porch_blathing raze the sun shrugs free from the clouds that have spent the afternoon trying to invent an artificial night, and just now this storm that can't decide what it wants to be has spun itself out, so the air is cool and impatient, and it feels like fall is supposed to feel. no rain to soak my stockinged feet. a blanket of leaves with just enough life left in them to celebrate what they are before they're eaten by microbes. cold cement fighting to be felt through a hole in the only pair of jeans that still fit me, though they need a belt now to trick them into thinking they live in a different province — a place where numbers have lost all meaning and the only symbols that carry any currency are the ones we carve out of moonlight and soft skin. a man and his daughter stand in their driveway across the street and talk about nothing. wet dirt begs for more moisture to weigh it down and make it feel needed. this will be one of the last good days before winter starts to muscle its way into the frame early. and now the wind is getting ideas about trying to blow me away. and maybe i'll let it. 211021 ... kerry the sun is shrugging and the air is impatient and the dirt is begging, the wind has ideas, and i love all this personification. mmmm. 211022 ... raze i didn't think i'd get to do this again until the spring, but there's such a nice pocket of sunshine this afternoon, and there's a patch where the hole used to be on the seat of these jeans, so i'm soaking up what i can of these cool indian_summer_blues while i can still hear the music. beside my foot is a fragment of stone with two faces. one face looks brand new. the other looks like a tiny mountain that's been here since the beginning of time. if i could share this porch with anyone right now, it would be you beautiful red ones. there's room enough for all of you to sit and sing along. 211108 ... kerry a stoop i suppose is like a porch good for thinking and watching and blathing someone is playing music there are dirt bikes roaring all the pumpkins that were carved now have sunken faces mouthing some secret night time stories 211109 ... raze something warm keeps kicking the cold in the ribs, and i can feel the sound it makes. i want to tell the day, this one, the part of it that's holding me right now, "you're a blanket. you're a poem. take what you need from me and spin it into the sweetest myth. i'll believe every word as long as i'm alive in you." and before i can hit the "blather" button, a leaf drifts onto my laptop, brushing past my fingers. dry brown lamina falling back from the stem, each vein a faded memory. and at the apex, five axillary buds, looking for all the world like they're about to bloom. 211111 ... raze it's the middle of december, but take this wind away and you'd think we were only three quarters of the way through the year. even the leaves understand how rare this is. they cartwheel across cinder blocks, knowing soon the snow will come to cover what's left of them, making their beds the same colour as the sky they once stood almost close enough to touch. "hold on tight," they whisper, "or not at all." i'm holding on with everything i've got. 211216 ... raze eastbound clouds are dancing slow to a soundtrack of synthetic rubber on asphalt, bolstered by birdsong and breeze. a potted plant on the porch next door is flat on its back, upended by wind or angry hands or careless feet. a man in a puffy camouflage coat rides by on his bike and gives me a dirty look. a robin sets up shop in the crown of a tree across the street and sings to me. a grey squirrel walks this way with a chestnut in its mouth. its eyebrows arch with surprise. i wave and smile. it runs away. someone who sounds drunk starts shouting about nothing. "thanks for doing beer," a woman says, stepping out of a friend's house before she climbs into a silver van and drives home. some things you drink, and some things you do, and right now i'm doing both, sitting in the brilliant heat of a sinking sun, watching a lone goose fly against the grain, dreaming of what's right around the corner. 220316 ... raze sirens and power saws. seagulls and starlings. salted steps freckled with efflorescence, each one a decalcified grey tooth grown too tall to make a meal out of anything but me. 220317 ... raze a swinging bird feeder casts a shadow my eyes want to paint as a bat doing hanging leg raises. he's persistent. i'll give him that. pebbles cower like the remnants of something shattered beneath the heel of a heavy boot. an old man mows his lawn and says hello to someone he knows. the first block of concrete below my foot is dotted with dozens of blue grains. fertilizer. i hold one water-soluble shard in the jaws of my hand and see a small constellation, barbed and uninhabitable, but beautiful to think about. 