tenant memory

These walls feel black

And untouched during

The middle of the night

Past one when
I tiptoe through the hallway.

 

Thinking only of the morrow

When I’ll wake early to see

Written chances and tests,

I open the bathroom door

To see Eileen, my old landlady

Squatting.

 

Both yelping, I stand groggy as

She sits frozen in that half second

Which feels like ten minutes,

And I’m disturbed by a senior citizen’s

Skin and aged vulnerability.

 

In Peter, it says a day is like a thousand years

Depending on the actor in question:

Yelling sorry, closing the door
I run to my room laughing

At absurdity and sadness

Because apostles are right

By definition.

—



Keith III, 1981 (Chuck Close)

—

I love my dad but lately, I’ve wondered if we’re drifting.  Well, coast to coast, we live far away from each other.  But I realize a part of it is me – this weird ambition, a drive to go it alone.     But he’s always been nothing but love and pure support and I know he understands the need to have space, explore and live adventurously.  I’ll share a message he left for me back in college.  It was to-the-point and short and I remember how he said he loved me.  Friends were there when the message played and I remember feeling proud and unashamed to have a father who was frank and unsappy with his affections.  From the perspective of a son, the man is exceptionally kind (and he gave me a lot of facial hair).

Earlier, before heading home, I was filling out some paperwork – signing on the dotted line, etc. – and I noticed something that left me laughing quietly.  I looked at the loop of my letters and realized I was looking at his penmanship.  It was uncanny. 

And disheartening too because I could never read his medical script.  Well, no one’s perfect but I’d like to be a dad like him.  In our family, the narrative is always that my brother takes after dad and I take after mom but through the years, I realize it doesn’t break down so simply. 

He’s got big hopes for his sons.  It’s been a blazing fast year but we’re pushing hard and taking risks in our own ways/places.

—

Pray for my brother, he left for Myanmar a few days ago.

—



Watch Against Impatience: Buckley’s solid.  (love his point about cotton ears and conventions)  Read “Aweigh” in the latest Atlantic.  Regardless of political affiliation, that sort of disposition is a rare these days.

Fits well with N. Kristof’s 30Jun NYT column.  And with D. Brooks standard tone.

And flies in the face M. Dowd and Krugman… who hate everything (and won’t yield an inch) on the other side.  Remember how badly the Republicans wanted Clinton to fail in Kosovo w/ Milosevic (and the work is far from done even now)?  Now, it’s the Democrats and Bush and Iraq w/ Saddam.  The parallels are amazing.  Of course, if you read old editorials/headlines on post-WWII… it’s eye-opening.  Likewise for Post-Hiroshima Japan.  “Doomed to failure” sans 24-hour news coverage and much more access to gov’t/military affairs (for all the talk, access is at unprecedented levels of openness).  If we knew all the lies FDR and Truman told… We talk about Kennedy, Wilson, Lincoln and others with a tone that evokes an inarguable, assumed goodness & leadership.  But we forget how divided the country was even in their day.

Politics and Religion… surprised me.

The Political Show… wrapped up nicely. 

And I’m currently reading PJ O’Rourke’s Parliament of Wh*res… there’s a punchy, self-effacing (often) realist for you!

Woodrow Wilson, that geyser of American messianism, called Hamilton ‘a very great man, but not a great American.’ However, that is true only if political realism is un-American. (said WILL!)

—

Relaxing:


make like paper

—

Might Surprise: Study on Media Bias (brow-raising)

Matt11:28

repetition

 

In a bruised blue rotation,
In the least dramatic fashion:

She/he takes a vise-like hold

And hugs the rind or

Your capacity for inspiration

Leaving pulp stories and the

Need for at least, a waning sweetness.

In a bruised blue rotation,
Like flashing machines, she/he’ll
Bounce bearings that ricochet
Off smart and tall, wry and small or
The Kennedy’s or Pinochet’s.

In a bruised blue rotation,
She/he’ll monitor revolution
And splash us with befuddlement
Down a steady drain for feeble attempts

To make light of the heaving
Click of sunrise turnstiles.

Or rather,
In a bruised blue rotation,
They’ll take the profound and holy
And wring it like a towel
Snapped without decorum
In a locker room.

–



–

letters
 

Recently, I visited the Del Mar fair with Carol, my lively neighbor.  (I don’t want to hear it.)  But beholding giant pumpkins and waddling sows, I won a stuffed bear for her.  We drank lemonade mixed with sweet tea and I enjoyed the conversation.  Sitting on bleachers, I really opened up.  I told her a fading story about you.

 

I still remember picking you up at Aunt Cathy’s and how my reception was strained with a weird mix of sympathy, disdain and condescension.  Of course, that may have been all in my head but in fact, it was a room of nervous smiles and I remember that you had grown and that my hands shook when I held your face.  Driving home, I remember looking at you sitting there in the front seat like a big girl and how I struggled to make you laugh; at that point, I was just a vague concept as two-dimensional as a colouring book.  I cycled through radio stations, looking for a song you might like.  I remember singing cartoon theme songs.  I remember the small thrill of hearing you hum quietly with me.

