Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Monday, December 13, 2010

sex once more

All matters of importance have something to do with sex. And since most of you read this to see what happens next in my sex life it may be best to gravitate toward full disclosure in hopes (if nothing else) than to receive some kind of confessional status though I know (as the Catholics still watch from the space they prepared in my brain) a priest must be present. You, then, will be my priest, the rest, who are still reading these words through the same firewall of fear that I write from. Or you are curious and preparing a case against me, in either case I am content with my paranoia and safe enough in the belief it can be cured through insane shouting.
When it became clear that Lord Byron was gone I fell into despair. Despair for at least two reasons: One, I loved her no matter her faults though these faults seemed too grave and two, I knew, after so many hard fought survivals through many near and tragic disappointments, I was, perhaps, not to survive this one. That it didn't matter anymore my stupid quest for truth or honesty or other useless gluts rather I would give up and prepare for the lonely haul having failed. And that this failure would by all rights destroy anything that held me even remotely in favor with the lord of hosts (the same lord who bends me over to spank me nearly each story) (the same lord, if pressed, could make matters far worse) (that same one).
It's a deep tale so I'll start with the latest woe, let's call her Lolita. Lolita is the only woman I believe who could cure me of the Lord Byron blues. I left, of course, the states and did what a man had to do to leave a woman but a woman never leaves a man until some moment or some other releases him. Something better. The lord, they say, does not like fornication, but he sends the temptation like a sweetbrier and asks for contemplation. What makes Lolita so damn edible besides her immortality at twenty one is her focus on the good fight. This, or I am overtaken by soft skin, taught muscles, firm tits, and a seamless flow. We spent nearly three days together, which ended in bed a short hour before she flew away. "I'll see you in June," were the last words spoken. Fucking June, again, a wait, just wait Rose. Just go. Though my dreams they may say aren't as empty.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Tuesday before Thanksgiving

Tuesday morning. Awake. Jet lagged and way too early, 4:30AM. I reach for my lover, she's not there nor will she be. I get up to search for some electronic sign that it didn't happen like this but I know already, have accepted it already. 10 years ago I would be doubled over in pain/regret/anger - now I sit hunched over a plastic LCD screen trying to warm my naked body by keeping the exposed parts in contact, lifting my feet off of the cold slate floor and search for a sign of her presence. She's there as an 'away' dot so I know this means she is home with her machine asleep, having made a decision for distance over mad love. She's right, I think to myself. "You're right" I say audibly to God. God is silent. Still early, several hours prior, the phone rings - it's the boys in Rochester. My heart sinks and jumps and we talk about the bug house, about escape, about love, acceptance, reality and ultimate experience. "I'm finally growing up" Jeffrey says. "I'll be 59 in two months and I finally feel like I'm growing up." Jeffrey, who but several months ago choked me out with cigar smoke from across our mutually soiled states. We're now brothers - closer than brothers. I can hear his chemical state - opium or its derivatives. We talk and stand supportive now. He wants love so badly he'd buy it like a mail order bride - stuck on the dream that a beautiful young woman is waiting for him, even if to fake it, from my new home. I didn't have the heart to tell him this would not be happening, that my new home would not provide this dream. It didn't matter, I spoke with him as if it would.
The next call came from Lord Byron who was not in her vehicle heading towards Jersey rather she remained blissful in her state of niceness, in Rochester, 5 hours away. It was "kind" to give a call so she was following her kindness. We exchanged pleasantries not fighting it then parted ways, again. "Be well Lord Byron" I told her but she wouldn't get what that meant. Instead she would make comments about the dog and other histories in a way that would seem to me almost silly in its utter disregard for the situation. But strong I suppose in that self-regarding inner-strength sort of way. "Poor thing" I think and roll over clutching my belly from want and desire. What next? Silence. I really had no earthly idea. "Get up, walk," says the Lord. I pace instead.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

here. now.

I haven't told a story in quite a while. This is because observing the self, my self, has become tedious, repetitious, unfruitful, grainy and ultimately cold. Sad. But not sad in the romantic sad man this is your life in all its beautiful stress sort of a way but simply short sighted. This is what is. So now today listening to the gunfire from the Bayram celebrations and inhaling the smoke from the wood burning stove, alone in my room above the cafeteria, out on the edge of this filthy city I thought to perhaps again try to tell a story. The story has a point but will often not lead to redemption. No victory at death here. Movement for certain but very little else, loneliness, and a large table at times to join. You are invited, you always have been, though through this you see that your table is just as big with less stuff and less stress. Your table has stronger legs and silverware. I will wait and eventually, in one way or other, you will invite me to it as a guest. At first you will be thinking as a guest of some honor though later thinking best to simply offer a place because perhaps something I have written or spoken or projected or buried years ago for you. I will be grateful to sit with you. I will be grateful to be together. This will likely be the way it will go and I will probably let on at some point just how long I have been waiting for this and for you to invite me.

A new project has started. Photographing the landscape with the big camera. A shift to focus on others, away from self and its painful traps. Stay tuned...

