Too Many Times

big footed bitch,
clunky monkey.
top floor and all,
stomp your way
across the hall.

turn it down!
go to bed!
make it quiet!
and play dead!

got you here,
in the dark.
cut the lines
lost the spark.

made me cry,
though no more
makes the hate
easier than time.

Too Hot for Facebook

Thoughtless Happiness


promised passion,
tipsy-handed delights,
and loosened lips
wet with lust,
seeing you there
open, waiting.

promised passion
brushed passed your lips
hovering above
teetering, teasing,
making you wet,
open, and waiting.

pressing passion,
lighter now than before,
arching backs
begging for more,
warm hot holds,
opened and waiting.

pressing passions,
slip past the parted,
without pause,
eclipsing all else
pulling all in,
open and willing.

pushing passions,
lost in the swirl,
who takes who gives,
sweet answers to kisses,
questions for skin,
opening to wills.

promised passion
we're here now,
left in sweat, hot sheets,
awkwardly wet
happily sweet,
opened by me.

Songs That Give Me Goose Bumps and Stuff.

I have to preface this with the assertion that to say I love music would be a gross understatement… I ALWAYS have something playing somewhere, and I sing along, badly, when I can, and I wish I weren’t so untalented. I can hear everything, but I can’t create it…it’s like a block…I don’t know…maybe a birth defect. Like, I HATE math, and music is close to being math…so close. So I’m Salieri, and all you lucky Mozarts who “get it” and can play… kiss my jealous ass.

What can I do? Crown molding?


Goose bump Songs:

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: In the last part right when the cellos start … you know when. Holy cow. And then the choral, right when you think it’s over…but it ain’t.

Thunder Road –Springsteen; The lines, “you ain’t a beauty but eh you’re all right…” always get me. And of course, I belt it right along with it.

Don’t Stop Believing –Journey; Of course, if you don’t LOVE this song, you’re dead inside.


Forever Yours –Journey; That kinda love will always give you goose bumps.

The Best for Last- Vanessa Williams; I HAD those penthouses, my dog Duffer ate them, but I’ve always imagined her and a certain high-school crush singing that to me.


Blue Sky –Allman Brothers; I always think of my daughter now when I hear/sing this because she is my blue sky, my sunny day etc…

Still Fighting It- Ben Folds: What can I say. It completely parallels my encounter with my boy when I literally picked him up in Guatemala City and everything changed. AND it reflects my realization that my daughter is also so much like me that she deserves an apology

Why-Annie Lennox: Just hafta to wait til the end! Because I don’t think you know how I feel.

Thank You -Alanis Morrisette

Doesn’t Remind Me –Audioslave: That guitar solo? Likes hammering nails? Hell, who doesn’t?

Just Like Heaven –The Cure

Three Days-Jane’s Addiction: What a mantra the drum and bass beat! Tune in, turn on, and drop the fuck out! I got a man crush on Dave Navarro!

Baba O’Riley –The Who: This is the greatest rock and roll song ever written. I’ve almost ruined it for me listening to it so much. I almost killed my self wind-milling in my old gas F-250 coming home from the Amigos’ house…60 miles an hour and I knocked her in reverse on HWY 68! Good times, and yes, I was pretty tight.

En el Muelle en San Blas – Mana: I LOVE this song. The music alone gets you, you don’t need to know what they’re singing about!

Angels of the Silences –Counting Crows: When they get to “I’m gone, I’m gone…” Whew, good stuff.

Creep--Radiohead: I want you all to notice when I’m not around! The first time I heard the album version with the f-bomb brought the short hairs up! Changed the whole meaning in one fell swoop! And Mr Mackay says we shouldn’t say it m’kay?

L.A. Woman—The Doors: James Morrison is my real dad by the way. But that first riff. MMM that’s the shit.

Soul Singing—Black Crowes:

Rio-Duran Duran: But you hafta wait till the end…doo doo doodoo doo dooooo…

Bizarre Love Triangle—New Order: The 12 incher, not the album single!

Porch—Pearl Jam: indicative, baby!

Table for One--Liz Phair: Naw, I ain't a alcoholic.

Ray of Light--Madonna: Hell yeah, and the video's bad ass too. The opening strains and the middle "bridge?"

