6/30/08 Every Bell

many skirts have brushed this path
bodies have fallen and risen

I am not brave
this is not even my choice

in the night
I am drawn to the light of every fire

in the quiet
I follow the sound of every bell

6/29/08 I am a bird

I am a bird

My wings are a beautiful crying song

I sing in my sleep before the sun comes up


I am a bird

The ground stretches out beneath me

I don't even know that I am flying

6/28/08 Thunder and Lightning

thunder and lightning come in a big blue cloud
blow through and shake the leaves off the trees

bite your tongue if you wish the storm away
this water keeps our wells and rivers alive

the thunder reminds the animals to be alert
and lightening tattoos the rain on the earth

6/27/08 Jabberbox

Mama, is that paper?
Yes honey but it's 6:30 in the morning.
Eat it?
No honey don't eat it.
Don't eat it? Cookie eat it?
Honey, it's 6:30 in the morning.
Where did Cookie go?
Listen.
You are a jabberbox.
And jabberboxes become more cute
the later it is in the morning.
Less cute the earlier it is.
Do you understand?

6/26/08 Captain Farkle

Oh, sweet sweet Spencer.
Don't throw away all those fifties.
Okay, so you have a strategy,
fishing for three of a kinds so you
throw back your lowly fifties.
But then, bam. Farkle.
Wouldn't have mattered anyway.

6/25/08 Eating Pizza with Dragons

Bowl time was extra delicious this evening
with pizza fresh from St. Paul, snapping carrots,
sparkling pomegranate soda and red tea.
I like dragons a lot.

6/24/08 Bananas in Montana?

Verse:
Ama went to the store to buy a juice box
Ama went to the store to buy a juice box
(uh uh)
Gonna go to the store to buy a juice box
Gonna go to the store to buy a (uh uh) juice box

Chorus:
Ama likes to dance Ama likes to dance
Ama Ama Ama Ama Ama likes to dance

Bridge:
I saw a cantaloupe (uh uh)
I think I saw an antelope

6/23/08 Misunderestimated

I get very discouraged.
Where are we going anyway?
Maybe if I try harder.
Maybe if we all try harder.

The whole world is waiting.

6/22/08 Garden of Life

The weeds are as tall as the plants in my garden
so that it's hard to tell what I even planted.
It all grows equally as well regardless
of whether or not I want it there.

This is an easy metaphor for life,
which is convenient for someone like me
but trite and obvious for someone like you.
So what. Go get your own blog.

6/21/08 Haystack Rock

The beach at haystack rock was sprinkled
with shell, wet feathers, and broken sand dollars.

Ribbons of seaweed bulbs lay like a damp belt
of meteorites halfway up the drying shore.

No starfish today, so instead I inscribe names and hearts
in the sand with a piece of driftwood.

6/20/08 Kites and Birds

Seagulls and kites float between all the blue edges
of the water and hills and sky.

The kites are leashed to their masters,
and tug playfully like cute flying puppies.

The gulls are free to fly away but choose to stay hovering
like ghosts over the dead bodies of crabs and fish.

And the salty wind blows and blows
but it can't blow any of them away.

6/19/08 Reflecting on the Beach

Every time I put on my cute brown shoes,
I think about flying the Barbie kite on the beach at Seaside.

It's a wonderful opportunity to reflect each time I slip
my shoes on and realize there is still sand in them.

I can't get it all out. I knock them together before I put them on,
and as my feet grind I pretend I am exfoliating them on purpose.

And if I had chosen to wear different (more appropriate) shoes
that day, I might not still be thinking about it. So it's good.

6/18/08 Mama Robin

Cook said it was fun discovering nature
after we found the nest with babies in it.

I'm guessing their mama is the harried,
multi-tasking, slightly neurotic robin
that keeps hopping and diving through our campsite.

Apparently, camping is difficult
for mama birds, too.

6/17/08 Mountains

Thin clouds catch on
tree-covered mountains
like a cotton ball
rubbed the wrong way
over stubbly leg hair.
Only prettier.

6/16/08 Hitchhikers

I wonder why every single hitchhiker
looks like a serial killer.

Grungy, scraggly-ass looking white guys
in army fatigues that look like they either
just dug a hole under a prison fence or
have been living under a bridge and
dining on snails and unfortunate children.

Not gonna hitch too many rides
looking like that.

6/15/08 June Rise

I can hear the Yellowstone from where I sit,
but the sound doesn't call me closer,
doesn't beg my toes to wiggle in for a dip.

She's an angry woman these days,
all brown and swirling, she's ferocious.
I got too close yesterday and she snarled.

Give her a little time and after the mountains
have melted all they are going to melt,
she'll be clear and splashy and dippable again.

