The Journal

She was a strange child, after that, but really just a changed child.
And no one really could put their finger on just what made her so, but cousins and neighbors exchanged glances anytime she was mentioned.
It wasn't that she became bad or unmanageable, her teachers liked her, she always made her bed and ate her vegetables and her manners were impeccable.
She played like all the other children and even stole a cookie now and then when the chance arose.
But there was something just different about her.
It all began with the journal. Maybe she began with the journal
On an autumn afternoon when the leaves fell loose and lazy and her mother baked pies to Perry Como on the AM radio, seven year-old Adia grew restless and entered the storage closet.
Her bored eyes mooned lazy in their sockets as Adia began foraging through boxes that hadn't been touched in years.
Finding one box marked "sewing" on the bottom of a stack, she opened it and began to sift through fabric, zippers and pretty ribbons. Just as she was about to close it up and move on to a new treasure Adia noticed a notebook lying at the very bottom. The sun rose a bit in her eyes as she fished it out and turned it over. It was tied with a lavender ribbon and on the front, the word journal was scrawled.
As Adia undid the ribbon, a collection of old photographs fell out and floated free to the floor like the maple leaves outside the kitchen window.
That's when things changed for Adia, when aunts became strangers and her mother, a delicate flower.
Adia scooped the photographs up, stuck them back in the notebook, and stuffed the notebook under her sweater. She then put the boxes as they had been and went to her room.
Adia still ate her vegetables, still giggled when her daddy tickled her, but when goodnight kisses had been planted and nightlights encouraged sleep, she would reach beneath the book case and go undercover.
Eventually, Adia took the journal to the park where acorns lay dormant. Then to the vacant lot behind the Emerson place, and finally to the river bank where the current became a soundtrack.
And Adia became older, fresh in full bloom even as she watched her mother journey the other way, surrendering to time, gravity and monotony.
Adia's sea green eyes would grow distance as she would close the journal and wonder if her mother
had forgotten or simply chose to ignore. Correctly, she accepted that it was neither and contrary to
what psychologists would tell us, her love for her mother grew only stronger.
When her mother would have those moments when she was drying a dinner plate and her hands would slow, then stop and her eyes would see something far beyond the snow outside the window, Adia would imagine it was a soft wheat field she was seeing. A one time bed for two lovers without need for Perry Como.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Adia's seventeenth birthday, her mother took her shopping to the mall over in Greenville.
As her mother drove, Adia studied her face, recognized a remembrance in the silent lines.
It seemed to Adia that an emptiness was bleeding through the car, out the door and onto the highway.
It was a silent heartache that needed no narration and at the mall, when Adia came back from using the restroom, she found her mother crying uncontrollably at the fountain.
Adia reached for her, took her, held her, rocked her.
But neither spoke a word.
That night, after her parents had gone to bed, Adia tied the pretty ribbon around the notebook for the last time and went back to the box, still where she first found it ten years earlier.
When she reached the bottom, Adia found a single sheet of paper and recognized her mother's handwriting. pulling it free and sitting on her feet as she had done so long ago, Adia read the words.
"Dear Adia, Thank you for being my friend. Love, mom"

The Trap

Let's call it Acme, Ohio. close enough
I recognized the town as I pulled into it. A railroad and a U.S, highway criss-crossed through it and
main street sported several beauty shops, a grocery store that had fed generations, and a bar called the
Hunter's brew.
I had come to deliver and pick up, no more, no less, and I was told I could park at the factory
that whizzed out Ford parts to keep America on it's wheels.
So that I did.


