Rain Music Duet

a pair of paired legs were the twin tuning forks that struck flesh supple sounds
heartbeats fell in step with rain drops that moistened two dust prints on the ground
drops pound slap plop happy down, danced all around our makeshift warming shelter
our two arms the stroke of love's making forge, our two breaths to stoke its smelter

From Sidewalk Chalk To Pillow Talk Genius

kid hopscotch games is what made us fast friends, first by ones and then by twos
we double dutch jump roped, played king of the hill upon backyard hourglass dunes
those dust devil winds pulled down sands of time, wedged miles of walk between us
other sidewalk chalk tarts became the whos who taught arts of manic pillow talk genius

then rainfalls of time washed into dark gray our sidewalk chalk talk markings
coming storms made us run into the ark by twos away from the thunder's barking
tempests roared up from below our low waist equators, as we shared makeshift bedcovers
we danced hopscotch along, sang doo wah diddy bop songs, dreamed up names for every lover

old games and songs we pull into playback again as a grip on the running hourglass
try to turn the glass over, turn it sideway, every way but you cannot turn it past
for the fine grained moments flow out only one way, soon the tawny brassened base
holds a sphere cleared of all, our finale downfall, the trace of a life's spent grace

Wow, Life Is Beautiful. Ow, Life Hurts.

Recovery Escapades:
A Newsletter Of 2nd Chance Life Across Cardiac County Line Road

Episode Seventeen: Wow, Life Is Beautiful. Ow, Life Hurts.

THANK GOD FOR IBUPROFEN

A few weeks back I had my first martial arts class since karate in my sophomore college year, oh over 33 years ago. So for several nights I was at a dojo named Texas MMA (Mixed Martial Arts). I must not have pushed it too far the first class because I could still type the beginning of this blog entry on my crackberry. Enough to start, and finish it later. I mean my neck was not in a brace from learning grappling holds and being laughably taken down to the mat over and over.

I slept like a log of oak and awoke several times in the night feeing just as stiff. And I had not two cents of sense to start this until 48 hours before a 5K race the following Saturday. If I had rolled over and died that 5K race weekend I'd have no one to blame but myself. Lucky for me rain delayed then cancelled the race.

DODGED A BULLET BUT NOT A FIST

I dodged a bullet then just to catch one the following Tuesday night at Mixed Martial Arts class. The Tuesday following the 5K nonrace I was mixing it up at MMA but not holding up my guard during the 2nd round of sparring with (thank god) 16 ounce gloves. So I catch a jab to the left rib cage. Wow.

The head shots I took before the rib shot faded after just a few seconds, and the body/mind corrected itself but not that shot to the ribs. Some kind of intracostal muscle (what the doc called it) took a bruise or worse. So I am out of MMA class for a while, week or three, until I can afford to spar again with less than perfect guard.

TOO MUCH FUN?

I heard of a late seventy something guy who took up cheap racing - small Mazda Miata type cars, shifter cart style racing. No big muscle car drag strip stuff just a challenge to the driver's skill. When asked how his first race went he said "I got my ass kicked and had a ton of fun". That is what my first Martial Arts classes in 33 years was like. Even the 3rd class with the rib cage dent. More fun than I expected. A butt kicking ton of fun. Fun. Ouch. Fun again. Ouch again.

I must remind myself of all this, the fun AND the soreness, once my ribs heal up enough to not chicken out and to resume the MMA classes. So that I go back and continue what I started, despite the ouch that goes with the fun.

SO GOOD IT HURTS

This is just another example of how a life lived is beautiful and how a life lived hurts. Ask any woman who's raised children if life hurts and if despite that if life is still beautiful. So true is this is fact the woman you asked might look at you as if you as nuts to even bother asking. Kinda like my Cursedly Candid sister looked at me once. Not how she looked when I asked her "If a tree falls in the forest when no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?"

AND YOUR QUESTION IS....?

Nah it was how she raised her eyebrows when I followed up by asking "If a husband is out in the forest alone and no wife is around to watch what he does, is he still wrong?"

"Why bother asking" is what she said.
Um, not what she said but what she asked me not to ask.
To be very technically precise about it.

Fun. Ouch. Fun again. Ouch again.
That's life in my cardiac recovery lane for now.

