Single Parenting and accidental brillances

Reading this reminds me of my daughter ages four to eight in the phase of how do you do it. The world does not tell you how to be a parent, but you make mistakes and accidental and planned brilliances that somehow pace that organic path of one day older. After eight into twelve now I see the psyche of a forming adolescent where it is much more about parental atmosphere created for bubbles of questions rising from oceanic waters inside of a small fish growing larger. As a parent, there is that grand lesson of what a human cannot control in the vastness.

I get into moments on a couch watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer or on road trips listening to the Beatles where she has learned the lyrics to I am the Walrus and Across the Universe and you muster fumes of certitude that books read together at five have output to this inquisitive and self-confident girl who is on pace in that confidence every parent, I would think, hopes to impart or cultivate that a child at some point can swim on her own. That as divorced single parents you do not get to see it all. You just don’t.

You are playing poker blind more often than you can admit, because if the kid knew how many times you are just going on instinct, on some kind of innate I am jumping now or holding firm in this teaching point of contention to be a parent and not a friend or a servant, but a parent knowing that kid has this whole other option to sequester into that may or may not back you up on why you played that card or drew that line. You do it. You do it day by day breathing in and out loving with a tempered conveyance of your heart. You can’t love in all the moments you want to as a divorce single parent. You can love fully and openly and ferocious in the moments you get poetic and comet riding, but you love for what the kid needs not what you need.

You shut the fuck up when that is what is best for the kid. You speak up even when you are not sure what the fuck to say. You make breakfast, lunch, and dinner, help with math homework, you read the book she’s reading so you can talk about it, you look at her trying to be some etch of a blueprint for what her opposite gendered relationships might become and you try to show her happy, positive, and kind in these moon and sun beams where it is just you and you’re not so little girl making magic, because you are her dad. No matter what other people in this world may try to tell you, “You are not qualified. Go away. You were not built to do this or that.” You say fuck those people in your head and nothing outside, because it is not about them, it is about her. And she wants you to be magic, even when she’s upset and it feels like if she had wrecking balls in her eye sockets she would crush you, even then the girl still loves you. She might not remember four and that is ok, because we do not live in our pasts, we live in that pace of one day older in the now smiling the brilliant dream forgiving and loving ourselves as parents and children.

http://www.gq.com/story/patton-oswalt-fatherhood-moty

Harvest Time

Thanksgiving, my grandfather required my hand under his arm to step towards the lavatory

Left leg shaking, cane in right, my thirty-eight-year-old stance as brace

He says, “I cannot see.  Point me in the right direction.”

Lead dog for the hunt of a geriatric prostate for that elusive drip of piss

Flabby white thighs, octogenarian-tailored zipper shifted to the right side

For a cardiac-risk male gut bulbous tire rolling and strapped

Like a leashed haggard dog growly rock-toothed and snarling

I will be the death of you

Twist asshole trajectory to bullseye plop-down lowered crane-like

Between my arms to his pulling elastic band briefs off of buttocks

Revealing the lunar light of where we all phase

Huffing, staring at feet, saying, “I should have stayed home.” 

Bring up Saints football, penis hooded by stomach fat

Mission launch failure, no urine, raise spine, button and zipper operation

Hold up pants, help stand, reassemble trousers

Belt the beast to keep to plow

Pace out to the living room, see my father talking about Trump

My dad’s hunting long bow like Odysseus on the wall, made of swamp wood

Old man strength to string, fire through rings, his grandfather’s bull’s horn to blow

To echo off the swamp waters for the Catahoula’s to hunt, when a deer was split

I see his retired hand gripping a coffee cup, standing on the home rock like a cowboy playing Indian

Naming things with white mustached lips under the crucifix doorway, bald

With the gun safe in the closet and the gun safe in the bedroom, the pistol in the pickup truck cab compartment

Conversations like, “I would never go to Chicago.”

