The Garden

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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
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All of My Children

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.