I've been nominated!

Just a quick post to let my loyal readers (all 5 if you) know- I've been nominated as 1 of 5 finalists for the Naked Girls Reading Literary Honors Prize! 

http://tinyurl.com/lxubztn

What's better than having your work judged as an honorary finalist by an organization with great literary taste? Having your work judged as an honorary finalist by an organization with great literary taste... that happens to be comprised of beautiful women that read their authors' work on-stage in the buff! 

All kidding aside, this is a great organization that  promotes literature and performance art in a totally fun and unique way. I've been following for a while, and it's an honor to be accepted as one of the 5 finalists. Wish me luck!

Telling Time 4

The orange spot of dawn,

first incandescent flashlight circle,

sneaks past blinds and curtains

each morning

striking the wall

a little more to the right

a little more away from the darkened fish tank

and its oblivious silver-colored sparks.

Summer ends.  Fall comes on

a little more to the right each morning

before changing from orange to white,

before sliding to the floor

where my cat

can lie in fascination of the dust flecks

and skin cells

that float

suddenly exposed.

Telling Time 3

Maybe it's just what the radio keeps telling me is "low-T", but I can remember times with girlfriends when I couldn't wait to go shopping on the off chance that I'd get to go into a Victoria's Secret with them. Today I go into these places with my wife, and the perfume, the emaciated models that look like teenagers, the thumping music... It's all so false, and its only goal is to sell me something. I just have to wait outside. I'd rather hit the cookie stand, or wait in the parking lot and watch the distant lightning. 

Telling Time 2

It's the size of my wallet.  No, slimmer; shiny silver like something out of Ray Bradbury.  I plug it into my USB port, and I can back up my life: everything I've collected over the past ten years.  10 years of photographs (what a different person I was then- looking over, I only recognize parts of him.  Or I just recognize parts of him that have been added to to form the weird amalgamation I am now).  10 years of music: the songs that used to mean so much, that I barely listen to anymore because I now think they're corny.  10 years of poems- no, even more than that.  And they all go into this little silver box.  They could go three times over into this little silver box.  Life through a USB cord.

I know it sounds like one of those "new technology moves so fast" things, but I have these memories of big, boxy monitors with only 2 colors...  My family's first PC...

Telling Time 1

Tonight, I was driving.  Some music came randomly onto my stereo that I grew up with- music that really helped me at a moment of transition in my youth.  And I noticed something that I have been noticing more and more lately: that much of this music, while still full of meaning and despair, triumph and heart, is gaining another level in my mind.  It is becoming cemented; inextricably tied to the time period it came from.  The song retains some of its effect on me- but through memory, not directly.  It sounds like a '90s song.  

In my case, it's the '90s, but I'm sure this is what Dr. Gonzo felt sitting in a Vegas casino in the mid-'70s, after his revolution had fizzled and sputtered out and some "rat bastard" put "Mr. Tambourine Man" on the PA.  

Does this mean that I've changed?  That the world has moved on?  Or both?

I think I'll start a new series...

I've been thinking a lot about time, recently, and how we mark it.  Yes, there are days, weeks, and months... seconds tick on the watch my wife gave me for our anniversary; hours loom large and ominous like shadows or pass in quick, silent groups like Fall geese.  But those of us who think about these things (namely, everyone) know that time is subjective.  The calendar is decidedly not.  So how do I mark time?  Change, probably.  I am not the same person I was 10 years ago, 1 year ago, or yesterday.  Change is not, as I once thought, an accumulative process.  Some things are added to, but others are replaced.  Other things fill previously unknown holes like quicksand traps, and others still are switched out.  Harrison Ford with his bag of sand eyeballing the idol.

I want to keep thinking about this.  I propose to start a new series- to think each day about at least one way in which I mark the passage of time.  At least a sentence.  We'll see how long I can keep it up before my capriciousness (read: horrible ADD mated with incredible, Dude-ian level laziness) distracts my attention to the next, nearest shiny bauble.

