Better

It's so cold that we throw the full garbage bags out the door to rest instead of hiking all the way to the garage where the cans are. So yesterday as I left the house for for work I grabbed the bag and stepped in a giant pile of shit, simultaneously. I didn't have a little on my shoe, the whole pile hung on and trod with me all the way to the garage and back into the drive where I finally smeared most of it off. Most of it. When the heater in the car kicked in it brought about a slight gag and a sort of grim acceptance. Once I got to work my own bowels offered up a remarkably sizable and offensive mess and during the clean-up I thought about how this could all make for a shitty day. But yesterday was a great day, I stayed grateful and really enjoyed my fellow earth travelers, especially the ones closest to me.  I apologize if I offended anyone with all the poopy talk, but maybe it helps if we see, right away, just how shitty life can be to allow everything else to seem better.

Miss you

Reflecting whiskers and surprised  at the overgrowth...
               How are you?
Building leaves little time...
               How you been?
On the journey...
               May I have this dance?

Imposter

It tickles my chest perched on my undershirt,

and teases my neck wraped around my ear.

For an itchy nose it strings along, a just cause.

In my pants, on my leg, it gives pause.

An attachement to every sweater with brown and auburn shine,

You thread, you pest, you hair, you are not mine.

Ha! you can clog my drain 'til I pull you out with pliers, all tangled and pasted with soap scum.

I see you even clinging to the damn wall!

I will make peace with you, hair. It seems that you will always be...there. And there. Oh my God, and there.

Knock knock...Winter who?

Throw back beautiful wrapped appetizers of pig belly and yard bird livers,

Gobble through grizzly thick thigh skin,

Munch about mounds of fluffy cream mashers,

While gelatinous berry goo and pies of gourds greet greedy tongues.

Stupid stories we teach our young about Pilgrims and Indians show up on cardboard cutouts with brass pins at the movable joints.

Thanksgiving: a pleasant distraction on the way to another awful winter.

Many boxes and cans full of the past

We are, like babies, mostly eating, sleeping and purging with moments of cooperation to ensure that we can continue to eat, sleep and purge.
When the cooperation breaks down, we loose sleep, make bad food choices and get constipated.
Let's get along while we slumber and strip our food of it's usefulness and purge.

Wishes

Cashing bloated checks every day drawn from the bank of the earth, I am resposible for thousands of deaths.

Compost me.

When payment comes due and the ecology collections come collecting please do not bury me so boxed and so deep.

I owe. Compost me.

Turn me back to the givers from whom I have taken. I may end up a tree branch riding down a roiling river or a gnat, in your face.

I may stink for a while, best to drop me away from people. Compost me.

That I may not rob the earth. Compost me.

Cat on a cold concrete drive

Moaning at the door where all of life had passed, the grey striped feline heard me and darted in my direction. Through the dark, wind and cold it rushed at me with such fearlessness it caused me to wonder if I was being wise, standing with my morning oats to investigate what the racket was all about. It ran into my legs and rubbed there for awhile, continuing its mournful plea.

I cut some leftover beef and filled a bowl with water but the cat was gone, just like the neighbors who left it there.

When I howl at the doors of opportunity I pray that the gumption fires stay lit until after the beef is cut. Lately it seems that the urge to fold overwhelms the steady efforts to stay at the door, but here I am again at the steps from which I know, deep down, all the good in life comes.