Yours Truly and Ridiculous,
From Across Cardiac County Line Road

James Sullivan

Friendly FauxPlay On The Moon Sands Of Time

pitched sleep tents with deepest pegs clasped hands could drive
into shifting sand dunes where the bravest trade caravans ride
friend laid beside foe nightly in that much travelled band
whose tent did we share last time when we slept on dune sands?

on morning's moonset we fetched down all the sleep tents
at dawn packed up camels not knowing from where we went
we rendezvous'd nightly, travelled footsteps untraced
reading map legends sketched lightly on the fading nightscape

morning moon trimmed down the lamps that burned off the dark so brightly
we nibble gazed crescent to a sliver as it waned each dawn so slightly
then into a shadow shard it broke sharp hard over hour changing dunes
same and never same, everlasting flame, leading all into their bloom

Teabags Dipped In Wax Last A Long, Long Time

Lips locked are preserved from accidents of unattended slip
Pursed lips don't curse, don't receive an unwanted parting kiss
Can't sip too much wine, won't waste time in idle conversation
Locked lips are reputedly safe from decay of hard won reputation

Dessication for sure unless you drink a chance unlabeled potion
Do you think you'd float downriver forever so minimally motioned?

Perhaps but a firm stance ensures protection from wild chance
Don't by a fool's careless rush bleed to dry up the bank balance
Or stumble by a reach so far it trips at the tipover brink
On every dare a wannabe lover dished into your kitchen sink

Smoke rises resentful from campfires banked into a safe ashen cold
After breakfast before the trip home on getaway weekends I am told
When nothing left to chance dared nothing that was left unplanned
By expectations poured cold syrup slow from a precisely measured can

A good thing, yes, to play cautious with your cards, face down maybe
Yeah whistle that heads up next time you walk past a graveyard baby

Archimedes cried, Where's a fulcrum to leverage purpose in all this
Cried I - Playgrounds are for gambling when we stumble for a kiss

On Dappled Things In The Cardiac Recovery 'Hood

Captain Snark is at it again, complaining about a contrast he found this morning during the daily dog walk.

CAN'T HANG LIKE I USED TO

I stayed out too late last night with friends, stayed up too late, slept in too late today (7am). I still am in need of a de-stiffening, sweaty morning workout. I'm going to work on prepping my 5 acre ranchito for sale today around noonish before puppy class at 6pm. Lots to do, only 10 weeks out from heart surgery last June 1st. More rubble to clear away. But despite the Saturday chore list facing me I felt compelled to journal something that came to me today about treasures seen being treasures taken.

TREASURE ISLAND UNDER OUR FEET, BEFORE OUR EYES

A treasure hunt journey began by deciding to go forward with heart surgery and led back from a passive follow through on the decision. A letting it happen kind of thing can flow from a decision. But along the drifting way I get reminded what my cousing Larry taught me long ago - me that for the living, a free show is around us every day. The price of admission is easy to pay. You just pay attention.

Treasures were seen during the usual morning walk with Hiccup thru my 'hood around TWU, an old 'hood that goes decades WAY back, and still clearly shows clear signs of the 1920s, and 1930s in it surrounds of tree canopied streets populated with the quirkiest mix of old and new housing.

DAPPLED THINGS

All around within sight during this morning's walk was what Jesuit poet Gerard Manly Hopkins would call "dappled things". Dappled things made me go back to get my little digital camera. I so wanted to try and capture the morning's textures. Try that while walking a six month old puppy who wants again to repeat his 'shroom eating ecstacy escapade; quite the juggling act.

THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

So what dappled thing textures caught the eye?
So many things darlin, so many.

Textures In The Hood

Old saggy gargages built before WWII or before still standing with peeling paint.

Round rusty red water main manhole covers inserted into little strips of lawn between street and sidewalk.

Old pier and beam mounted houses in remodel mode, their clapboards scraped and stripped, waiting to be painted with their next attention wooing facelift of color.

Quirky college student cars painted with Veggie Tale characters or Flying Tiger teeth, parked pell mell on the street or snuggled into their 3-flat driveways.

Red cedar telephone poles the color of Irish Setter dogs, pierced like martyr St Sebastian was with arrows for promoting the Gospel, but here with thumbtacks and staple piercings for promoting bands on concert notices torn down long ago.

A McDonald's drink cup beside a knot hole at the base of a tree - where perhaps some squirrel dropped his munchies trash before coming home to pass out after a night of partying too hard?

Chamfered green fiberglass covers over Verizon fiber optic boxes set into the ground, with strict WARNINGS about digging; dogs and squirrels, obey the law!.

Names of contractors stamped into the concrete of sidewalks.

An anonymous cat that (for a while) was curious about Hiccup the Recovery Wonder Dog.

Tall horizontally laid stacks of dead bamboo, dried to a creamy dead beige and drained of greening chlorphyl.

Tangerine tinted sky mixed with lavender as sunrise faded into full morning sky, washed above the green tree canopy lining the horizon.

A driveway sized mini universe created by a "Big Bang" explosion - the first mini minutes of pre garage sale preparations spilled out towards the sidewalk with a rush of placements: bargain priced lamps-toys-DVDs-puzzles, instead of your usual universe matter stuffings of nebula-nova-galaxy-dwarfstar.

A chair left by the sidewalk from last night's impromtu drink-driven conversation.

