Primitive Information

Tina and I took a week’s vacation in San Francisco, where we visited City Lights

A friendly native very fastidiously took our picture

got some amazing capuccino at Cafe Greco

Tina chooses a “beat” postcard to send to a friend

and saw the Matthew Barney show at the SFMOMA

A beautiful view of the museum from street level

among many other things. There’s a much more comprehensive day-by-day description, with images, of what we did on Tina’s blog. I’ll just say it was a great week to visit friends, chill out, eat some really great food, and show my darling around the gorgeous city where I used to live. Of course, it was a little strange being there for the first time in eight years as a tourist and not a resident. Here’s a short poem I wrote our first day in town:

Short Poem Upon Returning to San Francisco

Looking out warped
Victorian window at stacked greens
of Buena Vista Park, lean
back on couch, Lacy on stereo,
baby asleep in next room, desire for
smoke, talk, old
streets and friends
to be as it
was, faces and places
returned to me
as it was

…yeah. It was weird. Next time we go somewhere, we kind of agreed it should be someplace neither of us has been before. Maybe Ireland? But now school’s started and I’m already deep into grading papers and getting set for my graduate classes. I absolutely love teaching. Where has it been all my life? (More to the point, where the hell have I been?) Here’s a list of the jobs I’ve done, resume-style, from most recent to the earliest one I remember:

Nonprofit Administrator for Rova:Arts (a great job)
Dog-walker (also cool, but not always so much fun)
Library page (pure hell at times)
Freelance writer/editor (not as glamorous as it sounds)
Dot-com worker (good pay, but extremely soul-destroying)
Proofreader for “The Ledge”
Proofreader for The Austin Chronicle
Proofreader for a translation company (all of these were rewarding at the time, but I wouldn’t want to do it again)
Rollerskater/cashier/cigarette clerk/produce guy at PACE Membership Warehouse (my last job through the end of college)
Cleanup dude/Donut guy at Meijer’s Thrifty Acres (pure hell, but had some cool friends)
Busboy at Big Boy’s (essentiailly got fired from two franchises)
Produce guy for local Italian market (my boss was a maniac who fired me)
Burger King worker (walked out of this job after one month)
Quasi-worker at parents’ tire shop (involuntary labor)
Paper boy for Detroit News (hated waking up on weekends)

That’s basically it. Most of these jobs, up to and including the most recent ones, were really only part-time gigs that I took so that I could write. I didn’t love doing any of them. The only one that lasted more than a year or two was the Rova job, but that was only because it was extremely cool and flexible. I dig teaching, and hope that it turns out to be something I can do (and get hired to do) from here on out.

Of course I forgot to mention my two most recent jobs. Over the summer, I worked as a lifeguard and as a wage-schlub in the school library. It was pretty easy work, and I was grateful to have something to keep a little money coming in during the lean months. But it was also a bit humbling to be making minimum wage, as I was at the library, and it further reinforced my desire to become a really good teacher so I can keep doing this.

Tags: Uncategorized by dhadbawnik
9 Comments »

A baby crawls across a busy intersection, gets away
from speeding cars as a woman watches from a cafe. Love,
an old dog, brings baby back,
sets it down on the woman’s lap. Their breath
eases. The dog limps outside, its eye
dripping yellow. “We’ll have to drive all night,”

the woman in the cafe murmurs, “I am a knight
driving a beaten-down getaway
car.” Baby burps, as if to say, “I’m
satisfied. “And all for love,”
she says, and smiles, feeling the baby’s breath
on her cheek, while the dog, hearing its name, limps back.

The woman absently strokes the dog’s back.
It’s busy in the cafe tonight.
The dog, in obvious pain, breathes,
‘and then begins working away’
at an old bone on the cafe floor. “Love,”
the woman sighs, “‘Lord save me, thinks I.’”

“‘And what is it, thought I,’
when I first saw him ‘it was the second floor back’
of the jail. And it was love
at first sight.” The dog glances up, night
falls — “‘Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away,’”
she recalls — the cafe fills with bodies’ hot breath

while in her lap the baby’s breath
comes in quick gasps, its eyes
wide as waiters cut through on their way
to the bar, tripping over the dog’s hunched back,
crashing dishes. The baby cries, night
yawns before them, all that distance she’d drive for love–

The cafe is full of love.
Couples embrace, drink wine, breathe
each other’s scent, their night,
like the dog’s, just beginning, an old, rheumy eye
out roaming the streets, back
and forth, rescuing babies, dragging itself away.

Away she drives, “But I will come back,
tonight,” she promises, catching her breath–
‘She came to bespeak a monument for her first love.’

(I’ll explain the rules later but for now it’s off to San Francisco! –DH)

Tags: Oulipostal by dhadbawnik
240 Comments »

A sorry day–
as orb soars,
boss bans boy-boobs and
body by NASA.
“So sad!” say Bay dads
and sons; sobs adorn rosary.
“Darn!” broods bard.
“Yabba dabba do!” brays Aryan Dan.
“A bad brand,” nods Boras.
“Boos annoy anybody,”
say Sosa and A-Rod.

So: Abandon Barry?
An ass or an ord’nary snob?
Bad odds on Bonds sans barndoor body
as orbs soar
so-so, or nada, soon.
No ardor as Barry
robs Aaron and Baby R.
And nobody roars.

Tags: Oulipostal by dhadbawnik
471 Comments »

He

reaches

the halfway

point, of the

swim, of the stroke, of

the pool, of his life, and he turns

at that point, and the turn
has a halfway point, too, when his

whole body flips underwater
and legs spring overhead, feet tuck
under to touch hips shift and arms spiral
torso around

back to front and push off from
wall, breath blown out through water
breaking surface and toes tingle to kick as

stroke continues the motion forward,
away from the halfway point into the rest

of his life, with joy and force he

releases his breath on the

left side, now

on the

right,

now

Tags: Oulipostal by dhadbawnik
2 Comments »