My Confession: April 27th, 2020 - a meditative examination

You wonder aloud about it, you speculate what your self-worth is in the face of parents, yours and hers, in the face of religion how you once believed it how you believe it now, in the face of America and what it stands for and what you thought it stood for and what you yourself stand for. You wonder aloud about the speculations and determinations you have come to based upon the course of your life, your world, that you were born into by no choosing of your own, in circumstances that you did not get to choose, in a world that said you could rise out of that world with a little bit of determination, a little bit of education, a little bit of trying. And you continued some naive journey to better yourself into adulthood because you were dumb enough to believe that would elevate your station, that you were not the sum of your past, that you functioned just fine, and that you had people rooting for you, but in truth, the system, institutions, people are set in stone, the stairs to ascend are a slippery slope designed to keep you tumbling, extending a hand of bread crumbs only to pull away and sock you in the nose. In truth you think, the beauty you saw in it, in your possible future, plagued by poverty, and self-doubt, mental illness, and naysayers, the bright light at the end of a towering shadow tunnel of rebukes and snarky remarks, you thought  you could get there. For awhile you stayed stowed away in your little catacomb, and you felt a comfort in just sitting down, but like a taunting light of a firefly you saw possibility sitting the corner, on the edge of the room, and you decided despite the fragility of your anxious mind to crawl tooth and nail to it, abandoning personal relationships, abandoning an easy route in the steady stream that was, because you wanted to believe the stories of your church, of your school system, of your country and its ideological chant that you could pull yourself up and take a bite of the apple off the tallest branch because this is the land of the opportunity, just a little bit of hard work.

And you did work hard, you worked hard to defeat your own doubt, and anxiety, your own broken mind, you pushed yourself out of self-isolation, let people in to be your friends who hoisted you, sometimes kicking and screaming out of the comfort of your seperation anxiety, and you found work, and friends, and love, and heartache, joy and pain, you strove through the whirlwind anxiousness of adulthood, with missteps, and poor guidance, and a lot of support from your family and friends, and some not so good support from extended family that looked down on you and ridiculed you, and cast doubt on the possibilities of being better, people who said this muddy water is just what is fit to drink, you are not fit to do anything other than roll in it, in this great land of opportunity, but you decided to swim to the shore, to walk upright, and to be better. And you'd go on failing, finding a job, in a position you looked down on before, but surrounded by good people, and a wonderful pair of bosses, and you built your self-confidence, in the sludge of food service, somehow you moved on up, and for almost 8 years you didn't miss a day of work, were late a bit, but you nearly 100% were always there, and you did your job, and took pride in the shit that you were sending out, and the crew you were put in charge of, and you found people saw your character, they knew you were good, and hardworking, and you are forever grateful for that shitty little job serving up roast beef sandwhiches because people you worked for, with, managed, they saw worth in you, and you felt confident, and you found you were good at something after feeling so long you were a piece of fat shit. So, silly you, you wanted to keep going, to follow your dreams, to latch onto that american dream, and you went back to school.

It was difficult at first, getting back into the groove of things, after so long of being off the track, but you rid yourself of a long term relationship that wasn't right for the life you truly wanted, it wasn't all bad, but you wanted something else, and that track you were on was no good. So you let go of someone who would have given her arms and legs for you, but you knew it wasnt' what you wanted, and you spent so many long, and lonely years focusing on yourself. Studying, full course loads, summer time classes, just studying, finally finishing up your community college degree to prove to yourself you could do it. And you did. More confidence built, more friends made, more teachers admiring your heart, your kindness, your talent, you kept on keeping on as they say. And you decided to keep at it, enrolled, doubted yourself, and then went back to believing you were okay in choosing to do what you loved. You wanted to set a good example to your niece and nephew, your brother and sister, your little cousins, you wanted to show them how you could crawl from the bottom, that it was worth it, that it was hard, and grueling but it'd be worth it. That just because you might have been poor you were still worth something, that you could still follow your heart, and be happy doing what you loved, that the system didn't always fuck you over.

