*
*
A squadron of grackles descends
early this morning, clatter and squawk
iridescent purple-black travelers
pick through the dead leaves
*
toss with aimless abandon
snatch up bug or seed or centipede
chase away subordinates
from their grackle snacks
*
A sudden whoosh flings
wings to the trees
dark brush strokes on stark branches
leave the leafy lawn fluffed
massaged pleasure sighs
in the thin spring light
*
*
Alex is sitting on a bench in the small bus station. A fluorescent light flickers in the fixture above his head. It is 3 a.m. and he’s waiting for daylight. In four hours he’ll be able to get some coffee somewhere. For now, he’s waits.
He’s got his iPhone plugged into an outlet. Even if it was charged, he couldn’t call anyone. Certainly not Gram or his father. They’d only yell at him for getting kicked out of the Hostel. He did think about calling, and he weighed the options for several minutes. His dad would just add this fuck-up to the long list he keeps of all Alex’s fuck-ups, going way back to high school. Alex hears the Interlocutor’s voice calling him to confess. He decides not to acknowledge him. Instead he lights the remains of a cigarette he found in the bus station’s ashtray.
The smokes keep his dreams in their place. That’s why he was smoking in the Hostel’s kitchen. The dream of the black corks coming at him to stop his breath was doing that throbbing thing. Alex had to smoke or be suffocated. He knew he’d be locked out if he stepped outside to smoke, so he opened a window and sat by it, blowing the smoke out carefully.
He got caught. Someone saw him and called the manager, an Algerian guy with a really scary face. Alex had to pack up all his stuff. He dragged the bags down the street to the bus station. It was only after he got there that he realized he’d left his food in the fridge. Maybe he can pick it up in the morning.
He’s hungry now, but he’s used to being hungry. In the City, at his mom’s, there was hardly ever anything to eat. Sometimes she’d make some nasty bean concoction. After he lost his SSDI, Alex had to guilt trip his mom to get a little cash for a sandwich. And he’d have to listen to her go on about how she couldn’t afford to support him and he had to get back to handing out fliers so he’d make some money.
Alex looks out the window to the edge of the parking lot. He sees a small moving shape. It’s the fox again. She’s never very far away, but she usually stays in the shadows, like this. She is after his liver and Alex has to be constantly vigilant when he’s outdoors in the nighttime. Once he fell asleep in the park after smoking some really strong weed. It was in the summer. He fell asleep on the grass. The fox came so close he could hear her panting. She tried to bite his rib cage but he rolled away and she just got his shirt with her teeth. He sat up and yelled and slapped at her snout. She ran back into the trees. Alex’s friends woke up and they were scared. Scared of Alex, not the fox.
*
*
The eagle holds lightning in its talons
Pointed shadow on bare earth
Eyes pierce the distance
Splits sky to rolling river
Beak breaks bones
*
Tail of feathers rusty red
She is the hawk,
Speckled breast white and brown
She wears the queen’s crown
Her throne the tallest pine
*
The sentinel jay of blue
Ornery as a pincushion
Testifying in the woods
Always first in line
Color proud, oh so loud
*
Miss Nuthatch comes knocking
Upside-down grayling
In her Sunday best
Black cap, white bib,
Used to be a nun
*
Fussy chickadee
Jaunty black beret
Speaks French with its mouth full
Complains to the chef
Too much millet, more peanuts!
l’ll be there! Bring the kids and say hello!
*
*
This past January, my home internet bill was $49.98. In February it was $73.40. “That’s a big hike,” I thought, so I logged in to my account. My account page online wasn’t informative, so I opted to have a chat. I got someone named Frank. Here is what I recall of the text conversation after the ID check-in:
Me: So, Frank, why has my bill gone up $24?
Frank: Let me look it up. (pause) You had a promotion that gave you a discount of $30, but it expired.
Me: I’m a senior, and I’m trying to reduce my expenses. Is there any way you can lower my bill?
Frank: (explanation about my current equipment that I don’t understand) Do you have wi-fi?
Me: I don’t know. I thought I did.
