In My Pocket

The sun is setting. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it's setting, the day is over, whatever work we started is winding down. It's 6:04pm on a trivial Monday evening. Cars lazily trace 130th north and south. The sky is a blue grey and the wind is ripe. It's the perfect kind of night for …

On the Road Again

The road is strange, and the road is wide, the road is long, and the road is tough. But in the words of one of my favorite authors, "When the going gets tough, the weird turn pro," and that's how it goes in the Renegade corner. These days and all days. Ignore the hysteria and …

Spirit

I spend a lot of time in cemeteries. Yes...intentionally. And, yes...it's depressing, but in the best of ways. The kinds of ways you always remember. The kinds that give us pause; tether us to moments so steadfastly all we can do is think about the lines drawn out from their centers, gather the data, and …

Mountain View

People clamor into the coffee shop like crowds arriving at Disney. A line like a slowly slithering snake stretches on out the front door. Kids race around between the twin pillars of their parents' legs, old friends rehash their Friday night escapades on Telegraph, on the BART, in The City. There are smiles on these …

Serious Crape

Sometimes I can't find the handle on things. I get flustered. I don't mean to sound contrived or like this is something monumental; merely a statement of fact. Sometimes I get lost. There is no reason for it. It just happens. One of those things. But there are times when I'm lost when I find …

More Tomorrow

I ran today. When I woke up, I had absolutely no intention of running at all. I didn't run yesterday, I didn't run the day before. Not new. Nothing earthshaking. I just didn't want to run. But I ran. I ran 6.14 miles through a cemetery and tried to imagine what life would be like …

Big Things

I just got home after reading at an open mic. It's my fourth open mic since I've moved out to California, and my fifth open mic overall. The MC that introduced me is a part of the poetry cohort graduating with mine. When my name was drawn from the plastic bag (they did the order …

To Be Sure These Days Continue

It's been the same-old, same-old recently, with a little bit of new. This morning I awoke to the natural light drifting in past the blanket I'm using as a window blind. The blind and I had it out a month ago. But when I rolled over to check the time, thinking it was ten or …

Kiss by a Rundgren

I'm reading Patti Smith's M Train, which, if you've never read it, is about nothing. That's not my personal diagnosis; this coming from the lips, er, fingertips of the woman herself. The first line of the book: "It's not easy to write about nothing." This line strikes a chord with me, did almost instantly. Quite often …

PostPhontaine 200s

We're in this now. We're going all the way. Hell or high water, this is it. One foot in front of the other. There is no turning back. There is no second guessing. Where we go from here isn't an option. It's an inevitability. It's going to take everything I have, but I'm good for …