The Welcome Mat

THE WELCOME MAT

I knew something was amiss as soon as I walked up to the house. It’s interesting how even inanimate bits and pieces around a home can betray the emotional state, busy schedule, or well being of its inhabitants: a door ajar, an unkempt lawn, an overflowing mailbox, dying plants, broken windows, or, in this case, her and her sister-in-law’s cars in the driveway. My girlfriend was supposed to be in class, so I knew something was afoot. I only needed to open the door and see their faces to know it wasn’t anything good. “What’s goin’ on,” I asked eagerly. Her sister-in-law slowly bowed her head and looked away. “Adriana, what’s wrong,” I pressed more firmly. Her chocolate colored eyes already red and puffy from crying, she pointed toward the laundry room as her bottom lip curled in horror. I walked quickly through the kitchen; seeing the blood on the floor gave rise to anxiety and panic.
I opened the back door and saw the familiar long hair of her Maine Coon named Romeo. His once thick body and billowy fur lay still, almost deflated on the doormat. Two pools of blood surrounded his front and backsides. I knew instantly he was gone. I hovered over him in awe, petting his lifeless forehead. “What happened,” I asked through the tears that were welling up in my eyes. Adriana began to sob and knelt down over Romeo’s body, uncaring about the blood, as if to cover him with a blanket of mournful affection. “She found him like this,” her sister-in-law replied quietly, mouthing the words as to not trigger an endless loop of trauma for Adriana. I held her, while she held him. The moment seemed to hold us both in the bizarre limbo of shock, disbelief, and sorrow.

Judging by the lack of visible wounds and the internal bleeding, Romeo had been hit by a car. We moved close to campus last fall so we could save money by walking to school; that kind of convenience, like most, comes with its drawbacks: loud parties, beer can littered lawns, and fast moving cars with negligent drivers, the latter of which I blame for Romeo’s death.

Loss is a dreadful fact of life. I say this as a well-acquainted victim of loss. I’ve lost my aunt, grandmother, friends, dogs, cats, hamsters, parrots, fish, horses, cows, even a squirrel, hit by the car in front of me, died in my arms once. All of this hard-edged existential trauma has brought me closer to a place of acceptance around grief and loss, but that acceptance doesn’t really make it easier to cope with the seemingly arbitrary violence that sometimes surrounds such trauma. “So it goes,” as Kurt Vonnegut Jr. would claim; who am I to argue?

We elected to bury Romeo at Adriana’s parent’s house, since we rent and plan to move after graduation. Her senior piano recital was the following day and she had planned on devoting this specific day to rehearsing the thirty-seven pages of music she had committed to memory over the last two semesters. I’ve never been terribly fond of the saying “if you want to hear God laugh talk about your plans,” but it did seem appropriate, albeit dour. We wrapped Romeo’s body in the jute doormat on which he constantly came and went through the cat door and on which he took his last breathe.
It’s strange what goes through your mind during times of trauma; I broke my femur playing football when I was eleven but before I went into shock and spent two months in the hospital and another two in a body cast, I kept thinking of how grass-stained my favorite pants had gotten during the game. This morning I thought of how we had switched cat food a few days prior, how the cats weren’t terribly fond of the new stuff, and how Romeo’s last meal wasn’t even his favorite.

I thought of how beautiful my girlfriend’s hair looked as it enveloped Romeo’s once lithe body in a sea of dark silk ringlets. I thought of how sweet and tender her voice, slightly hoarse from crying, sounded through the dreadful moment; of how small she looked crouching down over her “furry soul mate,” as she called him. I thought of how deep and rich Romeo’s blood appeared on the doormat, how it had sunken into the fabric, bonding with it, changing it forever. I thought of it as a channel of sorts, this doormat; it had seen him out and welcomed him in countless times; and in that moment, it was as sacramental to Adriana and me as the Shroud of Turin to the followers of Jesus.
I thought of Christians, of a few friends of mine who believed that animals are bereft of the ability to love and feel and understand life. I thought of how they had told me animals, not having souls, don’t go to heaven. I thought if Romeo, Matisse, Oso Peligroso, Luna, Louie, Harlow, and all of the other animals I’ve known and loved aren’t allowed into the Kingdom of Heaven I don’t want to be there.
I thought of how much joy and unconditional love animals have evoked in me, of how intuitive they are to the needs of humans and each other. I thought of how much I’ve learned by watching them, how seemingly simple but deceivingly complex their trust/fear hierarchy is, as well as the profound accuracy of their instincts. I thought of how my Abuelita had told me that animals are sensitive to people’s issues and are always a good judge of character. I thought of how I’d rather keep the company of my cats than that of most people, and how I never quite click with those who claim to not like cats. This may be yet another reason why I feel so anachronistic at times; maybe I’m a reincarnated pagan, a pious member of some polytheistic sect that worshipped cats and saw them as demigods or spiritual deities far more divinely connected than humans. They’re definitely high on my totem, if not on top.

We loaded Romeo into the back seat of her car and made our way to her parent’s house. She and her mother have something of an estranged relationship, seeing that Adriana is a staunch liberal and her mother somewhat conservative: her provincial Catholic upbringing in rural Mexico lies in stark contrast to her daughter’s flexible American-girl ethics. Most of their strife comes from the fact that Adriana is “shacking-up” with a “boyfriend” eight years her senior. Needless to say, their conversations are perpetually rife with heat and friction, so when Adriana asked for Romeo’s burial plot her mother was less than compassionate; saying, “It’s okay, you can get another cat. You should really be focusing on finals right now.”

