Autumn Apples

One day in college, Lauren found a huge bag of apples in the parking lot. It had been there for at least two days, so she took it, and we ate ALL of them.

Last Night

I was standing at the top of a building inside a giant glass fish bowl. Suddenly I was tumbling down, down, several stories, and hit the ground in the middle of a church/chapel. The glass shattered into a billion pieces and they all sliced through my skin in an intricate web of crisscrossing gashes. The church people were so nice and helped me to get cleaned up and everything. But my whole body hurt everywhere. So when they wanted to hold my arm, it hurt, or for me to walk with them somewhere, it hurt, almost more than I could bear. I might not be bleeding anymore but it is still tender!


Then later, fully healed, obviously, I saved my entire family. We were on a steep, steep beach watching someone play with a dog. I looked out over the ocean and saw a glassy blackish-green form rising up and blocking out the horizon. It was a giant beast of a wave. Nobody else was looking out there, though.

"We must get off of this beach," I said. "WE MUST GET OFF OF THIS BEACH."

Finally they realized that I was serious and began to make their way up along the winding paths through the dune grass. I grabbed my youngest sister (who was somehow, magically, only about eight years old) and we headed up to the top of the sandy cliff and across the parking lot to this shady area. Everyone else was still coming, so I found a bench that was bolted to a concrete slab in the ground and held tight to it with my sister wrapped around me, bracing ourselves in case the wave managed to make it this far.


Finally the others appeared, followed almost immediately by the creeping, seeping fingers of the edge of that wave, which had climbed that great cliff but only had the energy to soak the bottoms of our pants.

We really are visitors here, sojourners.

First Love

Just me for this night.







Ok, just listen to this one all the way through, and remember what you are made of.

You are the blood flowing through my fingers
all through the soil and up in those trees
You are electricity, and you're light
You are sound itself, and you are flight

You are the blood that I may see you, that I may see you
You are the blood in me
You are the earth on which I travel, on which I travel
You are the earth under my feet
That I may travel that I may travel with you
You are the earth on which I write the circumstances
You say what you want from me
You are the solitude that goes against me, that goes against me
You are the choir in which I dream, in which I sleep, in which I wander

Candle

Bulbs shining from within, exactly nine windows.
Nine points of light, and I raise the candle to make ten.

Stars in the night
Souls in the deep

Each gleaming from a neighbor's apartment, near,
but not so near at all.
We'd have to descend and ascend to even touch.

Lashes droop and everything fades, blurs,
through slitted eyes, everything but those lights.
Images disintegrate.
Words multiply and divide.
Fractals of meaning. Apart. Ment.

Shafts between worlds, universes.

And from the same source stream the light and the shadow
All of us light and shadow
Dancing off of glass
flickering, skipping
somersaulting.

There, across the gulf, reflected in the pane, in the pane, in their pane, in their pain
Is my flame.


And everything just aches into one.

Newt Diet

I am thinking of writing a diet plan book. For vegetarians. DUH. Anyway, it is simple. Just remember the four Ps.

Poop: Does this food help me poop well (i.e. is it high in fiber - whole grains, fruits, veggies, etc.)?
Protein: Does the food give me significant protein?
Palate: Is it palatable, tasty; do I like eating it?
Pretty: Does it look nice - i.e. is it colorful (possess natural pigments, like in nutrient-rich foods)?

Obviously you should try to maximize on all four as much as possible. But it's fine if you sometimes go with only one or two. That is all. Try to get all of these in every meal, and listen to your body to see when it's full.

The end. I guess I don't need to write a book about that.