a portrait of wind

 the drama in the sky this morning moves east. i love it when

 i'm driving down the side

road out to the light and the gulls that roost on the pond 

near sheldon take explode like quarks into the clouds

clicking dishes and other ways to travel

 somewhere i read that someone's

relative walked out of a screening

of monty python's holy grail because

of the coconuts.  absurdity

is not appreciated enough

last night i had a vision of rewriting

something and i don't remember what that was

by using this poet's whose name i cannot recall

method of metaphor, simile, and concatenation of terms

i think we call them mixed metaphors like inky ischemias

though those aren't really mixed i am shooting for

improbables. i told bed to not panic

because that's what douglas adams said

cuz we are all just hitchhiking on the sun

thru the vast inscrutable cosmos so that little 

trip you're on will end soon enough.

i waxed on the probable existence of the heart of gold

because what's happening in america what

with the president being a despot and a

wannabe banana republic head of state

is proof that someone's invented 

the improbability drive after all but then

i think about history and realize that this is what

the entire history of our country is about and that

of course, when the wealth has aggragated to the few

that a despot would be installed to dictate.

so , not so improbable after all.

the united states as an empire is fulfilling

its destiny and crumbling into dust

because the rulers have become insane,

****

my sister told me her husband 

sat down and told her i know

that i have dementia, i want you

to get rid of the guns.

this man has been in denial for 7 years

so this was BIG. i am so happy for her

and hope that he remembers the moment 

and not only for the fact that i can 

pick up a nice semi auto and tons of ammo

for a song. i said sell me one. she said sure

what do you want, like, a handgun?

o no, i want the biggest baddest

she said what for

to stand out on the end

of my driveway when the military

police go by or maybe i can join

the black panthers i dunno but now

that they're trying to take my liberal ass's 

second ammendment rights away i 

think i want to put a leash on it and give it

some excercise.

***

i sat by the fire crying about this

i sat by the fire greiving my country

that would not have taken a five year old boy

in a knitted bunny hat away from his mommy but

then ii remembered the japanese interment camps

and trail of tears and realize that this is exactlty

my country both now and then.

that any other appearance was simply wolves

wearing forks to the dinner table. soon enough

they break out the full what lovely teeth you have

and then it's servants and guests on the menu again.

no other empire has had its downfall broadcast 

to the world, who watches in both amusement

and horror,  bewildered by the citizen's own slow

bewilderment. we haven't really faced this before

even our most honored dictator listened to courts

didn't he? i don't even know. i mean, world war 2

japanese interment camps, were they not considered

a breach of the fourth when they took those citizens

and robbed them of their property and possesssions

because they were ancestrally japanese? yeah, infamy alright

already and this IS my country, to the highest degree

when the violated rights of the minorities

become the violated rights of all.

equality acheived at last!

*

we are living in the conclustion of the maxim

first they came for

*

people in the frozen streets 

of minnesota are not hungry homeless poor

they are the middle class the missing

class i almost wrote then changed then 

wished i had not changed because

the middle class are vanishing before our feeds.

say goodbye to home ownership or really

any ownership at all the closest will be \

sharecropping on the platform of the month

and making the most of your fifteen minutes did you see

where apple is so hungry they're gonna take a % of patreon 

donations? i mean i can understand, they have to make

a bottom line that's higher than the last one which was higher

than the one before and all the turtle way down 

which only serves to exemplify that increasing numbers

every quarter is a cancerous model and won't someone

thiink of the children?

*(*(*(*(

all of this and romance is dead 

()

the stitch in my side has returned

it could be i'm not getting enough

fiber or it could be i'm not getting enough

positivity. if i dream of tornadoes it's over

becuase even though i write it all out of me

it creeps back in because of the never ending 

pile of laundry and stacks of dishes in the sink

broadcasting the existence of something i've

outgrown ten years ago. tykes and yikes

i still cherish the times i can have alone

because you turned into 2.

