--I DREW A MAP OF MARITIUS WITH YOUR NAME SKETCHED ON IT

 

…Hey Hot Stuff, Happy Friday.
 

There’s an online magazine called Nailpolish Stories.  They only publish stories that are exactly 25 words long (excluding the title) and whose title is a nail polish color, of which there are thousands.
Here are ten I had published a while back:
                                                                                            

    Nailpolish Stories

 
Limo Scene

Her wrist corsage scratched, Pop Rocks exploding against her hot breath.  She said, “You kiss like a spaghetti monster,” but made me a man anyway.

Nude Beach

We swam naked in black water.  The moon bent something inside me.  She went under, never came up.  Now I walk the sand nightly, waiting.

Lady Like

I used to study them-- bright bruises the color of mustard and plums, shaped like continents or crafty creatures—mother’s artwork on a flesh canvas.

Room With a View

On the ship’s deck we disrobed.  Dolphins dove below us.  Voyeur clouds and a lone gull were our only witnesses, the baby blooming inside you.

 

Angel Food

Like a too-fat ballerina in your bouncy seat, you claimed the air, gurgling, just twelve months old, already the giddy thief who stole my heart.

 

Walk Down the Aisle

Friends suggested getting high, thick socks for cold feet.  “Check the exit,” they said.   “we’ll be waiting.” 

But you were the best thing. 

Still are.

 

Rock Candy

She was heavy, but mine, clinging to me like a life raft while little Michael sang “Ben,” my first kiss a cave I fell through.

 

Naked Truth

The strap was leather, long, dyed black, with tooled scrolls of cactus and bulls.  The buckle hurt the most.  My father, he could really swing.

 

Café Forgot

Spider web hair, false teeth and a cigarette stitched in her hand even with an oxygen tank. This

woman who made me less than whole.

Innocent

The baby looks preposterous, huge watermelon head, shrimp-sized torso.  All my crimes come to roost, me thinking, Sins of the father, the doctor saying, “Sorry.”

  

 

 

--YOU GAVE ME BACK MY SMILE

 

…I think I write about the lake too much, yet it’s difficult not to when I look out my window and it’s there, staring back at me. 

 

 It’s still mostly frozen.  I threw rocks up in the air yesterday and they just skidded across the ice.  I suppose if you were braver than me you could go out and stand on it, take a selfie, do a little dance.

This morning it’s slate grey with intermittent specks of white that look like foot prints, or from high up, maybe freckles.  I love freckles.

And what a lovely thing it is to live on a lake.  How am I so lucky?

 …Geesh, it’s Wednesday all ready.  Soon I’ll be in Vancouver and then Washington D.C., but until then here are some things that make me ponder life:

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl Sagan

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest accomplishment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." Leo Buscaglia

"We must find time to stop and thank the people who have made a difference in our lives." Dan Zadra

"If you want to keep your memories, you first have to live them." Bob Dylan

"Even if it's a little thing, do something for those who need help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it." Albert Schweitzer

"Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced." John Keats

"We know what we are, but not what we may be." William Shakespeare

"I've seen and met angels wearing the disguise of ordinary people living ordinary lives." Tracy Chapman

"No home is complete without affection. You can have all the Picassos in the world or walls made of gold, but without affection it's nothing." Claudio Luti

"The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do." Sarah Ban Breathnach

"There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will." Epictetus

 

 

 

--YOU HOLD ME TOGETHER AND PUSH MY SKIN BACK INTO PLACE

 

Early Morning

And in the early morning if there is no friend again

And if the sky is still wearing her blue-black face
Hiding all those stars with the moon behind her skirt
I at least have poems to read
Books and books of them
Each a certain form of sustenance itself
So much so that when I finish
Reading a half-dozen or more
I can scarcely think about breakfast
And those fish outside the window in the lake
And that beaver in the lake too
And the eagle flying high overhead
They all know what I’ve just learned
That sometimes
When we are most alone and scared
There are places to go
Words to seek like medicine
That can fill our hollow spaces
And heal wounds we thought
We’d wear forever

 

What I Miss Most

The body is known to lie

Shoulder a burden behind a cloak
Or downy bed of clover
Yet we know what we know
How the skin is a map of inclusion
The bones a ladder of dimpled steps
Each one leading to an attic or trapdoor
Even in the darkest darkness I can find my way
Through every room of yours
Yet it is your sweetest kiss
That you keep hidden
Tucked away for yourself
Or someone else
Perhaps I could be your locket or lipstick
And brush against your skin
By accident or not
Me this thing you wear or carry
Without effort
Without knowing I’m even there 
Though I most certainly am

 

Even in the Blur

I have been there, too,

Ankles caught in seaweed and muck
Out of breath
All those feet under water
Pressure crushing lungs
No way out but death
But if you open your eyes
Even in the blur
You’ll see me there
Holding out my hand
Asking you to take it

