(no subject)
my mama's had some trouble, so i'm back east for a spell
some different mannerisms and she runs into things a little more
a weakness on her right side
but we stayed up all night giggling and eating edy's
and she's somehow both further gone and more lucid then ever
there's a certain tone to someone's laughter
once they've gotten over their mortality
it's kind of unsettling but then you see the freedom there
and this is the plan for now
it'll help with the seizures
cutting-edge science fiction, but to tell you the truth
if i'm someday taking my progeny over the river and through the woods
to grandmother's crone-brain in a jar then so be it
she woke me last night at 1 a.m. to go out and greet the storm front
we set off for the south edge of town as the wind started to rise
this place is small and it wasn't far
she fell twice with her cane and i helped her back up
through the park and the horseshoe courts and by the old south cemetery
soldiers from the war of 1812 surely sitting around playing their cards
and on out to the fairgrounds with the grain silos and nothing beyond
a memory there, i was maybe six and she was out on a day pass
the haldol kept her from seeing very well and she dropped my pineapple shave-ice in the dust
we put a token into one of those creaky fortune-teller booths
and some old dog showed up, restless from the weather i'm guessing
he was brindle with two tan spots and had chewed right through his rope
we made it home as the back door blew open and the lights flickered out
thunder shook everything right down to the spaces between my finger bones
and this is november...
*
i've been waking up before anyone else and going down to the river bottoms
everything's a bright yellow but right where i remember it
the woods have their own intelligence and it's one that makes sense
it's going to rain tomorrow and the birds know it
i split open a wild persimmon to see what kind of winter is coming
and can't even remember who taught me any of these things
nature is inherently sexy, you know
even the plants just want to get laid
and conduct themselves to make that as likely as possible
it's funny to think of this as a forest of ill repute
and ponder the burrs on my pantleg like lipstick on a collar
when i stumble out again hours later
i cut my teeth on large amounts of psilocybin here
and would not have it any other way
we wouldn't even bring a flashlight
it wouldn't even occur to us
a different logic, something vastly older and more enduring
hours in silence with maybe a small fire
no use for human words
and on that note, the sound in my ears for a week straight before i arrived
like snow blowing across a field with no light for miles
the first night i was here it was right outside my window
the barometer dropping and the wind in the trees
and i remembered what it means
the wind
the ocean
the motions of things so large we can barely comprehend
this is baseline and this is reassurance
this is the hum and the system in operation
the admonition to be perfectly still for one shining and eternal moment
simply breathe
you can never be apart
to be honest i spent three solid days thinking of a stillborn thing
from a grade-school field trip an awfully long time ago
we'd been studying about "the wonders of life" for an entire week
and our teacher said the poor creature never had a chance
while the little boy next to me leaned over and puked into the hay
but then i remembered a different story
one of aesop's fables, i think
about the farmer and the snake, and the punch line is a good one:
"you knew what i was when you picked me up."
i can't say i didn't, thank you and oh well
perhaps there's never any surprises in the end.
*
i've stopped taking pictures of the things that matter
snapped a road-worn biker dude in the graveyard
and my tagging under the bridge from like ten years ago
before the battery died and i just decided to leave it be
i did the same thing at burning man
and only now look back through the pictures other people took
and wonder why i thought that was so important at the time
something to do with a manifesto on fluid experience
spurred by my watch breaking on the way there, i remember
i haven't come across very flattering shots of myself from that week
but i'm not often photogenic so that's not surprising
i think it's because i move around so damn much.
and i much prefer the spirits here
my best friend and the persian half-breed
under a stone and a willow tree
to the cold, restless damp things in the city lately
and the one push after another to just move on
it's already been suggested
an old stone house in the country
civil-war era, with an overgrown greenhouse
and i bite my tongue and sit on my hands
because right about now it would be entirely too easy
plenty of firearms and a few laying hens
i'm not the only person thinking this way
but some open road would do me well first
and hell i've got a few other things to get done
everything will be as it should
and i am bound by nothing at all.
