The Cello: End of "Interlude" by Bach

Two final notes
wrenched from a dead poet
by a violent cellist
grapple in the
silence.
One, silver,
a satin ripple
lurching across a cavernous pool.
One, black,
some guttural, violated brute
forever haunting a lonely wood.
Both
throttling my eardrums
with fingers
without fingernails;
raw nerve endings
clawing up some primitive memory
of terror
and beauty.

Carly

Half of her,
her light
glows in close orbit,
radiating mirrored illumination.
Both sources.
Both reflections.

33 Things You Don't Want To Hear Someone Say As They Walk Out Of Your Bathroom

I want to credit this blog entry to Aaron, who inspired me to come up with my own list here...

1. Now I'm starved.
2. I'm not done, I just need to borrow some goggles.
3. Can you sub in for a couple minutes?
4. I really need to cut my fingernails.
5. Life is so unfair.
6. I need some gum.
7. Can I borrow some shoes?
8. I was lucky the bathtub's so close.
9. Black is my favorite color.
10. I haven't wept like that in years.
11. I still can't find the other half.
12. King me.
13. I'd make a great lumberjack.
14. I'd make a terrible lifeguard.
15. Do you have a cane I can use?
16. Say hello to my little friends.
17. I thought of a new Yo-Yo trick.
18. Whoops
19. I set 'em up, you knock 'em down.
20. Where's your fire extinguisher?
21. Im like the Energizer Bunny.
22. You might need a new shower curtain.
23. What's a Proctologist?
24. Not even a full length mirror would've helped.
25. Now I'm a Tenor.
26. How good is your insurance?
27. What's the A. stand for in Immodium A.D.?
28. Sorry, I just couldn't stay seated.
29. You're out of T.P., Kleenex, and cotton swabs.
30. Can I borrow a rake?
31. Did I lose?
32. What blood type are you?
33. Receive it.

A Penny Short

It was the kind of day
where even the sweat hides from the sun
in every small crevasse
to try and stay in it's liquid form.

To keep our mind on the heat
we were playing this fun game,
I forget what it's called,
where we turned the A/C on and off
every 5 minutes
to maintain the delicate balance
between keeping both us and the car
from overheating,
and we were failing miserably.

We pulled into the next gas station
and ran inside to wait for those
little sweat pools to freeze
and grab an ice cold Coca Cola Classic.

The cashier relucantly rang me up,
and the total was $1.01,
and of course I only had 1 dollar,
and every penny I could've found
was probably melting under the car seats.

I looked at him sheepishly
like a boy at his first school dance
in his father's sweater vest and skinny tie.
He looked at me with such scorn,
such scorn,
and scrunched up his fat neck
to nod down to a makeshift sign
above a little dish filled with pennies.

The sign read,
"Need a penny,
Take a penny,
Have a penny,
Leave a penny."
So I followed the sign
word for word,
over and over
and kept ending up a penny short.
I never did get that Coca Cola Classic.

Words

"Do you have a way
with words?" she asked.

"Well, I'm sure if might,
I've been always and,
what?
Hey!
So, yes, I think."

End of Analog

The longest running TV show
is about to go off the air in early 2009.
It used to be my childhood favorite.
I would sneak downstairs
when nobody was watching,
turn the TV on quietly,
and just sit and stare,
letting my imagination wander
while images formed on the screen
and filled my mind.
I credit that show with having
the greatest impact in my life so far
on my imagination and creativity,
although it was always banned by my parents.
My mom would inevitably ruin my fun
and say something like,
"Jacob, I don't like you sitting there
staring at black and white static."

Evergreens

Sometimes, during the harshest seasons,
it's easiest to find our roots
by shedding all external layers
to the wind and cold,
and tracing the leftover core
down to the darkest places,
to dig deeper into a new source of life.
But, most of us are pines,
forever ashamed of being exposed.

You Still Pretend, Only Not Like You Used To

Lipstick and fancy dresses
lose their wonder
when learned
to be applied correctly,
and acceptance begins
falling in the wrong hands
like snow in a city gutter,
slowly melting and draining all identity,
only to leave that leftover black exhaust and sediment
to amass into emotional walls
and more makeup.

