7/18/2009
You don't often get to peek behind the curtain. Most of you know that HUMMINGBIRD took me 20 years to complete. We often talk about doing a non-fiction book of some of my experiences in the Twilight Zone of that experience. (And, yeah, I'm starting on HUMMINGBIRD II right now.)
During the long year and a quarter I lived in Tucson, doing the research and the medicine work and wrestling ghosts and devils (I'm not being cute), I had trouble focusing after a while. The night siege was so intense sometimes, and my own travails in love, career, writing, friendship, and personal finances so harrowing, that I was busted down to reading haiku. I couldn't process long texts. Issa, Buson, Basho, Onitsura were my best friends in that lonely desert.
So, for your curiosity and perhaps pleasure, here are some haiku-form notes on the experience of writing THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER.
#
SONORAN DESERT SUTRAS:
Notes on Writing The Hummingbird's Daughter in Tucson
(Sonora Review 56, 2009.)
for Brian Andrew Laird
Despairing of God
I went to the desert
to seek my own saint.
#
Haunted adobe--
candelabra's melting stubs--
wax that fell was black.
#
If I went downstairs,
heard kitchen racket overhead--
nobody else there.
#
Disembodied hand
tarantula-crawled across
white sheet to my face.
#
Medicine woman
cooking her green tamales
held me when I wept.
#
Beer with Chuck Bowden.
Three o'clock coffee with Laird.
Writers at The Cup.
#
Sunset desert hikes
meeting javelina gods
white roadrunner guide.
#
In the old archive
librarian grabbed my hands
and cried, "Please heal me!"
#
Drove Ed Abbey's car
no muffler up to Denver--
ghost in Cadillac.
#
Someone set a fire
and tried to burn the place down
slit apart the bed.
#
on the torillas
in the refrigerator
one dead rattlesnake
#
men target shooting
at fake clay pigeon CDs--
Front 242
#
The medicine man
said, "I will give you a dream"--
gave me green rock: dreams.
#
Teresita came
Walking from the other side,
Brought me white flowers.
#
San Xavier del Bac
lit Teresita candles
hillside holy hours.
#
Three a.m. hiking
in the desert with women
who laughed in the dark.
#
Watching the comet
at the end of the highway
her hip cocked on mine.
#
No, don't speak his name!
I heard the Knocker Angel
pounding on my door.
#
So many devils
unleashed by the medicine
I slept with a knife.
#
Mt teacher took me
to ask questions of the plants--
I felt like a child
#
Halloween midnight
one wrecked car blocking the road--
single human leg.
#
One box Minute Rice--
one old cat, half deaf, half blind--
abandoned to trust.
#
Yaqui funeral--
old man in his black coffin
colder than the moon.
#
First monsoon rainstorm--
I finally saw miracles--
frogs leaped from the ground.
#
Female medium
insisted spirits told her--
I'd signed questionnaire.
#
Tinajas Altas--
couldn't find any water,
someone left a can.
#
After the car wreck,
100 trucks drove over
the children's clothing.
#
At old copper mine
pondering day's lessons
coyotes stalked me.
#
The angry scholar
called to threaten a lawsuit
if I wrote the book.
#
She said we were twins
separated in heaven--
did I want to party?
#
The Hotel Congress
was still a holy vortex--
Dillinger slept there.
#
Down in Mexico
The curanderas fed me
Bowls of green Jell-O.
#
Teresita's niece
wakes up on certain mornings
floating in the air.
#
Standing in graveyards
in Clifton, Arizona--
thought I might find her.
#
"I'm their worst nightmare!"
he said in his adbobe--
"Liberal with guns!"
#
Medicine woman
said she missed grandmother's ghost
since it left with me.
#
The saint's granddaughter
heals families in Phoenix--
danced for Dean Martin.
#
Holy woman said,
"In heaven you'll have a job!"
Shaking her finger.
#
When down to nothing
the spirits bring miracles--
one dollar Whopper.
#
Hiking Sheep Pen Trail
vulture flew up behind me--
my shadow grew wings.
#
Mostly it was work
alone on old computer--
Nine Incha Nails all night.
#
I learned something there
From the Saint of Cabora--
Every day's sacred.
A Pause in the Wastelanders for Audio
During the long year and a quarter I lived in Tucson, doing the research and the medicine work and wrestling ghosts and devils (I'm not being cute), I had trouble focusing after a while. The night siege was so intense sometimes, and my own travails in love, career, writing, friendship, and personal finances so harrowing, that I was busted down to reading haiku. I couldn't process long texts. Issa, Buson, Basho, Onitsura were my best friends in that lonely desert.
So, for your curiosity and perhaps pleasure, here are some haiku-form notes on the experience of writing THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER.
#
SONORAN DESERT SUTRAS:
Notes on Writing The Hummingbird's Daughter in Tucson
(Sonora Review 56, 2009.)
for Brian Andrew Laird
Despairing of God
I went to the desert
to seek my own saint.
#
Haunted adobe--
candelabra's melting stubs--
wax that fell was black.
#
If I went downstairs,
heard kitchen racket overhead--
nobody else there.
#
Disembodied hand
tarantula-crawled across
white sheet to my face.
#
Medicine woman
cooking her green tamales
held me when I wept.
#
Beer with Chuck Bowden.
Three o'clock coffee with Laird.
Writers at The Cup.
#
Sunset desert hikes
meeting javelina gods
white roadrunner guide.
#
In the old archive
librarian grabbed my hands
and cried, "Please heal me!"
#
Drove Ed Abbey's car
no muffler up to Denver--
ghost in Cadillac.
#
Someone set a fire
and tried to burn the place down
slit apart the bed.
