Firing Line

Smoke and fire jump out,

            sparks spit, dissipate to 
            sharp cracks, rude bangs,
            farther down spread a buffeting
                        BOOM. 
Oiled steel concussion meets,
            match the beat
                        within.
Overloaded senses seek instruments
            that deal danger,
Comfort and sometimes
            something more
                        dark
            sure and unsettling,
            spread behind a sharp line.
Move, reach,
            caress polished potential. 
Wander beyond that line
            drift downrange
            toward dark silhouettes,
                        armless men
            two dimension dancers. 
Walk transparent
            through invisible flow,
            copper coated soft centered,
True through
            beyond from dark death
            to light
                        life.
A poke a pull a heat
            ripple outward,
            finally free finding
                         flight.

Gift of Róisín Dubh

This poem was given to me just today by someone who has grown to mean more to me than I ever imagined she might. I post it as just one way to express to her my gratitude. Thank you, my Róisín Dubh.

I shake the bottle

               of reason
   Bits fall
Heavy pieces of
        past lives
  drift
         Down
                 to gone
I shake the bottle
                  of reason
      Juicy bubbles of
    want
float
    Free
And burst
                again
    and
Again
    I breathe you.

Two Lives

SITUATION: Assume that two men are born on the same day, one in the United States and one in Great Britain. They come from equally happy homes and grow into equally successful men. Both enjoy good careers and long happy marriages. They both raise beautiful children that grow into content and responsible adults. They both die on the same day.

Now assume that one did all the right things because he lived according to the dictates of his conscience or his God. His concern was simply doing the right thing. Assume the other did all the right things because he wanted to insure that he was remembered fondly. His concern was his legacy.

QUESTION: Are their lives of equal worth?

ANSWER: I don’t know.

To say yes is to acknowledge the equal importance of the contributions made by these two imaginary men to their families, communities and the world in general. To say no is to deny the importance of intention.

One man’s intention was to provide the people in his world with the things that he, as a man, believed they needed. To him, the ends and the means were one in the same. The other man’s intention was to leave his mark- if in no other way than through his children. To him, the means were a function of the ends.    

I ask this question because I recently met a man that was in the process of starting a blog. I’ve no idea whether or not he ever carried through with his plan and it was a fairly brief encounter. But the conversation has stayed with me for quite some time.

He wanted to write about the issue of what it means to be a man in today’s world. I was immediately interested because I’ve often pondered a man’s changing role in a changing world. It’s a much bigger question than it seems at first glance. It covers the gamut from whether or not to hold doors for a lady, to friendships, to family responsibilities, to personal conduct and beyond. (Side Note: The best fictional exploration of this question I’ve ever found is in Jim Harrison’s novella Legends of the Fall. The movie is also quite good.)

I read one of his pieces, an essay really. It dealt with the issue of personal legacy. He stated that most people are forgotten within two generations of death. I’ve no idea where he got this statistic but it may well be true. I see no problem with this, but he seemed uncomfortable with the implacability of time. Hence, the idea of personal legacy.

You should know that his professed purpose for this concern with legacy was his two young sons. If they are to be his legacy, he reasons, he wants to make sure that it’s a good one. I gathered from our conversation that he is in the process of raising two fine young men. Sounds reasonable, does it not? Maybe even admirable.

But I was left with questions. I acknowledge that on the holistic level, all men’s lives are of equal value. Good balances evil, love balances hate and peace balances violence- often in the same life. But on an individual level? Is there not that gut response, that innate repugnance, at the idea that these two men are equal?

           Do we not know intuitively that intention matters? And perhaps the answer is right there. Perhaps these two men’s lives are equally valued while not of equal value.

I.

It’s funny how we begrudge certain things that we inherit from our parents. Hair too curly? Thanks, dad. Butt too big? Too skinny? Thanks a lot, mom. And what about the things you can’t see? The tiniest bit insecure? Or perhaps a corny sense of humor? That can’t be my fault, huh? It must have been mom or dad or, more likely, both. Thanks again.

I bring this up only because of something I inherited from my father. He passed away almost eleven years ago but it wasn’t until about two years ago that I discovered a yellowed old spiral composition book in a drawer. (Anyone else remember Blue Horse Composition Books?) Much to my surprise, it was filled with some of the most beautiful poetry I’ve ever read. What didn’t surprise me was that his writing is almost undecipherable. None of the poems are titled- just page after page of scribbled emotion- to the point that it’s sometimes hard to tell where one begins and the other ends.

