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The alarm goes off yet again, screaming. It’s not a bell or a song. It’s not even electronic. It’s in my head, under my skin. It yells anger, fear, irritation, and doom in fire red sirens. Every day the alarm sounds, no matter how many times I shut it off, slam it down, throw it across the room, mat, or freeway. I try covering my ears with my palms vice pressed against them, try squinting my eyes skin-swallowed inside shut, and try tensing my body blind from the sound, skin, and shaking–to no avail.
And then it’s gone. Quiet follows. Later, I can hear the soft gongs, smell the incense, feel the rubber under my toes, and breathe. But sometimes, too many times, my left foot won’t lift off the ground, my toes won’t dig themselves snug into my right thigh, and I can’t stand tall on one foot, balls of the feet gripping the axis of the earth. No balance. Off kilter.
Other days, I can kick up both feet off the ground, jettisoned by balls and big toes–left and right–and half-pipe myself slowly, silently cannoned through vast, airy nothingness before grounding earth in thud landing, shock-waved cement-gravity from toe to head.
Laryngitis: Ten for Today
I’ve got laryngitis. You know, when you lose your voice. I’ve lost my voice. Not my speaking voice but my writing voice. You see, after droning on all day in the land of copywriting, pounding keys to the sounds of an empty drum, plucking at mind-numbing formulas, headings, subheading, bullets, numbers, and (watch my Oxford comma there) italicized catchphrases til my brain seeps out of my left ear when I pause to blink, sigh, and rest my left cheek on my left hand knuckles, I can’t write a word. I haven’t. There’s nothing but echoes of a dry, raspy, husked wheeze when I try. Maybe I’m sick. A writing virus, but not the computer kind. The kind when you’re dry, wheezy, and bereft of words. No sentences form like the flu–with no appetite for food. Only it’s words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. No paragraphs either. I’ve no hunger or drive for text. A malaise. Burn-out. Fizzled out.
So this is what I have. Shredded sound. Squeaked out verbs in a tin can, clanking thin. Strange that a dream can disperse like dandelion seed in the wind. A longing turned to fright when the object of desire obtained. I always wanted to be a writer.
Lizard and Lies
What shall become of us?
A lizard and a lie rule the gaze
While poison plucks the garden gone
Behind the wall.
Will we cry when it’s all over,
Shed a bloody tear?
And farmers with pitchforks pierce the snake–
Will the bloom follow, or
Only deformation’s weedy soil?
After the fall, a winter storm silences the din,
Stomps muffled cries below the boot-march,
A blanketed chill.
But April’s coil, the rattle and snare,
That’s the paralysis–and rise,
Warmly rise like parades floating
Ribbons round receding hairlines
And rust-red ties,
Like the Nile’s blood, the lines
Spill, crossed, cutting
Plastic strips yellow-black–
Lettered warning. Keep out.
Crime scene.
cacophony and rum
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Naked fries with Sriracha ketchup, where have you been all my life?
I’m not one to sit down to a plate of fries, unless of course, they’re those thin-strip bistro fries, crisp and deep golden. Limp fries never tempt me. I can do without the whole deep-fried potato thing altogether, but when the week has been exceptionally long…Fries and Sriracha. Yes.
Why do crowded happy hour bars feature at least one loud cackler and one deep-throated shouter? Modulate your voice, please. I used to request my children do that. Indoor voice. What hilarity drives that savage slicing squawking? I guess I’m more the philosophical buzz type. And so.
A big grinning bearded fellow with a bandito hat and a zip-up black windbreaker high fives the bartender and my happy hour is complete. Suddenly, venturing out of the cave with trepidation (No, not peopling!) seems worth it. The bartender shakes not stirs in icy loud agreement.
As the beer and wine flow, the last fry dipped, and a dribble of Stone left in the glass, it may be time to open up some bar space for those making a night of this cacophony and rum. Especially since I can’t take my eyes off the red-plaid sports jacket complemented by the solid red tie across the bar. Shouldn’t there be a warning sign attached to him? Don’t stare into the red. It’ll change your DNA irreparably. Too late for me.
And I make the Nike air check sign to the bartender.
The Editor
She said she doesn’t understand me.
Not my words, not my plans, not me.
She doesn’t understand me.
She said that, “I don’t understand you.”
She also said:
“You don’t use enough poetic words.”
“You’re unclear.”
“No one understands what you mean.”
“You say too much.”
“You leave nothing for the imagination.”
