Wednesday, April 27, 2011

news

Today my sister stopped by early.
Her, mom and I cleaned out my Dad's old room.
I hadn't gone in there since a few days after his death.
It was too much to deal with. Not the emotion (things still happen... I am brought to tears by a certain plant blooming, a reddish hair in my beard, in how my mother reacts when she meets an old friend in Wall-mart).
The idea of going through that room, where so much happened.
Where I felt like a slave
and also a son
Where Dad bled, peed, coughed, breathed, shat, smelled, called out in the night, cried, yelled, hit and kicked me
looked at me accusingly
dared me to get him out of bed
slapped me when I washed him
screamed NO
when I changed his diaper
went through sheet after sheet after sheet
[if this were a poem, I would have written
shat sheet shat sheet shat sheet]
where I prodded him with needles
gave him happy pills
fed him through a tube
where I learned so much
gave away more
had little effect
wasted and withered
THAT ROOM
Damn that room.

We removed everything.
Threw away tons
donated the rest.

Those things
these memories
are not him anymore
should never have been
him

He doesn't come to me. There are no murmurs in my dreams.
No instant rainbows in the sky.
No dogs barking at nothings in the night.
No mysterious sounds originating from nowhere.
No coincidental occurrences

He had been missing for so long
I don't think he could find the way back now.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

poem from a painting

In groups we had to choose a painting:

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper/morn_sun.jpg.html

And then write a poem about it:

I have been reading so much poetry my mind is full of rhyme and rhythm, so I chose to go in that direction.

I sit up in my bed and view
An open window in my room.
It lets in sunlight and the moon's;
It also lets in gloom.

There used to be a true green field,
Where now that factory lies.
The chimnied tops of industries
Disturb discolored skies

My mind is full of used-to-bes, from windows' reflective scenes;
Bodies age, and so do plains, as well as painted window panes.



I dreamed of Dad last night. In the dream he was like a puppy. He'd gotten outside and had run away. I called and called him, crying because he wouldn't come back. I knew he was lost forever.
Then my sister said, "I bet he'll come back".
She opened the door and called his name.
He came running into the front yard, immediately.
He wore a lunch box strapped to his back
and goggles!? Don't know why.
He looked extremely happy and sort of shook his behind as if he were wagging his tail.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

travel essay

This has nothing to do with Dad.
But I think I've posted sans dad before.
This is something I wrote for my class, in a time when I was just beginning to go out into the world.
I'd been living in Rome for about two months, and life was just beginning to feel as if it were changing

A GOOD SWOON

Have you ever roller bladed through Rome searching for "The Ecstasy of St. Theresa"? It is not a common method of travel for that city, and although the sculpture celebrates great fame, the Romans tucked it away into an obscure little chiesa outside the center of the city. Finding it proved difficult but enjoyable (and a little dangerous as well).
My friend Michele came to the apartment I rented near Termini one morning in June. He carried two pair of monstrous looking rollerblades.
"We're going on a trip." he said, and began to lace up.
I hesitated. I had been living in Rome for a little over a month and had developed a thorough fear of Italian drivers. Italians are the types who speed up when they see an old lady crossing a street; they drive on sidewalks when roads are blocked. Michele plays this game when crossing a busy city street. He is always impeccably dressed (very handsome with red hair and large brown eyes). Instead of looking both ways he simply crosses, head up, earphones on, looking like he is walking through a park. He doesn't flinch at the revving engines or the Italian curses thrown at him from rolled down windows or sun roofs. He ignores everything with a motor. And it works. Cars stop for him.
Michele has no fear, and therefore he wins some deeply understood game of the via.
I, as an American and a tourist, am a prized target. I never win the game. I am afraid of chickens.
But it was Rome (when in Rome...) I was young. I had never heard of anyone rollerblading around Rome. This was the type of thing people wrote travel books about.
I am an awkward rollerblader and realized I had more to fear from parked cars and walls then crazy Italian drivers.
We stopped in many little places, bought gelato, rattled our bones over hundreds of cobblestone streets. Things seemed to be going quite well. Seeing Rome from a pedestrian view, but whizzing by it with the speed of blades is exhilarating. Delicious smells of food entering your nose at open storefronts, first warm bread coming from the bakery, quickly mingling with the smell of basil from a little farmer's cart, suddenly all gets immersed in the aromatic heaviness of pizza that smiling tourists are eating. They look shocked, still chewing, when they see you zoom past them, not knowing that you shared with them (at least in spirit) a bit of that tasty pizza.
As the morning raced on, (We had a map but neither of us were very good at following it, something about standing on wheels being disorienting) street by street, we honed in on our destination.
I was beginning to tire (we had spent the last 10 minutes pumping up a hill) Michele was ahead of me. He reached the summit of the hill and stopped. "O mia" he half-whispered. I finally met him at the top and peered over the other side. Ahead of us loomed a steep downgrade ending at the bottom (which seemed to me about a mile beneath us) in what looked to be a busy rode. "Well" I said, "Rome is the city of seven hills."
Michele leaned over and kissed my cheek. Swearing with a smile on his face, he suddenly turned and seemed to dive down the hill, his swear turning into a giggle of joy.
Michele is crazy, I think I've mentioned that before? At that moment I was petrified. I am not a good blader, Rome is not a safe city, so many things could go wrong. I made the sign of the cross (thinking of my mother), took a breath, and followed my crazy friend down the hill.
I can't really describe the feeling I experienced, fear mixed with euphoria. I can never forget it, even if a terrible disease wipes out all my memories, I will never forget that conflicting feeling, like bitter and sweet, ice and fire, sex and death.
Except for an inability to stop gracefully, I survived our trip down the hill. I felt heroic, somehow permanent. I'd faced a great fear and had triumphed.
In the afternoon we arrived at the church which housed the statue.
It stood inviting and empty. We removed our skates and helmets. We walked into complete silence and started down the aisle searching the walls for the statue. Its not the kind of thing the average tourist goes looking for. Sure, if it were sitting in an apse at Saint Peters there'd be several tour guides speaking about it in a multitude of languages, all carrying a different color pompom or baton as a focal point for their group.
Here there was no one but Michele and I.
It's really a shame too. The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa is one of the most beautiful statues I've ever seen. Its said to be the first depiction in sculpture of a swoon. And she swoons, she nothing but swoons.
Its extremely erotic (which may be why its not in Saint Peters). Saint Theresa is leaning back, her arm hanging limply at her side, her foot dangling. Her eyes are closed and the look on her face is one of profound pain and explicit pleasure.
An angel stands over her holding an arrow with which he is about ready to pierce her.
I stared, captivated by her expression.
In that quiet church I connected with this stone woman. Rome was my Angel and this day had been one thrust of his arrow into my soul. I was swooning. I wondered if my face had had a similar expression when I'd ridden the wind down one of the seven hills with nothing but rollerblades between me and heaven.
Angels holding arrows don't just come and pierce your heart every day. But if one does, acknowledge the fear but meet him with ecstasy, let your body go free, and put on your best swoon.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Creative Writing class number 2

