16,329. TOMORROW AND THEN?

TOMORROW AND THEN?

The end of May will bend the bough,

a heavy burden for a tree to handle.

The first of June goes looming just

alongside the heave-running brook.

I swear that barn has titled since last

Summer; but, maybe, it's just the look.

-

Everything looks different in black 

and white. Someone said that, in their

singsongey way, and I always agreed.

-

I suppose, in color, in sepia, or even

in black and white, we never know the

future, or at least we never get it right.

16,328. MEASURING FOR HATS

MEASURING FOR HATS

How big is your head, fellows? Is it

more than ground-ego can make it?

Are you standing in a slathering pot

of broiling mud? There are all sorts

pf procedures guys do to make it

bigger. No one wants a small head

in reputation-school? The piano

teacher just keeps standing in the

hallway?

16,327. MY FRIEND, STAMINA PUERILE

MY FRIEND, STAMINA PUERILE

Could be a guy, could be a girl; those old

Latin names with their funny endings are

supposed to tell you. But not this one. It's 

maybe Staminus, or it's maybe Stamina;

like Fistula or Fistulus. You make up your

own mind. 'Round about the one o'clock

bustle, just after, in late afternoon. That's

the time of day I always hate the most.

-

Seemed like, if ever I had a lousy appointment

or a time to be somewhere, it was always at

'1:30pm'. Worse time of the day -  the Summer

sun has rolled overhead and the pithy heat is

come a'broiling. No time to stretch in this hour

or wretch. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, cons;

they all used 1pm.

16,326. THE MAJOR SERVANT

THE MAJOR SERVANT

It's always been that way: the

major servant has always been

Time. It runs the clock we live by,

and does a certain bidding quite

sublime; please make sure not to

forget to wind.

-

The little wind that lingers may rush

the leaves, but it won't rush me.

16,325. PERIWINKLE GROWS

 PERIWINKLE GROWS

My shadow's been walking in front of me

of late, and I'm not sure it's not making me

unsteady? Should it really be where I've

not yet been? How do I judge that issue?

-

There has to be a curtain of doubt about

this entire matter anyway, and now I'm

not sure why I even brought it up.

I did ask the gardener who was 

trimming up his church, 'Do you

have a shadow that get places first?'

He motioned to his ears and headset

that he couldn't hear. Noise, yes, from

here to there. 

-

Those kind of things I no longer care 

about, I tell myself a thousand times; 

yes  -  someone like me, a fool in a 

blind  -  doesn't need more uncertainty

nipping at his hind.

16,324. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,300

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,300

(I can't be any happier than that)

To paraphrase Hannibal, 'What the

heck are these Alps doing here?' It's

like that everywhere, and by me too.

Every height has its descent, which

is mostly where the difficulties are.

I wake up again every morning, 

not so much because I want to but 

just because it occurs. Been doing 

it that way for years and years, and

I never really thought about it until

those first hospital stays  -  Dec. 15,

heart operation, and all the rest.

When the doctor told me I'd been

artificially sustained for 7 hours,

heart stopped while I was electrically

tied into a heart/lung powerplant 

that ran myself for me, I said 'What!?'

Then I asked him if hearts always

come back on. He said 'I've never had

one yet that didn't, but we are prepared

in case. See, the human has a propensity

to wish to live on.' News to me sometimes.

-

Now that all this is rolling over into 

June, which would have been my 6th 

'death month' by what they'd told me,

by prediction, and which they later 

(afterwards) changed to 2 months 

(Jan), based on the condition of 

what they saw when they looked 

inside me. And, of course, that was

and is only the half of it. It wasn't that

I was a cholesterol bomb, or gross and

heavy eater. No way, and never. My

problem was genetic, and ran in the male

side of my family somehow from my

Mother's genetics. I guess it was a crap-shoot 

that caught me up. A strange lottery I 

should have never won. Death has

a greeter? I want to ask all those

geniuses, with their pat and almost-

sufficient solutions and answers,

religiously. In April I needed another

equally perplexing operation, after

10 months of major prostate

difficulties. I sit here now, writing

all these sort of 'censored' memories

of my time  -  wondering  -  had I

died - what would have happened to

all that and where would they have

otherwise languished, or disappeared?

