mornings at 66

 it's quiet here

the fan's soft music soothes

the tinitus, ache in my left hip

transfers to my right hip

a notification from one of the two

phones in my room. curtain

blows softly, the keys strike a slow

beat offbeat, smoke rising from 

the tip of the joint. 

in 5 minutes i will be required 

to gather everything i need for the day

head to work to lose

 what little self is left in labor.

earlier i recalled a scene of an old

woman being escorted by a younger one.

they moved slowly down the sidewalk

the older's hair wafting in the wind

gray and long as a cartoon witch and i

didn't know if i'd seen it in reality on a 

reel. let's not even go into how silly

that moniker is for the short clips 

of mundanity that we now film

with our cameras. it took me

several thoughts to realize 

it was irl. a stateof being

that is becoming more 

integrated with the scroll

daily. at least i don't only

dream of work these days.

last night i dreamed i fixed

the hot water handle with a screw.

this morning, it still requires

attention to completely stop it.

such is the worth of dreams.

personally

 i've got a lot of aches and pains

that do not diminish as time goes by.

tried a cortizone shot for my 16 year old

sciatica. it abated for a couple of weeks but

it's still the same month, and it's ba-ack.

since th out of pocket is met for this year 

what with the whole

 almost dying at the doctor's office

 episode i didn't have to pay but as i understand it

from google reviews the shots are 8-9 hundred

so i wono't be doing that again

they tell me there are other options but hoops

that i have to jump thru before exhausting 

reasons why insurance won't approve at this time

cuz you have you tried plan b or b1.a?

and anyway none of what they have comes with

even a 90 day warranty. if you 

die on the table you were told the risks beforehand.

your heirs can fight over the medical bills.

which begin anew on new years' days.

i want to lay down but i want to type.

not neccesarily to write. type.

fingers to keys. mind slowly drift away 

let the birds tell me their stories in 

a language i can only feel. 

****since i already wroonte today, i was going to pay billswhen 

i sat down,

i just wanna drit away down stairs.

gotta put pandora on.

going to go to the reopening of our formerly favorite 

sushi place that has turned into a buffet. 

the staff is the same so we're going to try it.

i feel like trump must have felt on day 732 

of his campaign to get re elected when 

he ttold a flock of christian voters to

"vote ofr me this one time and

you'll never have to vote again"

and no one

called him on it. like yo

bro, what do you mean by that?

how many ways can there be to explain it?

but he didn't have to. and he knew then

he could stumble onstage , say damn thing that popped

into his heat and people would exclaim, hell ya

that's badass .

so if i were trump, there would be no limits

and i feel like i can say damn thing about life

or gossip or fantasy or delusion

with a straight face and proper line breaks post ironically not caring about left or right hand symmetry just drifing off on a the next.. oh! a shiny new balenciaga

*

or maybe i've always written that way.

it disturbs me that this is essentially what he does

in his onstage ramblines we can call them soliloquies

because i think when he speaks he mainly speaks

tto himsself.

what's most depressing is how much room 

he takes up in my head. 

while i and me and you and you and me

pay his rent.

fuck i hate this shit.

impeachment seems a fools binky.

)()()(((

on another note

the manipulation of timing and matter

with hints from the fighting crows

as you approach the red light, see how

confluence works in the gulls flight behind them

and far behind that, a jet ascends from the airport

contrail behind, or maybe a cloud and

twenty feet ahead is the left turn, the cars that were stopped

begin to move when a tangle of feathers 

with an eye watching you looms two feet beyond 

the glass. it catches itself and heads up before

you can react and the light is green now

so you punch the pedal and go.

the whole drive takes half as long as usual

not because you were missing some time

it's just how you flowed thru the traffic 

a free radical skirting cars trucks and lights

thru some combination of charge and spin.

the miracle happens at anderson and waters

where you always get stopped.

green flashes on 3 miles ahead, no cars around 

and seventy is achieved like an UAP

orb in the night sky . you're through

the light like you  had sat there the entire

two minute and 34 second cycle

and earned this freebie.

i heart aoc

 Harry Truman once said, paraphrased because i can't actually be bothered to look up the exact quote which i saw only moments ago on another device, any politicean who becomes rich is a criminal. 

