8/31

it was the night of my 32nd birthday. the jesus year. there was cynthia, the step mom staring at me with her hideous yellow teeth. little sticks of butter lined up tight against one another trying to keep stink of breath and tongue at bay but unable to survive against the heat. god bless them. there was patton, my brother, laying on the couch with his bare feet resting against one of the throw pillows. then there was harley, my father, suit and tied resting in the rocking chair where i had rocked my young son to sleep so many nights during his infancy.
there were no presents, they had only come to consume.
samantha was busy making dinner or putting the finshing touches on the cake or just trying not to have a nervous break down as they slithered about the house. family has to touch everything rub their smell possess it while i sat on the floor a wounded man.
my son is busy discussing the economy with his stuffed pooh bear. my wife busies herself in the kitchen and i alone am left with these animals. smiling, their teeth bared getting comfortable but always ready to attack.
it was my father who moved first.
'you don't like almond rocha?'
i could see my brother stir and step mother twist (from admiring family photos on the wall) towards me.
'i just love it,' hissed patton.
'well i never, does it give you gas?' said the replacement.
'it's true. i just think it tastes like old people's breath.'
'why he doesn't even put sauerkraut on his hot dog, but maybe now that your a man you'll try it.'
'yeah i love a man with hair on his chest, and sauerkraut puts hair on your chest.' said what's her name while licking her ruby lipstick until it smeared.
i tried for the cable but the signal is out. i try for a record but everything is mp3. i make an attempt to clear my voice and get ready to rise when patton places a foot on my shoulder.
'i hear yah think it tastes like feet.' bringing the foot dangerously close to me mouth, 'does it?'
i reflect on the fate of my mother and sister, both lost one by bicycle and the other to embarrassment.
my sister had been applying herself to bike dancing. she was already an acclaimed break dancer when a negro friend of hers had recommended that she get into it. he was a splendid bike dancer, put on duran duran and do pogo one leg leaners the wall stand craby crawl forwards and the double decker.
it was during an attempt to fashion her own move, the star 'sploder that where the rider would leap do a flip and land on the bike as it is still doing a wheelie that she met her fate. i arrived home from school to find the paramedics leading out a half human half bicycle white sheet and only later understood that while trying for the star 'sploder she got caught in the garage door chain. her head lodged and feet dangling she could have made it if not for the baby sitter hitting the garage door opener. the chain moved towards the motor and the gears severed her head. according to legend her body fell atop the still moving wheelie bicycle finishing the 'splosion.
my mother was into water aerobics. she would lead classes challenging the women to leap, bend and move their hips. she got them sweating in the water cheered as their weight would melt away. my mother was not just a drill sergeant, she was also a heart of gold. when a particular fatso came into her pool and could not afford the classes she would let her participate for free.
'i believe that when in position one's true gift is giving.' she would say.
well this fatso not only couldn't pay but was up to no good. cheryl the fatso was also the town lesbian the first woman to come out of the closet and though she had never made any time with any woman, for no other woman had come out, she knew she was 'gayer than manilow'. well it seems that cheryl the fatso dike had taken this act of kindness and retarded it so that it was an act of affection.
she would coo when my mother would try to help her big flabby arms slap the water in rhythm to dancing on the ceiling. her lips would pucker as my mom would stand before her thrusting her knees in the air 'to the sky to the sky!' she would call out. 'ooh ooh' would be the fatso's response.
it was a chilly autumn day, in the pool they were really pushing it hard to get ready for the holidays, when cheryl took her chance. while my mother was underwater helping her enormous thighs together that fatso dike wrapped them about my mother's head.
though she was my stronger than her attacker, it is said that my mother never fought back, that she knew her whole life was over. the whispers would start about how she lead the lesbian on, because in fact she was a lesbian. then the woman would stop coming to her class, they wouldn't let their children play with us. this all flashed before her eyes and she succumbed. her last gasp of breath to disgusting to ever imagine.
cheryl the fatso lesbian added another title, murderer, and now here we are.
my father met cynthia at a arm wrestling tournament. to get over the fact that his wife and daughter had been killed within three days of each other he took up weight lifting. though it seems that when one begins the regiment required to increase one's muscle mass one's muscles beg to be put to use. at first he began lifting things. he would roll a quarter under the fridge and say 'lemme get that' lifting with one hand, or he might run out of gas a few miles from the nearest station (all uphill) so that he could push that machine to the pump. i once found him putting neosporian on a vicious gash across his arm while there at his feet lay a grizzly bear. i inspected the body and found no gun holes, no that bear had been choked to death.
he would have stopped at grizzly wrestling but state park rangers complained that all bears were either missing or to severly beaten to be of any tourists use. so with the law against him, he turned towards arm wrestling.
cynthia was the champs girl, at the time, she was an oiler. it was her job to grease the champs forearm and bicep so that it glistened like a star during the main event. it was also in the oiler description that the oiler must go to the victor. the champ was steel arm stevenson with a record of 201-0.
my father was an inch from being pinned, another career over, when i called out 'give him the 'splosion!' a nick name for a wrist move he had been working on. it use to be called the grizzly paw on account of that is who he would wrestle but we thought this was a nice way to pay homage to my sister.
after the 'splosion the champ was through and cynthia came into our life.
it was during the time of the great mourning that my brother gave up shoes. he use to have such a fine array of them that we would call him emilda but he did not care. each tuesday my mother would take him to volume shoe source and allow him to pick out one pair. what he did not know, though it does not detract from the kindness of the work, was that particular store always had a in store discount called 'bogo' going on. my mother would buy herself a pair and my brother's would be half off. doing good while giving yourself a little attention.
when she died he wore only the shoes she had bought, they either fell to ruin or were out grown and never replaced. he know goes barefoot through town and even though most restaurants have a no shirt no shoes policy they let him slide.
so it is here waiting for the cake with my family in full all around me when there is a buzzing noise that grows and grows until it overwhelms us. the house is covered in a shady darkness. no one is ever prepared for a plane to fall on their head.
i wake up from my coma, get out of the hospital exactly one year later. it is my birthday today, thirty three years old, and i am an orphan. all my family is gone. my stomach rumbles for a little cake, a bird whistles in a tree against a blue sky, my wife is cooking, my son is playing, life is good.

