if you had to choose four ingredients (for food/cooking) that you'd be limited to forever, what would you pick?
1. salad
2. bread
3. butter
4. onion
1. salad
2. bread
3. butter
4. onion
asia dreams of killing fields. and loneliness. of being alone. and human. she probably thinks. aren't we all just one small step away from being. slides the thought. the texture of the words. like whiskey unforgiving and not-long-forgotten. on the tongue. the throat. in the space of the things that bend. like knees. and the aftermath of slow nighttime mouths on ears and all those other bed-stained maps. the places. that are left unseen. obscure. obscene. these dark day moments when she stalks the long gone midnight waking streets of some dis-remembered voice. of you. asia really knows that she's always been a monster. and that she isn't a monster. anymore.
it can't be. what? first arrival feeling. cracked off. skin. gloss hot the sharp edges. torn. or hard boiled eggs. hard. boiled. no detective story. no caped crusader. no time-space languishing unhinged. the back-garden rusty gated walk. of hers. it can't be. who? eat dirt. snails guts. screech. tip the ass-end version of everything that isn't. what. you? your walk. ship wrecked truckers. and bleeding jesus. know. some reverse eyeball world. shout. know. no. no.
You read a novel that changes your life. The trains, the rails, the sound of the silence and darkness of life when it sticks for long enough for us to imagine it into words onto page. Sit and ramble with it for hours. The harsh low-life degraded pavements of England turn you into figures you remember seeing on the BBC when you stayed home fake-sick all those horrible school-girl days sneaked under the blanket your grandmother crocheted. You tell your university professor upon demand analysis--your stark faced classmates--that, surely, potatoes are a metaphor for poverty. When they laugh, you decide to never eat boiled potatoes again. Later, when you discover that he's suffered from a busted gut and has to stay in the hospital indefinitely, you send him a handmade preschool-potato-print get well card. You wonder whether you're an awful person. But not much.
To make a potato print you need:
a potato
thick paint
a large knife
a small craft knife
paper
Cut the potato in half with the large knife. With the small craft knife, cut the shape that you want from one end of the fleshy side of the potato. Simple shapes work best. A heart. A star. Block lettering. If you use patience, you can create any design you desire. Cut away the potato approximately 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep around the outline you have made. Blot the excess moisture of the potato onto a paper towel. Dip the potato stamp into the paint. Press the stamp onto any paper surface you wish to make a print. Dip the potato back into the paint before each print to keep the color crisp and bright.
Those Eye I Aye Dirt Flesh days when I was something less than happy. My secret collection of personal potato mashers. Kept stored and safe in the lowest kitchen cupboard. I took them out on strange tired nights alone. Watched their silvery patterned powers glint between refractions of buzzing fluorescent lamps and linoleum. I remember they never made much of me. And I. Never made much of them.
To mash is to reduce something to a soft pulpy state by beating or pressure.
I sit awake in the early morning air of this room. Our room. The air of the house that is our space that is our home. The silence palpable on my tongue like warm buttered mashed potatoes. I watch the twist of your spine. Your fistfuls of bedsheets. Dream-wake thoughts of thick tempra paints and exacto knifes. The constant noise from the other world below the window. And all my moments slowly reduce to this. Pulpy and slow-lidded, I slide back to sleep where we are. Hold quicksand still to the quietness of the new way words like beating and pressure fill the starkness of a too once long dark room.
we're smoking your mother's cigarettes. in the front room. the bathroom. the back room i've suddenly lost my dress in the non-colour color of your kitchen. and the hazy aftermath of rioja. and pornographically-bad-bathwater sangria. i can't say that it's necessarily cold in here. or that we're over-sexed. but the way you thew that switch. just now. the cold sideways way of the way that left eye sneaks into my bones. leaves me longing for duvets. and just before sun-fall breathing. skin. help yourself, he says. without saying anything at all. and i. do.
i started a post here, lately, about how i used to have words for this place about razor blades and wrecking balls and rooms filled with [ ] and other r words that sometimes become too hard stuck.
tonight we're smoking your mother's cigarettes.
and i.
the day starting going downhill fast after answering a phone call whilst grocery shopping
logic: never answer phone calls in sainsbury's
last night, in a small pub, in a small town, in a big world, i sat and watched my team lose a football match.
it might have been the best night of my life.
as much as my head is filled. i am blank. full sucked of cigarettes and pine wood and disconnections. at the moment, i have no idea what to do with galoshes. or backgammon. or red wine. or rolled eyes. or irritation. these thunderstorm stomachs. or health food stores. even though they all might be some. very. good. place. you're probably the thing that fills the space of the thing that is pretty comfortable.
ennit.
i just made that up. but it's actually kind of logical.
with chewing gum and black inky markers. stained finger prints. there was something else
but now it's gone.
favorite morning things
snuggling
hearing goodmorning wife
strong coffee
quiet time with the computer
listening to the school kids play on the other side of the garden
waking up full of joy
half-awake kissing in the kitchen waiting for the kettle
walking to the park
what are yours
but i'll always be there to take care of those bits
that you'd left
when there's no room
for me
probably
i was going to post something about seeing one of your exes out at the local tonight. how strange and proud i felt to be there. with you. on some stupid ugly lonely-night-out-pub-bench. filled with joy--that didn't have to be created from anywhere. but i won't. because, there's still loads of Styrofoam-sweaty chips to eat. and at-home-wine to drink. and laughter to fill a thousand years. I'm so glad we went out for a pint, he says. and i think. yeah. yes. and we smile kiss joy. greasy-garlic-fingertip-future.
in the between,
i make food. pork loins. pickled sorrel. pints. pink strawberry ice cream. pink sweater. on the porch. of these sunshine days.
in the between, i make lists. of grocery stores. and recipes. the steps to potato pancakes. the names of streets to home.
waiting for things i've never had much luck with. like lost luggage and love.
. . . i'll tell you what we're gonna do
hey
you will shelter me
my love
and i
i will shelter
and if you shelter me too
i will shelter you
and listen
when
you will
and i will
shelter
[that is signed with a personalized doodle done (of me!) in the front cover by the artist himself. as he sat, exhausted after a concert, on the wooden floor of a very small bar in chicago several years ago.]
1. have major meltdown when artist boyfriend who happens to be staying over at your place for several weeks, because you want to show it to him, and you can't find it anywhere.
2. forget about it for a month or more.
3. have random conversations out of nowhere with strangers about not being able to listen to damien rice.
4. make a post about it.
5. have major meltdown trying to find a dvd that you want to take on a trip with you. find that dvd and the lost cd. (in the place that you were looking for it months before).
6. (optional) listen to "the professor". cry.
as if it wasn't enough that some person i have been reading for years is super popular. now, his sold-out w00t t-shirt is being worn on The Totally Rad Show?!
when i saw it i was like. wait a tick . . . i know that sheep! bonkers!
