Odds & Ends

I really wanted to make an effort with this wee blog thing but I've found myself stranded in the Highlands, galavanting through fields and frightening sheep. Internet access is limited. I will be returning to Glasgow in time for the Cannonball Read kick off on Sunday. Until then I dug up some old bits of whatever that I've decided to post for no other reason than to satiate the thirst of my legions of fans. Keep your damn pants on.


Oktoberfest

Strip malls and broken cities
Either it shines or it's boarded up
There's magic out there somewhere
But I'm distracted by the frat boys

The cold is sharp, shoulders tense
I smash the shit out of a public phone
Across the street, people just stare

I had no idea how good I had it then

It's the way your head lowers, eyes look up
Words are quiet
Carved up like a Christmas turkey
Large sips of beer as I stare around the room

You wanted to leave
But I couldn't see how anything
Out there
Would make this better

It was just colder
Your tears pressed against the side of my face



Bridges

And so it goes. Those brown bridges continue to rust, by the burnt out lumber yard and the old haunted building that was once Searles Middle School. I sipped black coffee at dawn, watching the smoke pour out of the chimney across the parking lot. The bakery was hot, every oven on and flour in the air. Cutting dough and my hands were covered in it. I labored on and drank before noon. In that heat any beer tasted good.

Those mornings were grey and beautiful. It was in those times that I thought of you deeply, my thoughts with you as you lay in your bed on Hollenbeck. Long mornings followed on until the afternoon, where we drove down those long roads, passed Barrington Fairgrounds, abandoned and covered in weeds.

I found a couple of hours to sleep in between. You joined me, and we lay in my bed, panting from the heat and the love we made. We pushed the covers onto the floor and slept in. Late afternoon we hurried to the restaurant and worked ourselves hard until the late hours when we drank deep into those summer mornings. I was so alive that the exhaustion turned to exuberance. Laying there, a couple of hours, our bodies fitting together as though God carved each of us as one piece. We talked quietly for a moment before my heavy eye lids shut. And I didn’t even dream, I don’t think.