night of 8/2/2013

j and a have gone into the water to watch the waterski race. (observers have lined at a rope like at a marathon; the skiers will apparently be traveling under their own power.) there is a father there who has let his young son wander past the rope line and now is having trouble persuading him to come back. gigantic whales begin to crest around them. i call out to ask: are they really there in the water with the whales, or are they just watching them on tv? j doesn't hear me. a is drifting away from her. "papa" i call. j is mesmerized by the whales. i remember that's my name, not hers. "mama." a has drifted out of her reach and is going under. i dive in. a is going down and i swim down after her. she couldn't sink this quickly on her own; something must be pulling her! she is fading out of view.

night of 5/19/2013

in the dream i tell you how often i wake screaming at losing you, to find you gone. my heart thrills in the bed as it does with you almost there.

there was a floor-wide party and you're there on a staircase turning around, with an entourage, your mother and brothers and friends. i say, 'oh fuck.' everybody already knows. we go off to talk and my chest is always thumping. we say little. you listen, and talk, and say how things are, and this is a separate place. i tell you of the dreams. the dream ends there.

night of 5/16/2013

a strange house. maybe we're moving in. by the side is a garage where i'm sneaking a smoke. j doesn't mind i'm doing it but i'm looking down the deck walk along the house to see if my father arrives. rub out the butt and drop it, see another, can't collect them without scooping up a bunch of dirt and leaves from the floor.

then i'm upstairs putting the kids to bed. a is uncooperative and gets her fourth warning from me which is meaningless, three is the highest it goes. i hear j come in the front door and she screams about how the kids' behavior is making her look like a bad parent, as if to one of their faces, which is strange because the kids are upstairs with me.

night of 4/13/13

as our final action, we were supposed to have sabotaged the warships across the strait that separates this island. some of us have a rapport with animals. dolphins planting explosives on hulls. i'm close with the animal handlers.

we're done now and shutting the operation down. cleaning up the space that's essentially an office, despite being a small clearing on the jungle island. computers, papers, furniture. i come across a picture of a young native boy helping me build a rope bridge; he was special to me.

i haven't been too careful with security. i have classified stuff lying around in piles as we organize. the security people show up and i have a stack of documents that shouldn't be out. luckily, on the top of them there's some kids' books, they don't pay attention to it right away. i pick up the stack, hoping it would remain disguised as i carry it away. passing my friend in the next office/clearing down, i joke that now my day is easier, since the auditors are packing my things up and carting them away for me.

now i'm in the corporate headquarters looking for a place to stash the papers. some large rolling containers under a stairwell blocking a door. i roll them back. the door is only painted on. voices and shadows in the stairwell. the only way is up. on the roof there is a superstructure that i climb. i sit in the seat of one of the anti-aircraft guns, which i point down to the expanse of grass on the forward roof. i fire a single shot. the lights come on for only a moment, but surely the alarm has sounded. i scoot down to the grass, running a pattern that puts each of the motion-sensing lights on only for a moment, not enough to catch me on the cameras. to the edge of the roof, and over.

here is where a great face fronts the building, like Rushmore. i shimmy down to a dark nook on the brow. lights are coming on. i am waiting for the rescue i'd arranged. out of the dark sky comes my handler friend, clutched by an enormous bird. surrounded by other birds of all sizes.

[i was a woman.]

night of 8/20/2012

the person is possibly my brother. up in our bedroom we grew up in. i have an old (like, vt100 terminal) on, on the bed. i'm saying that i'm going to do a [thesis? paper?] the right way this time. usually i skim sources and just pull quotes. this time i will actually read every fucking one. i almost tear up saying this.

night of 7/24/12

We young teenagers in the neighborhood--and some of the smaller kids, too-are taking turns racing down a dry, bumpy decline, on some kind of saucer or skateboard. The neighborhood is out on a warm evening and chatting. The sled turns out not to be hard for me to control, and I tend to win the races.


The party migrates gradually down the grassy suburban block. Most kids stay to race a little more and then trickle over. [cut]

I rejoin he crowd sullen, and someone with me tells Janine that I didn't win, I "placed." J-- makes a sympathetic face. I tell her no, that was wrong: I didn't even place at all. J-- winces. She doesn't care whether I win, but knows it hurts me to lose.

