MOVING DAY

THE SPOON CAFE JOURNAL HAS MOVED! JOIN US AT spooncafejournal.blogspot.com. If you are an author, please move your stories over to the new Spoon Cafe Journal site by the New Year. For a while now I’ve wanted to move the Spoon Cafe Journal blog from WordPress to Blogger.  Blogger is a google thing, and so […]

Letter to my dad, but not my father figure.

Dear Dad, I am awake and heading into town. You were right about writing early. Beautiful thoughts are filling my head this morning, giving me sway to write (now I am not so sure they are beautiful, but it feels good to have them in my head). It would be nice to see you, even […]

Double life

Can I feed my child? Simple enough request to ask the goddess when I was pregnant. I did not think this would end in a battle of stealing from trees/property (apples and lemons mostly). I can recall these recent years of struggle well. It was when I was most connected with my spirited no ties […]

Bandon, Oregon

One winter morning, I had crab in Bandon, Oregon. I went up the coast and went out one morning and bought crab in Bandon, Oregon. I drove up along the rugged coast of Oregon and went out one morning and got crab in Bandon, Oregon. I rode up the coast on my motorcycle just as […]

People often fail on the verge of success; take care at the end as at the beginning

Some summer afternoons we would go out to dinner in a neighboring town. We’d take the backroads and meander through dust and meadows and pepper trees. On these drives, talk would turn lazy and philosophical.  They were our best moments by far. Now, I’m just tired. When I regain balance, she knocks me off my […]

Ugly Intersection Drawing of a Scrub Jay

Had unusual dreams last night under a foot of blankets.  Elaine told me she’s never had an orgasm.  I said, “Never?” And she said, “Never,” in that way she has that is sardonically accepting of every situation. And I wake up thinking of Sophie.  Just that thought in my head.  That’s all. I’m chafing in […]

Greyhound

I rode a shuttle bus last night up on campus and after everyone boarded and the driver turned off the bright overhead lights leaving a series of moody pools of warm reading light, I was flooded with longing. Cross-country bus trips of my youth.  Stopping for minutes at a time in little towns whose name […]

Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues

A freight train out of town.  Cold hands.  Head stuffed up with sleep and lack of sleep and why am I up so early with the morning fog along the tracks.  Skip James tune in my head, just a few lines obsessively repeating in my head. There’s a girl that I left behind and we’re […]

It’s 1am and I’m Running Away

The high-tension wires are making a dangly-jangly rhythm like the sound of a digeridoo. And I’m thinking about the barking dogs in the distance. I’m thinking about the fish dancing for fish reasons to fish rhythms. I’m thinking about the frogs across the lake with their frog love songs. I’m thinking about what you said […]

Anywhere

Ocean voyages in far away lands without ever seeing the sea and trees, leaves, fall and autumn colors breaking bones Breakdown brakeshoe breakbeat a backbeat an off rhythm Snare player from the Midwest in a Salvation Army coat sees a girl he thinks he recognizes from a 1000 miles away An old love, a burnt […]

Even the birds are crying

There is a fire burning in the mountains. The smoke covers the sun and the light looks like the end of the world. Even the birds are crying… the plaintive sound of wild turkeys the backdrop of our final farewell. I walked through the forest alone and disoriented. As always, I could not just let […]

Sand and Stone and Receding Distance

I slept in my truck the other night.  With the drip drip drip of my leaking gas line, and the tick tick tick of my cooling engine after another five hundred miles, and the slow rrrrroar of passing semis on the highway, I slept in my truck. And in the morning it was just too […]

West Oakland to Roseville

I waited in a gondola in the Desert Yard, blissed out with a cigar in the late afternoon sun. Golden sun, mellow cigar smoke, warm east bay afternoon.

Meteor

She walks down the beach, hips swaying in the push of the soft sand. A willowy fireball. Which I just looked up, a brilliant meteor that may trail bright sparks.

a shimmering sheet of blue

A crazy roadtrip across two states to see a friend. The traveler, the dreamer, the exotic circus lady. Talk about her need for rootedness and my need to uproot some of mine. Coming from opposite directions, maybe we can meet in the middle. Beyond, a defile between the mountains descended rapidly about two thousand feet; […]

A Note to My Vagabonding Friend

I wanna write crazy messages, but I don’t think I have stationary crazy enough to hold them.  I’m thinking of you, but maybe not you, but a crazy idea of freedom, or something beyond this, or beyond everything and I don’t know what that would be.  An aimless roadtrip through no-name towns, gas station bathrooms […]