Rooted for the cartoon Indians over the Cubs in the World Series in October

Voted red again in November

With my mother, uncles, aunts, cousins, everyone, but my brothers and me

Says, "It used to be simple when I was a kid.  We had men and women’s bathrooms. 

We didn’t have to learn all that.  None of that existed."

There comes a point in growing up where you realize

Your relationship with your parents has transposed

You can no longer speak as if seeking advice or drink from that well of knowledge

The intransigence of what is has calcified into sedimentary silence

Layered and petrified bow is non pliable or malleable to function in a modern world

The digital fairies pilfering daily interface into the way of meat on bodies in motion

The connection between seed to tree to archer to bloody deer to factory to truck to store

To bank accounts trading ones and zeros for Pfizer and Flomax

Into the fossil fuels goading the sun for the life of dancing bees buzzing the sweetness of roses

Circling in a dizzy-head bumble symphony wanting to stand firm in the front door

Letting the impasse clog into a baby boomer colon watching a 1950’s childhood

Grab America by the pussy in 2016

Start a trade war on anti-intellectualism

Obama tolerating water cannons on indigenous protestors in the irony of just above 32 degrees Fahrenheit

In North Dakota because Northern Hemisphere November is just that bit warmer and thus

The whole reason we are here

And do not talk anymore

The horizon of silence has dawned

So I realize I have begun to talk to my father the way we talk to my grandfather

I do not expect him to understand

Me, nor the context, the sphere of the setting, the planet, the economics, the psychological approach

To why humanity is where we are, the leaves have fallen from the oak

Dry acorns pelting the base, waiting for the deer to come to eat

I know he is a man who has planted more trees

Than I probably ever will. 

Lob-loly and long leaf pines, pecan, old hickory

Tax deductions for hunting property and his grandchildren’s college fund in loving timber

More likely forced to shed to qualify for healthcare; I know there is love in his heart, misguided in application

His eyes salivating to string the bow, hungering to harvest

The cycle of herbivores and shaved rocks crafted into arrow heads

Tractor wheels and gasoline, iPhones and internet tree stand surveillance

To track the herd, the outliers and the general health

Seeing the scrawny and wanting the does to get enough clover and nuts

Cultivating trails and pastures, coming inside turning on Fox News

Gripping bullets and Bible pages, judgment of thirty years of Hillary

As if it hasn’t been men like Donald this whole time

The billionaire’s exemption is somehow safer  

Three degrees and novel Nebraska dustbowl revival

Queue Woody Guthrie on the Victrola

Turkey feathers and blaming California

Dipstick the aquifers for parched almond orchards 

Hippy pot and tax coffers, transgender dystopian blues songs

White crosses on the church lawn and I want to smash them all

Robes and court seats, anti-choices reversing mainstream

The only way I can talk to them anymore

Seems to be not talking

To treat my parents as children and pretend the world was always great

Always simple and give up baubles of faith and hope of their aliveness

My father feels a marathon bursting the ribbon upon his chest

Three sons and, three grandchildren, wife, partners for two kids

And in why can’t we just keep our focus here, on family

I do not want to talk. 

His blessed doing of a god

That is dead to me

Instead there is an interconnected energy that I know growth comes from pain

The forest needs to burn

A man on fire attempting to sleep on a sofa

Head throbbing laughing off suicidal ghosts

For longer than I can recollect, but especially now

Part of me has been infected with my parent’s myopic apathy

Drinking this cup is to see their death ferment

And in psychological ladder rung parents die before children

As some ordained expected genial order

The octogenarian asks to return to the restroom

He thinks he has a drip now

Get up again. 

We walk on five legs.

Dad stands munching straddled in the open front door way

Singing, “Imagine there is no bacon.  It is easy if you try.”

Dog walks up from the porch

“Too Late I ate it all” 

Release

At work I sit alone in an office in a chair

at a desk of a woman I only met a few times. 

Wednesday she passed away

after a sudden juggernaut of cancer spread through her body over the last six months.

I found out over the phone commuting home. 

