The Carolina

THE CAROLINA

I asked the man at the register
what the most popular dish at the restaurant is.

He said, "That sir, would be THE CAROLINA."
I said, "Well then, my good man, serve me up The Carolina."

Now I'm sitting here looking at "The Carolina"
and I can't figure out what it is I'm staring at.
Is it a sandwich? A casserole?
The Carolina is, for all intents and purposes,
a disgusting mind puzzle.

It looks like a broken piñata that's been
left out in the rain to die.
But what was the piñata filled with?
Macaroni? Pork? Shellfish?
The Carolina is supposed to be a signature dish,
but it is apparent that this "signature" was signed by a
swamp monster with no opposable thumbs.

Nothing about The Carolina makes sense.
It's like a dog in a tree.
It's a wedding in a grocery store.
It's junk mail.

The Carolina is a dead squirel wearing a party hat.

It's a horse in a hand basket.
It's a mushy pickle in a sock.

My friends, it is my professional advice
that you avoid The Carolina at all costs.
That means if someone has to die so that you
can avoid The Carolina, so be it.
It's worth it.

The Carolina will just make your day soggy and weird
and your sack of regrets
a few pounds heavier. 

Sometimes the Voice is Good

SOMETIMES THE VOICE IS GOOD

And suddenly the world became complicated.
And the act of being still became either too much to bear
or something I committed days to on end.

And I stopped doing things.
And I slipped into routine and lethargy.
And it took tremendous amounts of energy
to simply say, "Hello," to anyone at all.

Pretty soon the floorboards started to warp.
And my fanbelts started to squeak.
And spiderwebs began to pop up in what used
to be well travelled places.

The file cabinet began to swallow without chewing
and papers were suddenly everywhere.
Documents and certificates and things that
I'm told are essential
if you want to remain alive.

Dents popped up in the body work.
Occassional twitches to the left eye.
And moments of resign coupled with
that tiny, familiar voice recessed in the back of
my mind.

That little, quiet voice that thankfully repeats:
"Survive. Survive. Survive."







 

The End

i was sitting by the window, in my rocking chair,
watching the clouds,
the day i heard the news.

i received a call from a friend,
who'd been following the events closely.

"are you watching the news?"

"no."

"turn it on. any station. right now."

i hung up,
flipped my phone over to CNN,
and pressed PLAY.

my initial reaction was not shock or bitter disgust,
(as i always imagined it would be)
but instead, quite the opposite.

i felt nothing.

only a faint sadness,
floating aimlessly inside.
too heavy to fly,
too light to settle,
like a dry sheet
by an open window.

it turns out,
Life loves the unexpected,
and more often than not, the life you plan for yourself,
will invariably be poles apart from the life you end up with.

i always believed i'd be dead before 50.
but there i was,
sitting in my chair at 82 years of age,
drinking chocolate milk and listening intently
to the news as it echoed the story
of how a team of researchers and
a network of computers
composed every song
conceivable.

a monumental day.

each song,
written over a decillion times,
each version,
different by a yoctosecond.

i was 82 years old,
and it had happened.

music was, in the perspective of a plan or mission,
complete.

a strange, new beginning
and a swift ending
to our most beloved language.

questions tumbled through me.
what now?
what would come next?
would this open doors
or simply be feared
and ignored?
how would we take it?
where would we go?

what would we do...

now that it has all been done?

seconds passed,
and the evening breeze bore its icy teeth for the
first time that year.

winter was early.
i pulled my jacket tight
as my chair cracked its legs against the base boards.
for a moment, the sounds of the city dissipated
and the world grew still.

i turned off my phone,
leaned back,
closed my eyes,
and listened to the squirrels on my roof,
the cicadas in the creek,
and the sound of the leaves

high in the trees

shivering.

You and Me

i met you on unstable ground,
a floor held up by truck jacks and paving stones,
and how it was that we didn't collapse
perplexed the on-lookers 
and most of our friends.

we hurt ourselves
and we ruined furniture
and we ruined clothes.

and we made a mess of things.

a wonderful mess at times.

an awful mess at others.

but even then,
we knew, that no matter what happened,
one of us would always be there for the other,
standing there in the background,
foggy and blurred,
waiting in the farthest reaches of the rear view mirror

as the other one drove away.

because when you base a friendship
not just on love,
but on the mutual, shared pain of existence
the bond becomes such that it can never
be razed.

and that's how I've always thought of you.

there waiting in my mirror.

my comrade
in rapture

my best friend
in pain.

expired

today i turned around
and all the meat in the refridgerator
had expired

i'm sad to say that this happens alot.
i turn around
and it's all over.

this didn't happen as much
when i was younger. 

perhaps i didn't buy very much meat
or perhaps i didn't read the labels
back then.

because i know time isn't moving
any faster than it was.

and i know the meat isn't moving
through time.

it's just me.
my carelessness.
my memory.

or maybe i'm just buying

expired meat. 