About nine months after your mother left, I took you to the carnival.  It was a rusty place and had come from far away, big trucks lugging rides and booths and elephants across state lines.  But to you it was gypsy magic.  We spent twenty dollars tossing rings, dead-set on winning you something.  It was the price of a dollar toy and the taste of victory in your eyes.  You were quiet for years but that night, you sat on my shoulders and you were bigger than me.  You ate buttery popcorn and reached down to feed me, one at a time.  You ate cotton candy to comb my hair with sticky fingers.  My eyes must have shined like diamonds for depth of feeling.  Do you remember getting tired?  So, we decided to sit on one last ride.  It was a classic Ferris wheel and we carefully waited our turn.  You were scared of the people around us with their cussing and spitting and pierced skin.  I put my hands on your shoulders and we shuffled our way to the front.  Seated safely, the gears began to crank and up we rose.  You were wide-eyed and silent; I smiled in your direction.  Sine and cosine, peak and trough, we took in the view.  At ground level was all the muck and mire and it was selfish, rowdy, indifferent and lewd.  But that night on the Ferris wheel, you held my arm tightly as we soared above the city, a man and his baby daughter and the lights of a world he wanted to give her.  

Darling, there are fisherman philosophers and there are hobos on a train.  And the lack of adventure can wear at you with insidious onset.  We rumble along in search of dreams, stopping for sandwiches and the camaraderie of fellow travelers.  It’s like the simple pleasure of sharing coffee from a thermos out near the engine on a frosty night.  Or alternately, like musing about the Lord and the hereafter over a load of argent scales and gaping mouths of tuna.  Or think of me sitting on the roof of a coal caboose, singing songs through the Great Plains, lost to the tatters in my clothes.  It wouldn’t last forever but for as long as I could, I piggy-backed you as far as you’d let me. 

On the way home, you slept.  I was very much alive, watching the road, catching the skyline, squinting to see street lamps blend into dreams of fire – orange and red, gold and silver.  

—



may the rope break (goya)


—

Let’s go diving!  But first, kayaking.  And sleep.

—

Shoot, it’s thundering pretty fierce right now.  The weather here is strange.  For one, it’s humid as heck.  I’ve got t-shirts still drying in the bathroom because after runs, they’re soaked through and through.  If I told you I jumped into the pool, you wouldn’t know any different.  But the days are hot.  It’ll storm over come lunch and the evening; in turn, you’ll see steam rise from aching asphault. 

—

I experienced hypoxic hypoxia yesterday.  It’s nature’s high altitude drug.  Yeah, man.

—

name game (cato’s take)  or more

for the gipper (per will)

political forgetfulness (said the spectator) 

selective memory = politics = gross (bleah)

red pavement! (warned Driver’s Ed)

you’re a lamo leader! (shouted the editors of La Stampa)

read: engaging.

disturbing

—

I literally swam through the rain during my run this afternoon.  I’m cold but I feel like Superman.  I don’t know if people were honking to cheer me on, to call me crazy or to draw attention to mustard on my nose.  But they were honking.

—

Yes!  YES.


how bazan!

—

hope

Afterwards we sat for a while discussing different matters. The hall was busy and everyone was chatting and laughing loud. They had Al-Jazeera on (something I never managed to convince them to stop doing). Then suddenly Mr. Bremer appeared on TV reading his last speech before he left Iraq. I approached the TV to listen carefully to the speech, as I expected it to be difficult in the midst of all that noise. To my surprise everyone stopped what they were doing and started watching as attentively as I was.

The speech was impressive and you could hear the sound of a needle if one had dropped it at that time. The most sensational moment was the end of the speech when Mr. Bremer used a famous Arab emotional poem.

The poem was for a famous Arab poet who said it while leaving Baghdad.
Al-Jazeera had put an interpreter who tried to translate even the Arabic poem which Mr. Bremer was telling in a fair Arabic! 

“Let this damned interpreter shut up. We want to hear what the man is saying.” One of my colloquies shouted. The scene was very touching that the guy sitting next to me (who used to sympathize with Muqtada) said, “He’s going to make me cry!”

Then he finished his speech by saying in Arabic,”A’ash Al-Iraq, A’ash Al-Iraq, A’ash Al-Iraq”! (Long live Iraq, long live Iraq, long live Iraq).  …

From a dentist in Iraq.

Matt11:28

blinkers in the rain

 

When she laughs at my jokes, I feel like Richard Pryor.  Back in his prime time glory days.  You know, back when he spearheaded the stand-up craze, punching out wry, crude observations, both quibbling and scathing in his take on the white man.  Moustache twitching, he prowled the stage with perfect timing and sublime pitch.  As a kid, I was shocked at the things he said and while the sexual humour was lost on me – for a time – I laughed nonetheless just to be a part, to feel older, to be wiser, to roll my eyes at all the supposed nonsense of living.  But I was just a dilettante to the dilettante; any probing would have shown as much.  But that’s how I learned to cuss.  And well, groomed as a church boy, it combined to make for something unexpected, charming and risible.  So I say.

