Monday, December 10, 2018
To Redacted:
Because we were never so intimate that I saw strands of your hair on my pillow, I could see in you what the ordinary personals couldn't. My suspicion, though, is that you are the same with everyone, that rare and unaffected being so elevated beyond the norm that nobody can really understand your immunity to the human sorrows: the jealousy, fear, anger of insecurity, that strange desire to have and own another human being where true ownership is unconditional love.
I'll always admire you from afar. Are you sure you're not a rare species of alien meant to inhabit and bring joy, bring benevolent strangeness to the world? I think you might be one of the best things to happen to it.
Your friend always,
Alan
Saturday, October 27, 2018
I start to rise but then I look over at your peaceful sleep. I focus on your resting lashes, how they seem so perfectly in place. I wonder where you are. A childhood home with your mom making spaghetti, or a bicycle ride in Tunisia, or visiting the Louvre trying to figure out the meaning of life through the coy smile of the Mona Lisa? Am I with you?
I wonder. I wonder. I wonder. For all of time, I wonder.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Putting his old stuff up:
A bowie knife in its sheath
A Cattan & Son mechanic's cap
A pair of haggard miner boots
People say sorry and
"My condolences,"
I sputter platitudes
Easy to say
Open your lips and don't think.
Grief is the common language no one understands.
They might be sorry.
And this bowie knife
might have mystical powers
of preservation;
that the hat will keep his smell
on earth a while longer.
And while I handle the details
think of epitaphs
greet old relatives in
dusty, biblical homes:
the real thing goes
missing
A bowie knife in its sheath
A Cattan & Son mechanic's cap
A pair of haggard miner boots
People say sorry and
"My condolences,"
I sputter platitudes
Easy to say
Open your lips and don't think.
Grief is the common language no one understands.
They might be sorry.
And this bowie knife
might have mystical powers
of preservation;
that the hat will keep his smell
on earth a while longer.
And while I handle the details
think of epitaphs
greet old relatives in
dusty, biblical homes:
the real thing goes
missing
Monday, June 20, 2011
There was a rapping of the door and through the twisting of the wooden knob the man came through in his security garb. He was a tall and dark man and he was handsome in the way that 70s cops were handsome. He wore his jet black hair parted at the center and he sported a black moustache that was thick and that few men could grow.
His wife was waiting for him in the hallway when he came. He looked at her and she at him and she smiled. The man moved into the bedroom and took off his belt and the holster that adorned it and the black gun with its square barrel. He hung it in the rack on the closet.
She followed him into the bedroom. The bed was neatly tucked-in and near a tierwood bedstand and there was a doorway inside the bedroom which led to a white closet heaped in a whirlwind of dirty clothes. Next to the bedstand was a French window draped with maroon curtains. Everything else was immaculate and the Samsung TV screen was showing an episode of Andy Griffith.
"How was your day?" she asked.
"The same as always."
"Did anything happen there tonight?"
"This woman. This crazy woman. She came in naked. We tried to give her scrubs but she wouldn't take them. Said she wouldn't put clothes on at all."
"My god. What did you do?"
"I had to drag her out and call the police. It took two hours dealing with her."
"My god."
The man sat on the bed and unbuttoned the blue security shirt and took it off and then undid his shoes and took off his socks. He looked at his wife.
"Why did you stay up so late anyway?" he asked.
"I wanted to see you. I feel like I don't get to see you anymore. You get back so late."
"Well, it's work."
"I know," she said.
"I feel like I get home and then I have to defend myself."
"You don't," she said.
The man nodded and glanced at the screen and then back at his clothes. He lay on the bed in his undershirt and felt at the bedstand for his cigarettes and lighter and he sparked the lighter to light the cigarette and then he took his ashtray in his left hand and held it steady.
His wife slid into the bed next to him and put an arm around him. He stayed where he was and watched the television screen. Barney was going on about how Otis had gotten out of jail again.