First thing I noticed, is that I had no cell service, I smirked to my old friend AT&T, tucked it away and wondered what I'd do in Acme, Ohio at seven PM on a Tuesday night. It was cold-it's been that kind of winter, the snow was heaped high on the boulevards. I decided to take a walk anyway.
I started noticing things. The train whistle howled forlornly but the train never came, and the locals seemed accustomed to this as they crossed the tracks as if they didn't exist.
I noticed that the traffic on the U.S. highway drove through like there was a Rottweiler chewing on its ass.
And the houses wore thin curtains showing my way to the lamp next to the couch where papers were read and babies bounced.
There seemed to be a million of these houses; blocks and blocks and blocks of them.
The nicer ones had cut their swath with a snow blower, the darker porch-tilted ones had shoveled with whatever was available, or not at all.
There were three pizza places on main street, as there always is in a town like this, and Kayla's
beauty salon was up for rent. Kayla had had enough.
I was cold but only because I hadn't dressed for this.
See, this is where I grew up, a thousand Kaylas away, and the flood of forgotten broke the dam and
washed me over the rapids, driving me to shelter at the Hunter's Brew.
It was the canker on Acme's ass and I felt uncomfortably at home.
The bar maid was a fifty something we'll call Tina because in another life she had been Tina, but now she just was. There was a guy with too many miles on his dreams and two not-pretty-enoughs singing harmony. There was a girl maybe thirty-five decked out in silver shine and tight jeans trying hard not to look desperate as the guy she was desperate for struggled to make his escape.
And there was me.
I ordered a beer which came in a can but only cost a buck and a half as NCIS played on the TV.
The flood built and breached the banks as I remembered.


The guy played a few songs on the jukebox and I watched Tina sway and move to the rhythm on her inside bar stool. As a patriotic song played about some soldiers giving all, her eyes closed and her lips were right on time to whatever it was that was plucking her sad heart's g-string..
One of the not-pretty-enoughs asked me if i wanted to share their garlic bread and I politely said no.
See, you have to be careful not to take their bread or they'll butter the night with your soul.
I stepped out back, in the alley, for a smoke and a look around.
I saw cars that were gonna run if the friend of that friend ever got out of jail. There was a yard fenced in where some mongrel sensed my presence and barked to let the town know it had been found,
and there were those apartments; the ones up rickety steps where a person could shack cheap if they had no where else to sleep.
And also, there was the Dodge Stratus. Tina's ride. Her last hope that had really died years ago and i wondered how she made the payments.
I went back in, finished my beer and walked out, back through the blocks of nowhere.
Christmas lights were still blinking two months after Christmas and it all might have been serene
if not for the flood and the knowing why.
See, I lived in those apartments. I fucked Tina. I threw sticks at that dog. And that guy never showed up to fix my car.
Forty five percent of graduates of Acme High would find work in one of the local factories. Forty five percent would marry them. At best, they'll have a few kids, join the volunteer fire department, and get one of the better houses on one of the better blocks.
There'll be softball leagues and parades and family reunions and now and then the guy will show up and the car will get that timing chain it needs. But in my book, they're going no where in three-quarter time.
I know, I came from there.
I don't know yet where somewhere is but I keep looking down Highway 224 and I keep waiting for that train to catch up to its whistle.
That's not to say these people aren't happy, just that i can't be one of them.


When the girl with the silver trinkets had realized the guy who wasn't her husband wasn't coming back, and the guy who was must be wondering, she said to Tina, "Well, I guess back to my prison. Fuck, my life sucks." And walked out.
I had walked out just a few steps behind like a ghost who had lost his amnesia.
Tomorrow I'll be in another town, maybe a city, maybe a Gulf Coast beach, maybe on a mountain top somewhere in the Rockies.
I haven't found my somewhere yet but I'll keep looking.
Tomorrow night Act II will begin where Act I left off at the Hunter's Brew with the same players with the same lines minus a ghost with amnesia.

I don't know which sunrise I'm chasing or which moon is holding my jackpot, but Acme Ohio will have to get along without me just like the Acme Minnesota I left long ago.
LW

How Deep It Goes

I wish for the power

to calm water

smooth surfaces

but more so

depths

They never still

not really

and everything taken in

still waits...

rallies as hospice

for other creatures needing harbor

I wish I could

move silt

with the ripple of veneer

set free

all those treasures

looking up with cement shoes

.

.

.

The Voyage

We sailed the shit out of her,
didn't we, hon?

i remember when we first got her,
what a wreck!
Tommy laughed himself sick,
and said it'll never float
your grandma clung to that rosary like a kid
with the parades last tootsie roll
and your momma, well, she just rolled her eyes,
threw up her arms,
and said, "Lord God, Almighty!"

but hell, what else did we have to do?

