yama farms

Brown shingles, yellow windows, small stones, it is "Chinese architecture" in America. It used to be something else, sort of like all those bungalow colonies, but by then it was just rentals and apartments. Still, nice, a lot of glass panes and small outbuildings.

Neighbors you were friends with, not anything intentional or perfect, but parties and homebirths, and so on, in the country. This portion of that generation made the breakthrough of being too kind to their children, with mixed results.

I am having a "lasers in the jungle" kind of a day. Will Avatar be like King Kong? Will we be like the Yama Farms people? Yes, probably, no, yes, yes (duh). Driving by, the reservoir is almost melting, and I see horse stable ruins, three floors of people's old clothes.

ey, TSu-ra

i'm trying, baby!

and cyberg, and aaron, i'm glad yr back.

#14 (oops, halfway)

oh, terror! then shame/lessness, cold cut teeth, an inability contracted when small.

the prairie still exists, i would rather watch house than monk, rather do laundry and read magazines, an image of blown bubbles. i had a really long rest too, a rest too long to be anything that was comfortable in it's skin, once really horribly so.

shaky bones, oh, terror! of not losing the sleepover safety theme, getting up, or only being able to stay. then tired, cool-headed attempts, a sewing class, a doubt.

(#13)

a red dress over a blue dress, sleeve lengths exact, worn to swim in a river.

a mountain straight up out of the water, weirdly small and round, a hump.

sunshine exactly enough to not exhaust, and crooked teeth.

(#14)

sparrow
mountain
labor day
crush

(#12)

salt lick locket
lock box pick
keepsake toiletries
cleanup kit

(#11)

a nunnery for little animals,
their dimly lit, sparse rooms and brown felt blankets.

not really timeless, not quite in touch,
comfortable and heartbroken, with windows open to clean, damp air.

(#10)

Ducks in the cold, steaming river,
thier frilly backsides in the air, fishing for the Ice Man's dinner.

not what's going on right now

(#8)

i stepped outside yesterday morning and there they were,
all over the yard like small elephants,
these dark birds, vultures, eating the snow.

i sent them to live in the apartment building on the other side of the mountain.

(#9)

we will paint this old church red and yellow
and call it "Hall of the Himalayan Good Deeds."

we will sell icicles and be open unreliably.

cheat

(#4)

Richard Blashka
Richard Brautigan
cradle to grave
Bed, Bath and Beyond

(#6)

i will sit in a chair with wheels and
you will wear roller skates and push me around
in a big room with other people and mats

bo-tard bus

you, kid, are "special needs," which seems to involve needing exactly as much as you take, having nothing to do with deserving it (or not) or being forgivable.

you have an extreme excess that really is not an excess, really not to be measured, really should not be in the same room as whether or not the rest of us can deal with it or anyone is good.

I have a lot of inexcusable habits and frailties, that I would like to have nothing to do with whether or not I deserve them (that wish perhaps being one of those habits).

so, lately I am scared by and enamoured with you and I and our excess, wanting the too good truth to be that the question is not "is this OK?"

of course, I ought to come around easier, since my inner life is made of hibernating animals and funny filing cabinets but I'm not as clinically weird as you are, and I'm old.

you will lose it and I will be nice or patient or not, depending on how much I've lost it that day, and later we will talk about our cats, appreciate how soft things are, and say goodbye until tomorrow.

as it turns out, I am pretty terrible and less guilty than might be expected, but a little guilty about that, so I'm wishing that your child-life would prove I can stop thinking about it, whether or not.

twenty-five twenty-ten/minus eighteen, not to be read aloud

Fat-burn, pat-down, motorcycle, carpet bag,
stopping at this kid would really be too good to be true.

We still need the bergamot but our joints are all buttered into their sockets now, not trying so much to "BOY BANDIT HAS PIZZAS DELIVERED TO EDGE OF FOREST!"

Still in love with all the old whistles, just a little less embarrassed by it now, I'm sorry I said you were tough.

"pratical ways to cleanse yourself of unwanted energies"

a photograph of this woman, probably in Florida, not California, her blue tie-dye dolphin shirt, health-food magic face, jungle-spa background.

my church of hot water and sea salt, then terror of specificity. where's the difference between good juju and OCD?

swimming pool in the high ceilinged, peeling pink paint room, dusty plastic plants, bath water warm.

one of my favorite people, with her wooliness, rose-petal tinctures, mind blowing electric toothbrush, kind almost-jokes about her neon-yogi friends. she seems to have found a good balance.

"sister mountain sister hamburger!"

worrying how it doesn't include those things, i do seem better at finding good shoes, at looking for you with my arms and legs.

it's ok to be boring in twenty-ten / what was that thing about cyborgs?

I haven't been doing much lately and twenty-five is a weird age around the holidays

so, I keep telling people how my grandma can video chat now and at the family reunion we all took turns talking to her on the computer

she couldn't come because she doesn't fly anymore

I say things about how she is really in great shape for ninety-three and there were four generations in the same room, if you count pregnancy and digital images

it's like one of those little culture stories on NPR or morning television, pointing out in a boring way the intersection of technology and whatever

"and my cousin held her belly up to the screen"