You can ratchet up your spine,
but you're still a lamb
in lion's clothing.

Used

I used to know this guy
who used to hug bears
a little too close for comfort,
and neither of us moved away
and lost touch.

Something

They dragged him into the courthouse
like a fallen god.
He stood,
raking rusted fingernails
through leathered grizzle,
and didn't speak.
The sound of the air in the room
deflating
was like the sound of
air deflating from something.

My Words

My words are not completely
unique.
If I were to write my reflection
without a mirror
it would probably look a lot
like you,
and I'm fine with that,
as long as I'm not
a famous poet.

A bumper sticker
is just a cop-out.

Circles

I've noticed a lot of negativity
and legalism
in the circles I run in.
It's always,
"Pick up the pace!"
or
"No sharp turns!"

Truism

The old saying,
"Conserve water, drink more beer,"
does not quite hold true.
It should be,
"Conserve water, drink less water
and other water-based products."

$

Sometimes it's the little things in life
that are rewarding;
take, for instance,
little amounts of money.

If laughter was worth it's weight in gold,
it still wouldn't be worth anything.

If weight was worth it's weight in gold,
you could get really fat
and still only get like $300.

If you are rich in money
you will never be poor.

The best things in life are free,
like when you find money on the ground.

The old saying,
"It takes money to make money,"
still rings true;
like when you put vending machine change
in your pocket,
and then forget about it
until you empty out the washing machine
and your quarter is at the bottom,
and that's where they get the sayings,
"Dirty money,"
"Clean as a whistle,"
and "Loose change."

Fatherly Wisdom

Son, pull up a chair.
Listen here,
there's a time in every man's life
when he becomes a man,
and it's different for every man,
but it happens for every man,
because he's a man,
and I wouldn't be calling him a man
if he wasn't a man,
so obviously it happened at some point,
or I'd still be calling him a boy;
anyway, I think it may have already happened for you.

My father once told me something before he died
that I'll never forget,
he said, "Son, your mind is like a seed,
and there's water, and wind, and..."
That's it, I'll never forget it
because I can't believe he forgot the rest.
Actually, he said that a long time before he died.

So, I'll just finish before I lose this train of thought,
I just want to inspire you,
okay?

Till Death I Will Part

I carve my gravestone
with my own two hands.
The words penetrate slowly,
grinding deeper
with every poem,
every photograph,
every story.

I can read my epitaph
through your eyes.
I can hear my eulogy
in our growing tales.

When thunderclouds retreat over the mountains,
part of my soul follows.
When smoke rings fade with conversation,
part of my voice lingers.
When the sawdust settles,
part of my reflection remains.

I spread my ashes now
so when Death calls
there will be nothing left to take.

A Wedding Brawl

I've always seen these redneck fights
at weddings on trashy t.v.,
and I've always doubted that they really exist.
Well, they do.

You should have seen the guy
strut his stuff
afterwards,
marching around
with his chest puffed out.
There wasn't a seat that could
contain him.

He was a young buck,
maybe 28 or 29,
and he definitely got the best of
his first opponent.
He pushed him to the ground,
shoved his face into the dirt,
and cursed him out,
threatening his life
before the real brawl erupted.
In fact, the other guy was so scared
that he peed his pants.
Then again,
what 4 year old child
wouldn't.

Yes,
yes,
4 years old.
The child cut in line in front of his kid on the playground.
So, he viciously attacked the boy
to teach him a lesson.

Much to my relief, the other boy's father
was also nearby,
was no longer just watching,
was much bigger,
and was not a pacifist.

He was very willing,
and very capable,
of turning the previous teacher
into the student,
and turning the situation
into a new lesson,
carried out in the subject of anatomy
of some very specific facial bones.

Sometimes
a boy just needs to know
that his father will always protect him.
Sometimes
it's the only cure for wet pants.

A Strange Vision I Had of Pop-Pop a Few Nights Ago That I Still Don't Know What To Think Of

It was towards the end,
in the stillness,
before the business
and shuffling of nurses' feet.

