north of it

drifted into form 

a pile of thought like snowflakes

that the cold crafted

with her hard fists
further and further 

into our minds

like blood 

like a golden glove

like a thing that we were given and never wanted.

here 

on the wings of the western

winds 

she wanders into visions;

rusty old vehicles

in vast heaps,
the wastelands of 

a field north of the river's bending.

those tired and retired tools

left behind from forgotten works 

done by dry and calloused hands

with weary faces 

on bitter and miserable days

like this one.

similies for lost boys

"like me," he said shrill,
as the shards of yesterday

baked into a pumpkin pie

leftover from Halloween Jack

seen in the dim light

you left behind with your

face-book-friends and Isabella.

i can't remember the

last time we were this lost,

like the being found 

on the curb

clenching brown bag

white knuckles telling tales
with blood for you and your two faces.

in a heartbeat all their own.

"like them," i replied dull,
as life in a suburban town
faked into minted coins

leftover from pity's politic
so as now to this day;
i cannot reply 

to lost boys.
I have confounded

the word for that love;

like a summer picnic,
in the plaid and rain.

like a weekend revival,
and a tent torn wind.

like a majestic bird of prey,
being struck by a truck at the crossroads.

four for Saturn's hours

i would rather golf
than paint for you
a clue
like a Haitian street
artist in sole-less
shoes.

i would rather shop
than fight for it
hard
like GSP with a sharp
ax kick to the solar
plexus.

i would rather shift
into the grey twilight
unaware
like a free spirited
nymph in a over dramatic
playonwords.

i would rather hate
a poem of mine
own
as Eeyore on
holiday in
Muscatine.

yet
(here i am and
not inspired.)

cardstock

Peacelovehopejoy arrived early for the holidays,
on the wings of a cold white envelope
sent regular mail for four dimes and six not quite copper pennies.
I turn to thank the good Lord for these fellowships,
the force of a life's work surmised on card stock.
And as I turn, I angle just right...
and I miss the air... and I hit a wall.
But I will thank Him nonetheless,
for faithcouragekindness and a second chance.

ology part un

The head and the soul, two travelers stuck in the same vessel.  Inseparable and completely unintelligible to each other.  I picture them sitting in a fancy leather apportioned train car.  They sit opposite on drab couches.  Unable to converse. One of them has a language of sorts but no voice, and the other speaks but only in wispy dry leaf crackle, in the smooth pale skin high on the inside of his lover's thigh, the full moon's reflection on a calm midnight lake, or fresh new socks on cold feet.

These strangers often agree, although they never know it.  More frequently they are grievously offended by that which the other loves.  So much so, that in a panic or rage one of them will try to leap from the train only to be violently hauled back to relative safety by the other, for neither could bear to go on alone.  Blackbird and bread.  Sand and cloud.  Element and ungent.  Earth and embrace.  No couple  has ever loved or hated as well as these intimate strangers.

Is it so strange?  When they come to a book of religion how can they proceed?  If one is thoroughly pleased the other most certainly is bound like Prometheus on the Rock.

When they meet another it is not one but two more that they must meet.  All four grasping and struggling to walk together and know even the simple truth about the other.  When they are intimate who touches who, and where?

I have no answer for this.  The strangers inside my train rumble slowly on.  They sit across from each other in a finely built and comfortable private car.  They watch. They wonder.  They wait.

Wurlitzer

I knew you well inside this house, and you allowed it all. You bore my foibles with grinning patience, and that grin, well, I tickled it.

I'll play a strange song today as we set out for our stroll. What do you know, the wind is joining right in, and the fog, too. The men on the rooftops are keeping time with their hammers. The girl with a bicycle is doing a dance. The man and his damn dog are writing their review, scathing and unamused. No one will read it.

They'll all just watch and try to discern. "Uprights for joyrides? Well, I never." Yet by we pass, me holding you up around corners, while you hold the note. Somehow, we're both succeeding, knowing each others' limits but not letting on to a single soul.

We'll likely never stroll these streets again, but... no, not now. Let's not know that right now. Let's make like it's old hat, this promenade. Here, how about that old tune, the one about old what's-her-face, in the good old key of E. A one and a two and a one two three -- red light. Driver, take a left.

