Tag Archives: Cheer Peppers

Day Twenty-Six and All Poets Bear Witness

All Poets Bear Witness

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“I think all poets… are caught in a situation, have a very difficult role to play.  Insofar as they’re real poets, they are committed to the welfare of people, of all the people… Our effort is to bear witness to something which will have to be there when the storm is over.  To help us get through the next storm.  Storms are always coming.”

-James Baldwin (1970)

All poets bear witness.

Right there.

Full stop.

When I began writing poetry, I was already an old man.  A meme I read the other day will tell you just how old,

“In banana years, I am bread.” 

Not unlike a lot of my poet peers, peers, not in age, but in time served, I wrote poetry because I wanted to die; I just didn’t want to do the deed myself.  Because of that fear of the great beyond, and my place in it, I chose instead to write the poison from my system, one shitty, self-indulgent poem at a time. 

Almost a decade later, my first full-length book of shitty, self-indulgent poems was published, and two years later, a second.  Then, within that same year, and with a third book of shitty, self-indulgent poems set to go to press, I had what I would call a poet’s epiphany.  With a couple of weeks to go before my third book would be made available, I told my publisher no. 

What I actually said was, “I’m pulling the book”.  When asked why, my reply was, “Because it’s shit”.  Now it’s five-and-a-half years later, and I still haven’t written book number three.  Looking back on all the poems I have written from the beginning of 2018 until now, I believe I have done the world a great service, by simply not letting anyone read those poems, except in very small numbers, by only a few trusted individuals.  It’s funny, at least funny to me, funny in a way that most people don’t see as funny, but whatever, that I am grateful that there is nothing come to print of anything I wrote during those five silent years, when circumstances mostly beyond my control afforded me a luxury that a more… accomplished… writer might not have been gifted. 

Time enough to shut the fuck up, and listen.

Time to listen to the hearts of loved ones, listen to the words of chosen family, and not merely chosen by me, but me, having been chosen by them, for reasons I am still unsure about.  And ultimately, time to listen to those who came before all of us, who’s words I do not consider myself worth of, or worthy to share, through my own.  Words like those that preface this post, without which, I would have likely remained silent, still soaking in my own poison.  Words that slapped the self-indulgence right out of me and, I hope to God, make my own words finally worthy of being read. 

That quote of James Baldwin, first spoken by him when I was nine years old, brought me from a place of shitty self-indulgence, wherein the only thing I bore witness to was, well… shitty, and self-indulgent… to now, when we understand that a poet, a real poet, is alive to be committed to the welfare of people.  Of all the people.  And to, I might add, NOT bear witness to their own shitty self-indulgence.

Because there is an entire world before us to bear witness of.  Bear witness of its joys and its fears, its triumphs and atrocities, and its storms, for in doing so, we call out the evil, and call in the good.

Because storms are always coming.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Day Twenty-Five and the (If I Only Knew What THIS was Called)

I’m ready for it to snow.

If this year is like last year, it means I’m ready for it to only snow an inch-and-a-half by the first week of February, then make the season’s only snow angel on the front lawn, wearing just a tee shirt, sweatpants, and bedroom slippers.  But for this year, what I mean is, I’m ready for it to blizzard; blizzard so hard that it takes an hour to walk the 5 blocks from my front porch to the Dunkin Donuts on the corner of Middle Country Road, if I feel like going out at all.

Because this year, what I really want, is to sit, in my cushy blue writing chair, laptop open on my legs and glaring in my eyes, to write the world away.  Write this world away. 

To write another world into existence.

This is a question for all who have read, and maybe written, through this month of November with me.  What do YOU want to write, AFTER November ends?  Leave your answers in the comments.  Let’s make this the beginning of what comes after.  When we all can write another world into existence.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Day Twenty-Four and the End of the Age

The End of the Age

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I am tired.

You are more.

Maybe it’s my age.

Or just the end of the age,

I’m not really sure.

I don’t believe in a do-over.

Only done.

Are we,

done?

Day Twenty-Three and the PRE (post-apocalypse)

I used to love post-apocalypse stories.

Fahrenheit 451, 12 Monkeys, The Flintstones (trust me on that last one because there IS a THEORY). Hell, do you realize that even Star Trek is, in its deepest origin story, a post-apocalyptic fairy tail. I used to love all of these.

Until a couple of days ago, when a meme came across my socials.

A meme that I just spent an hour digging through other memes, hoping to find, without any luck. In fuzzy recollection, the lost meme went something like this,

“What if we’re already in the apocalypse?”

Take all the time you need with that, just like I did. Don’t rush. Let it breathe. Okay, good. Now ask yourself, just like I did, what if we’re living through, right now, in late November of 2023, NOT just humanity’s latest hiccup, but the actual beginning of the end? I know, there isn’t much CHEER in that thought. I mean, consider that, outside of the cozy fringes of what we, here, call Thanksgiving, are we really just giving thanks for one more blindfold to hide our eyes with?

And no, I don’t care if what you’ve read so far makes you stop reading and start blocking.