The parameters of the human social

situation restrict me from actually 

writing a lot of the things I went 

through. Bar-scene pigs and sluts,

the murderous ends of knives, I could

add layers to all this, but in the same

way spell-check again won't allow

my clever mis-spelling of the word

'count' for something other than that,

so the mixed-up, wasteful world of

'takeover reality' has ruined our world.

-

So, how does one get from A to C

without using B? More stupid games.

'She sucked my duck at the bar-stool

setting while 'Melissa' played on the

juke.' See how you read that. 

-

Fifty years ago, if someone in Elmira

told me I'd be sitting around as an old

man 75 miles from there, trying to reclaim

all those old spaces, I'd have shook my

head, claiming Death's Breviary would

have had me first....and that still may 

happen. My condition runs day-to-day,

and I've got no faith any longer in either

the dream nor the urge to go on. But,

as it goes, here I am, atop my spread 

of greenery, and staring sown below

to the water. I don't really care about

either.

-

I guess if I need proof of my existence

now I have scars I can point to. As I sit 

here writing this, out in my garage-studio

there's even the life urge of an itty-bitty

mouse to watch, as it curiously scuttles

around, seemingly seeking water. I scoop

it up, in a form of loving pity for all the

rest of the living, and place it outside, 

in the grass, by the watering pails and 

collection pots, and it drinks. I can't be

any happier than that!

16,323. I HAVE ADJUSTED

I HAVE ADJUSTED

I have adjusted all my regional information

to make sure things align: we still use inches,

feet and yards here, right? Such information

varies  -  while the deadweights in power

mess with things. (My spell check just gave

me 'thongs'. They probably mess with them 

too)...

-

I'm too tired and I no longer care. The wheezing

chuck-steak who runs all things is so cute

when he gets confused

16,322. JUST ANOTHER LOCAL DAY AT THE LOCAL DOLLAR TREE

JUST ANOTHER LOCAL DAY AT 

THE LOCAL DOLLAR TREE

I tried on my funeral suit for size.

It doesn't fit, and I figure that's good.

The lady came out from the store here,

while I was waiting at the bank, with

a bag of chocolate noodles or something

She was eating them at an olympic rate.

Would it have been better if I'd said 'at

an alarming rate, or is that too much of

a value judgement these days? 

-

Fat bottom'd girls you make the 

working world go 'round? I like

that better than 'rocking'; I mean,

who really wants that?

16,321. JONAS MEKAS, 1,2,3

JONAS MEKAS, 1,2,3

It wasn't like the sparkle went out or anything.

At the of the east side street, whatever it may

have been, that ancient tree did finally succumb.

People came by, like us, to see. I saw the magic

camera, taking secret notes? What good's a

photo now, I wondered? Seems there old things

just always disappear.

16,320. I SAW TWENTY-TWO SQUIRRELS

I SAW TWENTY-TWO SQUIRRELS

Difficult to believe today, in Scranton, at

Nay Aug Park, as I was leaving the hospital 

and crossing the lawn to where I'd parked,

I saw a sight I'd never really seen before.

At the Everhart Museum, on the grass near

the reflecting pool  -  early Spring, warm day,

everything green  -  there were twenty-two

squirrels. The most I'd ever seen. They were

scurrying around, a few flipping and teasing

each other. More mating behavior? Jeepers,

I hoped not, and haven't we had enough?

-

What makes Nature overdo it?

Did I have to wonder that?

16,319. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,299

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,299

(cementing the level field; cue balls, part TWO)

Diamond Jim has a chip in his nostril  -

not like a dog-chip or anything, but the

kind of stud kids put now in their noses. 

Etc. That 'etc.' is important now because

stuff like this gets put anywhere, and I've

seen them all. But on Diamond Jim?

What a schmuck. Back in the ABATE 

office, I used to have a girl who lived

upstairs, with her truck-driving boyfriend

who kept his big semi there, and he'd take

to the road  for 10-day trips and whatever.

It got pretty treacherous for me, her being

alone and all; because every time she got

a new piercing or a tattoo also, she tap on

the door and walk on in. To show me!

