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)
This moment is just a blip in an otherwise hectic day.
Is the crux of the issue that we simply have no time for such blips?
Psh! I feel quite emphatic that these blips are not useless. They are imp ortant. They are substance.
Am I but a blip? Truly. Of this there can be no arguing.
I am a tiny human blip nestled with in a medium- sized metro politan blip;
an inhabitant of a world, of a galaxy, of a universe that are each and all blips, too.
This reflection, this pleasant minute-stretch ing blip in an otherwise un satisfactorily utilitarian day is, I’d venture to say, the very height of this day’s import, its poignance.
I don’t give a flip about being but one mere blip when in the grand scheme of things it’s the cumulative blips that make me much less of a drip than most of the breathing but be leaguered blips I encounter through out my blippy existence.
Meaning, in this case, I’ve been feeling not so very. Meaning I am curious where this might take me. I can always change the title
should it not quite work out, but truth be told, I rarely if ever do. Change the title, that is. I most often begin with one, and some
times that’s what this will be about and sometimes it’s so unrelated as to cause confusion, which I must apologetically and
yet impishly admit that I enjoy. It’s not that I mean to poopoo editing so much, even though that’s exactly what I used to do,
so my apologies to Tim, to Steph, to Cassie, Jennifer, Cynthia, Ron and to all the rest of you fine folks who’d listen to me overwhelm
the airwaves with my prolific piles of mostly unedited stacks of line after line, of page after page, as they made their way
to you, whether or not a word of it has been retained, or the gist of my meanderings. Oh, they made their way to you,
I know, and this is my happy, my positive and my true. I so miss all of you, I do. Have seen not one of you but Cassie
since the Great Divide, and that was thanks to Kevin’s personal invitation to the reading at, it was Alley Cat?
Another bookstore that has subsequently closed. I only saw Kevin once more after that most lovely evening,
sadly. But what’s a poem intent on pleasure, happiness and hedonism without Kevin? And on that note there’s David’s
Deli, still extant, but they serve those monumental blintzes no more, which is depressing, sure, but the memory of those cheese
blintzes! Learning to be so very alone is not so bad as all that, especially after so many years, because it’s only temporary.
That is what I tell the echoes rattling around inside my head, at least. And I have plans to bring that to fruition. Plans
to murder this hermetic era. And I will! Such fantastic plans they are. And what exactly is alone, anyway?
I mean, these days that notion isn’t quite so precise a description of the me I am. Unless we’re
talking physically, of course, and even that can be debated— think, for example, of how many people that fit (that live) inside
this fair building I have nearly four years called my home, I suppose. And while it’s true that I so rarely hear from
any one here or from either of you, but sometimes, thankfully, just nothing with such regularity as
when we held our swaps, how so often we’d have them. There are some times I wonder how on
earth we managed, but wow, what frequency we’d meet and greet and eat and read what
ever we had with us at the time. We all go to read whatever was read. It was nourishment for me, for
body, for soul, for all of my senses, and should our less alternative lives have dumbed us down the days previous,
well, I recall the energy most of all that would, while in each others’ company course through me like some sort of electricity.
Oh, how you must have each grown so incredibly weary of my incessant voice. But in that sharing, what sustenance! I, of
course, knew this, or would not have been such catalyst implem enting them to begin with; it was not my first foray into such salons,
such engaging feasts of regularity. But as the years of solitude wear on, existing in this cocoon in which I linger ever longer, one thing that
gives me pause is how I took such bliss for granted. But. Rather than be bittersweet in the least, I let the moments specific and in general
from those days take me over, fill me presently with that same bliss. As often as I write, making utility of the past, I’ve much less nostalgia
to which it must surely seem to any who pay attention to these lines than I, in actuality, cling. If you can believe this, my most powerful
belief is this: now is the only time to live. So, since these days, as always, it’s living that I’m striving for, as difficult as it may, in particular,
presently, be, and also as I so emphatic ally started off these lines with such a simple and intentional plea, to write my happy, as it were, knowing full
well how much I’ve dwelt of late upon such melancholic guff, which is important stuff as well, the words that have spilled directly from my
elevated and hopeful experiment have in truth accomplished just exactly what I set out from that moment to do—and yet it feels
to me as if I might should take this fair demand a bit further into action. How hard would it, in this reality, be, to find yet
one more small group, a set of individuals who could on some occasion come to sit together with our individual pages filled
with our own words we write (like these of mine) and share them each with the others, one and all? Indeed, this might at
first seem like such a heavy task, at least to me, at least right now, but all I have to do is look to the perfection
of so many moments past to know how much of an impossibility it could not at all be. A new group
with whom to engage. A new set of fine folks with whom to continue this, my education; with whom to
enact earnest camaraderie and with whom as a group and as individuals to find that thing called friendship,
fleeting as it may, like all else in life, be. How about tomorrow, then, I get right to it? Come up with a plan
and figure out how to mix and mingle once again, it won’t take much to hit upon an imperfect few with which
soon I can be swapping poems with some regularity, and soon. I think I will. Indeed, I will get right to it. It thrills me just to
think about this now, and of even the somewhat del iberate process of bringing such a group to fruition.
