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