Friday, May 23, 2014
Lists for Suspect Press
My Top Hopes the Legalization on Marijuana will have on the city of Denver
I hope that those who own dispensaries begin to consider using good design. Please hire good graphic designers, interior designers, and local artists, craftspeople, furniture makers, and sign painters to promote your business. The 420 culture needs to give way to the new style. One invested in good design.
The collective consciousness of Denver becomes more insightful and mindful. I would hope that cases of domestic violence decrease, drunk driving accidents decrease, violent crime decreases.
I hope the stoned citizens of Denver take time to appreciate how fucking beautiful the blue of our sky is.
I hope the stoned citizens of Denver never, ever, leave their edibles out for children to find.
I hope though the taxes collected by the sale of Marijuana that Denver invests in quality education for our children (see my essay in this issue).
I hope cops chill out and can begin to focus more on their mission to serve and protect instead of harass and beat down.
Top reasons I love hip hop
1987, 10th grade, Thomas Jefferson High School, Denver, CO
Waiting in a car with a German engineered soundsystem, outside H***Ks liquor store in five points, taking turns shoulder tapping brothers to buy us a bottle of wild iris rose, “gimme a pint a rosie with a skirt” (a skirt being the paper bag), listening to that 808 boom on Run DMC’s Dumb Girl.
1994, the coldest spot in Colorado, Gunnison, CO.
Bought the Fugees Blunted on Reality and listened to it on repeat for a year.
2/23/1995 Prague, Czech Repulic
On my way to the Sports Hall to see the Beastie Boys witnessed a phalanx of Neo Nazi Fucktards in white laced 20 hole Doc Marten Jack Boots high step in unison down the cobblestone street in front of the Pinkas Synagogue Holocaust Musesum as if the ghost Heinrich Himmler was behind them eating the masticated rutabaga out of their assholes, prodding the dummies along with a nasty Nazi rim job.
The cold war was barely over, Prauge was just beginning to spread it’s legs to the hard cock of Western influence, when three Jewish cats from New York sell out Prauge’s ice arena on their European Ill Communication tour. The arena was packed, I looked in vain for fire exits. After the third song Ad Rock takes the mic, puffs out his chest and shouts “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!...”. I could only imagine him saying this to those dickless Neo Nazi’s and those that came before.
11/23/2012 San Luis Valley
Driving through the high desert plateau with my kids by my side. The sun setting over the western mountains casting a pink glow on the valley. Charley pulls out a CD that his friend Riley burned for him. Written in drippy paint pen was one word EARL.
Monday, April 28, 2014
WATERCOURSE FOODS GOES 100% VEGAN
Perhaps all restaurants are based on philosophy. Perhaps not.
As the name would suggest WaterCourse Foods was born beside a stream. At 24, I felt angry at the world, so I went for a long walk following the Colorado Trail from Denver to Gunnison. I carried a book, a pencil and a pad. I also lugged around my baggage that continued to fall away the further I walked. After fourteen days of walking I sat beside a crystalline stream, 13,000 feet above sea level, and pumped filtered water into my bottle. The sun, a bright ball, slowly crossed a brilliantly blue sky and shined lovingly on the alpine tundra, as pikas chirped and butterflies alighted small blue forget-me-nots.
I sat beside the stream, a twist of angst and appreciation, noticing the beauty of nature, but also painfully aware of my negative effect on it. Conflicted. Books have always been my escape from the crisis of existence. While reading l feel as though I am participating with out influencing. The word order is predetermined; my participation does not effect the outcome. Reading is peaceful. Pulling the book, The Tao de Ching, from my backpack I hoped to escape my own thoughts. The passage I read there besides the stream was to be the basis for WaterCourse Foods.
8
The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao.
In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don’t try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.
When you are content to be simply yourself
and don’t compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.
These words, each a management technique, had a profound effect on me. I learned that although my existence on earth my have a net negative effect I have an opportunity to live gently upon it. So I applied my 10 years of restaurant experience and opened a vegetarian restaurant.
I have sat beside the stream of WaterCourse Foods for the last 16 years and witnessed it nourish a city. I tumbled through the rapids and occasionally enjoyed the calmer waters. I have waited patiently for the time to come to truly live up to our motto “EAT THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTENCE.”
The time has come. It is with great pride in WaterCourse Foods, Denver, CO and all the wonderful people from around the world that have supported WaterCourse over the years that I announce;
WaterCourse Foods is 100% VEGAN!
