I’ve been exploring my new home, Portland, OR and trying not to allow too much time to bring upon uncreative funkiness but it happens.  Been doing a ton of bike riding, which has kept my spirits up quite a bit, amazing to have such bikable weather into November.   Have discovered some great coffee hangouts, beautiful neighborhood streets that go round and round and around fantastic rose gardens that even held blooms on november first and remind me of what the juneau-douglas bridge roundabout could be if anyone cared enough to plant some trees or flowers.  Two words, farmer’s market.  Good lovin’ after years of alaska grade produce.

Also been taking a Chinese Calligraphy course, Tang Dynasty Poetry in regular and cursive scripts at PNCA and this has been stretching my brain in fantastic ways, to be so tuned into a culture that sets the writing of language above all other graphic arts. Here are a few shots of work I’ve done.

Looking forward to what looks to be a surreal event on Friday the 13th featuring the magic of the Filmusik ensemble, Gamera vs Guiron with live score, sound effects and dubbing.  Be sure to check out the trailer.

crawl up and over and through this city
across the muddy bottomed river
and so much rust and pulp
heading for the columbia
and the pacific

arches and trusses,
drawbridges and spans of concrete
somehow graceful in their engineered form
spanning voids, carrying cars over
industrial riverbanks and salvaged green
spaces wearing engineered names like
esplenade and storm-water retention roofs

i sit in a north facing,
climate controlled
palace
waiting for a sleepy one
to stir
so we can again
head out to explore this unfolding
new urban wonderland before us

i am a twisted fish
a fish longing for a world
beyond all these stones,
weeds and bubbles
a fish longing for
the sharp pierce
of something new
a glimpse at a world
beyond fins and gills
to a world of sky and cloud

and you
a heron
walking on water
legs like reed grass
or tiny pilings
drove your skilled beak
into my life, giving
me all I longed for
when i was a twisted fish

[for tallulah, on your birthday, 11.2008, inspired by "Great Blue Heron" by Evon Zerbetz]

and what of that shack
now that summer has come
and gone and with it
the rawkus stellar jay
i evicted the first of two
times i swung open
the crooked door
in search of forgotten
things

with what will it
be filled by the people
i have allowed inside
during my impending
absence?

what things will nest
in the nurturing
damp while i seek
out a new home
for my poems?