i'm reading jesse ball, autoportrait. i drift off the page. something hitches to a memory. i think of the kid on the corner in mt. zion who strangled animals, a pair of swans i heard, and then my turtle which i found strangled in a tree, hanging in a branch by the neck. he said it hung itself. i wonder what became of the kid, wonder what other creatures he killed, if he grew up to kill humans. this is macabre. the book is rather dark in spots too. the jacket days he's an absurdist, but it's a memoir. life is absurd when you think of it, though it's ordinary too, that makes it more absurd but it seems normal unless you read it or write it, then it becomes extraordinary, or absurd. i know the picture's creepy. i'm in a somewhat funereal mood. i know i've written the same things down over time but i trust that time changes memories even if they stay the same. 

 i looked for the cuckoo on the steps and it was gone and i saw it was laying in the dirt with bees crawling in and out of a slot in its breast. 

 the air smells like exhaust. i don't know what's coming in from out there and what's in my head. how can we balance our inner life with the outer world? is it a continuum? i hold my breath, and i gasp. is the world the same?

  there's dread at the root. there's threat in the building landscape, there's landscape dread. there's dread of things beyond control. i have dread of my inside landscape, dread at the roots of my teeth. the roots of dread within & without connect in me. it may be too late. if it's gone too far we have to live the change we can't choose. i've avoided what's at the center of my face in the world, my teeth, too long, but if it's too late to save them i can still face the dread.

 landscape dread.

 i was walking with chuck this morning and i looked down and saw a cicada riding on her leash. even with chuck's trotting motion and the rope swaying side to side the cicada held on when i took the leash off and on all the way around the quadrangles. 

 fear of property: the obamachron.

 we need to fight for revolutionary change. we need to stop gentrifying the community and privatizing the commons.

 

that's it, that's the one, lulu. much obliged.

 

charlie and max. i'm daily impressed with chuck's finesse. she reads people and situations and responds smartly. max was a bounder and she was a little intimidated, but she stayed with it and with a couple barks max did too.

 victree.

 let's try anarchy.

 

between our morning and afternoon walk another yellow billed cuckoo crashed into rockyfeller belltower and fell on the doorsteps dead.

 the lords of misrule still imagine they rule the world.

 getting funky falulu.

chuck, superstar.

 

 

anyone who says the obamachron is going to unite the south side is probably a shill or delusional. anyone who thinks the obamachron is going to lift up the people is cruelly misled and sadly mistaken. the obamachron is a doggone done deal for the benefit of the ruling class.

Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm
Invades us to the skin: so 'tis to thee;
But where the greater malady is fix'd,
The lesser is scarce felt.                                                                      Thou'ldst shun a bear;
But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,
Thou'ldst meet the bear i' the mouth.                                                                  When the mind's free,
The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there. 

i like a good storm, especially a good storm on the obamachron. i like to see all the little people run for shelter and then scurry home.

 

obamacrane and skyway in the rain.

 

 my boy benny.

 lulu withdraws to the cool green verge to pause before jumping benny's bones again.

 and lulu. friedl said, oh don't lay there, but lulu remembers, she's posed here before. 

 the feeling of this having already happened is becoming a daily thing.

 

the air was soupy. benny and lulu's tongues were lolling like the rolling stones.

 it's kind of disconcerting to see one high heel shoe and a bracelet at the edge of the wood by the train tracks but it's probably nothing.

drag racing feedback loops in the city streets, building the world apart, or would you prefer silence?

 

the storm came at last and doused the house party by the tracks. i heard the dj yell, will the rain's coming. it came of a sudden and it was loud and flashing and then it was quiet. later when the sirens pass by the train embankment en route to the trauma center the coyotes all start yipping. until tomorrow then. sweet dreams.