Remember that Rome had its Pax Romana and its Bread and Circuses (that last phrase was also a Star Trek episode title, by the way), and Rome was also history’s cool kid on the block for at least 500 years. Even started kicking up its heels a good five or six-hundred years prior to that, before it crumbled on the inside, and then burned on the outside.

We here in the land of turkeys on the fourth Thursday of that month which ushers in our annual seasonal depression, have only been the cool kid on history’s block since that time we bloodied the nose of a bully in a war that ended barely 200 years ago. And since that time, we’ve copied everything we learned from that childhood bully, and then even improved the shit out of a lot of his techniques.

We even copied Rome, and its self-proclaimed Peace, plus its offering of Bread and Circuses, when we crafted our own versions through things like Manifest Destiny and the National Football League. And for every culture that got to experience our manifest, it was, for them, the apocalypse.

So why would we ever think that THE apocalypse couldn’t have its very own origin story… in us? One in which those, once bullied to near-extinction, live long enough to become the bullies of someone else’s end times.

So, while naming no names, and only using well-established histories to make a point for my old favorite Sci-Fi trope, realize that Rome, which wasn’t built in a day, rules the world no more. Great Britain, upon who’s empire, as they themselves used to say, “the sun never sets”, is now little more than the world’s doddering great-grandmum, sitting in a corner, drooling over the smells of turkey roasting in the oven. Just a reminder that history repeats itself often, whether or not we who are alive for it, learn from it.

And momentarily rest in the knowledge that, though history is written by the victors, history also teaches that, eventually, the victors are no more. Then, history will be spoken by those who survived, and live on in what those who would have written, might have called the pre-post-apocalypse.

Oh, and I prefer ham to turkey, and would eat mashed potatoes every day of the year.

Talk to you tomorrow.

(probably)

Day Twenty-Two and the Soft Targets

Soft Targets

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Today hits near. 

We had made it easy to ignore

the far away.  Miles become oceans,

become sand, far. 

Soft targets found by cellphones

and hot coffee, launched at

father and child.  Miles become oceans,

become playgrounds, near. 

Targets have always been soft.

Day Twenty-One and the Step Brothers

Hope is a comedically unfunny thing.

Throughout the month of November, mostly without wanting to… and this is what happens when you feel committed to something and then, halfway through it, you’re wishing you’d never even heard of the thing… you begin to confront feelings inside yourself that you, till now, had successfully ignored. 

You’re forced confront those feelings, because the compression in this one month of time forces you, again, not because you want to.  Instead, it’s like you’re living in that familiar moment, where a parent will lock two feuding step brothers in a room together, until the two of them either break their undersized bunk beds, or resolve whatever conflict there has been between them, presumably for the good of the entire family.

And that is hope.  Hope that there is resolution in any conflict.  But like I said, hope is a comedically unfunny thing.  Also, just to clarify, because I’m sure those who got the movie reference want to know, my three favorite Will Ferrell movies are, in order: Land of the Lost, Semi-Pro, and Elf.

You will NOT find the movie Step Brothers named among them.

Unlike the majority of movie-goers, I don’t believe confrontation is funny.  I feel movie confrontation, fully and completely, in my trauma-soaked bones.  And I despise those feelings associated with confrontation, in all their forms.  Not only in our more accustomed violent images in film, but also, in the comedic. 

Those who know me well know THIS about me, very well.

So when I say I do not like the feelings I experience during annual November Blog Month, let me explain it this way.  Find yourself the most emotionally-triggering movie you have ever seen.  Now watch it for 30 straight days.  At the same time, listen to all your well-meaning friends tell you that “You’re just wrong about that movie”, or, “Okay, it’s triggering for YOU, but its ONLY 30 times in 30 days.”  Or my favorite, “I’m sorry IF YOU feel that way about it, but don’t make the rest of us feel bad just because YOU DO.”

November Blog Month is my Step Brothers. 

That one month every year when I must confront my biggest feelings, every day, for 30 straight days, no matter what it does to me.  And, by the way, after doing this six times out of the last nine years, and feeling this way about it every time, I’m writing this to tell MYSELF that I own these feelings, as mine, and mine alone, every time I enter this writer’s space. 

As of tomorrow, I will have 9 more metaphorical showings of Step Brothers to sit through, as I experience the undiluted dread of that daily confrontation in my soul.  I’ll decide what I’m going to do with it, some other time.  Until then…

Talk to you tomorrow.

Day Nineteen and the ASMR Fireplace

Here is a still photo, taken from the streaming video of a Holiday Fireplace, with all the crackling goodness of an open flame, but with none of that pesky creosote that ruins everything later. Imagine the sound of wood, breaking apart in the heat of this two-dimensional similitude of wintry satisfaction.

I did, and although it would be necessary for me to upgrade my WordPress account to accommodate for you the fullness of the streaming video, at least allow me this semi-fulfilling image on your screen, that you might, along with me, feel just a smidge of cheer, as November works its way ever-closer to the winter solstice. I’ve been watching this since before noon, while trying to find the words to write my feelings today.

