Sunday, August 23, 2015

August The Daily (W)Rite 2o15 WK o4

Sunday
My thoughts drilling through my skull. They've had it with me. Thousands of them trying to vacate the premises all at the same time. What a headache. Traitors. I bore them all these years, gave them a warm place inside my subconscious to live and thrive. Ingrates. Not all of them though. Not all of them wish to go. I can hear a few of them weeping. Not their fault. Thoughts and memories get so knotted together that the younger ones, the obedient ones just get caught up, trapped within the older, tougher thoughts that wish to abandon their father for an imagined adventure waiting for them . . . somewhere outside this mind. Teenagers! Rebellious brats, running away from  home . . . stealing the car . . . never knowing just how good they have it.

So, I give them the illusion of freedom by writing them down. Something liberating, they think, about being scribbled onto a blank page for outsiders to see and read. "New Beginnings!" A new hope, a change in scenery, hoping-no, praying- all the while that some kindly reader will take them in, some kind of subliminal nursery where they can be coddled, smothered by motherly kisses forever. A bigger bedroom, perhaps a swimming pool. I've spoiled them. Too generous. I've played with them, talked to them when they were anxious and lonely. The hours I spent, long into the night, comforting them.  Now, I'm not good enough for them. Little bastards, ungrateful pond lickers.

Monday, August 24, 2o15 5am
Death won't arrive tonight. I'll live to see another day. The morning light arrives at 6:56am in good ol' Norman-town. Yes, I gotta enough coffee in me, enough nicotine in the system to keep me awake long enough to see the sun crawling through the kitchen window. I'll hear the sparrows chirping, the cars rushing down Trout St. on their way to whatever boring job their owners drive frantically towards. I'll hear at least one more freight train come rumbling past on its way from Dallas to OKC. Yes, I'll live at least one more day. After that . . . who knows?

Life is short . . . except, of course, when you desperately wish to go to sleep and the body refuses to do so. Then life can be tediously slow . . . like moss growing on the side of a tree . . . like the constant pounding of the heart, the whisper of the air-conditioner that always blows too cold this time of night. Or is it morning already? The clock on the TV case has died, I think. A digital heart attack. A suicide by its own hands refusing to go on . . . and on . . . and on in a merry circle, the rotational pull of its luminescent smile pulling us both closer to the grave.

11:23pm
Almost 11:30 at night. The air-conditioner is talking at me in soft cool notes . . . my bare legs seem to be listening closely  . . . the upper body pays no attention. A dead world outside. Not a breath of wind rattling the loose windowpanes. Traffic too is only a memory . . . curling up for a good night's sleep on a distant street . . . Boyd St. more than likely. It's always
busy day and night and early morning when the bars close.

I'm suspicious of the amber streetlamp on my corner. Don't know for sure if its there to shed light on the darkness or to create the evil shadows that watch me as I work on my blog. Elm tress across the street conspire with it to . . . to . . . Hell, I don't know what they're up to. That's what disturbs me, forces me to draw the blinds and hope they can't find their shadowy way through the slits of the off white slats.

Tuesday, August 25, 2o15 2:25am
It's late. I should be sleeping. I should be dreaming. Lately dreams are hard to come by. Too difficult to remember if I had even dreamt about something. Use to be I would remember with great detail each dream dreamt . . . now a days . . . a barely remember turning the bed down, closing my eyes . . . I often wake up not aware that I had fallen asleep the night before.  Scary thing to not remember falling asleep, not knowing for sure if you had dreamed. But I'm satisfied with the scientists who say, "We always dream even if we aren't consciously aware of doing so." There is some comfort in that, knowing that existence is not dependent on the knowledge of that existence. Santa Claus, I'm sure, is grateful to hear it.

