wyrdwind

Trash

Well one does what one must

Be shocked what people discard

And derelict trailer or not

I persisted

Burlap pinned to termite brittled and buckled walls

Don’t look to see how far the rot goes

Nothing for that but funds for a whole new house

Painted over with a pretty discount color

Mayan Blue said the label

75% off, three coats

At least the roaches couldn’t wiggle out

Could still hear ’em though

Whirring and clicking whenever it trained

Pinned gauzy thrift store sheers side so side across the stained ceiling

With little brass sailing ships and other odd things suspended between

I found all kinds of baubles and beads

An upside down scene

Back when thrift store meant something

Built clothing racks when a plumbing incident took my closet and bathroom

By “took” I mean rotted through, it all had to go on account of black mold

No floor, no walls, closed off with old construction plastic and dollar store shower curtains atop that to make it less…

Well

One does what one must

Mind you, this was my dorsal vagal collapse period

Which lasted about…seven years

So that’s some Lux Aeterna Requiem for a Dream shit

You know if you ever wonder why there’s just a big chunk of cultural awareness normal people stuff just…missing

Anyway, I assembled a grand faux fireplace

Made from various smashed pieces of French-style crown molding

Wooden appliques and planks

Affixed to a mounted headboard

Painted ivory to match

If you will, my candle-place

Then I chanced upon a gorgeous

Ivory enameled cast iron bed frame

One block down that-a-ways

I didn’t have much

But I had muscles

Mood reactivity and a bad attitude

Little Nemo could eat his heart out

Because I was gonna ride up on the Nightmare King Cinderella style

You know, generally, if you gotta howl with sobs for hours every night

Like some fucked up charcoal drawing

You know, shit gets you called into the principal’s office and a priest summoned

It’s good to have a little something to look at is all

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These Things Happen

Coulda been worse, coulda been better

You know how it goes

She’d left the dogs penned in the corner

Never gave them any affection or even a fond glance

Par for the course

One of them was being eaten by maggots from the inside out

So I had to put him down

Me myself

I’m sorry Orion

You were a good boy

He stopped crying and shaking once I wrapped him in my blanket and laid him in that ditch

He knew what came next

The other ran away shortly after

That was Guinevere

I hope she found a better life

Anywhere was better than here

The first battle was washing decades of nicotine buildup off the walls

Dripping and oozing yellow and brown

She’d snarl and snap if I touched anything else

Piles upon piles of dust-caked, unnecessary and unusable…stuff

Wouldn’t let go of that ratty couch

Until it was completely soaked with piss and diarrhea

Don’t ask

She’d scream and stomp and slam doors

But she wouldn’t mount a search once something was gone

Knew that from experience

Said everything went “to the addition” or “to the shed”

Wink wink nudge

Lord. The addition

After her brother…happened it was full of used and uncapped needles, rotten food, liquor, beer cans in clothing drawers, piss bottles, and candy wrappers

When I say “full” I mean packed ceiling to floor, you couldn’t walk

Where every utensil in the house went to disappear

Also maggots

Whole carpet had to go

Carpet never again

Sometimes I’d hear him screaming and breaking shit

Pacing around outside muttering vile obscenities under his breath

Had to cover my bedroom window because he’d stand there and look in at me

But at least with Him around she’d hide long enough for me to throw more junk away

Shoot Dracula dead dead at deep range with these silver linings

Shit, make some electric guitar strings

He gave me Noro twice

But at least my boss was nice for a while after

When a customer said something so fucking stupid I threw up in annoyance

Or so I thought at first as I tried to walk it off because I couldn’t afford to lose hours

