I have always been rather disturbed by the fact that it takes me less than twenty-four hours of being sick to completely forget what it feels like to be healthy.

Gentle Hands V

summer was her favorite season, now she

doesn't have a favorite anything, but summer was, and

summer was warm and alive the cattails were itchy, and

the kittens rolling. Her porch was her favorite place to

sit in the summer, to watch the neighbors go by, to think

about the way birds fly, and old men cry, to think about

her future, and her future's past. The chair told her it

would be a cold night, so she went in the house to leave.

They didn't know each other, and they loved each other.

Long light distracted them as they listened to their

heartbeats or breath. This wasn't the way it was

supposed to happen, this was the way it was meant and

dreamt to happen, but nothing could touch her gentle

hands without a shudder. There was something, something

missing maybe, or something extra. Sometimes she seemed

to be both closer to death beyond and past life to more

than

Gentle Hands IV

The child never cried. It never had a chance to. It was too soft too sweet and too quiet, much too quiet. She knew it was the wrong thing to do, that even he wouldn’t forgive her, that even she wouldn't forgive her(self). How can one be wrong for doing what one has no other choice to do? Grey eyes now, grey eyes casting guilt through the mirror. Who did she hate more, the father or the mother, the infestation or the incubation or was it the culmination? Did she really hate the child, her child, their child? It never even cried. --In the train car the telephone poles made soft rhythmic sounds as they rushed by. He would have rode forever to make it in time, to be in time together.

Outside the Falafel Cafe on Euclid St.

The little girl walked down the loud city sidewalk covered in a puffy white fake fur coat with Eskimo hood contrasting her dark skin, she reached straight up to hold her mother's hand. Her mother stared straight ahead, the little girl peeked at me and tripped on the crack. She still stole another look back, I smiled and whispered, cutie-pie, then thought Stella, then asked my mother if she liked the name Esther.

Random memories from dinner last night

Grandpa: "We are the Pi Phi's, the Pi Phi's are we/ We still have our virginity, oh-bull-shit"

Mom: "Remember Sodom and Gomorrah, vote for Bush"

Grandpa: "I've got a double bottle of champagne [cooks] from last year, so I thought I'd bring it along"

Dad: "In the last couple of months I've actually gotten much less hostile toward the Catholic church" Me: "You're Welcome"

Dad: "I'm the only man in here not smoking a cigar" Mel: "don't worry, it's not hurting your masculinity"

Grandpa: (completely out of the blue) "I hate bachelors, they don't know what life is like"

Everyone at various times: " Oh oh, now I have to tell this story"

steam-like cold snowing up from the ground
blackness underneath
shadows reaching across the orange pink ice
something with an "E" growing out of the dark mass
turn as soon as you can
and chew my a.b.c. gum for me
now i think i'd like to skydive
and i said hello to the strange child

Gentle Hands III

She pushed the watermelon between the cornstalks to her father's feet. He looked down and smiled at the sun on her hair. The blood ran down the melon and mixed with the pink juice on the cutting board. She didn't jump or scream, just held the cut palm with her thumb. His lips brushed her thumb, and she closed her eyes. It was time to go, time to leave. It was dark and silent and calm behind her moist eyelids. She dampened the towel and gently wrapped her hand. --She rolled her eyes then raised the corner of her mouth as he tried to make her laugh. That was when they fell in. His life was surrounded by rocking chairs and dreams of "life lived, unwasted." Their skin was within eachother's touch. His heart was ahead of and behind them. Her heart was searching for his with tender fingers. Tender fingers now arthritic and wrinkled. Searching heart now pumping through a cow's valve.-- Anymore she likes salt on her watermelon. And salt on her corn too

Today Silliman left. I am not sure of all that he has left behind, beside debts forgiven, stories yet untold and yet unexaggerated, a name to be smushed into one syllable, several books and chewed pens, heartfelt advice, and an always open ear. He will be missed by the Collegian, a couple departments, several faculty members, many students, one booth in the snack bar, and everyone and anyone that needs the finger or a roadtrip buddy.

Cold hand-
carved rungs on the one-legged ladder
two stars dark in the sky staring at me
don't fall through the floor
wanting to eat the blue cheetah

Gentle Hands II

Her gentle hands again came to rest on the glass. Now they were wrinkled and swollen and ached from arthritis. The joy of flowers on her sill was still enough to squeeze those hands around the scissors. "on an angle, always at an angle, they won't die as soon that way" More often now her mind went back, flew back the lonely nights with him, the silent nights without the child. For years she couldn't cry, now she couldn't stop, now she had no one to tell, no one to listen, nothing to hide. She saw him last at a wedding, a wedding of fools and kittens, a wedding of tears and laughter, a wedding of day and night, darkness and light, their wedding.

Everything wears off after a while, but sometimes the river rubs a stone into a round rock.

From Just a Dream:

Pretty Please

"you're darker there"
pinky point thigh touch tingle
"thick thigh hair (don't worry) it's pretty"

room w/o walls    green or pink
floor and (ceiling walking creature's
eyes to upsidedown (downsidedown?) mine
grass cud chewin' mouthfull never opens
pleading goat eyes say, "more terpentine please"

Each time I see my brother and his wife I decide it is impossible for them to get any cooler, but they always prove me wrong. Spending time with them this weekend was great; they seem to have it all figured out, or at least they have figured out that it's ok not to have it all figured out, I'm looking forward to seeing them again already. Thanks again guys, see you soon.

false pink sky shaking powdered sugar
automation and guessing easier and releasing
naturally falling softly piling softly smiling
time stops and slows to float
to float feverishly and found
resting between and on composing a blanket
a warm thick heavy secure sleepy blanket
soft smiles and soft and smiles

without the moon we are alone; the man on the moon is as lonely as lonely gets. he watches us all from a distance uncrossable, when astronauts get close they can't see him anymore. he is tired of hiding in the distance, but he can't shrink to be seen up close. Up close he is nothing but ugly impotent craters, his sterility is without motion, without gravity, without excitement, warmth, or depth, he is monotonous. he is expressionless, and will not change without destruction, some day an asteroid will scar him, or possibly embed itself within him, and the tides will stop. he carries the footprints of lightwalkers and loneliness, the flags of "conquering" and the cheese of dreams

I once said that the greatest expressions of love can be seen in the eyes by moonlight. Since then I have realized that I don't know shit about love, but I still think it sounds nice.

I don't not care?

been listening to headphones a lot lately. been walking staring at the floor more often than normal. been reading/sleeping/dreaming more and comprehending/resting/thinking less.

nothing to post

not as cold night, choking on something, pride, air, my finger, raw liver, I don't know



not again

no, not again, this time I wanted to smile back

had a wonderful trip to Ann Arbor this weekend. bought five books at Dawn Treader (a nice illustrated hardcover Potrait, Joyce's Women, The Colour of Saying, Dylan in America, and Ezra Pound: the Last Rower), Thano's Greek Pizza, Donnie Darko backwards and upsidedown, sweet dreams on Caitlin and Prizio's floor (Thanks so much guys), and St Nick's in the morning.