September Trials and the Misdemeanors of Family

When I get around to finding you

among the empty automobiles and vacant buildings,

the groves that will surely shrivel and die-

I might have a bottle of beer with me

to chase the memories of yesterday

that refuse to join the sky.

I used to look forward to seeing you,

the way you held my hand

and spoke to me about making

something of myself.

Now I sit down in my usual place

and I watch words become pictures inside my head,

 the last image of the ceiling before the lights go out,

a glimpse of the neighbor next door in skimpy panties

calling her dog from the back porch.

Once in awhile things turn into something

gentle reminders that the moments matter,

the beginning and the ending of what we think and how we struggle

to change the unchangeable, 

how we put together little pictures from broken memories 

hope of doing more 

or doing less 

than yesterday.  

September 30th, 2000

..and you were gone.

journal entry full of silences

This started out as something else, another journal entry full of silences, words to capture the unrelenting, this unimaginable falling down quiet.  Then I realized putting this here is sorta fruitless, like fig trees and pomelos sliding thin branches full of Autumn, destined for mud and wintry skies, lost in pie plates and conversations so very nearly soon to be forgotten. 

If I write about the exquisite depravity you might think it insufferable, if I write about the debauchery of pain to ruin your face from ever smiling again, you're certain to call it the exaggerations of far away malingerers, too busy with your prejudice to right your wrongs, too busy with your sense of superiority to be willing to acknowledge there is no excuse for a defense comprised of lies and abuse.  

You cannot escape punishment yourself with something less permanent, however awkward, however necessary the slaughter of the innocent.    

The change of arrival, the beginning of fall

Soon comes the Autumnal Equinox, the change of arrival, the beginning of Fall leading to the dark of Winter.  It is the mysterious qualities of Fall that offer us lessons to live by and practices to support dreams.  Open to change, willing to give in to all, we can embrace the great wide open knowing that it suggest the coming of Autumn is where we'll find newness in every direction.  

Autumn reminds me of the impermanence of everything. I have experienced the greatest joys of life and love as much as incredible tragedy.  I know only what was and what might be, this endearing Spring and the flowerings of Summers held wide and freely populated with friends and neighbors.  Now leaves fall and bare branches scratch Bay breeze skies, fluttering shapes in sprained browns and savage reds remind me of the fleeting nature of all things.  

Fall also brings every day to the fullest, possibility near and hope in practice to facilitate movement, to set bridges upside down before they hold us there forever.  And then, when I woke this morning, I turned again with the happiness of knowing, 'I'm still here!'

Central San Joaquin Valley Remembering Those Roadside Confessionals of Doubt

I should just plan on writing every time I get to thinking: I miss the nothing that comes from roadside confessionals, having been once or twice in my life consumed by knowing, fingering the change between my pocket and thigh, knowing it comes at all hours of the day and night, sometimes not at all except for the escape ship clause and last minute prayers - sometimes you're the victim of circumstances and other times you're the cause.

I'm the owner of a dead Chevy Nova I've been hauling around since Florida left a lasting mark on over, strained attempts don't win they just get in the way of tangled sins, after the fall it was all down hill, no matter where you end up you've got someplace to call home.  All they say when they say it at all is the first place grin is so close to losing you might as well love it instead, doomed before ever getting to begin.

There are hours inside that might try if not for my guts, swollen rivers rock hard shores that give my mouth the perfect air to cut deep grooves in desert air lips, fine lines and cracked bleeding is the despair of powder-red-ruche stings from those central San Joaquin valley remembering, my desperate roadside confessionals of doubt.

Through air and every thought there is, time consumes the sanctity of dreaming, no moon or midnight believing there's healing in believing anything you can prove. Maybe the like is like that old man Friday, that dead man with bulging cheeks of dirty ditch water thirst, maybe his fear made me afraid not the one last time he got to steal from familiar strangers.  

I should think, splayed prying eyes to pick apart like black mouth cauls at the ready, scavengers perched in hard black plastic wood veneer, "looky that, where'd it go?" the voice squawks, light reflecting stares no room for friends or family time.  It's in the dust of remembering that my mind gets to settling, those famous plastic ferns and fake flower bouquets that need someone to fill up the cemetery holes, the cover up for the being empty cup where dreams go down to sleep and memories take us back just like that.

