Reality Check

Washing dishes,
a flash of light and color
across a drying grater
caught my eye,
made me think I’d seen
images flickering across
a small video screen.

Perhaps it’s time
to radically
simplify.

Check out my Sis' new blog!

My dear Sis, acclaimed northwest gardening author Annie Lovejoy, has a new blog - Check it out and subscribe, it and she are gems, indeed!

Annie's Blog

The Sustainability of Happiness

If you depend upon
someone else
for yours.

If politics rules your roost.

If acquiring wealth
or things
are paramount.

If fame
is what you seek.

If you’ve sought
education
or experience
merely to slake
your ego.

If you do what you do
for the sake
of accolades.

If where you live
or
what you drive,
is how you measure
your value as
a human being.

Then,
you’re
not
gonna
find
it.

In Sickness and In Health

The prep nurse noted her fragile veins
advised delay, but
she was ready, so,
on she went.

Together for decades,
he could not be with her
in surgery.

Something gave and
she never woke.
For two days
she lingered
on life support;
they told him
he needed to make
a decision.

Knowing she hated it,
he told them to stop;
all of it.

Down in the bright sterility
of the cafeteria,
he was cutting into his chicken when
he felt a hand,
warm on his shoulder.

He knew it could not be her,
not her body;
no one else saw,
she was there
only for him.

She smiled and said,
“It’s going to be all right;”
and then
she was gone.

A love crossing decades
suddenly condensed,
out of time;
in the last possible moment
one thing needed to be said;
“It’s going to be all right.”

Is there anybody out there...

If there is, I should say that most of my writing energy lately is going into a new food blog, which you can check out right here - And please do!

I've also started publishing more or less done chapters of a new novel titled Once a Fisherman, so scope that out too!

Cheers!

E

Ihr Garten

There’s a language here,
spoken in color,
texture,
and pattern.

Rock Rose to Rosemary to Oleander;
myriad greens with
bright blooms
interposed.

Zinnia and cucumber,
chile and yucca
painted pot and tree trunk,
purple-blue blossom
against weathered fence board.

Pieces fit together perfectly,
each is perfect on its own.

Bronze bell on maple branch
prayer flags over herbs,
scent of basil redolent
as cold water
splashes leaf.

Even when she is gone,
here,
I breathe her scent.

Flow

If you told me back in the 60s
that I’d not only drink water from bottles
but have a favorite brand
I’d have said you were crazy.

If you told me that,
after DDT and 2,4,5-T,
Love Canal and the Cuyahoga
that we’d forget all we learned
and fuck everything up afresh
I’d have thought you were nuts.

If, after I tore up my Exxon card
you’d said we’d have one even worse
within twenty years or so
because nobody really did anything different
I’d have said you’re bonkers.

I do so wish that you had been.

Waffle House, Redux

See, the problem is that nobody really
gives a good goddamn about them people
comin' across the border.
See if we was Canada, it'll be all different.

I'll tell you what the real illegal immigrant problem is;
it's those fire ants.
Them's the real problem,
and look how easy they got here?
Them and the bole weevils...

J.R., you are one dumb sonofabitch.
You're so dumb, you don't know to shut up
when somebody tells you you aughta.
And you're no better;
you just sit there and agree with him.

Aww, come on now, Bud
we're solving the world's problems!
Give us another five minutes
we'll solve 'em all!

Oh buuuuuullshit;
You've had forty five minutes
and you ain't solved one damn thing;
I am done with you two idiots.

See ya tomorrow, Bud.

To hell with the both of you both.

Good Morning, Ivy

Welcome, tiny girl!
We’ve been waiting for you
but no rush;
you’re right on time.

Your first morning and
you’ve changed things
forever.

I awoke smiling,
perception shifted,
seen through your eyes;
I bet they stay blue.

May the world’s ills be cured.
May it be for you as
it was for me;
a joyous youth
awash in pure tones.

So it shall be, because
you have arrived.

Esurient

Van Gogh sky,
jagged white
stabbed with black
and grey.

Songbirds nervous as deer
before an earthquake.

