Self Love

What bullshit philosophy
to love the self so hard
how do wars get won
how are the oppressed freed
what would be left of the Jesus story
or the Mary story
how are civilizations built
how are children molded
how are families held together at all
how is love even made
when the only compass you believe in
is the one lodged
in your comfort
in the easiest path
for your feelings.

Everything heroic
in all of history
is uncomfortable
and felt miserable
for a long time
or a little.

A Home Lost

She will carry my heart
through all my years
and over the width of all the seas
she listened to it beat in my chest
listened to it like family
held it gently like forests
hold rivers in Maine
nurtured it
like a bright blue Robin's egg
that fell to the ground
and somehow didn't break

I will always wonder
and I will always love her

American Millennial Socialism - v - Free Market Libertarianism: Part 1

It's really interesting what's happening to the American left right now and I feel compelled to write about it, especially with the upset victory of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a 28 year old from the Bronx. She beat out a typical corporate Democrat and 10-term congressman. Cortez is all but sure to win in the heavily Democratic district and will be the youngest woman to ever have been elected to Congress. She is a card carrying member of the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America.

So I love that she won in a way. She defeated an establishment, career politician that had ten times more money than her. She walked her district and won it person by person, while talking about working class issues. Our ruling class is very out of touch with us, so at least congress will have somebody that just walked her district, listened to her constituents and used to have to work an actual job recently.

My sense is that she's taking advantage of a Democratic Party that has no sense of self and is warring with itself and that now that the party has seen progressive success like this a few times around the country we might be mainstreaming socialism even more than Bernie did.

I've read the Communist Manifesto, the writings of Che, I was hyped on the revolutionary rhetoric of candidate Barack Obama, got on board with the reforms that Bernie Sanders ran on, and was interested in Venezuela when it was taken over by Hugo Chavez with promises of beating back imperial oppression (American corporations) and socializing the economy. I liked Hugo Chavez and his power to the people ideals. I think he really meant it back then. I don't have a knee jerk reaction to collectivism at all. In fact I think it's largely biological for us to want to group together in self-selected tribes that are knit together by cultural reasons. I am very wary of authoritarianism, and I think that the current American left, particular once more millennial leaders emerge, has a real flavor for authoritarianism. We're in a season in our country where political definitions are being redrawn, and I find that fascinating. Being in my late-thirties and having never missed a single vote, primary or otherwise, I think I'm old enough now to have watched how certain ideologies play out in the lives of our society and individuals for the longer term.

Our political beliefs do influence our own lives. If you believe that the racist, white, heteronormative patriarchy has oppressed you your whole life, that can become a convenient excuse for staying at a job you hate because you have convinced yourself that our society is stacked against you and your dreams. That belief can help you feel entitled to welfare too. It can help you believe you're a victim and little to no power. So political philosophy has this ability to inform how you, as an individual, interact with your society. And the current leftist mantras are kind of shitty, even though I agree with certain policy pieces, I would never ever agree with some of these enormous statements about our culture, really because the evidence doesn't support them. The left has been on a feeling bender lately. If you feel threatened at all, you're a victim of micro-aggression or violence, if your ideas are challenged, you feel talked down to by an oppressor. You feel like guns are the cause of indiscriminate killing, so we should ban some of them.

So what about this political philosophy: We are lucky to live in one of the freest countries on earth, with an economy vibrant enough to give us a real chance of living our wildest dreams if we work hard enough. All things are possible, as long as I work for it. The individual is wiser than a government ever will be, so we should empower the individual as much as we can to make sure the government can't be used as an instrument of oppression. The freer people are, the better. Our constitution guarantees equality but not equal outcomes. The outcome of my life is totally in my own hands, for better or worse.

That's a very different mantra, and the people that believe that tend to live really successful lives I've noticed. I don't think people believe in their personal power after they become republicans or libertarians or whatever, I think that they might have personal power and resources because they refuse to see themselves as victims and operate in the culture we have to get all the things they want.

Maybe that's why immigrants start so many of our small businesses and then get rich and employ frustrated millennial socialist-sympathizers at their businesses. An immigrant comes here and says, holy shit look at all this opportunity and freedom and money, I'm going to tap it, and then does. You can wear a turban and get a bank loan. You can be from Africa and open a businesses and be beloved by our communities and culture.

So I'm not enamored with the left right now because of the experiences I've had getting money and freedom in my own life, and also just from reading and watching what happens to socialist governments. And just the stats on being middle class. In America, it's still statistically true that if you graduate high school, don't have children out of wedlock, and just hold a job down, you will enter the middle class eventually. It doesn't matter if you're white, black, male, female, born poor, gay or straight. If anything I bet there are real societal struggles for transgendered people, but most of us are either failing or succeeded for cultural reasons, not skin color or gendered reasons. 

Generalizing victimhood is a terrible way forward. It's regressive. The Patriarchy is oppressing me...okay how? Can you not own property or vote or own a business or get rich or work any job you want or write a best selling novel or aren't allowed into graduate or doctorate programs? What is the patriarchy exactly? Are you sure if you left your job and I took it I would be paid higher because I'm a man? Have you seen that happen once in your own life? Does it matter that 97% of workplace deaths are men? What about the Death-At-Work-Gap? At any given time there are millions of women who have tiny children that are totally reliant on their care and nurturing right and then they tend to work less right? Is that a bad thing? Can you name a legal, systemic right that I have as a white man that isn't available to everybody else in America? Have you looked into how they figured that wage gap stat and then how Ivy League economists debunked it?

I acknowledge that victimhood and violence occurs of course. But are other women to blame for my ex-wife cheating on me and working me out of my businesses? Of course not. Am I to blame for a rapey frat boy in Florida? Absolutely not. What about slavery or genocide? No I didn't do that either. Individuals are the source of merit or blame. And I do believe in the absolute rights and empowerment of individuals, whoever they are. That used to be what defined liberalism. That's classical liberalism. But that is way different than socialism.

So back to Alexandria and her platform. She believes in health care as a right. I agree that if we are taxed by a government at all, that that treasure should be used in a way that would help us with the things that we hold in common. Sickness and death is something we will all do so I can get behind that, although I think it would be way better achieved and far more efficient if we collectivized voluntarily into health care cooperatives and every community had independent ownership of a community hospital. I have no doubt that the federal government would make a royal mess out of healthcare because whenever you have centralized systems, powerful people will figure out how to corrupt it because there is so much power in one place. To me collectivism is different than socialism.

