Book of Days

Book of Days
Still getting caught up on vacation stuff. For those who do it, here are the topics for the next five...

Writer's Book of Days

I am back and catching up with my notebooks from the vacation.

Writer's Book of Days

I will be gone on vacation from Saturday 4 October until Monday 13 October.

About Never and Always

Be suspicious of absolutes.

Across Switzerland at Night

Somewhere in the middle of Switzerland, a short man stumbled into my compartment. A curly strawberry blonde beard dribbled from his chin. The man wore the classic lederhosen with a white shirt and brightly ornamented suspenders.

Valyermo 6

The peace of the garden could have been Eden.

Fogbound
Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer's Book of Days. It's something of a...

Sign of the Cross

I never managed to quite shake the Catholic out of myself. Not that it is such a bad thing.

Lights Out

I can forgive the electrical company, but when this computer of mine fails me, that's personal!

Inhabitant of B&N

When no fewer than three people asked me if I lived in the place tonight, I decided that enough was enough: I'm not showing until Wednesday.

Driving

The act, however, is simple, and I can do it sitting down.

Cough cough

Good topic, but I'm worn out

Not Surprised

Because I was a little dizzy from all the Ventolin in my lungs and fluid in my ear, I had her drive home. Enroute she asked me "Notice anything different?"

Frostless at Midnight

The cop cars at John Wayne Orange County Airport reflected the bland orange mocha lamp shine. The burning metropolis jumped up and left its singe in the sky.

What a Day for a Daydream

No, today was not for daydreaming. It was for fighting the world and doing my darndest to feel better.

Constancy in Loss

A constant has been established. There is no time to waste.

Scenes

I'm not fully adept at the moment of ridicule.

Rain

I wish the air was heavy with the explosive scent of the dust stirred up by the pregnant droplets bouncing off the earth.

Real Men Don't Use Tin Cans

I bet Denis Boyle has never eaten acorn gruel! That's a real food of the land.

The Other Road

I loved literature: I got As in high school and scored a 5 on the AP literature examination. Writing was what I did well.

Begging Off Again

Tonight is not for painful remembrance.

Sin
Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer's Book of Days. It's something of a...

A Bar

I don't know what to write on this topic except that I know that Judy Reeves has this thing about cowboys.

The Buddha Meets Ötzi

Taking a walk in a cemetery with the Buddha, I think, would give us a different sense of what death and continuity are all about. The place I'd really love to visit with him is the cryogenic crypt where they keep Ötzi the Ice Man.

Jokers in The Memory

Memory's a funny thing, like a Las Vegas dealer throwing out cards, some blank, some marked.

Too Far and Not Far Enough

The Media went too far by broadcasting the scenes of the World Trade Center attack over and over again until people were crawling under their coffee tables, screaming as they thought they heard the Bernoulian screech of wind riding over the wings of jets plowing into their neighborhood.

InterNet Outage

There's not much to say. I am mainly posting this for the sake of those who come here looking for tomorrow's topic

The Presence of Pollock

Bill J. (who doesn't do art of any kind as far as I know) wants to be able to name the elements in what he sees and connect them to real world objects. I feel that there are things which are unnameable. The best art practices the presence of those.

Joel live from anywhere.

I want to tell you about the koalas I am seeing in the Blue Mountains, the chambered nautilus I fished up from the Pacific, the meerkats blinking in the African sun, the okapis swishing their tails in the Congo rainforests.

The Smell of Smoke

Under the arched live oaks of Trabuco Canyon Road, I caught the scent for a moment. Not sweet, not sour, not bitter. The odor of smoke.

Between Dawn and Dusk

The time between dusk and dawn. My time. When I sit at the keyboard and open my mind like a vein and watch the blood dribble all over the place. Apologies to Sherwood Anderson for stealing his image.

On Eavesdropping

I'm looking for the real voices, the real life that people lead.

Five P.M.

From five until the first parent returns home to fix dinner and manage the kids, I enjoy silence.

