for Chauncey Kieley

It is not likely that you will see a chicken riding a unicycle

It is not likely that there will be a tax increase for the wealthy or that computers will replace the need for stem cells.

It is not likely that every Sunday morning Kansas City will turn into a great white horse or shed its bricks to live in the sea.

It is likely that stockbrokers will receive pardons but it is not likely that they will ever win a round of Jeopardy.

It is not likely that the radio business will cure yellow skin or that the Department of Security will send us a telegram for Christmas.

It is not likely that Obama will be in the last season of Lost.

for the Sisters

Shrub and Tits

I remember becomiNg far too illegal
for eyeLashes. The dancing on knees and
your admiration for Horses.

I remember our notebooKs were full of
Allergies; an attempt to inhale rain or
maybe the Stars and necking.

I remember Admiring books they keep in
secure cases and channeling late niGht
ducks so as to love something with more syllAbles.

I remember urinating on your grandmother and the Liguidness
of stArs after a bad date. You were
basil/roaring greaTly.

I remember somersAulting over the
paleness of dust and a grabBing for
Dance partners who could withstand linen.

I remember the touch of salMon:
the shamPoo you smoked:
You always Could shine on the Pacific.

I remember falling into dougH.
We always Ran without sneakers despite
tHe aliens and alligators that Yankee called to us.

We were Never sharks but always
I remember we called to one another
as if we were hawKs. School officials
Asked us about our eyeballs;
we expLained it was our heavy
intAke of beans and more dough.
It was never horMonal. It was always
with a nasally laugH that we became faces.

Check It Out

Linh Dinh posted my poem for him on The Lower Half

Also, Ron Silliman has a good critique of Milk here.

for Mark Butterfield

Rifle

Not such a melted bird, a tub an empty tub without a flute or the utterance of words in B-Flat. It is the brute on the drum who makes the farm the link and who makes the farm a kite. If the kite is them in B-Flat than why not the butt and why not the lumber that he milks. What of the marble the dirty utter that he claims as turf.

Always again there is melting.

for Willie Ziebell

Gaining Independence in 1981

You are a former British colony.
At the ripe age of 14 you
became a dangerous river,
luring in International
Human Rights leaders and
transmitting sexual diseases.
They call you the "NGO Sex Slave."

You were last seen swimming
with Caribbean reef fish and
the mutton snapper.

for Bryan Coffelt

Crafted Out of Bones

Bone 1:
Bone is a substance made for decoration in France.
There is a fancy a contemporary feel about it-
a hand-crafted covering of a great reddish room.

Bone 2:
A structure; a launching into the building of a miniature city made out of recycled computer parts.

Bone 3:
The sticky fingers of a greaser nicknamed "Greasy Bear Brandon" all over the captain of the cheer squad.
The rush of stardom.
He was your grandson too.

for Linh Dinh

Welcome to Second Life

Life gets easier on the
second try. You'll discover
that sex with a regular horse is ok,
but sex with a unicorn is
OH YEAH!

There's three-way penetrative
sex that will make you
practically vomit rainbows
OR the ever popular "tickle
my enchantment" game.

But honestly, unicorns are rare
and we're in a recession. A few
days ago is not right now.
Start off with a unicorn vibrator
(bendy is the key).
In no time at all you'll be
lying on the beach
high on teenage sugar!

Your life is now vibrant
and eccentric.

for Patricia Salgado

Acid Project

Jasper, the Socialist "alligator" was
jailed last night on the charges of
stealing/feeding a Picasso painting
to a dog outside the Capitol building.

He was on his way home from his
day job at the spa and tanning hut,
(wearing a homemade
grape costume) when he decided to
visit the art museum. He claims
that the man singing
"Under Pressure" on the street
is what lead him to steal
the painting. Something about
it triggered memories
from when he was stationed
in Asia. He said it was there
that he "found God;"
it was then that he dedicated
his life to the protection of
pigs from the AIDS epidemic.
His reaction to Picasso
=
the letting go of an ego
that restricts people from living
"as if in a musical."

for Sarah Westover

A Short Swerve a Resting Wash

A rooster flies overseas
to a place with a shorter
harvest season. There is a
packing of wreathes to
make a location for a "hot war."
There is the sound of tires
outside crunching to make a
packing down of tar.
One erases while another
becomes a raven set atop
the mast of a great ship
headed West.

So rather waves.
So rather the shortening of
distances between warehouses
to make the "hot" a
3 1/2 feet parameter around
the heat and to give it oars.
This makes verses. This makes
the lessening of travesty so
the ears can hear you.

for Mom and Benny Boy

In Florida We Had Fried Squirrels

I used to take your books and pretend the insides were blank to my
rolled paper and coke.

I remember the etchings of trees and
nails and one page filled.

What is it of daughters that
asks not for a twin? I said
"they asked us to sing"
We all then tried to read in the dark.

She's in. She's here. Somewhere.
Buried under snow perhaps. Waiting
20 minutes somewhere for a plug
a heat made of surrounding.
Have you ever heard of the
Indian Jesus?
The piece of mind.
The slight breathing.

They are now switching off and
nose dripping.
There was an earlier philosopher.
They said there were 50.

Everyone got taken in by the forest,
by the twoness of thought.

for Will

A million or more salmon

Something was easily mistaken
for the desert. A blowing
from the snowmobile- a
rally in Mongolia.

At birth, I've heard that the
elbow comes first, then the
sail made of wool.

A million or more salmon
became part of the realist
movement while the world
continued to count bones
and build Bingo halls.


Once there was a lowering
of balloons.
Once there was a crowd of
girls watching worms
crawl away from the rain.
You then became a boomerang.
You then, as if Nazareth,
became an old Taylor guitar
sitting between thighs.

Happy Holidays

I am going to attempt to write 30 some presents over the course of today and tomorrow. Be on the lookout for yours!

War of the Worlds

THIS IS THE BEST ONE YET. SEE!

Words

THENIFFER!

Not only is Jennifer Garcia one of my dearest friends but she is quickly becoming one of my favorite poets!

Read her here! Be prepared to jiz in your pants 100 times over!

Those that surround, inspire

We were talking about cum- the way it can go in all directions. Long story short, Alex said everyone would "look like the ghost of Christmas past."

Gang, I love you!

