100 Reasons

Sitting on the old Raggedy Ann inspired ripped brown leather couch I got from somewhere, some alley or some side street or maybe even some sideshow...foam coming out of the arms like a teddy bear chewed up by a pit bull, but it’s comfortable...what do I care...replace it when somebody puts a better one at the curb...maybe...utterly bored and I need something to take my mind of this boredom...look over at the real fake wood shelf, an unopened bottle of scotch that some old girlfriend gave me a few holidays ago...I’m not a scotch drinker, she should of known that, maybe that’s why she’s an old girlfriend...hope the scotch has aged better than she has...I don’t mean to be mean but she’s looking pretty rough these days...amphetamines will do that...no other choice of alcohol...no gin, no vodka, no beer, no bartender to mix something up...no nothing but that scotch so that’ll have to do...need a drink or two and a new point of view...pick up the bottle, wipe the dust off the beautiful brown glass and open it...I take a swig and we are introduced to each other..and she looks real good to me...the beginning of a beautiful relationship...now I know that there are a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t drink anymore, but I can’t think of one right now...the sun’s going down now, shadows on the wall bleed into darkness...I should just relax but I can’t for my generation is a suspicious one, suspicious of the future, suspicious of the past, suspicious of the coming generations as the generations before us were of us and I’m suspicious that something is coming but I don’t know what and that makes me suspicious...I just know that I’m suspicious...put it aside I tell myself, all I know is I got this bottle of scotch and the evening has just improved...the phone rings and it’s the kind of ring that just sounds unimportant and I should answer it but I don’t, I just let it ring and ring and ring...there’s nobody I want to talk to anyway...leave me alone...it's sticky hot and the windows barely open in this studio I call my humble abode and you can’t get much more humble than this...the fan is going in circles like I do most of the time...it’s depressing and dirty but there’s nowhere to go...writing poetry sure ain’t a first class ticket to anywhere...but there’s nobody to blame but me...I try to blame my mother, my father, my sister, my friends...but that wouldn’t be the truth and I know it...Shakespeare wrote; cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once, of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear; seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come...I have no idea why the hell that came to me just now or why I remember that but there’s that...so here it is on Sunday night and I look around and see the fishbowl on the table...I feel sorry for that fish and sometimes I feel imprisoned like he must feel...just floating around aimlessly confined to that little bowl with no place to go...I’d get him a playmate but his kind just attack other fish, even if they’re the same species...I wonder if it has dreams, longs for a big ocean to swim in...yeah, I felt sorry for him but if he was in that ocean he’d probably be just some other fishes breakfast so maybe it’s better this way...so it’s my couch, my scotch, and my fish for the rest of the night.

Bowling Night

Walking through the two sets of old dirty glass doors onto well worn carpet, the sounds of PRKKKK, PRKKKK hitting you, the smell of some kind of chemically smelling oil, dingy lights and crowds of people gathered around...balls rolling down the lane, old fashioned black ones, blue ones, red ones, green ones, yellow ones, every color of the rainbow ones, multi- colored spinning celestial spheres happily hooking into pockets like thieves with plastic or urethane or reactive resin fingers and doing their damage...PRKKKK again, as all the wood slams together in violent lovemaking or sometimes a lone ranger stands, or a wooden pin glaring back with a few of his friends...or sometimes a THUMP and a silent shameful roll down the gutter...oh, the humanity!...high fives, awful shirts, rental shoes, beer frames so gotta strike now!, laughing, head shaking, stomping...plenty of pitchers of beer to be seen, pizzas, wings, hamburgers...the smell of french fries cooking...food at bowling alleys is usually pretty good...people standing in line at the bar between shots to get some shots...little lockers where some people keep their prized 12 or 14 or 16 pound possessions...maybe some of them even live in there...older men and their brand of camaraderie and humor, a guy and a girl bowling together, first date maybe?...he’s trying not to beat her too badly, or maybe her him...all around you hear laughing, yelling...employees out for a company outing ‘bonding’ where everyone looks awkward and the boss smiles and laughs too much... “More beer, more wings, anything else?” asks the boss man, but everybody shakes their head and just wants to get the hell out of there as soon as they can...some people being yelled at for not being ready to bowl...but if they’re standing in line at the bar, they get a pass...PRKKKK, PRKKKK...in new alleys, TV’s above the lanes for those who are attention challenged...music videos, football or soccer games...arcades behind the lanes for the kiddies...an announcement...“NEED BALL RETURN ON LANE 36”...a ‘pro’ shop run by an old guy who fancies himself as a bowling guru...although he never was a pro and although no pros ever bought anything there...league bowlers trying to win trophies that will mean so much to them that if won’t be too long before they’ll be collecting dust on some shelf in the garage...or maybe pick up some money in a pot...PRKKKK, OHHHHHH, and other shouts...the P. A. says for so and so to pick up the red line for a call, but it’s barely audible...RED LINE, RED LINE...or GREEN LINE, GREEN LINE again...people with house balls and shoes...people with expensive personal balls and bags and their own shoes...‘professionals’ or at least they think they are...all the mannerisms, fist pumps...a few are in the pocket, many are still somewhere on the lane, some of us are in the gutter...but hey, we’re looking at the stars, right?...people ‘striking out’ in the 10th frame, PRKKKK, PRKKKK, PRKKKK! to win the game for their team...heroes for that night, games over, people filing out, parking lot emptying out, the alleys go silent, lights down.