 

But I was determined to marry her.  And some nights, I swear I saw it in the stars.  So it may surprise you to hear that the core of comedy is a good helping of disgust.  At the world in general.  At man’s stupidity.  At a woman’s dirty, flirty ways.  At political rhetoric.  At mass hysteria.  At the way two-ply toilet paper breaks apart too easily.  Or Laundromat conversations in Wisconsin.  There’s a keen eye at work; when it’s real, it’s a gift.  But there’s also a bit of sadness.  We’ve heard the story of the sad clown who’s seen a whole lot and yes, nobody knows what trouble.  There’s also an angry edge.  And don’t you hate it when.  Or don’t you hate it how.  See, I have a theory on human emotion.  When it comes to our controlled interactions, it’s all clearly defined; the boundaries are brightly demarcated, the orbits chiseled into place.  But when taken raw and pure, everything moves to a hidden center – if you’re inclined, call it the human heart – where all of our feelings blur into one tightly wound ball of something I’ll call a collective shout, roar or scream. 

 

I fought through hell – I mean, traffic – this morning and the 405 was a fuming mess.  I alternately rehearsed my opening monologue and sang along to K-Earth and Elvis.  Love me tender, love me sweet.  Well, it’s good to be here surrounded by beautiful LA people.  You have made my life complete and I love you so.  Needless to say, I spent hours on the road with the windows rolled down, arm hanging out the side.  I waved at the KCAL traffic copter.  I made it to Figueroa.

 

I do badly with imitations.  But nobody told me so back when I was in school.  It was amateur night – truly – out at some small coffee shop with a battered mic stand.   And there I was, trying to wax poetic, funny, and well-short of profound on the wiggly nature of male hormonal mystery.  She was so pretty.  She was hip too.  She was truly in the mode.  She was clearly out of place – she should’ve been out surfing with a hunky boyfriend or interning for some local commission or working on med school applications or whatever.  But there she was, this pretty, preppy girl with square glasses, shaking her shoulders, giving me lots of courtesy.  She was clean – that’s the word – she was clean and bright.  I segued into reminiscences of Peewee’s Playhouse and Sim-Sim-Salabim.  Man, it was stupid.

 

Life has taken a number of turns.  I’ve got talent.  I’ve got a mind ablaze.  When everything’s clicking, I can be winsome too.  I’ve taken risks though.  And they haven’t always paid off; so, life lesson two is that we all need a little luck.  It took me forever to find parking today; I circled the lot for at least half an hour.  Twice, a bastard lurker snuck into a spot of my patient choosing.  Eventually, I ended up wedging myself between a Hyundai Excel and a beat-up redneck – no offense – Ford truck.  Great.  Remember life lesson number two.  It’s also called a lesson in timing.

 

My observation: we’re all generally pretty dumb.  But stop, we’re not bad.  Original sin and whispering Satan notwithstanding, we’re still okay, if not good.  We want to laugh but few of us ever really do. 

 

I’ve kept my nerves at bay but now they’re twitching and sparking neural energy.  Tonight is the night of my big break.  It’s my first paid performance, an audition for a slot on the marquee.  It isn’t a large club and there won’t be many cameras.  But it’s something.  My dressing room is the first toilet stall with the door locked.  That’s where I put on funny shirts – tuxedo tops, layered above a chiseled-buff cartoon body, layered on a shirt of glow-in-the-dark skeletal remains.   Beneath, I’m just a twenty push-up guy with peach fuzz on his chest.  So I say.

 

They call my name and just like that, I’m under the lights; they’re hot like I want to be.  The AM radio ads must’ve done the trick because for a small joint, some folks are left standing and watching from the bar.  The audience is a mix of sleaze and money, cheap dates and condescending outlooks.  They’re drinking drinks that are worth more than my paltry day’s wages but I know enough about a range of social circles to play the part and to stare with knowing glances.  In tonight’s line-up, I’m really just a time-filler and in the first half, my jokes are received with tepid applause.  But during the second half of my set, everything comes together.  I won’t call it an epiphany – that cheapens the idea – but something about the way cigar smoke hit the glow of neon lights makes me forget about the pressure, and to let go of disappointment.  That’s life lesson three.  Maybe it’s the lady sitting alone in the back, sipping from a sudsy mug.  She reminds me of an old coffee shop and a bundle of bombing jibes.

 

By night’s end, I’m a little buzzed from sneaking beer and I’m relieved because things went well.  Still giving no rest for the weary, the 405 is no better than when I left it at fading daylight.  She calls me on her way to the hospital; I can imagine her dressed in her scrubs and smoking a Virginia Slim like she shouldn’t.  I let her know that I’ve landed a semi-permanent gig and ask if she needs anything from the store.  I tell her about the jokes that fizzled and about the manager’s packaged proposal.  She tells me about the crotchety men with bedsores and how Charles and Susan have invited us to their home Bible study.  I say I’ll think it over but I might feel awkward.  We’ll talk dolefully about it later.  But for now, I tell her about a frozen highway and how I see a smoggy night.

 

I’m but five miles from LAX and I’m caught staring at flashing lights, marking a path into the sky – people coming and going, running away or spotting home or maybe in pursuit of a dream.  Down pass the sounds of big Boeing, roaring above.  For a flashing moment, I see this Korean family dressed in seventies clothes, taking first steps onto the carpet of a new land.  Coming in, the boy must have been thrilled at the sight outside his window as his baby brother slept.  I think of all four of them holding hands, lost wide-eyed to the garble of noise. I think of them hunting for their bags and I want to ask the man how he felt.  Still crawling, hurting for real movement, I drive by the Howard Hughes Plaza with its gaudy modern design and garish blue sign.  Do you remember that time when we stuffed ourselves on Jody Maroni hotdogs while watching the Stanley Cup?  We were just friends then.  But of course, you knew my intentions.  Did you know I came this close to holding your hand?  Would I still love you if you were fat?  Well, hey, it depends.  And she knows I’m just teasing. 

