ALL IT TOOKAn artery A tear blood pooled my heart shuddered Breath stolen, body paused, I couldn’t comprehend why the sweet snuffles of my newborn eradicated by sirens Sweating postpartum hormones, shedding pieces of myself in a cardiac ward I was the youngest Breasts swollen, desperate to hold my baby An aberration I had become a case study, the 1 -4 % club between 30 and 50 I didn’t want to join At home a new reality, taste bile of tacit fear kiss my babies goodnight, pray tomorrow I will see Earth’s star in the East after closing my eyes to it setting in the West It will be years of mornings-after before my obsessive worry, insomnia filled nights recede to the silent corners of my mind, where I hush the whisper warnings unclench fists of anxiety, one finger at a time until I am immersed in the moment ... of life’s milestones, Until I release control of the uncontrollable breathe in life, drink in the elixir of laughter finally barefoot and unbound MY LOST RELIGIONI turn from vapid religion & embrace spirituality discover connection within humanity’s touch, seek meaning in life & love walk with, among neighbors who all bleed red I turn from doctrine & archaic cannon millennials of distortion derived from parables & frail men with dysfunctional connections to now No man will rule over my body! No man will rule over my daughters! I turn from oppressive, archetypal figures & black days mired in hypocrisy They will not have my devotion I will not subscribe to hatred and judgement I denounce that history! This day I will turn towards peace and purpose, light and hope, open my heart to the Earth’s symphony I will spread compassion, love and acceptance & realize oneness with the universe SIMPLE CONVERSATIONS she’s a self professed enigma, smirks at her own eclectic musical palate, straddling between Billie Eilish and Twenty-One Pilots, she can entertain that conversation with middle school aplomb she sinks her teeth into the “ring of fire” on Friday, morphs into an old soul on Sunday crooning Sinatra “her way” Today she wears a tie and fedora. A simple conversation Strictly speaking, country is not her thing … the guy, the dog, the truck, whiskey-- nope, but there IS the Man in Black ... And musing about rap doesn’t ignite the spark either Too fast, Too much rhyme, Why so angry? A simple conversation, ruminating about music. SPACEBreathe
just breathe in this space growing between spaces of silence connections squandered reborn in the restfulness cherish moments of family frantic lives no longer remember how to live still, how to breath in this world
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AUGUST ULRICH -Â COLD FEETOR HOW I PLUNGED INTO A TSUNAMI AND BODYSURFED TO THE JERSEY SHORE1/20/2021 August has done fine art, worked/collaborated on screenplays with notable filmmakers from Italy, France, Russia, and Japan. He was a line cook at Michelin 3 stars and freelanced as cameraman for CNN, ABC, NBC while living in Rome. As a sys admin, August controlled the flow of info for an internet startup until it was vaporized on the 11 September 2001. Currently, he is working on his third novel and collaborating on an historical TV series about the age of discovery. Cold Feet |
 | Terry Sanville lives in San Luis Obispo, California with his artist-poet wife (his in-house editor) and two plump cats (his in-house critics). He writes full time, producing short stories, essays, and novels. His short stories have been accepted more than 400 times by journals, magazines, and anthologies including The Potomac Review, The Bryant Literary Review, and Shenandoah. He was nominated twice for Pushcart Prizes and once for inclusion in Best of the Net anthology. Terry is a retired urban planner and an accomplished jazz and blues guitarist – who once played with a symphony orchestra backing up jazz legend George Shearing. |
A Bridge Between Trees
Whatever Rich had been before, he’d never be again. We all dreaded that. But it took years to figure out as we struggled with the aftermath.
The summer between eighth and ninth grades, Rich, Pete and I decided to build a tree house…actually Rich did most of the deciding. Our families lived on Santa Barbara’s Calle Poniente where it dead-ended into rolling hills covered with wild oats and spotted with California Live Oaks. Two massive trees stood close together along a ridgeline, silhouetted against the sky.
“That’s where we’ll build her,” Rich said and pointed.
“Ah, come on,” Pete whined, “we’ll hafta haul everything uphill. We’ll be pullin’ stickers outta our socks forever.”
“He’s right,” I chimed in.
Rich countered, “We’ll be able to see anybody coming. We’ll see everything.”
“And they’ll see us.”
“I want them to,” Rich said. “This is our place and nobody can take it.”
Pete choked back a laugh. “That’s funny. Ya sound like you’re actin’ in some western.”
Rich grinned and drawled, “That’s right, I’m the Marshal in these here parts.”
We all watched Gunsmoke on TV every chance we got, lusting after Miss Kitty and making fun of poor Chester. We also knew that Rich was the Marshal and we his deputies. We’d known each other since first grade at Harding School and had tried projects before. The tree house would prove the toughest.
In the late 1950’s, Calle Poniente had three mini-fiefdoms: the bottom near Valerio Street belonged to a bunch of little kids; the middle section to John the paper boy, the Mexicans, and pretty Becky; and the upper end to us Three Amigos. We were older than the others by a year or two, a vast difference when you’re young.
Rich motioned us into his garage. “Look at this.” He rolled open a big sheet of paper across a workbench.
“What am I looking at?” I asked.
“Come on, Chet, your Pop’s a draftsman. You’ve seen blueprints.”
“You do this?” Pete asked, eyes wide.
“Yeah. Look, here’re the tree trunks, like you’re lookin’ down from above…the first level and the second…and the high deck in the other tree.” Rich showed us the details laid out in clear lines.
“What’s this?” I pointed.
Rich puffed himself up. “That’s the bridge between the trees.”
“Cool. But how’re we gonna get the stuff to build this thing? I’ve got nothin’.”
“Me neither,” Pete said.
“There’s plenty of scrap lumber at that house project on Marquad.”
“Jeez, a frickin’ block away.” Of the three of us, hulking Pete proved the most adverse to physical exertion.
Rich ignored him. “We’ll pick ’em clean…take only used stuff… they won’t care.”
“Yeah, but what’ll we take?” I asked.
“I know what we need.”
Suddenly, our lazy summer of riding bikes down State Street and watching girls bake in the sun on East Beach had been usurped by the tree house challenge, albeit an exciting one.
It took a week just to drag all the materials to our construction site. The most difficult hauls were concrete-stained sheets of plywood. We stored everything under the oaks and covered it with a tarp borrowed from my Dad’s woodpile. We did a lot of borrowing. We scrounged for nails and screws and used all of our fathers’ hand tools. By the second week we’d worn a path up the hill, the annoying stickers no longer a problem.
The tree house took shape slowly. We got fancy: cut up an old red carpet and lined each room; found some rolled asphalt roofing and covered our castle; nailed wire over the window openings to keep the squirrels, raccoons and birds out; and built a trapdoor in the first level floor and locked it with a padlock and hasp unscrewed from Pete’s father’s toolshed.
But the bridge between the trees proved the most difficult. We didn’t have long pieces of lumber that could span the twenty-foot distance.
“We’ll build it out of two or three planks,” Rich said as we stared at his sketch.
“I don’ know,” Pete said, shaking his head. “I ain’t gonna trust that thing.”
“What if we build it, ya know, in pieces,” I said, “a bunch of boxes nailed together?”
“You mean like some sort of box beam?” Rich asked.
I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”
It took us a week to bang it together and a full afternoon to lift it with ropes into place. It rested on notches we’d cut into the oaks, maybe ten foot up. The bark proved tough to chop with a hatchet. It looked like gray alligator hide. And a blood-red layer of wood beneath the bark made me regret all the nails we’d driven into those trees.
Less than a foot wide, the bridge rose at a slight angle from one tree to the other. To help keep our balance, we strung waist-high guide ropes on either side – ropes purloined from Mr. Spezack’s boat gathering dust in his backyard.
When done, my Dad made me give him a tour of the place, including a stroll across the creaking bridge, and a climb to the high deck in the second tree, our very own crow’s nest.
“You boys did a good job nailing this thing together,” Pop said. “You be careful up here. When the wind blows this place will really shake.”
“Yeah, it’ll be cool. Don’t worry.”
All through August we moved our prized possessions, the things we hid from our parents, into the tree house: dog-eared copies of Playboy and Modern Man; two packs of Cool cigarettes and a Zippo lighter; a dusty bottle of gin from Pete’s father’s liquor cabinet; and a pistol with a box of cartridges that Rich found tucked away with his Dad’s Korean War stuff.
