9709. RUDIMENTS, pt. 5

RUDIMENTS, pt. 5
Making Cars

You take a phrase like 'in the slowness

of time,' and what does it mean? In

speaking of the trajectory, say, of

someone's career or talent, it would

be used to mean how that 'talent'

developed over the course of years,

whether those were years of

performance or application and

effort. More than likely too, as one

looks back, it appears more as the

swiftness of time than it does any

slowness. Let me tell you a story :

the town I was living in, just before

I took off for New York was 'Avenel'

NJ. 'A venal place,' as I used to put it.

In my little-knowing way, how right I

was. I never really know until years later.

'Venal' is quite a word. But, wait, let

me digress. In religion there's also a

word, 'venial'  - and this is where it

got really confusing  -  having nothing

to do with 'venal', which refers to graft

and bribery.  Biblical, Protestant, Catholic,

all these church people, incredibly, from

very early on, the very formative years

of Christianity, in fact, and then still a big

bone of contention in the 1530's with

Martin Luther and all that. You've hard

of the crazy church people who used to

argue the stupidest of things  - like 'how

many angels could dance on the head of

a pin.' Yeah, go on, really. Well, those

same 'Church fathers' and saints too,

they'd endlessly 'prioritize the pulpit,'

(using a self-made phrase), in deciding

the differences between what were called

mortal; sins (murder, death, unbridgeable

violence), sins of which you pretty much

had no way out from, you were doomed.

However, they came up with a 'lesser' level

of sinning, calling it 'venial'.Which could

be salvaged and from which you had

chances of being whole again  -  theft,

road-rage' ( of that day), corruption,

adultery, etc. Which is where those

'indulgences' came in that so incensed

Luther and became formative parts of

the Protestant movement. When Rome

ran the show, it was possible to bribe or

give money towards Rome, to the Papacy

via the local churches and monasteries

everywhere. It was all as corrupt as brown

toilet rags, but everyone went along.

-

So, anyway, venal was Avenel. Venial

was just a dumb digression on my part.

Now, where the heck was I? Oh, yeah.

In Avenel, that last Spring I was there,

I spent a lot of time just walking around,

hanging around too. There was a really

grubby train station (still is) which at

this time, oh 1966 I guess, was but a

platform, one for each side, with a small

wooden shed on each, for seating a for

protection. They're all gone now and all

they have are these bus-station type

glassed-in booth where a few people can

sit to wait, out of the bad weather and the

elements. The old station sheds I'm referring

to were in disrepair but still used. In the

1940's I'd bet they were in nice shape,

almost like a real sheltered waiting room,

on the NY bound side anyway. So, as

they say, and as I mentioned in the

opening here, in the slowness of time

a situation developed. I began meeting

my girlfriend up there, clandestine

meetings, because her parents really

disliked me, at first, being around. She

sneak out, claim to be going to the library,

whatever. I'd sit up there, always with some

paper, sketchbook stuff, and just hang

around, maybe reading something or

drawing a train or people, etc. She'd

show up, we'd sit for 20 minutes or

so, and be done. (Both of us lived

quite near to this station, from opposite

side of the tracks, each). I don't remember

how it happened, but the same guy started

seeing me daily or nearly daily, during the

work week. I didn't know what 'gay' was

back then, but I realize now he most

probably was  -  all the attributes of that,

I see now. Natty dresser, white chinos,

loafers or nice leather shoes, an all that

insouciance and brevity with emotion

that some fellows sometimes wield. (By

the way, yes, this does have to do with

the 'slowness ' of time, which I'll sum

up at the close). He came over asked to

see my drawing, and started explaining that

he was a 'professional' advertising artist, in

some ad agency, for magazines and fashion

audiences. And then he began, each time, 

recurring often enough, to tell me about 

'fashion sketching' for ads and style 

magazines, how it was a nice career 

option, and something I maybe should

think about, etc. - last thing on my list 

but I didn't tell him. (He was, perhaps 

28, I'd figure. Old enough, I guess, then,

to make me figure he was a real 'art-pro.'

