The Sorcerer's Assistant

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as it were, I still can never sleep

stir under stiffened sheets

motivated by desire and dyspepsia as Vlad would say

I shake and break my breath on well-steamed stairways

at the top a girl stands, staring

with hooks attached to her lashes

can you feel the red wine rise in my throat?

acrid and burning,

it is impossible to swallow while sleeping, try it sometime,

you’ll see;

Golden eyes

stream cones of light into caverns of memory

scattering moths as they search the musty darkness

the moths will come back, they never could resist that light.

Tell me a story.

remember the most amazing five minutes of your life,

and describe them in ten.

how easy it is. Myth-making

molding men from clay

use your tongue

to stretch and pull the coiled tendrils of Time

she begins to dissolve and then reform with your voice

she doesn’t speak she doesn’t have to

and as the yellow fog rubs its back upon the windowpane,

she turns her face slowly into the moonlight

and recognition hits like hot rain

the girl in the gaps.

her image shaken free as I pulled loose the folds in the fabric of the past

the kind of beauty that can only exist in recollection

O, help me Mnemosyne!

the cold ticking of the wall clock slows and finally dies,

do you trust me?

crawl with me into the elastic space that lives between the clicks

don’t worry, we’ll be safe here

here, where a hundred years fit into several seconds,

we can, and we do, dream eternity.

Unripe

5/25/08

by katie boyden

a girl wraps herself in sweet somethings ,

cool, foggy air surrounds her in the shapeless space

and claws at the darkness--- her face

reminds me of the time

you flashed me your Jack of Spades

smug

like i wanted it

she sighs and puts the bottle to her lips

carbonation cracks her throat

as she watches the bubbles race towards the surface,

---pulling deeply through her teeth.

you wink and spray whipped cream into your mouth

dizzy you got some nitrous too

didn't you?

you say my hands intoxicate you

I raise them to my face and breathe in the earthy smell of tomato plants

You let me rub the sweet, green scent into your skin.

a girl blows smoke O's

watches the red-orange tip glow brighter as she inhales

a flush of freezing air

makes ripe, fragile buds perk up underneath her shirt.

your mouth is crushed velvet

pours wine in my sheets

that just we can see.

and the sound of my heart pounding the bed frame

is the only thing that can shatter the silence.

Your voice is thick in my throat

and plays loudest in my memory.

a girl jumps, startled
from the sudden sound of a woman's voice from inside

but it's only a loud commercial on TV.

She walks to the ledge and takes a final long drag exhaling into the frozen night

a fresh raindrop mingles with the salty stream on her cheek

she turns to go in

hesitates,

leans over the tomatoes, and inhales.

Entropy

Heat does funny things to people.

In the summer months of Los Angeles, this effect is especially apparent. The energy from a sweltering July sun charges the air in such a way that disrupts the normal electrical firings in our brains, making everyone just a little more edgy, a little less controlled than usual. In much the same way it turns water to steam, our thoughts become less orderly and more chaotic as the days get longer and hotter. We do things that we never thought in a million years we would do.

But the really interesting thing about heat is that it is never the same. The light and energy that the sun gives our planet today is different from the heat we’ve felt yesterday and what we will feel tomorrow. And it isn’t just in the sunlight, it’s in everything, our hands, our hot dogs, our coffee, our breath. It is a one-way system, and as fast as the sun can produce it, it will escape into the atmosphere, the universe, never to be recaptured. This is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

The energy put into a system can never be fully recycled; some part of it will always be lost.

This seems inefficient. It’s not. In fact, I believe it’s terribly important. It is the stuff of free will. The sunlight today is unique, infused with possibility. That energy is a gift, the present in every sense of the word. How we use our heat, today, is what shapes our destinies, and is what creates the explosion that happens when two charged particles collide. And we have to act fast because, when it comes down to it, we will all eventually cool off.

redwood grove

i crush berries sweet black

my tongue pressed palate

pours lip-staining rivlets

swirls by goosebump calves the coldfresh water,

My father wades in the waning day.

careful a current! laughing

i drop my too-big gloves

a rock. a stumble. a startle? a bird! a thorn. a thrash.

a guess. a grab. a bee!

throw bubbles i said

make claps i laughed.

a shout. a shove. a splash. a grinning gasp.