Air, muggy and hot, pauses
grave still,
waiting for the balance to tip.

Bromidic

Back in the day
some Neanderthal was the first
to add spikes to his wheel;
studded leather wristlets
followed shortly.

In my youth, only motor heads had muscle;
now, “CEOs drive Harleys and
wholesome mothers have tattoos.”

On my twelve mile daily commute,
a surfeit of over-horsed idiots
bob and weave in a winnerless race,
striving to wrench
that last free car length
from all the others.

Virga

It’s 101 in the shade of
the steakhouse veranda;
nobody’s goin’ out there
to dig into a sizzling rib eye.

He sits alone,
just a beater six string for company,
belting out Tejas-tinged blues.

Top down in the parking lot,
I stop for a tune or two.
He pays me no mind,
eyes closed, playing for those
who first shaped the music.

I start to roll and he looks over;
I give a thumbs up and
he smiles, jerks his chin,
starts into another tune.

Texas Rescue Dog

He weighs nine pounds,
stands ten inches tall
at the shoulder.

Tied to his star-studded collar
a tiny barrel holds
one good shot an’ a half
of Anejo tequila
an’ a Dixie cup.

When some poor sap gets
whupped upside the head
by a tornader, he will crawl
from the wreckage of his doublewide,
and as his eyes clear,
he’ll spot Bandito,
standing tall on a rubble heap
ready to quench his thirst and
make everything OK agin.

Darwinism

Coffee cups that read
“Caution, contents are hot”

Boxes printed with,
“Do not turn box upside down,”
on the bottom.

Hand guns that note,
“Read manual before use.”

Fish hooks warn,
“Harmful if swallowed.”

Male enhancement pills marked,
“Do not use while pregnant or nursing.”

A hair dryer reads,
“Never use while sleeping,”
and a curler,
“Do not use in shower or bath.”

If this kind of mindless shit
really is necessary,
shouldn’t we just allow natural selection
to do its thing?

Time Lapse

My eye caught the clock
just as the numbers changed.
I thought, what if
they just kept flipping?

Would it be the end of days,
a flashback,
or just a busted Sony?

If I roll back over,
surrender to sleep,
will I wake up older than time
with all I love
turned to dust?

It’s probably nothing that
coffee and a morning paper won’t cure;
in that instant between sleep and waking
it can give you pause.

X Chromosomes

I have drifted through life assuming
that one got rid of furnishings
when they were worn out:
This is not true.

I have, over the years, perfected
the Belushi lear; one brow arched high
with the eye beneath squinting,
the effect one of incredulity defined.

When your spouse arrives
out of the blue
with a new couch,
there to replace your beloved nest,
you must never deploy
the Belushi eye.

You may, if you feel so moved,
try to save the rug, and
you might even win that fight;
but forget about the couch,
it’s already gone.

REM Sleep

In some kind of office building
walls and floors but no colors.
Big windows with lots of light but
I don’t see anything outside.

Someone called my huge cell phone
“cool” and “retro like an old Motorola,”
but I couldn’t bring up the last
number I dialed and the tape with
the names on it jammed and
wouldn’t wind back into the phone.

Walking down the halls I saw
several rooms that I hadn’t cleaned;
I wondered why, when he first brought
me here, he’d dropped me in the middle;
what about all those buildings up front,
shouldn’t I be cleaning those too?

I stole something crunchy and savory and
snuck into a secret place that lead to
all the other places to eat it.
Most people didn’t know I was there, so
I hid the food when somebody found me
to say I had a phone call.

I asked a pretty girl what the occasion was
for the big party downstairs;
she said there were several.
We walked side by side for a bit,
then she ran a few steps to
be away from me.

I tried to get on an elevator
with a person in a wheelchair
but they were gone and
then I couldn’t find it again.

I rode an impossibly steep escalator
up one floor wondering how the hell
I was sticking to it?
I got off through a metal gate and
went right when they went left;
the ceiling was low.
I ended up high alongside the rollercoaster
when the girl with one perfect nipple
came back from the left; she knew
I’d made a wrong turn.
She asked if I had good dope or good booze;
I nodded and she smiled and said
“It needs to be.”
She told me to go up to the roof and
get out there, “At a sort of disco,” and
then I woke up.