)(

so i try the remote once more

clicking like the 70s thru a limited rota

and settle on the channel with static

i could be anywhere in that snow

 visions materialize like superstrings

then dissolve into the white and black matrix.

and i, observing, witnessing, pretending

they happen to someone else.

the fear is real

 dear love

i can't i'm

afraid to ask it outloud

but why do i feel like

i'm a placeholder?

no no it's that i don't know

how to communicate what i want to 

to you. we've come to an impasse

composed of silence and resentment

at least on my part.

you seem to be obsessed  with your 

own problems which do not include me
but i wonder how you'd react 

to me cheating? i wonder if that

would interest you? i'm not

interested in cheating and for

all the reasons why you can 

just say men.

so that is not an avenue

open for me to use

to try to get thru to you.

tho i understand how

some justify being serials

the personal shame of betraying

someone you once loved

is too much for me to do it again.

it may be why some ppl flirt to create jealousy

 to feel as if their partner cares

about what they do.

  

all of my sadness centers

around this silence

this deferment of a conversation

about the health of our relationship

you will listen to me talk about

how you treat your child with a degree

of acceptance that you will not apply to

my critique of your treatment of me.

i'm calling it critique so you might

look at it from the outside

as you know my comments on your parenting

are based on evidence from reality 

observed by a third party. 

because i have clearly declined

 responsibility for this  child

(point for the minus category)

though present for the raising of

my opinions can be considered valid.

but when it comes to you and i?

apparently my point of view 

is wrong. so many statements

met with contradiction. requests

met with procrastinations-in -perpetuity.

critiques taken for attacks. 

recently you thought i wanted to kill 

you because i was talking to you

with a knife in my hand.

we were in the kitchen, preparing

dinner.  misunderstandings  

left punched, right hooked

 us into a semblance of sensible

we talked for a moment

when i became me again

instead of your ex.

* 

but what if that's what i'm about to be?

if we can't talk then why are we together.

i'm sure you think we talk because 

you never quit.

let me outline my issues

i know i keep you amused

but i feel i'm being used

you drive 3 hours for work.

you could have a job close  in town

and make as much but you can't do research

and you'd have to deal with real children

a lot of them all day

so you drive 3 hours for work.

but you have a child that can't be at school

before the traffic gets bad and you have to get

child ready for school tho he's old enough

to do it himself and you have to pack a lunch

though he can and will eat the uncrustables

from school lunch and LOVE them

and you must take a shower shit and shave

everyday but tuesdays plus you make 

bacon eggs for him everyday and coffee

and you wonder why you look so haggard

like some single mom like the his mother should look

but you won't give yourself a break on any of these fronts

they must be done exactly as you desire so you do them.

and that's just your morning routine.

every once in a while something goes really wrong

and you call on me to help you because i'm 

in your village. and every time i want to say no.

but i've capitulated because it's what partners do

and now i'm in charge of getting him to do

him english homework because i'm a poet.

i also threw his birthday party on xmas day

and made sure he had company 

as well as presents.

that was me. and i don't even remember 

that you said "thanks". to be fair

you had 4 broken ribs and were 4 days

out of the hospital with a possibly still leaking

lung. so i didn't expect you to be able to do that

but a heartfelt thank you would have been nice

and i don't feel like you said that,

maybe that's on me though. 

maybe i can't hear you anymore.

all i hear is your complaining.

today i told you please

go back to making weed your whole personality

because this obsession with your accident

is wearing real thin. you didn't know what i was

talking about. you said it's not true. you told me

about the pain you're in and how i seem to not believe it.

as if you don't remember how you were

when my arm was broken. we both forgot

the things i couldn't do.

so honestly, i don't know your limitations

but when you tell me, maybe twice, i respect them

and try to accomodate. cuz that's what partners do.

for instance you asked to me leave the toilet lid up

because it  hurt to bend down so i make it a point

to not forget.  you can't take the garbage out 

of the can, shouldn't lift anything really but

certainly no more than 10 lbs. so i have to remember

garbage days now.

but you still leave your laundry in the laundry room

after 5 years of begging pleading and anger

and i have given up and joined you in your sloth.

are there dishes in the sink 

that you left from making breakfast?