Take us someplace nice, someplace with a story. Take us to the hideout of some old rum-running, moon-shining sonvabitch. Some forgotten piece of unimportant history.

Prop the doors for us, now, as we waltz in and clumsily amble down the narrow stairway. I know, Friend, that your legs aren't what they used to be. It's okay, we made it. Just rest here a while.

Single Take

This body of mine... I've only seen this thing through a glass dimly. Or on a screen, two-dimensionally. I've never, nor will I ever, have experienced it live, unfiltered, unpixelated, unprocessed.

You have, though. Sometimes you smile because you know I'm inside. I like that. Sometimes you don't. I understand that.

When you don't, is it because you can read as I do? Are you fluent in the language of surgical steel and yellow-ridged craniums? Can you make out the dichotomous standstill? Do they betray my secret struggle? They must.

Alright, then. I'll admit it. I don't know if I'm ready to put away childish things just yet. At times I come close, but stop short, asking, "Will I miss them when I only see them in pictures?"

Can you discern by these fingernails that I'm a worrier, like my mother? These nails have never seen what lies atop the fabled hill. They're confined to their little window, quarantined and allowed no further.

This mock-stubble, can you see it? (Step closer.) The clutter of my mind makes it hard to see the to-do list hanging on the back wall. Two or three weeks ago now I wrote "buy new razors" on that list.

I suppose you see right through these crooked spectacles, too? Okay, yes, like I said, I have a hard time keeping up with the detailed demands of daily life, so if I can pick them up, put the lens back in, bend the frame back into submission, then I can go another day yet without dooming them to the list. Task averted.

See how my left wrist doesn't tell me the time anymore? It just let's me go on and on until I happen by a clock and hear it say that I've lost the luxury of a leisurely pace. I can hear it now.

An abrupt end... unintentional, but fitting I suppose.

Confession

What am I doing here, you ask?
I've got no place left to go.

You want a confession?
Wrap your goulash around this.

I'm a murderer. I've pointed a revolver at another man's chin, cocked back the hammer, and pulled that heavy trigger until the hammer swung down and smashed into the blasting cap. I watched his face explode in slow motion, and I marveled at the lovely pattern his brains made on the powder blue wall behind him. He's still alive, but I'm a murderer all the same.

You want more?
Pull down your sequin sunglasses and take a gander at this.

I'm an adulterer. I've been in bed with hundreds of of different women in my life. I used her body, but she never saw mine. I degraded and humiliated her, and to top it all off these lovely ladies never knew my name or saw my face.

Are you sick of it yet?

I've cheated, lied, stolen, broken, beaten, coveted, slandered... I think you're starting to get the picture.

Why am I here on the bloody ground in front of this ancient torture device? I've got no other place left to go.

Never Sleep

Have you ever kept your eyes closed and allowed the sensation of a quite room fill your heart?

Breathe in the air, a mixed fragrance of stale body and fresh water flowing in through the cracked window. The blankets making it a bit claustrophobic and yet your feet sticking out of the bottom of your covers just enough to get to breathe and for your mind to be at ease. I could feel the bed head catching drafts of fresh air as it circled my room, and with my eyes closed I can almost see the swirling of air, that had been around me all night long as I slept, or at least for the few hours I actually was able to. The warm air rising and the cool air falling to the ground, fighting dancing overhead.

I opened my eye and could see the gray dull light illuminating almost from the walls, but originating from the dull light outside passing through the white blinds. But as each little breeze caught the shades, the orange of a rising sun sprinkled into the room it seemed like magic, that we get to experience the color, that we get to see those hues.

I went to bed anxious and I woke up anxious, my heart beating fast, or at least it felt like it. As I took my pulse I couldn’t even tell if it was beating at all. I threw off the blankets and sitting on the bed placed my feet on the ground. I could hear the cars passing by a few floors below my apartment; puddles splashing, sand and pebbles crunching. Maybe too some voices off in the distance, or maybe just distant TVs. I kept waking up to that gray light that bleeds in through the drapes. With the orange lines of light stretched across my floor and the sticky gross hot feeling from an anxious sleep. The feeling came from somewhere in my chest. I knew the fuel that feed it was in between my ears, but nothing could stop the flow you’d need to put the fire out. Both working in a synergy I could not control. I took a deep breathe and closed my eyes trying to remember to relax my shoulders and concentrate on the breathing maybe I could just calm myself down with the old tricks my mom taught me, but they hadn’t worked in years and I knew it would be temporary.

