--HERE’S NOT HERE

…Yesterday I got three rejections by 10:00 in the morning.  I was figuring that after having had almost 850 pieces published, for every one published probably five others are rejected, so in total over the last six years I’ve been rejected 4,250 times.

That’s a lot of No’s.

Rejection doesn’t usually bother me.  It’s part of the business and yesterday it didn’t bother me either.  One of the rejections was one of the nicer replies I’ve received.  Usually they just send a form letter.

Anyway…

…I got new music yesterday.  I haven’t bought music in a long time.

Here’s what came:

Sam Hunt

Tame Impala

Ex Cops

Madlib

And Ryan Adams doing a cover of Taylor Swift’s entire “1989” album.

I’m excited to get to it all.  You can only listen to Daws for a few thousand times before even they start to get tiring.

…Tomorrow I’m going to my daughter’s 5^th grade class again.  I’m going to read a story I wrote about them and their teacher.  It’s kind of potty mouth humor, but I think they’ll like it.  Hope so anyway.

Here it is:

  A Case of Something Very, Very Bad

            Mr. Arthur did not sleep well.  No, he certainly did not.  Prior to bed time, he’d found himself a bachelor, his wife having been out of town, which meant Mr. Arthur had to fend for himself, which meant he either had to go out for dinner or else make a meal for himself, something he loathed because Mr. Arthur enjoyed cooking about as much as doing time in prison. 

He opened the fridge and found a bowl of left over hamburger that was gray-colored and resembled dog food.  It even smelled a bit like dog food, or maybe dog poo.  Still he was starving and so Mr. Arthur fried the dingy-looking hamburger up in a pan and melted cheese over the top, got a plate from the cupboard, added some chips and had himself a fairly large portion of nachos, pausing to burp in between bites.

            In bed that night the nachos went to work, causing his stomach to tighten and cramp.  It felt like some kind of hideous monster was trapped inside his gut, trying to claw its way out with sharp fingernails.  He didn’t sleep.  He threw up twice.  He had the worst case of gas in the history of people having gas, a fireworks show constantly going off in his underwear.

            The next morning, he considered calling in sick but it was the last day of school, which also meant it was Ms. Kuntz’s last day in his classroom, and it seemed to Mr. Arthur that missing Ms. Kuntz’s final day would be insulting, and besides Mr. Arthur rather liked Ms. Kuntz.

            So he showered and dressed and threw up again and drove to school, his gut still twisting, hoping he wouldn’t have an accident in his shorts.

            On the drive a fluffy looking squirrel darted across the road in front of Mr. Arthur and he had to swerve to avoid running over the pesky little thing.  Doing so meant he inadvertently crossed into the opposite lane for a moment, but there weren’t any on-coming cars, and so Mr. Arthur felt relieved until he saw blue and red lights in his rearview mirror, then heard the sound of a siren.

            He tried to explain to the cop about the squirrel, how that had been the reason for his reckless driving, but the police officer didn’t seem to care and instead he gave Mr. Arthur a ticket for $135.  Plus, in Mr. Arthur’s haste to get to school, he’d forgotten to put on his seat belt, so the cop gave Mr. Arthur an additional ticket costing $124.

            It wasn’t even 9:00 by the time Mr. Arthur finally got to school and the morning had already cost him over $250, not to mention all the vomiting and really disgusting diarrhea he’d suffered through. 

            As usual, Ms. Kuntz was there already, perky and happy to see Mr. Arthur.  In turn, Mr. Arthur did his best to appear excited to see Ms. Kuntz, but his stomach was gurgling like a sick baby and he felt the diarrhea coming on again, so he darted down the hall to the restroom, hoping to make it to a stall on time.

            This was really a bad case of something.

            “Stupid nachos,” Mr. Arthur said to his reflection in the restroom mirror.  “I’m never eating nachos again for the rest of my life.”

            In the mirror he saw that his skin had turned a dull shade of green, like pond scum, a skin tone similar to Shrek’s.  There were circles under his eyes and he was sweating so bad huge wet rings lined the armpits of his shirt.