We scraped her, caulked her, shined her
-hey! remember that July day,
when we were sanding the primer?
that cooler of cold beer and wine?
you chased me with that stick
after i tugged your shorts down,
and how you tackled me and
we wrestled in the long grass
til we laughed ourselves to tears?
and then we just lay there
looking into each other's eyes.

didn't get much done that day,
but the bunk finally got broke in proper

and then that day we launched her,
ha! we didn't have a clue
ran right into that shrimp boat
and scared those rowers half to death!
but the sun was warm, the breeze gentle
and we learned as we went.
sorry for all that yelling

she kept the water out most the time
and her keel ran true.
there was that summer in St. Thomas
that rough ride to Bermuda
the times we just let her be
and went where she took us
never tiring of each other's smile

and we knew a storm would come someday,
one we couldn't beat,
they always do
and sure as shit we wrecked her good
and why the fuck don't they make masts stronger anyway?

but wasn't it something,
watching the clouds off the stern
gather and gain
watching the waves grow
the breath of the deep
like the chest of a champion?

you went to fix that broken cleat
while i stripped the poles bare
and I swear, all I can remember
is how good your ass looked in them oil skins
I wanted to just let her go
just pick you up and carry you below
and love you once more
while the world crashed around us

but we had fear
and better sense, and
so we raced the deck
securing this and
tossing that
as the waves overtook the stern
and claimed our bare feet

I watched you at the stern
checking the rudder
while I held the wheel
and we turned at exactly the same time
and smiled to each other as
the generator died
taking our light
but not our smiles

you with snot running out of your nose
me in that goofy hat
i traded for in Martinique
when we were drunk on bad rum

when she started to list bad,
you fell into me,
we fell against the gunwale
and we sank down
holding each other
as the starboard disappeared

damn, we tried,
didn't we honey?
we saved nothing but ourselves and that
ratty old army coat
as we held hands, locked and laced,
and watched her go under

the others,
Tommy, your momma
and Grandma
will say
see, I told ya so!

but they told us nothin
it was never about how long we could keep her afloat
or how many places we could reach
it was just a voyage
for as long as a moment lasts
and that, we did well
to the very end.

She

is there such a thing as fiction?
as reality?
oh yeah?
prove it!




she looked good
standin there, under the street light
damn good

but then,
it was two-thirty in the mornin
and the fog helped.
-hell, whatever
she looked good

I'd just come out of some bullshit
all night drug store
where I'd bought some smokes
and a pack of rubbers
so i could go home
and cook my sausage,
and rubbers keeps the mess in check
know what i mean?

kept checkin her watch,
not that i believed she gave a shit about time,
but like they do on elevaters
ya know?

she had that light to stand under
and me, I didn't have shit
cept the corner of Tulee's deli
and that kinda pissed me off
but i took it just the same

I lit me a smoke and leaned the wall
blowin the smoke easy like,
-in her direction.
she pretended not to notice,
but she did, i could tell
when her chin tilted
and she shook her hair

I squatted and wrote on the sidewalk
with my finger,
you know, like Jesus did.
she lifted a foot
and checked her heel
for God knows what!

"I was supposed to meet someone"
she said
yeah, right
I thought
but said
"looks like they ain't gonna show"

she frowned all crooked like
but her eyes punched in
for overtime
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
I just layed there, on the bed smokin
while she walked around the room
touchin things like she was shoppin

her thin skirt movin
like a lost scarf hangin from a branch happy to catch it

"sorry for the mess," I said
"wasn't figgurin on company"

she turned her head and smiled
"oh yeah? what was you figgurin on?"

when I didn't answer,
she laughed and went back to shoppin

I lit another cigarrette but she walked over,
took it from my mouth
and dropped it on the floor.

