me

So it appears i haven't updated this thing since last november? Really? Hm. Well then.

I'm living in Denver now a days. I just moved into a house with a few friends of mine. Two stories, four bedrooms, 1.5 bath, a nice stoop in the front to sit on, a small stretch of grass we're supposed to mow (but which i just don't think i'm going to water, because it's the end of August in Colorado. I mean really now, how long is the damn grass going to stay green at this time of year??)

I got a job working with kids, which is rewarding and i like. The kids are small, and sweet, and the most serious things we have to discipline for are issues with sharing and keeping hands to oneself on the playground. Ah, small children, how i love you.

I'm happy with my psuedo-quasi undefined relationship thing i have going on with Adrian. I <3 him real bad. I've told him that, one drunken night. I've met his mother, that was interesting. We hang out. We talk. We get along well. He makes me smile, and i think i make him smile as well. Also, he brews good beer. I enjoy his hobbies. I was decorating my room the other day, putting things up on the wall, and i finally put up the various art that he's gifted me over the years. I have stuff from 06 from him. That was long before we actually starting hanging out outside of work, and yet, he still gave me art. Have i mentioned i <3 that boy? Man. Whatever.

It's a sunny afternoon on a Monday. I took the bus up to Denver this morning from the Springs at 6:55, and then walked a mile and some home up a hill while carrying three bags of clean laundry. Remind me to not take laundry to my parent's house for the weekend unless i have a good way of getting it home. Laundromat, here i come.

This week should be good. I'm going to an information session at UCD on Thursday about their graduate program to get my teaching certification. It's a 12 month program, and all the credits count towards a Master's degree. Oh student loans... I'll need me some of those.

And that's about it on this side of the world. Funny, i'm back on my side of the world. What a trip life is.

So everyone has heard this here and there and all that, but here's my thoughts on the matter:

Fucking rock on!!!

I read a quote on my flist where someone said it's like living in a future I would want to live in. And really, it is. I mean, the future of America has some glimmer of hope, and not just relentless paths to war with this place, and war with that place, and whatever else bull shit has been going on for the last eight years. So I'm stoked.

Also, I've been watching this election from far far away-land, and it's been something of an experience. First, I was a little surprised at how much international interest there has been on this thing. There was so much coverage in the national Indian paper, and indeed, today's front page had a picture of Obama on it. I was also a bit surprised at people's reactions here when the news broke. It was ten or eleven o'clock in the morning on Wednesday when McCain gave his concession speech, and the rest of the day I witness people from all over the world (all located here) say how happy they were, and how excited they are, and how much hope they have for the future of the world. Because what American (I feel) sometimes miss is how much impact America has on the world. Like, there is a whole wide world out there, and we are not isolated on across the pond. This should be evident considering the fact that America is at war with a few places on the other side of the globe, but somehow there is a feeling that America is it's own self contained entity that has no liability to do anything, and in fact can do whatever it damn well likes...

I'm rambling a bit here. My point is this. Obama, rock on. The world is happier for it. America is happier for it. I'm damn happy about it.

I was reading a book of poetry called Time and Materials by Robert Hass, which is fantastic. And then I wrote a poem. I'm not saying that my poetry is anything like Robert Hass's, that was just the chain of events. Coinciding events do not always imply a correlation. Anyway, the poem. I call it "The Dalai Lama Poem."



There’s a t-shirt that people wear

That quotes the Dalai Lama

Saying something about how since we’re here

For only ninety or a hundred years

We ought to do something good with our time,

And I can’t help but wonder

How much those people paid

For that t-shirt, and where they bought it,

A fund raiser for the Dalai Lama?

Something about that sounds wrong

To me, but something about the price of a t-shirt

Being such a natural thought is also wrong

To me, and quite the product

Of an upbringing which I had no say in

But which I would say was a good one

Even if it was in America.

I have mixed feelings of being an American

And I also think I would buy that t-shirt

If I saw it for sale somewhere,

Perhaps at a fund raiser for the Dalai Lama.