I showed it to my mother and she held onto it for a week or so. Then she gave it back to me saying that she’d seen it only once before. When she saw that I was having trouble processing that information, she ended the conversation with “Even in marriage, especially in marriage, people need at least one thing that’s theirs and only theirs.”

Well dad, I’m sorry. You’re still loved and missed. Your wishes are still respected but your words are too beautiful not to share. You understand, right?

Anyway, thanks dad.

I.

If I could wade among the stars

And feel their tingling

About my knees,

Could I but draw the drapes of night

into a dawn of golden seas

Would I find you

bathed in starlight

Waiting- perhaps for me?

Still Here

Hello, my beloved readers. If this is your first visit to my humble blog, I extend my hardiest “Welcome!”

And to my returning guests, you have no idea how much I appreciate each of you. Knowing that there are those who care about my stories, poetry and musings brings me more satisfaction than I ever thought possible.

I realize that I’ve not posted in a while, almost two weeks, and for that I apologize. I write this post to thank you for your patience and explain what I’ve been doing. No, I’ve not run out of ideas- so many flood my mind that at times they’re difficult to capture. There are two reasons for my recent silence.

First, one my stories has grown, or morphed perhaps, into a novel. It is a project has alternately obsessed and frustrated me for the past three months. I have been fortunate enough to discover both a support group and amazingly talented writing coach that have provided the critique and encouragement that I so desperately need. The group is called PenPaperWrite. It’s run by the aforementioned “amazingly talented” person, Ms.Christina N. Ranallo. If you have the slightest inkling of interest in writing, I urge you to follow the link below. If you’re local to the Atlanta, GA area, come to a meeting. If you’re too far away, say in Pakistan maybe, you’ll find some good tips and exercises to help hone your writing skills.

Second, I’ve recently become involved in the start up of a new business endeavor. I won’t go into detail, but it is terribly exciting and it too obsesses and frustrates me. I will only say that it will allow me to further explore the limitless world of the written word.

SO, I’ve been very busy on very positive things.

            BUT, I intend to maintain the commitment I made when I started this blog- to provide whatever entertainment or escape I can to those of you who are gracious enough to donate some of your time to me.   

Thank you and here's the link:http://penpaperwrite.com/

Me Myself

I start myself.
I stop myself.

I’m not myself.

I find myself.

I lose myself.

I’m not myself.

I catch myself.

I throw myself.

I’m not myself.

I begin myself.

I end myself.

I’m not myself,

Just not myself.

Photo courtesy of http://www.red-letterimaging.com/

This guy's really good!



Quiet Wars (Part 3)

            So, trusting each other to expect more from themselves, each lead lives of the suffocating silence that liberated them.

            His solitude was real and almost complete as he went through the motions of life.  He ate, showered, mowed the lawn and read in the company of only his dog, Dave.

            Her solitude was much more select and stole in at times when her husband was out or sleeping and the responsibilities of running a household were discharged.  These moments came and she was as alone as him or anyone.  Perhaps more so because the lonely moments were so arbitrary and she was so unprepared.  She knew a full and wonderful life that was somehow still not complete.  Why else would the silence become so loud so suddenly?  Why could she never see it coming?

            They’d both been through the whole thirty-something, “Who am I and how did I get here and is this who I want to be when I grow up?” thing.  He’d pretty much ignored it because life was a party then.  Money and booze and women came and went faster than he could have ever kept up with even if he’d cared.  Every so often he’d get bored and that discontent would try to settle in.  But back then he thought that there was nothing in the world that another beer and another random woman didn’t fix.   

            But her?  She’d struggled mightily, wallowing in the hole in her life’s meaning.  Eventually, banged up and muddy and bloody with doubt, she’d focused on the “important” things- faith, family, career- and pulled herself back from the depths with a resolve that only occasionally felt like resignation.  But lately faith had failed her, family was faltering and career had turned into a game played by those with too much to prove.  Still, however, the laser focus on being who she’d decided to be remained the source of her calm intensity.  She was only vaguely aware that she’d assumed this air of not quite grim determination. 

Somewhere Between

I raise you up, and build high for you, for me,

            a private pedestal.