 

There’s a light drizzle leaving specks on my window.  The smells of gasoline and burnt rubber waft through the car.  Latino tunes and gangsta rap mingle mutedly over the heat of our engines.  White knuckles grip wheels in frustration.  I blur with the sight of blinkers in the rain.

The phone is warm on my ears and it drops to the floor as I stomp hard on the brakes, punching obscenities at the semi in front of me.  Heart racing and a little flustered, I tell her what just happened and that everything’s okay.  Concerned, she listens.  I try to laugh it off and make a statement about LA drivers or senior citizens that I hope is witty, if a bit mean.  She’s quiet.  Strangely, she asks me to honk again.  And again.  And one more time.  I know she has a purpose to this and so I do.  With striking solemnity, she tells me to honk a song and everything will be okay. 

 

Yet, all I have is rhythm and a note: languorous wail, piss-mad rage, lickety-split excitement, peaceful pause, the steady tick of turning, the cough of the common cold, the rise and fall of an audience, and the sigh of loss or romance. 

 

But still, I try and I’m sure it angers the drivers around me but with every honk, I hear an eerie echoed response.  And so begins a flooding cacophony of horns, a modern melody for an electro-concrete age.  And then, she’s laughing.  Of course she’s laughing and it’s like music – I mean, a drug – to me.  Through the static, she laughs with so much life and hysteria and I’m bewildered as she calls out my name because there she is, the lights of a sky-blue Corolla flashing, horn honking feverishly in the night.  Somewhere in gridlock, I can see her!  She sees me!  She’s northbound across the meridian and she’s smiling, her tiny clean silhouette waving, giggling at me and my sleeping face.  And I’m laughing because this is the most wonderful thing in the world.

—

 

24th street intersection (w. thiebaud)

—

advice

There’s a hidden romance

Called failure that’s seldom
Afforded to the likes

Of you and me.

 

The starving artist,

The waiter/screenwriter

Seek appreciation right

Now in a world where

Emily Dickinson is admired for

Years spent writing

Of flowers and dusty years’ worth

Of cutesy banality.

 

You may know her

Better than me but
Tell her a little sun

And friendship

Could’ve done wonders.

—



two young people laughing at a man (goya)

—

“…five copies of The 3 E.P.’s by the Beta Band.”

—

Why do croutons come in airtight packages? It’s just stale bread to begin with.
- George Carlin

—

punchy: final point.

—

Lately, feelin’ groovy when I run.  Winding my way through tiny streets and marshy woods, I’m getting to know this corner of the world.  Everyday humanity comes by way of strangers splashing me as they quench lawns on hot days.  It helps you laugh through the quiet pain of distance.

—

yes

—

enjoying:


high

—

hehe

!!!  Matt11:28

World Book 

The first activity of the morning, even before brushing my teeth or shaving, is the unfolding of an ironing board.  In my small apartment, I’ve space for it in the hallway connecting my bedroom to the kitchen.  I own a nice suit and two simple shirts and every morning at least one of them is ironed to a crisp, cutting perfection.  Look at these creases!  Run your fingers along these lines and register the tickling, prickling feel of warm cotton; it’s fresh like these unwrapped mornings, tissue paper and ribbons thrown to the side.  On Christmas, do you tear open your gifts?  Or do you savor the moment with hot, painstaking anticipation?  Well, there in the hallway, I stand in the wide swath of shadow which is dawn and before the sun breaks hard over the horizon, the world is cool to the touch.

Eggs are cracked on the side of a pan.  As they scramble, I’m doubly careful with the smattering of grease.  The ham soaks in the remainder.  With buttered toast, I make a pretty spread, all wrapped neatly with cellophane.  It fogs with the smell and heat.

In bed, she is still sleeping, even as the sun begins its rise.  Standing silent at the window, I see her just past my reflection, her hair mussed, her curls covering her eyes.  She is wearing my school sweater and her breathing is sweet and light.  I straighten my tie and remember that we are young and how in our most private moments, I’ve told her all my dreams – not yet erstwhile but getting there.  I part my hair with precision and I am looking well.

They are listed from A to Z – World Book and Britannica, industry stalwarts who sneer at the new and modern.  But even they’ve been wise to jump into a binary clicking world.  But somewhere there is a market for this.  And aren’t I sincere in delivery?  Sweet in humour?  Aggressive but never pushy?  I believe that these books are worth reading.  I believe these tomes need a home on your shelves.  I believe that it’s better to read something on paper than on a screen.  So, I stare at my hardcover livelihood, each meticulously printed with gold foil on edges.  Zipped carefully in a carry-on bag, I roll them out the front door.  I am already starting to sweat.

