दरें ऑफ़ उन्देर्वाटर वोल्कानोएस.

self-published my book back in summer 2011. thought to post it here. only just now.

यू कैन बी अ फुल कोलोर कॉपी इफ यू लिखे.
(you can buy a full color copy if you like)

dream of underwater volcanoes.

rules of the game

the 1st rule is
there are no rules.

the 2nd rule is
never follow the rules.

the 3rd rule is
go fuck yourself.

le foglie.

leaves rustle their petal petticoats

coyly

exhaulted



reigning on rainbow high

til

that damned fickle sickle



a line of cells



pushes



one by one adds another finger

on another finger



and their feet go flying flowing falling

dancing free



laid to rest

a poignant gem

a bead of gold

on my chest

dark march. 15.03.10

i am a bit shy and i twirl the ring on my finger
holding words in my mouth like a fist full of vomit
ready to explode in tears running
down a hot red
face my
scab
throbs

a moon painting in spain.

and the she
gets uncomfortably close
colors blurring the lines till they
become muddy hues muddy uncomfortable hues
til one day she sees a light raises her eyes realizes
art is her meditation realization of truth of life of getting
back to real to feel to remember to forget she frowns a brown
frown at the colors she has made paints it black
starting from the neck of the dove who dared to
disappoint in hungry dark chocolate hues runs away
cries a glass of tears in your waterpark blues
homesick subterranean alien

back in the med.

these days have been a dream.
we found the fairyhole and jellyfished in the mediterranean sea.
we slept on the rocks under the full moon, made a fire and counted stars til we fell asleep to the gentle lull of the waves.
we made love as we watched the sunset and reflected in eachother's eyes at the mouth of a cave as the sea crashed at our feet.
we found a friend we were subconsciously looking for.
a super hippy yoga-art-meditation-spiritual nomad from north carolina.
we met her naked swimming in the sea, picked her up in the van and traveled in the last days of renata to the sandy beach, found a cane hut made for us to take refuge nap in the hot sandsun, painted watercolors with sand textures, ate cozze washed and blessed in the sea, learned new ashtanga yoga flows, gave thai massages and buried eachother in the sand.
we shared space, time, music, meals, laughter and love and spirit with a girl with less our years and more our gall and experience, an encyclopedia of incredibly precious knowledge and spirit.
we learned to appreciate eachother, recognize the comfortable place our love had grown into, and see where we would like to go, be inspired to the greatest depths of our souls. new goals new dreams new friends new possibilities and a handful of songs and seashells.

buca delle fate.

listening to my heartbeat
the sea
and all of a sudden it stops.
in midair midbreath midwavelength
drops off the charts off the radar off the face of the earth
and the world holds its breath in waiting
in wonder why
the white noise gone unnoticed in sleep upon ceasal disrupts the flow.
starts again.

oh beach house. gimme that nostalgia milkshake.

and im drowning
myself
in it tonight




silken rapture wrapped up in the


(you only give me what you dont want no more.)

seafear.

from 5 ottobre.


yesterday i sunbathed topless on the rocks, found a secret place in front of my apartment scaled a ladder down the side of the wall that keeps the island from falling into the sea, foot over foot down a tiny bit of rock on the side of the island to lay barebreasted in the warm october sun. i am terrified of swimming alone and petrified of submerged things in the water, and there are many of them... huge looming titanic rocks that cut your feet make your knees bleed and dance under the light of the seawater-filtered sun. i faced my fears and dove time and again into open sea, escaped into the open sea alone. opening my eyes under water is my very favorite thing in the entire world. i become a fish, i become beautiful, i turn back to sea my skin perfect brown illuminated neon under salty sun surrounded by diamonds bubbles my air the air of the world trapped dancing here with me in our new home. it is trippy as hell and continuously like dying. everything under water is circles of color, moving dancing fishes swim away from my hands. the rocks part and bare sand under sun is blinding turquoise.
something moves by me i cannot see but water swirls and i swim fast as i can roll breathless panting out of the sea.

the water is frigid but in a way that keeps you very warm. it is the freshest clean.

and i is the.

ghost of a ghost of a girl. dont be fooled its just the



(THAT YOU SEEIN)

lexington.

using the sharpened sharpened spit clean wipe rust
sharp end of the knife to cut open the scar on my knee


hurts so twisted lips in a beautiful painful painful musical wincing heart twisting grin.

i am a rock. i am an island.

i am america. big and wild and beautiful and too young for my own good. big dreams and the whole world my whole life in front of me.
to learn to laugh to grow to crawl.

happy birthday to me.

getting older
feels like my bones inside a bird cage
i'm carryin
clangin round a rattling
dangerously exposed robot form
bones white scraping and its fallin
fallin apart.

today i bought eggs from the neighbors' hens who run around in the yard with the giant bunny rabbit.

the girl on the train on the way to milano was studying naturapatia and food and told me about the chickens, sometimes two in the space the size of an 8.5 x 11'' piece of paper and how in these cramped quarters they often become violent and hurt or kill eachother and then i thought about the city.

stuff we done.

helicopters and birds that fly way down below. climbing a hill with its green silk hair
waving to find more castles in the sea in the distance beyond rolling near evergreen covered in vineyards.
we are sitting on the high castle wall fighting the wind trying not to fall and a bird sails wide an arc in the green the valley below.



-----------------




rows of apple blossoms cherry blossoms grass spring green and skies peppered blue.

blue and green and pink and white. pink and white. pink and white.

pink and blue and green and white. green and white. green and white.



-----------------



'i am extremely against extreme controversy.'

the difference between us.

i guess some people were born to lie in the field, inspired by dreamy shapes in the clouds and others born to run around them in frantic circles planting and reaping and moving on to the next field with such a speed that the cloud watcher feels only a breeze seemingly warmed from some faroff land.

3 sarahs.

part of me wants it part of me wants to want it and the other part of me wants nothing to do with it.

alagna. 24/03/10

i awaken to the steady soundtrack of the stream where i wash our clothes with handmade olive oil soap and leave them to dry in the three hours of sun blocked out most the day by the nebbiose montagne who echo avalanches shotguns all day long, who almost took my life yesterday while ice clamps on snow shoes weren't enough for my paralyzing fear as we traversed avalanches frozen nearly solid and raced the rising sun to safety on flat ground.
we are greeted twice daily by the smell and the bells of the sheep being herded by.
we get our milk fresh from local cows and boil it making a smell like a pasta meal and black pepper. we fill our water bottles from the fountain in the village, cold mountain stream water and we make love in the warm safety of our camper in the snow.

from biella to alagna.

