tonight I realized how much new orleans is a part of me and I of it. at monkey hill with the best people in the world and I imagined us all there when the hurricane rolled through. and it would be too much hurt to bother you. I couldn't handle lossing this place.

please send some snow, some snow for Johnny.

listening to christmas music alone in my apartment after doing the dishes. missing the box from the fish market that held all of our ornaments. missing drinking beer in your basement and the smell of cheap wrapping paper. me and my brother would stay up all night long and mad a snow hill in the front yard, by morning mixed with dirt and a chocolate buzz. I used to be enamored with christmas. it meant not working, ice skating with friends, going to flatirons crossing mall with rachel moyer. come home from the mall smelling like every scent bed bath and body works sells.

lets play.

so there we were driving home laughing in your car, the New Orleans roads bumping us up and down and feeling broken hearted and flinging lose change all over the front seat. And I thought about all those nights we spent in the taco bell parking lot, smiling, getting hot beans and cheese down our faces. Colorado sometimes I need to be taught the way to come home.

And then I remember the night that I fell in love with you. we went to this party not far from where you used to live. and this was when everyone moved away and moved on and I was getting older. we walked in and took shots out of vodka out of the freezer with the hosts. I give you credit in this new environment. we sat on the dirty carpet of the apartment and wished my friend a happy birthday. We swam in the pool in the lobby, I remember looking at you and loving you, and loving how much you didn't fit into my world. We walked home with dripping hair. stoned and drunk we walked into your apartment holding hands and shivering. You turned the bathtub on for me so I could warm up. And as I sat in the tub i started to cry, my chest filling up with pain like water. and I sat in the water not making much noise. I cried and cried like a kid. I felt like the home that I had both loved and hated was never coming back. And then you came in the bathroom sat at the edge of the tub and hugged me wet and naked. overwhelming overwhelming was all I could say. and you said you understood. and in some strange way we had seen god together in the bathroom that night and I fell in love with you.


So tonight as I feel you fading, my most comforting lover I remember that night in the colorado winter.


But tonight as we get on the highway in New Orleans as we pass the superdome with the music loud and I feel good. and this Amtrack train pulls up next to us as it approaches the New Orleans station and I wonder about the people on it. Are they coming to NO for the first time? Are they moving here? are they in love? did someone die?

And so we roll down our windows and yell at the top of our lungs:

WELCOME TO NEW ORLEANS!

mess.

I left my story in a barn so someone else could keep milking it. I left my story in the fitting room; it didn't fit me anymore. I left my story at the hospital because it wouldn't stop bleeding. I left my story at the rest stop; it needed a rest. I left my story at the body shop because it always wanted a different one. I left my story with some cash so it could never say, "poor me". I left my story without saying where I was going because I didn't want it to follow me; it never even noticed I was gone.


My heart is simply a mess.

colorado.

last night i really had a dream about the hurricane that came over the mountains. i was holding a jig saw puzzle. when the wind finally came into the mountain valley the puzzle flew out of my hands and into the wind, breaking into little pieces. and in an instant landed in my mother's mouth. and she tried to yell into the wind over me.

and colorado what if the hurricane did come? what if the aspens were gone. and what about all of those houses that we lived in? what would happen to them? what about the dog that died and the ashes that we left in the backseat of your toyota? would they float into the air. would the ash get into your eyes? i can barely talk about you colorado. but i can tell you somewhere in colorado there is a dry weezing love of mine. of the basement that smelled like pot and the buddhist flags that hung in your windows. the massive hippy parties that took place in blue school buses, where they cried and danced. wore flowers in their hair and told the children about the government that would and could find them. but its funny of us are not really from you colorado. we are just transplants. as allen ginsberg would say, denver is lonely for its lost, and transplanted. but tonight colorado i am going to remember all of car rides where I had to ask your permission to roll down the windows. and the car sickness i got while smelling your old fish coolers as we rode up the side of a mountain in your old ford explorer.

and we took hot showers in the empty lake house to warm up from the lake that had a black bottom.

11

The Dream of New Orleans
New Orleans was named by the Lord himself, the lord of the breeze and the smell of your mothers necklaces.

In New Orleans there are people who have purple skin. They sit upright in the air as if held up by invisible chairs. These are the sacred ones.

