Into Trees

2011-11-01T01:00:00.000-04:00

halloween

2011-10-31T23:59:00.000-04:00

with the fog he
could smell east van from miles
its gunpowder pungency
seasoning this cold thick soup.
with his ears he
could hear fighting past
the dusty orchards of normandy
cracks pops whistles a
patternless ceaseless cacophony
to match a war's meaning.
maybe at least the ducks
found cover somewhere
in the black of the north shore
in the blacker shadows of the
towering doug fir. they could
wait it out with the geese.
still the unquiet youth are here
swallowing processed sugar gobs
smashing pumpkin globes
beneath the flash glory of
roman's candles and
witch's whistles and
forever night shades
of a city's yellows cast.

of Kenko-ji

2011-10-18T00:56:00.000-04:00

Shunmyo Masuno came here
to speak of zen dryland gardens
and of beauty in imperfection.
robe black sandles white
head shaved and bright to match
his graciousness. he spoke (read)
with english broken. yet
answered our queries with
eloquence foreign to our
assumed mastery of a tongue
barely second to him. we listened
with hearts eager to learn of the
purity of his practice but
left the belly of the planetarium
knowing more of our greater selves.
I am my creations, he said.

2011-09-15T01:03:00.002-04:00

welted with spikes

2011-09-03T03:43:00.000-04:00

despite his embrace too slim
to secure half an armhold about her trunk
he would take her down. he would
given days of patience or much less
with his brothers of sleeveless gusto.
---
they would pull her to the earth and deliver her
wet and horizontal and on rails
mirrored steel glass laid yesterday.
a double seam of silver it snakes still
mid slope through the passes.
they rode here as cattle
and still are
nights ago in the echoes of a steel can.
---
a true dubstep cut was all their ears knew
for two days in the dark. a rhythm granted only
a shadow of life to the chorus of cicada and cricket
and grasshopper
present in memories of east.
---
occasional lines of brilliance would flicker
attention away from the audible gaps in the rails
and frame the long doors to either their sides.
doors shut to movement
the only company to keep flesh and skulls
from greeting bleached ballast.
---
she was here in the valley. quiet for nine
centuries she believed in the pace of the trickle
and drank generously
until they erected their thin walled camp
alongside the opaque rapids of screaming glacial melt.
above the constant rounding of stone under water
their glass and their metal
brought out by nightly spirits
sang her absence that would be and is still.
---
they are here deeper and again to bring her in
for pulp and planks and pay for one more day
while hope lingers on the breath of the silent planters
who will follow with long shadows
again to begin with haste
what for millennia knew only the balance
of eagle and bear and the musk of salmon carcass.

new river

2011-08-23T14:38:00.003-04:00

a future myth past

2011-07-30T00:24:00.006-04:00

my thoughts leap
out of the blocks
there is no pistol
---
the images i know of
you
are mostly still
yet i walk with them
across ancient lawns
now a dim cedar sea
---
i was here before
when we blinked existence
and believed in myths
of progress and apocalypse
of buying and fixing things
---
i was here before
when we were
relearning love
and all that is all
---
we were still unsoaked
with boundlessness then
and bet on a dog named death

nitto

2011-07-09T13:23:00.001-04:00

Tokyo Fixed visits Nitto from Tokyo Fixed on Vimeo.

why it's men who frequent bars alone

2011-07-09T01:05:00.026-04:00

you flutter like a shapeshifter flirting with shadows
here as your best only when i don't want you.
this city your home moves along countless horizons
unsynchronized ceaseless conveyors
manned by infinite gears greased to silence.
this might be for each a playground if not for the glass
all swept under before it shatters.
–––
i once knew art and walking about barefoot
and waiting for sunrise to sleep
and i now ponder life breathed into
half versions of me
to again afford discovery a chance
everything again (for it) for the first time.
i want to be there when it finds its last wildness
so i can reassure the beauty without:
the light we don't see in between stars
the sounds wide enough to find harmony only
with moving crust and a massive wall of
opaque water.
–––
you are here before me plenty these days
offering that half (to me) or to any other joe
finding this sidewalk solid this hour.
you have my apologies but i am the light of myself
and you are of a spectrum i cannot yet see.
it still glows back east and
i can see this as the valleys there are the oldest.
but the rains here have ceased
and the western dogwood has blossomed
white once only.

dwelling portably

2011-06-04T08:10:00.001-04:00

thank you for the spot
of english red bush miss
and yes, i prefer milk
and honey. and
if not for it i might
hadn't the time to think
and drift (eventually and)
knowingly and grinning
into the world of
thrice hidden bridges
and candied salmon.

reefer ridge

2011-05-30T02:03:00.001-04:00

the trinketmaster

2011-05-15T01:16:00.024-04:00

brilliance paints facade geometry a bit taller and facing east as hope crawls from its dens edged by dreamless sleep and hollow belly. an indigenous carving with china-made odds sits on sale amongst brittle wind-up detritus ordered upon a cardboard welcome mat.
---
we stroll through lost in thought of the girth of childbearing and tiny toe morsels so unbelievably alive.
---
we without thought cast lunch into the crumpled cap of the trinketmaster. he is asleep faceless and sunken into the shade of his chest and heavy concrete while the carving ungiven yet dances on one paw. it shrugs rare sun or common rain with dreams of altitude and shaping stone and clean forms of stories that outlast their vessels.
---
but we forget these stories. we forget their weight upon the life of the next born and the trinketmaster still sleeps and we still stroll feckless.

swollen pink

2011-05-13T18:11:00.000-04:00

of it

2011-04-19T18:05:00.007-04:00

full moon rising
three billion ways it
lifted and shrunk along
its arc. through silhouettes
of spring reaching branches and
in the soft falls of vacant dunes and
beyond apartment building shells
half but never asleep. though it
was not these parts
these views from its kin
that compose it.
rather earth gives
each the role to share
together whole.

cherry blossom dream

2011-04-17T14:03:00.000-04:00

2011-03-22T23:31:00.000-04:00

i washed roots from plates
and called upon distant fights
and loved everyone

2011-03-22T23:24:00.000-04:00

naomi went out
seeking used white plastic bags
and returned with kites

SUPERMOON

2011-03-20T20:23:00.002-04:00

warm air

2011-03-18T21:43:00.007-04:00

windows open to the milk moon
breezes bid budding adieu. the
skin of this air is a random grid
of fruit cellars holding upright
their flagpoles in the wind.
a forest of indistinguishable hairs
grasping for paltry light they
sway in delighted unison and
whisper memories of deer spotting
and back seats' windows rolled
fully down for chin and left forearm.
my eyes would close to the pace
quickened while on roads between
picnic bench grounds and open
to quieted air and dissipated
momentum and to the occasional
odocoileus white tail spy i would
speak to silently and grin-tinged.

seymore's shadow

2011-03-10T18:21:00.010-05:00

i want to miss

travel with you miss.

with(out) my asking you

take my hand

its hair lost to stoked fires

atop seymore snow
you hold steady my act
to steady you. there

are white passes below

to drift above unknowing

and windless. this distance

quantifies peaks

they lack infinity. they've

nothing on the donner

party but from here i am

still working class
still a blip and i might find

the topographical

crescendos lasting ten

thousand love affairs

if i did not know the

lost promise of time.

from here a mind wandering

might see those apices
now too low for caps white

approaching the land of

my nurturing. the minds

of my brethren call these

elder hills appalachia but

this is not that place. that

is this place of mucha and

of the holy roman court and

of golems. i was here with
a version of you tomorrow
when travel is again pilgrimage
and carved from a pace of
months. we eat with hands
in the hills of the old city
above the st. charles.
your head. my lap.
counting stronger stars
as we wait soundless
for the world

to end again.

