this will be an earthworm in 1000 years

man downstairs

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:25:00 +0000

There is a man standing downstairs. He has been there since last night at 1:28 a.m. I am sure because that is when I was walking home. Last night he was guarding the levelized rubble in front of the new condo they have put in. Today he is guarding a wet patch of cement the size of two elephant backs, the size of one hotel swimming pool on the stingy side, the size of my large brick bedroom in front of the new condo building they have put in. Next to the crack house with the hotel sign and the worn down patch of astroturf laid out like an unwanted sacrifice at the invisible door. He guarded it last night when a sleek brown rat tumbled out of the rocks at my feet and ran into a black symmetrical crack beneath the block-propped foundation. He guards it today as we, linked and strolling out for coffee, consider slapping our outside hands down into the impressionable mud and running off immortalized.

I love you.

How are you paid?

You wear a messy broken hat and a clean plaid shirt. Some flecks of drying cement on your face? I think, with the job you have, and the people walking by, and the hazard of assholes, that you should have been (it's too late now) given a uniform.

Little bit of mess everywhere.

I wrote I love you in bite marks on his back.

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:17:00 +0000

I scratch
my head now.
I am confused
what
to say next.

I think things

radiator

progress

I think of greasy trains

with dick smell.

I will not cook for you.

I will notice your problems.

I am a carver.

carpenter ants

burst umbrella sad bag

you are the yellowest

poison.

I will eat your gold.

for my friend

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:50:00 +0000

They chopped off my head today.
It fell to the ground without rolling away
I sang a quick song
and gurgled "Hurray!"
Had no clue my feet
were so dirty and gray
and if I were not dead
I'd wash off the clay...

But they chopped off my head
and I painted the sidewalk
with splashes of red.
No sense of completion,
no eulogy said
they stood me up tall
and chopped off my head.

Love,

Cara

tree please for me please

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:00:00 +0000

I keep my head busy
with saturday thoughts
and tie up my fingers
in personal knots
I loosen my feet
in the flimsiest ways
kicking the wrappers and
racing the strays

I want a pine tree
to erupt in my room
in minutes
there splatters
botanical doom

Le Fine first floor panties
with needles of green
pokesnagging the lace and
insulting the seams

a hot captain coffee
tossed up from below
while some hungrychumps eggs
dust the branches like snow

I faint like a witch
who smell her own grin
who cant stand the green
or the heat of her skin

I laugh like a doll
in a jewelry box maze
kicking the clasps off the
racy hurrays

I chooses my dresses
and partners to trap
but can't can't CAINT TWIRL
'less the latch is unclapped.

doing the prostitutes job

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:35:00 +0000

If millionaires were afraid of death they would not smoke.

or fuck sad women.

but they do.

I am thankful for an end in sight.

and the poverty which makes the wait.

the poor do not fuck sad women.

they need too much cheering.

and their women do it.

for free.

like me.

gladly, see?

doing the prostitutes job.

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 03:11:00 +0000

Emma Goldman. Numb fingers rip at the waxy and crumpling skins of onions. Oildrops. Progress. Wrappers upon the eyes. The harsh fruit within. The frail, innocent, wicked wind. A boxed-up blanket covered in warnings. A sticker factory. FRAGILE. THIS SIDE UP. DECEASED. TO BE BURNED. CONTAMINATED. GINORMOUS. TO BE EXONNERATED.

Where a man once was with his white-cupped tide of coffee tilted as if to suggest an unreliable axis, where he once sat on the cold, dry sidewalk next to an open-mouthed orange road barrel, full of trash and snow and rolling carelessness, now with the rain on and on point I pass him again, transformed into a wide black garbage bag with the strain of something square stretching it out. A broken piece of furniture. A bag of bones. EXACT SAME PLACE. A couch with the bottom blown out. Aren’t we pretty? The room of a stupid teenager. Black. A phone as a centerpiece. Some inner organ gone corrupt and unnoticed. Like your lungs, darling. I cry and flirt.

An old man with fake orange hair eats a small hot dog covered in a pile of anemic onions. An actress with a flat backside and faked blonde hair lets her cell phone ring some recognizable bastardization of a popular song several moments too long before answering it chirpily and eerily-on the very next note in the progression. She knows her life so well. The Onions and the Actress could make a delightful fairy tale together.

A face of the rave. A raving face. The face of the grave. An unoriginal rant. A machine gun full of poppyseeds and leaking vinegar on expensive, forbidden carpet. The president removes his shoes in the white house. The president has head lice. The president wears plastic booties and has only one time in his life aimed a revolver into his own or someone else’s mouth. This is a story that will never be spoken of again.