we woke up on the side of a little hill town, next to the cemetery, the view of the alps bright and costume-backdrop in the distance. i wandered alone into the fogged morning with my camera and found myself in the cimitero with an old lady who introduced herself as 'renata' and showed me all her family members' graves, talked about how pretty my hair was and how old she was and how well i spoke italian. she left me in front of the grave of her mother, covered in bright perfumed daffodils she'd picked that morning from her garden.
elia and i ended up finally in biella, where we watched the world with a backdrop of white black ominous mountains, ate free ice cream, were served dinner of local deer, the best wine in the region, in the house of my dreams. a hot shower a warm bed. we drank one of the world's best beers 'menabrau!' in the oldest and smallest beer distillery in italy and had a panino from heaven. we swang high into the sky and laughed and screamed and giggled our cares away and marvelled at the now-beautiful clouded grey grey sky atop a hill in a village where all the buildings were older than 500 years, sometimes 700. we found a secret closed path, climbed a wall and still couldnt get into the well-guarded castle courtyard. that night we drove to novara with good beer in our stomachs and stopped renata by a river in the woods. we got high and abandoned our apples, pears and pecorino for eachother's embrace. i got lost inthe music and my own thoughts.
the next morning we went with matteo to his little farm where we tasted honey (with pollen!) from his bees and watched them working. i got sweaty in the cool grey spring air from tilling the earth, fighting combatting la terra with hand tools for hours, bruising my muscles and surprising myself at my own strength.
we made a fire in the stove and ate like fucking kings, and had hot chocolate from orgasms and uvette. we drank the water dripping from a broken kiwi branch and tasted the nourishment mother nature gives a tree. we breathed in wet heavy hanging silence echoing in an empty dreary wood. we tested our limits in a sauna heated by our fire and sweated out all that was left was peace and sleepiness. we tried every kind of meat and cheese novara's fiera had to offer (tartufa = truffle) and spoiled ourselves with fresh licorice root, nutmeg, gorgonzola and beer.
i took a walk and counted tree rings and sang at the top of my lungs in a forest where no one could hear or see or touch me and where i got scared of those wet hanging grey darkening woods and i forgot all the songs i had learned and let the trees and my body and my heart tell me the notes till they echoed and mixed with distant church bells ringing. i found feathers fluttered in a quick violent shuffle, a defeat, blue and brown and irridescence. i wandered away and wanted never to return but i was afraid. i found the forest of my dreams with grey blanket encircling rows of white birch trees cocking their heads to the sides to listen to the wind on the dripping air.
we were guests of honor at my first italian matrimonio and i spent a day mostly in silence again, watching the tree shapes drip in distant foggy fields who stayed the same luminescent shade of gray all the day through.
i meditated for the first time since chesney's and discovered that it is really interesting and i must do it more often.
right now i am at the base of monta rossa, between france and switzerland, with a liter of milk fresh from the local cow sitting in the snow behind renata while elia paints a collaborational gift for ettore who took grand italian care of us in biella. my stomach is growling as we've both kept to our fast today of only 3/4 of an apple each - a must after yesterdays' wedding gorge-session. we are making friends everywhere we go, learning about life and love and we have a camper full of food. i think we're good to go so momma don't you worry.

venezia.

the smell of fresh italian sweet drifting over the cobblestone streets takes me to sicilia takes me to summer.




walking city. walking surreal city.




we watched the city sink.

train ride

pass a forest of gridded new trees each bearing a white riga of snow balancing treacherously on the side. i want to make you come in my mouth.







clouds painted on a sea just for me.
i am tired in the sun but the gift is too beautiful to turn down, to close my eyes. in the moments i am writing i am searching for my camera to steal a moment and try to make a 2d permanent fixture of it.
i lose something dear to me.

heading to venice.

all i want is a room somewhere far away from the cold night air. with one enormous chair oh wouldnt it be lovely? lots of choclate for me to eat. lots of coal making lots of heat. warm face warm hands warm feet oh wouldnt it be lovely? oh so lovely sitting abso-bloomin-lutely still. i would never budge till spring
crept under me windowsill
someone's head restin' on my knee
warm and tender as he can be
who takes good care of me oh wouldnt it
be lovely?



a bit of red emilia-romagna, my reward for having missed my train and spending many euros more to catch another and im walking down the platform (stumbling?) when i see this short stump of a man blatantly following the steps of the woman in front of me-watching her ass in tight jeans as she walks by. without thinking i raise my hands smoothly in front of his little face and clap them
twice
hard
feeling the sting as i walk on.
he follows me to the next platform and i make him mousechase me until i hide in a corner, the fermented grapes of freedom loosening their effect.

oh, p.s.

fuck you. fuck you

and...

oh yeah.




fuck you.

senza titolo.

(i am not writing or speaking the context of this dream because it is simply too horrific to tell you)

he looks me in the eye from under the car and at that moment i suck in a breath, as scuttling and feeble as my half awake brain will allow me to do. i am screaming inhumanly
i am awake in my bedroom.




i listen to the rain outside, feel the fresh air coming in the window and lie tossing still in that fever, that fuoco di pensieri. i cannot shake his words, his deeds.



i realize i am headed to a place where waking up from these dreams is not a possibility.

people do things like this in afrika every day. twisted, fucked up, hannibal lecter on krak kokane fucking frozen dead girls.















i scoff at myself.


(i'm walking into the fire. if i can't handle a nightmare about it how can i handle when i cant stop the nightmare just by screaming?)

oh but i did handle it. im not falling apart. a scream, a tear or two and shhh.



this is just a practice run. test-go.



wait til you land on the moon to freak out about the aliens with their new instruments of war.

at dinner.

'ho bisogno d'una cambia completa'

the dog barks. her girlfriend is home.
and the wind slams the kitchen window
closed

a ferrara.

in una mattina con l'aria fresca dal sud che mi dice 'oggi avra' caldo per te' c'e' una nebbia ovunque che settles in the cracks of the cobble stones in the shape of endless repetitive gingko leaves amidst countless forgotten wine corks, discarded in a night of laughter rattling to rest under clicking heels.
organ plays and bells ring out from the catedrale walls and piccioni scuttle from bumping bicycle tires.
i perch myself on the wall of the moat surrounding the castle and eat my breakfast, the olives that liam and valentina collected and cured giving me ammo.
i spit seeds into the opaque green and wait for the cocodrilli.
they come slowly slowly i can't tell if they're moving or i am
and then the dark line running down the back becomes a giant fish.
so big i almost fall towards them and watch as they pool and swarm in a pile of fat thick strong yardlong carp.

scribbled between sketches of ancient egyptian symbols.

the ancient egyptians were superstitious bastards but coincidentally much smarter than we'll ever be.

touching myself over canopic jars.



your feet are tightly bound. aint no escapin death now.

i feel myself

and i am floating floating away.
complete disconnect from all of you and my feelings and i dont have to care about anything. anyone.

a light airy disconnected freedom.

lightasafeather stiffasaboard

i want to touch your feet feel your lines your bones
play with the one like that in my knee
touch your crumbling face
i am reselecting music on my ipod inches from a mummy.
i am disappointed your face is just a burnt ball.




usai.
i reach out and peel away the rough thin linen
reveal your teeth intact and offer you

a cup of tea a kiss for luck.

in the woods in tuscany.

in a night lit only by the stars of the universe and i mean all of them visible to a naked eye from italy
we close our eyes and still they are imprinted on the backs of our eyelids.
orione as always stands over me, sheathed sword
there's never a fight
the tiny dipper faces the big as it pours sweet cream
fills our awaiting buckets with milk.

the stonehenge affect.

new scars, cat scratches white 3 across my thigh. sicilian past lovers, eh? food so good i eat slowly savoring never slow enough. cobwebs in ice showers every 3, 4 days. clearing a dry throat in your orange and yellow bed. wanting to, seeing inspiration from you to go and do what i've always wanted, trusting like a child in the past record of the universe.
feeling love, warmth, you coming on my pubic hair and it sticking all together. the orgasm i had when we fucked how incredibly attracted to and jealous of you i am. i dont want to be another girl on your travels, like all the others in my own special way but i dont wanna be naive (and stupid) and think i am going to change your path or that i want to follow you on yours around the world. how you inspire me in a way that brings me back to the feeling i get when looking at your fotos.
the stonehenge affect.
earth moving. i felt it, the earth move, me changing history, when i cheated on jason.

horsemeathead.

the dream is a vision. a man in a black suit standing within two feet of me. i see him only from the waist up. his head is a horse head but stripped nearly clean, exposing fresh shining dark dark red meat. i can see the ribs. it is beautiful and i feel good.

