false endings

'how can a thing so perfectly ended, continue?' is what Peter Barrett said in a spoken word intro to Love Is Not Enough, the Orchestra Luna song that made it onto the 1974 record (Epic). Peter complained: 'the Beatles say All You Need Is Love and you're telling me Love Is Not Enough? i don't get it.' i was thinking Bergman, not Lennon as in Through A Glass Darkly. a boy's sister is insane. 'why can't she get better, father, when all of us love her so much? when she is surrounded by our love?' but it was not enough. she was helicopter-ed to an asylum. nevertheless, Peter had a point. how can an ending continue? we get fed up, wrung out and quit on each another, on a job, on family, on ourselves. all the love in the world, prior to dissolution, fails until something unexpected happens. the pencil flips (eraser to lead) and scratches a new sketch. jumping out of a canoe in one direction sends it off in another. the caterpillar becomes a butterfly. nevertheless, when doors close we have a hard time imagining escape. it is not until we give up completely that we can be born anew, or so the cliche spins. and what about lovers who've thrown in the sweaty towel? 'she doesn't love me anymore. i can't take it. it's killing me! i'm fuckin' outa here!' crys the losing boy. 'he's a shithead. he's checking out my best friend. he's always 'confiding' in my fucking sister! i'm gonna throw up!' that's when the 'maybe we can still be friends' coin hops into the fountain and bubbles hope to the surface. 'i still love you. differently, ok?, but we understand each other too well to cast the baby out with the bath water. maybe there's a new way to be.' so whispers the cross-my-heart prayer. it is most often put forth by the losing half and seems unrealistic to the one who cares less. and it's a ploy to wrestle lost love back into the sheets. 'we'll talk. have coffee. learn to deal the 'new person, ok?' is the argument put forth to re-discover what had joined the two together in the first place. the big unsaid: 'we're not fucking right now but maybe we will again'. it's the fucking, isn't it, the sex. where did the attraction go? why did it stop? who were you thinking about when i wasn't around? who were you fantasizing when we were still together? who is sucking your cock, eating you out, driving you crazy with impossible pleasure? sexual jealousy, more than it's emotional cousin, voids the 'let's be friends' fantasy. unless one is, at long last, emotionally neutral or has that rare disinclination to be jealous, the ending is true and not false. it's over. let it go. let him go. let her jump out of the car and die. get over yourselves. i love false endings in music, getting fooled into thinking that the song is over and then it's not. it's easier in art. to finish something only to fire it up again. to paint over a ruined canvas or wad up a poem and try another. in love it's not so simple. all those painful complicating failures and soul-lacerating endings, all the refused-to-be-believed expiration dates scream back at us from the chasm when love is not enough.

kitty projection

my cat is neurotic. she will not to be picked up unless just before the pellets hit the bowl and then just behind her shoulders, legs stiff as drum sticks, a measly 3, 4 feet off the linoleum and not in arms, not hugged against chest. visitors oo and ah and reach out to pet her, but she darts away, fussy and paranoid. with visitors she hides in my closet on a shelf waiting impatiently for them to leave. if a dog barks she hibernates until it's gone. on the other hand, with me, she's awesome. she sleeps under the covers, in the crook of my arm, on her back, purring. she loves to have her belly rubbed when it's cold out. her purr is so loud you can hear it a room away. her prized trick is to slip in and out of my bedroom through a pantry portal between the kitchen and my room, a miniature swiss window she discovered when we moved in 7 years ago. she's getting on, 10-12 years old. i worry that once she hit's 17 she'll be shitting herself and unable to jump, to access the glory hole. when she arrived at my apartment for the first time she hid behind a couch for two weeks until she got up the tits to emerge and stake out the territory. for years that territory has been this apartment, unshared with any other beast. a revolving door of room mates and friends until last week when a new kitty, an irresistibly cute, fluffy, Yoda-whiskered guy moved in, skin, bones and fur. his name is Mao after the Chinese dictator. my room mate thought he looked dictatorial with his tough guy stance and big paws. we went down the list: Hitler, Stalin, Idi, Pol Pot and chose Mao, because, ok, that's the sound he makes: 'Mao'. we love the little fella. how could we not? he's fuckin' wonderful. but Sofi is petrified. Mao scampers about the house on curiosity skates and Sofi hides on her shelf like a rejected glove. i don't know what's going on in her kitty brain, but i imagine all sorts of terrible thoughts. that i'm cheating on her, that i don't love her anymore, even as i pat her more than ever. i've made my bedroom her sanctuary so she can eat in peace. once Mao's big enough to leap through the hole, that'll be the end of the quarantine. at first i blamed her. i thought, fuck, get over yourself, Sof, you weirdo. any other cat would have handled the kid no problem. but i call the vet and she tells me that this is normal. that it might take one to six months to a year for Sofi to adjust, if not longer. a friend of mine went through the same thing with her guy and that cat is still, two years down kitty lane, freaked. i did take one indulgent step. the vet suggested a product from France, a plug-in atomizer good for a month. it wafts oily feline fumes into the atmosphere that have a calming effect on an upset kitty. sometimes it works, sometimes not. but i bought the Eau de Chat and it seemed to do the job. Sofi acquired a sort of Xanax equilibrium. occasionally she peeks around the kitchen corner and stares down the hall at Mao who's staring back from the far end. maybe when no one's home they hang out and have a laugh over how worked up we humans get over all this. i love her. i need her to be ok. i tell her that. she purrs. i imagine she listens and is working on it with some invisible, screwball shrink. coda: things seem to be better of late. both creatures lie on the same bed blinking at each other, paws crossed.

