No drama in the situation, just orange juice

I once wrote the lines that there is no drama in the situation, just orange juice…

There is an almost finished Sunday crossword,

A number two pencil, whittled, buck knife chiseled

Loose leaf scrapes with thin blue veins balled

in the bottom of a blue backpack

Handwriting about frustrations

writers block away from comforts of computer screens

Wendell Berry essays and Otis Redding is moaning about these arms of mine

There is a loneliness that creates comfort

We make lonely into a dirty eruption

Two more than a four letter word

Dirty like the bourbon uncorked a year ago

untouched on a plastic lined pantry shelf

Darling let us make this night hurt

Make me desire the clicks of a typewriter’s keys

high heels tapping along the chipped tile floor

in a beer stained wood paneled dimly lit bar

Out of place

the pink eraser next to the delete key on a computer

the smile on the cashier with her dyed blonde hair at the health food store

putting my orange juice and yogurt into a small cardboard box

Her black roots exposed like her pink lips parted

Not that I am counting but it has been three years and six months

Since I pressed my lips against a woman’s face

My fingers back space in tempo to Otis singing

Mr. Pitiful and it is true I want you, I want you, I want you.

I just never know who. 

Instead of love waltzes to a typewriter

I am stuck sliding these rhythm and blues to a laptop keyboard.

Dear mink

After a brief conversation in the car about high school kids writing essays in text message grammar and perhaps the fallacies of these accusations and the apparent ability of today’s youth to maintain a balance our nation’s two worlds of technology, text talk and books and e-readers, I am having trouble avoiding words like dichotomy and other complex sociological and anthropological theoretical jargon.   Alas this all makes me remember an old college mentor and adviser whose elegy I missed in Iowa this past Saturday afternoon.  For you Mink and for Bill Flanagan I refuse to convolute my words.  I will try my best to always write in plain English and avoid all the pompous writing so relished by academia.

If all the movies were in black and white and sepia tones, all of our records were limited to titles including 1947 West Virginia field recordings, there would be no Bill Withers singing about Grandma’s Hands.  My Grandma’s hands just turned 87 less than fifteen days ago and still plays bridge with her church friends every third Sunday in Lakewood between Golden and Denver.  She still walks the icy stone steps down to the creek behind her house to sit or stand with Saint Francis several days a week.

Mink, there is little to no rhyme or reason to this letter, the weather is warmer than a January should be, and I am fighting a scratchy throat packing boxes full of boxes. 

As always god speed lil animals, ride free, treasure your friends and be good to each other.

solidarity  and hash browns and strong coffee mis amigos....

A christmas and new years letter to winter and Muskrat's first letter to MInk

Here is a short spurt of short sputterings and oil pan drippings from Muskrat to winter and the introduction of a collabration between Muskrat and Mink (curiouslyunmarried.blogspot.com) Enjoy...

One...

There is a slow crack forming along the lip of his coffee mug and his orange juice was lukewarm and everything he wanted and more.  Muskrat ran his thin black comb through the hair’s circling a thick crescent along the side of his head.  The stockpot heavy with arroz con gandules, pigeon peas and achicote powder and yellow rice were his latest discovery.  The house smelled like a home and bacon sizzled on the stovetop for breakfast as the espresso simmered in the metal percolator.  Outside the mist turned to a meditative drizzle on the skylight, cold and heavy.

two...

The snow sits heavy and wet on the raised beds while tomato cages hibernate nestled inside each other’s skeletal frames.  It is a gray silence that covers Albuquerque tonight, bike paths slick and tempered with slush and settled exhaust fumes.  December 26^th and fireplace smoke loiters lightly under the lampposts at four forty five in the morning.  A post Christmas brisk bites through the black bandana wrapped around his face and Morning is still a few hours sleeping behind the Sandia’s. 

Three...

Staring out the cracked blinds Muskrat’s been accused of never opening, there are a few errant snowflakes and a car bending the corner slow and methodically.  Somewhere down Comanche there is a basketball hoop stretching its neck from an evergreen.  There are old western paperbacks strewn across the desktop and Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash singing duets over the record player. 

