Monday, September 22, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
The Other Side of the Pool
The angel stood on bowed knee
Waist deep in the shallows
His right hand cast miracles into waves of water
Threw ripples imbued with magis
Stirred and splashed until healing came upon it
Until the entire pool of Bethesda shimmered like glitter on the wet heat waves of the sun
That's when they all began to jump in
But could not linger long
The moment healing settled in
It's out of the pool, to the Temple song
But you stood still for so long
Watching the wretched washed
Cleansed of their sins
Whole of body, whole of mind
You never knew what that was like
You didn't know what that could be like
You would have stood there until the bubbling waters stilled
Cheated out of your mindful abundance
Had I not an incantation of my own
So I chanted "Pura Deva Honey Madme Plath "
Words of pure nonsense I knew
You'd take them as a cryptic challenge
Meaningless but they sounded right
The sheer repetition hypnotized you
And back, back, walking back slowly
Walking backwards towards the pull that still seemed affluent & fecund
You walked
In silence
Until your foot touched the water and you had to stop to absorb what felt like several hundred volts of lightning streaming up from your Achilles Heel to your Freud-ball skull and immediately you realized
Something big was happening
Lowering your waist the pain was transmuted
As clarity wiped the fog from the window of your perception
The songs that came unbidden
Overflowed your stained glass imagination
Forcing out demons and dumb ideas
Death and delusions and bad desires
Running like demons to the sow
Having asked permission
Your music-stuffed head went underwater
A practical baptism, a lesson in breathing liquid
When you were pulled out you had no use for what lay on the other side of the pool
The grassy meadow where I still stood
When the cancer was removed
I came to find what I always suspected
I'm a huge part of the tumor
Dug in on the other side of the pool
While your fool legs take you fast as you may run
To make an offering to the chief priest
Singing songs of praise and gratefulness
I find my own song to sing
The Angel says my burden
Must stick tight and bleed like leeches
Bad seed buried deep in the abyss of my being
An ugly man, face drawn from grimaces and frowns
Unloveable and beat to the bone
Without a single song of my own
Sunday, September 7, 2014
dinner, late 1986
It's in the third person, but it's about me, late 1986, I believe. Pretty dismal but such was my life.
HARD TIMES
You step out the door into the early evening cool, hungry. You haven't eaten in twenty-three hours. There may have been a time when such a situation as this would cause extreme discomfort but you've grown accustomed to the feeling.
Every night it's the same as it has been for the last month, give or take a few days. You point your nose to the west and follow it, walking. A nice, steady, even pace because you're not in a big hurry. You've timed the excursion beforehand, you've got plenty of time.
You don't look up. Nothing to look for. Only watch your feet, one in front of the other, it would be a chore to count the steps so you've never tried. You check the litter on the side of the road on the off chance that someone may have lost a dollar bill and today is your lucky day. You can't forget the day you found a twenty just outside of the house you grew up in. What luck that was. It's been a long, long time since you've found any cash in the ditch but the fact that you HAVE found a dollar here, a dollar there since then encourages you to continue. Besides, what else have you got to look at?
You find an empty can...Dr. Pepper or Budweiser beer it seems are the main kinds you've happened upon...and you kick it so that it travels a decent distance but remains on the hard asphalt, doesn't fly off the side of the road. You lose the game if that happens. And you lose the game if the can gets crushed too much to roll. How do you win the game? You don't know because you've never won it.
A mile and a half makes up three quarters of the trip and that's where you'll stop at the grocery store. You know the place has no security cameras so you don't worry about getting caught. You saunter back to the meat section and grab a pound of sausage or a pepperoni stick, tucking it into the inner pocket of the coat you wear and readjusting the lapels so that the weight doesn't give away what you've done. A quick walk to the soda aisle and you pick a fruit flavored soda, the store brand, something like twenty cents a can, and take it to the check-out counter.
The lady at the counter is always very nice although your paranoia has prevented any kind of normal rapport with her. You wonder if she thinks it's suspicious to come into the store every day and buy nothing but a can of soda. In actuality she thinks you're just that funny turned guy who comes into the store and buys a can of pop every night. No big deal. An endearing ritual, even. All the while the guy who does the meat department's inventory is scratching his head at all the shrinkage.
