Letters from Trumplandia: Invisible City, Part 4

Two people in as many days have died on the streets as Louisville settles into the first cold snap of the year. One of them died next to a local homeless shelter that, in theory, provides overnight protection from the elements for the city's homeless.

The first cold snap is hard because no one ever seems to see it coming -- in spite of past precedence. I see this as a fundamentally positive thing about human nature... it's our ability to hope for the best regardless of experience. But when it comes, no matter how much those of us engaged in homeless outreach try and plan for it, it still hits like a steel toe boot to the nuts.

We did a better than average job planning for it this year. I'm not the only one who obsessively watches weather patterns, so between the merry OCD/ grumpy old men in our group and the lovely folks that donate there money and donate supplies for us to pass out every week, we were able to get a few things together.., hand warmers, sternos, some coats and blankets and sleeping bags.

But there are moments in outreach when the wheels and cogs are laid bare and there is nothing to do except embrace the sadness and anger just so you can find more people before the hot meals get too cold and the supply of socks and handwarmers run out.

We've been serving a younger couple on our regular route for a few weeks. He's a more or less fresh out of a detox program. They say they want to get to Florida, closer to family. Last night was a White Flag night here in Louisville, which means the temperature is cold enough that shelters will open up and allow more than the usual number of people in to get out of the dangerous temperatures.

Unless you're on the Permanent Ban List.

And when we mentioned that it might be a good idea to get to a shelter, even it meant being separated (because none of the shelters here have facilities for couples or families, which means that couples are separated and fathers have to sleep in a different space than their wives and children). But he told me that since he was on the permanent ban list, he couldn't go in. Not even on a White Flag night.

As far as I know, this couple made it through the night. But the temperatures this week aren't going get better.

Later that night we met up with other outreach volunteers near a new encampment. Another couple.

They had a tent, at least, but no blankets, no sleeping bags, no kind of heat. And meanwhile, outside of the Wayside Mission on Jefferson Street, people were sleeping on the sidewalks, some without blankets, and a few with no shoes.

There's nothing worse than feeling like you fell short even when you do your best. And even if there wasn't such a thing as a Permanent Ban List that includes White Flag Nights, the fact is there isn't even enough beds for people willing and able to get into the shelters. The number of homeless folks on the street are up and it only breaks into the public conversation as something unsightly that people don't want to see through their NIMBY sunglasses.

There's nothing like the sick brick I get in my stomach when I see someone out on outreach knowing they may not survive the night. There's nothing like the dread of knowing that the odds are someone will find them in the morning, dead.

And someone finds them... anger and sadness doesn't quite cover it. Not by a longshot. And when they're found footsteps from a place that, in theory, should have been able to prevent it

Anger and sadness don't feel like nearly enough.

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Just yesterday morning, Part 3

All things are made bitter, words even / are made to taste like paper, wars gets tossed up / like soldiers used to be/ (in a child's attic) lined up / to be knocked down, as I am... ~ Charles Olson

The life of reality is confused, disorderly, almost always without apparent purpose, whereas in the artist's imaginative life there is purpose. ~ Sherwood Anderson 

Give it about 30 years and no one will even talk about Daylight Savings Time anymore.

Seriously. As annoying as it is, as pointless as it is, and as completely illogical as it is, it will cease to be the topic any real discussion.  

This won't happen because the powers-that-be will suddenly come to their senses and realize that moving the hour hand backwards or forwards doesn't actually extend or shorten the day. As a matter of fact, if anyone talks about hour hands, it will be in the sense of a quaint curiosity. Like jewelry made out of the hair of a dead loved one or the concept of privacy. All things fall into the dust of quaint curiosity shops of the mind -- including curiosity shops -- so seriously, don't put too much stock in the illusion that you're getting an extra hour sleep when we  FALL BACK IN THE FALL.

Don't worry about it. The Internet of Things will do it for us. We won't have to think about Daylight Savings Time because the ability to think about anything -- like the ability to read a clock or have a private thought that can't be described by a meme -- will have disappeared and we will have the IOT (Internet of Things, or, as we'll maybe call it NetStuf) heft the apparent burden of consciousness for us.

But if this Internet of Things... I mean, NetStuf... is so damn dandy, why can't it fix the hole in my ceiling? It can, apparently, predict what kind of advertising I'll respond to based on (really, very) random keyword searches. It can tell me who I was in a past life. It can tell me how I'm probably going to die and -- based just on my Facebook profile picture -- tell me where my ancestors came from. This Internet of Things assures that I'm instantly and permanently connected to countless facts, factoids, fake news, friend updates, new business connections, and scores for everything from the little league game (in languid immobile Summer, anyway) to World Cup Soccer.

