This might be the only pop song I'll ever write...

Get up, step it up, get in your get up
Steppin' out, let it out
Shimmy shimmy shimmy and shout shout shout

Step out, walk about, say what you think out loud
Shake it, shake it up
Giddy up giddy up giddy up

Get around, don't get down, strut your stuff all over town
You know you can do it
Move it, move it, groooooove it

Make it hot, make a lot
Cuz honey you got what nobody's got
Keep it real, feel what you feel,
Put your socks on- Rock on, Rock on
Rock on, rock on
Rock on and on and on

The Devil's Crossroad

at the devil's crossroad
one way leads to nowhere, another to hell,
one way leads to one true love, the other to the wishing well
which do i love most when i love them all
the holy ghost is surely gonna break my fall
what a heavy decision
atomic fusion or fission
either way it's gonna blow up in my face
How can you choose between a rock and a hard place?

at the devil's crossroad
there are people everywhere
pressing in, wanting their
own ferris wheel and a hundred cotton candy machines
lots of metal things that no one ever cleans
and oh god, there are fellas, fillies
thieves and dikes and hillbillies
and there are po-licemen to push 'em around
am i homeward bound, or headed underground
i keep checking for my heart in the lost & found

at the devil's crossroad
there is no one but a lonesome crow
that won't stop sayin' over and over, hey babe, what do you know know know
but every now and again
i see your head peek in
and wonder if you're the mate to my soul
or just another man distracting me from my grand ol'
heavy load... which way to the baggage claim?
if i pass my one true by, will i know his face, will he feel the same?

at the devil's crossroad
one way leads to nowhere, another to hell,
one way leads to heavenly love, the other to the wishing well
which to love when i love them all
the holy ghost is surely gonna break my fall
what a fateful decision
atomic fusion or fission
either way it's gonna blow up in my face
How can you choose between a rock and a hard place?
I said, how can you choose between a rock and a hard place?

This week's treasures...

* heard two barred owls talking today
* saw blooming yellow lady slipper orchids
* saw yellow-billed cuckoos for the first time. i love their calls and hear them pretty often, but this is the first time i got a good look. what lovely red on their wings -- i never knew!
* got rained on

May flowers

Uvularia sp.



Viola hastata






Stellaria sp. (pubescens, I think, but got to double check)



Anemone quinquefolia

Well, I arrived at mt. lake just about darkfall. The '91 explorer made it all the way down I-81, and up the mountain. I was uber-excited by the novel (to me) cruise control.

As I arrived in Giles County, the sunset couldn’t have been better – the clouds had drifted down to settle around the summits and were tinted bright pink; the mountains in the distance a perfect backdrop blue. God, I do love it here. The deer pranced in front of my headlights and bumper as I drove up, reminding me to drive slooooowly in 2nd.

I arrived and met Dustin, Eric, Sarah, and a new assistant (ack, forgotten the name – my brain was completely fried). I ate my leftover quiche and salad I’d packed, to fill up after the honey roasted peanuts and milk I’d grabbed at the gas station earlier. Meanwhile, the mountain lakers went about their usual strange conversations. Dustin saw a bobcat (envy!), Eric bought grapefruits by mistake instead of oranges and was comically upset, which led to a conversation about how if you buy rotten fruit at Walmart you get a 110% return so always buy rotten food at Walmart, and we all learned from a magazine article on poop that poop, when it is healthy, is not supposed to float but rather if it DOES float, then you’ve eaten too much fat. Well.

invisibly, i eat strawberries and cheese.

music beating round and round
dancers spin and squiggle
spinal sinusoidal waves
and hip vibrations

music beating
i sit on the couch
between
shy stranger slumping
and
resting friend with a bellyache.
the laughing couple loses balance
while lapping at each other's necks

music beating and beating
in my stomach
in my ears
in my heart, my throat, my feet, my head
their bodies, my head,
their bodies, my heart beating and beating

invisibly,
i eat strawberries and cheese
wondering...
doesn't everyone look beautiful?

~February 2009

Fall like the tide

I want to fall like the tide
Slowly… then wildly rush
The waxing moon sucks my toes from the marsh
Our brackish hearts braiding
The river and sea
The mud streaks your back
The salt sticks to me

Waters flow in, fill my belly, and then
Waters invert and flow out again
The ripples collide
The ripples collide
And so begins the ebbing tide