buttercup sleeping

Walking to Greg's grave, Canada

Trucking to Canada

Ashes and ailments

Phoenix sneezes, twice in succession as I sip my beer. My instinct, and as I did, was to sign the cross. This action is met with a gaze, apprehension and derision, “It’s too late.”
“Huh?” I said (the bar was loud).
“It’s too late for me.”
“Yea? What. The Cross? The Catholics?” I replied already knowing the answer.
“Um, Yea, huh, I gave that up years ago,” Phoenix replies in his jolly way. In a way that both holds confidence and reveals his youthful spirit. Confrontation without violence. Still I prod.
“Well, you know, the Catholics believe that it is unnecessary to be a believer. That you will be saved through the faith of others. If you’re married at least. Maybe I’ll marry you.”
“No, I can’t live in Massachusetts. Besides you’re promised to Buttercup.”
“I can have two wives. You’ll be the bottom boy.”
“Uh, I’m flattered but no, huh, I’ll do just fine in the arms of my baby.” Phoenix is dating a whip, a wild risk and she’s just perfect for him.
“Fair enough.”

I stared into my beer again, thought of the spider and the dinosaur and the bat. There must be some symbolism there, there must be a purpose. I searched for the camera which was left at the studio. I felt naked without it so turned to the pad and the red pen to jot the experience of the hour prior:
The pink and chrome vehicle, neon track lighting echoed in the highlights of the late summer sun filtered through the late summer clouds over the Mount Hope Cemetery, through the congestion of early evening commuter traffic, lights waning, the green of summer persisting on. I walked with the boy, insisting on holding hands as we crossed the lot to the white Nissan where Papa lay napping as we waited for the prescription to be filled, tossing a cheap bean bag around to pass the time. The vision of the exalted truck moving me to jot it down, the boy observing.
“Daniel?”
“Yea,” I mutter distracted.
“What are you writing?”
“What I see.”
The boy nods.
“I’ll share it with you when I get it down.”
“OK Daniel.” And we move out, heading for the next move, heading for the next minute, building something from the dirty brick town on down, building on the foothold of disease. Prefabricating spirits.

these birds, autumn approach

Spider

dinosaur

A WOMAN FROM THE GROUND UP

[A WOMAN FROM THE GROUND UP]

FEET
THIGH
HIP
CUNT
ABDOMEN
SPINE
HEART
NECK
LIPS
EYE
BONE
BELIEF

A MAN FROM THE GROUND UP

[A MAN FROM THE GROUND UP]

FEET
ANKLE
KNEE
BALLS
ABDOMEN
HEART
CLAVICLE
CHIN
NOSE
BROW
SCALP
IDEAS

happy

I don’t have a picture for today, not a moment, not a thing, not a picture. Instead I worked over my long admired Timothy O’Sullivan’s. What makes them admired? A distance and an escape, a long road, a forgotten past, a resurgent thought, a pistol high, a poker game, a loss, a lesson, a hand cart, magic, tragedy, poison, litmus, toil, sweat, disease, survival, a woman, a child, a mountain, grasses, tension, release, sweet fruits, corn, tomatoes, meats, cheeses, animals, dolls, birth and fire.

inching

“You’ve seen some shit. We can say that. I mean let’s call it, you’ve seen it.” " Poppin’," that’s what he, A-D calls me, “Poppin’, how’s you doin’?”
“Yea,” I respond. “It’s rough but I’m focused.”
“Damn, and you has a cold on top of it?” He heard my rough voice, run down by a summer cold. Only one thing lets a man get run down by that shit, poverty of spirit.
“I’ll live. I’ll get past it. I always do.”
“You strong. You’ve seen it.” It’s the look in our eyes. We lock and know, there’s miles underneath. A-D keeps a spirit up front, floats it, survives, a rare dude in a city of sin. “Clinton’s bad these days, worse than Jay.” He lays it on me like a trooper, like a fourth, fifth duty survivor.
“I know it. I don’t give a shit, I’ll walk any street, any time. Those kids need something, need a sea change. They won’t kill just any man. They won’t kill me.”
“No poppin’, they won’t.”
“Jesus man, we gotta change somethin’ up in this. Something has to change.”
“You right. We gonna.” And A-D knows what were talkin’ here, he knows his own circumstances, he knows mine.
“You Jersey,” he adds matter-of-factly. “ I’m thinkin’ I’ll go that route, I’m thinkin’ I’ll go see my peoples there soon. My sister want me to go to Cleveland but I’m thinkin’ I need a break and see me the Jersey crew. It’s been a long time now.”
“Yea? I’ll look into it. I’ve got plans to go but they’re packed with events, openings in the city and such but that may be something, goin’ to Jersey with you. I’ll look into it.”
“OK poppin’, you cool, you’ll survive it, you’ve seen some shit, you’ll survive it.”
“T.I.R. This Is Rochester,” I respond in jest, our eyes locked like badgers. “I’ll pull through.”
“I know you will.” And it adds to something, these little talks, inching toward human.

