How much have you done?

Oh Progress? Yes, yes, I am making this. And Eminent Domain. That is right, more to come. Demand and still short supply, short straw, pick this-not your friends' nose.

Please--Puff out your chest feathers when you say Anthropocene, strut and utter, hashtag lives matter, protest and remember? Revolutions. Terror-ism. The latest pill? So many choices of cereal and drugs, how can we know what will help? What will kill it-or cure it? Sugar. Will we know things have changed? Is this thing on? Does it feel good? 

How could a woman not know they are carrying a baby? It comes as no surprise.

How could a parent walk away from their own child? They believe in their own lies.

How can anyone prefer to live in a cloud than clarity? Blurry is better. How is it better to dwell on depression and deceit? Easy Street leads to a dead end. 

How can chemicals be chosen over people? Machines over mankind? Disillusionment preferred; imagination deterred. 

Didn't they know they would forget what is real? What is real? 

How can we ignore screams from the neighbors house?

How did they not see it coming? Did they close their eyes? Mind their own business to become bankrupt again? What's new? Not regret. 

How did they not care to know? How did they feel going forward without realizing they were going back? This looks familiar....

How did they live? 

They didn't. 

Painting by Lilly Martin Spencer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Five double you's and one H

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."-Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

            The News Paper reads-Bob Dylan

               I think this-- 
is the wrong Dylan? The man with the words for all ages. The man with words--on pages-not on stages...rouse myself from enuch dreams must crust my eyes...

              
But what do I know, that is not my company. I own no stock in precious medals.

The shareholders have spoken. The country will now be run like a company.

By majority, the minorities must follow en mass, encompassing silence, facilitating their own resilience-

(not by inheritance) and we worry about privacy and freedom while working with none of these:

the Internet is tapped, your phone is traced in space, we may not speak in vain of things like kings, disgraced queens, leaders astray.

Corporations are icons and we are the employees, yet we shall (still) call it 'Democracy'.

By vote?

We are living in a serious time. Tyranny taunts expression and art is the only release.

Self-destruction is a constant temptation that knows our middle name and the past we 

say we have passed is always a guarantee however we remember it, it never sits as it       were

without participation, we must throw in our added effort to eliminate what we did not know then,

illuminate what we always knew, easily we annihilate our amnesia of details-the heat namely,

how close we've come to the flames, cold-blooded we are compelled to mark the moment-

significant-look at me! Crazy. Collected and coerced, alone attracted toward that which 

hungers for our hours, fueled by all that we made in fusion-resistance is futile, that is why

they smile and look the other way, there is nothing to do but start seeing fire differently,

where would we be without it?

"This is the world; the lying likeness of 

Our strips of stuff that tatter as we move

Loving and being loth;

The dream that kicks the buried from their sack

And lets their trash be honoured as the quick.

This is the world. Have faith." (IV)

Why? A brown butterfly flew into the toaster oven his morning and it was delicious

being the most important meal of the day. I am no longer hungry. 

Painting by James Guthrie [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Scenic drive

It was one of those times that shock would be a gift-a present. A time that slowed to enunciate its meaning. A moment that is more than a moment, yet thankfully, is still contained in a wincing short period of time, shorter than it takes to tell a tale, shorter than a breath taken away, one of many-only a moment in time, by definition of duration, three seconds.

Inside the adrenaline 'present', you are made inherently aware of the nowness and the predictable future simultaneously, but like running in a dream, you are unable to escape the moment you are in. We are all stuck together here, running for our lives and gaining no distance.

You must have seen the heavenly shafts of light beaming through trees, the golden glow, the dancing white light. You have witnessed the mist beading and rising from wet wood as the morning dew becomes exposed to the steamy sun and transcends into steam, thick and nearly choking you have sometime seen dust in a dance swirling in its dirty misery...I have sensed the spirit stirred from nothing but new air, like you.

As individual bodies, we were still falling together around the man whose body lay twisted and flat, lifeless in the road. See, stained glass, all in fragments, shuffled photos, squares with light and dark edges, no faces, just the red wooded, cold-blooded earth now stained with oil, an oozing puddle of inky blood on asphalt, a pile of metal pieces sneezed, plastic melted, knobs twisted, and frozen bodies, gravestones stood around the body alive and marking the spot.

Memorable moments make themselves known when they arrive. They announce themselves by silencing all else, by walking heavy and slow across our timeline, across our chest. Death is so natural, as natural as being born. We are biodegradable, most of us. We should not be baffled or afraid, there will be nothing we can do to reverse the course, to turn the clock back, to wait a moment.

