caveat emptor

Questions and an Answer

Have you noticed that all the birds fly away when you approach? It's a crowded sidewalk café and you're meeting your friends. There are birds on the utility wires, birds on the low roof's edge, birds pecking precariously among the feet around the tables. As you round the corner they all stop what they're doing, spring into that whip-snap readiness of muscle, prepared to light out. When you are close, within a few yards, they all leave in a startling flurry of wings. Are they afraid? Have you noticed this? Does it concern you? How do you explain it?

One thing is certain: It's a hot, pressed ham and cheese sandwich with fresh tomato. In tetã Paraguái we called it a "mixto caliente." "Sándwich de jamón y queso con tomate fresco a la plancha." If you eat it with a cup of hot tomato basil soup and a cup of black coffee, it will make you a better person for several hours. I cannot prove this, of course, but neither can you disprove it. Leave out the ham if you're haunted by piggy faces. It will still be wonderful. The secret is in the deliciousness and also the inherent virtue. Sometimes the answers to life's persistent questions are simpler than we imagine.

Lights flicker when you get close to them, especially when you're alone. Cats watch you pass, their hackles raising slightly. Second hands slow down on analog watches. Do you even realize these things? What do you suppose they mean?

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

The Creature That Feels All the Feelings in the World

Walking slowly along a winding dirt road in cow pasture country, drainage ditches and barbed wire fences snaking along beside the road on both sides, he concentrates in silence upon the dryness of mouth, sticky against his tongue and teeth. There is water in his shoulder bag, but he's being cautious. He's always being cautious in his way, like his father taught him. When old farm trucks pass by they give him wide berth, but none have stopped to offer him a ride. Maybe his Mexican skin is too dark for their tastes. Maybe they are just being cautious in their ways, like their fathers taught them. It's the kind of warm afternoon that lends a surreal quality to the clicking whir of cicadas and the fitful flitting of dragonflies. Butterflies wander from wildflower to wildflower under the watchful kind eyes of light brown dairy cows chewing eternally as they ponder the philosophy of the fields. The rough crunch of rocks over the hill just behind tells of the farm truck approaching. Caution wells up in his muscles and down into his flexing fingers.

Deep down in the darkest depths of the ocean, the creature that feels all the feelings in the world vibrates softly to soothe itself in the cold press of so much water. The bliss of joy and the sting of sorrow wash and slash over it in violent waves and it undulates unevenly, trying to feel it all. Fear and anger and envy and true love, betrayal and pride, hope and despair, the creature's tentacles claw at the soft mud and wave in the fronds of strange deep water plants. It is the last of its kind, possibly the only one ever. For as long as it can remember it has been here, confused and enlightened and completely alone in its dark communion with every soul and mind everywhere on the planet.

"They's sandwiches in that bag," the old farmer says lippy around his tooth. His skin is like wadded butcher paper, wrinkled more than you can imagine, Caucasian browned by the worker sun. "I make 'em case I get hungry. I ain't said they're good, but there they are if you're hungry."

"Thank you," he says. He's not hungry, but he was taught to accept food when it was offered. He opens the bag and fishes out a half sandwich in a plastic bag, baloney and mayo on white bread cut diagonally. Not his favorite, but it was fine.

"Warm," the old farmer says. "Caliente," he adds, with a strong accent and a wink. "I know a little Spanish. My daddy could talk Spanish. Learned it workin' the harvest down near the border."

It isn't really correct, but he smiles at the old farmer and nods. The truck passes roughly over the dirt road heading for the small town just ahead. He chews slowly on a bit of the sandwich. It is August 1974.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

It Culminates in Mundane Awe

In the noise and tumult, out among the glory and violence, fire and smoke on the hallowed war plain where wages the epic battle that will, in blood and power, decide the doom or victory of all life, every soul and heart, evil and good, you have looked down and noticed that your shoe is untied. What you do at this point will define the pivotal moment in all history, turn the tide of fate. Somewhere high above, far away past the skies where winged warriors clash in fear, hope and rage, gods look down from their own holy struggles to see how it will go. Your shoe is untied at the crux of cosmic destiny. Your heart beats once in your ears like thunder. Time holds its breath at you. Your shoe is untied. Choose wisely.