a lateral hum followed by two gongs

When I looked at her, I saw the eye, still in place, still ridden with cancer looking back at me, blue as an ocean, blue as can be.
“Baby.”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“Oh babe, I love you back.” We lay entwined as we do in her big bed in the early morning hours. When the pain gets too much she shuts her eyes and twitches lowering her head into the pillow as I lay my hands on envisioning them healing, envisioning them pulling out disease. Then I sleep or try to sleep as the kicks and starts keep us awake, the fire in her brain not allowing more than an hour at a spell.

I lay it out in red ink on the pages of my little black books. I imagine all scenarios, record what’s reported, record what’s not. Record the dream:
“I love you but I must say goodbye to you now.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving this relationship.”
“When will you return?”
“Never. I’ll miss you but I’m going.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“It’s already too late, I’ve left.”
“But what am I to do now?”
“You will know.”
“I know. But why choose it? Why leave?”
“Because this is the best thing for me. I no longer offer you anything. Let me go.”
“OK, goodbye.” I scanned the pier for cigarette butts, found one and lit it. She left.
A horn blows from the bay. There is no fog and no weather. It blows a second time.
“Cut that shit out!” a scream comes from the cabana. I walk to the deck above and look on. “Jesus H”, I mutter under my breath. John slaps my back, “woo hoo,” he gaggles, “Look at ‘em go!” And we watch the sailboats stream about the waters like playful otters.

The Water

The Pier

The Canadians

Ontario

The west coast of Ontario is magical. These two photographs although a bit flat for the Rose were taken within seconds of each other - One facing West across the waters of Huron as the sun set, the other East over the bay as the moon rose. It seems a good place to heal from, it holds a power, Buttercup will need it.

balloo is a bear

and4thosewhomayknow

The Tart and the Phantom

I was taking it all too personally they say. It is not your burden they say. They’re right. I wondered if they knew what I knew so I ask.
“Do you know what I know?” It was a foolish question to ask. Of course they know, as we all knew, how this thing could go badly for me. Things going badly for me is my way so they expect it but in some way I don’t.
“Yes, we know you are too involved. You can lighten up, you don’t need to do this and ask these questions.”
I sigh. Another Coup. “I know. I’ll be alright. This is the risk in laying it out. I shouldn’t be so frank.” Which is true, it’s always been true. I try to mask it but I’m as clear as day, as clear as the seeing, just as clear as my knowing perceiver, very clear. “I can change.”
Sighs and cigarettes.

I was taking it all too seriously. “Wrap your head around how serious this is,” was the word from the doctors. What could It mean, what? Death? Life with disability? Pain? Change? The wrapping with bold souls is pre-wrapped, still the waiting. ‘Bring it on you motherfucker!’, too fierce. ‘What is next dear lord,’ too pious. No responsibility? Live closely with the dirt. There is nothing. I am taking it too personally and in need of release.
“Smell my fingers,” I said to the check out girl.
“Excuse me?”
“Smell my fingers,” I repeated holding out fingers extended, palms down like I was approaching a strange dog. She sniffed. “Smells like pussy right?”
“Ew.” It didn’t. What was I doing?
“Apologies, I haven’t touched any pussy. I wish I could smell it though.” The woman stared back scanning for madness. We were locked in this fear a minute when her hand plunged down with shifting gait to accommodate it and came back up with wet fingers.
“Sniff,” she said. But the smell repulsed me, it was too strong and not cinnamon enough.
“Ew,” I said.
“Fuck you.”
I paid for the groceries and left.

exhaustion

wedge

response

Why do we fall in love? It’s not by choice and not by design. Love comes. Be open, love comes.
“Baby, do you think we have to grow up?” I thought of my circumstances, the distance ahead.
“I had such a great life planned.”
“You’ll have a different one,” I responded confidently as the chemicals of fear swamped in.
She responded in private.