Walking out of the store you pop the top on the soda can and down the twelve ounces of grape soda in a few greedy, thirsty gulps. A free can to kick, you drop it to the ground and begin the game. It doesn't last very long because the el cheapo aluminum cans the store brand uses are chincy and thin, you've practically smashed it before the third kick. You walk on, leaving it where it stopped rolling, someone would eventually come along and whisk it away to the recycling station. Money in the bank.
The final one third of the walk is downhill all the way and the thought of something to eat when you get where you're going makes it even easier.
Where you're going is your parents house. The house you grew up in. The one where you found the twenty dollar bill on the side of the road just outside the yard. Only one of your parents still lives here, accompanied by his third wife who you are convinced is evil incarnate. She's the reason you had to make this long walk. She's the reason you only get to eat once a day and even that you have to steal. It's a wonder you can still talk to her, let alone be civil. But she's in charge of this show now and it's her cook stove and skillet you're needing.
You cut and cook up the sausage in one big pan full of sizzling meat and it smells like breakfast at a diner in heaven. If there is bread on hand you'll make up a few sandwiches slathered in mustard and seasoned with entirely too much salt. The witch who lives with your father may likely be miffed at you using her bread but you don't even think about that. She's never said anything about it if she does. As for the mustard, you think even less about using as much of that as you want.
They are delicious. You never realized you liked pork sausage so much until you started bringing it home from the store. Why pork sausage? It fit so well in the coat pocket, mainly. It was easy to slip in and didn't bulge. Your father asked you once why you ate so much pork sausage. "You must really like that stuff", he said. He was right. It never seemed to get old and it filled you up to stuffed.
You deign the sea hag a kind word and a "thank you", the effort being difficult but deemed necessary to stay on her good side (as far into her "good side" as you were ever able to be, that is), and with a fond farewell to your father you step out their back door and head east. The journey back is a bit more trying than the one that led to your destination because there's not break, no stop off at the grocery store. But it's all okay because you've got a belly full of grub, you're good to go for another twenty three hours.
No cans this time, seeing as how you've crushed them all on the way up and no one has been inconsiderate enough to toss one out between then and now. Instead you occupy your mind by recalling words and music to the songs that have been stuck there for the last couple of days. You have a talent of hearing them note-for-note pitch perfect in your imagination, no need for a music player which is just as well because you don't have one. If you did you might have brought it along, but on the other hand probably not because the only place you could have kept it was in that inner coat pocket and you needed that space for the pork.
It takes less than two hours you make it back to the house you're staying in. It's a nice place the Methodist minister arranged for you to stay at with the youth minister. You're pretty sure he doesn't like you and for what it's worth you don't think too awful highly of him, either. But it doesn't really matter because the interaction is kept to a minimum.
You're not much of a social person. All this house is to you is a room for your bed and that's where you stay almost all of the time, waking and waiting to go to bed. Listening to NPR on a Sony Dream Machine clock radio which is, face it, all you've got to keep you entertained.
Hard times for sausage thieves.
HARD TIMES
You step out the door into the early evening cool, hungry. You haven't eaten in twenty-three hours. There may have been a time when such a situation as this would cause extreme discomfort but you've grown accustomed to the feeling.
Every night it's the same as it has been for the last month, give or take a few days. You point your nose to the west and follow it, walking. A nice, steady, even pace because you're not in a big hurry. You've timed the excursion beforehand, you've got plenty of time.
You don't look up. Nothing to look for. Only watch your feet, one in front of the other, it would be a chore to count the steps so you've never tried. You check the litter on the side of the road on the off chance that someone may have lost a dollar bill and today is your lucky day. You can't forget the day you found a twenty just outside of the house you grew up in. What luck that was. It's been a long, long time since you've found any cash in the ditch but the fact that you HAVE found a dollar here, a dollar there since then encourages you to continue. Besides, what else have you got to look at?
You find an empty can...Dr. Pepper or Budweiser beer it seems are the main kinds you've happened upon...and you kick it so that it travels a decent distance but remains on the hard asphalt, doesn't fly off the side of the road. You lose the game if that happens. And you lose the game if the can gets crushed too much to roll. How do you win the game? You don't know because you've never won it.
A mile and a half makes up three quarters of the trip and that's where you'll stop at the grocery store. You know the place has no security cameras so you don't worry about getting caught. You saunter back to the meat section and grab a pound of sausage or a pepperoni stick, tucking it into the inner pocket of the coat you wear and readjusting the lapels so that the weight doesn't give away what you've done. A quick walk to the soda aisle and you pick a fruit flavored soda, the store brand, something like twenty cents a can, and take it to the check-out counter.