Yep, you can imagine, from top to bottom,

and everywhere else, I had to be 'shown

the new addition. By goodness, that got

pretty strange. 'Mama's don't let your babies

grow up to be piercers!' Might be a song

there, I don't know.

-

Back in Elmira, those local motorcycles I'd

see were all knuckleheads and Shovelheads,

the nosy and clattering kind  -  open primaries

(sounds like politics?), too-loose drive chains,

and the rest. It was the early days of any

Harley resurgence, and AMF was prevalent. 

Motorcycle made by bowling-pin setter

machines were a real charm. But, none of

them ever minded, it was all fun. I never

saw violence, nor even police goings on.

Everything seemed sedate. Those days were

far different than now; patterns and niches

had not really been established, and anyone

could range anywhere with what they wished

to do. Incense and Chinese Food was still a

big deal. Back then, Route 17 was still called

Route 17 (now it's got a few names and titles).

It was essentially a big, flat straightaway, (there's

actually a town near there called Big Flats. You

can look it up). Cars and bikers reveled in all

that  -  people trying to push 90 on some old

piece of crap Harley that should have never

seen 55mph. No one ever crashed and burned,

that I knew off. It seemed that what stoked the

fires was just the enjoyment of 'crazy'  -  that

word again  -  attacked from all and every side.

Goodtime Charley NEVER had the blues!

-

If I had to compare then to now, in Elmira

anyway, there'd be no comparison. Something

has obviously happened to our national fabric

that has changed all cohesion. I'd have to say,

now, that there is no Truth left. Everything

presented is a lie, a twisted Carvel of drivel

meaning to send people somewhere else  -

to some sort of artificial paradise of space

where in a person says nothing, just accepts.

It runs the gamut  -  politics (look at the

current roll-out of new candidates; crooks

and schmiels all, up to no good antics, with

false presentations and misleading intros.

Not any one person ant longer has the

courage of a conviction. Those that do

among us, go to jail).

-

Outside of working and going to 'school'

(sounds funny), most of my time was

spent clacking away on an old Royal

typewriter. The most irksome thing 

for me is that I had like a 50 page

manuscript, entitled 'Irvine Place'

(which was the street Nelson and 

Chris lived on) and it took in all the

rich incidentals and personalities of

that part of Elmira where we lived.

I last saw the manuscript in about 2015,

when moving, and it's never been found

since. It may be junk, and I may be

blowing it all out of proportion, but

damn, I'd sure like to run across it

again. If not that, we'd just drive around,

going most anywhere. Back then, Elmira

gasoline was 64 cents at the nearby corner,

until all that oil embargo and Opec and

Carter stuff all hit. That pissed everyone

off, and when it got to a dollar, I thought

there'd be mass suicides from what I was

hearing from the locals, but one dollar

came and went, and then two dollars!

As usual, no one did shit about any of it.

That's the American way.

-

I had learned a lot, and gotten plenty of

Practice with feints and jabs.  My everyday

matter went from 'here' to 'there.' I'd go to

Mark Twain's grave sometimes to just

stand there. There was something honest

and reverential about it, to me; but in order

to know that (nothing was given freely), 

you had to know the man, his works as 

well, and what went on inside his head.

He was one of our first, American,

home-hatched celebrities. There wasn't

much people knew what to do with a

character like that. He came from nowhere

and just burst out, somehow unfettered

saying whatever the hell he wanted. Points 

of view were unmatched, and that was

all part of the charm. And there he was,

most everyday I chose, stretched out

before me in the odd family plot, with

the marker and the bas-relief. Almost 

enjoyable and steady. Sam Clemens

was more of a 'performer' than anything

else  -  yes, he wrote the books and all, but

it was his stage presence and recitals that

marked his fame and character, all over

America and Europe too. He'd perfected

this entire persona of home-spun and

blunt; a country gee-whiz sort of

American icon, even before anyone

knew what that was, or even of

'Uncle Sam.'

16,318. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,298

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,298

(here come the human cue-ballers, pt. ONE)

I guess it was about 1972 that was

the first time I really felt myself crazy.