His eyes suddenly flashed open
from their medicated coma
with urgent intensity,
like he had been gathering all his energy
for months
for this final surge of life.

He looked at me,
into me,
with such depth and clarity,
"Have you seen Him?"

Wide-eyed and breathless,
I felt the weight of his entire life
drop in my chest.
I couldn't speak.

He smiled knowingly at me,
and I was looking at a man
now fully alive.
I had never seen a man
fully alive.
He winked at me and said,
"I've seen Him."

My lips could only shiver,
"Who?"

I trembled in anticipation,
because this question
was suddenly
the only question that mattered.

He pulled me closer with a twinkle in his eye,
like a child who could not
conceal his excitement and wonder.

With awe and authority
he whispered his last words,
his only words,
shooting fire down my spine and
giving new meaning to capitalized letters:
"THE INVENTOR!"

Only Part of the Story

So, I overheard two women talking
the other day
as I crossed a busy street.

The frumpy, throaty
fifty-something
with pastor's-wife posture
said that she was
"annoyed with Sandy too."

The shifty-eyed,
mouse-cheeked
librarian-type
shook her round bird's nest head
and mumbled something
I couldn't quite hear
as they click-clicked along
in the opposite direction.

That's all.
I just thought you should know.

The Temple of Unholy Shrines

The thing I can't understand
about automatic toilets
is when there is still pee
sitting in the urinal when you approach.
What the heck?
The previous guy must have either
pissed in record time,
or from a long distance,
both of which baffle
and amaze me.

So I set a wide stance
and pretend like I'm peeing for a minute
just to activate the automatic flush
because I'm O.C.D. about my urine
mixing with someone else's urine.
I'm not biased or anything,
I just don't get into that kind of alchemy.

I back away quickly
to the sweet sound of flushing
with concerned vigilance
for any lingering yellow residue,
when I notice some guy waiting suspiciously,
and I know he's thinking,
"That guy better not pee twice."

So I make my fake escape
before dipping into a stall for slightly more privacy,
when the sight of that shiny bemis seat
goads my bowels into action,
regardless of whether it looks like
the previous participants
pissed everywhere except in the water.

I complete the first half of the term
"drop and flush"
when the absence of a lever
turns me into a strange contortionist,
trying to lean forward and to the side
far enough to trip the automatic sensor,
all the while trying to balance
on feet bound by undergarments
and still keep my sloppy joe buns
hanging safely over the rim.

With the flush conquered,
I can now move on to wiping,
which is made painstakingly tedious
because the 150-grit toilet paper is so thin
that no matter how slowly I pull,
I can only manage at most to keep 2 squares together
before it tears,
which is not nearly enough surface area
or absorption
to perform it's job properly,
all the while worrying that someone listening close by
is keeping tabs on how many squares I've ripped off,
and they are growing concerned that
I'm now nearing the acceptable limit of T.P. etiquette,
and maybe suffering the aftermath
of some absurd assplosion.

My impatient hand sanding begins to produce
a coarse finish
of inflamed soft-tissue areas,
when, leaping Lazarus,
my bowels start to move again
like a colicky baby
from what I thought was put down
for a comfortable nap.

So I try to bed my bowels back down again
grunting a nasally lullaby
with renewed gusto,
forcing premature labor
to a scared brown turtle head,
who nervously retreats back in his shell
when frightened by the impatient size fourteens
on the other side of my insufficient barrier,
who've suddenly come-a-knocking
like I'm not doing my best in here;
like maybe I accidentally dozed off
amidst the comfort of my surroundings.

So I give up on my fruitless efforts,
pull my trousers up from their bed of sticky soles
and beached urine,
and try to retreat from the rogue splashes
spitting at my exit from the
ever-swallowing throat.

I take refuge in washing away the sorrows
and residue from my hands,
which constitute only about 20% of my body parts
that really need a good scrubbing now.

I've heard it said that there is an actual chemical
in the hand blowers
that makes you forget any negative thoughts of your experience,
but I have never met a hand blower
that stayed on long enough
to erase those memories,
or completely dry my dripping hands.

