big sur, all the same...

aslan & jess have become my world.  they are my poetry & they are my love.  i am not sure which one is which, though they must be separate on some grounds, somehow.  however, if love & poetry truly are the same thing, i will just have to hold them both together.  i love them both & i want them both forever.  the synonyms threaten to suffocate my intent.


i feel hysterical & i sound insane.  i am sinking fast & i know it.  let me sink let me sink let me sink.


let me sink.


we are driving - the three of - down to big sur this weekend.  kerouac's refuge and braughtigan's first novel-inspiration.  i am ecstatic.  we will be camping for three days, finding a quiet spot a few miles from somewhere (or anywhere).  i am going to propose to them - both of them - but i am still unsure what the proposal will be.  propose that they let me in, truly.  perhaps.  i will write it down first.  i will recite to them the sounds of the waves and the sounds of my mind & they will have to say yes to everything - as i have learned to do.  i have been writing nothing but poetry all week.


i still have no job & camping seems to be the logical solution to unemployment.  though san francisco will come back to me when i come back to her, for three days i will forget.  there are 259200 seconds in three days - and perhaps even more moments - and i plan to exist in each and every one of them.  is there a measurement for moments?  i hope not.


i live on dangerous grounds.  the ceiling might collapse.  the floor might give out.  


i have found something constant, between the ceiling and the floor (between the ground and the sky).  i have found something that exists and i'm sure of it.


i'm fucked.  i've said it before.  it's a cheap statement & i say it again.  let me be cheap.  let me sink.  


take it all in and let it all out.  over & over & over & over.


i will love all the same.

a poem re: change

i'm fucked.


it's been a while, i know.  


i've been busy - perhaps lazy too.


i've lost track of time.  


i don't know how long i've been in san francisco.  


or how long in this house.


or how long i've been a poet


in blood and spirit and mind.


i'm in love -


or very nearly so -


and


i'm fucked.

broke...

i'm broke & a little drunk.  where the money went, i have no idea.  i know where all the wine went.

i've never had a real job.  i've always been a writer.  what can a writer do but write?

i see 'broke' everywhere here.  i live so close to it these days.  the line is thin.

i'm broke & a little scared.

how much further do i have to fall before i hit the mission sidewalk?  what does this city look like from down there?  i can't imagine.

i'm broke & in serious need of a job.  where the money went, i have no idea.

flash-backs...

it's a bright wednesday morning & i'm not quite present.  i'm all past & future, breathing a different air from moment to moment.


i boarded a train, westbound, some three weeks ago.  strange - i haven't written or talk much of it.  in november i had a mother & father.  it is now february & i have neither.  the change happened fast.  i wasn't there when it happened, but i can hear the sounds clearly.  it must have been, & still be, pre-dawn - somewhere.  everything else is so still & quiet in my memory.  i don't try to distance myself from it even though it isn't and never was mine.  i meditate on it & then it's gone.


it's gone.


i took my college savings & bought my ticket the day after the accident.  there was no planning.  it was as if death somehow watered a seed that had been planted in my brain some years before & there was no way to ignore the flowers, fully blossomed, in my skull.  so i bought the ticket.  i had no physical connections in san francisco, but i had none elsewhere either.  i told myself that as long as i kept moving i wouldn't be scared & that has been the case so far.  even when everything is still around me, i keep moving.  a poet is always moving, jumping from line to line - sometimes fast & sometimes slow, but always moving.


i found a desk on the sidewalk early this morning & carried it six blocks back to my apartment.  i felt like a thief & when i was passed by an early-morning-dog-walker i feared that she might begin to shout for an officer.  no such thing happened, of course.  there's a lot of shit on the sidewalk in this city.  people tear down old lives & build new ones on a daily basis.  surely that happens everywhere, but in san francisco people shamelessly leave their dejected old lives on the sidewalk right in front of their new ones.  that's where i come in.  it seems appropriate.  in a sense that's why i'm here, looking for an old life that i somehow missed the first time around.

movement

it's been a while & for that i am sorry.   my life was up in the air last time i posted & i'm happy to say that things have worked themselves out for the time being.  instead of vague generalities, i'd like now to tell you all what happened to me when i went to view the apartment i mentioned last week....


it was raining that day in san francisco.  a low fog hung over market street - on the corner where i boarded a bus to the mission district.  the fog here encompasses every aspect of life & for this reason the faces & the streets & the smells & the sounds & my destination stop were all in a fog.  time was in a fog.  i don't read on buses or trains here, i observe.  i observe everything but my destination, poetic and entirely unintentional.


i found the apartment, bottle of wine under arm, after a long walk which for some reason i can't quite recall.  as i wandered i failed to notice that the san francisco fog had lifted to reveal a beautiful afternoon.  i knocked on the door, anxious to present & consume the beajoulais i had acquired.


she was beautiful.  her skin, the color of almonds.  her eyes, smoky & alive.  short hair, long-legged.  she introduced herself as jess & led me into the front room, the kitchen.  the apartment smelled like marijuana. 