220412 ... raze no shadow thrown by the cylinder full of birdseed, though there's breeze enough to make it move. two dogs talk to each other from opposite ends of the street. what i think is an airborne insect that's landed on my face is only an eyelash ready to fall. a bird perched on the thinnest branch of a maple tree twitches each time it chirps, charged with a joy too pure for words. a man and woman walk west with their white goldendoodle. "we laughed about it," she says, "and i thought, 'oh well.' then she denied it." a black squirrel buries its face in someone else's lawn looking for a late supper. half a block away, someone starts feeding weeds to a spinning spindle at the end of a motor-driven stick. i won't find what i'm hungry for out here. not tonight. 220423 ... tender_square embryonic buds cast-off from elder trees make a mess of the driveway. the miniature pinscher one house down won’t shut up; barking at breezes, at leaves blowing by bigger than he is. my middle-aged neighbor is shirtless in shorts at 9 am, on an april day where it’s already a miraculous 60 degrees, puttering between his house and garage. grackles sift through what autumn shed in the garden, beaking bits of dried fronds to soften their nests. nascent daylilies sprout pineapple crowns, gaining inches with day cycles. across the street, a flowering dogwood glides in taffeta. three hazelnuts sit as scraps for squirrels. a man and a woman with matching hair buns are led by their differing dogs down the street. two black-bibbed and red-scalped large woodpeckers head-bob on the same branch in a silent, conversational shorthand. i collect a stalk of fallen milkweed mournfully, now down to three plants. a sunbathing carpenter bee rests on warmed patio stone, drunk with the pollen of snow crocus. 220424 ... past it's probably more properly a stoop than a porch, but we have ambitions to have a grand porch across the front of the house. maybe. one day. once we can save up a bit after having the myriad structural issued fixed since moving in a year and a bit ago. until then this stoop and old rickety chair (itself on the to repair or replace list -- most likely i'll take it apart and use it pieces for other things and use some other found wood abandoned by the previous owner to try and build something new). the scene: my shaded concrete stoop, the van parked in the driveway with a sleeping boy inside. in front of me the big old maple, freshly trimmed by the city (it is apparently on the right of way, a bit of luck, that) letting amble light onto the front garden. the baby's birth present bulbs have shot up shoots in the garden. across the street dogs and their people amble through the small informal park formed by the gore where our grid street and the serpentine curve of the main street through the neighbourhood form a triangle of unparcelable land. small trees line two sides, providing amble sticks for visitors. 220424 ... raze a dog chews on a squeaky toy. it's distant enough to sound like a cartoon mouse who's a sloppy drunk, hiccuping through every happy thought. i can still see the cracks an old friend's hands left in the sedimentary rock that borders my body. tonight's the night the neighbour on my right gets to see "doctor strange in the multiverse of madness". no one cares enough to call anything by its full name anymore. so it's just "doctor strange". "the moment has finally come," he says. the moment means nothing to him. he's a poet who's forgotten how to speak. i don't know what his wife is, but she waves and says hello. i wave back. they take separate cars to drive to the same place, turning their backs on eighty degrees of low humidity and benevolent breeze. i soak up a thousand seconds of unripe summer, wishing it would taste like this when it comes of age. i know it won't. it never does. 220510 ... tender_square a yellow jacket won’t stop buzzing at my bottom and i shoo it away with a bat of my ballcap. whenever george saunters into view, she stops and looks at me inquisitively, paws wet and muddied. she’s unaccustomed to me parking it on the porch while she flits to and fro, burying her bounty in ground softened by afternoon rain. three northern flickers debate flight paths in a tangle of arbor vitae, chest bumping mid-air. transport trucks drone along 23, thumping eighteen wheels over a million potholes; kathunk, kathunk, kathunk. the solar lights are charging silently, like i am out here; it’ll be a wonder if they emit light with insides corroded. she asked me, “what will it feel like not to hide anymore,” and i answered “free.” wind, i’m counting on you to carry me home. 220525 ... kerry the porch/patio is small--maybe 15 x 9 ft--concrete, typical for a philly rowhome. or rowhouse, depending on who you ask. i learned recently that locals call these grassless patches "yards," which sounds absurd to anyone who grew up with an actual yard, a yard being an expanse of grass and/or weeds and ideally some trees. maybe a swing set or a pool. maybe not. in my case it was an enormous maple tree surrounded by liriope and some dogwoods small enough to climb. a boxwood hedge, where i hid and built little fairy houses out of twigs. in the back it was all forest. there were wooden steps that led down to a trampoline in the clearing, dead christmas trees behind that, and finally peavine creek, where we sometimes found possum bones. so this is not a yard as some would claim--it is a porch slash patio. in pots are mint, rosemary, and lavender. in the beds are soon-to-be colorful poppies, and a young-but-quickly-growing salvia. the fig tree has doubled in size since january. a concrete snail hides in the shade cast by its wide leaves. louie is sniffing at the seedlings, and sneezing. i put together this furniture, these wicker chairs and footstools, all by myself. i sat in the living room with trash tv playing in the background and cursed and fiddled and twisted and it took a couple hours but eventually they were done and i put them outside and sat in one for a few moments, astonished that i had assembled a thing that could hold my weight. 