Posted in Uncategorized, tagged glenfrankus on March 9, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Mr. Glenfrankus peeled a mango with his hands. The juice got all over and was sticky under his finger nails. It was early, and that’s just how the mango needed to be peeled and Mr. Glenfrankus wasn’t to be told otherwise.
He was sleepy and the kitchen was silent, just the humming breath of the refrigerator.
“Man,” Mr. Glenfrankus said. “There’s mango juice everywhere. Better go get my hat.”
Posted in Uncategorized on March 8, 2010 | 1 Comment »
‘Twas hours and hours after dawn.
The last guests were finally gone.
Oh là, ça va, hélas, it’s time for bed.
Oh my, leave me, my limbs feel like lead.
With that, it fell silent, quiet and true.
No time for trifles, worries, hitherto.
Never was there an hour simply so full.
But leave me here, Mr. Glenfrankus, wrapped in wool.
Posted in Uncategorized on February 26, 2010 | 1 Comment »
7:30 on a brisk morning, pajamas and a winter jacket, barely awake and i’m crying in the car at a radio program. first, canadian women’s hockey overcame the americans, drinking champagne and smoking cigars crying in full uniform on the ice. something about “you work you’re whole life for something” got me. “big bad americans can’t steal our glory on the ice. this is canada and this is hockey.” and the next story, a canadian girl, a figure skater, she got bronze. her mom, her biggest fan and harshest critic, died 4 days prior of a heart attack. she died in vancouver. she came to watch her 24 year old daughter compete in the olympics and then died. at first i thought, “she must have felt so alone on the ice.” but then no. that probably wasn’t the case at all. maybe that’s what did me in.
maybe it was when the skater said, “i knew what ever i had boiling in me, i’d leave it all on the ice.”
i’ll tell you this though, these olympics, man, they’re just too much for me sometimes.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fisherman, ivy, stories, tea on November 24, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I know a place where the green ivy grows longer,
no news of the affairs of men
only the occasional sound of fisherman’s whistle.
What is this room?
The sun shines and I boil my tea;
When the moon comes I read stories.
I have no news to report.
Other than to know that eventually I’ll stop chasing.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alcohol, biscuits, brother, ellen, grass, margaritas, mozzarella, sweet potato, whitney on November 23, 2009 | 1 Comment »
This weekend I spent with Mad Dog margaritas, poems about siblings, Everclear, Zombies, a fishing trip, family in town from far, families coming together, and a forced order of mozzarella sticks.
I got inspired at work today, which seems to happen often, and how often can you say that?
Now, Ellen has been in the kitchen braising lamb and cookin’ up some sweet potato biscuits. I’ve got a soon-to-be-full belly and a pocket full of love.
The good times are ones when there’s nowhere else to be but now.
The grass under my toes is as green as it gets.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dreams, elijah, heidi, restaurants, siamese twins, Twilight, writing on November 11, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I woke up incredibly angry this morning. What was I angry at? Myself. Why? Because last night, I had a vampire dream. I’m not going to tell you about the dream, just that they involved Twilight, and the mere embarrassment of that fact made me utterly angry.
… at myself.
——-
I remember that for the very first six months of my senior thesis, the entirety of the oeuvre was, “…just sittin’ here watchin’ the curser blink.”
——-
I remember the first time I heard about an “asian fusion” restaurant, I couldn’t help but think about siamese twins.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, elijah, ellen, fart, heidi, pizza, taco, tradition, yoga on October 28, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I told Ellen at a taco place that she needed to chew her ice after she finished her water.
“It’s a tradition,” I said.
“You know how I feel about tradition,” she said. “You keep that shit at home,” and it was one of the more profound things I’d heard in a while.
If only…
——-
As I walked out of my yoga studio today, the guy from the pizza shop next door on his cigarette break said to me today, “Shit man, you do yoga? Are you like all flexible and shit? Can you like, bend over and make fart noises with your mouth on your belly?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes I can.”
“Awesome man.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s really awesome.”
——-
I was getting a new phone number assigned to me recently. I told the operator that my brother was a little slow and I needed something easy to remember in case anything came up. My number now: 234.3455.
Sorry bro.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, botanic gardens, gardens on October 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
entrance fee: $0
counting days is like
snapping one’s fingers -
every autumn passes like a dream.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged checkout counter, college, ellen, frat, loneliness, party, pillows, sister, weekend on October 7, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Tip of the week… How to combat loneliness: body pillows.
——-
On the way to Ellen’s house last weekend, I heard someone across the street say, “Someone just invited me to a party at my own house and I had no idea who they were.”
I live in a college town.
——-
At the checkout counter, a middle-school-aged kid started helping the old woman in front of him in line get her things out of the cart onto the conveyor belt. She smiled and said thank you. She had hearing aids bigger than her ears.
The middle-schooler’s friend said to him, “Well aren’t you nice.”
He responded, “I always help out wrinkly old bitches cuz it was a wrinkly old bitch dat brought me into dis world.”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Canada, friend, heaven, mantra, snow, snow-stayed, surrender on September 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I talked to a friend today who lives in northern Canada. She had just gotten back from a from a friend’s from dinner. The thing was that she left six days ago. There’s a term for it, I’m told, “storm-stayed.” During dinner, the snow came and there she had to stay for almost an entire week.
She told me the first two days were torture, worrying about all the unfinished business.
But then something opened. She released.
I can’t put myself there, scanning someone else’s bookshelf, watching more and more snow fall, feeling like you over-stayed a welcome yesterday, petting the cat, petting the cat, sneezing.
I thought about it all day, on my bike ride, at work. Six days.
What about work? The dishes in the sink? The book I am supposed to finish?
Then I remembered something she said, “At some point you just have to surrender.”
The the last four days, she said, were heaven. “Cold air in my lungs, warmth against my skin.”
And I try and I breathe and when it all comes rushing in, I just keep repeating under my breath, “Snow-stayed. Snow-stayed.”