Vines bright green wrap tendrils of memory.

i see sour, see? green. see?

good enough for me.

plucking the ripe ovaries without permission

wet jeans wrap skin.

little fingers sneaking, don’t watch daddy!

he catches me snacking. but look over there

caught in those brambles a baby dove his leg is stuck!

a trill. a gray. a chance?

a clutch. a wing.

a ride. a splint. a hope. a life.

he’ll be ok now, won’t he?

Let’s go home

mud-cracked fingernails and angry red scratches

wash up and wipe the dirt off my chin,

smash the berries into a paste turns my fingers purple

Pour the sugar little sous chef

kneading ambition, flour clouds powder our smiles,

a feather. a father.

a pie.

Dry

I am, you know,

she said—pulling

her shirt over her eyes—

just here because I am supposed to be

And you?

The same, I replied

winter nights aren’t meant to be spent alone

No, she agreed, skin turning to paper beneath my touch

not even in a city without snow

It isn’t because of the cold that I need you next to me, I pressed my lips to her shoulder blade

Then why?

It’s the light

The light?

The white, impersonal winter sky. It reminds me of an operating room, I shudder, my breath coming hot against her neck. Sunlight does not warm us in winter. We need humans for that.

That isn’t what you mean.

Well what do I mean then?

We crave human touch because of the darkness. Shorter days mean longer nights.

……………

“Do you know why the leaves change color in the fall?” I ask, peering at her from across the room.

“Yes, because the days are shorter,” she says, returning my stare. Her phone rings and I pause waiting for her to do something.

“Do you need to take that call?”

She leans over and checks the ID. “No, it’s my vet. I can call him back. So what were you saying? Something about leaves changing color because the days are shorter?”

“No. Everyone thinks that is the reason. The real reason the leaves change color is because the nights are longer.”

“Same thing." Her eyes search the small table next to her chair.

“It’s not the same thing. Not the same thing at all. The chemicals in the plant cells react to the darkness and the coolness of the long autumn night.”

I breathe slowly, drinking in my epiphany. Didn’t this woman go to medical school? Last time I checked, basic biology was part of the curriculum. Then again, if she had studied life science, she probably would have read about that kinky monkey species—what were they called again?—bonobos, which she obviously hadn’t. She also might have known that the chlorophyll in plants absorbs red and blue light and only reflects green. I reach over and touch a button on my cell phone to see if anyone has called. The screen is blank.

She turns her head slowly back in my direction, a bored expression crossing her face.

“How is this about your…friend?”

“Girlfriend.”

“Right. Girlfriend. Aren’t you getting a little off-topic here?”

“No. I’ve been thinking about this all day. Clearly it is a metaphor for my entire existence.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t you see? The trees don’t follow the sun, they follow his sister. The moon. A woman. Fuck, why didn’t anyone tell me this when I was in eighth grade? I mean, I really should have figured it out myself, that was the year I got my period.”

She closes her eyes.

“We are all out of time. See you next week.”

another poem

The Fog
by Katie Boyden
(5/29/09)

the fog rolls in on the sunniest days
stops us dead in our tracks
‘cause we wanted to play.
makes decisions that we
didn’t know we would make,
and we take credit for those,
that we just shouldn’t take.

I saw your eyes in a traffic sign,
a green, watchful gaze
guiding me from behind.

I tripped on the dirt as I watered the plants,
like Alice and the dandelions
in some silly dance.

the fog is a wine,
the fog is a time,

the fog is a person,
the fog is a line.

