conversations with angels.***
November 3, 2009
Walking by the post-office, beneath a sky that can only be described as “Marfa blue”–cloudless, clean & lapis, an older woman, short as myself with cropped gray hair, stopped me with wide brown eyes and a question.
“You are so darling, who are you, child?”
I smiled, a bit dumb-founded. Who am I?
“What is your name?”
“Ariele.”
“Ariele what?”
“Gentiles.”
“Where are you from?”
“Oh, I live here.”
“What? How is it that I’ve never seen you before? Where have you been hiding?”
“I don’t know…I live just up the street, around the corner. I’ve only been here about 6 months.”
“Well, how are you enjoying your stay?”
“I love it.”
“Good. You are so beautiful. How old are you?”
“I’m 26.”
“You look so much younger! So young and so beautiful.”
“Thank you. Very much.”
“Take care, child. I’ll see you around.”
Then she took my hand, pressed it gently and said, “I love you.”
Speechless, I continued on my way, cursing myself for not asking her name, but as I replayed the conversation later in my head, the answer I received was Grace. Her name was Grace.
***The other day, a guest at the hotel asked me my name. When I told him, his face lit-up with excitement–”Have you heard the music group, Arielle?” I told him I’d not, and he insisted on loaning me the cd he had in his car. It was a Yanni-like recording called, “Conversations with Angels.” Difficult to listen to, but sweet nonetheless.
Julie Speed.
October 29, 2009
Something pretty pretty pretty. I want to be Julie Speed when I grow up–
her work is stellar, and it’s a joy to see her riding her bicycle around town.
everything that happens is from now on.
October 20, 2009
I wrote a thing or two last night, late by candlelight.
Slowly, slowly I’m re-membering, re-turning focus
to such woodsy thoughts. It is Fall, afterall, and I
look forward to chilly mornings with a little espresso
and a slantlight-lit kitchen table & typewriter or notebook.
No distractions, save for the white kitten playing parrot
on my shoulder.
Maybe. Someday.
Soon.
after all that…
October 1, 2009
I cannot write, can’t keep hands
from quaking & hyper-ventilate
an id panic. no good to any blood
thing now. can’t can’t can’t. un-well.
meteorites.
August 19, 2009
Mismatched perceptions of incredulousness,
meteorites coalesce in the quietus of some
new meaning, some new something created
to meet the fire of your mind, endless wit. &
the absence of an apple starves a heart—it eats itself.
stars, fall.
August 13, 2009
When candles die I can
see violet-eyed Judas Iscariot,
dead dead & trampled, breathless
balloon-head with the guts hanging out.
placing.
August 9, 2009
The day is six, it’s
sped away
& now I am
[here] without
meaning or You.
admission #(plenty).
August 5, 2009
The perfect [letter or poem] is a unicorn, elusive magic, and I fear if I finally seize it, the deathdeer protector of this wilderness between us will arrive at heart’s threshold with antlers thrust & a craving for blood in the gut.
denouement.
July 31, 2009
Dry and dirt-cracked, I can taste
metal, mineral, dust &
all animal brains smell like salt—
so much sodium stowed
to compel a current, lightning
brilliance, or just
to make a mouth move &
unknot a tongue to whisper words
I cannot write.
hypnagogia.
July 27, 2009
All these nightmares, evil-seeming forces liquidstreaming through
my sleeping consciousness, must mean. Something. Am I some psychic
conduit of ill omen? Or merely sleep-deprived? Perhaps it’s just the
function of too much Austin hot & ocean air. I’m slipping from neo-
existentialist to meaning-curious absurdist. I’m slipping and feeling
the threads moving through my fingers. The tapestry is weaving itself.
What is it all for? I am. I am. I am. There is largeness here, somewhere
beyond, but I see an awful lot of trees, houses, concrete in between.
Brain shuts down. Reading is difficult, the ink horses trot too fast
dead eyes. I’m exhausted & cannot sleep for the terrors that
patient-wait, crouch & leap when lights go out. Take me back
to nothing.