Does this shit really make sense
when I’m sleeping?

Graphic Reminder

Every few months, I like to change my title at The Luthier Community. Most of the time, I do it just for the hell of it, maybe to try and be funny, with something like Chief Executive Floor Sweep.

This month I changed it to Finger Slicer Extraordinaire, with a picture of my left dialing finger. I did it not so much because it’s funny, but as a reminder to me at what seems to be a critical juncture in life, and maybe as a warning to others.

Said finger has a crisscrossing map of scars from way too many cuts. Looking at it right now, I can see 7 nasty ones, and those aren’t all. Most of these came from chisels, a few from knives. You’d think that the first time I had my left hand way up on the shaft of a neck in progress and still managed to cut the crap out of it with a chisel, I’d have become more cautious, but I didn’t. And if you sharpen like I do, well… Fellow woodworkers love my chisels, because the business ends of the blades are mirror bright and sharp as razors. I keep all my hand cutting tools like that. Real sharp tools do a better job and are a joy to work. They also cut the snot out of us when we drop our guard: A ¾” Buck Brothers crank neck has a big handle and a lot of steel; serious heft there; it will go to the bone in your finger in a heartbeat or less.

Like I said, I didn’t learn my lesson the first time, nor the second, not the third. As a lifelong woodworker, I am used to cuts and scrapes and bruises, no big deal. But when the last two have left the tip of that finger without sensation from permanently damaged nerves, I kind of woke up. I wonder now what I was waiting for to finally get the picture, to lose a piece of the digit? Kinda like when friend spoke to me of multiple divorces; “Once, they say it could happen to anyone; twice, maybe even three times, you probably still get the benefit of the doubt. More than that, and there’s pretty much no doubt, you’re the problem.” So, when it comes to unsafe practices, yeah, I’m the problem.

All these power tools in my shop and I cut myself over and over with chisels and knives and scrapers. To me, that finally says, “I respect the power tools, but not the hand tools,” and that’s plain foolish. When I was a working cop, I feared a fight with edged weapons more than I did being shot, so why the hell would I think differently in the shop?

For me, after some soul searching and a lecture or two from Doc and Monica, I realize that 90%+ of my cuts were incurred while carving necks. That forced me to look at how I did it, and the glaring flaws in my technique came out. I was leaning into laminated layers of wood, including some real hard ones, and leaving my unguarded left hand up above the cut, ready to get sliced again. I have revisited how I carve and changed the ergonomics of that process so that I do not put my hands onto so much potential danger. And I bought a pair of cut proof gloves and use one on my left, at the very least, when I work now.

I turned 50 this year. I’d like to be building 30 years from now. I eat better than I used to, get exercise every day, take vitamins, don’t smoke, and drink less than I used to: All of that would add up to an opportunity to grow older with a missing finger or two had I not looked at the big picture, made an honest assessment, and changed a few other things too.

So how old are you this year?

Day 28 - End of the Line

End of the Line

By the sound of things
it’s a bad place, but
not this time.

You know what they say,
get divorced once and
they’ll give you the benefit of
the doubt, but twice,
well…

And what are your chances
as a two time loser?

There I was, staring down
empty tracks at dust and
blowing tumbleweeds when
you walked out
of the heat-shimmer mirage.

Just like that
the end of days flipped and
life began.
Who knew?

Day 27 - Hopeful or Hopeless?

Appreciation of War

I posted a quote from a notorious
Louisiana tugboat Captain that read,
“I have no appreciation for war,
although it is a traditional human endeavor,
and I’m good at it.”

In response, a friend wrote,
“War – fascinating subject.
It’s primal as a spinal cord.
The old brain is good at it and
the new rejects it. A source of
conflict in most of us until
the old brain fades away?”

I wondered what Sherman and Grant
hunched over a camp fire with big
glasses of bourbon working would
have said to that?