a New Cult

i drove with the windows down this morning. open road - kissed out sky full of nothing clouds. my memories of you didn't last the year. i lied about that. i wrote about you instead, threw the paper away. clear my space. clear my head. what the fuck is in store for the new year? 

   It was about age 7 when  i became fully aware of the cameras following me around.. a documentary film crew was filming my life. At least that's how I saw it from then on out. I don't know why, the inner conversations, the endless interviews..all the things i said and did were not just for me but for the world to see. my first kiss, Id smile from behind her back into the invisible camera. later on a thumbs up into the darkness after a sweaty session of sex. I was important and interesting. everything i had to say quotable.  All the funerals, the online hook-ups, the road trips, the motel rooms, the music, the stories,  the words, the tits, the ass. I wasn't just making movies, i was living them.  the down time on the cutting room floor. the hours alone reading and writing and jerking off. the two or three lives we all live. inside, outside and the secret one we long for.

   the windows down the air cool the sun high. I try to think of adjectives and proverbs and short little words that feel like breathing and sinking. that's what this is, a quick fade left and jab and hook. another fight. another tooth missing. another head ache. I need about 100,000 dollars so i can quit my job and just write words all day. just live the real fake life. treasure hunt. fuck my wife when she comes home. meet my lover in a motel room 200 miles away. find the loose ends. let them go.

I promise the last word i wont say this year is "sorry". Ill tell you that much,  I'm living it all like i want to now. I'm doing nothing you want me to do and everything fun. I'm being good and true and dirty and messing with all the wrong buttons. I'm driving fast and dreaming hard and using it all. I'll make up the rest as we go along. fake it until the end of the line. until we bruise and bleed. pretty words with brutal definitions. i can see her running in the distance. running through the snow, the mud , the salt water. closer and closer. reach out your hand, jump this train. come along for the ride.

photo:
A mid west girl

Holiday in pictures -

Happyland Express

I find myself looking inside her medicine cabinet. I do this kind of thing. you meet online, she invites you over and do you really know what you're getting yourself into?  and what if - what if by chance, this doesn't stop at just sex? what if she turns out to be the kind of girl you want to bring home for Christmas. 

Prozac, Abilify, Valium, Xanax,  Vicodin. You get the idea. Now, you think you know her a little better: She's crazy? depressed. the girl...has problems. what's that thing about crazy girls fucking good?
but there is that slim chance you might not  leave with your life. (or worse you might have to hear the entire story of hers)   So what?  she wants some fun, kick an old habit by discovering a new one. depression. insanity. me.
 and  I wonder about my own. the power of attraction. Before this, what i knew of her was gathered from the tiny icon photo  of her floating in space. I think  in the right light and if i squint, she even looks remotely like it. 
 
She probably wonders whats taking me so long. I take the cap off the bottle of Vicodin. I pop one in my mouth. this will help the tooth ache i feel coming on. When i get excited my teeth hurt.  it feels like cotton candy inside my head.  I am hard. I want to hurry up and get this over with. She had me come over for one thing. lets be clear on that 
I turn the tap , cup my hand under the water and wash down the shame.  She's cute enough. desperate enough and i want to get off before the Vicodin kicks in. i want the release and  the numbness of pleasure and nothingness

Now Its like i know this secret about her, she kisses me with intense needy desire and i am so turned on. I somehow  feel superior because i don't need drugs or  to talk with someone about my pathetic problems. I'm not weak. I slip inside her. no condom. nothing between us. sickness. desire. i notice the scars along her arm. like train rails. perfectly spaced apart. i am riding this train. I am the conductor. I am starting to slip into the velvet. im not weak. im not broken. she tells me it's okay.  she wants it harder. she wants my hand around her throat. Her words breathless and convincing. I am a kid on Christmas. she is sinking into my skin. what does anyone know of each other? Secrets told and untold. 