I waited and waited and waited that day
I jumped and I shivered,
I sat and I stayed.

but the gloom kept sinking,
while I sat there, drinking
and wondering why,
looking at the white sky
that anyone even cares what I’m thinking.

you finally show,
but you feel like a dream
an imagined, once memory
of past infused steam

I sit and I sit and I wait and I think
look over my shoulder
look down in the sink

if ivy can crawl
and roots can grab hold
and old vines keep fruiting
there’s hope, so I’m told

what is it that flickers
in the light and the shade,
a promise of happiness?
or a dream that will fade

a room full of shadows
a sky full of plans
a wine glass half-empty
the palms of my hands.

yet I just keep hoping
that someone will notice
the mendacity here,
that it will somehow take focus

the edges are blurry
the lines won’t show clear,
and I feel you the most
when you are not here.

On hearing Hungarian Rhapsody at 2am

how did i know? what a silly question, how does anyone know?

how can that freshouttatheegg hatchling know until he takes one wrong grip and slips, swinging his wings till he falls right off the lowest (G) staff line.

bounces off eighth rests (don’t they just look like they’d be elastic and springy?)

downy tufts flying blinking those coal black eyes all pupil

feet up flailing

(air is matter, after all, it will support you if you beat it hard enough)

starts just something

anything

one note in front of the other

bending tendons

letting his feathers shake pleasure resonations

well you can’t just hover in that bass cleft forever, honey

a deep-throated c-sharp is a great start now make it climb

it’s the same way the rain-soaked street cat finds his way to his dish every night

even when dazzled by the eye-stinging stench of rotting eggs and blasts of musty steam from subway vents

and a fat, cawing housewife pouring hot cooking oil (don’t you dare put that down the drain it’ll clog the pipes!) into her neighbor’s plants.

same way Liszt knew c# minor would be the best [ fit ] i guess.

igniting the frank intention given to uncharacteristically big hands

tentative bass (c#-g#-c#) clawing up through moldy caverns

cracked shells glisten.

Listen,

it’s kind of like you’re the yolk and what you used to be—before—is the albumen

you know?

sticky white threads of assurance are the only things connecting you to anything familiar.

And man are they slimy.

But how do you…?

well that’s the tricky part. i guess it’s the spatula, get it?

you really don’t have any way of knowing, until all of a sudden you’re…scrambled.

…fuck. that analogy sounded much better yesterday.

God, it’s like breathing in scalding cooking oil

pop pop sizzle pop POW

catching it on your tongue as it staccatos off the castiron pan.

scarlet dust columns fly

furiously from the keys, explode clouds filling canyons of sharps and flats,

the little bird searches for an odor of memory

only to find amber-trapped ants

who, feeling the scorching shame of anachronism,

try in vain to recede into their segments.

better you, though, than all this sameness.

world spins shameless of the mixing

keeps going, droning, clones seek comfort knowing

that you can never ever

stir things apart.

let’s try a really low C (what is that, five bars below G?)…the lowest C on the board…number 86 if you counted high to low, I believe.

oh but this is c-sharp minor, mind you. it’s very. Very. Different.

hey remember that baby bird? daring to leave his oaken cradle.

fucking around in the baser clefts? look at him now.

trilling

(an entire line endeavor all fits—how??—into just one measure)

reckless

(32^nd notes i should say) around in the ultrahigh 8va.

how did he get up there so fast?

those octaves are way, way too high.

far too dangerous for such a little bird.

but chicks have never been known to listen to reason.

look at him riding those warm, wet updrafts. Ok, so he hasn’t got the fingering (or is it wingering?) right quite yet.

but damn is he trying.

and what about those oversized amber-trapped ants?

struggling with stagnation.

scaling octaves the little bird rolls by shouting words of encouragement.

don’t be sad i know you, your kind and your time. i was a dinosaur once, too, remember?

trust me, there is enough space, for everyone to feel out of place, somewhere.

rolling blackouts

rolling blackouts
by katie boyden
08.17.08

when you kneaded it like dough
and coughed up a week’s worth of not smoking

and the smog and the sheets were no match for
our stubbornness, and we tried to unscrew
meaning from all the toughest jars,
pried our fingernails clean off
and got nothing

we rolled into town
so to speak
and dirtied up the car
just to leave it
maybe someone else will clean it

