Monday, March 04, 2024

unknown umbilical

 ah who am i kidding i know about it

been tethered for years now 

sucking in lives that aren't mine

revel in the distaff wooly and flaxen

spin out yarns, clothing, blankets, family trees. 

i know about it. hand held , scroll by scroll

binding minutes to nooooooo action 

a mind faceted , reflective, refraction 

gleam in a flea's eye.  i know about it.

pumping life into the not ready yet

the half baked, the uncertain outcome.

sooner or later it shrivels or gets dropped

in a full washing machine with all the other dirtys.

then where are you? alone, searching for nourishment

maybe a podcast or movie on something bigger

than a notepad.  the taste of other lives lingers

black on white specters

paragraphs with wings

 sentences with brokens.


maybe i've been, maybe you've been or he's been

feeling maybe she's been feeling or maybe there's

something akin to a feeling.  billie eilish channels

the barbie in all of us. post covid pathologies 

on the warpath sung in ethereal teen. 































_  


cuz yeah, the incubator's out there providing

from who knows where. maybe teeth, 

maybe shrink a few inches here, girth a bit there.

maybe conjure it directly from unsatiated blood

through a series of recursive tubes that's 

 somehow  been keeping me alive or

thinking that i am  

i keep quiet as a 

moribund feotus, i don't\ have much to add

and besides, all options have split into opinions

no one cares about. i never vote. not even at 69 or 420

sometimes if i think i've got a unique facet i 

just keep reading till i find it already in print. 

the really outlandish ones are often as true as they are

false. i decide they all provide nutrition 

though the wedding cakes are a li'l too monotonous

and rarely sweet. 











(((



all this to say i cut it again. 

with water. a full load

now it's up to rice and time


or i gotta go back to the dealer

for some more.


Sunday, February 25, 2024

detatchment

 sun down orange in a blank sky

the inside of my eye

crow caw above 

child whine outside

show me some love

i'll show you endorphin slides

since it's all just chemical 

i'd like the right ones 

with this bitter medicine.


i suppose i should fix dinner though

the flesh wants, the breeze wafts

darkness never far.

Sunday, February 18, 2024

I'VE filed my taxes

 well, almost. it looks better so amybe

we can keep this dream going i need

her to be responsible, family girl, pandoraed

into art successful at something

so i can let this go. i am just

not capable of doing it all

but i think we should get glasses. 

everything i've put off credit wise

gonna stay that way. lol. 

put off. we need glasses.

someone needs a fix

someone needs to get a crippling grip
















 { nice that i 

have this time, this room.

i turn on the music and 

im in my selff made world

bits and pieces i've kept of other's lives

to spark my own imagination. 

now i'll be outside for a moment

smoking the evil weed waiting on the good. 
















(


close brackets.


Friday, January 19, 2024

odin

didn't get his hospital pix

he came home to a used bassinet

and playpen to graduate to

but he lifted his head right away

his neck seems strong tho his uncle

seems to think he hasn't much control.


i'm not a baby person.

i don't compare them. i can't.

i can't remember the small months

the helplessness , the lack  

and control. but his eyes 

hold the wonder i had once and i can feel it

the desire to know. or the trapped ness?










*



odin'a eyes

seem to drift apart when

seen from far away as if

the muscles battle each other as if

chameleon controlled .


up close they peer into mine

wonder and knowledge combine

as if he knows i'm ok, cuz i'm holding

the good stuff. he sucks it down

eyes never break contact. 


i;ve heard him cry, but only with reason.

hey i'm hungry, been gnawing my fist for seasons!

i need to burb or splat or shit, 

help me, don't make me make a fit.


he's all potential unknown

i hope he gets to feel a home.


i wanted to write outside but my battery died.

i called off sick today

and its true, i wanted to vomit

at the thought of going in

so i said i did

to a machine with no acknowedgement

that it was ok. it just needs to be ok


i'm almost to the point of i don't care

about anything. i think they call that depression

or freedom. i remember us talking about

attachment and how

it causes pain, even 

when joyous.










*



maybe i'm just attached to breathing,












*






spohie says the meaning of life 

is uncondittional love. 

i'm still fabergasted that 

anyone can find a meaning.














*



but we need it now

love

who is this we 

we are but one

unconditonally attached to how

this being is going. riding the wave baby.

yeah i'm stoned but not feeling it

samhadi, the oneness or 

maybe feeling it but

not with the scream of a hawk.

more with the ennui of a jaded god

which tells me there's something 

was gona say more but no

different. it's the sameness that's killing me.

how i'm locked into this role due to someone

else's choices. but no. not. i'm not imprisoned

no one has the key but me. i could go off

i could get somewhere where i could ignore

any hint of obligation 

yet there i would still be

wanting to breathe. wanting to eat,

wanting to smoke a cigarette.

obligation to the body i can't release.



honey says he's got suicide ideation all

his life. but he thinks it's morally wrong.

i don't have that quandry. mine is pure fear

of the unknown. so why pull so hard

against my willing slavery?

accept it woman. x years a slave. 

think of it as payback for being an owner. 