Adriana couldn’t focus on anything at that point, not even letting go. Rumi penned, “ a life rooted deeply, lives and grows in memory.” Our memories may be our only defense against time, which tramples on, regardless of our trials or victories. Adriana had certainly dug a good stronghold against time: never having a pet of her own, she fell madly, whole-heartedly in love with Romeo, whom she affectionately called “Mr. Boom Boom”. They had a rare bond that inspired her to love more deeply. Every time she saw him or said his name she beamed joy, an uncomplicated joy, the kind that comes from a love without question or distress. I believe he felt the strength of that bond too. I believe that’s what carried him from the road and back through the door, to present her with an honorable farewell. It was hard to see Romeo go out like that, and even harder to see Adriana’s reaction to his demise.
Some people feel very comfortable crying; it seems to come as naturally as laughing. Others are embarrassed by the vulnerability involved in such an honest act. Adriana’s tears were like those of a child having lost her mother, or a mother having lost her child; either way they’re significant and justifiable: crying is the only language that makes sense, the only language that communicates the anguish and confusion brought on by loss; seeing her cry like that made me want to cry, even now. Sad as it is, it has endeared me to her.

I could write a thousand poems about that day, the emotional genius, the cunning it takes to love so deeply, how vulnerable we all are in the face of life, love, and loss, how we’re all adrift, lost children hoping for the best. We’re all looking for something real, something that brings us joy, makes us grateful to be alive, helps us feel, keeps us honest, quells our hunger for understanding, and guides our journey. We’re looking for something that helps us communicate the magnitude of human suffering, the isolation and alienation that comes from being a grain of sand in an endless desert. Art, science, and religion were all born from this, this curiosity, the thirst for order, meaning, and justice; but none of their scholars or prophets, nor the contrived theories, or pretentious pageantry they so embody even come close to conveying the sincerity I’ve witnessed in seeing a human cry for something they love.

I’ll never forget the way the sunlight illuminated her skin as she kissed Romeo’s forehead for the last time, how it seemed to twinkle and dance through the tears she cried for him and maybe for her mother too, the way she held her heart (as if she was saying this is where it hurts, or as if pledging everlasting allegiance to a dear friend). I’ll never forget how gently the breeze shook the grove of May apples that surrounded his tiny grave. Nor will I forget how sweet and innocent his fuzzy little face looked nestled in the hole I dug on the rocky knoll; his head barely peeking out, still wrapped in the jute rug, his welcome mat into the next life.



-R. Flores

JH's appearance on National Public Radio

"The Body you Crave" as featured on NPR's Open Mic
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5645962

"Jessel Harry is a songwriter with the zeitgeist to reach his generation"
Pete Dulin Present magazine KC MO
http://www.myspace.com/thewesternparadise
http://www.myspace.com/jesselharry
http://www.myspace.com/warnersistersrecords

A Good Woman

He said, “You’ve got a good woman,”
and I said, “You have no idea.”
The man that she has made me become,
rather, the poet that she has helped me to be
makes her like some sort of personal Jesus.
She saved me from my mundanity,
and with the right love she let me see
just how good life can be
just by, it seems, refusing to be made angry.

So I have recognized her as a love
that is my other and the way she be adoring me
so perfect never smother me she smiles
before adversity and makes herself
just right for me. Her dreams and crafts
on rafts in rivers of dreams
is just plain wonder be
that she has given to me
like promises on some kind of silver platter,
so now all that really matters
is the way our us just keeps getting fatter
with a Ph like psychedelics
from the mad hatter. Our love feels intravenous
so now past mates who proved to strain us
are distant memories at best.
Now we’re writing and acing this test

of life. She’ll be my yolk, I’ll be her albumen
surrounding her with the white of all the words
I write to describe her. She’s like some unique
and perfect flower from a star
too far away to see, only dream
of this kind of perfection. Out of the shower
her face is warm with cheeks like cherries
and her skin is like that perfect peak of ripeness:
a peach just dropped to me from the tree
of rightness. I feel that with my palms upon her
and when I bring my lips to hers it defines sweet.

But like a mere mortal I can tell
that to kiss and tell might break the spell,
might demystify the wonder of us,
and there is no questioning the trust
between us—this ride we ride
has tilted and whirled us for over three
and a half years. I’m sure our neighbors
must have grown tired of having to hear
all the woahs that each new turn elicits,
and now we’re like kids in a candy store
where we know it is implicit
that our limit ends at infinity.
Now even though each month’s rent together
is: 500 dollars, and our phones where we talk
unlimited to each other is: 100 dollars,
and our meals out run an average of: 20 dollars,
the magic we make will always be:
Priceless.

I could tell you that we laugh at the same jokes,
I could explain that our lives have bread the same hopes,
I could give you a list of shows and movies
and songs that we both love,
but it would be like sending you a page
full of scrawlings from a pen filled with invisible ink—
if you think that for one minute this kind of spiritual reaction
is something that could be defined by a list
of all its consummate factions, then, friend,
you might never get it.

It’s like, “What’s the look? I don’t know the answer
to that question! If I knew I would tell you.”
It’s like jazz where you have to feel it
and never ask. It’s like peeling an apple
so the red is still whole—like some fragile and mysterious
twisting, arching turn that could be used
to explain a storyline in your dream.

But it has to be your dream,
just like she is mine, and now I’m
finally so flipping happy,
I’m just here to say that I hope
you all find your own special flower
that will without your knowing,
tame you.

Learning

When a high school teacher looks out
over his sophomores in the middle of another September,
he sees what looks an awful lot like a Missouri hill
with mountainous aspirations—
faces of leaves all at their primes,
fiery red with a fury of foliage not yet fallen,
and the softer, somehow shier yellows that temper
between the oranges in the middle that just persist.