"The principal called and said John isn't doing his work," she said.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Yeah. I don't know what to do."
"Do you want me to talk to him?"
"No, I can deal with it."
"I was thinking about a psychologist for him," she said.
"What the hell does he need a shrink for?"
"I don't know. You know we've had problems lately. I was just thinking it might be affecting his school."
"Where is he?"
"In his room."
"John doesn't need a shrink," he said.
"I called your work tonight," she said. "I called Mark and tried to get ahold of you and he said you were out."
"What'd you call my work for?" he said.
"I just wanted to talk with you."
"I told you I was busy tonight."
There was a pause. Andy Griffith was solving the missing Otis problem now and the rest of the room was dark except for the cherry glow of the cigarette.
"Were you with Sean Con?" she asked.
"I fucking told you I wasn't. I fucking told you that."
"You have Lortab eyes," she said. "I can tell you have them."
"You're delusional, Lynn. You're fucking delusional."
"Get the fuck out of here."
His eyes took over with hellfire fury and he reeled back to hit her and then stopped. His lips curled into a dog sneer to show the crooked teeth below his moustache.
"I'm not bothering anymore. I'm done. I'm done with your bitch ass and I'm not coming back here again."
"Good, you fucking cheater. I talked to Joy today. She told me everything."
"Joy is a fucking liar. You think she didn't want to fuck me too?"
"All my friends are liars right? Nobody's telling me the truth? I recorded you. I wanted to see how long you would lie to my face, Sheldon."
Her voice broke like brakes and into a hollow shell of what it was and fell into sinewy panic.
"You're a liar. Just like your family. Just like your mother," she said.
He stood up. His face was red and he stormed for the rack and when he turned around there was a flash of gunmetal reflected in the TV screen and she screamed a scream that echoed off the ivory walls.
John came running into the doorway. They both looked at him and tears fell off his face like rainforest leaves and in his hands there were torn papertowels and fingernail markings on the backs of his hands that bled deep and gushed as if from an old well.
The man turned to look at John and his face contorted into something deep and he turned and left the room in a fleeting storm. The door slammed and echoed again from the narrow hallway and they heard the truck pull off and the the wheels scream as they fled the house in a hurricane hurry.
John looked at his mother. She was crying too and looking off in the distance and she went to the window to watch him leave.
"This is never going to stop," John said. He draped a stubborn hand across his cheek to bumrush the fleeting tears that fell like shooting stars onto the maroon carpet that matched the draped curtains.
"I love him," she said.
"I wish you would get a divorce," John said.
"You don't have to go to school today," she said.
His wife was waiting for him in the hallway when he came. He looked at her and she at him and she smiled. The man moved into the bedroom and took off his belt and the holster that adorned it and the black gun with its square barrel. He hung it in the rack on the closet.
She followed him into the bedroom. The bed was neatly tucked-in and near a tierwood bedstand and there was a doorway inside the bedroom which led to a white closet heaped in a whirlwind of dirty clothes. Next to the bedstand was a French window draped with maroon curtains. Everything else was immaculate and the Samsung TV screen was showing an episode of Andy Griffith.
"How was your day?" she asked.
"The same as always."
"Did anything happen there tonight?"
"This woman. This crazy woman. She came in naked. We tried to give her scrubs but she wouldn't take them. Said she wouldn't put clothes on at all."
"My god. What did you do?"
"I had to drag her out and call the police. It took two hours dealing with her."
"My god."
The man sat on the bed and unbuttoned the blue security shirt and took it off and then undid his shoes and took off his socks. He looked at his wife.
"Why did you stay up so late anyway?" he asked.
"I wanted to see you. I feel like I don't get to see you anymore. You get back so late."
"Well, it's work."
"I know," she said.
"I feel like I get home and then I have to defend myself."
"You don't," she said.
The man nodded and glanced at the screen and then back at his clothes. He lay on the bed in his undershirt and felt at the bedstand for his cigarettes and lighter and he sparked the lighter to light the cigarette and then he took his ashtray in his left hand and held it steady.
