bladeblog

Shit

2011-12-25T13:42:00.002-07:00

Small town parade. Old women on lawn chairs hold tiny American flags and cups of icy tea. A horse and rider stall in view. Kicking and lunging forward, a young curly-haired cowgirl snaps the reigns. The animal begs for a moment. The horse drops its duty—a pyramid of green goodness in the middle of the parade root. A high pile many see drop and stack. Next, a horse drawn carriage successfully avoids the pile to the crowd’s amusement. Followed by a motorcade of vintage cars, candy thrown out windows to kids—all missing the poo. Marching girl scouts all swerve to avoid the dung pile and the crowd again cheers their sharp decision making. The poop, this part of the parade’s focus. A collective effort to preserve a perfect dirty mess. A fire truck offers assistance when it barrels through the left half of the manure. The crowd “ooohs,” when liquid squirts from road apples. Baton throwers spin and toss, and one of them with her back turned, plants a heel in the high stuff. The crowd “ahhs,” and she looks back and down and continues dancing. A slight smirk of disgust grows on her face.

What a slow and painfully public destruction of that shit.

Dismiss Connection

2011-07-26T10:54:00.002-06:00

Dismiss Connection

“Sure you should be smoking that down there?”
I was in the pit.
The old loading dock concrete cage.
He took a double take as he peered off the catwalk above.
Two questions.
What I was or
if I was smoking.
And where.
What to answer…
“Smoking what?”
“Smells funny.”
Shrug.
“Okay,” reluctantly.

"Watch, these be broke, too.”
A man pulls construction parts from his truck bed.

Seafoam Like Snow

2011-03-21T13:14:00.001-06:00

Seafoam like snow
Stacked drifting strands—
cool beach morning.
Walk and search for
The missing shine,
The hidden secret beneath
Foam colored good time
Memories from the life
Half engaged and without
Indolent others warped time
And belief of milked foam,
Hands held, names yelled,
Gone.

Can Scar

2011-02-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

Best way to throw a floating beer can away in a swimming hole,

finger in the trap, and a simple fling to safety—out of reach,

Blade in my name and on the mouth caught me and later my left first finger,

flayed open with ease at the flick and thick juice dripped from bent-back flesh,

“You need to get that out of the water,” Jack said, from the shore, having watched me,

That, the permanent scar remains stories of arrows sorrow and war array,

my day of swimming done, I let the Vietnam Vet dress my wound and talk.

Supposed to end with the interesting. I did and I am.

Distraction Addiction

2011-02-09T11:13:00.001-07:00

What does not help, will kill and eventually destroy. What I refer to is distraction. And who I refer to is us, humanity, and specifically for this example, Americans. Distractions of magnificent proportion. Can you guess where I am going yet? First, what is it we’re being distracted from? What is important? Importance is relative to the individual, but what can we all agree is important? Love, it is said, is most vital of all to human existence. Some say there are several types of love: Self-love, Parental-love, Romantic-love etc. But here I’m not making that distinction. I’m talking love in its purest and simplest base form. And love comes from each other and from God through all forms of life. But there’s so much risk involved in love. So, its priority falls a bit. Love is inconvenient and shamelessly oppressed for it. Love as a verb, is meeting needs and giving yourself away. Ask Jesus. Love as a noun, is a place where often, two and more camp comfortably.

Are we addicted to substance or behavior, or both? Both. And that is why when a mobile phone or ipod is misplaced there is a sense of panic that ensues. Retracing of steps and places and calling of the phone and friends to find the missing device. Already planning a replacement, because to go without this technology is unheard-of and unacceptable. To be out of the technological loop is to be an outcast. But to be addicted to the digital realm is the goal. And our jobs will give us just enough money to keep up with all the latest gadgets we must own and use and depend on.

Professional sports are not important. Almost everything on TV is not important. These are examples of distraction. Cell phones and gaming, texting and interactive media for entertainment purposes, lack all importance, unless used for transmitting love. Technology entirely, and its uses for entertainment, distracts. Hobbies of all sorts, for the most part, in today’s world, hinder the spread and proliferation of love. Comfort and convenience, two pleasures we as Americans are deeply entrenched in, coddle our sense of distraction slyly—while we go on living the dream. And if dreamed up from the minds of profiteers, we’re right where they want us. Subjugated willingly in the prison of the mind, hardly better off than our North Korean friends.

When we distract ourselves from Love, we stare headlong, like Narcissus into the pool of our demise. And we’re so sexy. So beautiful. So speedy. So alluring. Don’t look away. Don’t you dare look away. Not even to make love to your partner, who you supposedly love. Not even to smile and say ‘I love you’ with your eyes to poor beaten strangers. Not even to consider another human being compassionately. Not for the sake of love. Not for good.

This may appear an extreme assessment of modernity, I realize. Often, the truth feels that way. Like a knife too sharp, cutting too deeply. What’s offered here is a simple broad truth, doubtful any could argue with its core. Our ‘needs’ are being met, or so we think, by distractions from love and physical interaction.

Addiction is divided in two, addiction to substance and addiction to behavior. Often the two intertwine into destructive and sinking behavior. The result is an unhealthy human.

So what we have here on a macro scale, is a nation addicted to meaningless inconsequential and now proven harmful behaviors and substances. Hundreds of millions addicted and able to tell hundreds of their so-called ‘friends’ they hardly know, what they had for breakfast or what’s going on at work or who gives a fucking shit! Tell me in-person over dinner, or don’t tell me at all.

A. D. Blade

Death of a Situation

2011-01-03T17:31:00.000-07:00

Hard to let
a situation die.
Especially a difficult
One.
One that two fought
harder for each,
than the other willed
to give—of
timing’s sake.
One where hurt
lies
and
Love
Tangled
and knotted
the
left undone.

Hard to let the
Dead stay dead.

quote

2010-12-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

"That's what animals do, they move on." -- Cesar Milan

link

2010-12-13T13:10:00.001-07:00

http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/49/blade_f.html

News--Book

2010-07-02T18:36:00.000-06:00

A book is coming. Bad and honest. True and real. Could be called an autobiographical novel. Could be called shit. Have to wait and see…

2010-06-14T18:09:00.000-06:00

Today I’m injured.

I reached for a little blue ball,
When I really should’ve stalled.
I thought my glimpses of others’ pain was real
like fear in the dark. And then I was interrupted,
but ah well. It popped but didn’t hurt, as I tumbled
to the floor. Standing could be done but walking was
quite another task. My leg didn’t work right. I stumbled
to the floor on my first three attempts to walk, till I realized no pressure
could be applied to the injured limb. I’m crippled, humbled and
alive. Barely. I have regret from the sick bed, regret
for how I spent my days of better health. Now I’m a gimp. Learned
to walk, I have. Learn to walk again, I will. That was really a stupid
thing to write at a time like this, dangling in a pool of green and brown
blood as I am. As I am now, I tell you this, “If I could run, I’d run away.”
So what’s left to the indolent asked fors? Burn it all away. Fuck it all away.
Ecclesiastic my ass. Iron sharpens iron. I sharpen you. You sharpen two. A
Better way is not alone. Alone rhymes with bone. Did you know that bones make
blood cells? That is why when one has leukemia, often a donor of healthy making
blood cells, found in bone marrow, is usually extracted from the largest bone of the donor’s body, the femur, and injected into the patient. I’ve editorialized for no particular reason. A simple digression.

Injured ball stalled real interrupted tumbled was stumbled pressure and regret learned stupid brown away away a make making the particular digression.

Search Stamp

2010-03-26T18:03:00.000-06:00

Wish.
Take that risk
You.
You.
You-said.
And from this
Elevated past due
View,
Seen the thrown found
Beach ball down a windy
Alley,
And didn’t bother to
Pick it up or chase it
To a corner.
Not me,
Watched the wind
Flow—noted lost
Leveraged luggage on
My step,
Followed bothered fellows
To the docks,
Stole the lone talker
For hours,
Couldn’t be what
They asked.
Couldn’t speak to the
Few listening, ask their
Forgiveness, appeal to
Their lust.

Compromised the beauty
Sacrificed the touched.

Feel the nothing?
It’s so big
Warm and all
Around.
Like the nots of
Knowing, lift
The life of lived
Ones.
And another.
Wake Finn—
Make the coffee fat
And stack the highnoons,
Read me endutainment,
Lap up the waste from mom’s
Carcass.

Nothing new under new moons.
Said. All been said by the dead.
And better than I.
And here I try, alone in a
Stamp search.

Sea by the stamp search we found ‘im. Listen for the stamp. By the stamp search.
Went to stamp search ma’. By the sea.

Knew you knew that new news.
You felt the tragic ill,
Ate the blue pill, made the rabbit
Hurl.
Waited.
Wait.
There’s more of you.
I see it, see?
Seared seer.
Pugh busted idolaters
Man-jammy wearers
Fooled the last office,
Me.

You.
Italian Irish German Russian smelted
Mutts.
You. Interested you.
Sing time to death,
Choose from a network menu,
And walk.
Peel the rind back bitch.
Wreck the whole shit.
Eat it slut.
That’s right.
I know.
Kill me too.
Me. You.

Sea by the stamp search we found ‘im. Listen for the stamp. By the stamp search.
Went to stamp search ma’. By the sea.

Didn’t mind.
Big shot glanced and looked
Away,
Made sure, eye up
Fem, ass out.
Right away, read away
You left, words away
And you were gone.
Known to leave,
Hop a fence and
Run, regret in
Hand.

And here I stand,
An effort unfurled, lifted
From my fire—here’s
The clue, the glue,
The tie for the bow
You’ll wrap a life,
Plan a man, and
You too.

So, that’s what I heard,
That’s where he stopped
Talking, dreaming, reeling
From the moment at the
Stamp search.
By the sea.

Ball Alone

2010-02-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

Threw baseball
big long arcs,
chased after them
before they landed,
back and forth across
five acres rectangle
red dirt.
Glorious genius
ball fun.

Surrounded by homes,
horses, hounds, and fence
shelved birds—
doubtful
anyone noticed,
cared
or watched.

Little Mazda

2010-01-26T18:39:00.000-07:00

Little Mazda truck rolled by. A large plastic partially full cup hit me in the hand. It was dusk. And as they sped away, the group in the back laughed. The truck curved right, and its rear tire hit something in the road and hissed louder than the laughs. They didn’t slow down and acted as if they didn’t hear it. Me and Duane ran to my car a mere fifty yards ahead.

We drove to the nearest convenience store, less than a minute away.

There they were all huddled around the rear passenger tire—flat as ever.

“What’d you throw at our tire?”

We laughed together at the notion. A little reason however had backed their inquiry. An hour earlier, the same group had passed us in the same neighborhood. Looks and a few insults were tossed back and forth.

“Why’d you throw your cup at me? I asked.

They turned back to the tire, a subtle acknowledgement of the truth—that they had simply run over a random hunk of sharp debris in the road.

“You hit me with that cup asshole.”

“What?”

“You heard me. You could’ve hurt me.”

“You popped our tire, so fuck off.”

I thumbed the seatbelt release and reached for the door handle.

“Stop,” Duane said. “It’s not worth it.”

In an instant, I knew he was right. I turned away from the five men puffing chests. And we drove away to fight and live, and I considered quietly how suicidal I had almost been for a cup of ice and diluted soda water.

Change of Face

2010-01-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

I turned the corner,
wheeling along behind
windows and doors.
A small boy on the walk
stood tall on his pedals,
I watched his face of deep
concentration inward; then
shifted—in mid turn—
He smiled
and turned it all up.
He lifted it.
And I imagined what
scenario and story in his
mind had led to that real
smile.

He won.
He introduced the moment
and won.

2009-11-21T14:43:00.003-07:00

So much I can’t say,
or write or think or do
or
choose choice of
wise fools.

Words are for the unsaid,
but the unsaid is not for words.

A timid frown,
disgusting smile
my comfort garden scent
of mystery,
didn’t want to own.

But there we are,
on fragmented ground
up to our eyes
muddy searching
water for senseless
passion.

Give.
Take.
Shake awake.
Means nothing
and

you.

Ignition

2009-11-10T22:31:00.003-07:00

I grew excited,
she moved sad.
"It runs," I said.
"Yeah," she turned.

I knew to let her down;
and barely running, smoking,
heap of American metal
rendered new
subtle
joy.
Light flickers
pleasure
more than her.

EMERGENCY

2009-10-20T20:38:00.002-06:00

Republican is
Democrat is
Republican is
Democrat—

Democan is
Republicrat is
Democan is
Republicrat—

Coke or Pepsi?
Both are cola.