But it can't crawl up into the very small and sort of claustrophobic space under the ceiling awning off the attic and repair a hole. It can't climb up on the roof and make any necessary repairs. It's 2017 and there are robots that can vacuum your house while you're gone... not that we can afford one or could even make use of one with three dogs and two cats to either hunt it, stalk it, or asphyxiate it with the endless trails of shed fur.

Ok, I know. I signed up for this life on the margin, right? Making Art out your life isn't easy, nor, I suppose, should it be. Though I'm still unsure of why. And I feel like I've been asking that question a really, really long time.

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Don't get no respect: back to school, wobbly-style

 I'm heading back to campus today to line up the last bit of what I need to do in order to teach on Thursday. Between the usual decline in course offerings and my separation from the local alternative dining and concert guide*, this winter, like most every, will be a tight one. I'm always on the look for more work, and I'm going to be diving into some projects and working on my poetry and fiction. I'm uncharacteristically prepared for the semester to begin, actually... primarily because I'm simplifying my teaching methods and focusing on what's really important in a writing class.

Practice.

People ask me all the time what I teach. When they're kind, or when they know I write poetry, they immediately ask if I teach creative writing**. I have to, for the sake of conversation, clarify that I teach academic writing***, tossing in some scholarly research methods and some interesting stories and little known history. I've been using Labor History the last few years as the subject matter for my Intermediate classes; I think it's important try and highlight little known facts of history that get overlooked in the narrative of manifest destiny.

This semester, I'm trying something a bit different because what I find in teaching labor history is that many of my students are incredibly disconnected from the events I wanted to talk about and the stories I wanted to tell.  I also found that in my attempts to ensure I was doing my job that I lost some the fundamental elements of my teaching style that made it fun and interesting.

One of the things I'm doing is simply changing research topics, for a while. My classes are going to be examining some events from local history: the 1855 Bloody Monday Election Riots, The 1937 Ohio River Flood, and river stories and myths. We're going to talk about how these narratives -- and the narratives of more current events -- impact ourselves as individuals, as a city, and as a larger culture.

So basically -- I'm going to tell stories, read and talk about essay drafts, and focus the important stuff.

And, you know, take attendance. Can't escape the all the tedium.

But I am grateful to have some kind of work
 _________________________
*The latest article of important was about how Louisvillians in their 20's move to Germantown, where the rent is cheap. You know... like they have for the past 20 years.
**I have written before about how the term "creative writing" annoys me because it implies that some kinds of writing isn't creative or part of a creative process.
*** Academic writing, apparently, has no creative process. Don't get me started.


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Losantiville Lines: The Keys To The Kingdom

As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. - Arthur Carlson, WKRP IN CINCINNATI

Probably the most succinct explanation I've ever heard or read of what's wrong with this place. Me, in relation to the quote above.

Being caught here as I was, over the weekend -- between illness, the weather, and the spinelessness of the Tennessee Division of Greyhound Buslines, I was left to cough up a lung and ponder the universe in the shadow of Porkopolis. This gave me a chance to try and get through a smallish pile of student writing that must be returned tomorrow when I exchange it for a fresh pile -- the unending cycle that is the educational machine.

Thank Crikey I'm not interested in being hired full time. This sentiment is not a reflection of how I feel about the students in my classes, as much as a recognition that other than a few new bells and whistles, the institution of higher education is no different than it was when I left (translate: ran screaming) from ASU in December 2009.

Perfect example: I received a circulating email in response to concerns raised by part-time Lit and Language faculty to the current chair in meetings scheduled for the purpose of airing such concerns and offering suggestions to improve the plight/make more comfortable those who do most of the work for little pay and no real recognition... since other than teaching classes that tenured faculty refuse to teach, part-timers do nothing to make the institution look good.

We are not a marketable bunch. Though a few of us are, I dare say, reasonably attractive.

I should note that I did not attend either Open Door session, which were scheduled on a Tuesday and Thursday... days I am not on campus. (They are, coincidentally, days that most part-timers are not on campus either. Draw your own conclusions, Dear Readers.)

The primary issue raised, according the email, was office space. Part-timers share the same corral on the 5th floor we shared when I taught at NKU in '04-'05. And apparently, those who went to the open door talks mentioned space as a priority.

