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“Well, what do you want me to do with her?” asked Mike, growing exasperated with his friend and housemate.
“Just take her off my hands for the evening,” implored Ed earnestly.
“I don’t know,” replied Mike, staring uncertainly into the living room, where teenage Sadie was lingering near the table containing all the bottles of alcohol for the Christmas party later that night. She was clad in faded jeans and a blood-red sweater.
Continue reading
(Ed note–We are pleased to present the site debut of A.J. Huffman, with five looks at the mysteries of icicles–The Eds.)
from Icicles this Anticipation
The point is: creation takes
more than seven days. A lifetime
of would-be Sundays disappear
one drip at a time. Liquid tears race
down suicidal slide. Will they beat
the wind, land on chilled cushion
of accumulated drift? Never
count out Southeasterlies,
their decimating gusts hold the most
aggressive drops in stasis till nearly invisible
dagger welcomes them to blade.
from Icicles this Ephemerality
Solid is circumstantial,
hanging in the four corners of any home.
External forces alternate retention,
dissolution. Air and sun
are keys, constant pressures
to be endured. Foundations
are fragile. Cracks
quickly turn into shattering falls.
from Icicles this Fragility
Metal may be monumental,
but its grip is tenuous
turmoil of balance. Temperatures
rise. Reactions hold
no depth. Eyes can see
through every attempted defiance.
Angry breath releases frigid finger.
All that is left is silence,
absence, the answer
to gravity’s call.
from Icicles this Reflection
Nature holds certain
affinities for symmetry, inherent
need for balance. Clouds
contain liquid, precipitate solids
that accumulate, generate heat, melt
back to liquid, fall
into the wind, freeze solid, form
a point. Everything disappears
inside itself. Eventually.
from Icicles this Refraction
Solid is sometimes temporary,
lacking visual
purpose, transparent.
Such reflective moments echo with potential.
The seemingly invisible see
the world with unshadowed eyes.
A.J. Huffman
(Image is of the poet)
(Editors’ note. We are collectively gobsmacked by this collection of photos snapped by Christopher J Ananias, and we are equally pleased with the text. Enjoy–the Eds.)
They came running. Maybe this will never happen again? Giant, once they were upon us. Their size was intimidating, but something made me want to pet them on top of the head. I feared for their tameness.
The Light Bringer was amazed. I asked the Light Bringer what she thought, and she said, “They’re huge… Kinda scary.”
“Yeah, I wish we had some food, Light Bringer.” A sadness gripped me. I so wanted to make the magnificent birds happy.
The Light Bringer looked around inside the car, but the cupboard was bare. They surrounded our vehicle. The Light Bringer said, “Move now, c’mon now, Honey. Please move.”
By Christopher J Ananias and The Light Bringer
…Then the Drifter said:
The Drifter is phoning it in this weekend, or at least shooting from the hip, because the kids (the twins) have pneumonia. And he himself feels like he might be coming down with pneumonia. Or it might be the effects of a lifelong insomnia problem. I remember wandering around exploring our little house in the Detroit suburb of Madison Heights alone in the middle of the night before my brother was born. I was four when he was born. I remember, like it was yesterday, the day they brought him home from the hospital. Like it was yesterday with a large gray veil thrown over it, that is. Sometimes I wonder what are all the things I don’t remember. I know what I remember. What I don’t know is what I forgot. Meanwhile, what I forgot doesn’t mean it hasn’t affected me. It might have been a traumatic thing that has affected my whole life more deeply than anything else that I do remember. I also know that memory has a way of casting a beautiful sheen over some things they could not possibly have had to that full of an extent while they were happening. This hectic week has also reminded me that you need a zen-like control of the mind in order to do any good writing at all, except maybe fragments you can save for later.
Regarding the pneumonia, the effort of providing (or trying to provide) constant emotional support while also talking everyone down and also talking them up all the time (“it will be okay, you can get through this,” etcetera), while simultaneously dealing with crowded doctors’ waiting rooms, harried medical staff, looming insurance debacles, half-assed pharmacy escapades, endless traffic jams, social anxiety disorder caused by bipolar disorder, and near-migraine headaches can be a thing that will lead to nervous breakdowns, just like it has done in the past. My well-medicated brain that has a dead patch in it from having a stroke can handle a lot but it too has its breaking point. The first sign is usually emotional, followed by physical, collapse. Lest it sound like I’m complaining I admit that all of the above is a journey too and these are also some of the most meaningful events in life. Watching your children suffer and panic and cough up blood up close teaches you something, even if you don’t know what it is at the time, and even when they are otherwise healthy kids who you know are probably gonna be okay.
