A Nightly Croon

It's late. It's very late. I step out into the night and hear the dogs barking through out the city.

Many dogs; large and small. From all the odd and differing neighborhoods. Each dog with a yard. Each yard with a fence. Each fence with a sign - "Beware of Dog".

And I'm wondering, "What are they barking about?"

It's quiet, but for their voices. Do they know about one another's lives from the nightly reports they give?

Of their people and their people's frustrations or anger, or sadness, or indifference, unexpressed, or badly expressed.

Of their worries about whether they'll eat enough, or get to sniff enough trail?

Or tail?

And I think of my beauty, Mason.

Steve Mason, who spends his long, cold nights under the primodial stars, the only other kindred voices coming to him are on the rare occasions when the wolf packs sing, over the ridge lines, they, thrilled at the Northern Lights and the sounds of a distant, different pack.

Singing the news of tomorrow's promise.

And he's quiet. At peace amidst the night and it's sounds

Arms And Legs Akimbo

I lay outstretched and dripping

moisture from within, pressed to the surface

my skin trickling downward to pool

and cool at my back this heat

slips past thought

a sweeping

touch of airport-light passed

mounds and hollow and blade of fan

cool my tired want again

these arms and legs akimbo

Tonight, For The Robin Hour

A return to the nest via a circuitous route.

I doze and walk the streets of San Francisco looking for a spirit that I recall from years gone by; the long tall lass who found her young womanhood months before she died.

After dozens of city blocks, around 3:30 AM she finally spoke to me from the corner of Sacramento and Pierce. I sat across the street with her for a while, shadowed and cold amongst elaborate concrete landscaping. We were listening to the full moon and early summer wind. The startling Victorian across from us still demanded homage, as much, I'm sure, as it did before our mid 70's earthquake.

I was bundled and bleary, alley cat alone. She was dead and ethereally appealing. We spoke of her sensuality and how with her quickened smile and rapier tongue and wit, she would probably have owned a fair portion of this town by now, had she lived.

She laughed at my sentimentality and how I'd had the old lady verve to deck myself out that night. Penniless and alone, in linen and black heels I'd draped my ideals towards a lover who'd only ever know me by poetic extension. All that heat and tension instead produced an obnoxiously loud car full of sotted young men, being pulled to that moment as if by some unseen force.

I quietly bid her adieu and scurried away from our perch, slipping in and out of the shadows. As I tottered away from that hallowed corner, I hoped their hollering over stolen, captive moments with cameras, tits, cocks and asses would allow me to melt back into the obscure gray, gratefully unnoticed.

The Night Wind kept asking for movement. We spun and whirled through dawn. I held tight to the vision of a white sheeted heaven, laughing, liquid warm lovers, poetically entwined.

April Fool's Daughter and Grandson/ RLR remembered on the 2nd

Hey Ma,

A fun post Mom, (< click to article).
I still can't seem to wrap my mind around the fact that not a single one of my acquaintances east of the Rockies has any idea of what the sensation of "breaking in" feels like. Dad's right - you can't know humility until you cross an April snowbank in the absence of snowshoes.

I can't help thinking of that time when I was seven or so, when I took off on an early April adventure going who knows where, and doing it solo, and making it about as far as the place where the garden tank would stand before sinking in as deep as my legs were long and being completely unable to extricate myself. How I struggled and thrashed with escalating levels of contempt and catastrophic rage, never daring to ask anyone in the house to come down and help me lest I expose myself to the even greater torture of embarrassment, and finally giving myself away through the sheer noise of my exertion and despair, at which point you and Dad came down, and to your inestimable credit somehow managed to keep straight faces, and Dad yanked me out by the armpits, but did it a little too abruptly, and I came out wearing only the liner of my snowboot, the shell sunk two feet deep in the snow, and Dad saying - with that vaguely sadistic humor of his that gave rise to such good-natured witticisms as the one about saltwater causing one's feet to fall off - that we'd have to wait until June to get the rest of my boot back.

All in all, a great day to be an Alaskan.

I hope you're well. Happy Birthday. And keep up the good work.

Best,
Micah
April 1, 2009 6:35 PM

From On High

Oh, To Be A Sari Clad Satellite

Would I distinguish the myriad messages coming through?

Would I know who was sending, and like an old time switchboard operator, know how to plug in the appropriate connections?

Would I indulge the temptation to listen in, reaping vicariously the joys, thoughts and despair of both the signals transmitted and received?

Would I, out of devotion to my beloved, always orbit closely or would I spin off regularly to allow chaos to remix the signals?

And would I be self maintaining as I've always been or would on occasion some Earth centered entity send out a little support?

And YES, that I might still catch the drift from my favorite messengers, and, as I have on occasion, be compelled to drop the Sari that I might dance unencumbered in the cool night sky.

(she's left wanting the XM signal...)

March 17th, 1963

All from the capital city would come by to confer with the Irishman, the dark one who led their imaginations toward a better St. Paddy Day's parade.
I was set atop the bartop, black hair and sallow skin. He gave me the sparkle of Irish mischief in my saddle shoes and eyes. Poppa had handed me a leprechaun's white clay pipe, the stem so thin and elegant I could only imagine someone as clever as he using it.

I have it still. I use it now to help weave a different story. But tonight my eyes keep closing mid sentence, only to jerk awake with moisture threatening to slip down my chin. The fire's so cozy. And the miles spent to get here have me mellowed.
Perhaps tomorrow...

A Duet

Tomorrow night at this time, I'll have made a nest in some quiet corner of the airport in Reno! After five long months of focused intensity, (as my writer father claimed, "I've mastered the art of sitting"). I can't believe I'm heading home.

Today went according to plan. Assisted help came to be with Ma that I might slip away and spend one last scribbling session at 801 Real Rd. The little house seems happier for our visits. The three giant shaggy barked trees out back, one with the nailed on cross ladder, blew brightly and were full of leaves, dancing as wildly as the fledgling birds calling.

I'd snap this little aging wonder up in a heart beat, knowing it's doomed to the bull dozer. The roof is gone. Blue tarp covers the remains of the simple felt and wood shell now holy access for pigeons. But it calls to me, even in my dreams now.

At first I thought I was being reminded of Ma, she too losing her roof. Or of my not so girlish years and terrible diffuculty spelling, though wanting to write while removed from my life.

But then it came to me that it's also a symbol of the other dearest involvement of mine. I think it stands in my heart of hearts for the breaking down of a wonderful forum for discussion that for awhile was holding the fort for many people during this particularly tough season. I'll have to think on that more.

What ever the case, it feels right there.

It's late and my heart is quiet and telling me to tell someone in the world that for today this mother's use of the alphabet is pooped.

Got the garden in today though. And I've planted something for my brother. it will grow to be a particularly poetic salad, if I keep loving this beginning.