The Daily {W}rite Novmber wk o2

Wednesday,

I need to get out, make new friends to replace the ones I just 86ed from my personal life. Yeah, I know. I'll make some new friends, laugh with them, hang with them a while and then . . . BLAM! all that devoted friendship will explode into another volley of emotional shrapnel. And I'll fall back into my dark apartment lock the door, disconnect the phone and just crawl up onto the couch and  . . . watch TV for a month, two months, three . . . maybe six. Now and then I'll peek between the Venetian blinds every now and then . . . just making sure the world hasn't disappeared  while I wasn't looking. Maybe I shouldn't even bother. Maybe I'm suppose to be without friends. I wouldn't be the first or the last man to ever find himself totally alone  . . . nothing but the quiet reflection of my  memories for company.

Life is Short

I don't know if I have a soul

but if I do I think it sleeps so deep
inside my head and heart
that nothing can awake it.

I wonder too about heaven

and hell and night and day,
I wonder as I wander free
to think about such silly things.

My neighbors tell me

life is short too short to dally,
too meaningful to take for granted
too precious to waste.

I believe them when they say such things

even though I know (I think I know) that life,
this little life is but a blink, and I am nothing
but a wink away from being freed of it.

Woodie o7-14-17 (rewrites 11-o8-17)

Thursday, November 1o, 2o17 11pm
A poem from a collection of short poems I'm actively working on right now. Well, okay, NOT right now but I'm working on them.

Beyond sight, beyond the fragile veil 

where thought haunts consciousness.

That's where my Self lives, forever 

perplexed by its own existence.

One day a child, the next an old man

who can barely remember his own name.

Asphalt roads, the wooded trail

where autumn leaves go to die

at the hands of solemn crows,

the memories gather 'round

an empty grave so dark, so black

the bottom can't be seen,

that's where I live most days, these days. 

Staring at the reflection

hovering in the window glass,

trying desperately to remember

what the hell I look like.

Woodie 11-1o-17

Friday, November 1o, 2017  11:58pm

Today is the Marine Corps birthday, 242 years old. Chesty Puller the most decorated Marine in the corps once said, "You're not really a Marine until you spend time in the brig." Yes, for all its Semper-fi attitude at the heart of every Marine is a deep seated desire to say FUCK YOU! to everybody including (and especially) anybody that was NOT

an enlisted man. Chesty was also THE MARINE because he entered the Corps as a private and left it as a fuckin' Lieutenant General! Yeah, Chesty was the man of men!

1968. I was getting short. No more than maybe three months before I would be headed stateside. One of the grunts doing pot shack duty showed me a picture in the Stars & Stripes of some very, very old dude with this young, wide-eye kid. "That's Chesty Puller!" the grunt said with the exuberance usually reserved for that poster of Brigitte Bardot sitting on a Harley. "Which one?" "The old guy, dude! The young guy's his son. He just enlisted in the Corps and is here in Vietnam!" Yep, that's what the article said, sure enough. I went back to the picture and wondered at it. Chesty, my main man, the Marine Corps' green god was beyond old. There's a saying that someone looks like, "death warmed over." But this old dude was beyond that. I'm not even sure he was alive, just a shriveled up piece of dead meat that someone put a suit on and propped up for a party pic. And the kid next to him, his son, that wide-eye look in his eyes wasn't from wonder; it was fear. Straight up fear. And he should be afraid. I mean, do you want to be in a war zone where everybody knows Chesty Puller is your dad? Not everybody liked Chesty Puller. He was a general. Yeah, he made his way through the rants to get to general  . . . but people don't give a shit about that. You give up your right's as a human being when you become an officer. And at the time "fraggin'" an officer was a fad. A guys resting in his tent, and he hears something rolling on the floor, looks down and Pop! No more officer. One guy with a grudge against Chesty, one hand grenade tossed into his hooch and young Captain Puller would be no more. But that didn't happen to Lewis Burwell Puller Jr. Something more horrible was waiting for him.

The Daily {W}rite November wk o1

Wednesday
Yeah, been over five months since I tried to breathe a little life into this diary-blog. Too busy aging to take the time to try and write something, anything that I can use

to point out to folks . . . I'm still relatively  . . . alive. I'm semi able to breathe with the help of a nebulizer, a rescue inhaler and coffee, lots and lots of dark roasted coffee. I haven't felt like writing much of anything, hell, I haven't written a movie review in so long. I have "tried" to write some poetry but it hasn't amounted to much. The Muse has left the building . . . the Earth. So, I struggle on. I continue (or start) to write, to say something so profound that all well praise me honor me . . . or at the least . . . just forget how much they've always adored beating me.

