Mrs. Dalloway 11:45-12:00 P.M.

For the truth is ... that human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment. they hunt in packs. Their packs scour the desert and vanish screaming into the wilderness. they desert the fallen. They are plastered with grimaces.

-V. Woolf

And You See How An Animal Dies

dug into the soil of gold and silt, broke the nails she could never have. work and coffee. no work,
no work. no coffee.

his map, inaccurate, his compass, misguided. pyrite and buffalo chips. buffalo shit. the bald
white men drive carts, the buffalo roam, and the women, the women, the women take their
hats off at the shore. ducks are on every menu. candles and napkins included, free of charge.

his map, scrunched, wet, buried somewhere in san diego. misguiding again. misguiding again.
she's just a friend, she's somebody's boyfriend. she's somebody's best friend, she's somebody's.
somebody's, somebody's. she's somebody's somebody's. her corset never fit, he never saw it on her.

honor your guise, guys move in on movies, like zombies to a flame: they'll never feel the blue,
the darkest hurt, blue like a lighter, blue like the crossed father's daughter at four in the morning.

honor your guise, wise or holy, he than thou, she said, she said, said she, she said, holier than thou
she said, shed, she did, she did shed, so many shedding. chameleons and rings, babies and things
that honor their hearts, like limousines and how the liars depart. same as the next, honor the guise, no, the heart. liar by earlobe listening, earlobe piercing, unwise, he said trusting, never lies lies. honorable guise.

half of one: dinner and a fiery lamp, no magic yet.
one: skee ball and a mouse, dinner and a movie, carnations carnations.
two: buried treasure, a death cab and sea foam riding her outfit, a guise.
three: colors, colors, colors in air. colors, colors, colors in air. touching -Japanese showing.
four: buffalo roaming. hiking rain, flowing shore of wealthy duckling. cold, cold outing.
five: missing mostly. crafting his history, her story, laughing, a movie. touching, touching.

-and when there are dreams collapsing like a lung
breathing on a single side of your body, struggling
to swim to the top. ghostly avenues. ghostly lovers
loving in curtain lighting, the house was small. her
breasts were round, his chest inhaled, his chest in-
hailed like clumps of ice. cold were his shoulders.
he found a way to warm them, but she had been
buried in the weather of it all. the weather of it all.

Music to My Ears

Grazia, severo, moderazione, fis,
ebollimento, l'istesso, subito, su,
rigoroso, riposo, nervoso, dis,
cadenza, caloroso, mestamente,
loure.

Clay

I am clay.
Hard clay.
I am
leaning
clay.
I am clay,
leaning
away.
You dug
a whole.
I am clay.
I am

unfilled,

hard, leaning

clay.

You're a Boomerang, You'll See

I woke up, looked out our roomwide windows and saw a white fog rolling down Berkeley Hills. I opened the door to my Arctic kitchen and poured a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oates. When I returned to the room it began to rain outside. Berton had canceled our jog. I figured. Rain muddies trails in the hills. I turned on my computer, grabbed my note pad and wrote down some ideas for an upcoming essay. I'm torn between Joyce and Eliot. I told myself that I'd probably write about how both discuss the concept of a separate "universe," one that doesn't belong to their characters in their poems and tales. Shan turned on the Cleveland v. Orlando basketball game and I watched some before making lunch. After eating I grabbed my bag and caught a bus to ZeeZee Copy. There's an upcoming Roll 'n Shoot tournament that I have to make copies for. I walked over to Tully's coffee and spoke with Mark, the manager and he promised that Tully's would donate free coffee coupons to the event. I'll visit Cafe Milano tomorrow. Free Speech Cafe let me post a flier for the event on their poster board. I called my Mother, read David Sedaris' "Man Walks into Bar Car," then left. It rained the entire time I was out, but it wasn't bad. Berkeley rain generally crashes down on people, collapsing on your shoulders like water balloons, but today the rain was more like a heavy mist.
Before I left Free Speech Cafe, I looked out over the glade next to the Valley Life Sciences Building on Berkeley's campus. The air was white and damp. I could have close my eyes and thought that it was snowing.
You won't leave my mind no matter how hard I try to push you out.
I returned home and began rereading my personal essay for my Creative Writing, Racism Course. I'm writing about the topic of race in the family. I'm reminded of Michigan, 2006. What now seems like ages ago.
Ramen and a chicken sandwich for dinner. Chai at this very moment. I think I'll begin my Sonnet that's due Thursday.

