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January 19th, 2009
09:30 pm - Wetland Expedition (Age 8)
The Chesapeake marsh does not break
our stride. A creek carves its deep channel
into the earth for miles, driving our lack
of judgment up its body without quarrel.
The water smells fresh, free of salt,
its trickles caressed by a thousand
water-skimmers. Shoes sink into clay (no fault
of their own) and the snakes curl their scales inland.
Mike tries leaving us behind at the lagoon,
bounding through the mud with an open and shut
dissociative identity case, platoon
following Hornblower’s land voyage. He putts
a pebble downstream, wielding a sword-branch, years
of skill imitated from a photograph
of a sailor from long ago. He smears
sand across his cheek, planting a crude flagstaff.
Our skin and clothes have been soiled by fern fronds,
stains that Tide can only fade to rust.
Mike plucks a leech from his calf and points to ponds
past the flooded drainage tunnel that arrests
our feet. He steps toward a floating suitcase,
but the sounds of cars convert the insect’s psalm
to a shrill ring tone that scares us. In disgrace
we leave, Mike wiping his face with dirty palms.
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09:29 pm - “That You May Have a Long Life”*
My father loitered in my room,
his arms groping for an embrace.
He fingered the television remote
while he apologized. Trying to remain remote,
I told him I had to leave, but stayed,
waiting for him to follow me outside.
The car sat on the ramp, rubber-fat
bulging from its blown-out tires, while the man
from the towing company gave us the bill.
My father looked at me:
he knew I would pay for him.
I felt my mouth lockjaw in anger
as we returned to the room,
but I could never break that commandment:
Honor thy father.
Next year the disease will progress. He will ask for more,
a meek voice whispering against weary ears,
and I will give him my spine if he needs it.
He wrapped his arms around me, his cell phone ringing
as he rested on the bed. He had the same mannerisms,
and even more love; but he continues to wander,
trying to recover his bearing.
*Exodus 20:12
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09:29 pm - Rear Window
A camera watches the neighbors draw their shades
as they wrap themselves in the city noise
and summer heat.
Rain sizzles on the pavement outside my room.
A downpour begins to fall on-screen, sending the balcony-couple
and mattress indoors.
The Leading Man scratches his plastered leg,
watching the suspected Villain leave with his case of jewels
and wide-brim hat,
but my thoughts linger on the Romantic Interest,
the woman lifted from Vogue, wearing that afternoon dress,
black and white
with full skirt and fitted silk gloves, her blonde hair radiating
in the dim light. Now my girlfriend calls from Seattle; she says
it’s gorgeous there.
The wind outside ruffles the leaves, echoing the shower that lulls
our Leading Man to sleep. She quickly ends the call,
impatient with me,
ready to leave for dinner. I feel like Jimmy Stewart in that cast,
but I don’t have Grace Kelly visiting me every night.
I hope it’s raining in Seattle too.
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09:22 pm - Drive My Car
Virginia was my birthplace, nothing more;
and the Eastern Seaboard was my hometown.
I rolled up and down that coastline
whenever orders were changed,
carried within that domestic tourniquet
between housewives and Marines.
On those Sunday drives through D.C.,
I drowned out my father’s road rage,
my ears a listening booth of Satchmo and the Beatles.
I remember long walks through Pentagon catacombs,
and altar-boy services weighed down
by shrunken cassocks and apostolic lecture.
But men like Fitzgerald and Thoreau
held more sway than Peter, John, and Paul
when I viewed my cousin’s teenage
body and the scars visible beneath
cold mortician’s make-up.
To this day, I let others drive for me,
too comfortable to leave the passenger’s side.
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09:18 pm - Malebolge
Dante’s thieves wander the desert of eternal
exposure, their skin
windswept and charred with God’s justice.
Orlando’s highways
create similar bolgia. Aimless cars en route to strip malls
fill the lanes,
glaring with divine light against the hot
cement and asphalt.
Uneven roads are bordered by orange sentinels,
construction barrels
warped by collisions, their reflective tape fading.
Scenic vistas
of underdeveloped land and swamp remnants
collect gnat-swarms
over the stench of sulfur. Billboards stand still
like hitchhikers,
their ads for theme parks and late-night venues
exposed thumbs.
Mouths of abandoned excavators remain frozen
in midday meals
of sand and clay. A trio of sandhill cranes
arch their necks
if the sun breaks through. Soon they will cross the roads
like lost priests,
questioning faith as swerving vehicles hurtle toward them.
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09:17 pm - Desert Wastes
I ran across the flattened plain
while a cool wind contracted my skin,
hardening my lungs, chafing my throat raw.
