Mild fever - mild ear infection

I am searching for my voice

Even as it escapes my throat like barbed wire

And dreams

I am interpreting the blueprint

Conceived in a child’s smile

My pantheon unfolding

The revolution rescheduled

I am not going to write another word about how I am broken

I am ignoring a desire to pen poor prose in place of truth

The ducks are fine (I’m not sure about the beavers)

Thanks for asking

The sun is rising earlier

I am sleeping less . . .

I am trying to discern the pattern inherent in the chaos

Like remembering the echo of a flicker on the screen

Repetition is the first step to defeating natural freedom

The next step is incandescence

Then oh how the dominoes flow

It requires your belief

You have to ignore the rhythms calling to you from inside

You have to wear shoes if you want to go outside

Do not step on the grass

I see the anarchy of the morning dew, daily

I spout subconscious talking points with equal regularity

No I did not see the Oscars

If the revolution was televised I missed it

I turned off the cable

I know how it all ends anyway

I am the worst dressed

I dropped the f-bomb

I’ve been sleeping on a single bed beneath a coughing child

I have been applauding the bravery of persisting through pain

I have been negotiating the peace accord of dinner time

2 more bites of chicken

2 more pieces of broccoli

Drink all of your juice

Then you can get down

Crying gets you nothing from me

Except for hugs and sympathy

The idea that I am settling is the thing I set on fire in protest

As it has always been, today is the best day of my life

I am a forgetful bastard

I know

I know

The dishes have become a sculpture

The dishes have become the mashed potato mountain from Close Encounters

They cannot be done

It means something now

They must be worshipped

They must be pondered

I sacrifice this inexpensive pizza to you dishes

I kneel to your girth

You are a wanton thing

You are a benevolent, forgiving god

The bourbon is placed in the middle of the kitchen

A welcome waypoint between the altar in the sink

And the unfolded monument that extends like a mountain range

Like a dragons back

Like a poor man’s pyramid

From the washer and dryer

Hail to you oh god of sleeplessness

Praise to you sweet lord of getting through

I have lost all patience

It is my song to you

I worship at the foot of the xbox

Inside I am a champion

I am a warrior

My sword is augmented with purity and experience

My halfback is unstoppable

He sits on my lap and says maybe we can find some treasure

Or kill some monsters or something

Maybe we can play the crashing game

Maybe

Maybe

He is reconnecting me

Even though his cold has ruined date night

Even though her cold has pushed us beyond arm’s length

We circle the wagons

We aid each other

And we become a heap of tissue, and blankies, and peace

All of my new dreams will be of other people’s happiness

Phase one of project blue beam

I will make a joyful noise

I will initiate the unconditional love protocol

I will project something worth believing

Let the dishes linger

Leave the clean clothes to wrinkle and pile

I have almost gleaned their meaning

I’ve been loving you so long

I will want to sleep tonight

It will be my intention

But you will sleep

And I will linger

In a quiet world

Interrupted by the echoes of you two

Coughing upstairs

I will love you best

In the darkness

With my pure hope

I will pray

That you persist

That you get better

That you don’t leave me alone

That you keep loving me

There are so many of these moments

That you will never know

Moments of gathering strength

Moments of tenuous joy

Moments of thankfulness and scars

Moments when I think I hear it

My voice scattered like stars and good intentions

I am searching for an unnamable feeling

I am trying to define a wordless something or other

I am seeking you oh god of guts

I am up

Too late

Again

Recounting my blessing

Pointing a finger at each subtle failure

Forming a mythology fraught with beauty and lies

Somewhere

Amongst the stream of possibilities

Is the perfect me . . .

I am beginning to think

This struggling soul

Is the best that I can be . . .

San Tropez

I've been listening to Roger Waters and Pink Floyd again. Man . . . that music has a pass card to my secret lair. It just walks right in and starts mucking up the place. Self programmed through repetition. I am and have been more a fan of Floyd than the Beatles, or Led Zeppelin, or the Doors. I have been a consumer of the others, but never in the same way. I have tried several times to leave Pink Floyd behind, but they are a soundtrack of my self and however much hip-hop or alt pop, or bad rock I listen to, they remain a watermark of my musical taste.

Incidentally, my mom says that Dark Side of the Moon was her favorite album while she was pregnant for me. She listened to it constantly during those nine months. At some point when I was young . . . I want to say I was seven . . . we were driving down the street and a song came on. I started singing along, knowing the lyrics without really knowing what it was. I asked her and she freaked out a bit. It was Time. The idea that music could imprint and follow me from the womb fascinated both of us.

Sometimes it is astonishing to think that in some way my melancholy matched up with the sad introspection of post war English youth. In my mind, their reaction to their parent’s fears, to an evolving national identity, to the sadness of learning the truth, and to our ravenous and evolving global economy could not have been given a better life than through experimental music and the fact that this music made them any money at all is a tribute to their unflinching lyrics and musical virtuosity.

