There’s a finality to the end of a summer season, and once again I’m reminded that there’s no turning back, such is the nature of life. Yet, there’s a longing for something familiar, a desire to hold on to someone or something. I spend my life reassembling memories only to find that at the end I’m several pieces short of a complete picture. All the traffic-lights have conspired to greet me red. The road that threads its way down west cliff is gray, the sky is gray, the sea is gray—— it’s a world of gray on gray——I’m making my way from here to anywhere——I’m driving just to be driving, just to give me that sensation of getting somewhere—-that I’m moving on and past this grayness. The sun spins, the earth circles, the universe exhales——summer turns her face away from me——the cold breath of winter is on my neck——yesterday is irretrievable—-and such is the sadness of time elapsing, of age whispering in my ear———like an impressionist watercolor, another season blurs and fades—— into another. I feel myself creeping closer to nowhere——
I’d call you, but I no longer know what city you call home. What would I say if I met you again in a windy park? I imagine you dressed in a lose fitting sweater, your hair tousled by the wind. You’ve readied yourself for the birth of autumn. And me, I’m still dressed in shorts and flip flops, clinging to a dying summer. Once again, we find ourselves falling out of one another’s season. Does “true” love have an expiration date? I don’t even know what’s“true” anymore. My life has been a series of let downs without you in it. I hoped you could be replaced, and god knows I’ve tried———.
Rain, now on my windshield like little diamonds in the exaggerated light of oncoming traffic. Chris Botti’s melancholy trumpet plays like a soundtrack that accompanies my reverie. Inside, you occupy the warmer rooms of my being, you haunt the quieter spaces of my soul. Outside, I irrationally scan crowds of strangers searching for your face—-failed love makes fools of us all.
If I knew then, what I know now, it would not matter where the road led us, as long as we were together. But the past leaves no room for marooned passengers. I pay my fare in silent movies that I replay over and over in my head. I see you in vignettes———visions of us walking mountain trails, the beaches we laid on, the dark drives through shiny cities, the sensation of you giving yourself to me, the smell of your hair, the taste of your skin, the electricity in your touch, the soft sound of your sighs. With you, making love was always so comfortable, so easy, so natural. I’d come to know your body better than my own.
Good poetry makes you believe that each word written was composed personally for you. Like someone reached between the bones of your rib cage and pulled out your heart and spilled out all of its quivering secrets . And for you my love, this is true, for you, I bent and stretched my words into a net so I might catch you.
Soundtrack, “Old and Wise” by the Alan Parsons Project.
I hate unsolicited advice. Most men know that it is not wise to give another man unsolicited advice. The most important thing to a man is respect and his pride. These things are earned and not idly parceled out like cans of beer—–although oftentimes such libations are swilled to make up for the lack of such noble qualities. On a rare occasion a man may give a fellow golfer advice about how to grip a club, how to adjust their swing or stance, but guys like that seldom get asked back for a future game. Guys have gotta figure shit out for themselves, it’s just he way it is.
Men like to give women advice. It makes them feel superior. It inflates their anemic ego’s. Most women will politely listen even though they know that men spend eighty percent of their time thinking about how to get pussy and what to eat next. The remaining twenty percent of their time is spent picking their nose at red lights or making fart jokes. Under the three piece suits, the impressive job titles and fancy cars, men are basic creatures bumbling their way through life. Women don’t give advice, they make sly suggestions. “Honey, maybe it would be better to use dental floss rather than a pocket knife to clean your teeth.” “Please don’t use gas to light the barbecue dear. Let me fry the burgers on the stove.” KABOOM!!!
But, in spite of my prior warnings regarding unsolicited advice, I have decided to dispense some brotherly advice. So please, “Forgive Me”.
Our time here is so short—–it doesn’t pay to deny ourselves and others forgiveness. Anger only cuts off circulation to the heart and puts a strangle hold on our ability to convey empathy. Forgive, because in the big scheme of things your petty grudges will emotionally bankrupt you. It’s like paying interest on a debt but never reaching the principle—-ya see, you can’t loan love or forgiveness, their value is only realized when given for free.
I wonder if we wear clothes out of shame, or is it a means to hide our insecurities. It’s tough to take another person seriously when they’re parading around bare ass naked. Nakedness is God’s way of showing us that in spite of Madison Avenue fashions and photoshopped vanities—–we’re all allot more alike than we are different. Under skin and bone our fragil humanness flickers…..