Then unexpectedly, when you weren't even looking, and because you took that chance to better yourself, and because you struggled, and took longer to get where you were, you lined up perfectly with the love of your life. Someone who told it straight, who was goofy, and intelligent, and outgoing. Money never came into it, and you are ultimately and wholeheartedly offended that the only reason a lower class person could want to be with a higher class person is because they have money. I lived contently with very little, money matters to me only in that I need it to function in this world, it is not my source of happiness. The idea that someone might think that of you, that just because you lived a different monetary value growing up, and that you could only want to crawl up out of your hole to leech off of someone is offensive. My worth lies not in my net worth, but in my self worth, in the emotional and supportive wealth I give to my beautiful,and giving and kind and talented, and intelligent partner. I see her and my heart is full, it is satisfied, that other people might have seen that open and vulnerable heart and sought to use it and abandon it, to see how giving and open she is, the way I am, the way I gave and gave to people, and they devoured it, got their use of me and spit me back out. To me, my love is a shield, protective, total, invincible complete, and it wraps around her heart, and I won't abandon her. She gives, and she accepts, and I give and I accept, and I am in love with the content of who she is, and not her monetary value. It just so happens, she is smart, is driven, is in a better job market than me, that is the coincidence of this pairing, and for so long I thought class differences between partners being a cause for concern was Hollywood drama, but it feels as though I was wrong.

But here I am, I have found my way through undergraduate studies at the age of 32. Mostly deciphering my own brain, getting out of my own funks, mostly, not always, I am wholeheartedly aware of the support my family and friends have given me. I am absolutely aware, that many people do not have these support systems, and I know if I didn't I wouldn't be where I am now. We are a social species, we need each other, and that is not a flaw in my person. I am worth something, I am here, and I am staying, and I will not go anywhere,  because for the first time in my own life, I am happy, my personal pieces have fallen into place, and I am proud of me.

Patriotism or Another Tweet Closer to Oz - a poem

Emergency room doors are burst from flood of victims
so weak in knees that they are forced to crawl atop
one another. Those at bottom of pyramid are crushed,
heavy, backs, and chest cavities cracking and puffs
of dust erupting up geyser-like in intensity, but unsustainable
as they snowfall down atop piles of bodies. Outside
press snaps pictures, relentless, heartless, a mammoth wave
of paparazzi who do their endless pillage of decency
also clamor until they and victims are indistinguishable
from one another. Once upon a time ambulance chasers
were free to be independent of hordes that were held
at gunpoint in low-wage work, working basically
for basic functions of others, but now all are stuck,
strapped in for this ride but no emergency lights
sing-scream out from onboard those motor vehicles,
cutbacks culled any sort of progress, and in truth
a horse-drawn carriage would be too expensive
for shallow worth placed on human lives. Still,
emergency room is plagued with bodies of pandemic
naysayers, storming hospitals for their basic human
rights to breathe air, while others who heeded
instruction are left out behind presidents, media,
and hordes, hold up without provisions to salve
wounds that are spreading fungal all over their psyche.
Emergency room doors don't exist, emergency rooms
are illusion, United States of panic attack is slogan,
log line reads mentally unstable populace willfully
sacrificed to wolves in suit and tie because skin color
differed, pocket books were too thin, excuses by men
controlling monopoly board.

Preview: Chapter One - a novel opener idea

ONE: a discovery

Edna put her nose to the earth and took a long sharp sniff through her snout. Her pink palms placed flat against the stones of the seaside bluffs, green moss hugging her digits as she took another sniff. She took a step forward, her bent knees carrying her legs over small crags, and her equally pink toes gripping them as she moved. Behind her, her tail maneuvered in the high wind, balancing her body as it attempted to shift to and fro through the force of the gusts. But she was undeterred, even as the world far below the rocks seemed miles away, and sharp edges protruded out to decimate anyone unlucky enough to lose footing. But she was not one of them.

            Nature had blessed her opossum ancestry with agile and dense limbs, a tail able to control her direction, and support her weight, a fifth limb, like her hands and feet built to grip, hold, tighten, like an extra finger produced out the middle of her backside. She was too intent on her sense of smell giving her clues to something new, that old genetic gift, allowing her to detect the faintest shift in sent. Proud to have these genetic gifts. Many of her kind had abandoned basic instincts, the basic usages of their tails, and toes, and olfactory senses, and had been content to seek assistance through tools. It was taught that way, to abandon unnecessary evolutionary gifts, because tools and gadgets had gifted all beings the ability to do whatever they needed.