It was not mentioned in the email, but I do wonder if anyone brought up access to health insurance. NKU DOES allow part-timers access to the institution's health insurance plan -- after 3 years of consecutive employment. Which means, if you're actually interested in having a full-time job, that you're pretty enough to screw but not to take to a family reunion. (Keep in mind that it is damn difficult to stay consecutively employed as a part-time instructor. That means you have at least a class every term... including summer, when enrollments are low, and spring, when a large number of First Year students run screaming from college campuses.)

Of course, the Chair has no say over what the Bean Counters in the administration bunker do. And a potential for access is better than no access at all, right? Carrot by any other name....

The solution to the aforementioned space issue? Give every part-timer his or her own key. This way, I suppose, it will feel like we really have an office and are taken seriously as professionals. Which, of course, is utter bullshit.

I should mention again, however, that I am less interested in being afforded the label of "professional" than I am in being treated like a human being and not a cog.

I got a set of keys instead.

I should also mention that every part-timer was going to be issued a set of keys anyway.

The solution, as I see it, is to have armed guards on campus.

Because lately that's the solution to all educational problems, and a blog is no place to think outside the box.

On a tangentially related note, Mount Carroll crank and all around lousy person Nina Cooper is running for City Clerk. She has built a very patriotic looking website to assert her candidacy, which ten people in town will see. (Five of them might actually vote for her; but she is one of them, and the other two are her co-hort cranks, Alderpersons Bob "The Amoral Pontificator" Sisler and Doris "I'm Not Dead I'm Just Plotting" Bork. The other two I'm giving her for kindness and statistical accuracy.)

Location:Cincinnati, OH

Oh Losantiville, Don't You Cry For Me / A Kid With No Ace In The Hole

And the Senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity. - quote from opening credits to WKRP IN CINCINNATI

Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have -- Cincinnati sounds worse. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

My curve through the corn belt blew through the money I had managed to save up working in Mount Carroll. Southern Illinois is a stretched and beautiful landscape, much of which is lost when you stick to the I-55 corridor. If I had been a stray dog instead of a wandering human, I would have had no problem finding shelter; there are as many animal shelters/rescues as there is corn... but no motels or hotels in Mount Olive, Benld, or Gillespie. There's one in Staunton, 4 miles to the south of Mount Olive, and several in Litchfield off the I-55 exit ramp. No shelters for poor weary travelers that far south. Some friendly folks, like Stacey, who gave me a ride from Crawdaddy's Bar in downtown Mount Olive to the Union Miner's Cemetery, and the nice Indian woman -- whose name may or may not have been Patel -- at the America's Best Value Inn in Litchfield who let me check in early.

Beyond that, human kindness in Southern Illinois was as abundant as the free soup.

To be fair, though, I wasn't too terribly surprised when no one picked me up along Route 66. If I didn't know me, I'd probably not pick me up, either, and I didn't mind sleeping out. Getting the cab ride to Carlinville was worth the $24, since it would have taken me  a lot longer than the 20 minute drive to walk there.  I went to Carlinville because that was the nearest public transportation that could carry me into Chicago, and from there I would be able to make my way anywhere.

Options? Well, the travel fund was getting near to sucked dry... a situation I could do very little about at the moment. Yes, I have some folks I can call on, but I don't like to do that until there's no option. At that point I was still thinking I'd make it down to Albuquerque to read, but I wasn't seeing how I could do a whole lot of anything given the fact that three days in Litchfield, trying to get my feet back to their version of normal -- which was a slight derivation of my original plan, which had been to walk from Mount Olive up Route 4 through Benld and Gillespie into Carlinville (which I changed at the last minute finding nothing resembling cheap accommodations anywhere northbound EXCEPT Litchfield) -- had left me with limited options.

I decided, then to head to Cincinnati, and try figure out what to do next from there.

No matter what issues I have with the city, it's one whose skyline always stirs as much feelings of home as feelings of disconnectedness.  Cincinnati is a town fraught with nostalgia -- that same odd malignant strain infecting Southern Illinois along Route 66 -- that sense that nostalgia and blind longing have replaced memory, have replaced history. Monuments to our honored dead -- those whose lives and whose deaths we, as a society, are singularly uncomfortable with, like Mother Jones and the Union martyrs, like the Blackhawk Monument in Kent, Illinois  -- offer little but a series of spiritual Meccas along trails we have long since forgotten, trails where we have left pieces of ourselves and haven't begun to go back and pick them back up. There are bread crumbs out there: little pieces of who we are, who we should be, who we are capable of being, and we have not as a culture decided it's time to go and find those parts of ourselves we've lost in the process of insisting ourselves into a mock-historical narrative defined by Manifest Destiny. Cincinnati is a city at odds with itself, and for very specific reasons.

