Driving down a dirt road north of Phoenix, just before dusk;

I saw him running, the man, with cleft chin thrust grimly forward, elbows swinging high and fists forward into uppercuts.

He was in his late 50's/early 60's, with the look of someone who might've once been a captain of industry.

His strides, too, were exaggerated, as if bounding but without much bounce.

In fact, he looked more like a man imitating a superhero (the Flash maybe?) then someone actually running and I slowed to catch his eye as I drove past, expecting to see a little sparkle there, hinting at the performance he was putting on.

Instead, he seemed to be within himself - with a glassy-eyed, vacant stare that belied his physical hyperbole.

"Hunh," I thought to myself, and drove on.

A few days later I found myself out with the boys, tearing up the night (read: too many drinks and too few credit cards - still haven't found that last one!) until we wound our way to Crescent Ballroom, and myself, joined by LB, out on the dance floor.

There was a young woman DJ spinning and I soon approached to challenge and beguile her with my wisdom, insight, and diverse musical knowledge:*

"Got any Devo?" I asked.

"That was Devo," she retorted.

Which didn't make any sense, 'cause it hadn't been - but the club was loud and either of us might've misheard so I forged on, trying to rejoin with a request for "The Specials" - at which point, she rolls her eyes, cuts me off mid-sentence, and says:

"I'm gonna play what I'm gonna play."

The record didn't come to a screeching halt, but man it felt like that.

And I thought of the guy running down the dirt road.

What I'd thought had been a playful gesture, had been called out as self-important grandiosity. And irrelevant.

I turned, and with that just-kicked-in-the-nuts feeling, left the DJ's area.

Went back to the table, drank half a beer, got fully distracted, then 2 minutes later, LB and I were out on the dance floor, cuttin' it up.

The good news?

1. The DJ didn't suck.
2. The flipside to being old (and maybe a few sheets in the wind) is that sh*t rolls pretty easily off your shoulders.

We danced the night away, and it was… delightful - irrelevance be damned!

Now if I can just find that debit card.

Hallow's Eve

two-fer

Controlled Burn

West of Flagstaff
(near Kendrick Mtn)
10.18.14

Down but not out

The grandmother
like a golem
lies dormant under the bed,

awaits
the plaintive cries of her children's children

- themselves,
bright eyed and pink toed,
peering into the darkness:

a detritus of dog's hair, dust bunnies,
old skin cells
and dreams
unrealized -

"I need you, Grandma!"
her summons.

With the sound of a frozen tire,
mis-shapen and thumping over hard ground,
she rolls out

into the light

(as dog's claws clatter on hardwood floors,
scrabbling for purchase);

wide-eyed
and wild-haired,
she peers up at them

- lips pulled back revealing
gleaming gums and teeth, smiling
and not smiling -

exclaims,
voice indignant and abuzz,
"no son of mine will grow a beard!"

and
quickly spins
back towards the void

-but-

"wait, Grandma, wait!"
stops her dead

(in motion)

and pulling her towards
(her daughter's sons and daughters,
faces beaming)
the light,

what was gnarled inside her,
unknotted
rises.

There's life in this old girl, yet.

Head

Here's a secret

I'm in disguise
and so are you...

now gaily dance we all. 

Hamlet had it wrong

To do

and 

not do;

pretty much the same...


A thought which occurred to me at the bare ass end of meditating this morning. Something I hadn't done in a while.

And while this may seem to be the recipe for antipathy it's actually the opposite.

There is a poem which bespeaks the agony of indecision:

head says stay 

heart says go 

(the town is half a mile away)

Or there's the Clash, in days of yor, ask/singing "should I stay or should I go?"

If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay there will be double.

You get the idea.

But at the heart of the torment is indecision. Once decided, the clouds part, the sun shines forth and everything is illuminated...

Unless, of course, you double back.

***

Poop. I may've bitten off more than I can chew in a pre-work segue.

More later? :)

Kansas City

There and back

Morning of the night we flew to Kansas

Trotted the dogs down to Nami, a local watering hole (read: vegan coffee house) in prep for our trip.

Saw these flowers in the window and liked the industrial frame narrative.

Post effing of image, compliments of Camerabag.

All very exciting, I'm sure.

Tra-la-la.