His wife slid into the bed next to him and put an arm around him. He stayed where he was and watched the television screen. Barney was going on about how Otis had gotten out of jail again.
"The principal called and said John isn't doing his work," she said.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Yeah. I don't know what to do."
"Do you want me to talk to him?"
"No, I can deal with it."
"I was thinking about a psychologist for him," she said.
"What the hell does he need a shrink for?"
"I don't know. You know we've had problems lately. I was just thinking it might be affecting his school."
"Where is he?"
"In his room."
"John doesn't need a shrink," he said.
"I called your work tonight," she said. "I called Mark and tried to get ahold of you and he said you were out."
"What'd you call my work for?" he said.
"I just wanted to talk with you."
"I told you I was busy tonight."
There was a pause. Andy Griffith was solving the missing Otis problem now and the rest of the room was dark except for the cherry glow of the cigarette.
"Were you with Sean Con?" she asked.
"I fucking told you I wasn't. I fucking told you that."
"You have Lortab eyes," she said. "I can tell you have them."
"You're delusional, Lynn. You're fucking delusional."
"Get the fuck out of here."
His eyes took over with hellfire fury and he reeled back to hit her and then stopped. His lips curled into a dog sneer to show the crooked teeth below his moustache.
"I'm not bothering anymore. I'm done. I'm done with your bitch ass and I'm not coming back here again."
"Good, you fucking cheater. I talked to Joy today. She told me everything."
"Joy is a fucking liar. You think she didn't want to fuck me too?"
"All my friends are liars right? Nobody's telling me the truth? I recorded you. I wanted to see how long you would lie to my face, Sheldon."
Her voice broke like brakes and into a hollow shell of what it was and fell into sinewy panic.
"You're a liar. Just like your family. Just like your mother," she said.
He stood up. His face was red and he stormed for the rack and when he turned around there was a flash of gunmetal reflected in the TV screen and she screamed a scream that echoed off the ivory walls.
John came running into the doorway. They both looked at him and tears fell off his face like rainforest leaves and in his hands there were torn papertowels and fingernail markings on the backs of his hands that bled deep and gushed as if from an old well.
The man turned to look at John and his face contorted into something deep and he turned and left the room in a fleeting storm. The door slammed and echoed again from the narrow hallway and they heard the truck pull off and the the wheels scream as they fled the house in a hurricane hurry.
John looked at his mother. She was crying too and looking off in the distance and she went to the window to watch him leave.
"This is never going to stop," John said. He draped a stubborn hand across his cheek to bumrush the fleeting tears that fell like shooting stars onto the maroon carpet that matched the draped curtains.
"I love him," she said.
"I wish you would get a divorce," John said.
"You don't have to go to school today," she said.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Nashville Airport
The trip starts in a line as most good trips do. There's a Canadian girl with her flag engraved on her ankle and she's drinking a Gatorade bottle liquored with Jack Daniels whiskey and her face is scrunched up in the sun like she ate a grapefruit. We'd see a lot of Canadians. It all culminated with one brave Canuck zealously hoisting the flag infront of crooning Julian Casablancas.
We're standing in line with the rest of the sheep but we're happy Bonnaroo sheep, and the sun isn't so bad yet and things are looking up in the way that things do when things are full of a great black hole of experiences yet unmet.
We all get onto the bus trafficked by a bald guy who looks like this music fest shit has had its way with him. He also looks the bald DJ from the Strokes video but I can't remember which DJ or which Strokes video it was. The trip is a short wait. Only two people go to the bathroom to pee.
Nashville, TN
There are two Californian guys right behind us.
Californian Guy #1: If I were in that camping ground, I'd go and steal some of that corn and like, live off it.
Californian Guy #2: Me too.
Californian Guy #1: What's that place called?
Californian Guy #2: Mudfuck Egypt.