8/29-comedian

this is not funny. on the table i have placed two bottles of low quality vodka, one prescription bottle of pain killers, an empty liter sized water bottle that stinks of gasoline and one lighter. there is a tape recorder on the floor recording what i am saying, who knows what i would recall in ten minutes, two hours, three days after the decision has been made. my head is soaked with the gasoline from the bottle and in my hand is the potato sack i have been wearing for the majority of my life. this is not funny. tomorrow night is my big break, late night television, after my set maybe a call over to the couch. tomorrow night the big reveal, the liar exposed. this is not funny at all.
i started late, in the back room of portland clubs. there are only two places for comedy in this town, one with a traveling improve group 'smilin' and the other at 'harry's' where you aspire to open for national road acts...
--i grew up in idaho, where men were men and women looked like them. boise, idaho the state capital, the center of where nobody wanted to be. seriously how did we come to settle there? exhaustion? did parents get into a fight, 'oh yeah, well if you don't like it you can stay here, how about that?' or was it the donner party. once you learn that you might have to eat somebody just to get over the mountains...yeah i think i would stay. the other thing you always read is the danger of indians. i always thought about that, how some tough indian braves are creeping through the snowy bushes, they got their knives drawn and are just about to scalp rick donner or whatever his name is, only to pop out and see him eating his wife. do you kill that guy? i think i walk away. if a guy can eat his best friend, his best friend's family and his own family? you can't fight him, well you could fight him, but he isn't going to lose. you kill him he thinks, 'i probably deserved that', you don't kill him your going to be eaten. it's one thing to fight have a fair fight to the death and your body left to the animals but another when you know you lose your getting eaten. damn, that's gangster.
somebody walks in on you, an your eating your family...first off how is this guy so important that he gets to eat everybody and second you know death is terrible when you would rather eat your kids and wife instead of dying.
so somebody walks in what do you say? what can you say? i think i keep eating, either that or offer them some, i mean your pretty much committed at that point.
my ancestors did not have the guts to eat each other so we ended up in idaho. well they ended up in denmark, north carolina and kansas, my parents met in medford and decided on boise, i have never asked why. there is this great american theory that anyone from any city in any state us could grow up and become anything. that's a great idea but we can knock a few states off from the list. i wanted to be president but the only debate, the town felt, worth having was whether the weather would stay 'god damned hot all summer' or 'so god damned cold until march'. these are not the weighty topics of heads of state.
when the internet came around, i thought this could be the great unifier of the nation, but one visit to a chat room dampened that notion. though there was not a great conversation about health care or poverty it did spawn the question of why are fighting so hard in iraq. from what i gathered, going to chat rooms, all the iraqis want to do is masturbate on camera and ask any one with a non-gender specific name if they want to watch...
but we are getting off course here, now where were we going?

2-a small child with hopes dreams and one bad leg.

