Ink & Alchemy
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i wish i could fix it for you

1/31/2021

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​this is how you came into my arms
          quickly
and not yet tipped 
          over  
emptied out by sorrow
and a sense of 
         smallness

like that time you 
         tilted 
your head to my knee  
         held 
me tight still 
too young for words  
        already 
on good terms with catastrophe

we all awaken 
        sometimes 
at 3am furious

        shouting 
into the dark
         cold 
with fear
 
we hold tight to
        anything
​we can

until the morning 
        explodes 
into the world

isn’t that why we’re here - 

to stake a small space, to make noise?
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thinking through our last conversation

1/30/2021

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This being human is a guest house.
Every day, a new arrival. - Rumi


the way solitude shelters
but numbs and one doesn’t exist
without the other

because you can’t have cake 
in the house without wanting 
to lick the frosting
when you think no one is looking

the way worry twists itself into a ball
of bed linens slightly damp with sweat

the surprise
your blood moving still despite your heart 
being so broken
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I am god today

1/24/2021

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​the reigning lord of curls
kicked into overdrive.

I’m tending the fields
of myself - 
she of long weekends 
with only

birdsong
cat murmur
brush on paper

for company.

I don’t know why
it took me so long 
to remember 
who I was to begin with.

I am god today

Messiah of 
maybe,
I don’t know ,
and we’ll see.

It feels good to be 
the almighty and most high 
of words running like rivers 
to the sea.

I’m in charge
and I’m not going
anywhere fast.

I’m traveling at the speed
of the five dusty books
standing tall as prophets
from my nightstand.

amen.
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Dear Niki

1/17/2021

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​I used to pull the truck over to cry
under church billboards.

Join us on Sunday! 

All those smiling 
cardboard faces working
toward perfectly placed crowns
gold-plated streets,
chaise lounge of cumulus clouds.

Then I recalled what I’ve always
known - that we soothe our fears
with fairy tale,

and also, rumor has it that sisters 
with flame hair and a noose 
around the neck are stopped 
at the gate, 
which needs a fresh coat of paint. 

So instead, I imagine you’re in a place 
where the drinks are bottom shelf and the jokes - 

well, who doesn’t love a good dick joke?

Remember how we used to ask each other 
then howl with laughter as if that were the joke. 

What’s it like in your kingdom? 
Angels still dragging around 
dirty wings? 
Dry cleaner permanently closed? 

Driving, I saw the face 
of a homeless woman yesterday 
who looked just like you.  
I wanted to bring her home with me, 
tuck her into the warmest bed 
in the house and feed her 
hash brown casserole but 
I was afraid she might tiptoe 
out in the dark of the night, 
my credit card information tucked in 
her back pocket, her arms wrapped 
around the blue vase grandma gave me.

Or maybe I’ve confused her with you. ​
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if drinking is bitter

1/15/2021

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after Rainer Maria Rilke

if drinking is bitter, 
change yourself to wine


     change 
yourself to fenceless
fields
     uproot
the posts
     bury
the gates in the river
     sink
the latches in quicksand
     dig 
deep in the soil
of your life
     remind 
yourself that your hands 
are strong saplings partnered 
with solid mountain feet

​if these chains bite 
     change 
yourself to freedom 
     change 
yourself to freedom
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field research @ 51

1/13/2021

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reading until middle midnight
glasses slipping 

into a well too deep 
to ever reach the dreams 

of Naples yellow
on that old paintbrush

all the most beautiful
experiments 
in being human
are ordinary

so I’m keeping careful notes
alongside three pressed flowers
the color of raspberry ice lipstick
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I'll build an altar

1/12/2021

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of Popsicle colored sunsets,
pink of  
I wish it were different,
purple of
you don’t deserve this,

line it with just fallen leaves
pine needles,
the thin pages of well-used books. 

Hold my hand. 

Yes, the sky is a dark-clouded fist
above us and 

yes, 

nothing makes sense,
but you are 
sheltered, the way the forest does.
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Chapel

1/11/2021

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To take what we love inside
is a meditation in recklessness,
a dangerous prayer. 

