Thursday, May 18, 2006

A sight for sore eyes

My face is covered with welts and blisters. These explode in little volcanoes of pus and I scratch at them until they bleed and scab over. My skin is craterous, my whole body is erupting in sores and I walk along itching at myself like a rabid destitute. I should wear a shroud to hide my diseased figure. I'm not attractive today, I am retreating from swan to cygnet, just like a reverse fairy story. Where is my fairy godmother to magic this all away? Where are my glass slippers to cut my feet until they resemble a bloody pulp like the rest of me. Perhaps at midnight I will return to my pumpkin state, at least then the many bumps and hollows will have some sort of delicious quality, due to the silkiness of the flesh underneath.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

The phoenix paragon.

I will buy you a gilded cage. It is tall enough so that you can stand, but your head is against the bars and your knees are bent. Your hips jut out at an angle and your twisted posture accentuates the curve of your thighs. I will poke you with carrot sticks and dribble water from my fingertips to keep you saited. You peer at me with your big eyes, watching, always watching. You grow crookedly, your head is forced downwards, elongating your neck. After a long time I open the door to the cage and hunker down on my haunches to watch you. Your eyes are saucerish, darting from my face to the open space beyond me, yet you will not run. You can no longer squeeze through the gaps, but remain, mute in your cage, my pet. I am responsible.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

On the quest for gentilezza

I have intelligent things to say
if only someone could unsew my lips and unstop their ears
perhaps we could talk.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Smile on you crazy diamond

I was thinking today about smiles. How a simple lip streaching can have such a profound effect on somebody's day.
I decided to count the people that I smiled at. There was the yound girl sitting expectantly on a park bench, the old woman carrying her handbag crookedly by the strap and the balding librarian I vaguely know. Then I thought that perhaps I was too conscious about cataloguing the people that I smiled at, so therefore the smiles wouldn't be truthful. So I stopped and just stared at people instead.
However as I walked to work I looked at the clouds that looked like pheonixes (sp?), swanlike birds and reclining woman. My best smile of the afternoon was for those heavenly shapes.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

devil-may-care


I feel impulsive. I was standing outside with a cup of coffee and I had a sudden desire to hurl the cup onto the paving stones. I resisted the urge, but then I examined this feeling. I wasn't angry or upset, I just had a desire to take a whole thing that was unblemished and smooth and turn it into jagged shards. If I had done it, then what would the consequences be? Would I cut up my feet? Would I have to find a brush and shovel and sweep up the shards to hide my actions? Would I leave it there in it's broken state for someone else to puzzle over?
At this moment I am following another impulse and looking into flights to Rome. It would cost me $3000, but I want to do it. Impulsive no? How about capricious, changeful, commutative, convertible, fickle, fitful, flighty, fluctuating, fluid,, inconstant, indecisive, irregular, irresolute, irresponsible, kaleidoscopic, mercurial, mobile, movable, mutable, permutable, protean, restless, reversible, revocable, shifting, skittish, spasmodic, transformable, transitional, uncertain, unpredictable, unreliable, unsettle, unstable, unsteady, vacillating, vagrant, variable, variant, varying, versatile, volatile, wavering, whimsical... yet also.... adventuresome, audacious, bold, brave, cheeky, cocky, courageous, crusty, fearless, fire-eater, foolhardy, forward, game, gritty, gutsy, gutty, impudent, intrepid, nervy, obtrusive, pizzazz, plucky, rash, reckless, salty, smart, spunky, temerarious, valiant, venturesome.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006