burbz

in the night

green

When the sun drifts down through rifts in the bark of trees and the bark of your bark i think
bite
because the apple's only ripe for a bit on the branch and it really couldn't hurt to taste a bit of
sweet
like the sweat on my shoulder and the dirt of the river, and the heat of the moment so
hot
it's the sun, but baking is filling and i carry round spoons and if we end up with pie it's a product of
picking
the sweetest of moments and seeing the bugs and breathed in space that was holy
our
own like the green of the leaf where the caterpillar lounges and thinks to himself
how
life mimics me - it's the color of my feet that makes the day verde and if you get cold just put on a cape
and no matter your whim or fancy or reason, i know you're not drunk, just a
lush
like the trees.

un dia

The man sitting next to Leila smelled faintly of parrot droppings. The rough skin of his arms was caked with layers of dirt, and even through the fog of her pre-coffee haze she thought to herself that an excavation of his epidermis might reveal some interesting tales. His shoes looked to have been blue at some point years ago, but by that morning had chameleoned into a moldy sort of green. Leila found herself uncomfortably close to the man, and she cursed the abundance of morning commuters. To make things worse, she was seated on the plastic blue bench, staring directly into the slacks-covered genitals of a portly banker man. She tried not to think about the stomach turning image beyond the layer of cloth in front of her, but it was hard to avoid the present. She’d never sit down on the subway again, she promised herself, never.

Floating heavily over the smell of guano were the pungent fumes of aftershave, the morning sweat, the sweet aroma of coffee and bagels and the general odor of piss (potentially emanating from the rivulets of unidentified liquid shifting along the floor of the car.) The stench of this amalgamation, combined with the looming paranoia of potential-maybe-could-be-probably-hopefully-not pregnancy, made Leila heave.

Her nausea was given an added boost when the car jerked to a halt at 53rd and Lexington. She felt the smells around her stir in the thick air as all the passengers’ legs tightened with the anticipation of escape. The car grew eerily quiet as everyone shifted and tensed, willing the doors of the train to burst. With a defeated swish, the metal retreated into the sides of the car and Leila was instantly and impossibly squished between the meaty belly of the man behind her and the twin-bed of an ass in front of her. They were surprisingly soft crushing materials and Leila thought briefly to herself how much she’d like to fall asleep. The amoeba crowd swarmed towards the set of steep escalators, and once again Leila felt the lumpy arm of the dirt-caked man, her nostrils filling with the scent of bird…

“Shit” she thought to herself, halfway up the escalator, still firmly sandwiched between protruding belly and bottom. “Shit.” And then, she passed out.

------------------------

I keep my eyes closed for a few seconds longer than necessary because it still smells of unwashed parrot. In these last moments of darkness I relive the only other time I’ve ever lost consciousness: the 4th grade apple bobbing contest. I was wearing my new brown dress and all would have been happy had fucking Sarah Jones not been the one who volunteered to face off with me in the apple tub. Sarah, my arch nemesis with the long black hair, and the pale pale skin. In my mind, she approaches. She kneels down next to me, pausing to tie her silky mane back with a hot pink elastic band. She places her hands at the base of her spine and crosses her thin, rice-paper wrists. She leans forward, her face is within inches of mine, both of our noses hovering just above the water’s surface. I stare down into the tub, trying to locate an apple to bite, and in the reflection of the murky brown I see Sarah stick her tongue out on me. I didn’t have the words for it at the moment, but whatever I was feeling then has long since been translated into a phrase for older teeth: “Bitch.” Devi Khan, standing above, blows the plastic whistle. My face breaks the water’s placid surface and I begin jerking my torso, mouth wide open and eyes scrunched shut. My lips touch the skin of 2, 3, 5, 6 apples but I can’t seem to sink my teeth into any of them. I can feel Sarah’s arm bumping mine, the soft fuzz of her hair tickling my elbow and inciting rising fury. The panic in me builds and even as I feel my lungs begin to burn I think to myself “just a few more seconds.” Then, blackness.

Suddenly, I can feel water on my face – and I’m startled into opening my eyes. Through the blur of my contacts I can see a faint figure, with pale, thin skin. Sarah? My stomach heaves for the second time this morning. I blink a few more times before I realize that Sarah is an old man, and behind him is a sign above a door:

Casa del Loro
Buenos Aires

The sign creaks and shifts faintly in the breeze, as the old man pitches another bucket of brown water onto me. I close my eyes again.

river country

summatime

giraffe multiplication

sometimes i just must paint with insect eyes

speak it easy

apple cinnamon swirl

An Imaginary Profile of the Very Real Parrot Lady

Rosemary Grewin exits her apartment building approximately every afternoon and perches herself on the edge of small enclosure that protects a sidewalk tree. She always faces towards the building, which seems a little unusual, as most of the action happens in the street. Then again, Rosemary doesn’t seem to desire entertainment, so it doesn’t matter. She places the bird cage down next to her on the pavement, and slumps forward a little bit, bending her midsection into an impossibly deep crease of pudge. Her floral dress is modestly cut and her hair is messy. Croaky, the parrot in the cage, is impeccably clean in comparison, and much more vibrant.