I should just plan on writing every time I get to thinking I miss the nothing that comes from roadside confessing.  I'd be better off every once or twice a life, to let go, get consumed in knowing change ain't nothing at all, no hours of the day or night can make them, shaken; sometimes you escape and sometimes you are a victim the circumstances of alone.

Nicotine and Coffee Stains the Fingers

Nicotine and coffee stains the finger..

teeth discolor the view of Sunday morning 

excuses, the subtle urges to have or pretend to feel

urges to know edges begin and end, 

urges to alter sin

otherwise we're lost

capable the view of the supercilious sound 

this macabre sense of nature with no real understanding of tomorrow 

boundaries resound inside and outside the room,

ovaries for my discontent, 

Luteoma my illness, analogous to sin.

I have no real desire to quit or to salvage my shattered shell, 

brief and sooner, now or later 

sounds and imagery tell me 

everyone and nothing means success and failure

the greatest feat is to believe in the hereafter, 

however fleeting the salvation of knowing 

what happens after this, doing for the self, 

masturbating the mind before someone else can.

I’m just like you in that regard, 

a player of players, a mask that serves a single purpose 

doing to get the day going, night moves toward order.  

words ahead of the lost way people forget why 

they are here, 

children are less critical and that is good 

older people are more critical and that too is good.

Afraid of fitting in and not fitting in 

when 

none of this could possibly matter 

the end is near and dreams aren’t 

predictions, specifically simple slices of things 

how seldom distract but always adhere 

these moments of years.

Nicotine and coffee stains the fingers as teeth discolor
Sunday morning excuses
buttered subtle urges to have

urges to believe 

urges to understand the consequences, 

the greatest hereafter, however fleeting the salvation of knowing what happens after this, 

these boundaries 

inside and outside 

analogous to fingertips.

Assuming -  sometime in March 1999

Only those who suffer the most appreciate the bitter truths and consequences of lies

Only those who suffer the most appreciate the bitter truths and consequences of lies, the flavored thoughts of inaction mingling with tear-stained shoulder blades, jacket pocket lint beards waiting to hang up in really red lipstick smears…

Only those who believe we must like one another and can't truly understand our unmistakable differences, the unimaginable of knowing the totality of ruin, these questions that suggest to be free is to let go completely, to make it last a little less is to take the chains off and freefall, almost always destined to disappear, the magic of fear…

The burden of immeasurable pain and lasting beauty; to fall is to see that standing is what it is, neither good or bad but for proximity to sun, warmth on the face, lightness on the soul, words that color our every waking moment in the ether of dreams, the ephemeral joys of personal happiness that can neither be conveyed or felt completely, breathing freely, setting out into the oceans of regret and satisfaction.  What is here and now, in this seconds at a time of all that our life is or ever will be, it is here that we must realize we cannot change the unchangeable but grow, be that person we have always dreamed of being, stronger, wiser, less intent on over stylizing our misery for those that 'get it' have it nearest and those that don't or can't or won't ever understand don't need to anyway.  Because death is coming anyway we have all the power of the universe to face it, no smile at tears to justify hot wind between us, anything but open arms willing and ready and ok with the next great step in this life and the next, even if only in the memories of those we leave behind.

Only those who suffer the most appreciate the bitter truths and consequences of thought and action, to believe is to begin to understand the unimaginable, to question is to let go, a little, of the chains that bind, the burden of immeasurable pain and lasting beauty; to fall is to see that standing is what it is, neither good or bad but for the proximity to the sun, warmth on the face, lightness on the soul, words that color our every waking moment in the ether of dreams, the ephemeral joys of personal happiness that can neither be conveyed or felt completely, breathing freely, setting out into the oceans of regret and satisfaction. 

What is here and now, in this seconds at a time of all that our life is or ever will be, it is here that we must realize we cannot change the unchangeable but grow, be that person we have always dreamed of being, stronger, wiser, less intent on over stylizing our misery for those that 'get it' have it nearest and those that don't or can't or won't ever understand don't need to anyway.  Because death is coming anyway we have all the power of the universe to face it, no smile or tears to justify anything but to open your arms willing and ready and ok with the next great step in this life and the next, even if only in the memories of those we leave behind.

This is for you in your forgettable blue

There just never ever seems like the right time to catch up after you've blown through..

