Boxing in '07

Find Me o' Letterbox! Discover Me!

Missed Chance

Presidents and Assholes Pt.1

The Cure was on the stereo and the afternoon was slipping into a colorful evening and the sliding-glass door was open for air in the smoky, noisy room. We were sitting around waiting on the other members/slackers/friends to get their asses over here so we could start playing, sheeesh!
Sloucho sat in the corner waiting on a victim. Sloucho was a very large recliner chair that Jason, B's brother, had picked up off the side of the road one day knowing that our three beat selves needed more things to sit upon. Sloucho wasn't so bad stylewise, however he had a nasty, gimpy lean to one side. And with that lean came his name, Sloucho. But his true claim to fame was his ability to lull even the most hardy partygoer into complete, knocked-out sleep. You see, a victim would arrive and it would either be someone ignorant of Sloucho's powers or it would be some drunk showoff saying how Sloucho wouldn't get him! and sure enough--matter of fact, without fail--Sloucho would soon lull them into a deep slumber. Therefore, when the party was in the beginning hour every butt avoided Sloucho out of respect of his powers, and plus we needed every person there for Presidents and Assholes.
B sat on the couch and I was over in the bottle-lined kitchen with Denard. I think Cree was checking on something or else he was on his way home from welding all day, but whatever...we were sitting around on some summer evening waiting on Matt, Vanderhorst, and Amiz to get over there.
The room was large and well positioned to receive the sky throughout all of phases of the sun or moon, with the added beauty of the large swimming pool, directly below our apartment, casting shimmering, ever-changing reflections along the walls and ceiling of our living space. We could all soak in the view through the wall that was the sliding-glass doors; we sat on the opposite end of the room around the oval table and slapped the cards down many days and many nights, and breathed freedom.
Matt, Vanderhorst, and Amiz--the completetion of our circle--arrived in grand form: two t-shirt dudes with red eyes and a 6er pack half empty, and a beautiful, sexy mass of curves named Amiz with a smile as wide as the sunset. I grabbed the worn deck of cards and started shuffling.
Part 1.

Blessing

A passage of time slips inside of curved wind around trash, bends the forms of buildings, slices the exposed areas of skin and nerves and touch, night hovers shadows. Feet slap the ground beside groaning cars and flashing lights and mirrors of the self flash in reflective storefront windows. A vehicle sounds the horn; startled, I see a welcome, familiar face. My friend is here in this churning city, in my swiss-cheese life, in reality, here to mark another ring on history. Here to motivate, in this place, to concentrate focus on those fretful steps ahead that await. I smile at him in humble appreciation, my closest friend.

Away

Black Curves
White Lies
Red Scars
Blue Skies

Carving Night

Impression set upon surface,
lined, dimensional, perspective cast
Flat, awaiting recessed definition

Pointed scoop finds the plane
Angle, release pressure to
make the groove flow,
slice the indentation seamless

Discard the cutaways
held breath blown slowly,
scrutinize architectural blueprint
reversed this for understanding

Brokering A Loss

Cascading,waving layers of colors
Spiral cross my spectral shadowshape
Catching dark corners with light hues
So that eyeballs can easily recognize
My nametag, my branding, my labeling.

On a nail-studded, sagging-board stage
Underneath a blaring light heating, burning skin
The echo of the migraine loudspeaker clamor pleads
My price and worth in a fevered auctioneer-voice pitch
I notice the crowd shift, separate, and slowly disperse.

Thrusting an odor-emitting armpit to gesture
My presentation to gathered leftovers, my Charge courts
The vultures and ants and fidgeting larvae
He pushes upon the predators my form's satisfaction
Discounted, marked down, a bargain pound for pound!

My mouth pinches, my pride-swollen, beaten proud-
Two callers, dismissed for not meeting the reserve
Observers lose intrest, meander from my unclaiming
Later to wonder if a taker met the negotiated claim
But leave me bound, deserted, unwanted but alive...still alive.

Echo In The Wild

Stretching the silence across calendar-flipping time becomes stone-cold permanent deafness, and the need to reach out of sound's drape becomes forgotten. These pointy fingers languidly touch elements of words to reach outward under an expansive horizon of numb; click-clack cuts air that breathing doesn't even penetrate to make explosions in a cadence of release and retribution and resilence and revenge. Like the steps plodded by the mountaineer, similar to water dripping against granite to form an impessioned groove, so are the tips of my 10-tip extensions defying slowly the hush, the cold calm, the inescapable tetonic encroachment of lifelessness. How emboldened am I to resist, casting feelings like slingshot pebbles against the cycle of light and darkness; do the expressions sting? Are these gestures burning in receipt? I break the grip of quiet, a rippled force exerted bravely again through painted communication of my within. It is all I know to do after all my lessons and journeys and instructions from this life.

Incise/Adhere

William Burroughs was the first to introduce me to the idea of cutting and pasting words, which is a technique he used for his landmark work The Naked Lunch. The following are exerts from drafts of posts I never posted. I notice them just sitting there when I create new posts, but I just ignore them. Tonight I found parts I liked in each one, but I didn't like the overall piece of any of them. So I took the parts I liked from each entry and cut and pasted them into this one entry. Order does not exist for this one, but the sections kind of work nicely together. Thanks to Burroughs for inspiring me with his disorder. These sections span between the months of May and June of '06.

Clap the sound of the colors in the panaroma of your dreamy whispering mind's release awake to break that circle you've been plotting with your steps, actions, and words daily, hourly, foreverly in a torturous ritual in the bathroom, where no one can know what I think or say or feel behind stall walls of semi-privacy I thought these things tonight:

Today, May 34
The black crawled across the lightness inside, scurrying for shadows in this illuminated interior. It felt like the lifting of spring breezes inside, carrying away the charred, and smoke, and dirt. It felt like deep breathing and serenity and open opportunity. I felt like I grabbed a second in the brief flash of change and it was a lucky card of chanced fate.

There stood the deer. There stood spirituality. There stood chance. We saw it and quietly sat down to observe the natural act meant for us...starting in a crowded bar....ending at the sight of the brown deer against a quiet, blackened, shadowy backdrop.
We had more to learn from this evening than what appeared so easily to others.

May 68
I sat at the bar and waited on some idiot that I didn't like to bring me something that I didn't need or want, but was somehow involved and tied up in with anyway for some other idiot. Stupid. I drank another beer and tried to make conversation with the barkeep even though this was the 10,000th day of the same ol' thing. My life is and was bullshit and I still drove to the same place because I had no one and nothing and nowhere else to be. I wrote in my journal until the lines blurred and the drunks crowded. Sometimes I would play the jukebox but that was the same ol' tunes, just in a different order. I knew the banality of bland non-direction.

We found an inlet into greenery and solitude and a rushing stream, and there we found...silent, forgotten trails girded with webs and forgotten plants and ticks and any other nuisance of nature. You get the feeling that you are intruding into their quietness and solitude; indeed you are, because you crave that escape from the rails and roads and elevators and liars and obligations and sadness of the city, which is and has become your pathetic, unfulfilled life. But...we were intruding into that nature escape together.

And the grass blades bent and the birds picked at problematic feathers and watched and the river could be heard, if we were quiet. And in that hidden, Indian-like space, we found that the future was much, much bigger than ever imagined. The sun moved us on, in its dwadling descent, and shook us out of our state of comfort and soon we were back to roads and separation and rails and buses and phone calls and long, lonely walk homes...empty except for those sturdy stars of hope that dot the expansive black sky of night.

Not Here

Suddenly,
out of the blank the words the one
shows forth imbibing you rushing you filling you
scaring you
Making you see past
the hurt blinds the words swept
the grind rends those days...the end.

Shine
The fear that
this hope is wrecked this feeling fetched
this fool, smacked,
settle yourself
Stretching across time are
two people feeling dumb
explantions are retrospect
revelations no longer circumspect
finally finding the adhere...distant tear.

Tardy

Recently I was involved in my first attempt at entering some of my writing in a contest I found online. I had never really thought to do this before; I was content to write in my blog and express myself that way (it sure beats the box full of old notebooks containing my writings, the ones no one ever reads because...I guess because they are too much trouble to read) since I get great folks giving me feedback on my stuff and sharing in my journeys, feelings, transformations, etc. Well, I didn't have something ready for the deadline. This was due to many factors but it was mainly due to me not trying harder in my writing. The deadline came and went and I hung my head with shame. However, after several days of just ignoring the writing part of my life I finally decided to try something I had thought about many years ago, which is presented in the Experimental post. Perhaps I'll explain what I'm doing with that style later, but most likely I'll let you discover the secret for yourselves.

But here are the beginnings to the short story contest idea. I don't like any of them now...at all! I'm so glad that things have worked out this way. To give you some background, the contest was for an original, non-published/presented (like in a blog) piece that was 1,500 words. The length of it was not the problem for me. I have plenty of ideas to draw upon, or I can simply make something up to write about. The difficulty I had with this piece for the contest was in deciding if I would write the story from the first (I) or third (he) person point of view. I never could get it to flow. Here are my fledgling thoughts. Think of this as a sticky pad, not as a first attempt. Like I said, I'm very glad I missed the deadline. It just never clicked as you can see for yourself.

1. (First person) In this hurtful night on hushed darkness and solitude I notice, upon exiting the old house for a respite cigarette, the foreign click-clacks of the elusive deer that sneak into the neighbors' yards to forage.

