280/365

the greeks roots of nostalgia are
(nóstos)homecoming and (álgos)ache.

it’s associated with a yearning
for the past, its personalities,
possibilities, and events.

a dull pain tethered
to the aperture between
memory and dreams.

when it rains i see us
christmas shopping on fourth street.
i am nine years old,
the car heater too hot,
and smeared street light colours
hint you’re keeping us safe.

i can still taste the fog
waiting on the n judah trolly
on the outskirts of the richmond,
hungover, on the way to the short-story class
with the young professor who got your work
and encouraged you to keep going despite your
lack of talent, focus or skill
and then the post-modernists-
wonder what barth would sound like tonight:
how were you supposed to understand
giles the goat boy on two hours of sleep?

we’re working at the sandwich spot in
strawberry at the base of tiburon,
the old lady regular on her third glass of house red
two hours of the shift to go-
they’re at home drinking stouts watching
stupid sitcoms to distract from the boredom
of a slow week night in a small town off a highway.

the present never feels glamorous without
a sheen of the black bile. (melaina chole)
melancholia- the mother of the four humors.

missing california
tangled in a web
of etymology:

calafia the fictional queen
of the island of california
was a pagan warrior queen
ruling over a kingdom of black women.

but these are the stories of colonisers.
what of the people?
what of the miwok?
what of their black bile?
what of their ache and homecoming?

i can see the one-oh-one flowing like an open vein
bleeding traffic from mount tamalpais,
the bay to the west the ocean somewhere
beyond that. how foolish are we?
to believe that words and names and language
are adequate devices to capture
concepts like home.

224/365

roof top patio

at a secret bar

in a chinatown

with the bros

on a thursday night.

old pal

martini,

etcetera…

drenched in memories

and hope

for a freedom

soaked future.

we make our

own joy

and conjure

wellbeing.

215/365

there’s only so long you
can burn trauma as fuel
before even the smoke and ash
have long since blown away
and new seedlings litter
the scars with a carpet
of optimistic foliage  

walking the street
in your nondescript neighborhood
to a friend’s house for beer, wine and darts,
the sun setting and the music
tugging at all the right chords.

i almost started crying.
not sure from joy or sadness
or from knowing that i’ll never
get this poem just right.

nostalgia is a gut punch
soothed by hope and gratitude
that we are somehow still alive
and full of every idealistic promise
we ever made in the darkness when alone.

84/365

famous blue raincoat
is the past, present and future
all in one go:

sitting by a fire
a bottle of wine in hand
staring at the crackling frenzy
dying down to a murmuring
bed of exothermic repose.
he can’t see me
curled up on the couch
pretending
to be a sleep.

a childhood
built on
perpetually
spinning
records.

here.
now.
tired.

i hope you’re keeping
some kind of record.

someday
we’ll even look back
on these uneventful nights
with youthful nostalgia.

the body older
and the song
a witness to a life
beyond time.

78/365

i must have constructed at least thirty poems during that film.
rummaging through this wistful ether, saturated in stories,
filling in the vacant spaces of memories, like the first coat of paint
on a twice used canvas, the darker shades beneath,
confessing through the white paint,
the smell of turpentine harvested from living trees,
and mainly pines, battling for our attention.

reminiscing through the rearview,
    redwoods,
    an ocean,
    the badlands,
    a hot spring,  
    the strangers.

used to be wild—
    revelling in discomfort and adventure
    around campfires,
    in tents,
    dirt beneath finger nails,
    awestruck,
    relentless,
    fierce.  

how can we be expected
to give
any of this shape
with these clumsy tools?

58/365

standing in line
at the local
breakfast place,
waiting to order,
watching the frantic boy
behind the counter take the orders,
reminded me of so many past
mornings,
meals,
memoires:

crepes on cole
just off the haight,
that diner in dc,
the morning in chicago,
the depot in san rafael,

a blink
time travel
a fast forwarded film

someday
we’ll feel nostalgic
for this present moment.

Everything is Fiction

My night after I got home and put the kids to bed and did some prep work for my classes tomorrow, included a healthy dose of self-induced rage absorption as I followed a twitter link to an ignorant racist clip of Bill O’reilly spouting off about how black people are too stupid, crude and entitled to ever be successful in the American Capitalism model. It actually raised my anger threshold to “white-knuckle,” and subsequently put me in a pretty toxic mood. Which was ironic since I had a pretty great day at school working with students learning to read non-fiction about topics as diverse as the creation of the universe, Columbine, the possibility of life on other planets, the effects of eating meat, and the Salem witch trials as an example of how society treats women it doesn’t know what to do with.

Did I mention I teach grade 8?

I grabbed a glass of wine and watched an episode of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee to help alleviate my fury. And now here I am. Sufjan again. This time Wednesday night. The days are a blur again as I plan and teach and meet and think and write and rest and speak and watch and give and take and carry on and on.

The cool part, or the weird part or the irony or whatever you want to call it, is that my classroom during the time I actually teach kids is the place and time that I am the least tired, the most focused and the most present. The blur happens outside and around those times. The planning meetings, the lunch time breaks, the after school chores, the taxi rides home- this is what adds up to make the blur. But the core. The center holds.

…


the things you love are contagious:
tend them with care,
prepare them for others.
the more you give away
the more you’ll grow.

…

Remembering the days in Central Park. Sundays with the hats and the sunglasses. Bottles of wine and hungover snacks. Anja would bring her chihuahua and Ari the frisbee. I laid in the sun with my shirt off, mildly aware that I might be deemed too skinny, but my skin was tan and I had forceful eyes and that had always been enough. The people of the city sprawled on the great lawns, reminiscing about the previous night’s adventures in the alleyways and bridges. Teachers, actors, designers, waiters and financial planners- all we had in common was the privilege of wasting a day in reverie.

…

everything is fiction
and you’d do well
to believe every word of it.