All Is Continuity

Find a category to assign someone and lose the essence of who they are.

Maybe that day back in the summer of ‘94 was just too bright. The sun shining like a million sparkling ocean waves. But back then he stood off in the distance, just a silhouette. I remember that day because we all melted. Pools of hot water that evaporated within minutes. Still, he stood off in the distance, just a silhouette. Some never came back down during July’s incessant rains. They’re still up, somewhere, in the sky, where we all secretly want to be.

The silhouette of a boy grew up not long after that summer. He moved off further into the distance, far enough for everyone to lose sight of him. I swear, though, that sometimes, on liquid summer days, his silhouette reappears off in the distance, just standing. At peace. As if waiting for July’s incessant rains to bring those who took to the skies.

And I suppose if that’s the way the story is to end, I can be at peace, too. After all, we’re all silhouettes standing off in the distance, in our own undefined ways, to strangers watching.

Fizz Pop

I drew a candy necklace
kind of love. Amused,
she smiled.

I bought pastel straws
in colors unique. With
them she painted a
masterpiece.

I littered the ground
with tangerine drops.
She loved me for it.

The quaint home we
bought had a gate
called beautiful in
the backyard.
We often lie next to it
in the cool of the night
under other-worldly
skies and watch while
big orange bubbles
skip across the atmosphere.
Their glitter lands
gently over our quaint
backyard. She whispers
just faintly enough that
I cannot hear as she
fiddles with the candy
necklace kind of love
draped around her neck.

*Points to whomever names the band clued within*

Update II

Itchy and prickly stitches, oh my!

Here’s looking to Wednesday. Stitches come out. And I get to visit the Infamous for the 4th of July weekend. I’ve promised Miss R to take lots of pictures, perhaps even some goofy ones at that. And perhaps, if the Infamous wants, I’ll make him some goodies or something if he has to work on Thursday. Does he have anything which which to cook? We shall all find out!

Update

You know how sometimes you don’t notice something, or you’re not bothered by something till someone mentions it to you? Yeah, well, thanks goes to the woman who asked about my hand at the Wright Patterson Air Force Tattoo yesterday. I now can’t get my mind off the itching.

And speaking of the Tattoo. I need to complain about something since I vow not to complain about my hand. What an overhyped and underperforming event. In the span of an hour, we had five aircraft flyovers. Five. Yippee. And I particularly didn’t like waiting an hour just to get out of the parking lot. If that’s how my tax dollars are being spent, I’d like a refund.

Move over, Manreeny. It’s my turn to garner sympathy from the family.

Nothing draws coworkers together as does one of them slicing their hand open down to the tendon.

[Untitled}

Songs of Sirens.
Entrancing.
Listening
filling
loving.
I do and I admit
how much I do.

But do I err.
Am I wrong?
Do I sin.

I am caught
in the middle.
Between Sirens
of song and sight
and the faithful
contemptuous
and I, I rather
choose the Sirens.

But do I err.
Am I wrong.
Do I sin.

Forefathers
answer
affirmatively.

But Forefathers
have wedding rings.
They can’t understand.

And that is the
diamond in the ruff.

Is it okay for adults to throw tantrums?
Is it okay if I yell aloud: ‘that’s just not fair’ ;
in just about every way something cannot be fair.

I think it is time for bed.

It appears as if my brother just might be going to France to visit our cousin for Thanksgiving later this year.

Excuse the four-year-old in me, but that’s just not fair. Proper protocol for siblings, especially brothers less than two years older than their younger counterparts, involves asking said younger counterparts if they would like to go along on such trips. Or any trip.

Unless that trip means going to Blockbuster to rent a movie wherein your older brother spends fifteen minutes and decides he really doesn’t want to rent a movie.

It’s like he’s going off to kindergarten and I’m stuck at home.

In any case, my roommates and me decided to get rid of our phone/internet/dishTV package. So new writing may be slower in coming, though there are some works in progress. I spent half an hour or so the other day hunting down a wireless signal on the campus where I work that doesn’t have a filter on it.

You can assume I found one.

Boys Will Be Boys

The lamp broke.
Yesteryear.

Father found it.
Shattered.
He’s usually
very good at
fixing things.

A blind man
would be glad
to see it, he’d
say, with a half
smile after
fanangling
something back
together.

But the lamp
is quite shattered.
Irreparable.

The boys stand.
Eyes wide.
Boys will be boys.
They lie.
Father knows.

Horseplay. Outside!
He’ll say, sternly.
Face reddened.

Boys at play.
Outside.
Yesteryear.
Mother comes
home. Walks
into the house.
Finds father
sweeping up the
shattered lamp.

What happened?!
she’ll say.
Eyebrows raised,
scrunched together.
Forehead in wrinkles.

The cat knocked it over
father will say.

We All Wait Attentively

Write.

Write your thoughts,
young man. To say
what you wish you
could. What someone
you know well needs
to hear. Something
you wish to say.
A philosophy to
change the world.
That the poor might
be made rich and the
rich might be made
content.

Take your pen,
young man, and
write until the ink
runs dry. You need
to speak as your
voice lends itself
to silence a fair amount
too much. Let people
hate you, let folk
love you. The great
thinkers, the lofty
debaters, the crooked
politicians, let them hear
your voice.

Speak.

Stories made up in
an instant. Something
new. Something exciting.
Something dramatic.
Where lovers love anew.
Of lands near and far.
Where paupers live
paupers’ lives and princes
only wish. And kings,
like Charlemagne,
worry not of who
might succeed. Give us
stories with blue skies
and open fields, cities
of buildings made by
the gods of the Earth,
buildings impervious
to destruction.

Tell.

Of times before the twins
fell. When they stood tall.
When cities were safe. And
folk knew their neighbors
and the corner store charged
but a nickel for a stick of gum.

Do you have anything
to say of worth? Then tell
a world yearning to hear.
Tell a world full of misery
something, anything. Really,
you must have something
to say.

We all wait, attentively.

Stories

The stories told.
The children sleepy,
some fastly sleeping.

The stories told
in a room warmed
by a roaring fireplace.
A room almost
overfilled, a room
that heaved, billowed
and rolled along with
the stories.

The children sleep.
The adults sit.
All reminisce.
They all have stories,
it’s the glue that holds
them together.

The children sleep.
When they wake
they will have grown,
they will find the adults
with gray hair telling
stories like they’d
happened only yesterday.
The antagonists - him and
her and Jon and Billy and
Joey, just as if it’d
happened yesterday.

When the children
wake they will have
to tuck their parents
in for the night.
Their parents will sleep.
And the children sit.
All will reminisce
of stories yesterday.
It’s the glue that
holds them together,
for a time, that is, until
gray hairs turn white.

Offensive

Ice straight
from the freezer
chinging, ringing
while settling
into a 12 ounce
Coca-Cola glass.
But I’ve no drink
other than Pepsi
with which to fill
the glass.

My Father. The Squirrel Slayer.

My mother claims to have tried to raise good boys.

I like rock music. Like my father before me. I like Big Macs and Whoppers and Coca-Cola and eating piles of yet-unbaked goodies. Like my father before me. I drive at ungodly speeds down the street, tires squealing as I pull into the driveway. Just as my father does. My father’s quips and one-liners I repeat to those around me. Spiders still do their pushups on the mirror. My father sits in the backyard, BB gun in hand, smile on his lined face, waiting for squirrels at which to shoot.

I’ve improved on his methods. Today I ran over a squirrel.