shame is the shadow of love

This morning I received the following email from Andrew, jetlagged, somewhere in the British countryside:

New car spells silence
commute becomes easy now
haiku dies, friends weep.

in which I'm mistaken for a lifeguard

A and I were riding our bikes to a party in West Oakland. Close to midnight, we careened toward the lawn crowded with beer cans and people dressed in black and dirt. In that context we must have looked like a snake-hipped Flossie and Freddie, both in our favorite red hoodies, our blond heads cutting down the middle of the street like headlights. A tall, gloriously drunk guy with old school metal hair stood alone in the middle of the lawn, a drink in each hand. As we cruised up to the house, he raised both beer cups to the sky and called out to us:

"Baywatch! Save me! I'm drowning!"

June 4 pm

What cherub babies
I'd lick like tiger cubs. If
you weren't arrested.
-for AT

June 2 am

Still life shadow holds
wolverine, aprium, thorn--
held shadow lives still.


June 2 pm

Piano concert in
a closet. When Frank Zappa
died, you took to bed.
-for MH

near miss, Peppermill

May 29 am

Central Park Whole Foods,
your face still tired. At Milton
your eyes sagged like plums.
-for PS


May 29 pm

Animatronic
hot tub mascots, mirrored walls,
a year for snake eyes.

happy birthday

I'm a dilettante. I start things and don't finish them. The only thing I have a consistent, high-level of interest in is my cats.

Easily enough put off course that the fact of running out of paper in my Festiva notepad left us haiku-less for a month. I also returned from the Grand Canyon with a blissful, relative quiet in my mind where all those syllables had been lurking. That's pretty much gone now.


May 28 am

Rattlesnaked dizzy,
forehead to the cool floor, wound
held below the heart.


May 28 pm

A melt of vodka
tears, I'm wrung out on your old
cure: a cool Thai heart.
-for KF


Kiki, happy early birthday.
You always took care of me.
I love you.

May 1 am

Adored with a cool
offering of wrists, I wept
into bandages.
-for ST


May 1 pm

Unearthed by sleep,
slim slate mannequin, forgotten
books, artifacted.

Coachella '08

You can't make this stuff up.


April 30 am

Pool bus capsized on
drowned piñata. "This dive is
called 'Call 911.'"




April 30 pm

3 am hangar.
Malt liquor half-mustache bar
kept. Car on the moon.

break from form, chair out the window

April 23 am

All July I baked
perfect loaves, bold gifts stood in
when I could not eat.
-for MH


April 23 pm

On the way home, I was thinking of this lovely moment that I was trying to syllabize into a haiku for my entire drive, and I just couldn't make it work. It was perfect exactly as it was:

The night T and I met, we were in his apartment above Bush Street, it was very late, I guess we were looking at one of his chairs. "I hate that chair," he said.

"Let's get rid of it," I said. "I'm going to throw it out the window right now."

His face lit up like a beautiful child: "Do it!," he said. "so I can always remember you as the girl who threw my chair out the window."

April 21 am

Evening sidewalk cracks.
Soft-eyed, you told me you dreamed
I'd turned into rice.
-for JC

April 21 pm

Tiger, that silk purr
betrayed you. Untie your howl,
free your roar in fire.

haiku ennui

leads to haiku hiatus.

April 14 am

Juniper campground
winged Corvettes peacock eastward,
vultures drift in wait.


April 14 pm

Either it's the wind,
or my car is about to
fucking explode. Fuck.

summer in SF and in Providence

April 10 am

Sangria sundown--
next day we'd lost your truck, roamed
Mission streets, howling.
-for LP


April 10 pm

Thin as June crickets,
Jack and me, asleep out back
with the bicycles.

April 9 am

Minor trail burrowed,
ghosts unleash to the backseat,
slimmest sadhana.


April 9 pm

Norse runes ring my mom's
gift--"to ward off evil." Not
all years are good ones.

further archive recovery!

June 12, 2006 am

An egg from your mouth.
Swallow wings trilled in my chest
and a snake crawled out.
-for TI


June 12, 2006 pm

Wait in the closet.
Reread your maps. Trace hard lines
on sheet twisted legs.

