27/30: Constant Closet Concerns

The weather's playing tricks again

fashion dismay in the brick courtyard.

Falafel tragedies on sidewalks, too fast

in heels up first avenue, power lunches

on the cheap. Sweat your make up off,

loosen your silk tie. The lies this morning's

haze told, you should know better by

now, just have the wardrobe follow you,

like a puppy or a goat, there for when

you need to reach back and grab a blazer.

It's already almost May is both

the reason this rain has you aghast

and why it shouldn't be so hot yet.

A light jacket, fashionable top,

open toed shoes; all shows of optimism

or defiance.

When I'm not working, I'm working: Three New Roughs.

these are all recent musings I may work with more in the future. The second is from a prompt by Lindsey Walker, the third from a prompt by Ryan Johnson.

daily mundane #425

in a bleachstained black shirt
i work in due to unseasonable
february sun, the snapdown impractical.

bills go out, bills come in.
the smiles and swinging arms
down fourth avenue come
earlier every year, turn
to dust. I should buy

new clothes for work for money
to buy new clothes to work in so I can
get money that I use to pay for clothes
that are appropriate for--

you get the picture. the barista
dances to the Beatles in his
fedora and somehow I am not
annoyed.

_____________________

Transiberian Express

(the prompt was to write about a place I'd never been) 

Frozen in place and loaded onto a train
leaving from the last city at the edge of the
world, a whole greyscale cliffscape of others

frozen in place, and you begin the thaw.
The next nine days, split between the soup

and the shiver, the ice crawls up your
legs at the moment of sleep, the snow
rushing past years of punishment-wilderness,
a place whose name itself evoked terror,

starvation, disappearance. By the time you
get to Moscow, you'e frozen and thawed
and frozen again, a lifetime of gruel in
your veins. Step out into the first city
at the edge of two worlds and hold cap
but don't lose it. You'll need it. You'll need it.

_____________________________

Trump Plaza

At the end of Napoleon, there was a drawn out sigh. This much I know from genghis khan international airport. The longer it goes, atrocities are forgotten, only glory remains. I'm eating an eclair. Watching one building fall to be danced on by another. The glass warbles and so many coiffed handbags. Despite my classy pastry, I am especially ugly today, as Stalin must have looked to those he was sentencing. I have done all my sentencing already, just waiting for the execution. Frosting gets on my cheek.

Do buildings fantasize about power? The power wielded in them? Stay up late thinking about orders given? Of course not, don't be silly. They just wish they were fields or vineyards. The crowd becomes too much. I leave, the frosting on my cheek.

The necessity of new satchels.

A day of meetings/meet-ups. This is more of a consistency post than anything, blog maintenance being not the strongest of my suits.

Got dressed when it was foggy out, and now I'm overlayered for late-September sun. The fall that never fully settles, just hits harder when it does. It's been sunny out long enough that a nice misting of rain is a comfort, like not being covered in a thin film of sweat once you step behind the bar. Thanks, five blocks from bus to workplace.

Upsides: writing this on new/old laptop. Suddenly, so many projects feel so much more possible, though I may grow to miss the time-crunch that library-internet provided.

Treatise/Treaties (rough)

A treatise on spiced
pork shoulder, the correct
way for a sandwich to
fall apart:

in your hands, before biting.
dripping down Denny, spreading
lettuce with my gait, I am in
no hurry to get anywhere:

I am in a hurry to get 
everywhere. 

Half recollected bounce back
of a Ludacris song. Wind chimes
in the city like phone
dings. A future child
mocks the tortured novelty
of ringtones:

Why would you- how could you-
possibly think that was
cool?

Down the hill and up again,
ten dollar street food, plastic
fork. Ten miles between trash
cans.

Clouds and heat disagree,
there is no truce in the weather,
there is no energy in this protein
there is no welcoming handshake
at my destination:

dirge, dirge, dirge.

Lets talk about Snow some more!

When I walk outside into the snow, it's cool and all, and I'm glad I'm wearing boots, but whenever the weather does something here, its all I get to hear about from anyone.

A brief intermittence/additions to annoyance.

As everyone complains about a lack of Seattle summer (hello, all my life, how are you today?) I find myself wishing the sun was out, simply for new conversation topics. In the same way, I'll be glad for November 10th(or so) until re/inaguration, and until then will probably block all photos, because the political photo memes are. . . well, read the three words again.

Just in Cases (12/30)

the early birds
have hit it hard
at what-the-fuck AM,
internal clocks alarming
all over my already-barely sleep.

the last cold snap hit me
in a thin coat
with finger-sized hail
as I walked a ridge
half-mile away from
shelter, my only thought
was "OF COURSE."

the first bright stretch
of more than a day
had me on one of a series
of criminally underutilized porches
in my life, making and unmaking
decisions, making plans but
signing no contracts,
a thick coat in my backpack.

at least we see eagles, like, every day

The great thing about working Lights Of Christmas is that when you're up on a ladder or unraveling strand after strand of multi-colored LED's for ground display you have plenty of time to ponder the future, near and far, relive memories and basically just think about life.

The horrifying thing about working Lights Of Christmas is that when you're up on a ladder or unraveling strand after strand of multi-colored LED's for ground display you have plenty of time to . . .

there was a wind-storm friday night that knocked over the Sunset Scene, a new display in which blinking LEDs fade in, out, create a sunset effect. It actually looks pretty cool. When it isn't spread all over the ground because its black backdrop could, in Dad's words " . . . effectively be used to carry four hundred-plus pound boats accross the ocean."

This is the first job I've worked where the weather mattered so much to actually doing it since I drove the truck to San Francisco.

_ * _ * _ * _ * _ * _

good weekend in Seattle. I almost laundry-listed a post about what occurred but decided to write about christmas lights instead.

Beck House Block D 3

1.
Saturday morning. In lieu of television, there's youtube and you can be however old you want. Today I am five, watching Masters of the Universe. My parents were never too thrilled on that one, with it's near-overt occult references and (retrospectively) inappropriately sexy characters. I do not change out of pajamas for this.

"Now it's time to unleash my army of demons!"

2.
The kitchen. Where we gather by accident, linger over tea and biscuits. Paula's stay here nears completion. She is always in her pajamas when not in her nurses uniform, always hacked about the mingin' weather. She might go back to her boyfriend in Scotland or she might move to Carlisle. It's the beginning of attrition. The slow emptying of the hall that happens over holidays, but for good.

I'll be here all summer.

3.
I share my balcony with a man I never see. Save for when he smokes and nods through the open curtains. The view we maintain is one of tilting rooftops trailing towards the atlantic, a few leafless trees rustling and the same crane that's been there since september, hovering over perpetual construction.

I wonder if he knows I'm watching cartoons.

4.
Basim and Dupet are arguing about God. Or he is trying to wind her up, finding great success. "I was born. . . in Bethelehem. I am. . . the new Jesus." She challenges his Muslim heritage. "Basim-- Islam is a religion of peace and love, no?" He shrugs and nods. "So is Christianity." They recite the FATYA in arabic together. I am washing my tea-mug in hot soapy water. Dupet asks if I'll be going home when I'm done, what with how "bad things are in the states." I hope not. Not yet. The rooms here are small but I have not yet filled mine with things, the weather is bad but it's bad back home and here at least

there is always He-Man and his magic sword, here to vanquish the forces of Skeletor.