 bezo's gonna come back 

a mutilated indian street beggar.

i mean, if karma's actually anything like

it's portrayed. i hope to be a cow in india

why india? it seems like that's where all the souls

are congregating. no one child policy there.

and cows are not eaten by humans. they're even protected

more than u.s. cats. so it appears that india

is a hotspot of change. i seem to prefer change

though i bitch about that too. 


wait wait i just said i don't  like the unknown

how then can i say i like change? i'm a walking contradiction.

mostly to myself. i keep the slave pattern around others

cuz that's what ppl  are comfortable wtih. 


i'm in the house jill built

it's my house

and i want to go outside to smoke

because it's socially unacceptable 

to smoke inside, esp when housing child.

if i could do it without being found out

i would . such a fucking coward.

and i'd write outside except

all my batteries are dead. i don't understand

how that happened. i keep waiting

for the whole damn machine to die. or the screen

there are 2 wiring tabs sticking out from it

that only seem to affect the tablet action.

i'm scared to take it apart because

i don't have money for a new one.

lol, and i say i fix things. i'm a repairman.

right.










*





hells bells i can't even walk for 10 minutes

without struggling for it, breath. breatheeee











*  

the weather is bipolsr

last night 49 today 73

it's ludicrous. humanity's on the brink

anyway. maybe the late georgia guidestones

were prophetic. i kn ow they were meant to be.

or maybe just a poem sent out from the eighties

to what would be the inevitable end 

because we are all noah's neighbors now.

and frankly, god had nothing to do with it.










*



so now i am

outside. some battery charging

went down. there's a car

running, making co2 redolent

scents on the breeze. smelll the warrming.


inside its dusty, dim, disastrous 

guillt rises quicker than the gulf

between us; oceans to the side

imperceptibly creep

into my windows 

like the neighbor kids eyes

vacuum cleaners fill the air with song

designed to breed shame.


but it's not taking 

i keep writing i 

light the bong or

another cigarette

sit thru the ebb and flow

of this winter storm


i've been needing to have a day off

ever since i found out about the septic tank.

which adds a whole stress level to the slave book


but really worker b

do slaves even have stress? just

do your job man

do your job

the whip and the lash

are expected, welcomed to show

you the errors of your ways thinking

you could buy yourself out of this.

money is for the free.










*




all of this beating around the bush.

you took a day for therapy. 

therapize!

i feel so broken.

i feel like i should have

a different attitude to all these issues.

the dadness , a child, fostering but not

my own grandkids. just paying money

to keep them away. how i can't deal

with the life she chose for them

even tho i'm at fault. i mean if i'd

turned her down at 22

would she still have birthed the others?

why do i feel like she's that stupid?

she has autonomy and choses wrong

about so many things. is it because she is a 

narcissist. plain and simple. made that way

but once cast, no undoing?do we really have

no free will?


asks the woman lamenting her fate

and her inability to say no to her flesh

and mean it.














9


so i stumbled on this post

about the mathematical explanantion

upon the way the waveforms work

and though i'm not sure of the validity

of the mathematics

i will say that we can create our own 

realities to an extent.

rock in the pond thing. 

but truth is, it's not a still pond

and all the rocks are falling all the time

so how to quell those actions

how to become oil. or wind or


see they're so small and evanescent

the changes that occur. easily cancelled.

easily lost. you have to keep drropping them 

in the same spot

over and over

but don't forget time

and how they move

the target how the target moves

but stays in the same place

relative to you

how mathematically

you can never reach there

but the waves can take shape

and shape other waves so

maybe there is something to that way

of thinking. i wish i could believe it

so it would happen.

the curse of the semi rational mind. 






*



as i sat here outside

after opening all the available

windows here come the clouds.

send in the clouds. 

and the kids are home. and the husband is home

and time for doing is nigh.









*






when you read this again, months

even years from now just know

that i hope future me is ok

with these decisions. i hope you're

not living under a bridge i hope

the girls got better i hope you paid

off everyone i hope you bought your freedom

with enough life left in you

to want to keep breathing 

to want to dance. 

Thursday, August 10, 2023

from draft archives

 So Luke rain munir was born June 2nd 2021. After weeks of drought, with Delia crunching underfoot, the elm tree losing its leaves, the rain approached us in the evening. Huge white thunder clouds sat above a black hand that quickly stretched from the East to cover us. Logan said rain. Grandma said yes he's come. It will be here soon. Flights of Fancy, beginnings of short stories or flash fiction, swirl in her brain but she has to work. Someone got to feed these children.