(my current fascination with my own blood and eating horse for the first time)

one of the first days. w.elia.

i would stay in bed all day until a need drives me out. to eat create kiss. dare. sarebbo contenta a viaggare con te. certo sarebbe. penso forse ora non riesco immaginare una cosa piu' bella. e' meglio a scrivere i miei sogni o devo sempre dimenticare le cose brute?
voglio mangiare una torta di mela. voglio dare le mia cose via al piu' presto posibile. to give things up is often such a freeing feeling. i think its ok to give up anything if at the parting you can feel more free. like a boy, and art even, and naturally all those clothes i got hangin out in my huge suitcase.

sono arrivata.

non ha fatto freddo quando sono arrivata qua a milano. just to camminare in quest'appartamento meta' distrutto mi fa sentire diverso, essattamente lo stesso sentimento come sono arrivata sul un'altra pianeta. per questi a mi sembri lontano lontano e il mio cuore sente strano, un po' come fossei solo un sogno d'un anno fa'. so che era due, tre giorni fa' pero sembra in tanto di piu'.
che divertente nelle mie stelle: siete (Ariete) un segno di fuoco, impazienti e un pocchino egoiste, avete bisogno dei stimoli sempre nuovi.

incubo d'un fantasmo/maiale.

mi sveglio d'un incubo faccendo il suono d'un porco.


lo stavo faccendo ad un fantasmo con gli occhi bianchi chi mi stava guardando nella mia faccia.


i was in a house i had made a sign for and placed on the front yard, something about 'if you want to see this house, we are interested in it and we can show you.'
it was a house cosi' (drawing of 3 story 2 window wide highrise apt complex) and red brick.
i woke up in bed with dario and couldn't move, could feel my body being pulled up towards the top of the bed, over my pillow. i thought my body was being consumed by ghosts and i half awoke to think it. i tried hard to move but couldnt
some other stuff, scary stuff happened
but the next i remember is me trying to slap dario awake and say we gotta go dario,
this isnt our house but he wouldnt wake
and finally he did but said
'i would but there is a groundhog staring standing at the foot of my bed'
but he really said 'grandpa' though i tried to make a joke out of it because i was so scared.
dario was smiling
i could sense his teeth in the dark and then i felt them with my fingers
and it scared me even more
i thought he was possessed.
i bit his nose hard but afraid to draw blood and attract the sharklike demon energy but he laughed and said 'they bit it off so many times i had to have it sewn back on' speaking back on what was about to happen.
i tried to get out of bed and was face in face with 'the grandpa,' a bald man of 35 or so with eyes and head covered in white makeup. i snorted at him to scare and mock him and awoke like a pig, wanting to wake dario.

makeupburns.

tears runnin down fresh clean makeup face.

chemical burns.

dont cry for me you selfish one. just let me let me go.

happy new year.

sitting with
a need for change.
only this time i have already changed almost everything around me and the best i can do is listen.

dreams. ghost.

ascending stairs at the reynold's building which is much more grandiose than the actual.
i run into a boy as he walks in the door. he vaguely resembles tim wilburn but only in stature. we talk and he tells me his name
we shake hands.
he tells me the answers to my questions.
then comes a couple of girls and he is lost in the confusion.
they tell me
he was a ghost.
i end up outside and i am trying to return, to find him
to remember what his name was and what he had said to me.
i find it odd that i shook his hand even though he was a ghost.
i end up in a huge room that resembles a lighthouse room but ginormous. canyon sized.

there are stairs leading in every imaginable direction and stopping in the middle of nowhere.
i am climbing them, maybe with some of my family.

i hear a dog barking there is shuffling the room fills with churning freezing sea water greygreen and envelops the stairs which writhe and rise from the water with me holding on for dear life, just before descending to crash into the sea.

i awake. my sister's dog is barking.

roll.in.

whenonorwhyweget sicka this shit
just sick of it.

rollin back and forth reelinin and up down out round the blue the navy blue memories
stuck and lurching in a bucket rusted out with guts
rusted round the windowless room
that same sick fucking feeling
i am sixteen again
i am twenty three
i am sucking thumbs again
i have lost my.

hoping my.

silence will speak louder than my god damned words.

rainingonsunlight.

it is raining on sunlightdrenched green mountains and over a flat sea tagliato con le onde bianche it streaks like waves across my eyes and i realize how much i've missed the sea. i have married the sea.
god i love it when nature is bigger than me. a crumbling castle set alone on the edge of an island where i want to swim to run in the deep cold sea.

flying into sicilia again.

the brightest double rainbows i have ever seen and they are following me. a day that seems we have all died.
and gone to heaven.

curioustop.

why when i stopped being a child did the highlights magazines stop being interesting?
why did i stop being curious about knowing?
every day?

lost skeleton key.

i am wondering about all the skeleton keys over time which have gotten lost. ancient iron fades in flavor gives way to the soft thud of a fist and delicate intricacies, secrets are no more. sacred becomes public till
the chain link fence.

grove.y.

a flock of seagulls fall on an open empty field. an orchard of grid baby trees wrapped in plastic bags make me smile. white shakin in the sunlight
followed by an orange grove still in its prime.
fields of fresh raked soil littered with stones.

etna.

lontano lontano vedo le montagne nella distanza, traces of chariots aflame with silver piumage. is it etna? is it paradise? i imagine myself as a warrior, beard long and waving, rising up through the front of the crowd screaming 'ANDIAMO!' my sword shaking like a fist in the face of god.

smoke.

smoke over the city. it is a day with breeze siphoned from a blackberry covered hill drawn in colored pen scratches in a book of my childhood which once belonged to my mother.

ortigia.

skeleton sailboats have the wings of a dragonfly and they shoot
buzzards across the sand.
sun is shrouded in salt and sees me through tear fogged eyes set in glass.
i am the smallest sailboat dripping bright blue perched on the horizon line teetering on the edge of this flat world made of rock and salt water.
filling my nose and greeting me with seaweed stained rusted air.

fisheyelenz.

i hate having 'cum' in my hair.

it tugs and pulls like eighties hairspray.

and dont think because i'm looking so deep in your eyes that i'm looking so deep into your eyes.

my tits look much bigger in that fisheyelenz.

i looked into the sky and frowned for you.

everyone knows the sea is alive. the surface is the skin pulsing rocking boiling bubbles are the blood beating
underneath lies the world in waiting.

paramecium.

born from collide tide rock
paramecium
bubbles and scum
drifting back to sea
a short-lived journey.
they are losing ground as we watch
pop one by one lose flagellum lose momentum
row together join together
and with this one they touch ankles for a breath
then slide and separate sing alone for a beat dance with another who gets too close
they form an elephant
then scare eachother
into popping all over the
green losing face disappearing and
returning to the waves.

proprio round world.