            Her tribe had held on to the old ways. Edna was a little troubled with the knowledge that her home was one of solitude, a place stuck in time. The island nation of Yori was home to many opossum tribes, but where others had chosen to grow with time, and engage with outsiders, and be lured into notions of industry, her tribe had chosen to ignore this progress. The old ways were the right ways, and yet Edna felt a constant curiosity all her life. Soon she’d be free to pursue the trials and graduate into adulthood with the allure of forging her own path, but as of now she was stuck obeying the overseer, the council and her parents. She couldn’t remember the last time the nation of Yori had convened together, when all six tribes had met in one place. On occasion a trader would come by, selling wares, and spreading gossip, but they were never permitted to stay.

            Edna had taken solace on the seaside, upon the bluffs. Her home away from home. A place to escape the talk of marriage rituals, and responsibility, a place to escape the questions she wanted to ask, the way she wanted to break free from the constant restraints that the tribe put upon her. When the time came for her to forge her own life, she knew she wanted to leave, wanted to go beyond Yori, wanted to sail the ocean, to see the ships dock in the harbors in the neighboring village.

Fourteen years ago, when she was but a little sprout, her fur growing in patches on her pink skin, she remembered gawking at the vessels that took to shore, the rabbits, and dog species exchanging chit chat. Whenever she saw the Yori caravans pass by her village, she remembered the ships, so much bigger, carrying so many trinkets unique to the outside world.

            Eventually, the ships stopped. For fourteen years. The village elders had said it was good, that contact with the outside world led to bad habits, picked up through the rough and blasphemous lives of the outsiders. Lessons taught by the fox, or cat, were not lessons needed to be taught to the world of opossums. She had heard tales of war, battles between mighty eagles, and chameleons. Tales of species able to conquer and take advantage of the wind, soaring on mighty wings, and others, able to camouflage and infiltrate other nations, and uproot them from the inside. Her older brother had filled her head with a multitude of tales, before he had departed the village, banished, for mocking the tribe’s ways. Gray, her big brother, hadn’t been around for five years, and she had to eventually find her own ways to curiosity.

            Visiting other tribes was out of the question. Not alone. Until you were of age you were required to stay with the confines of invisible borders drawn out on maps. A signpost along the road that branched in six different directions warned of unlawful departure, fines, punishments. As much as Edna wanted to see the world, she could wait. Only one month to go.

            All the efforts of the world seemed to be there to stem the curiosity of the young. The nation of Yori was set in its ways, every tribe content in itself, but her own, the only one more isolated than the nation itself. That outsiders had come in on ships in the first place was a surprise to many, and it was bad mouthed, and rebuked at every possible avenue. When young adult opossums started volunteering for service, to travel away from the safe confines of Yori, that was when the murmurs grew louder. The threat of the outsiders, poisoning the mind of the young, stealing them away, selling them on stories of adventure and then selling them into lives of servitude, or worse, saving them as midnight snacks.

            The bluffs were the only place Edna felt secure to think freely, as though her parents, and the overseer, and the council of elders might read her mind. After all, Gray had been so careful in his telling of adventures stories, in the quietest of whispers always making sure the coast was clear of prying ears, and yet they somehow had found out. No, Edna couldn’t take that chance, out here the winds blocked everything, the sound of her claws gripping to the moistened stones, those subtle cracks, the labored breaths as the air got thinner. The winds whistling bounced off into the atmosphere and masked her dreaming from any spying eyes.

            Then, on this day, she had caught something on the wind. Like a message sent by a brush of wind that sailed into her nasal cavity, her mind recognizing something that it did not recognize. The unfamiliar scent had started on a flat rock top, and had sputtered out over the points of rocks, as though bouncing from one surface to another. Even Edna with her gripping tail and toes had trouble navigating the thin, pointed, slime covered rocks, but she’d managed to follow the trail to another peak. A point she hadn’t ever dared climb to before, and then the scent stopped.

            She stood back onto her feet, scraped the wetness of her hands against the fabric of her trousers and scanned back and forth across the horizon. Her nose stuck out in the air, she closed her eyes to pinpoint her senses, as if canceling out one sense might accentuate the others, but she could not locate the scent again. It was a smell of something alive, but not a plant, something that had a hint of iron like blood in it, but something else that she couldn’t quite place. Having no luck, she moved her eyes back to the horizon, squinting concentrating through the light fogs that permanently coated the bluffs.