Tarot

What is commonly called the Tarot is a deck of playing cards that are used for fortune telling in the form of what said practitioners call tarotology or cartomancy…they aren’t your father’s playing cards, unless of course your father had Tarot cards...the history of the cards can be traced back by some writers of the occult to the days of pyramids, Cleopatra, and freshly minted mummies...all the way back to ancient Egypt, maybe even to the legendary Book of Thoth...but in reality, there’s no proven evidence of such origins or of the usage of tarot for divination before the 18th century… that’s when a man called Etteilla, a.k.a. Jean-Baptiste Alliette was the first to issue a tarot deck that was specifically designed for occult purposes and introduced it to the masses who couldn’t get enough of this exoticness…his tarot contained themes that were related to ancient Egypt even though as stated, there was no documented connection...those who practice Tarot reading will bring a person into a room...usually dark and mysterious looking to set the proper ‘mood’...they will sit down and the Tarot reader looking every inch the part of an all seeing mystic will begin the process...he or she will slowly and carefully lay out the cards and then give the subject a long deep look, and then render their interpretation in carefully measured tones...sometimes favorable, other times not...can somebody’s future really be told through these Tarot cards?...well, that depends of how much you believe in the art...and remember that the reading of such cards may not be what you want to hear, so prepare yourself for the up and the down and the lowdown...only time will tell if the Tarot is correct…some tarot cards aren’t used to foretell the future...but for our paranormal loving purposes, we look at the tarot cards used for ‘occult’ reasons and ponder whether they might have the answers to our future...there are many psychic ‘shops’ that will do tarot readings for you, but find an authentic Tarot specialist for the best results...one thing’s for sure, when the cards are laid on the table, you don’t want to see the card of death, the ten of swords, five of pentacles, three of swords, the Tower, or the devil...those are bad news...death, betrayal, financial disaster among other badness.

Communicating With Spirits In The Great Beyond

In the world of the paranormal where ‘normal’ takes a back seat, someone who is known as a channeler is a person who has the other world ability to communicate with the spirits from the great beyond, that is those who have left the mortal world for the spiritual one...the act of channeling happens when the channeler/medium enters into what is called an 'altered state of consciousness', not the kind we find ourselves in sometimes, but a consciousness of a higher state...this state is what gives the person the power to become what is called a conduit or 'channel' for the spirit to reach out and communicate with them…the medium reaches out to contact a deceased individual and then the channeler can then become a middle man of sorts...a source of middle ground between the living and the dead...basically in essence, this is the kind of work that a medium does…communicating with the dead on behalf of the living, and relaying any messages back and forth...a medium has several different ways in which they can work…the best-known forms are when a spirit purportedly takes control of a medium's voice and uses it to relay a message to those who are still living…or sometimes the medium will ‘hear’ the message psychically and then relay it to others…other methods may involve the actual materialization of the spirit or the audible presence of a voice…this often happens during a séance…one thing that is vital to remember…not all psychics are mediums, however all mediums are psychics…know too that many mediums have been exposed as frauds and charlatans who duped people for profit…what they often did was that they gained access to a clients’ personal information one way or another without the client knowing of course, to make the client believe the medium had psychic powers…but other mediums are legitimate...those kind of mediums ignore the skeptics to demonstrate their powers but instead quietly work  in the background offering their services to individuals who wish to communicate with the spirits...for a look at how channeling sometimes ‘works’, watch the classic ‘Charlie Chan at Treasure Island’ starring Sidney Toler and Cesar Romero.

