Tag Archives: love

Patience For The Queen

17 Thursday May 2018

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The Saffron Queen is a dream of blood now. She is garnet and green veins, though she wishes they were blue, strong and heroic like Princess Diana. She is needles and nose mucous, pretty in that blouse she bought for her trip to Puerto Rico, pink lace, denim and sandals she waits for the drip to be done so she can vape her troubles away.

The Garnet Queen’s hands are talons now, gripping, grasping, seeking prey to tear apart on the rocks of her teeth. This lady is no raptor seeking meat, she wants to kill the heart of you with her cruel, crushing words. And now she curls up like a baby and weeps, begging for love, sipping from her “Kwanzaa” cup, lost in a place she did not ask to be. She drifts off and the fear and the hate and the sorrow melt away.

She is Changeling, someone replaced her in the night with someone else, there is no other explanation for why she has gone. She is lost and believes she is alone, no one cares, even though her man strokes her hair and I press dressings to stop the bleed where she pulled out the IV.  She is Changeling, wondering why her children haven’t come, hating them and laying curses on them forever.

A cold front moves in over the ocean, rising thunderheads captured in steel gray and mango moments before the rain, a dramatic photograph she took that sits on the floor of her room instead of hanging proudly on someone’s wall. I like to remember my fierce potted plant friend as photographer lady, the unfinished woman wondering why her children never call, her man working so hard to please her. May her Kwanzaa cup brim with love tomorrow, may the grace of the Universe find her man and fill him with patience and strength, and I’ll not fail to remember the dachshund pillows next time.

The Queen Wears Saffron

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

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“They left me. The dogs. The afternoon!”  I cobbled together what she meant. I heard the panic in her voice, but that didn’t stop me from brushing my teeth and buying her a Slushie before I pulled into her empty driveway.

I entered the house, de-pursed and -jacketed myself onto her sofa. I took note of the state of her home. It wasn’t until I reached the second stairway that the dogs decided to make a fuss, but the herd did not murder me as she always fears. The dachshunds are a noisy lot but they know I’m not afraid of their “yeah just you try it” eyes and ivory teeth. They flop over and let me love them like the pussies they are.

She needed someone to take the dogs outside for their afternoon walks because everyone left her. I did my best in shifts and had some success as they relieved their bowels and barked at the breeze inside a plastic white fence. She asked me to stay and of course I did, willing to stay until midnight.

I brought the queen a blue Slurpie because I know it’s what she likes. I walked her dogs because it’s what she needed.  I listened to the queen whose house has been on fire since I’ve known her, Judge Judy playing in the background.

The queen sipped and nipped at food which I found encouraging, her dogs circling her wagon, allowing me on her bed. I complimented the lady on her bedroom curtains not because I felt I had to but because it was sincere.  It seemed to make her happy. I understand now why she says her bedroom is cold: the north wall is one big window that faces the Chesapeake Bay, and it’s hard to keep out the north/northeast wind from your eyelashes this way. The view is beautiful, if only one is okay sleeping under a pile of covers.

The queen was strong enough to ask for help in getting her dogs outside to relieve themselves, yet she wouldn’t allow anyone to delve into why her body is wasting away. I find it hard to ask and receive help, and her cold fingers remind me that I am a fool. She apologized for the current state of her home where she served everyone homemade meals and tried to save everyone from themselves because it was her job. I held her cold hand and noted the “watch it, punk” look in Izzy’s eyes: I told them both, “No worries.”  I left them resting in a nest of clean saffron sheets and a gray throw.

We all let each other down when we do not talk, when we do not speak the real. When we do not truly listen to each other.  My prayer for today is wrapped in saffron and dandelion, tiny pollens stuck to my fingers and nose, that we stop and we listen, and we grant ourselves peace.

Branches, Crossing

26 Monday Mar 2018

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20180324_132119.jpgSome might say we make our appointment with Death on the day we are born. There are few promises we are given in life and death is one. So is life and temptation and choice. Dance, song, rain. Drought, snow, and wind that changes direction three times in the space of a day.