This is where we are, on a two-lane narrow and snaky mountain road. Natural springs occasionally burst out of the cloddish mountain side whereby a fallen tree protrudes as if a giant archer missed his aim. Our latitude set is at thirty-six degrees, and we are approximately thirty minutes driving distance from any type of township, storefront or place with streetlamps. There are houses tucked away deep in those hills, do not think it is desolate. No Trespassing signs mean ominous things, you should not get lost in these woods; hermits and hemp farms, loaded shotguns held by shaky hands and blood hungry wolf-hybrid guard dogs nestled under trees filled with booby traps set by Vietnam Veterans and a variety of other power and fear mongrels, assorted such boogie men, convicts and ex-killers, anyone with something to hide hid there. A feral forest in the Wild West. We are facing those demons on this day. They watched us watching over this body.

It is not for us to ask why we may be meant to be in a place at a certain time, to see a stranger die before our eyes-a fellow man or woman leave their lifeless body where they last found it. It happens to all of us, we lose ourselves. As witnesses, we all looked the same. In death as empty vessels, hollow bodies, burnt out trees, shells of what they used to be, suddenly we find a stranger before us.

For 5 minutes or 100 moments, sound waves were swallowed by light waves. No cars-or bike(s) came on the road for a time. After a couple of awkward human coughs meant to clear all air, someone said something about medical school and having no service and we knew that all of us together were alone. The body had been hit or lost control while riding his motorcycle.

The Ducati motorcycle lay wedged deep in the slope of the soft crumbling cliff, its front wheel was buried near an exposed tree root, the back wheel was still spinning and the mans shoes were on. His helmet lay head side up like a bowl in a ditch, the face plate shattered. His appendages were contorted and badly broken. Two approached him while I stood frozen looking upward in between the trees to see if I could catch his spirit.

A loud whine came up in the distance, louder, closer, and then 3 motorcycles appeared around the bend in the road. All at once, laying their bikes in the road and shouting, screaming, they shouted like banging drums, throwing blame, as if an incantation of life by volume or praying for rain or dropping salt, as if any of that would help him now. There was no ceremony for time to turn around and come back, like they decided to. The ride was over. We went on our way.

No. Nothing could be done about what has been done. We were simply meant to see. We were meant to be stopped, dead in our tracks, to notice the silence, to hear these stories, to pause and take a moment to go.

Image credit By NPS Photo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Time running out (of Space)

As I am leafing through my notes parked under a shedding oak tree

about the Explorations of Rocket Science on a rare heat wave October day

while waiting for my daughter to be let out of high school, which is 

adjacent to the community pool, where I am parked illegally 

between the hours of 11 and 5, Monday thru Friday-this includes this Tuesday

I guess unless I am there to take a plunge or have some membership. 

The lot is more than half empty. My daughter, a junior two ways, 

sits in AP Spanish class right now staring out the window 

over the pool toward the football field. How do I know? 

She told me. She does this. 

And I also know she too, can faintly hear the band practicing to the right 

of me on the field, just beyond the backs of the rows of bleachers.

The metronome fills in all the blanks. 

I look down to scrutinize and find "Non est ad astra mollis e terris via" 

scribbled in blue, this was Seneca who said-

"There is no easy way to the stars from earth"

And I stress over more pressing matters such as;

escape velocity, nominal thrust levels, specific impulses and loop momenta.

I am hyper aware of my SSA, or Space Situational Awareness and forget scattering

all together be cause time is running out and I never explained why I started to 

tell you what I realized with the help of a metronome and nostalgic thoughts 

of leaving home, crossing thresholds and hitting all the right notes, or passing them-

the minutes that is or by taking notes, making maps and studying plans 

to abort this mission none control in seconds or firsts

if something go catastrophically wrong or if lives were in serious jeopardy. 

A rocket trying to break geostationary orbit must be tight,

ruts and steady beats, white noise and dark matter mixes and commingles and

like all subsequent attempts, it is easier the next time. 

Older modeling has been shown to spontaneously implode, 

or make (more) matter I think...

Alarm-no bell-

my junior walks toward me,  and the pen is drying, 

all further exploration has been scrapped to be recycled as cacophony. 

Image credit By נאס"א [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The second life of dreams

*

From the collective symptoms, it seems I have reversed my polarity, no longer am I attracted to shiny metal objects, or glittering and jingly things meant to occupy menial minds...for a time, for money, for the future.

**

There is plenty of pull to go around, I've taken the slack, sometimes defiantly looking back at others as they rest peacefully in overstuffed beds made tight and I, not on my back, look up at the big top, blurring my eyes and the ceiling comes together over me. In observance, this is where the mystery of me is dissolved.