I suppose I'm just too sensitive. Or maybe it's that I'm not sensitive enough when it comes to others feelings, moods, disappointments. Hmm. I do believe I've written a poem about that. Want to read it? Too late, you should have spoke up sooner. Now you have to read it:

'tis true

'tis true, 'tis true,

I am by nature an impatient man

demanding of my dreams, "show thyself!"

long before I’ve fallen off to sleepy-land!

I often sit a twiddling my thumbs

at an extremely agitated rate

or pace the floor and adjust my coat

while filling the air with unquotable quotes

when she decides to keep my spirits waiting.

What’s with all this hesitating?

She doesn’t see my agitation?

Can't she hear my mournful cries

belittling the darkest nights

while longing for her presence to arrive?

'tis true, 'tis true,

mere blasphemy, some would say,

my cursing her and scorning her then all the day

hoping soon she'll smile my way.

But I'm a complicated sort of guy

who doesn't always try to reason why,

why this old world spins perpetually slower

when it comes to my desires.

Maybe I should retire from it all

with'a swift slit to the wrist!

No, that would be quite painful and harmful

to all those friends . . . who pretend to like me.

"tis true, 'tis all true,

I love my misery far too much to give it up.

A dark, dank grave with no one to mourn

except those featherless crows, who heaven knows,

have forgotten the meaning of flight? No, not I!

But I have lost my train of thought. Where was I?

Perhaps I should take my dog for a walk

and clear this morbid rhyme from my mind.

Yes! I could walk my dog . . .  if I had one.

Woodie o5-23-08

That's all for tonight. With luck I'll have enough inspiration to pick it up tomorrow. Goodnight.

Friday, November o3, 2o17, 2:14am

Thursday was  . . . I hate to say a good day, but yeah, a good day. I feel a bit more liberated from my past and my present . . . the future? Seriously, it is so uninteresting to me that I don't ever think about what might or might not be for me. I've cut all ties to the weight that was dragging me down, the thoughts that keep me locked up in my apartment sleeping all day and staying up all night. I am free. For now. yeah, I have no illusion. That light at the end of a darker than dark corridor is as much a trick of the mind as my lying past . . . I'm only a misstep away from total mind destruction. But no worrying about it because my whole life, from the very first day of breath I have been close to the end of all thinking, all reasoning, all laughter and tears.

Back to Thursday: Crawled out of the darkness of sleep . . . slowly. A snail's awakening, deliberately slow. But a few cups of coffee, a good stretch of the body, ten minutes worth of hits off the nebulizer and I was awake, aware that from this moment on I am alone. Got dressed fast, got the bike out and rode over to Spout's, bought some ready baked chicken and stopped by the landlord's mansion, slipped the rent into his mail box. And back home in enough time to watch the news. The News! On these good days the news doesn't bother me, Trump's antics didn't do anything except make me laugh at his stupidity. What a joke he is. Anyway, there are decisions I need to make about Friday. Maybe go catch the new Thor movie? Do have to go to Walmart for nicotine gum and a few groceries., and it's going to be cold later on today so I may just wait the movie for Saturday. But right now? I'm enjoying the freedom of being alone, totally alone like a single star shinning through the storm clouds. :)
4:00pm

And I'm off to Walmart for nicotine gum and maybe . . . a movie! Heard that Stranger Things is out on video. I hope so. Really want to watch that. So, if I don't  have a deadly bike accident and/or a heart attack, I 'll be back in a couple hours.

11:11pm
Damn. 2.2 miles to Walmart from my apartment. The directions say it should take 13 minutes to get there. Not me. On the way up, I got to 12th St. from Boyd Ave, and had to stop, take a few drags off the inhaler, and wait for me to catch my breath before jumping on the bike and finally getting to Walmart. The way back it was even harder. Stopped three times just to breathe! Round trip, according to the Google map, 26 minutes. My time? Well, I left home at 4pm, shopped for about 45 minutes (long checkout lines that time of day), and finally got home at 6pm. Man! My lungs were burning up and my legs were shaking so bad I couldn't stand up long enough to put my groceries away. So sad. I use to ride like the wind on the bicycle, I loved breathing hard, sweating like hell . . . but moving, moving so fast! Now? Well, I guess I just gotta work up to it. I need to take it easy but make sure I get out and ride every day.