We come from imperfect, fragile seeds that force our way up, out, from the dark and into the cold light. We are imperfect, fragile humans told we must go “that way,” and we go with hands that are empty or hands that carry unnecessary burdens. Success is a word with little meaning, like failure. What matters is Life. What will we do with this one wild and precious life* we are given, that we don’t even know exists? What will we do with what remains of this one wild and precious life when we know we are at its end?

My friend is in transition and she knows but doesn’t know. She reclines, weak and full of effit on a broken branch, afraid it will fall, certain she did not cause its withering, fighting all of us and our outreached hands, begging her to come in, come back in, you will fall, please come in, but she knows best. We are watching the branch breaking beneath her. She pushed us away and we turned away and now we are watching her wither at the end of a branch that needn’t be.

My friend’s greatest treasures are her memories of her childhood family and of taking care of her children. We never talk at length about this life, today, or the future. In her best days and today at her withering branch, she’s only ever wanted to talk about her children, how she took care of them and knows what their favored foods are. I have listened to her heart breaking, and the hardest part for me is that she will not allow me to suggest she could try and make a change. It’s hard for me to watch a woman consign herself to misery and pain, who refuses to believe that she can be Herself and let go of everything else.

My friend’s body has been dying for a long time and she refused to respond to herself or anyone else’s push to seek wellness. I listen to a woman whose brain has so little function she can’t speak coherently, and I refuse to give up on her. She has no one else who will be patient with her.  I watched her branch wither, I stand on it and I struggle today to not fall to my death with her.  I will give what I can to her and her family, but my greatest wish is that she believed enough in herself to stay alive.

*Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day” 

Driving With Dad*

13 Monday Nov 2017

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The neighbors are less suspicious now as I drive down the narrow street and turn into the graveyard. They see my black Jeep a lot nowadays, and once I had to tell the cops I’m just here to see my dad.  You know how it is with small town cops. I think they’ve gotten used to me now and I still don’t give a shit.

His grave is between the elementary school and the “middle” school. I can’t help reliving some of those days every time I drive past them to make the turn into the narrow street, or road because it’s small town.  There’s a large, green lawn and a big playground down back. My 18-year-old friends liked to play back there in the middle of the night, big kids having fun with their girlfriends, except that one night when he jumped down off the monkey-bars and his boot knife drove into his ankle. That was kind of messed up.  These are the woods I hid inside when I played hooky and maybe some other things. I relive those times every time I drive down this backstreet and turn onto a smaller street not meant for two cars passing, neighbors wondering who’s this kid in a tricked out Jeep hanging out in the graveyard?

I wouldn’t come back here for any reason except that you are here. I took my beatings in this neighborhood, not far from the cool place where the under-aged were served at the tavern. We don’t all need to be the king and queen of the prom, but it would’ve been nice not to get beaten because I was a minding-my-own-business Head and you were a Jock serving your term as eradicator of supposed filth.  I wouldn’t come back here for any reason, but this was the best place I could find for you, and I know you’d be okay with it.  I wouldn’t come back here for any reason except for you. The neighbors are less suspicious now when I pull in between the low and narrow chain link fence. I pull off the gravel road into the grass, my Jeep leans steeply but at least people can pass by if they need to, but they never do because no one comes here except me, day or night.

I’m not thrilled about the headstone the Army provided at no charge. I wish it could be more. I wish it gave me space to tell the world who you have been and who you are.

I come here when I want, no reason or rhyme. Sometimes I just sit and listen to Concrete Blonde and watch the night go by. Other times I get out of the Jeep and greet your stone.  I stand beside the dimple in the ground and I just start talking. I tell you everything. I tell you things I didn’t know I needed to say, words I can’t believe I’m saying. Sometimes it’s just the most random bullshit. I can hear what you’d probably say.  Or maybe you might surprise me, I don’t know, but this silent ground gives me a place to tell, instead of lifelong silence when I needed you most. Now I tell you all, a silent post.

Should I stay here so I can keep speaking with you, telling you my heart that I will never give another?  If I drive my Jeep into desert discomfort, will you still be with me and hear me?  I need to go, but I don’t know how to leave you, Dad.  How will I find your listening or not listening anywhere else?  I flick my cigarette out the window and drive on. Traffic is heavy like it never was before when we were kids. I light another cig and change the song on the machine. I’m looking for something to lift the ribs that crush my heart and help me breathe free.