bus stop dork what a dingbat to wait in the rain all day and no bird just your glazed over rain-wet eyes locked on some indistinguishable spot and your head is there anything in there?
likely not. it too is no doubt out in space somewhere shuffling some words (isn’t that what you do?) same old thing that you do every day in this half way to no where no place where you sit and you wait out the day for a bus that never materializes.
is the title and the question, because i play by my own rules, and that’s exactly what’s emblazoned on the card i just picked from atop this stack of ‘burning questions.’
and it is hot – so hot that my poor fan (#2) is dying. i keep adjusting the cord to keep its whir from dying a silent death. losing one of my only fans (which,
while fairly cheap, like fans #1 and #3, came to me via cash dispensation) – but this is how i divert myself from all things which must be finished:
playing bingo on my phone (my aging eyes can barely make out the tiny numbers on each grid); doing laundry in a pair of buckets (one of which barely
holds water any more); watching the last episodes of Ms. Marvel on my makeshift teevee; sorting through my grandmother’s photographs—my grandmother, the poet;
and this, my most thorough excuse, biding my time by spilling these lines into a messy little stack, just so, and then sending off the untidy bundle, not to just anybody, no, but
this one especially for you. anyway, it turns out that my grandmother and i have things in common. i suppose that’s genetics, for you. good grief, i do go on (as you well see).
i must learn how to be more succinct; can’t figure why a sonnet isn’t good enough these days. but sonnet or not, there you have it, here it is, my point, the answer to today’s
purported ‘burning question’ (a set of cards boxed neatly up and sold to me at Target—the same place i got my dying fan, it turns out—and check me out, i’m side
tracked once again): being a poet. i mean. despite the comforting thrill i get from (now, with some confidence) proclaiming i’m an artist, that’s for sure the weirdest thing i am. to me.
“Written with indelicate, impure humor,” could be talking about anyone, but it’s describing the writing of me. Being indelicate
is my signature. I don’t know, you tell me. Yesterday, on hands and knees, cleaning up god knows what at all hours of the day and
evening. I won’t say night because I fell asleep at a decent hour. Isn’t that something? But the reason for this new trend is simple. I say good
bye to my love before he hits the hay and am then compelled. To slip away and dream that he is right here, snoring much more silently than I, in this tiny
broken bed (which we’ll fix tomorrow!), two sets of legs, one of them his and one of them mine, without being overly possessive, locked into an X at the knees.
What a pickle, this blur of words swirling around his hair stacked so asymmetrically upon his odd-shaped head.
A flock of fine and
noble words, they
were, too, and he without a voice. He
tried to cough, as
an alternative, or to
blow out a word or
two, but even that
was not possible.