When You Get Home

V.

Disengage. 

For now, cars pass beyond. 

A child and his friend shout in the distance. 

The birds make their chatter:

the sounds of a late afternoon in summer. 

When You Get Home

IV.

Know contentment:

it is not the same thing as happiness

or ease. 

Part of it is knowing

that you are where you should be. 

When You Get Home

III.

Rest. 

Let the people on the highway rush;

it's their turn. 

(Some people spend their entire lives on the highway.)

When You Get Home

II.
Drowse.
Love and laughter
and noise will come soon.
Now is the in-between time.
Now there is no one else here.

When You Get Home

I.

Open the doors;
rain will come soon.
And warm winds will push hazy notions
like the child changes the course
of a toy boat in a stream.
Breathe deep.

New Albums up on Shutterfly!

While my camera shutter has been busy for several months now, I am now just getting around to uploading some of my pictures to my Shutterfly site.  Up now are two new albums, including some great shots of the sun setting over the sound during my recent trip to the Outer Banks, NC, and some interesting pics that came as the result of an experiment involving my father's stargazing telescope.  Stop by and check them out, and there is still more to come in the following days!
lightthroughleaves.shutterfly.com

The weather is lifting...

and all the crystalline sadnesses,
infinite,
myriad and tiny like snowflakes
burn and lift away.
We are warm and empty.
We are chilly, but we can breathe.

Flasher

Attention, you at the bar:

There is no way forward,

no dialogue from which to jump, 

and nothing at all to learn 

if all you want to do is show us 

your big, throbbing rightness. 

Nobody wants to see that. 

Bingo

I don't know if I had a breakdown, or a breakthrough yesterday. It was a chain of events that started when I heard I had lost my trivia game. This was through no fault of my own, my boss explained to me. Although I had been doing a good job, and had built quite a good rapport with the customers, the bar owner, who had met me for just 5 minutes the previous Wednesday before leaving for my entire show, had called up our company and emphatically insisted that we were losing him money. How? By not sending him a woman to host his trivia.

So I lost my trivia game. Being the good guy he is, my boss immediately decided to replace the game, which is good, because I need the income. But there were no trivia games available, so he sets me up with the only thing he does have. Bingo. This isn't a big deal, I tell myself: it's the same amount of pay, same hours, and I'll actually get home earlier (not to mention, I won't reek of cigarette smoke). And it's easy money. Pull out ball. Read letter and number. Wait for someone to win. But I can't shake the image of it in my head. Me. Master's degree in education, rolling that stupid little cage around like an organ-grinder monkey to entertain a bar full of elderly people and drunks. And it bothers me. I'm not beneath working- I'm not beneath doing what I need to do for my family. But you have to admit, it's a bit humiliating. And I can't stop thinking about it.

Eventually I start thinking about why it is I DO have to go do this. 1. Because I live in a world where this chauvinist asshole has power over my boss, and therefore over me. This is bad enough, but if that's what he wants, I can't really compete with boobs. I decided to be mad at him for a while, but tried to tell myself, at least I got a replacement. This is America, and misguided or not, he can run his shitty little bar however he wants. But there is a bigger point, and that is 2. Because money rules everything and I don't have enough of it. I can barely cover my monthly expenses, despite the fact that I have what should be a decent-paying job, and the aforementioned Master's degree. My debts outweigh all my assets. I was desperate yesterday to make some progress, and I considered selling my car to pay off some credit card or student loan debts. I could take the bus, or we could carpool, my wife and I. I could do it, I told myself. So I got on the internet, and as it turns out, my car is only worth about what I still owe on the loan that I used to pay for it, plus maybe another $1000, if I'm lucky. I thought about hocking the TV. $300 used, at the most. And it occurred to me: I don't have anything that's of enough value to even make a dent. How could I have made it this far in life, and have nothing but debt to show for it? With no other choice but to grind: to chip away at it, every day, little by little for the next God-knows-how-many years; continually denying myself anything that I might want, including kids, because I can't afford it?

