Tag: night writing

Tijuana Mission Trip 2.0

~ johnbrandall ~ 2 Comments

We're between mountains, like in Colorado, or Utah. Wall! Border wall. To our left, to the north. Contiguous. Iron? A rusty red. Eight feet high? It cuts into the hillside.

Suddenly it's a little greener. Wind in the palms. Some flattening out. By the looks of it, the playa at camp will be windy. Stones, boulders on the hillsides. I've lost sight of the wall as we've tended south.

This is a smooth road. Turning to the south. Large round boulders. Accesso planta dart. Windmill. This is the back way into camp. It has a rural feel but there's actually quite a few plants or factories back in here. The road has gotten very rocky. A metal structure manufacturer. Galvanization. A burned area. Car carcasse. Lots of old tires. A guy in a chair under the shade of a tree just looking out at the road. Railroad.

We take a right onto a much smoother, paved road. There are lots of cars stopped on the side of this road. There are canopies set up. Lots of them. Is it a market? We're close to camp. Turning right, I know this road. There's the old, snub-nosed flatbed lorry. The silo-like red cylinder lying on its side. Dust! At 14:42 we are at the Amor Hacienda Camp...


Continue with this Tijuana 2019 travelogue...

Nerves, River, Night

~ johnbrandall

Awake again at an off hour, at
an odd hour, now for several days
on end. Times like 3:13, 3:23, 3:34.
Some combination of threes
after bad dreams.

I'm not going to journal the dreams,
it's stupid stuff, scare tactics
drummed up by me, designed
to rattle me the most. Strangers yelling
through the window. Me fleeing
to the attic above my attic.

My nerves seem to have risen
with the humidity, with the
overnight lows. They are rising
with the river itself.

When it gets like this, the
river cannot drain. It cannot
get downstream fast enough.
So it camps out in the yard or
suns itself in the kitchen sink.

To settle myself
I go to make a drink
but when I reach into the freezer
I find the river lurking there—
vital cubes
of dirty ice.

Memory Foam

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

It is broken.  Does it require of me that I buy a new spacer kit?  What if I counter-offer with a brand new ball assembly?

The right answer ran between the left guard and the left tackle, to the house.

I am from Illinois but I live in Missouri.  This does not make me anxious.  I do not spend an hour a day imagining the explanations I will offer as justification when someone asks me, "What are you doing here?"  Or says, in the pejorative, "Go back to your Land of Lincoln..."


Full story here...

Leaving an Empty Bottle of Wine Along the Windowsill of a Canal Boat

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

I.

FISA light is
          FISA light is
     knowing what you're
             knowing what you're
 thinking
      thinking.

II.

   I have been in bed
              late at night
          happy where I was.
     When I got up
           the cupboard poured me
                coffee.
        No one else was up yet,
            I was the only person awake
            in the entire world.

III.

    Moscow mule, Moscow million.
 Moscow million, I
          don't want to fight you.
   My country hasn't
                       the troops.
       Contrary to what your man
       read over my shoulder
                    on the plane —
  The soldiers are not feeling the wood, 
    they're felling the wood.
 You know,
           getting ready to write
       really old,
           long-old novels.
     Wire between their
         fingers & wire in
   their brains.   Wire, already,
   on their deforested teeth.

Continue with this poem...