sitting in the fall morning window
sun low to my back on the far side of the house not yet tending to the clamoring vines hanging around the age-old stump but it's clear
the fog yet ocean bound
foreground bamboo
redwoods gird the horizon's loin
no wind breaks the placid single river-face now shallow & elusive though cover enough for the fish doing their chores nevermind the risks...young osprey overhead practice their new skills
crows silent

racing thoughts into the breach
love's uoweme's: top of the world being at last coveted and bam comes the contempt of familiarity

all writers are robbers

he died, while none of us were looking

I had already learned thankfully the hard stuff, thankyou don, about the dying defaulting to sainthood; the inevitable parting of ways about handedness, measures, poignancyand my job being living and that all writers thankyou bill are robbers

dying, I was reminded has its own rhythm, its own meter, and language, its own choreography & each pays homage in his own way; enters and exits with his own set of cues

it was proprietary rights and memory that this time were the baffle
that this time queered the stage

...the dying bed in the front room separated from the kitchen by the staircase where I lurked forgetting that my place was with the adults the blessed kitchen where I fled to let loose the scullerymaidslut I was in the company of the others so reverent

he died with his boots on, no saint, no whore either, not peacefully, but it was a fittin' death the day he'd gone home to die he answered the phone when I called to see if things had gone according to plan come on over he said, there's wine and rootbeer, cheese and crackers...

what if the premise our premise is wrong
what if there won't wouldn't always be violence
what if managing is in fact condoning sealing our fate creating another culture of violence

what if it's another chapter in right&responsibility – treatment medicine
last bastion of paternity

what if our real task is to change an attititude change the prevailing course change the language

how can one feel safe if one really believes there will always be violence
end the war now

it's the wrong conversation
needs be how can we end the violence end the cycle of violence
not participate in it

Dear Da

Mum says you thought we'd died. Once strapped in so tight you now wander plumb the mined vagaries, airing out too the pipes the ducts the emotive canals. Clearing the passage, better in my book, any day of the week, than the purgatory of doldrums. The passion of flesh however it is conjugated, better than entropy better than the prime numbers better than fish on Friday. And as is the way of dream tricks we are not dead. But instead symbols in trade, like good photos or poetry or fine memories, standing in for something other...your mentis.

the rusty petard

of course if it's about giving everything up for love you wouldn't but why the hell would you set it up that way so that of course when it gets to seeming you are always the one who has to...(whatever it might be) you inevitably will hold your breath till you fall out...ain't that just dissembling given the practicalities that someone gets to clean the toilet no matter where & ain't nothin for free

and princess hooha not withstanding the question on the table is if he is the housecarpenter and you are the lady what then

stopping ain't quittin'

worst day ever, he said, must be a lesson here somewhere
so we talked driving home about the rules
like the best surfer is the one having the most fun
& you'll never have fun if you're trying to be cool
& discretion is knowing when valor is can't. I don't know what that means, he said,
like knowing when you're too tired, I said
how would you know if you're too tired, he said, totally serious
me, (2-Day, as in it takes me two days to recover after I go in) I know
it's no damn fun

it was the groveling and the need to prove I had a tumor taken out of my head and I was no longer exactly the same as myself nevermind the next generic person and the mysterious black abyss the nameless faceless quagmire the salesman doctor parent slick this is for your own good arrogance that tipped me over the edge and I'm back to default settings to the press of customary and how little how poorly it describes me just the facts ma'am don't even come close my name is a russian novel in itself and that's just the beginning

custom installation part one

so I got the damn for my own good dispensation the blessed in your face queen for a day grovelled just right boobyprize ada accomodation having revisited codified footnoted qualified quantified the ways in which I am deficient and I consign you all to the insipid vapid dilettante hell of default settings

not even

at the last minute
you always thought
I would flinch
give myself up
for some other
good

I just meant
I couldn't
stand on my head fly
to the moon

take care of you

not even

with a gun to my head

thinking of words today like temperate and moderate and thinking how glad I am to be approaching scorpio the not what you see the could be any damn thing and I'll get you any which way I might want not that I give it a lot of credit as a style but there are times I get goodgoddamn tired of being moderate temperate and even considerate (-erate nope -ate>suffix forming adjectives) and modulation approbation are totally out of the question; discretion being the better part of valor pulling for scorn...today is not a good day to be the leader

codes

Visiting my father, which as it turns out is more about my mother; the forever code.
He sits nobly in his chair behind a gray table top, so he won't know he's strapped in, she says. He who puts another cherry tomato in his mouth while he is still choking on the last one. He who knows not the map of his body, aiming the spoonful of caramel pudding just aft and to port. He who with the delight of recognition joyfully takes me as everywoman in his life. Interchangeable. Describing only a feeling as it comes and goes.

