2/5/09
#954
At seven fifteen I am the first one on the job, smoking and still in the truck, insulated and waiting for the music to atomize. It is the beginning of my nine hundred and fifty fourth day sober. The sun has not yet cleared the trees, and there is no one back home sleeping warm in my bed. I realize I do not want this job anymore. The mason hasn't shown up yet, his mortar would probably freeze today anyway. The guitars shatter, the music comes apart again, I squint through the light coming through the naked trees. I am doing everything I need to be doing at the moment. I do not even roll the window down for the smoke to escape. I'm only writing this because I'd like to show you how it is.
2/3/09
Margin Walker
I got outside her building and stood there on the stoop in the pale orange street-lit dark, fishing my cigarettes out of the breast pocket of my jacket. I really didn't need one, but it was cold again, and I was still sick. I got it lit and hearing a dog bark, looked up. There was a woman sitting on a porch in the stacked row bungalows across the street, looking at me. I suddenly felt marked, filed away in a catalog of whoever else came and went from the quiet dramas of that building- "Lanky Construction Worker." I got down the steps wondering myself what business I had here.
I had done work around the corner, so this block was known to me, but not on a sidewalk level of intimacy. There was a big filthy white 80's era caprice that was mostly always there, covered in anti-abortion propaganda. I tried not to notice the black and white images of fetuses lining the dash. It was mid-winter in my city, my boots conspicuously loud on the sidewalk in one of the few times I had been out of doors in three days. I pulled on my cigarette and tried not to appear skittish.
This block was the new marginal, pushed further away from downtown, tall buildings filled with one-rooms, Victorian porches replaced with treated-lumber decks, packed with bicycles and reckless debris. I marked each alley as I walked. Down one I heard the low guttural roar of a big diesel, and glimpsed a yellow tow-truck dragging someone out of a far lot, orange lights skimming the periphery. I avoided the memory of getting my own truck that morning out of a ragged lot under a too-big cold blue sky, and the money that I didn't have for it. I tried not to think about work.
The side streets punctuating the long blocks there had small one-story shops in them. I walked the length of one, wide windows open to a wide room, pregnant with opportunity. I placed a work bench in the middle of the space, in late-day sunlight, covered in thin purple walnut shavings, or else a crowded room encircled with bright canvases, children chasing each other around a maze of grown-ups.
I crossed the street to the closed laundromat and the Korean grocery I had been making for, pulled on the cigarette twice outside the door, and left it burning, cherry end off one edge of a newspaper box.
The man, mid fifties, greeted me in the empty store and went back to his paper. The shelves were plywood and thinly stocked in that stripped down 50's grocery kind of way. I tried to imagine what I could bring back that she could keep down. I noticed a bag of Chips Ahoy and remembered, suddenly, my mother microwaving them so that they were soft and the chocolate slightly melted. I decided against it, that would be for my kids, next time I saw them. I imagined them sleeping, miles across town. I considered how much of my daughters left-over anti-biotic I had, and whether I should be sharing it with the girl. I settled on a box of Ritz-crackers and a bottle of Ginger ale, the same thing that had gotten me through the last few days.
The Korean man's dark eyes were friendly but hard to read as he rang me up, probably because I myself felt suspicious. He asked, "Cold outside?" and I responded, "Yes, sick. Stomach," gesturing at my purchases. He said, "Ah, yes, going around." I got some money out of my wallet and handed it to him, wondering about the last time I had washed my hands as well as the next time he would wash his. I tried not to think about the money.
He had on a navy baseball hat with the same Blue-Ridge Parkway patch I had stitched on my leather jacket some months ago. The emblem of a tall pine next to a road. He bagged me up and I got out the door, thinking of high country in North Carolina and running it fast and alone. A country were not much else grows except mountain laurel and pines. I decided I did not want to run away.
The street was as empty as ever, and quiet now. This was not home anymore, it was suddenly Brooklyn except I was not strung-out tonight, I was merely sick. There was no reason for me to ever go back to Brooklyn anymore, and that I probably wouldn't for a long time. No bridge, no tall narrow channels of avenues, no dirty open water where they ended. There were bricks underfoot here and more trees and that was good enough. It was not a grim feeling and did not make me sad. I filed it away, my purpose that night was to get back to the girl I had left on the couch and care for her if I could. I picked up my pace.
She had blue eyes that were different from mine, neither the blue-green of a turbulent ocean nor the steel gun-metal blue of the sky in November. Startling blue, they flashed and were quick and hard to lock on to. They were more blue than anything I had ever seen before. They sometimes frightened me with the thought that anything could happen. I rounded the corner onto her block and considered once more the abortion car. It's Virginia plate said "ALL GOD," and the owner had carefully filled in either side with black letters, so that he carried more of his message across the bumper. It read "We are ALL GOD's children."
I had done work around the corner, so this block was known to me, but not on a sidewalk level of intimacy. There was a big filthy white 80's era caprice that was mostly always there, covered in anti-abortion propaganda. I tried not to notice the black and white images of fetuses lining the dash. It was mid-winter in my city, my boots conspicuously loud on the sidewalk in one of the few times I had been out of doors in three days. I pulled on my cigarette and tried not to appear skittish.