Most are trickling home as the sky darkens. The rest of us have arrived in front of a Jewish temple. It is not a synagogue but a kind of indoor garden, where each member houses and tends a small symbolic plant on the rows of shelves. Many of the neighbors are members. They allow Gentiles to partipate. I'd thought all the slots were full but it turns out there is one left, and I quickly sign up. (They tell me to write the check to "Beth Israel 30 years old.")

Short shelves girdle the small temple, holding small boxes and plastic bags. There is one empty. I am given some nutritive soil and seeds, and then some shoots already begun growing. I seal the bag and replace it on the shelf. I feel better.

night of 6/13/2012

i am graduating. we've cleaned out the dorm room. i wander outside and round the corner of the building to a magnificent view, with an opulent outdoor stage overlooking the lush quad. i've never seen this before. i realize that i'd always left the building on the other side, toward the far more utilitarian classroom buildings. i go back inside and return to my hall--maybe forgetfully, maybe nostalgically. passing a room i see a calculator embedded in the floor. at my room is a fey blonde moving in, seems a bit bemused and a bit scared at my appearance. "don't worry! i'm leaving town. just wanted to see the room one more time. i had a wonderful year!" he humors me. "there's no calculator in the floor, though..." feigning disappointment.

i go back out and sit on the sloping grass in the beautiful quad. K-- and some other girls are descending the hill, wearing Disney princess costumes. they are stunning.

night of 3/20/12

J-- and I are back on the SF peninsula. We can't find where we're going because what was once El Camino has been chopped up into different names for each township. Like "Independence Avenue." We're unfolding a big map to figure it out.

I'm at the bazaar, held in a series of massive interconnected warehouses. Dad has sent me to find a "pineapple spark plug" for the car, so-called due to a split, splayed protuberance resembling a pineapple's leaves. There's an auto parts stall but I'm afraid to talk to the purveyor.

Now I can fly. Soaring home down near the 280, the scenic route. It's getting dark; harder and harder to see. Holding my arm before my face as I fly, in case I run into the indistinct branches, weaving between the dim forms of trees. I look down in the last light and see a doe and her young child. I overfly for a better look. The doe leaps, time slows, her nose at the arc's top rises to just before my face, I drop my arm down, both of us still, regarding each other.

night of 2/21/2012

I go to a room in the back of the house, looking for a place to hang my pictures. I find a room that ought to make a nice gallery: well lit by windows, white, nice wood trim. I discover that it's full of Dad's paintings. He must have forgotten to take them with him, as he did all the other paintings in the house, when he moved out and my family moved in. Some of the pictures are quite good. I begin taking them down and laying them on the floor. One big one, the one I noticed first, and liked, an abstract collection of dark moody shapes collected into a central mass on a dim background of sky, I notice is in three separate pieces, painted on wood, that I lay carefully so as not to scrape. Then I move on, further back and deeper into the house (which apparently is massive) to another door which slides open at the touch of a button, to reveal another gallery, expansive enough to be a small museum. I don't know whether this will also house paintings, or will be empty.

night of 2/20/2012

1 i need to shit bad. i've moved into a dorm or run-down hotel with some friends and the squalor is unbearable, like a crack house, and the toilet is so filthy i have to look elsewhere. after wandering first into a hotel, then into an airport, finding only detestable toilets, i find a men's-room sign that leads me into the back rooms of the airport, stacked high with parts and machinery. i pass through one plastic-curtained doorway after another until finally a clean toilet appears. later i am retracing my steps in order to lead some others to it. now, though, the big back rooms are crawling with processions of hulks, either robots or men in heavy armor. we are forced to hide, and eventually to arm ourselves and fight. [i've had the dream of a search for a toilet before; in addition to filth, they also tend to have an exaggerated lack of privacy.]

