Crunch

All, none
patterns run
ruined fun
assumptions
single shadow
the voice,
words connect
time is music
in steps
in rain
on a reflective
captured revelation
showing my time
this way,
today

By Myself

Forgotten Words

Yet another installment of the discoveries of my past writings. These were hidden in boxes of old crap that littered the space under my bed.

Cast Vestiges 10/4/05
Though we stand
paces apart
faces parted
An embrace only expresses
those wasted moments
left to define our
conscious
splintered life;
Soon we'll learn
broken survival


Anyone For Chinese? circa 1988
Guilt-It pounds my head like
construction workers,
pounds my soul like
elephants at the circus
The stupid part is that
I'm supposedly in...
Control-I left it outside,
with the garbage, to
be taken away.
I put it in the mailbox,
and pulled up the flag.
Too bad no one can get
rid of control since
there is...
Desire-shapes my heart,
twists my mind.
I live in a contortion,
I'm in torture.
Break the fortune cookie.

Resuscitation

Wind screamed, bellowed, caved in my eardrums to the point of bloodletting inside of my head. The altitude dipped alarmingly, crushing, painfully cut the levels of acceptance. This pointy piece of metal known as a plane, something meant to fly and soar, was sinking like a submarine...with me inside gripping the yoke and screaming into the clamor of wind and staring wide-eyed but too scared to cry. I braced for impact.
When the chute pulled my inert, dumbed ass out of the top hatch I still screamed, still stared, still gripped air like there was a steering yoke in my hands. My hollering voice broke and I finally blinked my eyelids. I moved my gaze to see the explosion of Hell-orange and red and yellow and bright white spray licking flames against the surrounding darkness. I finally breathed in deeply and understood that I was floating downward, but at a sharp angle. This raging windstorm beat against my feeble parachute cloth and sent my lucky-ass into a new situation of danger.
Toothpick arms bent the harness guidelines to no avail amid the heavy downward pulls of the banking windstream and I pulsed the adrenaline of fear into my tired blood vessels anew as I drifted over pointy steeples and antennas, electrical wires, a large building. I was nearing ground with an accelerated force wind and no control and wild contortions of helplessly gyrations. I looked ahead to the large train tracks hoisted high on an elevated bridge over a deep gorge. I looked to the side and saw no land and the wind sent me directly to the tracks, cracking my midsection into the planted side and knocking loose a tooth as my face bounced awkwardly off of a metal track clamp.
But I was briefly grounded, my chute lines tangled in the edges of the crossbars of the tracks, and the wind swept my body bouncing over the opposite side of the narrow span of tracks. I spun in mid air, frantic grabs for the foundation of structure rose unconsciously inside of me and I crawled back onto the tracks. I fearfully clutched the tracks of the train as the wind whipped my chute and buffeted me, while one hand reached for the strap releases. I somehow released one side of the harness and the chute fairly ripped the other side from my frame as I fought with gritted teeth to cling to the span of wood separating me from free descent into the swirling blackness of river far below me. Watching the chute that saved my life, and nearly took my life as well, puff off rapidly into the surrounding night sky, I clutched the tracks with both arms and closed my eyes and took deep breaths. I planted my face against the gritty, greasy rails and nearly puked my guts out as I said a brief prayer of gratitude for protection.
I must have laid there for several minutes, breathing and absorbing my blessing of deliverence. My arms were robotic; I locked onto those steel rails with the fear of mortality and my muscles finally began to cramp and protest. I was still unsure of my foundation high on that archway over the water and depth of death from my battle with the parachute-ripped winds. I chose to inch my way toward the side of land my head was currently facing, tears flowed from my tightly-closed eyelids and the night sky was so close to me here on this crazy bridge of tracks above the abysm...I just barely could move my form from each desperate clutch toward anywhere. I sighed deeply in the whip of the fresh air and listened for some voice of direction. That's when I heard the chugging of the train's engine.
I was up and running, trying to catch each tie with a sure footfall, but I slipped immediately and one leg hung through the tracks like a limp branch. My thigh was scratched and I smashed my balls, but I just hoist myself up and ran forward with abject fright. The train's horn sounded behind my scramble and my eyes fought to discern track tie from downward inky blackness and my legs sought a pattern: I found it! Two strides was the placement of the cross ties. I would half jump, land, leap outward far, land...I skipped one in-between. I ran with all my concentration, like a football player training on the rings of tires, pumping and pushing myself. The rails started to vibrate and the area around my frame lit up like a spotlight. Now I truly heard the train's horn, felt the resonance of it, understood the dire situation I was involved in.
I had 20 yards to the edge of land, the train was already on the bridge, and my legs were crumbling and confused with fear. One foot missed the mark and slipped into the void between the tracks. I grasped the shaking rails and raised myself, my arms faltered and shook with impending doom. The uncaring hunk of metal and light and overtaking sound bore down on me, bore down on the unseen, non-expected form way out on this outcropping of track. The light overtook my vision and the noise encompassed my brain and the force of the churning engines let me know my puny legs would never get me to my freedom. I panicked again and survival took over.
I swung over the chasm and moved my hands from the train track to the edge of the crossbeam, swinging my legs to grip the other side of the beam as I suspended myself over a black drop of certain pain and doom. My fingers were narrowly missed by the molten hot wheels of steel and now I found my fillings rattling in my teeth, my bones shaken nearly to snapping, my vision so violently shaken that focus was impossible. But luck, by fate, the single engine screamed over my spiderlike form clutching the underside of the expansion leaving my rattled frame to scamper back onto the boiling hot rails that served as a handgrip.
I wondered if I could die, because maybe I should just go ahead and thrust my beaten body into the reaching gorge...but I had come so far and survived so much. I shakily stood and began the careful picking of crossbeams, hearing the roar of the train fade into the drape of night. I moved toward land, toward solid underfooting.
I craved a cigarette like no man on earth has ever needed one and that is the drive that made my face feel the soft dew on the silent hillside grass while I prayed tearful prayers of thankfulness. This was my resuscitation.