Reading poetry makes me write poetry... So here's something random, and a sestina. Both are a bit melancholy, which is not really how I feel, but they just came out. So here they are:

10.27.2008

On the other side of the world,
Which Europeans probably thought
Was at the end of the world
Before they discovered she was round,
I read poetry, and emails.

She tells me she has left her lover,
Again. And also, that she is speaking to a love
Never admitted in time, but maybe this time...

He’s somewhere, not where she is,
And I’m somewhere, not where he is.

She writes poetry, and drinks (a little),
And I read emails, and drink water from a bottle,
But never from the tap, and then write poetry.

If this is one end of the world,
That is the other,
Here the world ends with a sea
There with a mountain range.

If I sailed to the end of the sea
And fell off, what would I find?
If I climbed to the end of a mountain range
And looked down the cliffs,
What would I see?

A line of ants goes
From one place
To another
Their aim and purpose
Beyond me.

She misses a blue sky,
And is drowning in someone else’s green world.
I’m in a green world.
I miss a blue sky.

We both miss men
In places we are not,
And neither of us
Are close enough to home.




10.27.2008

In my head there are worlds
I can sift through like water through sand
Imagining, imagining, imagining
Things that were and are and could be
And could not be. Fantasy
Worlds created and maintained with words.

Turning the pages in my mind, the words
Fall together and flow apart, forming worlds
Where there was nothing, fantasy
Creations like a god playing in the sand
Building castles, made up in a way that could only be
Childhood imagination.

I am no longer a child, but I hold on to that imagination
Replacing dolls and sand castles with words
Strung together tight enough to be
Strong enough to hold together worlds
That do not melt away like sand
Flooded by an incoming tide. Fantasies

Strong enough to hold reality at bay. Fantastic
Ideas rife with imaginary
Creatures, hopeful and lovely, and
Fragile, like faint sketches, mere words.
How strong are words against the world?
Who are these imaginary beings

I want so much to be?
What is reality and what is fantasy?
Especially in this world,
Made up by so many imaginations
Spun together like a web of words
Just castles built out of sand.

I like to think a footprint in the sand
Will last longer than the coming tide, be
More solid than shifting words
Crossing the border between reality and fantasy.
Perhaps it is just my imagination
That sees good in this world.

Or perhaps it is just imaginary worlds
Made up of words and fantasy
That belong to the good. The rest is just crumbling sand.

10.22.2008

It’s October,
And a year later
Than a year ago,
Which is to be expected,
Being time and all,
But still…
How far is a year later
From a year ago?

Far.

And a very long time.

A year ago
It snowed in Broomfield on a Sunday morning,
And I watched it fall out a sliding glass door,
And I watched a boy sleep on a couch,
Wishing and wanting and imagining
Myself blushing
If he had smiled at me,
If he had been awake.

A year later
I email that boy
As often as he emails me
Which is not as frequently as I’d like,
But often enough to make me smile
And hold on to the idea that he’ll be there
When I get back
And he’ll hold me,
And smile
And I’ll blush,
And we’ll kiss,
And I hope we can find a better place to sleep
Than two couches in a basement in Broomfield.

A year ago,
I wrote a poem for Betsy,
About a cold kitchen
And writing
And tea,
And I’m farther away from that now
Than I was then,
Though even then,
It was an “I miss you”
Kind of poem,
A “remember the times we…”
Kind of poem.

Remember the times we sat cold
In a kitchen
Boiled tea
In the wee hours of the morning
And wrote
Quietly, but in each other’s company…
I’d like to do that again some day.

A year ago
I drove down tree lined boulevards
In a town I didn’t call home
That is all I have to call home now
When I’m so far away
That the closest thing
I have to a home
Is a one room paca house
In rural India
(a year ago, I didn’t know what the word paca meant…)
So now I remember
Tree lined boulevards
With nostalgia
For a time
When I remembered
Tree lined boulevards
And youthful folly…

A year ago,
I wrote a poem
About morning sex
And waking up feeling pretty
Because there’s nothing like
A lack of pretenses
To make things relaxed.