Make War

Our love is dead but without limit,
like the surface of the moon,
or the land between here and the mountains.
Well it is not these hiding places that have kept us innocent,
but the way you taught me to just let it all go by.

And so we've learned to be as faithless,
stand behind bulletproof glass,
exchanging our affections through a drawer.
And it was always horribly convenient,
and happening too fast.
You should count your change before you're even out the door.

Well yes, you should,
but please...

Return, return to the person that you were.
And I will do the same,
Cause it's too hard to belong to someone who is gone.
My compass spins,
The wilderness remains.

But once too often, I've retreated into the depths of my despair.
I built a barricade to block you on the road.
But standing there with all of my possessions
piled higher than a house,
I felt closer to you than you ever would have known.

So let each tiny acts of charity
be common ground on which to build
a monument to commemorate our times. And though you say you've found another
who will surely speed you on your way.
Don't let the forest grow over that path you came there by.
But you will, so...

So hurry up and run to the one that you love.
And blind him with your kindness.
And he'll make war, oh war,
On who you were before.
And he'll claim all that has spoiled in your heart.

Now I tell myself I've mended under these patches of blue sky.
There's still a few holes that let in a little rain.
And so it's crying on my shingles.
My floorboards moan under my feet.
The refrigerator's whining,
so I've got reason to complain.

But I am not gonna bless you with such compliments,
some degrading psalm of praise,
like the kind that converted you to me so long ago.
Because the truth is that gossip is as good as gospel in this town.
You can save face but you won't ever save your soul.
And that's a fact.

So hurry up and run,
to the one that you love.
And tie him up in your likeness,
and he'll become, become,
oh, the prisoner I was.
And know all that has spoiled your heart.

He'll know all that has spoiled in your heart.

So hurry up and run,
to the one that you love,
and blind him with your kindness,
and he'll make war, oh war,
on who you were before,
and claim all that has spoiled in your heart.
Yeah, he'll claim all that has spoiled in your heart.

-Conor Oberst

Overbaked Ovenbaker

Ode to pale tongues and the two sliding
across from one another accomplish. You're
a dish only warm by
now, and you're not
relished, nor do you comply,
nor do you aspire unknowingly. I can
only look at the cold plate for so long before I send it back and forget
about it's indistinct smell: soapy
bubble pear and shampoo. Food,
food, food is all
you are and do. The oven alarm's bound to whistle,
and when it does, maybe then the lemon
cake baked in forgiveness won't taste like bitter
lemon, but like the sourness of spoiled cherries.

Content with suspicion rather
than your childish vernacular poisons
the well of wishful thinking; only that rock
container never held enough
fluid to know
it was holding anything worth lost dimes
and nickels,
flipped from faithfully fattened
thumbs. Forgiveness overflows bountifully
out of other wells like water from a geyser, when
yours is dryer than dry,
wider than wide,
and dyed in prior thoughts
like friends letting friends
stumble into a car drunk.
A kiss is a kiss is a kiss is a kiss is a kiss is a kiss
and yes, oh yes, hiss like
the scent of rusty
lusting ruse. Meanwhile I'll look
under a matured yew to find
ingredients. I'm sure
there's a recipe in the bark
wood. The core,
surprisingly damp inside.
I look around anxiously
when I know better. And I know I know better
than this: "it needs more time."