the north shore

2011-02-24T18:55:00.003-05:00

three moons would
at least
rope six tides. these
hours after the february incessance
quit i could still hear
the underground river crashing
ceaseless glacial falls. three
north shore beacons brought cold
glow
to the heavy air
that prepared for its morning descent
upon the city
a blanket falling in slow motion. three
beacons perch as kings
asleep atop thrones gilded. bats
and birds come summer
might know them for navigation as
young upwardmoving flock to
their factory powder come winter. three
peaks
soft guards to the crags beyond
too tall and windswept for
their roots to ever adorn boots. this
very wind is what battered
these peaks
open to open water
and to the unpatterned
torment of ocean. water flows
and blows with the immortal workers
molecules of radon
breathed and rebreathed by all life
this thin photosynthetic
skin
has ever known.

fallen frozen

2010-12-04T21:26:00.000-05:00

Qualitative Methods, Assignment 3: Afternoon Moments at Millennium Water

2010-11-09T17:32:00.021-05:00

As I sit facing due north, an obese Caucasian woman with red hair and a shoulder bag to match shuffles her way across the cobbles of the plaza. Seemingly to enable an appropriate pace, an older more frail version of her with white hair pushes a childbearing stroller out front. The three cut diagonally across the space and parallel to the cedar-slatted bench that keeps my distance distant. They stop, remove bags from bags and set up a picnic lunch next to a 14-foot tall monolithic sculpture, true to form and color, of a sparrow.

Two more strollers enter the public outdoor space. Both the red one, built for twins, and the black one, cradling a boy with a black and white checkered cap, eventually find their ways to the base of the second 14-foot tall monolithic sculpture, also true to form and color, of another sparrow. Both sets of young parents, one of Asian descent, the other European, point-and-shoot enough photos of their posed and impatient newborns to satisfy at least one keeper and leave as quickly as they came.

Behind me, something suddenly sounds a mechanical whir. I turn to see sun shades, seemingly automatically and in unison, lowering to keep cool the upper floors of a new seven story mixed-use building. I take this as a cue to remove my black jacket so not to absorb any more of the late-autumn rays than are needed. There is no shade here.

* * *

I shift slightly to face the Northwest and take in a bit more sun on my left cheek and shoulder. The clouds are apparently gone. My black sweater comes off as well.

To the East and to the West, the plaza is flanked by four seven story glass and concrete structures. True to form of the modern local vernacular, each residential unit of each floor boasts balconies on each visible facade to take in all possible views. Framed by silver or black mullions to match the balcony railings are the generous spans of glass. It shimmers with a blue-green hue like the sea.

To the South and beneath the blinding sun a deep red barn-like structure stands forty feet tall at its peak. It’s clad with horizontal wood siding and black trim and brandishes the marks of a recent rehab–a steel patio with two-story glazing as its stage. It appears that it could accommodate hundreds, but at the moment sits empty.

Besides being fronted by the red barn and its taller companions, the plaza opens up to water to the North. Beyond that lie elevated freeways and tracks for trains. Beyond those, clusters of geometrically faceted columns of sea foam glass and warm concrete thrust upward. They grow denser and taller as your eyes span further West. To the East, massive dock cranes, peach-red and vibrant, sit motionless as do the towering mountains beyond. Covered in a coniferous vastness, they are juxtaposed by the peeking peaks of its hidden sisters, tinged with the first powder of the season. If not for this white beyond and the bright ochre of the Honeylocust leaves, half fallen at my feet, I could close my eyes to the sun and not know the approaching season.

* * *

Just now, the boy from the picnic slips down from his seat and wobbles across the plaza. With apparent over-stimulation, he picks up the few pieces of trash between attempts to chase crows as he makes his way back to the base of the second gigantic sparrow, then back to a crow picking at the trash he’d discarded. His mother tries to keep up.

* * *

Three middle-aged white women dressed in neon cycling apparel and oversized sunglasses make their way to the center of the plaza, dismount, and park their bikes with kickstands. They meander over to each sparrow sculpture, laugh and make equally loud gestures, and shoot several snapshots–each taking their turn as the subject. A few minutes pass and they are off to their next destination. “I have dips in my fridge, and bread, and carrots… ” exclaims one of the three as they ride off.

“… You should seriously consider. This is a very nice community as it relates to urban form… ” Heard from the mouth of a large white man as assuredly as his dark slicked-back hair and suit, he speaks to a younger Asian woman, dressed quite a bit more casually, as they cross the space past my periphery.

More people gather. Most take pictures of the sparrows or of their companions, in front of the sparrows. Two young males with black leather jackets pass an older gentleman with dark skin, grey hair and mustache, and a fedora. His hands clasp behind his back as he strolls his way to sit and rest in the sun and across from a man, similar in age, reading a newspaper. Between them the black-suited man and young Asian woman cross back along the same line they occupied before and at the same purposeful pace.

* * *

Others pass into and out of this space raised four inches by a curb flanked by roads and lined by cobbles and bricks–everything concrete. A cycling couple in their bright jackets and pegged pants stop without removing their helmets to rest on a bench and sip coffee. Three more couples, without bicycles but also showing their age as Baby Boomers, stop to sit and take pictures and take time to read whatever there is to be read. Small gangs of skateboarding youth look for long hardscape edges along which to perform.

Between me and the bounding road to my right stands, about ten feet high, a bright blue and green “Electrical Vehicle Charging Station.” Its form and lines are as corporate and prominent as the displayed logos and taglines of the organizations that brought it online. Electric Vehicles Are A Fact, Not Fiction!; Electric Vehicles Make BC Cleaner!; Electric Vehicles Can Save You Money! read each of the titles for bodies of text, illegible from this distance and intended to educate the passersby.

“Where would you park if you wanted to charge your car up?” rhetorically asks a younger man as he rides slowly up to the box with his two female companions. “It says it takes fourteen hours and its in front of a stop sign! They are trying to show how green Canada is, but even the door to the charger is locked! How ironic…” he trails off as they pass on.

* * *

Eventually I find myself nearly alone. One block beyond and towards the water, people pass along a pedestrian boardwalk on bicycles. Families sit on benches to view the city until the younger members tug on jacket sleeves as they lose patience. Now that the people are gone from this space, I notice how mostly vans and pickup trucks dominate and demarcate the plaza’s perimeter. The views between the vehicles at rest are first floors of buildings, equally as lifeless and free from people.

Full spans of windows display colorful vinyl graphics that read, London Drugs Coming Soon, or Millennium Water Leasing Opportunities.

From here I can see only four balconies amidst dozens amongst four buildings that hint at signs of occupancy. Various pieces of teak patio furniture populate the outdoor spaces of these condos and presumably await their owners’ returns from work. On a day like this, with rare sun like this, staying inside if home could be considered an inexcusable offense.

The sun has moved a bit from before.

More sun shades descend in front of ownerless windows, as a few crows caw in jumbled unison.

* * *

The plaza repopulates with an ebb and flow of sound. The chatter of voices in conversation, quick clicking of heels upon concrete pavers, shuffling of older gentlemen, and the squeaks from bicycles needing new brake pads or a more regularly lubricated chain echo across from facade to facade, one block apart. In the distance, a chorus of electric saws, cordless drills, and jackhammers layer the hums of seaplanes or the incessant cries of seabirds or the occasional emergency siren.

