LIGHT BLUE

I was going to buy you some perfume.
The kind you wear, the kind you bought me.
But I decided I was trying too hard,
Holding on too tight
So I wrote these lines instead.

I can remember the smell of you
And your perfume
The way it would linger for days
Until I could see you again
I’d pass you in the hall
And at the bottom of the stairs
And it was like you were still there
A spirit lover.
I’d smell you as I brushed my teeth ,
and put on my shirt…

I loved you so much then and I still do.
I never stopped.

Now I put on my shirt and find my shoes
And I just feel so homeless and lost
You've been gone for months
Still its been your lovely scent 
Your impression left in space
Where you have passed  
(the French call it sillage)
Guiding me out the door each day.

I believe the whole world becomes a marvelous place
A marvelous place for everyone in it
When you are with me.
I step outside, you fill my empty world as
The clear pink morning turns light blue  and full of love.

bulletholes 4/2013

I thought I'd given up writing pain poems a long time ago.
I'm hoping it doesn't shine through too sharply on this. The world really doesnt need another "her smell" poem, but there you go.
I had posted it a few days ago, but took it down. i wanted it just to be for me and her for a while.

POSTCARDS

by Sarah Kay
I had already fallen in love with far too many postage stamps.
When you appeared on my doorstep wearing nothing but a postcard promise.
No, appear is the wrong word. Is there a word for sucker punching someone in the heart?
Is there word for when you’re sitting at the bottom of a roller coaster and you realize that the climb is coming, that you know what the climb means, that you can already feel the flip in your stomach from the fall before you’ve even moved?
Is there a word for that?
There should be.

You can only fit so many words in a postcard.
Only so many in a phone call, only so many into space before you forget that words are sometimes used for things other than filling emptiness.
It is hard to build a body out of words – I have tried.
We have both tried.
Instead of lying your head against my chest, I tell you about the boy who lives downstairs from me.
Who stays up all night long practicing his drum set.
The neighbors have complained. They have busy days tomorrow, but he keeps on thumping through the night convinced, I think, that practice makes perfect.
Instead of holding my hand, you tell me about the sandwich you made for lunch today.
How the pickles fit so perfectly against the lettuce. Practice does not make perfect.
Practice makes permanent.

Repeat the same mistakes over and over and you don’t get any closer to Carnage Hall, even I know that.
Repeat the same mistakes over and over and you don’t get any closer! You never get any closer.
Is there a word for the moment you win tug of war?
When the weight gives and all that extra rope comes tumbling towards you.
How even though you’ve won you still wind up with muddy knees and scratches on your hands.
Is there a word for that? I wish there was.
I would have said it.
When we were finally alone together on your couch, neither one of us with anything left to say.

Still now, I send letters into space.
Hoping that some mailman somewhere will track you down and recognize you from the descriptions in my poems.
That he will place the stack of them in your hands and tell you “There is a girl who still writes you. She doesn’t know how not to.”
I was sent this poem, so I want to keep it here.
It hit her last year. Its hitting me now.

FOOD WITH GOOD TASTE

Back when I lived at Findhorn, the Scottish Spiritual Commune and classic New Age eco-center, where even the metal utensils were considered “beings” deserving of basic rights without regard the the accident of their manufacture,  and the holes in the colander were windows to the soul, poultry and livestock were well aware of their role in the cosmic scheme of things. Calf and Chick alike read the classics, listened to Opera, learned to tap dance. The television practically stayed on PBS.
Because at Findhorn, we didn’t just want food that tasted good, we wanted food with good taste.

10 WAYS TO RUIN YOUR LIFE

1) Turn down cake on your birthday.


2) Become the type of person who sends back lattes.

3) Refuse to forget your ex.

4) Find new ways to make yourself sad.

5) Get fucked up all the time.

6) Look at old Facebook photos wasted and wonder where everyone went.

7) Talk a lot about things you know nothing about.

8) Monitor carefully. Succumb to nothing. Miss out on everything.

9) Don’t fall in love with anyone or anything.

10) Fall in love with everyone and everything.



Stolen and condensed from Mila's Thought Catalogue

I WANT YOU SO BAD

For the things that I really don’t care for about Sophie Hawkins, I got to say she really nails this song both in the way she sings it and her body language. If you’ve ever felt this way, you know it’s a near death experience.
Dylans version, I swear he almost sings it like it a joke—
When Sophie sings it, well, it’s a suicide. I keep waiting for her to go ahead and rip her dress off and tear her heart out.



“The guilty undertaker sighs
The lonesome organ grinder cries
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn
But it's not that way
I wasn't born to lose you
I want you, I want you
I want you so bad
Honey, I want you.

The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep
They wait for you
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin' from my broken cup
And ask for me
Open up the gate for you
I want you, I want you
Yes, I want you so bad
Honey, I want you.

Now all my fathers they've gone down
True love they've been without it
But all their daughters put me down
'Cause I don't think about it.

Well, I return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid
She knows that I'm not afraid
To look at her
She is good to me
And there's nothing she doesn't see
She knows where I'd like to be
But it doesn't matter
I want you, I want you
Yes, I want you so bad
Honey, I want you.

Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit
He spoke to me, I took his flute
No, I wasn't very cute to him - Was I ?
But I did though because he lied
Because he took you for a ride
And because time was on his side
And because I ..
I want you, I want you
Yes, I want you so bad
Honey, I want you.