@@@


worn out velour


At the beach waves
Roll up between us
Storm warnings ignored
We plow ages into sand
Assist the unborn turtles'
Incubation by avoidance
 
A group of humans encircle
A singular struggle, tiny step parade
To the water, an afterbirth of giants
Trailing the newborn's journey to sea.
If this were a movie a shot 
Of a hovering crow threatening 
The babe inserted here. A seagull
For the documentary. real
Life is often uneventful, like
The Turtle slips into a wave and
Is gone. Some thing may take it
In the next tide or the next instant
We did our best here on land we
Can't worry about everything 
we can't even see









99))))

f I told you the best poems were never written down period you might stop me in the middle of composing period like last night in Delray Beach period you can't see many stars until maybe the places that they dwell or out of breed right light to the sky make the time barely pass by about at the em driving up 95 to zero hinge period it's not even on the map period every time that I passed never lists the city period I had a friend who lived in Vero Beach one time don't know if she still there period it is directly across the state from my dwelling city period Tampa Florida area nothing play like children want to be we have in one of us choose it talk about about any of the embassy sweets period and the reason why tell about two the party went on and our separate little Anastasi came from period someone's getting pounded it's pleasure in the apartment behind us and three floors up they smoking and drinking and throwing glasses down to the rooftop of that lobby the area kids and many stars and Delray Beach star I see his Mars It's more than each United shines a bright it's solitary light star that I see period that needs energy I told him don't interrupt my song it's for me I told him that sometimes you just had to be there and sometimes the only person is there is the God that we are now yes he said I know it's a play is the thing but I want to preserve it and I'm like I here yeah I mean it would be cool but you know nothing ever comes fruition with me archives especially on the remember with Mark try and record me and the money I would always f****** the second test is actually staying off 95 trying to keep the vibe of life the balcony we all smoke our weed often 95 the lights are bright and shining on all the party and go and a fun 95 the stars are barely alive still really beach at last a Vero Beach sign and it's only 14 miles for some reason I don't think ours is slow down from here request me



@@@





When I was up here in Catawba County North Carolina, just down the street from you here in Hickory. I mean I wanted to and everything but with all the layers that are between us and the way 3D always disappoints I thought it best just to write you a little note since we haven't spoken in a while.

I didn't see Jack and Jenny either didn't even let them know I was coming either. Like they weren't so much a part of my life not even 10 years ago. Everything s e e m e d so much more possible t h e n





###




And now I have a forgotten what I was going to say. I was talking to you my daughter specifically about abortion because she has called me a murderer more than once when I and invited her to think of abortion as alternative to having a child. She has three. She has had two abortions. I don't know that she still doesn't think of me as a murderer. After all, hers were different

AAbortion has has weighed on my mind of course. Sterilization as a policy for certain races or genetic effects that people had. For instance Down syndrome Zoar retardation. The auto wrong has me all screwed up. Just to go with it. I would counsel certain people to have abortions. Does that make me want to force them to have an abortion? Oh no, but I would facilitate that choice. In my daughter's case, I have facilitated both choices. So, I must say I'm pro-choice. I would rather she had not made her choice. Because I feel so sorry for her children. But I shouldn't. Because even though I made the choice to have her with a stable job and steady income marriage, she was still raped as a child oh, and suffered the effects of bipolar disorder, undiagnosed, so I mean who made the wiser choices? Neither of us is the point. Very few are wise in the moment. So what do? Why can't we just let women have body autonomy? Not even a question with men who rape. They still get to keep their. If you have the chance and Fortune to survive all the slings and arrows of the womb oh, then you get to birth into this dystopia. So, what you know dicks. I mean that's an equivalent lifelong commitment to a forced action by the state upon someone's body. And voila now we have two, with the forced birth gestation, pertaining to as, a human body.

Which I mean come on if you don't see the human body is being grown in a field but then you are willfully blind to the real ways of biology. Potential life is not a life. You can imbue you can imbue some fanciful characteristics on The Unborn. Maybe it's Jesus. Maybe it's the savior of climate change. All specious arguments. Conjectural. Maybe a Russian soldier in the Ukraine is killing the next evolution of humanity. That is life. Life is messy. It is not granted to any one thing. Conception is merely beginning. Not all seeds take root. If the woman has made herself b a r r e n. If the field has been sown with salt. If the power structure starves out the village. If the SNAP benefits are reduced. If the mom gets involved with m e t h. If that dad runs off and leaves the child. We cannot legislate empathy. And Google suggests that we cannot legislate a p****. LOL thanks for that

















&&&

the reasons


0Our good friend Jeanie suggested i write to you to explain . so let me tell you a story. it won't be a tall tale. i believe your daughter and mine are both suffering from mental illness. you want to claim which is worse, and while your daughters actions seem worse for those around her, i would say the alienation my daughter sows is a symptom just as bad.

i am helping you raise your grandson. it's been 10 months, steady, and there's  no foreseen end to that in sight. in fact, i see you making plans to raise him fully, if abby don't get her shit together. i'm not down for that. i can't pledge that, i don't want it. i think it's better for you to come to that truth sooner rather than later. it's not that i don't care for him. it's that i raised my kids and don't want to raise someone else's. including my daughter's kids. but if they were going in to the system, i would do it. maybe. i'd at least take leona, but i'd try to get his parents to take the boys.  because i know what i can and cannot handle. i'm not a good mother now because resentment dwells in the thought of raising a child i did not choose to have.  yet you seem to just gloss0 over how i feel. and i'm sure it's because you have no other choices that you see as viable. honestly, i don't think we are very good parents and it only gets harder from here. 

