Ron Johnson is a mighty man;
China is a mystery to anyone who cares
to look into their country and endure the endless stares.
Are they rich or are they poor; nobody seems to know.
Are they going off to war or keep the status quo?
Such a giant country with a teeny tiny way
of sharing information with those who overstay.
The Sphinx was quite a chatterbox, compared to old Beijing;
the Chinese would not tell you if they got a bad bee sting!
***************************
the brown frosted fence
and the naked black bushes
guard the crows' hubris
sea moss and yogurt
in a white Amazon bowl --
today's breakfast treat
orange persimmons
languish in a bin today --
who buys such things here?
I am dictating this to the Beloved, forty some years after the fact. This means that sometimes the events of long ago are crystal clear in my mind, and sometimes they are murkier than a coal slurry. Right now, after a good meal of beans and wienies with buttered bread and a bowl of yogurt, plus a sound nap during an episode of Perry Mason on Video Prime, my memory is as sharp as a porcupine quill. The first time I saw the old funeral home was . . .
Oh drat! I don’t actually remember that first view of the place. I only know it happened in the early summer.
There is something about early summer in North Dakota that calls for a Broadway tune or a guttural tribal chant. The air is full of impudent sage as meadowlarks tap dance on the fence post like Fred Astaire. Last year's stubble in the fields turns green and vibrates with an innocent yearning. To be a pessimist in the early summer in North Dakota would require the heart of a troll in the body of a banker. A Republican banker.
I grew up in Minneapolis, and the early summers were almost magical there. But not quite. There were parents, and lawns to mow, to dampen the joyful childhood energy fields. But in North Dakota these wild waves of bucolic bumptiousness were completely untrammeled. I felt like a new man in a new land, with no baggage to drag behind me.
And then came the tornado. A small black cloud appeared on the horizon one Sunday afternoon while I was at church. It grew in size until it blocked the sunlight, and chilled the land with it’s evil foreboding. Then suddenly in a sickly green light, the roaring funnel dropped to the ground in front of the church. Shingles came off the roof. Windows burst. Members of the congregation screamed and cowered. And one beautiful young woman and the pew she was sitting in were carried aloft by the whirlwind. Luckily, by then, I had learned how to use a lasso. So I roped her down to safety in my arms. And that is how I met my Beloved. Who lived with her family in the old funeral home up in Tioga.
No. That’s not true. That’s a daydream I had years later when she and I had divorced.
I am trying to remember now if I saw the old funeral home before I saw my Beloved. I don’t think I did. And when I am dictating to my beloved, as I am doing right now, I never ask her for specific details. A writer's hubris. However, as I wrote earlier, when she feels inclined she will set the record straight.
I don’t want you to think that I didn’t have an active love life before I met the girl from the old funeral home. Of course I did.
I had one date with old Dr. Maisey’s niece from Idaho. But she fell asleep during the movie. So I finished all the popcorn, and she didn’t take kindly to that. I also briefly made goo-goo eyes at Arvella Newnan. The secretary at KGCX Radio. She only had eyes for Dewey Moede, the sports director. Then there was Becky Thingvold, A reporter at the Williston Daily Herald. (Becky Thingvold’s family is from Tioga) She did a story on me when I first got to town. That’s because I told everyone that I was going to open a clown school in town. I used to make those kinds of bombastic statements all the time in my callow youth. But I’ve since learned to write such idiotic statements on a piece of scrap paper and then mail them to Santa at the North Pole. I have now idea what he does with them.
Anyway, I thought Becky was a pretty hot item. So I asked her out. She gave me a hard no. Now had I been Robert Taylor or Fred Astaire in an old screwball comedy movie I would have pursued her relentlessly until she gave in with a coy giggle. But unfortunately I favored Boris Karloff over Fred Astaire in both looks and disposition. And I didn’t want to be arrested for stalking. So you can see that I had a very active love life. You might say I had to beat the girls off with a stick. You might say that. If you were drunk.
But now we must come back to the problem of when I first beheld the old funeral home. In Tioga. In North Dakota, In the United States. On planet Earth. Or do we? Heck, I’m in charge of this narrative and I can lie through my teeth as much as I want. How are you, the reader, going to know any difference? You’re not going to take the time to check up on any of this. Since I haven’t indicated if this is a work of fiction or nonfiction.
So let’s just say that I first saw the old funeral home on December 7th 1941. The same day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Historic facts are always riveting. (it wasn’t that far back because Dad was 10 1/2 years old on that date. It was the year of the killer blizzard, 1941. Dad had been feeding cows on the neighbor’s farm. He saw the bank of clouds on the west horizon. He instantly knew what it meant especially when the cattle were nervous around him. He turned the wagon around, pointed the horses home, crawled under the hay meant for the cows and listened as the storm howled around him. Nearly an hour of riding and hoping went by. When the horses stopped he got out but could not see anything in the whiteout swirling. He felt his way to the front of the horses and found they had gotten to the barn. He took care of them and by a miracle found his way to the house. Mrs. Mattson was in tears. She exclaimed, “Freddy, we thought you was dead!” Dad didn’t tell his mom about this for some time after. He didn’t want his widowed mom to worry any more than she had to. Dad’s wages, in his mind, were more valuable to give her than worry about his life.)