And that's what really got me. That asshole bartender? We're in the same boat. He's just trying to make a profit with his business, just like me, spinning my stupid little monkey bingo cage. Just like all the teachers you know. It got to me: this wasn't the life I signed up for. When I made my decisions, wrong or right, I was told certain things. For instance, that education opened doors for you. All my education has done for me was get me a $3000/year raise at work. That, and a mountain of student loan debt. I haven't seen a single door open for me because I have a Master's degree. We, all of us, were told that the harder you work, the more it will pay off. Bullshit. It's a lie in this world. Work as hard as you can, if you're playing by the rules, you will not get ahead. The way you get ahead is by either giving up and bucking the system (have another kid and keep the welfare rolling in), or by being greedy. THAT is what gets you ahead, and I'm just not greedy enough. So if I'm not greedy enough, then I guess I get doomed to an entire lifetime of getting taken advantage of by bigger fish? I never agreed to that. I made my decisions under false conditions- the rules are set by the wealthy- the people with enough influence to set the rules. And I don't know how to live in their world.

I pictured myself spinning my little bingo cage. I-19! N-38! And I created, involuntarily, this fantasy, where this drunk stands up and starts giving me shit. I started imagining, again, all completely involuntarily, what I'd say to him. "Have you ever tasted desperate? Would you have the courage to come out here and do what needed to be done for your family? What do you do that is so great for the good of humanity? Oh you work in advertising? So you just make money for someone else so you can sit here and drink beer and judge others! I teach your retarded kids! You don't get to judge me..." and on and on, and about the point in this mental projection that I'm shoving ball I-19 down this imaginary person's throat, I realize how angry I actually am: how much living like this has twisted me up inside to where I'm angry at everything and everyone. Myself, the bar manager, this imaginary guy I'm so threatened by in my own head- the rule makers have pitted us against each other so that we'll stay fighting one another instead of noticing what's really going on.

And I am angry. I'm angry at myself for falling for the lies and playing their game. Maybe they weren't lies outright, but that world I was told about, where education opens doors and hard work pays off? That's my father's world, and I don't think it exists any more. I'm angry at my friends, to whom I for some reason feel the constant need to explain myself: why I can't seem to stop being bitter, and why I'm losing my sense of humor and drinking too much. I'm angry at all the people around me with disposable income for figuring out how to do it, despite the fact that they are constantly being preyed upon by the ambitious. I'm mad at them because they are content watching TV on Zoloft while the rule-makers wreck our educational system, deplete our economy, and trade altruism for cash at every turn. Why can't I be content with it, too? I'm too busy, switching off the air conditioner and coasting to every stoplight because I don't get paid until tomorrow, and the gas has to last to work in the morning. And what do I do with my anger? Where do I direct it? I get up out of bed where this is just bouncing off the inside of my skull, and I go for a walk. I hide from the kids playing in the front parking lot, out of fear that one of two things will happen. First, that I'll just start ranting and yelling at them to never go to college, and that I'm sorry my generation has already failed you so badly; the second, that they might actually cheer me up.

Our value system is fucked up, and it has nothing to do with morality. It has everything to do with where we are going as a species. I don't want to be rich. I just want to have joy back in my life again. Now, the best I can manage is to settle for a few minutes of peace, watching eight birds land in a tree on a Spring day. And I don't propose socialism as an answer. I guess the buzzword of the day is "sustainability". Human sustainability.

Until we get that figured out; until I get me figured out, I guess I'll be rolling my little cage calling Bingo numbers. They say humility builds character. I guess we'll see if that was a lie too. Just don't get drunk and start giving me shit up there.

Seems unlikely that
anyone with the
gifts that in/sight brings
would spend their lives
chasing plastic
or
measure themselves against one another
using imaginary numbers.

Seems unlikely
that I'd be born
this kind of ape.

At least, it's a less
violent existence,
personally,
where I come from.