When we step off the bus we promptly get our luggage and realize that we're all sinners and we're in the Devil's skillet. It peaked at 100. We also had to walk about a mile with over 80 pounds of luggage. I felt like opening a can of Spinach like Popeye after that.
It wasn't until an hour later in Hell that we got the tent pitched and that was the first of many times I'd get sunburned and look like a polar bear punched me in the head.
Assorted Experiences:
Someone asked me if I wanted rolls. Rolls? Ecstasy man.
A drug dealer sells acid right next to me. You want to be like Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock where he put the strips underneath his headband and let the sun melt. It's also 98 degrees and you don't want to be found in a ditch somewhere because you saw Harrison Ford descend on a cloud with a wreath around his neck.
The pot is palpable. Hard to discern if Bonnaroo is a dusty exodus for hippies or if it's one immersive clambake.
Saw a Gypsy hiphop guy named Jovanotti who ran around singing in half-English and incorporating Bonnaroo into every lyric.
Also saw Loretta Lynn, the Strokes, Cold War Kids, and Gogol Bordello. Gogol Bordello was the best because Eugene Hutz is like this godly phenonomon. It's like if Cocaine got Red Bull pregnant and the baby went to Gypsy Country to learn guitar.
Woken up at 3 AM by the angry heathens that are prostrate before Eminem. Also hear Rihanna and two guys talking outside.
"Shit dude, Rihanna's here?!"
"No it's just the recording."
Saturday was the best day because of the Gypsy music curated by Eugene. Gogol Bordello ranks up there with the best live acts. I also felt honored to be able to see Loretta, probably will never happen again.
During the Loretta set:
Loretta Lynn: Well ya'll I was hoping I'd run into Jack White out here but he's left me high and dry. And I know it too cause if he was here he'd be hogging the stage. He'd say "Let me have it Loretta." Desiree is beside me laughing because she always says Jack White is an attention whore, and the 80 year-old country lady gets it too.
Later at the Cinema Tent a random guy will walk up to me because of my shirt. [it's a White Stripes shirt]
The Guy: I've only told this to one other person but I cried after that Loretta set man. How could Jack leave her high and dry?
Me: I don't know. I saw him backstage at the Karen Elson set. She played Lou Reed.
When we get home from the airport we read that Jack White was busy having a divorce the next day.
Final Thoughts:
Bonnaroo feels like a rite of passage. The best time I had was in the Cinema tent watching Harold & Maude. The Cinema tent was a place of magic for me. They even played Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen, and one can't argue with that.
I loved and hated this thing. I also got to see a bellydancing class and do yoga and all kinds of weird shit, and it's an incendiary experience. Both because of the people and because of how hot it is.
I think I enjoyed it, but that might be because I'm now indoors in air-conditioning not being woken up by rabid Eminem fans and feeling like the Sun toked up right next to me.
It's also fun being in a place where selling acid and X is as consistent as buying a frozen Mocchacino.
The trip starts in a line as most good trips do. There's a Canadian girl with her flag engraved on her ankle and she's drinking a Gatorade bottle liquored with Jack Daniels whiskey and her face is scrunched up in the sun like she ate a grapefruit. We'd see a lot of Canadians. It all culminated with one brave Canuck zealously hoisting the flag infront of crooning Julian Casablancas.
We're standing in line with the rest of the sheep but we're happy Bonnaroo sheep, and the sun isn't so bad yet and things are looking up in the way that things do when things are full of a great black hole of experiences yet unmet.
We all get onto the bus trafficked by a bald guy who looks like this music fest shit has had its way with him. He also looks the bald DJ from the Strokes video but I can't remember which DJ or which Strokes video it was. The trip is a short wait. Only two people go to the bathroom to pee.
Nashville, TN
There are two Californian guys right behind us.
Californian Guy #1: If I were in that camping ground, I'd go and steal some of that corn and like, live off it.
Californian Guy #2: Me too.
Californian Guy #1: What's that place called?
