Attic Poetry

"Cheers": A Spam Poem

2009-06-21T00:54:00.000-05:00

Warning: This message may not be from whom it claims to be. Beware of following any links in it or of providing the sender with any personal information.

chalk grill licit coaly?
muck tardy run rung?
heath quirt run burro.
image tinea hippy cress?
brat prang.
marry firth image heap!
reft itchy clam prawn.
burro uni lab tardy?
muck chalk tare.
skirt heap itchy.
arty shun.
skirt inset.
heath chalk.
techy prang drake image!
sprit opus bud miaow?
uni tinea.
delve rung.
miaow gap bud orpin?
hippy beret bruit rare!
besot veto add veto.
zippy add.
prig toffy gap stork.
blimp bruit filar.
drake smoky delve techy.

Fun with Poladroid

2009-06-11T01:52:00.000-05:00

LGBTerrific

2009-05-12T19:46:00.000-05:00

Just a Polaroid-esque photo of me wearing a shirt I found online. Not much to report here.

Music for Spring

2009-03-10T16:36:00.000-05:00

Puppy Love

2009-03-08T03:15:00.001-05:00

Her name is Bear. I wanted to call her Sophie, and we were calling her Calliope for a while - I could have lived with either of those. Guess I'll have to learn to live with the one that stuck.

Monochromomagnificence

2009-02-01T13:23:00.002-06:00

Venerean Loveliness, plus Bonus Asterism

2009-01-31T23:40:00.001-06:00

It's been good time for Venerean magnificence lately. Alas, I did not get a picture of the incredible Jupiter-Mercury-Venus-Moon line-up a few weeks ago (I saw it though - absolutely incredible!), I was able to snatch a few of the moon and our sister planet earlier this evening with my trusty off-the-shelf department store point-and-shoot digital camera. This was the prettiest of the bunch.

I was just playing around on this one. There's some cosmic goodness, including Sirius between two close tree trunks(!).

Audiophilia, and Around My Desk

2009-01-29T23:32:00.017-06:00

Joanna Newsom: Ys
Courtesy of Streetlight Records in San Francisco, CA

From the Novel (more recent)

2009-01-28T00:00:00.001-06:00

Many of the windows at the unfortunately-named Caulfield High were large, with ledges coming up from the floor that were wide enough to serve as excellent benches, on which students could be seen at lunch and break hours doing homework, chatting up, making out, and other teenagerly things.

Eva and Alex were sitting on one of these benches during the morning break. Alex was leaning into the wall that came out at a right angle from the window itself, hugging his knees, his knit rainbow beanie pulled low over his forehead and his white Converses barely showing through the long (though not so baggy) legs of his jeans, looking down towards his toes. Eva was seated a bit more becomingly, with her legs crossed, looking straight at Alex. Her naturally strawberry-blonde hair was choppy and slightly messy-looking, her jagged bangs going this way and that across her forehead, but it somehow all looked much more dignified and elegant that Alex's jet-black, perfectly-straight hair, which was long enough even to show quite a bit beneath his low cap.

“So I was thinking this morning,” Alex began, still staring down the points of his sneakers; “if you could choose a single character out of Harry Potter to be pals with—whom would you choose?”

Eva burst into ringing laughter, then smirked at him. “Alex, honey, were you like, fucking high this morning again, or something?”

“No!” he said quickly. “Well, I mean, yes,” he went on, “but that's not my fucking point. I think it's an interesting question.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

“Yes, I do. So, whom would you pick?”

Eva continued to chuckle to herself. “Well, I dunno; I guess maybe Hermione? Nah, too annoying.” She put her index and middle fingers to her chin, and looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds, then said, “Maybe Ginny. She'd be a laugh, and she'd be great to have on my side if I ran into enemies, I guess...”

Alex did not move his head, but glanced upward with his eyes at Eva. Eva loved it when he did that—those puppy-dog eyes. She mastered the impulse to take off his hat and ruffle his hair.

“Ginny, huh?” Alex looked down again, and seemed to lose himself in deep thought.

After about fifteen seconds of silence, Eva said, “So whom would you pick?”

Again, Alex looked up at her, this time not taking his eyes off of her. She could tell he was not stoned now: his eyes were definitely focusing on her quite well, and there was no sign of bloodshot.

“I guess...” He finally moved his head, turning it to gaze out of the window. “I think I'd have to go with Luna.”

“Huh. I guess you would pick her, wouldn't you, Alex?” Eva reached forward and poked his forehead playfully. “Dreamy, in her own world, all that jazz?”

“Well.” Alex looked down at his shoes yet again. “There's that, I suppose. But you know, I was thinking about it, and she's really the best friend you could possibly have. She's fiercely loyal. She's much more tough-skinned than she looks—stubborn, even, you could almost say. And she has this kind of inextinguishable optimism, you know? Like, remember in the last book, when they're all trapped in the Malfoys' basement, she's just like, Oh, you know, this is normal and all, I can take this, and she helps her fellow prisoners get through it too. So I think,” he began staring at his fingernails, “if I were in that kind of jam, I'd want someone like her close by.”