That was a long time ago, and at that time

we were at Columbia Crossroads, PA, on

12 acres left over from a farm that had

been broken up so that I could buy, for 

this story at least three times here, in 

the last 10 years or more, so I'm not 

going to belabor it. In a few more 

years, we were in Elmira, NY, in a 

nice little house I'd bought at the 

college (one block in). All was cool,

and the human mix of place and

people suited me fine. The transition

was easy, and the young son was 4.

His name was Jaime, but he wouldn't

answer to it. Believe that? He didn't 

like the name  -  simply made everyone 

call him Jay. OK, fine. I changed it to 

Jay-son, and then, when South Asians 

began coming in, I simply started 

calling him Sonjay. Ha. Even when

he started school, we'd get calls from

the teachers to come in because he

would not recognize his name. I said,

'Look, for pity's sake, just call him 'Jay

and be done with it. He'll answer.' The

problem was solved. None of it mattered

anyway. Actually, I liked Sonjay, and

thought it was a cool name, in his case.

-

There was a certain kind of madness 

I had easily entered into. The problem

with this  -  of course  -  is that when

you're faced with someone telling you 

how crazy-mad he was/is, it's good to

proof-positive he wasn't, and isn't. In 

the same way a suicide who keeps 

blabbing about committing suicide

will never do it. Caveat here : in my

few experiences with suicides there

was one guy who talked about it for 

like twenty-five years, as his right, 

and his choice, to take control of

his own life. It wasn't very pretty

when he actually followed through.

-

Anyhow, all about this time things were

loosely falling off the table for me. My

cares and concerns seemed different. 

The wife and child concerns, though I 

always took care of everything, had 

partially become secondary. Nothing

at that level really computed for me

any longer. Kathy had somehow and

once again gotten connected up with

the usual run of Presbyterian fidgets. 

As in Columbia Crossroads, but those 

fidgets were Baptist. The Presbyterians

here were more organized, and held to

sterner matters. I never once entered the

church quarters. She was being called 

a 'Pillar of the Community', while my

friends Nelson and Chris were laughing

at the very thought. I never knew what

was going on, nor what in the world

they were getting involved in there.

Funny, but this was back in the day,

(1974ish) when many of the farm folk

and Elmira locals still drove curiously

interesting 10 or 12 year old cars. They'd

be inside doing their church stuff, and 

I'd take my dog for a walk just to see 

the cool spread of '54 Fords and '56 

Buicks and such they were parking 

and walking away from. I could have 

stole a hundred cool cars a month 

probably, and those googlers would

have just started praying harder for 

a new car, probably. I never met a

one of them, and never wished to 

either.

-

Those were the days of Gandy Brodie

as 'Artist-In-Residence' at Elmira College.

He had a Sunday morning dog-walk thing

going too, with his dog. We became friends,

of a Sunday and art sort anyway. And during

his time I was often to his studio in the Art

Building. It was going real nice, and then 

he died! Just like that! He had been an old

line Beatnik artist type through the NYC

1950's, and had lots of friends and stories

from them. Being solo, he brought no

family and no connections with him 

but for the dog, and I never knew what 

happened to anything. One of his NY 

friends, poet Kenneth Koch, who 

often-enough visited, maybe took the 

dog and Gandy's stuff too. There was a

wife around somewhere, I later learned,

but I'd never met her nor seen her. Nor

even heard of her. It was only later when

I learned what a 'beard' was that it made

a little sense. Back in those days, having

a 'wife' on paper anyway, was a means

for gay guys to pass as straight. Yes, it

was all that weird. So many women 

(probably lesbians themselves?) married

themselves off for money or whatever,

and  -  SHAZAM  - the guy had a wife,

so he couldn't be gay. Right?

-

I didn't know much of what else was ever

going on  -  there were two biker bars in

town, but I stayed away from them. The

upstate New York '70's biker guys all 

seemed way too out there for me, like 

'Eat a Peach' Allman Brothers types, 

with attitude. I didn't know what side 

anyone was on, and I didn't want to  -  

nor did I wish for them to know

anything much about me. Biker girls?

Up there they all seemed pretty much

as nothing but Biker-Fuck-Fodder.

-

More later on my sense of being' crazy,

but I was in the later/mid '70's for keeps,

and there weren't no way out.

