The star that exploded was way too dim. I became nothing but gravity knew my soul.
Archery season for deer opens today, halfway through September, freight rail facing a union strike. You gotta get them data together, get them in the same room, negotiate with them, get them on the same page. This data, that data, get them to shake hands.
I left my flip flops somewhere out there, walking around barefoot, grounding. Shards of acorn shells hurt when stuck to my soles but when clean my bare feet could grip better against the face of the rock.
In a shower with unheated well water. The body adjusts but the water feels most cold on the middle of my back, along the spine, switches in there, skin most naked. White paint, pink paint, Naples yellow. A solid state of matter, ailing hospital, corrupt politician needs no rehab. You’re fine, said the doctor. Get back down to the waterfront and cast that vote.
It’s nice to have extra light. Cattle swindle, rural development. Notes gone the wrong way, jobs buried in the Meadowlands. A cigarette walks into a farmhouse. Metal is loose on the barn. Your teeth are decent tweezers, and other facts you might as well know while you’re still human.
Farm Cat reappears. Where time is irrelevant. She’s a jumper, bounces around between worlds.
Snapped up a couple of mice last night. There were droppings on the counter when I arrived, as there had been last time. Heating water up for tea. Made ice outside last night. Slept solid, cold.
The order of the day is a long walk. Lots of wood-burning stove. I didn’t cook any food last night. Merely drank vodka-soda and smoked bud. I was bummed when I realized the small joints I made were too tight; not fun to smoke. I can’t give those out as gifts. Either I remake them or scrap the idea altogether. Wasted some time there.
Melted snow falls like rain from the eaves. Thawed ground softened by the footprints of stoic cattle. And a breeze, there’s always a breeze, spun out by the fan of some hidden machine. The sound of a chainsaw from another field, some snow still frozen under shadows.
I’m just walking around the house, looking out the front door, the back door, the side door that no longer functions as a door. I don’t want to smoke yet, don’t want to drink yet, not quite yet but maybe soon. It’s clear. I might see that comet tonight, the one from out in the Oorts. I’ve got the telescope. Coma—the gas cloud surrounding a comet. Best seen in the pre-dawn hours? The north morning sky they say but I’ll still try tonight.
I had dreams last night. Bits and pieces. Last night, this morning. I had seen Farm Cat, those eyes staring back at me from the rock out front. Orange eyes reflecting back.
In the dream there was a whole herd of Farm Cats. Light-colored fur. All with blazing opal eyes. In the dream they were out behind the house, in the back drive, where I once saw a large rafter of turkeys. Cats instead of turkeys. Inspired, perhaps, by the story in the news about a turkey terrorizing a town in Minnesota.
That was just a snippet but memorable. Then I was dreaming about some of our prior neighbors, I don’t even want to mention their names, so glad I was when they left. In the dream, Brook and I were in a different house, a nice one, almost Monteagle-style, with a wrap-around porch. Well, the guy who used to rent the house next to us shows up in the dream and keeps trying to get into the new house. Bastard. I eventually had to threaten him harm. I had a knife. I don’t recall actually stabbing him . Maybe I tried and couldn’t, because it was a dream. I had been listening to a true crime podcast yesterday, in which people had been stabbed, so I was probably processing that content in my sleep.
Fire speaks its own language and I’ll never know it. I only do bad translations when I’m cold.
I should have gathered those icicles. Now they are melted and I am out of ice.
Fractions of a Timestamp
Contextual animal, bite guard take hold. Another bootleg, anything new? I knew a man from Glastonbury, worked in the steel forge, owned a country home, burned leaves, chatted up jackdaws, drank tea all day, mended fences, walked in ruts, wore a knit cap, blew hard against the rain, minded his Scotch in the evening, made midnight most nights.
I went and looked up his name, ruined it. Like a leaf he rotted, should’ve burned him. Earth decay, too close, equator march. He was me, you figured that. It’s a game of Clue with Jeopardy! in the afternoon, when I should be reading, getting smarter or at least not more dumb.