The kids’ mother, my ex-wife, teaches sixth grade math fulltime at a public elementary school. Nearly half of her seventy or so students either have no father at all (that they know of or know) or have a father who’s in prison. It doesn’t make for the most controlled eleven- and twelve-year-old male behavior imaginable. The job has too many students and too many hoops to jump through almost constantly but teaching jobs around here aren’t easy to come by even under the horrible conditions. She takes over with the twins after work when they’re sick and I get to fly away like a bird, but until she’s available, the job of double caregiver is all mine. What I get out of it is a great relationship with great kids. The danger is a bunch of small nervous breakdowns that can lead to a big one. But I get to look myself straight in the eye in the mirror and say, honestly, that I’ve never abandoned them. The sense of freedom this causes through a lack of guilty feelings from doing otherwise is one more freedom in a world where we all want freedom. Freedom comes from what isn’t there as much as from what is. It’s hard to concentrate on anything else when the bombs and the bullets are flying in your direction.
I had started on a column this week before the pneumonia thing began and I here append a 287-word fragment of the rough draft as evidence. I believe it is worthy of perusing or I wouldn’t append it:
This is for all unsung spiritual warriors everywhere who know whereof I speak.
Those who do not know whereof I speak are of course free to read this anyway but it’s unlikely you’d get the same kick out of it as those in the know.
Whether this happened to you yesterday or forty years ago matters not one tiny jot.
What does matter is that the reader of this understand the concept of life as a war and certain individual chapters of it as battles and battlefields.
Understanding this concept does not mean that the symbol and metaphor indicated is real, if it were real it wouldn’t be symbol and metaphor, even though symbols and metaphors are real.
Real war is a horrendous ordeal for all involved, except the ones who get off on it, and there are many who get off on it, probably far more than is generally acknowledged.
The concept of life as a spiritual war means that the strains and stresses of living it on a daily basis can take the same kind of toll that a real war can take in the long run.
On any given day living my normal life in Chicagoland all these things might happen, sometimes within the same hour.
I might be almost run over or slammed into by an errant, enraged driver who then yells at and curses me for almost getting in his or her way even though I’m following the rules of the road and she or he is not.
I might be accosted on the street by a beggar in such a horrific, bedraggled and tragic condition of decomposition and desperation that my eyes, and my heart, can barely stand it.
I might
UNFINISHED.
Today, you’re looking at your hands.
You’re thinking time has made a mistake
and those palms are far too rough and course
for someone your age.
Yet you remember the uncle
who fell and never got back up.
That’s not you.
At least, not yet.
You’re always fending off an attack, you say.
Or are in need of hammer and nails.
There’s work to be done –
on a bookcase
and maybe even on your frontal lobes.
You do your share of pacing.
You’ve had it with people who are
always threatening to shoot.
You’re concerned by all the books you’re not reading.
And your job – what you call shoveling shit.
Yesterday, a friend took sick.
He’ll be in hospital for a month.
You don’t care much for your neighbors
but you respect their differences.
You miss your wife.
And your sanity is not fully engaged
with what’s happening in your head.
You prefer your dark room of sleep
to most company.
And you see the Earth as an ark,
floating through space,
constantly ditching the ones
who can no longer pay their way.
You stand in the doorway,
feel the draft of the world’s grief.
And yet there’s still
this small persistent heat.
John Grey
(Image by CJA)
The boy is learning
what to do
with his own tiny steps.
Beyond diapers
and breast-feeding,
he’s onto the good stuff,
knocking a glass
from the coffee table,
getting his fingers caught
in doors of cabinets,
toppling and
landing on his jelly bones.
He’s putting stuff
in his mouth.
He’s touching
what is there to feel.
He’s embracing a teddy.
He’s tossing it
out of the crib.
He’s trying out
his knees, his elbows,
his arms, his legs.
He even bleeds a little
now and then.
Or runs into a wall.
And he cries –
why not-
his voice must be there
for some reason –
hungry, thirsty,
hot, cold,
or simply bored –
they’re all an excuse
for sound.
And so it’s
push, pull, reach, fall, rise –
it’s choreography for little people.
John Grey
The fault, if there is one, lies in the way
my days keep shedding parts of speech.
Loose nouns roll under the furniture.
Verbs are still warm from use.