***

I occupy my space in another time not taken and I wonder if I stole it, will it be collected in the back end, build up like wax and wonder secretly if twenty hour days are ways to die faster forgetting to eat, feeding on famished fuel and forgone poisons. Pleasure is more pungent.

****

I have not an after taste of bitter since awake, my circadian clock keeps its own tempo on my time left. I live most fully while others are dreaming in real life.

Hypothetically AWOL

So you can relate, let me paint the peopled scene-
We have all walked into a crowded room, where strangers try to keep their space all to themselves, even after you enter more keep filing in, and you look around at these faces of strangers not quite petals of the same flower, but blooms of beings nonetheless and all there under the ultra-violet lamps at this specific time because we were supposed to be by some higher command they all seem strange to you before you realize you are stranger too. And yet you may try to gravitate toward gender or age or smell or smile, yet you will find no profile lined out the same in these stark unforgiving lights. Similarly, you are proud to be just you, the only one, all the same, just like all of them.

In this room, all are equal, and equally free-to leave. Those that forgot their patience do. None notice, except billing I am sure. Don't be fooled, there is no order. The priority changes moment to moment. Everyone is waiting to be seen, indivisibly, for special attention, their time in the headlamps. To bide the time you may notice they often congregate and speculate all the while they wait for answers in a room full of multiple choices. By process of elimination, big choices become clear. It is the same test we are all taking. Some will pass. Some will fail to see and often tend to obtain a second opinion-if it matches their own.
Some, like me, will read all of the fine print, disclaimer, directions,opinion, by case studies and percentages and try to remember all of my high and low numbers like social insecurity and insurance-against what-there were no guarantees-should I change my plan-what good is a health plan, can we plan health-I guess-we do what we can and then get sick, or injured, or confused...
Vividly-
You can see it over there, right where everyone else can see too. Eye level on the hallway wall, per the OSHA requirements, an oversized poster that reads in sweeping bold cursive letters "US Constitution", and if you squint you can just make out in the first row, like an eye test, it says Union and in the second-row you can see the images of Tranquility and Blessings...hmmm, sounds like a nice policy.
Adjacent to that is the Emergency Exit door where it says Smile, you are on Camera' and 'Alarm will Sound'...I wonder what the alarm will sound like-a warning? Impishly before my name is called and I act like it's not my name, I scan the room, skipping over faces and wrong names. Not moving instead, I pull out a book and read.
After overly admiring some mass replication artwork of pastorals on the walls, about an hour or so later, I notice the words public Trust. I finally rise and I walk casually out the front door feeling significantly better being outside. I look back at the sign where it says Welcome or Closed, depending on which side you're on.


Image By Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Making a man from a boy

When your son tells you something--listen.
When your son tells you-
about his first girlfriend at the age of eighteen,
he was listening when you told him about high school girls
and saw for himself.
When your son tells you he is in pain, physically-his stomach hurts and his face is contorted in pain-
exactly like yours--listen,
he may need surgery.
When the nurse tells you your newborn baby boy has a hole in his heart, maybe she misheard.
And when his doctors say they can hear a flutter
through (out) life--listen. Every time.
When your son asks you for advice
about relationships, instead of  your ex-husband, you have raised a fine young man.
When your son tells you something by not telling you anything-listen real hard.
When your son tells you something you already know--listen (softly).
You cannot plan
for any of this,
especially the part where
He listens.

“It is easier to build strong children than repair broken men.” 

-Frederick Douglass

Blades of grass

7:23 am Sunday morning and the mockingbird has been through his entire repertoire. The sun has woken and warms up to my back, my hair begins to gently steam still wet and dark, it is thirstily drinking back the yellow and I am alone in bliss-for a moment.
It has been so long, I must remember where I keep this safe...

Not even the fountain bubbles about, the chimes do not add their sway and the leaves simply lay. Even they are subdued in a lazy Sun day where a sweet honey suckle lingering moment like this is sprawled out onto the page and sugar keeps my fingers moving, licking and lapping for language. 

But don't interrupt this frame, the cat is curled on my lap, after heaving a small sigh purrs himself to sleep. My book is propped face down, a finger always in, sticky reader... 

I may bring my face up and take in a peace-a-lone...before my cell phone pipes up, bellies are growling, weed whackers whir and a lawn-mower starts snipping too close to my time...cut too short to say, it can wait for another day...




