A few days earlier, Beth had made an oblique reference that she knew where Cathy had ended up. I mentally filed that away, but didn’t bring it up again. Most of the time I have the context “Cathy who?” She doesn’t come up in the day to day. But there are ordinary objects, places, phrases and people which are actually disguised keys that unlock a hidden time period. In this group of friends, the Cathy-shaped gap must be quite prominent for them. I never really thought about it until now. She essentially fell off the face of the planet for seven years. For all of us. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Cathy, Landmark, Life, Los Angeles

On a whim, I decided to map out my current social network. It illustrates the chain of circumstances responsible for my current relationships.

As you can see, this is all Jodi’s fault.

Click on the image for the full view.

Tags: Albuquerque, Cathy, college, Jess, Life, poetry

“Don’t waste your time on me, you’re already the voice inside my head.”

I miss everyone tonight.
I miss my friends, even if I’ve just seen them.
I miss how some friends were a few weeks ago.
I miss girls I should never have kissed.
I miss girls I should have but now it’s too late.
I miss my ex-girlfriends.
I miss my lovers.
I miss Cathy.
I miss how my friends were in college.
I miss wine and cheese with Beth.
I miss Neal.
I miss my best friends, separated by distances physical and psychological.
I miss my mom.
I miss my sister and my neices.
I miss my grandmother.
I miss Kevmo and The Airliner.
I miss road trips.
I miss being in love.
I miss church.
I miss God.
I miss the little red haired girl.
I already miss Christopher Eccleston, you fucking heartbreaker.
I miss Buffy.
I miss Serenity.
I miss poetry that isn’t about fear.
I miss Michael Hutchence.
I miss Dumbledore, JK, you cruel woman.
I miss garage sales.
I miss my Apple II+.
I miss floppy disks.
I miss not needing money.
I miss inventing games in the back of the school bus.
I miss recess.
I miss feeling safe.
I miss not knowing.
I miss the way it used to be.
I miss you.

Tags: Cathy, Geek, Jess, Life

Here’s a poem I recently reworked and tightened up a bit.

Photos
v.2

I spent five years filling up a photo album with a house, a car, a dog, a set of tools, a nice dining room set, and you.
And you in your wedding dress
And you smiling by the SOLD sign
And you raking the leaves
And you looking at me like I was forever.
I was an amateur photographer, to be sure
Shooting from the hip
Sending up a prayer that when the camera winked
Something would develop:
Be they happy accidents
The smeared blur of a smile
You on a camel, framed by a pyramid
The montage of a child’s face, my eyes, your nose
Or the sepia toned hope of you and me wrinkling in a sunset forty years away
But now I wonder
Did someone else borrow my camera for the last five years?
In the economy of betrayal
One word is worth a thousand pictures
“I do” bought two thousand moments
“Divorce” took half of them back
It’s an expensive word
It cost a house, a car, a dog, a set of tools, a nice dining room set, and you.
And you packing up your wedding dress
And you putting up a FOR SALE sign
And you leaving the rake
And you looking at me like I never meant anything
And it cost you me.
All those photos, just gone
As though I had spent the last five years taking pictures of the sun.

Tags: Cathy, poetry

At the end of one dream I was with someone and we were going to go to some kind of children’s museum. We walked into the door where we thought the museum would be and found that things looked very different from the last time we were there. It looked more like a hospital. As it turned out, we had wandered into the children’s hospital instead.

I think perhaps the person I was with was my ex-wife Cathy. This segued into the next dream where I had gotten back together with Cathy and we were moving into a new house. I kept wondering where I was going to put all my things. There was already a bed there. I would no longer have my own bedroom and this bothered me. I started wondering if this was what I really wanted. So much had happened in the years since we got divorced and I wasn’t sure she really knew me any more. I stood in the upstairs living room of the new house (off-white carpet, white walls) and watched a black widow spider come and drag the carcass of a cockroach away. This was the most realistic part of the dream, the one filled with the most detail.

I went to explore the rest of the new house. There was a patio that opened off the kitchen, leading to a forest of very tall trees. Perhaps our new house was in the redwood forest of California. As soon as I set foot into the forest, a small one-man starfighter began a strafing run between the immense trees. I had to run and dodge laser blasts until I was safe in the kitchen. Apparently our new house could withstand laser blasts.

That’s all.

Tags: Cathy, Dreams

For some reason, my alarm didn’t go off this morning even though it was set. {Gee, electrical equipment failing.  That’s a new one.} I actually didn’t feel too bad despite sleeping very little due to the mushrooms.

At work, as I was looking for some apartment footage, I came across a box with video from a friend’s wedding that occurred a couple years ago.  I popped it in and was taken aback to see myself and my ex-wife on the video.  What are the chances that the company I ended up working for would have taped this wedding and held onto the raw footage for no reason and placed it where it didn’t belong?  I guess I had about two tears left for Cathy.  It was just kind of a shock.  The tapes ended up in the “to be erased” box.