To get into the tree house Pete and I climbed a ladder, unlocked the trap door and pushed inside the first level room. But Rich usually beat us in by climbing one of the tree’s long branches that almost touched the ground. He’d move from limb to limb like a spider monkey, as if he’d been born in the treetops.
We used the enclosed rooms as our smoking/drinking lounges and reading library. But the high deck in the second tree became our favorite spot. From there we could look west into the setting sun and watch soundless waves break along Hendry’s Beach and the Hope Ranch Coast. We’d shoot the bull about our dreams of the future: high school, the after-school jobs we’d get, the kind of cars we’d buy, the girls we’d date and which ones might “put out,” a term we used with great confidence but with little understanding.
Through all of this Rich would get more and more restless, would break out in laughter, jump up and swing from branch to branch, dancing across the bridge and back as if powered by jet fuel. We’d give him a little sip of gin to calm him down. It didn’t help much.
Rich’s imagination just wouldn’t turn off. He talked about having parties in the tree house and inviting kids from school, about rigging the place with electricity so we could watch TV and stay overnight, about putting a telescope on the high deck to gaze at the stars and do things with girls. Pete and I listened to his wild ideas and let his passion carry us along, trying to believe that anything could be done if we just had the guts to try.
We’d saved the last of that God-awful gin for the final week of summer. Pete and Rich would start ninth grade at La Cumbre Junior High while my parents sent me to the four-year Catholic High School in downtown Santa Barbara. We swore that we’d all do stuff together, stay close and let Rich dream up new adventures.
We sat on the upper deck, legs dangling over its side, and sipped Beefeater from chipped coffee mugs.
“Hey, I know these guys–” Rich began.
“Ah Jeez, here we go,” Pete said, snickering.
“Shut up, lard ass. Let ’em finish.”
“I know these guys that made their own surf boards. They said they’d show me how.”
“Sounds cool,” I said. “But nobody I know surfs.”
“Yeah, that’s why it be cool if we did.”
Pete shook his head. “Come on, guys. Ya know I sink better than swim.”
We stayed quiet for a few minutes. Rich countered with a new plan. “Yeah, well what about us getting after-school jobs and pooling our money. Buy a car and fix it up.”
“I can dig that,” Pete said. “My Dad can show us how.”
Rich started to fidget as his excitement grew. “Yeah…we could keep it in our garage and–”
“–work on it on week ends. We’ve got two years ’til we get our licenses.”
“Paint it competition orange,” Pete said, “dago the hell out of it, with baby moon hubcaps and blue lights in the wheel wells.”
Rich grinned. “And tuck-and-roll inside. My sister’s boyfriend had it done in Tijuana, cheap.”
Pete and I stared into the sunset. I dreamed about cruising State Street with some bodacious girls in our cool car. Rich couldn’t contain himself. He climbed into the treetop and swung from limb to limb. He scooted along a branch that extended toward the opposite tree, and with a shout, dropped to the bridge below. He landed like a gymnast dismounting the high bar to stick the landing.
With a splintering crack, the bridge split in two and Rich fell. He tumbled end over end, arms flailing, and landed with a sickening thud on his back. Pete and I screamed and bolted to our feet. With the bridge gone, there was no easy way to get out of the tree. We shinnied down the trunk, scraping the hell out of our bare arms, and ran to Rich’s side.
He lay on top of a huge oak limb that we’d cut off, his eyes rolled back in his head, drool dripping from the side of his open mouth.
“Is…is he dead?” Pete whispered.
“No…see, he’s breathing.”
Rich moaned. His eyes seemed to focus on us for a few seconds before closing. But he kept breathing.
“What’ll we do?” Pete asked.
“I’ll stay here…go tell his folks…get an ambulance…he’s…he’s hurt bad.”
Pete tore off down the trail and disappeared into the waning light. I put my hand lightly on Rich’s chest, felt it rise and fall. The lower part of his body lay bent at an angle. He didn’t move. It seemed like forever before the sound of adult voices engulfed us. Pete gasped for breath and looked ready to faint.
“You didn’t move him did you?” Rich’s father asked.
“No..no sir. He hasn’t moved since he fell.”
“Okay…okay. Why don’t you stand back against the tree with Peter. The medics will need room to work.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rich’s mother knelt by his side, tears dripping from her eyes. She leaned forward to touch her son, crying hysterically. But her husband stopped her and they hugged each other, shaking.
I moved into the shadows, feeling scared and somehow guilty that our horseplay had caused this tragedy, as if Pete and I should have kept Rich from doing that stupid stunt. We were his deputies and we let our Marshal get hurt. Pete stood next to me, trembling, his mouth clamped shut.
In the distance, the sound of sirens approached. Every dog in the neighborhood howled. A new Cadillac ambulance arrived with red lights flashing. A patrol car pulled up beside it. The medics hustled a gurney up the trail, struggling in the sandy soil. With help from the cops they carefully lifted Rich onto the wheeled stretcher, strapped him down and headed off. Our friend, our leader didn’t make a sound the whole time.
By then, the entire west end of Calle Poniente stood in the street, staring. Pete’s and my parents huddled at the edge of the field. They came with the police and us boys to Pete’s house. It was after ten o’clock before the cops finished asking questions. Our accounts of the accident jibed, although Pete and I failed to mention the gin.
At home, Mom hugged me. I slipped into my dark bedroom, stripped off my clothes and slid between cold sheets, shivering. The image of Rich tumbling through the air flashed over and over behind my closed eyes. The sky turned gray before sleep and dreams took me away.
###
I slumped on the couch, munched Fritos, and stared blankly at the flickering TV. Mom stood over me, hands on hips.
“He’s been home for a week, ya know. You should go see your friend.”
“Yeah, yeah, I will.”
“Do it now. I won’t have you lazin’ around here all Saturday.”
“Cripes. Okay, I’ll go.”
Rich had came home the week after Thanksgiving. Pete and I had visited him twice in the hospital. The first time, the drugs slowed him down so much he could hardly speak. The second time, he put on a brave face until the post-surgery pain got too much and the nurses hustled us from his room.
I slammed the front door of our house as I left, mad at Mom for forcing my hand, but knowing she was right, which pissed me off even more. I crossed Calle Poniente and headed toward Rich’s house.
“Hey Chet, wait up,” Pete called, grinning. “Have you been over to see him?”
“No, have you?”
“Nah. Figured we’d do it together.”
“Yeah. Ya know…I’ve been feeling guilty about what happened.”
“Why?”
“If we hadn’t got Rich all excited, he wouldn’t have been messin’ around.”
“Yeah.” Pete went quiet for a moment. “But he got that way all the time. Wasn’t our fault.”
“I guess.”
I tapped on Rich’s front door and Mrs. Kirkmeyer answered.
“Come in, come in. Richard is in the rumpus room watching TV. Go on back. He’ll be glad to see you.”
Her smile seemed pasted on, didn’t fit with the dark circles under her eyes and the crow’s feet. We passed through their house. Mr. Kirkmeyer looked up from his magazine and nodded but said nothing. I wondered if he too blamed us for the accident, for building that unsafe bridge between the trees.
Rich sat in a wheelchair before a color TV, the actors’ faces looking Martian green. A set of small barbells occupied an end table on his right, kept company with pill bottles, a pitcher of water and a glass, Kleenex, and a tiny bell. He looked at us and grinned.
“Hey guys, come on in.” He picked up a small box with buttons and pointed it at the TV. With a click, the damn thing shut off.
“Jeez, Rich, that thing’s great,” Pete said.
“Yeah, I can change channels, make it louder or softer, turn it on and off and not have to get up…not that I can.”
Pete and I collapsed into chairs on either side of him. His mother came in and laid a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the coffee table. “Thought you boys could use a snack.”
“Thanks Mrs. Kirkmeyer,” Pete and I said in unison.
“So…so how you feelin’,” I asked.
The smile faded from Rich’s face. He looked pale, with purple patches underneath his eyes. Yellow and green bruises decorated his bare arms. “Ah, ya know. Still gettin’ used to the chair and stuff. That’s why I have the weights, to build up my muscles.”
“Does it hurt?” Pete blurted.
“Can’t feel nothin’ below my waist. That’s why I have the bag.” Rich pointed to a plastic sack half full of urine hooked to the side of his chair. “And yeah, I wear diapers.”
“Ah jeez, man,” I muttered.