#
on the torillas
in the refrigerator
one dead rattlesnake
#
men target shooting
at fake clay pigeon CDs--
Front 242
#
The medicine man
said, "I will give you a dream"--
gave me green rock: dreams.
#
Teresita came
Walking from the other side,
Brought me white flowers.
#
San Xavier del Bac
lit Teresita candles
hillside holy hours.
#
Three a.m. hiking
in the desert with women
who laughed in the dark.
#
Watching the comet
at the end of the highway
her hip cocked on mine.
#
No, don't speak his name!
I heard the Knocker Angel
pounding on my door.
#
So many devils
unleashed by the medicine
I slept with a knife.
#
Mt teacher took me
to ask questions of the plants--
I felt like a child
#
Halloween midnight
one wrecked car blocking the road--
single human leg.
#
One box Minute Rice--
one old cat, half deaf, half blind--
abandoned to trust.
#
Yaqui funeral--
old man in his black coffin
colder than the moon.
#
First monsoon rainstorm--
I finally saw miracles--
frogs leaped from the ground.
#
Female medium
insisted spirits told her--
I'd signed questionnaire.
#
Tinajas Altas--
couldn't find any water,
someone left a can.
#
After the car wreck,
100 trucks drove over
the children's clothing.
#
At old copper mine
pondering day's lessons
coyotes stalked me.
#
The angry scholar
called to threaten a lawsuit
if I wrote the book.
#
She said we were twins
separated in heaven--
did I want to party?
#
The Hotel Congress
was still a holy vortex--
Dillinger slept there.
#
Down in Mexico
The curanderas fed me
Bowls of green Jell-O.
#
Teresita's niece
wakes up on certain mornings
floating in the air.
#
Standing in graveyards
in Clifton, Arizona--
thought I might find her.
#
"I'm their worst nightmare!"
he said in his adbobe--
"Liberal with guns!"
#
Medicine woman
said she missed grandmother's ghost
since it left with me.
#
The saint's granddaughter
heals families in Phoenix--
danced for Dean Martin.
#
Holy woman said,
"In heaven you'll have a job!"
Shaking her finger.
#
When down to nothing
the spirits bring miracles--
one dollar Whopper.
#
Hiking Sheep Pen Trail
vulture flew up behind me--
my shadow grew wings.
#
Mostly it was work
alone on old computer--
Nine Incha Nails all night.
#
I learned something there
From the Saint of Cabora--
Every day's sacred.
7/16/2009
"I wanted to be a pop star, that's what I wanted to be...." --Cat Stevens.
I can't play guitar, but I can still give good audio! Had a blast on Blogtalk Radio with Miriam Parker. Thought you might enjoy hearing it if you're bored or tired of housework/writing/reruns:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/LittleBrown/2009/07/14/Live-Interview-w-Luis-Urrea-author-of-INTO-THE-BEAUTIFUL-NORTH
Hope that link works for ya!
Wastelander Aspen III
I can't play guitar, but I can still give good audio! Had a blast on Blogtalk Radio with Miriam Parker. Thought you might enjoy hearing it if you're bored or tired of housework/writing/reruns:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/LittleBrown/2009/07/14/Live-Interview-w-Luis-Urrea-author-of-INTO-THE-BEAUTIFUL-NORTH
Hope that link works for ya!
7/13/2009
The last time we drove thru Leadville
some high country Hip Hop Gangstas
had spray painted this on a wall:
LEADVILLE! WE
THA SHIT.
Gas station toilet stop, speaking of
bodily functions: ½ hr wait in line.
Sign over side door:
THIS DOOR MUST REMAIN
“LOCKED” AT ALL TIMES.
Door standing
wide open.
Hurry Up, Kid, We Need to Pee:
The whole line listens to the little boy
before Cindy & Chayo
tear off 11 straight
paper towels inside the
bathroom.
#
Tho I’m the fam’s nature freak
I totally heart filthy
wrecking yards even more
than nature.
10,000 rusted stories,
10,000 cracked hauntings.
#
1968 Mustang fastback
in front of me
more beautiful
than the glaciers.
Viva Estip McQueen!
#
Twin Lakes!
Yeeeeeeah.
Right there. Uh-huh.
Grow my beard
down to my gut.
Talk to beavers.
#
Tiny waterfalls leap
out of the trees and whisper, “Hey Buddy!”
to the van.
Can’t help but shout
at them.
I invite a skinny waterfall
to jump in and drive to Aspen.
#
We’re so high now the flytrap’s gasping.
#
Down the Independence Pass to Aspen.
I realized suddenly that I
was keeping the van from hitting
the cliff walls with the muscles
in my buttocks.
#
Sunny rain.
#
ASPEN, later that same day….
Aspen Institute/ Aspen Meadows hotel.
Checking at the lobby, I saw Ishmael Beah.
We looked at each other and said
“PLAYBOY” and started laughing.
[Note: a couple of years ago, Beah and Michael Eric Dyson and Tony D’Souza and I were photographed for long hours for an expensive Playboy photo shoot. No, there were no nude women. Basically, it was authors wearing fancy clothes in bizarre scenarios. They handed Ishmael an AK-47, which failed to amuse him. Dyson was in a flooded bus with drowning Black kids while white businessmen in fancy suits stood in the sun outside. Very post-Katrina. I was given a crown of thorns and a Mexican flag and stood above 14 body bags. Did I like it? Hmm. They gave me a billion dollar hand made Italian suit. Playboy put me in a hotel w/ a chandelier in my room, a liveried butler, and James Bond robo-TV screens that levitated out of the footboard of my bed. But…when I walked in to get my clothes, the fashionista rhino-woman doing the dressing looked at me and shouted “Fuck!” This little piggy almost went home right there. Then the photographer had a falling out or something and the shoot was scrapped. I kept my suit.]