She believes that housing is a human right. What does that mean? Government housing? That has gone bad over and over because it totally destroys the free market systems of social and economic uplift. But I think it makes sense for cities to figure that out somehow. College or trade school for everybody? Maybe if we can trust higher education systems to be educating more than indoctrinating, but what if my sons don't want or need to go to college. Should we pay for it for others? I'm not so sure about that one. $15 minimum wage and a federal jobs guarantee? That will only cause inflation and higher taxation, like what always happens when minimum wage goes up. End private prisons? Absolutely, with you. Abolish ICE? Yep I think that's a good idea since it rolls back Patriot Act BS although I definitely see a problem with open borders. I also see the necessity of immigration.

I am a free speech absolutist and I think anytime the political class gets infiltrated by normal people it's going to be mostly a good thing. But socialism itself is not a system I want to live in, because the best way for workers to own and control their own production is by starting a small business. I think that will get harder if socialist reforms creep into our economic system, which already has too much socialism in it, mostly benefitting the rich.
     

This Season

The only comparable time in my life
to this time in my life
was when I lived in my Dad's garage
at fourteen years old.

He had a new wife with two girls
and the garage was carpeted with
a patchwork of carpet samples
and it was winter and I was always cold.

But instead of watching TV in the house
I secluded myself with a parka
and fingerless wool gloves
and taught myself a programming language
and made a disturbed and complex video game
I wrote 20,000 lines of code in four months
and distributed it to my peers
on 3.5" floppy disks.

Then I discovered girls
which launched 24 years
of infatuated distraction
of selling off my truths
of yielding over and over
until there was nothing left to yield

I wrote an 80 page ebook in 5 sittings
just now
and in that time came up with
three ideas for other ones
I know that no one really cares
only the market will be my judge
and for that stark measurement
the truth of value that tells
I am very grateful

My drive for this is like lava flow
my yard is growing over
and I'll eat rice and garbanzo beans tonight
not because of poverty
but because I don't want to leave the house
It's like I'm a mile away from the Grand Canyon
or on the last five mile stretch
of a 100 mile bike ride
or on the last ten minutes
of a bloody four hour black belt test
the journey always brings meat
and I know how to journey
like an untethered bandit
who leaves everything on the mat
and I'm about to eat

Until I'm full.

Recovery

You don't get this far
without having to recover from something
nobody is spared
suffering comes to all

The key is
can you forgive over and over
can you love when it isn't perfect
when you're hurt
can you love your enemies
or the enemy in the person
you choose to love

That's the anvil
where the hammer of cosmic judgement falls
can you love without a thought of yourself
can you sustain it like sunlight
while the light burns through your cloak
and reveals all of your sicknesses
all the logs lodged in your eyes

Or do you retreat back
to the simplicity of self
where the mirror is ever clouded
and love comes with ifs and whens
cursed with the impermanence
of the fallen nature
of all people.

Can you give without conditions
or do you wait
for eternity like you deserve it
like it doesn't cost you everything.

Saturday

This is almost perfect

sitting here and cranking out pages

the horizon in sight

the vanishing point opening

the land I've always held in vision

with patience and faith

With tripped out ambient Celtic music 

on my Roku Pandora app

the breeze blowing in

the cold mushroom pizza and Tecate from the fridge

my liquid mind

unleashed and unencombered

wholly undeserved and focused

I know I'm stubborn and willful

and this is why

it always works

I will have my beautiful life without limits

because dark times don't choke my spirit

my spirit can't be choked

failure is the best teacher

and I love living and failing and getting back up

I am one of those people that wouldn't waver

at the moment before my execution

The only thing that would make this better

is the woman

who is doing a similar thing

in a house 12 blocks away

and when I see her in her tiny house shorts

and her hunting lion eyes

I know that we'll be doing this together

someday

when the timing's right

when I conquer all of her doubts

  

Love and Words

The broken screen can't stop me
I'll do it all right here
with what I have
I'll stay up late
I'll fail and succeed
use the workout app to get fit
have zero overhead
stay put
upload little fishing lines
into rivers of billions of dollars
I don't need much
I just want to stay put
and go anywhere I want
I just want to be heard
and vanish
I will stay in love
and I'll stay alone
until a new order is created
out of thin and sublime air
a new foundation built
until my dreams are flesh
and land and erected wood.

On Writing

I think finally
I'm alone enough to wrap up these things
the 130 page book
the 120 page book
the thousands of words of stories
the swim upstream
the slapping of the space bar
this work takes so much space
lost gold bars of space
single bar stools of space
where you don't smile back at the woman
who saw you come in
you keep your eyes dreaming
vanishing away
into the pin point
where this progress is all that's left
this desperate watching
the spiritual vacuum
of non stimulation
and putting your back into a boulder
until you finally get it rolling down hill
usually when we're around 40.

I want a typewriter

My sunburn is hot
from my day of being on the river
with a bunch of pirates

Old men with long beards
and small tan dicks
young pot trimmer women
with thin panties and armpit hair
with their dates who had beer bellies
and friendly faces

Piles of weed were everywhere
like watermelon and pita chips
a Mexican family
with gang tats and toddlers
one of the Mexican gangster women
just climbed up on a rock
and layed out on somebody else's
beach towel
thug moves

The Yuba River
has to be one of the cleanest rivers
left in America
and I can't help but appreciate
the lawlessness of the foothills
how the libertarian West
hides in pockets like that
like tribes in the Amazon

My phone isn't interesting to me anymore
because the only person I want to look at
isn't really on there much anymore
she's taking a break
from social media and me
she'll be back though
in her time
I'm done worrying about it
I'm going to do what I want

So I blocked out my trip
to Mexico with my truck and my sons
with any luck we'll get face to face with whale
and I'll show them the good life
how it isn't really that hard
by spear fishing dinner
and getting us a casita with AC and a pool
and all I'll do is write and eat
and drink tequila and be generally
expatriated

This season where
there's nobody to torture by being myself
and nobody to love from afar on my phone
really calls for a typewriter
I'd like to clack out love poems
all over Baja
leave them in hidden places on good paper
send them in the mail
drop them in prayer boxes in churches
write some to Mary
write some to the sea
fire them out with the report
of a heavy old small caliber rifle.

Sell them
get paid in faith.

