an aloe waltz

i winced through the collection of condensation on the doorway glass and glimpsed evening enveloping the long, wet day. whisking into the kitchen, grabbing a heavy-bottomed glass bottle of olive oil, i turned on the burner, bent for the large, flat iron pan, and busied myself collating an array of colorful ingredients on the black of my kitchen's counter top.
a feast of flavor was my want to create. that no invited guests were yet knocking on the door, or for that matter, on their way, was secondary to the want.
a full house, with lively laughter, children? the color and light of personalities at ease in the simple comforts of surroundings which sooth and welcome. my only wish.

and if you build it, they will come, a mantra, i determined to exercise, that day, in my kitchen. with jazz welling in the background, it seemed my jade and aloe plants were swaying, to and fro, imbibing in the splendor of low-key. of good vibe. of the effects of ‘good guys’ on their particular corner of the planet.
and if you cook it, will they come? and if you open that heart, will it fill? and if you nurture that spirit once hungry, will it grow...grow to love?

unalloyed

tonight, i celebrated 40 years with a friend, saw some old friends who i haven't seen for almost 2.5 years, and spilt beer with another dear friend who gave me one of the highest compliments i may have ever known.

'you're an unalloyed joy.'


unalloyed.

Not in mixture with other metals; pure.
Complete; unqualified: unalloyed blessings; unalloyed relief.
this complimentary friend, a well-disciplined and precise writer by trade, who has 10 or more years on me warms my heart in a way, unimaginable.

one-of-a-kind?
true?
pure?
that words, such as these, could be uttered about my humble grace
astounds
and at once
relieves.
i am
good, strong, amazing
enough.

i am.

holiday soliloqoy

what is it about holidays like a new year's arrival or thanksgiving that put me on an e-soapbox of sorts? (go ahead, there are those of you out there who are saying 'as if you needed an excuse')... :)
i suppose the reprieve from the confines of the 8-5 workday allow the freedom to reflect and consider that which may be tabled during the day-to-day.
maybe it has to do with ritual. and the establishing of some newfound variety thereof, as i personally traverse the complexities of getting older, moving away from groups of important friends and confidantes, losing the once foothold-bonds that seemed impossible to forge.
with each holiday's momentous passing, a reminder of what once was rears itself, reminds, cajoles, possibly, with tangles of memory; and then retreats.
the evolution of this ebb and flow smooths the stone-memory, creates anew, wiping old slates clean.
for those of you who've been a part of my email life these past few years, you may remember my wont to reflect and extend somehow.

i suppose electronic communication connects the distant, but also supports a maintenance of distance, too, if you're not careful.
the seeming connective correspondence with a friend or loved one, on a daily or weekly basis can quickly be a seeming thread of life to life, yet, what of face time? of true laughter, and not simply LOL or LMAO. i can think of those friends i work with--in the same building--whom i may pass in the hallway, but, i talk most frequently with over an email, maybe a phone call, and still too, and IM'd chat.
what of those who are miles, states, continents away? making time to reach toward them, feels so necessary. so important. a welcome ritual, a guilty-pleasure, a necessary elixir.

i made a vow, quietly, to myself recently, to slow down. literally. there are people who know me as a blurred enigma of sorts. a doer of myriad 'things' not one of which is very important. but a doer, nontheless. it saddens me when i see these people, and the refrain i hear is 'oh how have you been or what have you been up to, busy, busy, i'm sure, always so busy...you lead such an interesting life' so hurried. so happy.' i can see the expressions of those faces--friends and loved ones, and so many meetings in a row, i would shake my head agreeing, or possibly joking with them over the concept--alluding to my attempt to slow down a bit, and talking briefly over the latest-greatest-story related to one of these busy-life activities, which in & of itself, supported the whole scene--perpetuated it, actually.
so often i have wanted to look one of these dears straight in the eyes and say 'i haven't been doing a thing, and i like it just fine.'