I roam throughout the city, using a mental grid.  The rich won’t suffer to meet me.  The poor are simply suffering.  So, I search for a shrinking middle.  At worst, I can hook them on intellectual pretensions.  Even if they are ignored and seldom read, they will look nice on shelves.  At best, I can convince them that somewhere along the line, we’ve lost our inner bearing.  Our drive toward curiosity has been nibbled away by sound bites and trite proclamations.  And I might as well be selling pencils and paper, but how to convince people of the efficacy of words born of physical movement, hand to pencil, pencil to parchment, the beauty of script?  I sell heavy books instead.  If they’ll permit me an audience, I’ll show them the special benefits of tropical fish on glossy finish or the quaint drama of Alexander Hamilton’s life mapped out on two sheets of paper.  From the alpha to the omega, the beginning to end, one can possess so much on a fraction of wall space, nestled between aquariums, ferns and cable TV.  I’ll mention Gutenberg’s press and how we can all own symbols of what was once the common man’s dream, access and understanding.  Flesh on wood: I move from door to door and my knuckles are callused from the knocking.  In Portuguese, they mutter that I am high-falutin’.  In Polish, I must be plotting trouble.

For lunch, I eat an apple in the suburbs.  Ducks feed on crumbs floating down a stream.  Trophies turned chubby pass by.  With my daily luggage, I imagine I look like a businessman who has lost his way, miles from any airport.  Perhaps I’ve missed my plane.  Or perhaps I’ve no idea where I am going.  But of course, I am here, simply gathering my breath.  Yes, I will sell three sets today.  I will re-center my heart on God.  I will choose to be simple.  I will refuse to be shady.  I’ll find that goodness matters.  I’ll believe this is a winning formula somewhere.  The weather is getting humid and no manner of unbuttoning or repositioning can fix it.  So, I sit still and intentionally satisfied, watching the sun hit leaves or mallards bobbing in and out of the water.  But the humidity settles and moves like a drifting down comforter and it makes us sleepy.  It unravels my creases and softens the afternoon.  Does intent make for purpose or do we also need progress?  I wonder what she is doing right now.

I manage to find entrance with a retired couple and separately, an immigrant family just two weeks fresh.  I leave brochures and go on my way.  I call it laying the groundwork for empire.

She is sympathetic and doting when I return.  The doorway embrace is simple and clean.  I like her smell.  The clink of forks, knives, unbreakable plates and chuckling conversation follows.  I’ve found that with each passing day that turns into months that turns into years, the universe is expanding.  It’s one understanding of the physics of time and of two-flesh-turned-one.  The city looms higher, the boundaries stretch outward and the mental grid that guides me fades.  It’s like the Big Bang where we were at the center of some massive explosion and suddenly everything went and became so much more than just us hoping and holding hands.  At the growing edges, like waves on sand, a cosmic reach was grasping and pulling, stretching past former limits.

In boxes, stacked to a garage ceiling, a gilded, illustrated alphabet gathers dust.  I open to the Puffer Fish who makes his way through all the currents, never truly able to grasp the depth and expanse of the sea.  When afraid, he puffs himself up to be bigger and more capable than he really is – like a smallish man swinging his fists, telling naysayers to back away.  Existence is timeless and moment-to-moment for a prickly creation.  Fascinated, I turn to Pizarro, the conquistador of things, big and remembered.  Hardship and a brutal climate decimated his troops but he trudged onward to take hold of the Incas.  He ransomed the life of a king for a room filled with gold and silver piled high.

It’s evening.  I’d like to tell her about the potential evolution of dreams, tied so deeply to the promises I’ve made her.  But we’re caught in the swell and undertow of what’s already been spoken; I find she is sleeping earlier and waking later.  And so, I watch reruns of Carson on cable and study the folds in her nightgown, mustering the ritual gumption to keep believing.  If I laugh, I’ll wake her; so instead, I smile broadly at Animal Hijinks and the Great Carsoni. 

Sleep carries us to the clean break of morning.  Compressed tightly, pushing at seams, the sun perpetually chases the horizon.  Deeply in love, pressing firmly, aching for small victories, I am making an omelet. 

—



Ike (1890-1969)

—

Natural Hunger

You cope with

Hobbes’ Wicked World

Unmoved by Pascal’s betting

Like a mouse sniffing the moon

          Under the eyes of an owl

          Loathe to move but for saucers staring.

A twiggy scamper

To the stealthy vibrato
Of Levi’s beating wings.

—



inquisition scene (goya)

—

The History of War Images  Perspective all around.

It’s a short, concise, neutral read.  Blame all around.

The Best Job in Sports.  Cheetos, a seat on the bench and a million bucks all around.

—

NAJAF, Iraq, April 2– In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne Division who marched into town today. What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring? “Democracy,” the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. “Whiskey. And sexy!” 
(New York Times)

—

Is there a difference?

—

Life is good. / Yeah, it is.

—

Yo:


in the walls

 

!!!   Matt11:28

the cave dwellers

 

Running the silt
Through yielding mesh,

We find traces

Of creatures prior.

He was traipsing
Like a philanderer
Kissing bosoms
Along the way.

      She was tapping

      Like a prospector

      Cupping her ear

      To the wall.
 

            He was snapping

            Like a mesmerizer

            Waking partners

            With a drunken start.

She was chasing

Like the loyal do

Posting flyers

With a chisel.

 

       He was conjuring

       Like a tart jester

       Juggling his insults

       With composure.