Saturday, November o4, 2o17

Frayed at all ends. My eyes opened at 8:30am, closed and reopened about 12:35pm. Dragged myself off the couch . . . barely. The coffee was cold. I turned on it's heating unit . . . BEEP . . . BEEP . . . BEEP . . . tapped the remote, turn on the TV . . . the news plays softly as I reacquaint myself with the half of a dream I left sitting in the darkness. 12:45am. Yeah, I got to get up. The lungs are aching. Pull out the nebulizer, connect the pieces of the mouth piece and loud it up with . . . what ever that crap is the doctor tells me I gotta suck into my lungs four times a day.

By 2pm I've brushed my teeth, drank two cups of almost warm coffee, tucked in the partial plate, one chewable baby aspirin for the heart and a Gummy Bear fiber supplement for . . . well, you know! And  . . . that's my whole day. Didn't go riding like I should, didn't ride over and see the game at one of the local bar/restaurants in town . . . didn't leave the house once. So, how was your day?

Sunday, November o5, 2o17
I hope I'm not betraying my generation by saying how much I enjoy my coffee/reading time at the Starbucks on the corner of Boyd and Asp. I know, it's a chain and corporate chains of anything service is EVIL! And I'm with you. I don't want to live in the United States of Starbucks or Walmart. I really don't . . . but Starbucks has the best coffee in town and a very, very comfortable lounge chair for me to sit in and read. Plus, the staff at spells my name right on my medium Americano cup: Woodie and not WOODY!

I didn't ride as far today as I intended. Seriously, the run to Walmart knocked the stuffing out of my lungs and my legs. All day yesterday I felt like a ragdoll . . . an old ragdoll. And that bothers me a lot. Yeah, I know, I'm old and getting old . . . er. I gotta expect that I'll have to slow down a bit. But nature could at the least give my the ability to ride my damn bicycle since I don't have any other personal transportation. And yes, I know, I have to take it slow getting back on the bike after almost a year never riding it. So, I am resolved to go farther and get faster on the bike but . . . I gotta work up to it. So, every day a short ride, maybe just a few blocks, until I'm ready physically and mentally to try a Walmart run again. I can catch a bus up to Walmart and back home, and I'll do just that for a bit, until I can make there and back on the bike without feeling that I'm gonna a die afterward. :)

Monday, November o6, 2o17, 10:19pm

Crawled out of unconsciousness around 10:30 this morning to find that all the leaves on the oaks out front had turned a golden-yellow. Winter attacked like an invisible monster, killing every bit of warmth the world had known only twenty-four hours ago. Cut off jeans, short- sleeved tees, all buried somewhere in the back of a dark closet, replaced with long, heavy coats and gloves and silly looking stocking caps with fuzzy balls of yarn sewn to their tops. Old men frown all the time no matter what the weather . . . but today? An extra crease appears at the corner of my mouth as I realize it will never be warm again. 

Of course, I exaggerate. A tiny bit. There's always the chance that the old . . . er folks may not make it all the way through the Oklahoma winter although the weather "woman" says that this will be a very mild winter and little if any snow. So, we, me and my fellow gray wolves, make it to another spring  . . . only to be killed off, weeded out by the harsh oven eye of summer. Yes, we die, we old folks, due to either cold weather or hot. Nature's way of thinning the herd, I guess. 

The Daily {W}Rite June 2o17 WK o4

Friday, June 23
A month since my 69th birthday. Guess it's time to get back to work on my blog. I need to, really. I mean, I'm just wasting away doing nothing that even resembles being creative. All day long I sit and watch TV, sleep until 2 pm every day and basically watch myself go down into those deep, soggy depths of just not giving a fuck about anything. Yeah, I know, "snap out of it! Get a job! DO something." I can hear you saying it before you actually read this entry. And I've taken steps to get myself out of this "I don't give a damn" loop I've created for myself. I get up earlier, go out for a ride on the bicycle and . . . started writing again on this blog.

Friend of mine from Las Vegas, New Mexico sent me a short video of him playing and singing one of my songs. Here're the lyrics:

DOWN (Down chords: dm, DM, G, F, dm, DM)

You say the world's unkind, you know it's true.

How can you be so blind to all the love that surrounds you?
Oh, you're turning round. Oh, you're coming down.
You look into my eyes but you don't see
Beyond the drunken lies that pick at your festered memory.
Oh, you're fallen down. Oh, you’re turning round.
When will you leave the past behind?
Stop chasing shadows through the wall.
Just look around and you may find
That there's something worthwhile after all.
The time has come for you to turn away
From all the pain you cause
Through all the hurtful things you say
They screw you round. Oh, they bring you down.

