Hateful Twins

.3:50 pm

It occurs to me that perhaps we are those children. We already had them in ourselves. Twins born that day. I was Walter and she was Emily and for our own safety and sanity, they separated us at birth. I got California and she got Florida and neither of us regrets that. We became who we are. But what they could not have predicted or expected was that we would meet again someday at the halfway point in our lives and we would fall in love. That is a private thing that only us two would ever share or understand. And something that we had to privately lose together.

What matters is that we are. My knowing that she's out there, being herself - experiencing and writing things in the way that only she can do - that gives me fuel and hope. There is some meaning to all this shit. We got to play little kids for a while and I walked with her through her imaginary gardens and she stopped me every so often and said - hey, look at this. Isn't this beautiful? And I got to hold her arm then. I had the gift of her smile and her bright, wondering eyes in those moments. She gave me back the wonder and the beauty and the poetry. She let me see what it's like to be alive again. She never did write me no fucking haiku. I don't think she can. I think her vision's too big to put into 17 syllables.

But see now - that's where I go. That's what I do. I can break it down into little pieces - haikus - moments of poetic perfection. For Jeebus' sake, that's what Fanatic Gardens is: Appreciating each little tiny bit for what it is. I remember each of her different smiles, each of her different eyeball expressions. I remember the dozen different ways that her face has of telling me that she thinks I'm making this all up. I can see, even with my eyes open, what her face looks like when she gets it.

I wish it could have been something different because I know I hate being alone as much as she does and doesn't, but we had to draw a line on our differences. Which of course sucks because I always thought it was the differences that give fuel to a relationship, soil for growing. But then, lot I know about all that.

Ah fuck all this. I'm approaching inebriation and it's been six (I'm counting the days like a sober person counts) days since I've been with her. Like a damned fool, I'm wondering if she misses me too. And I know it doesn't matter because if she does come back she'll have some other fantastic accusation to put me on edge and when I try for the millionth time to assure her of my loyalty and truth, she won't hear a word I say because she's already got some other unrelated story on her mind.

I can no longer carry her burdens. Whether from guilty conscience or bad experience or a mix of both, she is consistently sure that I am a bad person. I know that's bullshit. I know that 99.9% of our arguments have been when I am cornered to defend myself against her paranoid fantasies. And somehow when I show my fanged face in defense that is proof to her that I am a liar. I can no longer be scapegoat to her fear of being alive. I'm just going to have to wander Fanatic Gardens alone.

Six Feet Ununder

.4:40 PM

Watched a bug scrabble over loose soil. One of those unnameable and perfectly camouflaged beetles. He was the color of the sand and the dust and he was the color of the ancient dead skin of this palm tree. He moved with unswaying determination. One foot always in front of t'other whether it do something or not. His head was obviously pointed that way cause I watched him a few times moving like a tank ever forward and if he got stuck then all them legs just keep moving kept working kept moving until they finally got it figured. Then he'd just roll right along.

I watched him when he went vertical. Cause I'd seen how the loose soil fucked with him I was curious to see his climbing skills. At this point - damn. He's already at least thirty feet up. Took to that bark like a natural. Funny thing was though - I watched him the first four foot up and he kept stopping. He'd get himself lost and then he'd find a high spot - a pinnacle - his own little lookout on the world - and he'd be lost as fuck cause he knew there was higher to go and he'd got stuck on this little high place. It never once occurred to him to back on down and try again somewhere different. So I had to blow and knock him off his peak to maybe think a different route. And come to think of it, he's probably looking down on me now from six feet above or thirty and he's thinking he's some big shot.

Fuck Grief AND Her Horse

.9:33 pm

Igor moved because his hip hurt. He shifted over to one of the three positions and the hip stopped hurting and then began to hurt on the other side. His eyes rolled clockwise and his body tried to figure out some balance or another. And then he was dreaming again.