“When I get stronger, I’ll be able to change myself but I need more muscle ta do that.” He tapped a bicep.
“What’re the pills for?” Pete asked.
“The pain from where they operated gets bad at night…can’t sleep. And it sometimes burns when I pee. Take more pills for that.”
I felt relieved when Pete changed the subject. “I missed ya at school,” he said.
“You’re probably flunkin’ with me not there to give ya the answers.”
“Are…are ya comin’ back?”
“The doctors say maybe by Easter. Mom’s been getting all the books, homework and tests from my teachers…so I shouldn’t fall too far behind. Besides, schoolwork keeps…keeps me from thinkin’ about…”
The silence grew between us. But ole Rich could still draw us out. “How ’bout you, Chet? You lettin’ the priests push you around at Catholic High?”
We talked about teachers, girls in our classes, my new after-school job as a box boy at the A&P, making a whopping $1.25 an hour. None of us mentioned the accident and we wouldn’t talk about it until years later. But Rich started right back in with his overactive imagination.
One rainy day sometime after New Year, the three of us sat on Rich’s front porch and stared at the tree house on the ridgeline. Other kids from down the street had taken it over even though the bridge lay in pieces where we’d left it. I’d retrieved Rich’s father’s pistol and put it back in the locker where it came from, Mr. Kirkmeyer none the wiser.
“Remember when we talked about poolin’ our money and fixing up a car?” Rich asked.
I nodded. “Do…do ya think you can drive?”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I can ride with you guys…if we buy the right thing.”
Pete and I exchanged glances. “What do ya mean?” Pete asked.
“Look, I’ll need something that I can wheel my chair into, tie it down, and be able to see out.”
We stared at Rich blankly. “You got some ideas?” I asked, feeling that I’d invited a blizzard of words. I’d missed that.
“Yeah, check this out.” Rich opened a newspaper he’d been holding on his lap and pointed to an ad. “This would work great.”
Pete and I leaned forward to get a closer look, then broke into laughter. “You wanna…wanna buy a milk truck?” I asked.
We laughed so hard that Pete began to choke and I had to pound him on the back to get him to stop.
Rich looked indignant. “Yeah, a milk truck. It’s big enough to hold the three of us…and can haul a lot of weight.” He stared at Pete and dug him in the ribs.
“But a milk truck?” Pete said, still chuckling.
“Think about it. The Live Oak Dairy over on Milpas is always sellin’ their old trucks. We could buy one cheap and fix it up. They’re practically givin’ ’em away.”
“But…but a milk truck? What girl is gonna wanna ride in a milk truck?” I asked.
“We can paint it competition orange like Pete wants, with pinstriping. Cut holes in the sides and put in more windows so I can look out, get big fat tires with chrome rims, put glass packs on the thing, maybe even drop in a bigger engine. We’ll be the only one in town. And we can stick a sofa in the back if ya want.”
We left that day shaking our heads and giggling. But as promised, Pete and I talked with our parents. At first they laughed as much as we did. Then they talked with Rich’s parents. Less than two years later and after countless hours working with our fathers, our Orange Uttermobile sat in Rich’s driveway, ready to roll. We’d added a boss AM/FM radio, red dice around the rear-view mirror, and yes, blue lights in the wheel wells.
I got my license first. The look on the DMV guy’s face was priceless when I showed up for my driving test in the orange bomb. Our fathers had already put plenty of miles on the thing. They acted as juvenile as we did.
The truck included extra seats and a special tie-down spot where Rich would watch the world go by, chat up the girls we took to ball games, dances, and on make-out sessions off Camino Cielo. Rich never ran out of ideas for having fun while being careful to steer around trouble. But he also learned to trust our judgment, to lay back and enjoy life without trying to control it.
In two years the three of us split up: Pete to Fresno State to study Physical Education, Rich to Cal Tech on an Engineering scholarship, and me to UCSB studying Psychology, then to South Vietnam to practice survival.
But we never lost touch, celebrated each of our weddings. Rich expanded his parents’ house and moved in with them, with his wife and their two adopted Vietnamese children. The west end of Calle Poniente once again had another generation of little kids, the start of a new mini-fiefdom.
Rich died at 54 from renal failure and a bad ticker. We scattered his ashes under the oaks and the long-abandoned remains of the tree house. In my barn-like garage sits the Orange Uttermobile. It awaits its second life under the hopefully vivid imagination of the little boy asleep in my second wife’s womb. I start it up now and again to keep the Three Amigos alive.
The summer between eighth and ninth grades, Rich, Pete and I decided to build a tree house…actually Rich did most of the deciding. Our families lived on Santa Barbara’s Calle Poniente where it dead-ended into rolling hills covered with wild oats and spotted with California Live Oaks. Two massive trees stood close together along a ridgeline, silhouetted against the sky.
“That’s where we’ll build her,” Rich said and pointed.
“Ah, come on,” Pete whined, “we’ll hafta haul everything uphill. We’ll be pullin’ stickers outta our socks forever.”
“He’s right,” I chimed in.
Rich countered, “We’ll be able to see anybody coming. We’ll see everything.”
“And they’ll see us.”
“I want them to,” Rich said. “This is our place and nobody can take it.”
Pete choked back a laugh. “That’s funny. Ya sound like you’re actin’ in some western.”
Rich grinned and drawled, “That’s right, I’m the Marshal in these here parts.”
We all watched Gunsmoke on TV every chance we got, lusting after Miss Kitty and making fun of poor Chester. We also knew that Rich was the Marshal and we his deputies. We’d known each other since first grade at Harding School and had tried projects before. The tree house would prove the toughest.
In the late 1950’s, Calle Poniente had three mini-fiefdoms: the bottom near Valerio Street belonged to a bunch of little kids; the middle section to John the paper boy, the Mexicans, and pretty Becky; and the upper end to us Three Amigos. We were older than the others by a year or two, a vast difference when you’re young.
Rich motioned us into his garage. “Look at this.” He rolled open a big sheet of paper across a workbench.
“What am I looking at?” I asked.
“Come on, Chet, your Pop’s a draftsman. You’ve seen blueprints.”
“You do this?” Pete asked, eyes wide.
“Yeah. Look, here’re the tree trunks, like you’re lookin’ down from above…the first level and the second…and the high deck in the other tree.” Rich showed us the details laid out in clear lines.
“What’s this?” I pointed.
Rich puffed himself up. “That’s the bridge between the trees.”
“Cool. But how’re we gonna get the stuff to build this thing? I’ve got nothin’.”
“Me neither,” Pete said.
“There’s plenty of scrap lumber at that house project on Marquad.”
“Jeez, a frickin’ block away.” Of the three of us, hulking Pete proved the most adverse to physical exertion.
Rich ignored him. “We’ll pick ’em clean…take only used stuff… they won’t care.”
“Yeah, but what’ll we take?” I asked.
“I know what we need.”
Suddenly, our lazy summer of riding bikes down State Street and watching girls bake in the sun on East Beach had been usurped by the tree house challenge, albeit an exciting one.
It took a week just to drag all the materials to our construction site. The most difficult hauls were concrete-stained sheets of plywood. We stored everything under the oaks and covered it with a tarp borrowed from my Dad’s woodpile. We did a lot of borrowing. We scrounged for nails and screws and used all of our fathers’ hand tools. By the second week we’d worn a path up the hill, the annoying stickers no longer a problem.
The tree house took shape slowly. We got fancy: cut up an old red carpet and lined each room; found some rolled asphalt roofing and covered our castle; nailed wire over the window openings to keep the squirrels, raccoons and birds out; and built a trapdoor in the first level floor and locked it with a padlock and hasp unscrewed from Pete’s father’s toolshed.
But the bridge between the trees proved the most difficult. We didn’t have long pieces of lumber that could span the twenty-foot distance.
“We’ll build it out of two or three planks,” Rich said as we stared at his sketch.
“I don’ know,” Pete said, shaking his head. “I ain’t gonna trust that thing.”
“What if we build it, ya know, in pieces,” I said, “a bunch of boxes nailed together?”
“You mean like some sort of box beam?” Rich asked.
I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”
It took us a week to bang it together and a full afternoon to lift it with ropes into place. It rested on notches we’d cut into the oaks, maybe ten foot up. The bark proved tough to chop with a hatchet. It looked like gray alligator hide. And a blood-red layer of wood beneath the bark made me regret all the nails we’d driven into those trees.
