26
These stones/ steeped in madness
now descending/ in a flurry of
wholesome outdoor toing and
frowing/ meant for the whole family
in middles/ in pandemic
at Christmas time even//
In spite of common senses
human endurance’s
being firm and unbroken
not weeping yet praying
bounded by torment
preserving the faith keeping
commandments/ may I be found
happily/ finishing my course//
26October2020
Markle~
25
“Your dogma precedes you.”
“Something red and sticky dripped down upon him from the trees.”
“You harridan!” She screamed.
(“What’s that?” I whispered.
“An old shrew or bossy old woman.” he leaned in murmuring.)
“Episcopus vagans are roaming the countryside!”
“He doesn’t tackle you, he doesn’t get paid.”
“The wall of life comes at you now all to once.”
“You may have one epicurean selann or plenary indulgence
per feast-day, just so long as it is not flummery.”
“Lots of very delicate work this.”
“Are you sixes, sevens and nines?”
“Coherence is not in today.”
“...as always, communication is secondary to the process...”
Markle~
19October2020
24
Down the street from my parents house was a sand pit created
by nature. It was a naturally shaped baseball field created by the
coming together of two great dunes. Contractors took advantage
of this by building houses along the edges of the pit. We took
advantage of it by naming it after the man who owned the property
we had to cross to get to it. Kids can be cruel. Someone thought
he looked like a toad when he chased us one day as we brazenly
marched across his backyard in the middle of the Saturday summer
sunlight. I have to admit it was a close comparison. He was kinda
heavyset. Had a ruddy pockmarked face. Even his voice seemed
to crock one boy said. It might have been me. To this day when I
meet guys who I grew up with and I mention “Toad Stadium” they
know what I mean. How could you forget a kid image like that. No
one seems to remember who said it though. Kids are like that too.
14October2020
Markle~
23
“You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir?
At long last have you left no sense of decency?” McCarthy,
Jim Jones, Charles Manson, David Koresh, Keith Raniere,
Donald Trump. Anyone else make a connection? Have
you had your glass of purple kool aid today? The Fox News
is in the hen’s house. Guard your eggheads! Victims, fall
in love with their captors. Followers believe blindly in the
object of their desire. Tyrants and dictators believe their
own lies first. Disinformation is the tool of the despot. “Help!
My belief system has been hijacked by extremists!” Criminals,
often engage in victim thinking, believing themselves to be
moral. “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency
sir?” We created the Anti-hero in the intervening years sir.
Decency is no longer in vogue.
13October2020
Markle~
22
My older brothers built the best tree forts. Not because
they did but because they were my older brothers.
Doesn’t every younger brother idolize their older brothers?
Everything they did was always one step beyond our
abilities; my younger brother and me. Accept dyeing.
Well, maybe they did that better than us, who knows?
We haven’t died so there’s no comparison, yet.
Our older brothers built two platforms high up
by shimmying separate sections of the trees,
at first attaching the boards with knots they learned in
Boy Scouts, then securing them later with spikes. I think
they did it just to string an Otis Elevator cable that they
got from my brothers future father in-law. I remember
the sound of the wind past my ears. It was like death.
11October2020
Markle~
21
“If you think of what you want it will slip from you.” Every time
I go to a large mall or amusement park with large parking fields
I park, jump right out of the car and go in as directly and purposefully
as I can. I don’t make mental notes about the lot number or row.
I might be in the store for a minute or an hour. No matter. When I
come out of the door I proceed directly to the car. I never question.
Just walk. Somehow, someway, my subconscious knows where to go.
As long as I don’t question it. Yep. That’s right. If I even so much as
whisper “Now where is the car?” I am lost. And rightly so. A lifetime of
nurturing my train of thought along the stream of consciousness in
loose interior monologue allows me to trust my connection to the
external. God help me I have to admit, I have wandered lots aimlessly
wondering and cussing myself out for doubting many is the time
in my youth. You can train yourself to trust yourself. Trust me.
08October2020
Markle~
20
We used to play ledge against the AB Dick building up the street when young.
AB Dick was a small printing press manufactures and distributor. Ledge was a
form of baseball played with a rubber ball against the base of a wall or ledge.
Little did I know that I would grow up to feed those very presses with plates
for years. Until my job became obsolete due to NAFTA and technical advances
that transformed my industry and eliminated whole professions that had been
the livelihood of men and families for generations. My father’s father learned to
play ledge in Brooklyn when he was growing up and taught it to my father in
the thirties. We learned it from my Dad in the sixties. I learned to compose type
and make printing plates from men who had done so all of their lives. Little did
I know then that my mother’s family were all printers for generations. Like father,
like son, like father, like me; great great grand son. In a former lifetime I had a
near life experience. I remember the first time I played ledge against the AB Dick
building. I threw a rubber ball through a window and ran like hell!
