What are you a friend to? 10 min. prompt

i am a friend to paper planes and hello kitty kites
i am a friend to coffee sleeves
i am a friend to polka dots and argyle
i am friendly with stripes
i am a friend to shoelaces and mismatched socks; i try not to judge them
i am a friend to the space between us, i am a friend to where i end and you begin
i am a friend to motown, i have been seen carousing with the Supremes
i am a friend to scratched CDs and aging vinyl
i am a friend to the brakes of buses, i defend them against naysayers
i am a friend to the sidewalk
i am a friend to lined pages of notebooks, but it's an on-again-off-again relationship
i am a friend to door hinges and knobs
i am a friend to couches and the curve of your arm
i am a friend to freshly baked cookies and spinach alike
i am a friend to the wrinkles around your eyes, because when you smile i can see all of the time we've spent together reflected there
i am a friend to hangnails and paper cuts, but only out of necessity
i am a friend to words-- delightful words, erudite words, fluffy words, made up words
i am a friend to dust as i let it collect all around me
i am a friend to wooden benches and wrought-iron chairs
i am a friend to fountains and footpaths and bridges
i am a friend to abandoned stairwells that smell like piss
i am a friend to table tops
i am a friend to porch fronts
i am a friend to the seconds in between each breath i take
i am a friend to unevenness
i am a friend to swing sets
i am a friend to zucchini
i am a friend to chain link fences
i am a friend to gravel
i am a friend to trees
i am a friend to braille
i am a friend to awkward silence

what are you a friend to??

Laundry day

i wonder where my quarter has been
from when it dropped out of its mold
got caught between the folds
of clothes
and landed shinycold
on a winter ground--
was it part of a fair wage to a coffee harvester?

i wonder where my quarter has been
since its minutes at the mint
before its brief bank stint
now getting mixed up with my lint--
did it ever fund the Iraq war?

i wonder where my quarter has been
and who it has favored,
was it ever savored like the
last bite of an ice cream cone
dripping all over your fingers?
or was it spent spent spent
before it had time to repent--

always switching hands
(but never switching sides)

9/10

I am running my hand across poems
It is like pressing a rubber stamp with feathers
sticking to it onto a smooth white page

I can see little difference between
writing and breathing
between a sagging couch and an alcoholic
between an apple and the sharpened point of a pencil;
they all seem synonymous.

They are calling me outside
but i am lost amongst the words of others
and cannot find my voice to say no.

Instead, I say,
"art is a form of catharsis"
I say,
"By Christ I am no carpenter"
I say,
"My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth"

I find my voice and I say:
"come back tomorrow"

Bedtime

I am falling sitting up asleep
asleep sitting falling, I am up
I asleep, am sitting, up falling
Falling up sitting, I am asleep---
I am falling asleep sitting up.

Haiku for St. Louis Summertime

wh sh wh sh wh
sleeping to a whirring noise;
the fan gets no rest.

Notes from my notebook, July 21

My tongue has chickpea-shaped indents where the falafel has regularly rested, my eyes have indents the shape of minarets and crosses and the Star of David. My ears hear a buzzing that combines bells and waves, children shrieking, Arabic chanting, air conditioning, and religious fervor. It is too much to take in and too much to let out.
I must try to hold it all while letting it all go.

I don't know what I'm talking about.
I could be talking about camel's milk being a natural Viagra
(according to local lore)
or about how it never rains in Israel,
or the colors of Palestine's flag,
but I think I'm really talking about the inability to write
and the jumble that leaves in my brain
and how I try to cover that jumble up by making it seem like I'm talking about something,
but really here I am rambling on about nothing
and maybe that turns it into something,

but maybe that just leaves me with Druze children
and sand in my shoes
and a backpack with a ripped zipper
or a plate from Tabgha
or three dried apricots
which some magnificent stranger will multiply
to feed all the hungry people in the airport and then all the hungry in Tel Aviv,
including the homeless man
that might be dead
sleeping under the kosher Burger King
which does not serve camel and chips,
but maybe it should.

Some notes from my notebook, July 19

Soon & Now

on a plane in Tel Aviv, going to Eilat
soon I will be able to see the Negev
soon I will be where Israel, Jordan, and Egypt meet
soon the slope of my nose will be parallel to the clouds
soon beauty will become monotonous
soon the waves will eat the earth.

now the clouds are balloons filled with hot air, lifted by a buoyancy that they don't understand
now the desert looks like a sandbox that hands have pinched mounds into
now someone is handing me the Jerusalem Post in Hebrew
now I am freezing in this conditioned environment. above the desert.

this trip is a collection of notes, prayers, people
a cacophony of sound and lights
a serendipitous meeting of friends
a blazing sun
3 languages, 3 religions, 1 country, 1 Palestine

there is so much I don't understand here because
I don't speak Hebrew
I don't speak Arabic
I don't speak religious
my tongue is not orthodox
my thoughts are not conservative
my actions do not reform
my clothing does not cover my shoulders or knees or hair
my knees do not bend towards Mecca--
I do not belong.

but I was the only one crying in Yad Vashem
but I have more rights as a tourist than some Palestinians
but I AM ChristianMuslimJewishIsraeliArab
WomanManChildAdultJesusMosesMohammed
& I do belong.

