s'up

collecting 

ceramic birds

wet socks

sand 

and fur

due diligence/but not always

Identify the goal. 

List actions items required to attain the goal. 

Anticipate challenges. 

Work each action item. 

Tackle any challenge. 

Tackle any unanticipated challenge. 

Be flexible if the path to the goal changes. 

Be flexible if the goal mutates. 

 

This will ensure you achieve your desired outcome, 

but not always. 

There is an unknowable variable at play.

This variable is the will of others. 

 

It’s okay to want conceptually, but not to want specifically. 

Take a deep breath. 

Be open to the possibilities before you.

cyclical

I worked…

              and worked one

so young so long so much

scrimping saving doing…

               without

he bought my youth

with nickels and dimes

divorce and drifting…

                more than surviving 

eating laughing connecting

doing things going places 

I dreamt myself into a

segue of pursing knowing 

scrimping saving doing…

               without 

one, two, three, four, five 

jobs I juggled if I needed 

               

back into the grind of two

one to get by one…

if I wanted I worked more

              and I got 

sick tired exhausted 

I dreamt myself into

to the joy of none

scrimping saving doing…

               without

pictures of me

 micellar water, no lotion 

Lines

dry shampoo,, no water 

Gray

fistfuls of ether

in a place where I can’t breathe 

the weight of nothingness 

reaching in overlong, reaching out

gasping, grasping air in huge gulps 

fistfuls of ether dissipating 

eroding into a half-lit dark

everything is damp, cold with it;

flesh, cloth, moisture-clouded glass

lungs; things grow in crevices here

in the place where I can’t breathe 

22 years

tomorrow will be 22 years since you’ve been gone:

I wonder how you would have aged.

where would you be in the world, where would I?

could the world have been different?

or was your passing a fixed event, destined?

does life unfold the only way it can? 

could? has? will?  

Yup

Ikigai eludes me, fleeting 

on the peripheral, floating 

then suddenly wet grass and dirt

fur on the tile, blanket, shirt

waking to walk then walking

again and again and again 

busy-work

One of my earliest memories was my dad saying “up and at it” and “get’er done”. I’m talking early grade school. Definitely sometime between 3rd and 6th grade.

I can’t be the only person my age who had too much time to think while walking home from school that young, growing up too fast. 

So I’ve never been good at waiting or leaving things up to others, especially if  I think I’m not a priority to them. I’ve always preferred to do things myself, depend on myself, and own my mistakes when I make them.

It’s uncomfortable and overwhelming to depend on others, on someone else's judgement and determinations, excuses for inaction. 

It’s uncomfortable and overwhelming to exist in limbo, waiting, filling time with busy-work.

cold has crept

Too late, the cold has crept

into bones and breath

temple to temple it stretches 

behind eyes taught

Gray skies, damp walls

a soul softly shackled 

to shuffling feet, legs

stiff with winter blues

Unmooring

The things I want to do are stuck until one little thing occurs. 

Shedding a life took three years. 

It was mostly physical; documenting my job at work, preparing the house to sell, gifting, selling, donating everything. Whittling away until my life was constrained to four duffles, three boxes, and a crate of art. 

The goal was clear, steps toward achieving my goal were attainable.

It was late March when I retired, early June when I drove cross country, and late July when I crossed the ocean. It was summer. The world was bright, a stunning white-hot. 

Unmooring took weeks. It was mostly psychological: depending on others, the impatience of waiting, the inability to take action. Limbo gave me too much time to sit with my own thoughts and the a lack of purpose except to “wake eat, sleep, repeat” overwhelmed. 