2. (Third person) He stepped outside, squeaking the screen door and huffing into a fresh cigarette, amid the amplified silence of the timid smattering beginning of a hushed rainfall. His mind was encased in the complications of a lifetime of bad turns and this suffocating quiet inside of the moonless night seemed to threaten his sanity, until his attention was held by the click-clacks of deer hooves on fallen leaves.

3. Starlight dotted black November sky inbetween encroaching limbs half-shedded of reluctant leaves over the chilled bed of the rusted truck where he sits smoking, thinking, transitioning into nighttime. He thinks of killing...time, of breaking...his binders, of snapping...out of foggy daydreams. This brown truck is reliable in the stadid intertia of being parked until he, the driver/owner/failure, can motivate it, and himself, into forward motion; it makes a great backrest under calming clouds of smoke and thoughts of betterment.

The thoughts of betterment come from slowing cooling calves, from hotspots on feet, from shadowy fears that are only now beginning to abate. He calms on the stadid truck and ponders why it cannot be driven to the store, why he has to walk one and one-half miles to get the necessary pack of cigarettes and the lone, cheap-ass beer. His night is quiet now, restful, relaxing, trustful again after the gauntlet he survived in his voyage for mandatory provisions.

His steps were unsteady, as was his direction and purpose and confidence, so he packed a knife and left his puny five-dollar bill and told her he loved her before deadbolting the door to his temporary residence.

Experimental

The house simmered back into a quiet lull after the visit. He went to the kitchen for a quick pour of the dark stuff under the guise of doing some dishes cluttering the sink and she went to the back bedroom to check in on the baby. He stuffed plates and plastic containers and plastic bottles and fake nipples and baby spoons and pots into the dishwasher and slammed the short splash of minty black back when the steps faded the proper distance. They both felt the distance, and his unexpected friend's visit only reminded them of all the years and moments and feelings that eventually led up until the current state of life.
"He looked fit, better...don't you think?" she hollered from the bedroom.
He closed the dishwasher and walked toward her, toward their child. Thoughts erupted behind his quiet demeanor; recollections and examinations of the time shared back in the good ol' days...the old school ways.
Approaching the back of the house he plainly stated, "The past will check in with you, no matter where you are, from time to time."
"And...what does that mean?". She looked up to his face.
Nights of moonlight adventures and revelations and dreams expressed whipped his clarity into a dull fuzz. He looked across the room to their little girl, then to his wife's searching eyes.
"Yeah, he looked better. I wonder if he is though."
"Well, I'm going to bathe her and put her down. I'll see you later?"
He crossed the room and kissed them both, holding his wife's gaze for a thoughtful, shared moment.
"I'll be downstairs."
He turned, heading to the kitchen where he grabbed the green bottle, and moved into the basement with nothing but ghosts left to sip the night away. Vapors-like the shared youthful dreams he and his old friend would conjure-slipped past the edge of his breath and hovered over his quiet spot of personal space, clouding both with sparkling nostalgia, until the green glass no longer contained the blackness.

Talking To Yourself

Can't block it out any longer
This sunburned soul pushes white pain when touched
Imagination is less fearful than my steps
Living inverted under scrutinized reflections
When alone the noise is deafening
These stories and connections and explanations
Stopped by the rims of locked lips
And arthritic fingertips
Surrounded by ticking sticks of timekeepers
Weighty days slashed off the calendar
Seasons morphing change into displays
Direction, production, motivation, release
Are silent waving ripples in my glass each night
They slowly pantomime farewells
And balance steady into withdraw a liquid grave
The words that no one ever hears spoken

Bravely Quiet

You felt a touch extend--a surprise in an unexpected person,
and it felt convincing...without need of a labelled explanation.

You shift and twist and spread a wide-hope smile
inside, cautionary
to not let anyone outside of your skin know
that happiness still exists for you,
despite the fires and pitchforks.

There were no lights or sparkles or melting patterns
or curves that captured seconds of held breaths.

Expressed aspirations, worries, desperations,
hesitation; shamed peek-a-boo hands;
listen for wise afterthoughts,
amid wishful wrong longings...
and beaten concerns.

Aged, we've learned:
Silence is earned.

Interloper

The haze didn't deter his stride and soon his elbows met the wooden bartop, his gaze captured the swirling bartender's curves, and his cigarette smoke smothered those he edged between in his entrance.

"Say, pal, would you mind passing me the ashtray? It is easier than a kidney stone."
Strange looks confronted him as the tray passed his way.

"This place smells like piss! Which way to the bar? Or can someone get a bartender over by yonder urinal?"
He heard it get quieter, confusion--wasn't he at the bar?--except for the jukebox which played any dumb Green Day song you want to conjure up for the mental picture.

"I heard that Atlanta is the traffic capital of the South, but I'll be damned if I can get to it to find out!"

A beer appeared before him and it was gone it 3 big bubbles followed by a shy burp. He motioned for another, and then noting the atmosphere, signaled for the check instead. It arrived promptly and nervous conversation started in smatterings around him again.

He signed his name and hollered "TOUGH CROWD! Last time I had this much trouble was when I covered Grateful Dead tunes at a Christian Youth Convention."

No one acknowledged him and he farted a long, silent one as he walked out of the unfriendly bar.

Lazy River Plantation

"This is fertile ground, good plantin'...this is ripe for the plantin'."
"Says you...looks like a mess of treez and hillz an'..."
"Shuddup boy!", he said with irritation, "you are here to do the labor and not think, got it?".
"Yessir...dig, plant, and hopefully pull something up..."
"you will pull...punk."

It wasn't light when we connected out cleaving instruments to fertility, it was lonely and black and quiet.

He hoe'd a great line, I'll give it to him. He cleaned it clear to the edge of the prop. line. He worked it, and came back and worked another line, and came back and cleanded another line, and edged it until after dusk. He lined it right. She was still inside.

He lined up again and had to be told to stop, to quit. The night buzzed with crickets and the moon was lower than the half-pitched wooden fence and that showed dedication. He sat on the step of the porch writing in the moonlight, writing to things that were gone, escaped, elusive, but heartfelt, in the connection of pen to paper.

That sun rose early, his body exclaimed like a mistrial, and he went about it like he was the guilty party. More lines, more rows, more dedicated, obligated labor, more presentation. A cold man sipped a warming liquidnade on the front porch watching his rows, watching his cut, his lift, his rake, his haul, his character.

The rains came and work halted. Held about by water, by the flow, he studied his field of rows, of lines cut. He saw the wolf enter and he lifted the rifle. He halted before the trigger to know, to understand the wolf. He had to share the cuts, the rows.
He wanted to die, he wanted the powderblast yet he held the gun.

Blue of sunrise, blue of innocence and blue of turmoiled sea; blue of afterlife and blue of surrounding peace. Blue cuts him--his favorite color--blue of hope is the changing horizon, of love set free.

The garden produced something, this that the other, popped up ideas of produce, vegetables and other yield. Never understood, or captured, the blue of that season. And never understood was the way his eyes burned looking into the sky, grasping for the meaning...in a color...in a season...in what a field had to offer. Or what the orchard could produce on this beautiful dreamland, down by the river...memories stir here on a lazy afternoon...I can now simply recall the prideful harvest with a smile and wonderment.

Dissection

Rob yourself of glimmer harbored inside via plastic stageprops in handshakes, phone contacts, and sketchy rendevous moments smuggled into your planned destinations, inside of some uncontrolled swirl of detrimental off-course path of doom.

Pilfer gold
Blood dripping fresh from treasures
Excavated out of my interior
Out of my future
Capturing me inside
Within the cavern I've created
Repressing forward motion
Lacking oxygen to survive.

"I don't take I grab and you stuff and we shoplift these.."
"Shut up, shut up shut up! You and all your sadness is.."
"...jewels of our future that are too shiny to us right now"
"I can't stand you any-f-ing more! I'll drive us off this hillside! I'll..."
"more jewels lost, hell the whole booty will be..."
"SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP"
"gone"
(Brakes applied, tires screech, headlights jerk upward, and then the passing of air)

A Question of Fortitude

When it happens what will you do? When imagination insuinates itself into the cursory reality of your life how will you respond? When that which is dreaded or dreamed or discarded for lost suddenly presents itself, unavoidable and confrontational in front of you, in what manner will you respond?

Will you have the words, the presence of mind, the fists, the lungs, the calm, the backbone, the smoothness of touch to counter the most important challenge you'll ever face in your life? When you are forced to stand toe-to-toe with the very core challenge, desire, fear, or moment of truth--knowing that your next move, thought, impulse, reaction will dictate how you spend the rest of your living days--what will you do?

Flow

Within each day that folds inwardly into representational shapes in orbital passing are crushed dreams, bright insights, harsh conflicts, soft connective whispers, finality; all these and more circulate upon gentle stream currents as floating origami creations set adrift with wishes from the rocky shoreline. The slow passage of clear water continually replaces the surface appearance in a flow that can be timed and marked with fragile voyages of our brightest hopes and heartfelt intentions.

Crossover

Grey day finds a face
Crowded people, shared secret
A smile lets me know

Eyes fall across words
Ask about things we don't know
Of the feelings felt

In this open world
There are forces vast and true
Touched a glimpse with you

For sci40995 11/7/06

Anniversay Request Responses

Ok, I asked for your input for the posts that meant a lot to you, your favorites, or ones that you hated. I only received responses from a couple of folks and none of the responses included ones that were hated. So I'll list the favorite posts as sent in from some avid readers of my blog. Thank you very much for your replies and thank you for reading my stuff!