I said nothing as she slowly twisted it out with the toe of her heels
and gave me a look like I was a set of curtains she'd grown tired of seein

I reached for another cigarette, put it to my lips
and quick as lightning,
she slapped it out of my mouth

her eyes grew narrow, like cracks in a board,
as she put her finger on my lips
drug it down my chest
and pressed it into my hard cock
stretchin dirty denim
still tho, she didn't smile and her eyes
became the last flicker of a desert sunset turned stainless steel

as I watched, she walked to my dresser full of half open drawers
and pulled out two T-shirts before givin me a glance that said
"say nothing"
and it wasn't a choice

```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
funny, with my wrists tied over my head to the corners of the bed
it never occured to me that this might be some psycho bitch
who might rob me or worse
didn't seem to matter
know what I mean?

that is until she took my knife from the dresser and walked toward me
fingering the blade like it was speech in a monastery

she pressed the blade against my lips and i kissed it,
then she put it to my chest, where with the precision of a newfoundler,
she cut my shirt off me, before flingin the knife into a far corner

i glanced at the clock
3:45
but she caught me doin it
and she took it from the wall and smashed it on the dresser
while glaring me a look of warning.

damn, she looked fine
as she stood in front of the window pulling her skirt down
and taking off her shirt

I really wanted a smoke and she musta known it
cuz she took one from my pack and lit it
bending over and blowing a thick cloud in my face

I watched her breasts through the cloud
imagined their taste, their texture
and the kingdoms they might conquer with their dance

she eased back, away from me
undid my belt slowly and layed it across my chest
then the button, lastly the zipper
and then, and i swear, she ripped them fuckers off me without me even feelin it!

she smiled at my bulging sex through my shorts and rubbed it playfully
while my breathing shifted gears and I arched to her touch

I wonder now, how it all went down as i walk past Tulee's
and hear the bell on the drug store door
I wonder if she was real
where she came from and where she went
and how anything could taste that good
and i wonder
how many times i've gone to my knees
just to finger the burn in my carpet

(a right proper valentines post, dontcha think?)

The Imperial

(sorry-Casino's a lousy name for a theater)






Back in the Forties in downtown Memphis, there was this theater called The Imperial.
Movies were still a new thing and all that could, would go to them as often as possible.
Two blocks down, a left on 3rd, and then a right on Creole, lived Marcus.
Now Marcus was an older black man who lived in a run down shanty and he got along by running errands and sweeping at the train depot.
Marcus didn't really have any friends you could really call friends and at night he'd walk uptown
with his head down low and his tattered collar pulled high.
He'd walk to the hardware store across from the theater, lean deep in the shadows against the dirty brick wall and just watch the coloured lights of the theater race like dogs chasin rabbits.
Marcus would study the letters spelling titles and stars and he'd watch the long black coats and soft furs pass through the front door.
How wonderful it must be, to be able to just walk in, sit down and see a movie, he'd think to himself and his lips moved to the thinking.
Marcus thought of holding a ticket, finding a warm soft seat and watching the giant screen come to life.

After all the rich white folk had made their way in and the taxis had all driven off, Marcus would put
his hands deep in his pockets and shuffle home where he'd just sit on the steps of his busted up porch and watch the street embrace the darkness, just like everyone did on that street.
But Marcus's dreams hadn't gone completely unnoticed. See, the Imperial had a manager who had a soft heart and he had noticed Marcus leaning the wall night after night.
One night, after the privileged had taken their seats and Marcus pushed himself off the wall, he felt a hand upon his shoulder.
"You'd like to see the movie, wouldn't you?"
Marcus's red eyes just stared back silently, knowing he wouldn't be allowed in even if he had the money.
The manager bent low and spoke softly, almost in a whisper, as he looked over his shoulder to see
who might be watching.
"I can get you in," the manager paused. "but not through there." He nodded toward the lights.
And so a deal was struck.
Marcus would sneak down the alley, past the banged up garbage cans, and wait by the side door that was painted black and only opened from the inside.
It would be here, after the movie had started, after the white folk had gotten their popcorn, that the manager would sneak back and let Marcus in.