Thursday, October 21, 2010

nothing says you're on your own like goodbye

The past few nights I've had more dreams but I awake with the same sensation as if looking over the sea at night. In the morning, in half consciousness I arise, sometimes to the sounds of the early predawn call to prayer. I arise, look out from the window alone and answer back. Verbally I say "I love you", and the lord does answer me with the peaking light of dawn. Not an explosive crack of sun rather like shifting color on the table of the deep dark sea glowing as in a silvery cast; vast, vague and larger than the land. There I know of God and in my selfish heart I ask for more. When I ask I already know she will provide, it will be given. Though I also ask to carry no belongings. These two conflict. 'To settle,' the lord says, 'is no longer possible for you. Understand you have chosen this.' I answer, 'is this a punishment?' The lord answers, 'no.' Then the Lord is silent and I feel punished.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The Wolf in Albania

Ana says,
[11:18:10 AM] there's an image connecting standing in the streets and religion i have in my head
[11:18:10 AM] it was sooo powerfull...and scary for me, i was small.
[11:18:57 AM] after tito died each 4th may at 15h 05
[11:19:06 AM] on the moment of his death
[11:19:14 AM] sirens were starting
[11:19:25 AM] and lasting for 1 min
[11:19:36 AM] and everybody
[11:19:52 AM] but everybody would just freeze
[11:20:18 AM] it was magical.
[11:20:41 AM] the power a religion has over so many persons
[11:20:54 AM] willing to subordonate
[11:21:03 AM] without thinking
[11:21:11 AM] like a magic wand
[11:21:39 AM] and there was beauty also
[time]
[more time]

I know very little. And here I am. Trying to survive. You asked me to speak directly and now I am telling you. I have to be here and stay here. That is what you asked of me. So I am staying here. That is it.
(silence)
And you are silent again.
(silence)
Because I have had wine? How do I know you will stay with me?
(silence)
But I knew and so watched the land, knowing there would be nothing that emerged from it. The land was solid and hard and browned in spots. There were small lizards darting and crawling over it. I heard the dogs barking.

In Albania I had a dream. I was in Kukës. So very vivid. A wolf was chasing me. A fierce wolf and the landscape was devoid of any context. The wolf was persistent and gaining ground. As I looked past my shoulder at the final moment the beast was nearly on top of me. I saw teeth and the beauty of its fur and not much of the body as it lunged at me. Close enough to feel the breath. Then I woke.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Elvis in Serbia on a Rainy Day in August

About a month ago I told Lord Byron the gist of Run, Rabbit. (+) "I think that Rabbit sucks man," she said reacting to my description of the story. I wondered why she would say that because it was a given I would play the devil's advocate. "He's looking for something babe," I told her. "You'd have to read the story. He knows his transgression and he knows how it can be seen but he is not accepting the awfulness of it. He is not accepting or expecting to settle." The description didn't matter really because we were both listening from our own desires. So, in my judgmental arrogance I thought I'd tell her how I really feel. "Byron," I balked, "now that we're on the subject of laying it on the line, you know that I think your trip to Africa is bullshit. That you went on a religious retreat which could be doing more harm than good there and that you are so either stupid, ignorant or arrogant that you look a fool." I felt so full of myself as to continue, "and it's not just me, it appears, for all the world that you did not go to help anyone, rather you went to fulfill your desire to see the world and it doesn't matter who you exploit. So I think you are full of shit and if you weren't you'd be working hard in Rochester now, right now, to do something similar." I felt like a monster and free - a free monster as I was. A dirty filthy monster among monsters. I saw her as a monster too. She was stunned but understood she had to answer. "Rose, I get it. I understand. I know you feel like this." "I'm glad because I will not pretend to protect your bullshit self-centered exploitation experience." And now I was really full of myself, 1000 percent Jersey - I'm gonna punch your throat and if you can't take it, better move to Kansas, boy, kind of attitude. It didn't matter because it devolved. Why argue? I knew the answer and felt weak. Sigh. But now I was in Kosovo, Kosovä, Pristina, Prishtina, Prishtinë. Yes. Teaching markup language and some form of design to cadets, well some cadets. I had something. I had distance. I have a whole culture of newness and a language I can barely grasp. I know next to nothing and know I know next to nothing. Relief. I thought about the state of my love and felt terrible. Longing for the newness and movement of the first glimpse of the Rockies (hearing now the smack of lightening passing overhead). I scan my notes in my little black book of everything and find this.

I confess at times I see the human form as ugly. Long, tall, bulging with fat. Even the toddlers, waddling along. Even there in comparison to the birds, sky rats, falling down, coming softly or noisily to the hard square divided surfaces of Belgrade. The human soft, round and hairy, little squeaks of hair, scattered and ugly across the body like dots of thick rocky sand. Lumbering tall forms waiting to fall like timber, eyes sunken, hands swollen from arthritis. All its marks primitive to the simple animals with whole and gorgeous forms. Their bungling mouths training for me, each day then each day wanting for more. Bilja says, "when I was young there was a man, he was beautiful and he chose to be a monk. I asked him why? Why do you love religion? Why don't you love me, I mean I have a soul and can speak back to you. But he left and I never understand." "Still now," I ask? "Yes, still now. But we grew up without religion and now I can see it but still not understanding." We left it quiet from there. Of the stories to share she chose this. I must have something religious in my approach (like I had to ask or even wonder). Yes, tall, sharp and distant humans. Closely moving forward. Going forward. Lumbering. Aging and passing on with earth, dirt and fences to separate.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