a friend recently said this "I wish, sometimes, that I could simply exist, read and write all day. Wander back and forth. Let ideas come at me in between naps."
i related to this so intensely when i read it. as if i had found a secret treasure. an antidote to the poison of everyday life.

yet i crave activity. i enjoy doing, and sweating, and being.
still this luxurious bit of contrived living seemed as fruitful an arena from which to delve, create, deliver, re-ignite, quell, liberate, and onward and onward. as any i have yet to muster.

ahh, the decadence.

and so a theme (a point you say?)? my 6th grade teacher always corrected my inability to properly outline as well as to structure, positively, a supported major theme, and, as we all know, my stream-of-conscious-style rarely gets herself to a point, yet, a point, i thusly purport, here now.
i wanted to send this to you all, because i was moved to tears today. and it had to do with time. and ritual. and holidays. and family. and life. and the day to day decisions which add to years & years of just, real-life. and had something to do with just "existing" with taking naps, with fitting it in; and making the time.

my family, fairly small these years after tragic loss and sadness, started a ritual years back, and it had to do with the 'adult' gift exchanging at holiday time. instead of spending a bunch of money on a bunch of people, we determined to draw names, name a budget, share lists, and be creative with just one extra special person to spoil.
we all love this ritual. it has been a joy to watch, to receive, and to spoil as well. some years it seems, we're all broke at once, other years, we all have a little extra, and no matter what, everyone has a great time with their hand crafted or hand picked relics.
well, we've taken a few years off of this little ritual, for various reasons, but we returned to it this year, and although it took my coersion of a dear friend to get the names drawn (and disseminated through cyberspace we're all 'so busy' we couldn't remember to do it when we were together, or we just couldn't 'get together'), we finally did it. we all have our respective names, and we've been awaiting lists.
well, most of the lists came in, and they were adorable. there were requests for things like money for plane fare, and socks and lotion; but additionally, there were requests for love, love, and more love; for prayer for the president-elect's family and his huge tasks ahead; for dinner together during the break; for a family-attended service the evening of the 24th... and then present in all, but not articulated nearly as beautifully, was this:

Sorry I was so late on this there simply wasn't anything i really needed. however the one thing most precious to me other than my relationship with the lord and my wonderful bride and my children and my grandchildren and my family, that one thing is time. we are all busy and time management is a big thing.I've been letting the lord manage my time lately, and he does a better job than i do. at sixty years old I've been very blessed, and blessed with around 3120 Saturdays and if i live to be say seventy-five, I've got around 780 more Saturdays. good lord willing. that's just an example. so maybe we can just give a little more time on occasion.
anyhow i love you all
more than you know
bigger than the sky
have a great day
love dad

only 780 more Saturdays? and my dad might not be there for me to stop by & shoot the shit with in the garage on a Saturday morning? or meet up for breakfast with (which I've only asked to do once, in my life, when it was just he and I, and I'm 34 years old), or help haul wood from the pile to the woodshed with?
only 780 more Saturdays that we might attend one of Isaac's basketball games, or get together for a picnic on the back patio and have salmon on the grill?
only 780 more Saturdays to see that my dad has 'taken a long blink' again on the couch, while my mom and i sat bantering--one of her races on in the background.

truth is, as we've all been reminded a hundred thousand times, there's just no telling if i'll get 780 more saturdays or even one more with my dad. or he, with me.
what exactly, then, am i waiting for?
how many times do i have to reflect on the notion of carpe diem? how many reminders will i send out to all of you?
how many of you will see the amount of text in the body of this email and delete it, never to consider?
i haven't said it particularly well, and maybe the heartfelt plea in my dad's body copy, is only felt in my center, because of my own guilt for not taking the time to spend, with so many of you, so many people whom i adore, and learn from, and wonder about.

so with that, i'll end this little holiday soliloqoy with a plea to all of you to give thanks for what you have and what you've had. and to truly live every moment you possibly can.
on purpose.

happy thanksgiving.

my thanks to you for your part in my life.
"i'm so glad i didn't die before i met you." (thanks bright eyes).
love,
me

plunge.