*
keep the home fires burning and the wolf from the door.
some different mannerisms and she runs into things a little more
a weakness on her right side
but we stayed up all night giggling and eating edy's
and she's somehow both further gone and more lucid then ever
there's a certain tone to someone's laughter
once they've gotten over their mortality
it's kind of unsettling but then you see the freedom there
and this is the plan for now
it'll help with the seizures
cutting-edge science fiction, but to tell you the truth
if i'm someday taking my progeny over the river and through the woods
to grandmother's crone-brain in a jar then so be it
she woke me last night at 1 a.m. to go out and greet the storm front
we set off for the south edge of town as the wind started to rise
this place is small and it wasn't far
she fell twice with her cane and i helped her back up
through the park and the horseshoe courts and by the old south cemetery
soldiers from the war of 1812 surely sitting around playing their cards
and on out to the fairgrounds with the grain silos and nothing beyond
a memory there, i was maybe six and she was out on a day pass
the haldol kept her from seeing very well and she dropped my pineapple shave-ice in the dust
we put a token into one of those creaky fortune-teller booths
and some old dog showed up, restless from the weather i'm guessing
he was brindle with two tan spots and had chewed right through his rope
we made it home as the back door blew open and the lights flickered out
thunder shook everything right down to the spaces between my finger bones
and this is november...
*
i've been waking up before anyone else and going down to the river bottoms
everything's a bright yellow but right where i remember it
the woods have their own intelligence and it's one that makes sense
it's going to rain tomorrow and the birds know it
i split open a wild persimmon to see what kind of winter is coming
and can't even remember who taught me any of these things
nature is inherently sexy, you know
even the plants just want to get laid
and conduct themselves to make that as likely as possible
it's funny to think of this as a forest of ill repute
and ponder the burrs on my pantleg like lipstick on a collar
when i stumble out again hours later
i cut my teeth on large amounts of psilocybin here
and would not have it any other way
we wouldn't even bring a flashlight
it wouldn't even occur to us
a different logic, something vastly older and more enduring
hours in silence with maybe a small fire
no use for human words
and on that note, the sound in my ears for a week straight before i arrived
like snow blowing across a field with no light for miles
the first night i was here it was right outside my window
the barometer dropping and the wind in the trees
and i remembered what it means
the wind
the ocean
the motions of things so large we can barely comprehend
this is baseline and this is reassurance
this is the hum and the system in operation
the admonition to be perfectly still for one shining and eternal moment
simply breathe
you can never be apart
to be honest i spent three solid days thinking of a stillborn thing
from a grade-school field trip an awfully long time ago
we'd been studying about "the wonders of life" for an entire week
and our teacher said the poor creature never had a chance
while the little boy next to me leaned over and puked into the hay
but then i remembered a different story
one of aesop's fables, i think
about the farmer and the snake, and the punch line is a good one:
"you knew what i was when you picked me up."
i can't say i didn't, thank you and oh well
perhaps there's never any surprises in the end.
*
i've stopped taking pictures of the things that matter
snapped a road-worn biker dude in the graveyard
and my tagging under the bridge from like ten years ago
before the battery died and i just decided to leave it be
i did the same thing at burning man
and only now look back through the pictures other people took
and wonder why i thought that was so important at the time
something to do with a manifesto on fluid experience
spurred by my watch breaking on the way there, i remember
i haven't come across very flattering shots of myself from that week
but i'm not often photogenic so that's not surprising
i think it's because i move around so damn much.
and i much prefer the spirits here
my best friend and the persian half-breed
under a stone and a willow tree
to the cold, restless damp things in the city lately
and the one push after another to just move on
it's already been suggested
an old stone house in the country
civil-war era, with an overgrown greenhouse
and i bite my tongue and sit on my hands
because right about now it would be entirely too easy
plenty of firearms and a few laying hens
i'm not the only person thinking this way
but some open road would do me well first
and hell i've got a few other things to get done
everything will be as it should
and i am bound by nothing at all.
*
keep the home fires burning and the wolf from the door.