SONNET DESPITE

darling she said darling he said
love is work draw me that triangle
again tell me it’s the strongest
shape you and me are always near
an open window that’s three we
expected firework but settled for
romance in the shape of tuna
melts we go away to try to miss
us from a different angle I want that
feeling of swallowing a big ripe beet want
mine to bleed with yours that makes
two he said yes two he said yes two

she said the third is all the nameless
that keeps us rising despite despite

—OLIVER BENDORF

ONE-EYED HUTCH

First time I met One-Eyed Hutch he was hitchhiking down Hwy 10. Buckman and I had just seen Dick Gregory at UTS's Texas Hall. During the course of giving Hutch a lift, Buckman  gave him 100 bucks to score a pound of what Hutch had said was "really good stuff". We dropped him off at the corner of Brown Trail and Redbud.  He said he'd be right back, dashed into some apartment complex and we didn't see him again for like two years.

The last time I saw One-Eyed Hutch was 20 years later. He was driving a cab in downtown Fort Worth.

"Say man" he says "If you got a hundred bucks I can get you some really good stuff"

"Really?" I say "Where at?"

"Right around the corner" he says, and he turns to point over towards the bus station "Its just right around the corner, and its really good stuff"

But when he turned back towards me, I was already gone. 

 ONE-EYED HUTCH'S SUNGLASSES

THE PURGE

Between all the teenage angst, tears, sweat and underwear, and my various endeavors with "Fully Clothed Women" , "Crashingly Beautiful" and the latest album I havent ruined yet "This is my Favorite Song", and the many silly things which have  been the focus of my attention lately, I may not have mentioned that I have my own place again, having been on the road, renting rooms the last 21 months.
All my possesions and mineral resources have been in storage all this time.
I'm doing some unpacking and have reached a severe impasse.
The plan was to get rid of any book I would never read again. I can't do it. I've never been able to "let go".
I need a new plan, one that is possible.
And all these out-of-focus sunspot old and mildewed pictures.
What do you do with those? If you say "throw them away", then I don't think there is anything else I care to hear you talk about.
So, there.

Having said that I will list some of the books that can be scavenged from my front porch.
No Charge.
"Love in the Time of Cholera" ( sorry Oprah, never got past page 100. I really did try)

"Ordeal By Sea:The tragedy of the USS Indianapolis"

"The Great Gatsby"... I just opened it and found I have passages highlighted, and so I will have to keep this one. No, lets not. 

"The Stand"(its a paperback, and the print is finer than a silver needle. And the story sucks)

"Dr. Wayne Dyer: Pulling Your Own Strings" (He lost all his credo to me when he came out on PBS in a Dojo and sandals, and talked about selling all his worldly possessions and moving to a small island in the Pacific. Maui, to be exact. How spare could it be?"

"Dylan: An intimate Biography" Really?

"The Friars Club Encyclopedia of Jokes" (Teaser: "I dont believe in superstition. It brings bad luck." Gone, gone, gone.)

"Life of Pi" (The movie sucked too)

"Message in a Bottle" ( Oh, God, I remember the night I picked this one up at the Tom Thumb, 3 am, raining and freezing. It was a lousy year)

"Parenting Teens With Love and Logic" (still in wrapper)

What did I keep? 

"The Number of the Beast", "The Way of the Sufi", "The Fellowship of the Ring", "Waiting for Godot", "The Sun Also Rises", Asimov's "Foundation", The Fountainhead", Lonesome Dove"  and one well worn Larrouse Gastronomique.

We have a few boxes to go.

And for any of you who may have stuck with this post this far, please give me and my Higher Power a thought as I will be sharing my story at the Valley of Hope in Grapevine tomorrow morning.
Thank you. 

NOPE

Here are some parts of a spider some people might find attractive:

THE MULE

Reminds me of the story about the scientists that took a new tractor to a farmer who had always pulled his plow with mules. They showed him how to start it, how to put gas in it, how to lower the plow , turn the steering wheel, apply the brake, everything, then asked if he had any questions.

‘Just one” he says “Where do I hook up the mule?”

