This month is a lot of things. Hot and humid are two of them. Not really the focus of this post. But then, not much is the focus. I lost track of the concoctions conjured from the produce of the CSA. Last Tuesday was National Night Out, so we had a block party. What were you doing that evening?
This month is also the dog days of summer. Although, we saw many more sun dogs in the cold crisp air of winter. Out over the airport in the mornings. Spectacular and free. Besides, the dog don't seem to care much of these days. Her tongue hangs there like a towel caught in a waterfall, flipping spit and looking wholly uncomfortable.
Times like this my unspoken desire to be a reptile almost becomes verbal on an hourly basis. If I have to watch any more war videos or workplace shootings on the radio I swear I'll give up my frontal cortex for relief from the need to stay warm. Of course, the crows perched on the church steeple disagree - loudly. And I don't mess with crows. (the bird kind; the human ones messed with me) Is it me, or do crows get bigger every year? One day, I expect we'll hear one carried off a Smart Car, then got pissed when it realized it was not the Mother of All Snails. I spent some time trying to convince a flock of crows to sit still and quiet in People's Park (DeKalb, IL) with a wandering Native one long afternoon. So many stories were told that day, I'm still not certain who was talking. Perhaps all of us at once. Birds are warm-blooded like us, but still feel their ties to the dinosaurs, see? We came up as egg-stealers and those bird-brains got long memories, I fear. Alfred knew this, of that I have little doubt.
Enough about brains. They are either over-rated or under-recognized. Probably both. Either way, humility is a bitter fucking pill at times. Apparently, civil engineers are relearning lessons from exoskeleton clan. Take a look.
Lately I have been feeling distinctly bacterial, at least in my root hairs. We have been thinking collectively - or not thinking collectively, but in a positive way. I think its positive, anyway, but "I" don't have much leverage in this thought pattern. A molecular itch. An unsaturated synapse. That thing that don't quite fit. The ghosts of desire taunt every empty receptor. They are orphans, you know. Those bacterial proteins directed by some of our most ancient genes. Fossils some call them, but I disagree because we make them every second - and fossils do not reproduce. But then, I think viruses are as alive as I am. That ain't much but it is what we got.
August.
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I think I've lived a little too long on the outskirts of town. I think I'm going insane from talking to myself for so long.
Blame it on Cain. Don't blame it on me. Its nobody's fault, but we need somebody to burn.
Every single time that I feel a little stronger, they tell me its a crime. How much longer?
August creeps steadily.
More beets this week. Tomatoes too. Some a deep purple and green, others a shade of red of which only French women dream on the hottest night of the decade. Plus the yellow cherry-type from the Farmers market. I eat them all.
The steady creep of August
will not let me rest comfortably. Last night the thunderous storm flashes rolled in from the southwest. It sounded like a 45 at 33 1/3, or slower. Each sinew in my heart resounded with sympathetic vibes. As if I were translating/transducing cloud to ground.
No fear did those bolts instill, instead
they became like extended neurons
branched into the crevices of this Earth and wet by that same cool rain.
I rose slightly before the dew this morning and so it told me three stories as it shifted its feet and begged the sun for a warm ray.
Don't remember the words and the dialect of dew is difficult but the essence abides. It has found an unused corner in my pseudosoul and begun to keep company with hermits and crabs.
They play games of chance with indistinct rules, while I smile and probe for weak points. No avail, their winks are like universal laws.
I don't know who "they" are but I suspect it has something to do with the unmixed layer in my clinical bowel. Just around the corner where the colon descends. Where
August steadily creeps.
It is still August.
A colder version. More tolerable. Least 'round these parts.
The job is a pressure cooker at the moment but no one wants to hear about that. Not even me. But there it sits just the same.
Perspective and context are provided by my family members and my friend that are now living rough, as the euphemism goes. The rot of this place is now lapping at the shore of my home. It always has been, but sometimes I was better able to fool myself that all those roots had been severed, or overcome. In those brief flits I imagined myself
a character in a TV commercial; a perfect rendition of the human species in this modern world. Like those pesky purple radishes
that sting my tongue like the finest kosher horseradish, these roots fold seamlessly into the center
of my being. They are like lizard tails.
They grow back.
What more can I offer than a plate of handmade food and a mattress for the night? The warm shower at 2 AM was like gravy for BaBa Kamp and the cold salmon a miracle from this godless, calculating shaman. Shaman protect. Our shields work best when unacknowledged so the fact that you know nothing of our work is where it gains its strength.
Do you see how we have co-opted your apathy? Its the final insult, is it not? That I relish your inattention because it underscores every fiber of my existence. This is how I know that the universe is in balance. I am most at home without blood family.
For the first time in my life I am in agreement with my Brother - the one woven into the stuff of my life. Emancipation, indeed.
But mine is a nation of open borders; you are all welcome here. Open boarders as well*certain restrictions apply in theory.
It is still August. But eventually tomorrow
will be September. If only my heart were that predictable.
Oh yeah.
The 3 stories from the morning dew.
One was about a large, empty mansion. Specifically a huge dining hall in which I was expected to serve a meal. The moral was one of expectations and whether these are rightly set internally or externally. The conclusion was unclear, so I remain undecided.
Another was about chaotic berries falling down a hill then being channeled into some kind of pachinko machine. The 1000 words implied have yet to be realized.
The last was a stadium filled with audience but lacking any stage act. It really did not stop the crowd from enjoying themselves as if something other than the show was really the point. That's how I feel about the mansion, anyway. It is not the point, its more like an opaque curtain. I think
that I pulled it back, but the view revealed has been forgotten and will only be refigured when the ambient temperature drops below -15 F.
Oh yeah. It is still August and the dew point grows in 15 minute bursts. By now the bedroom has been cooled by the fan and the dreams of sound sleep are within reach.
Oh yeah.
August abides now with the faintest hint of the Fall. Each of the last 3 days
Summer and Autumn have been atussle.
I'd like to think they get along, that each knows the whys and ways of the other, but the winds tell me otherwise. Their caresses are news
of the Front and my hair sings along
my neck. The corners of my eyes
have glimpsed a shapeless movement of late
and it won't stand still. It is like a word
on the tip of the tongue, frozen
in an unknown moment and dangled
by the hand of a friend.
I like it.
At times it seems to be an amalgam
of every unwritten mystery novel as this plot twists to an inevitable end. Then it might be the purest of substances that a mere glance will contaminate so I close my eyes and let the image enter by another Door. Most of the time it is utterly mistakable. Clever as a cuttlefish, it melds into the unnoticed with ease of river finding its bed.
And there it is in all
the ways that it is and even
unknown it somehow stills
a certain uneasy vibe in
my heart
in my head.
have fun.
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