Less than a foot wide, the bridge rose at a slight angle from one tree to the other. To help keep our balance, we strung waist-high guide ropes on either side – ropes purloined from Mr. Spezack’s boat gathering dust in his backyard.
When done, my Dad made me give him a tour of the place, including a stroll across the creaking bridge, and a climb to the high deck in the second tree, our very own crow’s nest.
“You boys did a good job nailing this thing together,” Pop said. “You be careful up here. When the wind blows this place will really shake.”
“Yeah, it’ll be cool. Don’t worry.”
All through August we moved our prized possessions, the things we hid from our parents, into the tree house: dog-eared copies of Playboy and Modern Man; two packs of Cool cigarettes and a Zippo lighter; a dusty bottle of gin from Pete’s father’s liquor cabinet; and a pistol with a box of cartridges that Rich found tucked away with his Dad’s Korean War stuff.
To get into the tree house Pete and I climbed a ladder, unlocked the trap door and pushed inside the first level room. But Rich usually beat us in by climbing one of the tree’s long branches that almost touched the ground. He’d move from limb to limb like a spider monkey, as if he’d been born in the treetops.
We used the enclosed rooms as our smoking/drinking lounges and reading library. But the high deck in the second tree became our favorite spot. From there we could look west into the setting sun and watch soundless waves break along Hendry’s Beach and the Hope Ranch Coast. We’d shoot the bull about our dreams of the future: high school, the after-school jobs we’d get, the kind of cars we’d buy, the girls we’d date and which ones might “put out,” a term we used with great confidence but with little understanding.
Through all of this Rich would get more and more restless, would break out in laughter, jump up and swing from branch to branch, dancing across the bridge and back as if powered by jet fuel. We’d give him a little sip of gin to calm him down. It didn’t help much.
Rich’s imagination just wouldn’t turn off. He talked about having parties in the tree house and inviting kids from school, about rigging the place with electricity so we could watch TV and stay overnight, about putting a telescope on the high deck to gaze at the stars and do things with girls. Pete and I listened to his wild ideas and let his passion carry us along, trying to believe that anything could be done if we just had the guts to try.
We’d saved the last of that God-awful gin for the final week of summer. Pete and Rich would start ninth grade at La Cumbre Junior High while my parents sent me to the four-year Catholic High School in downtown Santa Barbara. We swore that we’d all do stuff together, stay close and let Rich dream up new adventures.
We sat on the upper deck, legs dangling over its side, and sipped Beefeater from chipped coffee mugs.
“Hey, I know these guys–” Rich began.
“Ah Jeez, here we go,” Pete said, snickering.
“Shut up, lard ass. Let ’em finish.”
“I know these guys that made their own surf boards. They said they’d show me how.”
“Sounds cool,” I said. “But nobody I know surfs.”
“Yeah, that’s why it be cool if we did.”
Pete shook his head. “Come on, guys. Ya know I sink better than swim.”
We stayed quiet for a few minutes. Rich countered with a new plan. “Yeah, well what about us getting after-school jobs and pooling our money. Buy a car and fix it up.”
“I can dig that,” Pete said. “My Dad can show us how.”
Rich started to fidget as his excitement grew. “Yeah…we could keep it in our garage and–”
“–work on it on week ends. We’ve got two years ’til we get our licenses.”
“Paint it competition orange,” Pete said, “dago the hell out of it, with baby moon hubcaps and blue lights in the wheel wells.”
Rich grinned. “And tuck-and-roll inside. My sister’s boyfriend had it done in Tijuana, cheap.”
Pete and I stared into the sunset. I dreamed about cruising State Street with some bodacious girls in our cool car. Rich couldn’t contain himself. He climbed into the treetop and swung from limb to limb. He scooted along a branch that extended toward the opposite tree, and with a shout, dropped to the bridge below. He landed like a gymnast dismounting the high bar to stick the landing.
With a splintering crack, the bridge split in two and Rich fell. He tumbled end over end, arms flailing, and landed with a sickening thud on his back. Pete and I screamed and bolted to our feet. With the bridge gone, there was no easy way to get out of the tree. We shinnied down the trunk, scraping the hell out of our bare arms, and ran to Rich’s side.
He lay on top of a huge oak limb that we’d cut off, his eyes rolled back in his head, drool dripping from the side of his open mouth.
“Is…is he dead?” Pete whispered.
“No…see, he’s breathing.”
Rich moaned. His eyes seemed to focus on us for a few seconds before closing. But he kept breathing.
“What’ll we do?” Pete asked.
“I’ll stay here…go tell his folks…get an ambulance…he’s…he’s hurt bad.”
Pete tore off down the trail and disappeared into the waning light. I put my hand lightly on Rich’s chest, felt it rise and fall. The lower part of his body lay bent at an angle. He didn’t move. It seemed like forever before the sound of adult voices engulfed us. Pete gasped for breath and looked ready to faint.
“You didn’t move him did you?” Rich’s father asked.
“No..no sir. He hasn’t moved since he fell.”
“Okay…okay. Why don’t you stand back against the tree with Peter. The medics will need room to work.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rich’s mother knelt by his side, tears dripping from her eyes. She leaned forward to touch her son, crying hysterically. But her husband stopped her and they hugged each other, shaking.
I moved into the shadows, feeling scared and somehow guilty that our horseplay had caused this tragedy, as if Pete and I should have kept Rich from doing that stupid stunt. We were his deputies and we let our Marshal get hurt. Pete stood next to me, trembling, his mouth clamped shut.
In the distance, the sound of sirens approached. Every dog in the neighborhood howled. A new Cadillac ambulance arrived with red lights flashing. A patrol car pulled up beside it. The medics hustled a gurney up the trail, struggling in the sandy soil. With help from the cops they carefully lifted Rich onto the wheeled stretcher, strapped him down and headed off. Our friend, our leader didn’t make a sound the whole time.
By then, the entire west end of Calle Poniente stood in the street, staring. Pete’s and my parents huddled at the edge of the field. They came with the police and us boys to Pete’s house. It was after ten o’clock before the cops finished asking questions. Our accounts of the accident jibed, although Pete and I failed to mention the gin.
At home, Mom hugged me. I slipped into my dark bedroom, stripped off my clothes and slid between cold sheets, shivering. The image of Rich tumbling through the air flashed over and over behind my closed eyes. The sky turned gray before sleep and dreams took me away.
###
I slumped on the couch, munched Fritos, and stared blankly at the flickering TV. Mom stood over me, hands on hips.
“He’s been home for a week, ya know. You should go see your friend.”
“Yeah, yeah, I will.”
“Do it now. I won’t have you lazin’ around here all Saturday.”
“Cripes. Okay, I’ll go.”
Rich had came home the week after Thanksgiving. Pete and I had visited him twice in the hospital. The first time, the drugs slowed him down so much he could hardly speak. The second time, he put on a brave face until the post-surgery pain got too much and the nurses hustled us from his room.
I slammed the front door of our house as I left, mad at Mom for forcing my hand, but knowing she was right, which pissed me off even more. I crossed Calle Poniente and headed toward Rich’s house.
“Hey Chet, wait up,” Pete called, grinning. “Have you been over to see him?”
“No, have you?”
“Nah. Figured we’d do it together.”
“Yeah. Ya know…I’ve been feeling guilty about what happened.”
“Why?”
“If we hadn’t got Rich all excited, he wouldn’t have been messin’ around.”
“Yeah.” Pete went quiet for a moment. “But he got that way all the time. Wasn’t our fault.”
“I guess.”
I tapped on Rich’s front door and Mrs. Kirkmeyer answered.
“Come in, come in. Richard is in the rumpus room watching TV. Go on back. He’ll be glad to see you.”
Her smile seemed pasted on, didn’t fit with the dark circles under her eyes and the crow’s feet. We passed through their house. Mr. Kirkmeyer looked up from his magazine and nodded but said nothing. I wondered if he too blamed us for the accident, for building that unsafe bridge between the trees.
Rich sat in a wheelchair before a color TV, the actors’ faces looking Martian green. A set of small barbells occupied an end table on his right, kept company with pill bottles, a pitcher of water and a glass, Kleenex, and a tiny bell. He looked at us and grinned.
“Hey guys, come on in.” He picked up a small box with buttons and pointed it at the TV. With a click, the damn thing shut off.