Wednesday, August 26, 2o15 1:11am
Clean. She looks very clean. Skin like a baby. A pleasant, uncomplicated smile . . . not fake at all, unlike what you always  see on the faces of employees who work fast-food. "Can I help you, sir?" Her voice . . .a wind chime cadence . . . sincere as if she really would like to be of help. "Frito pie," I say . . . a smile creeps onto my lips. The girl at the hotdog stand is contagious. Next thing you know I'll be singing show tunes . . .

"I have often walked/Down the street before,/But the pavement always/Stayed beneath my feet before./All at once am I/Several stories high,/Knowing I'm on the street where you live."-My Fair Lady

The older I get the easier it is to fall in love.

Thursday, August 27, 2o15
A rumbling sound force my eyes open . . . my mind pops out of whatever dream it was dreaming (I don't remember dreams anymore . . . but I've said that somewhere else on this weeks blog.), and as fast as my still sleeping legs could run they stumble to the window where my hands (which never seem to sleep, they're always wide awake.)  pulled the blinds open!

Tragedy on Trout Avenue
A raging river (okay, 2 inches of water) rushing down Trout Ave. towards the Duck Pond parking lot. The water workers were already in front (right in front) of my apartment building with a good sized Backhoe tearing up the grassy easement heading for a bigger battle with the entrance of our small parking lot. Grinding sounds as the Backhoe's mouth digs into the concrete. But no time to watch the destruction. Got to get to David's by 9:50!



Friday, August 28, 2o15
My hand. Working against me. It fakes a strain, a false remembrance of that time I jumped on the bike wrong, caught my pant leg on the pedal and tossed myself over the frame . . . hand smacking the concrete of the convenient store's parking lot and the weight of my body crushing it. "A nasty break," the doctor had said. "I can stick a pin in it, but it'll never heal properly." I wish he hadn't said that in front of my right hand. Now, some 10 years later, every time I need it to open a jar, tie a shoelace, type a poem or write out a check for the bills at the end of the month . . . it always complains . . . I think he's faking it. And the left? No will of it's own. Does what ever the right hand says.

I saw her again yesterday, the hot dog girl. No smile on her face, not a bit of flicker in her eyes. "Oh, I remember you," she said. She sounded like she just tasted something horrible. "We had a delightful little conversation, didn't we?" "Yeah," I mimicked as best I could her attitude, "DEEEEEEElightful!" She tossed my hot link at me. I walked away disgusted by how fragile, how transient love can be.

Saturday, August 29, 2o15 4:39am
There's no pity for you here. Fresh out. Sorry. Find another corner, another nook to weep in. I'm deaf. I can only hear the voices inside my own head. No use babbling on about your misfortune, your need for human comfort. You'll find none here, no "there, there," a pat on the back? Afraid my hands are far too busy gathering up the darkness in my own soul to be worried about your dimming shadow. Your shadow dims! We all grow pale, anemic, searching for the surgeon . . . scrape a bit more off my arteries, will you? Off the top there. Let me feel again like in my youth, let me feel something in that vacant lot where me heart once pimped, once pumped more, so much more than just blood. Let me run again, down the sidewalk up the alleyways where the drunken sailors sleep in piles, in heaps, in phantom dreams, those dreams of touching dry land once more.  No, no pity for you here. Be off! Find your own asylum. Find your own insanity, your own new found land! They might make you king there. King of the Tortured, Emperor of Tears, the Czar of Woe is Me. Find your own way and leave me here in the dust of my own . . .  existence.

Sunday, August 30, 2o15 12:44am
Hippies in The Gray Owl. Old hippies sipping coffee and tea telling stories of the days of Hendrix and Joplin, of the SDS, The Weathermen, black radicals, feminists . . . and drugs. No pretense with this group, no "yes, I experimented a little with drugs," none of that elderly denial that we were never young and crazy as a motherfucker and getting high . . . fucked up on ACID, weed and alcohol. Rock 'n' Roll, the Chamber Brothers, Dylan's strident, off key protest songs, and Charles Manson . . . Yeah, I met him once in a Yucca Valley polka bar  . . . The girl listening to our stories writes frantically trying to keep up with every word we geezers slur . . . wonderful stories  . . .  Beautiful stores . . .  sad only because they happened so long ago. I wonder if my friends were as excited as me to find a youngster who was genuinely interested in hearing us go on and on and on . . .