when this lazy sun refuses to light our day any longer
i am watching the stray fallen on the searocks hidden in a hole
waiting for enlightenment patiently waiting to die
hanging contrario high above the sea the sky sets on chemical fire neon pink
from here i can see how proprio round the world
proprio pink on white sails drift away to the horizon slide up into the sky pass over my outstretched hand singing
spherical onde di sale loosen themselves from beneath the eyes gravity pulls them up over the iris the sky turns to kaleidiscope window pane covered in slow moving salted rain
oil pastel clouds
watercolor blur
i can't focus on the beauty
i only see ship deep
over the shoreline we go eyebrows off the tips of brown hair meters away they are pulled up and away back to the salty sea we return
in this moment i know nothing
but that everything is good

i am waiting for someone to come push me off the edge

here comes the sea breeze
it will catch me as i fall on the way back home

under the sea above the moon.

i have never seen a star
twinkle
like that.
red and blue and green
like an old bubble light on the christmas tree of giove.
i have just danced an expensive meal which i was paid 30 euro to enjoy
to the point of nearly vomiting.
sea breeze makes cool my head from the sweat.
out here is nothing but falling stars though i've run out of things to wish for.

the first scratch on a new notebook.

the things that are true and the things that we say are true.

cars.

we're moving slow past an accident and we're
singing to the ambulance
saying
oh my god
i dont care about the car
and oh my god i dont care
at all.

-now now, every children. cars.

carpeted bathrooms.

dark teal green carpeted basement bathrooms with full sized wood-panel sided outdoor jacuzzi. reeking of flooded bathroom carpet mold. i'm in the hot tub in my bathing suit and my best friend's new best friend is pissing in the toilet right in front of me and complaining about her period. i listen in fascinated eager disgust and lie again about having started mine, oh a year ago or so.
under my now equally dingy wet bikini top lie pads of synthetic fiber and the boobs that just won't come.

conquilli.

scraping away layers of fingernail i dig into the tiny craters to collect friends.
push them pull them roll them this way that until they break free.
some still awake.
they lie in my palm clutched tightly and fall open like flowers dying on a battlefield
their alien friend eyes search me for food.
i am doing them a favor by greatly increasing their chances of getting laid
and they are doing me a favor as the only child in the woods collecting fairies to sing songs to make friends with.

counting sailboats.

my job today is to sit with seagulls on the rockshore and count horizonbound sailboats pouring out of the bay. 1234567 8 9...16. 12345 6 7 8 ...19.123456789101112...14.
the wind beats like a thunder drum the taut skinsail and echoes ripples out across the sea surface. i want to be a sailboat so i can be cute and small and steadfast off the edge of the world. i want to proudly be the simple intriguing shapes of a child's first drawings and change colors when the sun is hidden by a salty cloud.

goldmoon.

ritually collected dormant snails, pried them out of their craters, ripping the dried mucous sealant free, to plop the whole pile together in a shallow pool. white red green blue brown violet orange plaid spots i try desperately to focus on the tiny colors of pretty as bubbles stir to life. one or two climb out over the others have sex push them further under water and set out for a dry hole of their own, contentedly alone as the sun is released from the grasp of lethargic gargantuan pockets of sea tears.
as the sea breath moves like a growing blanket over the water turns cerulean and sputters under its touch. crystal liquid turns silver as it falls over the pitted surface of goldencrusted moon.

etna after the first snow.

gelato ballena etna.
god save the choco drizzle crown.
she almost disappears amongst her lazy low-lying cloud subjects, her imaginary mountain range. she menaces behind a bleak cityscape. looming as if just a step away but in reality over 100 kilometers. i want to march to the pinnacle sink my eyes into the burning churning pit and throw myself arms wide inside, a sacrifice to the ice cream gods.

photos of dead people.

photos of dead people when they were alive.

i killed a man.

i killed a man. a black man. a big one. i broke into the school and my mission was destruction and he was there all alone. i remember a gun and blood on my hands and a feeling that i had to hide but i couldn't stop. i didnt want to stop. i busted through the back windshield of his black car with my bare fists just for the hell of it and watched the blood surface and flow away on my knuckles. i woke to scratches on my fingers.
an infinite staircase iron with wooden planks broken broken broken destroyed as if by my destructive hand but i didnt do it and im trying to descend them to escape before the cops come.
lies and alibies.

insideoutumbrella.

the seaside is littered with umbrella skeletons, old skin hanging off to one side. abandoned like virgins raped and beaten by the sudden whims of a sea who knows not his own strength when stricken with fever, the tempest.

punishing.

this is why i sleep more when i'm depressed and fall right into that big pit. this is why i have the list of things i can do which could pull me out of it and strictly avoid them.

this is why i keep ridding myself of hair. to hurt her. to punish her.
how dare she be pretty.
how dare she be happy.

fuck living by the sea.

fuck living by the sea. that is not enough.
i want to live IN the sea
i want to die in the sea.

senza titolo.

lolling tongues out of mouths the sea moves into me. gentle surprising strength. im a ballerina thrown to shore. lazy and with decision the white kittens sail above the sea and all are powered by the listless whispers of the air sinking over me.

watermelon style.

i swallowed the sea and it grew watermelon style in the urn with the churn of my stomach is squeezed POP! explode implode make diamonds shower out of my skull.

button button who's got the button?

it is my belief that there exists a group of sicilians who walk around with their shirts hanging open tails flapping in a breeze about their waists. flies undone, coarse night-sea black hairs spilling onto the street
for i collect their buttons after the flapping rhythm of their uncaged clothing has long passed.

whale.

i plunge into cold as soon as i reach the edge, sharp crater rocks invading the tender soles of my feet just before liftoff. i am alone and the wreckage of the ship looms, an island on my right. boulders and open sea to the left. i am a frog machine efficient and fast fighting the demons of my imagination. they are sounds underwater, my heart in my ears magnified by the thinness of the atmosphere through which i face my fears.
the stairs chiseled out by a bearded grecian before my bedtime story pull me effortlessly onto the whale. she floats 20 ft out of the water but her tail descends at an alarming rate a slide into the forboding side, the open sea.
curiouser and curiouser.
tiptoe over squishing seabeds and sink deeper into water the titanic struck by iceberg i am.
pockmarked are wells open in the hull that fall forever into turquoise. it is not the fish i am terrified of, they are no bigger than a finger
but the feeling that under my feet is sea for miles deep and before me nothing but an infinite infinite infinite horizon.
i am standing on the edge of something huge.

sugar substitute.

i'm the new and improved factoryborn sugar substitute screaming quietly round the cellar in your cup of lukewarm tea. you can jab your silver spoon at me till your fingers are red and swollen i will never disappear. you cant get rid of me you'll have to swallow me whole.

korrecting my karma.

i may look generous but dont be fooled. the shit i stole for you means much more to you than the shit i stole from you means to me.

nutella. tivu.

italians are addicted to nutella. stefano says, 'you know when you watch a sad movie and you get depressed its perfect to sit down and eat the entire jar and then you feel so much better.'

what a girl.


dario saying 'i hate to leave the past in my mouth, so i have to rinse it out.'
he was talking about brushing his teeth, which he referred to as 'one of my favorite things.'


my tunisian neighbor came to me and said 'you must put one of these satellite dishes on your balcony.'
neither of us speak italian well, so i misunderstood him. 'i dont like tv.' i told him.
he said no no i need it for my tv. he has lived in this apartment for 3 years with his satellite dish in the same place, and i hear his crappy arabic sitcoms with dubbed in laughter when he's not working, nearly all day. he says it doesnt come in clear enough and needs to face inside the island, which it cannot do from his house.

