i wrote this like nine months ago, i think, and i just came across it while deleting some stuff from my computer. here 'tis

one day, it was time to take the house apart.

 

first there were vibrations so strong 

the windows sighed, then shattered obligingly.

their panes were removed without sorrow.

then the door, painted white, was kicked in.

it bowed deeply. no splinters. (it knew the time had come.)

the frame was removed without sorrow.

then the spirits came, 

taking the roof away as swiftly as they had brought it in.

the shingles waved and blew kisses as they watched the house fade-

higher and higher they climbed, until the house was but a rogue red balloon,

a single grain of sand on paper,

the first night star.

there was a warm knot of nostalgia, even a lump in the throat. but no sorrow.

then the bricks were taken.

one by one they were removed, and the stories inside them were removed too.

this one is too much time spent at herrick.

this one is sophie.

this one is summer camp realization.

this one is cold feet and hands.

this one is that time you were six years old, on a boat, the time you don't ever talk about.

no sorrow. just dismantling. 

no remorse. just arms flung upward, asking. 

 

mortar insistently holding on is scraped off.

bricks disseminated, no longer a latticework 

but a clusterfuck of groping valence electrons.

floorboards ripped up with fingernails.

(ravenous doesn't even begin to cover it.)

 

wait...

 

the foundation. (its the spirits.)

what?

the founDATION.

let the foundation stay. 

if you take that out, the empty space will be just another sad ragged patch of ground.

just another scar on the earth.

just another vacuous hole sucking life from its surroundings.

we don't need more of that here. (there's enough of it in tacoma.)

keep the foundation. 

one day you will build something better,

more beautiful, 

more harmonious.

just wait. keep it. you'll see.

it's not over yet.

you'll see. 

sometimes a girl just needs her mind blown

you taste like 

what i imagine i would taste like.

shutter pushed/pulled to catch

floating light, suspended bits of mood 

blossoms 

dam broken, river free at last.

oh yes, this is how it can be!

embrace an estranged feeling 

estranged knowledge always there buried,

yet emerging only when spring comes.

your compass points right at me

brought wind from the north sowing seeds,

warmth from the south whispering to grow

east and west merge here

with the common leaves of our stems.

click click click

fire lit beneath my slight demure

arms flung outstretched

heart open as petals bloom and are eaten.

damn.

how did you know my snow needed melting?

that rhythm like a sine wave could have lifted the city.

instead, this is my spring.

you taste like

what i imagine i would taste like...

may the flowers bloom pink and white

may the rain still come.

dusty table

oh dusty table

how do you hold still those objects

collecting your dust?

how might you,

voiceless breathless inanimate

(less animate, anyway)

discard or eject them?

i imagine you would-

had you not been somehow doused

in the baptismal waters of inertia

destined for all time to relax only when the cynical eye is turned,

the untuned ear tuned out,

the murky muck of perception

has a moment of clarity 

and giggles right back at you.

oh dusty table

how do you hold still?

when i walk

i walk with alms

and though my arms will be covered

i know what lies beneath:

my very own manifest destiny.

wooly sheath, all passive

innocent

innocuous-

ye that shall infiltrate

shall know the depth of comprehension,

hang in the air like a spider's thread

sewing the seam

of this world and that-

ye that shall infiltrate

shall see the moon testify.

but too many ants burrow in this hole.

cold, mechanic, hollow-

thorax branded A for Anthill

bustle

feelers feeling for what?

groping, needing what?

too busy to run a finger down the seam

check for holes

see if it's straight

(though who cares if it isnt)

take a moment

stay awhile

isn't the night lovely

isn't it wonderous!

so eight legs are content 

creating naught but for herself and splendid selfish gains.

complex

complete

rationale missing

but i think it looks better without one,

don't you?

the moon sees it

chuckles good-naturedly

and shimmers on the dew drops

young and wet

like water babies.

what to do?

when questions permeate inspiration

engulfing, 

clogging the drain like chunks of meat,

filter insertion complete?

what to do? 

when yellow bedroom is too cold for sleep

walls too barren

pillow too shallow

bony knees knocking

blue robe shivering

awake and wondering

what's wrong, where is peace?

wondering, but deep down

just knowing

(as usual). 

what to do?

when solemn, well intentioned digging

by thick warm hands

unearths the most metallic of facts

so solid they break knuckles,

their truth so ungainly

hands consider re-burial,

re-subterranean-exile...

but newborn truth becomes like baby,

screaming louder if ignored,

no choice but to cradle if knuckles will heal.

what to do?

when eyes are open so wide

you can't see anything

but dynamics?

nothing but transfer, displacement, longing?

nothing but how it is, 

was,

likely will always be?

hmm, i say.

what to do?

girly feet know...

they take me to walden pond

so i can ask my anonymity.

