* * *

From a distance the sound of cheering welcome dancing revel
--clouds of color rise into the blank white sky.
Closer: pink smoking pillars of powder fill lungs nostrils drumbeats.
thrown green yellow red royal purple spattered smeared smiling faces hands in the air pulsing in the dust pushed up against each other.
From above they join, dropping purple rain silhouetted against the setting sun.
creamwhite spires: fluted bases collecting orange magenta maroon in every nook and crevice. crowd chants foreign phrases at the top of their lungs joyous. friends found and lost in a sea of bodies jumping moving feeling: together.
Thousand handfuls of color thrown open wide: welcome spring.

3.29.08-1

lost a rib.
gone when I woke up-- just an emptyness where one used to be
this hollow
absence
vacant.

left me incomplete. We are more anchored by the things that go missing than the things that appear.
Spaces between bars are heavier than any shackles. holding. what isn't there.
unplayed notes sound louder: burden of silence
we are held in the grip of what we don't hear
made of holes that hold meaning.

some are better imperfect:
beautiful song on a blown-out speaker, charms.
weathered smile with missing tooth : endearing
grandfather on his old violin

but still: we long to be whole
one.
(rib returned)

where are you bone of my bones?

3.21.08-1 (for Lisa)

colored sky orange into blue
evening: lazy moon perched on the mountains procrastinates rising.
we missed summer. and smoke. --I didn't mind. sorry I made a big deal.

happy when you found a skirt that twirled
pink with ribbons. You are a twirling skirt.
and you don't need another suitcase to take you away
can always get another.

I counted the diamonds on Clyde's argyle when he told us his story again.
the way newspaper fades warmest yellow I love.
Scared me that we scared him.
...and I hope that Helen came home soon.


Heartbeat like purring in slow motion
your breath filled me as we lay in the dark with the cat
close.

what I'd like to remember.

Asterisk & Octothorpe

On a Touch-Tone telephone keypad, the asterisk (*) (called star, or less commonly, palm or sextile[2]) is one of the two special keys (the other is the number sign (#) (pound sign or hash or, less commonly, octothorp[2])), and is found to the left of the zero.

ASTERISK: as-tə-ˌrisk as·ter·isk
An asterisk (*) is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (Latin astrum).

Symbol (*), used to highlight a particular word or sentence, often to indicate a footnote;
sometimes used instead of typographical bullets to indicate items of a list.

Three spaced asterisks ( * * * ) centered on a page may represent a jump to a different scene or thought.

Colloquially, asterisks can be used to represent *emphasis* when italics are not available.

In programs distributed at race tracks, an asterisk next to a jockey's name indicates that he or she is an apprentice, and in many cases is allowed to ride at a slightly lesser weight than the other jockeys. Such a jockey is sometimes called a "bug boy."

In computing: A wildcard symbol.


OCTOTHORPE: octo- + thorp p/ ɒktəʊθɔː
Used in the U.S. and Canada on touch-tone telephones. "Please press the pound key"

The word has appeared in many forms, including octothorn, octalthorp, and octatherp as well as octothorpe. There are at least five stories circulating about its source. Nobody is in any doubt about the first part, which is obviously enough from the Latin (or Greek) word for 'eight', as in 'octagon' for an eight-sided figure, because of the eight points on the symbol. It’s the second half that puzzles the experts.

The American Heritage Dictionary says that it comes from the family name of James Edward Oglethorpe, the eighteenth-century English philanthropist who secured a charter for the colony of Georgia in 1732 as a refuge for unemployed debtors.

A second story says that it is a whimsical creation based on the idea that the symbol looks like a village surrounded by eight fields. 'Thorp' is the Old Norse word for a village, which appears in many English place names, such as 'Scunthorpe' or 'Cleethorpes'.

In the UK and Australia the symbol is often used as medical shorthand for 'fracture'

3.20.08-1

Pictures
shallow ponds of color rubbed off on meager paper
immoving reflection unlike memory, but like what I remembered
this one blue and red
all that's left of someone I loved.

Once I dreamt you looking back through the pane of a picture
hair softly blowing in the mountain breeze
sitting serenely looking back at me
unable to cross the divide.

What's left when we are gone?
ideas of who we once were in the heads of people we knew?
things. places that change. fragile names.
and photographs: more diligent than the inner eye
encaptured light. and time
photonsketch of what not remains
remains.

3.19.08-1

lungs filling
drawn in through neck. throat. lips.
teethfilter in/out
osmoting in-diffusing gulps of
atmosphere pulledapart in alveoli
and into blood/stream
oxy-nitro-carbon. like a train station
Passengers: on n off. on n off. on n out--breathe out.
exhale.inhaling, exchange
air.

