over two decades in the making.
a timeshifting autobiographical poetry collage w/photography.
a diaristic, nearly "daily writing" (ad)venture.
new pieces are posted most days..
**new and in progress** --
recordings of each poem are being added.
these are read by the author & posted to each poem's page.
--Del Ray Cross (contact delraycross at gmail)
It’s Actually Possible That It’s Okay To Be Stupid
Because I am stoned 1st time in years the clouds play tricks with my eyes, the sun cools down the lengthening shadows
and my steps are within (myself: my home). This little heart of mine. Thinking it must be hilarious that we already found the suburbs and they
weren't nearly as slutty as we had imagined they would be. Mom was caught in an ice storm. That shook us to the core (do not try to peel me!).
Dad was sitting lotus-style in his pod which is not something to which one listens, but instead, keeps noises in their proper places. So he could hear naught
from within nor without (said pod). My thoughts, those that are mine, what con- sists of my mind, are two trains attempting to pick up each of the individual Pick-Up-Stix
without moving any of the other Pick-Up-Stix; are not intending to crash into each other, to be jerked from their rails into a catchy medley filled with upper-class death, though
as the game persists, even if metaphorically, they are coming at each other directly, each at a high-class speed that is most certainly not to be sneezed at. This is
a bit nervously witnessed by men on horseback. They are extras in a West- ern being filmed about a mile away, and are now each wondering at what
speed it is appropriate to sneeze. The Stix, I realize, startling myself a bit, were actually made of plastic. I always attempt to summarize, to rationalize.
Is it my nature or is it inherently human? The fog, which wants to roll in this instant, is nowhere to be seen, but, once here, will erase everything that has come before it.
There was a bit of an auspicious but clearly detectable mumble at one end of the giant dining hall in which a fam- iliar discussion had begun to engross the men from the North and South sides of the border, a tradition that had begun years ago. The two traditions: one was the dinner they were now enjoying together, one of only four times a year in which they officially mingled, these two factions (of course they were not the first...) that inhabited the local land. And the other tradition was the subject with which they were by now fully entertaining, with mostly respect and only a few loud voices coming from a smattering of red-faced fogies: talk of a long-ago love affair, a suicide, a murder or three, another purported suicide that ended it all — or one would think. But. Perhaps it was just the story about the border, between the two states, an old and very random wooden fencerow (a property signifier, they still liked to call it — by which I suggest that the discussion captured the attention and engaged all of those at the table: those from north of the old fence, and those who resided to the south of it), well, that fence was to become the basis for the official border between the Dakotas at this time. It was 1889. The party in this grand ballroom (the joke about in the middle of nowhere was beginning to be grumbled) always got a bit rowdy at this point. The con- versation was not exactly a tradition. It was just something not to be forgotten. Not by these men. And this was the one time it always was brought up. The Lindseys weren’t really thinking about the crows that dropped to the fence every day about the same time; an ominous sense of foreboding thought the Milliners (some had already reduced the name to Miller, but they were still mostly called the Milliners in this era), but they were
thinking more about the women, and how
it could not be escaped that those from one side of the fence had a certain homeliness (some even used the word possessed) look about them. On the other side were deemed the beauties. On this notion, both sides most often agreed. These were quintessentially male arguments, of course; the women were yet to be allowed at the function, except for the cooking and the cleaning. Not to be heard or hardly seen. And now this gathering of men had moved on to the more jovial topic, that always followed the grumbling about the randomness or the clear thievery of the fencerow that became a border and would always round out the evening: they began to speak of the love story between the an up-and-coming young man on one side of the fence who fell for a low-lady, as they were often still called, from the opposite side. This was, of course, anathema to the tribesmen. But, always, as this nostal- gic epic took over the conversation, the rowdiness became congeniality and literal awe for the lovers on both sides of the fence and what became of their love, which was tragic. Although no one was present at the table that had actually known either party, it had become a bit of a legend; a sort of modern- day equivalent to the Capulets versus the Montagues in Romeo and Juliet, even though none of these men likely knew a thing about Shakespeare except, perhaps that Shakespeare was Shakespeare [sic?]. This part of the discussion carried inevitably on into the parlor that wrapped the giant old home and took up what must have been an acre of the dry surface of what was normally a cracked earth template toppled with incessant and swiftly-flowing tumble- weed during the months when the surface of the earth was not snow- covered.