5 stages

this is dedicated to all those mourning the loss of zachary sieben (1989-2009). zach, you are incredibly loved and sorely missed.

come day, go day, timewarp slow

take me where the oak trees grow

paint my face with rabbit snow

malinger, savor, tread no more.

lay me down on salty bed

lay my comrades head to head

let the ocean fall instead

trace our faces, fall in buckets.

don't be scared, i tell you dear.

justified is every tear.

know there's no time limit here,

just a water well to stare in.

ache my joints creak my bones

sing me songs in sieben tones

to burden or to be alone?

such ripples grief sustains.

caduceus

pointe-shoe toes and persistence

elevate her to apple level.

stubborn? no-

just healthy, obstinate curiosity.

grasped at last.

now, anything is possible.

she gazes unto the prize-

blood-red mystery, reflected self

distorted and winking

juicy heart pumping 

stares back. seduction!

not lust-

wonder.

what a woman this is. 

firm crimson curves encasing the future.

through lips and

mammalian fangs,

through tracts and tunnels

long as life itself

the apple becomes you.

one bite is all it takes.

well, 

all or nothing now.

take me or leave me? 

total consumption is perilous 

but

throw the rest on the ground to rot,

and so will you.

now she knows.

(and they say gemini

is the least introspective!)

i will not rot.

i'll take it. roll up my sleeves

we shall see if i'm cut out for life's dirtiest job.

somewhere, dionysus smiles

twirls his winged staff

and smiles.

injurious, pervasive

(this one i actually wrote in my journal a few months back, but its themes are gnawing at me right now. thus the electronic transcription.)

how vain become those self-destructive fingers

all creamy nails

smooth pink tentacular worm legs

grown tooth and fang, 

adopting a jivey vernacular

to romance the skin.

what violence we commit in the name of love!

passive brain disconnects, floating unanchored

up and down the blue white and 

rose-petaled column

extended firm-handed by whomever

shuffles between these two places,

facilitating fish-eyed,

mouth agape contact.

on earth we chortle,

marveling houdini farce of

whatever this world isn't. 

but the darkness of it.

it's this that thrusts true earth in my lap,

brackish mix of hell-heaven.

black hole of mind's eye,

if you had a mouth...

pink manual legs,

if your knees could talk...

perhaps then we'd be outed from limbo.

on sensory addictions in a ritalin nation

what stands for stillness?

a hallowing, a treatise?

what stagnant symbol dines at the table 

audacious,

pregnant with fullest emptiness?

how can sloth be married to the crossroads?

how can body-mind safely set down burden-loads?

crashing precedes splintering,

splinters splay waiting for the sole to prick-

gasp, investigation, intermittent shock.

blood drawn or not 

any interruption is a pivotal one.

mind drops everything but throbbing spot

eternal instant, 

absorbing the lesson. electrical sponge.

goose V moment passing 

life wakes up and walks on...

or drifts back to troubled sleep? 

i ask you this, beholder.

your eyes are not fixed in their sockets

(yet, say wizened mutations, deepening their pockets.)

survey now.

see your tandem gifts 

(will, perception) laid out before you.

will stillness bring you harried aversion

noxious deadly sin of slowness

ticking and tapping?

or will it show you a lustrous texture, 

give meter to the swaying trees

raising life into vibrancy?

if you could (and you can)

which would you choose?

candied candide

vouch for me, please

simple white gate to the outside.

inside has been stewing long,

long wide waves of introspection

high as a heart attack

slosh the cauldron's iron sides,

fraught with crumbs from the alchemist.

surely you understand, simple white gate,

for as the adjacent edifice

and the membrane 

(though i question your permeability)

you bear sole witness to these things.

bell, jar, cat, cradle.

the worlds do need a veil between them,

but seven makes a wall.

seekers (some inadvertant)

dig tunnels, smuggle, harbor dynamite

for the day impending 

for the wall's dismantling,

if you could call it that.

the inside will be capistrano

the outside a grove of walnut trees, demure

almost virginal,

pre-squirrel and frost 

so the swallows can choose.

it's like crying after he gives you a knife to protect yourself.

it's like hating naked windows at night.

it's like self-sequestering.

it's like seething.

it's like seeing.

the world as a mirror

how is the mirror made?

from whence comes the opaque statement, vague, 

wont to be false but so convincing?

and why do i see them everywhere?

shop windows do it easily- bus windows almost as well.

also water, adds Narcissus, a forever pupil at the school of hard-knocks

now marveling thanks and grumbles both upon the muddiest puddle.

they flutter down from treetops,

deciduous as youth itself.

the cracks in the sidewalk show me nothing but my image for its image

and i wish the tired metaphor wasn't so crystalline

so the auctioneer brain could catch a break,

writhe and melt into the transparency of things that with time comes natural.

when i look closely, i see that human faces are mirrors

showing humanity's own best and worst

(and my own, of course, with an aftertaste of truth)

even when all i want is to ride the wave of banter and surface-scratching.

then i touch my cheeks, and realize 

that even my own face is a mirror

frighteningly real,

offset by an ocular mosaic of history and human condition

(but only if you've seen it before.

if not, it appears as a lollipop-sucking "where's daddy" come-on.

such limits come with physicality.)

when does a mirror lose opacity 

and become glass, modest glass, clear but still reflective?

with age? with breaking? no doubt a combination, as it is with people.

no, vanity is not a human trait.

it comes from within the mirror

startled by the holiness staring at it squarely.

a mirror could go blind. a person often does.