16,317. MAY I WATCH THE SPINNING FURIES AS THEY LAND?

MAY I WATCH THE SPINNING 

FURIES AS THEY LAND?

On balance, I am probably the most insincere

person that ever lived, saying things just to get

a rise out of others; so as to make them think,

begin a thought-process for them, slap or

shock them into a recognition. The problem

is that it presumes a certain superiority, which

I don't really have.

-

Back in the 1950's William Gaddis wrote a book

called 'The Recognitions.' It was his first novel,

a '50's debut!, and it bombed. 25 years later, you

couldn't stop literate people from talking about it.

That's how it goes with those out ahead of the

curve; the stupids eventually come around to

begin eating that much-disliked grass.

'The pleasure is all mine', they say.'

16,316. IT'S LIKE AN EVERYDAY THING

IT'S LIKE AN EVERYDAY THING

The bump in the wallet's long gone, and

those photos of my 14 children are all

displaced. Grandkids? I never even 

started counting.

-

I can apply for developing nation status, 

but only if I had the borders and the lands

to freely inhabit. But who wants to run a

free nation of fools?

-

Hand-me-downs run in the family too:

My first wife, long back, was married to

a guy named Chuck, who was killed on the

Bonneville Salt Flats for driving too fast.

She didn't mourn him a day. I sort of just

inherited her when she offered me his

other vehicles as some type of weird 

and medieval dowry. I couldn't say no

to that and never looked back : She was

OK to live with but great in the sack!

-

Another one of my wives  -  I think #3 -

said she was heir to the Kendermann

fortune, and though I never found out 

what it was, there was always money 

around. She ran off with some embezzling

crook and left me in the lurch. So, no,

no part of this ever brought me anything

good. I digress.

-

In 1981, even I myself won some money

in a lottery. I t was automatic, and I hadn't

even known I'd entered. By then, the kids

were everywhere, so I bought one of those

new vans to cart them all around. Then, yeah

I started looking for a Soccer Mom to do all

that for me, but, alas, none was ever found.

16,315. CAN'T BLAME KILGORE

CAN'T BLAME KILGORE

Right where they put the heading

the words blocked out the photo.

Can't blame Kilgore; he didn't

do it. Next to the milk station,

the cute like girl left the tray.

Can't blame her for that either;

I think she wanted to stay.

16,314. ESSENCE TO MARIGOLD

ESSENCE TO MARIGOLD

Oh, I never know what it is. A darkness

that takes over and kills all the trees?

A feeling of dread when I hear yet

another voice? The sound of a

breakdown whenever a motor

starts up?

-

That's the promise of my life : gloom,

doom, and predilections for emptiness.

A webbed collar strangling my neck.

Noise. Noise. Noise.

16,313. THIS STORY BEGINS WITHOUT ME

THIS STORY BEGINS WITHOUT ME

The abbot was walking across the lawn,

reciting the Lord's Prayer like Robespierre.

'Le Notre Pere' rolled off his tongue like

French creamed veal. I nodded my head

 and greeted his zeal.

-

It used to amaze me the manner in which

religious padres kept to their stances. Even

Anne Hutchinson, in her way, banished to 

another place, in a land unknown to her, 

like Roger Willims and the rest. Stumbling 

southward and exiled to a 'Rhode Island'

they'd never much heard off.

-

That's how things get done when you only

look back: Pearls of pricely wisdom now,

these items are the basis of your world. To

review the founding of this country, certainly 

no 1619 Project is needed. Just look at who is

offering it to you, and make your own decision.

It wasn't slavery at all  -  just the endless and

idiotic caterwauling of landed sects quarrelling

with each other over their crazed religious tenets.

It's never ended and it never stopped: now a mere

filth-bucket of grime called 'America' in time.

Lost to the ages is anything good

16,312. WHEN I AWOKE

 WHEN I AWOKE

I awoke today next to a broken mirror. 

I'd always been told to never do that, but

it's not really something you can control.

It's a very complicated matter, but the 

slash across the image went right across

my face from certain angles.

-

Pretty manageable, actually. All you

need to do is change the angle. I don't

know how these things get started. Old

wives' tales, they used to be called. Now

all those old wives are gone anyway, or,

having changed to men now have different

points of view?