07October2020
Markle~
19
I wake up to the sound of the dog barking muffled in his sleep.
Perhaps I will do nothing today, like it is my job. Because it is.
But it’s not. It’s not my true job. My true work. I have always
believed that my true worth became evident when I created.
When I make. Perhaps I am the muse of my own history. Perhaps
of ours. Of yours? What is the dignity of risk? The value of self
direction? I used to get the most enjoyment from doing for others.
Always did. Preparing meals for others was essential. And creative!
Food as sculpture, presentation, sensuous, taste, intimate. Food as
art too! I wake up to the sound of the dog being social in his sleep.
Much as he is when awake! How wonderful to be free of constraint!
Embody abandonment of inhibition! Be the dog today! Bark with joy
at strangers! Run in circles with your tail! Sing your history! Create
your direction. Risk your dignity! Wag your tail like it is your job!
06October2020
Markle~
18
In my mind I soar over the topography of my childhood.
Stand at my bedroom widow gazing up the road. Searching
up the hill I now know was a great dune in times before my
memory. In the distance, where my father would crest to
horizon every evening on his walk home from the highway
after his bus ride from work in downtown Albany; was a great
stand of pines visible from all of the surrounding landscape.
We lived, at the bottom of the dune, just shy of the wetlands.
In my mind I am standing at that window again and I am once
again watching generations of turkey hawks ascend on thermals
and settle in the great stand of pine trees, at the top of the
dune, over the topography of my adulthood. Cut down
by a nescient world, bereft of Clio’s lyre.
Markle~
03October2020
17
If you look deep into my Facebook profile you will find
an album entitled “Autumn hike with Mike!” There isn’t
a single picture of any of us. Not even a glimpse of Bird
who was the impetus and the instigator from the git-go.
My first hike with Michael. Many more with Bird. Our words
gathered together and moved about the wood. The three
of us exploring this bright sylvan world. Leaves and colors.
Thoughts and ideas. We write each day. We look each day.
Discern what we can. Experience. Learn. And place our work
upon the page. I didn’t know it then but my relationship with
writing was forever changed that day. With age wisdom.
One hopes! With age more age, if we’re lucky. A way of
being in the world. A way of walking together. A way.
If you look deeper, you may find a glimpse of autumn.
Markle~
01October2020
16
“Weeds flourish in the same soil as flowers and grow
twice as fast.” My mom used to say. She wasn’t a nugget
of wisdom kinda mom. But nuggets happened none the
less. Mom was born on Oct. 3rd 1925. Would have been
95 this year. I’m kinda glad she’s not here to witness 2020.
I’m really not sure what she would think. I’m afraid fear would
paralyze her. Make her do things that in youth wouldn't have
phased her. In the end, after a lifetime, small tragedies seemed
to wear her down. Death scared her. Seemed to grow in the
same soil as happiness. When her body broke down and trapped
her brilliant mind I watched her concentrate on attained skills:
Genus: Species: Characterization: Classification. On her last day,
as I moved her wheelchair through the garden, she pointed
past her lilies and said defiantly: “Weeds.”
Markle~
02Octobet2020
15
Wise man my father; he married my mother.
A devout Catholic who raised five children because
she wanted to. A self taught, well read, multi-talented
artist who fell in love with flowers while painting still
lives in class. A smart woman my mother; who
cultivated several verities of Lilly she named after
children, grand children and her mother. “Fall asleep
with your mouth open in your mother’s house...”
my father would say “...and you’ll wake up with
a flower planted in it.” Gardened until she was most
of 80. Outlived her husband by 20 years. Managed
her investments well on her own. All but that one time
my father woke her up in the night and told her to sell
from the grave. She listened. Smart woman my mother.
30September2020
14
A wise man my father, who believed strongly
in God all of his life yet, struggled with the
concept of Satan. I wonder, what he would
think now? Would he be taking the pablum
like everyone else? Unable or at least un
willing to believe that his greatest fears might
realize and become? Would he be raising
another Man’s flag in place of the one he
and the members of his generation lived and
died for at the sacrifice of their lives? Just what
is a belief system anyway? I wonder if he
recognized Joe McCarthy for what he was or if
he kept his mouth shut and his head down too.
Wife and family to feed. A wise man my father.
30September2020