*Thank you, Kevin, for letting me have this one.

My Remains Ask You To Examine What Matters

28 Thursday Sep 2017

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morning crickets, disorganized, a messy symphony, out of time and tune like a first grade choir. they are young and vigorous, excited, eeping out of time like i’ve never heard before and we love them, dearly love them, dabbing our eyes with pride and ready for more.

green water with long whitecaps in the bay, ambassadors to the hurricane’s arrival. white sky turned gray for days, cloud processionals form impressive figures like gray knitted blankets, then icebergs moving fast in a distilled sunset sky that dispenses piss water instead of whisky.

i hear you. i hear you all. i allowed you to take over me like some drunk uncle at the barbecue who knows better. our burgers were adequate, filled our stomachs but we really didn’t want cheese on ours and not exactly burnt on one side.  it all works out in the end because we’re family and we take what we get, even after I told you all to fuck off because i can’t take your flag-waving bullshit anymore. We’re a family. I can do better, and so can we.

my anger is constant. it simmers long and sometimes a bubble pops and you get hit with the spray of “fuck off,” a little stain on your favorite faded t-shirt or that gauzy thing you wore for the first time today.  i try to keep her in check, in the cauldron, but after 16 days, sometimes it goes critical and that nicey girl, the one you thought was so well spoken and decent and measured bursts and she… she will not forget it.  she’s been wrestling your vipers and her vipers. my unwieldy elbows knocks the cauldron over and now another job:  own the disaster. the strife. the discord, the worry, the ransom, the fear, the woman, the apple, the evil, the world. I mop up the bloody mess and wring the rags out into the cauldron to begin again. again.

then i seek to breathe. to hold. to measure. to examine and find a way to spread the peace. the love. the wonder. the beauty. the magic. the grace. the harmony. the creation.  to own and love and share that thing i cannot see that made me and made you and reach for your fingertips in our birth and in our death, the turning wheel that pricked my finger and gave me a sword to fight my own dragons.

Momma said if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.  I believe she was so right, so very right. But when you believe, you need to stand for it, all the way, not stare at your toes and be a neutral pussy.  Take a stand, make a change, have courage in your convictions, and fuck what your father thinks.  Our future isn’t about measuring mother wounds, and it isn’t about lobby money and power. It’s about people rising up and telling the world the world matters, YOU matter, everything on it matters, we can do better, and I will walk with you peacefully, barefoot, and speak for you loudly, peacefully, forcefully. Otherwise, my silence means I accept the wrongs, the ill-doings, the damage, the hurt, the shoulder-shrugging extinctions.

Be brave, my fellow humans. Be brave and be kind and be giving. Be tolerant. Be listening. Be strong. Be happy. Be comforted. Be loving, and be one. Be ready to speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves. Stand your ground not for us but our earth and life that we cannot yet imagine will come because our time here is already done.  The future is fragile and we can sow the seeds to make it beautiful-strong.  Put love on your tongue. It’s not impossible. We are right and good and brave as we walk barefoot through all of our dust.  Bless you for taking a knee and asking for the wisdom to discern what matters.

A Wet Graduation.

23 Friday Jun 2017

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Do you remember the day you graduated from high school?  Was it a big day? A long, tired, sad but happy joyful tearful day? Maybe your parents dropped some cash to have a catered family gathering to celebrate the day, or you all met at the diner so Mom wouldn’t have a lot to clean up afterwards? Bellies full, lots of reflection and hopefully laughter and too many pictures?  Perhaps everyone repaired home and went to their separate rooms while you changed your clothes and charged back out the door with friends to spend the night doing what teenagers and young adults do when there’s no parents or teachers around.

The school my son attended has a very small population of students, many of whom live on campus because society just can’t handle them anywhere else, in the “normal” places.  Those students are handed over to the school and, once there, most of the parents wash their hands of them. They don’t show up when the kids get in trouble, when their grades are poor–or when they graduate.  My heart broke for the young lady who graduated yesterday and her living parents did not show up to see her receive her diploma, to watch her next steps into the world. Faculty and friends were surrogates and that made the ache a little less.

