Sketches - 30 (September 16th, 2014)

30.

The skin of my fingers and bristled

hairs on neck-back  -

          brutal Douglas county

          courthouse

          everyone in stultified

          lines to the judgement.

Apologetic attorneys.

Blanket legal forms and chips-in-paint

courthouse high ceiling.  

I sometimes wonder how anyone

in their right mind took the trouble

to draw up all these laws enforced

by people employed to papers in rooms

at the top of granite steps.  

Blossom gloom of anger cells

and a stale heavy creep in the lower

guts, nothing grey colored

standing under the topless

half dressed scales of justice

woman, blindfolded, ready

to go like all socialized rapes

under Midwest full moons in all nude

juicer bars and meth-head dying

                deaths.

You can go off into the night and never

come back, never be seen or

heard from again.

If you go far enough into the hungry

flat void of Nebraska, no

one will be around to hear

the shotgun blast.  Small towns

dry up like splintered leaves

and memories have

a voice when the wind whispers

through the dry husks

              of fall.

(September 16th, 2014)

Sketches - 29 (September 15th, 2014)

29.

Full on dark-chilled September

                night.

My toddlers wobble across the

living room floor.  

Always a curious trembled

joy when my youngest Jesse is

set free from

the confining play pen.

Izzy chases a blue

        balloon -

    Lowen miraculously

      plays a video game

      at the age of 3 and

                           3 months

      and Jesse grabs   

      an empty cup, covets

      it with each proud

      wobble step of his tiny

                           feet

                           to and from.

I’m getting older every day.  I've resigned

myself to it  I allowed myself

to be fully baptized by the idea of time

and all its furious currents.

Last Sunday I saw

a small group of grey dung

beetles waiting on the

stone wall of the outdoor

steps to the right of the

garage, about 9 of them

gathered there still and pepper-grey

with movements that almost

looked strategic, thought out -

         I was careful not to

         step on them on the

         way to the back door -

         somehow I was repulsed

at the sight -

          imagined my whole body

           covered in these ancient

           mechanical moving

           beetle bugs, legs blurred

           and loathsome crawl.

The earth opens up cold this

fall, the early morning subdues the crickets

and cicadas.  The wiretap and

dot bleeps of a million shaded

corners and valleys that formed the

insect wave antenna is a wave receding -

                        pulling back

and I’m getting older every day.

Nothing to be done about it.  

(September 15th, 2014)

____________

Sketches - 28. (September 13th, 2014)

28.

Sun is out this fall-beginning Sunday,

     vacuum roar and run-a-chore

     to Mom’s for a plant stand with Bryce,

     old ‘father’ grandfather in-law.

Change is on the air and creeps into

the grey valley.  

(September 13th, 2014)

____________

Sketches - 27 (September 13th, 2014)

27.

Dead motionless gloss of balloons

on a perfect cool

September Saturday.

All the spectral deep daylight

through the front picture window

and stained-glass side window in

its amateur brush strokes

                      long ago

                      faded blue

                      and charcoal

                      red to rust orange,

the wind keeps gusting at

different points, some of it high

above the giant sprall-trees

miles and miles of oak, spare

clumps of aspen

            in a nameless twinkle gust.

I stood on top miles of

heavy tree’d expanse next

to the Lake Mahoney State Park

activities stage building, we played

songs between a few storytellers

as Ash and I were asked to

               do.

From that point it was hard

not to pay attention to millions

of those branches swaying tossing turning

down below, hypnotic waving luring

                  motion

as a few folks told their stories and we

sang in between.

Yet for all these formal storytellers

and summer to fall festival

parking lots full of old people

cars, Buicks (reminds me of church

potlucks of early 1980’s in deep

freeze Nebraska winters) the true

story fills up song spaces, empty sheets

and pages, tangles up the audio

tape and scratches at the

hard drive space millisecond

at a time - never completed

but a series of stopping points

               then beginning again.

(September 13th, 2014)

________________

Sketches - 25 (September 7th, 2014)

25.