Adjectives get up my nostrils
whether they’re sweet perfumes
or rotting stench.
Even the adverbs cling like burrs.
Punctuation is all over the place.
I bump into quotation marks
and those oddball semi-colons.
I trip over commas on the floor.
Cut me. Please do.
You’ll see that what emerges
is not blood but a clause, a syntax.
Dig further and you’ll come up with a handful
of half‑formed paragraphs.
With any luck, they’ll still be breathing.
I didn’t know, back when I first
slipped into a book, that it was an IV line,
a drip-feed of people talking on buses,
or quarreling in kitchens,
or riding to the rescue
or wrapped up in the satin sheets of romance.
Every gesture they made left a bruise
in the shape of a sentence.
Call it a birthmark. My mother, carrying me,
startled by a sponge, or an encyclopedia,
or a poet declaiming to no one in particular
on a park bench. Something lodged early.
So who’s to blame when language
flutters around my skull
like moths drawn to a porch light.
My head can only hold so much.
If I don’t empty it onto a page,
there’s the real risk.
My brain could bust.
Imagine the mess.
You’d either have to
clean up the spill or read it.
John Grey
(Image by DWB)
(Today we welcome back poet John Grey. Get used to seeing him over the next four days!–The Eds.)
From a gray and restless sky,
the snow comes down like a verdict.
Guilty, it says.
And the cold is ten degrees below mercy.
A leaf is torn apart, as is my face.
The wind makes no distinction
between what belongs and what’s been cast out.
Swirling drifts erase birds from the sky’s memory.
Shards of ice collide.
They pull me into their quarrel.
Am I, like them, a fragment blown off course.
A stray cat wails from the pain of exposure.
A rabbit disappears into the earth before night can claim it.
A mouse finds entry in wall
sealed tight against the likes of us.
Somewhere, I tell myself, a fire still burns for me.
And a woman waits with an embrace warm enough to unmake winter.
But that is a country I can no longer reach.
For now I walk the frozen floorboards of this weather,
unable to think of anyone else’s suffering,
not with all this needling, this stabbing,
this piercing reminder of where I cannot ever be.
Tonight, it’s my turn.
I’m the one
who needs dragging in from the streets.
John Grey
(We are pleased to debut Paul Kimm on the site today. It won’t be his last! Leila and DWB)
In the 1980s, I had a job working for Age Concern providing decorating services for the elderly. As long as they bought the materials, Age Concern sent me to paint or wallpaper however many rooms they wanted redecorating. Whilst a few of the people whose houses I went to barely spoke to me, the majority welcomed my company. Here are some of the stories they told me during my breaks. All of the below is true, and some of it is factual.
Mrs Goodson’s house
Mrs Goodson, 76, lived on the Easthill Estate. I was there to paint her kitchen and living room; white ceilings, magnolia walls, and all woodwork in white gloss. I did the living room first. After the first day, she insisted I didn’t bring a packed lunch as she’d feed me, and if I came earlier, would cook me a small breakfast too. So, from the second day I arrived at eight-thirty each morning, and for rest of the week, enjoyed a breakfast of two slices of white bread toast, buttered heavily, with two eggs. To show off her culinary prowess the eggs went from fried, to poached, to scrambled. They remain the tastiest I’ve ever had. For each breakfast she also insisted that I had a small 330ml bottle of Guinness with my breakfast.
It’s good for you. It’s the iron in it. Good for bones, blood, the lot. A little bottle like that, and some eggs, sets you up for the day. It’s what I’ve had for decades and I’m fit as a fiddle. It was my John who started us on it. He was seven years older than me, and only gone just last year. So, did him no harm, did him good. I get crates delivered, twenty-four in a pack lasts me for a month, at weekends I don’t bother, but during the week it’s just right. Keeps you fit. Here, let me show you.
She took me to her under stairs cupboard and opened it to show me the crate, half empty, with rows of bottles in it. Then we went back to the kitchen, and I sat down at the round table, with three chairs tucked under it. She cracked two eggs into a frying pan, and they sizzled and popped immediately, before sliding two slices of bread into the grill above the hobs.