-

Along the way, he showed me the stipulations

for fashion figure drawing, for use in graphic

advertising and newspaper ads. How it was

important for the big companies, Lord & Taylor

and all that. How the 'proportions' of the models

being portrayed had to be done to certain ad

standards. I forget exactly now, but the distance

between the eyes had to correspond to 1/3 of the

length of the face, the distance from neck to

forehead had to match ear-line to ear-line. It was

all things like that  -  measurements, proportion,

balance and poise, depicted in sketch lines

to show off dresses or handbags or coats.

Not to overpower or take precedence, but as

a background noise for the fashion or garment

being portrayed. I'd listen, nod, say OK, all that

stuff. Passing time, wondering about him. He

had a nodding acquaintance with my girlfriend,

from seeing her comings and goings.

All was good.

-

Practicing my craft, as it were, for the slow passage

of time to make it, and me, better, that slowness

of time soon enough brought me to a serious

and problematic impasse with this fellow. (Who

one day just stopped coming around. I never

saw him again). It was probably good, because

I would have had to pop him one. My girlfriend

and I were finding 'romantic' getaways in the

nearby two or three empty boxcars which were

always present at the rail siding by the lumber yard

and cabinet company. They were hidden from the

road (Inman Ave.), and concealed too from the train

station  -  and they were always empty and always

open. (Like my mind? I heard you). So anyway,

this creep one day starts asking me if I'd had 

any 'sexual' progress yet, as he put it, with this 

girlfriend. I said no (none of his business anyway) 

 -  and he then proceeded, blow by blow (ahem) 

to tell me the progress that would be ensuing. What

she'd 'want,' how it would start, what to do, how to

go about it, and the rest. While he didn't, certainly,

'rion the plot' for me, no  -  he was still being a

quite creepy guy. I thought. Fullness of time,

be damned.

9708. ON SMOKE-SNUFF DAY

ON SMOKE-SNUFF DAY

The tangential repercussions of Heard's Brook

overflowing are really nothing at all. Unless,

perhaps, you are the nearby business owner,

the Dunkin' Donuts guy, or even the owner 

of the Veterinary office nearby. The water

will just never get that high. Mostly, as water

is wont to do, it just flows downward, not up.

Higher-flow just brings deeper water to the

land that is low. Which is why it's always 

good to go to higher ground when selling 

high and buying low. 

-

Now, that doesn't mean there's not some

history involved. Like this General Heard

guy, for whom Woodbridge extends its pride,

who owned these lands which included these

waters. General George Washington himself

gave Heard the orders  -  something about

'Send Heard and his men to fight this skirmish.'

And they did  -  his small and successful

contingent victorious. Washington then 

visited, in fullest confidence, and, in

fact, I'd bet he walked right here.

(Which is here, and which you've

now heard. Or, at least read).

9707. RUDIMENTS, pt. 4

RUDIMENTS, pt. 4

Making Cars

So, by now you're probably figuring 

'what does any of this have to do with

'making cars,' as the title suggests? I'm

trying to get to it but it's not easy. When

I look around me...wait. First off, let me 

say that just the other day someone asked 

me 'why' I do things, the things I do  -  

which are, I grant you, at some time a 

quite contradictory remove from what 

I say I actually feel about things. Wanting

to be left alone, disliking scenes and the

one-on-one aspects of personal relations, 

they wondered why I go to the extents I

do to please and welcome others. It's a

good question, I guess. Then they said

I wasn't half the crank and ornery beast 

I made myself out to be. I had no ready

answer. I didn't say 'because I love them.'

But that's true. I didn't say 'because I like

making others happy, even just for a shared

moment.' Either of these could have been

used, as hokey as they sound. There are

probably ten or fifteen reasons I could have

said, but I instead mumbled something

indecorous and the conversation dropped.