Forgive——-because like a fart, the longer you hold it in, the more pressure it builds, hurting only you, and in time growing louder and smellier—- Forgive because sometimes you have to pull the bandaid off along with the scab in order for the wound to heal, Forgive because there is a child with a bald head dying in a hospital rather than playing on a jungle gym. Forgive because nothing seems that bad until it happens to you. Forgive because there but for fortune go you or I. Forgive because there is already enough darkness in this world—-enough sadness to superglue the softest of hearts eternally shut. Forgive because the shits already out of the pony. Forgive because with age the nights grow longer and peace more elusive. Forgive because winter need not be your favorite season. Forgive in spite of God and his promised heaven. Forgive because the shortest distance between point A and point B is love. Forgive because there’s a supernova a thousand times bigger than our puny sun imploding in on itself. Let go, let go, let go—–because as the old Zen proverb tells us “Let go or be dragged”.
Forgive, because one day you’ll realize that all the stuff you once thought so important were just things made up in your head. This clarity only comes after a major life event like getting fired, losing someone you love, going through a divorce, having a major health scare, facing your mortality or watching reruns of “Friends” (they all look so young). You’ll flop around like a trout out of water, realizing you’ve mistaken the barbed hook for the golden ring.
It all seems so absurd——all the girls you tried to impress with false bravado, the fake laughs given for free to please your dim witted boss, the loud arguments availing only hurt feelings——its all comes back to you like a strange dream, like staring up at the shimmering surface of the water while holding your breath at the bottom of the sea. Down there, there’s only shipwrecks, rusty anchors, the eight armed Kraken and the tiny fart bubbles you release as pieces of your forgiveness. Farting is God’s way of telling you to not take yourself to seriously.
We stubbornly withhold our forgiveness, we’d rather offer up snide remarks and sarcastic smiles. We expect others to rain apologies down upon us, but the sad truth is, some people don’t know how to be sorry. They only learn forgiveness by being forgiven—-and the bible along with all the other holy books speak of this irony. The currency of unspoken forgivenesses pays out in wasted time, it lengthens the bridge we’ve all come here to cross.
This tune was written in homage to John Prine, my favorite folk artist. He could write a lyric that straddles that fine line between silly and sad. He can take the ordinary and make it seem extraordinary.
Drip, Drip, Drip
I danced with the devil
I stepped on his tail
Got drunk in a tavern
Found Jesus in jail
Drank enough beer
To piss me an ocean
It’s hard to get lost
When ya don’t care where you’re going
I bummed me a smoke
fired up a light
Now I’m stuck in this tree
Like a tattered old kite
Chased a few rainbows
Searching for a pot of gold
When I was young
Never thought I’d grow old
Times a wad of gum
stuck on your shoe
you can try and out run it
but it’ll catch up with you
Fates a leaky faucet
That drip, drip, drips
What you deserves
Is usually what you get
One night stands
Well, I had me a few
When it comes to loving
Bit off more than I could chew.
Made some mistakes
Yeah, I paid my dues
Smashed my TV
Tired of, the same ole bad news
You might say I’m crazy
Nutty as a fruit cake
If the fish ain’t bitting
It’s time to change your bait.
Chased a few rainbows
Searching for a pot of gold
When I was young
Never thought I’d grow old
Fates a wad of gum
stuck on your shoe
you can try to out run it
but it’ll catch up with you
Time’s a leaky faucet
That goes drip, drip, drips
The good times I’ll remember
The bad ones I’ll forget
I’m in a Walmart state of mind. The fluorescent lighting gives the vast yet cluttered place a harsh two dimensional appearance. It’s a landscape crowded with cartoonish characters wearing thousand yard stares. I’m staggering my way through this cathedral of capitalism, a place where everything has its price, but negligible value. It required the consumption of two tall boys and a shot of Jameson in order for me to enter these doors——I’ve come here to hopefully find an old friend of mine.