220526 ... raze four black squirrels scan the shore for something worth bringing back home. one settles beside a jeep and turns a leaf over in his hands. a robin meets my eyes before flying away, and then the only things still moving are me and the trees. around my feet are seeds built for spinning and blotches of hardened bird shit. above my head, a grey sky threatens rain. lightning groans but isn't daring enough to show itself. the smallest ant i've ever seen tickles the steep slope of my thigh. a morsel of dandelion fluff drifts past my face, carried on the breeze. i watch it float like a wingless bird until it's gone. 220527 ... tender_square the futility of sweeping the stoop of maple seeds: their sails parachute hope wherever they land (which is everywhere). george will often pop pods while she lingers, a belly full of future absorbed into blood and turned to energy. ivy creeps further into the weeded beds and i know i will need to cut the tendrils back; such a shame to punish a plant for robustness when i envy the audacity to take up space. clouds drift slow and satiated, bottoms painted in pale purple dimension, the sun brightening outlines of curve and wisp. a little girl in a polka-dot dress holds up her favourite doll and says “cheese” while her mother commemorates this fleeting moment of her childhood. hybrids plod over speed humps, swiftly accelerating through smooth stretches. hibiscus bodies of last spring brown on vibrant shoots, the combination of death and rebirth made visual manifestation. a dog gives an elongated howl and i sneeze violently, scaring chipmunks scouring the underbrush, their bellies cold against a ground soaked by overnight tears. i shiver in my jean jacket, and sip a mug of lukewarm water. 220528 ... past i've made my temporary escape from the basement office to sit outside for a moment. the sun is shining and the wind is blowing just hard enough to cause the leaves to dance in a calming white noise. the grass across the street hasn't been cut yet this year, and occasionally a small bird takes flight from between the dandelions. a chipmunk dashes across the lawn, pauses to look at me, and continues on its way. 220608 ... raze buddha sits to my right, grim and grey and crosslegged. on the left, a flycatcher twitters to make its presence known. words tumble from the mouths of fallen gods and circle themselves. they call that conversation. i call it noise. a chainsaw tests its teeth against indifferent timber. low_flying_planes grumble a greeting before leaving me in relative peace. a man pushes his daughter on a red bike trailer and offers a single-syllable salute. a screen door sighs. i take a picture of my face to freeze the moment, and the white hair of a lion-toothed flower kisses the dorsal side of my right hand. 220610 ... past the sky opened up the moment i stepped outside to go for a walk. in the ten minutes between the end of a meeting and getting outside my phone buzzed about a tornado watch and the bright, sunny (if humid) day turned dark and wet. a curtain of rain draws a line between the wet step and dry stoop where i sit. across the streets, on the other side of the little gore, a retired woman sits on her own porch smiling at the rain. 220616 ... tender_square the grass got a buzzcut, the mow a series of threaded rings around the front garden. the necks of daylilies periscope from their flouncy skirts, not yet flowering. but soon. the man with the black chihuahua i’m always cursing strolls past, one hand in pocket while the other is tugged by leash. he walks as though he’s falling backward, as though windblown. he walks as though he’s led by a bigger breed of animal than him. three squirrels sniff the lawn and two starlings peck at what lies beneath it. the roof makes a triangle of shadow as the lemonade sun slips. a man drifts by on a bicycle, cresting a wave of pedaled momentum. ivy creeps closer, choking the porch steps, and needfully circles the ankles of hibiscus trees. clover spreads between the spaces of patio stone like remnants of food stuck between teeth. eric pulls into his driveway with his red truck, jangling keys in a medley of metal. 220616 ... raze i can feel the humidity rise. like the blood between my ears when the limp-dicked lyricist next door sits in his driveway pumping bass-heavy mud into an afternoon that didn't ask for his input. like the blasts of engine noise farted out by a passing motorcycle. like the warmblooded warbler lounging on my roof where my eyes can't follow. like all the downy tree-climbers i think of as my children. like the sweet escape of every fugitive breath that creases my lungs before leaving. i'm the last blade of grass your ring of rotating knives couldn't maim. i'm the thin stick of cancer burning on that biker's lower lip. i'm a satin moth lost in the wonder of azaleas in full bloom. let what's left of the chill beneath the heat's coming heft linger just a little longer. i'm not ready to lose all the rain i've hoarded from a sky hell-bent on breaking. 