dear diary,

if i had to do it all over again, i would've. i know i would've. and i'd be right here.
maybe.
but maybe this time, it wouldn't have went through.
maybe this time, they could have done the math better.
penciled another line of text and seen that it was impossible.
i was not qualified.
i needed a dual income.

but because i would've.
anyway.
proving some stupid principle of independence.
like hanging a red suede jacket on
a coat rack's hook.
i'd still be right here
in the midst of this big, brown, mud puddle.
wondering how
to escape the
quicksand
of it all.
without drowning.

venture

in the new, red light
of this midnight dawn
i wonder
of star crossed love
and happenstance
of heart crushed blood depths
of
circumstance

of my place in the midst of the shadows which
fall
across the length
of your eyelash

inhale the aroma of my elixir
and breathe
her
cave dwelling
depth

if you know my every
idio
syncracy
is there a better chance
at
introspect?

dance in the dervish of wednesdays marmalade
sun
shine
and whirl
while transcendence
passes
you
by.

i stand on my rooftop
screaming the abysmal gasp of life
here
and there
i spread my eagle
wings
to flight.

proof

of life or death
that it mattered
somehow
in some way
that the reverberation
wasn't merely here to there and
back
again.

let not momentary discord
disenchant
let not the harmony
sung on the wind
as did your whistle
disappear

put forth what you deem
and note there may be no proof
just yet...

yet trust the wind...

soul-supper

what time of year can we harvest soul? it delights me to ponder this. i suppose as we weed and tend, we are fortunate, as are those in the west and southwest--to harbor the luxury of winter gardens.
that we might bare fruit, ripe for the picking just in time for a succulent soul-supper.

stored in vines, tubers, pods and stalk, are the sometimes soul-spice craved when thin with wear, life strains against our seams.

yes, bottom's drop out...

when you can't feel sunlight across your chin
because [it seems] no reason to love
remains
and you want to toss down the heavy-bottomed glass of
whiskey
after tossing it down your throat
and you want to feel empty
instead of so-full of someone Else's balloon-blown-air

when you've walked aimlessly about the city town village metropolis
in your mind
and you've sought what you seek
and you've breathed in deep
and when you've cleared your flow
and that was your cue
and you've spent your wad filling the void

where does it leave you?
why did it take you?
where did you go?
in the duality of non-conformity can't you bend
all hoola-hoop
through it
and mine
the return
on the other side
sorting through the silver-flecked-ashes
for the remnants of
your character
your audacity
of hope
--no more than your
god given
right--
can't you pick your silly head up off that concrete slab
laugh a little laugh
and try again?

Caesura as it pertains to light and dark—

As Dickinson and
Her slant of light or cathedral
tunes
bleak grey dawn
[at first read-through] seems to ooze
out the open-form-syntax
of your verse.
dismal?
not quite.
dismissive?
absolutely antithetical.
dark.
No.
not melancholic-martyrdom.
not sad hurt.
yet
Contemplative.
pain, present.
anger, present.
sadness, present.
at center—beautiful,
Red-Black-Truth—
sticky with marrow.
blood-red-black.
Yes.

Truth.
Headily-carnivorous, its brand-welt
bleeds deeply
seeping across the page.
Look at the soft, raised-edge
scar tissue—
Touch it.
Feel the wince—
Through the bright-pink-healing mound.
Push the pain.
Feel the truth.

