Bouillon Chartier

just a quick note on one of the restaurants worth noting from the culinary and drunken trip to france. i had a lunch with very good company, to whom i am indebted, in the place seen in the picture on the side and in bold above. they take your order on the fly, writing your entire order in illegible scratch on the paper tablecloth replaced on each table, and sum everything on the same tablecloth after you have finished your meal just before finding a new home for the dead and thinly sliced tree. the prices, especially for france, are quite inexpensive and the food is quite good; though that is not to say that there were not others that were better.

Bouillon Chartier

March 28th 2007
and 
March 18th 2010

sandcastles

(a song that i wrote about myself - though I didn't realize that it was autobiographical at the time - during the trip to spain in 2002-2003, in cooperation with josh colpitts. funny how things seem to apply to various facets of one's life)

she's got nothing on her feet but her pretty pink shoes

a whole in all her pockets, and nothing left to lose.

she´s jumped a train to nowhere and can't wait to see

that no one's there waiting, and there never will be.

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

she smiles to the sun, then cries herself to sleep.

she´s got a worm inside her sole, and it's digging too deep.

well her heart's still pumping blood, like the day she was born,

but the skin she wears outside, is jagged and torn.

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

a paper airplane to the coast, she road to find,

the castle in the sand, that she used to climb.

a paper airplane to the coast, she road to find,

the castle in the sand, that she used to climb.

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

she climbs sandcastles, nearing the sky

someone so damn low, should never climb so high

almost forgotten

I cannot remember your squint after a long fit of laughter

nor the touch of your hand as we sit, awed by the fire.

The color in your eyes has sunk deep into an old photo,

and the corners of the photo, reminders of your forgotten your smile.

Reminders of the days, when I awake with your warmth.

Gone are the days, when we occupied my spaces,

warmth now disappeared from each corner and each nook.

There is, but one place where you remain sharp and alive;

one place where your hands still pull at my heart.

But gone are the days, when I awake to your warmth.

As I return for a dream between morning and snooze,

15 minutes to recover a loss that should never have been.

Behind a fountain your figures disappear into shadows

and the figures in silhouette grow closer to one .

You return to speak, awaited words also seem to arrive,

slowly and with clarity the unknown seemingly released.

Then just when you are ready to tell me your truths…

15 minutes are gone and your voice turns to what wakes me.

Also gone are those days, when I awake to your warmth.

damn memories.
goddamn memories.
they are so lovely;
they are the company in absence.
they are so warm;
they are the fires that keeps us warm in the cold.
they are so hot;
they are the fires that burn us.
damn memories.
goddamn memories.
i love them

look of sincerity

funeral lesson

i remember having gone to a funeral with my mother when i was rather young, well before my tenth birthday. we walked up to the casket and my mother leaned slightly to see what it was that remained of her memory of someone. i could not remember ever having met the man who previously occupied the body that was laid just slightly below eye level, palid and foreign. the experience, as innocent and natural as it was, turned to some kind of trauma in the moments between the funeral parlor and the boundary of my bedroom. as i tried to sleep that night floating on the surface of the waterbed, my little evening sea, the face of the stranger, with his eyes closed and skin the color of ghost, spun slowly in my waking and sleeping vision, each meeting the back of my eye-lids. to escape, i tried wedging myself between the hardside of the bed and the matress, completely under the protective shield of sheets, but in the end, the only thing that would remove the image from my head was the truth of soothing words, "nothing has happened, you will be fine honey."

.

i have had many sleepless nights since then, and many of those many have been over the past three weeks. i have tried to hide under the covers. i have searched for the words to be softly spoken close to my ears, to ease my fears and bring me to a good night's sleep. hiding beneath the covers hasn't helped; to face things so much more frightening than the face of the dead man, the covers and sheets must be ripped from the bed.

.

from an empty body to an empty seat.