April 7 am

Four car pile-up. Seals
sleep below, not sirens, not
at all. Stop. Go. Stop.


April 7 pm

Guts sea-bottom sunk.
Eyes full of rogue waves. Lightless,
viewless chrysalis.

enough already

April 3 am

Car still creaks, dishes
stayed dirty.Once plucked my harp
dealt lonely echoes.


April 3 pm

Guts to the sun, field
mouse raced to fate's ditch. A small
life at last unnamed.

April 2 am

Soft octopus arm
threads the steel sea, my red raft
seldom unraveled.


April 2 pm

Buttons eye the moon.
My shirts window-spy you, their
chest a flayed suitcase.

special goal for the week edition

Goal: No tow trucks.

March 27 am

Bloom's words of wisdom:
"Headaches are temporary,
hair is forever."
-for RB


March 27 pm

The governor's house
thicketed in mist, our quilt
knots with wet June fawns.
-for JK

don't brush and drive

I can do lots of things while driving my manual transmission, no-power-steering Festiva at 75mph, including but not limited to:

-making and receiving phone calls (limited due to prohibitively loud ambient noise);
-sending and receiving text messages;
-writing haiku;
-drinking green vita-drink out of my Klean Kanteen.

But don't we have to draw a line somewhere? In the past week, I've seen two people brushing their teeth while driving on the freeway.

March 26 am

You toothsome Tony!
Dislodged parsley shift. Blind me
with your gleaming gums.


March 26 pm

Two of me would make
three! "Corduroy (nylon); pay
(don't pay). Talk (don't talk)."

Mar. 24 am

Bruised ribs scaffold my
sternum-nested slip of a
finch. Feathers all rest.


Mar. 24 pm

Musky caps, wires, drum
kits blue walled-in. My own guest
defenestrates me.

June 1, 2006

Meadow grass leans long
eastward. I left the sun in
the road behind me.

best line overheard at the anti-war march on Wednesday:

"If we get separated, I'll meet you by the Palestinians."

March 20 am

Jazz-seized neck, hands full
of flour. Your knotted spine
my lone untying.
-for MH


March 20 pm

Leaping ankles belled,
like a rare sweet I'm driven
to your night kitchen.
-MH

still life with surfboard and Poppy

Mar. 17 am

Salt rapt neoprene
skinned, I emerge seal-faced, all
eyes, humming with light.


Mar. 17 pm

Twelve years chopsticked: my
organs swapped soft spots, your arc
of stars trilled henna.
-for PB

Jose and the Big O

We have no haiku from yesterday because there was no commute yesterday.

There was, instead, a tow by the golden-toothed Jose, who reassured me that Dusty and I would be just fine, and took me to "this guy he knows" who charged me $5 cash (you are reading that right--$5) to fix my wheel up enough to get me home, and later on, to W Macarthur's Big O Tires, and, it's official: I love those guys. Everyone I dealt with after yesterday morning's freeway fiasco was so thoroughly pleasant--I can't even shed a tear for my shredded tire. I'm going to spend more time hanging out with mechanics.

I did unearth more haiku from the 2006 archives, buried beneath a small stack of maps in the front seat:

June 29, 2006

Siren's Flash, shock of
white hair, licks salt from fish scales,
legs, teeth, neck whispers.
-for Flash

Mar. 12 am

Pterodactyl hawks
in your false news. Wait while I
gunpowder my face.


Mar. 12 pm

Smiling, traffic thick
cars merge, then turn on you like
your lover's sisters.

before Leslie

Forgot about these. Two days pre-Leslie-era. Unimportant.

Mar. 6 am

Unshuffled justice
brightly suited. The last drawn
card calls her answers.


Mar. 6 pm

You and ten thousand
chicks in the dark, sightless. "What
can they think?" we pray.
-for ST

I begin living the LY's

Like alien abductees with visceral yet hazy memories, I'm not entirely sure what happened to me on Saturday night. All I can tell you is that because of this woman, my life may now be divided into pre- and post- Leslie eras.

Mar. 10 am

Keeper of the gems,
reveal the golden fruits of
your lady buffet.

