I wish that I believed in fate, I wish I didn't sleep so late

So, its done. The whole thing, all 20,500 words plus essay, handed in to the secretary who raised her eyebrow when I had put the non-plagarism declaration on the wrong side of the title page. well, there you go. still got in.

much thanks to Howard (too fried to re-figure out link posting-- just go to www.johnheronproject.com already) for reading through my stories and making sure they weren't horrible messes of grammatical fuckup and narrative goop.

this means that while I'll still post poems here, it won't be as regular, probably. Or maybe more regular. But the Summer Writing Project is over and this will go back to being a bit more of a blog that people can read. I'll keep the livejournal (as I have) because there's many people that read it that I'd rather only deal with on there.

I was going to post a reflective on my Year In Swansea.
I decided not to. At least not right right right now. Instead, i'm posting an old poem I wrote, shortly before leaving Seattle. I expected to re-read it and not identify or think "oh, MAN things have changed" but maybe I'm not as different as I feel. Or maybe it was a moment of clarity. Anyways, it'll probably get posted elsewhere too, so don't get annoyed if you end up reading it more than once.

because it's really fucking long. It will get trimmed someday, but hasn't been touched since I got on the plane.

here you go.

I still owe gas money 9/13/07

Riding shotgun through highway nine past the chip-and-sweat
smelling garage I practically lived in the summer before I
cut my hair and all that meant,
I wonder if next time really will be the last time
we disagree on movies based on comics, if quoting you
back to you will still be funny in 17 years and a few more
pounds or if all the licorice has already gone
to our teeth
or if I’m all idle threats
and you’re all big-voiced drama
threatening a collapse when ten years later
will simply find us in a more spacious garage
cleaner clothes, better reasons for short hair

as highway nine’s forests are replaced with
gas stations, spacious estates and finally, condos

northgate way has long since been deforested
and ceased substantive change;
it wont always be northgate way
someday, it will be iced over or renamed by
a conquering nation with virus-shooting guns
but as is, in the car with my sister, past miles
of couches I’ve been sleeping on, I can’t help
but want nine years back, and a shower
--shower first

* * * *

stacking poems into “keep”
and “toss” piles in a rapidly emptying room
is a lot like picking the lint and pennies
off the carpet in preparation for vacuuming
is a lot like cleaning up your nostalgia,
filing it in boxes in storage spaces, bringing it
out again, primping for public consumption
sanding it down for maximum curves, photographing
with black and white film for the sort of
detatched, timeless
quality, is a lot like hanging those pictures up
sardonically captioned so everyone will know
you haven’t lost your edge.

my “toss” pile is immense.

* * * *
riding shotgun down I-5 has become customary
explaining the specific dynamics of today’s tired
--the long wear of a month of goodbyes, the universal
sigh of explaining the same things to everyone you meet,
the internal sturm and drang of making memories
for the sake of it—
versus yesterdays’ tired—too little sleep and
too much to do
is enough to keep me in conversation for a car ride
so much depends on the five dollar bills I
finger every time we pull up to a gas pump
whether it’s accepted or not

we are making the highways into lengths of rope
we can pull towards ourselves and bring the people with it
but you can’t drive across the atlantic.

we are making a point of having fun, of doing things we’ve
meant to, of it being normal, after all nothing’s going to change.

there’s echoes, though, of the joke
“this is probably the last time
you, me, lailey and ryan will walk down this street
holding books in our hands
on a Sunday.”


* * * *

my grandmother is downstairs on the couch
watching Dr. Phil, waiting for the painkillers to kick in

at 5:45, my father is taking her down the hill into town
for a haircut

in the mail today I received papers with information
regarding tuition, campus life, courses. the same that
they send everyone. there’s a separate, smaller paper
with tips for adjusting for overseas students

they assume I don’t speak english. probably safe.

I’m trying to decide if a thick glass of orange juice
will hold me until dinner, which percentage of
camera after disposable camera worth of pictures
I will want a couple thousand miles from here

There’s not room for the whole box, but I’ve
already thrown so much away, forced my nostalgia
back down my throat and tossed in the fire
that these decisions are inventing a new typeof tired
one only knows these things once they’ve seen
the wall they’ll be covering.

Before there, though, there are passenger seats
with people I want to see and people I don’t want to
see and the distinctions between the two are
blurring into the last month’s worth of slow bleed out
but bad shocks and jolting tires bring me back
for the handful of nights left, my eyes on the road
and the dripping down of questions I don’t have answers to
I am not leaving town; I am draining out of it

“Is there anything you want to do in Seattle before you go?”

Beneath the Cathedral

beneath the cathedral-- 200+ years old
lie the white plastic tarps,
2+ weeks old by the look of it
with gnawed, holed trainers
sticking out from under,
and she, 24 years old
wants to poke it with a stick.

