Sketches - 14 (August 21rst, 2014)

14.

hot humid

muddy

spack-blat

of swamp-like

degrees and

mud muck

sensitivity

   in the air

       itself.

(August 21rst, 2014)

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Sketches - 13 (August 21rst, 2014)

13.

And outside at midnight thunder

gorgeous rolling distant thunder

follows the hard rain threatening

certain weak spots in ceiling crack

water drip.

The musty smell of rain water

after being filtered through

the crips and million-fold

crannies of an old house

has a musk to it indicative

of actions long since past,

          smells like experience,

          hard haunted come-again

                  experience,

and a passing minor storm at

               that,

silence following the front

as opposed to sirens and general

natural disaster chaos noises.

(August 21rst, 2014)

Sketches - 12 (August 20th, 2014)

12.

Sometimes a murk-glurk

darkness weighs down the

ordinary minutes of

accumulated days -

where as depression is

a state where nothing holds any

         meaning whatsoever

this is more of a dull edged

         anxiety.

One of millions of fish

in a vast swirl-ocean

heaving and gasping tearing

away at the shore an inch

every 50 years or 100 years

                  or so.

This slow dull dread feeling

comes as a result of putting

things off, simple things that add

up or one solid THING that

          takes over…

and the truth of accumulated

years is that if I face it head on

I am able to suppress it

having gone through it before

many times...therefore able

to change the way I react.

I watch everyone working

or more or less getting by with

exactly the same low level

certainty of anxiety - yet I have

no desire to be like everyone

               else.

Be that as it may, vacuous grocery store fronts

no longer have the old power

of bringing me down to the helplessness

        of a bug on its back, legs

        thrust up in panic twiddle

        at the humidity and dark

        sky dread.

(August 20th, 2014)

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Sketches - 11 (August 17th, 2014)

11.

Child is up at 1 AM wandering

hobbling over the carpeted living

room floor, laundry spins

in the other room - preparations

for Monday - somehow get the

week started right.

          Pop the bone into its

                 socket,

grease the tired wheels.

I can barely keep my eyes open.

Soft cumulus puff comfort bath

and all that darkness out the bathroom

                    window.

Clean blankets to steal the chill off

Ash’s trembling shoulders as she’s

come down with a brain scrape

                      fever.

My son Jesse keeps making a

bee-line for the aloe-vera plants

those long thick pulpy appendages

with cacti-like needles at the edges

enough for a learned child to be

                   wary.

Nevertheless - my son charges over

there and he’s starting to wine,

grows tired, walks back and forth,

back and forth, and one of his toys

(the play toilet) in the other room goes off suspiciously,

                      probably needs batteries.

                      Perhaps some ghost kid

                      took a shit in there just

                      now.

Freakish sad things are toys when

left unplayed, still-life, untouched,

Nutcracker suite logics.  Toy soldier

marching in holly-ivy delirium some

white out Christmas, dull bone

haze of cold outside, sweltering  

fires roar within.

My son has got to be ready for bed soon.

Still, I need absolute proof of it.

I don’t think I recall my 18th month

albeit had to be similar to

Jesse’s at least I hope so with

all the rumbling tumbling around he

               does.

Outside this ramshackle house’s

picture window is Cuming Street

traffic flashing and roaring past.

And beyond that, large swathes

of prairie and geometric farm fields

like puzzles fitting together snugly

yet hardly a small town to save

anyone’s ass from wandering around

for hours through roll along hills until

your face feels chapped with

road dust, wind and sunlight -

skin as stiff as a pastor’s starched white

                               shirt.

(August 17th, 2014)

- - - - - - - -

Sketches - 10 (August 17th, 2014)

10.

I keep seeing shapes of people

where there are none.

The shapes flit around peripherally -

       I glance in that

       direction and the form

       is gone

and I consider - - -

       what’s real and unreal.