Submarine

 DNA

It's clear we wouldn't last the year. but taken from an outsiders perspective. young love was tragic love and we were all kinds of that. young. tragic. ghostly.
I stared at her from across the class-room. the only class we had together. Marine biology.  Fish swimming in the salty sea. some such nonsense like tides, rip currents, aquaculture. my sperm still trying to swim inside her from late Saturday night. Jelly-fish slow and drifting. poison. slow and drifting. 
 I  turned in slightly above average grades. She was good at math, a quality i found sexually attractive. that and knee socks. that and her love for sad dreamy music. that and the fact she'd have me any way i wanted.
 I sat and thought about my future. but couldn't see past the tip of my pen. graduation in 5 months. slightly above average grades. no real effort. no going above and beyond. mild obsessions distract me to easily. like music, like death, like the girl across the room. 

before you're gone

 

before i knew it, i had misplaced summer. your hand in my back pocket, a  tourist in my own town. beach towels and a pirates map. i was never your prude. always wine. always gold. always above. always under.
 I have a good mix for this, i have certain songs in my head. life is moving within a sound track. numbers, patterns. collisions. near misses. beats that make you melt and sway.  there was the holiday party. drunk kisses under garnish. before you go, before you sleep. frost on our lips. a hug so tight. it's obscene. before you close your car door and head home to him.   

before the end of this something- something - or anything and then winter. I drove my truck to the grocery where they sell Christmas trees out front. the cool air and smell of pine. i fall in love with pretty faces, pretty words. pretty sunshine. with blood on the snow, anything, everyone. you.  I made you hot chocolate and we sat by the fire pit in the back-yard. I hate everything about endings. the last moment. the last kiss.
the last
word.

Whole of our Heart

Turned up radio, tires slipping over wet asphalt. heart slipping on ice. Two days of rain. tomorrow they say ..."sunny and clear "
blue skies over gray. a long wait for someone special. the wait for snow. I'll take that.

There are two roads since she's gone. this way and that. up and down. I notice nothing of red lights. all green lights from here to the east. I've gone north and south. dizzy with the thought of drink on my tongue. I'm healthy again. A good sign she still thinks of me.

I thought of a cabin in the woods or seaside shanty , a house boat , a sail boat. then back to mountains. chopping wood, growing a beard. building a fire. books stacked to a ceiling made of cedar. writing is isolation. a desolate place. its like being dragged to the bottom of a pool except your able to hold your breath- endlessly. you can look up and see the sun refracted through the water. you should be drowning but instead you're in the silence. i can hear my blood. my heart beats in a pattern. everything frequency and patterns and nothing lasts forever, not the memories tattooed into my skin,  not even me writing it down for you to read someday.  
 
A song without words. miles of rain slicked highway. accelerate. stay alert. oncoming high-beams become hundreds of  tiny moons. the only sound the tapping of keys. some impossible way to get you to notice me, but I must be dead for there is nothing but blue snow and the furious silence of a howling wolf.

Best wishes to you on Halloween

She came to visit Halloween weekend.  To carve pumpkins, to scoop out my heart.
I took photographs of her outside under skies the color of muscle,  She held a long knife sitting in her undies,  pumpkin between her knees. These are memories on a hard-drive.The fucking on my red Ikea sofa, on the floor, the bedroom, up against the wall in the hallway.  I'd almost never remember any of this...if this wasn't the last time id ever see her again.

 But, she drove over 200 miles to tell me about how much she loved Halloween. How she was only doing this because she couldn't stay away from me, even though it wasn't a good idea for either of us. For some reason she can't let us go. maybe never could, never will,  no matter the circumstances. How are the circumstances now?

 There was someone else she'd run back to once she was done with me. The carving and fucking and scooping out of my heart.  I made a fuss at first. but she liked it to much when i got angry.  she was something i couldn't have , but did have..really, and confused i kissed her hard and pushed her on the bed. I fucked her deep, she opened up, like that way there is no description for, like the way when you're breathing your last few fatal breaths, you'll remember and have no regrets about life.  Because life was all about being inside her inside something that made sense at least for that moment. and now ....I get lost in the thought. I forget about what she took from me. How she will pack up and have her Halloween somewhere else, with someone else. but it was worth it wasn't it?. aren't we all better off now?  I told you,  i could handle the bleeding.

“I can’t believe I gave my panties to a geek.”

"Happy birthday, Samantha. Make a wish."
: -"Well, it already came true"  .

I never liked the ending of this movie.(which im sure is playing on some channel, somewhere in the world at this very moment). Other than the geek became king by getting Samantha's panties and also got with Jake's drunk girlfriend. If i've said it once i've said it a thousand times... Fuck Jake.