"Hiding in a Drop of Water"

It is early morning, and death has forgotten us for
a while. Darkness owns the house, but I am alive.
I am ready to praise all the great musicians.
Whatever happens to me will also happen to you.
Surely you must have realized this from hearing
the way the strings cry out no matter who hits them.
From the great oak trees in the yard in October,
leaves fall for hours each day. Every night
a thousand wrinkled faces look up at the stars.
Still we know that at any second the soul can stand
up and start across the desert, as when Rabia ended up
riding on a resurrected donkey toward the Meeting.
It is this reaching toward the Kaaba that keeps us glad.
It is this way of hiding inside a drop of water
that lets the hidden face become visible to everyone.
Gautama said that when the Great Ferris Wheel
stops turning, you will still be way up
there, swinging in your seat and laughing.
- Robert Bly, Hiding in a Drop of Water  
My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy

LIKE ALEXANDERS ASHES

I was talking with my ex last Friday night. Actually, she was talking to a group of our friends at a big party.

 She says “Do you want to see the difference between men and women?”

Of course, everyone said “Yes”, and she turns to me and asks “Steve, what is the date of our divorce?”

“I don’t know” I said “I took no note of it”

And everybody laughs.

“That’s right” she says “You didn’t even show up in court”

“Sure didn’t “ I said.

And everybody laughs.

Then she asks “Steve, how many years were we married?”

“Oh, That’s easy…thirteen years”

“Nope. Fourteen years 2 months and 12 days”

And everybody laughs and looks at me.

I think about it a minute and say:

“She’s right. I’m counting time from the day we got married to the day I got booted out of the house for good. Thirteen years and some change. I knew it was for good. I knew there wouldn’t  be any coming back. I’d used all those up. She had made up her mind. And there is nothing as unwavering as a woman when she ‘s already made up her mind. She’s counting to the day of the divorce. Bastille Day.”

And everybody nods their head, and I look at her, and she's pleased as can be with herself.

"And that" she says "Is the difference between men and women!"
But I'm not going to let it go that easy.
"She is right. But its important to note that like Alexanders ashes, I am still Alexander"

I don't know if anybody got it but me. I just think its cool we can talk about it like that.

SILLAGE

Sillage (n.)- a scent that lingers in the air; the trail left in the water; the impression made in space after someone has been and gone; the trace of someone’s perfume.

My friend SL @ Assorted says that the french don't say "I miss you", they say something that more closely resembles "You are missing from me".

Goes well with LIGHT BLUE... from earlier this year.

I was going to buy you some perfume.
But I decided I was trying too hard,
Holding on too tight
So I got this card instead.

I can remember the smell of you
And your perfume
The way it would linger for days
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.

I’d put on my shirt and find my shoes
And I’d just feel so homeless and lost
Only your lovely scent to guide me out the door
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 sky turns light blue and full of love.

bulletholes 4/2013

RUIN ME

“Maybe...you'll fall in love with me all over again."
"Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?"
"Yes. I want to ruin you."
"Good," I said. "That's what I want too.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

UP TO ME

Previously unreleased, having not made the cut for "Blood on the Tracks", this almost seems to be a sister piece to ""Shelter From the Storm". Lyrically, this seems to be more personal, and I love the tenderness in the last lines, a tenderness for something that seemed to have gone so wrong and took a long time to resolve. Its so rich I can't single out a favorite verse.
I've lived this song more than once now.


Everything went from bad to worse, money never changed a thing,

Death kept followin', trackin' us down, at least I heard your bluebird sing.
Now somebody's got to show their hand, time is an enemy,
I know you're long gone,
I guess it must be up to me.

If I'd thought about it I never would've done it, I guess I would've let it slide,
If I'd paid attention to what others were thinkin', the heart inside me would've died.
I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity,
Someone had to reach for the risin' star,
I guess it was up to me.

Oh, the Union Central is pullin' out, the orchids are in bloom,
I've only got me one good shirt left and it smells of stale perfume.
In fourteen months I've only smiled once and I didn't do it consciously,
Somebody's got to find your trail,
I guess it's gonna be up to me.

It was like a revelation when you betrayed me with your touch,
I'd just about convinced myself nothin' had changed that much.
The old Rounder in the iron mask, he slipped me the master key,
Somebody had to unlock your heart,
He said it was up to me.

