What is it?

Omg she answered me!
    What is that feeling of maybe she is “the one” that comes in the written voice of a person? It seems like you can hear the humbleness, the sexiness, the wisdom, the … in the voice resounding in your head as you read. And I haven’t met her yet.
    And then when she answers, I hear all kinds of other stuff that may or may not be there. Emotion seems to be separate from words somehow. Floating like a mist that gathers and disappears. And then the only way to find out for sure is to reply. Haha. Enormous risk. Entering the realm of the unknown. Soldiers and maidens, goddesses and gods, unicorns, monsters, Freddy and Jason.
    I was getting an order taken at a coffee shop yesterday and the person was hardly visible behind a screen and her mask, and being Georgia, she had that southern accent. Which seems to exude hospitality in its every intonation. But she was also very very quick about it, her words right behind mine. So it was insistent to move along, but at the same time like “I am so happy to be serving you”. Funny combo, and efficient. Very efficient to obtain results. Made me want to buy one of the cute trucker type hats. A blue one to be exact. The logo was an octopus and its head said Tybean Coffee. My favorite type of coffee shop, a real turn towards the creative, not a Starbucks sheen to be found anywhere. The bathroom was back by this bar where stickers were everywhere, comfortably. One said “Six String Spirit, Southern Soul,” or something like that, and you could tell the music was still echoing in the walls with a real intent. A little bit dangerous. Something might happen.
    I guess I still want to get me one of those hats. But I probably haven’t paid enough dues. Shopping kind of sucks in America. I don’t want to be a tourist in my own country. But maybe it isn’t my country when I’m in Georgia. Something about that accent I suppose.
Something about that accent I suppose.
    But back to the she, who answered. I answer and am I saying too much, not enough. Too right, too left. The ex-waitress who is staying at the condo next door at the beach here is so friendly, she’s a real talker and its quite enjoyable. Reminds me of my party days. You could hang out with anybody, and challenge them in friendly ways, of course. You could find out stuff. Partying, traveling days. We’ve been getting to know her, she’s full of wonder at life. She gave me a shark’s tooth from the beach, she had so many of them. I gave her one of my fold books which she loved, she said. Short poems that are disposable. A little four page book made out of a piece of paper. You just can’t fit very many words on there, how valuable could it be? But the waitress, I noticed, being from S. Carolina managed to tell us both about a massacre in her town, of black people demonstrating about exclusion at a bowling alley, and ask about the riots in Philadelphia, as well as talk about her mother passing away from cancer, and the glory of the sunrise as well as a lightning storm the other night. It goes on and on, I suppose, if possible.

 "Eileen" is a very good book, quite effective at certain things that Ottessa Moshfegh seems to have wanted to do. Bring you into the body, and a bad feeling body of a person at that, looking out at a difficult family life. I wondered as I went if she meant the whole thing as a metaphor for America or something but .. eh, doesn't matter. Because the whole experiment worked and I'm sure Moshfegh is a better writer even, for the effort. That body pulled along by the main character Eileen, manages to move on to a better life through a series of triggering events at the end. But along the way, the vignettes are filled with self observations and world observations and exclamations that astounded and delighted me because I just don't seem to encounter many writers (so far) who embrace this darker side of human feeling. Which is, after all, way common for myself and friends. Who actually feels that great all the time about living, especially when living amongst other people who may hold power over us and not be using said power for the benefit of all. A brave book.

Steal Away to the Mountain

  Our last hope, after all. Steal away the children from the mind control machine, before it’s too late. A complex formula, I’m sure, and probably too late.
    And the bravery of the everyday moment!
    Caught then somewhere between becoming a person and actually being a leader. Being myself, I suppose, but killed, assassinated before a word can leave my mouth in defense. No use trying then, just run away.
    Does the mother miss the child when she needed to erase them to live? Where was the father? Is a scream living, or healing? There is no penance enough when the future is burning. (The future is the penance, I suppose.)
    When a leader is made by assassination, many more spring up. In the shadow of the 60’s and then Chapman shoots Lennon in ’80. Me and my friends went down to the steps of the art museum. All these other people were there. This is before cell phones and internet—we just knew to go there. My friend took a photo that I still remember of a young woman just looking at her hands. I’d like to see that again.
    And how to make a life just watching the shit show? Small talk gets difficult. Cynicism as signs of life. Was the Pied Piper weeping as he walked and played that magic tune? I think it was either a she or else anonymous. Later, the myth makers couldn’t say, just a Pied Piper. Twinkling eyes, no doubt.
    I’m trying to recruit the peeps for my mountain and they’re threatening to lock ‘em up forever and throw away the key. Or threatening them with the work gang life. Work for them is digging endless ditches in the hot sun or else we’ll be foraging for berries in the hills somewhere and sleeping on the cold ground, on the run. Catch a chill you can’t shake off. I think my brother went that way. I just never saw him again.
    So I’d just ask Homer Simpson how to come back from war. And hope Athena is on my side. I do know that as I work, either pulling the oar or renovating that bathroom, or whatever--I work with every other worker in this world. I’m in the kitchen or down in the ditch too. One long trench, a man with a gun over there, watching. We owe, just owe and owe. We don’t own.
    So how far will the children wander from our home in the hills as we work to resolve these tragic differences between mom and dad? Every new person we meet is either a mom/dad combo or a dad/mom combo. The transformation will be complete soon enough. No time for small talk, just the Pied Piper’s endless tune. I never could learn that song. If it is a song.
    My mother, for instance, just likes a little kiss on the lips, never a hug. I get the feeling she might start crying and then never stop. We’d be there, shuffling our feet, reassuring her for hours, postponing lunch. Saying sorry. Somebody go make some sandwiches.

We make the ancestors, or not

 

We make the ancestors, or not. 

Its the mothers vs the ancestors or

Parents vs ancestors:

That toddler moment when I realized that

my parents were super powered.

That’s the moment when I started

carrying the weight. Like they carried 

those stones over to Stonehenge

and set them upright.

It’s not the setup, everyone knows

the Solstice is great,

the Sun coming and going.

It’s the carrying. And carrying what.

Either visible or invisible or

even inside out. A murderer carries

something inside out, lets say.

A mother carries a baby:

a winged cherub who floats away 

always on Wings of Desire.

But the rest of us?

Looking for superpowers.

It starts with carrying,

and dusty roads near sundown.

Moon rise. Animals sliding back

to burrows, nests. Hopping or

flying, held by earth’s instant arms.

What is in human arms?

Standing up, I'm watching

the world, fingers light and grasping,

knowing what to do. The fingers tell

the mind via the heart. 

Leave it be, move on,

don’t pick that up,

put that down

carry air for once

in your short life.