MY LAST TWO DATES

I can't even tell you about. There are no pictures, no names, and  I really shouldn't even call it a date, but here it is 3 o'clock in the morning and its like I'm 16 again, ready to throw myself of the Hurstview Bridge.
It really does suck, finding out you still bleed red, and can still get hurt..

Here we are at _______  ________, having the time of our lives.
Ive never spemt an evening feeling so close, so warm, and so full with someone I can't even acknowledge my love for.
I can tell you all about it in 100 years or so.

“for women who are ‘difficult’ to love"

"you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highway
to a burning house
says you are blinding him
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you
you dizzy him, you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name
you fill his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours
but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love."

Warsan Shire, “for women who are ‘difficult’ to love”

SUNDAY EVENING MUSIC

For my friends Red Dirt Mule and Souby. They have been my good blog friends for many years now. They say his next plane ticket from England to Houston will be one way.
Thats so great.



GRINGO HONEYMOON
We were standin' on a mountain top
Where the cactus flowers grow
I was wishin' that the world would stop
When you said we'd better go
We took a rowboat 'cross the Rio Grande
Captain Pablo was our giude
For two dollars in a weathered hand
He rowed us to the other side

And we were dreamin' like the end was not in sight
And we dreamed all afternoon
We asked the world to wait so we could celebrate
A gringo honeymoon

We stepped out onto the golden sand
The sun was high and burning down
Rented donkeys from an old blind man
Saddled up and rode to town
Tied our donkeys to an ironwood tree
By the street where the children play
We walked in the first place we could see
Servin' cold beer in the shade

We were drinkin' like the end was not in sight
And we drank all afternoon
We asked the world to wait so we could celebrate
A gringo honeymoon

Met a cowboy who said that he
Was running from the DEA
He left a home, a wife, a family
When he made his getaway
We followed him on down a street of dust
To his one room run-down shack
He blew a smoke ring and he smiled at us
I ain't never goin' back

We were flyin' like the end was not in sight
And we soared all afternoon
We asked the world to wait so we could celebrate
A gringo honeymoon

He said there's one last place that you should go
He took us to the town's best bar
He knew a crusty caballero
Who played an old gut string guitar
And he sang like Marty Robbins could
Played like no one I've known
For a while we knew that life was good
It was ours to take back home

We were singin' like the end was not in sight
And we sang all afternoon
We asked the world to wait so we could celebrate
A gringo honeymoon

We were standin' on a mountain top
Where the cactus flowers grow
I was wishin' that the world would stop
When you said we'd better go

Papa Bear’s BBQ Hot Link Sandwich

It’s a secret, but no secret, and it’s a rule, but no rule, that you will find the BEST BBQ in the most unlikely places.
Down in the piney woods of east Texas, just south of Carthage there is a little 10 foot Airstream Trailer with a smokestack coming out the top and an awning over the window where you place your order. There are a couple picnic tables in theparking lot, and a beat up sign that reads:
PAPA BEARS BAR-B-QUE

I remember the first time I stopped in at Papa Bears. I was hungry as a horse, on my way home from fishing at Toledo Bend. I said hello to the girl at the little window, and decided on “Papa Bears BBQ Hot Link Sandwich”. I thought for a minute I might get two I was so hungry, but I asked the girl if that came with onions and jalapenos and cheese and stuff.
“Oh yes sir, we put lots on there”
“Good” I replied and went and sat down at the picnic table,and watched an old man with a broom sweep the asphalt in the parking lot.

A few minutes later the girl brings my hot link sandwich out.
I couldn’t believe it!
It was two Hot Links on a bun, open-faced and topped with about half a pound of chopped BBQ Brisket, smothered in onions and jalapenos and buried underneath grated cheddar cheese.
I didnt expect the chopped brisket on top. Nice touch. I guess that's what made it Papa Bears.
The thing must have weighed about two pounds.
I was really glad I hadn’t ordered two.

So as I ate this sandwich with the plastic fork she gave me,I took note of the old man sweeping the parking lot. A weather beaten face,grey whiskers, and kind wrinkles around his eyes, he looked to be a really fit 70.

“Excuse me sir, are you Papa Bear?” I asked.
He stopped sweeping and leaned on his broom. ‘Yes sir that would be me.”
“Well sir, I just want you to know that I am a chef at a really nice Country Club up in Fort Worth, and this is a damndest sandwich I ever had. When I get back to work, I’m going to put this on the menu. I’m a gonna call it Papa Bear’s BBQ Hot Link Sandwich, just like you do!”

Did he swell up in pride? Uh-uh.
Was he impressed to have a REAL CHEF eating at his little BBQ stand. Not so much.
Nonplussed? Not at all.

What Papa Bear did was stop sweeping the parking lot long enough to lean on his broom, and with just a little touch of amusement on his face say to me:
“I HOPE YOU GET MORE THAN 3.95 FOR IT”

TWO THUMBS UP

You might think of him as a guy that just talked about movies...

“Many films diminish us. They cheapen us, masturbate our senses, hammer us with shabby thrills, diminish the value of life. Some few films evoke the wonderment of life’s experience, and those I consider a form of prayer. Not prayer “to” any...one or anything, but prayer “about” everyone and everything. I believe prayer that makes requests is pointless. What will be, will be. But I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone, or do a good thing. Those prayers validate existence and snatch it away from meaningless routine.
Roger Ebert

Gathered at Crashingly Beautiful a couple years ago.

