Morning

Arriving at work
Before the dawn
Unshaven and wearing glasses,
Having forgotten my cell,
I discover the coffeemaker
Is STILL BROKEN.

Twenty Four Hours

I told Mike Moran I wrote a poem about somebody else for once and he said, "Oh, there IS a hole in your ego somewhere." Yep, but it's a very small hole :)

Twenty Four Hours From Now
"Twenty-four hours from now,
All that she wanted was me,"
He said. I said, "Last week?"
"Yes," he said. He meant
Last Sunday. I thought
(But didn't say) Well,
A lot can change
In a few days.

Bad Decisions

I'm mulling over the nature of bad decisions.

Some decisions you make and you immediately know they are bad for you, ultimately will end up causing you pain and hardship, cut you off from friends, and you'll regret them for a long time.

Some decisions you realize five minutes later were bad. See the above.

Sometimes you make a decision and find out months or years later you went the wrong direction, stuck with (or left) the wrong person.

There's absolutely nothing you can do about any of these decisions. You just have to live with them.

I'd like to be more specific! Tonight I decided to stick with my housemate instead of going to something I wanted to go to. He ultimately had to stay home with his sick cat. So I did that... I don't regret it now, will I regret it later? Every night we have plans that can take us in different directions. Sometimes we don't even know what we missed.

I was driving a friend home (he came over to hang out with us) and a song came on the radio, "American Music" by the Violent Femmes. This reminded me of a production I co-directed over ten years ago. The closing night party for this production, I made a few more bad decisions... Well, it's a long story. But every time I hear that song (it was the closing song for the show) I remember that production, the age I was, and a little of who I was back then. It was a tough time - but then this is a tough time too.

Where the hell is all this leading? Wouldn't I like to know.

Exercises from Lines

I drew most of my 'starting lines' for these exercises from Jack Kirby's Challengers of the Unknown.

---------------------------

Introducing: The Unknown!

We can't expect the unknown to
Walk in and introduce itself.
Pick up an easy chair, adjust it
At a comfortable angle,
Sit down, settle in to stay a while;
The unknown likes to search around the doors a bit,
Scratch at the hinges, sniff around
The windowpane, and generally be a nuisance.

It's waiting for you to go out
And look for what the hell is
Making that sound.
Then it will pounce-

And god help you if it isn't
Your aunt Harriet
Wearing her favorite hat,
The one you always feel forced to compliment,
Because you know she sees you
Staring at it;
You're in now for another
Dreadful visit.

Meanwhile the unknown lurks around the corner,
Waiting for the next unfortunate hour
You're listening to the creep of sounds
Outside, the rhythm seems wrong,
A gut feeling makes you get up and look;
Hide in your bed instead;
The news is never good.

--------------------------------

Jumping Jupiter!

Caroming down the stairs
Playfully he whirls
Around the grand piano
Twirls the table
Flings the glasses over the balcony
Full of juvenile excitement!
"Oh, to be a young planet
Giddy with life again,"
Saturn sitting on his dais
Is heard to grimly frown.

Russian roulette with the atomic bomb

I instantly regretted my rudeness in bringing up the gun in his hand - it wasn't the bomb's fault he was suicidal.

Bombs by their very nature are prone to a certain amount of depression - after all, the fulfillment of their ultimate purpose is synonymous with their demise, and that's the end of their story.

Of course we can't forget the fallout, damage to the surrounding area - measured not in lives but in lives and the wreckage of lives, emotional, psychological, economical, destruction of arable land, families, cultures - the ripples of one explosion, one disaster envelop countless people, worlds and worlds of people, when you think of it.

Well this observation - my suggestion his effects would go on long after his death - cheered the bomb up quite a bit. With a trembling smile, he said, "This time, I'll put two bullets in the gun."

Bonfire poetry

Poem for the Fire

Eyes blinded by smoke
Dream small, live small.
Strike down hope.
Keep walking.

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Atonement? Try Love

For best atonement, try love.
Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins...
And so on.
Who needs a confession?
Each new lover a sacrament,
In their body the communion
Is made; the sacred link
Between you and the endless
Succession of others
Between you and the Other;
Between you and the world.

Who can intercede for you now?
You've built walls out of bodies
And seem quite happy in your little house.


--------------------------

... are always done in the dark

These things are best done in the dark.
Spot in my eyes I speak to the darkness
Speak to the darkness within each of us
A quiet space for listening
A little space for truth to speak
Truth is always spoken
In darkness.

Random Words

Last Sunday's writing exercise at Zelda's Inferno. I forgot to post it till now.

Words: "shoot, punctuate, plot, essence, extort, grow, masticate, smother"
Entertaining story: I was outside thinking about what to write when I met two white men in their sixties, one wearing a camo hat and jacket. The one in the camo hat and jacket was silent; the other one asked me for money so he could buy his friend coffee. He said coffee was a bad thing for a drunk person, but his friend wanted it anyway, so he was going to try to get it for him. Occasionally he would talk to his friend in the camo jacket and the guy in the camo jacket would curse him out in a low voice.

---------------------
I love you; you're my brother
And we've been
Deep in the gutter together;
But you're punctuating silence with silence,
Growing in the dark.
I'm smothered by what I need to say,
The rushing sound rolls around in my head.
I can't cough it up; it's stuck in my throat.
I wish I could grab one end of the problem,
Pull my guts out of my mouth until I spew multicolored threads,
Heaving up us as if it were a magician's trick.
But I can't pull against myself, and you're still
Sitting there as if the apocalypse will come
Any minute and you want to be well rested.