Hello, friends. I like to believe you’re well. I hope it’s true, in the end.

Later. Love.

Rambling Solipsism and Culture Clash

It might be easier to believe that we are each the only thing that is real in our world than to imagine that we are, somehow, all seeing the same things so differently. I don't remember building this planet, painting all these houses, planting all these trees, but I am the only one in the universe, so it must have been me, right? Does it bother you to be imaginary in my world? Does it ever occur to you, when I'm not around, that nothing that you do matters? Does that make it hard to be motivated? If so, I apologize. For this too, I must be responsible. Welcome to my world. I'll try to make it as bearable as possible for you.

In New Mexico I didn't see many hawks, but I saw a lot of large ravens. They were everywhere. And mountains, lots of those too. It has led me to this theory: When you combine a raven with a mountain, you get a hawk. It's not a very good theory, mind you. It's just a working theory. I haven't been able to prove it yet. Yet.

What in the world are we to do in a world like this? Crazed gunmen and Golden Globes. Reality television and harsh winters. Top Chef and Sarah Palin. And somewhere, deep in the forest, Bigfoot is hiding from cameras, wishing he were more photogenic and not so terribly shy. He's listening to country music on an old crank-powered radio he found in the woods. He doesn't like country music, but it's the only thing you can get out here. Later in the evening he tries to live-tweet a meteor shower, but the Fail Whale keeps coming up, so he gets drunk and falls asleep at the edge of a small, murky pond. Plus everyone likes sports and I don't. What kind of world have I made for myself?

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Tabulum Terribulum XVIII

When all the fads die out, when all the trends stop trending, the collective soul of humanity will sigh in sweet relief. I don’t know if it’s true, but I know the blinding glare of driving directly into the bright sun. And I’m too tall to use the sun visor. It blocks my view of traffic. And I cannot bear to wear shades. It makes me feel stupid. So, I squint and I crash into things. What else can I do? I’m a man of few resources thrown into the confusing maelstrom of this sophisticated world. Robots press the letter “m” onto thousands of little M&M candies every minute. It would take me several minutes to do just one, and I’d probably mess up quite a few in the process. And I couldn’t even eat the rejects because I’ve got the diabetes. Do you ever worry that the robots will overthrow us and fill the entire world with M&M candies? That they will stamp little a little “m” all over everything? What if they stamp an “m” on your private parts? How would you explain that to your girlfriend or boyfriend? “I swear, I didn’t even know that robot! It meant nothing to me!” Still, we domesticate animals and take them as pets. We put little lizards in jars and pretend we can own them. I’d hate to be a lizard in a jar, but I’d hate even worse to be a jar. Think about it. I don’t know.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

What the Germans Call Wanderlustenschnitzel

Do you prefer this or that? What I mean is, are you a defender or an explorer? Do you prefer the here, the now, the this? Or, do you prefer the there, the then, the that? I’m definitely an explorer, a wanderer. Only one of my children is like me in this. She always wants to go. The other two often want to just stay, to do what they do in the place they are doing it, the place where they do such things. Not us, me and her, we like to go. No place is better than someplace else. That’s our motto.

I travel in circles, never coming back the same way I went. In my mind, I picture the paths traced by my regular routes, jagged, flattened, crooked scribbles looping staggeringly all over the city. They all come back home, like the pattern of a Spirograph, circling intricately around the hub of my world. Some people never close the loop. They wander away, their path more like a line than a circle, tracing no pattern whatsoever to the edge of the page and beyond. I’m not like that. My wanderlust is easily tricked into satisfaction by simple, cyclical journeys. I am more like the tree pushing roots out in every direction, exploring my soil. I am not the seed carried on the wind.

Don’t put one foot in front of the other, unless you’re on a tightrope, or taking a field sobriety test. For stability and poise, your steps should be spaced apart a bit. You don’t want your butt to wiggle back and forth like you’re one of those speed walkers. They look so silly walking like that. What was I talking about? Where was I going with this? I don’t know.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Blinking. Personifying Day and Night Again. Breathing.

