S.B.T. 440

 Inside the head uv a fish writer

She delivers packages, letters, messages, taking the short-cut route through the fields. The sun and wind are freeing, invigorating. She could close her eyes and walk briskly, arms out, reliving a once-upon-a-tme when she was a hefty-winged raven, finding each breath and matching step elevating and exhilarating. Her 2nd stop is always Pola’s farm and zoo, where she bathes and feeds the baby elephant, filling and leaving a basket of fruit for the chattering monkey twins, and lastly, sits to the side of the elderly gentleman panther singing the lullaby her mama sang, while he sips from a bowl of cream.

The earnings are enough to keep the garden seeded and not only feed the gypsy miners, but herself, aunt Reubie in the old stone cottage, and the children Norin and Wita. With barter for nails from the garden vegetables, the gypsy wood-carver made a temple of candles out of broken barnboards, kindling and wood-chop, and she could greet travelers and passersby who stopped to see. The candles when lit together, made a star that could be seen from as far away as can be imagined.

By the way, what was her name?

She was a robust woman of 42 in the days when knights, blinkingly armored, trotted up on horses so strident they were drawn to the likeness of willow and birch in snow. Days of reverence, pride, fear, and pony uprisings.

The simple folk longed to live peacefully in their patched cabins, gentle farmer homes, climbing ivy rancheros, grassland huts, coconut houseboats playing at the river edge. 

She does her best every day to fulfill appointed duties. 13 dusty blue miners last counted eat suppers in decency, she sees to it, an humble feast is ready when they come around 7 pm to gather at the kitchen window, waiting as complete with roasted chicken and fried potato, bread and cream and brandied apples, the "Table Ready!" call would ring out - and they’d dance gaily clamoring for chairs, laughing and singing “La,lalalala Lee…Veritas Veritas…La lalala Lay…..”

S.B.T. 439

before i knew it, i found out that according to the trees, the ones i know personally, there are no spaces between them. their root legs feather out like veins underground, a stretched mirror of their top limb'ical syst'm. and of course they signal-speak more or less to each other, cues in the wind, they wave, touch leaves on a breeze, they often bend over each other in storms, while under the topsoil their shanks intertwine, sap running through arteries, on high vibe nature alert, tall, quietly majestic, welcoming to birds and little beasts - there are no spaces between them.

but, "empty space, in a complexity of connectivity, with multi loose ends, is a need," i tell you, "for a creative type of person."

so i consider that spaces between things are a disconnection.  a chance to vacate from thought-like inclinations, from repetitive evocative scents, sense and senses, from any kind of crushing intimacy, from some overwhelming daily drudgery-doo.
but it widens the gap between the tiny nerves under my skin and the molecules of air that swirl all around from tree to tree to me.

S.B.T. 438

disappearance

thought dust swept away

from the shelf

brushed off,

the surface polished

my brother and me, almost 3 and almost 5

S.B.T 437

i always left the most... 

i always felt that there is something bigger and more genuine than i could fathum. but i also always felt that whatever the something is, it’s none of my business what it’s doing. and though it had an effect on the overall lineup, as contender for the position of originating force, i never thought of prizing alignment with it, because obviously, we’re related.

i keep remembering/discovering ways that ledd to the currrrent errer, and have found many instances of facts pseudo-scientifically swep=t under the rug, which someone owes apologies for. what i would not have stopped long enough to appreciate is the hallmark of a flaw in the pattern sensibility. what through erroneous judgment anyone felt entitled to do without consideration very much of dispersed effects: tamarrow we can cab calculate calloway the dreaded ‘how someone feels’ equation and get desired result short-term. “forget the possibility of disaster FOR A FEW SECONDS” and THEN “think of every catastrophe along the way.” 

cant think of every catastrophe i might meet along the way, w/out risk of damaging the OS, but it looks like a f-good bizway map.

Ping Pong Mandala — July 9 2019 pic.twitter.com/nSfmEMM4vA

— tipota (@tipotato) July 9, 2019

S.B.T. 436

firing people

“Missy has not changed in all these years, Rocky” i said, (“she’s like the picture of doria grey”)

“my wife is so full of….god” he smiled, almost apologetically, tilting his gaze toward the que-ball. I swiftly understood the angle, he uses his heart to love, he loves, he really loves. He probably knows people wonder how he got a beautiful girl like that to marry him. People look at them and think something like Liv Tyler married Michael Jeter. but it’s the complex surface reflective with added texture they’re responding to. And it’s stone simple: he loves truly, and she was either wise enough to know or just plain lucky.

Remembering struck me silent for a while, thinking of that last good-bye, and how dignified he was when I fired him.

