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.