Like Mount Carroll and probably everywhere else in America, the various visions of the future and dueling identities are at odds with one another. A corporate stronghold, a staunch and conservative political perspective that exists along with a shrinking population (People are leaving because there are no jobs.) and a self-defeating attitude of isolation and self-enforced segregation (along class, race, political, ideological, and dogmatic lines).  People who don't know where to look could mistake Cincinnati as a city without real culture.

They'd be wrong.

The problem with Cincinnati isn't that there isn't culture. And I don't mean the stuff that attracts the black tie crowd, though some people think that's all there is to culture. There's always been a vibrant arts community here. But it's one that tends to either be excluded or exclude itself from any real conversations about the character and personality of the city. There's some damn fine writers, musicians, and artists here. But when the city's only alternative press barely gives a nod to anything and acts insulted and offended when their apathy and unwarranted snobbery is pointed out to them, and they still don't bother to write about what goes on here unless it's playing at the playhouse downtown or at US Bank arena -- it's very little surprise that the musicians, writers, and artists respond in kind to a city that only loves them when they can fit into the corporate culture that's choking the soul out of this place.

Yes, City Beat. I'm talking about you.

So I rode the train back to Cincinnati. There are only one train route that comes through the Queen City. The Cardinal, which runs south through Saint Louis, down into Texas, and north up to New York. The southbound train stops at 1:27 in the morning. The northbound stops at 3:14 in the morning.

I'm here for the time being, visiting family and hoping to see friends and pondering how to best get back out on the road. I'm even pondering trying to pick up work for  few months... gawd forbid.

Move Along

Walking back to the bar after dark
I passed our old street.
Looking down and up the hill,
I noticed the porch lights were on
and I almost turned towards it,
the way insects do,
flying headlong towards their destruction.
How many nights a beacon?
How many times my salvation?
The drizzling rain informs me
it's pointless to ask questions.
Standing there, I thought of
that Frost poem backwards.
Instinctually, I felt for the ring
on my left hand. It is gone,
like my reasons
to stumble down and up the hill
drunk towards a light
that is no longer lit
for my personal illumination.
The rain picks up.
The lingering winter early darkness
wraps around me and I feel the wind
starting to push me a long
up Benton Street in search of a light
that will welcome me,
another pair of warm arms
to guard me against the wind and the rain
and the onslaught of the coming storm.
There is no point in arguing.

Wayward Sacredness: Mount Carroll Reprisal: Part 1

It is the waking that kills us. - Sir Thomas Browne


My first sense memory of Mount Carroll is the sound of my friend and current host (along with his more than patient wife, Julie) Dave Cuckler singing and playing the guitar:

One of the reasons why this place still retains some resonance for me is that I relearned something crucial here. I relearned that people, when given the chance, can get together and do the right thing, and that people will often be kind if given the opportunity.  This place, like me, is a bit quixotic. There are musicians and artists and artisans and writers of all kinds -- some who are from here and some who migrated here for one of any number of reasons and stayed because there's just something about the place.

I also relearned that the rate of goodness or badness of most anyplace is directly proportional to the amount of time and effort you're willing to put in to it.

My temporary return to this place has been the mixture I anticipated. My friends, many of whom were not happy with my leaving, are happy to see me now that I've come back for a bit. The stories of my departure were varied and vague... which was deliberate on my part. The thing I've noticed is that it all gets easier to talk about the more I talk about it. And because I've been visiting friends along the way, I got to talk about it quite a bit more than if I had stayed around town -- which, I'm convinced, would have made things far worse than they need to be.

It's true I ran low on funds... even though people have been more than generous in regards to donating to the travel fund.  But I could've huddled somewhere else and prepared for more traveling. I came back here in part to plan, and because I missed my friends and the sounds of the music.

I found myself talking about this place a lot on the road... maybe more than I've ever talked about any place I've ever lived, including New Orleans. (And I loved and still love New Orleans.) 

But I also came back because I have to settle up; that is, I need to finish the recent past so that it's not hanging over me in the future... which means coming back temporarily, finding someplace to store my books and various sundry things until I figure out where to put them long term, and tie up the other loose ends of my  marriage.

Typing that paragraph just now, I noticed how much easier it is to type the utterance than it (still) is to say...