But by the center of October, even though
some still strive, there are those whose peaks
seem to have already passed with the last day
of vacation, those who have already been brighter
than any of their peers but are on their way down
now, they’ve begun to brown now, begun to dim.
There are those whose faces realize
that the best times of their lives
are already behind them. They’re no longer
bright but bored with waiting out the rest.
However sparsely they may be strewn
throughout the midst, their disillusion rises
like smoke from the center of summer’s
last bonfire. Even though their brethren
still lick toward the sky and flicker,
their pallor symbolizes the flame’s
last breath, wisping for sure.

But remember the end of August, the start
of September? That is the place toward
where teachers all reach, when each
new face still shined. Bright pupils
like a palate of irises on a chart
for color contacts, all so brilliant
and glowing that we’re moved
to wonder, “Are they real?” None
can deny them that sharpness.
Those tiger-eyed students are still high
on the huffing of those summer winds,
still hungry and ready to digest
all the lessons life has to offer.

A wise man said, “The greatest mistake
that teachers make is asking their students
to write about their summer vacations."
That summarization zaps the energy
and forces it into the past.
And even thought the calendar says
that the fall does not begin until September 2-4,
the summer always ends
with that first homework assignment.
The freedom becomes a fainter memory
when the student is forced
to regurgitate it to the page.

So when will we start to see
that every ounce of that energy
is wasted when it is shoved
into those school-shaped jars?
No matter how many holes are poked
into the sides, those lightning bug
intellects need the room to fly.
No matter how many tray-sized
lunch portions are dropped in there,
the only thing that keeps them squeezing
out their best times into five paragraphs
is the fear and consequence
that naturally comes from never getting to
hear the pomp and circumstance
that the world affords to each
and every good little worker bee.

But by the end of October they’ve started to see
that even the best of insects get their honey
harvested and enjoyed by those who never need worry
about getting employed. They’ve started to wonder
why they so willingly submit to tests
and grades from those who don’t care a whit
for the filling up that their souls never seem to get.

It’s in school where we learn how to earn that life
that will invariably lead to a too-early grave,
but the pesticides of their lessons will
only ultimately kill. The colors that call
and summon the bugs of the world
are indeed what we really need
to grow and adapt to our world.

It’s not classes we need to take,
or the Dean’s list we need to make.
It’s not stores where we should shop,
or weight we need to drop.
It’s not hair we should worry about growing,
or how much our teeth are glowing.
It is to where we all would fly
if only our teachers had the courage to ask us why
we haven’t already run down the halls of our high schools
and broken down the double doors of expectation
that hold us back from the real world
where we would learn what we really need,
and why we haven’t already asked them why
they keep shoving us into these class-shaped tombs
where we’re all forced to fall from the treetops of summer
where we once flew.

Business Haiku

The meetings every
Tuesday morning kept us all
plodding through the week

I kept my tie tight
to remain conscious of my
otherwise strained breath

Listening to birds
chirping in the morning was
waking in the board room

When we discuss why
the red tape was still sticky
we realized nothing

Paperwork over
our heads buried us without
just compensation

Early arrivals
each tweet on their own branches
around the table

Meetings give us all
another thirty minutes when
we all do nothing

My co-worker took
off his ring and seemed to think
about his life now

With handouts, you too
will be able to waste more
time and paper too!

Words like asterisk
and ombudsman trouble the
tongue in board meetings

Doctors would like to
believe medicine is what
keeps us together

Board meeting haiku
are written in black ink so
they are official

Shredding discussed at
board meetings has nothing to
do with rock guitars

Meetings sometimes make
me think I have no idea
what is going on

The one response to
the handout about teamwork
was the rolling eyes

The talk about the
Sunshine Club that morning was
the gloomiest thing

The rigidity
of scheduled lunch hours is of
direst importance

The forms you fill out
are there for your protection
and your benefit

"When we let people
bend these arbitrary rules
we're NOT helping them!"

We introduced Joy
at the meeting this morning.
He seemed REAL happy.

"Well, that will be fine.
We need to let Joy have a
real chance to go first."

Existentialist
I am when automatic
flushers don't see me.

Unreasonable:
amount of power placed in
hands of customers.

One in a hundred
callers complain about me,
but THAT's still too much

After handouts are
given, they are read aloud
so we _understand_

When the fit hits the
shan, we will all be ready
because of handouts

Restrained glances make
bearing the idiocy
something we can do

Looking at the bun
on the woman's head, I can
see her years from now

When in a career
you see all around you what
your future looks like

I hide the hand on
which I count syllables when
I'm in a meeting

When I do more than
I'm paid for, it doesn't make
up for when I don't

The man on his way
can't help but laugh- heartedly-
at the silliness

Organized Religion Is Tired

I would rather go
to a church like the one featured in the Blues Brothers
because I just get tired of listening to all these others.
I'd rather listen to a preacher like James Brown
because he speaks with passion,
speaks like he knows what's going down.
He's not caught up with the world going round,
and I don't have to wonder if he is one I can believe.
The truth with which he speaks is easy to receive
and follow, follow, follow on to a brighter tomorrow.