The manager took Marcus down a dark hallway and showed him a small hole he could look through with one eye while standing. But if one of the boys came along taking trash to the alley, Marcus would have to quick duck behind a curtain to a small storage closet.
He'd be seeing the same movie as the white folk, only see it a little different.
The manager did this on many nights and even began stopping by Marcus's place once a week or so with a small bag of groceries.
But he always came well after dark and never stayed more than a minute. Always moving fast with his collar up and hat pulled low.
This arrangement, on the surface, seemed pretty good.
The manager felt better about himself and sang a little louder at church on Sunday morning
But Marcus, though he was able to know the cinema almost like white folks, didn't sleep too well and the groceries always tasted a little funny.
One night, the manager went to the black door down the hall to let Marcus in, but Marcus wasn't there.
Stepping into the damp alley he looked up and down but all he saw was a couple of rats scurrying for territory.
Walking out the front door of The Imperial, the manager saw Marcus across the street, leaning against the cold brick wall.
After looking around to see who might be watching, the manager began to cross the street.
But before he could get there, Marcus turned up his collar and walked away.

Februrary

The flakes twist down
In mesmerizing swirls
Shattering the day
Cutting my soul to ribbons
In samurai flash

The bitter winds
Blaze my eyes forging
Tears that streak my face
Like a desert rattler
with cold black eyes

I lower my head
To ease the pain
Shivering
My way forward
On legs unstable

I wish to find a fire
A good brandy
A pain to to observe through
minus the sting
Of the raging howl

But shelter
Is as distant as July
And the only comfort
A dark road ahead

there is no life here
No sun nor bloom
nor robins,
their song
A harbinger of hope

Only the storm

And this is just my heart
You oughta see the weather!

The Question

it once knew weight
flexed all gargantuan
it was Jupiter squatting on Mars
steel beams and packed mortar
of an unsinkable tower

and ancient beyond fossil
yet fresh as mothers milk
dripping the rosed nipple

it fell through the clouds
as thunder on the prairie
choking eucalyptus
and spanking
the oceans tame

it broke the back
of tyrannosaurus rex
and ignited silent volcanoes

weighing in on Roman councils
it mapped the wars of conquest
and bloodied the virgin sands

it did, once
and so much the more

but now, weightless it drifts
along the frozen shores
of the Milky Way
rootless and unseen
never finding fire

on moonless nights, though
it sneaks yet, dripping
from the stars
whispering along forgotten rivers
and abandoned windows

and on nights when the moon
tilts to quarter
it swifts the Brazilian rain forests
meanders the stoic alps
and tempers
the Arctic wind

oceans now disregard it
and congress gavel slams
too busy!

true poets have grown bored
and closed the book on it
and minstrels
have taken up trade

no longer can it purchase
or spend, or even
borrow, while volcanoes
spit dry sarcasm

it's there, still
among the stars
and swirling
the moon's tail
as a London fog
without a light

sometimes it sleeps
the Sahara where the sands
of spent hourglasses
sink in withered shame

but remain it does
as the ghost of an energy
without a matter

if you hushed
in the dark of night
dared the alone vastness
of a vacuum sky
and listened hard
way beyond your ears
-you'd hear it still
passing over in
forever not answered
fainter in wake
but unable to die

"Do you love me"

see,
she never replied

Self-Birth

you say I was born
and offer stamped paper as proof
you say
I suckled
and show me
black and white ruse

I say,
stolen identity

I say
I clawed my way fisting dirt
sprang up!
wild as a mustang in heat
shook my withers
blossomed and branched
under a slanderous moon

you say
you gave me speech
and learned my legs
to walk
taught manners in blended mahogany
and offered God
through a twisted spy glass
stained in blood wine

I say,
my heart speaks a language
you've never known,
unshackled from your nouns
untethered of your verbs
and my feet, MY FEET!
how they long to dance
through emblazoned wildflowers
you cropped with your murray
in laughable tradition

I have a manner my own
learned through
the beauty of a pain
I earned
free from your polish

and the God you chain in font
and story
I've set free
upon the green waves
and within
the tempestuous wind
where my heart soars
free, to pitch a tent,
temple enough for my gratitude

You say
I was born
you say I must die
in orderly fashion of rite

I say
I am not
what you say

from a seed
I sprouted
expanded
bloomed
but the seed has gone

and I am wild and free
as the Lazy Susan,
the shivering pine,
the drunken honey bee
and the wind that knows October

and your papers
of notary stamps
red letters
and Kodak gloss
can not take credit
for my birth

these,
which have bound
us each,
cast to yesterday's wind
and run with me, please
wild and free