Photo by Unknown [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

'Til Death do Us part

We need to have a conversation, ok, perhaps this is going to be one sided, but what does that matter? Nobody ever talks directly to you anyway, it’s always about you, or not about you.

They walk around your name as though it carries a spell like Betelgeuse, nobody asks for the spelling out thrice, or once for that matter despite the obviousness, yes, inescapable, unavoidable, palpable, and wholly disregarded, shunned, tabooed and flat out feared. Yes, you’ve done it. For every life that has been given, hard-wired for survival, hard –headed about failure or that falls hard, you take back, pull up, welcome home, regardless of age-gender-or denomination-circum-stance. 

I will tell you something you know, we don’t like change, or when matter changes, yet what matters always changes-but that is a different matter-you are always the same, the final matter, always the last word.

You win. You always win. Maybe loss teaches more than accrual, or at least reminds us what we are looking for.

I thought it was coincidence when I was 20 and all babies in my close proximity knew I was pregnant before I did.  It was not happenstance. Have you ever smelled a baby’s head?

When I hit the middle of my life, my kids stepping into adulthood, my parents’ health on a roller coaster, I saw both ends of me, but I was not afraid. I wanted to talk to you about it.

I have smelt death, we don't speak of it for fear that it is contagious like cologne. 

A man I love dearly is dearly afraid of you. I told him this explicitly-of course he denies this, but naturally he absorbed some of what I said about you. After not seeking a doctor for 20 years he is planning a much-needed surgery in the next month. I sowed the seeds.

My mother fell (again), broke her hip and fractured her (other) wrist, and at 61 and she is pissed off. She has never had to stop and think. 

My step-father has recovered from Leukemia, or is it remission; the revolutionary pill replacing chemotherapy for him was approved by the FDA on my birthday. He said this was lucky.

My ex-husband decided he need not pay for his children anymore. And after I have raised them myself he says, “What’s fair is fair,” and “Get busy living or get busy dying”. At over forty he lives with his grandmother, mother and cousin on the same property, he has never left that tiny nest. Days later after he cut his financial chord his grandmother fell, broke her hip, fractured her ankle and had a small stroke.  At 94. She’s still here, and angry as ever.

Royalty-the Prince-and Bowie-Boom! 

Baby boomers are all exploding, imploding from natural causes they say...Well, there are more celebrities today-that’s why-and still nobody gossips about you. Bigger than the Pope. You’re nothing new-I guess-does Death have a Twitter? I guess discussing you is still taboo.

Instead, let’s talk about what was done, what we did, the past and the passing of time. By passing the time this way, time becomes ours again to manipulate and postulate. Nostalgia is nectar to remember something new(ly), better than was-and is-and is needs was. I was here and in such and such year. It proves our is-ness.

I trust you 

will be on time.

And I hear you knocking, and I am home, I will answer. Invite you in. We can talk…heart to heart.

Tell me why you never explain-yourself-or tell us about where you are from and where you are taking us.  Perhaps if you’d simply explain the part you know- the part that says, the more you sow the more you reap, I won't say a peep.

This thing called life is a loan and not mine to keep, guitars gently weep the notes dictated from your morbid humming, some think it’s beautiful and that is because they’ve read your notes all along, they know the song, a lull to bye, but just forgot the words.

If this is all a game of Hide and Seek to you, suicides and confessions, seconds and hours, chances and misses, I would say peek-a-boo-I am looking at you-and might say-winner takes all. 

Image By Pryse, Gerald Spencer, 1882- [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Savor (sAve-hOur)

The traditional recipe yields just 2 dozen, and with a limited supply of ingredients, one should choose their batches wisely.
A little TLC is mandatory to avoid burning- unlike MSG used for flavor-a watch-full i needed simply, a pinch is un-metric.

∞

Never trust a skinny cook, my grandma's refrigerator magnet warned. Because they do not eat cake, she explained. But we all eat pie, the Humble kind on special occasions.

And you know pie is related to everything; the pyramids, hence the Illuminati...the pie in the sky.

My grandpa used to say, Would you want more desert or dessert? and I still do love my esses. Overlapping and back to back even, if he only knew I made two
-to share with the world.

                                                    ∞

One more

chance, one more day, one last batch, one hour, one slice, one piece carved out of twenty-four,
since there are no more
last words one can say in one day.