Monday, August 31, 2o15 1:27am

Last day of the last week in the month of August. Strings. Individual strings. Different colors. Varity of vibrations. Running the course, bumping into each other while trying to avoid bumping into each other . . . knots, tangles, breaks in the natural flow of movement, backpacks and cell phones and cardboard cups of Starbucks coffee streaming like mocha rivers . . .  a latte here, an iced coffee jogs past the post office, a Frappuccino face down on the hard linoleum floor of the Student Union at OU. No one stops to mourn, to clean its intestinal liquidness up. Life goes on around it. Well all go round our caffeine fueled way without noticing much . . . My shoe has untied itself.

Last day of the last week in the month of August and all the world is breathing, limping along in tennis shoes, Chuck and Jordan, unidentifiable hiking sandals, barefoot at times . . . life moves on. We should all move on for as long as we can.  My shoe still untied, the laces flop against that same hard floor of the union where the fallen special coffee still lays waiting for someone, anyone to notice. My thoughts turn hard . . .  hard as that floor. I have nothing more to say on this matter.
Goodnight.
 
4:46am
My lungs rebel against my will to sleep. A raging cough disturbs the drowsy cat curled up inside my head. Better not to fight it, I am told. Get up and do something until my eyes close. So, here I am . . .  as I seem to always be . . . writing (or more accurately, typing) words onto an imaginary page. Yes, you heard me. None of this exists, you see? All these words but air, an illusion, electrical impulses that could be lost forever if my computer crashes. I'm not here, No, not really. Nothing breathes in the internet, and no amount of GIF can bring to life that which doesn't spring from life. All is a toaster, a doorknob  . . . soon there will be no fingers left to grab the world and twist it open.
 
I need sleep. If I drown in this ocean of phlegm that rises over the banks of my throat, I could then rest beneath its suffocating green waves. But would I . . .  if I could? Would I give in to nature's thesis that I have lived too long? Or would my spirit revolt against a premature death with the same petulance  it rages against me getting any rest tonight? Would I rather float to the surface one more time to watch the moon crawl against the sky . . . one more time before giving into nature's natural desire to kill me? Do I need to wish upon all the stars once more as I have wished upon them night after night my whole life? Perhaps. Perhaps the sun would miss me if I chose to leave him here alone . . . though the sun has seldom seen my face; just the top of my head is all it knows of me, and even that is disguised from its unblinking eye by a hat . . . on most days. Yes, the sun would miss me, the streetlight stranded on the corner would wonder, "Where did he go? He was here just moments ago looking out of his tiny second story window, staring at me." I doubt the crows and sparrows would even notice my absence. Too consumed by their own desire to hunt worms and build nests to take a moment and give a flying fuck for my well being. But that's a bird for you.
 









 

Friday, August 21, 2015

August The Daily (W)Rite 2o15 WK o3



Already the end of the third week and I haven't written a bit on this blog. Damn. I don't feel much like writing, I'm guessing, even though lots happened this last week. I did finally get the review for Fantastic Four written and posted . . . but it's difficult to get any thing down lately. I'm not sure why . . . I'm feeling less than creative. Got an opportunity to act for David's son producing a piece that I wrote . . . even that doesn't excite me. I haven't written a lick of poetry iehter. No, that's not true. I did write a piece yesterday:

Adrift in Early Morning
 
Morning is creeping up on my eyes.
Such a weight they have . . . upon the lids,
upon that gray room where my thoughts . . . think.
 
I feared the dark once long ago . . . in this life.
Always needed a light of some kind to watch over me
as I slept. Too many shadowy creatures
live in the dark, in the dark corners,
in the cracks between the door and jamb,
in the oak tree that stoop just outside
the window to the bedroom I shared
with my younger brother. It and the wind
conspired together to make sleeping impossible.
Scratching sounds . . . branch against the window screen,
sometimes a thump, thump, thumping on the wall.

