justwrite 23 june

I am preparing to be packed I am egging to be cracked and if that won’t cut it then something else must it’s a red knife sharpest in the land and the green one didn’t make it kept safe in the basement and other sounds I am rounding the corners they were too sharp I am playing the flute I got caught in a harp and the saxophone temporarily allowed was shrouded in excitement the right fingers but the wrong tongue unstrung into confusion the illusion of cool a deep blue pool dribbling down from the black sky the neon lights and other surprises we are rising to the occasion but the trombone was just out and I had my doubts but I was stubborn and I could not believe so neatly deceived of my own power and just a few words undeserved about embouchure and it’s surely not that important not at the professional level mind you and I had a mind to play anyway but that’s a lot of brass to crash a party with especially for a woodwind and none too delicate never the problem never the pink-socked twinkle-toed issue not a tomboy but not that kind of girl nothing like a curl too straight to navigate your hair’s too straight to braid my friend told me the other day and how could I argue it’s not much of a slumber party trick it’s just not thick and another thing but I guess that’s all I was taller than imagining and a trombone would have fit just right but the passing delight of being different and pushing an envelope just far enough across the table to show I’m stable but moving and the truth is I played on I stayed on in the flute section and had to mention the piccolo the alto but never the bass not one in the place with a roundabout mouthpiece an extra bend of column made for soaking up the air the most breath-demanding instrument other than the tuba you’re just throwing it blowing it all away and nothing gold can stay in a silver line but the golden line just fine to keep the headjoint fresh this is a thing that I loved this is a material girl and I cleaned those open-holed keys and I felt my fingers sparkle as I played the light on the stage and the best posture manageable dangling my right pinky onto each tiny tab on the foot joint how low anyone could go and this was how I played this is the role I made and modeled for and kept close in a black case with blue velvet lining defining my own view I’m the one who and so I was

justwrite 22 june

with a deep sigh I nearly swoon nearly trip over all those bits I meant to mix in there are parts of stories I will record here so they do not get lost the world is run by little girls is not the way to say it and thank heaven for little girls has already been used but here are a few pieces number one outside of the castle in Prague a newly married couple was posing for pictures and a little girl who was observing this thoughtfully solemnly remarked to her father that now these two were the new king and queen and what could he do but nod and I nodded also it seemed about right number two while on the bus this morning a pigtailed toddler or slightly more than toddler whatever that would be called was sitting beside me and when she suddenly announced that dad was calling her mother fumbled in her purse for her own phone only to realize that her daughter was answering her play phone in perfect seriousness the power of suggestion quite strong if a child says dad is calling why would she be lying of course it’s true and number three the vaguest behind my building on the street wrapped up in gardens a little girl was prancing along followed by her muscley and serious looking father who was carrying a tiny stroller of the babydoll variety and he had it in his hand quite above the ground obviously he wasn’t pushing it that’d be pushing it right but when she twirled around and presented him with some tiny bit of wonder in the palm of his hand he stopped and looked down at it and then at her and waited to find out what he ought to do next still clinging to the babydoll stroller with effortless certainty knowing that his task is to watch and to carry and to protect and to imagine that he could ever understand why this seed this coin this twist of paper is of such significance she has him in a trance and this is what they do these little girls they make believers out of their audiences yes we say they are the king and the queen and dad is calling and this is the most precious cherry pit in the world and it is pure magic and some of them some very few retain this quality and I met just such a woman yesterday or better to say I was in her presence I was waiting to buy cherries in search of the pure magic pit and there she was her head wrapped in a scarf and her cheeks bright with summer afternoon and she was proving beyond any doubt that these tomatoes these tomatoes from kherson if you just look you see this this is the ideal tomato the ideal tomato and I watched and I believed and I knew she was right the truth set free and hefted onto a scale