It is still early January and the anxiety of a new year still resonates in Muskrats stomach.  The clipped edges of his thumbnail pick at stray hairs on his arms and blue pen ink stains dot sporadically along the veins in his forearms.   Muskrat has been mentally staring off into space more often as of late.  Some people call it the mid winter blues, Muskrat called it solace and wishing for a cold blast of air against his face and for winter to compliment his new pine green sweater and argyle socks. 

Four...

Dear Mink…

            Kris Kristofferson is singing over my dad’s old record player nestled next to my wooden duck lamp and a crate of old blues records.  We had a five-hour bust of a winter storm try and punch its way through the city this morning.  A dusting on the foothills and a crisp in the air, enough to remind a Muskrat about the things and smells of winter that make us fall in love with seasons, any seasons, seasons associated with new beginnings.  Kristofferson is complaining and mumbling romantically about Sunday mornings and hangovers.  I’ve believe I’ve booted that can a few times he watched the kid kicking, if there is something in a hangover and a Sunday that makes a body feel alone, there is also a relief and beauty that a fresh punch of cold air against my bearded face on a sober feeling Sunday morning that makes a Muskrat feel alone and ecstatic and alive.  There is a sobriety that makes a body feel like its redirecting its sinews back where they started twelve years ago when neglect and abuse and trains and a few broken ribs introduced themselves into his way of thinking and living. 

           

Here begins the letters of Mink and Muskrat… at least on my end the letters of Muskrat to Mink.  God speed lil animals, love your friends, breath in the cold air into your lungs and relax, take care of each other, yourselves and as always live free, ride free, solidarity forever in struggle for labor, life, love and living a life worth living

it is early December and Muskrat is reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter...

It is early December and between the hawk and roadrunner circling the back yard, this year’s mice population has moved further down the street.  There is a pot of water simmering and steaming on the stove, leaving droplets on the glass door panes.  The grocery list is simple and everything fits in a small backpack; potatoes, capers, bacon.  Muskrat adjusts his wools socks, tightens his belt and dotting his i’s and crossing his t’s , pushes the Wednesday crossword, two thirds complete, aside.  There are Christmas cards waiting to be sent sitting on the writing desk in Muskrat’s new bedroom, and Tom Waits is singing Silent Night. They are predicting a blood red moon and full lunar eclipse early in the morning with the moonset on the west coast, seven thirty in the morning over New Mexico where Muskrat decided to buy blood oranges to celebrate the occasion and sleep in until eight thirty.

I forgot one...

This one I think speaks on its own... also not one hundred percent but its getting there...
patience...

Ladybug

When the words leave her tongue through her fingers

Letters on the keyboard, you vibrate through my joints

I am surrounded by tomes of poetry scattered about my feet

Over white tile, their hard spines and bent covers

I want your words in my mouth, your lips wrapped

Around my hear, whispering I te amo

I want my fingers to run across the back of your neck,

The neck of a typewriter as I un-crease years long writers block

A lover’s block uncorked and left stained in black ink

If there are red shoes waiting on department store shelves

There is a slow dance in a dimly lit bar and a kiss

Two foreheads pressed close in words and futures

Kiss me he whispers, enter my bed, enter my heart

Enter my garden, there are pinecones supporting marigolds

And muskrat dirt caked paws singing ladybug lullabies

Lucy and pine trees, a hot sun embraced by autumnal clouds

On that is that folks... ride safe, ride free, stand together... Solidarity forever

and remember to hug the ones you care about... even in solitude and loneliness 

there is the yearning for romance and a touch...

Its october and Muskrat's settling in for a long winter....

So it's that time of year again... and hopefully that means I will be a little less selfish with my writing and with my baking... This week its cookies, biscuits, blueberry scones and Arroz Con Gandules!  As it is here are a few of the poem's I've been working on... As always they are rough drafts and no where near finished.  The first I just finished a few moments ago after my morning bike ride and espresso down at Cafe Guiseppe down on Silver near Nob Hill.   Wonderful people, amazing espresso (best I've found in town) and a damn fine environment for sitting a sticking ones nose in a crossword if I do say so myself.

Anyway... enough babbling and rambling... here are a few poems... I hope you like them.  I always want your feed back... you all make me a better person.

