caveat emptor

Idiot Stick

The field above the creek bank was rough, rutted deeply with tractor tracks from the back and forth of large diggers dredging the channel when the dirt was bare and muddy. There were large unearthed rocks and deep gouges dried as hard as rock in the hot summer sun. No one had ever come back to level it or sod it. It was left broken and ugly, with stiff, scratchy weeds growing to shoulder height over the entire acre. This field had destroyed a brush hog. No mower would survive the beating. No weedeater would cut through the thick stalks of the largest weeds. Our little Parks Department didn't have a huge arsenal of tools. There was only one option left.

All the other guys hated using the weed whip, or "idiot stick" as we called it. Some of the seasonal workers, high school students like myself, would beat them against the ground and break them if they were left to clear a trail or ditch with one for an afternoon. Most guys preferred the power equipment, the large mowers and tractors or, at least, the commercial weedeaters. Me, I loved the idiot stick. I'd never been a fan of the noise and smell and heat and jarring vibration of power equipment. If you put me out in a field or a ditch with an idiot stick, though, I would swing away all afternoon. Up one bank of a creek and down the other. Along a winding trail. Beside a dirt road. I was good at it. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. The rhythm of the swing was soothing, conducive to reflection and imagination. An idiot stick is the perfect tool for a thinker.

A weed whip is not a golf club. Keep the swing low, no higher than your chest. It doesn't take a lot of muscle, just a smooth cooperation with the flow of the swing. Newton will do most of the work if you let him. Swish. Swish. Swish. On a good weed whip with a triangular bracket, the screws that hold the blade will loosen as you work. Every hour or so you should tighten them to keep the blade in good working order. Swish. Swish. Swish. Try to keep the tempo. Breathe. Swish. Swish. Swish.

Every couple of weeks Steve, my crew chief and friend, would pull the pickup up to curb at the field above the creek after lunch. It was Texas summer afternoon hot, probably 105. After the first time he didn't have to tell me what to do. He'd stop and, without a word, I'd get out, close the door and grab the water jug and idiot stick out of the back. He'd nod at me through the back window and I'd nod back. He'd drive away. I'd start my pensive rhythm, clearing the entire acre by the time he came back to get me.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Dinner with the Monster

I often have dinner with my friend, the monster. We meet at a little downtown cafe with sidewalk tables. I like the place because it's positioned at the end of a garden courtyard running through the block of buildings so we get to catch the breezes that blow perpetually through the downtown alleys. I usually have a sandwich or soup, sometimes both. The monster eats children, five or six of them most evenings.

"It's so hot," I comment, swallowing a bite of corned beef on rye. Sweat drips from my hair down the back of my shirt. The breeze this evening is no match for the humid swelter of the summer dusk.

"Damn right," the monster answers, biting off a hand, "but I don't mind the heat so much."

Most evenings we talk about esoteric topics. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be monster? What is the nature of evil? This evening we talk about free will and fate.

"Oh my god!" screams a woman passing by on the sidewalk. Turning to look, I see her trembling and gawking and pointing rudely at the monster. "That monster is eating children!" she shrieks. Fortunately the host dashes over and forces the woman to leave.

"I'm so sorry," the host gasps, rushing over to the monster. "Can I get anything for you?"

"It's okay. I'm used to it," says the monster with something like a smile. "I'm fine."

"Some people," I continue when the host shuffles off, "think that we cannot but make the choices programmed into us by our chemistry and experience." I take a sip of peach iced tea and wait for the monster's opinion, knowing that the monster, like me, is a believer in the freedom of the intelligent mind.

A stray cat wanders among the tables, dangerously close to the monster. She's too quick, however, and just manages to skitters away from the grab of the monster's clawed hand. I can see the disappointment on the monster's brow. "Caprice is so evident in the world, but so many fail to see it," the monster responds.

It is a nice evening, if a bit too hot, and I enjoy the company of the monster, the civilized way in which the monster converses on so many interesting topics, the fascinating contrast from such thoughtful descriptions of so different a perspective. The monster also is fascinated with me.

