—I  DON’T LIKE SPIDERS AND SNAKES

 

Blackfin

 

I’m eating Capricorn 

and Sagittarius 

mouth full 

trying not to choke

trying to get my fill 

of romance and bullshit 

satisfied and sanctified

in a single setting 

because there’s nothing 

you can say to 

make me take back 

what you said 

or how you said it

what you did

with your alligator trap

long and wide as a

high-dive board

Words matter 

like the ocean does 

every tide is different 

but the waves all hold 

the same stitch of truth 

like a shelf of filthy flotsam 

bobbing on the surface

Even as a beaten child 

I knew that much 

how the swell 

looks astonishing 

from the golden

safety of the shore

as it slaps then wraps 

you into the undertow 

clenching your chest 

with a vice-grip tenacity 

while your dreams end up 

as air bubbles staggering 

through the liquid murk

slowly breaching the scrim 

where there’s finally sunshine 

a strand of consolation 

and a sprig of reluctant contrition 

 —KISSED MY HEAD AND SAID, “SEE YOU NEXT WEEK.”

 

 

Lamb

 

    I might not have understood it all when on our sixth date you said you were in a cult for four years that all you ate were figs kale and bruised papaya that the leader looked like Moses was called Moses and was never seen not wearing a billowy white robe unless he was fucking one of the girls and that you were his favorite starting at age fourteen staring toward the ceiling coked up on bliss and confusion your sense of reality glossed over by the constant flow of wine you were served how it made you stilted made you think in broken circles about the other world outside the one we’re in now seated at a café while you ask if you’re too defective and hideous if I could ever love a person like that if I’m not scared as hell or if I’m like all the others just wanting to fleece another lamb

—WE ALWAYS WANTED MONEY NOW THE MONEY’S NOT THE SAME

 

 

…“Writing, then, was a substitute for myself: if you don't love me, love my writing & love me for my writing. It is also much more: a way of ordering and reordering the chaos of experience.” Sylvia Plath

 

“Everything, I know dies, but this does not grieve me right now. Because at this moment everything is so brilliantly, almost ridiculously, alive.” Karen Friedland

 

… “It’s amazing what you find out about yourself when you write in the first person about someone very different from you.” Doris Lessing

 

…“At this point I think my body is like an old car. Another dent ain’t gonna make a whole lot of difference. At best it’s a reminder that you’re still alive and lucky as hell. Another tattoo, another thing you did, another place you’ve been.” Anthony Bourdain

 

…“We are always telling two stories about ourselves: the one about who we want to believe we are, and the one about who we know ourselves to be.” Steve Almond.

 

…“ She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice. It was supposed to make you feel something.” Ray Kay

 

… “Don't look for meaning in the words. Listen to the silences.”  Samuel Beckett

 

…“The past I never dead. It’s not even the past.” Faulkner

 

…“Art would be useless if the world were perfect.”  Andrei Tarkovsky

 

…“People confuse me. Food doesn't.” Anthony Bourdain

 

…“I have always loved a window, especially an open one.” Wendell Berry

 

…“ Go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” Kurt Vonnegut 

 

…“Music: what so many sentences aspire to be.” Mary Oliver

 

… I wish I could do whatever I liked behind the curtain of “madness”. Then: I’d arrange flowers, all day long, I’d paint; pain, love and tenderness, I would laugh as much as I feel like at the stupidity of others, and they would all say: “Poor thing, she’s crazy!” (Above all I would laugh at my own stupidity.) I would build my world which while I lived, would be in agreement with all the worlds. The day, or the hour, or the minute that I lived would be mine and everyone else’s - my madness would not be an escape from “reality.”—Frida Kahlo

 

…“I think I am probably in love with silence, that other world. And that I write, in some way, to negotiate seriously with it.”  Jorie Graham

 

…”Perhaps wisdom. . . is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.” Anthony Bourdain

 

… "I made a wish on a sliver of moonlight, a sly grin, and a bowl full of stars." Tom Waits, Lucinda

 

…“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love - whether we call it friendship or family or romance - is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.” James Baldwin

 

… “Look at the birds. Even flying

is born

out of nothing. The first sky

is inside you, open

at either end of day.

The work of wings

was always freedom, fastening

one heart to every falling thing.

– Li-Young Lee

 

…“Isn’t it funny to imagine hope not much more than a toddler, wielding rage in its fist like a cudgel?” Dianne Seuss 

 

--SO WHEN I THINK MY BEND IS GONNA BREAK, I HOLD ON TO BETTER DAYS

  

 

SOMEHOW—    /   Anne Lamott

 

 

Love is territorial, love is anxious and burdened.