It produced nothing
audible, nothing with
the least vibration, and
now he wanted nothing more but to whimper. And as the tears rolled silently down the odd- angled cheeks of his strangely shaped head he got so frustrated that he just about burst, soundless as
it all was. He could
not even whisper, the
poor dear young fool. He’d try, oh yes, he’d try, but yet, the best descrip tion an observer might give each attempt, well, the man was breathing so of course his desperate attempts to speak at closest observation looked like nothing save mere exhalations. His lips moved this way just a bit and then the other way, but those were some thin lips, hardly registering notice. Oh, if he could but proclaim, he thought, why, he’d proclaim these voiceless ex halations a cool, swift breeze. A wisp of a fellow, our dear voiceless chap was, such that even a soft breeze might blow him clean away to the next county or beyond. He was voiceless, but he wasn’t stupid, and this fair fact he knew, and hence his wish,
his impossible decree;
it wasn’t just his proclamation, but
the very reason for
it. All thought for naught, of course, for our dear man had stood here
A Practical Guide to Engagement and the Awareness of the Good Fortune of Experiencing It with Glorious Luxury
(A Sort of How To Primer)
I remember when engagement was camaraderie and could, by necessity, mean nothing of the business of family building. However, rather than a melancholic thing, it was instead a rather giddy
situation, it made me feel so special, like a some
what (because we weren’t alone, we’d seek each
other out; and this club instead seemed much more
rooted in a particular kind of inebriation—but that’s a
bit of a separate subject, actually) unique member of
an exclusive club that had a secret handshake or some such. When did this all change, I wonder today. I’m happy to inform, or firstly to have learned that there doesn’t seem to be what I previously had always imagined to have been a sort of general overwhelming feeling of the particular way of looking at this one word, at its ramifications. I was happy to leave that sort of
engagement be, as it were. This was my way–simply a
way of getting to know a person or a group of persons
deeper and further, and of exploring values, others’ as
well as mine, of sometimes getting a bit red-faced doing
so, and on occasion getting upset. Though the underlying
giddiness was always still somehow at its foundation. That I was happy that it did not, instead, involve diamonds, no rings with which to imprison whichever appropriate finger, and certainly no kneeling, no pose of commercial value, no symbol that was to encapsulate the beginning, the forever of it all, and no judgment on the tastefulness or tastelessness of the choice, of jewelry, of the perfect location wherein to make this risky endeavor, no knowing what the response might be, and it goes on in such ways that anxiety might only be exponentially grown just for this particular time in space, for this one act, this one goal, this one endeavor for which the outcome is but unknown. Boy, did that sound like something I was happy never to have to worry about. Nobody would have convinced me that this might not only be possible in some not-so-distant now, but that it might also be met with almost no anxiety. Sure, there’s always a little bit in such circumstances, but there needs to be none, and this can be and, believe it or not, can really be accomplished by turning the whole thing into something that is unique as, to you, the notion that today, for now, we can very much do this thing. I’m afforded this opportunity that couples throughout history have been, to participate in that act of some
how making it official. The fact that I can do this has perhaps
helped troubles that arise during these sets of traditional rituals, or will help them, subside over time. But who cares if they help others. I’m here to say that, while remaining giddy, but remaining practical, I’ve honed this process into some thing of my own, something that, once discussed, once I’ve engaged with that person with whom I want to be engaged, can become almost sublime, through the process
and to the finish, an enlightening growth experience, one of the most important steps in life, should one choose to make it yours. To make that ours, I began with a series of questions that, after knowing my person long enough, I have come to understand are some of the most difficult questions to ask, the scariest ones, the ones that scare us
the most, and those practical questions which up until now, and without some forethought, one might never think of, but yet not asking them might cause many more problems as we progress through this dance than if they had instead been brought up to begin with. Ask each question straight forwardly, begin directly at the top of the hour, before the small talk of a meeting between two minds can even begin. It is pretty amazing how a few seemingly risky questions such as these might work to bring the two of you quite instantly together, and rather than cause anger or nerves, what might be felt are peace, contentment and confidence. This little exercise really works to bring you closer, to alleviate fear, even when an answer isn’t what you want to hear. Surprising how acknowledging fear is a delicate but splendid state within which to exist. Perhaps go further by digging deep, especially if you find a particularly sore spot. Don’t dwell there for very long, though, never end it with the fear. Be sure to close out your meetings on a completely different elevated and positive subject in which to summarize or just divert in such a way to leave the thoughts open about what has just been discussed. No closure, no official anything at first, just an opening of the two minds, yours and your love’s. Begin to reduce