3 days worth?

i rinse my bowl and spoon, i rinse my cup

i wipe the counter

i ignore the dishes tho sometimes on saturdays

i'll do whatever remains of your piecemeal cleaning

because the floor should be swept and mopped

and least once a month.

i'm already weary of this.

writing it out has me wondering

which of us is wrong? 

compatibility doesn't have right or wrong.

i feel like when we were a childless couple

we were compatible but that's probably

nostalgia rose coloring. 

i mean you were always a hoarder

and i can't say that you'd be any more

on the ball about reducing your hoard

if you didn't have all the extra curriculars

and homework to keep up with. 

you'd probably just spend more time

aquiring more.

i have a hoard. letters from the seventies

from friends and mom. i have boxes of

high school drawings when i thought i could be 

a visual artist, young girl writings and journals

high school yearbooks. some stuff from all the dead

ancestors that i haven't relinquished.

sometimes i want to burn them all in dad's chiminea

but i still cling to the past as if that confirms a path

to now.  so i understand hoarding in theory,

but to collect things that have no personal memories?

to buy stock for a purpose and then let it rust/

to say you're going to recycle down to stripping

the plastic jacket from wires, then spend the day

smoking and scrolling weed sites for bargains

because the feds are making this illegal again so 

you gotta stock up with credit you want me to give you/

this kind of hoarding is a sickness

that i can't cure nor really want to live with so

what do?

you aren't going to change. and i don't love this about you

and i don't love being a live in grandparent

and i don't love how everything i say is contradicted, invalidated

or googled. what, exactly, is it that you love about me 
that is not related to sex. and if it's only sex then we are in trouble

cuz you know why. 

it's not that either of us are wrong

and you have changed your outlook

and i have changed my mask

to just ignore the ways you ignore

and decide that we're 

what, 

more than roommates

but less than lovers

we can be friends with occasional

benefits. nah, that sucks

what sucks is how your hands

can still take away my pain

and i can still take away yours

and we don't do that anymore.

because i can't talk to you

because i'm afraid of how you'll respond

and then i'll have to make a decision

and give up on the possible

because you will not 

 

writing into the void

 because the past has become the now

blog lipids cover the internet a glimpse

into a trend that died years ago. go feast

on the past but this is the actual 

now still being documented

because long ago i gave up the dream of writing 

as a living. i don't have the glands for it.

it's too consuming. it takes a lot of energy

away from life. which consists more and more

of simply survival. that's everywhere, i even see

what's left of the middle class awakening.

)(

i watch this dictator 

in disbelief that this country

can not oust him legally

because whatever checks and balances

existed only in the co operation of the operatives.

since the justice dept belongs to the administration

and the military is headed by this abomination

of a leader, there is no legal way to oust him

because who is going to arrest him? THe head of the justice dept?

a lackey. the head of the fbi? a toady. the secretaries of war,

treasury, state? treasonous cowards or treasonous bullies. sometimes

both.  They know what's coming midterms and they're scared.

which means they'll rig the elections again. look for the nazi trillionaire

to get all buddy buddy by march. look at the dollars funneled

to swing districts. voting machines can be manipulated.

they will do it.

can they do enough to save themselves? watch closely.

it's going on at this moment. but my hope is that

people like my co worker and my sister (not her husband

he's lost), although being republican to the core

will just sit midterms out. becuase they don't like what's happening

and the fact they have to justify their support for this 

war mongering,  imperialistic war dog, who has and will

continue to use his military to attack the citizens of this country

is a li'l bit more than they can swallow.

willl he get away with it? who knows? he's gotten away with everything else.

back the future 2 was simply a documentary. biff won.

dammit professor, get back the past and change this timeline.

some people say the simpsons foretold this.

those who don't learn from history et cetera.

it's disapointing but no longer surprising.

yet my mouth is a fly trap 

with every new statement as in

how does he keep getting away with this.

ignore the evidence of your eyes and ears.

i want to scream at his supporters

look out for the snake

but they just see a rope 

with each constriction the snake steals

clarity, hypnotically convincing

the prey that this union 

is what they've been seeking.

look it says

i'm just a rope

with which to hang your enemies.

