The Wave Dream

It was coming and my father-in-law and I looked for the car to drive away, to save it, but we couldn’t find it.  Perhaps is was double-parked.  Steve called me away and I called Klaus the dog and finally he came, responding to the fear in my voice.  The town was very dark and a bright light shined down one steep street stretching down to the angry sea.  We climbed the streets, reaching into open apartment windows for something to steal.

Undertow

Undertow

I’ve been selected at a ‘poet of the week’ at Poetry Super Highway.

Cemetery Shoes

Cemetery Shoes

Click here to read my poem on the Los Angeles poetry journal Chaparral!

Top Ten Albums of 2010

Was this an exceptionally good year in music, or was I just paying more attention?  Ten good arguments against The Death of the Album:

10.  Delorean Subiza (excellent for driving around San Francisco)

9.  Broken Social Scene Forgiveness Rock Record

8.  The Books  The Way Out (I first heard this band being played at Bookend Cafe attached to Boulder Bookstore, “…and, I wish I was a boy”)

7.  Vampire Weekend  Contra (VW continue to pick up where Paul Simon left off)

6.  Tame Impala  Innerspeaker (TI continue Dungen’s run at gorgeous psychedelia)

5.  Janelle Monáe  The ArchAndroid (best dance album of the year–I love finding out that Prince and I are on the same page: http://www.missxpose.com/2008/08/prince-says-he-loves-him-some-janelle-monae/)

4.  Sufjan Stevens  The Age of Adz

3.  Local Natives  Gorilla Manor

2.  Arcade Fire  The Suburbs

1.  Beach House  Teen Dream

Top 50 Songs of 2010

50.  Big Boi  ”Back Up Plan”

49.  Warpaint  ”Undertow”

48.  Belle & Sebastian  ”I Want the World To Stop”

47.  The Books  “I Didn’t Know That”

46.  Passion Pit  “The Reeling”

45.  Sufjan Stevens  “Futile Devices”

44.  Magic Man  “Darling (Reprise)”

43.  Beach House  “10 Mile Stereo”

42.  Vampire Weekend  “Cousins”

41.  Toro Y Moi  “Blessa”

40.  The Books  “A Cold Freezin’ Night”

39.  Phantogram  “Mouthful of Diamonds”

38.  Passion Pit  “Little Secrets”

37.  Arcade Fire  “The Suburbs”

36.  Kanye West  “Monster”

35.  Janelle Monáe  “Faster”

34.  How to Dress Well  “Ecstasy with Jojo”

33.  Delorean  “Endless Sunset”

32.  Beach House  “Used To Be”

31.  Vampire Weekend  “White Sky”

30.  The Black Keys  “Next Girl”

29.  Broken Bells  “The High Road”

28.  Scala Choir  “Creep” (Radiohead cover)

27.  Best Coast  “Boyfriend”

26.  Alexander  “Truth”

25.  Beach House  “Lover of Mine”

24.  Tame Impala  “Lucidity”

23.  Local Natives  “Sun Hands”

22.  Arcade Fire  “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”

21.  Beach House  “Walk in the Park”

20.  Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti  “Round and Round”