Well, I watched you slowly disappear down into the officers' club,
I would've followed you in the door but I didn't have a ticket stub.
So I waited all night 'til the break of day, hopin' one of us could get free,
When the dawn came over the river bridge,
I knew it was up to me.

Oh, the only decent thing I did when I worked as a postal clerk
Was to haul your picture down off the wall near the cage where I used to work.
Was I a fool or not to protect your real identity?
You looked a little burned out, my friend,
I thought it might be up to me.

I met somebody face to face, I had to remove my hat.
She's everything I need in love but I can't be swayed by that.
It frightens me, the awful truth, of how sweet life can be.
But she ain't gonna make a move,
I guess it must be up to me.

Now we heard the Sermon on the Mount and I knew it was too complex,
It didn't amount to anything more than what the broken glass reflects.
When you bite off more than you can chew you gotta pay the penalty,
Somebody's got to tell the tale,
I guess it must be up to me.

Dupree came in pimpin' tonight to the Thunderbird Cafe,
Crystal wanted to talk to him, I had to look the other way.
Now I just can't rest without your love, I need your company.
You ain't gonna cross the line,
I guess it must be up to me.

There's a note left in the bottle, you can give it to Estelle,
She's the one you been wond'rin' about, but there's really nothin' much to tell.
We both heard voices for a while, now the rest is history,
Somebody's got to cry some tears,
I guess it must be up to me.

So go on, boys, play your hands, life is a pantomime,
The ringleaders from the county seat say you don't have all that much time.
And the girl with me behind the shades, she ain't my property,
One of us has got to hit the road,
I guess it must be up to me.

If we never meet again, baby, remember me,
How my lone guitar played sweet for you that old-time melody.
And the harmonica around my neck, I blew it for you, free,
No one else could play that tune,
You know it was up to me.

REACHING INTO THE INFINITE

Continued from "ALTO, TEXAS", a Mothers Day post---

I passed through Tyler, the Rose Capitol of the World, and all the roses in planters for sale at the side of the road. They made me think of all my lost loves.
I guess I've been lucky.

I bought a small rose for planting, for momma.  It wont  live, it wont last long down there, but I wanted to do it just the same.

Apparently Tyler is also the Psychic Capitol of the world too. I must have passed 10 places I could go  inside and have my cards read, my fortune told. I wondered what interesting things they might say. I wondered whose face these psychics could conjure when they looked into my eyes, if Madame Cassandra might know where she is, if she could see us naked in her minds eye, if she would know.

If she would know.

It made me think about “The Wizard of OZ” and how Dorothy had run away from home and happened upon  Professor Marvel.  He invites her into his trailer and is going to read her fortune. He has her close her eyes,  in order to be “better in tune with the infinite".

He says " We cant do these things without reaching into the infinite”

And while her eyes are closed he reaches into her purse, and finds the picture of Auntie Em. He tells Dorothy that somewhere there is a woman who is worried, with a broken heart, because she has lost something.  Professor Marvel  may be a shyster and a hustler, but he is a very kind man, smart too, and is just trying to do the right thing like any good psychic in tune with the infinite might. And Dorothy realizes he is talking about her Aunt Emily, and takes Toto and runs home to Auntie Em.

Anyway, this was my day dream as I left Tyler, still not knowing what the future might bring. Us humans, we always want to skip to the end of the story, but it just doesn’t work that way. We have to go along, a day at time, a breath at a time, a pain at a time.

And the psychics and rose dealers do it that way too.

I got to Alto where I found a man mowing in front of what had been  Aunt  Verda’s  house.  He said that Mary and Junior were living in Mama’s old property, and that their sons were living across the street now.  I had not expected to find kin there, but I did, 2nd and 3rd cousins.  I took a picture of an old shed that a cousin and I had thrown every potato from good-sized stack of new potatoes at, watching them splat against the wood, delighted. It almost killed Uncle Carroll to see what we had done with his hard work, and Uncle Jack was liable to have killed us if it weren’t for Aunt Laura.