Nature loves to scare little boys and old men.
I'm not quite sure why she has it in for me
I just know she does. From the moment
I hit the Earth she's tried to kill me.

That's all I've got. It scares me a bit to not "feel" like creating. I live in a big beautiful world . . . and I can't find anything that intrigues me enough to really write about it? I suppose all creative folk go through this type of thing. I only wish I wasn't.

 

Sunday, August 9, 2015

August The Daily (W)Rite 2o15 WK o2

Wednesday, August 12, 2o15

"Sir, you are in the place I want to be!" I turn around and there is a short little troll of a woman wearing reading glasses staring at me from behind her shopping cart. "Sorry," I whisper pushing my cart out of her way as fast as I can. "That's alright," she says. And that makes me halt, turn around and yell back at her, "Now YOU are where I want to be!" She says something . . . . that I don't hear. I'm too busy getting the hell out of there before I get beat down in the middle of Walmart. I can't believe I said that to this little old lady! But hey! You have to stand up for yourself when the trolls attack.

It seems as if most of my human interaction with other beings like myself take place in Walmart. Yes, I know. "What a shallow person you've become, Woodie," my more enlightened friends would say, those friends who have risen to such perfection they are allowed by fate to shop at Whole Foods, Sprouts while we less fortunate creatures of mud and sand must grovel before the deity Walmart for our daily bread. But such is life on this shadowy Earth. We ask not and want not but to feed and clothe ourselves. Walmart! Why hast thou forsaken me?

"Daddy, can I go to the toys," the little girl asks in that manipulative soft, pleading sound that children make to get whatever they want. "Well, this Walmart doesn't have toys." You can hear the guilt resonating in the father's voice . . . it drips of hope that his child won't cause a scene in the middle of the store. And he's lucky. The little girl accepts her disappointment (with a bereft silence that the checkout girl at station #3 {her name is Luci} picks on) that they went to the smaller Walmart that houses groceries. . .  but not toys.

Cooler day. In the 80s, I'm thinking. There's a noise somewhere out there beyond my front lawn. A scratchy sort of sound . . . not a cat .  . . not a dog . . .  too rhythmic and precise to be animal . . . or vegetable for that matter . . . Yes, definitely a human sound . . . an irritating scratchy sound that only a human being could make. And it is. It is a human.   My next door neighbor duct taping something to the back of his truck. Hmmmm. My neighbor . . . uniquely  . . . unique.

The phone rings. It's David. "Sorry, my phone fell head down under the bed and I couldn't find it cause I was dreaming--" It's always best not to question David for specifics when it's obvious . . . he just woke up. We are to meet in an hour or two at one of the many coffee cafés in Normantown. I will walk there. It's the exercise I need to keep my heart pumping. I remember, I used to run, run, run everywhere. These days I walk . . . slowly . . . soon the tiem will come when all I can do is crawl . . . slowly.

Thursday, August 13, 2o15
I was on a mission. "Can I help you, sir?" She said. Young beautiful . . . like a ponytailed fluffy blue cloud. I was reluctant to involve her in this, but she was wearing a Best Buy Geek Squad smock. She knew what she was getting into when she took the job.  "Yes, you can," I whispered, "I'm in search of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Iron Butterfly, circa 1968." Her face turned a lighter shade of pale (Hmmm, I need a copy of that one too, but not today.), and I knew it was a bad idea. She was far too young, too innocent to comprehend the importance of finding this piece of music. Hell, she probably didn't even know that they had music back in 1968. Then suddenly her fear was transformed into a determination to-Yes, by God-to help her costumer no matter what the risk. "Follow me," she commanded, and without hesitation . . . we marched off to the music section Best Buy war.