Prayer of Loss

Dear Lord
I knew that my life would bring
great joy and great suffering
as well as
the mundane and the sublime

There would be mussels and wine
in tiny wooden cabins
on the shore of your greatest ocean
I would watch my sons be born
and I would wrap myself around
the softest and strongest woman
after my faith was ruined 
by the one before her

I knew that I would strain
through deaths and rebirth
I knew that my body would
serve me and fail me
it would be strong and weak
and strong again
I knew friends would come and go
there would be addictions and wives and betrayal
hard work and everything futile and vain
and that most of all
there would be suffering
I was not naive about the suffering

But this loss that won't stop burning
is tearing at my skin
hands are clenching at my ankles
thrust upward from the mud of Hell
And the world is so beautiful
full of majesty and grace
and to witness it alone
without your whispers
without her hand in mine
is the oldest agony
of being cast out of Eden
I can see the garden
I cannot enter it
It's our oldest truth
burning me alive
from the inside out

I can only wait
for joy to return
I pretend that it will
for hope to surface from the deep
did I make a deal with the devil
and not even realize it
did I inspire demons to chase me this far
did I listen too intently to the heresy of witches
or did I kneel at too many idols
why have I been blessed with memories
of life so beautiful
only to be locked away
in a sorrowful gray
without borders or blue

Only you know
the writing on my heart
how it longs to return to heaven's womb
how I only want to hand all of it over
in love and service
to knit together eternally with another
to suffer on that path is better than suffering here
old age is an avalanche gaining speed
and I want to tumble in it
with one person
you will not let me have
for some reason
when I finally prayed
she left me the next day

Why do you show me these possibilities
the warmth that can be
the melting of hearts
the temporary acceptance of my shadow
the highest peak of carnal love
only to send me back to my cell
where I can only pretend
to enjoy my days
and my life slips a little more
like erosion
time's river runs
with the weight of planets
and all I have to hold on to
is loss
and the knowing
that I'm at least one day closer
to seeing you in fullness

But please
make it stop
bring me rest
remind me of joy
put me back with the people
give me an anchor
the hand I would crawl to hold again
bring me the protectors of your elect
I am desperate, I need them here tonight
I knew that this wouldn't be easy
but right now this pain is truly
too hard.

Single Life

My heart is in a locked box of longing
like a POW in the solitary confinement pit

My PG&E bill is 65 dollars

I love this place
but goddammit I miss those soft buns

My writing projects move faster
because my nights are monastic quiet

My loins ache

Money has never felt easier to get

I'm totally going to hire house cleaners soon
make that a regular part of my personal economy
For at least the next eight years

Today my house was the cleanest bachelor pad in Chico
but I'd rather somebody else do it
I need to write and make art more
And I want to feel a little more taken care of than this

My closet is perfect
small and orderly
with guns in it
and no door

On my hooks I have outdoorsman backpacks
binoculars and waders
and overalls at the ready

On my dresser built in I painted two tone
I have a bottle of wine and a mug
for when I want some
like now

I'm going to build a display shelf
for my best-friend's glass craft
he's gifted me over the years
right in a window so it's back lit
the ladies I hire will dust them for me

I need some plants
get rid of a lamp I hate, hang one from the ceiling instead
put a big ass plant on the end table in its place
put on a record
write some more
age
get my gains
go from zero to whatever I want
in five years

Wear out some more 300 dollar boots.
Get those buns back.

The Fair

Things have changed
the girl I made out with behind the rides
never cursed and she wore jeans
I didn't reach for other places on her body
I knew we were too young for that
and she did too
a kiss and sitting close on the ferris wheel
was all the thrill we could handle

These kids man, holy shit
they need churches, boy scouts
dads that say, "You aren't leaving the house dressed like that!"
They need vegetables and sunshine
their parents need to get some money
and read some books
Why is that Dad holding his 15 year old girls hand like that?
And why is she dressed like a Vegas stripper?
Why are so many 30-something year old men
stumbling drunk wearing video game t-shirts?
Does anybody do pushups anymore?

The only collared shirts I saw were on
sixty year old men and Mexicans
and me
and Ben
Ben wore a collared shirt because his mom made him
she was nervous I'd lose him
maybe she thought I was a gamer-drunkard American
But I was a Boy Scout in the 80s
back when trophies were trophies
back when they let us get lost
taught us how to navigate with a compass
and topographical maps
if we didn't tuck our shirt in right we couldn't participate

When I went to Kindergarten
our educational path was chosen by test scores
The A B and C groups
the A group was ready for higher things
and everybody got a better education that way
We pledged allegiance to liberty every day
I was proud of my group of boys
they are different, on a counterculture course
thank God for that
because these people are going to re-elect
Donald J. Trump
and they will only get poorer and fatter and sluttier and make more babies
and they'll kick out
all these handsome ass Mexicans
that run this fair and pick all the food.

This is an eye opening year at the fair
our decay is becoming rot
all empires do this
but what an interesting time to be alive
a time to prepare our families for another paradigm.

I Love Construction Because

It is an intimate way to serve people, to make their homes better
that intimacy always leads to an intense trust
and repeat business for probably a lifetime

The economic conditions are clear
at a minimum I will give myself a ten dollar raise every year
but what's more likely is
I will build assets to rent or sell and never need to work for money again

My hands are never soft

A long day feels pretty great
and the short days are whenever I want them to be

One day it's forcing a 200 pound beam into place
the other day it's gently stroking cabinets with an expensive soft bristled brush
to make sure there are no brush marks on the work

There are leads upon leads
we don't need debt or any invasive interactions with the governments
there's the building departments
but we understand each other
somebody has to shore this shit up
the City understands that

You know how they say America's infrastructure is failing?
That's true in most of our housing stock too.
There was a generation that built everything
a generation that took it for granted and built as cheap as possible
and the current generation that is running out of people to call
to do anything right and especially anything enduring and beautiful
I love helping that problem a tiny bit and making a good living on it

My body will fail way later this way.
I've seen the 60 year old contractors that are still doing their own work
if they weren't alcoholics or chain smokers,
they end up real badass
sinewy with a childlike unbroken spirit
with lots of good humor and lots of money
with great houses and a simple daily life and good women

In a little over one year I've had clients give me
a tiny tequila bottle collection
homemade cookies
lot's of coffee
cream cheese danishes
Gatorade and ice water
I've been offered massive pieces of art
and tiny pieces of porcelain
lumber, marijuana
gin and tonics
and several books
I've never done any work
where I was so appreciated by a client.

