Day 2

Just bought my second Starbucks drink of the day:

Coffee frap with whip cream.

Whip cream because, when asked by the barista, I replied,

"Well I can't say no to whip."

Now I'm watching bodies move along
the pavement and gutters that
hold waste of those less fortunate.

I gather myself
for Danny
for a drive to Santa Rosa
over the Golden Gate

because life doesn't pause, wallow.

It continues, unencumbered.
Even after days of white walls
and empty corridors.

City Dweller.

Photos by Scott Hammel--scotterpop.com

Traffic

I handed a homeless man
a five dollar bill
just to see what he would say

The homeless man took
the five dollar bill
and said something
I can't understand

Meditative practices. And eating.

This is one of my favorite poems of all time:

The Orange

by Benjamin Rosenbaum

An orange ruled the world.

It was an unexpected thing, the temporary abdication of Heavenly Providence, entrusting the whole matter to a simple orange.

The orange, in a grove in Florida, humbly accepted the honor. The other oranges, the birds, and the men in their tractors wept with joy; the tractors' motors rumbled hymns of praise.

Airplane pilots passing over would circle the grove and tell their passengers, "Below us is the grove where the orange who rules the world grows on a simple branch." And the passengers would be silent with awe.

The governor of Florida declared every day a holiday. On summer afternoons the Dalai Lama would come to the grove and sit with the orange, and talk about life.

When the time came for the orange to be picked, none of the migrant workers would do it: they went on strike. The foremen wept. The other oranges swore they would turn sour. But the orange who ruled the world said, "No, my friends; it is time."

Finally a man from Chicago, with a heart as windy and cold as Lake Michigan in wintertime, was brought in. He put down his briefcase, climbed up on a ladder, and picked the orange. The birds were silent and the clouds had gone away. The orange thanked the man from Chicago.

They say that when the orange went through the national produce processing and distribution system, certain machines turned to gold, truck drivers had epiphanies, aging rural store managers called their estranged lesbian daughters on Wall Street and all was forgiven.

I bought the orange who ruled the world for 39 cents at Safeway three days ago, and for three days he sat in my fruit basket and was my teacher. Today, he told me, "it is time," and I ate him.

Now we are on our own again.



.

 
 

Photo by Jillian Tamaki


.

reflections of salty seas and jellyfish and anonymity of past lives.

i was brushing my teeth when i saw your soul. i stood barefoot at your bathroom sink, leaning on the tile edge as you walked up the stairs.

"you know, i can see your soul sometimes," i said.

"oh yeah?" you said. "what's it look like?"

it was the end of the night and you shuffled across the carpet towards me. i was drunk.

"mmm..." i spat. "it's more of a rhythm actually, i think."

"a rhythm?" you said.

"yeah. so i guess it's something i can hear. it's a nice rhythm. soothing--something i'd very much enjoy waking up slowly to. but also many something with dancing potential, but not like hip hop or electronic or anything. like, floating in a waltz, making giant shapes across the room."

you were brushing your teeth now, with that awful organic toothpaste. the dark of night calls for clean mouths. you stared at my reflection, watching me fumble words. you had a foamy grin.

you have such perfect teeth. they're already so white, aligned with immaculate precision. slightly narrow. delicate, but sturdy. charming. they could slice through flesh.

you probably don't even need to be brushing them.

"do you floss ever?"

"what?" you said.

"oh, i was just noticing your soul's teeth."

we fell asleep some time later with our hands intertwined.


.

what grounds my faith is not that which grounds my reason

and so it is impossible, then, to believe something and to know it too.

.

and then the whale reached up and swallowed the whole pacific in one gulp.

I remember one afternoon,
just before sundown.
We were tired and spent on
the sheets of a place that was not ours.

The noisy others' footsteps called
 from down below.
I rolled over onto my stomach, hair draping off
the edge of the bed. You said,
"look."

There was the sun,
peaking through the open bay window in our room.
The deep blue
stretched boundlessly.

I could hear the breaking wave's edge rumbling,
slicing the sand.
The salty air in conversation with the unrelenting
fisherman, trickled up and down the coast.

You rested your hand on my back.
I crossed my ankles.
I thought of the sand in the crevices
of our bodies. 
I could not remember
if I had showered the ocean out of my hair.

The sun loaned its final rays.
I held tightly to them, tasted
the colors of the burnt sky, purples and
greens and oranges.

I felt your palms, calloused and
forgiving,
tracing lines along
my spine as I drifted quietly
up and through clouds.

.

Jargon Jargon Jargon Jargon Jargon Jargon Jargon

Political affiliation
 
 

What's taking
 
 
 
So damn long?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Mal/Un/Non Titled

Some say this is a field of dreams. Well, baby, I'm a dreamer.

This road might carry you all the way through, splitting between the mountains and on past the trees. (And by you I mean you, all of you, not just you or you. Us. We. That is, if you choose to join.)

Or maybe you'll end up wandering, floundering astray. In the margins, peasant-like. Begging for a generous hand.

Well, to them I say that:

Not all who wander are aimless.

But I would also tell them that:

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.

Etc.

We Must Do Extraordinary Things.

Also by Dave Eggers:

"And every day you'd start from scratch, and everyone'd get together and say, Hey, let's put some buildings there, and, um, over there, let's have a five-hundred-foot stuffed hippo, and there, in front of that mountain, a huge fucking, uh, something else."

"Sure, sure. But you'd have to be able to accelerate everything, have everything be a bit easier than it currently is, in terms of construction and everything: you'd need, like, huge robots or something."

"Sure, robots, of course."

"I'm dead serious about all this."

"I am too. I'm with you."

"We can do this."

"Sure."

"We have to get people interested."

"Everyone we know."

"Even the flakes."

"John."

"Right. Good luck."

"I know. You know what he was talking about tonight?"

"You saw him?"

"Yeah."

"I owe him a call."

"He was talking about how he had just taken some test, an aptitude test, to tell him what kind of job he should have, so he could be told what to do with his life--"

"Jesus."

"It's brutal."

"We need to change him."

"Inspire him."

"Him, everyone."

"Get everyone together."

"All these people."

"No more waiting."

"Means through mass."

"It's criminal to pause."

"To wallow."

"To complain."

"We have to be happy."

"To not be happy would be difficult."

"We would have to try to not be happy."

"We have an obligation."

"We've had advantages."

"We have a platform from which to risk."

"A cushion to fall back on."

"This is abundance."

"A luxury of place and time."

"Something rare and wonderful."

"It's almost historically unprecedented."

"We must do extraordinary things."

"We have to."

"It would be obscene not to."

"We will take what we've been given and unite people."

"And we'll try not to sound so irritating."

"Right. From now on."

Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius:

"

That must drive you insa--

Oh please. What would a brain do if not these sorts of exercises? I have no idea how people function without near-constant internal chaos. I'd lose my mind.


"






Adrianne Nicole Alusha, Broken Embraces; 2009