This is my latest stencil- its called - "Molly hates Pink" 
Hand-cut Stencil , spray paint on card-board 2011

another Halloween wedding

 Three years married. Today. Here is some Art work she made for me and our upcoming ETSY site  Sugar Glow Club.  

Sisters of Mercy

Something  huge from my High School journal
Oct - 87'

 I found a note in my locker. it smelled like cigarette, girl, and old book-bag. I was in class unraveling the million folds. Finally, bubble cursive written with a cheap bic pen. A quick profile: This person could give a shit about school, perhaps dreaded the waking world, life was a drag and then....you die.  Judging from the Iron Maiden RULES scribbled in the corner -  A lover of all things metal.( daughter of satan?)

The name at the bottom. I knew this girl. I stepped over her and her friends every morning as I walked into school. they sit in a circle on the sidewalk in front of the school.  Laughing, smoking, blaring heavy metal out of a boom-box. I smile at her. every morning. metal girls are horny. so am I.  I’m fucking 16.  I like her make-up. too much shadow. too much doom.

 I think back to the way she held a cigarette. why it seemed different. I wasn't sure why she was after me. I gave no outward indication I liked Metal and that’s how people interact at this school,. by the kind of music we like or pretend to like and bands we know and pretend to know. I’m in a band but I doubt she knows that.

The sides of my head are shaved, my intention was Mohawk but it came out more mullet. I listen to punk mostly, and Bad Brains and Elvis and Johnny Cash. Last year, I dated  a perpetually gloomy girl who played The Cure and Bauhaus and the Smiths while we laid in her bed. She let me fuck her, if I promised not to tell. Then she told me a few days later she likes girls.  But what was I talking about? Oh yeah, I can’t say I wasn't able to fall deeply into the despair of lyrical drone of the music.  I also hate Pretty in Pink and Molly Ringworm. but secretly I don't.

The records I go back to over and over are Queen and Cheap Trick. (another secret) But,  punk is awesome. Black Flag..is fucking awesome.  And that this girl ... this horny heavy metal goddess wants to get with me. like this is totally out of the fucking blue too. I’m so hard right now.. 10 minutes till the bell rings... I hope I can get it to go down by then (think  garbage. think old people fucking) This is the start of something. I just know it. Rock on. Rock hard.

different at night

maybe the night and something different. i waited for her call, her laugh, her fall.  maybe because of the cool October air. so how about tonight?  black cats and candles. we laugh, we fuck , we get high. maybe i leave marks. maybe he'll ask how you got those bruises on your neck.
she says,  maybe it won't last.and why do you only say i love you when you're inside me?  but that's all elementary. like the beginning and end. like how its easy to groove to this song. the start and stop. maybe this time we meet behind our lovers back. or maybe we are those lovers.
I talk to much in the dark. I say the things i should keep secret...I've never believed as much as i do now,  anything is possible. and she says where did that sad boy i knew once, go? I was inside you. say yes....nothing ever really ends. the devil comes and gets what's due.  

Forty-Two - Audience of One

Nothing ever fits. make wish. blow out candles. eat cake. it's sweet. life is sweet. It's fruit punch swallowed with bitter pills. i choke.I drown. but this place revolves. it spins on axis. evolve. come and go. Stay. Stay the night. Stay forever. Be the fucking ghost i talk to in my sleep.

Nothing fits. Over the years  I've grown out of my shoes and shirts and lovers. nothing fits  forever. body parts deceived us because they feel so good. sliding in and out. In and Out. like breathing. it's dirty tricks. it's trick or treat. Our heart beats one on top of other. the warmth, the salvation, the words. We mean well,  then we are just plain mean. we say.... at some point, "we just don't fit".  so, maybe we try, maybe we even stay.  Just our bodies. Hey,  tell me where your mind lives?