I raise you up and am bewildered

                        by your shimmering symmetry.

            Too much comes from you,

                        emergent Mediterranean muse.

                        You sear to scar what

                        no longer lies hidden.

            My child mind that knew not need

                        never again will roam, run in spring slick grass,

                        or float slow streams or lie lazy in fields

                        to see rabbits or robins form from fat cloud clusters.

I raise you up and subtly you slay the boy within,

            the one without want.   

I drag you down and born is

            a man, a man that sees

                        not your sea or stars or daunting dark dawn.

I drag you down and my vile eye

            catches an olive sigh of skin caressed curve.

I drag you down and bare your dusky body beneath me,

            devouring you with sweat and saliva and clawing want,

            seizing your siren’s soft center of my sin.

I drag you down, feed my need,

            And linger lost,

                        knowing nothing

                        but this newborn beastly being.

I live for you, my captor queen,

            I lust for you, my moaning whore,

I live inside a world between,

            That leaves me dreams of so much more.

Quiet Wars (Part 2)

            So that beautiful and amazing part came early. But before, with others, it had never seemed to stay. A friend had once told him that it simply couldn’t last and gave a few of what he thought were good reasons.  Reasons? Or rationalizations? Did it really make any difference? Hell, this guy was the most rational person he knew, an engineer. What could he expect?

            But they were rationalizations and not reasons and it makes a difference.  The guy spoke of the amount of energy needed to sustain that kind intensity and how no one could keep it up for an extended time.  It was as if he was talking gas mileage or nuclear fission or fusion or whatever the hell makes a star burn.

            Burn out or fade away. Were those the only choices? Whatever. Whichever.

            But he had a real problem with seeing it the same way as what his friend referred to as “the physics of energy conservation”. He knew nothing like this was so simple. Even physics has its quarks. No one’s ever seen, weighed, or measured one of these sub-atomic fairies.  But assume, just for a moment that they exist, just believe in them, and all at once a lot of things start making sense where they didn’t before.

            So surely, by her very nature, or his perception of her nature, there must be something here to which the rules don’t apply. She was always in the periphery and only occasionally did she mount her serene attacks into his center, softly dominating him despite his intimate knowledge of what he couldn’t know. 

            She did it the same way every time. In the midst of a turbulent day, a calm would descend, intrude and force him to stop. And before he saw her, before he smelled her, he knew. Placid waves swept and broke and penetrated with silent, invisible power.

            They were careful never to give a sign, the slightest hint, that there was anything. They knew it was there and knew that giving it voice, giving it any acknowledgement, would cheapen it. Better to have killed it outright than turned it into something less than it was. 

            It was beautiful, searing and crystalline only as long as it breathed in silence. But give it voice, release it from solitude’s vacuum, and it would become something common and sullen and devoid of mystery or beauty or honor, ugly even. If ever spoken it would be nothing more than a married woman’s emotional affair. 

The Whisper

Quiet whispered “Come to me.”
            And I went
                        not to some suffocating shortage of sound.
I went to the source of her succulent silence.
       
I listened to her scented sighs singing soft songs,
            her fragrant forests and trembling trees
                        teasing me.

I bathed in her bay waves caressing crusted pilings,

            her heartbeat of beach bound breakers
                        begging me.

I walked in her mountain mists sneaking up slopes,

            her snow settling itself onto leaf and needle
                        nuzzling me.

 I slept in her midnight meadow movements,

            her flickering fireflies and stealthy shooting stars
                        seducing me.

Quiet whispered “You’ve come to us,
            For within me lies peace.”
            And each echoed “We will forever wrap each other around ourselves,
                        as only lovers do.”
            And so I was stilled,
                        and so I have stayed.

Quiet Wars (Part 1)

So many have managed to capture his interest, however fleetingly.  But, to capture his imagination, there’s been just one in many years now.  To capture the imagination is to inspire, to allow just enough of a glimpse to build upon things that he cannot possibly know, yet does.

            She is confident and self assured but feels she should be more so.  She compensates with a certain intensity, a roiling placidity that she manifests in a variety of ways.  It’s in the slight tilt of her head during deliberative pauses when speaking in soft rich tones that almost hide the smoky resonance.  It’s in the dark gaze that strikes as a quick glance and thunders to a startling depth.  Anger? Desperation? Predation?  He can’t tell and she herself is likely unsure.  A hard pleading spills from her eyes.  But for what?