all the rich pols currently imhabiting DC came to mind, facelessly, unified dems and reps coaslescing into the famous visage of the criminal in chief and thought they're all like that, right/

then i pictured Alexandria. AOC . the people's rep. i have wanted her to be president since she first hit my brain. don't understand why she's still just a rep. except maybe it has something to do with her not accepting massive donations from corporate and other rich donors.

here's a woman, invited to the fashion event of the year where everyone attending is a celeb or rich or somehow in media, and she attends in a white formal with a long train bloodstained with the message writ large across her latina ass "EAT THE RICH".  smiles coyly over her shoulder as she walks up the grand entrance stairs. i don't think she was invited again.

she tours with the other honorable member of the chambers, senator bernie, or BERNIE! as the bros would have it. or would have had it if 2016 had been a fair race. if any of them were a fair race. because it appears that democracy, as some famous greek from way back once stated, is doomed to be ruined by the mob.

our founders recognised this, which is why the franchise was first only given to white, male landowners. once they began to include the rabble, electtions were up for sale. whigs and tories both hired immigrants to vote more than once in more than one election. so the history of voter fraud is written with receipts in many history books. which is why it seems a valid target for reform. however, modern methods of voting  verfication have made the need for outright bribery to be employed (witness musk spending millions in individual checks to voters in whatever state that was ). rather than actual voters making fraud, machines now do the heavy lifting. however, i digress.

i heart aoc because she was on the floor using her time to point out the hidden theivery being to afforded to members of the chamber whilst food stamp receipients can just fucking starve. i heart aoc because she is out there speaking up for universal health care. i heart aoc because she endorses mamdani and his policies. i heart aoc because she is representative of the people and she doesn't forget where she came from,  serving. she sees her position as serving, which is what the moniker "civil servant" means.  her job is to represent the people who elected her and she does it in the best way possible. by remaining among them. 

gmailin

 The Choppers start at dusk. They keep us inside because maybe there's a criminal roaming the streets and the cops chase them through our neighborhood and there's a shootout and maybe being inside isn't such a good idea when you live in a 10 can. We're in the screen room, Lonny and me, smoking the computer weed all legal like. He says "i heard someone at the window last night but i didn't wanna wake you."  

I give him the side eye. "what stopped you ?"

"it went away"

'IT?"

"they"

I think for a second about the "it".  i always get suspicious of Lonny when he doesn;t wake me up. But if he's telling me  then what's to hide? i let it go. wait for the choppers to pass. they're flying low tonight almost drone height, stirring the dolorous tropical air into something akin to a breeze. i really don't have much to say   anyway. Lonny does all the talking.   about work or someone he knows or his kid. his kid. his daughter's kid that is, the one he's raising.

that's why i don't talk. it's a kid. what can you say about it? they're the innocent tragedies in the making, the ones where you see the future but can't change it. oedipus engraved in our genes. so what's to say? mostly i just listen. only jump in when the yelling goes on too long. kids are rough, they make you wanna slap 'em just cuz you ca't get thru to stupidity quicker than that. and blah blah the constant things you have to keep up with along with going to work and making money. the whole thing sucks the second time around when it isn't yours. that's why i wouldn't do it. yet here i sit, caught in it anyway.

* was gonna see if a short story would develop but instead i really need to write this angst i'm feeling so i need to drop the fictional distance at all. no choppers on the porch. truth to power. the power of relationship, of implicit promises, of future. no one knows how much time they have(despite the protests of peacfrogs and other end of worlders who insist it's this coming up month's end. and if so, yay) and when i think of spending the last years of mine slaving to give my daughter a home it makes me feel trapped. but what of love? ithought i could separate myself from the mother role but instead   placed me in the step grand role, and through that i've tried to not be wicked. but i'm selfsih. i am. i want to have something that is ours. his and mine. even if it was second, at least it would be ours. but when our alone time comes, it still centers on the kid. sigh. i mean i don't really care, do u?

so this is what i wanted to say: i feel like we're lost. like we don't have a home in each other's heart anymore. i feel disrespected in so many ways-my requests go unanswered or put off, my demands are delivered in exasperation and fulfilled sullenly because why should i have to demand? i am the one compromising which actually is simple capitulation to inevitalble.

real life examples: the "cleaning" of the shed; the influx of ever more objects into the potato hole;the laundry detente; the last time you mopped the floor or broke out the vacuum and used it yourself. 