I rose and walked to my door, the head ache was horrible, and the pounding of my heart increased, somewhat arrhythmic, but after a few beats back to normal, though the pressure in my head did not subside. I opened the door. The blue light shown from above the sink, forcing me to squint. I stubbed my pinky toe on the door frame and swore under my breathe. As I walked to the bathroom, I couldn’t decide, do I pee with the light on or off, was I awake enough to not pee on the floor, or did I need the light? One of the toughest questions that early in the morning.

As I turned on the water and pulled the metal thing to start the shower, my eyes fell back to the mirror. I had one of those moments, where I could not tell if I looked my age or not, if I thought anything was looking back, or if I thought reflections in mirrors were of any reality at all or just mere color I was able to experience. And then I remembered...

Today was the day. “Oh Crap!” I thought the air missing from my lungs, my eyes bounced around the bathroom. I had totally forgotten, that this was the first day of the biggest adventure I would ever take. The beginning of foreign travels, of mistakes and successes and the making of some of the best friends I would have, yet I didn’t know that yet, and the “Oh crap!” that was from the realization that I hadn’t packed yet. But first I have to back up, first you have to understand how I got there, standing in front of that mirror a bit dehydrated, engulfed in that feeling of great expectation and utter fear.

* * *

The Germans Call It Fruehling

The world smells like dog poop these days.

Thawing preserves from Labrador walks and Terrier runs, creating obstacle courses for melting streams of snow and strollers. Mutt Mitts are shockingly neglected in the months around the winter solstice. Probably secretly. And bitterly.

The earth squishes. As if it's given up its grudge, finally caved in on that thing it said it wouldn't do. Like the time Jennifer Zawislak did invite Karly Kaneski to the birthday party, even though the fight happened on the bus and there hadn't been much talking or notes or phone calls since. And like Jennifer, the ground is breathing is easier for it. Things seem to fizz and pop, as the juices exchange.

Alarm clocks seem too slow, as we lean into the sunshine instead and swap out dark stumbles to sinks and toilets for liftings of window panes and bypasses of wool ensembles.

The melt ensues and the Germans call it Fruehling.

The hair hung in his face covering his eyes but there was no doubt. He wept. Not the soft, willowy crying of a man accustomed to control, but the the penetrating wailing of a man who has just encountered the robbery of death. Deep, heavy, chest heaving, dangerous tears, moans, and mucus erupting from his face.

There was no shame. His grief was private and public. He could have been the only one standing there and his sorrow would have looked no different than it did now as he was surrounded by bewildered, wanting people.

This was a brother. Not simply a friend with whom you meet for a beer and a laugh, but someone who had shared in pain, fear, joy, conflict, and pleasure. It was the kind of pain that I imagine a tree feels as it's limbs are shorn off. The tearing of the saw into the wood, the weight of the limb as it begins to creak and fall, and the deafening crash of it hitting the ground and splintering into pieces.

The emotions acted like waves, the next one crashing as soon as the one before had subsided.

But there was no bitterness in the sorrow. No anger. It was grief unencumbered by these other emotions. Just a pure steady drip of sorrow pouring into his veins and making it's way through his body. He wondered whether he had stopped just feeling the emotion and instead had become his sorrow, it wrapped itself so completely around and through him.

He felt all this even though, within moments, through his own actions, he would be reunited with him.

Late.
I worked at a summer camp on the construction crew. I don't really construct much. My boss was a guy who had made millions as a private contractor. He reminded us from time to time that we'd never make it in the industry- if we weren't working for a christian summer camp.
One morning he decided that we'd been late too often. We being Spev, Myself, Burley and Ben. He decided that he would start the truck at 6:59 and put it into drive at 7am sharp. The first morning we were early. The second morning found Ben and Burley running after the truck. Really this whole post could be about Burley- his name was a true oxymoron. At 5'10, 130 lbs Burley was anything but. He was not strong. He was not technically skilled. He was not big. He wore a fisherman's hat, sunblock everywhere and those clip on glasses that are designed to shade your eyes or be used as paddles if you find yourself mid-lake without one.