"I'll throw you to the fucking pomegranates," the voice said. "Try me. I'll fucking do it. You jerst wait and see, wait and see and wait. I ain't afeered a you or nunna your kind." And then the voice faded off reciting some foreign alphabet. He twirled the spinach around with the tines of his fork and waited for it to say something else and it didn't and he waited. And then the butter glistened under fluorescent candles and someone familiar pulled up in an unfamiliar truck and tossed a golden apple into his pudding. He rewrote that poem - alright, yessah.

Already they arrived. Long caravans of nobody. They were closely followed by shitloads of Pepsi and tomato ketchup. If you can imagine the sound of a matchbook cover being folded back into place and carefully tucked then you got a fairly good picture.

...............

Well - hell yeah - a man's gonna set and dream and think about stuff that could be. What really makes a man is when he gets up from dreaming and does something about it. I've seen more than enough lazy-gave-up souls in the soup kitchens and I've taken a few turns being one myself to know: that big old bright sunrise over there belongs to us all. They can't tax you on that. The sun don't ask to see your identification before he goes and shines on you.

.................

Fuck Grief!
And the horse she rode in on
I Live to Be Alive
and Joyous
and squirming with ecstasy
in this mud
Take your worms and
one-eyed toads off
to mourn elsewhere
Let yourself figure out
what great moaning mourning
is going to release you
I've waited but I can't wait anymore
You want to curl back up and cry
because life has never been fair
No Shit
Popcorn and Cotton Candy memories
Flowers and butterflies of youth
oh, oh, oooooohhhhhhhhhh
wah, wah, waaaahhhhhhhhhh!

Backyard Thinking

.5:25 pm

Yes. My sandals and socks are caked with earth. My arms and face and hair are holding a little skin to themselves of dust and everything else that comes out of the ground. The bones of my feet and knees and the muscles of my back and shoulders and arms can claim a degree of exhaustion and soreness. My exposed skin is a little more cooked and hardened than it was yesterday. My worries are taking a break behind 36 ounces of beer and my soul has been digesting some Steinbeck. It is is fine evening.

The stray Siamese that we have adopted is wrestling with some pigeon feathers in her favored patch of tall grass. Imagines herself some lioness, I suppose. She looks over to me on occasion to make sure that I am sufficiently impressed with her great lioness impersonation.

The magnificent palm next to me has a fair crowd of eager birds shuffling around taking turns trying to show me the impressive things their little assholes are capable of producing.

The lioness rises and approaches me now doing her impersonation of a Las Vegas showgirl. I get a noserub on my leg and a little murmeow but I am "busy" reading some novel or scribbling in my notebook and I do not look up. She curves and twists away - her body waving like a frustrated trout aiming for the other side of the pond. She moves to the other side of the yard and harumphes undelicately into more tall grass and gallares at me.

.6:25 pm

Igor Sapien is obviously thirsty. He likes a pint of dark beer - porters or stouts. He craves tall pitchers of Jamieson. He likes shots of Faulkner and Joyce. He's been known to guzzle long draughts of Steinbeck and Robbins and Vonnegut. He likes to spice himself with Garcia Marquez and Kundera and Calvino. Ever looking for new vegetables for his recipes, he gladly welcomes Kesey and Leary and R.A. Wilson.

Once, when asked what his favorite flavor was - he almost said pussy, he almost said curry, he almost said pesto - he answered instead, "I like the flavor of true love." At which point he began to beat at his face enthusiastically with a very large and pointy stone and through rivulets of blood and shattered bone he grinned and repeated, "yeah, love - that's the cake."

On an evening when the landscape ran out of wind and the grasshoppers were getting restless and the frogs just held their breath, Igor closed his mouth and opened his eyes and watched the Belt of Orion inch proudly across the sky. He felt a stirring in his loins and a tickle in his heart and an emptiness in his arms and a secret, whispering voice just out of range. He blinked again and it was the same. Far off he heard the train bellowing its approach. Nearby he felt the chaos and rumble of little souls trying to connect with other little souls. He coughed from deep within and produced a tasty nugget that landed right in the nearby dust.

What The Fanatic Gardens Is Anyways

.4:40 pm

"What the hell is that?"
"What's what?"
"That!"
"This?"
"Yeah, what the hell is that?"
"It's Fanatic Gardens."
"What the hell is that?"