The youngest of the Lindsey men eventually managed manipulatively but somewhat subtly (he did have a golden tongue, or so it was often repeated) to veer the talk
toward the story of the lady he called the Frippery Gaul Girl that he currently had more than just his eyes on (this particular frontier's Romeo of the moment, this young Lindsey fellow turned out to be). He made
his way to the parlor first, which wrapped neat clean around the full front of the mansion (which is what everyone still called the old Dullmyer place to this day, even though it now served as more of a traditional meeting hall, and yet in this case, the word mansion was an appropriate description), a place which swore out most all frontier creatures small enough to sift through the windows as well as those large or wily enough to break through the windows or even the doors (the screens of both of which had been special-made in Sweden of the extraordinary exquisitely-stitched linen-like but vividly see-through tiny wires). One of the screen doors was closed and there seemed no way out of it from the inside and, one always had to imagine, had no easy way to enter from the other side, unless you were one of those fantastical creatures microscopic. All of this created a sense of peace for these third-gen- eration settlers whose progenitors had originally been warring factions. It had begun with one outspoken family from a few miles east with a grudge against the longstanding family of old world money. The monied clan had already been living here longer than anyone knew by the time the tensions even arose. There was always much discussion about how and why this grudge began. Everything about this monied family was near ancient now, but there still remained the sweet and spoiled youngest heir, Julie (yes, a name so similar to those of the many such quarterly round-table discussions which transpired here ar the old Dullmyer mansion (the Dullmyers, as has been noted, being that old wealth family of local lore).
But that story is for another time. This eve- ning, around that grand table in a place that seemed destined to retell a Shakespearian tragic love story four times a year, despite the general ignorance in these parts of that certain universal British playwright and poet. And so they did, well into the evening. Young Lindsey and his best mate, clearly meant by Lindsey to attend solely as a companion to remain unnoticeable, finally, indeed rather un- noticeably, lit his pipe and began the ritual- istic trek toward the door, a sort of a double- file hand-shaking ceremony out of the mansion door and into the night, as was the tradition, with each man taking off toward his respective home, whether it stood on this side of the border fence or on the other.
As he was walking out, In fact, the young Lindsey's awe of the this new woman who he intended to make his wife engulfed him into the realization that she was not so very frippery at all. She was so very near his age, which was an unheard-of character- istic of the general courting which trans- pired in the area. And as he walked out into the moonlight he suddenly realized how terribly he had mischaracterized his love, had indeed not even realized what it was about the young Miss Gaul that really caught his fancy. And this realiz- ation gave him a pleasant pause. Not an uncomfortable nor a worrisome one. But, quite simply, he opened his eyes to the fact that he loved her for she was remarkably full of intelligence. One might even say that she was combustible with sage wisdom. Fancy that, he thought as he left the cam- araderie of the former foes’ traditional gathering. And he began to take on a strik- ingly abnormal spring to his gait thanks to an unusual lightness of his person, the back of the soles of his makeshift shoes never seem- ingly making contact with the earth, never resting from tired ankles, as if a man on a very important mission, for the miles that he walked on his way back home that night, look- ing ever so forward to seeing the handsome Miss Gaul at the earl- iest possible convenience. Yes, the absolute earliest possible time, he kept saying in his head, with a smile that brought on the most engaging dimples. Which was a trait of the men from both sides of the wall that rep- resented the border between the old warring factions had
With marshmallows, if cocoa, or, in the language of Northwestern Arkansas, the less formal but perfectly legitimate phrase is: hot chocolate (or, more accurately: hot
chocklit). If it’s coffee, none of that Keurig catastrophe that has demolished the coffee shelves at supermarkets everywhere. Go to Trader Joe’s and
pick up the 10 Instant Coffee Pack- ets (their own brand), “all dressed up with creamer & sugar” as it says on the front of the box, along with “just add water”
