If there's one thing that I know right now, it's that I'm going to be really tired tomorrow and regret having stayed up this late.

But I don't think I could sleep at the moment anyway.

I've been falling asleep with my face smashed between the pages of On the Road today, and also The Catcher in the Rye, though I must admit I've been slacking on my reading of the latter one since I've read it before. I'm preoccupied with thoughts of the '60s and particularly how that generation correlates to the many wild and fantastical stories my dad has told me over the last 21 years. Maybe I haven't made it to the wild parts of the story yet, but Jack Kerouac kind of seems like he was just a regular guy. Or maybe that's just because I spent so much time watching that Weather Underground documentary and fantasizing about the '60s being all about wild sexual freedom and trying to overthrow our government. Whatever the case may be, it's still hard for me to fathom the fact that many of the people who were so crucial and influential to the Beat Generation were younger then than I am now.

I don't know what this quarter will bring, but I know that I already have a hell of a lot of homework, so cross your fingers for me that my reading pace will somehow miraculously improve. Hopefully I'll find some time to write some poems, too!

December

December

We observe the morning air,

the great green ghost that hangs,

the wispy twist so somber now

between the branches gray.

The cutting cry of ashen birds

that dip and dive with wind

sew lines between our black wool coats

like spiders webs that sing.

There was a feeling in my throat,

once raw and round like fire,

it used to burn me inside out

but now it's flat and cold.

Oh friend, I see you through the fog,

your tall and gangly build,

the birds all say what I cannot:

our love has long since spoiled.

Six-Year-Old Insomniac

The translucent slime of bad dreams

followed me to bed, reassuring that the

slender pink bellies of otherworldy animals

would come crawling from my dresser drawers

like worms; their bloodless rings of tissue exposed

in the stagnant, black air.

Eyes like slits I'd paralyze my own bones,

waiting for the wriggling masses,

the hiss to encircle my ankles

until my mother's fingers chased the bad thoughts out,

tracing half-moons on my lower back at night

when the only place I could find sleep

was within the grasp of her flannel pajamas.

Brother

Sooo...my 3 posts per week plan totally failed. Woops. But here's a poem I wrote last winter as a companion to one of the very first poems I ever posted. They are both "persona poems" written from the imagined consciousness of someone else.

Brother

He left his Converse sneakers

by the front door

laces tied, toes scuffed

and hung himself with a black belt

in our garage.

January is when it rains and

I think about God,

who sired all the trees that stand

like seal-skinned skeletons,

refusing to grow.

I select ratchets, take tires

on and off; the whorls of

my fingerprints blackened by

the stain of motor oil

that will not wash away.

When my father stands over me,

his callused hand like 80-grit sandpaper

on the back of my neck,

I can tighten a lug nut and know

we are not alone.

Poemcrazy

(Just something I found & liked)

In honor of submission season starting up, I've decided to try and write here at least three times a week. Even with the enormous homework load I'm carrying at the moment, it just seems like a good idea to generate a big body of work to choose from. I guess what I'm really trying to say is, get ready for a bunch of poetry posts. And maaayyybe some art if I find the time.

Correspondence, 2008

In the winter of 2008,

we could feel each other's clenched teeth

three-thousand miles apart.

Our bicuspids bit down,

determined to hold back words

that would conjure dark clouds.

In time, we told each other:

it had been long enough;

that stewing in the blackness of unsolved problems

was like throwing wet stones

across the continent.

It had to stop.

So it did.

And our mouths became dry of words,

As if all we were capable of sharing

was our own despair,

wrapped in the disguise of size twelve arial font.

Joy was too big to be dressed

in those tiny black letters.

Like two twin crows

we pecked at snow and waited for the thaw,

writing self addressed apologies

and reading Mary Oliver,

until seasons made the changes

that we could not make ourselves.

Productivity Report

What I should be doing right now is reading papers and writing responses for them, or be at the library printing things off, or something along those lines. Instead I'm sitting in my sweatpants eating roasted garlic on toast and predicting the amount of people who are not going to want to sit next to me tomorrow because of the smell. I have eaten an entire clove...I can't stop myself.

I had so many plans to be super productive today...but as most days have been going lately, time just got away from me. Fall quarter has been so overwhelming and has provided me with so much work to do, that on the days I have completely free I find myself wasting time sleeping. This morning though, while running through my recipe board on Pinterest, I stumbled onto a link for a totally beautiful blog mostly about food. The blog is run by a husband and wife, the Brinsons, who have delectable taste and style. They both went to art school and have a really hipster apartment in New York, aka: the dream life.

Anyway the husband, who is a food and still-life photographer, takes some of the most beautiful food pictures I've ever seen, and the recipes that go along with them look delicious. I decided I would try out the one that sent me to the blog in the first place and admittedly, it's probably the easiest one there: roasted garlic. I've always heard that roasted garlic was pretty easy to make (since all you do is roast it), but it always seemed like too much trouble to find out the specifics of how it's done (perhaps this is another clue to why I waste all my time...but we'll just leave that up for debate). Overall I'd say it went pretty well, so I thought I'd share the recipe here for all those other people who think googling how to make roasted garlic is too much work for them.

Roasted Garlic

1 or more heads of garlic

Olive oil (you'll need at least 2 tablespoons)

Foil

Oven-safe baking dish or cookie sheet

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

2. Cut the top 1/4 of the head of garlic off (the pointy end), making sure most or all of the cloves have their tops cut off.

3. Cut a piece of foil big enough to wrap the entire head of garlic inside of (one piece of foil for each head of garlic)

4. Place the head of garlic on its foil sheet and drizzle olive oil over the top, enough to cover the open cloves at least. I used a little extra for flavor and also to make the garlic more moist.

5. Wrap the foil around the head of garlic and place it on the cookie sheet or baking dish (anything so that the oil won't drip inside your oven).

6. Bake for 20-30 minutes. You'll know the garlic is ready when you can insert a knife into the cloves easily.

7. Take out and let cool; remove cloves using a butter knife

Now I'd better get back to my homework, laundry, etc. etc. etc....but at least I did one new thing today. Hooray for garlic and perhaps a strengthened immune system!

Scooped

" when we become children

scooped like homemade blueberry ice cream

from the stomachs of our mothers

the questions unfurl...

each tender finger,

pink and wriggling worms

bound for paths we hope are paved

with grass and light. "