Unlike those preachers who preach the WWJD
without a well-founded idea of what the Hell
it means to them, James would be speaking unlike
some cliche Southern Baptist preacher speeding
past my Chevrolet in his brand new Lexus that is a shiny gray
like the silver spoon stuck so far down his throat when he was born
that by the time he could speak, it was only with scorn.
The belief system that meters his rhythm is just enough
to balance his checkbook without taking one look
at the Good Book or feeling the spirit move through grooves
or get-ups people wear to show off at the church affair, but
You better leave that girl alone! If you're wondering what I'm wishin',
it's just that like Arrested Development I am fishin'
for a new religion. One that might instill a might
that the world has made me forget and I regret
to relay to you that I just lost respect
for respective figures of authority when they'd say to me,
Matthew, it's okay; I'm your mother, I'm your father,
I'm your preacher, I'm your teacher--

But that's nonsense! You're just teaching me not to remember
or teaching me to sever the umbilical cord
that links me back to my creator.
You're teaching me there's nothing new,
but before I knew what teachers tried to teach,
I knew I could dream my way into a better way
of living so large it would make my God laugh.
And it's okay that you still don't get it
It's okay that I'm gonna have to wear the break beats

like boots on my own feet when I march
into the bank and demand a loan on my good looks alone
Tell them to put it under M to the A double T, H, E,
double and You had better believe they gave me the A-
men when I asked for it I told them I was from New York City
where his seed met with her seed to create the heresy of me before
they were married but from love into love made I was
the spade with which they fought against the rest of the world
and now my seed will grow in the soil of my own belief

Giving me and the people relief from the fear
with which so many have been indoctrinated
because the religion I have lost in my dreams
will be the belief on which I have founded my love--
From whence we all came is one and the same
and our umbilical connection to the everlasting will
be the hymnal from which our souls will sing and the praise
will raise us all to higher ground with the sound reason
that only love can bring, and the eternal pleasing will
make our bond ring like the rings of our Milky Way,
and the only thing brighter than today
will be the glory of our tomorrow
of rediscovered love For-Ever.

Mankind to the Letter

In the beginning there was the Word,
and I wrote it. It went, "Dear God,
it's me, Mankind, and you are about to be
demoted. Actually, I mean remoted." See,
my vision isn't flawed or wrong, and my soul
of love has not fallen. The divine now is
where and what I am, and I am re-
cognizing myself as the creator. The grand
equator and the judge. I write the songs
that the whole world will have to sing, and life
has begun to budge from between the rock
and the all-too-hard space.

I've decided to win this very real human race.
I am the voice and the choice of a sporting
goods commercial: I've seen your greatest
challenges and I am bored with them--
now bring me your finest wines and cheeses!
I've begun to recognize that I am Jesus.
I've taken science apart and put it back together.
I've taken clouds and stars apart and I called it weather.
I've broken life down to all its component parts,
then I re-assembled it, and I call my hard work art.
I had the fruits of nature, but I knew I could make them
better, so I wrote the recipe out letter by letter.

And the wetter I got with knowledge, the more
I liked to swim. I think, I thank, and I thunk the more
about God and started to wonder why I needed him.
I control life, and I damn sure dictate death--
it was my own will that gave to life
that first essential breath. I can fly like an eagle
and swim with fish in the sea. I've got machines
that go bing, and I am
really starting to see that life is a composite
of all the choices I have made. What do I want?
I'll make it. What do I hate? I'll break it.

I gave myself a book with lots of laws.
I wrote ideals with loopholes and dictates.
I put in strict rules and dramatic roles and I told you
how to mandate my word. My law. My commandments,
rules and futures. My hand made the earth into how
I wanted it to be, and it is my hand that decides
who is captive and just who is free.
Just like any human being who's unhappy
with his boss, I staged a coup, and my boss lost.

I draw my fingers through the mountains,
and with machines I make them move.
I foretell my own reality and then find ways
that I can prove myself to be the biggest, the baddest,
the best, and the worst all at the same time.
With the push of a couple of buttons, I can
wipe out humanity. I smite even better
and with more lasting efficacy. I'll protest
myself and wage the most outrageous uproar.
Then I'll use that word I wrote to justify
everything from evening the score to setting up
a store in my place of worship. People!

Come to me and follow! Be respectful on
the outside even if your insides are hollow
because Image Is Everything. There is a purpose
for everything except each and every thing
that I have told you and tell you to hate. Keep on
praying every day. Keep on finding new and special
ways to pay and show your original support.
Make all your concerts efforts to distort
divinity so that you can keep on waiting to come
and hang with me at the crossroads of heaven
which has to be above, because it couldn't be below!
I was the one who created the hierarchy. I named the sun.
I highlighted his shadow. Where do I want to go?
I'll build it. What void do I feel I lack? I'll fill it.
What reality do I want? I'll program it. You can
use my name in vain; you can do your best to strain
our relation, but still I will feed you. I will need you
until the very end, so the times you spend, the whiles
you lend, the minds you bend, the rules you send
to peaceful people elsewhere will be ac-cum-u-
lated strength that will foster the furthering of songs
I expect you'll always sing to praise me.

You'll keep on raising me up because the world
keeps telling you to. Think outside the box?
Shee-at, I trust you'll keep living your lives
constantly contemplating the box you've bought
for your very perceived end. I exist and am solely
because you will not ever, ever smother the fires
of insecurity enough. All your hot air and praise misplaced
elsewhere will fan the flames of the toasty warm hell
you continue to create. I'm not saying you have to
suffer. You'll never have to be any tougher
than you absolutely want to be. You want to be

happy? I've made you a pill. You want to laugh?
I gave you Comedy Central. Too tired to live life
at the end of your day? It's okay! Turn on, tune out,
sit back and relax- fall asleep on your couch. I'll give
you sitcoms and dramas, the news will always show you
mamas in tears for their babies' fears, but the economy
is strong! We're fighting against wrong! We're writing
a new song! It's a brand new anthem so the band
and them will keep on playing as this mighty ship
goes down. Just keep on praying to the skies and you will
never feel compelled to ask me or yourself why what was
this mighty Titanic is now in such a tempest. But the true
test will be the rest that will finally come from
the maelstrom of our failed humanity.

The end of man-un-kind and maybe it's not too late
or too early to start asking all of our selves now:
What can we do to keep from messing up so bad
next time?