One LIne For Friday

Quiet is a cold hurt coating the retrospection glare I focus inward on my ritual life story, too late to matter for reconstruction but shamefully silent is the cloud of sickening regret.

Pad Days 1

From Wikipedia...The 1992 Los Angeles riots, also known as the Rodney King uprising or the Rodney King riots, were sparked on April 29, 1992 when a mostly white jury acquitted four police officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King, after he fled from police. Thousands of people in Los Angeles joined in what has often been characterized as a race riot, or a mini-civil war, involving acts of law-breaking compounded by existing racial tensions, including looting, arson and murder. In all, 55 people were killed during the riots.

Smaller, copycat riots occurred in other United States cities. San Francisco police arrested 1400 rioters in the downtown area and established a curfew. The Nevada National Guard was deployed to Las Vegas and 200 people were arrested. Seattle was hit by overnight mobs of up to 100 people rampaging through business districts. Fresno had gangs rampaging through the older downtown business district with one bystander murdered in their car. New York saw racial beatings, a mob looting a shopping mall, and another at Madison Square Garden.Hundreds of protesters confronted police in Atlanta. Minor incidents were reported in Tampa, Pittsburgh, Birmingham and Omaha. Major incidents took place in Dallas and Madison, Wisconsin, etc.

And what we knew...

The television did not enter our pad until later in the year and we never, ever tuned in a radio station the entire time we stayed there. News filtered in from neighbors or from phone calls or news never reached our ears. It was very strange that we all knew of a major surge of anger, destruction, and mayhem on this otherwise normal, most likely boring, Wednesday.

I think I remember warnings about Atlanta being in turmoil, only certain areas of Atlanta though, and that folks should avoid travel as a precaution. The members of the pad all gathered at our place and for once it was strangely quiet, like a thoughtful burden was draping our usual exploratory conversations, games, fun, and randomness. We weren't directly affected; I doubt a single one of us had read a newspaper in over a year, but suddenly current events were shaping our feelings and thoughts. And it was out of our control.

We saw it in the eyes of our local beer store owner. We saw roads nearly barren. We listened to the sirens off in the distance, numerous sirens, constant sirens. We looked into the faces of one another for some answer or normalcy. We knew that parts of the city were in complete chaos, that parts of the US were burning with fire and hate and indignation and injustice. We understood that something had broken through to critical measures, long past the boiling point of acceptance, and that we were white and Rodney King was black.

We were peaceful, even removed by choice. White and black were things we watched on the back of our eyelids. But this seemed very heavy, that society was warned, burning, raging...it altered our perceptions of the present days.

Cornelia Test-n-Tune

Quickly, hurried before the sun falls behind the treeline, I rush to make the necessary repairs to the old truck. This old beater truck is me; this rusted, bruised shell has a strong heart and miles left inside the core.

Flipping the pages of the manual I learn that I need to check levels, particularly the brakes. I can't stop. I have to stop, that is part of forward motion--the ability to stop is very handy when you are driven. My fluid is below the marker so I fill the reservoir with the magic juice that helps control momentum. This truck and I try to find a balance between forward and motionless in careful swigs of liquid, preventing a disasterous crash.