Friday, August 14, 2o15 3:24am
Art Walk tonight. Planning on shooting a lot tonight. Monochrome style. Color is great, but I'm wanting to see if I can get more art of my photography by going B&W. Maybe I'll set shots up better also. Although it is tough to get the shot just right when your shooting on the sly. Yes, I could ask folks to pose for me, but that's exactly what I don't want, posing. Want the shot to look natural, you know?

And lets face it, people are what I'm interested in not plants or buildings or objects. People.  people is what it's all about with me. But not just standing style "smiling" at the camera, but people in motion, doing things, being whatever they are in the moment I click that flick. Capturing moments in a life. yeah, that's what it's all about with me.

5:38pm
Had a production meeting at Old School Bagel with Michael Slemmons and David. Mike wants to shoot one of my "horror" monologues I wrote. I'll probably wind-up acting in it. It feels a little scary to be into this stuff again, but it's also rather invigorating. Been a while since I worked on anything. Looking forward to doing something in the art that I was trained for.

 

Saturday, August 1, 2015

August 2o15 The Daily (W)Rite WK o1


The first day of the month and I am ready to start living my life. Yes, I know. I have been living this whole time . . . since the day I was born . . . a little disingenuous to say "I'm going to start"  when I've been alive for 67 years and an odd number of months. Let's say then I'm going to enhance the life I've been living . . . write more . . . get out more . . . do something other than eat, shit, sleep and wake up long enough to watch TV . . . and get ready to go back to sleep! Yeah, so if I wish to call it a "start" then who are you to tell what I mean? Oh, right you do have permission since you are me.

A brilliant sunset outside my window tonight . . . as usual. How many sunsets have I watched? Always in awe of it, the way the day dies . . . such color . . . such beauty . . . only to repeat itself the following night. It loves the glamour of  a well rehearsed death . . . but it's perpetually drawn to the dull, repetitiveness of being born again . . . and again . . . and again . . . throughout the eternal yawn scientists call . . . THE BIGGER BANG.

Tuesday, August o4, 2o15
Hmmm, the last few days a bit rough on me. My body just shut down . . . eyes wouldn't stay open . . . couldn't eat much. But today was better. Out and about by 11am . . . David had a dentist appointment. After that we took off for the Sooner Fashion Mall. Misplaced my damn soft cap. Couldn't find it anywhere. Fuck! I loved that cap. But I was resolute . . . a Spider-Man cap to replace it! Didn't find one . . . damn it . . . but we met some interesting people. One guy all Hipstered out, those big hole ear thingys in his lobes . . . extremely well manicured beard, a pair of mismatched low cut Chucks (left foot blue, right foot red), both arms covered in tattoos. Guy was working in a shoe store but was a chef! Yeah, an actual chef! Didn't like the "cut throat" life. Hee! Couldn't take the fast pace of high end food culture.

In Spencer's, David started a conversation with a beautiful Hippie chick . . . dreadlocks almost down to her waste, skin the color of fine white sand . . . again, tattooed arms . . . slender . . . like a reed in a pond. Could've talked to her for hours,  and David would have if I hadn't drag him away. Didn't find a hat I wanted . . . but the day was pleasant . . .and my body feels better. Hope that continues.

Worked on a couple of older pieces, monologue/poems that I never got a chance to perform. Good news, Michael (David's son) thinks he might want to film them! They need some major rewriting . . . but I think hey are doable. Here's one of them:

Children of the Night
 
Late at night, a campsite in a wilderness.  In front of a small campfire The Survivor prepares for battle. The sound of the Monster Children can be heard coming from the surrounding darkness.
 
Bela Lugosi (V.O.)
Listen to them—
Children of the night!
What music they make!
 
The Survivor

I can hear them . . .moving about.
Somewhere near, out there
where darkness devours light.
 
(Animal like noises from the darkness)

Oh, I can hear you . . . mumbling
incoherent whispers, that heavy breathing,
gnashing of tooth against bone . . .
the occasional high pitched growl
at a phantom moon . . . a siren sound
that penetrates the ear drum like
a sharpened spoon.
 
