Green Gal

6 November 2012 My friends live in words and some are ones I’ve met and some I’ve met when I’ve exposed their inner spines to light. Men and women friends, lovers and girlfriends. There are strangers here, whose words were striking and which I stole for my collection. Pain endorphins angst; vegetate, 12 hours scoundrel of scuffed-up wood, questioning in me the way to be or not permanence of language on printed plasticky paper on rolls in cell phone bodies, buzzing I read you under a bleached sky and wanted to write you, as you wrote to me drunk and tasting sweetness of being a breath in the night without name making errors living within our own gardens but sharing harvests to be enjoyed You become a freckle on my right pinkie and it’s okay, it’s part of our condition as writers to embrace, take what is as is as can be potential loveliness in uncertainty recalling what was as a layer under our skin and we have many layers time gives us material fuel breathe in

We were supposed to bring a "talent" into Spanish 5 class today para el final día de clase. A poem, un canción, a drawing, a skill. My Spanish professor and I hemos hablado sobre poetry y traducción on a few occasions, y por eso decidí que I would bring in some of my own poemas, translated into español. We didn't end up sharing the talents, but we did sing La Bamba and eat cake that the professor brought para nosotros. Era delicioso. But now I have some translated poetry of my own, and I would like to share it with someone. I suppose since you're reading this, that someone is you. I just have to say that the process of translating my own words into Spanish was illuminating. It taught me that I don't know what many words really mean in English. My assumptions about connotation and my understanding of certain nuances have been shattered and rebuilt for some words. I am learning how to say what I really mean in English while simultaneously learning new words in

"Coyote! Coyote!” Guitar-string strumming with a borrowed pick, punctuated with foot stomping and an old man with a beard and the biggest grin bongo drumming his palms on the podium, which had been pushed to the side before the evening began. The student sways gently to the beat, watching from behind eyes as others lose themselves in the evening, their bodies pulsing with everything that is present in the room. Something holds the student back, a deeply trained disconnection between body and the pervasive consciousness of situation. The beat goes on, smiles form that will ache the cheek muscles as folks leave that night, infused with something remarkable like that most vividly diverse mushroom display contributed by other students, they are foragers of fungal fruits. Awe and respect for the mushrooms in the back of the room, physically and psychologically behind this strangers-neighbors-friends human connection, behind the music. Everyone calls out, reflecting not only the singer’