Rocky Mountain High--John Denver: Mentions seeing an eagle and how it made "him" a better man! Hell yeah...got a hunting story about seeing bald eagle and feeling great about it...and No he's not talking about passing a blunt around the campfire when "everybody's high!"

I’ll stop, but I could go on…


Tear Jerkers


Still Fighting It –Ben Folds: And some day you fly away, from me? Fuck. I’m tearing right now!

This Woman’s Work –Kate Bush: Oh man, tough stuff, when I’m whiskey soaked and on a crying jag.

Amazing Grace –Done with bagpipes: Even if I never met your dead ass before, I’ll cry at your funeral if you have “them” play this!

The Final Cut –Pink Floyd: Whew! Tough on a teenager full of angst. So it harkens it all back when it’s played now.

Night Swimming –REM: Remind me I am getting and old and am gonna die and step back.

En el Muelle en San Blas – Mana: I LOVE this song. The music alone gets you, you don’t need to know what they’re singing about! BUT it’s about loving someone who ain’t there.

Star Spangled Banner –Francis Scot Keyes: I saw somebody mention this under SAK’s post and it’s true. The older I get…

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: Yeah, I saw it done live on PBS a few years ago and cried like a baby. To think I was listening to someone’s brain, not reading it, not looking at a picture or using an invention of a dead guy, but hearing his thoughts like 200 years later?

Romeo and Juliet—Dire Straits: I hate getting dumped and this reminds of those times. Which makes me want to expound on something.

Do Re Mi—Julie Andrews et al Sound of Music Soundtrack: This corroborates what was said about songs dragging old memories up…I wish I were still there…

Don’t Give Up—Peter Gabriel w/ Kate Bush: Maybe it’s her voice?

Drugs or Me—Jimmy Eat World: I don’t know anyone addicted to drugs, but the song just gets to me. I wish I did.

Bang—Frankie Goes to Hollywood: I don’t know if that’s the right title, but he says, “I’ll protect you from the hooded claw…” That’s fuckin’ love!

A Feast of Friends—James Douglas Morrison: Again…remind me that I’m gonna die and you’ve ruined my day….

All I Want is You—U2: ‘Nuff said.

I could go on, but I won’t.

Albums I can listen to one end to the other:

Making Movies—Dire Straits
Ten—Pearl Jam
Every Picture Tells a Story—Rod Stewart if you take out Maggie May
Unforgettable Fire—U2
Rattle and Hum—U2
So—Pete Gabriel
Dark Side of the Moon—Pink Floyd And yes, we listened to it and watched The Wizard of Oz once.
Weezer Blue Album--Weezer
Back Home Again—John Denver
Sap—Alice in Chains
Jar of Flies—Alice in Chains
Nevermind—Nirvana
Skin and Bones—Foo Fighters


I’m sorry it’s so long. It’s humid outside…sauna humid…and I got no desire to got out, so you get this list.

Hunting Part 1

Papa has pushed me to comment about something that I think, many of y'all do not care about at all, nor have an inkling of what the allure of doing so is. Hunting, of course is the pastime he spoke of many years ago, and hunting is what I want to speak of now.

The beauty of it is that it's something you cannot liken to anything else you do. What other endeavour, if you're not an emergency room doctor, will instantly decide life or death for another creature? For whatever the motive, that ability alone is, in and of itself, pure unmitigated power.

One could argue that desire for such power is a selfish attempt to overcome shortcomings and I'd assume that could be true, for some, but for the hunter I doubt any such notion could be further from the truth.

The hunter is there to feel the moment, to separate himself from everything that has become common and unholy like MVP cards and reality TV shows and Nintendo Wii's... The Hunter is there to make himself a part of everything that is real, and natural and transient, like himself and you.

It may seem pointless, to the uninitiated, all the work and suffering which should go into preparing for the hunt, but the preparation is the most important part. The practice, the maintenance, and the willingness to work is what makes hunting humane and viable.