19.  Lykke Li  “Get Some”

18.  Owen Pallett  “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt”

17.  Florence and the Machine  “You’ve Got the Love” (The xx remix)

16.  Vampire Weekend  “Run”

15.  Arcade Fire  “Ready to Start”

14.  Janelle Monáe  “Dance or Die”

13.  Sufjan Stevens  “Impossible Soul”

12.  Beach House  “Zebra”

11.  Local Natives  “World News”

10.  Tame Impala  “I Don’t Really Mind”

9.   Delorean  “Stay Close”

8.   Caribou  “Odessa”

7.   Janelle Monáe  “Locked Inside”

6.  Sufjan Stevens  “Vesuvius”

5.  Arcade Fire  “We Used To Wait”

4.  Sky Ferreira  “Animal” (Mike Snow cover)

3.  Beach House  “Silver Soul”

2.  Broken Social Scene  “All to All”

1.  Local Natives  “Airplanes”

True Story

My great friend, I’ll call him ‘Buck’, was seeing a girl who had a boyfriend. Buck went out to the bars with the girl and her friends and offered to drive them home in her car. He gentlemanly took them home and started walking across town to where he lived, with me and my dad. Buck stopped at the 7-11 to pick up a can of Mountain Dew for the hike; he was addicted to the yellow sugar water. My dad would buy it by the big green case at Sam’s Club, along with microwave pizzas, for Buck and me.
Now, the girl-who-Buck-was-seeing’s boyfriends had been very popular in my high school and still had a good collegiate following. He knew what was going on and so did his boys, a truckload of whom rolled into the 7-11 parking lot late that Saturday night. They saw Buck and he saw them and took off into a neighborhood. They hopped back into their classic, giant truck and followed, headlights making way in the darkness.
Buck wasn’t from our town and didn’t know it too well. The town is laid out in square miles, defined my major roads. This particular neighborhood, besides being bordered by the 7-11 and a few other shops on one street, and by my old high school on another, was completely residential, a square of labrynthian suburbia. Buck dropped the can and ran.
The young men following were armed with baseball bats and would hop out and chase Buck through front yards, but would stop when he hopped a fence. Buck jumped the six foot wooden barriers in his Doc Martins landing in grassy darkness, setting off motion detectors and sometimes igniting indoor dogs. He’d arrive out of the yards into unknown streets and jog or walk in the direction he thought felt right, hearing the truck roaring in the distance. And then it would appear, howling round a corner, and there’s Buck in the bushes or behind a tree. The hunters seemed to have a supernatural sense of where to find him. Buck kept running, hands bleeding from fence tops, arms scratchy from thick, manicured shrubbery.
This went on for hours, a real life nightmare. Buck’s only consolation was that surely he was getting close to the next neighborhood, to home. But here came the truck, alerted, no doubt, by the barking dogs Buck was disturbing while trying to stick to the shadows. He’s running, and kicks something on the sidewalk, goes down, sees his Mountain Dew can spinning away in the street. His knee’s bleeding through the new hole in his jeans, he’s up and away, his assailants laughing, throwing beer bottles, curses.
Buck got in around sunrise and woke me up to tell me the story, and I giggled all the way through.
Eventually the girl broke up with her boyfriend and started seeing Buck. It went on for a little while until she broke up with him and quickly became engaged, then married to a man whose physical resemblance to Buck was uncanny.

The Weather We Speak Of

 I.

beignets and being

drums are dreams

let’s not go home

hungry, I have a crunchy

guitar, it’s cold, let’s

be together, when

can we meet

II.

the room beats alive   becomes colors  

prep school weather   wood on gold

winter within   almost evening   café

as church    we are working

Jolie comes in with

her friends, the fog,

carrying a ukulele, her

dress dusting the floor

when I’m in San Francisco

I’m dreamin’ all the time

deep in the park where

the constellations shine

 

whittled in chairs, we

continued our work,

the fog took bird shapes

I grew lonely, a

horn sounded,

strings, and I under

stood, oddly, the room

was oddly shaped, circles

and squares, and I hoped

we weren’t too sad

here was an inter

section, we were

all waiting, made

space for more

souls, Rulfo sat alone

in thin clothes, small

hands, staring a

bove the heads

we grew cold, dis

tance grew

between us

a desperate strumming appeared as lamps, angled

panes, warm orange, lavender, cool green, one red,

one shallow yellow, black filigree holding white

tambourine light, syllables pulsed from floorboards,

people wore colored clothes, ate whiteness,

lions roamed the streets

through the windows

we watched them

creeping, dragons

roared, rattling the lights,

we heard hair growing, our

fingernails, our teeth, socks

stretching, sound of our

drinks evaporating, we were

animals respirating, breath

joining air, thump of books

falling

  a day was outside     then

  a night      we were quiet

  there was noise     a buzzing

        and buried melody

wooden stick stirs,

our past, steel bottles,

straw rots with wet,

straw smokes, turns

black with fire with

fungus, the scent

of straw fades the

way things disappear

in darkness, don’t flake,

don’t fade, there goes the

bar, the tables, the way

of rust

I felt, now,

as if the night,

far in and fallen

out, landed in

bed, or upon it,

I felt that sanity,

the feeling of

existence, a

common nest,

I wore clothes

that day

III.

tonight the bridge is

empty, a chandelier

heaped up in smoke

and buttermilk

then an un

expected clear

the bridge is red

its ramparts

art deco cathedrals

its battlements

rusted aprons

many ways

many silences

many stages

honeysuckle vine

shine, shine

get out, get out

of your house

let us lie

fallow, the fog

gobbled, the ground

is the day

immortalized, lights

take shape, lights of

the bay hallowed, turning

fields with north,

trees are tuning forks

that spin when

you tumbling pass,

don’t be afraid don’t

be afraid

San Francisco Cafe

Café du Soleil is a perfect example of why San Francisco is the most European US city.  It’s bright and striped and classy.  You feel comfortable meeting for wine and cheese or working on your laptop. 

At times I’d rather say it all, or nothing.  At times I’m afraid, tired.  I tried reading, writing.  I tried dancing but my stomach turned to wine.  My tongue catty, I thirst without ceasing.  I couldn’t complain, I couldn’t go out but spent the Friday night at home alone, alone at home, listening to the echoes.  I balanced on a pin, lost my numbers.  I had a dry track record, was caught on bike in the rain in rush hour, failed again and again. I walked the jewled city in my car, lights and flight, the cafes were filled at night, the bridges appeared suddenly, the city shown below, the bay didn’t gleam like an abyss, at night the water goes and a canyon appears straight down and down into no molten core.  The shadows infinite, the fall forever. 