A year ago,
I wrote a poem
About being on the other side of the world
In the land of spices
Which I have found smells less
Of cardamom,
And more of cow shit,
But still
I am on the other side of the world…

A year ago,
I wrote poems
For school,
Because a year ago,
I was a student,
Which is one of the biggest trips
Of the here and now,
That I’m not the student,
I’m the teacher,
And I was trying to write a description
Of myself yesterday,
And couldn’t find a word,
Other than “person”
To put a label
On who I am.

A year later
Than a year ago,
I am many things
I was not
And I’m not many things
I was.

And I miss many things
That were,
Though I know many things
That I never knew
And I appreciate that.

But a year from now,
I’ll be home again
And maybe I’ll be watching the snow fall
Out a window in a home town
I only sometimes
Call home,
Drinking tea,
And writing poetry
Or maybe I’ll be watching the snow fall
Out a window in Broomfield
Drinking beer
And sitting on a couch
With a boy.

"Poetry in India"

Do they sell poetry in Pondi?
She wanted to ask,
But caught herself.

Can you sell poetry?
A coin for a verse,
But only if it’s a five rupee
And only if you know of a tea stall near buy
A good one, if you please.

And anyway, what she meant was
Can you buy books of poetry,
In Pondicherry.
And by books of poetry,
She really meant some Ginsberg
Or Hass, or really some Ammons,
Because she didn’t bring that with her,
God knows why,
Perhaps one of the gods
Round here
Would know,
Since there are so many of them
And they’re oh so knowledgeable
And also,
They’re the subject
Of any poetry
You might find here,
Or in Pondicherry…

Tonight the clouds are drifting
Veiling the moon
In dark gray like gauze
Or a fine silk.
The moon is bright
Though not quite full
Nearly so.
The night is warm
And the breeze shifting the clouds
Touches the tree tops,
Stirring the leaves

.................

A Storm in Passing

The clouds come in from the east,
Drifting off the Bay of Bengal
In droves, covering the moon in waves
Drenching the earth
And filling the sky with jagged flashes
And cracking thunder
Shaking the window panes
Until the wind
Blows the clouds along
And the moon,
Bright and full
Shines her face
Illuminating the rain soaked
Ground, red earth and sand
Turned red mud and clay
Until the wind
Blows the clouds along
And covers the moon’s face
Filling the sky with jagged flashes
Brighter than the bright moonlight
And cracking thunder,
Shaking window panes,
And torrential rain,
Soaking the earth to its brim
And then over
Until the wind
Blows the clouds along.

It’s 2:24 in the afternoon, and I feel like I should be sleeping,
Because on my side of the world, it’s the middle of the night,
The wee hours of the morning,
And for sure bedtime if I’m not asleep already.
But here,
On the opposite side of the world
Where everything is upsidedown
And backwards
And there’s a ½ hour time shift
To the standard twelve,
One way or the other depending on the time of year
I feel…

Stuck somewhere
In the middle of the earth
Maybe
With miles of rock crushing in from either side
Or flowing liquid magma
Like blood flows through veins,
And I’m swimming through it,
Or digging through it
Trying to reach there
From here

So it’s afternoon in India,
And it’s the middle of the night in Colorado,
And I feel like I should be there,
In the middle of the night,
Either heading to bed
Or sitting at a diner
Sipping bad black tea
And munching on bad French fries,
And talking
To someone
About something
Like life,
Or poetry,
Which is silly,
Because I’m living life,
Not just talking about it,
But I still feel…

Lost,
On the opposite side of the world

And maybe I feel pulled
Back there
And that’s why lazy afternoons
Fill me with a nostalgia
For late night
Early morning
Awake times,
Even though I’m happy
Here
And life is pretty fucking
Cool,
In a hot humid heat kind of way…

I woke up one day
On the other side of the world
And lay there imagining: me
Here, on the bottom side,
If the other side is the top side,
And thousands of miles of rock,
Molten and magnanimous
Were crushing down on me
Burying me against the sky,
Which looking up at,
I must be looking down towards,
Just waiting to fall off,
Waiting for gravity to give
Or to kick in,
Bring thousands of miles of rock
Down on me
To bury me against the sky.

