This Is The Line That Divides

At the end of the year
television screeds exhort
Spend for the car now
Buy my happiness now
Claim your life back now
through concentrated application
of money not possessed
but manifested through plastic
and a life of electronic servitude
Time elongates, heart spasms,
mind melts with thoughts
of nothing left to lose here
at the end of the world

Sunday Meditation #50: Haircut 100 (Million Bucks)

It was the first haircut in nearly two months. The first since uprooting from Kansas and moving to Maryland. Nearly two months is an eternity for hair that goes from acceptably shaggy to "just climbed out of a hamper" in the blink of an eye. It was time, and it made me feel like a million bucks. Felt good.

Walking back to the car in the cooling humidity of a rain-washed evening, I didn't think much of why I felt so good, although I savored it. By "think too much of it" I mean there was no attempt to analyze this rush of what many would call mild euphoria. Contentment. A calmness upon the mind. This is a goodness in very short supply.

Upheaval and dislocation have been the prime drivers of my depression and anxiety for over a year. Isolation and lack of daily companionship drawing the curtains on a dark room in which I could not find the door. I had light when I needed it, sometimes, when good people, good friends opened their hearts (and occasionally their homes) to me. I would not have survived gracefully moving cross-country if not for the companionship of my daughter. This lights still shines in my head.

Not to say I have yet unlocked the door. Diving into a new job turned up the heat and pressure, in ways I expected but still involve struggle for balance. Mornings require a pep talk to arise from the bed. Weeks require a therapy pit stop to relocate and recalibrate. I look for that which provides a nudge back to the path, but energy often drains swiftly away into fatigue. I know that many people say sometimes you just have to roll with it, but an affirmation of direction would be welcome.

No surprise that self-care of certain kinds took a back seat to simply making it through the day. Getting a haircut barely registered on the scale of things I needed to be present in my life. Evidence of this was the shagginess I saw in the mirror one morning last week. It wasn't the guy I used to know. He looked more like an 18th century engraving of a half-insane composer. I think my cat even gave me a few "Time to trim the weeds" looks.

The curious thing was that it took me three weeks to make a decision. Twenty one days to make up my damn mind about a simple thing like getting a haircut. A sure sign that things are out of whack from living too much in my own head.

I arrived home from the haircut relaxed, unwound. The mirror showed me a very different face from the one I had woken up with earlier in the day. It was a face looking relaxed, content, and knowing it had a million dollars in the bank of the spirit. It was the face of a human being.

Making Omelets

Sitting down at the battered companion he called a dining table, fork in hand, slow tears seeped into his vision. He gulped another mouthful of tea and wept in thanks at the savor of the eggs.

Sunlight waned outside in the deepening evening.  The lamp on the table flickered in argentine lambency. He watched the flame dance in conversation with a breeze slinking through the open window.  The omelet disappeared under the insistent bulldozer of his appetite.

Wiping his face on the linen napkin he had carefully placed on the scarred wood, the old man finished the dinner.  His breath scraped over his teeth to fill his lungs.  Holding it, he counted ten slow exhales and grieved over the inescapable violence of needing to live.

Select Carefully Your Mood Music

Gray skies, cool breezes and rain late in the day.  Had my windows open from morning into night.  They still are, and the crickets murmur of everything and nothing.

Ordinarily I dig these kinds of days.  Today was no exception, up to a point.  That point was up until those small shadows detached themselves from the clouds overhead and came down to settle around my heart.  The rain was floating them.  Listening to "It's A Shame About Ray" by the Lemonheads did me no favors.

Raindrops and Ray sounded too much like angst and regret.  That is a soundtrack I can do without. 

Ask and Ye Shall Receive, One Hopes

What would it be like, to not ask questions?  To not be curious?  There is no time in my life after puberty that I can recall not being inquisitive.  I don't mean questioning of the rapid-fire "daddywhyistheskyblue?" type questioning.  I've always been a quieter, observe-and-research type asker of questions.

Why do birds do that?
Why do leaves turn red?
How does an eddy form in the water behind a rock?
What do people hear in the music of Kesha that makes them want to listen to it?

Why is the sky blue?  (I do known the answer to that one.  Now.)

Being a questioner is strongly correlated with being a thinker.  And so it is with me.  I am wont to think.  Lately, I have been thinking a lot about love.  Love always brings up questions, does it not?  One question that I've been ruminating on a lot is this:  Why love?

I'm sure this is a question that we can attempt to answer, we may think we have an answer, but ultimately cannot really be answered.  I entertain the notion that rather than try to answer it, it is best to just live it.

Is that enough?  Will that do?  Tell me, for you: Why love?

Petals of Silver Halide

There are fragments, shards,
emulsified drifts and stacks of paper
opalescent eyes in black/white,
smile an eclipse of the sun

Across the room, not daring to sit,
his gaze an offering of loyalty
upon an altar sacrificed,
his love ambered in silver halide

Into The Styptic

It is a curiosity of my existence that in my medicine cabinet I have a half-stick of a styptic pencil.  The ordinary kind one might find in the average drug store or pharmacy.  It has been useful over the years, being a product that certainly lived up to its announced purpose: to stop bleeding from minor nicks and scrapes.  I rarely use it anymore, having switched to an electric razor many years ago.  What makes this remnant curious is that I have had the thing for about twenty-five years.  Twenty-five years is over half my life.

