odds and ends

We were all in such a big hurry to grow up,
So impatient about becoming adults,
Wanted to start living our lives doing who knows what,
On to bigger and better things or so we thought,
At the half-way point of my life I long for those yesterdays.
The optimism of youth long since gone,
Plodding down my life’s path so lost,
I dreamt of chasing rainbows and finding a pot of gold,
But the closer I got the further I had to go,
Realize now that they were illusions from the very first.
So let’s go back to square one and begin from the start,
What is it I really want/what do I really need,
Realize that I expected everything to take care of itself,
Expected the fairy tale/wanted a life that was made for TV,
Nothing is set in stone/that’s the price we pay for wanting to be free.


I’m a little bit fat and a little bit old,
So many things in life out of my control.

Don’t want to sit on the sidelines anymore,
That’s the main reason that I’m back on board.

Just this one little something for me to do,
Enjoy myself before this life is through.

Living my life doing what I should,
Riding on seven-plies of maple wood.

Looking forward to the long sleep of death,
Gotta live life to the hilt/before I breathe my last breath

XC

Wading into a sea of humanity,
I scan the grounds looking for my daughter,
Awash with multi-colored awnings and bibs,
Cross-county teams from thirty schools,
Like medieval foot soldiers they stand,
Awaiting the sound of the gun,
Staring and waiting to begin their run.
They have assembled on this field,
On the edge of these woods,
To do battle with themselves,
Between the football stadium and the forest,
To test their mettle and skill,
To dig deep and find what they will.
Cool autumn day north of the capitol,
Banners hung at the start and finish,
Gun goes pop and the racers are off,
Mad rush to the top of the hill,
Then they disappear into the trees,
We make our way to various vantage points,
I find a spot about half-way through,
By a cornfield next to the new high school.
They come zipping by in ones and twos,
A pack of three followed by the rest,
Breathing hard and concentrated on the task,
We cheer and yell as they run past,
Cheering for one or all as fits our mood,
Then we head back toward the finish,
To watch these valiant souls push the limits.
They run back through the woods and down the hill,
Straight onto the track and around for half a lap,
Cheered on by the crowd gathered in the bleachers,
Toward the finish line next to the huge digital clock,
Then into the chute adorned with flags and pennants,
The course bludgeoned and beaten by their feet,
By the end of the season’s last cross-country meet.

mock-up tshirt for marching band

Z-man is section leader for the mellophones this year (and only a sophomore!) so he was responsible for getting their t-shirt and all that jazz, which meant I got stuck doing the design--here's the mock-up:

hey cuz

Who are you?
You claim to be my bro,
But what do you really know?
You and I have traveled down different paths,
For whatever reason,
And now I’m standing here wondering,
Weighing and deciding what to do.
I don’t know you anymore and that’s the truth,
What we do, what we think, who we are,
So different from who we were back in ’92.
No good or bad in this,
Just the way it has turned out,
Even though you share blood with mine,
Nothing to salvage at this point.
All the smack you talk all the time,
Was almost endearing when you were twelve,
Now pushing thirty just seems pathetic,
Who you still trying to convince?
You’ve heard this and you’ve heard that,
Still can’t think for yourself,
Never gonna grow beyond your father’s shadow,
Never gonna let go of momma’s apron strings.
So you heard that B_ told A_ this and that,
Have you ever concerned why,
Was she trying to help her or help you,
Are you really that blinded by your pride?
It was good to see you again,
But don’t expect me to come around,
After all that had been said,
After I saw the company that you still keep,
Doing the things that kept you away from your kids,
Got yourself locked away trying to play gangsta,
So you go on doing whatever you need to do.
So B_ represents something else to you,
You do pretty good covering the other half,
Littered and broken down,
Floundering between reality and illusion,
Just like the all the rest,
So choose your poison,
Choose your context.
I hold on to a sliver of hope,
Despite what you showed me,
Despite my darkest fears,
Just can’t stand to see another generation wasted,
Alcohol, drugs, and whatever else,
So much promise in everyone’s face,
In that faded picture you had on the fridge.
Where are they all at now?
A couple in prison,
A couple on their way there,
The rest on probation,
You call that representin’?
What would your father say,
If he were still alive,
Or your sister for that part,
But that’s right,
You pay little attention,
To anything outside your little box,
So throw it all away,
Living just for today,
Forgetting about whatever else,
Family, blood, children,
Left to fend for themselves.