I think I may have stopped blinking. I cannot remember blinking for the past several years. It doesn’t seem to be bothering me, so I guess it’s ok, but it just seems like a human should blink. Can you survive without blinking? Maybe I’m blinking and I just don’t notice it. I think, however, that I have become pathologically even-keeled. Nothing rocks my boat much, as it were. When I start to feel something, I release antibodies of ambivalence that remind my psyche that it doesn’t matter. Nothing that matters happens. Nothing that happens matters. Only this accord we share matters. My mind has become a complex network of stabilizers, governors and dampeners. We try to maintain a flat affect, as close to zero as possible. Feelings are converted into sighs and vented through the barest opening in my otherwise closed lips. And I have stopped blinking. I’m almost sure of it. I’m practicing not existing. Probably it’s just a phase.

The days are getting shorter as the winter approaches here in the Northern Hemisphere, Earth. The days are also getting fatter. And they are losing hair. The days are looking a little pale and puffy, not at all well. The days should probably join a health club and make a will. Each passing day is shorter and more sickly than the next. I’m worried about the days. The nights, however, are looking good. Long and lithe. Stunning. Remember, people: We are responsible for our own personification. The days and nights are not really people. I’m just talking. Personifying and whatnot. I hope I haven’t hurt the days feelings. I hope I haven’t given the nights the wrong impression.

I’ve taken up this breathing exercise. I started it almost forty years ago. As long as you do it, you’ll never die. In and out. In and out. Breathe. It’s easy sometimes.

Hello, friends.

Later. Love.

Smaller Things

Smaller things:

• Infinity’s brother Wally
• The mountain that casts the shadow
• My left foot
• Your half of the cookie
• The Grinch’s former heart
• A Mexican in Norway
• The ambitions of the experienced
• Our junk in the pool
• The jeans I’m wearing today

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Dreaming as the Grass Grows

You’d be surprised how many ghosts do not believe in the afterlife. One would think this would be too preposterous a position to be widely held, but the dead are a pragmatic bunch, not given to whimsical notions of spirituality. “There is only life,” whispers the ghost. “Before that, nothing. After that, nothing.” Then I wake with a start and open my eyes to the midnight dark of the house. “What is it?” she asks from her side of the bed. “I was dreaming. Ghosts were whispering to me.” “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” she says. She’s pragmatic, not given to whimsical notions of spirituality. She drifts off before I do. She usually does.

Outside in the garden, imperceptibly slowly, the grass is growing. Grass wants, always, to take over the world. It never stops. It strains and struggles to grow. Its appetite for achievement is never satiated. Grass grows despotically in the garden and we hardly notice. We pay a company to trim it when it gets out of hand. Still it grows. It will never stop until all the world is grass.

She was commenting on the genius of waffles, the greatly increased surface area for delicious, crispy, brown crust. Butter doesn’t spread well on waffles, however. It gets caught in all the squares. It takes more butter to accomplish good coverage. I point this out to her but she is unmoved, unwavering regarding waffles. Un-waffling, as it were. Somewhere a coffee grinder starts and soon the smell reaches me, reminding me of every day of my life at the same time. Grandma made her own syrup when we had waffles. Who does this now? I wish I remembered the recipe. Holidays always make me miss Grandma. Then I wake with a start and it is almost morning. “What is it?” she asks from her side of the bed. “I was dreaming about waffles.” “You can’t have waffles,” she says. She’s right. The diabetes. She really is quite pragmatic.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Nightmare After Having Read Frost and Eaten Too Much

I went back to the yellow wood and found the place where those two roads diverged ages past. I was looking for the one less traveled by, the one that made all the difference. I couldn’t believe the changes. Hotels lines the lighted strip, restaurants and souvenir shops crammed between. Signs for the “Road Less Traveled Café” and “Yellow Wood Casino” blinked confusedly above the loud traffic. Shady salesman hocked T-shirts from street-side stands. I understood, as I stood there, the danger of telling the story, the awful cost of someone hearing the heart’s tale. And then, forgotten and neglected in some back parking lot, behind a dumpster overflowing with uneaten plenty, I found the head of that other path, the former road more traveled by, grassy and wanting wear, as it were. And, knowing now more fully how way leads to way, I took the forgotten road happily away from all the difference.

