaps the lush valleys and stretched out mountain ranges,
supported by my calcium deposits and fault lines,
have owned this shape forever and I am just now touring the countryside.

This is how I feel today.
I feel like a walking composition of thick and thin strokes,
contoured and imperfect but art nonetheless.
I am content with this smudged canvas full of hand drawn shapes
marked by experienced distortion, proportions ever so slightly skewed.

I am content because I know that this pen is not held by only my hands
but by the collective of schooled hands that have written these same words,
sketched these lines, fingered these melodies.

Hands that are smooth, gnarled, hairy, dainty.
Such different but unified hands that work with the strength of laughter and impulsion,
the obsessive desire to connect through creation.

Large hands that hold old guitars just so,
roughly belying a grace that explains the glow
rising like steam off of golden-haired fingers -
small hands that lovingly press reality into amorphous blobs
of compacted dirt, singing the female form electric and
imprinting heartbeats into static clay.

Hands that hold my face and brush back my hair,
hands that speak louder than any voice I have ever heard.
Hands that sketch through touch, creating a portrait of my landscapes.
I will wear these fingerprints for all to see.

Spoken Word

1-24

The first wobbly step outside of my comfort zone has been taken - not just reading my words in front of a group of people that I know, but reading in front of one of my adopted mentors in writing...

It always takes me off guard when my physical reactions are completely out of sync with my emotional status - take, for instance, the heart of mine that began to pound against the walls of my chest in excitement and panic and no small element of “what the fuck are you doing on stage in a fur coat right now?!”

But, like I know would be,
I was proud as shit of myself, and inspired.

my one picture from that night

 

 

 

Me mid-sentence: taken by GM Palmer

my friend Alex: taken by GM Palmer

The Faces: Frazetta

I want to wrap you in words
the way you wrap the white spaces
in vibrant colors that jump
into multidimensionality
at the guidance of your focused tongue
between your lips or
the precision of paint splatters
on fingertips.

I want to configure these thin black lines to match
the muscular curve of shoulders
that flex and knot under such concentration;
as if your directed intensity of gaze
could see into the bold lines and shadows.

The spotlight of attention is intense, indeed.

Intense, the way that respect raises hairs on my arms,
the way that curves of fertile hips
birth echoes of smiling lips.

It is intense when a subject that I have studied,
transfixed and starstruck
by the beauty of differently configured atoms -
the very glowing center of a forming constellation
slowly and heavily drawing in all of the heavenly bodies-

turns to affix an equal gaze upon my shell shocked face.

Mental Richochets

1-19

But where to start?
And how should I begin?

This has been a week of revelations, of spiritual visions and verbal revisions.
I’m not sure which I should address first.
The problem is that all of it seems so far away in comparison to this moment of morning-coffee peace.
The smell of toasting bread and sweet rolls tantalizes me but I will resist the temptation and choose instead to focus.

So basically I let my spirit fly the other night, through meditation.
I dug deep and was taken over by spirals of abstract thought,
letting vibrations of light and sound carry me as far as they could take me... and then some.

I keep continually coming back to this Saul Williams line:
“Through meditation I program my heart to beat breakbeats
and hum bass lines on exhalation...”

That line has resonated throughout the caverns within me from the first time I heard it and every time I have come back to it since, gaining new waves of meaning for my life with each visit and revisit.

In the darkness of the brilliantly patterned light, voices of mine sprung up from the deep.
I never knew I had such fear hidden away, such clear and perfect fear.

“I’m never going to be able to communicate all of this, to anyone.”

For a split second I was terrified that all of the beautiful thoughts and all of the mental ricochets therein would be trapped, forever. That I would never speak again, that I had gone too deep and lost my voice forever because in the time it takes for a second to split, to light sparks with flint, I had already bounded off into the ethereal..

I haven’t decided quite yet what to do with this revelation. Obviously my voice came back to me after I was done floating up amongst the constellations, after I remembered to breathe - after I remembered that breathing exists - and settled back down a smidge. I regained my voice and retained as clear a memory I could of what it felt like when I thought that no one would even know I used to speak.

Up until that moment, when my identity and honestly my existence was lifted off of my shoulders, when I came face to face with the pure and distilled essence of my personality and all of my hopes and feelings, I had no idea just how much it means to me to write.

Apparently it means a whole fuckton.