Or was dropped. Not sure how to say that,

it's awkward, but really sometimes the

conversation itself drops. Other times

we drop it.

-

Like I just did. On of my bugbears has 

always been other people. Figure that. A 

couple of years in a sort of slow training

for the priesthood brought to my attention

the fact that there was a good chance that

the remainder of my days would have been

spent administering to others. People. But

not in an authentic fashion  -  and that's what

killed it all for me. I don't mind anything, if

it's real. If it's authentic. I'd serve a sick, old 

bum soup in Winter from my bare palms, if

that little puddle of soup, served sincerely

and in earnest, would bring something to 

that fellow. But doing all the crud I'd be 

doing through the dogmatic impetus and 

strictures and regulations with explanations -

or sometimes no explanation at all because

there ain't none - would have just killed that 

too. It's as fake and artificial as a TV ministry.

It just ends you up detesting the people you

are serving, because you're doing it from a

tightly-stitched box and not from your own

wet, leaky soup-palms. That's where the good

glory is. Even if the situation is sad and not

good, I want the human, the laugh, the crack,

the wit, the sparkle, the 'joi de vivre' that comes

from the authentic. Tight-assed ministration

can't have any of that, however, because

sooner or later and one way or the other the

attention gets turned to the bottom line, the

proverbial Kingdom of Mammon, the Lucre

of the Lucifer. You can't serve two masters, 

it's been said. You can't serve both God and 

Mammon. One of those two suckers has 

got to go. Or be sent away. Not sure how 

to phrase that either  -  you say 'be gone!',

or it just goes away on its own.

-

Like that. Like I just did. When I look around

me, wherever I may be, in the slowest, saddest

small town somewhere in Pennsylvania or

Kentucky, or in the middle of my own teeming

big-league stadium New York City, I see the 

human animal, the human bi-ped, unknowingly

going about its task. Pre-ordained task, or not,

I never know. Sometimes I think everyone is

programmed already for the doing of their own

doing  -  a perfect self-absorption with no harm

that brings each of us to our set task, or tasks. 

I love to see that, to observe and watch the 

undertakings. Thousands per day, probably,

in my eyes  -  or at least one or two thousand.

The human bi-ped, the pitfall-mind within 

and the harmonious flow without  -  energy,

balance, fluid, blood, food, thought  -  just 

moves itself about without much thought. 

Pre-occupied at all times by THAT very 

time, that moment they're in. If there's a

grace/God connection, that's it right there.

I can watch and see  -  people walking in the

exact same fashion of walk, different for

nearly everyone, that they learned to walk 

with at ten months old, whenever that

occurs. That's as natural as rain  -  the

alignment of all those bones, the swift 

surety of that glide and slide, that twist 

and wiggle, that makes up a walk. No

one 'knows' that. They don't watch 

themselves walking, they can't observe 

their own observation. It's just the natural

harmoniousness of the Human. Moving 

along, getting things done. Making haste

while the sun shines  - any of those bullshit

phrases we use. That's how thing get done.

That's how the salesman gets about selling,

and the utility worker gets about climbing

poles and rigging his truck, the loading 

dock guy, pushing and heaving, or just

whistling as he works to the piped-in

warehouse music. (I witnessed that one

 twice just today  -  in one place it was 30

year old music, in another it was Spanish).

-

That's the bliss of living. That's where and 

how all that grace and livingness comes from.

It's just there, like a current, into which and from

which our bodies and minds connect and function.

Authentically, 'con gusto' (music term), without

too much reflection. Well, I guess I never did

get to that 'making cars' idea in this chapter

either. Each time I get near it, something else

comes up and it just. Goes. Away.

Like this!

9706. RUDIMENTS, pt. 3

RUDIMENTS, pt. 3

Making Cars

So, you need to think of a hundred things

at once, and yet most people say just one

is all they can do. I walk along, or drive

along or whatever I'm doing, and I precisely

inscribe to my own dumb mind the things I

am doing. Could I have spoken to anyone

about that, as a kid? Nope. It's too late

now for overhaul. I gotta' just live.

