m. ward
poison cup
new kerrang
i get ideas
get to the table on time
primitive girl
too young to die
post-war
to go home
fuel for fire
chinese translation
vincent o’brien
my morning jacket
state of the art
holdin’ on to black metal
compound fracture
first light
mahgeetah
bermuda highway
gideon
tropics
you wanna freak out
circuital
wordless chorus
touch me i’m going to scream pt 2
feel you
o is the one that is real
spring
one big holiday
the bear
wasted
love love love
driving 82 on 10
in a van full of drugs
and your breath in my ear
in my dreams
we’re sitting in silence
as the mountains light up
and the shadows of cactus
define them
orchards and boxcars
tell me, pull over
crawl over the fence
with the camera
get some more bruises
some more scars, funny stories
little sister imitations
of her big brother’s work
so now in the silence
steer through the heat
on the line of the love
through thousands of miles
through twenty years
did you know how i loved you
when you pulled me out of the quicksand
children keeping secrets
and losing shoes
did you know how i loved you
when you pulled me through broken glass
children keeping secrets
watching spiders in the sun
and glinting eyes in the dark
so just like when we were small
you told me it would be okay
you made me
know
it would be okay
did i know how i loved you
so the universe told me
it’s all balanced now
and you don’t need shoes
on someone’s shoulders
when i love you
when i love you
there is a love that exists inside the soul
that language cannot capture
a love my words can’t take captive whole
the size and gravity of rapture
all of my efforts, bound to fail
no snare or knot can hold it
nor trap, nor pit, nor jail,
and no psalm has ever told it
but you, my love, uncover
these mysteries and more
and, stumbling, i discover
you are all that i adore
Ask yourself a question… anyone but me…
Anyone but you what?
Hummer lyrics. I don’t use my own words. You know this. Are you free? Do you feel love is real?
Well, I was gonna say, I thought freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
Love Janis. God that’s a good book. I have literally hundreds of excerpts. How’s the reading? It’s a lecture, yeah?
Are you asking me or are those more song lyrics?
Literally the same song. Anyway. I hope it’s a good reading. I hope you like it. But it’s fine if you don’t. Throw it in the fire.
Well, I haven’t hacked into the song lyrics part of your brain yet to copy everything to mine.
I feel you working on it, though.
It’s a great reading, and the lecture format suits it.
Dope.
Well, yeah.
In your beanbag, under your Christmas lights. Sage burning. Just sifting through the lyrics files, which take up more than half of the shelves.
That sounds awesome. What am I wearing?
Rainbow fluffy onesie. And I just assumed you were talking about Janis, even though Kris wrote it.
I was talking about Janis for sure even though he wrote it.
You have a space in my mind. And in my heart. You can hang out there anytime you want. Sorry about the mess. I threw a couple of parties and housekeeping is on strike.
I will forgive you for not inviting me to the parties as long as you don’t expect me to clean. Plus, I would never cross a picket line.
I’d have invited you. And you alone.
Even if I spent the whole evening, trying to convince you to give the housekeeping union what they want?
I imagine it to be pretty well organized, tbh, though some things are likely thrown willy nilly in trunks and closets. Likely needs a good deep cleaning. I’m open to negotiations with housekeeping. I have no idea where they went.
They went out to find their own rainbow, fluffy onesies.
I get that. It leaves a lot to the imagination. It’s a vibe.
How’s your imagination?
Vivid. Active.
It’s all that collagen I bet.
Oh. And captured. Utterly captured.
Jesus stands on rooftops
telling kids to tie their shoes
but they’re busy sewing patches
with strings of sturdy blues
and in a matchbox
in a mailbox
lies her cross on a chain
with the dust in the air
caught by too-late rain
for destiny’s a recycle bin
and death a dirty lane
and the sky is all unfinished thoughts
and hope, a weather vane
and in a locked box
in a fire box
lies her life without chains
with creosote scented air
that smells like city rain
while the past closes its oak drawer
and hate drops its blind man’s cane
there is a madly spinning storm
and hope
a fallen weather vane.
June 12, 2006 at 7:24 PM
not sure if this was replied to already, but:
that is hands-down the best hire-me letter i’ve ever read. i sincerely hope you get everything your heart desires. when you two get down here give me a ring and i’ll set up a nice little welcome.
Mara!
Mara?
Neuroses? I’ve got neuroses. I’m a bitter, cynical, egomaniacal, self-deprecating hypocrite who trusts the hyperbole of the late Lester Bangs over the sagest moanings of her own junkie mother. Politics? That’s small potatoes, man. That’s nothing but ketchup on the double order of scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, topped, diced, peppered and capped, as the Waffle Housers say it. I know nil, nothing about Atlanta politics, but with the right kind of eyes you can take that as a boon. I’m tabula rasa, man, and jaded as I am, the Creative Loaf is like raisin toast to mine eyes that hath seen nothing but potato sandwich bread crusts for years.