I thought of you. how we are just pieces of this puzzle. Every year i make a wish. I set things straight with myself. I know how it works. Wait. then wait more. it's almost finished. Turn the last piece this way and that. Force it. love me. Settle in. Perfect fit.

unburied

the nights have taken hold
and your words,
have taken hold 
where have all my lovers gone -
underground - underground

come, let's give blood again
the mobile unit parks 
outside the library
on Halloween
come make a fist
with me
come let me breathe you


before it gets to dark again
before it gets to late again


wish me happy birthday?
let your body be my
cake 
 
the filth is rushing in
and
the blood is washing out
and my thoughts are taking hold
of you
unburied


  

End of Summer Squash

The end of the beginning: 

The end of summer? not even close when you live in South Florida. It's business as usual down in the tropics. Chlorinated swimming pools, the beach, playing Frisbee in the park with the dog. heat and more heat. i smell meat cooking on the grill and i don't eat meat anymore but i cant say i don't love the smell of lighter fluid and hot dogs and hamburgers. A rib-eye steak on a grill? oh yeah. 
Sure I'd like to see leaves change color. I'd like a three-some Halloween. I'd like you to invite me to your town for lunch. show me the books you read. play me of the music you like. show me the undies you wear. expose everything about yourself in short sentences. text me your life story, email me the easiest way you come.


Consider short distances. the drive to work.
the holiday.
the big move away
is only a short distance to
any single
hearts desire
her leap of faith is
only depth perception. words
in a box.

blood virus.
my bones on your bones.

short distances
I'm clicking your home
page

and reading your
scars


-Today is home-made red sauce, down on the chopping block we have two kinds of summer squash and sweet peppers which are sauteed in EVOO, garlic and red pepper flakes. The sauce goes in. Some time goes by......cook pasta as directed on side of package. Mix in with sauce. Serve. -

Joining a Fan Club

I'm sitting in the middle of our back-yard on an old wood stool my Dad put out special  for his "famous buzz-cut"  A talent he says he picked up while over in Vietnam. If he shaved one the guys in his platoon they wouldn't get shot that day. Word got out, but he wasn't around the barracks much because he flew missions day and night shooting up the enemy as a helicopter gunner. When he would return there was a line already forming for his buzz-cut. So, I should be lucky. I guess. To have this edge. But, it was unlikely id be shot. I'm 7 years old. 

We were in the backyard so as not to get "Hair all over the damn trailer"  Clippers to my head and shaved down to the skull. He tore it across until it was flat and smooth,  I feel the heat of the sun on pale exposed skin. There are woods behind us. miles and miles of woods. Crickets, birds,  mosquitoes, saw-grass, and the everlasting Florida heat. Electric cord stretched  through the yard like a fluorescent orange snake. The clippers alive with power, hair falling  in clumps. over and over with razor touching skin. nicking it here and there as he barked for me to stay still. It was just me shaking, me hating this. like the time he threw me in the pool to teach me to swim. the deep end and the sinking down to the bottom. Sink or swim, Sink or swim. All those lessons not taught but forced. Everything black and white. Yes sir !. No sir !  Sink or swim.

I didn't want to look like a soldier. Boys in my school wore long hair and had big fat  combs hanging out of their back pockets. They wore dessert boots. Girls wore feathers in their hair. I had no hair. It was 1976. There was no war and  the only army I wanted to join was the KISS ARMY.

My head wasn't shaved because I had lice like everyone at school accused and laughed at me for. It was because I had no choice. I had rules to follow. Rules that only seemed to apply to me.  Dad took a swig of his beer and placed it in the shade propped against the trunk of a tree. His cigarette dangling out of his mouth as he spoke in deep gruff tones of how I look like a man now. How not to move , " Do want me to cut you?" His shaky hands and shell shock. His screaming and walking around the house late at night. I’m locked inside my head. Inside my little world. I’m sinking. I laugh to myself when I see his beer tip over by the tree. Maybe there is a god and if by some chance there is, maybe he'll save me. 
 

Haven't seen you since forever sex

Cells made of molecules, molecules made of atoms, atoms made of energy. we are this- Energy.
Ghosts of perception. Illusions until the spaces fill with patterns, pain, heartbreak, seduction, joy, adventures. There is no choice. the blood and salt water. the bones and ashes.    
 
