then spring

supposedly a

time of renewal

i think everyone forgets

about the time in between…

in this between time,

the snow remains

only where it

was once piled high,

and to call it

snow now is a

little misleading.

yes, there is snow

somewhere in there,

but as i walk,

i see

piles of dirt and debris.

like a glacier,

the snow retreats,

depositing the detritus

trapped months ago

by a long-lasting winter.

there’s a flat pumpkin.

several beer bottles.

cigarette butts.

candy wrappers.

leaves, never raked up.

and covering the grass?

a thin layer of mold.

now in the middle of

a parking lot,

this retreating

glacier has left behind

countless miniature lakes,

lakes that will soon

dry up,

making

the drive through

the parking lot more

than a little treacherous.

“it’s so ugly,” i said.

but he reminded me

that this, like everything

else, is a matter

of perspective.

“the dirty snow i see signals the end.”

i hadn’t really thought

about it that way.

where i now live

there is no end.

and no beginning.

no cycle.

no seasons.

and i’m okay with that.

but here, there

is hope in this

cycle of change.

and here, hope that

winter will end is

as close to

religion as most of them

will ever get.

when the wind

blows hard enough

to knock them down.

tonight, is one

of those nights.

blowing south, it

deposits the dead all over sunset.

unacknowledged by

most, they’re piled

up on the edges,

waiting to be removed.

but where do

they go?

and who takes them away?

it’s not something

i’ve ever seen,

but maybe tonight

i’ll stand watch.

despair on this road

liquor stores, motels,

and an unknown number

of people who

need them.

itinerant scrawlers, unseen,

hitting everything but

the sign…

crime
ǝɯıɹɔ

and an arrow

between, pointing backward.

more yellow,

the 754, nearly empty

and traveling

in the direction

i’m not.

briefly, i see them,

like me,

lost in this city.

fuck it.

call it spring.

it’s spring here

in los angeles, and

it’s almost that

time of year again,

that time when the flowers

on the tree

remind me of the

last time.

the time is not here

yet because

they’re not.

but there must be

at least one, because it wasn’t

the vision of

them that brought me here.

it was the smell.

it’s there, but it’s

not as strong as it will

be in a few weeks.

down the stairs,

floating across the lawn,

the bottoms of my shoes

knocking the evening dew

from the

blades of grass.

soon,

below the tree,

my movement awakening

the light above,

diffused through the leaves,

slowly getting brighter.

my arms up,

one hand pulling the branch

lower, the other

hand reaching for

the one that’s

a little too high.

with some effort,

it was in

my hand. the

branch snapped back,

waving me away.

scratching the rind,

i inhaled…

yes, spring in

los angeles, well above

freezing, exhaling,

it seems impossible that

i could see my breath,

but i swear to you

that i did.

cold out here, early march,

sunset,

heat lamps off,

the tables empty,

except for the rolled up

silver, and the candles

flickering for no one.

inside they talk

over the

songs of a shitty era.

out here, just me,

thinking that it’s

okay to be sitting

out here alone,

listening to the

incesant noise of the

wheels on the pavement,

and, at regular intervals,

what sounds like

an elephant blowing it’s trumpet,

while i read words

that have left me

feeling, well, inferior,

thanks to my

much (self) maligned

inability to write

the kind of abstractions

that would leave me penniless.

but then i think of

what i just heard,

another one,

fourty four (or was it forty six?).

whatever the number,

it’s too early.

and alone is just

how she must feel tonight,

out there in her

apartment, colder than

the coldest winter

anyone has experienced,

but arguablly as cold

as the one i

experienced almost two

years ago,

a lifetime ago,

seconds ago.

out here,

my intent tonight

was to step away from

this, to clear my head for

the next few weeks,

but here i am,

writing instead of reading,

crying instead of thinking,

and now

thinking of someone

i’ve never met,

worried about how

she’ll get through

this cold.

time to bury

my face in this book…

the words i read

less than a minute

after doing so?

“No one I loved had died for almost two years.”

out here,

it’s colder than i thought.

i wonder what the

fuck frank thought

as he stood in the center

of his life’s master work,

looking up at his creation.

the lines,

perfection in form and geometry,

the sound,

precise in both noise

and silence.

from where i sit

i can see fourteen

of them,

and they’re distracting

me in ways that the

people around me,

the mix of pretentious

orchestra fans and

bored, sleeping, resentful,

hipster girlfriends and

their pissed-off

boyfriends can’t.

from where he

stood, he must have

been able to see

almost all of them,

the total number

i don’t want

to think about.

looking around,

i realize that they’re not the

only lights in the darkness.

there are soft

white ones, illuminating

the stairs with the faintest

of light,

their goal? to

lead people through the dark.

these lights do much

to enhance the resplendence

of the place.

but back to

the distractions.

