tinbrick alley -- leja's thread

april the fourteenth

they're lines of windows
hunkered down into four
formidable floors. A brick of brick
rooms whose solid lines should
seem to always look out onto us.
Thw windows, the rooms, the dorm
are, are, and is empty: a
silent sentry for when we walk
by on our way to meddle
in the universe.

april the fifteenth (makeup)

In a college town, bicycles caravan downhill on sidewalks to get back home and the people on them, you see, keep the square space that goes with the practice. No roof needed. Look quick behind you: we're still here. There's something connecting in a bicycle caravan, where in walking you might fake left and right with that awkward little dance that happens when you're about to run into someone. But bicycles are smoother, getting places so much quicker. until eventually you ride through the tinbrick alley. until you drop your bike, run up the fire escape, and watch the sun set together from your castle on the hill.

april the sixteenth (makeup)

[removed]

april the seventeenth

[removed]

april the eighteenth

Today I am
a jenny Gen Y artist in
a graphic print dress and an
apron, walking around barefoot
washing dishes and
listening to hipster music, a beer
cap on a chain around my neck. Today
I wear gold and pearls, and
spalshes of pink around the room are
the remains of artistic casuality.
Today, I eat maccaroni and cheese
in the kitchen at noon, stepping over
puddles of water from the last person
who overflowed the sink and
boys who ran through from a soccer
game out in the rain. Today I am
between ages and may or may not
need to worry about economics in
the classroom, at home, in the news,
in the world. Today I know how I'll
rearrange the refrigerador magnets when
I'm done with this frame. Today I am.

april the nineteenth

Today I am protovintage, walking down
narrow streets of houses close to the
sidewalk, doors and windows flung open
to greet the morning and long, windy vines
trailing from iron balconies to the overhangs below
that catch and comb my hair as I walk by
to the stucco church around the next corner.
Today I wear a white linen dress and a slouchy
pink sweater that someone knit decades ago
and that looks acceptable with an ivory ribbon
around the waist. Today I walk to the market
in some protoeuro town, a basket on my elbow and
a scarf around my hair. Today I am little miss giggles.

20. the wizard of oz lost dorothy somewhere in the middle of spring semester

Wind caught us up in a
cycolone is unfortunate, flying
around the world whether it wants
to or not. If anyone were to
say otherwise, rational throught
would no longer be availible to
emotional returns. Simplicity,
complicity, explicitly returns felled
trees in a neat stack of piled
up houses, ready to be reconnected to
their land. While the winds fly
outside, we're still
kids hid up in a tree during a thunderstorm
while lightning nitrogen fixefies the atmosphere overhead.

21. watershed

Today I don't care
about the watershed's biological
system or each valley's experimental
value. I don't care about the quantification of poetry, but by
the the human use of putting one
word after another, climbing the
old wooden ladder out
of the watershed dam to sun on the rocks
nearby. Today I am an

American princess who just wants a frog to kiss

because you can only take so many
pictures of streetlights, hurling the
sunlight behind them to the rest of the world,
and still be original.

22. new age wizard

Today I am a student in a white lab
coat, running with a clipboard through
the forest nearby, feet sinking and
rebounding through the just-rained ground.
Today I don't care about he ribbons of
population pyramids spewed by ribosomes
and RNA through the plant kingdom.
Today liverworts were more interesting
in Harry Potter than they are in a petri
dish during botany lab.

23. no thru trucking

Stood in the middle of the road today,
following caravans of supply trucks
on our way to the city. I've
never walked through a desert, but
I'm sure that sneezeweed couldn't be
worse than broad-spectrum cellulose
flying through the air in little cotton
brushes. Fabric slaps the side of
the truck with laughs of cha
cha ch-cha-cha when it scoops (break
it down) over the curb to let a bus through
going back to the ocean. Bare
feet are no match for tires as thick as
administrative doors, that pound into
the ground with each revolution, ready
for off-roading when the ambulances come
through. There's

this boy I can see
across the green
standing on a table and clapping his hands
to some unknown beat. I wonder if our
eyes will meet when I walk past. Some
wannabe hippie walks around with
her left pant leg rolled up
past her knee even through
everyone knows
that the chain will only catch on your right.

Going to the market today, gotta get some
clothes and food before the rainy season,
it's coming faster than we first thought.

24. we're writing our own history

Rusted thermometers in ancient hallways
watch as we pass by every day. Mercury
levels jump when we walk together,
the perfect picture of a couple
of kids skipping along the road to a more
interesting part of their day.

25. a poem in five parts


i.

We all head down to the shore
looking for some waves and places to
forget all our blue book lore
smart water knows where to find us:
the middle of the green overhang.
It'll give us all a drink from its cool blue
glass because it knows we'll be
here for a while.

ii.

Come back from
day long days
where the wind has whipped your hair
until it's curled. We know you're on your way
to some fancy place; let us help you
put your makeup on.

iii.

Cocktail dresses and
sea-blown tresses will lift you from
the door into your car and
we'll wait back here on the land
and the rocks and you'll know that
later we'll be near.

iv.

Let's go back to the shore
to a place where we know that
canvas bags are where our lunch's
gonna be. Where April showers are
nothing to peace out of and
development isn't on the main street
corner but rather in a novel's borders.

v.

I'll meet you down by the shore
I'll tell you tell you all the stories
we'll dance the night away.
And tomorrow if you want to we can go back to
our old blue book ways.




yeah, every section should probably be longer than just a few lines (that's what *stanzas* are called, Leja!), but I'm thinking I'll probably add more to each at some point. Audio may or may not be coming soon.

Yummy stuff here, Leja. I especially like april the fifteenth.

and, this:

25. a poem in five parts wrote:Cocktail dresses and
sea-blown tresses will lift you from
the door into your car and
we'll wait back here on the land
and the rocks and you'll know that
later we'll be near.

Ta,
Cal.