another conversation

I speak directly to God and God answers me directly. Looking skyward laughing in jest for my friends I say, "to the big man with a long white beard sitting on a cloud. Watching. Judging." A laughable thing, vision. Whatever the experience I am having, however I may experience it, I do talk with God. With God (God talks back). It is true and in no uncertain terms. During these conversations I ask God for things, that part does not come audibly rather it comes in silent longing behind a clearly defined cloud of confusion. And within this same indiscernible boundary of disbelief I am answered. The prayer usually being a selfish one as all prayers are. This cursed blessing always arrives in the best and most direct of terms. Tonight I received the best of gifts i would tell my friends. "What gifts, Rose? What were you given?" They may say in earnest. And I answer, "clarity." "Also love." I need love, lots of it, so I keep asking for it and it keeps coming. A never ending river of love from others and to others. "Don't you think this is what all people experience?" They (my friends) may reply. "No," I say, "because when I ask around there are so many who have settled and stopped looking or asking and then settle on being miserable." "Who do you mean Rose, do you mean us? Do you mean we are miserable?" And in some cases I thought yes but didn't have the heart to make that call aloud. As I thought this my face became flush with the shame of judging others and the transparency of ignorance. Essentially I was telling my friends, those I love, that they were unspecified losers. Do you see reader, the torture I put myself through? All for nothing so as a relief I speak with God and God answers. Sometimes God answers with a woman - I would ask, Dear lord, though I am not worthy to receive any further chances (as mine have dried up or long since been squandered by unwise choices) please send me a companion that I would fall easily in love with and who would love me back and relieve, at least, the utter loneliness of existence. Of not knowing. Oh and it would be nice if she were a virgin (as I've never been with a virgin), I might add as a gratuitous self serving clause to the shameful silent pleading. Then, within a day sometimes, without so much as a phone call, she would show up. A hot virgin, able and ready for commitment, like God's hot breath in my ear. Of course, asking and receiving are more than meets the eye. I am thankful I reassure you. Still there is the matter of the rest of it - food, shelter, clothing, childbirth, family, school, potential military service, religion, etc. When one is taken care of, proper income, the rest will fall in line (as they tell me)(who's they? mostly the jews in my life, the practicing jews). However, so often, I find myself at the divide of two worlds and perhaps the story is what's been received or earned in my life before I'd asked for a stop gap solution like a virgin or debt relief.

The two worlds are like broken drifting sheets of ice and I'm above, crotch exposed, to the flat cold sea below. Threatening always to drift impossibly far apart I could always leap to one or the other knowing the isolation of either may kill me. Some of us (I think to myself for want of comfort) are born to be the inbetweens and spend our lives scaling the crevasse. And it takes so long that by the time one has reached flat ground half the life is over and accustomed to the conditions of living while scaling a wall. Like all lives. Human ones. Sometimes this divide is made as clear as day like the night I picked up my surrogate family from the airport. I had been traveling around town in someone else's car, taking care of someone else's home, my friends, as I had done for the two years prior. From the airport to home the children climbed on me, asked me to stay, even dragged me upstairs to read a bedtime story. There in the children's bed, where the entire family lay - mom, dad, kids and myself at the center reading a story about dinosaurs. Diplodocus, Stegasaurus, Ornithomimus. At these moments I want to leap to this drifting sheets of ice. This side, the one that is family life, children, love, safety, stable. But before the time to think it through arrives I see everyone is asleep and feel self conscious at how close I've become. I creep out to leave them sleep as I, now carless, ponder ways to get myself and Faf across town. I call Nowik and in a moments notice he is there with Jeffrey and I ramble into the vehicle, Faf too, into a cloud of smoke and hash and we rumble across town to the bughouse, not daring to call it home. back into the place where prayers are answered and demons crawl, at times visibly, across lives. The other side where if for nothing more one can see reality more clearly - the question being if one wants to or even ever should.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

the deer and yard

Out in the yard tonight a crew of men worked on the rail lines. I became aware of them when I heard the horns of an approaching train echo up from the flat line of cinder across the asphalt. Men in hard hats, machines, trucks and an idling engine. I was alone in the studio. I was thinking of you, trying to find the words that would speak my heart, make sense of recent events when the disturbance pulled me away. I had spent the day with a friend, with Faf and attempting the nearly impossible divide of feeling the faith and applying it to experience. To win that faith I knew I would have to go even further - that is, to abandon the need for an earthly connection and accept the calling that keeps me absurdly in a state of limbo.
"Could I say something man?" Nowik probed.
"Of course, brother." Though I was scared at the directness of that inquiry.
"You're 36, have no attachments, completed with your schooling. If I were you I'd be long gone by now. I'd purchased a one way ticket to Serbia, find a beauty and start from there."
I sighed. "I know it man." And I did. "What keeps me here is that desire for legitimacy. Or something. Poverty maybe." Though I knew it wasn't any of those things, really. I saw he had experience. I also knew that my fate was different, that I had a real want for love and stability, sanity, sobriety. I knew also that the way faith works is to leave alone and cultivate a strong relationship with the divine. Give up on intellectual salvation, etc. What I desired of guidance would not be provided in a conversation. What I needed to sustain that vision was help and if I asked for it directly I would not find it. I knew this because of experience and endurance. My strength had steadily been returning despite the constant challenge of piecing it (it) together.
"It's the fight man, the struggle, that holds me in place, and also keeps me going, searching."
Nowik dragged on his cigarette and I knew what that meant.
"Could I tell you a story?" I asked.
"Of course."