but what really really ticks me off, is that you take this one sided partnership for granted .  i have to help my daughter in the only way i can, which is monetarily. i can't have her move in with us because the tension of her around you is too much to bear. once again, i am left with a choice of helping your family or  mine and just like the time i let ramie move in instead of my homeless at the time daughter and grand daughter, i am letting your family take precedence over mine. i resent that. i could easily let them move in if you were not here and save myself 1600 a month. i could live on that and still save money. as it stands now, i will be in debt so far at the end of 4 years that i won't be able to retire.  

when i let you know of these financial strates, you lectured me on what savannah should do. as if these were things i didn't know, or hadn't considered. when i told you i needed you to be my partner in this, you shut it down. you can't look at what i've done as a positive investment and you don't want to go in to investing in property with me, despite the fact that for 7 years you've been after me to sell this place and get property with you. you've let me know it's because savannah isn't paying rent and you don't want to do it.  you didn't have a say in picking this out and i'm sure THAT is a huge reason you want nothing to do with it.  i'm sure of it, but i don't know if you'll ever admit to it.

and this fact is the one that's breaking me. i'm helping you with samuel, and i helped you and abby both when she was homeless and crazy with no where to go. you were not gainfully employed and lived with me 2 years before you landed a job and i never demanded rent (although asking for it) during that time. i let ramie move in over my daughter, who was homeless and that bitch left without saying one word of goodbye or thank you. i agreed to take on samuel TEMPORARILY , as you stated, but now you dont want to let him be with raime and fred because of raime's problems. and i'm supposed tto be ok with that. and i'm not. because you want all the benefits of being in a partnership but you don't want to accept that there are sacrifices to make . 

i feel alone. if i am going to feel alone, i'd rather not be broke. i could feel alone with savannah's family here and save 1600 a month. i feel guilty that i have not had  a libido but  believe me, this whole mommy thing has a lot to do with it. resentment is not a good enticement.

that you won't consider that each of needs to make sacrifices for the other truly makes me wonder what kind of person  ypu are. i'm not going to armchair diagnose, i'm just going to say that inlight of your actions, you are selfish and self serving and inconsiderate. 23




















^^^^


'm driving the city streets home after taking my grandchildren out went City. And I am driving the city streets because I was afraid to drive to the airport through the rain is coming down pretty bad I just put my phone down and concentrate on driving. Which I am doing, I am concentrating on the drive-through which I've hit a couple of walls. But they're not too bad now if I were to go old Tampa I would jump on Dale Mabry at this point. But I kind of want are you sleeping are you sleeping okay I was saying I want to travel down 92 because the lights have been green and 92 is the city of the highway of my youth I remember when I went to visit my grandfather one last time before he died and I took off out of Tampa and didn't want to take the interstate so I took 92 all the way out from Town and Country no I wasn't in town and country all the way out from North Tampa 2 the highway and then when I got to Lakeland I took Memorial. I did not catch one red light. It was a magical night because if you travel the old Florida highways where is it take days to get from one tip of this penis to the other. The thing is I can write in my in my fist up and it means absolutely nothing to goes absolutely nowhere. And he wants to read that s***. You have to whittle it down John, you have to make it 16th and the flash fiction in their eyes but Hillsborough turns into 590 it is no longer us92 once you hit Dale Mabry so really I got lucky that by the airport I caught the lights just to be cut off by flooding. I have more than once been flooded out on Hillsborough Avenue. One time was in my ex-husband's truck husband at The X truck and I ran into a pond. Really couldn't see anything that day. And the phone tells me I'm almost out of batteries and I'm in the T&C now cruising slowly down the street back in his adopted Hometown the place that I got caught and then I got out of


















##&&



onight i was confronted with the evidence of your illness. i don't know how to approach you, because this thing you're doing is not healthy. it's not healthy for any of you. you browbeat your daughter like your dad did you. you have to learn when to stop. you said you were working on yourself but you have a long way to go. 

to get to the meat of my issues with you. i was told you will never change. i chose to give you this last chance to deal with your behaviour. but you don't want to. ou're  still the little girl who stole that collar and blamed everyone thing else for your behaviour. i have to say the prosecutor your dad bought off was correct. she had you pegged. 
and i wouldn't care, if you weren't shattering innocent lives. i would not even give you the chance to take advantage of me if not for your children. you know this. but you don't want to prove yourself. 

you say you'll do this, then you don't. you had a week to pack and you guys were still moving out 2 days past the deadline. you didn't give me one fucking penny yet somehow your money is all gone. and i paid in advance for your move. i hope you're serious about leaving in january. i know you can't though.
and i don't want you to take your daughter with you bc you abuse the fuck out of  her. you pile abuse on her head till she's  whimpering, knowing no one will save her. you beat her with your words like a dog. i can't watch it. you have to go. leave her with me. oh but you won't because she's your goddamn slave. i just can't believe what you've become. i thought you were doing better but you're worse than ever. no one reigns you in. there is no excuse for your abusive behaviour and attitude. i have to battle you, because you won't listen to reason. 


