the fool’s back pocket…

None too subtle thoughts striking out from a sunless morning. Much of it was spent smoking cigarettes on the porch, attentively watching as the seconds ticked by. There wasn’t much of a choice to be made; I could look out over a tired and gray neighborhood, or I could focus on the fantastic bespoken wild that ambled by in yips and fits. The late morning sky welcomed the early afternoon without much of a protest, and the day kept coming on. My situation spoke beseechingly of condensation on a massive scale, dominating the end of the morning with its largess, preparing to apportion the ground with water tossed down from the sky. From this archaic point of view, the power of the great outdoors seemed almost original in the complexity of the process’ leading towards rain. Here on the concrete foredeck, I’m humbled by the methods of domination. Out here, exposed to the idea of enormity under the careful kiss of a blessed day time rolls towards the commitments and responsibilities of a temporal soul. Here in the present is the essence of now, finding its true path expressed as a series of cloud formations and darkening skies. As the dichotomy breaks down between between simple analogies, fear fails to take hold even as the shapes in the sky bedeck some unknown storm. It is the cold comfort of life in some permanent eye of a hurricane. Everything is constantly coming soon; tensed in anticipation for what might take any amount of time to show. As the clock tries to turn, the breath of the wind pushes it back, counter-clockwise to progress.

These experiences are physically brought to bear on the worries and fears that crop up over foolish flip-flops. I spent hours scrubbing my picture from a wide variety of disseminated locales, blinding myself to the rationale that a picture suggests anything more than than a frozen moment in time. For reasons quite past understanding, I felt the strong urge to strike out and reorder the clues left behind by a much younger personage still trying and failing to understand that even Pyrrhic victory can have its spoils. So many times I have to remind myself that context and locale are simply two more variables that can be altered in an almost unlimited number of ways and means. For the millionth time this lesson has been forgotten, then found, then expounded upon, only to be lost again when the true power of the realization would be at its most valuable. Oftentimes this whole narrative must be repeated to find the full range of possibilities available to the commoner at large. Anyone could do it. Maybe everyone does. Language does not convey this type of epiphany as well as imagery. That is a fucking shame, because all I have at my disposal are the building blocks of paragraphs. Is that art, or something else entirely?

While all of these rambling thoughts occupy the majority of my attention, I leave some available to watch the day converge and dissipate from my comfortable chair on the cement patio. Various cars wander in and out of the parking lot at my feet, alternatively coming and going with a cargo of kids and groceries, or perhaps sports equipment, or maybe old just the detritus that grows in volume as time goes by. From here, it all looks somewhat similar, and for relief I cast my glance towards the sky and wonder about the people sitting in the airplane passing overhead. It’s no trouble to imagine sitting amongst the passengers and eagerly awaiting the impending arrival. Hundreds of strangers sharing only a destination. Ha! They say politics makes strange bedfellows.

But for a moment, their cause would be the same as mine as we all prepared to deboard the plane and scatter to a hundred different locations in the greater metropolitan area. It’s easier than you might think to find an ally in this world. Something like that can be achieved rather simply by selecting the proper cause. Now, take that logic and apply it to the greater problems of existence. As the mind wanders, it is guided by like patterns and occasionally non-existent suppositions based on a primordial glitch. The system almost works, a key determinant of probable success. With each passing adherent the word and the idea travel farther and wider. The image is similar to an allegory of a leaf on a stream. When I look up, time hasw passed, the sun is higher in the sky, and without moving a muscle I’ve wandered from tertiary philosophy to dogmatic adjournment. It’s been a busy morning.

In the midst of frenzied thought and lackadaisical detente, another idea comes floating towards me. The cloud is nebulous in design and purpose, more an outline than flesh and blood. The feeling generated was reminiscent of the few glorious moments right before beginning a trip. Nervous excitement, sudden twitches, and all the feathers of the world suddenly weigh as much as bricks, flying through the air despite their new found girth. This kind of change could be dispiriting if you aren’t't ready to challenge a few of your preconceptions about existence. Could be downright terrifying, under the wrong auspices and metaphysics. Still, to be unencumbered with the carry-on bags that hold old pictures and hot air would feel divine, as well as letting us welcome this new and as yet undefined idea. Divinity in a carry-on and elucidation grasped in sweaty hands. Temporal settlement of aged claims.

All of this swirls and eddies as a rapid river fleeing down the continent. Somewhere in there are the clues and knowledge that would unlock something true out of the evidence assembled here and upstairs. Nobody seems to know if we’re all waiting for a savior or simply tracing arcs around the sun in an attempt to pin down the meaning of gravity. I ask plaintively, almost begging for some stranger to answer the call and explain the disjointed and often unfair aspects of the world around me. Nobody shows except a night watchmen making his rounds on the street below and an old hooker looking for another trick. The bars let out in a few hours, she’ll have better luck then.