There are plants that cannot grow without stagnant old bath water.

If you have a dream in New Orleans you will wake up with a swollen heart and blurry vision. You can hear a dream approaching a few days out it cries like a hungry baby and roars like an army. You might wake up making the noises of dried out instrument.

You never want to eat alone because some lady with a duck will find you and contaminate your soup. She might ask you where you have been and where your mother is.

And you don’t want to talk about your mother.


In New Orleans there is an animal called the Marble and it eats shrimp tails and the remnants of your eggs florentine. It has eyeballs in its stomach and only comes out in the summer.

There are a race of people here and they are the only ones who can hold a chalice of sea water, and they will be the ones who get to sing the last songs the world ever hears. And these are the people who get to pave the roads and they pave them with residue from the streetcar seats. The sweat from under your legs and the grease left in your hair. They use fake gold and elephant ears to make the lines in the road for you to follow.

In New Orleans no one is honest. And everyone had sex last night, to the sound of a housing filling with water. You can tell the future here from the poets that bring their type writers out of their houses on Saturday nights, they tell you to go home before you commit and unknown crime to an unknown lover.

And you don’t want to talk about your lover.

In New Orleans people grieve in public, the drag queens hang onto door frames as they push their giant fragile bodies into the night air to get a look at the fire that has been burning and the bodies that have been feeding it. And they cry big sloppy tears that runs mascara into the drains.

They use tubas for trousers.

In New Orleans if you go out into the street after dreaming and hear the sound of weezing you must go back inside because it is a bad omen. You can come back out with the Magnolia gets chopped down and your mothers clothes have finally gone to Goodwill.

There are warrior women who fight on the streets with silk horses with the names of slaves stitched onto their flanks. They fight while the men cheer, they drink out of large long glasses and speak a language you don’t know if you will be able to learn.

The water is so warm in New Orleans rubies crystalize in your bathtub sprinkle over your feet when you bathe. You listen to the songs of the mystics alone in the trees and you spy on the horses the warrior women have abandoned. You suck on popsicles made of saffron and the skin of a lake fish.

In New Orleans you can let your nails grow long and take days off from work to make sure they are growing correctly.

In New Orleans they don’t title any of their books.

When you drive in New Orleans you like to have somebody following you as you drive down the road.

NEW (new orleans)

i am new orleans

new orleans is holding court
with this heart of mine
on trial
in the city that care forgot:
i do solemnly swear
to have you as my bloody heart
for somewhere in this city this blood is real
to be one of your hurricane nights
with your rain as my tears
to be you my new orleans

everyones a stranger.

feeling numb. i am missing when my parents were attentive. imagining my dad making buttered noodles, walking to the fridge in our small kitchen, the disney channel is on in the other room. he pulls out the land o' lakes and carefully unwraps the paper and mixes it into the linguine. i guess i miss his attention to attention. I could have hallucinated my entire childhood or fabricated some language to talk about it. I dont know whats real and whats not.

In walmart today by my house and I swear I am the only white person in the place and it starts to rain. there are children everywhere. in the aisles stuffed behind the frosted mini wheats and reading magazines in the checkout lines. they give me dirty looks and I am afraid of them for some reason. why? and then it starts to rain when I am in the frozen pizza aisle and the man who is talking to himself yells out: can you hear the RAIN? can you hear the rain? the rain is loud on the old warehouse and I imagine this is what it must have sounded like when Katrina passed over the superdome. its a hum like a machine. i think the people look at me like why are you shopping here? shouldnt you be at wholefoods? this family is looking at this dog bed, the actual dog is in their shopping cart its small feet are slipping through the metal bars of the cart and it pants. I cant tell if its excited about being with 5 kids or nervous about the rain. maybe both.


and yes I can hear the rain. we can hear the rain.

oh my god, whatever, ect.

There will be no miracles here.