There is movement of vehicles along elevated structures in the distance but remains silent from here. Behind me I hear the noise they would make if closer. An arterial road is nearby and to the South, out of sight, but not out of sound.

* * *

The clouds must have rolled in. The sun shades that descended before arise again on their own and in unison. Surely they would provide would-be neighbors with natural light and radiant heat, but the units sit dark and vacant still.

* * *

My blue bicycle rests quietly against grey and red custom steel street lamps. They will remain unlit for several more hours but curve upward like a sprouted seed to meet the sun’s rays, as if living. Perhaps this plaza, still stale with newness and dead with a lack of anthropocentric animation, might find more life in the shadows at night under artificial light.

Even then, the biomorphic fixtures and their cousins, the monster sparrows, will stand motionless.

* * *

As I move my bag to check on the time from my fallen phone, I notice the first bit of graffiti. It is a small marker tag, blue against the silver grey of the bench, and spells something illegible but fraught with dissidence. The characters’ forms are full of life with curves and a flow that juxtaposes the rectilinear geometry that overwhelms this built space. Its lines are soft and animated like the scattered pockets of perennial grasses that perforate the plaza and yet, it too remains motionless.

2010-11-07T00:08:00.001-04:00

"Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where it was, is night…"

"Self-Reliance," by Ralph Waldo Emerson

10.31.10

2010-11-01T00:35:00.001-04:00

maybe never now

2010-10-08T01:58:00.009-04:00

the blue range

floats upon the sound

quiet from this vantage

like piles of crumpled leather

strewn and foreshortened

atop a landscape of planer frost

gaps in the hovering cloud cover

soft and lumpy and low

cast a juxtaposition of shards

of angular light

moving patiently across

peak to slope to peak

light highlights that which I forgot

was green and growing as I am

cells self-replicating in silence

were the blankets of conifers

losing all original self to time as I have but

still marked recognizable by a hand unseen

there is no now now

only the projection of just what was

just witnessed by the narrows of our senses

as the fragments of light continue to move

away from where they registered

in the moment after a moment ago

3000 (4828 km)

2010-09-29T02:52:00.011-04:00

in the absence of light to see
the fast approaching hardness below
bicycle riding is flight soundless to the wind

i tore down off-broadway

as if my day warranted an exodus

past homes preparing for rest where there
were a few porch lights accompanied
only by the flickering red and white
of those with two wheels below

other riders took with me the straight
away and towards the bright glazed tower spires
reflecting twice their stature in the sheltered bay
i knew from a newborn memory was there
a glass shard in an arboreal vastness

i am three thousand miles from home
(perhaps soon just four more blocks)

and the tug pull of old losing ground to

the new has commenced

with sadness the space between

my two homes will never fold

I SAID, YOU ARE GODS

2010-09-21T00:39:00.008-04:00

pittsburgh

2010-09-18T14:00:00.012-04:00

our city was a rare beautiful that time of year

freezing rain shrouded our ancient hilltops

from view for days but that day

held only a patient cerulean sky

i took the long way that night

after the hue faded so

i might witness the remaining sunset burn

and its crisp cast igniting halos above everything

as if it all bore a presumed magnificence

i would rather call than write you

to let you know how seeing you

would have made my tomorrow perfect

but my absent patience brought me whole

instead across town to zulema street then

just as the sky went urban starless black

people as in new york cop shows

during segues between scenes

were out on their concrete walkups

loitering as if time was no matter and

as if the weather had turned gold for good

as i locked my bicycle to your front stoop and

dialed your boston number still new to me

wishing the wind

2010-09-13T02:01:00.005-04:00

learning cypress mountain

2010-09-13T01:55:00.005-04:00

rivers of sand

2010-07-14T16:09:00.003-04:00

little penn

2010-05-26T16:07:00.004-04:00

flowers mister

2010-05-26T15:25:00.016-04:00

moving the dead air like an uninterrupted chorus of heavy wake
vehicles roll their black soles over bleached asphalt grit
all day and all night and find pauses for breath
dictated only by amber to red
---
mister sits upon one overturned bucket
an interruption in the pattern of others
right-sided and filled with cut flowers bright
and fresh beneath their plastic wrap
and unknowing of the exhaust unseen from
ancient petroleum plants and bits of synthetic rubber
---
he sits between the scissor blades of traffic
waiting patiently for those breaths
to deal in pedals and pollen
pure and moist
---
he inhales tobacco smoke
as if to match the unseen carbon grime
up in his clothing fibers with
his darkened lungs
---
his math is tight
hard hands wring
posture wilts slightly
with each passing green and no empty buckets
---
the flower death began in the land of windmills and levees
but still for another day live here amidst the choked air
and the impermeable ground and the vehicles who
feign the good life with chromed plastic
---
mister is a ruse of make-believe
a spirit sent to shed anonymous light upon that
which is the fading paradox

Kraynick's

2010-05-10T12:15:00.004-04:00

On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 4:11 PM, Bartley, Clarence wrote:

2010-05-04T21:03:00.001-04:00

I talked to him yesterday, to make sure he got your stuff.
He said he wanted to look at it later in the day.

I know he was working from home, and I think had to take his wife to the Dr.
We are definitely looking for help, so I think we will be calling you hopefully soon.
I'm slammed with work.

Maybe we can go to dinner Friday and watch the game.

springtime in friendship

2010-05-04T16:59:00.007-04:00

2010-04-17T20:40:00.004-04:00

"Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it."

-President Theodore Roosevelt, Grand Canyon, Arizona, May 6, 1903

tilt test oakland

2010-04-15T18:48:00.005-04:00

gentle hour

2010-02-24T08:23:00.005-05:00

these times i awake before you
before you have the chance to
draw back the curtains
heavy hung
to rally more sleep
i step out from my dreams to anticipate you

warmth unmatched by a late spring sun
keeps you tucked
to the neck under the down
and embalmed like a princess
eternally awaiting her king
and likely dreaming
for such

i push back thoughts fighting to
gain the day
to savor waking

slowly and without sound you softly blink
in the late morning
like a newborn pleasured by her arrival

i watch
envying your mother
for having witnessed your eyes'
first moments
but i will take the here
and try to cradle you just so

the twentyten snowfall (night durning)

2010-02-06T00:43:00.017-05:00

BEST OF 2009

2010-01-29T17:23:00.008-05:00

1. Yo La Tengo "Popular Songs"
2. Baroness "Blue Record"
3. Cymbals Eat Guitars "Why There Are Mountains"
4. The XX "XX"
5. Riceboy Sleeps (self-titled)
6. Mars Volta "Octahedron"
7. Do Make Say Think "Other Truths"
8. Wilco (self-titled)
9. Russian Circles "Geneva"
10. POS "Never Better"

newtown square

2010-01-29T00:14:00.002-05:00

cook forest

2010-01-28T23:55:00.003-05:00

lawrenceville

2010-01-28T23:53:00.002-05:00

of spring tomorrow

2010-01-21T22:26:00.023-05:00

no matter the fall
or volume of snow to feign our minds
into a belief of the clean white slate
the geisha mask of clean white beauty
melts inevitably.
spring opens the door for winter and
careless refuse randomly strewn
yellow and brittled by enduring yesterday sun
waterlogged by snowmelt
again finds our periphery
and presents itself as new.

within the ninety-three million miles
of space between space
of real estate without speculators
an open house would be
of no use:
we are one lot of wayward property
with a heated core fighting the cooling
crust where we too are fighting
sometimes loving.

still we can boast nostalgia
and speak of that
skinnydipping swimming hole of young dad of
grandma's jarred quince jam pectin of
old growth wood tremendously patient of
that night sky and its dusting of white sand
to remind you that somewhere
our future is already our past
and somewhere snow has yet to exist.