Today  at The Sweetest Spots:
"LIFE ALWAYS HAS AN UNHAPPY ENDING, BUT YOU CAN HAVE A LOT OF FUN ALONG THE WAY, AND EVERYTHING DOESN’T HAVE TO BE DRIPPING IN DEEP SIGNIFICANCE"
-Roger Ebert

THE BEST BROTHER IN THE WORLD

Texas Rehabilitation Hospital
Where my sister, who suffers from MS, is trying to recover from a major surgery.
She had 3 discs in her neck fused together. In addition to these specific maladies, she is also pitiful, miserable, has a low (zero) tolerance for pain, and will never miss a chance to complain.
Here is how yesterday went:

“They are kicking me out of rehab” she said.
‘Why?” I ask.
“Because they are a bunch of horses asses here. They are not taking care of me. This bed is uncomfortable. The pillows are like bricks. They locked me into the bed last night without telling me. They keep changing my medicine without telling me. They made me eat broth because they said I was constipated. That won’t work. They don’t know what they are doing. I asked for water, and they won’t bring me any, and now I have contracted Thrush, and it feels like my mouth is on fire. I can’t get any rest here, so I can’t do the therapy exercises, so they are releasing me tomorrow.”
(there is a sign on her door saying she is not to be awakened until after 7am, I don’t know what time they start there, but my sister is a special case)

And what I am thinking is what a high maintenance patient she must be, and how they are likely doing everything humanly possible to keep my sister comfortable, but she is just too ready to complain and willing to be miserable for anyone to ever be able to satisfy her needs.
But then my sis continues:

“The doctor ordered a soft neck brace for me Sunday, and they haven’t brought that to me yet. He said it would be more comfortable for sleeping than the one I have now (a big green plexiglass monster looking thing) but they haven’t brought it for me because they are idiots and just don’t care, and I can’t get any rest in this Frankenstein neck brace”

Well, this makes me sit up and take a little notice. She is in a Million dollar facility, probably her insurance is paying 1000 bucks a day, and she has gone 72 hours without a medical device that has been prescribed for her by her physician? A medical device that would alleviate her discomfort, and maybe help with her therapy that she is unable to do and that is why they are releasing her? Suddenly, all her bellyaching has a certain credibility to it.
I'll tell you the truth...the fact that they have given her story some credibility pisses me off even more than her actual discomfort. That's how big an asshole I am.

So I go to the nurses station.
“My sister needs her soft collar neck brace”
“We don’t have one”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“It was ordered Monday right, yes?”
“Yes, but they keep them in storage downstairs, and no one is here with a key tonight.”
"But its Thursday today. What happened to Tuesday and Wednesday?"
"They didn't get the brace."
I look around over my shoulder. "They? Who is they?"
"The day shift."
“Is this some specialty item?”
“No, Mr. Bullets, you can get them at CVS.”
Holy crap! Now the short hairs on the back of my neck are going “woo-woo-woo” and I say:
“So if I go get one of these, you can put it on her, and she will experience some relief, and she will have one less thing to bitch about?”
“Sure!”

So off I go to CVS to furnish the million dollar hospital with rehabilitation supplies they have, but just can’t seem to deliver to my sister. And the whole way there and back, the old chef, the crazy killer intolerant son-of-a –bitch that resides in a shallow grave in my head, he starts to rise up.

I am going up the elevator now, and thinking to myself “Don’t stop at the nurses’ station, just keep going and put this thing on her by yourself, and nobody gets hurt.
But I just can’t do it.

I set the package with a thud on the counter. Nurse Ratchet looks up and says happily:
“You got it!”
“Yes, I did. Could you please put this on my sister so that she doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Sure. You really are a good brother to go get this for her.”
And that was it. That’s all it took.

“No I’m not a good brother. I suck as a brother. But she has laid there for three days waiting to get this brace the doctor ordered for her. There must be thousands of these down in your little neck-brace closet downstairs that nobody has a key to, and all I did was show a little empathy and take a 5 minute drive around the corner to get a medical device a doctor ordered 3 days ago for YOUR patient that cost a whopping big 14 bucks, and I think that is ridiculous. This is a Rehabilitation Hospital right? That’s what it says on the sign out front. I'm sure i saw a sign that said it was a Rehabilitation Something.”
She gulped, but another nurse in the station turns and tries to help.
She says “You know, you sound just like your sister.”
And she laughed.

Holy shit. I got two of them now. So I said:
“ I know my sister is difficult. She is pitiful acting, she complains, she’s vindictive and its always someone’s fault whatever is happening to her. I can’t hardly stand to be around her more than an hour at a time. But I love her, and if ya’ll here at the Texas Rehabilitation Hospital can’t supply her with the medical rehabilitation supplies that a doctor has prescribed for her to help her with her recovery, even after three days, then you incompetent dumb-asses deserve everything you get from her. I don’t think it’s fucking funny at all.”

They didn't even flinch, but went back to staring at their computer screens.
I said all this outside the earshot of my sister, but I said it plenty loud.