Image by By Bananenfalter (Own work) Elgn watch[CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Breakfast for dinner

After learning in Rocketry about the advantages and differences between electric versus chemical thrusters,
my mind was brewing a storm. Formulae and solutions, postulations and gyrations, the x factors why...
Later, while cooking dinner, with multiple burners set to High Heat on the gas stove, its hiss and blow,
it sparked an inkling that all was not equivalent.
Not just between the two.
Though I have the knobs set to high, I have no control, I think the left front one is stronger, but the variables and crumbs are too many and minute to compare.
And I stare at the flame(s)-
which cannot exist-in space, an arsonists void.
The not space is not not-space, I see it obviously,
and now the ether is coming back, however inflationary or temporary the flux, my how quickly strings unravel, vulnerable textiles, these things are flammable.
And ropes are stronger but under duress and flame split like light, fray and spray in weaker arrays that travel from an ignition point possibly millions of times away.
That sun we saw today.
A breakthrough.
Sunny side up.
Another event on the horizon.




Image from USAF via Wikipedia (Public Domain) Exoatmospheric Reentry-vehicle Interception System (ERIS) Antimissile Rocket.

Penitentiary pals S.W.A.K.

We've been In(ti)mate(s) for a while now, half through,

you’d think after all this time we'd be better friends.

I know, It’s not easy, accepting one's flaws, accentuating the positive attributes, letting failures and ugliness go out the barred window with the subjective death row sentence, the brutality of mortality!

Learning to like yourself shouldn’t be detention, but feels like incarceration I hazard to guess. We are all pre-loaded with the operational software to love ourselves. It comes out as algorithmic survival, a defense mechanism, calculating but unaware. And even self-destruction is a necessary part of self-love. 

Oh, liking oneself is much more complex, if we are to be completely honest with ourselves. 

I cannot stand looking in the mirror, and do so hopefully only twice a day, like brushing my teeth. In fact, that is when I do it, and neither are pleasurable to me. 

My lips specifically have abandoned me. They were never really there from the first word. I was designed for listening. Unable to wear lipstick, nobody can read my lips. This is my silver lip lining. 

And I am deathly jealous of the red, blood and bright, dark and demure…the quiver, the nibble...mesmerizing lips. 

These luscious sets are second best to the eyes, but one is more confident with lies. And I prefer the naked truth.

I feel pretty when my brain fits just right.

My hands have no fingertips. On some of the fingers anyway. 

I have burnt them off learning how to love with food over the years.

Now I can get away with murder. 

As with a pianist, one would think my hands are precious to me, I look at these often. No, they are not pretty either. I don’t like manicures. My nails are usually short, trim and nude and crude extensions for me. 

Occasionally I will paint them and it makes me like my hands for a bit-until the paint chips-which is instantaneous. As you can guess, painting my nails feels fruitless, like dusting and TV.

These are just the top coats of course, exterior paint. The interior is my sanctuary.

Find your voice. Use your voice. That’s the voice. No, it never sounds the same when it comes out. Do you like your voice? Mine sounds like someone took a vagrant identity and slapped it in my body.  And yet I love when people speak poetry, like French and Italian, it moves me out of body.  A way out of my personal prison of personality, pseudo-sounding reality-purportedly, yet we are all trapped on our islands of I and should be kind to the natives who were there before you decided to ‘arrive’.

Since we are cell mates, I just had to say, I have no intention of biting the hand that feeds me.  

Please pardon me-

I am sorry, 

I am famished, but I still do not like me.  

Image of Miss Kate Heffelfinger, 1917[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Trust the time (saving daylight)

Back some time ago, when my two kids were young and restless, I guess I was also young and restless and a bit resentful of the requisite donation of time, the endless giving of time, my time for others. But I now know those times I gave my time to my children were among the most precious times I have been present for.
Being in the Now of then is still with me, even now. Some of the accuracy of memory has blurred, those times I meant to lose, the times I drank to escape facing time. All the time...

Before my kids were wise enough to have learned not to trust everything I say as truth, they believed in the concept of certainties.
Children need this.
As they say, there are some things that remain certain, like death-which is time, and taxes-which is the burden of money, both are binding.
My son would rely on one clock. The clock on the microwave in the kitchen was like the sun for him, and even then he was a live-life-by-the-(exact)-minute kind of guy, meaning take a shower at 6:48, anything else considered late, he believed he was contributing to the order of things.
One specific night I remember wanting to escape all my obligations in order to drink.
I changed the clock on the microwave, I stole an hour of his life that night so he and my daughter would go to bed and I could be left alone in silence.
He should have learned to never trust the time.
One night, at some time in the future, he will find this out and come to collect an hour of my time, with interest accrued in the past.
I will tell him, these are the good times that never last.
And he will be counting the seconds until he will be left alone in silence, sooner rather than later.
Time flies, they say, but sometimes jumps ahead, like today, when we Spring forward and agree to donate an hour of our time until we Fall back,
into precious memories like these.