I need a piano. I want to get the chords down for all the songs I've written before I lose the ability to remember them. But a full size piano won't fit in my apartment. Oh, it might if I rearranged things a bit more, but it would still make my little hovel even  . . . littler. Maybe I can find a small electric keyboard somewhere. Hell, I may even have another song in me.

TDW Birthday Poem May 23rd 2o17

So, here it is. Another notched on the old door jam, another candle adding its fragile flame to the heat of the day. Everything that you do in this life gets easier as you get more practice. Spend enough time on this planet, work hard at learning how to do this or that and more than likely you'll become an expert at any and everything you apply yourself to . . . except getting old. You can't learn how to deal with age until you're too tired out, to set in your ways to learn the skills of being an elderly . . . thing. And don't ask friends for suggestion on how to live life as an old fart. They don't know themselves. And do yourself a big favor and never complain to your friends about getting old. "Well, getting old beats the alternative!" or they'll say something even less comforting, "Old? You're not old!  Wait 'til you get to my age!" Anyway, here's the yearly poem(s) for this most wonderful of days, my birthday.

69 = LXIX

580,262,400 breaths taken

103,500 miles walked (average)

1

I Discovered a rash on my left leg this morning,

a rather large rash the size of a softball mitt that
decorated the kneecap with thick, scarlet flowers which
quickly mutated into violent blooms of yellow puss.
And I thought to myself, “Fuck! That’s definitely
gonna leave a scar.”

2

And the next morning, yes the very next morning

I woke up with a start to find time was already busy
torqueing my joints from ankle to wrist, delivering
a incapacitating  knotted highway through my entire
body. Slowly and thoroughly I’m being transformed
into an aging flesh-pretzel.

3

The House Sparrows hop about on the wet lawn,

their tiny heads jerk about  searching out shelter,
a bush, a porch. Some flutter up onto the roof
seeking an open vent, a stove pipe, anything,
any tiny crack in the eaves, any passage that might
lead  to the warm, dusty crawl space where
the angry winds can’t find them. I have friends
that are a lot like  those House Sparrows.

4

My Facebook buddy raises my spirits with an

empathetic. “You’re only as old as you feel.”
Which if true means I’ll be celebrating
my three hundred sixty-third birthday.

5

Last night it rained; I mean, I meant to say,

early this morning it rained. No, I mean, I meant
to say . . . What the hell the hell does it matter?

When it’s dark, its night not morning, right?

6

Anyway, it rained last night and I slept through

most of it, I dreamed through it (or is it I dreamt
through it? Fucking grammar.), until a subtle
roll of thunder opened my eyes.
I ran to the window, threw back the blinds . . .
the rain had already stormed passed leaving only
a saggy, soggy world for me to admire.
So fast things come and go these days. I barely
had time to close my bathrobe in respect
for Mother Nature’s moist gifts and the few
passersby who might not appreciate being exposed
to my almost sixty-nine year old naked body.

7

The problem with living alone?

There's no one here to wake me
if I dream too loud.

8

Yes, I’ll be sixty-nine years old in May.

Not sure how I should feel about that.
I confess that often enough I get up
in the middle of the night  wondering
if I should be frightened by the fact
that everybody seems to be dying
around my body or pleased that it’s not me.
Some die old, some younger, some
linger longer than they should, while others
rumble through this existence so fast
It’s hard to tell if they were ever here at all.

9

Sixty-nine looks to be an annoying year.
Not that sixty-nine as a birth-age
is less remarkable as any other age.
It’s more about the sexual connotation
associated with the number 69.
“Woodie, how old will you be in May?”
“I’ll be exactly sixty-nine years old.”
“Sixty-nine!” they’ll say with a
Beavis and Butt-head chortle,
“Heh-heh! He said sixty-nine!
Heh-heh, heh-heh, heh!”

10 Raincoat

April, nineteen sixty-nine, flying out of Okinawa

a pit stop in Guam to refuel. I light up a cigarette with

the Zippo the guys gave me right before I escaped ‘Nam.

Inscription on the lighter’s silver body:

“From the Boys in the Nasty”

A faded map of Guam on a wall in the airport.

Next to the map there’s a picture (piss-yellowed by age)

of a local jungle hilltop. I look closer at the battered

photograph and see something buried inside,

deep behind all that thick, green jungle foliage . . .

a dark-brick building, weathered, crumbling,

a monastery, a church, maybe? In between drags

off my Marlboro light, I make a solemn vow:

someday I’ll come back to Gaum, find that hilltop

and explore that monastery or church or whatever

the fuck it is. But why, I mean, I just got the fuck

out of a jungle! I wanna crawl back into another one?