Walking up to the house, I passed where  the root cellar had been. There was no longer a trace. I passed a giant pecan, and there was a big hunk of metal grown into the bark, and I wondered how long it had been there, and which of us cousins might have done the tree this injustice. I put my hand on it, and it felt good to touch this tree that had overseen many a summer day of my youth. In fact it felt kind of like reaching into the infinite, as though the vibrations of every conversation at the family place might be in the vibration of old pecans memory, like the way traces of every meal lay in the metal of a cast iron skillet..

I stepped to the back porch, and my 90 year old cousin Mary came to the door. She had seen me coming up .We recognized each other instantly and we both held each other and I just cried and cried and cried. She said she had been thinking of me just that morning. We sat and looked at pictures for an hour, and then something interesting happened .  Her son came in, a third cousin I had never met. He is only a few years older than I but somehow we never crossed paths.

He sat down after introductions. We told a few stories back and forth and then he had a question for me.  It was one of those questions it takes five minutes to ask and boiled down to this:

“Have you secured eternal life by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

I told him that I had not, that I was a recovering drug addict, and had only recently learned to pray again, and that I was growing closer to a god of my understanding through prayers and meditation, and I was very grateful to God for helping me stay clean, but  that I would leave eternity to my God, and just try to follow my program.

Of course, he doesn’t recognize a god of my understanding, my understanding having failed me most of my life, and I get that point. It didn’t turn into a religious argument, and I’m glad my program has helped me to be tolerant of other peoples views. I assured him that many addicts do find a deeper faith outside of the program, and that I would remain open-minded as my program has taught me to try to be. We closed with a prayer and then the next interesting thing happened.

As we stood up, I took his hand, and I leaned in to hug him. I was surprised to find that this man, full of Jesus love, my third cousin, took a step back in order not to receive my hug. All Gods Childrens is different I guess.

Then  I went for the real reason I was there. I stood next to mom and dad at their grave, and for the first time in forty years I stood next to them clean and sober, involved in a spiritual program that shapes my life as best as I will let it, keeps me striving not so much for eternal salvation, but just to have the strength and courage to do the next right thing one day at a time, and it felt good. It just sure felt good.

I think mom and dad would like that very much.

Me,   I’ll have to leave the infinite for my God and the psychics.

Oh, for those of you who read Part One....yes, Kevins rustic handmade horse training pen is still there, fashioned to gether from 1000 saplings and held together with baling wire, god knows what and Kevins cowboy spirit.
It is a sight to behold. The picture does not do it justice.

I THINK I DREAMED THIS ONE LAST NIGHT

There was a point in our lives

where if I slit my throat, it was you who would bleed.

You say goodbye too often in autumn.
Tonight the last leaf fell off the tree beyond my bedroom window,

and I could hear the sound of branches aching for love to wrap

around their leaves like limbs.

It was three a.m. in the last stretch of May.

Springtime calls for heartbeat symphonies

and when we pressed our bodies together they coincided like

chords, like staccatos when I ran my hand down

your spine.

Fog is one of the top reasons that drivers get killed each year.
In the backseat of my car we almost caused

the hundredth casualty,

but all I got were bruises in the shape of apologies

along my thighs.

There are certain people who leave scars when they go.

Tonight I cut my thumb while I was peeling an apple.

I thought of you.

— “A Rendition of Autumn,” by Shinji Moon

Gathered at Dissections, where she says its a "poem you never get tired of reading"

"Much will be said, but little will be done"

1400 posts.
That's how many posts I have written since September of 2006.. This will count as 1401. But 142 of those are in draft, and on review I don't see that any of them can be salvaged, but there you go.
Its been a strange time here at Bulletholes lately.
Many things unsettling. Many things unsettled. Many things that will just have to wait.

I think back over the last year, and it seemed like a lot of nothing.
I think back over the last year, and there were a lot of things I didn't think I'd ever feel again.
There were a lot of days I felt huge. And a lot of other days I felt so small.
There were days I felt huge and small and huge again, all inside the space of a few moments.
Those are hard days, and they leave you feeling oddly out of place..

I can look back, and I see that I moved from my apartment, and I got separated from my Home group at NA, and I started going to fewer meetings.
I have been going back to more meetings lately, about one a day for two months now, and its got me through a tough time. I've even been going to a treatment center the last month, and sharing my story with addicts that are trying to get a day clean by being in a 28 day rehab. That is very rewarding to do, we keep what we have only by giving it away,and its my ministry I suppose, if you want to put it that way.

