Feast of Fools

We climbed to the roof

of the car and road.
The night filled the night -
the car became our whale
the road, the Atlantic
we wanted to cross it forever.

When the whale sped up we
held each other only as long
as we could. We held on to
each other until you whispered
“this is killing me.”

Do you remember when
the whale dipped under
the waves, we hung in the air
flying. That’s when
I lost you. You went up and
up until you filled the night
while I watched the beast

blacken and shrink,
a speck, then nothing.

I almost missed my doctor's appointment because I was up until four a.m. riding on the top of a friend's minivan. Minor streaking also occurred. We are bored insomniacs here.

Last night, went again to Milly's and saw my friend's band play. Here's a picture of Dan rocking out on guitar and displaying his mad vocal talent. I also saw some sort-of acquaintances from high school and got in to a conversation about religion with a Protestant and a Catholic (and me, who is supposedly Jewish) and we decided it was pretty sweet how in the U.S. we can all get drunk in a bar together - probably because religion is not our defining characteristic. We also seemed to agree that the best place for a temple is in our heads, so that there is no arguing about who owns the holy places.

Plans:

I think my plans are to go to New Jersey on Wednesday and hang out with Dave. Then we'll both head to Syracuse and fill up the apartment as much as possible. I'm interested to meet Dave's dad. I have a feeling, from what he says about him, I'll get made fun of a lot.

I also found out when I go to D.C to work at NSLC I'm assigned to teach SPORTS Journalism, which is pretty much the worst decision EVER on my boss' part seeing as I know nothing about sports. I guess I'll have to start reading Sports Illustrated and watching ESPN. Gross.

Today, in between my two doctor appointments I drove around Manchester and played with my new camera: some vendors getting set up for the Memorial Day Sky show, the house where I grew up (current owners totally cut down the plants and painted the house the color ugly), the Merrimack River, and downtown near City Hall.

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Poets:

I like watching poets age. It's like reading their poetry - thoughtful and swollen with other people's minds. I like seeing old photos of them, the ones they keep not actually hidden, in soft stacks on their office desks next to copies of their books. I can look at them and say "huh" matter-of-factly. This is where their families live, the ex- poet boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands, wives, ultrasounds, psychoses, houses, homes. I like how they are specimens - like their work - trying to be some thing or another and angered by their own selves. I like their neverdoness, their workinprogressness. Sometimes a poet looks older around the eyes. An extra wrinkle, a cold sore: foreshadowing. Her hair is died red: fugue. One, all of a sudden stops wearing black. Is this some sort of irony? Another loses the stilettos and laces up her orthopedic shoes. The poets I meet deny their obsessions with the past. They think I don't see. One notices that the sixty-five year-old poet's new book boasts the head shot of a strapping 30 year old stranger. I begin to wonder, how truthful is this world? I look to my poet friend - those, I say, are some wonderful wrinkles, lyrical, ambiguous, like larks and moonlight. I like watching those words appear from that thing of a body. I like watching poetry age.

Older poem:

13 + One Ways of Looking at a Cigarette

I

When the cigarette burned low,

The black came in again.

That was all.

II

If you smoke Cigarettes,

you'll die. Society's first deadly

sin. it's second? war?

III

There is nothing to shade

the workers from midday heat

as they gather tobacco leaves.

They have no money with which

they might purchase cigarettes.

IV

The woman and her art

Are one.

The woman and her art and a cigarette

Are one.

V

she knows which to prefer,

the silence of the cigarette break

to the slow walk back to work.

VI

Modern romance is a cigarette butt

wading at the seabed of a toilet bowl.

Modern romance is a beggar's slow

guitar sound, and his hollow upturned hat.

VII

There are many potential battles,

of which one is cigarettes.

I realize, I must choose some,

let others be allies of fight.

VIII

On a frigid February morning,

I suck a cigarette and

watch the plowman clear a sidewalk

in slow Moving vehicle. 1 mile per hour.

My first thought: thank you.

Second thought: poor guy.

IX

What came first?

The cigarette or the conversation.

Nice to meet you.

X

At the sight of cigarettes

pressed between Marilyn's lips,

even the greatest adversary

would exhale quickly.

XI

A harsh wind must be blowing.

The flame resists the cigarette.

XII

He rode over New Orleans

in a paper plane.

Once, a fear crossed him,

In that he mistook

a cry for help

for cigarette smoke.

XIII

At twilight,

a light snow falls

from the heavens,

the cosmos,

earthly sphere, or…

Cigarette smoke snakes up to

whichever you prefer.

+ I

The shadow of my hand

holding a cigarette.

Long fingers,

bent thumb, pinkie

moving up and down.

A gray dog smoking a cigarette.