whine and cheese

there's no spot quite like the done-to spot the warm conforming well practiced spot of beatme somemore of that's what happens every time I open my mouth I'll never say another word spot the frantic neveralways imperfect spot home to perfect disappointment and I'm always in trouble with you the whatever I don't care nevermind I'mfine spot but damn it's time for some new lines some new shmattes and even the fine I'll sit here in the dark lightbulb is gathering dust you know thingis it's the no movement the same song 100th verse that's the worst

hair today gone tomorrow

she cut her hair and the doctor just on the heels of a fight with her daughter about hair & its proper comportment and fitting dress to wear to school for the mayday dance was pursed lips mom furious I on the other hand contrarian that I can be appreciated the metaphor(s) of her shaved head and thought it a rather fitting rejoinder to our wanting her to do psych testing
I mean talk about using all the vocabulary words in one sentence: mastery harm reduction and projective

& for sure everyone showed their own colors, daang

hair
like blood as body like body as mine to have or not to hold ha I walked in her room and thought I saw a cat nose under its paw curled in the chair it was of course only her hair another provocation or not asin another in a string of one word socially relevant as if to infom markers single white hairless female as in your face as in clearing her head as in sometimes a cigar is only a cigar asin a rose by any other name

it's so no nonsense is what she said, when asked

once upon atime
lisa and her mother you and your mother could be me and my mother who knows what kindles hope except mysteries and the zebras where they do and don't belong a waft of air the tiniest upturn of a slack mouth the sparkle in a lazy eye the song of a heart when you know what to listen for a feather caught in an updraft and bonds kindred and thing is
you've got her fighting spirit and she's got a comrade in arms for the long or the short of it

it's the imagining that kindles hope

once upon atime lisa and her mother you and your mother could be me and my mother

who knows what populates hope except mysteries and the zebras where they do and don't belong a waft of air the tiniest upturn of a slack mouth the sparkle in a lazy eye the song of a heart when you know what to listen for a feather caught in an updraft and bonds kindred and thing is
you've got her fighting spirit and she's got a comrade in arms for the long or the short of it

it's the knowing that populates hope

what she'd asked are you not prepared to live without

and though he wasn't on the list he was everywhere in the panorama that is my life writing writing laughing learning teaching community me rivers opera oceans love mystery

we've been banging around he and I for twenty-five years and it
still is as compelling as new mown grass is pungent, as a river on the rise
the wind in the redwoods
a midnight snack
verdi
possums on a rout rampant mallow wild roses
fire burning just right

fact is his hands on my back
still is the best poetry

remembering my future creating my past I've lost count of the sunrises on the road and walking as if to the river but to the unit as if on the path but in the hall instead as if from my kitchen but from the cafeteria instead as if with one of my three favorite morning coffee cups but with a medium stryofoam one instead as if a medicine woman aunt grandmother curandero witch healer but a nurse instead the sun paints my face and I smile

at how short is the distance or long from one vision to the next

from a line of jews I come

by my quest from a line of peddlers from a line of teachers just the same I come by my art & craft honestly from a line of gypsies I come by my wide-ranging honestly from a line of grand mothers I come by my wiles wares smiles snares honestly from a line of grand fathers I comeandgo by my sir-name justas honestly from a line of jews I come by my belonging from a line of jews I come by my be longing

from a line of jews I come by my questioning

scales
thethingis it's about writing about the committment the labor the love the exercise the practice the toying the telling it's about the birthing the showing the incompleteness the imperfection the tug the push the pull it's about--more than--reasons whynot to write to show to share to be read it's about day in day out and come what may it's about some days are ordinary and it's about the beauty & solace of that it's about practicing starting with c major the do-re-mi's one octave at a time knowing

the two-handed and the relative minor arenot so far behind

feather in my cap
dead in her (cum)our you don't understand war of the wits tracks she was stopped coldwaay as if scruff of the kneck grabbed starting from the well-practiced I've got no one I'm all alone I want to die rolling merrily into the leave me alone you don't understand full blown into the the nobody does headbutted up against a softly spoken what if I do how could you she countered because I've got an imagination pop went her weasel inspite of herself laughinghootingsnorting finger pointingwaving that was good she conceded that was really good
checkmate

