My Chicago [un] Uniform

Looking for some extra cash

I sold my iPod Nano -

20 bucks is more

Than zero EBAY offers.

First time on the subway,

Third day in the city -

"Where you from?

My name is Vincent,

Can I call you sometime?"

(His shifty eyes

Darting left to right,

Vincent asked me to repeat

Every third word I said.

And his hair was fuzzy,

Like white guy fuzzy hair.

Hmm...)

SHIT.

Is it that dead of a giveaway?

I was trying so hard and

Thought I was succeeding

At looking as city

As possible for my third day.

Wow.

Macked on by a nerd

In the subway.

Who knew cities had

Required uniforms

For [desired] impersonality?

"L" is for Let Me Introduce You

It's funny how city life varies from...well country life is pretty accurate.

An empty subway is quite an intimate experience. Whereas in country life, subways don't exist, but if you were to ever be one of three people alone with each other, each person would leave the situation with general knowledge of the other.

Here, in the city, you assume.

The empty car is the perfect stage for imagination (especially when your iPod provides the soundtrack).

Imagining names,

Sexual orientation,

Occupation(s),

Hobbies,

Friends,

Lives.

Then the muse abruptly leaves the stage at his/her stop - colors, sounds, imagery - GONE.

Yet it feels strangely like you became acquainted. Or maybe that's my inner country mouse tainting what is normally a bland interchange (if that, at all).

Poems from a Summer Ago

As I pack for my move to Chicago, I come across various writings...some more embarrassing than others. Here's a couple:

Garage Band [8.8.08]

the heat of the garage in the summer

swells things to globes

and blisters wet drops into lesions.

he told me how he did it:

speak that metal,

tell that heat it's fake - not real

and that it's about to be turned into money.

easy, right?

who's the one fucking sweating?

Orbit [8.10.08]

you have the power to disrupt dreams

and move planets.

did you know it?

jumps that cannot be made without you

lie in pause,

blinking and fuzzy.

can they be made?

and this body, cut open, is dying

and heaving.

your touch would seal the wound

and enflame the heart.

so why aren't you?

where have you been?

Today marked the end of many things.

Surely this is breaking ground -
Like tilling the earth:
Strong hands cupping punches
of dark, rich soil,
Pulling and twisting
The web of tiny roots,
Their breaking less heard than felt.
(Necessity) Turning over that trodden soil,
That familiar dirt
That became a foot-worn path rather than a friend.
Surely that's it,
Because it hurts so deep.
It has to be breaking to pour
Or be poured into.

Latin[a] Making Tortillas

There's a reason she's sexy:

The line of her jaw
Strokes her perspiring face
To the strong pout of her lips,
A pink shade of brown.

What's enclosed is strong, loud -
Sometimes soft.

Soft to hear, strong to touch.

Her art is perfect and valuable,
But not worth much in the States.

As her hands work,
They press and mold,
Shaping something to fill
A desire of those who value
Her art,
But not

Her glow,
Her bust,
Her strength,
Her.

For that second she was
Sexy.

On My Birthday [2.11.09]

I woke up to a bird
Brushing my cheek
As I lay in time's passing tail -
Another year gone
Another something surely lost,
But this morning I counted them not.
I rose to travel a short routine distance
Knowing the pattern awaits.
It began upon arrival.

Rhonda's stories of mid-life crisis, kids, and life (clubbing with 3 kids and a husband) -
Joseph, well-traveled and balding,
Proudly, or carelessly, donning white wisps,
Debating which van would make the best home
For his bedpan.
Another man, Eddie, whose son is in Iraq
While his wife (or daughter-in-law) is fucking someone else,
And Robert, quite silent,
Withdrawn and angry, not acknowledging Kate -
Blank stare.
"Poli-Sci" made his daily stop for a read and drink-meal frappuccino.
He told me how much steel the U.S. conserved during WWI by outlawing its use in bras.

I left with no other thought
But the feeling of the bird:
Soft in the morning.

My route home was tearful
As I counted my losses:
Another year:
Less access, legs, youth and brother.
Progress?
Of course, but is it enough to keep the world going?

I think of all these stories - people - I've learned today
And think of the one's from this year gone:
Luis, Josue, Raul, Pati -
And I'm crying -
Though my world is so colorful.
Another year gone.

Hello 23,
You look so different on paper.

Valentine's Day, 1986 [a short story in-progess]

Surely, this happened before bi-polar disorder even existed, and you classified the split person as kind of crazy. It just sucked whenever that person was your mother. For my entire childhood, I slowly learned (partly on my own, and of course from my older brothers) how to deal with my mom being kind of crazy and how to lie about it. I'm not sure if I ever had an idea of her as a whole mother, but I was young when I realized she had divided at some point. Maybe it was before me.

And yet, viewing something as it divides is a rare, unbelievable, and awing experience. Like the first time you learn about cell division in seventh grade science: you look over the sequence of poorly colored illustrations in your dusty, worn book (the pages feel too soft in your hands), then realize after looking at your first cell under the microscope that this sequence really can happen! All those little squirmy things move so fast in your gaping right eye. So, cells can divide. Yes. But who every thought a person could? Much less my mommy?

For so long, I knew her sick side. Then, one day, I saw the division line. It's true! I really did see the side of her I never knew. Though just a glimpse, it has impressed something deep and queer upon my heart. Something in my mother began to pull at that division line the day Daddy started to die.

to be continued...