It makes no sense but I promise anyway and,

of course, I never go back.

Two years later, out of the Corps, sitting in a bar.

“Hey, man?” A voice from behind my barstool,

“You Woodie, right?”  I turn ‘round . . . a young guy

‘bout my age, a face full of shrapnel scars.

“Yeah?” I’ve no idea who this Frankenstein

looking motherfucker is, but he seems to know me.

“Come over and sit with us.” He leads me

to a corner in the back by the pool tables where

two other dudes sit. Under the pool table lights

they look more like ghosts than men.  One guy,

burr cut, his left hand’s missing the pinky and ring finger.

The other guy looks squirrely, twitchy, unable to sit still,

never looks me right in the eye.  As I sit down I remember

something. Four years ago, my belovèd Corps

had this enlistment program. Enlist on a certain day

and you’ll go through boot camp with dudes

from your home town. These three, Frankenstein,

Half-hand and Squirrely-butt, where guys I went through

boot camp with. But damn if I remember ‘em.

Anyway, we start talking, drinking beer after beer,

and suddenly Squirrely-butt starts babbling about . . .

“Hey, remember that DI, that Gunnery Sergeant from

Porta Rico?” we all nod and smile. “He mustered us onto

the parade grounds the day of our graduation, Remember?

‘Men, most of you are heading for Vietnam. Some of you

won’t make it back . . . alive. So, I got some advice for you . . .

When you have sex with them women over there in Vietnam,

always wear a condom. I know, I know. What’s the point

of takin’ a shower if you’re gonna wear a raincoat, right?

Well, if you choose to go bareback on them girls,

your dick will fall off!  Men, don’t come home

without your dick!’”

That was the best life advice I’d ever gotten.

And to this day, I never leave the house

without a raincoat.
Written by Woodie

for his 69th B-day o5-23-17

The Daily {W}rite April 2o27 wk 01

Saturday,

As you may see I'm in a shadow mood tonight. A pale shadow falling through the black empty. Alone but not alone. More shadow to me than substance. Water in a glass half full or half . . . I'm not that much on mind puzzles.  Really is enough for me to misunderstand. I don't have to create fantasy to keep my conscious mind busy. Just tying my tennis shoes can turn into a theory for living: Shoestring Theory if you will.

The Daily {W}rite February 2o17 WKo1

Thursday,
Politics thrown in my face, politicians shouting out the demagoguery. A mess our American life has become. Australia, Great Brittan, countries that are our friends, our best friends have been bashed by this new President we got. This clown threatens Iran with war and pretty much everybody in the world if he doesn't get his way. He scares me.

I've been writing quite a bit of poetry the last week or so. Maybe I'll gear up my poetry page and start showing those a bit.

I'm confined to the REAL world today, incarcerated by myself for my own good, I'm supposing because how would I, could I possibly do something harmful to my own fleshy existence. No, please, don't bring up my suicide. It was a long time ago. I was doing a lot of speed and alcohol at the time, I wasn't eating right . . . besides, I did die and having done so once, I'm not interested in doing it again.  The afterlife? Well, I did see something on my trip through oblivion: that static you see on the TV when the station goes "off air." That's what I saw. Pretty much, eternity seems to be even less comprehensive than this REAL REALITY we appear to be stuck in. So it is. The REAL world is like a muddied wading that we must all trudge through together or totally alone. A benefit would be to have as many friends as you can to help slog through the muck. Or if you are satisfied with the notion of traveling existence on your own, perhaps you could wish yourself a bit taller than everyone else. Less of the mud could hit you in the eye then.

The Daily {W}rite january 2o16 WK 03

Monday,
Well, no ice storm. People are pissed. The local weathermen on all the local channels promised an apocalyptic strength storm with plenty of icy roads and downed powerlines, and people were afraid. They ran to the grocery stores and bought up all the food and candles, and other things necessary to survive what was suppose to be the "Storm of the Century!" We should be glad that all we got was rain. Again, pissed. The overzealous meteorologists decided it was good day for a panic.

9:30 p.m.
Energy. Life is draining me of my natural born energy.  There was no expiration date, Nature didn't send me an evection notice, no "You Have Twenty-Five Days To Pay Up" post on Facebook. One day I just woke up and felt like not doing so.   Aging sucks. I know, I should look on the "bright side." I can't. Being tired all the time, getting sick way too many times a year, losing the ability, the desire to create art . . . there's no upside to any of that.

