the imp of the perverse...

I am having a moment.

In less than twenty-four hours, I board a plane for Venice-- and I'll be gone for 10 days.

... and so, of course, as I was wandering around in the pre-dawn this morning... I started to feel... odd. Of course I'm excited and of course it's going to be wonderful, but you don't really appreciate how much you love your home until you're about to leave it.

The days are just starting to cool off a bit, and we've had some wonderful salty breeze coming in from the ocean. Everything's taking on that "roasted" scent, which means fall in Southern California. The very strange, rather wonderful wild blackberries that grow along the road that traces the ridge are finally black enough to eat-- after one wipes off the various carcinogenic pesticides and smog compounds. And the summer construction workers are *finally* packing their shit up-- which means that I (selfish me) can now walk along the roadside and not have to worry about squashed by a cement truck. Prius, yes. Cement truck, no.

... and oddly enough, I always associate this season with "glow". It's something about the light-- maybe it's the angle of the sun?-- that changes from summer to fall. The mountains were all misted this morning (LA is also the "Land of Smoke"... if you're more into the Native thing), off in the distance. And yesterday, I was walking and staring at the trees, and leaves were green and alight.

When I get back-- there'll be a spark in the air. I think that the hills around here must burn off all the heat that they accumulate during the summer in the early fall. Culminates at the end of October-- who believes in ghosts?-- but there's always the feeling of things crackling towards the end of that month-- at least for me. Fall's not harvest time so far south, so going into winter means something different than it does in other places. A time for releasing energy rather than gathering bounty. Change-time.

... well. That's all well and good. I like Fall. But now-- because my disposition is not a cheerful one-- I'm also thinking about how... temporary... things are right now. Rented room, applications to fill out-- don't know what I'll be doing 12 months from now, but I don't think it'll be here. Not in this section of the valley, at least... which I have had the immeasurably poor taste to fall in love with. At the very least, I'll have to go towards the center-- maybe to Atwater Village... please God not the West Side. And if I am both very lucky and very unlucky-- not in the States at all.

It's too bad the world's so big-- because then you get caught... you want to see every corner of it, and also to never leave your home. Something to be said for the world being one town, and then several more down the road a little bit-- then you can do both. I suppose it's easier to think that way, though, when one's "little home town" is a sprawling city of 10 million people, hm?

It is either endearing or infuriating that I can be thinking this way before a long vacation-- but that's just how I am. I need to figure out how I can be like Kant-- and never move out of this neighborhood, and take a walk the same every morning, the same route with such regularity that people can set their watches by it-- and still drag the world around on a string despite such strangeness.

... it starts, perhaps, by obtaining a UCLA library card... if the library will not come to Eagle Rock, I will go to Westwood and bring it back in a duffel. Oh well. Maybe all that petrified creativity from the Rennaisance will leak out of the stone and into my head, and I'll figure out a better solution.

magma

... written awhile back.

---

Calcium liquifies at 839.2 degress Celsius--
melted bone, therefore, is very hot.
If you kiss me--
should I cover the trees,
make a shard-forest of crystals?
-- they shine harder than leaves.

the garden in the vine...

In the garden--
the vine rises twining
it rises out
and into spirals
and rises growing down.
It throws out a blossom
an off-handed peal
and between the shrinking petals,
the fruit grows taut
-- it falls,
who knows what happens to it?
--in the garden in the vine
the streams flow steady
and the leaves rustle--
the vine rises out,
and rises in spirals
and rises growing down.

...

Even breathing, across the carpet
turned the silence quiet,
the night's thick fabric
into an old sheet,
worn and familiar
to curl against.

Sensible of the Environment.

... and one more. Stressed-out and whimsical.

Sensible of the Environment

On the dark road home, tonight,
I hold the pen tightly.
When listening to crickets in Los Angeles,
one must sometimes aim for the hollow
of his throat.

another "dusk" poem.

Oh well, Perry-- very creative tonight, hm? You must have something due.

---

The rising pines
rest their furry limbs
against the wooden phone pole.

The star-leafed oaks
spread dark and gentle, over the power-lines
against the streaky sky.