I dreamt that I was more than a mile in the ocean in the gulf. floating right over the oil spill full of oxygen suspended like a god. the blackness and the cloud of the sterile smelling oil. in the cloud I could see the face of my brother. like a thunderstorm from a plane window. eyes closed. sound of boiling water.

time goes too fast come home

my eye doctor could see the storm a few hundred miles out. she said to go home put a few drops in each eye and sleep with the lights off. when I woke up the trees in mexico were almost gone. women were looking out their windows, fingers in beads and fabric. entwined in their children's hair. by mid day i called the doctor and she said i might notice some permanent damage and i should go out and buy some canned food and bottled water. i taped the emergency phone numbers to the inside of my cabinets. more drops. when i called the eye doctor the bathroom was full and green, it looked like swimming. like lake michigan in july. fresh. she asked me as straight faced as she could: how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

somewhere across the country he sits in a doctors office and asks if the grumblings he has been feeling is normal. the doctor takes his blood pressure. its through the roof. he opens his mouth and ash pours out in small organized piles. it's nothing personal the doctor says. its not personal when bombs explode or when a gunman takes a hostage. he looks into his nostrils and sees the inferno. he will blow at any moment, like mount st. helens poured over all those people in the 90s. shoulder pads and knobby sweaters. are you on any medications? do you smoke on occasion? how about drugs and alcohol? no. no. no. his internal temperature is boiling his intestines and the lining of his stomach. he leaks black fluid. the corners of his mouth turn down as is his life is just this moment. his purpose fulfilled.

I decided filling the buildings with water would be the best option over wind damage to the windows.

he walked into the ocean steaming, blaming himself.

i made landfall at midnight.

i said:

Forgive me that. One time it wasn't fast.
A myth goes that when the years come
then you will, too. Me, I'll still be home.

Read: "HERE WE AREN'T, SO QUICKLY" Jonathan Safran Foer's latest short story in The New Yorker's Summer Fiction Issue.

eye sight.

Yesterday I met the medical director for the remote medical company that dealt with the Horizon rig explosion in April. His name was Michael, he wore gold chains and spoke softly. He had broken blood vessels in his nose, smelled like old spice after shave. His iPhone was broken and for obvious reasons needed it fixed right away. I was looking at his phone and noticed the phone number for the horizon rig in his contacts and asked him about it. I guess he works as a telemedicine director or remote MD. When the deep water horizon rig exploded on April 20th the doctors in his practice and all of his nurses responded immediately in Harahan, Louisiana. He showed me pictures of the staples in the workers heads. He did say that although the blast immediately killed 11 men that were working close to the drill column no one who survived had any major injuries. He said softly that these men were never lost at sea, they had died instantly in the blast. Michael and his company were hired byTransocean and continue to work on many of the rigs still in operation. He tried to stress to me what a good company Transocean was. He told me that the medical care, including psychological was above and beyond what he sees from the other companies that hire him. I honestly said nothing while he was talking. It reminded me that above all of the politics and the bullshit that people died that day, in the dark in the middle of the ocean. But there was no doubt his mind that there were some shady practices from BP.

I guess I am having one of those days when the world feels like its ending. I want the war to be over, I want the spill to be capped, I want the levees rebuilt, I want malaria to go away, I want to stop child and animal abuse.

While Matt and I were driving to New Orleans, he asked me "do you ever feel like the end of the world is close?" What an amazing conversation starter eh? My first response was, people have been thinking the world is going to end forever, and yet it never has. We talked about population growth, GMOs, climate change and the role of the government.

It's weird to live in a place where the end could be potentially near. But as my dad would say " I am just being chicken little and the sky is falling!" But the sky could fall here. Today my air conditioning is out and to most people who live here than means, get a hotel room or stay somewhere else. If you can imagine New Orleans without electricity you get: pretty much the end of the world. This has been proved many times, namely by Katrina. Dead animals, rotted refrigerators, mildewed houses, gang activity, complete loss of infrastructure, disease, violence and, the massive loss of human life. And all of this can happen in the United States. Oh, yes. And the oil spill doesn't help at all. But alas, life must go on. But to live in a place where pure anarchy is possible!

I had another dream, where I saw the back of you in a cornfield. and it was flooding.