Craceytown

2009-10-14T20:05:00.003-06:00

I think the crisis you foretold—the one you said would make me have to change—I think it occurred. You said I might see death down a hall. You told me my choice would be clear, and that questions I had would stand small. You said I couldn’t know love until I was made to see. What you said was true—all of it—and at the moment of truth, my will went dry, my mind went black, and one was still there. Not exactly what I expected.
You were right when you pleaded with me to find my direction and make the most of it. You told me to eat, so I did. I ate and thought about meals of my past. Meals that made my world go round into a potter’s ground of bliss uneventfulness. I ate the dust of your worth. I’ve been to the edge of panic. The last word of reason. I’ve been to the place of fear and fearnot. You said it would scare me straight. It did.
Don’t care about the year-end statement. Day to day. Do the best you can due. You thought I might get grabbed around the throat or squeezed on the chest. You were both right. Fear and fame led me straight away—balanced at the tip. Fuck you.
Not an ounce of concern before crisis. How true. I thought listening to the couples murmur across the pond could set me low. The peaceful pillow talk of lovers in the dark just to sleep a few more minutes. Turn. And you turn over to. My turn to spoon you.
I saved nothing. And I was saved. Wasn’t shown how to live.
When did I go to shit? How does the progress look? Tell the truth, as you always have. Always given me my medicine. How did you know? You gave me the best and rest of you. And there’ll never be enough of me. Never enough to pay the payend.

“His Dad was kind of famous,” he mumbled. “He had money to—he was a trust fund kid. His Dad wrote books. He was a famous— ”
“He was a famous author,” she said, “Stephen Ambrose.”
“The Lewis and Clark historian?”
“Yeah.”

“Let me tell you something about frybread. Frybread has caused all those old Indians on the reservations to get diabetes.”
“My mom raised me on frybread.”
“I love frybread.”
“He don’t mean no disrespect.”

You knew. Knew it all along. And it was the finest thought I’d ever known. You alone.
But the blasts never last. This may be how it is from now on. Ya’ll’ll have to go digging. Sentences aren’t looking one to the next, as they used to. You showed me more of me, standing hunched and low.
I remember you there at those conversations. You took my breath away. Night of nights. So I killed them all away from you. So what? What next? I don’t owe what you don’t owe. Milkman said leave me. I said, no.
Why is that your new thing? Brag away from me. I need to sit a while. Right now. Himself is gone, leaving the cold flooded homebrand. To the light, he sings. To the light. Ain’t that the shit to beat it all. I’m yellinm’ children.

I can throw and hit a little.

Found the six polished rocks in the grass. Waiting for Dad. Mom don’t want to not know where he is. He worries her. We wait and wait. Dad’s still not done with his work. The new lady boss has him cleaning extra classrooms. Mom waits and worries, and prays Dad will come back to work tomorrow. Six Polished rocks, one of which was petrified glorious wound wood, made it easy that day to let my mind go the better. Better you and much better me.

Six pound fourteen schneebleys.

Black rat back, you bastard.
And then homeward boun’ we were, off to ride the roller to church. Hear Dad rock the bass on the way. I might listen, might not. Figure figure. Figure.

Left a gift by the door of your mystery. Left it there—elephants alone. Two. Didn’t care—home or not. I was not the worrisome warrior anymore. I can still see the drip. Still see the misunderstood motion for love. Motion love—motion of love. Bring over to Higgenbothemgall corner and watch ballbanyon from the lookerland hello seats. I’m from that plateau and have hid there among the bears and everbeasts. I hiked for glory—plateaued for pain. But you can’t listen anymore. Went the wind wild west, you say. And I’ve harmed.

Maybe you didn’t ask. Maybe it was I all along wanting the image broken. Yes passive. Would should could, might perhaps if why care? Line over the double ee. See. Shined on the wicked sided walleyed mishmash of the others. The zoo keeper’s hungry grizzly contemplating that leap over the moat to the rush of loud luscious children to eat. I saw and warned him. He didn’t jump.

And the fine fire built here within me, thank you.

It’s walked a path ground down to nearly the core of me. The center gleaming bright but the details around the edge stomped soft to bits. Truth to tell the more you tell the more the more. Round and round the center right.
And all my little soldiers turned it into a sales numbers game. How many would it take?
How many outlaws would we take on return to Craceytown?

The bouncing lady in big dark sunglasses barreling down a road that hugged the edge of a deep-sided canal. Blipped that bump and turned that lump upside down in the water. Seatbelt drowned her. Rush the children away and help them forget they watched her die—centered at the fence in silence, helpless to the wicked mess—def and isolated. Mate the memory to…la dee da. Incandescent blue tubes over TV’s uncle teacher, and we all laughed at the ads differently, embarrassed that we did. The beard and his trivia. Sports and all the rich little tits—I pop my jaw and impact wisdom teeth. Made ‘em want to shake me awake. Made ‘em work.

You pass the bills I can’t pass back. You yell and yell and stir the neighbors’ cats. But I can’t pass back. And here’s where’s it’s authorized. And have a nice day. And goodbye.

Throw out the friend’s brother for trying to touch mine. I’d kill and might have once neffortlessly.
I’m a legal drug dealer. See kids, I ask physicians to push and peddle my pretty pills twice daily for the rest of their lives. So bad? So sad. Never mind crossed combs and mirrors or piles of shave cream. Nevermind. I understand. Lipstick lounge.

As I said, the sound of death was wild. Right of my life. Next time. Won’t be a side of guilt I waited to tell you might fall off the table. Make more sense she says. You’re losing them. I’ve lost them but I have a plan I say. You’ll see it’ll grow like an erection and retract even slower.
You’ll see.
Here we go.
So there we were, angry, old, rejected, forbidden, and left to wander. There in a fellowship doorbell-less laundryhouse for coldboys.

I remembered I’d caught Dad masturbating—startled him after school one day. My Dad, the King James Bible beater. The fundamentalist—to porn. Anyway, I remembered it just as I was making the same gesture in my own bed. I remembered right then—right at the point of impact, and I thought how strange a thing to remember right then. Dad walked me to school the next day and assured me he had only been applying hemorrhoid cream as he lay naked on the bed below the TV. But I had already found the devilish VHS in a drawer hours after it happened.

Also happens that you said not to write this. You said leave me out. Wrote the wife mentally ill. Just came out that way. I don’t resist the natural way of plenty. Roman millions and the daredevil muthafuckas. Muthafuckinshit. Flip’em the bitchslapfinger.

Stoneold cathedral dream empire, where the gray and angry walls jut up and intimidate the heart. The wrong place—too cold and languid. And still you. There you are, shrouded beauty unknown. In that place I wanted to feel welcome but couldn’t find peace. There, shifting your presence in and out of focus.

I started telling you about the frightening experience I said I think maybe what you said would happen. I realize I’m doubtful and unsure because surety is something I haven’t known in some time. Surety goes to the faithful. The relentless. Not the slothful, those who easily give up and run to a new tree. That’s me. The second one. The one not mentioned at parties. Not willing to slap the paying hand hanged on the history of cards.

Said the kids say just what they’re supposed to.
“That’s what I’d’ve taught’em to say.”
Even though their honesty made me cringe. We dropped that hitchhiker off at an apartment with a basketball hoop in front. I’m sure he was glad to abandon chaos. I was him.

I’m never a passive passenger. I can’t sleep while riding. And when I get really close to nodding off, a light jerk sets my heart to a new rhythm and I can’t relax. I found a way to Melbourne. I found a germinating mindtrap aknew. Millered Williams and Ricky Millions. Sleep.

Cynicism.

They all ask where to go. Go where you will but get there. Get there on a million miles roundabout trip, when we talk about money and how much per plate of this or that. Go. And get there soon. You’ll lose ‘em. Maybe. Maybe I will. The painting may fall short. The angels may unrest the wicked metal angles of time. And there it’ll be. Something said that takes shape from every different view. A real and tangible essence of this disease.

Then again, maybe not. That’s me. An undecided unconvicted unimportant waste of space. But at times I feel my it, if only for a moment, I can sense what others want and need from the more of us. Want instant potatoes? Me neither. I want her from mother earth, like you reborn a thousand times, everyone less than the next.
And why only when it’s least convenient? Why am I next and next month and next time and tomorrow and then?

Just like those towns along the way, the hightowns you’ve been but not been to. The towns and people you see from books and texts and places along the way. The way to the next time we meet. And when will that be? Who will we be? And the love between us, what will happen if you’re not there? What will be of the lost and dark soul without the guidance of millions less fortunate? You. And the beach where we glimpse the mansions, memory of friends and frontsmen you paced and played. Okayed.
Sorry.

No inner prowess to work with. Just your looks of indecency I know. A flash of nowhere supposed to be. Who’s your French friend?
And we will begin shortly. There’s more to a story and the challenge will be getting there. The getting there is what fills you. The in between. And it kills you.

I know I’m not here to disappoint you or keep you waiting. But I realize that’s what I’ve done. Both. We’ll follow distractions of ambiguous football scores and unrecognized phantoms. I have though, haven’t I? I’ve disappointed you againandagain. I’m sorry. Again.

I wish I could tell you the rest, the more will get there, but I can’t. I’ve perfected this failure to epic proportions. I still can’t scape love the way you said. I still doubt the made secrets of many. I still don’t see what I tried to find. See it here?

“So, on my life long quest for a bigger dick, I decided to try some of those herbal concoctions, now they won’t leave me alone—keep charging my account.”

Silent.

An Ape Chronicle

2009-07-21T18:51:00.000-06:00

I got to thinking I was an ape. That I could only become more ape-like with time. The ape grew in me and hair came out on my back. My balls bulged a little more every year. My growl hungered for souls to devour. An ape because I’d thought about it—because I’d stammered over a foul smelling mess and inhaled remnants of an amends to the dead.

Then I heard the county wants to store mercury in an old nuclear waste storage facility outside town. I feel like turning tables and allowing peacemakers to abruptly arrest me. I feel the ape anger and the insides yearning to be turned out. To be dug out of this ache in my left side.

The monkey on my back is a beast in my loins. My thoughts centered on civil disobedient massive destruction. My feet balanced on packages of bought goods and receipts to the ceiling. This m&m madness has got to go. We’ve reached capacity, people! The plantation is burning—the cotton seething.

Our nation’s dream is dead.

Our purpose forgotten.

To wake the bored, thoughtless, digital people.

Losing Faith

2009-07-12T19:25:00.000-06:00

Faith didn’t want a puppy, although that may’ve been more rewarding in the long run. She needed a dog. A big dog. When she walked alone at night, waiting for time to end, it might be nice, she thought, to have a dog there.
She wandered into an alley where a lot of dogs had barked at her. She kicked a cream colored rock and studied a red terrier mix under the bright sun, then decided that dog was too small. Across the alley, stood a tall, lean black Labrador. A nice pooch. She pushed her fingers through wood slats and the dog sniffed and licked them. She turned and walked to another barking dog next door, and then looked back disappointed as the big black Lab squatted.
Back to the shelter. A guy she barely knew had been pestering her nonstop for the last several days about how much he wanted to touch her with various parts of his anatomy, and it repulsed her because he smelled like pickles and B.O. even after a shower. So, she spent very little time there, except to get a quick shower and a few hours sleep now and then. But mostly she loved the free life out in the streets. She wore her best dresses and walked through the banks early in the morning for free coffee. They always had the freshest coffee. Then to stroll down Main Street and usually a stop in Mann’s Deli for a free doughnut and more coffee. There was plenty of time to see the little town in a day on her feet. And Faith’s routine led her on a nearly identical path every day. But to Faith her days never became boring or monotonous. She simply exercised her routine flawlessly every day, and then on holidays, she walked around the outside of Shaletown, in search of new roads being built in and out of town. On those days, she collected items that might later be useful to her in her pack which was always on her back. A rope, some extra food, a bottle of water, and an old tattered copy of The Fountain Head never left her side.
Faith focused on her freedom to roam and not the blaringly obvious issues of her life. Not money. Not her dead husband or his dead rapist brother. She let go. She had consciously let go of all those things she used to hold dear. And she was an experienced woman. She lived her hard knocks.
She let money go first, because Faith thought money was the world’s biggest slaveholder, so she let it go. She didn’t know where her money was, or if she even had any. A mystery. And she avoided all of those oppressive people who attempted to lure her back to normalcy with money. Most importantly, she avoided men. She avoided them completely after what happened with her husband, Roger, and his brother. And she realized, and the courts confirmed, that she was not the same since that experience. PTSD and all that. But she didn’t get too emotional anymore either.