From this day forward 100% of the WaterCourse Foods menu will be sourced from plants. We celebrate the way we always have at WaterCourse, with a plate of comfort food and a cold pint of beer.
Love always,
Daniel Landes
As the name would suggest WaterCourse Foods was born beside a stream. At 24, I felt angry at the world, so I went for a long walk following the Colorado Trail from Denver to Gunnison. I carried a book, a pencil and a pad. I also lugged around my baggage that continued to fall away the further I walked. After fourteen days of walking I sat beside a crystalline stream, 13,000 feet above sea level, and pumped filtered water into my bottle. The sun, a bright ball, slowly crossed a brilliantly blue sky and shined lovingly on the alpine tundra, as pikas chirped and butterflies alighted small blue forget-me-nots.
I sat beside the stream, a twist of angst and appreciation, noticing the beauty of nature, but also painfully aware of my negative effect on it. Conflicted. Books have always been my escape from the crisis of existence. While reading l feel as though I am participating with out influencing. The word order is predetermined; my participation does not effect the outcome. Reading is peaceful. Pulling the book, The Tao de Ching, from my backpack I hoped to escape my own thoughts. The passage I read there besides the stream was to be the basis for WaterCourse Foods.
8
The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao.
In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don’t try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.
When you are content to be simply yourself
and don’t compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.
These words, each a management technique, had a profound effect on me. I learned that although my existence on earth my have a net negative effect I have an opportunity to live gently upon it. So I applied my 10 years of restaurant experience and opened a vegetarian restaurant.
I have sat beside the stream of WaterCourse Foods for the last 16 years and witnessed it nourish a city. I tumbled through the rapids and occasionally enjoyed the calmer waters. I have waited patiently for the time to come to truly live up to our motto “EAT THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTENCE.”
The time has come. It is with great pride in WaterCourse Foods, Denver, CO and all the wonderful people from around the world that have supported WaterCourse over the years that I announce;
WaterCourse Foods is 100% VEGAN!
From this day forward 100% of the WaterCourse Foods menu will be sourced from plants. We celebrate the way we always have at WaterCourse, with a plate of comfort food and a cold pint of beer.
Love always,
Daniel Landes
Thursday, April 3, 2014
The Akward Morning After- A Flash Fiction topic from Brian Polk
The awkward morning after
My tongue is a dried cocoon. My head is caving in. I have been dreaming of draining pitchers of water into my depleted body. I always forget to drink water when I’m back in Denver.
“I drank too much beer and smoked too much weed,” I said to her.
“Welcome to Denver, now go back to sleep,” she responds without opening her eyes.
Rolling her off my arm I try to remember her name.
Her toilet bowl is freckled. Clearly she did not intend on having company last night. The only glass in the bathroom, smudged white with toothpaste, has toothbrushes in it. I rinse the glass with hot water and hand soap and then fill it with lukewarm tap water. As I drain the third glass I can hear my cells crackle back into form. My pee is dark. I drain two more glasses of water and go back into her bedroom.
I pray to god to see the empty, golden, foil wrapper indicating good decision making on the floor next to the bed, or glinting somewhere in the folds of the sheets. I see none.
“Fuck,” I think.
Her bra is crumpled at the foot of the bed.
As she sleeps I trace what may have been her bra history. From her first one, purchased six months before she needed it, but a long four months after her best friend got one. There were the bras that didn’t fit, the ones that chaffed, the one bought and worn for the first boy she ever loved, the one she calls her favorite, the one she can wear with a backless dress and the one now crumpled at the foot of her bed.
Her hair covers her face. I delicately brush it back behind her ear. She is beautiful.
I kiss her softly. She opens her eyes and smiles rolling on her back. She is really beautiful.
Her smile grows as I brush more hair from her face. I smile back.
“Water,” she says.
When I return with the bathroom glass filled with tap water she sits up and drains it. I fill it up again for her. We are both naked sitting on her bed. She puts her arm around me, rests her head on my shoulder and whispers in my ear shamelessly “tell me your name again. “
We did not leave her room the rest of the day.
My tongue is a dried cocoon. My head is caving in. I have been dreaming of draining pitchers of water into my depleted body. I always forget to drink water when I’m back in Denver.
“I drank too much beer and smoked too much weed,” I said to her.
“Welcome to Denver, now go back to sleep,” she responds without opening her eyes.
Rolling her off my arm I try to remember her name.