"and tie up the loose ends of my marriage."

I still don't know what that means. I'm still not sure if I'm going to be filing for divorce, or if she is. That depends largely on finances and partly on finding the emotional will to get it done.

Or maybe I have that backwards. It's possible.

Even though it's a thoroughly civil separation -- in as much as such a excising can be civil -- it's not without pain. And I expected it to be a little uncomfortable at times. I expected it to be painful. And I have moments when it is. Mostly because I don't know how not to care and how not to worry about her.

The only thing I have going for me in this regard is that I'm probably way more selfish down deep than I generally like to admit; and I'll admit to being fairly selfish. I don't know how you can be a writer, or an artist, and not be a little selfish with your time. The trick, I'm finding, is making sure to maintain a watchful eye and maintain a social conscience. And lately, that hasn't been too difficult. Between visits to D.C. and New York, keeping up with various Occupy movements across the country that are preparing for Spring, and being vary aware that the over this past weekend around 80 different tornadoes struck a large part of Midwest -- near where I was only weeks ago. The death count is around 30.

And, as if efforts weren't hampered enough, parts of Indiana and Kentucky were hit overnight with snow.

Meditating on this lends me perspective. Mount Carroll, like every other small town, has it's share of drama, infighting, and bullshit. Most of it driven into the public (notably on the City Council) by longstanding bitter rivalries, gossip, and underlying control issues that blossom into full fledged factions, cutting up the town, dividing friends and sometimes family, and doing more to slow the necessary growth and change that will enable this town to survive than the myopic, self-serving Agribusiness controlled County Board -- of which I have even less positive things to say than I do the City Council, which tends to resemble an Elementary School cafeteria, minus the lousy food. It's all words and hollow rhetoric with juvenile digs that gets tossed around.

It's a good thing that they, like the County Board, are only as necessary as people let them be. And at this point, I wonder why we bother with either one.

Since  returning, I've remembered the things I HAVEN'T missed... the juvenile and puerile political leadership, especially... and I'm thinking about pushing my trip up to see if I can go down to Kentucky and Do Something, rather than sit here and Think About It. 

That also means getting my shit together here, and quick. 

By the way... THIS GUY is an ASSHOLE. Pat Robertson is blaming the people for building houses where there are sometimes tornadoes. Also, he says the people didn't pray enough. 

I only point this particular idjit* out in order to illustrate the difference between humanity and douche baggery.. Luckily, I still find more humanity than I do douche baggery. Mount Carroll resonates with humanity, in spite of the back biters that infect local government** and greedy assholes who run the county^.  

And it's precisely that humanity that echoes in the songs played by my friend Dave and by other musicians, (who I will mention by name soon enough), and in the art done by friends like Heather Houzenga that will make my short stay more pleasant than it would be anywhere else as I plan the next step.

* For a proper definition, look in The Parsons Dictionary of Often Used Words and Phrases.

** There are one or two people of note who are not idjits. Since I'm not naming any names, I can't name you. But hopefully, Doug and Tom (oops!) you know who you are.

^I'm referring directly to a few people here... but the county is run by three of the 15 current members anyway. And since I've written about them ad naseum when I wrote for The Prairie Advocate News, I won't name them here. No. Really ... Fritz, Rahn, and Riebel. (Oops.)

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My exit window, for the moment, is still 3/21-4/1, though I'l go back through Kentucky before I head west.]

Worth Waiting For

Hauling ass out of the Appalachian foothills,

I wasn't sure the car would make the trip.

Two rusted off back quarter panels, exhaust pipe

gone, primer orange and beaten ugly

from drug running through West Virginia,

from that summer driving across country

from Norfolk to Chapel Hill to Cincinnati,

(where the axle broke) all the way

to Northwest Illinois corn fields where

later, we thought we might grow dreams....

though that was for another life, nearly a decade

away. We had so much more desperation to go through

before life would find us there.

                                              Knoxville –

it wasn't a pretty place, but you were there

and that was enough to call it home... hauling ass

out of Eastern Kentucky, you and I

                                               escaping

though there was nothing to run from

and (we would find out years later)

nothing to run to.

We ran from there, too, you and I,

to Cincinnati, close to hearth and family,

away from the toxic waste in Tennessee water.

Cincinnati, where we watched a Christmas Eve

riot out on the street

while my daughter was asleep on the futon,

watched the cops take down children

with rubber bullets

while somewhere, in a richer, Caucasian part of town

dreams of sugar plums and gaming systems

did the trick...