nothing more, nothing less

I was raised to believe,
But threw that aside long ago,
The particular flavor of Buddhism,
Followed by my mom and grams,
And our families in the Northeast.
Maybe it was wildly skewed,
Lost in translation,
As I grew up in Detroit,
Maybe she knew and understand,
But couldn’t quite convey the message.
My language and my understanding,
Stunted and deformed by thousands of miles,
Separation divided by time and space,
Multiplied by context,
Subtract the useless and carry the remainder.
Death now equals nothing,
Nothingness and nothing at all,
Empty corpse and devoid of belief,
Rotting flesh, spirit gone, gone, gone,
Carried away by the wind.
So what remains but ashes,
What value is there within,
When nothing ever remains,
What becomes the point of anything,
If everything has no meaning?
Did I give my children life,
Only to have them die alone,
Dragged them into existence,
Kicking crying and screaming,
Just to abandon them at death?
Did I fill their heads with empty promises,
Empty beliefs and fairy tales,
Only for them to curse me,
On their deathbeds years from now,
With their last gasping breath?
I want to apologize to the three of you,
For feeling this way right now,
For not believing and not teaching,
For bringing this on you,
But I knew nothing at all.
I selfishly brought you here,
To quiet my own fears,
Brought you into this life,
To fill the emptiness within,
To give my life meaning.
I never loved or lived,
Until you three came into my life,
Nothing else matters quite as much,
So even though I believe in nothing,
The three of you mean everything.
I don’t have any advice about this life,
Do what you love, love what you do,
Be true to yourself and be kind as well,
Since every single one of us,
Is stuck in the same mess.
Do the right thing,
Build the life you want,
Make this world beautiful,
Not just for yourself,
But for everyone else.
We all are exactly the same,
Cut from the same cosmic stuff,
What we do to each other,
We do to ourselves,
Nothing more nothing less.
Do not underestimate the power of love,
The true power of compassion,
If you believe in nothing else,
Believe in these things,
All else fades away.

R.S. Bach

For some reason he always called me Mr. B,
But I always called him Steve,
He always seemed mildly amused,
At whatever it was I had to say,
Neither of us ever delved too deeply,
Just a little chat then went on our way.
I found myself thinking about him just the other day,
Wondering how the chemo was going,
How his battle with cancer was panning out,
Felt a tinge of sadness out of the blue,
Surprised myself but kept on going as I do,
Not quite sure why I reacted as I did.
The office seems so quiet without him,
On medical leave as he fought his fight,
Filling the air with bellows of laughter,
Coming in early and staying late at night,
He was childless so this place was his baby,
The unofficial father to this ragtag crew.
I’d usually see him on the back stoop,
Stealing drags off his Marlboro reds,
As he stared beyond the parking lot,
Over the trees and on toward Cedar Street,
Dreaming of some faraway golf course,
Thoughts lost like so many golf balls in the tall weeds.
He was always pretty easy to reach after hours,
Whenever the computer system decided to take a dive,
Either at home but more likely on his cell,
He’d tell me what to do or who to call,
Never ever seemed bothered that I could tell,
And more than once he was out on some course.
For awhile he would spend lunch at the driving range,
Hitting buckets of balls while wearing a shirt and tie,
Trying to slay whatever demons one stroke at a time,
He’d laugh when I told him my struggles with the links,
Playing double-bogey golf but a duffer just the same,
Even though we both knew that I had no game.
So on the Sunday afternoon when the supervisors came in,
Milling about in the parking lot I should have known,
Something was up and something was wrong,
Then they told me that he had passed and I welled up,
And it still doesn’t quite seem possible at all,
The news hit all of us like a punch to the gut.
I don’t really have much else to say,
I hope he got to watch Ohio State play the other day,
Sticking it to the Wildcats on a beautiful Saturday afternoon,
By now he’s probably in the clubhouse on the 19th hole,
In that heavenly golf course where our ancestors go,
Filling the air with whoops of laughter,
Reminiscing about life down here in the hereafter.