“Wow.” Eva, who had herself turned her head to gaze out of the window now, and who was watching a boy and a girl walk hand-in-hand across the sidewalk towards the entrance that was some ways down the length of the hall, turned back to look at Alex. “Anyone tell you you maybe put a little too much thought into Harry Potter?”

Alex finally cracked a small smile. “No, you're the first. Then again, it's not like I talk a lot about it; I just think, you know?”

Eva laughed again. Alex really loved that laugh. It reminded him of an English nightingale, or a delicate turn of phrase in one of Mozart's late chamber works, or the sound the rain made in the leaves of the trees in the college quad. He chuckled to himself as he listened to it, and relished it for all the four seconds that it lasted.

Alex and Eva had known each other since they were ninth graders together in the same third-period introductory Spanish class. Alex never did quite figure out what it was that caused Eva, a bubbly, social, highly-extroverted butterfly, to gravitate towards his seat one chilly November day, as he sat in his usual corner with his hat pulled low (even then, he had already been wearing that knit rainbow beanie, which, incidentally, had been a gift from Sophie). Eva, and of course almost everybody who knew her, would have told him immediately if he ever asked that it was just because he “looked a little lonely,” and Eva was never one for passing up a chance to help someone break open their cocoon, if even just a tiny bit, for just a little while. And, for some reason that neither of them could probably fully explain, they became fast friends afterwards.

Alex was, in most outward respects, almost the precise opposite of Eva. He was one of those people who hung his head down as he walked down the halls, avoided eye contact, had few friends. Not that he was lonely—those few who were friends with him (or at least had gotten to know him to some degree) could see that he wasn't, and he most certainly would probably have been the last to say he was. In fact, despite his gloomy-looking demeanor, in conversation he came across as, if not cheery, at least a relatively happy young man with a healthy sense of self-worth.

The reality of it was that he often appeared so aloof because—well, he had a slight drug problem. It was nothing hard—he had never tried cocaine, crack, or heroin, and had sworn after dropping acid once that he would never let a psychedelic get within ten yards of him ever again. No...He just liked smoking grass. A lot. He once confessed to Sophie that he was averaging about an eighth four nights a week; and when Sophie took his arm and told him he would be stupid, toothless and impotent within two years at that rate, he merely shrugged and said, “Hmm” (after which Sophie let go of his arm, rolled her eyes, and let out a frustrated sigh, and never mentioned it again).

But, to his credit, he was not an alcoholic—more than could probably be said of Eva. Alex had seen her slip generous amounts of vodka into her breakfast orange juice from a flask that he eventually learned she carried everywhere. Indeed, when he and Eva would sometimes spend afternoons after school in a clearing in the woods that they considered something of their own secret discovery (they had never seen anyone else there, in any case), he would take hits from his pipe, while she took long draughts from her flask that would have made Hemingway proud (and perhaps a physicist confounded as to how such a tiny-looking container could hold so much liquid).

The bell rang, and ruckus ensued as students began getting up from the various hallway benches and exiting the library and various classrooms where study hall sessions took place, and began making their way to their third-period classes. Alex and Eva both said “See ya” and walked off in opposite directions towards their next classes.

Short Story (Paris)

2008-12-30T18:33:00.002-06:00

[This is a story that I apparently wrote in 11th grade, and was published as the featured story in the school's literary magazine, The Mountain Mirror. It's always interesting looking back several years and seeing how your writing has evolved and improved. I hope you enjoy this blast from the past.]

The trouble all began when Jean-Michel's daughter began sprouting wings. They were at first a bony little protrusion out of the back of her shoulders, and it was her mother who first noticed them. The stubs had gone unnoticed for a few days, until the morning that the mother decided to purchase bread. As she embraced her daughter before leaving (Gaëlle had not wanted to come along), she discovered the two sharp, distinct humps, much more distinct than shoulder-blades ought to be, she thought. The bread forgotten, she took her daughter to the washroom, demanding to examine her back; and it was then that she saw the beginnings of what was to bring the whole of Montmartre to awe and wonder.

Gaëlle had been a very pretty child, with slender limbs, long flowing blonde hair, and large eyes that seemed filled with tiny fluttering fairies. Now she was on the threshold of adolescence, and, while she retained her childlike beauty, she became more reserved and prone to nervous fits. She no longer walked naked around the house as she used to - at least not when her father was around; now she often sat on a stool by an aquarium watching colorful fish dart behind the glass and hide among stones, her large eyes following their rapid movements. The sounds of Mahler no longer pleased her. As a child, her favorite record had been Mahler's fourth symphony, and she would stand by the turntable, rapt with attention, sometimes dancing to the sleigh-bell rhythms of the first movement, and humming along with the soprano solo in the finale - her favorite part. Now, whenever her mother played the disc, she would cover her ears and scream wordlessly until it was turned off. She preferred now, paradoxically it seemed, the music of Mozart, Weber, and the Beatles: "Porgi amour," string quartets, and the White Album (none of which she really understood) were frequently heard in their small flat in Paris' Montmartre district.