Tuesday, January 17, 2o17

My mind will not cooperate with my fingers' desire to type something, anything onto this blog. Focus. Finding it hard to focus. Ah! The TV news is shouting at me. That must be the problem. I'll get up and turn it off! That's better. I can hear myself trying to think. But the brain just keeps shooing away, scaring away any reasonable thoughts that try to get themselves to my fingertips and on to the blog's page. The other thing that stops me writing on this blog is an avalanche of cold, brutal memories. Today, I accidently ran into an ex's Facebook page. Okay, it wasn't an accident. One of my other Facebook friends had found her Facebook page, and me being the total idiot I have always been decided to look it up and . . . there it was. A bad picture of her with a guy . . . of course, there is always a guy . . . with their faces stuck together to fit on the profile pic. And yes, when I let one of those very life changing moments in my life show itself, the rest of those "life changing" experiences want equal time. Every memory that I can remember comes crashing into my consciousness. I can't do anything be relive them all. Bad memories are pushy bitches.

Wednesday, January 18, 2o17

A constant battle, a war between insanity and sanity. The Crow versus the Sparrow. The Crow has the wing span and a fierce, black beak which is capable of splitting a small skull in half with one mighty blow. But the Sparrow has the numbers. Two thousand wings batting away their adversary, a thousand beaks hammering away at whatever stands before them.

And the war is always bloody, unnerving, severing the spirit from the flesh in a bloody rain of feathers and sweat.  The screams, the cries, the scattered chatter filling the sky with dreadful sounds.

And the war never ends. A constant in this life. The sane against the insane, emotions against reason, fact and fiction, religion and philosophy . . . it never stops and no one, not Sparrow or Crow ever wins. But something inside is crippled. Something dies. Something goes missing in action, never to be found again.

10:41 P.M.

At Bison Witches Bar & Deli 

I'm just sitting down at a booth when the very tall waitress drops by to take our order. If I stood up, she would still be tall. David's not eating. I'm beyond hungry. Wound-up sleeping until noon. Didn't get to bed 'til eight in the morning. Damn. I call this inability to sleep Slemmonila because it's all David's fault.

Earlier, Andrews Park.
David strolls through the winter grass. I'm busy getting pics of the lone skateboarder running the obstacle course. He keeps trying to "ride the rail" from one platform to another. He falls a lot enough to finally quit and just ride the ramps back and forth, back and forth . . .

The Tai Chi people working out on the amphitheatre stage capture my attention. I keep trying to get a pic of them but they keep disappearing behind a hedge. They too keep doing the same thing over and over again. Watching other people exercise is boring as hell.

Thursday, January 19, 2o17

My world, my America where have you gone? I saw you in the living room right before I passed out. I woke up expecting to see your smiling face staring down at me, but you weren't there. No goodbye? You could have given me a nudge or a poke in the consciousness. You could have slammed the door real loud on your way out. That would've gotten my attention. But no. You just left living a big hole in the middle of my patriotic heart. How am I to live without you? I asked God for advice, I prayed until my closed eyes began to cry, and my fingers dug bloody trenches into the back of my hands. He did not answer. No word from God. My America? How am I to live without you, without God?

Friday, January 2o, 2o17

It's Inauguration Day and the Trumpsters are celebrating while the rest of America grieves  with angery posts and comments on Facebook. The Bernie people are the most vocal. They still blame Hilary for everything. If Hillary hadn't cheated, they think, it would be Bernie in the White House. I'm not buying it. I don't think anyone could have beaten Trump not even Obama. Yeah, I'm upset too, to be honest. I gripe a bit. But I'm a little more subtle with my defiance. This is my profile pic on Facebook. It's going to remain there for . . . well, a very long time. For as long as Trump is POTUS, I'm thinking. But I don't know. It may be too subtle. People may not understand how upset I am about Trump being my president. So I went ahead and wrote a bit of a poem that I hope will make it clear how unhappy I am for my America today.

Inauguration Day

Howling trains make the ghosts fear,

the next four years will make
the living quake. Finally dead, we rejoice.

There was no choice anymore.
People continued to speak darkness

until all the light was gone
then all those  buttoned down devils
crawled out of their safes.
The earless, eyeless creatures that we were
didn't heed the warnings, we didn't do
a goddamn thing to save ourselves.

So beautiful this fallen Eden would become,

when the dove was drowned,
when Moses wandered back into the desert
lost forever in the Sinai. That's his just dessert.