            She posses arresting beauty of which she is aware but seems to not fully grasp.  She sees that men notice her, when she notices them.  Women too, seem to take note and pay her some unspoken, gender-coded heed.  But she has no thought of the reasons or depth of those reasons.  She never gives it much thought for the simple reason that she fears that the conclusion she might reach would leave her uncomfortable- that those reasons ultimately would be tawdry and base.  And perhaps for some they were on that primal level.  But for most her effect was, at its essence, inspirational.  And what is inspiration if not uplifting?  So she passes through her life and, much to her own consternation, is by virtue of her beauty credited with the most admirable of qualities.

            And as he struggled to step out of the circle of her magnetic pull, he began to understand the dilemma posed by Dostoevsky:

How can I as a man begin with pure love, as for the Madonna,

                                            yet end with a rutting lust as for the whore?

            Making peace with that contradiction, he chose to obsess over the best part, the heavenly part that transcended all else in his close and quiet life.  That was when all seemed possible.  Not just possible- inevitable.  Eternity was inevitable, he knew that all along.  But in her he knew the nature of the eternal.  It was contained, experienced in each moment with her there. 

Someone Else

I am with the others,

            in place in the lost parade

                        that you watch

                        with inside smiles

                        while waiting to wish.

I am shimmering schools

            in the sea upon which serene you sail

                        while beneath I swim in uncertain unity until,

                        softly spoken,

                        drop depth charges

                        through surface swells into my midst, and

                        concussions crush my ruined remains.

I am sinking and radiating ever out,

            never to be rejoined to me,

                        or to how or to what once was

                        or thought to be. 

I am bubbles bursting forth

            to things of you rendered and revealed,

                        things to which all else has faded

                        leaving only tortured treasure,

                        painful pleasure picking my pieces apart.

I am feeding skulking scavengers that consume,

             that ingest illusions,

                        of more than peace or possibility

                        or life itself,

                        that carry some hopeful breath of

                        yesterday’s lost tomorrows.

I am the multitude moved by your sigh and

            the one broken by your cry.

I am wreckage in remembrance of

            holding your heart,

                        beating rich in my palm. 

I am dissolved, a silent sea shadow.

I am one of the someone elses.

Town Square (Part 2 of 2)

I walk among the stylish suburbanites. One man is drawn to a print in one of the photography booths.  It’s beautifully done, stylized by some kind of software and printed onto heavy gauge paper that may be canvas.  It’s lovely, yet lacking passion.  “I like this one.  What do you think?” he asks a woman through whose jeans can be seen panty lines biting into a butt fighting middle age. 

“It’s pretty.  Won’t work with the sofa, though” she dismisses him and moves to the next booth. 

There are artists that work in clay or metal or glass or stone, from granite to semi-precious stones, watercolor or oil or even paper.  More than a few seem spectacularly talented.

I move into a booth that’s hung both with realistic yet highly stylized sketches as well as stunning acrylics on canvas.  They are striking.  I study a cityscape that begins at the bottom in buildings of sandy hues and reaches upward past almost imagined windows through rooftops of antennae and into a sky that bursts from orange to a cloudlike feel.  Its texture and progression seem to reach upward beyond the canvas. 

   The artist wanders from behind the booth and introduces himself as Saidi.  He speaks in an accent that’s somewhere between French and Arab.  He’s smoking a cigarette that’s down to the filter.  I tell him that this piece feels ancient and modern all pushed together.  It seems to rise above the confines of the canvas.  He looks at it and tells me that it’s Tunisia, where he’s from and that there’s a lot of smog there.   

I move to the next canvas.  It’s a beach scene.  The waves breaking from the right move from greens to blues to foamy misting caps.  I feel the spray in the textures.  On the left is the beach with pools of seawater collecting on the sand.  There is a group of young ladies in the center.  They are wearing bikinis, gathered into a group and seem to want to be noticed in that way young girls have when they act like that’s not what they’re doing.  Saidi tells me of the horizontal lay of nature and the verticality of humans in the piece.  I see that the girls’ faces are indistinct and this seems to elevate their bodies to primacy.  I tell him so and ask if this is also from his home.  He tells me that he’s lived in Tunisia, Paris and a few other places I don’t catch and that beaches are about the same everywhere that he’s been.  This one’s Myrtle Beach.  We both grin at this. 

