"from RED WEATHER (in-progress)"

Drums in the pre-dawn. In my head my brain churns like bald tires on a gravel road. Wantonly. There was so much I wanted to say, telephone or zebra or goddamn. But I let it go, like the Pope. Ego te absolvo. Antarctica all the way, & that's if she's lucky.

All I had were the trees, which is a lot, & the birds, especially that goddamned nutty-sounding kind, that jungle bird. God. I wonder how all the other birds deal, like someone who gets drunk at a party & won't shut up & keeps on saying the most excruciating things. Hello, Mr. Inappropriate Disclosure! Goodbye!

"...in the years they lived there, carrying on with books, babies and endless conversation." If you make the space in your life will events rush to fill it? Yet the war goes on. Is this what it was like during The Crusades? You want to be home with your hippie chick girlfriend, the baby crawling on the kitchen floor, instead you're 2 knights down from Richard the Lion-Hearted, poised to rain Christian terror down upon the Turk.

Fuck this noise. Rusty armor, stale sweat, bad food. The dog on the front porch, the whistling teapot, the hummus & tabouli are far, far away. Coltrane on the stereo, flowers on the windowsill.

The horse snaps its tail at a fly, jangles its harness. Dust & heat.