We celebrated my son’s graduation yesterday with a small group of family.  It’s been a difficult road for him and us and his teachers. He wasn’t easy on himself or anyone else because he’s not a typical teenage sheep that follows the rules and stays between the lines or inside the box.  He is a wild spirit with a huge heart, a deep thinker and deeply creative.  I hope he never loses those qualities as he finds his way in a society that expects us to be productive, to behave and be normal.  It took me a long time to learn and accept he’s just being himself, and that his self doesn’t look like the kind of child my parents expected me to raise.  He is a beautiful thing in this world, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

He said goodbye to that school as only he can, with his girlfriend, jumping into the campus pool with their clothes on.  May there be many more wet, beautiful days to come for them all.

Moderation Stole My Paddle

18 Saturday Feb 2017

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In a little boat now I can barely control.  Somebody put me here and shipped me out beyond the breakers basically saying, “Sink or swim.”  So I’m out here tryin’ not get brained by the boom, run aground, or caught in a current that takes me out to sea where I dehydrate and hallucinate mermaids, never to be heard from again.

Typical weekday while I think about things and try to learn sumthin’.

So I’m in my little boat now, fumbling for control of my course, fact- and spell-checking along the way, afraid to meet a whale. Afraid to meet a life. Myself.  There’s handbooks here, tattered, yellowed copies of basic seamanship and how to maintenance the engine, spring, summer, fall, and winter.  Hilarious. Might as well be a Yellow pages, for all that.

Abandoning ship, I decide to just fucking paddle a canoe instead. Much easier.  Still afraid of whales and meeting myself but, whatever. Back to the lesson sermon rant thing:

Tonight it’s about moderation. “All things in moderation,” one of my elders used to say. It has a different meaning for me, these days.  All things in moderation–even hate? I wish he was here for me to debate this idea. It’s one I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Hate. Why people have it, why we do it, and can’t we just make the damn thing go away?  Wouldn’t we have stopped hating long ago, if we could?  What’s wrong with hate, anyway, full-fledged hatred for bullshit, weakness, opposition, beliefs, and race? Why can’t I hate without moderation?

And what about love? Why can’t we just off the charts love, love love love everything and everyone not in moderation but in bliss? Love of everything, everyone, a love so deep we want to eat it, wear it, sleep it, assimilate it into our bodies and souls, elevate it to the mountaintops and share the love with the whole world, even with the haters.  Love like my love for pizza and music and the ocean!  It’s free! It’s easy… wait, woah, hold on. Actually love is not always easy. Is hate easy? Why can’t I just hate? Hate the sorrow, the pain, the aggression, ignorance, intolerance, poverty, war, religion, the lack of love, I hate it all! Like I hate bananas or being cold?

All things in moderation?  I dunno.  Where’s my fuckin’ paddle?

Old Black Water*

15 Wednesday Jun 2016

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Steps up to microphone… “This is dedicated to the one I love…”

she smiles but does not sing.  She just takes a moment to look around at the half-empty hall dotted with leather n black t-shirts, longhairs, miniskirts denim lace and otherwise, smiling sweet faces who came to drink and have a good time with friends. They were eager for some kick-ass music in a place they felt safe waiting for their band to come and play the songs that were part of their bloodstreams.  A brotherhood, a sisterhood, a conclave where they can’t smoke inside, so the habit chases them outside in un-degree weather holy fuck their fingernails turned blue…

I wore my boots because I learned I will get trounced in the mosh pit. I left my purse at home, only carrying cash and my license so they could identify my body when it was all done I always said, jokingly.  I never ate there because it’s not that kind of place. I liked to stand behind the mixing board, explore the balcony upstairs and see what mischief was made but there never was any, just a bunch of empty seats in a tiny theatre that never forgot its stained-glass roots while down below waited a tiny black stage gouged to hell, walls and curtains bordello red,  radio station banners that could have been made by high-schoolers, that was until the headliner came on and the banners rose up into the heavens, up up and away, exposing three stage lights or maybe a fog machine.  The band came, the one we needed to see, even that night when I was in a fever sweat, nothing could keep me away. It’s heaven, it’s passion, strangers no more, we are one when the first chord leaps out of the amps and doesn’t let go for two hours.

and I was “dancin’ with myself oh oh oh oh..