This is true. About two weeks ago I was working at the Design Center. It was the middle of the day, a warm late spring day. From the window, on a trip from the coffee machine back to my nook in the back of the office I saw a deer wander into the parking lot from what appeared to be Main Street. He was scared, bounding across the asphalt erratically. Clearly lost, clearly afraid. There were others in the office but no one seemed to hear what I was saying or in the regular pattern of the work day just didn't pay it any mind. I told the others but perhaps without authority. Maybe I didn't say it audibly because no body budged. I followed his movements and walked out of the entrance into the shaded north side of the building then watched him cross the lot from behind the morning sun, leap the iron parking rail and trot frightened straight into the east garage of the performance engine shop. At the time, I thought, I was the only one who saw it happen. There were two entrances to that garage and the deer went into the east one. All the men were in the west and since I was there and watched the event I moved into the shade of that entrance and announced what had happened. The conversation went something like this. There's a deer in your garage, I told the first man I saw. What? He replied. I repeated. There's a deer that just ran into your garage, a wild animal. By this time though the three men had seen the disturbance and began approaching the beast which was frightened and wild. It had jumped above an engine block and hooved at the adjacent metal shelving. Tools were scattered, men grew angry and the beast was cut and bleeding. At one point it had run into the furthest back room and began charging at the window, smashing and leaving blood smeared across the plexi. I tried to calm the men. Can I make a suggestion, I said, Can I make a suggestion, I called again from the shaded blacktop. If they noticed me calling out to them they never said a word to indicate it. Then just as quickly the deer ran out of the garage with all the strength and weakness of fear and rage. In a daze it charged past and stumbled headlong into the same iron parking rail and slammed chin first into the concrete, regained composure and trotted off confused past the east edge of the building. Bloodied. Gone. I walked back into work, past the quiet intern, sat, began working and made no attempt to explain what I had just seen.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Kennel

When I first arrived I felt
elated. A return - well received.
needed. But then I saw the
shape of the place. weeds. rust. paint
poorly applied. Shit.
lazy animals. lazy humans. filth.
The grain from stone caked in
2 month old dog shit under a fresh
pile of green dog shit. Dirt where
grass once grew. The faint musty
smell of recessed flood waters.
The dark black sludge of the kennel
drain. mangy. rusted grates.
rusted grates that need a kick to open
(((a kick and kinetics) 'cause you have
to kick on the gate and know when to tug)
(like a woman)). And junk.
Busted cheap radio/CD players. non functional.
crammed into filthy nooks - on top
of dirty pens, stuffed behind
piles of yellowing newsprint. unkempt.
and that's the good stuff there
beneath the man mange.
tilted wheelbarrows - one deflated
wheel half sunk in mud from two
floods back. Beaten and broken wood.
Hovering,
thick hairy flying insects making
nests, threatening charge. Dogs
barking or watching lazy with
mid-day slumber. Or
midnight when it all gets calm.
the sound of traffic like the hum
of a refrigerator. mixed with
the scent of bleach and chemical orange
and swamp and sewage. All this begins the
trip. This is home. was. is. Hell,
if I could know.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Untitled (I come for you, I)

Untitled (I come for you, I)

A great impression lay
underneath my eyes
and there it lay
underneath my skin
below the three levels of bone,
marrow & spirit. In
others the marrow turns
to dust or rust with
cancer or worse. My spirit
is sick or I cannot for the
life of me understand my own
pain. This is our time but
mine is blocked and remains
so by the long shift down
from a place of great promise
to a resting place.
That place. This place here. Complete
with fear. Yes, this place here.
And when I think of you I
think of warmth and time and
distance. When I think of you
I think of letting go. Of
not returning. Of stress. Of
course. I think of everything
that a place is, then some,
then nothing at all but desire,
satiation, desire, fire, then
nothing at all. Then I think
of love. From out here love is
the dark sea. From out here in
that same quiet, from that same
impression, a great impression,
love is acceptance my love. My
quiet love. My only love.

~Rose
April 21, 2010
for Lord Byron.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Alter Boys - Part 1

At the park, Faf chased the squirrels and tried to shit (she's been constipated). I stood on our hill after coaxing her to give up on the shitting and instead climb the embankment to listen to the new life screaming. And the new life was literally screaming - thousands of croaking frogs in the nook between the ridge line and horse path. Several acres of prime beautiful wetlands singing with the sounds of spring. Horny toads literally squawking in the possibility of new life. Above that and just over the ridge line was the constant hum of highway, rubber on asphalt. In years past I'd hear that invasive sound and cuss it for death, then leave good and far to the mountain west and look for Jesus on high mountain passes. Sounds overly Romantic and it is but also, somehow, not far off. The anxiety to leave presents itself as a slow and methodical refrain, then a memory. All the while I try to remain present. I just live now, because we aren't in the past or the future, I recall (more or less the gist) from a bad book of Bob Dylan quotes. "That's a tough one," I told NW. "Yea man, it is, because the past shapes the present. The past made it." "God damn it," I say in my head but it squeaks out audibly in a mild turrets kind of a way. That's what happens when I'm down, I hear repetition and begin reciting words like a mantra. All of this, even these words fall out immediately to the past, as they are memory now, I think. "I'm a single point of god damn consciousness," I say audibly, alone now, in that audible memory kind of way again, disliking the sound of it so hoped it would not remain. "Of course it will however," I thought and watched the heat vapor from the morning sun dancing on the thin west wall above the faucet. Just beautiful. Easter morning. I look back at Lord Byron preparing for the feast. "Today I want to remember the bride whore Magdelane - the first bitch to see Jesus after he rose from the dead," I say. "Oh?," she replies looking around her shoulder from the edge of a beautiful dress currently receiving a righteous lady primping for holiday showtime. I don't know what compels me to say these things - "There must be a kick ass gym in heaven because Jesus rolled that boulder away from the tomb only after three days. A huge fuckin' boulder like twice the size those Scottish guys could move. We're talkin' big boy Jesus in top good form right there for the bride whore Magdalene to see." "Jesus," Lord Byron replies. "Exactly," I reply behaving badly. We showed up to church late and couldn't find a place to sit. The rear was full of screaming children. Lord Byron led us instead to a small section of pew just behind the formidable wooden pillar painted brain gray which served as a wall between alter view and the parishioner unfortunate enough to land that spot. "Sit close," Lord Byron says pulling me toward her, sensing my frustration. (Part 1)

