Morning Walks

I've been waking up early (ok, 8am isn't THAT early) with Erica to do morning walks in the woods.

Foggy view from the A dorm balcony:



A lumpy mossy tree:



A good climbing spot:



The gnome treehouse - named for a dozen gnomes guarding the area:



A little chair for a little gnome:

Holiday M&Ms

Are green and red. Is every holiday associated with green and red? I don't think so.

Here is something that I wrote recently, not a Margy Pepper (formerly 4skin) song, just a solo thing. I didn't work very hard recording it, and my voice is post-m&m scratchy (you know when you eat so much chocolate that the inside of your throat feels thick?) But here it is anyway:

Morbid

A-B-Cs

1. Check out 4skin's 2 recorded songs on our new music myspace: www.myspace.com/4skin4skin We've gotten a lot of good feedback! I check the myspace when I wake up, before class, after class, before I fall asleep.

2. Obama is going to win. Going to gather at a friend's dorm to watch it happen, and then probably dance all night. Wake up to a fresh, bright morning.

3. Gnarliest research paper of all time going on right now. If anyone wants a complete summary of the history and geography (pre-colonial up to the present day) of the Western Shoshone people, hit me up and I'll e-mail you a copy.

PLUS: Really neat guest lecture today about the Indian boarding schools. Did you know: Harvard and Dartmouth both started as institutions meant to christianize and "civilize" native people? Creeeepy.

RIOT

Here's the new work, this one is a bookbag and it is huge, it is designed to fit LPs:



My snazzy stitching job:



Finito:



The lining and the LP pocket (MOM - the lining isn't CAMO, its CAMO-COLORED clouds, not advocating militarism, just clouds that can hide in the wilderness)



I'm going to take my camera OUT of my room TOMORROW to get some good snaps of the red leaves around here, and halloween costumes.

How Nice !

Prospective House

Late for the Mail Room

I was late for the mail room today which means that I missed getting my blanket which means that I'll sleep through another chilly-ish night. It's getting chilly-ish, the days are getting shorter. The few trees around that aren't evergreens are turning yellow and orange.

Tonight I made a fire on the beach with some friends - It was also yellow and orange. We weren't out there for too long, because we meant to go out to see the full moon but .. the coastline faces the wrong direction. We figured out mathematically: We'd have to wait until 1am to see the full moon over the Eld Inlet. Can't do that. Gotta wake up early tomorrow (and pack a lunch!) to go to Squaxin Island with my class. I'm very excited and interested and I have a list of questions to ask.

Here are some new bags. Piers and I have a lot of interested customers, non of whom are interested in paying.... Might set up a stand in Red Square when we've got more product.

Another messenger bag - much cleaner:





And a fanny pack !! Made out of a wild 90s winter jacket found at Goodwill





Also! The girls I've been playing music with (girl band formally called "4Skin") are invited to play a show on campus in November with a few other local bands! Practice all day Thursday (Rock'N'Roll Thursdays, Rock'N'Roll for breakfast, lunch, and dinner).

Just wanted to give a quick update. I'm going to try to carry my camera around more often so that I can post pictures of this world out here.

Serious Business

Piers and I are making waterproof messenger bags !! We have a lot of ideas of different designs, and we're taking requests! These are our first monsters, pretty simple just to get the hang of it.









Watch out R.E. Load !

Dreams, Realities

Dreams:

Last night I dreamt that I was in an animal museum with my bathroommate Paula. We were looking at a giant white lizard in a white marble case. I was talking about how I love the way that lizards move, and I started mimicking it, and the lizard got insulted and began to climb out of the cage. We didn't believe that it was climbing out till pretty late, and we started to run away. We tried to climb over a barrier to escape its chase, but I didn't get over and it bit me in the neck. Didn't hurt too bad.

Realities:

My roommate Maddy and I pasted this reminder on the mirror.

Projects

1. "The Sitting Room Gallery": There are a few sitting rooms outside of bathrooms at Evergreen. They are pretty much white cement rooms with a mirror and a chair. As soon as I've collected enough student artwork, I'm going to curate a show in one. Will go up and come down in one night.

2. "The Lil John Tribute Band": Exactly what it sounds like. I play the mandolin, everyone sings. Will perform in an electrical room found on the rooftop of the library.

Philadelphia -> Olympia

I'm here, and it's 11:40 pm but it feels like 3 in the morning which makes sense because that's where my brain is at. I just got home from a bonfire in the rainforest which was pretty sweet, meeting people making fire. You can walk up to anyone smiling and make a friend.

Here is my ode to Philadelphia:



Peace yall. Keep the weave tumbling.

