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.

In good company

Solitude owes it's warmth to the fires of our loved ones.

Surrounded by soft, sweet angels swirled in storms of passion raising white waves of tiny hells and opening their souls for someone to touch the hurt and make it go away.

I have been witness to electric loves passing and burning the evil veneer so we can see our Heavens.

Alone I am blessed by the fires of our loved ones.

Make it and love it

Probably no one will ever care as much as yourself about what you create.

If people do care more than you about what you create, they become the bane of your existence.

Nurture and care for what you make, and realize others are doing the same.

Not so much

Our bed is spun ninety degrees clockwise, our heads (when in bed) headed West and now face North. Our heads, that is.

Wardrobes once in closets now hang from the walls in the very same room that holds the rotated resting rectangle. Jackets, skirts, shirts and pants hang on rails from North to South waiting for their chance to be a flag.

A big six-drawer mirrored dresser faces the same way in our rearranged bedroom but continues looking West from the South end of the room. The giant mirror reflects totally different places while greatly similar happenings routinely happen.

Attacking the life sized puzzle put dog steps at the South end of the end of the bed and we've all managed, a bit dizzy at times, but not so much that we vomit.

Mobil frozen transcendence machine

Yellow big box vomiting carnival melody churns down Pershing Avenue with a fat, flat haired lady peering out the side window, ham-sized arms blocking at the sill.

The tone flattens with Doppler duty while they disappear non-stop: nobody has notions of joy in an ice cream sandwich, the jig is up on the mobile frozen transcendence machine.

Until I believe

Middle muscles holding hunched torso and squinting to keep my eyes in my head, short breaths hiss over thick, coffee fused saliva. 

I'm taking all of this way too seriously. Relax and enjoy.

Easy to say, so I'll say it until I believe it.

Distraction

Yodel o-dela-yia-iay, strap on big belt buckles and leather boots and alternate your falsetto with L and vowel sounds.

Yodel as I mail my doctor bills, Lai-eo-ladio, yodel in my ex-wife's face, Lo-delai Le-ola-ai, yodel all over the god damn place.

I can't stay sour while I yodel, Ho-de-Lay, it's the magic bitter to sweet sing-song butter for the soul.

I'm watching you

Deadened by gloves and ear plugs, the rumble of the lawn mower was under-water smooth while I watched her.

She sniffed it first, checking for ripeness or maybe bugs, and positioned it between her teeth.

Gently clamping canines and backing up, the red sphere snapped from the vine, shaking the fence.

Slinging strands of drool she trotted from the scene of the crime, proud and excited and bit down.

She squinted when she squeezed and tomato juice squished across the yard and, starting to chew, I yelled at her.

Beatrice the basset looked at me, startled, but did not stop chewing and I pointed at my eyes and then at her, twice, I think she understood.

The grass looks good, fresh cut, she lays on it digesting autumn fruits.

Grace

Red pepper bisque and roasted chicken finished off with a green tart apple. That was my lunch for which I pray after, like post-grace.

"Fuck yeah" I pray, rubbing my belly with sticky fingers and rolling my eyes towards heaven.

Church ends with a long cold drink of water from a tall plastic coffee mug from Merrill Wisconsin, reminds me that some things can't be undone.

God that was a good lunch.

Good enough

At 4:43 this morning, I walked over the dog in the doorway to the blackened bathroom.

The opened window radiated August cool cricket-laden air while I sat and peed and farted. I breathed in deep, through my nose. It felt good enough to remember and write about.

I creaked back past the stinky hound and eased back into bed; warm covers, warm wife, warm life. I made a mental note: 'it's 4:43' it read.

It feels good enough to write about.

Here and There

In the desperate back yards where summer slaughter met with unspeakable growth and blossomed with decay, it is silent.

I click on keys while chatter dins like thick smoke hovering at neck level and everything is dirty, but in the back yards it is quiet.

Here my head is elsewhere and careless with proud defenses and in my back yard the crowd tenses, waiting for some vague event that arrives so slow it passes unnoticed.

Acorns aloft pitched to the earth from bitter old gnarled branches start the program and the wind that flicked it loose lifts your collar but you missed it, you fucking missed it.

Hands up

Ghostly gliding through cave-like arches over creaking floors, Goddamn creaking floors dismantling my sweet dream illusion.

She wove wistful, semi-smiling and full of duty, gorged on tobacco tinged twilight and carrying a great bright burden.