2010-01-17T10:10:00.010-05:00

"Haiti, land of blue sea and green hills, white fishing boats on the sea, and the hidden huts of peasants in the tall mountains. People strong, midnight black. Proud women whose arms bear burdens, whose backs are very straight. Children naked as nature. Nights full of stars, throbbing with Congo drums. At the capital lovely ladies ambergold, mulatto politicians, warehouses full of champagne, banks full of money. A surge of black peasants who live on the land, and the foam of the cultured elite in Port-au-Prince who live on the peasants.

Port-au-Prince, city of squalid huts, unattractive sheds and shops near the water front, but charming villas on the slopes that rise behind the port. A presidential palace gleaming white among palm trees with the green hills for a backdrop. A park where bands play at night. An enormous open-air market.

'Ba moi cinq cob,' children beg of tourists in the street. Cinq cob means a nickel. They speak a patois French. The upper classes, educated abroad, speak the language of Paris. But I met none of the upper-class Haitians."

- Langston Hughes, 1956
I Wonder as I Wander

After 31 Years

2009-11-02T22:13:00.029-05:00

Sunrise above the helipad marked the third day of my stay here. Upon the perch that is a cliff above the Monongahela, I can see the white garage door entrance to the place of the job that afforded me the healthcare that facilitated this recovery room. Just three mornings ago I was fighting back the trepidation of my arrival here at Mercy Hospital. Just about two weeks ago marked the thirty-first anniversary of the day of my double-rainbowed birth in Cheektowaga, New York. Although, on that day of this year, the skies above Pittsburgh required no clearing of clouds.

Unlike today, that day was as clear and as Autumn-cool as it was last year when I returned from my long two-wheeled journey. After such a mild summer, it is of no surprise that the leaves were still holding on to their green. A few honey locust had begun to peek gold along their lower fringes to match our bridges, but as I rode home, I found little other mention of the change. It would all come at once, the fleeting burst of color, so I certainly did not mind this absence.

I crossed the Monongahela, then through the urban core and its lingering diesel exhaust, and up to the shores of the Allegheny. Here I found a trail less traveled, and took it to a place of rusted warehouses and the flats known as The Strip. Before locks and dams, I am sure this area flooded annually. And before us, those who tamed the three rivers, there thrived a people we knew as the Seneca. I wondered about the randomness of my being placed here, right now on the edge of another civilization. I wondered why so few people take the long road these days, and why it took another anniversary of my birth for me to do so. All I wanted for my birthday this year was some time. On that day, I took mine.

I wrestled with the decision to arrive at Mercy Hospital for over three years and just as many sober birthdays. I took time, this time, because I still have my health. My heart is healthy and functions perfectly, mostly. The some of the time that it has not is what brought me to this decision to trust my cardiologist and voluntarily submit my mortality to the collective millions of hours and dollars dedicated to the study of fixing the bad wiring in human hearts. The arrhythmia known to those plagued with it as AF, was kept at bay in me with good food and good exercise until this summer for a reason some could guess but no one really knows. I had grown equally desperate and confident in my doctor's ability to fix this in me.

I arrived on Friday at 10:00 AM. It is now 9:00 AM on Monday. I have cycled through three roommates, all male, two black and one white. Joe, Darnel, and Mr. Billski, who is still here after his second heart attack with his oxygen and phlegm bucket. Joe occupied his half of the room when I had arrived, snoring upright in his chair. Eighty-seven and chewing tobacco since he was celebrating that day I had a few weeks ago by taking the long road home. He lived his whole life thus far up the street in The Hill and must have known its hayday. I could not determine if he happens to frequent this, the ninth floor, or if his stay was simply wearing thin the nerves of the entourage of nurses who continuously had to replace his remote heart monitor stickers. He would say they fell off in his sleep while feigning knowing full well that their adhesive was too strong for such an incessant occurrence. It was this or his propensity to knock over things that might clang and spill fluids all night long that kept the hurried ladies busy. And yes, there even were a few fire alarms as well to help mark that first night of bad television and thin sleep.

My second roommate Darnel arrived to the ER earlier in the day complaining of incoherence and lightheadedness. He attributed these things, almost proudly, to eating only two meals supplemented with unchecked volumes of Mountain Dew and sweetened tea, while fighting against separation from his wife for the entire week. Hospital imposed bedrest and regular meals and fluids, sans caffeine, seemed to take hold immediately. That night the forty-two year old father, fireman, and struggling husband slept like a breastfed baby. And so did I. By noon the next day, and in time to watch Sunday's game, he was gone and the second half of my room was mopped, sprayed, and turned over with fresh linen again, just in time for Mr. Billski – a reminder that I was still here.

Only half the procedure happened–the study part, not the fixing part–so here I sit, post-procedure, unfixed and with stitched holes in my thighs and a half-shaven chest, wondering if ever I should be fixed at all. This condition I have is lineage, as I am not the only Welsh with it. It is a bane, but it is also my watchman for restorative living. I hate what it has done to obliterate my teenage psyche of invincibility, but I am surely no longer a teenager. I danced a song with modern medicine but now I must tell her "don't call me, I will call you." For now, they gave me a drug to take to suppress the problem rhythms. I was told it should help bide my time until science can play catch-up with the burden I will still be carrying as I soon walk out the front doors of this place.

The Southside neighborhood of Pittsburgh has been my place of employment since I was first diagnosed with this heart condition. As the earth would tilt to bring the southern hemisphere its share of warmth, I would often find my bicycle commute to and from work to begin and end in darkness. From my perch here that is a cliff above the Monongahela, I have watched for three days the neighborhood take on its various forms of light and shadow from darkness to darkness as if it was a model train set town brought to life by a single source of artificial light. Cars, trains, people, blimps, planes, boats, birds, and rainclouds passed throughout these days here behind this glass, all mute to the hum of the recycled hospital air. I suppose it is time I begin to face with wider eyes and a clearer head that which we must all face as humans. However, I am encouraged: if not for death, I would never know fervor and how to live life.

Steel City, Police State

2009-09-26T15:59:00.007-04:00

Steel City, Police State

2009-09-25T17:55:00.015-04:00

pardon this moment to decry

but I am overdue

and there are strangers in my town

with guns

like corner pimps police loiter in riot gear

like armored linebackers police linger

and lust after delivering the lacquered baton hit

state city police national army guard militia linger

and drink bottled water

and watch

and warn opposition to decent

as if we had a greater prepotency to riot more than they

we call ourselves the city of champions

but here we are just another city

waiting only for the next pigskin sunday to arrive

we are the city of champions

lost in the backyard of a country of champion wars

but angry a few are still

about the rift in this today of great money

about leaving the forgotten forgotten and earth death unchecked

about those who heed only highfructosecornsyrup indifference

the riot police outnumbered those that joined the march with proper permits

down the one remaining street left free from jersey barrier barricade

while the great global twenty meet and greet and grin

while the tyrannosaurus banks still roam freely

Having the heart to race.

2009-08-04T22:11:00.014-04:00

The women's race was well underway when I decided that I needed to use the bathroom for a second time since I had arrived at the velodrome. This isn't an easy task when your form-fitting attire consists of the combination of a full bib with a half-zip jersey – picture an olympic wrestler wearing both his unitard with a pullover warmup top and having to navigate a urinal – there is a good deal of time and frustration required to achieve such a task, and that is without accounting for the stiff road cycling shoes having to simultaneously navigate a wet tiled floor.