220620 ... tender_square a chainsaw chews through what’s weaker than its metal mouth. the milkweed sprout and bloom after their former stalks fell weeks ago. a robin rocks against the unsteady perch of a solar light, nearly toppling the punched-tin frame. the daylilies crane their necks for a kiss of sun, and open their blushing faces toward the light. 220629 ... tender_square a leather swivel chair on five wheels crinkles its skin in sunshine, making an open office of the road. james eyes it as he walks his spaniels by; he wears a tangerine tee the same shade as the dozens of swaying daylilies, unabashedly open. gossamer thread lifts in the light, a rudimentary banner celebrating the fragility and resiliency of rebuilding. will engages a lawnmower at 9:14 on a sunday. the blades gurgle and cough as they’re pushed through prostrate spurge and ragweed. a woman in the garb of summer slouch ambles by with a wax bag filled with pastries from dj’s. george_bush and barbara_bush crawl along the catwalk of garden stone, angling for almonds i offer with an outstretched hand. 220703 ... tender_square my burgundy damask pants are thick calf curtains, absorbing light as it leaks through leaves; it’s already peaking eighty before ten am. daisy abruptly turns her chevrolet into the driveway, then reverses course to back the bumper in. the car’s indifferent headlights stare from across the street while i type, a stranger’s steady gaze that causes me to look up intermittently. george and barbara crack walnuts in separate, shaded corners of the garden, while chipmunks dash between them, shoving peanuts into stretchy mouths before they can be chased away. black beetles twirl like suspended spinning tops around my sparkly ballcap, landing on my arm or the lip of my coffee cup, and i realize they’re lightning bugs in daytime. last night, i watched a thousand of them blink and flicker in the backyard, as saltpeter and sulfur exploded in chemical flashes above, and i wondered if they mistook those bright blinks for mating or for competition, wondered now if their signals were crossed or if it was a sign as sandy denny lilted “and i am not alone while my love is near me, i know it will be so until it's time to go.” 220704 ... raze the airspace is a broken-down box fan shoving the day's hot mess back in my face. it's just shy of a hundred degrees with the humidity, but here in this pocket of shade i can shape the cruelest season into something a little less bloodthirsty. house keys kiss the chain that binds them, coughing up their best imitation of a strangled tambourine. someone clears their throat before backing out of their driveway and nosing a black truck onto the road. two hungry ants scurry toward a charred worm. a dried-out twig lies on its back, arms raised to the heavens, praying for salvation or a hand to help it stand. i pluck it from its open concrete casket and carry it to the back yard, where it falls between the rusted grate of a dilapidated barbecue ravaged with weeds. it's never cooked a thing meant to see the inside of anyone's mouth. better to sleep in a place where flames might have flickered once than to burn beneath the weight of an indifferent sun. 220722 ... past the sky rumbles beyond the western horizon as dark clouds in. people on foot and bikes rush by, the beautiful oppressively hot day vanishing, its illusion bursting into a million hard raindrops. the air is invigorating, earthy. the parched ground dances up, loosening in the growing onslaught. the wind stills. it sighs, the planet exhaling deeply and letting relief blanket this small corner of the earth. 220723 ... tender_square chubby bees gorge on pollen of hibiscus, yellow flecks sticking to their torsos. an ambitious spider spits bridge threads between the cedar and the downspout, the radius of its web the size of a stop sign. flies seemingly float on its viscid waves. crickets chirp in staccato bursts and symphonic trills in half-cooked sunshine. a baby babbles something unimportant and bright. someone lets a machine drone on in a one-sided conversation for ten minutes. in the absence of the vacuuming whir, the sound of a soft chiseling begins behind me; what’s being formed? what’s being released? 220809 ... raze now cast your eyes here. this is the place a spider's hammock hung until the moth it held was eaten by an opportunistic gale. spotted leaves sport tans they came by the honest way. this grey stone is a doorstop that isn't tall enough to do its job. it's been here as long as i can remember. the heavy breath of passing cars cools the sides of my bare feet. grass that doesn't need a shave is humbled by the razor's sting. this flimsy card stock character is a champion missing its first letter. below the name, a number i'll never call. two rocks from different mothers pin a yellow piece of plastic to the ground. to the left of that sad scene, the empty homes of faded molluscs stand beside the spent shell casings of fallen fruit from trees that don't belong to me. cicadas sing like rattlesnakes, drowning out every good thought with the desperate hissing of home. i wash my face in a pool of dirty water the day made. feel it fill my pores. 