Statisticity

There are any number of things that dull
my ability to grasp bigger successes
over the stresses and strifes in my life.
The tiny victories that pepper my days
are as a spice, a preservative to keep me
from ever experiencing any real mortality-
just a thousand little deaths that aren’t quite.

There are the crosswords that keep me
firing at blank spaces that keep me
in a carrot-chasing race against my self.
There are the video games that idle
in perpetuum regardless of how little
gas I have left, gas that they take
just enough energy away to constantly keep me
away from engaging any of my own gears.
My ears stay engaged on whatever noise
I pipe from speakers at various volumes.
There are the songs I know, the rhymes
I rap with that are cleverly able to keep me
from speaking my own mind or using
my own tongue to speak my own words,
but those I’ve heard a hundred times before
on radios or in record stores do keep me
from reaching enlightenment’s golden ticket.
But the trick these things keep playing on me
is my conscience, see, because I know I’m kept
in check with these pieces of idolatry.

I wake up and pray to my snooze—
the button that gets more use, gets touched
more often than I touch myself.
I shower and the power of the water’s rush
is as that of a masseuse’s touch—it wakes me
for real and takes me to a level just high enough
that I’ll be able to tread the water that collects
because my drain is broken. And for all the words
that even now I’ve spoken
I sure don’t have that much to say, so instead
of writing, I’ll keep right on alighting
in a lounge chair that keeps me comfy
before a teevee and a hifi, and the air
is conditioned as all these things
in which I swim—Nothing ever changes,
Nothing really matters—I may as well have life
prescribed and served upon the prescriptions’ platters
I refuse to acknowledge. I scream
if only just to keep myself
from feeling numbed by all the things
that aren’t Prozac in my life. I’m alone in my car,
I’m alone in my chair, there is nowhere I do not
experience some degree of checkout
where I keep my mind from growing
gills. If I’d learn to breathe
beneath the all too many fathoms
I submerge myself in, then maybe there
would be exactly where I could finally hear
my own opus and song to sing
as loud as my lungs would allow.

However I continue to tread, I keep on in dread
of the next five years or even just the next time
someone asks me where I see myself.
It’s too often in the mirror of my own insecurity
or inferiority or lack of priority. But I keep on
keeping on even though I’ve heard
and even agree with that self-help psyche,
and Dr. Phil will always tell us that we are scared.

It’s not failing that we fear. It is the nuclear bomb
power of our own potential. Who was Ice Cube
rapping to when he told me to chiggedy-check
myself before I wrecked? My self has been checked
so long I feel I am mate to defeats I’ve never felt.
But the hand we’re dealt is what we’ll play,
so trust me when I tell you to say
exactly what your heart keeps on repeating.
that steady beating is a drum that keeps me
marching but I have GOTTA DANCE!
And bend the bars of this very rhyme
To let me from the cage of my own rage
And finally learn the love that is to fly.

A Perfect Day

How many half-full cups of coffee-
because it cools faster- or old
treasures revealed on Antiques Roadshow
would it take to balance the scale
against the weight of all we share?
By 1:30 in the afternoon, we'd laughed
more than in the too-many months
of subsistence with others before,
and though words were rarely short
between us, we smiled without them
with held hands over couch cushions.
And the tension that hung in the air,
like an ornament on the tree behind us,
while we posed at least ten times
for the camera's ten-second delay,
was the heaviest part of our day.
Not the shopping at the big box nor
the cropping of photos at the pharmacy
would keep us from what we've earned,
spanning time across the season
like lazy popcorn strung over the pines
behind the house. There are things,
some think, that matter more than this,
but as long as I've lived and will,
I cannot imagine whatever they may be.

Even from the minds of babes

In a veritably empty bookstore cafe
on a Thursday afternoon in February,
I sat on one of the four brown chairs,
my books at the table beside me,
and read poetry by an older man.

After the grandmother and daughter
purchased pops and a chocolate milk
for the granddaughter, they chose the table
closest to the four brown leather chairs.

I think that maybe the silver couple
beside me may have been more endeared
to the mother who nodded her head
when she asked, "Want apple? Want milk?"

And I couldn't get over my impression
that even the perhaps six year old knew
she'd be better-suited to sit at the table
than the fourth brown leather cushy chair
that the tatooed grandmother offered her.

Old Men in November

In a way that transcends any transcription,
the two older men talked at the cafe.
One was clearly older than the other,
but both were older than enough to know,
better than me, how to achieve a life.
I listen while they remember times past,
this city, and decisions made. A woman
sat on her way out, and talk turned
to money, investments, and the stock.
She left just before the older man turned
a story toward the political, but he kept
right on after she left. Since before six
fifteen when I walked in, they waxed
rhetorical, and I watched six or seven people
wish them both Happy Thanksgiving on their way
out. Salty staples holding post by the exit,
begin the end and ride the ebb easily,
never mind but what matters through life.

Whatever Works

Last night we watched the latest Woody Allen endeavor, "Whatever Works." I should say, right off the bat, that neither Melissa nor I are fans of Larry David, so though we both wanted to see the movie, we were a slight bit hesitant to watch ninety minutes of Larry David.

Right from the start, scene number one, I could tell I was going to love it. Woody Allen is the curmudgeon's curmudgeon, but his embrace of that, his total and complete embodiment of all that is Woody Allen, and his complete candor all combine to make him an impossibly endearing sort for whom I can't keep myself from caring.

Without being a flub like a train accident, unavoidably buckling to keep from hitting the maiden in distress, the character of Boris Yellnikoff is calculatedly misanthropic, isolated, and even almost self-content--in other words, a perfect candidate for love. It is in balance that we find these things, I'm tempted to say, but I realize that it is only when balanced and affecting equilibrium that we attract such things as love and beauty.