            Down toward the crashing shore, on the beach, being encroached upon by the tide was a figure, unmoving, barely discernable through the haze. She peered awhile, notions of fear taught her by her instructors, family, and counselors sat upon her mind. It was not her place to investigate, surely those more suited to a task, and whatever danger it might warrant should come and see who or what that being was down there, and her foot shifted to retreat. And as she moved, she thought of that blood smell, the thought of a wound, of dying, of death and against her better judgement, she moved down the cliff face toward the figure.

            To her own surprise she descended with great velocity, her toes and fingers proving more agile and capable than she had ever thought as she leapt her way down, point by point, little by little. Occasionally she felt a slipping in her grip, but she pounced to the next point till the rocks flattened out into a straight vertical drop. The drop off rushed to her, and she had but a moment to respond, gripping tighter, sliding off into the curved edges of the top of the ledge, and her feet kept her secure, locked against the edge of the bluff.

            Edna had realized how quick her heart had been racing, how hard, the intensity banging drumbeats inside her body. With one hand barely gripped to the rocks, she placed the other hand, palm out on her chest, letting the pulses reverberate against herself. All at once the sound of the sea beating against the beaches raced up to her, the whistles of wind coming to odds with the immovable rock faces. The weathered smooth stone underneath evidence of the violence the sea could commit when it was battered by the weather. She looked up to the sky, and could not see the sun, the dense fog shifting in position to settle above her.

            With trepidation she poked her head out over the edge, straining her neck. There was a slight curvature to the bluff wall, but it would be risky to trust it, to slide down it, risky but not impossible. Edna cast her sight left to right, checking how far the obstacle of the drop ran on for, and it seemed to run on infinitely in either direction. As if remembering what drove her to such a foolish predicament she looked about for the figure, her heart settling, returning to steadied beats, she focused her eyes, and saw it, small, being kissed by the tide as it moved inward. The body shifted with the pulling of the water, it wouldn’t be long before the gripping reach of sea water pulled the being into its depths, tossing it out into the infinite to be lost.

            But perhaps the figure was already lost. Dead. Edna recalled the scent of blood, the iron lifeforce that had drifted up into her nostrils and warned her of the danger. The impending loss of life. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps this figure is gone from this world. Free to travel up to the sky gods and be free of whatever suffering had befallen it. Her thoughts settled into this but a moment, her body wanting to retreat and crawl back up the rock faces. It would be a tough climb, but not near as dangerous as the idea of sliding down the drop off.

            However, she kept her footing, her eyes cast back down to the shoreline. The tiny being trying to be stolen by nature, to a watery grave. Even if dead, did it not deserve burial rights, to be treated as a living thing. Just because it was not of her tribe, she felt a guilt in her bones at the notions she had considered, even if for a fleeting moment. She once again considered the cliff face.

            With one foot holding her in place, she took the other and felt the wall beneath her. She stretched out a leg, angled her foot, and extended her toes as though she were out on the docks with Gray and the water was ice cold. Smooth, like the flesh of her nose, the wall appeared free of crags, and protrusions, at least in her small space, and with another crane of her neck she squinted her way down its length and could not see any obstructions that would hinder her way down. She took a deep breath and risked two legs over the wall. She had to be careful, had to hug the wall as best she could, had to control her descent or risk being flung from the surface or to find herself pelted and crushed under the velocity of her fall. At the bottom, the sand might have been fine and soft, although coarse to the touch, or as it slipped through the spaces in her fingers, but she knew collectively it was as tough as any solid rock, would not break her fall, but only break her.

            One more breath, and she let herself go over. The descent was quick, sudden, the ground removed, and gravity taking its charge. Edna felt the stone grow warm under her feet, under her open hands, the velocity of the friction generating heat, but she kept her feet planted, her knees bent, she braced the wall as best she could and tried to find some semblance of control. And then, she was there. At the bottom.

            It was fast, the descent, she felt her right foot impact hard into the side of the bottom of the rock face, toes curled, and then cracked. Her other foot landing heavy and flat into the sand, and she was sent barreling over herself into the dirt, her broken foot in the air. She hugged her knee with one arm and grabbed at her foot with the free hand trying to pull it closer to her face to inspect the damage.

