(Sunday, October)

Why one mug of tea was warm and the other cold is beyond me. Why, the warm one sat for 15 minutes before I raised it to my lips, and still generated more heat on my tongue than the first one. I heated them for the same amount of time and I poured both mugs immediately after the water became hot, so there's no real sensible explanation. I suppose there is magic afoot in this kitchen, and that's that.


The house rolls and rumbles and growls such that I think for a moment another rain storm is starting. Instead the clouds hang low, dry, desolate, and little ashamed after the mess they've made. Two months' worth of rain in the space of 24 hours. Okay, Mother Nature. Time to tuck it back in your pants.

I call my brother to ask for a kombucha. He groans; he's already several aisles away. Still he shuffles back to the rows of colorful bottles; a kind-hearted misanthrope in search of the Trilogy.


I believe the dogs knew I was sick last night, and that's why they pressed their tight little bodies into my stomach where I lay curled on the leather couch, and licked my nose occasionally. My throat still hurts but my nostrils have never felt better.

Today I walked in the woods by the lake, despite feeling like shit, and I do not regret it. I saw golden leaves; I hopped no less than two creeks and one giant puddle; I helped a wooly caterpillar to one more chance at living; I laughed as a big white dog bounded up to me, sopping wet and looking for love.

From the woods I drove to the local farm store where I bought apples and pickled eggs and almost literally ran into a man who kissed me on New Year's Eve several years ago. Or was it Christmas. Or was it the middle of September.


I hiked back down the hill and sat in my car for a moment, watching children roll pumpkins while their parents talked about how stressed they felt, with the holidays only two months away and so much to prepare in the meantime. I thought, if it means living like a child I will never throw a holiday party. I will sit in the house eating candy and then I will go outside and play.

(body politic)

signed a petition don't feel good
about it. was it me was it about
me cling dog paws to shoulders     beefjerky    liverwurst    myfather
sick. notsick cheese eyes flanbrain sprinkled
speck of a
holocene heart.

your ego makes you too
small your ego makes you too
big your ego makes it your
fault       per(the "i" of the law)
versities unbound

run away
corncob alligators,   run away    
                                                           little girl,  run

to the tripknot sweetrose carrotoid art. harbor
molluskrot.   secrete corroborobstination.

compensate me.
condensate dew-dripping
caligula,   collector of blood-bleeding
                                thumb.      eighth grade pizzatowers, parmesan cropcircle,  mouseketeers   shouldering
adultresponsibilities.


hear me out:
here's the steeple, here pilliated
telescopic headwear marks compass.
lookyou patcheye to the sailing sea.


the trueword is governance.
the trueword is duty.
the trueword is familial obligation.
the trueword is eating me  coffeecakecrumble side of fries

codified. underground LAN nameme heretic birthright

clampjaw stick peels rainslick
hallucinations. peak vibrancy matched.
my name is Tom and I'm a peepaholic.

my name is Tom I like to lick windows.
my name is Tom what's yours.
I can clean that for you. I don't know how to go about this. I was born on the wetdark tailtip of an antelope.

foamgurgle saltslurp slicked knobknees
shaking. the vet bows down. hold my hand
hold my hand child, hold

to the backs of eagles resonant hum
of guitars fleet-darkhighways dogearedlibraries caramelmacchiatomocha-freecalwhipeuthanasia
 the sincerer form of flattery.
choke down skin-cracked smile, cough to sorethroat perturbations
stinkrags skinheat dirtflesh touchme  
I'm warm.

split to graveldust skateboardbandits jabberpunchbuttons on the subway.
touch coldfingers to
calcified buttocks entombed in a lonely memorial. once we sat for something.

(Musical Notation III)

~~~~~~~~

call me call
my faculties duressed I polish cone-
capped avalanches
purple dandelion
woodsmoke. transcend
en trance thomas tankcapital
my dear indubitably do      ex
claim. pialodoshish.

sleepy denia

lists hard tack sticky taped dementia to

bathroom walls. two

yellow ribbons 

thin 

pretty

dented

things. hardscrabble orphan hair red

bricks and two-

toned shoes. hava, magnificence. 

cart that cartel-bound cartilage out of me. 

stand me on top of my wagon. swing my hips over your head like a shirt. 

swallow me swallowtail. fly me to the moon. 

make it sing, cowgirl. big thumbs knotted 

knees deep in wastewater we mine

the filliage mark this mucksucker: there's gold in this here yet. 

karmic gratification exists in the simplification 

of your life. yesterday i was a goldfish. today you will be a sooted crow. tomorrow she'll be a badger and none of this will matter, so cry before you sleep.     too, 

young friend, you'll never be alone again.

carry on, carry on, courage that you keep. 

(what it means to love you)

I touch my lips to my knee and leave a kiss there.
I kiss my left shoulder next, and then the right one.

In my memory I shred the map.
My knees skip the bridge and I'm falling.
Sayonara, icicles.

Helen and Charlie

Helen Keller and Charlie Chaplin
(credit where it's due)

Plucky Purcell on authority

"The fact is, what I hated in the Church was what I hated in society. Namely, authoritarians. Power freaks. Rigid dogmatists. Those greedy, underloved, undersexed twits who want to run everything. While the rest of us are busy living-- busy tasting and testing and hugging and kissing and goofing and growing-- they are busy taking over. Soon their sour tentacles are around everything: our governments, our economies, our schools, our publications, our arts and our religious institutions. Men who lust for power, who are addicted to laws and other unhealthy abstractions, who long to govern and lead and censor and order and reward and punish; these men are the turds of Moloch, men who don't know how to love, men who are sickly afraid of death and therefore are afraid of life: they fear all that is chaotic and unruly and free-moving and changing-- thus, as Amanda has said, they fear nature and fear life itself, they deny life and in so doing deny God. They are presidents and governors and mayors and generals and police officials and chairmen-of-the-boards. They are crafty cardinals and fat bishops and mean old monsignor masturbators. They are the most frightened and most frightening mammals who prowl the planet; loveless, anal-compulsive control-freak authoritarians, and they are destroying everything that is wise and beautiful and free."

--Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction

(if I die now it will be 26 years and change until I'm gone)

It takes as many years for a fallen tree to decompose as it took for it to grow. If I die now it will be 26 years and change until I'm gone. I will leave behind a pair of hiking boots and a mad desire to help people feel loved.


I walk down the trail there are mushrooms mushrooming. The deer leaps into the woods and turns to look at me. I look back. I whisper without making any noise, I will not hurt you please stay here looking at me. Oh please wide brown eyes. I keep walking and looking and wishing for understanding. The deer does not run any further. Its eyes follow me as I push up the hill and turn back, over and over, smiling.


I want to be visible. I want to know what I want and to want it. Oh when did desire become a four-letter word.


There is a man with sun-lit streams for eyes. He puts his hand on a woman's jean-clad knee as they're laughing.

She speaks these words as if she owns them, has rolled around in the mud and wrestled and licked them: We have to leave room for mystery.


I have been myopic. I have drunk the medicine in the form of brightly colored leaves and the scent of woodsmoke. I hang my head and then thrust my chin upwards, inhaling.


How about courage. How about abundance.