Napkin poems from today:

It just happened
A little tiny toad
Leaped on my hand
While gardening today. I
Was trying to access its weight in waiting.
They are always about to leap, frogs. So
You aren’t sure what they weigh. But it waited long enough
For me to sense the weight of the breath of life
At least, on my hand today. And then we, both, moved on
But it just happened.
//
“When you really fall asleep,
It’s like the world goes silent.”
My wife said to me today.
Not sure if that is good or bad
Maybe I talk too much when awake
But regardless, her words, strangely
Moved me.
//
I’ll return as soon as I am cognizant. Love said.
//
Baby yellow butterfly on red turk’s cap’s pinkish tips
And ants beneath her
Not to mention doves trying to land on spinning bird feeder nearby
And then clouds and volcanoes somewhere else rolling/erupting…
All proclaiming still, it is today.
//
Go slowly today
Until you really
Need to speed up.
For love’s sake, go!—both
Slow and fast.
//
The crooked tree in my backyard
Is trying its best with what it has been given
Between the mighty oaks and pecans
It can barely lean towards sun
And grow in between things upwards as it can
But what looks like sideways to the rest of us.

It just happened
A little tiny toad
Leaped on my hand
While gardening today. I
Was trying to access its weight in waiting.
They are always about to leap, frogs. So
You aren’t sure what they weigh. But it waited long enough
For me to sense the weight of the breath of life
At least, on my hand today. And then we, both, moved on
But it just happened.

“When you really fall asleep,
It’s like the world goes silent.”
My wife said to me today.
Not sure if that is good or bad
Maybe I talk too much when awake
But regardless, her words, strangely
Moved me.

I’ll return as soon as I am cognizant. Love said.

Baby butterfly
And ants beneath her
Not to mention doves trying to land on spinning feeder
And clouds and volcanoes
All proclaiming, it is today.

Go slowly today
Until you really
Need to speed up.
For love’s sake—both
Slow and fast.

Diary notes, towards an art gallery:

WHAT WOULD MY OWN ART STUDIO LOOK LIKE?
 Tom Wait’s in “Mystery Men”! Meets Anselm! Lots of objects of possibility around like in my dream. Two headed brooms, and old fossils and sky watching equipment…sort of the objects I have crammed into the Duck now. I couldn’t really pull that off in San Fran. But maybe in Europe? As it is, I’m always in other’s studios or in their backrooms. But what if I had my own?! Hum….like that house in my dream with many floors, theaters and bowling alleys. Sort of like the Alamo space they took over from the local school. Old poster art everywhere, and film archives etc. That’s the style of space I could make art in. Hum….whatcha think God? OR am I one who just creates on the run or road? And or, should I incarnate part of my studio metaphor in this new structure we are building? Hum….in some ways, the space dictates the type of art we make. You can see this with the abstractionist studios…..hum…..all I know is that I am getting to the point where I’m making enough interesting art, it would be fun to have room to show and share or show and tell about/from it!
I’ve always wanted a space like Julio’s house, where I could make it all magical, and share my dream life with others. Hum….I saw warehouses or old abandoned churches possible spaces…..
I’ve always wanted some space I could take people into which inspired them, was out of the ordinary. Something which imparted wonder. Amy’s thing is different. That’s ok. But maybe I need my own art studio wonder cathedral space to incarnate who I am in Him? Or shall I always be an in between artist leaving my poems of bathroom walls and fences? I really don’t know. But an airplane hanger would be cool! Thankful for what I have to incarnate now, but I can see the type of space I would flourish in! As in my dreams! And not unlike Tom Wait’s space in that film. OR what Guido is building! Hum….
And yet some of the best art was made in rented apartments in low income neighborhoods! We are framed by what we are given. I do feel like my ellipses are spilling out the windows now though! I’ve got more art that I can house! And some of it is ok, if not good yet! I’ll keep making it better.