The others passed by as I slowed,
traveling in dust clouds while the crowd
moved further down the course. The land
rolled by my eyes, like a conveyor belt
dragged by a lead weight. My sweat
was cold, filming beneath my shorts.
We smelled like wet burlap, mildewed
and spotted with beads of dry mud
that powdered as our feet brushed
against our calves, dusting skin dry.
Teammates I had easily beaten before
passed me, rhythmic mirrors to our opponents.
I pulled up to shorten my stride, spitting air
out of my dry mouth. I turned, watching
the others sprint to the line as they heaved
for their bodies to maintain that perfect form.
The final stretch was layered with straw,
bordered by cheap sod yet to be laid.
My shin splints grinded along, my ankles knotting
to avoid potholes and uneven ground.
I finished calmly, head bowed to a pink horizon,
too sick for fruit or water. 5K Time: 21:34.
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09:16 pm - The Gorilla
Observed from the thick glass
he seemed an overgrown child,
docile and oblivious, intent
on leaves, a consumption
so fascinating it left us dull.
He grasped the branches with callused
hands, his feet curling as he ate.
Discarding his food, he flared
his nostrils and blinked his eyes slowly.
Was this brute a sulking Achilles?
A few females watched him,
crouching low, holding their knees
to their limp breasts. The guide spoke,
warning they merely ape humans,
these untamed beasts of the African
wild, violence incarnate!
The gorilla turned away,
his silver back making words
arbitrary. As he hunched
with the sad, cold fury of Ajax,
did we gaze at the beast or the child?
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09:09 pm - For Our Parents
Having lost another game of Quarters,
he stumbled to the stairwell sulking.
She eyed his plaid shirt and ten-gallon hat,
amused and disgusted as he tugged
his thick mustache with grubby fingers.
But she sat beside him, sensing vulnerability.
Her knees knocked together with the beat
of a metronome, and she laced her fingers
while he rested his forearm on the banister.
A few hours later, he palmed her breast
with hormones sharpened by a drunken fog.
He met her again the next day, slumping
under her gaze, but the apology was genuine.
She led him around the track after band practice,
showing him the hole in the fence by the woods
that led to her house. He passed through,
helping when a wire snagged her sweater.
She smiled as he unraveled a mound of thread,
and led him through the trees, their soles
rustling through the soggy Jersey leaves.
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09:07 pm - Man of God
The rain covers our clothes with a film
of sweat and sickness as we plan for the new road.
Damn the cassava! It haunts us, mocking
so many valleys, bays that will become harbors,
villages that will become our missions.
The elephants are a nice distraction, but their tusks
are shallow rewards. The natives call me chief
when I load cartridges and worship me
as my rounds replace their idols.
We teach the young men cricket, but they play
in the nude, their oily bodies beading moisture.
Decrepit in his dotage, Chimombo looks on in confusion,
shrugging at our generous gifts.
I tell him they are presents, stolen from us
once by poor thieves, boys whom we whipped
for their insolence. He sighs over his bowl,
stomach puckering while his eyes close,
seeing age-old struggles between
spear and fire. I leave his hut
to record the elevation, the latitude, the longitude.
I take in everything, hoping to find salvation on Lake Nyassa.
From Nyassa to Tanganyika: The Journal of James Stewart CE in Central Africa 1876-1879
James Stewart, Civil Engineer
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09:06 pm - Blue Hour
Blue Hour
I
Turtle beaks patrol the shoreline,
cheap lures sailing in the fresh murk.
They avoid an island of cypress trees
as an anhinga ends her flight,
wings moving in triangles to land.
She will roost in the branches
until twilight arrives.
II
The opposing shore makes the place
only fit for a watercolor. Its nesting vegetation
is geological; layers of death-rich gold
border faded greens. The humid haze
reveals brush strokes, blurred stolen curves
that threaten to uncover a masterpiece.
III
Lake, your blue hour is approaching,
and the moon begins to change the tone
of reflection, its light streak flickering
over the skimming ripples of gnats.
The anhinga dries its wings, calling
like a hoarse mother who’s lost her children,
searching for those mortal gardens of Babylon.
The turtles sink into the shallows.
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09:04 pm - Key Largo
The hotel courtyard is drowned by the river
because Nature does not accept an I.O.U.
Winds whistle outside my window
while clouds interrupt a mackerel-blue sky.
Sunday drivers left before the thunder
and neighbors have covered their windows
in corrugated armor. Rainwater floods under
a porch, nice weather for a Midwestern farmer.