Song of the day: "Canvas" Imogen Heap

Calling Your Names

Saying Your Names
Chemical names, bird names, names of fire
and flight and snow, baby names, paint names,
delicate names like bones in the body,
Rumplestiltskin names that are always changing,
names that no one's ever able to figure out.
Names of spells and names of hexes, names
cursed quietly under the breath, or called out
loudly to fill the yard, calling you inside again,
calling you home. Nicknames and pet names
and baroque French monikers, written in
shorthand, written in longhand, scrawled
illegibly in brown ink on the backs of yellowing
photographs, or embossed on envelopes lined
with gold. Names called out across the water,
names I called you behind your back,
sour and delicious, secret and unrepeatable,
the names of flowers that open only once,
shouted from balconies, shouted from rooftops,
or muffled by pillows, or whispered in sleep,
or caught in the throat like a lump of meat.
I try, I do. I try and try. A happy ending?
Sure enough—Hello darling, welcome home.
I'll call you darling, hold you tight. We are
not traitors but the lights go out. It's dark.
Sweetheart, is that you? There are no tears,
no pictures of him squarely. A seaside framed
in glass, and boats, those little boats with
sails aflutter, shining lights upon the water,
lights that splinter when they hit the pier.
His voice on tape, his name on the envelope,
the soft sound of a body falling off a bridge
behind you, the body hardly even makes
a sound. The waters of the dead, a clear road,
every lover in the form of stars, the road
blocked. All night I stretched my arms across
him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing
with all my skin and bone Please keep him safe.
Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be
like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed
to pieces. Makes a cathedral, him pressing against
me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe
his mouth his heaven, his kisses falling over me
like stars. Names of heat and names of light,
names of collision in the dark, on the side of the
bus, in the bark of the tree, in ballpoint pen
on jeans and hands and the backs of matchbooks
that then get lost. Names like pain cries, names
like tombstones, names forgotten and reinvented,
names forbidden or overused. Your name like
a song I sing to myself, your name like a box
where I keep my love, your name like a nest
in the tree of love, your name like a boat in the
sea of love—O now we're in the sea of love!
Your name like detergent in the washing machine.
Your name like two X's like punched-in eyes,
like a drunk cartoon passed out in the gutter,
your name with two X's to mark the spots,
to hold the place, to keep the treasure from
becoming ever lost. I'm saying your name
in the grocery store, I'm saying your name on
the bridge at dawn. Your name like an animal
covered with frost, your name like a music that's
been transposed, a suit of fur, a coat of mud,
a kick in the pants, a lungful of glass, the sails
in wind and the slap of waves on the hull
of a boat that's sinking to the sound of mermaids
singing songs of love, and the tug of a simple
profound sadness when it sounds so far away.
Here is a map with your name for a capital,
here is an arrow to prove a point: we laugh
and it pits the world against us, we laugh,
and we've got nothing left to lose, and our hearts
turn red, and the river rises like a barn on fire.
I came to tell you, we'll swim in the water, we'll
swim like something sparkling underneath
the waves. Our bodies shivering, and the sound
of our breathing, and the shore so far away.
I'll use my body like a ladder, climbing
to the thing behind it, saying farewell to flesh,
farewell to everything caught underfoot
and flattened. Names of poisons, names of
handguns, names of places we've been
together, names of people we'd be together.
Names of endurance, names of devotion,
street names and place names and all the names
of our dark heaven crackling in their pan.
It's a bed of straw, darling. It sure as shit is.
If there was one thing I could save from the fire,
he said, the broken arms of the sycamore,
the eucalyptus still trying to climb out of the yard—
your breath on my neck like a music that holds
my hands down, kisses as they burn their way
along my spine—or rain, our bodies wet,
clothes clinging arm to elbow, clothes clinging
nipple to groin—I'll be right here. I'm waiting.
Say hallelujah, say goodnight, say it over
the canned music and your feet won't stumble,
his face getting larger, the rest blurring
on every side. And angels, about twelve angels,
angels knocking on your head right now, hello,
hello, a flash in the sky, would you like to
meet him there, in Heaven? Imagine a room,
a sudden glow. Here is my hand, my heart,
my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminated
cities at the center of me, and here is the center
of me, which is a lake, which is a well that we
can drink from, but I can't go through with it.
I just don't want to die anymore.

Oh Sweet Nothin'

So I fail at this blog once a day for a year thing. I think I am going to lessen the terms given that there is not only public drinking here but also a lack of wireless internet in my otherwise perfect apartment.