It beats that coffeehouse shit to a pulp
where I'd run a thousand moving parts to squeeze out
six thousand dollars for me and four thousand for the government
every month
I was taxed on taxes of taxes
had to deal with the twenty-something year old generation
whatever their name is
the ones that are well positioned to lose the last bits of the republic
ready to be conquered by addiction, authority, convenience, opulence, hedonism
they complained about existing
incessantly
but that crap stroked my ego
like I was a puppy getting petted
creating communal spaces like that is something I truly love
because I do love many different types of people
because it was my dream for some reason
kind of a tertiary dream, but a dream nonetheless
a thing I accomplished a few times
sort of

I love feeling important to somebody or something, a team or a cause
like making really good coffee was important because it was something to share
like belief
but obviously it barely matters
it only is allowed to matter because of the spoils and leisure of empire
it's a great way to not feel like a man
in the ancestral sense
in the bottom of the gut way
because deep deep inside you know
that this has to be given some deeper meaning to have any meaning at all
Otherwise all we're doing is imperialism
buying two dollar pounds of coffee from farmers to sell for seventeen
but that's the market
just following the free market.

But shelter isn't like that.
taking timber and fixing a house
laying tile, building a shower
digging a hole and fixing a water line
so the house has water
patching a roof so it doesn't leak on children
gutting a kitchen and rebuilding it to be beautiful again
flexing this body
using it up for what it was evolved for
providing for the village
the things that the village needs
posts and beams
the vertical and horizontal
temples and hovels
ashes to ashes
dust to dust

Mass Killings

In America guns owned per household used to be a lot higher. Meaning, almost every home had a gun in it. Now that number is around 40%.

These days, overall gun violence has been on a downward trend since the late 90s. But we have this phenomenon of boys, super young men usually, walking into schools and suicidally firing on everybody. The corporate-government media narrative, adopted by what I would describe as neo-liberals, is that we have guns that are too lethal for civilians and that we should restrict the bad guns and that this will reduce this phenomenon. The AR-15 and other semi-automatic rifles with certain features are generally the target for ban proposals.

I believe this intentional agenda, pushed by the ruling class, diverts the focus of a frightened citizenry from the problems in our culture that might actually be producing this nihilism. This is a list of things I think we aren't paying enough attention to and I think tons of study and essays could be written about each one:

Fatherless homes - nearly every mass shooter grew up without a dad.

Psych / antidepressant drugs - also a huge correlation

Epidemic of Social Isolation - You never see packs of kids playing in neighborhoods anymore like you did when I grew up. We were never home unless it was dark and we learned how connected we were to each other that way.

No Approved Channels of Masculine Release - Boys need to play hard and play rough. There are studies done with male rats that are deprived of rough house type play that illustrate this mammalian biological truth. As a male, I know this intuitively.

Near Total Loss of Institutions That Develop Citizenship in Young Men - Churches have emptied, Boy Scouts have withered, neo-liberal culture demonizes the masculine constantly and pushes myths that are designed to make boys and men feel bad for being how they are.

Nowhere to Serve - One of the deepest parts of the masculine heart is driven to service. This kicks in in earnest in puberty. Not that long ago the field laborers in America were all teenagers. That's why we have a Summer Vacation to help with the harvest. Imagine the value you feel when you know you aren't a kid anymore, but you aren't quite an adult but you want to be, and you have seething amounts of energy, and all the adults give you money for being outside all day picking the entire society's food. I cant imagine anything better for a pubescent kid to do. Maybe we should allow employers to hire 13 year olds in certain industries and abolish a minimum wage for them. There could be a 4 hour limit per day and only privately owned small businesses of a certain size could hire them. Agriculture and relatively safe trades like painting, light construction, food service, etcetera. Get an army of our kids back in the orchards, it would make is so much stronger and healthier.

Media Loves Mass Shootings - Every time this happens the media makes the shooter famous. That is a great way to keep it happening and it's great for ratings.

Porn Addiction - Is there a connection between indulging in the hedonism of porn and the developent of sociopathy and violence? With the average American kid finding porn at 11 years old, I bet there is. Also I'd like to know how many of these young killers had never once laid down with a woman.

School System Obedience Engineering- These almost exclusively happen at schools so it seems some reflection of school culture seems appropriate. This is a system that is meant to engineer obedience at the expense of creative individualism and entrepreneurial exploration. I can see how a young man in a fragile mental state can feel utterly invisible in the obedience factory that is many of our government schools. 

There is no God - If I was the devil, I would definitely push the idea that man created God and not the other way around. This secularism is intensely dangerous and beats hearts into a submitted gray nihilism and existential crisis. What role does the loss of belief in something higher play in these incidents?

Screens upon screens - I can't believe that countless hours of shooting realistic inages of people in first person shooter games doesn't start to rewire the brain, especially when the video games are encountered at such young ages. I also don't think it's a coincidence that an AR-15 is a favorite gun to feature in first person shooter games and also mass shootings.

Our boys need more help and more ways to contribute and be seen. Just some food for thought. This is going to keep happening and not because guns exist.

Grandpa

Sixteen million men
put on a uniform to beat back fascism
to save the Jews
the ancient people that carried a torch
a torch that saved all of us
led us all to God's revelation
of liberty
of living forever.

Every man that survived
carried stories heavier than coffins
and you never told us your stories
you carried on
after battle in Patton's 3rd Infantry
and after the blood letting of Korea
you opened a business
raised your four children
read thousands of books
played twelve instruments
and spoke at least three languages.

My father your son
who buckled under the weight of your shadow
told me that you visited Patton's grave
the man you killed for
and tears rolled down your cheeks
after you said
"There's the old man."
Without men like you
the light of liberty in the world
might have been pinched out
like a candle's wick
between Nazi fingers.

Then you went to Korea
as a Master Sergeant
and used your barbarism
all over again
20 years in the Army
who knows how many you killed
you never talked about Korea either
just
"That was a real war."

