One
distance immaterial
our equator under
this
I stand
in the meridian
of our shadow
where longitude
bisects
indivisible
North & South
and all the latitude
standing
with arms outstretched
gives...
a reach so wide
it wraps around us twice
immeasurable
that's how
we cut
on the bias
the fabric of Love
I will stand
under
I will make Time
I will make Space
even if I have to
make a hole
myself
what
I felt
at the core
molten
is not past tense
and if there is
some
question
at the end
it's cause
we are still
wondering
about...
...retracing
our beginning
What the Flock
Now I may be done poor, but I ain't stupid.
Maybe it is I don't know how to read and write, all proper, but I can make the sign of cross and my signature on paper's same as anybody else. The important part, see, is that I understand—and that, more than I let on.
When they tapped me on the street, the Mi'lady and Lord, wanted only that I's should be capable to adequately sign, with scratch marks like so, X.
In the anonymous old traditional way that signifies a living soul was present: Here.
Mi'Lord, he says emphatically, that t'aint necessary I know my spelling, I need only make that universal slash slash on that line right there. See?
Well, I says shrewdly, I don't have my specs, and this to buy me some time to look over the contractual of it, short and to the point as it is, while I sees Mi'Lord give a loving turn of the mouth to the Mi'Lady, as he pats my shoulder and says warmly the "document" signifies that I am entitled to some quick income and free meal, for a short stint, I need only X on the line below, to show that I agree to attend the funeral banquet of the honorable VIP from nth O'clock for no more than one hour or so...
so long as I partake fully in the offertory meal.
I maybe street urchin, but I weren't born yesterday.
I says, affably, where do I sign? squinting at Mi'Lady as she points with plump gilded nail. Bumbling, I make my chicken scratch, signifying anonymous witness, nameless, faceless— all ready, willing and able—to be plucked off.
The dearly departed is to be buried in a fine plot on Ackers Point, they cheers in chorus, the service painstakingly called a Plein-Air. And they lift a noble finger, over the hill just yonder, can't miss it and don't be late, as it starts in a few minutes. Ta tah!
The offertory meal I know is the supposed rightin' of wrongs indulged in by the deceased, dame or bloke. And I as human supplicant am to eat this anti-waffer so that excess Sin may be forgiven.
Twasn't enough Jesus died and rose again.
Twasn't enough the sinner went to church, for show, and tell, at Confession.
This here contract, that I can read well enough, mumbo jumbo, says I will take upon myself, this hungry body, the food and loathing that would otherwise weigh down the soul and keep it from eternal rest. The Sins worth measured in flour. I wonder something about the yeast of evil, and the unleavened, and turn to the hill.
You'll note, I signed.
My tethers, reassuring Mi'Lord and Mi'Lady that I am well qualified, needy and charitable. What they don't knows is that I have even in these rags, pockets and folds sheltering vermin, and they have overlooked, as snobbery does, the feathered cohort that perches on my shoulder.
Dismissed as dumb blackbird of a batty old lady, soon to die as well.
We arrives timely. My feathered companion's well organized socially and signals his compatriots with a few good kracks and kows. We go to our work. I breaking bits quickly and scattering them, among bird, rat and mice. It takes a good while for anyone to catch on. Minutes, but tis enough. For us it's short work, the birds are flying in steady, five, seven, in patches, hoards altogether... Peppering the ceremony.
There is fear and a consternation.
The same Mi'Lord and Mi'Lady are rushing aghast to my seated person and shooing at the flock that's gathered.
"What the Devil are you doing?! a person must eat this food, not crows!!!"
I know, and I spread my open hands broad and empty...
Like I've no idea what's going on here...
Then I make a show of picking my yellow jagged teeth with a sharp black quill.
I says: "Maybe somebody with better tooth or bigger stomach could take over... " ?
The flock, heavy with feed, rises, menacing beaks and blimp bellies. And Mi'Lady shrieks, Mi'Lord grabs his gun to stop the offertory from getting away...
She is sobbing: "But... We don't eat crow, we don't eat crow...!"
I know.
The Scoop
My name is Cat Shat.
And how do you do?
I've resurfaced from the underground
in Steampunk top hat and coattails...
How very nice to meet you, here...
Is that a whiff of patchouli...?
or is it poor man's Catnip?
I'm sharpening my claws on this fine gall post
and I'm licking my palms, like one does
before the grease is laid on.
Like twisting the lid
of the cookie jar
back off.
Say, what can I do for you,
Tonight?
that's the question. Right?
You need... a light?
A hand? ...a short knife...
or plastic stretch elastic...
You need... Some venom...
slight douse of something to intoxicate your night,
Why, my, oh, my pocket watch says it's almost 00!!
So hurry.................... . . . . . . . . up a little
I turn tails rather quickly, it's a vulgar trick,
don't you know it,
if you can play, and pay, and not catch me
all out of breath
that morbid tax!