I get them delivered. I can’t carry a box like that, but my John could, still driving he was, and could carry them up from the car. Like he never really got old, that Guinness kept him going. I never learned to drive mind you, so our Rob sold the car after, only for a few hundred pounds, as we’d had it years. John was good at looking after the car as well, had all the tools and that, he’d learned mechanics in the forces. He did that in the war too, fixing vehicles, always strong. He always said it was the Guinness, the iron in it, giving you strong bones, keeping you fit. He never was sick until the end. Never saw him once have a day off, and right until his last week he was carrying in those cases, bending over, and slotting them under the stairs. I can still bend down to get a bottle or two out myself, but it’s years since I could carry twenty-four of them like that. Tell the truth, don’t know if I ever could. Anyway, like my John, a bottle a morning keeps me fit. It’s good for you, and our Rob sometimes brings me another crate when he visits too. If you’re still here on Friday, you’ll probably meet him.
I thanked her for the breakfast, telling her how tasty the eggs were, and for the Guinness. I remember feeling very satisfied and full each morning so did some of the lighter decorating work first whilst the breakfast and drink settled. From the Tuesday to the Friday it took to finish the job she told me more about her John, his strength, and numerous skills, never becoming emotional in anyway other than a bright happiness reminiscing about him. On the last day I met her son, Rob, who was more than twice the age I was then.
You’ve done a smashing job here. Much appreciated mate. Kitchen and living room both look way smarter. It’s a good scheme they’ve got going with Age Concern. Might have to get you back to do more, if we can get me mam some more paint in. That’d be alright, wouldn’t it? The upstairs hasn’t been done for over a decade I reckon. Not since my dad got sick and couldn’t come down for years.
I assume he saw the confusion on my face, as he then told me more.
Ah, I bet me mam said nothing. She’s never spoken about it. Likes to remember him before he got ill, when he could still help around the house. I’ll say no more on it. She doesn’t want those years being the memory of him, and that’s fair enough. It’s best for her she lies to herself, and we go along with it. I’ll say nowt more on it. Thanks again mate, cracking job and may see you again.
When I left Mrs Goodson said thank you and gave me two bottles of Guinness to take with me. I don’t know if she ever got more paint. Possibly one of the other decorators got put on the job next time, but none of them ever mentioned it to me in the yard.
Mr Mason’s house
Mr Mason also lived on Easthill Estate, it being the biggest in town, and was having his living room, hallway and landing painted, a longer job because of the banister and higher ceiling in the stairwell. He would keep drinks and biscuits coming and watch me work, occasionally telling me stories of his younger life, whilst I was painting.
I’ll tell you the best story I’ve got lad. It was 1963, remember it clear as day, even though it was at night. Got arrested, didn’t I? Out of the blue it was. I was still in the army, had been for years, cos I stayed in after the war. I was in London, was driving a Land Rover. That was mostly what I did, drove about on errands for officers and that. A bunch of coppers pulled me over, and took me in. Arrested me for the bloody Great Train Robbery! Can you believe it? Remember it? Ronnie Biggs and them? They thought I was one of them because they’d escaped in Land Rovers, and there’s me in mine trawling round London, odd jobs for my gaffers, and they reckoned I was one of the robbers. Asked me questions for ages they did. Hours.
I finished a section of banister, put my brush and paint pot down, sat on a stair, and asked him what questions they had.
All sorts. It was like they’d decided. You know, like I was definitely one of the robbers. Was in my uniform and they said that was to throw them off the scent. I said to them to check the Land Rover, there was nowt in it, and they said it was probably a decoy. Bear in mind, I didn’t actually know anything about the Great Train Robbery. It wasn’t called that yet, and they weren’t telling me what had gone on, just asking me where the others were, where the money was, where I’d got the military uniform from. I didn’t know until they finally let me go, and saw the papers the next day. Eventually, they called my barracks to check. Someone came in, explained who I was, and they let me go. No apologies or nowt, like I’d wasted their time.
I bent down to get my paint and carry on with my work, but he asked me to wait a minute, so I sat down again.
Thing was, I remember it like it was last night. Never said this to my wife, but that was the most exciting night of my life. Got married, lived through the war, spent two decades in the army, but being arrested as a Great Train Robber is my greatest memory. I remember it more than anything. Every now and then it’s all I constantly think about. That’s the thing with being old, maybe the only good thing, lots of memories, so many of them, even if some of them visit you more than others.
I recall Mr Mason being quieter for the rest of the week. He was excited to tell me his story about being arrested as one of the Great Train Robbers but it was like it had exhausted him. He didn’t mention it again for the rest of the job, or share any other major memories, and by the last day he’d stopped watching me work.