Rowhouse

Its quick entrance and foreseeable exit. The distance between is suspended, sipping light from the front and back doors. There is an underwater pulsing there, in the middle room, a fisheyed darkness. It is a thick place to walk through.

She's standing outside of the front door and talking loudly, though its daytime, and I try not to hear it but the screen door barely filters flies.

Boomp3.com

Checklist

Each day has become a checklist: pack your things, Items that shouldn't be counted, are: say goodbye, go on a bike ride.

Days are ending all of a sudden and I've answered the same questions so many times that the truth of the answers has been lost --

Are you worried? No
Are you excited? Yes
Are you going to miss Philly? Not too much

(If I keep answering this way, I am convinced, I will never worry, I will always be excited, and Philly will always be my home.)

Checklist: Go to college, make friends, graduate from college, retain friendships, get a farm, smash capitalism, live happily

ever

after

Made Fresh Daily

Hey, so, I want to get used to using this thing again so that when I leave I'll be ready to report. I have six more days in Philly, and I am here at home, an empty house, sipping coffee and plucking my mandolin. I'm getting over a little summer cold, which seems to be going around (or maybe I am spreading it around?).

I found an unfinished song by the Sisters just now. All the music was down in Maine, I added some words just now. It's about biking. I don't know if that was the initial intention, but... Here it is:

Boomp3.com

If anyone would like a copy of the complete Sisters collection, give me your address (in Florida or wherever) and I'll send a lovely little thing your way. Keep in mind: These will be worth a lot of money one day.

Two More

This song is about needing a foot more space:

boomp3.com

This is Sarah and the waves and some strumming from my fingers:

boomp3.com

Where We've Been

This one is called "Notes For Out West", and it should play even though it says that the file is deleted. Maybe it won't play, I don't know.

boomp3.com

This one is called "Ode To The Androscoggin". The Androscoggin is a river, and Umbagog is the body of water that that feeds it.

boomp3.com

Poetry-gone-photo-blog.

Funny:

"Here are a few tips on how you can make yourself more exciting:

1. Know where you are going in life. Have dreams and ambitions.
2. Have good tastes.
3. Write poetry or music.
4. Be culturally intelligent. Enjoy the arts and read the latest novels reviewed by the New Yorker.
5. Pick up a third or fourth language.
6. Have hobbies you are passionate about.
7. Do crazy things such as sky-diving or rock-climbing.
8. Travel, travel, travel.
9. Stay away from computer and video games. (Spend your time doing things that can make you more interesting or improve your quality of living instead.)
10. Act cool. If you act like you're cool, most people will assume you are cool."

Where Babies Come From (Free Write)

Babies come from
flour that has puffed over
tin jar walls, and seems to disappear
but actually floats together
to a secret meeting place
in the garden, to make a floury
whole wheat baby.

Copper sulfate reflects blue light
and that is why the sky is blue.

The part of your brain
that is your memory
is locked in a nutshell -
thick, brown, like my bedroom door, hard to crack -
locked so that memory won't seep into the sack
that is your imagination (a fishnet sack, like the French
carry at the marketplace to hold fruits and veggies, when empty
you can ball it up very small) and there are these separations
in your brain, God made them, God help them,
so that you can distinguish what is real
from what is pretend.

Printmaking

In the style of old newspapers - sepia ink lines - a hand fisted around fabric, the same fabric it is printed on, a delicate, sheer fabric. What is ownership?

Hell

boomp3.com

Next Year !!!

Frida 4 !

She places the gray rectangle of shadow
above her chin, delicately as a name card
at a dinner setting. It is a simple truth –
that the sun's angle would darken this pattern -

a math she calculates steadily, the way
she pulls silver through her earlobes.

This face invents her –
From it the audience can guess
of her spine, of her hips and wide toes -
It is a face that she’s chosen, a freedom
Known only to painters, to poets and creators.

She sits potted
before the mirror, tracing
over and over, her own contours
until the whole thing is blurred
and strange. Until it is time to reinvent
each line. She paints
the endless Mexican desert
behind her pupils. She sculpts her chin,
purses the red tin of her lips.


As she works she imagines
tomorrow’s costume, the piles
of color that beg her to let them fall
over her frame at a party,
that want their weight draped around her ankles
that want to hide her whole thing
behind a shadowless, shapeless yellow.

Found Things

I forget the difference:
Birds and People

The people in the other room
Whose faces I never see, I hear
That they have nose rings
Or blonde hair, features that hold
a swift confidence, a light and flexible neck
Whatever their faces, I know
Their voices; muffled squeaks and squabbles
that come quickly beneath the door
And through whatever spaces
our walls allow.

