passion; any damnorblessed thing that connects you individually personally as a self to the fundamental whole is greater than the sum of its parts past the structures past the images past the mundane ah that feeds and is fed by the fire at the center of the universe that gives hue and resonance to your soul and puts lights in your eyes that gives shape to sadness or gladness to hope or despair that in the end or the beginning you can't imagine living without can't imagine being you without

love; ain't what I'm talking about

but it couldbe cats

through the years
was married once on this day during the vietnam wartime, had we simply moved in together an idea just taking hold at the time, we would've been kicked out of university, he would've lost his deferment and as the saying goes they would've sent him to VN, in an odd way though we've fashioned and have maintained a certain connectedness a vague in relation-to

my otherfather died a year ago on this day which is simply tosay he shapeshifted because as I thinkofit none of this is about loss but moreso somehow about temerity&gusto as in getup&go

walked around the block, imagine that asin less than 7weeks ago I had a TotalKneeReplacement and today I walked around the damn block asin before the surgery I couldn't even walk across the damn street to the mailbox andnow it's coming to pass asmuch moral support as my aide Abel offers he's also confounding my gait, you're walking like an old lady paul said, lose the the cane, I happily took his hand instead
it's a biomechanical thing shifting all tohell and around, I wouldn't be surprised if you feel it in your back and your ankles, jay'd said
bingo

up and down the stairs yesterday for the first time simply because it was the most direct way from here to there and imminently possible and then because I already had and why the hell not and then cause there was a phone call for paul and he was downstairs and before you knew it I was downstairs in stocking feet like why the hell wouldn't I be and there you have it, why the hell not
so I'd come to think of the mechanics of squats&presses and you know it's only a hop skip and a jump to stairs

end of the day sky pink baldassare galuppi zinfadel a manuscript with promise and honestly come by aches

out and about on my own steam up and down the stairs and this week if I forgot my cell phone I wouldn't think once about going back never mind twice

I'm still and yet taken with hope as a concept full of any thing but disappointment and that not being the same as faith, with a generosity of joyfulness that is not the same as beatific

it's a story about belonging and recognition of oneself at the end of the day

so I thought I'd been more circumspect been less cavalier shall I say about running in a manner of speaking up and down the stairs just cause but fact is though I'd only taken the stairs once when I took my walk around the block I ran into people browsing the neighborhood for houses and well they invited me to look with them so I went up and down pete's rickety stairs and up and down roger&david's many stairs as in how else was I going to get there

meanwhile I'm gathering poetry to send out and maybe a story

decisions
in spite of it all, I can't get over the feeling of fundamental hope that's somehow connected to the center of the universe, my own I can't do this again notwithstanding
he wanted to know what I thought of it all I'm excited mostly I said, it was time for a change and I'm a fine one to talk having been offered first a brain tumor then a rotator cuff repair and now getting it after the total knee replacement and fact is he needs to get the hell out of there too and wouldn't simply for the choosing

outlines
I'm working with a friend on the outline of a story and realize how far that is from my own style and I think of a conversation I had with my brother Gary about documentaries and the direction they are taking which is to assume knowing as opposed to the find out as opposed to the looking as opposed to the raw curiosity
for me too the substance the come in writing is the excitement of the exploration is in the not knowing besides I can't read the outline-it lies too flat on the page it tells lies ha

asif
walked the beach today as if not being able to was never a reality I mean walked the beach today in the sand as if being able to was never a concern sat at doran today and remembered surfing as a possibility as if it was never out of the realm stood today I mean stood around and waited as if it were no less farfetched than whale everyone was waiting to see
sit here now in no pain as if walking up and down the stairs were a mere bagatelle
it's 60 degrees as if it were spring

we didn't grow up so much with limits as consequences and with values rather than rules and with having to learn early on to decide as opposed to simply adhering to a posted code of conduct which was harder trickier and notnearly as laissez-faire as one might think but it could have fooled us at the time which it did

