Ode to Ollie ~ May 1991 - May 2008

17 years ago almost to the day, Ollie was born and joined my life or my life joined hers.

Named errantly a boy after Ollie's frozen custard stand outside Dekalb, IL truly a girl when heat unfurled all the furry that comes with a cat coming of age.

From Crawford's Dekalb to my Dekalb, to Palos to Bartlet, IL, to Fresno, CA, to Clovis, CA, to Seattle (Kirkland), WA, to Palos Hts, IL, to Boulder, CO, to Longmont, CO, to Naperville, IL, to rest once more.

17 years she walked with me, caused trouble, if trouble includes taking meat left unattended from the counter, waking you in the tired night, more tired once kids already disturbed the sacred quite, biting from time to time, once down to the ankle bone, provoked or unprovoked, who is to say?

She briefly had a brother, first week together she bit Max in the neck in CA and 17 stitches later he was back at home, a little more respectful of his older sister. I had to separate them later in Seattle.

She ran face first into big dogs, German Shepherds, Retrievers, she was 23-0-01 with Duchess the nasty cat in Boulder, pet to the Turks downstairs - she never tangled with big orange, not for his size, but what was in his quite eyes, psycho as she might have been, Ollie was not dumb.

And now as I type, I'm just starting to consider that she is really gone... she disappeared last weekend either dead in our house or out in the world at large... I like the latter... she stepped back into the mystery that precedes what I know of her... just weeks ago R. Nadim said quite sad, "what would our house be without Ollie?" Just nights ago T dreamt that Ollie was dead and now most likely she is.

I like to think she waited for the door to crack so she could slip back into the mystery, the before now, the before thyroid thirst, the before deaf days and rail thin body, food hard to keep down days.

17 years she invested in my life, seemingly without choice. She comforted me time and time again, she packed her bags and traversed the country as I searched for myself, Ollie always ready to settle into my lap, not sure what I was looking for, but ready to comfort me.

Rest well Ollie where ever your head rests tonight. Our house is emptier without you, my heart heavy at the loss of looking to the chair where you sat more and more, heavy, asleep yet lighter and lighter. Be well good friend. I hope I provided some comfort to you.

God's speed.

Tahoma (Ghost Mountain)

November 4, 2004 five fifteen a.m.

Meet Me in Montauk (Eternal Sunshine of A Spotless Mind)

lucid day dreams or dejavu
memories of you fading,
evaporating, dissipating
and no one can save them…

“blessed are the forgetful for they get the better even of their blunders”

but blunders haunt beyond the specific
smell and look of a gray winter day
forever locked in pain, the sadness
lingers the ache meanders
through grey matter even when the “blessing”
of forgetfulness erases the exact root of the ache
and thus the forgetful end up cursed
not able to search the wounded waters
of regret and hurt to find the part of themselves
that was once whole, spotless? spotted?

nearly extinct elephants in New York before Madison Square Garden
the circus absurd in the city, the city a circus absurd on a snowy beach Long Island
on a gray winter day slipping into darker gray, light snow blowing
sand sleeping below, sand “over rated just being really small rocks”

flashlight photography glimpses of the events that led to this
captured on degradable film, that led to this latest
attempt at escape
only to discover what we discover last, time and time again
that the way out is the way back in
only to discover what we discovered last time, time and time again

hidden from the mind is a familiar secret
not rememberable until dead;
that when given the choice
we chose to do it all over again
we chose against the eternal sunshine
of a spotless mind

Beck’s voice haunts the surf hazy night
back in gray winter, the snowy beach of my memory
as I search for my father’s hand outstretched
from whence I came and from where
I shall return only to pause,
reflect, reform and return
to struggle to ache to yearn
too often missing the moment; forever to be enjoyed

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