Hard truth is my favorite kind. I like beauty and love too, but I have always felt that the last thousand years or so have been a series of mistakes and the lies we tell ourselves so that we can keep moving forward despite the obvious insanity of each step. We are so out of balance now that the new fantasy, as expressed so vividly in Reagan’s 1987 address to the UN, is that some diabolical outside force appears to force unity and change.  (Let me just say, that I see a lot of amazing has happened too, not the least of which is me and Pink Floyd. : )

The amazing thing about this odd dream is how powerless it is . . . even at the supposed zenith of control we can do nothing but plod forward toward our own demise and wish it was different. Personally I believe we are better than that, but I see how anyone could let themselves become overwhelmed by our time. I’m sure if I knew what a president knows my mind would be changed, at least a bit.

There was a time I wanted to save the world, like Superman. And I guess I still do, but I think my tactics have evolved. To me our only hope is to look at ourselves, see the hard truth, admit who we are and what we have done, make amends, and then change. I don’t think we will. I just think it’s our only hope. I have gone from advocating wholesale global change to a faith in or hope for entanglement and its ability to spark a fire that leads to something big.

So, I spread happiness one person at a time. I hold doors open. I smile. I trust in my belief that I am connected to every atom and quark, every higs particle and each undulation of time, every desire and every star system. My ripples mean something. The way I live has an effect and one day my joy will contribute to an inevitable shift. I am empowered. I don’t try to control you. I just do what I can do. I have bad days . . .

On bad days sometimes I find my way back to Time, or Wish you Were Here, or Us and Them. I remember that I’m not alone, that it is sane to feel sad, that relentless hope is a worthy religion, that words have power . . . When the melancholy threatens to overtake me I stop and I listen to this or this or this or maybe this - and then I find my smile and walk, whistling into the twilight.

Get out of my secret lair Pink . . . and clean up before you go.

SOS - three

I have not learned to play guitar yet – I still imagine skateboarding along and through the many obstacles of the city when I am not driving – I keep a heard of butterflies whose only job is to flap until there is more necking in this world – I also keep several kinds of bugs with allergies – their job is to achoo randomly – I like surprises - I look up words to make sure they are what I mean – I have come to enjoy the diversity of flatulence – I imagine that you’re laughing

There is a magic to America – sandwiched between country music stations and mountain ranges – the loneliest highway is wonderful if you can bring a friend – I-35 a long lick between our collective cleavage from concrete jungles to redwood forests I have leaned my head back in stunned gazes – I have memorized voices, gleaned their meaning, and lost the words like leaves down river – everywhere I went I loved them – the hopeful, the angry, the crafters trying and trying again – you can still find them, open, opening and curious

I saw the people on the streets today - the wind adding its own cold sense of urgency - it whispered run or you will die outside - I tell you friends the wind has never lied to me

I Texas not Texan - I Texas State not UT - admirer of longhorns, who sometimes sweats burnt orange - fan of old cowboys and tigers - sparky and too tall - conceived in Grand Rapids - heart broken in Lansing - my families could be family if not for the similarity - I left the cold for a reason - and now the season has me

SOS - two

I puzzled by duality – existing in another place – I might be having coffee in Paris right now – I might be trading jokes with Brenner or smoking crack with Patrick – I of so many possibilities – I create tandems sometimes just to have more – I imagine infinitesimally small differences like wearing my hair in a ponytail on December 12, 1983, or preferring gouda - there a whole reality – In this one I have purple eyes – In this one, no human trafficking

I pulling away from the veneer – I veering off path – I am not a caricature of myself – I am more myself – this is me – struggling, weak, unsatisfied, ignorant and mean – I have other qualities – I think they’ll fit better in some other section – Judge me if it pleases you – Send the poison from your eyes or lips – I have no antidote – In some place not too far from here you have already killed me – If you thought it the karma damage is done – Words are only thoughts given another dimension – translated from the information pool at the universal event horizon

I wish to be the decider of which dimension I inhabit – I wish to augment this ability with the right to explore and change my mind – I might want blue leaves in fall or more pyramids - I wish to fly – I wish to know what comes after death definitively so that I can make a reasoned decision as to whether I’d like to be involved in such a process – please do not bury me in a box – I wish to feed the earth – it is the least that I can do

I who does not qualify for a geek badge – I who is not, strictly speaking, literary – I who is not even medium read, let alone well – I who has made an art of finding crevices to call a home - I have learned to live without your feedback – like a camel I cling to things high school teachers said – I fight the urge to ask you – I do not self promote so I don’t seem needy . . . but you and I both know we are all needy – I would rush into your arms each and all – I would suffer every opposite to love you – I have learned that I love too much – especially too much for those who don’t believe