Sunday Afternoon With Lucy

Lazy Sunday afternoon in the middle of winter, loafing on the couch looking for something to watch on television, should’ve known better...football season over and I don’t care for basketball...went through the potato chips and was setting my sights on whatever else I had laying around the house not being fussy...in younger days, only eight channels to choose from, yet I could usually find something to watch that was somewhat interesting...today though was a challenge...a college basketball game between Eastern Somebody and Western Somebody Else didn’t hold my interest since I hadn’t bet on either, so I went channel surfing and it was a light chop...came upon an old episode of ‘Here’s Lucy’ starring Lucille Ball who was a big star in the 50’s...it was showing on some religious channel for some reason...hell, that’s probably all they could afford...I’m not one to watch religious channels...I might learn something...but there wasn’t anything else on and this old show caught my eye...frequent commercial breaks...where they had a pair of smiling wholesome looking hosts asking for money of course and the hosts told us they were proud to show programs such as ‘Here’s Lucy’ and called it great family entertainment...yeah Jack, but whose family?...maybe fifty or sixty years ago this may have been true in what was a simpler, innocent society but now?...I seriously doubt any families were gathered around the television today watching Lucy...Mom’s trying to finish up her consulting work on the computer, Dad should be out in the garage installing a manifold or fixing a carburetor but I forgot this is modern times so Dad’s washing the clothes and straightening his apron getting ready to cook dinner...kids either aren’t home or are locked away in their rooms looking at their phones, listening to music, and doing who knows what with them...not enough car chases, shootouts, or people saying fuck this or fuck that to keep anybody’s interest these days...too much dysfunction, dysfucksion, and jadedness...it wasn’t long before I grew tired of the host’s earnestness and pleas for money and continued my search...the next channel was an obscure one that featured an even more obscure old black and white western...god, where they dig this one up from?...I watched for a few minutes and didn’t recognize anybody in it...it seemed to me that it must have been made in the 1940’s based on the poor video and sketchy audio...I’m not sure I could have recognized anybody in it even if I knew them...they used to make spaghetti westerns, but this film lacked both the spaghetti sauce and the pasta...it was pure crap on a chipped plate...I couldn’t imagine that anyone else in my viewing area was actually watching it...if there was another television tuned to it, it probably occurred when a dog accidentally stepped on a remote control...even then, dogs have got more sense than to watch that garbage and then probably went in the bedroom to jump up on the bed and take a nap...there were some infomercials that desperately wanted my money, what little of it I had, and they weren’t getting it...finally gave up and turned the TV off wondering how there was always something decent to watch on those eight channels long ago.

21 Guns

His life was 20 guns short of a 21 gun salute...he must have been born under a bad star like when the planets are in an unfortunate alignment, if you believe in that kind of hocus-pocus stuff...when he was born, he wasn’t born crying, it was with clenched fists and a snarl on his face...he always had an attitude but he didn’t have much else...grew up in the dark unfriendly jagged broken glass streets of a city where the bright pretty skyscrapers of downtown that were so close might of well have been on the other side of the moon...far far away on the dark side...even then he thought he was cursed or that the world was somehow plotting against him in some kind of giant conspiracy, all designed to keep him down, knock him down, down to the ground, pounded to the ground, ground up and to be spit upon, spit up and spit out...him against the world and the world was an overwhelming favorite...and if you were betting the over/under on him, you definitely would bet the under...as he grew up, he carried anger around with him like most people carry a wallet, stuffed in his pocket and he was all too quick to pull it out and show the pictures inside of it to anyone who got in his way...pictures of rage, petulance, defiance...in a strange way, he was proud of this...his ‘not taking anything off anybody’ attitude...his record of run-ins with the law was a longplay and a two volume set...he glared too much, he talked too much, he drank too much, he fought too much...he thought too much yet he thought too little...he was long on consternation and short on imagination...he was the poster boy of the angry young man...the chip on his shoulder was more like a mountain range that stretched from the east coast of aggression to the west coast of surliness...everything was an affront to him, his defense was to take offense at anything that came his way, he growled that he never got any lucky breaks like other people did...he always drew the short end of the stick...he strutted around like he was the baddest man on the planet and refused to back down from anyone...intimidation was his calling card...he picked fights like other people pick what to have for lunch...but like they say, no matter how bad you are, there’s always somebody badder than you...and he found that out on one nothing special summer night in the big city where there is a lot of angry young men who had it bad growing up just like him...he managed to get by with this baggage until somebody who indeed was a little badder than him pulled out a .38 special and put a bullet into his anger...and with it, everything else inside of him drained out of him onto a one way street that led to a dead end...everybody ran away and anyone who was asked about it said it was too dark and they didn’t see anything, or that it all happened so fast that they weren’t sure just what did happen...as it were, he lay dead there face down in the street, just short of 21...he never got the chance to evolve from an angry young man into an angry old man of which the world has far too many.