I approach Rosemary one afternoon when Croaky has gotten too loud to ignore. I ask her how long she’s had the parrot.

“Oh – Croaky, longer than I can remember.”

I push her to give me a parrot age.

“I’m serious, eh, longer than I can remember. Everything is fuzzy past a few years ago. The doctor, eh, he told me that it was something with a long name – this memory thing. But I don’t worry. I have Croaky to remind me.”

I ask her to clarify.

“Croaky, eh, he is excellent with names and faces,” Rosemary tells me. “An old man came to the door last week and I didn’t have any clue who he was, eh. But Croaky, he told me his name was Joe Morazzo. And it was! That was the man’s name. Eh, love my bird.”

I am suspicious of what Rosemary tells me mainly on account of the fact that Croaky only croaks. He doesn’t speak. Despite my fear of embarrassing Rosemary, I delicately proceed to push the subject.

“Eh no no no, not like a human, just small syllables, eh? Enough to make my energy jump like a pepper. I give him liver bits when he helps, so he’s always eager, eh. Little Croaky, such a good boy.”

Croaky looks up at me from the sidewalk. His parrot head is cocked to the left and his eyes twinkle in an unusually intelligent fashion. He twitches a green wing. He poops on the pre-soiled newsprint that lines his cage.

“Eh, Croaky,” Rosemary begins again, “he flew away once, when I left the window of my apartment open to let the paint fumes clear. I was painting my kitchen you know, prune purple and kiwi green because it seemed like I could use a little bit of that. When Croaky flew away I didn’t worry too much - just baked brownies and waited for him to return. And when he did, you know what?”
She waits for me to ask her “What?”

“When eh, when he came flying back in through that window he had a woman’s id card in his beak. And you know who that woman was?”

She waits for me to ask her “Who?”

“None other than my dear old friend Ruth Cohen who I’d forgotten all about. What are the chances of that?”

Croaky croaks at me, and I conclude that I can’t really fathom what the chances of that actually are.

yup yup

An Imaginary Profile of the Very Real Man Up Above

It is a cloudy Saturday. I enter Tom McGillian’s apartment and there doesn’t seem to be anyone home. This is odd, since a distinctly mellifluous voice buzzed me up from downstairs just a minute ago. I wait awkwardly for a few moments in the doorway and cough sporadically. Then, I heard the same smooth vocals beckoning, and Tom appears, floating outside the window.

Even outside a third floor window, Tom McGillian doesn’t look anywhere near his 72 years. His hair is white but neatly trimmed, and his body is lean – if a bit saggy. He credits his physique to his daily yoga and cleaning routine: “Darling,” he tells me, as I join him on the fire escape, “I’ve been doing these moves since 1976, and it’s what has kept me fit and fierce. Every afternoon I put on my workout pants, step out onto this little porch as I like to call it, and take in the fabulous, intoxicating life that bustles down below.”

Tom leans inside the window and pulls two champagne flutes from a table inside. “Bellinis” he tells me, “it’s peach season somewhere.”

I do not argue with Tom’s reasoning.

Tom wipes the glass’ sweat on his shirt and begins to explain his outfit to me.

Tom’s workout attire consists of one perfectly white “wife tickler” (“I don’t approve of domestic violence, so I’ve modified my language to reflect my morals”) a standard pair of loose, stretchy black pants, high white socks, and an even tan (“all 4 seasons I make sure to get my sunshine – and sometimes, if I’m losing color, I’ll just take a bath in a nice little mixture of India ink, carrot juice, and champagne”). His routine is visible from the street, as he always does it on the narrow iron fire escape that we sit on.

I feel that the platform will break any second and both Tom and I will plunge to our dramatic death, but I keep that to myself.

“It was a little tough three years ago when I broke my wrist,” Tom tells me, “I had more trouble climbing out the window, and almost slipped once, but I eventually go the hang of it.”

I ask Tom to describe his routine for me.

“Well, darling, it ‘s a bit of cleaning, a bit of stretching, a bit of jazz, and a bit of people watching. I clean my windows first – that helps me exercise my wrists, and also allows me to grapevine from side to side. Then it’s a bit of yoga – while I’m holding poses I just look at all the busybodies down below. And then it’s just a bit more dancing. The NYSC is right across the street and I can see straight into their treadmill and dance room level. If a tight-ass dance class is going on I just sort of follow along. If it’s just the hamsters – that’s what I call all those raisin ladies in there – well, then I just try to remember some of the old disco moves my boyfriends liked.”

