Sketches - 39 (October 21rst, 2014)

39.

Not a breeze to stir

the autumn leaves.

Like altars and

communion tables -

           scarcely used, holy,

           yet completely motionless.

(October 21rst, 2014)

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Sketches - 38 (October 14th, 2014)

38.

The bark of an old tree

is a hard ragged layer of skin,

a haunted epidermis

      that houses multitudes

      of creeping seemingly

      pointless insects.

The older I get, the less I 

require a reason

              for things.

Desire itself has no

epidermis to speak of

and houses nothing yet

remains the same as it

ever was in that the

long expected goal is

never exactly what

       was expected.

(October 14th, 2014)

___________

Sketches - 37 (October 14th, 2014)

37.

Wind pushes at the walls and

eves of the old timed home

in Omaha’s west side neighborhood

where I work.  

I do home care - take blood

pressures, document weight

fluctuations and when or  

whatever comes knocking, do

everything in my power to

make the client I have

as comfortable as possible.

When the wind blows it tosses

the trees around and their

shadows strobe and flit-filter

the sunlight onto the floor

of the room.  My client has

outlived his friends, outlived

the idea of what everyone

thought America should be -

          outlived the depression,

          the wars and all the

          stale prosperous years.

and yet for all that is one

of the happiest grittiest

souls I've ever known.

I sense the drought coming -

          not too far off now

and the weight of all those

memories of that abysmal drive

pushing on purposeless

between Denver/Omaha, feeling

its shadow coming in

from the western expanse of

deserts and odd shaped zig

zag coast lines.  Its started its

attack and wages its sentences

in that twisting lower lurch

certainty that there’s really

nothing out there and being

startled when that nothing knocks at the

             freshly painted door

             as tacky and gloom-new

             as time itself.

(October 14th, 2014)

_____________

Sketches - 36 (October 14th, 2014)

36.

Around 8 PM the sun

is completely gone.

Full literal toss about

             fall season.

Old scratchy blues recording

as ancient as

any Egyptian hieroglyph.

Does time matter?

A thousand years or

a hundred years ago -

none of us were racing

through the scarcely

paved roads or

cobbled/dirt sewage

streets anyway.

Homemade runzas are

baking in the oven - thinking

of the gold spectacles of

Kafka’s Amerika, the

intrapersonals, age of industry

teaching new instincts, new

pass times, the passing

bureaucracy of conversations

scarcely recorded

and just how much of

it goes down that

proverbial drain completely

            lost.

No light in a grave or when the

          sun passes down

          in the west -

          night encloses us,

          everything folds

                      over.

(October 14th, 2014)

________________

Sketches - 35 (October 5th, 2014)

35.

Two AM in the dark morning

and once out back for

a smoke of my pipe,

heard the not-too-distant

yell of some lunatic

wreaking drunken

rage dry mouthed

havoc across the backstreets

of midtown Omaha and

its farthest reach east

Missouri river marking

the quiet mud-suck

boundary and my eyes

are flitting as I finish

this testimony with a

collapse into bed covers

up to cozy chin

through the cloven

hooved dark night -

it’s two AM in my life again,

no daylight but pointless

anyway as my eyes

are drawn shades

and for as sober as I

am, will not remember

this a jot further.

(October 5th, 2014)

Sketches - 34 (October 4th, 2014)

34.

Cool chill evening

and sudden hush over

all singing screeching insects.

Somehow that cold secret message

originating perhaps someplace

over the slow drawn slack

jawed plains has icily

tapped summer on the

shoulder and pointed

it the way out.

So collars are high around

necks again and cold

wind cleans the slate

and ushers in the final

month’s gasp of this

long drawn out year.

Poignant bitter morning

frost will brown the tall bright

sunflowers.  The responsibly

elite will start thinking

about snow tires, the poor

will slip cautiously slowly

over the ice and all will

find themselves one cozy

corner or other or

suffer the frost bite

       deep freeze.

Heat blears through the

vents and gives me a sand

paper tongue and thick

unwholesome throat swallow

          by morning.

(October 4th, 2014)

Sketches - 33. (October 4th, 2014)

33.

The chill has arrived, early Oct.

fall chill.  When I feel the cool

wind caressing my face, I reflect

on my coffee cart job in Denver

Colorado, 1995 positioned on the corner

of 17th and Blake across the

street from the RTD Public transit

station, main hub, and the steamed

milk (hiss) and espresso scent

up to my nostrils as I would

sit waiting for passing customers

reading Edgar Alan Poe, my guts

in the tense knot of low income,

barely making it.

Nobody was on line then and

scarcely anyone had a cell

phone.  My favorite mornings

were those quiet cloudy

ones, bright orange red heaps

of leaves tickling the wide Blake Street

sidewalk in tumble motion

and gust hiss.  

Now, at 44 years old it’s Nebraska’s

barest vines creeping up trees

and walls - trembling net

interwoven through chain link

spaces of endless link fences

like mechanized robot chirps

when tossed around or shaken

up by fingers thrust through and

curled up - ball of fist.

The hell dream and the nightmare.

Soft beginning of Oct., 

forty-four Octobers

that I've witnessed and slipped through

white knuckled skin of teeth.

(October 4th, 2014)

________________

Sketches - 32 (October 4th, 2014)

32.

Dead leaves scattered on the

sidewalk in front of Loveland

Elementary, Omaha Nebraska

Westside School, parked here

to pick up Zoey, then zip over

to the middle school to pick up

Max.  A nondescript man

in worn denim-blue shorts

and a blue bill cap is

talking to someone parked here

picking up their own kids.  The trees

all around are motionless and the
air is hot.  More car pull in

like trout sniffing around a

stream after the seasonal

voyage is over.  Mercedes

4-wheel drive, Buicks, BMW’s,

flippant old brown mini-vans

and this time of year the 3:21 PM

sun is already on a gradual

southern descent dipping earlier

into the west, wrapping the town

up in a chalky dirt glow as the

trees are rusty and vague with

pre-fall colors before the

brilliant end-of-year Autumn.

Picking up kids is all part

of the schedule, the busy

point blank firing squad shooting

down days as I sit here with

thoughts about my wife’s naked body

and I’m certain that on days

like this, given the chance, we’d

simply pick up the kids and

drive away into forever.

A whole noisy population of

children pour out of the school.

Cars gently idle, hum,

           vibrate.

All this adult sex started the kids, started

up the schools, the bills, the governments

foot up our collective ass.  However, my

kids are mine to protect from all that

                       horseshit

as the rest of it belongs to God and what

ever will is stolen away from us, our souls

tumbling like dry leaves in the dominant

                  Will of the unseen.

(October 4th, 2014)

____________

Sketches - 31 (September 28th, 2014)

31.

Time passes, blink of eye night

to dark morning - dawn appears

scant by 6:30 AM as city

gets up in huff-puff traffic

and everyone everywhere seemingly

up and going but before this,

               before alarms chime

               out and limbs move

               from motionless sleep

               and vacuous dreams,

                 before feet hit the floor -

there is the yawn of distant interstate

motion, those souls up and

around as the whole world sleeps,

constant foot-on-gas and

wearisome turn of radio

stations, a thousand memories

of metallic fast food counters

in godforsaken nowhere

                      America.

(September 28th, 2014)

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