I have been here for about three weeks and here are some things I have learned about New Orleans: the roads are for total shit, New Orleans is going through "submerged water" road rebuilding and could not come any faster. It's so bad in fact I think I have ruined my front axle. Every single street is a one way, when you want to turn right you can't, when you want to turn left you better think again. This is all complicated by the fact that everyone drives like they are coming down from a serious coke addiction. Serena and I were talking about what a fantastic invention the turn signal is, and where it has its origins. The people of New Orleans know nothing of their turn signals--they don't even make the effort to put it on when they have already turned. When you drive here you should not only check your bling spot but also your psycho spot, which is a 360 degree sweep of everything that is going on around you and to look for that one asshole 100 feet back who is going to pass you at like 90 MPH and just about kill you. Coming from Boulder I have bad road rage, but here you just sit in your car and shake your head like: did that really just happen? yes. and your still alive lets celebrate by having a hurricane while driving shall we? And no one honks at each other, it's all very courteous besides the life threatening driving. oh, the south.

Random bullets here used to/ are still a problem I hear. Apparently it is tradition to shoot your gun in the air on new years--but the death toll of this tradition has gotten so high the city has outlawed it. the Times-Picayune publishes a note asking people to please please not shoot these random bullets into the air. Also! something that I love: at Christmas time the people of new orleans await papa noel. who is the cajun santa. They light bon fires all along the levees that surround the city so papa noel can deliver boiled crabs and hush puppies into New Orleanian's stockings. This tradition is so cool in fact that there are tours around the levees during the holidays so tourists can witness.

People drink everywhere. one of the other not awesome reasons to live here along side high crime, morbid economy and the potential of being totally wiped out by a hurricane. I think all of these reasons is why I get the "you're moving WHERE? why would you do that?" from literally almost everyone I talk to.

But the truth is, I have this massive crush on this city. so much so that I make excuses for it. For example: high crime? Erin justification: it must just be a phase and it doesn't happen in my neighborhood! I am pretty much as enthusiastic about this city as the natives if not more. I love the way this city drips with moisture, I love that people have so much love and adoration for something so beat to shit. Something I have also learned people hold onto things here. Not "things" like you and I would define it but symbols of community, tradition, and just the plain "good ol' days" Like today I met Rene Brunet who has owned and operated the Prytania theater for more than 70 years! Can you believe that? everyday he comes to work in his "movie" tie, and god I wish you could see just how god damned inviting this man is. He told me that the theater has undergone many remodels, which now include a digital projector, 3D ability and a new popper as of the last 3 years. This is huge in Louisiana's oldest theater. The only original theater left in New Orleans. I walked in to the theater today to see the new Toy Story and I just about walked by him but he looked right at me, smiled his giant southern mouth and said "Don't forget your 3D glasses!" Amazing that the owner was working a friday afternoon as an usher. I had to stop and talk to him. Or like the Zeitoun family that I have been reading about in Dave Eggers latest book which is about a Muslim man who stays in New Orleans during Katrina and helps his neighbors and clients with nothing but an aluminum canoe. Zeitoun is arrested by Homeland Security in his own home five days after the storm and is detained in a maximum security prison with no bail and no phone call. Daily pepper sprayings and the accusation that he is a terrorist. During the ordeal his wife Kathy in Baton Rouge presumes him dead. There is justice for this New Orleans family and--THEY MOVE BACK. The completely rebuild their house and refuse to leave uptown New Orleans. There is something about this place I swear to god.

And there is just something willful and wildly romantic about the attention paid to detail and beauty here, crumbling and fading beauty that needs constant attention--it makes this city unlike any other. I can sit on my porch and the wood on the balcony peels and molds in my hands. your home must be sprayed yearly for termites and my entire apartment sits at a complete tilt. but I love everything about it. I love the way it smells, I love the giant bathtub, the ironwork around my neighborhood, the sound of the street car and most of all, the blasting A/C unit. You can hear music everywhere, even in your sleep here. People really do talk to each other here. Quaker has almost an entire aisle of all the flavored grits you can get here. "sno-balls" are served by the boat load here and you can get condensed milk in them. brilliant.