Faith didn’t feel like much of a woman. She became more animalistic. She saw herself more objectively—a being with needs and desires. Ayn Rand. She had spent weeks in the library reading everything she could by Rand, not long after they let her out of the hospital three years ago. She thought that she deeply connected with Rand—hard to tell. But, with Rand also, she looked at her objectively. Ayn Rand was just a woman like Faith, after all.
Not feeling feminine was really a small problem, because Faith had come to realize men, particularly American men, were some of the worst egocentric men in the world, and she thought that with a fair amount of world travel—working in Brussels as a young college graduate for a consultant firm and later in Munich and Rome for two more firms. She had spent nearly as much time in Europe as she had in America, by the time she moved back at thirty-nine. She didn’t hate American men, just thought they made horrible partners, and were never ever to be trusted. And her new-found views of objectivism gave her little reason to consider relationships ever again.
Nonetheless, she befriended a fellow in the park. A small, meager old gray bearded bug-eyed guy. A smart one—attended Fordham and Cornell back in the fifties, when Ivy League meant something. They became close to friends. Faith didn’t know what they were. They talked a lot about art and history. He knew more science but let Faith blather on about Nietzsche and Dante for hours. More than anything though, they sat silent together—comfortable enough. Everett was just a guy she found interesting and nonthreatening.
Faith didn’t know if Everett had ever been married or been in love. He was a human animal like her. And Faith saw humor in it all. She laughed a lot. Annoying, even to herself. She couldn’t see Everett as a guy to touch, though.
But that was the truth of it: Faith wanted sex. She’d given up on relationships with men. And she never expected to desire sex again, but she did, as odd as it was even to her. She missed it. Not the touching or man breathing over her, just the cock inside her as she lay defenseless. That’s all she wanted. And even though it had only been three years since her trauma, she wanted sex for purely physical and selfish reasons.
She didn’t want to fall in love with Everett—just fuck him, if he had a penis. And Faith wasn’t sure, because he was the most nonsexual thing she’d seen since looking at a barely moving zygote under a microscope in college. She had no idea how to approach him, or if she even could.
She’d found thirty Viagra in a dumpster, sealed good as new, and figured even if he was impotent she could use his penis. She resolved to ask Everett, objectively.
Everett wore three-piece suits acquired from the Goodwill. He was a head-injury homeless. He used to be some bigwig for the BLM. That was about all Faith knew. He was hard to know, and didn’t seem coherent about many episodes of his past before he fell in the shower and brain-hemorrhaged. But you could still have a decent conversation with him about the world.
On a Wednesday, after eating cheese Danish and cantaloupe, one of her favorite breakfast days, at the Catholic Outreach, she led Everett to the park where they first met. They sat at the same green steel picnic table. Across from each other for maybe an hour, they stared, sometimes at each other. Faith knew he had no idea what she was about to propose. He couldn’t.
“Everett, I want to have sex.”
“It’s only natural for humans to have a sex drive.”
“I want sex, Everett. I need it.”
“Okay.”
“Will you have sex with me, Everett?”
“I’m on my way to the clinic, Faith.”
“Oh, well, can we talk about this later?”
“Fine.”
Faith made her usual afternoon walk. She started at a park near a Junior High. It was a nice big park cascading down hill. Only a few hippies playing disc golf. For a few moments, as she sat leaning against an ancient skeleton-like juniper spruce and watching the salt brush sway in the breeze, she considered offering herself to one with tan dreadlocks, but then thought better of it when, as he moved closer, she realized he was all of twenty-five, at the most. Certainly too young to want anything to do with her.
She walked down through the park into the nicer neighborhoods at the bottom of the hill—new, big, two-story homes with tiny yards and no trees. She wound her way onto Anthem Street and then took the first left followed by the next right, to the alley behind Anthem Street homes and Hollister Lane on the other side, her favorite alley. Weeping willows and sage shrubs hid every fence and gate. It was an older part of Shaletown, Nevada, and she too, was an old one from the high desert town. That alley invited her back for more. Always asked her in. And the barking dogs and cocky cats only added to the ambience. In the spring, it was the scent wafting off bulging honeysuckle fence lines and the deepest greenest shade from giant elm and Siberian oak, that created quaint places to sit between and read the news. The news was whatever Faith checked out from the library that day. The news was her world beyond the streets. But the world was not privy to her news. Out of these sideline hidden readings and sleeping sessions came Faith’s new clandestine desires to capture her own part of the world. To use the world—rape the world and take something good for herself.
She walked right down the middle of the alley and even waited until the last second before sliding out of the way of a trash truck barreling along. All the dogs lay quiet—barely able to wander over and take a peek at her. Faith’s lethargy had spread to the alley and taken all the emotional energy out. Her physical desires were her only motivation.

Back to shower at the shelter just before sunset, she soaked a good long while through the imitation Jasmine soap smell and thought of her old life. She thought of Roger and tried to scrape something innocent together from her memories of him. She remembered a time when he and Faith had gone to Reno together. Faith’s little sister, Sarah, went with them. The first casino they went into, Roger had said, “I want to trade these two beauties in for chips, my good man,” to the doorman. The guy at the door just smiled and motioned them in. But Roger kept saying it to everyone in every casino. He was either trading them for chips or betting them in a round of Roulette. It was goofy at first, and they laughed again and again at the same joke in different settings. But secretly it got to Faith, and she felt she should’ve noticed then whatever it was that was in him. Whatever made him snap the way he did with his brother—she should’ve seen it coming.
Numerous doctors pleaded with Faith not to dwell on the trauma, and had explained how that kind of introspection was harmful not helpful. But that’s where her mind went, again, soaking in the shower—and she let it. It went right back to the moment more than three years ago, after eleven hours of Roger and his brother Devin raping and torturing Faith with batteries and their evil electric inventions. Right when Devin looked into her eyes, as Police hit the door, and said, “Sorry, Faith,” then turned to Roger, and shot him in his willing face—eyes closed and ready—arms out steady. Faith looked away when Devin turned the gun on himself. And that’s how they found her. Bound and battered in a room with two dead men she thought she knew and trusted.
Often, she wondered if it was because she married later in life. She never had the chance to know Roger in his youth. Both were middle-aged loners in life trying to give fate another chance, when they met in Sun Valley. But Faith hadn’t thought about that trip to Reno in a long time. And Sarah was in Africa somewhere now, after Faith sent her on her way, convincing her she was a survivor. And she was. Tragedy occurs every day. Strange and horrible people decided to mess Faith up—and then leave her here to learn to live again.

Faith was so hungry the next morning after sleeping in the park that she didn’t wait for the nun to finish praying before she dug into a lukewarm biscuit and flavorless sausage link. Faith could see it irritated the nun and so the nun prayed louder and Faith ate louder, until the nun walked away mumbling something special to her from the scriptures. Faith didn’t believe in all that voodoo mythology. She didn’t need it anymore. She’d found her own version of objectivism.

Faith used to think she could satisfy her urges with a toy, but there’s just something to being able to fully enjoy sex and lie back, and let the other do the work. She and Roger had always been into more experimental sex. And now she wanted to let another be in control for a few moments, again.
She caught Everett with her eye as he hit the door, on his way in for breakfast. He realized she noticed him and he came over and sat across from her in the cafeteria.
“Faith, I’ve been thinking,” Everett said.
“Yes?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve even thought about that stuff. Are you sure? I’m just not certain everything down there still works. Plus, I really enjoy our friendship now, as it is.”
“I have pills for that.”
“What? Where did you get those?”
“I found them near a doctor’s office,” Faith said.
“Those are prescription. I’m sure it’s not safe for me to take discarded erection pills.”
“You may not even need them, Ev.”
“It’s been years since I’ve even been aroused. My penis feels like it doesn’t belong to me. I’ve given up on that part of me. But…maybe we could try without the pills, if you really need to.”
“Meet me at Cossack Park tonight—about half way down the hill, on the creek side.”

Faith arrived at the park before dark and waited at the base of a big elm tree. She listened to the whisk of water in a covered irrigation canal rushing down the hill behind her. Again she contemplated her old life. She used to resist thinking about it all, like the doctors said, but now she welcomed all contemplation and embraced even the painful and silly mundane thoughts and memories. Nothing off limits in her mind. Nothing.
A perfect desert evening. Birds. Big orange-breasted proud robins prancing around their perfect grass. And finches and those noises of dusk. One of her favorite things at her old house was to drink coffee from delicate cups while seated on her breezeway and admire the birds flying from tree to tree, and down to the ground to scavenge, in and out from the alley. One of the few pleasures Faith came to realize money had afforded.
Everett made her nervous when he didn’t show up until nearly nine-thirty. He said the showers were backed up, and they probably were on a Friday night.
“I’m not sure about this, Faith.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know if I have it in me anymore.”
“Let’s find out, shall we,” Faith said, as she moved close and slid an open palm gently toward his crotch. When she was married, Roger always expected her to stimulate him before he’d ever touch her.
“What are you doing?” Everett said.
“What does it feel like?” she said, and tried to kiss his ear.
“Here?”
“It’s late, Ev. We can slip into the trees over there—just a few hundred feet, and no one will ever know.”
She pulled Everett by the hand into the trees to a spot she felt sufficiently private. She hoped he felt the same way and could become comfortable enough, so that she could get what she was after. Faith dropped to her knees in front of him and fumbled to find a big broad cold metal zipper. She unzipped with her left hand and reached in with her right. She was a little disappointed with the girth of his member, but thought she’d try to see if she could wake the old boy up. She rubbed his penis softly for a few minutes working up the courage to suck it if she had to. It began to inflate a little in her hands, but just as Faith noticed this, a group of young hippies could be heard coming closer. They coughed and laughed and discussed the direction of their next pipe pass.
Everett stepped back. Faith knew it was over, and knew right then and there that she could never try this with him again. She had tried. She really did. But all the aspirations with Everett came crashing down on Faith all at once while she kneeled in a dark wooded park. It wasn’t meant to be with Everett, because he didn’t deserve to be used the way Faith had in mind.
“Goodnight, Everett.”
“Where are you going, Faith?”
“Look. I’m sorry about all this. I shouldn’t have involved you. Forgive me?”
“Of course, but what’s this all about?”
“Goodnight, Everett.” And with that, she walked away from Everett farther into the trees until she met the irrigation line. She sat on the big culvert and felt the rushing water gush between and below her legs. She sat there and did not want to consider the future—focused on the rushing water and its downhill force. From the top of the hill it fell and picked up trash and sediment along the way, until at the bottom it slowed to a peaceful manmade reservoir in a neighborhood engineered for aesthetic pleasure. A tactician at his best had made that place. Had seized his own vision of how it should be, and then made it happen.
Faith walked down the hill and back to Anthem Street. She thought she’d see if the alley could offer any condolences on the night of her failed plan. It was near midnight. She walked deliberately down the middle of the alley and kicked as much gravel as she could. Dogs began to bark inquisitively. A new bark. A low throaty boom bellowed from behind a fence—the yard of an overgrown place Faith had assumed was abandoned. She knelt low and peered between foliage and wood slats at the house with a single light on upstairs.
The big fellow came right over as Faith spied. He took big purposeful sniffs of her through the fence. A big charcoal Mastiff. He whined excitedly and licked his side of the fence, right on top of Faith’s view. She reached her fingers through and he licked those. She opened the gate after she fashioned a small leash out of some rope in her pack—prepared for this.
He was instantly her friend and they walked at ease together. Faith called him Bud. Beautiful Bud. She took Bud back to the woods near Cossack Park. She took his leash off and romped around in the trees. They wrestled and she liked to hear him growl a little. Her plan was to spend some time with him and then have him back in his yard by sunrise.
Starving, Faith found several giveaway containers of peanut butter in the bottom of her pack accumulated from Mann’s Deli. She scooped finger-fulls into her mouth and then Bud’s. On the third scoop for Bud, she pushed one of the tiny blue diamond-shaped pills into the glob. He wolfed it down and begged for more. Faith slipped off her panties under her dress and stuffed them into her pack, then went back to wrestling on the ground with Bud, really trying to rile him up for some rough fun.

Epistemolegion

2009-06-07T21:16:00.003-06:00

Here is all about aching love,
and suffering,
worst of all, without
love.

A Love Who
loves the evil,
a Love Who
loves the kind,
and in the mind.

So, I’m off,
in the flow,
always looking back for the shore—
a limited empirical being.

Focus on now only.
therestisNOT, ‘tsnotreal, notthere, nonsense, nothing.
Get it?

The kingdom of heaven is at hand, it’s all around.
See inside like the Aborigines.

Perceive the atoms you think there are?
What color is two?
Big and smooth?
Or small and rough?
Perceive this?
Black, white, letters & words?

Colors by measurable reflective light patterns—
that’s it.
Perceive light
do you?

Even philology is synthetic—
say Nietzsche .