"You're the only kid that ever got away," the monster will often observe, with something like a smile.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

The Sweet Mistaken

I do not question this fragile faith I have that the people and places I remember, the place I was this morning, the woman I awoke beside, are real. They are not vain imaginations I have conjured here in this coffee shop world. There is more out there than I can see with my eyes here, more than this computer in front of me that I feel with my fingertips, more than this wooden chair, more than this tile floor, more than this aroma of brewing coffee wafting in my nose. I rely on my vast store of memories as another sense to tell me what the world is like, full of certain people with certain faces and certain voices and I am as certain of the reality of them as I am of this sunlight shining too brightly into my eyes, too warmly onto my jeans,  here in this place. If it is all a lie, this beautiful life I remember every day, then I am blissfully deceived and I will never admit the truth. I call myself a skeptic, but I am awash in the faith that I will see your face again. Meanwhile, here I sit, believing everything I see, everything I hear, everything I taste, smell and feel. My sensual life is my religion and I believe in it with all my heart and mind and strength, this rough stubble on my cheeks, this new wiry grey in my hair, this slick sweat on my neck.

We dwell in possibility

Or so the poet said

Though she spoke only for herself

The voice inside her head

Some dwell in tangibility

Their hands are occupied

My hand are empty, idle, still

I live my life inside

I dwell in need of levity

A lightness in the mind

Though burdened here with gravity

I will not be confined

Come dwell in possibility

Reality forsaken

Let's revel in denial, dear

Embrace the sweet mistaken

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Talking to the Ocean

Sitting in bare feet, jeans and a jacket on the spray-dampened beach, a thrill of gooseflesh trembles through me at the warmth of the moist wind coming in off the agitated ocean. Jeans and a jacket because it is winter, and the cold is biting. Bare feet because it's the beach, damn it. Tiny drops and grains bourne on the gusts encourage me to close my eyes lightly, blurring away the grey of the clouds, the blue-green of the waves, the white of the foam, the taupe of the sand. The sound is all motion, moving water and moving air, organic liquids and sibilants in the voice of the beach, with scattered explosions of gull screams ripping through it all.

Out in the rocking waves, farther out than I can see now, a bottle is bobbing. It contains my message to the world. I littered the ocean with it, my anonymous cry for attention, because I've never found an effective voice for asking things of the world, and I've never found the grace to accept the gifts given in reply.

The ocean rarely tells our secrets. The floor, far below, is littered with our vessels. Usually the corks come loose or the lids are not fast. Then the bottles fill and sink, the secrets disintegrating into the salty depths. Once in a while, though, a bottle washes up onto the curious shore. Once in a while our secrets are seen by loners or lovers or excited young girls, soon to be disappointed or confused by our clandestine hope or despair, our message to no one at all.

I'm alone on the beach as far as I can see in every direction. My feet are cold and my nose is beginning to run. My jeans are soaked through. Suddenly I am overcome with the obsessive compulsion to attack the waves and take back what I have said. It's too cold, though, and my message is too small and the ocean is too big. The feeling passes and, shaking forgetfulness into my head, I stand and turn my back on the sea where, unbeknownst to me, the bottle is already almost half full, optimistically, and the ink is blurred and illegible, and the paper beginning to decay.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Sentiment and Sediment: Boxes of Yesterday

"Before there was central heat and air we kept quilt boxes," she explained. "You cleaned and pressed the quilts when the weather got warm. You folded them and put them in the quilt box, ready for next winter. Then you could use the quilt box as a seat when you had company. Everyone kept quilts. You can't imagine how cold it got."

Under and among the stacks and piles of everything, he had two large quilt boxes in the garage, full of things someone had decided to save years ago. Most of those things were worn out now, rotten or obsolete, forgotten in the distraction of trying to stay alive.