I had been nervous all day, waiting for my chance to finally race. The Mechanical Monster was kind enough to cover my closing shift at the shop so that I could finally experience the thirty laps at the twenty-five-miles-per-hour-pace and know the wind that was otherwise absent along Washington Boulevard. With the local racing season more than half over, I was experiencing a sense of urgency to at least acquire a taste before it was too late, marked by the changing hues of autumn. However, this urgency was humbled by the knowledge that I would not be in the riding shape I was before the season began.

Prior to my working at the bike shop, my commute consisted of eighteen delightful miles. These miles were known mostly by my bicycles unfamiliar to the race track, but were challenging nonetheless. I do, after all, reside in Pittsburgh, the city (of bridges and) of rivers and plenty of hills and valleys formed by these rivers. Now my commute has me barely traveling a mile, devoid of any fitness whatsoever. Where my commute was once my exercise, my precious free time has fallen short to fill this void since accepting the position at the shop. The irony of working at a bike shop for me is that I have less time and opportunity to ride a bike.

Tonight's pace was fast. I was warned of this early on by one of the race marshals, and soon realized its reality when I found myself at the back of the pack. I hung on, and was determined to practice mind over matter. This was a race for beginners and a matter not so daunting for my mind to help my body overcome. Six laps in, we were riding at the pace I had been told to expect. It was exciting, riding at such a clip in a peloton at least thirty-five strong. Six laps in however, my mind and heart decided to disagree about the matter at hand.

My heart rate monitor, which was holding steady at the rate I was expecting with such strain, suddenly reverted to its maximum reading of 240 beats-per-minute. If this was the case, I would be dead. Such a rhythm would denote a heart attack. What this meant instead was that my expensive electronics were being confused by a condition that my family knows well. After nearly a year of slumber, Atrial Fibrillation had torturously returned.

The race ended early for me, as did my my stubborn belief that mind over matter can overcome the particular reality of my not being as race fit as I would have hoped.

I don't sell bikes, really, I don't.

2009-07-25T14:39:00.010-04:00

I recall the eighth grade. Specifically, I recall the end of the school year. We were kings and queens of the windowless building that year, prepared fully, as we thought, for whatever was coming next. After our summer hiatus, we would be heading to that other brick fortress across the dust bowl, the site of football drills and "Let's take it to the dust bowl!" afterschool brawls to which I was never privy, to begin the end of our lives in involuntary schooling.

I was in the eighth grade. One might assume that after three years of middle school and two sessions of Sex Ed, I might finally grasp the full meaning of that popular rock hit "Cherry Pie" by Warrant. One might also assume that I might have begun to learn how to critically think and abandon the crutch of fact regurgitation before the final session of English that year. However, only one of these things would come to me, but only by receiving the first average mark of my career. And yet, as I sat in my final class of my final day in this school for which I was too cool (note: pegged jeans with silver zippered pockets) I thought there would be nothing left to learn.

One by one, we kings and queens were called to the front of the classroom to receive one final lesson that day. It was my turn to receive a personalized slip of paper from this teacher who I would not appreciate until years from then, when I would master both those lyrics and the gift of independent thought. Upon my slip was a single word that was to be a summons, a prediction, of what profession the future might bestow upon me. I felt confident that finally, this man who had caused me to take up nail-biting that year, and I, might finally come to terms with a peace accord on this our last day of school with one another. He however had other plans.

Halfway back to my desk, I unfolded my slip and had to stop strutting. My confidence evaporated into disheartened awe as I read, more than once, the word "salesman". What ever happened to "Artist" or "Olympian" or "Guy Who Saved The Amazon?" Never, I vowed, would I become that balding, greasy middle-aged man type, who knew the most about Ginsu knives and worried far too much about the bottom line to spend weekends at home or an extra few dollars on a suit tailored within the past two decades. I was confused and appalled and probably re-pegged my jeans as I quietly sat back down.

I have since doubled in age, and perhaps in wisdom. Although, I currently remain partially employed by a bike shop, where not only do I help fix things, I sell things too. Perhaps the instructor was correct. Perhaps his not-so-apparent-plan-at-the-time has finally backfired and I have not fully steered myself away from the mundane. Perhaps this scenario is all the impetus I need to recall how I, entirely naive and still in the eighth grade, wanted something bigger from myself. Perhaps the bicycle is what I need to help get me there.

I work at a bicycle shop.

2009-06-28T21:53:00.008-04:00

Nearly a month has passed since I have joined the ranks of "grease monkey". In part to the gracious social safety net I have performed my civic duty to contribute to for the past eight years, this position might be able to hold its footing for some months to come. And while it does not pay to support much of any lifestyle, this job has done its job of keeping my hands busy and my mind at ease.

The competently superior shop manager and his partner, a true mechanical monster, have dubbed the title "service writer" for me. And that is what I do. Mostly, I compose service work orders for customers needing piece-of-mind and assistance who find their way to the back corner of the retail store. What my title does not particularly afford me is the recognition that I also sell bicycles, and even fix a few of them. The service tasks that I do perform do not risk, so much, the life and limb of customers that trustingly return to their rides as if all is plumb and true. Mostly anything tagged with the words "rebuild" or "major" or "overhaul" get directly checked in and turned over to those dirtier and more capable hands through the swinging doors where the raucous sounds of clanking metal and incessant obscure punk rock are emanating. This is for good reason.

More than two months have passed since I was laid off from work for the first time. I was practicing a desk job as a salaried industrial designer, as I have been since my undergraduate schooling came to a close eight years ago. Then, the economy hit. And when it hits in the way it has, design gets shelved and often bears the brunt of a late-round knockout blow. There was sufficient worry then, as there still remains now, about keeping my funds and health afloat, but I am uplifted as I continue to climb out of reach of complacency. Most desk jobs are routine jobs, insulated jobs, and typecast jobs. I did not quite believe I fit the mold then, but as my latest reality of this fades, I have really begun to trust in this belief. My collar appears to be a bit bluer than once thought.

Where there once were soft keystrokes performed by soft hands on a keyboard beneath strained eyes fixed upon artificially illuminated screens, there now are wrenches and manmade torque and grease. And when I look up, I do not see virtual lines in virtual space that have no guarantee in becoming something corporeal someday. I see, rather, people I mostly do not know but people that I can directly help nonetheless. I am nowhere near becoming a mechanical monster myself, but I am learning new things daily about bicycles, people, and who I might rather be.

Strip Mall

2009-06-28T21:45:00.008-04:00

The sun casts its hue upon the front line of frail foot-soldiers. They stand slightly coated in a fine layer of plaster and one coat of discounted paint, their facades undulating in height and butchered treatment through the choked haze of a petroleum oasis.

They admonish that we enter and fight the good fight for that uncompromised cause unseen: "You needn't doubt the captain. Nothing will test this line. We live amidst placid times. Our walls of brittle green paper and words will still shelter you."

Lace Up Your Workboots (design)

2009-06-28T21:21:00.003-04:00

Lace Up Your Workboots (art)

2009-06-24T22:33:00.002-04:00

For All Graduates

2009-05-14T12:50:00.012-04:00

"One student said it best when she spoke about her senior engineering project building medical devices for people with disabilities in a village in Africa. Her professor showed a video of the folks they'd been helping, and she said, 'When we saw the people on the videos, we began to feel a connection to them. It made us want to be successful for them.' Think about that: 'It made us want to be successful for them.'