Reader-Supplied Favorites (in no particular order):

OneTimesTwo-10/31/2005
Testing, testing...onetimestwo

Rotation-9/24/06
Waking, worry
wiping eyes and lies away
Walking, working
washing it into embers
Each anoynmous day

Travelling, moving
passing in a blend destinations
This that for she who
Reverse undo erase
Blinking, breathing

Crunch, intesify
the whole portending gap
Love me, hate that
can't deaccelerate
Happened, coast, retract

Left shoe, lightswitch
decompress into prayer
This hurt, that demand
subtle dance dreams
Want to waken

Movement of the Spirit-7/06/06
5 A good man hates lies; wicked men lie constantly and come to shame.
6 A man's goodness helps him all through life, while evil men are being destroyed by their wickedness.
9 The good man's life is full of light. The sinner's road is dark and gloomy.
12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick; but when dreams come true at last, there is life and joy.
14 The advice of a wise man refreshes like water from a mountain spring. Those accepting it become aware of the pitfalls on ahead.
16 A wise man thinks ahead; a fool doesn't, and even brags about it!
19 It is pleasant to see plans develop. That is why fools refuse to give them up even when they are wrong.
20 Be with wise men and become wise. Be with evil men and become evil.
25 A good man eats to live, while the evil man lives to eat.
Proverbs 13, selections

How About An Orange Soda?-9/11/2006
The door to the little shop opened slowly, as if the light was having a hard time cutting the dust in the air. The hinges creaked and the handle was falling off. The rest of the shop was in no better shape. Even through all of this, she was stunning. I knew it was love at first sight for me. Her face gleamed in the light; I was breathtaken. Her beauty was immense and we were germs of normalness. I stared at her as she walked toward the barstools; I wasn't the only one. She dusted off a stool with the grace of a princess. She sat down slowly, taking her time to look around the place.
I searched my mind for something to say. How do you talk to the woman of your dreams when you've never seen her before? I guessed the best place to start was by talking to her like I would anyone else, even though she deserved much more. I was a waiter at the restaurant. That helped. I mean, it gave me an excuse to talk to her. She had a menu out and was reading it as I walked over. She looked up and I smiled at her. "What do you need?", I asked her. Oh my gosh, how stupid, retarded, etc., can you get?
She didn't seem to notice and said, "Just a Coke." Coke? What is Coke? I thought desperately. Then it registered so I went into the back and tried to pour her drink.
We were out of cola! Great, just what I needed! All we had left was orange soda. So very cautiously and coolly I walked out to her. I explained to her what had happened. "What, no Coke!", she exclaimed. Then she got up and left.
I was heartbroken. To say we had no Coke and watch the love of my life walk out the door...I had to get her off my mind so I took the rest of the day off and went into the city. I headed straight for Burger King. There I sat down and released all my worries into my Whopper. Next thing you know I had knocked over my drink, dumb klutz that I am! I went up to get a new one, cursing and wiping myself all the way.
Guess who checked me out at the register when I got there? Yes, her! The ex-love-of-my-life! Sheepishly I asked for a coke and she said, "Sorry, we're out of Coke. How about an orange soda?"
The sunset never looked so pretty. Maybe it's because the sky is so clear, and the stars are unusually bright. I think it's because she's sitting by my side. By the way, I hate orange sodas, but don't tell her that, okay?

The World of Drum and Bass (ATL)-3/26/06
Strobed light cut across faces and bodies in time to the pulsation of volume, and blood and hearts. The room sprawled to the walls free of obstructions execpt for the support columns, and the colored lights danced across angles of floor and wall and dancers. The din of the explosive bass shakes my body, vibrates my privates, locks a timeframe into my observation, forces unconscious tick and twitches of my body respoding to the flow of input.

I twisted in time to the rhythm and felt myself loosen inside, lacking that clench of stress and the soft stab of hurt, clinging to the balance of light and energy and flow and music and possibility.

My cuz, DJ Jubei, shouted something in my ear that made me smile and I kept looking to the head-bent turntablist onstage and shifting my body to the beat. The beer was cold in my hand, acting as a counter-weight to my gyrations, I suddenly felt a little pooped. My journey was in need of rest, so I found a couch. And while sitting I watched many a person on their night...seeing the skimpy buckhead chicks, the gays, the drunks, the guy that ate too many drugs, my cousin dancing. All of these separated for the girl with the twirly light thingy.

And the night shortly changed after I asked her if I could buy her a drink. And the beat played onward and the buckheads still danced and the gays still showed me how to dress better...but she defined the night, the moment, and the future...which is up to her.

I remember hearing High Contrast...and that's about it.


And I'll add my favorite posts to date. This was a very, very hard decision because a part of me is in each writing I put out there, and therefore I love each one in a different way. So I couldn't decide. I'll put my three favorites and also my favorite visual post.

Erosion-4/29/06
Cut away the fat, carve the meat from the bone, dice and slice and mince and pinch and tense the calm, the good, the right, the positive in the carver's kitchen, in the meat locker, in the court room, in the pitch-black bedroom, inside yourself in an unconcerned crowd.

Do it again the next day, the day following, the rest of the week, the week after that, then continue onward as if that is what life is...the beating on yourself, the hobbling, the binding, the bending, the breaking.

Turn off your eyes and ears and heart and mind and life and blood for things you cannot change but are married to, enjoined with, infused into, burned by, melded...and stop making them hurt you long after the caustic bright chemical reaction, emotional poignancy, intellectual delve, sexual twist or careless cluelessness disperses.

Leave these rainy nightmares of the sticky, putrid past to fade, discard that dark hue that climbs out in rancid, acidic sweat to taint the sweet-rose dawn of each breaking day, and believe there is more, so much more, beyond now.

The Blackest Night-5/16/06
Fear--it raped my sense of security, of boundaries, in a scythe swipe. I shook, my body racked with confusion and panic and adrenaline. I heard the noises again and tried to process in my overloaded mind my next move. The gun, a trigger, turn out the lights and tiptoe. Breathe quietly, silently...and don't forget to breathe...while my very alert senses configured my next action. The gun was hardly a noticeable weight in my tense hand but it was a comfort, and a concern. Would I put a bullet into someone, maybe. This decision struck me as odd, as I tensed against the wall out of the light to avoid shadow movements. These new standards of living and dying were the products of fear. I began to pray with my eyes wide open.

Luck-8/31/06
The battered team breathes heavily, beaten by the unfulfillment of the projected gameplay that has gone horribly awry, and sweats rivers under the heavy cloudcover of dismay. No one can look at the other players for shame, for guilt. He stares at the blade of grass, the other looks into space for answers, one holds his head in his hands, one scratches his groin, the coach seems catatonic. Not the captain, not Mr. Can-Do 4 Years In a Row Team Captain. Oh no, his furrowed brow tells the story before the eyes even reach the spit-flying lips. The gestures on the chalkboard are in Chinese, actually they are riddles in Chinese. Finally sound seems to penetrate into our sorry lot, a phrase, a certain term...what was it that snapped us back into the moment from our self-pity doldrums? Oh yes, Captain used the term "no chick is going to separate the left from the right for a bunch of losers like us". I stopped at "chick"; my girlfriend was in the stands, groaning through this agony along with the faithful families of the players, the band nerds, and other goobers with nothing better to do on a Friday night than come watch us get our asses handed to us in a brutal and, frankly, impolite manner. I could feel her yawn from the field, but quickly lost that thought because I had shifted to the geometery of the separation of the left and the right...and I finally felt energy again, and it wasn't from the 3-gallons of Gatorade I drank even though I spent most of the first half riding the bench with our comatose coach.
Captain kept spitting out phrases that didn't register into my dull helmet-protected skull, mainly because they lacked any connection to "chick", as he emphatically gestured, pointed, threw down the chalkboard, and made us all slap hands in a big circle. I didn't feel the surge of motivation--I felt the sore butts of the spectators, the shifting-foot impatience of the other team, the disappointment of my girlfriend, and the complete disinterest of the hotdog vendor as he closed up shop on a night of disappointing sales. But the spit was really flying out of Captain's mouth mixed with hoarse slogans of "teamwork" and "go the mile" and other crap, and we slapped our weary hands as best we could and broke the huddle.
I trotted over to the order of players, taking my position in the back. Somehow, some miraculous way, we had managed to squeak, edge, blunder, luck-out, and magically make our way into field goal position. We certainly paid the price for it as well. Grover, the runningback, well...he won't be running anytime soon. Both wide receivers caused 20 minute delay of games as they were carried off the field. And our offensive line looks like survivors of a war, with more red than white on their uniforms; I doubt they even know their own names at this point. But, with the fate of fortune smiling upon us out of heavenly pity, we had undoubtedly ended up in field goal territory. And that's when coach quit responding, though we checked for breathing twice.
I moved to my position and waited for the snap and placement. All I had to do was run, plant, kick and connect, and make it go between those two big-ass posts that look the the devil's pitchfork with a prong missing. If I do these steps, in the order they are meant to be done, I might...I just might...separate left from right. The QB is hollering the theory of relativity while our line is quaking from the strain of gravity. The other team looks rabid and mean and anything but tired out. I look at the scoreboard and see the clock dropping past the 5-second mark and it makes me want to puke up all the orange Gatorade I sucked down in my bench-sitting boredom. But then the ball is snapped and there is motion, and the line of devils are rushing over our line like they are ghosts and I see evil running at me with blue jerseys on, and the ball is placed. I'm running, I'm running, I want to puke, I'm placing my foot, I'm swinging my leg, I'm thinking of separating left leg from right leg, I'm closing my eyes and holding back bile and connecting with the ball and it is all I can do not to barf right there in front of the spectators that have finally got off their asses to see what happens to end this disasterous waste of their life. The roar goes up, I get mashed into the cool, damp grass and smell the foul smell of angry, opposing-team humans, and I wonder if I separated left from right as the buzzer ends the game.