I can’t find them.

And that’s okay.

We all have a lot on our minds besides blog posts right now. Some days, there is nothing inside us ready to come out except a good old fashioned scream. But I don’t think I can do that today, what with the maybe after 62 years on this earth, I’m finally suffering my first series of migraine headaches and all.

Therefore, today I have kept silent.

So in lieu of that noise, I went with the soft splitting of wood against tender licks of orange flame. Hot toddy and roasting chestnuts, optional. Though I did have a piece of pumpkin pie, avalanched beneath a mountain of whipped cream. I was going to try writing something personal and deeply moving on the topic of how “Joy sustains the revolution”. But I just don’t have that in me now. Maybe tomorrow, maybe never. It’s probably enough that this quote is being given a place in my head, at the very same time that my head can’t handle anything more real than a cold fireplace on a flat screen TV. One more thing to give place to, between now, and the next thing I’ll write in November.

I mean, I found the joy in that slice of pumpkin pie, so there’s that, right?

Talk to you tomorrow.

Day Eighteen and the Birds

(Artwork by Michele Thomas)

Birds

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Let the birds come. 

On the gray-eyed mist of May,

with flower’s breath,

through rusting screens of

second story window panes,

facing east and waiting for the sun.

Let the birds come.

To sing the blanket from my shoulders,

and greet the bottom of

my empty morning cup. 

Wanting more, but nothing more than this. 

The place where stories run.  Let the birds come.

•

(for Chele)

Day Seventeen and the Stream (of Consciousness)

Day Seventeen and the Stream (of Consciousness)

As I sit in my comfy blue recliner, with my laptop open, Donnie Darko plays in the background on my writing room TV.

The sound is low.  So low that it isn’t a part of the pain I’ve had in my skull since… well, this pain started yesterday, with the borrowed dog we’ve been sitting since Sunday, and a particularly piercing bark that I have never in my life of knowing dogs, heard before. 

So, have you ever imagined what it would feel like to have a tiny buzz saw cut a straight line from the bottom left base of your skull, upward, then over your head and down, to just above your left eye socket, then string together dozens of teeny-tiny firecrackers, and set them into your freshly-cut skull-groove, so that all of them can be lit one-by-one and exploded, for six consecutive hours, while at the same time editing a blog post on an otherwise beautiful November day?

Yeah, me either. 

Until yesterday.

Now I sit, in the same comfy blue recliner, with the same laptop open, almost exactly like yesterday, with the pain diminished just enough to appreciate the deadness in my brain, after a yesterday, and yesternight, of over the counter pain meds, followed by an overnight of nonsensical dreams that, to my meat-tenderized frontal lobe, must’ve made, in the moment, made sense. 

It was almost 8 am, when the full-daylight of morning woke me from my final dream, after a shitty 8 hours of sleep.  I sat up, pulled on what was left of the clothes I didn’t fall asleep in the night before, and gently moved myself from the edge of the bed to the bathroom, then from bathroom to the kitchen, and finally, to the coffee maker on the counter next to the fridge.  My morning routine, set in motion twelve hours earlier, like always, so I don’t have to endure the self-shame of spending two extra minutes scooping coffee from a can in the morning. 

As I completed these actions, a thought hits me. 

What if someone unfamiliar with the kind of headache I was still in the afterglow of… say, an extraterrestrial being unfamiliar with the lengths a species such as ours goes to, every day, to feel, you know, like this species we already are, but without caffeine… were to ask me how I was still functioning in the aftermath of said debilitating headache from the day before, even prior to the coffee said human was going to consume hits the chemical receptors in that still hurting human’s brain?

(My apologies for the complex construction of that sentence.  Apparently my red-underscore spellcheck liked it just fine.)

My response to the extraterrestrial in my kitchen, as the coffee slowly dribbles from basket to pot, would’ve been just as complex, and though it would’ve done nothing to help human/extraterrestrial relations, it would’ve explained it perfectly for a species as simplistically complex as ours,

“What about getting hit with a baseball bat makes no sense to you? 

Now I’d like to tell you that this was the moment when I woke up from that last dream that make no sense.  I’d like to tell you that this wasn’t an ill-thought out blog post with a strong beginning, a weak middle, and no ending at all.  I’d even like to tell you that I’m a famous writer and, because of that, I’m going to be a contestant on the next season of Dancing with the Stars.  But what I’m really going to tell you is, before I could finish whatever kind of blog post this was giving us its best attempt to be, THAT was the exact moment that my head stopped hurting. 

So I stopped writing.

Mid-stream-of-consciousness.

Because, after the last 24 hours I’ve had, now that it feels like that borrowed dog headache of mine has finally moved on, I’m going to make me a snack, watch me some General Hospital, and enjoy what’s left of this day that’s almost over.  Maybe something less painful will come to me between now and then, and I’ll share it with you.  But in the meantime…

Talk to you tomorrow.