The Little Words Mean the Most

Life, Real

 

 

I wanted to be normal.

I hoped to be normal.

Yet I was abnormal right away, as far as I could tell.

Maybe we all were. Just didn't know it.

Didn't turn out the way society hoped.

------

I was born male, was that it? There's a movie playing

downstairs on TV. It's one fight after another. Nature nurtured.

------

We live in the country. In a valley

Two hundred years ago dairy cows cropped it bare

sugar maples outlined the fields

oxen dragged enormous glacial debris into Inca-impressive

walls that would last an aspiring family for generations

 

Three hundred years ago only the original inhabitants knew it

not as a destination, it was a place without

much in the way of sustenance outside game

------

We live in a valley, an acoustical cup, and tonight

someone's having a big party everyone else

can hear. The cover band is well amplified

in the distance. Don't know

what they're singing but it's comforting

My window is wide open

------

I love it when the keyboardist returns.

He makes a statement into the mic, to jazz the crowd

bring their focus back to the stage

his voice rolls lightly over these ancient hills,

second-growth-capped hills, oaks blasted by gypsy moths,

almost a bird call

he sounded like an owl cooing at first, so I mistook

 

200 years ago this valley was 20% wooded

now it is 60% wooded and that's only increasing

toward oblivion except for urban and suburban farming

pioneers and hold-outs

 

"Ancient" hills? We have a long defunct volcano

from the very core of the earth in

our own back yard, from WAY

before the dinosaurs. I freely use its lava

sand to make weed-resistant paths

 

tonight I am 2 bottles into

a bag-in-box rosé; I didn't know

I could walk this far

or drink this much every day

yet against the standards of men my age (69) be

accounted healthy; is this as good as such tests get?

 

I ran today, up a steep hill

 

 

 

 

is wine the tide

 

 

washing up my stems and stairs

dragging my beaches rowdy bare naked

 

2 days ago

I "rescued" in my mind, jabbing a finger down on karmic superstitions

an overturned crab, resigned

then struggling vigorously on its back sawing the violins once lifted

shell's complexion pink rhododendron

no bigger than a child's bracelet

scooped in my right palm atop a boule of draining beach sand

 

as soon as

it was righted that

crab dug fast backwards

into flooded corrugated pudding

a million planets per square inch

 

we walked the tidal sands of Scituate, Mass north from Egypt Beach

on alert

lifeguards forever

 

 

 

understand

 

 

 

fear of loss is FAR more powerful

 

than hope of gain (well-known psych research)

 

US conservatives

fight for their lives

other words in their hearts

so

 

don't expect the best, zombies yeah yet they firmly

command vast AND steadfast, self-interested resources

if you own the cannons will you prevail?

 

"unless we build better cannons" someone

one of you said

 

 

It is that time of year

 

When nature demonstrates its 50-karat plan

 

Millions, billions, trillions of teensy gypsy moth caterpillars hatched in May 2017 in

the New England state of RI (no comment

)where we have this big front yard

 

each = to eyebrows just slightly larger than a semi-colon

infantile gypsy moth caterpillars dominate outdoor surfaces

railings (eeew), tables (ew!), your chair (eh!!!)

Reasonably of course

 

you stay indoors for a few weeks

wonder if that vote against

[global warming?] was so smart after all

Could have been against anything I suppose?

 

? Too late to

change my mind

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The truth is

 

The truth is

------

I'd tell you the truth

if I knew it

my truth

unrising to sunset and into

a miracle night

see the difference? Not another hour later

Bright looked true

Dark looked threatening

Love filled every jar

------

I once knew how to tell a good story (gone)

I changed everything for everyone. A superpower

no foresight no horrible birds

weaving nests from truth wisps

 

 

 

 

Perditions of Wisteria Way ~ chapter 1

 

It made all the sense in the world.

It made no sense.

Depending on your point of view that frozen-cold morning in a rental apartment, trying to get two kids fed and out the door into safe hands and school.

They were cautiously optimistic.

They'd buy a house inside five years, they figured.

Maybe with some help from his uncle, Fat Jack. He wasn't physically fat. He just had a lot of money. They thought that was a bad idea. But keep every option open, she figured.

 

Sophicles: "I wish I were 10%

 

the

personselfdeclared"followers"presumeIamI'mnotI'm

"

A novel about giving up

 

she wondered

no

because she'd called her own bluff and she wasn't giving up ultimately (not her)

anyway maybe the attempt would be prophylactic and add something worthwhile maybe

to the human comedy files. Again: maybe

 

CHAPTER 1

 

She pulled her housecoat closer around her. What of it? She'd taken a sick day because she'd earned about a thousand of them.

Thought: If I've influenced just one other person in a better direction, just once in my life, I'm fully satisfied. And that was career. She also had kids.

They'd turned out nicely, too, thank you and due to a F.ing lot of hard work and sacrifices. No scary teens here finally. Thank goodness. Talk about privilege. Describe "mom privilege" = non-scary, grateful, kind, gentle, un-insulting, self-aware, modest, fascinating, sharing, only-semi-self-destructive-or-at-least-in-manageable-ways teens.

Exactly like we were. Only now we're responsible for them.

Which was why it didn't all ring true with her.

She'd done okay. Extraordinarily well? Does anyone think that?

Enough. She'd live off it for awhile. Ring the town bells: she'd already done just enough.

Until her next crisis of confidence, that would do.

 

Which suggested a different title, as she reached for the 5:01 martini she'd poured twenty long minutes ago:

 

Self-Esteem: A How-To

 

yeah

 

CHAPTER 2

 

can you be a poet worth reading

 

 

when you're pretty much always?

 

So far, no. Still

I hope