Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass Read online

  in times like these

  and it’s not just because of the warmth i’ve found in your

  brown eyes

  but because i believe in the goodness in me

  that it’s firm enough to plant a flag in

  or a

  rosebud

  or to build a new life.

  Tessa DiPietro

  No one ever touched me without wanting to kill me

  except for a healer on 6th Street and Ridgeley

  Tessa DiPietro recommended casually

  by a medium i no longer know

  She said my number one problem was my field was untrusting

  when asked what to do she paused and said

  nothing

  which sent me right into uncontrollable sobbing

  because there’s never anything you can do about the important

  things

  She said

  Ok, one thing you can do is

  picture the floor rising up to support you

  and sink into the back of the bed that’s behind you

  too much of your energy is in front of and above you

  Which for some reason made me think of a live show i had seen

  Jim Morrison at the Hollywood Bowl

  1968? (check date)

  the blue trellised lights gave him an unusual aura

  like a halo or something- made him 8 feet or taller

  i remember just thinking he looked out of his body

  but definitely like a God on stage

  So i told her

  Maybe an artist has to function a little bit above themselves

  if they really want to transmit some heaven

  Then she told me

  Singleness of focus is the key to transmission

  for an emphasis on developing inner intuition

  close your eyes and feel where you hold your attention

  if it’s in the back of your eyes walk it down to your heart

  center

  and make that the new place from which your thoughts enter

  clairvoyance comes mostly from this simple function

  Oh- and Jim died at 27

  so find another frame of reference when you’re referencing

  heaven

  And did you ever read the lyrics to ‘People Are Strange’?

  He made no sense.

  Past the bushes Cypress thriving

  I saw you in the mirror

  you were wearing your hair differently

  carrying the air differently

  You say you want your hair long parted in the middle

  Long in solidarity - worn for all his women

  Long Beach

  Aimless

  your fingers wiping oil on the paper w precision

  w decision like an artist never seen yet with a vision

  W a reason

  Stared w venom at the ceiling

  not the grass

  but straight ahead

  Just at the skyline

  w precision

  laser vision

  time was stopping

  moving through u.

  U dictated

  by what moved u

  only moving never thinking

  Match the sun that’s slowly sinking

  at the height of afternoon

  In the heat of summer evening

  Like a phoenix like a chemtrail like a wavelength No

  one’s claiming

  Georgia O’Keeffe

  Georgia peaches

  Doing nothing but your painting

  For forever

  Forget teachers

  Forgive him for ever leaving

  love is rising

  No resisting

  cheeks are flushing

  Now you’re living

  Say goodbye now

  no resisting

  Live your life like

  no one’s listening

  Be the art that life is breathing

  Be the soul the world is living.

  Do what you want

  For you only

  Not for giving

  Just for taking

  No one’s listening

  at the end of Lime and 10th street down the road that’s green

  and winding

  Past the bushes cypress thriving past the chain

  link fence

  and driving

  farther down the road less traveled

  there u are athleisure wear unraveled

  Now I see you clear

  Standing stoic blue and denim

  eyes not blue but clear like

  heaven

  you don’t want to be forgotten

  You just want to disappear

  SportCruiser

  I took a flying lesson on my 33rd birthday instead of calling you

  or parking on the block where our old place used to be

  Genesee

  Genesee

  Genesee

  Pathetic I know, but sometimes I still like to park on that street

  and have lunch in the car just to feel close to you.

  I was once in love with my life here

  in that studio apartment with you

  little yellow flowers on the tops of trees as our only view

  out of the only window- big enough for me to see our future

  through.

  But it turned out I was the only one who could see it.

  Stupid apartment complex. Terrible you. You who i wait for

  You

  You

  You

  Like a broken record stuck on loop.

  So that day on my birthday i thought something has to change,

  it can’t always be about waiting for u

  Don’t tell anyone but

  part of my reasoning for taking the flight class was this idea

  that if i could become my own navigator- a captain of the sky

  that perhaps i could stop looking for direction- from you.

  Well, what started off as an idea on a whim has turned into

  something more. Too shy to explain to the owners that my first

  lesson was just a one time thing. I’ve continued to go to classes

  each week. At the precious little strip off of Santa Monica

  and Bundy.