-

I learned about weird things when I was a

child, mostly by myself, on a bicycle. Yes,

it seems pretty ludicrous, but that's how it

was. Out the back end of Avenel Park there

were acres of bog  -  swamp grass, skunk

cabbage, a plant called 'May Apples.' All

the little animals and sounds. No one told

me, by taking my hand, what any of that

was, or how to be safe, or maybe I shouldn't

have even gone there, dangers lurking. I

got news for anyone who's listening: It's

all a pack of lies. And that's all

apartments now anyway.

-

Granted, I was told not to speak up, to listen

instead, show respect, defend my honor and

family, stand up for right, and learn the things

I was supposed to learn. From all that? It

never worked out that way. I was leagues

ahead of anyone by the time I was twelve.

By 1960, at the end of my own street, I'd

go down to the woods in the early morning

light and there'd be a few possums hanging

from the tree limbs, upside down, by their

tail, wrapped around the limbs. I guess they

just did that naturally in the Summer months,

which is the only time I saw them. Possums 

introduced me to colors, tans and things I'd

never noticed before  -  not brown, not tan,

not pink, but all a bit of each. There should 

be a color or a crayon called 'Possum.' 

-

Here's another thought I lived with: Planet

Earth, I'm eleven years old; what the heck are

possums doing in my world? They can't talk,

but they show me things. I watch and listen  - 

like the native American Indians, this was

all theirs, once. Now the whole mess of 

everything is gone, all part of that lie. I was

just thinking today how I'd love to be the guy

able to nail down some or all rat politicians

or business-people  -  the ones who develop

places, cut and rip, wreck the land and despoil 

the water, crowd the areas we live in, really 

muck things up, after long saying they'd 

'never do that, everything will be great, 

let's just get this done.' Meanwhile they're 

high-tailing it to the bank with their deals

and payoffs. I was thinking I'd like to get

them, on camera or whatever, for the record,

saying what they say (any of them, educators, 

lawyers, political creeps, etc), and then 

agreeing that at the first instance of it 

NOT being so, the first instance of their

double-speak, misinformation, and 

betrayal, I get to chop off two fingers 

from each hand. Their hands, silly. 

You're probably thinking they'd make 

the deal nonetheless, and that the loss 

of four fingers is not such a big deal for 

the success of a rich-man's life. Well, 

I'm not sure you're correct. And then, you

see, that's again part of the paradox of this

ridiculous life we're given. In one respect,

that procedure is, essentially, a medieval 

torture, the sort of thing I normally rage

against. Me? No different that Taliban or

Uncle ISIS. Well, someday we'll talk.

-

Honestly, You need to imagine this: That I

speak only the truth. I'd been dead. I'd been

there and came back, and no one could tell

me ever differently. Getting hit by a train isn't

anyone's choice occurrence, not something you

normally select. Basically, I'd been picked off,

age 8; that was how a figured it; some sniper

 along the cosmic way had somehow finagled

position and permission to pick me off.  OK,

then, enter Reading Railroad and take me out.

They dragged me up out of there as dead.

Steve Meszaros thought I was dead, the first

aid guys thought I was dead, maybe the hospital

was able to figure it out, and I don't care. I'm

not here for that story. The little cul de sac

I'd wandered off into, and which then did let

me go, it held a lot of the secrets to everyday

life. If you ever get a chance, read the Gospel

of Enoch. He had somewhat the same experience.

His transcription of what had occurred to him

was so startling that he and his 'Book of Enoch'

were summarily thrown out of the Christian

Canon altogether by like year 300AD. But see,

to him, it's all mechanisms. And I understand

that and it's very startling. It's the kind of new

that can rip the skin right off your bones, and

before you even know it. He saw everything,

the vast celestial machine works, the slow and

constant drag wheel turning the cosmos, precisely,

pulling the days and the nights, the suns and

the planets, the darks and the nights, progressions

and regressions and inclinations and sounds.