...............


India
Smells like shit.
Like cow dung,
And open sewers.

And also like the sea,
Salty and wet.

And also like jasmine.
And mangoes.
And coconut milk moonlight
Spilling down around palm trees
Silhouetted against twilit skies.
And incense and temples
And more gods than I can wrap my western head around.

And if I ever thought I’d live on the east coast,
I never quite imagined this east coast.

Though the moon rising full over the crashing tide
Is a beautiful site.
A different kind of beauty than pine trees,
And mountain tops.
But glorious.

It’s 4:18 a.m. in Colorado
And some part of my mind
Is driving down dark, iced highways
A reverse image of the here and now:
Then and winter.
Night. Just off work.
At home, I’d be greeted
By a cat and a bottle
Of something noxious,
Bourbon, or maybe whiskey.
Possibly also by an insomniac.
And I’d drink and watch the sun rise
The faint lightening
Of the four a.m. sky line,
Indiscernible to the eye
Of those un-used to the dark
Of a three a.m. sky.

It’s 3:49 p.m.
In India.
Here and now.
And a part of my mind
Is replaying icy, winter nights
Driving down a highway
With the whistle of the wind
The only noise in the car
With its broken stereo
And windows that didn’t seal.
I’d be wearing my coat
And some three other layers
Of shirts, two of pants,
And I couldn’t feel my finger tips.

Here and now.
Daytime. Hot under the fan
Wafting warm afternoon air
Around a red-tiled room
Filled with furniture
A pallet of a bed
Two wicker shelves
A lamp that flickers at night
Two candle stubs
A plastic chair at a table,
Foldable for easy storage.
And the odds and ends of then
Brought to here
In two duffel bags:
The dozen books,
Joyce, Faulkner, Garcia-Marquez,
A Norton’s Anthology
Vol.2 Contemporary Poetry,
The Complete Poems of Audrey Lorde,
A thin volume of Tony Hoagland,
What Narcissism Means To Me,
Filled with poems of America,
So very America.
There are four empty shoe boxes
Bearing labels and postage
From the States to India.

The table is cluttered:
A water bottle,
A Sanskrit Primer,
A Greek Primer,
A French textbook,
Whose binding is disintegrating in this climate,
Two library books,
Three books of philosophy,
A notebook,
A fourth grade math workbook,
Two books full of spelling lists,
My computer,
An assortment of pencils,
And brown pens
Bearing worn golden letters
And the trademark symbol of then,
Sunglasses and an iPod,
A camera and a flashlight.

What do they mean?
Those items so haphazardly
Staked in piles?

This is my space.
This is where I wake
In the morning,
Lay down in the evening,
Hang out and pass idle afternoons
Reading library books
And playing FreeCell.
I could be there,
To judge by that ephemera.

But I’m here,
So very here.
Half a world away,
Some twelve hours in the future
Surrounded by a language
In which I can say only
“hello,” and “thank you very much.”

iTunes plays Ani,
Tori, Fiona, Joni,
Jollie, Janis.
It’s a girls’ playlist.

I could be there,
To judge from this crap.
But I’m here.
Unfamiliar birds sing their afternoon songs
Outside my windows,
Familiar now.
In my bathroom a spider
And a frog hide among my toiletries,
The shower runs cold.
What does it all mean?
Anything?