Assuredly, it is Allen's voice speaking though Yellnikoff, but what Larry David brings to the role is analogous to what Buckley brings to Cohen's "Hallelujah." Allen's prosaic philosophy could be rendered as it is written, assuredly, like Branagh was able to channel in "Celebrity," but when the original is enhanced by the rendering, it becomes even more beautiful.

It's a stretch to accredit a single line of Allen's script with as such a lofty assessment as beauty, but what Allen is able to seemlessly achieve in the gestalt is nothing short of beautiful. I recently finished Kundera's _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_, and in it, he speaks of the films of the Communist era, how they viewed like propaganda, always trying to portray a glossy picture of the ideal. Kundera's retelling read as somehow far more than just tragic, and it was because of the context in which it was presented. Allen's ideas are perfectly contextual to the story he tells in "Whatever Works."

Though I had heard before that the role was written for Zero Mostel, I couldn't imagine anyone other than Larry David speaking as Boris Yellnikoff. It's as though where David stops and Allen starts is indistinguishable, and while I sincerely doubt that there was much if any ad-libbing on David's part- both because I think Allen is something of a purist who truly has the courage of every one of his insecure convictions and because I regard David as a man who is long-enough-in-the-tooth to recognize that Allen's genius is best-rendered in that purely Allen way- it brings to mind something I learned while studying acting.

It is one of those things I can't surely ascribe to an actual source. Since I so rarely remember my dreams with any real degree of clarity, the details I do recall often blend more readily into the landscape of scenery I have actually beheld. I said I learned it while studying because, like books on my shelf at home, I have vague ideas of when certain things were added to my library. At this point, some fourteen odd years later, it has become like an urban legend; a story to which I have such an affinity that I no longer care if it is true or not.

I heard that acting students in Germany were not allowed to study the theater, to study acting as a profession, until they were thirty years old. I realize, of course, that this can't possibly be the case, but here's the rub: when I heard it, the factoid was relayed with the explanation that until a person is thirty years old, he has not really lived enough to bring the range of human emotions with him to the stage.

Because Larry David is bred of the same culture of a Jewish view of the world through the lens of New York, I believe that were he to ad-lib at all on the set of an Allen film, Woody would do a double-take and look down at the script to see where he had written the line. When a character exists so thoroughly as Boris, it is indubitably the case that his being is so whole because of the characters around him who provide the context.

As with any Woody Allen movie, New York is prominent in the dramatis personae, and watching several of the supporting roles in the movie interact with her is another indication of the wisdom that only she can afford. Whether the pollyanna of Melodie or dramatic plotter of Marietta, Melodie's mother, both from Mississippi, we're afforded a view- presumably based on real-life people- of how New York speaks through people and changes minds as much as any other powerful force.

Hawking says that the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. New York, in all its symphony of culture, refuses to sustain such illusions, and the quasi-fundamentalist characters who enter this story from the deep south are as the tabula rasa, unable to resist the indelible etchings of truth. Of course, the relativity of experience is the instrument through which truth is played, and this movie affords three different sounds through as many characters.

Melodie and her mother, Marietta are pursued late in the story by John, the father, and all three are closer to actualized by the end of the movie. Truly impressionable as even she realizes through the course of the story, Evan Rachel Wood's Melodie spans the range of extremes and winds up someplace closer to balance. Patricia Clarkson's Marietta realizes from her entrance through Boris' apartment door that she doesn't know where to go, and through this story, we see her transcending the role life assigned her down south. And John, projecting his search outward, is clearly looking most for himself- whether what he used to be or what he wants to become. While the story unfolds, so does he, and he is obliged to let his denial die.

More than propaganda, more than formula, and more than just reflections on the surface, "Whatever Works" inspires the viewer to feel, encourages the audience to think, and comes from underneath what we readily perceive. The sharpening stone that Art can truly be, urging us to question our own norms and ushering us in the best cases toward Platonic ideals, will instill actual elan and wake us from whatever we abide to make do.

Unable to sit any longer on the couch, unable to stay any longer in the house, and unable to contain what I felt when the movie ended and the jazz resumed, I hurriedly dressed and readied to venture out, recognizing that the world was as in need of me as I was of it. When Woody Allen speaks, through whatever vessel, I eagerly keen my ears to listen, and when I'm right, I come away richer for the hearing.

All this information

I tire of armchair philosophers. As soon as the president- of whichever political party- makes a decision, there are invariably those who raise doubt. Questions are posed, eyebrows are arched, and ears are keened toward talking heads or web pages.

Who are these people who cannot wait to update their status on Facebook? I know I would do well to suspend judgment and spare my criticism; these things serve far more to separate than they do to span the gap and bridge toward understanding. I realize that ten years ago, I, too, was more of a reactionary and apt to add my two cents to everything.

Only recently did I really begin to wonder if information is always such a good thing to have. We all accept rather readily that the public needs to be informed, but do we? Really? Knowledge is power, the saying goes, but what is it that we are doing with all this power?

Rather than trusting much of anything, we have come to be a people who doubt most of everything. It isn't enough that hose who didn't vote for Obama are constantly questioning his every turn; those who did vote for him are so conditioned to spew doubt and criticism from the past eight years of W, they seem afraid to trust anything that comes from the White House regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.

I consider suspicion. I am inclined to say that I didn't put much stock in whichever line came from the last Ronald McDonald in DC. I reason that that is largely because I didn't regard him as an intellectual peer. It stands to reason, then, that since I esteem the present figure to be a wiser one, I'd be more inclined to believe that he has my best interest in mind.