Her toilet bowl is freckled. Clearly she did not intend on having company last night. The only glass in the bathroom, smudged white with toothpaste, has toothbrushes in it. I rinse the glass with hot water and hand soap and then fill it with lukewarm tap water. As I drain the third glass I can hear my cells crackle back into form. My pee is dark. I drain two more glasses of water and go back into her bedroom.
I pray to god to see the empty, golden, foil wrapper indicating good decision making on the floor next to the bed, or glinting somewhere in the folds of the sheets. I see none.
“Fuck,” I think.
Her bra is crumpled at the foot of the bed.
As she sleeps I trace what may have been her bra history. From her first one, purchased six months before she needed it, but a long four months after her best friend got one. There were the bras that didn’t fit, the ones that chaffed, the one bought and worn for the first boy she ever loved, the one she calls her favorite, the one she can wear with a backless dress and the one now crumpled at the foot of her bed.
Her hair covers her face. I delicately brush it back behind her ear. She is beautiful.
I kiss her softly. She opens her eyes and smiles rolling on her back. She is really beautiful.
Her smile grows as I brush more hair from her face. I smile back.
“Water,” she says.
When I return with the bathroom glass filled with tap water she sits up and drains it. I fill it up again for her. We are both naked sitting on her bed. She puts her arm around me, rests her head on my shoulder and whispers in my ear shamelessly “tell me your name again. “
We did not leave her room the rest of the day.
Post Industrial Crow Children
Post Industrial Crow Children
My first day of kindergarten was in the fall of 1976. From that moment on the Denver Public School system attempted to educate me. By applying a district approved educational system to my unique and wondrous psyche the DPS tried to educate me enough to meet a district-approved standard. The system utilized obedience to time and authority to achieve their results. Those students with a basic aptitude for rote memory, math and subservience tended to thrive in the school system of my time. Those students who had a basic aptitude for mythology, playing make believe, and, expected authority to earn respect, rather than demand it, tended to do poorly in my school system. I was distinctly the latter.
Denver Public Schools had systems in place to promote those who excelled in sports, academics or both. They also had systems to cope with those with behavioral problems and obvious learning struggles. I was neither smart nor dumb, an athlete nor an academic . I was good at recess.
It was not the fault of the grossly underfunded school system that my talents for play were summarily overlooked, I blame the industrial revolution. As a result of the industrial revolution, we Americans needed an educational system to produce good factory workers. As students, like clock-punching laborers, we lined up outside the school, single file; waiting for the bell to ring indicating it was time to enter the utilitarian building. In the classroom we sat in rows and were given instructions by the authority at the head of the class. Our work was graded on a scale. Excellence was rewarded, mediocrity was expected and failure was managed. We were motivated by bells, discipline and rewards. There was no place for a being like mine in the factory.
The DPS did provide me with an education. I learned to sleep with my eyes open. I learned to keep a perfect beat as I counted down the seconds, minutes, hours, months, years, until I would be free from that educational system. I learned to cheat guilt free. I learned that lunchroom milk is only palatable when served ice cold. The skill I have most benefited from is; how to assess a situation in a fraction of a second and adjust my behavior in order to avoid unwanted attention yet ultimately get the results I want. A basic jungle lesson.
Being a pleasure seeking human I wanted to avoid the threats and reap the rewards of the system so I made attempts to get good grades. It was apparent I did not have the necessary aptitude for success in that particular system. Eventually I sunk to the slow-moving, deep eddies of the public school system known as the remedial classroom. As opposed to AP classes where the goal is to prepare you for college, the goal of a remedial classroom is to provide the students with the bare minimum of necessary information to participate in the economy and the democracy. The low expectations of the remedial classroom provided the perfect climate to hide. I was thankfully overlooked by the system.
As I watched high functioning students take on a great many activates, and hours of homework, I began to wonder if the goal of the school system is to burn out their adrenal glands. Take the fight out of ‘em. The most successful students were always busy and stressed out. Stress is not good for the body. Even at fifteen. A less toxic stress, mostly caused by trying to avoid conflict, existed for the students in the remedial classroom, which tended to be populated with those who prefer the slow swirling waters of under achievement.
Compared to the focused energy of a college prep classroom, the remedial climate was breezy. The smartest teachers learned they could spend time trying to focus a group of smart-ass kids who don’t give a fuck, or they could create a mellow environment dedicated to activities like “free reading” or “study hall”. The smartest teachers caught up on their work while we read books, slept or wrote notes. I read books of my choosing. Imagine the abrupt transition from being totally absorbed in Tom Robbins’ luscious romantic novel, Still Life with Woodpecker ,only to step into the fray of a 1980’s high school hallway replete with cliques, pegged jeans, and violence.