-

Does our world thus change by those

infractions? I don't realize a difference as 

the creepy sun decides to drag itself along

another dreary sky, while some men 

absent themselves form living and

others simply die.

-

At least there's no more 'frost on the 

pumpkin' to look for too. The landscape is 

stilled now, into some majestic greenery 

all new  -  though silent and. yes, wordless, 

it sings of something still.

16,311. I'M NEVER PLAYING WIMBLEDON AGAIN

I'M NEVER PLAYING 

WIMBLEDON AGAIN 

Well, maybe once more, if they ask nicely

and pay a good purse. Why in the world

would I need to say no? I'm not sure of the

elevation or the rise, the land seems sort of

plain to me. The language? It's OK and I can

manage.

-

My record book is already bulging with 

superlatives, and the media laps it up;

but none of it's true, and never believe 

what you read. Like everything else, it's

all a set-up.

16,310. RANDOM NOTES FROM EVERYWHERE

RANDOM NOTES FROM EVERYWHERE 

Baseball?  Let's just kill all the umpires and

pile them up in center field. That games too

fast now anyway. It's for dogs. I hear some

fucking Harley guy a half-mile or more away,

coning down my road doing probably 75. I

hope he hits a rock or a deer. I'll sure pick

him up. Hey! And now 3 more just went by,

in the opposite direction. God for them.

-

The lead bike of those 3 was yellow. I never

liked yellow bikes, though I had one once, 

for about 20 hours. Me and some guy  -  a

really good friend back then  -   traded

titles at some bar, a sleazeball place in

Dunellen. we went home together, on 

our separate new bikes. I hated mine and

sold it about 3 weeks later, from out in

front of Olivers' (a bar on St. George Ave.)...

-

He got hit, on mine, by some Asian lady. A

few injuries, but he sued. He made a bundle.

16,309. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,297

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,297

(a one of a time place)

I can usually tell, right off, by the

voice, what sort of person anyone

is. I think that any Human sensibility

is set up for that -   whether it's an

ancient tribal trait, or an environmental

reaction going back to when people 

used to be itinerants, wandering the 

plains; self-preservation; safety.

Come to think of it, it's still like

that, in the manner of groups liking

others of their same ilk. The strange

nearly ignorant prattle of the lower

classes, romping through their 

discontents over absolutely stupid

issues and demands.

-

The cool thing about Tompkins Square

Park was that, as a sort-of ground zero

landing area for the Post-War sorrows,

the place was filled with silence. A numbing

silence of sadness and hurt, but a sadness

nonetheless. Mostly, it seemed to be Jews,

from Kiev-Rus (that was once a large

Kingdom within old Russia, based in

Kiev  -  a sort of empire with an empire,

of Jewish pale and settlements. Devastated

by 1950, for sure. Ukrainians and Poles,

as well, suffered the same fates of bad

memories and lost places. They all took 

to the benches as if glued in place.

There was once a 1980's maybe, Jewish

comedy and or film star, named Gene

Wilder. He made free use of two

characters of his own making  - 'Mr.

and Mrs. Bialystok.' Now, Bialystock

had ben a real place, in Poland or some

eastern Euro place, and it was home to

many Jews. On the lower eastside NYC

there was even a Bialystok Synagogue.

Only a Jew, withering from the same

sufferings, would be able to get away,

as Wilder did, with the ridicule and the

at the same time, they managed to work 

out a way where only THEY could

laugh at themselves. Therapeutic?

-

It's funny, but now, nearly 60 years

later, I live in and at the fringe areas

of the old Borscht Belt / Catskill

camp and resort zones which, through

the 1940's and 1950's [and before],

postwar-recovery world, were steadily

thriving and filled with streams of

Jewish vacationers, Summer-residents,

and comedy and entertainment clubs.