Later,
When the scar visibly heals;
Phantom fragments of
Sensory feeling and
Simultaneous
Numbness.
Close your eyes—capture your breath—there.
See even more than truth.
Look beyond.
Past the seeming—oozing bleak grey dawn,
Ahh, there.
Yes. an orange-hot
rim of sun
light.
streams delicately through
curtained-seams.
Amber light
Long vertical streaks
Illuminate the vast landscape of your
Beautiful, precise, mind.

wild

i'm right here
smilin' ear to ear
feelin' the heat of you and your muscled forearm leaning into my ribs.
i'm all melty inside
happily conscious of the feeling you leave me with
a residue
like aftertaste
of the most delectable variety
i'd sip the taste of you
every day for a million years
wipe you off my lip, or
leave a taste to remind
me later,
that like brushing my teeth, i'd missed a spot
with the handtowel on the silver hook.

my moonlight shines out and to the tips of
your eyelashes
and they flicker there
as i watch you breathe
in and out
i feel it
the reverberation
of your beautiful breath
mine too

i have beautiful breath
albeit not always anything more than ripe

i like to watch the rain
fall down
on that slim spot there, underneath your collarbone
or on my freckled
shoulder

warm
and beautiful
it makes me wish for
too many kisses in a row
when breaths are taken, barely
in between gasps
the guttural, deep down in the lowerbelly kind of gasps
which feel more
magical than
any taste
food
drug
i've yet to consume

i imagine you taste like a long weekend on the coast, where inbetween long bouts of love, mangoes and the salty rasp of earth met us along the way for slight
nourishment
just in time
for the next round

satiety enamors me
with its notion
of what it might
be like
watching you dispel my apprehension
putting holes of disbelief into
the balloon of my
hope
freak flag

positing that
yes
it's real
it's possible

it's here for a minute anyway
and,
in this life

wild abandon, shared unabashedly between hearts
is what
it's all about

it's art
work
light
and grace

only vanquished by
doubt

rarity

collecting stones
to me
the finest gem source
seems
old hat.
yet
infrequent
seldom
tenuous
subtile
like bald eagles perching
hump back whales arcing
not dime-a-dozen

in tribute
i collect
sacred relics.
as time goes by, the small coffer
an amalgam of eclectic features
now,
a treasure trove.

old news...from the crypt

whatever the story, there's a more concise explanation than the exaggerate-tory one I'm sure I mentally embellished and used to convince myself of a sick and twisted, sabateur-rejection.
truth is, most often, i rejected me.
i didn't commit.
i played and didn't like.
i jumped, only to wince away in pain over a sprained ankle.

i'm tired of
waiting
wandering
second-guessing
glancing and thinking 'what if'
'maybe this time'
what have you
i'm ready for love
big
soft
sloppy
messy
love.

open.
disarming.
hard work.
building blocks.
deconstruction.
reconstruction.
gambled-upon...
i want to love
and be loved.
i want to be someone's
million dollar baby.
do you know, that in my whole life,
i've just wanted to be enough for someone
deserving
(and not 'too much/too intense/too deep')? for just, the wrong individual.
can't i be someones special
amazing earthy mama-lovin' caretaker chic with a brain and some braun and a heart of silver-gold?
won't the stars introduce me to a passionate
braniac
without overwhelmed arrogance
(or for that matter, pomp & circumstance).

who reads (at least; if not writes) poetry
and sees it streaming down my face sometimes,
when we watch the sun set
or rise.
or in the wind can dive off a bluff and turn the water a deeper shade
of indigo.
who believes in the balance
the ebb and flow
whom is passionate
and good to puppies and kiddos
who loves the mountains
oceans
water everywhere
who'll garden beside me
read to me when my eyes are tired

and doesn't mind my bouncy ball collection.

who might dig newspapers-in-bed
sundays
or hiking
cold or warm sweats
anyday
or ravenous partaking of fruit
after
a special kind of satiety...

and winter afternoons spent hibernating
only after skate-skiing or snow shoeing.
will i find the one
who gets me
who sees me
who adores every inch of me
who relishes in what this spirally mind might concoct next--whether word or
ingredient-filled-culinary wonder.
a pallet of spice and delight.

and who isn't scared by my love.
the way she spills out, all verbose, all over
the page
all over his shirt
lapel
and trousers.
sneaking out for whispers
in ears
and sometimes
a lyrical hum
dee
dum.

