Hallway to Nowhere

Category: poems

  • When Worlds Collide: A Disconnect

    I spent this morning on the Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Digital March On Washington. It was very intense; extremely moving; and full of testimony of people affected by the issues: systemic racism; ecological devastation; lack of healthcare; low wages; the war economy; and at every turn, POVERTY in some form or another would rear its ugly head. There was so much pain, fortitude, suffering, hope, grit, and determination in the stories I heard, the songs that that were sung, the interpreters’ gestures (one man in particular stood out as a rock star), and the fiery calls to action from the organizers. There were tears, also. From me, much of the time.

    AND then there was this, going on at the same time outside my door. My landlord and family were getting his nice boat ready to take out on the lake. It was hooked up to his truck, which is one of his many vehicles. He owns more cars than he has family members. This is in addition to the afore-mentioned boat and his Winnebago, an R.V. approximately the size of my apartment. Oh, and I almost forgot to include his motorcycles. I’m unsure as to how many of those he has. (I lose count between motorcycles, dirt bikes, and vintage scooters.) The point is, my landlord is a dude who LIKES his toys and can afford a lot of them. Nothin’ wrong with that, right?

    It’s just….the collision between THOSE two worlds today felt so surreal, especially given some of the other conversations I’ve had with the guy. Won’t go into those, but I’ve written about at least one of them earlier. Let’s just say sometimes I feel like I might be living here as cover, or something similar. A friend has to talk me out of moving on a semi-regular basis, saying that one, SOMEONE’S gonna give him money and two, maybe, just MAYBE, our little collisions do some actual good.

    Sigh. It’s not that I dislike him or anything. (Most of the time.) But he lives in a world of white male hetero Christian privilege that is SO pervasive and pernicious here. I suspect that, apart from me sticking my queer disruptive head in every now and then, he never hears anything with which he DOESN’T agree, unless it’s portrayed in a negative and unflattering light. He is literally lord of his domain, though he makes frequent wife jokes to the contrary. Despite being a university-educated attorney, though not of the court room variety, he shows little aptitude for critical thinking, IMO, and seems content to let the television do his reasoning for him. (I’ve heard him parrot Fox talking points almost verbatum.) His favorite to repeat to me, and I confess I do not know the origin, is one about how everyone has stopped talking to one another. “Everyone,” in this case, being “progressives” and “conservatives”. I point out to him that WE talk fairly frequently and get ignored. I go on to say that I make a POINT of talking to conservatives, and I have some other friends who also talk to conservatives on a regular basis. Also gets ignored. (Maybe we don’t count? Not lawyers? Not government officials? Idk….) What I don’t say is how, given that we keep having the same conversation over and over, I’m hardly surprised that more progressives and conservatives don’t talk. This is damned hard work; it is tedious AF; and, frankly, I don’t think it’s working.

    https://youtu.be/omEX35pbelI

  • STOP (Poem)

    Texts do not get answered.

    Phone calls go to voicemail.

    Or else I interrupt a task.

    Email disappears into the void.

    So this is life now. I get it.

    If I need a specific thing done,

    Then that will get an an answer.

    And you, being the kind friends

    That you one and all are,

    Will more than likely do that thing.

    But quit this wanting to TALK.

    It’s intrusive, time-consuming,

    Exhausting, and frankly

    NO-ONE WANTS TO HEAR IT.

    People are busy.

    It’s not that they don’t care.

    But just stop, k?

    That’s why you have a dog.

    Abingdon Abraham Lincoln Alabama alt-right Appalachia atheist autumn breathe Buddhism buddhist change Christian Christianity Civil War compassion connection death depression Donald Trump gratitude grief Hillary Clinton home illusion immigration impermanence kindness LGBTQ love meditation memories mental health mountains mourning path poem poetry pouncepunk art challenge practice suicide tea tears Texas Trump wisdom

    Abingdon Abraham Lincoln Alabama alt-right Appalachia atheist autumn breathe Buddhism buddhist change Christian Christianity Civil War compassion connection death depression Donald Trump gratitude grief Hillary Clinton home illusion immigration impermanence kindness LGBTQ love meditation memories mental health mountains mourning path poem poetry pouncepunk art challenge practice suicide tea tears Texas Trump wisdom

    Abingdon Abraham Lincoln Alabama alt-right Appalachia atheist autumn breathe Buddhism buddhist change Christian Christianity Civil War compassion connection death depression Donald Trump gratitude grief Hillary Clinton home illusion immigration impermanence kindness LGBTQ love meditation memories mental health mountains mourning path poem poetry pouncepunk art challenge practice suicide tea tears Texas Trump wisdom

  • Mortal (Poem)

    I am evanescent:

    A transient senescent shadow

    Hidden in the already dark background.