So what’s the other?
Since there is.

We’re in each others’
dreams
and every face.
One.
And we know it’s You.
Your idea.

2009-01-26T16:15:00.001-07:00

Evan knelt over the man’s body, and for some odd reason remembered a time he’d held a woman’s head, as she lay crunched and twisted in metal and broken glass.

“Please hold my head,” she said. “Is Harold alright?”
“I don’t know,” Evan said.
Evan did know. He’d seen the old man, Harold, on his way down the rocky steep hill, fatally contorted across a boulder, legs tucked behind in a bush. A line of blood from his mouth and ears, and no life in his jarred-open eyes.
So, Evan supported her head with his hands for an hour before she was removed with the Jaws of Life.
Evan learned later, the old man had only one hand. And wicked washboard bumps sliced across that old steep mountain gravel road. The old man’s Ford began to turn. He braked but that didn’t help much, and his one hand limited how fast he could turn the wheel. The big truck slipped off the steep side. Evan never saw the vehicle fall. What he did see was a human body vaulted some thirty feet in the air, after the truck’s first roll down the hill. A human gliding through the sky, as he looked toward the horizon on an easy drive in the mountains. But Evan was cool. He smelled tragedy in the air and handled himself, chosen for the task, but not aware at the time.
Evan knew, as high as he’d seen the old man in the air, followed by his position then on the boulder, that he wasn’t going to make it.

Evan should have remembered the man in the air, but he didn’t, he remembered the pleading woman, and her agonies in a folded Ford leaning down a steep rocky hillside in Colorado. “It hurts so much,” she said, every few seconds. He, bound to her head as a rest with nothing else to offer.
The body he leaned over now was more familiar—a dark curly-haired man, tired and worried. Evan felt more sympathy for this man than he did for the woman from long past. This guy collapsed in front of him on the sidewalk. But the obligatory feeling was the same as before.

Spontaneous

2008-12-14T20:19:00.000-07:00

Hopping along down the interstate and out of no where, BAM! A pheasant dead on the windshield. On the way to nowhere I’m sure. So I stopped and ate that pheasant. Ate him gone. Working in Vail. Gawd that was weird. Just dollars and things at the time. But now, looking back, kinda freaky. Jeffrey, a French chef at the Red Lion, yelled a lot and scared the previous driver enough that he warned me as we trained, “This guy Jeff’s a real asshole.” I don’t remember why he was an asshole and he was never an asshole to me. Just looked at me and nodded as he manhandled carrots with a knife and I changed bags of linen. And then on to Asia, a classy Cantonese and Sushi house just west of the village. The old couple offered me lunch everyday, even at 9am. Sometimes I took a sweetroll or two. They smiled. Vail wakes slowly. She smells misty on a June morning. Dew almost frozen steaming off the cobbles in the village as each stone welcomes its morning sunbath. Morning walkers and joggers out—trying to outrun their grief from the previous night’s activities. Snug sunglasses and their all-alone attitudes. Solitude souls from the Sad forests. Often I ran into Gus, the milkman, right in the middle of the village, my truck on one side of a big water fountain, and his truck on the other. He’d drop two or three chocolate milks on my dash while I sweat my ass off in the basement of Ruth’s Brewpub. It was the worst stop of the day. They were busy and used a ton of linen. I humped ten bags a day up the stairs, and out of the basement of Ruth’s, through that narrow nook that crossed paths with a view of the expansive kitchen; a few Mexicans always seemed to catch me glistening after a few rounds with the bags; and then outside, and down more stairs back to the fountain and villagecenter. It was nuts. I hated almost every minute of it. Sandman’s Sportsbar served Mexican food. What a great location. Their foyer and open dining section lay right on the bended edge of the small clear and beautiful Eagle River that runs through Vail. But slick Anton, the Sandman, never paid his bill on time. It was a COD account and route drivers collected, or took our products off their shelves and terminated their account. I wasn’t about to take ten cooking jackets off his staff plus all the towels, rugs and other junk. I never saw him there. So, I told my boss I could never collect, because he was never there. And he knew how I felt about going in there and taking all our product. Chalet, was a Swiss place in the village. A small place that caused little work for me, and the owners, a young couple always ready with a free beverage from their soda fountain near the end of my day. They were right next to Rider’s Brewery, another always late customer, but not COD. A big bald guy always looked defensive behind the bar shining glasses, when I showed to change the linen—fearful I might seize our product. I didn’t give a shit about their bill. I stole a 1500ml bottle of brandy from them. In their basement, where they let the linen accumulate, they also kept some liquor, oils, and other canned and bottled goods. I had sticky fingers back then. Thought everything was mine—part mine, anyway. Then out of the village and onto the interstate, and then off the interstate at West Vail to hit the 7-11—the only place I could afford to eat in Vail. There was once a guy in Vail who sold a parking spot at the base of Lionshead, on Vail Mountain, for half a million dollars. Talk about flaunting your wears. My goodness. And someone actually bought it. What a country.

2008-10-27T18:02:00.001-06:00

Shrunk head blind rage
I prefer to walk alone.
A perfect and natural
way.
Why me?
Ask the dunce reminder melons—
friends on loan.
I don’t,
but this feels good.
Trouble...say it loud.
Incense clouds not disallows.

There with you there with me there.

Fans of few,
objectors of many,
peel the pain back—

Shut the gate and listen.

Madam Moment

2008-10-05T19:35:00.000-06:00

She dedicates
completely, and
we don’t.
To waiver in and out,
is our game,
our way to captivate
the blissful
unaware feelings you
never thought would
leave.
More than simple—
gone again.

Loathe language and her
God-forsaken
slipperiness and
un-attainability.

Let Go

2008-09-21T08:09:00.000-06:00

Let some go by the bay today.
Let go the throats of many,
and artists may still survive.
Then, I learned they were part of me—
more realized it, I guess.
Painted ceilings like me,
screamed wild like me,
on rainy days,
warm candles.
They stood up
while I was in the bathroom
reading graffiti.
Missed my essential lesson—
when life’s timing failed me.

Fuck You Applesauce

2008-09-06T18:42:00.001-06:00

Fuck you applesauce.

Not in focus?
Ignore a joke &
suck a toad’s ass;
search your kicks—bitch
beside bedroom bullocks.
Can’t work this,
won’t live piss
water beer—pretending
to taste what I
don’t.

Fuck you good for me.

You’re the worst—
incessant ponderer,
moral sprinkler,
visionary fictioneer.
Hike miles from
me.

But please stay, short
-term memory—& feel
long-term residue
glossy black
madness.

2008-08-17T11:27:00.000-06:00

Members of the millions who went before me, saw visions and dreams of the past and future. Real and precarious spots where their humors dipped and dived into and out of the realms of others. They also, tried not to let those visions wane in the waking world. But, success to the main part of their mind was confused. They didn’t know how to follow. They were afraid, as you are.

Piece of Me

2008-07-22T19:26:00.002-06:00

“I bet you wouldn’t do that to him,” Dave said, as he tried to struggle out of Lanny’s neck hold.
Lanny looked me up and down from across the uneven ground.

I never felt like a bully. I was big but didn’t have the personality to match. I felt more internal and not so external. I was big and strong but scared and weak at the same time. A pacifist. I’d say I’ve always been passive.

Lanny was a tough kid. He had four older brothers and had learned early how to defend himself, with some guidance through countless ass beatings. He looked at me in the face and eyes and didn’t hesitate as he took me down. He attempted the same hold he had been torturing Dave with. I resisted him and tried to shrug him off, but he was wiry and spry, as he moved himself to another advantageous position over me. He never made me submit, but I was repeatedly forced to scramble into defensive poses—my performance less than advertised.

Dave looked like a hero had fallen. Not his hero—but a hero. Or maybe he witnessed the playing field leveled and evened for once. I didn’t pick on Dave, but he was kind of a weak kid, so he knew his place with me.

That was one of those moments that stuck for no particular reason. The field was leveled for me that day too. But there was more to it for me. Sometimes those around me were literally ghosts. I could see their spirits waft in and out of them. I could see their true colors—colors that often I didn’t want to see. I felt the weight of them early. My shoulders grew broad and my left side began to dip ever so slightly. Then my left shoulder would ache from my collar bone out to the Acromio-Clavicular joint. I blamed it on my bed.

I remember the blind old man who played gentle piano in the corner of a cafeteria-style restaurant that featured primarily senior patrons. Trip after trip through their all-you-can-eat chow line, and all the while the blind old white-haired man in his white tuxedo with tails played his sweet keys. I walked by knowing that he could see me without eyes. He looked at me too deeply and freaked me out. And then his white gloves sitting beside him at the piano were in the bathroom. They appeared out of thin air. I went into the stall and did my business. When I came out, the gloves lay neatly stacked near a sink. I didn’t wash my hands, and when I left the bathroom the blind man was smirking my direction. I can’t explain those things.

That same place had plenty of regulars who used secret handshakes below their tables, where only I could see. Quick exchanges and motions of blur. And then gone. Gone in an instant to the crackle of a giant stone center-room fireplace. And I can’t taste my food. I’m cursed.

As I tell you all of this, I feel like there’s no real good beginning. I apologize if I’ve disappointed you thus far. I promise to be the best I can from this point forward.

It wasn’t an important place or even an interesting place. But it was my place. The place that helped raise me into this. The place I’m from. Let’s just say, it was a dry place.

From Church Camp

2008-06-11T18:13:00.002-06:00

Upward S-curve
concrete path and
off-paths where
dark goblins
perched, hunched
sleepy low, on
stumps behind crosses
and sermons—set to
evoke guilt-spiked
lemonade chat.

A gang of sexually frustrated
thieves—
sucked salt and sugar snacks by a
Jesus canteen sunset,
before another trek up the
S-curve, attempting to
Separate Sin from Sinners
sent to lonely dream
conquests.

Pining for her
nightly.

She’ll never
leave—
killing me.

Trout Caught Eye

2008-05-04T17:16:00.000-06:00

Big trout caught eye,
mouth gaped—confident.
Big gills worked.
Red brilliant muscular gills,
fed fresh from cool bottom
high mountain water.
Fish looked me deep
and knew I was not
who fished her, or
held her, two-hands tight.

Trout know me
like no human.

City

2008-04-07T16:02:00.000-06:00

And that city,
lights spread against a curtain
certain canyons avoid the light
of day.
What will my hands ask of me?
What is my two dollar question of
this place?
Bounce back.
The inside of you still
stares back blank.
No bawling moue but, but,
why not?
Because that city,
screams quietly,
falls quickly,
asks more,
feels the whores,
needs pajamas,
and says your time was.

Wun oh Sex

2008-02-29T20:54:00.001-07:00

The night had drawn still
after hours of what we thought
important conversations
over a mountain—
rest stops along the way.
Stuff I didn’t understand,
Kay was always
smarter than me.
Experienced—
had that big city
awareness to her.
More than I,
but she liked something
in me—demeanor,
she may have said.

“One oh six,” I said.
“Oh, not right now,
I’m not really into it in cars,
but maybe we can go
back to my place later.”

I was saying the time.
Reading it from a tiny
blue digital clock.
But she thought I said
something about sex
—wanna have sex?—
something.
Her words caused chill
and a whole new way
to see her—
A set of values not
known or
my own.

untitled scene

2008-01-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

We made our way into Portland that night. The next morning Franklin and I went downtown. We spent some time in Powell’s bookstore and then wandered into the street market. Music spilled over the whole place. It was a slippery piano jazz with a pushing stale beat in the background. I was in search of nothing and had money to prove it. But as a good capitalist I stopped at places where there were products that interested me. I spent several minutes in front of a booth that had a large glass case filled with knives and glass-works. The people behind the counter interested me. A young man with a light-colored beard sat on a tall chair sanding a small stone. An old man that looked like the younger one in the face stood behind him keeping an eye on their merchandise. He moved his head back and forth in big slow panoramas. To the men’s right was a small light-skinned Asian boy. He knelt over a small flame of his creation. I was facing the boy from my view. Directly behind him was an Asian woman whom I assumed to be his mother. She stood there in a trance. She watched the boy and his fire. Her head tilted slightly to the left. Her gaze turned inward while she stared at the boy. The old man caught sight of the boy. His eyes became very serious as he looked at the woman.
“Hey,” the old man said. “Do something.” He pointed down to the boy.
She leaned back against a stack of boxes and slowly deepened her inward trance. She didn’t move or blink.
“You need to discipline him,” he said.
Just then, the younger man finally broke focus from his rock. He looked down to see the boy and his fun. He quickly slipped out of his chair and grabbed the boy by the upper arm. “You can’t do that. Go!” he said, as the boy simultaneously popped to his feet. The kid quickly disappeared into the crowd, running on his way to a new adventure. The younger man turned with the woman away from the crowd. He muttered a few stern sounding phrases and then he looked at me looking at her, still submerged in her world. He sensed that I had been there a while.
“Is there something I can help you with?” he said, condescendingly.
I quickly turned and followed a flow that had developed. There were wonderful smells of a hundred different ethnic foods, and the sounds of them sizzling and popping. I walked through the mob indifferent to the world. I couldn’t handle any of what they were offering: not the bamboo flutes, pencils made of tree branches, elephant ears, funnel cakes, or tie-dyed shirts. I couldn’t touch. I wouldn’t allow myself. I was held in check by the mind of my choice. And the reggae clubs and noxious music did not loose it.