You married a German woman
because I don't think you could share your heart
with someone who had never been bombed
You built a beautiful home for her
a block away from the beach
in Central California
Los Osos - The Bears

By the time I met you
you drank gin
smiled freely
golfed incessantly
had medals on the wall in a case
you were invincible at Scrabble
and called me "Pal"
because you probably thought
I was a wispy little sensitive child
which I was
I barely knew you

Your shadow is long
your legacy is the legacy of this nation
of empire and violence and prosperity
of liberty and of loving beautiful babes
It's a legacy of hiding our feelings
carrying secrets and always taking action
I wish I had known you better
I wish you told us stories of liberating the Jews
Because I love a Jew
the granddaughter of a holocaust survivor
I think you would have really liked that
because your courage
made that possible
and right now I can't get that out of my mind
how the ideas of America are worth killing for
and how you did kill
and never told us about it
you just wanted to watch us
live and love in the world
you helped save.

You were such a man
that Grandma never got her driver's license
she never felt it was necessary
with an American warrior artist
as her husband.

I want to be more like you Grandpa.

The Burn

Fighting shadows
I'll work through this with push ups
get my sit ups back
to stop feeling the serated loss
sawing in my gut
I need myself back now

Thought I was moving well
until the same avalanche fell
this time I didn't writhe
I just got tumbled
spit out by the mountain
the one that keeps telling me
I do not belong
anywhere near the peak

The Quiet Palaces of Men

My buddy came over
brought us Cuban cigars to smoke together
and to let me know his company
needed some writing help again
another job
I love making money
with my hands and my words
and with friends

We sat in the yard
with plywood on saw horses as a table
my hair is greasy
I have no one to shower for right now
my clients love me how I am
dirty and precise
the way I fill in imperfections in wood
they never would have noticed
they give me their house keys
trust what's behind my eyes
these people really see the kind of man I am
it is humble work
blessed as it gets

My buddy and I drank a Tecate Light
smoked our Cuban cigars
talked about an older man in Wyoming
how he turned his barn into
the most beautiful man cave
with extra sheets on the futon
and a deer cleaning station
ready with butcher paper and a freezer
and we talked about women
how the pathos is beautiful
but left uncontained will
turn into a forest fire on a windy day
it will burn down relationships
how without the logos in charge
life turns to chaos
quickly and consistently
then my son interrupted him from the porch
and I told my son not to interrupt
when an older man is speaking
and he quietly obeyed and waited his turn

We pontificated about the stark beauty
of Baja Mexico
of catching 40 pound tuna
and taking shits under the stars
in a bathroom palapa
just 3 walls with the open side
facing the Sea of Cortez
and we talked about Loreto
and it's grand and sleepy Mission
that monks built out of stone 300 years ago
how we see ourselves as older men
living in one room casitas
on a beach in Baja
with a place to clean fish
a place to cook
and a group of Mexican men
to shoot the shit with everyday
barely saying a word.

The Governor

I just voted on my mail in ballot this week. We Californians are voting for our next Governor in the primary. The top two vote getters, regardless of party, will go on to battle in the General election. There will likely be two Democrats in the General election, and if that's the case Gavin Newsom will likely be the next Governor.

Gavin Newsom is the current Lt. Governor of the State and before that was the mayor of San Francisco from 2004-2011, the years that San Francisco lost its soul. Not that that was his fault, but he was definitely on the team that ruined the City. 

A little over ten years ago, while mayor of SF, Newsom had an affair with his campaign manager's wife. His campaign manager at the time has been described as being his best friend. Soon after, Newsom started dating a 19-year-old model, when he was 38. Here he is talking about that time of his life. 

Gavin Newsom has long called himself an "entrepreneur" but has been high on public money since 2004 and has mostly had one nepotistic relationship with a super wealthy San Franciscan patron, who I'm guessing gets political favors for being Gavin's real estate bank. Gavin Newsom is a schmarmy dirtbag, corrupt to the bone, operating in a State that seems to have a permanent Democratic majority, to our detriment. When you open your Voter's Guide, you'll see that he's one of the only candidates that hasn't provided a candidate's statement because he didn't agree to California's voluntary spending cap on gubernatorial races. He wanted to spend all he could. You know the higher ups in the DNC that "knew" Hillary Clinton would be the best person for the job and could easily beat Donald Trump, the DNC people that cut Bernie Sanders off at the knees? That's Gavin's circle. He runs with the super wealthy, does whatever he wants and panders to the poor by supporting policy that doles out welfare by the bucket load. He's one of the most privileged people in California politics, and for some reason just rises on up without a challenge. Maybe this is the year he gets derailed though, I think if a real opponent can make it to General, he could lose.  

There are two main reasons I won't vote for Gavin Newsom. The first reason is because I'm convinced he's a corrupt dirtbag. The 2nd reason is because the ongoing, 40+ year Democratic majority in California has been an impediment to prosperity and freedom in the State of California. The State is becoming a socialist experiment, and it isn't working. 

Consider these facts of life in California, a State where the Democratic Party has had unbroken legislative control for over 40 years:

California has the highest poverty rate in the nation. Higher than Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia and every other State in the Union. One out of five Californians are poor, and that number is arrived at while including non-cash government assistance AS INCOME. So the real number, if based on actual earnings, would be higher than 1 out of 5.

At Least 30% of Households all over California can't afford rent. In some areas that number rises to 60%

California has 12% of US Population - 21% of US Homeless Population - 34% of US Welfare Recipients. The Social services throw a lot of money around, and we stopped building houses for some reason. 

California has one of the most expensive prison systems in the world. 34 prisons, 30,000 employees, $11billion annual budget, $70,000 per inmate per year.  

3 Million Undocumented Immigrants. That's a lot and it isn't cheap. $25 billion is spent on K-12 education, medical services, public assistance, courts and other government services for non-citizens. Many undocumented immigrants are of course working and contributing to the tax pool by buying things. The estimate is 3.5 billion collected, but it would be more if those jobs were filled legally. And culturally more is brought to America's table when immigrants are allowed to and proud to assimilate. California's response to this soft border issue, is to do nothing, let people live in the shadows, get abused by employers, and issue drivers licences. I don't think that helps anybody.

Everybody gets a pension. We have tons and tons of government employees and huge pension plans for most of them. According to reporting from The Nation, the conservative estimate for unfunded promises to retiring government workers in California is $333 billion. It could be as high as over $1 trillion. No Democrat is saying anything about Pension reform because they get crazy money from the unions. But that amount of money means more taxes later, and it makes things like public education and social services really hard to fund later. Forget about single payer State healthcare. That's snake oil with $1 trillion of red ink in pension promises.