The lady at the counter is always very nice although your paranoia has prevented any kind of normal rapport with her. You wonder if she thinks it's suspicious to come into the store every day and buy nothing but a can of soda. In actuality she thinks you're just that funny turned guy who comes into the store and buys a can of pop every night. No big deal. An endearing ritual, even. All the while the guy who does the meat department's inventory is scratching his head at all the shrinkage.
Walking out of the store you pop the top on the soda can and down the twelve ounces of grape soda in a few greedy, thirsty gulps. A free can to kick, you drop it to the ground and begin the game. It doesn't last very long because the el cheapo aluminum cans the store brand uses are chincy and thin, you've practically smashed it before the third kick. You walk on, leaving it where it stopped rolling, someone would eventually come along and whisk it away to the recycling station. Money in the bank.
The final one third of the walk is downhill all the way and the thought of something to eat when you get where you're going makes it even easier.
Where you're going is your parents house. The house you grew up in. The one where you found the twenty dollar bill on the side of the road just outside the yard. Only one of your parents still lives here, accompanied by his third wife who you are convinced is evil incarnate. She's the reason you had to make this long walk. She's the reason you only get to eat once a day and even that you have to steal. It's a wonder you can still talk to her, let alone be civil. But she's in charge of this show now and it's her cook stove and skillet you're needing.
You cut and cook up the sausage in one big pan full of sizzling meat and it smells like breakfast at a diner in heaven. If there is bread on hand you'll make up a few sandwiches slathered in mustard and seasoned with entirely too much salt. The witch who lives with your father may likely be miffed at you using her bread but you don't even think about that. She's never said anything about it if she does. As for the mustard, you think even less about using as much of that as you want.
They are delicious. You never realized you liked pork sausage so much until you started bringing it home from the store. Why pork sausage? It fit so well in the coat pocket, mainly. It was easy to slip in and didn't bulge. Your father asked you once why you ate so much pork sausage. "You must really like that stuff", he said. He was right. It never seemed to get old and it filled you up to stuffed.
You deign the sea hag a kind word and a "thank you", the effort being difficult but deemed necessary to stay on her good side (as far into her "good side" as you were ever able to be, that is), and with a fond farewell to your father you step out their back door and head east. The journey back is a bit more trying than the one that led to your destination because there's not break, no stop off at the grocery store. But it's all okay because you've got a belly full of grub, you're good to go for another twenty three hours.
No cans this time, seeing as how you've crushed them all on the way up and no one has been inconsiderate enough to toss one out between then and now. Instead you occupy your mind by recalling words and music to the songs that have been stuck there for the last couple of days. You have a talent of hearing them note-for-note pitch perfect in your imagination, no need for a music player which is just as well because you don't have one. If you did you might have brought it along, but on the other hand probably not because the only place you could have kept it was in that inner coat pocket and you needed that space for the pork.
It takes less than two hours you make it back to the house you're staying in. It's a nice place the Methodist minister arranged for you to stay at with the youth minister. You're pretty sure he doesn't like you and for what it's worth you don't think too awful highly of him, either. But it doesn't really matter because the interaction is kept to a minimum.
You're not much of a social person. All this house is to you is a room for your bed and that's where you stay almost all of the time, waking and waiting to go to bed. Listening to NPR on a Sony Dream Machine clock radio which is, face it, all you've got to keep you entertained.
Hard times for sausage thieves.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Backmasked Evil Heebee Jeebees
I'm really ashamed to admit that I bought into this when I was younger. To the point where I actually destroyed a complete collection of Black Sabbath and Ozzy solo vinyl LPs. I'm pretty sure I did that more to impress people in an interfaith youth group than anything else but there you go. Naive. I do remember it being very spooky. Especially hearing Jim Dandy Mangrum of Black Oak Arkansas chant Satan's name backward on a live recording. Of course it wasn't long before I replaced all those albums because a person tends to grow...
Monday, September 1, 2014
originally to be posted on facebook
I was tagged to post 20 "little known things" about myself on facebook and I wrote up ten but now that I read them back I've had second thoughts about posting them in that forum. So I'll dump 'em here.
1. As a young child I would compose rock songs in my head while riding my bike up and down the street in front of our house. I'd average four or five a day and though I've forgotten them all I have a feeling there were at least a couple of hits in the bunch.