#
Sunny condo. Wall of windows
looking out on aspens and the Roaring Fork down the canyon.
Scott, the master of the grounds,
drove us over here in a golf cart.
We feel like rich people.
Wait.
We are rich people.
Just don’t have the money.
Yet.
#
I could live like this.
I want to live like this.
Can I live like this?
The world outside weeps for murdered Neda in Tehran.
We sip billionaire coffee as the river
murmurs.
#
Off to the writers’ reception.
We watch Ron Carlson get the Aspen
Literary Award. Afterwards,
We hug all our Aspen Writer org friends.
The kids in their own condo squabbling over
cable . We’re all degenerates.
Tipsy Aspen ladies swoon over
Hummingbird: I collect more kisses.
My job: gal-magnet.
Someone tells me Into the Beautiful North
is selling “Phenomenably.”
Hope they don’t mean
“abominably.”
My ol’ pal/NEA bossman Dana Gioia.
[Note: Great American poet & former head of the NEA. Wow. Notes. I feel like a scholar.]
We say hi, but then a fan & his wife
shove me aside to talk to Dana. Relaying awe & love
to the Great Man.
Dana
smiles placidly.
Off to the Hernandez house!
Dana, master of Washington, announces, “I know
exactly where the party is!” We march off
at a splendid pace! We stride right past
Lance Armstrong’s house! Huzzah!
I am an architectural fame-whore! Lance! Lance!
Dana warns us bears sneak around the hallways of our condos
looking for room service trays to violate.
Suddenly, we pause, and he says, “Which direction
is the Hernandez house, do you think?”
Goldang it! The administration has let us down again!
Dana marches into a woman’s garage and asks her!
Viva Aspen! We’re off again. We round a corner.
We don’t know where we are! Dana gets out his cell phone.
This is how it’s done! Power hook-ups! DC in action.
“Where,” he booms, “is the party?”
AHA! The party!
We march in and Dana switches to full politico
Republican Party Animal mode and begins
shaking hands like a former governor. I love that.
I want to learn how to do that. Presto! A drink
appears in Dana’s hand and in 37.4 seconds, he is
embroiled in a profound literary/politico chat!
We stand in the kitchen like rubes going, “Hyug!
Hyug! Goll-y, you have real paintings in here!”
Fortunately, Gary Ferguson is a real gentleman
and saves us.
[Note, for those of you who don’t know Gary, AND YOU SHOULD,
he is the noted naturalist/”nature writer” who lives outside
Yellowstone and is writing the most killer book
of the year right now.] We go thru the food line
together and hook up w/ my ol’ pal Christopher Merrill.
[Yes, a freakin’ note: Good poet. Go read him.]
These fine fellows lead us out to a stone wall
where we perch and admire the nine million dollar view
and talk shop. Gary and I have an appearance together
later in the week. “What are you going to do?” he
asks. “I don’t know,” I say. “What are YOU
going to do?” “I don’t know,” he says.
Wine. Food. Singing—Joe Hurley, Colum McCann’s
rock star amigo, appears and sings a few at the
piano. (A piano, by the way, built for the
original Queen Mary.) Ishmael Beah says to me,
“Sometimes I cannot believe what people
just said to me!”
Dana and Joe can party all night. Not us.
We are just Maw and Paw, and we want to go to bed.
A car appears, and many of us pile in. I, being selfish,
grab the front seat. Cinderella, Beah, Chimamanda Adichie[I’m
not writing any more notes!] and Gary make a human
logjam in the back.
Chimamanda says, “This reminds me of Nigeria.”
I say, “Mexico, too. Except in Mexico,
someone would have added a chicken.”
After a beat, she says,
“Nigeria too!”
We tumble out of the car at the Meadows in
utter darkness and wander away,
looking at stars like sugar
spilled across an obsidian counter,
listening for
bears.
Wastelander Aspen II
some high country Hip Hop Gangstas
had spray painted this on a wall:
LEADVILLE! WE
THA SHIT.
Gas station toilet stop, speaking of
bodily functions: ½ hr wait in line.
Sign over side door:
THIS DOOR MUST REMAIN
“LOCKED” AT ALL TIMES.
Door standing
wide open.
Hurry Up, Kid, We Need to Pee:
The whole line listens to the little boy
before Cindy & Chayo
tear off 11 straight
paper towels inside the
bathroom.
#
Tho I’m the fam’s nature freak
I totally heart filthy
wrecking yards even more
than nature.
10,000 rusted stories,
10,000 cracked hauntings.
#
1968 Mustang fastback
in front of me
more beautiful
than the glaciers.
Viva Estip McQueen!
#
Twin Lakes!
Yeeeeeeah.
Right there. Uh-huh.
Grow my beard
down to my gut.
Talk to beavers.
#
Tiny waterfalls leap
out of the trees and whisper, “Hey Buddy!”
to the van.
Can’t help but shout
at them.
I invite a skinny waterfall
to jump in and drive to Aspen.
#
We’re so high now the flytrap’s gasping.
#
Down the Independence Pass to Aspen.
I realized suddenly that I
was keeping the van from hitting
the cliff walls with the muscles
in my buttocks.
#
Sunny rain.
#
ASPEN, later that same day….
Aspen Institute/ Aspen Meadows hotel.
Checking at the lobby, I saw Ishmael Beah.
We looked at each other and said
“PLAYBOY” and started laughing.
