Gloves from My Father

Walking by the river, ice patches looking like odd shaped belugas floating down stream, the only thing revealing that the river is fluid, snow blowing, heavy, wet, southwest at my back, I walk towards the woods for sanctuary, for solace on the sixth anniversary of my father's death.

I've missed him more this year than in recent years, the realization of loss heavier than years past for no reason that I can easily explain.

I walk along with earbuds whispering dreamlike downbeat rhythm, it's cold, but I'm warm, a good feeling as I make fresh steps in the powder that suspends reality, geese honk over the music in my ears, I am at once at peace and longing...

I look down at my hands, new gloves, gloves from my father-in-law to replace
the gloves of my father, worn leather, finally comfortable, thumb starting to split, stolen from my coat downtown Rosebud, I guess someone's hands were colder than mine, a brief aggravation, now a gift, a passing on of something very practical from my father and father-in-law to keep my hands warm, fingers protected and heart connected...




Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Pulled back from Paganism

I’ve pulled back from paganism, the last ism I’d lean to on a foggy day, to contextualize the world in which I step, shop and play and pray and wish and hope, but these later activities take me out of this world and all the pain of my existential head and heart ache is about longing to belong to some line some circle some culture some tribal story of creation, of struggle of staying warm on a rain soaked night, of finding food deep in the bleak midwinter, pine inside, candles everywhere to lift the spirit on the shortest day, the darkest night, that light will return, food will be easier to acquire and the probability of continuing living better and better each day, a little dance, a little drink a little contact to hold back the night and fear that darkness and final silence will claim me too soon. All of this drives the cultural story with in which I want to be held, comforted, steered towards good times and joy, an evolution of a full stomach, warm cave and the instinct for continuance, permanence through DNA, the afterlife becomes a part of the story that our brains once awake must weave beyond the grave, and back the other way beyond birth into the cosmos, the great mystery, the not here which demands definition from our brain that categorizes, searches for lines and form even where there is none.

My father’s dying encouraged me; I was sure he saw friends many years dead, visitors came to the house, angelic, beast like, all fantastic as the seam on the hem of our reality was thin for him, for me. In Aspen, CO I was haunted by a presence, by a chief, by black spots,dreams or not dreams in between dreams, strange things in the awake and the asleep, things I saw, others experienced, what was it? My mind weaving the story of soul, of ghosts of something more permanent than my flesh promises? Did my mind convince myself and others to hear, see and believe things that are not? Does my mind dissolve the moment my flesh begins to rot?

Oddly, the one thing that stands out, keeping me agnostic and not atheist, is the night a woman from California ran back into the bar across from Resurrection Cemetery, pale, shaking, lighting a cigarette and looking down, around anxiously unsure. I knew the urban legend and back then I didn’t really question ghosts, the extension of the soul into the unknown, when I asked her what had happened she told me of a very earthly fight with her boyfriend and a stroll outside to clear her head, just then at 3:00 a.m. She noticed a girl walking inside the cemetery, she though it odd, but was not alarmed, the girl got closer and closer to the fence, the woman watched her and walked on through the summer night, wondering why a teenage girls was out so late, in the cemetery of all places, but she was not afraid. When the girl reached the fence she was even with the woman from California and they both paused, the girl reached to grab her arm, her hand, the woman told me went right through the fence and grabbed her, at the exact moment the woman grabbed my arm, “she was so cold, so cold… so cold”. The woman broke into tears and shook and smoked, so cold, so cold…

Was this woman the best actress I’d ever seen? Did this woman know the urban legend of Resurrection Mary and tell me otherwise? The bartender acted as if she didn’t know the woman telling the story, she watched her, seemingly not sure if she believed her…

This experience stands out more than my own direct experience with what I thought was "other", as I have become suspicious of the possibility for biological need to weave a creation and salvation story to distance ourselves from our own death of which, brain awake, we are now aware.

If someone were to read this and tell me they knew the woman, they were a part of this elaborate hoax, I wouldn’t be fully surprised. But there are pieces to the story I do not tell here, that leave me believing at the very least, the woman from California believed what she saw, believed the cold hand that grabbed her own arm was real, yet able to pass through a fence.

I joke that an agnostic is a polite atheist, but still the story of life pulls at me from before my first breath and from the time and place where my breath is no more.

