Musings at the range

The masses in discourse appear to me as an absurd hilarity. Quips and one liners asserting a defiance to the status quo. Marxist tee-shirts obtained from Capitalist, set off and worn as if the act itself was akin to guerrilla warfare.

 Polyester/cotton carbines.

You've simply dressed yourself, you fool!!

I feel I've visited a firing range and all these miscreants are showing me their sharp shooting skills. Prone with the butt of their rifles snug in shoulder, staring down sight and down range. With a keen smugness they gleam, but the barrels have all been reversed on the stocks. They show off with pride their tee-shirt witisims and take aim down range only to blow out their own brains. Quickly replaced by another as proud and keen.

Perhaps there is liberty in the lemmings. Or rather that free fall is simply the perception of freedom when it's own death is imminent.

The bizarre symptoms and attempts to remedy a broken heart

Immediate onset of feeling of physical vacancy in chest.
depression. guilt. anxiety.
insomnia.
masturbation.
benedryl.
pornography.
manual labor.
sexual fantasy.
start a novel.
bed time mental images of every colleague, coworker, acquaintance, store clerk and t.v. personality, all of superior sexual prowess, satisfying previous partner to excess
spontaneous fits of laughter/crying
random eruption of expletives and cursing
read the bible.
yoga.
masturbation.
reorganization of books by American authors chronologically and timelined to historically significant events and influence.
read dictionary.
start a novel.
redact names.
throw out novel.
1001 Spanish verbs.
research active statutes and penalties for screwing a colored girl.
read thesaurus.
book of statistics.
masturbation.
confront and harass police officers.
removal, addition and removal of songs in catalog of car ride and coital significance.
push ups.
cooking.
lethargy.
determination.
masturbation.
xanax.
melatonin.
packing and unpacking of personal effects.
plans to evacuate geographic vicinity.
removal of scents, sights, and belongings of partner.
pacing.
excessive consumption of coffee.
writing.
begin another novel.
optimism of a series of events.
realism of a series of events.
masturbation.
acceptance.

vino roja

I am sitting on your home now. Too nervous and stressed to write. I need to write...and now I return with beer and wine. Always helps to loosen my hand. I pour your wine first and set it in front before I open my beer. Put on some music, smell the wine, like you I see it. I want to take it, pull it close, my nose in it smelling the aroma of your hair and neck. and grapes. and fruit. The smooth wine glass reminds me of the soft perfection of your lips.
Your kiss grows deep and rolls like the wine over my tongue. I breathe out my nose and savor your sweetness.

amor timida

I know her eyes and shyness watching me
not knowing if to run or trust
her defiant laughter when challenged.
and her soft murmers alluring me
hardened before, but her softness shows
with the light chocolate brown gaze she lay on me
I am silenced, and observing
the clues of all of you, with an arm stretched my direction
and her eyes enticing me
to the soft lips
her restraint as she wants to push more near
something will not let her, until, as the kiss lingers
you let me in. sharing yourself. in these blessed moments
we touch, eyes open, in love

Narrative of a Narcissist

3:57 a.m. June 8th. He lay and watch the figment of the room in shadows. The memory and sleepiness creating a fog of his mind . He knows the length of the bed from his feet slightly hanging off and his forearms above him on the cool wood of the head board.
For three minutes he plays the mathematics in his mind. The dimensions of the room in light and dark.  The perceptible bulb of cold air emanating from the window, the number of paces to the door. Four. The length of the shadows of books drawn on the wall by the flashing alarm clock

4:00 a.m.
blink blink blink.

A cold coffee and cigarette, he packs sandwiches for the day. Bread and mustard and meat, a pickled egg, setting in ice, the truck started and warming. A cough as he inhales another cigarette and the cold air in the cab. Slow past the elk and deer grazing, past the old store and to the dirt roads.

The dew on the pine needles and ferns appeared grew until the sun first showed itself. Hinting at morning. His hands pink and cold holding the steering wheel, dialing the heater down so he can take the cool now and reduce the shock of getting out of the truck into the cold forest air.