            Back at class, the kids trundled in one by one---Ashley, Jack and Callie, who liked fantasy and Lord of the Rings, Alia whose favorite place was Paris, “Bay-Jay” Cooper, Harmony with her My Little Pony bag, Katie and Jillian, who would rather not be at school at all, Hannah who loved fashion and architecture, Galen, Ryoko and Ivana.  Phillip was playing with a Rubik’s cube, Damian was sorting Pokemon cards, Nate was tossing a ball, Amelia was dreaming of horses, Ania was eavesdropping on Harmony, Adis was punching Cooper on the arm, David had his nose stuck in a book, Angel and Nate were talking about how much they love the Seahawks while Levi was saying he hated the Seahawks but loves the Steelers, Kelsey was wearing pink, her favorite color, Elise was singing softly to herself while dreaming of becoming an actress, Ava was thinking the same thing, Lindsey was doodling pictures of cats, while Shaheer was drawing a picture of everyone doing what they were doing.

            Ms. Kuntz turned to Mr. Arthur, saying, “You don’t look so hot,” to which Mr. Arthur burped up a little cloud of souring smelling nachos.

            In unison, the whole class went, “Ewww!”

            Ms. Kuntz recommended that Mr. Arthur go home and stay in bed, or see the school nurse but Mr. Arthur said it was important for him to be present on Ms. Kuntz’s last day.

            “Okay,” Ms. Kuntz said, “but just don’t throw up on anyone, including yourself.”

            It was a long day for Mr. Arthur who spent many a time zipping to the restroom in the nick of time.

            Toward the end of the afternoon, a visitor arrived with a bottle of pink Pepto Bismal.

            “Have a swig of this,” the visitor said, “and you’ll be like new in no time.”

            Mr. Arthur was desperate, so he drank the gluey pink stuff and waited for the evil nacho mess inside his gut to surrender.

            Soon enough Mr. Arthur did feel better, though he was still sweaty, smelly and bit gray-colored around his face.

            He got in front of the class and thanked Ms. Kuntz and the kids applauded and asked Ms. Kuntz to sing for them and she did, singing a Rhianna song and swaying around like she was blind or a crazy person while everyone cheered.

            A little after that Mr. Arthur’s phone rang.  It was his wife, who was back from her trip earlier than expected.

            “Come home, Gary, I’ve missed you,” she said.

            “All right,” Mr. Arthur said.  “I’ll be there in a jiff.”

            “By the way,” Mrs. Arthur said, “what did you do with the kitty litter in the fridge?”

Mr. Arthur’s eyes bugged out.  “Kitty litter!  Kitty litter?!  Who puts kitty litter in the fridge?!”

“Well,” Mrs. Arthur said, “I knew you wouldn’t take out the garbage while I was gone, and I didn’t want to smell the house up.  I wanted you to have a nice, relaxing time.”

Mr. Arthur wiped his forehead which was still sweating slightly.  “Oh, I did have a nice time.  In fact, I had a wonderful time.  I made my own dinner, watched The Simpsons and had the most restful sleep ever,” Mr. Arthur said, trying to make the image of the   kitty litter nachos disappear.  “But next time you leave,” Mr. Arthur told his wife, “I think I’ll order pizza.”

--I HAVE BEEN A FOOL FOR LESSER THINGS

...I wrote poetry today.  These (I think "Bullies" is my favorite):