8/27

so is health care reform buried in arlington national cemetery?
on a lighter note, though i am too sleepy now, i am going to write a story about a guy who goes to garage sales. he will wait for the coast to clear or the sale is over and some leftover articles are put for free at the curb and then piss on them. he is a man in full with a handlebar mustache and a pocket full of disposable income.
on another light note cheese is delicious. i took a few slices of mozzarella placed them atop some froze bean burritos and viola delicious, my side dish was cheeze nips and i washed it all down with soda water mixed with lemonade. why is my stomach making such terrible noises?
i had thought of an idea about a guy who shows up on that show date in the dark and during the show and tell meeting his female counter part brings a photo for him to feel of her dad who has just passed from a heart attack. she cries he consoles and then gives her what he brought...the heart of an al qaeda soldier. at first she recoils in terror but after hearing how he saved a village how he was doing his patriotic duty she begins to soften. she takes the heart again and turns it over and over as they sing god bless america.
my son is sick so i will be up again in three hours! hooray!

8/25

i got hard breath.
beatbeatbeat goes the heart but faster so they overlap. can you imagine?
painPAINpain, comes and goes across my chest down my legs, up out my fingers through my mouth until it's not air but sick and blood.
crycry goes wifey in the corner on a couch of a dark room wondering why.
prior condition went the insurance company and gone gone goes private coverage, gone gone goes insurance at all and the vultures circle steely scalpels aimed for the lumps aimed for the curve of my spin aimed at the great expanse of skin and skull created by baldness.
i can not carry the mail anymore so byebye goes the payroll hello comes poverty. it is quick, where everything you undervalued is now out of reach. the bank moves the house gone the credit moves and the car gone the stomach moves and savings gone.
crycry goes the wife.
hawaii for next summer is gone, it is now half the cost of an x-ray. i spend my time idle in bed enveloped in painPAIN. physical to mental and crumblecrumble goes wife. her skin ashen her eyes bagged, she works she cleans she mothers the baby and the other almost here. so fast it all fell apart.
it's the eyes of my son, always wet, he doesn't understand he knows health goes dad goes everything turns to black. the picture won't come in anymore as they came to shut the cable.
i can hear here through the makeshift walls of this place.
ghetto.
wino's and hookers call out to angels of some other heaven for 'tin dolla fr cab riiiide' or 'justa little to get to the morning sir.'
i try not to eat. i try not to use the toilet. i try to die.
doctors who work on credit, they come, they call they never ask about the bill. nurses they clean they slip us samples they never ask about the bill. receptionists they wave, they smile they never ask the bill but the phone rings and a voice unknown to a body unseen asks only about the bill.
i am weak.
ways i have tried to kill myself
suffocation with pillow/plastic bag
swallowing all my samples
stabbing my chest and stomach
electrocution
i tried to fall out the window but the screen could not be broken.
each time i am woken, each time their faces smile back, concern back white long coats and clean hospital gown.
cry cry goes wife.
cry cry goes son.
life life goes the hospital
finished finished goes me.
my father never calls or visits. my brother came once but kept his wallet shut. i received a call from my sister but there was no donation and my mother is here for moral support.
charge charge calls the doctor
pay pay the disembodied voice.
i take to screaming and cursing. i hurl whatever my bony hands will collect and i hurl it at her. i make moves to slap her face, i strike out with ashen legs and arms, when she comes for a kiss i hiss and try to bite her lips off. i will force her out.
most nights:
enter wife to corner chair.
enter son to corner chair.
lay me wheezing, hacking, embarrassed at this sick and death.
i curse and rattle the frame. i demand they go to her parents house...
they wait out my fury, they let my withered body rage for they know it soon will burn out. i lay just barely able to move me eyes, my mouth heavy, limbs impossible to move to grasp to hurt to get away.
goGOGOGOGOGOGO! blink eye
never never stares her.
when able i use the phone to charge sex calls. as the women seduce, moan and call for more of my 'good stuff' i fade, placing the phone against the floor turn my back and fall to sleep.
rage rage goes wife with the phone stack in the air.
go go GO! scream i.
cry cry goes son.
'lemme see you home safe now,' says outside.
if i spend it all the rent come due, if i spend it all the rent come past due, if i spend it all eviction and off they go home free to inlaws an off i go to the gutter to the park to somewhere close i can't walk far off i go to die...think i.
she defends she protects we suffer on.
where once her lips matched her toes, where once she met for red robins with friends where once we took our son to omsi where once life flow now the cold the reaper the End.
blue cross blue shield, i always paid on time. the only thing i ever went for was my physical. the only medicine i was ever prescribed was for depression, only once no refills. i was good. the checks cashed.
then this the cough the pain the sick the time the diagnosis the prescribed care the wait for approval the letters from insurance the letters from the lawyers the calls from doctor the strength withering.
i bled from most everywhere now.
i get sick and need to be changed now.
there is no get up now.
the samples stopped the medicine stopped now.
the lights are off.
there is no lunch there is no dinner now.
she just sits. our son to inlaws most days now most nights now.
we would have gotten here anyways think i.
love love LOVE, blink i.
love love LOVE, says she.
it is tender when she strips me. it is heart aching when she, almost ashamedly, turns sideways to strip herself. naked we lay, her head against my chest she listens to my heart beat beat beat...
an then i fade.

