For I am Home

I feel myself sinking back to the depths
The depths of which turn me lethargic
The depths in which I do not speak
The depths in which my thoughts are the loudest

I feel myself sinking but its not really sinking, it’s returning
Returning to the inside where I am afraid
Returning to the emotions which I can’t control
Returning from the outside with all the smiles

I feel myself sinking but it’s not that bad for I can still breathe
A breath with more meaning than necessity
A breath with more patience than anxiety
A breath with beautiful sadness rather than contrived beauty

I feel myself sinking but it’s more like releasing
Relaxing
Unpacking
For I am home

Jessica Reynolds, “For I am Home” copyright 2009*

Examination of Experiences

Include everything and you leave
Out the essence. Leaving out all things
Such as emotions of any note make it appear clear,
Colorless as it is turned over.

Hurrying to this thought,
Putting away the tasks to hear
The transient trains that glide by the screen
Is a way of collecting our parts:

The photographic memory that holds
The numbers on the boxcars, undifferentiated,
Of equal value. Place them here,
Pebbles found at a beach

Examined for their mystery.
We put them in a drawer.
Years later they will be as they are,
Aged meaning remembered down a long avenue
Cleansed by rain, by our tears.

ajar is for Otomo, Rowe, Sugimoto

the wet tires
on the black
on sand

the woodpecker
you don’t see
tick, ticking

the slippers
you can’t find
in the dark

until you do
the sound you can’t
imagine until you

hear it
the humming wires
overhead with

& without the wind
that rasps, creaks,
ebbs, ends

in the calm
full of subtraction,
substance

sustenance
that clears
the field

This poem is also a reaction to/review of the album, “ajar”
by Otomo Yoshihide, Keith Rowe, and Taku Sugimoto,
guitars

RAY

It happened again. This time with Ray. Second Uncle to die. Second Uncle to kill himself. Gordie first. Now Ray. I knew it was about him when my mom called me. I knew what she was going to say. And I knew how he had done it. A loner who hanged himself. Didn’t come to pick up his mail for days on end. He was a spy in Germany. Climbed over the wall in the dark wearing black from head to toe. Started in the air force. Only had one love. Linda Miller in Missouri. He bought me perfume once. And when we were in Rome he put me up in my very own hotel room. He was the closest thing to a rich Uncle I ever had. He was Ray. The cranky bastard. Lovable, tender, shy, scared of people. Things I wish I could write to him now. That pa finished his book. That I want to study in Italy with Brett. That things were going to be okay. But he died. Brett says don’t feel guilty. You had no control over this. Brett played chess with him. He was supposed to come to Seattle for Halloween, but I went to NYC instead. We left him a message on his birthday. A message with all our voices chiming in. Happy Birthday. We love you Uncle Ray.

Pa came home after identifying his older brother and took off all his clothes. He arrived with no bag, I think he was on meth. He grabbed a plastic garbage bag and shoved all his clothes inside. “Where is your bag pa?” No answer. Just a slammed door in my face. Ma says, “he’s not doing well. Not sad, just says I smell bad.” We all went to bed and I dreamed Meghan put me on the phone with a retard, unable to understand that I had to wake up at two a.m. and didn’t want to swap suicide stories. God Ray, look what a mess you’ve made. I knew dad was alive because he kept rattling pill bottles from the medicine chest. Then later it was his snore that kept me believing he was alive. But what if he isn’t.

The Space Between Objects

The substance was the doing, the process of moving out
into the day.
Transposing the objects and dilemmas with an action
That led you beyond meaning, siren call of distraction
To the roots here in the quiet under the tree of life.

The reality of plumbing pulls me back into the rooms I left.
It clunks away. I have not been inspired nor turned
Inward enough to you, who is always standing
There in the back of my mind.
I am not going to put the trees in though they stand
breathing softly,
Attentive as dawn in the famous calligrapher’s picture.

This part of the arena is being closed.
I am left here with only words.
They flare briefly on the bare floor and go out.
The scenery is rolled on to the next plateau.
The parts, (buildings, animals, destructions, lusts,
cars, etc…)
Are going to be still and become a homogeneous us.
My dreams I will to that other you I have chosen
Hoping to tame a contrariness which is the other side
of the coin of submission.

Now the lights are on, have been for awhile
And, in this feeling at twilight
The forest and trees become one.

Marriage then Divorce or Highway Robbery?

left_with_20_dollars_smToday I found this story below while randomly foraging the internet. It’s rare to see a divorce story where the man did nothing wrong (to my knowledge) and loses both financially and emotionally. Did he neglect his wife to start a business if they both agreed it was the right move in the long run? I think he got robbed? let me know what you think!!

[ Story below by Alex ]

My wife and I were married for 20yrs before we divorced. During the last 5 of those 20yrs I had started a business and it boomed. Needless to say, to facilitate the tremendous growth I’d experience I had to work a lot and she felt neglected. At the end, I had to sell my business and gave half to my wife (after Obama took his share), or about $6M. In a year’s span, my children went off to college, lost my wfie, lost the business I’d worked so hard to build and am alone.