[Note: a couple of years ago, Beah and Michael Eric Dyson and Tony D’Souza and I were photographed for long hours for an expensive Playboy photo shoot. No, there were no nude women. Basically, it was authors wearing fancy clothes in bizarre scenarios. They handed Ishmael an AK-47, which failed to amuse him. Dyson was in a flooded bus with drowning Black kids while white businessmen in fancy suits stood in the sun outside. Very post-Katrina. I was given a crown of thorns and a Mexican flag and stood above 14 body bags. Did I like it? Hmm. They gave me a billion dollar hand made Italian suit. Playboy put me in a hotel w/ a chandelier in my room, a liveried butler, and James Bond robo-TV screens that levitated out of the footboard of my bed. But…when I walked in to get my clothes, the fashionista rhino-woman doing the dressing looked at me and shouted “Fuck!” This little piggy almost went home right there. Then the photographer had a falling out or something and the shoot was scrapped. I kept my suit.]
#
Sunny condo. Wall of windows
looking out on aspens and the Roaring Fork down the canyon.
Scott, the master of the grounds,
drove us over here in a golf cart.
We feel like rich people.
Wait.
We are rich people.
Just don’t have the money.
Yet.
#
I could live like this.
I want to live like this.
Can I live like this?
The world outside weeps for murdered Neda in Tehran.
We sip billionaire coffee as the river
murmurs.
#
Off to the writers’ reception.
We watch Ron Carlson get the Aspen
Literary Award. Afterwards,
We hug all our Aspen Writer org friends.
The kids in their own condo squabbling over
cable . We’re all degenerates.
Tipsy Aspen ladies swoon over
Hummingbird: I collect more kisses.
My job: gal-magnet.
Someone tells me Into the Beautiful North
is selling “Phenomenably.”
Hope they don’t mean
“abominably.”
My ol’ pal/NEA bossman Dana Gioia.
[Note: Great American poet & former head of the NEA. Wow. Notes. I feel like a scholar.]
We say hi, but then a fan & his wife
shove me aside to talk to Dana. Relaying awe & love
to the Great Man.
Dana
smiles placidly.
Off to the Hernandez house!
Dana, master of Washington, announces, “I know
exactly where the party is!” We march off
at a splendid pace! We stride right past
Lance Armstrong’s house! Huzzah!
I am an architectural fame-whore! Lance! Lance!
Dana warns us bears sneak around the hallways of our condos
looking for room service trays to violate.
Suddenly, we pause, and he says, “Which direction
is the Hernandez house, do you think?”
Goldang it! The administration has let us down again!
Dana marches into a woman’s garage and asks her!
Viva Aspen! We’re off again. We round a corner.
We don’t know where we are! Dana gets out his cell phone.
This is how it’s done! Power hook-ups! DC in action.
“Where,” he booms, “is the party?”
AHA! The party!
We march in and Dana switches to full politico
Republican Party Animal mode and begins
shaking hands like a former governor. I love that.
I want to learn how to do that. Presto! A drink
appears in Dana’s hand and in 37.4 seconds, he is
embroiled in a profound literary/politico chat!
We stand in the kitchen like rubes going, “Hyug!
Hyug! Goll-y, you have real paintings in here!”
Fortunately, Gary Ferguson is a real gentleman
and saves us.
[Note, for those of you who don’t know Gary, AND YOU SHOULD,
he is the noted naturalist/”nature writer” who lives outside
Yellowstone and is writing the most killer book
of the year right now.] We go thru the food line
together and hook up w/ my ol’ pal Christopher Merrill.
[Yes, a freakin’ note: Good poet. Go read him.]
These fine fellows lead us out to a stone wall
where we perch and admire the nine million dollar view
and talk shop. Gary and I have an appearance together
later in the week. “What are you going to do?” he
asks. “I don’t know,” I say. “What are YOU
going to do?” “I don’t know,” he says.
Wine. Food. Singing—Joe Hurley, Colum McCann’s
rock star amigo, appears and sings a few at the
piano. (A piano, by the way, built for the
original Queen Mary.) Ishmael Beah says to me,
“Sometimes I cannot believe what people
just said to me!”
Dana and Joe can party all night. Not us.
We are just Maw and Paw, and we want to go to bed.
A car appears, and many of us pile in. I, being selfish,
grab the front seat. Cinderella, Beah, Chimamanda Adichie[I’m
not writing any more notes!] and Gary make a human
logjam in the back.
Chimamanda says, “This reminds me of Nigeria.”
I say, “Mexico, too. Except in Mexico,
someone would have added a chicken.”
After a beat, she says,
“Nigeria too!”
We tumble out of the car at the Meadows in
utter darkness and wander away,
looking at stars like sugar
spilled across an obsidian counter,
listening for
bears.
7/06/2009
Wastelander Aspen II
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Franz Ferdinand
The Thermals
Manchester Orchestra
Tiny swallows at Starbucks
making a circus
in the sky.
Huge mayfly
the source of their enthusiasm
sitting on my finger
being very friendly.
Nebraska! Home of Hot Cars!
At every stop, a rod:
red Challenger,
red Camaro,
red Firebird,
red SS Malibu.
#
Muse
The Black Keys
NIN
Bad news still doggin’ us:
the storms we drove thru yes
terday blew our big pine tree down
onto the neighbor’s roof.
Of course, the traditional Urrea Wen-Fu view
would dictate that the pine tree
could have fallen the other way & crashed
thru our roof & busted open my office
& soaked all my notebooks and research but only
Swooned for a nap on the neighbor’s garage.
Zen aqui, amigo!
Wabi Sabi, sabe?
#
Welcome to COLORFUL Colorado!
Colorado loves me.
The eastern plains
soft yellow under heavy grape/gray skies
can heal me.