 

Curiosity leads to wonder and wonder is a cousin to love. Wonder is why we’re here.

 

Eighty percent of everything that is true and beautiful can be experience on any ten-minute walk. Even in the darkest and most devastating times, love is nearby if you know what to look for.

 

One this is certain: Love is our only hope.

 

The longest twenty inches on Earth are from the brain to the heart.

 

All miracles begin with a hopeless mess or bad news.

 

We are too used to ourselves to notice what amazing creations we are, and not just babies and pro athletes.

 

Courage is fear that has said its prayers 

 

Life delivers the unbelievable so often that you might as well believe.

 

Love can be very scary. In fact, love is actually scary about half the time.

 

The easiest way to get present is to sing, because you can’t move to the next not until you’ve finished the one you’re singing.

 

A lot of things start with hello. 

 

Kindness is how I feel the movement of God.

 

I hate when God does not agree with my excellent ideas.

 

Only inches thick, but what a complex barrier a door can create in your life.

 

Love is why we have hope.

 

—MARY BOONE, MARY BOONE, I’M ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON 

 

… https://nailpolishstories.wordpress.com/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR05FtEwM9vsJVfyvjjxy6NY5Gf3fRQWC1h71-2lJmt2B9BmNLHz9QoZcxs_aem_AdlGodweYczWAa9nchPemrN2nKKGJYUy91g_2u6-KF2UXIvFk9lEqI5Wleaz_8VaybRMjKWeRFG2pa7NE8PSv7RO

 

…Now might be a good time to turn on the lights.

 

…Hey, Friday, I’m glad we made up. Let’s be teenagers, kiss and hug, and not talk a bit about it.

 

…Maybe happiness is just a fuge state of mind.

 

…I haven’t written this much in 40 years, or like, for forever.

 

…Death could be a prompt. At least, then it’s good for something other than misery.

 

…My life feels like a heart monitor with the sound turned off.

 

…You have to realize that I just vent here. I’m otherwise, generally, a hopeful person.

 

…You can do what you’re doing, but I’m just going to watch the dogs leap into the water.

 

…I don’t begrudge anyone making money, but there’s something wrong with this: “Netflix’s Ted Sarandos 2023 Pay Dips to $49.8 million.” And this: “Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s 2023 Compensation Rises 23% to Nearly $50 Million.”

 

…I’ve seen the Ant-Christ, and I recognize his slouch.

 

…There’s nothing you could do to make me love you less.

 

…All of those fancy jackets, hanging in the hall like Senators, they mean nothing at all. 

 

…You think of your closet friends, when you’re caught in a tight space, but some of those cervices, well, dude, you’re never getting out of that jam no matter how hard you struggle.

 

…One of my best friends is a juggler. He takes it seriously and, by all accounts, is accomplished.  I wish I could catch half of the things he does.

 

…Sometimes, if you’re brave enough, you share your writing with others, not wanting any feedback, necessarily. But if it scared them, well, maybe you’ve dug into the right place.

 

...Pleasure is such an obscure word. Could you explain it to me?

 

…It’s really good to have a place to hang your head, even if it’s on the tracks, or on a platter.

 

…Isn’t sadness a form of beauty, too?

 

...If you’re looking for answers here, well, Good luck, Chuck.

 

…I think I’m almost through with it. Of course, I’ve said that a thousand times already, haven’t I? 

 

…Just hug the ones you love, even if you have no words at the time.

 

…One of these days I’ll write a happy ending and it’ll be a joke that no one gets.

 

…II suppose that guy in camo paddling down the lake right now has something profound to teach me. I sure hope so.

 

…I’ve edited the F*#@+ out of this post.

 

…Anyway, let’s all have a fabulous weekend, what do you say?

 

—I KNOW THAT WALLS FALL, SHACKS SHAKE, BRIDGES BURN AND BODIES BREAK

 

Match Fire

 

In the trailer

Mother always made sure

we were chilled eyesores

our hollow bones rattling around 

like dull castanets from

the deep freeze

So we turned to fire for a fix

first tossing matches at one another

moving onto Molotov cocktails

torches blowtorches and 

eventually flamethrowers 

where our aim improved

We singed and melted

like ripe gargoyles

all of us putty brothers with

no more time for fist fights 

or bloodletting

us just a pile of flat sludge 

oozing through the door seam

painting each step with 

the triumph of warmth and

our shared obituaries  

—IN A QUIET MOMENT AT THE THEATER, I COULD HEAR THE TRAIN  

 

 

…It’s easy to see the beginning of things but a lot harder to see the ends.