and the elephant that really stomped on me: you started a fire. in consequence of that i broke my arm and bent my stent. in consequence of that i used all my personal time for the year and met my out oof pocket maximum in insurance costs.  i lost half my wages for 3.5 months. an entire quarter. the only reason i've not gone broke is because my dad died and left a few bucks. some of which you've borrowed. i ask you to help me pay these bills and you tell me this-and i'm paraphrrasing because you're so pendantic but the gist-- was "you were the one who decided to run  into the room with the fan and run out."

mic drop.

it makes me want to cry. i have a broken heart about it/ i mean it's fine you don't have the money now or you can only give me a few bucks at a time. something like that would be compromisable. but to feel like you have no culpability in the path of my life for the last few months is unconscionable. tthat means you have no conscience. and yet you're wracked with guilt by so  much. always saying sorry for the wrong things and nekver meaning them it when it counts. 

so the kid is innocent. the kid has no part in this part of your actions/thoghts/words. i don't want to hash this out with him in the house. so i wait and i brood and i try to see a way to salvage this while living with a person i am afraid to love.  because to love means to bee advantageous. and some people will take advantage. 

i have blocked your path , wanting to play the little dance strangers in hallways do when about to collide, and end it with a smile and a kiss. you stood stoically speaking of something inconsequential till i let you pass unmolested. 

you come to bed as i'm about to fall asleep, so i leave our bed for mine earlier now. no cuddling for weeks, no sex on a regular basis. it makes me ponder if you're fucking someone else. we both cheated to leave our spouses, would we do it again? i 'm pretty sure i won't cuz i sincerely don't want any more men if you and i were to split.  you are a special kind of selfish breed, you men. i can't even explain except to use phrase fish swimming in sea of privilege. and did i spell that word right? hey, it's 2025, spelling is so last century.

All I want is tobacco and to be pain-free. I'm hoping a week off will do that for me maybe I can muscle through you till the new personal time comes in. And I got to make a decision about insurance the more they push it the less I want to do it. Said the best thing the other day but I can't remember what it was. I guess that's why I tweeting took off. 

Anyway, sitting on the edge of no wind or w h e n depending on the ai's ability to understand poetic manipulation of wording. No win. N o w h e n. It means the same as timelessness. There is no wind when I speak the word. 

I just lit a cigarette but I only have one minute to smoke it. Good little worker bees would be right at the ADP machine but I only acknowledge it as time to get moving inside. Where it's freezing and time creeps like a win when it's winning.

it's been 3 days of rain

 small breaks in the clouds

where i pressure wash my rugs

pray for sun.

i also cleaned the bong

washed some musty smelling 

pieces of cloth i've kept 

since before i was divorced.

the baby dresser my mom used

for her 3 girls is now back in the linen

closet, although that still smells musty.

i fill it with clean pillowcases

freshly laundered tattered doilies

embroidered one summer at gramma's

where i was sent to help 

during the endless summers peppering

my childhood. we'd open 

the china cabinet, remove the pink frosted

dutch cocoa set with 3 full 

and 1 cracked cups, 3 saucers

and an undamaged pitcher, rinse

drain, dry and dust, then return them

behind the glass doors. i have never

drank from the set though it sits

 in my own cabinet these years later.

there's nothing profound to say about this.

it's a thing we do, running from the future

tying ourselves to a past we barely 

remember. there was a silverware set

we polished every summer. 

used it at christmas and easter along 

with the good china. i don't know

what  happened to that, though

since it was worth something i assume

my mother's sister took it with her

back to the northeast

miles and miles away from where her mother

lived and left this world.

on one of her yearly treks home we

discussed it, sitting in the dining room

i said gramma's already promised it to me.

she looked it up in her antiques book 

and agreed to let me have it. i took it

long before gramma passed. just in case.

*

i haven't honored my dad's last wishes

 on the distribution of his extensive

 collection of 23 silver dollars

and 17 rolls of wheat pennies.

he cut 3 of his great grandkids

 out of the split. i just think that's so petty.

