riparian glory (for a friend)

so many fans so many followers
each a unique snowflake
fluttering and feathering down
you are at the centre
of this beautiful white-out blizzard

now, make a snowman

before all the snow
melts together
melding, meaningless mumbles of
"fuck, so awesome, you are my

hero"

elevator jam

Maria checked her cherry-red lipstick in the mirror one last time and headed out of the apartment door into the hallway.  Her fake-leather tank top fit snugly against her budding breasts, hugging her ribs and stopping above her navel.  Black.  Like her mini-skirt.  Black and boring. 

Whatevs. It had been on sale.

Going to the mall should be good.  Maybe.  Probably nothing good there.  Maybe Stephen would be working at Cinnabon, that would be great. He was there last Friday afternoon, too.  He saw her approaching and made sure to be at the register for her.  That was a sign, right?  Must have been.  He checked her out.  She knows it.  He wants her, must be.  Has to be.

proofrock revisisted (MSPA-related)

Si j’avais plus d’esprit
Plus de courage que maintenant
Peut-être je me senserais différement
Mais, quand-même, tant pis,
Tu me fais tourjours rire, encore surire,
Et, voilà, je t’écris.


Let us go then, you and I,
When the wireless passes through the sky
Like a comic drawn upon a tablet;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted pages
The memories of ages
Of restless hours in one-hour cheap one-liners
And crappy websites with gruff old-timers:
Sites that <blink> like a tedious meme
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

Tentacles

Have you ever considered the endlessness of space? The way it just keeps going, the way stars are actually in the past, how it’s all proof of magic, proof that there’s something more than a mindless existence between our shopping centers and our genetically altered food?  It can’t all be written down on the 1040, can’t be counted in the GDP, can’t be protected from terrorists.

What about the people who chose to live in apartments instead of in a place with a patch of tress and garden? Do they really think we’re alone, that our only possibility of a purpose is not only focused on but exclusively concerns humans? Do they ever listen to music? Have they ever seen the stars?

As I stepped out of his car, I felt my skirt swirl around my legs, blowing awkwardly high, up to my knee.  I didn’t feel like kissing him anymore, even to say goodbye, so I shut the door before he could undo his seatbelt, and opened the door in the back to get out my stuff.

“See you later!”

“Oh, uh, ok.  Yeah, see you later!”

A sweet smile hiding disappointment.  Does she even like me? Is it wrong not to care if he gets paranoid like that? 

waiting

[Note: This takes place in a one-hallway building containing only musical practice and lesson rooms, on both sides of the hall. Windows are at the ends.]

I sit in a hallway, waiting for the door to open. Waiting, just softly waiting. There’s a whisper of a breeze going from one end to the other, not waiting. When it’s not there, I see no one else.

In the room two doors down from the one I’m waiting for, a piano shouts badly, learning a piece too quickly, snagging on every third beat, repeats the line. It is out of tune with the wind. Meanwhile a violin marches in place up a scale — a different one from the piano — and comes down the harmonic. They are not competing with each other, or with the wind, who secretly knows it is winning, anyway.

magnetic mattress

Blues start taking over the picture, seeping in from the sides and blotting in from the center. Navies and turquoises and cornflowers and cobalts smear across my vision. I look around in a panic, but all I see bleeds to blue. Then the reds join in, vying for eye-space. Mahogany is oozing in from the left, a patch of brick leeching in from the top, and blood red is filling the center of my view. I lash out, desperate to retain the original image…what was I looking at anyway? Where am I? Some purples start forming where simple overlaps should have occurred, then yellows and greens appear, and all is chaos. I tear at the rainbows appearing before me, seeking clarity.

Something is attacking me, physically trying to damage me. What is it? Is this some sort of joke? I can’t see anything at all, am completely blind, paralysed but most of all distracted by the kaleidoscope before me, and something is beating me. Mauling me, bludgeoning me, my arms will be so bruised, if not bloody and mangled. My legs may take weeks or months to heal, if they do at all. My guts are caved in from the blows. It is all I can do to remember to swing my arms, but the colors are so pretty. So beautiful. All it seems I can concentrate on is how perfect the contrast of the yellow-brown is to the soft lavender, yet here my body is being destroyed. I throw another kick with a lacerated leg, fling my arms wildly.

I hit something! This startles me from the colors and I focus everything I can on my opponent, and I grab it and kick it and beat it and bite it, punch it, tear at it, destroy it.

---

Last night I went to Brandon’s room to share my Frangelico with him and ended up getting a magnetic mattress. I think I hang out with him every day. I brought some things to draw with, and soon we were sampling different combinations of liqueurs. Or rather, Brandon was. I prefer Frangelico straight, it's rich, sweet hazelnut flavor drowning out all other thoughts as the syrupy goodness slides down my throat. Yum! And only 48 proof, so I’d have to go crazy with it to get drunk.

bilboard

A blur up ahead.
A billboard:
“Did you think about the children?
Did you?”
Did you?
You can’t remember;
You’re lying in bed though,
wondering.
‘Whose children?’

Sometimes, listening to instrumentals
on my way to sleep
I hear the music talking.
Words in the notes.
I find this happening just as I
cross the line into sleep
and suddenly come to,
focus on the sound
try to recall the words,
but just as in reading a sign
in a dream,
the exact words,
even the message
fail me.

flailing piano

I just had the most epic fail of my musical life! I played in the Law School's Battle of the Bands/talent show and played piano, this one piece (play in background? I sound a bit diff) I've played so many times. In front of so many people. I've been performing it in front of audiences large and small for over 10 years, probably in front of over 3000 people. And tonight, I couldn't play it. I was fine during my warm up, sound check and first few notes. Steady, calm. But then. I saw the light out of the corner of my eye. The drunken pub crowd stilled itself and miraculously hushed down -- the audience was now captive, caught in my steady embrace. Welcomed. I noticed the sound was a little too loud, and that I missed a note by a quarter beat. It's ok, keep playing.

on the train down to Portland

On the train down to Portland I was suddenly overcome with happiness.  I couldn’t contain myself and had to put down my book.  Watching the trees and the small depressed towns roll by, I loved it.  I loved just being there, on the train, watching it roll by.  My heart thumped with gaiety at the ugly squat houses, made beautiful for that ever-passing moment, just as the landscape was ever passing by.  Surely, I thought, this was a sign.  Surely, this happiness had to mean something.  Or was it just that I was feeling happiness for this train-ride-long moment?

I glanced up to notice that the movie was still playing on the TVs bolted to the train ceiling.  A feeling of sudden awakening mingled with smug self-satisfaction swept through me: I was experiencing and enjoying the world without needing to distract myself with the novelties of technology. Oh how far I had yet to go before I was able to be happy with all of it, with the natural glories of fast motion and dense woodland as well as with pleasing modern entertainments.  One is not somehow better than the other, after all.