It was probably a hundred and five degrees in that old garage this weekend, and we were all too tired and sweaty and dirty for sentiment. Small, audacious trees grew here and there up through cracks in the concrete foundation. Green vines snaked through the exposed rafters, invading through the eaves. Around the base of the open stud walls the wood siding had rotted away in spots, giant holes granting admittance to invaders of various species. Everywhere was dirt and cottony spider egg sacks and rodent droppings. There was a desiccated squirrel carcass under the workbench. Rats had been nesting in old rags under the larger quilt box.

Of course, there were treasures scattered among the trash. A Polaroid camera, older than any of us can guess. Look magazines from the 1960s with various Kennedys on the covers and advertisements that make my children laugh. "Try a little sugar in your coffee or tea. Sugar works with your Appestat to promote weight loss." His old uniform from Korea, moldering away in the disintegrating remains of a plastic garment bag. An Elvis LP. Pictures and newspaper clippings. Evidence of having been young stacked deeply under evidence of having grown old. Six truckloads to the trash and recycling drop site. Three truckloads to the garage of the new house.

The heat was almost more than we could bear, and the grime almost more than we could stomach, but we got it done. How could we, so young and so overwhelmed with heat, fathom the need for something like a quilt box in a place like this?

"In the winter we got cold, even in the house," she explained. "There was no central heating, so we used quilts. You can't imagine how cold it got."

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Boop the Wobble

Boop was a Wobble. Wobbles were a blobby little race of wiggly, blue, peoplish, balloon things that lived in the shade of a large, ancient Ginkgo Biloba tree beside a deep, cold pool in a long-lost forest of the distant imaginary past. Boop was a middle-aged Wobble, having been alive for almost eight days. He was healthy for his age and would probably last at least another week. His job, as far back as he could remember, was to push away a large thing that had fallen across the food path. The thing, which, though Boop would never know it, was an acorn cap, was far too heavy for Boop to move. So far he hadn't managed to budge it, not one smidgen. Then he had an idea. He would try the same thing he had always tried, the only thing he could think of, which was just to push on the thing really, really hard until he was exhausted. It didn't work. I was never going to work. This didn't bother Boop. Being of above-average intelligence for a Wobble, he was amazingly stupid. He was happy, though. When he collapsed, exhausted, beside the big thing, he laughed. Some part of him knew, incorrectly, that he would figure out how to move the big thing. Boop was an optimist. As he stared, panting, up into the canopy of Ginkgo leaves far above, he thought many happy, stupid thoughts. He thought about his mother, who had died yesterday. The thought of his mother always made him happy. He thought about the big thing that was blocking the food path. Then he got an idea, the same one again, and he rose excitedly to his feet to try it out.

Up in the tree, unbeknownst, like most things, to Boop, the Wobble god smiled down at Boop. She loved him very much. She loved all the Wobbles. That was why she dropped the acorn cap. She knew it would make Boop happy. And she was right.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Broken. Living on the Horizon.

Long ago he came to the mistaken conclusion that expectations in life were dangerous, to be avoided.

Staring down the road in front of him as the mostly empty highway passed by faster than the speed limit allowed, he drowned out his thoughts with loud radio music and rapid eye darting. If some notion started to whisper in his ear he would blink and glance hard to the right or to the left, out at the distant horizon and beyond. Sometimes he would shake his head abruptly, trying to clear some picture from his Etch A Sketch mind.

When he pulled into the driveway of the farmhouse, the only structure for miles in the flat wheat landscape, he clunked the old car into park and killed the motor. Two children, his, were tumbling enthusiastically down the porch steps toward him. Unfolding his tall, thin frame from the car and closing the door with a creak, he blinked at their approach, squinting at the sun far away behind them. His son, the four-year-old, crashed into his long legs and threw his little arms around them. He reached down and rested his hand on his son's shoulder, smiling absently at his daughter, six, waiting her turn. No words were exchanged. He hadn't prepared for the moment, hadn't given any thought to what he might tell them about where he had been, how long he might stay, why he would leave.