“Jeez, Rich, that thing’s great,” Pete said.
“Yeah, I can change channels, make it louder or softer, turn it on and off and not have to get up…not that I can.”
Pete and I collapsed into chairs on either side of him. His mother came in and laid a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the coffee table. “Thought you boys could use a snack.”
“Thanks Mrs. Kirkmeyer,” Pete and I said in unison.
“So…so how you feelin’,” I asked.
The smile faded from Rich’s face. He looked pale, with purple patches underneath his eyes. Yellow and green bruises decorated his bare arms. “Ah, ya know. Still gettin’ used to the chair and stuff. That’s why I have the weights, to build up my muscles.”
“Does it hurt?” Pete blurted.
“Can’t feel nothin’ below my waist. That’s why I have the bag.” Rich pointed to a plastic sack half full of urine hooked to the side of his chair. “And yeah, I wear diapers.”
“Ah jeez, man,” I muttered.
“When I get stronger, I’ll be able to change myself but I need more muscle ta do that.” He tapped a bicep.
“What’re the pills for?” Pete asked.
“The pain from where they operated gets bad at night…can’t sleep. And it sometimes burns when I pee. Take more pills for that.”
I felt relieved when Pete changed the subject. “I missed ya at school,” he said.
“You’re probably flunkin’ with me not there to give ya the answers.”
“Are…are ya comin’ back?”
“The doctors say maybe by Easter. Mom’s been getting all the books, homework and tests from my teachers…so I shouldn’t fall too far behind. Besides, schoolwork keeps…keeps me from thinkin’ about…”
The silence grew between us. But ole Rich could still draw us out. “How ’bout you, Chet? You lettin’ the priests push you around at Catholic High?”
We talked about teachers, girls in our classes, my new after-school job as a box boy at the A&P, making a whopping $1.25 an hour. None of us mentioned the accident and we wouldn’t talk about it until years later. But Rich started right back in with his overactive imagination.
One rainy day sometime after New Year, the three of us sat on Rich’s front porch and stared at the tree house on the ridgeline. Other kids from down the street had taken it over even though the bridge lay in pieces where we’d left it. I’d retrieved Rich’s father’s pistol and put it back in the locker where it came from, Mr. Kirkmeyer none the wiser.
“Remember when we talked about poolin’ our money and fixing up a car?” Rich asked.
I nodded. “Do…do ya think you can drive?”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I can ride with you guys…if we buy the right thing.”
Pete and I exchanged glances. “What do ya mean?” Pete asked.
“Look, I’ll need something that I can wheel my chair into, tie it down, and be able to see out.”
We stared at Rich blankly. “You got some ideas?” I asked, feeling that I’d invited a blizzard of words. I’d missed that.
“Yeah, check this out.” Rich opened a newspaper he’d been holding on his lap and pointed to an ad. “This would work great.”
Pete and I leaned forward to get a closer look, then broke into laughter. “You wanna…wanna buy a milk truck?” I asked.
We laughed so hard that Pete began to choke and I had to pound him on the back to get him to stop.
Rich looked indignant. “Yeah, a milk truck. It’s big enough to hold the three of us…and can haul a lot of weight.” He stared at Pete and dug him in the ribs.
“But a milk truck?” Pete said, still chuckling.
“Think about it. The Live Oak Dairy over on Milpas is always sellin’ their old trucks. We could buy one cheap and fix it up. They’re practically givin’ ’em away.”
“But…but a milk truck? What girl is gonna wanna ride in a milk truck?” I asked.
“We can paint it competition orange like Pete wants, with pinstriping. Cut holes in the sides and put in more windows so I can look out, get big fat tires with chrome rims, put glass packs on the thing, maybe even drop in a bigger engine. We’ll be the only one in town. And we can stick a sofa in the back if ya want.”
We left that day shaking our heads and giggling. But as promised, Pete and I talked with our parents. At first they laughed as much as we did. Then they talked with Rich’s parents. Less than two years later and after countless hours working with our fathers, our Orange Uttermobile sat in Rich’s driveway, ready to roll. We’d added a boss AM/FM radio, red dice around the rear-view mirror, and yes, blue lights in the wheel wells.
I got my license first. The look on the DMV guy’s face was priceless when I showed up for my driving test in the orange bomb. Our fathers had already put plenty of miles on the thing. They acted as juvenile as we did.
The truck included extra seats and a special tie-down spot where Rich would watch the world go by, chat up the girls we took to ball games, dances, and on make-out sessions off Camino Cielo. Rich never ran out of ideas for having fun while being careful to steer around trouble. But he also learned to trust our judgment, to lay back and enjoy life without trying to control it.
In two years the three of us split up: Pete to Fresno State to study Physical Education, Rich to Cal Tech on an Engineering scholarship, and me to UCSB studying Psychology, then to South Vietnam to practice survival.
But we never lost touch, celebrated each of our weddings. Rich expanded his parents’ house and moved in with them, with his wife and their two adopted Vietnamese children. The west end of Calle Poniente once again had another generation of little kids, the start of a new mini-fiefdom.
Rich died at 54 from renal failure and a bad ticker. We scattered his ashes under the oaks and the long-abandoned remains of the tree house. In my barn-like garage sits the Orange Uttermobile. It awaits its second life under the hopefully vivid imagination of the little boy asleep in my second wife’s womb. I start it up now and again to keep the Three Amigos alive.
John Ross Archer is a retired colonel from the US Army where he served for 23 years. He holds a master's degree in psychology, and, he is an active Rotarian and Gideon. He was the founder and owner of a strategic planning firm, and a vice president of a technical college.
His hobbies included skydiving, SCUBA diving and motorcycling. Archer and his wife live in Thomasville, Georgia, in the middle of plantation country.
His hobbies included skydiving, SCUBA diving and motorcycling. Archer and his wife live in Thomasville, Georgia, in the middle of plantation country.
The Funeral
“Dick, what the hell are we doing? “We’re both exhausted, we’ve driven seven hours to get to Atlanta, and we are no longer spring chickens; I am 85 years old, and you are ten years my senior. Only two old fools would make this trip at our ages to attend a brother’s funeral. Are you even sure of the time and place of the funeral?
“Now settle down; yeah, I’m positive, Chester, the time for the graveside service is four o’clock, it’s only three o’clock now, and I figure we’re only ten or twelve miles away from the cemetery. At least the surroundings look fairly familiar.” Why don ‘t you stop bitching and enjoy the scenery. You know, Chester, that’s all you've done on this is trip, Bitch, Bitch, Bitch.”
“Fairly familiar? Dick, have you ever been to the cemetery? Tell me the truth; don’t BS me, Dick. I’ve known you for too long to put up with your false claims—like telling me you had a driver's license when you knew damn well your license expired six years ago.
“No, I have not visited this cemetery in the past six years, but I’m sure I can get us there. The cemetery is near where I used to live. Stop your worrying, Chester, I’ll get us there on time, now quit complaining, you’re worse than my wife.”
“Okay, I’ll quit complaining, but it’s been over thirty years since you were in Atlanta, Dick, not six. I only want to know if your memory of this area is still correct.” Ignoring my remark, Dick moved on to his next thought.
“You know, Chester, there’s no family left but me, and I‘m not acquainted with my brother’s friends anymore. I doubt I will recognize anyone at the funeral. We might even be the only ones in attendance, Chester,” said Dick, with a frightened look on his face.”
“Now there’s an awful possibility. that must be an uncomfortable thought for you, Dick.”
“Just up ahead, you see the cemetery on the left? Do you see it? Put your glasses on Chester; you're just trying to look younger.”
“ We’ve made the cemetery on time, by golly, I told you not to worry, Chester, you see, your concern was for nothing—as usual.”
We drove into the cemetery’s main entrance and looked for the site of the graveside service.
“There, on the hilltop, I see a line of cars and a gathering of people. “That has to be the place,” said Dick.
“Dick, sixty miles per hour, is too fast to be driving on these small, narrow cemetery lanes.”
“I don’t want us to be late,” said Dick.
We skid to a halt and park where a man wearing a funeral home armband directed us. We walk to the small crowd gathered around a flag-covered coffin where yet another man wearing an armband approaches us.
“Are you gentlemen related to the deceased?”
“Yes, he was my brother,” replied Dick.
“Then please take a seat; you will be the only ones on the front row. We were not sure any family of the deceased would be in attendance.”