I forget the difference:
Birds and People
Sewing nests out of found things like
shoe lace or poetry or feathers or melody.

What It Is

God sprinkles
wheat sprigs
from heaven
and birds use them
to make nests in my hair
and they also use
down feathers
from Spencer's bed.

Spring ends and eggs hatch and winter eats them and my silence grows.

I forget the difference:
Birds and People.
It is like dreadlocks
It is like branches
It is like woven leather
It is like barbed iron
It is like a beehive it is like a tumbler.

The Sea Is Calm

I got off a few blocks early, today, and walked down Larchwood, home. It smelled like honeysuckles. That made me think of the honeysuckles that used to be in our backyard, that our neighbors tore down. I remembered racing Sarah to get at their sweetness - who could find a flower that hadn't been emptied of it's nectar? It reminded me of summer. Summer reminded me of smoke from grills and barbecues. I can't wait for this summer's barbecues. This summer's fresh lemonade. This summer's air rushing through the car window, on the ride to Detroit, Memphis, Austin, Mexico.

... I think this sounds like I'm comforting an overweight friend

We stood together on thirteenth and spruce
Analyzing the physics of riding
On handlebars, how your weight
Means less the closer we are to each other.

Blurry Family

Skip James

The record ending is a piece of paper crumbled up and eaten.

It reminds me of bugs dying on light bulbs. It reminds me of brown curled leaf-ends. I wrote a letter and then I stopped. My hair crisped from a shooting flame, it felt like a record ending. The dirt has been dry, the roots have been aching over how to feed the leaves. I have a folder full of letters that I'll never send.

Distance pt. 4

It is not written that he beat against the side of the mount or collapsed to tear at the earth: Moses standing on Mount Pisgah, overlooking the land of Israel, exiled by God. It is not written that his skin cracked in the heat like desert floor, that his lips split like the seas.

There are many who stand at borders, exiled behind walls or fences, stuck between checkpoints. Their trunks twist like olive trees, their eyes pain with want, their arms reach to the sky in peace-prayers and guns point at them like long, terrified fingers.

There is violence in borders, in the invisible lines that separate countries. There is violence in the refusal to travel language. There is violence in the refusal to stand at the mount with the exiled.

Mornings

Open stage, windless instruments.
That early-morning alone with
wintry boughs cracking.

My knees are heaped around my ankles.
There is a crushed pretzel, its grains caught
between the rug loops, sticking, static.
Shadows are ideas from the windows: Muted traffic,
Church bells, someone searching for "Michael!"

The joints in my fingers have crumbled.
My hands lay beside me like empty plastic cups,
sideways and left behind.

Everything has happened already.
Elephants have fought here -
There are moon craters
where our feet danced,
there are mosaics
where we smashed bottles.
A discarded t-shirt flowers and molds in the corner.

Free Write 3/22 (Receipt)

Time is walking like a crook:
We lived for years
in a tent under the interstate -
blue highway, blue tent,
pools in our ears -
We slept for years
in a refrigerator box on the rooftop
sucking asphalt and sun.

On fourth and lombard
all the people talking like typewriters -
"How could she hate her life, she lives
in Florida?" Long range planning backward
goals, the calendar is a little woman who tempts us
to commit the sin of plastic.

Yesterday the whole front of the bus squished together for a man in a wheelchair who told us not to smoke this is what it had done to him for fourty-seven years like an ex-wife pulling at his veins like reigns. A woman told him "that's proof that the lord loves you, he could have chosen to take you away." He said: "Any smokers on this bus you better quit or you'll end up like me." Today on the train a seventy-six year old homeless man preached: "You are my audience, between this stop and the next you cannot move, you are captive, you will listen to me beg and grovel and guilt your eyes until your pockets find change!"

Tallis, Weave, Scarves (Title?!)

Six hundred and thirteen knots
hung around my head like mosquitoes,
a veil marking holiness, with blessings
sewn in blue thread: Blessed are you, universe,
blessed are your braids, that hang down a back
in shades of brown (coffee, caramel,
timberland boot tan) the colors found
in ironed streaks to be woven
into tender heads. The colors
tied in a cast down the arms of women:
"Scarves for sale", feathers for sale
from these migrant birds,
soft and heavy on their wings
that spread wide in display
until police come and they run like pigeons
from the foot of a child,
fringes scattering around the corner.

Philadelphian Cynicism

Street Vendor Woman is holding a Hillary for President sign.
Construction Worker: She's a crook.
Street Vendor Woman: Everybody's a crook.

Seashell

The washed bone of your spine
curls fetal, it is sun streaked – a shingle
of pail toenail, egg hip. Cream of crusts,
of ends, of palms.