    I once would make myself known

    And keep some aware of my presence.

    Now that effort has proven

    Costly beyond imagine.

    No more ventures beyond the shade;

    No more steps into the light.

    Night is coming quickly for us all.

    I await here on my own.

    An Impermanence mala…..

  • Food Blogs (Straight-Up Rant)

    Warning: This is a biased opinionated RANT about food blogs. So read on at your peril, k?

    Because of being burnt too many times in the past, I now have a practice with food blogs:

    I look at the PIC of the blogger first. IF they have a “blonde (usually but sometimes not), pencil-thin (like they live on a stalk of celery a day), Insta-perfect” photo and are dressed in clothes no-one would DREAM of actually wearing in a kitchen to cook”, then I move on. That tells me quickly that the recipes are probably not theirs. They are probably using this as a side-hustle. The blog will contain more chatty details about their wonderful life with husband and kids (which I do NOT care about) and less info about the important thing: RECIPE. There will be GREAT REVIEWS from readers saying HOW EASY the recipes are; how every recipe turned out JUST as it looked on the site; and the glow will fill my screen as I read the comments while I’m trying not to gag. (And I know from past experience with these type of bloggers that the reason all of these comments are SO positive is that they REMOVE the negative ones.)

    So. I look for blogs that are written by bloggers that LOOK like people who cook; that I’ve found in the past to have recipes that reliably DO work, even for folks with special diets; who don’t go on and on interminably about non-food matters (I wanna read about that, I’ll KUWTK-ugh); that have been vetted by friends who also have special diets. OR are written by flour and other product makers, cook books, and cooking sites. Those ALREADY have revenues and aren’t looking to gouge me. (Yeah, some ads might crop up if you don’t have ad-blockers, but that’s a different convo.) But they are less likely to have recipes stolen from other sites, weird recipes, or fake reviews. AND added bonus: no extraneous lifestyle chat!

    Okay, rant concluded. I got that out of my system. Do I feel better now? Maybe. Consider yourself warned, if you have hadn’t discovered this already about food blogs.

  • Stay (Poem)

    I think I’ll stay just a little bit longer.

    Life here in the mountains can still surprise me.

    A wood turner who makes steampunk lamps.

    A chef who practices traditional Chinese medicine.

    A professor who tickles trout for photos .

    A dear friend here from far away who is found to be a distant relative.

    (And that latter, I’m convinced, is some sort of Appalachian magic-

    Because in the mountains ALL folks are related!)

    And that’s just to mention people.

    If I were to start talking about these things.

    The way the sky looks when a storm is about to hit.

    The Canadian geese and the train whistle that help rhythm my day.

    The greenery of the town, and my back yard in particular.

    (Ere the six old trees that stand sentinel come down in a bad wind,

    I might not live to write again.)

    And music. Sigh.

    The music strikes a visceral cord in me.

    The same wail that I heard in the old Cajun songs runs through songs.

    So at the end of the day, I feel at home.

    One of my trees.

    And how could I leave a place that produces music like this?

  • Happy Ending (Poem)

    I write no happy ending.

    Do not ask for one.

    No-one gets out alive,

    Unhurt, or whole.

    We are maimed, wounded, bleeding out….

    The walking dead, except we refuse to stop.

    Until we are face down in the dirt.

    I want to stop.

    Now.

    Face down in the dirt…..

  • Melancholia Blend (Poem)

    I work as an alchemist

    To blend my tea.

    I start with aged shou puerh

    to remind you of the past,

    whether yours, the earth’s, or simply that of tea.

    The specifics are not my concern.

    I add toasted rice-brown and wild-

    to add contemplative notes.

    Think about what you will.