Unloaded the tools and sharpen the saw before walking into the brush. The overflow from the bar oil and mix fuel dripping on his shoulder as he sets out. Cold bar of the saw drawing the warmth from him.
The birds start their chatter as comes the sun.

8:00 a.m. Weary but not broken. The tree on the ground, marked, measured and cut. The burdens drawn uphill through the rough path laid with his boots. A path traveled and retraveled until the tasks done. The load tied down and the tools loaded. The slow ride home.

He flattens the grass in his tracks the way he'd entered. Green to be gold soon, it lay over for him. The smell of grass and mountain flower perfume being pressed from under his tires.

The road home is always the longest will a full load and an empty belly. Nerves ascue from coffee and cigarettes and labor all day. To the home silent with aches and exhaustion. Dinner and a drink suffered alone. Without much thought given to anything that is not rest or a belly full.

A hot cup of coffee and the confines of the walled room. The dimensions more familiar. The feeling of the cold sheets as his body lay to them. The light falling from his eyes faster than the sun from the sky.  Thy day is done. The cold closing his mind. The days to come.

S.I.D: 15231999

46 months.
36 State.
10 Federal

Those are the numbers and allotments my little brother owes in correctional institutions. On October 4th he will turn 32 years old, in prison. He can't borrow on that time and no one can stow it and draw on it as rations.
46 months little brother.
Felon in possession of a firearm
Felon in possession of a firearm
Menacing
Harassment
Assault IV
Assault IV
Assault on a police officer
Theft of forestry product
Theft
Grand theft
DUII

I tried to write the letters flowery and stern and thought I could publish them here. Perhaps you'd be so inspired by the words and our correspondence would lift us to another level of brotherhood, but that has yet to come.
It's just 46 fucking months.
There is nothing that takes the sting from it and your absence is profound. In all the my reading and writing there is nothing that works to sooth or romanticize it. No quotes to share, no hooks, no syllables to bounce to 46 months.

I miss you little brother.
I love you.
I'm going to kick your ass when you get out fat boy.

So for those who read this give a toast to him for me. Raise a glass or shoot your guns in the air and recite a little prayer that's about as eloquent as he or I can be...

fuck the police

Oracion

Padre
O Madre
O Damas y caballeros
porque quitas mi amante
mi luz y mi alma
mi hija, mi sol
y mi hermano encarcelado
prestame algo, la mitad de tu taza
O un abrazo, un beso, un dolar
pero siento tus manos
de hielo en mi cuello, y dolor
ensenarme tu paciencia
tu amor, tu cordura

perdoname.
amen.

A Miracle, A Mother (the children's song)

From a whisper and a kiss of omnipotence conceived
warm glow in the cradle of your mother's womb
her strength and soul expand and envelop you
your inheritance her living flesh, your home
she gives unto you
your eyes to see, your hands to hold
your ears to hear, your nose to smell
her heart to touch
she grants you her grace and virtue
her passion, her wisdom, her love
and may your soft fast heart beat reply to hers
'I am life. I am joy. I am love'

folly of a fool

     Her slender white hand reached through wine bottles corked with candlesticks for a pack of Marlboros. She straightened up and rest her back on the head board of the bed without looking over at the naked man sitting next to her. Though slight in stature her presence was imposing, that's what had attracted him. The post coitus euphoria wearing off he listened to her. The flick of the lighter, the light pop and gasp as her thin lips broke from the cigarette and took in the smoke. She passed him the half and broke the silence.
"You don't love me, you know?"
"I know." he lied
"You only love my fuck," she said flatly.
"I think there's a little more to..."
"NO!" she cut in,"You make it impossible for your mind to foster anything positive. Your religion is cynicism, so if you see no good in anything how are you capable of loving anything that isn't carnal?"
The words burned because he knew them. Not to be true, but certainly a silhouette of truth. She'd not finished speaking before he was out of bed and putting his clothes on.
"Fuck you!"
Her words had set off the fight or flight in his mind. He fastened his belt, grabbed his shoes, and walked barefoot to the door.
"You'll never out run yourself!", she got out just before the door closed behind him.It stung, not being used to being challenged and suddenly forced to face himself. He stopped in the foyer to put on his shoes and felt that shadow growing. That long old friend always pulling him away from the light.