Fanatic Gardens is a place, a time. It's something that happens in the instant just before you blink your eyes. It's a smell that makes you think you're somewhen else.

"Oh. I think I see .... I think."

Fanatic Gardens is a perfect curving softness that your hands remember longingly. It's words in wet ink being repeated over and over and over. It's a moving mosaic of shadows being cast on objects that themselves make more shadows.

"Yeah, but .... what the hell is it?"
"I just told you."
"Tell me some more then."

Fanatic Gardens is a perception. It's the life that fills everything - the life that is only seen when properly looked for and appreciated.

Fanatic Gardens takes the cold, grey, two-dimensional reality of maps and photographs and magazines and cliches and prejudice and expectation and stereotype and label and niche and puts life into it. That's when nothing is the same anymore. Nothing ever was or will be the same and the phrase "Been there done that" is torn down and thrown away. Every experience, no matter how often repeated, becomes a unique event unlike any other. Boredom ceases to exist except in those peaceful times when it is desired.

"Right. Okay. Why didn't you say so to begin with?"
"I did."

A Cock To Cuddle Up To

.6:15 pm

Well, Nicole and I had it out again last night. This time it's most likely final. It's unlikely that I'll be seeing her again soon. As usual, it was based on one of her wild accusations. This time, she'd read one of my recent posts - the one inspired by Faulkner. I was experimenting and trying to get into the heads of a bum and a convenience store clerk. There's a paragraph where the bum is checking out a woman in the store and dreaming about what he'd like to do with her. Of course Nicole imagines that the bum is me and that this is a true story and I'm a cruel, evil man for printing that somewhere where she would see it and be hurt by it. I told her, "It's fiction. Lighten up. If I'm going to write fiction then I need to explore characters and what they're thinking." And she insists that it's not fiction because I've told her that everything in my blog is true. Okay. I guess I have to throw in a clause now: Everything in my blog is true as far as it pertains to journal entries. When I am experimenting with poetry and fiction, then it ain't necessarily so. Go figure. Is that a hard one to grasp?

I've warned her before that I will suck up and swallow her wild accusations and strange paranoid fantasies because I love her, but that occasionally my top's gonna blow and she should expect that once in a while I'm gonna get pissed off. So last night I got pissed off. And I was not kind about it. And it looks like I'm gonna be alone again for a while.

Strangely I haven't felt remorseful today. No. Instead I've felt a kind of freedom and strength. That's very good. I've been dizzy and directionless these last four months and today it seems a lot clearer what I must do for myself. I've been a pathetic fool waiting hours and hours and nights and nights waiting for her to come out of her cave to be with me. I've been addicted to her company and useless without it. I've planned every day around the hope of spending time with her. And now I am released. My self-preservation is kicking in. It's been a more than amazing and beautiful time, but it must be over. I cannot take any more of her whacked out mistrust and created fantasies.

Yes, I am sad. But I am not devastated. I see myself coming out of this with a vastly improved sense of poetry and purpose. My writing has been hugely enriched. And she has definitely helped me to feel more confident about myself as an attractive person and as a lover.

I'm sure that today also, in her cave, she is feeling her own freedom and strength and that too is very good. I'm sure that her mind is also running through many reasons why she is better off without me. I only wish that there were anything that I've given her - something that improved her life or perception - something that made her feel more confident and powerful. I'd hate to have only been one of the cocks that she's cuddled up to.

My, what a whirlwind this has been.

11051 Penrose - She Knew That She Could Fly

.3:33 pm

The boy who boarded his goats on our land had already come and gone and left us a half gallon bottle of warm goat's milk on our porch. Today was my day so I got out the cheese cloth and the funnel and strained the milk while my sister got out some bowls and filled them with the wierd mix of Cheerios and corn flakes that momma was always making when she consolidated the half-empty cereal boxes. That's what momma called it. She said, "I'm consolidating." And I thought that had something to do with trains so I didn't say nothing but looked at my bowl funny waiting for a railroad spike to come floating to the surface. My sister stared at me and called me a slobdaka. She said, "don't you know railroad spikes don't float?" And I never could figure out how she knew what I was thinking. But that's the way it's always been. People always seem to think they know what I'm thinking. They'll get it right about once out of four but they can go stuff themselves like a turkey as far as I think. Sushi that.

