dear august

the weather here is a frozen squash.
it is orange,
my tongue is iced to the skin,
and it is halloween.
these dutch children do not dress
as ghosts or witches, but if they did
disguise themselves, I hope it would be
as skeletons glowing in the drizzle
(it always drizzles)
and eating chocolate painted candies.

you should fly to me.
the twilight green sky doesn't
mean tornadoes here,
instead it's a sailors delight.
they've seemed to switch red and green—
the traffic intersections are mad...

wet from birth

without your earrings in you are
a bucket of afternoon rain.

I'm not cold from you
but I shiver with pretension.

the first time I held you was in august
and it was blue skies.
you were hot;
wet from birth.

declarative night

a wet sidewalk where
an evening tree
is my umbrella.
I left my cat in
the branches to catch
green birds.
I walk in three quarter step
to keep my feet dry.
the cat is still hungry.
I'm still hungry.
the restaurant in the rain
has a neon sign.
my glasses fog as
the door opens.

Today

Yesterday in the States was election day. Eventhough it's an off-year for most states and there were no federal elections, it's still exciting. So much is dependant on the outcomes of the elections (ideally) and they always seem important. Today though I finally handed in my urban anthropology midterm. It was a lot of work but I'm really interested in the subject so it wasn't so bad doing it. Part of the paper was about the flaneur, who is described as a stroller of the city. the way I see him is as someone who was born out of cafe culture; just sitting and watching as the city life unfolds in front of him. I love that idea. I like to do it when I'm New York. I'll go to Washington Square Park with a book and watch as everything happens all around me, all of the intersections of lives clashing and running into eachother and knocking school books out of someones hands and people smiling at each other; it's all really intricate and beautiful. the idea of cosmopolitanism is apparent when you just sit and watch. everyone passes by doing their own thing, everyones an individual, in all aspects of the word.

Also, I did a presentation for urban anthro. which was about NGO's and grassroots democracy internationally. lately I've been starting to get reinterested in politics. all summer it was such an afterthought, thinking about all the bullshit when the sun is shining is a little bit too much, but now that it's november, the weather matches the political climate. and the stories are interesting. the things in the news effect my life in one way or another but what I really find interesting is all the microcosm politics that happen all over the world. first revolt in Burma and now Gen. Musharaff in Pakistan declared emeergency rule but its basically martial law. it makes me realize how easy it would be for the United States government to do the same thing. now that any American citizen can be declared an enemy combatant on suspicion (thanks military commission act) it seems entirely possible that if the ruling party (Republican in this case but I wouldn't put it pas Democrats) felt threatened enough, they could make the state theirs and steal it from the people.


tonight started with me and ruth and eric and rachel making dinner (pasta with homemmade meat sauce, spinach salad, bread and brie cheese, and red wine). it was good. then owen and scott came over and finished off the leftovers. it was good dinner and it was nice to sit with everyone and eat. and tonight ended up with some folks and myself smoking my hookah. the apple tobacco is pretty delicious, although natalie has peach and it's so nice too. I'm glad that we all have the means to smoke the hookah, and most of us, our own. it's definitely some sort of camaraderie. kinda of a constant and ornate memento of the great time we had in Istanbul. it was great traveling with some of my best friends. it all worked out pretty well. amsterdam in general is working out pretty well.

carnival mirrors

I can't count raindrops anymore.
I get lost between number fifteen and twenty-four.
that is when I forget what came last.
every moist reminder a prelude;
my wet hair a vignette.
kitchen noises talking at the table,
every word is a fragment.
their punctuation is excessive.
our back door is the front
and I unlatch looking into the street.
I see you left me a note.
everything is crossed out with an orange pen.
I leave it hanging by a punched hole.
the neighbors are curious.

the taste of enlightenment

my dog ate buddhas head.
she wagged her tail and sat under a fig tree.
I cannot believe she ate it.
I wonder if she'll be reborn or just start to glow with nirvana.
she'll be smarter than me someday, I'm sure.
we will play chess in the park and no one will question why my dog just moved her queen from the back row.
I still don't know how to play chess.
maybe buddha dog can teach me.
I'm just a bodhisattva wearing fruit on my head and shoes worn smooth.
I want to stay in this world and teach you.
not how to play chess, because buddha dog is teaching me that,
but how to listen for the change in the music;
how to taste fame in the juice of a pear
(you'll spit it out most likely, it's bitter.)

stand alone objects

we are the party people.
yes, our parties are search parties
or political parties (clubs, really,)
but when the candles blow out
because the rain is falling so fast that the atmosphere follows it right to the ground—right through the curtains—
we don't stop dancing.
we make a list for leaving.

we draw letters from our elbows to the tip of a pen,
the spiral of thought is infinite in graphite.
intangibility set aside,
it's shuffled into a duffel bag,
hesitatingly zippered through the dark,
leaving space empty and desolate,
leaving with a sigh,
leaving nothing but what's left.

November is Imminent

and the birds are freaked out.
they think "how did we forget to fly this year?"
well, they were busy swirling in the current of passing boats;
they were chugging beer on the concrete banks of modern rivers;
they were talking too loud to hear that the time had changed,
that grey clouds now meant cold
instead of just rain.

the birds are freaked out
and so are the worms.
they are burrowing deep
in the harvest brown soil.
they cling to the hope that one day soon
the birds will shape up
and remember to fly south.