That's a great motto for all of us –– find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Rise to their needs. As you think about life after graduation, as you look into the mirror tonight after the partying is done… you may look in the mirror tonight and you may see somebody who's not really sure what to do with their lives. That's what you may see, but a troubled child might look at you and see a mentor. A homebound senior citizen might see a lifeline. The folks at your local homeless shelter might see a friend. None of them care how much money is in your bank account, or whether you're important at work, or whether you're famous around town –– they just know that you're somebody who cares, somebody who makes a difference in their lives."

President Barack Obama
May 13, 2009

the wetness

2009-04-29T09:07:00.007-04:00

thick with a cool mist
the scent of countless things growing
and without permission
finds my palette open to the night air
i drink it in
the new life breathing utter honesty
of a tradition of renewal
its touch is just
wet enough just
cool enough to be just
suspended
between discomfort and bliss
it is earth
it is the sigh of a leaf just opened
of a bloom pedal just fallen
it is newness unmatched
i look up to be reminded of our company
but in place of the pinholed heavens
the wetness hangs low
and illuminated by the city's unchecked ballasts
orange replaces blue
but unlike the bees
i have not yet lost my way

some deer

2009-04-10T08:59:00.005-04:00

woods
today are packed with a monoculture
of hunters
hunting anything with a patch of fur
and a pulse

i've just cleaned my rifle
had a big breakfast
trimmed my beard

it's time to realize my father

The Original

2009-03-17T22:33:00.001-04:00

parkside stop

2009-02-23T10:26:00.011-05:00

when

2009-02-03T12:26:00.006-05:00

when you find yourself at the go stillers! parade today, sipping wild
turkey from dunkin donuts styrofoam to lubricate your voice
still hoarse from sunday, think of me and yell an extra "i love you troy!" when
the hairy beast rolls on by. k, thanks. and don't forget to wear
your black and gold jester's cap made of fleece and bells.

and this music is free

2009-01-26T22:40:00.013-05:00

like miniature glaciers sheets of median ice recede at first whisper
of spring and drop cinder grit for us randonneurs to kick up
to force us to find wider radii

as waves make quick work of a night shore we too
succumb to an unconscious repetition of cadence
of passage

the rush of cut air the soft click of the drivetrain these silent legs
as pistons of an antiquated steam engine all is lost in the deafening wind
in the music for cyclists

and this music is free

free of label of contract of culture divide to anyone who would

choose the union of metal grease leather rubber cork

and legs as the truer horsepower

01.20.09

2009-01-20T12:31:00.002-05:00

thank you Barry
in me there is an undeniable stirring
I am ready

BEST OF 2008

2009-01-05T12:59:00.006-05:00

1. Bon Iver "For Emma, Forever Ago"
2. Mogwai "The Hawk Is Howling"
3. Mars Volta "The Bedlam In Goliath"
4. Wolf Parade "At Mount Zoomer"
5. Sigur Ros "Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust"
6. Fleet Foxes (self-titled)
7. Noah And The Whale "Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down"
8. Portishead "Third"
9. TV On The Radio "Dear Science,"
10. Oneida "Preteen Weaponry"

2008-12-30T09:39:00.004-05:00

The Long Ride

2008-10-05T00:01:00.013-04:00

In just about eight days, I pedaled 349 miles on two wheels from M Street, Washington D.C. to Point State Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with many others from several states and a handful of countries. The trip took four pounds off my waist, mostly, made my soccer thighs, and beard, even thicker, and brought me home to clear blue October skies one day prior to turning the page on a third decade of life.

09.27.08

It rained last night while I found a few moments to sleep and rest my nerves. They've been at it since I received my replacement bike frame, after returning the defective original, just eight days ago from California.

Jerry Kraynick, who modestly answers each phone call with the essential, "Bike shop …", graciously lent me some tools and a workstand and a wee bit of space, as he does for anyone that enters his bicycle haven. "It'd make my days easier of people learned how to maintain their own bikes," he often states, "and besides, I hope to retire in five or ten."

Two years before I was born, Jerry's father moved the shop after he inherited it from his father. He relocated from the Hill District to a spot tucked away under a few of the shade trees remaining along a stretch of Penn Avenue that is just beginning to see a few of those coveted beautification dollars. It'll be a sad day when he, a third-generation Kraynick's Bike Shop owner, takes down his rusted and faded sign and stores away his spoke wrench for good. Yet, there is something fitting to his leaving before the wave of gentrification swallows fully the East End of Pittsburgh.

My bicycle and I consider ourselves lucky to have discovered this three-story pot of gold and spokes and bolts. There, my Bleriot was assembled twice, mostly, and for what was remaining—tape, cables, fenders, rack—my living and dining rooms remain today in disarray.

It rained last night but so far this morning blue sky has accompanied final preparations and extended goodbyes. My lovely girlfriend had to cut her hair all cute and playful just before my leaving, didn't she…

•

I recall past summers in second-length flashbacks when my days had me perpetually out-of-doors before and after PB&J on enriched white bread, Cheeze-Its, and chocolate syrup mixed with 2% milk. On those days you would find me rearranging found patches of moss into swaths of carpet for miniature forts at the edge of the backyard's forest. I would set up battles between two and three G.I.Joe figurine battalions. The fights and intrigue would be elaborate and would last the day. There were guns and enemies, but oddly I do not recall anyone ever dying.

Some years later, when small groups of us neighborhood boys were old enough to explore deeper uncharted thickets of woods, we would take our fully articulated figurines along with firecrackers to see to it that death might finally come to any number of lesser troops. During that summer, little did we know how there was no turning back to those pure and infinite worlds of no consequence.

This ride, hopefully a respite from the world of news and war and consequence, should return me to this place, somewhat wild and mostly free. Taking a long deep breath of all the fresh air, if only for one week, may very well be quintessential.

•

Today was a light ride. First, my friend Bobby came with his friend Coco and a gal with fun hair to see me off before they continued on to shop and experience the Georgetown decadence. Then, I started off down the trail which began where M Street ended. Less than one mile into the trip, I hit my first snag and lost whatever patience I had left with the aluminum fenders mounted to my bike. Not only were they rubbing my tires, bent from the box truck ride down with dozens of other bikes, every piece of stone debris kicked up from the trail by wet tires, made an awful clang I could not tolerate for one mile, never mind hundreds.

I pulled off to the side of the trail, refused several offers for help, removed the fenders from hell, turned around, and rode back to Georgetown to locate a bike shop. I found one amidst the shops and there I found some trusty and plastic and German-made-and-engineered. The new, less-fashionable variety worked like a charm. With fenders mounted, I pedaled hard, stopping only a few times to shoot pictures in the beautifully waning daylight, to make up time and 14 miles of trail to arrive in time for my first cooked meal of the trip.

09.29.08

The Potomac on my left and the long abandoned canal on my right have been the steady rails to this two-wheel journey northwestward. Besides this, I have found the only constants to be sleeping, riding, and the intake of calories. The relationship of food as fuel has been rekindled in my genes as filled plates–yes, more than one–are cleaned long before anything finds my stomach. How nice modern life is to be able to enjoy food beyond its strict utility.