Who holds on to such a thing, for so long?  What am I clinging to that makes me keep it?

That pencil was purchased at the drug store on the main street in the downtown of the small town where I went to college.  I still remember the day I bought, although I cannot tell you why that was significant.

My head is full of such things.  Good thing my head is big, I wish it weren't so damn heavy sometimes.

I thought about that pencil tonight as I ruminated on a swirl of personal issues, things about my past, my present, my future.  The chalk-white stub a totem for the spirits of memory.  I see it there in the cabinet and it makes me wonder what I will stanch the flood of thoughts and memories that have clustered around me.

There is some anxiety, there is some bliss.  I put the pencil back in the cabinet and wonder at the things I can let go, so that I may have room inside to embrace that which I want to welcome into my life.

Doppelganger

Raising the razor
revealing an odd stranger
staring from the glass

That Which We Told Ourselves Was True

Of all the things under the sun, worn seashells always made Paddy think of what it meant to live a good life.  Walking the strand in the morning, mug of coffee spiked with a little cognac, he always picked up shells no matter how full his pockets.  Morrigan, his grizzled and faithful Irish setter, had learned to spot them and often would bring him prizes she had found in the sand and seaweed along the tideline.  The rough textures and nacreous innards were yin and yang, Paddy thought. And who knows what they once held.

The wind was sharp this morning.  The sky was fading indigo tinged with a silver that dappled the breakers rolling in off the Atlantic.  Paddy ambled slowly along the scalloped edge of the wrack, Morrigan looping back and forth in front like a horizontal sine wave.  Or half-infinities, the man imagined and smiled at the thought.  Briefly he considered that his dog was tracing out runes and sigils like a four-legged shaman divining his fate.  If only he could decipher the symbols, maybe he would discover that path he seemed to have missed.  For a heartbeat or two, he considered asking the dog what she thought.  The absurdity made him laugh, the sound ringing in the salt air like iron bells after a long rest.

"What say ye, Morrigan?  Is this the way, lass?" he called out to the dog.

Morrigan lifted her snout from the small but intriguing pile of shells and bones through which she had been rooting.  She cocked her head at the sound of her master's voice.  Her deep brown eyes held his gaze, her nose twitching and she began to wag her tail.  The expression on her face seemed to say "I have no idea what you mean, but I'm happy to not have an idea!"  Paddy laughed at the sweet goofiness of it.  He grew quiet and turned to gaze out over the syrupy emerald sea.  On the horizon a freighter disappeared into the sky.

"I suppose your right, girl", Paddy said to himself, "Guess we'll keep looking."

Their shadows lean in the morning sun, dog and man reflecting each other, picking up shells as their footprints slowly melted into the sea.

Echoes of the Madness

As I had a window of opportunity this morning, I set aside some chores in favor of a combination walk and photo safari through an abandoned factory building down by the Patapsco River.  The occasion was to experiment with a roll of very fast film (3200 speed for you photogeeks out there), black and white, which I could not resist purchasing yesterday while at the film lab.  The weather was warm, but decent sun, and to paraphrase, no one ever dies wishing they had weedwhacked a little more.

It was the call of the camera, and an intense need for some stress management.  It would not be denied.

I had my backpack, my digital camera, and my film camera.  Plus a flashlight and a hard hat.  Contrary to what my Ma and Da might tell you, my head isn't so hard it could resist a falling brick or shard of metal.  I'm getting smarter about that stuff these days.

So I am in the abandoned building, trying a different route than the one I have taken in the past.  There are some places in there I had not seen yet, and I was getting tantalizing glimpses through broken windows, of graffiti and industrial decay.  I was alone, or at least I thought so.  

I went down a flight of rusty metal stairs (very "Half-Life" in appearance) and was standing in a pool of light streaming through a large opening in the concrete slab overhead.  The path on both sides led into gloominess punctuated by shafts of light and the spectral outlines of ruined tanks, pipes and decaying machines.

It was while standing there adjusting the camera, that I heard it.  A voice, drifting from somewhere in the darkness of the warehouse beyond.  I had been about to walk in that direction, but the voice made me freeze.  It was garbled, muffled, but occasionally I could make out individual words.  Then, quite clearly it said "Oh, why, why, why!" followed by a faint sigh or groan that trailed off into nothingness.

At that moment, I felt the Fear.  An icy trickle in my gut.  I didn't start running, but I changed my mind about which way I was going to go.  I knew very well that this particular set of buildings is frequented by all sorts of people, hikers, photographers, homeless folks and those with less than noble intentions.  It was probably just someone hanging out or looking for scrap.

But I went the other way.  The hair on my neck was up, and I wasn't sure I really wanted to run the risk of finding out why the voice was asking "why, why, why".

I did get some good pictures, though, without needing a change of underwear.

Friday Night Is All Right For...What?