2 i am in the audience of a trial. the defendant has produced an advertisement that has been found objectionable. (it involves a boat somehow; maybe promising it as a prize.) the prosecution exhibits other ad campaigns that accomplish similar goals, but are more tasteful. nearing the end of the prosecution--it's not clear that there will be a turn for defense--the prosecutor announces that the case will rest at 2:00 precisely, and he points to a clock high on the wall. it is encased in glass. the time is a few minutes shy of two. the judge, on this signal, throws a heavy object at the clock case, shattering it. i raise my hand and say i'd like to ask a question. (i did this once before, during the case, and was told to wait.) i'm aware that questions from the audience are unusual but feel compelled to try. now i am allowed, but time is almost up. "why didn't you set aside any time to discuss whether the actions of the defendant were in any way illegal?"

night of 2/14/2012

back to the house i grew up in. he's there, somewhere, maybe upstairs, but i don't see him. this after the apocalyptic change, leaving the world is demon-haunted. we can be possessed, absorbed, from anywhere: a wall, a street, a pool of water. i must act the right way in order to avoid drawing the demons' attention. the walls and the shadowed corners inside the house are likewise inhabited. after all this time, though, they are no longer horrifying. i need only act the right way: i can; I know how. this is simply what one does to survive.

night of 12/7/2011

i am high atop the cliff overlooking the cove. one of the creatures, something like a seal, has made the plunge into the water below, rocks tumbling along its scurry, and the predators hurry after. i've got d-- on the radio."it won't get much farther. over on the other shore, the hills are littered with their skeletons." i think of the expeditions i've taken, alone, deep into the wilderness there; the unending beauty of the valleys.shortly, d--: "try to guess where i am. bet you won't find me." i know he saw me on the cliff and can see me now, down among the buildings that squat like huge anthills, strung with metal catwalks and walkways. i am trying to triangulate his position when k-- appears, sudden, radiant."i'm not looking for you any more," i tell d--. k-- approaches and plants a kiss on my cheek by the corner of my mouth. it is electrifying. she is smiling and turns, walks away.

night of 10/19/2011

E-- K-- and I have both become poets. (I ponder on how, of all of us, it's turned out to be we two.) We are finishing our manuscripts, I in a room off to the side and E-- in the bigger room with the others. We finish at the same time and trade. I think mine's a little better, a little more polished, and the poems a little better too, though the styles are different. Well done. We trade back. I look at the last page and exclaim--damn, I missed a typo. There's a bigger problem, too--the very last line is dry and uses big words for no good reason--but I can complain about the typo without having to admit that aloud. A shame; to end, to leave the last impression, with some imponderable, impenetrable bit of jargon.

night of 9/24/2011

1.
I am with a mother-like figure; my mother in a different life. We are walking. She has her hand down the back of my pants. I am increasingly uncomfortable. She starts to put a finger up my ass. At first I just try to wriggle away; eventually I am sobbing, pleading for her to stop.

2.
We are assembled in a wide open bar, seated like a cafeteria. There are a lot of Buffalo Bills fans here. We have gathered to wish the Visitor farewell. He is a sharp middle-aged man with a goatee. Mostly my head is down over my food. He comes to my table. "In my two months here I have never seen you happy." He takes out a large plastic bag, and from it a complex assembly of chrome piping. "A gift--I know you like puzzles...you were published in that puzzle magazine." He slides one piece together, enclosing a sleek blade within one of the pipes, where it snaps. "Now it is ready."

night of 8/15/2011

a wall with square gaps between the bricks. i recognize the pattern from a playground of my childhood. a roadside pocket of grass beside tall buildings of similar brick. i pass it driving to my old home by an unusual route. back then we'd be driving home, my mom and I, and stop to get cash from a drive-through ATM, but also pull over for me to play for a while. a moment of peace. the ATM has been replaced with another, from a newer bank; no longer brick.

there's an old house here filled with old things, antiques. the whole family, now, all of us grown, is visiting it again. i'd never realized when i was young that the house was owned by our family; i'd always thought we were just checking on it, once in a while, when the owner was away. a sense of an old, kind woman. shelves and bureau-tops of very old heirlooms, now dusty, dust in the air lit by broad tall windows. a staircase with comically steep and shallow steps leads to a high, locked door we'd never entered. an acute corner of a wall abutting the playground, beside a window, has been extended by a few inches and then plastered over.