Cinquain No. 18

I curled inside dreams,

a paper nautilus swimming

in blue.

Cinquain No. 17

Write a December memory.

American Psychopathology

To not feel depressed, to not feel anxious, to not feel concern about the way America carreens through the world is, I think, crazy.

A Night Off

I'm taking the night off.

An Evil Thing to Tell a Child

What evil things did your mother/father/brother/sister/other relation tell you?

Without Hope in the Head

It has been on my own feet that my brain has taken the most dangerous rides of its life.

The uttermost end of my world

I have no back yard in the sense of grass, rose bushes, hibiscus, peach trees, palms, and pines.

The Dying God

The InterNet's the dying god of the early 21st century, being killed again and again and revived by brutal financial fertility offerings.

Glop in the Mind

Only rest will freeze it so that I can extract the lessons of the essence.

Air Conditioner Insider

I wish I was an air conditioning industry insider.

Fire

It begins as a whirl, a circle of orange dancers with terrible gumby-licks rising from their heads.

Not Likely

Why would I do that?

Return to the Center

Sorry for the skimpiness of these thoughts. Sorry that I haven't spoken about my love of eavesdropping. The heat has given me a headache.

Thief of Your Own Time

How can we say that we are free if we cannot dream when the visions come?

A Tip for My Inner Critics

I'm overdue for the silent treatment

Dead End

At the end of my street are a sidewalk, a hedge, and a wall.

Permanence

How can we look at anything now and affirm its permanence?

At the End of a Hot Day

Snorrrrrrrrrrrrrre!

Aftershocks of the Full Moon

As the darkness grows more full, we will sleep better than we do now.

California, I Love You

Many mock the state of my birth and yet they keep trying to own it. If they don't like the way we think and the way we do things out here, why not just leave us alone?

Autumn

And when autumn finally arrived, it looked little different from summer when you stood under the elderberries and gazed across the oak-glutted arroyos.

Not Much of a Riddle

You should be able to guess what it is.

An Unseen Argument

I wanted to say "Why are you talking of these things on a night like this? Don't you know that the heat makes you crazy?"

...

...

The Other Side

On the other side of the monitor -- through the wire and optical cables -- is you, my reader.

Mr. Hobbs

We had a tortoise who my brother named Mr. Hobbs. Like the many Californians, we just picked up our pet when he happened to cross the road near Devil's Punchbowl.

Martyr for a Name

"What saint are you named after?" the kids would ask me. We checked the hagiographies. No St. Joel in there.

The Song I'd Heard Before

That would have to be "One is the loneliest number", punching its repeated note, reiterating its theme.

Hiroshima Day - August 5, 1945

It was evening in California when it happened in Japan.

A Monstrous Eight Year Old Boy

If only he hadn't hit me. Not just that day, but many times before that.

The Perfect Bedroom

When I packed my things and Ms. Whine to move down the road to Chapel Hill, I knew that it would always be there, my perfect room, a memory of the honey I'd once tasted

Misunderstandings

Write about a time when I was misunderstood? I could fill a category with that. And a second one for the times when I misunderstood others and looked foolish for it.

Lenses

Driving is the time when I mourn for my decaying vision.

A promise

Mine is "back tomorrow".

An Eclipse of Bread

Yesterday, after the power outage, we needed to restart the bread machine.

Ammonia

I remember my first whiff of household ammonia.

Going to Bed

Every night, Lynn goes to bed before I do.

Smoker Patrol at the Studio

In the Studio Theater, I was the Law. I had power over them.

Free for All!

I've often dived off the rocks at Crystal Cove, gone under, and broken the surface hoping that a sea change takes place.

Mercy

To whom do you ask mercy when you are surrounded by unmerciful people, when it is plain that any higher intelligence in this universe is a whirlwind that tells you not to ask why things happen to you though you have striven to be just?

Talk

Elephants talk, in very low tones, beneath the range of the human ear. That's why they have big ears

Late

"I'm late!" So quoth the White Rabbit.