Image of painting by Hugó Poll, Sunset (1914), [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Infinity and Eternity (i.e.)

Infinity and Eternity

Conjoined at the lips, a syne of the Times, in synonyms, and hymns, chants and rants, examples and alternates, in lieu of, in-loo-of-in-loove.

Such As:

Infinity-id (not ego) ergo and beyond

(i.e.)

Super-ego is immense, less intense is the boundless continuum of you through ubiquity, perpetually in perpetuity with gratuity for the endless expanse of space, the vastness of immeasurability, like possibility. Infinity stretches is reckless abandon in multitudinous arrays, a myriad of mathematical signs like circles and eights so we can relate in order to create what we think will last for-ever.

∞

Eternity –est (not established or capital) on Eastern Standard Time

(i.e.)

Once in a blue moon occurring into infinitude aglow over the wild blue yonder where kingdom come and afterlife are everlasting aeons, endless ages charted on times line without end, immortal and immune, orbiting the obituaries and scary to see the face of our race never noticing the striking resemblance of Us, reaching the finish line, it’s ray projecting what will come beyond what we can see, the isthmus between now and then when sometimes and anon mingle, mix and blend times blurry end . 

±

Image byYehuda Pen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Clock-maker (1914).

You had One Job

Based on the job description
there need to be some schedule changes, the portions are all out of proportion.
We must streamline life's overall efficiency, i.e.
how we are spending our time seems an exercise in futility, blowing over(most peoples)head
in exhaustive fumes like labor and toil makes ones blood boil to look back at one year of cleaning, three years of laundry and eleven, not seven years sentenced to watching others peoples made up fantasies, aka TV, do you see-
how much wasted energy this job entails
Five months of complaining curtails job satisfaction and the distraction of sleeping for twenty-six years not to mention the inaction of traffic for eight more hours-
We must smell more flowers along the way and tell the staff to laugh for more than one-hundred and fifteen days.
Anyways, four and a half days of eating is sufficient, and walking around the world four times seems efficient enough to get a good view, but who knew women would waver for one year over what to wear, who cares?
I dare say this sounds crazy,
I must admit
this profession is not for me
Why
Any way you slice it,
I think I'd rather eat pie.




Image By Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.


Fun Pie Flavors:
Cracked

Falling Behind

Behind the door

A rectangle creamy cloth covered pin board crisscrossed with pearl ribbon and shell buttons strewn across convergence points lay fading photos of various sizes.

Behind the door, you see

Not all happy frozen faces and various scenic places. You see a pin stuck in.

Behind the door you see a red pin-

That says ‘I am loved’-it was never yours, but you keep it anyway.

Behind the door, the 9 pictures show 3 of a boy, 2 of a baby girl, a sleeping cat, a couple, a pair

Behind the door,

Two postcards, both with boats act as if they were there, as pictured. They were not. Nor were you.

Behind the door,

A memory board hides of someone’s life as though it were yours collaged with fragments of other particles collided that were made of you and them before annihilating solidly into new matter, put this way, in this structure, pinned in place

Behind the door, Lies

closed. 

You cannot picture it. 

Image of painting by Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts (fl. 1660–1683) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

All for me

Nel mezzo de camin-
At forty, which is half
Eighty degrees and not May
Fifty foot faces found me
Titanic and romantic
pom-pom pear blossoms sunny Carolina jessamine,
a poetic play (on words), an artistic triptych (on walls),
library lingering and lofty expectations for the big reveal, an hour to heal-
books, books, books, books,
in the mail every day without fail
around
my birthday
a bright star dies this very day
right before my eyes and I could say
I see and count
all the numerous ways
life loves me back (mostly
only) on my birthdays.




Image by Witold Pruszkowski, 1884 Falling Star, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A hermit in the heavenly hills

If I had my choice of two places, here and there,
I would find a small little crevice somewhere in between with a view far removed from all possible social interaction as though no place and everywhere and I could watch over and pretend I know the lines as though vicariously living as any one of those colorful caricatures playing life on the center stage-
If I had an twinge, a pang of sentimentality that one felt lonely for other human beings-
I could entertain nature everywhere, intentionally and extensionally and in every welcome space and every shapely mood, color, flavor, scent, temperature and do nothing but interpret and create, contemplate and disperse, make myself realize what I need to actualize for others out there and expel whatever it is I'm trying to tell infinitely catch and release, spinning my tales wildly with embroidered ideas and a flowing spring of hot creative juices that buzz with light and cool electricity for good conduct and I know it can be done by experience and exertion of will-
wait, isn't that what (a) god did?