Humane hunting is not an oxymoron. The Hunter knows he must kill, but he knows he wants it done quickly, painlessly. Most callous is the lout that wounds and loses, or worse, leaves a deer. One who would do that is not the Hunter I speak of. Not the Man I want to be nor want to be associated with.
So, one must practice the art of the rifle, of the cartridge, and shooting. However, the grace and nuance of a rifle shot and shot well would be better left now for another rant, another note. We just want to get the wherefores of setting our sights on wild and free game and taking them crisply with character and no malice, only the desire to self sustain.
I only mention deer as they are most abundant now, now that progress and "civilization" have allowed deer to flourish and their predators to disappear. And that said, obviously, we, the sardines in a can are the last predation, the last hope of maintaining a viable deer population before wasting disease, and starvation take their toll.
I will describe to you now, the choking feeling, the compunction and anxiety with which we place a cross-hair upon an animal's vitals that are just a skin's thickness away from the light of day. For perspective feel your own ribcage, and judge the distance from fingertip to bone; a half an inch? Fragile are we, and them, and our hearts beat less than two inches below the ribs you feel...nestled between our lungs, only four inches that a bullet can pass through in less than a hundredth of a second.
Not different, our beating hearts, and yet, the cross hairs are upon the Deer's, and the tension builds within you, the Hunter, and you think you know what it will be like to kill another, yet you do not until you can, or have to. It is now, for you're about to take the life of a beautiful creature that weighs just as much as you do, shares a certain physiology with you, and, just like you, is only hard at work making a living in an unfair an capricious world
Yes now is the moment you decide, or find out if you can or cannot take the life, the life of a graceful animal, a creation of nature not so unlike yourself. I can, and do, and feel sick, and exhilarated and regretful and proud. Because I have put the work into the craft, and have built equipment that is up for the task, and have rose before dawn to partake in the ritual. I am proud to make a clean kill or harvest as we like to say. And I am there! I am now, which I will never be again, and nor will the Deer.
Indeed, that moment passed.

Whiskey for the Funky

Then you hafta write, there's not an excuse, in fact it's what's best; and it's better for you, and for us. For you must do it here for all to see and read and concur or reply.

Prescribed by the best before you or I, involves a short fat glass, and some crushed ice from the door. It must be crushed for the magic to work; must be made to melt quickly. It has to calm the burning whiskey that you pour among the loose rocks of ice.

Look close and see the bourbon melt the ice in filament thin strands of water coiling around the chunks like clear worms dropping, dodging the light and your sight, for the darkening depth of the glass. Yes, cover the ice, and stop.

Now, watch the glass sweat, wait for the ice to melt and mellow the liquor. This summer's air is wet enough to freeze on the outside of the glass yet perhaps not for you up north.

Wait and look at your blank page or screen or what ever you have to write with and think. Let the Ice do its work then grab your glass and put them to your lips, your ice and water and bourbon, but smell them too; close your eyes and touch the cold and draw them in, and taste them burn.

Now, you can start to put pen to paper, soft fingers to gentle keyboard, and bang out a chord, like music, like water it will come. And we'll be there to gather and read and feel like you do if for only a minute or two.

The Mythology of Mothershead

Just started re-reading one of the greatest books ever written, To Kill a Mockingbird (like Stephen Colbert says, when you write one this good, you don't need to write another) this summer and realized something I had forgotten. Let me take you back.



I "borrowed" the first edition printing of the book from my parents somewhere in the late eighties. I know it was theirs cause Dad put a sticker in it telling us so and, apparently, according to the sticker, they also wanted to allow epileptics in public schools back in 1960. I mean, who doesn't?



Flash forward to the nineties when I got my first apartment with my girlfriend freshly graduated from college--her not me. Well, at any rate, I was there and worked full time and loved my job and read that book. That book made me sad when I was done. It made me sad to think I'd never get to spend anymore time with Scout (most of all) or any of them as Harper Lee hadn't written anything else.



However, it planted in me a seed that didn't really start to germinate until we had moved out of the apartment, got married, moved out of our tiny yellow rental house, slid down the road and bought our first little white house. Then it hit me: I want a daughter. I want my own Scout.



Well, I think it hit us both, but Lisa couldn't help herself because she's a chick. I wanted a daughter and we tried real hard for a few years. But, there was trouble. And Lisa went to doctors and had surgery while I just kept doing my thing. In fact, one time I had to do my thing in a cup and take it to a doctor to make sure my thing wasn't wasting every one's time, but I would've done anything for the cause at that point--even boxers.



So. It all goes back to college when I boasted to my girlfriend (Lisa) as we lay around on some mattresses tossed on the floor, that since I was adopted, then I was sure to adopt a child when I got married and never fool with "baby weight" and post-partum depression etc etc. And that was the answer now. When the doctor boasted, "You'll never get pregnant without my help," and , "Treatments are 20,000 dollars a month," it dawned on her as well, that adoption might be the way to go.