That day I wasn't thinking about railroad spikes in my cereal bowl, no. I was thinking about them dogs' tails gettin' chopped off the day before. The reason I was thinking about that was cause when I went out to get the goats milk off the back porch I saw the dried blood stains right there and I could smell the hot burning when they burned them poor pups tails after they chopped em. That's what I was thinking about.

She sat there staring at me and I could hear her thinking what a slobdoka I was. Like I'm gonna care? I'm the elder one, I think to myself. I'm the one that momma and daddy chose out to break the truth to.

They waited that night until my sister gone to bed and I was laying there in the top bunk at nine years old reading for the first time in my life a book of philosophy. It was "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" and I liked it cause it made me feel real. And I wasn't exactly sure what that meant but I liked it a lot anyways. And now almost forty years later I can still tell you how that book started. See. It went like this:

"It was morning and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea."

Ten years later, some jackass'd come along and tell me that was poetic prose and I'd just look at him and not say nothing. That jackass - he'd just as soon walk on down the street with two legs sticking out under him and I'd watch him go while I felt the two wings unfolding out of my back and I'd lift up and fly a bit and I'd settle down somewhere just about as far as that jackass on two legs had got.

I'm at the part where Jonathan thinks he's in heaven and the elder gull Chang or whatever starts telling him that he can be anywhere or anywhat he wants to be and then he disappears and then he and Jonathan are standing under twin moons on a very different beach and the sky has definitely changed. And then I got it. Nine years old, I closed my eyes and held that book and knew clearly that this wasn't going to be an ordinary life.

Right then the door opened and the light shot fast across the room and my momma stuck her head in and whispered if I was awake. She said, "Boy, come on out here. Your father and I want to talk to you."

They sat me down in the living room and let me have the big chair. I knew this was gonna be big because they let me have the big chair. That was the chair that they hid the saddle behind. It went like this: The Christmas before - almost a year now - there'd been a little wrapped box under the tree with my sister's name on it and when she got to opening it there was a note inside that said, "look behind the chair." And behind that chair, the big one, the one I was sitting in this night after reading about Jonathan Gull flashing across the universe just by what his mind could do - anyways - so. My sister that Christmas morning looked behind the big chair and there was the saddle - crisp and shiny and new and it was just her size and off to the side there was a bridle and reins and all the gear and taped right to the top of the horn was another note. And my sister's eyes got huge and you could see all of the sudden she was more then just a girl. She was like Jonathan Gull and she knew that she could fly. Out there in the barn in the backyard that Christmas morning my little sister with her long, straight brown hair and her big wide eyes and freckles like you couldn't believe she walked into the barn and there was a pony that looked right back at her. He was all white with big brown and black spots and he gave my sister the same look she gave him. And you knew right then they were gonna love each other. Right then she said, "His name is Wildfire."

I'm sitting in the big chair and my momma and daddy are sitting next to each other on the couch. They're looking at me while I shift around. I'm thinking about the short wingspan of a falcon and air rushing through me and screaming, howling pups with their tails cut off and no one ever told me why their tails had to come off other than saying, "that's how they're supposed to look." Yeah, I'm thinking your face would look better without your face being there and then my momma says, "It's time you know there ain't no Santa Claus."

Jesus Fucking Christ. I'm nine years old and Santa Claus has just been verbally crucified by my own momma and daddy. My momma looked like she wanted to put her hand on my knee or my shoulder and maybe help - but she didn't. And I'm refusing to hear this. I already heard them arguing and yelling at each other the past week and I know they're broke. I know Santa Claus doesn't have any credit left at the department store.

Every nine year old already knows there ain't no Santa Claus. But not every nine year old has his parents drag the jolly fat man into the living room and then stick the man with a knife while their boy watches. They said, "don't tell your sister - please - don't." And I never did. Nope. Never. And she figured it out for herself.

