Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending

The long bowed wood left marks on the hardwood floor, so we tried to keep the rocker on a rug. It didn't work and every house would have these streaks where our rocking had stripped wax off. Memory is a hesitant thing, a thing best left on shelves for rainy days. What troubles me is remembering, remembering August ninth- nineteen ninety five. A boundary day, a before and after day. He wasn't just a guitar player missing the upper bird digits of his wing-ed finger. He wasn't just a singer, who often strayed off key. I struggle to write what he was, and still is,   some 16 years later as I remember remembering. That day was long neglected friendship calling just to see how I was holding up, sorting through dated and venued bootlegs, listening to over-mixed studio CDs, holding my two black dogs and rocking and crying, and rocking and crying. Once a year we made a trip, made arrangements for inside. Locking knowing eyes with...

I'd been promising myself I'd write a poem every day during my too short two week vacation.  Most years I'm in Colorado dealing with my mom's inability to do anything quietly or the franticness that my sister approaches buying presents for her husband's side of the family.   But, this year, I'm home and really wanting to spend my time writing.  Usually that involves poetry, but this year, the essay seemed to tickle my muse and I've found myself drawn to the form again and again.    So, here I am, Christmas morning and I'm thinking and wanting to get my thoughts down on paper because I don't really know what I'm thinking until I put it down on paper (virtual paper). The pattern this year seems to be to really break down how art works (or at least how I see art working),  so after finding myself talking about my set at the Green Mill and my next morning conversation with Marc I thought I'd get it down and relate it to Louis CK's show ...

Bond.   James Bond. I've been on a bit of a Bond binge, dabbling round the series, taking stock, wondering why the series kept me engaged for all these years. Now, I'm not one who'd argue that it was some sort of pinnacle cinema, yet, there is something comforting, something suburban about seeing them all again. Back before the VCR, I'd watch them when they aired on ABC, and in high school...I'd make sure I saw them when they came out, and now I'm revisiting them again and strangely intrigued once again. What is it about nostalgia? about the romanticized life that my adulthood has never resembled?

I'm not one to advocate, nor am I much into prescriptive rules, and really love language and words, but a thought occurred to me today and I want to tease it out. Let's just eliminate the word "disposable" in the hope that the concept will be rethought. Cause you see nothing is really disposable. Disposable plates, napkins, forks, etc. get put in some landfill where at best they're somehow recycled. Even plastic, given time, will break down into something, so its not really disposable. Perhaps relocated. Now, this poem would take a possible leftist bent if I pointed out that we really treat people as disposable:   forced labor being discarded, but at their best their bodies are recycled if the sentience just sort of disappears. So, planning a picnic, party, or social get together? Why not just use cleanable dishes as opposed to dishes to just pass on to others whether that be now or 50,000 years.

August 9, 1995 I'm not exactly sure what I was doing, but I know I wasn't happy. My first long term relationship was winding down and I was restless, unsure of the promise that it once held, and ignoring plaintive appeals from my muse to write more, get involved in something larger than myself and lonely. There were moments that held a clarity for me, that shifted me off whatever path I'd been on, and hearing the chorus to "Fire on the Mountain" from outside the amphitheater in Kansas sparked some weird cognizance in my LSD addled brain and I had to get back in. The security guard did not agree. After getting pummeled we came to some measure of understanding and I passed the rest of that concert --July 4th, 1991--on my own. This was a turning point for me Jerry, and however clichè it may sound I became a "Deadhead," a hippy, jumping into some other way of being that I still struggle to define. What I was melted...