December, January, February, dark skies, cold, rain. Winter drags on as I drift without control. 

in winter, the dying leaves of autumn rot

everything is damp here, and

where the dying leaves settle 

the path is slick on old

stone sidewalks cobbled;

a reminder of a day past.

happiness as two steps 

at a time were taken

landing, sliding,

skinning palms and knees

through jeans ripped

stained bloody;

portent of a marriage 

ending and a heart

never quite mending.

in winter, the dying

leaves of autumn rot,

not just here, but there

where I existed too long.

yester-morrows

sorrow sits, nestled in 

her palms outstretched

tinging a life of walkabouts 

and yester-morrows

guns or fireworks

My little ‘hood in East Dallas was sandwiched between one of million dollar homes and a ghetto I didn’t like to drive through alone. We were mostly middle class? Lower middle class? Monetarily thrifty? Just people with jobs who settled in to a place we could almost afford, or older residents who had purchased new and were nearing death.

When I first moved in, the house on the furthest corner near where I wouldn’t drive, caught fire. Curious, many of us flocked over only to see firemen pulling plants out of a smoldering garage. 

When helicopters were seen, we’d wonder if they were traffic or police. We called them all Ghetto Birds. Around holidays, weekends, and the random weekday, we’d hear loud pops and wonder if it was guns or fireworks. Flat tires were common from the foot-deep potholes and ruts. We knew each other, closely and loosely, wondered and gathered randomly, share food and woes. Some came, some went, some stayed, one or two caused havoc.

I woke up missing my house, the yard, space to dwell. It wasn’t much, the gentrification was encroaching by the time I sold, but it was mine and the people I knew were true.

oh Sisyphus, you’re a dumb f—-

For a long time, I thought we are all ruled by Karma, but no matter how much I tried to be good and true so that only good would come back to me, shit has always seemed to happen, often tides of it. All at once. One after the other. Randomly out of the blue.

Concurrently, I thought Murphy’s Law seemed more applicable: if it can happen, it will happen. My mother’s birth father was a Murphy though, so it seems reasonable to add ‘and it always happens to a Murphy’.

Lately, my thoughts wander to Sisyphus, rolling that boulder up that hill for all eternity. The moral is that he’s supposedly happy. Unlike Sisyphus, the struggle is not enough to fill my heart. I find it exhausting. Physically. Emotionally. Intellectually.

Sisyphus was really a dumb fuck. Was the path up the mountain so narrow he couldn’t step aside, let the boulder go, destroy someone else’s life?

oh to be the cream

the nearer I am to ether, the

 less consumed am I with those

 there already, or lovers past, passions

connecting to an eternal 

other;

           wrapped in self

contemplations less fragmented 

but prefer the resonance of

my own deep breaths

rattling in my chest 

girl, you’ll be a woman soon

When I first bought my house in Texas, it was May. I’d sit at the kitchen table with the back door open, watching my girls in the doorway watching the rain, turning to look at me in wonder every few moments. They had played wild every moment since the fence went up, no leash tethered from my wrist to their harness. 

I wanted to open the door today and watch the rain here in Portugal, but it isn’t the same. There’s no green grass out the window, only cobblestone roads and neighbors that live too close.

The day is just gray, no sweet girls to observe, to adore.

we all age

The concepts of time and age are fluid, out in ether beyond my grasp, but a rock in my gut at the same time. 

We all age, but do we? Really? 

Xgen

 Lost but never found

Yet always knowing where we were

Working to fill the days

And buy the milk

The music that sustain/ed us.

“ And when you really-really need it the most, that's when rock and roll dreams come through” ~ Meatloaf 

in winter, Evora

it’s more damp than cold

laboring breaths of air too thick

sleep, deep, a clammy sweating

waking in a not too early morn

that’s overly dark, echoing drops 

pooling water on tile darkening 

streaks on the walls from the window 

home

tried it on today, home, the 

word, the ideal

is it Texas, place of my birth, my

coming of age, Where the hours grew to

years then deaths, Where I played 

in dirt and dreamt, fought to be

is it northwest Where my

father remarried resettled, found

new family, new life

is home a place, Where blood resides

fixed Where things are stored

transient Where I lay my head at night

Where I’m going

Where I’ve just left 

is it Where I’m from

Where I live now

home seems a memory 

not yet come forth