220930 ... raze i pull a blanket of faded blue around my shoulders. there's little in the way of cold for it to wage war against. spring has found its footing, with winter's last whisper waiting in the wings to fuck with its equilibrium a week from now. three days removed from shivering in bed with hand warmers hugging my palms, the smell of sunscreen is on my skin. a migratory songbird sprints across the curb, graceful and furtive in fading light. "turn your head," she says, as an arthritic engine's afterburn conjures the most pitiful thunder i've ever heard. magenta threads have woven their way into the cobalt cloth that covers us. soon all of this will be lost to dusk's heavy cream. 230411 ... raze every heavy-lidded house is a diorama. inside this glass showcase, a moth plays against type and avoids the brightest bulb in sight, hugging the eave's soft underbelly. a human fly glows orange as he flaps his ground-bound wings. night is alive with the groaning of despondent machinery and embryonic alibis. a flat-screen tv almost as wide as i am long illuminates an old man's living room. i can't tell if he's watching a tennis match or newsreel footage of a war-torn country. it could be almost anything. he could be almost anyone. 230429 ... past the spring sun has receding from the front step, pulling back onto the gore that once blossomed a brilliant yellow but now stands a shaggy white. millions of seeds waiting for the right wind to rush into the sky, like so many mary poppins seeking new children to entertain. 230525 ... raze a bit of thunder is all that's left of a storm that never lived up to its billing. no nickel-sized hail. no vicious gusts of wind. just a bit of spit and cymbal work from a drummer with no sense of time. flags and fronds are flecked with the wet will of god. some small silver engine sits between two stones the colour of brick, unfastened from whatever strange machine it once provided with a pulse. a man with hair at least as long as mine walks in circles. "hello," he says. "hello. hello." he listens to silence move through his cellphone speaker. there's no one on the other line. 230615 ... raze dipterans spiral and sputter all around me. they've forgotten how to glide. i never learned what to do with my flight feathers. one day they just crusted over and fell off. now i'm an overgrown ant hiding out in the dark corners of a homemade terrarium. three plastic garbage pails form a family. the unclothed couple hold hands and watch the firmament bleed bad intentions. their child stands behind them, begging to be seen. a woman i'll never know leaves home for the ten thousandth time. a firefly burns its brilliant body into my memory. eight blinks and it's gone. 230620 ... raze cold creeps through where the fabric has frayed on my least worn pair of jeans. a boy on a bicycle asks his mother to stop making a promise she can't keep. the last of his words are lost to the wind. an old man walks arm in arm with a woman he's likely loved for longer than i've been alive. "come out and play," he says. a robin answers the call. you know every car leaves a scar in the unremitting road. the same way each star cuts a divot in the sky. on the other side of the brick fortress that buttresses my back, a leaf has worked its way between a cleft in the paved path that leads to my redemption. no amount of nature's interference will encourage it to leave. those that see fit to fall around my feet are already gone. they just don't know it yet. 240227 ... raze the sky is a snow cone the sun hasn't seen fit to melt just yet. swirls of pink and blue. its breath brings part of me to you. a car engine backfires and it sounds just like someone setting off a stream of counterfeit firecrackers. a low-flying plane impersonates a bird of prey. two adolescent squirrels squawk in unison from the bald tree twenty paces away. they only head home when they're sure there's nothing to fear. "drive safe, okay?" a man says to his wife. "don't wanna spend christmas dead," she says. he can't see her face, but i can. she's rolling her eyes. 240306 ... raze our sapling has come to resemble a teenager, with all the awkwardness that entails. its hair is thickest just before the fall. so say we all. i can't discern lawnmower from engine-fuelled bird anymore. or seed from stone. two bumblebees dance around each other in mid-air and pull apart. a young wasp flies above my forearm, borrowing a bit of wind before passing it on. our mailbox's split lip still lies beside the railing to my left. the laptop's aluminum casing covers my thighs. shields them from the shade that wraps its arms around the rest of me like a friend. silent but steadfast. 240911 what's it to you? who go blather from