Unforgettable-6/17/06

Alone

He stuck out this thumb on a dark highway shoulder, pointing a prayer up to God on the end of an unchecked, grimy thumbnail, and hoped for some kind of anything. The sun was beginning to settle into its bed for rest and colored the sky like the drunken distractions of a Christmas tree strung with cheap lights. His feet crunched loose gravel, the wind kicked across his denim jacket and whipped the frayed ends of his hair around and around, and the silent highway stretched forward and backward and didn't judge or comment or lend a hand to his path. The thumb, hitchhiker sign style that has a desperate pitch and poignancy in the gesture, was just for practice. Heck, he'd never taken rides from strangers and really never needed one until now, until this point, until this path became his walk. The road was barren and removed from care, the wind was enacting revenge, the light of day retreating, the underfoot gravel barked insults from the countless footsteps; where was the circle of fate to rescue him from days and nights of bad calls and wrong ways and diluted decisions? Fate had lost interest and he was walking against time, marked alone.

Anniversary Request

Halloween will be the anniversary of this blog. I wanted to do something special on my 100th post but didn't notice that I was on 103 when I came up with the idea. So, to celebrate I'd really like to know what post out of the last year connected with you the most. Which one was your favorite? And which one did you totally dislike?

Thank you for a great year!

Autumn

Leaves swirl silent circles,
like ghosts of little girls playing
ring-around-the-posy.

Brown, splashed with haiku colors,
eradicates bushy green;
Painted woodland becomes pen and ink.

Some mystery is concealed
inside of the blustery breeze,
forcing pursuit into the next season.

Shrouded Twin

Clicky crunches reveal you, the shadow with form that stalks me from a near distance. I don't hear breathing, I don't sense the presence of another person; you are ghostly, yet heavy enough to crush fallen leaves underfoot. I was cautious, I was unnerved, I was reactionary with pistols and porch lights.

Now I'm wisely concerned--what do you want from me? I meld into shadows in response to your surveillance. My chest pumps air in and out in silence. My cigarette smoke trails me to my immobile, tense frame in the chair...listening...seeking to understanding our ligature.

Fear is absent, but you break my circle of safety and silence and I must face the empty, trespassed air around me with alert awareness.

What is your purpose in pursuit of my hapless wanderings? Who are you?

Are you awaiting forgiveness? Recognition? Confirmation? Understanding?

I hear you clearly, I know you are near.

Faith is my protection.

Falling

Peek out of thistle, out from hiding and shadowy reclusion.
You shine outward regardless of the inward gloom.
You can flower, radiate, explode into the wind resonance;
Evolve into your season of change.

Tightrope

Here cuts the dividing line:
Power or poor
Divine or pain
Control and slip.

That marks the boundary:
Action to deed
Impression to impact
Decision in destiny.

Understand the timeline:
Pleasure in pain
Endure in release
Inform during sensation.

Christened

Anchors' weight arrests motion on bloated dips and crests, pinning this expression of my life's black or white into your definition of who I am, in the vast watery sea of possibility. The flag semaphore displays different messages from the face that ends up peering starboard into your watercraft. This glimpse of my actuality is burdensome, heavy to shoulder and hard to bear. I feel the iron scape across the sea floor of your being, watch the waves beat against my dead weight revelations, and note the nauseating green tint in the taunt skin of your caring face. Oh, to endlessly drift in uncaring winds and ever-altering directions, oh the damage to the capain's log and the needless confusion plotted on discarded maps, bearings askew in my bewildered escape, disruptions are the storm emerging outward from my ship's wheel! Sun and moon and wind and water and pain, the name of my sea vessel is Disillusionment.

5 Cars

A red Dodge Van contains a sorrowful black man with glasses, a cigarette perched bored upon his quiet lips, some scattered clothes, and a spun wheel bearing on the front left tire. His van is dull, coated in grime of the days he was too morose to lift a hose or drive through spinning sprayers or pay some broke neighborhood kid or crack addict to wash the miles away, and the grime casts him as flat and non-glossy from my observation point. He slows, with concentrated frictional noise from the front left, and turns away into the unwinding nightfall of the neighborhood. He nodded at me and accidentally ashed his forgotten cigarette poking out of his facial profile. I nodded back in return and tapped my cig on the nearby ashtray.

Long, low-slung blue Olds bumps bass nonchalantly in our neighborhood that is now arriving home, starting dinner, bringing the mail and garbage cans up from the road, walking the dogs, or starting the grill or whatever each homedweller's scene may be. We all hear the bass--we are supposed to after all--and some of us caught outside turn to look at the laid-back driver. He stares ahead, out of the windshield as we stare in from side glass on each side of the street, and slows his pace. The bass surrounds us in a doppler wave of nearing and departing and the unhurried boat cruises onward to his left turn and eventual destination. The air seems crisper when he exits and I can hear wind, birds, and the traffic of the main highway.

This shadow was equipped with a lightbar packed with flashing blues and whites, a spotlight on the door, some scary decals expressing the affiliation with law and order, plain-jane wheelcaps, and a very scrutinizing driver looming at me in a slow coasting right turn. His black standard-issue vehicle spooks me like a caution sign of "oh shit" in my subconsciousness, but I do the typical play-it-cool trick. I sip my beer, blow smoke in his direction from my cigarette, glance around like something interesting is either preceeding or chasing his tail, and then look back at his unchanged, not-buying-the-routine face. He slows, then starts quick like he has received a desperate call for action, and speeds off up the street. I curse him for my blood pressure increase and then think of how I make about the same amount of money per year but don't worry about dying at my job...although I miss out on carrying around a firearm for all those dangling participles and comma splices.

Silver flash didn't slow for the turn, for the traffic, for the safety of others. Silver flash hit a curb making a loud pop on a black round tire and a driver swear and a passenger scream and brakes were not even involved until long after the event. Silver flash maintained his flash, albeit limping along clumsy and noisy, and made it halfway up the street. Outdoor porch lights flicked on and his car cut the engine. The driver door finally opened, followed by the hatchback, and light from the interior poured out. I saw his shadow stumble, heard movement of articles in the back, and then the clank of steel tools on the pavement. The car inched higher in my vision, then lower, then the wheel was removed, then the car was raised again, the puny temporary tire installed, the car lowered, the flat tire/wheel thrown into the hatch in frustration, some tense exchange of words, the light from the interior died. Then the car cranked and slowly drove onward through the winding streets of the neighborhood now the porch lights were extinguished and the drama was over with. I later saw the silver flash drive back out of the neighborhood with only one occupant, but it drove slower this time and took the time to apply the brakes before the turn although the turn signal was ignored.

A dirty brown truck, maybe it was rusty?, slowed in a expressed downwinding of engine power combined with the rapidly applied friction of brake pads arresting the forward motion of this vehicle, and the squeal of the suspension chorused the cacophony of clatter as the battered truck swung into the driveway. I reacted, half startled from my observations, into rising from my chair, and looked across the carport at my own rusty truck. No, it was there; it had not be stolen and is now being returned for some odd reason like no gas, this is a suck-o getaway truck, or carjacker guilt. Nope, this was a twin--a doppleganger--of my stagnant automobile. It moved, it created motion and travelled, it voyaged. It made it to me by some random coincidence and I saw that register in the hesitation of the backing out truck. The driver nodded his shadowy face at me and honked on his retracing of his miles and I felt like a baton had been passed to me in some higher-order relay race.

5 Cars, one of which was my truck's twin, in 40 minutes of neighborhood observation. Crazy reality.

Showdown

Attempt
At
Cessation
Flounders
Withers
Stalls
Realizes
Awakens
Impresses
Captures
Condemns
Defines
Belittles

Stop the nicotine control bends my mental grasp, pulls my grasping fingers back with ease, laughs in my stern, cast face.

I will face this adversary in the morning, already broken in spirit.

Like laughing in the face of death are my constant, polluting puffs.