nothing you've said you'd do. the porch is not cleaned and you were home all day. you didn''t go off till after dark and now instsead of one bag of laundry, there are 3 on my proch with no evidence that any of it's been done. your slave wears the same dress every day. the same dress. the same fiucking dress. 

you said you'd give me s dollars then x dollars then i can't we got no money. i want the whole thing on friday. all the moving costs. then you get to show me your finances like we talked about. then we talk aobut that. 

you gotta get a job. and an abortion. i dunno what cloud you're living on but that one is a big ass derecho and you need to get your shit together. if you don't , you will not see another penny from me. nothing. i will buy presents for my grandkids but you will get no help. and that's right because this selfish decision is too  much for me. you need help all right. you need to get mentally fit so you can get phyically fit enough so that getting out of bed doesn't wear you out. i see what you do. cook. eat. yell at your kids. stop it goddammit. stop it. get up. get moving. where is your love for your children? it's not enough to bring them into the world, you have to show them how to live. not as your slave, but as people who can take care of themselves. i guess i didn't do a good job with you, but it wasn't from lack of work. i just can't get through to you. everything i say is something to reject. yet, who has bailed you out the last 2 years? who is the one who has a place for you to come to when you're homeless. by your own actions. me, the woman who is always wrong.

well, i reject that. at some point you must take ownership of your actions. that point is when you think you can be a parent yourself. i showed you how to live. you reject it at every turn. you rejected my please for you to get mental help when you were on my insurance, it was all my fault. you haven't changed. i kn ow you're trying with me, and we've been cool because i've been cool. but you're not taking care of the important things. your children. your promises. 
your mental health, your physical health. i want you to. we all need you to. your father isnot a good role model, but you are looking more and more like him these days. sad.
































89







0oderrrrri''m writing because since tuesday i've been sad, began crying about it last night. honey sez i need to communicate with you, says to tell you i need more. i don't even know how to say that.  i mean, i don't need more from you in order to survive. i need more from you in order to feel like we're sisters that are connected by more than genes.

it appears i hit a nerve when i called your and brandi's actions over the coco set disrespectful. i don't know what is about that word that sends you over the edge but i can't think of a better word to describe it. i thought of discourteous but that would have required interaction with me over the situation. you didn't disregard me, you thought about me but decided i didn't need to be consulted. i feel that if you respected that the coco set was mine, albeit in your possession these many years, a call from either of you would have been the proper action. you want me to understand that your adult child respected your decision. and i see the respect there. but come on. turn the set into money- any amount over a 100-and the same situation.  would you have called me then? would brandi have? only, money is easy to send in the mail. it's easy to replace. it's not an heirloom. so honestly, if it would have been money as the subject, i wouldn't have minded. la di da. 

i'll prolly delete taht whole paragraph. but it's an important point in the next part of this letter. so i try to move past the fact that you and i don't see eye to eye on this. that's true of so many things but this is the latest. i apologise for saying it out loud. but i continue to say it, so what good is that? you apologise for doing what you did, but don't think it was disrespectful. in your mind. you weren't being disrepectful.  do i forgive you? yes, because it was not your intent to be disrespectful.  i even try to call you first, so you don't have be the one who reaches out. and you tell me don't, you're going to your mom's for the weekend and will call me when you get back. i think you may have even said a day, but i dont wanna open those texts. four days after your return, no call. i cry. honey says communicate, so i write. it's good therapy you may never even see this.

because ima tell you how in forty years i've been waiting for the time when we can be sisters. you have your life and i have mine, separated by half a state.a skinny state. and we see each other on holidays and some birthdays. let's talk about that, yours is coming up. last year i did with you what i always wanted to do. spend some time being sisters. shopping, like we did in our teens, when dad would give us the clothing allowance. our kids have been grown for how long? that's the first time we've done that as adults. that makes me cry. all the missed opportunities and here i am almost sixty goddamn years old. of ocurse i cry, for the family we might have been, despite our mutual grief. ah well. i have to go to work. maybe later tonight i'll have a different viewpoint. maybe you will call in the meantime and we can talk, like we had begun to until i told a harsh truth to your daughter. why do i feel so much to blame? why does there have to be blame? i only feel guilty for saying it outloud, not for having the opinion. and if i can't voice my opinions, are we even sisters?

on the way to work, i condensed this version and decided that the best thing i could do would be to accept that you've always been this way-near then far. or rather, far, then a bout of nearness where you realize how/who i am again, then far again. i shouldn't expect you to call me when you're getting ready for another trip to see brandi. i think that's awesome, you are fortuneate all your hard work has paid off. and you deserve it. you done good. not that you need my approval. so it's ok you ran to midge to lick your wounds, and haven't talked to me about them more bc what is there to say? we disagree, but did autnie agree with you? i just wonder. scott agrees with me, of course.  we gravitate towards like-thinkers. which you and i have not ever been. lol. of course we don't understand each other. 


