Bring it: rain, lightning, Rockies,
buffalo, aspens, magpies.
Bring it.
#
Here it comes: Colorado rain.
One million miles of the scent
of wet soil, drenched
hay. Prairie incense.
#
Magpie runs across I-76
too fat & lazy to fly.
#
Suddenly, The Angel of Writing
revealed herself to me
above the Colorado plains.
Her sword
was sharper than cold wind. She
gave me a dispensation.
They can’t touch me now.
We pull into Bella Luna’s rancho,
Castle Rock.
#
FATHER’S DAY.
The most glory-drunk hot Colorado
morning. Nothing
but big blue light.
Wind like ocean surf
coming thru the pastures & pines.
Cricket hinges squeaking rusty,
grasshopper ratchets
clicking up the sun.
Even the dogs know it’s perfect.
The big red bull, not so much.
But the barn cat
rolls in garden-love, looking to
rip apart some butterflies.
& hummingbirds
inspect their reflections
in the kitchen windows.
Fam buys me a Ray Charles CD &
off for Aspen.
#
I almost shout, “Deer!”
but it’s only a
bus stop bench.
#
The addicts
speed to Starbucks.
That. Right there.
Do you see it? That glacier smile
up there? Snowpack like teeth?
That great western wall of mtns?
That
is what I think about
every day.
I cannot not
be happy seeing the face
of my guru/girlfriend/muse
the Holy Rocky Mtns.
Now we ascend. Van says,
“What, are you kiddin’ me?”
#
Is it foolish to feel love
just because
the landscape
turns vertical?
#
Tailings from 1,000
dead gold-mines like
blonde beards
on the slopes
w/ arsenic in their whiskers.
#
Cinderella accuses me
of making the trips more difficult
by bringing things like
Venus flytraps
but I know
I make the trips more complex,
more interesting &
weird.
The soul likes
weirdness.
This soul does, anyway.
#
So many lodgepole pines
killed by drought and beetles, but
still standing, gray
exclamation points
in this long green paragraph.
#
Dylan: “Well my heart’s in the highlands….”
Big kids keep their earbuds screwed in
As I keep bellowing, “That’s so cool!”
Nature. So
BO
RING.
#
Arkansas River meanders the back country.
Feeling mild.
Pauses to meditate
at beaver dams.
#
Dead gas station.
Dead motor court.
Dead truck.
All white.
All poems.
#
Tha Arkansas, man—right at that bend
by the old log cabin gone
curvy as rubber in the corners—
is the kind of river
you could shake
hands with.
#
All right. That’s it.
A taco truck in Leadville.
GOOD LIVING AT
10,200 FEET.
Mexico wins.
Wastelander Aspen
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Franz Ferdinand
The Thermals
Manchester Orchestra
Tiny swallows at Starbucks
making a circus
in the sky.
Huge mayfly
the source of their enthusiasm
sitting on my finger
being very friendly.
Nebraska! Home of Hot Cars!
At every stop, a rod:
red Challenger,
red Camaro,
red Firebird,
red SS Malibu.
#
Muse
The Black Keys
NIN
Bad news still doggin’ us:
the storms we drove thru yes
terday blew our big pine tree down
onto the neighbor’s roof.
Of course, the traditional Urrea Wen-Fu view
would dictate that the pine tree
could have fallen the other way & crashed
thru our roof & busted open my office
& soaked all my notebooks and research but only
Swooned for a nap on the neighbor’s garage.
Zen aqui, amigo!
Wabi Sabi, sabe?
#
Welcome to COLORFUL Colorado!
Colorado loves me.
The eastern plains
soft yellow under heavy grape/gray skies
can heal me.
Bring it: rain, lightning, Rockies,
buffalo, aspens, magpies.
Bring it.
#
Here it comes: Colorado rain.
One million miles of the scent
of wet soil, drenched
hay. Prairie incense.
#
Magpie runs across I-76
too fat & lazy to fly.
#
Suddenly, The Angel of Writing
revealed herself to me
above the Colorado plains.
Her sword
was sharper than cold wind. She
gave me a dispensation.
They can’t touch me now.
We pull into Bella Luna’s rancho,
Castle Rock.
#
FATHER’S DAY.
The most glory-drunk hot Colorado
morning. Nothing
but big blue light.
Wind like ocean surf
coming thru the pastures & pines.
Cricket hinges squeaking rusty,
grasshopper ratchets
clicking up the sun.
Even the dogs know it’s perfect.
The big red bull, not so much.
But the barn cat
rolls in garden-love, looking to
rip apart some butterflies.
& hummingbirds
inspect their reflections
in the kitchen windows.
Fam buys me a Ray Charles CD &
off for Aspen.
#
I almost shout, “Deer!”
but it’s only a
bus stop bench.
#
The addicts
speed to Starbucks.
That. Right there.
Do you see it? That glacier smile
up there? Snowpack like teeth?
That great western wall of mtns?
That
is what I think about
every day.
I cannot not
be happy seeing the face
of my guru/girlfriend/muse
the Holy Rocky Mtns.
Now we ascend. Van says,
“What, are you kiddin’ me?”
#
Is it foolish to feel love
just because
the landscape
turns vertical?
#
Tailings from 1,000
dead gold-mines like
blonde beards
on the slopes
w/ arsenic in their whiskers.
#
Cinderella accuses me
of making the trips more difficult
by bringing things like
Venus flytraps
but I know
I make the trips more complex,
more interesting &
weird.
The soul likes
weirdness.
This soul does, anyway.
#
So many lodgepole pines
killed by drought and beetles, but
still standing, gray
exclamation points
in this long green paragraph.
#
Dylan: “Well my heart’s in the highlands….”