The History of Keys and Locks: Part 3

There is tipping beneath. There is something so far from that there is then clocks so that there are fingers if in the winter there are books of a middle taste. If a candle light than the world and it's fine.
There is a clearly, a repeating orally the history of England doing and England as one,
as two,
as all over the insects tacked more and more to understand the workings of sex and of combing hair, the going on- the people one recognizes when masturbating and eating and cooking and never wedding but always in love.
Always there is a canon that is a sphere that is the distance between our eyes becoming single eyes tracing the bridges of rights or rather the shape of secretion.
In the central the making of keys, the making of interesting sounds. A General knows the telling, the mustache of the fallen making the letters of now to the wall.
If there was a trap than there was a bed and there was the overlapping of different sized hands to show a round time.
If the bay collapsed. If the red more than days. If the giving of ears to lips the licking of oil from organs and many go and many to and such I call to you.
Then to tonight when to the waltzing on rugs, the photos now waltzing where to the sky lines. The lines break exactly breath as resembling a New York day coming. And does the folk of voice always make the breath of sky as the lines make the breath of lying while the two float- now more waltzing.
If the city than the winter than the proper of the two making an instance to find the green of skin inhabiting the green of another skin.
Can anyone from behind scarves be awful- Awfully the remembering, the utterance of had having never had met but had had and not only scarves but paintings and orchestra and overlapping- this makes flannel sheets a lonely.
While having literally eaten while having making very good the upwardness of making very distant, making and moving the theater now to the theater.
Now then there was silver and it was making a scene and each has a chair and each is becoming a flying shape and always it is meaning very well but always it is watering and always a sinking- a sunk heavy organ being in a plane being pressed without a correct amount of leaning so always changing and always counting.
Where then is the reservoir. Where then is the clearly, the mentioning of expressions if in doubt, if in holding was it the less making of language than before or in how habits are bound to bow to understand to recall.
The tying of tongues is hard for the understanding of all being locked.

For Those Who Speak At: Suck or Nibble

1
This is to say 18 + 98
adds up to make the Filipino
islands: a daughter, a left
hand (a "set-up")
Down here in the background
the font is of a smaller
size, a general softness to
dramatic clasping and a
cigarette. They sit with friends
hoping to form words that
flow as if becoming a Christmas album
or a French Billboard hit.

Are you familiar with the force
of the radio being used
as a tool for thrusting?

2
There are many names
to go by in the dark.
There are many ways to
light a match, to become
a decade with a quiet
voice. At this time- pyramids.
At this time reference to
a dog eating a flower-
she does this by inserting
flesh
She does this when your eyes
flicker like Japan causing you
to look like birth.

3
Seamless but with the
making of islands one
becomes familiar with the
formation of directions.

4
All becomes contemporary
with a "Yee-Haw" on
the back of a truck
people try to explain why
flowers made of oil
resemble vaginas.
Correction: the spongy place
is where fingers rest is
where melting occurs.

5
Names that appear in
Texas obituaries are becoming
night. As it so happens
the distance from
Brooklyn to Houston
is becoming night
printed upon the receipts
of those who died and
those who stayed in hotels
along the way.

6
One might walk through
Boston and say they have
tasted cherries or that
they understand how movements
begin and withstand.
There may be knocking
or hands on backs but
there are no markings
in or around the park.

7
44 does not mean snoring
has ceased does not mean
gathering the oral to
make correct documents.
44 does not count on its
own nor does it rid us
of bows of muddy livers.
It changes a steady winking
but it is still winking nonetheless.

8
When was it that we
made classrooms hound-like?
Where too, have the sweaters
gone have the middle places
gone to bed alone all this
time without the shading
of streamers

(all too much a dreaming up
of mannequins).

9
They once said dream of
whales. They once said
the interstates will disappear
and where does this leave us?

10
In chairs sit collected
body parts assembled to
make 10 or 15 minute segments
of something to pay the
bills with or to at
least say they have provoked
but more so they sit
like collected body parts.

Check Out The Modern Birds

Jess Rowan does amazing work with words and visuals! HAVE A LOOK!

Cats React Poorly To Stairs

for Tara Crist

Castro overdosed on catnip
in an attempt to avoid
explaining his participation
in creating a reactor that
would not only beam deadly
lasers at all artists but also
lead to the death of thousands of mice.

In Part II of his autobiography,
you learn of his childhood
desire to ride a tractor
through a pile of tar,
as well as the day he
ate all the rosaries found
in his neighborhood Catholic church.
Many theorize that this
lead to his aged aggression
towards carrots.

I Heart Alma Alvarez

To her 382 Modern U.S. Lit class (8am this morning)
"GET YOUR COOKIES MOTHER FUCKERS!"

Really Really Country Music

Speaking in an elegance, a discomfort
as with a coffin sound- I
would say a howl, an erasing
of space to help with
language. What is it. A
counting form an open ended.
Totally moving-not like
lace but hands gaining
a horse confronting
a beautiful thing. A corner,
a pair of cloves, strictly to
the column using inside
voices all the same in breath.

I have kept children hidden
like in romantic elements.
Everyone had their place and the place
was processing and cloth. It was the
three.
It was told.
It was the beginning of bleeding knees,
the hooves now lying besides
sticks.
Again making it the three.

Depending on the flow of the
Mississippi, one might prance
around with a ribbon in their
hair or a puffed out chest.

The Shark Nun

Click here to see random blog I found this collage on

in loving memory of dad on his birthday 11/30/08

The way we all swam,
as if portraits of priests
outlined our urns creating
heat.

The way things started
attacking dream journals. . .
(you now building a dam)
you lost as students
pass through Time Magazine
as if it was only a corner
in your breath.
-the only dip in flying
was a great white)

I remember the pages of
wood you "founded," much larger
than whales, much in the
consistency of tea.

Local news broke out that
you were in France-
that you were surveying
the Oregon coast through
the eyes of 300 marine species.

If he tells you the Shark
people are building ladders,
believe him.

Picasso Does Stein

Stein does Picasso: "Object as object."

Feelings (of home)

Pour Dr. Pepper on it to Prevent Pregnancy

title phrase by Alex Burford


Dr. Jeffery Kelly performs inventory on American
spermicide: a "blessing of wombs" as
they say in the high schools,
after which he plays ALL of
the Guns N' Roses albums while
dreaming of driving through
the "Southern" states again.

"Which ones" you ask...
the ones smelling of mint leaves,
a lighter scent of tea bags, places
where the buildings remind him
of boiling water and morality
is sketched across vending machines.

It's 4:35am: the 2nd week of
July and Dr. Kelly discovers the
solution to stretch marks:
-take an old-fashioned glass,
hyper-extended violets, 4 products
listed in "The Glossary of Nourishment"
and anything connected to a premature
birth.
Not only is this a helpful
home remedy but it is
one of his faves for washing
down memories of Cleveland
(AKA, a fine how-do-you-do to
gastrointestinal irritation).

"I got pregnant, that's why
I support Coca-Cola products" is
faintly tattooed to his left hip.

The Gold Rush Crying Out Through Slippery Westerns

for Alex Burford

The forerunner to thunder:

1) Skiing in Scotland
(my fingers only accessible
through heavy metal)

2) The thesaurus for "December"
slightly modified for acoustic waves,
my birthplace now the
pinnacle of Minnesota or
rather the breathing of
animals and inanimate objects.

I just remembered Obama was elected

Above= MAGIC OF OBAMA DAY in Ashland

for Starbuck @ 3:45AM

I want to make you a butt flap.
I want to make you a butt slut.
What did you say? What did,
oh you could put it in there,
Barrett,
Watten.

My only friend.

I'm putting, quoting,
a cunt, now fang.

Milking my double penis
I just want to die (suck a
dick) now write an intro.

(Conclusion starts here)

Donkeys are great dildos
but you can't trust them to
keep your monkey. Keep patting
my back, I put these in here
cuz' the language is fascinating/
nay a quote of process and
metaphor. An "afterthought." I
have HIT A WALL!