“Dam! Exclaimed Dick; there’re more people here than I imagined. He must have had more friends than I realized, Chester.”
Dick’s loud spoken remark caught everyone’s attention and prompted scornful stares. Dick was not the least bit concerned with those people, their stares, or what they might think of him. I supposed Dick’s attitude prevails among 95-year-olds. Mine would probably be the same as his.
A white-collared pastor stepped up to the microphone, said a prayer, made generic remarks relevant to the deceased and invited anyone to step forward who wished to say a few last words about the deceased. I stayed seated while Dick, teary-eyed, went to casket-side to pay his last respects to his brother.
Dick leaned over the casket then--with a horrifying look on his face--jumped back, and shouted: “Holy crap, that poor man is not my brother!”
Dick hurried by me, taking me by the arm and pulling me out of my chair.
“Dam, Chester, we got here on time, but this is the wrong dang cemetery.”
“Yep, right time, wrong place, Dick.”
“Now settle down; yeah, I’m positive, Chester, the time for the graveside service is four o’clock, it’s only three o’clock now, and I figure we’re only ten or twelve miles away from the cemetery. At least the surroundings look fairly familiar.” Why don ‘t you stop bitching and enjoy the scenery. You know, Chester, that’s all you've done on this is trip, Bitch, Bitch, Bitch.”
“Fairly familiar? Dick, have you ever been to the cemetery? Tell me the truth; don’t BS me, Dick. I’ve known you for too long to put up with your false claims—like telling me you had a driver's license when you knew damn well your license expired six years ago.
“No, I have not visited this cemetery in the past six years, but I’m sure I can get us there. The cemetery is near where I used to live. Stop your worrying, Chester, I’ll get us there on time, now quit complaining, you’re worse than my wife.”
“Okay, I’ll quit complaining, but it’s been over thirty years since you were in Atlanta, Dick, not six. I only want to know if your memory of this area is still correct.” Ignoring my remark, Dick moved on to his next thought.
“You know, Chester, there’s no family left but me, and I‘m not acquainted with my brother’s friends anymore. I doubt I will recognize anyone at the funeral. We might even be the only ones in attendance, Chester,” said Dick, with a frightened look on his face.”
“Now there’s an awful possibility. that must be an uncomfortable thought for you, Dick.”
“Just up ahead, you see the cemetery on the left? Do you see it? Put your glasses on Chester; you're just trying to look younger.”
“ We’ve made the cemetery on time, by golly, I told you not to worry, Chester, you see, your concern was for nothing—as usual.”
We drove into the cemetery’s main entrance and looked for the site of the graveside service.
“There, on the hilltop, I see a line of cars and a gathering of people. “That has to be the place,” said Dick.
“Dick, sixty miles per hour, is too fast to be driving on these small, narrow cemetery lanes.”
“I don’t want us to be late,” said Dick.
We skid to a halt and park where a man wearing a funeral home armband directed us. We walk to the small crowd gathered around a flag-covered coffin where yet another man wearing an armband approaches us.
“Are you gentlemen related to the deceased?”
“Yes, he was my brother,” replied Dick.
“Then please take a seat; you will be the only ones on the front row. We were not sure any family of the deceased would be in attendance.”
“Dam! Exclaimed Dick; there’re more people here than I imagined. He must have had more friends than I realized, Chester.”
Dick’s loud spoken remark caught everyone’s attention and prompted scornful stares. Dick was not the least bit concerned with those people, their stares, or what they might think of him. I supposed Dick’s attitude prevails among 95-year-olds. Mine would probably be the same as his.
A white-collared pastor stepped up to the microphone, said a prayer, made generic remarks relevant to the deceased and invited anyone to step forward who wished to say a few last words about the deceased. I stayed seated while Dick, teary-eyed, went to casket-side to pay his last respects to his brother.
Dick leaned over the casket then--with a horrifying look on his face--jumped back, and shouted: “Holy crap, that poor man is not my brother!”
Dick hurried by me, taking me by the arm and pulling me out of my chair.
“Dam, Chester, we got here on time, but this is the wrong dang cemetery.”
“Yep, right time, wrong place, Dick.”
 | Keith Moul writes poems and takes photos, doing both for more than 50 years. He concentrates on empirical moments in time, recognizing that the world will be somewhat different at the same place that today inspires him. His work appears around the world. |
Garment with Many Folds
“Smithsonian to remove photos of Japanese
destruction from atomic bomb exhibit”
a news report
With infallible pace of his patrician voice, FDR stalled
history: Dec. 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,”
to embed in American minds how reprisal engages a gear
to mobilize 133 million constituents’ incandescent wrath
toward a dark, inferior people’s bigoted aggression; toward
suffering at lives inevitably lost; toward God, audience of one,
to aver to heaven that we arise to reassert our virtuous might,
that we must not betray ourselves to inaction and treachery.
Apt words for war’s element of surprise. (U.S.A.F.M.:
“Strike the enemy at a time or place or in a manner
for which he is unprepared…. Deception can aid probability
of achieving surprise.”) With twitching feather
the pert goose disdains the gander.
Mr. President, you embark another grieving generation,
re-imbued with new cause, following a persistent myth
of invulnerability, a path through ignorant enemies plain:
brief consensus at our independence; our entitlements;
our assumptions of racial distinction, authorizing phobia
for blacks, freedom doled to whites; reconstruction debacle;
our early and essential education in realpolitik to implicate
alliance by casus foederis; our superior right, our destiny.
A person may, perhaps ought, to revere the sun. A human,
eyes tight in reverence, Mr. President, generals glory mad,
shrieks banzai as prelude to immolation, earns restoration
to that life, not to melt by our scientific prerogative for a
just indemnity, atonement to our egalitarian God listening
to factory churning, easeful with armaments leased allaying
isolation in favor of manufacture for use and constantly
ching-chinging cash transfers, and advancing munitions
technology since His flaming sword in Eden. Mr. Truman,
unaccustomed to literary heterodoxy, invoiced Japan
”many fold” air mail delivery. Arizona’s oil still bubbles
its exquisite kaleidoscope beneath Battleship Row.
You may infer our victory, Mr. President, not by defeat of
Nazi science, but allied valor, hardly our lurid scream of “tit”
out the maw of Enola Gay on Hiroshima and indecorous “tat”
from fat boy's pranks on Nagasaki: humanity mocks redemption.
history: Dec. 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,”
to embed in American minds how reprisal engages a gear
to mobilize 133 million constituents’ incandescent wrath
toward a dark, inferior people’s bigoted aggression; toward
suffering at lives inevitably lost; toward God, audience of one,
to aver to heaven that we arise to reassert our virtuous might,
that we must not betray ourselves to inaction and treachery.
Apt words for war’s element of surprise. (U.S.A.F.M.:
“Strike the enemy at a time or place or in a manner
for which he is unprepared…. Deception can aid probability
of achieving surprise.”) With twitching feather
the pert goose disdains the gander.
Mr. President, you embark another grieving generation,
re-imbued with new cause, following a persistent myth
of invulnerability, a path through ignorant enemies plain:
brief consensus at our independence; our entitlements;
our assumptions of racial distinction, authorizing phobia
for blacks, freedom doled to whites; reconstruction debacle;
our early and essential education in realpolitik to implicate
alliance by casus foederis; our superior right, our destiny.
A person may, perhaps ought, to revere the sun. A human,
eyes tight in reverence, Mr. President, generals glory mad,
shrieks banzai as prelude to immolation, earns restoration
to that life, not to melt by our scientific prerogative for a
just indemnity, atonement to our egalitarian God listening
to factory churning, easeful with armaments leased allaying
isolation in favor of manufacture for use and constantly
ching-chinging cash transfers, and advancing munitions
technology since His flaming sword in Eden. Mr. Truman,
unaccustomed to literary heterodoxy, invoiced Japan
”many fold” air mail delivery. Arizona’s oil still bubbles
its exquisite kaleidoscope beneath Battleship Row.
You may infer our victory, Mr. President, not by defeat of
Nazi science, but allied valor, hardly our lurid scream of “tit”
out the maw of Enola Gay on Hiroshima and indecorous “tat”
from fat boy's pranks on Nagasaki: humanity mocks redemption.
Martin Luther King
Birth: January 15, 3rd Monday in January:
Murdered in racial war; celebrated in peace.