And the leftovers, we with stooped backs

and broken hearts slowly shriveled up
until there was nothing left of us but dust,
dust enough to keep the rust and cobwebs company.
Woodie o1-2o-17

Saturday, January 21, 2o17

It was a glorious day, my friends. Hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets of America, for America! 500,000 in Washington D.C., 200 in Tulsa (I need to check the numbers on that) and an estimated 600,000 in OKC! And the people were happy, they were singing and dancing and standing up to the Commander and Thief who just took over the Oval Office last night. And it was peaceful, no riots, no violence, hell, even FOX NEWS couldn't say anything bad except they thought some folks had painted "bad words" on their posters. There was some controversy. Some people complained that it wasn't inclusive enough because Pro-Choice people weren't allowed to attend, but I'm not sure that happened. And of course Facebook had a few Trumpsters that just wanted us Liberals to stop whining because "YOU LOST THE ELECTION!" That's just par for the course. CONservatives are all about civil rights as long as it's their civil rights. Anyway, today was a good day, and this is the last entry for this week!

The Daily {W}rite January, 2o17 WK o2

Sunday,
I can hear nothing tonight except for the hissing of the wall heater and the sound of Neil Young's Harvest album. I've been swallowing pain killers (over the counter, nothing strong, and I'm following the usage recommendation on the package), trying to "kill this knotted spasm in my lower back muscles. Not doing a lot of good, really. But Neil's squeaky, nasal, country voice seems to be more powerful than the drugs I'm taking. My back must like Neil Young.

There's something else I'm hearing. The echo of Meryl Streep's acceptance speech for her life time achievement award that she received at the Golden Globe Awards show just ended about two hours ago. I'm not going to print it here because it's easy enough to find because the internet will be a buzz with it by the time morning comes around. And, I'm pretty, sure the news shows morning, noon and night will be talking about it for at least two days. I know I'm not going to forget it. I also know that I sometimes just can't find the words to express myself on a lot of subjects. But America? I've always found something to say about her, about my love for her. Totally honest? I'm a patriot at heart. I love this country more than I am able or willing to say. Meryl's not. She said it better, what we need to be doing in order to actually call ourselves "true" Americans. And I'm planning to live by her words, and by words that just found after hearing her speak.

Monday, January o9, 2o17
The Actor Factory: Sign in on the laptop. Took me about five tries just to get my name into the computer. I hate other people's computers. None of them work right. Stand at the blue line and wait for someone to come get you. I can hear David saying something about a script? He comes out and the little A.D. calls me in. Shows me a script. I glance at it. Only two lines. I'm sure I can remember them.  Chris Freihofer (Freihofer Casting) sits at a long table staring into a laptop screen. He looks up and smiles at me. The A.D. walks me over to the camera. "I'll be reading with you," she says. "Let me know when you're ready." I nod. "Are you ready?" I nod again. "Yeah, well you have the first line." "Oh," I say. "Bless you." That's really the only line I remembered, damn. I make up the other one. "Really mean that you are thankful to her, " Chris says. I do it over, the A.D. responds with her line and I paraphrase what I think my line is and . . . "Yeah," Chris says, "I can use that. Thank you." The A.D. shows me to the door, and I go back to the front desk to sign-in on two hard copy sign in sheets. A lot of signing in. I think I left my stainless steel coffee cup in the audition room. Damn.

Tuesday, January 1o, 2o17 2:30 a.m.

The darkness won't let me go. Jealous, I think. She doesn't like watching me dream, alive in other places,  with other creatures.  The light. Yes, I'm sure it is the light that drives her to keep me awake until the dawn arrives and drives her into the corners of my small apartment, into the closet to hide until the sun passes by and she can live again. She fears her death as much as we fleshy things fear our own deaths.

Hell, we fear everything, we fleshy beasts, we two legged, mouth breathers.  The day, the night, the dreams that we may dream, the coming dawn, the sparrows that bring the light into the world in their tiny birdie mouths. Our fear, our panic. We are more like the night than even the night knows. 

Day will come, I know it will, it will arrive, I know it will, and I will rise, drink coffee until noon, maybe eat a sandwich, maybe write more about the black hole I feel growing inside me. There's a darkness for you to think about. The one inside yourself.

3:22 P.M.

Warmer today, 50°. Not long ago it was 7°. Oklahoma is its own kind of hell. But we are a rugged race of adventures, we Oklahomans. You appreciate 50° when its been 7°. I rolled open the passenger window in David's car. My arm extended out, reaching out to feel the cool wind. I smiled at its pleasant touch. I think my arm smiled too.