You sleep, displaced, in dry meditation.
Your pulse is a memory of the tide, the bloated
belly of its swell, the soft pull like seaweed
round an ankle. How the water moved without direction,
turned you wet vagabond.

Your arms bend away in a bow,
low, in brown – the eldest orange, father
of sunset, born burnt. Like you,
it once traveled to blue.

Frida 3

She places the gray rectangle of shadow
above her chin, delicately as a name card
at a dinner setting. It is a simple truth -
that the sun's angle would darken this patten -
a math that she calculates steadily, the way
she pulls silver through her earlobes.

This face invents her
as she sits potted
before the mirror, painting
the endless Mexican desert
behind her pupils, unlit. Pursing
the red tin of her lips.

She recalls sitting in a toilet stall, head sobbing between her bare knees. She recalls sitting on a stoop to call long distance, hesitating on the last digit, and no one answering after five brave rings. She recalls curling fetal on her floor, surrounded by piles of colors, clothes, ideas, straining over which costume to bear.

She mixes these recollections
into a dark rouge
for her cheeks.

Frida 2

She places the gray rectangle of shadow
above her chin, delicately as a name card
at a dinner setting. It looks like Velcro
and roughs her skin. She hangs silver mirrors
from her earlobes, and paints the endless
Mexican desert behind her pupils, unlit.
She purses the red tin of her lips.

This face invents her
as she sits potted
before the mirror.

Outside of the frame
her hands are cupping the sun and
shifting with its hours.

Frida

A rectangle of shadow is beneath
her bottom lip, a gray patch, as if
placed there by her own hand,as she invents
a face for the mirror, with an immense look,
like the endless Mexican desert is behind her pupils, unlit,
or like a funerary portrait, the dead eyeing
death. She sits almost potted, there.
Her lips are tin painted red.

Evesdropping On Penn Students

"I wish that my Uggs
Had rock salt super-glued
To their soles so that
Ice would just melt
Wherever I walked!"

Evesdropping On 6 Year-Olds

"You're blushing"
"I'm always blushing,
My cheeks are just
Like that - I was born
Blushing, something
Must have embarrassed me
In the womb."

Tallis, Scarves, Condensed

Six hundred and thirteen knots
mark holiness. Six hundred
and thirteen braids
hanging down a back in shades
of brown (coffee, caramel,
timberland boot tan) the colors
tied in a cast down the arms of these women:
"Scarves for sale", feathers for sale
from these migrant birds, soft
and heavy on their wings spread
wide in display until
police come and they run like pigeons
from the foot of a child,
fringes scattering around the corner.

The world's richest fifth:

Consume 45% of all meat and fish
Consume 58% of total energy
Have 74% of all telephone lines
Consume 84% of all paper
Own 87% of the world’s vehicle fleet

Thinking About Leaving,

Things to always remember about home:
How the kitchen was, is, will always be yellow and chipping.
The couch pillows being really really dirty on the underside.
The TV antennas that point in all kinds of directions without ever picking up a signal.

Watching Carlos' Kitchen from the Sofabed

The blue shaded noon light
on the tiles, their golden edges
look like frames wanting paintings.
The microwave knobs are sun dials,
the cabinets are great white columns.

(The way things begin to look
after a few days in Rome.)

Recent Thoughts - Overwhelmed

Left hand spread wide
to cover his own face,
as he runs crouched, all knees,
eyeballs peeking between fingers,
a hood and a bandana and the night,
anything dark to hide behind.

One person makes a thing and another person makes another thing and everyone wants everything. The peace and order of society becomes more important than the relief of the miserable.

He sprayed a can of red paint
in her face, that's what the blood
looked like, a perfect circle
of aerosol rose. It took 140 stitches
to put her nose back on.

"Criminals get sentenced, but not the machine that keeps churning them out, just as drug addicts get sentenced but not the lifestyle that cries out for chemical consolation and an illusion of escape." - Galeano

Bodies gathered in line to be casted
in the single mold of consumer society.
As we wait our turn, we argue the statistics
of a quarterback, the mechanics of sex.
We emerge from the plaster to become
military men and McDonalds fryers,
even Adam Smith knew: "The man
whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations
generally becomes as stupid and ignorant
as it is possible for a human creature to become."

Sleep Like A King

I slept so much last night, woke up and kept sleeping, woke up kept sleeping, woke up sleeping. Now I'm at the kitchen table, clean and bare, mom must have felt inspired, all that's on the table is a roll of paper towels, a pen, and a bottle of wine. And now my cup of orange juice and two eggs... I'm going to make eggs in a second.

Thank you Martin Luther King Jr. for a day off from school. It feels good.