I went back to the room and told her that they would be in a minute with her neck brace.
“Thank you” she said, almost in tears “You are the best brother in the world”

LOVE GOES

"People so seldom say I love you, And then it's either too late or love goes. So when I tell you I love you, It doesn't mean I know you'll never go, Only that I wish you didn't have to."
On a poster given to me by a girlfriend in the 9th grade. I always figured she was way ahead of her time.

GOOD LUCK CHARM

Last weekend I got together with an old buddy.
I’ve had his number for a while, just waiting for a time to get together.
Bubba Dial.
No one has seen Bubba for 25 years, including me.

Anyway, I went over Saturday morning, we went and had breakfast and talked about the good old days when we ran by night, we lived it and breathed it, always in a bit of danger, but mostly just in pursuit of chicks ya know?
Bubba, he was a real ladies man.

That guy could pick up chicks like nobody’s business. He would flare his nostrils like some kind of stallion, and they just flew into his lap. These days Bubba doesn’t flare his nostrils so much…that’s hard to do when you have to carry an oxygen tank around every where you go. Hard livin’ eventually catches up to you, you know.
Anyway, we had breakfast, and talked for some time, and then I realized…BuddyWhittington was doing a show that night at a theater in Mansfield. Bubba hadn’t seen Buddy in 25 years.
So I got us a couple tickets and we went.

Now one reason I had been waiting to see Bubba was that I didn’t want to just sit around and relive the glory days, I wanted to really do something fun with my old friend.
At the Buddy Show they were having a raffle.

I bought 10 tickets.

First Prize was 100 bucks.
They had other prizes too, like Buddy Whittington CD’s.

Of course, the conditions were perfect for me to win the 100 bucks. That’s what I told Bubba. He was my little good luck charm.

So after they pulled the first number, and I collected the 100 bucks, I got back to my seat and handed Bubba my tickets.

“Here, man, you are going to win a CD”

And sure enough, he did!

THE LEMONADE STAND

WITH SWINGING 60'S TABLECLOTH


Detroit Michigan, somewhere around 1966 I would guess. I was nuthin' but knock-knees and black frame glasses. That's my house obscured behind me. If you look close in the driveway you can see dad's rusted 1958 Oldsmobile. Mom said we got a lot of anonymous neighborhood hate mail about that car, and also the fact that dad liked to leave the garage door open a lot.
Serving the lemonade up is Harry Jr., my buddy Greg's little brother. Apparently, Harry Jr. wore the shit out of those boots, and liked them so much his daddy had  them bronzed for him, so those boots live on. They will outlast us all. Greg sent me the picture last weekend.
I would never have expected to be in contact with Greg again, it had been 45 years since I left Detroit and we never wrote. But the world is smaller place these days, much smaller. Here's a great story about the gang Greg and I formed up with our other pal, Dave.
"The Blue Raiders" (click here)

SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT (I'll give you)

My father used to give me licks with his belt.
It was always a very formal affair,
 like going into the managers office
and getting written up.
There was no emotion,
he just reviewed the infraction with me,
(throwing tomatoes at cars ect.)
indicated this was going to hurt him worse than I,
then told me to grab my ankles.

I learned that if I started to cry
on about the 3rd lick or so,
he would stop and put his belt back on..
Then one day I decided not to cry.
The licks went on for some time,
but  I didn't cry.
It wasn't a display of courage.
It was  an act of defiance.
Rebellion, grabbing its ankles.
Without a whimper I quit the program.


When he had finally had enough
and the belt came to rest at his side
I stood straight up and turned to look him in the eye.
My father was crying.
And that was the last time
my father ever gave me licks with his belt.

bulletholes, 3/2013

When Summer Ends

Been watching Ken Burns "Lewis and Clark; the Journey and the Corps of Discovery " this week. If the story Burns weaves were not enough, there is this jewel from the score that is played to great effect throughout.
Really nice. You have two minutes, right?


Phil Cunningham, Composer

My Old Aunts Play Canasta in a Snow Storm

I ride along in the backseat; the aunt who can drive
picks up each sister at her door, keeps the Pontiac
chugging in each driveway while one or the other
slips into her overshoes and steps out,
closing her door with a click, the wind

lifting the fringe of her white cotton scarf
as she comes down the sidewalk, still pulling on her
new polyester Christmas-stocking mittens.
We have no business to be out in such a storm,
she says, no business at all.

The wind takes her voice and swirls it
like snow across the windshield.
We're on to the next house, the next aunt,
the heater blowing to beat the band.

At the last house, we play canasta,
the deuces wild even as they were in childhood,
the wind blowing through the empty apple trees,
through the shadows of bumper crops. The cards

line up under my aunts' finger bones; eights and nines and aces
straggle and fall into place like well-behaved children.
My aunts shuffle and meld; they laugh like banshees,
as they did in that other kitchen in the 30's that
day Margaret draped a dishtowel over her face
to answer the door. We put her up to it, they say,
laughing; we pushed her. The man—whoever he was—
drove off in a huff while they laughed 'til they hiccupped,

laughing still—I'm one of the girls laughing him down the sidewalk
and into his car, we're rascals sure as farmyard dogs,
we're wild card-players; the snow thickens,
the coffee boils and perks, the wind is a red trey
because, as one or the other says,

We are getting up there in the years; we'll
have to quit sometime. But today,
today,
deal, sister, deal.
 by Marjorie Saiser


Poem gathered at Garrison Keillors "Writers Almanac". Garrison has a weekly radio show, "A Prairie Home Companion". Two hours every week, described as  "a good time that won't wear you out" that I find so soothing to listen to.
Soothing, as is Garrisons voice, so expressive, and he reads so well. He knows exactly when to pause,  when to lower his voice to a whisper, and just when to click his tongue. Sometimes when I am writing a story, his voice will get stuck in my head, and it seems to improve the story, having channeled his wonderful breathing and impeccable timing into into the story.
You can listen to his Writers Almanac entries as well as read them. Today's poem picks up at the 2:10  mark.
I don't know why I've never shared this before.



