Chuckles, anyway

knock, knock, in the name of the law in the Name of Jesus let us pray together naming and claiming in either case not quite the letter but the spirit of authority bet your life beginning as a child traversing the expanse of your own moniker with some Divine confrontation and wonder, as they’d say, Warmly with the chattering monkeys

Whatayasay Dusty

of heaven and earth and so right at the moment this righteousness struck a relationship without a tinge of merely imagined fragrance closer and more real, the daily repetition overflows into a sink of unwashed dishes of confusing lion and the lamb of dilemmas, paradoxes, even tedious crosscurrents the Adversary complicates a profusion of weeds just doesn’t ring clear the first time around oh, my poor memory, in callous fingers clutching whatever

Lovely and Corky

not exactly anywhere dutiful in all my difficulty gearing up for minor chores regular folks seem to enjoy defining their lives thereby at least scrubbing their ass break back to poverty, Dharma! would be scouring the bathtub one morning or a manuscript or adding oil to the leaky BMW such a thrill put aside long enough it evaporates two months overdue or just punctuates existence, the vacuum of rooms of the mind or the plate and so if one makes other things wait, yes, the grass grows or leaves fall in all that running as in down some sewer of household drain, so how would you handle a valet or fulltime maid

Squeaking of clams

all a matter of adaptability, persistence, and resources, of creating right-sized parts, a turn, the way stars turn into snowflakes even in the Home Depot parking lot when a gull rises with a cookie positioned first as a propeller and then as a platter to be released shattering on the pavement the same way they drop shells onto rocks for feasting or at Squirrel’s office, a colleague takes fortune cookies and adds the words, “in bed” and she claims they all come true then, still, if he had a fortune, he’d build the soil to raise his ground taller than the neighbors, yes, that, or to reshape its wetness into sunken gardens vining with secrets, yet either way, imagine the scene from his mattress as geese fly past or in the ceiling, where mice still sound like rainfall

Turning the focus on his own mess

When I was revising two earlier novels into what became Pit-a-Pat High Jinks, I did wonder about a parallel volume from the point of view of his lovers. What a cad or sweetheart or lost soul or whatever they saw him as. Yeah, dump it all on.

You know, the self-centered hippie dude, Peace Love & all.

Well, there was a hot volume of erotica, Naked Came the Stranger, where each chapter was secretly written by a different person or party who then hid behind a character who got the author credit and posed for the interviews. The various writers didn’t even see the other material until the book came out, not that it ultimately mattered. She did have every color of eye you could imagine.

On this end, I’d welcome submissions for my own project, if only I had space to tackle it, but time is drizzling out, along with the original impulse.

I mean, the hippie chicks in his life weren’t the only ones screwed up, OK? Let’s be honest. Facing the music could be amusing and healing for all.

 

In the end, turtles

wash and wax the narrative, the car to turn to clearly but a break’s essential : all matters of revision, too : interplay of Caribbean poverty and Philadelphia do-gooders comes to mind now : also find reissued later in the day a heavy grocery supply-run to counter any desire to dine out (the big threat to me budget) also potted greenery to make this shell my candy camp all summer

Hey Buddy

intended a big breakfast but naw just too much on me plate already resigned to the longest grass on the block and not to shave subtract months in right blending mystery rather than clarity such essence of romance as I’m hoping get back to me when you can

Witch and all these smile from my wall

beginning sabbatical read and sun with nature study scripture prayer and meditation to catch up and travel, minister, restore ‘ships and then put off hiking, avoid making to-do lists yet indulge that minor weekend correspondence just seems too much to handle again too long under that ambitious frustration by necessity what has always remained two-thirds unfinished dancing after all the floating deliberation now hard-working on this May your clean bean, dearly

Some common fears

  1. Intimacy. Oh, my, this could lead to another Tendrils. You know, the ways we feel vulnerable.
  2. Poverty. This one even gets twisted up in white superiority and racism, if you look really closely.
  3. Being pulled over while driving. Though it’s unlikely to be a death sentence for me.
  4. Lawsuits. Which can lead to poverty, above.
  5. Being held up or robbed. Well, that can be like a lawsuit plus potential violence.
  6. Rejection. Which also leads back to intimacy, above.
  7. Shame. Well, usually shame is linked to something you’re born with, but it still connects with fear, along with its first-cousin, guilt – arising from something you did bad, really bad.
  8. Hunger. Not that most Americans actually go without food long, but just watch their reactions when they have to fast or go more than two or three hours without a nibble.
  9. Debilitating illness or physical handicap. Blindness, deafness, dementia, for starters. Or falling off a ladder at my age.
  10. Dying as a failure. You know, without achieving something big to advance mankind. Or just plain going to Hell.

Do these all involve pain?

What would you add to the list?