                      … where you were robbed

and afraid to go downtown, and we ate

dumplings without chicken, potatoes and carrots,

dreaming of some other place, some destination

where it was safe, and the winter

was not so cold, and our dreams would unfold.

Arizona let us down, too -- though to be fair

it tried. But the state could not contain my anger

and you could not be contained with it

and with me simultaneously.

So the Midwestern cornfields called to us. Finally.

We went. The house was old and the roof leaked.

And the yard was too big. But the rent was cheap

and there were no drunken arguing neighbors

on the other side of thin walls. We could see the stars.

We traded sand drifts for snow,

palm trees for orange poppies

someone planted in front,

and a magnolia tree that reminded me

of New Orleans every Spring.

Yet my thoughts of late

are not about the poppies

or the magnolia tree. I do not

ruminate about the leaky roof

or the yard I didn't like cutting.

Home is not a house, because a house

is an easy thing to lose and to replace.

Even so –

                   my home is not my home anymore.

Détente and Domestic Policy

There is no resolution, sometimes.

Arguments over things

less or more important

matter more or less

in an endless geography

that makes up a tiny home.

Toothpaste caps gain weight,

resonate with horror show sound.

When the world reduces, becomes

this compact, this confined –

down to paper thin walls,

remanded décor, plywood cabinets –

random couch cushions become

entirely new countries.

More or less.

I Did It

I did it. And
I did it without you.
Hobbled around,
(as is my custom
these days) until
I found the Rothkos
in the National Gallery.
Then I sat down,
and I took it all in.
At one point
I nearly cried --
the murals were so
sublime, like the way
church ought to be.
Then I felt something
as I sat there,
that was all my own.

Then I caught myself
trying to call you
so I could tell you
all about it.

Fade Into

Imagined it all

somewhat different.

Rather, bold.

Magnificent.

Brightly lighted

mini marquees.

Macabre parades.

Acquiescing smiles.

Limp handshakes

from spineless autocrats.

Divine Prognostications.

Deferential treatment

by those conspiring

to have me killed

in a grizzly manner

meant to look like

a pointless suicide.

It would be raining.

And the cats

would be cranky.

Weather pushing me

southbound.

An Expert Destruction

Main Street is crooked, runs right past

City Hall, the police station, empties

right in front of the University

Administration building.

All things tend southward here... the slopes,

the hollers, the crosses. Life has moved

out to the by-pass: movies, libraries,

community.

The school is a warehouse

of long dead ideas, stored up

for future kindling.

Boxes of unread books provide warmth

and nourishment the nests of rats

and legions of insects pouring over

our mistakes.

Outside, the street signs are picture perfect,

and the old buildings are either

scrubbed down or destroyed;

an expert destruction

of all evidence to the contrary

that once upon a time

there was something else here.

Bars converted to youth centers;

cigarette stores to ice cream stands.

The future is piling down upon us

barreling 80 miles an hour down

the new wider highway

past the mega store where

all hope is lost and sold

at discount rates.

But the banks,

at least, are solid

and are open for business. New restaurants,

same old food.

The movie theatre converted

into a mausoleum for ancient idealism.

Everything is fine. Everything is dandy.

Self help books sell well. No one reads

the classics anymore. Too many big words.

Too many big ideas.

Poetry is for little girls and for fags.

Rumi was a terrorist. Poe liked little girls.

Whitman needed a shave

and real job.

No one remembers the year the mountain burned.

No one remembers the year the north end of town flooded.

The people who carry the memories

have fled east, into the mountains

or west, into the desert –

searching for moonshine or for messiahs

that will give them answers

to nagging questions that have not

formed the words to articulate properly.

Ahead of the Storm

Shadows pass on the other side

of frosted glasses. I can make out

trees, the shapes of hills, traces

of Interstate 74. 45 minutes out

I know intuitively where we are,

silently lip the names of the places

like a prayer: a mantra meant

to keep myself focused.

                  Shadows punctuated

by glaring fast food signs. Rolling

down the hill, I start counting

the minutes until the cityscape

will come into view. Shadows

surrounding the lights of houses,

street lights. Anonymous beacons

for other weary travelers.

Shadows engulfing what I leave

behind me. Seven hours north, echoes

of tears where once there were kisses

the warmth of your eyes

the inadequacy of it all

the absurdity of it all. I let

the shadows wrap themselves around me

as the city comes into full view.

