I pulled the copy of Bukowski
You gave me out of the desire for a co-conspirator
Or obligation- who knows
Off the shelf and sat it on top of the commode
For balance to the slim volume of the Dalai Lama.
Inexplicably,

I miss your ready muse
Surprised you realize that it
Whatever it Was
Was over that evening halfway through dinner
Roughly the same time I did
I didn’t realize we had become so clear to ourselves
So gossamer
The still cool wind of ego
Cleared our respective basements to the studs
Of whatever was there.

When I introduce myself to people, assuming I have the presence of mind, to introduce myself, I say I am a poet, cook, and father- in reverse order.
I want folks to know I am a writer, that is the prism through which I see things. I might not remember your name at first, but I’ll remember every word you say, and how you say it. You have become I character in my mind, before I see you as a person. Forgive me. You will become a person in time, once you say or do something out of character.
That is out of the character I am creating of you in the matrix of my mind. The one I am simultaneously in conversation with as I talk with you. Borrowing your idiom, gestures, the tone of your speech, and merrily doing my bidding, until you do something unedited, unscripted, and then, bless you, I’ll see you for the first time.

Sometimes it happens in a moment, in the same breath or evening I...

We are here to learn, to explore, to notice, and notice again.

We are meant to create and each of us chooses the form of that creation.
If we do not choose that is a choice as well. Often we will be asked to create for others.
We are meant to help each and that can take many forms, including conflict of all scales.
Perhaps one of the things we are meant to learn is stewardship.
Procreation is one form of creation that combines both stewardship, discipleship, an immense irrational, unbounded hope.
All life is unique and valuable in its own way. Nothing is ever wasted.
The arc of history bends toward abundance; the universe is not a zero-sum game.
The Garden is both our future and our past.

To steal a phrase from Hafiz- “Love kicks the ass of space and time.”
I could be totally, comically, tragically, wrong about all this.

Like many I suspect, I started smoking to impress a girl. I grew up in Winston-Salem, NC before the Master Settlement Agreement. Smoking was impressively mature to middle-schoolers in that day, in that tobacco town.
I walked projecting the confidence of my budding masculinity a foot ahead of my slender frame into the Rite-Aid and asked the ancient clerk behind the counter for a pack of Camels.
With a knowing smirk, the man passed over a dusty pack of unfiltered camels from the bottom shelf.
“That’ll be $1.75, kid.”
I quickly coughed up two bucks and sprinted out of the store shocked by my success to my friends waiting anxiously in the alley behind the store to see if I had managed this magic trick.
I have quit and started smoking many times in the years since then.
But I still recall the sickening headrush and bellyflops of that first cigarette.
And the first kiss that followed...

In therapy, we learned about the PIC-U. I am sure it is an acronym but cannot remember what it stands for and, for once Google is no help.
Simply put, the PIC-U is a collection of objective measures that your life is slipping dangerously out of control.

In some cases these measures are obvious, easy to measure:
the phone is ringing with bill collectors impatiently waiting on the other end of the line.
You are drinking three drinks, or thirty, as opposed to your more customary two.
A full pack a day.
Less than 7 hours of sleep.
The deadline is approaching with little progress on your end.
Unread mail piles up. While you are burying your nose in something…
Anything you enjoy more than the harsh honesty of reality.

Others are more subtle:
“Did you hear what I just said?”
You awake with an inexplicable pain in your shoulder.
You bite your nails or pick at your face.
Your jaw...

The truth is
We are the first and the last.
We stand on the elevation before you- saw in hand
We eat the first fruits in the field
We are the first to try that hot new dish
To track fresh snow
Comb clean cotton.
Nod our head to the beat drop
Test drive the Telsa.

You get a lot of shit for being the one percent
But we were there ahead of you.
And we will be the ones
That remind to take your pills.
Rebalance your portfolios
To take you meds and tuck you into bed.
To change your sheets and you diapers
To lower you down into the world you enjoyed so richly.

And wrap a hard, strong, calloused hand
Around your children’s shoulder
And remind them
As before
That we will always be
There
There.

metoo

Everybody knows that they guilty
Everybody knows that they’ve lied
Everybody knows that they guilty
Resting on their conscience eating their inside
It’s freedom, said it’s freedom time now.
– Lauryn Hill

In high school, working as a cook, I pinched the ass of a waitress while we were flirting. I felt an intense shame at doing something so stereotypically wrong. I still feel a degree of that shame when I share that story with my sons.

As I man in my 20’s I witnessed my boss verbally sexually harass a female colleague and did not report it until my colleague left the organization. I was more concerned for my position in the company than protecting my friend. Her sister won’t speak to me to this day. I am sure I’ve said things similar, if not so direct, in my evolution.

The common denominator in these stories we read is that these abusers had people around that directly or...

They say bacon takes nine minutes off your life.
While a good cigarette takes seven
Certainly a kiss is timeless
Yet will keep you busy a while.
This notion of trading
Your three score and ten
For pleasure
Is intriguing to consider
In the uncertain moments
As the
Plane
Goes down.

Love is the ultimate gerund.
Though you see hate more in the papers:
Hatecrime
Hatespeech
Lovecrimes you see more on the stage.
The play within the play.
Scenes of the writer, writing.
With no narration.
In the press and in the courts
We refer to this as
A crime of passion
That’s the jury you want to be on.

To be any thing in life
Is to be reduced and magnified
In countless ways
You cannot recognize.
To find the book you released in June
Full of pride
In the Salvation Army bin for a dollar
And to hear your
Own
Laugh
Carried over the hills
In the mouth of your
Youngest daughter.

2018
Writers’ Block 1, Light- A journal of Photography & Poetry

Rosebud, Light- A journal of Photography & Poetry