My friend Susan @ Assorted, she likes it when I do my impression of Maurice from the Cafe Boeuf, a regular sponsor of "Prairie Home Companion",though I don't suppose she has ever actually heard him.

BACK TO WORK

Why am I the only one in the office whose phone cord is twisted all to hell all the time? 

What am I doing wrong?
Is there some trick to this?
By the end of the day when I answer the phone, I have to have my head right next to it, even though the cord is 10 feet long. That’s why I have to shout all the time- I can’t get my face any closer than 6 inches to the receiver.

 I got my start in office work as A Kelly Girl. I was probably the best Kelly girl ever.

The Kelly Girl manager lady was always impressed that I had been a chef, (I think maybe she was hot for me) and told me one time it was too bad I couldn't come cook for her because "it was against the rules". I took her by the arm, pulled her to me real slow, and whispered in her ear:
 “And there would be some rule breaking going on, wouldn't there?”
She turned about ten shades of red.
She quit a few weeks later, didn't even say goodbye, and Ex-Mrs Bullets told me “You were moving too slow”
I said
“What do you mean "moving too slow"? I wasn't “moving” at all”
“Well,” she said “that’s too slow.”
Man, she really knows how to stick it to me.

Except for the twisted phone cord, I've gotten pretty good at this office stuff. Especially the office politics.
Take our persnickety Office Secretary.  She don’t miss much.
I told the boss one day “I think some days she’s gunnin’ for me”
Know what he said?
“I think some days she’s gunnin’ for me too!”

TATTOOED EVERYTHING

The theme this week seems to have been on ink...




Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay
Were laid spread out before me as her body once did.
All five horizons revolved around her soul
As the earth to the sun
Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn

Ooh, and all I taught her was everything
Ooh, I know she gave me all that she wore
And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds
Of what was everything.
Oh, the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...

I take a walk outside
I'm surrounded by some kids at play
I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear?
Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin round my head
I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning
How quick the sun can drop away

And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass
Of what was everything?
All the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...

All the love gone bad turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see, all that I am, all I'll be... yeah...
Uh huh... uh huh... ooh...

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life,
I know you'll be a sun in somebody else's sky, but why
Why, why can't it be, can't it be mine

From the first side of their debut album...one of the best sides in rock if you ask me.

I posted a poem that I hadn't intended to share on Facebook, because it reflected on too many people that I know, and I didn't want to hurt any feelings. But I came across this picture, and changed the first line and posted to FB anyway.
"Too Late Already" has been well received.

TATTOOED EVERYTHING

SONG FOR A DECK HANDS DAUGHTER

Some new Mcmurtry on youtube...




"Time sure flies when you're having fun
Wasnt it just yesterday you turned twenty-one
Does it still matter what you might have done
had you tried"

Then there is this, also from his debut album. check out the instrumental break at 2:10.


"And if his suitcase wasn't standing in the hall
He might not be coming home at all
And all the sides of him you never knew before
Would be drifting down the river to another back door

Still your mama called him daddy..."

TOO LATE ALREADY

Down at my NA group we see a lot of Tattoos.
See a lot on the young girls especially,
and they have colored themselves up all over
with laundry lists of forgotten lovers
Khal Drogo (Sun of my Moon)
skulls with rosette eyes
hooka-smoking caterpillars

Horned cherubs, Aphrodite

Black widow spiders

O'Keefe's lilies
and its going to be a long long life.

Sometimes they'll talk ink
and one of them
(that still has a few square inches of peachy flesh left)
tells about what she is going to put there,
on the last remaining patch of herself
that doesn't resemble something not her.
I just want to shake them and scream
NN-OOOO!
But its too late already.
bulletholes, 3/2013



Thanks Red, for the inspire....But this one is nice, doncha think? She was totally there in '68.

"You'll find no me beneath the skin"

No one presents misery as beautifully as Richard thompson.

Only a misdirected dart
At an unprotected heart
I'm sure it happens every day
Just a passing interlude
A fresh face to change the mood
I'll find my feet again you say

What rock I had you rolled
What rock I had you rolled away

But I live as best I can
Meet the uninhabited man
Please read the sign and walk away
What an old dry shell I am
The uninhabited man
I'll find my feet again you say

No doubt they'll pull me down
No doubt they'll pull me down someday

Who's been sleeping in my bed
Who's been sleeping in my bed

Who's been sitting in my chair
Who's been licking in my bowl
Who's been sleeping in my bed

A romantic ruin am I
Funny how I catch the eye
The vacuum slowly sucks you in
I'm left no skill, no art
To meet you heart to heart
You'll find no me beneath the skin
And if there's no me then there's no
And if there's no me then there's no sin

Who's been sleeping in my bed
Who's been sleeping in my bed

And who's been sitting in my chair
Who's been licking in my bowl
Who's been sleeping in my bed





Thompson will be in Dallas April 13 with his "Electric Trio". It will be my fourth time to see him. I'd really like to see one of his solo show's some day.
Ah, one more shall we?
For my good friend at Assorted.

