Posts for June 21, 2020 (page 3)

Let’s all get up and dance
to a song that was a hit
before your mother was born,
though she was born a long,
long time ago. Your mother should know.
Your mother should know. Uhhh-oh!

This is one of those spells that
work best at crossroads.

It also helps to bring along
your favorite orienteer.

Calm your mind-
Remember all of this is only fabric.

Time and
space are
easier to bend around the New Moon in Cancer,
often close to a Solstice.

If you plan well and pack right,
a good Equinox will do.

Gather your materials:

— a few anointed candles
(rubbing the outsides with cooking spray while
singing with Duran Duran, David Bowie,
or whoever calls to you from a past decade
will do in a pinch),

— a companion who conveys
“Yes! Do that!” when you mention
the tiny tugs that amuse your heart
(this can and should be you),

— a bundle of sage
(best if from a dear friend- but any incense
or even a stick will suffice.
Just get something that once grew.)

This spell really works.
There aren’t any publishable details.
It’s made of wonder, trust,
praise songs, and gravity wells.

Science
backs it up. Science
and holistics and magick
support each other, like clockwork.
Here’s proof:

— All the times
you were mistaken
for someone else
who must move and look like you
in a space you’ve only
occupied for a few years, but you’ve
yet to spot such a twin.

— Deja Vu.

— The Philadelphia Experiment
(never talk about it while
traveling foreign roads unless
you’re willing to get a little lost).

— Places where the crossroads
mirror each other. One gas station
and the same gas station
catty corner
(that’s where time was bent
so well that even commerce
could not unbend it).

When you are finished,
it is normal to feel doubt.

It is then that we recommend
you wait 3 days and ask a neighbor
if they can spare a wormhole.

Their answer will indicate
how effectively your spell took
(success might take multiple rites).

Their answer has nothing to do
with how fortunate you are to have
your neighbors.

Alternatively,
offer The Vivaldi Earworm
to a cat, a fox, a possum,
a rabbit or a raccoon. Wait.
If they even once disappear,
leave their prints, or multiply
anywhere within the span
of what passes as 8 days, you know.

To see where time leads, feed
a historian, a psychic, an economist,
a political theorist, a psychologist, or any scientist.

When you’re ready to make time
stand still, sponsor a painter,
a photographer,
a baker or a cook. Artisans
of cheese and liquors also work.

To steal time, plan ahead.

When there’s a
storm
coming
and the dog
hides
under the bed
shaking
and the little hairs
stand up all over
your body
and the
weather radio
blares
listing alert
after alert
for your area,
so you drink a
beer and sit at
the kitchen table
hoping
the dark sky
isn’t as ominous
as it looks,
hoping
at least the
electric
won’t go out
because despite
the ongoing
pandemic,
you have deadlines
and online meetings
and a to-do list,
hoping the
static
coursing through
your body brings
productivity
or change
or something good
and doesn’t mean
you’ll be huddled
in the basement
with your kids
at midnight
again.

Once a year I get to reflect

on all I’ve ever known a man to be.

Which is to say absolutely nothing.

I am fatherlessly fathered.

I remember whose freckles I have.

Whose clenched fist and rolled tongue.

My fatherless Father’s Day

is the elephant in my therapy chart.

My Freudian slip.

That daddy kink I have yet

to develop fully.

I grieve a life

not yet complete.

I grieve a life

I’ll never have

and perhaps

always deserved.

An ambiguous mourning

walking herself down an aisle.

Imagine a holiday,

exactly for that.

To be back on the river
To be back in the concert hall
Among the trees
Among the lights

I have never needed to run
or to be in a library
this badly in my entire life

And with the time apart
The currents will seem softer
The information more valuable
The rehearsals more sacred

I will remember this
forever
taking nothing for granted ever again

and knowing
that nothing will ever
(or should ever)
be the same ever again.

The sun has moved
only an inch
in four and a half thousand years.
Should I admire

suddenly anxiety surfaces
met with resistance and some remorse
why am I misunderstood
people have a way of twisting accounts
actually, the anxiety is ever present, it does not arrive perchance
I have news and it’s somber
what you expect might not ever be
try to see the positive, cheering myself as best I can
I will prevail
even in melancholy because what choice do I have

Yesterday, my nephew turned a month old
and I’ve just now gotten the opportunity
to see him for the first time,
a long overdue visit incorporated
into long anticipated vacation,
a chance to finally get out for a while.

I had hoped to be at the hospital
standing next to my brother so proud
as his son was brought into the world.
Wanted to be there at the house
when the babe was brought home,
the place he will be from.

Pandemics don’t allow for those things, though
forcing suspicion of visitors,
turning family into environmental hazards.
To protect the vulnerable, we must
be willing to make such sacrifices.
I just hate being reduced to text message spectator.

But when emergencies allow for an exception
it’s a moment not to be lost,
thank you God for this opportunity.
With time, visits will be more common, natural,
and I’m grateful to receive this little introduction.
He looks just like his father.

I love a good board
One from an old barn that screams
Dry rot
I love the way it takes 3 or 4 coats of paint  to cover
And the back is always exposed with its years
A good board can be found in the creek, in the field, in the yard, 
In your dreams of folk art splinters
God, I just love a good old board

I dress in rags
held together with golden pins.
I dance with drifters to keep my feet from knowing solid ground. 

I’ll meet you on a balcony
or buy you a drink at the bar.

I’ll write you a poem
or call your name with fervor (not forever) .

But please don’t cry deceit
when my pockets spill your riches

I still haven’t found what I came here for
and I haven’t talked to anyone in
ages. My watch shows not the time but
rather increments that guide how we
decide to split up moments between the
sun rising and setting. A way to decipher
an order to this world and add purpose
to our actions. To give us a sense of
urgency. The illusion that time is
always running out. It seems the words would
only fall out of my mouth rather than
be spoken. From a distance I knew we
had something in common, something mind
altering to the core. Every blink of
my eye reveals a new face to recognize.
Among the bustle with each passing moment,
a new accent can be heard, a new
language to be learned. A layered synth
covered in chords. If I listen close enough,
I can hear a new song among them. And
listening even closer reveals their
true melodies, the tempo in which they
live their lives. The tree limbs bend from the wind,
but I can’t be too certain about that
since they aren’t the only thing that has come
alive. The grass, a vivid green. The type
of green only seen in cartoons
accompanied by a bright baby blue
sky, soft as lotion. My vision tunnels
to green and blue, green and blue, green and blue.

Green and blue with a touch of brown from the
bases of trees that stretch up to
overgrown pieces of broccoli. Painted
dots of yellow from sporadic sunflowers
poke from the ground, a polka-dotted dress
dancing in the wind. Dandelion fuzz
floats through the air with hand-blown bubbles, like
snow flurries mixed with giant rain drops. Each
bubble catches the sun behind it,
a rainbow of colors bounce from the top
of the sky and back down to the ground as
the wind carries each laugh and conversation off
like a lost balloon. My only solitude
comes from the music in the distance.
A place like this has a tendency to
encourage my urge to feel like I play
a role in this world. As if there is a
certain order to the chaos around us.
Days here can seem like weeks or months, but
only with the right influence.