There are so many buildings here
older than my country, so many ghosts.
But the scariest thing I've seen
is a girl in black lipstick
clutching my arm and pulling me--
26 years old--
through weeds-ridden cobblestones

towards a tattered white plastic tarp
that doesn't seem to be moving.

Shiny New Diner

The wood all polished, varnished,
licenses and certificates hung on bright-
white walls, only two or three handprints
on the window.

The TVs in the corner showing top 40
music videos are flatscreens now. The
servers' uniforms are cleaner, blond
hair fluffier and I can even imagine
them smiling.

Morning eaters walk through, starved
looks on gaunt faces while I sip orange
juice and check the clock; all polished
wood, roman numerals and accuracy.

25 minutes and I've still not received
my eggs on toast.
________________________________________________________
project update: now the question is-- is it easier to fix a 5,000 word story with lots going on, or to generate roughly 3,000 newer, better words?
I'm leaning towards the latter.

Claustrophobia (flash fiction)

Every morning was a race for Harold. As soon as his alarm went off the walls started closing in; the white plaster walls, the photograph of him and his mother at the Uni Graduation Ceremony. That seemed so long ago, now, he thought as it edged towards him steadily, while to his back the window and photograph he’d taken of ducks on a pond pushed his bed forward. On slow days he had to jump out the window to avoid being crushed between his bed and the wall. His bed was battered and bruised; the frame long ago splintered to bits and the mattress could bend in ways his bones could not. Every day he grabbed a tie and trousers from the floor beside his mattress and rushed to the door. Every night the room was back to its original size. He’d tried to sue his landlord for breach of contract but the claims adjuster told Harold that was clearly ridiculous.
So Harold had no choice but to save up for a better place. He was doing alright, working in a call center, but the hours were long and some mornings he barely made it out of the window, rolling in his pyjamas on to the garden before the room was pinched tight. One day he sprained his ankle jumping out and spent the next week crashing at his friend’s place until his foot recovered. No one believed him, but they humoured him because they liked his mustache. He got a promotion at his job and went out to celebrate, drinking shot after shot of gin. When he got home he was so drunk he forgot to set his alarm and was crushed to death the very next morning.

Its What We Writers Do

For Jen, on her return to the United States

I suspect I will spend
life watching my favourite people
get on planes
then writing about it.

We all have our themes.
It’s what we writers do.

When you go, you take a piece of Swansea with you.
Ridiculous?
Sure. You aren’t from here either.
But I see people as signifiers, metaphors;
chapters in a book I’ll write later.

Who else will remember the drunk old man
in the corner of Uplands Tav shouting about how
we were too young to know anything
and the volumes of eachothers poetry we
sliced up and re-sected ‘til they were done?

This won’t become a list of inside jokes
because that would be too easy, my
crooked grin at the look on your face as you
tell me I’m busted.

When you go I will write something;
its what we writers do.
And, after all,
there are airplanes involved
and I’ve gotta stick to my
themes.

When you go,
I’ll buy you a drink you don’t want,
Make a few jokes too many,
They’ll be pretty tasteless
And you’ll tell me
I’m busted.

boots and jacket (i.m. Jimmy Henry)

Brown-red floors and piles of clothes
to either side, the 1990 Michael Bolton X-large T-shirt
framed.
Not for sale.
Beside the velvet embroidered Elvis and Jesus tapestries
The racks of jackets and button downs and ties and
Forties-era suit-coats he kept trying to get 19 year olds
To buy
“yeah, you don’t want anyofthisnewfangled hipster
Bullshit Madison avenue crap getsomethinwithclasss”

After he left town—some said England
Some San Francisco, some New York
And some said he never really left at all
just found an alley doorway and never came out-
The space was turned to a hiking and recreation
Supply store with tasteful cartoons of mountains
On its rounded side.

One time while I was looking for old t-shirts
Or something or other, Jimmy looked around quick
And said “yeah, you’reagoodboy. Watch the store while
I go get a sandwich.”
That day I found a pair of boots for twelve dollars
A couple of cowboy shirts and a dusty green jacket.

Best damn shirt, boots and jacket I ever bought.

Tarts and Vicars

a fine day for a de-frocking
the whole town agrees, reporters
got their notepads,
it’s bound to happen soon.
line up the priests line up style
karma for Salem, karma for Sunday School
you in those fishnets, me with my
first button undone all of us
ready to make a big show of it
throwing darts at the scapegoat dartboard,
excommunication by raffle ticket. a parade
of naughty nuns breathing fire into
judges’ ears, a two for one deal
at the county hanging.
priests
and smokers
will be shot in the back in the new world
order, the only two things left that are
bad for you.
we cheer. laugh. dance. get woozy
and gropey, enough of us coming to
call it an orgy and you ask if I’ll take you
in your slit dress
right there on the altar and I’m thinking
that might still be a little bit far, drunk off
the wine from the ceremonial chalice
we go home, fuck
and piss blood