Fidget.
Fid
get
Fi
FIDGEEEEEEEEEEEEEET.
I will write you down like a New
Yorker on a midwinter's day. I will
hear clicking to the sound
of a mellow beard.

1). I've peed a normal amount.
2). I'm going to try and do that.
3). The "mechanistic actions."

Three times. I am three times.
It's now a book, it's a sexy, it's
the old estate that we are making
sense and tender of.

Yes, I now want to kill myself. (the
silent making of puking and essay noise)-
Professing she, she who is professing, I sigh,
I make
Now a heavy breathing.
Now a vagina, a Thanksgiving Dinner, I am
still liking of going.

A painting on the wall shows fun techno
freshman dancing half naked (possibly talking of Silliman)
we are moving as an 8 and shaking. This
is what you mean when you say
there should be lots and lots.

Oh my darlin', the balls are
falling across horse races, upon
closing doors-
a strictly blind day,
a foggy stare.

Everyone of These Wind Machines: A depiction of 20th century USA history

(revised version)
1
Producing products like fertilizer. My harsh back now poisoned. My bags not educated. No chance for pulling so wood on wood on living mouth.
(will my money curl the hat? or will
it become a farm and then a box?)

They wrote something like a Jesus sound
and then grapes
and now skeleton posters, eyes-posters,
boss-posters, such forming of an eagle
that thinks in years.

2
Hot dirty hot dirty hot dirty hot dirty hot dirty
hot dirty hot dirty hot dirty hot dirty hot dirty

being "impudent"
when you start to sign or button. When you say you won't live in this area. When you union, when clap, when beyond, all letters now. . .
you see. . .?

3
Now lampposts respond
Can I suggest someone in pinstripes
says "to cause not to cut"

4
Marching played like accordions. All
the acrylic
all the lining up
Now the names of four young womyn
this is not an exit
this is not an exit
this is not an exit

So on a Fall day I moved to Chicago
and put pressure on doors and spoke
with all body parts. I think like a
strike but a strike with soft wheels
and water.
Thought needed bark.
Thought needed moving.
They are going to stop selling your
image through glass windows.

5
July calls late and loves
the hiring of green and purple.
(This helps makes better organizers.)

6
W/little to no thought of
repercussion, I purchase sun
chips.
I prosper.
I love the world and
build houses and on weekends
I talk about presidents.

7
In the context of words, I see
bricks. Say there is a N and
instead of making fewer we make
an O. Sounds are not restrictions
unless in pipes-
rather than "they made dying
a shade," but a new "wanting
to", a general use of positive
production-
this comes to new flip-charts.

A head with curls and behind
glasses looks to the border
and sees commas.

8*
(I knew her
no, not such a strange
a self, a strange
place I knew her
not in self I knew).

9
Something came in a wave
as to be a sonnet.
Again we might imagine
something that is being
"acted upon,"
a transition now to
the service sector and a long
stemmed rose.

10
So for your dead, your
desk still standing,
your asking of who
(one drowns while
the other is used).
He is so common and
pillar like.
His penis- a salt shaker.
So dearly a love lays
upon the table while
the speaker revises
and comes to being of under.


*Inspired by Claude McKay's "Harlem Dancer"

Stein Love for Theniffer

from Poetry and Grammar

I think this is the boost you are looking for. (Smiley face)

"When you are at school and learn grammar grammar is very exciting. I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences. I suppose other things may be more exciting to others when they are at school but to me undoubtedly when I was at school the really completely exciting thing was diagramming sentences and that has been to me ever since the one thing that has been completely exciting and completely completing. I like the feeling the everlasting feeling of sentences as they diagram themselves."

Reminiscing over my time in Fort Worth, Texas

?

Jess, Alex...heh? A start...? I realize the e in "mittens" looks like an o. . .

. . .

There is something of roads, a pretty lady and Wet Mittens.

Wait for it. These are forthcoming.

Pinch Pinch Press

The first issue of Barnaby Jones is out! The gang did a great job on it. It's hand stitched and there are pretty colors. CHECK IT OUT! http://pinchpinchpress.blogspot.com/

The History of Keys and Locks Part 1

for KSM


















http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bllock.htm

The oldest known lock was found by archeologists in the Khorsabad palace ruins near Nineveh. The lock was estimated to be 4,000 years old. It was a forerunner to a pin tumbler type of lock, and a common Egyptian lock for the time. This lock worked using a large wooden bolt to secure a door, which had a slot with several holes in its upper surface. The holes were filled with wooden pegs that prevented the bolt from being opened.

Famous Locksmiths

Robert Barron
The first serious attempt to improve the security of the lock was made in 1778 in England. Robert Barron patented a double-acting tumbler lock.

Joseph Bramah
Joseph Bramah patented the safety lock in 1784. Bramah's lock was considered unpickable. The inventor went on to create a Hydrostatic Machine, a beer-pump, the four-cock, a quill-sharpener, a working planer, and more. Joseph Bramah

James Sargent
In I857, James Sargent invented the world's first successful key-changeable combination lock. His lock became popular with safe manufacturers and the United States Treasury Department. In 1873, Sargent patented a time lock mechanism that became the prototype of those being used in contemporary bank vaults.

Samuel Segal
Mr. Samuel Segal (former New York City policeman) invented the first jimmy proof locks in 1916. Segal holds over twenty-five patents.

Harry Soref
Soref founded the Master Lock Company in 1921 and patented an improved padlock. In April 1924, he received a patent (U.S #1,490,987) for his new lock casing. Soref made a padlock that was both strong and chea using a case constructed out of layers of metal, like the doors of a bank vault. He designed his padlock using laminated steel.

Linus Yale Sr.
Linus Yale invented a pin-tumbler lock in 1848. His son improved upon his lock using a smaller, flat key with serrated edges that is the basis of modern pin-tumbler locks.

Linus Yale Jr. (1821-1868)
American, Linus Yale Jr. was an mechanical engineer and lock manufacturer who patented a cylinder pin-tumbler lock in 1861. Yale invented the modern combination lock in 1862.

for those at our place at 2am on November 7, 2008

You in chimes. You in chimed explosion. You driving the drum. You in sienna water and then dropping.

I am coming up.
I am coming up.

There is a nest and there are feet and of the ground there is such immense swimming that I am middle line.

Someone said birth from
the back-
leave from the holes in
its back.

It's now Iceland- the image of embryos in mountains. And tell the salmon that surely the water is dying and gritting its teeth
(much like an erect bomber or a crowded city)

these two houses now sit upon the ocean with a wedding cake and ceramic lions between them.

CAN WE SAY. . .

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some of the lovelies

Response to Jane Kenyon's "Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks"

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/briefly-it-enters-and-briefly-speaks/
(Same word,line, and punctuation count per stanza).

I am Spanish model with ribbon-shaped disease,
a hideaway for frustrated Swedish hydrangeas. .

I am dark envelope, poker overtaker, meat developed lover. . .

When sovereignty's hourglass outgrows warthog slavery
and bloody sailboats stain towels
then his bedside is limitless. . .