Rules

Dang! I never noticed before that they have been pre-negotiated. Just so you don't need to fight it out even with yourself in the thick of things when your perspective is admittedly shot. And, like it or not, usually they've been hard won, have been hard come by. So it's not that there's no room for judgement, it's that judgement has already been rendered after hotter heads finally cooled.

And all things not so much being equal as discretion having pulled hard for valor it was wisdom that prevailed and it is that prepackaged judgement which became the rule.

Rules

1. Rule number one: HAVE FUN. The best surfer is the one having the most fun.
2. You'll never have fun if you try to be cool.
3. When it's time to stop, stop, but never quit.
4. You must be able to see the truck, or truck-equivalent, from the water.

The only one we ever broke isn't on that list.
Don't get on a moving train.

And like most good tests it came up in the middle of a night on a side line out in the middle of nowhere and the only trains would be moving ones.

the whole thing gives me gas

the throes of getting it just right the bloodlust of it lying on the page just so, not a sound out of place and times enough to breathe. It's not like I'm bothered by the cup on the coffee table the catalogues on the bathroom floor the laundry not put away the message machine full-- only the cats hold their own, sir woodrow of the moment true to his name takes up the call of the wild relentlessly demanding the due of everything else, steadfast and undaunted, not understanding not now as a possibility

I know the look, the look that flashes across the marquee of the forehead, lights in all colors blazing, you bitch.
I've got it down, the timing, the sidling up to the stuff so hard, the proper distractions so they don't notice they're treading where they've dared not go and it doesn't even seem so foreign, and then all of a sudden the dustcloth is gone and face to heart is that damn feeling they've spent a lifetime disowning. But what makes them want to spit is, feeling sad feels sad, which they didn't know until I pointed it out.

It's the shell game of you can go swimming but you can't go near the water, the you're the experts and you know best but we disagree with your decision, the let's meet and greet and discuss what went wrong and then work out a plan that plays hell with the notion of in good faith that wreaks havoc with goodwill & alliances when--after we'd sat around the table parlez-vous'd and come to resolute agreement--damn if they didn't come back with last week's model, again, as if we had been wooed and dazzled and bought as stoned street whores.

in the bloomings

one of the things they taught us, was sitting still, being motionless and constant in the face of their endless struggle watching carefully their spinning and simply standing to; not getting caught in the whirlwind
tricky things patience silence presence in the face of passion and fume push and pull love you hate you need you no I don't yes I do-- the currency of finding ones own mind ones own heart ones own way -- so often mistaken for something broken, something needing fixing
tred lightly in the bloomings, all there needs be is abiding fellowship, amen

the problem with beginnings is finding them...defining them unfolding them to ferret out tease out expose the story line buried under the haystack of one's living; like the surfing story starts with a brain tumor or with Shaka-Ron or with the buick or maybe with my hard head or maybe with my grandmother who had the first acoustic neuroma or with my father who killed himself telling me pirate stories in the rowboat on Lac Marier or maybe it just starts at the waterline; 50 year old woman, oldest beginning surfer in sonoma county...but what fun is that

a leg up

funny thing about tricks and old dogs, it's a wrong paradigm but a goodly not so wild goose chase to be mollified and pacified and lulled into submission by the old adage about past prime when it comes to learning...it's not that you can't teach an old dog but that the mature dog has by now a mind of its own and a certain well-earned and honestly come by rhythm and willingness of its own but hey for those of you that are into old dogs not learning new tricks, so much the better for me

age is its own reward belying the need for tricks, so the outcome of our little set-to was predictable and discretion (of age) being the better part of valor (adminospheric consistency) we were able to stand the ground of our integrity; not getting disracted from a clinical recommendation by the bean counters who would have had us stand down, not because we were wrong but because they weren't willing to provide it, and we let one of their own, by our good grace (& politic) override us

and cigars roses & spades totally withstanding, if was a fine kettle full of fish

