A vulture almost killed me the other day. Doing 80 on 70 and it rose slowly from the side of the road, its wings, as wide as the car, flapping uselessly at the hot dry air. I looked at its red bald head, into its surprised eyes. And an updraft pushed it up and over […]
Yearly Archives: 2011
Say goodbye like you mean it
Monday, May 30, 2011
That night, standing on the cliff listening to the ocean and smoking a joint, watching the blinking ships moving down the coast, he wonders what it would feel like to fall. To step off the edge and plunge into the traffic below. And he knows that he has come too far. He flicks the roach […]
Apocalypse and a dreaming moon
Sunday, May 22, 2011
This crazy preacher from Oakland—where there is no there. For weeks we laugh about it. Worry on facebook and twitter, plan parties for when all these meddlesome Christians will finally be taken away from us. The day breaks sunny and alive and we look nervously over our shoulders for any sign that we may have […]
Driving away from dying things
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Yesterday I saw a cardinal, a beautiful and striking thing. It was lonely on the road, dying, its wings and back broken by a car. It lifted its head and chirped its orange beak and looked at me with expressionless eyes as I drove by. I watched it shrink in the rearview, watched it put […]
Failing the Turing Test
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Home again, he sits in the reclining chair and sets down the sweating beer, picks up the phone. Frowning, he puts it back down and picks up a book. The phone doesn’t blink with messages as often as it used to, but he is starting to think maybe that’s okay. The summer is coming and […]
Impossible oceans
Sunday, May 1, 2011
For weeks he had been trying to remember who his shampoo reminded him of. He is coming down out of the mountains and onto the plains again. A train heavy with coal and cars chugs towards California, its whistle as lonely as a fog horn. A wind farm rises on the horizon, massive white blades […]
I guess I would discourage you from California
Monday, April 25, 2011
Beautiful and open and shiny. The sun high and bright, the world around them buzzing with heat. Attracted, he comes in for a closer look. Such a strange sight way out here in the middle of nothing. He hesitates. Far from home, he circles slowly above. She winks and smiles. He goes down for a […]
It’s like living in nature living here
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Three in the morning on a new moon night. The world gone dark and silent. I sit up waiting for sleep to find me. Who who. I feel all the unseen creatures of the night freeze, their heartbeats quicken. Who who. The soft swooshing of feathers, the creaking of wings gliding under weight. A suddenly […]
You guest starred in our dreams last night
Sunday, April 10, 2011
We were riding an N-Judah that went off the rails and flipped upside down onto a passenger platform. There was much screaming and bleeding and gnashing of teeth and the doors opened and a T-Third Street was waiting for us. We tried to send C a text message on paper to complain about our ordeals, […]