Month: October 2011

:
dying
told you are dying
dying for a year now
(how tedious!)
mourning your own life
suffering pain
physical
and the ebbing of your physical strength
being a sensualist
and no longer being able to drink alcohol, eat meat, have sex
alone on a hill
and not being touched
or even holding court!
(I do not mean to dramatize, but set the scene)

in the process of dying
for a year
writing your memoirs
and thinking
as you’ve often though
of the first significant love relationship you ever had
writing it out
in humor and sorrow

in this age of computers
thinking to look him up
to see how he’s doing…
he didn’t die in the AIDS years, this you know
but there’s his obituary
from 2007

even dying
for a year
outliving the last of the friends you can dredge up from your memory
from the early days…
(when things were…)

that kind of sad.

I’m glad I answered the phone when he called.

.
:.:

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Ahhhh
when I’m with someone
til 2am
and leave with a stack of twenties
and there is a cab right there
there is no question I’m not going to waste time with the trains

but it’s not just convenience
I love it when I can take a taxi home
up the FDR, the Harlem River Drive

I don’t know the rules
but I remember
back when i drove across the country all the time
driving a friend’s U-haul from downtown to uptown
and someone pulled along side and said to my passenger "There are no trucks allowed on the FDR!"
back then I called it the "east side highway"
but it’s not

i don’t know if it’s that Brooklyn, Queens & the Bronx are more visually interesting at night than NJ
or the road is closer to the water
and casts more reflections
or the "river" is less wide
I don’t know
but I find it so beautiful…

grateful to live here
to romanticize my relationship with The City

as I left my client
I decided I needed to listen to LCD’s "Home"
but half way up the river the driver asked me something and I heard him
and turned it off
– he was asking me about a song on the radio
"what is this one? what’s it called? I remember hearing it when I was a child! it’s such a great one!"
it was "These Eyes" by The Guess Who
I wasn’t entirely sure if it was them or just "The Who" — always making that mistake I looked it up and verified it for him
as we sailed up the night river
I had a nostalgic flash of all the car trips we took when I was a child…
between Michigan and Indiana
I’d been talking about them this morning because of Meatloaf…
were those the only two cassettes my parents listened to?

"ah!" he said, "things were so much better then…"

where were you a child? I asked

"the Ivory Coast"
as the river rolled by
I tried to imagine what that must have been like
and what to say…
but he spoke again
"those were good times. so much better than now…"
which always strikes me odd
NYC is an intense place to live
if you like where you came from better
why live here?
(I know, I know… but…)

I asked How better? Why?

he said
"everything seemed OK… like everything was Alright"

I said
Everything is Still OK and Alright… we just know about the Pain and Misery now. but that’s a part of life… it’s good to know about and still know that everything is alright…

he said things were simpler… made sense!
and things are so expensive now!
and…

I cut him off:
You were a child!
of course you were happier
you were being taken care of
that’s what’s great about being a child
but things are always expensive
and life is always complicated
but our parents paid the price and did the work so we could play
we’re just adults now…
we have to do the work and feel the pain
but we get to make it alright as well

he murmured something in affirmation
and I thought about us a moment
and the river
and my childhood car trips
not understanding Meatloaf or The Guess Who…
American Woman!

the news was on the radio as we turned away from the river towards my house
and I thought about "the march" as my coworker called it today
what most are calling Occupy Wall Street
and I tried to imagine how I could interface with it

join the occupation
become a citizen of my nation

I burst into my apartment
filled with the Latins
sickness was evident
and I announced I must "take my power back"
I pulled one of the pheasant wings out of the freezer and used it for the first time
smudging them and my apartment with mugwort
then watched a few news feeds and videos about the state of the nation

is it even possible to not have it belong to idiotic power/money monsters?
can I jump on that idealism wagon
of how we’ll all be adults together and stop expecting some mythical parents to do it all for us?
can we say "we will" and mean it everyday for… as long as the next chapter lasts?

.
:.:

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.shifting through stacks of paper.
.he said "fall cleaning".
.stagnation, quiet.
.ten thousand unanswered emails.
.three boxes of books mailed months ago covered in piles of books and various other things.
.disquieted mind.
.chaos disrupting creativity.
.stagnation.impediment.inertia.
.months of unanswered mail.
.I would like to read that or do something with that.
.maybe later.
.maybe later.
.bags and bags to the recycling.
.the taste in the mouth.
.the reminder: it’s not great sex, it’s great love.
.satisfaction stilling desire.
.empty plateau.
.mired in clutter.
.a stack of plays.
.a stack of potential.
.a stack of obligations.
.one thing at a time.
.do the dishes.
.seven loads of laundry last week.
.sorted through the boxes last week.
.sorted through the papers today.
.deciding mind exhausted.
.body still and quiet.
.Monday.
.busy week ahead.
.things will make sense later.
.often an imbalance in libra.
.some depression or lost in the fog.forest.sea.
.often.
.we have cycles.
.at least this can be expected now.
.and maybe you’re digging out…