I ask how he ended up here and simply points to a sketch of a beautiful young woman in the corner of his booth.  We grin again.

Another painting catches my eye.  It’s a night scene of a group of people moving away from the artist in an alleyway.  Light comes from windows above and around and from where the alley appears to empty into a cross street.  The colors in this painting are again, striking.  Blues, purples, oranges, yellows, reds, a little girl in a pink skirt all pull at the eye.  The overall effect is the excitement of a city night fused with a solitary melancholy.

Saidi excuses himself to speak with a couple that’s come to pick up a charcoal that he’s done from a photograph they’d left earlier in the day.

I stand looking at this painting for a few more minutes and wander off.  I find a retaining wall where I sit to sip bottled water and contemplate what I’ve just seen.  I know as little about painting as I do about ballet, but read once that the purpose of art is to capture the fleeting. 

We tend to discount feelings these days.  They’ve become something to hide, minimize, ignore, or overcome- anything but express.  Perhaps that’s because we’ve reached some collective decision that feelings are temporary things- they simply don’t last and are therefore of no consequence.

But some, like this man, know how untrue that can be.  His work takes a moment and wrenches from it not the scene, but the experience.  It shows more than what is seen.  In the blurred details one is left only with an impression.  And impression is by definition both highly personal and based on emotion.  He’s taken what we call fleeting and captured it, given it permanence.  And in giving emotion permanence, he validates it.  This, I think, is why we have always valued our poets, writers, sculptors, painters and artists in general.  We know that someone somewhere is on some level capturing our most personal aspects.  In a world where we can’t do it publicly, they validate our emotions.  They validate us.

I end this reverie and reach for my bottle of water.  It’s not there so I look over and see that a female police officer has taken a seat beside me.  She’s sipping bottled water.  My water.  I look away from her.  Did a cop really just steal my water?  Obviously, she did.  So what now?  I look back and think she’s looking at me but can’t tell because of her mirrored cop shades.  Her uniform is dark blue and crisp with shiny buttons and badges.  She wears a black leather utility belt from which hang handcuffs, pepper spray, a retractable baton and, of course, a gun.  I find her dark skin and strong jaw line quite lovely, but then I’ve always been uncomfortably attracted to women that scare me and I see nothing remotely good coming from challenging her.  I look away for a moment and she gets up and wanders off, leaving the empty bottle.

I’ve only a moment to ponder what just happened when a woman in her seventies approaches and asks me what I’m doing.  I tell her I don’t understand and she tells me that she’s seen me here for hours scribbling in that notebook.  I tell her that I’m just capturing my impressions of the festival.  She says that she was just wondering whether or not she needed to be worried about me.  Cautiouned by the duplicity of her stated concern, I tell her that she need not worry.  I’m just fine.  She asks my name and I instinctively lie and give my asshole neighbor’s name.  Seeming satisfied, she walks over to a bench full of other seniors and is immediately the center of inquiry. 

I decide that this part of suburbia is getting too creepy so I grab my water bottle and toss it into a recycle bin.  I walk out through the main pavilion in front of the stage where I spot a group of the dancers, now in street clothes.  I want to see if the one that danced to “Paradise” can possibly be as beautiful when stationary as she was while dancing.  I see her talking with a group of friends.  And while she is indeed a lovely creature with pale blue eyes and high cheekbones, without the flowing surrender to movement, the spell is broken.  She’s just another beautiful young woman. 

I continue on and see another dancer leaning on her elbows onto a waist high cocktail table.  She’s the fierce simmering attacker of the music.  She looks me straight in the eye as I walk along, locking her eyes onto mine.  Is this a challenge?  Is this disdain for what must seem to her an old man?  Is she simply testing her newly realized feminine powers?  I smile, nod and keep walking.  As I pass behind her she keeps her gaze steadily upon me until she’s looking over her shoulder.  Then she smiles lightly and wiggles an ass that’s barely covered by her cotton sundress.  I pretend not to notice, look the other way smiling and mutter my thanks heavenward. 

It was, I think, a good day in Duluth.      

Check out Chouaieb Saidi's work, most amazing artist I've ever met:

http://www.artabus.com/saidi/?pic=-1

Pebbles Of Past

I land pebbles in a pond’s stillness, 

            smooth or round or engraved with shell

                        fossils flickering from foggy timelessness,

                        telltale totems from eras unknown.