God I always wished I could projectile vomit

Just whenever

I’m done with this conversation bleeeeh

Don’t touch me bleeeeh

Once, his little dog hid behind my legs

And wouldn’t budge no mater how cloyingly he called her name

Then he got distracted by the television

And all a sudden told me about a nightmare he couldn’t interpret

Walking down a road in the dark looking straight ahead

The ground dropped out from under him, he’d been walking a cliff

And he fell to his death

Lads that’s the level of stupid I was dealing with

That one’s not a stumper champ

And as we’ve previously established

My uncle was not a good boy

RIP grandpa did try to lay down the formative whoopins

But grandma wouldn’t have it, lost her damn mind

There’s a reason grandpa called me to his deathbed

And heavily implied once he was gone

I was the Pants

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Superstition

One perk of a hollow floor

I could hear grandma take a tumble from the opposite side of the house

Sometimes even hear her muffled shit huff

It’s okay, she was really short

No damage done, crash pad of pillows

And whether or not everyone was still breathing

COPD, sleep apnea, old, etc.

Occasionally I’d cruise into the kitchen like a lil mouse

And grandma would be like

I’m not dead yet

Aghhh caught me again

And it’s not like she had a job to go to

Being ninety some odd

So we’d talk or she’d stay up when I watched something funny till late

Kept saying “I need to go to bed”

But hadn’t budged, faintly pat hands on her knees

And I was all who the fuck says

Sitting in her old lady bra and Walmart shorts because it was too damn hot

Grandma had a very dark and very dry sense of humor

1930s vintage

Only person ever laughed at my jokes besides my brother

Did cross my mind, looking at her kids

Jesus Goddamn What Happened

Did you make some fairies mad??

Anyways she died peacefully in her sleep

And of course it fell to me

To process her hidey hoard

When it comes to elders of a certain age and era

You have to check e-ver-y-thing

Nothing Is Trash

Not Even Trash

Any hole that something could possibly be stuffed in

Pockets and linings of purses and coats

Doll-size drawers and compartments

Check the bread maker, the mattress

No I mean check the mattress

Like a cartel drug smuggler

Grandma wasn’t exactly sentimental

But I did find a bunch of capped teeth and several 200+ year old silver coins in a dirty balled up sock

Yes, she performed some post mortem dentistry

Here comes the toof fairy

Grandpa didn’t take those fillings to his grave

And neither did…several other people apparently

Had pliers in her purse and handled her business

While he was still lukewarm

Her former bedroom is my art studio now

Half houseplants if I’m being honest, full jungle

Another reclaimed chamber

As for my morbid inheritance

Well long ago my very oldest friend said

That when I finally Made It Out

When I finally found a real home

I’d need to take some of the earth out from under

Maybe some river stones

Put it all in a jar and bury it there

Just something she’d heard

Or else this place would never let me go

So, you know, I figure this dowry sufficient

To sweeten the pot as it were

To…bribe the locals

If’n you take my meaning

It doesn’t have to make sense

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Structural Integrity

Not to be like Back In My Day

But I missed the traditional social media train

Wouldn’t even take the cellphone without a gun to my head

Think I was 18 or 19

For the record

Getting rid of jacks and nubbly keyboards was a fucking mistake

And the loop for dangly charms and little guys and things

I hate the touchscreen

And now they’re too fucking wide

The extent of my online presence

All this time consisted of, in no particular order

Crafts, building techniques, urban planning, guerrilla warfare, nature, herbalism, folklore stashed on glitchy personal pages, academic papers, arboriculture, low desert permaculture and weirdo hermit homesteading forums (all climates worldwide)

Again, try not to be surprised when I Haven’t Heard

If the Grandmas, the Billy Goats, or the Actual Anarchists wouldn’t have mentioned

I don’t know about it

What I do know

Is how to build a simple and attractive eco-friendly cottage

In such a way as to nearly negate the risk

Of fire and water damage

Become a ghost on the grid

Don’t run wires or pipes on or adjacent to anything made of wood

You don’t need as much electricity as you think you do

Compost toilet

You call it waste, trees call it nutrients

That goes for bath and kitchen discharge too

Keep every single thing that could one day require repairs easily accessible

Not Easily Accessible With a Cool Head

Easily Accessible While Shitting Your Pants

That means any and ever critical appliance as well

If you can’t fix it, you can’t rely on it

Approach a build knowing that one day

You will be old

Stack functions with your layout

Keep the household livestock where you can see and hear them

(I’m partial to Dutch doors)