...the sudden death
Sleepy.... . . .
what's the matter?
Cat's got your pen?
What's that drop... small... 'n dark...
like a raisin...
I see you're up and running again... . .
Tickled? ahem. Pooh.
I'll have to try better then.
The Hat in the Hall
To hang my honor in shame.
See the unworn cap, left nigh?
the hallway hook calls my name.
It's a silence most profane,
tilt of brim, half to deny...
To hang my honor in shame.
Of all good deeds, most mundane
sits the pillbox by, and bye—
The hallway hook calls my name.
And calls the dark like a Dame,
to our dust that now doth fly,
"To hang my honor in shame!"
One fine gesture might remain,
to yet beg the conscience, why:
the hallway hook calls my name?
As all the worlds' stage proclaim
indecision's plateau's high—
To hang my honor in shame...
the hallway hook calls my name.
Dear Apparent,
It maybe that there is no other passing like that of a parent. Except maybe a child.
I don't believe in ghosts. And I'm not concerned with what we can see, or not, but what we feel. I am already flawed in vision, lacking Gran's intuition, and Great-great-great-grandma's instinct. Always a child, I speak of spirit, passing. I cannot call it Death, Mother. You, yourself, taught me contra wise, the trailing off into the corners of the globe with your web.
Oxymomical profusion.
Mother is passing-- passing through. I through you, and you through me, divisible, in effect, and affect. Each of us, to nurture, our nature. Transparent, and opaque, a mirror of moving water.
You paused with circular needles, rain drops caught in the cool firelight of the moon, and asked What? in silence, knowing we could knit anything, a shroud even, but it would never be the right size to cover the length of us in the long haul. Flies and mites might be trapped and confused, for lack of fore or after thought. Like dust.
You nod off, into daydream:
"Death exists, in everything, always, for those who have never known Living."
I follow through to Mom, fully awake, as she drifts. Indeed, with Death we remain unacquainted, until personally introduced, like to Antimother:
"O, hi, Holiness," and we are one, in wave or handshake. The end all.
We pass, transparent... a part of the barren. Where there is perhaps only dissociated thought. The antonym of the womb. Both dark and secure. Still in a mothership.
Every being in existence carries on, beside itself. Cries, because of the living we ourselves are looping together (in or out of step), for joy or grief or uncertainty... eventually motherless momentarily, if only in perception... finding itself.
The Living... it lives, they live, even those insentient things live... in our animation. The lil bit of self that is invested, moves through, as our growing child. Clinging to the coparent inside ourselves. Animism, yes; the offspring of ourselves.
It has little to do with parenthood, as conception. Rather, that is a cloak, invisible. Adoption, I know now that that is central. To own the title, the ship and its lookouts. The periscope through which flows acceptance, for the soul we cover or uncover from the surface. We look out into the worlds, before our us, as transparent— needing our image, gesture, form, and word. We can carry, or bring to terms some buds, in a dark family wood, a stand of witnesses, barely webbed together in the canopy, borrowing the stars, as heirlooms.
We are rooted and belong only as much as we choose to open ourselves to a zephyr Matriarch that will whisper to those who are listening, twinkle, twinkle....
Holy mother of all, I know you have something for me... the labor of emotion...
...Life and its afterbirth.
Sincerely,
Rent
Still Watching Over Me
In my own recollection, my first and last stuffie, was Lurky. Now, if you have no point of reference, no worries. I also seldom watched Rainbow Brite. But I loved my Lurky. He must have come into my life on my fourth birthday. I see the original issue is 1983 and my parents never moved that fast. But someone had an inkling... about me and Lurky.
Lurky was special. One look at that mug above and you see what I mean. SO much to Love!! The antenna, the boogly eyes, the hair tuffs, the schnoz, the great big open arms, and the sneakers with lighting bolts, just cemented itself to myselfhood from toddler to teen years. If I was going on an overnight, that was the only thing I really need to bring, aside from jammies, pen and notepaper, and toothpaste.
At some point of crisis, I left Lurky at home. Safe.
By then I understood the meaning of the word. Lurk. The irony and how it weighs in on life experience and its lingering impressions. The boogiemen we had faced, the dark, the alone. When I walked out, traveling light, knowing I'd never be back, I left him on the bed with one final hug and kiss. If I ever returned, I'd be older. To the household, I'd be a stranger. But not to Lurky.
Sometimes I think, he's still watching over me.
Knock, Knock
"God be damned," I said under my breath, prayers shot.
"...didn't get the manager job at Alamy, eh?" he said, hoisting his linen trousers at the knees stiffly, as he sat himself down on the hard cold unforgiving park seat next to me. The guy was tall, voice projecting from the arches of his feet, a baritone that could pull down to bass. If need be. Serious.
He looked like he'd been unemployed four score and seven years ago... that founding father look, the anachronistic ill-fitting thrift store vintage threads... He didn't smell foreign, though.