Disappear

Porcelain contains splashed water and forms rigid hand-holds--sterile and white and non-judgemental. The overhead fan buzzes oddly like a lopsided hula-hoop in a tornado, and it stirs tension around my jaw and neck like stereophonic crickets, like erratic firecrackers, like a constantly backfiring automobile, like the pigeons on the ledge outside my hostel window in Victoria Station. These pigeons cooed strangely, frightfully; all night I would almost fall into the comforter of sleep when a garbled, desperate bleat would piece the gentle cover of night and I would involuntarily twitch in nervous, curious fear in a foreign room and unfamiliar bed.
The lavatory's overhead bulb feels hot against my feverish skin and paints my visage pasty and unwell in the dirty mirror framed before my searching, concerned eyes. I splash more water on my face, on the back of my heated, knoted neck, dripping, regaining focus amid swirling feelings...swooning into the grip of actuality, of temperature and blood pressure and breathing regulation, grasping inside that inpenetrable staring reflection the mirror presents as the extent of myself.
Next came the paper towel scrubbing, then the flush of the commode, followed by a couple of raspy coughs-the door handle-the light switch; the re-entry into the convenience store/the bar/the dark hallway/the parking lot of the nature trails/the pizza joint/the public transportation hub/the stranger's house...I smile and blink and head directly to the nearest exit for a cigarette of mediation and integration.
My heart beats, my brain continues, my discovery process crunches sensory information now that I've become numb to that hole bleeding me softly inside. I would clutch my guts like a bullet wound if I had a center point of pain; instead my being arbirtrary longs for the wholesome warmth missing from my present days; I disengage everything from my presence and participation. I know, I comprehend my unhinging. I absorb the distance within, encasing me inside of broken reflections of unrewinding captures of my past.
The air outside is frosty, clean. The streets have become scarce and my headlights project beams like illuminated echoes in the hovering surround of black. Shadows depart, coldness clutches, and my eyes no longer shine when I disappear.

Waterfall

Cliff divers of light arc outward in water drops forced into hangtime by motion of the replenishing current of water, style points of the drop come from the flow, while light's reflection presents individuality and character on this escapist radical flash life of a drop of liquid's cascading existence in the only environment by which it is defined.

Slippery flash of a fish is shadowed on the bottom of the calm eddy, refracting the form of himself amid waves and swirls and rocks and cut-tree sunshine cozy on the surface edge of fluidity. His ghostly shape is life and my eyes register his presence and also absorb the imperfections of him in my sensory intake--the ripples, the phantom forms, the hint at deceitful mirage, or second-guessed imagined actuality.

Chrome flick causes eye reactions from underwater and from above, on the rocks, and we turn to understand the intent of the interruption between man and fish. The planes of definition of actuality and form and science are cracked. The noise waves reveal a casting motion, the air whistles the movement and direction, the wall of water responds to the object breaking into its ever-alterating form with exerted pressure outward from the contact. I watch the tail kick in the fish's fear, watch him turn to the shiny intruder; I register apprehension from the guilty pressure of foreknowledge, and rend inwardly the pain of the fish's bite, and we part.

The white foam of water rolls over smoothed rock edges, falling into itself to reform and journey onward toward the beginning of the cycle, the air is still and cool, the tree leaf patterns peek colors of the closing day sun. I stand alone on slippery rocks today, I stand and watch the water rush by, I separate life and death.

Rotation

Waking, worry
wiping eyes and lies away
Walking, working
washing it into embers
Each anoynmous day

Travelling, moving
passing in a blend destinations
This that for she who
Reverse undo erase
Blinking, breathing

Crunch, intesify
the whole portending gap
Love me, hate that
can't deaccelerate
Happened, coast, retract

Left shoe, lightswitch
decompress into prayer
This hurt, that demand
subtle dance dreams
Want to waken

Pattern Of Collapse

Dear Mommy is crayola orange on the construction paper, careful not to cross the stick-lines of Mom with a frown and downcast eyebrows in a dress, the words can't cover the paper and she crumples it and cries. The circle with the brown stuff mostly inside the lines peers out of the waded paper from the corner of the room.

Dear Mom, the lines of the diary are mostly empty but the rain of the week forces her to stay in the locked room and reach inside herself for understanding. You can't know me, she scribbles, you don't try, she adds. You don't see me, she reaches out for the glass and watches the rain. The phone rings, the diary closes--unfinished entry, unheard words.

"Mom, I'll be over at my friend Melanie's house. I'll see you on Sunday." The magnet holds the scrap piece of paper on the metal hood of the oven and she locks the door while the impatient car honks. He revs the engine and she glances at her reflection in the glass of the screen door. Her lips are deliciously red and her hair is blinding black and her eyes shine with mischief. The weekend opens like his car door as she slides inside and escapes.

"Mom, how are you?", the metallicy distance seems artifical across the phone lines even though she is in the same city, mere miles away. The customary call on Sunday, the routine conversation, the casualness of their separating lives pierces in the usual places. These hurts will be numbed soon, afterward, and the night rolls onward. School doesn't enter her thoughts, nor does anything of future importance nor does the doldrums of responsibility in her aunt's pleading entreaties of wisdom; she hears selective words and cuts backwards with a sharp-witted tongue. Her beauty is blackened with the darkness of her history, black eyes, black hair, black clothes, caustic sarcasm and dreary music. Her cologne is dank and seductive, sprayed from white spikes that light on backporches in the silence of the slumbering house and cooled by secreted amber drops that echo the crumpled circles of childhood.

Mother's Name--Age--Reason for Admission--Describe the condition--Any known allergies? She grew up quickly, the silent miles into the town from the distant life she'd blown windward into and collected, like swirling leaves in a captured corner, only made her understand herself deeper. Nowdays these moments Mom doesn't see the adolescent attitude, doesn't recognize the infrequent visitor, or the little girl with the pouty mouth and broken crayons. Without him by her side, the unimaginable creep of blackness and the drawing void of emptiness would finally put her beside her Mom, sharing the days together, taking long walks, becoming the legacy she has fought so violently and steadily and vehemently to deflect from herself. She steers the mini-van in the rain with the heavy guilt of a lifetime evading a predestined pattern of collapse.

Approach

Inside, the battle rages in bloody sunsets and eye-tearing morning cracks of shine and it encircles time like a dark halo over my lifeline here on this soil, this circle, this point amid great spaces. Actions break molds of atrophy and apologetic lockjaw when words can't paint, and feelings have molded, and intention is lost somwhere in translation like a joke gone wrong. The movements and physical manipulations and creation from the bodily hands carry my beaten insides, my mislead heart, my disfigured brain, my polluted soul...carries what is me onward. The form I reside inside tires, here it rests on the back of my rusty truck, and uses my rheumy eyes to seek the sliced edge of fading light, the radiance of the moon, closes lids over sight to feel that trickle breeze whispering across my creased face, hears the soft pulse of the calming inertia rise forth. The body recuperates now, to briefly sustain the disjointed collage of me, in this foreshadowing sensation...in the clawing approach of night.

Tranquil

The steady rain washes over the hopscotch blocks that required the secret steps, immersing lines defined, numbers plotted, footstep accomplishments in the calming hum that is background to cookies and milk and forgotten skinned knees on the sidewalk of afternoon shine.

The exit plume of a heavy draw on a last cigarette puffed against the two-dimensional horizon cut of night outlines quiet neighborhood housetops and postured lots; the burden of the loft of the captured insight disintegrates into the temporal display of serenity nightime.

This clingy dream is still painted on the inside of my thoughts like an exploded chewing gum bubble and amidst the stickiness is the shape of the pillow that is your form and the smile, the bad-breath star in the darkness smile, which is that joke's lightness, the one you told me in my sleep inside my dream derived from that memory of you triggered by the squirt of chemical juice contentment--this guilty pleasure unwinds me like the cat stretching a yawn and clawing empty air before settling into position.

I feel clues to tranquil living are all around me, in every day observations or intersections of concidence, but the mysterious chase silently, subtly unwinds its invisible ribbon for me to unwrap.