*

it's easier to rail against the things macro

that i cannot change rather than examine

the things micro that i should be able to

change. like leaving a situation that

seems doomed anyway. 

i love you but i don't like you right now

becuase of the things. 

i don't need to repeat them they 

haven't changed. they won't

unless i do something about them. 

but i can't stand your whining

about them. how that scrap must

be kept how  this one was going 

to be the treasure that etsies

you into comfort. yeesh

you have a year's worth of inventory

to unload. maybe 3. if you didn't have that

permanent ban from ebay you might 

make a living selling it.

but whatever. 

it makes me weary to reiterate

all the ways you disrespect

me and my desires. 

so i guess that means i'm done for the day.

merry xmas to me

 so i got a new mouse and keyboard

light green, raised keys. and already i feel like

i'm writing better because this is the way it's 

supposed to feel. +

i can sit back in my chair with my new

warby parker ninety  five dollah glasses

mid range vision.  oops nope these

are the 250 progressives from 2 years ago

i've bent and sat on so  many times

they really don't fit my face but i'm used to them

they're my driving glasses at night cuz the warbys

blur things at distance, which is fine during the day

but i don't want to hit a car cuz i can't judge distance.

i know this is blech but it's what i'm thinking

as the key makes the words flow and i don't 

think i'm the don with a wonderful 

enchanting best ever story so it's 

not so much ego as wow what ease

what sweet typing heaven i've come into

funny what a new keyboard will do for you

when it's a perfect fit.

now i think i'll go do something else. decorate a tree

buy a gallon of paint maybe go to sleep cuz damn

i'm worn . thanks for the keys!

love language

 mine seems to be 

fixing it. no matter

what the prob, i try to find a way

to fix it. this time i can't fis

four broken ribs and hole in your lung

but i till think i can fix

how you speak to me and treat

my requests. demands. whatever.

i don't like it when you speak to me

like i'm your son. i'm not the one.

you want me to listen to you

"for once in your life". but that's ok

i almost called you my ex's name again.

not to your face, just in reference. the funny thing is

i've been saying the same about you. you don't listen to me.

when did we stop?

it took a lot for me to not just walk out

when you said that, to not break down in tears

which in my case would be letting one escape.

i don't want to be in this space, this interstice of air

and flesh. push harder, get it all out. 

instead some more stuff inside died. a captulation

to so-this-is-how-it's-going-to-be.

i won't do Fred again. i can't. 

"tell me what you hate about me

whatever it is i'm sorry

i know i can be dramatic

everybody said we had it 

made...

sometimes even good things fall apart"

it isn't you, it's me.

i think you were always this way

i didn't notice because i was so beat 

down. years of him saying no one else

would ever want you. and i stayed because

i was young annd weak. but now i'm old

and strong or maybe just tired of bearing

the weight so i prolly have that backwards i was

young and strong enough to endure the pain

but these last days have drained me. the broken arm

for which you take no cupability. 

the 6 month old mess in our yard

the laundry still hanging all week long even tho

you just put it there yesterday. the refusal 

to use your available housing during the pandemic

the neglect by you of  mine

whille yours lives with us.  asking me

to credit fund your latest collecting obsession

cuz i offered to credit fund your car's repair

instead you drive my dead dad's truck 

for the price of half the insurance.

thank you for:

cooking every night

{even though lately i've been getting my own

because frankly i can't wait for to you stop

smoking and relaxing cuz i don't eat all day

and a bowl of frosted mini wheats sounds perfect

right about now}

taking out the garbage faithfully every time.

paying the lot rent.

buying all our addictions.

finding me desirable even 

when i dont' want to be anything like that i want

to embrace my old crotchety self.

last night i stopped at ichekai for dinner

i asked for a bowl of soup and a menu 

to go. took off my glasses to study it

and the gang of guys behind the sushi bar

were jokin with the bald guy "i can't wait

to get old and cranky" and they said it a couple of times

maybe even in reference to me but i dunno

i'm not paranoid that way and i said loudly

noooooo it hurts!

you don't want that, it hurts!

and everybody clapped 

only i dont' know what they must have thought

so later

after i finish my soup and order

and put my glasses back on i look over to the bald guy

and say there! now i can hear again.

i pretend i'm invisible when i take my glasses off

so i tune everything out. 

he tells me about his vision check.

i nod. it's all mixed up 

the day after but i was typically nerdy

being by myself but the reason i 

went in to order at the counter instead of waiting

in the car in the parking lot and ordering online

was to prove to myself that i could 

go out to eat alone.

even though i was taking home

the bulk. also because i sat

at the counter and consumed soup

i left a 20% tip. i feel like

that proves my point. i can do it.

still i'll probably get take out.

****

i gotta pay some medical bills today,'

shrink my retirement fund a li'l more.

((  

*

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.