There is a kind of broken that makes every thought, every active engagement with life, more than one can bear. Every plan for the day feels like a setup. Every dream for tomorrow feels like a trap. Every conversation is an accusation. Every touch is a blow. You cannot listen and you cannot talk. You have to let the sights and sounds wash over you, wash through, keep going without you or carry you along.

He lives on the horizon now, too far away to see clearly, too far to hear you even if you scream. He is always on the journey and never arriving. He lives, broken, on the horizon. You cannot save him. You cannot even reach him. You should not even try. Bring your children back into your house and talk to them, laugh with them. Make your plans for today, dream your dreams for tomorrow, without him. Soon, within a couple of days, his car will be gone and you won't have to listen to his silence or watch his blinking stare ever again. He will take his bleak sadness, his brokenness, with him when he goes, and his story will not be yours. The best you can do for him is let him go. It's the only thing he wants anymore.

Long ago he came to the mistaken conclusion that expectations in life were dangerous, to be avoided.

Hello, friends. Bleak, I know. It's just what came out today. Whimsy will return, I'm sure.

Later. Love.

900: Bob the Angel

This is my 900th post on this blog. Have you read the other 899? Neither have I. Most of them are better than this one I think. Hmmm... let's see. What is this post going to be about? Hmmm...

Most of the time Bob the Angel can be found fishing from the rickety boat dock on Willow Lake, the old dock at the end of Miller Road. Have you met Bob the Angel? If not, you might picture something quite different. He doesn't look like you might imagine. His hair is curly brown and usually bushy. Most days he wears pocket T-shirts, though he has a couple of those thin, white Guayabera shirts that he likes to wear when it's warm. Jeans in the winter and tan cargo shorts all the rest of the time. Sandals. Always sandals, even when it snows. Also he has giant, brilliant white wings. When he stands they stay tucked in behind him. When he sits he flares them out and they just sort of wave above him. The sight is really something, sort of stirring, but he doesn't like to talk about them. It makes him uncomfortable for some reason.

Some mornings, when I'm out trolling my trotlines, I'll see him sitting there, white wings above his head catching the early sun and sandaled feet dangling over the water. Mostly I just wave and keep going, but once in a while I'll motor over and dock and we'll chat for a while. I like Bob. Even though he's an angel, he mostly talks like a regular guy. He's the only angel I've ever known, so I don't know how he might compare to your typical angel.

From what I hear tell, though I'm not sure how anyone would know, he's a guardian angel. Danny, that's my oldest boy, thinks Bob guards the lake. Wanda from the bait shop says that when Bob's charge, an old man who lived around here more than a hundred years ago, died, Bob just didn't go back. He's been here as long as anyone can remember, so that might be true. He doesn't like to talk about it. It seems to make him uncomfortable.

He'll talk as long as you care to about regular stuff, though. Fishing. Weather. Gossip. Even politics. Not angel stuff, though. Not religion. He just mutters something and gets quiet if you bring any of that up. Usually he'll just change the subject, or start into a joke. He has a strange sense of humor. His jokes are fun to listen to, but I don't usually get them. He'll hit the punch line and laugh and laugh, and I'll just smile and nod a little. Must be angel humor.

One time... have I told you this? Sometimes I tell the same story over and over to people. I lose track, you know? I'm not sure who's heard what. Well, anyway, one time, right after Linda died, he did say a little something. Linda was my wife, you know? "Time's different there," he said. "Everyone arrives at the same time." That's all he said and he wouldn't say any more about it when I asked him. I think about that a lot, though. It's good to know, you know?

