1997
The bulging moon sits like a giant Buddha belly, low in the sky, magnified by the
polluted atmosphere and bright lights of suburbia. From my view on the ground,
the branches of a weeping willow tree scratch across the moon’s surface, creating
open gashes, unhealed scars. The pond below me is completely still but for an
occasional ripple initiated by the soft autumn breeze.
I decide to memorize this image, to take a mental snapshot. My head rests on the
roots of a willow tree, turned left to face the moon. Blurry blades of grass invade
my peripheral. I shift until the moon is centered among the descending willow
branches, like bony fingers scraping across light. Satisfied, I let my arms flop
to the ground, palms up, summoning.…
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If I were crazy—as in, my action potentials askew, my cranial nerves unnerved, a great
psychic disconnect between thought and reality—I wouldn’t linger at the train stop.
I wouldn’t stare at the sky and flex tinfoil over my head, or laugh fist-clenched at
a joke no one told. I wouldn’t argue the geographic advantages that the allied Germany
and Russia have in the fight against the moon, tell you about my drinking problem, or
wear my pants backward. If I were crazy—as in, the severe and repeated misfiring of
neurotransmitters in my head—I wouldn’t advertise it. I wouldn’t be involved in or be the
target of any national government conspiracy; there would be no men in black suits
watching from the bushes; I wouldn’t contort my face for my strange relationship to
germs or understand the long-winded allegories within words.…
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—–At the carnival, my father holds my hand for the first time, his skin damp like a bed sheet.
—–The bearded lady is obese with a sleeveless dress that shows her armpit hair. My father
says, “People can be whatever they damn well please,” and maybe the bearded lady hears
because she starts tittering and can’t stop.
—–He buys me a cotton candy cone. I can’t help noticing how it resembles that lady’s
beard, only this fluff is pink. When I refuse to eat, my father snatches it away and mashes it
under his boot the same way he does cigarette butts.…
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On entering school in Eugene, Oregon, Edmund realized how radically different our
family was compared to most American families, and he got increasingly embarrassed
about all our traditions, customs and my nonconformist quirks, like playing music in
public spaces. For a while I didn’t go anywhere without my pennywhistle (and sundry
noisemakers) tucked inside my jacket pocket, which I would whisk out at any time when
I felt the urge, which happened whenever I walked under a bridge, through a tunnel or
any place that had inviting acoustics – or just because. With an immediate “Aw,
Daaaad,” he’d distance himself, and squirm. I always dreamed of busking with the entire
family. That never happened, but I did, somehow, get all three of my sons to tag along
with me, at least once.…
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– From Rude Awakenings
The Lower East Side is a place of energetic life. It has none of the rigidity of a sterile rich
neighborhood, or the envy of the middle income areas. Poverty and want make all slum
dwellers kin, despite their outward unawareness; for since they are poor in possessions,
they must be rich in dreams. The slums of a great American city are the mixing pots of
humanity. The Lower East Side, Breugal like, is the great canvas of man, showing the
range of human types. There is no fusion here; the Negro, Puerto Rican, Italian, Jew,
Russian, Irishman and Pole are separate and distinct from each other, but alike in
undernourishment and deprivation.
A city is a hive of dreams and in the greatest city in the land, dreams are still being
struggled for.…
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The Graves We Dig
Are filled with syringes. Our lips are torn, blood smears the four walls. Someone took a match to letters etched by our teeth. The scent of charcoal. We have been digging for years. The stars are suddenly closer. Some have even exploded, drifting onto us with the soil of the sky. We must be digging up. Above we find another blood moon, settled in the sky like a blot on someone’s burned tissue. Remember lighters hot on our backs, the burn of a tattoo. Remember meth days, the sun in our veins. Or the sky is a doily, wounded, ripped at the edges. Once elegant, now buried in an antique chest, or stuck beneath an old lamp. We dig because our hands need calluses.…
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