Imagine having marched 17 miles in several hours without any break or wonder cake and be expected to stand attention, in front of a shower of lead, and beneath Shrapnel’s exploding ordinances. Today my idea of hunger was tested during a detour into the nearby rolling farmland hills of Maryland. Antietem, the battle named after a small tributary from the North which ran red with blood of some 23,000 who lost their lives in just 12 hours on that day, was fought by men, many without shoes and all without bananas or meal replacement snack bars or freedom from fear. Even after learning this and witnessing the hallowed and silent farmland, I succumbed to the irony of leaving the three-hour battlefield tour early to try to make up the next 16 miles in time for the next scheduled meal.

•

Mile 112 brought us past yesterday’s 33 locks in varying states of disrepair, through 6,284 puddles of rust-colored mud, and into an infinite amount of gnats, biting flies, mosquitos, and all other flying insects attracted to the scent of my sweat and sheen of my eyes. Today it brought some of us onto unfamiliar roads and past a historic battle site. And as I hit the unseen wall of fading calories yesterday with 10 of the 55 miles left to travel before Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, I did again today with but two left. This time one bruised banana, tucked away in my black British saddlebag, was destined to be my savior, my wonder cake.

09.30.08

Today was the first day that my legs began to ache. Fort Frederick to Hancock to Little Orleans where, despite our being perched atop a modest mountaintop and away from the standing pools of the old canal, we are still experiencing swarms of small things that like to bite and sting.

Rain is forecasted for tonight. So instead of occupying the large sloping lawn, I’ve opted for some throughfall protection of an old oak canopy and erected my tent in the shade next to a patch of large orange mushrooms.

•

My bowels keep reaping havoc. I overheard someone speak of how, on a few of the days with more hills and more mud, we’ve burned an average of 1,000 calories for every 10 miles of riding. With us commonly reaching this mark five times over daily, filling our plates to fill our bellies never quite seems to happen, despite the number of trips back to the tin trays and sturno. With so much more going in, you would expect the same in excess going out, but that has failed to present its case. Perhaps this is what has been ailing me tonight–my system has yet to figure out how to process all of this food which I have all but neglected as anything but fuel.

•

Today, also, my bicycle met with another mishap. Day one had me returning to Georgetown for better fenders. This foggy morning of day four found me briefly turning my back on the bike rack where I left my blue beauty. For the moment I turned to fetch water to brush my teeth, I turned around to find the elder man from Ontario bending over to pick her up. There is a reason signs posted nearby such bike racks read “Back Wheel In First…” So, I took her from Pat, without saying much except something like “Everything is fine.”, got back on to ride off with toothbrush still in mouth, but did not move. The front wheel was bent and so was I. Yet, I could not unbottle my frustration upon a man more than twice my age riding a budget bicycle more than half my age all this way.

I decided to take my anger out on the trail. I opened up my front brake to avoid rubbing and make my diligent way twelve miles down the path, past arcane centuries-old cemeteries along highways, to Hancock and the C&O Bike Shop where the day and my ride were salvaged. Afterwards, almost everyone moved indoors to Weaver’s Restaurant to fetch a famous piece of pie while Pat and I occupied a bench along Main Street, ate my two PB&J sandwiches, and chatted about the weather.

10.01.08

At the beginning of this trip, I weighed options that would determine how organic it might pan out. I considered modern comforts: music to have in my ears to take me beyond pain or boredom; sunglasses to avoid changes in daylight brought on by passing clouds or cold drops from an autumn shower; clipless pedals to help climb the rare hill; or a wristwatch to help measure the pace cadence or the rate of my heartbeat or just to anticipate the next snack or meal. I did not mull and decided these accouterments would be serve me sitting idle at home in the city where life runs on tighter schedules and demands comforts to offset the bustle and shameless inconveniences.

I wanted to exist within the natural pace and experience the elements as they were dealt, just as those did who gave original reason for this path. For those who came generations before me, neither life on the canal nor life on the rail ever stopped for the elements save the snow and ice brought on by the Easter months.

10.03.08

Yesterday we rode on a far more superior surface of crushed limestone and tallied our first miles of the GAP, the Great Allegheny Passage. Sixty miles, plus a few more, took us from the terminus of the C&O Towpath in Cumberland, Maryland to another river town–Confluence, Pennsylvania. We climbed the modest Savage Mountain for twenty-four miles, never descending, and near its peak, crossed the Mason-Dixon line. Here, as snow melts and rain falls, the inevitable flow of water makes its choice to travel at gravity’s and time’s pace to arrive either at the Chesapeake Bay or the Gulf of Mexico before returning to the ocean.

The Big Savage Tunnel at the peak of Big Savage Mountain was one of many unlit passages that would bring us from one threshold to another. This tunnel also brought the temperature down past thresholds familiar with hypothermia for the first time this journey. I stopped to unpack and put on my jacket, which would not end up leaving my body for days to come. No longer were my fine layers of merino enough.

Despite having also learned my lesson about proper fluid and caloric intake, I was still exhausted when I finally rolled into a town with no cell phone reception, plenty of passing freight trains, and a ball field. Here I set up camp behind the dugout after consuming two bowls of warming curried carrot soup.

•

I feel I might have gotten used to the gypsy cyclist lifestyle. Last night I slept unabatedly without the aid of earplugs to drown out the thunder of the rails. I awoke in the darkness just before dawn, dismantled and packed my tent, ate ravenously again, remounted, and rode onward with the thin sunrise at my back. No matter what the routine, it apparently becomes second nature and adopts ease with the passage of time.

10.04.08

“Railroading… Settlers Life… Sand Mill… Concrete Factory… A Coal Mining Town… ” read the titles of interpretive signs that I would pass at 15 miles per hour throughout this trip. The moment's glance would be just enough to acquire a greater sense of what shaped these pockets of densely forested land before nature decided to reclaim it. These were rails built for efficiency and for industry and now are trails, built for leisure. And it was an odd sort of leisure that brought me along side them.

As I have passed through each tired town and along this pastoral route, I have wondered how much time we have left before we need the rails back. There are things in and about this world so much greater than me, or this ride, colliding with an unstoppable mass as I write this. I am both terrified and enraptured, and yet I hold on to hope that the future indulges me with the leisure I was able to rediscover during this brief journey.

the last tower

2008-09-18T15:22:00.006-04:00

A smoky old town

2008-07-09T09:49:00.003-04:00

We can two-wheel our way to a cleaner, healthier Pittsburgh

2008-05-05T21:07:00.005-04:00

Post War

2008-05-03T16:54:00.007-04:00

He shuffles down the aisle
cramped with chewing gum crack men
business money on their minds
ruffling newsprint in their hands

touching the pilled headrests
on either side of the carpeted balance beam
He glances row right
next row left
next right again
on forward to ensure we know the rules
design safety feigned

His white short-sleeved collared shirt
hangs
from His shoulders as a vail
from the permed hair of a thrice married bride

each morning
prior to any wake-up calls
and continental breakfast hordes
He wakes to sterile silence
the next city and its hotel and its
ironing board already displayed
at the base of the firm sleeper king

shirt hung
slacks splayed
shower taken
in time for a hot iron
no steam
He finishes brushing toothpasteless
warm water and comb only

His crown of hair
and buffs the faux patent leather
of His D-widths
like an addict trying to revive his first fix

iron hot
it finds the old wrinkle scars
repeated folds
and attempts in vain
to thin the paper dull white fabric
again
this moment
between the last of the night
and earliest of morning
just before birds and their song find each other

He and His wheeled bag
find the accessible ramp
past the automatic sliding doors
into the still morning air

He slings a spring jacket over the right shoulder
and past one ear
of two
where songbirds haven't a song now either

asheville

2008-05-02T10:19:00.003-04:00

wheres i grews up

2008-04-19T08:34:00.007-04:00

Most 'livable' for all

2008-03-25T13:51:00.004-04:00

Let Barack Obama's call for racial unity take root here

Bicycles On The River

2008-03-17T13:42:00.006-04:00

There must have been hundreds of them
white rounded triangular shapes
bobbing in the placidity
gulls,
too far west or too far south
bringing shore beauty to the waters of
the Monongahela.