As his life demanded of him that he speak
enlightened truth, the Reverend Dr. King
knew God precluded fear and to authorize
equal justice at the Edmund Pettis Bridge,
at both ends; duty as firm as tension cables
caressing the through span arch of steel.
The man marched with God amid his seekers,
amid bloodied billy clubs of bigotry, Jim Crow
staking out the garden spot of Selma, Alabama
real estate, ever known as a priori white.
Real history cites sure facts of the March 7, 1965
march to Montgomery. Dr. King joined his cause
to history, captured on grainy film, blurry stills
in black and white, beginning peacefully to cross
a docile Selma river to an a posteriori destiny.
Like me, Dr. King knelt to a cosmos; contended
solo in his enfolding skin; bore humanity’s doubts
among rabid ideologies, ancient plagues to pock us.
Yet humble, courteous dignity overfilled him
that I cannot duplicate in erection of my pantheon.
enlightened truth, the Reverend Dr. King
knew God precluded fear and to authorize
equal justice at the Edmund Pettis Bridge,
at both ends; duty as firm as tension cables
caressing the through span arch of steel.
The man marched with God amid his seekers,
amid bloodied billy clubs of bigotry, Jim Crow
staking out the garden spot of Selma, Alabama
real estate, ever known as a priori white.
Real history cites sure facts of the March 7, 1965
march to Montgomery. Dr. King joined his cause
to history, captured on grainy film, blurry stills
in black and white, beginning peacefully to cross
a docile Selma river to an a posteriori destiny.
Like me, Dr. King knelt to a cosmos; contended
solo in his enfolding skin; bore humanity’s doubts
among rabid ideologies, ancient plagues to pock us.
Yet humble, courteous dignity overfilled him
that I cannot duplicate in erection of my pantheon.
With My Lips Apart
Some irredeemable nights force a watch for death.
Our aboriginal hearts pump relentlessly, tired by
bloodflow to steel an arm or spout from our wound.
Vanquished dreams charge through us to wake; to change
in medias res; to wash in warm rain of moody January.
Please discard our immersion in quarrel as anomaly .
Each promptly adjusts bedclothes and sheets, caresses
sentient skins not sophisticated with love’s politics.
We argued meaning of a momentary pause, by me,
during a ticklish summary of partisan screed; nerves
leaked, doubt squealed in like an overdue train.
I couldn't make you see. I wouldn't accept why.
Frankly, I lifted my eyes toward atheist heaven
in search of facts to compel a seal with paradise.
You suggest travel. “Sure, but travel near and light!”
I'll take my politics and shouts and hide my cynicism
with my unmatched socks if we can plan a mood walk
of accord, kick the fallen cottonwood leaves, forge
a path through clamoring rose hips splashing in air.
“You’ll like low garden places, in leaf mold, beneath
dripping thorns, behind stalks, private.” “Can politics
reconcile the drear of winter’s rain?” you ask. I ponder
wordless if pills reliably treat such unsanctioned questions.
Yet too warm for January, rain steams away one mood,
floods another, all still, breathless. Coexistence sneaks
between us, finally palpable. Eagerness builds. My lips
part; I hand you spongy compost fragments: sweet truths
redolent of edenic gardens to find our prehistoric selves.
Our aboriginal hearts pump relentlessly, tired by
bloodflow to steel an arm or spout from our wound.
Vanquished dreams charge through us to wake; to change
in medias res; to wash in warm rain of moody January.
Please discard our immersion in quarrel as anomaly .
Each promptly adjusts bedclothes and sheets, caresses
sentient skins not sophisticated with love’s politics.
We argued meaning of a momentary pause, by me,
during a ticklish summary of partisan screed; nerves
leaked, doubt squealed in like an overdue train.
I couldn't make you see. I wouldn't accept why.
Frankly, I lifted my eyes toward atheist heaven
in search of facts to compel a seal with paradise.
You suggest travel. “Sure, but travel near and light!”
I'll take my politics and shouts and hide my cynicism
with my unmatched socks if we can plan a mood walk
of accord, kick the fallen cottonwood leaves, forge
a path through clamoring rose hips splashing in air.
“You’ll like low garden places, in leaf mold, beneath
dripping thorns, behind stalks, private.” “Can politics
reconcile the drear of winter’s rain?” you ask. I ponder
wordless if pills reliably treat such unsanctioned questions.
Yet too warm for January, rain steams away one mood,
floods another, all still, breathless. Coexistence sneaks
between us, finally palpable. Eagerness builds. My lips
part; I hand you spongy compost fragments: sweet truths
redolent of edenic gardens to find our prehistoric selves.
 | Sandi Leibowitz, author of THE BONE-COLLECTOR, EURYDICE SINGS, and GHOST-LIGHT, a quarantine journal in verse, lives in New York City with two ghost-dogs and the occasional dragon. Her speculative fiction and poetry has garnered second- and third-place Dwarf Stars, as well as nominations for the Elgin, Rhysling, Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net awards. Her work appears in Spillwords, Sheila-Na-Gig, Trouvaille Review, Red Eft Review, Alien Buddha Press, Verse-Virtual, Newtown Literary, Frost Meadow Review, Corvid Queen, Uncanny, Liminality, and other magazines and anthologies. |
Books
After Jen Mawson’s Photograph of the Same Name
A window into emptiness.
Floorboards rotten as an ogre’s teeth.
Could any haunted house be more deserted
than this derelict Victorian,
waves of dead leaves
washed onto its porch?
Like corpses from a shipwreck,
limbs akimbo, clothes immodestly askew,
a heap of books
gives testimony that someone lived here once
who’s here no more.
For who would leave their own books
so untreasured?
They may be textbooks or volumes of verse,
scriptures or engineering manuals,
who can tell?
No librarian’s hand arranges them.
No survivor stacked them neatly in a tower.
Evidence of heartache, or violence,
or leastways carelessness--
and negligence can be the cruelest thing of all--
speak in the unthumbed pages
whose marginalia goes unread,
insights no one sees, inscriptions
—For Carla, On h r sixt enth bi th ay--
worn away by wind and mildew
and indifference.
Floorboards rotten as an ogre’s teeth.
Could any haunted house be more deserted
than this derelict Victorian,
waves of dead leaves
washed onto its porch?
Like corpses from a shipwreck,
limbs akimbo, clothes immodestly askew,
a heap of books
gives testimony that someone lived here once
who’s here no more.
For who would leave their own books
so untreasured?
They may be textbooks or volumes of verse,
scriptures or engineering manuals,
who can tell?
No librarian’s hand arranges them.
No survivor stacked them neatly in a tower.
Evidence of heartache, or violence,
or leastways carelessness--
and negligence can be the cruelest thing of all--
speak in the unthumbed pages
whose marginalia goes unread,
insights no one sees, inscriptions
—For Carla, On h r sixt enth bi th ay--
worn away by wind and mildew
and indifference.
Thistles
May 27, 2020
Because construction’s stalled,
the scaffolding stays up around my building,
the protective netting preventing
the lawn from being mowed or weeded.
So now we have a meadow.
Considering how many residents complain
about the garden committee’s new additions,
botanical largesse of English-style perennials
instead of symmetrical borders of impatiens,
I might be the meadow’s only fan.
How they must abhor the long grasses
in gradients of amber, brown, and green,
their varying, untidy lengths
like the hair of a gathering of hippies,
tassels nodding with the weight of seeds
ready to sow more unmannerly progeny,
taking the place of cropped, unanimous turf.
Shepherd’s purse or some other pink
weed or wildflower
takes central stage amidst a froth of clover
white as cappuccino foam,
lascivious come-on to the bees.
Up front, where any visitor can’t miss it,
a solitary three-foot thistle grows and glowers.
When it was shorter,
I tried to tug it out with my bare hands,
learning that even their stems
come armed to the teeth.
Now it bristles like a Doberman gone rogue,
daring, “What you gonna do about it?”
One of its flowers bursts into purple
like an ad for Scottish tourism.
I root for it,
prickles and all.
New York disdains a sissy.
You need audacity
to ride out rough times like these.
the scaffolding stays up around my building,
the protective netting preventing
the lawn from being mowed or weeded.
So now we have a meadow.
Considering how many residents complain
about the garden committee’s new additions,
botanical largesse of English-style perennials
instead of symmetrical borders of impatiens,
I might be the meadow’s only fan.