One after the other, there were racetracks,

lakes, boating, resorts, etc., and very

many 'big-name' entertainers earned

their stripes while performing and 

coming up through these miserable 

ranks of people, just and only-barely,

learning to smile again. It's pretty

much (and thankfully) nothing but

ruins  -  unfiltered ruins, crumbling 

and falling down, unused and all

abandoned. It kind of has to be seen

to be believed, for there are no actual

'human' words to encompass what must,

in some cosmic and essential way, still

be a vast Human sadness. It seems as

if everything 'gave out' here about the

same time as did the 1970's. Air-travel

and much finer vacations replaced the

sedate simplicity of gorging on food 

and laughing at sit-down ethnic comics. 

It seems to take about 35 years for a

large, crazy, house to crumble; and 

there are, hereabouts, plenty of them.

Roofs and porches seem to same and

drop first; then stairways and roof

corners. The oddball little access-drives

and/or roads and paths get grown over

to a sometimes treachery. Low-cars 

beware! Bottoms crumble!!

-

Looked at one way, any large, crumbling,

old boarding house or family house can

be viewed as a sad scene  -  though it

doesn't necessarily have to be. I often

just gaze and imagine the family or all

the family members who much have

come up though that house, the 

adventures and memories the house 

harbors, the ways and the means of how 

it slowly started its long demise. Where 

have those people gone? Are family 

members still extant who could tell of 

or share there stories and adventure?

Art there still deeds and taxes on record

for such places? [As I write this, an 

eagle is soaring overhead, swooping

and sailing the wind over the lake and 

pond nearby I wish I could see that

view as well. It's all perspective].

-

It's all cumulative. As much as is an

electric bill, one switched-on light

after another adding up to a monthly

broad-sweep figure. Memory, presence,

and place are like that too. They build

and accumulate and eventually amass

into an over-riding presence with which

one can make up their character. It's kind

of crazy, sure, but look at all those mostly

frivolous home-town sites online, 'If you 

grew up in Buttermilk Falls, do you 

remember.....? It's a flag of sorts, a marker,

 though now mostly affiliated with the

frivolous, the useless, and the gone. 

Yet, people never stop, and in fact, they 

actually avoid the samenesses of all 

these memories.

-

I don't know at what point it all comes

together as one party or place  -  the 

memories, nonetheless, remain. For

myself, some sort of dumb luck had 

a lot to do with it. I hit the town just

at the moment (and place) when all

these things were coalesced into one

visible and identifiable attribute to

what that 'old' NY version right then

meant. It was a one of a time place.

16,308. WHEN WE CAME DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN

WHEN WE CAME DOWN 

FROM THE MOUNTAIN 

When we came down from the mountain, the

little village at the bottom was already gone.

The raging water had mostly washed it away.

Incongruously, someone's housephone was

somehow ringing  -  in a way I hadn't heard

in ten years. Noe one usually keeps a house

phone any more.

-

Raging waters don't take too long to do their

damage  -  the swirl and twirl and swipe all

things in their way. Cars get rotated and

chimneys fail. Around here, stuff ends

up on porches. Cats find their perches

high up on a beam.

-

I didn't see any people, so I wasn't sure

what had occurred, or if they'd all gone

away somewhere. Animals, the same.

No braying cattle, no lines of goat and

sheep. The Methodist Church by the

side-lawn was soaked, and the open front

doors look more like trouble than grace.

-

Roman's Farm, the sign said, looked now

like a lake more than anything else. The

houses, with their blue cars and red tractors,

look troubled and stricken with grief.

Nonetheless, I wouldn't want to live

anywhere else. To. Say. The. Least.

16,307. THE BUBBLE OPENED, THE END WAS NEAR

THE BUBBLE OPENED, 

THE END WAS NEAR

Like a subterranean warbler that never sees

the light of day but warbles in its happiness

anyway, maybe that's the way I feel? Or, I

mean to say, the daylight holds no promise 

now for me?

16,306. NEVER SOMEHOW MINDING

NEVER SOMEHOW MINDING

Never somehow minding what I did, 

I did it. Thousands were watching

Mandingo every night  -  some horrid

offshoot of Roots, I guess, that seemed

less right and more stupidly gruesome.

-

Americans reading the 'Good News Bible?

In 1976? I don't think so. There never was

much room for good news anything, and

the only way the people here get excited

is by the blood and guts and disaster films

the media can manufacture, and it's still

like that today. 'Careful what you wish 

for, fools', I always say.