Flitting carousing figure past the backyard window

and a strange deja vu grips

whatever in me is sensitive

to such things - meanwhile,

          ‘I’m a rattle snakin’

                       daddy’

           sayeth the blues man.

He sings it like silk in some plain nondescript room.

I imagine the wallpaper is crimped, bubbled,

and trembles slightly in an open-door breeze.

Folks, music-folks are gathering

at the Sunday ramshackle house.

Dark alley entrance huffing cars

and oblique flavor of my pipe

ash ploofing into mouth and spit

it out by the back load-in door.

It makes us weep and moan,

‘ain’t nothing but a hound dog

             sniffin’ sniffin’

               at the door’

(August 17th, 2014)

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Sketches - 9 (August 17th, 2014)

9.

Sunday grey day Sabbath and

snarl engine car start

for cranberry juice

        and donuts.

As I make the early morning jaunt and forget

            myself -

on the run for donuts, approx a dozen

or so (er so)

thinking about varieties of

power struggles, meek bird chirp

message on arrival to Pettit’s

Donuts on 16th street off the dim

shoulder of downtown Omaha

across the street from Sol’s Pawn

               disco/rap/hip-hop thump-bump

               from some unseen passerby

               junk car vehicle mayhaps

               closer to the pawn shop across

               the street.

And it occurs to me as I hear the wiry

early morning bird sing-song whip blurt

that the only answer is to be active at all

                             times.

(August 17th, 2014)

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Sketches - 8 (August 16th, 2014)

8.

Night overhead

           cozified night and

           recording will commence

just as soon as I dive out to

the splintered spider infested

guts of our ancient moldy

smelling garage to retrieve

my amp out of the trunk

of Ashley’s 04 Dodge.

Night overhead

cozified night of

warmth and laughter, actions

taken over time to make

it all the more marvelous,

songs sung, whole family

dinners taken in, the

growth of our children

and various house changes

as everything changes and

partners in crime pass

through with melodies

and uproarious evening

fall down as the summer

changes over to the

tint of fall gloom mists

in early morning upheaval.

(August 16th, 2014)

- - - - - - - - - -

Sketches - 7 (August 15th, 2014)

7.

Clouded over skies, lush explosion of

trees on the other side of the

country club’s thick tinted glass.

Old folks sitting at the bar, talk neutral toned

quiet voices rattle of air vents

from the ceiling and the funny

undefinable smell of a far

off kitchen and a building’s age.

A kind of rotting smell.

Laurel leaf carpet design

employees with plastic trays

to carry leftovers.  All mirrors

and pictures, paintings or

framed photos are spotless.

Wilderness of wealthy and

begin to nod off at it, can’t keep

my head up.

Country clubs are always depressing.

I cannot help from wondering why all this

costs so much.  And what is here to be

valued really?  Oceans of the world heave

and groan, the earth cracks and swallows

the living, when you die, you go to

                    God-knows-where

and the best we as humans can do

is construct a country club to

rub in class distinction as

far as it will go?

This is not a natural disaster -

         this is human failure

         and frailty.

Tonight I’ll be in some rot gut bar

watching and tweaking my wife’s band

as already there are troubles with the line up

and troubles with various sets

because everyone goes every which

way and this is why music is a business

           of relationships.  Its the only

thing that can possibly hold it together

and therefore is mafioso when it works.

And it rarely works if ever.

A man I know whose mother

is a resident in a nursing home I

work at says hello to me

and says he’s a member of the club.

He has a golf tan.  His mother

was one of my favorite residents,

a woman with a heart of gold

raising her kids in the north central

Nebraska area from a small town

surrounded by snaky networks

of Loup and off-shoot of Platte rivers.

Women walk past - kerflop of platform

shoes whisping by knob-limbed doe-eyed,

plastic surgery startled, all muffled

here, all quiet for the love of God

     KEEP IT QUIET!

And approximately ten hours from now

we’ll be roaring sounds over puke

stained cigarette butt scarred

side walks of Benson just to see if

it STICKS.

(August 15th, 2014)

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