Mar. 10 pm

Zombie assassin,
lioness of lamé, feast
her eyes on french fries.

people, there are household items all over the freeway!

Dang. It's messy out there.

Mar. 5 am

Freeway garbage dump.
Paper towels scatter like
moth wings. Flightless light.


Mar. 5 pm

Puffy chair mushrooms
white in tree shade. A fey boy
lazing for a hitch.

May 31, 2006

Shadow boys in cracked
armor. Teeth, skin, fawn-hearts, wings.
We call you at dawn.

Mar. 3 am

Palm fronds dust concrete.
Riots of pollen dust up.
Through traffic merge left.


Mar. 3 pm

Daffodil rascals
unspring me to Jesus. A
harp in the gut, strummed.

rats rule

June 8, 2006

Rearview East Bay Rat,
slice lanes like a swift switchblade.
Take me with you, man.

Feb. 28 am

Driftwood seals castle
crags beneath the bridge in peace,
no call to siren.


Feb. 28 pm

Anteloping in
rush boom down the mad green lea,
thrash kites from the sky.

actual, not metaphorical, knife selling

Feb. 27 am

You selling knives, swathed
in heat, we claimed our Chevy
Malibu July.
-for DM


Feb. 27 pm

Pride's opponent folds
us in grace. Over curry
we kneel unmannered.
-for Erika

Feb. 25 am

Soon I'll shed this red
carapace. A minor star
(Festiva), burned out.


Feb. 25 pm

Story lifts like mist,
a straitjacket unwefted.
Empty sky reclaims.

it was the Day of the Beast, but nothing malevolent happened

Dang, I was very prolific that June. I think there was a lot of construction, and my commute was taking even longer than it does now.

June 6, 2006

I hide the maps and
apples. My pale horse hums in
the garage, waking.


June 6, 2002

Star heart, moon aloft.
You crawled back inside my chest.
The end of sadness.
-for TI

my bowl of chili's in the house

The rain was very distracting on my commute yesterday--there was just so much to look at in the sky: the clouds, the breaks in the clouds, the walls of fog. Am I getting simple?

Feb. 21 am

Witchcrafted in half
I'm voodooed in the driver's
seat. Who guards the doll?


Feb. 21 pm

Sweet unsteamed kettle
shrieks ascoted manners and
puppets to heaven.


But the primary source of my distraction is the arrival of the ever-elusive gata. In honor of this all-too-rare event, one from the archives:

June 7, 2006

Pie-makers, weep not:
Bake trophies of peaches; feed
your judges honey.
-for the gata

slo weekend

Feb. 20 am

Amidst shook buildings
a spring now wells where the earth
dived low in heartbeat.


Feb. 20 pm

Marble sung to the
stillest feather. To hear her
I would petrify.

order

My archives are a hot mess. I need to get these organized.

May 31, 2006

Talk about your mom,
your God, your keen remedies.
Close my eyes, spine-tied.
-for MC


June 14, 2006

Uncork the tonics.
Spider swooning on her web.
Binds stilled arms in thread.
-for MC

tagged

Dubin tells me I've been "tagged." I'm not sure what this means; as far I can tell, it's some kind of blog pyramid scheme. While I'm figuring out what the hell I'm supposed to do to avoid 10,000 years of bad luck because I haven't forward a message about angels and kittens to 10 friends in 10 minutes, here is one from the archives.

June 6, 2006

Vines boomed up. Tiger
drowned roarless in the sea. Teeth
clacked. Vulture sang back.

road trips

Feb. 14 am

Pack with care. Leave room
for wine, crickets, appetites
cracking with new sap.


Feb. 14 pm

Fish-eyed, sidewinder
tanned, Handyman Fred drives that
van bright with sermons.
-for Handyman Fred

Feb. 13 am

Stars quick-cometized,
deconstellated. Sky ripped
cumulonimbus.


Feb. 13 pm

How animals know
sadness--soft skin folds that bear
their supplications.

every morning I drive by the world's dreamiest billboard

Feb. 12 am

Oakland dawn's twin sun.
Anderson Cooper's billboard
rises angelic.