Tags: Cathy

It transpires like this: My wife, Cathy, whom I have been married to for x number of years (x = heart memory, buried memory, misty and unaccounted for. The lost time blows over the plain of my inner world, leaving shadows like gaping mouths rolling ever closer.) decides that enough’s enough. She quit her job, she quit church and when that didn’t make her life better, she quit me. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Cathy, Jess, non serviam, reft

This is the world and I cannot hold it
Like a mother holds a child
Like a lover holds time
I better try grabbing onto the rings of Saturn
Before I try to hold a world
Spinning fast enough to hold us to the ground
Giving our hopes stunted wings
Pulling the sand through the hourglass
With a world spinning so fast you’d think there’d be a roaring wind
And there is, but we’ve got the volume down so low
That mother’s crying cannot be heard over the rustle of father’s newspaper
But I hear the wind
It sounds like I’m jet skiing the slipstream of a 767 en route to the cover of Time Magazine
It sounds like I’m showering in Niagra Falls, but I never get clean.
Like eyes that can’t bear to meet.
Like my small hands trying to catch you before you fall.
It sounds like the breath I take before saying “I think I see God.”
In college, the cafeteria ladies thought I was Jesus
And made sure I got the hot rolls
But they didn’t see me that night when I was so drunk
And the door was locked
And she was just right there
And I made such a mistake
I woke up with the room spinning, the world spinning.
My friends and I swaggered through our college lives
Immortal. We would never say good-bye.
But then a wind started to pick up the leaves, our plans, and our time
Into a swirling dance
Our feet were heavy
And our hands were so small
The world spun faster
Through the endless cornfields of Greencastle, Indiana
Through the deceptive peace of Albany, New York
Broken by a ringing phone.
When I answered
I heard a voice, once so calm,
Breaking like old violin strings
as it told me a horrible lie.
Neal, who was beautiful;
Neal, who had composed music from some dream country I could not even look upon,
Had not made it out of the woods
Somewhere he lay pale and still
Bathed in silent white light.
The secret was out:
One of us was mortal
One of us would only live in photographs and “remember when”
And I realized that none of us were out of the woods yet.
I’m knocking on Heaven’s door
I’m out here with a list of questions that all start with “Why…”
Why doesn’t everyone see You?
Why can’t my hands be bigger?
Why did love and lonliness both have her face?
Why did the phone have to ring that day?
The world spun through Albuquerque, New Mexico
To a house big enough for our silence.
Again, a ringing phone.
I got the call that explained, at the end, my grandmother said she could see Jesus
Or maybe it was her favorite grandchild whose voice she’d never hear again
My wife came home and stood at the opposite end of the room
a thousand miles away
Torn between the bitter chill of our dying marriage
And my warm sobbing for my grandmother who was dead
She compromised with a hand on my shoulder
And the world spun faster
It spins through the girl ahead of me in the checkout line who is the love of my life, but neither of us will ever know it.
It spins through the man who sleeps in the alley so I can waste money on a hamburger I didn’t really want.
It spins through that call I should have made weeks ago to a phone that will never ring again.
It spins through my arrogance and my self-righteousness and my small, small hands.
I’m sorry I could not catch you.
My friends and I used to say “Good-bye”
Now it’s just “Don’t die.”

Tags: Cathy, poetry

Yes, officer, I am now aware that I was 10 miles over the posted speed limit.
It’s just plain cruel to hang such a staggering sunset on yon horizon
And not expect a man’s heart to race toward it, vehicle in tow.
Now I suppose you’re fixing to run my license and have a peek at my record.
Allow me a disclaimer, a few soft words of explanation
That will get our relationship off to a pleasant start.
The parking tickets – well, I can’t deny those.
Though, I know you’ll raise an eyebrow at the library fine.
Yes, it is true: I did check out the entire collection of Sumerian mythology,
Some 57 odd books, from Taylor Memorial, and yes, I never returned them.
Three weeks is hardly adequate time to contemplate the Nam-Shub of Enkidu,
Wouldn’t you agree?
And I’m sure the death mark placed on me by the Turkish Government is on file.
You can’t take a piss in that country without committing some blasphemy or another.
Tucamcari?
Let me ask you something:
Were you even aware of such a smudge on the map before consulting my record?
No, I didn’t think so.
I’m sure no one misses it – I sure don’t.
Let them build an outlet mall or something there.
Plenty of space for it now.
“Who is Charlene Friday?”
Well, once upon a time, I would have said she was my wife.
Nowadays, that’s just a word in the dictionary between “Friendship” and “Friction.”
I can see where you’re going with this, officer.
You could stand there playing priest to my confessor until the shadows tuck in the mountains and kiss them goodnight,
But let me save you the trouble:
I am a guilty man.
But not for anything on your little computer screen.
If you have a moment, I can let you peruse the Right and True account of my life,
Careful and leather-bound,
Right here in the glove compartment.
Fear not!
I am unarmed,
Save for my wicked, wicked tongue.
Here:
I rescued a princess from a faraway tower, but put her in another tower closer to me.
I had a basket of apples, but picked another from my neighbor’s tree.
I discovered a clear mountain stream and kept it a secret.
I let an entire summer slide past my window without so much as a glance at it.
I had a dream about a net of stars and did not write a poem about it.
Holy music swelled in my chest, yet I did not sing.
I pushed a child.
I laughed at a friend.
But these are all essentially victimless crimes,
Pedestrian cruelties available to common souls,
Loose change in the coat pockets of a more hideous transgression.
All victimless crimes.
I am a villain, true, but officer, please show me the innocent.

Tags: Cathy, poetry