the first picture

"View from the Window at Le Gras, the first successful permanent photograph created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826, Saint-Loup-de-Varennes. Captured on 20 × 25 cm oil-treated bitumen. Due to the 8-hour exposure, the buildings are illuminated by the sun from both right and left."

a cold day, a fixed pipe, a wet shoe

a cold day, a fixed pipe and a wet shoe



a cold day
a single sheet of ice across all the world
no one can walk or stay standing for long
once fallen, we crawl, even there comical
to a frozen support
snow from the bank
filling the boot
the pipe breaks in our hand
we need eachother today
borrow socks, wrenches
whiskey

the single sheet of ice
levels egos and expectations
and that is good
we crawl towards eachother
glove off - frozen to the broken pipe
hand out

here, friend

inside, thawing, we can stand up straight
can do it all alone
can walk alone again
down the hallways
in which judge and jury mumble

prompt 7

melancholy, she said. so much grayness. when one is blue, one longs for
blue skies. explain.

the difference between grey and blue is in the feathers
how the bird glides, turns
and in gliding
turns the ripple from dark to light
the heart of her
from dark to light
so the gray of the sky thins
thins and breaks
open
to blue

medium II

the pencils lay in a neat row, glass under and over them, the glass jar
shattered on the tile floor; outside three tall shapes, rounded over by snow.


i don't know when the jar broke
there is no sound to tell me

i don't know what the pencils will draw
flesh, the guess at flesh

outside there are three tall shapes
rounded over by snow

they become a nostalgia for me
of i don't know what

sandals, California
those days that arise sometimes

in cricket and river-scent
from moveable type

bleh

prompt 5: the fire had burned down to cold ash. one log had mostly kept its shape,
ash held by near miracle to ash. the taxi horn sounded again.


[This is ghastly but I seem to be in the midst of another double dog dare. Better to post the unreadable than fail to qualify...]


I never get very far into my theory.
I won't now. I'm tired.
It is like saying a sentence ends with a period.
That water is liquid.
That it is always morning somewhere.
I know that.

At that exact moment before something changes, it is most itself.

That last night
the fire had burned down
to cold ash. one log had mostly kept its shape,
ash held by near miracle to ash.

the taxi horn sounded again.

I am wrong.
A sentence doesn't need a period
There is never an exact moment before something changes.
Nothing is ever itself.
It is only itself, changing.

The taxi cab honks
as if there is a moment
to go now

as if when I look at you hard
with all the love I have
I'm not already gone

martha

prompt numero four:

two parts. the first not mine:
"there is no god and we're his prophets" (cormac mccarthy from the "road")
and:
given that theory, what will the pale rider bring in his saddlebag?


Does she think of that?
(we heard of it once)
getting smuggled out of Hungary
in a cart, camoflaged
under the corpses of children?

Or is repeating her husband's name enough
as what other name can be called?

There is movement down the road.
The horse freed from the cart.
The names of the children drifted as dust.

The pages of the history book flutter and clump
and mold. Don't read it.
Don't write it.
What matters is not what is in the saddlebag
of the pale rider.

What matters is that he comes
that he rides up fast
when we are more alone living
than dead.

inasmuchasthisiadiaryofsorts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRqJprR0ANw

aspirin: pretty

last note

she stood there, a little panicked, and pointing towards the street as the
last note hung in the air. prompt PG

This is exactly as it happened. I left my home, returning to work. A flutter
in my heart.
I pointed to it, with my heart, down the street
was it there - her leaving?
How quickly we wrap around each other
become a need
despite all
a pull
how I love you
how my an arm fits around your certain shoulder that needs it there.
Not one more night to sleep near, to add points or pull the dog or
shout threats or tell dumb jokes, forever, and cling and pull.
Move, please.

Was it just the brighter light?
A little panic
or how near he was in the dream? - whiskers near. new.

No.

It was the brighter light.
It was her leaving.
It was the last note of the carol
or her song
either - indistinguishable -
that waited in the air
then turned the corner
before the light went green

The camelias don't listen anyway.
Right there and visible,
they open in front of me
though I'm not ready

Her voice fading into spring.
Her challenge, her own, unfurling.
Fast.

drop of gold

in the corner of the room behind the cupboard, a ball of dust, there for months, maybe years. inside that, a small yellow glass bead. how'd it get there? prompt from pg


"Frank. You have the level?"
Frank had the level in his tool belt. A small one. In the pocket part of the belt. He pulled it out and a tiny, tiny bell rang near him. He thought nothing of it.

"Frank. Did you find it?" she asked.
"What?"
"I left a little drop of gold for you."
"I don't get it."
"Remember the bead that fell from my barrette when you grabbed me in the restaurant? So you could remember me when you work. Did you find it? It's good luck."
"Oh, yes. Yeah."

The next day he hit his thumb with a hammer.
Their love was never the same.