Harrison Street Station Run Through

"I love it when a plan comes together." - John "Hannibal" Smith 

The original title of this entry was going to be "2AM Harrison Street Station Blues." It's nice when a snazzy title happens to pop into the brain... I usually labor over, over criticize, change, despise, change and finally give up on titles. I've always struggled with titles in the same way I struggled with long division when I was a kid. I know it ought to be a simple thing, but dammit, my head just can't seem to wrap itself around it.

I was planning on writing it because even though I managed to get a ride into Chicago from Jim "No Toll Is Going To Slow Me Down" Beaudry, I had it stuck in my head that my bus was going to leave on Saturday, January 21st, and 12:15.

So there I was, sitting at one of the places available to plug in my netbook so that I could both charge the battery and check Facebook, listening to music through my ear buds, when I heard an announcement about an express bus to Cincinnati getting ready to board. "Hmmm," I thought. "If I had known there was a schedule for today, I would've probably taken that one instead."

I was about to go back to my music, my Facebooking, and my emailing, when I decided to go ahead and look at my ticket... the one I had bought a few weeks before and had sent to me in the mail. I looked at the date.

It read January 20th.

I looked at the date and time on the task bar. SHIT. That was my ride they were calling out.

I rushed packing up my computer, grabbed my other bag, and headed for the Express loading area. I looked at the date again, double checked it with my phone... because I didn't want to be the stupid schmuck  who tried to board the bus 24 hours early. My cell phone display confirmed that today is, for REALZ, January 20th.

I got in the short line, and when I got to the driver checking tickets, he didn't shoo me away; instead, he pointed to the bus and said "The same bus will take you all the way to Cincinnati."

So here I am, aboard the bus headed out of Chicago heading south and east. The world outside looks like a Cohen Bothers movie. All gray and white, to the point that it all looks almost dead body blue. (You remember that color from the Crayola box, right? ) The bus is on the empty side. I don't know if it will stay empty all the way to Cincinnati -- we have one short pick up stop in Indianapolis -- but so far, so good.

There's only three problems.

1) When I arrived at the Harrison Street station, they were cleaning the men's restroom. And by the time I noticed they were done, I had to get on the bus. That means at some point, I'll have to use the rolling outhouse in the back of the bus. If you here a large plop, that wasn't a mystic shit. It was me falling down the rabbit hole.

2) I didn't buy a bottle of water because I figured I had time.

3) I'm not quite sure who's picking me up in Cincinnati yet. Or, indeed, if I can prevail upon anyone in this weather to drive downtown and pick me up.

Last Full Day

The taste of last night's beer lingered this morning.

Three in the morning, I can't sleep. That voice

in my head, the one that's been telling me

This is not your home woke me

thumping like a timpani drum. The cats

are calm. The walls are thin

and, even with the plastic on the windows

lets the arctic weather in. Ice glazed

like thousand year old donuts

covering everything. Small tectonic glaciers

in the shape of tire tread and work boots

gray from the grating of the plow

and car exhaust line the streets. The voice,

it tells me, Wild birds know when to fly.

It's the caged ones that die. It's too early

for riddled wisdom, and I'm out of coffee.

Cold feet, bad TV, the memory of another

December fresh like the snow was

two days ago casts long shadows in fast dreams

in which the faces belong to strangers

and they all have something to tell me,

something I must remember,

something that is the piece to a puzzle

with the picture worn off. All that remains

is a sense memory and the voice in my head

No feeling lasts, it says. So it's better to feel it all.

Two Days Past (Winter 2012)

The streets have been cleared

and the previous night's freeze

packed the last snow fall,

eliminating the drifts covering

Illinois 64 that are impossible

to plan for and more dangerous

even, than the ice that may

or may be underneath.

The wind is blowing,

but the sun is shining

and people are out

and about because no one

expects it to last. Shopkeepers

keep the windows clear,

spruce up last month's goods,

because they know

another sunny day

may not come again

and it's the early bird

who gets the worm –

so said the preacher on Sunday.

Or was it that self help book on the bed side table?

The sidewalks are cleared –

except for in front of the houses

where the grandchildren

are too preoccupied to endure

10 minutes of the tundra.

Piles of the white stuff

around the bottom of street signs

and at cross walk corners

are there to remind us –

as if the arctic chill

and frozen snot weren't enough –

more winter is coming.

Two Short Seasonal Poems and An Unrelated Bit

1.

December early morning sunshine
it fools me into believing
the earth is warm. But one step
outdoors and the cold wind
rippling my bearded cheeks reminds me
the tree limbs aren't bare
for no reason. Christ, I think
why can't they stick to
warm weather holidays?