i told him tv is bad for him anyway. his argument was that it was arabic tv. i said that dish will be ugly and i dont really want those waves going through my body. he said you can close the door to the balcony.

i thought about the food his wife makes me almost every night for dinner which is perfect when i come home from work and am starving and have no food in the house and said, 'come vuoi.' as you want. whatever.


later i came out on the balcony to watch for stefano on his bicycle and found my neighbor out there, staring hard at my balcony with a roll of wire in his hand.

oh, tunisians and television. dedication.

insurance is power.

stefano and i drinking white wine in the afternoon over a newspaper, headline shot of a boy in salute with trumpeting men behind, a military procession. stefano points to the article and says 'look. six men died, our men died in iraq fighting the war YOU started.'
my eyes grow hot with knowing guilttears and i shoot back angrily, 'i did NOT start that war.'
'oh excuse me, the president YOU elected.'
'you're an asshole.'
'oh excuse me excuse me the president you elected TWICE.'
'you are such an asshole.'



why is italy fighting in that war anyway? he says we're allies you saved our ass in the second world war and now we have to go along with every war you start which is every couple of months. iraq! okay... afganistan! iran! okay...

he says i was almost home. for a couple of months after the second world war, there were so many us troops in sicily who had set up shop to go north and kick hitler's ass, they wanted to make sicily the 51st state. then some shit happened with the CIA and the project was aborted.


i went today with marilia and the three babies to the doctor. we didnt pay for parking, parked right in front of the building actually. there was no one in the waiting room, which was clean and modern and uplifting to walk into. the walls donned beautiful colorful abstract paintings and collages. we were sent immediately back to the doctor's office, which was also the examination room. this sounds much scarier than it was. it was an office with mismatching eye-pleasing furniture, some toys, old style scales and a table with doctor's tools in a cute kiddie toybox. he had a medicine bag that opened down the middle like those in the westerns. he was kind of old, talked for an hour with marilia about the children's eating habits, teeth pain, and development in walking, and examined each of the children thoroughly. the room was large and reminded me nothing of the sterile, stifling doctor's offices in america which make you sick just by sitting in them.

since this was a private visit (he is a public doctor but marilia lives outside of his geographical boundaries), she paid him. for the 1.5 hour visit, and three patients, it was 80 euro. he wrote her 3 prescriptions for the babies, and helped us carry them out to the car, using his umbrella to shield them from the rain.

when we got home marilia called the farmacia and told them what medicine she needed. they delivered it about 30 minutes later. faster than most pizza places. and free.

what the hell is so scary about any of that? that is the best you can get even if you want to pay for it and it is still much cheaper MUCH cheaper than america. if you're going to pay taxes anyway what the hell should they go to? public education is a joke in america and roads should be a given. what has your government done for you lately?
why are americans pretending they have money to throw at insurance companies? why are they resisting using their tax dollars to help everyone lead healthy lives?

for a country that prides itself on being a step ahead of the rest, america is really behind the times.

and for a christian country it sure is a selfish one. fuck helping my brother out with my tax dollar, he'll abuse it anyway.


ivo summed it up in a thick italian accent while we watched obama on tv. i asked him 'why dont the american people want free healthcare?'
'insurance is power!'

disney.

it was raining today. my super modern rainboots carried me outside anyway, where i had to do my shopping at discount prices at a local supermarket. my hair was frizzing but perfectly cut under my yellow umbrella.
while waiting for the bus, a car drove by and swerved to avoid a cat, driving right into a puddle of wet, soaking me under my umbrella, and my groceries. the driver immediately got out to check that he hadn't killed the cat. i sneezed and shivered in the cold, and this strong beautiful man turned and saw me standing there, dripping wet with my groceries.
a bright toothy smile flashed at me and i melted like a bowl of sugar left out overnight and covered with beads of morning dew. i looked into deep blue eyes and didnt realize we were floating towards eachother, traffic stopped behind his sports car. he came close enough to smell, my favorite shopping mall cologne floated into my nostrils and i nearly swooned. this was the man i'd been waiting for all my life. he took me in his arms and tilted me back, planting the kiss of all kisses upon my awaiting lips and i knew we would be together forever.

then god came down with his angels and blessed us.

and a couple months later santa claus was very good to me, filling the stockings with expensive lingerie and an engagement ring. we married in a church by the sea. elvis came back from the dead and sang during the reception.
i was a virgin my wedding night. and god came down again from his throne and fucked me first, a gift for keeping my legs closed all this time. god and i begot a son, of course, because a daughter would be weak and lame, and this became the son of god. my husband wasn't jealous though because who can be jealous of god? also because we are never jealous of eachother.


then i woke up and realized that hollywood and disney are the devil and create stories entirely for setup and disappointment. the love story of amelie, the love story of beauty and the beast, i dont care who the fuck it is, it doesnt turn out that way. show me the end, the gruesome bloody truth, the years after of confusion and doubt. the death.

castles by the sea.

empty brand new interstate stretches repetitive patterns of metal
a hideous beautiful factory for a mile by the sea spewing cancer into the air surrounding barges on the horizon with power. fog.
neon green planted in a perfect grid shimmer in wet sunlight.
empty castles, does ANYONE live in this endless expanse? shells of stone homes come at me from a dream a lifetime before.
chameleon sand colors dirt in the hillside no, a house it is a home it was.
an abandoned castle with four fancy bishop spires charcoal dark graffiti by the... ocean? looks like it today, looming out of the fog brushing on sandy shores, extending in the shape of a waning moon.

the sea is the ocean now.

a single light in a forgotten house in the middle of a distant dark field. the sea is the ocean now, a black void after city lights, a hole into the earth from which you can see everything into which you can see nothing.

the smell of a catholic italian.

i want to take a photo sing a song of the smell of a catholic. italian.
the breath of a catholic italian.
the scent of the aged
perfume of mass
incense
stale.
bread.
skin spots.
belly laughs or pursed red lips.
fermentation.

healing lips.

when i dont speak for a day i can feel my lips
growing together
healing i'd have to pull hard to break the seal break the spell break the silence

agrigento

la citta dove abita il mio amico dario e agrigento, a vast steeply rising hill covered in trees with a jetson's highway on stilts falling out creeping out of the sky the trees grow into apartment buildings of varying towering height, pale shades of yellow and peach.

pieces out on heavy bear

http://www.heavybear.janecrown.com/HB3/HeavyBear.3/ click here.

rusty seaweed.

the pilgrimage of rusty seaweed jellyfish from their deep sandy home.
released from the rocks they float through the pressure of deep sea
to the surface
just under the surface
caught in a current find themselves trapped
between the bumpers
one and two
in and almost out
forever more.

Kali jones and her stories.

‘he seemed like a nice man. He had two wives.’
Eating sheep’s brain with the man of two wives.
The sheep’s head offering in a village where she was shown the video of the calves with their throats slit, slipping all over the blood-covered terrace, bleating bleeding. The children parading the heads on sticks in the streets.

On the terrazzo she shows me the marks in the tree from the cat years ago who finally got to the family of baby birds they were protecting. In her sweet light accent she speaks of the bits of nest and feathers. All that was left.

I tell her she reminds me of flannery oconnor. The punchlines always in the gut. Her response is the story about the pregnant female cat who used to hang around on the terrace, beautiful one day she showed up with an empty belly, alone. Sometimes when cats give birth they are so weak that they have to eat their babies. Especially in siracusa.




