Making a living

 
this is what I want to do
for a living
sit on a bench
near the river
near the train tracks
near the highway
and listen

took half a sick day
to get some skin cancer
cut off my back
it took 6 mins
and I have hours to waste
so I found a bench
ate a BK burrito
drank an iced coffee
and watched the reflections
of cars off the Ohio
as they traveled on rt 51
across the river from me
splotches of white and red
zooming down the small ripples
starts and stops where trees grow
on the riverbank

I pulled my phone out
only to take pictures
orange flowers
a grinny in a drain pipe
the way the light shined
through the tunnel
that got me here

I listen to the way
cars echo
when under a bridge
animals scurrying
on the hill beside me
birdsong
the sudden train behind me

I’ll be heading to work soon
answering emails
and questions
interaction imminent
but I know
I could sit here
8 hours a day
5 days a week
and never once get bored
if only
someone would pay me

Something


There
I was
on the brink
of summer,
nothing
happening.
Teaching
a Zoom class
in my apt.,
the dead
weight
of a summer
afternoon
crushing me.
My neighbor
lit his grill
then fired up
his loud speaker
and played
a song –
religious,
southern,
& country.
It swallowed me
like plastic
swallows
the ocean.
The smell
of barbeque
drifted in
through
my window.
I muted
my class,
turned off
the camera
and reclined.
Something
had begun. 

The Sting Comes Later

All he sees is a ‘bee.’ Not its species: apis mellifera (or European honey bee). Not its wondrous anatomical makeup: mandibles; antennae, compound eyes; thorax; abdomen; fore, middle, hind legs with pollen baskets; fore and hind wings. Not its stinger. Nor does he recognize its importance to biodiversity on which we all rely to survive. It buzzes by—not in attack but as if pleading. He swats his hand in reaction. Here, he notices the bee is slow, sluggish. It tugs itself away in a struggling up and down trajectory. He follows. In the back, left corner of the yard, he sees a whole colony of bees dead at the base of a disintegrating honeycomb. He doesn’t think twice; blindly he pulls out his pocketknife—and scrapes enough of the disappearing golden gelatin for his morning toast.

REMOTE


So, we are to be uploaded to some sort of
unfathomable A.I. machine, bodies shed,
minds and spirits preserved in protective

cyborg shells? Then sent to explore, colonize,
and populate the known and unknown planets
that exist between the stars. But what if future

A.I.s are homebodies and prefer to sit on digital
couches, and watch Happy Days reruns after all the
meat puppets are discarded? What if you have seen

one wormhole, you have seen them all, and each
part of the multiverse is just as dull as the rest?
And I want the right to get lost and not always 

know all the answers, and struggle to learn a dead
language just for fun, and have happy accidents
which lead to life-changing revelations. Surely, I

do not want to stock up on vitamins or fast Silicon
Valley style in a vain effort to live forever;
this one moment is already more than enough.


 

VOX POPULI


A naked, male statue, knee deep in sand, stands in
the desert while a vulture perches where the bronze

head had been, giving the figure the appearance
of an Egyptian hybrid god. No tourists file

past to take selfies with the lone statue, which
cools beneath the moonlight, just as our amour

turned tepid after a season, and you removed my
images from photos both digital and physical.

But I will get my head together, so to speak, and
stake out my place at the corner of the bar, where

I will wax eloquent on behalf of the desert
statue waiting for his voice to make its way home. 

 

Our Grandchildren’s Other Grandfather


His scuffed Stetsons
sit by his stirrups
and saddle in the shop.

His cowboy hat hangs
with his fringed jacket
on the rack in the hall.

Shriveled to a sliver
of himself, he lies
in the hospice bed

in the same room
in the farmhouse
where he was born.

The dead - his wife
and two sons- watch
from photographs

as friends and family
file in. He opens milky
eyes and smiles as he stares

into the wide blue pupils –
identical to his as a boy -.
of his and our infant great

granddaughter as her mother,
his and our granddaughter,
kisses his leathery cheek

and our daughter, who sees
him as a second father,
pats his gnarly hand.

Our and his other grandchildren
sponge his parched lips while
the nurse administers morphine.

When he takes his last breath
three months from his 80th birthday
the wind howls through the pasture.

The Naked Truth

Never in a million years did I imagine I would be where I was, doing
what I was doing. But thinking back, there have been more than a few
times that I could have uttered that phrase. I got into some
outrageous scrapes. But I was lucky enough to have spontaneous and
unexpected visitations of quick wits and cunning to escape them. Who
knows how or why. But I am grateful, and when I recount them,
entertained.

There were some dark times. Though not all my misadventures were
brought on by sad circumstances. Some were just youth with its
arrogance and certainty of immortality.

In this particular case I had to escape from an abusive man, take my
13-month-old son, and sneak away in the dead of night. I had hired a
friend to help me make a secret getaway from Asheville to Atlanta,
where I had friends who would allow me to stay with them until I got
on my feet.

Life in Atlanta was a big challenge. How to make money? Especially
with no car. Somehow by some grace, and persistence, I made the right
connections and created a good life there.

Eventually I needed to make more money. So I was always brainstorming.
I often passed a strip club that advertised a weekly dance contest
with cash prizes. I loved to dance, and had great rhythm, so I made
plans to enter the contest.

Naively, I assumed that the other contestants would be amateurs like
me. But instead they were well seasoned dancers who worked at other
clubs in the city. I was disappointed that I did not win. But after
the contest the manager approached me and asked me if I’d be
interested in working there. I agreed and that’s when I became…Ella.

