Ragamuffin (A Poem)

Fall is a woman with straw in her hair and bells on her heels.

A husky ginger bitch 

     who laughs too loud 

     and 

     smiles with teeth. 

Her damp odors are muted by familiar wafts.

  It's possible she's smoking a clove cigarette

  or slugging some bourbon.

Underneath glossy reds, she's got pumpkin seed toenails

and oatmeal lips, dotted with freckles. 

Her eyelashes are spun by silkworms and she's got a 

                        big ol' rump 

                                             that surges the forest's pulse.

Crow and Owl regard her wily smile as she ambles through wooded patchwork. 

She's got granny panties on and dirt on her legs and she's about to detonate the trees.

They begin to hum into the electric current of the underground.

                                                                                      Unaware

a trigger is snuggled in between the woman's oat-bran drawers and sneezeweed skirt.

She walks along through September and October.

Drinking,

Laughing,

Grinning,

Smoking.

Twirling,

Whirling,

Drumming,

Toking.

She's like a patchouli dust cloud.

She greets creatures that come to greet their fate.

Then with a greedy smile

stomps

the button with a

fat thumb.

The woods ooze blood red and orange  

                                                       and

                                              they

                                      will

                          wither

                                    within a calendar month.

Inner Supernova

If the copious amount of yakiniku I guzzled down last night didn't cure the blues, today's juju forecast seems to be far more optimistic. Some of my elementary boys were passing by as I was getting out of my car this morning. They gave me a much more energetic “Hello, Miss Sarah!!!” than I was prepared to respond to and then babbled something in Portuguese. I assume it was a question, to which I answered, “yes”. That must have been the best thing I could've said because they walked away laughing.

Anyway I met some other cheerful students along with one of the loveliest teachers that I work with as I was putting my shoes on. I thanked her for the Japanese pears she gave me last week, and left the bit out about absent-mindedly abandoning them in a friend's refrigerator. During first period I showed her my sketches for the dress I started making last weekend and we chatted about how it will be made. She gasped a few times and said, “very gooood!”, clearly uninformed of my actual skill level.

So now I'm just waiting for my fourth period class, which I already have planned. My mind is free to wander about its cerebral landscapes to the rhythm of my co-worker's nervously tapping foot. Thinking about my sewing venture is making me re-evaluate my creative capacity. Rather, the fervor behind it has. For a while now, I've been dabbling around in silly little projects that never seem to go anywhere. I worry that if there is any artistic fire left in me, certainly it was a chilly little thing. Striving without passion makes you feel like a real fraud. Like you're on a coattail ride of archaic dreams, secretly lusting for something to hold significance. People need to have 'favorites' and 'interests' because otherwise they cannot identify themselves with strict tangibles. Being creatures quick to deny the existence of our metaphysical selves, we might as well not exist at all without favorites, interests and hobbies. Things you can update on your facebook. Coming back to this old familiar love with renewed fervor has sparked some kind of cosmic orgasm that is completing the circuit between my tangible and my metaphysical charges.

Despite having thusly second-guessed every aspect of my innovation from seedling to sprout, I am forcing myself to push through the motions. I must refrain from the sabotage of self-doubt because as I track my progress, it is beginning to seem that we can only marvel at our own greatness in retrospect.

Alright, time to go make some copies. I hope the ink isn't out again because I don't know how to fix those blasted machines. Well, any machine, really.

Day off, off day

What a weird blah day.

Usually the rain relaxes me, and I appreciate the drear that comes with it. But today it has felt like I've had a small leak somewhere that I can't find to patch up. Something is making me feel something.

Is it the weather? Am I homesick? Boredom?

…have I been too leveled lately and nature is setting me back askew?

The unbearable lightness of being.

... I should read that.

Anyway I hate trying to figure it out because it only makes me overanalyze every little pebble in my shoe, just so that I can attribute my feelings to something. Nothing's wrong, I guess, this just happens. Sometimes life can bore the piss out of you. Well fine, dammit, but maybe I wish the easiest fix wasn't some petty form of the meditation. A spliff, wine, porn, whatever. Any one will do, yet all truthfully bore me in my hour of need.

Damn you stars!

R. I. P.

Fall is here; it feels good in my bones.