I am a rotten professional depressed platoon. . .

I am Western granulated daughter-in-law,
eating chitlins with ethnic chili udders. . .

I am a ripe thirteen
they are gray-and-red wardens. . .

I am spent and open,
change herder, loving old English hotels. . .

I am both adjacent and candy tray. . .
the hole showing, I
am better beer. . .

I am birthing fish while fighting off snakes
or other known poets. . .

I am enormous at night thereupon
penguins, the biggest nun in Gemstone county. . .

I am loose-woven even vowels
roaming macho, I love sodomy
as well as all verses in Matthew. . .

Poems That Are Gang Related

I Free Range Lice
for Jennifer (Theniffer)

Sea lice constitutes more than a fact of life in ocean living.

Kitty cats are infecting salmon eggs (the gods must be crazy,) causing problems in the ozone.

Usually mites stay away from cats but in Australia a girl was bathing her cat and well. . .

Similar to Australia, Africa has become the arena for a little known concept called "organic hands." In sum, you effectively measure the nourishment in natural plants, alongside kids with nasty diseases and inject the treatment into their hands at the supermarket. This is also known as the "National Bug Busting Day."

My second job as a manager of poultry products has led me to begin chewing on feathers. Not just any feather but ones from specifically agile creatures. I love the taste of skin fragments and the possibility of it leading to a late night. (You know what I mean.)

I also love rabbits, combing over their nipples and slowly removing pesticides and other chemicals from their fur.

In my poultry managing business we carry a wide range of anti-lice, anti-parasite, anti-chemical products for your dog and other family members. It's all natural, completely made in the home or at the elementary school. For more information, please refer to the encyclopedia under "origins of the body."

Jeans Join Ears,(Screw Scars)
for Jess (BLV)

Right now, each ear as one.
She spoke in an amusing dialect and then came to bed.
A tiny bend,
a tiny and then singular
and a developing sight
venturing outdoors to grab
at young metallic forms
before building to a show of sound.

I pull or "touch."
I say, "our eyes are always the same size."
or rather a portion of the hands are set and
gently pulling at the interior.
Then close and sticking.
Then our fingers despite.

Titles starting with "S."
If instead of tendency we
used joining.
the seamless.
The only effective marking
left on this halfway.

Road Under Flame. (I curb air)
for Alex "Mo" Burford

Markings alert drivers of
your spraying- a mix of
propane compressed with
Beijing's air.
Under the conditions of
kinetic energy, there came
an ever curling flame and
then the occasional "hipster" anecdote
(something of shrunken heads and
experiencing you teetering
on weather patterns.)

The occasional "off-road" distraction
was helpful in building foreign
policy guidelines but then we
remembered the media was
under government regulations

and then officials were forming strikes
against thunder storms

and then you burst into the
White House screaming "THE AIR AROUND
A DEAD MAN IS A COLLECTION OF POETRY"

to which I began putting on numerous
layers of thermals,
proclaiming "NO WORLD, you're
veering. Come be on the road
in a quickened pace."

11:50 PM

Nichole Hermance speaking as the buffalo me.
"One time I made pancakes for breakfast and the next day I shat 50 barbies."

Head, Pole and Nation

The things I thought so big. The things East like orgasming through ice hunting blubber while all the while mounting drums. [Have carried.] Have moved inward parts divided by some 600 masses coming through channels and subsequent events floating in the sea, [made of leather.] Dragging men, the call of missing breasts now lays frozen. Now we say to eyelashes. Now we say mid-summer. As there is fleeting, so is there launching.
The seagulls, now slippery and bloody [come in sets] with heads rocking, a manner much like giving to men [upon said private] no more dots to mark a panting eye.
Something came of being well maintained. To be like white trees and not good meat. This is the question, is it not. Is there too much vision blurring and is there not the dirt to make speech again.
This bed has transformed to bones, working its way through an Atlantic shattering. This takes Capital, this takes an energy of turkeys but the horses are moulting, [too late a fall.]
If breaking up of words means plaque. If indeed nothing found then nothing lays claim and all is traveling and all is checkered. In best of sparring this makes holes and makes face upon silver ears, ready for harvest. Such giving had always been and this is a gifting bases and this is the golden and the golden is for the baskets.
What then is nurturing. If planting means loss of name, of keeping, such shame of the new generations and all is surrounding. Now how to stand. Now to pray. Such brilliance like the fine lines of ink [like in rain] no more to waves. No more to a hasty hunger.

More Stein Inspiration

(Stein collage for English 382. The edges were cut off a bit by my scanner.)

Guitar
There is a time when there is rubbing, when there are long limbs as if chimes. There is a whole and there are finger-like corners and in the breathing of the holding is erupting. This is relationship.

Green Chair
To sit is to make strings and to then make yellow. Rather to become helmet now to practice. Now to a baby or was it the lack of upright to the ceiling to the calling that made hair to weave.

Flag
Not wedding ring but finger pulled, left such a dusty to an existence of hooks.

Bookshelves
It is only between. It is only open and is only a little wet. Said to be collected it is love. The sound here, left over to become strolling musical before pyramids. Said to be a fountain, the light tapping of cotton on embroidered backs.

I Like Parties With My Friends

Song/Poetry Project Goodness

Yesterday's Fortune Read. . .

"look for the color yellow tomorrow for good luck."

TODAY
"Cut the whole space into twenty-four spaces and then and then is there a yellow color, there is but it is smelled, it is then put where it is and nothing stolen." -Stein, Tender Buttons

I am working through Stein thoughts. Hopefully I will have some of them posted by the end of the week.

The Beckoning of Days

OR
for the captain of a ship

I suppose what replaces then is substance. I suppose an outward, a licking, such great and necessary touch then paper. On paper we make hands to make different. Use numbers to see drops- hardly to the day of such,

I see curling in.

Wave movement, not so much as to match up each corner but place on cushion and on the disappearing nature of floors.

In times of less presence there is a heavy thumping. There is longing. There are questions regarding the way language motions to eyes then back to beating.

There are strips that stretch further now while clocks I know not and some covering. This over all spirals dictates a certain amount of pages to follow at sunrise.

Without blaming or asking what is suitable. Without ever getting up but always in a swinging motion, allowing for a handsome set of fingers and patches to make do and feed.

In coming or going, take not so much of the walls or stairs. The array of reds and oranges. Take easily of the two lines, the three, the wholeness. Say nothing of a glistening. The softness within an octagon. Say gently of what water does.

In the days of passing, no more than the guiding of shadows within another. Something to show for a time formally known as awkward. One was numbering while the other a map. All so long and full of zeal. While there upon an aspen dangling. While there like layered jackets coming from within couches. Something the sound of mild, drawing to point to channel, more the direction to islands.

And then of hands sitting circled and moon-like. Recognizing that in pit there is a deepness for a bending green and a deepness for moisture. There are fixtures and they are dry but they are moving. They are heavy in the mist and now to a gallop.

