ride karasu open the door sit in the seat turn the key and go drive until you hit the end of the world and take a left this will be the last gas food and lodging before things get crazy steady on til mourning comes and becomes elektra you'll know how far to the conclusion it's forgone 010619 ... dB My ride cymbal is the best! And it's magical. You know those shops that are all messy and full of junk and dust? The kind that usually has an old lady behind the counter? The kind you find on a late night that are open and you go in and buy something and you go back the next day and the whole shop is gone? I got it in one of those. Except it was gone next month rather than next day. It was under a rack of old sheet music. I had to lie on my side, on the floor to dig it out. I got it at a bargain price, and have not needed another one since. and it is magical. 010619 ... soia "we are on a ride we're on it all the time to the back of our minds" 010619 ... Fido Bullfrogs and fireflies, Misty bayous at night, Jazz bands on sidewalks, And a pirate fight. May Pirates of the Caribbean Run 'til we blow ourselves away. 030309 ... flowerock ride_your_bike says the sticker on my laptop, and my boyfriend 140518 ... kerry tiptoe down the gray carpeted stairs to the basement, the stairs the dog tumbles down now because she's somehow fifteen and her back legs don't move the way she remembers. close the door because she'll be waiting, blind, deaf, and ready to be your shadow again. weave your way through piles of boxes and terrible old paintings, the broken tv too heavy to move, stacks of magazines, and ill-fitting work boots. once you're in the garage your feet are little icy hooves on the cement floor. the space opens like a parachute around you. over there is the window you shattered with a soccer ball. and over there is the table saw where he built you a desk so you could draw and paint in the cavernous basement like a happy little bat. some of the bikes are skeletons, unrideable, you feel kind of sad for them. see there the red-tanked guzzi--you wore your mother’s old copper helmet, the one that always sat on top of the ancient refrigerator where the rolls of film were waiting for you, standing at attention like little soldiers for your itchy hands and greedy eyes. you rode under loblolly pines in blue ridge, your first time on a bike but not the last. how old were you? twelve? lean in, he told you, lean INTO the turn, ignore your instinct, i promise we won’t crash. you were terrified but still a child, still willing to put your life in his hands. on a wooden platform more stand stoic in the shadows. you rode the bsa in new york. that was the summer mark disappeared on a solo ride, the blonde fake-tattoo chlorine-soaked summer when you spent so much time in that sidecar, eating raw peanuts and sucking on the salty shells, when you were unsupervised, you and all the summer-biker kids ridiculing the campground kids--those unfortunate weirdos who live here year-round, who was the awkward one who tattled on you for sneaking some of bob’s homemade schnapps, virginia or something else fussy-sounding? you could be really mean back then… in the middle, the black vincent peter gave him only months before he died--they found him in a bathtub, isn't that what they said? isn’t dying in a bathtub a little TOO poetic, a little too on_the_nose? years later, by a campfire when he had a busch in one hand and a hot dog in the other and was feeling loose--he’s always had a fierce distaste for pretension--he said it was AIDS that killed peter. blue blazer, blue blazer bluh-bluh-bluh blue blazer the first man to make him cry. (until rodney, when he hit that dog on a sticky louisiana highway, i imagined it some brown scraggly thing wrapped up in the tire like a dirty rag, a real sad irony for a mailman to be killed by a dog--but that was so much later.) we were so relieved you weren’t a boy, your mother said. we knew we’d name you after him, and it was too soon. we needed an extra year, or two at least. peter please put down that glass of vodka and load a new roll of film peter you’re very charming when you dance you make us laugh sometimes we’re putty in your hands sometimes we watch from the sidelines as you destroy everything in your path we all love you we think you’re brilliant but peter please focus the lens and capture this night there is a picture of peter in the basement, hanging above the broken tv. he’s on a paint-splattered dropcloth in his studio kneeling next to his love, his darling, a three-legged white-haired beast. it didn’t occur to me until just now--whatever happened to clyde? blue blazer, blue blazer none of the shots came out, not a single one 210729 ... tender_square i saw a car take a sudden left at forest glade drive, one that had been planning to continue west in the same direction i was heading. the blue flashing lights a block beyond told me why. officers held glow sticks like rave conductors. after a day of frustration and near-constant discussion of my sisters and their addictions, a simple "no" did not suffice. i smiled as i stopped in front of the last officer. "anything to drink ma'am," he asked. "i've been sober for eight years," i gushed. he congratulated me and waved me forward. i turned up the radio and cruised home. 230211 what's it to you? who go blather from