Bread and Roses

150 Words: All That Jazz

2011-05-10T16:27:00.001-07:00

Maybe it was the wine.

He didn’t drink much and a little wine went right to his head. Whatever it was he was humming songs and shedding soft, self-serving tears, and seeing Technicolor things that touched his weary heart.

Jessica Lange, shimmering in waves of luminescent white, was smiling patiently, alluringly, inscrutably. Emmylou Harris, gloriously angelic and thankfully earthbound, was singing sad songs that didn’t make him cry.

And there was dancing…lots of dancing…and sex and laughter, sweet life and sweet death, lasting truth and lingering lies…visions of the future, the past, and all that jazz.

Maybe it was a dream bleeding into the waking world, mixing the magical and mundane in the fevered imagination of a poor mortal fool.

Maybe it was it just a movie, an artful mix of fiction and reality carefully crafted to stimulate the senses and draw emotion out of playacting.

Maybe it was the wine.

The Next to the Last Day of the End of Time

2011-05-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

It felt like rain on the next to the last day of the end of time. That was cool with Victor…he liked the rain and the grayness, he really liked the grayness because it made him appreciate the sunshine that much more when it came back.

The wind was heavy and moist as Victor wandered the avenues on that gray day but he barely felt it. Despite the fact that he hadn’t bothered to take a coat or a hat none of the blustery, storm-heralding weather made him the least bit uncomfortable. Why would it? The next day was one that he had been looking forward to for a long time and the utter finality of it warmed him, admittedly in a strange and sad way, to his very core.

The sun shone brightly on the last day of the end of time. It was an almost perfectly blue, gently blustery day. And that too was cool with Victor. The threat of rain the previous day had made this day more sparkling and though it was a shame that there would be no more it was still a glorious backdrop for the end of time to play out on. Victor drank wine and smoked cigars and let the rays of the sun caress him and all of it chilled him, in a strange and sad, way to his very core.

It felt like rain on the next to last day of the end of time. It felt like spring, bountiful and welcoming, on the last day. It felt…right…and that was cool with Victor…he liked feeling, at least once in his life, right.

The sun set and the evening shadows gathered. And darkness held Victor close…it was the last day of the end of time and he was going…well, Victor didn’t really know where he was going but he was going just the same…and that was cool with Victor.

150 Words: We Heard Him

2011-05-09T04:13:00.000-07:00

The bus was quiet in the early morning and we heard him. We all heard him. But we pretended, as people do, that we did not hear him at all.

He sat, by himself, all the way in the back, staring out the window at the cars and the sad eyed people shuffling along the avenues. He sat, murmuring in a voice that cut through the masculine hum of the bus engine.

He sat murmuring…we all heard him…murmuring that children’s prayer. ”…now I lay me down to sleep…”

But we pretended, as people do, that we did not hear him at all.

He got off the bus, at the edge of downtown, still murmuring. ”…if I die before I wake….” He disappeared around a shadowed corner and was gone, that prayer still murmuring…sighing musically…in his wake.

But we pretended, as people do, that we did not hear him at all.

The Way of the World

2011-05-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes he thought he saw the boundaries of heaven. Sometimes he thought he knew something about the meaning of life. Sometimes…well, sometimes, he thought he knew.

But most times he knew that he didn’t really know anything of significance. But that was okay with him…it was the way of the world after all…the way it was and the way it would ever be…and it really didn’t make him sleep any better or any worse knowing that.

Sometimes he tasted the sweetest wine…on the lips of lovers, on the tiny fingers of guileless babies, in the spray of the mighty ocean crashing against foolish, helpless rocks, in the way the sky felt on his tongue after lingering autumn rains. And sometimes it made him feel so intoxicated, so utterly free, that he couldn’t imagine anything else could possibly ever taste so wonderful. Sometimes he tasted the wine…and sometimes he liked to imagine that the wine would flow freely for all of the rest of his days.

But most times he knew that it wouldn’t. He knew that it just couldn’t. And that was okay with him…the sweetest things should always be taken in careful moderation lest they lose their honeyed luster and come to seem mundane. This too, he knew, was the way of the world….the way the world was…the way world had ever been…the way the world would ever be…and it didn’t make him feel any better or any worse about his place in the universe.

And sometimes he thought everybody in the world could feel his secret thoughts, read all of his unwritten words, sing all the songs that he had deliberately forgotten how to sing…sometimes he imagined and sometimes it made him feel naked and exposed. And sometimes it made him feel special, the guardian of secret knowledge entrusted to him by the knowing universe, the seeming fool who strode the world an unknown, but blessed, shaman and scholar.

But sometimes…most times, in fact…he knew that was hubris too arrogant and too fantastic to be taken very seriously at all. This bothered him, in his heart of hearts, but as long as it remained true in his dreaming times…and it most certainly did…he was okay with the real truth of the matter. It was the way of the world after all…the way it absolutely should be no matter how much he might wish it to be otherwise…and so it didn’t really trouble his mind…except in the quiet moments of whispering and wishing that everybody has but nobody admits to.

Sometimes he thought he knew…knew the hidden places…the secret, sacred hearts…the perfectly peaceful vistas and the eternally calm and calming hideaways…all of the gentler, more grace-filled truths of the infinite…sometimes…just sometimes…he thought he knew.

And sometimes he did know. But most times he knew that he didn’t know much of anything and he was, only a bit reluctantly, okay with that. It was, after all, the way of the world…the way it was and would ever be…the way it was for him, for everyone he knew, for everyone he had known at one time, for everyone he would never ever know….and it really didn’t play games with heart or make sport of his head. Well at least not too much…sometimes…at least not too much…

I saw God in the wee hours...

2011-05-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

I saw God in the wee hours of a particularly warm spring morning. He was sitting in the corner of my room watching over me while I had slept.

“Good morning,” God said in my grandfather’s resonant voice.

“Good morning,” I said, sitting up in bed. “How long have you been there?”

God smiled…inscrutably, of course…and made no reply. Yeah, I thought, that was a stupid question.

“I know what you’re thinking,” God said as light slowly suffused the room.

“I’m sure you do,” I said, just a bit sarcastically, rising from bed and not realizing in the moment how utterly unselfconscious I was about being naked.

God chuckled…my grandfather’s chuckle. “Ever the skeptic,” he said warmly. He looked at me with my father’s mother’s piercing eyes. “That’s okay, I have always believed in you just the same.”

“Why?”

God cocked his head slightly, his mouth crinkled into Rose’s patiently impatient frown. Another stupid question, I realized, but I felt no impulse to feel shame about it.

God reached out…with my maternal grandmother’s welcoming grace, with Simon’s strong, gentle arms…and I folded into his embrace. God smelled like honey and scotch, like chocolate and cigars…God smelled like Papa. “Of course I do,” God said with Alan’s affectionate, slightly shy grin. “You’re pretty calm about all this.”

I closed my eyes, my head against God’s chest…his heartbeat sounded like the best song I never heard…his heartbeat sounded like Annie laughing…his heartbeat sounded like Michael singing…his heartbeat sounded like Eli sighing softly…and I smiled contentedly. “I’m going to wake up soon,” I said, “so why fight the dream?”

God chuckled again…my brother’s happy laugh…and kissed the top of my head. “As you say, son,” he said. “I love you just the same.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, not opening my eyes. I breathed easily, lingering in God’s embrace as the first rays of the morning sun slipped softly through the open window.

A Spring Day on the Circle

2011-05-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

The spring day felt like summer. Warm Santa Ana winds came rolling in…playful but insistent…off the desert and any lingering clouds fled out to the Pacific. Under powder blue skies heat spread…insistent but no oppressive…over the city…over the neighborhood…over the Circle.

D, across the street, was the first to leave for the day as usual. A soft roar into the waning darkness of the morning, taking the red SUV instead of the powerful white truck he most often favors.

Shy, enigmatic C was next, waving as she passed, her headlights illuminating me fleetingly as I paced the Circle, tea in hand.

And then the Marine on the corner, coughing and smoking…smoking and coughing…as his truck warmed up for the short jaunt off the mesa down to the sprawling base.

The sun was rising and the birds were awake and already happily gossiping. The winds were already gathering and the trees were dancing, their spring foliage singing songs to the new day and to the grace of the infinite.

The Earth turned and met the sun. I dressed appropriately for the weather…baggy blue shorts, muted red shirt…and proceeded with my previously planned chore of finishing the spring cleaning of the garage while the morning was still relatively cool. The screened doors and windows open to the gathering, warming breezes, music…Van Morrison, Ray Charles…spread from my stereo in the family room and out through the house and into the garage, and into the street.

A, across the street, climbed into the family’s white SUV, the warm breeze carrying a whiff…vague but insistent…of cigarette smoke around the Circle before taking it off towards the sea…and slipped off into the day. It occurs to me that I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen A smile.

L, two doors down, leaves next, her red hair shimmering in the morning sun, while her husband J sets to work in their garage before the day becomes too oppressive for such endeavors.

The reclusive young couple who live in what old-timers on the Circle still call “George and Ginger’s house” go their ways…he in his jeep, she, with the toddler she gave birth to not too long after they moved onto the block, in her gleaming black SUV.

P…fair skinned, porcelain, warily affable…comes over to retrieve the mail she had asked me to collect while she and her older daughter were off spending a few days in Idaho with her younger daughter and the grandchildren. We made small talk about the weather and she, having taken a day off after her trip, went to tend to her plants and flowers and I went back to work in my garage.

I filled the trash and recycling bins and rolled them out to the street for pickup the next day; I rolled C’s bins out to the street because I do that every week as well. The garage as done as it was going to be, I closed it up and went to finish an assignment on the computer. The day was getting warmer and the cats had already staked out territory under ceiling fans of their choosing.

Noontime under the big tree in the front yard, the Santa Ana winds (yeah, that Steely Dan song kept playing in my head and I'm looking over my shoulder for Babylon sisters to be shaking it) really kicking up an impish ruckus, the warmth continued to rise, and the day on the Circle continued to slow down.

Mid-afternoon, D, early to work, early home, is riding around the Circle on a bike he apparently rediscovered in his garage. The lithe D, who walks in both boyish whimsy and…vague but insistent…melancholy, goes shirtless whenever he can and as he delights in making circles on the Circle, his little gold nipple ring glints in the sun every once in a while casting tiny sparks of light here and there.

Someone visits J, the wind carrying the pungent aroma of his cigar around the Circle.

Early evening, the air is still thick and sweaty, doors and windows are still open all around the Circle, soft music (from my house) is gliding on top of the heated air as our part of the world started to slowly move away the mother sun. I spend sundown in the yard…on my bench…luxuriating in the gathering coolness.

The spring day…the spring evening…felt like summer. And, they tell me, this “summer” wasn’t ending just yet.

the nights go on forever

2011-05-02T15:01:00.000-07:00

“The nights go on forever,” she said with a rueful little smile that I found enormously endearing. “It’s the days that are never long enough.”

I nodded, pretending she was giving some hidden wisdom that had somehow escaped my notice. It hadn’t. I was a friend…no, not a friend…an acquaintance…I was an acquaintance of shadows and whispers; of cold mornings on chilly sheets, alone in the dark, languidly pawing at indifferent erections and wondering why the nights…like this long forever night…hadn’t swallowed me at last and set me free once and for all.

‘You’re such a little boy,” she said, just a bit unkindly, as if she knew what I was thinking. “You lie to me but I don’t care…you have sad brown eyes and hungry brown lips…you’re a beautiful liar and I would lay with you…I would make you moan my name and breathe carnal whispers to the infinite…if you really knew what love was. But you don’t.”

I wanted to slap her. But I didn’t…you don’t hit someone for the truth…it’s not proper. And I always try to be proper.

“You make angels out of cigarette smoke…saviors out of chilled wine bottles…you think navel gazing singers pirate your diaries…and you pride yourself that the head on your shoulders, not the one at the tip of your dick, calls the shots when nothing could be further from the truth…you dream even while you’re ‘awake’, why the hell would you want more daytime?”

Because.

She laughed, a brittle, decidedly unkind laugh, and shook her head. “I love you.” She looked me in the eyes. “Or maybe I just think I love you.” She paused, her cool eyes mocking me. “Or maybe I don’t love you at all but say it anyway because you want to believe it.” She paused again. “Do you understand that?”

I nodded. Yes.

“Does it make any difference?”

Hot tears welled up in my sad brown eyes. I shook my head. No.

She frowned, sadly, and pulled me close. She kissed my hungry brown lips. She put my head on her breasts and rocked me slowly. “Silly little boy,” she cooed, stroking my head and rocking me gently to a song only she could hear.

And the night, of course, went on forever.

One More Book to Read

2011-04-27T05:07:00.000-07:00

There will always be one more book to be read. Always be one more song to be sung and one more dance to be shared in the strong, sheltering arms of somebody who cares. There’s nothing remarkable about that…and yet it’s one of the most remarkable things about this sweet old world of ours.

Time and history and memory flow on taking scant heed of our brief turns yet, at the same time, holding our being…our fleeting, eternal being…forever safe even after the energy that was us had found new purchase and the shell that was us has returned to Gaea’s tender embrace.

There will always be one smile to feel. And there will always be one more tear to be shed and one more passionate whisper to be breathed into the heart and the sheltering soul of somebody who cares, somebody you care about. There will always be one more kiss…carnal and chaste…one more healing sigh born of passion, sweat, and orgasm.

There will always be one more baby smiling, one more hand to hold, one more mountain to climb, one more nightmare to be overcome, one more dream…however improbable…to reach out for with all of the might in our fragile, indomitable bodies and souls.

The universe flows…as it ever has, as it ever will…and dust goes back to dust, light goes back to light. And there will always…always…be one more book to read.

Believe (Easter Refrain)

2011-04-21T21:06:00.000-07:00

I believe in the light everlasting…in the universe unbounded and ever-changing. I believe in the glory of music and magic, the power of dreams and imagination, the necessity of tears and heartache, and the redemption of passion and compassion.

I believe in the truth of the moment and the fluidity of the past and the certainty of the sprawling future. I believe moments are precious…minutes are eternal…days are short…years are quicksilver…I believe that time is the healer, the destroyer, the cradle of human existence.

I believe in love when my heart seems filled beyond capacity…I believe in love when my heart seems empty beyond despair. I believe in love…and in hate. I believe in joy…and in anger. I believe in justice…and in forgiveness.

I believe in faith…and wondering. I believe in the existence of foolish war…and the certainly of reborn peace. I believe in the divinity of mortality and the humanity of the divine.

I believe that I am God…and you are God…and we are God…and God is all of us living, all of us who have died, all of us who are yet to be born. I believe that God, however simply or complexly you conceive of that universal balance, is.

I believe that we are fleeting in the ken of the universe. I believe that we are eternal in the tapestry of the universe.

I believe…in the light everlasting.

I believe…in love and being.

I believe…

Amen.

The Beautiful Woman Next Door

2011-04-15T07:36:00.000-07:00

The beautiful woman next door didn’t seem to know that she was beautiful. He found that sad…and endearing. Sad because every beautiful woman…beautiful in all the wondrous, myriad ways that beauty touches in and radiates from women…should never have a doubt about that fact. And endearing…gloriously, achingly endearing…because there was nothing quite as lovely as a beautiful woman lacking the vanity that would make her fret about being a beautiful woman.