 

 

 

--I WISH I HAD A RIVER I COULD SKATE AWAY ON

 

 

 Demons on the Clothesline

 All my other selves are hanging on the clothesline

The thin ones, the sour, the sin-stained,
The bloody awful red ones
The sun looks away and the wind screeches to a halt
A pair of children wonder what to make of it
Raising a tree branch they treat me like a piñata
When nothing falls, they get a can of gasoline
And spritz my feet and calves, light a match
As the flames lick, I smolder black and tarry
There is no tortured screaming
I watch it all, sighing, thinking perhaps
It is finished

 

Shattered

Your allergies are acting up again

It’s the pollen or the way the water warps
In the drinking glass you shatter in the sink
Meds can take the edge off, smooth a few sharp corners
But there are days and nights when volcanoes spew
Their lava down your throat and suffocation
Seems like a very real possibility
So under the bridge you go
The sound of the cars overhead a kind of
Auditory waterboarding
Peace is a slippery distance
And the demons are never satiated
If you could just come home
If we could just talk for once
Like father and son
Or friend to friend
We might forge a footprint
Cut down the weeds and detritus
And carve a way back to the beginning
 

 

Somnambulism

Alone again, you find yourself without ribs

Your heart hanging loose by a bloody tendril
The moon mocks you while
Stars form a bejeweled noose
You hear your mother’s ancient instruction
This is how we pick ourselves up
And so you walk to the window
To the lake
To the shore
Where the water accepts you as you are
Because what other choice does it have?
You float in an uneven eddy
Twirling in stilted patterns
Moonbeams striping your face
While galaxies expand for no other reason than
That they can
Seconds pass, minutes, too
And you as well
One with the unsteady current
A soggy carcass never so sad
Hoping to float to a new world
Where things bloom and can be resurrected

 

This Lonely

When the marauders come for you

There is nothing left to steal
Cornmeal perhaps, or stale bread
And still you are so lonesome that
You offer yourself as a proxy.
Take me, you say.
One bandit looks to the other
Then glances away
Before leaving without a word
Through the back door
You converse with the mirror
With a reflection in the window
With anything that might resemble
A friend

 

Lazarus Is Up

Lazarus is up.

He looks dehydrated,
but that’s to be expected from a corpse.
He asks who all cried, who all cared,
writing down every name I tell him.
What I don’t say is that I wish he’d stayed dead,
that sometimes what’s done is done,
no tricks allowed,
mortality making meaning out of death.

 

 

--I’M LIKE A VACUUM BAG, FULL OF THAT OLD DIRT

 

Reasons I Should Be Dead

1.
Before I was or am death comes for me rambunctious sloppy drunk death knocking over a headboard a mirror breaking a lamp or plate black blast to the ribs to her back belly uppercut that shakes the planet the lake the ocean the soup that I swim and float in becoming a typhoon while I bob like an upended boat but do not drown.

2.

Before I am fully me death returns again sneaky bastard while I’m sleeping slumbering dreaming not snoring death and death’s hand stabbing a thin metal rod into the milky cloud where I am hiding hibernating death poking and jabbing at the juice and fleshy walls tearing red gashes into this embryonic tent angling aiming for me a slippery fish who will not be so easily aborted.

3.

After I am born the woman driving the car takes long pulls on her cigarette as if she’s french kissing a snake made of smoke touching a finger to the edge of her white cat-eyed glasses “have I seen you before?” I say only saliva slips out over my lips like goo she is sad is annoyed she sneers down at me on the seat and says “what?” I recognize the voice I want to say “it’s you isn’t it?  you’re my mother?” but my words my thoughts are gurgles Gerber baby food the thunderbird trundles over some tracks then shuts off even though Charlie Pride goes on singing does my ring hurt your finger when you go out at night I want to ask “why are we stopping?” but bubbles—two or three floaters—slide out of my mouth instead this is where grandmother died not necessarily here but on a set of railroad tracks somewhere in the middle of the night no one knowing if it was an accident or on purpose I heard them talking—the one time they were civil instead of two angry attack dogs—making funeral arrangements maybe we will go like gran “mom we’d better move a train might come” those are the words in my constipated head that become nothing but soapsuds and blue breath on the way out of my mouth “I can tell I can just tell” mother says “you’re going to be like all the rest a useless piece of shit.”

4.

I am in another car and the man who is my new dad who is not my real dad my blood dad he has the convertible caddie going very fast the car black as evening long like a parade float but sleek I wish the wind weren’t so rough I wish I wasn’t freezing I wish my brothers would stop saying “faster! faster!” I wish my mom would stop holding onto her head scarf and use it for a parachute a homemade airlift cape that could get us out of here but instead we go over a hill leaping the crest like a slow motion trout and I think this is where death will get me right here all of us together a bunch of broken bones bloody bits or a burnt out car nothing to do but scream and pray my soul escapes somehow.

