Friday, December 26, 2014

Sketches - 51 (November 15th, 2014)

51.

Mozart is an artful composer -
     he pulls you into a vortex
     of the way things ‘should be’
     but will always fall short
     of the expression pressed
     into the event.

The vision is overwhelming.
For some mysterious reason
I remember playing with toy rockets
and seeing velvet clown face paintings
on black nightmare backgrounds
as a child raised on the abysmal
flat-drat plains.

Mozart chimes away
the dry sandpaper hours
of a fever dream, melodies
knocking around the inside
of your skull in musical telepathy.

(November 15th, 2014)

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Saturday, December 6, 2014

Sketches - 50 (November 15th, 2014)

50.

Winter day long breath of
pure cold gusting here on an artic
front from some furthest coldest
heart of complete unknown.

It has our traffic in stitches
and our fevers up high,
translucent blank panelled
passing of minutes - idea begun
and flitting away as forgotten as a
nondescript bit of ash.
Dog Dali - comes in, goes out,
comes in again, the whole
tender routine of our
family dog.

Eyes droop down at my slippered
                     feet.
Yes.  Like Lou Reed, I could
sleep for a thousand years.
Or should’ve been born
a long time ago with sailor’s
suit and cap.

In the kitchen with
           Sibelius - great grand
           quiet patient
           dark withering
           quivering soul
           like tiny brown
           leaves trembling
           in this Artic
                    front.

When someone like Christopher
Smart had a fever, you can bet
            yer ass
that he saw and experienced
           THE WHOLE THING,
and then forgot it again.

The blade will strike when it
                 strikes.
Pit-n-Pendulum logics.
Big watery yellow eye.
Eternal sickly KALUMP
of heartbeat in the most
granulated evil whiskey
drunk EVER.

Outside there are monsters
and dreams waiting to be born when
the machine is turned
                        off -

it’s inevitable.

(November 15th, 2014)
_________

Friday, December 5, 2014

Skteches - 49 (November 12th, 2014)

49.

‘First thing you learn is that you always got to wait.’ - Lou Reed / The Velvet Underground - I’m Waitin’ For My Man

Waiting for the Alegent Care
Doc-assist at grocery store
               HI VEE
to check in and make sure
that I’m well enough to
work a CNA shift after
being sick with flu this
last weekend.  And while
the quick wall-in-your-face
hot cough is gone, very
few sneezes left over the
course of an ordinary day,
and while there is nothing
about me that is contagious
(save the urgent need to
          express)
I still require a doctor’s note
before going into work a half
         hour from now.

In the overactive flu
season that has taken Omaha
town, I thought I could easily
slip back into work without
the AGENCY imploring for
the doc visit and note I will
need to show the AGENCY
enabling me to work a simple no
nonsense shift for a fully
functioning 93 year old man
with a heart condition yet
hardly needs assistance
with the majority of his
         ADL’s
and now I sit here in this
tiny waiting room along
side the doc-assists
tiny office / sick room
just to make sure I cover
the AGENCY’S ass
      at my
      expense,
all the while ignoring (as best I can) the
dull heartburn pop-radio
interrupted occasionally by
young people on crackley
intercoms demanding so and so
get to when and where -

out the door of the waiting room,
100’s of tubes of various tooth
                  pastes
and cluttered top shelf
of tooth brushes stick up like countless
map flags on a strategic war map -

I sit here, waiting - time keeps
               ticking tocking
               and this whole
               bothersome waste-o-time

is certain to make me late for my shift.

I’ve yet to meet or know anyone
who gives a good god damn
as I take the fictional doctor’s note
to the fictional AGENCY
so reality won’t bite them in
the bureaucratic ASS.

Wait - hurry up - wait
hurry up - wait - hurry
up - wait -
          after all, slavery has
          many forms
          and the night
          is still
                YOUNG.

(November 12th, 2014)
_________

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Sketches - 48 (November 7th, 2014)

48.