TIP THAT WAITRESS

I was at a Sports Bar, listening to a little Buddy Whittington music with a large group of friends.
A poor waitress comes to me in tears. It seems a friend of mine and his wife have walked their check.
Its 30 bucks, not enough to blow your nose on right? So I go ahead and pay it, and give her a $10 tip for her trouble.
Several people call Tracy the next day, to let him know. I didn’t have his number, he wasn’t THAT good a friend.

So I figure the next time I see Tracy, he’ll pay me right?
Fast forward 6 months, and here is Tracy and his wife, drunk again already.
I go and talk to him for a minute, waiting to see if he is going to remember to pay me back for standing good for him.
Apparently he has forgotten, or is just too drunk.

So I say ‘Hey Tracy, you hadn’t forgot about that $30 bar tab have you?”

He looks at me like I just slapped him with a Rainbow Trout.
‘Aw man, you know I’m going to take care of you” he slurs. “I’m going to take good care of my buddy that stood good for me.”
He goes on, through bourbon breath, to explain that they hadn’t really “Walked” the check, they had each thought the other one had paid.
‘So what are you drinking?” he asks.

“Diet coke. Remember Tracy, I been clean and sober for five years now”

‘Conflabulations, dude, thazzz rilly great”
I can see that he is a bit confused as to how to repay me without buying me drinks, so I point towards the entrance.
“There is an ATM right over there Tracy”

Again, I get the look like I’ve hit him with a trout.
“I’ll get you paid.You know I’ll get you paid. How much was it? 30 bucks right?
“Yeah Tracy 30 bucks, plus I gave her a 10 dollar tip. That makes 40.”
Tracy straightens up a little (actually he looks more sober for a second than I’ve ever seen ) and says “Well, that’s on you”
“What do you mean, “that’s on me”?” I say.
“You didn’t have to do that, a $10 tip,  so that’s on you.”
I cant believe what I’m hearing.
So I say:
‘No, Tracy, I did have to do that. You are one cheap Mother-Fucker”

Do you think he ever made it to that ATM to pay me?
Nope!

TUMBLEWEEDS

They had a little wind in West Texas last night.

FEAR AND LOATHING

As the story goes, my friend Alan had a groundskeepers job at Tulane sometime in the 70’s. He got wind that Hunter S. Thompson was going to be there for a lecture. He ran home and got his well worn copy of “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail”.
By well worn I mean to say it was almost disintegrated, without a spine, most of the pages loose, and he had had to keep it in a big Ziplock bag for years.
So Alan runs home, grabs the baggie, runs back, catches the good Doctor going up the steps to the lecture hall and handing him the baggie, asks if he will autograph his book.
Thompson takes his pen out of his pocket, opens the baggie, finds the cover and signs it.
As he hands the baggie back, he looks over the tops of his glasses with a fairly critical eye and says to Alan:
 “You know you ought to be arrested for this”

NEGLECT AND DECAY

Man, I been gone!

I didn’t even post anything for Valentines Day.

But the last several posts were schmaltzy enough, that’s probably a good thing.

I took a road trip up through Pennsylvania to help a buddy (my sponsor actually) move back to Texas. It took 4 days, and was fraught with danger.

Anyway, to try to get back in the swing of things I’ll tell you a little story about the conversation I had with the ex Mrs Bullets last week. She was asking about an old buddy of mine who happened to be our sons scoutmaster.
I’ve known Bobby since we were 15 or 16, we even worked at a Bonanza steakhouse together for a while.
I said:

“Yeah, Bobby was a strange one. He would look at you with a completely blank look sometimes, it was like he didn't even have any wheels to spin. Other times he would have this quizzical look, and you wondered what was going through that weird head of his. Then you would ask Bobby a question and his answer would be so obscure, or so implausible, that you probably wouldn't have any idea what Bobby just said.”

Ex Mrs Bullets looks at me a second and says “So its like you and he have traded places then?”

Man, she really knows how to stick it to me.

"THE GODS WAIT TO DELIGHT IN YOU"

About  of the last 4 or 5 posts seem to be variations on a theme, starting with a poem I wrote just kind of out of the blue, and then on to a Thomas Merton quote that was may have inspired the Secret a little.
In between, there is a friend of mine with a blog, we call her Lucky, and she told a great story about herself, and tied it in with what she does, which is to teach people how to be lucky.
She says it can be done, and I think she is right.
She quotes Emerson:
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen”

Lucky left me a comment, and I replied:

"...on a good day... I look at people and I just smile.
I saw three guys, tough looking guys, at the Latte machine at the local gas station. They were in coveralls, and they had all these beards and shaggy hair and beat up boots, and they stood in front of the Latte machine like they were six years old looking at candy bars instead of coffee, giggling and smiling and pointing at which flavor coffee they were going to have.
I smiled to myself, and I just wanted to hug them, and be in on it with them somehow, but I stirred my coffee, put the top on, and headed to the register. I swear I smiled all the way to the car.
Those are the days I know I'm OK."