My Sad Sam Mistake

2007-12-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

They said her name was Samantha or Sam, and it was probably because I had a crush on Alyssa Milano, known as ‘Sam’ on some sitcom, that I started to get nervous and feed off the deceiving energy my older sister was oozing. And I’m sure it was near my birthday—because gifts were rarely given without cause.
At the house, on our kitchen table, sat a cage unfit for a hamster. Nonetheless, there was the tiny tan hamster huddled in a corner.

My utter disappointment. I was certain my betrothed was ordered from a far off land. At least that was my secret fantasy I never told. It was silly to think. But for a moment I considered the reality of life with a girl like me, next to me, known to me, meant for me, from that young age. It was overwhelming to consider. My mind was a weird place then…and now.

Bemoan the Perishing--from 2003

2007-11-21T21:37:00.000-07:00

Did it,
pissed from my heels,
didn’t flush;
pissed again,
and there they were still swimming,
all yellow with regret.

Old Halloween Thought

2007-10-31T19:13:00.000-06:00

I kept journals. And sometimes I wrote to explore myself, to go way up in there, into the creaky attic, where the skeleton’s disguised as rats scurry around and make madness out of history. And I have no idea what that means.

from "Diez Anos con Jim Thomson"

2007-10-19T13:01:00.000-06:00

There is no explanation for any of this or any of us, there’s just enough blame and guilt to fill the oceans. Separateness. That’s our unsaid feeling. We want what one man hasn’t said yet. We want to do that one thing left to do. We want that one thought left that leads to something I might call ultimate enlightenment. It’s just out of reach. I know it’s there. The smell too often rides the wind. Beauty. We’re striving through individual channels to get there. And everything else here is god-awful, ridiculous, waste of time, reality TV, which matters less than day dreaming. If I could only daydream as I did when I was a child, where moments felt like years and time was less important. And I was content to soak in a washtub under the sun with my mind. The plan was the plan and that was that. I knew what to know--now I struggle with what to know. In those trances, I understood gravity without reality.

She Told Me To Get Rid Of The Dog

2007-09-23T12:47:00.000-06:00

She told me to get rid of the dog, and
I said I would on my long drive.
I stopped at a washeteria with a dirt lot, and
My car made a cross with the big pane.
A busy woman looked out to notice.

He was panting toward the window –ready to move,
I touched his back, and he curled his neck,
Was attentive, then panted.
I rolled open my can of dinner.

I took white flesh in, to ease my hunger.
The woman moved wet, and then dry, and
She moved in that way.
I admired her value of time, and her work.
The whole was pleasing to my eyes.

The dog barked, then
She looked out, and
Came into my window, poisoned,
With work, and its pangs,
And we watched for a while, us
And the wisp of the night desert wind.

I went to the trash near her building,
And admit, I did look at the rest,
Bent over, head in a dryer.
My stolen delight from the night thrilled,
And made me glow from end to end.

I was ready to continue, and then she rushed
Out.
She was a beautiful, frightening darkness,
“Do you have a fucking staring problem?”
I nodded in return; she pretended to go to her car,
She mumbled.
And I went off to ditch the dog.

Waking Game

2007-08-16T19:13:00.000-06:00

I bunched my pillow into a comfortable shape and thought it was funny when they did it to Josh. He jumped up like a war had started. He woke violently twisting his torso, and his hands flailed about. I tried to laugh, but Josh had sucked all the air out of the room with his big gasp. The whole room exploded with people followed by long moments of only the hum from the air conditioner.

I had made laughter like this all day, and it was taxing. Now I lay on a top bunk and watched the group travel around the room looking for victims. I was amused as I rested my chin on my threaded fingers. Sometimes we leaned the bed back till two legs were a full foot off the ground. If no movement was observed from the mark, they’d build up the moment
“Shh,” one said. “Ready?” “Watch this.”
A sharp thud was followed by a low dull-sounding echo throughout the building, which I heard as I cupped my ear to the back of my right hand. It was funny every time. The innocent simply drift off unknowingly. At summer camp I had performed similar experiments with the sleeping. There, we had surrounded an occupied bunk, and we pulled silently at the same time on the outer blanket, causing the poor victim to wake from the pressure. Another time we removed nearly all the support springs till the mattress sagged to the floor. They had seemed to fight waking when we had done that.

—My bed hit the floor, and I was as shocked as the others. They laughed and blurred in my vision. I was alarmed and they enjoyed my physiological response, but I was not surprised. And I never slept well in that room again.

Heard

2007-06-16T14:31:00.000-06:00

I heard,

Look, there’s daddy’s next wife.

A few state of the art guy gadgets.
Meet the new kid in town.
How strong?
Four thousand pounds

Pssssssssssssssssttt

Make it real good.

from TV, the imaginary three ring circus.

untitled

2007-05-10T22:19:00.000-06:00

I saw Ross Perot. I walked within six feet of the little shit. Hundreds of us packed the high school theater to see him speak on the campaign trail. He was loud and full of energy and he had every answer to problems facing America. He drew me in. I became part of that growing energy of change. Not that I joined the campaign trail, but I went and then I voted. As I sat there in the midst of that growing movement of energy, I imagined the way the Germans may have felt when Hitler began shouting and growling from the pulpit. I can see how that can happen, not the evil that followed per say, but being sucked into mass hysteria and energy with the rest of the useful idiots.

Troll Giant

2007-05-06T10:04:00.000-06:00

To be, the Troll Giant.
Chase the sheet sheep
Into the wrong tent sack—

Rid the beast of pent-up shemons.
Ride, right, rip the inside
Tear the pink flesh,
The neat pink flesh—

Rave, about the conquest
Evil.
Sing bats, to the moon.

—Rape the mind side
Troll Giant!
Kill—
Kill for the thrill.

What's in Between

2007-05-02T19:54:00.000-06:00

Them: may I ask you why you are canceling your service?
Me: No you may not.
Them: Okay…hold please while I transfer you to our cancellation department.
Me: Great.
Them: Is there anything else?
Me: No.
Them: Sir, is there anything else?
Me: NO.
Them: Thank you for calling d__h n____k please hold.

Hold music for 3:30min. I put on my own music and wait. That’s all.
Wait for the next thing. I don’t want to wait another second. The waiting and the dying. The waiting to die. Waiting is weighty. I won’t wait forever. I won’t wait for change forever. I ain’t that one. Waiting for beauty. I’m waiting for you.

Them: Hello sir, my name is Michael I understand you wish to cancel your service.
Me: You’ve understood correctly.
Them: May I have your telephone number starting with the area code?