I dwelt for a summer in college in possibility, a fairer house – or so I’d heard – than prose. It was a lovely place, what with the chambers and the doors and windows, the gambrels of the sky and all. Not so lovely as a tree, however. I’d not compare it to a summer’s day. Still, I thought to live there might be a bliss, if I would dare to try. On that broad porch I sat with you in the brillig morning, watching the fog come in on little cat feet, counting the ways I loved thee, the slithy toves gyring and gimbling in the faraway wabe. In the evenings we sat around the burning of the angelheaded hipsters and toasted the best minds of our generation. And at night, weaned from our timidity in the flush of love’s light, we stepped out of our bodies and broke into blossom.

Roses are red. Violets are blue. Some tales are lies. This one is true.

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well. Please do not betray this sacred trust.

Later. Love.

Geekonomics

All the faerie folk have gotten office jobs. You have to in this economy. There’s no money in frolicking these days. There’s the nest egg to think about. And sure, most faeries don’t grow old, but you can never be too careful. Right? Is that right? People say, “You can never be too careful,” but I’m starting to wonder. Faeries weren’t meant to wear business casual, to have phone skills, to talk about network television sitcoms around the water cooler. Faeries should be enchanting and seducing weary travelers, fools who stumble unaware into the mushroom ring. Faeries should not have financial advisors or retirement accounts. You cannot pay the teind with stock options. Could it be that they’re being too careful? Shouldn’t faeries be carefree? And then there is you and there is me. Should we run away from all of this? How long has it been since we danced naked in the forest, sipped nectar wine in the Hall of the Autumn King under Ben Sheann? Where is the whimsy in our arcane life? Take my hand and we’ll wander away. You can be too careful, you know. I’ve decided that you can.

I noticed, just the other day, that all my shoes are very sensible. I have, as far as I can tell, no whimsical shoes. How can I hope to walk fantastical paths of wonder in such serious shoes? And so, I’ve got in mind to buy myself some playful shoes. I’m not at all sure where one acquires such things. Will they be slippers, sneakers, boots? Sandals? Flip flops? Cross trainers? These all sound so mundane, so very practical. Maybe I should just walk barefoot into whimsy. I wonder if it’s warm? I’d hate to catch a cold. Maybe I could wear socks. Wacky socks. Now I’m getting a little nervous about the whole thing. Perhaps I’m just not cut out for such silliness. Could be that I’m just a simple shoe guy.

Dragon I know got a job in a pizza oven on 4th Street. They make a good pie. Perfect crust. People ask, “What’s the secret?” “It’s in the oven,” says Tony. (He’s talking about the dragon.)

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Images Related in Some Way I Cannot Discern

The first human garden wasn’t very good. Primitive men and women of the nascent species gathered sticks and stone together and scattered them ramshackle across a rocky patch of uneven ground. Pride swelled in their hearts at this, their garden, and they made pretend gods and danced naked in front of them. By the next day, when they woke up, they had forgotten where the garden was. They had lost their gods and had to make new ones, but first they had to eat, to breed, to survive. Others gardens came and went, growing better and more sophisticated. Men learned to carry their gods in the brains and hearts, to plant seeds in the soil and grow the plants they liked to see in the places they liked to see them. That first garden was lost to the vast forgetfulness of everything that fails to become history, but that’s okay. It really wasn’t very good at all.

He sits on the lawn at the city park with food getting old around him on the blanket. He knows, by now, that she isn’t coming. Still he sits for a while longer, gazing out at the swans roaming the surface of the duck pond. Cattails sway in the wind and turtles crawl clumsily out onto the bank and then skitter back with small sloshing sounds at any hint of danger, a car horn, a soft breeze, the idea of dying. It was almost evening when he grabbed the four corners of the blanket, hefted it like  bindle and tossed the whole business into the trashcan. He walked off, hands in pockets, and wandered to a favorite pizza place a few blocks away. He had a slice and three glasses of cabernet. That night he dreamed of floating quietly with swans all around. He dreamed that she was waiting on the blanket, but he just floated there with the silent swans.

