sick in my apartment

bent over my coffee

dealing with it

on the tube

there is a special

about actors

and their drug problems

my rent is due

in 3 days

and I am broke

2 final notices

in the mail

yesterday

one for the

electricity

and one for the

phone

I haven’t been

able to leave

my place for

a week

I have half a

check

coming in from my last

job

and a blown head gasket

in my car

I sit

here and listen

about

the

dangers

of

cocaine.

"They projected their energies across the surface of the continent in the form of the Tree of Life, not with 10 circles, but with 12 – an extra on top of the Island of Udal, and an extra on the bottom in the water. There were 10 components on the main land, and though it extended for hundreds of miles on the surface, it was projected to the accuracy of a single atom. We chose to move to Atlantis because of the Kundalini. In humans, the kundalini is often referred to as the 'energy serpent' that runs up and down your spine. When activated, it provides an immense amount of energy through all of the chakras. The Earth itself also has a Kundalini because the Earth is alive, like an organism, running from the center of the planet to a specific place on the surface. Wherever the Kundalini resides, the people there become the spiritual leaders of the world.

"The Earth chose Atlantis to be the new energetic center of the planet. After Atlantis, the Kundalini moved to the mountains of Tibet, which is why the Buddhists were the leaders in pure spirituality for the last 13,000 years. It was a very pure place. It moved again within the last 10 years, but that’s a story for another time. Suddenly, in a single day, the Naacals breathed life into the Tree of Life on the surface of Atlantis. This created vortexes of energy rotating out of each and every circle. Once the vortexes were established, the children of Lemuria began to be called forth. Millions upon millions of Lemurians who had settled all across the planet began to be pulled toward Atlantis. A great migration began. However, the Lemurian body of consciousness had only reached the age of 12 as a planetary consciousness. Because we were right-brained, we were a female species – like a 12-year-old girl – and some of our centers weren’t working yet. They had worked with these energies, but only mastered eight of the 10.

"Each migrating Lemurian was attracted to one of these eight centers on Atlantis, depending on the nature of the individual. There, they settled and began to build cities. That left two vortexes with nobody using them, not a single person. These two vortexes were pulling life toward them, and in life, you can’t have an empty place. Life will find a way to fill it. Similar to if you were driving along a freeway, following another car, and you dropped too far behind, someone will fill the place. That’s exactly what happened on Atlantis. Though the Lemurians had only filled eight of the vortex areas, Mayan records state clearly that there were 10 cities in Atlantis when it fell." ...

As we get older

the more things,

pets and people

we know or love

go to their graves

one by one

they leave us

like limbs dropping

from an old trunk

or

you will know

or love someone

who has things,

pets and people

going to their graves

one by one

until it comes

for us, too

until we become

a headshake over

a glass of beer.

Up and down I5 from Burbank to Seattle, working with a toothless [meth] redneck and being wired on fatigue, driving that hairy little freak around

the west with me under his delusion that he

was my boss, and to be fair, I liked the guy

especially when he wore both his uppers

and lowers when the crew went out to eat together

but there was something about the guy that forbade me from

completely hating him, a sense of family I felt with

him that made me both easy and disgusted, and also

kind of fascinated

the things we didn't have in common kept

the miles balanced

-like his love for the job: building heavy, collapsible

barns for horse shows, the builds and the tear-downs, which always

meant walking through horse shit, breathing it, getting it in

your cuts and socks

-and his love for the actual boss: a little British guy with a jail tattoo of a sock saint