  And everything was going fine we were starting with dips and

  loops. And then something terrible happened-

  during my fourth lesson in the sky, my instructor-

  younger than i but as tough as you- instructed me to do a

  simple maneuver. It’s not that i didn’t do it but i was

  slow to lean the SportCruiser into a right hand upward turn.

  Scared. Scared that i would lose control of the plane

  Not tactfully and not gently the instructor shook his head

  and without looking at me said, “you don’t trust yourself.”

  I was horrified. Feeling as though I had somehow been found out.

  Like he knew me- how weak i was

  Of course he was only talking about my ability as a pilot

  in the sky. But i knew it was meant for me to hear those words.

  for me they held a deeper meaning.

  I didn’t trust myself

  not just 2500 ft above the coast of Malibu

  but with anything. And i didnt trust you,

  I could have said something but i was quiet

  because pilots aren’t like poets

  they don’t make metaphors between life and the sky.

  In the midst of this midlife meltdown navigational exercise

  in self-examination, I also decided to do something else I

  always wanted to do- take sailing lessons in the vibrant bay

  of Marina Del Rey. I signed up for the class as Elizabeth

  Grant and nobody blinked an eye. So why was I so sure that

  when I walked into the tiny shack on Bali Way someone would

  say “you’re not a captain of a
ship or the master of the sky”

  No, the fisherman didn’t care and so neither did I.

  And for a brief moment i felt more myself than ever before,

  letting the self-proclaimed drunkard captain’s lessons wash

  over me like the foamy tops of the sea.

  Midway through, my forehead burned and my hands raw from

  jibing, the captain told me the most important thing i would

  need to know on the sea. Never run the ship into irons.

  That’s nautical terms for not sailing the boat directly into

  the wind. In order to do that though you have to know where

  the wind is coming from. And you might not have time to look

  to the mast or up farther to the weather vane

  so you have to feel where the wind is coming from-

  on your cheeks, and by the tips of the white waves-

  from which direction they’re rolling.

  To do this, he gave me an exercise.

  He told me to close my eyes and asked me to feel on my neck

  which way the wind was blowing. I already knew I was going to

  get it wrong.

  “The wind is coming from everywhere- I feel It all over.”

  I told him.

  “No,” he said. “The wind is coming from the left. The port side.”

  I sat waiting for him to tell me, “you don’t trust yourself.”

  But he didn’t, so I said it for him.

  “I don’t trust myself.”

  He laughed, gentler than the pilot but still not realizing

  that my failure in the exercise was hitting me at a much

  deeper level.

  “It’s not that you don’t trust yourself,” he said. “It’s simply

  that you’re not a captain. It isn’t what you do.”

  Then he told me he wanted me to practice every day so I would

  get better.

  “Which grocery store do you go to?” he asked

  “To the Ralphs in the Palisades,” I replied.

  “Ok. When you’re in the Ralphs in the Palisades - I want you-

  as you’re walking from your car to the store - to close your

  eyes and feel which way the wind is blowing. Now I don’t

  want you to look like a crazy person crouching in the middle

  of the parking lot but everywhere you go - I want you to

  try and find which way the wind is coming in from and then determine

  if it’s from the port or starboard side so when you’re

  back on the boat you’ll have a better sense of it.”

  I thought his advice was adorable. I could already picture

  myself in the parking lot squinting my eyes with perfect

  housewives looking on. I could picture myself growing a

  better sense of which way the wind was blowing and as I did

  a tiny bit of deeper trust also began to grow within myself.

  I thought of mentioning it but I didn’t.

  Because captains aren’t like poets

  they don’t make metaphors between the sea and sky.

  And as I thought that to myself

  I realized-

  that’s why I write.

  All of this circumnavigating the earth

  was to get back to my life

  6 trips to the moon for my poetry to arise

  I’m not a captain

  I’m not a pilot

  I write

  I write.

  Quiet Waiter- Blue forever

  You move like water sweet baby sweet waiter

  making the night smile to no one you xcater

  quiet wood worker from midnight till later

  my lover my laughter my armor my maker

  The way that I feel with you is something like aching

  inside my stomach the cosmos are baking

  A universe hung like a mobile

  the alignment of these planets unique

  In me the earth moves around the sun

  no land all sea

  water world

  sun chaser

  tropic of cancer

  southern equator

  i’m the crying crustacean

  sunbathing on paper

  moon.

  Let’s rewrite the beginning of this primordial ooze

  shall we my love?