Requested: The Happy Post

"This is NUTS! This is completely, 100% cuckoo! I can't believe we're doing this!!!", my friend Scooby exclaimed loudly in my ear. My knees knocked and my jaw shook with adrenaline and anticipation. It was completely off the charts--10th row, Grateful Dead, opening night, Charlotte, my good friends all grasping the tickets to pinch us into reality from dreamland. We stood in our circle inside the clustered line extending from the entryway out into Shakedown Street, aka the parking lot. Our smiles were very wide and our brains were secreting the juice from the happy glands and we could've conquered the world...hell we did! We had 10th row.
It was a stroke of genius from my buddy Matt who said simply..."um, there won't be lines for the Charlotte tickets here in Georgia, and we're all in the southeast Ticketmaster monopoly, dude." So, I skipped walking the dogs for their do-do at my vet-tech job and Matt, well he woke up early that day, and we were the only two people in the store when the tickets went on sale. We landed 10th row, 4 tickets, and a very expectant, excited month wait. We were kings in our bedazzled brains.
Scooby and Doo were the two other lucky ticket holders, and we depended on them for transportation up to Charlotte from our party-pad in Decatur. It was a good deal; tickets for transport. Only thing was that when the month circled into the past us and the day to travel finally came me and Matt were broke like a vase, and Scooby and Doo had to pawn a very nice pistol for cash on the way up to Charlotte for gas, food, cigs, (funding for two slackers) and one flat-ass tire on the side of a highway involving a two-mile journey and the endurance of a dead and pungent carcass convinently located 10 feet from our blowout. Getting there is always half the adventure anyway.
The road stretched onward, and with trustworthy rubber between ourselves and the road, our destination approached quickly. Signs for Charlotte, for the new stadium, appeared in concert with colorful vans, groovy folks, and concentrations of hippy types at the local gas stations. We finally pull into the random, crazy, circus of folks dotting the stadium's parking lot and secure a spot. We immerse ourselves into the slap-happy throng and stroll around checking out the myriad sights, the unique people, the different scenes and situations. A guy dragging a cooler on a skateboard sells us nice beers for a bargain and we are inundated into the pulse assemblage, the fluid cohesion collection, the togetherness of the stangers joined in music and lifestyles and appreciation.
A character appeared in line next to us full of energy and outpouring emotions. He greeted all of us and started talking about the numerous and varied necklaces around his neck. I paid attention, Scooby and Doo exchanged looks, Matt smiled: It was the magic of these shows that connect folks, and I got it like Matt did. After hearing about Vera from Texas, Mazzie from Oregon, and some chick from Las Vegas, I said, "Here, take my necklace. It is a gift.". The guy exploded into happiness and activity. He took my outstretched necklace, gave me a hug, and said his name was Brother Bob. My crew looked on and smiled at me, and the line started moving. Brother Bob said his gratitude and his good-byes and he split. And we entered the stadium, handed our tickets to the attendant who looked up incredulously at our prime seats, and was sent to the next level down with frantic flashlight waving. We descended the stairs, the roar and the darkness and the energy gripping us with each step downward. We met the next attendant who closely examined each ticket by flashlight and then stamped our hands. We were directed down more steps, deeper into the pit of this pulsating organism of movement, sound, and sensation. We walked down to the bottom level. Here two attendants and a cop stood waiting for us. We showed them our tickets, showed them our hands with the stamps, and got frisked and stamped again with a different stamp. Plus our tickets got a stamp too. Then we were on flat land--we had arrived at the floor seating. We began our march to the stage, for we were located on the first four seats in from the aisle on the blessed 10th row from the stage! We walked forward, continued, moved onward...it felt like we were the ones about to take the stage with all the hollering, fanfare, ridiculous outpouring on our journey to the front. But we stopped at the 10th row, kicked out the clowns in our seats, and looked around at our setting. It was awe-inspiring, truly.
Circling us for at least three stacked layers upward and outward were packed bodies moving, twisting, shouting, waving, some sitting and watching, in every direction of the eyeballs. Before us was the raised stage, blanketed by drapes. The crush of the crowd's sound made me kind of shake like a startled animal amid the firework celebrations in the neighborhood on holidays; it was simply unnerving. I think our crew all felt this tension, this kind of stagefright feeling, for being in front of so many other people. We were probably just dots to everyone, but it felt like we had 58,000 eyes on us. The concert was about to start so that was why everyone was getting so amped up and going nutso. Doo talked to the folks around us, Scooby just grinned and looked around, Matt and I exchanged satisfied glances, and I wondered where Brother Bob's seat was...but then everything shifted into motion.
It began with soft notes on a guitar--soft for being amplified 10-trillionfold--and the glow of colored lights illuminating from all directions, while the drapes raised and the members of the band stepped forth to make magic for us and them, hell just to make magic, and we all caught the tune in a collective blast of happy whooping, whistles, "HELLLLLLL YEAHS", and so forth, to "Touch Of Grey" by the one-and-only Grateful Dead.
I kind of went numb. Matt joined the chorus of noise with shouts and whoops. Scooby and Doo looked around with grinning faces and their bodies just started moving in time to the music. Actually, all our collective bodies started moving together, ring to ring in the stadium and seat to seat; the moment arrived and we all were moved off our asses and into motion, appreciation, and fully immersed into transformation and development. Music into sensation, cohesion of like-minded folks gathered, the social experiment once again changing people, and the Grateful Dead expressing and intaking everything going on to their polite influence in our lives.
This was the happiest, most joyful, fulfilling moment I can think of in my time on earth, without getting too heavy into love, to out there in discovery of growth and understanding, and not broaching my spirituality. Charlotte, '92.

How About An Orange Soda?

Another installment of the discoveries of my past writings, by special request from my brother, Gregg. This was the first writing I ever had published. It was included in my high school's literary collection called Impressions, circa 1987. Thanks Gregg for remembering it, though it makes me cringe when I read it now. And that's why I made it harder to read. Try highlighting the orange soda for easier reading.

The door to the little shop opened slowly, as if the light was having a hard time cutting the dust in the air. The hinges creaked and the handle was falling off. The rest of the shop was in no better shape. Even through all of this, she was stunning. I knew it was love at first sight for me. Her face gleamed in the light; I was breathtaken. Her beauty was immense and we were germs of normalness. I stared at her as she walked toward the barstools; I wasn't the only one. She dusted off a stool with the grace of a princess. She sat down slowly, taking her time to look around the place.
I searched my mind for something to say. How do you talk to the woman of your dreams when you've never seen her before? I guessed the best place to start was by talking to her like I would anyone else, even though she deserved much more. I was a waiter at the restaurant. That helped. I mean, it gave me an excuse to talk to her. She had a menu out and was reading it as I walked over. She looked up and I smiled at her. "What do you need?", I asked her. Oh my gosh, how stupid, retarded, etc., can you get?
She didn't seem to notice and said, "Just a Coke." Coke? What is Coke? I thought desperately. Then it registered so I went into the back and tried to pour her drink.
We were out of cola! Great, just what I needed! All we had left was orange soda. So very cautiously and coolly I walked out to her. I explained to her what had happened. "What, no Coke!", she exclaimed. Then she got up and left.
I was heartbroken. To say we had no Coke and watch the love of my life walk out the door...I had to get her off my mind so I took the rest of the day off and went into the city. I headed straight for Burger King. There I sat down and released all my worries into my Whopper. Next thing you know I had knocked over my drink, dumb klutz that I am! I went up to get a new one, cursing and wiping myself all the way.
Guess who checked me out at the register when I got there? Yes, her! The ex-love-of-my-life! Sheepishly I asked for a coke and she said, "Sorry, we're out of Coke. How about an orange soda?"
The sunset never looked so pretty. Maybe it's because the sky is so clear, and the stars are unusually bright. I think it's because she's sitting by my side. By the way, I hate orange sodas, but don't tell her that, okay?

Sandy Trail

Linked Writing

Sandy path winds
Wandering, directionless
It skates danger or
Purpose.

My feet imprint
this shifting surface
on my journey
that lacks focus.

This trail binds
my imagination,
and burdens motivation,
into temporary impressions.

Sandcastle

Linked Writing

Licking attacks lap away this barrier and dissolve direction. This fortitude crumbles, erodes, lessens with each liquid inundation; dangerously discharged half-felt expressions is detrimental. The castle corrodes and drowns the stadid example of steadfast wholesomeness, of class, of rare breed amid the clawing waters of uncaring mediocrity. My sandcastle holds against these sunless tidal waters with withering resistance as the palace drops from within, the structure fouling and failing. This decorated, opulent hope was planted away from the shoreline as an example of uniqueness, of individuality. These suction waters take, rend, laughing-splash patterns of destruction in their churn and rolls. Castle is falling oh family, of familiarity! Where is good against this mindless wash? Where is barrier to pen and cage to this devilish wet darkness? Freedom...Freedom! is shouted from the crumbling tower as it immerses into the splash from which it deviated, evolved, and now returned.

Sandbar

Linked Writing

It extends upward amid the fluidity of shifting currents. It raises itself like it has a meaning to express, but it is simply what it is...abutement of land inside of the swirling currents. It breaks apart the horizon and makes one feel that they can swim out and claim it, can stand on it and proclaim some unintelligible vocalization of that accomplishment. The conquering of something impermanent, something overcome which is in the process of dissolving. And that is what each day is to us, it is a sandbar in a churning ocean, a raucuous sea...we make this or that or do that and this and we say we mean everything, but each darkened night shakes apart our daily tasks like erasing an Etch-A-Sketch and we begin again, and again, and again, until we no longer begin. We continue until we are overtaken, buried, washed away forever.

Wave

Luck

The battered team breathes heavily, beaten by the unfulfillment of the projected gameplay that has gone horribly awry, and sweats rivers under the heavy cloudcover of dismay. No one can look at the other players for shame, for guilt. He stares at the blade of grass, the other looks into space for answers, one holds his head in his hands, one scratches his groin, the coach seems catatonic. Not the captain, not Mr. Can-Do 4 Years In a Row Team Captain. Oh no, his furrowed brow tells the story before the eyes even reach the spit-flying lips. The gestures on the chalkboard are in Chinese, actually they are riddles in Chinese. Finally sound seems to penetrate into our sorry lot, a phrase, a certain term...what was it that snapped us back into the moment from our self-pity doldrums? Oh yes, Captain used the term "no chick is going to separate the left from the right for a bunch of losers like us". I stopped at "chick"; my girlfriend was in the stands, groaning through this agony along with the faithful families of the players, the band nerds, and other goobers with nothing better to do on a Friday night than come watch us get our asses handed to us in a brutal and, frankly, impolite manner. I could feel her yawn from the field, but quickly lost that thought because I had shifted to the geometery of the separation of the left and the right...and I finally felt energy again, and it wasn't from the 3-gallons of Gatorade I drank even though I spent most of the first half riding the bench with our comatose coach.
Captain kept spitting out phrases that didn't register into my dull helmet-protected skull, mainly because they lacked any connection to "chick", as he emphatically gestured, pointed, threw down the chalkboard, and made us all slap hands in a big circle. I didn't feel the surge of motivation--I felt the sore butts of the spectators, the shifting-foot impatience of the other team, the disappointment of my girlfriend, and the complete disinterest of the hotdog vendor as he closed up shop on a night of disappointing sales. But the spit was really flying out of Captain's mouth mixed with hoarse slogans of "teamwork" and "go the mile" and other crap, and we slapped our weary hands as best we could and broke the huddle.
I trotted over to the order of players, taking my position in the back. Somehow, some miraculous way, we had managed to squeak, edge, blunder, luck-out, and magically make our way into field goal position. We certainly paid the price for it as well. Grover, the runningback, well...he won't be running anytime soon. Both wide receivers caused 20 minute delay of games as they were carried off the field. And our offensive line looks like survivors of a war, with more red than white on their uniforms; I doubt they even know their own names at this point. But, with the fate of fortune smiling upon us out of heavenly pity, we had undoubtedly ended up in field goal territory. And that's when coach quit responding, though we checked for breathing twice.
I moved to my position and waited for the snap and placement. All I had to do was run, plant, kick and connect, and make it go between those two big-ass posts that look the the devil's pitchfork with a prong missing. If I do these steps, in the order they are meant to be done, I might...I just might...separate left from right. The QB is hollering the theory of relativity while our line is quaking from the strain of gravity. The other team looks rabid and mean and anything but tired out. I look at the scoreboard and see the clock dropping past the 5-second mark and it makes me want to puke up all the orange Gatorade I sucked down in my bench-sitting boredom. But then the ball is snapped and there is motion, and the line of devils are rushing over our line like they are ghosts and I see evil running at me with blue jerseys on, and the ball is placed. I'm running, I'm running, I want to puke, I'm placing my foot, I'm swinging my leg, I'm thinking of separating left leg from right leg, I'm closing my eyes and holding back bile and connecting with the ball and it is all I can do not to barf right there in front of the spectators that have finally got off their asses to see what happens to end this disasterous waste of their life. The roar goes up, I get mashed into the cool, damp grass and smell the foul smell of angry, opposing-team humans, and I wonder if I separated left from right as the buzzer ends the game.

