More Hippie road notes

She dreamt through the night and late into the morning.  It was an epic struggle, the story to end all stories and when she woke she was soaking; sodden mattress, sheets sticking wet to her arms.  She flung off the cocoon gasping.

She stared blankly at the veneer of the dark brown cabinetry just above her foldout bed which was their kitchen table during the daytime.  She fed all night long on what was found there between them throughout the days conversations.

They belonged to the road, screaming wild as Eden.  They were borrowing the RV, that's how they ended up justifying the adventure.

So the next night she was afraid to go to sleep.  She sat by the coals which were glowing orange, white hot when a breeze blew and she knew that this was something she was simply going to have to learn how to live with.  The dream left a scar, no first a wound, one that does not want to close, not ever.

It'll get better.  And, hey, this was still better than sitting at home.

Amateur Healer

this is my art response

this breathing in and out

showing inability

staring at the snows green stubble

acting like someone waiting

this is the nothing you can do

watching the neighbors dog pee

this is the one way to get through

which is not trying to say anything about what this is

seeing this will not have meant so much

as it does right now, just this empty moment

this nevermind, this clear forgetting

not moving an inch.

Hippie road notes

"Hot coffee; it soothes the throat, it nourishes the soul."

I'll have a cup of what he's drinking.

They sat around the fire that night snapping sticks, tossing them in.  The California skies were larger, he was sure of it.  At the coast, maybe it was the slender thread of silver shoreline that led him.  He could peer down sitting atop that 40 foot boulder after meditation, after that knock on the RV door was a friend inviting him to awaken outside, to shape the wet sand with the soles of his feet, to shape himself one stretch, one deep breath at a time.

Now they bantered, sipped whiskey, sang songs.  And there was always giggling out beyond them a ways, beyond the firelight.

"Nobody cares what you call it or where it even leads right now, I told you dude, your overthinking the entire thing."

"I know, I know... enjoy the process."

"Yeah that's f-ing right man, it's a process and wherever it goes -- electric or digital or old-fashioned bound or up to the screen or DVD or DVR... who the hell cares man... this is the process this is it... right here... you and I dreaming it up under these stars, beside this fire... this is it man, this is all it ever has to be.  Until this is all life has to be there is just nothing, I mean nothing to write home about."

"That's where it is for you?"

"That's where it's at."

Ode to a Beard, mine.

I just couldn't shave it off without saying a few words first...

Ode to a Beard, mine.

Manly instigator, John 

the Baptist bug collector, wild shrub, scruff

scrubbed still saving soup, water

for the desert seasons, fullness

of the forest silent after snowfall, snug

about the smile dreaming mountain

stream, in a hand hewn canoe

Jeremiah, caveman snapping twigs, twirling

twine of a thoughtful chin

fireside and wise as itchy as mammal 

as prey as proud as proof of many moons

and musky lonesome ways.

I wear it on my face, my brazen

shield, my holy place, an older way without

a reason, a blade, a frock,

a scent, a scene, a trace.

Oh, dear friend do

Cloak the ruddy, cover the scarred,

wear the surface and every fearful fact,

be an angel, an ancestry, a true beard, be mine.