lisa&her mother you&your mother could be me&my mother

hard though it is to stand helplessly still it is the helplessness that allows the stillness that allows the sitting with the walking with your mother mymother as she takes her journey where ever it may lead her and you knowing there is a leave taking just the same happening a leaving not so much behind as ahead of the remembering of other possibilities and the wide brimmed hat of love and recognizing the reflection in her eyes is sometimes your sadness
she is making way
biding waiting

for her favorite song

we were talking about lilith
he'd seen her at the stoplight in issaquah waiting for the light to change and even disguised as a regular person he'd recognized her just the same he knew it was her his teeth itched he said handwaving my howdidyouknow away as just plain giving me the benefit of the doubt silliness as opposed to arcane stupidity although in a fit of pique he did ask do you even know who she is oh yes lilith a precursor the first polarity before night and day before adam before the marys right and wrong
I know

couldyou wouldyou
list (with dates) all the trips of 24 hours or more that you've taken outside of the US in the last 20 years {read
since becoming a LawfulPermanentResident} list any organization association fund foundation party club society or similar group in the US or in any other place you've EVER been a member of are you willing to take the full oath of allegiance if the law requires it are you willing to bear arms on behalf of the US have you EVER been a member of or in any way associated (directly or indirectly) with the communistparty

copping the plea

-I want to die
-and you may in the end we may not be able to save you
-oh I'm not thaat thin you have to be thinner than this I know I don't feel well
-I'm sure you don't
-I'mcoldIdon'tfeelwell I'm in a fog I have a headache can I have something for the pain why are you laughing
-because the masquerede is funny
-but I don't feel well
-I know you don't
-do something
-I am
-that's not what I mean
-no, it's not, so what actually do you mean

-can I have a hug

feelings
and thing is I know they know I know and they know I know they know that feeling bad feels bad and feeling sad feels sad and there's nothing to do except to sit with it and they know that I believe that it is a far reach an inexcusable reach to go from sad to out of control to off the map to the many faces of mayhem to the even better yet you (you the generic not-me) do my feelings
thing is they know I know they know I have only hope's shoulder and possibility to offer

curious just the same at my forthrightness

good for you for sayingso offered the on my backpocket nursingstudent after hearing that I was not able or willing to nurse that one--she who had blackened my eye the last time she was there she who now was as if in passing but moreso circling to fling at regular intervals as a single thought in a sneering breath I love you thank you for letting me hit you--that one who would just because do it again

what I asked my backpocket did she imagine was the alternative to not sayingso

afterall it is isn't it as an adult the courage to practice what you preach and beyond practicing hope&faith one must practice the management the husbandry of each his own back forty and practice showing up and standing tall at the line
afterall I've come to recognize myself not so much by the sound of my voice but moreso by my actions and come to respect myself only in as much as my choices and actions are informed by my beliefs
and afterall in good faith I cannot demand courage nevermind honesty from others if I've fallen out of
practice

"tears and fears and feeling proud"
she was leaving the crisis of hope of faith of living over for the nonce and time for the brushyourteeth sayyourprayers speech...Iknow Iknow she said they (the generic not-us they) can't meet all my needs they will piss me off and I can spend my whole life fighting with them but what a bore that would be and even when no one loves me and I need to eat worms I don't need to throw them up okok...and singing "I've looked at life from both sides now" she walked into the sunrise

one step forward
ah--glasses for gardening but two days in a row in the water learning remembering some lessons forgot about easing up into more Gus our penultimate light on his feet tabby as opposed to his brother Sir Woodrow who by no imagination stretch couldwould one think of as light footed minded or hearted and pulled&pushed by those mysterious should&ought forces I fell laughing into a corollary to the rules about having fun and not being cool–if I can't do what I should it's okay to do what I can--ha

& fact is I need glasses for pruning

so tomorrow again it will be about differences and I rewrite the question to address not the first time I felt different but instead to address the most profound as in exclusion as in not notinvited but not belonging intrinsically as in wearing without equivocation the mark of difference and not even so much from you the generic not me but from me
...I'm a member of a new club
the banner written across my face
held up with my cane
all things being relative, I rethink luxurious lugubrious

ha! from start to finish it took a year to writeright

the finish a far cry from canes but by canes wrought nonetheless
now only the old man
not always handy with words
meets my eyes without question
and with his well worn thumb
touches my cheek

and again--the conversation about differences--came back around to belonging or not &how &who gets to choose membership and when the value is sameness the cruelty waged inthenameof dissimilarity