They are yet younger than us together, newer than the ever together

                        from which our myth was made.           

They are of the things which menace men within and without, women want,

            over which we find no rest but sometimes sleep,

                        shallow and shifting and swollen with unsayable sanctuary.

They are of the time when our lives were lightly lived and delirious we died

            in sublime supplication.

And were born anew of unquenchable need. 

Memorial Day

Memorial Day in the United States is celebrated annually on the last Monday in May.  When one considers the solemnity of the occasion, it’s difficult to view it as a celebration or a holiday as one generally views such things.  It is the day that this country has officially designated to honor its soldiers that never returned from war.  Whether that war was ever officially declared (think World War II) or not (think Korea or Viet Nam or the current deadly exercise in nation building from which the U.S. is now trying to disentangle itself), these people demand our respect and remembrance. 

It is not my intention to discuss the merits of one war or another.  They are all lethal to far too many.  And however one may feel about war in general, one cannot argue that it is not right to commemorate the lives of those who “gave the last full measure of devotion,” as Abraham Lincoln noted.  Arlington National cemetery in Washington D.C is filled with the earthly remains of young men and women who believed in something bigger than themselves, went to serve, and never returned.  A thousand smaller veteran’s cemeteries dot the U.S. and other countries where the same kind of courageous people now rest.  The names of most are known, while tragically, others are not.

Flags are seemingly everywhere on this day in the U.S.  Little ones line the streets of small towns.  Larger ones wave from monuments and are flown at half mast from official buildings and flag poles.  It is a sight that touches most Americans in a special way.

When asked how, what they feel, most will respond “Pride”.  But pride in what?  One must be careful to discern the source of that pride.  Surely, to some of our more simple-minded “my country right or wrong” brethren, it’s simple pride in the U.S.’s ability to impose its will, to project its might, anywhere in the world with devastating results, however effective those results may or may not be.  This is willful blindness.

But most, the thoughtful ones of any political persuasion will give quite a different answer.   They are simply proud of the young people themselves- the ones that took an oath to serve their country, the ones that obeyed lawful orders even to their own peril, the ones that were willing to die not for some abstract principal like liberty or freedom, but to protect their family and friends and often, the other young people next to them that took the same pledge.

Dead heroes can’t talk about why they did what they did, why they put themselves in the exact position that resulted in their deaths.  Living heroes simply don’t seem to talk about it.  During my years in the Army, I had the honor of meeting a Medal of Honor winner.  I met many other Viet Nam veterans that had been wounded or honored with other medals.  I once worked with a gentleman that had been a special operations soldier in that same conflict.  None of them spoke freely of their acts.  I saw a young soldier once have the temerity to ask one of these heroes what it had been like “there”.  There was a pause before the old soldier said that he hoped the kid would never have to know.

And that’s a crucial sentiment.  If you are of my country, be proud yes, but for the right reasons.  If you are one of my readers from another country, please try to understand the source of that pride.  I have no idea how other countries commemorate their war dead, but I suspect it is for the same reasons that we do.  The soldiers themselves know their duty and do it, even to the point of self sacrifice.  But far too often the same cannot be said of the men that send them to war. 

It seems to me that the most fitting tribute that we can pay to the lost ones is to build a world, to choose leaders, that insure that another naïve kid never has to know what it’s like “there”.   

 

Town Square (Part 1 of 2)

It’s early May and I sit in the Duluth, Georgia town square, a place that is struggling to maintain a small town feel while adrift in the suburban sea.  One anchor of the square is City Hall, built in the old style with columns, verandas, arched windows and ornamental carved eave supports.  Robbed of any real charm either by newness or recent renovation, it feels like one of those new outdoor malls called “The Avenues” or perhaps “The Centre,” as if spelling it in the British way will render it more interesting.  There is here a past to feel that has been painted over.  It will gain much if it remains standing for a hundred more years.  Architecture acquires character, a soul, only with time. 

The City Hall overlooks a new festival center and amphitheater, capped with a cupola that carries on with the imitation early 20^th century scheme.  Onstage, the Gwinnett Community Band plays Gershwin, which they do quite well, making it sound oddly enticing on a bright May afternoon.