And there are songs I can’t stop, I can’t stop ‘two weeks’ for instance, or ‘the strangers’ from haunting me and playing at full volume from memory, just from that when I’m falling asleep.  I could plug my nose, plug the boat holes leaking, stop up the swamping ship, we tossed, we lost, we looked upon our legs in merriment at the apearence at new muscles, I sprinted today, thirty steps at a time up hill, on the trails of San Rafael with Klaus the dog, sprinted and did not tire and laughed, not at death, at life, with life,

cunning, spooky, daily, music that swallows you whole, hole, you get sad, like a possession, you get tired, like a trick, like a box you pick up and peer into, the sleeping spell inside, a miracle, a mouse, dressed in black, I saw my hands, your head, I saw a quiet wife, a death, a life, contained in cardboard walls and floor and ceiling flaps, I’d be crazy not to follow, foloow where you lead, your eyes, they tell me, this isn’t me, you know, those poets at their guitars out there for instance, those sizes

Tonight.  You know those words, and in the spring they fill up with meaning, tonight, tonight, yes, for tonight the trees bloom and bloom and make room, spread their leaves, paint your dreams, your nose, you know, sniffs all night, blue buds and white, and honey yellow sweet buds infuse your room, your underwater dreams, your underwear stained pollen from the inside out, what is music, how do we use it, or does it use us, or is life music?  how to describe the unnamed, unseen, the brief color taste, the long, the deep, I could shade you, we can shallow, wade, stand up to our waists in still water, the firey calm, the sudden magical moment, the long lasting, the line stretching, (what was that you tried to say), I miss Patrick, so.

Into the room, the loose, the beginning.

I fell amouse, amourous, afield, far like lichen, something alone, the close calm terror of nostalgia, the back roads country structures glimpsed through trees, the rain in wild wind through wood, through leaves, of, I need you father, dear sweet lord, this is around, this is here, this is a bygone era, those shadow echoes of yesterday, too much sunlight, too far back, we found hollow trunks, we whispered in the forest dark, we made toys, played tricks, we hid and sought, we ought to lie down in the leaves, look, some sky through branches, birdcall, sunlight pushing through day, what is this I feel, alive? 

we yoked alone, we dove the day, the age, our age, our separate ages, our age our age, our backs pressed together, You are doing this to Claire and me, you are making a common home (in the nest in the woods), I’ve known some country and for this I’m greatful, full and great,

longing, this is life,

holding water in the palms, this is this is this is leaves falling slipping through, this is leaves, this is lessons, this is knowledge, little boats, yes and this too, on lake surface, on sea surface, bay, and river surface, breaking face of it, that slippery, that funnel tunnel channel, that wandering canoe, that soon to go, no, lets time of slip, time of your life, if you cursive me I will, do you promise, a room with quilt door, a yellow and bright and multi squared bed, an overstuffed room full of sunlight, this was our home together, and you, girl, fill me more and more, march through my mind lazily, Spring Hill Park napping in breezes, those outside sleepers,

(she said leave it to me)

(everything will be alright)

airtight, luggage, an old shuttered chest, a bag, case, all thaaattt life lived, that’s the case, this is where we find ourselves, in confusion, in bafflement at the beauty, in the fireplace waiting for the rain sounds down the chimney, we are getting filthy, getting, like picking it up, like muffin pans full of warm,

do you know where you are, and what you’re doing?  San Francisco, Café du Soleil, writing on a Saturday night, crawling into music, catching crazy glances, these sweet faces, these happy loves, the humans congregate here, and we are leaves

Mystery Solved

My trusty partner Fluff solved another case today, the third this month.  The usual love gone wrong murder.  It seems a rancher blamed his girlfriend for his cattle having been stolen and finally pushed her too far.  She drove the body three-hundred miles north, getting way out in the sticks, and sunk her car in a pond after burying the body in a nearby wood.  It probably would have been years before any evidence turned up at all, if not for Fluff, the cat detective.

Italian memory.

Joe had grown taller over the school year.  We sat together in the uncomfortable green school bus seat and the day was the hottest yet.  Joe listened to my ipod and held my hand.  He was ten and his hand was already as big as mine.  It was strange not hearing the music.  He did not speak so if he did not like the song, Joseph would move my hand so that I would push next.  I started him on ‘I Feel for You’, Chaka Khan, knowing he’d like it, then let it play on random. 

The heat brought strong memories of Italy, towards the end of our time there, riding back from the beach and the regionale boxcars packed with tanned Italians, even the aisles packed with people standing and the train sometimes moving so slowly but always a good breeze coming through the windows and everyone chatting and a few people squeezing off at the little towns before Bologna where many of us exited, the rest heading to Milano to pour out of that crazy modern behemoth—we never saw much of Milano, just the station and a café near to it on our way to France on an early weekday morning between trains.

Our flat was very warm on the third and top floor and we were lucky to have a coworker give us a fan.  We loved our flat, even our two twin beds which we bound together every way we could to keep them from coming apart in the night.

In November it rained for two weeks straight so that you felt you were swimming to work.  It was always dark and it felt like a very big city and you would run from portico to portico to stay dry and the brilliant yellows, oranges and reds of the buildings were muted and it wasn’t so pretty until December when the lights went up.  Sometimes the walks along the storefronts were too smooth and you had to walk stiff-legged as over ice.

Even in the loneliness of that early month there and in the too-long hours of teaching the glory of the town seemed to sink in through our eyes and pores and when the sun returned and finally struck the front of the north-facing great basilica the colors returned and the pedestrian streets filled with a gracious haze.

There are moments when Bologna feels so close I think I can wake up there.