Perfectly attired and perfectly in suit; working the

vast and constant cosmic order and dropping it

all down as an overlay of time and reality for us

pitiful slave-souls stranded here. I love Enoch,

and every past participle knuckle-brained,

offhand effort at 'religion' ever since has gotten

things all wrong. They call it Creation, and then

deny its presence and precision. Creation takes

location and being, it takes the metallic precision

of a perfect being producing a fleeting thought

pattern, millions of times over, but outside of

'Time', which simply doesn't have a role, and

outside of 'potential' and faith and reward

and salvation and all that. All potential has

already been met, and we are merely in rerun.

-

For myself, yeah, they let me back in, but only

after a complete re-synch of my self and my being.

Like Robert DeNiro would say, in one of those

dumb-ass hoodlum movies, with that funny little

sneer of his, "Uh, yeah, I hear things, yeah, I 

know things, I just, its good.'

9705. CYCLE THE WAR MACHINE

CYCLE THE WAR MACHINE

They're mad, the whole enforcing lot of

them and all the little people too, those who

vote and play along. The sword they never 

seek is the one right over their heads. Thinking

to improve, only a fool rubs ice, not knowing

the generation of heat will diminish what it is

they are holding. It's all by fractions, but the

small things are what we usually fight over.

9704. LOS PALOMINOS

LOS PALOMINOS

These were saw horses, but I tried

to tell the guy who said he saw horses

that what he may have seen were horses,

but they were saw-horses and the word 

was used in only the most referential way

for the support stands with wide-splayed 

legs that carpenters and saw-men use to

support the wood for the project at hand.

And that even though he swears he saw

horses, they were only saw-horses.

9703. VERY SUBTLE IS NOT VERY SUPPLE

VERY SUBTLE IS 

NOT VERY SUPPLE

And yet the truth is bent like a broken

leg around a pole; an athlete's very own

amputation, the scarring death of an auto

at speed into an abutment. I can only shake

this bendable head. The neck, however, does

the work. If anyone had ever told me I'd be 

the main driver of my own tanker to Hades, 

I'd have laughed it off but good.

9702. MASTER

MASTER

Well what now then and who cares anyway.

The wetlands have all been paved, the smell

of my own bones is now turning to powder, 

most people no longer jog, and - see then 

what I mean. The whole world's a mental 

case. Counted socks in the underwear drawer,

and underwear where the shirts should be.

The footprints on the Moon, we're told are

still waiting, but that Moonrock from

the United Nations lobby, on display for

years, is now missing and no one knows

where. I think it leapt away, intent on it

own volition, to get back quickly to it

own home and hearth. (Which is only,

really, earth with an h).

9701. RUDIMENTS, pt. 2

RUDIMENTS, pt. 2

Making Cars

At one level all it meant was that I was

afraid of life.  If a person lives each step of 

the way fearing for the worse, thinking the

wall-switch will blow up on you if you

touch it in an unauthorized fashion, or the

carburetor on your '62 Chevy was to never

again have a functioning float if you monkeyed

with it, that's what you get. For a long time

I lived a fearful life. And then, at some point,

I finally got over that part of things, repairing

my own faucet drips, catch-basin leaks, along

with plenty of car and motorcycle stuff. Even

tough I was always all thumbs. That never 

went away. I used to envy these  -  for example  -

South Jersey dirt bike guys I'd see at scrambler

meets and time trials. If something went bad,

there they'd be on the side of some dirt path

somewhere deep in the piney woods, ripping

apart their Husqvarna or Yamaha in the very

near-middle of nowhere and with a 20-piece

tool kit. And you know what? Those guys 

would get that contraption going again and

take right back off. Motto being: 'Fear nothing.

You ride out on what you rode in.'