Strawberry Reservoir

2007-04-08T11:54:00.000-06:00

Mark and I worked for the same hospital. We hung out some, and thought we knew each other pretty well. He was a bio-med tech, a mechanic for medical equipment. I worked in the OR, mopping floors mostly. Mark was ten years older than me. He had been divorced, and was now in his second marriage. He had a couple of kids from his first marriage. Mark and I got to know each other over lunch everyday.
In the basement of the small hospital, there was a cafeteria. The cafeteria opened at eleven o’clock for lunch. Mark and all the rest of the mechanical tradesmen took their lunch at eleven. The hospital kept two plumbers, and two electricians on staff, along with Mark, and a general contractor, whom had a couple of lackeys that followed him around everywhere. They got an hour for lunch, as did most of the departments in the hospital. I worked for the surgery department, and because it was the busiest department, we only got half an hour. I took my lunch at eleven thirty.
With my tray, I walked toward a seat near Mark and the other guys. Everyone that worked in surgery wore scrubs. I noticed two nurses from my department. They gave me the same smile they gave to the patients as I walked by their table. I looked back over my shoulder and could see they were leaning close to each other, whispering. I had only ever sat with the women from my department when I was forced to take lunch late, and the group of men was already gone. It bothered them that they were second for me. The women had only ever talked about this patient or that –work stuff. And that annoyed me. At lunch, I wanted to escape work, so I joined the guys, to talk about sports, or fishing, anything but work.
The men took an entire side of the cafeteria, and stretched as one long table. I sat down by Mark.
“Matt. How the hell’re you?” Mark said.
“It’s hump day. You know what that means.” I said.
“No,” he said, as he laughed. “I don’t.”
“Neither do I.”
“Do you think your old lady will let you out for a few days?” He said.
“What for?” I said.
“Fishing, in Utah, Strawberry reservoir,” Mark said, and then he made a strange sideways smile, and laughed loudly. “Come on. We’ve been talking about going fishing for a while.”
“I can probably do that,” I said. “Sounds fun.”
“Some guys I know from Salt Lake are going to meet us there. They’ve been there before, so they can show us all the good spots.”
*
A couple weeks later everything had been arranged. Mark and I took Friday off and left that morning. He picked me up at my apartment. I got in Mark’s new SUV, and worried that I might get scolded on the trip for spilling something, or worse. Mark had his shoes off and a beer in his crotch. He was a little guy, with a lot of hair, and confident with the ladies. He had a big contagious smile.
Mark and I had played softball together earlier that year. When he had struck out or made a bad play he got this look in his eyes of insanity. But he had never acted out, and only made that look as he was being introspective. He told me he had been to anger management classes, and that he had learned to deal with his anger. But I thought perhaps he had learned to deal with his anger concerning others, yet he still seemed self destructive to me as he paced around with that look on his face, and the veins in his neck pushing out. He had shown me that same twist at work. It happened while the stress was getting to him, and he was unable to fix an anesthesia machine, or repair a video monitor for an endoscopic procedure. Many times there had been doctors right over Mark’s shoulder pretending like they could help. Then Mark had shaped that same crazy look. I had never been able to keep it in like Mark, and I had also been to anger management. I still got angry and threw things, and screamed out as people did before they had words.
Mark and I hopped on the interstate and drove. Just before the state line we got off the interstate and took state highway nine, north into Utah. Then we ran into endless road construction. It was stop and go for more than an hour.
Mark reached to the backseat for his third beer. “I’m sorry man,” he said. “Do you want one.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll take one.” He handed me a beer. “Today is my birthday.”
“No kidding?” Mark said.
“Nope.”
“Well happy birthday,” he said, and tilted his beer toward me. He looked at me very intensely for several seconds. And I actually thought about the road before he did. He looked at his watch next, and then to the road. “We should be able to get there by two.” He studied his watch again. It was a watch I’d admired and told him so. An authentic Swiss Army watch with a plain black Velcro band.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m in no hurry.” And then I took a big swig of my beer.
As we made our way into north-central Utah, it looked less like the desert I assumed covered the entire state, and more like the Colorado I loved. The water of Strawberry reservoir came up like a mirage as we rolled down a big hill. The sun shined brightly through the windshield, and on the valley floor below.
As mark predicted, we arrived before two. We were there before the rest of our party. We weaved in and out of the campsites that lined the edge of the lake.
“I’ve only met one of the four guys that we’re meeting up here,” Mark said.
“I thought they were friends of yours,” I said.
“Jim, the only guy I know, is a rep for one of the lasers at the hospital.” He said, as he reached into the cooler for another beer. “I really don’t know him very well. But I know he likes to drink beer and fish.”
“Ha.”
“Here we are,” Mark said, “thirty-nine.”
I helped Mark unhook his aluminum boat from his truck. Then we pulled the boat onto the tall field grass near the lake, a few feet from the short beach. Mark unloaded a small electric motor from the rear of his truck. He systematically attached the motor to the boat, and then went back to his truck for a battery, for which he had to use two hands, and walk very rigidly through the grass, and then onto the boat, where he bungee strapped it.
I brought my own pup tent. Mark brought a big tent that was set up before my little one. Mark liked things organized –his way. In under an hour he had everything he had brought in a temporary home. I watched him as I was unrolling my bed. He moved his hibachi grill to the picnic table near our small rented shelter. After a time, smoke slowly wafted off the grill and the scents pleased the gods, as the atmosphere turned back a thousand years. I was a monk in the door of my tent, sitting upright looking out over the crystal floor to where the sunset tinted mountains speared up on the other side.
The rest of our party arrived in a big four-door truck that carried a long fifth-wheel trailer. The driver got out and inspected a place to back the trailer. After he researched the terrain, he got back in as the other three guys unloaded. The trailer backed in with ease. Mark offered to move his ride, but it wasn’t necessary.
We ate and tried to learn one another. There was a young guy that seemed to be their leader in a way. His name was Shane. He was just different, the only one that didn’t look away first when we met. Jim brought his home-brewed beer. It was good, a cocoa based dunkel, thick, black, and grainy on the bottom, with a chocolate aftertaste that hit bitterly, and made me drink more to relieve the sting. The guys from Utah educated Mark and me on Strawberry Reservoir. Shane said, “There are still legendary cutthroat in there, but not like there used to be.” Each on of them told story after story about fish they’d seen, and fish that got away that had actually “dragged our canoe, huh Jim?”
Jim thought it a good idea to go to bed early, to get an earlier start to our first morning on the lake. I hadn’t drunk as much as they had over the evening. And I was used to staying up late. I went to my tent, and realized how lonely I was on my birthday in that tent. Wind, rapped loudly over the tent. I went to Mark’s truck and used his cell phone to call my wife. I missed her, and felt better after talking to her.
Back in the tent, my head went to the water. White caps covered the lake, the captain of our boat had a rope, and was standing near the boat. He had an unconvincing smile on his face. I wondered in my dream, what of this thought of this man here. Just then I noticed his beard, and his age. And there was more to the dream. Mostly it was the waves that slapped the little boat, and threw water over the side. Every rhythm was unwelcome. I didn’t feel well, in my head. Something was wrong. That dream went on and on all night, till I was waked by Mark speaking loudly about coffee.
Mark and I went out in his boat. The water was clear, and when the sun appeared over the mountains in the east, I could see ten feet below the surface. By ten a.m. Mark had a genuine beer buzz smile, and a look in his eyes that made me think he was in his element, and that he had his serotonin levels just where he liked them. I stood in the boat and reeled in my line. The crank made a snap, and a click and then the whole reel feel right off the pole and into the water, followed by a short piece of line that had broken off. I stood there with a bare pole. Mark looked at me.
“Where’s your reel?” Mark said, as he looked at me.
“It broke. It all fell apart, and went into the water.”
“Holy shit!” Mark looked off the edge of the boat. “That’s unbelievable. Here, put this reel on your pole, but don’t drop it in the water.”
I tried to drink. I just didn’t feel like it, but I tried to drink right through not feeling like it. I started to get a little buzz, and then I grew very tired.
“You don’t go fishing very much, do you?” Mark said.
“Why?”
“That line must have been pretty old to just snap like that, and that reel just fell apart.”
“I don’t fish very much.” I said.
“Thought so.”
Mark looked at me for a while as he had before in his truck. He studied my face for an answer. I don’t know what he found, but he turned the boat around, and went back to shore near our campsite. Mark took his boat back out on the water with one of the guys from Utah.
I lay in my tent and slept for several hours under the warm sunshine. I left the tent flaps open and they snapped peacefully in the breeze. It was warm and dry but not hot. I slept light and again woke disturbed from the general feel of my dream. Dreams like those tend to predict the outcome of some days. They weigh on you. And they’re difficult to speak of and bring to words. We were staying one more night and then I thought we’d be leaving first thing in the morning.
Mark is one of those guys who’s rarely in a hurry. He makes time to hurry and time to slow things down. Meticulous. He accentuated my slothfulness to a degree that I was made aware. And maybe that was his doing. I’m not certain of much of the rest. My memories are clouded with emotions. I wanted out. I didn’t want to be there, however I was stuck.
I drank three beers as we stood around the big sizzling trout. Jokes, like hot potatoes, were tossed around the frying pan. And every few minutes I was the brunt because of my incident with the drowned reel. I earned my buzz. I was sun swelled and tired and I let all the guys know as part of my bigger plan, to leave earlier than later. Mark talked of a possible morning boat run through some new favorite water he’d claimed, part of some vast bay on Strawberry Reservoir we inhabited. I hoped to dissuade him somehow from ever putting his boat on Strawberry Reservoir the next day. And I knew it might come to some uncomfortable confrontation between friends, where neither of us feels satisfied and both of us are hurt or at least made uncomfortable.
Those premonitions, like the dreams, swell up in you and control your conscience and mindful logic. I knew the point would come where I’d have to ask Mark if we could leave. I knew he’d probably do it and I knew the following look of disappointment. The teeter point of friendship. That gentle balancing point of two souls. Some duos can dance and wail on each end of their teeter, while others whisper and walk softly to avoid falling and breaking the balance they recently attained—some do that for a lifetime. I’ve found I’m a quick jumper and that I can know almost instantly about people, whether we can dance or not. I was not looking forward to that moment with Mark. With Mark and I, the option of jumping never became less of an option the longer we knew each other. I was realizing he was one of those friends outside the inner circle. The kind you keep a little more distance from. The kind you go fishing with, not the kind you smoke tea with.
I felt my beer buzz ease and my head came back a bit. I was tired and made myself tired by wanting to be tired.
“I’m going to bed. See you guys in the morning,” I said.
They blurred together with pleasantries and final jabs as I meandered back to my tent. Mark grabbed me by the shoulder.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Okay. Listen. Thanks for coming here with me. I’ve had a good time,” Mark said, and smiled sincerely.
“Me too.”
“I want you to have this,” he said, and handed me his watch. “Happy birthday.”
“Thanks Mark. That’s a really nice gift.”
“Have a good night,” Mark said on his way back to the beer.
Again I felt like a fortuneteller, a self-fulfilling profit, unable to escape the inevitable. The dreams would come again and stir my being to its core. But this time I was okay with it. I was confident I could overcome any obstacle and I longed for the chance. It ended up being a big disappointment, wanting to feel my dream and being unable to. I was rested however, and I felt good and lively in the morning.
Right away I could sense Mark wanted to stay till the afternoon, get all the fishing and drinking in that we could till it warmed up in the afternoon.
I packed my tent and all my gear in Mark’s truck. I ate a big breakfast. Eggs, hashbrowns, thick cut bacon, and stiff black coffee. The combined smell alone was more than tempting.
“When are we leaving?” I said.
“I thought we’d take the boat out one more time and leave in a few hours.”
“Oh.”
“Why? Did you want to leave sooner?” Mark said.
“It’s a long drive. And I have to work early tomorrow morning. I would like to leave sooner if you don’t mind,” I said. I pushed the subtle pointed pressure into him.
Mark heard, or thought he heard, my passive aggressive attitude. “I guess it doesn’t matter if I mind. We’re leaving.”
He packed hurriedly and maintained the same irritated posture over a hundred miles into our three hundred mile ride home. But then, he loosened up. He forgave me I guess for being me. I was sorry I had upset Mark with my passive demand but not sorry for making it home hours earlier.

Angrily Tolerating

2007-02-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

Angrily tolerating.
Amused by the ones crossed—and the memories
and
He weathers the elements and I walk
Aware of where we came from.
Nothing’s mystical, it’s all abhorrent.

When?

And who grows the muse among us?
While I’m out on a perch, deceived by what’s below
The hammer hits—the thief Christ spoke of
Is in my kitchen making life of my food.

Away flied the innocence,
I knew myself knowing it—face in a map.
Want met itself and drug me too,
Or maybe it was quite the reverse.

I’m prepared for a dignified fall and the capital
To open and reveal the true inside.
The ground is rising, and I expect impact.

One Convinced

2007-02-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

Terry lied about everything. And she was scared of everyone except her kids, who she used like slaves. She had a good body but a horse head, and so her body was her focus to her and usually to everyone else. She had four kids, a twelve year-old boy, a nine year old boy, an eight-year old girl, and a two year old baby girl.
Terry was with an on-again-off-again guy named Rob, a very domineering and possessive man and the father of her youngest daughter. He was clearly bad for her, but Terry could never fully break away, and then the baby was born, and from then on they were forever linked.
Terry had to drive to Denver from the western side of Colorado to appear in court for a speeding ticket that she had forgotten to pay. She could not get out of it. The occurrence threw a wrench into Terry’s already chaotic life.
She took the day off and drove all four of her kids, starting at 5am for the four hour drive. Terry made it to her court appearance at 10am. Everything went smoothly in court. Terry paid her fine and then began the trip back to the Western Slope.
She passed through an intersection preparing to enter the on-ramp to the interstate highway. Carrie only looked down for an instant, when she hit a small truck. Carrie worked for an insurance agent but did not have auto insurance. She bribed the kid in the truck with a check for two hundred dollars if he did not involve the authorities.
She left Denver, paranoid of what Rob would say and do at the sight of her new SUV that he’d bought for Terry.
On the way up the first mountain pass she became frantic for an explanation of the new dents on her truck, then Terry noticed a dead animal on the side of the highway. Her lying mind quickly worked into action. She got out of the truck to realize a dead cougar lying just off the road. The tongue was detached and hung ruefully red from the cat’s gaping jaws. The dead eyes must have tricked her. Terry grabbed fir to handle the tongue and then used it as a wiping tool to bloody the dented spots on her truck. She stuffed the hand of fir into a creased spot on the hood near the damaged headlight and convinced herself she had hit a cougar while the kids slept. And then she convinced him.

1980

2007-02-08T20:01:00.000-07:00

I think he was stuck in 1980, but I didn’t decide that till later.
He was a slow moving old man with a grey beard. He always smoked a big wood pipe and wore a ball cap. He had a nice red dog that was some kind of lab mix. I’d delivered to him before, but on this night Rich, my manager, told me something I didn’t know about Mr. Remington. I learned from Rich that Mr. Remington had a guardian, some younger woman, who called Rich several months previously and asked him to call Mr. Remington every Thursday around seven, and ask him what kind of pizza he wanted for dinner.
I knew him. I remembered his dog. I’d seen it grow from a puppy over the summer. He was a nice guy who liked to chat at the door. But I always thought there was something odd about him. He didn’t seem to be all there. On this night, I was curious about Mr. Remington on the way to his house.
I saw him sweeping the kitchen floor as I walked up to the house. I tapped on the door, and his red dog ran over and stared up at me till Mr. Remington noticed and came over.
“Hello,” he said, “how are you doin’ tonight?”
“Good. How are you?” I said.
“Oh, I’m doin’ alright.”
I gave him his pizza. “I just need you to sign this.” I said, as I handed him the credit card slip.
“Come on in.” He said, as he turned to his kitchen and walked away from me.
I followed him into his kitchen and stood by his table, and then kneeled to pet his pooch.
“What’s the good word?” He said.
“I don’t know. Do you?” I said.
“No,” he said with a laugh, “I don’t know either.”
He took his time and wrote his name with care. I studied his room and found a big Northern Pike on the wall above his fireplace.
“That’s a nice Northern,” I said.
“What’s that?” He said.
“Is that your Northern Pike?” I said, as I pointed to the fish.
“Oh him, yeah, I caught him in Saskatchewan. You ever been up there?”
“No,” I said.
“My brother lives there. I’ve made twenty two car trips to Big Quill Lake. You got a minute?,” he said as he moved toward his round table in the kitchen. “I was drawing on my map.” He sat on his chair, and I sidled up next to him to study his map.
“That must be quite a drive,” I said.
“It is.” He looked at highlighted roads and destinations on a map of Saskatchewan.
Mr. Remington told me all kinds of fishing tales from this lake and that with his brother. It seemed to me that it had been twenty years since he had been to Canada, because all of his stories were from the 70s and 80s, and this was 2004.
“So what’s your story,” Mr. Remington said, “are you from here?”
“Yes,” I said, “I was born here.”
“Yeah, I came over here about seventy-five, so I’ve been here about five years.”

Some Baseball

2007-02-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

Baseball season is almost here. I can't wait. Then I won't have to observe the sports that only kind of waste my time, and I can once again fall in love with the best sport ever invented. I'll say it again, if you don't love baseball, you don't get it. --It's coming--the one-hundred-sixty-two game grind. The beautiful grind. Most new to baseball can only take it in one slow minute at a time and only see the lull.

Have you tried
one against nine
and nine against
one?
It's not easy on
either side of nine to
one.
Try to get into the mind of a pitcher. See the psychological battle unfold and the climax die into leather bound hands of glory.

It's coming,
and it saves me every
spring.

