Showing posts with label neighbors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neighbors. Show all posts

Sunday, August 29, 2010

"Near Needing Yellow, from the before or after or close at hand." -Sawako Nakayasu, from Texture Notes

The Sea



When I walked out into my front yard, I noticed my neighbor, Theodore, watering his grass. I went and got my hose and began watering my grass. What are you doing he said. Watering my grass I said. But you don’t need to he said. You have an automatic sprinkler system. You have a lawn service spread fertilizer. You have people who come to cut it. You have, without a doubt, the nicest lawn on this block. You may have the nicest lawn in this town he said. I held onto my hose and looked at my lawn. He was right, it was nice color green, it was of a proper length; it looked strong, thick. A bird landed on it once, and the grass wrapped itself around the bird’s legs, and the bird sank in, leaving only a few feathers behind. Neighbor’s dogs disappear when they use my lawn as a bathroom. My lawn is a carnivorous murderer, and I can only watch helplessly as it grows stronger. I shudder to think if I had children. I suppose you’re right I said. Theodore nodded and shrugged. I nodded and shrugged. I put the hose down, and I lied down on my lawn, and I watched the evening sky, and I listened to Theodore whistle and water his safe lawn, and my back got wet and I smiled at the tingling feeling when you lie down in grass.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

"It took me months to trace myself back to myself as I'm my own father and mother." -Natalie Lyalin, from Try a Little Time Travel

Hangar



As the rain clouds move

over my expansive garden

I think good and watch as

the drops begin to fall


and it’s then that I notice

the plants bobbing up and down

all in unison to some sort of

ancient beat that I can’t quite hear


and I wished that I could just

hear it and I start to move

to what I think it may be


but this feels strange to do

in front of my family


so I go out into the rain

and join the plants

and attempt their bobbing movement


and my neighbors all look

out of their windows

and slowly shake their heads

seemingly in unison but


it’s no matter I think

that I’ve found it so I laugh

hysterically and spin and

spin until I fall and it’s then


that I notice the moths


under the leaves of each

of the plants one per leaf


all beating beating their wings

and all telling me to be quite


and my neighbors pity me


while I'm busy pitying them