REPRESENT YO

It's moist, it's folding! Watch the Flarf Collective reading from Minneapolis.

http://channel.walkerart.org/index.wac

NAS class/Stein

Crown
How much kingdoms. Many damage, under the spanning till finally naming populated. Such crisp eve. Such running aground/across news. Many so great to exercise. Care for on shore, all subject, all called admiral. Sweet speech. Always laughing on skin and red cape. Return to gold. Not simply rule like alligator rule but of fort. These two boards between, now overlapping. Stringing up birds, a corn-costume. They delve and torch. They top to bottom to delve to famine. There becomes metal resistance. In trees, like necks. In water like starvation. Lifting up. Not able to collect- followed to a green mercy. Now land and eyes reduced, demanding in relation to weaving cloth, the cheekbones get home.

Curls
There can be seen a great and tragic blue south and reaching back to mounting.
Approach being motioned, sent away, meeting on spare, adorned mistress. In such a way to inflict soaring. Taking like niece, daring and aboard.

GAH!

(Specifically four minutes into the video).

West Wind Review (WWR)

THIS YEAR I WILL BE EDITING THE WEST WIND REVIEW ALONGSIDE KASEY MOHAMMAD. IT IS GOING TO BE A FINE SPECIMEN OF A BOOK.

(from Kasey's blog)

West Wind Review, Southern Oregon University's annual literary journal, is seeking submissions of poetry, fiction, and cross-genre writing until December 1st.I am serving this year for the first time in an official capacity as a faculty advisor for the journal, and I'm excited about the direction it's going. The past two years' editors, Jess Rowan and Maurice "Alex" Burford, have set a precedent for the inclusion of interesting, innovative writing, and I'm confident that that trend will continue this year with new editor Lacey Hunter.Include a maximum of five short (1-3 pp.) pieces or two longer (4+ pp.) pieces. Make sure that pages are numbered and that your name appears in the header of each page. Work may be submitted as attachments in Microsoft Word to westwind@sou.edu, or send by snail mail to:

West Wind Review

Southern Oregon University

1250 Siskiyou Boulevard

Ashland, Oregon 97520

If you use regular mail, be sure to include either a SASE or an email address at which you may be contacted for a response.

New Poems Finally

What I took from the 2008 VP debate
OR
Main St.

Some say it's also, and well,
up here in Alaska we
*wink* we hold tight to and
then also clean We remember
and our grand kids
remember and our great
grand kids remember what freedom
and gender was
A "top ticket" ya know,
none of this East Coastian-ness
(bushes)
(bushes)
Regular six packs on a
boat cutting taxes,
cutting more taxes
just your average kitchen
table setting- I sit around
kitchen tables too in my neighborhood,
that's where things get
executive and then there
is something of teamwork,
"fairness" (like in heaven)
Like up here in the ice
where decisions are always
being put in vans
and on fields (not like
back when your hair
started going grey) like when
bangs came back- like when
there were 12,000 bushes
and then 5,000 and some
new schools and "M word"
dropped,
that's just my new
tolerance tattoo, there
across my chest in Hebrew
script no less
(say it ain't so)


JOE!


PACK!


"we're ready for McCain to leave. . ."?


OUR TEAM


TROOPS
@soccer games
(backed into corners smiling)
Backed into the environment
drill
drill
Bushes
drill
caps
drilling will help us leave and bring millions of jobs to those who and then there will be cowboy hats, and also there will be small business private health care lacking fear of terrorists and the nuclear weapons will stop because if those go off there will be a lot of unhappy people


Behind The Door I Cum Gloriously

so escaped through tapping, some kind of thing like hotel room (the night I grew a penis) and person switched in and out of friend 1. bald, male in mid-twenties, 2. curly womon in early forties, something like East Coast it's not that it wasn't working on top like repetition but we clothed and behind and the hard under, such amounts sprinkling but more to the extent of a hose

and then your mother walked in and I wished for janitorial skills


She Was Southern With Northern Mechanics
(the following poem was sculpted using words and phrases from Sherry Markovitz's commentary on her art showing of "Shimmer.")

I painted big just after my father died. Remember lions- hosing down, paint again. I gave the donkey quite a large penis, very nurturing, very "Autumn Buck" on the surfaces not fully satisfied with Eternal hanging, natural, each time found constantly combined New Guinea- a piece to do Victorian and ceremonial outfits. A frill around its neck, around time I made walking ground- I used mud, bones and a blanket as an infant which I called my mother. I used to work it with my fingers just a rag, a female elk, a queen.
What started out as a formal small wood something, glued copper, enough to really love transitional- often lost piece and bring it back several times before so much adding, removing, adding, removing- sort of like a salutation and spiral hand gesture- Simultaneously pink belly years started the making of fate. I made having new. I wanted make always collected lots and lots of feathers so the skirt, old feathers netting posture, getting very wonderful. I covered only face together. I went "around the world"-wild with color, place, the time I was struggling with exhaustion awake and engaged but a seamstress. Conflicted during the Civil War, it was also a time of barely madness- that's why I used flowers in place of a found and empty braid. The light purple is church in intimacy all sewn, the steel, the turn, they made the bullets a reusing, breasted Buddha- the main bed a translucent yellow, a "greasy yellow."
My mule is a potent founding of construction but white, working on getting so tiny, is moving, wants light, no bones that she wants first an old day and so started coming out is being even with world expression viewing them to be disarming, face cross, love the fancy noise- there is a tendency to overly depict wanted shimmer my love.

I Just Think of You and I Start to Blow

for the lovely Nichole Hermance (a slightly late birthday present)

When there is TOO much season left and the players are all in a slump- When things get similar to fire- When I install drinking and Randolph answers back saying that he totally did like my last post and we start screaming "Happy Saturday-" that's when there is no evil and I'm just thinking of you.
When you're supposed to take a picture of a bridge but then start thinking about how hot my class of '08 shirt looks- it's cut just so to allow us to convert back to times when we mashed natural forces together- that's when I say you can spend more time taking over this place.
When we really start to ask what 5$ is worth to us- When the path is covered in creamily delicious drool because of all our friends and parties- When fish balls- When we spend our first week in Portugal answering singles ads- that's when I really cheer up on love.

Another Grand Adventure or What It Really Comes Down to is Every Good Campus Has a Market of Choice Near By. . .

It started off as the worst day of this summer. I awoke next to my cat for the last time in my own home. She was all tucked under the blankets with her head poking out and her paws outstretched, lightly grazing my fingers. We cuddled and then Nichole told me she would rather spend the day in Ashland so I depressingly put Bitsey (my cat) in the box and carried her out to the car. You see she is almost 14 years old and I have moved her around every year for the last four (often multiple times each year) and she just could not handle this last move. It ultimately lead to her pissing on my bed every day, once while I was in it, as well as a continued attitude of hissing and growling around the apartment. I decided she would be happier in Portland with my family (a place she is more familiar with) so my brother agreed to meet me in Eugene Wednesday afternoon to do the switch off. I check the fluids and soon we are off. I almost immediately opened the box so she could breathe and I could pet her. This seemed to calm her down. The next two hours consisted of CD skipping and cat petting. Someone with a beautiful voice called but his voice was coming in and out amidst the wind and then I lost him in the pass. By now Bitsey was attempting to get in my lap and I feared for a moment she might get by my feet but I got her to turn around and she headed for the back seats. There was more loud singing and some remembering/appreciation for mountains and lips.