October

Albuquerque, the smell of warm play-doo and kitchen stove roasting green chilies

There is an almost full moon rising in a cloudlness night

Sitting low above the mountains

                                                            Heavy with unseasonal warmth

Pieces of a rotator belt at the intersection,

a cucumber underneath bike tires,

October yellowed leaves in the gutter next to a freshly watered brown lawn

Muddied and confused

            It’s October and in the seventies by mid afternoon

            In Japan its raining and getting late

to be climbing Mount Fuji

                                                Oh ladybug

                                                soon… soon... but please, go slow

People's name's become insects to protect the innocent.

Leaning against the stuccoed wall 

Watching moonlight adorned September post rain clouds

Perfectly silhouetted framed like silver around a vintage broach

Thin, elegant and oxidizing in the rain and heat

He is waiting for the kettle to whistle

Whistle in a town where no trains moan at two in the morning

A new mexico moonscape drapery over sweet cherry peppers

And end of the season wilted tomato plants

There are mustard plants weeding out the backyard

And a ladybug is cleaning her child’s pee from the dining room table

An ocean and an email away

Muskrat’s socks have holes in the toes and heels

And there is chamomile tea steeping in an engraved mug…

Leslie

With muddy water running off a light brown news boy cap

A fast moving New Mexico scattered shower

Punched its way east past the valley into the foothills

Over the Sandia Crest as dirty gutter water runs out the holes in his shoes

There is baseball on the television, rice on the stove top

Greek oregano and chives surrounding sweet cherry red peppers

Along metal trellises in the backyard.

It’s a Carl Sandburg and William Carlos Williams night

Somewhere west of here, she is reading through a pile of books

A high school memory and reconnected pen-pal

Watching Mad Men and requesting long distance poems…

Muskrat's got a heavy heart and fresh coffee with heavy cream and cinnamon powder...

 Muskrat's piecing together chemistry flashcards, a losing baseball game, bits of a bruised heart and ribs and beautiful cool rainless New Mexico September weather together into a labor day thanksgiving of maybe things will start on the up and up.  With heavy cream and black currant scones cooling on the stovetop, Muskrat’s paws wrestles the chain over his rear wheel and back into place.  Staring out towards the backyard garden and the Sandia’s over the cinderblock retaining wall, Muskrat wipes the black chain grease onto his white t-shirt and licks his coffee stained teeth.  It’s Labor Day and his arms are feeling heavy and his little paws are scraping over memories of affection and lines of poetry in tattered paperbacks.  Sam Cooke is singing on the radio, and the coffee is percolating on the stove top.  The kitchen smells like burnt coffee,  fresh scones, spilled cinnamon and frozen fish thawing on the counter for dinner over rainbow chard and basmati rice.  Arching his back he could feel his ribs protesting and a cold glass of orange juice tasted like the holiday three day weekend.  

I know it isn't much but I promise more to come soon.  Happy labor day friends

Solidarity, hope, love and butterfly kisses to all  

Ride free, live free, take care of your friends...

-Muskrat-

summer is a lonely time when its a drought...

Hello Y'all, its been a hot second or two, I know I know...
well I have a few new ones or at least two and one that has two versions, maybe drafts,
a look at the evolution of the poem in progress i guess one could say.
It's hot and dry round these parts, but my cucumbers and zucchini's are hardy little guys and my strawberries have taken over.  Muskrat's remembering to grin and bear it, growl and go.
But enough of that here are some new one's as promised... enjoy, let me know what you think.

Watering the tall green desert grass

imitation raindrops

A thumb and a garden hose

A hummingbird from the shelter

Of a purple leaf plum

Flits through the droplets

In the evening sun

Seven months and a quarter inch of rain

There is a hummingbird playing

In the fake rain created

By my thumb and a garden hose

Watering the green green tall desert grass

In my parents backyard

Taking shelter in the purple leaf plum

From the sun and an Albuquerque afternoon

Box turtles eating strawberries In the evening

Watching the gardener picking cherry tomatoes

flirting with hummingbirds and watering patio morning glories.

Wipe down the cast iron skillet with a paper towel

Bacons grease and garden fresh zucchini

Peaking out the backdoor to catch

Finches tilting the hummingbird feeder

Spilling sugar water onto dead branches

At the base of a lilac bush

Instead watch white butterflies circle red cherry pepper plants

And a few mid-day clouds carry rain away from the Rio Grande basin

North towards Colorado and east towards a never hitting the ground evaporation.

As always Solidarity Forever, ride free, ride safe, Don't be a stranger...