tension

they have these things, water striders
sorta weird little spidery guys, who cruise along on the surface of the water, so light, and with such fine feet, that they can stand on the electric barrier between sky and drowning.

Sorta Jesus' whole 'walk on water,' thing, (amidst the storm) that freaked out the apostles
And pulled St. Peter out to give it a whirl, (then sink a bit.)

Everybody gets all excited about miracles
They get all worked up at the slightest parapsycholigical thing
God Heals
(or)
-a devil is revealed
-you manage to float around the room in some joint challanged lotus position

(...silly rabbit, tricks are for kids.)
If everything is simply electrons moving at different frequencies and speeds
-what is it to manipulate them and have your faith in the ability to experience such shifts.
(no smarter than basing one's intellect and faith in a traffic signal that can go from green, to yellow, to red.)

You want miracles, you ask for more and more.

You've been given a man who has come back to the grave in three days,
-who offers eternal life...

What more do you want?

-So, what are water striders?
(Stupid little bugs that can only do one thing?)
-Or brilliant,
(because the not only believe one thing, -but live in it, too?)

songs you gotta find that will blow you away:

'Family Life'

Starlight do you know me
Please, don't look at me now
I'm falling apart

Silver on the window
Like the bike I once had
At home in the yard
Jesus love let me down and I know where you are
It might lead somewhere

Gather me in snowfall
And the cars going by the north and the south
Flowers on the tableAnd the coffee gets cold
Like the milk in my mouth
Sailing on no honeymoon
Just separate chairs in separate rooms

Jesus, please
Make us happy sometimes
No more shout
No more fight
Family life

Tomorrow will be Christmas
We'll be singing old songs
And light up the tree
God and all the mercy
And say all your prayers
For little old me

Jesus, youWipe the tears from her face
And the sound of his voice
Family life

Yeah, yeah
Mystery

Jesus, I go to sleep and I pray
For my kids
For my wife
Family life

Yeah

-the Blue Nile

pathetique 1

it never rained when you want it to
dark sky
meanspirited
hovering
finally relieved itself onto the dust

no real reason why
the curve, known as the back of your hand
slicked
would not tolerate a vehicle at any speed
besides you were tired.

the world was awash
so many years ago
black wipers knocked on the window
a wet shroud on the glass
murmuring the names of the child yet to be

why do things fly when they can not?
such as car
suddenly free of it's confines
with lunatic abandon
on devils holiday
the 65 Fury
soared through the torrent
into the swollen creek below.

gravity,
angry to have lost the lot of you
returned with a vengence

How did the lights stay on?
as you sunk
headlamps cutting through the water
thicker than tulie fog
the dash
radio
fighting the belts
windows,
fighting the door
she just couldn't get free
she just couldn't do it
and you bloodied your hands trying

the air was up,
so there you went
gasping
jackknifed back down
as the current relayed you to no one
searched and cried out
swept up by branches
unconcious

she waited

no one blamed you

and
decades later
after the night
when the rains returned
where usually, a dry bed

a visit to a barber
a fresh shirt
you wandered in
clutching lilacs
smiling
with tears
whispering

'Marla
Marla

Marla'

flame

I would put you in alabama.
The drawl in your eyes speaks quietly of magnolias and
understands what happens in the spanish moss in the twilight.

You have no idea how long I wanted to talk to you, and wanted to find words to say.

I'd make anything up just to get your attention.
But I don't need to.
The truth will suffice.

I don't want you to notice me
I want you to notice me

I want to be in the shadows and just watch you watching others.
I want to be the scent that lingers in the air about you at all times of the day
I knew you were a writer,
I knew you were a poet,
It's not about the words
Screw the words

It's the interraction, gestures the glances said and unaid.

This is a quiet religion
not just a ritual on paper
It's food, wine, smoke and candles
There is chanting and quietness, tension and veils

I want innermost thoughts inside me
I have no defense against you
You could be magnificent
You could be a monster
I still want to be near you
enough to feel your breath on my cheek,
on my neck
understand?

I'm just glad that that shabby guy standing by your side
was not your husband
-else there would be some explaining to do
-and I'd avoid you like the plague...

There is one response
excelsior
it's the flare
this stuff burns underwater

It is not wrong,
-this desire just to watch you

But it is forever changed, now,
isn't it.
We've met.
We've talked.
And I want to do this again, and again, and again.