Previously in the afternoon my body paused. 

I felt heaviness, limbs wanting to curve in like reforming an egg,

Breathing slowly, pensive, sensing something powerful had transpired. 

Like a release

I knew days were close for her going into that dawn,

but had no way of knowing in that moment the timing of mortality. 

All I can say is I stopped. 

I could feel what felt like a ripple of energy. 

I took my hands in mudra with each finger touching its complement

on the opposing hand placing my forehand in the curved aperture

between the archway of my fingers. 

I breathed with my eyes closed and felt the power of that moment

with her work sweater still zipped to the back of the chair I was sitting. 

Some people believe in god. 

I personally do not, but

I recognize the presence of our interconnected universe

passing in a totality of energy and consciousness. 

No one knows on god one way or another. 

We have moments that make us contemplate, feel, absorb, and notice. 

This was one for me. 

Today I attended her funeral

Hundreds of mourners lined in compassionate recognition

A mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a friend

I stood in black

Walking into the soup of faces in a Catholic church

Sipped in like stale wine

I signed my name in print not wanting to hide  

I sat in a pew meditating hummed an aum summoning a simulacrum

Of the vibration I felt at the desk

Wishing peace and time’s compassion into those aching

Eyes closed, breathing

I positioned in line towards the altar

Her husband set brave feet to Earth

Receiving humans with no suitable words

In fleeting apertures

I gave my name

I sit at her desk

On the day she died I felt something deep passing

like a release, stopping me to pause

In my body around noon

I did know until after work

And I wanted you to know

In the presence of her space, in her chair

What I felt

Tears welled in his face as I spoke, he gripped his hands to his chest

I do not know if life has a way it is supposed to go

I know energy, I know love, I know kindness

She had all of these

I am no longer a man of faith,

But maybe I can still be a conduit for those who are

In their darkest hours

That there is a connection between us all

We may give it many names

Perceive alternative modalities,

But in each we are all present in one interconnected pulse 

Confessions of a Day form an Introverted Single Parent

Didn’t go to sleep until three am.

Limbs stripped of liquid wax from hundred-degree yoga Friday night

Cleanse of a week contemplating too many shadows

Woke at nine Saturday toe movements

Ingest water and an overripe banana

Scrolling a message returned from family in the ongoing conversation

Of how eighty percent of them voted for Trump and

How this conclusion was reached with a poet in the clan

Spiting up bloody book pages and science

They tell me why can’t you be simple; stop asking questions

Go get laid; quit worrying

I am not curious and I would hardly know how to do research

Privilege insulates you when you are not the one affected

To not risk getting called out or maybe losing the little you have

Because you held a mirror up to the person with more power

To let them see their ugliness

Parked at the library exchanged governmental music

Drove beyond the spillway, up fifty-five

Into the maw of the detention camp porch and the train horn  

Hadn’t seen my daughter since September

Longest I have gone in my lifetime

Drains away into this casual acceptance of what normal is

Space taking and the knock on a door that goes unanswered

Requires three minutes, repeated knock knowing the cosmogony

Hear a piano like a replicated doorbell of her twelve-year-old fingers playing long

Reaching out in silent voice and wanting to make sure I heard

Like fawn was in position, knowing buck was approaching

Her mother holding baby three

Ask kid if she wants to bring a soccer ball so we can kick it in the park

Tells me she won a juggling and skills competition including the boys

And Paul was there

Car to sushi because the girl likes snow crab and chopsticks

And daddy has no teeth again, can’t bite, remove, fold temporary into napkin

She has to look away, ask, are they out yet?

Talks about the public or the Catholic high school

Visits, decision in two years, I mention expanding world, perspective

Mirror how good public junior high was for me

How to live her life, bold, and take on uncomfortable and novel

She tells me about reading The Once and Future King

Of Lancelot and Guinevere, I mention the word bad-boy and she blushes

Ride talks about Ave Maria in school piano during Christmas mass

Girlfriends might sing while she plays, says I probably would not want to come

Sniffing father’s atheism and I say, “If it’s on a school day I would probably have to work, but I would want to come.  It is good to get in front of a crowd and be brave like that.  I am proud of you.”

