Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Tuesday, April 15, 2008. I always find spare whiskers under my bottom lip the moment I step into work.The scissors are to large to reach them. This is your morning wake-up call.

(A pair of guys are loading up a car with equipment.)
I remember when there was an interest. That could have been my imagination. I remember potential. Potential is what is hidden, all of what could be. We blow it out early, rushed thoughts, half ideas typed into busted screens. What is the difference between caring and taking care? I am supposed to be learning from all of this. I've written a month so now I am going back. I'm going to write the next month before I post it. Hopefully, I will have new calls on May 1
. Hopefully, it will help me wake up.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Monday, 14, 2008

Monday, 14, 2008. Think of the ink you will save. This is your morning wake-up call.

(A pile of boxes lined up in a stairwell. Bodies in a rush coming down and curving around the boxes. They try not to tip.)
It's just not worth his time. The memorization, the craft, and the rain. Did he think about the energy it would take? They said it would take years off his life. They said we would gather around a hole in the ground, burying a time capsule no one would want to dig up. Morrison is the only body dug up for fame. All of the others were dragged into the moonlight for the sheets wrapped around them. Crown jewels never looked so good on corpses. The creak from the joints isn't comforting. Some days, you've got to get them while they are hot. Wake up.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

The Death of a Computer.

Wake-up calls will return on Monday.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Friday, April 11, 2008

Friday April, 11, 2008. If we both water the plant we'll drown it. This April sun won't strike up the rays needed to dry the puddles resting against the roots. This is your morning wake up call.

(A white lace curtain, sun streaming through it's holes, moves slightly in the breeze. Behind it are the shadows of branches, buds opening on end, moving in the breeze too.)
The spice rack is the most romantic thing in the kitchen. Scent activates memory like no other sense can. Like rain fallen on hot cement, waiting in the grocery store parking lot. Basil--my mother's hands radiating heat, close to my ear, trimming hair. Rosemary--the back of my throat, waiting by the front window for your headlights to slide across making shadows on the wall. Paprika--forgiveness on your lips. Oregano--my grandmothers kitchen, always; we'd sit on the dock and turn bread loafs into balls between finger and thumb for the fish, for the birds, for whatever wild life was hungry. Curry--a sun-soaked India; an elephant-soaked India; an India with Bombay; an India that has never existed. I'll drip the vanilla in the pan and simmer. I'll slice the aloe leaf open, dab my closest pulse points. Wake up.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Thursday, April 10, 2008. Join a facebook group in memory of the dead. This is your morning wake-up call.

(Walking against the current of a parade. Weaving our way through a marching band.)
I swore the moment it ended I would sell my things, buy a flight on into Anchorage. I'd pack some shirts, my jeans and my warmest coat, but leave most of it behind. I'd catch a bus to Seward, find work on some boat in the summers, eighteen hour days. In the winter I'd hole up in a room with a wood burning stove, my desk and my papers next to the shadeless window so I could record the movements.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Wednesday, April 9, 2008. When you choke it sounds like a laugh. This is your morning wake-up call.

(A boat rocks shaking up the view across the water.)
There are just as many taxis as there are gondolas in Venice. Just none as romantic. The floors are metal and you share your view of the fog-filled horizon with old women wrapped in scarves and travellers, bags surrounding them. They get knocked by the waves fighting against the handlers. Their forearms tighten at the strain of the rope that they loop on the dock, wrangling a steer. They take months getting accustomed to the water, the tiny miles of street, knowing all in their skin. The longer stayed the further out they can go and still feel the rhythm in the waves, the pressure against the docks. They make them move in strides. Some mornings I can feel them. Wake up.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Tuesday, April 8, 2008.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008. The littlest bird in the world lives in Columbus Circle Station. This is your morning wake-up call.

(Someones day planner, a hand holding a pencil drawing in the weather.)
We can watch the seconds clash. We can count them - one-one thousand, or two-mississippi. New Yorkers forgot to care about view. They built in front of the water. They set the bricks and mortar up on a hill and fired up glass to keep out the chill. It takes you half an hour to get to 20 yards of open grass. It's the kind you just know has been combed over by men in wet caps, welcoming in the spring with fertilizer, trying to make us shaking from small town's feel at home. But we never saw land thrown together. We knew it broken up and built from God's hands. We miss the brown tops of grass and sprigs stuck out of cracks in the cement. I spend 10% of my day underground. It takes twice that to shake it off. Wake up.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Monday, April 7, 2008

Monday, April 7, 2008. You really ought to get something in your stomach. This is your morning wake-up call.

(A full train rattles through the rails. It empties the moment it stops.) Wake up.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Sunday, April 6, 2008. Where does your bite land? Is it laying light on your tongue? Or, do you grind down molars in your sleep? Mine changes everyday. This is your morning wake-up call.