There are young families with children everywhere, mainly toddlers.  They amble along, upright on legs too stiff, each step a deliberate new experiment in gravity.  There are boys with thick dark curls and silken blond little girls.  Their shining eyes, blue and brown, look up from faces painted with flowers and ladybugs and Batman, clearly expressing the wonder and joy that was long ago left behind by the parents that love and care for them.   

But the grayer and slower moving adults show it.  That joy and wonder is apparently not lost.  Perhaps it’s simply dormant as people work through those middle years of building a life, only to be reborn with the first grandchild.  It’s obvious in their gentle smiles and gazes at these beautiful children.  

Other kids, older ones have been cut loose to roam the square.  They seem to have left their shoes somewhere in an enormous pile.  Not yet worried about being cool, their feet slap the red brick walkway as they run by or stare at the blacksmith demonstration or the snow-cone machine.

There are the still older kids, the ones that under some otherwise unnoticed full moon changed into teenagers.  The girls are budding young women, aware of their new beauty but not the power it has brought them.  The boys are becoming men that move with the casual confidence of youth, still unaware of manhood’s uncertainties.

A group from The Southern Ballet Theatre has been introduced and is taking the stage.  It is composed entirely of females that appear to range in age from maybe sixteen to perhaps mid twenties.  They are swans in slippers that glide like skaters across the stage and leave behind not ripples, but crinoline echoes.  They weave a dance of fluid movement and graceful jumps and intricate passages with, around and through each other.   There is no need for knowledge of their art here.  They are breathtaking beauty and undeniable grace.  They pirouette and plie on toes and flexing thighs and tightened calves as slender arms move in smooth circles. 

I watch each girl for a moment and, despite their synchronization, begin to see stylistic differences.  Some become lighter and smaller as they move. Others are stronger, more assertive in their movements.  Still others seem to become a vision of the song itself, soft jewels in a musical crown.  And together, they are so enchanting that only when the music ends do I realize that they are slipping into the wings. 

I wait a few moments and one of the dancers walks casually across the stage and takes a place on the corner.  She is beautiful, one of the older ones and she, more than any of the others, personified those that seemed to become lost in the dance.   A contemporary song starts, “Paradise” by Coldplay.  It’s a wistful one of a young girl’s dreams.  She begins to move and immediately captures the audience.  There are steps quick and anxious.  There are moments of writhing regret and wallowing want as she lies on the stage.  There are arm movements from arcs to circles to angles that flow as smoothly as water in a stream.  There are hand movements that defy anatomy.  There are leaps, incredible moments when she hangs above the stage and time itself stretches.  She makes each of these movements transition unnoticeably into one another.  Finally, she returns to her starting position, wearing the lost look that she has maintained for the entire dance, and the music ends.  There is silence for a moment while I and my fellow oafs of the arts are stunned.  Until applause and shouts begin to smother the amphitheater.  She gets up, bows and smiles.  As she walks off stage, there is a bounce in her step. 

Another modern song starts.  I don’t recognize it but it has an energetic beat, not quite a dance song, per se, and lyrics of challenge and personal victory.  Out comes another of the older dancers.  She was the best example of the more aggressive dancers.  She begins to dance and her steps are definite, purposeful.  Her moves are also fluid, but, more like a stream overcoming a rocky bed, moving from one to the next with absolute clarity.  She seems to at once flow and snap into position.  Her stances and leaps exude strength and assertiveness.  Her shoulders, neck and cheeks begin to flush as she commands the song to come to her.  She attacks the dance with utter confidence.  She challenges the audience with her direct gaze.  She seizes the stage and crowd.  Finally, after exorcising all resistance from all quarters, she moves back to her starting position as the song ends.  There is again that moment of stunned silence before applause floods the tiny valley.  She bows and her steps are defiant as she walks off stage.

Her performance was the equal to her colleague’s.  But in a completely different way.  One dancer had taken music and moment and gently molded herself, almost loosing herself in it.  The other had taken music and moment and molded them together through strength and will, absolutely owning it.

            I move on in awe of these different faces of beauty.


These people do beautiful things:  http://www.southernballettheatre-ga.com/

Fat Little Life

I got a fat little mortgage
And a fat little wife,
That I could just afford
For my fat little life.

Borrowed 200 grand

For a cute bungalow.
Now the bank ain’t my friend
Cause I ran out of dough.

I worked every day

Till my job got outsourced.
But I just couldn’t stay
The unemployed workforce.

