Out of Used Furniture I'll Make A Tree
My Story of Poetry, Art and What-If’s
Thursday, May 31, 2012
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!
Friday, February 17, 2012
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.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
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
Monday, January 30, 2012
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.
Friday, January 27, 2012
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
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
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
First issue of YellowBird!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Love is Ageless
All around the globe,
we sang our songs of grieving
and the pain seeped from our skin.
You were even lovely in the mist of snowfall
and you were adored and cared for
but when your face turned to ash
and all the years became clear.
You were not the angle they had all believed
and so you were left, one bed,
one faded green chair
and two regretful meals a day.
They put you in a home for the old.
On a sign outside, where the pigeons flew over,
it said “Love is ageless” and we knew it was a lie.
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