Kristi said that that comment was better than the Merton quote, I dont know about that.. Someday, I'll have to tell you what goes on in my head on a bad day.


And that got me to thinking about this great Bukowski poem, and how it fits right in with what seems to be a theme running the last two weeks. I remember giving this poem to my son back when he was going through a pretty bad spot.

THE LAUGHING HEART
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
charles bukowski

FROM THE BULLETHOLES NOTEBOOK

I got to wandering around looking at some of the crap I've posted and came across and interesting list from December of 2007.
The post was titled "What you buy is what you own, and what you own is what you pay for". I think that is a corrupted Stepen King qoute.
The List is supposed to be wisdom of some sort I have gained over the years....haha!



I am…. therefore I’ll think.
Rub her feet.
This looks like as good a spot as any.
Its better to than not.
My best effort in exchange for your best effort...
Lift the seat-Lower the seat.
Sunday Morning=Pancakes & REAL Maple Syrup.
It won't look as bad after a little Nap.
Be nice until its time to not be nice...then still be nice a little longer.
Give more-expect less.
This looks like as bad a spot as any.
Stick and Stay and Make it pay.
Milk is best served  in a frosty mug.
Easy does it.
The Jumbo-Large Economy size is not always the best deal.
Don't drop your load.

In the comments there was one more that fell out...
Growing closer is the most important thing we will ever try to do.

I like that.

EPIPHANY

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race … there is no way of telling people that they are... all walking around shining like the sun.
I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all of the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…”

~ Thomas Merton from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.

I was thinking about this Merton quote, in part, when I wrote "The Secret".

FREE HUGS AND THANKS FOR THE DAY

"Some people believe that God has revealed Himself to us and not to the others, the barbarians, and it is His Will that our tribe vanquish the others and rain death and destruction on them. Others believe that our understanding of God is incomplete but that He has bestowed this beautiful world on us, and other gifts, which should be shared, and we should walk softly and praise His Name. I walk softly to the cafe and order a large mocha and pray for the forgiveness of incompetence and for mercy to children. And thanks for the day, which happens to be perfect."
Garrison Keillor

Image~ Luke Storms @ Crashingly Beautiful from his recent trip to India

TIME AND RELATIVITY

Back when I was a chef, we did a party for what is called the Pritzger Prize. The Pritzger Prize is the highest architectural prize one can receive, and it was being awarded to Kitzo Tenge in 1987. The Award Dinner was held at the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth. There were to be 500 guest.

I had watched the Pastry Chef work for 3 days on his dessert. He had made 500 treasure chests from chocolate, each to be filled with mousse. He had been sitting at a table the last 8 hours hand painting gold filigree on each one.
You may be wondering if gold is edible. It is. It is even said to have medicinal value.
Today you can go and buy a bottle of Goldschlager, a liqueur with flecks of gold floating in it.

But back to the Pastry Chef, dipping his tiny brush into the vial of gold filigree, hand painting 500 finely crafted small boxes made of chocolate. His name was David, and up until a few years prior he had been a carpenter by trade. Maybe he got tired of sawdust, of the cold, I don't know, but somehow he had wound in his true calling, evidenced by his quick rise to the top of his field. To look at David in his white uniform topped by a chefs toque you just wouldn't figure. Long hair and a beard, he looked more like Foghat than a Master PastryChef. David did not wear shoes. He wore sandals. He was like a cross between Tommy Chong and Rasputin.
And he is patiently practicing a form of Zen, hand painting his chocolate creations.

Two corporate Vice-Presidents wandered by, stopping to examine the work.
One said “This is beautiful! So exquisite, so elegant!”
The other picked one of the finished pieces up and said “Simplicity is elegant”, because that’s the kind of shit Corporate VP’s like to say.
David set down his brush, reached over and gently took his treasure chest from the Corporate VP, set it back down with the rest,  and said “We are spending a lot of time on simplicity”.

"MY NAME IS BULLETHOLES, AND I'LL BE YOUR WAITER TONIGHT"

I went and applied for a waiters job at Pappadeux a few years back, just to pick up a little extra cash.
The manager asked what qualifications I had for that job.
“Well, I was a chef for 25 years” I said.
“Really?” he said “Where at?”
“A few local Country Clubs, and 6 years with Hyatt.”
“Hmm. Interesting. Any other qualifications?”
I looked at him. He couldn’t have been a day over 25.
I asked him “Have you ever wrestled an alligator?”
He looked at me funny. “No, no I never have”
I looked at him, all wide eyed and crazy like, and said:
“Well I have. Wrestled him, kilt him, skinned him, cleaned him, cooked him and ate him with a nice Remoulade and a little Cole Slaw”

I didn’t get the job, but I think that’s one of the best interviews I ever had.