Well, TKAM rears its head again. I read that China is throwing little girls at Americans and all we need is money and all we hafta do is get to the YMCA and sign up after a discussion about it with Carolina Adoption Agency. I tell Lisa, "Let's go, it won't hurt to see." And we went, sat through the whole thing and heard, "You must be at least 31 years of age to participate."



I think I was 30 and Lisa was 29 (for real at this point). On the way out, I look at a table of pictures of children from other countries other than China, and see one set of pictures that looks vaguely familiar. The children are gorgeous, and some of them, believe it of not, look just like my baby pictures. "Well how old do you hafta be for Guatemala here?"



Lisa did more paperwork and running to the courthouse than I ever had fighting my countless traffic tickets and getting building permits. She got it done in about a year, maybe less. I won't tell you the trials and tribulations of all that, just to say that we were told we'd get what we'd get (just like knocking someone up) and I prayed for a Scout.



We got, the BOY! or rather his picture days after he was born. We paraded this picture they had sent with carefully placed post-it notes over his genitals to anyone who would look. They don't care a hoot about American Sensibilities down there when babies are concerned I reckon, but strangely, most everyone we showed the picture would peek under the post-it note! He was the child that was meant for us.



In four months I was a Dad! In four months Lisa was a Mom. In four months, Jaime was miserable and in a foreign world surrounded by strangers...anyway, he got better. And from an apartment, as we'd sold the house, to a rental on the lake we moved with the baby...and then I got the call, "I'm pregnant," about five months after we'd just gone south for our little organ donor.



Well, it was shocking, and I was shocked. I had just kept doing my thing, and somewhere deep down inside, Lisa had done hers; a year after we were told it'd never happen without help. Well, one belly sonar later, and "it" was going to become a Girl, my Scout. I don't remember when or how I asked if we could name her Scout, I just remember now, looking back, that it wasn't going to be.



Cruel fate it was. However, everything was fine...I had my Scout. I was gonna call her that ever if her name was Emily Rebecca Mothershead! But, she was tiny, and smelly, and...bald. She wasn't a Scout, she was a baby, then a crawler, then a toddler who apparently couldn't walk through a room without getting juice on the ceiling. And she was constantly sticky.



And I've mentioned before that Jaime, who was quick to label things in the house, had labeled her Loo-Doo so, it wasn't a stretch that she'd end up Sticky-Loo, and has been called thus for ten or so years. Yeah, she's no scout, but she's better, because she's real, and she's here and I can see her anytime I want. But best of all, she too is chock full of organs that Lisa or I can use as needed with less risk of rejection.



I have become a full blown dad now, and have learned many things about little people. I learned more from Atticus I think than I ever thought and have repeated his advice many times to people without even knowing I was parroting him. "Don't talk down to children, if he asks something, answer him," I like to say, and do. I don't do euphemisms.



Worse, however, is the realization that if I actually had a child like Jean-Louise, or Jem, or a house guest like Dill, I might have to kill them all to save my own sanity. I also see that the book, though loved indeed, is in fact, a work of fiction. Sure, some contents are perhaps loosely based on some of Harper Lee's experiences and childhood friends, but it is a vision of how it was, and not a historical document. And Scout, though lovable, could never be a Mothershead now, now that we have a Jaime and an Emily.

Maybe a dog then.

One of my favorite passages from The Koran

From the Surah, Abraham 14:22:

And when Our judgement has been passed, Satan will say to them: 'True was the promise God made to you. I too made you a promise, but did not keep it. Yet, I had no power over you. I called you, and you answered me. Do not now blame me, but blame yourselves. I cannot help you, nor can you help me. I never thought, as you did, that I was God's equal.'

Isn't that cool? It's like Satan as a real dude, not a snake in the grass. And, he admits he's really up to no good. But the best part is, even if Satan is just the personification of one following one's desires without moral direction, the verse points out that one's problems are generally one's own fault.

I Don't know why, but that little blurb jumped off the page for me and I wanted to share it. The Koran is full of phrases turned just right even in my translation, and I would say it is translated at least as well as the christian tome. Both pretty much have the same supporting characters.

Well, that's it.