A primitive man is supposed to be hunting, supposed to be providing for the tribe, but he is hiding in a cave painting animals on the wall. He has been blue because he likes the girl with the dark mark on her shoulder, the one that runs like a deer, but she has been taken by a bigger man. He really wanted to be her mate, to lie with her at night and to have her smile at him and to have her make him the shoes she made for the other man, the bigger man. They weren’t very good shoes, not as good as his own. They fell apart the first day the big man wore them. Nevertheless, he wants those shoes and that marked shoulder. He sits in the cave, when he should be hunting, and paints a woman standing with a small man. He paints a big man being eaten by an animal.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Topless, Burrow and Flight

I love to see the stars at night, so I’ve never been a ceiling fan. I’ve never supported roofs. Nothing tops a roofless house, in my opinion. Some people are afraid that the elements might fall on them, but I think they are too sheltered. How can you understand the sky unless you stand under the sky? The ceiling is a lie, and nighttime is a time for truth. You should never lie in bed. Toss off the covers all the way up to outer space and let the stars see you. You might want to keep an umbrella handy.

At night, if I get cold, I always burrow. I use my teeth and claws to rip through the sheets and tear into the mattress bed frame. Then I pound and gnaw through the carpet, flooring and foundation until I reach to warm, moist dirt. It gets easier after that. I dig quickly down twenty or thirty feet into the rocky soil. I always hollow out a small space at the bottom, just a bit bigger than my curled-up body ball, and I nestle down and sleep warm, safe and pleasantly dirty. The planet sings me to sleep and I dream primitive, hole-dweller dreams until the alarm clock blares far above.

I have this suspicion, deep in my bones, that I could fly if I just had sufficient motivation and enough time to get the knack. The way I figure, a jump from a really high place should provide just the right set of circumstances. I haven’t done it yet, because I would feel really foolish if it didn’t work. I just know, though, that it would work. I can feel it. Maybe today I’ll try it. Wish me luck.

Hello, friends. Keep your eyes on the skies.

Later. Love.

Taxonomic Classification and the Metroplex

Mountain people, desert people, people of the plains. Hill country people, beach people, people of the woods. Where I live we are no sort of people that I can name. We dwell in passability, a fairer house than…meh. Not flat, not really hilly. Embattled trees look more like survivors than victors. Fleeting green fading to yellows, oranges and browns. No mountains or seas. Stock ponds, reservoirs, creeks and majestic drainage easements. Sometimes dump trucks will pile gravel beside the road and, if you squint at the right time of the darkling evening, it’s like a mountain on the horizon. In our city we have a few of the worlds grandest traffic mix-masters, regal pillars elevating the glorified side roads against the blazing vastness of the Texas sky. We are an industry preserve, a last home for many endangered species of backhoe and grain elevator. Gas wells greet the morning with the churn of their mating dance, trying to woo the Earth’s crust. Hawks perch on microwave relay towers, gazing predation at the traffic below. And here we are, metroplex people. People of the offramp. Last remnant of a booming demographic.

If I open my lane to you, merge gently. Do not betray my trust, spurn my loving gift. Though I’ve been playing coy, I’ve see you there for a while, trying to coax me, to seduce me into spreading my lane so you can slide in front of me, lusting for me to yield to you the sweetness of my precious right of way. And your dance has done its job. Not too pushy, but not too tentative, which I hate. If I let you in, I want you to go hard, to get busy and do it right. I don’t want to end up rolling my eyes and pulling away from you, annoyed that I was ever foolish enough to give such a gift to a loser like you. Let’s do this. Here I go, opening up a little. Your move.

The other day I saw a raven perched on freeway divider, a large, black corvus corax, not a common sight for me. I see more grackles each day than I ever hope to see again in my life, huge, annoying bird herds of noisy quiscalus quiscula lining up on wire and crowding trees and trying to cover the world in white bird shit. But this raven was alone, buffeted by the roadwind of passing cars, pickups and tractor-trailers, truculus semi. He was there for me, I know this. He had some message he wanted to convey with the passing glance of just one of his deep, black eyes. The eyes of ravens are each singularities that, if you enter through them, take you through time and space to place where doom and fate play chess for the souls of tragic humans, homo mortalis. I threw a half-eaten corndog at the raven and sped off, Lynyrd Skynyrd blasting from the cassette player. I don’t know.