speaking your mind, even when your voice shakes (m. kuhn)

means taking risks that you've got to live with.
means writing checks your body should be prepared to cash.
means rising above, when it feels like falling on your knees is the only option left.
means disappointing a number of hearts who'll never quite fathom the depth of your diving pool.
means overcoming the doubts that cause you to tremble and retreat and second guess.
means you'll be alone, a lot, and there's no need to hate yourself for it.
means doing the right thing.
means being brave.
means being who you know in your heart that you are and deserve to be.
means you can walk away, head held high.
means you have the right to say nothing at all.
means you can learn to decipher when its best to say nothing at all.
means sometimes, speaking your mind, requires not a word.
at all.

vitamin c

wide eyed & haggard
after too much rest
sleeping hours into daylight and after
so

hazy with a temporary dislocation of what i know
i found myself at one
with a snowbank
and
only after
a short reprieve
did i awake,
freezing
with cold
at the bottom of my heart and blood rates possibility
pondering life death illness taxes
staring into grey sun and wishing for heat
well
for warmth
my fair skin, purplish in the concrete-encased-surroundings of my
hospital bed
i waited for the waitress...
headnurse to tell me
i was ok

better now.
just a fluke
hydrate more after cardio.
take your vitamins

be a good girl.

settled dust

stare into that crystal ball
and see
the new belgium sunrise
feel the heat
and
mire yourself in the cold
of it

steep in the misery there, cold
dank
and alive
in a way that dispels belief in any possibility
of good
and right
not anything
else
but trite
frivolity
you drop it like a bag of
hate

smash it against the curb and
kick it
in the chest
as you step away,
exhale
and brood into
whatever comes next
on this expository plane
of self-reflection

a pool of silvery swoon
i wonder if this inside glittery jump and dance
might ever be anymore than a dream

i'll inhale the thick smoke of you and feel your elixir
i'll wish it to sweep it
all away
under the proverbial rug

oh emmylou, lucinda, baton rouge; how
can the lyrics
of any
of your love songs
ever stretch far enough
across the expanse of the globe
to transcend the bitter
irony
of life's many truths
i
love
and i
love
and
i love.
restlessly, i am only here.
visibly aglow
amidst the indigo outline
of night's sky

the regions between
ribcage
and
sinew.

i reach
and touch
and the handholding
lets loose

forget the beauty
the light behind the eyes
the smile, enriched somehow by a silent backscreen
reflective
heart
starry
glitter
energy
or
limelight

life
myriad in its wake
of ebb & flow

breaks upon the shore
in so many undulating waves
how can we ever harness
harpoon
lasso

a thing at all
?

I AM the birthday fairy...

Live your life from your heart.
Share from your heart.
And your story will touch and heal people's souls.
--Melody Beattie

I AM the birthday fairy…

The rectangular strip of white paper/black ink read
“You do not have to worry about your future.”
At the time I opened that fortune cookie sentiment, I remember I turned and spun; whirling-dervish-style…and immediately thought about Beth Hart lyrics…

She got a poet's spirit 

she burns among the clouds 

she never stops believing 

she only dreams out loud 


…Knocking shoulders, heavy, muscled, delts, with a co-worker.
He giggled, glottaly, turning his sparkly lake-blue eyes to me, asking playfully ‘what’s up?’
In a moment like that you wonder. What is UP?

Really.
How to answer?
Are there words?

The slip-slap levity of an epiphanous mental-inhalation feels like the corpuscles change, right there on the spot, blood-deep.
That with the new knowledge, we are forever new and that on this, that…on any given day—or moment, naturally, the riotous volley of life’s ball from paddle to table to paddle and back is willed-forward. Is positive, good, of the stuff which dreams are made.

That’s my purpose.
The excavation of my own and others dream stuff [YO!]
It’s what I do. It’s my innate specialty.

It too; my arch-nemesis; as I traverse the differences between those who hear this language which I speak, and the others which dismiss, misunderstand, dis-turb…I am a portal/vessel/medium by which others might see the way to truly live a ‘Practice Random Kindness & Other Senseless Acts of Beauty” life.