            A gash formed at the base of her toes, deep red clogging up already, and covered in dirt. The pain was pushing through her, but she inspected each of her toes from right to left, and when she came to the thumb on her foot, for opossums special have them there, she noticed it fell lopsided to what its original position would have been, as if disconnected, dislocated, or broken.

            Edna dropped her head back into the sand. She giggled to herself, looked back over her head at the base of the wall and followed it up with her upside-down view, and giggle with absurdity that she survived the fall. With her pink hands she reached down her abdomen to a slit in her blouse, and into her pouch, another genetic gift, and took out a cloth wrapping. As she untied it, she revealed the bundle of boiled grasshoppers she had intended to snack on as she watched the tide come in. She popped a couple in her mouth before letting the other ones go to waste in the spaces next to her.

            As she cracked the insect exoskeletons in her teeth and savored the soft insides on her tongue, she took the cloth and wrapped it around her wounded foot. Edna pulled it as tight as she comfortably could, the fabric absorbing the blood, pushing the sands into her wound that made her grimace in pain. For now, it would have to do, until the herbalist could clean it and give her a tonic. The thumb she figured would have to stay as it was, such as it was.

            With a push Edna rolled herself over to her belly, bent her good leg and found her grip, using her hands to push herself up to a standing position. Ahead of her the figure laid floating a bit in the coming tide, being pulled further out to the sea.

            After hobbling several feet to the body, she reached a hand down to grab its arms, but pulled away quickly. She shook off the brief moment of panic, and reached down again, taking the feathered arm into her grip and pulling the body away from the water. Back in the spaces of safety she rolled the body over, and a beaked face looked up at her. A young face. A child. A bird. The small round eyes looked pleading; the beak opened and closed loosing sea water that had snuck inside to dribble out on the earth. The bird was alive. A sparrow child.

            “Hi there.” Edna said, as if speaking to an infant, she placed a hand to her chest, “I’m Edna. I’m going to help you.”

            The sparrow seemed to speak, it blinked. As Edna bent down to pick it up the sparrow child let out a scream, strange to have come out of such a broken creature, tired, dying. Edna stopped trying to lift it a moment, apologizing profusely, and pulled up the wing closest to her, amongst the brown of the feathers, a tinge of crimson red, thick and clogged was evidenced in the pit of the arm.

            “I’m sorry but I need to carry you,” Edna whispered as she bent down again, set to cradle the small sparrow in her arms, and for a moment the screams went out, the bird trying to flail loose, but the opossum held on tightly, eventually, exhausted the sparrow went silent, limp in Edna’s arms. Edna felt the tiny chest rise and fall, promising that life still existed, lungs working, heart beating. And she moved along the shoreline, toward the port town of Warren, closest, but promising a chastising from her own Natori tribe.

            Edna didn’t care, there was life in her hands, and she intended to see it preserved.

Edna found that the pain in her foot had gradually subsided, for what seemed like hours she had hobbled along carrying the sparrow child in her arms, occasionally placing full weight in the sands of the beach. The bluffs began to shrink down alongside her, descending until the vanished into foothills and then beneath the dirt. A forest of evergreen trees waiting for their absence, strong, towering, brightly lit by a sky clear of fog. The foot was numb, paralyzed, she felt the drag of her limp appendage behind her, making the weight of the young bird even more unbearable, but she soldiered on to her own surprise.

            If Gray had been around now, she would have thrown in comment defending her strength, a strength he had doubted she had for as long as she could remember. He was never blatantly rude, but she recognized the disbelief in her brothers’ responses when she boasted of her own abilities on the same level as his own. She doubted that he had ever carried a wounded being across miles of beach sand, and pine needle laced forests before. It was her small victory and the only witness to it was groaning comatose in her arms.

            No doubt by now her father would be furiously waiting for her to wander in after curfew. The sun already setting on the horizon, the promise of darkness, the promise of a stern talking to, an evening with no dessert of lemon cookies. It wasn’t as though she were up to no good, the punishments seemed overkill, if anything her wandering off into the mountains, and exploring the beaches should be commended. It was private, no chance of outsiders influencing her mind, stealing her away from her homestead. If only, she thought, how she’d love a bit of misbehavior to break up the monotony of her days.