Feb. 12 pm

Judges robes shrug off
verdicts. They are only cranes
of paper, nesting.

Feb. 11 pm

Eyes limned, bravado
anchored in--a purring kit
tied up to a brick.

Land's End

Feb. 11 am

What lousy mercies.
We feed our angry sharks from
Land's End, unshipwrecked.

Feb. 7 am

Christina laughs at
my car's horn. "But it works!" You
always know it's me.


Feb. 7 pm

Seraphim blink. My
eyes lift off like kites. The cows
wheelbarrow me home.


And because Dusty gets a rest on Friday, and because my beautiful godson told me on the phone yesterday, "I love you Aunt Lisa," one from the archives:

May 31, 2006

Reading palms, ouijas,
your mother and I, age ten,
sought you in ether.
-for Luca

plus ça change...

Feb. 5 am

From my tragic Green
Party ballot Nader leers.
So we meet again.


Feb. 5 pm

Tennessee eyelids
droop humidly in lilac--
cricketed doorways.
-for JK


And one more from the archives, since today I did things like sleep and generate compassionate thoughts toward my fellow man rather than drive to work and back:

June 7, 2006

Hide the camera, leave
the house at dawn. We'll bury
knives in the garden.
-for ST

asleep or otherwise in deep shit behind the wheel

Feb. 4 am
(actual gnarly motorcycle crash on Van Ness)

His downed bike lion-
claims the road. His glass halo-ed
limbs held in gray veldt.


Feb. 4 pm

Arm gripped, eyes point-fixed,
I drove fifty thousand miles!
Unclutch, rest now, lamb.

from the archives: life is very short and strange

Because of its mostly half-assed nature, you might get the impression that the haiku commute project is primarily a product of ennui, and you'd be right. But this hasn't always been the case.

It was right around the one year anniversary of the sudden death of G that I began the project. The skies along the 101 corridor through Marin and Sonoma that time of year were clear and vast. Her death was, again, very much on my mind, during the day and also in my dreams. Many of my first generation haiku were dedicated to someone. These are for her in memory.

June 1, 2006

Me with shattered wings
and you--his first Icarus--
a clipped jay, lifted.


June 14, 2006

Maple seed spins from
the sky. Sister, I fed him
salt the day you died.

hydroplaning

Jan. 31 pm

The car watersnaked,
wheels spinning. Unbound, lightened.
Six seconds, set free.

you had to be there

Jan. 31 am

Near escape from toe-
twanker. Poolside Res-Q. "Do
you like cream soda?"

Jan. 28 - Jan. 30

Jan. 28 am

Buckled stone names bones.
This ground is older than war.
River slips. Attends.


Jan. 28 pm

Polish your line--when
choked, I laughed rubies. I hold
broke teeth in my mouth.


Jan. 29 am

Listen, wait, take shape.
Luna moth stirs on your tongue.
Soon you speak your wings.


Jan. 29 pm

Rock-caught starfish holds
your gaze, flexes in brine. To
know only this--what bliss.


Jan. 30 am

I dreamed of such thirst,
a white horse at the well. No
water could quench it.


Jan. 30 pm

From his deep chair I'm
unspooled. "You're a tearful bird,"
origami thinned.

The revival of the haiku commute project

A 16 hour flight from Paris to San Francisco, featuring the crack double bill of Rush Hour 3 and The Jane Austen Book Club, has prompted me to revive the Haiku Commute Project. Even if you don't remember it, you might have stepped on it in its first incarnation, which took the form of a molting notepad wedged above the gear shift in my Ford Festiva.

I was regularly writing one haiku each way to-and-from work during the spring and summer of 2006. Despite the reckless disregard for human life entailed--necessitated--in simultaneously writing a three-line poem and driving at 70mph a manual transmission car with no power steering, this is not yet illegal in the state of California. In a more controlled setting, I wrote two on the flight from Charles de Gaulle.

William took me on a freaking five mile run my second night in Paris.

Glitter limbed tower
arcing above. We run 'til
our lungs pound with light.

Later we went to the Marais.

Snap-boned, flash photo-ed,
we gulp absinthe like grief. Then
dragonfly nightward.