Here and there are largely the same,
Perhaps.
Here and now
Is not there and then,
But it’s similar.
It feels so similar,
To look around my familiar room,
And see two duffel bags worth of then
Brought here,
Strewn about haphazardly
And joined by library books,
Fiction and philosophy,
Notebooks,
Textbooks.
How similar.

I wrote a sestina. It's kind of a companion piece to a sestina I wrote six months ago, and has the same fisrt line. That's actually what made me want to make it into a poem in the first place. I wrote the first line in my journal and was like, hmm... I've written a poem like that once, I should write another one!

So without further ado, the most recent poem, followed by the one from six months ago: (it's currently untitled)

A sestina…

I had sex in a dream last night
And woke up missing a boy
I haven’t seen in six month, but who I think
Of about every damn day,
Because nights on this side of the world,
Where he can only visit in my dreams, get pretty lonely.

And though I don’t particularly mind being alone
Sometimes it gets to me, mostly at night
Just before sleep and I fall out of this world.
Maybe my subconscious is telling me something, placing boys
In dreams, nighttime visits absent in my day-to-day
So when I wake in the morning, my thoughts

Are full of far, far away. Funny, I think.
But I have to stress that I don’t feel too alone
During my awake-time, during my busy day
Time. Only later, when I’m home at night
And I don’t even have a cat, let alone a boy
To keep me company here on this side of the world,

Far, far away from my side of the world.
And I wonder how much spilled ink
I’ll send in letters on a page to that boy
And if at night, if he’s lying down to sleep, if he feels alone.
But then, he never was one to sleep at night,
Or at all, spending strung-out, sleep-deprived days

Awake as well. I remember the few days
We were together, before half the world
In either direction separated my day and his night.
Far, far away, and it’s tempting to think
About what it’d be like to not be alone.
Here, sure, but in the company of a boy

Who I dream about, but who isn’t really a boy
At all. How would I fill my days
If I wasn’t the only one
In them? Or how would I fill my days on that side of the world
If I hadn’t come to this side? It’s temping to think
About, especially when I lay down to sleep at night.

Dreams at night are full of people missing in my day-to-day
And boys, who are really men, cross the world
To visit my sleeping thoughts, and I feel less, and more, alone.

.........
and the other one:


Night. We’ll drink coke and discuss things, dreams and how soon life is different.

I had sex in a dream last night
And woke up thinking I’ve got to get laid soon.
But then wondered why in the dream my lover was doing coke
And what it meant that I couldn’t feel a thing
When we were having sex in the dream
And how I knew it was him even when he looked so different.

I wanted something to do, something different
Than sitting at home, I called an old friend, asked what he was doing tonight.
“Just writing,” he said. “I had the craziest dream,”
I said. “I have to tell you about it. I’ll be over soon.”
We went to Tom’s, like old times. It used to be our thing.
At the diner I had weak black tea; he had a coke.

Sitting there, watching him drink coke,
It’s like adolescence all over again, nothing’s different.
We sit in a diner and talk about things,
Discuss life and change, and waste away the night.
It’s something that I wont be able soon,
“Hey, let me tell you about my dream”

He sat back, said “Sure, tell me about your dream.”
And motioned to the waiter for a refill on his coke
And told him that we would need our check soon.
I watched him and wondered about how different
The two boys were, this one across the table and the one in my dream last night.
Both musicians, and one an artist, and one a writer, but such things

Still don’t make them similar. And I found myself making a list of things
In my head, to compare and contrast this friend and my friend from the dream
One who I want, and this friend with whom I’ve spent many a night;
One who has only done blow in my dream, and this friend who spent years coked
Out, and thinking about one, and watching the other, all I see are differences
But I’ll be leaving both behind soon.

This time next year, I could be standing in monsoon
Rains, and before I go there are still things
I want to do, other than sit in a diner and compare differences
Between him and him, reality and dream,
While I drink tea and he drinks coke.
“So tell me about your dream last night.”

“I dreamt of sex last night.”
How soon everything will be different…
“I think I ate something weird, let me have a sip of your coke.”