New job’s at a shoe store

Twenty hours a week.
Now I’m the working poor
But folks have to eat.

So I work at Home Depot

On weekends at night.
But since my car was re-poed
I can only hitch hike.

Work 60 hours a week

In two dead end ditches.
Insurance is a dream
Except for full time sons-of-bitches.

Kid’s college fund’s been spent,

Covered what I didn’t earn.
My children didn’t consent,
To economic downturn.

My annual vacation

Comes complete without pay.
The answer’s de-regulation
Is what D.C. folks say.

We all sink or swim.

Depends on if we’re smart.
It’s not Wall Street’s whim
Or venture capital as art.

If what we pay for fuel

Is because of demand,
Why do speculators drool
For war in desert lands?

It’s the American way

Is what we’re all told.
To think another way
Makes the socialists bold.

We pull our own weight,

And leave churches to care
For the lives left to fate,
So we can sleep, call it fair.

For Mom

It was longer ago than I care to admit that I came into this world.  But this is not about me.  It’s about the woman that brought me into this world.  While I may look back with a bit of regret here and there, she looks back with a smile.

I have pictures of her from the fifties and sixties when she was a young woman with bright eyes and dark black hair done up in the poofy fashions of the times.  She’s there with my father as young man, or with my curly haired sister and fat little me.  She’s always smiling. 

She still is.  Even so, she still has a temper.  She always has, though it's mellowed over the years.  I recall times when, being the most challenging child that I possibly could, I brought on her anger.  I brought it on, but never out.  I never remember her reacting to my misbehavior in anger.  Rather her discipline was, even if strict by today’s standards, measured and richly deserved.

As I look back I realize that she made possible most of the things that make childhood happy.  I owe her all of my child smiles. 

She provided wisdom and guidance as, still a challenge, I grew into a man.  She was a shoulder to cry on and a source of kind words and confidence.  She lifted me up when I needed it and took me down a peg or two when I deserved it, always gently guiding. 

She’s older now and she’s suffered the things that we all will in time.  She’s lost sisters and friends.  We lost my father ten years ago and even though she still misses him daily, she lived through it, a heartbreak that I cannot imagine.  She’s had the physical ailments that come with the frailty of age.  Those have only slowed her down a bit, not stopped her.

A few years ago she was injured and I was granted the opportunity to repay to her the tiniest fraction of what she’s done for me.  She’s a woman of faith and would probably say that God wanted it that way.  I just know that I’m very grateful for that chance.    

She’s still kind.  Still cajoling.  Still laughing.  Still living life.  And still showing me the way.  I look to her to learn how to age with grace and acceptance, yet without surrender.

So, to all the women out there that have ever put a child’s happiness before their own, I say thank you. 

To all of you who have such incredible women in your lives, try to find a way to thank them.  You can never do it enough, but don’t worry.  They’ll understand.

And especially to the one in my life, to my mom, thank you and I love you.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Zelda

Last night I held

a little girl

I’d named Zelda

and dressed her

in the Jazz Age

way.  She was

a beautiful

little fool

that left for West

Egg with cellos

in the background

stringing along

the wrong song.

I held her

to the night

where she became

the space

between stars

and I held her

higher against

the moon where

she became hollow

and I saw a

woman waiting

inside.  

She is the

iceberg drifting

around me,

I can’t see

most of her.

This is the peace

that jars me,

this is the

chronology

of a slow fade. 

The distance between

truth and lie

depends on who

I tell it to. 

The distance

from lost

to tossed

depends on if

I’ve let go. 

These are things

of which

I know

nothing and find

myself  speaking

with conviction.

This is my

name in her

Book of the Dead.

This is quiet war

where a man

of ash moves,

where only

I get hurt

if I do it right.

Art courtesy of  http://www.red-letterimaging.com/

Flutter

The butterfly,

the she who finds and flees me. 

Delicate determination of disjointed direction

            flows so unsteadily, so constantly. 

Whatever wind, velocity varies, compass careens.  She shelters

         

            only from storm, rests for rain’s reign. 

It dies and frantic she flies

            elusive on iridescent wings flashing bruised indigo

            into blinding blue,                             

shaped only by her careless caress of sun. 

Movement calls attention, melts to beauty, disappears,

reappears, disappears.

Never captured, but imperceptibly drawn.