name calling as a strategy, like parading ones credentials is, how embarassing for you, as my friend fred used to say–the thing was, it wasn't personal, it was taking a stand–it was about recognizing, having learned by trial & error what didn't work and what would be most likely to give her the best chance of succeeding–and it was about not so much planting flags and hoisting petards or even sticking to ones guns as it was about old dogs playing the tricks we had been taught; calling you out to make clear what you stand for and to be blameworthy

so whose hurry is hurry-up these days, and why when the cat was away was she behind the scenes as my friend johnny said politicing to produce product, so hurried as not to get that she was, as old henrietta used to say, pushing the laundry barrel up and down the hall, I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way– it's not just about doing something, it's about doing something helpful, something real, it's not about image but understanding, ah the product is understanding, the product is hearing the product is heart–and it specifically ain't about hurryin'

so in getting her bed ready for the next patient we found 4 empty pint bottles hidden under the mattress--a lapse on a number of fronts; an affront on a number of lapses--I know too well what it says about her

for our part I'm less bothered by the contraband getting past us
or mixing booze & medications
or our intrinsic fear of glass

and am more alarmed by how for all of our expert touting
she like a good alcoholic had remained invisible
&
how like everyone else we had never taken the time it takes to see
her

the question was who is your hero one of those tried but true stupid in its simplicity questions that robs you of a cover–if you have one and more so I'm guessing if you don't or haven't even bothered to notice or think of one–that's me, hadn't even noticed or bothered to think of one, and me especially being me I pulled it out with but I do have a list of heroic traits qualities of a heart that move someone from ordinary to heroic and bam there was irma leading the way and of course freddie my second father

heroes continued
it's about a steadfastness and unswerving standing-to, the following of ones convictions no matter what not mattering the unrelenting sense that what is right what needs to be done is what is right and what needs to be done not up for debate or whine and no need for bad humor it is what it is and it's all in a day's work and there is god or whatever stands in for god and love at the end of the day amen it's that inner sense of godliness & propriety, my father rolling over in his grave notwithstanding propriety

the other question that sneaks up though is equally predictable given the interpersonal nature of most work situations is how do you manage conflict, hohum given the interpersonal nature of daily life thankyouverymuch and the being caught without a ready answer for that one is still a horse but both a horse of another color and not a horse at all...the horse of course being not being able to remember any particular conflict, or given the one dimensional format of an interview not being able to readily come up with a concise story of the conflict and its resolution...

...the not horse of course is not ever having recognized conflict for what it is and not ever having conceptualized a way through it nevermind the need for a way through it...and here I veer off-course in a thousand directions...there is no way to peace; peace is the way...but given all of that the question on the table still is how do you manage conflict in 100 words or less; wow hunh I mean how do you manage conflict–like we talking minor disagreement annnoyance policy infraction fuck you madness or the phone is out of order again or...

the real magic of interviews though is the underground undercurrent below the table subrosa to-&-fro cause it's all about the gang isn't it, it's still all about the clan and belonging and the initiation and earning ones stripes with proper behavior right color-guard right head gear right uniform right language proper answers and foreswearing any allegiance to former kings and idols, it is after all about right belief and rule following being hired for your wisdom and judgement not withstanding and only indicidental; so the real question never asked outright is who's the fairest of them all mirror mirror

I used to go to interviews to practice all the right this& that cause like anything else, like everything else we're only good at it what we do with practice, and it's no different than the do re me of scales and the profiency brought to bear by redundancy–but I stopped doing that along with so many other things that went by the wayside and now I'm too old or too set in my ways to care and wouldn't couldn't see myself working for or in a job that didn't tolerate me as I am, ain't I just miss thing...

So losing track of the story I would tell is sort of amusing...goes back to that (maybe it's not) so hard to find the beginning notion...maybe the goddamned story starts with a brain tumor I mean how could finding finding the beginning be more mysterious than uncovering my very own brain tumor

and then the dissembling starts I mean I have lots of ideas and lots of material but I get so tired thinking of how to organize it
and I'm disheartened today because my poetry was not accepted for this year's dickens–ah shit! the ups&downs of writing

home on the range

so I'm back from the mothers&daughters extravaganza, the MAD-Plus salon (mother and daughter and guests) an evening of music and the spoken word accented with sculpure and drawings with culinary delights and fine wine and a good time was had by all
what I suppose makes it unusual and worth noting is not that the mothers are professional musicians in their own right but that they are in their 80's and going strong
and the daughters, still in the backseat are in their 50's

ps the menfolk were left behind to keep the home fires burning