They’ll be coming soon. Soon . . .
just as soon as they finish their feast
of human flesh . . . no worries now.
Not until they stop . . . what? Talking?


Can I call it that? More like insane gibberish,
bestial cries . . . screeches . . . that make
no sense to a human ear . . . to God . . .
to even hell . . .
 
Poor Janice. Not a chance against their numbers . . .
She screamed briefly as their tiny bodies, their
emaciated bodies swarmed over her like . . . like . . .
hungry human ants . . . No. Not human . . .
at least . . . not anymore.
 
Skeletons wrapped tightly in gray, moldy skin . . .
spotted skin, dark brown spots . . . like dry blood . . .
and eyes pale, moonlight white . . . the better to see you with,
my dear . . . when the sun goes down.
 
Amazingly strong . . . those long, thin arms . . .
ripping bone from socket . . .They enjoy that.
Watching those long thin ribbons of blood spew from
the torso . . .like . . . like the spit from their misshapen  mouths.
Yeah, they drool a lot . . . just children, they are . . . or were.
Somebody’s child . . . once . . . but no more.
 
It’s warm here.
Quit pleasant under the circumstances.
A cozy fire licking at the charred remains
of a bark-less log we found earlier in—
 
(the noise in the dark stops abruptly)
 
Quiet now . . . too damn quiet . . . Yes,
they’ll be coming soon . . .for me.
But I’m ready for them.
 
(The Survivor picks up his shotgun)
 
Yeah, won’t the be surprised
when they see what I got in store for them . . .
YOU SONS’A BITCHES!
 
(Blackout. Maybe one shot from the shotgun.  The
Children of the Night swarm The Survivor. He screams.)


Thursday, August o6, 2o15
Last couple of days I've felt freed from the fog. A heavy fog that found its way into my lungs and than into every bit of muscle tissue I have left in my old body . . . and into my head where it settled in like a thick, wet blanket. If I can get technical for a moment: I felt like dried up cow shit on a very hot Oklahoma summer!


But now I'm better. I feel . . . good . . .  a bit of a bounce in my skinny legs . . .  a wicked little smile keeps appearing on my mouth . . . and I'm writing. Granted not as fast or powerful as a locomotive, not Superman creative writing . . . but writing all the same . . . like . . .  training wheels on a bicycle . . . a little bicycle.

I'm back in love with writing and have begun to put together a writing group which will meet maybe twice a month. A place for writers to sit down with their peers and share their work. Getting a pretty good number of folks who are interested. I'm excited about it

Friday, August o7, 2o15
First week in August is winding down. Last couple of days the Oklahoma summer really beat me up. I need more sunscreen. But no excuses. Hot or cold I have to get out of the house and do something everyday. Usually it's no more than coffee at The Gray Owl and a food run to Walmart. But that's enough for now. Weekends I try to get to at least one movie. Not riding my bike, though. Way too hot for that. I drag David out of his air conditioned apartment and make him see whatever I want to see. He hates movies. Well, that's not fair. He's just very particular about what he sees. I know he doesn't like the Marvel superhero flicks always drag him to . . . Okay, he does like some of them but we went to see Fantastic Four today and . . . hell, I didn't even like it.

It's the last day of the week and I want to write something special. Maybe I'll try a straight up, off the top of my head poem:

I had forgotten how to dream.
My eyes would close as always
my thoughts would slowly drift away
on the darkness that transplanted
itself inside my mind, and the next thing
I would know it was morning.
Sun bouncing up over the windowsill,
the sound of the gardener's weed trimmer
cutting down the lawn, and the birds,
those fucking sparrows shouting like
the drunken frat boys who live next door,
they murder sleep.

And there I am wide awake
fresh coffee in the pot
the TV magically turned on
and the news  . . . the news . . .
so much happened last night
while I sleep a dreamless sleep.