Well, I better get going. These lines aren't going to bait themselves.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Jazz Life

Baggy khaki chinos, hands in pockets, and a tank top undershirt. Brown leather shoes, scuffed and scraped, have seen better days. Tan socks with all the elastic blown rumpled down low. Third day tousled bedroom hair and whiskers of black and grey, scattered red. Bleary-eyed shuffling down the sidewalk, muttering about fortunes misplaced. Where have they gotten off to? Sweat at the top of the back of your neck says the muggy late morning will become a sweltering afternoon. Better seek shelter. Better watch where you're going. Weren't there cigarettes last night? Have they all gone up in smoke? Mumbling, not looking, off the curb and into and across the street. Smell of coffee from some open shop door. Light traffic in the warming city routine, the threat of lunchtime pedestrians looming on the clock hands high overhead in the church tower. Birds pass through building walls, though surely not. It's a play of light and hangover eyes, red and throbbing. Somewhere a car horn blares far away, a distant rage swallowed by the urban vacuum. She wasn't there this morning. They were separated in the night. Enough spare change for coffee and then maybe you'll try to remember where it all went wrong. Might be hot rains in the evening, sizzling and steaming in another night. This is jazz life, my friend. This is where the saxophone kicks in.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

A Hand Reaches Out. Waffle Sunday.

If you take my hand and walk with me off the cliff I promise you I will do everything I can to make the rest of your life as pleasant as possible. I may have my head in the clouds, but I'll be down to earth and grounded soon. Won't you fall for me, my love? Won't you take my hand and walk with me to the end of the world, where our future begins?

When he moved into her apartment he only brought a small bag of clothes and a waffle iron. "I love waffles," he said by way of explanation. He placed it in on the counter beside the toaster, ready for waffling. For the next six months things went from good to bad. All of his storied ambitions of becoming a productive writer showed themselves to be mere fictions and fantasies. He just wanted to drink her wine, to have sex with her when the mood came over him, to smoke her last cigarette. In the end, when she screamed, "Get out!" through tears and he raised his hand as though to strike her, she felt foolish and ashamed for having fallen for such and empty fairy tale as him. She was a smart girl, but she could not figure out how he had gotten into her life. It terrified her to have that particular flaw. Years later she would look back and realize that he had actually fixed that part of her. She never let anyone like him happen to her again. That was the only thing he ever gave to her. Well, that and the waffle iron. She was grateful for both. She found it in the cupboard under the silverware drawer a couple of months after he left. It hadn't been used, not even once, since he had placed it on the counter on that first day. She thought about throwing it away, but instead she took it out, put it back beside the toaster and made waffles. It was Sunday morning, the first Waffle Sunday. Her children, who arrived several years later, always thought of Sunday as Waffle Sunday. So did their children.

Step back from the edge and walk away. Open your eyes and think of the cost. There are other hands to hold.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

real life

real life is not poetry

not beautiful music

not rhythmic

with its clanking

and squawking

and it pointless flood of words

better left unsaid

drowning out the pulse of our tempo

filling our ears with nothing

staggering our steps off the beat

with its noisy chaos

stumbling us into each other

jostling you into me

so we dip and we sway

to keep our balance

and we sing apologies off tune

recovering and overcompensating

clapping our hands on the downbeat

lifting our voices in song

taking our place in the dance

learning the new complex rhythms

of this beautiful music

this poetry we call

real life

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

The Road and the Flat

[BESIDE THE ROAD]

Some of us fell off the truck along the road and rolled into the ditch. Here we sit, having never arrived. It's okay. There are flowers along the road in spring. Every now and then other trucks pass by and the people always wave and smile. When it rains we splash and play in the ditch. We've made quite a little life for ourselves here along the road. Once in a while it occurs to us to follow the ruts and see where all the trucks are going, but our truck is so far away by now. What if we reach a fork in the road ahead in the yellow wood somewhere and two roads diverge? Which road would we take? Would it make a difference? Some of us fell off the truck and never got to where everyone else got to. It's okay, though. Here we are, having arrived in our own way. And way leads on to way, or so I've heard some say.

