Change comes, when it comes . . . a lightning bolt, fast and swift. A bright flash. The eyes, the mind scurry to adjust, let the fuzz of the blast fade away, clinching of eyelids shut, long, frantic fingers rubbing at the temples . . . sooner or perhaps later the blurred vision, the headache slamming into the skill will subside. Change is hard on a soul. Godliness is lost if not forever for a while, a long while that seems to stretch into eternity. But change does . . . come, Anger ebbs like the tides at twilight. And for a moment, a crinkled up moment, you can breath again. Open up the window and take deep breaths of the warming currents, the wind shedding its skin. The world at peace.
3:15 P.M.
An exciting race to the POTUS. Hillary barely squeaked out a win over Bernie . . . or did she? Still seems to be up in the air. Cruz over Trump! Well, at least in Iowa. What will happen from here on? Anybody's guess.
So, I'm back to singularity mode. The Black Hole of friendship has swallowed me up again. Not sure this time it will spit me back out. But it's okay. I've been here before, like waiting at a secluded stop for the bus to come along and pick me up. No more hitchhiking for me. Too many crazier folks than
moi in the world who're just looking for that lone hitcher that no one will ever miss. Again, it's okay. The solitary confinement gives me plenty of time to write on the blog and work on my poetry. But what for? No one's ever going to hear my poems, very few people really read my blog. I guess none of that matters. It's the writing that counts. The unraveling of all the knots I've made in this ball of twine I call my mind! Hee! That's not too bad a phrase. Yes, my life is just one big "trigger warning." Just about anything, any perceived slight at be being can set me off into a rage. But I've known that. AND all my friends through the years (which aren't many) knew that . . . and still felt it was okay to bang me around mentally, physically, spiritually. Well, I promised myself way back in the when that I wouldn't let anyone beat up on me without one hell of a fight.
Wednesday, February o3, 2o16
Morning gallops through darkness
clouds of ash radiating from her hoofs.
I sniff the sulfur that burns eternally, an everlasting offense
to the gentleness of smell.
Lungs pumping fire, refuse
to cooperate with the words scattered across mildewed lawns.
There 's a lion, an old lion
hiding there within the grass,
painted edges along his mane
scraped away to nothing but bone.
And shadows, his decaying shadow
melts like snow in the coming light.
My light growing, shaping itself
into a memory. My mind can no longer
fight the urge to sing out,
shout out. The multicolored ducks bring
to the festered gray pond
a sense of hopeless hopefulness.
Thursday, February o4, 2o16
A giant sloth monster invaded my head this morning. I could barley move under its ponderous weight, its slow motion rummaging through my PTSD (Post Traumatic Stressor Drawers). It tore at all the finely knitted memories and remembrances that lived there. It's gone know, that monster, taking with it a ton of unwashed thoughts and wrinkled beliefs that no longer matter because they are absent. No use crying over the living or the dead . . . too many of each to grieve for them all. Let the wind bury them, let the rain drown them, let the sun come out and mummify them . . . the crows can do what they wish with the remains; not that they or I will complain. We never complain.
Pull open the blinds. Watch as the sun begins to dim, as the afternoon sparrows, flutter about with no directed direction, first North they fly, then South then out toward the sun as . . . if . . . as if all were meaningless, all of it so dumbfounded meaningless from the day that our eyes opened and we saw the world staring back at us, as if it never mattered this matter that we have become. Sometimes when I watch the sun dying and the clouds gathering in the East, I wish I might transform into crow because a crow never thinks or worries in circles like this human does . . . always. Their desire to be is so linear the universe ignores them. Even the sparrows refuse to acknowledge their existence . . . except, of course, for those occasions when a hungry crow raids a fresh sparrow nest . . . ! Then the thieves must flee as fast as their wings will carry them because as everyone knows: You don't fuck with a sparrow's progeny. Its nest is its castle.
