Fool

Writing in Oregon is like
tying your shoe in a poem.

These days there is no time
for a fool to work his miracles.

Someday,
we will find out Just What the Heck's Behind that Locked Door.

'Til then
we tie our shoes together
and try to run with the wolves.

In the poem about the poem,
with no time for space
and no space for time,
we asked a question,
and the answer
came in
sound.

The poison makes the black ants pause,

Their small heads bowed

As if in prayer.

Now they kneel in one direction,

Since they know

We must worship what destroys us.

Dude, we got infrastructure issues.

Morrison had almost finished dressing that morning, but he stood for a while staring out his bedroom window. Across the street, gusts of a south wind shook the neighbor’s swingset and moved the empty swings back and forth. One of the swings was built for two kids, the kind they actually climbed up into and sat down facing each other. It had a canvas cover above, a parasol really, to keep out the sun. He didn’t think a cover like that was designed to keep out the rain, not the way it rained in Oregon, anyway, and who would send their kids out to play in the rain? He stood watching the swing, his mind empty.
After a while, it seemed like he ought to be moving on.
"Okay," he said to no one, bending over to slip on his loafers.
Morrison patted his shirt pocket, but he’d quit smoking a few months ago. Funny how the habit persisted long after the addiction faded, like a shadow that kept walking down the street after you went in the house. These things had a life of their own.
Despite the persistence of the habit, he suspected that his brain chemistry had changed. It seemed his life had more empty spaces in it now that he wasn’t using cigarettes to punctuate his experience. He had more time to experience the passage of time. He had time for stuff he’d never paid attention to before. He stared out his window at the neighbor’s swingset. He listened to the sound of trains passing in the distance. He watched a pot of cold water heat and come to a boil.
It felt right to do these things. He felt like he’d missed something along the way. He tried to remember what the hell he’d been doing with himself over the past few years. He found he could remember very little. He remembered Christmas and birthdays and a few other nice days that really stood out, but the rest was a blank. If he had no memory of a particular day, wasn’t it sort of like he hadn’t even been alive that day? Not that he really worried about it; he just wondered.

At work, he had just sit down at his desk to open his email when his boss rapped sharply on his office door.
"Morrison?"
"Yes?"
"How’s your schedule looking this morning? You got a minute?"
He glanced down at his planner. The day’s date, Thursday, March 15th, was completely blank.
"Fine. Fine," he said, "What’s up?"
"Buddy, we’ve got to talk about your business."
His boss sat down across from him and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He was a large African-American with close-cropped hair, almost bald. He wore impeccably tailored suits and white oxford shirts made to order by a shirt-maker in London.
Morrison sighed.
"Yeah, I know."
The way his boss was sitting, his head was only a few inches above the top of Morrison’s desk. His boss looked up at him with a pained expression.
"We go back a ways, so this isn’t easy for me either. If you were anybody else, I’d have put the noose around your neck last month. You know how it is around here."
"Yeah, I know. I’m sorry to put you in that position."
"Yeah," said his boss, looking down and inspecting the palms of his hands, shaking his head.
Morrison stared at the shading of his boss’s hair pattern. A section to the right of his crown had an inexplicable lack of follicles.
"Your name came up at the quarterly meeting up in Seattle last week."
"Oh."
"I can’t have the big guys getting any doubts about my leadership. You know how it is at my level. I’ve got ten fucking guys with microscopes staring over my shoulder. But that’s Biblical, see? To him who has been given much, shall more be given."
"Yeah. I gotcha."
"Just so we understand each other."
"I hear you. But what are we talking about, timewise?"
"Buddy, you know I’m not like that. It’s just that I’ve got to have you getting some ink on paper. I told those guys I’ve got faith in you. You’ve made me a lot of money in the past. You’re going to make me more in the future. We’re not so short-sighted as to throw a proven producer on his ass if he stumbles. That’s not good business. Do me a favor. Do yourself a favor. Don’t think about how much time you’ve got or you don’t got. That’ll just fuck your head up more. Just think about the money. Focus on the money, and all your problems disappear. Get on the phone. Set some appointments. Go out on some sits. Get some apps. Don’t do what some guys do, over-complicate the business. That’s paralysis by analysis. This isn’t rocket science. We’re all going to get rich together, but we’ve gotta keep our focus. Keep our eyes on the prize and all that old-school shit. I got faith in you, buddy, I really do. Everybody goes through this at some point in their career, and when you come out of it, your production goes up better than it was before. That’s a proven fact. It’s just tough while you’re going through it. You just have to get back to basics, bust through the barriers."
His boss stood up and reached across the desk and shook Morrison’s right shoulder. He smiled at him warmly.
"You’ll be O.K., buddy. You’ve just got to pay attention is all."

Psychedelic Light Show - IAS Recreation Area

Oh yeah, some indication I live in Oregon... hmm... today was cloudy and after nightfall, it started to sprinkle, but not a BIG rain... only someone living here would know that this was the weather for the Willamette Valley... also, there were ever-so-brief sunbreaks... but not many. Another thing: who else but an Oregonian (or, I suppose, a Washingtonian) would use the term "sunbreak"?

Sometimes I take little vacations inside my head. I'm not sure where I go, exactly, I just have the sense of returning after an absence of uncertain duration. "Where the hell was I?" I wonder, trying to remember what I was thinking about, but it flits away.

Something tells me that this sort of daydreaming is exactly why I was put on this earth. Everything else I do is secondary.

A fine day for bananafish. Yes-in-fucking-deedy. Whether, 't'is nobler to suffer the slings and arrows, etc., etc. Nice afternoon. Can't complain.

When I was a kid, I didn't dream of one day growing up and being a telemarketer. I wanted to be a porcupine.
I suppose the two have their similarities; people tend to bristle when I call them. It makes me feel prickly when people hurl abuse at me or hang up.
Still, you seldom see dead telemarketers lying by the side of the road. So, thankfully, the analogy stops there.