The reaction of Jean-Michel to his daughter's growing wings was like that of a mother who, thinking she was giving birth to a son, rather bore a pig: such was his surprise upon finding his daughter was not of a nature to which he had been accustomed. In his eyes, Gaëlle was no longer a girl - nor was she anything else anymore. He could no longer think of his daughter in concrete terms, but instead thought of her as one remembers a face from two score years past, with foggy pieces swirling around without really arranging themselves into a definite, recognizable visage. He no longer spoke to Gaëlle, and that made her situation with him all the more awkward since she hardly spoke anything to anyone anymore (and when she did speak, it was in broken, nervous phrases, and it took minutes for her parents to discern what she was trying to get across). Jean-Michel would spend more time at the café he frequented (La Grenouille Bleue), drinking cognac, looking neither his servers nor his fellow patrons in the eye.

Gaëlle, for her part, rarely went out with her parents anymore. It was difficult to tell whether this was due to her incipient adolescence, or whether some change was taking place within her as a result of her supernatural transformation. She would occasionally accompany her mother on errands to the fromagerie or the supermarché, wearing a heavy coat better suited to the winds of February than the warm breezes of April. They would stop for lunches at cafés, her mother sipping espresso shots, and sit silently watching American tourists flow past. Gaëlle's mother had shown a somewhat complacent, even blithe at times, attitude towards her transformation. She still referred to her as "mon ange" whenever she brought herself to speak of her; for of course her friends asked about her now and again, thinking of her bright eyes, which always seemed to prompt people's memory of her, though none had seen her (to her mother's knowledge) since she had begun to grow wings.

It was when the wings began to actually take wing-like form that things took a turn for the worse. The stubs had given way to small feathery limbs, and Gaëlle's mother was forced to cut holes in all of her shirts. Her father plunged into a state of even deeper depression that left him sitting at the kitchen table all night long with his head in his hands, agonizing over the meaning of this cruel joke (it seemed) from heaven. He forbade his daughter to leave the house altogether anymore. The neighbors had already begun wondering if something was going on, if perhaps the beautiful girl had suddenly fallen ill, or even if she was being abused. Gaëlle, for her own part, shut herself up, never leaving her room, staring at corners, not even coming out to the sounds of the Mozart Requiem or to watch the fish. She could be heard weeping now and again, to what, no one was sure. Perhaps it was her father's seeming refusal to accept this reality that had sprung itself upon him; or perhaps it was from her own sudden isolation from the ordinary world; or maybe it was some other force commanding her sense of loss and solitude. She stopped reacting even to her mother, who would come into her room to try and quell her daughter's tears with soft words, to no avail. She considered taking her to a doctor for an examination - but this idea seemed ridiculous to her. Besides, it was impossible to get Gaëlle out of the house at all anymore, so any effort would be wasted. Gaëlle and her mother would suffer in peace until a turning point would come out of nowhere.

As things stood, the whole family seemed trapped within something. Gaëlle, trapped in her own indiscernible emotions, was unwilling to leave the house; her mother was unwilling to leave her; and her father, who had lost his job at the locksmith's for failing to show up several days in a row, spent his time at the kitchen table, leaving only for his daily cognac at La Grenouille Bleue. He ceased even looking at his daughter.

As the wings grew, Gaëlle seemed to grow even more taciturn; weeping was rarely heard anymore coming from her small room. She seemed to have settled some dispute within the depths of her psyche, for she now sat on her bed in a dark silence, still saying nothing, her face set, showing nothing except in her eyes, which had regained some of their former brightness. Her mother took this as a positive sign: perhaps the wings had been a blessing after all, and were simply an extra step into maturity that her daughter had to make. Jean-Michel, however, had seen in Gaëlle's weeping what he considered the last remnant of the daughter he'd known, and the silence left him with a sense of loss that caused him to weep himself. He now alternately paced the flat and sat in the kitchen, where he could not see the door to his daughter's room. Gaëlle's wings had grown such that she had abandonded shirts altogether, and sat in her room in undergarments, unvisited by her father, who took no notice of this indecency.