Laws for everything. In California there is a law for everything. I can attest to the byzantine labyrinth of food laws and building laws from small businesses I've owned. And now it looks like every new house built, starting in 2020, will be required to have a solar system. That's insane. There's a housing crisis where we should be building, at a minimum, of 100,000 new homes every year but we can only barely manage 80,000, and so housing prices and construction costs are out of reach for many working people, and by 2020 you can add another $30,000 to your already senseless mortgage to pay for the mandated solar array. And because almost all government interventions in the market create the opposite desired effect, I can't wait to hear how that initiative will somehow lead to an increase in energy use.

Assault Weapons Ban. Gavinites basically did that. We have an assault weapons ban in California. Which means almost nothing substantive. Our rifles can't have too many features on them like telescopic scopes and pistol grips and detachable magazines. You can have some features just not all at once. The ballistics and caliber of a bullet is never mentioned. So you can't have an AR-15 unless you take a couple of the tactical things off which is what people do, but you can go ahead and go to town on that 30-06 rifle, the same round that was carried by every infantryman in the M-1 rifle in WW2. It's a big nasty bullet. Was very much so a weapon of war. Anyone mentioning the 30-06? No. Just commonsense gun reforms to totally end gun violence. Good luck with that! Our State is part of the problem in missing the actual things in our culture that makes people insane enough to shoot up class rooms (spoiler alert it's the goddamn meds, no mental health department and fatherlessness and really bad police work by cops that get bloated pension promises).

Eventually the politicians will kill the Sacramento River. So up here in the Northstate we are a conservative area. The democrats in Sac don't get their votes or their treasure from us. Monied interests in the LA area and Bay Area mostly dictate our State politics. Jerry Brown wanted to build tunnels to suck water in unfathomable quantities to send South. I'm obviously not a hydrologist, but I've had friends of mine who are involved in water conservation tell me that if those things he wants get built and go online, the Sacramento River in our neck of the woods would be closer to a creek at certain times of the year. Whether that's true or not, I think it's a bad idea to pump tons of water to irrigate a desert, no matter what scale you're talking about. The point is, with a Democrat as governor, the entire Northstate is not represented. Because the Democrat doesn't have to listen to anything we say. A Republican would have to.

Truly High Taxes. Highest income tax in the nation. 12 cents per gallon additional gas tax. High sales tax with super aggressive Board of Equalization. Really high vehicle registration rates. All to fund some of the most bloated and inefficient government agencies anywhere in the country. Great.

John Cox should be the next governor because he will use a big and needed veto pen.

     

Descent

It starts as a spring
trickling out of polished granite
at the top of a mountain
you can come to it parched
put your lips on it
you can drink it in gulps
lick it off the rock
as thirsty as you are
it never stops coming
it fills you
after the arduous climb

By the time
it reaches the valley
here where we farm food
and work jobs
raise the children and drive cars
where we stare at our smart phones
where our backs get sweaty
from the worn out old couch
and the stale air
it is the widest river
swift and polluted
undrinkable
and you can't cross it
without a boat
none of us can seem
to push off the dock.

Repentance Soundtrack

https://youtu.be/y7iXu2yO7Lc

Artwork

This painting
made of sorted and ground rocks
stardust and the liquor of walnuts
thick pigment thinned
with turpentine and tears
is one of the most beautiful things
I have ever made
and I can finally look at it again
to stroke it bit by bit
love it again
so I can finish it
to give away
it carries everything
I should have given away
in the first place
it beams light
like a garden with a labyrinth
I'm not entirely sure what it means
it means holiness is real
buried somewhere inside
and love is eternal
lost somewhere in the sky
at the very least.

Modern Families

There were long days and nights alone
a guy brought me fishing once
another one brought me crystal hunting
still another one let me try as hard as I could to fight him when I was twelve

One man had daughters who were about to move out
he was sick of them and had always wanted a son
he was sent to talk to me when at thirteen
I tried my hand at sketching porn in my sketchbook
he came in like a hero and pierced my shame
to tell me it wasn't a big deal
just that my mom thought it was
that was the extent of the talk
that all men kind of want to see women
touch each other
and that some day soon I would get to have women
and it would be amazing
just focus on being careful
don't have sex for a long time
but also focus on getting one when it's time
don't wait too long
he did this duty even though my mom had rejected him already

We never lived together
but that seemed pretty great to me
He took me rock climbing a lot and
beamed with pride when I got to the top
He went to AA and NA
maybe my mom left him because he was sober all the time
maybe she left him because he thought
all that New Age shit was stupid
he drove an old truck and was an electrician
he lived on the ridge
and was a fucking man

After that the men decreased in quality
and I let go of my hope
that a man who gave a shit enough to deal with us
to show up to my karate tournaments or plays
or talk to me about porn
would be the same kind of man my mom would keep
By the time Darrel showed up
I was eating acid on the weekends
and just thrilled that somebody had distracted my mom for a minute
so I could do whatever I wanted
my friends called him Skirt D
because he wore a sarong and ate mushrooms
and had spent a lot of time being
a predator of women

I've read a lot about single motherhood since
the statistics of it, the emotional castle
the one that's built that keeps chasing good men away
and imprisons pubescent boys in their own malformed patriarchy
how being fatherless is more risky
than growing up in the Southside of Chicago
I hate men who leave their children or families
I hate that any women would take that man in
they betray themselves
they betray all mothers
those men should have their penises removed
I hate how the importance of men
is largely ignored, especially on the coasts
the fiction that we aren't totally essential
I hate that men adopt that thinking
mostly to have sex with liberal women
it's a belief that's only possible if you haven't raised a child
all the poisonous myths of modernity
that moms can do it all
that suffering can be avoided
that men should be able to think like women
that love affairs don't penetrate our souls
that a soul is just an idea
that men are destructive and women are creative
that men have laid waste to the world
that God is not wrathful
that the revelation of God has been mistranslated
that true feminist men can even exist without God's brackets
that baptism is just a ritual men made up
and that the destruction of the family
can be mitigated
by anything less
than a
big
strong
masculine
clumsy
sinful
man
who loves
his woman.