on his shin, sandals and white socks, always, who drove the pallets of

panels and doors and canvas around with his wife in their

twin semis

-and his gratefulness for having that job because

where he came from, and all other factors considered,

the job was his career

and on most nights when we slept on site

I would watch the sky and feel the oddest

sense of hypocrisy/accomplishment knowing that I'd just

built 13 barns that day

but also feeling free in the sense that I was a ghost

on the road

no cell phone, no bank account, no traces or trail or tail

just the road and the dirt and the metal panels,

mistakes that shed blood in the cold

mornings, or created an immediate blood blister popped by

an old nail reluctantly sterilized by a splash of coffee

and waking up in the sleeping bag and looking over

at the little redneck sleeping

half in and half out of a sleeping bag which

I ended up paying for, realizing he was only 27 or so

with that many miles on his skin, that many demons

that took away his teeth

-and me there with across from him

waking up under the Sun in Marymoore, or Mt. Hood, or Diamond Springs,

or Woodside, or SoCal, and once even all the way over in Albuquerque

-but sitting up and stretching my spine while watching

the little bastard snore on his back

his full body perm grossly lit by the

sky

looking around to see if we

were lucky enough to have

an outlet near so I could set out

my folding table and chair

and plug in my electric

to write stories, poems, letters

and another thing about the redneck, the crew, even the

Brit and his wife: on the nights or down time in the afternoons

when they heard the machine, they stayed their distance

which also challenged my perceptions of them

but not enough to where I didn't quit after a year

and go on to other Hells comical and tragic, peppered in

through the good times, also

-strange

how the good times

become easy to forget

while writing

poetry

Anyway, sitting here now, coffee coursing perfectly

-big ass leather chair, at my desk in my study

remembering the old jobs, but mostly that job

and the redneck, the boss and his wife, and also the ones who

showed up to work and were either lazy or weak or smart enough to

walk away after

a day's pay

-Sitting here now, while the sunlight reaches in and spikes

my home, while a car waits outside that I

KNOW will start every morning

but also while I sit here and

think about how

good those days might have

been for me

had I seen

this coming.

I was in the honeymoon part having been married three months earlier. I was driving my brand new car, a melon colored vw bug, to my job as an art teacher. It was a sunny morning, and the lake was marine and crisp blue. Those shiny new homes were extra glossy. Leaves had started to change to orange. Things were vivid.

I shifted into gear and started the curve up the plateau when the DJ interrupted the song to tell us something terrible had happened. He didn't have details. There was an accident in New York. One of the World Trade Center buildings had been hit by a plane. It was a terrible accident.

Wait folks... the second tower has been hit. By a different plane. It's awful to watch folks. Oh god.

We we will share information as we get it everybody. There's... oh god.

Ok. We are being told, yes it's hard to believe, that this is not an accident.

From the parking lot I called my parents in Pennsylvania. Mom was does that mean?

Honey we don't know. We just don't know yet. Are you ok? Where is Pat? Oh he's flying today? Oh god. Pam. Oh god. That's Aunt Marylin on the other line. Oh god. Laura's in New York. I'll call you back.

My students did not know. And when they found out they still did not know. They were born and raised on the west coast. They had never driven into New York City. They had never sat in the back seat and watched the towers get bigger and bigger on the skyline, telling you how much longer the drive would be without having to ask your parents in the front.

There were announcements on the overhead. There were tears with colleagues, confusion from students, and shock. Shock. Shock.

Shock. Pats flying today. was supposed to leave LA and come back to Seattle... major airports...should be in the air now.

A phone call for me. In the main office. Fear. Shock. Fear.

Pat's boss. Checking on you. Airports closed. Call us as soon as you hear from Patrick, ok?

A phone call for me. Back to the office. Panic.

It's me, Pat. Airports shut down. I'm driving home with some guys to Portland. We just have to rent a car. No I don't know the guys but we all just want to get home. Can you pick me up tomorrow night? In Portland.

Of course. Of course. Of course.

Calls everyday from home. Who else was lost. Who lost who. Who helped. Who needs help. No one will be the same.

How are you? It's different here, mom. It feels far away. Some of these people have never even been to New York.

I went to bed that first night, Pat safe, in a car with strangers driving up the coast. Laura, being met by her parents as soon as they can be there, her eyes and heart scarred for what she saw. All those tears that night. The pieces of my world had shifted, but none were lost. All those holes now... The east coast had so many missing pieces.

I remember thinking that someday I'd tell my kids that their dad and I were married before the wars.

I remember Jay Leno making a joke a few weeks later, Remember when all we had to worry about was whether or not Anne Heche was crazy?

Yellow can be a disgusting color.

who knows what to write

I am who and so now it's right

about time to lay down what's on my mind

with every single line

like bolts of ever-plenty lightning

I intend to be enlightening, not frightening,

so as to minimize the darkening

and synchronize the "Arc-ening"

to maximize the partnering

of optimizing harbingers,

architects and carpenters,

grammators and reactors,

reacting words like subatomic particles -

positively procuring plasma power -

infinite free fusion fun for thousands

of generations as derived from this reactor of language -

language magic, magic logic -

also "rhythm" -

feeling cosmic

feeling jolly

feeling awesome

feeling conscious

this keeps revealing onward

this is who