Unlike when I fired Brystal, who started yelling and crying and screaming "how am i gonna pay the bills?" (i looked at her blue streaked hair and thought, “well you can skip the beauty shop expense”.) (it might have been that i had just begun using a “rinse-out-the-grey” bottle of color once a week in the shower, i’d just turned 40. and so i knew you could do it at home for cheap.) and then she stormed out running to the President’s office but failed to successfully go over my head and get her job back because of course he knew exactly what was going down. 

Also unlike Charlotte, who threatened a lawsuit and then did sue, and then did settle. All that day in court with the pages of documented reports in my briefcase that I’d had to prepare and pre-date. A skin-tingling creepy scalp feeling ripping to resolve down. I never did want to fire her but had an ultimatum from a frustrated overlord after delaying for three months so she could collect. 

Even tho it was years ago the firing of Rockwell Savarino still plays in my mind like a newly released reel. The thing is, he has said it was a fantastic thing, losing that job. it changed his life, he said, grinning. and maybe that was the truth sparkling out from the merriness dancing in his eyes. He handed me a bowl of pasta when my mouth dropped open, then he suavely grated cheese over the top of it.                                                                                                                                                   

“how did i not see the greatness of these people before?” i wondered silently, wide-eyed, looking at Rocky, white streaks in his beard now. wasn’t i standing right in it? i couldn’t see myself. it is much easier to fire someone you can’t relate to. so i assessed performance, that was all, and thought of them as robotically useful. but if they didn’t do enough or they didn’t do it right or they annoyed me continually. send that one back to the shop….NEXT>.

_________

“…….and adda yadda yadda i’m so sorry i have to let you go,” I said wrapping it up.

Pause. 

Gayle looks me in the eye empathically and says  “Are you sure?” - that was the best instant response ever.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

S.B.T 435

refuge for wonderers

things changed this morning. or was it two minutes ago? or was it 2 days ago? maybe it was never, maybe it has always been this way. the way of the wonderer keeps a path that can move in any direction and in any dimension, but this morning sensibilities are definitively different. i think it's because of a dream i had.

unaware, as wonderers most often are, she’d been looking for someone, a friend perhaps, or someone new. a tarot layout suggested someone was coming, someone from the past it suggested. she rolled names and faces over through her head. were there any among them i’d love to see again? she asked herself, she told me later. and oddly, there were, even though she’d spent the last decade or so ignoring the memories of the past. 

you know how sometimes it might happen that “signs” come to you in a snapshot flash, or in a moment of reverie, or just before sleep, etc.? “if i could learn to stop worrying,” she said,
”i would see more of them.” 

A burly yellow tomcat Djedefre lives under the crumbling vacant cottage at the back of the yard. I put food out every day for him and his tribe.  During winter I use a heated bowl strung through a slit in the kitchen window next to the deck, set up under a lean-to book-ended wth a ramshackle shelter carved out of a plastic storage tub. Inside the insulated tub, another giant warm dog bowl, for a St. Bernard or two maybe, for keeping outdoor water unfrozen. It’s big enough to accommodate a queen and her kittens, twice the size of the one with the food in it. But Djedefre (Joo-DEFF-ree) is hefty - broad, muscular, puffed out - it’s a cramped studio apartment. Nonetheless, in January he squeezed in there and filled the dog bowl brimming over in his search for warmth, fortunate to find a cozy spot away from cold, snow, wind, and with food nearby. 
      Three summers ago Djedefre defeated Vortegen, the aged and tired despot, who'd been colony king for several years. It's what they do. Since it is obviously unwise to interfere with natural predilection, even though people are gifted at doing it, it must be wiser to support survival.
      Anyway, I was carrying a basket of food out to the back deck of the old cottage yesterday, humming along.  As I reached the steps and looked up - there he was, right there, curled up in the morning sun. He raised his big golden head and called out something to me, it was whole tone and jazzy. That moment I realized life is truly magical, pretty much every minute. He didn’t run away when I approached to lay down the goodies. He kept talking, and before I'd turned to leave, he was already nose-down. So what? a cynic might say. But cynics rarely realize who they are, they assume the right to question equals or implies the right to be judgmental and waste a lot of time. In reality it was Godlike, blessed, a magical vision. Watch the evening news and you'll understand how that works, brainwashing contrasted with nature and now. It just was what it was. a wild cat accepting and communicating with me, showing trust. It is nothing less than a prayer answered/dream becoming real. I think I know what to do next. See the new comedy. And edit the dream to bring forth enhancements. 

S.B.T. 434

how deep is the water

2 wander about buoy chimes

intent on foghorn call the 

Satchit Ananda sails so pretty 

raga on the wind

slowly breathened in

floating sensations   

notations sealed in wax 

coincidence like waning

like paper-rustling cats 

a measure of moon pennies 

in a piggy bank

where we wade 

in wait

for Tansen to lite the lamps

The Story of Tansen