Mrs Smith’s flat
Mrs Smith had a one-bedroom flat near the beach. You couldn’t see the sea from her window, but you could from the small, shared garden at the front. Mrs Smith had saved part of her pension for nine months to afford the paint for every room to be done. She was a soft voiced, but chatty lady who made me tea with milk, a drink I’ve never liked, several times a day, insisting I take a break with her, and I hadn’t the heart to tell her I didn’t like it. The twenty or so cups of tea I had in the week I was there being the most I ever drank.
I moved here after my Albert passed. I didn’t want to stay in a big house, like we had, bigger than we ever needed, so I sold it off, paid the rest of the mortgage and got this place. More than twenty years ago now. Maybe even close to thirty now. I wanted to be near the beach, and have a view of the sea if possible, but when everything was paid off there wasn’t enough for that. This place suits me though. I like it enough. Enough for me. Do I keep saying ‘enough’? Ooh, it’s a miserable word, isn’t it? Enough. Make do. Get by. That’s life though, isn’t it? Life is enough. Anyway, I’m getting all maudlin, and I’m not maudlin at all. I’m a happy person. Quite happy. Happy enough. That’s me, Paul.
Mrs Smith laughed at herself, telling me not mind her rambling, and I went back to continue the decorating. The next milky tea came just over an hour later.
Sorry about before. I don’t mean it like that. All that daft talk about ‘enough’. We had it good, me and my Albert. No kids. That wasn’t for us it turned out, so we had a nice house. No kids, and a big house. Too big for us really, but we had the money for it with no kids. We used to go on holidays abroad before others did, before it became all that popular. Cities and seasides. Seville and Marbella in Spain. Very nice. Rome and Almalfi in Italy. Very nice too. Then my favourites, Athens and the islands in Greece. Definitely the nicest. Anyway, listen to me twittering on. Am I saying ‘nice’ too much now? Deary me, I’m all ‘enoughs’ and ‘nices’ today. Those holidays were very nice though. We’d always send ourselves a postcard, addressed to our own house, with a little note about our trip, like we were writing to another Mr and Mrs Smith, so we had a memory and Albert quite liked collecting the stamps. Often they were waiting for us when we got back or arrived a little later on. I’ve still got them in an old biscuit tin somewhere. I’ll have to dig them out. I can’t remember what we wrote on them. It was a long time ago now.
The next day Mrs Smith searched the cabinets and cupboards in the room I was working in. She apologised for being in my way, even though she wasn’t. Shortly after returning to the kitchen she called me through for another tea.
I’ve found the tin of postcards. I haven’t looked at these in years. Could be ten or more, twenty even, since I’ve had a look. I thought we could look together if you like, while you have your tea.
She opened up the old square tin, the picture on its lid showing a photo of the biscuits it once contained. Inside, there was a stack of brightly coloured postcards, the paper on them looking soft to the touch. Mrs Smith took the top one, a photo of an old church with an orange tree in the foreground, and the word ‘Sevilla’ in the bottom right corner.
There you go. I mentioned we went to Seville didn’t I? Lovely orange trees everywhere. All over the city. Let’s have a look what silly message we wrote to ourselves.
She turned over the postcard, and on the back the right side had the address below the names ‘Mr and Mrs Smith’, but the left side was blank.
Oh, let me look at some more. We must have forgotten to write on this one. Ooh, one from Turin. We went to Italy more than once. Oh, no message on this one either.
Mrs Smith took out a pile in one go, turned them over, and started dealing them out on the table, each one with their address and a stamp on the right, but all the left-hand sides blank.
Well, I never! I told you yesterday we used to send ourselves a postcard, with a message. I was sure we did. Looks like I’ve gone and imagined it. So silly. It must have been to his brother Geoff, and his wife Gladys. They were Mr and Mrs Smith as well. That must be it. Silly me. I would have liked to read those messages, but Geoff and Gladys are long gone now too. I’ve no idea if they kept them. I’ve still got Albert’s writing though, on those addresses. Just not the messages. So silly of me. I was so sure about it when I told you about our little, silly postcard tradition. Now I can’t stop saying silly, can I? Oh well, it was a long time ago now, but so is yesterday nowadays for me. Everyday feels like a long time ago. Just so silly.
After that day I wasn’t invited into the kitchen as much. Mrs Smith mostly brought the mugs of tea to me. When I was painting the kitchen and the bathroom, if she wasn’t looking, I’d tip some of the tea down the sink. When the job finished, she said goodbye and asked if I might pop round sometimes for a tea and a chat. I said I would, but I never did.
Paul Kimm
(Image by CJA)
Saragun Springs 