Cruise

Walking the gangway, heading for the Lido deck...hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs...food’s ready...tacos, subs, ice cream...old people holding each other up...family reunions where everyone has the same color t-shirt...soon to be married couples hoping for the perfect sunset for pictures to be taken...parents with kids screaming to go swimming...wooden decks outside, heavy duty swirly carpets in...standing on deck as ship shoves off...waving to no one in particular and there is no one at the pier waving, not like old newsreels of throngs of dockside people waving, streamers, a real event...ship pulls away...hot sun beating down...oceanview cabin with porthole...announcement...all passengers to report to muster station for safety meeting...procedures read...none would be followed by passengers in real emergency...all the employees are from Hungary, Russia, Slovenia, Philippines, Moldovia, or some other place like that...full from lunch, go back to cabin and use bathroom to make room for dinner...look out porthole and see nothing but sea...brief nap...time for dinner...fish, steak, pasta, lamb,...you don’t like it, they bring you something else...coffee, wine...dessert...tonight it’s chocolate volcano cake...waddling back to room...laying on bed watching tv...before long, a phone call...pizza and ice cream are calling you from Lido deck...come for emergency pow-wow...people in line already...eating ice cream while waiting for pizza and vice versa…sun setting, photos, miniature golf...EDM playing, no one dancing...people with beer bottles welded to their hands for the next 4 days...wearing swimsuits WAY too small...ugly, cheap tattoos...evening of darkness now...lights on the front, lights on the back, lights everywhere...lights of another cruise ship off in distance...feel like The Californian...Lido deck emptying out...pool not so crowded...people in hot tubs...back to the room, storm coming up...boat swaying and making grunting/crashing sounds all night...next morning, breakfast...eggs, steak, toast, waffles, orange juice, tea, milk, cereal...folks who normally don’t even eat breakfast filling their tummies...fun day at sea...at the library enjoying the quiet...gazing out the window at the seemingly endless water...looking through the telescope and seeing more endless water...occasionally a container ship drifts by in the distance...two ships passing in the night...people crawling around like ants on deck...pool jammed, bars jammed, restaurants jammed, library practically empty...pulling into port, small tourist area for shopping and taxis ready to whisk you off to an excursion (at a premium price), restaurants there too but why eat there?...go back to the boat for another ‘free’ lunch or more accurately one that’s paid for already...take a nap...then time for dinner...BBQ ribs please...should have brought bigger pants...Lido deck has Italian theme...spaghetti, ravioli, chicken cacciatore, lasagna, rolls, butter, and the satellite food court rotating around it like planets in orbit handing out deli sandwiches and more pizza and more and more ice cream...make intended port on the third day...by the fourth night, the deck isn’t too crowded in the evening, few swimmers...deck chairs completely empty... fatigue, overeating, novelty having worn off...people in their cabins now, ship pulling back in to home port in the morning.

Are Spiders Ever Happy?

I was dreading having to go outside that day...the brightness was something I couldn’t turn down with a remote control,  the whole picture in my head was turning cartwheels...flipping and flipping like some kind of cheerleader who drank too much Red Bull...my head had been a bass drum played all too loud that morning...but there was some scraggly grass to mow, a lot of long weeds to trim, branches to cut back...didn’t want the holy homeowners committee to send me a little nastygram informing me they were going to slap a lien on my house if I didn’t fall into line with their standards of what was acceptable...so there I was walking around out in the backyard in the oppressive heat to do some of this beloved yard work one hot, steamy Saturday afternoon...I felt like I was in the middle of Death Valley...when I saw this massive spider web...I mean massive...now I’ve seen a lot of spider webs in my time, but the construction and size of this one was impressive...Frank Lloyd Wright couldn’t have designed something better...I peeked inside and saw the first floor had living and dining areas that formed virtually one uninterrupted living space, the kind of place that he chilled and listened to some cool jazz in his downtime and entertained...it was a two-story web with a series of cantilevered balconies and terraces...a sloping high-pitched roof, the kind you see in Germany or Switzerland...broad overhanging eaves, strong horizontal lines, prominent large windows, a gigantic central chimney, built-in customized cabinetry, and a wide use of natural materials—especially stone and wood...the second floor was where the bedrooms were, the master was spacious with a walk-in closet the size of my house, and several guest rooms that were lavishly appointed...the entire web was spotless and I don’t know what he pays his help, but she or they deserved a raise…there was also a three car attached garage and an Olympic size pool around the back...I couldn’t get a good look at it because of the massive privacy fence around it...I looked around but I couldn’t find the architect of this creation who no doubt also lived in this mansion...maybe he was out on a book tour signing some architecture books in a bookstore somewhere for $25 a piece...or he was hitting the talk show circuit...or flying his private jet around the country...he might of just been out playing some golf with his friends at Pebble...I don’t know...but it must have taken this spider a long time and a lot of hard work to make this gigantic thing; I wondered what his property taxes were on the place...I noticed there was a sign in his front yard indicating that he had won yard of the month from the beloved homeowners association for the perfectly manicured grounds...everything was perfectly perfect...doing it all in his head...no blueprints to work off of...it probably belonged in a museum...this spider was the Michelangelo of spiders...a painting of it really belonged in the Louvre, or at least in the Musee D’Orsay...people could come from all over the world to admire it and take selfies in front of it...I appreciated how hard it must have been to do...and the time involved...I felt kinda bad about it but hell, it was in my way, so I knocked it down with a stick and went about my business...I’m guessing the spider wasn’t happy with me about this when he got back from Ibiza or wherever he was, but I wonder if spiders are ever happy.