the Four Horsemen of Detroit

My father and/or my uncles once told me,
That the police would come around just because,
Back in the old neighborhood in Detroit,
Four of the biggest burliest officers,
Riding around in one squad car,
They called something like “The Four Horsemen,”
Just one of the many tales from way back when.
Those four officers would ride around,
Just looking for young punks to rough up,
To take into a back alley and give a taste,
Of what awaited them when they were adults,
Their job was to scare straight wayward sons,
Denizens of tenement projects and forgotten streets,
The ones that didn’t feed of the automaker’s teats.
My father’s family lived in the Brewsters,
Purported home of Diana Ross and so many others,
Just vacant, boarded up monoliths by the time I saw them,
Thirty years past their prime, sentinels to time,
Overlooking I-75, just next to the mental hospital,
Or so it seemed, maybe it was all just a dream,
The landscapes of my mental states as a teen.
My father’s family also lived on such-and-such street,
After the tenement years, over on the east side,
Down the street from St. Stanislaus, over by Poletown,
Before the highways, before the huge GM plant,
The boys fighting and carousing with the Chene gang,
Out looking for trouble, out looking for fun,
Kids a generation removed from fighting Japs and Huns.
They would all move out and away like everyone else,
Back then there was nothing beyond Outer Drive,
North of Eight Mile was nothing but farms,
Starting in the late forties and beyond,
Detroit would puke up waves of refugees,
Some driven away due to urban blight,
Or sparked by the ’67 Riots and White flight.
One of my uncles would remain in the D,
After a brief stay at Ft. Knox and the Army,
Served the city for twenty-odd years,
Motorcycle cop, Mounted Police, desk jockey,
Cynical and burnt out at the end of that,
So sick of the politics and the bureaucrats,
Who abandoned the ship like so many rats.
My father went off and joined the Marines,
Parris Island and Camp Lejeune after that,
I’ve got pictures of him in Spain and in Paris,
Big toothy smiles as the world whizzed behind,
Somehow ended up in Thailand instead of Vietnam,
My grandmother died sometime in 1965,
Toothy grins faded away, something died inside.
The photo record shows a shift, a change,
After all these years I still don’t know why,
What happened to the optimism of his youth,
Where did he go astray and throw his dreams away,
I often blame it on the city that gave him birth,
The city that I love and loath with the same breath,
Aunt Joan blames the Corps, says he changed after he left.
Which ever one, whatever happened, who really knows,
But I grew up never seeing the man smile,
Not for sure he even has teeth, never seen them,
Reserved and gruff, he hid his feelings as well,
Only displaying them when he had had too much,
Swearing and bellowing through the house,
Smacking and punching as I tried to run out.
I grew up a block from Baseline Road,
Known to all as Eight Mile as well,
Border between Detroit and the suburbs,
Littered with party stores, porn shops and strip clubs,
Two-inch thick bullet-proof Plexiglas,
Black iron bars on windows and doors,
Very different from the neighborhoods further north.
Our neighborhood was built in the post-war boom,
Late forties or early fifties, soon after Levittown,
The car plants came soon after-Chrysler and GM,
The city wooed them there with tax-free status,
And they pumped money into the schools,
But it had all dried up by the time I was a teen,
The eighties were rough and the times were lean.
I was trying to make sense of it all,
The environment into which I was raised,
The father whom I only met when I was five,
A foreign country which now was my home,
So far away, in space and time,
From the place that I was born,
From my birthplace I was torn.
Still pondering my father’s past,
What made him who he was and is,
Seemed normal in black and white pics,
On graduation day and Uncle D’s wedding,
But something along the way changed all that,
Turning him into the sullen solitary man,
With the quick temper and the heavy hand.
His anxieties and social phobia growing with time,
I see the same signs in myself and my brother,
And sometimes even in my sons,
And that’s what worries me most of all,
Don’t want to live the same life he has led,
Hiding from myself and everyone else until I’m dead.
I certainly don’t want my children to do the same,
So much promise, so much potential, so what,
All gone to waste, lived his life on the inside,
Hardly even know the man, never really talked,
Just barked orders at us and weren’t allowed to talk back,
“Yes sir, no sir, don’t look me in the eyes,
Don’t be a sissy, boy, you better not cry.”
All those years of physical and mental abuse,
Was just to cover up his fears and inadequacies,
He wanted me to be tough and ready for the world,
But he ended up destroying something inside,
He pushed too hard, and I fell apart,
Then he didn’t push at all with my brother,
Strangely enough, they’re just like one another.
I blamed Detroit, I blamed the Marines,
Maybe something happened in Iran,
Or the time that he spent in Spain,
Or even in Laos, working for the C.I.A.,
Bugging the embassy, setting up microwave towers,
I’m sure he and mom must have had some good times,
But I’m not sure, never heard much about their lives.
Not even sure how they even met back in ‘68,
Him working for the government via contract,
She supposedly a housekeeper where he lived,
I never quite believed that last part, not really,
But they’re careful about the stories that they share,
Not sure what to really believe anymore,
Not at all sure what he did after leaving the Corps.
My father gave me short snippets, just a glance,
Never fleshed out the story for me,
My mother does much the same,
But with her the language barrier is to blame,
So unlike Uncles D and T, or even little D,
Those guys would talk long into the night,
Give you the highs, the lows, and their insights.
How can four brothers raised in the same home,
Be so different from each other, so distant with each other,
Maybe the mystery lies with grams and gramps,
Way back when they themselves were babies,
Can’t figure it out, not just yet, without some help,
But maybe dad gave what little he had to give,
Let me figure it out myself, allowing me to live.
He never saddled me with his problems,
Never shared his fears and worries,
Not openly at least, even though they seeped out,
In a tense moment, a quick slap or punch,
A word or phrase to tear off your face,
But he kept it to himself, never shared his pain,
Bottled it all up inside and barely stayed sane.
So I don’t really know, just imagined it myself,
I took what little he gave and had to render it to life,
I imagine the four officer’s droving around the block,
Spotting them, stopping the car and rushing out,
Into a dark alley, billy clubs in hand,
Strong swift strokes to the top of the head,
Dad’s white t-shirt stained blood red.
Or I can see Uncle D and him,
Running around the projects,
Poor Polish/Mohawk kids in hand-me-downs,
So full of life, full of wonder at everything,
Grubby rolled up jeans and v-neck sweaters,
I fill in all the gaps of his history,
Try to explain away all of the inconsistencies.
I wish he could tell a story from the start,
Fill in the middle, add some anecdotes,
All the way to the end, full of description and action,
But most of all I want to know is,
How he felt, what he thought of it all,
He gives the bare bones and none of the meat,
Never goes below the surface, never goes too deep.
I wish I could tell you more about the Four Horsemen,
But I told you all I know, just a fragment,
A figment of my imagination and nothing more,
I wonder what it was like growing up back then,
To be a part of old Detroit before the riots,
Before everyone and their brother moved away,
But this is all I can tell you, all I know for today.