Eighteen

That broken bottle in your hand

Looks a lot like me

Eighteen and angry

Too much useless sunshine

The summer’s endless reach

A noose around my neck

Home no option

Only alleys and freeways

Places to unwind and wither

You should

Look at yourself right now

Pull out a mirror

Or find your reflection in

What’s left of that bottle

Realize that if anything

You don’t want to grow up

Swollen with regret

Misery eating you whole

Like your old man

Bullies

But you think

What if it’s true

The things they say

The labels, slurs and insults

Texts on your phone

At school

On the bus

Online

Everywhere you look

But you think

What if you fight back

With some ranting of your own

Throw some hateful darts their way

Or buy some guns

Go all Columbine

Make them pay

What then

Or what if you simply

Tuck your chin and dart your eyes

Take it

Every hurtful word

Swallow it down like you have

Every minute of

Every day

For the last three years

Or perhaps you take that one guy’s advice

And do it

Kill yourself

Like he said to

It’d be easier that emptying the trash

Yes, that would be

A major accomplishment all right

And possibly you’d feel

Better when you’re dead

But maybe you think

There’s another way

What if you found a friend

A mom

A dad

Someone

What if you allowed yourself

To crumble inside their embrace

Just this once be vulnerable

Tell them what’s going on

What you’re up against

What if you did that instead

Wouldn’t that be a pretty good option

Wondering

Is it warm where you are

Is there fresh fruit and linen sheets

Do the mornings make you feel special

Like a princess

Who is the one who makes your tea now

Is he handsome and well-built

An athlete or scholar

Your best friend and secret-keeper

Does your laughter still shake the walls

And do you still mumble to yourself

When you’re nervous

Has my dog stopped missing me

Has the stain of my imprint worn off in the rain

Is there ever a time in the day

When you wonder how I’m doing

And if I think of you

You always claimed I asked too many questions

Do you still think so

Is it fair for you to go your own way

While I’m still tethered to the past

Like a junkyard dog

No longer angry

Just desperate and very

Very lonely

Climate Change

But really

There is no moon

The dogs have all left their masters

And the assassins keep missing their mark

In the wink of the last few stars

We find the guilty party

Our names written there

With the high tide

The oceans swelling

Whole cities sinking

While watch complicit

Congratulating ourselves

On having had

A pretty good run

Cell

There is proof somewhere

That you once loved me--

Pawnshop ring for sale

Record of an unwanted fetus

Prom pictures with big 80’s hair

Blood on the sand

The surf coming in

Loud and violent.

But I’m doing all right now

The warden is friendly enough

And this cell’s going to keep

Me safe from you

For years

--I GUESS SOMEONE’S LOOKING OUT FOR ME

                                                           A Lover of Beautiful Things

            I was spooked.  He’d been following me for the last two hours, through both levels of the mall, the food court, waiting outside of Macys with a magazine curled in his palm like a baton or a sledge hammer.

            I admit I led him on a bit.  At Victoria’s Secret I paused, feigning a do-check in front of the display window that featured a trio of mannequins whose cleavage, G-strings, and vapid, heroin stares were impossible not to envy.  I flipped my hair and reapplied some lip gloss.  He was twenty feet behind me.  Still, I caught his reflection in the glass and glare.  He might not even have noticed my little maneuver, yet it seemed as if he did.  In fact it seemed as if I was the reason he existed.

I had very little money.  However, I bought a pair or cheetah-print thong panties that were half-off.  I wanted to be carrying the Vickie Secret bag through the rest of my excursion and I wanted him to be wondering about the contents.  I even asked for a larger sack than was necessary.

I was ill-prepared when he came running up to the car.  I mean, I hadn’t expected that at all.  Part of me thought I’d imagined the whole surveillance thing.

But no, he came at me like an assailant with marching orders.

I reached for pepper spray I didn’t have.  I cupped a car key between my fingers, ready to gouge his eye out.

He was panting.  And cute--in a sweaty, mocha-skinned hirsute way.

He said he was a photographer.  I said, “Sure you are.”  He said, “No, really.”  He told me I could be a model, said that I had the look they were after.  I got smart-ass on him, said, “Who’s they?” 

He gave me the card I still have to this day.

He said, “Call me.  Check out my website, I’m legit.”

All those girls on his site were something, so exotic or pale, most with stunned expressions not dissimilar from the Vickie Secret mannequins.

Could I help myself from wanting to be featured like those others?  Of course not.

My mother wanted to go with me to Raul’s studio.  (Raul was his name.)  I told her what she knew already, that I wasn’t six years old anymore.  I was that plus ten, sixteen.

“Call me when you get there,” she said, making me pinkie-promise, which I hated.

I surprised myself.  After a couple of minutes I lost all inhibition.  I was naked before I knew it.  He said he’d pay me, but I just laughed.  He took stills and video.  I’ve been back a few times, whenever I need a confidence boost.  I know now that those girls on his site are just stock photos from someplace else.  But it doesn’t matter.

He tells me he’s a lover of beautiful things.  He’s never actually said that I’m beautiful, but that doesn’t matter either.

--SOMETIMES IT’S SAFER WHEN THERE’S NO WAY OUT

…I have a new story up this morning at Intrinsic Magazine:

http://www.intrinsick.com/stories/quicksand

…Right now the lake is boiling, or at least it looks that way.  It’s raining so the hardest I’ve ever seen rain fall, and it’s pretty.  There were some sheaths of fog lodged between the evergreens on the other side of the lake but now the rain has broken those up and they look like dragons moving in slow motion, as if secretly trying to escape from the tree limbs.

…I started a story (or maybe novel) about an idea I’ve had for a while.  It’s just a vague idea right now having to do with an Elvis impersonator.  I don’t have much more than that.

Here’s the start:

                                                     My Life with Elvis Presley

            Elvis is drunk again, wobbling and leaning on the upstairs banister for support with an invisible microphone in his hand, warbling Hunk-a-hunk-a-burning love like a walrus in pain.