And his skin had this sort of translucent sheen. Not an aura, you know? but delicate constitution, or something.
My guess was he was homeless. And had been. For a while.
He tapped my upper arm with the back of his hand, pleasantly, tap, tap, as we now sat too close on odd ends of this narrow concrete seat. Casually, like we already knew each other. He rubbed his rabbi beard for a think. Then, added, for comfort:
"I didn't get the job either," making light.
There was no way in hell he had applied here. I humored him with respectful silence.
"Shoulda been a shoe in, too," he carried on with a faint smile. I noticed he wasn't wearing any.
"What position?" I hazarded trying to establish context and draw myself out of my own descent.
"Top Gun."
Huh. I remembered how much I don't like Tom Cruise.
"Sure," I said, like one might say to the infirm. Gently, with a kind sincerity.
"No-- I'm God."
I tried hard not to look taken aback and checked my laugh to the inside.
"Well, isn't that a done deal?" I recovered as he looked on ahead with interest.
"Would you believe? No. I gotta reapply every fucking time. In the Trust."
"--what?!"
"Yeah. Like one-on-one... with every member of the Co-op... " he said looking at me deadpan:
"So, what'll it be?"
"You're shitting me, right?"
"No. I'm not."
To Be Had
I've never had a dog. Before you call bullshit, give me a minute to light the story.
Marcus had a dog. This was well back before we were tight. A Boxer, he named Jock. He liked the way it sounded, kinda exotic, kind of sexy, in an unobligating, irreverent way. He was in his late teens and maybe it wouldn't fly now, but at the time, it made sense, alright? Alright.
No leash. Stay at the heel, go everywhere bud. That was Jock. He had just one flaw. One fatal flaw. Cats. He couldn't stand the pretentious oversized rodents and blew a mental fuse whenever he saw one. God meant for cats to be chased. And that was how Jock met his end. It was his blind conviction. He ran a cat into traffic. The rat escaped between the tires, and Jock didn't.
No amount of calling from Marcus could bring Jock to his senses.
Nevertheless, a good dog. No dumb mutt. Loyal and driven.
His Uncle Tonio had a Doberman. I'm no snob for purebreds, but I note it makes an invaluable difference, in character. He died nameless; an important, yet insignificant part of the whole. It remains for me a summary of the selflessness of Dog. Of understanding. Pack and hierarchy.
The tale goes that ol' Tonio was a nice guy overall, but a braggard, and an alcoholic. An unfortunate combo. One night the two of them, the man and the dog, climbed the eight flights to Marcus's flat. There were a few fellas over, drinking and smoking, and they got to talking about bitches and mutts, and what makes a good dog Great.
Uncle Tonio knocked his shot back and rattled the glass on the table, wiping his mustache with the back of his hand, lifting his cap back a bit for emphasis-- letting off some heat.
"I'll tell yah what makes or breaks a Dog. If I whistle 'whewt' here!..."
...and he pointed at his dog with full command, full attention,
"and say '_____ JUMP!' he.... "
He had him. And yeah, the Doberman jumped.
Out the open window, eight stories down.
You might say, that's stupid. But I say, that is Dog. And that is Man.
And I've never been had.
**This is a True Story**
Phototaxis
Tan, with fake eyes in watch, like from behind a death mask, there leaning upon the edge of the wood bucket seat: Persistence. From the intense consternation of the moment, she searched the fuzziness of the expression... for the tiny face that must be somewhere near the base of the antennae.
In this Pass and impasse, in the tunnel-- leading to her just execution-- no detail seemed too small. Vision turned microscopular... or rather, tubular. At nighttime she would have seen the most distant star; and in the expanse of the bleak day, she saw each and every fiber of fluff atop this silvered being, dappled with bronze streaks, and tipped with white at the very ends, near invisible. As upon an eyelash.
Here was a faint symbol of Spring, in brownie form, complete with wings. A natural yet mystical thing. It fluttered softly against the cold draught in the cabin. She wished she could be the white-haired old lady accompanying an old storybook Mister, arm in arm, through Summer to Winter. It would not be.
The rail carriage devoid of all hope, was surrounded by a seal of iced snow, and the Eurail sped on its dispassionate mission. She had killed the Ambassador. There was no denying it. It was her charge, given, and committed. In the singular moment, she loved the displaced neutral moth, seeking heat, alone, with her in their barred alienated containment.
And the moth, in its turn, was drawn to the strange closure, away from the freeze and freedom of the great outdoors... A behemoth of survival.
A fire in her eyes flamed, with indignation, knowing she had done what she had done, with full awareness and would do it all over again, for the cause. When she took the Ambassador's life, she had said prayers at feverish pitch aloud for both of them-- that Death be swift. She knew she was damned, in this life; and what would come after, would not be known. Her lips parted, false smoke of condensation escaping like white volcanic steam in the heat of this realization.
And the tiny moth, flew in...