Category: travel

Monday night flight (video, photograph, poem).

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Sometimes my life is hip(ster)/I love you Heather/I’ll (we’ll) miss you Heather

And off we go to the east…

 

August 1, 2011

 

We eat cheese we drink

rosé, eat salad (eat olives),

finish off some soup, sort

through plums & nectarines,

flip the laundry, pack jars

for presents and the house

is hot as fired bread. There’s

a pile of my paper booklets

standing in an fruitcrate

on the shelf and everyone

will get one. And anyone

who wants will know I’m

home. And friends we farm

or farmed with might miss

our little yard. I’ve packed

my new red shoes and we’ll

eat peaches on the plane.

The neighbor with the high

white socks will grumble

at our incorrectly-plated car,

the banana plant will grow

another, stronger leaf and

the chickens left last night.

The house is vacuumed,

mopped, and marveled at;

we’ll be flying through the night.

Poem for my sister (mine).

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Texas you’re the size

of Texas. Too big to

compare to. Still

Sarah Katz is gonna

land in you and change

the landscape of your

hardcracked land. She’s

not just some blondie

outta college with

a hip little hip dance.

She’s Sarah Katz, miner

of chocolate chips from

the mint ice cream.

Inventor of the words

I love the most. Words

I use the most to love

with. So get goin’, little

noon, sissy deet deet,

dimpy dimps, get your

two size 7 feet on over

there. Texas is perched

on its parched cowboy

haunches for the entry

of your fine-tuned self.

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad.

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He hated boats and her mother

lived on one. She invited him

to go, he went, no horror stories

from that December on the ocean,

at least not ones I’ve heard, the two

of them in t-shirts I now wish

I owned, sleeping under and on

top of polished wood, I imagine

that the fish they ate was very

good, flaking off in chunks to fill

their mouths and bathing suited

stomachs, the swelter of the sky

like a unrelenting aunt, and the noise

of wind rushing through their hair

was the loudest noise their ears

could comprehend

 

The last of the LA poems (mine).

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“New scenery, new noise”

said Rimbaud. I slept
through the traffic. I’m so
spoiled I get humble then
romantic. I’ve never held
a gun but I’ll sit beside you
or behind and ride and ride
*
Cougar on wheels

The bike changes
gears automatically—
I’m fast I’m slower I’m
skidding a little in the sand
I’m a sea snake on land
*
Last Wednesday

“It’s like your name is
‘Taylor Katz comma poet’
she said across a burrito
as the rain decided on us
*
“Hello I love you won’t you tell me your name”

I’ll be your amulet,
baby
*
Lost Angeles

Goodbye hand sewn Barcelona
pouch with the three overlapping
stars. Goodbye mint chapstick
from the pack of three and the birthday
lipstick; goodbye pocket mirror with the red
bunnies from the party’s grab bag. Goodbye
eye drops, olive green pencil from the notebook
set. Adios scar like a broken trident
on the left side of your face, see you
later, see you soon

LA poems, 11-15.

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Black tied

Thinking of Paris, France.
Thinking of mangy cats
in garbage piles.
A hair cut can change everything.
*
The Latter

“Do you think we’ll ever stop
becoming ourselves? Maybe
around 40? And then we cruise?
Or will we die at 86 having
come right up next to it?”
*
“Ok can we stop being serious now”

because it’s nearly 4am & late
to be a soldier for the word
“treasure” for the first time in my life,
but goddammit you are such a.
And hardly anyone knows it.
*
World Famous Big Dean’s

This is the first time I’ve wanted
a Coca-Cola this badly in years
*
Boarding

BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!
BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!
yell the kids at the pretzel shop but
don’t we stop needing salt as soon
as it’s offered? Take me to the ocean.

LA poems, 6-10 (mine).

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Late Lunch

I’ll have the Blue
Plate Special! We say.
What?! No blue plates
here at all?! Fucking
Los Angeles.
*
The fellow with the cowboy mouth

is a man I love
*
Return trip

Alameda Street, 6:45 pm.
I offer the man asking
for change an orange.
I’m trying to get a ticket,
he says, staring. A ticket.
*
Misha taught me plants

Handgrab of rosemary
from an apartment compound
on Montana Street falls
out of my lefthand leather
pocket, snap unsnapped
*
Not the Chelsea

The Georgian Hotel,
a deep cerulean. The bar
patrons drink, sheltered
from the sea’s easy chills
by flapping walls of plastic

LA poems (1-5 outta 20).

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The Station

9pm, downtown LA,
hugging a book like
it’s my family. Maybe it is.

*

Stir

There’s no real milk
or cream for coffee
Just some terrifying
portioned creamers

*

How do we know?

A man’s on his laptop
at dinner. The drink
I order comes lidded
in a jar, sprig of rosemary.

*

Convenience

In Venice Beach
you can buy a joint
& get your teeth
whitened next door.

*

Doncha know?

A hot dog on a stick,
I learn, is something different
than a corn dog.

Poem I heard in DC (Rita Dove).

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Describe Yourself in Three Words or Less

I’m not the kind of person who praises
openly, or for profit; I’m not the kind
who will steal a scene unless
I’ve designed it. I’m not a kind at all,
in fact: I’m itchy and pug-willed,
gnarled and wrong-headed,
never amorous but possessing
a wild, thatched soul.

Each night I set my boats to sea
and leave them to their bawdy business.
Whether they drift off
maddened, moon-rinsed,
or dock in the morning
scuffed and chastened—
is simply how it is, and I gather them in.

You are mine, I say to the twice-dunked cruller
before I eat it. Then I sing
to the bright-beaked bird outside,
then to the manicured spider
between window and screen;
then I will stop, and forget the singing.
(See? I have already forgotten you.)