Even in his numb shadows he saw her…she made his dark heart skip beats he thought he would never feel again; the shy enigma of her Mona Lisa smile made him see light that he would never see again; the tender mystery in her soft dark eyes made him dream dreams he thought he’d given up once and for all.

He wondered what it would be like to be her confidant…someone she felt comfortable enough to share secrets and hidden smiles and shy tears with…to be her strong shoulder…when her own strength waned and she needed someone take up the slack; he wondered what it would be like to be her friend…someone to stroke her hair, someone to give safe harbor, someone who could trust her with his secrets; he wondered what it would be like to be her lover…someone allowed to kiss her tender lips, someone blessed enough to hold her tight and feel her heart beating in time with his own.

He wondered…and then he smiled at his foolish hubris…she was so close and yet so far away, safe in a cocoon of reticence and mystery and, yes, beauty…gentle, endearing, seemingly untouchable beauty.

The beautiful woman next door didn’t seem to know that she was beautiful. But he did. And he gloried in that. And he cherished that. And sometimes…just sometimes…he coveted that. Because there’s nothing quite as wondrous as an angel shimmering in mortal form….because there was nothing quite as lovely as a beautiful woman lacking the vanity to fret about...to even truly realize...that she was indeed a very beautiful woman.

The Pretender

2011-04-14T19:02:00.000-07:00

Nobody seemed to see how sad the Pretender was. He presumed that nobody really cared…though part of him remained hopefully enough…arrogant enough…to presume that it really wasn’t completely so.

The Pretender, resplendent in blue and black, thought of himself as a hero…a super-hero, in fact….and sometimes…just sometimes…he was just that.

And sometimes…too often for comfort…he was not. Sometimes he was a charlatan…a deluded charlatan in a silly costume. And he knew it…though he didn’t always consciously acknowledge that fact.

It was often hard to know when the one…the self-sacrificing hero…left off and the other…the sad, vainglorious charlatan…began. Most times the Pretender, living a life that wasn’t half as real as he liked to believe it was, didn’t want to know.

The Pretender, wearing a mask that seemingly worked better than he really wanted it to, stayed invisible in plain sight…swooping down to save the day and then disappearing into the shadows lingering long enough to try to hear some of the impassioned cheers he thought his heroism was supposed to give birth to.

Nobody seemed to know how sad…how lonely and how angry and how defeated…the Pretender was. But that was okay, most days the Pretender didn’t really know either. He got up each day, put on his mask and his cape, and, disguised in blue and black, pretended to be part of the world.

He was who he was. A hero…even if only in his own mind; a charlatan…even if he only occasionally accepted that fact; he was, in his costume and his too-effective mask, the Pretender.

150 Words: Proverbs

2011-04-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

“Slow down…take a deep breath. If you rush through life, life rushes through you.”

His friend frowned. “What the hell is that?”

He smiled mischievously. “It’s an ancient Chinese proverb…that I just made up…”

His friend sighed, shaking his head. “Aren’t you clever? If I don’t get this project done, my boss is gonna rush me right out the door.”

“But you’re running around like a chicken with his head cut off, what exactly are you getting done?”

His friend glared. “I hate you.”

He chuckled warmly. “I have that effect on people sometimes. But you know that I’m right.”

His friend grinned wryly. “Please enlighten me further, Master.”

He brushed off the sarcasm. “A stitch in time saves nine.”

“Go to hell.”

“A watched pot never boils.”

“I’m not listening to you…”

“May you live in interesting times…”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

“The early bird catches…”

“Argghh!”

Slave

2011-04-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

I am a slave…a slave to memory…real and imagined.

I am a thrall to bittersweet realities that I lived, subtly and overtly rewritten the way memories always are over the course of time, and a fool for the more golden remembrances of things which I know never happened but plaintively wished had.

I am a freeman and a slave just the same…a slave to my passions, as fickle and unfocused as they are so often…a slave to wanting the world…no, that’s not true…a slave to wanting MY world to make better sense…to cast me as the sage…the seeker…the lover…the blissful dreamer…the contented soul that I like to imagine myself to be when the moon is low and my scrupulously erected barriers have begun to crumble a little.

I am a slave to dreams…a slave to sorrow and bitterness…a slave to hope and laughter…a slave to the notion that all lost love was the healing love recognized just a heartbeat after it had vanished into the mist of the ever present past…a slave to recrimination, fair and too often unfair, that lingers long after it should have faded into the ether.

I am a child of fleeting light…a child of abiding shadows that I long ago stopped expecting anyone else to truly understand.

I am a child…I am a man…a freeman of color living in a cool, sometimes cold gray world…dreaming in a warm, always welcoming world of soft, flowing color…blue and gold, red and green, burnt orange and royal violet…black and white…

I am a freeman. I am a fool. I am a dreamer. I am an illusionist. I am a master of all I imagine.

I am a thinker. I am an idiot. I am a hero. I am a coward. I am special. I am not special at all.

I am a slave.

Every Morning

2011-04-02T06:29:00.000-07:00

Every morning, a little bird…hidden in the pre-dawn shadows of the big tree across the Circle…sings the first song of morning, calling…hopefully, plaintively, unabashedly…until, eventually, a distant, sleepy reply comes. Until, eventually, more distant, sleepy responses sing out in the cool morning air and the conversation, musical and gossipy, begins in earnest.

Every morning, an old man, bundled against the chill before sunrise, comes down New Salem Street walking his happy little dog. The old man’s pace is brisk and sure; the little dog, his tail wagging, his head held high, effortless keeps pace. The old man cuts through the darkness with a tiny white light shining from his cap.

Every morning, the trees sway in the lazy breeze…every morning, the stars seem to fade away as the sun’s first tentative fingers of light turn the indigo horizon to a softer shade of darker blue. Every morning, one neighbor…holding her robe securely…comes out to see where the newspaper guy has casually tossed her copy of the Union-Tribune that day.

Every morning…every weekday morning…my next door neighbor, walking briskly, gets into her car for the journey to her job. She smiles shyly (I can’t see her face in the shadows but she always smiles shyly) and offers a soft greeting…”Good morning, Michael”…before she backs out of the driveway and, with a little wave, drives off into her day.

Every morning…every weekday morning…my neighbor directly across the Circle yawns as he clambers into his big white truck, waves and nods in the way men do, and roars off towards his own day; the neighbor next to him does likewise with a black truck that growls even deeper than the first one.

Every morning, life slowly rouses itself on Whitehall Circle…slowly rouses itself all around the city…singing and yawning, waving and smiling shyly…while the softly rising sun, slowly but surely, turns the sky from black towards blue. Every morning…

The Sailor and the Butterfly (a fable)

2011-04-01T19:49:00.000-07:00

The butterfly danced with the sailor for a brief, eternal season. He cherished her…the strong, delicate, luminously beautiful butterfly…but not nearly as much as he should have (ever and always the fool he.)

The sailor tried to keep her close while, fear and foolishness ever his dour companions, also keeping her at arm’s length…he watched her shimmering soft and blue, a sailor on celestial wing, in the bright sun of sweet summer and the sparkling stars of quiet autumn.

The butterfly danced, leaving kisses and perfume on his cheeks, and waited as patiently as she could. And then, of course, she couldn’t wait any longer…time passed by, seas led to other, more golden shores…and she flew away…leaving music in her wake and sad sweet light in his heart.

He was sad and happy when she found a place that truly cherished her…sad and happy when the butterfly nestled into the garden she always deserved…sad and happy that she was with many even though none of them were him.

And the sailor whispered…on the wandering wind…”I loved you more than I ever said.”

And the sailor whispered…on the wayward wind…”I’m so happy that you’re safe and happy.”

And the sailor whispered…on the wondrous, wondering wind…”Please forgive my coward’s heart. Please forgive me for not cherishing you as much I should have.”

And the sailor whispered…on the wafting, whispering wind…and prayed that the butterfly, dancing contentedly in her garden, heard…and knew…and sometimes, just sometimes, saved a fond prayer for him.

150 Words: The Hours

2011-03-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

Nicole Kidman is pretending to be Virginia Woolf. She’s pretending to sink slowly beneath the healing waters of a gently unforgiving stream. She’s pretending to choose darkness because the light is, all things considered, just a little too much to bear.

Nicole Kidman is sinking…slipping, disguised as Virginia Woolf, away from the sky and down to the bottom of a gently non-judgmental stream.

I am watching and I am pretending that I do not understand. I am crying, hot reluctant tears. I am mocking myself…it’s only a movie.

Nicole Kidman is sinking below the water. I am pretending that I do not understand.

Virginia Woolf is slipping down and the hours are passing…the hours are ending but not ending at all. Nicole Kidman is pretending to be Virginia Woolf. Ed Harris is falling to eternity. Meryl Streep is choosing life.

I am crying and pretending that I do not understand.

I Imagine Your Eyes...

2011-03-25T18:22:00.000-07:00

I imagine your eyes will save me….your mysterious eyes that speak of passion and romance even in their shyest, most shielded moments…it’s a fool’s errand (it always is) but I am foolish enough to indulge the fantasy just the same.

Your eyes…your tender eyes…will save me. Will save me from my shadows…will save me from the fire…will save me from myself. And I will be whole again. And I will be happy again. And I will light a fire in your eyes and spend the rest of my days working tirelessly to keep it there. I imagine your eyes…they will save me.

I imagine your touch…your gentle arms, your tender kiss, your sweet bosom, your delicate but strong hands…I imagine your touch will save me. It is, again, a fool’s errand (nobody can save us if we can’t save ourselves) but, again, I am foolish enough to reach for the dream just the same.

Your touch….your tender touch…will save me. Will save me from my books and my poetry…will save me from the cold, lonely nights….will save me from myself and my missteps. And I will be whole again. And I will be whole for the first time. And I will be happy again. And I will be really happy for the first time. And I will take you into my arms and shelter you from the world while you shelter me from the world. I imagine your touch…your touch will save me.

I imagine your heart…your mighty heart that I know without really knowing it all…I imagine that your heart will save me. It is, of course, a fool’s errand (a bittersweet and eternal journey) but I am foolish enough to wonder what the world would look like with your heart in my corner.

Your heart…your mighty, guarded, shimmering heart…will save me. Will save me from the sad songs and happy feints…will save from the heartache of memory true and memory false…will save me from starry eyed self and let my make believe heart float gently down to real earth. And I will be whole. And I will be happy. And I will save a place for your heart in mine and spend the whole of eternity trying to make myself worthy of that trust.

I imagine…I imagine your eyes will save me…

Gravity

2011-03-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

He often railed against gravity. He always laughed at the hubris of it afterward but he did it, too often, just the same.

Gravity weighed him down, kept him from just floating up into the azure sky, and he knew that was gravity’s job…but sometimes…just sometimes…he railed against it just the same.

Gravity held him still while his lovers flew away…but, he was realist enough to realize, that was on him…always on him and his stubborn hubris…and not really on gravity…but it was easier to blame gravity so sometimes…just sometimes…that’s what he did.

Gravity kept him grounded when his heart was ready to burst each time his wife gave birth to one of their children…gravity held him close while he held his wide-eyed, open-hearted daughters and sons close to his heart, while he held his guileless and trusting children up high to the moonlit, starry expansive of the sky and let them know that nothing other than that celestial majesty was greater than who they were, who they would be.

He often railed against gravity. And gravity, for its part, gave wing to his heart and gently brought his tears back down to the welcoming, nurturing earth. He always laughed at the hubris of it…of railing against gravity…but he did it, much too often, just the same.

Learning to Fly

2011-03-17T06:31:00.000-07:00

Gabriel smiled ruefully as looked out over the precarious edge of the precipice. He was, as usual, afraid…but he was also resolved. At long last he’d understood what he should have known all along…trying to learn to fly meant accepting that you would sometimes have to fall.

And fall hard…maybe to unyielding earth, accepting the pain and trying to find the courage to climb up and try again.

Fall, perhaps, into the arms of earthbound angels there to cushion the impact, to wipe his brow and kiss his cheek; to hold him tight and beg him not to try to fly again or to stroke his hair and tell me to try again, tell him that they’ll be there as long as it takes.

Or fall, if such is the will of fate and foolishness, into oblivion, into the darkness that waits…waits patiently, inevitably…to welcome us, the fliers and the fallers, back into the endless arms of a merciful and merciless Universe.

Gabriel smiled, his heart racing, the verdant fields, winding paths, and fragrant bittersweet rosebushes stretched out so far below him that his eye couldn’t possibly take it all in; he smiled, the unbounded expanse of creation stretched out so far above him that even his wildest imaginings were too mortal to ever truly appreciate the scope and grandeur of its promises and possibilities.

Gabriel smiled, his coward’s heart…his hero’s heart…racing and urging him on…he took a deep breath…ready to learn to fly…ready to learn to fall…he looked inside his fool’s being, his immortal soul and…too late…too soon…just when he was supposed to…he stepped off the edge…

150 Words: Moonshadow

2011-03-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

Darkness lingers later in the morning again…stars twinkling in the waning hours before sunrise due to our hubris in attempting to manipulate time to suit our mortal whims…and the moon, the bright yellow moon, smiles patiently down doubtlessly amused at our illusion of mastery over time and space.

And me, I’m being followed by a moonshadow…in the wee hours, into the bright hours as our stately old world sails the cosmic sea and turns its face to the radiant star that warms and protects us as the journey continues.

I’m being followed by a moonshadow…I’m being warmed by a sunshower…but, of course, I’m not unique, moonshadows and sunshowers keep us all in our journey back towards the light eternal.

Darkness lingers…we “save daylight” without irony and the Universe, ever patient, allows us our illusion of mastery over time and space…and I’m being followed, we’re all being followed by moonshadows…moonshadows...moonshadows…

Graceland

2011-03-11T10:03:00.000-08:00

Elvis smiled and threw open the garden gate welcoming me home. It was bigger and less golden than I had imagined but I felt right at home just the same.

I found some of my friends in a courtyard filled to overflowing with light and music and we danced…danced to Motown 45’s and Bach sonatas, danced to the blues and the Beatles, danced to Joni and Bruce, Billie and Coltrane.

I found my smile in a small bright corner of a warm dark hall and I put it in my pocket for safekeeping.

I found my love drinking wine and nodding next to a blazing fire in the great room while Miles played melodies for songs he thought he was never going to write. Miles slipped into a shadow and my love and I made love on the floor by the fireplace while the music from the courtyard swept in and carried us away.

I found myself, saved by time, un-moored from the harbor, redeemed by faith. And it was all bigger and less golden than I had imagined…but it was okay…I was at home just the same. I was home…just the same…at long last.

Late in the Evening

2011-03-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

Sometimes…late at night…when the moon was cool and the air was still…I thought I could hear my mother crying…or praying…or singing…or doing all three at once. And sometimes…just sometimes…I thought I heard her, as the song says, “laughing the way some ladies do…when it’s late in the evening…and the music is seeping through…”

I guess I never forgave my father for not loving my mother the way she needed to be…deserved to be…loved.

