full moon: exerts magnetic power over subtleties. effects are cumulative, creating an extraordinary phenomenon by just that little bit of extra illumination. I met my best friend on a full moon night. he came to check out a room i had for rent. we talked homer + shook hands on the deal after he checked the space out perfunctorily. then we went out & drank beer + talked some more about Odysseus & man's potential for being crazy, creative, treacherous & somehow humble before the higher powers that move us. like the full moon, exerting its pull on our phyche. subtly. so soft that only lunatics admit it.

i met my ex-wife on a full moon night. she must have been posessed. a dancer. in need of anchorage. i was to be that anchor for 3 years till i too was pulled out of stability - disloged by that full moon. the towers fell & we moved out of the city. i quit my job & worked as a cook. money was tight. love and money are the grease that keeps people from burning each other up as the rub up and down the sharp bits. love and money keep things from tearing up. money was tight. and love... well it didn't grow fast enough. a full moon & a crazy fight. flying tea kettles smash flourescent lights. a grown man, curled into a ball, crying.

swan: big graceful mean bird. not so white up close as it appears from afar. don't get too close, mind, that beak'll tear your nuts off. not that i blame him all these silly humans gawking & clipping wings to keep him in the pond. boston garden. where the boats are modelled after birds on some whim -- no respect, i tell you. Up close he's actually light grey where the feathers meet the body. and his tongue is black -- like his eyes. a swooping neck and a wingspan twice its length. he floats, cause he cannot fly. if he could, he'd be gone in a heartbeat & he'd shit all over this town - cars, cyclists, pedestrians, trees, buildings and pigeons. but now he floats, an illusion of tranquility. the foiled locomotion bulging, not so gracefully in the fold of his wings, like an untamed erection. now he floats & picks the scraps the humans leave for him, & chases it down with whatever paltry grass & algae he can muster in this man made cesspool -- at the very least they could keep it clean for him -- come on now. this is not the bird i was taught to love in school, reading EB White... This is not the bird memorialized in romantic songs and poems. This is not the bird mascotting expensive crystal. This is not the symbol. This is the reality. This is nature in its sublimated furious glory.

Train: I'm sitting in a Poznan train at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. It's the most modern train station i've seen. 4 levels of open plan intersection of glass, steel & granite. Trains here don't make much noise. At 6AM it's quiet, apart from bootheels on stone & the sound of so much air reverberating against so many hard surfaces. Everything's some shade of transparent or gray, with the exception of a conspicuous clock at each end, backlit white with black hands. The seconds hand moves smoothly in continuous time. The minute hand is bound to discrete time, jerking about, predictably like some clockwork epileptic -- so German.

I sit facing backwards, ass to the east & watch the city fall away from me through the window. Where are the people? It's inhuman, the cleanliness. Even the graffiti looks spotless.

fellowship & fortune:

i went to visit grishka in berlin
i lost myself in post utopian burbs
a tattered backpack and fifth of gin
i took a swig and swung down to the kerb

i traced the roads and pathways using fingers
a sweat stained map -- can't find my destination
i cram it in my jeans confusion lingers
can't see a point in knowing my location

tomorrow all these moments will be gone
just memory will linger on inside
i've fellowship and fortune at my side
it's time to muster faith and soldier on

an empty field lay fallow for the rain
a rusty tractor grown right through with weeds
the perfect moon was driving me insane
illuminating country gone to seed

i found his building having drunk a pint
the project housing crumbling concrete
flourescent filthy stairways much too bright
for clueless strangers blown in from the street

tomorrow all these moments will be gone
just memory will linger on inside
i've fellowship and fortune at my side
it's time to muster faith and soldier on

and leaning in to pound upon the door
i stumbled gripped the combing stood upright
i couldn't tell the ceiling from the floor
but somehow knew that things would turn out right

an aperture was opening a crack
and sudden movement -- jet propulsion reigned
i crushed my friend's embrace pounded his back
and dozed off on his sofa fully drained

tomorrow all these moments will be gone
just memory will linger on inside
i've fellowship and fortune at my side
it's time to muster faith and soldier on

raincoat: friction of rubber on rubber. it grips at itself, then lets go with a squeal. i squeeze through the gate & out into heavy weather, hooded & buttoned up. a bright yellow beacon among miles of tilled farmland -- sugar beets, corn & lavender all observable from this vantage. Somewhere to the east, a ray of sunshine slices it's path. i look for rainbows, none come. the wind & dark clouds swing low from the west. the path is a muddy rut. hedges on both sides, littered with slick roots & moss coverd stones. all the animals are hiding. what am i doing out here? water collects on my brows, my lashes and drips off the tip of my nose onto my lips. but my body stays mercifully dry.

My nieces Isabelle & Alexandra at dinner in Rocca Grimalda Italy:
munchkins%20munching.MP3

some fun recordings I made end of august with Galkin during his yard sale:
galkin_%22sun%27s_too_hot%22.MP3
galkin_%22tumbling_down%22.MP3
galkin_%22when_the_cold_beer_flows%22.MP3