I will admit that this is the first time in my life I have truly been alone. No parents, no boyfriend, no roommate, no friends. not a soul in New Orleans knows me. This is only the first full day of this new life but I feel achy in my chest about it. This thing of missing someone, lacking in their presence is not something I am used to. I have never suffered a death of someone extremely close to me, I have never left home. granted I have been heartbroken, but this is new. its quiet and sometimes crippling. I know it's early to be saying all of this but I feel a bit emptied. Like my beans have spilled out, the core of who I am is very far away. which has lead to me to realize how much I have not really been living in my body. I have felt pretty numbed out for the past...god many many years. So many distractions from living with me. I should cherish this opportunity. But I can't help but feeling so raw, like I am fresh from the womb. No one around to reflect me and in turn I feel totally fragmented--for the moment. All of my childish coping mechanisms are deactivated and no longer working. there is something obviously cleansing about this but it doesn't make it easier or fun.

I had a dream about being married last night. like the southern women are down here. big ring, nice car and the knowledge. oh the knowledge of that person. and it was matt who wore a silver band around his ring finger and he was wearing a button down, and nice shoes. we were trying to get to each other in Jackson Square and the police wouldn't let me cross the square and get to him. i circled him for hours and exhausted I slept on the street. and by the morning he was gone. I don't now what it meant but sometimes I have these wild urges to have this classically married life. which let me tell you is strange for someone who has enough marriage/divorce baggage to cripple a horde of desperate 30-somethings. I wish I could articulate really what it feels like to miss the presence of someone you love. I miss the weirdest things. I know many of you reading this already know the feeling of being far away from someone you love. and for the record I don't really want to be married like the southern women here...haha.

Something new and exciting: I think I finally understand the Beatles. It seems to be the theme music for the last 2 weeks. But the song I can't stop listening to: 'Oh sweet nothing" by The Velvet Underground.

So Erin why did you move to New Orleans?

The food of course!

Catching a Bat.

I still get flashes of "everything is all wrong" voices in my head say "wrong way to spend your time, wrong body, wrong job, wrong dream, wrong relationship" wrong wrong WRONG. I don't know what theses days I can say for sure. I know that I am here in this chilly wind, looking closely and feeling the feelings of my age. And how can I do it all?

Sometimes I feel really in the spotlight. am I acting right? Sometimes I feel like I am mean to people who love me. Sometimes I just want to be more sweet and funny. I have a hard time connecting and loving all of my selves and the different moments of my life so far, how can all these parts be the same?

Sometimes I break.

Worries I have lately:

tangled hair.
being yelled at.
being very very lonely.
taking my last few days here for granted or entwined in toxicity.
the trailer not fitting all of my stuff.
no more faith.

a night of talking last night that hurt and hurt and hurt. to let go and let God.

I want holding close and treasures, I want passionate yeses. I want calm gladness. I used to have these things.

I just came to realize that somedays we wake up and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.

There was a time.

Matt moved out a week and half ago. I can't yet bring myself to be in the kitchen for more than five minutes without it reminding me of the endless dinners we cooked together, hugging with wet hands and the sound of pots clanging. My kitchen has been heaven. I feel like I have lost a limb. The kitchen remained relatively untouched when he left, most of the art and dish ware is mine but my kitchen seems to have suffered more than I have. I come across some of his white shirts in my laundry and I smell the arm pits-weeze-goodbye. You could grind his lack of presence down and make diamonds that could scratch glass. I guess there is so much I took for granted, so much to be missed and I can't help but wonder, how the human being be so resilient? You think you will never get over it, and I know that pain doesn't heal all wounds but there is something dulling about the nature of pain. Pain on pain on play repeating--with a back up life in waiting. I guess when you are lost in the woods, it takes you a while to realize you really are lost. Also, there is nothing terribly glamorous about being alone. After all of my laundry is done, washed with perfect lilac detergent, the carpets are clean, and we will leave the dishes will be left out of this as they have been neglected in the dark cavern of this phantom life I insist I used to have. What is there really to do? I wanted: "to spend time with myself, get to know myself better" I think I might have known myself a little better when you were here.

I swear to god I can hear machine guns in the living room tearing up the fire place, puncturing the dry wall drowning out the sound of your body crunching on the carpet. The light switches are broken, this memory is tracing a picture of a heart over and over again, each ventricle one at a time.