 

…Should you apologize for not expressing more grief? Maybe, but not if it’s not eating you inside out, stealing your words and taking your breath away.

 

…My watch is like, “Take a 20 minute walk” and I’m like, “No, you fucking take a 20 minute walk.”

 

…What kind of guy gets chippy with their watch? Oh, yeah.

 

…When you’re young, you do so many things to be noticed, but when you’re older you think about how silly and artificial you were, how being noticed doesn’t matter at all in the end.

 

…Slide to release.

 

…Sometimes it’s easier to put off the people you love rather than tell them the real story.

 

…When people die, you learn a lot about the character of others. 

 

…I’ve been reading Steve Almond’s new craft book (which is excellent) where he implores writers to write about their obsessions, but it feels like I’ve doing that waaayyyyyy too much.

 

…So far, as I’m writing this, it’s my third straight day without crying. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, or whether I should be ashamed.

 

…Thanks so much for asking. Oh wait, you didn’t.

 

…If you don’t learn to adjust, you learn to die.

 

…You can write something and it doesn’t mean anything at all to you, then you can write something else and it means everything.

 

…You can only pluck so many grey lashes from your eyebrows until you have none left.

 

…The worst out is number three.

 

…Seems like the only thing that grows on me anymore are my fingernails—pale and striated.

 

…Our first Christmas!

 

…The burden of hope is really all we have.

 

…Silence is deadly. It makes you consider any number of things.

 

…“I think I got a little mushroom in my eye.”

 

…When it’s late and you’ve got nothing else going on, it’s always a good call to play “Too Much Heaven” or else “Nightswimming.”

 

…I still hear John every day, like he’s still alive saying, “Doesn’t it feel like you were born for this?”

 

…We laugh to keep from wallowing. And sometimes that’s enough. 

 

…“You should try suicide. It works!”

 

…I don’t have a lot of answers, but I sure as hell have a lot of questions.

 

…It’s all fiction, unless you don’t want it to be.

 

…I’d like to think I’m the kind of person who can laugh at himself, but it’s been a while since that’s happened.

 

…It doesn’t make sense—where are all of the boats?

 

…What’s with all these ads for apps that let you track your sleep? Most of the time I’d rather forget what I’m dreaming about. 

 

…On a walk the other day right here on Wonderland Road, four deer flew by me on my left, the very picture of grace in motion.

 

…It’s really something to see this dog run across the dock, plunge into the lake, then grab that water toy. Pure entertainment. I could watch him all day.

 

…They say the hardest thing to do in sports is to hit a baseball, and yet there are a number of successful switch-hitters.  

 

…It may not seem like it, but I’m always looking at you.

 

...God, if I could just be…

 

…I’ll probably still be here next week, moaning over the same things.  

 

…It’s near the end, but I’ve still got a long ways to go. 

 

 

—I WISH I’D STAYED ASLEEP TODAY

 

 

Trafficked

 

Pose. Just pose and don’t think about the sun glare or the moon going down later or the noise down the hall that sounds like shattered crystal. Pose and pull a second button free, puff out your chest some more, inhale and hold it. Pose on.

She listens like a mantis, moving her limbs the way he tells her to, camera clicking. It’s either that or a cellar without sunshine or moonglow, nothing but critters scurrying, sometimes across her bare toes.

She is almost naked in the next session, but for the baseball jersey pulled down between her spread thighs, fists holding the cloth together.

 

—OVER AND OVER, AGAIN AND AGAIN

 

 

Earth Angel

 

She sits 

on a mantle 

boxed but free 

to roam through 

all the rooms 

she once lived in 

petting the cat 

watching deer 

stroll the lawn 

cuddling next to 

her husband 

who can’t see 

or feel her 

and it’s enough 

to be here 

to be present 

in the moment 

noticing how loved

she was 

how many 

miss her this much

and always will 

YOUR’E THE AUTHOR OF EVERYTHING

 

 

…Hey, Monday. Take it easy on me, please. I still feel tender.

 

…What do you think? Let’s just do this, see if it makes us cry or smile, feel less, or more than.

 

…Pain is good for something—it reminds us that we’re alive. (Like I need a reminder.)

 

…Those birds must think I’m awfully wacky, walking in circles around the house at 3 am, lights out, shadows everywhere.

 

…It’s probably a good idea to exhale once and a while. I just have to remind myself of that. 