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well.

Later. Love.

My Favorite Pathological Defense Mechanisms

I’m staving off depression about an icky conservative pendulum swing in the country by employing my favorite pathological defense mechanisms: denial, minimization and withdrawal. I will not care. It will not matter. I will live on the fringe of society, above and outside of its influence, unaffected by the silliness of a culture that doesn’t have the attention span to actually accomplish anything. I’m not a citizen, I’m a phantom, a covert agent of counter-cultural guerrilla peacefare. I refuse to be psychically terrorized by the tyranny of the “undecided voter” in their fitful attention deficiency and frightened knee-jerkery, so credulous and suggestible and at the mercy of the professional media marketing machine. Here’s a suggestion for you: … Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Enjoy your country.

In the interest of embracing a rejection of everything (how’s that for an oxymoron), here’s a random list of things. Just, you know, things and stuff. Is there a theme? I don’t know yet. I have written it.

• I’m loving this grey, cold and wet autumnal orgy of moody cloud communion. I know some of you hate it, and I wish all of you joy, but you can suck it. I need this from time to time.
• I love life. I do. Even in the stress and bad health, no energy and no time and no wonder I can’t focus on anything long enough to just finish a sentence or tell you all the things I want you to know about today and tomorrow, plans and passions and dreams and compromises I’ve struck with this whirling universe that we inhabit together, both of us, all of us, though I feel sometimes like we never have time to talk or to touch or to fall asleep together warm and tired and sleep-smiling into dreams of completed thoughts, conversations carried to the point of contented quiet, nothing left to say but, “Thank you” and “You’re welcome.”
• The noisiest thing is not the most important. You cannot control what you hear, only what you listen to. What should be done doesn’t actually change that often.
• I leave little stacks of pennies sitting around everywhere. I do this because it brings good luck to everyone who sees them. Do I really believe this? Sure, why not. What difference does it make? Change will be my legacy.
• I want to be a hat guy, but I want it to be organic, real. So, I don’t wear hats. Why do I do this to myself? We’re allowed to wear hats if we want to, dude. We are free to be the people we want to be. Everything we do is real. Right? I’ve lost track.
• Watch out for me today. I’m in a mood, I swear. I might grab you and hug you, invade your personal space, kiss you right on the lips of your brain. Then things will be awkward. So, you know, just watch out.

One day, millions of years from now, we’ll look back on today and laugh. Well, maybe not us, and maybe not today, but it will happen. Of that I’m sure. I think.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Eclectica IV: The Randoming

Morning has broken. We’re not sure who broke it. It started at the crack of dawn and then just broke from there. And now it’s everywhere. There is morning all over the ground and the trees and the highways. There is morning on the tall buildings and you can see it in the surface of the water. Let’s see if we can clean up all this morning, but first let’s get some breakfast and talk for a while. Then let’s go for a walk in the park. It’s easy. Hell, it’s a metaphor for being easy. Then, after lunch, if everyone else hasn’t already taken care of it, we’ll clean up whatever morning is left and get on with our day.

Sometimes life pokes you in the eye. Why? Who knows. Sometimes, though, life walks up to you and asks you if you know the time. And then, while you’re pushing up the sleeve of your jacket to see your watch, life pokes you in the eye with its bony index finger. “Ouch!” you might cry out in anger or surprise mixed with pain. And you might look over at life curiously, as if to suggest the question, “What the fuck is your general malfunction?” And life is just staring off in the distance, or rummaging for gum in its fanny pack. And then, and this is the really hard part of the whole ordeal, life still wants to hang around like nothing ever happened, like you can still be pals. Sometimes life pokes you in the eye and there’s nothing you can do about it but rub your eye and wait for the watering to stop and the redness to fade. You can’t poke life in the eye because you’re too nice a person and also because life doesn’t have an eye, as far as I’ve ever seen.