8/24 nite

my wife is gone and it's quiet. why, in the silence, instead of heady philosophical topics or current events does my head turn towards cheese? i could take a small break from this, how would you know dear reader? go microwave a block of cheese on a tortilla. what goes great with cheese? a regular shasta! this is an interesting side bar, but the thought that brought me to the blog tonight was the story my sister told me, at our brother's wedding. as i am not sure what this blog will end up being it is my blog and thus i am allowed to skip around in time. so wave good bye to boise and childhood as we move into the future!
well the past but the future from where we were in the wild hill country of idaho.
faster than sunda could chase us down we arrive.
helena lives in LA and works in the movie industry. she has a black american express card, drives the bmw something that use to be called land shark but the newest version and lives in a expansive loft overlooking a very famous road. all this i know, because she told me while sifting through her 5,000 dollar bag looking for her telephone so she could record a video of my upcoming arm wrestling match with my brother's best man.
'i was totally surprised boo and when i say it was ugly i mean it was u g l y ugly....
the morning broke, as it breaks every day in LA, perfectly. helena rose from her 2500 dollar comforter and placed her feet into some gold YSL pumps before heading onto the sun porch where her writer boyfriend was drinking french pressed coffee.
'how about you and me get away,' he said.
'boo, are you serious i have like a million things to work out.'
'life is too short to waste on the warner brother lot. lets us go to santa barbara i know a cozy b and b that serves the most delicious waffles. we can walk the ocean all day and at night...' he said arching his eye brows and making cat noises.
'waffles are delicious boo, but i have to be on set...'
'shh, i already called theodore and asked if it would completely ruin your name if i swept you away to the ocean for a romantic proposal.'
'like what, you have a movie idea?'
'not that kind of proposal...oh, nevermind you will find out soon enough. anyway, teddy said 'O M G you totally can get her out of this town, that bitch needs to recharge her batt uh ries!' you know how he talks. so we are clear, clean groovy, let's us make like the skinny jean and get out of here, only to return a short time later. L O L'
'what about buster? my bags, you know if i don't have the right outfit it will get ugly, boo.'
'already taken care of, the car is loaded, turn around see buster with his leash on. we need to scoot if we're going to beat traffic.'
from their perfect view on this perfect day helena rose went inside. she showered thoughts, like the water, ran across her skin causing the colors of her tattoos to come alive. 'ahh, maybe this is just what we need.' she thought.
soon enough, as it is with time, enough had passed to put them through traffic across the threshold of (she thought) a charming cozy b and b (she thought) god i hope there is no paparazzi here and into the room.
buster, a pug, found his way before the fire place snorting then collapsing into a nap.
'O M G did i not tell you this was just purr fect?' he said pulling the curtains back throwing open the window to allow the sound of the ocean into the room. like a friendly local it made itself across the carpet across her lips kissing them with her nose with the scent of salt. a peace that can only be made by the b and b fell upon her causing stress she did not know she had to melt away.
the sand on the beach was warm across her toes covering the red tail of the koy that swam forever across her feet. the sky was filled with blue and the only sound the surf and occasional song of the seagull.
the day was passed this way, hand in hand or his arm across her back his nose to her ear whispering how wonderful this life was, with her. he was a kind man, late thirties with dark rimmed glasses and a fedora covering semi curled auburn locks. this man, ethan took care of himself, nails trim waist line slim and polo collar turned up.
helena bathed in it all, remembering how she came so far. to the east her idaho roots, from the farmlands and back water trails, to the east the pennsylvania mountain ranges where she thought she had lost it all. so many times she was trapped, but god finds a way always moving you towards the goal, home. if you listen, if you risk, act and believe you can achieve anything. the goal, the west coast the movies! so far she had come from her collages. the language is always according to region but the mind and the spirit her own.
for dinner they drank champagne, ate fresh sushi. ethan's wit was crackling that night, his eyes burning with a passion she had almost forgotten. time can soften a man, time can soften a relationship they say the campfire can not always burn strong but helena would retort 'damn you get more wood, i'm worth it' and tonight ethan had.
if she could sum it all up so far it would be perfect. ethan had been right, this was just what they need.
'i love you darling.' he said
'oh, i love you too, boo' helena responded.
he took her hand and amongst the other diners rang his wine glass then fell to a knee.
'oh helena, make an honest man of me,' he said removing his fedora and pulling a ring box from it's belly.
'ethan, you rotten no good, i love you.' she said smiling as the other diners applauded.
'then marry me...' the silence hung in the air. it took thirty seconds for helena to weigh the ring in her hand and check it's clarity. when all had passed inspection she turned back to her love who was still on one knee eyes slightly damp with tears.
'yes.'
with the air still pregnant with the word, ethan swooped her into his arms and carried her to the room.
oh the passion he had took her breath away, and while he slept, she further inspected the ring using instruments instead of just the naked eye and recalled the love making.
with her forehead still damp there came a rattle at the door then a thud and then it came crashing open.
'oh my god intruder!' she screamed
but before she could reach her butterfly knife a voice called out.
'fraud, phony fake!' helena knew that voice but how could it be?
stepping forward from the darkness was her ethan. he was frail, skin pale from lack of sun. his arm extended and one pale bony finger pointed towards the bed. when helena turned her head swam and she almost blacked out.
oh if only she could have blacked out, if only she could have woke up at home then it would have been, could have been passed off as just a night mare. alas, it would not be, for there laying by her side, in the place that had been ethan was...phillip seymour hoffman.
'finally i can exhale.' he said grabbing a pack of cigarettes, his six pack turning back into a plump belly, his dirty blond hair covering one eye.
'i will kill you!' cried ethan.
but before he could reach him, hoffman leapt from the bed fully clothed and jumped out the window to a waiting helicopter ladder. 'i was doing research for a part!' was his final words before a villainous laughter pierced the water front.
ethan collapsed.
helena moved to hold his head close to her body, 'well it is the business we chose.' she said.
'the ring is a stage prop phony,' was ethan's response.
'damn you phillip seymour hoffman!' was helena's.
'i haven't talked to ethan in three days. oh what to do, boo, what to do?' my sister asked.
i, a still a little shell shocked could not come up with one good idea.