6/14/08 Tillamook

Driving just to drive
up the curvy coastline
like an elongating worm
of cars that want to go faster:
a Winnebago bottleneck on the 101.

Lunch at the Blue Moon Cafe
just up the road from the cheese plant
where Cookie picked PB&J
and Ama ate one crouton for lunch.
Then back to Cannon Beach for a nap.

6/13/08 A Beautiful Thing

It will be a beautiful thing
when we all realize
that a really cheap product
is really cheap for a reason.

When we all know that a good deal
is never a good deal.
When instead of making us feel lucky,
it allows us to feel compassion.

It will be a beautiful thing
when we take full responsibility
for each life our lifestyle affects.

6/12/08 Flowers Everywhere

Sleeping.
Eating peanuts.
Lounging on the patio
or playing the X Box.

It doesn't matter what you do
when there are flowers everywhere.

6/11/08 Good Night

I love you baby owl.

I love you baby Ama.

I love you teddy bear.

I love you Cookie bear.

6/10/08 One Piece

Well if there's one thing I've learned
from late night online jigsaw puzzling
it's that you can't expect anything
to make any fucking sense
when you are just one piece
of the big picture.
But eventually,
it all comes together
and you don't really have to
understand.
It happens without you.

6/9/08 Buttons

Buttons are like
bumper stickers
for humans.

6/8/08 Don't Look Now

Don't look now
but I'm ahead of myself
and it's already tomorrow
even though it's still today.

Einstein would be so proud
if he was the one who said
that time was relative
or inconstant
or fake
or whatever.
I'm so stupid.
And I bore myself.

How dare I pretend I understand
what Einstein was talking about.

6/7/08 El Sharpo

As life continues in its endless spiral
into the even more ridiculous
I prepare the only way I know how:
I shut my eyes and hope something funny happens.

By the way, I'm trying to describe a road trip.
I realize that I am motivated by/relate to
different things than normal people.

For example: money. Normal motivator.
Vacation. People relate to the concept of that I think.
What about: drunken campfires. I'm so into that.

Anyway, vacation is meaningless when you simultaneously
never work and never stop working.

Another example: ego et al. Normal motivator.
Respect. People relate to wanting some of that.
What about: making people feel uncomfortable.

Including myself. Wait,
I just realized I'm writing this.
Is this about El Sharpo yet?
Shit.
Please disregard.

6/6/08 Obscenely Poetic

Okay so on top of everything else
today we ended up planting mom's garden.
Fine.

Her sister Molly came to town to join our RV adventure
with a box full of flowers that needed planting.
Before departure.

She works in a greenhouse and gets paid in flowers,
which is obscenely poetic to me. Obscenely poetic.

I worked in a greenhouse once in Eugene
and got paid in money, which it turns out
is neither obscene nor poetic.
Which means that from a marketing perspective
I'm dead in the water.
Typical.

6/5/08 Bird is the Word

teacups on roses and raindrops on kittens
and mairzy doats and rock a bye baby in the bebop
and we all live in a paperback writer we are the world series

she's a maniac maneater her name is rio and she flashdances
on the ceiling with betty davis eyes lucy in the skies
hanging on the line a yo yo
go go bogo 1/2 off

How much crap fits inside my brain?
Everything I've ever heard?
And it's all in there somewhere, isn't it?
Be geez.

6/4/08 Very Glad Rag

it always comes out wrong
when I try to be all empowered
or try too hard to be too happy
about menstruation

I don't want anyone to be sad
or wonder what they're doing wrong
when it is very uncomfortable or when
they aren't especially happy about it

because I'm not always all that happy
unless resignation is happiness or
doing your best is happiness but
neither of those very often is

6/3/08 Sweatshop Sundress

Eric is up
watching the Alaska sun
spin in circles in the sky.

Danni is over
commuting and working
on nanny negotiations.

Spencer, well
Spencer, you know Spencer.

And my ethical compromise
(the sweatshop sundress)
was like a floodgate opening

and now I've got new clothes
everywhere. I even went to Kohl's.
Fresh from the sweatshop.

Still smell like sweat
some of em do. And me all guilty.

6/2/08 Growing Community

I'm thinking about the cat trap lady
who pretends to be my friend
and then collects cat gossip about me

and then relays it back to me in a sort of
for your own good, conspiratorial,
fake helping, self-important way.

I'm down at the garden thinking about
how god damn hard it is to build community
with tomatoes and birdbaths and one hose.

It makes me want to move far away
to some other make believe neighborhood
where people are kind and warm and
where there is never any sneering.

6/1/08 Drinking Alone

Seems like this ought to be an admonishment
of some type but I can't imagine what
that would be because sometimes
you don't really have any other choice.

Drink alone or be sober.
That's not a choice.

Anyway, history remembers
the rule breakers.
Occasionally.
The rest die poor and alone.