Toads on Motorcycles

“Two snows in one winter, a week apart. It’s never happened before in Louisiana or at least in my life and I’m sixty-six,” she said. Well I’ll be sixty-six in another couple of months and I don’t think I look as old she does. I still think of old women as motherly figures.  And I am thinking maybe I should have checked on her current status, if she is on Facebook. A lot of old people are now. Two big dogs or three bony old women on a night like last night. I should have taken some interest but I did not. I only have one little dog. I paid for my gas. We exchanged a few words about the weather. She is probably a Bible thumper. Most country people are, especially down here in the south.  We would never have gotten along.  I would just be a big disappointment. She would have wanted me to attend church. And I wouldn’t want to. We would have our first fight. But a little place like this in the South would be nice, but not at that price. A place to come home to.  But all I could hold in my head was that she looked so old. She reminded me of my mother. So I walked out and got in my truck and drove off.  Sometime you’re gonna have to realize that you’re just  another old fart. Somewhere you’re gonna have to find a place to rest. In my grave, I say myself as I drive away. “In my grave!”

The bar fills up. It’s after four. It’s happy hour. “How much for a half pint,” someone asks?

Paddy says, “one dollar. But I’ll need to see your ID.” The guy gets out a Euro ID. Paddy says, “these seem to be all over the place.”

“I’ll take a pint,” the customer says. 

Paddy says, ‘that’ll be two fifty.”

The customer replies, “make that two half pints.”

Paddy says, “seems they’re still teaching arithmetic over there.”

“Yeah a bit,” the guy says.

I thought I had seen a cow grazing in the field. It was avoiding the thistles. I didn’t think I had imagined it. I am sitting here at the bar. There are no thistles to be avoided here. Maybe a few metaphorical ones. What does it means to be a regular:

-                The bartender (Paddy in this case) keeps them coming without you having to ask (this might be an advantage, but on the other hand it may not be)

-                Every once in a while you get one free, especially when Paddy draws the wrong one (he doesn’t do it often, but some of the other bartenders do)

-                We are all comrades (they may not be ones I would wish for but when it comes to comrades you take what there is)

-                You know who to hit on and who not to mess with (some women have diseases, some women have a vindictive old man, some women ride motorcycles)

-                There are people to avoid and you know who they are (there is a reason that there is usually an empty space next to them)

-                You can dispense advice freely. But if you do it too often you become one of those to be avoided (you’ll know when there are empty spaces of both sides of you)

-                No one reminds you of your previous indiscretions (but they tell others all about them, often in a loud voice)

-                You know the protocol even if you don’t abide by it

-                The place becomes a second home (most of the time you’d rather be here than at home, but you still gotta leave before they close)

-                You’re will on your way to becoming an alcoholic (most of the regulars are)

-                You consider not coming back here again (but you know you’ll just find another such home away from home and there aren’t any better ones)

-                You know everyone and everyone knows you (the regulars anyway, the others are fair game)

-                You start conversing with the ‘Little People’

Margaret comes on duty. Paddy goes off. Each bartender brings up a pail of ice from the basement as they come on duty along with their own cash drawer. Paddy is headed for Alaska tomorrow. Home is where you sleep I keep reminding myself but I am not sure that I am convinced.

Green the night

With yellow eyes

Stalk the big cats

Darkness is maroon

With squeaks and gurgles

The defeated and the dying

They have all been forgiven

Not everything survives the night

Not everything goes to sleep satisfied

Hunger transforms and ushers

            In the dawn

Green is the night

Queen in her might

Ring in the daylight

Crown sunlight with delight

70% of married men believe that their wives agree with them politically but only 49% of wives say that always voted the same way as their husbands do

Societies’ verdicts are self-confirming – Christopher Hill – The World Turned Upside Down, 1972  p295

Big birds – white – fly off lubberly, squawking. I walk. They flee. Feet dangling. Little birds flitter about landing on the raft of dead water lilies at the lake’s indiscernible edge. A light blinks from across the oil well studded waters.

Everything’s OK – so long as the rules are obeyed

            Show tricks; torture is stock and trade

            There’s a secret

Administrative finding as a matter of fact

                       

You are absolved from personal responsibility

            (and legal liability)

            The State has given its sanction

                        There’s a SOFA in affect

            It is only enhanced interrogation

The power of the word

The word is our lord

There are no Protestant members currently serving on the US Supreme Court

Fail to know what everyone else knows and you have a chance to create something interesting – Todd May – Gilles Deleuze, 2003 p149

Protestantism resulted from over commodification – when redemption itself had become a commodity.

DIFFERENCE

Its not they you’re more aware

It’s awareness itself that is acute

There’s a difference

Nothing is actually

            Different

Just that it gets processed

            Differently

Idle circuitry has been put in play

            Why have I never

            Noticed that before

It means something different

Something that had meant nothing

            (or very little) becomes

            Really really significant

Oh my gosh, I hadn’t noticed that

            Until now

While something that had seemed

            Important seems so trivial

It can be disconcerting

            Waiting for normal

            While wondering

If such a thing had really ever had exited

Everything tastes different

            (Is there anything to eat)

Everything sounds different

They’re the same words

But they sound ominous

Now – drug out, hung onto

No I need to stop

I need to think about this

I need to listen more carefully

I need to talk a little less

            What I’m saying makes no sense

            I can taste my words as the leave my lips

            They have the color of dying embers

                        Leaves falling from the trees

I try counting them

I say something and pause

Someone clasps her hand

On my shoulder

It’s OK she says

She’s so aware

            I think and I smile

And I don’t say nothing more

Maybe I should try telepathy

            Yes that’s what I’ll do

You’re awful quiet

            She says

            You have a sixth sense

I think. Maybe there’s an

            Extra eye on your forehead

            Let me look

It’s working I think

Or at least I think that’a what I’m thinking

            I’m growing an extra eye

            I’m sure of it

Does anyone notice

            It all seems so odd

            And no one seems

At all bothered except for me

            I want this to stop

And a little ruby throated hummingbird is darting about. A gust of wind scatters the clarinet player’s music sheets about. The sun is bright. I close my eyes. I could fall asleep in the green green grass. I open my eyes. There a white butterfly floats about where the humming bird had just been. How long have I been napping?

He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil – George Orwell “The Lion and the Unicorn”, 1941

I start by making a list. When you don’t know where to start, start by making a list. This will be a short list.

We’re all wise to

            Mad cow disease

It’s a wild disease

When we’re all mad

            To catch a cow

It’s a mad cow

            That wants to be free

To feed on our disease

Its all in our head

            To be mad

The cow is wise

            To our mad disease

But it makes some difference whether a man sees history from above or from below – George Orwell – “The Lion and the Unicorn”, 1941