I know I never forgave my brother for being so needful that he drained her energy and tried my patience and never seemed to get enough.

And I certainly never forgave myself for being resentful for being taken for granted (in my heart I know that I wasn’t but it felt that way so often that the little boy in me didn’t have enough strength to ever truly let it go) or for not being able to give my mother room to find some solace and happiness outside of her care for me and my brother.

And sometimes…late at night…lying in the shadows of my bed down the hall…I thought I could hear my mother crying…or praying…or singing. I thought I heard her laughing…surrounded by soft ballads and dancing swirls of menthol smoke…the way some ladies do…I thought I heard her dancing to her own song…the private song she indulged when it was late in the evening…and the music was seeping through.

150 Words: Listen

2011-03-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

We listen but we do not hear. It is the way of being human. It is the way of being separate. It is the way of the world.

(Don’t ask if you can’t deal with “no”. Don’t leap if you’re not as prepared to fall as you are prepared to soar. Don’t expect anybody to know what you yourself are not at all sure of. Do ask somebody to hear when all they can do is listen.)

We speak but we do not say what we really mean. It is the way of shadows. It is the way of precipices. It is the way of fear of falling. It is the way of being human. It is the way of the world.

We listen…sometimes we really listen…but too often we do not hear. It is the way of being close but forever apart. It is the way of the world.

150 Words: This Day

2011-03-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

I don’t suppose this day will ever pass without reflection…without remembering…without tears stubbornly held back and bittersweet smiles arriving unbidden…without the ghost of the friend who shared the end of his journey in the soothing moonlight and the healing sunshine…the ghost of the brother I loved, the brother who loved me…reaching out of the memory of my heart and soul and soothing my brow yet again.

I don’t suppose that will ever happen again…that this day will ever pass without reflection, welcome and wounding…without remembering…without knowing the darkness…without believing in the light…without cursing the Universe for the loss…without blessing the Universe for the brief season forever cherished.

I don’t suppose this day will ever pass without reflection…without remembering. It can’t be the case…not today, not ever, not as long as breath sustains me…and I don’t suppose I would…and I know that I wouldn’t allow it to be any other way.

The Conversation

2011-03-01T06:37:00.000-08:00

He shifted uncomfortably in the chair. He knew this was coming and yet he still wasn’t ready for it. He looked up into the eyes of the other one and, finding only wounding compassion and patience, he quickly looked back down.

If you could go back and change anything, what would you change?

Straight to the heart of the matter…he sighed the way he did when he wanted people to think that he was holding the weight of the world on his shoulders and measured his words carefully before allowing them to become his truth in the cool morning air. “Everything,” he said in a tiny, self-conscious voice.

Everything?

“Well…almost everything…” He waited for response until he realized that one was not yet forthcoming. “It feels like every decision I made…every avenue I chose to turn onto…every choice…was wrong. It would be a…blessing…to be able to go back…to know what I know now and let it inform my life in ways that would make it better…”

You think that would have made a difference? You think that the person you think you would have been would be a happier person?

He grimaced, hot tears crowding the corners of his eyes. “God, I hope so.”

What specifically would you change?

The question had so many answers he wasn’t exactly sure where to begin. He looked up for guidance but all he found was patient attention. “I would zig when before I zagged,” he said, allowing himself a mirthless laugh. “I would keep my feet on the ground instead of letting myself drift among so many foolish, unrealistic dreams. I would apply myself to making life what I needed it to be instead of just passively letting it happen to me.”

The words tumbled out with a will of their own and his breathing got tight but he didn’t stop. “I would tell my mother I love her every day of my life and tell my father I forgive him even though he probably wouldn’t understand what I was forgiving him for. I would hold my brother tight and do whatever I needed to do to save him from himself.”

He took a breath and the hot tears seized the moment and rolled down his face. “I would tell the people I loved that I did and leave those I didn’t love by the side of the road. I would kiss the people I wanted to but didn’t…and I wouldn’t kiss the ones I shouldn’t have but did.”

He closed his eyes and wiped his face. “I would really be as strong as I always pretended to be…” He opened his eyes and looked up. “I wouldn’t be so afraid.”

He sat back, spent, and waited. The silence danced around them.

You know that it doesn’t work that way.

He laughed again, ruefully but with some mirth this time. “Yes, sir, I know it doesn’t work that way.” He felt a strong, warm hand rest on his shoulder.

Most things aren’t good or bad…black or white…they just are…and they are in innumerable shades of gray. The same is true for your journey, of course.

“That doesn’t make me feel better.” The other one laughed warmly and leaned over and kissed the man’s cheek.

It will when it’s supposed to.

Somehow knowing it was time to move on, he stood up. The other one pointed to one of the many doors in the room and he walked towards it. He looked back and started to say something…

It will when it’s supposed to.

He nodded. “Thank you.” And he opened the door.

Sweetheart Like You

2011-02-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

“What are you doing?”

She unbuttoned her blouse and moved closer. Her breasts…not too large as to distract from the rest of her enticing body, not too small as to disappoint the primal male libido…were sheltered in playful black lace; they were certainly still pert enough to command attention. She’d let him touch them once…an awkwardly endearing moment on a cool, moonlit night that he both treasured and regretted…and he wanted to touch them again.

“I know what you want, baby,” she said in that voice…the one that was an absurdly intoxicating blend of coquettish girl and humid woman…that she knew worked on men all too well. “I know what you need.”

His breathing quickened and he felt an urge to press her against the wall…to kiss her mouth ruthlessly…to press his crotch against hers pinning her helplessly…to hold her fast with one hand while allowing the other to take proprietary hold of playful black lace.

But his eyes narrowed instead. “What the hell are you doing?” He took a half step back even though part of him was screaming to take an irrevocable step forward.

She paused, looking both confused and slightly insulted. “I can help you. I know you’ve been sad. I know you’ve been angry. I know what you need…what you’ve always wanted. Let me help you.” She took a half step forward putting her tiny, warm hand on his shirt. She leaned up until her face was almost, but not quite, touching his. “Let me help you, baby boy.”

She smelled like strawberries. Strawberries and cream; strawberries and cream, imported beer and domestic cigarettes…and sex…she smelled like libidinous, raucous, bittersweet sex. Many a time he’d wanted to get lost in her dark eyes…get tangled in the soft expanse of her dark hair…touch the sweet curves of her woman’s body…kiss the rosy pout of her forbidden lips. His breathing got shallow and his unthinking penis rose to expectant attention.

But, gently, his pushed a half step back. “I don’t want to have sex with you.” It was half a lie but he was resolute. His penis pouted and let some blood flow back into regular circulation.

She looked more confused, more insulted, disappointed and relieved. “Yes you do,” she insisted. “I’ve seen the way you look at me sometimes…I’ve heard the jealousy that creeps into your voice when I tell you about my lovers…you’ve always wanted to touch me…to kiss me…to fuck me…”

He wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him or herself. It didn’t matter. It was true, of course, he had wanted her…sometimes he still wanted her. She was one of those women that men couldn’t help but want…when her inner light was shining she was smart and funny, beautiful and sexy, laughing and approachable, alluring and energetic, strong and vulnerable, slightly mysterious and seemingly waiting to be swept away and ravaged passionately. He’d seen that the moment he met her.

“Yes,” he admitted, “I have wanted to.” He took a deep breath. “But I’m not supposed to.”

She frowned and looked up into his dark eyes. “Why not?”

That was the question, he thought. “It’s not who I’m supposed to be with you.”

They’d known each other for what seemed like all their lives…known each intimately from the very first moment they met. They’d known each other through magical, musical nights…through moments of heart-breakingly intimate vulnerabilities, feints and truths…through doomed unions with other people…through life and death, laughter and tears, sweet dreams and bitter reality. They’d known each other in light and in the persistent darkness that colored their souls in ways most people didn’t care to try to recognize.

“Who are you ‘supposed’ to be then?”

He reached up and touched her face; she nuzzled into his touch, her eyes liquid and hopeful. “I’m your friend, sweetheart,” he said, whispering huskily. “I’m your friend…your brother…your confidant…your baby and your daddy. I have been your platonic husband…filling in the emotional spaces that your real husband couldn’t…or wouldn’t…fill…”

She started to say something…to protest perhaps…but she didn’t.

“I love you, girl,” he said, “and I know you.”

“What do you know?” she said, pouting and just a bit defiant.

“I know that you need me not to be another man looking to feed off your light while ignoring your darkness because he doesn't want to deal with it,” he said. “I know you need me to be a man…to be the one man…who loves you but who isn’t trying to fuck you in one way or another…”

Her lip trembled and her eyes started to tear. She buried her face against his chest and he held her close, stroking her hair and murmuring gentle endearments. “I hate you,” she said into his chest.

He laughed softly and moved her head back from his chest. “No you don’t,” he said bending down to kiss her forehead.

She smiled shyly. “No I don’t,” she said pressing her head back against his chest, listening to his heartbeat while he held her close.

150 Words: Shooting Star

2011-02-23T05:37:00.000-08:00

So close, so very far away…streaking across the dark sky, coming and going in the same fleeting moment…angels watching over me, angels watching over all of us…reflections of the ever-changing, unfathomably eternal nature of the Universe extant…reflections of the ever-changing, heartbreakingly ephemeral reality of our brief sojourn on this fragile mortal coil…reflections of my brief, bittersweet sojourn on this mortal coil.

The dark sky spreads out, a tapestry of amazing wonder, and I feel a part of it…an incredibly tiny part of it but part of it just the same…and I smile…and I cry…and I sing my songs that no one hears…and I sing my songs that the universe understands.

And I look up and I whisper hello…and I whisper goodbye…(Bob said it and he got it right…seen a shooting star tonight and I thought of me)…angels watching over us, watching over me…always so close, always so very far away.

I Looked for My Father

2011-02-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

I looked for my father in the cold nights when the shadows scared me and the moon was of no mind to provide any comfort. I looked for him in the crowds of Dads scooping up their boys, giving their girls rides on their broad, powerful shoulders. I looked for my father coming down the avenue, coming home to me and my brother and my mother because that was the only place in the world he really wanted to be. I looked for my father. They told me that he wasn’t lost…but I couldn’t find him.

I looked for my father in the fragile hearts of my uncles, in the hopeful eyes of my mother’s lovers and would-be lovers, in the smiles of other fathers who stood by their boys and kept safe their girls, I looked for my father in the glances of strangers and the attentions of wise men who sometimes became mentors. I looked for my father. They told me wasn’t really lost…but I really couldn’t find him.

I looked for my father…in the guise of being the husband he wouldn’t be, in the love of being father to children I didn’t create, in the bittersweet joy of holding the children of the children I didn’t create. I even looked for my father in the eyes of my father…but I didn’t find him.

Exit 11

2011-02-20T09:01:00.000-08:00

He drove his big lazy car slowly down the highway. He was lost again, of course. So many avenues to explore and willfully he always chose the ones that lead to dead ends.

He made a deliberate turn into familiar territory…the winding tunnel of love…trying to go back to find an exit that would lead him to some kind of salvation. But he kept moving backwards…back to old roads he’d ignored…back to old roads he’d crashed on…backwards as if somehow going back would lead him forward. Luckily he still had a fair amount of gas in the big car’s tank and a pair of rose colored glasses to illuminate the journey.

The exits were all marked “wrong way, do not attempt to re-enter” and he dutifully kept driving looking for a welcoming one. He blew rueful kisses at the yellow brick road that splintered off into four or five branches snaking into the greater Los Angeles area. He sang plaintive tunes down the blue road that shimmered in a mist illuminated by a lone blue star.

He paused at the exit…boarded up with a single white rose taped to its sign…that led to the road that followed the train tracks up the coast to what seemed to be a verdant valley. He looked longingly at the exits that led to the desert…led to the sea…led to the mesa where he’d fucked up and fouled out, hiding like a scared child, in the unforgiving rubble of love’s lost offerings.

And then there it was…again…his exit. The one that was always open…the exit that he always wanted to take…always chose to take…despite all of his protestations to the contrary. He lit a cigar. He turned up the radio. He steered the big car out of the tunnel of love…out onto exit 11…and sighed without rancor or even sadness. He was going home again.

Brothers (We Can Sleep When We're Dead)

2011-02-19T05:38:00.000-08:00

So me and Bruce are wandering through the mall under the pedestrian bridge and towards the big doors that lead into the air conditioned sprawl of goods and services.

It’s a beautiful day…bright, blue, sunny, the breeze making music with the trees and the dancing flags on their sturdy flagpoles…but the mall parking lot is sparsely populated.

Bruce was mostly in blue…denim jacket, well worn Levi’s…I was most in black.

I’m itchin’ to get back on the road…to make music and make people smile. Bruce was always itching to get on the road…to make music with me and the boys.

We just got off the road, Bruce…we’re tired, ready for some sleep. I knew he wasn’t gonna hear it but I had to say it anyway.

Bruce laughed the way he does as we lingered in the gun section of the mall’s biggest store. We hefted gleaming black pistols while the kid behind the counter…the white badge on his red vest identified him as “Jimmy”…chewed gun and looked on with genuine indifference. We can sleep when we’re dead…we’re young and dumb and we should be out makin’ girls and makin’ rock ‘n roll!

We’re not that young anymore, Bruce. I knew he wasn’t gonna hear that but I said it anyway.

We left Jimmy and his guns and ambled over to a rack of acoustic guitars. Bruce picked up one…beautiful golden wood…and strummed. Bruce smiled and sang a couple of bars of “Brothers Under the Bridge”.

You don’t need no band, Bruce. Just you and your songs and that guitar…just like the old days.

Bruce nodded. That time he heard me. He tossed me the guitar and picked up another one. You and me then…just like the old days…we’ll stay up late…we’ll crisscross the country…we’ll play hard…we’ll sleep when we’re dead. Will you ride with me, brother?

I sighed and strummed the guitar. I smiled and shook my head. Yeah, Bruce, of course I’ll ride with you. I can sleep when I’m dead.

150 Words: I Want

2011-02-17T08:14:00.000-08:00

I want to sleep for more than five hours a night. I want to stop wandering through the haze in my happy guy mask. I want to be understood without having to spell things out in exhausting detail. I want to understand much better than I obviously do.

I want to breathe easy and laugh unabashedly. I want to cry when I need to and not have it held against me. I want to stop disappointing the world. I want the world to stop disappointing me.

I want to kiss somebody who thinks I’m their hero. I want to make love in the warm heart of cool clear nights and wake up entwined, whispering, sharing silly, bawdy endearments with someone who couldn’t imagine any better place to be.

I want the life I live to at least try, just try, to mirror the life I imagine.

I want too much.

150 Words: Old Ghosts

2011-02-08T05:19:00.001-08:00

Old ghosts are coming out for encores…smiling out of the haze at the head of the avenue, waltzing down memory lane saying hello, saying goodbye.

Old ghosts are dancing to old songs on streets of gold and shadow…streets of carnal longing and chaste nonsense, streets of loss and folly and ever-lingering regret…blowing plaintive kisses to the silent shade in the audience, saying things that people wouldn’t, didn’t say and disappearing back into the swirling haze at the end of the avenue.