Standing in the kitchen in a breezy marmalade nightgown, Italian coffee boiling over into the fire on the stove, facing me with hands clasped pressed over her face, suddenly remembering a dream.

The dream of underwater volcanoes.

I am swimming along on the bottom of the sea it is like when im there with my eyes open but with much less color. Switch to view from above the water is turbulent and like cutout shapes of waves but dark. There are a few people bobbing. A warning. I told you so.

It starts and I am fascinated, there hovering above the seafloor and it starts, a bubble under the surface of the sand. It grows.

And into a caterpillar and tall and a flash of one and two it explodes jelly fire shoots into the water into the sky.

People are hurt.


A man afterwards shows me the small fresh wounds on his finger, focusing on a particular one on the side. The same spot where I woke up to a terrible zanzara bite.
He says it just kept bleeding all night and they extracted the live ember that was embedded there, stewing and churning and burning its way through flesh.

His finger was emitting blood like a volcano emits its blood.

the sea's alive.

the sea's alive and i hear its breath as it heaves a sigh, a moan
back and forth
makes love to the rocks all its life.

all its motion all its energy bent on the moving in moving out
coming in coming out
and the collision
myself against myself
sea against sea

caught between the rocks the in and out
somewhere between one and two
a mass of confusion wraps around eachother tries to hold on but has nothing to grab onto

is a sieve.

thrash.

i thrash about flail my way to my favorite rock and cling there laughing at the ferocious waves as we play the game
they knock me loose

to make a swarm of bright white and swirl in them. something like an lsd trip.

the red queen.

the things i keep forgetting about italy...

friends walk down the street looking like lovers. girls hold hands, occasionally i've seen men arm in arm, and men who greet eachother with a handshake and continue to hold hands while having conversation.

i find the european cheek brushing, occasional cheek kissing exciting, but prefer for my friends to give long tight american bearhugs, occasionally accompanied with cheek kisses, that are actual kisses instead of the usual cheek to cheek brush, fake kissing.

the lunchtime glass of wine. how nonna gave me thick sweet syrupy orange liquor at breakfast and was disappointed that i wouldnt be her drinking partner all day.

i always take cold showers. and they are fast.

how cheap freshly made bread (80 centessimi for a perfect loaf), water (22 centessimi/ 2L), fruit and veggies (i buy handfuls of them at the supermarket for well under a euro), milk (59 centessimi per 1000 ml) and cozze (2 euro/kilo) are.

how nobody uses air conditioning even if they have it, and the few who do use it do so with the door wide open.

how those living on ground floor keep their door wide open and you look into people's kitchens and living rooms as you walk past them on the tiny street.

women do not change their last names when they get married.

divorce was only recently legalized in italy. until then a man had many wives, instead of a wife and ex wife(ves). still the term ex wife is not used, rather 'my wife,' for each of the two or ten.

people give you rides when you ask them for directions to a place.

when the current is against you it takes all the swimming you can do to stay in one place. it reminds me of the words of the red queen.

cut foots.

the air here is cooler now that the storms have come. the sicilians call it 'freddo,' cold, which means for us kentuckians that it is not hot. the air is still warm but at night it is just cool enough that i am glad to be wearing long sleeves and long pants. i watch a lightning storm illuminate heavenly clouds over the sea and the veins of light spread and flash in my brain reminding me of my mortality and my smallness in this world and i am filled with excitement.

the rainy season has begun and i will need to buy a pair of rubber boots very soon. the drainage here is not much better than in lexington but more in the way that it puddles in uneven streets instead of washing toothin college girls down drains.

i feel safer here than i did in lexington, despite the mafia, who doesnt touch women let alone foreigners who arent land or business owners. i walk in the streets and can feel at home. my apartment also helps me feel that way.

there are chocolate hazelnut biscotti, cookies i eat after almost every meal. i bought a kilo of them for 2.5 euro, and they are lasting me a good while. it feels nice to be able to satisfy my sweet tooth. at home i almost never bought sweets. i also have on two occasions splurged and spent 2.5 to 3 euro on a bar of modicana chocolate, once with bergamot and once with pistaccio. it breaks into four little bars and it is so strong and crystallized in your mouth, it makes a symphony of sound while you chew and you are overcome with happiness. sometimes i reward myself with this.

the photo that kay crump took of my sisters and i when we were 13, 16 and 19 sits on my nightstand. it has been displayed in all 5 of the places i have lived so far.

i awoke this morning and felt very very far from home. it is unbelievable to me sometimes how far i am, and that i actually made it here.

i am very blessed to have such good friends as kali jones and stefano. these are the kind of friends i had in america. strong and true. it is a very good feeling.

last night before my date with davide, kali jones made photographs of me behind a semi-transparent screen. they are reminiscent of those jim hall made years ago, and are really beautiful and exciting. im privileged to be part of her artwork. she has a beautiful mind.

i have succumbed to the european habit of the bidet.

my tunisian neighbor often brings me heaping bowls or plates of ramadan-approved food when i still have her cute bowl slowly being emptied of food in the fridge from yesterday.

stefano gave me some italian music so i can learn the lyrics. it is actually not bad and i am surprised. i often hear britney spears, r.e.m., radiohead, the eagles, and other famous american music spewing from bars and street-level apartments and passing cars and have yet to hear a good song on the radio or from many italian people. they often like the worst american music that is made, or music that i liked when i was twelve. (cranberries, nirvana, shaggy and tupac to name a few)

my feet are more often than not in the process of healing one or two semi-deep small wounds from the rocks. skin dangles from a toe or heel and i walk kind of funny for a couple days, frequently reminded of the fun had while frolicking amoungst the rocks and waves and brine. i tell stefano if you come away from the rocks without a wound you aint doing it right. we compare wounds when we climb breathless from the sea. his skin is very very dark and his blood looks neon against dark brown toes. i can always see him when he has beat me to the rock, from a couple hundred feet away. i merely look for the darkest, skinniest body amoungst the tourists.

i feel like i have a million pets sometimes, as there are stray cats galore and stray dogs as well, though the cats will rarely let you get near enough to touch them. in siracusa as well as roma, and apparently all of italy, people are fools for cats. they do not spay or neuter their animals.

marilia has said they will hire me back again for the week as well, for the rest of the month of september. i will be paid 6.5 euro per hour on the weekend, for about 13 hours, and during the week will work 4 hours, and she said we will work out a price for the week. i told her last month's pay will not do this time, as it was well below minimum wage and i have to eat. i am however very excited to have work again, and still may receive a call about teaching english.

the streets here are so tiny. the largest of them in ortigia about the size of the smallest alleyway in america, others just large enough for a vespa.
everyone hangs their clothes outside, and you have to duck around underwear as you walk down the alleyway.

you also have to dodge dog poop as it is more often than not where you will be stepping in the street. i take my shoes off at my front door and sweep and mop every couple of days.

all the houses here are hundreds of years old and are crumbling every day. i eat on my balcony and hear plinks and watch dust pile below the wall which reveals its many layers, down to the metal gridded structure where the concrete was poured. our houses fall apart and we sweep them away, every day.

there is a building here where kali jones pointed out a large crack running down the exterior wall. it was one of the few buildings to survive the earthquake of such and such year 600 years ago and this crack is the battle wound.

i found that if i go to the edge of my balcony and lean out and look up the street i have a sea view. it is larger than some of those my family and i saw, advertised in florida as 'ocean view homes,' and i feel very lucky.