Happiness is a thought that isn't anything else.
thoughts become things.  i want you here.
my skin close to your bones. our energy.  It attracts  it expands,
it explodes.
It will last many lifetimes.

everything is illusion
every doubt , every fear
that has held you back

or kept you apart from
what you've desired
There is nothing that can't be had
There are no
limits

art: Mike Egan 
photo: roadkill rabbit (flickr)

Fall is a distant star to me. unlike , dreams i have of your soft voice and breathless moans. it's true, my home, my love is closer to the sun and sea than near your breeze carrying the scent of snow. I am closer to where vampires roam and the sharks swim themselves to sleep

Thoughts become Things

these are things that I could not tell you;
things that remind me of you when I want nothing more than to forget;
things that have gone wrong;
things that have gone right;
things that will never happen;
things that are your fault,
my fault,
the faults of no one;
these are things that we did not do and will not let go

Swimming til dark

i know more of warm breezes
and salt water
than
cool nights under stars
under blankets
under you

and
anything i've ever known of it
are false memories:
turning leaves,
snow fall
her enigmatic

hip
sway

all
novel outlines
bits of
broken
melodies
from discarded
soundtracks

but i feel your
warm bed
and cabin smoke
in my heart
i touch the cold
breath on my neck

i found it
here
sipping
the poison
of
your
poetry

Perpetual motion

There’s a trench dug into my side of the bed in the shape of an S. the outline of my body faces the wall. 9mm semi-automatic, top drawer of night-stand. A pen. notebook. books stacked on the floor. there is an I-pad and head-phones. A knife stuffed between the mattress and headboard. a shot-gun under the bed. shes next to me tucked inside a warm blanket. i sleep on top of the sheets. Dream of blood. Dream of rain. Dream of her body safe and sound. I want our cabin in the woods, our sailboat anchored in the shallows. Birthday candles, Halloween. The things that comfort me , the things i fear. Sharks swim the waters of my heart. Her skin the smell of the sea.

Cut out all the ropes and let me fall

Had this fucked up dream last night. You're not with me anymore and my dog died. I was sitting in this road-side diner like the waffle house or something like that except they served fried chicken and waffles.the waitress came over and threw down a plate of cold eggs - sunny side up and covered in ketchup.  I hate that.   I left and traffic sucked.  Then it was just about light outside and I  was in bed thinking that school starts today! fuck  and i was late for the bus. I despise those teachers and kids and hipster haired fuck ups.  how's is that Steve Fairgroves is even capable of growing a beard at barely 17 anyway? I cant wait to laugh at his Pabst Blue Ribbon belt buckle and fag anchor tattoo. Ever wonder the ratio of anchor tattoos to actual sailors in your town?    

 
I woke up in a real negative mood. pissed at the dream and the sunshine and birds. I fumbled around in the kitchen. I managed a cup of coffee (praise to the Keurig machine) then shook Fruity-Pebbles into a bowl and sat at the desk. I attempted to work on my comic-book.  but nothing. nothing. Okay. I needed to cool off. So, I showered like Christian Bale in American Psycho, scrub down, moisturize, spray. A few push-ups. I let the sugar and caffeine settle in and got to thinking: I used to be able to write so easily, so good too. Girls left with sticky knickers good. i mean,  i could never draw for shit but at least i had the writing part down. I wrote with my dick,  that was it and i knew it. Driven by an insatiable need to create and to fuck. girls seemed to like the pent up anger and frustration. the displaced loneliness pouring out on the page, drawn into a character. and that worked?  Yeah, Girls emailed my blog to get to know me. "Put your anger inside me" they seemed to say. and i did. Often. but it was never without the vapor trail of emotional scars and broken promises associated with the artist /whore muse hook-up. They ended as stories in my comics. Entertainment. But, the void was my life and what i wrote about and drew was merely the truth hidden between the lies. Ah.. ,, hows that for bullshit?   

I got a girlfriend and then married - a wife. a shiny new black metal ring to wear,  then the dog and job and bills and no time for girlfriends on the side or any time at all.  time slipped away along with my words and drawings.  I want to write again - fuck again. fuck someone new and keep secrets and then forgive myself in comic-strips and prose. With these thoughts i go back to the desk. I have 10 minutes before i have to leave for work. Ive been working on this same rough draft for weeks, the sketches, the idea sheet. my latest comic .