I feel less need than ever for there to be a story, a code, a context to explain why I’m here, where I came from and what’s next. Yet I still look for this story to take me and if not explain things, to at least allow me to celebrate each day.

Daily Advice to Myself (and anyone who will listen)

Keep your heart open, the pain in vulnerability, in observing human suffering of witnessing pain is the same opening wherein we experience joy and pleasure. The chinks in the armor of our heart allow for the human exchange that is empathy, that is connection and intimacy.

Be tolerant and have empathy for those less fortunate, for those more fortunate and spend more time giving love, less time giving grief, turn off the dread projector or at least aim it deep into space, project gentleness even when your skin tightens, your chest and head ache from stress, from feeling compressed by all the forces and factors of daily life.

If possible, remember your relating to these factors has much to do with how they affect you.

Happy Holidays, I'm truly grateful for all the blessings in my life.

Conan

Irony is a thin Wire

and slivovica is wasted upon the dead


two Slovak soldiers dance drunk,
slivovica and sunshine atop
overcrowded train;
they fought to stop the packed box cars
corralling humans to the fundamentalist slaughter
now they ride to a new home in Bratislava
atop the same cars, their village of Zliechov
in ruins, but they dance, the madness is over

village in ruins, they dance drunk
to be alive after years of fighting
and hiding in the mountains
returning in the dark for bread.

a young woman with an old face, Anicka,
thinks the taller soldier looks like her brother,
but Palo is dead.

one night during the siege of Zliechov, Palo
left the safety of the family cellar amid bullets
and bombs to free the cows from the burning barn,
but irony drew a gossamer line behind a bullet
from a sniper’s rifle into Palo’s back,
even with burning metal in his back Palo crawled to the barn
to free the cows but irony fell down upon him in a massive burning beam, breaking his back, charring him in half
as the cows moaned, the night exploded, and the city fell.

Anicka did not see the bullet, did not see the beam, but both
burned her back as she let out a scream
piercing the dark family cellar

the soldiers dance drunk with plum brandy
and sunshine — the war is over;
but irony is a thin wire stretching across train tracks
high enough for those seated and war-worn to pass, but young
soldiers arrogantly alive, dancing, drinking, lose their heads
Anicka watches as their heads spiral upward landing a car back,
bouncing off to either side of the train,
one body falls between the cars and makes no protest to becoming flat, the other body who looked so like Palo falls
to one side, thuds but gets up, jumping up towards the sky,
jumping, dancing, dancing as the train rolls on to Bratislava.
the young woman with an old face turns with all the others
toward the headless soldier, he dances, he dances the war is over.
he dances, he dances, irony is a thin wire
and slivovica is wasted upon the dead.

March, 1996

Samhain - A Posting on All Souls Night

10/31/07

Samhain - 2007

- Thoughts on the Train -

Though I’m waxing agnostic, I must admit that life is better for me when I sit, when I still, when I pray. Whether anyone is listening or not seems immaterial. Perhaps our evolved, mutated brain and its curious half wakefulness that is consciousness does better when it believes that tribe and clan extend into the clouds – into the mystery. There beyond life we hope are our ancestors sitting with a being more loving, more intelligent than our brightest human aspirations.

I no sooner proclaim agnostic tax exempt status for myself when I notice coincidences in nature. Or at least opportunities for some sort of connection to something deeper, some life force that is perhaps more science and biology than theology. I stop typing agnostic ramblings and go to the bathroom… I look up out the small window precisely as a hawk cuts like a dart through the air above me. But also through the flesh and ribs of my chest. Whether the hawk notices me or not, I notice. I connect with the mystery even if only briefly.

And I guess that’s the crux of being agnostic. Is anyone or anything beyond humanity actually listening, speaking, or in relation with us? I’m betting it is more likely that there is extraterrestrial life than there is a god in the narrowly defined image of the white man we created. I really want to be wrong. I want a relationship with my father. He is biologically alive in my flesh and blood through our shared genetic inheritance. But is there consciousness at the cellular level? He is alive in my memory, but I want more. I want my father to look out for me, I want my father to stop by for a beer, a bowl of ice cream and to see his wonderful grandsons. There is the hole in my heart I want to fill – my own sadness and loss around my father made painfully alive by the thought of how he would have loved them and how their lives would be better for knowing him. An ongoing relationship with my father, prayer and conversation with those who have gone before or some other(s), brings meaning to my life.

