14,696 +/-

Mockers in the cedar brake,
Ruby-Throats in the bonnets and brush.
Pseudacris crucifer audible over the whine
of a neighbor-kid's dirtbike.
All in the ember-glow of dusk.
The brakes take to shadow,
ambitious jutting in the days' remains.
I walk inside to grab a calculator,
to tally the setting suns-
Fourteen thousand six hundred
plus ninety-six spins of the globe,
give or take.
I walk back outside, and she asks
"What are you doing with that calculator?"
"Writing a poem," I say.
It is mostly dark, and I can't distinguish
bluebonnets from paintbrushes
or see the nubile shoots
of brushy bluestem and clover.
A Cardinal makes a last-ditch call-
Tew! Tew! Tew! Birdy-birdy-birdy-birdy?

Right Place, Right Time

During last Friday's beery midnight drive
up the winding escarpment road,
I heard a song by Ray Wylie Hubbard
that said something to the effect of

"Don't let your expectations
get bigger than your gratitude."

and as I drove through Bee Cave,
my eyes began combing
the plazas, malls and storefronts
for a tattoo shop.

Had one existed, I would be sitting here
in my office, on a Monday,
with a smarting palm.

Northward, in Kind

I took you for granted,
my city full of mountains I couldn't understand,
and streets, and water and lives.

Beauty takes time to settle in
too eager when it's young, too
self conscious.

I moved miles and years to find home,
a cold basement in the ghetto,
a loveless traveling
from rural to urban to southern
to wherever we go next.

A dream. A cycle. A barrier between
me and you, Seattle.
A nightmare, waiting.
A love I cannot have, and yet
there is no love without leaving,
and regret.

Alone, Southward

Two months go by-
passing fast,
life.
Lunch breaks in burning heat
rubber on the concrete
a/c running,
music playing,
a loss for words.

Note

Did I not notice

the grainy ghost-blue
through the slanted louver,
its handover, white to auburn,
and the brief blindsiding
by golden translucence
and its redeeming other-worldliness
as viewed from: the front door,
the river-rock driveway,
the rutted dirt-road,
the winding skyway,
the farm-to-market road,
and the descent into/ascent from
the upper Barton Creek watershed?

If I did not notice,
please perform
resuscitation.

Damn the Office Window

Another one, given
to a succession of interruptions
and the usual absences.
Lesser devotions,
barely materialized
and strung together
with good intention.

Subtitles. Submenus.
Subtitles of subtitles
and submenus of submenus.
Subselves of subselves.
Attentions halved and quartered,
diced and minced.
Parenthetical, variable,
an algebraic snarl.

Outside, the mottled sky.
The sway of Plateau Live Oak.
The Lesser Goldfinch fumbling
over dandelion bloom.
Don't look. It will distract
from distractions and sub-distractions,
from the succession of interruptions.

Weathering

I hold my body in a single, tense position for 6-8 hours per day in 60-90 minute stretches. Periodically, I wet my lips with lukewarm water, then back to the tap tap clicking, copying and pasting what I've found to be emailed or shared at our weekly check-in. And this is my dream job. Was my dream job.
I'm living my dreams.
At night, we sometimes walk. Humid, summer air. My insides tingle from what happens to insides when they sit all day. I talk too much. You tire of my company.
At home, I rotate between reading, cleaning and typing. Searching for friendship in research or email. Sometimes I play piano. I blog. I queue things up. I Facebook and Myspace.
Scrabulous. WordTwist.
Update my status:
She is procrastinating,
Wishing for old friends,
Too busy to be on here,
Tired, at the library,
At home, hungry,
Lost, missing things that are no more,
Always thinking of the future or the past.
We've made some friends. We drink wine and watch youtube. We wonder why we swell. Why the malaise, the yellowed skin, the loss of interest in
things we once found so interesting.
At night, I employ ergonomics to comfort muscle spasms and carpel tunnel syndrome.
We give up meat, dairy, gluten, alcohol.
We search for meaning.
We read about nutrition. Food blogs. Youtubes of juice fasting.
It is a foreign language:
NPR, NYT, Democracy Now, global warming, internet porn, Youtube, Blogspot, Netflix, Facebook, Gmail, Webmail, Myspace, Bandcamp,
Wii.
we
get carried away with typing.
Modernity.