No, I am no hermit or prophet, saint or sinner, I do not hide, but openly reside on the outside looking grim-but neither do I hide that I do not derive much pleasure from other pseudo-peopled predicaments and superficial social situations, too long is too much and talk is too small to hear any value worth that heartbeat just wasted on wispy vapid vocalizations, erstwhile, some stimulants are to be stoked and ignited, brightened into clarity by enhancing images of what you wish to be, look closely, don't tell, pleasure is an opportunity for silence and relishing the company of someone who understands your thoughts, only like you...
Reading you like a fairytale book, the ending amoral conjecture to put you back in your proper place, perplexed and planted, rooted in dis-content, too close to others for their own myopia, recycled carbon canary with nary a note to echo a name, such a short trip, there's no time for shame.

Ganesha in Blue (Jeans)

I don't know how many times since then I've said, I Guess I'll wear jeans, again.

To school?! My grandmother would screech. It became part of my vernacular.

A girl of 14 never forgets the first nice thing a boy says to her.
Matt D. told me,
as we passed for Silent Sustained Reading Class
that I looked good in blue jeans.

They were the expensive Guess, I remember,
with the zippers on the outsides of the ankles so rich kids didn't have to peg-huh?

My other grandmother bought them for me. I begged. She couldn't afford to say no to an only child.

The boy, Matt, was nervous and hesitated-more than once-even though I smiled nicely.

All 14-year-old women hate their bodies,
because of betrayal,
because they don't fit
anymore
anywhere
between
in.

Even now, blue jeans fit me to a T.
And I think he was right all along.

And I wonder
what would be the overall outcome, continual consequence, everlasting effect, chain reaction, spin-off-
if one brave honest boy told every shy unsure girl her genius was showing
and it fit her to a T,
that would be nice.




Image By Alanna_Kolette,_Miss_HIN_2009_midriff.jpg: Mark Sebastian from San Jose (Alanna_Kolette,_Miss_HIN_2009_midriff.jpg) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Persistence of a Polaroid

Life is life a circle because things come back around like the LP and portable photography.
I remember the first gen Polaroid flip-ups, like clunky transformers, hand-held photo booths. Magical really.
I came across one of these polaroid prints of antiquity, its still in good shape and I do not look pretty.
On the back, the yellowish bottom, the date caught me, written as three slash ninety-one.
I'll show it to you if you listen.
Three stand shoulder to shoulder in a dirt driveway. Behind them peaks the front of a pewter sedan.
Tall weeping willows fill the skyline behind them. A low white farm fence, the corner of an eave, two spilt terra cotta pots overgrown with happy green weeds and the three people squint at you in the hazy sun. Three shades of blondes together dis harmoniously.
The older man and woman wear black and white bright tennis shoes, the only formality their stiff posture, hands buried as fists both deep in the front pockets of their jeans.
A teen, she is fifteen, stands to their left holding a wildflower in her hands as though she has been twiddling it amused. Her babydoll dress is a full vase itself, her black tights do not shadow or slim her weight-but she smiles slightly and honestly in comfortable slippers.
The couple look as though they have been betrayed in some way.
The man with a mustache, dark denim jeans and Joe's Tavern black sweatshirt stands slightly behind and in the middle of the mother and daughter who bear no resemblance-which I know because I was there.
And I don't remember all the details...it looks to me like nowhere I'd want to be.
Such is the nature of a picture, to capture time and always have the same version of telling it as it was and not how it should be.
I happened to be looking for another photo and I think it was a Kodak, but for some reason that Kodak moment was meant to be lost and I decided to find out a little more about the inventor only to discover he passed away in March of 1991. Full circle moments always find you, and with a Polaroid, it will most certainly come back around like a full circle moment and it seems getting them lost is much harder than it sounds.

Image By Piercetheorganist at English Wikipedia (Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Five score and no more-ish