An Eyeful

.6:55 pm

Staring at a blank television set across a room of faces and bodies. Staring because it's an old habit. Turning to look into a window as you pass in the street - there's a familiar blue and flash of someone watching the tube. Lost at a desk - hands folded neatly in lap - eyes glued to a soothing screensaver. Rows of people on buses in lines randomly scattered and scrunched tight focused on screens of cell phones the size of an open mouth screaming.

Where Cypresses Be

.6:25 pm

This is Armory Park in Tucson. It's a fair park with a glorious walk adorned by a small army of very tall cypresses. Next to it - the remaining third of this city block - is the Armory Park Center where senior citizens come to watch television or surf the internet or just sit looking at each other. Once or twice a month they have a beautiful and romantic dance.

The park itself has an interesting history being a place where many soldiers a long time ago made it a favored place for rowdy parties.

Radiating out from the park you find beautiful neighborhoods of decaying architectural history; several examples of how southwestern Catholics like to build their churches; two liquor stores; an all night coffee shop that changes hands every half dozen years; three or four bars; an all night diner with an attitude; the central hub of the local bus routes; and a large, formal police station (across the street, of course, from the major liquor store - which is a drive-thru).

Separate Distances

.1:10 am

Two bums looked at each other across a hundred feet or so of piss-stinking, lawn-green park. There's a bench and they both want it. It's a small bench and no one's ever gonna be able to get comfortable on it. Already half the boards have been pried loose for bum breakfast barbecues. And only odd Ripley's midgets could really stretch out on it. That's one of the bum's curses: always sleeping tight and fetal whether it be to fit carefully under a makeshift mosquito net or just to make himself think he's warm.

Two bums drawing closer to the coveted bench and then there's recognition.

"Hank?" One questions while still moving closer to hoped for territory.
"Bronco?" The other responds, trying to take bigger steps.
"I thought you was going up to Lisa's."
"I thought you was."
"Well, ain't that the fuck. You got a smoke?"
"You got a snort of whiskey?"
"I might have something just so long as you know that's my bench."
"Now you can let a man sit awhile," calculating Bronco's seriousness and manpower.
"Long as you got a smoke and I got some whiskey. After that I need to do some dreaming."

And a train whistle blows and they both look off into separate distances.

........

It's just black silhouettes of rocks or whatever they are and the stars are so bright it's like the Milky Way herself is going nova and the moon prances proudly right through the middle of it and he watches the tail lights until they can't be seen no more. And then the quiet finds him. He lays right there in the middle of the highway on his back and surveys the stars. He's bright enough to know that each star's light comes from a different, vastly different point in time and he's crazy enough to believe that it means something.

No Easy Package

.12:05 am

It's gonna be a load of shit. I can smell it already like a steady build up to a monumental fart. There's already enough people with opinions they think are solid and infallible. This one's gonna take a truckload or three of toilet paper. See them gathering in their little groups preaching to their little choirs not a one got a ball to disagree. Hear the amens and the hallelujahs and if you don't stand up when everyone else stands up then you're a painted red sinner - you're a brother of the devil - you got no right to be standing on God's green earth. It's written right there into the constitution of God's country that if you ain't a Christian ain't no man gonna give you a job ain't no man gonna call you his brother. In fact somewhere there in the old books of The Bible I'm sure they got a couple of clauses or at least something they can use that'll sound respectful in a courtroom. And of course I know that's a lie. I know that dear, sweet Mr. Jefferson would have never allowed that. I'm sure he had to bang his fist twenties of times on those meeting tables where they laid out the enlightened theories that built this country. I'm sure he banged his fist and said with clarity something to the effect of keep your god damned religion off my country.

It's gonna be bright and enigmatic. It's gonna shine long after the moon goes down. It's gonna make the morning rouster rooster do a double take. It's gonna walk right out with the sun in front of everybody and just lay itself down and tell everyone to go ahead and scrutinize. It's gonna look at you and you're just gonna tell it straight up cause you can't do other - "I don't even know myself."