I biked to the distant hills just short of the distant suburban limits. Large gulps of oxygen and blood helped. My eyes hot with sweat and vision blinded by the noon sun I settled in a grove near where I had dragged the standing box a few months back and listened. A mocking bird shifted calls, I looked but couldn’t spot it when from the supplant prairie a stag presented. The beast stood at attention, scanning the grounds, charging with mean hoof and snort. This process repeated as I fell back, as the dark clouds of summer darkened the landscape. I watched the beast, desiring contact on its terms, desiring a sea change, and with it an invading army to tear apart fortune and deliver a reckoning. I watched. The beast hoofed the soft clod ground in the clear above the ramble, and I watched leaning erect, hands on the seat and stem of my primitive machine. With a few snorts and the cullied dance the wood opened up and the herd poured out to meet him.

questions

When I heard the news and I heard the disappointment in Buttercup's heart, my heart broke. But I face it because I decided to. It's not noble, it just is. I said to God, "OK, OK, I'm all grown up now." God responded, "Not yet."

Rochester

right in

Canada has changed me for the perspective it provides. It is a looking down into the dusk form and pulling up a mirror. My body felt it - tense in my back up through the shoulders and into my skull. I raised the beer to my lips and peered down into it for the froth to reveal more as I parsed the paper for clues and information - advanced metastatic disease, histologic patterns and behavior, nonrandom chromosomal changes such a 6q deletions and translocations involving 8q12 and 12q, etcetera. Each a clue but I lacked the context which is a dangerous venture in patient probing.

I stopped at two beers, reached into my wallet, folded the twenty back and looked for a five and a few singles. The bill was done wrong so I straightened it out with the waitress and left a spot for tip, heading home in the beige dark night on foot. Everything we have here is a fight and a struggle. Help if you want to help, be let down if you want to be let down, jump if you want to jump and don’t expect anything from society except a toll and a grip from the loan officer. There is good too but the good is portioned out in the deeds of individuals and usually against all odds until the inspiration of it gets absorbed into law and debt. The rest is lunacy. And I stand to fight, which the plan had been all along both theirs and mine. Them being the other half, the minority. I fall right in.

Fatalism and Facts

Buttercup was drunk, slouching and looking up at me with her baby blue, the other eye behind a black patch. Not once has she whimpered or wailed, not even so much as a “why me?” ‘She’s strong, stronger than I would be,’ I thought.
“I’m strong, stronger than you would be. That’s why it’s me.” I looked, pierced through, searching for truth.
“I know,” I relpied. “You tell me what you want.” Ordinary concerns drifted away and came back to mind like the turbid surf on Huron.
“You tell me babe,” I repeated. In the silence between everything else seemed small – my constant repositioning, my struggle, my escapades with girls, my complaints. There, instead, was the vast expanse and the storms as they form and blow across the open water.
“I’ll do what you ask.” Meaning it, knowing full well that in full health she’d be off without hesitation with occasional distant calls from distant places, travelling with the full force of youth. I don’t care about that so much now. What is changes what was. What is changes what will be. I thanked God but why now? Why this trick? The constant presence and thought of God. ‘Are you going mad?’ ‘I’m not mad, I’m just searching baby’, I reply to myself. ‘Searching for what?’ I answer, ‘For an expression and connection. The full extent of experience, the type I’ve been discontented with in just word or just deeds. I’ve called it art. But why ‘God’, it seems so sad or so programmed. A distinction to a method of real knowledge – the scientific method. A science of some sort. A repose to these feelings or distractions.’ “Yes,” I reply audibly, “distractions.” My brow knits.
Silence.
The questions come in droves.
‘You require distance, silence, time’, comes the answer. ‘And this is for you, not for others. Your questions will lure others to failure.’
‘My questions will lure myself to success of some kind. I just don’t see the full path yet.’
At that moment I knew doubt was gone. It takes such great art to clarify. It takes such a life.
I looked over and watched Buttercup’s wrist, watched the vein pulse a healthy rhythm. She was asleep.

sweet dreams

babe. lover. darlin. i need the rest...

I'll be your history, You'll be my diamond

I have a future
it is extensive as my past
my past is built in shifting forms
I give away those forms presently
my present is a gift
I give it to you. Now it is yours.
You have a future
it extends as your past
Your past is not linear
you are built on shifting forms
these forms are art
you give them away
what you give away returns
it is not linear
I'll be your history
You'll be my diamond

land

Buttercup with her father

Huron

The Industries, B Man

I know what you look like, possibly more than the afflicted, and now that the Lord has provided me permission I will see you in hell.

>>:)<<