Maybe it's because of all the unsettling and dusty trap doors slamming, me getting back up from flat on my butt, remembering how and why and what, not when so I can pretend, but so I deliver the good news that old friends seem so ready to consume, condemn, confusingly slim...and then I get lost rambling on my way to fumbling for words to say, I mean write, how you feel about my feelinglessness when all I can do is sigh, one, two..

Ever notice how far away dreams feel the morning right after, that their lip-smackin' thrill goes cold, gone in a flash, red skin faded like your last happy pill ated, the soda cracker diet in the quiet, shoosh, it's OK, nobody is waiting for safety tape shaping..it's in and kind of quick, this no man's land fantasy strip..

The spiderweb effects of the dead and dying phone book debts, impossible missions never meant to be a condition of my condition, who needs schooling when living on wind, the happily ever after believing you're right when you're wrong, so wrong..

You can't go on, telling people what you want them to feel or you can and did, hardly a substitute kid, knowing what you paid for and when, prostitutes and old men selling sin, no wind, wares on you their wearing through, two-dollar whiskey breath kisses stuck to the glasses, you hold on and I'll own the cloud, no reason we can't get our every ridiculous wish, unless lost we're back to that, caution tape outlines and chalk white mustaches..your the bruised and butter-rum-glue, gotta go now to believe you'll leave your nightstick know-how..

There just never ever seems like the right time to catch up, still.

reprieve rescinded

I've been here before postponed. reprieve rescinded.

Tried almost anything cause I can't stand a sure thing,
wedding silver circle edges make frayed friendship braces,
five will get you ten remembering
dime store Peechee folders and discount sticker prices
metal spirals bite dawn-colored smiles on bargain hunters knees
rustle-busted pages of my notebook disease.

Tried almost anything cause I can't stand pretending
razor blade lines make my forearm alarms
half-page tries and finger black stains
prick cursive edges to make great letter crashes
this country slide for another cop car chase
poor boy white knuckle opera and ditch bank fights
burning red and blue cop car lights
remembering
I've got time for believing
in the sweet hereafter but not before disaster
grape vine lines and razor blade arms
stippled apple orchards make believe
sending beguiled believers heaved almond breeze
the dead and dying of bottleneck flies
torn on summer morning sunrise.

I know you've been here before, poised and ready
drink in hand and thoughts a-many
around or about the good old days
people forget what made them pray
dreams pushed ahead of other dream plays
sketchy blankets in the backseat chapel
smelling of old Chevy super sport nova.

But I'm forgetting again.
you've only just begun
the descent
positioned bent
family strangers in awkward silences
Nowhere near spoken promises-
Been here before
postponed:
reprieve rescinded.

Almost Always Is Sometimes True

 

I should write on sunset air
instead of grieving India ink tears
half-fingered shapes make nightshade grins
caught on the silver of my razor blade sins.  

They say, the many ways
you can't leave until you go
bruised colored masks don't cover lies indigo
tattered kite tails make paper tigers
worn smooth promises that last forever.

I can't go back is tomorrow's news
certainty won't cast this spell over you
half-hearted promises are sure to die
blue tides sell your sand colored eyes.


Make-believe memories heal today's wounds

Almost always is what's sometimes true

Chevy Nova back seats

made of you.

toasting like we had long lives ahead of us

I remember this one time, it was Friday sliding into night after a week of Mondays, San Joaquin Valley beginnings with the perfect moon light for one those endless teenage weekends. We had gotten into a fight days before, some triviality of brothers 11 months apart, set out in opposite directions so we could let time and distance make wrong right again. I can't picture the driving and walking it, which of us had wheels or worn even shoes, his 67 Pony or my 63 Nova – the burgundy one before I rolled it a bakers dozen – but one of us was there and the other showed up, crazy how we found the same walnut orchard bonfire party a million miles from sobriety. Clean getaway-views in all directions, country-wide night inviting, beers in cans that don’t break or chatter to pieces at hundred mile-an-hour cop car clashes. And there we were, backed into a corner, just him and me, sleeves rolled to elbow throws and these Clovis rodeo boys pushing in after T gave one of their girlfriends what she was looking for. Smiles bent to breaking, fists, busted knuckles and black-eye scarecrow rows in our caterwauling – we road the red and blue lights all the way out of sight, laughing at our pummeled disguises, three-quarters of a case of half-cold beer snatched up for later between us, toasting like we had long lives ahead of us.