Then, one day, Gaëlle suddenly became gay. Her laughter was the first thing that her mother heard one morning, and she walked into her room to find that each of Gaëlle's wings now spanned at least the length of her body. Gaëlle laughed, her blonde hair bouncing slightly, her eyes now full of not just stars, but various celestial bodies; her eyes seemed to be something celestial in themselves. She had thrown off her remaining clothes, and her mother noticed that her skin gave off an soft, golden, iridescent glow, not as though she were giving off light, but as if she were being shone upon by another, unseen source of light. She fluttered her wings joyously and sang Mahler again, this time forming the German words effortlessly in her mouth. She laughed again and ran out of her room for the first time since her wings had taken definite shape. Her large wings seemed no hindrance as she ran through the flat to the door, touching nothing on the tables or walls. Her father lifted his head from his hands on the kitchen table, looking upon Gaëlle for the first time in the weeks since he had decided she was no human child. He was not shocked by what he saw, but watched with quiet complicity as she fled the apartment.

She found her way upon the roof of the building, though not before being followed by some of the fellow residents, who thought they had seen a miracle dashing past them. She stood at the edge of the roof, and people below marvelled to see a naked, winged young figure spread her wings and ascend into the sky - up and up and up, until she disappeared from sight, and was not seen by the mortal citydwellers again. Her mother declared that she was a Godsend, but her father, his depression never lifting, went into mourning and insisted that a funeral be held for his lost child.

Broken Wings

2008-12-29T04:09:00.002-06:00

Kneeling on a satin bed,
your Victorian dress spread about you
in a cream-coloured sea of folds,
a rose in your left ear,
and tears that run down both your cheeks;

your head bent low, your hair
parted over your right shoulder
cascading downwards -
O, you ought to be so beautiful!
Yet what is this madness that rends your face
and mars the sweetness of your
soul?

I have shown you
the Pleiades, braving the winter winds
in a field of heather under a deep December sky;
I have taken your hand and led you
to the heart of the forest,
where a cold stream flows from the dark bosom of a musty cave.

Together we watched
the broken wood-thrush flicker and die
after she met her adversary, the kitchen window.
(Do you remember the grave we dug for her,
the little bed of grass we rested her in,
and our solemn ceremony?)

I remember your eyes then:
betraying your joy,
the playfulness that is unique to
youthful discovery.
How young you seemed - how young we seemed -
how unlike now!

The old Romantic poets may have called them demons;
the doctors may call them delusions, hallucinations, and a thousand others;
I have no name for them -
perhaps save -
blues.
Or something else entirely.

How I would long to go to you:
to take you by the shoulders, shake you,
saying, "Remember the world I showed you! the world
we watched together! It has not changed,
and never will!"

O, but it does.
To you it does;
to me it does;
I cannot lie about that:
not to you (though I want to -
for you I would!).

We lay to rest, like the poor wood-thrush,
our optimism, borne out of discovery,

and soon, too soon,
lose all.

Pleiades

2008-12-22T01:27:00.000-06:00

Since tonight was the first clear one in weeks, and there was no moon in the sky, I thought I'd take full advantage. Mind, it was freezing (about 14 degrees, plus pretty strong winds), so I had a lot of trouble concentrating. But I think these two came out all right (as always, click to embiggen).

You taught me the names of the stars overhead, that I wrote down in my ledger -
though all I knew of the rote universe were those Pleiades loosed in December...

Sous un ciel d'une pleine lune

2008-12-13T20:09:00.001-06:00

Last night's full moon certainly didn't make for ideal stargazing conditions, but Orion and Sirius were at such lovely positions in the sky that I figured I may as well try and take some pictures. To look at these, I recommend clicking on the images, which will take you to their Flickr pages, and clicking on "All Sizes" to view them in larger resolutions so you can see what I'm talking about in their captions.

The moon as seen peeking through the highest branches of the hickory tree in our back yard:

This picture doesn't look like much, and it really isn't. Still, if you select one of the larger resolution versions on its Flickr page you can see that the image illustrates some dramatic color, especially in the contrast between the brilliant orange of Betelgeuse (Orion's left shoulder) and the cool blue of Bellatrix and Sirius (Bellatrix is Orion's right shoulder, and Sirius is the bright star in the trees at the far left of the picture):

Narcissism Thursday

2008-12-11T21:45:00.000-06:00

Inspired by the Flickr pool.

More photographs...FINALLY

2008-12-05T08:19:00.000-06:00

My computer crashed a couple of weeks ago, requiring me to re-install Windows XP (I swear, PC's are more trouble than they're worth), and I finally found the requisite software to get the pictures off my camera.

Yeah...That said, I have a total of...two pictures to show you.

From the second snow of the year, taken Monday morning.

From the University Jazz Band concert a couple of weeks ago. The lighting was awful and the pictures are noisy as hell, so I tried to turn that to my advantage. This was the only one that came out that wasn't total garbage (IMHO). Anyway, that chick can play tenor sax AND sing like a muthafucka...

An American Entertainment

2008-10-12T22:17:00.000-05:00

Oh ye buffoon, of yellow belly (and face
and arms and hands) -
why do you wallow,
with such confidence
in your incompetence

allowing disaster after fully-qualified
disaster
to seed, take root
and blossom
under your feet?