I took you that morning
steamed you like cooking
made the walls get slicked with your cooling
while you secretly thanked God I have no fingernails

salty sweet and burned my tongue on the finish

when we stopped washing our hair
but kept scrubbing our skin
just so we could say we did something

and we missed the farmer’s market
every fucking Sunday and fucked instead
to make ourselves feel better about it

when our kisses drew blood
and your sharpened knife
sliced effortlessly through even
the softest and most bruised tomatoes

when the power shut off
and our food went bad
and the cat pissed on my bed
and we grappled and tangled and snarled ‘til we discovered
that we were evenly matched

and the credits rolled
and we were told that it was all
I mean all just a trick on the wall
smoke and mirrors

and we were just shadow boxing
and you were fighting you
and I was fighting me

and that made me smile because then
I knew that we could stop and not feel too bad about it
'cause we would still win.

asphalt

my mother always told me I was perfect
but she must have been lying
i figured it out by the fifth grade
it was a playground brawl
and i threw the first blow.

the dog that followed me home
wasn't my dog
but i kept him anyway
i needed someone to look up to

my mother got rid of the dog
before i could even name him
she said he stunk up the house and chewed up her plants
after that i always tried to behave
so she would want to keep me

the whole reason the fight started
was 'cause christina couldn't decide
if she was my friend or amy's
but christina had to choose
so naturally we had it out.

i pulled amy's hair and she bit my arm
we were like those rams in mating season
that they made us watch in science
fighting over the female sheep
except instead of horns and hooves
we had sparkly green fingernails.

and all the boys cheered
'cause not only were we the only girls
who could win at wall ball
but also we were making quite a scene

the principal made us sit in hard, tall chairs
said it's natural for girls our age to compete
over boys friends grades but mostly boys
swinging our feet we played
endless rounds of tic-tac-toe on a wooden board
with slots for the X's and the O's
and didn't listen to a word she said

on the way home, me and amy were friends
and when i got to my yard, there was a dog.

we are such stuff as dreams are made on

So.

It’s late and dark and cold. The Dads are telling us not to let The Dogs out to pee because there are coyotes roaming the hillside. If they venture into this dry, Valley night, they will surely be eaten and torn apart by members of their own canine family like ecstatic maenads in a Dionysian festival.

So.

The fire that we made has burned down to embers, which are hotter and redder than the yellow flames that lasted as long as the logs would allow, yet the color that burns the hottest, ironically, is blue. I sit on the mantelpiece with my legs curled up under me, wishing that I had a manuscript, and a glass of Pinot Noir, and maybe a Muse, just for kicks. I could really use some inspiration. I clap and clap until my hands are smarting with pain, but all I have managed to revive is the Absinthe Faerey. Tinkerbell? Is that you? What have you become?

So.

My lady lays in faded sheets. She is jinxed, wild and sparkling like the night. She walks in beauty. She will not be tamed. She.

She tells me that she loves me but does not believe me when I repeat those words. But how can four little letters convey the Great Abstraction. Our brains evolved to process emotions thousands of years before the acquisition of language came on the hominid scene. No wonder that words so often fail. Have you ever tried to explain how an orgasm feels to someone who’s never had one? It’s impossible. Pleasure, pain, heartbreak, grief…these feelings to which we affix black and white words are much deeper and older than our ability to name them. “What can be shown cannot be said.”

I get this. It makes sense. So I touch her instead, press my body against her warmth. She understands my love now because I’ve made it tangible. She feels it with a knowing that is ancient and female and divine.

So.

I sip and consider. I think about the social responsibility bestowed upon writers. Like, this just happened. Make it matter. “Make it new.” as Pound said. Make it puncture, make it steel, make it sound. Make it fusion, make it freezing, make it fly.

And so it is. I needed to write tonight because, well, I realized that if you spill beer on a keyboard it’s permanent. Something as silly as that. So. How could I spend my life being impermanent, soluble, and not say anything, given that everything could be erased in some drunk, erratic second.