he'd asked me how I'd arrived at the detente with my mother and it is because she had finally accepted her own consequences one of those great equalizers of individuation

the last bastion of paternalism or maternalism or control over

he keeps asking me what I think of this business, this business of his changing jobs he feeling forced rejected and ejected nevermind stressed and I, the great polly that I am, can't help but think it is exciting that it is one of those best things and just the upheaval that allows one to choose again and to know the difference between comfortable and trapped and of course it is inconvenient but fact is as it is right now life in general has been interfering with his job and it was only going to get worse
talk about inconvenient

it's easy to forget it seems that life itself that the course of life itself is up and down undulates waxes and wanes and why not following the moon's course and the tides and over hill and dale so that it is not just a special deal for me it's not just me that oversteps my quotas and not just now during the course of recovery
in a day's work most would be expected in due course to do more than their quota and it would be called good business and you would be called a good worker bee bzzzzzzzzz

the passion
and I say again not for my sins he didn't as I would have to the man, we would have been fellow sojourners we would have discussed argued talked explored disagreed but friends just the same I object to the manipulation to the bombardment to the representation to the presumptions to the suggestion that a guided meditation through all that flaying&flogging and that violence would put in better relief the relationship that I would that I might have with the savior because he suffered that for me in the name of love
nope it doesn't speak to me

fact is I didn't get it any better for having watched all of it which isnot to say it's not been on my mind

it didn't work for me as art it didn't work for me as history it doesn't work for me as truth it doesn't work for me as gospel as testament as testimony maybe as a cult movie maybe as one man's vision

as an outsider it keeps me out perhaps just as an insider it keeps me in and I'm not sure where or how the twain shall or can meet I felt manipulated
not moved

pollyanna a person regarded as foolishly and blindly optimistic
mary magdalene sinful woman Jesus healed of evil sprits

I experience them somehow as linked especially now as I think of how I would respondto the man Jesus as he was portrayed during thepassion

transporting myself back through history I know we he and I would grown up in the same kitchens sat at the same passover seders and that we he and I wouldhave been friends talking arguing friends walking the hillsides friends discovering uncovering the secrets friends

and still my refrain would have been not for me you aren't

he's unaccustomed to events unfolding over time an occupational hazard for an in real time problem solver he's unaccustomed to events taking up space over time so accustomed is he to dispatching one crisis to make room for the next one he's unaccustomed to how long or short a minute an hour a day an event unfolding over time may be
I in the meantime have time to go the speed limit and appreciate the minutes not bunching one into another for better and worse

we would call it by different names
we would chalk it up to different experiences

passion from pati: suffer
or passio: passiveness non-activity enduring in either case to suffer to bear to tolerate and I think of viktor frankl and the search for meaning
it is what we make of it we are all accountable

what if ones my relationship with jesus is not predicated on his having died for ones my sins, resurrection not withstanding he rose above it all never giving into hate

&Iwonder if myfather's "you have the perfect right to be wrong"is the secular version of "forgive them father for they know not what they do-

faith
truth
opinion
editorial

inside out
it was not about his suffering his enduring his passion it was a notverywell done revisioning of BlessedAnneCatherineEmmerich's--{(1774-1824) herself a MysticStigmatistVisionary&Prophet}-- meditations, from her work "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ"and speaks to the demons she lived with and sought redemption from, it was glory-fied violence and as such coercion

and couldnot wouldnot be my come to jesus

it is a trick playing on the worst of what religion as it is bought&sold has come to represent and so undermines the teacher's most important messages of acceptance of inclusion of hope&faith nevermind forgiveness

any way you I look at it she mymother she ourmother takes up at theveryleast her own space; she is better behaved and tolerates with greater equanimity that we are all separate nationstates her past attempts at gerrymandering withstanding&withstood and mostnotably she TheGrandMatriarch that she hasbecome is now responsible for her own accounts leaving mine alone, but
just keeping her company is a full time gig any way you look at it even if
that's all that you, I, had in mind

