taking some time off for indecent behavior

post again Monday April 7

theorized

there was a time I devised  really  a bangup watertight dyed-in-blood theory

I dont remember now what it was about

not a fucking clue

but it seemed that night that

deep blue night in the Fall in the Bitterroots lit

by the cold glow from an ivory moon

lazing through cracked windowpanes wood sash no curtains

and strafed by raggedy clouds

I did

that night I figured it all out in pencil

a gnawed yellow nub I fingered with my left

smoking Camel straights with my right

and  yah  with the smell of Jack Daniels in the dirty glass tumbler before me

I theorized

resplendent

rational

methodical

like a proof in Geometry

hypothesis antecedent consequent theorem

A goes onto B goes onto C goes onto D

Bulletproof

Concrete

Seamless

or it seemed that night that deep blue night in the Fall in the Bitterroots

I got hustled out of my room before the sun rose

yanked out from the chair where Id fallen asleep

for not paying what I owed for better than a week

though not without warning without due warning 

fucking passkeys

I thought Id stolen every one they had hanging behind the front desk for my room

so it seemed

I thought I was pretty clever

well

that family had been doing business there for better than a generation

I suppose you get your head around things in a generation

around deadbeats with master keys held elsewhere

three big white boys sharing a brain between them swept in and swept me out

they rifled my duffel bag and tossed it out onto the street after me

it laid crumpled at my boot heels

the sorry bastards even kept the half pack of Camels I hadnt smoked

and yea they kept my scribbled and smudged much-thought-through theory

might have been in lieu of payment or coercion to squeeze me for money later

either made me laugh raucously because it was mine in my head I owned it

I thought I owed it

I thought I had it fire branded and knife etched inside my skull

but try as I may to summons it regurgitate it all I got was bile

I got sick trying to remember it

and to recover from my reversal I had to forget

I forgot it so hard that even when I finally moneyed up logging I didnt go back

it was a sweet clean coherent theory

spun like a spider spins a web

and evidently like a spider when it abandons its web

I went on along my way without giving it another thought

0202,  Twosday,  9  10. 12

I had a moment

while looking up at the moon

parsing the night sky

obliterating the stars

that the steps I sat on

werent there

that the place behind me I called home

wasnt there

and I too

was immaterial

it didnt frighten me

since Vietnam I was long past being frightened by anything

I found the sensation odd

perhaps in a word

otherworldly

I felt like a note

rarely plucked on a harp string

sensitive to the vibrations around it

the scale ascended  

then descended away from it

keen it wasnt going to be played

it was grateful

to be honed in place

then I was returned

I could feel my knee through my pantleg

with my fingers

from where I sat

beneath this hilltop

there was a pale colored shimmering

it erased the street

the houses along it

the cars the curbs

the dogs their barks

the stealthy nocturnal cats

the brush and rosemary and digger pines remained

thin coyotes yipped

deer flanks twitched

the distant infernal hum

of traffic on the 101

desisted

then electrical lights dotted to the horizon

disappeared

an inky blackness oozed

for as far as my eyes could see

in every direction

it didnt frighten me

I was long past being frightened by anything since Vietnam

0042,  Saturday,  14  9. 13

tonic for Spring

tonic for Spring

sulfur and blackstrap molasses

teaspoons  one part to two parts

professed to cleanse the blood

                                                                 nothing a good iron fleam blade couldnt fix

if one had the stomach or gumption

or perhaps an enticed leech reared in a springfed freshwater lake  

these were beginning to sound like specialty rolls at a sushi house

raw eggs work

some prefer it with a touch of milk and coarse ground black pepper

while others find them repellent because they have something to do with raw chickens

cant beat garlic or kale

legumes or soybean pods

although he was partial to calling them edamame  none of its letters crept off beneath 

the lower line of a Primary Ruled Printing Tablet

                                                                 which returned to him thoughts of one-inch ruling 

Bond paper and its trusty companion  the Ticonderoga #2 Beginner Pencils and their tactile smooth round yellow barrels

Prousts madeleines did justice  but memory isnt confined alone to scents or tastes

theres a weight in the hand  a turn of a phrase  sensations  a place

all are Tonics

and other tonics   toxic   things better left alone or struggling to forget 

banished for reasons  of which none should have to be explained

                                                                             that are      and that existence suffices

that which exists is

and even when it becomes was / Is

perhaps toxic is vitriolic malignant  or inappropriate 

                                                                    or perhaps it just feels that way to some people

to those who have forged ahead  mustered their way beyond the was / Is of their

experience

and who are grappled and clutched   who are sought to be arrested by sincere others

who sincerely feel they ought to be grateful for their time

                                                                                                   and as that time expires

are somehow obliged to rarify or vivify their Past

made Subjects of their memory

                     living as a Memorial

rather than a human being

one takes a tonic to refresh

to invigorate

a tonic is taken Spring Summer Fall Winter as needed

                                                                                                          or necessary

and better ingested alone

1020, Sunday,  7  7. 13