Airports

Anticipation, excitement, waiting...there’s something exciting about being there, even if you’re not going anywhere yourself... “United Airlines Flight 272 from San Francisco now arriving at Gate 44” comes over the airport sound system, cloudy floor to ceiling windows, massive machines falling from the sky...weighing tons, gliding down from visiting The Seventh House, touching down, going down the runway gracefully like a model...still a wonder...Airbus 320 up up and away...low flying planes these days, still stealing my gaze...at night powerful headlights breaking through the sky and to the other side, from a distance coming closer and closer... pretty flashing red and green lights winking...“Paging Mr. William Carson, please pick up the red line for an urgent message...Mr. William Carson”... people coming to vacation, people coming to give most important business presentations soon forgotten, people coming to see family and friends...“American Airlines Flight 727 for Las Vegas with continuing service to San Diego now boarding at gate 29”...engines thundering, gaining speed, motoring down the runway, magically rising like some storybook carpet from a children's’ fairy tale into baby blue and cotton candy skies...soaring to its destination...Paris, London, Tokyo, Lima, Rome or a million places on the globe...disappearing into the clouds...or farther than the eye can see...“Ms. Samantha Wolf, please meet your party in the mezzanine”...in the Manchester, New Hampshire airport they used to have a replica of a big moose in the lobby...it was funny to hear “Mr. Gary Hohman, please meet your party at the moose”...people sleeping, laying down on hard plastic seats, fidgeting, looking at their phones, digging through carryons...“British Airways now calling passengers Julie Christian, Gracie Brown, Patty Doina, and Sochi Lopez, please come to gate 33 immediately”...lower concourse...‘urrrrrrrrrrrr, urrrrrrrrrrrr’, yellow lights on the wall flashing...with that the baggage carousels begin moving and slithering like giant snakes in Arizona...the suitcases start to come out of the mysterious regions, mystical  neverlands where they are currently residing on some kind of astral plane...going around and around and around and around, anxious wide-eyed children waiting patiently and looking to be claimed by their nervous parents...shiny new suitcases fresh, worn ones with gray beards, elderly ones with walkers wrapped with twine with owners hoping they’ll stay together for one more trip…“last call for Allegiant Flight 422 for Kansas City which is now boarding at gate 15”...coming from the gate into the terminal...dressed up limousine drivers holding up signs with names...waiting to whisk the owner of that name away to a fancy downtown 5-star...maybe family members waiting excitedly to see their loved ones come in...I’m a bigger misanthrope than most, but it still makes me feel good to see the hugs and kisses and smiles when people are greeting one another and genuinely happy to see each other...getting late now, terminal emptying out, tomorrow morning busy again.

Apartment In The Sky

My grandmother’s apartment was on the 22nd floor in a highrise in a low income area and you always took your life in your hands whenever we visited her...thank god I was only born in a hospital there and didn’t live there...we lived in the suburbs...to get to her place, you drove past a 9 hole golf course on the edge of town where I learnt my game...I spent quite a few days playing there with my old man...I understand it’s not there anymore and I don’t even know if her old apartment building is still there...you went by a shopping center where we used to take her...she didn’t care about shopping...she just liked to get some coffee and people watch...or we’d go out to lunch, where she’d say “damned hamburger, French fries, and Coke...that’s all he ever orders”, talking about my menu choice...hey, I was only like 9 or 10 at the time and nothing came close to her cooking...the city’s barely there and it wasn’t much better back in the day...you’d drive further into the city and see bombed out ruins or what look like bombed out ruins of churches, gas stations, shopping malls, burned out houses and schools...it looked like WWII happened there...practically the whole city looked like it had been the target of some Luftwaffe bombing missions...she had lived there or thereabouts for fifty years running her own restaurant and living in various apartments, she didn’t want to leave, but she couldn’t take care of herself any longer...she had divorced her first husband, and the second one she said “throw him in a ditch” when he died...he hadn’t made prior burial arrangements and she didn’t want to be bothered...I remember going into her apartment and it had that ‘old people’s smell’ to it...once she started cooking though...bacon and onions for homemade dumplings, roast chicken...oh man...my Mom helped her in the kitchen making Khvorost...that’s a Russian crispy dessert-like sweet made out of dough, shaped into twists and deep-fried...then you sprinkle some powdered sugar on it...yum...she used to slip me a few dollar bills even though she didn’t have many herself…when first approached about moving to a ‘seniors’ home, she said she didn’t want to live with a bunch of ‘damned old people’...of course most of them were younger than she was...but, she acquiesced...when the nurses at the facility kept stealing her Listerine, she pissed into a bottle...they stole that but they quit stealing after that...Listerine at least...the nursing home was full of bitter old people taken care of by nurses who came from the islands...some were nice and patient, most weren’t...anyway, when you get old, you become irrelevant and invisible to society...the avant garde becomes the old guard and the old guard keeps getting older...the ‘never trust anyone over 30’ crowd becomes the ‘never trust anyone under 30’ crowd...old age is a shipwreck Charles De Gaulle once said and I say we’re all captains of doomed vessels...we’re all going to the scrapyard...maybe it’s better to ‘die young, stay pretty’...but not too young of course...my doctor told me recently, that if I don’t quit drinking, I’d be taking years off my life...I told him I didn’t have any plans or desire for those last few years anyway.