Shimmer and Drip

1-19

In that sacred space between it all - where everyday objects shimmer and drip like wax down the body of the candlestick - everyday thoughts dripped from my brain as if through a sieve so that all I can see is everything that actually means anything to me, and

and then, dripping over me this time, the music.
Vibrating me gently and taking force slowly until it is clear to me that I am a puppet hanging from steel strings, quivering at the most tender touch of fingers on frets. As voices begin to surround me, from the stereo and from the source unknown, I felt, overwhelmingly so, that it is a waste of time to do anything but devote my life to song - to open my lips and let sweetness flow forth; to stop suppressing my desire to sing.

I just have to be a part of it.
I have to.

It’s not just me, either.

I can see it now in Corey’s eyes, too.
An electricity is humming through us, changing the aqueous matter of which we are comprised and bringing us close together, easing our minds of stigma and worry, granting an ease and a confidence that brings us closer to getting our destiny.

We place more stock in our words and our harmonies, the ways our minds and bodies work and have worked together to create this mirror by which we see each other and ourselves.

“Feel yourself being quietly drawn
by the deeper pull of what you truly love.”

It feels good, like the moments we spend together are ramping up in terms of productivity, in terms of connectivity, in terms of feeling with certainty that we are back on the same page and back on track to keep exploring this world and this love together.

I am that close to it

 12-28

Each string of words is the latest in my attempts to explain the meanings of the universe because every morning when I wake up I can feel the answer running on the edge of my eyelids. When I pass the solitary hours driving around Jacksonville, turning my brain off with the aid of car speakers, I can almost discern the shape of what I am looking for amidst the ever-refreshing “opening sentences” that are constantly populating in my brain.

I am that close to it.

So close that every answer I am seeking out is a brightly colored goldfish standing still before me until I reach my hands out and everything I am looking for in the placid waters disappears beneath the obfuscation of chaotically rippled glass.

Rippled glass tempts me with promises to hold the answers still for a few moments, giving me a head start. I’m not so sure that this entity of woodsy-smelling comfort in the form of pillared smoke is actually a help or a hindrance, but this dance with the devil has loosened my fingers and my fingers dance as if the devil is still present. I feel much closer.

What is it that drives me to the pen? What is it about words that sucks me in so surely? The idea that black lines on blank paper can contain so many colors and shining surfaces, vivid images of any feeling you can conjure. What a captivating juxtaposition - perhaps that is how I’ve come to view pen-and-paper as a skill to learn.

Shine like Vikings

1-10

A quick scribble to commemorate a moment of grand happiness,
a little jot to capture how high I am on life and mixtapes

and new friends that shine like Vikings of the New World, 
musical and laughing; 

how deliriously lost I am in all of the faces that smile at me daily, 
delighting in my company.

Sage Francis and B Dolan 12-21

12-28

The bass rattled my entire skeleton
and my heart began to beat
break beats and exclaim FUCK YES on exhalation
the exclamation met in turn by a hundred sweaty faces

and now the adrenaline’s combined with
my bathroom smoking sins

and I’m
spinning
and lifted

I stand palms down in Camazotz
imagining my blood pounds through me
like the speakers pound the walls

watching the end of the world
with eyelids closed in deep meditation

Waiting, still.

Seeming shy, she scribbles secretly, silently, sequestered and solitary.

She smiles. Secrets can be sweetness;
sweet and safe, savory tidbits of scandal
to keep the excitement stoked.

With imprints of finger dents
travelling loose
through burst capillaries

your strength stains me.

Helpless to the thrill, aren’t we?
A bound-together “we”
made up of silent, anxious She.
Eyes round, trained on He and

you know that I am waiting,
patient, breath attuned
to you, and the strain you are creating -
the battle of focus and will -
and I am waiting, still.

Festivities

12-20


Just so I don’t forget
the colors of the paint upon the wooden kitchen floor
and the low hanging canopy with strings of lights.
Passing around glassy relics
from face to fresh friendly face
Loud smiles
hazy air hanging low around the table.

Just so I don’t forget the crowd of beanie-wearing men in corduroy jackets,
the faint woodsy scent of herb clinging like a coat.
The technicolor lights granting new clothing to each person,
the colors changing everything into an alternate world,
a different place, washed in the light.

The feel of light blue seersucker on my fingertips, a broad expanse to cover.
The eye contact that betrays my true thoughts to the observant,
an observer that understood immediately.

Just so I don’t forget the way it feels to be circled by the shark in water
with eyes that look on with calculating need.
Knowing that I am the moment’s chosen means to an evolutionary end.
The distinct and sudden awareness that I am a sheep in the presence of a wolf.

Just so I don’t forget: “because I’m in. I’m mega in.”