justwrite 21 june

a month ago I sent a package two packages more and today when I went to get the packages that had arrived for me they were from me and I was more than disappointed yes I understand you reap what you sow and you get what you give but really this had my own handwriting on it and I feel like that’s a little too direct I wouldn’t mind correcting some errant notion but I have the sneaking suspicion hey will always come back to me no matter how many times I send them I wonder who will befriend them along the way will take them in and pretend to be the recipient it’s incipient sadness kept at bay by such a stranger’s chance stance on taking-in and I have got to say I would prefer not to send them out again but still they’re not for me and there’s the rub the drub in the tub meet me in the club that’s like a transition only it’s too awkward I have been thinking recently about space and about chase and I have come to the conclusion that I have no reason to chase not just to save face but because I don’t know where I’m headed in the first place and that’s a reason not to race just to bound easily or even stroll to cajole the future at a hurried pace is foolish whatever will be you see but there’s also the stance that if you don’t ask you won’t get and I can’t get that out of my head either what a bother all the lights are out across the courtyard which sheds no light on any subject well there are two that might be nightlights so close to the window the curtains are open my dear and your little dog too this is an exercise to keep my fingers moving and if you start talking about meaning you’re going to be heaving all kinds of drafts around and scooping out the limbering-up lines but I’m pretty sure you’ll find something worth saving even as the clouds are raising stormy faces and the buildings are all contemplating implosion the devotion to details never fails to accomplish something but the list goes on

justwrite 20 june

having thought it out it’s true there are doubts about the reasons about climbing up the treasons in various seas and we are captured by our tongues hung out to dry I have tried to imagine a future with punctuation but the fascination with flow grows on and it’s possibly ridiculous to write like this but it keeps my fingers moving and it’s behooving sort of anyway I’d like to say that meaning also matters as words clatter to the floor and nothing’s left but space we cannot erase ideas and this is what it comes to this is how we hum through sketches and stretches see the side of my right hand stranded in graphite fighting through the page raging through charcoal and other hauls see my calf muscle ripple as I down that dog and I can tell you this is the same thing there is space and it is filled if you’re thrilled by what it says then that’s fine but I’m thinking I’ll find a time when I’ll return to another sort of effort if I had the time and a hammer and all the raindrops in the world I would grow a green line of promise up to the sky I burned my thumb the other day trying to fry corncakes made of mistakes and very little else and I can tell you it was a mess I can tell you no test could have been passed with those results and this is what’s real but to feel that it matters is another sort of thing to go around pretending that everything I say is worth being conveyed would be absurd but if I don’t practice being heard or forming words then when the time comes I will hum to myself and the ship will sail the bird will quail and other sorts of failures will transpire I’m hiring a replacement and there’s space meant for company but in the meantime it’d be fine just to focus in a little I have sat at this desk all day and the list has gotten shorter but the window is still open and waiting for the wind to settle the rain to come inside the stars to turn out from the clouds and break loudly into night I will fight what I can’t explain with my own ideas I am startled to see such boldness I am anxious not to worry and I am tired with delight there is pleasure in the consideration in the fascination with thought I have brought an extra basket and I am carrying it around there are sounds but these are not the only things that matter there are scattered pieces of applause and a plow could hardly dig them up a cup could hardly hold them but when I gather my arms together I can guess and pretend what’s next and keep from neglecting otherwise directing thoughts what we’ve got is plenty and any more is nice too

justwrite 19 june

before then when we had different names rearranged letters maybe we exchanged sweaters or ideas or lunch boxes in elementary school style you were the one who knew german or pretended to with great skill the facility to impress I remember that you were not the one with glasses or you were the one with shoes always the shoes and I remember imagining something else that might have been and now who knows the show goes on and the numbers change the rearrangement the various estrangements occurring along the way we play our own games and often no cards no winning no strategy just floating leaves and sometimes blowing to make the stream gleam faster or the bugs to disappear if this much is clear then I’m wondering what’s not what ought to be mentioned before anything else comes along we are strong in our faces and wrists and knees our shins slicing forward in jointed progress onward and elseward the ministry of funny walks talks on with broken dancing and easy persuasion getting a raise in salary could hardly compare the overwhelming pleasantness of opportunity taken and I may be mistaken but that seems like a mirrored view it’s true and elsewhere in the news this much is true and I turn away from false from supposition from jealous superstition and wander in wondering far a-field yielding to what-ifs and lazing away from what to do in the present tense the illumination of imagination by sympathetic sparks no shot in the dark but a reconnect from some neglected point that never happened the adaptation of the species the catch and release sidewalk philosophies I am pleased to be challenged I am filling my pockets with scribbledown notes the charts the quotes I’d like to mull over to rest on my tongue and spill out in pleasurable reflection this is a collection of my ideas and they are loosely gathered wildflowers trembling in the newness of summer trying to hard for poetry the language the love of letters and sounds but with meaning streaming through the window open and sometimes all it takes is just that a catalog of feelgood checkyes we are passing tests and I’m sorry if you but really nothing to lose to have lost to be losing we are choosing but also choosing is done for us we join a chorus and wonder what the show will be and have we rehearsed and where are the words but when the curtain comes up I am startled to find we both know the words