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Fucking

Awake. Agitation. Then the sweet nudge of Faf's cold wet nose on my hand flopped just off the end of the bed. Lord Byron. A huge morning boner. "Babe," I say to the open air. I never speak directly to her for fear of morning breath. "Babe". I hear her slow moan to consciousness and then the crisp almost unreal alertness of a "Hi, good morning, i love you so much Rose." That's her new thing, adding 'so much' to her proclamation of love. This after I've blatantly attempted to get rid of her on multiple occasions citing difference of class or creed or need but never desire. "I love you too" I say silently and toward the wall as I reach back to feel her thigh, then hair then crotch. I like to get my hand right up on her soft parts quickly while still in a state of comfortable half sleep. I look for reciprocation imagining mounting her from behind and surprising her with a thumb slipped in the ass. I wished she was my only lover - that's the big secret. Not that I have other lovers or that I'm a cheat but in the morning hours there are times I remember the girl is not going to be Buttercup or _ _ _ _ or my ex-wife or Coco from high school years. I remember the price of time and lingering, of not moving on quickly. Sounds sappy now but the juice of another human changes your code, changes mine. Lord Byron grabbed my cock still hard from waking. "Do you have a condom," Lord Byron asked. She won't let me cum inside without it, rather our juices don't quite flow and the cum burns. In the same sense, her cunt has a bit of a ridge that rubs the shaft just below my head raw if not careful. It feels good, all that I need, though there are these realities. And now, since the past year or more I don't like a woman coming on to me rather I prefer to let tension build then fuck, then leave it alone until the tension builds then spontaneously fuck. Many of my friends have suggested I take a few years off, not do or date anyone and get back into it later. Most of those folks are alone however or not getting fucked and claiming it choice. Most of the time at this point I think of death and it's (fucking) finality so prefer to try at it - to go about love making with good intention and loyalty and respect. It's Lord Byron I love I say, that's why we 'do it' (a phrase I picked up from _ _ _ _ two years back when we used to get drunk, stumble home and, as she would say, "Are we gonna do it" - emphasis on the 'do it' part). It's not just the fucking with Lord Byron and I though. The same is true for all good lovers - we sleep in a warm bed together, most nights not performing coitus because eventually we will succumb to it and it will perform us. "Just let it build" I tell her. That's how I prefer it anyway. For her, at this stage the hornier bat, she gives in and just waits for it unless of course she needs to give head - oral fixation. Then I can't hold back, preferring the sweet spot between her thighs. Good call. "Good call baby?" That's what Lord Byron says when her tits are exposed, firm and perky as they are. She does this to egg me on because the first time I saw those bare tits I exclaimed it, couldn't help myself - "Good call!" As in 'good call on those picture perfect tits!' And they are. My girl was built for land, strong and moving swiftly across it. Ropey arms, ass, thighs and fit. Run you down kind of fit. In Philadelphia I was pointing out those incredible features to Youngest stopping just short of checking her teeth. "Yes, yes, I see, very tight model. I like a strong woman," he replied playing along, Lord Byron beaming with joy, a bit embarrassed at the attention. Speaking with Youngest's girl, Baby, a few weeks back, the time I was snowed in after a connecting flight never left the ground, we had a similar conversation. Baby likes to talk about sex and really get into it. "I kind of just want to fuck Lord Byron in the ass. Just turn her over and stick it straight in," I said. "Yes, then you do that," Baby responded with enthusiastic certainty. "Really," I replied in a half questioning assertive reply. "Yes, you should," Baby confirmed unwavering. Just prior we were discussing porn and masturbation. Babe is a horny, horny girl - always sticking here hands down her pants - cumming 3 or 4 times a morning she claimed. She would just excuse herself, head to the bedroom and rub one out. "I like to watch two girls going at it - grrrr," She motioned rubbing her palms vigorously together while scrunching her face, "Rub those pussies together - grrrr." "Yea," she adds, laughing into it. I giggled, "Fuck yea, Yes then." I personally didn't like to think of two girls going at it. For me a gang bang or just straight pumping penetration. God damn it. Good thoughts and actions are required for good lives, I thought and hoped this honesty was good. Real good. Good enough. "Grrrrrr... Yea!"