            The body in her arms hadn’t been the sort of rebellion she had hoped for, but she hoped her father might commend her for saving a life, maybe her mother would cushion the rebuke by remarking on what a good hearted being they had raised. But even then, she doubted it. Surely they would challenge her with a number of what ifs scenarios that could have befallen her: what if it had turned out to be a rabid fox being, snarling and mad in the head, seeking to devour a young opossum, what if it had been a trap of slavers, and they were waiting somewhere nearby with nets, and cages to box her up in, what if the bird had been dead, and a storm took to throwing the sea at her, breaking her body against the bluff walls.

            That none of those things came to pass wouldn’t matter. They would only be thinking of how it could have gone wrong. She felt no worries though of her own conscience, she had in her mind, done the right thing. Knowing that someone was suffering, and dying, and choosing not to act seemed to Edna to be the worst possible decision one could commit.

            After what seemed like millions of pine needles crackling and prodding into her bare feet Edna came upon the port of Warren. Through the trees the lumber framed houses, light brown with pine, reinforced with red oak showed their roofs, and windows, their stilted legs that creeped into the tide waters, elevated walkways connecting a number of homesteads to the market, and auction houses. She pushed herself through the final brush that blocked her from the seashore and collapsed to her knees. She tried to keep the sparrow in balance in her arms, but felt herself go lightheaded, and weak, and she fell sidelong with the bird going with her, Edna’s own body breaking the poor things fall.

            From somewhere nearby Edna heard the whispered gossip of young opossums, children, echoes of worry and apprehension. She raised her hand up in the air, waving at those she could not see, and she announced, “We need help, get a doctor, find some adults please.” When she heard the voices depart in the distance, she was satisfied her request had been heard and obeyed, she lowered her arm beside herself. Edna lifted her chin, looking at her foot, raising it in the air, and she could make out with blurred vision that the bandage was smothered in her blood.

            As she felt herself start to fall unconscious, she waved her arm over to her side where the sparrow had fallen and found her hand to its chest. It raised and fell still, barely, but barely was better than not at all, and Edna felt safe enough to let the sleep overtake her and she passed out there beside her anonymous friend.

Ax Murderers - a poem

Ax Murderers

Jason Voorhees never entered the consciousness of my frail young mind
it wasn't he that plagued my dreams with images of murderers out
to abolish my family from pages of existence. There were no media
notes, in that popular sense, but perhaps a multitude of stories on daily
news cycles. Michael Meyers was not a villain I was accustomed
to noticing, at least not as more than passing mention, but my dreams
were still nightmare fueled, bloody messes, where my brother, mother,
and father were obliterated by stabs, and masses of cuts and punctures,
but majority of time my mother was only survivor, hiding me underneath
an embrace.

Freddy Kruger was not present, it was more traditional types, kinds that killed
in reality, but plagued me like he did in spaces of my dream state, and I
all but six, seven, or eight years old, plagued my images of death and dismemberment
and not knowing why. A cousin might have mentioned in some passing
story that they had heard of these mainstream killers, immortal, or paranormal
and attacking on a whim of teenagers, and unsuspecting baby sitters, for I surely
knew names of each of them, before I ever put their ski-mask, Shatner mask,
or burned face on concrete places inside my brain. My mother did not watch
those movies, my father once upon a time did, but even a cartoon tornado
touched down upon our property with intense feelings of dread as it sucked
up the house across the street, and nearly got us too, but my mother shooed
it away, and it took off afraid of motherly love.

When velociraptors were popular, in that movie franchise sense, I remember
having dreamed of them flocking into our church house, and decimating
everyone. And I did not know why my brain had preoccupations with death,
until I was much older. True crime was not a genre ever present in our house,
and scariest film I'd watched may have been melting faces, or hearts ripped out,
or extreme aging leaving only skeleton dust in whatever Indiana Jones movie I'd fancied,
but it wasn't that, it wasn't the murder of Marvin Acme pinned on Roger Rabbit,
and it wasn't a new batch of Gremlins, who both along with Indy had been my favorite
films for repeat viewing. Nor was it Flipper, where a younger Frodo Baggins
was chased and nearly eaten by a menacing hammerhead shark named Scar. But,
it could have been another Scar who tossed off his brother from cliff side,
so he could be king.