miracle

i have a friend who believes that everything can be explained scientifically. that all is chemistry, math, physics. one doesn't fall in love, one's chemicals interact. one is not inspired, one's neurons fire ganglions that spark synapses which translate 'i will paint the library red'. there is no New Age or old age other dimension, after life or ESP. spirituality is soft brain. Tarot cards are a gypsy mirage. astrology, meditation, prayer, religion - a fool's fabrication. miracles do not exist. all has an objective, rational fingerprint understood and languaged by the mighty mind. i'm in the other camp. a hard core ex-hippie who believes that whatever you imagine is 'real'. other dimensionality via drug spoon, deja vu or a dream-triggered song is evidence sufficient and who can 'explain' love anyway? Keats, Auden, Bishop - it takes a poet, not an ivory tower. why clutter up a pretty mind with dirty facts? i defer to a Van Gogh landscape which was how he 'saw' the fields of southern France, or the dazzling whirl of stars. i take the inexplicable as an 'of course'. of course there are previous as well as follow-up lifetimes. of course there is karma in love, in difficulty, in the dharma bum path of each snowflake being. of course there is a soul. of course there are miracles. case in point: healing a burn on my hand. two weeks ago in a frantic rush to yank a pizza out of the hopper at work, the hot edge of the oven door nicked the skin behind my thumb. it curled up like a window shade snap-exposing a pulpy pink spot the size of a nickel. it made me gag just to look at it. i had a waitress tape a band-aid over it so as to not infect or gross me out. back home i slathered disinfectant only to learn that it's best to do nothing. to not cover up. to let the burn air out, dry and heal. my fabulous t-cells went to work collecting around the wound like circled wagons, ant busy and tireless to clean, repair and rebuild new skin. it took 15 days and itched as i waited. the sting of the work done was a reminder that something amazing was going on. like ET healing Elliott with a god-creates-Adam touch of forefinger-to-forefinger. the Hollywood miracle became true blue 'reality' on my hand. i appreciate the happy rehab. i know, it's all science. any idiot with half a brain could explain what was up, but not me. it was, for this stubborn old bird, a miracle.