Unanswered

Is it too late
to believe in miracles
with all the reason
poisoning the well
like nuclear waste
odorless and fatal

Are you too good
at saying goodbye
after giving all the things
you know how to give

Dozens of men
are left in these woods
bleeding
like charging a hill
in a battle
that can't be won
in a war that started
before we showed up
with our dreams
of getting home
of painting your picket fence
white

Starvation

I couldn't look my priest in the eye
When I kneeled at the altar rail
I couldn't sing Hymn 400
Because it exalts God so well
It is too beautiful for me right now
I had a cross in my throat
Because I am a wretch who is saved

The sanctuary in Spring
is the most beautiful building in town
with all the wood beams and wall of windows
and hand carvings
and new farm for people without food
Many people said hello
there's a new Deaconess with a German accent
the stations of the cross
have collected no dust
the holy water is clear
in the granite chalices

I have made many mistakes
I have rebelled, over and over
taken many things for granted
used others, been used
been led to anger
been seduced, tripped, hated and confused
My path has had many narrow bridges
and cloaked sinkholes
I have encountered vipers and demons
I've been lost in the desert
frantic for the North star
desperate for my home

I'm so thankful
that somewhere along the way
I learned how to kneel
because in times like these
I can only return to my knees
to the water and the wine
and in the end of my flight
all manner of spells
even the ones I cast on myself
are broken
nothing is stronger 
than the sacrifice
the body
the Word
the resurrection

God knits
and knits
and breaks
and burns
and cleanses
with fire and blood
every single time
I crawl
back Home.

The Swell

My love is swolen
surging like blood after a hike
up a steep hill on soft dirt
the doppled light through oak trees
the sun I'm trying to reach
sometimes on all fours
like a fragile bear
I'm never alone
and never with you
and my love swells
like joints and muscles
like faith in prayer.

Lovesick

Hope is a mine shaft
with sagging wet timbers
rotted nearly to the middle
it's dark and black in both directions
and I'm frantically preparing new timbers
to keep it from caving in
I'm so dirty
and my back is screaming at me
but I'm not ready to leave
despite the worsening situation

For her
freedom comes in solitude
the peace of the quiet perfections
loving herself like a holy relic
constructing her perfect altars everywhere
while the moon and flowers secrete
their poetess bait
always surrounded by delicate things
and the delicate superstitions
of millennia ago
her feelings have become
Mosaic Law in her heart
and I am just a Gentile
a simple man with no Kabbalah
and filthy children
unroyal and unequal
unlearned and blunt
I drag too many broken things around
in my broken down old cart
the one I'll drag around
until I'm crooked and beaten by time
I'm made for work
maybe not for courting queens
or for the decoding of souls

Hers is a freedom that is deeply offended
when a man as imperfect as me
comes in to try but fails
with his dirty boots
and clumsy love
and rusted sword
and dirty wooden-wheeled wagon
full of boys and broken things
I came with good intentions
but no turns were right
I could not satisfy her
all the patience I could muster
wasn't enough
all my fallen man woundedness
was too much
all my attempts at witnessing her
were inadequate at best
and damaging at worst
There was my breathing dog
my boyish boys
the dirt under their nails
and how they can't remember
the cloth napkin rule
their warring mom
who sued me with her boyfriend
and the devastation that created inside
to know I had more battles to fight
a fourth tour with no breaks
There were the times I yelled at her son
the time I yelled in her house
my lines in the sand
the lines that got trampled
and the ones that held up
and hurt her heart

Ultimately,
she decided that being alone
was the best thing for her
that I am not up to the tasks she needs
not a man she wants afterall
a man she did too much for
a man she never got enough from
a man that wouldn't
scoop her and her son up unconditionally
so she yelled at me one last time
when I was stuck on my couch
and left my life
with the finality of a guillotine

I have joined a chorus of headless men
I have failed, executed
along with her last long-term man
and if you were to ask us about her
we would easily say in unison

She's a Queen

with a thousand things
gracefully unsaid
because we were pretty decent men
in different ways
and we both understand
that we were rejected
by a woman who knows she is great
and demands greatness in return
many greatnesses
we didn't measure up for her
we weren't enough
for our own particular reasons
in our own particular ways

So I try to keep that hope of mine
for a second act with her
from caving in on me
and it's hard
because I can see how happy she is
I can read it in her love poetry
to her porch and to herself
her songs of life without me
the love songs to my absence
they have sweet Spring melodies
and ring in my ears like dynamite.

Arch

I once tromped right through palace rooms and temples like I deserved to be a statue
I walked right into the elders' council chambers and sounded like a young Scrub Jay
when the blisters started mounting on my spirit
when my smile cracked like thin lake ice
Everything changed

Freedom is a caustic acid bath
turns out
I get to do my own walking
but those traumas will sure stack up
until nobody's heart is clean enough
and I'm breaking up with a woman I love every part of
forced to heal alone
back to the desert wilderness with Moses and the Jews
back to the fishing boats with the gnarled brethren,
away from the women,
back to the beginning of the journey that never ends
burning in the sun, working the nets, working the chisel
back to the search, scanning the shore for the Lord
to atone for these wounds
these little suicides I committed
back when I thought I deserved things
like freedom or access to temples
those years of being so sure of my steps
before I had a bunion
and all this pain.

Guts

This feeling wrenching my guts

is accidentally stripping a butterfly
of its wings

Running over
an endangered fox

Losing a family heirloom
in a move

Watching the house burn
and I couldn't get the pictures

Watching an execution
Or a dolphin slaughter

The feeling of holding in secrets

The feeling of losing my best friend

Death is coming
And the beautiful things will live on

This is regret
The feeling of not giving enough

Hurt

I hope I don't push it down too far
but that will also be necessary

How do I mourn this
without falling too far

I'll write her a letter
tell her the things she didn't let me say

I'll finish her painting
to leave some kind of gift

To a beautiful life that rejected me
A tribe that spoke a different language
A woman who decided
that I am not enough

I have a couple gifts to give still
to a woman who decided
that I am not worth
trying to understand anymore

That's how I'll mourn

I hope she can remember someday
The man she threw away
And I hope she can forget
the man she decided I was

New Moves

My lower back turned into an iron rod this week for no particular reason. I was doing dishes at the sink. Quietly and patiently. I had just come off of a very easy week full of administration, client work, meetings, and a little bit of easy construction. We replaced a couple windows and trim, painted the trim, replaced some fence boards, no big deal.

After I placed a plastic cup in my drying tray, my lower back seized and nerve pains shot through my body down to my feet. My hands have been subtly shaking ever since. The deepest part of my skeletal core is struggling to maneuver through the world, so that's bad.