I do my best daydreaming while wandering through these isles of meaningless shit. There’s something about the endless isles of blurred colors and the monochromatic shopping muzak that puts me in a walking meditation. I peruse my way through the shameless drooping bra display, past the old ladies laid out in the pedicure highchairs, the in-house McDonalds with ketchup smeared tables, the strange optometrist alcove next to the restrooms and then past the immaculately arranged shiny fruit and vegetables, through the wall of HD TV’s, housewares, hardware, sporting goods and the disheveled toy department. I feel myself being swept away into a Fellini plot with its array of bizarre looking zombies. It’s a nightmarish funhouse of warped mirrors, insane laughing clowns and Andy Warhol’s stacks of Campbell soup cans. The deeper I’m pulled into the bowels of the store, the more surreal my thoughts become——— Maybe I’ll find her in the shoe department.——
Why is there no three quarter life crises? It’s a misunderstood age ignored by a world consumed by youth culture and the next “big thing”. At this stage of my life, it’s no longer what I’m becoming, or who “I’m supposed to be” I know these things. Today, it’s more about “What have I done”. Or, “What haven’t I done?” If you’ve aged well, you no longer give a damn what other people think, you are——–(good, bad or indifferent) uncompromisingly “you”. Time strips away vanities, insecurities and pretentiousness. There’s comes a forced introspection knowing there are more days behind me than in front of me——-
The mirror has become a contemptuous tool of fucking deceit. My internal mirror has me forever young. When I smile at pretty young girls they offer up blank stares,—–Just for kicks, I give a sly wink====”Better to be the one who smiled than the one who didn’t smile back.” Adam Smith
From the corner of my eye I catch the blur of something flittering amongst the exposed heating ducts, light fixtures and skylights. I scan the upper regions of the massive ceiling. I hear a sound reminiscent of a bird chirping. I follow the sound into the infant department. Could she be here?
My children are now grown and on their own. I carry their old memories frozen in time, but as I’ve grown older they’ve begun to thaw and slowly drip into my consciousness. Out of nowhere an old memory will surface and I will suddenly be consumed by a sense of nostalgia—- I’m taken back in time to cartoon gibberish, ski trips on snowy days, nervously letting go of the handlebars as she wobbles off without me, contentious teenage arguments with my son, teaching them how to swim, drawing the line “because I said so”, sleepless nights listening for the sound of the car returning in the driveway, holidays, family get togethers, loud parties——-tears and laughter——-I wonder, did I do it right? Did I do the right things for the right reasons? Did I tell them how much I love them? Did I say it enough? Did I show it enough? The past is malleable, I wonder about the memories they now carry of me???? Those were the best of times…….irreplaceable, irretrievable, irreparable, pressed like rose pedals within the pages of my heart——-
Perhaps she is by the water fountain near the layaway counter. Haughty shoppers offer up smirks as they jockey past me. They’re in a hurry to fill a hole left on their shopping list. The hunter gatherer gene lingering in their DNA causes them to stalk the shelves with a competitive killer instinct. For some, enough is never enough——hoarders of
“things” forget that everything they purchase comes with an expiration date…….
Have I failed god? Is he mute or am I deaf? Why are we born, why does everyone we love have to die? When I was young I was reckless, such things didn’t matter, back then I was unbreakable, irreverent—— There was always more time, time to say the things I needed to say, time to make up for the things I did wrong, time to apologize to those I’d wronged. I never looked at my watch or a calendar as a fuel gauge, or as an alarm to go off as time grows shorter.
I use to think I had control over my destiny, but not so much anymore. My grand designs flip flopped so many times that I’ve forgotten where my ego ends and my destiny begins. Life is full of twists and turns, ups and downs, two way mirrors, dead ends, trap doors and enigmatic mysteries. I use to take credit for my successes and make excuses for my failures, but time has humbled me. Someone must have been looking out for me, a higher power, God, grace———Thank goodness that the divine takes pity on little children and fools….
Such a beautiful disaster, filled with prophetic accidents and comical mistakes, the art of life, falling apart and coming back together, riding the wave of brief eternal moments……recollecting all the people I’ve found and lost along the way. There’s always been more room for love. I should’ve hugged more, forgave quicker and been slower to anger——-
I follow the sound through the doors leading to the Yard and Garden Center. I know that she likes it out here where there is sun and fresh air. It’s an atrium of sorts, here I’m surrounded by chain linked fencing and a netted ceiling. I whistle hoping to coax a response from my shy friend.