Frank: Our records show that you only have our modem. Do you have a router, too? It’s a tower with a light.
Me: I don’t know. (I go look). There’s a small thing with blinking green lights and a tower thing with a blue light.
Frank: That’s our router. It’s not on your service. I need the serial number to add it to your account.
(I take a photo of the serial number with my iPhone and type it into the chat. Please note: I’m not totally technologically ignorant.)
Me: Are there any new promotions that could lower my bill?
Frank: No. But the router will add $5 a month to your account.
Me: Do you realize how hilariously aggravating this is? I called because my bill went up and now it’s going to be even higher?
Frank: blah blah…policies…blah blah
Me: I know you’re not personally responsible for this, but it is totally absurd.
Frank: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Me: ( )
P.S. My Spectrum bill is now $80.
*
*
Are you a keeper of the light?
Do you cradle a candle
fingers glowing
sheltering the flame?
*
Are you a keeper of the peace?
Do you cleave to the center
feet balanced
plumes unruffled?
*
Are you a keeper of love?
Do you offer a hand to another
as an equal
a sister or brother?
*
Are you a keeper of your soul?
Do you guard it like a sentry,
only allowing goodness
to pass through?
*
*
is what I want to be
a hollow bamboo tube
with holes carefully placed
burnished by lifetimes
*
a pipe that channels
the eternal breath of Spirit
whose holes release
the wind of sacred song
*
Oh, my beloved,
play your tune through me
breath of love and light
holy golden melody
*
*
Alex has a secret. Sometimes he has a special power. He can use his eyes in a certain way and the girl he wants to fuck just slides toward him. The power gives Alex just the right words to say, and the golden rays shine out of his eyes. The power, when he has it, can illuminate the girl’s aura. It makes her glow and vibrate in a rainbow halo.
The problem with the power is that Alex can’t control it. He’s been working on this for a few years now. He knows that beer dulls the power but weed enhances it. He figures that’s why the Rastafarians use ganja as a religious rite. They must have a link to the same power. He’s read a lot about the Rastas, trying to suss out more but the answers he wanted weren’t there.
The power affects his speech and his eyes. When he has it, he can be so incredibly deep and eloquent that he astounds himself. Alex knows he’s intelligent. When he has the power, he’s brilliant. Like the time he was explaining the five levels of his dreams to Lisa and her friend Sandra. The way they looked at him, with such wide-eyed awe. He knocked their socks off.
Alex can feel the power when it comes on. It’s like a warm humming in his root chakra. At first he thought it was the kundalini energy awakening. He researched kundalini and decided that this power wasn’t the vital energy the Indian sages talked about. It was something different. Alex’s current theory is that he’s an Indigo child, part of a new, more evolved race on Earth.
*
*
I’ve met two roads
in woods and fields
and concrete paths diverging
A choice of two,
obscured by fog
may end in night submerging
*
One might be a stony way
slippery leaves a peril
or a flatter, smooth sashay
*
Frost ignored,
it’s taken decades
to ponder forks that challenge
*
With calm regard,
admit that easy roads
can disappoint or damage
*
Learn the thinly marked
with roots and rubble
are usually worth the trouble
*
*
Carolyn
She lives at the nursing home in a padded wheelchair, legs curled up, feet bare. Wiry gray hair, teeth worn down from grinding. All day she barks, “Eh, eh, eh, eh!” In bed, she continues. Does she sleep or keep barking? I don’t know; I’m not there at night.
Her name is Carolyn. The staff and the other residents ignore her noise. It is part of the day’s sounds, along with carts wheeling down the halls, announcements over the PA system, and the eternal beeping of call buttons.
The first time, on my way out, I asked her, “Are you singing?” “Singing,” she said, and after a pause, continued to bark.
The next time, I stopped and said, “Hello, Carolyn. I’ll sing you a song.” I sang, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.”
“Sunshine,” she said, and moved her lips with some of the lyrics.
After one chorus and a verse, I said, “I have to go now, but next time I’ll sing you another song.”
“Thank you,” she said. A conversation. An appropriate response.
I was surprised. And I wept as I waited for the elevator.
Tangled Magic 