The Bells that Graze

incredible bells

ring beside me through the snow
into my chest and sink below
my lungs and push out a breath
that i've kept...
from long ago.

colors in my clothing fade,
the soul gets old as the shoe decays,
have you put enough dollar bills away
for your...
parent's graves

and yet I feel the creases graze
across my eyes each passing day
like the sound of kitchen plastic
crunching...
in my hand.

not from age, from walking on
a crooked ladder whereupon
I balance, weary, grasping at
a rail...
made of sand. 

and so i stumble, shuffle down
from suit to white, hospital gown
with pictures freezing memories
for...
the mind's decay.

and all i ask, is when i fade
to see the path my parent's laid
and hear my mother speaking out,
"do not
   be afraid."

Electrified

sometimes you get so worked up
that you find yourself hooked onto
a car battery
with your whole body vibrating
and your mind on a stair climber
and your logic
speeding so fast down the highway
that every safety cone
is laid to waste.

sometimes you don't recognize yourself
nor do you want to.

sometimes it feels like every person you speak to
is a colliding world
and it's a miracle
if you survive just one encounter.

sometimes you scream at nothing.

like a dog in space.

sometimes
you stick a
"do not disturb sign"
on your ear

and yet they still come a knocking.

and they tuck the sheets in too tight.

sometimes
the salt pours too fast
and
sometimes
you can't sleep at all.

and sometimes
you just don't care how flawed
you are
or how many clients may

read

your

secrets.

sometimes you just have to let it fly
with tired eyes
and just shake your head
and hope for the best.

because sometimes the day owns you.
and
sometimes the night is rough.

and sometimes you
just have to hang up your coat
and retire
worn,
dazed
and
defeated.




 

Speak it and Mean it?

If you speak with conviction and purpose
people will listen.

Not everyone will listen,
but some will.

And it's very possible that when you do this,
whatever you're saying,
will crest the peak of
what some may call
"a colossal pile of horse shit".

But if you say it with
conviction and purpose,
and a tear in the eye,
people will listen.

Because speaking from the heart
will ALWAYS turn some heads.

Even if the words were formed
completely in your ass.

 

The Little Things

I enjoy cracking open
a crisp, new deck of cards.

I love unwrapping the pristine, tightly folded paper
on an uncut block of butter.

I love peeling the gift wrap skin off a fresh tomatillo.

What does all this tell me?

Is it the little things that matter?

Maybe so.

Or perhaps it's time to get off my ass
and find some bigger and better things to enjoy,

like
WATCHING A FRIGGIN' VOLCANO ERUPT,

or
RIDING IN A LAND VEHICLE AS IT BREAKS THE SOUND BARRIER

or
EATING AN ENTIRE WHEELBARROW FULL OF ICE CREAM?

Maybe it's time to start enjoying the BIG things
and stop being such a pussy.

You Have To Show Up

just play the piano.
your song will come later.

just keep your head up
and move your fingers
and read the music that's been written.
your song will come when it's ready.
just show up,
put in your time,
and when you least expect it,
your song will be there.

and it will be magnificent.

and it will remind you of who you are,
what you love,
and why you do what you do.

just play the piano.
even if it feels empty,
and even if it feels cold.
just play the piano.

it's worth it, my friend.
play.

even if it feels like
the ceiling may collapse.

even if it feels uncomfortable
and wrong.

sit down and play.

it is extremely important
that you put it in the time,
even if you feel like
there's nothing there.

because when the time comes
that something IS there,

you must be ready.

because it may just be that very moment
that defines your life.

so play the piano, my friend.
and be patient.

your song will come.

and it will be better than you ever thought possible.

Tell the Truth

I'm sorry.
No.

You're a deceptive inventor.
An author of lies.

You can't just serve up some
empty blanket claim
and expect me to bite. 

Don't you know that
you're perjuring yourself
with those words?

For God's sakes, you stupid, local restaurant...

your burger is not

"World Famous".

Earth, Wind, and Monkeys

We are in the mountains.
It's cold in our cabin,
so the girlfriend and I light a fire.
Sitting there watching the amber flames chew their bark,
my mind starts searching for metaphors.

I think to myself:
Having a fire in your fireplace
is like having a raging, orange monkey with arthritis
locked in a crate,
hissing and popping and cracking its joints.

But then I think to myself:
No, that's not what it's like at all.
Nobody will understand that.
Derek, you won't even know what
you're talking about in a week's time.

But then I think:
Yet, there's got to be some way to
harness this fire, poetically, outside the usual
literary terms and devices?

Here is this thing, that is engrained in our history
as a savior of mankind.
It brought us warmth and light, security and nutriment.
Yet it is also this dangerous beast, capable of destroying
entire civilizations, and even the entire human race
if the conditions were right.