The engine than began to click and switch to lower gears. Trotting Horse had never moved this slowly up hills so I begin saying "uhhh fuck." I pulled over and check all the regular things. Leaking, heating and so forth. The car appeared normal except that it would not start. There was some calling of AAA and running down the interstate to give them the last mile marker. They get ready to send a tow truck and I'm sweating in the car trying to get Bitsey to drink some water and pretend like I am not scared she will die from all the stress. The same beautiful voice calls again and we discuss what could have gone wrong until the tow truck appears. So now I am attempting to put Bitsey in a secure space and the tower, we will call him Wallace, explains to me that he can tow me into Eugene rather than Roseburg with no extra charge (we heart AAA.) So Wallace and I take off on a 1 and 1/2 hour trip together where I learn all about his wife who finished nursing school in 2001 and how he did not give a fuck if she had a great job lined up for herself afterwards, they were going to AZ but she stayed in Oregon and he moved to Phoenix for a little over 2 years. There he lived next to some crazies with guns and one day while he was chilling in his boxers (Wallace by the way, is a very large, hairy man who is probably in his 20's but looks a good 30 years older) drinking a beer, the cops storm in and tell him to get to safety because his neighbors are going crazy and he opens up a cabinet and shows the fuzz ALL OF HIS GUNS (by now he is listing off gun names and I have no fucking clue what he talking about) and how he is a swat team on his own. Some time after all of this he moves back to Myrtle Creek and one day realized he does not want to be married, leaves for a construction job for a month, comes home and finds another man staying in his house. Somewhere between kicking his wife out and a story about threatening to shoot his neighbors sons for stealing fuel from him, I start to let the wind overpower his voice. We finally make it to Eugene where I quickly get Bitsey to my brother, wish them a safe ride home and head to the shop on Agate St (right by campus) with Wallace. He drops me and Trotting Horse off informing me that he hopes this is the place I want to leave the car because I have one mile left before he starts charging me for the tow. Luckily the mechanic, let's call him J, he's a nice fella and tells me to expect a call in two hours with more information. So I take off through campus and call my friend Shaggy to meet me at the Market of Choice. Here we greet each other after it being a year since we last hung out and then hop in the car where he starts up the Aladdin soundtrack because it is adventure music. There is some beer involved, some talk of "being" with people and who all still lives in Eugene. We head back to his place where there is a stolen Turkey sign and a laser he plans to use to spy on people. Soon we are on a mad hunt to find our other friends, a forest and some nuns but failed. A friend I have not seen in four years comes over and there is talk of his marriage and computer games. I fell of a cliff multiple times and died instantly. The night ended in Shaggy showing me Anchor Man. He left at 4:30am to go to work so around 8am I sneak out so as not to awake his roommates who did not know I was there. I do the whole food stamps breakfast thing at the grocery and am heading to the bus station when I get a call from J saying my car will indeed cost $1,700 to fix. I tell him to go for it, give him my payment information and hop on the bus heading downtown thinking I will catch a greyhound home and Nichole's mom can pick up my car and I'll get it the next time I am that way. So I am walking down 10th st towards Pearl when I suddenly remember that my brother left his journal at the McDonald's where I met up with him and I was supposed to go pick it up. I turn around, find the bus to the Gateway Mall and head straight there. By now my phone is saying it is about to die and people are texting me saying "get a second opinion" so I call my beloved mechanic in Ashland and he says "fuck the car. Sell it to J and get yourself a new car with the money you would spend to fix that one." My phone is beeping loudly now with a dying battery. I call J, he makes some more calls and gets back to me with saying I currently owe him $320 for the car and he has a friend who will cover all of that. I figure I am not losing anything, not making anything either but there's not a whole lot I can do with a van that needs almost 2G's of work done on it so I agree. There is more bus hopping out to the campus where I unload all the maps/rocks/trip good luck charms that are still in Trotting Horse, as well as take as many bumper stickers off as possible and place them in a box the guy at the desk duck taped together for me. There is some talk of road trips and Ashland. The desk guy, let's call him E, was born in Ashland and has always wanted to go to Burning Man so we passed the time until J got back from lunch and I signed Trotting Horse over to him. I then picked up my box and was heading out the door when they offered to give me a lift to the greyhound station. E and I talked more of growing up in Eugene and how he was too young to remember Ashland at all. I purchase a ticket to Medford and then wander downtown Eugene for the next two hours. I begin by smoking a little cigar that was left in the van from Burning Man and then find myself in a "things from around the world" type store where I ask the owner how his day is going and he "it's getting better" and I inquire more so we chat a bit about things and he asks how I am doing and I say "it's been an interesting few days" so we discuss what happened to me and agree that things happen for a reason and that life is beautiful. There is more bumping into strangers, asking of the time, seeing of bright colors, quest for poets not belonging to the canon and so forth until I am back at the station. A womon talks to two girls about the foster care program and she really listens to people when they talk. I board the bus and a bald man tells me to take my feet off the seat. Another guy warns me to watch out for the bald guy, he's a creep who wants to lick my feet. I go to the bathroom and pretend to be asleep. Soon I am in Medford where a dear friend picks me up and we do dinner and then I am home!

Somewhere in here I lost a sense of tenses. . .

Sneak Preview?

Flickr only lets you upload 200 photos and being that we have almost that many just in Burning Man shots, I was able to upload our road trip up until Yellowstone. . .well some of Yellowstone. So there's that. Nichole and I have to sabotage the system now by using every damn email address we have to make various accounts. More on that later. Below is Oregon/Idaho/some Wyoming.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30242235@N06/sets/72157607119721587/

On a totally different note, the poetry gang is back together and life is continuing in grand fashion. Lots of magical lights, unicorns, beer and the usual frolicking.

Back at "home"

I am attempting to adjust to home not being the road, trotting horse, playa and a permanent sleepover with Nichole. I am needing to remember that the house key is no longer the car key, it will not fit.

Below is the flickr link to our Burning Man photos. Somewhere in the car is another disposable camera with more photos, I just have to find it. This site will also EVENTUALLY contain all of our road trip photos but that is going to take awhile. I'll update you when it happens.