(Computer cord wrapped up on the floor mistakenly splattered in green paint. It is dry but can't be chipped off.)
I emptied my room of everything but my mattress stretched out in the center and computer keeping the place from getting quiet. I stalked out in the morning, buying brushes, stealing tape. I chose colors from plastic squares laid out in from of me. Green with grey like leaves muddied from puddles moved by the w
ind. I collected cans and walked them back to my room, popped open with my screwdriver and dipped my black brush into the lake. I held my wrist up inches from the wall. Wake up.


Saturday, April 5, 2008

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Saturday, April 5, 2008. Some nights I want to sleep in your living room because there are not windows and the daylight has to see in through cracks in the doors. Most mornings I can't. This is your morning wake-up call.

(Walking the block towards an intersection at night.)
We are shoved up into fences. We are beat with clubs by the heat turned up and on by sirens, circled lights, to take fresh parking space. In the street, free standing galleries never stood a chance, the sun never lit the room through open glass. Ply wood fills up the windows. We'd break through them if we could get away. Count up the diamonds, count out the bills, shove them through stiching in your pickets, into the loose legs of you jean. If we make a break, we run for it. If we trip to the station we are on our own. We'll wish for park benches with cop's club in our side breathing, Wake up!

Friday, April 4, 2008

Friday, April 4, 2008

Friday, April 4, 2008. Heavy brew. Some mornings I'd take the coffin over coffee. Can you see his cloak? This is your morning wake-up call.

(Digging through wallets and pockets and socks. Pulling out keys and gum, receipts.)
A hip hop prophet pops on the train, clinging the poles, tapping his thigh and stomping the beat to his song. It's gonna ra-ain, it's gonna rain. This time it won't be water, there's gonna be flame. Ha-Ha just a little gospel entertainment on the way to the house, folks. If you can spare a dollar, a smile, a hello... a Happy New Year, ha-ha... I am sure it'd be returned to ya. I imagine those that I know who would give up a dollar, at least a smile, and I recognize them as the people I admire. I still don't dare to flinch. Most morning's I forget to write it. Wake up.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Thursday, April 3, 2008. My hand shakes the pen I have pressed into my newly cracked notebook. I am bundled in my coat. By the time it is full it will be the end of June. This is your morning wake-up call.

(A school bus rounds corners. Children climb up steps too tall for them.)
Do you remember those mornings where the weather woke us by tapping on the windows, growling through the walls and lit the sky? Do you recall hoping through prayers for rain days, where busses wouldn't roll through puddles, splashing us in our cuff soaked slacks? The grass sat soft as marsh when we rolled out in front of the t.v., dragging our feet while getting dressed, too excited to shovel down cereal as the scroll shows counties under cars with water rushing to their sides. Brazos, Montgomery... we'd imagine Harris and we urge the screen to move faster. School districts were never far behind. Wake up.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Wednesday, April 2, 2008. I've been wearing the same shirt for three days now. I've been wearing these jeans for a month. This is your morning wake-up call.

(A series of quilts and women making them.)
Hide in the cabinet. Under sheets. Under blankets your mother folded away after the last of the winter's storm. Snow traipsed in the open window, settling on the bed side table, some hanging on corners now hanging from the shelf. Rest your brow up high in the corner, focusing your eye, centering in on the shadow. Let them flutter until you fall back through all of the pillows and ash, blankets still smelling of winter's drying eyes and the burning wisps from space heating one morning too long. It's time to break open the windows. Wake up.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Tuesday, April 1, 2008. We are all so busy. This is your morning wake-up call.

(Paint falls from the top of a ladder. We walk the streets looking for the stains in the cement.)
On November first, 1959, the population of New York City was 8,042,783. If you laid all these people end to end, figuring an average height of five feet six and a half inches, they would reach from Times Square to the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan. I know facts like this because I work for an entertainment company -- -- Base Entertainment of New York. We are one of the top five entertainment companies in the country -- last year we wrote nine-point-three billion dollars worth of theatrical productions. Our home office has 31,259 employees -- which is more than the entire population of Natchez, Mississippi of Gallup, New Mexico. I work on the twelfth floor.My name is J.R. Patterson - J. for Jared, R. for Robert -- however, most people call me J. I've been with Base for six months. My take-home pay is $690.70 a week, and there are the usual fringe benefits. The hours in our department are 8:50 to 5:20 -- -- they're staggered by floors, so that sixteen elevators can handle the31, 259 employees without serious traffic jam. As for myself, I very often stay on at the office and work for an extra hour or two -- especially when the weather is bad. It's not that I'm overly ambitious -- it's just a way of killing time, until it's all right for me to go home. You see, I have this little problem with my apartment --

(Thanks to Billy Wilder)