Before Anything

Before anything
I do
I do these
push-ups,
I give them,
there’s more than a hundred
of them,
I give
to my back
so there’s no pain,
each one
is like writing a poem
each one
like eating something
that’s not always pleasant
every day
that will keep you alive,

in a silent construction
built between me
and the floor,
moving up and down
the poverty of my desire
hunts down a reward
in flesh
deciding
I want you
purring,
purring into my chest,
your tongue in my eye, your
heels
stabbing the ceiling.

our house: boys

Our house is currently for sale, which has been causing no end of distracting events, mostly relating to the house(s) we have been trying to buy. House 1 disappeared on us suddenly (not literally of course) and finding house 2 has put a rather big wrench in the works. It's been all I can manage to deal with for what seems like 2 years, but is actually just about a week I think. Anyway, I'm trying really hard right now to wrench my brain back out of that and back into this. I'm starting with a transitional attempt, a mini-intervention of sorts. Thinking about the house, but working on  the website at the same time. We'll see how it goes. I've been meaning to run through the house anyway and here it goes, not how I meant to start off, but it seems to be an easy way in for my over-taxed brain. 

SPRINGKORN duvets & pillows, GEMO outdoor cushions (al from IKEA) & train prints from ETSY

Recently, I wrote a post on my sons' new bunk bed. It's been a very popular post, so I'm starting with their room. When we weren't sure if we were going to be moving as soon as we had originally planned, we decided to start working on ways to make the house work really well for us to stay for as long as necessary. First adjustment was adapting the bedroom used by all 3 boys to better fit their beds and still allow them room to play when they wanted. Previously, the floor was pretty much filled with their KURA bunk bed and a twin mattress on the floor to accomodate all 3. When they needed the floor space, we had to move the mattress which wasn't really practical for every day. The Ikea TROMSO bunk bed with trundle was the solution we came up with and it transformed their room from having almost no floor space to a room they can easily play in, have "alone time" in or entertain friends.  We also let them pick some new bedding, pillows and a new paint color. They really liked the old color, but after extensive holes & patching throughout the room for the electrical work we had done just after moving in, it really needed to be repainted. The new color is Benjamin Moore "Icy Moon Drops", chosen just as much for the name as for the color. It's a perfect blue and I love it. The new SPRINGKORN duvets and SPRINGKORN & GRENO pillows are from Ikea, the rug is Striped Poodle from Flor (sadly no longer available), the art is a combination of train photos purchased from Etsy, sun prints we made one afternoon & a super fab poster from Ron Liberti. 

Sun prints & Ron Liberti's Neil Diamond All-Stars poster

You Make Me Happy 

You Don't Know What's Inside, Part III

After my father died of crazy and exsanguination
from self-inflicted cuts to his arms and legs
my mother married an ass-hole from Birmingham, Alabama
with a name that rings of
everything
black magic about that place:

James Kirkman Jackson, Jr.

My stepfather was an evil wizard that we all feared
like a dragon.

The birds singing in the woods all around us
I watched him
hold our dog by the throat,
he slammed the dog’s back down onto a rock,
punched the stupid animal in the face
looked
at me, blaming me
because there was shit
on or near
the white shag rug,

I watched him
smash his VW Bug
one night
for breaking down
between the train station
and the carport
so he dented the hood, the door and broke the windshield
with his briefcase,

playing a game of soccer with his friends
I beat him down the line,
I watched him
step on my calf to break the ankle
and brag about it
driving home,

I watched him
hit my half-sister
with a switch,
made her stand in a corner,
sick shit
for crayons on the wall,

with a headless wooden lacrosse stick next to my bed
I slept lightly
waiting for the yelling in the bedroom
over my head
to go wrong –

he was fear and I wanted to kill him more than I have ever wanted
anything,
my fantasies of murder
constant.

The rock where he punched the dog named “Shoes”
is where he broke his back:

the landlord wanted him to help
clear some vines
from around the mouth of the chimney
so on Saturday Mr. Louth
held the two-storey ladder
as Kirkman grabbed some ropey green vine
shaking up a clay gray mottled nest
that put a wasp
between the inside of his glasses
and his eyeball,

he jerked
back,
broke the landlord’s nose
and the rock
the size of a VW’s hood
made him soft and easy.

After walking home in the dark from an all-day soccer practice I
heard that he screamed and was sorry I missed that.

When he came back
the wizard conjured an eighties convergence of cocaine,
he said it helped the pain
and Uncle Billy had it in spades,
mom’s friend rubbed it on his sores
after tennis,
everyone did it with him:

friends from high school,
cops came by,
detectives came by
things got shadier, sketchier,
he stopped paying taxes one year,
double-downed on bad ideas
wrapped up in weird rich people shit,

his sister sent a fur coat from Paris
to our house,
some tax scam,
I had to be home after school on Friday
for UPS
until six

and at six
Holly Riehl stopped at my house
and I’ll never know why
the hottest chick in high school
pulled into my driveway
but it was six,

mom was nervous when I got back,
wouldn’t look at me and gave me the slip
the UPS man left in our mailbox
at Holly fifteen O’clock,

Kirkman had on his pinstripes, braces and wingtips,
the monkeysuit he wore
when he fucked around on mom,
his black hair slicked back
like a real evil punk
and said to me
you really crapped in your mess kit now, boy,

I let nine years of sitting on top of id go:

I threw a chair at him,
slammed the door to my room
and waited,

I had worked on the farm that year,
I had worked
lifting, throwing
fifty, sixty pound bales of hay,
pushed Oxen in the mud,
ate while walking or half asleep,
worked my
ass off
so I’d be strong enough
for the dragon,

mom tried to stop him
on the way to me,
he slapped her to the side, stepped on her
and did his thing:

grabbed my throat,
squeezed,

violence allowed things
to slow down,
my
green blue eyes
had the time to grab
his
black brown
eyes

and I,
full of Holly,
full of uphill farmwork
made room enough
to shift my neck
under his grip
so I could say,

“You’ve broken your back, Kirkman,
don’t forget I can hurt you.”

music on deck: (Sesame Street) video edition

We are currently bogged down in a far-too-distracting-trying-to-buy-a-house-that-is-driving-us-stark-raving-mad mess, so this is what I've got for today: a few of my very favorite Sesame Street songs. I am old enough to have loved Sesame Street from the very beginning, "Rubber Ducky" was the first "real" song I memorized on my own and I have in fact met, Rubber Ducky, Big Bird and Bob (while I was living here in Maplewood as a child). Somehow in my over-taxed brain this seems more than appropriate for today.