- 

I mentioned my wife. She's the tinkerer sort; 

there's nothing that exists that she won't break 

into to find and/or fix, or attempt to fix, the 

problem. If she was a nuclear scientist and an

astronaut to boot, NBC and the rest of them

would be running endless footage of her in

outer space, space-walking and tethered,

to fix the malfunctioning space shuttle that 

she was scheduled to ride back in. No guts,

no glory. I think it's a bit of fear there too.

Her father, and her brother, both, when

alive, were exactly the same way. One of her

funniest recollections is of how her brother

use to take her finger and stick it into or onto

the electrical wall outlets to see and observe

(the both of them) the shock and charge that

she'd incur. Just to understand electricity.

Well, a bit, maybe. You note it wasn't HIS

finger, the big oaf, always hers.

-

That gets tiring after a while, for someone of 

my inclination : I find things often moved, or

re-bolted, or screwed back together wrongly

or inexactly, everything monkeyed with and

somehow altered. Like her father, like Rube

Goldberg, like something that used to be

unfashionably called 'nigger-rigged' (not sure

how that one got started, but, forgive), things

are fixed well enough but put back together

as if by some one-armed blind guy forcibly

writhing in a straitjacket with a wrench and

pliers and a screwdriver. maybe. They also

worship, these people, heartily, at the altar

of the great god Duct Tape.

-

As I said, I got by. Never quite understanding

the dour workings of this world, and being

still fixated by the apparent non-reality of

everything anyway. (As an aside here, let me

add, I was a good theoretical-physics student 

my entire life. It's the easiest subject in the 

world. I found that the power of individual

thought can take over, past a certain point. 

In this you need not be empirical at all  - 

one just takes the most outlandish concept,

almost as art, and spins the weave of ephemera

masquerading as evidence, to prove the 

existence of, say gravitational force field on

the apparent vertical-flow construction of

wedding-cake mechanics  -  see! That, by the

way, can also be the reason or excuse the baker

gives as to why the four-tiered wedding cake

collapsed in the center of the banquet table.

Nothing at all of which existed anyway and was

just a fleeting wave of illusion translated by the

mind into a passing reality. Get over it.)

-

I'm still as confused as ever. I guess. My own 

stabs at what's real and what's not never makes 

sense at all. My fatal flaw, I think at bottom, is

in believing in nothing at all. Which is pretty

much the same as believing in everything 

everywhere. I lost my faith a long time ago. It was

replaced, all these paths and ways and locations,

with an ad hoc jumble of stronger and better

beliefs than I'd ever had had before if I'd followed

the general gibberish that others usually follow.

The rank and file Presbyter of church council,

synod, College of Cardinals and any of that normal

crap. That's all just medieval BS masquerading

at State Power and control over people in another

guise, and calling itself 'separate' from secular

rule  -  which is and has always been a lie. How 

can you live and function under such a lie? The

kings and powers that be all along have always

used religion to bulk up their own sequence of

power and might and violence. The Kill For God

squad has always been the King's forces, taking 

over lands and executing heretics. All those

Charlemagne and Charles Martel types and

Henry The Bolds and Ulrich the Greats, n

all their Holy Roman Empire and 'In Hoc 

Signo Vinces' (that was God announcing to

one of those clowns on the field to go to battle

under the sign of the cross and he would win)

things, it was all a hoax. That's for real too, 

not some theoretical physics crap I'm making

up. Jeepers, take about Duct Tape holding

things together, that all takes the baker's cake.

9700. THAT FLUGELHORN COULD PASS FOR YOUR WIND PIPE

THAT FLUGELHORN 

COULD PASS FOR 

YOUR WIND PIPE

There's nothing more exciting than that; not even

the girl with the cookie-tray passing down the aisle.

I saw the guy from Indiana leering at her passing. 

How do you send a postcard three aisles over and 

five seats back? Is it worth any postage just to tell

him he's been found out? The seat right in front of 

me, it's a guy who must be a musician. They let him

carry on some instrument covered in canvas. Probably

a United Front Anti-Music Terrorist Garage-Made

Explosive Device. Let's see, what would that be :

'UFAMTGMED.' Well I guess that's it then.