Alexander In Paris

I finished off my pizza, my perfect pepperoni pineapple pizza prepared promptly in Paris by Pierre.I was eating at an outdoor table at the pizzeria because that’s what you do when you’re in Paris...you eat outside.I drank my kir and my red wine and another glass of red wine or two and started back to the hotel. The streets are crowded and on the way back, I made a couple of stops.I went to the souvenir store where I got the relatives some Eiffel Tower key chains and a French flag for me that I plan to fly out in the backyard when I get back.I keep seeing the classic French berets being sold in the stores, but I don’t see one person here actually wearing one here.I kept going and just had to stop at the local grocery store.I asked where the spirits were but the clerk didn’t speak English and I didn't want to try my luck in French, so I had to look around on my own. Lucky for me, I found them. When I got back to the hotel, it was too early to call it a night and introduce myself to the French speaking spirits, so I sat down on a bench outside. There were groups and couples and people on their phones walking by speaking French, English, and I don’t know what else. Big buses full of tourists pulling up and people getting off with big eyes. It must of been their first time here. They carried armfuls of suitcases shuffling from the bus to the front desk by baggage clerks with shiny black shoes that reflected the hotel lights. It looked like a giant airport baggage claim.
Some people were leaving, some people were arriving. Taxis gobbled up people and took them to the opera or to the theatre, or maybe just to a nice romantic dinner. Just to break up the routine, the occasional ER-ERR, ER-ERR, ER-ERR of the Paris gendarmes in their sporty little French police cars racing through the streets to the scene of the crime. Every time I hear it, I feel like I’m in a foreign film. Some kind of old spy thriller that they used to play on the late, late show. Just to play along I turn up the collar of my black trench coat and turn my head so they don’t recognize me as they go by. Ha,imagine me being wanted.I decided to crack open the bottle for a drink and just when I’ve given up all hope, I see a stylish middle aged woman walking what else?...a French poodle. The lobby is full of well dressed people. I'm sure they were all VIP’s. Every few minutes the Metro train passing by...Click-Clack, Click-Clack, Click-Clack, Click-Clack...rapidly as it rolls down the track to the station. It’s the number 6 train that takes you to The Louvre among other places and back. The train stops and the people spill out like water from a knocked over vase and all the drops disperse to their intended destinations.Probably they're little homes cutely appointed. Expensive apartments that I couldn’t ever afford with views of the Seine River. Probably a few low-rent places that resemble mine back home. I felt kind of intimidated to get on the Metro because the map of the routes looked like a plate of Brigitte’s old fashioned spaghetti. However, after a few days, I’m eating it up and I’m like a born Parisian getting around like a real monsieur. Now it’s getting dark and there’s a chill in the air, and the street lights up like a Christmas tree and the blurry headlights of cars are passing by.I kept hearing about how the French don’t like Americans, but I’ve met nothing by kind people since I’ve been here.I’m already dreading the thought of going home where there are a lot of ugly Americans.

Shiver

She is statuesque with horizontal inclinations and when she lays down gracefully on the four poster antique bed in this unassuming remote wood and stone cabin that I like to pretend is far from the real world because you just can’t get far enough away...her hair splashes across the pillow like a tube of mars black paint across a virgin white canvas...and all of a sudden, the room takes on the appearance of a luxurious boudoir at Versailles…a palace that seems to have stepped out of time and place and is too good to be true...some people look like they just stepped out of a shower...she looks like she just stepped out of a dream...a dream that you don’t dare to dream even in your wildest dreams because it couldn’t possibly come true, it just couldn’t...but here it is in front of me...her eyes are dark brown and warm like a cup of the finest, richest, purest, sweetest hot cocoa from a ski chalet somewhere in the Swiss Alps and it goes down easy and warms you like a liquid electric blanket ...they are loving and soothing like a warm glass of brandy as they glisten like the freshly fallen snow outside...when they look at me...well, I’m probably one of the more jaded souls, but I melt...she is smooth and silky...more milky than the Milky Way, twinkling like the billion stars above that shine from somewhere magical...she is like mighty Lake Michigan steaming on a cold, dark night...quietly inviting you to explore her shoreline...there may be danger, but the risk is worth the reward...when she moves, she’s as quiet as a whisper of wind over a mountain...every move she makes looks like it has been choreographed by Baryshnikov and practiced to perfection...every word she speaks is spoken with precision and in perfect pitch, and her smile could disarm an entire invading army...her skin is as soft as melting butter and her body is radiant and glows like one of those religious paintings that you would find in a resplendent church somewhere in the south of France or in a Paris museum, done by some old master whose name I can’t pronounce and whose depth I can’t even begin to comprehend...but I can appreciate the beauty...it’s enough to make me shiver and I think how lucky I am...the fireplace pops and crackles and I throw some more wood on and it’s like I felt like we were the only two people in the entire world, the entire universe even...and I hoped that the night would last forever...and on that night the moon rose and the rose moon into the grayish blue winter night sky that looked like it was being illuminated by some angelic power and the evergreens collected the softly falling pure snow on their branches and they hold onto it gently and gracefully like the old women ringing their bells and collecting coins and dollar bills in front of the stores in town; where there’s people in the Christmas spirit saying “Merry Christmas” to total strangers that they would totally ignore any other time of the year...and the lights downtown twinkle and glow and reflect in the store windows where some people sit in the coffee house and sip their hot drinks and the people outside walk crunch crunch crunch the snow beneath their boots.