            He’s fat Elvis, with his prosthetic stomach bulging over a wooden rail, a trail of belly hair applied to make it seem real, believable.  He wears a white one-piece jump suit, bejeweled with all kinds of silver studs and white leather fringe, a massive trucker belt buckle.  His shirt collars are pointed and as long as the pizza slices they serve at Shakey’s.

            “Dad,” I say, “what are you doing?  You don’t have a show tonight.” 

My dad has worked as an Elvis impersonator for ten years now.  It’s his obsession and he’s pretty good at it when he’s not drunk, which isn’t very often, since, like me, he’s still trying to cope with my mother’s affair that’s left us without her.

            He wipes away a sling of white jaw drool, accidentally lifting a mutton chop side burn off his face.  The faux hair floats in the air like a patch of black lawn before landing an inch from my feet. 

“Practicing,” he says with a drawl and lopsided sneer, in full Elvis mode, if not also sloppily.

            Even from such a low height, there would be some kind of carnage if he fell.  Dad’s the parent around here, but the truth is I’m the one who takes care of us.

            When I start toward the steps, he sticks out his arm and palm like a school bus stop sign—“Hold on, Lisa Marie.  Hold on right there, darlin’.  I can make my own way.”

            Lisa Marie is my real name, but McBride is my last.  Probably his whole life my dad was dying to have a girl so he could bestow her with the same name as Elvis’s baby girl.

            I watch him sway in place, in an unsteady orbit up there on the landing, hoping he doesn’t topple or spew.

            “Dad?”

            “I’m good, kid.”

            His footfalls down the stairs make the house shudder.  In reality he only weighs one hundred fifty-five pounds, with the prosthetic gut, maybe one fifty-seven.

            Before Mom ran away with Mr. Eglington, Dad was a fairly healthy one ninety-five.  Before Mom ran off things were still quirky, but they were good.  Before Mom ran off I thought my parents were happily married, so I guess that says a great deal about my powers of observation or my understanding of what love is.

            I do quick math: one ninety-five subtracted by one fifty-five equals forty, divided by nineteen (months) equals, what?  How many pounds lost per month?  Hell, I don’t know.  I really suck at math.

            “You’re so skinny.”

            “I am absolutely nothing of the kind,” he says, slurring hard, trying to focus on me as he comes down.  “You, on the other hand, are nothing but a sparrow.”

            I know what that really means, where it came from.  When she was still around, Mom used to call me Birdy.  When I was a little girl I once found a wounded robin in the back yard.  It was hobbling on one leg and going zeee-up! Zeee-up! Zeee-up!  I brought it into the house, got online and figured out how to nurse it back to health.  After I let it free outside, I was Birdy to Mom from then on.

            I watch him gauge the last step, as if it’s a plate of squirmy snakes, his eyes equally squirmy.  He misses it entirely, and falls forward in a heave, but I catch him by the shoulders.  After all, he’s light—one hundred and fifty-five (or one hundred fifty-seven pounds).

            His fake belly ends up in my hands, my palms.  It feels moist, gluey, like an egg fried over easy.

            But he doesn’t fall down or hurt himself.  That’s good.

            “Dad,” I say.  “Dad.  Dad.  Dad.”

            “Oh, honey bee,” he says, leaning over me his hot breath smelling of alcohol.

            “Are you going to throw up?”

            He burps but positions his hand so the worst of the odor misses me.

            “I don’t think so, no.”