Big kids keep their earbuds screwed in
As I keep bellowing, “That’s so cool!”
Nature. So
BO
RING.
#
Arkansas River meanders the back country.
Feeling mild.
Pauses to meditate
at beaver dams.
#
Dead gas station.
Dead motor court.
Dead truck.
All white.
All poems.
#
Tha Arkansas, man—right at that bend
by the old log cabin gone
curvy as rubber in the corners—
is the kind of river
you could shake
hands with.
#
All right. That’s it.
A taco truck in Leadville.
GOOD LIVING AT
10,200 FEET.
Mexico wins.
7/04/2009
Wastelander I
“I am what is around me.” --Wallace Stevens, “Theory”
#
Illinois to Colorado June 2009
Achin’ and weary after a month
on the road, book tour and burying Grandma
too much monkey business spinnin’ head blues.
But the road is open.
And off, across the Ol’ Miss, beyond the corn,
across Iowa, across
Nebraska,
The Holy Stony Mtns
still rise like a step
ladder to God,
they’re still calling.
#
Illinois
the night before—
waiting
for midnight tornado.
#
FRIDAY
No tornado action:
minor basement flooding.
Again.
Thunder rumbles to the west.
We roll
into twister
territory.
#
Rest area writing break:
insane angry sky delivered
kung-fu beatdowns to the earth.
rained so hard
it looked like fog
made of boulders.
Clouds sped south barely skimming
the tops of low prairie trees.
Then sped north a mile away.
South: all black.
Lightning in place for long beats
like a Dali surreal crutch
holding up the storm.
Guy in front of us forced
onto the shoulder by rain-fear. Then
a break
and suddenly:
sheep!
#
Iowa. Green.
The Mississippi whispering
its old come-on:
“Psst! Hey kid! Throw in
a raft—I’ll take ye
to New Orleans!”
#
Taco Bell in Iowa. Mixed metaphor.
Man taking orders has a Bluetooth,
talks to his wife as he takes orders
saying, “Hi Babe,” and “I love ya
honey” and “OK Sweetie!” while
Iowans stare and mutter, “Huh?
All I want’s a burrito.”
Me? I’m wearing my
Funkadelic
Maggot Brain
t-shirt.
I get looks.
I’m like,
“What?”
#
Thinking:
Hey—what is that sculpture over there?
Realizing:
Oh! It’s farm equipment.
#
Rich electro-dung
fertilizes these fields—we scatter
BBC Radio 1 in the middle of
the Great Plains, we’re
Twittering, checking
book reviews on the iPhone, a spy
satellite murmurs co-ordinates to us in
a bored Brit woman’s voice on the GPS,
the kids work computers, personal audio
systems and Gameboys in the back.
Poor ol’ me,
pen in hand &
notebook on knee.
#
I brought a venus flytrap for a mascot.
#
WTF # 1:
Tanker truck in front of us
hauling double-tanks:
PORK PLASMA—
Not For Human Consumption.
#
It’s the distant dead farms
gone silvergray in the weather, gone
off-plumb and about to topple
that are the best:
whole crops of story & song
in those shadows.
#
Monster sky bends down to look at us.
His belly is so dark
highway light post bulbs
flicker on.
And
The Red Sea
closes over the highway.
Violence. Wind, standing water,
hammering rain,
no visibility. Van slides.
Cars fall away.
You start to look
For funnel clouds.
“Auntie Em! Auntie
Em!”
#
Rain too loud to hear radio.
Lightning forms webs above us.
#
Chayo and I buck the family’s
chocolate trend
& eat carrots.
#
Rain on and off all day. Council Bluffs in gloom.
Coffee. Des Moines invisible in downpour.
Coffee.
I want to live on the banks of the Raccoon River.
Or even better, The Little Raccoon.
“Little Raccoon” sounds like
A poem by Mary Oliver or
A kids’ book title. I’ll take it!
#
Western Iowa traffic jam. Seriously?
Between soy bean fields and cattle yards?
10 miles an hour.
cows and crows
are mocking us.
#
Baffled by my past.
Astounded by my present.
Surrendered to my future.
#
Middle River has a dull name,
but is a pretty little thing.
A slender beauty
looking shy down there
among the cottonwoods.
#
Through a vast wind-farm,
where the propeller towers
rotate silently, turning their faces
like giant robot sunflowers.
#
Lincoln. Omaha. Slog in variable sun.
Fall into motel. Chayo’s mood ring
says I am tired.
Bad food. No blankets for the kids. The
hotel room trash can
has a dog food can in it. And I got
slaughtered in the S.F. Chronicle today.
Crazy mouth-foaming assault that will, I swear,
seem funny in a few days.
I am not only a bad writer, but a stupid writer, and worse
critics dare compare me to Garcia Marquez! It’s the first
review ever of my blurbs!
Wait, it’s already funny.
#
SATURDAY
Last night, as we got into bed,
a huge black motel beetle
jumped out of the pillow and onto
Cinderella’s hair & the girls
started screaming w/ Instant
Beetlephobia.
I really shouldn’t laugh.
#
Bad book review?
Sun’s up. Crops are growing.
Sky’s huge. Iran is exploding.
Real things
matter.
Guts all over the road.
Girls find something worse than the beetle
to be unhappy about.
#
Joy and Delight—
Chayo gets me to play her “Horror Hop” monster
music CD—big kids collapse in profound
soul-pain—it’s so uncool, man! It’s so, like,
not Nine Inch Nails or the Killers, dude!
Suddenly, the dull acerbic tones of tsst-tsst-
tsst-tsst twin earbuds cranking emo &
industrial hiss from the middle seats.
Chayo & me, in shades,
car-dancing.