Doctor appointments on Thursday, me to the heart guy and David to get his prescription sunglasses. My appointment is at 1:15 and David's at 2:22. With luck, we'll neither one have to wait on the other. But I'm taking a book just in case I have to sit around for a long time. Look at us! The dilemmas that face us old things. Friday is Art Walk and the weathergirl is threatening an ice storm for all of Oklahoma. Do we dare go out in it? We might fall down! I long for the old days when my body and mind were young enough to say, "Fuck the weather. If I fall down, I'll get back up all by myself!"

Wednesday, January 11, 2o17

76° on what is traditionally the coldest day in Oklahoma? Walking into Walmart with a very pleasant southern breeze at our backs. But no smile on my face, and not a hint of a grin from David either because we hear that by Friday Norman-town will be one giant-ass icicle! Even the words "Ice Storm" is . . . chilling. My bones are already aching with antici . . . SAY IT! . . . pation. Well, I'm hoping that if it really turns into a frozen hell, nature will at least be artistic about it because even though it's friggin' cold as hell, an ice storm can be the most beautiful hell you'll ever see.

Didn't see Sis at the Walmart where she works. I wonder what she's up to? Anyway, got me a heating pad for the back at the Walmart and got it home, plugged it in strapped it on and . . .  Oh, man, does that feel good. I know, I'm older than lint. Where a cute lookin' babe smiling at me would make me smile back, back in the day . . . now it's a warm breeze in the middle of winter and a heating pad strapped to my backside that does the trick.

Back in 2oo9, I wrote a poem about Walmart. Somebody online was complaining about standing in the checkout lane in Walmart with some crazy woman bumping into her over and over again. made me think of this poem and so I looked for it and . . . I FOUND IT! How do you like that? I can't remember where I put my keys but I can find a poem I wrote eight years ago on one try.

Waiting On Heaven

And here, here I am! Too impatient,
my callused feet screaming in defeat,
dreaming dry, white socks and sandals.
Here I stand, checkout lane 15, Walmart
where the older couple sorts the pocket lent
from sweat-stained change.

Quite hopeful are they that there will be

at least twenty dollars left over after—
My! My! All those groceries yet to be checked!

Behind me, mother of three— improperly dressed

in a medium, AC/DC t-shirt and jeans— she yells
at her obnoxious brat that’s putting
something foreign in her tiny, little mouth.

“You don’t know where that’s been!

Spit it out, SPIT . . . it . . . OUT!”

Me? Yes, me, that other old man, the one

in the wooly Spider-Man cap,
brand new, dull-blue Chucks, yes, that one,
squinting at the magazine rack,
reading the dirt on sweet Angie and Brad.

“Look at their new baby! Sooo cuuuuuute!”

Yes, I stand here waiting, sadly wondering,

will it take this long to get to heaven?
Woodie o4-o99-o9 (rewrites o1-11-17)

Thursday, January 12, 2o17

Icy roads, power lines down, possibility of power grid wipe out . . . Damn, this weekend may be a new kind of artic hell! But I took  the initiative and forced David to take  me to the Walmart for a nicotine gum and  food run. Okay, IF I can't get out tomorrow, I'm set up for a cozy cave day. Just hope the power doesn't go out in Norman-town.

Heart doctor today. First off, weigh in. 203.3 pounds! DAMN! But heart is working, BAD cholesterol down into the lower 90s, GOOD cholesterol a bit under what would be acceptable. But no worries. Need to just get in the exercise and look up what foods have the good cholesterol and incorporate them into my diet. Life is good!

I dreamed last night! Okay, I know, we always dream but we don't always remember the dream. But I did last night. I dreamt I was in this line to get the newest iPhone and I was in front of everybody else and got the first one which was shaped like one of my inhalers AND I got it for free because I was first in line! Everybody applauded AND . . . I woke up. Yes, yes, not much of a dream, U grant you, BUT I DID remember it!

Saturday, January 14, 2o17

What the bleeding hell just happened? I just spent the last hour writing the last entry for this week's blog and the son-of-a-gun site wiped it all out before I could save it! Maybe it's my hacker that's doing this. Oh, I'm sure I have one, some faceless hacker who loves nothing more than messing up my time on the internet with typos, deletes and just all kinds of nasty, evil doings! Well, IF I do have a hacker, I hope that he is a she and looks like Lisbeth Salander and NOT Plague. Okay, I shouldn't say that about Plague. Plague is cool, just lose a bit of that weight, okay? Yeah, I know! I need to drop about fifty pounds of Hitchcock myself.

Anyway, I congratulate myself for writing more this week than last week. But I think 'I'll stop now. I got a few things on my mind that I want to talk about, but I'll save them for the next

set of blog  entries. So, enjoy this, I hope, and I'll be back next week! AND sorry for the personal slam, Plague.