It's not going to come in any easy package you can fix right up in 2-3 minutes. Basically, you're going to have to pick out the ingredients yourself one at a time from all the in-between and almost-there stuff that crosses your world and then you're going to have to test these ingredients one at a time until you come up with something that tastes just right. There's not going to be any easy packages you can download off the internet and if you try to steal your neighbor's recipe it's only going to poison you.

It's gonna be a simple moment in the middle of your breakfast when you're chewing fast because you gotta be there before the boss and you're gonna stop chewing because you were thinking about a joke someone told you two or six days ago and now suddenly you "Get It" and you realize it wasn't never meant to be funny. You've stopped thinking about work or breakfast or the boss. Now you gotta go sit down on the toilet for a long time and think about it until you can square it in your head.

It's gonna be a sweet release and you'll probably moan a little. It's gonna move right through you and out of you and into everything. And the moment you'll know it's alright is when you recognize that it was already there and always was and nothing's different except you.

Another Guitar

.2:40 pm

(This written after reading Faulkner for the first time - As I Lay Dying and Intruder In The Dust over the course of three days).

and I guess it's really just gonna come down to words. I mean that's how it always is. And that's not gonna change. Right? Nothing ever changes. Right? No. That's not true. There's always words but I'm different. I'm not even the same person I was yesterday or even this morning. Now I'm sweating and this place is hot. Do I walk faster to get to that shade or take it slow and burn the whole way there? Not like it matters cause that shade's not going to last. Five or six steps and I'll be through it. I wonder how they'd feel if I just set up a chair there in that shade. Would they come out on the porch when I wiped off my sweat and drank my water? Maybe I oughtta just go sit up on their porch and wait till they bring me out a nice cold beer and a fat sandwich. Sure is an ugly yard though. Look at that mess and all that dog shit. Oh well, never mind if there's dog shit. What have I got? Like a buck eighty? That'll get me a beer. Yeah, that's a good idea. I like how you think.

I swear if a car knows you're waiting for it to pass it'll just slow down and they'll fiddle with their air conditioner or change their music - but if they think you're gonna try to cross the street before they get there then they'll speed up and get all mad cause you're in their way.

So if things do change if they can change then what makes them change? Maybe nothing changes but the way we see things. Words'd definitely have something to do with that, right? But if I see that something's changed and nobody else does am I gone crazy or are they all just stubborn stupid? Maybe I can just tell myself everything's what I want it to be. This warm water is really a nice big glass of whiskey with ice in it and these shoes are a hell of a lot more comfortable and I'm really sitting some place nice like a garden or by a river and there's dancing girls all up and down the place. Uh huh. Yeah. And now the clouds are low and it's going to be a slow and peaceful laying down of a lot of snow and I'm carrying in another armload of wood for the fire that's already going and there's mugs of hot chocolate with whiskey in em and she's just finishing up another batch of those chocolate muffins that we can't get enough of.

Damn this is a bitch. It's so hot. No place to sit down around here. Why's everybody got to own everything? And they just let it sit there and dry up and rot and some other man comes along and sees it and says to himself this sure does look like a nice place to sit down for a while and then the other guy - the one who owns it - comes out with his shotgun and his eyes popping out and he yells get yer filthy hands off my desert. Shit if I owned something like that I'd say to anybody and everybody hey if you wanna come have a sit that's okay by me and if you wanna bring a few beers well that's just fine too. And somebody could bring a guitar and someone else too and before you know it people'd be moving out of their houses and into their front yards.

Now where can I get a beer for this buck eighty that's close by? Ha! Look at them cops hassling them bums. Don't they know any better or maybe they're lazy or just stubborn stupid. All it takes is decent clothes and you wash your face and comb your hair and then you don't look like a bum. And decent clothes is easy to find cause people like buying brand new things all the time and eventually they're going to throw out the old stuff and there's just plenty enough of em that it makes em feel good to give stuff away that there's always decent clothes to be had if you just ask at the right places. But maybe they just give up maybe they just like to sit there on the concrete and look like they're dying. Maybe they just walked around too many years in the sun and they're tired of it and now they just want to settle in with the dust and the trash and let themselves fade out.