​Tear past the crooked tooth and greedy tongue,
slip into the capillaries, 
rebellious and swerving toward an endless 
litany of drunk driving and takeaway food. 

There is no caution tape here because 
everything is an emergency.

This body, still such a stranger,
is the only chapel I’ve got 
except my heart laid flat on paper. 

inspired by Lee Yong Lee’s poem From Blossoms
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Plenitude

1/10/2021

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I have to wring out the light.

The fact that this love will one day leave
me empty is not enough to stop me
from speaking soft words into
the rough bark of trees. 

Weekends will still find me bent over 
the lighted glass sorting seeds the size
of pepper grains, 

my hands transformed into spring grass 
in a long forgotten field,
swaying and dipping, beholden
to nothing, certainly not the face
of a ticking clock. 

Some evenings, long after the watering
and weeding have been done, I will wrap myself 
in silence and watch the stars
above my crumbling adobe house

and it will feel like
the very definition of abundance. ​
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Moonshine

1/8/2021

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     “What you need to do, son, is to find something you really love.”
     The boy gave the no-fire sign, and sprinted off into the field to setup the targets one more time. That morning, he’d tied a rope to the handle and dragged the box from their back porch through the woods and into the cornfield. It had started off full, but was now reduced to just a few sharp tin cans riddled with holes. The targets were a mix of metal cans and glass bottles, collected all year  in a box under the basement stairs. They both had merits. The cans made a satisfying thud and could be reused, but the bottles exploded in a glorious spray of glass, especially if the sun caught them in the right way.
     When he returned, his father was still sitting on the tree stump, smoke trailing from both nostrils. He didn’t hoist his gun up to his shoulder immediately, but looked to the horizon and said, “Do you know what I mean, son?” It was if no time at all had passed since he’d made that statement twenty minutes ago. He was onto something and wouldn’t let it go until he was satisfied.
     “Huh? I don’t know what you mean, Pop.” 
     “I mean, life ain’t easy. You’ve had it easy, Spike, but I don’t want you to think it’s that way for everybody. You don’t want to spend your life doing things you hate, or being around people you hate. Find a good woman. Maybe not the prettiest one, or the richest one, but the nicest one and the girl who thinks you are the best boy around. You got that?”
     He knew he wasn’t going to get away without agreeing, so he nodded. He wished to be a little bird, flying free. It was a crisp autumn day, perfect for shooting and he was eager to get back to it, but old man didn’t budge, just took a heavy pull on the cigarette hanging from his lips and looked square into the eyes of his younger, paler doppelgänger. Smoke rose from his nostrils in lazy braided ropes and caught in his eyelashes.
     “Think you can hit that can from here, boy?”  He nodded off in the direction of the middle bottle, upside down on a wooden post in the ground.
     “I can.”
     “Let’s see you do it then.”
     The boy turned to adjust his stance, sight down the barrel, and aim, but the elder grunted, jerked his head impatiently, and flicked his cigarette butt off behind him. 
     “No, from here. Don’t move…don’t aim. Just shoot the can.””
     “But, I was…”
     “But, nothing. When I count to three you shoot, got it?”  His voice had taken on a timber timbre that Spike heard many times before and he knew better than to try his luck. The last time he’d heard it, Uncle Trix had ended up in the emergency room.
     “One…two…three…”
     The crack of the gun echoed into the afternoon. The bullet rushed off and landed somewhere in the sagging cornfield, never even approaching the target. Before the gun’s report had a chance to clear the air, Spike shrugged and began a litany of excuses regarding why the bullet hadn’t hit the mark. 
     “That wasn’t fair.  You didn’t let me aim. There ain’t no way I can hit something without…”
     His father cut him off sharply, grasping his arm and pulling him closer until he was half standing and half squatting. The boy had no idea what he wanted and couldn’t imagine how the day had taken such a turn. Wasn’t that always the way of it?  Everything starts out sunbeams and sparkles, and then turns to shit when you blink.
     “It’s the same with your life, boy. You can’t hit the mark if you don’t set yourself up right and aim properly. Girls are the same way. You think. Think, I’m telling you.”