It wasn't though, not really, my preoccupation with death wasn't a product
of franchise dead teenager films, or archaeologist unearthing godly vengeance,
or natures wrath for being tampered with. Death permeated dreams of my childhood
because my first memory, that I could ever recall, haunted me to today, encoded
in my brain, like a tattoo, able to be occasionally covered up, but not when there was no chance
to control unconscious of that unlimited dream space. The dream comes to me,
regularly, waking up, small, nearly three, climbing off a bed made for giant,
so it seems to me, and I wander into living room, of a single wide, shag carpeted
trailer and see my mother in shock, talking calmly, an unmovable infant in her arms,
my older brother at her side, afraid, terrified, mortified, changed, and my father,
over there, in the kitchen, pacing and raging with tears, and that was where my preoccupation
came from. That invasion of death, on mind at most malleable.

And my mother, always survivor, taking me up as baby, when baby was gone. Me and her,
versus the world, against killers, and twisters, and dinosaurs, and monsters,
when all else was lost she'd be there to protect me. Holding me closer, me her baby boy
again, and she couldn't know impact on me now, my long-dependence on her to fix
it, to be stronghold in a life filled with invaders, a home to return to, and me always afraid
when it would fall, when death might overtake her, and how I might cope when ceiling
collapsed and my guardian and champion was no longer standing guard. Loss, is always
at the center of fears of separation, and lately my nightmares, when they come are of being
dumped, for some infraction I have committed. And those feel similar to death, levels of fear,
and horror on par, in the dream, to ax murders killing everything I hold dear.

Love, of family, of lover, not just of my mother, and significant other, but of brothers, and sister,
in-laws, and nieces and nephews, love is a shield against thoughts of killers lurking under my bed, with clawed hands, it keeps them at bay, but sometimes, often enough, nightmare is fueled,
and I am saved by reality, it's own scary premise, and I sigh, sigh deeply because, well, because
I have multiple strongholds in my life, from my mother, to my future wife.

A Mess of Message - a poem

A Mess of Message

They appointed a cabinet position that preferred abstinent-only education

took to comparisons, that generated inter-comparison among themselves

and all the poor-in-health, demanded that those who hoarded wealth give 

a dime back to their grandmother, who in truth was their ambassador,

she voted along party lines, like an obligation, called for practical learning

but passed a ballot for standardization, and taxes on transportation

that if not paid resulted in citation, and then they go on teaching children,

the same messes, and bioleaching life force, electing a winner,

but these vampires are not alluring, only killer and in this way

that satisfaction, was an abstraction, and the basic direction

was forced into c-section, so save what little life they could.

The Farm House - a poem

The Farm House

belonged to my grandparents,
that is Carol and Charles Blackmore, on a formerly
dirt road in Ravenna, Michigan. It's borders
concentrated with pine trees, planted when my mother
as she remembers was a younger person, and now
like her grown up, flourishing, and products
of careful construction with strong roots
holding them together. The farm house is now
overrun with grass, when often, before in a time
past it was mowed constantly by my grandmother
on red riding lawnmower, a chore she took on

while her husband tended to farm house. On
occasions it is tended, but no longer as regularly,
and if you entered on driveway, on this day,
you would see great weeping willow dead,
decaying, dying, bent, and its mighty trunk
cracking under the weight of praise the lord
reaching branches, that now buckle when once
they were raised with an absolution of strength,
so that children could climb upon it with makeshift
footing and play and jump and chase each other

in games of hide and seek, and tag. Driveway
would circle about that mighty tree, to a point,
bringing you to house, and shed, on left side,
old barn on right, and mighty big barn further
to right side. If you go today, shed is gone, a flat pile
barely reminding how much work was to be done,
how much storage was needed for a days work.
In the yard is an old house, crumbled to ruins,

though when it was standing, from my vague memory,
it was always Gothic and terrifying, a shambled
mess still vertical, upright, towering. Firefighters
used it as practice, controlled flames, let it fall to pieces
and left its guts in the yard overflowing with overgrowth
and weeds. Parking a car, hopping out, you'd walk
about walls, and step into house, where my grandfather
often stepped out, with large thermos of cold
iced tea, always unsweetened, always eager to give
his grandchildren a sip if they asked. His whistles
singing off the walls, and a slew of barn cats, and feral