I think they got cheap beers in this place - at least I can get cold water and cool air for a minute. Oh man, look at that. That is so nice. If I was a man that had any kind of money I'd be going right up and saying 'Hello' and 'How do you do' and whatever else I could think of. I'd be offering to carry her stuff out to her car and we'd be setting up a date for a picnic or something real soon. Shit. I'll bet she can smell me. Well, that's how it is and here I am with nothing to do about it.

Now where can I drink this beer and not get a hassle about it like it's even anybody's business to begin with? Why does everybody got to own everything and they don't even use it and it just sits there and now I gotta go hide in some alley and drink my beer and these trash cans stink and there's more ants and flies here than all the people on the earth. Well, at least I don't look like a bum.

---------------

and here's that bum again going straight for his dollar fifty beer and he thinks no one can tell he's a bum just cause he's got decent clothes and he washes his face and combs his hair but by God believe me I can tell a bum when I smwll one and we oughtta just get down to it and rename this place 'Beer for Bums' or something like that cause that's all we get here all day long is just filthy stinking bums by God believe me I'm just sick of them scaring off any respectable customers and staring down every decent lady that wanders by and them always wanting a handout saying hey brother I'm shy a nickel can you spot me and by God believe me I ain't a brother to a one of em and the next one that calls me his brother I might just about punch him in his stinking smelly face and now you got two or three of em they wanna hang out like this is their own private air-conditioned clubhouse and why don't someone tell me why I don't just sell this place and take that money and set up a nice little shady yard where they can all just sit around all day and drink their beers which of course I'll be paying for and keeping cold for them and by God believe me it wouldn't be long before one of em brings a guitar and then another one.

A Long, Soothing Drink

.5:33 pm

It was a useless gesture and he knew it, but he did it anyways. He took out two tall glasses and set them on the counter carefully and quietly and then he went to the freezer and pulled out a tray of ice cubes. He came back to the sink and the counter and he gave the tray a few twists until he felt the ice breaking loose. He turned the tray over and grabbed handfuls of cubes which he set gently and quietly into the two tall glasses. Turning the cold faucet just a little, he held the glasses under the stream and let them slowly fill. He reached into a cupboard over the counter and pulled out a fifth bottle of vodka. The bottle was empty and that's why this was all useless, but he removed the cap and poured anyways. Nothing came out and that mixed silently with the cold water. When he was done, he put the cap on and the bottle away and he carried the glasses into the next room where she wasn't waiting for him.

He sat back in seeming comfort and fingered the television remote. Eventually he pointed it at the spot where the set used to be and pressed a few buttons. For several minutes he contemplated what he saw and then lifted the remote again and pressed other buttons. He took a long drink and the vodka that wasn't there soothed him.

Behind A Mariachi Warehouse

Fanatic Gardens started from a single seed that fell between two rocks. No rain visited, no nutrients awaited. Only darkness and long stillness. A vibration hinted at. But there was always a direction implied. The sun can only be in one place at a time. From there it all naturally falls into place. The Garden sprouts new from the ground this morning and in the evening it dies away to be replaced by a Garden that reaches for the moon.

Between the fresh sprouts and the decay there is a dancing so right and free - a joyous up and down and around - a dizzying swirling falling into a gentle swaying that tries to be sad but can't help smiling.

"You must be a very sad man," she says and I smile and I know the twin nature of joy and sadness. I know when my tears are happy and when my sorrow is expectant and hopeful. I know when my laughter is fearful and fatal and destitute.

"You have a heart the size of a pea," she says while my heart the size of a mountain crumbles and breaks. Fear is simple. Fear is easy.

The wind hasn't really stopped. It's just that we occasionally find places where the conflicts cancel each other out.

In The Voiceless Howl

Surrounded by short walls that give me a small privacy I sit and smoke and watch the wind moving past me like a tidal flood. I feel the roots of these trees squirming in the earth beneath me. The wind is a thick wave carrying leaves and branches and plastic bags from afar. It carries distant music and drumbeats and sings its own song in branches of trees and bushes. A cloud moves and lets the sun shine right here and a small shadow darts across.