I'd like to promote a bout between doubt and belief, but I realize that both serve a purpose. I tend to begin from a place of trust until I see that I have good reason to do otherwise, and that may be why I am so troubled when I see so many people starting from a place of doubt.

When I think of belief and doubt as categorical imperatives, I don't know that the world would be a better or worse place one way or the other, but I'm inclined to think that there'd be far less kindness in a world where everyone doubted by default than in one where we all vested belief- at least initially- in one another.

Our faith is the latest casualty in the heat wave of fear that the media forecasts. Is it a lust for fame or recognition on any level that drives people to such instant doubt when political decisions are made? What good does it do me to pay elected officials if I never trust them to act in my best interest?

I recognize that I am not privy to many things: the intelligence, the analysts, or the team of people whose lives are consumed with studying the military miasma overseas. As such, I'm not going to presume that I know more that the man I elected to make decisions for me in the White House.

Preseident Obama went ahead and committed 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan- 10,000 less than were requested by the general in charge over there and several months after the request was made. Word of his decision had hardly hit the airwaves before I read someone post that he- Obama- had better show good reason for his decision. Or what?

Right. The President of these United States had better just go ahead and explain to us why he decided to do what he did because if there is one thing we do not want to be, it is uninformed. Of course, he should know that whatever reason he gives, we will disagree with it, even if only for the chance of being able to say, "I told you so," or, "I said it first."

No colloquial exclamation I might write here would express my frustration with so many of the ill-informed second guessers out there. I sigh. I take five deep breaths. Then I begin to realize that both my balled fists and furrowed brow do nothing to make me any happier.

I do not know that the shotgun spray of information with which we are all assaulted really does more good than harm. I don't think that shining spotlights on every crack and crevasse known to man is always necessary, much less good. In much the same way, I do not believe that dissent for the sake of dissent is an absolute good.

We should be proactive. Because we have access to so much information, we should aim toward being well-informed if we feel that is our cross to bear. Naysaying governmental decisions because you feel like disagreeing, though, is no better than having blind faith in a politician.

I'm tempted to go so far as to say that it is worse. I believe that if you look for something you will find it. There are reasons, I'm sure, to doubt decisions coming out of DC, but I think I'd rather find reasons to believe that we are headed in the right direction.

--Matthew Mercer

Gypsies

Their music made me believe
in reincarnation, took me
to that place by the sea
where gulls cawed the craving,
where thunder crashed between
lightning flashing for photographic
memories-- when we walked
away from the carnival together
from the Spanish feast, we followed
the sounds of our soles, pitter-
pattering into the woods.
Through to the sea we went
even after our wallets were
spent on things that wouldn't
feed us anyway. We went
to the waves to learn the way
that understanding the come
and go can shape the story.

It was after too many tears
that the number of years
didn't balance in the book
we wanted to write together,
so now to get her back,
I beckon the skies, their storms
and their calling gulls to find
me again. I'm lost and alone,
no matter how close to friends
or my home, and the bottles
don't break so much as they
whistle the dirge that doesn't
quite reach me the way
their music did.

If it makes you happy

When my head is swimming,
all I want is downstream,
but then I start thinking
and lose track of what I mean.
I wanted to ask you, is the thing,
about the things that fill your head,
about the thoughts and songs you sing
when you wake up. Oh, the things
that you will see when you gather up
and go on out about your day.
You'll look with wonder and maybe
try to figure out just where you're going
now, maybe just where you've been,
maybe you'll wonder why you go,
wonder why and how and then
the signs stop making sense
and the change is intense
and the choices don't actually add up.

And you get into a car that smells
like distinctly synthetic trees.
And you reach up to your dash to turn
the knob for synthetic breeze.
And you pull up to fill up with petrol
because it's fuel you need to go.
And you fill your synthetic plastic cup
with fake coffee you didn't need to grow.
And it's synthesized music on inside
your super car stereo.
And you drive and you drive,
you keep driving to places you don't need
to go. And you go inside
to your second home and you take
off your second coat. You sit at your
desk, log in, check out, and connect
from remote spots that are distant
seconds from the plot you'd rather write.
And the seconds they pass and the hour
it turns and the fire it flickers
in the spot where we yearn

To one day go, to one day sail
if we'd ever just learn not to fear
how it hurts when we fail. We succeed
but for what, we win but don't know why.
We forget how it feels to vanquish
the things we'd actually like to try.
And so we start to ask ourselves:

Which is better for my now,
is it the meeting or the waves?
Is it worth the safety if I never
get to use what I have saved?
Would I rather be here with you, engaged,
here engaging or should I go?
Go get my rest so that my work
doesn't lag, so my productivity
doesn't suffer? Is this working,
am I working? Is this living,
am I alive? I am working
so that I can live, not living
so that I can work. Which is better.

Am I happy? Does it make you happy?
Is your world the way you want it to be?
Because synthetics never quite fit in
and their side effects are really primary.
And the vehicle you drive never takes you home.
Your heart always feels where you left it.
And the songs pre-recorded aren't music
that soothes, they're just sounds
that keep you from thinking.
And fake coffee you down to keep you awake
only drives you faster to drinking.

There's a life you could live.
There's a way you could go.
But the way there isn't paved quite yet.
The road will be blazed by that fire
still burning, and the pot at the end
of your reign of repression
will be one without room for any regret.

Muffins

Whether it was just because
she invoked Mary Poppins
with her accent, or because
listening to her voice lilt
about whisking whites
with a dash of salt
and cream of tartar until
they just bear the appearance
of white fluffy clouds,
I almost had a driveway moment
right here at the cafe,
but when I listened to her
description of the cupcake
whose ingredients were prepared
in a saucepan and poured
to a muffin tray, I heard
her call the eventual pastry,
"Very grown up." I knew at once
it was more than an invocation.