The detention room was also a safe haven. Confined to an antiseptic desk, I spent hours trying to think of nothingness. As time slowly passed I listened as teachers gossiped, witnessed their faces contort with the stresses of the work place and the struggles of their existence outside of it. As we sat at our respective desks, each eating our sack lunch, it became very clear, we were both in detention.
By the time I reached the tenth grade I had failed a dozen classes. The phrase “not working up to potential” was the indelible mark on my permanent file. So many hours had been spent in detention that I knew how many holes were in 12’ x 12’ acoustic tile. Not by using multiplication, but by counting them individually. Fuck math. I could also drink as many beers as my years and still drive home and say goodnight to my parents before the stroke of midnight. Drinking was something I was good at. I did it well and I did it often.
I lived like a eastern block communist. I went to the factory during the day and got drunk at night.
*
And when I was grown I had two kids of my own.
Smart kids. My oldest son was yet two we sat on a hilltop as the sun began to set. I was overwhelmed by stresses at work. He smiled and cooed in the dirt. I was distracted by my own plight. A crow circled overhead.
Caw Caw Caw… said the crow.
Caw caw caw… mimicked my son.
Pulled from my self-absorption the crow called out again. Again my son answerd.
With a nod he looked at me. His shining eyes communicated the wonderment and humor in the world. In that moment my stress breezed away and we laughed together at how funny crows are.
On a Saturday morning, when my youngest was seven, he bumbled underfoot as I poured coffee. Dogs plodded through the kitchen, cats hopped on counter tops and my youngest spun contentedly amongst my legs and pets. Again I was distracted by stresses external. I was hardly present to the morning light shining through the kitchen window on to a perfect domestic morning.
“Dad do you know there are only seven stories in the world?” asked my son pulling on my pajama pants.
There is no stress grand enough that a comment like that can’t cut through it easy.
“What?” I asked.
“There are really only seven stories in the world. We just tell them differently.” He said as he floated out of the kitchen chasing some animal tail or another.
Yes, it was my responsibility to send these blessed children to school.
So we chose a brilliant school. A public school. A school rife with the struggles of trying to change the order of things. A school trying to do what is right by children’s intrinsic genius while placating standards set by an impuissant government that has continued to fail us in regards to the education of our children for decades. We chose an expeditionary learning school. Jefferson County Open School.
Forty years ago the “Open School” philosophy responded to the industrialized information cram approach to education, by allowing students to be self-directed and aspire to be life long learners. Open School followed in the words of William Butler Yeats "Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire". Students work hard within the great freedoms they are entitled to not because of the threat of a bad grade or detention, they work hard because that is their nature. Open School trusts that the human lust for learning exists in all kids they just need the environment to explore it.
My first day of kindergarten was in the fall of 1976. From that moment on the Denver Public School system attempted to educate me. By applying a district approved educational system to my unique and wondrous psyche the DPS tried to educate me enough to meet a district-approved standard. The system utilized obedience to time and authority to achieve their results. Those students with a basic aptitude for rote memory, math and subservience tended to thrive in the school system of my time. Those students who had a basic aptitude for mythology, playing make believe, and, expected authority to earn respect, rather than demand it, tended to do poorly in my school system. I was distinctly the latter.
Denver Public Schools had systems in place to promote those who excelled in sports, academics or both. They also had systems to cope with those with behavioral problems and obvious learning struggles. I was neither smart nor dumb, an athlete nor an academic . I was good at recess.
It was not the fault of the grossly underfunded school system that my talents for play were summarily overlooked, I blame the industrial revolution. As a result of the industrial revolution, we Americans needed an educational system to produce good factory workers. As students, like clock-punching laborers, we lined up outside the school, single file; waiting for the bell to ring indicating it was time to enter the utilitarian building. In the classroom we sat in rows and were given instructions by the authority at the head of the class. Our work was graded on a scale. Excellence was rewarded, mediocrity was expected and failure was managed. We were motivated by bells, discipline and rewards. There was no place for a being like mine in the factory.
The DPS did provide me with an education. I learned to sleep with my eyes open. I learned to keep a perfect beat as I counted down the seconds, minutes, hours, months, years, until I would be free from that educational system. I learned to cheat guilt free. I learned that lunchroom milk is only palatable when served ice cold. The skill I have most benefited from is; how to assess a situation in a fraction of a second and adjust my behavior in order to avoid unwanted attention yet ultimately get the results I want. A basic jungle lesson.