If I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don’t know

I hate myself for loving you… ”

I broke the hand dryer in the lady’s room by accident. Guess I shouldn’t have activated it so hard, you know it sparked and shut down and my girlfriend said I was a beast and that’s not so easy to live down. (Oh, and never, ever, leave home without a few squares of TP in your pocket, there won’t be any in the bathroom by the time you get there no matter how early you arrive.) And don’t look in the men’s room as you walk through the narrow hall, the door is always open (why?) and it’s just not polite. Um… yeah, I did.

The bouncer knows me so he lets me prowl around backstage. I got to wrap some wires and help stow them in the truck when the set was done, sober, because the drinks were bottom shelf, full of ice, but I wasn’t there to get wasted, after all.

In another time and place the American Legion was open across the road from the venue because they knew us folks would want a sip of something cool before the doors opened so we queued up for overpriced water.  That’s all right, it’s a worthy cause.  I wandered their wood paneled establishment, beer in hand, studying black and white photos of the veterans, placards with names and dates, feeling grateful for their service and wondering why there weren’t more Iron Maiden t-shirts at the bar and in my world in general.

But then, it’s all about the music.  The vibe. The reason I show up with my camera stuffed in my pocket. I got your autograph. How about that time you were only five feet away from me, courtesy of a good friend who VIPd me up front. We prayed to the metal gods all those nights, together. I watched the creatures punching the night with their fists in the air, hugging their new friends in the parking lot, waiting for the band to come out and say hello to the stalwart few, sweaty hair freezing on their faces, waking up with that plastic band on their wrist that said they’d been somewhere and had the best night of their lives.

Somewhere. Somewhere that wasn’t the emergency room because somebody brought a gun and his misery and fear and pain and anger into the room.

This is dedicated to the one I love. I got you tucked in my tight jeans, inside my creaky leather jacket, you’re with me on the long drive home beside the river, shimmering with a rainbow of lights in black water, the moon nine days old, none of this a dream. “And no one can take it away.”

*old black water keep on rolling, Mississippi moon won’t you keep on shining on me… Thank you, Doobies.

 

Are You All In?

29 Tuesday Dec 2015

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Ope! There it was. I saw it, just a little bit of joy peeking out from between those majestic, shining, impervious robes of doom and gloom you wear day to day.  Yes, it’s true I reply, sheepishly. A little bit of joy came to me and from me on Sunday. Guilty as charged. (Ohh, I think I need to expound on that one privately, boys and girls.)

Anyway!  This will be my third year as a rookie NY Jets fan. I started watching them after I heard so much moaning and groaning about this team and what a heartache it is to be one of their fans.  Gee, no stretch there, an underdog being drawn to underdogs?  I recall a work associate from years ago, real big Cowboys fan, who said, “If you’re gonna be a fan, BE a fan, not just when they’re winning.” Not sure why that struck me back then. Maybe because he sounded sexy as hell on the phone and worked on motorcycles, or maybe it was something the universe intended for me?  Today I have only an inkling of what means to be a Jets fan, but one thing I know for sure: They’re in, all in, thick and thin.

I gave myself a great day on Sunday.  Haircut. Colored my hair. Bought lots of fresh veggies (ok, and greasy finger food), beer, and set myself up for the game.  Not only did I get to watch the whole game, but the Jets freaking won. I spent 4 quarters and a little sliver of overtime watching two teams work hard (and making some questionable plays), noshing, sipping, jumping up and down, hollering, and I didn’t care if they won or lost. I just wanted this thing to myself, this day, a “me” day, to enjoy.  I had a JOYFUL day, a HAPPY day, one that felt so alien later when I examined it.  Why don’t I do that more often? Oh, Padawan, that’s the question–the rub. The resistance is strong with this one.

Where is my joy, and where is it more often?  When was the last time I sang for joy instead of bleating some cathartic, moribund dirge?  Or–god–danced?  It takes determination and will to want happiness and joy, did you know that?  I didn’t, until a friend turned me on to it. I learned it. Then forgot it in the haze of pain. Often.  I want to tap into the energy of happiness because I know there’s writing, wordsmithing, in there along with it. How easy it is to succumb to what’s beaten me down for so long, every day, and lose sight of the fact that there is a little bit of light in each day, there for the asking. And if I tap into that happiness, maybe, just maybe, I can share it too– if I am strong enough. Brave enough. Part those impervious robes of doom and gloom long enough to let a beam of light come through?  Question marks where I want periods to reign, something solid and sure.