I nod at the verdict and close the curtain.
Lauren Bacall’s voice drowns out the noise
and I match her words with the Spanish translation,
her television glow bathing the room in a soft haze.
The palms whisper, scratching the walls
with their fronds. Flipping the light switch
is useless as the storm flexes and mauls
the power lines. My room floods in darkness.
I look outside the window again, but the shore
is not there, only a pool suddenly
consuming furniture, held in escrow
from a storm in constancy.
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April 24th, 2008
12:25 am - Unlisted
I can smell the damp
disuse of phone books
that lounge on front lawns:
our new age outcasts.
Ten are piled high by the curb.
Some are still wrapped
in shrink-wrap plastic
shimmering from dew beads.
Others lie wide open,
choking the dumpsters.
They congregate as uniformed choir boys,
pests that infest the Boston landfills.
Signals travel through air
and those cold numbers
are forgotten entirely, our names
and voices ghosts waiting to be deleted.
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12:21 am - The Squirrel
The squirrel killed the lights
right before sunset.
When I found him,
gnats and ants
were already consuming
the sour remains.
I brushed them away
and carried his body
on a thick stick.
Flinging him into the woods,
he settled
just beyond a pair
of shattered bottles
and cinder blocks.
There the cloud
of insects found the flesh
again, and shrouded
it with their appetites.
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March 30th, 2008
09:16 pm - The Return
Walk straight down the road, past Mr. Leonard’s
slums, where the stench of waste and dead skin
lingers in fractured fountains.
Liberty Avenue is what you want,
the corner of the bus station
if the street marker is gone. Those who live
here are the urchins who revel
in dense alleyways, popping wheelies
on their ancient bikes and quoting lines
from Stand by Me. The air here
is thick with exhaust, the land dotted
with craggy remnants of a gas station.
Deep within the shell of a Ford T-Bird,
underneath the frame of a back seat
is the briefcase, battered, whose contents
are unknown to all but yourself:
the sepia photograph, reminding you
of the place long gone,
a new direction that will lead you
to anywhere but here.
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March 28th, 2008
11:49 pm - Nestling
Nestling little prune-face,
opening your mouth to drool
on my ivy turtleneck,
my chest sinks down to gather
your fragile limbs.
I remember how you escaped
the cage we bought for you;
we found you preferred linoleum to blankets.
I remember when the leaping crickets
frightened you at first,
then soothed you asleep with their wrinkled tunes.
When I was younger, my own song
was a disturbing snore
so I breathed through my mouth,
finding rest in a puddle of saliva
that grew as I dreamed.
Now I feel the dampness through my shirt,
while you soak up the soft fabric.
I swallow and drift off,
our voices synonymous in their melody.
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March 24th, 2008
01:49 am - After a Runner Collapsed
based loosely on a poem of Tomas Transtromer
I almost hear a sigh, the sound
of a mouth plunging to collide with dust.
The powder settles, shrouding the body.
You can still rush forward to give aid
while he lies salivating, prostrate and white.
Standing here is better. The others hustle by;
sweat beads glisten off their shaved heads
and roll into their eyeballs.
A Sioux finds no honor
if the buffalo are nothing but asterisks now.
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July 15th, 2007
02:57 pm
Whereas everyone else pissed him off by screaming "I'm Rick James, bitch" all the time, I prefer to watch his more underrated skits, like
Turn my headphones up ...
WHAT?
[pause]
YOU HEARD?
[pause]
WHAT?
[pause, with perfect timing]
WHAT?
I still laugh every time I see that one.
Current Music: Fisticuffs -- the illest joint out there
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June 21st, 2007
01:25 pm - AFI's 100 Greatest American Films List (10 years after the first)
I know I'm a closet film buff. But I still enjoyed watching it last night, even if the list stayed virtually the same.
I'm glad
was still number one. And I could watch
multiple times. Here's the rest of the list. Everyone has their own opinion of course, but most of these definitely belong in the discussion at least:
3. Casablanca, 1942.
4. Raging Bull, 1980. (surprising that it went this high)
5. Singin' in the Rain, 1952. (eh ... the greatest musical ever, but it could have been lower)
6. Gone With the Wind, 1939.
7. Lawrence of Arabia, 1962. (David Lean always did epics very well and made them feel pretty modern)
8. Schindler's List, 1993.
9. Vertigo, 1958. (jumped from #61 10 years ago ... easily Hitchcock's best)
10. The Wizard of Oz, 1939.
11. City Lights, 1931. (Chaplin at his finest)
12. The Searchers, 1956.
13. Star Wars, 1977. (I know this movie was groundbreaking ... and I'm a Star Wars nerd as much as the next guy, but this was way too high for me. How does this beat Psycho and 2001?)
