Do I have time for this can of worms? I don't even know how to hook them.

Albert you've still got it

"Three Rules of Work: 

Out of clutter find simplicity; 
From discord find harmony; 
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." 


- Albert Einstein

to the farmers down the road from my friend's parents' house

You have planted the same crops in the same fields again, huge swaths of corn, tobacco, wheat, and at the same time as every year past and with the same intention to harvest. There are a few rebellious pink flowers growing in among the wheat fields, please don't spray them with roundup, please don't poison the land that feeds us, that feeds itself when we let it, all it takes is planting a few rows of squash, some beans maybe, a couple of lines of kale and chard for the soil to replenish, just shake things up a bit, let some flowers grow, the rest will take care of itself

If you have not walked alone in the woods for some time

The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.

-John Muir

If you have not walked alone in the woods for some time it will require an adjustment. You will feel unsettled as you step past a series of woodpiles, signs of humans not present in these woods in the past, again each of the four times you fail to see a spiderweb until it is wrapping around your face, across your mouth, swatting frantically at threads hoping the spider itself isn't pressed, sticky and writhing, to your lips

Then it's down to the water, no signs of herons or fish either but rolling along deep, swift, a blue-green both eerie and inviting. You don't skip stones because you are not entirely unconvinced that a limb will burst from the algae as you lean out across the current and pull you, screaming, and with no one to hear your cries but the spiders, in

So you stand on the stones by the water's edge picturing the deer carcass from winter--stiff and morbid and decomposing ever-so-slowly into the gully, its entrails drip-drip-dripping into the creek. That deer may be in this water now, for all you know, parts of it anyway, blood and guts and decaying leaves swirling together, pulsing up and back down again into the murk wrought by summer storms

the dire wolf

there's nothing to say now except
i'm not sure
i'm not sure
well
you know
maybe
do you



let's talk about concrete let's talk about chicken wire let's talk about fences brick walls fistfuls of leaves wrought iron stairwells wooden bed frames your face-- your hands-- a pink cylindrical container of salt

tonight we sing play guitar i have everything i've wanted sitting around me don't i just like on monday driving to the woods i saw a great blue heron standing in the creek i saw a menonite woman hauling a wheelbarrow we waved at each other, smiled just like that young woman in the grey hoodie smiled at me as i passed her on the sidewalk today in the rain, and i thought to myself that was a real smile that was a privilege you don't see those very often

but i mean when you do.




i have been so sad for the past few days inexplicable except that i am in mourning, the cat knows it he curls up with me every time i sit down and purrs, my head knows it aching, aching, and my body so tired, the rain knows it falling from the sky. but my god how the beets and the broccoli and the lettuce and the kale have grown.



oh also tonight walking back to the apartment a woman sat on a chair outside the bar another woman with a camera said watch this they had it streaming live on the tv inside the bar meanwhile two men stirred ice into a five-gallon bucket of water, cold, and then after a short speech and some name calling (for the children) they poured it over the sitting woman's head

it was 50 degrees outside i offered her a towel from inside the apartment she said nah i only live a block away and i'm heading home now i guess the cold doesn't sting as much when it's for a good cause

cloud cover

The clouds are so bright.
I guess the moon must be bright.
But where is the moon?

get the fish

lean-back on bricks cameras watching wait-lying through my teeth he does
i-don't-know-what inside with the smoke with the lungs with the burning
he will shower, afterward, and we will not speak


i eat steak drink merlot who the fuck do i think i am remember when you could see up my skirt on the deck in sunshine i make a joke about female ejaculate it kills with the feline demographic

meanwhile i am eating vegan marshmallows lying on the couch wilson is on his back on the rug playing with mr. fish he shoves the tail into his wide-open mouth and kicks his back legs into the stuffed animal's face






the grateful dead today we walked from bar to bar watched the champions league final on the big tv in the back room i drank whiskey gingers and vodka shots i was the only woman in the room after that other woman left three-quarters of the way through the game i talked to the guy i saw watching the arsenal game on the treadmill at the gym a few weeks ago it's possible he thought i was weird it went to extra time then everything fell apart

in the game i mean. then we walked around the park it was nice out when i got back to the apartment it was nearly 8 o'clock

o'clock

o'clock




we laid out blankets and bundled up under the stars around 10 last night we were settled in for the long haul we had vodka and even more blankets and some cool astronomy app that's the first thing to really make me want a smartphone although i couldn't look at the screen for long because why the fuck would i look at that when there's a sky full of stars right above my face anyway it was beautiful and i saw two planets-- jupiter, mars-- and supposedly saturn was on the other side of the house then jupiter disappeared below the treeline then the clouds rolled in and we didn't see any more stars for the rest of the night but here's the thing before (Wilson you know i love cuddling as much as the next cat but right now i'm trying to write and your little body standing on my stomach is blocking the screen) before the cloud cover rolled over the entire sky like a tipped-over gray paint bucket we saw three bright-shooting stars although i thought to myself really they're not shooting so much as falling