Being a pleasure seeking human I wanted to avoid the threats and reap the rewards of the system so I made attempts to get good grades. It was apparent I did not have the necessary aptitude for success in that particular system. Eventually I sunk to the slow-moving, deep eddies of the public school system known as the remedial classroom. As opposed to AP classes where the goal is to prepare you for college, the goal of a remedial classroom is to provide the students with the bare minimum of necessary information to participate in the economy and the democracy. The low expectations of the remedial classroom provided the perfect climate to hide. I was thankfully overlooked by the system.
As I watched high functioning students take on a great many activates, and hours of homework, I began to wonder if the goal of the school system is to burn out their adrenal glands. Take the fight out of ‘em. The most successful students were always busy and stressed out. Stress is not good for the body. Even at fifteen. A less toxic stress, mostly caused by trying to avoid conflict, existed for the students in the remedial classroom, which tended to be populated with those who prefer the slow swirling waters of under achievement.
Compared to the focused energy of a college prep classroom, the remedial climate was breezy. The smartest teachers learned they could spend time trying to focus a group of smart-ass kids who don’t give a fuck, or they could create a mellow environment dedicated to activities like “free reading” or “study hall”. The smartest teachers caught up on their work while we read books, slept or wrote notes. I read books of my choosing. Imagine the abrupt transition from being totally absorbed in Tom Robbins’ luscious romantic novel, Still Life with Woodpecker ,only to step into the fray of a 1980’s high school hallway replete with cliques, pegged jeans, and violence.
The detention room was also a safe haven. Confined to an antiseptic desk, I spent hours trying to think of nothingness. As time slowly passed I listened as teachers gossiped, witnessed their faces contort with the stresses of the work place and the struggles of their existence outside of it. As we sat at our respective desks, each eating our sack lunch, it became very clear, we were both in detention.
By the time I reached the tenth grade I had failed a dozen classes. The phrase “not working up to potential” was the indelible mark on my permanent file. So many hours had been spent in detention that I knew how many holes were in 12’ x 12’ acoustic tile. Not by using multiplication, but by counting them individually. Fuck math. I could also drink as many beers as my years and still drive home and say goodnight to my parents before the stroke of midnight. Drinking was something I was good at. I did it well and I did it often.
I lived like a eastern block communist. I went to the factory during the day and got drunk at night.
*
And when I was grown I had two kids of my own.
Smart kids. My oldest son was yet two we sat on a hilltop as the sun began to set. I was overwhelmed by stresses at work. He smiled and cooed in the dirt. I was distracted by my own plight. A crow circled overhead.
Caw Caw Caw… said the crow.
Caw caw caw… mimicked my son.
Pulled from my self-absorption the crow called out again. Again my son answerd.
With a nod he looked at me. His shining eyes communicated the wonderment and humor in the world. In that moment my stress breezed away and we laughed together at how funny crows are.
On a Saturday morning, when my youngest was seven, he bumbled underfoot as I poured coffee. Dogs plodded through the kitchen, cats hopped on counter tops and my youngest spun contentedly amongst my legs and pets. Again I was distracted by stresses external. I was hardly present to the morning light shining through the kitchen window on to a perfect domestic morning.
“Dad do you know there are only seven stories in the world?” asked my son pulling on my pajama pants.
There is no stress grand enough that a comment like that can’t cut through it easy.
“What?” I asked.
“There are really only seven stories in the world. We just tell them differently.” He said as he floated out of the kitchen chasing some animal tail or another.
Yes, it was my responsibility to send these blessed children to school.
So we chose a brilliant school. A public school. A school rife with the struggles of trying to change the order of things. A school trying to do what is right by children’s intrinsic genius while placating standards set by an impuissant government that has continued to fail us in regards to the education of our children for decades. We chose an expeditionary learning school. Jefferson County Open School.
Forty years ago the “Open School” philosophy responded to the industrialized information cram approach to education, by allowing students to be self-directed and aspire to be life long learners. Open School followed in the words of William Butler Yeats "Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire". Students work hard within the great freedoms they are entitled to not because of the threat of a bad grade or detention, they work hard because that is their nature. Open School trusts that the human lust for learning exists in all kids they just need the environment to explore it.