Drinking With The Wolverine

I went to take a walk in the deep dark forest to visit my friend, the wolverine...at least I think he’s my friend...they say wolverines don’t have friends but he hasn’t tried to claw my eyes out so I guess I’m ok in his book...we’d been friends for quite awhile, ever since I went out drinking and found myself wandering in the woods and ran across him giving me an evil stare...so I offered him some cinnamon schnapps which he gladly accepted and we’ve been cool ever since...actually, we got a lot in common...we’re both solitary individuals trying to stay below the radar, and we do a lot of scavenging... he scavenges for food and I, well sometimes I do that too when I visit my friends houses and doing some dumpster diving for something that might bring a few bucks...we talked about the usual stuff like the weather and sports...he asked me how the Michigan Wolverines were doing and I said they lost their first game this year to Notre Dame 24-17...he shook his head and said “That figures. I shouldn’t let ‘em use my name, they haven’t been good in years” he said disgustedly as if he had a choice in the matter...they didn’t have newspaper delivery out this far and his wifi was really sketchy so he was pretty much out of touch...there was a chill in the air, winter would be coming soon and he’d been working hard and he had a stockpile of food that he’d caught...he asked me if I wanted some carrion and I would have jumped at the chance, but unfortunately I had eaten lunch already...however, he did have a bottle of Jack Daniels that he offered and of course I didn’t want to insult him by turning him down again...so he poured a couple of glasses and we reclined in his warm den and shot the breeze...neither one of us cares for humans...he bitched about getting pushed farther and farther out as the filthy humans (as he called them) were encroaching on his territory with yet another housing project or strip mall...he asked me if I knew a good lawyer and I said no but I knew a couple of good bartenders...we both let out a hearty laugh and watched the rain start to fall...we weren’t expecting that…he poured some more drinks and he told me about this new girlfriend he had and how hot she was and as usual he was probably exaggerating as you know most wolverines do...we had another drink or two and the rain kept falling like a bad stock...it was starting to get really muddy out now and I wondered about getting back home...I noticed his mood was starting to change...he was a mean drunk as they say, and he’d been in more than his share of bar fights...he was growing ferocious as he railed on and on about global warming...he hated big business and he hated politicians more...he was going on and on about Washington and conspiracy theories and I didn’t dare disagree with him...I figured it was time to get back to town before he started blaming me for it and tried to take it out on me...he offered me a ride, but I don’t think he was seeing too straight by this time and he already had a couple of DUI’s to his credit or some such thing...so rain be damned, I told him I’d be back next month or so and I started heading out...he asked me if I was sure I didn’t want to take some carrion with me for the road...I didn’t want to appear ungrateful, so I took some and thanked him and started back through the forest towards town...later on when I got to my place, I had dinner.