2. Despite being one of the tallest in my school's P.E. class I was almost inevitably chosen close to last for basketball teams. I simply could not dribble and that was only one of my handicaps on the court. I found it very demeaning.
3. I once responsible for the football team losing a game. Let's just say I had no business being suited up on the sidelines, let alone on the field. It was an 'away' game and that bus ride home was a discouraging, humbling experience.
4. I wore white face make-up and a casual suit to a Talking Heads concert at the OKC Zoo amphitheater. Stood out like a real freak but it was a blast. The guitarist in one of my bands was at that show and says he saw me there, this being years before we met.
5. I once had occasion to congregate with the homeless on the porch of the Jesus House Rescue Mission. Conversational banter was interesting but what I'll always remember is the huge rat that walked right past us with a large dinner roll hanging out of him mouth by the teeth.
6. I always liked the Rolling Stones better than the Beatles when I was a kid but they both kind of got pushed to the side when I discovered Alice Cooper and Genesis.
7. The last year I went to Falls Creek Baptist camp I invited my girlfriend and we paid attention to practically nothing else but each other. We were almost caught, in a secluded spot on the trail leading to the Devil's Bathtub, engaging in an act that would have surely seen us immediately sent home for our respective parents to discipline.
8. Though I was definitely not a fan of KISS I nevertheless played some of their songs in the first band I was ever a member of (The Delinquents, 1979). I did this because they were so easy and because they were basically all our guitar player had learned how to play by then.
9. My favorite part of the week when I was a kid was Friday and Saturday night staying up watching "ABC In Concert", "The Midnight Special" and "Don Kieshner's Rock Concert". Later I would add "The Uncanny Film Festival (and Camp Meeting", "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and the first few subversive seasons of "Saturday Night Live".
10. When I saw U2 in 1983 I conspired a likely illegal way of obtaining front row seats. I was so close that at one point Bono reached down his hand and i grabbed it. I was dangling a crucifix my mother had recently given me in my fingers, holding it up for him to see and to this day I don't know why. I would almost bet he remembers. You don't see that kind of thing often, I'm sure it stood out in a bizarre, unforgettable way.
1. As a young child I would compose rock songs in my head while riding my bike up and down the street in front of our house. I'd average four or five a day and though I've forgotten them all I have a feeling there were at least a couple of hits in the bunch.
2. Despite being one of the tallest in my school's P.E. class I was almost inevitably chosen close to last for basketball teams. I simply could not dribble and that was only one of my handicaps on the court. I found it very demeaning.
3. I once responsible for the football team losing a game. Let's just say I had no business being suited up on the sidelines, let alone on the field. It was an 'away' game and that bus ride home was a discouraging, humbling experience.
4. I wore white face make-up and a casual suit to a Talking Heads concert at the OKC Zoo amphitheater. Stood out like a real freak but it was a blast. The guitarist in one of my bands was at that show and says he saw me there, this being years before we met.
5. I once had occasion to congregate with the homeless on the porch of the Jesus House Rescue Mission. Conversational banter was interesting but what I'll always remember is the huge rat that walked right past us with a large dinner roll hanging out of him mouth by the teeth.
6. I always liked the Rolling Stones better than the Beatles when I was a kid but they both kind of got pushed to the side when I discovered Alice Cooper and Genesis.
7. The last year I went to Falls Creek Baptist camp I invited my girlfriend and we paid attention to practically nothing else but each other. We were almost caught, in a secluded spot on the trail leading to the Devil's Bathtub, engaging in an act that would have surely seen us immediately sent home for our respective parents to discipline.
8. Though I was definitely not a fan of KISS I nevertheless played some of their songs in the first band I was ever a member of (The Delinquents, 1979). I did this because they were so easy and because they were basically all our guitar player had learned how to play by then.
9. My favorite part of the week when I was a kid was Friday and Saturday night staying up watching "ABC In Concert", "The Midnight Special" and "Don Kieshner's Rock Concert". Later I would add "The Uncanny Film Festival (and Camp Meeting", "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and the first few subversive seasons of "Saturday Night Live".
10. When I saw U2 in 1983 I conspired a likely illegal way of obtaining front row seats. I was so close that at one point Bono reached down his hand and i grabbed it. I was dangling a crucifix my mother had recently given me in my fingers, holding it up for him to see and to this day I don't know why. I would almost bet he remembers. You don't see that kind of thing often, I'm sure it stood out in a bizarre, unforgettable way.
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