I see in the handy directions of the manual that I need to ignite the engine and check how the heart of the truck feels. I sit inside the cab, feeling the key into the special slot that clings tightly around the probe and fits so perfectly. I turn it and send electric sparks into the core, into the heart, and it resounds with a rumble that echoes off of Stone Mountain. I idle in the driveway, I let my core burn.

The truck's handbook tells me to check the speed, to turn the engine down if running too fast. It tells me to amp up the engine if the motor is stuttering or coughing or hesistating. I twist it up. I twist it louder! I feel for the engine because it strains, but vibrates so good...making my heart roar and skin scream and feel completely alive. But wisdom causes me to spiral the idle back to a calm, even click. It purrs now, the engine's output is smooth and the feeling of a strong-running, enduring vehicle is mine. This balance, this proper tuning, is me and my truck and everything I breathe or touch or believe--a connection of harmony.

I turn off my truck and lower the hood, feeling the click of the latch. I lock the doors and watch the fading hue strokes of the day's end between the jagged treetop line in the distance from the empty truck bed. I feel quiet and solitude inside of cold night air.

I wait for my passenger, a pleasant hope, as I smoke a cigarette tonight.

Inertia

The shadows are shorter in the fog-draped night. I steer left, stumbling and probing with each step inside this absence of illumination. The path veers away from the roadway of streaking light trails, wind-snapped noises of hurried air, and metal death. Feet, find my pathway. To miss the footfall, to disassociate into a dreamy thought, to unattach into the memories of the beer-swilling evening I enjoyed...well, it will mean my death here tonight on the shoulder of an unforgiving roadway encroached by uncaring fog. Roadkill.
I plant my footfall in a more sober way and edge passing flashes of headlights as my boundary, the ditch of my left the foot's extreme for placement. Gravel crunches, I hear a train, I cross a side street and narrowly miss some speeding idiot who sees me finally in his rearview mirror. I'm halfway to the store.

The red clay slips under each step and this part of the journey is the most fearful in that the left side of my stride is a noisy, eerie wooded area. I slip/step faster and note all the clicks, the cracks, the sudden empty roadway, the full wolf moon. I nearly break into a run from uncertainty. I resist. I created this time, here besides these dark woods, on a slippery upward slope of crumbling steps, absorbing the barren lack of traffic and absorbing the lonesome moon's glow.

I surface the hill and into the corner intersection lights and busy actions. I now want to blend into the dark covering shade of the woods now gone; I am an eye catcher, something to notice out of a side window of a car with a blue light bar. I aim for the convenience store. I enter it, I grab this thing that culls me from a mile away at a ridiculous hour and suctions me through gauntlets of dark horrors and fear and possible doom. I lift that container and carry it to the bullet-protected window and smile at the girl behind the wall. I pay and I stall and ask her what she likes in life outside of her job. This odd question causes her anxiety and stalls the line, but I pursue it in different phrases until she knows I require some answer about herself, a human touch connecting through see-through plastic protective walls.

She says she likes to write. I promise to bring her some of my words. I turn and leave the store, the return trip unfolds before the tips of my shoes. I have a weight now, an odd lope to the footprint patterns I trace backwards, leaving the reverse indentations with one side heavier than the other. I have purchased a weapon, a loss to the point of my whole journey if used, for an encounter by the dark woods. I have a flimsy reason for this inane waste of time, money, and safety in the conversational engagement with the protected shopkeeper. I have inward justification, fake and phony and false, but something to help me know that this night is unlike all the others. That this night's dark unwinding of who am I is not only familiar, but normal.

Once I make it back to the familiar driveway, quietly I open the bottle and light a cigarette and sit looking at the wolf moon of January on the bed of my immobile truck.

I drink, I exhale, I redefine ordinary.