+++++

when i was a child i'd look for the hidden

meanings of lyrics in pop songs. 

they weren't so cryptic i was just young

i was left imagination and ignorance

and forced to invent a story that jibed

with my reality. honestly though i don't

have any idea what i was like back then

and i'm tired of pretending that i do.

 i was introspective, nerdy and lonely.

adrift. my best friend was a lesbian 

who was in love with me. i friend zoned her

but she knew it. she knew it. i don't think

i ever even kissed her. maybe that's why

i didn't have boyfriends? anyway

i did have sex. too many times

with too many boys in the guise of freedom

dunno why i'm on this kick,

was just thinking of alternate choices

and the paths i might have taken,

it was not so much the idea of girls

but i'd been molested by my female babysitter

when i was like, 7 ish? so i found 

i just don't like pussy from an early age.

))))))

and this is goodbye.

i'm going to z hills to see the grandkids

just cuz i want to see them.

for a while and so 

looking inward

 still not talking to myself.

i'm getting used to my new room

how it's all that's mine and why

is this so important to me now?

a spce to exist. some people

only have their car. or less.

need a space away, breathing room

it seems that the thing i sought 

a love that endures despite windbown

deposits of disappointed expectations, 

  stacks of small

betrayals -of -the -ideal

comes at heavy price. 

selfishess must be curtailed or

reinvented as willing sacrifice.

you must love your partner 

as you do your child.

must is a hard concept.

i don't mean it in a commanding way

more like a natural need, like water

not so much voluntary as essential.

you must love one as yourself.

but if you hate yourself that is not

good love to share, is it?

i don't know why my hands should shake

at this truth, why all these typos show up.

it makes writing twice as hard, going back

and correcting mistakes, yet that 

is more effective

than the "sorry"s strewn along the tides

of our relationship.

yet i love you, remind you to remind me

why i crave your palm on my skin

washing the pain away

floating on the gulf .

sorrow's origin story jetskies

across the waves, buzzyly 

solidifying belief.  you knock

on my door, offer to

 make me breakfast

because you're cooking anyway.

 love is loving

the imperfections because 

nobody's perfect.

thank you for knocking.

****

this smallish space i've carved 

through almost 40 years of working man

is not all -i -got -and -it's -mine. 

it's not mine at all. it could be gone

as quickly as a phone call, a bullet, 

an ICE raid. pick up this shell

and toss it in the bay type catastrophe. 

and where would i dwell if left alive then?

here, in the heart, where i am perpetually

young, healthy and capable of living

under a bridge if it comes to that.

lol, vagabond, what will you take with you then?

recovery seems subjective

 last time we spoke i 

had broken my arm

i went back to work part time and crashed out

on week 4. 2 hospital visits later

and it seems i have clogged

my arteries and bent my stent. 

so i took some temp disability to heal.

taking blood thinner and statins

my digestion is still very slow. 

eating oatmeal and raspberries

doesn't seem to help. 

i moved my desk to the right

of the window, put his wicker chest

where i once wrote.  view of

the neighbor's blackout curtains. 

dad's red truck parked in the third spot

directly in front of where grandson 

likes to play. with trucks and tiny pets.

now there's more room to scoot my chair back 

and the view is   clouds piling

 over the bay

in the southwest sky tailgating

each other into an inevitable

howard-franklin crash. 

*

i get the occasional check in from the colleague

taking up my slack, overwhelmed, focused 

on the singular KPI the boss regards.

some of the things i can't help with,

others i just don't wanna 

scour my give a fucks for the procedures. 

the easy ones i give him.

during this recovery i've pressure

washed most of the trailer, except

the screen porch where my on-sabbatical

honey stacks boxes of dishes, cables, pcbs,

various iterations of .03/lb metals

he gleans from the overstuffed shed 

in back. contents pile atop every 

surface. i think of seashells and tides.

alternatively i think of the 1970s sitcom

sanford and son. he plays both roles. i'm 

the neighbor from hell yelling get this shit

off my property. it has not been 

my dream recovery. 

**

in fact, this is the first time i'm feelin

a writing vibe, one where my surroudings

don't matter. overheard conversations 

whining 8 year olds, angry poppas all

become part of the narrative. 

or ignored. 

* 

i suppose it's about how much one 

can take. i could get used to working

a couple hours on, a couple hours off.

but you have to be productive the whole time

wage slave. and no, i donn't think that term

is hyperbolic. in fact, it may be too tame

for what's actually happening in 

late stage capitalism. the part

of the game where  you only

keep rolling  because you still

own baltic avenue and you're just

about to pass GO , collect 200 dollah.

bank errors are rarely in your favor.

massa don't give out fresh food and water

and he charges rent for the shack he's chained

you in. it's not hyperbolic because 

even though you have the appearance of free will

it's not like that, at all 

 if you are trapped

 in a society and want to eat.