I don't know if my hands get unusually wetter
than other guys' hands,
but I am always left with the cruel choice of either
announcing my wetness problem
to every guy in the bathroom
by pressing the button again in defeat,
or wiping the excess water on my jeans
that were just lying at the base
of an unholy shrine.

Hi?

I met Fred P. on a mid-afternoon
elevator ride.
I know because of his nametag...
"Hello, my name is ________!"
His name was Fred P.

I didn't mind his style.
That name tag got to the point quicker
than any amount of bumper stickers
or clever license plates ever could.

I don't blame him either,
his name did have a nice ring to it.
I figured he was either just proud
or really friendly.
At any rate, he was already
one-up on me,
and I didn't know whether it was still a
hand-shaking situation,
or if a hug would now be required,
so I decided to just pretend
like I hadn't heard the introduction
stuck to his left breast pocket.

My biggest struggle now was that
I had to fight off his introduction alone
because everyone else in the building
decided that it would suddenly be a good time
not to use the elevator.

But, inevitably, when you skip
the second half of an introduction,
one person is left open and vulnerable,
and the other gets to
disturb the pulsing silence
with a 12-story attempt
at looking for something important in their
empty backpack;
which I did end up finding,
along with a Tic Tac container and paper clips,
by secretly peeking up at him
through my dark sunglasses.

And this is what I found out...

I could tell that he liked shoes
because he was wearing 2 of them,
and he also liked briefcases and clothes,
and probably socks.

I could tell that his audible voice,
not similar to the
messy upper case bold sharpie strokes he flaunted,
would be more like a
300 lb cat-loving widow
falling down a long flight of stairs.

He looked like a man of undistinguished tastes
and a bland palette,
to whom the term "Haute Couture" was French.
His hobbies probably included
driving in traffic
and blending into very small crowds.

The lines on his face revealed a life of
facial muscles working,
but not too hard.
He did seem to always be thinking,
at least while I knew him,
on the elevator,
long and hard,
mainly because he had to,
like a bored secretary
rummaging through an endless stack
of un-alphabetized index cards.

This was Fred P.
Most people don't know him like I do.
Most people aren't so scared of small talk.

Hot Tub

I was sitting in my hot tub the other night
drinking a cold root beer,
watching the stars peek in and out
between wisps of stretched cotton clouds
like some mother-baby peek-a-boo game,
trying not to giggle
as the jets spit water between my toes.

I closed my eyes and began to ponder...
"Hmm, I wonder what I'd be doing right now
if I was sitting in this hot tub without my cold
draft of sassafras?"

I sat there for a while
pondering this conundrum
when it suddenly dawned on me...
I would be doing just that,
just sitting in that hot tub,
without a root beer!

It was so simple!
So simple, in fact, that it occurred to me
that I had been soaking
in what now felt like a lukewarm bath
for a few hours too long,
and that I was now bordering on the edge
of thought
of that
of a 3 year old,
floating dangerously close
to insanity,
and what used to be a perfectly crisp
Slim Jim.

Till We Have Faces

It's a puppet show!
Try on the different faces.
Discard the ones you're jealous of,
the ones that remind you of your old self.
Find the ones that stand out,
the unique ones,
the ones that make you someone
in the eyes of someone else.
Let the masks meld into an unholy deity,
a two-faced, three-faced,
many-faced monster
disguised in botox and cover-up.

A marionette given false hope
of invisible strings.

All the unique individuals
dancing the same dance
not noticing the choreography.

All lies of poets and priests
till we cut the strings
till we give ourselves a good scrubbing
till we have faces.

Echoes

All I’ve known
I now know no longer.
I long for the
Whispering hints of remnants
Creaking through these old bones,
The clarity fading with decaying memories
While the only monuments
That haven’t crumbled
Are the weathered lines
Etched on my face
Branching out like dried up streams;
A winding open grave of sun-scorched limestone
Lying lifeless
Listening to the withered roots below
Tell tales of old
Of melting snow
Flowing from distant storms.

The thunder rumbles in the distance,
But even the echoes are welcome now.