'this could be my first apartment,' i thought, struck&intimidated&amazed.


& then him.  aslan - his name - sitting at the kitchen table over a cup of black coffee, a notebook - joint between his fingers & really fuckin' cool.  i didn't talk much, but i think they read youthful ignorance & excitement on my face.  they were trying to loosen me up.


first the marijuana.  then the beaujoulais.  & then something entirely different, but i'm getting ahead of myself.  


we sat around the kitchen table for a while.  jess & aslan didn't act like any couple i'd ever seen close up.  they didn't hold hands or make faces & noises at each other.  they didn't show their feelings, they felt them & moved with them.  they were like old friends, just comfortable with the changes they both underwent from minute to minute.  i didn't know who i was more attracted to.  they asked questions - first questions i knew the answers to & then questions i'd never even considered before, but haven't stopped considering since.  i found a voice in the joints & wine & conversation & comfort.  hours passed.


'it's yours.  should we celebrate?'


i'll never forget the sound of jess's voice at that moment, drifting on the surface of implications.  i was too stiff to exhibit my excitement & too stiff to refuse the piece of paper aslan placed on my tongue.


'you're skin is going to fall off,' he whispered.  or maybe yelled.


i don't remember much after this - a few bob dylan lyrics & some poetry-reading.


when i woke up the next day i was laying on the floor in an empty room, my room.  tacked to the wall, two feet from the hardwood floor, was a piece of paper with my handwriting on it.  it read:

Three (3) Haikus

five five five five five

seven seven seven, now

five five five five five

five & five & five

seven seven seven &

five & five & five

5 5 5 5 5 

7 7 7 &

5 5 5 5 5

pretty good, right?

success...?

this morning - finally! - i received a response to my craigslist ad.  a couple living in the mission district are looking for a roommate to sublet a room in their two-bedroom apartment.  the e-mail that they sent me seemed indicative of a good environment.  they perform together as a folk duo at coffee shops & social gatherings around the city.  perhaps they'll know some poets & writers with whom i can discuss my passions.  maybe i can make some connections.  i remain hopeful.  i will be going to look at the apartment & meet the couple this evening &, if they take a liking to me, i hope to move in sometime this week.  i've found a liquor store near the hostel that has yet to card me - perhaps i'll bring a bottle of wine to the interview.  maybe some of my work as well!

in creative news, i've been doing a fair amount of writing since i've been here.  i've been focused mainly on short poems & haikus (this city can be captured so well in seventeen syllables!).  also, i've been outlining a semi-autobiographical account of my travels from east to west.  the physical journey isn't much to write about, but the implications are so great that i feel i'd be a fool not to put it to paper - potentially learn a thing or two about myself & this ageless country in the process.

note to self: first purchase after finding permanent residence must be a type-writer.  this computer screen is blinding & i find myself constantly distracted.

lights sound batteries

hum hum hum

pornography & rock n' roll

trains upon trains of thought

crash

hum hum hum

wish me luck this evening!

-j.

howling for a place to live!!!

i've been living in san francisco for nearly a week now, paying thirty dollars a day for a bed in a crowded room at the downtown hostel.  i've been posting my 'room wanted' ad on craigslist as often as the site will allow, but have yet to receive a single response.  how did san francisco's legends of the 50s & 60s ever find apartments?  i've got the internet at hand & still remain - more or less - homeless.  this is not to say that i haven't met some truly fascinating characters in the last week (both inside & outside of hostel walls).  here, in a final desperate attempt, i thought i might post my ad to my blog.  below:


"hey san francisco, i am a 20 year old poet who has just moved to the golden coast to find a nurturing scene & - ideally - a publishing deal.  inspired by the greats: kerouacginsberg&co.  i am a laid back guy - open to any and all living situations.  i am here for the experience, the air!!  i have a decent amount of savings which currently is wasting away as i pay for daily lodgings.  i don't have a cell phone, but you can reach me via e-mail at any time.  i smoke a lot of cigarettes.  jazz-and-grass friendly.  my name is jackson."


i find that it is hard to capture and portray my personality on the internet, but i think this craigslist post does a pretty decent job.  without actually knowing me, would you say that it's off-putting for any reason?


if you have friends or friends-of-friends who are looking for a roommate anywhere around san francisco, give them my contact information.


for now, to beat these homeless blues, i'm going to compose some haikus and perhaps take a nap in golden gate park.


-j. callahan