8/24

i still dream
believe
have faith in miracles
if you can move one
mountain
you can move them all
it just takes patience
cause you gotta rest in between
take faith
we'll struggle on
i see bums
an crack addicts
almond skin infants
in two day old diapers
an they smile!
you know
there is the gutter
but there is laughter there too
no hard times all the times
christmas comes to everyone
birthdays too
what matter the wrapping
a present a present
they got wives
sons
an grandchildren too
life is the miracle of
doing
an there's joy in it
no matter the pitch of dark

8/23

sick.
i can't catch my breath.
rub the space across my chest where i think it is, lives, grows. i won't see them grow, won't meet grandchildren. the consumption machine, hard, gray.
i fade
my hair clings to everything but my head. patchwork, eyes sunken i stare the hills i use to jog.
she is here, all tears and ready to fight on.
she is here all tears talking don't talk like that, this.
she is here with all the past love notes taken pasted over doctor's notes. pasted in between the pages of facts sheet.
so you just got _______
long lists of avoidance.
long lists of no more no more no more!
i try to stand and fall
try to reach out and grab hands with force.
ah, the fucking regrets.
i won't see that wedding.
i should have just ...
vomit and curse and push out silence.
she won't leave me alone. sucks each second dry, stalks looks over my shoulder.
i had to call my mother, goodbye.
pants drop in embarrassing places. too thin.
i get lost in shirts and sometimes catch blood on my hands.
who writes poems anymore.
i'm sorry.
i get tired and lose the night. pull another link from my paper chain.
i get tired and fade.
the autumn light is warm. is a lover's lips across my bony shins, shoulders, cheeks and forehead.
the autumn wind is
cold. violent. slaps my cheeks and bosses the shawl
bruce springsteen
firecrackers
christmas
things i'll miss
my son
wife
late night smoochathon's
her breath now, on my shoulder
reading this
things i hope i don't
let heaven open it's glorious gates
let heaven be filled with amnesia
we fall asleep
with the phone in my hand.
i got a check list
who to call when.
there is the alarm clock
there is her breath
her closed eyes
hand on the space we think it lives
even in her sleep
forefinger
drawing a cross hoping to praying
to cursing it away
always committed
amen