I que a Slingshot Dakota CD, to tell her about a female piano playing punk lead singer

To the park, autumn winds, juggling on knees, ball up and sideways

Race her across long, win by a few lengths, but she is gaining

Sprint and show her a downward dog jumping into crow pose

Catching my body on my knees laughing at the sky

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Movie, pulled our Gryffindor robes from some Halloween ago

Watch the hesitancy in her eyes for a split between tween

And reading her the novels in first grade head on my chest at bed time

Finishing in countless car rides audio book commutes from Friday to weekends

Debates then agrees to robe, we fly in style, tell her others may look at you

And you may feel like the only one, but they are happy and a bit jealous

That you are alive, not afraid to stand out and be you and play

That sometimes you don’t walk, but you twist in the air

For no reason but you felt it in the moment and you leap

Never be afraid to jump or ask the waitress for an extra set of chopsticks

To use as wands to watch 3D wizards, we banter as if magic is real

Time ticks into return and she wants me to borrow The Once and Future King

So we can talk about it next time, probably when the next Star Wars comes out at this rate

Smile and I hug her and tell her I will always love you

No matter what I am here, even when I am not here, you are in my heart

I suck in the other man she calls dad

The way her mom makes a point to say it as much as possible in front of me

The doing what is best for another human being and making one’s ego

Like a rabbit in a hat

Drive back south to LSU Florida traffic full of disgruntled tail lights

Sounding to Ramones and the Clash wanting to hear punk

Fast and pressed even if the lane is trudging gator bait

Pull into the house to another Trump message

Rock the Kasbah Bill Murray on DVD on the side, eat a sweet potato

Write a bit, and get ready to head out to Urban South Brewery

To Shotgun Cinema and watch the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense

On a big screen in the dark, drinking ale

With a herd of slippery people making flippy floppy

To David Byrne’s big suit

Why do I do all this yoga; for tireless thighs that bend and gyrate

To every song after Heaven, moving with the crowd alone

Feeling breath and darkness that cold pit of late November

In a warehouse, letting go to the speed of talking

Into being in a moment burning down the house

Of this is how I find myself

Hands in the air jumping, film strip drum beat base line

Clapping as if this is real

Watching the conversations in a place where nothing ever happens

Credits, lights, walk to car, iPod rotate playlist I put on when daughter is in-car

This is not my house, this is not my beautiful wife

Same as it ever was behind the wheel of a large automobile

Tchoupitoulas next to the Mississippi River

Same as it ever was, Same as it ever was, letting the days go by

Yawping a punk anthem in Bhakti heartbeat bouncing independent toes

That do not give a fuck what anyone thinks being me

Like a rouge wolf howling at the harvest moon 

Gates of the 21st Century Dustbowl 20161117

The monsters come behind the smile of a tangerine puppet demagogue

Promising salvation to those he plans to harm

In a pressed suit poof-haired sling blade,

It is not him; it is who he is letting in

He whispers, “It is unfair to judge so soon.  Stay calm.  You will not be the ones devoured.”

He will not be the one who eats you. 

Jim Crow’s crook nose sniffs the populace

For flecks of color to whitewash a rainbow

Snort the spectrum into a cocaine line across the oval office desk

Leaving poor white dust in a plowed parade of freedom 

White thankfulness for being spared, to have that bit better in an illusionary honey pot

To lick dry before the Earth asks, “Where have all the bees gone?” 