I won't waste any more words on this. I'm too busy at the moment deciding which pair of slippers my feet will wear from this moment until it's time to shamble off to bed. Shamble off to bed. More like the stagger of the last walk of the prisoner to the electric chair. They don't use electricity to kill anymore. There's something ironic, I think, about ending a life with electricity. I don't know why I said that. I must be more tired than I thought. Perhaps the sloth has come back to pillage what's left of my sanity. Is the saying true? Do the guilty always returns to the scene of the crime?
10:00 P.M.
"
The Artful Smear." best line out of the Bernie/Hillary debate. Listening to the wrap-up afterwards. Many feel that Bernie came off the best, but for me it was Hillary came off the best. Bernie sounds like a Liberal version of Donald Trump. "
I'm gonna make America better!" Yeah, but can you really? The thing is America is "better" already, and will continue to get better with debates like this one. Hillary was on top of everything, Bernie is weak on global issues, and the POTUS needs to be strong on that. You can't be president just because you say, "
Free education, free healthcare!" Sounds good but isn't a viable approach.
Friday, February o5, 2o16
For the last couple days I've been lost in the mind closet. No, not a sexual thing, my closet. It's what I call the dark place, that secret room in my head where I keep all the angry memories. I have to feed them once in a while although I try not to make that too often. They scare me. And I'm not sure why. They're confined to barred cages, with thick wooden slats and an unbreakable lock, but the arm reach of those angry thoughts? They have a way of grabbing me no matter where I'm at or how far away I run. But that's cool. Don't be worried about me and my sanity. The truth is, I've never been sane nor do I ever hope to be so. However, most times I have a handle on my crazy brain. I allow it to live, to thrive without setting the demons loose on the world. I don't think you can tame insanity nor do I think you should try. I mean, THAT would really be crazy, right? BUT if you guide your mental illness towards a positive, creative expression (note the word positive), you can allow you mental illness to express itself in a way which is harmless. Hell, if you have the "gift" of creative craziness, society welcomes you, calls you a genius or a artistic eccentric. Both terms create a pleasant image for your insane self. So, I let my moodiness create art . . . . some kind of art. I take pictures of myself and others, play around with them on Photoshop, create little animations, sometimes, like the one above. I write this blog, poetry, plays (well, I haven't written a play since maybe '89 or so). And most days I allow my "strange ways" of thinking dress me. Wearing weird "outfits" are fun for me, and the people I run into on the street often get a kick out of it too.
The problem is that this creative outlet for my "dark nature" works most of the time . . . but not all the time. Sometimes the monsters need my attention, they get hungry. And they will not be denied. BUT again, don't get freaked out. All you do is stay away from folks and pay attention for awhile to that darkness that always haunts you. See? Pretty easy to live an insane life without harming yourself or anyone else. When I start thinking back on those nasty memories, and their thick, claws grab me around the throat . . . I write a poem about then or a blog entry . . . like what I'm doing write now. I allow those things to breathe a bit on the page. Let them walk around the apartment in their underwear if they like, let them rant out loud a bit . . . though the neighbors may not like that much.
My neighbor does that a lot. At two or three in the morning he starts yelling about something at someone who's not there in his apartment.