That’s what old ghosts do…that’s what old ghosts are for…waltzing to sad old songs while the shade in the audience remembers a past that never was…blowing tender, plaintive, farewell kisses…saying things they might or, more likely, might not have wanted to say when they weren’t ghosts.

Old ghosts are coming out for encores…old ghosts are beaming radiantly while cradling bouquets of white roses…old ghosts are waltzing down memory lane.

The Gallant Lies of Gentlemen Callers

2011-02-06T12:50:00.000-08:00

People assured her that the years continued to be kind to her. Sometimes she even chose to believe it.

Her heart, she told herself (and anybody who would listen), was spent…it was done with the bittersweet games of passion and desire. This too was something she told herself that she believed…but, of course, she knew that to be a lie.

Memory conspired to keep her heart bright with hope and longing despite her cynical feints. She remembered, with humid affection, the soft lips and rough hands that had thrilled and soothed her in days gone by.

She remembered, with a dreamer’s abandon, terrifying and thrilling falls into the stormy seas of love, sinking and swimming hand in hand with others sinking into those same roiling, calming, mysterious and utterly familiar waters.

She remembered the smiles in heated whispers…the lightning in trembling lips…the gallant lies of gentlemen callers at the door of her hopeful heart.

The years continued to be kind to her…she hadn’t received the last Valentine of her journey…she remembered passion and expected it to return in due course…people assured her…she, more tentatively, assured herself. Sometimes she, demurely defiant, dared to believe it.

breathing

2011-02-05T19:08:00.000-08:00

I feel it breathing. I feel it…lingering just off the near edge of my perception of the world…lingering just off the near edge of the perception of my world. I feel it…breathing…yearning…hungering…whispering…whimpering…crying…commanding…dreaming…dancing…being…being…being.

I feel it breathing. I see it curling…black and blue and golden smoke…in the bright blue, cold gray, stark black daytime nighttime never-time sky. I feel it breathing…I feel it calling…I feel it cajoling…I feel it singing…old blues, new country waltzes, rock and roll that makes me sweat, makes me forget…I feel it. Breathing.

I feel it breathing…a song I pretend I know (I am a singer who can’t sing)…a movie that I feel connected to and detached from (I am an actor that can act too well)…a ballet that I know all of the sacred steps to (I am a dancer who doesn’t feel the music)…a prayer of salvation and serenity I murmur into the ether (I am a sinner who doesn’t believe in…anything…)…I feel it…black and blue and golden smoke in the every-time never-time sky.

I feel it breathing…feel it coming closer…closer…closer…please God closer…I feel it reaching for me…reaching for me, calling for me…I feel it.

But it stops at my skin.

I Dreamed That Los Angeles was Burning...

2011-01-28T10:15:00.000-08:00

I dreamed that Los Angeles was burning, orange fire and black nuclear days having erased it from the cynical heart of California.

One hundred miles down the road I was sheltering with the one person I loved and the childhood shades of three people I wouldn’t want to spend a brief, bleak eternity with. The sky was dark as a winter’s midnight and set a-sparkle with bright yellow atomic rain falling sure and steady.

I didn’t care what happened…the why wasn’t relevant…and I didn’t feel panic…when the world was over there’s no point in losing your head, after all.

That REM song was playing everywhere, gallows irony set to a jaunty beat, and I kept trying to sing along even as I drifted through the house wondering when the pale horse was going to arrive.

I thought about confessing my sins. I thought about laughing at the sheer stupidity of the world and the way it was ending. I thought about carrying one of the people I didn’t want to spend our brief, bleak eternity with off to bed and having angry, bittersweet sex until the yellow rain put us all out of our misery. I thought about not ever really being who I always imagined myself to be.

I dreamed that Los Angeles was burning…

Outside

2011-01-27T08:48:00.000-08:00

Outside…in the morning moonlight…in the warm winter sunlight…in the flow of humanity making their way in the workaday world that surrounds…standing outside, looking in, wondering how to bridge the gap. Wondering, in fact, if he wants to bridge the gap (of course he does…everybody wants to be inside the shelter…he tells himself he doesn’t as proof against the feeling that he never really will.)

As a child he knew that he wasn’t the center of the universe…but that didn’t stop him from imagining he was…didn’t stop him from puzzling over what exactly other people had to do when he wasn’t there to see them.

As a man he knew that he wasn’t the center of the universe…hasn’t ever been the center of anyone’s universe; but that didn’t stop him from longing, however foolishly, that he could be…even if only for a brief season. It’s a gentler, egocentric madness.

Outside…standing outside the fire…standing outside the world…shielding himself with words and music and an abundance of self-pity and unvoiced doubt…standing outside, looking in, wondering if he really wants to bridge the gap. It’s a foolish, wholly unoriginal madness.

word association

2011-01-24T05:12:00.000-08:00

Cold sweat…coughing…walking through self-indulgent wildernesses…days melting into one another…alone and angry…resigned and isolated…down on friendship…down on romance…down on fate…down on faith…down on the whole dance…can’t find the exit…can’t find the future…can’t find the light…can’t find the way…

Roadblocks…dead ends…no hands to hold…this is life…this is now…not a hero…not a warrior…not a man…not crying out…not being listened to…nothing worthwhile to say…can’t find no peace…can’t find no magic…can’t find no way…

Whiner…slacker…navel gazer…stupid man…want to scream…want to cry…want to laugh…want to fuck somebody who pretends they care…want to remember…want to forget…want to be forgotten…want to fade away…can’t find the sky…can’t find the hilltop…can’t find the way…

Cool Hands

2011-01-21T08:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I miss cool hands.

Cool hands warming themselves in the small of my naked back during the deep hours of the night.

I miss the sleepy cooing declaring that I’m so warm and the snuggling in that inevitably follows.

I miss arms draped protectively, proprietarily over me.

I miss pliant nipples pressed against my back…soft slumbering sighs warming my neck…legs insistently entwined with mine.

Sometimes…just sometimes…I miss cool hands.

150 Words: The Ghosts Are Quiet

2011-01-20T06:21:00.000-08:00

The ghosts are quiet at 5 AM. They are there to be sure…they are always there…but they respect the sanctity of the predawn stillness and they are quiet.

The ghosts are quiet but the Universe…the Universe is electric, humming with life and death, light and music, possibility, probability, and regret; disparate threads, everyday wonders, shimmer and sing, muted at 5 AM but there to be sure…they are always there.

The ghosts are quiet…the Universe is alive…and the demons…the demons wait patiently on the sidelines waiting for the night to end and for the morning…with its bright, implacable light…to begin.

The ghosts are quiet…until a truck engine groans to life, until an angel whispers good morning, until the first shaft of sunlight rouses the first songbird of the day, until the demons stir anticipating another day of mischief, until…until it’s no longer 5 AM and the ghosts begin to speak again.

Artist

2011-01-19T06:15:00.000-08:00

He fancied himself an artist…a tortured, misunderstood soul crying into a wilderness that had no comfort or acknowledgement for him. Smugly, he clung to his delusion and imagined that it set him apart…made him special…he imagined that he would, on one glorious day, be discovered and appreciated, lionized and understood at long, long last.

He was wrong, of course.

If he was an artist…if he was…he was an artist without an audience. He was a dancer on distant, desolate stage. He was a singer without a song that anyone else wanted to hear. He was a dullard who fancied himself a visionary. He was a warrior without real courage, a dreamer without realistic boundaries, a diplomat without portfolio, a lover who didn’t trust love, a demon stalker wrestling with ghosts made only of the gossamer tendrils of life as he imagined it should be. He was another in the long line of sons of Job…and the long line of sons of Quixote.

He was a fool…a sometimes affable, sometimes angry and mean fool…but a fool nonetheless.

He fancied himself an artist…tilting at windmills and dragons, cursing fickle fate and imaginary gods, blaming everybody except the man in the mirror.

He was wrong, of course.

Blues

2011-01-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

He listened to the blues. People sang him the blues all the time and he listened, out of an open heart and out of a misguided need to be a hero…out of a willingness to give safe harbor and out of a selfish desire to have safe harbor if and when the need arose…and people sang. People happily sang the blues to him.

People, he found, loved to sing the blues but they were less interested in hearing the blues…at least not his blues. They told him…your blues are self-indulgent and depressing, they make us uncomfortable, and they are annoying…how can you be a good audience if you’re trying to be onstage? So stop it. Just stop it.

And they were right. He was self-indulgent, trying to sing the blues when he was supposed to be there to listen to the blues. Not everybody gets to sing the blues. So he stopped it. He just stopped it.

He sat up straight. He gave his full attention. He closed off unnecessary parts of his heart. And he listened…he listened to the blues.

Red

2011-01-15T05:56:00.000-08:00

Dreams can really mess with your head sometimes.

I’m standing on a street in the community where I live (just outside the gates of a preschool I’ve walked past, in real life, more times than I could possibly count)…it’s bright, warm and blue, day and I’m talking and laughing with a friend (in the dream I couldn’t really see her face distinctly but we share an easy intimacy that lets me know we are, at very least, good friends…maybe more.)

Another guy comes up (in the sudden way people sometimes appear in dreams) and starts to talk to me. The woman I was talking with says sometime about him interrupting our conversation. The newcomer, someone I don’t recognize from my waking life but who I apparently knew in this dreamscape, tells her to shut up…tells her that men are talking.

I tell him to be cool and to apologize to her.

She calls him a rude asshole.

He hauls off and punches her in the face with all of his might and she sprawled to the sidewalk crying.

And I saw red.

I’ve always been a strong, imposing (some might say scary…large black men being constant objects of apprehension for some) guy and as a result I haven’t been drawn into many physical fights in my life…and I didn’t have a problem with that. I never wanted to lose control. I never wanted to really hurt anybody no matter how much I thought they might deserve it (my brother…the Universe bless and keep his troubled soul…was the only person who could, when he was of a mind, goad me into blind rage…and I never hit him even on those rare occasions.)

But, in this dream, I saw red.

And I hit the man. The first punch seemed to startle him…he wasn’t expecting that I would hit him…but I grabbed his shirt with my left hand and held him up before he could fall and I punched him over and over with my right. He put up no resistance but I didn’t stop until his face was a bloody pulp. I let go and he slumped to the ground and curled up in a fetal position.

I was still seeing red. I bent over him. I screamed…”you don’t hit women!”…I grabbed his limp, cowering body and pulled him out of his fetal position…”you especially don’t hit THIS WOMAN!”

I seemed about to hit him again when my friend, her face bruised and streaked with tears, put her hand on my shoulder and told me to stop.

I didn’t seem to recognize her at first. But the red went away. I let the man drop from my grasp and I stood up. The woman touched my face and told me it was okay.

My hands were shaking…the woman wiped my face (apparently I was crying) and hugged me. I didn’t hug her back…my hands were shaking…my hands were bloody…I looked off into the distance while she tried to calm me with words I couldn’t hear.

And then, quite suddenly, I was awake. I apparently wrenched myself out of the dream world and back into the darkness…it was just before 5 AM…of my bedroom. My hands were shaking and I had a pounding headache. “What the hell was that?” I said out loud to the emptiness of my room.

I got up. I emptied my bladder, put on some tea, fed the cats, took some aspirin. And then I sat here and wrote the dream down. I wrote it down while it was still vivid. I wrote it down because there’s no one here to tell the story to.

Red. I saw red. I saw myself out of control and, to be honest, relishing the violence I was indulging in.

Maybe it was a manifestation of seething, unrecognized anger in me…anger at others, anger over losses and perceived betrayals…maybe it was anger at myself expressing itself in violence I have always stayed away from…maybe it was a way of tapping into the rage inside…or maybe it was tapping into the need to be somebody’s “hero”…

Or maybe a dream is just a dream…

Maybe.

But man dreams can really mess with your head sometimes…

Tough Love

2011-01-12T05:44:00.000-08:00

He needed “tough love”. It seemed to be the consensus opinion and so, of course, he had to presume that it was right.

It was strange, he thought, mildly confused, that none of the people proposing this had ever come to him for this “tough love”…they came to him, make no mistake, he was, he was often told, a good listener and some one who held confidences with fierce loyalty; he was, he was often told, a soft and healing place to fall…but, it seemed, he must have had it all wrong.

And being so sure, he realized that they must have been getting their “tough love” elsewhere all along.

So it seemed he had failed them. He had failed himself. He needed to pull his head out of his ass and shake it off…that consensus opinion again…grow a pair and stop looking for a soft and healing place to fall.

Yeah “tough love”…took him a while…a long while…but maybe he finally understood. Keep your head up…keep your doubts and fears to yourself…be strong and invulnerable…don’t cry out loud…don’t be surprised when your foolish confidences are turned into weapons against you…be too busy soaring to bother looking for someplace to fall. Give and, especially, take “tough love”…it’s what’s needed, consensus opinion can’t be wrong after all. It was, he realized, good information to know.

The Bells of Christmas Eve (Blue and Gold)

2010-12-20T05:19:00.000-08:00

The sun sank languidly into the western horizon and there were bells…bright bells tolling in bright shades of blue and gold heralding the coming the evening…bright bells singing out the anthems and the carols of the Christmas Eve.

Sara smiled, that inscrutable Mona Lisa smile that could soothe like the sweetest balm or cut like the sharpest knife depending on her mood, and listened to the bells while letting memory flood over her.

Memory, shimmering in the muted shades of blue and gold, giving life to each bell in turn and all at once and sending Sara back to tender moments along her journey.

One bell tolls for Daddy, his quick rouge’s smile shining through clouds of fragrant cigar smoke and soft choruses of deep, hearty, often charming laughter. One bell tolls for Mother, the stalwart rock of her childhood; Mother had gone too soon but, sternly and sweetly, kept informing Sara’s life even decades later. Bells toll for Christmas mornings filled with peace and laughter even when the pickings under the tree were slim.

Sara listened carefully, breathing deep the stealthy chill of the gathering evening, as the bells…tolling in warm shades of blue and gold…renew connections thought lost. Connections with brothers and sisters…laughing and crying, hugging and fighting, filling Christmas mornings with a cacophony only children could create and only parents could find unabashedly endearing…connections with friends and lovers come and gone from her life…connections with children she took into her heart and with children she never could have…connections with the magic moments of Christmas, real and re-imagined, that make her feel safe and loved even in her abiding solitude.

The moon rose lazily in the star-flecked sky and there were bells…joyful bells tolling in melodic shades of blue and gold heralding the return of old memory and the birth of new memory during the night and the coming Christmas morning…joyful bells singing out the anthems and the carols of the Christmas day.

Sara smiled, pulling her plush sweater tight around her, and looked up into the night sky…looked up at the calm golden moon, at the boundless blanket of stars…looked up into the smiles of the vigilant ghosts of those she loved and lost…and she nodded, giving silent thanks and humming along with the bells…the bright bells tolling blue and gold…of another sweetly wistful Christmas Eve.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-11T10:39:00.000-08:00

I don’t want to think about her today…I don’t want to think about her sitting in her kitchen, her face stoic but her eyes bright and mischievous, teaching me how to clean the green beans from her garden while she told me stories from her colorful past. I don’t want to think about her laughing quietly and winking every now and again to seal the pact of love and affection and secrecy between us…I don’t want to think about her vaguely smoky voice calling me by the name no one but she was allowed to use. I don’t want to think about her at all.

