it's September time of proper beginnings and the crisp blue sky smells an advent for me a time of quickening boots and sweaters even if only metaphorically and time to think about stacking wood yet for all of it, given the prevailing winds, our summer's just about to begin
spent yesterday going through my files and books throwing out the old making room for the next installments gads if it hadn't been for the flood we'd have drowned in our possessions noneofwhich in the end are more precious than wellbeing
music: ventures
mood: euphoric tho notgiddy, yet
flesh: less weary

impatient I'm impatient which will only fly in the face of the known trajectory of orthopedic recovery and for all of it fact is I'm doing great but my high pain threshold not withstanding I forget how much energy it takes and for reasons I don't understand I'm in a hurry to cut back on the meds and that is just making the amplitude of the peaks and valleys that much more ragged and I know it for the gumption trap it is but...
and fact is I've already graduated from an 8 oz garbanzo dangle to a full pound

yahrziet
cranky I'm cranky today in a pique lost in one of the switchbacks of the not so straight line of getting from here back to there, or maybe it's simply a monsoon's torpor the languidity the sultry wake of the charge left from this morning's thunder&lightening gads what a treat that was

maybe it's leftover speaking of wakes from yesterday's tribute to ae's letting loose not somuch of his ghost but the body a mostfitting celebration of his curiosity&willingness sitting in the crotch of a point break eatingdrinking telling stories laughingcrying the air hot still foghumid seals playing tag

I wonder how I get off thinking there could be one true way for any damn or blessed as the case might be thing given the apostate the iconoclast and irreverant flaming subversive that I have been known to be given that in the end all things being equal does not in vivo exist
catholic originally meaning universal

heresy originally meaning choice

this epiphany borne on the winds of marveling at all the self-espoused on their high horses who'd not deign a second opinion but fancy themselves free thinking

orthodox originally meaning straight thinking

damn if I ain't a gnostic

sass
so it was a/the new guy the substitute goodnice enough but distant as one could imagine the role of the perdiem but too wasteful for my dime afterall he has his own wisdom his own touch his own sense to bring --right?-- and I lust greedily after all offerings worth ofcourse their salt but we came together as these things fallout for what I had to offer the wisdom of the crone too old to sass but young enough to dis(sic) it out and can you believe he was soyoung that he'd didn't knowfrom don't sass your elders

ha so she did it came to the end of her rope their rope and jumped packed up her shit and left his sorry ass but more to the point is finally going to save hers guess she ran out of excuses and he'd used up his chits and it was a limp dick he ran up the flagpole the last time much to his dismay I am sure
on the other hand maybe he doesn't get it that's she's gone and maybe it is just another verse a little bit louder a little bit worse
so is fair, fair?

so I went to church, to the memorium ongoing and he fixed the fence I suppose a fair division of labor a new minister since I was there last a womam after my heart this one and especially so since she is absent the simpering he who came before her did so well but the music is still a problem why I wonder would songs that are meant to celebrate hope be so instead like a dirge and what I wanted to say to the organist was honey it ain't all about you, but it was blanche but it was

So the witnesses came yesterday in their witnessing drag with their pamphlets and their jesus loves them and would me too if only I would blabla smiles always one in the lead and the other in tow earnest and I'll give them even well meaning but...I was good thanked them for thinking of me but...didn't have the heart though I was temptedsorely to see how they'd stand up to P and his hie thee god away from me, he kills notions

which of course is why he stays away from church, too much god there for his liking

I think tea befits sadness and describes defines gives way to contemplation the way coffee is precursor to getting things done to action the way mary is to martha and fog might be to blue sky sunset to sunrise
it is morning still out there with hints of fall and less in my face summer enthusiasm
I recognize well the mood of not enough but especially the not enough that feels as if it has been relegated that seems to trap one with no choice no way out and leaves in its wake plenty of blame
too bad for you

so I almost made it well I mean I did go to bed actually without having taken any vicodin since the night before but just after midnight I woke to tossing and turning and resistance was futile and I succumbed but, half in twentyfour hours is a victory and I woke this morning absent my own fog ah these small victories and that goes for having enough reach to put the shower cap on myself-–never thought of that did you...
and in the background I'm working on well we'll call it a story but you never know
state: abegezundt