The sidewalk a trail
with the deeper softness of well-packed dirt
and the asphalt a little damp and ready,
an empty streambed, waiting--

the crickets click everywhere

The woman, dwarfed, watering the grass
brightness arches from the nozzle
the birds chirp out of tune
the earth rolls
the sky is still and the air rests lightly

All-- is large tonight
and close.

... written at Senor Fish

The beauty of this situation-- as opposed to something more formal-- being that you can write about anything, really. Including moments of pure animal satisfaction which the New Yorker, for example, could give less than half a shit about :)...

... written at Senor Fish:

---

They were busy--
and I ran out of articles,
long before the food came.
So, I sat, stuck
under the tree in the courtyard
watching the sun soften
through pale green leaves,
snatches of sky, unlit lanterns
shadows melting into cement,
and when the tacos came
the tortillas were warm.

Dusk

Terror-- quiet!
Into the glistening stream
rushing from the city--
I am going to cast you.
-- to dodge for yourself, the headlights!
I'll sling you onto
the hard crescent moon--
across a shard of light.
As the stars rise--
go into the hills then!
-- fend, from yourself, the pastel glow
in the grass, the gathering flame-- if you can!
Come back-- if you want to,
the lilies are tall and straight
against the cooling sky--
and their petals burn
torch-white.

Arachne...

Arachne

Outwove you,
just like I said I would.
What can you say-- to me,
hey! goddess--
I kept my word.
Are you angry?
--grow a mouth then,
if you want to shout.
You stand straight with wrath--
you stand before me.
Breast-to-breast,
and your hands rise--
your wrists warp,
your fingers weft--
and don't you see I made them too!
carded them out from you
and pulled them taut
between us?

Oh what punishment, this?
--once I was a weaver,
my hands were quick.
My whole body is hands, now--
now I am a dancer,
weaving at the center-- sure, steady
and still quicker than you!

Only a god
would call that punishment.

memento.

Memento

The sword--
hangs,
by the table, over the mantle,
was given to him,
--surrendered--
not stolen, perhaps, as others.
The case is slick
with dusty oil
from years of dinner
based on a bacon substrate.
My mother bumped it, maybe
when she was cleaning out the apartment
while they were in the hospital.
--is sheathed--
--holds its edge.

Written at Swork...

... for lack of a better title. (I couldn't find one that didn't sound prententious and tired. One or the other-- that's fine-- but not both.)

---

A fleet
shimmer,
where was it?--
the sharp line
on the peaks,
in the dry fronds
dropping over
cracked asphalt?
the dust and flowers, roasted
in the air, and warm
pavement
against my palms?
--deeper?
The muscles
pulled straight
across my shoulders,
my legs-- brown and,
steady on the road
that skirts the canyon,
the slip, crunch-- gravel?
All these--
none of them.
Beside the fountain--
sheeting in the lamplight,
on rumpled sheets--
crickets and sprinklers,
and in the sunlight, frozen--
pebble in the shoe,
-- in all these places,
what I had lost?--
it came home in me.

Dashanzi/Alexandria

Dashanzi is an artist's colony in Beijing, where they make contemporary art worth noticing.

---

Dashanzi/Alexandria

Two factories, once built missiles--
the one on the water,
bay licking the pylons--
the one between beltways
weeds still in a windy city.

The artists came, subdivided
hung things from exposed beams
framed them under vaulted ceilings,
covered the cement with color,
and smashed the walls to windows

I went with my mother
to shop-- we bought pottery
and with my father--
we bought my mother the portrait
of a small, shaggy dog--
done in woodcut--
under a table like in Paris.

I went in a group
to see-- under supervision--
walls covered and screaming,
and the man asked,
"What do you think of Mao?"
and we could not tell him,
like he wanted,
that it went beyond 30%,
-- we didn't know.

I saw there--
two fish, in a tube
face-to-face, in a clear sky
and thought it made a good torch
for shadowing smooth expressions
and peering into high windows--
glowing embers, I went home
and found, I was covered
inside, and screaming.

Alone, now--
I say, it went beyond 30%
went beyond percent at all,
outpaced Mao,
the beams, the ceilings
could not be reclaimed
held under paint and light--
came here with the tides,
and followed me beyond them,
to the dry hills and flood-plains.

The man we trapped
slammed against our darkness--
he holds me, still--
made of me a room.