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

S.B.T. 433

the capture of the cosmos story pt. 1

tis a blond faierie with pink roses trilling a beehive doo

draped like Stevie Nicks in lace shawls fringes trailing sparkles

{

she’s riding her faithful dog/horse - the front is a unicorn/collie. the rear a palomino followed by whom I first thought might be the Lord himitself but whom, in humility, doesnot show a face but rather bends forward backlit looking down - however he is carrying a net/bag sling over his back  with a fat pink crab dangling inside, he’s wearing a wide beavertail hat, seems normal enough - beside him R 2 habitat-dwelling animals: the cat/cow, the fox/deer, each with backtale but for now tis cat/cow keeping watch w/eyes of dynamo-tion mooooving as all presssw forward in unlimiti infiniti floating through space…cough….and so the thing about it is, they don’t realize that the capture shows them being pulled in a different direction, by a giant friendlymessenger pit bull, with singleminded eyes, than the one they thought/fought they were doing to do.  then on the right side there is someone in the future running away skipping off really totally not interested…….

S.B.T. 432

sweet pungent pine needles bruised by summer heat

mellowed in the winter draped with snow

yellow cliffs red clay dwellings distant thundering beat

part the clouds - peel back the sky and glow

“silver apples of the moon” “Hi Ho Silver, Away!” 

silver is not often used in titles

for transformative stunning effect

but can be a bracelet slipped onto your wrist

here the maestro Alan Silvestri, amidst

loveliness and cool stuff

Music by Alan Silvestri

S.B.T. 431

By stroke of luck,  which a day ago I declared a life half-full of, Bernard Herrmann showed up. There he appeared between trees, with his dog, sauntering down a shady lane, both paused half-turned staring with stock-still camera eyes. During this last week I ‘d sensed something was coming, a slowly amping up vague feeling that disquietude was pending, uncertainty of, like, not-a-clue.

though, in anticipation, spying about, a low belly panther creeping under lush canopies in full daylight trying to peek at you my prey from behind the tall grasses and jungle trees near the shore. 
yeah, noticing the illumination of certain  seemingly domran, modnar, and random, chances given in correspondence to previously spoken word(s. 
that’s how it works, so ask for it, politely, at first.

So here he is, Bernard and Twi the dog, kindly and gladly championing multimedia mewzic, all at once several stories high on the street where you live. Unbelievable. At first anyway, but now quite for sure believable - um, let’s say, it’s “there”.  We were engaging in half-serious plans about a partnership in the offing as long as no offence could be taken or offered by any others in the league.  Off the fence, he’s often sitting around here somewhere.

S.B.T. 430

wild possums fight

in the middle of the night

dogwood spines tingle and shake

the grasses bend, the stars spin

shrieks splatter the stillness
sharp pellets

and echoing howls

“did you hear them?” my neighbor asks in the morning,

new shadows made in the days sunlight

patch a pattern over his face

 like a melody

in a minor key

the furies subside, leaving
a wordless question

a silent answer

young helen keller 

played by Patty Duke

throwing food screaming

pounding the table

then one day a word

penetrates the dark

giving a form where only

infinite puzzlement came before

natural developments

ferns and fibonaccios

and the skeining of

silk threads