THE SECRET

I think at least once a day, I fall in love with someone.
I know, I’m fickle, I always have been
But you, you who shine, you need to know this
That there are others just like me
We see you
And someone right now, just out of your sight
See’s what you are doing
And smiles
And someone else, just out of earshot
They heard what you said
And they fell
For just that instant, they fell in love with you
So if you think you are safe
And if you think you made it home again
Having a nice tea or soda
Unnoticed and anonymous
Just keep doing what you are doing
And just keep saying those things you say
You just might have a secret admirer.
bulletholes 1/23/2012

TELL ME WHAT

"Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"

THE SUMMER DAY, MARY OLIVER

ONE SOURCE OF BAD INFORMATION

image~  another Helen Levitt

ONE SOURCE OF BAD INFORMATION
There's a boy in you about three
Years old who hasn't learned a thing for thirty
Thousand years. Sometimes it's a girl.

This child has to make up its mind
How to save you from death. He said things like:
"Stay home. Avoid elevators. Eat only elk."

You live with this child, but you don't know it.
You're in the office, yes, but live with this boy
At night. He's uninformed, but he does want

To save your life. And he has. Because of this boy
You survived a lot. He's got six big ideas.
Five don't work. Right now he's repeating them to you.
- Robert Bly

“To myself”

image~Helen Levitt

"Even when I forget you
I go on looking for you
I believe I would know you
I keep remembering you
sometimes long ago but then
other times I am sure you
were here a moment before
and the air is still alive
around where you were and I
think then I can recognize
you who are always the same
who pretend to be time but
you are not time and who speak
in the words but you are not
what they say you who are not
lost when I do not find you"
W. S. Merwin,
“To myself”

THE GOING GOING GONE

"We chase after ghosts and spirits and are left holding only memories and dreams. It's not that we want what we can't have; it's that we've held all we could want and then had to watch it slip away."
 - Charles de Lint

"WE COULD MAKE EACH OTHER HAPPY"

NILLSON SCHMILLSON

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

I did a post a while back about the Gratitude Prayer:
“My gratitude speaks when I care and share the NA way that no addict seeking recovery need ever die from the horrors of addiction”

I talked some about Stan, and the Eternity Medallion.
It makes me think of the movie “The Shawshank Redemption”
In it, Morgan Freeman plays a convict named Red doing a life sentence. Every year he comes up for parole, and every year they ask him “Do you feel you've been rehabilitated? “
And every year he tells them “Oh yes, I’ve learned my lesson. I’m no longer a danger to anyone. I’m a changed man” and every year they turn him down.
Finally after 40 years and they bring Red in, and he’s tired of playing this game, and it goes like this…

"Have you been rehabilitated?"

“Rehabilitated? Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means.”

“Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society...”

“I know what *you* think it means, sonny. To me it's just a made up word. A politician's word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?

“Well, are you?”

"There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit."

So they let Red go.

And he goes, and he gets a job sacking groceries in a grocery store, which was the same job as Brooks, another con they let out had had.
But ol’ Brooks, he didn’t fit in outside the prison walls, and one night he carves his name into the wooden header in his apartment, puts a rope around his neck and kicks the chair out from under himself.

And now Red is working that same job, living in that same apartment, and one day he asks the boss if he can go to the bathroom, and his boss looks at him like he’s nuts and says “You don’t have to ask me that, just go!”
And so now Red feels all out of place, and wonders if he’s cut out for life on the outside, and in the movie he takes off his bagger's apron, leaves the store, and as he walks down the street there is Morgan Freeman's great narrative voice as Red talks to himself.
He says:
“There's a harsh truth to face. No way I'm gonna make it on the outside. All I do anymore is think of ways to break my parole, so maybe they'd send me back. Terrible thing, to live in fear. Brooks Hatlen knew it. Knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense.”

As he says this, he stops in front of a pawn shop window where there is a pistol.
And you expect Red to go into the pawn shop, buy the pistol, and find a way back into the life that he knew.
But that’s not what he does. He comes out with a scout compass, and for me to try to tell you what he does with the compass would turn this post into a Stephen King book. So if you have a chance to see the movie, I do recommend.

But it makes me think of the NA program, and how I have a choice today and with that choice is some hope that I can be whoever I want to be, no longer trapped under the control of a drug or a system. That no addict seeking recovery need ever die...literally or figuratively.

It also reminds me that the only way to keep from returning to active addiction is not to take that first drug.

THE BOSTON CRAB

HAPPY MONDAY!
If you like what you're doing, it wouldn't be work.

Great moves in Wrestling-- The Boston Crab

"This typically starts with the opponent on his (her) back, and the wrestler standing and facing him (her). The wrestler hooks each of the opponent's legs in one of his arms, and then turns the opponent face-down, stepping over him (her...haha) in the process."

I'M HAVING TROUBLE...

...GETTING COMFORTABLE KISSING A WOMAN WITH A BEARD.

Someone suggested I ask her to shave, but the last time I asked a woman to do that she slapped me.
And that's about all that's going on around here.

THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS

In addition to losing Townes van Zandt and Hank Williams on New Years days 1997 and 1963 respectively, we also lost the relatively unknown (and elusive) Ted Hawkins on a New Years Day.
Ted preferred his gig as a street performer around Venice Beach and a life of addiction, jail, and restlessness  to recording  and fairly successful European tours.
But in  1994, Geffen Records finally nailed him down long enough to get an album out him. "The Next Hundred Years" brought some success to Hawkins, it was a breakthrough album, but Ted died of a stroke New Years Day, only months after its release.
Its one of those albums that plays great all the way through, and you might find it on the throwaway shelf at Half-Price books.
From Ted's breakthrough album---