skatepark story

Time spent defiling and defacing,
Gonna shut us down all the same,
When you’re off somewhere else,
Someone else will pay the price,
Wasting your time and mine,
Didn’t bother cleaning up the mess.
Left all the rest of us to fend for ourselves,
So proud and boastful all the while,
What the hell are you rebelling for,
What is it you wanna say, need to share,
How horrible to be middle class and bored,
Waiting on everyone else to clean your mess.
You wanna tag and hang, act like you’re a gang,
Suburban wannabes bitching about turf,
You really wanna play, you really wanna front,
Bring it on, bring it on, see what you got,
You’ll end up shutting it all down,
Screwing it up for everyone, even yourselves.
So what’s important to you, watcha want,
The city threw up this place for you,
You wanna throw it all away,
Playing at being something you’re not,
Aping what you saw on t.v. or on dvd,
Do you even know, even care what you’ve wrought?
This is just a playground, keep your shit to yourself,
You think you know anything about real life,
Didja see your cousin dying at your feet,
Blood on your hands from a beat down,
Coked-up homies flying out of the house,
Armed with Tech-9s and tire irons?
That’s real life and happens everyday,
I come here to skate and just to get away,
Try like hell to forget about the shit I’ve done,
Places I shouldn’t have been, the things I’ve seen,
Awaken from nightmares wanting to scream,
This here isn’t that crucial, nothing that extreme.
Shut up and skate, enjoy being a kid,
Don’t believe the lies and illusions,
Decide for yourself what the hell is real,
Don’t give in to some other s.o.b.’s spiel,
Don’t listen to me, don’t listen to any of them,
The only person you should trust is yourself in the end.

little E = 5

My little E turned 5 the other day...
doesn't seem possible--seems like his mom was all cranky and pregnant with him not so long ago... first five years are supposed to be the "prime" years for development.
I hope we didn't screw him up too bad . . .
I lubba dubba youz, lil'E!!

word salad for breakfast

Demons silenced for a while,
Just had a short little ride,
To clear out the cobwebs,
Just to hear the wheels spinning,
The concrete smooth and dry underneath.
I’ve skated everyday for the last week,
No improvement but I’m racing against time,
Bones going brittle and knees arthritic,
Memory fading with each passing day,
But with them go my cares as well.
I hit the wall and kickturn,
My thighs immediately start to burn,
The fickle body beginning to abandon me,
Nothing to do but keep going,
Set it free and my mind will follow.
Random bmx-icans and fruitbooters playing around,
I swear that one dude looks Indian,
Canadian at that--maybe even Wiky,
But we all took our time took our turns,
No need to rush nowhere to get to.
Had some good curb action the day before,
After warming up and huffing and puffing,
Finally started landing them after awhile,
Co-worker videoed on her cellphone.
She was hoping for something dramatic,
Like me falling on my ass,
Or doing a faceplant to asphalt,
But all in good fun just egging me on,
Just like she’s always done.
Click-clack snap and crack,
Sickest sounds around for days,
Blurry bald-headed little old me,
But there’s that smile and no denying,
I’m a goof for sure but having fun.
Working away on Labor Day,
Just like every other holiday,
My wheels squeal as I pass the stadium,
One donut and one about to bust,
But somehow manages to keep going.
Just like this old man behind the wheel,
Too many miles to remember,
Too many people and places seen,
But somehow some way keeps going,
Just as long as the blood keeps flowing.