It would be very difficult to moonwalk, Michael-Jackson-style, on the actual moon. This is true for several reasons. First, getting to the moon is a logistical nightmare. Hardly anyone has ever done it. Plus there are the giant boots they wear on the moon. Not great for dancing. Plus, I’m pretty sure the moonwalk requires more gravity and traction than the moon provides. I would say that moonwalking on the moon borders on impossibility. They should call the dance move “the earthwalk.” Except, let’s  be honest, it’s only slightly easier to do here on earth.

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well.

Later. Love.

On Advice and Arboreal Isolation

The silhouette black of the sapling swaying in front of the dim glow grey of the cloud-spotted predawn sky is trying to tell me something about my life, something I know deep down but cannot bring up to the place of language, the place where memories are reconstituted, re-experienced and then stored again, forever changed. The world is constantly trying to give me advice about life, trying to inject some vegetable or mineral wisdom into the foreign soil of my overly-abstracted animal brain. I find it exhausting, this constant intrusion. The sun peeks over the horizon and the silhouette is now a young tree, leaves beginning to crisp and color for the autumn, and I can feel it laughing at my fussy animal impatience. It reminds me that fields and mountains probably call landscapes portraits. We will never agree about this.

It’s time, I know, to climb out from behind these blurry, fuzzy words, so feely and soft. There are real things to be said, real in the more mundane sense, like the way one describes directions to the post office or the way one communicates the recipe for bland goulash. Someone has to say things like, “When the kettle whistles you should remove it from the heat and pour the water before it cools too much to steep the tea properly.” These are things people need to know. “Keep the tip of the caulking gun clean to ensure a smooth bead, wiping it with a utility rag after each use.” I’m sure there are many practical things I should be teaching my children, things I should have been taught, things we all need to know that cannot be communicated properly through poetry. “Blanch the green beans quickly and then cool them in cold water to stop the cooking. Finish them in a lightly buttered skillet. This will keep them crisp and hot without dulling their brilliant green color.” Sometimes I imagine an older me, my children grown and gone, living alone among stacks of dusty boxes filled with lessons never taught. It’s not so bad though. Lessons are overrated, and they don’t always teach what you want them to. I knew a man who tried to teach his son that you could just walk away when things got hard or stopped being fun. He spent decades driving the point home. After all that, though, the son only learned why he should stay and see things through.

Trees are community creatures, requiring companionship to be happy. They always grow together in a forest, grove, thicket or copse. Sad is the tree planted alone by humans in the median of a highway or in a suburban front yard. Trees cannot see or hear or taste or smell. They can only touch. They may never know, therefore, the other lonely tree 30 feet away in the neighbor’s yard. It’s a bummer, I know, a real downer of a closing paragraph. And I just made it up, too. Why do I do this to us? Why can’t I imagine happier trees?

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well.

Later. Love.

Shirking Doom and Ezra Birnbaum

Yesterday was a tough day for me. I was feeling conflicted and tormented. Why? Well, back at the dawn of time, in the tumultuous excitement of that glorious maelstrom of creation, I was appointed by the powers to be the destroyer of the universe, the ender of the world. The powers were only willing to commit so much energy and matter into this reality if they knew that it would return to them one day after they were sufficiently entertained. And, caught up in the momentum of such wonder, I took the job. I agreed to be the butcher of the cosmos. And yesterday was the day. Yesterday evening, at 6:30 PM USA Eastern Time, I was supposed to recite the ancient incantation taught to me by the powers all those aeons ago, and I couldn’t do it. I just… couldn’t. I was there in the park, going over the incantation in my head, and I just couldn’t do it. The evening was beautiful. A cat stalked birds near the creek bank. Children were playing on the play equipment. Autumn was rich and pleasant in the air. I just couldn’t do it. The time came and went and I just sat there and enjoyed an evening that should never have happened. I wonder what happens now?