     Spike heard the words, they were clear enough, but he had no idea what was expected of him. Not really. Was he supposed to say something? The tone of Pop’s voice told him that this was important, but he’d be god damned if he could grasp why. He would remember this conversation years periodically over the years; the glowing afternoon, this advice which was surprisingly good considering it was the only time he ever remembered Pop trying to give him wise council. To be more accurate, it was the only time he remembered Pop possessing anything resembling wisdom. He’d also question the phrase – you’ve had it easy, Spike.  He’d question that many times. Easy. Compared to what? 
     Still crouching, the boy glanced around to see if he could spy a jar of moonshine nearby. Pop loved moonshine; his family had been making it and running it for decades. Everyone in town had seen him stumbling, swearing, and making no sense at all. Collectively, they thought it best to stay away from him on those days if at all possible. He wasn’t making much sense now, but he wasn’t drunk.
     He released the boy’s arm and lowered his head, fists braced against his forehead.  Taking a step back, Spike straightened his jacket where it had been balled it up. He looked at his father, really looked for the first time in ages. He seemed worn out; he didn’t move, just sighed heavily. When he did raise his head, it was as if nothing had happened at all. He patted his sides for the pack of cigarettes he always carried, and removed them from his inside pocket.
     “What you waiting on boy?  Let’s get going. Today’s your birthday. I got something special. Meet us in the barn when the sun goes down.” 
     Glass crunched under his feet as he walked off through the field. Spike collected the cans, tossed them into the box, and began pulling it home. 
---
     The barn had been hand-built years ago and according to Owen family lore, it had been used to birth a human baby and a calf on the same rainy night in March. It had also been used to store many things, most importantly the family still, which was well- known in neighboring counties, but had been moved some years back to an undisclosed location in response to an upcoming raid by the authorities. The barn had been used to grow marijuana so many times that it was impossible to count. Once, it had been the home of Harold, an odd job man and family friend, until it became evident that he was simultaneously involved in two undesirable activities; he was romancing the youngest male cousin, who was thirteen at the time, and skimming money from the moonshine operation.
     Harold Gunner was ousted and sent on his way with a black eye and a limp on his right side which would persist throughout the rest of his life, but he lived on in infamy because he had carved his name deeply in one of the upper rafters. Oodles of animals – goats, chickens, horses, and sheep - had lived in the shed, and at least two children, one of them Spike himself, had been conceived within the shelter of those four walls. Today, though, it was just the barn, and not nearly as exciting as the stories associated with it. They didn’t keep animals anymore, and hadn’t for as long as Spike could remember. For one thing, they couldn’t afford them. They were lucky not to starve themselves to death, so it didn’t make sense to add more living creatures to an already perilous situation. 
     The boys,  known collectively as the Owens brothers - Pops, Trixie, Sonny, and Bones – plus a motley assortment of friends and associates which changed frequently, depending on who was in jail or owed one of the Owens’ money, had taken to the task of fixing up the barn with far more zeal than they had ever applied to any paying job. 
     Items were pilfered from god-knows-where and then carried out to the barn in the dark of the night. They built a table on hinges and affixed it to the south wall for euchre games. Last year, when Dody Wilson owed the brothers some money, electricity had been run out to the club and the debt was called even. This meant a radio, a refrigerator, and a dual fan/heater gadget had been liberated from their original owners and found their way to the club. Just yesterday, Trix had smuggled in a red lava lamp, still in working condition. 
     By the time Spike had trudged through the mud and arrived at the barn, they’d had been drinking and playing cards for hours. Seems several of them may have gotten started early, judging from their condition and the truth was, some of them never really stopped. He was standing in the door, the setting sun warming his back, when the gunshot sounded.
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    Who am I?

    I’m a systems engineer and creative coach living in ABQ, NM.  I believe that we can intentionally design our lives to align with our deepest dreams and desires.  

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  • Home
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  • Create with me!
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    • A Call to Create (8-week)
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