-about anything.
I want to give my full attention over...

she bit him on the cheek when he kissed her the first time, not even knowing who she was...
It was all I could do to keep from looking you in the face, just to watch your eyes and say:
-what would it take to get you to return your gaze like this to me,,, (not that I want to be seen, or adored, or think I'm such a big deal...)
No,
It's the hunger
It's the desire.

Look at me,
tell me anything, please.

Whatever it is, inside this cage,
it rocks back and forth,
but is quieted and aroused
at the mere sight of you.

that's it
I'm engulphed.

Next Door

I don't know them
we've only met.
they're new.

It's funny,
all the training in human behavior
all those years reading people and knowing in an instant
what is going on...

And here I sit, quietly
minding my own business...

I can hear them.
I like them as people,
young couple.
'...um, we're not exactly married, he's my fiance'
(-she said when I referred to him as her husband.')
-'oh, very well then... well you two are a lovely couple.'
(She also likes the loud male black cat who comes around hollering all hours of the day and night... (he used to have a crush on my youngest one...)

I hear ALL the couple things
the loud talks
sometimes yelling
I think I've heard someone crying once
I've heard them making love
(They are, actually, quiet, decent people... we just have thin walls.)

I try not to pee into the center of the toilet,
just, you know, out of respect, when their home...

It's a funny thing,
your door opens
their door opens
and it's all sorts of fun banter and 'how ya doing.'
-when to an extent I already know...
(I can hear when they shower and know when they cook...)

I'm just the quiet guy who plays music and works on stuff at home.
(I am, also, truth be told, better with the stove...)

But that doesn't matter.
It's half passed nine on a Sunday night.
They're talking about something, and I can hear the muffle of voices.
He laughs,
She laughs,
someone is attempting something with tomato puree
(thank God the exhaust fan is on.)

I love their laughter.
They have such expressive voices...
And all the time in the world.

This thing:
Neighbors...
It's good.

Why do the heathens rage?

Why do the heathens rage?
Why do we endlessly look for ourselves, and complain about how miserable we are when we're so self absorbed...

I remember the days when I could make love and completely loose myself in the other person.

I don't think it's because I feel too much.

Maybe it's because I feel to little.

In Germany, or Sweden or some place like that there is a machine
Artists and engineers made it.
you stand on a platform, and fire comes out and engulphs you
just then, you are spun around and jets of water completely put out the fire.
It's adjusted by microseconds.

You can modify it from no risk whatsoever, to dying.

Why would someone want such a thing.

They say that nearly dying makes you appreciate live.

I don't know how many times I've nearly died.
It's happened so often that I just sort of figured, well, when God wants me I'll go, until then?
Invincible?
I don't think so...
I'm just glad that someone else is calling the shots on that.

If I were to die.
Tonight.

What would they say?
Not many would know.
Probably even folks who regularlly read my stuff, or my neighbors might find out...
They'd have to...
(It's a gross thought... I seriously hope I don't die tonight...
NOT that I was planning to or anything... I'm just saying... what if?
Some sort of stroke.
Aneurysm...
Heart Attack...
Frozen blue airliner shit falling from the sky above...

I have two very very distinct feelings about this.

1. -I want my life to be worthwhile, I need my life to benefit others...
Not as pennance, -but I think that truly is what life is for...
Screw this California 'me first,' crap...
I want to know that I not only made others lives better, ---but that I did not cease in doing so...
There needs to be a list... '...He did this...'
-Not so people would feel better about me, ---but that, I dunno, everybody elses' caring would be seen as having been worthwhile.... '....your donations of caring in Eric's life resulted in this happening on such a day, ---and you had no idea that it was due to you, huh?'

2. -I want people to know how full of things and rituals and tasks my life has become.
-And so much of this is due to the lack of a spouse...
I don't mind it...
I don't blame anyone...
I just know...
There is so much that I am doing, so much that I write or am involved with...
Like right now...
It's quarter after One on a Wednesday night (into Tuesday,)
-I personally would rather be in bed, curled up next to a wife...
(...hey, some guys have hobbies, some have goals and secret things that they always want, -and could never give up...)
Me?
Wife.

Not just 'wife,' -not just 'anybody.'
I came out here to marry Christien, and she was Engagement number 4...
And it had been a while since I had even thought of marrying anyone ever again.

I can't figure it out, really.
All I know is, as isolated and as free standing and independant as I am as a person?
Living a life by myself, (no disrespect to the two cats...) -even with friends, family, and church and all... -is distant and isolated.
People weren't meant to live like this.
----This is just another reason why I am sure that 'self-absorbed,' lifestyles is a crock.
No.. We were meant to be with others, to care for them, interract, put up with their nonsense, love their triumphs and endurance, ---simply care for them and adore them for them...

