9/25/2010
London. Up at 6:00.
Daughters acting like they're
being martyred on Tower Hill.
More rain. Why do I love London rain?
Because it's so cool to say "London rain," no doubt.
One of those Donovan songs I'd listen to
in San Diego, where I'd never see London, where
I'd seldom see rain.
Paddington Station.
Bought Chayo a Paddington Bear
at the last outlet in London registered directly
to the author. Paddington with his little hat.
The salesman said: "The author's a lovely man.
Eighty-some. But just like you--no lines
on his face. Me? I've got all the lines.
You and he--no lines!"
Pigeons in the roof of the station
open their wings and drop like hang gliders
out of the light.
I share my Starbuck's skinny muffin
with a strutting reunion of rock doves.
Chayo says, "That pigeon's just chillin'."
For the rest of the trip, the big kids
will mock her relentlessly. "That train?
Just chillin'."
Cinderella calls me "The pigeon lady."
Like one of those park bench pigeon feeders,
my molar suddenly falls out! Cursed crown!
Herding five family members to the train car
is crazy stressful. And expensive. I'VE GOT
A GREAT BIG HOLE IN ME JAW!
Screaming down the rails. All near the tracks is a mad blur.
You have to focus on the middle distance to see anything.
We blast into the country, startle suburbs, and back to the fields.
Great yellow meadows under heavy skies.
Scenic half-timbered houses on small rivers.
20 swans in a perfect triangle on black water.
Oil tanks behind ancient
arched stone bridges.
Newspaper headline:
"England Is The Sickie Man of Europe."
Rusting factories, graffiti mad walls
and then, horses.
Every country house
in this rainlight
looks like a watercolor.
Farmer and dog.
Fields, wildflowers, smears of orange.
Behind me, the businessman with the nasal voice
chats up the businesswoman with the strong perfume:
"That's why," he says,
"I wouldn't want my nurse to be Sarah!
She's so bloody...she's
so in her head!
She'd do her job better
if she got a boyfriend.
She's lost weight, though.
Stopped drinking.
Riding her bike."
I'm thinking, GO SARAH.
Foreground fields: dark.
Background fields: bright
as electric lights.
"Molly's ex is posting Facebook messages about cricket.
Clearly, veiled threats to her."
Our kids sleep or play video games. Nobody
looks out the window. Nobody's practicing mindfulness.
Nobody's listening. When you're a kid, you think
you already know. You think you'll be back
1,000,000 times. Why look?
Good luck
with that.
Conductor:
"We're pulling into Swindon five minutes early.
I reckon the train's running on Red Bull this morning."
Businessman, earnestly:
"People
know me
and they like me."
Far mauve hills.
Sheep!
Little white
exclamation points.
All these fields, and no Mexicanos
bent over with short hoes.
Chippenham.
"I went to her brother's stag party.
And I met some really fun guys there!"
Lovely, lovely Bath.
Entering a stone and green-hill dream.
[Summer 2010.]
Archive: 1. Cussin'
Daughters acting like they're
being martyred on Tower Hill.
More rain. Why do I love London rain?
Because it's so cool to say "London rain," no doubt.
One of those Donovan songs I'd listen to
in San Diego, where I'd never see London, where
I'd seldom see rain.
Paddington Station.
Bought Chayo a Paddington Bear
at the last outlet in London registered directly
to the author. Paddington with his little hat.
The salesman said: "The author's a lovely man.
Eighty-some. But just like you--no lines
on his face. Me? I've got all the lines.
You and he--no lines!"
Pigeons in the roof of the station
open their wings and drop like hang gliders
out of the light.
I share my Starbuck's skinny muffin
with a strutting reunion of rock doves.
Chayo says, "That pigeon's just chillin'."
For the rest of the trip, the big kids
will mock her relentlessly. "That train?
Just chillin'."
Cinderella calls me "The pigeon lady."
Like one of those park bench pigeon feeders,
my molar suddenly falls out! Cursed crown!
Herding five family members to the train car
is crazy stressful. And expensive. I'VE GOT
A GREAT BIG HOLE IN ME JAW!
Screaming down the rails. All near the tracks is a mad blur.
You have to focus on the middle distance to see anything.
We blast into the country, startle suburbs, and back to the fields.
Great yellow meadows under heavy skies.
Scenic half-timbered houses on small rivers.
20 swans in a perfect triangle on black water.
Oil tanks behind ancient
arched stone bridges.
Newspaper headline:
"England Is The Sickie Man of Europe."
Rusting factories, graffiti mad walls
and then, horses.