“There’re prettier ways to write that.”
“Your sentences are too long, too short,
Too convoluted, too simple, too complex,
Too awkward, too abstract, too concrete…”
And so much more she said.
She gassed on about my description, my
Commas, periods, semi colons, dashes,
Especially the Oxford commas and italics.
She hates enjambment.
She said it, “I hate enjambment.
I prefer clean breaks.
People need to write plainly.
Go direct,
Say what they mean.”
She likes rhymes or landscapes,
Not a lot of nihilism and death.
She prefers old verse to new,
Stanzas to trees,
And blank verse to free.
Words flow too freely too often.
She repeats that.
Each time I see her, she repeats,
“Loose lips, and sticks and stones,
And penny for your thoughts.”
She likes the old ways, the olden days.
She doesn’t like my way.
My way is too dull, too lurid, too boring.
She said she honestly doesn’t know
Why I bother.
She doesn’t get it.
Not me, not anything about me.
She doesn’t understand anything.
She doesn’t understand me.
I said that: “You don’t even know.” (Me)
Everyone loves a fascist
Lunch again. 1:30 pm martinis. For her. My work day doesn’t end until the last word typed before my eyes close. A bit dramatic, yet still, lavender double shot espresso blended iced latte for me. Yeah, I’m needing something lavender. From decay grows the lotus.
“My fantasies were filled with faceless men. No, actually the same man, I think. He never had a face, like any man of your fantasy fill-in. He was the kind of addictive cruel, one part sadist, one part devourer–obsessive and possessive. You know?”
“I know.”
“Any way, I always used him to start me off…like my go-to Playboy centerfold. A pre-pubescent boy’s wrinkled up centerfold he hides under his mattress to jerk off to when the folks are gone. I embarrassed myself with such a cliche fantasy: the cruel lover who made me do things. You know?”
I didn’t want to know. Not on an iced latte. I’d have to switch to martinis. I nodded.
“A writer should be able to masturbate to something less classic, more creative than a faceless fantasy fascist.”
“In your defense, you write feature stories not erotica.”
“Yeah, well…Johnny Depp, even as jackass pirate shows a little more imagination–and taste…
But then after a few years with Vincent, it hit me. The faceless fascist disappeared. And you know what an obsessive-possessive nut job he turned out to be.”
“So, you’re saying you manifested Vincent? What’s the moral of the story here? Was he really that demanding? Or commanding? Or I should say, commandant. Did he totally control your mind and body, violently, if necessary? Maybe just a little bdsm?”
“Yes, all of it. He wasn’t violent. I wouldn’t have stayed. He just…just…I don’t know…owned me. Subtlety. In inches. He crept up on me, and before I knew it, I was not going out with friends, and cutting down my hours at my job, and worrying if someone stopped by to visit and stayed too long, when Vincent would come home and wince at the sight of anyone ‘intruding.’ Well, you know. You called it my ‘leave of absence from myself.’ And it was. But he’s gone, and so are the faceless fascist fantasies. Now I slap a face on my imaginary friends. Like that checker at the food mart. He’s adorable.”
We laughed.
I reflected a second in between chuckles. Some fantasies are fantasies so long as there’s little possibility that they become real. In fact, the more far-fetched, the sexier, more enticing. But when fantasy becomes reality, the thrill is gone. At least I doubt women (or men) slapped faces of Stalin, Mussolini, or Hitler on their fantasy men. But I can’t be sure.
Sucking helium: Ten for Today
Unfazed, tuned-out people amaze and inspire me. I want to be them, wearing bullet and worry proof vests. Mind you, I don’t know who these people are, other than my great niece and nephew, 5 and 8, respectively, who seem to be very selectively tuned in. One knows all the Ducks and Lakers stats, and everything sports, really, and the other knows an incredible array of lyrics and lines from Disney’s Frozen. I’ve heard her sing every word of several songs. That’s what they know. Those comprise their obsessions. Awesome.
Me, on the other hand, I start each day trying out the Buddha disposition: be a sieve, let it all flow through. But by about an hour into the day, I fail miserably. Something of the world–outside and inside–disturbs me, disrupts my peace, unbalances promised equilibrium. My promise to myself to be dispassionate about things, all things. I try.
News flashes and bites remind me of Doritos Nacho flavored chips. They must be laced with heroin. Probably the only snack I can’t have. Because I can’t just eat one. It’s the bag or nothing. And it’s been that way since they hit the market dozens of years ago.