Central High School

There's a funhouse mirror in the High School,
made of metal, in the boys room on the second floor.
Which helps, I'm sure, give the impression
of reality because that's what High Schools are for.
No more distorted than they'd see themselves
if the image were true, through hormones
and adolescence it all has a bluish hue.
I saw myself all scrunched and stretched
in all the wrong places, and I squinted
a bit before I remembered that it didn't matter.

There's a jailhouse mirror in the High School,
not made of glass, in the latrine on the second floor.
It reflects barely enough that they can keep
their selves, not enough for vanity or vantage point.
No more than numbers on badges hung round our necks,
we barely inspect or remember home or before
where it all mattered more than we knew. Now, consigned,
we pay our dues so the world will recognize us
again, but we know the best is behind us, and they
won't pay attention to us for very much longer.

Old Men in December

Bushy eyebrows, bald pates, strong opinions, and strident tongues,
the five old men sat round about the table to talk.
There seems no end to the stories they tell on the south
side of town. "I tell you what, I got such a sheen
of wax on my Jaguar, if you put a towel on the hood,
it would slide right off." All but one leave their coats
on, and one goes so far as to not remove his ball cap.
But even though one speaks of another meeting he has,
there is no sense of urgency predominate or present
at the table with them. They have grandaughters and ex-
sons-in-laws. They speak confidently about their companies,
failed hedge-fund operators, and how it is too cold today
to play golf. And aside from their comments to passers-by
they happen to recognize, the quasi-clubhouse marvels,
without ever so much as a sleight of hand, one another
the way those who showed and telled the day after.
In sixteen days, the presents will be exchanged,
and this cafe will surely be closed. The very next day,
though, these five may well happen to share the same
table, and their monologues will go right on.

Panera, 7 A.M.

The sky still goes from pitch to pale,
and the gibbous moon now wanes in the west.
Coffee stains even the mug if it sits too long,
and cold water beads on the glass bottle.
Austere faces stare off and away
as they wait for breakfast with their friends.
Traffic glides north and south alike
between lights that keep east from west.
The neon sign at the store front grows
brighter while the world turns.
Planes and trucks are on their way,
and all have woken to wind their watches.
Fallen behind the tree and tucked beyond
the tower, the single moon still beckons.

Cool

My wife asked her brother,
"What do you want for your birthday?"
and I jumped in.

I didn't think twice of it
the other day in my car.
It just occurred to me,
in the way I was sure
it must have occurred
to my parents and theirs'
in that sort of pop-culture-fed
equation that leads only
the older generations
to think, "Well, he looks
hip, and the younger relative
seems hip, so" the one
must like the other, it goes.

But when I only hinted
at what my mind had proposed,
I saw the ever-wider
generation gap open
like a trap door, and I fell.

No algebra class I had taken
could have taught a proof
to demonstrate: the only way
we can span the distance
between what is cool
and what we think is cool
is to be within earshot
of those who really know.

She is, I am, we are

She is the Ideal, the uncorrupted
and it is not for the world's lack
of trying to disturb her surface.
She has decidedly chosen to remain,
still as the eye that is the center.
Here is the point of view that pans out.

When fireworks have fallen, her focus
is still on their light above. Let
the street be littered--there will be
time for that later. Now we'll celebrate.
Now we are here with the stars before us.
Let the day shine, the night pass. We are
here.

Driving through rain in a '94 Saturn

She has filled my piggy bank with a wealth
of typically two-sided coins. Rather than
the athletic indications of heads and tails.
each hour has been minted and duly deposited
with the closely-related but no-less opposite
sides of fear and courage.

White-knuckled, I peer through fog-framed
glass of my windshield. A tortoise among hares
on the highway, I am measured at fifty miles
while others' shadows speed past my dark
windows. My wipers on low, I'm reminded
that steadiness works just as well.

Though behind the clouds, the sun shines
and lights like beams did the road before me.
She is there, I know, for I cannot count
my wealth; all is well in a world with her.
I'm here and safe for the care I take. I know
it is precious, this balance we share.

Explanations

When my fiancee woke
a couple of weeks before our wedding,
still in that dream-like state
and not quite awake,
I noticed there were a few hairs
of grass on her tee-shirt.

Her hands had landed
in her tousled hair after the stretch,
and she looked down to see
where I pointed. How odd,
I thought, since she's allergic
to most all the outside.

But the next second she raised her head
and looked at me with a coy smile. I knew
she'd been out, playing tag in her dreams,
making angels in the leaves, and rolling round
with our dog, unbothered by the difficulty
of being awake or explaining herself.

Babel

Our honeymoon at the all-inclusive resort
was spent with people from all over the world.
Away from the provincial corner of Missouri,
having left our life behind us, we reached
out around us for comfort
but found it mostly in each other.

From the wormhole down the rabbithole
we fell back into Eden and through gates
we never knew. But the Bible story
that occurred to me more was the one
where the people all built together,
all assembled and hoped to reach heaven.

More than ever that story puzzled me.
Sunday school spoke of the chaos
that abounded, people rent asunder
without a common tongue among them.
So angry was God, I learned, that
he revoked the right to free speech.

But there in Mexico, where English was not
the vernacular, where hillfolk like us
who only owned one tongue were the minority,
we clung to one another and our common
understanding of the three or four words
we'd heard well enough to repeat.

Never closer to one another than we were
when away from our own, we shared communion
with each stranger, calling Hola when we passed.
More smiles and candor than we'd known,
less suspicion or pretense than ever at home.
After Babel, I thought, how nice it must have been.