September is almost over and it seems summer is just starting to blur it's sweltering death vision upon the earth. Not to say that I had a bad summer, actually, it was great. It's just that there seems to come a sense of nostalgia with the fall, unlike with the summer. And to my surprise, I am embracing those feelings.

By all right, this should be a time that I generally choose to bitterly reject. It was the favorite season of my star-crossed ex; one whom I shared a birthday with, first kiss, blah blah blah. And so the happy story went for five years. What a doozy. Anyway, he loved autumn which probably explains why he chose to get married this month. I'm not sure if the wedding is coming or going, and I don't really have a vexed interest because for the first time in some time, I can truthfully say that I don't give a fuck.

Somehow, before I left for this place, we were able to patch a few threads of friendship that were free of ulterior motives. We had crossed through “maybe someday” land into “not gonna happen” county all the way to “not never gonna damn'n hell'n happen, 'n stay offa my property” holler. And that's where we stayed for a while, trial and erroring painfully between friendship and relationship. Until I got out the sawed off, and blew his stupid face off. hahaha Jk. But truthfully, everything must reach equilibrium at some point, and we did. He isn't gone from my mind, but has flickered away into a murky glow of the past and I am happy for his and for my peace. 

That feeling arrived about 25 months after the expected delivery date. But in this sublime season of wilt and rot, my sincere happiness is the proof that I've been waiting for; I am free from the cycle of my destructive subconscious. 

On a walk to the supermarket this week, I told my boyfriend about fall in Michigan - picking apples, drinking cider, carving pumpkins. All that happy horse shit. He's from Jamaica, so his understanding of changing seasons may be slightly retarded, but he offered a courteous smile while I jabbered on about jumping into gianormous leaf piles.

Fall here doesn't mean all the same things that are wallpapered to my memory. Once I tried to carve a Jack-o-lantern from a kabochya (Japanese pumpkin...they're green and very tough), and almost broke my kitchen knife. It looked like shit, but I displayed it proudly on my apartment step until it's face caved in and was covered in fruit flies. It's been refreshing to experience this time from a new perspective and look upon my past with a simplified nostalgia. It's good to be taking the first steps into fall even though it's been waiting on me for a while now.

Tuesday at chugakko

I just finished teaching my only class today, which leaves me with a remaining 5 hours to sit at my desk drinking instant coffee. I am underwhelmed. I would liken this particular brew to a chalky runoff with savory undertones of mulch.

So here at my desk, I have the pleasure of sitting across from... let's call her Blinky Mumbleton. Those are two things this woman appears to be good at. I don't know what she teaches, but I assume it has something to do with her early life in a petri dish. Right now she is squeaking her shoes on the metal bar of her desk. This wouldn't be so bad if she didn't do it nonstop, every day. For a period of time I was convinced that her tendencies were symptoms of autism or turrets. Sometimes I will look up and she will be oddly gazing at nothing rolling the tips of her fingers like she's plotting. Probably about how to make puppies into a coat. I dunno.

I sense the fact that she has nothing to do is a mutual understanding between Blinky and I. So it's weird that the facade carries on when we are the only two left in the room. Seriously, lady, I am over here reading a novel, shaking out dandruff onto my desk and doodling on tiny bits of paper. Does it really look like I am about to judge you for your lack of unwavering diligence? Your uncomfortableness with yourself is making me uncomfortable. 

To be fair, it's been my experience that at work especially, Japanese people are generally nervous. Nobody wants to fart on the communal pudding. So instead they walk around with their tails between their legs and constantly apologize, often times for nothing. They stay at work until all hours of the night, simply because the others do. They act busy when they aren't.

But I digress. The truth is, there are many people in this room that I could rant for days about. The guy who smells like a wet pack of smokes, Man-Bear-Pig, Thick Neck, the list goes on. Despite their idiosyncrasies, though, some of the people I work with are fairly decent. One of my favorite teachers reminds me of a caterpillar. He wears these coke bottle glasses that amplify his google eyes telescopically. One day he collapsed at school and an ambulance came to pick him up. I worried a little because he's a sweet guy. Since the new school term started in April, we've had about 8 new teachers at the JHS. One of them is another old fella who works with the special education classes. He and the caterpillar are always laughing and talking together. Cute cute cute.