Ezra Birnbaum thinks Halloween has gotten too commercial. He was texting me about it last evening. Who is Ezra Birnbaum? Well, that’s the name being used currently by the guy most commonly known as Frankenstein’s monster. In the past, Halloween has been his favorite holiday. Halloween and then Hanukah, that’s how it used to be for Ezra Birnbaum. Now, though, he thinks Halloween is all about merchandising. “Inflateable [sic] yard decrations [sic]?! WTF??! lol,” he texted. Mostly he gets upset this time of year because everyone calls him Frankenstein. He understands that no one knows his real name, since he doesn’t really have one. He can even understand being called “Frankenstein’s Monster”, though he doesn’t appreciate it. You have to admit, it is a pretty insulting name, implying both ownership and monstrosity. But calling him Frankenstein? That just pisses him off. “It’s very clear in the story that Frankenstein is the name of that bastard doctor!” Ezra will often rant. “Wake me ni [sic] NOV.. bai,” he texted. Poor guy. He’s pretty depressed this year. I should get him some new giant socks and stitch ointment for Hanukah this year. That always cheers him up. He loves new socks and stitch ointment.

I wonder if the incantation of doom will still work now that the appointed time has passed? I still remember it, after all. I remembered it for all those ages, I’m not going to forget it now. Probably I won’t ever use it. Probably I’ll just keep it to myself. Still, I wonder.

Hello, friends. You’re welcome.

Later. Love.

Maybe It Was Supposed to Be a Joke

A stone at the bottom of the ocean turns to another stone and says, “It’s humid today.” The second stone thinks maybe it was supposed to be a joke, so he chuckles. This offends the first stone so badly that he never speaks again. No stone, in fact, ever speaks again. The ocean becomes a very quiet place, except for all the other noise.

She had an exotic accent, as though she might be European or a vampire. I asked her if she came here often, and she told me to stop asking so many questions. We were sitting at the top of a mountain that claimed to be exactly average-sized. “That’s mean,” she quipped, but I didn’t get it at the time. An eagle flew nearby and I called out to it that I’d like another cocktail, but it was a pointless declaration. That eagle didn’t even work for the cafe, and it was a dry county. There were eight rainbows in the sky and I asked her if she thought this might signify something. “In my homeland we know better than to ask such things,” she huffed, and began to gather her things to go. “And where, exactly, are you from?” I asked. “Idaho,” she replied, and she turned into a bat and flew away, barely able to manage the weight of her small handbag. Then our salads arrived. I ate both of them, completely spoiling my appetite for the entre. All around, under the rainbow sky, were an equal number of taller mountains and shorter mountains. “You should probably wake up,” came a voice from my empty glass, then the world disappeared and I opened my eyes.

“When I was a kid, the stones talked,” says an old sea turtle to a young sea turtle. “There was a constant murmur of stone talk all along the ocean floor.” The young sea turtle thinks maybe it was supposed to be a joke, so he chuckles.

Hello, friends. Thanks, you know, for everything and whatnot.

Later. Love.

Word Nerdery with Ghost-related Interpolation

It’s true I love to play with words, have the final say with words, even have my way with words. I’d gladly spend the day with words, take odd jobs that pay words, get drunk and get gay with words. Be careful, I can slay with words, hunt you down like prey with words, blow you clean away with words. I will always stay with words, grow old and turn grey with words, molder and decay with words.

I can see ghosts, see them and talk to them. Nevertheless, I do not believe in them. This bothers them terribly. They are constantly trying to prove to me that they exist, but why would I listen to them? They’re not even there. Often they want to confess things to me, or ask me to right some wrong they have done, but I refuse to get involved in such dramatic nonsense. I insist that we only talk about literature or philosophy or art. If they’re going to vex me with their haunty company then they can, at least, try to be pleasant and entertaining. I cannot be burdened with the leftover psychic turmoil of all the local dead. Sufficient unto the day and whatnot. I have my own life and my own tormented psyche, thank you very much. Ghosts drink tea from bone china. They don’t appreciate comedy or abstract art. They tend to be skeptical of materialist ideas.

I’ve been a talker and a walker but never a stalker. I’ve been a cooker and a looker but never a hooker. I’ve been a loser and a chooser but never a boozer. I’ve been a winner and a sinner but never a dinner.

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well.

Later. Love.