The Day After Thanksgiving

The houses and my face:
Pink blotched cheeks, swollen
wood of door frames in the cold,
locking the weather in or out.

The fogged heat of breath
smothered in a scarf, the intimate
taste of in and out. The frosted
dell in silence, a sleeping cello
whose strings hang loose like wisps
of hair lost from their ponytail.

The cellist only knows lullabies, anyway,
off from school and the dishwashing.

The Art of Rocking a Stoop

A word resonates
at the end of a line like
a boy on the edge
of a stoop.

Hold (revision)

Cling fast, as if holding on
is something that happens quickly.
It is the low waver of a church organ.
It radiates from the forehead.

Tucked between holiday cards, I keep
your ash in an envelope. Your face remained
still when I asked you to flick your cigarette
into my palm. It has turned, since, from solid
to smear of rain cloud. Cling

fast, as if holding on
is something that happens quickly.
It is the low waver of a church organ.
It radiates from the forehead.

4 Minutes Attempting Fiction

The saxaphone hangs like a cross around his neck. He stands onstage, touching its buttons. He lifts it and looks into its bell. He whispers something into it, something private. I wish that I could find something private to say to him. I'm always leaning into his ear with nothing in my mouth.

I am only drinking water. I wonder what the charge will be - for water and watching this musician touch his instrument. This musician. I hope that he'll begin to play soon. I hope that he'll blow loudly enough to excuse me from my silence, some kind of screaming improvisation that doesn't mean anything. Blabbers. I imagine myself whispering blabbers into his ear, him nodding, nodding, turning to look at my face.

He plays C, F7, G7, a blues. The drummer shakes his snare. I eye down the waiter and order a drink. A real drink that costs money.

Observation 2

West Philly doesn't need tumbleweed. We've got black plastic bags.

Observation 1

Before mirrors, nakedness
bulges, looses over waist edges,
squeezes into the sharp angles
of ankles. But Before nakedness,
nakedness smooths.

Memory in Present Tense

Hooded figures run between their groceries and their trunks, treating everything like eggs. My shirt soaks straight to my skin, pink and satin. The rain is a pencil cross hatching. The bus number is a fog light in the distance. A shopping cart flies across the parking lot into a van. A blurry man asks if I need a ride. My hair sticks to my cheeks.

Ode to the Operator

(Decided to go back and revise this again)

The operator was buried.
She lost her job, and slowly
her cheeks began to hang
like sound waves, and ultimately

The operator was buried.

With her went
the lattice edged ring,
the ear against heavy black,
the fisted grip and slight weight.

There is no longer pleasure in waiting,
no "expected" call, no magic
in the science of wires, only

Why aren't you answering your phone?

I'm calling because I'm on the bus,
cell phone in hand,
with nothing to say.

Tallis, Weave, Scarves, Feathers

Six hundred and thirteen knots
mark holiness. Six hundred
and thirteen braids
tickling a back in shades
of brown (coffee, caramel,
timberland boot tan).

Shades of brown, the colors
of the scarves tied in a cast
down the arms of the immigrant women
in display, scarves for sale, soft
and heavy on their arms
when police come
and they run like pigeons
from the foot of a child,
scarf fringes scattering.

(They run with their arms spread wide
there is no other way to run
with so many scarves
and only two arms)

Much simpler:

There are these women, immigrants, who sell scarves on the street in Rome. They tie the scarves around their arms so that when they stand still they can be a human sales rack. But what they're doing is illegal, they don't have permits to make money on any particular slab of pavement. And when the police come, they've got to run away. WIth the scarves all hanging from their arms, when they run, they look like huge birds. Like huge pigeons running from the foot of a child. When they make it around the corner, they'll tie the scarves up and put them in a bag and pretend that they aren't birds but regular people who aren't doing anything but walking.

Much different:

There are migrant birds who sell their feathers on the streets of Rome. Their feathers are very valuable, and come in all shades of brown. They stand on the corners with their wings spread wide so that passersby can see their collection and admire their beauty and softness and weight.

Hold

I've kept your cigarette ash
in an envelope, labeled it,
tucked it between old holiday cards
and journals. The inside is a smear
of rain cloud, you've got to peer
delicately in.

What is keeping? How do you hold?

According To My Sister...

Some writer wrote something about measuring Rome's grandeur by the weight of water that runs through it daily. Do you know that they have fountains all over the city? And drinking fountains, for walkers and their dogs? And thousands of sinks, and showers, and toilets? And a hundred million teeth to be brushed in the morning. There is a universal tooth-brushing face, whether you live in a city rushing with water, or not. There is a certain pained rectangle that every mouth becomes.