Pistachio and Anchovy

When I was young I was picked on quite a bit. The usual set of circumstances, I was an easy target (smart, quiet, odd, insecure) and once the kids found my buttons they didn’t relent. For a long time I tried to ignore them. I spent a lot of time reading because I thought that with a book in front of my face I would blend into the background. And, for a while I did. From behind those first books I developed my love of the written word. Beginning with the marvels I found in the library and then later the stories I found in my own head. My need to escape elementary school torment helped foster my imagination, I suppose. I need to thank those kids for that.

So anyway, a few times the kids pretended that they wanted to be my friend. A kid would ask if I wanted to hang out on the playground either at recess or after school. The first couple of times I bought it. It was a pathetic display of desperation that, looking back now, makes me laugh. You can see that kid, right?...very awkward, over-filled book bag, disheveled clothes, greasy hair, hopeful smile. I would wait for my friend to show up and of course they wouldn’t and I would eventually trudge home. Sometimes they would gather somewhere along my route and give me a hard time shouting “Who were you waiting for back there?” and “Did you really think we’d be friends with you.” It was worse when they would wait until the next day bringing my humiliation to school to share with the rest of the class.

Why am I telling you this? Well…insight I suppose and also to offer some context that you may draw from for those times when I seem a bit vague (yes, really). I have had to overcome and still battle with some pretty substantial trust issues. Always present in the back of my mind is the voice telling me to watch out for anyone who gets too close because they probably have an ulterior motive that will leave me in a rut. It has taken me a long time and years of therapy to be able to ignore that voice and share even my more simple weaknesses with friends (without the guise of fiction). And, so I share this piece of myself, my past with you.


p.s. I am not sure what you will glean from my palate but my gut holds plenty.






(Not at present: soon and I'll let you know when.)

For the same reason.

Postage Due

The letters are rivals with swords,
Broad against the flat lined pulp.
Praised, and then repented
Until each has had its way
With my eye. And you
Swear to it; as if it were
Your own existence. Bent
On a fifth or the first degree,
Surrendered at a legendary's expense.
I am brittle and struck in two.
Gone, with a final blow,
The rubbed out remains defined
Ink lined creases on pristine stock.
Held against my flesh, my face
Fierce, rewritten thoughts,
The letters unsealed, recycled
To charm, to hate, to relive
And sent to myself, so I stay
Permanently pointed and fine.








p.s. you and I...don't deny it but at least think about it.



(That is the best news.)

Up To The Ground.

Those hills breathe fire
And exhale into the stream
Billows of crackled frames
Mixed with the amassed sordid matter
Of a thousand million leaves
Pelf, from pandered promise
Settles into the hollows
Filling the rift with futile night
They will brush ash from their soles
For an eternity after having been told
Better to swallow holes than believe
What was struck, no longer stands




p.s. and so it went.

That is a great question.

One that requires a little back history, current insight, and whatnot...

I was so overwhelmed that the thought of walking off into oblivion sounded rather reasonable. It was then, with seven days worth of living layered on my body that I found those words. I can speculate that if I had stumbled upon them at any other time I would have completely missed the punchline. (Oh, the drama.) And, here they are again. Their missive as apparent now as it was then...only I have been there, done that.

And I am now, as I was then, required to debate myself long into the night the commitment of my endeavors. Yet, I am unable to get past the immediate burden of now. The constant demands of my time, my mind, are as good a place as any to wait it out. Work. One might assume that it is my fear of failure that has me stalled. That may have been the case then, but not this time. This time it is fear of becoming stale, stuck, tired and ridiculous…and my own overactive scrutiny as evidenced by the aforementioned fears. I can think shit to death, but right now I am not in the mood.

Perhaps, I am lazy. So what? Maybe I need a reprieve from self-deconstruction. Nope. I will just put it off for a little while and take a break. Tomorrow, next week, next month aren't going anywhere and all weigh heavy on my mind. I will give them due course, in time. But this, this moment that is happening right now…I have to deal with that first (even if it is nothing). And I know when I am ready and after proper deliberation, I will be comfortable, not resigned, with my decision.

Then, I am sure to hear the brilliant, overcooked opinions of those looking out for their interests in the guise of caring suggestion. They'll think me an idiot who blundered upon reason. Fuck ‘em if they don’t get it.

All of that back there and the way the author selected his words to sound like what they tell.

“lifts and lets fall. lifts and lets fall.”

“which spurts fragments of anguished glass.”

I see it, the crane in the scrapyard plowing through the wreckage and pulling up piece after piece without inspection. It sounds just like that, the pick and pull, the overflow spilling over the sides, the popping of the windows. That is an amazing talent; to be able to choose words in such a way as to make the reader see what they hear. Or is it, hear what they see?

And it is dark and fateful. It asks me to consider what will tear me apart. How easy it is to devour prey. Hunger, either voracious or timid, is base. And there is always a suitable meal. There it is so beautiful, enticing that we can’t resist the need, the desire, to grasp it tightly holding it steady so that we can get our fill of it. Our free hand may then break it down to its pieces parts. What is consumed will either be used for sustenance or pulled apart and re-pieced for an altogether different machine. One built from recycled guts. Delivered to a showroom near you, or shit on the heads of unsuspecting park patrons. Either way...we are what we eat.

And the contrary always appeals to me, reminds me that I can be full of shit.

Natural versus manufactured destruction...involuntary dismay and the crow and the crane and we are preening. Is it less evident because it is instinctual or because it is easier to sleep at night?


p.s. I will undoubtedly revise as it has re-established its hold of my time and my grooming.