Over a year ago I helped start an Al-anon meeting downtown here in the Fan because me and a friend got tired of going out to the suburbs three times a week. We're listed here however they got the time wrong. However I'm skipping tonight because I've got some independent work to do. I stopped by Plan 9 on the way home and picked up the third album by Fu Manchu, mid-nineties Southern California skateboard stoner metal. This being not even the backup or the third or fourth choice of what I was looking for, because for all their indy-cred snobbery Plan9 has has fuck-all for Doom Metal these days. I need something slow, meditative and heavy for what I'm working on, having to do with deep old hurts. I started a piece of this endeavor last winter. It's also another reason why I haven't been making much art lately. I have so much to tell you about and it feels like I got no fucking time.
Ruth told me to write this though: Late in the day today we were trucking over the James by way of the Robert E. Lee Bridge headed for the Hopkins road transfer station to dump our freight. Gloria, who was sitting in the middle kept nodding out onto my shoulder. It had been raining all day. I scanned out over the river looking for my friends the Ospreys when I noticed a couple islands I'd never paid much attention to before. Just boulders lodged in the flow really, but they had at least one big ass Sycamore each. I noticed a huge nest in the upper reaches, much bigger it seemed than an Osprey's. Further up the branches I saw a hulking black shape and after a second more of staring intently I saw it had a white head. A fucking bald fucking eagle. We were bumping along, going maybe fifty and I can't believe I picked it out. I've never seen an eagle in Virginia. I'm almost down there looking for him now and for some reason I kinda don't want you to tell anybody about him.
9/29/10
9/19/10
Not Doing any Laundry
Not doing any writing today either. Got a new battery from Honda House Friday and a pair of blinkers from the Yamaha place next door and suddenly after almost two years of cobbling parts together, I'm ready to put my motorcycle back together. I drove back down Broad street feeling a little shocked. It's been sitting, tires holding up a tank and a naked frame under a cedar tree, since last fall. The back end's needed to be torn down and rebuilt since day one. The whole thing's very Tennessee. It's all I plan on doing today.
9/9/10
I am Blessed with an Interesting Life
This morning, the head of my pitchfork started working itself loose while managing a large pile of brush in the West End, the first job of the day. The truck was idling high, roaring from the PTO diverting energy to the crane swinging above me. Looking up to keep track of the knuckle boom, I saw seven geese passing overhead, the sunrise reflected pink on their underbellies.
8/30/10
River Hawks
Every morning I am reminded
Trucks are waiting for me in the dark,
I belong to the woman in my bed,
And a little boy and girl across town. That’s it.
There is fast water that cuts down the center
Of our city, water that can carry us away
If we let it. In the dark it occurs to me
That bending over to lace my boots,
My heart will be closer to heaven.
That crossing the river each sunrise
I will look for river hawks lighting out to hunt.
A response to a poem by Charles Simic I carried around in my wallet for five years.
Trucks are waiting for me in the dark,
I belong to the woman in my bed,
And a little boy and girl across town. That’s it.
There is fast water that cuts down the center
Of our city, water that can carry us away
If we let it. In the dark it occurs to me
That bending over to lace my boots,
My heart will be closer to heaven.
That crossing the river each sunrise
I will look for river hawks lighting out to hunt.
A response to a poem by Charles Simic I carried around in my wallet for five years.
8/28/10
Diptych- Stake Body
Well before the sun has a chance to erupt across the morning I leave her slender arms, smelling of sleep and pale as ghosts. It is raining and even the street light outside her window is out. I drink my coffee and read in the next room by the light of the kitchen while her two cats circle me. The meditation for the day is on Work as a holy act. I think about my new job and how it might be work in the purest sense of the word. I get on my rain jacket and get out the door.
The first ticket is marked Urgent- called in Twice so we get deep into Church Hill, the worst block up there my driver claims. After three days I’ve started to hate my driver, his Jesus on the radio, his smelly sandwiches. I cuss the fact that the sun is still not yet out when the headlights catch the first tire at the mouth of the alley. I get out into the hard rain and throw him into the back of the Stake body and head on, marching the backside of the long length of the block, the lights of the truck cutting through the hard rain and tall grass around me, illuminating more low black shapes waiting on either side.
7/17/10
6/12/10
NOLA LOVE
Well, actually this was shot last summer here in Richmond, and Arwen's a blond now apparently but yeah whatevs
6/11/10
Take Home
Even though I won't be at the opening tonight, I feel insanely nervous and proud. It doesn't feel like this event has anything to do with me. It's as if my children went off to perform a play in D.C. or something. I want to call these drawings, these misfit poems and birds, and tell them to be sure to stand up straight and smile when the people start coming through the door. I want to tell them not to be nervous because everyone will be sure to love them.
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