++++++/-------

where was i? o yes

in recovery. i'm also quitting smoking

for up to 3 hours at a time. 

i still have 4 to 5 cigs a day.

thought weed would help but it 

doesn't stop the craving for the NIC o tine.

what to do? doc told me i would not

be sexy with a colostomy bag

but how's that different 

from now? it's not an aspiration anyhow

so doc edited the adjective to palatable

which i agree. hence the 50% reduction.

can one have half a colostomy bag?

check up in 2 days. worried as the clouds

loom closer. 

+++

but what about all this

(gesturing broadly to the political landscape

unfolding along this timeline)

it's not like all the shouting

in the nation will make those in charge

stop following their scorpion ways.

they will sting and since we put them 

on our backs for this ride across the river

  if we're dead by time we reach 

the shore i can

 say i told you so. right now

i'm just tryin to keep my head 

above the waterline.  

 

&&&

so i tidy my room. i hadda have a place

to call my own since the boy is here

to stay. i dont really want to kick them out

but i need somewhere none of their stuff 

is allowed, unless i want it there. 

there's one more box i need to purge

to make the collection truly mine

but i've come some ways . 

i scrub the grout in the bathroom

with toilet bowl cleaner 

and a toothbrush. a pale blue stripe

emerges between  tiles, some cracked,

as dirty cigarette grime sloughs off.

i'm counting this as the physical therapy

i didn't do yesterday . rebuild the muscle

so i can go back to work again.

because i'm still in debt and too damn old

to live out of my car like i thought i would 

when i retire. like so many have chosen to do

in these uncertain swirling times. 

 recovery from what the fascists are breaking-

that's gonna be a long road. not sure i'll

get to the end of that journey 

but i kinda promised my son i'd stop

mentioning that i may die soon.

it's kinda disturbing .

funny that i just about did 

and didn't even notice it.

i thought it was

just a fleshwound.

now i know what broken means

 snapped in half

just un der the socket no rroom

to make adjustments

and like when it mends

it's a crapshoot about freedom of movement

even with surgery

and as a 50 year smoker that's risky bizness

so i didn't have crippld on my bingo card

yet here we are

not permanently i mean i will have some useage

i just won't be able to close the overhead bin

or stuff like that. there goes my independent travel 

plans. broken means trajectories change

means mending time or throw it away.

i keep the broken things. i let them limp

along fulfilling a niche and perhaps their function.

duct tape and screws. it's what i do. 

some things aren't mendable of course. we scrap them.

i'll be able to work again.

but right now i can only move my fingers and wrist

my arm bears no weights. i can't move the muscles

or ithurts an i prolly shouldn't cua

the break moved the humerus about 5 cm 

to the left. and that' s how it's gonna heal.

miraculously grow back lizard tailish

mend on its own with fuel from my body.'

been eating a lot of tums. generic.

it means can't get up the old ways

gotta exercise muscles long atrophied

build a core, understand support and resistence

sleep on a new side,. also messes with 

brain function, stomache, bowels sciatic mood tone

just anything that makes you human.

we had a fire. well, he did. he started it!

 i have not begun a fire yet

have been a victim of 2. the first destroyed

all the stuff my gramma had left me, the heirlooms

from my past, small salvages from the wreck 

of my marriage. this one broke my arm.

both started by a man born on october 29. 

i find that ironic. not only that i'd have 2 lovers

with the same birth date, separated by 22 years,

but that they'd both begin a fire in our home. 

i slipped on the wet floor and fell hard on my right arm.

honey i broke my arm!!!

any way i'm trying to say 

how i understand why dad doesn't

wanna go thru the cancer coda.

that's prolonging the inevitable.

painfully. 

the worst part of this experience  so far is the way

my specific krohns has reacted. 

ive lost 8 lbs in a week. have to force myself

to eat. 

a good friend just called to say take my pain pills

i have hydroco and tramadol,aleve and nyquil

indica and sativa. i just want something to calm my stomach.

let me have a potsticker in peace.

let me sleep. in peace.