  Am i being brazen for saying this year makes me feel

  like we could’ve wrote it better

  Quiet Waiter Blue Forever

  You move like water sweet baby sweet waiter

  making the night smile to no one you cater

  silent woodworker from midnight till later

  my lover my laughter my armor my maker

  The way that i feel with you is something like aching

  inside of my stomach the cosmos are baking

  a universe hung like a mobile

  the alignment of these planets unique

  in me the earth moves around the sun

  no land all sea

  water world

  sun chaser

  tropic of cancer

  southern equator

  i’m the crying crustacean

  sunbathing on paper

  moon.

  Let’s rewrite the beginning of this primordial ooze

  shall we my love

  Am i being brazen for saying this year makes me feel

  like we could’ve written it better

  than him?

  But who am i

  just a girl in love dreaming on paper

  rearranging the salt for the pepper

  in love with you

  my quiet waiter

  Summer

  blue

  Forever

  call me when you’re done with work

  i’ll pick you up later

  the darker the better

  five after midnight

  the darker the better

  My bedroom is a sacred place now - There are children

  at the foot of my bed

  Last year when I wrote you my last letter

  (the beginning of my future poetry)

  I acknowledged who you were for the first time.

  I didn’t call you by any other name

  I let you know that I knew the true nature of your heart-

  that it was evil

  that it convinced me that darkness is real

  that the devil is a real devil

  and that monsters don’t always know they are monsters.

  But projection is an interesting thing

  after you burned the house down

  you tried to convince me that i was the one holding the matches

  You told me that I didn’t know what I had done

  You said I don’t know who I am

  But I do know who I am.

  I love Rose Gardens

  I buy violets every time someone leaves me

  I love the great sequoias of Yosemite

  and if you asked my sister to describe the first thing she

  thinks of when she thinks of me

  she would say

  woodsmoke

  I’m gentle

  I’m funny

  when I’m drunk

  though I haven’t been drunk for 14 years

  I go on trips to the beach with my friends who don’t know

  that I’m crazy.

  I can do that.

  I can do anything-

  even leave you

  because my bedroom is a sacred place now

  there are children at the foot of my bed

  telling me stories about the friends they pretend to hate

  that they will make up with tomorrow-

  and there are fresh cut flowers that i grew myself

  in vases on nightstands hand-carved by old pals from Big Sur

  and the longer i stay here, the more i am sure

  that the more i step into becoming a poet the less

 
i will fall into being with you

  the more i step into my poetry the less i will fall into

  being with you

  the more i step into

  my poetry the less i will

  fall into being with you

  the more i step into my poetry the less i will

  fall into being

  with you

  the

  more

  i step into becoming a poet

  the less i will fall into

  bed

  with

  you.

  In the hills of Benedict Canyon

  Love has room to grow in the hills of Benedict Canyon

  My green typewriter light is on

  and two months’ time between me and my last man

  No double murder plots looming over neighbors’ vacant lots

  that i look upon at twilight, still light enough for the

  Starline bus to be carrying on. I listen to the hippie

  spouting nonsense at the foot of Bella Drive

  hammering on about Sharon and the sanctity of life

  I listen on intently

  thanks for the free ride

  and for reminding me that everything comes down to a story

  and to laugh when you could cry.

  But finally I have no reason for tears

  not tonight at 7:27

  first time in months i feel close to heaven

  in the hills of Benedict Canyon

  the background hum of the television

  love has room to grow.

  No more secrets no more reasons to put off what I already know

  No more big projects

  no new dev breaking ground on Sunset

  no big builds lasting too long up on Mulholland

  no joint ventures fracturing.

  no unchained melodies enchanting the bars in my head.

  No. Just no news, nothing going on at 7:27

  not quite ready for dinner

  just the background hum of television

  Me- standing out on the deck

  wondering what phase of twilight the sky is in

  and contemplating how the Dodgers are doing

  and reaching for the phone

  to call an old friend.

  You’re only as happy as your least happy child

  happy

  you thought i was rich and i am but not how you think

  i live in a Tudor house under the freeway in Mar Vista

  by the beach

  when you call i take my phone outside to the picnic table

  that i bought from the Rose Bowl

  and i listen to the rushing cars above

  and think about the last time you visited me

  the last time we made love

  how the noise got louder and louder during rush hour