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Interests: Alfons Mucha, Archibald Leach, big words, Bob Hicok, Brian Eno, Cat Power, Charles Bukowski, Charlotte Masaryk, cheese, clarity, dark chocolate, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Adams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Frank O’Hara, Fred Rogers, garlic, Gaudi, Gertrude Stein, ginger, Gustav Klimt, Iva Pekarkova, Jane Austen, Jaromir Nohavica, Jeanette Winterson, Josef Skvorecky, Joseph Campbell, Joss Whedon, Just a Minute, Kate Bush, Kurt Vonnegut, laughing until it hurts, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Cohen, little kids singing, Lloyd Alexander, mandarin oranges, making lists, Margaret Atwood, Miss Manners, New Yorker, Paul Simon, performance, P.G. Wodehouse, poetry, Rebecca Solnit, Rob Brezsny, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Creeley, salt, Salvador Dali, secrets, silence, Star Trek, Stephen Dunn, Talking Heads, Terry Gilliam, things that stain, This American Life, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, vegetable juice, veiled cultural references, vinegar, water, wine, W.H. Auden

cranky morning

Walking in the center of the sidewalk
Sitting in the aisle seat of a crowded tram
Standing in doorways
Shouting outside my window
Cutting in line

You are a face asking to be slapped,
stomach asking to be punched,
eyes to be poked out.

Or maybe that’s too much violence, I don’t know. I have so much anger, and like my other feelings it is cumulative. This one is to do with unawareness of others and I know that, but it feels so deliberate, it feels like “I know you’re there but I can’t be bothered to be courteous” and so wanting to call attention to my existence seems hopeless, because a blindered horse is not helped by being startled, and the fact that these blinders are self-imposed means nothing. So I curl my fingernails into my palms, spare the rod, and wish instead that you will be ignored, utterly ignored as you’re ignoring me, but that it will be something that counts. Yes, you there hugging the ticket punch so that nobody can use it, you with your dirty look when I ask you to step aside so I can stamp my ticket: I am ready to hope your heart gets horribly broken if it will teach you a little empathy. Failing that, I will hope the door closes on your fingers if it will teach you the courtesy of holding it open for others.

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