Californian Guy #2: Mudfuck Egypt.
When we step off the bus we promptly get our luggage and realize that we're all sinners and we're in the Devil's skillet. It peaked at 100. We also had to walk about a mile with over 80 pounds of luggage. I felt like opening a can of Spinach like Popeye after that.
It wasn't until an hour later in Hell that we got the tent pitched and that was the first of many times I'd get sunburned and look like a polar bear punched me in the head.
Assorted Experiences:
Someone asked me if I wanted rolls. Rolls? Ecstasy man.
A drug dealer sells acid right next to me. You want to be like Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock where he put the strips underneath his headband and let the sun melt. It's also 98 degrees and you don't want to be found in a ditch somewhere because you saw Harrison Ford descend on a cloud with a wreath around his neck.
The pot is palpable. Hard to discern if Bonnaroo is a dusty exodus for hippies or if it's one immersive clambake.
Saw a Gypsy hiphop guy named Jovanotti who ran around singing in half-English and incorporating Bonnaroo into every lyric.
Also saw Loretta Lynn, the Strokes, Cold War Kids, and Gogol Bordello. Gogol Bordello was the best because Eugene Hutz is like this godly phenonomon. It's like if Cocaine got Red Bull pregnant and the baby went to Gypsy Country to learn guitar.
Woken up at 3 AM by the angry heathens that are prostrate before Eminem. Also hear Rihanna and two guys talking outside.
"Shit dude, Rihanna's here?!"
"No it's just the recording."
Saturday was the best day because of the Gypsy music curated by Eugene. Gogol Bordello ranks up there with the best live acts. I also felt honored to be able to see Loretta, probably will never happen again.
During the Loretta set:
Loretta Lynn: Well ya'll I was hoping I'd run into Jack White out here but he's left me high and dry. And I know it too cause if he was here he'd be hogging the stage. He'd say "Let me have it Loretta." Desiree is beside me laughing because she always says Jack White is an attention whore, and the 80 year-old country lady gets it too.
Later at the Cinema Tent a random guy will walk up to me because of my shirt. [it's a White Stripes shirt]
The Guy: I've only told this to one other person but I cried after that Loretta set man. How could Jack leave her high and dry?
Me: I don't know. I saw him backstage at the Karen Elson set. She played Lou Reed.
When we get home from the airport we read that Jack White was busy having a divorce the next day.
Final Thoughts:
Bonnaroo feels like a rite of passage. The best time I had was in the Cinema tent watching Harold & Maude. The Cinema tent was a place of magic for me. They even played Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen, and one can't argue with that.
I loved and hated this thing. I also got to see a bellydancing class and do yoga and all kinds of weird shit, and it's an incendiary experience. Both because of the people and because of how hot it is.
I think I enjoyed it, but that might be because I'm now indoors in air-conditioning not being woken up by rabid Eminem fans and feeling like the Sun toked up right next to me.
It's also fun being in a place where selling acid and X is as consistent as buying a frozen Mocchacino.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
He passed through the bucolic garden which was ripe with tomatoes and corn and other emigres of fruit and vegetable life. He entered the home that had once been his and looked around and saw nothing save for the ivory wainscoting against the wall and the flaring rebellion of the early sunlight which heated the room.
He turned with leather book in his muscular farmer hands and he tried the gardens. Routinely pacing through the cornpatches which hung over him like gargoyle guardians of the wildlife within. But he heard something.
It was near inaudible and there was the bare trail of a high-pitched scream that had echoed off into the woods like a flower's murmur. He didn't know how he heard it. He tried to suss out the direction of the cries which soared into the woodland mercilessly and without cease. Someone sounds like they're in pain, he thought, hesitantly.
He knew as he walked he was in the right of it. The sounds which had once been scarce echoes. Ghost whispers. They grew in his hearing like faerie warnings now and then gradually into human voices he recognized. He bit his lip hard and a frosty shiver wracked his pale body. It's a woman's voice..