Your eldest-born, your only son,
whose achievements are naught more
than your own (a feat
admirable for
its abhorrent vacuousness)

- you throttle him, regularly:
yet he should
do the same
to you,
locked in mediocrity.

Your youngest – what of her?
I think she sees
her family's
inherent madness.
She copes her own way, you know.

And your spouse – oh, dear heavens!
She would do well
to slap, to hit,
to defame your ugliness -
yet she hides under mascara and hair products.

Only your other daughter,
barely eight years,
seems aware – aware of suffering,
aware most of all
of her misfortune – a Christ among fornicating apes.

Yea, you shall soon stumble upon a destiny;
and your talking heads,
your madness, your stupidity
will encircle and suffocate

your beloved satirical norms.

Me Take Pictures Today

2008-09-30T23:28:00.001-05:00

Today I decided to take some pictures while imposing a limited amount of rules upon myself - so I set my camera to "auto," including the flash, pushed the shutter button, and went with what came out. Here are a few.

Tonka
Images in monochrome
are quite fun to take -
all of them inspired guesses.

Studies in Green

2008-09-25T15:23:00.000-05:00

Camera Toss

2008-09-18T22:41:00.000-05:00

I now have Flickr Pro! This is very exciting. My site's not completely organized just like I'd like it yet, but I've got a couple of sets up for your enjoyment if you'd like to check them out.

Guitar-and-Whiskey Sessions

2008-08-22T13:50:00.001-05:00

Death of an audiophile

2008-08-22T13:47:00.000-05:00

My grandpa's room was silent and deserted.
An old phonograph hi-fi was set up against a wall, and over it hung pictures
of rainbows in steep mountain ranges, Buddhist temples,
sandy beaches stewn with shells - his peace corner.
Albums were stacked high as the speakers: Edith Piaf, Led Zeppelin,
The Doors, The Beatles, Miles Davis, Mahler and Tchaikovsky.
In all my visits to my grandfather when I was young, when he was living,
I could not bring to mind a time when any of these were ever being spun
on the turntable that now had a thick coat of dust upon its cover.

Voices carried from other rooms in the house into this one,
vibrant, living voices, echoing in death. I was here to assess my inheritance,
the contents of this little alcove that had served to shelter my grandfather
from the outside chaos that had always reigned - wars, family feuds,
televisions.

I walked over to a stack of LPs beneath a framed, coloured drawing of Mao,
picked one out somewhere from beneath the top: the Allman Brothers' Idlewild South.
The track was "Midnight Rider", and I listened to the droning opening D chords,
wondering what Grandpa's face must have looked like when he himself was in his sanctuary
losing himself in the road, the rough vocal harmonies, Duane's loose slide licks.

I gave the room another look round: There were no photographs of his family to speak of - just one,
of his wife with whom he had fathered my mother, taken when they were very young, perhaps before they got married;
looking out of an old yellowed black-and-white picture, standing on a pier in what I could only guess was the East Coast,
perhaps North Carolina. No hint at all of his first marriage, either his wife or his children.
But then, they hadn't contacted him in over twenty years anyway.

I switched off the phonograph record and took one more look. There were no trophies,
no magazines, no newspaper clippings. I doubted he would have ever wanted such things displayed
anyway.

I carefully slipped the record back into its paper sleeve and placed it back on the stacks,
to return to the conversation a few rooms over about
where they would release his ashes.

Portrait of a Place: Interlochen Arts Academy January through May 2005

2008-07-08T00:44:00.000-05:00

Flickr set

Fun in Black and White

2008-07-03T20:07:00.000-05:00

(All photos taken today [3 July], and are under a Creative Commons "by-nc-sa" license.)

Photographs

2008-06-15T00:57:00.003-05:00

I still have a lot to learn in Gimp. But I think maybe I'm getting somewhere.

Recent Photographs

2008-06-01T22:06:00.002-05:00

Learning how to use the Colour Curves tool in GIMP.

All photos cc by-nc-sa 3.0, so feel free to enjoy them as you wish.
Clicking on one will take you to its Flickr page.

Thoughts in the early hours of May Fourth

2008-05-04T03:03:00.000-05:00

A protest -
banners, middle and index fingers,
round sunglasses -

to protest
a war - a draft -
for their liberties, their conscience.

Shouts, rocks -
shots -
screams piercing the clearing smoke:
Four more dead in Ohio.

by Randall Munroe (xkcd.com)

2008-04-23T00:08:00.003-05:00

(cc by-nc Randall Munroe)

That little cable you got to hook your iPod up

2008-04-03T23:02:00.000-05:00

That little cable you got to hook your iPod up
to your car comes in handy,
Blaring the scherzo from Mahler 2 while weaving in
and out of city traffic on a Tuesday afternoon -
An afternoon where Sunlight is filtered and
lost through a haze of thunderclouds, the air
coming in through Your open windows is thick with the threat of
downpour.
You don't need your radio anymore, you only turn
it on at the hour to hear the news Summary,
and Even then you only half-Listen, muttering
sometimes to yourself about
the stupidity
of your Race
or Michele Norris's seductive voice.