That would be your eggs, milk, and bees for you city kids

Fiber too if it’s a larger operation

Use different bells for each quadrant of your perimeter trip wires

And a louder bell at your base if it’s an intruder and stealth won’t help

Like it’s time to gtfo or throw down

A weapon by every door, dense obstruction, or vantage point

The sun’s exact path Matters

Wool bat insulation where applicable

Masonry wood stove, some induction hot plates and wool cook bags

Green roof

Actually, knew a lady kept her hives up there and drove them around

A bee-herd if you will

Rubble trench foundation is the least toxic, expensive, exhausting and invasive way to go

If you’ve got the right conditions and materials for it:

Cob

Water has the greatest thermal mass

And will passively warm your greenhouse in the winter

Mind the sun’s path

Stone houses last forever if you’re not a coward

Never understood people crying about the piddly soft stuff

When they’ve still got Real Walls and rocks everywhere

Shit, you can build a house out of pallets, mud, tires and plastic bags in a pinch

Point it anything is possible if you go slow and don’t panic

It’s worth the bruises and splinters if it means you have no debt

And don’t have to allow strange men on the premises

Never let them see where you live

My rosary is step by step construction

Disassemble reassemble

Identify correct tool

Look it’s not for everyone

Most of you live in a different world

But ever since I was very young

I knew the only way I’d ever own a home

Was if I made it exist with my own two hands

Me myself

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Formal Attire

When you’re a tenured poetry professor

I guess they just let you do whatever

So our capstone class was three hours

In the middle of the night

Her most frequented fun facts included

Poets have the highest rate of suicide

And her predecessor shot himself in the heart

There in her office, just to prove a point

And I was like

Yeah

He was an obnoxious male postmodernist

So that sounds about right

Well unfortunately I was her favorite

And for some preposterous reason

She insisted my stylistic sibling was Louise Glück

And I guess on the one hand

I get it

In terms of my pen back then

Bare bones, technical precision, deceptively simple language for big concepts

Poems in conversation across the pages

But on the other hand

I didn’t even have to reach the bio script

Said oh I bet she grew up in a House house

Went to good schools

And starved herself on purpose

Obligatory Greek myth references

Gotta pander to the omphalos

Of androcentric academia

Statuesque existential angst of the upper crust

Don’t get me wrong, she’s a master of the craft

Respect

But my academic reputation was well earned

“Authoritative language,” “Source?”

Oh you know just two eyes and a brain that works

I got your primary source right here V

Give me any story or set of facts, especially myths and fairy tales

Disassemble, reassemble

Sans bullshit

Original observation, extrapolate

I’ll force a professor to give me full marks

On a ten page essay shredding the conceptual foundation of his dissertation

You don’t learn how to think from a man

Now there’s only one person of my close acquaintance

Who’s ever read anything of mine

Who even knows I write

Completely different disciplines

But over coffee cocktails buzzed in broad daylight

Big windows streetside under ceiling plants

She said something just about right

Said regardless of the grim reality I described

In stark detail

That my work was like honey

If honey were a thing she enjoyed

Honey but not honey

Honey but it’s secret sunshine

It made her warm on the inside

My girls do spoil me at times

Girls are so much more than the world deserves

For example, when she was pregnant

And aggressively nesting

She felt I’d need a suit sometime in the future

Among other things

So there I was feeling like Bane

In a stretchy ice blue corset-back two piece

And I tell you what

White House Black Market’s target demographic must be birds

It was my mother’s closet all over again

And my brother and sister must think me some kinda sorceress gangster

Because they sent me one year a sizable silver pendant

A big black eye shaped stone with a streaking milky white gash

Where a glittering crystal-toothed hole shreds through the center

Small chains dripping down like tears

Skull on top

And my jiu jitsu wife must think me late for a party

Because she gave me ivory leather Cowboy Boots

Layered and laser cut like eyelet lace

But with some extra belts, studs, and buckles

This woman and shoes

I have many many fairy godsisters

Gave everyone a jump scare

For I am heavy footed just like my giant father

His exact gait

Clok clok clok I’m a Clydesdale bitch

Don’t ask what’s the occasion

Sometimes you just gotta look in the mirror and go

Not me at God’s funeral

With a pair of pliers

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Rainbow’s End

You know when you’ve been swimming in the ocean

And you still feel its weight and rhythm

Even after you’ve gotten out?