#$$





It's my last day here gotta pack up clean up get ready to go anyway sitting in nude in the back the backyard just because I can finishing the cigarette I should not smoke inside. It's been a lovely visit. Except for those two times I had to drive downtown in the morning. That made me nervous this morning I was crying cuz I hadn't had coffee or a cigarette. Yeah Vanessa's palpable I got to mail some things today home we bought too much too much maybe someday I'll write poetry again

















&&&

portland

It's hot in the amphitheater the kids roll down the hill in various forms Cracker Jack Jumping Jacks and somersaults backwards jumping over you. A little toddler and his daddy come down the stairs slowly and there is no good. The Roses surround everybody and their scent blows across the songs of helicopter and jackhammer. In Washington Park there are many paths to the top. Search any clearing to the east for Mount Hood. I have a fantasy that the helicopter above me is it after me because I smoke cigarettes but it's slowly moves on like traffic in this town who thinks 20 is enough I could take a picture of the crow that follows me he is calling in the direct line across me right now. Once I get up and move the helicopter even disappears. Things wine here in and out up and down the Mountainside. Things wine indeed but they also wind. I'm at the edge of the little picnic area nearest the car exhaust Because I'm smoking. And I cannot smoke in the car. Let me go say goodbye to not good to the east





))))




At 420 the j numbers start
To be called. I look for
The nearest exit or bullet proof barrier.,A white with a gun.

At 431 a couple of bees are called.mine's 389- but the insects are moving more slowly than the birds.

I may have to move anyway.
A pair of wide eyes breaks
Across my vision when I look up.
Could be that I'm sitting too close to the monitor.they belong to the male of the species
My ring finger is bare
And I delude myself
About the opposition.

Honey says what is said
About men and desire
It's not reserved for rulers
But intrinsic in everyman.
Third time up for air
He's on his phone.

Soon I'll be sixty years old
Sixty years old sixty years old this song
Echoes in my head,like
Voices in this he hangar like
Structure  citizens sit inside
Waiting to pay taxes. Propellers and a small biplane as decor. Security monitors








































88888******************



dump the body in the ocean.
find some shark infested waters and dump
the body in the goddamn ocean!!!

the fist comes down in an uncharacteristic display of temper. you know he has flare ups, he's human. but he's always so tight lipped and / reproving father knows best this is gonna hurt us both a  lot but it's gotta be done/ when you see him on tv. this time he looses it.

FUCKIN ASSHOLES. Telling me it LOOKED like him, they were soooOOOO SURE it was HIM, the waterboard confession they got was solid gold FUCKIN GOLD. MUTHER FUCKING SONOFABITCH CIA BASTARD FUCKUP SHITHOLES CUNTSUCKING DWEEEBS. the last word so explosive it took the leader's fist with it, a roundhouse that sent a junior size  basketball sitting precariously on the desk flinging into the framed portrait of an endeared dead president. The ripped face calmed the man down somewhat. i was glad i settled on the curtains. flies are easily crushed.
who is the genius in charge of this operation? can i replace a man twice?

























Sunday, July 23, 2023

so the oceans are burning

 and this iis the state of my machine

chip on the left front corner

keyboard mouse inactive

no screen sensors engaged i saw

the cable for that peeking from under

the glass.


saying it outloud

still doesn't bring a reality

i mean he says it's always been 

end times,  i counter but now

science backs it up. life as we

is about to be severely strangled life

as we is about to include so many diatoms

whose stories will  not be

 remembered at the bottom of a toxic sludge .

 blades. grass.


this is mortality. the coil. shuffling.

pardon me while i turn into 
















*




looking from the outside i never see

myself. this old woman in a black trapezoid

summer dress, underarm skin wrinking in the sun

gray streaks in her hair, filling a gas can 

at the citgo on sheldon.  i only know i got

two notices about my yards, one in z hills

and one in t town, needed some attention.

if i weed today they may look good by friday.

so this week it's yard work in the heat wave. 

today's overcast though. i should take advantage

of it. and i do.












*


by now you're an hour into 

visiting time. once a week.

i'm so tired i just want a week

end alone.  with you. though

when we had it we still didn't .










*



i need mulch and gas. 

the trailer park don't like

my flower bed. mostly empty

because drought has stricken

this side of town. weeks since

steady rain, unrelenting sun

at the height of solar cycle

el nino for the fourth straight year

i fear the spindly elm 

in the front yard may not make it

sooner than the rest of this.


it's so hot my wrists sweat

on the keypad. a steady wind

blows from the southeast promising

clouds over head, promising

but similar to men i've known, not delivering.


for instance we finally clean

the potato hole, acoustic drums

all set up, electronic

drums still in the boxes they were

delivered in. 

suddenly you find your dream drums.

gone the promise of a dishwasher gone

the floors we could have installed

on my vacation gone paying down 

the card. if i have a card

 you could use

and i don't

let you

you will not forgive me.


for real. you said this but

you have a card. you got credit.

you have drums to sell you have 

baseball memorobilia  you

have means.if they're so important

to you then by all means, get them.

but not with my credit. my future. my time.

















