My first three weeks in Whittier

Whittier is a town of 250 people. The whole town lives in an apartment building called the BTI. In it is everything we need, Kozy Korner, the convenience store. The post office, trash, laundry and 311 the apartment I now call home. Internet kind of sucks we’re always having to restart our router. I have the most breath taking view of the mountains and ocean out my bedroom windows. There are 12 members on the Phillips crew that I work and live with. They come from Mane to Texas and Callie. We start our days around 8 or 9. Head to the dock to clean and restock the boat. Around 10:30 we take an hour lunch break to come home and change into our uniforms. White button down, black pants and shoes, ascot, epaulets, name tag and Phillips cruise red jacket. We get back to the boat at 11:30 and welcome passengers aboard. Our big boat is the Klondike and it runs a 5 hour tour serving lunch and fresh baked cookies! The Glacier Quest is a smaller boat and only holds about 150 people. The GQ is where I normally work, we take it out for 3 hour tours. Seeing Mountain goats, black bears, kitty wakes, dall porpoises, humpback whales, bald eagles, sea otters, harbor seals and up close glaciers! Our boats are small enough to get with in a 1000 feet of the glaciers. The water becomes filled with huge pieces of ice that have crumbled off the glaciers, you can hear them cracking and the heart shaking boom when huge pieces of ice break off into the water. When we get into the icy water we go to the stern of the boat and fish for a few huge pieces of ice to put on display and chop up for drinks on the way home. Its fun work, getting to talk to people, take their pictures and point out wildlife. I get one or two days off a week. I’m still finding things to do here... I need to pick up some new hobbies. Most of the hiking trails are still covered in many feet of snow. I’ve been writing, reading, drawing and cooking a lot. At the end of the day we all come home and hang out, talk, watch a movie or make a big dinner together. The crew already feels like a family. I am really happy here, it’s going to be a great summer!

Before You Skip Town

I shouldn’t have answered your call
and I shouldn’t have asked you to call again
I know this now, somethings just have to run through

But lets have dinner
just one more night
I’ll light candles to warm the air
You'll dance around
and over the pressing issues
that nether of us care to cover
Leaving them in old shelters to gather even older dust
Waiting for a remembrance day

And don’t be mad at me for wishing for change
It was change that seemed to be
tugging at my particular sleeve!
Its pulled me down back streets and around corners
Over manholes breathing out ozone
Passing out only more delicious questions
So you can't blame me for getting lost in the moment

Won’t you come see me
just once before you skip town
we’ll draw with sharpies on our wrists
like scars of a last attempt

For in this state we have overstayed
My dear you and I are overused
Falling to pieces
But lovely still in candle light
With the voices of children
Laughing, like a reason for celebration.

Indigo Generation

Did you see my breath freeze?

Like a car crash

Resting a beat before impact

Into a icy north-west night


We were the imported vagabonds

Set free on the street corners

To stair down satellites

And holler underground love songs

To an acoustic strum


Did you see us on the sidewalks

Prophesying with Dylan

And rewriting the constitution

With a sharpie pen

Rebelliously held in our left hand

Waltzing with the Birdman

To the metronome of car horns


We lived in coffee shops

Huddled in corners

Sipping venti americanos

Talking activism

Folding The New York Time into paper flowers

Bouquets for the next potential squeeze


Catching their eye with cardboard protest sign

And graphic t-shirts

Stating This is what I stand for! This is who I am!


Counting the goosebumps running up our arms

Like we were tallying votes

Zipping up our thrift store fleece

To keep in the radical imagination

Or the cloud of pot smoke wafting into the ether

Wrinkling our pierced noises

At the undertone of false doctrine

That permeated even the indigo generation


We picked fights against the masses

Belittling the upper class


Sleeping on friends velvet couches

In vintage converse and wool coats

Waking up late

Extending the dream

Of a world who understands us

Terrified of beige, mediocrity, normality

Living like our parents or not living at all

The moment we might become unremarkable


Death to the street dwelling standers

Prescribed by the western world!

Toting gatsbys and hobo gloves

We shall trek onward into the night

All The Rest

Talk yourself to sleep.
Count out, on fingers and toes
how many gold stars you keep on your ceiling
and how they sparkle off gleaming kitchen appliances.
We all nod our general heads
pretending to listen.
Pulling your hair back, out of you’re warbling mouth.
Insisting the importance of the galaxy
is pouring from you’re teeth.

All the things you heard in the 60s are irrelevant.
We are intuitive beyond knowing.
When we chatter we are solitary,
heated heavy heads with eyes on fire,
skipping lunch to reveal rebel missions.
Surpassing the mundane.
Expanding the uncertain realms,
calling on cherry bombing, skate boarders
to find holes into China
and sew us back together with common thread.

Untying Bonds

I feel like a little shit! For holding his hand
For asking him nicely, opening the storage room door to call him back
Spelling it out for him, once, then again
Hailing my bluff
Standing on the wood boards, aged in their years of loitering
The light from the grass framed
Icebox flickered

As our hands let go, Now strangers
Done trying, done striving for the
Oh so over rated silver screen
Selling us red lipped romance
Never to be lived up to, where the world took real form
In the back of cafes, between your silhouette and mine
Below storage room spotlights
Reciting carefully written scripts
“It’s not you. It’s me”

We were no more then one rose in hand
One meek yellow rose in hand
One bleeding hand, one sliced palm
Meant to show commitment but ending up
Leaving lips crystal blue, sunken face, drained of blood
Pooling, running down cracks in the also weeping floor boards
The tie is cut with metallic shears
The vibration of the foot steps
The foot steps
The door to the storage room
Closes
One hollow sound
My feet stay planted
Alone like an unmoved shell
Among crates of milk and flour sacks
Stepping back into my body, with the force of necessity
Try pouring my lungs full of air
And still I was too far from warmth
To make my dear eyelids close