 

             She was insisting

             Like an investor

             Co-signing her faith

             To the birds.

And they settle -

These bits of bone and silica -  

Stalagmites crashing,

Belly collapsing,

    
A buried breathing revealing

Two means to one substance.

—



market day (gaugin)

—



—

a non-rabid, thoughtful debate.  jump right in!  

the dude was Kim Jong Il’s cook.

bowden on interrogation circa Oct2003. 

stop pointing fingers, please.  hindsight is…

—

You choose to enjoy each day.

—

Fun Fun Fun:

… a ghost

Matt11:28

my creation

 

If I touch my tie and place my index
                             Near the dimple,

If I raise my hand and touch my lobe

                          Where I am simple,

If I bend my legs and hear my knees

               Crack like saturnine plaster,
If I give a start and shake your shoulders

                       For niggling the alabaster,

If I lock my eyes and watch the corner

                  Meters from a given right,

If I wrench your attention and covet its warmth

                                I’ll savor it like sunlight.

 

If I flex my arms and watch these lines

                       Form a vengeful queue,
If I yawn and stretch

      Like a portly lion,

      The hellcat still cheers you.

—



man sitting, back view (w. thiebaud)

—



—

 

We’re truckin’.

 

—

disconcerting

The Pickering debate shows the ugliness of politickin’:
Here’s the 60 Minutes investigation. Regardless of party affiliation, isn’t it an ugly thing?  Reading what’s been said about him on the Senate floor and in the NYT op-ed page, you’d get the idea that he’s a good ol’ boy straight out of Hazzard.  But by all up-close accounts, he’s been a fair, racially progressive (notably so) advocate/judge. 

Good men get chewed up in the Beltway. 

—

always good:


achtung

! Matt11:28

steadfast in a torrent of trouble

           

we are heroes

trapped to the

 

way that churns

out the luminescent and

transcendent sparkle which

 

is the human package –

 

our hardness fleeting, sent sprawling

swift across the kitchen tile

like ice on a hot afternoon where

 

pinky stirring,

He drinks sweet tea
but even sugar has a casualty.

—

study of heads (GA Burrini)

—

Man, time flies.

Matt11:28

together

 

Bitten by the thick Roman jaws of a gristly conductor, a hollow tin whistle signaled you were late.  It was a cold afternoon as you made your way through a gelatinous mass of tired folk – each man and woman lost to the slow-moving, thick nature of a late city afternoon.  You leapt down the stairs while jostling cups of steaming coffee and knocked loose those sandwich crumbs drenched with buttery racing emotion. 

 

Pardon you?

 

Cutting through the crowd, you made it to the turnstiles, funneled into a hypnotic string of spinning clicks.  Echoing through a grey, fluorescent hallway, a voice declared a missing child.  You imagined him wandering in search of his mother, bewildered and confused by the simultaneous blur of familiar and unfamiliar.  Each component was nothing new: a knee, a hemline, a khaki pleat, a gold watch, a spit-shined shoe.  Or the sounds of feet shuffling, ladies coughing, teens laughing, hollow treble beats spilling heavy metal through headphones.  In pieces, is anything novel?  But thrown together into one collective sweaty, breathing, ebbing whole, he was crying.  Without his father, each part was a stranger, every color was a new blue, an exotic red; nothing was really the same. 

 

They were on their way to a hockey game.

 

You made it into the open, flanked by lockers.  Down to his chest, his beard covered a tie-dye shirt, his odor waking the dead.  Behind you, he fumbled with his key and eyes darting furtively, your backside was watched warily.  In your hurried passing, he opened the tiny door and took inventory of his possessions – an old suit, a spongy apple, a picture of the family he left behind.  He was a disenchanted patrician chasing Howard Hughes’ way, waiting for a ship to take him the distance.

 

You sprinted past the kiosk, feathered with fliers.  If you would’ve called a number, you might’ve lost weight.  One woman lost over fifty pounds by eating cardboard baked with milk.  You can buy a desk owned by a college student who spent nights on his balcony, head dancing to cannibis fumes.  You could’ve found a missing poodle and called her weepy owner – the one who’d hit him whenever he peed and who’d love him when she’d get home from work.  But for change and your hurry, you could’ve paid for a sultry, longing message, spoken by a middle-aged mother of four.  You could’ve consolidated your debts.

 

But you were caught in a current of people, pounding tiles and pavement, watching the clock.  Time was just a reference point, loosely anchoring us to the same numbers; history, though broken in pieces, was something that all of us could share. 

 

The sound of steam and cranking gears and the train was on its way.  And there you were in pursuit, swinging your briefcase, bright happy half-Windsor flapping dots in a coal-chemical wind.  Gathering speed, earning an unstoppable momentum, it wasn’t aware of your effort.  Windowed boxes were lined toward the horizon, towed by so many horses.  So, you tiptoed your way along the precipice, pumping your knees.  You leapt and caught the railing of the caboose, your left Florsheim tumbling to the tracks.  You tossed the other to be found together, an invisible gesture.

 

They were standing in the aisle, people struggling with heavy or lopsided baggage.  You wound your way through a gauntlet of elbows and swinging hips – a little bit of human contact.  Around you, some were nodding to sleep or their eyes were fixed to the floor.

 

Ahem.