I'm contemplating fresh memories in my mind of a music lesson never received. My fingers were shaped on a guitar in just such a way and a rhythm had started in my feet. There is nothing like being lost in a music that you are making. And the wind is jealous. It shakes the trees harder - making them sway - and it carries other musics from further distances. I take all that in and add it to my own song.

My song is both joyous and sad. It is about leaving and being together. It is about kisses so soft and eyelash gentle tickles. It is the rhythm of bare feet sinking into mud This song borrows its melody from the words I hear you saying. I have for my orchestra beer cans and bottles, high-tension wires strung across the streets, birds flying backwards in a storm, and awkward glances made by strangers as they pass.

As always, the song fades and I hear a brutal silence. The sound of the earth drying and cracking, desperate wings flapping from shade to shade in search of water. The engine of automatic insects slows to a crawl and a black beetle gives up its life in the dust. In the voiceless howl of this absolute silence I hear a murmuring of life on its way back. Rising from its afternoon slumber, pushing through crowds of walking dead, eyes ever forward, life returns to me again.

This is a dream I have between blinks of my eyes. Flash fiction. A poetry of the moment. Life returning to me and then pulling away just before I can touch it. That seems to be the plan - your lips almost touch mine and then they don't. And yet I remember such a passionate embrace. It never happened - and it was - and it is - and it's right now - and there never was such a thing - and now the wind is silent. Perhaps it has found another soul to torment.

I take my shoes off and then I put them on again. The wind has left my hair a ruin and I look through dark brown streaks across my eyes. My heart is racing and nothing is happening. There is a psychic wind now blowing a storm of thoughts through my mind. I watch them swirl and eddie and settle and explode. One though decides to make sense for a while and then changes its mind. I feel a shift and then I am right back here. There is a backlog of people sending me messages expecting me to think certain things, to be in certain places, to be a certain person. I have nothing to say.

A guitar nudges me aside. It takes my notebook and pen from me and has its own ideas about what we're trying to say. The pen vibrates like a string as I watch and gold flows onto the page. I can't believe this is happening. Everything I've ever wanted to say is right there in beautiful sparkling print. I reach for the page and it dissolves into a blue smoke that goes into my eyes and up my nose and now I am high. So fucking high. I am a guitar. I am not a guitar. I am a one-letter word. I am a single note released into the air of a dark hall hours after the concert has ended.

There is nothing left here. The place where I came to sit in privacy and peace. There is an empty chair, a dead cigarette, dried drops of beer - roots of trees still squirm in the earth deep and a small platoon of ants are carrying a black beetle from the dust.

--------------

Fanatic Gardens is a mathematical equation that shows the difference between how fast you count the seconds when you are holding your breath to how fast you count time regular. It's a syncopation of heartbeats that are not counted as part of your normal pulse.

Fanatic Gardens are the words we're really throwing back and forth to each other when we think we're talking. It's the way your left eyebrow quivered when you said the word "tomorrow" and the way that my mustache relaxed when I mentioned Hope. It's the backseat monologues we carry behind our eyes.

--------------

And I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but I think I'm going to have to use my Jail Free card now. The mud has gone past my toes now - past my ankles. It's a soft mud and I like it, but now it's trying to take my knees. I'm going to have to press forward. Times I've told myself that if the situation was beautiful enough I'd be willing to make the sacrifices but now even my sacrifices are turned against me. The tongue of love and life is seeking out my tongue and the heat is on and I can feel the edges of teeth. Bitter and terrified teeth that can barely taste - only wanting a strong grip from which to tear and destroy in blind, mad grief. I try to return a loving kiss and it almost works but then that pain returns. Teeth bite and accuse and refuse to believe. Tongue is coated in the acid of old bad aftertastes. Lips are eager and hungry. Hands pull and twist and hold and feel. Eyes are right there and they are real.

Gentle and monstrous and afraid and hopeful - the who we really are takes hands and arms around moves feet in front of feet towards where we're really going.