That muscle memory vestibular phantom

Well you’re a different creature entirely

When you’ve come from the bottom

It’s a slow, agonizing ascent to allay barotrauma

Every day testing the waters of how much you can handle before collapse

Grow new limbs and teach them again

New skin

The hydrostatic pressure must instead come from within

There’s no shortcut

You have to drink every last drop

There’s no reason, it’s not hope

You imagine no future, no forward motion, time is fractured

Non-linear

Slow

It’s a grueling somatic persistence

The grief is upon you

All of it

That which you value becomes very, very small

That which you carry closest to heart

Joys a sunken chest of tiny black pearls

Non negotiable parameters

I still struggle to sing

Not the mechanics, it’s just my voice

Was the first to sink and the last to rise

Naturally dwells near the nadir

Conspicuous as a mosasaur breaching open air

Vanishes the moment I’m observed

It belongs to someone’s ears, but not anyone here

It doesn’t have to make sense

Song is a function of spirit

Again, parameters

So I painted the dining room dusky lavender

Where I most often reside in shadow

Perched at my spot lit Singer

Pastel sunshine yellow everywhere else

With subtle rose-glow iridescent sparkles

Something of mirth across the walls

All of this of course met with extreme resistance

Screaming, insults, violent tantrums and snide remarks

A three dimensional forest mural with a winged skeleton mid flight

Various highly intricate floral arrangements

Skulls, ravens, lanterns and spiders

You might balk at my maximalism

But you’ll never see a troupe of cell phone kids be more present

See their minds just open

You know there’s a scene in Balto that really stuck

Where this raggedy mongrel shows a fancy sled dog his secret hovel

Under an abandoned house

And he’s arranged all these pieces of colorful broken glass and bottles

Painstakingly collected

So that when he shines a bulb through them

They produce Northern Lights

Despite the blanket of clouds outside

Gave little me a lot of ideas

And the pretty sled dog’s mind just opens

There’s no revulsion

She doesn’t think less of him

My other favorite part is when so much snow

And braving ice caverns and yawning arctic darkness and the Great Race of Mercy

Through a deafening, blinding blizzard

Hurricane force winds

Sub zero flash freeze temps

To deliver precious medicine unbroken

Every single vial intact

Wholly preventing a mass casualty event

Humanity’s last line of defense

What really matters spans a razor’s edge

Ice cracks

Discipline, focus

Wild heart, wild blood

Who you are

Gave little me a lot of ideas

So, Alaska

Where I’ll finally have the breadth of quiet and stillness

To find more songs and artists to cherish

Instead of subsisting on everything I’ve stored on my external hard drive

Previously gathered when I had a decent computer

Catch up with what’s been going on all these years

But first, I’m here

Dangling like my first rickety little nautical lantern

It was a parting gift long ago

This page is the most social thing I’ve ever done

Or shall I say scroll

An exercise in decompression

At last having exited survival mode long enough

A dark blue writing desk off the side of the road

Penning everything I’ve packed so far down

Like breaking into the bee bread after the longest winter

Stiff ferments

She ages in reverse

I do not aspire to nonsense like Retirement, Acknowledgment, Big Salary and Career

Those were never on the table

That table’s underwater

I wish to never be hot

I wish to wear my own clothes

I wish to be among plants and mountains and ocean and animals

All my girls

Music

If I must live what’s left of my life

Someplace I’ll likely die alone

Of causes that are easily preventable

In damn near any country but this one

I’ll do it up there

Something to look at is all