[IN A DOWNSTAIRS FLAT]

A family of elephants have moved into the flat upstairs, and the flat is beginning to sag. It's not the noise that annoys, really, so much as the breach of policy. Animals are not allowed in the building, and this pack of derms has two dogs and a parrot. We were required to give away our beloved iguana Roscoe upon our arrival here, and here these shorn mammoths are practically running a zoological park with their three pets. If one of those elephants crashes through the living room ceiling soon, as seems likely, I will find it difficult to be hospitable. I try to be as civilized as the next guy, but there's a limit to the injustice that I can endure. Elephants are bending the flat upstairs, fraternizing with forbidden pets. What's a man to do?

[BESIDE THE ROAD AGAIN]

"Have you ever noticed," asked Jasper, "that the trucks never come back?"

"You cannot say never, Jasper," I reminded him. "Not yet."

[CUSTOMARY CLOSING]

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

That One Time

Years later she would still remember that convergence of numerous coincidences as a magical moment in her life. More than once she returned to the spot, feeling somewhat foolish with expectancy, but it was never the same. Of course it was never the same.

It was just before eleven o'clock in the morning. The morning bustle of the city masses trundling to work had calmed and the lunch commotion had not yet begun. She was twenty-two years old and wrapped in that stupid wool poncho she used to wear with her floppy knit cap on her head, her pajamas and house slippers underneath. It was what she wore back in those days when, after too much partying the night before, she had to stumble in a grumpy, achy fog to the little store up the block for something to settle her stomach.

Her neighbor, whose name she could never remember even back then, had been out walking his stupid, yippy little dog. He was just going back inside when she reached the middle of the street.

A couple of blocks away a loud truck, a box truck like delivery services use, disappeared around the corner.

That's when she stopped, right there in the middle of the street, a strange sensation washing over her. Quiet. Solitude and quiet. It reminded her of before, when she lived with her mother in that little house outside of a small town in Kansas. Quiet was normal back there, back then. Quiet was unremarkable in that memory house. Here, however, in this loud, busy city, quiet was unique. It never happened. Looking around her, she saw no one. There was no traffic in either direction, up and down the street. There were no strangers in view. There were no engine noises or voices or stupid yippy dogs. She was, for almost fifteen seconds, the only person in the entire city.

Then, all at once, four cars poured off of various side streets. Half a dozen people emerged from doors or around corners. Noise came back to reclaim the city. People came back to their crowded home.

Years later, she could remember every empty detail of those ten seconds. She could still see it clearly when she closed her eyes. When she was an old woman she once tried to describe to her daughter what it was like, but it sounded so unremarkable and mundane. Her daughter was unimpressed.

In heaven you can go to that place from time to time. You can stand there, in the middle of that street, again. You can cry for joy in the center of the city day and no one will know. It's not like down here, where that sort of thing never happens.

Except that one time.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Burning Man

Sometimes, when inspiration just won't come, I light myself on fire. I begin with some sort of quick-burning starting agent. Alcohol works well and adds a Bohemian and hedonistic tone to the revelry. When I'm doused I take a wooden match - an assortment of which I always have near at hand thanks to my penchant for phillumeny -and clench it between my front teeth, the match head pointing outward just under the tip of my nose. Then, taking care not to scrape the aforementioned tip of my nose, I close my eyes and quickly swish the striking surface of an empty match box against the head. The conflagration is rapid and glorious. The heat is immediately intense. The smell of phosphorous and booze and burning fabric intoxicates me and the air sears my nose and mouth and lungs as I breath the fire in. Soon my hair and clothing are gone and my skin is agonizing as it spits and bubbles and withers. That's when I scream. I always try to scream louder and longer than the time before, roaring fire from my dying lungs as my frail body fails and I crumble the ground. So quickly I am consumed, smoldering to nothing but ash. Then I am blown away by the wind, scattered in too many directions, hopeless to ever find all of myself and come together again, never to be whole. Then I am gone.

When I open my eyes, I begin to write.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

An Epilogue

Lily made it to the car and drove away, crying. Still, she drove away. That's what really matters. That's how the story ends. What about Martin, you wonder? Well, it went about the way you would imagine.