And I will do your list of one hundred things I love-
not because you told me to, that it would be good for me
to see these things in one safe place, like little word containers
as an apothecary, or even better a library, or that I'd thank you later for these little remedies
that remind, like lists, such as to-do's and guests and people and inventories.
No, I will do this list simply because I like lists and I don't like forgetting, or not trying, or not crossing something off when it was hard or good.
I don't like erase, like undoing, preventing, delaying until another day of de-laying.
So I will use perma-ink when thinking about this lovely list of things I love like-
deep belly laughs that sound unstoppable, rain of rooftops, rain ripples in puddles, grey days, fog, the heater on with the top down, reading, reading with a blanket and a cat, mornings alone, the first cup of coffee in the pot, the smell of fire, watching a fire, a fireplace with socks and a good book, Smokey, felines, horses, dolphins, the ocean, waves, sun, The Moon, clouds, stars, berries, camping, green, blue, birds, typewriters, antiques, art, ghosts, internet, technology, photography, warm cinnamon, green apple anything, soft blankets, firm beds, the smell of barbeque, cool san in between my toes, warm grass in between my toes, trees-redwoods, weeping willows, monkey pines, Monterey pines, pines, certain watches, certain shoes, smart dapper men, my hair drinking the sun, chills, a perfect sentence, great poetry, e.e. cummings, Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco, Herman Hesse, Aldous Huxley, William Faulkner, Jorge Luis Borges, Nikoli Gogol, Anton Chekov, Boris Pasternak, music (so much more music it counts as four), Steamer Lane, Tamarack, Big Basin, Prague, everywhere I've never been (that's easily another 10), libraries, the smell of books-old and new (that's two), learning, listening, hearing, seeing, walking, feeling loved, waxflower, a great story, a great smile, a good soul.

Image By John Dalton, 1808 / Джон Дальтон, 1808 ([1] here / здесь) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Rushing River

Nysa County Sheriff's Department reported the discovery of a dead body floating down the S. Lette River, a popular camping and fishing destination during the summer months. Even though it was summertime the body was blue and bloated, the ice pack had been particularly good that year prior to the thaw. Forest Rangers were advised to notify in person any and all campers of the incident and remind them of being safe and responsible. The cause of death and identity of the body were unsolved.

The white haired child points and dips her little big toe into the flowing river water. She taps the surface with a tiny slap before jerking her naked leg back onto the bank. A half smile sneaks up to her face as she cranes her neck around to see if any adult eyes may be monitoring her moves. Aside from the quiet gurgles music notes dance among the trunks carried from some distance, the only company nearby the little body in an orange bathing suit with a brown belt in the late afternoon sun was a black dog sniffing and digging up rocks with his nose behind her.

"Hercules!" she whispered.

The dog was at her side before the exclamation point attentively wagging his tail. The little girl patted the top of his head, grabbing his soft ear in her palm always reassured her. The little white girl with her pale freckled skin and the shiny black dog, purple and wild stood like the illustration in a fairy tales book at the side of the Rushing River, something magical was about to happen, the music echoing from the nearby campsite predicted so.

The little girl put her arm around the dogs shoulders and was saying something into his ear, his head was cocked to the left and they seemed to be in involved in a conversation...it's a shame how many of us neglect this skill or simply lose this ability with atrophy.

Her right arm dropped to the ground as she fished around through the rocks, the dog closely watching each rock she dismissed. Finally, one stone in particular the little girl rubbed in between her hand before dipping it in the water. It looked as though she were going to keep it before she suddenly with a spasmodic jerk thrust the rock into the water, immediately inciting the dog to retrieve it,
"Go get it Herk!"

Again, the dog was in the water nearing its target before the girl could finish her command.
The dog made it just outside the rapids, raising his haunches before diving down and disappearing for a long moment then reappearing, repositioning his body toward the shore and paddling with all his might, he reached the shore and before shaking dropped a stone at the girls small feet. She squealed in delight confirming it was the rock she tossed and praised the proud pup.

The dog and the girl sat next to each other watching the water dance and sing entranced with the show of the massive melting ice flow churning white and sapphire.
The next second a flash of white-blond hair, a streak of orange, a thunderous splash, water fell in on itself and it was as though she were never there- were it not for the nervous black dog racing down the bank, circling, barking and prancing.
A tiny hand or twig, broke the surface enough for the dog to know where to go and he dove off a small ledge after the nearly drown frozen girl turning slowly from white to blue and whose contracted muscles gave up helping her fight for the direction up.
The swirls of water ate around the rocks hungrily, only the sharp water was happily slicing through life.
Minutes passed, the girl and dog were gone.
An hour later searching voices or disharmonious song came echoing from the treetops.
Pahhh-if----uuhhnnnneeyy!
Peh--suh--neeeeee!
Paah--tiff----eyyy!

The girl shivered next to the dog's limp body downstream in a patch of sun. Scrapes on both legs that did not hurt, her chest ached and waist sore from being pulled by her brown belt, a small canine tooth puncture on her side poured diluted blood down her side as she lay quietly humming to the dog who was not dead, just dog tired.

Image by By Phil Mieszkowski (talk · contribs), Merced River in Yosemite, California, 2007 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.