One of the smartest things I have ever done is set down the glass before it is too late.  Years bring wisdom, of sorts, to them that cares to pay attention.  And I do.  Most of the time.  But I wonder, yes I do, what I would be if I didn't listen to the voice of reason as much as I think I do.

Ahhh...it's not reason, perhaps?  Cowardice, maybe?  I cannot say for sure.  It is dangerous to listen too closely to the ego.  Ego wants what it wants, and it can talk itself into anything in pursuit of its own gratifications.  Or delusions.  The ego is ruthless.

I am learning that sometimes I should not listen to myself.  This goes against the very fiber of my mind, because I have long believed that my mind was Me, and the only thing I could trust.  Ha.  I was wrong.

So I sit here, on a Friday night, quietly and at home with the television as company.  And I know this is not a bad thing, not for now.  Better than flogging my brain cells with barley pops, surrounded by people I am afraid to talk to or with...and believing my ego when it tells me I'm a boss.

Trust me, I'm smarter now.

Spring Poetry Slam #2: Traffic

Surprisingly cool,
traffic sound on wet pavement.
Heart follows the cars.

I Think That Was Me

Leaving from where I want to be away,

March has the jump on me, the cool breeze

and I thought it was you breathing on my cheek

Springtime and the living is crazy, not easy,

flowers pushing up through the sod

and all I can feel is your fingers on my back

Wishing they were, that sweet pressure,

laying in the gray black, dreaming, hallucinating,

and I thought it was you that I had chased

only to wake up striped with oyster light,

panting and sweating, hands clenched,

with the scrapes to prove my fall

---

Words in bold are lyrics from the song "Driveway to Driveway" by Superchunk.  A very inspiring song, and a little close to the bone...

Least of Three Bodies

La·gran·gi·an point (l-grnj-n)

n.

Astronomy - Any of five points, stable with respect to gravitational forces and in the orbital plane of two bodies, one of which is much larger than the other. A third, smaller body placed at one of these points will remain in equilibrium with respect to the other two bodies.

---

Amidst the churches and farms
a country highway stretched on forever
beneath a sky of hammered pewter
past trees of gilded dust and bronze

Car and driver weightless over distance
the tug of one gravity lessens before another,
somewhere between silver river and green rows
a heart fell into equilibrium far from both

What is this gravity called love? he sighed,
the crows had no reply, from their weathered perch,
except to flutter wings of feathered ebony,
bidding adieu to this least of three bodies

Questioning Atacama

I ran to you
and your rumors
of no rain

Across oceans and mountains
I found you,
caressing the Humboldt

There I stood, nitrate dust,
copper on my tongue,
and an alkali heart

Listening in silence
with only salt wind
to carry my questions of love

You ate my disappointment,
swallowed it with hard light,
while I fell to my knees

closed my eyes
and prayed for rain
here, in Atacama

Nomad's Chair

Stasis chamber
Mausoleum
Concert hall
Anechoic lab
Dialysis suite
Scream room
Forge
Diner
Crash pad
Freezer
Citadel

Facets of a home worn,
a soft shelled crab
during the molt
and wondering
still waiting

for its consecration
as sanctuary

Nightstand

The clock is digital, he is thankful,
no ticks of inevitability to disturb
the cottony silence in his heart

Orpheus ran away, chased off by
unfamiliar sheets and hiss of tires on the
wet pavement of a sterile street

He whimpers into another restless night,
wondering where he is, how far from home,
tracking slat shadows on the walls

Another road dog dream, her mahogany eyes
caressing his at a distance of desolate miles
while his hands reach for her, to close on air

Flood tide of reality rolls in on an empty bed,
the nightstand drawer empty of Gideon,
and he fears knowing only the memory of salvation

54°26′S 3°24′E

Groans of the sea, breath crystallized,
Moans of the seals beyond glacier's edge,
ringing the bell of Roald's heart

He dogs the door of the hut,
flickering seal-oil light and powdered meat
await him, slab of ice masquerading as wood

Tonight it is two bites he can't swallow, easily,
Recoiling to think he can't take the feel of his hands
touching his face again, with hers so far away

Icefall in the Valley Of The Kings

Longer days still have their nights
laying under sheets becoming shrouds
while little claws tick the windowpanes

Forecast said a wintry mix, treacherous morning,
but it is the night and hidden moon, imps together,
whispering doubts over a thudding heart

Semi-living pharaoh turns in his wrappings,
runs a hand through stiffening hair, to wonder,
how to stop the ice from crashing through the roof

Spider

Silicon glow marred by the flow

of words, and pictures, cascading

down eyes gone glassy, seen too much

Sad guitar warbles across empty rooms,

I know sometimes it gets too much

But tell me baby, have you had enough

Hands pause, cradling head and smoothing hair

he thinks, yeah, it gets too much, this searching,

stirring of the silt in the memory tank

Invisible engines make it so easy, and so hard

to stop, when the past is lying in wait

just clicks away, under trembling fingers

And I know sometimes I can be too much

No, no, he whispers, you were never too much;

This electronic memory web, baby, it drowns me

---

Lines in italics were quoted from the song "Tell Me Baby (Have You Had Enough)" by Phosphorescent, on the album Here's To Taking It Easy, a mighty fine indie/alt-country work of art.