Joel tells a-- well, -- some

"Where did you meet your wife?" people ask. "At a party that I wasn't planning on going to," I say.

Checklist

For everything else

There's the bankrupting flexibility

of credit cards. I travel

therefore, I must be a free man.

Getting Out, Getting Better

Stillness, lassitude within the confines of one's house is the great enemy of sanity.

Eagle Scout

Every time Troop 38 consecrated an Eagle Scout, I'd tick off the scout virtues and compare them to the candidate.

Not tonight

Not tonight, dear reader

Evening July 2003

Away for the afternoon because of the heat

I return to the condominium to find it

reserving all that I missed in my absence

Darkness Visible

Small contest, prize is glory. Where does the title phrase come from?

The Heat of Two Suns

The heat of the sky's sun and of my inner sun broiled me thoroughly today.

Apologies....

I must evacuate the house on both Tuesday and Wednesday so they can complete their work....This is a lousy time for our air conditioner to have failed.

Lunch Bag Theft

When I did tell the dean, he just sighed and said "You've got to protect your combination better."

Without Looking (One for the Drawer)

The molecule pattern smashing on tympanum is classed as "purr".

The Battle of San Pietro

Of San Pietro, it seems, little is written because almost no one lived to tell about it.

Scribbles on the Back

I don't mind if you call me a bum. You can even call me a damned-old-bum. I'm asking such a simple thing. Forgive my negleanance. Thank you. No I haven't staked any claims yet, but I have found an untunéd piano with all the accouterments. Write gm 2/c after my name now. It has something to do with a promotion. That's what they tell me, anyhow.

Beyond the End of the Driveway

In those days, my high school years, my Catholic parents had arranged what amounted to a five day a week divorce.

The Apple Green Key

Chris had a key which he didn't know the use for

Not Tonight, Dear

I'm not in the mood for bashing former girlfriends. I've been pushing the pen and the keys on other subjects anyways.

Killing Off Our Symbols

The country is in ruins and as some of us strive to reconstruct the beauty and the good of what was, others pull down bricks from the walls of civil gold and smash at our heads.

Cry Baby

At the beginning of 4th grade, my mother wondered who my teacher would be. "If it's Sister Annette again," I said, "I'm going to take out a gun and shoot her."

An Australian

Shane's Australian and I'm sure he talks like all those friends from the brain-shaped continent who I have never met.

The Inevitable

The inevitable ceases to be when we cease to be

MUSH and a Brainwash

I saw America's future in that MUSH. For all I know George W. Bush played there.

Joel the God?

I rejoice in my limited consciousness. Complete awareness would drive me mad

St. Judy of Reeves Forgive Me

If any one sees St. Judy of Reeves around, please tell her that this is only a lapse, not the beginning of the road to my damnation as a writer.

Wrecked

Coins in the Cup
Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer's Book of Days. It's something of a...

What Went Wrong

Call it cheating, but wise words are wise words.

Making the Bed

"You made your bed: you lie in it"

My mother used to say to me.

Deferred

Tonight, I defer, it being a Wednesday

Organ Pipe Cactus NM, 1990

I remember a night at Organ Pipe Cactus NM when I walked out to the edge of the campground, starchart in hand, partly to see what I could make out of the distant suns overhead, partly to leave Lynn resting in peace.

Midnight in Trabuco Canyon

I'm free of clanging in my ears, the deafness of the wakeful world.

The Letter B

Mom told me that the only thing she'd paid for was a report card of straight As: $10. I got one once in my senior year in college. She made excuses and I received nothing.

Shoes

I'm not sure what to call them: they have broad, square toes and zippers up the inner sides. Beige calf-skin, subtly crinkled, covers the outside; lamb wool suits up the inside.

Scott Joplin

I worked out a system of pressing the flesh of my upper arm as I lay on my dormitory bed listening to the Maple Leaf Rag and other syncopations of the American Chopin.