Piles of leaves raked into mounds, waiting for garbage bags or a shredder - who knows?

Rough bark of old oak trees, many with lost limbs and scars healed over as best can be done by thickened lips trying to seal some exposed gash

Fist in the air/fist in your face bumper stickers on very used cars, ranging in sentiment from the Reasonable Right ("God Bless America") to the Extreme Left ("Sorry I Missed Church; I've Been Busy Practicing Witchcraft and Becoming A Lesbian"), and an in between more Centrist "There's No Excuse For Domestic Violence"

Running shoes left to dry out on the porch leaning on a galvanized pail of red sandstone rocks

A rubiks cube like multicolored birdhouse.

Redbud blossoms in riot bloom.

A plastic blow-up love doll dressed in a man's white dress shirt and red sweat pants, posed as if passed out drunk against the porch corner railing while doing container gardening.

MOST OF ALL - The last item begs me to add: Porches, porches, porches personalized by a myriad of gadgets and art objects put on display, along with benches and chairs for sitting and chatting and watching.

THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE

And so little sound about so early in the morning; just some grackles and a stiff, fast food plastic cup curtly whipped along the street by gusts of wind, making for some distraction.

LITTLE BOXES MADE NOT OF TICK TACKY

The textures seen all around were so many, and so quirky, and so individual - so unlike what I usually see in newer suburban master planned neighborhoods punched out in "ka-chooka ka-chooka ka-chooka SPLAT!" machine fashion.

Thrift stores with unmatchable tops and bottoms have more fascinating character than 'hoods where your pre move-in personalization choices for you history making home were a slim book of trim styles and wallpaper choices.

Oh, don't forget your choices of appliances and kitchen counter tops.
Those counted for a real difference, really they did, uh huh.

HISTORY YOU CAN AFFORD, BY THE SQUARE FOOT

"History Maker" neighborhoods is what some of the billboards on Interstate Highway 35 declare are available, around the corner at an exit off ramp a few miles up. Come by our development sales office and see, come and buy some "History Maker" real estate.

Right - so you can buy more than just the come-on of a promise, you can buy what time and design and accident and generations come and gone have laid down layer upon layer to be the foundation for the present moment.

HOW DO WE STAND ON THIS?

Right. We don't stand of the shoulders of all them that's gone before us, nor do we stand on the firm foundation of Scripture or Tradition or Faith In The Promises of God or Dedication To Beauty. No sirree bob a roonie, instead we stand and build hearth and family life upon a firm foundation called The Promises Of Marketing.

STANDING ON THE PROMISES OF GOD MY SAVIOUR

As a kid I enjoyed singing gospel hymns most Sunday mornings. After seeing the "History Maker" billboard, I think a contemporary mashup of a Fundamentalist Favorite is in order. I want to sample and remix the old 'little brown church in the vale' oft sung hymn "Standing On The Promises of God".

But I want to make the hymn into a something proper, an homage to the gory Glory of Marketing - recast song title "Standing On The Promises of God" into "Stranded By The Promises Of Blah", with lyrics sick twisted to wear on you like a cheap suit, all well marketed and marked down for quick sale, no warranty no refunds no nothing.

If overproduced with a wall of cow bell sound (never enough cow bell), it just might be a hit and sell.

I COULD BE, PROBABLY AM WRONG ON THIS SNARK

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe out in the ka-chooka ka-chooka BURRRRP 'burbs out there, there really is a vital life beyond discussions about the latest thing to buy from the Home Shopping Network to put some verve into the streetscape or joy of living into the tepid scene behind the closed front door. If so (it's likely) then I'm not your guy to see for insight into that treasure, for I do not see such yet.

Mea culpa, the problemo must be mine.

Likely, why I get an asthmatic reaction to the idea of living in a freshly extruded development is because I am not paying attention to what is there. That usually is the case, where ever we find ourselves. We lack what we ignore, and I must be ignoring something.

FOR THOSE WHO DON'T READ BUT LIKE THE COLORS

A photographer, I am not, but I will try to master this blog format to post texture pictures from the morning's walk as a slideshow below.

There really is craft and art to making the camera see what the eye sees. I didn't capture the sights to any one's satisfaction, but a start had to be made. As soon as I figure out the mechanics, they will come.



HATS OFF TO HOPKINS

I will let this piece from Hopkins sing for its own supper. It deserves a six course white tablecloth night out, for the joy and wisdom it feeds.


            Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
                Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—
    For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
        For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
    Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
        And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
    Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
        With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:
                    Práise hím.

Someone To Watch Over Me

Haiku is not my strong spot. But at times I cannot - will not - keep my own law to do no harm. The pain won't last long on this one, trust me. Per haiku tradition, no rhyme and no title. Like a lot of in the moment living.

summer heat, light sleep
fans stand night watch, whispering
sheets stir, leg seeks mate