Outside, the moving landscape offered prosy images of a sprawling city: billboards for the fizz we drink, the machines we buy, the women we love.  Gaunt and mangy, a dog meandered happily in the warm wake of a locomotive.  He weaved in sloppy rhythms, smelling pastries wafting from the kitchen car.

Shoeless, you bumped knees, looking for a plot of your own, fenced off by the breathing and thinking and hoping of the people around you.

 

You committed yourself to aisle thirty-one and dark hair tucked behind her ears, she was humming the gospel, pretty with folded hands.  Your emphysema lungs had you coughing and she was nudged, learned eyes sweetly aware of movement. 

 

Pardon me.

 

—



Hill Street (Day City) – Wayne Thiebaud

—

 

–

The fuel for the sports fan is the ability to have private theories.
(Jack Nicholson)

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
(George Carlin)

–

Supermodel

 

What’s it like

Being pretty.

 

Now, granted

There are stereotypes
But really, men

Are like women.

 

They just

Want

To fall

    In love.

 

You cry at the movies

But beneath our bluster
We’re crying too
  But for the supermodel.

–

The purpose of having ideologically segregated airlines is obvious. For the past few years we have been happily hiving ourselves off into self-congratulatory reinforcement groups. None of us should be forced to fly with the lying, cheating, vicious dirtballs who make up the other side.
(David Brooks, “Fly the Partisan Skies“)

–

Listening to:


continuous hit music

–

Today

! Matt11:28

runway

Rotating so quickly, each blade was nothing but one flash in a collective sucking blur.  Six fat engines were heaving us from one end of the ocean to the other and taking a peek out the window, I was amazed by the amount of blue out there.  The world amounts to varying shades of it, if you follow.  Above the horizon – where we were – it was light and sweet, emblazoned with the illuminating sheen of sun, both hot and constant.  Below the horizon, it was a choppy dark beast, sprinkled with the white-capped splashing of mountains crashing.  Feeling the mix of cold air and hot rays, looking at the frigid water below, the moment was really just a study in contrasts.

It’s rife with it.  Don’t say the world is without feeling.

My thick cowhide jacket was buttoned to my Adam’s apple, undulating with yelling words spit into the intercom.  We were taking a roundabout way and with the shaved nub of a graphite pencil, I drew a circle over each destination, marked only by the crossing lines of a map, not by any landmark in a world distinct only for gradations of blue.

The rumble of the engine was throbbing in my ears and considering that we had so many nautical miles to go, I climbed into the belly of our beautiful metal monster.  We had all these gifts to give and there they were, lined up in a pretty stagger.  Making my way to the rear, I told my bud to move because there wouldn’t be much action for awhile.  In his seat, still warm, I planted myself in the bubbled canopy of a floating piece of a bickering world.

Sitting there in the bubble, I pulled my sheepskin cap low over my ears and felt the warmth of moist breath clash with the biting sting of naked, uncivilized air.  There were brassy shells rolling around from a practice burst an hour prior; they looked like hollow jewels cooling from a violent combustion. 

We pushed on through the altitude.  I spent time looking down through the thick glass at a place that was quickly lost to me.  I was floating as the surface zoomed below, leaving a lot of things behind.

I think what’s real is defined by what we remember and truly know.  Those are the building blocks for making sense.

That’s my seat; it’s gonna get jumpy.  Soon.

So, I made my way back, touching bombs for balance; they were cold and in all the shaking, they let off the sounds of dense metal tapping. 

Then, we were past the coast and looking down, I could make out quaint hamlets.  From below, they could make out an ominous cloud of bombers, followed by slow, fading contrails.  If I were a child, limited in my take of the world, I’d run outside and wave us onward.  Go!  I might even give chase, running past the main gate, around the village well, through my grandparent’s garden and out onto an open purple field.  I’d wave as these birds made their way across the mountains. 

The intercom had us trembling at the ready as we bunched ourselves in a tighter formation, hoping our guns would cross each other like a cast net.  Meanwhile, puffs of black smoke sprouted around us, popping steadily like a darkening springtime.  We could hear metal punching metal and through new holes, I saw sunlight reaching my shoulders.

We neared our turning point and I stuck my head into the scope.  Through the flak and buzz, I saw the outskirts of the city and as the planes came to rush us, the rank smokestacks of paper mills.  Paper is born out of the pungent blend of wood pulp and chemicals, a smell so strong as to leave you nauseated.  It’s a wonder that men will wake everyday to coat themselves with the stench of it all; there were men working diligently that day and they’d come home to wives who wouldn’t mind the taste.

The doors were open and I put my hand to the lever.  I remembered the photographs, learned to every detail, and as best I could, I waited for the right time.

With a click, we heard a loud thud and they fell out the bay in a steady chain.  If our shadows reached so low, you’d have known that they fell chasing our silhouettes.  If I were a child, maybe I would have willed myself over those mountains.  Maybe I’d run with all the imagination and rapture of knowing the simplest corners of life’s splendor.  Holding my breath at the smell of the mills, I’d giggle to run and catch what fell.  Catching my breath, arms outstretched, staring, I’d hear the whistling and be surprised that it was so unkind.

With the enemy swirling and diving, we flew a straight uncompromising line and the world gathered to throw everything at us.  Still dripping frustration, the kitchen sink hit our asses and we were shaking so hard then.  I yelled; everyone was yelling.  Outside, I saw flashes of orange, bright red.