Friday, August 31, 2012
MORE GRAVITY POEMS
HORTICREATURE
THIS FRAIL BLOOM
IS A FAKE
WHAT I’VE LEARNED BETWEEN THE YEARS 2008-2012
ALL PRESIDENTS LIE
EVEN BLACK ONES
TOURIST
I HAVE INVESTED
CONSIDERABLE AMOUNTS OF MONEY
INTO THE QUALITY OF LUGGAGE
THAT I CARRY MY CHEAP FIRST WORLD
PROBLEMS IN
HOW I SMUGGLED POEMS OFF OF TATOOINE
HI,
YOU SILLY COP
I KNOW WHY YOU’RE SO MAD
AND TREAT ME SO BAD
BUT TRUST THESE WORDS:
YOUR GIRLFRIEND DIDN’T TELL ME ABOUT YOU
CAUSE HER MOUTH WAS FULL
AND I DIDN’T ASK
CAUSE I WAS TOO DISTRACTED BY THAT ASS
THESE AREN’T THE POEMS
YOU ARE LOOKING FOR
SO MOVE ALONG
YOU SILLY COP
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Gravity Poems
SOUL COMPOST
OR THE DARK SIDE OF ORGANIC
I THINK I FOUND
THE LIME WEDGE
IN THE COMPOST I WAS TURNING
FROM THE GIN AND TONIC
I WAS DRINKING
ON THE NIGHT I REALLY FUCKED UP
TO TELL THE TRUTH
I HAVE NEVER ENJOYED
THE SOUND OF YOUR VOICE
SPEAKING OF BOYFRIENDS PAST
MISCOMMUNICATION
I SHOUTED HOW MUCH
I LOVE YOU
YOU ONLY HEARD ME SHOUTING
AT YOU
ALTERNATE ENDING
I WONDER HOW THIS PLAY
WOULD HAVE ENDED
HAD YOU NOT VACATED THE SEAT
NEXT TO MINE
LEAVING IT OPEN
FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO SIT IN
FOUNDATION
HAVING INHERITED NO SOLID GROUND
FROM OUR PARENTS
WE BUILT OUR HOME
ON THE ONLY LAND AVAILABLE TO US
THE SHIFTING SAND BY THE SEA
INEVITABLEY
THE WAVES RUSHED IN
AND TORE US APART
ENDING THE BLAME GAME
IT WAS NOT YOU
THAT KILLED THAT PART OF ME
IT WAS I WHO LET IT DIE
HOW THIS STORY GOES
WE FUCKED EACH OTHER
ON DIRTY SHEETS
SCREEN PORN
WOMEN,
COME TO FIND OUT,
HAVE MORE THAN
TWO DIMENSIONS
WHILE UNDER THIS SUN
I HOPE TO NEVER SPEAK TO YOU
IN A VOICE LOUDER
THAN A MUSEUM WHISPER
WHAT THE BLUE SKY ABOVE DENVER CITY TOLD ME
ON THIS DESERT LIES HOPE
YOU ARE NOT ON THIS DESERT
YOU ARE ON THE ONE BELOW IT
FACT
I DO NOT BELIEVE
IN NON-FICTION
NEAR A TREE
SQUIRRELS ARE FUNNY
BEES ARE AMAZING
Monday, August 13, 2012
Thank God for the ferris wheel
Thank God for the Ferris Wheel
I highly anticipate the arrival of the carnival. I do every year; I anticipate it with a forgetful enthusiasm. Over the winter I forget about the inescapable heat, the nausea (caused by greasy food and shaky rides), the long lines of gape mouthed country folk spitting and rubbing their bellies with swollen fingers. I forget about the high-ticket prices and sickly smell of overflowing port-o-potties and cotton candy. These realities have no place in my mind for how the carnival will be this year.
This year the carnival will be different. It will fulfill my hopes and desires. The lines will be shorter, the rides faster, the food less disgusting and maybe, just maybe I will see you again.
It was you, wedged in between the raucousness of drunken thrill seekers, that caught my eye. Admist the loud noises and bright lights of a carnival in full swing, you stood gracefully taking it all in. You, a beautiful visage amongst the dull citizenry.
Thank god for the Ferris wheel. It scooped us up and lifted us above the bedlam below. When we reached the top; a miracle, the Ferris wheel broke. The forty five minutes we stalled out so high above the fray seemed like two days. It was quiet; we talked, and teased and laughed. When we finally kissed the Ferris wheel cranked back to life and we began our slow decent back into the carnival where the drunken masses engulfed us once more.
I anticipate the arrival of the carnival. I do every year.
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