5.

The bathroom is the warmest place the heat vent pours out air holding back holding down holding apart some of the noise it’s not my favorite room because of the smell but I go there when they start to yell this time someone kissed someone else you cheating sonofabitch you bitch you bastard and there’s hell to pay I’m a boy supposed to be a man already so I open the door in time to see his oiled obsidian hair glinting open in time to see him shoot an arrow into the closed kitchen window glass shattering breaking apart like angry glaciers and when he turns the bow to me I say to myself “be brave don’t duck don’t run don’t hide we are done here.”

6.

I was too loud in church or not paying enough attention to the pastor or my room was dirty or my thoughts were dirty or I missed “Please” or wasn’t grateful enough or just because because I say so because I’m in charge because this is my house because of some reason or other whatever reason any reason the belt swings and slashes wuuuh wuuuh wuuuh through the air leather helicopter blades that bite and sting but then it stops to be adjusted so the buckle is the end that rains metal teeth bronze nails hail hitting my head my shoulders my arms here’s my heart cut it open go ahead make a mess of things get it over with I won’t hate you if you are quick.

7.

This guy can drink drinks like a fish a whale get him the funnel holy hell man how’re you still standing he’s my hero whatever you do don’t crash on your back man sleep on your stomach remember Janice Joplin and Jimmie H if they say anything else to me it is oatmeal in my ears the stairs reach right up and slap me the halls hit me someone’s got one arm someone the other and I fall a final time until there’s light everything white but not heaven the nurse saying good morning young man I hope you know how lucky you are.

8.

Hey bogart you got a death wish or what? that wasn’t a line more like an avalanche yeah yeah I say wanting to say more but my face is numb down to the roots of my molars eyes jittery ice cubes nose runny or bleeding hair 4^th of July sparklers twitching my scalp but none of that matters as much as my heart sprinting up and down the gym shoe stomps booming in my ears bouncing off one wall then the next make it stop make it stop no wait don’t make it stop that’s called dead just slow the pounding please what am I doing here anyway that guy has a thin hockey stick thingy with a boomerang end scraping green felt saying “seven seven out craps” and there are men around me my friends and strangers comic book patches 12 the hard way other numbers and squares dice die my friends my heart my friend what happens here stays here.

9.

Blood taste like licking a rock when I open my eyes I see my eyes staring back at me in the rearview how did I get here why is my car stopped stalled hit something a curb lip swollen star fruit jaw sore must have hit the steering wheel hard no airbag should be dead what time is it I keep cheating time or it keeps throwing me a life line or maybe this is how it tortures me by keeping me alive why does everyone else want it so bad life?

10.

This is not the same as the other times the other times death came for me now I am searching for it at five am in the pitch dark running miles getting in mileage before the marathon is the rationale I tell my wife here it comes sixty five going seventy speeding semi on my side of the road just a hitch a little jump is all it takes and SLAM SPLAT we’re done here finally but that driver he has a wife too or a mom maybe maybe even one that loves him got to be fair play fair don’t fuck it up for other people for other people death is what they run from not to.

11.

The box is white a cream-colored coffin some irony there who called for an open casket is this somebody’s idea of a joke we tell jokes my brothers and I in hushed tones out in the sober foyer us older almost too old to take no longer skinny barefoot boys but men with bellies bald heads  grudges and our own bags of sins we shuffle inside no different than dust ourselves sit on the stone hard wooden pews settle unsettle cough spit fidget fart silently “she is with God” the man in glasses says is he a liar we sing about grace “when we’ve been here ten thousand years bright shining as the sun” and then I stand because I am called called the name I was given the one she gave me I walk down an aisle dip my head at the podium I speak do not slur do not tarry I tell the tarnished and the true I don’t use bullets or blades but something falls away something dies inside of me a molting ghost carcass floating through stained glass as I inhale my first breath in this new skin.

 

--DEATH SUCKS, BUT THIS IS NICE

 

…I’m writing this on a black night where the lake has morphed into its onyx surroundings and the only thing visible outside are random house lights and a V-shaped string of lights two doors over that my neighbor has strung up between some trees.  It reminds me of the scene in Big Fish when Edward encounters that strange town where people throw their shoes on the telephone line and go barefoot the rest of their lives.  It’s quite cool.  If I were a more techy person, I’d snap a photo and show you.

…So this new novel is tough sledding already.  I’m not sure it’s strong enough, even for a first draft, though I do like the first sentence: “The moment our new mother came through the door of our trailer home, Sis and I knew there would be a different kind of trouble.”