the possibility of risk with what you say and suggest and ask, dig less, point out possibilities more, perhaps on a subject that is not quite relevant to the overall theme of your hopeful meeting. Better yet, stay on the subject. It will make your last words before parting ways for a while more important, more relevant, more thoughtworthy. But you can learn how to, rather than say them, to manipulate, perhaps mold the conversation into something worth while. This is not a solo effort, by the way. This, in fact, could be the end of the solo effort as you have come to know it. This can coerce fierce independence into being a love affair beyond what it already was, and into one that is even more profoundly independent, more solemnly fierce, yet one that paradoxically cannot exist without this newfound commitment, this couplehood. Sound too bizarre to be true? Try it. Oh, to be both proud and participatory, in individuation, but also with the person you love and with whom you’ve suddenly found yourself in a commitment of whatever sort. A commitment with the notion of an indefinite duration. To love someone to death sounds like a squeeze, sounds like murder, but no one is performing this death upon the other, it is the finite that makes infinity a commitment. It just means that you will both as one and individually grow and grow in presently incomprehensible intimate and not-so-intimate ways. That intimacy will continue physically, more than likely, in ways unimaginable to the both of you up to this point, until that intimacy is no longer possible. The same can be said for non-physical intimacy: connections heretofore unimagined will bind the two of you together in ways that will go beyond that date of the impossibility of non-physical. Forget for the moment the question of who will leave this world first. Too much life remains one huge mass of unknown. Praise be to that, I say. And you will too, I confidently feel. What’s the difference between this or that so-called engagement? One might say semantics, and this that I’m saying to you has begun with that notion. My fiance wants me in signed and sealed perpetuity, but our lives meander elsewhere for periods of time, and he is also fine with that. But time and time again we are back to just us two, no one else, huddled as one, or rising in victory above the throngs we laugh at, saying they just don’t get it, just don’t get us, just don’t get it right, or we’re hanging out with our new circle of friends and acquaintances who, with us, engage into the depths of the day or night on some silly singular subject. And what we become from each of those moments is so dependent upon that engagement with those new friends and new acquaintances, so we climb peaks and practically roll into valleys, hand in hand sometimes, less engaged than we are solidly fused into a foundation we have become by this genuine growth. This education as a couple that is impossible to get individually. My fiance and I are engaged to be married, as if we already are experiencing the fullness, as well as the continued independence of individually content human beings of such fortuitous architecture and engineering, both together and apart. We are fused by love, it can be seen and we do most deeply feel and know this. It is this presence and this absence that makes our long and wonderful engagement what we both genuinely feel (and sometimes talk about for hour upon hour) the best of all possible relationships. To ourselves, to our community and world, all of the best, such that the anxiety-riddled people we once were are but a thankful remembrance, a nostalgia for that (and isn’t this all nostalgia) which we are thankful to remember and about which we so appreciate the luxury that it will never be either of us again.
“what’s so funny about humiliation?” asks the bully pulpit, but only with high hopes of becoming an out comes agency par excellence. high on what? if only gurney disuse was the only answer. we didn’t have a class on etiquette at the ambulance university becomes an excuse for turning manners bedpan. when at one’s throes, a tremendously humbling duration should one ever encounter, one mightn’t expect the hesitant can’t- see-through-the-pain-to- glimpse-the-nausea trauma of puke-texting 9-1-1 to’ve been the local’s jokey way to dial-a-comedian (farcical as it may be, lowest common demon as, upon arrival, our humilicon welcomes mid-throe-down. come on, gut-punch, i calls the doctor as i seizure doctor! even bad jujube would have the decent claws to slay, “get thee to a doctor not a duncery; and save the mouth for none but tlc, and stet!” but yet, and am i the one to have to quell the siren’s malicious odor. well, hell, always one for happy endings, me and my ego are recuperated all but wholly not thanks to the dick what drove me sickly
to the doc pursuant to so bad it’s lethal insult comic’s bully-banter.
hey, hey! oh, hey, hey! deadmau5 is here to stay! or at the very least they’re here today! that was a test, by the
way. so what’s your answer, class? [you answer.] aha! so! and very well! in this class there is no class. (we’re unbiased,) no? incorrect. (answers?) i mean say
that in this
class, there
are no incorrect answers. (o?) how ’bout that? among the students is a dance they like to call class. [is it sometimes
5witching to what they’re actually doing. . . .] i’m sending out my resume
[uh huh].
so, hey, hey! said, hey, hey!
bedhead is here
to stay! [now
they’re think
ing don’t blame the
dance, blame
the dancer.] i’d
much prefer rolling
my eyes clean up in
to my skull [mau5
ears glowing like a metronome] and getting lost in
some other state [they mean the dancefloor]. thump, thwack! thump, thwock! knock, knock. who’s there? what’s the best state in which to work? why, the state of unemployment,
of course. [nope,
says our anti-hero, the seeker] [and what a sucker!] [didn’t they mean to say it’s the state of
trance
that’s number one?]
nope, says the fraud. nope, says our sucker, the seeker, getting back to the beat. that is indeed
our fair protagonist, the
antagonist. getting
back. to. the beat.
and so [wait for it],
hey, hey! oh, hey, hey! trancey-dance is here to stay! [beat that, buster!] [naw. i’m pretty sure you got it.]
Why’d we play a silly get-to-know- you game instead of ask the probing questions of the month directly? It’s that curiosity that keeps love alive,
that elevates commitment to adventure. Let’s always coalesce just to confess our darkest secrets. Or don’t we have any? I’ve a defiant hope that we each do.
Why? Well, sure, when it comes to you, it may require more effort to remove a layer. But what thrill to make each day a quest to glean some deeper part of you.
What better way to keep love an adventure and to extend what is until the ever after?