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Lord Byron, the Yard, Time and Pleasure

I stood in the rain and sleet and watched Faf circle the yard as she does prior to shitting. It s become busy enough with dogs and people and traffic (both on the rails and on Main Street) that I ve given up pissing in the yard in full day light. I leave that now to the dogs and the bums who used to cross the yard at night until CSX patched up the fence with the federal stimulus dollars. Huge equipment appeared for a week or two after which the yard had beautiful pale blue lights at every switch which previously were not there and the fences were patched up. I imagine the industry got paid millions for that work. The patched fence work essentially forces the (quote)other side of the tracks(end quote) to cross over the rail bridge. The problem is that the bridge runs east-west and the thoroughfare runs north-south, a result of a poor design that prevents the poorer northern neighborhood from linking with the more affluent southern neighborhood (the neighborhood of the arts). Every time I look at it now I think about Warren Buffet buying up all of the rails and wonder if I m in the right industry (if you could call it that). Lord Byron had left for the morning to go teach a class and I was alone again and in a way really needing it even though I missed her. I live among many people whom I miss. I think in some way I even will miss the ones who I know could do better but for some reason allow themselves to trip into stupidity and general foul behavior, like Glassboy. It s no wonder why Chekhov saw the peasants as such flaming losers (literally) (+). The day prior Lord Byron and I got back to the studio after a righteous evening of cuddling and dog watching at a friends house only to find that Glassboy had decided to smoke another cigar indoors leaving the otherwise very healthy situation not so healthy and additionally stinky. Ahhh, the Bughouse, its like Dantes plane of hell where demons stick pitchforks in each others asses for eternity. I keep looking for the logic but there s none to be found, this conservative do whatever you feel as long as you ve got the biggest space shit fails. It results in lack of community, lack of respect and a waste of energy, to the point sometimes that I feel like all of the effort is ultimately an exercise in futility. (quote)There s no success like failure and failure is no success at all.(close quote) So I make some phone calls, send some emails and we re on to a new topic, cuddling. There are worse results. The poor girl had wanted to cuddle all day but instead helped out at the law firm assisting yet another conservative candidate get elected by waiving flags in the Irish day parade in the cold, wet, drizzle. As we lay down to sleep for another night Lord Byron asks from politeness, (quote)What were you going to write?(close quote) I was happy she asked because I want an opinion and some discussion on the matter. It, for my sake, is important stuff to discuss. (quote)well,(close quote) I said, (quote)its about the real story.(close quote) (quote)The one that I don t often hear told.(close quote) (quote)Like that FasTrac up the street we just stopped for gas at. That place is exactly what the opposition predicted it would be - a haven for unhealthy foods and convenience, full of loiterers, selling lottery tickets with a trash strewn surface lot where panhandlers can make a living.(close quote) I felt like Chekhov condemning the poor but worse, from a state of damnation my self. I realized how horrible it sounded but meant it, I wanted to show the character of it. Commerce above all else - no real community, just another place to serve the system and there I was watching it, judging it, purchasing my goods from its convenient location between home and the theater where I took Lord Byron that night on a date for a beer and a movie. (quote)You know,(end quote) I said to her as she nestled her head into my armpit. But she was asleep already, probably hadn t heard a thing I was saying as I strained to get focus on her eyes, now closed, as they were just inches from my face, her body weighing deep and heavy onto mine. Another time I thought and reached for the pad to at least jot down some of the notes - the face of the man buying pizza, the free night at the theater, the cigar smoking dipshit and the reality of getting along. Real well, until there are dues.

H35NYA3YAGEW

Monday, March 8, 2010

Last I checked I woke up in America

Almost everything is dangerous. I think the ones who live safely away believe that my kind of travel is just plain stupid. Maybe it is but with each terrible battle comes something - if not enlightenment then a lesson. Even Big B would say so - tucked away as he is in Oregon after belting his lady boss for layin on a thick verbal punishment a few years back. (You ll have to read back a ways for that one.) (BTW, as an aside, coffee was spilled all over this keyboard by accident and all was regained save for the quote key - the one just to the left of the enter key). So as I was sayin, to continue from last post, Glassboy has guns. Naturally. This allows all men passage or so all men think. Guns. Stupid. Not the guns but the passage they think it buys. (quote)Last I checked I woke up in America(close quote) was the phrase I heard uttered behind paper thin walls a few months back when I had first realized that this cigar smoking thing was more than a birthday gig but a new lifelong daily habit and reported it after several attempts to intervene. Innocent enough except for the inconvenience to everyone else. Still, in the Bughouse, I was minority and always would be. So, in my eyes worth it, though I know how this would play out before it even started, impossible and without relent. What else would there be to lose - if life gives you lemons, etc. Strangely enough posted just between the thin wall to my new enemy and me I pinned a letter from my father, a valentines day card. My own pops who had it out with me on numerous occasions in typical unrelenting Italian fashion takes the time to send a card every year which I place aside usually not thinking the effort is the ease. This one said, (Quote)To a Son who I am proud of for all you are and all you do(close quote). I stared at it, then through it, then at it pinned like an angel to the wall, feeling the anger and call to action from Glassboy s antics beyond. And I stood staring awaiting word choking back sentiment and the urge to weep for the writing on the wall. To my left lay Faf and my girl - weakened by the intensity but hangin on. (quote)What a miserably thing(close quote) and then I did weep but quiet and quick before I sat down to write it.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

The Woodman, Z, Glassboy and Will O.