And I haven’t even got to any emotional scenes yet.  Yikes.

…I just heard Frank Sinatra singing “My Way”.  I’m weird, but I often find myself pondering movie scenes, lines from movies, or song lyrics.  “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention.”  Really?  I have a shitload of regrets.  So I wonder who is more normal, Frank or me.  And then I extrapolate that and wonder, what is normal anyway?

Told you I am weird.

…In San Diego with one of my best friends last week we were at a bar and he said, “Tell me a secret.”  Other than, “We need to talk,” “Tell me a secret” is the most heart-stopping thing someone can say to you.  So I told him one, something lame, then he told me one, and then I told him a bigger one.  And though he doesn’t judge me, didn’t judge me at all, flying home I thought that sometimes it’s best that secrets stay secrets.

…I think it’s sad that most song writers and singers today—outside of the obvious big time ones like Beyonce, Taylor, etc.,--can’t make a living off of their art.  Kids don’t buy music.  Really, they steal it, because if you’re not paying for it, that’s called theft.  Writing is starting to get that way as well.  I’ve made close to $3,000 since I’ve been doing this full-time.  I’ve probably sent 3,000 times that trying to further myself in the craft.  It’s extremely rare to get paid for a story or poem and most times if you get one accepted in a journal you have to buy the journal to see your story, so in effect, you’re paying to get yourself published.  That seems more than a little twisted.  Places are starting to charge reading fees, so you might have to pay $25 just to have your story read and then it could very well get rejected.  Good lord.

I’m ranting/venting, sorry.
I’m also all over the place tonight and yet I’ve had a single Corona Light and I’m not the least bit drunk.

…I do think kids are the best thing in the world.  I wish I’d had more.  I like their sense of wonder.  After kids, I like puppies best.  Then giraffes, then deer.  Moles and geese are at the bottom of my list.

…”Round Here” from Counting Crows has been stuck in my head forever, especially this line which I think is so poetic: “In between the moon and you the angels get a better view of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.”  Seems so apt now, what with two days until the inauguration. 

…Okay, enough random train-of-thought babbling.  I’m going to try to write a poem since I’m feeling a little floaty, then back to the novel. 

…In the meantime, I had this story published the other day.  It’s a doozey, one of those emotional pieces I wrote in Taos last year:

http://midwayjournal.com/ghosts-in-the-house/

And another from Taos at (b)oink Zine:

http://boinkzine.com/2017/01/02/animal-kingdom/

…And I did this interview/conversation thing I did with David Galef at ELECTRIC LITERATURE on The State of Flash Fiction, though why I’m supposed to be an expert I have no idea:

https://electricliterature.com/the-state-of-flash-fiction-80658ac03c6e#.1is6fbne9

…Thanks for hanging in there with me.  You’re a good person.

 

 

YES, PLEASE.  MORE, PLEASE.  THANK YOU.

 

…The lake is still frozen.  It’s ghostly at night because it makes these peculiar and eerie noises, as if it’s alive, like a monster being tortured.  You might think I’m making it up, but you weren’t here to hear it.  It’s supposed to warm up the next few days, not a lot, but some, and then the lake will make entirely different noises when the ice melts—it sounds like bones snapping.  Maybe I’ll try to figure out a way to record it for you, although I’m the least techy person you’ve ever met.

…Like many people, the election results threw me into a pit and left me there to die.  I’m worried I’ll revert to that on inauguration day, something I’ve not missed since age eight, but right now I’m feeling really good about life.  I feel focused for the first time in a while.

In the last year and a half, I have started four different novels, abandoning each one like a heartless parent, sometimes when it was nearing 20,000 words.  I liked all the stories, but they needed work, as all first drafts do.  Wednesday at writer’s group one of my friends who’s advice I always give credence said, “You’ve had over 1,000 stories published.  Most deal with your fucked up childhood.  You write that really well, and it’s an important topic to get out there.  Why not write it as a novel?” 

So that’s what I’ve been working on last week.  It’s fictionalized memoir, but more memoir than fiction.  Wish me luck, and if you do, thank you in advance.

 
…Here are some things I like to start the week, and I hope yours is fantastic:

"I have enjoyed life a lot more by saying ‘yes’ than by saying ‘no’." Richard Branson

"A lot of dreams don't come true in life. If you can make somebody's dream come true, you should." Jameer Nelson

"I think that how one lives is more important than how long one lives. So I don't feel too bad.”  Lim Yoon-taek, a 32 Year old South Korean cancer victim

"Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives, and remembering what one receives." Dumas The Younger

"So let us go forward quietly, each on his own path, forever making for the light." Vincent Van Gogh

  "Dedication is simply reminding yourself what you want. Then paying the price to get it. Every day." John F. Groom

"A man who makes no mistakes makes nothing." Winston Churchill