rain poem 1

the water I run in
is the water I am in
and is in me.
I flow in threadbare centers of cities
and grow moss in mountain cracks.
air surrounds me and passes through me,
I wish it were not so cold.
I wish I could be this cold.

I am futile, spitting at all umbrellas.
feet are not my mode;
it is the air in which I mingle.
brother fog escorts this morning
and he is myself and snow—I do not know the form that I will take.
my nature is undetermined.
I am of gravity.
I am unrelenting and spry.
I am of gravity.

golden day come

all I want is blue skies
instead of you
bruised my eyes;
what I want is all.
sometimes the bridge is up
and I think of swimming
in the morning
I wink and am thinking
that you are not an exciting color.
olive green, probably.
I own many green shirts,
I like to dress for the revolution.
I like to look
but my sight is poor,
the cool fog is a thief or the bank
insured my legs for all the walking,
not my fingers for all the sounds I write, all the words I speak
do not dig sharply in my ear for gold or definition
is constraining! I want us to wear
no wordy handcuffs 'round our wrists and drown
every dictionary you know
that I still love your glow
but today I want atmosphere
still and blue.

old tongue, new ears

I've been speaking spanish to myself
more often than usual.
waking up in the morning
with arriba! as encouragement
is foggy and fresh.
I've never seen a spanish town
with spanish architecture,
(neither of which I know anything about,)
but the language is slippery and warm
and the city air is sangria.
I only know ten or so words though;
even my pronunciation is out of key.
I wonder what I would sound like to a set of
new ears?

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.