I'm thinking

I'm thinking of the way jeans crinkle around the ankle when they are slightly too long
I'm thinking of the spider that must have crawled all over my legs while I was sleeping
I'm thinking of that poem I thought about writing on the way back from the tennis court yesterday and how now I can't remember what I wanted it to be about
I'm thinking of suffering, of course
I'm thinking of how even if my life sinks to the lowest point it possibly can, that even that is not that low, that I will never know what truly low feels like
I'm thinking of legs and arms and limbs intertwining
I'm thinking of how Elliott Smith killed himself and I'm not even sure what decade that was in (I think the late 90s)
I'm thinking of road trips I want to make and the summer writing program at Naropa and how I could still register if I wanted
I'm thinking about the way the wind ripped my soul out of me yesterday and then returned it to me after dancing it around me
I remember how that felt
I'm thinking about dementia and not knowing the name of your son
I'm thinking about what to read next
I'm thinking about inside skull being as vast as outside skull
I'm thinking it's funny that I didn't know what to write about and here I am, still writing
I'm thinking about "brilliant sanity" and Buddhist psychology
I'm thinking about Frank playing himself in chess and always letting his left hand beat his right hand

Song of Myself

Today I met 13 versions of myself;
I was in the beer a man gargled in his mouth
and then later in his empty bottle,
in the white paint crossing the crosswalk,
in the dusty tomes at Dunaway Books,
concentrated in the piccolo gelato cup,
fresh and exotic in the Vietnamese spring rolls.
I wasn’t in the hookah or the hose or your lungs,
but rather in Abraham Lincoln’s copper face
that smells a bit like bloody dirt
and in the bench at the bus stop,
(I saw myself in the peeling paint)
suddenly I was everywhere!
in the rain
and on the fire escape
in the headlines
and on your face
I was here
and there
and there
and here--
I was even in my own body.

Things I do not know

I do not know what color really is
I do not know the capital of Kazakhstan or the precise way to describe how the sky looks on any given day
I do not know who made this pen.
I do not know who has touched this notebook before me
I do not know how I will die or why people die or if I even know what dying is.
I do know that I will die.
I do not know how there are people who still claim that the Holocaust did not happen.
I do not know how carrying a poster against the war will help end the war or why there even is a war or how someone can kill another.
I do not know where my sunglasses are.
I do not know the name of my mail carrier or the chancellor of Austria or how many Cheerios are in a box.
I do not know what it feels like to live in a desert.
I do not know what my life would be like without you in it.
I do not know how to read Hebrew or Arabic or Japanese.
I do not know why people would have voted for Bush, twice!
I do not know how men can hit their wives or children can hate their siblings.
I do not know what I will be doing next year or the texture of that shirt you used to wear or how long I could write before my hand would collapse on the page.
I do not know what it's like to be stupid or destitute or blind or greedy or in love with a stripper.
I do not know how trees perceive the world.
I do not know why there is suffering.
I do not know what cream cheese and pumpernickel bread would taste like.

Ambulatory, or I walk in your footsteps

I walk because my feet like hitting the ground
because otherwise I’d never hear the crunch of gravel or leaves or the shrill rumbling
of children’s bikes with teal plastic wheels

I walk to get somewhere or to go in circles

I walk because my car broke, my bike broke, and i’m too broke for the bus

I walk because when I walk, I remember all the other times I’ve walked
and my life is suddenly a coherent whole

I walk so my thoughts can see where they’ve come from

I walk because I am coming and going

I walk because my shoes are delighted

I walk to forget, but I end up remembering

I walk to school

I walk so the sun has something to look at besides housetops and rooftops and abandonedbuilding tops

I walk on sidewalk, on disheveled glass, and on spongy grass

I don’t walk in heels

If I walk on the same path enough, I can see where I’ve walked before

I am a gymnast of the streets;
the curb is my balance beam.

What is a hand?

What is a hand
when it’s
not holding
anything
when its
fingertips aren’t
pruny from washing dishes
puckered
and ridged
when it doesn’t
reach out
touch
know
the lines
in your face
when it doesn’t hold
a pen to
paper
scratch scratch
scratching the
surface
when it doesn’t go
numb
in the cold
prickling and
tingling
when it doesn’t grab
or snatch or steal
or tickle or rub
or hit
or high five?

Tell me---
what then is a hand?

Framework

She told me everything she had learned about love, she had learned from these paintings. Everything about movement, from the statues. Everything about death, from the people's faces, looking at the paintings and the statues.

"Love looks like an accidental brushstroke of yellow in a green forest, you can fully understand movement only in its absence, and death is a shadow on the face of an 11-year-old girl with uneven pigtails and mismatched socks."



-from the only short story I've ever written but hopefully not the only short story I'll ever write

I write poetry

I write poetry because the paper stays still.
I write poetry because I don’t have to justify and account for all the different versions of myself.
I write poetry because I contain multitudes.
I write poetry because water can renew, bring life, or kill and I want to know which it is.
I write poetry because I was bored before.
I write poetry because I want to know why.
I write poetry because red can be firehouse, apple, or blood.
I write poetry because I think that buildings communicate so they don’t run into each other.
I write poetry because the people who died in 9/11 can’t.
I write poetry because I collect words.
I write poetry because I don’t understand war.
I write poetry because you turned into a specter before my eyes and you’re haunting me.
I write poetry because I know the significance of subjunctive mood.
I write poetry because psychology still hasn’t figured out the mind.
I write poetry because it sounds good.
I write poetry because God is eavesdropping on all of your conversations.
I write poetry because it makes me squirm.
I write poetry because I write poetry because I write poetry.

If I could be a noise

I would be the sound a heel makes when it strikes a bathtub
or maybe the noise of a sparkler fizzling out
yesterday I would have said
a slinky on the stairs
but today I think the turning of a page
or the gurgle of a stomach
or maybe the creak of a
bone or a glass bottle in a recycling bin
definitely not nails on a chalkboard
or a knife cutting Styrofoam
but probably closer to an engine
starting or a tree falling
or even a woman lisping
or a man sneezing
probably not a lion roaring or
a clock ticking
something closer to an echo
or a creek gurgling
or a garbage truck beeping
I’m almost certain I would be a key
turning in a lock.
But then again--
I might be the sound of a flower blooming.