Martin was already falling to the hard, dusty concrete of the factory floor when his brain registered his gun's report. A glimpse, so fast he doubted his eyes, showed Anton's head jerking morbidly back. And blood? Had there been blood? 

Martin's hands were still extended in front of him, clutching the gun, when his stomach slammed into the floor. His breath fled in pain as he bucked forward and hammered his chin against the concrete, opening a deep gash and jarring his senses. He rolled slightly to his right and rammed hard into the green metal box, some piece of machinery that he'd hoped to use as cover against Anton's return fire.

But no return fire came. Pain enveloped Martin from all his extremities, converging on his guts and tying them into a tight knot. His cheek had come to rest on the dirty floor and dust swirled around his face as he panted in fear and injury. Blood ran from the gash in his chin. It dripped down his jaw line and pooled up under his cheek and ear, but he didn't move. He clutched the gun, tried to still his breathing and listened for any sound from Anton. None came.

When the police found him a few hours later, Martin was in the deep, dangerous sleep of his brain concussion. The infection in his chin was working red and hot up his face. Most of Anton was where Martin had seen him fall. Skull and tissue fragments were found up to fifteen feet away. A perfect shot in the end, when it mattered. Anton would have been proud.

Police never identified Anton, and Martin never told them anything. Martin did four years hard time for Anton's killing, unable to explain himself without endangering Lily. After everything he'd been through, the hard time was easy.

He never heard from Lily again, but he got a blank postcard from Michigan six years later. He would remember the scent of that perfume, the one he'd bought her in Paris, forever.

That's it. The end.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

What to Write

When I cannot think of what to write I write poetry. My thoughts tumble in front of my mental stare like socks and shirts in a clothes dryer, and I pluck one from midair and place it on the page. Then another and another and another, until something I call "poetry" takes shape. When I feel as though I've put enough into it, I stop and read it. I always expect it to tell me something about what I'm thinking, about who I am. No. It's just words on a page, like someone with nothing to say took the time to write it down. When I come back to it later, stumble upon it while looking for something else, I always wonder, "What was I thinking?" In that sense, I guess the poems capture something of the moment.

I've always envied, speaking of ghosts, the ability they have to pass through doors. I'm not sure why, really. I suppose the only reasons to have such a talent would be to sneak around, to surprise people and such. "It's not really a talent," the ghost says. "It's just the way it is. I haven't the substance to open the door so I must pass through it to enter the room." I guess that makes sense, but I still think it would be cool to be able to do it. "The secret to passing through doors," my grandfather tells me, "is simple. You just open them first."

If you ever have writer's block here's what you do: Close your eyes. Now think to yourself, "I wonder who's looking at me while I'm sitting here with my eyes closed. I wonder if someone might be stealing my computer from in front of me. I bet they think I'm praying." Now open your eyes and notice that nothing has changed. No one even noticed that your eyes were closed. Now write something. Amen.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Kinds of Happy

Opening shot is a girl riding a bicycle on an idyllic country road, a farmhouse passing by in the background. She's smiling, standing slightly in the pedals as she rides. She's probably thirteen, wearing a school uniform. "This is a Song" by The Magic Numbers plays over the scene. The girl looks happy, the kind of happy that you're tempted at first to think of as foolish and naive until it makes you ashamed of your own cynicism and you begin to suspect that she knows something you don't, some secret of true happiness that you missed in your upbringing. She looks innocent.

He is overwhelmed with the dread that the movie is going to ruin this girl somehow. Irrational tears well up in his eyes and he has to leave. He doesn't even say anything to his friends. He just winces back tears and stumbles over feet and purses out to the aisle and he walks out.

In his car he wonders what came over him. He has driven past the edge of town and is speeding down a country road he's never been on before. There's something lacking about it, something less than idyllic. Up ahead he sees a billboard for cigarettes. He fumbles with the radio stations, but no one is playing The Magic Numbers, of course. She was just some actress. She wasn't real.