I also separated myself from something I loved, and that was hard too, and unsettling.
The ways of love are hard, and sloppy and all over the place it seems, worsened by the fact I'm not really free to talk about it, which in fact I'm finding is a blessing too, not being able to talk about it.
Talking doesn't really seem to help.  I find myself relieved many days by what I haven't said even more that by what I have said.
A guy at the group said something a few weeks ago:
"Much will be said, but little will be done."

Part of what that means is something I've learned the last few years. The circumstances of our lives may  change very slowly, but the way we view the world can change right now.

I've been playing the role of the roommate for a year and a half, and its not a role that suits me.
After abandoning the search for a house to buy a year ago, I overstayed where I'm at and find myself just about miserable there.
But I'm moving in two weeks to an apartment close to my group, where I can relax again, and cook naked in the kitchen if I like, or watch TV in my shorts on the couch,  just like the good old days.
Home hasn't seemed like home to me for many years, but maybe after this latest sojourn, I will find my place.

Oh, while we are at it, lets link to one of my favorite buddies UF Mike, and a story he wrote a while back that I think is sheer recovery beauty.
Its called "Alcohol"

APRIL SHOWERS

She and I played in the rain
We would walk to the top of the hill
And break a small piece of twig
To float in the gutter
Back down the hill we would follow our twig-boats
Wait patiently for them to free themselves from eddies
Watch delighted as they bounded over and around
Small rocks,
Clumps of leaves
Cracks in the pavement
Then skipping through the rapids
We landed at the bottom of the hill
Drenched and happy
Running back to the top
To do it all over again.

bulletholes 5/2013

ALTO TEXAS

I haven’t seen mom in 26 years. I haven’t been to her grave, where she sleeps next to dad, in more than 20 years.
But I’m going tomorrow, and take a rose, and place it there for her.

I’ll walk the dusty red road by her mothers place, look to see if the frame of the root cellar might still be there in the bank of the hill. When we were kids, into it we would peer, and shudder at the thought of what may be inside the cool dark earth.

Down the drive I’ll stroll past the big planter next to the black walnut tree; the well has been gone for some time, but likely there will be a trace, and I will remember trying to find my mother on the big porch.
I had lost her apron among all the other aprons, and I went to Uncle Jack, who told me she had fallen into the well.
“How do I get her back?” I asked in tears.
“Go turn the faucet in the kitchen on” he had told me.
To the sink where I went and cried a river waiting for mom to emerge genie-like out of the faucet.
What a bastard, that Uncle Jack.

I’ll look to see if my cousins homemade horse pen is still there, rustic and made from several hundred saplings, held into an almost perfect circle by baling wire and whatever, and by the sheer strength of Kevin's cowboy will.

Next door to my mothers mothers place is my mothers mothers sisters place, from a time when family and community were indistinguishable, a time when towns were just big families, and you only needed a few families and a couple of loners to make a town. A time before the family’s had all scattered. Both house’s both looked the same, with the well, and the wrap around porch, the fig trees and plum trees from which jelly's and preserve were made. Under pecan trees in the back yard there would be a stove, used for canning during the summer, sitting there bare like the trees in the winter, under the glare of the Vapor light.
I'll look to see if the big iron cauldron is still there, right in the middle of the yard, used for boiling cane and sorghum to make the syrup and molasses Uncle Jack liked on his biscuits in the morning.

I’ll walk back out to the road, along the stretch I remember from when I was a very little boy and my cousin Patricia had taken me by the hand and we picked flowers from the roadside to make a bouquet. Blues and reds and little pinks, I thought she was beautiful, this young girl Pat who would become Miss Little Rock a few years later, and maybe tomorrow there will be flowers for me to pick, and to place there for Pat's mother, my mothers sister. Maybe there will be enough blooms for all four sisters; raised in Alto Texas, they are together in Alto Texas, still.

Maybe there will be flowers enough for all the great aunts, and all the grandfathers and grandmothers, all the cousins and second cousins, and half brothers.
Maybe there will even be one tiny one for Uncle Jack, the good man with the barbed wire wit and big heart.
It seems certain parts of the family haven’t scattered after all.

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!”