And it's right here in my house.

There's just this CAGE OF FIRE in my living room.

And when it gets hungry, I feed it logs.
Because it likes logs.
And even though it seems alive,
it's okay to kill it.
I'm just not supposed to let it out of its cage,
because it's kind of crazy
and has a very broad appetite. 

There's nothing like fire.
Sure, there are beautiful parallels:
Her bright, redwood hair unfolding in the sunlight,
like fire.
A flurry of cardinals in a windstorm, spiraling into the clouds,
like fire.

But we've heard it all before.
And I need to let this go

and stop trying
to harness

this

fire.

Desert Vignette

A herd of Black Angus cattle scattered across a white,
sunbleached, crusted desert off of I-40 in New Mexico.
Tiny, black dots among an arid, fallow field
that look like cracked black pepper on a slice of old, dry toast.

And there by the side of the road is a dented highway guard rail
all crumbled in the median around a smashed cement divider
lying wasted among cookie crumbs of concrete
and wrecked rebar that fans out of the wreckage like wirey fingers
or twisted pipe cleaners
or bent hangers wrestling in the trash.

And finally, a roadside cross
decorated with dusty, silk roses
and a loose, plastic grocery sack
that whips violently in the desert wind
yet manages to hang on
by a single loop of plastic that
never
lets
go.

Positive Injection

right now, you are alive.

right now, you are free.

and for as long as you can remember,
you have always had a desire to
give something to the world.

you may not be doing what you want to do
right now,

but you have the desire. 

and that is powerful.

and you must carry that with you.

because it is what makes you.

don't ever allow yourself
to forget
the fact
that despite
what the other voices tell you...

you will matter.

Road Kill

i thought it was the open ribcage
of a German Shepherd carcass
strewn across the highway
with its insides
as red as marinara.

but as my headlights lit up the thing
i saw that it was only an old leather coat
with a red flannel lining
lying in the road
like a dead German Shepherd

Still Going

it seems as more time goes by
i write less

 but oh, how my wheels still tear up the pavement,
my mind driving madly through the mountains,
giving even the underside of every highway overpass
my undivided attention.
as i drive i watch everything as if I might find some
lovely accident of nature

hidden in the cracks,
something frightening,
anything beautiful,

that might provide me with just enough distraction
to make it to the next minute.

 to make it to the next stop.

i don't know where i am going tonight.
but i do know that wherever the music takes me,
wherever my instincts pull the wheel,
i'll be alone with the patched and tattered moon,
the electric green grass lit by
the halogen street lights, flaring orange,
and the sodium fog as it breathes through the canyons
across the road,
bent but unbroken. 

everything quiet.

everything alone,
in its own, little world.

as it should be.

TO DO LIST

drink ice-cold water
from a clear, glass bottle
while standing in a piping hot shower

and try and watch the sunset every day

and listen to music
without lyrics, every now and then

and be sure to check your oil.

oh, and tell your friends and family
that you love them
OFTEN

work to survive.
stay committed.
and don't get too comfortable.

keep going.

just keep going. 

and remember to
drink ice-cold water
from a clear, glass bottle
while standing in a piping hot shower.

Mattress Filet

If you come closer than an earshot of a mattress salesman
while you're in the market for a fancy mattress
be wary of running your mouth too much.

A savvy mattress salesman will secretary your dialogue
and use it against you like he's Alger Hiss in a pumpkin patch.

And when it comes time to hack down the price
with whatever words you've cut on your bargaining axe,
that savvy mattress salesman will fire right back
and say something to the effect of:
"What do you mean you can't afford the Tempurpedic?
Aren't you having steak and lobster for dinner?"

"No, my clever mattress salesman, no
you must be mistaken.
We're just having plain, old, stale taco shells tonight.
No meat. No cheese. Just can't afford it." 

Freedom

you can't lift the cage
when you live inside it.

The Loss Factor

The ravage of time leaves battered those
that fail to accept its brutality
and choose to ignore its influence.

The world ends for all of us.
And it runs fast
like the blade of a diamond saw.
If you think you're strong enough,
and if you have doubts,
then bring your hands forth,
and you will be cut.

Death is an essential part of who we are
and it is something
that our busy, ordinary lives tempt us to forget.

Not until we lose someone close
or toe the line ourselves
do we remember
how very real and permanent it is.

And it is important to remember.

It is the fleeting immediacy of life
that pours the foundation
of the soul.

It is from this one, unflinching slab of stone
that we build ourselves
and gauge our progress.

Its transience permits us to comprehend the weight of things.

It allows us to cherish our time alone
and with others.

It allows us to prioritize our moments.

It allows us to acknowledge which experiences,
and which people
are worth fighting for.

My friends, we must never overlook
what a privelege it is

to feel the warmth of the morning sun
on our faces.