I stood on the train platform feeling desperately sad, anxious and lonesome. It was nearing 10pm and from where I stood, it would be a full 90 minute commute back to my door thanks to getting to my last connecting bus stop five minutes early. I'd felt like I wasted my time and evening. In …
The Spook By The Door (Who Wouldn’t Sit Still)
If you use a Yoruba chant to open a public event, welcoming the ancestors to join and be welcome in the proceedings, how do you close the ceremony and tell the ancestors, spirits-- thanks for coming! shows over now, yawl can go back to the far reaches of heaven or wherever... I ask because a …
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The Best Hamburger I’ve Ever Had In My Life
The only time this week I could do it was last night. So after work I jumped on MUNI and rode out to Bayview Hunters Point. I felt sleepy; an unusual feeling this time of day, but since the new year I've been out every other night or so. Last week I did two poetry …
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We (don’t) Need To Talk About Kevin
By mid-day Sunday, Taqueria San Jose was packed. The gorgeous restaurant feels air lifted from Mexico and is bigger than you're currently imagining, with an outdoor fountain on the rarely used and kind of small brick patio. I ordered lunch and armed myself with chips and salsa. As I hit the door to leave, right …
This Is About Time
At the last minute, she sent me a text cancelling her previously offered ride to the gallery. But I was still able to get a timely bus and train to Berkeley. Too timely, in fact. I arrived exactly on time and didn't want to be exactly on time. These readings NEVER start on time. And …
Who Gave You Permission
The reading finished before 9:30. I left the bookstore and crossed the street. At the bus stop on the bench was a woman, whom I know, who bought a book off me but an hour before, whose house I've visited, and whose name I could not recall. Even now, thinking of that night last week, …
Wake Up Call At The Old Morgue
I read as part of Litquake SF this weekend in the Mission, reading with the group Cave Canem. I went with Stewart, my friend and fellow CC member, who reached out and asked to join me when I went to the city. We made it to the gallery exactly on time, but first mistaking it …
Grace Jones Live
I chose sleep over the blood moon last night and woke up to good news for a change. A poem I'd been tinkering with over the past few weeks surprised me by being accepted in a journal. I included a draft of it in a submission package a while back and its acceptance this morning …
By Way Of Autobiography… I’ll leave this 2007 entry right here
Only today did I realize the website Xanga saved my blog entries from 2007. I thought they were gone forever. I'm struggling to save them/upload them/ double check their worth. But since I haven't posted in a while, I found this and decided to share it. From what I remember, this was me responding to …
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The Thousand Yard Stare Of Love
a tall skinny older white dude stands with a short Mexican woman at the corner waiting for the light. he is talking at her aggressively and close. he loudly grabs her arm. her face is a patient megaphone. you'd think this was an argument. a fight. perhaps. but what if i told you the man …
The Dirty Rat 