So, it's two parts...

Part 1. Eric has done incredible things, and has done worthwhile things. (which is good... Eric gets a B for that.)

Part 2. Eric sits alone in class.

I guess that's the worst, for me.
Living alone is bad.
-but being found dead alone?
No.

That simply will not do.

There must be a mate out there somwhere...

Ash Wednesday Tryptich

Church was the middle of the day
I received ashes, and thought about what Fr. Keith said, how Lent is not the giving up of something, but more like the defragging of a harddrive, where all of the things that are so scattered and left behind all over the place in life, are reshuffled and put back to where they belong...
I collected my church directory, the one with the new picture of me, looking sort of like a canadian mountie, or perhaps somebody who once was in the State Troopers, but now was a librarian, and drove back home.

The speakers in my truck were awful, so I decided to replace them with the ones that were so much better from my other truck.

While doing this the charming family that lives across the street who get into these massive 4 way fights (older male, younger male, older woman, young woman,) -usually after the male comes home stoned, or angry or drunk, or the younger woman practically gets boffed there in the drivway by her boyfriend, (oh yes, they were rounding third the last time she dragged him up the stairs to their house,) proceeded to have a charming afternoon matinee display of what to expect in an hour or two...
There will be yelling and screaming, and carrying on, the police will be called, and they will quiet down just before the police show up,
The police will leave and there will be yelling and screaming and carrying on, and the police will be called, and they will quiet down just before the police show up... again.
(repeat 3x's more for the record...)
And they'll threaten to beat each other sensless, and yell out loud of 'get your fuckin' hands off me, niggah,' -but nobody ever really hits anyone... it's all just good clean fun.
Out Loud.
Hollering.
Carrying on.
At Two in the morning.

I was putting my speakers in and they were watching and watching, the older man especially... just peering over the fence across the street while sitting on the stairs.
The girl may be twelve or thirteen... may be ten or sixteen.
She has the body of a 24 year old.
She has the sense of a six year old
Her Mother?? the sense of a two year old...
She has the mouth of a sewer...
(Her boyfriends, and this older guy, (who hits on her too,) are real charmers as well.

But they're not my no nevermind.

So I go to leave to get some work done

And come across a lady on the corner at the end of our block,
Standing over a massive Golden Retriever, who is lying too still and in a strange posture.
At first I thought she was just brushing him, because there was fur on the ground in clumps.
I smile and leave, she smiles back.
Then I realize that there is something wrong.
So I go back.

The dog is Fifteen
The dog has collapsed
The woman who I saw walking away when I first pulled up is the dogs owner
The dog had collapsed
She went to go around the corner to the veterinarian.
The dog is Fifteen
The dog feels like he weighs a hundred pounds.

We put the dog on a blanket, and put him in the back of my truck
I drive the lady and the dog around the corner to the veterinarian

We bring the dog in to be weighed.
We bring the dog into the little room to await the vet.
I wait outside.
I do not know the woman, the dog, nor either of their names.
I play with a cat, (who lives there, one of four,) with coffee stirrers and tissues.
A crazy Dog Lady, (actually much like a crazy cat lady, but with more remarks about how the police chief had a fourteen year old girlfriend once upon a time.
-and the Billy Graham Crusade
-and how they shorted her on meds
-and how... jeeze I forget whatother stuff she was mixing in...
she babbles on and on
and she's mad
mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
Her dog comes out.
Her dog is stoned as hell and is not going to take it anymore either.
Her dog is a huge old German Shepherd.

The crazy lady, after a while, (after being talked with by the doctor and the reception staff,)
Eventually leaves, (after they haul the dog (who is still stoned as hell,) up into the back of her Camary, (which is that gunmetal grey green color, -well, aside from the bowl of water she has on the roof...)
She has dirty hair, and used to work at the DMV.
And apparently the Police Chief used to have a fourteen year old girlfriend.
(I don't think the police chief went out with the girl from across the street... -but she seems to be going out with plenty of other people...)

It gets late
I watch Oprah
I play with the cat.
They give me a gift card for free Starbucks coffee...
I decline.. (though I say thanks and that it was a sweet offer..)
The lady comes out.
'They want me to put him to sleep.'
-...well, he is fifteen
...he's in pain, and he'd feel better if he was put to sleep.
(What the hell kind of statement is that... 'yeah, if he were dead he'd feel just great, in fact he'd probably want to just skip out here and pee on the leg of the crazy dog lady...)
She is going to put the dog down.