There’s actually a shot called “Mind-Eraser.” I’ve had it. It’s nasty. Kahlua, vodka, and Sprite. Kind of like smog and charcoal and cherry blossoms mixed together. Kind of like exploding.

So.

Cyperspace is just an extension, a further dimension of human consciousness anyway. I want my thoughts to be held here is this electromagnetic fabric, safe from the pyres of book burnings and witch hunts that seek to destroy that which is beautiful in its defiance.

There is this post-modern disillusionment with linear Time. It seems that history as we know it, is coming to an end. Some say it’s long overdue. I say we have always lived cyclically, vertically inclined. Given that time is not a constant, but rather a fourth dimension, I have been fascinated with the folds, the fabric, as Nabokov has said, “the chance creases in the texture of Time.” Yet our contemporary American Dream goes chugging along as always. Always trying to be Top Dog. Until you get eaten by coyotes, that is. The scariest thing, I imagine, would be to get destroyed by a very close relative. I read about this in the paper. It really does happen, and it’s sick. Unfortunately humans are not immune to this behavior. Altruism does thrive, but it is painted on walls. In caves. We who can see are inherently blinded by sheer consequence. And temporality. But Space, the Comedy Villain, still lurks in the background, ready to disrupt its flow once again.

So,

To all the people, like me, who wished they were someone else, only to find out that the person they so ardently aspired to be was fictional….this is for you.

So.

When it all comes down to molecules and atoms, what will be left? Neils Bohr gave us energy levels in which to operate, but Heisenberg gave us the uncertainty to move elsewhere. To be chaotic. To be, in essence, free to do the unexpected. John Calvin would not have approved. Things are no longer the dualistic, confining either/or, but have now become both/and. Archtypes. Complementarity. Relativity. It’s thrilling.

So.

Where is this great migration? This diaspora. Tony Kushner says, “The world only spins forward.” Where do we go when all the earth in this Earth has already been uncovered? Who do we turn to but ourselves, our friends, our fellow humans, as the next great enigma to explore? When we run out of territory, I think it's only natural that our physical bodies become the Last Frontier.

“I believe in such cartography—to be marked by nature, not to just label ourselves on a map. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.”
–Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

And how will we treat our fellow man. Like captives? Children? (as if we could say we are wiser than children) Natives? Savages? Just look at the carnage committed by one “civilized” nation towards another. Makes me want to till soil and worship the Great Goddess. Put my ear to the ground and truly listen.

Let us look not to the world that seeks to destroy us, but rather find the shred of goodness in each other that encourages us to endure.

“Death usually has to take life away. I don't know if that's just the animal. I don't know if it's not braver to die, but I recognize the habit; the addiction to being alive. So we live past hope. If I can find hope anywhere, that's it, that's the best I can do. It's so much not enough. It's so inadequate. But still bless me anyway. I want more life.”
-Tony Kushner, Angels in America


And so it is.

-katie

when there is october love

[when there is october love]

dedicated to Diane and Ken Boyden on their 27^th Wedding Anniversary, October 4, 2007.

when there is October love—

(fall—ing

leaves

floating

d

o

w n)

crystal lake golden gate—brisk—beigepinkbrown;

dusky—dreamy, static—steamy,

a manandwoman speaking vows.

hope by heart, grief by joy

then in now, girl in boy

in time(less)ness we here not never

one become be alwaysforever.

tideful turning earthy sound,

lashes, lips

bound by crowns.

moonlicious crispy slated skies

winekiss (tastethis) laughsand sighs.

three for luck, two little girls,

leaves to years to eyes unfurls.

they get their needs to give their haves,

move their dreams, sing their glads.

hewithshe by longago lake,

seeds sown—upgrow(n)

in(their)love make

she some smallish days

she some smallish days my

ears prick tears—bathe us, taste us

as smiles dissolve into night.

the moonlicked lusty november

sky: felt it like velvet

beneath

her

and

i