And I don’t want to think about him today…my greatest champion and my most pernicious foe…I don’t want to think about the times we laughed and the times we cried and the times we shared secrets and the time we fought like…well, like Cain and Abel…I don’t want to think about his theft of pieces of my youth…I don’t want to think about his unrealized potential seeping away on a cold, lonely street in Los Angeles. No, I don’t want to think about him at all.

I don’t want to think about my boyhood friends…one lost to time, forever wearing his silly grin and his almost gaudy blue suit as we left Louis Pasteur Junior High School and spent one last perfect afternoon together before parting, unbeknownst to us, forever; one lost after Alexander Hamilton High School turned us loose on the unsuspecting world and found…fleetingly…smiling with his family in a photo sent from a distant shore…before being lost forever to the arms of the blessed Universe. I don’t want to think about them at all.

And Lord knows I don’t want to think about my baby girl…tiny and inquisitive and quick to smile whenever she saw me…my sweet girl who grew into a troubled woman, a lost and angry soul who I felt, foolishly, that I’d abandoned when life took me from my hometown to another town down the coast (her 5 year old self had said, quite seriously, that when she grew up she was going to marry me and take care of me.) I don’t want to think about how her heart failed her and took her back to the light from whence we all came. I don’t want to think about her at all.

I certainly don’t want to think about my best friend and most stalwart companion, in my life for too brief a season and in my life forever and a day…I don’t want to think about the sad, brilliant soul who lost himself in bottles because life was sometimes much too hard to face…I don’t want to think about the girl who gave her strength and comfort to us even though she was losing a battle with an invader in her own body…I don’t want to think about any of them.

I don’t want to think about them at all.

And yet I do. I do think about them. I do want to think about them. I want to think about them and all of the others who’ve come into my life and left, lingering indelibly even in their passing. I want to think about them. I do think about them. And I give love and blessings and gratitude and humble acceptance of their grace.

I think about them…and give bittersweet thanks. I miss them…now and always…and I give love and blessings and humble acceptance…and heartfelt thanks.

A Whisper Lost in the Echoes (a fable)

2010-11-09T12:04:00.000-08:00

One day he just vanished. A whisper lost in the echoes, an afterthought that most people he knew didn’t bother to explore. No one noticed at first…why would they? He sought comfort in the shadows, solace in the golden realms of imagined nostalgia…he was a beloved nobody, a legend in his own fool’s dreams, a nightmare of self-sufficiency and aching, futile longing.

One day he just faded away. A lost soul clinging to slippery rocks of love on distant shores and in dark welcoming corners until he let go and let the water…the always welcoming arms to the roiling seas…melt him away…one with the fickle Universe at last.

One day…one day he was less than memory…less than an sad whisper lost in the echoes…one day he was less than all of the dashed hopes and imaginative lies, less than the fleeting times when he was informed by the laughter of babies and the bittersweet tears of women and the faithful companionship of men, less than all of the memories…real and imagined…that colored and molded his time in the material world.

One day…or so the story, told in dispassionate whispers among the uncaring echoes, goes…he just vanished.

And, of course, the world moved on. It always does.

My Baby

2010-11-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

It was just a glancing blow…on one level it barely registered…on another level it rocked me like red thunder…my baby hit me…my baby’s eyes filled with acid tears and uncoiling rage…my baby hit me and then tried to hit me again.

I put a stop to that…my baby was strong but not as strong as me…by holding my baby off.

“You’re mean…you’re a selfish bastard…you’re…you’re….” My baby lost words and tried to break free. I held my baby tight.

“You’re right,” I said recoiling inside at the naked truth. “You’re right…”

My baby glared at me and then relaxed. I let my baby go. “I hate you.”

It was just a glancing blow…on one level is bounced right off…on another level in stabbed deep into my being. “No you don’t.”

My baby’s lips parted but she could work up no venom. Silence mocked us and then my baby looked away. “No…I don’t…but one day I might...”

“I know…”

My baby looked into my eyes. I nodded. My baby stepped into me letting tears stain my chest.

I put my arms around my baby, wishing I had more tears to offer. “I know…”

Magic

2010-10-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

A little girl smiled at me when I thought I was projecting bearish aloofness. She made me smile despite myself and reminded me, yet again, that I believe in magic. I sometimes forget that…I sometimes want to forget that…but, in my heart…the boy’s heart that shines within my man’s chest…I do believe in magic.

Magic doesn’t always seem to believe in me…but that’s not the way it works…you believe or you don’t, needing proof means that you don’t.

Magic is child’s guileless smile…magic is a hug from a man who seems too macho to give heartfelt hugs but in fact isn’t…magic is a song that instantly takes you to a place where memory is golden and love is real…magic is a hug from across too many miles that still warms and sustains you in gray, aching moments…magic is feeling intimately connected even and especially when you’re all alone…magic is…well, magic is real.

And I believe. I believe in laughter and tears…I believe that there are true hearts and fake hearts…I believe that yesterday is gone, tomorrow will take care of itself, and today is where we live…I believe in the power of music and the power of an impish twinkle in an old man’s eye….I believe that it’s okay to feel sadness as long you remember how to feel joy…yes, I believe…I do believe in magic.

150 Words: Victor

2010-09-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

Victor likes to imagine himself as a victim. It gives him some pleasure to think of himself enduring great pain and hardship…especially if he’s suffering for the sake of others.

He knows that it’s not a healthy way to think but he indulges it anyway; it is, he rationalizes, a gentler madness.

Once he wanted to be a hero…heroes save the day and get the girl.

Once he wanted to be a leader…leaders pave the way and make safe the future for those who trust and follow him.

Once he wanted to be a lover…lovers heal the world with their bountiful hearts of love, agape and erotic and sweetly romantic, and everyone loves them just for being.

But now Victor…cognizant of the irony given his name…wants to be a victim, imagining that being a victim will, in turn, make him a lover, a leader, a hero. It’s a gentler madness.

Four Crushes (The Songs Remember When)

2010-09-21T14:35:00.000-07:00

When I was a boy I was shy, aloof, fat, anxious, and impatient with my peer group…not the best combination for social success in the emotional cesspool that high school could be. I was also cursed and blessed with a vivid imagination, a facility for written expression, and a yearning poet’s heart that, in ways both naively expansive and painfully insular, wanted to love and be loved.

Not surprisingly I had crushes that both elevated and devastated my foolish romantic’s heart and soul. Each one had its own soundtrack...songs forever identified with specific people.

Back in those days…the halcyon days padding the halls of Louis Pasteur Junior High and Alexander Hamilton High School (Los Angeles liked to dedicate their schools to dead white men…a function of the times they were built rather than any overt racism…to the point where a tongue-in-cheek suggestion to change the name of another school to honor Marilyn Monroe rather than James Monroe, a seemingly reasonable notion to me given where we lived, was shot down with vehement disdain by the powers that be)…back in those childhood days I carried torches that warmed and seared me to the core.

From the perspective of age I look back and see that some of my crushes from that time…four of them in particular…added more color to the tapestry of my life than I had previously consciously acknowledged.

Those four…two older, two among my peers…linger with me in ways I would never be arrogant enough as to believe that I linger with them.

They all seemed to like me. They all saw me as harmless. They all loomed in my head with more vividness than the reality of our acquaintance should have allowed for. They still do.

One died suddenly while I was still in the process of becoming a man.

One I willingly surrendered my virginity to in an act that meant much more to me than it did to them.

One shared what turned out to be final goodbyes with me on the last day of our High School life in the parking lot of Hamilton early one morning after having spent the previous hours indulging a last gasp of childhood at Disneyland, the place where childhood never ends.

One never saw my crush because I was too scared to really let it show…it was, of course, a time when I imagined that rejection would literally kill me… and because they had a crush of their own that was not me.

Those four…one gone, two hopefully living well out in our sweet old world somewhere, one in the circle of my acquaintance once and again…none of them knowing what an indelible impact they made on my journey from then to now…linger in my soul, memory making the music of their souls ever sweeter in the golden realm of affectionate nostalgia.

It was and is a gentler, sweeter madness...the songs, like my heart, remember when...and I thank them all for that.

150 Words: Magdalena's Angel

2010-09-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

I was dancing with Magdalena’s angel…dancing in the graceful gold of harvest moonlight…dancing in the world unencumbered by shyness or artifice.

She lifted my face to hers, her dark eyes smiling, and nodded lovingly…she held me close, told me that I was a fool, that I just needed some faith.

I closed my eyes, head on her shoulder…she smelled like jasmine and sweet honey…and believed her because believing is all you can do when you’re dancing with an angel.

She smiled patiently, called me a silly man, and lifted us into the nighttime sky.

I was dancing with Magdalena’s angel…dancing over verdant fields and majestic rises…dancing in the arms of heaven, in the gaze of the gracious universe.

She laughed warmly, called me a good man, and took us over the horizon to greet the waking sun.

I was dancing with Magdalena’s angel…dancing in the light of another welcoming dawn.

screaming/whispering

2010-09-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

echoes ring up from his valley...he is screaming,
screaming at the top of his lungs,
screaming for all the gray world to hear,
screaming because it keeps the tears at bay.

(Hey, somebody calls down into his valley,
what are you doing down there?

I was screaming for help, he said, red-faced and tired,
isn't that why you came?

Nah, somebody said, didn't hear a thing, pal,
I was just passin' by...

Oh, he said, okay.

You want somebody to hear ya,
ya gotta make some noise...)

echoes ring up from his valley,
echoes ring down from his former hilltop,
he thinks he is screaming,
somebody knows he's barely whispering...

the clouds are gathering on the near horizon
and he is swallowed by pride and defeat
and he is screaming in plaintive whispers,
screaming for all the blessed world to hear...

My Town (San Diego Serenade)

2010-08-31T12:43:00.000-07:00

My town…and, having spent half my life here, it is indeed my town…suits me to a tee. It sprawls and changes like a city and but it feels like a town…someplace to belong not just someplace to be.

It shimmers lazily in the warm South California sun…kissed by Pacific breezes and hardened by insistent but eventually forgiving desert winds…and when the rains fall, as they sometimes do, it glistens with possibility from its winding roads to its powder blue skies.

We welcome in the Marines…we welcome in the surfers and the sailors, the workers of every stripe, the artists of every notion…we welcome in the children of pilgrims and the children of freedmen, the children of all of the Americas and the children of all of the bright world…we send them in and bid stay…my town…this simple, complex, gently golden town…welcomes them all and gives them shelter for however long a season they choose to embrace.

People come to visit…people come to stay…people love and complain, share and covet, curse the clouds and laugh with the sun…my town…this perplexing, utterly rational town…is ever someplace to belong not just someplace to be.

The First Rule of Fight Club

2010-08-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

The first rule of Fight Club is…

I dance with demons and angels and feel, somehow, that I’m not part of any of it…that I am unconnected…that I am loved conditionally and therefore not really loved at all…I dance with demons and angels…I dance on the outskirts of real life…I dance with myself and tell myself that it’s probably not going to be okay…

I am Jack’s rampant ego.

Making kissing noises and smiley faces at the thinning crowd…I tell myself I feel too much…I think perhaps I don’t feel much at all…I paint my face and put on the shows…a clown, a puppet, a puppeteer, a lover, a friend, a wise man, a tortured soul, an unappreciated artiste, a safe harbor, a clueless blowhard in superhero t-shirts and well worn blue jeans…I feel too much…I don’t feel much at all…it’s probably not going to be okay…

I am Jack’s impotent rage.

I look inside for solace…I look inside for freedom…I look inside for protection from the big old scary world…I am a child without a parent…I am a boy without a clue…I am a man without tethers…I am a man without trust…I am a man with love to spare…I am a man who stopped believing in love…in peace…in dreams…in the myth of happily ever after…

I am Jack’s inflated sense of relevance.

I sing the blues because they make me cry…I sing the blues because they make me feel something, anything, even if only for a moment…I sing the blues because no one else will sing the blues for me…to me…about me…I sing the blues because that’s easier than facing the fact that my life has amounted to less than I imagined it would…less than I imagined it had…I sing the blues because…well, because…and it’s okay…and I’m not sure I care anymore…and I’m not sure anybody cares anymore…I am at war and the enemy is me…it’s probably not going to be okay…

I am Jack’s bottomless well of self-pity.

I am…

I…

Damn it.

The first rule of Fight Club is…

Every Morning

2010-08-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

Every morning…every blessed morning…Brian woke up wondering why he should still be alive. Maybe he thought…every morning…every blessed morning…the comfort of sleep’s dark and silent gate was something he should just embrace.

Every morning…every blessed morning…Brian shook off the remnants of gray dreamtimes and searched for a reason to get up…for a reason to get up and pretend to be part of the greater tapestry one more day.

And then the cat leaps on the bed and impatiently demands breakfast…and the automatic coffeemaker fills the thick morning air with earthy pungency…and the e-mail summons him to the computer with a strangely warm electronic ding…and every morning…every blessed morning…Brian made himself rise…relieved his bladder…fed the cat…poured a steaming mug of black coffee…he sat down at the computer and pretended to be part of the greater tapestry one more day.

Every morning…every blessed morning…Brian woke up and made himself find one more reason to be alive.

Another Summer Sunday

2010-08-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

The air is gathering humidity in soft steady increments, capricious August heat seeping over the near horizons and into every nook and crevice of the workaday world. The animals have retreated to the comfort of artificial breezes and the people find comfort in dreams of ocean shores near and far.

Dylan is singing…”Sweetheart Like You”…and the man is singing along in a hazy golden spotlight that teases his whiskers and makes his eyes glisten just a bit more than he would ordinarily allow. He needs to shower. He needs to shave. He needs to shake himself from his reverie and make himself useful for a change.

It’s summer in yet another corner of America…it’s hot and humid and simmering with longing and possibility…it’s golden and gray and every shade in-between…it’s another Summer Sunday in one man’s America.

Me and Superman on the Edge of the World

2010-08-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

Superman was sitting on the edge of the world waiting for something. I didn’t know what he was waiting for but I could tell he wanted it badly. I sat down next to him. “Hey, Superman.”

He glanced over and nodded ever so slightly. “Hey,” he replied, a distinct sigh in his voice, “what can I do for you?”

“Nothing,” I said, “I was just wondering if you’re okay. You seem a little…sad…”

He looked over at me again, his crystal blue eyes glistening with the weight of the world and with the weight of smaller, more human things we might not expect our heroes to be stricken with. “I’m Superman,” he said flatly, “why in the world would I be sad?”

I met his gaze and held it. “Well, I guess that’s the question, sir,” I said, hoping he didn’t get angry and crush me with his awful strength or fry me with his burning eyes.

He started to say something but then he thought better of it and looked away. He looked back over the edge of the world and sighed out loud. “I’m fine, son,” he said, “you don’t have to worry about me.”

Superman and I sat there on the edge of the world in cool silence…looking out into the dark abyss of the boundless universe.

“How’d you find me anyway?” Superman asked after a while. “People can’t see me until they need me…I’m invisible before and after that…they don’t have to think about me before and after they need me…”

“I didn’t know you could turn invisible,” I replied, genuinely surprised. “I hadn’t heard that was one of your powers.”