Did I make them proud. After all their sacrifices and compromises had I come up short? Did I become a better part of their dream. It makes me wonder how others perceive me and what are the blind spots I fail to perceive in myself. Unconditional love, like the air I breathe, has always been there, taken for granted, worse yet——-expected.
Youthful enthusiasm kept me running in scribbled circles, impatient, forgetful———memories of sitting on my folks couch, with the evening news in the background, they leaned into me, listening as I explained my scrambled schemes and how I was going to have things my way. It must have taken monumental patience on their part to allow me my fanciful indulgences. In spite of all my false starts and wrong turns, they were behind me, no matter how cocksure I must have appeared. I hadn’t counted on all the fractured relationship, career stumbles, strange lonely towns, sucker punched failures, bad days, night terrors, faltering steps and stumbles——-but I always carried with me the knowledge that there was a place I could still call home, someone who would answer their phone no matter what hour of the day or night, they’d see me through—what a beautiful complete love——
In the corner of the atrium there’s a nest behind a flood light fixture. And there she is, sitting above the rows of patio chairs, barbecues and artificial plants. Her nest is constructed of candy wrappers, recipes and colorful strings gathered from the clothing departments. I’m reminded that to adapt doesn’t always mean to evolve……
I’d first noticed her several months ago perched upon an exposed vent. She must have accidentally flown in the store when the electric doors were open. I’ve continued to make occasional visits to see if she was still making this place home. I’m not sure if she is trapped, or if she has found this way of life to be more predictable then what lies beyond these walls—-Life without surprises leads to complacency, and complacency compromises ones soul.
She must subside on the fruits and vegetables and other tidbits tossed into the trash cans. The water dispenser has become her birdbath and drinking fountain.
This Walmart will be her chicks only world, all that they will ever know. It seems cruel and unfair that this sterile box-store will be the extent of their universe. But, if this is all they’ll ever know, then I suppose it makes no difference. They don’t know—-that they don’t know——-that they’re captive birds.
Toknow that you don’t know, is where wonder collides with wisdom. I reach in my pocket and pull out a handful of birdseed and place it in the plastic rubber plant.
Leaving the store I’m filled with a sense of freedom. I inhale a deep breath and look up at the sky above me and wonder what doors may be hidden up there. I suppose we are all captive in one way or another ——-insnared by gravity, stiched to space and time, enslaved by our beliefs, stalked by our memories—-and ultimately, entrapped by the limited time we are here and alive………..
I was there, you were standing right next to me, I swear I could hear you breathe. I felt everything so deeply—but that’s nothing new. I desperately tried to get you to see, but you saw nothing———to get you to hear, but you heard nothing. You wore the expression of someone waiting on a ghost taxi, you wanted to be anywhere but here——-alone with me. The gulf had grown to wide to bridge, the fortunes walls to high to scale.
Life is not a book, a poem, a movie or a song. Life is a cold clammy messy ball of unformed clay, a mine field of misconstrued words and veiled emotions, its harmony pitted against dissonance, it’s pages of dull descriptions with no plot or character development, it’s being locked inside someones illusion of you, it’s giving yourself to fate cause freewill failed, it’s a sledge hammer to a diamond shaped heart, it’s junk mail when you deserve a love letter, it’s spam when you crave intimacy, it’s holding hands with a memory, it’s french kissing a specter, it’s a text message when all you really want to do is lie on your back with someone in the middle of a quiet meadow and count falling stars, it’s asking for your secrets back, it’s cutting down a tree with a dull ax, it’s blunt answers when all you need is a soft touch, It’s a relentless wind whistling through your window pane on a sleepless night, it’s finding a beautiful feather after the bird has flown, it’s waiting in the wings, it’s a gray and rainy January day in California, it’s missing someone who has long ago forgotten you…..
I think of you when it snows, because that’s what the sky was doing the last time I saw you—the last time I felt your warmth—-that was back then, when I thought I’d always feel you. Little pieces of whiteness falling gracefully from the heavens, collecting in your hair, clinging to pine trees and covering the tired backstreets of our hometown, back then, this pale city was ours for the taking.
We were becoming one, one with the sky and the ground, as our bodies clung together, our eyes pure and childlike, as we shared a common breath that fused into a cloud of steam, immaculate and white, it felt like eternity, like that moment would last forever, as if time stood still, but time stops for nothing and takes pity on no one. Life is a dissolving vapor, love a dream.