couples syndrome + the wisdom of a wise old lady

what is it about long time companions that so often, when out to dinner, they don't look at each other, but stare off into the restaurant, eyes glazed, not speaking. it is as if all has been discussed seven times over, or there's something so difficult to bring up they both say nothing. maybe i'm reading it wrong. maybe they share a serenity that requires no words and instead, exquisite silence. then again, wasn't it Nietzsche who wrote that all relationships, all the good ones, were essentially long conversations, with the cup never dry, the jokes never stale? in company the stories both have told before still make them laugh while sour couples roll their eyes. not again, they fume. 'i am so tired of his show-off blather.' 'can't she shut up? she's fucking flirting with that asshole with the same line she used when she met me.' the isolating desperation of two as if the other is not in the room, or worse, all too present. on the flip-side there is the mother of a friend who told my sister that 'unless you're jealous you're not in love'. and my friend Jane who used to say: 'they fight like they're in love'. without tension there is no love story. god knows we chew up the initial emo-rush with dark imaginings. or we stir a tepid pot with accusation so that the make-up sex is hot, or at least new, or re-newed. it's rare and wonderful to see those few couples, gay, straight, bi, trans whateverthefuck where life hasn't gone out of the frame. i remember reading about Bess and Harry Truman. when they'd moved out of the White House while it was being renovated and were sleeping at the Blair House. the secret service could hear the springs of the bed in the President's Suite squeaking like mad. they still loved each other, those two. they still went at it. neither had ever known another. i like hearing about that. it keeps me from settling (as if there is a Particular Perfect Someone) just because i don't want to be alone. i see a too much of better-someone-than-no-one, the fear of solitude. worse, however, is the nightmare of feeling isolated around the very one you're with. landing in Vineyard Haven, high on acid, my friends Patrick, Aam and i sat at a table at the Black Dog. across from us an old woman was reading. she wore a tight-fitting one-piece gray suit with a zipper that ran from crotch to throat with a ring, like a cock ring, at the neck inviting a pull down. she looked terrific and very old, but with none of the wandering mind, the looking back wistfully, the feel sorry for herself spectre. with my usual LSD forwardness i inquired: 'how is it, being old?' she put down her fork and looked right at me with clear blue eyes. 'you know what', she said, 'an old tree, weathered by storm and bleached, is beautiful. we all think so. an old car, up on cinder blocks in a back yard with weeds growing up around a rusted frame is beautiful. we all agree. we love old things. we even collect them. we pay for them. new is nice, but doesn't share that soul quality that has us loving old things, old objects. it isn't like that with people, is it? not for the most part. we like the young. and another thing? you may think, you might hope or imagine that eventually one reaches a plateau where one arrives, finally and where all makes sense and all questions answered. well i'll tell you, you don't. you won't. it's an endless upward curve of learning, suffering, moving on and trying again. i was married for many many years. one morning i put down the paper and looked across the table at my husband who was lost in breakfast, who was, in a sense, not there. not there with me anyhow. the sound of his fork on the plate was explosive. that did it. i'd had it. i left him. i walked out. you see you never know where life will take you. that no matter how we plan it, no matter what we anticipate, it will not be that way, not ever. maybe you get close on a good day, when you're lucky, to having The Truth fall into your lap. maybe, but not often. ok, that's it. that's all i've got to say. nice to meet you.' she stood up, pivoted and left, her cock ring bouncing at her throat. she is still very much with me.

speed

i usta hit it hard in Philly when i was imagining myself as an architect. having been accepted by the Yay-ul Architecture School on a full scholarship i was thinking, well, i'm sort of an artist on the inside, but i need to make a living so maybe something like buildings and shit would do the trick and balance the inner artist with the outer realist. to find out for sure i got a job with Vincent G. Kling and Associates in downtown Philly where i labored over floor plans and carefully etched toilet designs. at night, however, i'd get high on anything i could get my hands on - hash, weed, lsd, mushrooms, peyote, sunflower seeds, meth. loved the double life. a favorite junket was to drop a pill, drive to the airport, park at the end of the runway behind the chain link fence and watch the planes take off and land. the big bellied sky whales lifted your hair and crushed your eardrums. it rocked. or we'd hit up the Electric Factory (a small venue at the time) where i lucked out and saw Hendrix ride a greased pig onto the stage. or Iron Butterfly zone off into a San Francisco twilight. or even Three Dog Night with their hairy chests screaming into the mike. i traipsed up to the skinny androgynous bassist from the west coast band, Spirit, shake his limp hand (a forefinger grazing my palm in code) and gaze like a teenage girl into his mercury eyes. all this got me into the margins at work where i'd sketch 4x8 foot posters (faux Peter Max) and color them in with a fist of psychedelic magic markers. all this led up to my first bad trips on meth. i loved the initial rush, the humorless solve-all-the-problems-of-the-world edge, my heart beating like a bitch in heat. it was great until the inevitable crash. i would denounce to myself all the hot ideas that had only minutes ago seemed brilliant. i hated the sound of my voice. my skin crawled with invisible bugs. my eyes dried out. the only solution would be, though i didn't have any in those days, a sedative or wicked strong weed. more often than not i was stuck sweating it out, long hours of self-loathing and suicidal panic. it did help on cross country drives. who needed sleep? after a brief incarceration in a Santa Barbara jail (for shoplifting) my friend Harlow (flown out from Philly by my infuriated dad) and i drove back to the east coast without a wink, miles high on meth. i don't think we shut up for the entire trip. we solved all the problems of our love lives, poverty, war, inequity on the 2.5 day jaunt. ghostly, skeletal horses galloped alongside my blue panel truck at night. a sabre tooth tiger leaped from a cave, snarling and drooling across the hood. red necks in rest rooms gave us the evil eye. once home, we napped, helplessly fucked up in a 100 mph daze. i gave the shit up soon thereafter only to replace it down the rock n roll road with a coke addiction. it was more glamorous than speed. it was sexy to do, the cutting, shaping, snorting, encrusted mirror. the horny rush would subtract all moral code and inhibition. but that too, like it's white trash pal, would induce a grotesque fall from grace. good and bad times they were, those dark days of infantile fear and loathing.