Wifey, reading paper,
maintains a frozen
smile.
#
Sign said:
JESUS IS RISEN.
Cinderella thought it said:
JESUS IS GREEN.
She’s such a democrat.
#
C driving. D’oh! I stick my pen
In my shoe, then uncross my legs
and cry, “Where’d my pen go!”
#
Sometimes, being myopic is cool—
road detritus by the highway
looks for an instant
like a giant
tarantula
from a 50s monster movie.
Must be the influence
Of “Horror Hop.”
#
Even doing industrial driving,
1,000 miles a day, something
excellent: a Pony Express
station down in the woods—
I meditate upon it and our
western history…
very briefly.
#
4 cows in a field
beside 2 pigs
homegirls grazing.
#
Sleepy trucker
turns I-80
into a long embroidery
of lazy S’s.
#
Collapsed cabins.
All those ghosts
have hunched shoulders.
#
Vultures
circling
by the road, waiting
for me to give up
my soul,
but Cage The
Elephant are on the radio
& my pen’s still full
& I think
I won’t die yet.
Wastelander Prologue
“I am what is around me.” --Wallace Stevens, “Theory”
#
Illinois to Colorado June 2009
Achin’ and weary after a month
on the road, book tour and burying Grandma
too much monkey business spinnin’ head blues.
But the road is open.
And off, across the Ol’ Miss, beyond the corn,
across Iowa, across
Nebraska,
The Holy Stony Mtns
still rise like a step
ladder to God,
they’re still calling.
#
Illinois
the night before—
waiting
for midnight tornado.
#
FRIDAY
No tornado action:
minor basement flooding.
Again.
Thunder rumbles to the west.
We roll
into twister
territory.
#
Rest area writing break:
insane angry sky delivered
kung-fu beatdowns to the earth.
rained so hard
it looked like fog
made of boulders.
Clouds sped south barely skimming
the tops of low prairie trees.
Then sped north a mile away.
South: all black.
Lightning in place for long beats
like a Dali surreal crutch
holding up the storm.
Guy in front of us forced
onto the shoulder by rain-fear. Then
a break
and suddenly:
sheep!
#
Iowa. Green.
The Mississippi whispering
its old come-on:
“Psst! Hey kid! Throw in
a raft—I’ll take ye
to New Orleans!”
#
Taco Bell in Iowa. Mixed metaphor.
Man taking orders has a Bluetooth,
talks to his wife as he takes orders
saying, “Hi Babe,” and “I love ya
honey” and “OK Sweetie!” while
Iowans stare and mutter, “Huh?
All I want’s a burrito.”
Me? I’m wearing my
Funkadelic
Maggot Brain
t-shirt.
I get looks.
I’m like,
“What?”
#
Thinking:
Hey—what is that sculpture over there?
Realizing:
Oh! It’s farm equipment.
#
Rich electro-dung
fertilizes these fields—we scatter
BBC Radio 1 in the middle of
the Great Plains, we’re
Twittering, checking
book reviews on the iPhone, a spy
satellite murmurs co-ordinates to us in
a bored Brit woman’s voice on the GPS,
the kids work computers, personal audio
systems and Gameboys in the back.
Poor ol’ me,
pen in hand &
notebook on knee.
#
I brought a venus flytrap for a mascot.
#
WTF # 1:
Tanker truck in front of us
hauling double-tanks:
PORK PLASMA—
Not For Human Consumption.
#
It’s the distant dead farms
gone silvergray in the weather, gone
off-plumb and about to topple
that are the best:
whole crops of story & song
in those shadows.
#
Monster sky bends down to look at us.
His belly is so dark
highway light post bulbs
flicker on.
And
The Red Sea
closes over the highway.
Violence. Wind, standing water,
hammering rain,
no visibility. Van slides.
Cars fall away.
You start to look
For funnel clouds.
“Auntie Em! Auntie
Em!”
#
Rain too loud to hear radio.
Lightning forms webs above us.
#
Chayo and I buck the family’s
chocolate trend
& eat carrots.
#
Rain on and off all day. Council Bluffs in gloom.
Coffee. Des Moines invisible in downpour.
Coffee.
I want to live on the banks of the Raccoon River.
Or even better, The Little Raccoon.
“Little Raccoon” sounds like
A poem by Mary Oliver or
A kids’ book title. I’ll take it!
#
Western Iowa traffic jam. Seriously?
Between soy bean fields and cattle yards?
10 miles an hour.
cows and crows
are mocking us.
#
Baffled by my past.
Astounded by my present.
Surrendered to my future.
#
Middle River has a dull name,
but is a pretty little thing.
A slender beauty
looking shy down there
among the cottonwoods.
#
Through a vast wind-farm,
where the propeller towers
rotate silently, turning their faces
like giant robot sunflowers.
#
Lincoln. Omaha. Slog in variable sun.
Fall into motel. Chayo’s mood ring
says I am tired.
Bad food. No blankets for the kids. The
hotel room trash can
has a dog food can in it. And I got
slaughtered in the S.F. Chronicle today.
Crazy mouth-foaming assault that will, I swear,
seem funny in a few days.
I am not only a bad writer, but a stupid writer, and worse
critics dare compare me to Garcia Marquez! It’s the first
review ever of my blurbs!
Wait, it’s already funny.
#
SATURDAY
Last night, as we got into bed,
a huge black motel beetle
jumped out of the pillow and onto
Cinderella’s hair & the girls
started screaming w/ Instant
Beetlephobia.
I really shouldn’t laugh.
#
Bad book review?
Sun’s up. Crops are growing.
Sky’s huge. Iran is exploding.
Real things
matter.
Guts all over the road.