On the subject of whip cream, I am no expert. Such a strange combination of illicit entertainment and sundae topping never before seen. In my dreams, I can easily envision a factory somewhere in Appalachia that turns mountains of fine sugar into cans of EZ-Whip. From thence to a million bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens. This may or may not be completely true, but let’s face it, the mountain folk can probably use the jobs. Things are never good at the margins, but right now, they’re absolutely atrocious. This cyclic argument between two raving lunatics convinced of their own righteousness makes me sick. Whether the whip cream be destined for the refrigerator or the nightstand doesn’t matter in the slightest. I’ll bet this is one of those rollicking sort of trips, like the old guys talked about. No heavy bass…just the light feeling of justified pride. Right? We play along until the song stops, and good boys don’t ask these types of questions.

So, what’s the value of the millionth iteration of a question? The same as it was before the millionth iteration of an answer possessing all the charm of greasy fart. I’m often told that someone has to toe the line. Well, that’s their choice, and not mine. It’s an auspiciously good time to fall back on responsibility, no matter how slimy the word feels as it tumbles out onto the page. Self contained, with all of the finer characteristics of every image that comes to mind as the letters run on the wind between tongues, lips, and ears. In this stark chaos comes the easy peace of the final verdict. No. My answer, if you can call it that, is no. No, I won”t go along to get along. If it was a choice, you could probably beat me into accepting such a course of action, but under the leitmotif of the recent past, the cost rises disproportionally against the reward.

I’m stealing large chunks of time and living under the cover of naivete. There is a definite logic to the situation, despite my fervent protestations to the contrary. All of the various fibers in the cloth are related by marriage and proximity. Without the occasional visit from the scissors, the garment would fray and eventually go to pieces. Some strange medicine kept me sleeping for the better part of 12 hours, smoking the beginning of the day and leaving it in the ashtray to be casually noticed in the early afternoon. The concoction of the final moments before the eccentric and inviolate state of narcography were confusing. There was a conversation with a movie poster, as well as a staring contest with a light switch, but anything I tell you about either event will probably not explain the sensation of either act. Use your imagination. If incapable of using your imagination, well, nothing I can do or say is gonna help you. Arriving on a partially digested day after two weeks of incessant yet enjoyable total commitment to one of my many pet projects, the world feels kind of new.

With every day of endless waiting, the solution fades from view. As my empire has dwindled down to a few spare nickels and dimes, the tradition of a long goodbye comes to mind. There isn’t much left to defend as every possession is sold off to pay for the fragments their value in currency will bring. There is a disquiet in waking to meet a half dead day and wanting to kill the son-of-a-bitch grinning back from the dirty mirror. I should never have replaced the light bulbs in the bathroom. I told myself at the time the decision would come back to bite me in the ass, though in all fairness my rationale was quite distinct from the way things went down. There’s probably a lesson there to be learned. The reflections are everywhere, the places without mirrors that catch the reflection like a second run airing of a television drama.

Another one of those times I don’t know whether to smile and congratulate all involved or begin shaking with tears and rage at the loss of time and opportunity. Luckily for me, it is a rare evening, and none of that talk should intrude upon the scene I feel like playing out for the crowd. It would be a pencil sketch of a masterpiece. It would be theft without the guilt. It would be a place to crash when the heat descends from the sky close enough to touch down. It would be something special, something worthwhile. After a few botched attempts, failure becomes indistinguishable from success. Those dualist groups would be proud. Like the man said, it is what it is.

After what seemed like an eternity of ponderous thought, I gave up asking questions and spent my time trying to accept my station in life. I’m not sure of the true extent of the dominion. The discerning viewer might wish to alter their own perception, as it were, allowing as much of the planetary dust to just get the job done. Some days the mud on the gold gets as much attention as the shine of the diamond. I read all about it in a hymnal given to me by the leader of prestigious philosophical and teleological society. The words and the fine binding begged to speak the truth from the mountain, and somehow ended up preaching to the converted in the glorious language of two cent words.

When I try to remember the very beginning of this story, my memory fogs, and the only things I can remember are a car ride in an old minivan and a long discussion about names corresponding to personality. It seems somehow appropriate to call these bare bones recollections something that suggests that they could be memories, but aren’t…yet. They fall short of the full invocation of that term due to missing details and uncertainty as to whether any of the events actually happened. Ironic side note; nearly two of every three genius psychiatrists I consulted agree that relying on a biased narrator to navigate the past is as foolish a proposition as one might realistically adopt. I love me some social science.

The minivan was later destroyed by an unfortunate run in with a red sports car, model unknown. The lesson I took from the whole experience was that nudging someone slightly off path can result in that someone coming to rest upside down with Detroit rolling iron doing a fair imitation of eating an embankment. I walked away without a scratch. Apparently, the gun must have jammed. To think, it seemed such a solemn occasion. It really was a storybook ending. The humor was in the fractured axle. I think that’s where most of the humor leaked from. The smell was atrocious; the car: totaled. But I felt so good. I was alive. My pockets were full of miracles and once the chain got going, there was no stopping just because it might have been a good idea once upon a time.