9699. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1

Making Cars

Well, for crackling sure the world has changed.

I like to ask people, right out, if they think Evil

is about, in the world. The stupidity and callousness

of things today, of course, allows for no answer

because the very people I ask about this are usually

the ones I already know wouldn't have a clue. Which

is part of Evil's overcoat, swarming them. It's as if I

was running a Quinnipiac Poll for the pre-determined

results I wanted : ask only idiots about idiot matters.

-

When I was a kid, we were brought up  -  I was brought

up  -  to keep quiet and not touch a thing. It's ended up

as a sort of reverence for things, and a silent witnessing.

It's still like that for me a lot. Mostly, I tend to intellectual

matters and don't do much else. Maintenance and upkeep

offer me only the most minimal enjoyments. I don't like

solid objects  -  I guess if it had to be summed up that

would be it. To me a solid object, a 'thing' possessing

'thingness' is but a digression from the spiritual nature

of what a life should be.

-

It bothers me that I can't address a solid object. I 

appreciate form and design, texture and color and shape. 

Yes. I can 'understand' function' and usefulness. But,

still, it does nothing for me. I can't share-to-reason with

a something. It's just a hard assumption about the world.

Part of the fiction' of the universe we demand around us,

fitting all of out definitions and gradations. Solid objects

are traps, and I've never liked traps.

-

I can't assume the ideas of shape and form. That was all

shattered long ago, for me, when science and physics began

delicately pointing out to me how things simply do not

exist  -  how solid is never solid, still things are actually

always moving, components in motion, atoms clashing and

charges banging. When I can put my hand (which evidently

is also not a solid object) through the surface of a table, or

walk through a wall, I will then know I've achieved my aim.

-

I think I'll be touching more on this subject in future 

segments. I already love this wide-open feeling. Paradoxes 

abound as well, and will, and I'll make note of them. I once 

had a friend who wanted nothing more out of life than to

dig a hole. Period. He wanted nothing any longer to do

with Art, logic, thought, intellectual pursuit. Nothing

at all except to speak of the wish to dig a hole. With

a shovel. by hand : he claimed it was real, tangible, a

solid pursuit with a closed end. I guess. He's dead

now, so this never went any farther than concept.

-

The paradox was : that shovel that doesn't exist, and

which isn't a solid object  -  were it to have hit his

cranium, which also didn't exist and wasn't a 'solid'

object (I never told him that), there would have been

some real, serious and tangible blood flow around the

skull fracture from the collision of these two non-existent

objects in conflict. Like that old car joke, in the 1990's,

'If my Plymouth Cirrus hits your Dodge Spirit, will

there be any damage?

-

Back to my growing up, and then Pt. 1 will be finished.

I married a tinkerer. The complete opposite of me. To her

things exist only to be taken apart, mended, fixed, twisted

around, tended to. Sometimes I just want to say, 'Leave

the damn thing alone, for pity's sake.'

9698. BLASTED CONNIVANCE

BLASTED CONNIVANCE 

You fixer-upper you! The absolute

real estate king! Buying every other

man's sad foreclosure just to paint the

sink and sell again. I'll never know.

All those things in the driveway you

throw, they once belonged to my

kids, now with nowhere to go.

9697. TWO-PART LEMONADE

TWO-PART LEMONADE

I know the pencil draws the drawing 

and not me. But just being present is 

not enough; like all those university 

kids hanging around the stairway at 

The Annex, everything is running

underground.

-

And for just doing nothing there's 

a lot of standing around. Kids joke  

about their dick size or their prowess

in the sack. I can only figure they mean

their rented dorm-room mattress hovel.

-

I was here in the 60's, and then the 70's,

and through the 80's, and then the old 

Annex was gone. Half a block away, the

closed bowling alley became some lunging

chain-store brewery, probably serving all

those same bastard kids. Still talking.

-

Still standing around : but now with 

their two-part lemonades and the new

girlfriends they've found.