And this is a song

And these are the words

I don't wanna hear it, don't wanna hear it

I don't wanna hear it, don't wanna hear it

Opening shot is a boy speeding a car down a scrubby country road, a billboard passing by in the background. His eyes look like he's been crying, but he's smiling now. He's probably nineteen. "In Between Days" by The Cure plays over the scene. He looks happy, the kind of happy you recognize.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Reflections on Water

I love the way the rain turns the parking lots and sidewalks and roads into poor mirrors, especially when it's still darkling outside in early morning because of the switch to Nightdark Saving Time. All the lights are reflected badly, ghost lights underground. They follow us around in the underworld, mocking our fuss of activity, our busy living. It's only an illusion, of course, a distraction for the mind desperate to think something, anything. The rain collects in all the lowest places, running always down and down and down, manifesting the underworld for all to see. Water is the window to the ghost world below. This is why we cry for the dead.

The weather factors heavily in my writing at times. It's one of my most reliable muses. The weather, after all, is always there. By the time a man is old, the weather is his best friend. An old man can sit for hours and commune with the weather, talk about the weather with other old men. It's one of the few things they have in common. "I remember the snow of '83." I remember it too. I loved that snow. I wonder where it is today?

Meanwhile the snow of '83 is crawling down the pavement outside, looking for the lowest spot, having found its way back to earth once again in the endless cycle of water. It's right outside the door, wondering what ever happened to you.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

Juggling Delton

Juggling

Noun

1. The act of using some number of hands to continuously toss and catch a greater number of things.
2. Sometime life is like juggling too many things. Do you ever feel this way? Delton does in the story below.

There was no wind at all, perfect stillness, and that would have been okay had the early evening been just a few degrees cooler. As it was, Delton could feel small beads of sweat running from his hair down the back of his neck and into his shirt as he sat, trying to relax his jangled nerves, on the front porch of the small cabin. His breathing was a bit labored as it drew, almost whistling, between his slightly parted lips. He gripped his legs tightly just above his shaking knees to still the trembling of his hands. Staring out over the tops of the trees into the darkening blue of the eastern horizon, he thought it might be nice to just sit here forever, to forget about everything and sit here forever. But he couldn't. Jacob was waiting for him back at the camp and he still had to bury the bodies in the cabin and clean up the place.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.

P. S. - I actually have nothing to say in this postscript, but the background image works better if the post is a little taller. So, I'm adding this postscript for height. Thanks for reading it.

P. P. S. - Just for good measure. Thanks again for stopping by.

Wisdom at the Door

Wisdom is standing in the doorway of a donut shop on a busy urban street. She is wondering how to merge into the rush and crush of pedestrians on the sidewalk without being clumsy and awkward. Wisdom is wearing a navy business suit with a cream-colored, long-sleeved blouse and black kitten heels. This morning she had stood in her closet for almost an hour trying to match her fuzzy notion of what other women in this city wear with the sparse selections hanging in front of her. After forty-five minutes, she had burst into tears for just a moment. Then, feeling foolish, she had grabbed the suit, blouse, heels and some Nude hose and dressed herself with mustered determination. Now, standing in this doorway, her resolve has all been blown away and she finds herself wondering what business she has in this bustling city with all these beautiful people. Some part of her refuses, tempting though it is, to surrender and just go back inside the shop and eat donuts all day. Wisdom loves donuts, as you may have heard, but she's trying to be more healthy and eat salads and dress like other women dress in this city, with its terrifyingly busy sidewalks and its matching shoes and purses. Wisdom only has the one purse, and it's brown. The wind gusts and blows her hair into her face just as she starts to take a step out into the rush, and she steps back and brushes the hair back, blushing angrily at the tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She hunkers back as a small Korean woman bursts out of the shop and, without even slowing down, disappears without a ripple into the river of people. The bell on the door jangles as Wisdom pushes it closed and strains to see the brave, little black-haired woman in the crowd, but she is gone.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Later. Love.