--Hiatus--

The author is gone to the UK for a month.
And no, he probably won't be telling you anything about it here, because he'll be out there living it.

Recounts may appear at a later date. No guarantees.

no one got the mail today

During the show rumbles overhead.
coming out of the blackbox
purple shifting skies catch yellow distant lights and
flash quiet far-off thunder.

Walking in the front door
coming home that's only sometimes home
wondering if I'll ever come back to myself
My brother plays softly stroking strumming guitar.
Parents' bedroom door open across the hall--no one to wake up inside
The room is empty.

I open the front door, then the back, to let more sky inside my house.
It's brighter at night. Cleaner, the sky.
and walk out onto the driveway  picking up the mail.
Two-thirty am and there's a cricket in the garden, just one. Doing his own thing.
Singing louder than the others--soloist performance. Midnight arias wistful and alone.
Reach inside the dark mail box my fingers find nothing.
Walk back beneath the fruiting trees and smash purple berries underfoot, grinding seeds and juice into
purple stained pavement.

The mail never came today, that's just the kind of day it was.
But the night air after the rain was sweet cedar and rose dew drops, summer honey and sleeping breeze.
(I used to run to the mailbox everyday, heart pounding in my throat, hoping against hope.)

This morning
woke up early to find the front door still wide open
and no one had come home.

Never too late.

For regrets.

Sounds Carry Uphill

And in the midst of a crowd it can be hard to hear yourself think.

A red toy airplane buzzing overhead
Frisbee right behind us.
Soccer. Scene change. And the jets roar by.
Fireworks make me five again. White weeping willows in the sky.

I ran across the field, thinking they were over, only to find myself driving away from the finale.

(It wasn't ever me)

And please don't tell anyone.
You'd never forgive me if you did.

Performing in Front of a Fountain

Golden yellow cream sun sunlight
lights up the backdrop
Backstage we see everything that's happening on.
Shadows of shadows.
Tybalt's death in paper cut-out shadow puppets
Dancing on the wall
and when you look through the slit in the curtain there's a golden glowing stripe on your face
and the fountain is spouting sunfire and sparkling bullion
spilling liquid light
that's soaking over everything.
Lights like this don't fade into the evening--
they just bounce and reflect up and off into the sky forever:
The sun behind the fountain.

There's Nothing Left to Burn

She put her hands gingerly on his back.
They stared up at the stars and all of them were moving like fireflies. Satellites.
Then they realized that the clouds were moving--Chess pieces. Dragons and ducks in the night sky.
Why didn't anything feel? We gave up and sang drinking songs.

I've Always Felt Guilty Doing What I've Loved

"The goals of art are incommensurate (as mathematicians say) with social goals. The goal of the artist is not to solve a question irrefutably, but to force people to love life in all its innumerable, inexhaustible manifestations. If I were told that I could write a novel in which I should set forth the apparently correct attitudes toward all social questions, I would not devote even two hours of work to such a novel, but if I were told that what I shall write will be read in twenty years by the children of today and that they will weep and smile over it and will fall in love with life, I would devote all my life and all my strengths to it."

--Tolstoy

Lost and

1- Wallet: (twice)
incl. Driver's License, Credit Card, Student ID, Frequent Fritter card from Bruges, Picture of You (x2)

2- Keys
(always)

3- Glasses
(sometimes)

4- Direction
(still looking)

Now That We've Broken Up, I No Longer Feel Intimidated by Your Ex

"The poet takes the best things out of his life and puts them into his work. Hence his work is beautiful and his life bad."

--Tolstoy

The End of the Season this Summer

Within the next week I'll have three projects up:
--Grassroots Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet--Actor, Producer
--Noorda Summer Camp: The Secret Life of Girls--Director
--Edinburgh Fringe Fest Preview: Rappaccini's Daughter--Director, Co-Writer

I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to do each of these projects--each one was a totally lucky break and I felt like I had won the lottery when I got each job. Now that the end is in sight for all three, I'm beginning to worry that lightning rarely strikes twice. Famine mentality sets in even while the meal is still on the table.