I wanted

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:46:00 +0000

I wanted to sit in my window and smoke a cigarette but I can't stop watching the neighbors on their patio-the two of them. He cracks a beer. They split it. She has dark hair. The back of his head is gray. I wanted to stare out at nothing, but because of the shape of my window and the shape of myself, this is the way my body has to be angled, facing them. I suppose it will appear as though I am watching. I wanted to smoke a cigarette and forget about my sister. But the people who hurt you the most are the ones you can't forget. And the people you envy you can't stop watching.

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:25:00 +0000

The Devil's Wife Still Comes

the devil?
He's in a hospital in Detroit.
He's a colored man
and commits idolatry
by watching television
on purpose.

keeping up his evil

for good, for beautiful, for true
do not concern him
he left his wife fifteen years ago
after a botched abortion
but knows she is watching
from an electronic plane buggy
while he finishes peas
and trades jello for ham.

He knows two phrases in Latin (pig)
and uses them to condemn his enemies
and often rhymes
the water line
in Palestine
my demons there
destroy the time

keeping up his evil

The devil is being made to eat his medicine.
The devil is accepting souls
in return for observing his bedtime.
It is 1967 and outside things are happening
while the devil tempts heaven
and chases a sandmachine
that forces his sleep
down the hall.

It is an electronic mop
and he is the devil
and his wife brings a bag of fruit sometimes
and sad, angry eyes
to the room with the warped TV.

"It's you and me." she says

"It's the devil and his enemies. I'm dead."

The devil's wife begins bruising his fruit
on purpose
and committing adultery
with a cop
who let her off
a speeding ticket
last week when she almost missed visiting hours.
Her devil has not had her
since he became a mad man,
but the devil's wife still comes.

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:59:00 +0000

loose headboard
lost watch
maid blamed

Ordinary nights

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:49:00 +0000

Those were ordinary nights
falling down like jelly beans
tripping over piles
of good gold nothing
all the tables we had
pricked with empties
Why do I lie?
Why do my eyes dart
over birthdays and ages?
Why, after all this time
of continuing to do
the same thing,
do I still
consider
myself a sinner?

Maybe I was meant
to be a rainbow.
Maybe I was meant
to be a child forever
but the only way
to be a child forever
is to die young
and I am not
being let off
that easy.

My eyes dart
over birthdays
and ages.
those piles
of good gold nothing
those ordinary nights
an old mouth
full of jellybeans
a table full of pricks.

to be sung

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 07:11:00 +0000

Alouette ooh wee ooh
the madrigals falling
the principle coming to dinner
the principal coming to fat
underneath a table
at his parent's wedding
the sleeping rodents
the pig's way
one dastardly supper
every day
And who can return
the widow to sleep?
What freezing feet
dismember dreams?
What animal fingers
drill up seams?
The one in the wake
cannot catch a fall.
the lark in the cookpot
the blood in us all

Gunshots: a comedy

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 00:39:00 +0000

Somewhere on the street below, a man was screaming from four bullet wounds. Upon hearing the four explosions, me and my roommate hung our heads out my bedroom window on either side of a chipped white box fan propped within the frame to suck out the heat. The day had been a hot one. The screams sounded like they were right in front of our building. She kept trying to place the sounds. I kept thinking how that was like making guesses on where we'd see blood the next day.

From across the fan we exchanged fearful, nervous smiles which I misinterpreted as meaning amused. For a moment, I imagined my roommate to be as inappropriately sadistic as me. This only further amused me. And the pathetic screams. How can I laugh at a man screaming his life out?

And today this rain. I woke to church music and rain. The church music I took, strangely, for the shot man’s immediate funeral. I realize now that it is Sunday, a day originally set aside for church music, and besides, this assumption makes no sense. They wouldn’t be burying him already. Furthermore, there’s nowhere to bury him around here.

I woke to disappointment. Two things were immediately disappointing. The first: I had planned to photograph two parades today, my only day off, and with rain falling from the sky both parades would be cancelled. The second: the rain would have washed the gunshot blood from the sidewalk.

Last night I barely slept. And I’d like to say it was due to a crawling, nagging fear of being ambushed or gunned down or, selfishness aside, sympathy for the man who died on the sidewalk. He must be dead. We threw our robes on (the roommate and I) and tore down the stairs just as they were loading him into the ambulance. We had waited until we heard the sirens because we knew it was safe (at least this is how the retelling goes-in reality it was simply at this point that curiosity got the best of us and we couldn’t see a damn thing from the roof) to head downstairs and join the sidewalk gawkers. Right in front of our building but on the other side of the street. So we’re safe.