He finished lacing and jumped up toward his rust and rot, two tone ford truck. He opened the door of 'Ol Betsy', climbed in and patted her dash before he turned the engine over. She'd been his home, his bed, his beast of burden and his refuge and he gave her that respect. This old girl would always run away with him. As Betsy warmed he reached around the bottom of his sleeping bag and took out the larger of two bottles of cheap Canadian whiskey. With his thumb he spun off the cap and took four hard slugs off the bottle trying to put out that fire from the bedroom a few minutes before. All he could feel was the burning and the whiskey. He put Betsy in drive and pointed her to anywhere but there.

Hitting the whiskey quick and the back roads slow, meandering through orchards and vineyards on up into the wheat fields.
"We're taking the long way home," he slurred at Betsy. The foothills just in the distance, he stopped the truck.
"I gotta piss."

Bottle in hand and nearing empty he stumbled out, steadying himself with one hand on the vehicle. Balancing the bottle on the bumper with Betsy holding him up. Trying to keep from pissing on himself and then his mind wanders. Belligerent and cursing himself, the fight, the girl, the whiskey. His mind turns, sharpened in focus for a moment as he remembers the .38 caliber Smith & Wesson in the glove box.

He finished, grabbed the bottle and stepped in his own piss on the way to the passenger door. A mouth full and two hard swallows he emptied the bottle, let out a dragons breath, and threw the bottle down the road. A quick pop with his palm on the silver button and the glove box opened where he retrieved the gun. The weapon in hand he felt himself swell with ego and anger. Only the six bullets in the cylinder remained from the last whiskey ride.

At the front of the truck he squinted drunkenly down the sights and nearly fell. Recovering, he straightened up and let out three shots toward the empty bottle, hitting nothing. Trying hard to gain himself he pointed the gun again down range.
POP!
The bullet hit just left, kicking up a little puff of dust from the road.
POP!
This time hitting home, it's shattered glass held intact by the sticky labeling. With a grunt and a grin he lowered the .38 and looked at it.

"One bullet left, what good are you if you're not loaded," he stammered as a set back for the driver's seat. Flipped the radio dial on but AM static came from the speakers. Wrapping his arms around the steering wheel and resting his forehead in the center he looked down and started to spin. Vomiting up hot whiskey through his mouth and nose, he drooped and spat on the floorboard between his feet.
"I'll end you boy! I'll end you," came the words through the spit.
The words were involuntary and he was startled at their sound.
"What the devil was that?"
He sat back in the seat and put the revolver beneath his thigh. Staring out the windshield at the bottle in the road for what seemed like forever, fighting off thoughts of where his own voice had come from. Pulling the rear view mirror in to look over his face. Two days from a shave, eyes red and full of booze, sickened he tilted back the mirror.

     His hand still adjusting the mirror he noticed a dust plume coming up behind a hill. He followed it with the mirror until he saw the police cruiser with blue lights on leading the dust. Panic, fear and adrenaline washed over him immediately.
How are they here? Did a stray bullet hit a farmhouse?
No,  nothing but dirt and crops out here.
No place to run in jail. Too many walls.
The cruiser was closing rapidly and began chirping its sirens when a single solitary thought settle on him.
"Run"

Her engine still running he slammed Betsy into drive, spitting rock and dirt as he put the pedal to the floor. The light rear of the truck swung out around the corners as he did all he could to keep her on the road. Sirens screaming now and flicker of blue through the dust he crested a hill and the crackle on the radio ceased. An evangelist, clear as day, "I will read to you from Matthew seven verse one. Judge not, lest ye be judged. For what judgement..."
He put the last bullet in the radio.