Healthy Sense of Entitlement

I really just wanted to post something. Anything.
I can do that.
This IS my blog.
...
I should be studying.

(mid-afternoon. Jeff and Linda are at the park. Linda is sketching Jeff, who is sitting on a park bench)

JEFF

That's it? That's all you're going to say?

LINDA

Well if I told you anymore it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?

(beat)

Come on, I don't want to spoil it...

JEFF

Okay, okay.

(beat)

I was just hoping...

LINDA

I know. But it's better this way. You like surprises, right?

JEFF

Yeah...Can't you at least give me a hint?

LINDA

Hold still. No.

JEFF

Okay, alright. Fine. I'll just be patient.

LINDA

Good. You don't have a choice. Just don't make any other plans Friday.

JEFF

Friday?

LINDA

Yeah. Did you have something else? I just figured you'd be busy Saturday.

JEFF

Well, no...I had some friends who wanted to take me out, but...

LINDA

I thought you'd want to have more of an actual party on your birthday, so I thought Friday would be better for us. Can your friends take you out Saturday?

JEFF

Shouldn't be a problem.

LINDA

(beat)

Who is it?

JEFF

Just some people I met at the studio. They came for the workshop.

LINDA

Uh huh. Great.

(beat)

Can I meet them? I mean, what are you going to do?

JEFF

I don't know. We were just going to grab a bite after studio. It's not a big deal, we can do it another time.

LINDA

Okay.

(Beat)

No, I mean, it's your birthday. You should do what you want to do.

JEFF

Sure. Well...what if I want to be with you?

(No Response)

We could get dinner, catch a movie, whatever you want...

(Still none)

I think you should tell me what it is. I hate surprises.

LINDA

I know you do. I think if you want to go get dinner with your friends then you should.

JEFF

You don't mean that.

3.16.08-1

water through pipes
rushes beneath floor. ceiling. walls.
supping/flushing/sinking
--sound in every surface
Drains
lead elbows lussing leaks,
cold rivers corralled in clean corops.
gallons and gallons and litres through lead
poured through the pipemaze
Mountain of ocean restrained by the faucet
dripping.

You Know You Want To!

(I made this video!)

Really! I'm not!

Things were looking a little dark and gloomy around here, so I decided to lighten things up a little. I promise, I'm really not dark and depressing! Really, I'm not!

3.13.08-3

bloodfilled vessels sersnake inside my skin
--veinerious vascuolies spent scoiling inner rim.

Ebb/Flow--inner tide inside the inter-ply
anchored hide.
Baro-meso-static pressure presses all the time.
Insever yielding hepter
helcyclic serpentine.

In/Out resounding:
echo and reply
dampening the drowning in oriptide scaleye.
pumping
scarletliquidfilled with red pewpollen floating
and gasses-green/bluedissolved inveinous pipes
released is red
coagulates. is still.
brainous sponge/soaked/saturate
pools at the back of my skull when I lie down to rest at night

3.13.08-2

the cat's a meowler.
--wouldn't let me sleep.
followed me to thebathroom and jumped up on the sink.
catseyes staring
turned on the faucet watched him slick and slather scaly tongue
sharp flicking
til water was gone.
sat not slunk stretching seely limber lungs
ribcage flexing filling heart (coiled for action)
flicked the switch
watched me in the dark eyes brighter than mirrors

3.13.08-1

Buzzing.
old clock on the mantel grinds it's electric gears like worn teeth in a tired jaw.

Some people have nightmares about snakes
or darkness
or being lost.
I nightmare about my teeth falling from my head.
trembling tongue finds loose, crumbling chunks
empty sockets
bleeding gums.
--worse when I had braces:
dreamt them rusty
cagelike
frozen shut.
my thoughts behind my tongue behind those barbs beneath my lips.

smooth oiled cogs oiled roiling
san(s) supple springs to loose or tighten
endless spinning static racing round a void.
Buzzing.

Daily Cost

"the money spent on the war EACH DAY is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers."

“For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”

READ:
www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/opinion/04herbert.html?ex=1362286800&en=d00653ea9b2ea682&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Barnacles

Dear Blog--
Sometimes I feel like an iceberg.
Long since crumbled away from an arctic shoreline. Without anchor.
A white motionless monument of thick, hard ice.
Slowly and almost imperceptibly melting into the warmer waters that surround it, until there's nothing left.
Until the frost white core barely bobs above the surface of the salty waves, cracks. fragments. Breaks into chunks unrecognizable of what was before.
Sometimes that's how I feel.