justwrite 16 june

if my calculations are correct the trains will pass in the night they will be going miles and miles per hour there will be no tunnels the light the sounds will funnel through ears and mouths neither north nor south but away and when the day comes it will turn a different page the stage will rise up and suddenly we will all be on it I thought I’d dawn it differently this time but yours and mine and the rhyming chimes all have their own say these are the lines we will not write and the night will come again pressed in close with no time to waste I am chasing the point and it is far so far away at the end of my sentence but it seems I never get there the exclamation the interrogation the constant declaration eluding each other and also me and too soon to be forgotten the extra dot in the color by numbers which might have been a one or also a zero it’s never clear but only the hero knows the shadow supposes some dark angles and also I have been wondering if we seek out our own tragedies if we make them up and seal them in ziplock bags just to drag along in case of interminable sunshine when everything is fine and there is nothing to complain about no one creates art simply about happiness or at least not fiction even such a world would have to be fictional it might be that a painting or a song can get along alright without even a slight chance of overhanging evil or at least dark clouds but fiction isn’t allowed without conflict and if it is there’s some sort of message it’s that short story the fable with the couple on the train who weren’t a couple before and then they’re getting married he is about to start a job and he is sure to have a career because he has a briefcase they will live happily ever after the story is over and over again I turn to think of the artists themselves with heaping helpings of tragedy and distraction of their own design or something finer like china splintering faces in accidental porcelain I think along the lines of wines of the cheaper variety and chains of cigarettes or other fiendish chemical cocktails drowning drowning in self-annihilation the fascination with destruction so apparent among creators and I am waiting and wondering and when my face turns dark I consider if I am or am not concocting my own dark corner in which to mourn in which to create from which to emerge triumphant where is the thing I will overcome and when will I know that I’ve been stung is it loneliness unleashed or is there some other colder dish waiting to be served or will I turn and look out the window and know that such is not my recipe and would such news be happily received or even much believed

justwrite 15 june

how many days might have passed I lasted longer I sang stronger than I danced and when I had the chance I took the picture there were whispers and shouts a little girl by the castle watching the bride and groom posing for pictures told her father solemnly that now they will be the new king and queen and I nodded also it seemed like the right answer who doesn’t want to be the king or queen or both and if you had a moat what would you fill it with what do you miss other than people what you miss is food sometimes the right pillow or plumbing that makes sense but most often food and this is the comfort we find in our lives and we strap it to ourselves we hold it close and are ready to take it anywhere our dreams and our dramas the grams crammed into cheeks and pockets locked up securely unable to be released I am waiting to wash my face waiting for the water to come on this is the kind of writing where I say what I really think and not like what I’d be thinking if I was much cooler I’m plenty cool right now at this point anyway I’d say the sun having gone down and maybe the moon eclipsing tonight like gum like strummed along guitar chords with a book the kind you teach yourself with at home and today I watched a movie and tears came to my eyes I’d like to say I cried but it wasn’t quite that it was an overcommance which is a word I’ve just invented and the idea that something could be sweet enough to make that happen was rather unexpected it was sappy straight through but sometimes the sensors don’t read that if I had a favorite ginger ale it would be vernors I recommended this to a girl on a train these are the kind of people you meet and you want to absorb all of their facts just to see how they tick and then you both turn away and go outward into the world to gather more data to make your own mountains and molehills and while I’m on the subject it’s deep it’s a cheap date to take yourself on and there are libraries upon cafeterias I am trying to do the right things and I’m not always successful I eat too much I don’t exercise enough I ought to floss much more often and write more letters to my grandmothers I have messes on the stovetop and behind the fridge my laundry isn’t caught up and neither is my blog these are things to live with and to sleep through sometimes when I wake up there will be sun this seems likely and even if it isn’t right there right away I’m pretty sure it’ll be in the neighborhood and mister rogers will be there too and the adorable unbearable sweetly striped tiger Daniel will be there and we will discuss his clock and the plans for the day which always seem to involve clouds and plenty of light