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
wyrdwind 