How they must abhor the long grasses
in gradients of amber, brown, and green,
their varying, untidy lengths
like the hair of a gathering of hippies,
tassels nodding with the weight of seeds
ready to sow more unmannerly progeny,
taking the place of cropped, unanimous turf.
Shepherd’s purse or some other pink
weed or wildflower
takes central stage amidst a froth of clover
white as cappuccino foam,
lascivious come-on to the bees.
Up front, where any visitor can’t miss it,
a solitary three-foot thistle grows and glowers.
When it was shorter,
I tried to tug it out with my bare hands,
learning that even their stems
come armed to the teeth.
Now it bristles like a Doberman gone rogue,
daring, “What you gonna do about it?”
One of its flowers bursts into purple
like an ad for Scottish tourism.
I root for it,
prickles and all.
New York disdains a sissy.
You need audacity
to ride out rough times like these.
Breath
June 2, 2020
It’s almost visible
now that we obsess,
red molecules of disease and death
suspended in the air,
lingering on bags and doorknobs.
Your own breath sounds exaggerated
through your mask, wettened by each exhalation.
You strain to breathe through cotton.
Do you have trouble breathing?
doctors ask, PSAs warn.
That’s the symptom to worry about.
I can’t breathe,
you’d think, as the disease
destroyed your lungs
I can’t breathe,
you’d panic before they induced the coma
so you could endure the ventilator,
the machine breathing for you
I can’t breathe
George Floyd’s exhales those words
with his last breath
he’s killed
knee to his neck,
as if it were a crime to breathe
while being black
The righteous protest while
MAGA agents loot, deface, and burn
Police attack with tear gas,
mow them down with cars
Their rubber bullets destroy eyes,
rip holes in skulls
I can’t breathe
the President deploys armed forces
against our citizens
National Guards stand at attention
like imperial stormtroopers on the Lincoln Memorial
I can’t breathe
helicopters swoop low over D.C. crowds
like hawks preying
instead of praying, Trump evicts
peaceful protestors from a church
to pose for the press like Hitler with a Bible
a little girl can’t breathe
crying as her father pours milk down her face
to lessen the sting of pepper spray
America’s diseased,
and coronavirus isn’t the worst of it.
Hate’s gone viral.
Brutality’s gone viral.
Greed’s gone viral.
Selfishness has gone viral.
Corruption has gone viral.
But now so has outrage.
These fires can’t be dampened
by suffocating them.
There has been suffocation enough
Do you have trouble breathing?
now that we obsess,
red molecules of disease and death
suspended in the air,
lingering on bags and doorknobs.
Your own breath sounds exaggerated
through your mask, wettened by each exhalation.
You strain to breathe through cotton.
Do you have trouble breathing?
doctors ask, PSAs warn.
That’s the symptom to worry about.
I can’t breathe,
you’d think, as the disease
destroyed your lungs
I can’t breathe,
you’d panic before they induced the coma
so you could endure the ventilator,
the machine breathing for you
I can’t breathe
George Floyd’s exhales those words
with his last breath
he’s killed
knee to his neck,
as if it were a crime to breathe
while being black
The righteous protest while
MAGA agents loot, deface, and burn
Police attack with tear gas,
mow them down with cars
Their rubber bullets destroy eyes,
rip holes in skulls
I can’t breathe
the President deploys armed forces
against our citizens
National Guards stand at attention
like imperial stormtroopers on the Lincoln Memorial
I can’t breathe
helicopters swoop low over D.C. crowds
like hawks preying
instead of praying, Trump evicts
peaceful protestors from a church
to pose for the press like Hitler with a Bible
a little girl can’t breathe
crying as her father pours milk down her face
to lessen the sting of pepper spray
America’s diseased,
and coronavirus isn’t the worst of it.
Hate’s gone viral.
Brutality’s gone viral.
Greed’s gone viral.
Selfishness has gone viral.
Corruption has gone viral.
But now so has outrage.
These fires can’t be dampened
by suffocating them.
There has been suffocation enough
Do you have trouble breathing?
How Jane Writes
At night, poems buoy up in her mind
like downed trees in the river after storm
and she annoy hims, reaching for
her nest-side cache of bamboo pens
and tablets of banana leaf.
Tarzan grunts and rolls away,
shielding the nearest ear
with a protective hand.
She searches for a word
that doesn’t rhyme exactly but sounds,
and means but doesn’t quite say,
that doesn’t stutter, stomp, but almosts.
Sometimes she must hunt them,
stealthy as Tarzan himself.
Sometimes the prey eludes her.
She curses. A chimp
(no one they know) hoots a reminder
that she’s disturbed the jungle peace.
As she squeezes the purple-black berries
to fill the pen with ink,
the color reminds her of his eyes.
She smiles, tattoos him
with silly graffiti, the ticklish pen
waking him thoroughly
and his lust, so they make love
before, glistening with sweat
in the fire’s light, he turns away again,
and there’s the word waiting for her,
or its long-lost cousin, so
she writes the poem at last
and a new one after it.
like downed trees in the river after storm
and she annoy hims, reaching for
her nest-side cache of bamboo pens
and tablets of banana leaf.
Tarzan grunts and rolls away,
shielding the nearest ear
with a protective hand.
She searches for a word
that doesn’t rhyme exactly but sounds,
and means but doesn’t quite say,
that doesn’t stutter, stomp, but almosts.
Sometimes she must hunt them,
stealthy as Tarzan himself.
Sometimes the prey eludes her.
She curses. A chimp
(no one they know) hoots a reminder
that she’s disturbed the jungle peace.
As she squeezes the purple-black berries
to fill the pen with ink,
the color reminds her of his eyes.
She smiles, tattoos him
with silly graffiti, the ticklish pen
waking him thoroughly
and his lust, so they make love
before, glistening with sweat
in the fire’s light, he turns away again,
and there’s the word waiting for her,
or its long-lost cousin, so
she writes the poem at last
and a new one after it.
Defects
All of my angels are made of flesh,
too heavy to risk flight. Instead
they pour clouds of aloe
on their rounded shoulders,
pining for skin of cream
Angels should be lean as sky,
not greedy for fat, wet plums
they suck from purpled hands;
they should not let the wind sift
their feathers with a lover’s fingers
or allow lute-strings’ silken
sound to stroke their eager ears.
My angels fail to notice
the thin-ankled girls of slender sin,
my anemic devils, who cough
and rattle loose their bones,
their scarlet watered down to fog,
too frail to raise a rumpus.
too heavy to risk flight. Instead
they pour clouds of aloe
on their rounded shoulders,
pining for skin of cream
Angels should be lean as sky,
not greedy for fat, wet plums
they suck from purpled hands;
they should not let the wind sift
their feathers with a lover’s fingers
or allow lute-strings’ silken
sound to stroke their eager ears.
My angels fail to notice
the thin-ankled girls of slender sin,
my anemic devils, who cough
and rattle loose their bones,
their scarlet watered down to fog,
too frail to raise a rumpus.
Anil Kumar as a librarian in govt college GURDASPUR punjab INDIA. Who read and enjoy my poems when I visit on library they asked me to told my love poetry. His email address is following as Anilsandhu29@gmail.com.
Disruption of sun
As just dawn break with black Clouds,
What begun to floating in arena of sky,
Alone black shade scatter on earth,
No as drizzling as well as drops falling,
All birds and love & beloved relish,
But a one side lover drowned into his love,
Whereas, other couples rejoice such pleasance,
However, exhausted lover adhesive beloved memory,
But, No his beloved beside him,
Anyhow, he seemed her beside him,
Day being passed under shade of black clouds,
As turn of evening to come with sun rays,
Justly disrupted into his beloved memory,
All series of memory broken with intense ray,
Thus, No took rejoice whole day by one side lover,
No considerate on his one side love by nature.
Not long let allow him enjoy by sun.
What begun to floating in arena of sky,
Alone black shade scatter on earth,
No as drizzling as well as drops falling,
All birds and love & beloved relish,
But a one side lover drowned into his love,
Whereas, other couples rejoice such pleasance,
However, exhausted lover adhesive beloved memory,
But, No his beloved beside him,
Anyhow, he seemed her beside him,
Day being passed under shade of black clouds,
As turn of evening to come with sun rays,
Justly disrupted into his beloved memory,
All series of memory broken with intense ray,
Thus, No took rejoice whole day by one side lover,
No considerate on his one side love by nature.
Not long let allow him enjoy by sun.
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