No, you are Content With your iPod,
your pocket-sized jukebox that never had
to take a Leak in its life,
you cruise along,
running Red lights, conducting with your
right arm when it's not on the gearshift.
You merge onto the freeway, Delighting
in col legno, in Schalltrichter auf,
in brazen horns and E-flat clarinets.

You set a speed and Relax your feet,
going on autopilot,
and the track shifts to the Urlicht, quiet,
the mezzo's opening From-the-Bowels-of-the-Earth
notes,
so you compensate, rolling up your Window,
Just in time.

For as the window is going up, it begins
to rain. Little drops, here and, there, dot
your windshield, increase, multiply,
until before you Know It there is a torrential downpour,
and you are driving, driving through this
flood, this river falling from the sky.
And as you watch the rain Obscure your view,
the sound of it dancing on the windshield, the roof,
drowning out the poor Symphony,
that is when you remember -
you left your Kitten outside.

Coffee-shop Poetry

2008-02-27T20:42:00.000-06:00

I wrote this poem on scraps of paper while sitting in the coffee shop, wrote out another copy, folded up the original, and placed it behind the mirror in the bathroom. If you're familiar with Chattanooga, you might be able to figure out which coffee shop I was in, in which case you may still find it (if it is still there).

The price of cigarettes is up.
I took a stroll, looking for them,
but the cold, snowy wind reminded me
of my hunger, so I stopped
in an upscale coffee joint and ordered
a cup (I didn't have enough for a beer).
The window overlooked the river, and
I gazed out at the pedestrian bridge
I had crossed to get here, poised,
its blue structures set against a backdrop
of solid grey and a few skyscrapers
under construction, and sipped the
coffee that I had for some reason
infused with cream. (Why did I
do that?)
The bottom of the ceramic mug clanked
against the granite table surface, almost
like a porcelain bell Christmas ornament.
I pondered my walk back across town -
sure to be colder and more discomfiting
than before - remembering the hot-cold
that overtook my body, cold sweat
drenching my neck and chest under
a warm overcoat. But it was not
the idea of an uncomfortable journey
that made me not want to return.
I thought of classrooms, of libraries, where
the gentle sun
was drenched by the cool, steady rain of intellect
and reason. I used to think nothing
was going to change my world.
But a stroll can change a lot of things.
The price of cigarettes is up, and
I'm running low; and my pocketbook
is empty.
(TS 27/2/08)

Doodle 1

2008-02-13T20:45:00.000-06:00

Standing in the freezing cold waiting for my ride, I had the (admittedly questionable) idea of doodling a comic. This is the result.

(Click the image to get a larger version)

(28 November, 2007)

2008-01-22T12:50:00.000-06:00

I hadn't smoked one in months,
but last night I lit up a pipe,
figuring, Hell, it's one more way to die
a slow and painful
death.
Black cavendish, swirling around my face in
aromatic, smoky curls,
an orange glow coming from the bowl
looking like some aeronautical signal.
Perhaps I should have been listening to a fugue,
but I was outdoors, in the autumn air that wasn't as chilly
as it ought to have been, looking at
faint white stars that weren't as bright as they
ought to have been.
The furling smoke sneaked into my sinus,
my throat, and I nearly choked and sputtered
while practically shitting my pants -
not so professor-like.
But I smoked on, even as I felt the tumors grow,
even as I felt the onset of emphysema, brown teeth,
and all the other discomfiting, ugly ailments that
I could possibly contract. I became ugly myself,
ugly in mood, physique,
but
altogether pleased.

[Brief poem]

2008-01-02T22:17:00.000-06:00

The Beatles once said
words are flowing out like endless rain into a
paper cup;
but I don't believe it.
The world is full of blowhards,
but no prose. All is devoid,
meaningless.
Like a miner, digging deep and dirty
for a spec of a precious gem,
I build a library of literature
from precious few sources;
and I am broke from the search,
destitute, exhausted.
Fuck it, I say,
and I am finished.
Words are running like a deadly mudslide
into a crowded village. There's no one
left to care.

2007-10-31T19:10:00.001-05:00

What do we need a psychiatrist for? We know our kid is nuts.

- Homer Simpson

[Untitled]

2007-10-27T19:17:00.001-05:00

Dad is in the kitchen, as am I,
munching away on corn chips
(I hate anything corn,
by the way)
in silence. The beauty of home stereo systems
is that they can be utilized to mask
such awkwardness,
in the manner of Townes van Zandt
or other like folk singers.
Clichés speak like offstage mimes here.

Mother is God-knows-where
(I am an agnostic) –
perhaps grocery shopping? Church?
Brother strums his guitar, somewhere,
from upstairs – rock ’n’ roll chords, bluesy,
discombobulating the folksy melody
playing downstairs
into a disharmonious ruckus.