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt. --Frederick Buechner
And here I am. A run on sentence with hyphens, m-dashes, ellipses. A mixed bag of tricks and traits; tendencies and beauties. My idiosyncratic, spirally self, which bounces and plunges and leaps and dives is here and alive and at the precipice of the most important sort of work there is to be done.

No wonder, my favorite of all artisans, melds the most diverse of media into its mixed-collage.
Sugar & spice & everything nice. Juxtaposed with the sands of gritty truth. The hasty choices made. The decision(s) to, as I’ve only learned JUST TODAY, INSTEAD ‘let love decide’.

Living imperfectly with my humanity doesn’t have to be painful or a stand-up-&-preach-from-the-proverbial-pulpit-example of what not to say or do.
But if a door once closed, now open spills forth with the grace of the unabashed qualities that exist, so let the waters flow.
Let the free willy, Roseanne-na-danna-danna, third-grade-giggle, newspaper riddle, happy-go-lucky, smile in a puff of cloud, raindrop splash in puddle, kiddified energy live forever.

old souls ?

can you fall in love with a mere glance?

what is love?
can we peel away the
societal influence pressure
(onioned-layers)
seeming combustion
that soda-can-explodes
everywhere
by the mere mention

a four-letter-word
bomb
awaiting its explosive
response
can we see past it? get past it? deep-breathe it
and not recoil
when
it is
'too' early
too soon
too much?
when we all, 'at this age' have baggage and scar tissue to last a lifetime of
story
telling
escapades.

do we ever have a chance of
new
what if
happy
effervescent glee?

can we ever bridge
the gap
conquer
the divide
in a way
that instead
c o n n e c t s
beautious multilayered facets
of other to self
an amalgam
new in the making...original in its beauty. perspective. slant of light upon.

today someone taught me to consider 'what love would decide' next; instead of
reacting.
being
visceral
defensive
explanatory
right or wrong
egotostical

what if, intrinsically, we altered our reaction
to every given thing
to honor this
to ask that question every single time.
'what would love do?'

how might this alteration rock
the off-kilter
inline once more.

what is the next move when a decision of some substance (or not) is upon us? right. left. fast. slow.
where must a being go
to express.
reach outward.
give.
?
when can you gamble the assumption--that the receiver 'hears/listens to/conforms to/is interested in' your particular
l a n g u a g e ?
when will your tangent slant, veer, crash
headlong
into
a head,
sitting like a pumpkin
on a fence
ready to be shot apart
into fragments
ir-retrievable?

when too, will your aim reach
full on
to the
epi-centre
heart meat

centrifugal
spot where force eminates & life seems to begin and
creativity
energy
l i g h t
exudes?

finest of lines
thinnest of fissured ice
falling through
plunging

it's so random. this synergy--bumped into...happened upon.

i refuse to N O T

words capture not the visceral
tingle of
lives intertwining
in a way
that is more than accidental
on purpose
fate
stars
crossed or not
i'll never know or say for
certain
yet
inaction on the reaction felt
by virtue of
listening to syllables enunciated
seems such
a
terrible
pity
a waste
of sorts
like garbage strewn
black-bagged
on the hot, odorous
alleys
of a city
like new
york

not feeling
or
love
or even
lust
but
life
force
heart
beat
connection
you said it, language.
we don't often speak the same--we humans--
although if lucky, we
may ark
our particular positive
neutron
proton
action
and somewhere
the yin
yang principle
might bless
rainbow-hues
to meld

cross-continental distance
and sometimes
personality

cause us to
N O T

and i refuse to not
say
that
i hope we meet again
i hope your life brings tears of beauty to your cheekbones,
more often
than any other
amount
of effervescent-soul-emotion

that your spirit stirring the cacophany into a symphony yields
hope
and light
to every dreamy
aspect of
existence as you feel
and know
it to be
...