so, doing *lunges* I'd forgotten (how) to put my weight on the forward foot, nowonder I fell
over

he's lost his way one loses their way notdoing their passion there's that damn word again and it dawns on me judi come-lately that I seem to be right now, justas I was forced compelled to embrace the mary magdalene branch I am equally obligated to host pollyanna

and if I need to go back to work, I still donot needto gobackto sfgh

he keeps saying it would be a comfort to believe, I wonder what that means
justlike dvora finally got the conversation that kept taking place around the altar was not so much about my beliefs but hers-

youknow?
the question of course is how to how would I tell the story portray the passion without bludgeoning people the show not tell of poetry of art the irony remains the question remains why is it that the true believers the already came to jesus who already believe he suffered those great agonies to redeem our souls needed to be assailed to get what they already bought got hook line and sinker that is the real mystery

not to mention not getting that torture is torturous and godhelp us still something in the name of thefatherson&holyghost we engage in

bringing old work up to today's snuff those that would stand the test of time but for the ohmygod dilettante narcissism that shrouds them the wavering the dilution of lack of discipline ha of courage of intent but for the time it takes for those proud as punch lines to lose their punch, clever is only that and it's not enough

titles as much of a pain in the ass as bio's
themes family love loves brain tumor change death loss seasons river ocean garden home trees wind
dedicated to paul ofcourse
acknowledgements red river review dakota house journal dickens

greening
back to the beginning to the imagining of why the hell not to our roots to doran him riding the whitewater me walking the beach he was pleased he remembered how knew he hadn't forgotten the minute he got up which he did the first time without struggle me sorry not to be in the water but going it one step at a time happy enough to be walking
the remembering of vitality of pleasure of laughter of life not necessarily being so damned arduous

meantime the sky is February gray no yellows to be found no rain either

nothing is exact; from one vision to the next; a minute gone by; carrying wood up the stairs; waiting to pee; too windy to rain; coming to grips peddler
leaves fall green, bleeding
red yellow
orange

lifelines life lines straight fast hard or not so linebreaks line breaks life line breaks life's line breaks on the line and then it came to me

it's all on the line

the others being just too clever and I'd already had my come to jesus on clever it's cheap and it just ain't enough tried nothing is exact andwell it wasn't quite right *!*

the tug the rhythm the taglines of uncertainty and never a dull roar

the pd photographer came out yesterday well the yesterday before that to take photos for TheMan story in which comcast unilaterally decided to shitcan fm reception in westcounty so they could use the bandwidth for hdtv and view on demand the reporter had asked me if I felt powerless I said hellno I was instead afraid of the shortsightedness of those who came up afterTV

on the otherhand he asked me if I was writer and if I did freelance work ha!

it was the 100word meter

the riffs that are home
ofcourse the classical major&minor thirds but I'm thinking here theblues progressions that no matter what get mymojo working

beyond faith&hope to piss in your eye to the incharge of the attitude thang to onguard for that which is not redeemable not on sale nomatter the bid speaking each man's truth

it's the more bass thing the I'm going to ride till I'm satisfied thing it doesn't matter where I'm going I know where I've been

it's the nomatter what the hell happens it was istime for us him&me to move on
past someone else's bidding

phone caller
"May I speak to Gus?"said the voice on the other end of the phone that I thought could belongto the woman shy a few socialbricks across the street.

"You must have the wrong number,"I said, eventhough we have a cat named Gus.

"No,"she pressed, totallyundaunted asif she hadn't heard me or asif I were being simplyobstreperous or difficult, "I have his collar.-

"Nell,"I said, "Gus is our cat.-

"You recognize my voice?"she asked taken aback. "...sothen, now....who are you?-

"I live straight across from you.-

"Oh! Well I have your collar dear...-