clutter

every once in awhile i just think that something that i've written
is actually decent...
this is one of those moments...
of course if you are here.... you are probably worse off then i am...
i mean fer fuck's sake...
i may have written it...
but you're attempting to read the shit...

my grandfather was resurrected today,

in all manner of momentarily, a whole string of instants

he stood behind me as i stared at the tangible remnant

of my firmest memory of that old man

the night before i had been out late, making an ass out of myself in a circle of people composed primarily of those whom i know in too many ways to quickly explain, there was a bottle of mescal making slow rotations and i had a drum in my lap; i'm certain that i sang, perhaps even well enough to frighten away the less foolish people whom i did not know

i remember cracking walnuts

in the closely cluttered atmosphere of that barn

i remember the oil that would be pressed out

onto a dusty floor

so far as i am able to report, my grandfather had only one use for that aged vice on the oft repaired table just inside the barn, for all i ever knew, the only function of that tool was to crack all these black walnuts which littered the ground

a cousin of mine today,

cigarette in one hand - beer in the other

during a conversation 'bout them ol' boys

living on the fringe

carting about scrap metal,

of which grandpa's barn had yielded quite a pile

to be collected and exchanged for currency;

told me he was up there laughing at us,

because we wound up having to deal with all his shit -

i got home at two a.m. and having had the benefit of not needing to drive, i was out there - out there to the point where i do believe i quoted from finnegan's wake, and i know the period of time that involved my transport home was really just an impressionistic blur of neon wars somehow waged against all these beautiful people that i am so blessed to know

i showed up

about fifteen minutes past the time

which had been told to me

i showed up

hung-over as hell

and i found that a congregation -

of what i can only term honest folk,

ol' boys from the church who've bought my grandparents land

already had an amazing amount of the barn cleaned out

fifth wheel;

damn -

another revelation regarding the situation where; given a society that could actually embrace the human as the human wishes to be, the joke is that;

given that ideal society . . .

i would not be

(something of a specialized sequence of lines right there [i most especially hope that my father understands how i can write that, feel that, understand that, and smile at that . . . in my own odd way] the rest of you can cope) and yet here i am . . .

i showed up -

(employ your own

suitable rhymes

and reasons)

it's odd, my grandfather,

i remember feeling like such an outcast at his funeral

i remember that the entire experience of his death -

the fact of being able to watch (from what i felt to be a position of detatchment)

this unwieldy, never fully understood,

concept of family go through grief -

inspired me

to the first story

i would still dare to call literary . . .

(laughing as i label it)

and i never knew the man

who ultimately had inspired it -

which was part of the story, yet i knew that more then ever today,

as i wandered around casting a covetous eye across the piles

of detritus -

which today, in all manner of moments,

resurrected my grandfather

and i saw him clearer

than i ever had

standing in front of that vice

with the half-shell of a black walnut

sitting behind the toolbox,

having pawed through the relics of things

which meant mostly nothing to me

i listened to my aunts and uncles,

cousins and such,

speak about objects and how they link -

well no; not quite

but as the truckloads flew out of the loft

and the piles that had been pushed out in haste

were picked at and plundered,

i thought i saw how it all works

yes, that again - the night before i'd staggered away into the darkness; drink having sunk into the drunk . . . and needing egress; and what with it being the sort of place where you can actually see stars, i stepped into the cold world that exists when the winds are strong and the hour is late;

it can be dreadful away from the fire

when i turned back and looked

when i started walking -

returning to warmth;

it can be a beautiful thing