This block was the new marginal, pushed further away from downtown, tall buildings filled with one-rooms, Victorian porches replaced with treated-lumber decks, packed with bicycles and reckless debris. I marked each alley as I walked. Down one I heard the low guttural roar of a big diesel, and glimpsed a yellow tow-truck dragging someone out of a far lot, orange lights skimming the periphery. I avoided the memory of getting my own truck that morning out of a ragged lot under a too-big cold blue sky, and the money that I didn't have for it. I tried not to think about work.
The side streets punctuating the long blocks there had small one-story shops in them. I walked the length of one, wide windows open to a wide room, pregnant with opportunity. I placed a work bench in the middle of the space, in late-day sunlight, covered in thin purple walnut shavings, or else a crowded room encircled with bright canvases, children chasing each other around a maze of grown-ups.
I crossed the street to the closed laundromat and the Korean grocery I had been making for, pulled on the cigarette twice outside the door, and left it burning, cherry end off one edge of a newspaper box.
The man, mid fifties, greeted me in the empty store and went back to his paper. The shelves were plywood and thinly stocked in that stripped down 50's grocery kind of way. I tried to imagine what I could bring back that she could keep down. I noticed a bag of Chips Ahoy and remembered, suddenly, my mother microwaving them so that they were soft and the chocolate slightly melted. I decided against it, that would be for my kids, next time I saw them. I imagined them sleeping, miles across town. I considered how much of my daughters left-over anti-biotic I had, and whether I should be sharing it with the girl. I settled on a box of Ritz-crackers and a bottle of Ginger ale, the same thing that had gotten me through the last few days.
The Korean man's dark eyes were friendly but hard to read as he rang me up, probably because I myself felt suspicious. He asked, "Cold outside?" and I responded, "Yes, sick. Stomach," gesturing at my purchases. He said, "Ah, yes, going around." I got some money out of my wallet and handed it to him, wondering about the last time I had washed my hands as well as the next time he would wash his. I tried not to think about the money.
He had on a navy baseball hat with the same Blue-Ridge Parkway patch I had stitched on my leather jacket some months ago. The emblem of a tall pine next to a road. He bagged me up and I got out the door, thinking of high country in North Carolina and running it fast and alone. A country were not much else grows except mountain laurel and pines. I decided I did not want to run away.
The street was as empty as ever, and quiet now. This was not home anymore, it was suddenly Brooklyn except I was not strung-out tonight, I was merely sick. There was no reason for me to ever go back to Brooklyn anymore, and that I probably wouldn't for a long time. No bridge, no tall narrow channels of avenues, no dirty open water where they ended. There were bricks underfoot here and more trees and that was good enough. It was not a grim feeling and did not make me sad. I filed it away, my purpose that night was to get back to the girl I had left on the couch and care for her if I could. I picked up my pace.
She had blue eyes that were different from mine, neither the blue-green of a turbulent ocean nor the steel gun-metal blue of the sky in November. Startling blue, they flashed and were quick and hard to lock on to. They were more blue than anything I had ever seen before. They sometimes frightened me with the thought that anything could happen. I rounded the corner onto her block and considered once more the abortion car. It's Virginia plate said "ALL GOD," and the owner had carefully filled in either side with black letters, so that he carried more of his message across the bumper. It read "We are ALL GOD's children."
1/29/09
1/19/09
1/11/09
10/9/08
Salvation
n. 1 The process or state of being saved; preservation from impending evil. 2. Theol. Deliverance from sin and penalty, realized in a future state; redemption. 3. Any means of deliverance from danger, evil, or ruin.
--Funk & Wagnalls Standard
--Funk & Wagnalls Standard
Akhil IX
Achilles at the prow, daydreaming of points of exposure in his armor, as the shore of Troy rushed towards him, realized not one place he ever lived felt like home. Remembering once as a boy his father taking him into the wilderness. The lesson being Salute Every Man and Bow to None, the object being learning to live comfortably in pain. There in a clearing in the woods they discovered an eagle engaging a hare, an intangible, unspeakable thing. Thus Achilles learned quickness. It was the comfort of this memory that he let his mind rest on, the clever darting hare, whenever he was troubled.
Somebody told me once that the way Homer was able to recite the Iliad over the course of many days was to imagine the story as a house with many rooms, each section representing a room populated with the story and so, in his mind, he would walk each room describing what he saw. Today on the job, your poet could find no room in his mind in which his mind could rest, so he lay down in the darkest one he could find and wept.
Just before the beach, Achilles remembered himself as the boy high in the trees. He told that boy endure, child, endure. He thought of Hector waiting for him just beyond the dunes, his own singular art of killing. Coming over the prow and into the surf, his is the shout that can be heard for eternity. The arrows raining down from heaven, thousands of them, each one is a gift.
Somebody told me once that the way Homer was able to recite the Iliad over the course of many days was to imagine the story as a house with many rooms, each section representing a room populated with the story and so, in his mind, he would walk each room describing what he saw. Today on the job, your poet could find no room in his mind in which his mind could rest, so he lay down in the darkest one he could find and wept.