I wait longer.
I am not sure why I am waiting...
I mean, everybody is thanking me for waiting, (which is nice,) but I figure, I can't just leave some poor lady to have to put her dog down, who she's had for fifteen years, who weighs a ton, who looked up at me, just exhausted looking when I was petting him...
You don't leave a lady like that to have to leave a buliding like that alone, minus her dog, to walk home by herself...

Me and the cat play more.

She comes out, in tears, but not sobbing...
'How are you doing? I ask.'
'Um, I don't know exactly how to answer that right now... '
'I'm sorry... come on I'll walk you home..'

She called her daughter, but her daughter couldn't come
She called her friend but her friend couldn't come.
She was sort of half crying, and I explained, as guys do, (as if it helps...)

Well, he was fifteen, and that's a really long time for big breeds,
And He was obviously well loved, and that's what every dog wants, you know.
And he was Fifteen, which is like, two hundred in human years, which means, he probably has seen it all...
And he passed away in the spring, while the weather is still okay, because it gets so hot out here, and a big hairy dog like that, they get miserable in the heat...

Yeah... he hated the heat.
-Me too,
-Yeah, I hate the heat too...
-So we all agree... the dog escaped the heat...

I walk her to the corner,,,
I explain that I'm her neighbor, (try to explain where I live,) but it's all awkward
'Here I have my card,'
-and I write my phone number.
--it's upstate NY, but I live here now, right down there...

She thanks me, and walks to her place, I walk back to my truck around the buildings around the vet, and say goodbye to the cat who I played with in the window.

I go to buy gas

I drive home

I stop on the way,
at the corner
and pick up the clumps of dog fur
from on the ground
where the dog last lay

I figured, she's been through enough
Why make her come outside and have to see that.

I still don't know her name.

Ashes, Ashes

Ashes, Ashes, all fall Down

Like the ashes wet and warm in the smoking base of the ring of rocks

Ashes in the road to fill the holes to let the travel go

Ashes in the air that I can see to hide the mountains that I can't see to fill me lungs

Ashes on the pillow that the towers once were, that hides in a bag in my closet
Ashes of the workers where the towers once were that hides in the pillow that hides in the bag in my closet

Ashes in my eyes
Ashes in my lungs

Ashes, Ashes, all fall down

From Ash you have come and from Ash you will return
From Ash you have come and from Ash you will return

I was formed of the ground

He proposed with a ring made of the paper band of a pouch of pipe tobacco in the stands of a dusty dirt race track in central NewJersey.

She was from a small working town full of factories.

They made it ten years...
-I am from Ash.

I live in a town where the dust falls all year long,
and the land powders up in the heat and blows,
but there is no wind, and precious little rain.
-I am from Ash.

He is mindful of us, because we are but made of dust.

Filled with the living water (what, over ninety percent?)

Mud creatures
Gollem, the soulless walking clay.
harbouring light.
endwelled by a tiny spirit
that grows and melds and one day leaves.

We are from Ash, and to Ash we return.

David asked to be purified
We were told by the prophets that we'd be sifted like wheat
Reduced to Ash
Ground to powder
Added to the water

Till one day the Spirit is released
the weight is dropped
with a slumping thud

the slowness of mind
the limit of speech
the weight of this body

is left
Where there is only the Sanctified
the Glorified
Purified
Sifted

Shimmering for a little bit, blinking and smiling
while the Ash
blows away.

(' Have mercy on Me, Oh God, According to your Unfailing Love, According to you Great Compassion, Blot out My Trangression, Wash Me from my Iniquities, and Cleanse Me From My Sin...'
-(David Psalm 51 (but you'd do better to hear Charlie Peacock and Vince Ebo sing it on West Coast Diaries Vol. 2.)

No Matter What

No matter what you are
I will always be with you
Doesn't matter what you do, girl
Ooh girl, with you

No matter what you do
I will always be around
Won't you tell me what you found, girl
Ooh girl, want you

Knock down the old, grey wall
Be a part of it all
Nothing to say, nothing to see, nothing to do
If you would give me allAs I would give it to you
Nothing would be, nothing would be, nothing would be

No matter where you go
There would always be a place
Can't you see it in my face, girl
Ooh girl, want you

-BadFinger

walkin' the cow

tried to remember, but my feelings can't know for sure
try to reach out, but it's gone...
but the stars in your eyes...i'm walkin' the cow...

i really don't know how i came here...
i really don't know why i'm stayin' here...oh oh oh, i'm walkin' the cow...

tried to point my finger, but the wind keeps blowin' me aroundin circles...circles...
but the stars in your eyes...i'm walkin' the cow...

i really don't know what i have to fear...
i really don't know why i have to care...oh oh oh, i'm walkin' the cow...

but the stars in your eyes...