I can hear the passage of time in the strange silence that accompanies a fresh layer of snow, I recall the sound of your voice, the way you listened to my stories, the little pieces of you that still inhabit my soul, your smile, your laughter, your eyes, how you moved through the ether, giving shape to this void we call life.
I love you in that place where there is no time or space, in that mini death between heartbeats, in the stillness that separates each breath, only you have the power to take me to that place where eroticism and ecstasy collide.
Is time real, or man made, is it linear or circular? Time without you is meaningless—-I walk through the vacant snowy streets like a ghost, invisible as white on white. Is this real? Am I real? I fade into you——-
“Don’t you believe in love? Sure, I believe in love, I just don’t believe in people.”
People will let you down, they’ll offer up a thousand promises and then forsake you as they play dumb, as they stare past you with those faux naive eyes——- People are fickle, love is temporary, time is fleeting, —-lipstick stains while french kisses fade—love letters are scribbled in disappearing ink
yet love is always good. I didn’t say that it’s always worth it, but it’s good while it lasts.
Love, it brings out the best and the worst in us all. It has caused some to take their own life, while others in a jealous rage take another’s life, and some will sacrifice everything for a believed to be one and only———it’ll leave you with blood on your hands, it’ll lead you down dark blind alleys, leave ya stupefied broken and adrift—-
yet love is good. I didn’t say that it’s always worth it, but it’s good while it lasts.
It’ll make ya feel invincible, immortal, it’ll pull back the drapes covering your parched heart and let in all the colors you never knew existed, it’ll rock your world like a shot of tequila burning the back of your throat——-causing your eyes to water as your face contorts into a squinted fist, as you let out an involuntary “Ahhhhhhhh”—-
yet love is always good. I didn’t say that it’s always worth it, but it’s good while it lasts.
It’ll come to you exulted, wearing the robes of royalty, rose pedals line its path——- only to reduce you into a beggar, a panhandler, a homeless heart aimlessly wandering the bleakest of city streets. Just when you think you’ve figured it all out, you’ll realize you’ve been chasing a mirage, you’ve been kneeling before a charlatan, duped by a chameleon. You’ve drank the potion, taken the cure, only to find that the miracle drug is snake oil.
yet love is always good. I didn’t say that it’s always worth it, but it’s good while it lasts.
She speaks to you in a slow deliberate voice, a whisper, so precise, so careful, like a priest giving a crowd of strangers a eulogy for someone who’ll never be seen, heard from or touched again. And, that’s how this thing called love works. A hundred years from now, who will know, who will care, who will miss you?——
yet love is always good. I didn’t say that it’s always worth it, but it’s good while it lasts.
“Don’t you believe in love? Sure, I believe in love, I just don’t believe in people.”
It’s the kind of love reminiscent of a house that’s been neglected and is now ghost infested. . Like a room no longer dusted, every surface has lost it’s shine and luster. No one has paid attention to the accumulation of times tiny cruelties. Things have gone messy, unsightly, rundown and tired——entropy, a law of physic’s leading me to loneliness.
The floor is stamped by a stampede of scuff marks across its hardwood planks. It’s as if the inhabitants had walked in endless circles never reaching a place of compromise. The windows now clouded by years of harsh weather . There’s no longer a way to see out, nor peer in, it’s as if the house has lost its vision—a dark place of shadows and gloom. And, if the eyes are a mirror to the soul, then this room should be bloodshot and stained blue.
She left her finger prints on my door knobs, her dirty dishes fill my sink, her wrinkled clothes on the floor, yet the passenger side of the bed is always neatly made up, not so much as an indentation leaning to my side. No matter how hard you clean a tomb, it’s still a place that reeks of death.
I once read that before a big battle, civil war solders would sew their name onto the back of their shirt collars—-along with the regiment to which they belonged. I’ve tattooed the same on my heart, cause with its last beat, I want someone to know it once belonged to someone——somewhere.
The wind whistles through the cracks in our walls. The fireplace has only fine ash from a fire that’s long ago gone cold.
Bad things have befallen this room. “To be perfectly honest, I can’t live like this.” Such mean things we screamed at one another. Honesty is overrated, please tell me nice things even if they’re a stone-cold lie. A temporary lie is better than an irrevocable truth.
Rants, Raves and Random Thoughts 