Girls find something worse than the beetle
to be unhappy about.
#
Joy and Delight—
Chayo gets me to play her “Horror Hop” monster
music CD—big kids collapse in profound
soul-pain—it’s so uncool, man! It’s so, like,
not Nine Inch Nails or the Killers, dude!
Suddenly, the dull acerbic tones of tsst-tsst-
tsst-tsst twin earbuds cranking emo &
industrial hiss from the middle seats.
Chayo & me, in shades,
car-dancing.
Wifey, reading paper,
maintains a frozen
smile.
#
Sign said:
JESUS IS RISEN.
Cinderella thought it said:
JESUS IS GREEN.
She’s such a democrat.
#
C driving. D’oh! I stick my pen
In my shoe, then uncross my legs
and cry, “Where’d my pen go!”
#
Sometimes, being myopic is cool—
road detritus by the highway
looks for an instant
like a giant
tarantula
from a 50s monster movie.
Must be the influence
Of “Horror Hop.”
#
Even doing industrial driving,
1,000 miles a day, something
excellent: a Pony Express
station down in the woods—
I meditate upon it and our
western history…
very briefly.
#
4 cows in a field
beside 2 pigs
homegirls grazing.
#
Sleepy trucker
turns I-80
into a long embroidery
of lazy S’s.
#
Collapsed cabins.
All those ghosts
have hunched shoulders.
#
Vultures
circling
by the road, waiting
for me to give up
my soul,
but Cage The
Elephant are on the radio
& my pen’s still full
& I think
I won’t die yet.
7/01/2009
I was ripping out the voluminous weeds that have overwhelmed my garden since I went on the cataclysmic book tour '09 edition. My head's still spinning--literayyly. I had a harsh attack of vertigo that comes and goes since the awful/wonderful events on the road. (See postings, below.) But I was out there in my Border Angels shirt with Chayo, our youngest, otherwise known as Sheena Of The Jungle. We were thrilled to find an albino millipede. That felt like some kind of good omen.
Well, you long-time victims, er, readers, of this blog are familiar with the wastelanders. I know lots of new people are looking in on us now. So a brief word of explanation.
I wanted to come up with a form of writing--not writing but sketching--that was agile and flexible and impressionistic. I wanted a form that would lend intself to the wanderings of soul and mind, as well as to the wanderings of body and event. Had to be fast, you see. And fun. Otherwise, really, why do it? I wanted to inject Big Fun into my writing/being! Recess! Everybody--hit the monkeybars!
This style started to assert itself. Looks like poetry, but it is not poetry. Though there are some poems in it, even haiku. It looks like Kerouac's sketches, but it isn't like them. Maybe a little like Thomas Wolfe's old notebooks, but more lyrical. Maybe like Joe Ely's wonderful book, Bonfire of Roadmaps, but more intuitive. Basically, all me, for better or worse. My thoughts, my eyes, my spirit. I like to see how things start to create themes in the real world, how images surface and shadows oif plots and stories seem to connect pine trees or aspens, say, 4000 miles away from each other.
Certain readers take offense when I talk about FAMOUS PEOPLE, as if their fame is something that I am using to boost myself. Perhaps, if you take these sightings as WTF moments, you will enjoy them. Seeing a famous guy is like seeing a bear. Besides, these are the folks I work with now. My...colleagues. Think of them as cafeteria ladies and hotel doormen. Or bears.
Finally, the term "wastelander" is a synonym for "writer" and comes from the fabulously out-of-date book, Dictionary of Modern American Synonyms by Homer Hogan. I have taken it as my own, and will put it on ball caps, t-shirts and lit journals till I drop.
And on these scribbles.
So watch for it. I'll be posting part one of the new series here soon. You can read older ones in the archive of this blog...until I put 'em in book form!
Wandering time 4ever, wish U were here, I remain
Yrs., Luigi
Well, you long-time victims, er, readers, of this blog are familiar with the wastelanders. I know lots of new people are looking in on us now. So a brief word of explanation.
I wanted to come up with a form of writing--not writing but sketching--that was agile and flexible and impressionistic. I wanted a form that would lend intself to the wanderings of soul and mind, as well as to the wanderings of body and event. Had to be fast, you see. And fun. Otherwise, really, why do it? I wanted to inject Big Fun into my writing/being! Recess! Everybody--hit the monkeybars!
This style started to assert itself. Looks like poetry, but it is not poetry. Though there are some poems in it, even haiku. It looks like Kerouac's sketches, but it isn't like them. Maybe a little like Thomas Wolfe's old notebooks, but more lyrical. Maybe like Joe Ely's wonderful book, Bonfire of Roadmaps, but more intuitive. Basically, all me, for better or worse. My thoughts, my eyes, my spirit. I like to see how things start to create themes in the real world, how images surface and shadows oif plots and stories seem to connect pine trees or aspens, say, 4000 miles away from each other.
Certain readers take offense when I talk about FAMOUS PEOPLE, as if their fame is something that I am using to boost myself. Perhaps, if you take these sightings as WTF moments, you will enjoy them. Seeing a famous guy is like seeing a bear. Besides, these are the folks I work with now. My...colleagues. Think of them as cafeteria ladies and hotel doormen. Or bears.
Finally, the term "wastelander" is a synonym for "writer" and comes from the fabulously out-of-date book, Dictionary of Modern American Synonyms by Homer Hogan. I have taken it as my own, and will put it on ball caps, t-shirts and lit journals till I drop.
And on these scribbles.
So watch for it. I'll be posting part one of the new series here soon. You can read older ones in the archive of this blog...until I put 'em in book form!
Wandering time 4ever, wish U were here, I remain
Yrs., Luigi
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