Old cameras, radios, sky watching apparatus, circus poster art, film archives, objects of possibility….my kind of art studio. Old statues from churches, airplane fuselage, school buses….Meziprostor, meets, the St Lous museum, meets Anselm, meets Tom Waits….thinking of spaces which have inspired me, much more than museums…..I usually just pop up my mobile tent, but what if my art studio were a permanent installation which could be shared with generations to come…..an art amusement park of sorts. Like that crazy guy in the desert, or the other fellow in the Deep South who preached his sermons on in spray paint on old cars….what we birth in our studios, those metaphors spill out into the general world and even the overflow is inspiring!
A place to house and unpack my metaphors! Yes, Lord.
I would want it very unique and identity focused. Really authentic. Where would I even start Lord? TO build my rooftop art studio to frame what I carry in You? It would be very social! Like Warhol’s space.
I always wanted to live in one of the coolest places I’ve found. Now I have an ambition to make one! So others can live inside the church circus! This project has some of it, but not all I see. I want a place of wonder! A chapel to wonder! A Big Top! Or to be part of building and creating that magical space!
Spaces that really inspire! Like Julio’s house or Guido’s gallery house etc. That level! What normally happens with me, is that I find those spaces and bless them. But what if I lived in one! Or, what if I already do! My life is not ordinary, I know that. I myself am a traveling circus. But to have a structure which reflected it! Wow! Living art, that people could come to after I crossed over!

Trees in stained glass
How we imagine glory
Reaching upwards
But rooted in brown earth.
//
Squirrel song
At dawn, she was busy and frisky.
Then by afternoon, busy again (but more languidly), this time tight rope walking
Across our human telephone wires. Then by evening, burying nuts
From God’s trees. And there is no retirement for her. She leaps freely,
Across our days. Like a quick poem.
//
Cardinals, when young, try to grow Mohawks
But do so slowly, so at first
It is just a tuff- side-tucked;
Trying to be cool
Enough to join the crew
And turn pure red.
Like their parents.

No histrionics please
Let me die as a quiet leaning sign
By the edge of a long country road
Running between nations.
No billboard, brand or live streaming please.
Like a blue bird who is done with flight,
And simply falls to the ground on a certain night, readied
To fly into the next Sky, by morning-
As some sort of angel
I presume. Carrying her own history
With her—as we do
On wings of another’s Glory.

To Thomas Merton:

Let me die in plein aire in plain air or water or something alive.
No hospitals please! No tubes and incisions, or heavy after-costs.
Just bird songs, and people building things, or planting potatoes;
And breeze—oh yes, please let there be a breeze-
Preferably from the East.
And if, they cut my head off, fine
As long as I’m languid, rested and wild
And thankful that it was quick!
Like a fox who darts out, suddenly hit by a car
Or a squirrel who takes one too many leaps of faith
And lands on a transfuser in rain
Or a monk who gets electrocuted in a bathtub
While studying stillness.
Let me die like that,
Or like Enoch who saved
On funeral costs! Or, Elijah, who simply ascended….
Or Philip who saved on airfare.

To Thomas Merton:

Let me die in plein aire in plain air or water or something alive.
No hospitals please! No tubes and incisions, or heavy after-costs.
Just bird songs, and people building things
And breeze—oh yes, please let there be a breeze-
Preferably from the East.
And if, they cut my head off, fine
As long as I’m languid, rested and wild
And thankful that it was quick!
Like a fox who darts out, suddenly hit by a car
Or a squirrel who takes one too many leaps of faith
And lands on a transfuser in rain
Or a monk who gets electrocuted in a bathtub
While studying stillness.
Let me die like that,
Or like Enoch who saved
On funeral costs!
Or Philip who saved on airfare.

How it began

Curt played a baroque flute now, but really he was a singer. He lost his range and couldn’t get church gigs anymore, even through he knew every Handel and Bach song by heart, and could do all the notation.
After he couldn’t get work in the churches around town, he decided to take up flute. He already knew classical flute and wanted a new challenge, so he took up baroque flute. At his age, this was a bold move.
He ordered his first one from Germany—hand made mahogany with a red toned finish.
All these years, his wife had wanted him to give up music and get a real job. And he had tried. He taught music theory for a while at the local community college. But after a year, he realized he really didn’t like teaching. He was a practitioner after all. He prided himself on being a real practitioner. So he returned to singing, until the accident.
He thought it was just age, but he had fallen off his bike one day and landed right on the front of his neck. Something had been damaged in his wind pipe. He went to the doctor, who said he had some internal bruising, but should be fine.
He wasn’t, by the next week, he had lost his upper register.
It never came back after that fall.
So he had to choose a new medium. He chose the baroque flute. It would take time to learn well, and he needed to meet someone who could accompany him as he did. A harpsichordist would be ideal.
So he put a notice up on line: “Looking for a harpsichordist to play baroque music with; if interested call Curt.”
A week later, a woman wrote him, and said she would adore playing baroque again. That music, especially baroque, was a passion she couldn’t let go of-it was her first love and passion. Where could they meet.
He still had access to the community college’s rehearsal hall. So he decided they meet there.
Three days later they did.
She was tall and had long black hair and high cheek bones and slavic eyes. She must be Czech or Russian he thought, as she walked in. Wow, she even looks baroque!
The rehearsal room had a harpsichord in the corner, and after introducing themselves, they decided to get right into playing.
Just then, right before they started playing, he got a text from his wife.
“If you return to music, I’m leaving.” Was all it said.
He took a deep breath, pulled out his new flute, and said to the tall woman—“Ok, where shall we begin?”