Presidents and Assholes Pt.3

I ran my fingers through my unkempt, shaggy hair as I regarded the card players seated around the table. Taking my time, I decided to just lowly top the presented 3 of clubs with a 4 of spades, taking advantage of my position directly to the left of Denard who had started the round of cards. B followed with a 5 of hearts, Matt played a 7, Vanderhorst a 9, Amiz was busy talking to Cree and we all had to goad her into laying something down, play for crying out loud!, and she slapped down a Queen. Unfazed by the escalation in the hierarchy of cards numeration, Cree threw down a 2. A 2, a single 2 mind you, of any suit, will immediately stop the round and let the thrower of the 2 begin the next round of cards. It also forces the asshole to have to rake the cards of the previous round. Since we had not designated the asshole yet, or president for that matter, I scraped the cards to clear the table.
Cree eyed his hand, his obtuse hand of cards always positioned in some random order to throw off our perceptions of what his hand held--his trademark routine--and reached for a single card, slapping it down with authority. There sat a slightly spinning ace of spades.
Remarks from all the assembled players consisted of groans, exclamations of "why!?", and low mutters of disses toward Cree for dashing the hopes of all our held hands of cards. Denard pointed out that he was now completely screwed for, being directly to Cree's left, why someone would start a round with the next-to-highest card. Denard passed, not able to discard or unwilling to spend a 2 (if he even had one in his hand) to obtain control of the round again. I pondered for half a second and passed, along with the rest of the table. Until it was Amiz's turn. Oh no, she simply pulled out a 2 and effectively ended the round. Cree smiled, his plan having worked. I cleaned up the round of spent cards.
Amiz dumped double 3s and Cree, being to her left in rotation, topped them with a pair of 4s. Denard had no complaints and discarded two 6s. I had a high pair of Kinks (our terminology for Kings) and opted to pass again. B laid down a pair of 8s and demanded a social. Everyone drank from their beers. Matt put down two Hooks (Jacks) and Vanderhorst passed. Amiz laid down another 2 to keep control. I raked the cards.
Amiz threw down some paltry 5 and Cree became maniacal again, yanking out his other Ace. Denard grimaced, giving Cree the middle finger as he passed on the play. I was annoyed, and frankly knew my fate was doomed--hell, I was already practicing for my asshole role with my polite, janitorial card collecting--and tossed a Kink, breaking my pair up. B threw the remaining 2, taking control of the round. I collected the spent cards and felt my placement in the card play order. I was sucking hind tit, ie. last in the round before the originator of the round has a chance to top to finish that round, thus he will retain control and dump twice as many cards as the other players in every round that he is able to start and finish.
B's 4 was eagerly met with Matt's 5, Vanderhorst's 6, Amiz's 7, Cree flopped an ace and shouted President! We all gave him a social, Denard couldn't play so he passed, as did I. Denard benefited from the play ending with Cree so he dished out his hightest offering, a Hook, and I passed. B passed, Matt topped it with a Kink and, having spent his cards, he claimed Vice President status. Jason passed, Amiz passed, and I raked the meager round.
Denard discarded his last card, which was a 6; I put down an 8 and demanded everyone drink. We did. The newly inaugurated President commanded me to drink again, which I dutifully did, and B hopped out with his final discard of a 10. Vanderhorst passed, as did Amiz, so I collected the cards.
Vanderhorst exited the fray by laying down a pair of 9s, which neither Amiz or I could play on since we did not have any doubles (inwardly cursing myself for having broken up my pair of Kings and my pair of 8s, though the 8s were of little use to me this round), and then topped his hand with a pair of 10s. Amiz threw down a Queen, closing the uneventful round with a smirk and a hidden ace.
I was stuck with a bunch of useless cards, the new label of being asshole, and a bunch of subservient duties to attend to: namely I was to fetch fresh beers for the collected players, shuffle the deck, and change the cd. If I did not do these tasks to the satisfaction of any of the drunken players, I would be resoundingly punished in drinks, not to mention overwhelming insults and denigrations from the President and all the other players. The verbal harrassment began immediately with the chanting cry of "Drink asshole!" originating from the remaining 8 card left in my worthless hand.
I drank heartily.
I sighed as I opened the fridge for the beers. It was going to be a long, very probable drunken evening of cards. I meshed the worn deck of cards together and began shuffling, hoping for a better hand.

Presidents and Assholes Pt.2

"Who has the 3 of clubs?"
"Grab me a beer while you're in there!"
"Hold on, I gotta pee."
"...and then she said, 'oh yeah?', and I said, 'yeah bitch!'..."
"Who, oh who, has the 3 of clubs?"
"Man, did you know that tomorrow is rent day? Shit."
"There are only 3 Buds and then the Mickeys and Busch Lights."
"HEY, somebody has the 3 of clubs. Look at your hands..."
"Hit Random on the stereo!"
"...so I told her to 'kiss my ass!' and she gave me this look..oh!"
"Who has the damn 3 of clubs!"
"THAT'S what I've been saying!"
"I don't."
"I don't."
"Not me...oh wait, here it is."
"Dammit Denard!"
"Does everyone have a drink? Ok...".
Pt.2