Simultaneously turning and descending, faster and faster, we hoped to make it back to the ocean. 

Following a moment of realization, we were quiet, nothing higher than a whisper.  Okay, here’s the skinny: the world is right there outside your door and each day, you decide if you’ll turn the handle and face the morning’s reveille of sun.  Strain your eyes like I did.  You’ll likely see me and my friends in a dark cluster, one piece breaking off in a plunging trail of dark smoke. 

Well, it’s a finicky world too and it never sticks with one decision.  Win today, lose tomorrow; make it today, fall short when you least expect it.  It’s a humiliating principle.

No, it’s humbling.

With the engines biting hard and with a screaming pitch, the world was a big vibration and nothing stayed in its place, including me.  Maps, pencils, guns and bombs, even the centerfold on our pock-marked nose, all eaten by the inertia of a coughing metal monster, tumbling toward a darker blue.

–

 

–

catalog

Living life like that

Is like living in the city

Surrounded by the dense glory

Of everything you wanted to be.

 

Curlers burning

Your hours spent alone

Struggling with your tie

Knotted up as a substitute

For the actions of being 
Ready to go.

–

the dog (Goya)

–

I need to sleep more.  It’s beautiful out here.  Sometimes balmy, sometimes breezy.

–

Weekend Tunes:


yep

–

Here’s a way to criticize without (grandstanding) rhetoric. 

Brooks is good.  This guy too.  Louis Vuitton luggage.

Hmm 

Not pretty

 Matt11:28

cycling makes a way

Liu Xian steps outside and shakes his feet, each in turn, whipping the sleep out of him.  It is animation found in the concrete Communist confines of his backyard draped by a grey sky.  He breathes, taking in the smell of his neighbor’s cooking, up early to sell fried squid in the marketplace.  Over the weak reception of a radio or maybe an old record, he buttons up his silk-blue jacket, running his hands over his sleeves, making them smooth and all to the rhythm and sound of a beautiful, tonal song.  State-sponsored, the song is yet like a trip thirty miles out into the countryside, rolling up and down in random places, little ditches staggered between subtle mounds.  He has a new Schwinn bike.  Walking it down narrow congested streets, he greets his neighbors and rings his bell, concerned and happy for his appearance.

 

There are puddles everywhere, glistening masses.  He walks carefully around them.

There is a pig in the window, hanging from his feet, ready to drop and handstand his way to the night’s banquet.  Ghostly and pink, the pig stares at the ground.  Sitting quietly, the butcher’s wife smiles, black teeth grinning, white hair tied tightly, held in place by a whittled chopstick.

 

Sleep leaves him and in a concrete Communist jungle, he’s wrapped up by a slew of tiny trucks pulling government goods and on the main street, a steady torrent of bikes, rusty and weighty.  He waits patiently and considers the baggage train of small-eyed people spitting, smoking, and making their way to work as assigned.

 

His thick black bottlecap glasses are the stuff of hip-cat dreams and he wipes them, holding them up to the clouds.  They are lightly smeared with the sediment of factory air.  His breath comes forth like a raspy whisper, coughed up sweet and intentional.

 

On his Schwinn, then.  He finds an opening and becomes one silk-blue blur in a collective grey of puffy winter coats.  Hi Liu.  Hi Teng.  Hi Chang.  Hi Chu. 

 

You look good and I do too.

 

As they ride, the pack thins out as friends and fellow journeymen make a way toward assigned places.  In their factories, they are making pieces of door handles, fake porcelain cups, stretched rubber shoes, and bullets for making a burgundy point.

 

He rides out of the city and on thin tires, skitters along the damp walkways flanked by rice and bended backs.  Humming the tonal song, he rides along a sparse industrial highway.  Working his way up the on-ramp, he feels the tires work their design.  Standing up and leaning forward, he grabs the ram’s horns and churns his legs.

 

On his Schwinn, then.  On the freeway.  He cruises down the middle-lane flanked by mountains and Soviet tanks, their turrets twisted off like bottlecaps and the generations of men lost with them. The smouldering is aged and gone and he marvels at a fading red star.  He juts a defying tongue and tastes the snow that shakes softly as it coats him with sharp delicate layers.  Dapper among billions, he is the only one there.  And then there.  And then there, hunched over the curved handles, fighting the unsteady grade of a mountain.

—

 

  

 

—

coal

Anvil taking it

Like a man,

Hammers start swinging

Because they can.

Miners are rising

At the start of day,
Pulling blinds
To know the weather.

 

The horizon is peeking
Reclining like a body
Hitting their knees

Like lunch pails.

 

Platform dropping

Tugging at shadows,
They’re craning their necks,
Remembering the beginning.

    It took the form
    Of a sliver of light.

Joking and smoking
Axes are grinding
For a puff of dust.

—

The Forge (F. Goya)

—

Ecclesiastes 11:7-8

Light is sweet,
  and it pleases the eye to see the
           sun.

—

I’d like to sleep in.  I nodded off just waiting for my toast today.  Click.  It would be cool if we could stop time.  It’s nice to stop and breathe.

—

listening to:


 let’s roll

 

 ! Matt11:28