2007-01-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

“Hey, let me have that sleeping bag?” I said.
“Why?” Ryan said, as he laughed.
“Just give it to me,” I said, as I reached out, “I want to try something.”
The civic was a small car, so I thought I could drive with my head out the sunroof, if I sat on something tall enough. I’m a big man any way, but this would make me look enormous. And I thought it would be funny.
We all piled in, Greg, Ryan, Michael, and me. I wanted to get some public reaction, so I drove to the mall and hoped there would be a crowd near an entrance, where I could drive by and look at them out the top. Ryan was uncontrolled with laughter, from the time I started driving with my head out the sunroof.
The red bulls-eye was my first target. There were many women and small groups crossing to and from the store. I slowed and even had to stop at the crosswalk. And then time stopped. And the moment was alive and you can be there too. It was a kingly experience. They all noticed and stared with big eyes and open mouths at the sight of a giant. They stopped and gawked and turned their heads as I crept by with a muted smirk on my face.
Next, was a smaller crosswalk in front of a sporting goods store. Again, two small groups of mostly women stared shamelessly at my head atop the car, behind the wheel, in control. A woman hustled close to the car and tried to look in at my legs.
“Are you really that tall?” she said, in an excited and curios way.
“Don’t look at me,” I said, “I’m naked.” And I sped away.
The innocent joke eventually became less and less funny till we broke paths and went home for the evening. Because the next is always the best and it’s never a memory till it’s too late.

Sleeping Beauty

2007-01-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

We’re very used to sleeping
In grasp of each other;
And our beats become
One to each.

Our life of dreams has rare
Quarrels—another reason
To want her more—priority
Reality which?

She chose angelic early—and
She shows me my innards—unwanted
By us both in the real side of life,
because it’s hard and loud out there
With the rest.

—Slide back to the drowsy side with
Me Dearest Love, I need you here.
Connected at the hip under charmed
Clouds high above this.

Where there’s more and more
And more.

Untitled Fiction

2006-12-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

1)

I save the good stuff for the few fortunate. The rest, I block out and don’t let them see the best of me. And maybe there’s a problem in that. And when I don’t get to speak to all of the few, I become the scuttling crab, peacefully below an angry sea.

I won’t let it bother me when the people take hold of this. It’ll be their choice, and I’ll thank them gratefully while aware of the business at hand. I’ll take it all in stride with the old and new knowing me inside. It will hurt. It will all hurt so good. I can’t tell you the pain that purges through dollars and cents.

The story was supposed to be about the past and these people I knew who affected me this way and that. And you were supposed to see me change and feel something familiar to the growth I experience, inside you. It was going to be grand. But the story changed on me, and I’m not sure how. The people turned less human and more like dreamy characters whose names you can’t remember, but are so familiar you might think of one right now.

I think this all started after some crazy shit and I had the worst charlie-horse on my right leg. I was hit squarely with a baseball. It turned into a horrid bruise that nearly covered my upper leg. There was a dark purple nucleus right in the center of my quadracept and thick stripes of lighter colored circles around it, like a dart board. It crippled me just as baseball season started. My sophomore year, the last year I played.

In case you don’t know or are completely ignorant, the first several weeks of any highschool sports team consists of lots of conditioning. They literally ran our asses off. The first day we were sprinting after a warm up. Coach _____ noticed then that I hobbled more than I ran. “Go sit down Wade” he said, “what the hell is wrong with you?”
He walked around the backside of the group to find me sitting on the side. I showed him my leg. He shook his head.
“You need to drop some weight Wade,” he said.
He was right, I did, but I don’t know what that had to do with my morbidly bruised leg.
“How much do you weigh?” He said.
I hadn’t weighed myself in six months, but I didn’t think it had changed all that much, because I had been doing a lot of trail biking for fun.
“Right around two hundred.” I said.
“Mandy, take Wade to the lockerroom for a whirlpool.” Coach said, to Mandy, the team manager. “and then get him going on the bike.”

The whirlpools did a ton of good, and I only spent five days on the bike, before I could run at full strength again.

Weeks later, me and this little dork Aaron and were taking pop flies one late afternoon, just as practice wrapped up. he was making fun of my stride and the way that I ran. It probably was funny. I was such an overgrown big ofe without a head back then. Anyway, something he said made me laugh and I dropped a ball just as coach ______ walked by with a loaded bag of bats.
He made this irritated sound and posture that he used to that dug right into your skin if aimed at you. And I knew it was.
“Wade, did we check your weight again? After Spring conditioning? Because you look like you’ve slowed down.”
We hadn’t. And I still had really no idea what I weighed. I didn’t feel like I had slowed. I felt like he was hacking on me, like coaches do in their attempts to motivate you and make you better. He walked away and found Mandy, because she found me and escorted me back to the lockeroom. I hoped that I was under two hundred, but I didn’t know.

Most of the kids that played athletics at my high school came from more affluent homes. Not to say all of them were rich snobs. But most of them were definetely middle class homes. Children of college graduates. Not me. My dad was a janitor. I ate government cheese. I got hand-me-down clothes from older cousins and thrift stores, and really hadn’t even noticed my peasant class status till I joined highshcool atheletics and spent time with a different set of kids than I did on my own time. They were priveledged compared to me and I was jealous. I admit it. I was jealous that their parents knew things and were educated and not just submerged in religion, as mine had been. I was jealous their parents expected their kids to be college graduates.

The lockeroom scale was on a wall up on a table. You had to sit on it, while someone else manned the counterweights and read the scale. You were out of the loop until the number was announced. I stripped my chubby ass down to my underware, which I was never comfortable doing in front of Mandy, and sat on the scale.
After a couple minutes of metal sliding sounds and cold air chilling my bones, she said it.
“Two oh five,” she said, quietly and calmly, like her shy personality.

After I dressed in street clothes, we walked together out to the practice field, where coach ______ was giving a speech, while the team was on one knee in the grass. We arrived and he stopped his whole speech.
“Well Mandy, how much?”
“Two oh five.”
The team, led by the coach had a nice laugh and then practice broke.

I played sparingly that year and I never started. I loved the game, but not like that. So I quit playing. I quit playing and I haven’t stopped quitting yet.

Accept or Believe

2006-12-04T19:19:00.000-07:00

The Radical Muslims want it more. And they’ll win until the West acknowledges this is an enemy we helped to create by our acceptance of what is offered to us by the media. In this holy war, Islamists readily die for their cause and send their kids to die for their cause. Their belief is stronger than Western Christianity’s. This leads to my main argument. The USA is approximately eighty percent Christian, in one form or another. Most Americans accept Christ as the living Son of God. Christ is also integral to Muslims, but to them we are misinformed. We’re heretics to them for placing Christ as we do. And they believe it. Most Americans accept Christ and his message, but do we BELIEVE, because there is a distinct difference?

Christian belief slowly and quietly became acceptance through our American culture of convenience. We fostered and nurtured the Christian acceptance movement, and now it’s commonplace to the degree that acceptance and belief are interchangeable in Christian Faith. The truth of the matter is far different. Western Christian acceptance is blasé and to some, at most, is part of some holiday ritual here and there throughout the year. Muslim belief is passionate and motivates them to action. They are highly motivated people of action, just as Christ was a man of action. In fact, Christ uses the word “believe” time after time in the Gospels specifically seeking the kind of followers who are active and progressive not stagnant and accepting.

The fact is, some Muslims still believe in conversion by force, as do some Christians, both of which have practiced this technique throughout history. However, where a majority of Christians today will tell you they don’t believe in conversion by force, a higher percentage of Muslims will tell you they do. So then, how do we place these faiths in opposition on the same map?

The Bush team may have embraced the Muslim conflict to progress an agenda, but since then, Radical Islamists have been further emboldened and are trying to win by “a thousand slashes,” as written in their holy book. They are patient warriors and will keep the fight simmering for years and years, planning and modeling strike after strike. And they will not stop. They care more than the West, and they know our leadership is a façade. They know the evils of our television culture. They know we will crumble before their patience wanes.

For now we play the global game. We pretend to be fighting those who “hate freedom” as GW says, while our military is sent so that “freedom is on the march.” Does that make any sense to anyone? So George, what exactly do the “insurgents” hate about freedom? Do you see the absurdity in what we’re expected to believe? Truth is, Christians and nonpeaceful Muslims need to be separated by oceans. Unfortunately, our government will never tell us the truth about why we’re fighting a war in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though it’s on the top of every Americans’ mind. We know, without having been offered the truth, but we accept most of what we hear from the loudspeakers and believe everything will be just fine.

Flamethrower

2006-11-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

I think it bothers me most when I’m not doing it, or at least not doing it with any substance. When it’s just drivel. Worthless mindless drivel, like this. So, I guess I’ll talk about a flame thrower and a beauty I assisted today. An olive-skinned, tall, athletic, young beauty with thick, ripe lips and long dark hair. A golden-eyed beauty, and I helped her and she was thankful. And she smiled and smiled and I smiled and smiled. And she was young and dumb and ornamental, so she walked away as those things do. She walked away into the ions and outcropping, into silver skies and eagle rimmed lenses.

She couldn’t decide where to go, so she drove to be busy. She drove with money and a want for more money, and a mission. She drove with a mission. Her mission might take her over mountains. But it didn’t. Only to her grandmother’s house with questions. And then they hatched, cause she takes initiative. It’s in her name. She faces the need, as she did on the ball field, an excellent infielder. Her questions hatched in her grandmother’s kitchen and much was said about this dollar amount and that dollar amount and about time and Grandma’s limits here on earth, in a round-a-bout way of course. Much was expressed and hugs were given and she, she found her need fulfilled by those loved.

The flame thrower was a collaborative effort, and so was the thought process between two eight year old cousins. A battery operated squirt-gun filled with gasoline diluted with water and a match taped to the under side of the barrel. It lit and was snuffed by moisture more than ten times. And then once, it threw a rope, an intimidating flame, twenty feet across my back yard. It scared the hell out of us and we learnt that fire can’t be diluted.

Stone Betrayal

2006-11-06T20:07:00.000-07:00

And the mist sprayed up,
And there were cars parked one behind the other
Off into the sky scraped distance.
And there was he alone, a bearded
Betrayed leveled dirty man.
Life after night of his wife’s
Slip from grace,
And into a hot drawn bath
Of loneliness and an abrupt meeting
Of head with stone.
If he’d have just argued that
Time from her, “don’t take
It tonight” he might have said,
If only more selfish for that moment;
But—in time, the liquid went cool—
His hours went by—and she fell
Away.
Today, the curb and others’ faces
Take main stage, and entertain the
Loss—where some move on, this
Bearded man’s love refused to die—
And the fallen angel;
She haunts him still, and he tells
Everyone in earshot that
He is unable to cope with
His mind by hers.

Job and the Killer

2006-09-30T21:26:00.000-06:00

for old time sake

Greg knew he had to euthanize his snake when he came home and noticed the food, a rat, he’d put in with the snake had eaten part of Killer’s tail.
A week earlier Greg had put the rat in with Killer, his pet red-tail boa he’d owned for 4 years. Killer was six feet long and as thick as a French loaf in the middle. Greg expected Killer to be hungry, as she had recently shed. As Greg dropped the rat into the tank it thrashed and spun in his hands. It gnashed so hard it spun off the end of its tail, which disgusted Greg, as he flung it to the floor, and later when he scooped it up with a paper towel headed for the trash. Killer made one attempt at the rat, but the quick rat snapped out of the way of the flying jaws. She hit her face hard on the glass, stunned. The rat camped under an arched piece of wood. And there Greg left him assuming the inevitable would happen, and nature would take its course. The next morning Greg looked in, surprised to see the rat still there, hunkered under the arc of timber.
That day the snake made no attempt to go under the wood or search for her prey. She repeatedly stretched out her neck stiff and long, bent toward the sky. It must have driven her mad, being unable to taste what so temptingly smelled. Only part of the time could she control her head and neck, and the rest of the time she was bent stiff as a board.
After a couple of days Greg decided to take the rat out, thinking perhaps the rat was immune to red-tail boas. He named the rat Job and put him in his own smaller tank. The snake continued the same odd neck straightening behavior. Greg remembered the snake had done this for a time a year previous, but not this bad. After a day, Killer returned to somewhat normal, but she still hadn’t eaten in a month.
Greg went back to Job. He put Job back into the tank with Killer, but she was not interested. Again, Greg decided to leave the rat in there, because he knew she would eventually eat. The next morning Greg found the six inches of raw flesh Job had revealed. Job had started at Killer’s tail and chewed up like a beaver would a green willow branch. Bright pink flesh from the snake stood in the room and stirred up sympathetic nausea in Greg, and later in those who were told. The red-tail boa now took on a whole different connotation from that of a lovely natural pattern change, to a painful reminder of when the prey ate the predator, food ate the eater.
Greg is an amateur herpetologist, and in one of his books he discovered a neurological disease that causes boas to lose control of muscle functions in their upper body, rendering them unable to eat.
Greg needed a hand, and I tried to be there for him, but it was difficult for me to understand. I tried to make it fun, but I could tell it was hard for Greg. He kept telling me, “This isn’t funny.” And I would always say I know, but laugh anyway, because that’s how I deal. Greg and I talked Mike into driving us into the desert hills north of town in his Jeep with a hatchet. Greg bagged the critters and gave me Job, in his own little bag. I used to like to kill things, and I still remember how it goes. I missed Job in that little bag at least four times before I hit flesh and pulled a red blade from the mess. Then he was right at the edge, clawing his way out. The hatchet had entered Job’s chest, and he was mortally wounded. I whacked off his head, with three swings, to sever it completely, and then handed the hatchet over to Greg.
Greg kept his sunglasses snug as he danced over her. He didn’t waste any time, and took his first good opportunity, as she lowered her head to move. The hatchet was dull but the first blow nearly severed her head. He took two more whacks to finish it. Her upper body bled a steady stream, and held stiff in the air, then faded as her muscles collapsed.
Greg picked up her head and put it back into the bag. He squatted down beside her and picked up her dead, heavy body. I told him I was sorry he had to kill his snake. I know it hurt him.

