Diary 44
05.09.24
Saw Casper Allen play last night, just him and his guitar on stage. He’s got a rugged, throaty voice like Tom Waits and sings with his whole body—to hit some notes he’d lift his ass off his seat and stand up halfway, then sit back down—every muscle working towards his song. Think one of the things I appreciated most is he took time in between to tell the stories behind different songs, some of them real personal and brutally honest, a lot of them about his ongoing struggle with addiction. And him being on stage as-is, no band, no wild lights, no excess, felt like his was of saying I’ve fucked up, but I’m not hiding it. Made the room feel smaller than it already was. You could hear the bartender washing dishes in the sink and Casper tappin his foot on stage and someone chewing ice next to you. I loved how intimate it was.
05.10.24
to burn holes
to spill light
to spiral meaningfully
to leak blood
to lace limbs
to cover a birds nest
to move quietly
to carry sorrow
05.11.24
i kept running away and you kept
finding me, in creek beds, dark chapels,
dive bars, on the freeway going 90, supine
on the forest floor, looking up and out
of the abysmal chasm of grief, looking
up at your face holding mine, whispering
baby, deep breaths, baby, i’m here,
baby, i love you, to which i vehemently
replied love has never made me feel secure!
do you hear me? clawing at your
eyes because that’s how i was taught
to defend myself if someone tried to
harm me, seen lovers bludgeon each other
all my life, i’m no fool—
but you, gentle as can be,
you leaned in, scooped
me up, cradled me close
to your chest, and laid me
down on a patch of soft grass,
told me slow down, i’ve got you.
matter of fact, you keep doing it.
05.12.24
Found some old photos of my great-grandma Maria, who was born and raised in Croatia. She immigrated to the states along with my grandma and her sister around 1966, and lived in Chicago until she passed.
Thankfully I got to meet her, spent a few good years with her, but I was still real young, and a lot of those memories have faded now. I do remember she lived in a historic brownstone I always found so beautiful, would probably sell for half a million dollars now. I can faintly remember the sound of her voice, or I guess the shape of it, with her thick Croatian accent. And I remember visiting her and always leaving with an overstuffed belly. Still, my memories of her are sparse, and these photos make me yearn for more information. I have complex questions for her, like how would you describe your childhood? what have you endured? what do you detest? what has love made you capable of doing? Just wish I got to know her better.
05.13.24
Peter Gizzi, MASTERS OF THE CANTE JONDO (solo guitar), published in Fence Magazine, Spring/Summer 2000.
It was a structure—
cactus flowers, lipstick
the dry scent of sand,
sage and everywhere
cottonwood fluff.
The day was the day we kissed,
the sky, bent for always
and a disc of fire warmed us.
There was narrative, a future
screen doors and pickups,
a dirt-shimmied vista.
Things as they are—
upon a time
and goes like this.