I hang clothes up on an orange twill line. I hang them there after washing them in a machine self installed next to a utility sink in the 'green room', a small second storage space for equipment that I share with Z. The green room started, as all things generating from the bughouse do, with consternation, disagreement and ultimately a fight that lead to the temporary dissolution of a previously tight relationship between Z and Woodman. The fight was simple, Woodman wanted the space, Z negotiated more swiftly and took it from under his feet. Woodman responded with words and Z responded in turn with these, I'l never forget them, "He's a disturbed man." He wasn't in my opinion, he was more like a man who helped a neighbor on multiple occasions then got burned. In either case, after securing the position on the green room the landlord delayed on getting the appropriate key to Z in a reasonable timeframe so we smashed the handle off with a few cracks from an iron mallet and let ourselves in. The rent had been paid by that time so we felt obliged to move on it. It wasn't too long after that that Z installed the laundry machine. Then I installed some hooks in the respective studios to dry the clothes and we were set with one more necessity. Urban Camping Will O calls it, "we're urban campers." That's how it works in a way though between us it's more of a compound of the damned. Those who call it home, but no one 'calls' it that - it is what it is. And so with all the inventions and little intentions that go into this survival thing in the Bughouse (another Will O catch phrase) we lay down in our bed of dirty muck and shit and steal what we can back for the assault this place takes on the spirit. If your not careful it will win and if you are you are already damned. This while knowing that from the outside, from the safe spot on the hillside nearby or in the suburban home or in the neighborhood track house, the whole experiment will appear stupid and unnecessary and incendiary and hopeless. Which, of course, it is, but the alternative was as well. This is where Glassboy comes in. Glassboy listens to Limbaugh. When Z asked him about the habit a year ago at the Bughouse community potluck, he scowled, twitched and replied, "because I want the truth." Nothing can save a man from that. It's like trying to make a homosexual straight, perhaps for a time one could influence an action or two but ultimately a useless track. May as well paint the sun black and with similar consequences. Glassboy decided he would smoke cigars, indoors, all day, resulting in an ashtray like effect throughout my entire studio. Then, after being told (and received unrepentantly), Glassboy purchased an ozone making machine and blasted it throughout the floor resulting in a terrible burnt ballast scent on top of the cigar smoke which was supposed to be lessened by the chemical interaction of the ozone on the organic chemical. Ozone being a toxic gas itself. So, to be clear, Glassboy, a studio neighbor, beings smoking cigars all day, using an ozone machine to cover the smell and listens to Rush Limbaugh loud enough for the whole east side of the floor to hear it without so much as a second thought. And I'm his neighbor and feeling that only a coward is worse than a tyrant. It is what it is. And I'll pick up on this next time which if my creative sense allows will be damn soon because I feel the truth coming on like a vomitous mass slowly bulging up through the esophageal tube awaiting spew.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

this thing here

I brought the dog to the park where she frolicked in the crisp air of winter. It was cold and she loved it cold. So did I actually, as long as it was winter I preferred it to the heat. At the park there were other dogs, and ducks on the icy creek waters, and a light fluffy mist from the lake effect settling on the branches, creating an other worldly sharpness to the scene. Then the clouds got thin but not enough to break in the mid morning sun when Faf and I headed to up the mountain trail. It is more of a wooded hill really not a mountain, but I think of the relative distance and the relief I feel when inside of them, surrounded of them. Years go by in either direction and I breath deep of the steep climb and relief of escape. When the snow makes a dust and stays lite and airy, the gray wash seeps the range and a sharp, utterly pristine air projects from each surface. Every dribbled line of bark and amber fall grass on each short ascent and rise sings like the summer. Silent and certain - as beautiful as youth.
Babe had some advice for me. "You're all surface" she said, "you've stopped getting deep into it." She wants the dirt I thought. I've got dirt but I imagine to protect Buttercup I'd stop talking because she's dying. I could make mistakes and those are easier to take if everyone lives and moves on and can assume their own responsibility though that is not what is happening here. I'm afraid to write because I feel the need for permission. I want a mentor or God or others to tell me with clarity and pure definitive certainty to speak my thoughts or not in this way. Silence, then Babe adds her two cents - she says tell it and don't hold back. I can't think of anything but Buttercup with the cancer eating her up and how I leave and how many of my friends fall away and are actually not friends. Big deal. Every time I think about telling you the story now my heart beats slower and time gets shaken up. The story is halted by the march of time and the fear that I am over the edge and a dirty lone wolf-type creature. This is how it gets written down only. What I have found is not something altruistic or profound but instead my fear is confirmed and love and cowardice. I had wished for something more, I think, analyzing and wasting time. At the same time that something more is delivered - Love in an abundant rush. Then the voice shatters and comes to present in tiny shock waves like broken glass or crystal or even something more, reverberating in the present state and I follow the ripples forward, mostly. This means I think, fairly soon, I'll be living forward. On listening, I hear the present. Stay tuned I tell myself. Stay tuned I tell you.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

confessionals, in the ass

The lord speaks in wonders and so it is as I leave Rochester Chicago bound only to find a flight delayed and grounded in Philadelphia as a storm built on the eastern seaboard. Fleeing to safety I find the other Pete and Kate and hunker down post liquor store and watch as the clouds form to ice to downpour to blizzard to a foot then an additional foot of snow. We talk and the next action becomes clear, then more clear, piling up like inches. We talk and I sit to write.

I wake up sometimes thinking I'll find my wife beside me. In the haze I reach over and remember, vaguely now, the feel of her, her presence. I know now for certain that these thoughts will linger with a person forever, with me until I die. There will never be a time that the thought and dreams of pure love and original connection and vows and belief will disappear. They will always be there and be there in want and desire, at least the story I had planned it to be in fantasy. Love conquers all and delight is the reward. At the same time I also know that this story could be any story. I also know that chemically Buttercup was my girl. I doubt there was or will be any two people with the capacity to melt into one another than she and I had. If you ask her it may be a different story but for me it was true. Softness is not wetness, it is the bond two people have when their chemistry matches like bone marrow. Buttercup was the moon and she'd keep me up till 3AM or all night with it. I knew it and never came inside of her. That was her deal, you can't cum inside me until we are married and then you get my ass too. You can have me in the ass and cum inside me if we stay together in the eyes of God. Some God but I respect her for it and I never did either. And this will haunt me. But it should not be underestimated the force of what I first set out to tell - that with a man is love for his bride (if it is true), that when definite and failed will go on forever. It will go on with more force of forever than as such to any living force. Of course, when I am dead it will be too but so will everything. So will the tectonic shift and Seychelles and all the nations awaiting changing tides and high waters and fire and meteors or any such boy dream Romantic nonsense. Nevertheless.