fourteen of them,

bright red lights,

four letters,

in all caps,

marring the perfection.

but thanks to those

lights, the people

expecting high culture

could flee the “rock ‘n’ roll,”

those annoyed hipster girlfriends

could find their

way to the bar,

and their boyfriends

now have a proper

metaphor for their relationship.

and me?

i just felt

bad for frank.

fear of our

interior walls.

it wasn’t so much

the walls that i feared,

but creating holes

in them.

i used to imagine

using that tiny hammer

with the blue handle

to pound a nail in,

a vitiated strike,

the plaster crumbling,

a hole created,

the lath exposed.

it happened once,

months after that fear disappeared.

and when it did

my shoulders sunk,

my eyes fixed on

the floor now white

with crumbled

plaster, the nail

i tried not to miss,

nowhere to be found.

sometimes i’m incapable of some of

the most basic things.

okay.

if i’m being honest,

it’s often.

now on the floor,

looking up at the hole,

i tried to figure out

how to fix it.

i could do what

i always do.

but that seemed

so artless.

soon, the

solution was obvious.

back on my feet,

the imperfection now imperceptible,

covered by a memory

now back on the floor,

my shoulder blades against

the wall,

my mind at ease,

i thought about the

formation of wallpaper.

and

eternal life.

(both are drawings, black ink on paper).

a fit of creativity

has settled upon

my brain, and has

translated into

eight fingers and two

thumbs, working to pound

out the

words i’ve struggled

to find.

tonight i spoke to

one of my best

friends in the world,

and she

cried for us.

happy tears,

knowing,

evident in the smile

in my photos,

the words that i

write and the sound

of my voice,

that i am

the happiest i’ve

been in a very long time.

and she knows

you’re to blame,

and for that she cried.

so sleep…

because i will

be awake, writing

about the past,

ready for the future.

coughing.

unwilling to cover my

face, though i’m

breathing in someone.

it somehow seems disrespectful

to cover the

holes through which

i breathe, as the

smoke of the

dead surrounds

me.

i’ve been here.

when you were

breathing.

five years ago.

watching a fire

burn for the

first time,

we covered our

noses, our mouths,

not knowing what

to do.

instead of watching,

we found ourselves

retreating.

then two years

later, just me

here again, still

unable to feel,

yet seated,

unmoving for hours,

for reasons i

didn’t yet understand,

the fires they

burned around me,

and i,

i tried not

to breathe.

and now.

five years later.

i watch the fires,

and the clouds

that rise from them,

and i see the

families tending

to the fires they

themselves set.

i stand here,

today,

watching those fires,

different fires

than those i watched

five and two.

different, because this

time, i

breathe them

in.

and now, seated,

unmoved, i watch

it, from the beginning

to end.

this time on

the royal ghat,

this man,

no commoner.

the crowd huge,

yet there’s no

one around me.

the wood stacked

four high,

covered in

garlands of gold

and orange,

the body on a stretcher

held high above

the pyre, spun

clockwise six, or

was it nine times?

(somehow i lost count).

the body, wrapped in

white, now on top

of the wood,

his socks removed,

thrown into

the river below.

his face now

revealed, bottled

water poured into

the hands of the crowd,

then dripped

upon him.

he wears the hat,

the hat that i wore

five years ago,

when we were

here for that

other reason.

a handful of straw

now lit, a man

circles the body,

lighting.

wood below, now

wood on top,

sticks, logs placed

there by the family

and friends.

pyre now lit,

the crowd

disperses, and the

man, now

completely covered

in straw.

a man, apparently

uncommon in his life,

he is now

no different than

all of the dead;

an object in

need of disposal.

the smoke, it billows

toward me,

as more straw

is added to

the pyre,

a man with

a stick,

the man tending the

fire, uses that

stick to push

the dead man’s foot

back into the flames.

i wonder where

madeline is,

and if she knows.

much time

passes, but how much

i don’t know,

madeline is

awake and now in

my arms,

and we watch,

watch the smoke

and flames,

and now,

ash.

standing now, here,

watching,

still unable to

move.

and now i think

of you, and remember

how we

reacted to this

five years ago,

and i look at

the non-hindus,

the non-buddhists

standing around us,

wearing the same look

we all wore

then,

eyes clenched,

trying not

to breathe,

disturbed not by

the smoke

or the body burning

before them,

but by their

own mortality.

and i remember

that day,

when i had

to make the hardest

decision of

my life,

and even now

i wonder if

i made the right one.

but this.

this is not

a reminder,

for we all know

we will die,

but this,

this place, this,

the death of the

man before me,

and the next body

being prepared

up river,

and all of those

burning down river,

they are an affirmation,

one of the

reasons that we can

carry on…

we

breathe him

in, breathe them in,

and now.

we breathe

you in.