The monsters lurking behind the nostrils are out of hiding

Obstructionism in an octet is parlayed into fervent abandon, cookie-cutter Republicans unleashed

Paycheck to paycheck America shivers in color-coded vibrations of fear and ecstasy

Subject to similar razing, swaths of the alabaster perceive salvation

In the scent of another false prophet

Jesus wrapped in a flag crop-dusted in Cheetoes and Botox with a mashed potato chin 

Propped up as Agent Orange for change for corn fields in pain

Union towns busted and one more degree from 21^st Century dust bowl

Lebanese American parents immigrating staring at a barricaded future

Palestine died today

Mexican roofer wiring pay to loved ones feeling the drip through the ceiling

Libyan migrant boats to Italy overturned in the Mediterranean

Syrian rebels left to Putin’s thumb

Oligarchs smile at online bank accounts

Thirty-five year old in St. Louis remembering a twenty-something abortion

Imagining a mirrored self overturned to no choice or a surprise forty-something uterine hijack    

Sixty-eight year old government retiree Nina on state health insurance plan

Cuts her diabetes meds sleeping alone in the god damn Mississippi woods

Colored cut lives not surprised, see the white wolf brown eyes have always seen

Blue eyes wake from Sam Browback’s Kansas

Yellow brick road crumbled when the wizard kept the gold

Lies post ballot bubble obvious as a Deep Water Horizon dawns in America

White supremacist Viagra got an old Tricky Dick hard again

The Gipper’s memory came back to fonder times of Gordon Gecko

Big Short strippers stuffed with margin call bills

Old Fashioned Kentucky whiskey

Pissing bladder on a pile of dead black bodies

Penis in one hand, iPhone tweet in the other

Staring for an updated Pfizer stock price

Don’t even look down  

Corporate coffers slept dormant set to pounce on slashed capital gains and income tax rates

To bring back cash gerrymandered overseas awaiting the lowest potential window

To commit fraud in trillion dollar increments

The American people smile in the sunlight with thankful applause to the marmalade mannequin

Pennsylvania coal miner seeing his town die, testicles folded into a disability paycheck

Wife lost her husband to fracking’s lower natural gas prices, globalization, and climate change

Promised a time machine back to the era of white whale oil

Moby Dick devouring with the machines of industry

Stuffed with steampunk innards rigged with the bones of corrupted teamsters.  

E.P.A. E.P.A. Grandpa Simpson cried at the site of the pig.  Abrahamic tradition come due

Sacrifice your first born onto me.  I will test you; give him our country

Gate to the globe, god rolling dice in a casino Mr. Burns goes to Washington

I have come here to lead, not to read.  Detention camp domes coming soon!

Caught sneaking back in after deportation or on the no-human-beings-migrate list

Lock her up!  Lock her up! Trump that Bitch! Grab that pussy!  Lynch that nigger!

Was that too harsh?  Context soft spoken, remain calm.

Put away your twitter to let the monsters do their work. 

Curb your manners to when you think the microphone is gone.

The great death star wall one can see the lack of empathy from outer space, ask Berlin or Jerusalem

A never-built symbol to the universe

Harvesting strawberries with white fingers in Neverland

Inflation in a trade war as China’s red dragon roars

Stirs over its gold itching to see cities burn. 

Climate change deniers obliterate what is real behind the idea that if the apocalypse is to be

God has chosen it, so what is there to fear? Standing rock can stand down

Welcoming the Nebraska desert with Kool-Aid and Brawndo toasts

Lake Mead and the Yongding He and Tuhai Hu in Northern China

Two of the top five most stressed river basins on the planet. 

Drinking water in Somalia, Nigeria, India, Malawi

Ticking math  

No water, no crops, no food equals war and survival of the richest

American air conditioners hum in late November cackling to the sound of Arnold Schwarzenegger

As NBC’s new apprentice.  Immigrants can be governors, but never presidents.

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on white boy?

Which side are you on?

Poets its time, time to step up

Get out of the echo chamber

Face to face conversations with the climate change denier in your life

The person who would just rather not know, who says that is all too complicated,

Who says you think too much; Talk to that person

The poison to our democracy is not the politician,

but the apathy of the masses to coddle personal ignorance

That elects the politician.

The water is rising, and all I did was stand there.