My comic book is called -  ARCH. (Anger. Rage.Confusion.Hate)
It's about this guy named Arch and he's a real negative dude. (at least on the inside) but  it works for him, until it doesn't. i mean strange shit happens along the way. He meets a girl who is into werewolves and choking, he volunteers at the animal shelter (and the dogs sometimes talk to him, offering advice) Arch makes what money he can writing a self-help blog online. He is a life coach of sorts,  he'd battled his demons in the past and truly believes he can now help others. specialties include the power of attraction, sexual addiction, consumerism, and balance.  with that he peddles his e-books and email coaching seminars (personal one on ones can be set up) He has few overly devoted followers if you know what I mean.  He claims to be good at fixing things but i think its more destroying things. One morning after a particularly awful dream he wakes up and writes a scathing rant in his blog, a manifesto filled with sci-fi and porn references. He takes on everything from religion to Star Wars. But, he only planned on venting. Getting out all his anger on the page like he'd been taught, release and let go. No one gets hurt.  Delete. Only he pressed Enter. It's gone, it's out there for the world to see. The entry is titled "Rainbows and Ewoks are Gay and Love is Shite "  250 comments in less than 3 minutes.His cell phone is buzzing. Oh shit.    
 

May your heart be the map

The past few years I've practiced minimizing both the physical and mental clutter in my life. I started by promising myself to do MORE things i love doing. In fact,  I try to do as many things i love doing as possible. Getting rid of all things that are not me. It takes time. It's a process that i continue to work on daily. Throwing out my old points of reference. the same actions ALWAYS produced the same results. So, why not do something different?

What was it that caused me to take or not take certain actions? certain risks? What caused me to think that life had limits?
Fear. Fear based on past experiences. even experiences i only saw or heard about.  fears projected from what Ive read or seen on TV. fears of what others might think of me and my ideas. But, why limit yourself doing things NOW based on the past?  Why not live the life you want to live?  I mean the one YOU truly want to live-  Not the one you're supposed to want. Not the one conceived by outside influences, family, work, school,  the media, fear. No constraints. Live and love without limits.

Make life beautiful:

Get rid of all things that are not you
Do things you love
Love things you do
Express gratitude
How you feel is what you'll attract
Get healthy
Stop buying junk
Don't follow same old thought patterns
Create something
Notice something beautiful (at least one thing per day)

Photo: britneyfontana

79

79: 

I didn't feel the first punch or second or third. I was trying to get home before dark,  i knew of a short-cut.  Ride my bike over some lawns, go behind a few houses and end up back on the street. Simple.
I was on my way back from the gas station, a mile or two west of my home."Up to the corner " is where i told my Mom i was going.  I bought a Coke,  the icy cold bottle in one hand, small change curled in my other fists. I rode fast and hard , i was feeling lucky so cut across the lawns and found the next street over.
  Kids fought kids for all reasons and no reasons in this neighborhood. It was 1979 i was 10. Small houses crowded close with peeling paint lined the street. It was dinner time and i thought i could make out the smells of  tater-tots or hamburger helper.  From the corner of my eye, I spotted them sitting on the sidewalk.  4 or 5 kids, passing around a cigarette, and one straddling a bike. I peddled fast but the kid on the bike wheeled out in front me,  blocking the road  the group of kids all got up at once.  I tried to ride around but one of them pushed me and i fell in the street. Coke bottle and coins and bike and skin crashing to the asphalt. I could smell fresh cut lawn, i could smell sweat and cigarettes. I heard Rockaway beach by the Ramones playing from an open window. My arm was already bleeding from scraping the road.  I knew what was coming next. fists and feet flying from all around.  The bigger kids hung back and shouted " Kick his ass Stevie!, Take his fucking bike, take his fucking bike!, "  I felt a few punches but they didn't hurt much. My Dad it me harder than any kid could ever punch.  I got up and started grabbing and punching. It's what i usually did in fights- a short flurry of crazy. I didn't like fighting, i knew kids who could fight. that liked it, were good at it even. But, what was worse, having my bike taken or having to walk back home and face my Dad ? I knew i had to fight either way. At least some blood would prove i tried. and i did, I fought back and then got shoved down and took the beating,  I thought about grabbing the broken Coke bottle  i thought about breaking free and running over picking it up and tearing it across one of these kids faces. hurting them real bad. Finally, one of the bigger kids went over to my bike, now laying on its side by the curb. He got on and called back to his buddies "Come on"   The kids started walking away, but not before one of them got in one last kick. I got up and saw the sun almost gone, I liked the color of the sky,  purple- black just before it turned dark. I heard laughing in the distance. A faucet running, someone doing the dishes. I barely made out the back of a kids shirt and my bike carrying him away.

la la la la take me home

my two dogs are ashes. one inside a wooden box carved by a Tibetan monk, the other a hand blown  black urn, her  name is embossed in gold. they were big dogs and you wouldn't believe the weight of these things. i guess everything , even the slightest whisper, even ashes- have weight.