so
--when was the 1st time you felt different
--how do you identify (recognize as being) race, gender, ethnicity, culture, age, sexual preference, other,

nevermind just now different from those who are the same

talking riverwalk

crows & swallows
& osprey aloft and I hear
by grand design the kildeer but have to stop and look hard to see them the come here eggs afoot alert dance which is evermore so ifyouplease don't go there

out of wind's way
the ducks in a blind
wind
measuring reflecting differences

the river hazel tufted fractured by the ocean's pull against the inclination of the wind
the sky sultry this morning
gray backed clouds
fog slung low
blue just the same
it's a reminder of possibility he means when he says he loves me

did you see the minks

she wanted to waste my time apologizing for her having oh all the time in the world to invite me in to talk but no time to come out and help waving her off already on to the next thing I asked her help in getting dispensation for pajama bottoms with strings the better to hang themselves which had somehow become contraband and again she started the eyeball rolling prelude to she couldn't wouldn't be bothered directing me to take it elsewhere as if
as if I didn't know better
as if waving off wasn't a language I spoke fluently

and TheOther is quitting again everytime she turns around as if that's her only power her only skill her only tool & in the other hand she holds crumbs while fact is Isajoke gets the subtleties of team of harnessing in the face of getting the job done instead of only tantrumming accountability another chapter another paragraph another phrase dang if mewling isn't unbecoming and helplessness one way and another a practiced distraction from the job at hand fact is I don't think she knows what it is anymore and threatening to go home with the ball is a great cover

coming&going
he comes with the memory of confluence of eggs in onebasket not being by default a bad thing a renewal that hedging is a trick begging the issue of livingup to
his work is his ministry his ministry is his life his life is his belief his belief is his value his value is his work and he is sustained and she who chases ghosts with an empty heart who offered me memory of humility of hubris goes with her laurels gathered as many&fast as she can I thanked her for what she left behind

time will fail her

I turn into the driveway with 7 kinds of roses a hedge ten years old a bench under the redwood tree guardian of the gate I come to an expanse to a house standing in as a competent home I come to a grove of trees a forest floor with leaf litter thousands of years old and there are times I wonder what adult lives there
day in day out it is as nameless as untamed as the next wave
day in day out I grow into she who lives here deciphering the language of the lady of the house

imagining
it was his kind of sky high overcast with a blue back the air a sultry twist and so he kept me company on the way home quiet but present thinking his own thoughts leaving me to mine but there just the same smiles&memories not so much a yearning not so much a tease his apparition but a comfort a ratification of how varied are the ways of touching

of touching our own sadness imagining it notmine I'mfine

and ofcourse just the same missamazingshe'sstillalive never did get she wasn't crying because her roommate was deciding to have an abortion

walking rivertalk

the osprey the swallow the dragonfly the dog running loose
circles soars takes the plunge
the duck
missed the fish lands in a downwind tree
skims the surface
just below the updraft
caught the bug
green heron
went back to the fishing hole
swims against the current
took a drink
footprints buried in the sand
took flight

he gave me belonging embracing me with a name standing in as father husbanding my mother creating order making room for safe imagining

the wind dies down
I hear my wings beat
the river is clear
fish do errands she walks

the aftermath the burned to a cinder the what there's to show
is the relegation to the hell of one word responses is that parsimony or stupidity is that wantonness of a different order is that consignment or punishment is that economy what is the address of love
of marriage of friendship of committment loyalty fealty honor courage what is it one forfeits when one callsthegame by name

factis ofcourse burned to a cinder and oneword hell would have been all there was to show had we stayed together but you still populate my dreams

why would it be otherwise

where there's a will
I'm thinking this is some weird shit...tripping this morning on my way into the hospital doing a total wipeout asif over the falls on some bigass wave but instead full face down onto the sidewalk thinking wait wait it was really tomorrow I didn't want to go but thingis I'm homeagain with tomorrow off too...and then I remember the tree falling across the road the last time I didn't want to go and more recently being rear ended so I couldn't rather than exercising not wanting to go

I mean holyshit & where's the tinfoil

what if there was nothing to hide I heard myself say which is not so much about privacy as transparency and I'm beginning to think of the minute and a value a credo to aspire to as a way of being not only with others but with oneself which is not so much about disclosure as it is about truth telling not so much necessarily speaking ones mind as knowing it fact is I am as complex as the wind as single minded as the river relentless as the ocean but what if there was nothing to hide you know