It took time to learn the ropes and to refine my look from an
alternative punk rocker (it was the 80s), into a slick and provocative
dancer. But over the course of the next couple of years I became quite
successful and it became quite lucrative.

I had always wanted to be an actor but was too insecure to audition.
Dancing in the club gave me a chance to be on stage, to develop
confidence, a persona, and clever and charming ways to elicit tips
from recalcitrant customers.

There is an arc that women go through when working in the world of
strip clubs and GoGo bars. It starts by feeding your ego and boosting
your self-esteem. That shows, and you make more and more money. But
then it starts to have the opposite effect and degrades your self
image; having to live a secret life and carrying the shame of working
in the sex business. Even though there was no sex, there was the
fantasy of sex and the stigma of being a stripper.

I got very burnt out as Ella but had no real skills to make that kind
of money in any other profession. I was glad to help indulge in a
fantasy but could never bring myself to accept the offers to have sex
for money. The reasons being I only wanted to have sex with people I
wanted to have sex with, and I did not want to ruin sex by making it a
job. Not to mention the fact that it was illegal, and I didn’t need
that mess.

So Ella took refuge in another nefarious sexual fantasy business. They
called themselves lingerie shops. Men would come in, choose the woman
they wanted to have model the lingerie, which they would have to pick
out and buy for her. Then they would enter a private room with the
model who had dressed herself in said lingerie. They would relax and
watch her dance while she provocatively removed the lingerie. During
her dance they would relieve themselves. This often involved begging
for the woman’s involvement in the process. Which in my case fell on
deaf ears. Despite that fact, Ella was very popular.

To make the situation humorous I renamed the shop the Wanky Parlor. I
was by nature adventurous and courageous and never really gave a
thought to the dangers that might be involved in these escapades.
Luckily I was never hurt but there was a close call.

One night a very young man, probably in his teens, came in. He chose
me. I led him through the process of picking lingerie and payment and
he seemed very awkward and nervous the whole time. I chalked that up
to a few things. He was very young and this was probably the first
time he was attempting to do anything like this. And he was an
underage black male in this predominantly white area in a business he
was unfamiliar with.

I led him into the room and started doing my dance and when I was
completely naked he took out a gun and put it on his lap. He said,
“Come here.”

Out of nowhere, extraordinary survival instinct, inspired thinking,
and apparent acting ability kicked into high gear. I screamed in a
high intensity whisper “Oh my God, put that away, hurry up before the
manager sees it! There’s a two-way window behind you. The manager
always looks through the window. If he sees that gun he’ll come in
here and shoot you! He has a shotgun! Get out of here! Put that away
and get out of here! Hurry up!”

Apparently I was very persuasive because the young man jumped up and
ran out of the room, out of the shop, and was never seen again.The
management was unconcerned and I was forbidden from calling the
police.

I left the business not long after that. Fortunately before I
experienced any physical harm. And before I became jaded and
self-loathing, built-in side effects of the sex business.

But fortunately not before I could tell the tale of how I prevented a
crime, fully naked, and armed with only my ability to tell a
convincing lie.

Free World

With heads bowed as in silent prayer, but fingers locked behind our necks as if we were prisoners, we knelt facing the wall in a coldly lit corridor of Lakeside Elementary School, safe, they said, from the blast wave. We didn’t object or question. We didn’t admit fear or doubt. It was enough to be told throughout childhood that we lived in what they called the “Free World.” When minutes later the air raid drill was over, we marched in an orderly line like soldier ants back to our classroom. The world is still a funny kind of free. Whereas in Mexico they say “whiskey” to get people to smile for a photo, in the U.S. we say “money.” 

The Futility of Existence Vs Soma

 
Cannabis
keeps despair
at bay,
 
except
for when
it doesn’t.
 
At times,
the monster
expands to such
cinematic dimensions
 
that no weapon
can vanquish it.
 
Then I
take a nap
until it goes away.
 
At 64,
I’m just glad
to wake up.
 
Fresh coffee,
breakfast,
maybe a puff
or two.
 
Fuck it.
 
Existential angst
is for those
who can
still afford it.
 
I can’t
be bothered,
anymore.

who's your momma


what hip-hop got
it got from jazz
Fountain of frictionless
New Orleans spilling
into gumbo-rich air
and stale beer

all that has to be said
pretending it’s not interested
in talking—heartbeat heat
drop beat feet—who’s
that momma slapping
you up side your head

Billie and Ella
Sarah and Dinah
and too soon dead
Bessie

Davis and Dizzy
Louis and Hubbard
and Brown—all putting
it down so the new peeps
can pick it up and do
what they do—do what
they do

old school
new school
bruises—black
and blue and blue
and blue

Young Love

 
When we passed the boy and girl 
on the muddy Stony Run path
that cold January day, he in shorts,
a mug of coffee in hand, 
she in her pajamas, slippers,
we remembered young love.

“I don't think I can go on,”
the girl's voice quavered, 
indicating her slippers,
the muddy path.

“I thought you'd put on your boots,”
the boy observed, almost as if
the girl were stupid.

What a prick, I thought.

“I wanted to show you the mourning doves,”
he pressed, as if a romantic soul.

We left them behind us, still arguing.
Not really an “argument,” 
but the tension was palpable,
a conflict of wills.

You took me here to see some fucking pigeons?
I imagined the girl saying,
putting the boy in his place.
At least it could have been a kingfisher, or pleated woodpeckers!
But fucking pigeons? PIGEONS! Really?

“That's a relationship that's not going to last,”
my wife commented 
when we were out of earshot.