I plan on doing a bit of  traveling, minor explorations and hedonistic adventures. As much as id like to i can't commit to getting more fur friends just yet. So for now, I volunteered at the local Tri-county animal shelter. It's a No-Kill shelter. The dogs don't just sit sad-eyed in cages all day waiting to get adopted. there are many great volunteers and they help train, walk,  give millions of pets, brush, and  play with all the "guests" as much as possible. The shelter is situated on a few gated acres so the dogs can run loose for exercise too. Some of these dogs are amazing. Two of them were adopted in just my short time there. It's pretty great seeing that, especially when an older dog get a home. Its what the No-kill shelter is about.

Home is wherever I'm with you - don't you know? I have difficulty having to put them back in the caged pens after i hang it with them. Id like to take them all home. I imagine them all having homes. each one, the older ones, the puppies. I visualize it. I send it out to the universe. Even thoughts. Everything has weight.            

drowning in dreams

there were fights and sweat soaking fucks, like animals. but there were also sweet dreams fortified with red wine and soft pillows. sleep was easy and it was probably the soft sheets and they way the scent of it all sunk deep. everything clings.

when she was gone i knew i had to wash them, but i put it off because i wanted  my skin against
the smell of her ghost. even though she was miles away somewhere next to him - she was with me. funny how that works. funny just how true that seems in our heads. 

the silence doesn't stop me.  it only pushes me to look deeper inside myself.  heart beats. muscle tissue. expansion, contraction. disintegration. I  wont let go.

late at night i play instrumentals so fucking loud the paint might peel from the walls. cellos and trombones. real woods and metals. real flesh and bones. the part inside the inside - the narrator. nothing can stop me from getting what i want in this life. nothing can stop me from living this story.

sweet dreams fortified with sugar rush and piano chords. we gave our blood in a mobile-bank outside a library. we  never stop giving. we share our sin.


photo revivify

Summers Blood (lyrics)

miles and flagrant
observations
come
mounted
on incoming
breaths
the night we swam
chlorine
stung our eyes

we trespassed
remember that old house?
remember how the walls came
crumbling down
oh that was a time
oh that was a time

the rain fell like
summers blood

all the miles
those little birds
flew
 fucking wild
fire
and power lines 
all that
she never
stays

for miles
i wanted was
home
to swim like sharks
in a pool
of summers blood

and she'll take her photographs
spread them like wild fire  
you
are restless
you are in my
blood
you are
gone

photos: Cari Ann Wayman

I like it , what is it ?

it sounded so much better playing in her room. inside out. turning me inside out. the music floated to the ceiling. it gently bounced off walls. it meant something. scratches and bites and all.
sometimes it means new or change or something you've never done before. jump. leap. live. lyrics you can't hold or understand. It means illumination. it means dark secrets mixed with drum beats. there is want and need heavy in the air. breathing.
the song had meaning because you were there and i was there and we sang it deep in our hearts. i felt it on my mouth and in my hair and fingers. I felt it on your skin and inside you.
somewhere along the line, the scar closed, the memory tape healed over by time. time steals these quiet moments, the ones i tried so hard to hold and not let go. the smell and feel of her. its on the tip of my tongue but just out of reach.  her voice when she said my name. the song that played. now just a soundtrack on a rainy day. background. I feel words. i don't hear music. i feel text. I think of you. I write it. nothing more.

keeping in touch her

Dear you,

I like the sound the water makes in the shower when it hits the plastic lining of the shower curtain.