Perhaps it would be best if I explained why my Beloved was living in an old funeral home to begin with. (Dad did not have anything to do with any workings in a funeral home. We simply lived in it for a purpose not connected with funerals.) But those beans and weenies are beginning to speak volumes. If you know what I mean. So let's continue this narrative after the Rubicon is crossed.
************************
(by Amy)
Chaos does not rule
Everything is out of place
Order in all things
********************************
Flying J gas stop
"Please proceed to shower 8"
Turquoise beef jerky
Bleary stained sunlight
Kleenex on the Kia floor
at Rattlesnake Pass
No Services should
be the place name of hamlets
with herds of sagebrush
The sound of traffic
past the hissing motel door
Plastic window sheets
The white motel room
has dry white sagging towels
and plastic flowers.
A black plastic spoon
cracked and discarded outside
drains me of hunger.
the snow melt running
off this hallowed mountain peak
is stained with dead leaves
雪解け水
この神聖な山頂から枯れ葉で汚れている
the white ghosts float downupon the still lakes and ponds children call them gods白い幽霊が浮かんでいる
まだ湖や池に
子供たちは彼らを神と呼びますa cold winter wind
blows through the thin mountain air --
my thick coat is gone
寒い冬の風
薄い山の空気を吹き抜ける-
私の厚いコートはなくなった
Chapter One.
The best books are written in the spring. The best stories start and finish with buds and bunnies and baby robins and pink rosy clouds settling into a Disney sunset as the icicles thaw away and the babbling brook begins to burble.
You can already tell this is going to be a disgustingly quaint tale, can't you?
So be it.
After spending a year on nothing but haiku, I am ready to resume a longer narrative form. Or rather, We are. To create protagonists and the ever-elusive mise-en-scene. And by the way, when you come to a parenthesis you'll know that it is the Beloved writing, not me. That's how we've divided up the labor; I'll dictate to her, and as she writes my golden words down she will interject her thoughts and feelings, in parenthesis.)
Hey, if it worked for Tristam Shandy it can work for us.
Spell check is turned off. We've canceled our subscription to Grammarly. This is going to be a work of pure unfiltered art. Stream of consciousness and surreal all at once.
And it starts with Michu, the World's Smallest Man. He indirectly got me my first broadcast job at KGCX Radio in Williston North Dakota.
I started there in the spring as news director. Got paid 600 dollars per month. No benefits, unless you count getting up at 3 a.m. each morning as part of 'the early to bed and early to rise' gambit to great health, wealth, and wisdom. Which I don't. I have always loved to sleep in. Until I grew old and bothersome. Now I never sleep past 4 a.m. no matter what I do. Go figure.
As I saying, I wrote down local news stories on great rolls of yellow AP paper -- a grainy parchment carpet that was attached to the dinging, clattering, AP typing machine in the broom closet. That poor old machine shook like a man with the d.t.'s.
Once I was settled into my work in Williston I discovered the old funeral home. Where my Beloved lived. Fifty miles due north in Tioga.
************************
There is no bread here.
The night stars are turning dark.
My pills roll away.
ここにはパンはありません。
夜の星は暗くなってきています。
私の錠剤は転がり落ちます。静的な火花
地球から飛び降りて逃げる。
削除されました。夜明けは見過ごされています。
雲はすべての色で排出されます。
風は動くがゴミ。
When driving down the road of life
you have to meet a little strife;
but when the price of gas explodes
you can't afford those handy roads!
Instead you stay at home and sulk
or as pedestrian go skulk
on sidewalks, paths, in alleyways --
muttering of 'end of days.'
A bicycle will melt some fat --
if you can be an acrobat.
Or try a skateboard, gnarly dude,
if you have got the fortitude.
Public transport would be nice
if buses smelled like edelweiss.
And trains showed up on time, you know;
instead of running awful slow.
A horse might do the trick, by Jove!
But then, it costs a treasure trove
to feed it in a stable where
they cater to the millionaire.
If I had wings, O how I'd soar
these holidays like pterosaur!
Back to the family manse I'd flit
around the Xmas tree to sit,
cracking nuts and singing Yule
instead of feeling like a fool
by bumming rides with Uncle Fred
who drives his car like some bobsled.
But who am I to so complain,
about gas prices inhumane?
I'll drive my car but once a year,
and travel just for Xmas cheer!