I take a corn chip, rise from my seat at
the kitchen island, exit the door
and mount the stairs to my room. I grope
under my bed, unearthing a bottle of gin,
and pour myself a shot. Warmth –
that beautiful arch-nemesis of Cold –
enters my body
for the first time all day.

The scene is consummated. All
has been building itself up to this Point,
being released in glorious orgasm.

Fiction Sketch

2007-09-06T13:38:00.000-05:00

Walt paced back and forth in the living room, talking to himself. His voice echoed through the empty house as he asked himself, “Why?” He repeated the word over and over again, without glancing at his wife’s letter, which was lying open on the armchair. Giving a yell of frustration and throwing his arms over his head, he finally sat down on the sofa, across from which a television still blared a news story about the Middle East—he had forgotten to turn it off in his consternation. Opening his arms to let his eyes see in front of him, he saw an armed man in a turban addressing the camera.
Addressing the camera…addressing him…He let his mind sink backwards and blocked out the translator’s voice, then fumbled around for the remote control and turned the television off.
This is not good, he told himself. More for her than for him. How long would she survive on the run, with her condition as it was? With great effort, he got up and walked to the bathroom, where he opened the cabinet to discover her medications missing. At least she had the presence of mind to take them with her, he thought. The demonic voice at the back of his head, however, which surfaced in times like this, said, “As long as she doesn’t use them to kill herself.”

Rock Hall

2007-08-16T09:04:00.000-05:00

Kent State

2007-08-16T09:02:00.000-05:00

Harold and Michèle

2007-07-30T07:56:00.000-05:00

[This is supposed to be an exposition, but it isn't much of one, now that I read through it. So just take it for what it is, whatever that may be.]

I first glimpsed Harold sitting at a small table outside one of the less popular but surprisingly bustling cafés in town. He was sitting up straight, gripping his coffee (which was in a plain-white porcelain mug) with his left hand, his right hand holding a cigarette between his fingers, looking around as though he were waiting for somebody. His clothing wasn't really anything out of the ordinary: he was wearing a purple t-shirt with a white emblem of a shark (the most curious item, I noticed at the time), light khaki shorts, and what I recognized to be an expensive pair of sandals. He wore one of those Jamaican crocheted caps of yellow and red and blue, but his hair was not long. There was an iPod laid out on the table in front of him, but the earphones were resting on the table as well. This served to reinforce in my head the idea that he was waiting for somebody—perhaps he had arrived early and listened, and become more alert when the meeting time came. I guessed that whomever he was meeting was late. He took a drag from his cigarette, put his hand swiftly back down against the table, and held it for a few seconds before blowing the smoke out in front of him. Seeing as I had plenty of time on my hands myself, I decided to go sit opposite him in the French tradition that I had known living in urban France, since he had, as the English expression goes, caught my eye.
Now, I must reinforce that I am not the sort of girl who tries to pick up men from the street. I simply like to talk to people, despite the language barrier (for, at the time, my English was not so perfect). I had spotted what looked to be an interesting persona and so I followed my natural instincts of plopping down to try and make conversation.
“Hello,” I said with a broad smile, my accent not deterring me a bit. “Do you mind if I sit?”
The boy looked around as if looking for an excuse; but none presented itself, so he said, “Of course not.”
“Thank you,” I beamed in reply. “My name is Michèle, I am here visiting.”
“Harold,” the boy said. I held out my hand and, once again in the French tradition, gave his a single shake. I was in America, but I didn't want all my French-ness to escape me—it is the natural charm of the foreigner, you see.
The boy spoke first. “So, who are you visiting here?”
I replied: “Oh, I'm here in the States all summer. I'm traveling around, I have contacts and places to stay. It is very lovely, and I can practice my English.”
“I'm glad you like it. Where have you been so far?”
“Oh, let me see...New York, Boston, Washington, the south of Florida....Basically, you see, I am moving west, which is why I am here in Tennessee.”
“Nice. Have you seen the mountains?”
“Oh yes, the, uh, what do you call them? Smokies, that's it, I went camping, it was so exciting! And I saw a bear!”
I was a little disconcerted. I wanted to ask questions of this mysterious stranger, but he seemed to be not too keen on talking about himself, keeping the focus on me. Still, I was excited to be recounting a few of my favorite adventures, so I let him continue asking. But his next question was:
“So, Michèle, tell me about yourself.”
I sighed. “Well, I was brought up in France. My mother was an American, actually, working at the assembly in Paris, but she never taught me the language—I did not get to study it until, uh, collège—middle school. When I entered University I decided that I wanted to learn my mother tongue, as they say, so I set out to further my English studies. Now I am out of school and trying to put my learning to good practice.”

