This is pretty cool! My first with anything ever in the AA Grapevine…

They didn’t even change much other than the title. 😎 Pages 57-60 if you’re interested.

← Previously … #photos #alcoholism #writtenword #lettherebehope

It only took almost 2 and a half years but the AA Grapevine finally accepted my written submission! 🎉

Here’s the piece I submitted: Alarm clock crazy, no thanks.

#alcoholism #writtenword #lettherebehope

I found a planner from 1991 while basement cleaning earlier. I used it as a journal of sorts for much of the year. No real emotion, more facts of the daily adventures and non-adventures. I didn’t read too much from it because I don’t like to revisit certain lost eras.

However, I did write something toward the back about somebody by the name of Melville and his thoughts on sanity and insanity. How they were akin to the “points in the rainbow where one color begins and another ends.”

#photos #writtenword

A few months back I subscribed to TIME magazine on a whim. It wasn’t because I’m a big fan. I don’t visit their website or follow them on any social media.

Regardless, I’ve enjoyed reading the issues. Overall TIME is a well balanced and fair publication with a good mix of current events, politics, technology, entertainment, etc.

This afternoon I was reading the article, The Internet Can Make Us Feel Awful. The author quoted the book, Dignity, by Donna Hicks:

love is attention

This is why I read magazines, why I read newspapers: spiritual insights. For someone who’s struggle with relationships as much as I have, struggled with what I’m supposed to do, this line clarified so much. So much.

#photos #writtenword #lovewins

Would you like some sweet tea?
A pinch or a peck of green peas?
Or maybe some crumpets and jam?
A rack of rosemary ham and a slab
of sweet maple yams?

#writtenword

Words flow like wine in the bathtub.
Glasses are tilted, reds are splashing.
20 proof bubbly lather is laughing.
Tart letters streak the mirror.
Hands are stained with happiness.

—

There. I wrote a poem.

#writtenword

Audio (MP3): 20180323 - Not often with surgical precision

I’m not overly fond of the word, “slice.” I never say slice. Not a slice of pizza or a slice of pie. It’s always a piece.

“Splice” is okay but remove the “p” and it’s out of the question. I never slice anything either. I cut shit. Not often with surgical precision.

This also may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever wrote. Or written. Depending on your grammar.

It’s not the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. That would be when I was holding a lit firecracker, blew it out, and made the mistake of thinking I was good.

These are the kinds of things I think about when I don’t have any real life struggles.

#meanwhile #writtenword #diariespodcast

I think cucumber should have two of the letter U — just like vacuum. Imagine the glory of cuucumber.

It would be more than triumphant.

#writtenword

I wonder if this still plays…

Countless mischief seasoned with pungent perspiration. Endless laughter hanging on curtains while the fire escape beckoned with a burning heat. Kids kicking the can and then the bricks. Medical supplies sanitize the guilt and in a wheelchair escape we jump the fence.

Too bad Hardees’ weren’t keen on refunds. Detox brings another operation but this time it’s not convert. “He’ll be back in the morning” now that he’s slept it off in the laundry.

Swim in the Five Seasons because we’re just as classy as those people.

Security: You guys got a room key?

Brother: Yeah, it’s over there with my towel.

Me: Let’s just go.

Retox because Captain Denny is calling, way to make a first impression. Three of a kind for the Captain, condoms are okay for interviews kids! Unfortunately we held Alfie down for science. Abby, too.

Now and then the garbage went out the window. Well before the acid trailer, the fade-to-light wine coolers and the puking because it was just too much. “GET OUT.”

Alley gravel afternoon snack. The couch of holding fooled them at first. The blissful nod of old classic rock bullshit and then the bathtub dishwasher. The Flash is flashing outside my window and I got a pretty speedy finger. First ones at the bar, they were brewing coffee. Front porch parties midmorning, the concrete was comfortable in the early spring sun.

Just how many cold pills can you eat?

Lead pipes shattered plaster while her bloody fried chicken sizzled. The Indian upstairs didn’t care but the sloth over there called the police. Better luck next time Roger.

She smashed the glass in fiery hate while he just laughed it off. All fun and games until it wasn’t. A cell with a headlining rapist and curbside lawyers and the long tunnel walks of sentencing. 7&7 at 9am, the honorable presiding.

Ringing the man with round about directions. Abandon the wheels in the closet because the bumper pool bill wasn’t paid and rent came due.

Taste this sour twist of lime and the notion that these souls had barely begun kindergarten when they were stolen from grace and plopped down into residential anarchy like tin and glass in the Recycle Bin. Unfinished symphonies and dangling strings. Stab wounds, crumbled court papers, and a vacant apartment dormant in the afterglow. Three months of memories that hardly fade. It only takes a bit of reflection.

And all that could have been. Reality is more a stone that ripples the water.

Seeing the Rabbits was enchanting in the beginning. We could feel the electricity in the breeze but it ended with a sudden of a sharp guillotine. Smoldering ashes of poetry broke his back. Don’t leave those two alone.

That Cosmic Now was a Drunken Blur, not even a chapter, closer to a paragraph.

The Things Not To Do. Those sweet trumpets barely ache. Listen for the traffic and when it comes to mind, I don’t like it. If I over-ponder they ache a little too much.

And bless the kitchen rosary. And Neil Young’s praise of magnetic analogs, too. Three wandering a forest, two bound by blood. Funny how sometimes destiny appears as real as the cold wind on my feet during a midnight smoke and vanishes as quickly as the breeze wanders somewhere else.

—

The above is vague gibberish from events in 1991 when I lived with one of my brother’s for three months. Roughly in chronological order. I’m sure it’s all true.

Written in 2004, polished a smidge in 2017. The original events are over 26 years old and the memories have really faded now.

I kinda felt like George Lucas revisiting Star Wars. There’s some good stuff in there but it’s not quite what I want it to be. And then the more I fuck with it the worse it gets. Really, I just need to leave it alone.

#writtenword

Dr. G. had this painting hanging in his reception area. I don’t know who painted it or the title.

I studied it some for a few minutes before every session because it’s unsettling. A smidge, a smudge peculiar. I like secular.

The house looks well maintained, no loose shingles or missing boards.

The top, left window might be open to air out the upstairs.

No breeze, no curtains blowing. Maybe no drapes at all. She took them when she left.

I imagine the porch to be swept and the front door to be locked.

It looks overall abandoned and devoid of life, coldly vacant in warmer, crunchy tones.

No people, no window silhouettes.
No tools or toys or flowers or swings.
No cars or trucks or farm machines.
No cows or meows.

Just a pale trail that bends and dead ends in a hook.

Abandoned only recently. The barn’s straight, the door’s open.

The chickens may be pecking gravel below the grass line.

#writtenword