so I'm back wow-
thinking, poems are like snaphots of a feeling of a state of an instant and stories are movies of an idea ideas of an unfolding...And I remember that better is not waiting to be and that it's not about getting back to the way one was but going forward to a place one has never been and The Youngster said thanks when he had a minute with me alone by the way for my words, they helped--and that scotch neat is a mighty fine substitute at sundown

and that faith, is simply eating breakfast

aftermath
by the dawn's earlylight when morning edition was fractured when the morning skyline was cast asunder ... every tomdick&jane every spotET&harry knew to call home before the long division began before my god and your god were hanging up the clothes and my god punched your god right in the nose what color was the fear

eeniemeenie miniemoe
whatif you're the one
...gringo skank slut
dyke kike whitey
wop gook geek
towelhead spic...
caught by the toe
eeniemeenie miniemoe

3buildings dividedby 3planes = hate
us dividedby hate = war
war = (them+hate) multipliedby (diminishing rights + fewer freedoms)
{null set}= freedom at any cost

what stopped you there he asked as I was raising my arm over my head try again he said and he was right how'd you know I asked he laughed as is his way to distract at first no no I said how did you know I don't know he said no no I said how did you know I persisted until he answered me and explained the ways I had mispoken one would say had it been about words...I liked watching him--another--mindread asit were watching him read the beads reaffirming him for the wizard he is

I no we ran into OMG at safeways yesterday with her partner it was not awkward at all though it was the first time can you imagine in a town of less than two thousand that the four of us sans role had run into each other and it rolled along just fine being people who knew each other but not presuming on any of that since it's privileged, it was annoying though I was annoyed by the hellohowareyou would've liked just to see how she was but fact is she looked terrific

of course I had a thousand questions

sleeping one of those it all depends kind of things on context and how you look at it a telltale a barometer a prognosticator too and all the damn steps going to bed falling asleep staying asleep going back to sleep sleeping and no--princess notwithstanding--it's not the pea thing but right now it's a bitch not that I'm not rested it's just hard work you know ha the proverbial hard night's day well you know what I mean...and I know how many words there are for snow I wonder sometimes how many there might be for pain

I think I made a pact with the devil the other night the cats all over the damn bed up and down in and out pet me now and I just wanted to sleep and I just wanted no nagging no disturbance just wanted to lie in the bed and not feel any particular part of my body
no-- not be aware of any particular discomfortaggravationPAIN and especiallynot having to do with my shoulder that the cats were jumping all around on to get their fair share of say hello to me now attention and along came the devil hooya

I must be growing up tomorrow is my birthday & I haven't mentioned it once, yet
used to be a time I'd start in June so it shouldn't be forgotten who the hell knows why I can dragup of course all the abandonment issues or that birthdays weren't important festivities in our house not from an adventist witness bent but the hallmark of a red diaper upbringing or just my own brand of insanity but fact is tomorrow's my birthday and I'd not mentioned it once yet

got to say makingup for timesgoneby we sure threw me some damn fine parties

who's the fairest of them all

let's see I was with The Youngster again yesterday the appointments having been skewed in error and I asked not petulantly mindyou why me but feeling truthbetold a little petulant & a funny unbidden proprietary twinge because it had been 5 days and my shoulder was feeling stiff and lalala
ahbut it's the proprietary twinge that's the rub here sotospeak
recognizing it owning&acting on it notmentioning the self-indulgence and then getting over not so much it but myself and smiling just the same at the ongoing if somewhat quieter aren't I special too, aren't I

the craft is one thing but the art is another and it's the magic the passion of the art which is the precursor the intrinsic nature of the pair-bond that engenders fosters makes possible gives way to healing that sends one headlong down the getting better path
and my objection to the perdiem of course is that they don't bring their art, only their craft...but truthbetold TheYoungster&I having worked that out the first time actually did just fine

having no flesh of his own though I must wonder wherein his passion resides and more importantly how it is restored

sitting on the porch is not like sitting on the fence and I wonder these days at the many ways there are to be sidelined
fact is sitting in the line-up even if they are just on the porch swatting flies is one leg up...they retain kibitzing rights they receive an honorarium and fact is if they're in the right place at the right damn if they can't still ride the sucker on the nose into the beach and call it a good day
meanwhile I am still drydocked on the porch swatting flies, but I got me a pile