But as a newly initiated agnostic (there is no ceremony, no one comes to welcome you into this church) the thought that prayer is a one way conversation leads me away from the practice more often than not. However, and back to the point, my day is better, my temperament better when I pray, when I talk to other whether in my father, nature or some deified conglomerate entity.

I know there have been studies on the brainwaves of both monastics and practitioners of meditation and prayer. Without knowing the details, the short of it is that their brain activity and brain waves change. I would bet those who believe or seek stillness report what I experience when I do the same. More space to accommodate the chaos in life. A greater sense of connectedness to fellow humans. More joy. I’m tempted to read up on these studies, but then I realize what am I trying to prove? What I already know? That I’m happier when I slow down, incorporate ritual, stillness and invoke relationship with something and someone greater than myself.

Conan Malone

Floating Along Lake Michigan

Floating along lake Michigan

Jogging, knees creak a little, back stiff sure,
yet I’ve never floated so purely from step to step
round the corner, Michigan, Indiana, past the aquarium
and big sharks float into consciousness, clumsy, yet steady thoughts
just where the big rocks drop off and the lake starts, thoughts
in and out of the turquoise murk, avoiding the sun clear water
the bright light of day, where they’d be attacked, devoured
and short lived, brilliant, but short lived, they ease and sway
in and out of view, turquoise then black then blue, green
a perch or some fish more sharply finned, blue white and bold
kisses rocks, eats and lingers in the sun clear water, the sun whose soul streaks
through the water in vignettes, but gives up some ten feet down, calls me, but then
goes back to whenst it came, songs come up in ears that increase the bounce and float of my step, I fly as much as run, to see thoughts come and go in the turquoise murk, to see thoughts come and go in my mind and pre-mind, the rush of sensations that are not full thoughts, but chemical surge intuitions, brief ah ha’s not shaped by perch skin
clearly defined in the sun streaked turquoise water of my mind jogging
around the bend of the aquarium, Lake Michigan, July 26, 2007, Chicago.

Sipping Sage Tea in Bridgeview (waiting for Rick)
April 2007

April snow, rain, slush, shicago, I like it.


If I think too long on it or anything, I may change my mind. I will change my mind and not move to Chicago after ten years.

The same ghosts haunt me, no the same ghost haunts me here after all these years, but it has found me in Colorado as well. It is the ghost of no ghosts
that is the ghost of knowing or suspecting there is nothing, no point
no meaning or a meaning mundane, too mundane for a believer, but
I’m not a believer, am I?

I want to be, but I see belief in others and frequently it disgusts me, scares me - intolerance, self-righteousness failing to veil fear and doubt, and I recognize this fear and doubt as I know it myself.

I never did read letters from an existentialist, perhaps I will now… I feel I could descend into anger to mask depression which pushes out from within my skin or is it from outside of me to within? But at the same time I feel closer to an acceptance, not bliss, but acceptance of this. Capital “T” This and at the same time small “t” this, this and that, traffic, bills, Ronan’s dancing, Declan’s laughing, dreams of my father, resumes and cover letters, job search, house for sale in a worsening market, friends in Colorado and Chicago… human connection I think is my true religion, the god I’ve always sought, the Buddha in others. But at the same time I’m hard wired to be semi reclusive or at least to desire hermitage, and ten minutes into retreat I want to be with people again. I want space and then I get away, I dive within, watch my breath and pass out. Brief relief from the pressure of being in this world, but even as I type this I’m bored with myself and this Struggle, I think my struggle is no better than TV, no better than a drug - sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine - to which I turn for a pickup or tone down, a cloudy respite, an altered state, but checking out never feels good afterwards.. From what am I trying to escape?

The problem is dualism I think – if I could finally accept that this life is it, all I got, whether there is a before or after, this is it, capital “IT”, and IT is good even when it is not good, that is IT is IT, this is why we are here whether sent by God or evolved from dinosaur or both, we are here to dive into April snow, melt into sinus pain, sink into sage tea, conversation, kefta kabob, shawarma, etc. … Rick has arrived.

Conan