and “ideal for travel.” For a buck ninety-nine. 10 instant packets! And if you’re fresh out of dainty coffee mugs the size of which are often seen in European bistros, make sure you use
2 packets. Or 3. Simply snip the tops off. Blow to open. Pour into hot water. And enjoy
Nickelodeon Yesterday, on Halloween, the House voted to formalize the Peach Inquiry. Stephen Colbert makes it sound true and funny even when I mishear him. But right now I’d much rather be watching the Nickelodeon channel than The Late Show on my Chromebook. I wonder aloud if I can stream it. Nickelodeon. But I quickly move forward from that thought because I can- not turn off Stephen Colbert. (My best friend often asks, punningly, Why don’t you marry him? To which I give him a glare, tell him he’s married, and remind him that he’s a Sunday School teacher, to boot.) Then begins a riff in the monologue about when Rudy Giuliani butt-dialed an NBC journalist. The problem is we need some money, coming in loud and clear. Then, We need a few hundred thousand. And I think, Corruption be damned, so do I. Only, realistically, I need only one thou- sand. If I’m being really realistic, I need about two; just two of those thousands. But Stephen Colbert seems to want to stall my efforts, or so YouTube keeps telling me (using Colbert’s voice, of course). Then I remember how different (and similar?) this is to when I’d actually panhandle online when I was homeless. I was homeless. This still hits me like an exclamation point. The ramifi- cations of that fact seem to never end. Homelessness. Online. Panhandling. Online homeless panhandling seems infinite to me. I am in the moment, so it might as well seem endless. What can be eternally noted, I believe is that two of those words kept the other from what I can only assume would have been something this weak soul could not have endured. Not to get to this lovely little room in which I now exist (watching The Late Show), on what I lovingly call the seediest couple of blocks in town...well... this San Francisco story might be completely different. And probably unnoted, unnoticed, not even a footnote would be left of all of — what my pink heart-shaped tin full of pennies says: MY DREAM HAS JUST BARELY STARTED — of me and my dream. Dreams, more acc- urately. But tonight I am only thinking of one dream, which is a combination of several dreams when it comes down to it. The dollars I need now are for a burgeoning business, and not a bed indoors somewhere. Note to self. I had strategy. I always had that. But back-up plans? They have always been a bit too rare. Sure, I had a job I loved. But it only lasted a month, due apparently to no fault of my own. I was but a pawn. Business. Where are my bargaining chips this time? Do I have any left? I think too hard that I do not. I am generally quiet now about my homeless past, but if a question occurs in conversation that needs it brought up, I am quite open; not so quiet. I walk around town as if everyone knows. I type a cover letter as if everyone already knows. I write this poem as if everyone knows. And if you do not, you do now, right? All I know at the moment is I must come up with a few dollars or I lose my new business, which wasn’t always mine, not until I lost all of my money on a romantic getaway; until I gambled away my future, or at least several years of it (hopefully, not my final several years!). And this time my actions make me only one of the losers. I try to be excited about the future. I usually am. I was, even during most of the worst of the past five years or so. Yet I must take this tiny org chart of mine into the next month, and the next year, and so on. I am so ready to five-year plan the hell out of it that it hurts. Because I need over a thousand dollars in cash. I used to raise more than this quite swiftly when I was homeless. And boy was it comfort. It was survival, too. But there was always this dirty feeling I had just for asking. So much so that I would almost always ask a bit too late for it to help as much as it could have. These days, I walk past (and over) my old colleagues at the shelter, familiar sidewalk figures. They need a thousand dollars much more than I do. I could say the same of the majority of the world’s popul- ation, I presume. This is a way to bridge the gap, I think, and wonder exactly what I mean by what I just said out loud. Making good on doing some- thing after managing my way through that. It makes it hard to find the gusto to do anything that is not giving a thousand dollars to anyone I see who I think needs it. But I need the money. And I mean it. And, not one to feel guilty for much of anything in this life — for any extended duration of time, anyway — my stomach is now twisted into knots and I cannot bring myself to begin. Panhandling. Well, this pen says without my uttering one single word, let’s put down our pity and put out a plan of action! To which Stephen Colbert responds, What else is there to do?