Boil-up and Cool-down

In the heat of the afternoon, somewhere between Los Angeles and Hawaii, the uppermost tenth of a millimeter of the Pacific boiled up.

Blurring and Purring

A blurred rush to the floor, like the breaking of a bulb of a themometer and the spilling of the mercury.

Meeting Lynn

I prefer not to think about the what-ifs. There's a big soot cloud that never developed in my life. Why worry about what didn't happen when the outcome was so good?

The East Coast of Crete

We went because there was a Minoan palace, one of the grand stone halls they built when they dreaded pirates who were hung like bulls splashing in from the sea and raping their bare-breasted queens.

Haze

A light haze blindfolded vista seekers today.

Nada

I'm allowed to beg off now and then. Tonight, I beg off

One Year Minus Nine Days

Tupperware comes off the line without blemishes, all looking alike. When you write as I do, you get balls of raw wax, misshapen boxes, and, now and then, the stuff of weird science -- things that crawl.

Goodnight

That's the problem with this place, this body

Too many Is and I am the only "you".

Resurrection of the Dead

A and T inadvertently did the cruelest thing I think a person can do to a person without cutting or shooting them. They saw me as another person, T's dead brother who'd killed himself I don't know how many years before.

The Cat Woman

I had an online friend -- lost now in a history that got trashed in a hard disk crash about seven years ago when the net was young and people didn't blog -- who slept with seven cats every night.

The Mad Greek

It's the only civilized place to eat at between Barstow and Nevada.

Voice of the Body

I got to thinking how I, at age forty five, am like that old cat.

Dialogue

>Cheri: Hey, Joel. That's a nice sweater you've got on. Where did you get it?

Turning away from the Door

I didn't go through that door. I turn and ran as hard as I could into the chaparral. There was better material there.

August 1976 - Her name is no one's business

They say that Mormons and Catholics live to breed.

So aside from the catch of the blue book with the golden hornblower

the two of us should have been naturals in the flesh.

On the Printing of Poetry

Three years from now, I want to be seeing my name somewhere. The best way is on thick paper printed off hard type set by hand.

Tuna Fish

I don't know that it is even a question

in the part of my mind that is a tuna fish.

Describing a Silence

Draw an old-fashioned television screen

flat on the top and bottom,

rounded at either end

around each of these scenes.

Chips con queso

I can't let go of eating chips and queso.

Oso Vista Canyon Road

Red light flickered across the bedroom wall, outlining the arthritic shadow of the live oak that had stood in the Fever's front yard for centuries, before the government surveyors came up this canyon with their yellow transits to set benchmarks to show that the land was no longer wild, that it was partible into number quadrants.

Not Tonight

What if -- the age old question -- is a rust-calloused heavy bolt key that I prefer not to pick up.

Before I was Born

Before I was born,

Before I was a curl in my mother's womb,

Before I was a shrimp swimming in her uterine sea,

there was nothing.

Saying Yes to a Liar

I did not want to be shaking hands on my wedding day and saying, when they asked what I did, "I'm unemployed".

It's NOT Snowing

Balls of cotton halved and quartered dropping from the sky allude to the warmth of red clay fields, fat for the harvest, under the sun of late summer.

Ages of Joel

And it was at that age,

thirty five,

that it all started to cloud into a deeper clarity.

When I stopped advancing against the thunderhead

let the rain fall

and stopped expecting rainbows in every pearl prism

that rushed to smash itself against the ground.

Coming at You Live and Past

I create radio.

Mount Modjeska

Sometimes, though, I make myself go out on the deck to look at the dark golden pyramid of Mount Modjeska which I can see between the condos across the street.

Road Maps

Road maps give me a way of stretching my arms beyond the front door, a set of wheels that travel faster than the eye.

Weekend Forecast

It will not be a good weekend to go to the beach.

Casualties of My Pounding Fingers

My keyboard is a mess, particularly on the left side. The letter "e" has completely worn through.

Ebb Tide

Smoky rocks turned ashen as the sun scraped the water off their granitic shellbacks.