I remember remodeling an apartment building in Hollywood back in the '80s. There were a lot tenants still living there, and they had lived there for a very long time. We were working on the hallways changing out bulbs, repainting the walls when one day we heard this angry male voice yelling from behind one of the apartment doors, "
DON'T HAND ME THAT MONKEY SHIT, YOU SON-OF-BITCH!" Whoever he was, he kept saying it over and over again. At first we were all kind of shocked and watching over our shoulders thinking that maybe the guy would come out with a chainsaw and slash us all to death! And he did finally come out and we all about shit . . .! until we realized he was just this skinny, little old man with a cane. Hell he could barely walk let alone swing a chainsaw! "
Hi, boys, how you doing?" he said with the biggest, friendliest smile I had ever seen. He was harmless. He was just feeding his monsters before he left the confines of his small bachelor's apartment to join the rest of the "real"world. Like I said, monsters can't be tamed. But you can housebreak them. Oh, and always remember to feed them once in a great while, but NEVER after midnight! {
smiles}
Saturday, February o6, 2o16
David and I talked a bit today. Looks like our friendship is going to survive our falling out the other day. That's good. Don't know where I would find another friend as good as David. He hasn't been feeling well for the last few days. Some kind of virus his daughter says. Was thinking about going to the Mardi Gras Parade on Main St. tonight, but since David is sick I don't have a ride to it. I could jump on the mountain bike (I just bought a really good air Pump from Walmart) but I'm not real big on doing that in the cold weather. Okay, NOT real cold, but cold enough to make me think twice about riding down to Main St. after the sun goes down.
Sunday, February o7, 2o16
This year crowed with people dying. Big people to the smallest human drifting across the earth breathed their last. if I were a grumpier old dude than I am, I might say, "
GOOD! More air for me to breathe!" But I find not an inch of happiness in the thought that someone, that anyone friend or foe or stranger should no longer be on this plane of existence. Is there more than this life? Some hope there is. Some fear the thought that life continues beyond the ashes placed in an urn. Me? {
mischievous grin} Well, I have my notions about the whole thing, to be sure. Most of us do have some thoughts on the subject. But I choose to keep my thoughts of death private. Yes, of course, you might find a hint or two about me dying philosophy in lines of many of my poems, but I doubt anyone would care enough about what I think to dig through each line of every poem I've ever written just to find out. But if you are curious, I do have one bizarre poem that speaks on the subject of no longer being present in this world:
History
each shadow has been broken,
shattered—
if you will— into a billion,
or
perhaps a trillion insignificant pieces.
Far
too many,
too,
too many jagged shards to ever piece
together
into one coherent thought or— if
you
will again— one singular existence.
For
instance: archeologists, not yet born,
would
have fun trying to sort me out,
“One unhappy childhood here,
a piece of broken heart there...
Hmmm, a memory! Sitting at sunset
watching twilight gain momentum?!
What does that mean, what does it all
mean?”
History
isn’t written but lived, breathed,
shaped
by circumstance and happenstance—
like
a drunken dance down a darkened alleyway,
my
frayed pants bunched around my knees
upon
my legs a breeze, a mighty breeze
my
manly hood exposed in all it’s glory—
but
that’s another story for another time.
My
past,
a
labyrinth of crooked paths that these thoughtless feet
have
traipsed upon in muddy boots and high heel shoes.
Scarred
by love, hope, dope fiend fingered scratches,
this
one’s long amber hair. That one’s poisonous stare
which
curdled bone and heart. This one’s inner thighs
like
silk and fleshy Hershey Bars— the stars at night,
the
moon so bright our shadows melted into galaxies,
perpetual
lust that churned midnight into dawn . . .
and
on and on it goes until all stops . . .
Until
it finally stops! Once and forever.
Mush-muddled
memories French kissed to death
by
a Mack truck reality, a fantasy car jack,
a head on collision that welds the two
together
in bare naked truths and half clothed lies,
unable
to distinguish now between an absolute fact,
an
extravagant but all so minor puppy dog fiction.
And
if by chance I am (for better or for worse)
found
out to be more mortal than immortal,
if by chance my solid flesh does melt
like
ice cream on a summer day,
what
shall the others say of me
when
I (at last!) do shed this misery,
when
dust reclaims the dust,
when
thought turns sour,
when
those hours left no longer matter,
when
this matter doesn’t matter anymore,
and
Einstein’s cosmic Relativity
no
longer seems quite… relative?
What
will they say about me? “Oh, Him!
Yes, him! I’m afraid, I didn’t know
him will . . . nor did I ever cared to.”
Woodie
4-16-09 (rewrites o2-o7-16)
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