When he got there lurid shock throbbed his head. He ignored everything save the man sprawled.
"Father?!" he asked. "FATHER?!"
His father's face came up from the hollow and fogged ground and he glared at Maerdantis with some alien vengeance on his face. The big man's cheeks flushed like a rose and he pictured the belt in his mind. His father rose with nothing but his anger and started to move with menacing intent. He felt all the fury in the world emanate from his father like a hot furnace.
The man would kill him. If he got to him the man would wring his neck and break it like he had broken his livestock for the years endless.
"Step back, father," he said, warningly. "Step back, or I will kill you."
The man laughed. It sounded off into the forest cold and barren. But the man stopped. He stopped and watched Maerdantis with the anger sizzling like fried eggs. "Boy," he said, with a pause. "You couldn't do anything to me if you tried."
And then he felt his own boiling anger which rose like some tidal wave willed by the Gods.
"Burn in Hell," he said.
His fingers outstretched and he closed his eyes. He said the words in a low chant, the words which had been taught him by his instructors and which had been ingrained in his mind as if he'd been born with it in its primordial origin. He opened his eyes as the spell was cast. The man was still after him when it happened.
Fire rose like Fatale himself manifested from his hands and shaking in a bubbling tornado of flame at the big man who approached and looked shocked and then looked nothing. The flames sought the man like a lost babe to his mother and surrounded him like the kiss of death and he felt his father's scream pierce the winds. The big man tumbled side to side and started to roll on the ground and then he ceased rolling altogether.
"I hope you rot," he said and spat on the man's corpse and turned and left the home that had once been his and which never would be again.
He turned with leather book in his muscular farmer hands and he tried the gardens. Routinely pacing through the cornpatches which hung over him like gargoyle guardians of the wildlife within. But he heard something.
It was near inaudible and there was the bare trail of a high-pitched scream that had echoed off into the woods like a flower's murmur. He didn't know how he heard it. He tried to suss out the direction of the cries which soared into the woodland mercilessly and without cease. Someone sounds like they're in pain, he thought, hesitantly.
He knew as he walked he was in the right of it. The sounds which had once been scarce echoes. Ghost whispers. They grew in his hearing like faerie warnings now and then gradually into human voices he recognized. He bit his lip hard and a frosty shiver wracked his pale body. It's a woman's voice..
When he got there lurid shock throbbed his head. He ignored everything save the man sprawled.
"Father?!" he asked. "FATHER?!"
His father's face came up from the hollow and fogged ground and he glared at Maerdantis with some alien vengeance on his face. The big man's cheeks flushed like a rose and he pictured the belt in his mind. His father rose with nothing but his anger and started to move with menacing intent. He felt all the fury in the world emanate from his father like a hot furnace.
The man would kill him. If he got to him the man would wring his neck and break it like he had broken his livestock for the years endless.
"Step back, father," he said, warningly. "Step back, or I will kill you."
The man laughed. It sounded off into the forest cold and barren. But the man stopped. He stopped and watched Maerdantis with the anger sizzling like fried eggs. "Boy," he said, with a pause. "You couldn't do anything to me if you tried."
And then he felt his own boiling anger which rose like some tidal wave willed by the Gods.
"Burn in Hell," he said.
His fingers outstretched and he closed his eyes. He said the words in a low chant, the words which had been taught him by his instructors and which had been ingrained in his mind as if he'd been born with it in its primordial origin. He opened his eyes as the spell was cast. The man was still after him when it happened.
Fire rose like Fatale himself manifested from his hands and shaking in a bubbling tornado of flame at the big man who approached and looked shocked and then looked nothing. The flames sought the man like a lost babe to his mother and surrounded him like the kiss of death and he felt his father's scream pierce the winds. The big man tumbled side to side and started to roll on the ground and then he ceased rolling altogether.
"I hope you rot," he said and spat on the man's corpse and turned and left the home that had once been his and which never would be again.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
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