Superman smiled ruefully and shook his head. “One of my powers…yeah that’s what it is…”

I felt like the intruder I was but I couldn’t just walk away. “Are you thinking about leaving us? Thinking about leaping over the edge of the world and disappearing once and for all?”

That sapphire gaze regarded me once more and I felt naked before his X-Ray eyes. “I think about that everyday, kid.”

A chill went through me. “And then…?” I held my breath not sure I really wanted the answer.

He grunted a mirthless laugh. “And then I don’t.”

“Because you’re Superman,” I said looking away.

“Yeah,” he said looking back over the edge of the world, “because I’m Superman.”

We sat in more silence and then I held out my hand. “Well, I won’t bother you anymore, sir,” I said. “I saw you up here and I just wanted to thank you.”

He took my hand into his and we shook solemnly. His hand which would crush mountains was gentle as a lamb’s. “Thank me for what?”

I thought about the question for a moment and then I said, “For everything, Superman. You’re my hero and I…I just wanted to thank you.”

I stood up and walked away from the edge of the world.

“Hey, kid,” Superman called after me.

I turned, his bright blue eyes were still glistening and his smile was wan but he nodded one more time. “Thanks for… seeing me….”

I started to reply but he stood up and, with a shy wave, he soared away, his scarlet cloak streaking through the star-flecked darkness.

A Song

2010-08-17T22:29:00.000-07:00

Somehow she talked her way onto the stage. She waved at me and smiled impishly. And then she whispered something to the pianist and then took center stage. The lights went down and the spotlight haloed her. Curious people in the club looked up from their drinks and conversations and the pianist started to play and the rest of the band effortlessly fell in with him.

And she sang a song for me. A simple but incredibly sweet love song I had never heard before. Her gaze was gently relentless and her voice was husky and sultry and enormously arousing. The rest of the people in the club faded away as I watched her sing…she sang for me, that crazy, beautiful, uncomfortably young woman, and I felt my heart melting and surrendering moment by magical moment.

I had told her she was too young. I had told her I was too old. I had told her…

The club erupted into heartfelt applause as she finished and took a bow. She flashed that wondrous smile of hers and then she kissed the pianist on his cheek.

She bounded across the club and surged into my arms. “I make you crazy sometimes, don’t I?” she said, just a bit afraid of what I was going to say.

I looked into her sparkling, earnest eyes and shook my head. “Sometimes,” I agreed. Her face clouded over a little but I bent forward and kissed her forehead. “But mostly you make me happy…”

She smiled and hugged me close. “I told you I’m gonna make you love me, old man,” she said, burying her head against my chest. “How am I doin’?”

I gave her a squeeze and kissed the top of her head. “Pretty damn good, young lady,” I said truthfully. “You’re doing pretty damn good.”

listen

2010-08-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

listen...
the universe is sighing,
sighing and singing songs
about yesterday and tomorrow,
songs about forever and songs about now;
the universe is sighing and the sky,
the sky is weeping,
weeping tears of joy and remembrance,
tears of passion and rage,
tears of magic and memory,
tears of the mundane and the magnificent.

listen...listen...listen...
the universe is singing,
the sky is weeping,
the earth is sheltering and shielding
mortal fools from their own foibles and follies.

listen...
to the universe...to the sky...
listen...
to the earth...to the foolish heart...
the foolish heart is sighing and singing,
weeping and laughing,
sheltering and shielding...
the foolish heart is drowning,
the foolish heart is trying to soar,
the foolish heart is...

listen...please listen...
the foolish heart is broken apart,
the foolish heart is trying to come together,
the foolish heart is drowning and soaring,
laughing and weeping,
yearning and mocking,
the foolish heart is...

listen...
listen...
listen...

Hasten Down the Wind

2010-08-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

…she’s so many women,

he can’t find the one who was his friend,

he’s hanging on to half her heart

but he can’t have the restless part,

so he tells her to hasten down the wind…

We sat in the swing laughing about the time I slipped into the pond and got my new jeans soaked. I was furious at the time…really more embarrassed than angry actually…but now the remembering made us both laugh until we were crying. We laughed about the songs we sang together…we laughed about the times we made faces at the animals in the zoo and walked along the shore playing tag with carefree surf…we laughed the loves we had that us happy and then made us cry…we laughed…

“We always had such good time together,” she said, catching her breath and wiping her eyes.

“Yeah, we did,” I agreed.

“How come we never…?”

It was a coy question, she knew the answer, and it kind of irked me. But I let it go. “That’s not who we are.”

“You’re my best friend, you know that don’t you?”

I took in a deep breath. I thought I knew that. But I wasn’t sure anymore. “I love you, too,” I said truthfully, dodging the question.

She winced, just a little, but didn’t call me on the evasion. “How come it feels like you’re pulling away from me?”

Yeah, I thought, how come? Because you keep me at arm’s length because you’re convinced that I love you in a way that you don’t love me….I don’t but you choose not to believe that because it’s convenient. Because my friendship seems to be of absolutely no value to you in your battles with your ghosts and your demons….because the sadness in your eyes always belies that smile on your lips…because I’m tired of watching you bang your head against the same wall and not being able to keep you from it…because I can’t keep up with all of the women you are as well as I could when I was young…because I’m just barely hanging on myself these days and, all notions to the contrary, my strength is not without its limits…because…

“I’m just tired,” I lied. “You can always count on me.” It was not untrue…but it was not as wholeheartedly true as it used to be.

She flashed her sad-eyed smile and nodded. “You remember that night at the beach…”

We nudged each other and laughed like little children. Soon the sun would rise behind us. Soon the world would fill with the symphony of a million people joining a new day. Soon the summer wind would come and sweep her one way and me another. Soon…

"Hasten Down the Wind"

words and music by Warren Zevon

The Recital

2010-08-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

I could swear that she favored me with an opaque smile before she sat down at the piano. She took a deep breath and looked at a point somewhere just above my head and she began to play. She began to play, tentatively at first and then with a surer touch. She looked down at the keys, her fingers paler than the ivory, starkly contrasted by the ebony and she nodded almost at a small secret joke that I almost missed.

She closed her eyes and continued to play…a slow, sad waltz I couldn’t quite identify. I swayed to the melody just the same…slow, sad songs always make me dance.

She threw her head back, the spotlight sparkling off scattered strands of white in her dark mane, and sang along wordlessly as she played. One tune slid seamlessly into another…the theme from M*A*S*H…and a sly smile pulled at the corners of her thin mouth.

I smiled…good one…and mouthed the words she wasn’t singing as she continued to play.

Her fingers deftly negotiated the keys and the music…a bit of Tracy Chapman here, a little Bach there; some Billie Holiday, a little bit of Joni Mitchell, nothing original but that was to be expected…filled the space without pause…without acknowledgement of any applause…the spotlight was hers and that was enough. The spotlight was always enough.

She stopped, closing her eyes and celebrated silently with herself, giving no thought to her audience. I stood and applauded anyway.

Eventually she opened her eyes…she stood up and looked out at the audience, her face a study in beatific contentment. I walked up to the edge of the stage and gave her three roses…one red, one yellow, one white…and smiled. She smiled benevolently and blew a kiss somewhere just above my head.

She bowed gracefully and then turned and flowed offstage. The lights came up, the exit doors opened, she was gone. The recital was over.

The Gray Man

2010-08-08T23:52:00.000-07:00

The Gray Man was sad again. People would be exasperated with his navel gazing if they recognized the shadows dancing behind his big brown eyes…but they don’t see and so they don’t have to bother being concerned.

“It would be funny if it weren’t so sad,” the Gray Man said, his voice a flat whisper. But it wasn’t clear if he was talking about the people around him who don’t see or his own inflated sense of self that made him think his sadness should be of import to anyone other than himself.

Maybe both…maybe neither…didn’t matter…the Gray Man was sad again and nobody saw and nobody cared. And it would pass.

The Gray Man would not disappear to far flung shores. Nor would he take a header off the nearest skyscraper. He wouldn’t even try to explain…he was quite sure that nobody really wanted to hear it…that had been made quite clear more times during his journey than the Gray Man cared to think about.

No, he wouldn’t do anything foolish. The Gray Man would put on his bright face paint and fake a twinkle in his big brown eyes and everything would be cool again.

“That’s the way that works,” the Gray Man said, dampening down the ruefulness as best he could. “That’s the way it’s always worked.”

The Gray Man was sad again. But he’d get over it…he always does.

The Ghosts of Michael

2010-08-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

The ghosts of Michael visited me in Dreamtime. They are always with me, of course, but sometimes they appear more vividly than at other times…last night was one of those more vivid times.

I was in my mother’s house…the house where I went from boyhood to manhood (with all of the amazing, confusing, bawdy, wondrous, bittersweet glory that still-unfolding journey entailed)…and the ghosts, the sweet specters of memory, were dancing…dancing for me, dancing with me, dancing all around me.

All of the ghosts…the tender ghosts of Michael…were visiting, lingering, haunting. They always haunt I supposed…lingering soft in the ever expanding realms of memory, fancy, and the heart.

The ghosts danced…caressed…laughed…kissed…slapped…mocked and comforted and cursed me…so many ghosts. They spoke of the past…they sang of the future. As always, they were my memory…my fantasy…my conscience…my mirror…my heart, my soul... my universe writ in broad flourishes and in fleeting, poignant snippets.

The ghosts of Michael…blue, gold, and green in the shimmering dreamscape…stayed with me until the dawn called me back to the waking world…they stay with me even into the waking world…they stay with me, keeping safe the past, opening doorways into the future….the ghosts…the always lingering, always welcome ghosts.

The Dancer

2010-08-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

The dancer swayed for her…danced for her…made her smile and let her cry…when she needed him to. She accepted his entertainments and his devotions happily. The dancer didn’t ask for much in return and she was happy to accept that too.

Taking the dancer for granted was something she could do because it was something she almost always did, something he almost always allowed her to do. When she needed him he danced for her. When she didn’t need him, she tended to her personal affairs and gave him no never mind.

It was, she thought to herself contentedly, the way of things.

One soft gray day, the dancer didn’t come when she called. He didn’t come the second or the third time she called either.

Eventually he showed up smiling a beatific smile that she hoped was for her but, in her heart of hearts, knew wasn’t for her at all.

She frowned, her eyes glistening. “What happened?”

He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. He was genuinely perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“I needed you…I called you…and you weren’t there.” She stared accusing daggers at him. “Where have you been?”

“Ah,” the dancer said, “I was dancing across town…dancing for myself…and dancing for someone who doesn’t take the dance for granted…it was gratifyingly cool actually…”

“But you love me…”

The dancer nodded. “Yeah, I said that…and I meant it…but that doesn’t mean I will always be at your beck and call…that’s not the way it works…”

She frowned again. “But that’s exactly the way it works,” she protested, “that’s the way of things.”

The dancer tipped his hat and gave a gallant bow. “Not anymore.”

“That’s not fair,” she pouted, “you can’t just change the rules…”

The dancer swayed a bit…twirled effortlessly a bit…and bowed again. “Apparently I can….actually it kinda surprised me too…” He did a slow slide and a gravity mocking soft shoe. “You can’t take the dance for granted, little one,” he said. “Not anymore. I will not allow it.”

She looked at the dancer, feeling abandoned, betrayed. “This is unacceptable,” she huffed, “completely unacceptable.”

“I wasn’t asking for your permission,” the dancer replied, not unkindly. “There are other dancers…mayhap another one who might better suit your fancy…it’s cool with me if you do, I won’t stand in your way…”

“But you’re my dancer,” she said earnestly.

“Actually,” he said, kissing her cheek fleetingly and swaying towards the door, “I’m my own dancer.” He winked impishly and danced through the door. “I probably won’t take me for granted anyway…”

The dancer gave one more gallant bow and slipped out into the world. “I’ll be around,” he promised.

The dancer closed the door and waltzed up the road before she could give a reply.

150 Words: Neighbors

2010-08-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

“The gray skies have left early today,” I said.

My neighbor nodded. “It’s a beautiful day.”

Our driveways, side by side, glowed a soft gold in the sunshine that was chasing away the clouds.

We’d lived next door to each other for nearly 30 years but we still talked to each other in clichés and unintended inanities. Spouses came and went. Children came and went. And we still just talked about the weather.

“Are you okay?”

My neighbor winced and then nodded. “Uh-huh.”

It was a lie. “Are you sure?”

My neighbor sighed. “No.”

I looked at the side of my neighbor’s face. “What do you need to be okay?”

My neighbor looked over with liquid eyes. “A hug?”

I held out my hand. “I can do that.”

My neighbor closed the gap and stepped into me. “Thank you.”

“No worries,” I said, smiling. “It’s a beautiful day for it.”

The Garden

2010-07-29T10:26:00.000-07:00

The garden always mocks me for the fool that I ready know that I am. I go there…the same time, give or take an impudent minute or so, everyday. I sit on the stone bench, letting the breeze tickle what’s left of my thinning hair, letting the sun play solitary games of hide-and-seek through the gnarled branches of the liquid amber.

I sit and read…pulp fiction and comic books, biographies of serial killers, pop culture nonsense, English translations of Gabriel Garcia Marquez…read so I don’t have to think.

But think I do just the same.

I think about crying the night I ran away from home and shivered through a long night on a windswept beach….I think about the ones I “loved” without ever having the guts to find out what if heart had purchase with theirs…I think about never kissing my father…I think about never apologizing to my mother for being a barrier between her and new love long after my father had flitted away to what he foolishly imagined were greener pastures…I think about hating and loving my brother for living as he chose to and I think about hating him for dying the incredibly stupid and heartbreaking way he did…I think about the last time I really cried…I think about the last time I really smiled…I think about thinking.

And I think about whores and scoundrels.

I smile ruefully as I read…pulp fiction, serial killers, Marquez…and think about the scoundrels I’ve known…the scoundrels I’ve been…think about the whores I’ve known…the whores I’ve been…the whores I’ve slept with. No, that’s a lie…I never slept with any of them…I had hollow, humid sex with them and then I went home and slept alone. I always slept alone. I think about the sterile sanctity of my bed…of my heart…and I tell myself that it’s all right…I tell myself that it’s just so.

The garden always mocks me…the breeze carrying its perfumes of rose petals and maple leaves and casual hubris through me and on out into the world…as I read…comic books, soap opera given gravitas by time and acclaim, Senor Marquez…and think.

Batwoman and Supergirl

2010-07-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

Batwoman and Supergirl showed up at my doorstep in the cool gray of the late July afternoon. I hadn’t seen Batwoman in years and I had never met Supergirl at all. The Yankee lesbians from Frisco…as I insisted on calling them (they only took umbrage at the “Frisco” part…some people from San Francisco are apparently very touchy about that)…had come south to be as one with their people at the annual Comic-Con only to find that their lodgings were not in place.

Southern (California) hospitality being what it is I did not hesitate to invite them in and soothe their parched throats with generous glasses of sweet tea.

Yes, I said before Batwoman (who had actually called ahead) could ask, the intrepid heroines could stay in my sanctum sanctorum for the night (their lodgings in the gay enclave of Hillcrest…much closer to the downtown Convention Center than my house… would be available to them the next day.)