So I speak in the quiet, calm and more than coincidental realization that the face plant of landing inanely in Philadelphia, in the heat and cold of transition, in the need for a break and time to make a better move and forceful plan to march on I find a tiny reason to post this and remember that in the quest for an honest life one makes horrible mistakes. That living is not hiding and wanting is not needing and helping is often the equivalent of shifting rather than changing any outcome. Still it is entirely the debt of stupid belief in something honest. So I must, at the very least, tell the truth on my way through. Honest report for whatever it's worth. Dear God, how stupid.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

rock, rope, and purchase

I came home and drank a beer. Then I drank a second beer and sat down to write. I listened and then read a few articles about the death of JD Salinger and recalled the last copy of Catcher in the Rye I owned. As I recall, V Daddy was reading it in Wyoming, at the Simpson Street place. This may be wrong but the image would be enough for me to think that yes, this is where it happened and as I remember he really liked it. Behind him would have been the large picture window with a view of the Snow King ski resort and the Gros Ventre range behind that. This would be it. Earlier in the day the sun had peeked through the clouds as I watched from the fourth floor bughouse east view just before a short spat of flurries turned into white out conditions. I set the camera up and left it running then drove to Siberia, otherwise known as RIT and taught a class. On the way home I thought about memory and subversion and how time doesn't wait so I don't wait. I thought about who I could give my time to and who I could leave behind. Almost everyone bubbles back to life and my thoughts about thoughts delay moments otherwise just there to experience. I want certainty and then I catch a lie I tell for the sake of a better story and then I catch a lie my other tells for the sake of an even better story. That's where it, life and loyalty, gets dumb and there is nothing more dumb than permitted ignorance after the call. My family. There are those there that will stay with you as you fall, those are your family. There are those that will permit your fall, those are your family. There are those that will await your fall and pick you up, those are your family. So I want to say and I can just say here but it won't have the same impact as how successfully I mean it that what I have wanted and so thoroughly failed at is insisting the other be family though instead fall to fail. In other words I have wanted no other option but have permitted all options and have seen those options exercised on me too. Those options, that other, is not your family. What's more is I see it in you too. And this keeps me plugging. So it goes in rock twenty ten. And it's snowing again thank God.

Monday, January 25, 2010

From the Horn of Africa

Every time I think about telling you a story now my heart beats slower and time gets shaken up. In fact, the story itself is halted from my own self awareness. The same pitiful self awareness I wish you had when I started. I could chalk it up to the examined life but that would be it. Nothing else is similar. My love.
Who? Who is the love?
You. You know that.
I do? Who is you?
My lord.
And what is your lord made of?
Silence and love and history.
How do you know that?
Because it is written and because there is longing.
Longing for what?
For certainty (pause), or for more love.
And what does that look like?
I know what you are doing?
Oh yes? What am I doing?
You are answering before the question is even formed in that same proverbial way. You are telling the faith before it is realized.
Then why do you resist?
Do I? For want.
(silence)

The best view is from the summit of a snow filled valley on a very cold night. On those nights the heat of the blood reaches its high peak and we wait for the strong to pull through. The weak perish and the strong mourn the weak. The cold will take the waiting and the poor of health.
Why such bullshit prose? Why always with the damn death and him beget that shit. Your man-ness is not so important to others.
I see, then what?
Then what? You know, head to the grind stone. Don't ask. Travel, live, worry about the ones who need you.
What if no one needs me?
Then make someone or help the old you selfish prick.
I am. I do.
Then do, I am.
(sigh)
(silence)

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Rising

All signs point to moving on, to the getting of going, to the wherefore and how, up to the big house in the bigger sky. Then I see fire and right here feels just about good enough. Except for the discomforts preceded by subtle self deceptions and of course lies. That's all there is to it but that's enough to halt all dreams on stationary road - the kind where one sits idle and not the kind that supplies. Mack told me after the last round of horseshit and fear the next true thing that would keep my bronze lifeboat afloat until the next big change. He said, "Well, one of these two things could happen; It could get worse and then you'll look back on this as really good times or it'll improve and these will look like bad times. In either case we're still breathin'." Good point, I thought, breathing in the bitter cold early afternoon midwinter air. Snow everywhere and deep. Bah, reading back on these posts even a few months I imagine a future diagnosis and some pill that would have taken care of the whole situation had I'd known about it. I got out my Van Gogh action figure, the one my brother bought me after seeing the retrospective at the Met. His head shoots off from a lever in his back and an alternative head with a bandaged ear pops in. What a thing, I sat fiddling with it, sort of half chuckling. Dude put a bullet through his own belly and died. Fuck. Writing this just now I play Bonnie's Beware and sit back sipping a beer in the early hours, watching the cloud cover catch the rising red, purple, pink and yellow sun rays. It's -10 °F, according to the thermometer on the window.

William Nowik performing Crimson Flame (+).

Friday, January 1, 2010

Swinging a Dead Christmas Tree

In this video I swing a dead discarded Christmas tree in a circular rotation on New Year's Day 2010. Yea!