sitting early morning on the deck with the geranuims the cats vying for lap position the redwoods standing vigil at my flanks hosting squirrels shrieking crows and jays who are mightily about their chores the river just over there and the fog inbound I'm reminded it's September the fall of a new year 5764--the shape of things is what we make it--there are times my arm feels like an arm and others where I lose sight of the imagining there are times I'm so becalmed as to not be seen but mostly I'm beset by a mighty restlessness

solace
man in a blue sweater yearning another one beached I watch him hands animated as he is talks to his wife roped into this wave watching vigil against her better judgement anxious to get back to she's not even sure what but it beats this go go go he yells paddle paddle paddle he leans forward helping

for better&worse I've not yet the reach to fold the stinking sheets--but they smushup just fine-- sohey you want'em folded do it your owndamn self on the other hand why wouldI ever fold‘em when you can stuff them just fine

dear dad
no no over here I know you can hear me just fine but can't just the same make sense of what you see after all if I'm this old how can you be so young well there's no point in worrying about it there's nothing to be done ma says I need to write from time to time because she says you ask about me all the time I'm fine thanks yeah we're all fine weather is great
that said and read there's not a shred of comfort isthere
meantime I'm glad you are as busy as ever

things I'm in a throwing out mode the assorted odds&ends of a life which collect everywhere not just in the junk drawer where you can find clips and thumbtacks 2 year old receipts a dead jacks ball cat tags and magnets clothes pins picture hangers photographs string rubber bands nails screws washers pennies batteries pencils business cards nevermind the tray on the counter or the shit under the futon and of course I've used nor seen any of it long enough to forget it and still comes that sense of ohmygod whatif I need it
but I found some treasures

friends& whoknowsthese mysteries

so she stayed with HerHusband afterall and gave up Itsallaboutme instead well at least for the meantime and perspective gathering Allaboutme feeling not properly adored tended to taken seriously and Wasajoke no longer willing to entreat no longer able to more like it an odd friendship at best so much not what it seemed always pulling for one to shout go fuck and get it over with or ladies you are not in 3rd grade anymore, who knows those mysteries

meantime these days I've got great appreciationfor the ebb&flows and notso tacit agreements entered into of friendship

the grays are back the grays that are red&green and blue&orange and yellow&purple giving way blending at the edge of the horizon becoming a twilight across the emptying expanse of the flats refracted by the tule fog another portend of fall

who could want for anything there's no flirtation better more honestly tawdry and brazen more coquettish or fine than fall's, I'd have her take her as a sister

and of a sudden I appreciate evermore so the complexity the irony the theatre the urge she unbuttoned changing her name to autumn, she was a bland audrey, she's a flirtyfall

bearded and otherwise painted ladies I wonder again at the androgyny of menopause
seems I've had this thought before but it blew in again seeming so explanatory

oh hell I suppose if I had to choose between his rampaging around and skulking&sulking I would of course choose the rampage but there is an inherent dishonor just the same that some twenty odd years later I do better with but need to figure my way through anew each time–-can't believe it still surprises me--bingo! eat me bite me how embarassing for you or I suppose steady now steady thankyou mr G

the price of fall
over the line into libra and equivocating nope ekeing niggling small toturous steps perfection almost as righteous as capricorn but the foot not put down in quite the same way arduous just the same oh yes for the good of the many lofty ideals for sure visionary revolutionary but a cardinal pain in the ass nonetheless
I guess we each have our sign to bear
meanwhile the asters are in bloom and the sky still clears which is a good thing there are chimneys to be swept books to reshelve wood to stack before the rains

I was reminded of a lesson learned I suppose more than once the last time learned surfing under the guise of if I'm not able to do what I'm supposed to I will do what I can sowhen I said I hadn't done an exercise because it hurt he said do what you can even a little is better than none and we'll take what we can get reminding me that taking what one can get is not always not even necessarily settling for it is sometimes merely along the way and it carries no inherent shame...it's my party

I think of keeping the faith–a shared task one in relation to another as friends lovers practitioners of the healing arts foes just the same and a task a doing an undertaking of another shape altogether in relation to oneself and the ways we come to know and recognize ourselves and the nature of commitment to our passions & I think of the 365 times I did not bow out and the countless ways I was tempted
I think of the 365 times I sat down to write and the 365 gumption traps missed and I think way to go girl