No, but instead, chocolate, ear invasion, territorials, particulate matter, rage bar, coming with distraction, marred being a heap to empire upon, another tree to fall. So rich that troll of me under the bridge you commute, speed limit 14 miles per hour, and what’s beneath?
Wow, I say afterward, stove hot, kitchen walls. I write it down, make notes, promise next time I’ll answer, What are the Fractions of a Timestamp?
Farm, February 17, 2023.
Carmack on the barn roof, screwing fast the loose sheet metal. Talked to him after that, history of the Hughes Place.
Need another sheet of plywood for the kitchen floor. Took the long way to get here, went through Waynesville for weed. I asked about tips. Glass? asked the guy. No, like a gummed tip. Oh, like a crutch, he said. I don’t know that term, I confessed. Then he referred me to a nearby headshop, The Mad Hatter, which I didn’t go to.
Rolled a Clementine. Now, Gator’s Breath. Refresh the oil paper, and bring more shards.
Carmack was talking about J Clark, whose sons he says are the ones hauling those curious shards of marble and granite stacked now and stacked again in a line of short columns making a wall along the edge of a field near the road at their farm between here and the conservation area, Rinquelin. What reason is there behind it, I asked Kevin, but he doesn’t know, says they are rich but wear duct tape on their boots, won’t let anything be thrown away.
He also saw the geese, migrating, on the move, winter’s over. The Hughes Place story begins with Bea selling it to Lawson. Carmack says, Hey, I thought I had first chance to buy it. Bea says sorry but then next day Pat Vaughan calls Kevin Carmack, they work out a deal. Carmack buys it but then comes the downturn of ’08, ’09 and Kevin has to sell it, sells it to Clark.
The Glorious Kitchen of What You Cooked
Helm arrives, 17:50. And it’s chilly out there with the sun going down. Rizla + roller. If you have thunder in February, you’ll have frost in May.
Fifty-four degrees. Fog dog. The glorious kitchen of what you cooked. Pony skunk. The great smoke-out of 2023, double-wide version, country gravy version. Get a microplane. Te Volstead. Watch it with subtitles.
My dreams were a purge. A road with no name. Brownleaf Lane. What this place would have been called instead they asked for Hoot Owl Holler. And people keep on stealing the sign. What is a farthing? A few quid. How long has it been since we dropped? Forty minutes, maybe. It’s been at least forty minutes but nothing’s happened. I’ll have another. Spaghetti and French fries. A rolling, roiling boil.
They were hunting coyotes yesterday. You could tell because of the sudden uptick in traffic along the road. Trucks going past one way, then back another. Sport utility vehicles. A dad with his son riding shotgun and holding maybe not a shotgun but a gun of some kind, a rifle. Dog crates in pickup beds. The sound of dogs, of hounds. Carmack stops to ask me what I’m up to along the side of the road, “What’re you doing, picking up trash?” Before he listens to my answer his CB cuts in, he listens to it, answers back, something about crossing the creek. “I just missed him, but we got one earlier,” he says before driving a little ways down the road to turn around. I know they have their reasons but I sure do love hearing those wild dogs howl into the night.
The cows scratching themselves. Anywhere, and any way but especially scratching the length of their long swiveling swaying necks. Rub against a fence post, a half-cut tree, a corner stanchion of barn stubborn-enough against their weight. Stopping when I approach, wary. Calves scurry away but then allow their curiosity to bring them back. Young cow not wanting to be looked at too, too closely. What designs does this human have on me, my ruffled black hair, mom’s piss and shit all over my face I know but how else was I going to get a sip of that fresh, warm milk? Cocking an ear when I clear my throat, just one ear on a swivel, the rest of its body still, content in august pasture in the morning but knowing and sensing what the sound of that trailer rustling down the road means for us all.
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