Politics? It’s amusement, Ice-Capades for the carefully dressed with their carefully worded slogans, whether they be wily senators or drum-circling causeheads or just the average knowlittle-nik. Me, I like Ayn Rand and P.J. O’Rourke, Dr. Laura and Al Franken. I appeared on New York television during a fortuitous afternoon in August, 2004 dressed (with mask) as Richard Nixon as part of a publicity stunt put on by the LebowskiFest and Billionaires For Bush people. I listen to Fox News Radio and wore a shirt with a picture of Bush on it over the word LIAR! to vote in a rural western Kentucky elementary school during the presidential race of 2004. I was known to my college environmental law professor as a “bomb-throwing anarchist,” and like to credit myself with the total shaming of one of Flagstaff, Arizona’s mayoral candidates by calling his faux-rock tuchus out on not knowing the lyricist behind one of his so-called favorite songs, “All Along the Watchtower.” What does this prove? Maybe just that I’m a try-too-hard, too-eager, uncouth yippity pip who refuses to put her hand down and stop going “ooh ooh ooh pick me!” So yeah, I spose you could go with someone who knows more about Atlantan politics than that one time when y’all got burned down As Seen In That Movie With That Dreamy Clark Gable, but just remember what Mr. Thompson (he dead, man, he dead) said in “Better Than Sex” –
“The standard gets lower every year, but the scum keeps rising. A whole new class has seized control in the nineties: They call themselves ‘The New Dumb,’ and they have no sense of humor. They are smart, but they have no passion. They are cute, but they have no fun except phone sex and line dancing…. They are healthy and clean and cautious and their average life-span is now over 100 years (with women at 102 and men slightly under 100).”
For the love of all that’s holy and good and sparkling and spoon-danglin’ly wild-eyed, Mara, don’t let them hire one of those swine!!!
Just say the word.
Respectfully,
rumors of your death have apparently been greatly exaggerated, of which i am both relieved and dismayed. relieved because i can now remove my black veil, dismayed that, after all the tears i have shed, i may not be able to cry the next time you pass.
i read your piece on principle nelson of the adams school (excellent work! though you should have the web guy fix that fourth paragraph) and skimmed a few of the other fine offerings on ellsworthamerican.com. the duck article i found heartwarming, the photo of the grim reapers: chilling. it never occurred to me that there might be more than one reaper. i may have trouble sleeping.
you have certainly landed on a soft patch of land. now if you can find a handyman or short-order-cook with whom you could pal around and share playful and romantic banter, you will be like a living gilmore girl (yes, i realize that i have incriminated myself and that you are sure to judge the television that i may or may not have watched).
things are well here as well, since you asked. i have recently acquired an obsession with the game of go; the storms of april have given way to the mosquitos of may; i am wearing flip-flops; i am eating well; i am writing a social bookmarks application here at the big nerd ranch… in fact, i had better get back to it.
from southern sidelines and saving up for large quantities of roe,
ian
This juniper,
this soft orange dirt under my heels,
these O’Keeffe clouds
white muffins on the glass pan of the sky
ants that carry their translucent pink and brown boulders
Will you ever understand the smell of the monsoons
with me
With 100 feet of sky framed by trees above me
how I miss the distant, blue mountains of the West
And once returned to the West
how quickly those mountains become background
If we look up
Into the convex mirror of the sky
Screened by the hay loft netting
Will we see the whole world
Left to us by dead men
As though standing on dusty cars in barns
Laughing to catch the sleeping bags as we throw them
Was the way to secret divinity?
And if I jump
From the sky
Will I become virga
Rain to steam
And evaporate before I hit the ground,
the buildings
the heat upon the street
the fountains and the birds and the beaches
the sound of the wind in the trees and the flags
the smell of sheets and milk and oranges and old brick?
Or if you jump
Will I evaporate you?
Or if we jump
what happens then?
A brave man
and a handful of bills
to build a roof
A light to go out
when we sleep
Sinking again at nighttime
quiet eyes on glow in the dark
stars
A rush in my heart
a shredding metal feeling
a fever in my veins when I have no bed to fall upon
Homeless near a thousand homes I stood tonight
How much could I fit in the backseat
In the trunk
How many miles can this tank take me
Where can I be at dawn
What lonesome highway truck stop in Texas
Oh homeless near a thousand homes I stand tonight
homeless near a thousand homes
a thousand homes
hey there missy, so good to hear from you and hear you are doing well. things here are all the same. you’re not missing much, but we’re sure missing you.
biggest thing that happened lately was when we had to take sally the sow to the big city doctor and so decided to make it into a vacation as well. shoot… pineapples on pizza, people scooping poop off sidewalks, boys putting jewelry in their ears and girls putting it everywhere else… don’t get me wrong, them big buildings are impressive, but all the big buildings in the world won’t teach you nothing about birthing a pig.
what else? farm’s getting hot, gnats and noseeums are particularly bad this year. papa took the tractor down to creek, cleared the path and dug out the swimming hole. you remember that time you and me walked down there – we must’ve been four or five tops – and we were exploring and all of a sudden you started sinking down in that quicksand? haha. you were up to your thighs in it by the time i grabbed ahold of you. the sucking sound it made when we finally got you out and having to explain to mama how you lost your shoes… those were good times, missy.
uncle orbin – aunt alice’s orbin – he’s not doing so good, so say a little prayer for him. orbin was always real sweet to you. he was the one that bought you that little plastic horse that you loved so much – the one on the springs. what with marvette dying and so many of the folks around here getting sick, i’m starting to wonder if those chemicals we sprayed to keep the bugs off the peanuts and cotton weren’t so good after all.
but it’s real good to hear you are doing so good. you got out of here and made something for yourself. you always were the smart one.
well, it’s about time for me to start dinner. we’re having cornbread, black-eyed peas, mashed potatoes and fried chicken. i’ll save you some banana pudding.
write again soon,
ian