My body has spoken to me before. It's screamed at me sometimes. I almost died in 2010 I think it was, 5 days after I was baptized. Jesus spoke in the Gospels of being baptized by spirit, raised from the dead and born again. That's happened to me. His words are the perfect allegory for my experience, it cannot be said better. It was ultimately Jesus's poetry that convinced me he was God on Earth. 

There was another time when my ex wife left me and I finally stopped drinking whiskey all day. Soon after I met an angelic woman who decided to fill me with love. It was a gift I can never repay. When she entered my life, she began to nurture my bones and I soon fell into a deep and fevered sickness. When the fever spiked my mind stopped working, I couldn't produce linear thought. It was an electrical storm in my head and then I blacked out and woke up feeling crystal clear. I had a seizure, a reboot, one of many to come. Reboots I mean, that was the only seizure.

And now, this. I am temporarily or indefinitely a full time single dad. I'm optimistic that the mom of my children will create her own stability that she can then share with the children, but I've learned to not project into the future too far. I can project my visions for my life, those projections seem very useful, but my projections that involve any other people are totally futile. So in this moment, I'm on 100% for my kids. I recognize the opportunity in that as well as the deep responsibility. So much could go wrong.

The day after that was decided my back seized out of thin air. Amy my Chinese massage therapist just worked on it for an hour, gingerly touching the effected areas. It's so injured it went from hard to soft. I have a disc bulging and will certainly have to see specialists. I'll have to pray again, because life without prayer is a little messier than it has to be.

What is my body screaming at me this time? Find some new moves man. Stay home. Write. Don't unload sheets of drywall by yourself. Stretch. Go for big long walks. Write. Stay here. Lay down. Be still. Write stupid.

I'm pretty sure that's what it's saying. Those things and that I need a bath.

I Hate the DMV

The DMV
consumed eighty five percent
of my work day
and when you're self employed
that feels like just another form
of taxation
to take me away
from working on my dreams
to force me into
an obedience ritual
so I can wait for hours
to show a knealing human being
some paperwork.

Then I went to Taco Bell
and marveled at how much harder
their task is
to make food and give it to us
in five minutes
in a way that doesn't kill us
from bacteria,
it inspired me.
The workers at Taco Bell
served at least 80 people
in less than a half hour with
8 employees.

The dude who took my order
a high school aged tall black kid
Was all muscular and made direct eye contact
He displayed perfect and clear customer service
listened intently and moved the line along
and the government would just love
to slow that kid down
all that efficiency is dangerous
all that connectivity and the independence involved
in busting out thousands of bean burritos
for car fulls of stoners until 2am

California has over 30 prisons
full of men like that
and they made the license plate
for my trailer
because without an army of slaves
things like license plates
wouldn't make the cut
as something to bother with
the DMV would barely exist
and we'd just drive our cars
and everything would be fine.

Simplicity

I use two knives to do everything in the kitchen
because that was how I was trained
by a Haitian man from Queens
who made millions of dollars on Gumbo

For every new garment in my closet
another garment has to go
that's my rule
it's how I would run
government and taxes
if I was in charge of that
smaller closets are better
just like governments

My favorite way to sleep
is under quilts my grandmothers made
I love how I feel cradled by their hands
long after their deaths
long after I am a grown man
I let myself feel protected by them
I miss their crooked fingers
their sturdy kisses
the way they cooked meat

Life has never been this simple for me
this deliberate
spacious
and clean
there was so much about living
I just had to test
so many things I believed in
but wouldn't you know it
my Great-Grandpa had a secret girlfriend
a secret we know about
four generations later

It's best to keep it simple
best to keep it clean

The Day

It can always be better
and it can always be worse

Tri tip
a martini
nude woman
wood
blue balls
breathy kisses
stinking dog
eight hours of construction
more sun on my face
sawdust in my lungs
everything is a little better now
but everything is fragile
I don't feel fragile though
not anymore
leave that shit
to some other sucker

It can always be better
it can always be worse

Kill

It's about a return
to the sand and grasses
the thorns and blood and ticks
the hidden fields off trail
where dozens of butterflies live
Raven black with the blue of jewels
like almost being allowed to re-enter Eden

It's about the stillness
hiding with a weapon
until your human clumsiness is forgotten
and all the creatures return
hawks in love circling
just twenty feet above

I saw my prey a few times
but not enough for a good shot
the sun made me tired
on the long hike out of the fields
I ate old trail mix
because I was very hungry
and with my unloaded gun
resting on my shoulder
I had the peace inside of me
of love and forgiveness
the peace of a slow and mighty river

The Center of a Man

This hurts
today there is nobody to share with
I don't know how to be so inspired by little things
at an age where everyone has grown out of that
or had it pushed out through obedience

A simple breeze through leaves
still feels like a temple to me
I count the folds of plastic
in the front of a shotgun shell
I forget how to spell Karen
and paint with oil
to trade speed for alchemy
I have learned patience

My tribe has scattered
every last one of them
so I will go to Wal-Mart to buy camouflage
and tomorrow I'll hunt for the center of myself
down the barrel of a shotgun
pointed at a wild turkey
with another man who's tribe scattered
I will be in my feral center
that only I can hold
this instinctual core
that my culture would see me surrender

But I can't
it's where all the beautiful things
I've ever had
get created and destroyed
Where I make art
where I take risks
where I can kill an animal to eat
where I make love
and where I apply a blood choke

The center of a man
is a little big bang of violence and creation
Without it many would go hungry
and the babies would be too cold in the winter

Somebody always has to break the ground
and I'm sorry it's so hard for me to be sorry


 

Loss

In life
in these waterfalls of frailty and pain
there is the nearly unbearable responsibility
of lacing these boots
there's the heavy load of concrete
how it always breaks apart
the searing image in the mirror
the way it distorts everything
this pain beating in my chest
it's the undeniable countdown of heartbeats
the quickening of the rain
all the impermanence
all the hope, it's either noble or futile

Regardless
I will hang onto it like dental floss
I'll tightly grip it
the memories
of the softest whispers
the brightest eyes
but here and now there's only this windshield
an empty truck
a country song
about lost love that should have been
songs of regret
songs of wishing for better men.

Don't

Don't try to bring me to ruin
well you won't
but don't try

You'll fail

I will rebuild
over and over
until I can't breathe

My organs should have failed
but they didn't
because I willed them not to

my will is stronger than oxygen

that's who I am
in my heart

a man
who will die
only when he wants to