 

…I don’t really think it’s true at all—that misery loves company. Misery really just loves itself, and wants to wallow.

 

…I kind of want to hide today. Find a hole. Find a blanket. And get covered up.

 

…Everyone looks so happy. I’m glad.

 

…Don’t be a baby.

 

…Imagination is the key. When you can’t smell anything, you have to imagine what your food tastes like. You have to rely on memory, or make it all up as you go along.

 

…I never thought I’d be here.

 

…I bragged about not being angry a while ago, but since then, I’ve been plenty angry. 

 

…I’m not sure if social media is supposed to inspire you, or make you want to kill yourself.

 

…Dogs. Puppies. Deer. Those are all good things we could use more of.

 

…I’ll try again, harder this time.

 

…It’s hard to know if this dome is Heaven, or a prison.

 

…I wonder if I’m the only one who ever feels this way.

 

…Poetry is so irrational. Most times it only makes sense to the person who, for whatever reason, wrote it.

 

…I don’t always agree with my friends, but if they give a fuck, I’ll listen as objectively as I can.

 

…My father in-law recently asked me if I was ever in the military. Wait, what? That caught me off guard. He may still have been in shock over the death of his wife, my mother. So, I opened up my coat and shook it, said, “Look at me. What do you think? What military would possibly have me?”

 

…It might only take an hour, two hours, to change the whole trajectory of your life. You never know.

 

…Today I wanted to flip off God, but I couldn’t do it. I saw Him looking at me like I was a petulant child, and I got scared.

 

…Someday I’ll write the perfect poem, and I’ll send it to you.  

 

…I was advised to listen to “Bang on the Drum,” which is funny because I remember hearing that with my daughter when she was 14 or so, and I kept asking her if she knew what the song meant, and then toward the end she screamed, “I GET IT NOW!”  

 

…Isn’t music one of the best things ever?

 

…The other day, I looked down and there were bright sprockets of rich blood smeared all over my carpet. Evidentially, I’d stepped on a piece of glass that became imbedded in my heel. It’s amazing what you can, and can’t feel.

 

…I don’t need any more advice, but instructions for living, I’ll take that.

 

…Benjamin Braddock’s got nothing on me, in the moment.

 

…I learned a lot more about listening better today. Sometimes you want people to blast things out clearly, but speaking softly and kindly is way more effective. 

 

…A lot of times social media seems like such puffery, and total bullshit.

 

…This might take a million years. And so what, if it does?

 

…I wasn’t going to cry today. I mean, I wasn’t.

 

…The longest intro to a song has to be, “Pictures of You.” Robert looks incredibly awkward standing there all stiff in the fake snow like a totem, but it’s a pretty fucking great song, nonetheless.  

 

…Everything’s ready. The only thing I’m missing is people.

 

…Being an outsider is okay so long as you don’t take anything personally. Otherwise, it gets awfully messy.

 

…I think Robert Smith and I could be best friends, if we had the chance.

 

…Same with Chris Cornell, if he was still alive.

 

…“Who wouldn’t want to imagine that life might take shape, have a formula? That the years didn’t just pass through you?” Emma Cline

 

…There’s something in my heel that keeps bleeding. Maybe my heart has moved. I haven’t seen it lately.

 

...Down south, that’s where I’d like to be right now.

 

…Monday only sucks if you have a job, and if you remember what day it is.

 

…Generally speaking, most guys are bad guys. Watch out.

 

…I wrote a lot of nonsensical stuff early this morning while you were still sleeping. I hope your dreams were better than mine.

 

…“I got into an argument with a nun,” is something I texted myself, but I’ve still not written that piece yet.

 

…I don’t think I’ve ever met an actual nun.

 

…I could use a snowball fight right now. “Let it rip.”

 

…Cathy and Go Go… Now there’s a story, or two. I mean, who has calves for pets?

 

…There’s nothing you can say that hasn’t already been said, but you can say it differently, in your own way, with your unique voice. Remember that.

 

…I almost made it through Saturday without crying. Almost…

 

…Swing! And a miss!

 

…Don’t mind me. I just stumbling around, looking desperately for the Architecture Building.

 

...Oh, boy.

 

…Pour me a short one, and then we’ll puck, once my fingers finally stop shaking, and I’ll try really, really hard not to hit you.

 

…Why you gotta be?

 

…I know there’s some joy around here somewhere, I just can’t remember where I left it.

 

…I’ve got to get ahead while I still can. 

 

…I should probably take a nap while I still can.

 

…I’m taking one now