The last few months have been some of the most amazing times of my life! It is going to take a lot of reflection to remember everything that has happened.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30242235@N06/sets/72157607144056662/

a fast moving screen saver

Getting to know your country:
*South Dakota wins for the most pro-life billboards
*Space between western Virginia and eastern Tennessee win the prize for having the largest trinity crosses right off the interstate
*Vegas wins for largest congregation of creepy people in one area
*New Mexico/northern Arizona win best places to exist in besides Oregon
*New Jersey gains the title "armpit of the country"
*Connecticut is the best place to get lost in (it comes full circle eventually)
*Provincetown Mass. wins the recycling award (outside of Oregon that is)
*Wyoming gets the privilege of being the first state to awe us and therefore we compare many things to it (ex. red highways, landscape changes, small western towns *see southern Utah)
*Area between South Dakota and Kansas City= most amount of weaving between states
*The deep south loves its sweet tea, has the loudest bugs in the US, warm thunderstorms, a history we could stand to memorize and the ability to move slow again and notice strangers
*Oregon, because I feel I must pay my dues, wins for having a little bit of every part of the country in one place

There is more! and what I am really trying to say is that I am not ready for the road (this one at least) to end. In a moment I will be though. It will continue to shift. I did not start reading "On the Road" until we got to New Mexico and it made me long for a mix of Wall South Dakota and Block Island RI; Wall's inability to recognize how the people, its air, is all a theme in the middle of one strange day. They will show you how to wear your cowboy, buy you booze and in moments I miss stumbling over its railroad tracks. The Boston accents of the random group of womyn we met on Block Island who drunkenly told us where their hotel room was and found us asleep in their hallway.
I think I might write a book of the trip, if only for myself. I think it will however, be done only using three sentences. Each one may go on for pages but that's how it feels. Would you read that? I do not want to fall asleep tonight.

Watching a '94 Olympic gold medalist swim as a mermaid in Vegas OR things feel slightly heavy, something of fake air

The best thing about Vegas so far is the free parking. Maybe it is because I think there is a loneliness in money but this place, despite the amount of people, is easily the loneliest place I have been. There is absolutely nothing real about photos of objectified womyn sticking to my feet with each step or being approached by womyn handing out these photos, the spinning of electric slots and fake grass. We are staying with Nichole's grandma in a community that overlooks its own golf course and the strip and we can watch the orange moon rise over the city and I miss New Mexico. I miss the Grand Canyon. There are two dreams. Here you never wake up.
We arrived here Tuesday night. The week prior began with us standing in Texas staring at Mexico. We wandered throughout El Paso before crashing in our car in a random neighborhood off the highway. We then continued our search for the Rio Grande and found home. We continued to expand our time in New Mexico to a vastness beyond photos, to a deeper breath. Here we created a certain feeling of permanence.
The Grand Canyon continued to show us the sun. We watched the sunset from an old watch tower dangling over the canyon and the Colorado river. We then rose at 4am and watched the sky turn to various degrees of a rainbow and then the canyon was lit once more. There was a silence I have not experienced before and then our screams coming back to us three times.
I know find myself longing to be on the road again, headed to Burning Man or even home. Sunday will start our last drive that is not to Ashland. We will be camping with a group of people a friend introduced me to and follow them into Burning Man come Monday morning. I am looking forward to a different form of mass gathering. One that, if anything, forgets about money for a week. If all goes right, I will drink more water than imaginable and come back with a tan much like Mrs. Robinson.

Just so you know. . .

it felt like Texas went on forever and now the world has happened.

KSM, the photo is for you. It's a little something Hank Williams wanted you to have. You can pick it up at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, TN when you are ready.

The Cedars of Lebanon

I am moving in slow motion. Through the water-through the road.
Maybe it is in light of recent events but I do not find Texas inspiring in the slightest. While this trip has proven to me the sheer amazingness of individuals, the mass mentality of this place is indeed "the lone star state." Do we even sell Oregon shower curtains? Texas does. . .people buy them. People represent!
The last five days have been somewhat hazy- a mix of staring at various TV shows, walls and dry fields. I remember the green, red and gold of the Dallas bridges and a hay field somewhere between Dallas and Killeen as being striking to me. On our drive to Austin today the world smelled of rain and I felt that maybe the ocean was behind the hills.
Yesterday we finally were able to attend the "New Days Apostolic Pentecostal Church" of Killeen TX. We were later told that we were in the worst part of Killeen. I couldn't tell you. It all looks the same. Only hearing stereotypes of the Pentecostals, we were nervous to attend. We entered the sanctuary and were the only womyn in a room of about 20 to 30 men. We sat in the back and soon found out we had walked in on the men's class and the womyn would be joining soon for the service. Most of you know I am not a religious person but I have to say that this was the best experience I have had in the last five days. Apparently Bill Clinton wrote in his book that everyone should attend a Pentecostal service at least once in their life. Bill, I'm going to have to agree with you. If you want to see what organized religion can do for people, this is the place. I have NEVER seen (and I have attended quite a variety of services, Christian and otherwise) a congregation so genuinely excited to worship. Yes there was much dancing. Yes they laid hands on one another. Yes they cried. Yes they spoke in tongues. No there were no snakes. Yes they talked about being saved but not in the "or you'll go to hell" kind of way. It was . . .healing.
Tomorrow we head out for the first stretch since Wyoming where we will be on our own. No one to stay with again until Vegas. In honor of Edrik we have decided to head South towards the border and share with him those adventures. We will play Bob Marley and speak of revolutions. We will hike. We will stare.

8/8/08

I do not know how to blog this or if this even feels appropriate. Yesterday we got a number of calls from close friends saying that a fire fighter's plane went down Tuesday in California. On this plane was one of our dearest friends, Edrik. This is to say that we do the rest of the trip in memory and honor of him.
For everyone in Ashland, we love you. It does not feel real to be halfway across the country from you right now.

Kitty in. Kitty Out. Kitties Going Roundabout! (in Dixieland)

"Sweet tea is a form of iced tea in which sugar or some other form of sweetener is added to the hot water before brewing, while brewing the tea, or post-brewing, but before the beverage is chilled and served. This especially sweet variation of tea enjoys most of its popularity in the Southern United States, though bottled iced teas labeled "Southern Style" or "Extra-sweet Southern Style" appear in refrigerated cases throughout the country." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_tea

(May include up to a cup of sugar)

Last night around 9pm, we drove over the Mississippi river, leaving Memphis TN and into Arkansas, with Johnny Cash and Hank Williams playing in the background. I do not know how to describe the last week. I will not speak of the south in the same way that I used to. We drove into Knoxville TN the day after the shooting at the UU church. We got the message from a friend literally minutes before we arrived. Within the last four days we have probably spent 10 hours at various Civil Rights institutes and meeting centers. We have shared meals with people who's homes were bombed by the KKK, who marched along side MLK Jr., who were given awards for their dedication to the cause of justice. I have read over more names and dates in the last few days than I can remember. I do not know how to describe the statues, the pictures, the words. I do now know if our country will do it again. I question my role. For a moment, I thought that I might move to Birmingham AL.

At 8 this morning we attended the Southern Baptist church of Jonesboro, AR with Nichole's great, great aunt in-law. Being that we went to her Sunday school with a group of eleven other 80 year old widows, I refrained from responding to statements such as "it's important for you young ladies to find husbands who have been saved." When she asked us what we thought of the service, we said we disagreed with some things but kept our answers brief. While previous events from the week put me in a fairly radical mindset, these people did not seem to need their foundations pulled out from under them.

The day progressed in what we have discovered to truly be a slow southern way. She took us out for Sunday brunch at the world famous Cracker Barrel. The eggs had cheese. The hash browns had cheese. The grits were gritty and people were asking for more sweetener for their tea. Needless to say I downed a few cups of water. And then I slept . . .for almost four hours.

There are numerous other things that happened in and around what I have written about. Nashville, Beale st. in Memphis, the way it feels to drive in the south at night, Mississippi!