Baby fever - whole days
of coughing sickness.

Jesse sips cool water
out of a sippy cup/bottle
bleary eyed, all the usual
baby movements droned
into a ponderous red slow
down, and cold/cool wind
gusts outside, creaks
at the windows and whistles
like fall fevered ghosts.  

Reminds me of being a
boy in the small town
library as cold weather fronts
came tumbling gusting over
the town.
.
I would check out Tom Swift
books, sometimes Hardy Boys -
              rarely ever finished reading  
              the books I checked out.

I was more interested in the radio
and riding bikes through alley
ways and cutting over people's
manicured lawns on my giant
purple fendered bicycle I
inherited from my dad - an
adult bike from the 60’s with
white wall tires - was a hell of
an eyesore but the best bike
I ever owned.

I’m 44 years old now - spitting
tobacco into an empty yogurt
container while actually both
fever boys sweat it out in
their bedroom across the hall.

Jesse’s tight cough and
Lowen complaining to go
downstairs.  Jesse tries
to make a speech ‘Ah gwah,
aah ah cootah, quah ma
da, ah , awwwwww’ (sip, sip)

Lowen is more direct -
      ‘I see a butterfly!’
      he yells delightedly,
      all eye-ears-enthusiasm.

Huge wind outside, window
creaks and giant engine
snarl flat bed weight
KAWAP-a-WUMP and tinkly
chain friction as a truck
passes by out on east
Cuming street north of
our ramshackle house.

Our mailbox out there too,
occasionally
stuffed with bills
and other bits and flaps
of semi-laminated junk.

Ash kisses on Jesse and
attempts a conversation
as he takes his tiny hand
(fever-hand and hot armpits)
says ‘mom’ as he touches
            her lips.   

Everyone’s sick today
         except me - sort of
         dodging the bullet through
         some miracle or other.

That is, until it taps me
on the shoulder and I too
will wake up with that tight
dry nowhere-cough feeling
        like a dog burning
        in hell.

(November 7th, 2014)

______________

Friday, November 21, 2014

Sketches - 47 (November 6th, 2014)

47.

‘God damn it Charlie’
my wife says quietly -
Charlie’s our over sized
house cat who nibbles
at some of the plants
in our bedroom.  Apparently
a plant at the east
window has been nibbled
down to little ripped  
weathered flags across a rigid
           pulpy stem.

Zoey plays with an art
game on the computer
sitting on our minuscule
medium sized bed,
and later on, my heavenly repose
onto that same bed when
sleep hits me, can’t keep
my weary head from the
pillow, initial sighs into
the bliss - flash REM state,
down into peaceful
           tranquil quiet dark.

Izzy (almost ‘5’ she proudly says)
watches Zoey play
on the computer, creates
mountainous rainbow triangles,
       impresses the hell
       out of Izzy.
‘After you show me you can let
              me try it.’ Izzy says.
There’s a poignant hopeful tone in
her direct mini-sentences,
               Izzy gets down to
               business.
‘Uh, blue, and purple, and I
          think some red will be
          good.’  She plaintively
          requests Zoey to show
          her.

Today my wife called in
sick from work and the
boys have been hacking
and coughing, sometimes
puking, their breath and
sweat imbued with that
warped thin metallic tang
of sickness indicative of
red-cheeked roaring high
fever.  It casts swollen
eyed spells, long stares into
space hardly normal activity for
a 20 month or a three year old boy.  

They've been sick all week.

Ash calls Mother India
after I gave the two toddler
boys a hell of a shower/bath
scrubble bubble glub, all
the honey soap and shower
steam - gets rid of that
sick smell, and now I’m almost gone
to pick up my wife’s order from
Mother India on Leavenworth, soup,
flat bread and the car radio/CD
player await albeit in the
single headlight Chevy Cobalt -
I’ll need to drive with care.

(November 6th, 2014)
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