    Then some cacao nibs and bits of candied ginger

    (not too much)

    for a bit of sweetness,

    because life can be harsh.

    But this is a tea true to my life,

    so I also add at the end,

    vetiver oil and aloeswood oil and cayenne pepper flakes.

    Because dry and bitter and heat

    must also play a part in this tea song.

    Listen to Leonard Cohen when you sip it

    and perhaps read Albert Camus.

  • The Value of 15-minute Organizers

    I recently heard (second-hand) that one of my progressive organizations’ board leaders said, “I have no more time for 15-minute organizers.” By this I take to mean, they have no time for anyone who is: NEW TO THE GAME or NOT ALL IN ALL THE TIME or NOT ON BOARD WITH ALL THE ISSUES or I don’t know what else. And I think that by making this statement, they are drawing a lines that excludes basically everyone I know, excepting (perhaps) the local paid employee of that organization. It certainly puts ME out of the game, and I’ve been historically committed to the progressive fight. But more importantly, I think that it fundamentally undermines the way in which the organization ITSELF functions, in terms of how it teaches its people to reach out around issues.

    15-minute organizers might be: new; time-limited; single-issue; or operating under under other constraints. If they are NEW, then OF COURSE they should be taught. Expecting someone new to immediately be a fulltime 24/7 activist is akin to throwing someone, not into the deep end of the pool, but into the ocean out of a boat and driving away. If they are time-limited but still WANT to participate, then why not let let them? If you want an ENTIRE organization of fulltime paid employees, then better get a much better budget. And if they are issue-driven, see below:

    If ISSUES, not people, are truly what drives us, and we are supposed to be lead by those AFFECTED, then 15-minute organizers ARE VALUABLE. They are going to be issue-driven and motivated. IF they find that the work of organizing is effective and powerful, then they might transition into more long term members of the organization or move to find other progressive outlets that they can work with. IF we can get them to turn out for SOMETHING, then we have a chance to persuade them to return for other things. But even if they do not, then that thing that they DID turn out to help with still gets the benefit.

    I hope I have made my case for the value of 15-minute organizers.

  • Minneapolis Burning And The Social Contract

    The American Heritage Dictionary defines SOCIAL CONTACT:

    • n.A usually implicit agreement among the members of an organized society or between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each.
    • n.An implicit agreement or contract among members of a society that dictates things such as submission of individuals to rule of law and acceptable conduct.
    • n.an implicit agreement among people that results in the organization of society; individual surrenders liberty in return for protection

    I argue, along with many others, that African Americans in Minneapolis were demonstrating that for them, the social contract has frayed to breaking point. Or indeed has not even existed, since America refuses to grapple on any systemic basis with the institutional and deep-seated racism that is built into the foundation of society here. The question is not “Are the African American participants of the Minneapolis riots justified in their actions,” but rather, “When will MORE take place?”

    AND WHY SHOULDN’T THEY? If I were a person who had black or brown skin, I’d be angry (and also scared but more angry) ALL THE TIME now. In the background somewhere, at least. Maybe the reason EVERYONE in local African American communities isn’t rioting, throwing things, and burning down their local police department is just that they are one, living their lives AT THE MOMENT and two, they haven’t gotten pissed off enough yet. But we -every community EVERYWHERE-have our moment of reckoning coming. We can do better: START TRAINING OUR POLICE DEPARTMENTS IN IMPLICIT BIAS TRAINING; HIRE MORE OFFICERS OF COLOR; START COMMUNITY-WIDE PROGRAMS IN RACIAL JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION; ELECT MORE DIVERSE ELECTEDS ON A LOCAL LEVEL AND MOVE ON UP; TRAIN AND HIRE MORE TEACHERS OF COLOR. Just For a start. I’m no expert.

  • No Return (Poem)

    Stop talking about going back to normal.

    Things won’t be like they were.

    Get your head out of the sand

    Or wherever else you have it located.

    Grow up, for the sake of the rest of us.

    THIS is life now.

    We will have to be more careful for each other.

    Caution and distance will be built into function.

    And PPE will become fashion accessories.

    Get ahead of the curve.

    Wear your fucking mask.

    100,000 DEATHS

    As of May 28th, 2020 and counting……