2.

This season of fat men with a penchant
for breaking and entering leaves me
odd, at the bottom of empty scotch bottle
searching the chair cushions for loose change
to put towards a pack of smokes or a cheap 40
that will help me stay warm. Winter has a way
of seeping into my bones; and it will not depart
no matter what prayers and hymns I sing.

3.


Souls, like old wool socks, wear thin at the points of heaviest wear.
The difference is, you can always buy a new pair of socks.

And Counting

Christ. 388 days and the tundra

is still expansively contracting.

Fields of green and brown corn

have turned shit and soil brown,

laced with remanded snow

and lingering ice. It was once

explained to me when I was

very young: in the winter

the world sleeps

and the soil rests

to prepare for the spring

for what was once a plow

but is now a machine that cuts

more and better; plus, the cost

is more and better than most

houses and has taken the place

of hundreds of men and

man hours. It's big business here

and the corn is owned by companies

and seeds, like our future is copyrighted

by the anonymous holding company

that bought our parents' futures

cheap with promises

of a peaceful old age replete

with fat corn fed dreams.

Untitled Lines / Post Solstice

Winter breeds patience out of desperation.

There is no instant gratification

When the snow plow buries you alive

And your only connection with the world

Comes in form of internet social networks

And high definition reality on ESPEN and the Travel Channel.

Realize (and remind yourself) this is a hermit's paradise;

All the one way talk you need

Without having to worry you're being judged

On how long it's been since you had a hair cut,

Or on whether you've taken a bath lately.

Snow outside made perfect by the thin layer of ice

Versus the dichotomous dirty snow left behind

By the shovel and the plow and the boot.

Look forward to Christmas, not for the gifts,

But because Solstice means

The days will get longer and the snow

Will gradually melt away, leaving behind

Something resembling Patience

Mingled with the hope

You have not yet dared to name

Or even appear to recognize.

Taking Out the Garbage The Morning After a Snow Storm

Up before the sun –

eyes pop open thanks to internal alarm clock

and the fear that the garbage men dug them-

-selves out last night. Pull on yesterday's

dirty clothes and go about bundling my-

-self up against the December winter outside.

Walk out onto the enclosed porch; the cooler air

pulls me out of my stupor as I

pull on my snow boots and turn on

the outside light so I can see what I have

to look forward to. Don't look up

I tell myself til it's done.

Grab the shovel.

Get to work.

                          It's me, a cheap shovel,

and the memory of a warm bed

against freshly packed snow

and a thin layer of ice that crackles

when the shovel breaks the surface. Don't look up

I tell myself til it's done. Get to the end

of the walk, meet the pile of snow and ice and rock

left behind by the snow plow. They don't pile it

in front of my neighbors' houses this way.

Start from the top

and dig my way down

thinking about about my landlord's

lawn tractor plow attachment

and I wonder if he's awake yet. Don't look up

I tell myself. Not til it's done. Slice through the pile

and step out onto the cleared street.

Snow reaches my thighs and I

can only revel so long in my victory

before I glance left

at the driveway.

                           The snow plow

didn't disappoint. Dig my way down,

through compacted snow and ice and gravel

hoping the shovel doesn't break – until

there's a space big enough to push through

and attack the thinner layer of pristine snow and ice

leading to the garage door. It breaks easy and I

move in a rectangle pattern

because it makes me feel like

it's disappearing faster, so that I

can feel like I'm winning

in spite of the forecast I'm

pushing out of my mind that calls

for more snow the day after tomorrow.

Don't look up, I tell myself

til it's done.

                      One last giant pile

tall as my waist and that

only so she can get the car out

when she leaves for work

in a few hours. Think about

the spaghetti dinner she cooked last night,

how it was heavy and warm in my belly

even though my hands and feet were cold

in spite of the heat. Dig my way down and

make my way through. Check my work

and allow myself a futile sense

of accomplishment.

                                Perch the garbage

atop the pile of snow. I know

the garbage men will throw

the recycling bin in the middle of the yard

to make me trudge through the snow

to retrieve it. Try not to think about it,

I tell myself.

                    Go back inside.

My hands and feet are warm. Strip

off cold sweaty clothes like I learned

from T.J. down in New Orleans

who warned me that a damp t-shirt

would kill me whether I was sleeping

on a park bench or soft bed.

That's how the elements finally kill you,

he said. They wait until you get sloppy.