Pelt Me With Olive Juice

‘O L I V E J U I C E!’ I imagined they would mouth to me from the audience. The big, cherry red lips of my sisters, their slightly dull-white teeth, embellished ‘whiter’ in contrast to the tempting cherry red. As I traipsed across the creaky, hardwood floor—stained a deep maple, scratches running amok, fissures, translating like a palm reader. I nervously drifted mentally, imagining the history behind the sketched pattern across the floor of this stage.
Small, low-budget one-act off-Broadway plays, scrawled under the dim lamp lit bulbs of a local diner. Coffee stained pages handwritten through the purposed insomnia-laden effort of forgotten play writes…once convinced of their inevitable breakthrough success; utterly stunned by the less than blip-on-the-radar way they came and went like so much swept dust across the gritty floor.
Brash metal bands—with their dark orchestration—turnkey fan base strew all-charcoal-rim-eyed inverted crosses and maniacal faces; black leather and dog collared; grating with the plush violet velvet seatbacks. Double bass drum chunka…like an old film reel.
Quaint, perfunctory string quartets—maybe a jazz ensemble complete with skilled, demure vocalist, or a horn section including a visiting professor and the bellowing of his cornet. Interviewed one mid-day afternoon at the local public radio station, beckoning the local 40 something, npr-listening, less than occupied with much of anything but the steady cadence of their hum-drum lives…the interview was sure to attract a medium-to-large crowd; the newly single (versus recently divorced) vocalist, a stone fox, flirting wildly with the tall dark and handsome from the sound booth, wooed the audience into a sell-out cd-purchasing frenzy.
The quartet or trio, certainly mended some of the deep welts carved, in the fury of humping monitors/board/amp—drum cases; steely-silvery cymbal stands and lug-soled boots, knife-like into floorboards, bruising rafters and (sound panels/auditory flag panels) ‘ripped to shreds’ with the gun-metal charged riffs of the metal-heads.
The 4/4 rhythm; Sarah-Vaughan-lyric-induced elixir cure nursed back the resolute joy to the fabric of the space—violet seats took their deep, therapeutic breath, stretching back into their comfortable shape.
A scuffed foot across one more floorboard, and my perch comes into full view. A pale yellow sphere of light, wrapped around the four-legs of a single barstool. My guitar, leaning at its post, amp light glowing red-orange. Deep breath, exhale away from the microphone, look down, look up. I stare out into the straightaway, and try not to concentrate on the bulbous, heady, yellow sun that requires a kind of sun shade I’ve never found. Like the way eyes adjust into the darkness, I see through the blinding light, skim the crowd as I smile and speak into the mic, thanking my audience. Applause sounds, and my head dips back tips forward, and a Cheshire-cat-grin plants itself on my lips. I reach for the neck of my Stratocaster/Fender/Gibson/Ibanez tune, as I tussle some talk, keeping it low key, friendly and home base. I tune, crank the knob, tap my right toe, and strum me some licks. There it is, and I plant my hiney in the seat. A wispy piece of hair falls into my eye tickling me. I sing and play. My heartbeat has slowed. It hasn’t stopped the dampness. My nervousness transcends from the obvious to hidden, and I feel a drop slide down the indent of my spine. I grin it away, catch a hand waving, and see my sister’s—there in the third row, center-focused, grinning ear to ear, all cherry-red lips and silently mouthed (lip readers that we are) “O L I V E J U I C E” signing.

handshake

take that hand and rapt, is it.

the fury of sweat and intimacy…
all hot breath on your ear, neck, breast.
whispery fragments of semantics—the broken English of the lustily-imbibed.
splintered substance in the
sometimes-sentences, often
gasps,
that spill,
profusely,
across the warm, goose-flesh-induced span of curved torso, oblique, trapezoidal space.
litany’s of run-ons, answered with lip or grip of strong, deeply grooved, muscled entities which lift and push and grapple; softly, and tussle, less so…
grating against hip bone, all red-heat-sinew-force
and swirled inhalation.
Reach around and into and through. Coax a little breath from empty corpuscle. Contemplating stop, start, cease, continue.