And then I realize, conceited independence is like hollandaise. Deliciously decadent, till it stops your heart.

The VIolence

I have taken the blueprint of your back for granted
as if the sidewalk were not an altar
and the sound of the shower not a hurricane
bearing down – there is no ceremony for this.
the night goes on in spite of the rain, much
like the mail. make me a bullet of a mouth,
sex love and money on the radio. not a bullet,
a gun. not a gun, a harbor. to hold you, against
this, against the night with its sirens and batons,
I fly down the block to you and the lights, in
harm’s way, all sixteen muscles of my tongue
pulled, meat for the men who don’t love you.
my love, ink is fool's armor. your good luck
works on no one in uniform. if it's true
that bone is harder than steel, make me
a building, a garden of calcium
and mineral in bloom, deadbolt
of a spine, you coming home whole,
the apartment of my head on your bulletless
chest / each time the cry of fight goes up
on the street I remember your hand, the man
rocking back on his heels, his mouth
a sidelong oval shocked into quiet
at last, his pale hand torn from your forearm --
love, lay your burden down, here, tell me how
to make this body a safehouse and not
a prison, how hold your hand when its every lifting
is an act of self-defense, how take the knife from you
and not call it murder, or surrender – the cabdriver,
the cop, the woman gripping her purse
on the L train conspire -- you are already
a weapon. I am no building, no shield,
less than cotton between the violent night
and your skin, less than teeth
ground down to bonedust
small, white as I am.

Marrying the Violence - Marty MCconell

walk.

let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

faith.

Yesterday I prayed for maybe the second or third time in my life. I don't know what or who I prayed to. I guess I just wanted a sign or an opening of some kind of clarity.

And I got an answer, but I think I have forgotten how to be a friend. I don't know how to be someones best friend. I guess I need to rest that on faith as well.

Just gonna have to wait it out.

her.

I know that I am supposed to be used to things like this but I could tell by the look on her face that she had enough.

I guess weirdness is something I can deal with, when it's real. The hippies who have handle bar mustaches and attach fake monkey tails to their cargos. His friend is wearing a lady bug hat complete with antennas. Everyone here told me that they were a gypsy. Gypsy: a caravan of gypsies: Romany, Rom, traveler, nomad, rover, roamer, wanderer. I wonder where they came from. I think I know their apartment, its off of canyon. It has hardwood floors smells like cooked vegetables. I believe them if just for a minute. I dont think what I feel is precise. But I guess I don't know what the point is of being this off color person. She looks over at them, tired and unimpressed, I can tell she is on the verge of throwing all of her little bits of paper into the air and crying enormously hot tears. Focus takes the wheel. I am going to miss her.

Bossy directions given through a mouth full of smoke.

The Sisters Heart

heaving wolves inside of a jewelry box

by your bed, your ears bent like girlish

Chinese feet, so you can get them closer to the wall

and you stop and see your sihouette, it might sell you out to survival

when you live with giants your body language changes

but her life is still not free of violent verbs and forgetful nouns

speak for you

she lets down her hair/layered like spiral cut ham

and her mothers silk scarves hold you from the edge

they smell like her neck and the famished rural pipelines/white and full

and in that moment you asked why/we had her alone/spread like hot glass in the wind

and the moon put its face to the sun

pulled all the airplanes out of the sky and cried for your sister who had

one weak heart and two great heads hovering above the house

I can still hear her head

sending out solar flares

I resurfaced and burned

the sheets glowing red, then bursting

the moon cried, chewing on scrap metal

spewing oil.

bye.

listening to tupac while saying goodbye to the old computer. There have been an awful lot of goodbyes this year.

-e

The First.

An introduction of sorts.

After 23 long years in Boulder Colorado I am moving to New Orleans on June 1st. If you would like to hear ramblings about cajun food, hysterical home sick fits, horrible grammar, bad ass poetry and what it would be like to wake up on the Mississippi river please feel free to follow my blog.

As a challenge to myself, I am going to be trying to post once a day. Even if it's nothing really, I am going to try and post something. I will post about Popeye's Chicken. Everyone loves fried chicken, especially said chicken that cannot be had in the north west. You can be jealous.

Please feel free to comment or e-mail me if you want to chat.