Yet Another Idyllic Outdoor Sewanee Scene

2007-06-24T21:32:00.000-05:00

Wet Leaf on Pavement

2007-06-24T21:29:00.000-05:00

Random Haiku

2007-06-17T14:11:00.000-05:00

Igor's "Rite of Spring"
blasting from the living room
to my home, the porch.

I can't wait to land in Nashville and have a cigarette

2007-06-15T15:44:00.000-05:00

[The smokers' dilemma. Be it known that I've been cutting back until I quit. I wrote this while the plane was stopped in Birmingham.]

It wouldn't be so bad
if the plane went straight
from Dallas to Nashville
(it was bad enough with Love
Field lacking a smoking lounge
of any sort). But with flight delays
and stops in Birmingham,
I began to desire the cancer stick.
My head spins as my nose
smells the absence of smoke.
I'm sitting next to a young Latino woman with two small children,
and pleasant as they are (really!),
it would be better if
they were cigarettes.

Hedwig (fiction sketch)

2007-05-27T12:11:00.000-05:00

It had been quite a difficult night for Hedwig, what with the mugging and all. She was sweaty and had bruises on her arms and a nasty cut across her belly, which was now covered in ointment and an Ace bandage. She reached into her nightstand drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Pulling one out with the dirty nails of her right thumb and forefinger, she brought it to her lips and lit it with a rusted Zippo lighter, her hands trembling. Good thing she hadn’t had that lighter with her. Her grandfather had given it to her.

The past few hours had melded themselves together to seem like they had happened, not in sequence, but all at once, like a single dimension in space suddenly becoming many. She tried not to think about it. She had had to cancel her bank card—not that there was any money to be stolen from it anyway. Her cell phone she could live without until she could afford to replace it—who did she need to call, anyway? The only real inconvenience would be replacing her driver’s license and her worn-down, dog-eared library card.

No, Hedwig told herself as she lay on her bed and blew a puff of smoke at the ceiling. No, this is not important. Your missing ATM card, your lost cell phone. You can replace all of that, my dear.

But what of the knife wound? That motherfucker had tried to cut her up, and would nearly have succeeded if she hadn’t jumped out of the way, thrown her purse at him, and ran. She hadn’t been able to see his face, which was covered in a ski mask, but the voice was clearly that of a young black man. He was tall and skinny, as though the wind might have blown him over; but he had the blade.

The blade haunted Hedwig’s dreams nearly all night long.

Formulae

2007-01-24T16:30:00.000-06:00

I cannot exert the effort necessary to turn on my lamp.
I think we all recognize the same-old formula that everybody uses
to write these sorts of things.

I, for one, am tired of it!
We have suffered for too long!

Out with the old, in with the new.

(This is where a flock of geese flies in through
the writer's bedroom window. They poop everywhere,
chew everything, and depart in a monsoon cloud of feathers.)

Well, so much for that.

Twig and Trunk

2007-01-15T16:11:00.000-06:00

Write your own poem for this picture....

2006-12-27T09:48:00.000-06:00

(picture credit goes to my brother Greg)

Peanut Butter Crackers and Neutral Milk Hotel

2006-12-22T13:26:00.000-06:00

Untitled Lights Show (in Glorious Black and White!)

2006-12-19T20:33:00.000-06:00

I think I'll start posting visual art here too.

A Non-Schiller Birthday Sort-of-Ode to Beethoven

2006-12-17T20:08:00.000-06:00

It's Beethoven's birthday
and I'm smoking a hookah.

It's Beethoven's birthday,
and yet Howard Shore is filling my ears.
(Hey, at least it's not Madonna.)

It's Beethoven's birthday,
and I'm a philistine.

It's Beethoven's birthday.
I'll bet his family drove him crazy, too.

It's Beethoven's birthday,
and I baked him a rum cake.

It's Beethoven's birthday,
and I don't have syphilis (thank goodness!).

It's Beethoven's birthday,
and I have no batteries for my CD player.

It's Beethoven's birthday,
and I'm feeling his anger.

It's Beethoven's birthday.
I'd drink to you, pal, if I drank!

(Beethoven's rum cake)

Untitled

2006-10-08T23:14:00.000-05:00

Mozart and popcorn are condusive to odes.
No, no! - you must listen first!
For Mozart gets stuck in the ear,
whilst popcorn gets stuck in the throat.
Combined - such conditions of stuck-ness
produce great things.

Ask Wolfie and Orville -
they'll tell you.

(Wink.)

Pre-school urges

2006-10-05T23:54:00.000-05:00

I have this strange and overwhelming desire to cover my walls in paper, get some huge tubs of fingerpaint, and release my inner Matisse.

Daily haiku

2006-10-04T20:24:00.001-05:00

Breakfast for dinner:
Bran flakes and cinnamon life -
healthy sugar dose.

A haiku dedicated to pill-pushing psychiatrists

2006-10-03T23:11:00.000-05:00

Grey hair, beard, a pipe -
Such windbags never shut up.
Hippocratic what?