Delivery of my own Intervention

2006-09-21T19:44:00.000-06:00

Delivery of My Own Intervention

Cast:
Randy (protagonist)
Rich
Cassie (Randy’s sister)
The Man (Pastor, intervention facilitator)
Lana (Randy’s wife)
Dad (Randy’s father)
Mom (Randy’s mother)

Randy arrives at work (Pizza Delivery). His boss, Rich, routes the orders. When Rich sees Randy, he attends him directly.

Rich: Hey Randy your run is ready for you right here. Do you have a money bag yet?
Randy: No.
Rich: Are you in the dispatch computer?
Randy: I haven’t even clocked in yet. What’s the rush, are we busy?
Rich: No, not really.
Randy retrieves a money bag from the nearby office, and returns to the dispatch area, where Rich is waiting.
Rich: Here Randy, this one’s ready for you.
Randy looked at the address and didn’t recognize it. He drove to the house and did not know it either. He held the pizza and knocked on the door.
Cassie: Come in, Randall. I love you.
Randy didn’t say anything, but he smelled suspicion. And there was a man he didn’t know there, among the list of family.
The Man: So, Randall, we’re here to talk about your marijuana problem. Do you think you have a marijuana problem Randall?
Randy: It’s not a problem.
The Man: Oh, I think it is, and your family members, and those who love you, are going to show you your problem.
Randy: It’s not a problem for me. It’s a problem for you, one that you’ve chosen to randomly create out of the plethora of other issues, from this roomful of dysfunctionals sitting here.
Cassie: You don’t care about anything anymore. You’re apathetic and you’ve lost your passion for everything.
Randy: There is some truth to what you’ve said. But I struggle with apathy, with or without THC. And it’s not a problem.
Lana: We fight more when you smoke than when you don’t. I don’t like you on it.
Randy: I don’t agree, and I don’t know why we fight like we do. And most of the time you don’t even know when I’m high and when I’m not.
The room fell quiet and stoic looks were cast back and forth across the room.
Dad: Now Son, you don’t need to be using illegal drugs. It’s not good. It’s wrong.
Randy: You’re probably right Dad, I don’t need it, but there are a lot of things I don’t need. I don’t need TV, and I know it’s mostly bad for me, but I still watch some. And as far as the illegality, there are many laws I’m opposed to, cannabis not being the least of which. To me, by keeping cannabis illegal, the government infringes on my personal freedoms and privacy rights. It’s not a problem.
Again, a quiet fell on the room, and the only noise was from jubilant screaming kids behind a closed door. Two minutes passes and only an occasional whisper is shared between two. Randy stands calmly still holding the pizza in the center of the room, with all the spectators seated around him.
Mom was gently crying near his sisters. She was very upset by the whole ordeal.
Mom: Can’t you see what you’re doing to your family?
Randy: If this is what I’ve done to you Mom, I’m sorry. But really, you all are making this into a much bigger deal than it is. It’s not a problem, and I’m fine. I function and I have a vice like many. I have to keep it at bay and not let it take over my life, as you do with any vice, but it’s not a problem. Thanks.
Randy: Are you Mister Church? (To The Man)
The Man: Uh, yes.
Randy: You’re total is fourteen fifty seven. I’ve got to get going, so, if I could get that from you, that would be great…

My Small Victory over the Powers That Be

2006-08-20T12:13:00.000-06:00

Once, I fought the law, and I won.
I was racing through Debeque Canyon on my way home from work. I worked as a linen truck delivery driver in Vail. Every morning at five a.m. I drove from Grand Junction to Silt, which was an hour drive by interstate seventy, then loaded my own truck and took its contents and spread them around the Vail Village. Just as you leave Grand Junction going east, Debeque Canyon winds narrowly along the Colorado River for ten miles, then I-70 opens up and you can go seventy five. But through the canyon you can only go fifty five.
I was almost home. I knew that canyon. I could drive it asleep, and was close some days. I was probably going between eighty and eighty five when I noticed him. A Colorado State Patrolman piloting the new shiny silver Camaro going the other way. He was on to me and immediately slowed and turned on the next emergency median crossing. I had just passed a group of cars going just a little slower than I. The patrolman had to wait for several seconds and many vehicles before he could enter the highway going my way.
I saw him get on in the rearview mirror; he looked to be a mile behind me. I knew he wanted me, it was going to be his personal challenge for the day. I felt the urgency and noticed I was only a mile or two from the east Palisade exit, and from there I could take back roads west to Grand Junction.
I hit the gas and raced my Subaru as fast as I could. I passed semis and vans around tight corners, I pushed my car and felt the Camaro catching me. I veered off the interstate swiftly onto exit forty six, which becomes old highway six. At the bottom of the exit lane, at the stop sign, I noticed the silver Camaro float across the elevated roadway still heading west. He could have seen me from up there, and another exit was only a couple miles down the road. If he was a really ambitious cop, he might pull off there and try to find me.
In retrospect, I sound paranoid now, but it sincerely seemed plausible at the time. Anyway, after I took way too many back roads home and escaped without getting a ticket, I felt then, as if I fought the law and won. Ha!

One of Her Issues

2006-08-20T12:10:00.000-06:00

She sucked me awake to tell stories from her past.
She said, “obsessed with penises.” several times:

Rainbow belts in the stall,
Donuts—their eating, licking, knocking,
Get it all!

She said it was only for a time,
And sixty-nine was fine with wine
And even better with a line.
She wrote it in the stalls
To tell you all

Tears and oppressions persist

Among the Clamber,

2006-07-25T21:15:00.000-06:00

Of everyday business,
The worst ever is happening
To the world. And
We are all aware.
We talk, fret, and reserve
Our true feelings to the inside layer of us.

Is this post apocalypse?

The decay looks naturally
Waiting for time to
Take shape as the end of
An age.

We’re weaned on debauchery
Trained with apathy
And able to resist it
All.

But this is past the end people! We’re there—after the good has come and gone. We’re left to wait and see the end unfold and pray for forgiveness. An invitation to another place, is what we seek. A pass to the end and beginning. A role. A place in the scheme worth being. A time. I want the time. What time is it? I want it. I want to take the time. Here. With porn playing in the background.

Fabio & Shady

2006-07-15T15:29:00.000-06:00

A group of people Dana worked with were already numb and intent on many secrets, standing in my home. A group of five or six of us had been drinking for more than an hour. The party was for no reason really. But I remember it was cold out. Russ and a feminine sounding guy named Mark came together. My cousin Greg was planning to show a little while later.
I knew Russ liked Dana. You can usually tell when someone likes the one you’re with. They give all the tells and do all the things you used to do, when you were wooing her. They have that sparkly glint in their eye and find humor in all converses.
Russ was a short and kind of stocky kid who usually wore a ball cap down over his eyes. He was outgoing and lively though, the ball cap image did not reflect his personality. He held an air of arrogance. He was likeable and agreeable with most. He liked Dana because she’s sweet and funny and beautiful, and everyone can feel her love. An angel. She has a giving and compassionate spirit. I can’t blame Russ for wanting my bride. He felt connected to her, and in some way perhaps he was. As we can know that in an instant about the eyes of familiar pain.
Russ didn’t threaten me. Even if he tried his hardest, he could not have her. She was a good and honorable woman. That night was like many I’d spent with Dana and Russ and others. Loud. Drinking games and all varieties of music filled my senses.
When Greg came through the door of our home without knocking, I didn’t notice the appalled look expressed by Russ, that some guy would just walk unannounced through our front door. Cousin Greg had a key to our place and was always welcome. But Russ was instantly threatened by Greg and didn’t know we were related.
Greg and Dana often wrestled and jabbed at each other, especially with a few drinks in them. They had a good relationship, and knew each other well. The first time Greg grabbed Dana in jest, I noticed Russ flex up and look bothered. At that moment, I felt that sinful bliss of knowing something to come. Russ began to brew. He searched for those weapon words to hurl as he drank from beer after beer. I saw Russ stew while he watched Greg interact more intimately with Dana than he ever had.
Russ seemed to rumble it under his breath a few times, before he actually came out and said, “Fabio. What’s up with this guy?”
Greg didn’t hear him at first, or didn’t even realize anything had been pointed at him.
“Who’s Fabio?” Russ said, as he pointed at Greg while attending Dana.
“Excuse me?” Greg said.
“You heard me.”
I knew it was on. The whole thing was comical to me from the beginning. Greg, who always loves a good argumentative conversation, and Russ, a cocky hot head little angry Irishman. I never suspected either of them would turn the situation violent. But others did.
“I’m Greg.”
“What’s up Fabio?”
Greg chuckled a bit, and was now equally bothered by Russ, as Russ was of Greg. Greg didn’t stew as long for his jab. He was quick with his reply, after he gauged Russ for a few minutes.
I never really understood the “Fabio” comment or why it offended Greg. Other than, he was sort of a metro-sexual, always concerned with his hair and looks. But so was Russ, and they were similar in their appearance and sensitivity therein. The perception of others concerning their overall appearance impression was ever cognizant to them both. So when Greg hit back with “Slim Shady,” somehow the white man’s new enemy, it stung, like a shot to the high jaw. It may not have bothered most like it did Russ, but he hated rap, especially that rap, which happened to be hippest at the time. I don’t think Greg expected it to sting like it did. But it had to be. It was the perfectly designed moment for interaction between two complete strangers. Meant to be.
They went back and forth, toe to toe. At one point they actually stood and barked back and forth remarks that kept featuring the two pop-culture figures in jokes and situations, until it became less and less comical to me.
Mark tried to separate the two arguers, when it appeared to become more heated. That was the funniest part to me. Like two angry old women in a beauty parlor, feuding about young people. I belly laughed. It’s all a show for the crowd. They simply don’t understand each other.
The fight grew like a fire and burned hot for a while and then simmered. But even as Russ left, the coals were still red. The insults became playfully Freudian, and the night fell off again.

My Darkside

2006-06-24T17:09:00.000-06:00

An evil part of me is in love with the dark side too, like you. It’s hard to commit. There are factors that add up to reasons, but that isn’t changing now. My want to commit is the problem today. I could, you know. I could go all the way—and amaze. That’s the other way it seems from my perspective here. But you’ve been there I know. I remember the stories, they’re still a part of me.
Make no mistake, I am ever self aware, rhythmic and old. I’ve been there all along with the women and their eggs. You never told me how it will all end. How I’ll change by being changed. You never told me more. The bad wants out. It wants to play and change as well. I’m taught and believe resisting that dark nature is good. But perhaps it’s not resisting when you’re all in and you see things as they are, void of moral persuasion.

The good is internally external. Ha, how’s that for made up shit? I had something to say—more about the dark side, but it has temporarily slipped away. I feel pressure from my masters, pressure to perform more, to move and excel more rapidly. I’ve no time to slow and know myself. And perhaps I shouldn’t, but I want to. I want to explore more unspoken desires. The dark side and this blasted free will again. The battle eternal. Good verses evil. Why here why now? Questions that never rest. Born into a place cursed.

Why is it, men prefer darkness over light? Darkness is loneliness. Darkness is strange and eerie. It’s quiet and soundful.

The sun is blinding. It burns and taxes.

The patterns from shadowy places cast temptation and cool appeal. Sit and drink a while. And I will, and have with you. The drumbeats and the ease of nature. This can’t be all bad. It isn’t. But pure it’s not either.

One True Thing Today

2006-06-17T12:12:00.000-06:00

I despise most, but try not to.