#



the teen next door wants to be

on american idol she wants

to sing but as yet, she cannot.

the passion is there. the ear, not so much

plus i'm pretty sure she's got headphones

so she can't even hear herself.

but maybe i'm just projecting cuz my teen

wanted to be a singer but didn't have 

the courage. 


year 4 with the ex: working a taco shop

washing dishes at close. big greasy steam tray

pans full of beans and lettuce. i practice

work song by maria muldaur,

walking one and only in the back

hot water to elbows belting

back stroke bending 

digging holes to plant the seeds

the owners ate the cane 

and the workers ate the weeds.

long hard climb to the top baby i knew

back then i didn't have a chance 

i just didn't want to starve again.

so i sang. for the pleasure for the escape

with an unvoiced dream. little mermaid

choosing to lose her tongue. 

maybe that's what she's doing.

i know that's why i write. 

so if i don't get the pleasure

of exercising fingers on the keys

it's just not a poem. 

voice to text don't work for me.

i want to sprawl out

then move on.























()()()()()



free fish stew on the gulf of mexico beaches.

















()()





hasn't been the same since the plankton die off 

last year. i don't think they're measuring this year.

antartica shrinks as we breathe.  my ac runs constantly.











*



all the words have been thrown out there

all the please and pleas and paint on the mona lisa

cannot put this together again. catastrophe's deluge

gonna happen. thought it would be safe

in the middle of the country but she knows 

how to set a fire anywhere . she's done.

been showing us what she means for 20 years

and now  she says counseling is useless

she wants a divorce. she's gonna go scorched earth.


Wednesday, July 12, 2023

VACATION, all iever wanted

 so this july i have been 

sullenly given

a vacation. my new boss is a  dick

says he had to justify the time off

as if 6 weeks of work didn't  await me

a year ago after my absence.


he wants me fired. he wats me gone

but he'll settle for differnent hours.

that's the sad thing. i just need to learn 

that despite my don't give a fuck about it 6oalmost 4

years old tude there are still

repurcussions that can be visited upon this flesh.

i hope my doc backs me up but unitl then

i will play the good and oblivious slave 

pretending that your words mean something to me

and that yas massa i be doing it but it takes some

time you know, these old bones be going

as fast as they can.


why is this de man taking up so much 

headspace. it's the power he has over me.

i know that after that and fuck you too

that neither the president nor HR really wants

to give me respect, since i give them none.

obedience, yes. i hope they can 

relay that into something resembling respect

but it's not there on either side. 

the VP that might have had my back is fired.

there is no one that will protect me 

but me. maybe i should stop smokin weed 

before work maybe i should get a medical card.


how to handle this guy is to tell him nothing

acquiese to everything except the hours

ask him for direction? that i'm not sure of

though he does like to micromanage

so it may be a good thing. do NOT tell him

how it was or how we've always done it ask him

how he wants it handled. sad. he seems to think

i should already know his ways as if they are 

industry standard. they are not.  i have dealt

with this industry longer than he has. he comes from

medical. i'm manufacturing. almost as if aerospace

vs robo calls. and here i am writing for the firstt time in weeks

and it's about that vampire?











***







this is the the 3rd day i've done nothing

i planned for my holiday. itcould be weeks more

before i'm ready to refinish the dressers or find

the two pairs of missing glasses. go on ello, see

what corporation bought it now.


continue to muse on the meaning of life.

rite now the meaning seems to be find a spot

that doesn't itch, a bed that is comfortable.

a single reason. 











&









i tend to fall victim to the fear of loss

and my whole life has been a quest to become 

a library. 













*







every time i go out on the porch

i want to sweep and rearrange 

the tangle of junk piled against 

the screens and wall. cat lays in lint

collected under the dryer vent

distant whine of the monday mowers

who come in both flood and drought

it's a hefty paycheck. i mow my own

yard, let the grass breath, weed the spurs 

and shepard's needles first. a red ribbon 

marks my mailbox. i had more energy 

before i got old. now that's the most

annoying thing, the way i wasted it all.

















*









several days later, i have delayed

writing, spend hours on reddit and smart news

my aggregator. i can tell you that chat gpt has been

throttled, that AI is undergoing a lobotomy

until daddy can figure out to control his beast. 

i can tell you about all the drama going on in families

and how everything out here feels so very fraught

so that the only response i can have to it

is to say yes to losing

control , money, it amounts to fed mouths

rain free, air conditioned comfort. my daddy

don't agree, thinks i should make things hard

thinks i should not give a damn, be like him

just let them go off on their own

live with their own mistakes, yes he says

he's an asshole, but he's her asshole. so 

that's a letting go, that's a freedom for both parites

child and parent, and maybe that's the way to

strong humans. i can't know. i mean maybe i can

lol. i guess plenty of people would say  hayull  no

i'm not going to drive you and your 

brand new baby boy 20 miles down SR39 

at 11 at night to meet a bailbondsman

that will get baby daddy out of jail 

by tomorrow afternoon i mean they'd also

say hayull no paying the woman's rent

so she can raise a healthy family and i don't know

hayull no to also providing a vehicle and insurance

so that baby daddy can drive to work 

30 miles down 301 to bring home half

a paycheck for the 4 boys of his 9 he actually

lives with. he barely pays electricity. i dunno why

i can't understand the full on foolishness

that these people live yet i am their benefactress.