Every country house
in this rainlight
looks like a watercolor.
Farmer and dog.
Fields, wildflowers, smears of orange.
Behind me, the businessman with the nasal voice
chats up the businesswoman with the strong perfume:
"That's why," he says,
"I wouldn't want my nurse to be Sarah!
She's so bloody...she's
so in her head!
She'd do her job better
if she got a boyfriend.
She's lost weight, though.
Stopped drinking.
Riding her bike."
I'm thinking, GO SARAH.
Foreground fields: dark.
Background fields: bright
as electric lights.
"Molly's ex is posting Facebook messages about cricket.
Clearly, veiled threats to her."
Our kids sleep or play video games. Nobody
looks out the window. Nobody's practicing mindfulness.
Nobody's listening. When you're a kid, you think
you already know. You think you'll be back
1,000,000 times. Why look?
Good luck
with that.
Conductor:
"We're pulling into Swindon five minutes early.
I reckon the train's running on Red Bull this morning."
Businessman, earnestly:
"People
know me
and they like me."
Far mauve hills.
Sheep!
Little white
exclamation points.
All these fields, and no Mexicanos
bent over with short hoes.
Chippenham.
"I went to her brother's stag party.
And I met some really fun guys there!"
Lovely, lovely Bath.
Entering a stone and green-hill dream.
[Summer 2010.]
9/18/2010
I fell in with Oglala Lakota brothers at Pine Ridge Reservation. This helped me through some of the most harrowing terrors of writing The Hummingbird's Daughter, and gave me a couple of my favorite short stories--not least of which is the NPR "Selected Shorts" perennial, "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses."
Better than all this, of course, if friendship. And of my friends, DuaneBrewer is the best cusser. Cussing is a fine art, and I enjoy it. I was told by an angry book club maven in Pasadena, "If you had used language in my house like you use in Hummingbird, you would have been punched in the mouth." My first thought was: wow, what a spiritual place your house was! All I could think to say to her was, "It isn't about your house, it's about somebody else's house."
In 1991, Duane unleashed my all-time favorite curse. A curse thunderous in its outrage, mad in its locution, hilarious in its funk. Damn! He was rockin'! I hope to quote it on my death-bed. It is a great American poem. He said:
That guy
is a low-life
shit-lipped
mother-effin'
et up
dried out
box of Kentucky
Fried Chicken.
Brooklyn
Better than all this, of course, if friendship. And of my friends, DuaneBrewer is the best cusser. Cussing is a fine art, and I enjoy it. I was told by an angry book club maven in Pasadena, "If you had used language in my house like you use in Hummingbird, you would have been punched in the mouth." My first thought was: wow, what a spiritual place your house was! All I could think to say to her was, "It isn't about your house, it's about somebody else's house."
In 1991, Duane unleashed my all-time favorite curse. A curse thunderous in its outrage, mad in its locution, hilarious in its funk. Damn! He was rockin'! I hope to quote it on my death-bed. It is a great American poem. He said:
That guy
is a low-life
shit-lipped
mother-effin'
et up
dried out
box of Kentucky
Fried Chicken.
9/07/2010
After an epic summer of Book Tour USA, Family extended adventures in England and France, and the Squaw Valley writers' workshops, I am coming out of my summer hibernation. Man, I got home in time to see Megan off to college, to suffer through another birthday, and to start teaching again. Other than that--nothing. No workouts, not gardening, just a month of stunned vegetating. Oh, yeah--there was that one small thing of writing more of the Hummingbird's Daughter sequel.
This coming weekend, I'll be in Brooklyn, at the Brooklyn book festival. I'll be doing two panels, though both are slated against various super-duper-stars. I won't be mad at ya if I don't see ya!
After that, I'ma head on down to Laredo, and to a local gig, and out to a mysterious event in Santa Fe that I can tell you about after it's over (not open to the public--sorry), and to a week in California in November. That'll be just about the right time to leave Chi for CA, by the way. Stuff like that.
I'll keep you posted.
See you in New York and, oh Lord, don't let the bedbugs bite.
This coming weekend, I'll be in Brooklyn, at the Brooklyn book festival. I'll be doing two panels, though both are slated against various super-duper-stars. I won't be mad at ya if I don't see ya!
After that, I'ma head on down to Laredo, and to a local gig, and out to a mysterious event in Santa Fe that I can tell you about after it's over (not open to the public--sorry), and to a week in California in November. That'll be just about the right time to leave Chi for CA, by the way. Stuff like that.
I'll keep you posted.
See you in New York and, oh Lord, don't let the bedbugs bite.
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