They seemed nonchalant
towards the landlocked songbirds
chirping stronger than a meager lilt –
a willful effort
to crack the stubborn frost
that stays this asphalt twice hardened
by March, the lioness.

They seemed to know
with sunrise
not quite present
that the thin air would later give way
that day
to softening sun
and malleable soil.

stanley park

2007-12-21T12:58:00.003-05:00

What Cook Knew

2007-12-19T22:53:00.001-05:00

the naked and limbless snag
thrust silently
towards the old growth canopy silhouette
this terrestrial puncture wound
ceased growing the day
my grandmother began to lavish smiles
and yet the tree stood
the blighted chestnut
twisted and pale
a giant's horn
called upon the pale gray autumn sky
to bring the wet wind
to remove us from its company

death had long since been paid
its worth in unbounded rest
and yet the tree stood
shroud in patches of lichen
and patterned in scrawls
from countless lovestruck
and heedless
layered so thickly
the names and doting
heartshaped lines
were themselves
a wind worn woven bark

I stood there
left arm outstretched to touch
cool
hard
smooth
with countenance cast to
where there once were branches
knowing how all trees will fall
but at a pace
we have long forgotten
to understand

BEST OF 2007

2007-12-13T19:45:00.001-05:00

1. Do Make Say Think "You, You're a History In Rust"
2. Radiohead "In Rainbows"
3. Spoon "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"
4. The Twilight Sad "Fourteen Autumns, Fifteen Winters"
5. Andrew Bird "Armchair Apocrypha"
6. PJ Harvey "White Chalk"
7. The New Pornographers "Challengers"
8. Loney, Dear "Loney, Noir"
9. Dinosaur Jr. "Beyond"
10. Ulrich Schnauss "Goodbye"

panther hollow

2007-11-30T21:58:00.005-05:00

2007-11-02T10:38:00.003-04:00

2007-10-20T17:39:00.004-04:00

2007-10-05T12:09:00.002-04:00

"She had dead-calm, unblinking eyes––suggesting the steely recklessness of a car thief. If you dared her to do it–or bet her five bucks that she couldn't––she would drive foot-to-the-floor through every red light on Wilshire Boulevard, all the way from Santa Monica into Beverly Hills. Unless she got broadsided in Brentwood, or shot by a cop in Westwood Village, there'd be no stopping her––her bare left arm would be lolling out the window, giving everyone the finger the whole way."

- John Irving
Until I Find You

2007-09-20T11:34:00.002-04:00

"The world is a civilized one, its inhabitant is not: he does not see the civilization of the world around him, but he uses it as if it were a natural force… In the depths of this soul he is unaware of the artificial, almost incredible, character of civilization, and does not extend his enthusiasm for the instruments to the principles which made them possible."

– José Ortega y Gasset
The Revolt of the Masses

2007-08-20T09:12:00.004-04:00

2007-08-08T10:36:00.004-04:00

When I die, I will have wanted the song Helicon, preferably version 1, played by Mogwai at my funeral. By then, we will be good enough of friends.

tall ship

2007-07-11T17:39:00.004-04:00

thunder

2007-07-01T23:54:00.004-04:00

Here

2007-07-01T23:19:00.001-04:00

you are there
where
I have my eyes focus closer
to better know the greens of yours
blinking
slowly
with warmth and rest
as my lips trace
your upper
slightly dry from
the night prior.
you are there
where
I rest one hand
where
your hip drops fast
marking you undoubtedly woman
until I again surrender
to the weight of my eyes.

I once dreamt dreams of
girls
unfamiliar upon waking
that would have me
pining for belief
in love
and matching beauty.
I once dreamt these dreams
before
here.

Aluminum Flies

2007-07-01T21:56:00.001-04:00

everything up here is aluminum two extra thousand feet
above
the clouds we were advised to avoid.

the hard cart shuffles past
plugging the aisle and
emitting designed aromas
to flirt with my thirst.
as driver is a woman
surely my junior
that smiles with all her teeth and
dimples
flashed to make everyone feel just as special.
the embellished rickshaw wafts these
smells that also deliver
snapshots
of people that otherwise would not occupy my mind.
[she drank diet coke warm
despite a summer sun
matching its false sweetness
which she feigned
better than a rookie councilman] pungent moist coffee
salty bloody mary mix
stale yeast beer
these liquids have grown as tired as
the memories they adorn.

up here I have time to kill
as a casual defiant gesture against these thoughts
[crash]
that would have me killed.
I am sorry for this fly that
took a wrong turn at the tarmac
to end up dieing in this aluminum tube
up
far up above
sumptuous piles of bull shit and
shiny plastic trash.
I pocket hope to
soon make it back to the dirt
sense of smell also intact.
you are there
where
I would have my eyes focus closer
to better know the greens of yours
blinking
slowly
with warmth and rest.

summer

2007-06-12T17:09:00.005-04:00

2007-06-01T23:25:00.002-04:00

my latest

2007-05-21T10:26:00.001-04:00

2007-05-18T09:23:00.001-04:00

cliff diving
into undulating waves

unseen from this height

under balmy skies

i timed it right

the water is warm

2007-05-08T23:10:00.002-04:00

An Abstruse Spring

2007-04-21T14:59:00.001-04:00

Smells of piss
and old diapers
rise from this walled sidewalk
despite the cold air
a hawk catches
a thermal past this high-level bridge
gifting her a longer hunt.

Squirrels bark and scratch at a yell
and scurry up honey locusts
in fear
in spite
as if I aimed to steal their seeds.

I kick rocks left months ago
by the department of public works
but with this fickle weather
it's just as well they've been neglected
by the street sweeper.

Here the ground is hard
and my knees know it more
with each year
with each mile.

Here the soil is buried
beneath oil and stone
and I have some distance
above before I know it.

de•sire line

2007-03-27T17:19:00.001-04:00

1. The route people most naturally and instinctively take as they pass through a space.

To Good To Not Be True

2007-03-24T18:18:00.002-04:00

on that night
I forgot my undershirt at the base of your bed
I forgot all that came before you

on that night
the moon was eclipsed by the earth
it was dyed a Mars crimson
but we missed it

quite heedless and free
these moments were lost
amidst the green flowered fields of your sheets

"this night air reminds me of summertime stargazing"
I'd say as if recalling a season
we've not yet shared

on that night
the whiskey essence on your tongue got me drunk
we listened to vinyl and each other
and began

New York City, 2007

2007-03-03T19:29:00.002-05:00

Tonight brought glorious cold augmented by the clear sky and distant stars. Tree limbs still sheathed in ice cracked in a wind's sway as would the rope of a tire swing almost too old to bear a child consumed with oblivious joy.

There exists a peace in the close crunch of snow underfoot and breath made visible, and the trees, if you can find them, would be your audience frozen in attentiveness. Come Spring they will finally take a breath

We need it soon. Too many plastic bags, the extent of our wildlife, have come to roost and settle these limbs.

2007-02-27T09:14:00.001-05:00

I am the non-toxic avenger
black scarf (as cape) whipping about in tow
as I ride and glide.

2007-02-25T23:13:00.001-05:00