Ferrari

I spend my days writing and thinking and reading and doing the occasional poem or painting...and drink in between, or sometimes during, those long autumn nights and the days when the shadows are wicked crooked and the whole world looks more slanted than normal...and just feels different...you can’t explain it but it does...your jacket can’t keep you warm enough when the winds blow a mean horn like the trumpet man at the jazz club and it comes at you from every direction...up, down, full of sound, round and round, until you think you just about can’t take it anymore...you’re northbound, southbound, nowherebound...the notes are long and screechy and just keep stinging your ears...when nothing comes to you but your old nemesis named desperation and his friends depression, fear, and worry...they’re always on the front porch ringing the doorbell and banging on the door and they know you’re at home...and you wonder if you’ll ever come up with anything...if there’s any way out...so sometimes you’ve got to put down your brush or set aside your keyboard and instead decide to get a closer look at the bottom of your glass that sits on the worn down wooden bar in the Old Glory taproom, an old man’s bar where the old timers go to tell their old war stories to each other for the one thousandth time or so, over some Old Style beer and some free peanuts...as for you, it’s not a pretty picture...your life moans like an old man sitting down...and when you get a real good look at it...you want to turn away...there are times late at night when I lay in bed just thinking that things could be different...a couple of drinks will make you do that, although sometimes you don’t even need the drinks...yeah, a bad day is when you lie in bed and think what coulda been if you’d only...coulda, shoulda, woulda, but didn’t...a twist of lime here, a turn of the screw there, and you’d be top dog...god, it could have been all so different...you know god is dog spelled backwards and dog is god backwards...I do complain but like the junky old truck I have, it doesn’t get me anywhere...the complaining that is, and sometimes the truck...I sometimes wish I was a Ferrari, bright red, gleaming in the rays of a sun that shone brightly and made me look good...and a world that revolved around me...people at my beckon call...I could have the power and speed to do just about anything...I’d be roaring around the sleek, sexy curves of Monaco like a man delicately caressing the soft curves of a beautiful woman after a night out on the town...there’d be somebody who would want to take good care of me, and pamper me, make sure my needs were taken care of...crowds would gather around me and I would be the symbol, the object, the desire of so many...people would worship me and I can’t help but think how intoxicating it would be to watch the beautiful women...smiling with their arms opened wide wishing they could have me...I could get used to that...oh, how much easier life would be to be born with incredible good looks I would think...others just treat you better...you got an advantage on most people...people born with a silver spoon in their mouths should have it easy, but a lot of them fuck it up for some reason...I guess maybe they don’t know how good they have it...or maybe they just got a sense of entitlement that entitles them to nothing...I’m no Ferrari, so I guess I’ll have to be content with being a rusty, beat-up old Ford pickup truck.

Tassels of Yellow Waving Hello

I’m sitting out by the water enjoying the calm of a summer afternoon and then the trees suddenly start waving wildly when the wind comes up and the leaves banging together sound like applause...a storm is coming...I look across the lake and I see a mass of gray where there used to be little cottages just moments ago with boats bobbing up and down in the water while tied to old wooden piers with crooked heaving boards, most of which were built long ago and old as dirt country roads that lead to cornfields of green with tassels of yellow waving hello in the wind and further down the gravel roads are houses out of a Rockwell painting with large front porches with big swings, where the old folks sip a tall glass of lemonade...and teenage girls in short cut-off jeans and gingham shirts who smile shyly and toss their hair back while talking to neighbor boys wearing hats with John Deere and Pioneer on them...a little further down the road is a roadside stand with corn on the cob; $1.00/dozen...the same roads where I rode my motorcycle I got for my birthday...spending hours with nowhere to go...just down the gravel road where even the small bike makes a krrruuushhh sound when driving on it...clouds of dust rising on the dirt roads with anonymous names like 500E or 300N...stopping to pick a couple of ‘punks’; some kind of plant with a brown part on them like a cigar...I never knew or know now what they’re actually called...my sister and I would light the ends of them and they would smoke and we’d pretend like we were actually smoking...innocent days...sometimes when it was starting to get dark and I’d just listen to the silence...broken only by the sound of cows mooing as they headed back to the barn for the night, and then the crickets...I was just thinking those thoughts from simpler days when a crackle craaaaaaaaackkkk of lightning hits not too far away and I decide it might be a good idea to take things inside...not even the back porch is a safe haven from the electric fingers of Mr. Lightning, so I go inside to the basement where the kitchen is...maybe I’ll make some soup later...here’s another bright flash...like somebody just took a flash picture from about three feet away and I probably had my eyes closed...man this thing must be like right over my house...and here comes the thunder...BOOMboomboomboomboom...boomboom...and now it’s like God is holding a gigantic garden hose that was turned on full blast and it’s being held over my house...that lasts for a couple of minutes and then after that commotion it stopped raining entirely, soon after the insects began making a loud racket for a time and then as dusk sets in, they just stop all of a sudden and it is dead silent...that was really eerie...later, I sit on the old swing on my back porch and just rock back and forth going nowhere and going everywhere...the swing makes a comforting little squeak and an old transistor radio by my side playing top 40 hits with masking tape holding the batteries in...the radio pops and crackles as I scan the AM band looking for something good to listen to...I can get some of the Chicago stations, WOWO in Fort Wayne, WLAC in Nashville and on a clear night I can New York’s WABC too...if I’m in the mood for some baseball, I listen to WLW in Cincinnati and get the Reds games, Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall on the call...I sit and stare out at the darkness, radio softly playing...only a few lights across the lake are visible and then the occasional headlights of a car that shine as they twist and turn through the blackness to their garages where they will sleep comfortably, warm and snug for the night.