The fear and adrenaline half sharpened his mind but the whiskey was still in control of his senses. Revolver clenched in hand he took the next corner too fast. She whipped her ass first left, then right, he couldn't correct and went sliding down the road sideways. Coming to a stop, he looked out the driver's window at the coming cruiser.
"It's over," he thought. "Take your lumps."

He reached for the door handle, settled with his fate, with living in the walls. He jumped out of the truck forgetting the empty .38 still in his hand. He didn't hear the shots, didn't feel the bullets tearing through his body, didn't feel his body hit the ground. He heard the breeze brushing the wheat, he felt the hot dust drying his lips. He could taste the dirt.

the hammer

heavy now the hammer falls
sledge to wedge
the clash carried by the canyon
tear the grain and fiber

heavy how the hammer falls
confined from the mind
in labor liberated from complexity
a body sacrificed, for sins. atoned.

heavy heart, the hammer falls
a pulse to the strikes
with the collision a fissure bore
glint in the contact, the source

heavy armed, the hammer falls
the tool extolled
steel head cracked and rounded
instrument and man, bent to the toil

heavy minded, the hammer falls
nigh peon and pontiff
sermon of silence in burdens throes
the sacrament, the chore

heavy now the hammer

The Rancher

A green door closes of the little yellow house just off the river.
The gravel crunched under his boots as he makes is way toward the hay barn.
In the old grey barn hang the tack and saddle, wire, nails, dust, and the smell of hay.
Upstairs he slides open to loft door, "yeewee, yeewee, yeewee!"
The thick fingers on his granite hands throw hay to the feeder below.
Cattle not already there are on their way, at the call, the smell, the man.
He spots the bull calf coming in, readies his rope, let his belly fill a bit
From the edge of the corral he lassos the bull and draws him in. Shewing him down the run and into the chute and head gate he locks the animal in.

Dropping  the lower door of the chute he grabs the hind legs and pulls them out until the animal falls. The calf on it's  side he quickly ropes the legs and ties them off to keep from being kicked.
His tools ready, he washes the calves genitals with a sponge and draws his pocket knife in the other hand. Trying to be as fast and merciful as he can je makes his incision into the scrotum. The bull thrashes at the cut but the man holds strong, with his knee holding the bound legs back. He works fast but notices the fighting stop, the calves legs gone limp against his.
To the fear, shock and trauma the animal succumbed. Ready as always he pulled hard the bull from the chute and clamped it's mouth with his hands. Putting his mouth over the cows nostrils he began blowing air. Breathe. He breathed into the calf. Breathe. He have all his lungs could hold. Breathe. And a kick from the bull. Breathe. He leaned up to his knees and began to pump both fist on it's chest. Breathe god damned it. Breathe. He fell to his side to give the animal air once more. Breathe. It was too late. Not another kick. He was gone. The eyes turning grey, wide opened.
A life lost. Seasons of work, the animal, the meals, the money.
The man goes on, hard as the work, hard as the cost.

i'd awakened in gods dream and god dreams in two dimensions. and i fall in the dream, alert as i break the plane, like water. the depth enveloping, and down i go. reaching to god. tepid. the draw to bottom. home. in the dark. fading light. the buoyancy carries. me home. not to god. to the dream. and i laugh. and cry. and sleep

now i lay me down to sleep
i pray the lord my soul to keep
if i die before i wake
i pray the lord my soul to take

Tels

pinching my piss hole and I want to jerk off

all nod and woke and pissed and want to get high

smoke what’s left in the bathroom

“did I leave that there?”

proceed to the elevator  and the music goes

as I imagined sitting in an elevator may go

on the way to something important

but I am walking in the rain

and it’s cold

I just want to get high

the bitch at the pharmacy

keeps looking at me

am I high?

give me what I want

I am not sure how long

foil at home

bounce down the stairs burnside

squared off with the pillars

looking for pedro or pete or geoff

or just little pinched sacks peeled out

how many fucks has this plunger began

$8

That’s what it cost. we’ll all suffer for supper