I ask Tom to tell me about the origins of his routine.

“Well darling, 1976 was a long time ago, a very long time ago. And one night in February, when it was so cold my tits were frozen, I was sitting out in the park over there. I remember the day exactly – it was the night between when that earthquake hit Guatemala and everyone went race crazy and rioted down in the sunny state. I was sitting in that park and just shivering but I got this feeling that I had to stay right there on my ass because something was going to happen. My boyfriend had broken up with me a few days before and I didn’t really have anywhere to be after that, so I cried a bit and kept my eyes open as wide as I could. Maybe around 2 am, when things were silent except for the moaning of some drunks, a tiny little boy walked into the center of the square. He was all bundled up in just the cutest little outfit you ever saw but no one was with him. I watched him as he stopped in the dead center, lifted his arms, and began to pirouette around the fountain. And I’ll be damned if that little boy just didn’t look happier than the man in the moon, just dancing by himself. A minute or so later a nanny came running and hollering and smacked that boy and took him back to wherever he belonged but I kept sitting there. The next day I started dancing, in my own way. Darling, I never really had a plan, it just felt right.”

Tom picks up his window cleaning cloths with a particular flourish and begins to circle and jive in his elaborate patterns across the length of the fire escape. I look down below to see if anyone notices, but then again, no one really needs to.

injera cupcake

electric slide

An Imaginary Profile of the Very Real Slide Guitar Man

"They used to call me Slip n'Slide" he said to me, as we sipped our mock mint juleps at the corner cafe. "But that was before that kid toy came out - then I thought it was too hokey and I put an end to it."

I asked him how.

"Oh, well if some dumb ass drunk ever hollered at me I'd just pick up my drink - you know, the kind they give you to wet your mouth and loosen your arms when you perform - I'd pick up that drink and just pitch it at him. Lost a lot of good jack and cokes that way, but it did the trick."
This was back when Jack Cousteau (given name, Rick Jones) used to hold court on a stage instead of a street corner. Between 1973 and 1987 he made his way up from new Mexico and eventually into the heart of Greenwich village (an arrhythmic heart at that.) Jack claims to have a scar for every one of the states he passed through, and with green mint leaves stuck between his two front teeth he asks me if I'd like to see them. Due to the private nature of some of his scar's locations, I politely decline.

"You're really missing out hon," Jack tells me, mint leaf shifting slightly as his thin lips move across his teeth. "The one on my left testicle looks a little bit like Marilyn Monroe and a little bit like a jack russel terrier. You ain't never gonna have another chance in your life to see something like that."

This is true, I probably won't.

"It's better playing out on the street than in the bars," Jack tells me. "On the street, everyone thinks I'm performing but the joke's on them. Fuckers don't know that I just sit here watching their antics all day long. No damn day goes by without something to make me marvel. In the bars, the lights are always too low in the audience and too high on the stage - I can't tell a cockroach from my grandmother if it's out beyond the stage lights. I'd prefer to see my grandmother, or the cockroch, if it's there."

I ask Jack what's the strangest thing he's seen on Waverly.

"Oh, you know, lots of cat fights - those are always wild. The women and the cats. So much screechin and hollerin, you get to forgettin that the world is ever quiet. I put my guitar down when they start - no use tryin to drown out that craziness. But the strangest thing - well, I'd have to say it was the day old lady Maybell down the street set up camp in front of this cafe. She had a house of her own but she took to the notion that the world was about to end and she wanted to see the colors of the sky when God shook it all up again - like it was in the beginning. So she set up camp and took to preachin and turned quite a few young yuppies away from their daily espressos, but damn it if she wasn't right, at least in part. Three days into her vigil the ground gave way under her and she fell straight into a sink hole. I don't know if the sky got shook for her, but other things sure did. Sometimes I play a song for her. It's short and simple and I call it 'creation shake.'"

I ask Jack to play it for me.
He does.
It sounds exactly like the song he plays every day, but I trust him to know the difference.

there are many things

this is the bird in my neighborhood. his name is Croaky. it is an appropriate name

rapunzel, he said, let me climb up your hair
like the silhouette stair
like the silhouette stare
rapunzel, he said, let me finger your locks
with the hands of a clock
with the tick of a tock
rapunzel, he said, let me scale the tall tower
climb the vines of the flower
climb the dust of the flour
rapunzel, he said, let me sleep in your clouds
close my eyes to the crowds
close my i's to the vows
rapunzel, he said,
rapunzel, he said
rapunzel