This post is not about Burley. It's about comparison.

I always thought I was fine if I was better than the guy next to me. I wasn't that late if I was there at 7:03 as long as Burley and Ben were there at 7:05 or 7:20 as often the case was. My boss leveled the field. He put the truck into drive at 7am. If you were late you were late- not a little less late than so-and-so. Check yourself. It's only you. It's only me.

So, I write this, at 12:43. Trying to catch the truck.

RSVP Ignored

I can imagine their wedding dance. My mom in her starched, 


lacey-white, matrimonial cowboy hat and my dad keeping


a beat with only the occasional squat and sway of his 
gray,

tuxed hips. And while they maybe two-stepped to a little 
John Denver,

a corsaged Aunt Kathy held post at 
the guestbook - the one with the

enormous plumed pen that 
ran out of ink somewhere between

Great Uncle Leonard and a 
surname of Lundgren.

Did someone scratch my name 
down in those gray, embossed pages?

I was there, too. I was there humming along to “Country Roads”

and feeling 
the waltzing chafe of Grandpa Shermer’s midsection

as he 
shuffled through a dollar’s worth of dance.

Between twirls 
and dips on chipped, church linoleum and

niceties with the 
horn-rimmed organist, I, too blushed at the

joke repertoire coming from 
Uncle George and

other schnockered uncles circling 
near the cake. Preludes of

“a guy walks into a bar” and 
“one man says to another man”

were met with slaps on suited knees, a swallow of Grain Belt and

bites of marble cake smothered 
in white-ish frosting.

And with each punch line, I made myself more at home in the first trimester. 



I hope Mom sipped a Grain Belt that night.


I hope her dress was cinched tight around her waist.


I hope that they had no idea I was there, hiding 


somewhere between her bladder and spleen, already


developing a taste for dancing around in dresses.

beauty

beauty.

There are things that are so beautiful to me that I have a hard time thinking about them coherently. My daughter's eyes are deep blue pools of mystery. Maybe you didn't know that. Now you know.

She looks up straight into my eyes from her 30'' post and time doesn't stand still so much as become warped and strange. I see in the deep blue of her eyes tremendous courage, and not just grit your teeth courage, but the courage that literally laughs at danger. She has the courage to roll right off the changing table without flinching, crawl out of her high-chair and across the table without the slightest hesitation. Her baths are not so much about cleanliness as they are opportunities to plunge her own face beneath the water repeatedly just for the wet splashy fun of it. In her eyes there is total wonder and amazement for every new thing. When was the last time you were in total wonder and amazement?

The love she expresses to me in a simple look is tangible. I can choose to sit passively in the room with it like a fat guy in a recliner sits with his TV thinking about cracking open another Grain Belt, or I can take it in and savor it like one of Trevor's amazingly feckless caramel rolls that dance around your mouth like sensual Russian dancers until they collapses from pleasure, fall, and slide down your throat into your gullet.

I used to sit in the room with Love. Love used to bounce tennis balls off of my head just to get me to look away from the asinine computer games. Love used to kick at my shins and call me silly names just to get me to crack a smile, but I mostly ignored it. I even thought Love was driving my dick into a woman as hard and frequently as possible. It's not, by the way.

You can sit in the same room with Love for years, and I did until Love dunked me under the water so deep that I forgot my self loathing. I forgot my insecurity. Shame. Guilt. Inadequacy. I forgot my daddy issues and addictions. Love held me under the water thrashing and dieing until I forgot to not breathe, and came up choking, screaming, mostly dead, and totally clean.

My daughters eyes are pools of mystery. With her eyes she gives me an almost ceaseless stream of love. I don't just sit in the room with it. I take it in, savor it, and let it swirl around inside of me. My daughters eyes are deep blue pools of mystery. Maybe you didn't know that.

Now you know.