All his life he had traveled. Traveling was home to him. Now all that had changed. With the pandemic and his illness he was stuck in one place.
So, he had to figure out something. How do people stay in one place? He wasn’t sure.
Then he met the nurse Pam. He had more than attraction, when she was giving him a bath in the mornings, He wanted to see inside her to be one. This had never happened to him. When she came into the room, he felt that old feeling like he was traveling, but it was more like scuba diving in this case.
He had never scuba dived but now could imagine it through his feelings for Pam.
This must be why people stay married, he thought, and just choose one person to go deeper and deeper with, into the endless mystery of identity. Or something like that anyway.
Still, even with Pam, he needed to get out.
The courtyard of the old red brick hospital was lined with Crepe Myrtles—pink mostly but one had pink and white blossoms on the same tree.
He noticed them daily, in order to keep in sync with the seasons through his window on the fourth floor, but he felt so removed from them, like looking at a painting, but not being able to smell and touch the subject. Life had become a simulacrum, and he wasn’t sure he could live in a copy of life without touching the real thing.
So, he asked Pam one day—“Can you take me down to the courtyard?” She said the doctor had forbidden him to leave the floor he was on. But she would “See what I can do.”
One night, he heard a creak at his door. It was close to midnight, so he was startled. It was Pam.
Come on Sean, let’s go.
She had a flashlight, which was the only light on the floor. She took him to the fire escape down the hall, and quietly opened the door. The night air arrested him with life. He was suddenly intoxicated feeling.
He grabbed her hand, so as not to stumble down the steep steel stairs.
Once at the bottom, she turned off the flashlight and everything was moon illuminated. She led him to a bench just beneath the half circle of trees.
He could not see their color at night, but the powdery fragrance they emitted seemed to enter his pores. He suddenly felt so alive again!
They sat down together, at first at a distance, then Pam drew closer. It was almost too much stimulation for Sean.
“I wanted to tell you something.” She said.
“The doctor said, you may not have long, which is why I’m sneaking you out.”
At first, he didn’t respond, as he was so overwhelmed by all the new sensations.
Then snapping out of it, he said: “Well then, would you marry me?”

All they had was lawn furniture in the house, and now even it was back out on the lawn. The house was vacant.
They had mutually kicked one another out.
Life was a blank canvas again, and they were both staying full time with friends.
He had been a truck driver, then started working delivery for Amazon. One day, on one of his deliveries, he met some one, and one thing led to the next. After several deliveries, he stopped delivering boxes and just came to visit her.
She wasn’t ready to be with a delivery guy, so said she would see him if he had more deliveries. So he started ordering things for her. Little things at first, like salt shakers, as he could see she had a collection up on the wall. He ordered salt shakers from all over the world, city by city, she was mounting a good collection now. He had hoped this would pay off, when one day, she looked right at him, and said, “You can’t buy love, you have to earn it.”
He left, and decided not to return.
He would go home and live in the blank canvas. But it was too late. His wife was already there with her mom living as if all was normal.
He didn’t even go to the door. He saw what it was, and decided to rent a nearby hotel.
It was an old Motel 6, where he used to stay when truck driving. He liked how blue and white it was, and how the the sign lit up like a Jesus Saves sign on old churches around town.
One night it happened. She came by the hotel, having seen his truck out front.
She knocked softly on the metal door. He recognized the rhythms of her knocking.
He opened the door.
She looked straight into his eyes and said: “What do you really want it to be Sam?”
After having a sip of his Coors Light, and considering her question, he said.
“Well I would like some real furniture.”