- X 

choking on salt water

water pools in the drive-way mixing with motor oil, black-top. a flow, a stream, a rainbow hurricanes into the drainage ditch. but it's not nearly fast enough. over-flow. small floods.memories, tide pools.
summer heat is followed by mid afternoon summer storms. reducing the mood to a purer state. i fold paper sail-boats looking out the window. stuck inside. we are always stuck inside for something, stuck inside because of rain or work or the oppressive humidity. stuck inside our own heads, thoughts of sweat and fuck and silence. It is that kind of summer holiday. the long sight lines, the emptiness, the building wind. I fall into myself. thunder-storms. the soft tap of rain against the window. i wish you were here.

small wonders

engine heat and a dizzy head
first thing in the morning
radio fuzz
shaking off
the dust of night
sun
in my eyes
from a distance it looked
like a dog lying 
in the street
but as my tires
spun and the world spun
and my head
spun
upon closer inspection 
it was a dead
t-shirt
the kind of road-kill
one can enjoy
and only wonder
who's shirt?  why?
the kind that
will sort of
make my day
a brown shirt
dead center in the street
not a dog
thank god !
not you
if it hurt
i didn't feel it
a shirt
maybe his
maybe hers
under my wheel
then forgotten
bright day
ahead

We, Us, Them , You and Me

Not long ago i read a book Cheap: The High-Cost-Discount-Culture
I'm not sure why, i saw it on the shelf at the library and like most books i pick up I'm drawn to the cover or something.  It's that or something that usually gets me in trouble.
 Anyway, the book was about how companies like Walmart and other Big Box stores are ruining America with cheaply made products, employing cheap labor and on top of that forcing manufacturers (mostly in China, Vietnam, and India) to build these items at the cost THEY want to pay for it. 
For instance, one of the guys named Gunnar at IKEA designs a sleek new chair.  The design spec is sent to a plant in China and is ordered to build it: and make it wood, come in these 3 colors, weigh a certain amount, and we need so many shipped by such and such a date. AND  we are going to pay you you this SET amount for it) - Build it or we will go somewhere else. So most China ends up having to cut down vast forests in protected parts of Russia or other places to meet pricing and shipping deadlines. All this so we can purchase a 20 dollar -kick it to the curb when it breaks (which is sooner than later) Chair.  Essentially a waste in every way you look at it.  Had you purchased a 300 dollar Herman Miller chair..its likely not to break , you wont kick a 300 dollar chair to the curb, and it might even be handed down to someone else to enjoy. How's that for conserve, re-cycle, re-claim.  

I can't afford quality so i went for design instead. I needed a cheap desk chair but wanted something that looked cool. I took a 30 minute drive to our South Florida IKEA, my first time ever. And hey, they didn't seem like such bad people. helpful, friendly, attendants helped direct my Honda into a parking space. It was like a theme park like atmosphere. A theme park of spiffy designed sofas, lighting pendants, chairs, billy book cases, and 3 dollar Swedish meatballs for lunch.

Found my chair (pictured above). You pick it out in the showroom (which i pretend to live in each room) then write down the aisle and bin # on a provided sheet of paper with provided mini pencil, then when you re done - head to the warehouse area and pick it out yourself. It's so hands on. My girl fell in love with the hot pink version of mine so we now sorta match. Yes, they were 20 bucks each. I had to assemble them. Easy. It feels pretty good, rolls around great, swivel action works, and i think they look great too. I bought a few other things that need assembling, that were CHEAP, but look good. and isn't that what this was all about?
Yes. Yes it was.

when crush turns to like

A puff smoke of cloud floating against a  summer blue sky.  Power-lines, high wires crisscrossed . engagement. pavement. easement. houses. brick driveways. garage doors. opening and closing. I decided to take off work. I'm deciding if i should get in my truck and just drive. a bird  catches my eye in the back yard. I get a false sense of security there. fenced in. surrounded by ficus hedges. camouflage the coming and goings. the victories and heart aches.

Sitting by the pool. 3 books, i-pod, note- book, pen. Sun screen rubbed into the sleeve of ink covering my arm. all those hours. all the pain. art. life. worth it.
the sunscreen smells like coconuts. birds in a palm tree. coconuts. they are wild green parrots. noisy. random thoughts. i tear a page from my note-book and make a paper airplane. she's gone. I'm not sure who, or which one, i just know she is.

Film for the 35mm camera. I keep forgetting the thrift-store camera i bought. I'm anxious to try out all the different lens it came with. I borrowed a  book from the library - William Eggleston photography. i have it next to me. its heavy and reflected in the morning sun. inspiration. the mundane and ordinary find life. you just have to open your eyes. you just have to look.