We watched the ambulance sit with him inside it for fifteen minutes before rolling off in the vague direction of nothing. The police precinct is one block away from our building and it took them nine minutes to arrive. A Hispanic guy. Or black. Definitely not a white guy. Either he died on the gurney right there or, or, or…what? He must have died right there. Why else would the ambulance just sit there in the street with him inside of it? These mysteries…

The mysterious witness I spoke to on the sidewalk. He was thin, black and small framed. I say this as if I were picking him out of a lineup, and in truth, since he disappeared directly after speaking to me, perhaps I am the lone witness to the lone witness. Of a lone crime? Only the lone know the lone.

He was thin, black and small framed. He had a mostly shaved head and was dressed well but plainly. I was standing and staring when he randomly muttered “Shot him four times.” My head whipped left to catch this update. “What?” I said. “Where? Four times? We heard four shots. From the window up there. Me and my roommate.”

The man drew two fingers in the shape of a gun down the right side of his body to illustrate as he spoke, “He got shot in the head (he pointed), the neck (he pointed), the trunk (or torso-he pointed), and the leg (he pointed)” I was agape. I managed a “Wow. That’s fucked up.” I had barely managed even that but it kept him talking. He continued. “I saw him running down the street.” Certain he could not mean the victim, my natural response was “Who?” He said nothing, perhaps because he did not hear me. I reiterated “Who? The shooter? You saw the shooter?” This elicited a response. “No”, he said. “The guy that got shot. He was running down the street like he was trying to get away. Then he got shot.” I pressed on. “So you saw him get shot, then?” He said no. “You saw him running and then you said he got shot so you saw him get shot? You must have seen the shooter.” He shook his head and quite convincingly said “No.” I turned back to the scene. “Still, you should tell the cops what you know, though.” I turned back to him to deliver some straightforward moral responsibility via eye contact. He had vanished. I went back inside.

The real reason I didn’t sleep? Run of the mill insomnia. Run of the mill technology-induced insomnia. The computer and all it has to offer at 5 am. Checking Craigslist, the Times, the gossips…inertia. And then imagining I heard the door being pried open, remembering I left it unlocked, frozen to hear another sound and to determine the level of danger I was stupidly sitting through. Eventually, I managed to creep into the kitchen and see that I had already locked it, but not without being absolutely certain the killer was hiding behind the bathroom door with a .45 aimed at the back of my ear. So perhaps my insomnia was caused by a combination of inertia and sympathetic terror. But I’m hard on myself and, therefore, accuse myself of the inertia.

I stayed inside as long as I could today. No parades, so much rain. And then dinner with a friend just now. Delicious food and I devoured it while telling the owner, the bartender, my friend and half the customers about my sleepless night and my harrowing tale. The bartender gave me a free glass of wine. Because of my harrowing tale. Because it happened across the street from my building. I don’t even know if he’s dead or not. On the way home I bought a cookie. It was chocolate chip and harder than I generally like, but overall…fine.

I was walking alone, having dropped off my friend, having eaten my fill and I crossed the street across from my building to stand where it all happened. This is what I saw: powder blue rubber gloves-one pair which were glossy from the rain, several bits of napkin and random incidental trash, and a crack in the sidewalk full to the top with rain and deep red blood.

It was one of those places where four independent cracks in the cement come together and form a sort of spider shape, or triangle shape, or maybe a shape like a web of lightening. A place where the sidewalk is deeply crumbled. On a dry and dusty day such a shape will cease to be a certain shape and merely appear dilapidated. Fill it with rain and blood, and I will stand there staring at an angry shape, testing the color with my eyes, deciding if the sidewalk is faking.

I took a bite of my chocolate chip cookie which I was still finishing. Maybe a crumb fell into the blood. Maybe evaporated blood falling new with the rain landed on my cookie. I think I hope so.

I looked one way down the street and imagined the man I saw bandaged running from a gun. I looked the other way down the street and heard his screams again. I thought of how long it took the police to respond, and of the ambulance that sat and the witness who vanished and the rain which had not washed the blood completely away. I thought of how the police, the ambulance, the witness and the rain had all really failed that guy.

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Mon, 14 May 2007 03:10:00 +0000

the stars, dull and whistling,
turn south with the beggars and birds.
They are nothing
now that I've touched them.

baby tomato

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Thu, 10 May 2007 20:13:00 +0000

noose

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Thu, 10 May 2007 20:11:00 +0000

lasso

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Thu, 10 May 2007 20:04:00 +0000

lasso

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Thu, 10 May 2007 20:03:00 +0000

scarves

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:57:00 +0000

over the counter

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:55:00 +0000

duct

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:53:00 +0000

hoops

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:46:00 +0000

Israel Day Parade, New York City-May 6, 2007

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Mon, 07 May 2007 04:56:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Mon, 07 May 2007 04:46:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Mon, 07 May 2007 04:41:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (rainy jane ran away) — Mon, 07 May 2007 04:37:00 +0000