bad habit

He had a bad habit of conferring himself  his health and wherewithal onto everyone around him

                                                                                                     a randy Johnny Appleseed run amuck

many beers

             later a bottle of good whisky between them  they sat talking before a fire ring on a night anointed by the approaching blue moon

then late  all the problems of the World solved it was time to call it a night

                                                                               and he did

he told them that he would grab up the three lawn chairs

he also grabbed the empty bottle of whisky and his emptied beer bottle

then this morning urinating noisily he looked out of the screened window down onto the clumpy gray ash cotained in the fire ring

         before it on the raked ground he saw their empty glasses 

 

she had used the kids 80s Welch's painted jelly jars  an orange Tyrannosaur and its buddy a blue Brontosaur

they stared up at him from exactly where they had left them

he made coffee

they sat around the yellow linoleum and chrome kitchen table and drank it together

he asked  Were you two rocked last night or did you think I was also going to grab up your glasses when we came in

My hands were obviously full

YES like a choir  We were really rocked

I didnt know that I thought you picked up your glasses when I grabbed the chairs

We didnt

Plainly Theyre still out there

Could have sworn we did

No

Justsaying

Dontsay

Well  we were rocked

I didnt know that

You werent

I wasnt

Huh

Im sorry I didnt recognise you were

Because you werent

Because I didnt think we drank that much We had everything over seven hours

Well   We  Were  Rocked

Sorry I apologise   The conversations were cogent 

Rocked

he had to suppose Inians and Englishmen didnt have the tolerance of a Chicago-born polack

he did have a bad habit

1808,  Thursday,  30  7. 15  

storyteller

She winced  groaned deeply

pain

          unremitting

she held her eyes shut tight

tears that tried to seep between her eyelids were slivered and staunched

cinched between her luxuriant eyelashes

Tellmeastory  she gasped

Tell meastory

she knew he was there

he wouldnt be anywhere else

A story  he said carefully  trying not  to betray his emotions   hanging by the thinnest thread

Its difficult love

No  more    difficult she gasped   thanbeing    in  here

No

A story

Yes  storyteller

You    al ways      hava    story     to  tell

she groaned                                                                                                                                           

It  is    one   ofthe  reasons           I   love         you

I   want  tahear      your  voice

he wanted to hear hers again  without the pain  hear her laughter  see her delicious smile on her face

erase the tortured pale expressions that were conquering her countenance  erasing her beauty  contorting it into a horrible  twisted mask

Please   Iwanna     hear   your           voice

You  do not know  how    it   comforts me

Tell    me  a special       story

Only  for  me

he began  . . .

1217,  Friday, 31 7. 15  a blue moon tonight 

 (originally Moanday, 10  3. 08) 

70 years ago -- Without apologies, Little Boy and Fat Man

 

August 6 and August 9, 1945

when he returned from the war   the Pacific Theatre

                                                                                       after the A-bombs were dropped . . .

. . . look at him getting sloppy with pronouns when he ought to use proper nouns
                               

if anything deserved proper nouns   its was those things which had vanquished tens and hundreds of thousands of lives

unaccounted lives 

                                                                                                                          

he couldnt   any more than he could let human lives reside alone among those horrific numbers

as if any life was worth more than another

the grotesque randomness

human lives were no more precious or exquisite than lesser life forms destroyed without batting an eye

We were sensational at that

he was trained     and accomplished at that

properly now   

                         America flushed  what it must have deemed toilet bowls  Hiroshima and Nagasaki

with Little Boy and Fat Man

properly now

                         without Honor

proving what he long had maintained

there was no such thing as a civilian

all were combatants

nor was there a living thing called civility

                                                                     and certainly not after Little Boy and Fat Man(theres a comicbook begging) decimated a kneeling enemy

 

but Little Boy and Fat Man did avoid the landing US troops and Allies  himself included  on the Japanese Mainland

the Japanese Maimedland                                                                     

                                            is how he referred to it

but he was out of it

returned to the Midwest

there he wrested with his night terrors

his lone  and lonesome companions

as if anyone there who hadnt been in combat would understand

or had gone through the meatgrinder he let himself fall into

for words

 

words  that Hemingway described as abstracts  such as glory and honor and courage and hallowed

they were obscene beside the concrete names of villages and the numbers of the roads

the names of the rivers  the numbers of regiments   and the dates

                                                                                                                        published in 1929

he read it  A Farewell to Arms 

and yet he jumped into it with all the bloodlust a teenager with a bellyful of liquor would

despite knowing better

his night terrors reminded him how well he knew better

they swabbed his sleeping mind and flooded his wakened eyes

as if the years of weary war-sleeplessness  catnapping  had held them hostage  and tortured them

 

this was their blowback

they came on him breathing fire and shrieking  howling like banshees  insatiable she-devils

psychopomps anxious to escort him from this Life into the Next

not understanding he didnt Believe

but if he didnt  why could he see them  they might have averred if they werent shrieking

he couldnt ignore or defy them

so joined at the hip they traversed his mindscape and landscapes and helped him paint with colours  ugly  discordant

and wonderful

they painted as much as he did  with virtuosity  and many times he found himself staring at a painting afterwards

seeing them the first time

only his etched name and the date revealed he attended their executions

some looked an execution  the ignored pleas    despising compassion

hard sharp realism inculcated in abstract

on the street the recurring 

                                           I have to have it!

inside  he answered

                                  I had to paint it

returned Home?

(originally under wisterias,  Sunday,  11  6. 06)

1619,  Monday,  3  8. 15