 

on people that are like ropes

it is these nights that make the box seem inviting, better, more fruitful.

in there at least needs no explanation, and this is the chatter that keeps true company,

quite oddly.

sometimes the lock and key just beats the face-painted effort-

but, stay there long enough 

and you'll never leave.

all these ice-skaters bore a deep-sea fisherman

his vast images of the oxygen, hydrogen, carp and whale infinity all too fresh

to be swept up by their skimpy clattering.

not that anyone would dare cut a hole in the ice.

not that he would offer to.

too thick during the winter... the rain made it that way,

and the expanse and the split.

magic only happens in solitude where the door can be propped open

by pages thick and musings so viscous

they become windowpanes.

it seems the saline solution is to invoke the tryst of solitude and companionship,

swim in the void for awhile. 

for where else do things happen but in empty spaces?

until then, give me naught but the box

lock and key, it and me nudging the waves through the ocean.

i'll be empty enough till then.

i emerge from the kitchen bearing an old favorite: hamburger patty (no bun, no veggies, no nothing) and salty, cheesy fries. ma'am is at her computer, i believe in the throes of a quest for which she will earn 30 platt (roughly equal to $300, she estimated earlier).

"It's a little hot," i tell ma'am as i hand her the plate. 

"i should think so," she jibes. "you did just make it."

i crack a smile at the ma'amological statement. she is quick to point out when i have said something unnecessary, illogical or all-too logical... she is the ultimate with "captain obvious" callouts, a combination of her uncanny observational powers and her shameless expression of all thoughts and feelings.  it irked me slightly at first, but now i kind of appreciate it. makes me more aware of useless speech. 

how buddhist. if only we could all be like ma'am. 

while she munches, i sit down in the faded blue armchair (the unofficial official caregiver's chair) to write in the notebook. "6:15pm- dinner: burger and cheesy fries." i glance at ma'am's desk, eyeing the token liter of Pepsi that stands- monumentally, unfalteringly- next to the computer screen. "and pepsi," i add as an afterthought, although I know it won't make a difference. pepsi is kind of a given. it's often part of breakfast.

After a pause, I scrawl "6:30- meds", a bit premature. my eyes drift from the trusty composition book to the rows of pillboxes on the sidetable. 10:30!  4!  6:30!  7:30! all ready, all poised, in uniform, ready to serve their makers with their noble duty of consumption, digestion, and diffusion through the bloodstream... ready to fight, and yes perhaps die, for freedom from mindfucks... these heroic little pills march fearlessly from earth into Pfizer heaven: the brain. 

ma'am takes so much medication it makes my head spin. and occasionally, more gets arbitrarily added. i guess at this point they figure, what's another few chemicals more or less? the effect of them on her brain (compounded with electroshock therapy, among other things, i'm sure) is clear. for example, each time you hand ma'am her pillbox, you have to tell her what day it is, because between 6:30 and 7:30 she has forgotten completely.  aside from her usual cocktail (served up in a punchbowl with a straw), she has been taking "big pain" pills every four hours to help with her black and blue toe that she stubbed two nights ago on the way to the bathroom. a "big pain" pill is a giant white hydrocodone (vicodin). half of one of those, and i would be loopier than John Hancock. ma'am seems completely unfazed.

"the burger's good," ma'am says between bites, taking me out of my head. i'm flattered. a compliment from ma'am is rare, but undoubtedly sincere. 

"thanks," i say bashfully. 

ma'am amazes me because despite the spaciness, wastedness, discombobulation, and physical degeneration (no doubt partially from her rigorous regime of powerful medication), ma'am is pretty with it. she talks about current events (albeit select ones, not really New York Times material), is witty, quick, eloquent, and knowledgeable. she has not lost her biting sense of humor, her extensive repetoire of jokes, or her signature unabashed, blunt, and often crass manner. she can (and does) make fun of herself (and whoever else is around). and she is honest to a T. ma'am has not lost herself in her struggles. she is likely more herself now because of them. ma'am has not given up on life. in an odd, backwards kind of way, she may be more alive than many of us deemed normal and functional.

also, ma'am does not know how old she is. 

she said something to me today that conveyed quite succinctly (in my opinion) the nature of mental illness. of course, it could only come from somebody who has struggled their whole life with it. 

she said: "neurotics build dream-castles in the sky. psychotics live in them. psychiatrists collect the rent."

"you don't have to make the burger so big," ma'am tells me as I take her plate back to the kitchen. a few weeks ago, she asked me if i'm trying to fatten her up for a sacrificial feast. 

"well," I answered, "i just do it so you won't be hungry in the middle of the night."

"that's why god invented microwave popcorn," she says matter-of-factly.

I chuckle. "I suppose so... good thing he did."

she glances my way, flashing the most fleeting, knowing, wry little smile you ever saw.

"she," ma'am corrects me.