I was rewarded with grateful hugs and kisses on each cheek…one scented with mint (menthol cigarette smoke and breath spray) and the other with chocolate (the new M&M’s with pretzels.)

The cats had disappeared to wherever they disappear to when strange voices are about…save for Bart, of course, who casually sauntered out to see who the newcomers were and if they had anything for him. Batwoman retrieved two bags from their well-traveled SUV while Supergirl went into the bathroom to shower off the long hours they had spent on the road.

I fed them leftover chicken and new potatoes and then Batwoman and I talked about old times while Supergirl happily perused by CD and comic book collections and occasionally asked me about the people in the many framed photos on the walls of the family room and the front room.

Being a gallant Southern gentleman, I gave the Yankee lesbians from Frisco my bed (the only comfortable bed in the house) and I slept on the couch (much to the curiosity and delight of the cats who found “charming” ways to keep me company during the night.)

In the morning I made coffee (I don’t drink it but I keep some in the freezer for company) and Supergirl made French toast. They put on their faces, threw on their costumes, and…with more hugs and more kisses…the caped crusaders were off to join the Comic-Con throng.

Excelsior.

That Day That We Forgot We Knew was Coming

2010-07-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

The sky shattered into a million azure pieces,

glittering soft in the soft summer sun

it rained down on the world

and threatened to drown the people looking up.

It was that day that we forgot we knew was coming.

The sky sang potent backstreet blues

moaning languidly as innocence laughed

and the rain turned into floods

that threatened to drown the people swimming.

It was that day that we forgot we knew was coming.

The sky fell to the weary unsurprised earth,

destroying and creating in the same moment,

new flowers pushing out as rains moved on

taking the people who once were masters.

It was that day that we forgot we knew was coming.

Painted from Memory

2010-07-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

The softness of a warm, pliant breast…the haughty, demanding allure of a taut nipple…the sleek line of a gentle muscle…the anxious nectar of a playfully stolen kiss…the strength of graceful, ardent arms across shoulders…the wounding vulnerability of a guilelessly earnest lovers’ glance…they tumble together, they tumble together in a heady admixture of memory and fancy…they tumble together and come out in ways that suits today’s needs.

The lips that smell of jasmine and cherry wine, the smutty endearments that bring smiles and stolen breath, the soft tangle of hair on my probing fingers, the taste of strawberries and honey in unexpected crevices and tender corners…they tumble together in giddy remembrances of passion and love and dreams…they tumble together, rainbow and sepia strokes writing and rewriting the stories in ways that brings humid smiles and affectionate erections.

They tumble together…these paintings and pictures, these movies and tone poems…coming together…painted from memory…painted for posterity….they tumble together…they tumble together...

150 Words: Humid

2010-07-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

Imagine that, she thought with some languid amusement, it’s too hot to screw. Even for us. That’s gotta be some kind of something.

The air in the dark bedroom was thick, cloying, making their naked bodies glisten in the timid tendrils of moonlight sneaking through the open window. They were huddled against opposite edges of the bed, backs to each other, pretending to be asleep.

Sometimes summer can be an evil bitch, she thought as she contemplated the vague ache in her loins; she was randy but not so much that she wanted someone pressing close to her, slipping deep into her, making her sweat anymore than she already was…goddamn…goddamn…goddamn…

Imagine that, closing her eyes and taking in the liquid air in slow sips; closing her eyes and resisting the urge to touch herself…resisting the urge to defy the heat and cross the chasm, make the shy moon blush…too hot…damn…

Waiting

2010-07-14T11:49:00.000-07:00

What am I doing?
I'm waiting.

I'm waiting for the new sun to shine.
I'm waiting for the old moon to smile down.
I'm waiting for the wind to caress.
I'm waiting for eyes to light up just for me.
I'm waiting for a brand new song for a brand new dance.
I'm waiting for that tomorrow I was promised a long time ago.

I'm waiting.

I'm waiting to have more strength.
I'm waiting to not have to be so strong.
I'm waiting for more bright laughter.
I'm waiting for less bitter tears.
I'm waiting for the end of the mundane world.
I'm waiting for a new beginning to keep me safe and warm.

I'm waiting.

I'm waiting for magic to flow.
I'm waiting for the universe to make better sense.
I'm waiting to be first in line.
I'm waiting for a spark for the cooling ember of my heart.
I'm waiting for a new wisdom.
I'm waiting for my foolish soul to at last stop waiting.

I'm waiting.

The Sergeant

2010-07-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

The sergeant didn’t smile…he just didn’t have it in him…he just sat, folding his long, sturdy frame into my favorite chair barely able to contain him. He wanted his eyes to be steely…he was a Marine after all and that’s the way they were "supposed" to be…but they were liquid and wounded despite his best efforts to the contrary.

I sat quietly on the sofa. He would talk when he could. I would not invade his emotional space until when…or if…he was ready.

“I’m not a pussy,” he said, apropos of nothing. He was fit and square-jawed, his hair was cut high and tight, he was all masculine presence and military bearing…nobody would mistake him for a pussy.

I sat quietly. I knew he had come because a mutual friend…a woman, a Marine, we were both friends with...had told him that I was a good listener, a trustworthy confidant. I had no idea what he wanted to talk about…and we were not really friends… but I would listen if he wanted to talk.

The sergeant bolted his feet. “This was a mistake. Look, man, I’m sorry to have wasted your time.” He looked at me but made no move to leave.

“It’s cool.” I stood up and closed the space between us. “If you need to go, then go.” I paused and, tentatively, I reached over and patted his arm. “But if you need to stay, then…please…stay, I’ve got plenty of time…”

The sergeant stared at me…I wasn’t sure if he wanted to run…to laugh…to hit me…to burst into tears…and then, very subtly, he nodded. It was as close to “thank you” as he could muster in the moment.

I stepped back across the room…shooing the curious cat out of the room as I did so…and sat back on the couch.

The sergeant still didn’t smile…there was no laughter in his eyes…but he sat down in my favorite chair…and, hesitantly, he began to talk...

150 Words: Joy

2010-07-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

I remember joy.

Joy used to breathe light into my laughter as I walked in the sun…as I held deep conversations with inquisitive people not too long out of the womb.

Joy used to whisper in my heart whenever I looked into the eyes of someone who shined a little brighter when we were together.

Joy used to take my breath away when I kissed someone who kissed me back, lips tingling with energy and anticipation and longing…kissed someone with the rough gentleness that only real lovers know and appreciate.

I remember joy…joy danced with me, flirted with me, comforted me, joy let passion and love and lust explode through me in the humid shelters of the night and warm, welcoming lips and limbs.

I remember joy…joy was a boon companion of mine…I wonder where joy has gotten to…I wonder when joy will come home again…

Yeah, I remember joy.

Everybody's Got the Right to Love

2010-07-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

Playing the Supremes on a cool July morning…trying to break through the suddenly stubborn grayness within and without…reminded of summer days of my youth putting a stack of 45’s on the record player and turning the volume up and dancing along…air guitar in hand, invisible microphone at the ready…and losing myself in the music.

It makes me a little happy.

It makes me a little sad.

It makes wistful for times gone and hopeful for times to come.

A step gone…but a decent enough step still present just the same…I catch the beat, smile at the bass line, and sing along with the mighty Ms. Jean Terrell…”everybody’s got the right to love”…yeah, I’d like to believe that’s still true…and sometimes I honestly do (positive madness is the best madness :-)

(I couldn't find a video for the song but clicking on the title above will take you to a place hosting the song in question.)

Crazy

2010-07-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

He sat in the oppressive, welcoming solitude of his room staring at the wall and holding back acid tears. Maybe I’m going crazy, he thought, finding some solace in the contentment he imagined that being mad might bring; maybe I’m already crazy and just am the last one to know.

He woke with light flowing through his being…full of energy and purpose…but, seemingly out of the blue, the light faded and the grayness consumed him before the morning was done. He was tired. He was achy. And he was sad…profoundly, unfathomably sad…and he couldn’t put his finger on why. Or, more likely, he didn’t want to put his finger on the many reasons why. Didn’t matter, it was what it was…and it had no outlet.

There was no one to talk to…no one who would really listen…only those who would hear just a little and then turn the conversation back to their own concerns. That was okay most of the time…his life was filled with attentive listening, it was the one thing people both loved and resented him for…but in that moment he just couldn’t bear it.

So he sat…in the oppressive, welcoming, bitter solitude of his room staring at the ceiling and holding back self-pitying tears. Maybe it would be more peaceful being mad…being freed from the shackles of his life, blissfully unaware of nothing more portentous than the passing of days and the songs of windborne birds…maybe crazy people had no communion with sadness…with isolation…with self-doubt and self-pity.

Maybe.

But I’m not crazy, he thought ruefully, and I guess I don’t really wish I were. But sometimes…sometimes…

He sat in the oppressive, welcoming, bitter, safe solitude of his room staring out the window and holding back un-manful tears…maybe he needed to hit something…maybe he needed to kiss someone with passionate abandon…maybe he needed to let slip the tears and let the sadness wash out of him…maybe he needed to go a little bit crazy so he could return to being a little bit sane.

Maybe…

He shrugged and chuckled at his hubris. With a sigh he closed his eyes and sat back. This too, he knew from experience, would pass. This too would pass.

America

2010-07-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

America doesn’t always live up to its promise. But its promise is still something worth striving for…worth dreaming of…worth fighting and dying for if need be. I am a cynical patriot but I am indeed a patriot and no one can gainsay that fact.

Blind, unthinking loyalty to anything or anyone is a fool’s path; knee-jerk disavowal of everything this country thinks it is...everything this country wants to be…is also a fool’s path. As with most things in this world, the truth lies somewhere in between strident, inflexible extremes…this is certainly true here in America…our generous, arrogant, naïve, myopic, our hard-hearted and inflexible, open-minded and open-hearted America… our complex , often marvelously and infuriatingly so, America.

Here in the 21^st Century, America is looking for its way…we’re fighting wars on distant soils and building walls on our borders…we’re reeling still from the knowledge that our shores are not immune from terror and chaos and sudden brutal deaths by the score; we are a nation united by history, hubris, and hope…we are a nation fractured along ever-fluid lines of politics, race, religion, pride, and culture.

We are America…for better and for worse…in times of peace and in times of war…in times of joy and pride and in times of sorrow and shame…in times when the rest of the world (rightly or wrongly) celebrates us and in times when the rest of the world (rightly or wrongly) reviles us.

We are America…the sons and daughters of many distant lands…the sons and daughters of adventurers and outcasts…the sons and daughters of slaves and freedmen…the sons and daughters of visionaries and madmen, of pirates and craftsmen, of warriors and peacemakers, of saints and scoundrels, of builders and destroyers, of emancipators and bigots, of heroes and villains…the sons and daughters of uncommon wizards and countless everyday folk…

We are America…we don’t always live up to our promise…maybe we never will completely…but it’s our birthday and attention must be paid just the same.

150 Words: Hungry Heart

2010-07-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

The old man listened intently. The boy was babbling but the old man knew he needed to babble so he listened intently and patiently.

The boy…the younger man really…went on about his anger, his disappointments, his heartaches, his fruitless search to find someone who will love him the way he wants and needs to be loved. The boy admitted some hubris and even some foolishness; he admitted some fantasy and some darkness of which he was reluctant to speak of in greater detail.

The old man nodded, puffed thoughtfully on his pipe, and listened intently, patiently.

And when the boy ran out of words he looked into the old man’s face. “So what do you think?”

The old man let slip a fragrant cloud of smoke and looked into the boy’s eyes. “Everybody’s got a hungry heart.” The old man stood up, patted the boy’s shoulder and walked away humming.

Pop Culture blogging: Neverending Rainbow
MKW's Facebook

All of My Children

2010-06-27T18:14:00.000-07:00

All of my daughters…all of my sons…all of my children…live in a place of light and shadow, memory and hope without bounds, and they dance with me and laugh with me and keep me forever in their forever hearts.

And so it is…and so it is…

All of my sons…and all of my daughters…live in the world extant, a place of magic and heartache, passion and pain, light and shadow…memory and hope…they share no blood with me and they dance with me for brief seasons as they need and want to…and they make me smile from my heart and sing soft songs of praise to the universe in thanks for them just being.

And so it is…and so it is…

All of my children…hold fast in love and dreams…in that which was and that which never was to be…in places of light and shadow, in places of memory and hope without bound, in the world extant and the universe eternal.

And so it is…and so it is…

- for A, P, M, S, and the four J’s -

I dreamed about my friend Lori last night...

2010-06-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

I dreamed about my friend Lori last night. I still think of us as friends even though it’s far too many years since I last heard from her.

Dreams are strange things…we all know that…and I’m always intrigued when people I haven’t actively thought about in a while show up in my dreams and make such a powerful impression that they linger with me into the waking hours.

I wonder how the world is treating her…she was a girl of radiant, fragile beauty and quiet, wounding melancholy and for a brief season I wanted nothing more than to give her safe harbor from the unforgiving seas of disappointment and pain that buffeted her far too often.

I hope that she’s safe.

I hope that she’s happy.

I hope that she’s in the company of somebody who sincerely loves and appreciates her.

And I hope that she thinks about me every once in a while and that the memory makes her smile the shy, secret smile she used to share with me when she let her guard down and relaxed into my safe harbor.

(Me and Lori in the administrative offices of Max Factor & Co. in Hollywood, CA circa 1979)

Father's Day

2010-06-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

I picked out the names of my first son and my first daughter when I was 12. It was apropos of nothing but it felt right and I went with it. I wrote them down in a diary I was I keeping at the time and carried them in my heart from that moment on.

I always wondered if the little humans I helped to create would fit those names or if they would come into the bright world with other names the universe gave to them. I was cool either way…the names weren’t remarkably original or anything, they just felt “right”…but I carried them just the same.

I never got to use them. Because I never got to actually co-create a child.

But I did get to be a father just the same. And I think I had some good moments.

I would be lying if I said there wasn’t some sense of loss in not being a biological father but I only dwell upon that, quite fleetingly, in extremely rare moments…life is what it is…things happen in this life as they are supposed to and not as we might want them to… and I have nothing complain about in this area.

(My life has always been blessed by the joy and magic of children…babies and toddlers have always seemed to like me…felt safe with me…for some reason…maybe they recognize someone close to their emotional age…maybe that’s not really a good thing after all… :-)

Father’s Day always makes me think about the men who became fathers. The good ones (like so many I know and have known) delight and amaze me. The not-so-good ones (like mine) are still worthy of acknowledgement for having brought new life to the great pool of human energy and experience.

And so…to all the Dads, Papas, Daddies, Poppies, Padres…to all the Fathers…thanks.

And Happy Father’s Day.

6/13/81

2010-06-12T13:24:00.000-07:00

We played tag with the languid surf on a Santa Monica night

and then laughed like children as frigid water

washed over our naked feet

making us long for our shoes;

We raced back to the van and its lazy heater,

We snuggled together sharing body warmth…

Don’t fall in love with me, you said,

I won’t, I said, only half-lying,

and then we kissed anyway.

your kiss

2010-06-11T13:58:00.000-07:00

you would laugh, perhaps just a bit unkindly,

if I told you…if I tried to make you remember…

if I tried to get you to do that dance again;

I shrug, perhaps just a bit ruefully,

I hold my jaded tongue

and acknowledge the obvious…

the memory of your kiss still makes me smile.

