Christmas 2020
Winter Solstice 2022 is upon us and it’s been four months since I wrote a word on this site. That’s a long and varied tale (like life!) that will have to wait for another time, and this Solstice will most likely be gone by the time anyone reads my attempt to check back and see if anyone out there still wants to read this stuff, my perspectives on what’s rolling round my brain.
This time of year has always held a powerful position in my psyche, the memories of quiet and cold and dark, of being in a threatening environment, and making life and death a breathing reality. It holds a feeling of loneliness I grew accustomed to, comfortable with, that awareness that no one had any answers. I came to that conclusion when I was a kid, and it’s what I believe is the poet part of me. We all have it. It’s just that some of us focus on it, obsess a bit (or more than a bit) and decide to write about it . . . compulsively. Obsessive compulsive behavior has been diagnosed as an illness on one hand, yet it is seen as absolutely essential to achieve greatness in any activity or pursuit— focus is the key to success!
We pretend that we all recognize that line between triumph and insanity. And psychiatry wants (us) to believe that we can know, or rather do know when that line is crossed, what’s at the root of its failure, and the ultimate cure to return to “normal”. I took a degree in psychology, wanted to know, to understand human behavior. My main motivation was that awareness I had as a child of being alone and completely in the dark. I wanted to know what the fuck this whole life was about. Obviously my alcoholic father had those same questions and doubts which fueled his endless searching as a reader and thinker. He came to some conclusions that didn’t sit well and chose to escape his cognitive dissonance by indulging a tried and true technique: the consumption of alcohol. And as most of you know, the more you drink, the more you drink. Eventually he capsized on his voyage into the deep. Yes, he was the primary motivation for my search: I wanted to save my old man.
My dad told me that his father told him, “We all love our Old Man no matter how much of a son-of-a-bitch he may be.” And while I don’t understand it, I do agree. Which makes us consider, “What is love?” Why does it come and go? What makes love last? How can it play all the various roles we ascribe to it? I’m guessing “love” has as many definitions as “fuck.” So it can mean whatever the fuck you want it to mean, right? Don’t you love that?! Yeah, words. Words dead on the page, words out of the side of your mouth, words of anguish, words of joy. Just when I want to scream or I resolve to shut-the-fuck-up, either of those opposite impulses drives me to want to write a poem, try to make some sense of it, release the pressure, rant a full-bodied roar, or find a way of expressing how regular avenues of communication fall short for me.
A poem is like a lottery ticket. The payoff is unpredictable, from “zilch” to “all the marbles.” The beauty is it won’t last long (like life?) and whatever direction it goes, it will make you think, which means it will force you to make your own poem, your own response, whether you write it down or not. Never let a poem that crosses your path go unread (or unsaid in your head)! It may be shit or it may be “eh,” but it could make your heart skip a beat. It could feed your heart and head for a week. The body/mind needs soul food.
So, this first poem, was given to me by my daughter-in-law, Sam, who found it scratched on the front page of a Missoulian newspaper back in March. Since she and Cache burn wood for heat, I gave them bags of newsprint for fire starter, and she noticed the scribbling before she turned it into ash. I don’t remember writing it, but when I read it, I liked where it was going. So it became a rescue poem, and like lots of rescues I’ve known, it has its quirks (aren’t we all rescue poems for better or worse?).
Them those unexpected welling tears, the proof you love, are loved maybe, the best you'll get on this bat-shit trip, cherish her/him, cherish them, it takes more than you, it takes forever to conclude, and you can't know that end, but you feel the tango beat, animal power gracing your feet as swelling heat pounds inside, now two makes three —for Sam & Cache
Math is not my long suit, and this whole post is about how things add up and don’t add up for me. It may be that math will eventually explain all this shit, but I most likely will be thinking about last night’s movie or dream I had when the formula is being revealed. Squirrel! Or something will trigger a poem idea, and what’s left of my mind will be gone. Anyhoo, while visiting a friend of mine who shared his “bah-humbug holiday poem” with me, I pulled “Them” out of my back pocket where I carry a supply of pocket poems neatly folded along with a handkerchief for emergency situations kinda like the band-aids in my wallet in the other pocket. I let the pocket poems accumulate there to better balance out my bulging “George Costanza sized” billfold in the other pocket. “Even Stephen” is my obsessive compulsive middle name.
So I pull out “Them” being my latest (and therefore greatest) effort, I read it to him, and that goddamn last line stuck with me driving all the way back home prompting me to pen the following poem. Written before the actual Solstice (as I’ve warned before, poets are fucking liars) it was inspired by the same feelings of melancholy-love this season always arouses in me coupled with the great mystery of what holds us all together. On behalf of my better half and myself, we wish you and your families all the sweet and dirty love you can muster and hold. I’m goddamn glad to be here and to have known so many wild and wonderful days full of assholes and angels (the latter being made up mostly of kids and animals). Let’s all pledge to work toward peace, do what we can, and make an effort each day to love one another.
Two Makes Three
more or less I guess
considering eternity
the what have yous
and what have wes
these continuous unfoldings
breathing mysteries
we embrace face
and negotiate
our space reminding
ourselves the snow-
covered path we walk
after dinner on this
winter solstice eve
up Rattlesnake Creek
in a flurry of flakes falling
and listening to the whisper
trickle-gurgling of the stream
bright night under a cloud
blanket lit by urban
glow we know it's best
to stroll squeaking soles
me quiet you praising
this slow walk outside
in wonder snow light
my soul wondering
how time passed so fast
the last fifty years
and why we've held on
to one another watching
others dissolve
and disappear maybe
for me it's simply
the dogged example
of my parents hanging-
on till the bitter end
I can't speak for you
of course I'm lazy too
would rather stare
out the window
than follow the crowd
witnessing another
agreed upon miracle
there is much to see
and do before we're through
but I can't escape
the infinity of me
of what I can and can't be
all I can do is thank you
for the company
for holding onto me
transforming entropy to love
—for Pampeace