14. Psycho, 1960.
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968. (Greatest Science Fiction Film Ever)
*16. Sunset Blvd., 1950.
17. The Graduate, 1967.
18. The General, 1927. (I'm glad someone told AFI about Buster Keaton ... saw this silent film at G-School, very funny even today)
*19. On the Waterfront, 1954. (Apparently Brando's best film ... and I liked him in Streetcar as well)
20. It's a Wonderful Life, 1946.
*21. Chinatown, 1974.
22. Some Like It Hot, 1959.
23. The Grapes of Wrath, 1940. (Henry Fonda as Tom Joad ... brilliant)
24. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982.
25. To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962. (I don't care what anyone says ... Gregory Peck is fucking amazing in this movie)
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939.
27. High Noon, 1952.
*28. All About Eve, 1950.
29. Double Indemnity, 1944.
30. Apocalypse Now, 1979.
31. The Maltese Falcon, 1941. (Bogart at his best ... powerfully unsentimental)
32. The Godfather Part II, 1974. (Better than the first one actually)
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975.
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937.
35. Annie Hall, 1977.
*36. The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957. (Some would argue this is better than Lawrence of Arabia)
37. The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946.
38. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948.
39. Dr. Strangelove, 1964.
40. The Sound of Music, 1965.
41. King Kong, 1933.
42. Bonnie and Clyde, 1967.
*43. Midnight Cowboy, 1969. (Hoffman looks like he did an amazing job in this)
44. The Philadelphia Story, 1940.
45. Shane, 1953.
46. It Happened One Night, 1934.
47. A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951.
48. Rear Window, 1954.
49. Intolerance, 1916. (Most likely substituted for D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation)
50. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001. (The entire trilogy should be just one film ... and it's probably overrated anyway)
51. West Side Story, 1961.
52. Taxi Driver, 1976.
53. The Deer Hunter, 1978.
54. M-A-S-H, 1970.
55. North by Northwest, 1959.
56. Jaws, 1975.
57. Rocky, 1976.
58. The Gold Rush, 1925.
59. Nashville, 1975.
60. Duck Soup, 1933.
*61. Sullivan's Travels, 1941.
62. American Graffiti, 1973. (How is Rocky better than American Graffiti?)
63. Cabaret, 1972.
64. Network, 1976.
65. The African Queen, 1951.
66. Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981. (This is a good place for this movie, even though I think it's a better film than Star Wars)
*67. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1966.
68. Unforgiven, 1992.
69. Tootsie, 1982.
*70. A Clockwork Orange, 1971. (It may make me sick to my stomach, but I still need to view this as well)
71. Saving Private Ryan, 1998.
72. The Shawshank Redemption, 1994.
73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969. (Newman and Redford ... simply amazing)
74. The Silence of the Lambs, 1991.
*75. In the Heat of the Night, 1967.
76. Forrest Gump, 1994.
77. All the President's Men, 1976.
78. Modern Times, 1936.
79. The Wild Bunch, 1969.
80. The Apartment, 1960.
81. Spartacus, 1960. (Better having this here than have one of those bad epics they used to make, a la Cecil B. DeMille)
*82. Sunrise, 1927.
83. Titanic, 1997.
84. Easy Rider, 1969.
85. A Night at the Opera, 1935.
86. Platoon, 1986.
*87. 12 Angry Men, 1957.
88. Bringing Up Baby, 1938.
89. The Sixth Sense, 1999.
90. Swing Time, 1936.
91. Sophie's Choice, 1982.
92. Goodfellas, 1990.
93. The French Connection, 1971.
94. Pulp Fiction, 1994.
*95. The Last Picture Show, 1971. (I really want to see this one)
96. Do the Right Thing, 1989.
97. Blade Runner, 1982. (Interesting that this made the list)
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942.
99. Toy Story, 1995. (What?)
100. Ben-Hur, 1959. (At least it wasn't The Ten Commandments)
*Movies I still need (want) to see
Some movies were left out obviously, but there's too many to mention right now. But Paul Newman in "Hud" comes to mind (one of my favorites), as does "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Inherit the Wind." I honestly think they should do an ultimate list that includes all the amazing foreign films that are out there as well.
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June 15th, 2007
12:53 pm
Our generation ... what is its name?
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June 1st, 2007
12:04 pm - It was 40 years ago today ...
If only I could get some acid in order to listen to it for real today.
Or some shroomage.
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