So. What the hell does any of this have to do with writing?  Everything.  Write if it pleases you, when it pleases you.  Create. Use your will above all, beyond all. Fight! Win!  Extinguish everything around you that holds your heart and soul down and put wings on words, darling.  This means you.  Are you all in?

Love.

You Brought It On Yourself

15 Tuesday Dec 2015

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Oh, what, excuse me? You want me to love you?

I’ve got the usual world around me, and I’ve got this other softer, secret, sacred world around me, the one where I write. I deal with the outer world best I can, and I create in this inner world better, and then there’s you (said with disdain.)

You come flying down the hall, leap into my lap unexpectedly, push off my thigh with your claws and squeeze between the monitor and the desk cubby so you can sit at the window beyond so you can do whatever while I rub my thigh where the skin starts to swell and itch, that is how allergic I am to  you.  I wish you weren’t here.

You are currently sprawled across the left side of my desk, on papers, next to notebooks, calendars, and my dad’s journal.  You do the same thing all the time, your back feet pushing away my favored pictures and knickknacks so you can have more room.  You are Sphinx, paws before you, looking at me softly, saying nothing at all, but it is still a challenge, those green-yellow eyes and gray paws next to my keyboard your body saying “Touch me, stroke me, love me, I dare you.”  But I don’t touch you, you horrible gray thing who sits quietly on top of papers in my office that I did not invite.  If I touch you, you will think I like you, acquiesce to your need, you get what you want, just like everyone else who gets what they need from me just because they are near, they smile, they ask in a sweet way. Fuck you! Get off my fucking desk, I did not invite you into my world, my place, and I have to leave my office to hit the bathroom because it’s that early morning 18 cups of coffee thing I have to relieve, and when I come back you are still there but no longer looking at me but sprawled on your side on top of my papers.   At least I don’t have to touch your paws and make nice with you, but I still can’t stand the fact that you are here, leaving your hairs everywhere and the throb of your claws in my leg has not subsided.

You crawl on top of me in bed when I turn out the lights exhausted, between my legs, 20 pounds of you alighting on my bladder, abdomen, ribs, face, making your home in my hair and my pillow. You are not happy until you knead my head and hair for ten minutes, then you go back to the end of the bed where my feet should be, but I can’t sleep straight because you’re in the way.  You puke on my expensive quilt covered in seashells and starfish or shit on it because  you hate your litter box, and you expect me to love you and pet you and endure you and your 99 problems.

I suppose God has the same feelings as I do right now towards humanity.  I made you, you are in my life, you’ve got issues you needy things who tear each other apart and this world that I created and now you want me to love you? They look up towards me with their green-yellow eyes curled up on their sides immersed in bad dreams, hoping for solace in between the heartbeats of their lives, but no, I hate you, I am angry with the shit you leave all around, and I hate myself for the hate you make me feel in the morning when I should feel agape and speechless at the color of morning, and the birds and the memory of the stars I left behind.

How hard it is for me, this goddess, to love the things that hurt me every day (or the goddess who suffers the hurts you gave me these 18 and 20 years.)  I know for the most part they don’t mean to hurt me but they do.  How hard is it for me, this goddess, to return love and patience to creatures who don’t understand me.  Soft, gentle, needy beings, feline or human who deserve love, in all their imperfections.  Goddess, do you need to bend to love the imperfect things that love you, or is it enough to be, and accept those that love you alone.

Oh Goddess would it kill you to acquiesce, renounce anger, show compassion and stroke the grey cat who reclines on your papers and needs just a little bit of love; breathe and listen to those imperfect humans who inhabit your world and listen to them, be merciful and kind instead of offering them your harpy nature and hanging up on them?

Addendum:  1/5/2006.  I’ve made the effort to pet the cat in the morning as she’s curled up on the bed, or greet her with a pet at night when I come home.  There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Showing just a little love in a hateful world?  All it takes is one small act, one pebble tossed into the lake.