Cup of Coffee and Cigarette. John Guttman. 1950.
(except I don’t smoke cigarettes & we have a lot of windows)
Category: california
Tomorrow night is San Diego (photograph).
Poem of today (mine).
At Peet’s Coffee & Tea, San Diego, CA
Two trannies play a game
of pattie-cake
at the back corner table
Saturday (mine).
Poem I’ll recite today (Schuyler).
Today is my last day of classes. Most significantly, today is the last day of the intro to creative writing class I’ve been teaching this semester. I will miss my class; they made me laugh & taught me about the Fibonacci sequence. They worked hard and wrote risky poems. We all have to recite a poem in honor of the last day, and then they will hand in their portfolios, and then I will want to hug them all, but I will not. And I will begin by reciting this, by James Schuyler:
Letter Poem #3
The night is quiet
as a kettle drum
the bullfrog basses
tuning up. After
swimming, after sup-
per, a Tarzan movie,
dishes, a smoke. One
planet and I
wish. No need
of words. Just
you, or rather,
us. The stars tonight
in pale dark space
are clover flowers
in a lawn the expanding
universe in which
we love it is
our home. So many
galaxies and you my
bright particular,
my star, my sun, my
other self, my bet-
ter half, my one
Thursday night (mine) (poem).
Illastep
Three dudes making music
on a rolled-out rug
Outside the table umbrellas
are lined with lights
One red guitar
One guitar with four shining knobs
Ian like a young Allen Ginsberg
on the drums
The lips of the man I kiss
taste like new smoke
People are talking and people
are nodding along
All my hair is safely stowed
underneath my hat
Good god thank you, this
is exactly what I wanted out of my twenties
Friday night (mine) (it’s a poem).
Alight with all the essences
I call this Rain Diego, rain for one minute in San Diego
The only thing a Fanta and a persimmon have in common is color
On the bus Scott looks gorgeous with the night moving black behind him
The martinis have back-up olives & back-up gin
You know him in the biblical sense
HIPSTERS*HIPSTERS*HIPSTERSATTHEARTGALLERY
There’s something about knowing someone in the biblical sense that makes it okay to take sips from their drink
I should’ve stolen that tiny tiny decanter when I had the chance
There’s no such thing as practice floral arrangements. You don’t waste flowers!
An empty Dr. Pepper bottle in my greenleather pocket
Green leather red leather three friends in leather would be better
I feel like such a GIRL when I’m with you
This tiny red can of champagne. This tiny red can at the Tin Can Alehouse
That girl’s got a wind machine
That tiny dog just pooped on the bar room floor
-We just danced in circles around thrown-off shoes, you missed it
-Oh I didn’t miss it/I was just waiting/for you to finish doing your thing
You’re doing something wrong, without a doubt, but it’s not that you’re wrong
I’m goin’ down to the bus station baby with a suitcase in my hand
In circles on the bar room floor
Walking up 5th is not nearly as hard as Main Street in Pittsburgh
If you know someone in the Biblical sense you can lean on them and whisper (the music’s loud)
If you know someone in the Biblical sense they might be asleep in your bed against the floor near the ground that will be rained on
I’m goin’ down to the bus station baby with a suitcase in my hand
Those girls are too skinny for girls
Those girls are too SKINNY for boys!
A chile relleno burrito/
and sauce/
Hot sauce
Pelican poem (mine).
Deep
A gathering
of pelicans:
now that’s a lot
of throat.
First pomegranate of the season (poem) (mine).
Perhaps
life is waiting for us
elsewhere
all red and nestled.
Goodbye for a bit, San Diego…
Hello goodbye San Diego. I’m off to say hello to the moon with my honey, in honor of our years. Because who said you need to get married in order to go on a honeymoon?
With You
The pockmark on your face
is like a sun. The sweat can pool
a little there—a space to fill,
a crater. On sunny days my eyes
align along the landscape
of your forehead. Hair shorn
and clipped away, the scar
left from a chicken pock
tells me where the little
and the largest of my lovings go.
(thank you, katie conway, for photographing)
panache, perhaps 