-Daniel Johnston

...I didn't know about it until, you know like, long after we were serious.
(serious, how serious... married?)
-yeah actually.

I mean, you never know, and it doesn't really bother me, you just don't really suspect it to look at first...
(suspect?)

-well, you know, some folks you can just tell, that they're different.
(..different.)

-just you know, not like everybody else, not suspecting such a thing.
(...different?)

Well, she just doesn't dress out of the ordinary, and you'd just never suspect
(suspect... different.... what?)

All down her....
um...
back.

She just has these, um, well, places for rings...
(...rings... -what do you mean rings...?)

Rings, dammit, you know, rings, like earrings, but they're not.
(...rings?)

Yeah... and they'res got to be, hell, I dunno, twenty, or so on each side...
(...rings...)
Yeah.

It's for a ribbon that she wears...
(...a ribbon?)
Well, yeah, I mean, it kind of laces up like that, like you know, on a sneaker or a corset or something...
(?)

Yeah, well, she just likes it I guess...
(?)
(...you never knew about...)
No.

(..so how does she, I mean, what happens so that she..... jeez... rings?)
Yeah.... she needs me to lace the ribbon on...
(...really?)
Yeah... really...

(...and you never knew...)
Swear to God, had no idea...

(-Um, yeah, sweetheart, I'll go with a Liverwurst and onion with Swiss on Pumpernickle, and I'll go with the polish mustard too... huh? no, no mayo.... sure, the pickle is fine... kosher if you got it... thanks... You eatin?)
Nah.

-Ike's Deli, Levittown, 1993

Shut Down

Tach it up, tach it up
Buddy gonna shut you down

It happened on the strip where the road is wide
Two cool sharps standin side by side
Yeah, my fuel injected stingray and a four-thirteen
Were revvin up our engines and it sounds real mean

Tach it up, tach it upBuddy gonna shut you down

Declinin numbers at an even rate
At the count of one we both accelerate
My stingray is light the slicks are startin to spin
But the four-thirteens really diggen in
Gotta be cool now power shift here we go

Superstock dodge is winding out in low
But my fuel injected stingrays really startin to go
Im gettin the traction Im ridin the clutch
My pressure plates burnin that machines too much

Pedals to the floor hear the dual quads drink
And now the four-thirteens lead is startin to shrink
Hes powered by ram induction but its understood
I got a fuel injected engine sittin under my hood

Shut it off, shut it off buddy now I shut you down
Shut it off, shut it off buddy now I shut you down
Shut it off, shut it off buddy now I shut you down
Shut it off, shut it off buddy now I shut you down

-Beach Boys

automatic writing

some idiot determined it to be a metaphysical exorcise
harry houdin channelling his dear departed mother
the ghost in the machine
the ghost inside of you

this thought,
not intellect
this visceral spasm
i bleed and secret
it's a chemical, darling
that's all it is
electrons
whirling little pieces of nothing

and if you could pass your hand through this table
-and why could you not?
-because it's made of wood
after the fire,,,,,
that's all it is
atoms
electrons
and you can pass your hand through that?
-cant you?

look at out past the hood
it's a million degrees out
tell me if it is real
or just the heat playing tricks
I can feel you breathing...

and why is it, that when I'm made mostly of water
I don't dissolve when I immerse myself
and stare
at the far end of the tub
why do I dissappear
when I'm swimming naked
-did I ever exist at all....

it's a matter of time
a matter of time and a matter of will
eventually it all sort of blends
kind of happening already
like the same loop of tape
year after year
recorded over and over again
listen close to the grooves of a potshard
found in a mayan ruin
-the sound is captured in there
you just don't know how to release it

what does it take
temperature
tiredness
the touch of the right lover
sleep

they kid around about spontanious human combustion
but they'll never understand
how the moment
standing like the winged victory on the nose of a Rolls
where you can lean
into the sound, the motion, and the cues
none given
all felt
simultainously added and joined
a hymn sung by those who don't even know the words
what ignites then?

Why dally around with such things in a contrived manner
why create something
when all you have to do
is learn to put
your hand
through this desk
to see through
to pass through
and relax one's vision

it's merely twilight
that's all it is
twilight
where we all came from
and where we're all going.

'sweet thing you're borne once again, for me.'