I have taken a second creative writing course...
so I'll share you the "dramatic scene" we had to write. I think its supposed to feel suspenseful. Could you let me know your reactions to it? Is it suspenseful?
Again it is a story including my Dad... but in a new way.



DOZER

Something cracks in the quiet of the night. I try to keep it down, my mind.

I want sleep.

My eyes feel weird.

It’s outside my window, that rustle… and another sound.
I know that sound.

I make my body a ball, pull the covers over my head.

But two voices start speaking. They are like whispers but not.
Two men talk quietly outside my window, and still that other noise, I know that noise, the rustling and the… grunting?

“Just hold him still” one man says.

I am awake. It’s in that weird time, before the sun but no longer really night. My bedroom looks gray, not black.

“You won’t shoot me, will you?” My father says in his joking voice.
“Naw” the man chuckle-says.

I slowly sit up, and try to move my lazy body around. Nothing wants to work right now.

“Hold 'im still” the strange man’s voice says. “I gotta’ hit ‘im just right”

“Okay” Dad, again.

I lean, in a twisted position over my desk, my knees on my bed, and I pull one end of my curtain to the side. Outside, it expects morning, the darkness is bleeding away. That grunt comes again. I look out from my window into our driveway. In the gray light I see my Dad. He’s holding a lead. On the end of the lead is Dozer, a cow. We got two cows last year. I hadn’t cared much, we already owned 3 horses, some chickens, and a screwed up goat.

A boom suddenly echoes, I slip off the bed and bang my knee against the desk, my hand strains to keep me up and I tear the curtain a little.

Then there’s a scream, something like a scream… a peal of scream. I balance myself and am standing now.

“Shit!” Dad curses.

I look out again. It’s lighter. It amazes me how fast the morning can come sometimes. I see my Dad running into the trees by the side of the driveway. I see a large man holding a rifle and laughing at my Dad. In the trees I see Dozer, the screaming sound is coming from him. He is trying to run through the trees, but the lead got itself caught on a limb.

“Jesus” I whisper. In that moment, it clicks. I know something is going to happen, something more terrible than shooting our cow.
In a burst I open my window and scream…
“Run Dozer!”
the cow is screaming too.
“RUN”
Dozer makes a sound like car breaks, in a frenzy he staggers from side to side, trying desperately to free himself.
RUN
Something snaps and Dozer gets free, my Dad isn’t able to catch the lead, Dozer begins to run and although I keep screaming, that one word
RUN
Inside I begin to calm down. Dozer will get away. I’m safe.
A second boom enters the lightening sky. My Dad, surprised, ducks his head like a war soldier. Dozer stops running through the trees. Dozer stops screaming. The bullet must have entered his skull because there is a red spot… a place I can look at but can’t… examine. Dozer’s eyes shut down, his legs, sort of one by one, buckle underneath him.
I am 13, but somehow I feel different. Something changes inside of me. That terribleness I had felt before returns. It never goes away.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Back after a time

I am sorry that I have left for so long
I just didn't know where to go from the last posting
Spring came (but not really) a new season
a new life
new life all around
poking out
grass blades like prison bars
growing straight and tall
roots holding it all down
buried deep

Mom and I (and possibly Aunt Gil) are going on a trip to the Grand Canyon in June

Bubble is well, she acts strangely
the vet said she has a false pregnancy.
Her body believes she will have puppies

emptied of energy i
study and peruse, e
e cummings
Langston Hughes

lymes disease? or
loneliness...
should see the
doc, I guess

worried bout all
future plans
have none too
few i ams:

i am tired
i am lone
i am lost, but
always home

There. I think that describes my life right now... write now....
Is anyone still out there?
I will no longer write every single day, but I will be certain to write once a week at least.

About Dad! I almost forgot. TODAY is ...
was
his birthday.
Mom and I are going to the cemetery on this cold cloudy day
Tonight there is a mass at my sisters church in Dad's honor
My niece will read from the bible.

K