Just before the beach, Achilles remembered himself as the boy high in the trees. He told that boy endure, child, endure. He thought of Hector waiting for him just beyond the dunes, his own singular art of killing. Coming over the prow and into the surf, his is the shout that can be heard for eternity. The arrows raining down from heaven, thousands of them, each one is a gift.
10/7/08
Achilles 8- Tim
I carried my friend Tim in the truck a couple weekends ago to Lowes to pick up some material. He is building essentially a walk-in cube to be installed in his studio to showcase his work. In theory, it will be able to break down and sounds like an installation piece with four walls lined with wainscoting and furniture. Though I've never told him, Tim is an artist, one of the true seekers. We loaded up studs and for payment he bought me coffee at Starbucks. We like to swap war stories, sometimes, from the bad old days. Coming out of there he told one back when he played with Schwa and a brawl broke out, I think he said in Chapel Hill, complete with ambulances and chairs flying, and he hid under a table. Back in the truck, heading toward his shop, I countered with this one:
My sophomore year I went downtown with some other kids to a show in a warehouse club on Foushee named Caution. I think it was the first time any of us had ventured below Belvedere into the true grimey heart of this city we found ourselves in. I remember stairs up to a wide open room and a typical metal outfit grinding out some noise, all hair and bad teeth and attitude. There was a pit just under the stage with about twenty young guys hurling themselves around. I scored some beer somehow and me and my friends stood at the edge of the pit, uncomfortably, not sure what to do except watch.
Eventually the pit cleared out to a ring of boys all facing inward, with no one paying any attention to the band or what music they were making. I could feel the volume of it in my chest. The two guys left in the ring looked to be friends as they were both laughing as they threw each other around; one big guy all in black and a smaller dude in boots, jeans, biker jacket and no shirt. The big guy pushed the other into the crowd and he came running back and plowed into the man in black's chest. The kids forming the ring threw whoever got shoved back into action. Everybody grinned, the band never slowed down. Then the smaller kid in the jacket, leaping like a rabbit, crossed the width of the floor in ten jumps or so and landed his fist dead in the face of the other guy, knocking him down. At that very moment the ring collapsed with a surprising suddenness into an ocean of violence, every fist thrown, every body there colliding, the band playing metal full bore behind it, perfectly choreographed as if it had been planned that way. I told Tim I though it may have been the most beautiful occurance I have ever witnessed. We were stopped at a redlight at Broad and Boulevard, I was smoking and he responded,
"Dude, all of your stories have some element of violence in them and how beautiful it is. I think you must be really angry."
"You think?" I said, laughing.
"Yeah, it kind of worries me sometimes."
"No shit. It's been there as long as I can remember. Since I was a little kid. I don't enjoy it." I smoked a little there at the light and said, "I really would like to get rid of it one of these days."
"You will." Tim said.
My sophomore year I went downtown with some other kids to a show in a warehouse club on Foushee named Caution. I think it was the first time any of us had ventured below Belvedere into the true grimey heart of this city we found ourselves in. I remember stairs up to a wide open room and a typical metal outfit grinding out some noise, all hair and bad teeth and attitude. There was a pit just under the stage with about twenty young guys hurling themselves around. I scored some beer somehow and me and my friends stood at the edge of the pit, uncomfortably, not sure what to do except watch.
Eventually the pit cleared out to a ring of boys all facing inward, with no one paying any attention to the band or what music they were making. I could feel the volume of it in my chest. The two guys left in the ring looked to be friends as they were both laughing as they threw each other around; one big guy all in black and a smaller dude in boots, jeans, biker jacket and no shirt. The big guy pushed the other into the crowd and he came running back and plowed into the man in black's chest. The kids forming the ring threw whoever got shoved back into action. Everybody grinned, the band never slowed down. Then the smaller kid in the jacket, leaping like a rabbit, crossed the width of the floor in ten jumps or so and landed his fist dead in the face of the other guy, knocking him down. At that very moment the ring collapsed with a surprising suddenness into an ocean of violence, every fist thrown, every body there colliding, the band playing metal full bore behind it, perfectly choreographed as if it had been planned that way. I told Tim I though it may have been the most beautiful occurance I have ever witnessed. We were stopped at a redlight at Broad and Boulevard, I was smoking and he responded,
"Dude, all of your stories have some element of violence in them and how beautiful it is. I think you must be really angry."
"You think?" I said, laughing.
"Yeah, it kind of worries me sometimes."
"No shit. It's been there as long as I can remember. Since I was a little kid. I don't enjoy it." I smoked a little there at the light and said, "I really would like to get rid of it one of these days."
"You will." Tim said.
10/6/08
Bookend
In May, on a whim, I downloaded this album. I hadn't regularly listened to Sleep since the mid nineties when I was in art school and washed dishes for a living. I have no idea what possessed me to download it, other than it must have been divine providence, because Sleep, and the two bands that rose from it's ashes, Om and High on Fire, have become entirely undercurrent in my life since then.
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