Your Personal Lottery

Bad news comes in ways, turning, lightning strikes and after hour showers of your thoughts falling down hard, plenty too, black and blue inside doorway places better left to miles and memories instead of dinner table faces too many, angry hands in the shape of angry men forcing you to believe again in dreaming away your worries when stone cold places made of mud and yarn fashion travel better than you ever could. Destined for crawling, broken toes and death throws with all the things unsaid and undone, this here and now nowhere near down and out - or used to. Here listening, listlessly pretending, stop signs ending in trees bleeding red and blue professionals, cops and robbers confessionals from the back seat betwixt metal and hard plastic, mesh made for protection only it does a better job of hurting, common sense unbecoming promises spent, looking back over years between "I don't know what" and " I'm lucky to have someplace to get caught" any more than "I've been living in the shadows of your personal lottery" and the misery settles in like pebbles and stones, cold, calm, forever. News comes in ways made good and other by the receiver, sometimes by the leaver, in increments of forever, tomorrow always a bite size breath just as good as now because it's twenty four hours away from having to believe in someone pushing you to falling down. Knowing is what tells you that no one is stopping them from sending me off into the never-never land of no return.

Red Bills and Car Registration Blues

Mailbox rattle, metal flip lid crackles the addict who clicks his ears, pricks the drum louder as the fat fingered sad sack makes his way, elbow room doorway courtesy, knee to hip pirouette à la seconde and off, off and away goes the letter carrier government soldier making yesterdays out of circles of today. The addict finds the same pattern to be confusing so he forgets sooner or later, lost in the shuffle of neighborhood clatter beyond the din of his crooked reading glasses. Maybe the sad sack would be happier company but he won't come in because the addict won't ask him, content on musing about the delivery driver of smiles instead so he could steal one to wear for a while, a funny lip shape with a Charlie Chaplan bristle brush mustache disguise, a smile and a long whipper snapper stash, curly edges poking holes in donuts and coffee, a guise to make him company instead of surly, welcome when he brings us sunshine and candy bar colored good times rather than red bills and car registration blues. The addict knows only that it is better to be up, however slight the step than down, mired, sticky tennis shoes and bubblegum semi-circle greetings, humdrum collecting meaning lock-step in day time being, burdened by lowered sensibilities; deadpan, bloodshot and clotted veins fat with lethargy, blame and remorse. It is better to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes than convince yourself you’ve got other ways, other kinds of words with which to bloviate, busted lips almost mustering the courage to go on when empty rooms call out your name, same filled with cold, stale air, same alone with a different face. It’s almost not quite ready made smooshed up silly, lacking all possible expressions but one – the slack-jawed, cheery cheeks of rosy contentment that comes on hard, sometimes simplified, the ownership of jacked up, the cracked up in two, three, four - nowhere near ordinary any more. The Adderall baby knows how to breathe amphetamine dreams, dextroamphetamine psycho-social beehive believing in the higher power of altered states, play dates with strangers across the many magnitudes of saviors who’ve been there or worse, never known flat on your face homes, preaching to the choir of crumpled desires where we have all gone off on our own, lost combs and lawnmower moans, people who used to ask but don’t any more, knowing it is better to have remembered the good times instead of replacing them with all this penny arcade daytime soap opera charade.

Old Woman's Legs and Dangerous Grins

Each morning we play tug-o-war, backyard long throws and shorter ones at the Border Collie speedway. She finds her place at my side, at the ready, her big brown eyes locked on mine, the ancient lore of wolf theology, the wild ever present, always leading and trailing edges in flight and landings. She holds on to the worn squirrel toy, bares down with her big incisors, settles her weight in proportion to the force she will need to best me at our everyday ritual. She's gentle and determined like her life depends on winning and I don't let on that I know or let her win too easily, her needing to prove her place in our family as mother center, as the hub from which we all turn on this life's journey. I give her the time to take all my time, to root me there, to fend off Sky who comes and goes on rocket-ship toes, his Border Collie pursuits of circles unending but specific - only the pink one will do, he prepared to run forever plus one more, frothy maul wet in waiting and there we are the three of us lost in the eternity of seconds. She always wins but not right off not letting on that I know she has to win, we need her to win as much as she does, to keep on winning, and eventually on the last tug of the last war, once more and she pulls away the winner, eyes beaming, words praising, "you are strong, you are tippy" I say, soft and resolute. She smiles, gulping crisp morning air, savoring it, our wolf mother center standing tall on old woman's legs with dangerous grins for tomorrow.