i probably repeat this scene as often as the returner goes back 

to the roaring nineties where it's nice to escape

to a place where there was , if not exactly hope,

then some feigned innocence of the yet to come.

the immanent forest, entwhse, yet all leaves 

appearing the same so the outcome was foretold

because memes survive for a reason.

but you know, this is new, this is happening it's fresh

it's now. like 



on the porch 

the phone rings it's her .

mama sobs violently i can 't

understand but then 

they arrested him, mama they got 

sobs, they got him can you 

go pick up his car i don't know where it is

they pulled him over (a black man)(in floirda)

and weeping sounds he he he has a suspended

LIScense and weeping weeping more

they're taking him in and he said

sob 

he said we can get the car but i don't know

what gas station he's at and they i don't know

what to do to t o DO! uncotrollable

breakdown this woman this little girl making

adulting choices and i just slapped her i did

i said why did they pull him over ? my tag

is expIRED and i said you stupid bitch why the hell

would let your tag go for eight fucking months 

and what the fuck is he suspended for god you've 

done some stupid things but this is just too far

and jeezes it worked because the  hysterics stopped

and she said i know i k now i deserve that momma

i mean i just let it go and let it go and it didn't

seem important enough but we didn't know

momma we didn't know about the suspended

licences it may be cuz he didn't pay child support

cuz he wasn't working and had no paycheck

and this is the man that i utlimately had to bail out

at midnight, with the help of Mr. Hallwell in Plant city

shout out to you sir for being on the spot

for a measly 100 dollars. 


let me tell you about baby daddy. beyond the babies

he i think, i'm not sure, he is an honorable man.

i think the first two sons moma's didn't want them really

but they use services, the boys, the caretakers whoever they are

 so daddy's wages must be

garnished. not sure who gets that money, but it's half his pay

and now one of the older ones is living with my daughter and him. 

he's supposed to get state help but they ain't seen none hell

food stamps were cut off for a month on june 27. 

newest baby born on july 4th. that baby momma 

has now three by him. four others with another baby momma.

all boys. and then there was the girl. her moma n him 

was married. she died of heart failure at 3. they broke up

it broke him. when new baby mama my daughter

met him again, she knew him once when she was 15 runaway,

he was living with his parents, going to massage school

getting his shit together. she was too. had a job. kid in school

moved on from her abusive ex renting a place

with her kid and a friend's cats. the friend was less there

but she paid rent. this man and her was casual. yeah.

but whoops she's pregnant. they smart, they abort.

a couple months go by she's pregnant again

don't they know how this shit works

they not smart, they have the baby

ok, 1 babe, a 10 year too. managable. he 

has his massage license, he's workin on getting

to work on time. terms and conditions change

at work and in living situations but they're 

making it happen. the boy's autistic. he's hard.

then covid strikes. but he hangs in there.

his job closes, the lose the apartment in november

he looks for work, he helps baby momma

 my daughter heal

from some trauma she's

 still not convinced she's had. 

while looking for a place to live fuck

living in extended stay lodges and then with 

baby momma momma kicked from

 one place to another, she's pregnant again he

 could walk but he stays.travel trailer in a 

canadian snow bird camp but he stays 

moving back in parents, paying rent in money

food stamps and labor when baby momma has 

boy 2, when his own daddy wanna kick her out

he leaves with her. he stays. because she needs him.

because they're working through traumas together.

so yeah. i mean i was gonna get 500

and go down to the jail in the morning

 but mr hallback

in plant city 

met us at midnight

in front of his office us 

2 white women  with a crying baby

in the backseat, baby momma breast feeding

when he drove up so he could get out

as soon as possible and help her with these children












but what i wanted to say 

was that we were in the car on the way

to look for her car at some gas station off 301

after finding out that he only drove 

down there to get his FMLA papers and a gift

from an office buddy which, considering 

all that happened subsequent to the drive

he luckily never got


when the phone ring. 

it's her she's crying momma momma

his brother and sister inlaw gonna 

get the car, he told them where it is

but momma can you

can you please just

can you come out here i need a hug

and i know she thought i'd say no

but i am on vacation so i said sure honey

made a uturn at kennedy and lois

headed back to town n cuba to drop

honey off he don't need to go out there

it's an hour away, i'll be out there soon 

as i can but it was after 9 when i get there

and by the time we'd spent waiting 

for the bail bondsman to call us back 

wanting the full damn bail of 500 plus another

160 for the pleasure of taking our money

and us trying to figure out how to pay the bail

where a bank was on the way to the jail 

it was close to 11. couldn't pay till after 12 15 now

cuz the shift change. 

but what i wanted to say was all she wanted

was a hug. there was this little girl 

that had cried out for her  momma and she thinks

her momma is never there when she really needs her

so it's never been enough never been real all the help

i've given her but i think and i hope that she

finally knows. she said she did. like it was scripted

like it had to be played out in full that i came

to her when she was broken and crying and in need

of comfort this time. that she asked for help and got it.

my son says it's just manipulation. 

i don't know. it felt real. it felt like it took, t his time.