--I’M JUST THINKING OUT LOUD HERE

Hurricane Javier

One of us is eating the other

While the gulls have lost their way

There are monsoons all around

Lifting cars off the roads

Shuttling cities to and fro

Tossing drug lords into trees

In the distance a baby wails

Along with the sour-coated wind

As the poorest of us float

Or swim

Or drown

Down a water gully without end

We heard it was coming

But not how hard

How fast

How sudden

Such is the news around here

A slow-motion bullet

Dragonflies will run the world

When everything finally dries out

Nothing really damaged

Nothing really changed

Stealing Baby Formula

Stealing baby formula

Is not as easy as you think

The aisles have eyes

The racks are cameras

The junk food is a caravan of spies

Stealing baby formula in a mercado

Is a ticket to a barred room

Beatings

Separation anxiety

And revisiting motives

But the baby formula is there

And the baby is way over there

Where you left it

The clerk has a gun beneath the counter

The floor is slick with spilled soda

Leftover blood

And piss

The air spiced like tamales

Flood lights buzzing,

Flickering like alarms or Morse code

And still you do it

Stuff and run

Fast as a frightened gecko

Never turning back

Not sure if

The gunshots are real

Or imagined

Each twhack! a reminder that

You’re under constant attack

That you’ve at least

Made it this far

Beach Vendor

She is a hundred years old

Or sixty

A slow tortoise

Slogging down a tawny beach

With a hundred colors

Slung over her shoulders

Across her back

Tied in a jangly turban on her head

Gems and stones

Some fake some real

All them discovered and  

Threaded together

By weathered brown hands

One piece sold

Means a tortilla to eat

Two pieces a slight lunch

Three or four a miracle

Under parasols

And palm trees

The lazy lucky rich ones

Shoo her away

Time and time again

While the tortoise goes on

Her babies

And their babies

And their babies’ babies

Starving at home

Mewling for milk

Gasping for air

The sounds out of their mouth

Sheer as a frail scarf

A hiss

Almost as if they’re repeating

The same word over and over--

Silver

Silver

Silver, please?

Well Played

The boy is my son’s age

A sixth the size of him

But dark as bark

Bony

A skeleton really

Yet smiling

With the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen

“Senor, magic trick for Pesos?” he asks

I hand him two US dollars

Tell him to get on with it already

But nothing happens

“What the hell was that?” I ask

He trots across the sloped beach sand

Still grinning wide

Giving me two thumbs up

Back in the hotel room

I realize he’s filched my wallet somehow

And I wish he was here

To watch me smile back

--I’M AN UGLY MAN WHEN YOU’RE NOT AROUND

…Hey Monday, what have you got going on tonight?

 …The thing about fall is you can feel it in your toes, especially if you go barefoot.  And the shroud of darkness that closes around each day so early.  And the messy cedar shavings all over the driveway and road.  Other than that, I’m fine with fall.

 …I’ve been getting a lot of poetry rejections of late.  I wonder if I suck at poetry.  I wonder if I’m not even a poet at all.

I’ll keep writing poems, but you tell me:

Sublimation

The needle’s loaded and

I am looking for a new vein,

one that hasn’t collapsed

or wormed away.

The room downstairs is where I hide,

in a corner as shadows stripe my chest

with air the width of rice paper.

I am filling my gun with minutes

and layers of leftover skin,

linking one moment to the next

with regret and remorse

while butterflies go roller skating outside the house

and two stray fawns do the tango on the lawn.

No one believes me anymore

and that’s okay.

No one believes in me anymore

and that’s why I’m jogging in place

underwater,

shielding myself from the hot foot of the sun

that wants to tamp me out

as if I’m a well-spent cigarette.

I am slipping through the seams

of a new house

abandoned by former lovers.

Down the hall

in the last room on the left

on the duvet

there is a note which says

Welcome Home.

Plath

I keep dreaming of Sylvia

Plath

and in the morning on my pillow case

the word

Ariel is stamped on the cloth

inside a braid of bumble bees that someone has sketched.

Can you tell another living soul of such things,

that a strong voice from the past has grabbed your heart

and throat?

No one understands,

not my wife or daughter mother neighbor.

Even the chairs are mute

as the oven stares me in the eye.

1969

I am a half-formed boy/man

waiting for the sun to bloom inside me

while a V of geese fly by,

honking miserably and energetically overhead,

skimming the belly of gray-white clouds.

My older, fully-formed brother

skips stones across dark water,

him as sullen as a dead tree.

In the trailer near the campsite the war drags on

and I imagine the word Marriage written in barbwire,

the tips of metal tinted crimson.

Without thinking I strip and dive into the lake.

I can’t see the other side

but I aim for it anyway.

Tree Storms

The way the trees bend down

tells me they have something important to say,

flapping their arms madly in the wind,

not a bird or squirrel in sight,

just these hysterical tress.

They have seen so much—

births and beauty,

destruction and death.

The shortest of them whispers my name like a snake

with a bad case of cottonmouth.

He says, “Stand on your tiptoes if you have to, Boy.”

He asks, “Are you afraid?”

One of them landed on my father once, years ago,

somewhere around here,

when I was just an infant.

“What’s in your hands?” another tree asks,

but I’m not here for small talk.

I spritz gasoline on the bed of pine needles,

take a lighter from my pocket,

shout Dad’s name and release

the jagged flame.

The Yellow Sparrow

The yellow sparrow

tells me:

There are no more tragedies to write.

All of the love songs have already been taken.

Every hero is someone else’s enemy.

Time dances like the wind is on fire.

Put on a flak jacket

and make something of yourself