To end this entry, I would like to quote a children's book Nichole just came across. "I'd really like to pet them all and cuddle them and more."-Safari Fun: a Pop-up Story Book

As that one song goes. . .

"Get out of my dreams
and into my car"

Tomorrow we head to Knoxville. It is 11pm. I have been drinking wine steadily since 3pm= a fine way to go about the day after a disappointing beginning. Yes folks, we were unable to find the Pentecostal church forcing us to attend the nearest Baptist congregation instead. A bit of a let down. The important things to note are:
1. If he says roll, ROLL!
2. A Coke Zero and a king size candy bar cancel each other out.
3. Submission.
4. We're going to be joy givers to God, I mean you know what I'm saying!?
Amen.

Other things to note about this side of the country before we officially start heading west tomorrow. . .
*DC, what with its EPA and other goodness, has trashcans overflowing with water bottles, with not one visable recycling bin. Really, outside of Oregon, the country doesn't recycle. . .that is except for Provincetown but that place is magic and anyone who has ever been there/heard of it already knows it. Well, except for the public restrooms. They have a person sitting at the entrance directing you to the stalls that are empty and then they expect a tip afterwards. Now I get tips but this is ridiculous and we did our thing and walked away. There are things I can do on my own and take pride in it. 'Nuff said!
*The thunderstorms are thick and warm and when you run in them, you can't see. For that, I say hello.

NIGHT ALL!

Trip #3 (beginning to think West)

(Above= tunnel in Baltimore)
Presently we are at Nichole's dad's place in Gainsville Virginia. We got in Wednesday evening and will stay for five nights= the longest stay in one place.
Provincetown was a whirlwind of open mindedness that felt amazing to be around even if it was only for one night. Conclusions: cowboy hats get in the way when dancing/macking on hotties at the club AND don't ever come up to two womyn, say your friend thinks they are hot and then proceed to, as a group, attempt to get your friend some action. Nichole and I had this happen to us. It's just awkward.
To get to Virginia we went through nine states, about half being states we had previously been staying in and it felt weird to not go back to places like Providence and stay with awesomeness. It feels like if we are in the right part of the country, we should see these people but the nature of the trip kept us going. MC (our 8th grade teacher) contacted her brother for us in Hatboro PA so we had a place to stay the night.
Come morning we proceeded to Virginia, stopping in Baltimore to see E. A. Poe's house. We followed the signs. We walked a mile. We turned up Poe House st. We never found the house/grave. We did however, find some crazy good BBQ chicken, sweet potatoes and mac-and-cheese. It started to thunder and pour.
Virginia has been a different kind of adventure. We are both tired and glad to be in one place for a few days. I finally sat down and did some reading even.
Things that I have learned about Virginia so far:
1. The battle of Bull Run (Manassas) was the first battle of the Civil War. People around here still have very close ties to this. At the museum shop, a young boy asked his mother if he could have a doll of a Confederate soldier. The mother proceeded to answer, "I'll buy you a Confederate one but your father will have to buy you the Union doll. I'll never buy you one that is Union."
2. Arlington will never cease to amaze me.

. . .The white goes on forever. . .
3. Horse races are the shortest thing you will ever witness/slot machines are annoying as all hell. My aunt gave Nichole and I two hats, I mean big ol' fancy hats with flowers on them. (They belonged to my grandmother.) Clearly we wore these to the horse races, as all proper womyn do, and my golly were we popular with the elders. One man, well into his 70's bumped me in the arm and laughingy proclaimed, "I came here to watch the horses but I find myself looking at your hats." Yes indeed, I now know how to get me an older man!
AND THE FUCKIN' slot machines, which I don't care for but Nichole's dad gave us money and told us to go win so naturally I sat at the "Enchanted Unicorn" and saw lots of berries and flowers and queens and kings and even got some points and saw glittery lines and heard music playing but I walked away confused, bored and with no winnings.

That's all I've got for now. Tomorrow we head into DC and Sunday we hope to find a Pentecostal church and then hit up some vineyards with Nichole's dad.

Trip Update aka, we have spent a lot of time on the East coast and will be heading south and then west come Tuesday

The last week has included New York where we didn't get lost going in but sure did going out and then Connecticut appeared with its high gas prices and well funded highways, all tree- covered and fancy bridges. The house my parents built is still the same except the new folks cut down our favorite cherry tree and the womon didn't seem to trust Nichole and I enough to let us in and take a look. (A sign that we are no longer in Indiana). I tried to find the things that changed my family and lead us to Oregon back in '91 but it was all on vacation. We discovered the Atlantic ocean has more jellyfish closer to the shore and that the East coast believes in "private beaches" but it didn't stop us and we laid by some one's cigarette butts and used beer bottles and called it a day at the ocean. Connecticut continued in such a way of being fed well and staying with people that feel like family.
Come the middle of the week we headed to Providence RI to see our former 8th grade teacher and this has quite possibly been my favorite place to stay. Hopped a train to Boston and got a buzz on at 1pm at the Cheers bar before heading to the Afro-American History museum and then back to the train. On the stroll back we came upon the Liberty tree and we questioned why in its place they put a huge plaque rather than another tree or garden so that things continue to grow.
Michelle took us to an awesome Cuban restaurant and I wanted to steal the menu for its helpful historical facts. We discussed the education system in the US and the alternative kind of school she now teaches at. She then took us to a movie theater that had couches instead of seats and a man playing a guitar instead of previews and we watched "At the Edge of Heaven" which everyone should see and then probably see again. The night continued on in thunder storms, an orange moon and glorious discussions with her and her partner about sexuality, allowing Nichole and I to feel fully like ourselves since Chicago.
Saturday we drove to Point Judith and wasted money by getting on the Ferry to Block Island where my parents were married. Previous trips of mine to BI have consisted of finding an empty spot on a beach and writing forever but this time we went to the most populated beach on the Island and continued to get disappointed by the white, upper-class tourists that were getting trashed so we hopped on our bikes and road around the entire Island to a horse place where we filled up our water bottles and continued slowly back into town. By then a folk band was playing at Nix's bar (?) so we joined in and I wrote some bad poetry until the dance scene picked up. By then a bus of 40 year old womyn had arrived all wearing bright blue shirts and they loved us and thought we were way too cute so they agreed to put us up for the night so that we wouldn't have find a church deck to pass out on. The singer of the band gave us a bunch of free cds and the "mayor" found us some blue shirts so that we would fit in with our new friends. 2am found us on the deck of the hotel with the blue ladies and they thought we were lesbians because of our matching tattoos and we longed to be around people who understood us but it was a warm place to stay so we put up with them telling us not to rape them and that if we stole anything they would cut us. Come morning they realized we clearly would not hurt them and they gave us a ticket for the hotel breakfast so it worked out alright. We then went to the Baptist church because we want to see as many churches across the country as possible and we all got a piece of wheat because we all have good and we all have bad and I let the things I have been holding onto fall off on the ferry ride back.
We are now back in Providence with Michelle and Eliza taking our time before heading to Provincetown which I know nothing about and am interested to see what all the hype is for.