My news services and journal bundling apps, I’ve tailored now to filter out politics and current events–only showing arts, photography, philosophy, yoga, writing, books and music. Same thing with Facebook and Twitter (Not sure what I’m doing on Instagram). Yet something still manages to slip in, riling the perturbations, zinging my zen upside the head.
I may have to turn to something quicker and stronger than yoga and meditation, something kick ass to calm my ass. Maybe sucking helium balloons.
Love not Hate
Maybe it’s because I was born in 1960. Or maybe it’s because of the two daughters marching beside me. Or the feeling I’ve always had that I was born too late or too early, caught in this in-between generation that is marked by unearned, random prosperity for me and the rest of the privileged–but not for far too many, not for my daughters’ futures.
I cried ten steps into this morning’s march.
It overwhelmed me to see so many marchers. Far too often I feel isolated, my ear attuned to the horror more than the hope. I burrow in the belief that it’s me, just me. No one else truly aches knowing how much hate and fear destroy. That it’s horrifyingly dangerous to normalize unabashed, outright lies–a constant stream of provable lies. Fatal.
Even in post-apocalyptic dystopian Cormack McCarthy worlds of brutally savage survival, we must take care of one another, no matter what. And this should expose me as the fraud I am, touting pithy little graduate school cool catchphrase, club affiliations like the post-human age subscribers or the three-cheers-for-robots-taking-over-the-world meet-up. Truth is, I believe in the Renaissance and that the human capacity to create is greater than its capacity to destroy. If only we…
In the beginning, there were words: Ten for Today
I’m tired of beginnings. They’re exhausting, and it’s awfully hard to get them right. There’s nothing worse than starting something with a “meh”. Like reading a listicle that starts with a question: Are you getting enough vitamin B in your diet? Well here are 7 sources of that … blah, blah, blah.
I’m guilty of that sort of thing. It’s trite and boring.
Opening lines, like handshakes, create an impression. In grand literature, they’re extraordinary, memorable, once in a life time handshake that keeps on gripping you. Even my little-read college students have heard the line, “It was the best of times…” But Dickens is not alone or even the top of the greatest hits of first liners.
I like intriguing first liners like Philip Roth’s one about awakening one day to find himself an enormous breast–“It began oddly.” Or short punchy ones, like “I am not a total idiot.” I actually don’t remember the author of that one, but the line has stuck with me. Maybe that’s just me, and what sticks is random.
It’s challenging to be unique, innovative, and first in language. After all, we have only 26 letters at our disposal. How different can we be? Haven’t all the possible letter combinations been tapped? Is there still some one-of-a-kind combination yet to be splayed linearly across a page? Maybe that’s why I’m so fond of making up words that seem intuitively and associatively clear.
Though I suspect you don’t have to go that far to pen something new. Memoirist Patricia Hampl claims describing what you see, what you know, from your eyes alone is unique enough. No one’s lived your life or sees things precisely the way you do. Perspective. Lens.
It may not be a new alphabet, but it’s vision–and all that we’ve got.
On True Love: Ten for Today
I couldn’t say I’ve ever come across a true love or ever will. I’ve had great love. I’ve had potentially tru-er love–but for the right person showing up under the wrong circumstances or vice versa. At least how I imagine the right person. How could I know without a long, leisurely test drive?
But true love is truly a cultural marketing scam. And it’s not for mere cynicism that I write that. I’ve no complaints about the loving in my life–all shades and degrees of it. I’ve slid in and out of love’s grasp by choice and force both. Yet, true love seems to have eluded me only because it’s been beamed into my brain by invisible designs since birth–without explanation.
Like waking up every day, there’s an impulse to arise and act, get the day started even when you don’t want to or know why you do. We just live as if there’s no choice, most of us. It’s incredibly difficult to kill a healthy human being, more than you’d think. That same blind instinct–get up and live–impels us to find true love without even knowing what the fuck that is.
No one believes Disney, so I’m not referring to that conception–princes and princesses and shit. Chemistry, kindred souls, soulmates, and other hollow terms language has fed us to conceive of the truth in true love make little sense. Like it must be fate. In myth and religion, there is an element of the divine in all truth, in language itself–in the beginning, there was the word.
And yet, all children are indoctrinated in the one true love story, even as they grow up to see the truth in that lie. It lies like death everywhere, not just in movies or television or books. It permeates culture like a dream or a virus, thinly veiled and ever present–potentially lethal.
In the gaze of the other 