Wyethtown

Dear Miles in Charge,

I am full of nothing today but still feel like writing to you. There’s something about having a close but distant interlocutor that is incredibly reassuring. Do you find that? I wonder sometimes how these letters feel to you.

If you were here, which I wish you were, I would just have to turn my head and out the insides would come—almost the same as thinking—that seemless and unselfconscious. Or I’d stand in our metallic doorway and holler at you out in the field like some kind of futuristic housewife landed on the moon.

Speaking of, I was thinking of rigging up a tin can telephone between the tree house and the trailer. We could chatter to each other while still maintaining the illusion of distance. I installed a telescope up there and would have in the balloon. All of this so that we can wave at each other in various forms. Sometimes that’s all this all feels like, waving. Me to you, you to me, me to myself, me to the world. Sometimes I use both arms and that’s when you know I really want attention. The tin can telephone though, what do you think? Too much?

I feel things edging towards overblown. Our lives fairly glow with sepia tones and seventies color saturation. The rainbow pattern of the balloon against the sticky blue sky against the blonde fields abutting the green and purple hills and then the spark of the Airstream glinting like some kind of distress signal. Sometimes I can feel the creep of affected vignetting closing in around camp. Who’s escapist fantasy are we living in? It used to be yours and mine but now I’m not even sure the tin can telephone idea was mine.

Everything’s so good, I wonder when the bitch slap will come. There was menace in things, in small ways and maybe we cultivated it to make life interesting but now that the menace is gone and the colors just shine instead of hiding out under dullness, I feel more afraid that something is going to give or worse, that it won’t and I will have become something pretty yet quirky but all around benign.

Anyway, I don’t know what brought on the melancholy but I’m sure it will brushed aside by something totally ridiculous tomorrow.

Tell me about Virginia. I have no sense of it whatsoever. And after that, call me on the real telephone, none of this tin can bullshit. I want to chatter at you.

Love,

Sandy

***

Dear Miles,

Please don’t worry. I’m sorry. I’m fine. Everything’s okay.

The balloon’s completely cached. Donezo. Darger is probably dead somewhere. He flew off, dragging his leash after the chamber exploded and he didn’t look good.

Danzig may never get over seeing his mother nearly catch fire and fall through the air. I had to bail out just before the crash.

You know how I am when I listen to metal when I’m driving. I put the pedal to it. I was dropping sand bags like cartoon sacks of cash over the hillside. I must’ve looked like a banshee up there.

First off, I shouldn’t’ve installed that radio in the basket. I was rocking out to White Zombie, getting way too excited. I wasn’t paying attention. Big surprise. Details.

I wasn’t watching the flame.

Then I go and do this. You know how I’ve always wanted these things, how I had to work hard to bring them out of my head and into the world: starting with the airstream, then the land, and Darger, the little D’s and lately the balloon. I learned how to be a grownup so I could have what I want.

Today I realized how much I still live in my head and how actually dangerous that can be. My daydreams affect more than just me now. They cause accidents. My bird is gone. My kid can’t sleep.

It was a beautiful day. The wind picked up from the west and I figured it would be a good day to take her up.


Love,

Sandy

This week is NUTS

Yesterday: Eileen Myles read @ Moe's
Tonight: Owen Hill and Eileen Myles read @ Books and Bookshelves
Wednesday: Eileen Myles book party @ David Buuck's place
Thursday: Stan Apps and Douglas Rothchild read @ Books and Bookshelves
Friday: Lara Durback (et al) read @ The Knockout (Rebel Series)
Saturday: Bill Luoma Baseball and Poetry Workshop for SPT
Brandon Downing and Lindsey Boldt read @ Brandon Brown's place
Sunday: Clark Coolidge and Laura Moriarty read @ The New Reading Series
John Sakkis and Steve Orth DJ @ Cassanova


Whew!

On Saturday I'm going to read from a new chapbook and from the Pony project and then we'll act like young people in the city. Holler!

Wyethtown

Dear Miles,

Something is wrong with the weathervane because I can't get it to go. Looks like the whirligig has rusted over and the cock's just stuck facing due Nothing. If you were here, I'd ask you to scramble up on the roof and fix it but you're not. You're all the way in Delaware with a mouth full of saltwater taffy watching the gays go by.

Anyway, I"m sure it'll be fine. I may take my oil can up there this afternoon and give it a little treacle--see what happens, but all that will have to wait till I've finished cleaning the traps and scraping the crow hides. Say hello to Samson and Eloise for me and let Eloise know that the cats are fine but they miss her, of course.

Love,

Sandy


p.s. Darger rode out the leash yesterday for the first time. It was beautiful! Still, I think I better get his hood fitted a bit tighter. He keeps twitching like it's uncomfortable for him.


***

Dear Sandy-Bottom-Gal,

The crowds here hate me. If it weren't for Rehobeth and sticking my feet in the sand I'd probably skip Delaware all together. Widgets and ecolocation didn't go over--not even tesseracts have so much as raised an eyebrow. Delaware must be stuck in some kind of past I don't know about. They wanted me to be Jerry Seinfeld or Brian Greene or somebody, somebody else.

I don't mean to be a bummer, dearheart, just missing you just now.

Try kicking the dang weather vane and telling it to step up its game--that always works for me--talking down to appliances.

Eloise and Samson say hello back. They're out putting divots in the boardwalk with their sensibilities.

Love to you,

Miles

p.s. Glad to hear about Darger. How's the balloon?

** READ AT YOUR OWN RISK **

Persephone's Casual Encounters
uttered by Persephone Lewis in conversation with Lindsey Boldt and Morgan Levy
transcribed by Morgan Levy


Meet me at Popeye’s at midnight. I’ll be the one buying the chicken wings in the clown mask. You into role playing? Safety word’s yellow.

You wanna role play breaking and entering? Meet me near that shit stained pillow. Safe sex is a no no.

I remember you, we role played rape and you thought the safety word was "Oh God" so we had to keep stopping.

Stick around man. I renamed my womb Jesus’ trash compactor. That’s where God put a baby last night.

Do you realize I live in the tenderloin? Im going to have to shit later on.

Lets make paper mache condoms? It will have cold Vaseline in it from THE COCK.

I saw you on the BART. I took a pictures of your panties.

I saw you at the family reunion,. You looked related but I wasn’t sure. We talked over KFC and jello salad, then we fucked in the bushes. I might be pregnant, call me.

I know how girls like you party.

I don’t dig on your vibe, that’s metonymy, fuck off. Just because you know big words does not mean you can see my panties. You asked me if I wanted to party and I spit on you.

I saw you at that poetry reading. You gave me the smokey rape eye.

Hey I saw you reading Kierkegaard.

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S Brent and Melissa!!!!

HUZZAH!!!

So Awesome, So Awesome, So Awesome, So Awesome
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