the sea is not the ocean. this is something i only learned by coming here. it is heavier, floats you easier, the salt is gentler in your mouth and on your skin when it dries there and the water a bit sweeter. it is less apt to giant waves and more often than not rather calm. i never saw a rocky ocean but i like the rocks in the sea better than sand. they cut your feet but you never bring them back with you into your home or car or into your eye when you shake out your towel.

i started my compost pile about a week ago and have since upgraded. i found a huge tin used for palm oil near a garbage can, clean as a whistle and makes a good drum too. i dont really have much to add to it in the form of vegetables right now but then again i dont have much to grow either. i save my 2 liter water bottles, cut them in half and use them length wise for planting olive pits and tall-ways for things like random seeds i found in roma.

i have my water bottle planters sitting in a wooden crate i got from the market. they throw many of them out each day and they are very decorative and charming, as well as useful. i am now using one for a bookshelf and hope to get another soon to use as a table when i eat on the balcony.

i sigh sometimes as i miss everyone, very much, and at times am a bit homesick and lonesome. nevertheless, this stuff is so nutritious i may never have to brush my teeth again.

no but really. a world outside of my world has opened up and i am apt to explore it. i'd be a fool not to.

lacrima.

lacrima delle madonna. the tears of the madonna.

there was a neighborhood here where a picture of the madonna got wet one day. a scientist tested the liquid and declared it human tears. a miracle.
they bulldozed the beautiful old neighborhood and built a hideous jagged-edged raincloud colored teepee, complete with statue of mary at the highest peak. it can be seen from most anywhere on the island. everything is metal and concrete, reminding me of the back wings of rupp arena.
i see a sign for il cripto, the crypt and i am intrigued. i cross myself in the old habit with the murky holy water and wonder who has spat and pissed in it.
an uber modern church setup in a dark circle of concrete, chairs in rows, the seats of those more like the Infallible Father akin to Star Wars thrones.
for no apparent reason a thirty foot long rock juts awkwardly out of the conrete floor, seats set around it in complete ignorance.

i scoff at the souvenir shop, dare someone to tell me to leave for bearing my shoulders, click pictures, digital sound echoes, and dip greedy fingers into another vat of holy water. for everyone likes free shit and isnt that what catholic churches are good for anyway? cool water sifts through the hairs on my forehead, dip into a nostril, drip from the tip of my nose. free crackers and wine and should their god be real, a free blessing from him.
the sirens echo inside and eventually the ultra creepy reverberation of children's, father's voices as if deep in a cave, mixed with the groan of traffic.
they are conrete ghosts.

it may be muffled underground nuns singing or a cd playing or the man i saw dressed like gandhi with a cloth around his waist but they sound like pigeons cooing and flapping their wings. the main floor is underground and smells of mold and mildew. behind a curtain i find darkened closets stacked full of altars and the scent of catholic mass secretly excreting.
a room of handicap access confessionals lined up like hardwood porta potties a button for english, italian, french, deutsch. i am terrified as i was at the age of eight but i try to open the door nonetheless.
in spite of myself i feel fear genuine and old running through my weakened legs. the door and the skeleton keyhole are solid. i think i may see someone sitting behind the darkened glass but it is only my reflection though i am not sure.
a scale model of the monument, ten feet tall, lit up as if it were night time, made entirely of matches. i am disappointed to find that il cripto contains no more stench than the decay of half assed superstition and no more dead body than that of human intelligence.



the notes of the bell tower are creepy.
i assume they are a recording until i notice how flat the notes.

boatsnobs. granchii.

i am proud to have grown up on the water.
the ship 'next wave' is a good ship. she is from sweden and needs painting. a little rust running down the sides just like i like em. i almost got to go up in the crows nest tonight after sunset but my long red skirt prevented me. i ate dinner with everyone below deck and swam for about an hour. under the water you can see nothing but color and your hands in rhythm outstretched in front of you, a beautiful illuminated color of brown, yellow, surrounded by blue lime green, koolaid that didnt get stirred well enough. if you open your eyes by the boat when the light is just right you can see her huge hull underwater and a hint of what may be the anchor chain splitting off at a steep downward diagonal into the unknown seven meters, thirty feet down. a real ship has two anchors.
i found some boat snobs. they are akin to the roadbike snobs in lex. boat hipsters. they say a boat without sails is just a floating piece of metal. they think they are really cool.


manfo is from ghana. and he is black as coal. he cant swim but he will if i ask him to. he wears a lifejacket and we teach him how to kick and float.
he doesnt understand white people named darko because it is the last name of many darkskinned folk in ghana. he caught two crabs that crawled on the side of the boat. who knows where the hell they came from, she was floating in the middle of the bay. they pinched him but he said he didnt care. in ghana he would stick his hand way down in their tunnel in the sand and catch big ones. he says they would bite me but i would say i am going to eat you. and he did.

coloseuchrist.

one of the girls on the boat, a chinese girl named barbara who spoke english with a little bit of trouble, asked me as the sun set and the moon rose high and huge and full and orange about my tattoo, the key to my heart?
we shared a love and tears at the sight of the coloseo, colloseum but i did not go inside. she said oh it was beautiful, they had a giant cross inside, are you christian? i smile and say no. she presses her hands to her heart and sways like someone in love and smiles it was just beautiful.



the colloseum doesnt have shit to do with jesus christ, but if you want to associate your god with mass man and animal slaughter for sport, be my guest.

tunisia, yellow.

i miei vicini, my neighbors, are from tunisia. i lie on my bed with the doors to my balcony flung wide, a tank top and underwear in mid afternoon warmth, and listen to the haunting singing of indians, moslem land.
i think i hear a violin in there, shaking around with the voice like a rock in a tin can rolling down a cobble stone street.
and smell garlic.
how they can stand to start cooking so early in the day when they still cant eat is beyond my current understanding.
last night i came in and as usualy their door was wide open. their bed is just without sight, but i can see the4 sea from there. i called out a greeting and got no answer. but ten minutes later he came to my door, apologized for not responding.
he was in prayer and while in prayer they do not speak.

i wash my favorite yellow skirt, yellow victoria secret panties and grey arden b tank top with one of the tablecloths that came with the apt. it is indian too and very fragile but i put it in my new lavatrice on 90 degrees celsius anyway, hoping to rid everything here of germs.
everything comes out mud colored, occasionally a bit magenta, red, pink, orange. i kick myself but then reason that i am still young and therefore a bit stupid and will likely not be this way forever.

that was easily the worst ice cream i've ever had.

and to make things even more awkward i decided to save it for later. just like the terrible sex

'let's do this every day'

'lets save this vomit for later'

kamikaze.

the god damn thing is too huge for the freezer so it is dumped in one upside down swirl, vanilla, guilt and restraint, disappointment, self disappointment, and bits of chewing gum.
to not have ricotta, okay
but what fucking gelateria doesnt have cioccolatta??

biting bits of cheese in the fridge im reminded of earlier in the day when work ran over two hours and the feeling of being punished and sneaking bites of the babies food because i am so fucking hungry. remembering the line from paul bowles the night before... 'but the servants aren't that hungry, are they?'
their master inspects the dogs bowl before because otherwise they will eat it.



















even the prized buffalo cheese can't save the day. i poured out the water thinking i'd save a mess in the fridge and what i got in response was white leather, a little hard, bits of water inside. the dead body of my buffalo cheese.




