tits or boobs?

what d' ya call 'em? girls prefer boobs. guys, tits. breasts sound too clinical, too sibilant. knockers are dated. bosoms are too poetic. to me 'boobs' sounds dumb, like water grenades, demeaning in a goofy way and tits are what? smaller? more perky, more upright, hard nippled? on odd occasions i take a sampling, a census. tit's or boobs? i ask. of course there's a thousand Chaucerian options i could look up. i could Google tits to see what's vogue, but i don't. it's all tits all the time far as i'm concerned. how about you? tits or boobs? you already know, don't ya? shout it out.

my girlfriends

have often been my best friends well before 'fag hag' made it into the cynical repertoire. beginning with high school, the-girl-who-gave-a-shit-about-me, who stood by her closeted pal was a consistent fact of life. she championed my obsessions, my trafficking in the emo underworld and my starry eyes about art and life. we'd become inseparable, inter-dependant and shared a world view with made-up vocabulary, in-joke humor and x-ray insight. what i overlooked, shamefully, were those rare girlfriends who loved me too much for their own good. who over-worked our un-sexualized connection even as they knew, heart deep, that boy-girl love was not in the cards. they'd listen patiently to my crush rants in the same way i'd listen to straight boys carp about their shitty girlfriends. those unreachable guys i'd mirror with undivided attention as i (weakly) camouflaged desire. i became the straight boy in reverse to my sympatico girlfriend. she'd bite her tongue and console me about the kid who hadn't made it all the way across the bi-bridge. she would wait and hope for more of me for herself, fantasizing that she alone could deliver the missing link in my loser love life. we got strung up in some dizzy parallel karmic love-trap, a half-requited but not unrequited maze, as if 'put there' to teach our sophomoric hearts what had not been learned about full-on soul connection. we slept in the stale bed of unequal romance even as we knew, separately, sadly, that we would suffer. we do that, don't we? choosing in 'best friendship' someone for whom we feel way more. where the imbalanced heart longs for level ground, longing eyes, erotic touch. it's hard to not believe that the person we feel so much for can not, on their side, feel the same back. i've been super lucky. i've had several astonishing, talented, strong-souled, brilliant women nurture my better self and believe in me with spotlight eyes even as it hurt. even with whom the over-the-glasses bar-code scan of drunken locals inspired nasty fiction. 'look at that one. he is SO into his hair', we'd laugh. we were side-by-side. we'd share art, absurd ambition and disappointment all until the unguarded heart broke, or until i woke up and saw how she'd been let down. or until she threw in the towel and chased after a straight kid who could truly love her back. from these great friendships difficult wisdom grew. i love them all, i still do, my best girlfriends. the one's i hurt i didn't mean to. the ones i did not continue to smile from their perch on an elevated dollhouse stage with a great laugh, head back, getting me getting them. maybe in a distant lifetime we were lovers. maybe we sustain a truer thread by not ever being all that we can be.