The Ghost of Maude

2010-06-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

The ghost of Maude doesn’t visit me often. But I’m always blessed when she does and last night, in the middle of a particularly active and vaguely unsettling dreamtime, she visited me once more.

My grandmother…Maude (everyone called her Mom)…was 96 years old when she died. I didn’t know her as well as I wanted to but the times we did have together…sitting at the little table by the window in her always delightfully fragrant kitchen as she cleaned green beans and told me wonderful, beguiling, bittersweet stories of her rich life…will linger with me until I pass on back into the light.

“What’s botherin’ you, Buddy?”…my father is no fan of his given name and early on adopted the nickname “Bud”, my grandmother took to calling me, his first born son, “Buddy” almost as a matter of course…she was the only one I allowed to call me that into adulthood.

Mom rarely smiled but her eyes were always bright with savvy and patience and unspoken, but unmistakable mischief…she had proud, angular reddish brown features…she looked like she was as much Native American as she was Black…and she wasn’t smiling as she appeared out of a shadow in my dream.

“Don’t know, Mom,” I lied…I was so pleased to see her that I wasn’t going to waste her time with my navel-gazing even in dreamtime.

“No need to lie to me, child,” she said, drifting close and touching my face, “you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied hanging my head.

Mom put her thin, delicate, red-brown hand on my cheek and lifted my face up to look at hers…with her smiling eyes and unsmiling mouth…and winked. “Gon’ be okay.”

I smiled. The shadows swirled around us. And the ghost of Maude was gone. And I fell…into deeper, unremembered… or dreamless…sleep.

150 Words: Citadel

2010-06-09T10:45:00.000-07:00

He stood on top of the citadel wall and looked down. The world…the whole wide blue green gold gray black and white world…spread out as far at the eye could see. There were a few people making half-hearted attempts to breach the wall but they couldn’t find it in themselves to care enough to put much effort into it and so they left leaving their expectations and disappointments nailed to the citadel door and went off to find more interesting pastimes to pursue.

Somewhere someone was playing Bach…and someone else was playing Skynyrd…someone was chanting with Coltrane (…a love supreme…a love supreme…)…and someone was mocking him with rueful Paul Simon songs. He shrugged…he’d heard it all before… and slipped back into the citadel where shadows danced for him…and memory played tricks for him…and yesterdays swirled into tomorrows and his heart, mayhap too long dormant, played none of it much heed.

150 Words: Community

2010-06-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

We are community. The community of the boundless ebon heavens…the community of brave and fragile Gaea…the community of borders and city-states and neighborhoods and all the other mortal constructs we pledge fealty to…we are of our fathers’ sweat and our mothers’ tears…we are of our kinfolk’s memories and the collective legacy of beloved strangers who went before….we are of fertile seed and bountiful starlight…we are community.

We are community. The community of the multitude…the community of the chosen few…the community of abiding love and faithful familiarity…and, ultimately, the community of the one…we are joined and ever separate…we are of the same blood and utterly unique…we are heartbeats connected and light years apart…we are many…we are few…we are one…we are community.

We are hope and joy, love and lust, passion and peace and hate and love…children of mercy, parents of reason…we are many…we are few…we are, ultimately, gloriously, one…we are community.

This is My Life (the pyschobabble remix)

2010-06-02T23:05:00.000-07:00

I am filled with hubris and false modesty, with feints and evasions and subversive rage simmering just beneath the surface and erupting in a sudden, cathartic bursts that have as their only audience a cold computer screen, framed snapshots, and slightly bemused cats.

I am filled with dark cynicism that is soothed by loud music, other people’s words in books, other people’s visions in moving pictures, guiltless gothic fantasies, and joyless sex with strangers who think they know me. I am a master and a victim, a fool and a hero,

This is my life.

I am full of dreams and inertia, I am wary and detached and always waiting for the other shoe to fall; I am full of acid bravado in absentia and hollow smiles that go unrecognized by those who are supposedly close to me. I am a disappointment to more than I care to think about and I don’t really care that I am because everybody is a disappointment to me as well.

I am a well-regarded afterthought and I am well used to that.

I am alone and not lonely. I am a would-be romantic who doesn’t believe in love anymore. I am aging and never as old as I feel. I am consumed by a youth that never happened and comforted by phantom love, rock and roll, and comic book super-heroes.

I am consumed by futures that probably won’t happen and sheltered by mazes of words and false laughter and becoming people that I will never reveal to anyone else.

I offer safe harbor and I long ago stopped looking to find the same for myself. I wallow in self-pity and self-regard in oddly equal measure and I find nothing untoward about that. I wallow in imagination and despair in equal measure and I find nothing untoward about that either.

And this is all absolutely true. And this is all absolute nonsense.

This is my life.

150 Words: She Was Like That (Amanda)

2010-05-04T23:29:00.000-07:00

Amanda made me smile and then she blew me a kiss and disappeared in a flash (she was quite agile for a big girl)…I shrugged…she was like that…and chuckled.

Even Amanda didn’t know when her whimsy would bring her back to visit me so I didn’t waste time fretting about it. She would turn up…taking a bath at 3 AM or speaking nothing but French and smoking pungent cigarettes or pouting after a year’s absence because someone else was sharing my bed…and I would give her safe harbor until her wanderlust gave her wing once more.

She made me smile…she was like that…she made me laugh…she made my body sing when she kissed me, when we made love and she sighed my name without it seeming like a tease or a practiced ploy. Amanda always made me smile…and she always left…for days, weeks, months…yeah, she was like that.

The Blue Train

2010-04-27T17:25:00.000-07:00

The engine purred languidly as the train…azure as the early evening sky…came surely around the bend. My heart sank and rose almost in the same instant as I clutched my bag and fought back acid tears.

“I don’t think I want to go,” I said to the man whose massive, calloused, calming hand was on my shoulder; he was the only person in the world I felt small beside…the only person in the world I truly didn’t mind feeling small beside.

He smiled patiently and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You have to go,” he said, his voice all honey and resonating bass, “you’ll hate yourself if you don’t.”

“Don’t care,” I pouted. But I knew he was right…he was almost always right…and I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Will you still be here when I get back?” I asked more plaintively than I had wanted to.

He nodded and bent down and kissed my forehead. “Yep,” he said simply. He straightened my tie as the blue train stopped and its door slid open with a world-weary sigh.

The conductor’s face was impassive but her eyes were kind. “I’ll take your bag, sir,” she said, not waiting for my reply before she gently tugged it out of my hands.

I turned and looked up at the man, memorizing the twinkle in his eyes…the texture of his graying beard…the proud, sun-kissed crags on his forehead. “I’ll miss you.”

He smiled…as much as he smiled…patiently and warmly and stroked my face. “You won’t have to,” he said tapping one of his thick fingers against my chest, “I’ll be right here wherever you go. You understand?”

My face flushed. “Yes, sir,” I said in a small voice.

“There’s a good boy.”

I started to stay a million more things but the train whistle blew and the conductor appeared holding her hand out to me. “All aboard, sir,” she said.

I took her hand and climbed up the stairs as the door sighed shut behind me. Through the glass I saw the man standing, his massive shoulders squared as always, nodding proudly. I waved and he nodded and the blue train pulled out of the station.

I watched as the station…and the man…faded out of sight as we rounded the next curve and then I followed the conductor to my seat. It was, I realized, neither an ending nor a beginning…it was a continuation.

Feliz Navidad

2009-12-19T19:14:00.000-08:00

The homes on the Circle were bright and welcoming with festive lights dancing along their eaves and fragrant smoke wafting lazily from their chimneys. The night was cool and crisp with golden stars twinkling in time with a cosmic Christmas carol.

It was the night before Christmas and I was sitting on the bench under the big tree in my yard sipping hot cider…sipping hot cider and waiting.

I didn’t see him arrive; he was just…softly and suddenly…there next to me. “I was wondering when you were going to show up,” I said, not turning towards him, before taking another sip of cider.

He chuckled warmly. “Not surprised to see me, huh?”

I shook my head. “I’ve read my Dickens,” I said with a grin.

“Well there’s just me this time…there are cutbacks all over.”

“Bah, humbug,” I said with a wink.

For a few moments, we sat silently side by side looking up into the endless night sky.

“Are you doing okay?” he asked.

A soft torrent of conflicting reactions and emotions surged through me and I sighed softly. “Yeah…most of the time…sometimes I…”

“I know,” he said.

“I’m sorry I never said…”

“You didn’t have say anything,” he said gently, “I was a clever fellow and you, despite your feints, aren’t nearly as inscrutable as you think you are. Well at least not when you know what to look for and care enough to look for it…and I did.”

“Yeah,” I smiled even as tears formed in the corners of my eyes. “I miss you.”

“Estoy con usted siempre, mi amigo querido.”

I nodded, still fighting back the willful tears. “I know. It’s kept me sane through some of the dark times this year…”

“Good.” He started to say something else but then thought better of it. “I have to go.”

I turned to look at him for the first time. I knew him by heart though he looked more serene than I could ever remember seeing him before. “Will I see you again?”

He winked and smiled. “Yes…it’s a bright circle of life and we’ll all see you again in due course.”

I didn’t need to ask who “we all” were, I just knew. And the knowing warmed me to my soul.

“Feliz Navidad, mi hermano. Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año Nuevo.”

“Merry Christmas, my friend,” I said to the cool Christmas Eve night. He was gone…and yet he wasn’t gone at all.

- for MZ -

Autumn Road

2009-10-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

country road, autumn road,
carry me to love, carry me to life,
carry me to the arms of passion,
carry me home to the one I love...
country road, autumn road,
carry me, carry me all the way home.

All You Need is...

2009-10-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

“Is it because I’m white?”

The question caught me a bit off-guard, as indeed it was supposed to. “No,” I said, a little bit insulted, “you know better than that.”

She frowned…her mouth unconsciously forming the little girl pout on her woman’s mouth that I found so incredibly fetching that I had to look away…as she marshaled her next argument. There was no way I was going to get out this conversation unscathed.

“If you don’t love me, just say so,” she said finally, her dark brown eyes focused so powerfully on mine that I couldn’t turn away again if I tried.

I took a soft breath, sighing almost inaudibly, as I measured my own words. “I do love you, baby,” I replied truthfully. “How could I not love you? You’re smart…you’re funny…you’re giving and warm and caring…you’re so beautiful it takes my breath away…I’d have to be dead not to love you…”

“Then why…”

“Because,” I said, cutting off the question she’d asked me a dozen times before, “I have a strict rule that I don’t get involved with anyone who doesn’t have a favorite Beatles song…and you, pretty girl, weren’t even born until years after the Beatles broke up…”

That was a new one and she sighed with exasperation and frowned. “I don’t care about that…I love you and you love me, what else matters?”

She was so magnificent in her anger that I wanted to pull her into my arms and hold her for the rest of our lives. “It matters that you’re 23 years old…and I’m not of a mind to steal your youth to get through my golden years…I’m not that guy.”

“But…”

“It matters that you have so much living to do…to finish school…to find a job that excites and engages you…to find someone your own age to love and make babies with…so much to do…”

Tears began to pool in her dark eyes but she defiantly refused to let them fall. “I can do all those things with you…I want to do all those things with you!”

“Baby, I’m more than twice your age…I’ve lived a good portion of my life…I’m old and set in my ways and there’s no way in hell that I’m going let you tie yourself down to me…”

She shook her head and sighed. “I know why you call me “baby”…you’re trying to remind me that I’m “too young” for you…”

I smiled and reached out and stroked her cheek. “Partially,” I admitted, “but also because you are my baby…and because you like it when I call you that…”

She grinned and nuzzled against my hand. “You’re not getting rid of me this easily, old man,” she said resolutely. She surged into my arms and buried her head on my shoulder. “When you’re old and gray, I’ll push your wheelchair and make you oatmeal and love you still with all my heart.”

I closed my eyes and held her tight.

“’All You Need is Love’,” she whispered.

“What?”

“My favorite Beatles song….’All You Need is Love’…wise words, don’t you think?”

I chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “There’s my girl.”

“Damn right,” she said, closing her eyes and relaxing unabashedly in our embrace.

Moments

2009-09-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

Troy knew that the kiss was a risky proposition but he didn’t care. If she were to run away into the night never to return he would have this moment. And sometimes moments are all you get.

Sara folded into the kiss, letting down her studied defenses long enough to let the rest of the world mind its own business and let them be, and she felt, fleetingly anyway, safe and…loved…

“That’s all I wanted to say,” he said, hoping to bring some levity to the longing and the awkwardness of the stolen moment.

She looked into his eyes and then, feeling incredibly exposed and vulnerable, she buried her head against the comforting broadness of his chest. “You said it very nicely,” she said with more coyness than a woman of her age should be comfortable with. “I’m so glad that you’re my friend.”

He nodded and smiled, just a bit ruefully. “We aim to please,” he said kissing the top of her head. That moment was done and this moment…the “you know we’re just friends” moment…had taken its place.

They held each other…together and so far apart…and let the moment speak for itself.

Sometimes moments are all you get.

Sometimes...

2009-09-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get so selfish and self-pitying that I find myself getting so angry at you…angry and abandoned and alone…but those moments are few and far between and they pass like the wispy tendrils of a lazy morning mist…

Sometimes I still hear your laugh…sometimes I still look to share some bit of nonsense with you….sometimes I forget that you’ve been gone since a cold spring…you’ve been gone through a hard and heart-wounding summer…sometimes I forget…but those moments are few and far between…

Sometimes I smile wistfully…imagining what you would say…imagining what would make smile…imagining what cock your head to the side and say everything you needed to in a withering, knowing look…

Sometimes I rage against the heavens…sometimes I rage against the injustice…sometimes I rage, crying acid tears, because my friend is gone…sometimes…

Sometimes I remember all that was and not all that there should have been…sometimes I smile for having known you rather than cry for having lost you…

Sometimes I wish I had told you everything you meant to me…and sometimes I know that you already knew that…

Sometimes the gray envelops me…threatens to smother me…but sometimes…most times…the light breaks through and I move forward, healed and whole and so much better for having known you…

Sometimes I still hear your life…and sometimes it makes me cry…and sometimes…most times…it makes me smile.

- for M on what would have been his 62^nd birthday -

Eight Years Gone

2009-09-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Memory dims…time heals…life waxes and wanes...

life moves on like it has to do…

And we are here…eight years gone…and moving on with life like we have to do…

Yes I remember where I was…

Yes I remember how scared I felt…

Yes I remember how angry I felt…

Yes I remember how helpless I felt…

Yes I remember finding solace in the smile of a baby girl…

Yes I remember.

Eight years gone…so many yesterdays ago…

And we are here…remembering with comforting buffer of time and tide…

Eight years gone…and moving forward and looking back…moving on with life like we have to…

Flags flying…tear stains long dry…I remember…we all remember…

Eight years gone…so many lifetimes gone….so many lifetimes to go.