Leap Frogging

One day, a leap frog leaped to his death.

Kalamata

I'd actually been through it twice on a bus filled with American college students.

Hotel Lobbies

Desk clerks have no gender as far as I am concerned.

Blankness Unto Death

A exhausted blankness unto death, worse, it seemed, than anything Kierkegaard had ever imagined.

Mirage

Even the Old Woman Mountains need to see that they are pretty

What was left

He wanted to explore the house, not eat it.

Death of The Gingerbread Man

Even after my death I sweetened.

Soliloquy of a Survivor

Memory's like -- like an iron cockroach. An iron cockroach stuck in a tube of toothpaste.

The Gift of The Grunge Guy

"But I love you!," she cried and I bought it.

Bryce Canyon

Bryce is the scream of the altitude sick
swirled at the Dairy Queen.

Redwood Forest

Not even the rain has as small hands as a premonition.

Snow Fall

Three days of enclosure started my heart to strum a dull, jabbing beat on my rib cage. My legs protested "We want to move!" Thus, I came to the moment when I knew I could not sit through another minute of that listless white noise.

The Land of Cancer

It was an alien place for a California bred in the lands of aqueducts, tract houses, and earnest, frequent waterings of the front lawns....

Working Title

I wrote the first, confused draft. Plenty of lousy stuff to cut with a single, scintillating core complete with inner conflict, frustrated desires, and a dramatic finish.

Wedding Band

"Does nobody see this?" "What is it?" "It's a wedding ring!" "It's a wedding ring? Why are you wearing it there?"

Cain and Seth Discuss Abel

The one that I call Cain spoke and asked the question of all the years: "Why don't we kill one another?"

Demurring

I've left many children out to be judged by the world since I started this blog. This one I choose to abort.

Butt Up and Hands Down

I hate stairways, especially steep unprotected ones like those you must manage to reach the tops of Mexican pyramids or certain parts of the turtleback ridge that is Alcatraz.

Illusions

These things only confuse me if I think about them. So I don't. Not often.

Broken Arm

That's the spot. That's where you fell. You broke your arm on the sidewalk. You must tell that to Mom or else we'll both be in trouble.

Snowballing

Whispery grunts and then I stammer "Lynn. We don't share those secrets, what we did before we married."

Who Was It?

Feral. Feral was the sound I made in response. A groan, a scream, a screech, and something with claws. Claws to defend and protect a soft place of secrecy and privilege, a burrow lined with rags torn from t-shirts where I kept truths untold, things she didn't need to know.

Like Controlling Rabbits

The statement's like one pregnant rabbit.

Sistine Chapel 1979

Who will buy this wonderful religion? I thought I heard them saying to each other.

Phillip Glass

Phillip Glass. The name suggests transparency. His music sets tones between you and the things that lie within finger reach and past that.

I stank

A year ago, I stank.

Screaming Meme

...the Truth Sucks.

No Subject at All(?)

It's no subject at all. It is silence. It's the distraction and the illusion of content.

The Courage of a Cat

As my wife crouched for the snatch of the cat, Virginia mewed and whimpered. "How," she asked in her feline tongue, "how can you make me eat that stuff?"

The Neighbor in Zagreb

The soldiers and others who carried guns openly never looked at me as I passed them. They could stop and hold a civilized chat. Not this man. His voice murdered us as we scurried across the courtyard....

Windmills and Tugboats

Mom liked to sneak up on me and spray me with one of the sample bottles. "Now you smell like a girl," she'd sneer. And I know that she secretly feared that I'd become one.

Icon

A white marble-monument, a pyramid with a gigantic bead perched on it, ten feet past the last twisted stand of manzanita.

Deep Down

The habitable part of our condominium ends its fall from the sky at a long seam separating its concrete foundation from the tarred over asphalt of our cul de sac.

Falling from Grace

I only learned what a dick was because boys drew graphic pictures of the things all the time -- hair, urine, and wrinkled skin -- and pointed.