It's raining outside. It's raining inside, too. The fine droplets collect about my heart, like frills to shimmy with; but they'll never reach my tear ducts. Still, they bind me. They are too heavy and I'm too out of touch to dance. A hint of doubt and deceit, and I'm derailed. I crave to be omniscient. But that will never happen, and so I'm lost, ( Read more... )

i was in the desert, on some kind of mission, and was walking alone. i stopped suddenly; off in the distance, i could see a spaceship, a bulky one--much like Serenity in Firefly. it was hovering above a clearing where there were a few cars, and it was too far to see what was going on; but i had the sense that they would destroy any sign of life ( Read more... )

looking at a friend's images of waterfalls in oregon remind me of a certain determined innocence i still have. i remember, with all my senses, the shock of cold as i threw my body into icy spring water. there was only one way to go swimming in that mountain glacier water; if you try to dip yourself in gradually, your body will rebel and overcome ( Read more... )

it was one of those wild eerie nights in new orleans last night.  the kind that hasn't happened in a while.  today, too: the wind has been blowing things around.  the streets littered with cardboard and cups.  the wind chimes chattering.  it's neither cold nor hot.  the air feels like more layers of skin.  the clouds whizzing by on this movie- ( Read more... )

even nature trails carry you above the swamp, looking down.  cypress knees, the trees' knobby lungs, stick up like satirical stepping stones.  it doesn't look like it, but you'd sink between them ( Read more... )

rain is back, pounding on the door: "take me back, crescent city, you know you're all dried up without me."

she lets him in and says, "i'm the one who makes you wet, baby."

so the summer's over (mostly), and people are beginning to let out little sighs, mixtures of relief and weariness. could it be we survived another season ( Read more... )

ah, the rain, a faithful lover:
visits frequently and with ardor, sings me to sleep, kisses me awake in the morning.
a musician, he plays the drainpipe outside like an organ, the steel notes feeding the rhythm of my pulse.
his tears, all impulse, need, his nature:
his manner of gift.
if i receive it, he covers me, and i am his.

i want touch.  i miss it: little acts of kindness, that tender familiarity when someone shares your body and your space.

those who do want me will not be kind.

a desert child after all, my rain runs away, meeting only hard unreceptive surfaces.

i spent the weekend in a very small beach town in lousiana, interviewing locals.  i stood behind a sand berm on an oily beach in a prayer line with other people.  we were there to work from the faith of a mustard seed, but it felt like a funeral.  we all wore shoes to keep out the coal-hot, poisoned sand. the sun beat down through the humidity like ( Read more... )