Familiar Paths

Another installment of the discoveries of my past writings.

Deer in the Headlights-Darkness settled in on the wreckage. The blood was coagulating, but consciousness flickered. The car left the road-he flashed that action-but why? The side pulsed pain in red pourings, and weakness coated hope, life. Closing his eyes, he heard the crickets sound amidst the long, black shadows.


Scattered Past
Crack-lines still visible
Some pieces don’t quite fit
Scratches and scrapes
The broken, mended vase

January ’88
Coldness snaps my face
Bloodied leg in the snow
Scars still show

Muddied mind in anger
Flint-strike danger
Opportunities missed
Damned with a kiss

Lonesome, unwinding
Scattered past


Vacation
Calm; he had forgotten how that felt.
It snuck up on him like fog on a lake, a sneaking cat into a sleepy lap.
And he realized how tired he had become, too soon,
when the journey was far from complete.

Hurling Words Like Stones On Calm Water

You can't figure it out; it is beyond your grasp of what is possible. You can't get over that churning, that suction, those tip-tap memories on your shoulder causing you to swivel your neck and look at what is behind you. You can't do this and you don't know that and you missed this and you failed that and you are in a perpetual state of seeking to fix things with the illumination that will supposedly arrive in the morning colors to paint you with the energy and drive you desire to face the damage that you have inflicted upon the timeline of your selfish life.
And maybe, hopefully, that vibrant morning will bathe us in a spectral curve of renewal shine as it makes the roosters crow and the plants unfold and the drivers squint and the pious repent again. And maybe if that were to unfold before our eyes, our collective human eyes, I would stop my squandering of life, my wasting of gifts, my slothful apologies and recompensations and watery overtures of improvement. In that splashing of hues I might connect the part of my form that lacks applied emotions in positive progress to that frisky nerve that heralds change with an energetic spring to complete the task that moment, and soothe it with the serotonin gland that has no time for hindsight's woes, or worry, or lanquid bemoaning, or dull solemnity, or disgustful ennui.
What will transform in that reconstructed viewpoint? Will I glow? Will I radiate? Will I even understand that I've corrected this misdirected, erratic-blink streetlight that I've been sitting and watching for the green orb of change? Will it be a refreshing splash, a dull click like a lock, a slam of a gavel's decision, a captured tear of an impression like the disenchanted understanding that these two lovers are no longer together? Will it be grim words that unveil themselves to strangers in recriminations and questions and rhetorical inquiries?

Willing, will it?, willpower, the final Will.

8/23/06-Four Expressions

Feeling-This stretch of time is haunting and somber: the faces look in on me through glass aquarium walls. I disconnect, I derail, I disattach to the beat of their retreating footsteps. I can't share with those who are cautioned by share-means-care, and they no longer express anything at all except critiques. I'm at a jaded 34 years of involvement in this shifting presentation and I don't have the apathetic dismay I see in those that edge near my fire. It isn't so much caution of me, or the cowered withering of their individual past experiences, that my surrounding people inwardly endure, alone; it is the reluctance to hope, trust, or reach outward. I am alone. I've known this, I still know it, and I'll forever learn it. I plod onward down the empty sidewalk on this oppresive, burdened afternoon.

Plan-I left the bar. I left with the spark for adventure. My companion fled and I could not face the mannequins that pose with attitudes on our public transportation system. I didn't want to be one of those frozen, controlled experiments today. I decided to see how long, and difficult, it would be to walk home from my work. I work downtown ATL and live in the burbs. My Mom had asked what I would do in a disaster situation, seeing as I take public transport to work and home daily. I wanted to see how arduous the trip would be, with the provision that when I tired I would simply wait on the bus. I made it approximately 4 miles. I just spread my travel, my stroll, my steps outward and onward. There wasn't the fear-based disaster, I wasn't angry about a malfunctioning vehicle, I didn't exit from a car filled with hate and cutting words: I was just walking on a Wednesday because I had nothing else to do, really. I stopped at the covered bus stop and looked around. I should walk more, it wasn't bad. The walk became an experiment. I would only take buses home today. And I did; I took the #2 from downtown to Avondale and then hopped on the local route 120. I had to walk from the final stop on that route about a mile to my house. So, 2 buses and close to four miles later, I was home. It is coincident that my final arrival at home was exactly the same time as the train/bus commute delivers.

Sensory-Flowers planted for no one, anyone, whoever, this one. Orange and brown and tall and extending to me as I pass the man with no shirt and I'm glad. Grafitti, horns, heat, a scream?, a cat, a tree, and more horns. Lights are flashing orange or yellow or confusion on the streets and I can't hear the bus and I walk along to the slap-slap of my brown work shoes. I don't hurt, I just absorb. I just listen. I just look. I just intertwine myself into this street scene. I'm innocent, I'm a walker, I don't mean anything-please don't worry...as I take everything into me, swimming in humanity, spitting the stream of society out of my mouth as I lanquidly stroll like a buoyant walrus. This bus is a hurried, labored kangaroo and we are fleas. Yea, you lady-you are flea on your squeaky cell phone and your useless voice...like a lamenting cricket in the summer nights. I nod off in boredom, bouncing in the rhythm of the bus and the road...and the crickets/fleas/kangaroo riders leave me be for which I am very grateful.

Placement-Find me, discover. Open and turn over the stone. Behind that bush, between the door and the wall. I'm right here, over shadow and under drape. I am in this place, left of right and right after being left behind, I am vast distance on a cheap map.

Effusive

Pink sky accentuates blue vastness and my iris and retina and thankful soul are altered within the cast colored light. I stand in my driveway and stare through powerlines and intrusive pine trees at a hue I'd like to feel; this spectral rariety expresses the collective demonstration of control and beauty and nature in a fleeting collaboration display. I stood there and absorbed this wonder and felt myself change, shift, understand, grow: I took in discovery in color and connection to impermanent snapshots and somehow immersed myself into the shifting sunset. Each cell reflects a different capture of light in the boomerang of energy transmission with the splash transforming every new sensation in a shine, a twinkle, a bath in radiance and I am the edge of the world as the horizon chases itself and inversely I run within.

One*Area Code*Realize

Wireless wording,
These ones and twos will find rest.

Quiet plodding,
Mournful breaths at last connect.

Without choking,
The bravery of months of distance.

Insides stirring,
To hope or decide there's nothing left.

Mirror morning,
Pink and red are an empty kiss.

Dare

Intended, imagined, syrupy dreamed, wishful.
Impetus, initiation, applied leverage, torqued.
Darkness, secrets, tender, sigh.
Caution, care, concern, defenseless.
Connection, collusion, cohesion, combined.
Crickets and cicadas, rainy patterns, wavering shadows, warm touch.

Cheat Sheet

Assignment: Find the ratio of happiness to other feelings in your life and graph it. You've got 10 seconds to complete the thought, 2 minutes to prepare your work, 30 seconds for revisions, and 2 seconds to clear your throat before your speech in front of humanity. They then will critique you and you will have the rest of your life to either believe them, reject them, or wonder if you are indeed happy at all.
Now, take that data, that introspection, that intervention and translate it into the mechanics of your daily schedule. Don't forget to add in your spiritual infrastructure and wishful dreams. Negate the influence of all sensory inputs, including sound, sight, and the rest. The result will be a negative quotient which will need to be converted into useful information.
So, take your quotient and multiply it by the amount of hours you have left in your yet-to-be-determined life, rounding to the nearest breath.
Next, take 10% off for the tip, aka gratuity, of being allowed to be alive and leave that in the government coffers upon your premature, tragic, unforeseen, or selfish exit. This 10% can be subtracted from your final gross figure provided your exit is of substantial or innovative means ie: dying on Marta will not be considered for subtraction; skydiving and impaling yourself on your very own premedicated and prepared tombstone would be considered, at least until it became a standard practice.
After you have crunched a subtotal of these numbers you will need to convert this data into fractions. The numerator should be the amount of positive input your life expressed, while the denominator will become the damage you caused yourself. After you have divided yourself into black and white you will need to take a negative photographic image of that number for inclusion in the book of purgatory, allowing no room for error because indeed you will be strenuously fact checked.
At this point you will have a successful resolution to how to gauge how happy you are according to the sliding, transitional scale of how short life is. And at that point it is up to you to use that data in the way that you see fit.