cats, but never house cats would come
scrambling from inside of hiding places,
holes, and underneath junk and follow him, this pied
piper singing out in music that Jiminy Cricket would be
proud of, and they would know feeding time was coming,
and he'd track past his shed, past one barn, and into
his biggest one, and there he'd disappear and work,
and feed, and gather up seed and sew what he could

but now that land is not what it was but the memory
of what was there, and in truth, had it been kept
in its original state, it would not house the life it did,
for we all grew up, and some are no longer here,
that made a farm house what it could be, a place
for fellowship among family.

Doing Math - a poem

Doing Math

When I was first taught one and one makes two
I was probably closer to four years old, not amused
with notions of numbers, and notations, equations,
my declaration was that mathematics was a tough
object to crack. And as my multiplication of life
events comes back to present me with a number
of story problems I am lost on how I carry myself
as my ones place, invades my tens place, and my hundreds
place. I am occupied that a division of who I am
is an addition problem presented by chaos theory
in that two people, my mother and father, met and created
by a number of intricacies of human genetics my existence
and I navigate the long-handed approach of complex
expression such as loving, and wanting and needing,
as my exponents are revealed to be the root value
of what I have beckoned of myself. And if my calculations
are correct I will not get the math, and for that matter
the measurements needed to perfect it. But I do know
that my order of operations, is to move to this point,
then that point, in concrete and set down rules that are unchangeable
but often I break the rules and find my answer is not along
the lines of everyone else. As red ink riddles the mysteries
of who I am, I am given the answer, and can often speak
advice for others but have taken so long to figure out
my own solutions, the value of my life which is closer
to zero, but not quite, and perhaps that is what love does
adds a variable and cancels out the faults, so that X equals
Y and that is okay. For life has never been math,
but often just as confusing.

Fake News Epilogue - a poem

the failing times, and the failing posts, and the failing everything,
how it feels to be hit by a bus over and over, punishable upon impact
when it careens forth into a layer of pedestrian onlookers. who paid to be there
who saw the signs posted on rails, that said if you stand here you get front row
seats but you  will be subject to brute force punishment, the side effect
of which is, death. Do you understand what the man at the podium is saying
neither does anyone else, but we nod and consider his points, and listen
to him berate, because leading free world we should be listening to him,
shouldn't we, on some level, on some fabric of my being I should be giving
up a level of respect an inch, at the very least but I can find no redeemable factor
in a man who from day one made it his mission to be brutish, like so many
men who toss and twirl and grab this world by the pussy.

so what if they push us up against walls, and fondle and grope at all the dignity
we have left, and make mockery of our senate, of our courts, of our society,
or maybe just as likely to reveal the cracks, and crevices, that cause fissures of boiling
repulsion that spurt up into the air in flatulent smelling talking points. all the great walls,
and wonderful child fences as caged animals, and deleting predecessors doings, even when
they did not need to be undone but out of spite. when in fact they'd be of service,
and when media calls him out, he lies, he says he didn't, he says he couldn't have known,
but history shows that he did.

he is one smart son of a bitch, disavow the media machine, and then all the lies he tells,
when they are called out will be seen as attacks, even when your words come out unfiltered,
unedited, and somehow its always the media painting the poor picture. bravo Mister Pussy-Grabber,
bravo macho man who walked in dressing rooms at miss america pageants, and we were supposed
to be okay with that because beautiful women want to be looked at. And even though
all his behavior would have sufficient for sacking like Sodom and Gamorrha, somehow
all he has to say is he is born again, that he is christian, and all the people might jump
up on his bandwagon.

in the end what do we get, what do you get, what do i get. when will the final folly of a foolish
reality star be enough, when will finale start, and curtain fall on this mockery. and why is it lord could want one president but not the other. when one man gets it, the lords people say, God willed it so, but if its who they don't want, then its the devil at work. we must make up our mind on what type
of hypocrites we want to be.

children are still in cages, and the pandemic may reach them too, and we must contend with what that could mean, that we justified that, and allowed Donald J Trump to be our commander-in-chief.