maybe i can eat it all in one sitting and then i won't shit for a week.

hey jude.

yesterday while taking the long way (seaside) to my destination i spy a girl in bathingsuit, holding an inflatable ring, a man walks along behind in just his wet swim trunks, playing the chords to hey jude on the guitar. a woman going my way starts singing in thick italian accent.
i cannot help myself and begin to help her out with the words.

i am in a much better version of that terrible movie, across the universe.




last night i was reading in bed and heard the distinct notes of an accordion pass by, strong male voice accompanying.

email to the fam.

i laughed out loud to myself on sunday when i was at the house of marilia's mother, babysitting and here i had just travelled about twenty minutes with ivo in the car, driving past beautiful countryside and hills on one side and ocean on the left, listening to ivo sing silly dance songs, and immediately i come in and they insist i sit down and eat with them, have wine (the same 14% alcohol content wine, which i must tell you i refused all but one tiny little glass) and coffee and ice cream, and then they insisted i go to the sea and take my time swimming there, while they took care of the children. i laughed out loud as i was being paid to go to what is now my most favorite, and the most magical place in the world '''' under the sea! i spied what i imagined was a jelly fish at one point, and was awestruck, diving under and opening my eyes and simply astounded at the beauty in the bright brilliant blues and teal and shape of rocks underwater and the light coming down in pin points of light. with your eyes open under the sea everything is blurry and perfect circles of color are fish and you reach out to touch the little gray spot and it moves just without reach. i kept diving under over and over and i couldnt get enough! when i came back to the house i wanted to write about it and tried but failed, and i wanted to paint about it but i dont know that i could fully describe how simply beyond anything i've ever experienced was this kind of beauty.

swimming again in my favorite place.

i have to make myself leave for here i lose all track of time, up and down, forget after a moment the salt in my nose the heaviness of the sea on my chest. up is down and down another dimension. when i raise my head from the water it is as if from a dream; i can barely remember if at all. through salt surrounded eyes i see a world of the most brilliant blue pricked by rays of streaming light.
perfect black fishes are gray circles floating in a loose school, a line and then the bright blue fishes too. i laugh at myself. i got myself to italy i am fighting the waves of the sea i am a mermaid
i am queen of the world.

kali jones. jazz fest. drum circle.

kali jones e io take a bus half an hour out of town for the free jazz concert in a small inland town. four africans and one white boy in funny african costume strap on giant drums and beat them like animals with their strong fists. i watch the largest one as he smiles with huge pearly bright white teeth and a pink tongue and sweat glistens in a stream down 85% cacao skin. his arms are as big as a horse. he sings loud and clear and smiles so wide his head might fall off like humpty dumpty when the corners of the mouth meet at the back of the head. he beats on the drum so hard so loud i was ready for bed ten seconds ago and now all i want to do is move dance sing yell.

i am reminded of wisdom and how he said in africa there were no longer any native religions, only christianity and muslim. i implored them to use their nigerian name with me. onchiwoh and onyekachi. i thought it sad and stupid they called english their first language and never usedtheir nigerian names with white people.
dying culture. what is more sad?

kali jones found a small scorpion, dead on the street this week. it was perfectly preserved, one claw open, little legs sticking out and moved all together like a beaded necklace, not like a stiff dead beetle or anything else i've ever seen dead. it was a dark reddish color and seemed almost unreal. i told her it was an amazing omen of good luck.

the sea has a voice and i hear the breath sighing as it falls against the rocks.

i laughed out loud as i ate ricotta cheese in my own apartment for the first time last week. i had found an apartment, let alone gotten my own ass to italy, successfully bought amazing cheese in the market, and had made myself a ridiculously marvelous salad and the taste of this cheese was so nourishing in my mouth i couldnt help but laugh out loud. so good for me.


the other day when i moved into to aldo's apartment, i found kali jones on the terrazza, in the hot sun, with her little sun hat, steve zissou sunglasses and a knife digging meat around the bone of a whale tail. technically, a sword fish but god it was big and looked just like a whale tail to me! i took photos, as i couldnt help it. her wavy hair sticking out in puffy wisps around the hat and this huge black tail, the knife, the bloody meat, it was beautiful.

she wants to make me her mermaid and use it in photos. her photographs are bloody astounding, amazing. they have been printed in aldo's magazine and i see them around her house. for the past two days i slept on the couch in her room next to her giant paintings, the 'empty' ones and a huge roll of paper on the floor with the image of her nude body, pressed against the ground with glue, then covered in black powder of some sort.
she gave me a book to read. stories. i am always laughing at her because of her stories and how humurously eternally dark they are. always the punchline is right in the gut.

sunbathing topless is where it's at.

it is nice to play like the boys
amidst a disney princess beach towel
tits out
sunscreen
the end.

today i swam three times in the sea.

i awaken with my alarm at 5-20, enough time to dilly dally before grabbing a cup of hot tea to soothe my morning throat and head for the shore. i arrive before kali jones, before the sun.

she comes in red pants just as i-d immagined her and i drive after her into the sea. the air is cold and so is the water as i imagine doing this in november.
the sun appears, an egg on the horizon a basketball stuck in a net then an ice cream cone. kali jones says it looks like the sun. i say an artist should have a better imagination.
we frog kick along, barely above the water, spitting waves, looking down -dont look down!- to see clearly the titanic surface of the moon clad in aquamarine, surrounded in spots by dark blue, black, fifty feet below or more.
we swim slowly a few city blocks and arrive at our accidental destination, la isula di cane, island of the dogs, where legend has it people used to sink in cages dogs they didnt want. the wreckage of the ship greets us quickly and we run aground, mermaids staking claim on our tiny rock island.
the lighthouse, a foot wide, has fallen prey to the sea and left a small foundation in its wake.

the rocks cut our feet, the sea pulls and pushes us with force up onto them and we sit high, surrounded by stalagmites and seaweed, and bleed.

clouds and wind. finally.

there are clouds today in the italian sky. they are small but they are visible and enough to be deemed clouds.
i wonder why the wind comes in such choppy motion and cant be one continuous stream of sound. the only sound in ortigia is violent wind in my ears, warm and salty. i watched a pigeon flying hard to the sea a feather separates, a portion of this creature and it fell high and was pushed away by the wind. it reminded me of you.
after such rapid repetitive light beatings the skin feels numb from the tickling of the wind.

erin brockavich.

marilia's family is full of cancer. they live in catania and many people there have the same kind of cancer. it is because of the petrol plant there. some days early in the morning you can smell it because they release too much into the air. they do it over night so people wont smell it.

marilia's father at lunch was talking about his town which has become overrun by mafia.

the little orphan girl who marilia takes care of has to be gone from her mother country 6 months out of the year because of the nuclear plant that exploded and the radiation. marilia says when marina, the little girl, comes back she is always very thin, and then they have to fatten her up.


at lunch i said yes to red wine and after two small glasses was getting woozy. i looked and the bottle was 14% abv. alcohol at lunch. drunken babysitters. never again.


i saw a cat while walking with francesco, whom i spoke to all night in only italian because i dont speak arabic and he doesnt speak english and neither of us speak italian very well. it was on the roof and i pointed it out, look how funny that cat is sleeping on the roof. he said it is not sleeping it is dead. and i became very sad, because people were just going about their own business and here was this dead cat hanging half off the roof.

many strays here are very small and sickly.