tijuana gringo diary.a.blog.calendar
25 januero 2004
5 moon 35 winter 48 spaceage
to the parents on Mt. Soledad. Jiggity jig
trolley bus walk
dinner with the Mom's usual crabs about stepsister calling
right when papa sits do eat supper
poppa complaining for his part about
comedians making fun of the president
never mind what he says about the traitor Franklin D. Roosevelt
never mind any of that
what matters is their two new puppies romping around the kitchen
and learning how to poop and pee on the newspaper....
sweet little puppy breath
big little puppy paws
two of them to keep each other
company in the long night
alone in the kitchen
later I watch the history channel
ain't got no cable in my flat in TJ
so I am binging on cable until one, two a.m.
of course I have to write even while I watch the idiot box
stealing ideas write off the pages of history
poets are all thieves of words
well, at least I will tell you when
maybe....
maybe you should not trust anyone born on an island
which is a complete non sequitur but what the hell
[Barbarians] 1.
when Alaric died
his Gothic people
dammed a river
in southern Italy
they buried him in the bed
then released the flow
again
to hide his grave
forever
and then my niece was talking
about a friend of hers who has a good voice
but doesn't like to show it off
and I wrote down a bit of what she said
yes, oral literature, oral historyit was a dark car
one the way home from the opera
when she began to sing...
ahhh, yes... then we knew
it was true.
she can sing....
We were eating at the yacht club, (the "other" one, not "the" one) on the edge of San Diego bay, under the corner of Point Loma, in front of Shelter Island. On the hills above is the military cemetery where some of our grandparents are buried and especially where Michael's father was laid to rest when he was only a baby. after lunch I followed him out onto the deck looking over the sailboats and power yachts. We smoked cigarettes with my stepbrother Jerry. Mike kept looking up at the hillside beyond the submarine base, up towards the tip of the point, where Fort Rosecrans cemetery gives way to the old lighthouse and Cabrillo National Monument."You're thinking of your father, aren't you?" I asked. Usually I leave the subject alone.
"Yes." He turned his eyes toward me, "You knew him, didn't you? You were even old enough to talk about the war with him, or so Mom tells me...."
"Yep. We disagreed rather... rather strictly."