M'ville-The Forest

This dank darkness grasped and tugged, pulling at you with weighted uncertainity and trepidation. The cover of humidity and hushed sound was palpable, almost overwhelming was its aura of enshrouded solemnity. These fake trails, mere lucky connections of footsteps in our intrusive bumblings, tried to warn us against entry with each hindering limb or blockading shrub. We were fools; we were starry-eyed, clueless, mind-expanding interlopers on some kind of undefined, unplanned, unfocused mission.
We, after a Braves game and undeniably in a frame of mind that lacked coherent judgement, decided to drive to my old college...north 4 hours of highways to Tennessee. I had stayed (somewhat) sober, being doomed to the driver role, and officially had the say-so: I said, "yeah, ok. The woods are killer." And off we went. Long, long shadows on the road. We played word games and told stories and finalized plans and dreamed aloud. We were together in spirit and that's about all we knew for certain.
The arrival to my old college was unexpectantly awkward. Our entire voyage had been about getting to this place, but we never planned for what would happen upon our journey's success. We step out of the cramped car to stretch our bones and find a sleepy town, a shadowy destination, a seemingly missed party. We climb back into the vehicle and search for old friends among the off-campus housing and locate someone with lights on. We crash it. Folks backslap me with fond memories, others shake my friends' hands, most look at our female adventurer, Amiz, and ogle. We decide to retreat to the woods, the sudden influx of strangers being an overload to our sense of destiny, of community, of understanding. One drone from the party accompanies us on our trek into the woods, much to our dismay as she is highly intoxicated and we are not at all.
I drive into the secret backroads of the college campus, parking the car in the hidden spots I've learned in my time there, and we depart into the sweeping cover of ink.
The smells of the lush Tennessee valley forests command our attention. This is a wave of freshness, of water-retained air, of green hemlock, of fertile earth, of mountain streams, of hill-curved windstreams. The fold of light against the woods curls us into its interior in 5 steps, and we meld into the different value of light in our eyes. The drunk girl babbles, complains about the dark, and grips my arm in terror. I lead the group--my friends and a hanger-on--by luck, dead-reckoning, the edges of my feet against the outsides of the slight path, and my soul.
Owls welcome us, as do the cicadas. We carry no lights beyond the soft orange of our cigarette ends. We walk silently, stumble rarely, even dodge spiderwebs in completely light-lacking drape. We infused ourselves, our unit, into those patient, ancient, reverent trees and undergrowth. It was mystical; the undertaking required more than intelligence, asked for more than respect, derived from randomly directed energy, delivered incredible depths of connection to experiences beyond our understanding, and supplicated those among us willing to sit and listen to the echoes of concentric rings of silence being broken apart into layers...or, in different words, cycles.
The drunk girl broke us away. I had sequestered our party into a bushy lowland, long after the concern of mosquitoes had passed, and we simply communed in that blackend spot of meditation. I remember the girl tugging my arm, now alarmed as her senses somewhat returned and she realized we were just sitting in the interior of some oppressively dark woods without a clue how to exit, and I, along with my friends, collectively sighed in our disturbance and rose to return to the car.
We found it without any hinderances, returned to the subdued party, and went inside. There we borrowed some beers after our quest, smoked cigs and talked amidst ourselves, and turned in for a few odd winks. We departed before the alcohol level lessened in the inhabitants passed out around us, leaving Tennessee to football time, respectful woods, and no need for further endeavors from our band of explorers.
The ride home was quiet, reflective. I truly believe each of us remember that outing with pride, understanding, and deeply rooted appreciation. And that is why I write it, this evening that reminded me of that heavy humidity dampness underpinned to a soft night breeze to caress the skin and the memorable recollections from treasured nights gone.

Introduction

It was a transfer of energy; this introduced effusive outpouring bumped my tight, circled-wagon glow into movement like impact on a static pool ball. I felt it before I registered the source. I turned, as one does when jostled in a crowd or grabbed from an unseen friend unexpectantly, and looked into the shine of the energy. I wasn't disturbed and I wasn't startled and I wasn't confused and I wasn't anything that felt bothered...I was happy.
I was excited or energized or electrified. I was enlivened that my stadid glow had been forced into motion. And more, I was glad to find the origination of this forced impetus of action. It was truly unexpected, me poring over some boring article in the free weekly publication in an attempt to kill time on a Friday afternoon of possibility or recollection.
I peer into a smile, a neon sign curvature of lips and teeth and soft, caring eyes. I see creases around eyes, laughter lines I've heard women say, and high cheeks, and I register a hint of fun at my expense. I become incredulity and shine and sensation and comfort, like the cat who is awakened from sleep in a confused bliss of soft petting. And there we were...and that's exactly how it happened.
She ate a salad and talked and I drank a PBR and detailed experiences and we found the middle of two separated lives and it felt very nice. It was Friday, it was that day, it was the beginning--it was our introduction.

Slumped

How close is your death? Morbid, scary, harsh thought, a downer--most likely. Sorry. But, I touched a dead person this week, so forgive me if death is on my mind.

I ride Marta, back and forth each day, and there are countless stories I could tell about these travels. But Wednesday was a new level of weird. From 5 Points two trains depart: the Candler Park train, which is a stubby sucker that only goes four stops before making a loop back to become another short-trip train westbound; and the snaking eastbound train that chases the Candler short hop by about 4 minutes. I never take the Candler one because I'll have to get off and wait for the eastbound, but for some odd reason I jumped on that one on Wednesday.

The Candler short hop train was very nice, clean and full of cold air-conditioned air. There was no shortage of seats and even the windows were clean. We click-clacked along our four stops to Candler Park and all was well. Then, when reaching the last stop the lights were turned off and announcements were made explaining this was the end of the line. We, the myriad riders, gathered near the doors. One guy was slumped motionless in his seat. I went to jostle him to awaken him, thinking him to be hitting the sauce after work or something and passed out. Nope, he was dead. Eyes rolled back in his head-no chest movement-pale skin-dead.

I looked around: folks were freaking out. I walked up to the train conductor's window and told him he had a Medical, a problem; in fact, he has a dead guy on his train who was not deboarding as instructed. The conductor tries to awaken the man and I exit the train, the scene, the station. I walked the two stops onward, a good 5-7 miles, and went for a beer. I thought over how short life is for all of us. I then got back on Marta and went home, talked to my Mom about the random events of my day after 5 hours from my clockout at work, and started on my OT work. That's how I dealt with it.

This guy, this suit and tie guy, this dead person-who started the short hop on the Candler train alive because he had to walk onto the train and find a seat-passed during our short jaunt. I found him. I tried to shake him awake, but he was gone from this plane of existence.

Life is short, your time alive is incalculable, your breaths are not warrantied. I know, I touched death this week.

Whisper Unwound

I discarded a burden last night, writing into permanence this scared-cringing heaviness that has loomed right underneath my skin and wrinkles and blood-shot eyes since last September. It felt so good to face it, force it into a manageable form, archive it for my depressive curiousity in future days, and excrete it from my exhausted form. How did I finally know to do this? What caused all the feelings to adhere into a format? Why, when I began the writing, did all the words and memories line up in order? And what about all those mental snapshots I had repressed or forgotten, how did they reappear?
Do you know how it feels when you pass onward from something in your life...like, say, getting the cast taken off your leg now that it has healed? You hated that damn cast, cursed it and scorned it, but in the end your leg felt exposed and naked and odd without that loathed cast. That's how I feel now that I have dropped some of that gnawing pain, that unfinished conclusion, that ending to the ending. And fresh, deep breathes are easily come by, along with cleaner dreams and new directions. And hope has become an answered prayer instead of a breathy whisper.
This time in my life has been returned to me to repair, prepare, develop, and progress onward into the future I can now approach unhindered, standing upright with pride, and smiling with genuine joy.

Rainy Night

"You can't wish that, no don't say that...don't even think those thoughts. It will only jinx us."

The light was broken, haphazard, cutting through abstract raindrop-splattered patterns on the front glass. The floorboard was cluttered with trash and it looked like I felt when I reached into the two of us and tried to find words to explain away pain.

The drops held her diluted attention and kept her scanning the parking lot for recognizable delivery. I spoke to air, in the confined air, about airy wishes. She focused on the things that were real: the drops, the garbage, the hurt, the insatiable need, the clawing inside of her, the anger, and the hopelessness.

"Geeeeez, mfing Louise, will it ever stop raining?" I try to break the solid air inside the car, try to initiate something, elicit a hopefully civil response.

The sound of rain was overpowering and the drops obscured the view and the time loomed electronic-green accusations at us in that darkened parking lot where we were subject to someone else's schedule and hurt steamed the glass as we waited.

"What is it we're doing anyway?" she quietly asked the falling drops, and I had no answer.

Structured Exit

Absolute.
Discard.
Effusive.
Off-hand.
Alone.

Erase.
Resign.
Alter.
Disconnect.
Ineffective.

Malcontent.
Infected.
Discomfort.
Absolve.

Endure.