Driving down rain choked

tree doltish wind swept

Leavenworth street

drool water over fogged

car windows.

(September 7th, 2014)

___________

Sketches - 26 (September 13th, 2014)

24.

Dear Technology,

          I will hijack and ride

          your invisible inevitable paths and

          long undefined fingers

          unto both of our ends.

It all started with

pen on paper as my

back was up against

a wretched wheel.

            I have the ability

            to cast myself free

            of your crystalline

            digitized vortex

            and slavery suck hole

                                 treat.

And I leap up from it

to sing myself hoarse

in an attempt

to urge others to

           do the same.

              

(September 13th, 2014)

_______________

  

Ramshackle Notes - #2

August 3rd, 2014

Sitting in the kitchen right now watching Jesse and Lowen eat their blueberry breakfast bars.  Teletubbies chimes and warbles off from the kitchen island counter as outside the sunlight gives off a tinted shine over all, leaves now showing the first signs of the fall season to come, the luster of this summer’s twinkle-green losing its emerald shine.

    I was talking to George a bit about how the Rolling Stones need to turn it in and Dylan is still cool despite his age.  George has since meandered back up to his room on the third floor, walls of which bedecked in memorabilia such as old advertisements and band flyers.  A tiny insect AM radio-scratch emanates from some secret location in the room.  

    Ash and the two oldest kids Zoey and Max are out and about running a few errands and paying Ash’s grand father Bryce a visit as well as a swim in his pool.

    I received a call from my mother this morning that my eldest cousin from Dallas TX died of complications he was having due to HIV.  He grappled with the horrors of this disease for the last twenty years or so and finally succumbed to it. I figure it’s about time I visit the Texas Trenhailes.  I’m flying there on Wed. and returning Friday evening.  I feel terrible for my uncle, my dad’s brother.  

    A few minutes ago, Lowen was making long wet sounding fart noises on his arm with his mouth before I gave him a handful of dry cheerios to eat.  Also gave both boys sippy cups with water.  Ash and the rest will be back shortly.  I want to get dressed for guests tonight, particularly Kendra will be coming over to record a Baberaham Lincoln’s song - Kendra and my wife Ashley as well as Alicia from The Love Technicians have formed a band called The Baberaham Lincolns and they have a gig on the 15th of this month.  Ash and I also need to set up a schedule for The Doneofits practice and will get on with that well before our CD release show on Aug. 22nd.  

    This last Friday night, I performed a solo gig at a desultory bar on 90th street just before the Fort street intersection.  Ninetieth is a bland four lane that smoothly curves through neighborhoods fronted by lost shopping mall parking lots and fast food restaurants.  In a midst these giant buildings is the Library Pub, a place where certain Benson music icons have taken a liking to recently and set up shop.  It was far from an excellent place for me to play but did little to stop me from doing as good a job as I could.  The sound guy was a stocky older gentleman filling in for Hoshaw who was absent.  All in all, a bland forgotten portion of the musical world, a place where classic rock hobbyists go to compare blues licks, a hopeless pointless matter, yet I feel no more hopeless or pointless for playing there.  Besides, they gave me 100 dollars cash and I’ve been driving around in my Chevy Cobalt with my glove box filling up with the change as I use small portions of the hundred dollars to buy latte’s when in need and lunches for my work.  Not a complete loss therefore.  

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Sketches - 23 (September 6th, 2014)

23.

My wife Ashley figures out her

plant business from the

dim down late day

           kitchen.

Musicians will come over

and play tonight - The Baberaham

                                    Lincolns

and I take whatever I've learned

from past dark shuffles in

the corners and stages of

full and empty bars and

night clubs I've played in

      (in these times a full or empty

           room makes no difference -

               maybe it never did)

until I have to raise up the whole

blessed thing from scratch and

start the process over

        again and again and again

to make it fall the right way.

More work follows to the point

where I can only judge myself by

how well I survive the

          angry swelling currents

          of this unknown belligerent

          sea.

Such is being an American artist

in 2014.

(September 6th, 2014)

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