Baptism

Normally I would’ve headed for the hills, but an insurmountable, unquestioning, magnetic curiosity kept me on the bank of the river as deep, ominous rolls of thunder peeled across the twilight sky. A charcoal blanket looked to smother the town, while the hiss of rain tickled the opposing shore. My expectation was as a child, unknowing, unsuspecting, and terrifyingly gleeful.
A giant hand of rain swam across the surface of the river, coming to scoop me and take me far away. I waited. Swollen with desire. Inflamed.
Soon enough the hand reached me and parted, rain to my left, rain to my right, and the air grew thick, sweet with lavender, a curtain of mist baptizing me anew. Crack of thunder and rain pelted the ground with renewed vigor and still, I stood immune to the storm. A thousand miles away. Cocooned.
Lingering long enough to feel the first fat plops of water tap me upon my shoulders, I was swallowed, instinctively stepping back into the mouth of an evergreen tree where it was quiet and still. The rain continued bathing the world, giving us a another chance, doing its best to right our worst, and I stood there, protected, my planet of women on either side, invigorated by the bluster, the magnificence, the audacity.
Too soon, the rain began to slacken, the clouds parting til the sun lit up the woods, electrifying the trees; diamonds and pearls dripping from the leaves; the blades of grass sparkling crystal. The rain continued to fall, the devil beating his wife, and it was then that I stepped out from the mouth and greeted the new day, refreshed for the journey ahead, rich beyond measure, and soon to be... wet.

Shattered

I watched a man's heart break today. Right in front of my eyes this man's world shattered and I could feel his pain and anguish and my heart went to hurting right along with his. What made the situation all the more strange was I hardly knew the man, and then to make it more interesting, the man was foreign; Middle Eastern, it would appear.
He'd been living in the same building as I do, but more infrequently; two weeks here, two weeks there. When he was `in residence' he was never without a smile, a warm handshake, a kind word. Whenever in his presence you could feel that here stands a gentle man. Humbleness and humility tattooed his visage.
One night, walking through the foyer to my room, he emerged from around the corner, all smiles and an open palm. After we traded a few 'hello hi are yous' he asked, "My car is towed, is possible you take me somewhere in morning"?
I didn't waste a breath. "Sure", I said.
Next morning, against every core belief, every thought I hold dear -we are all God's children- I became nervous and suspect because of his nationality, and for this I grew ashamed, embarrassed.
At the appointed time there he was, all smiles, briefcase in hand. "Hello, my friend!" he said, shaking my hand with gusto. "Thank you so much for taking me this morning", his tongue thick with what sounded to me to be a Lebanese accent.
We departed.
As we exited the parking lot he gave me directions to the north end of town. I asked him what he did for a living. He replied, "I inventor", then he opened his briefcase and pulled out a picture of a most unusual looking car lift; a portable one that was decidedly different in design from any I'd ever seen."See how it gets tall so fast?" he said. "That's when it strongest. Unlike regular lift which is weak when tall. No other lift like this in world." He put all his papers back in the briefcase, then he shut it. "I know lots of things", he said..
"What are you going to do with it?" I asked.
"I try to get it back as big company in Houston steal idea from me. So I see lawyer today."
I was confused. "I thought you wanted to get your car?"
"No", he said, "car is brothers in Houston, so I can't get car. You are taking me to lawyer. Is okay? I will take cab back if long, but today should be about ten minute".
Needless to say, as much as I hated to admit it, I grew slightly suspicious.
During the drive he kept checking his reflection in the visor mirror, pulling his thinning hair down over his forehead. I felt like I was in a Hitchcock movie.
Eventually we pulled into the parking lot of two stark, black glass buildings. "Wait here", he said, crawling from my truck, "I go see. If long, I come back and tell you so you can go. Okay?"
Fear had taken roost in his eyes, anxiety distorting his body.
"Sure", I said.
The man was gone about thirty minutes. When he returned he wasn't the same person. All life had fled his body. His eyes vacant. His smile gone. He got into the truck and said, "That quick", then he never said another word all the way home. Obviously the meeting had not gone in his favor and the realization of his predicament was crushing him. He hurt. I, in turn, hurt for him.
We live in a world that is straining mankind's ability to love one another, especially one whose culture, customs, and beliefs are vastly different from our own. And according to the various media spins that we, as Americans, endure on a daily basis, the dark, swarthy man from a region of intolerance and seeming madness isn't to be trusted, or loved, only feared and hated.
Is this how God would want us to behave?
As if to answer my inner questions, right before turning into the parking lot of our temporary home, the man suddenly said, "You know, American people are wonderful. Very kind. Very friendly. I love this country. America is good. Just like you, my friend, helping me when I needed it most. You helped me. A Lebanese man. Like God would want".
That's how I want to be remembered.

Bring It The Fuck On - Inspired by Richard Pryor

I have been at a disadvantage for some time now. Two years, in fact. Being that I’m mechanically disinclined didn’t help matters neither. You see, in a land where motherfuckers willfully encroach on your shit in a heartbeat, one thing you need is a motherfuckin’ horn. Not being able to lay into that son of a bitch to awaken some jackleg on the nod or the tear will fuck with your psyche. Has mine. But all that changed today. My personal mechanic, one spiffy young white woman named Laura brought her ass over here today and within about twenty seconds had my ass hooked up. And to think, for two years I risked life and limb only to be armed and ready for all comers within twenty motherfucking seconds. Shit.
Color my ass ready.
All you upwardly mobile cracker motherfuckers who are all eat up in your delusional self important conversations with others of your ilk on your nifty cell phones, drifting directly into my lane without a clue I’m already there? Be-fucking-ware! I will pound the center of that steering wheel and your fucking glass is gonna melt, leaving you with a permanent facial tick. You ornamental sons a bitches who don’t have a clue on any rule or law regarding driving safety, driving backwards and down the wrong side of a one way street wondering where the lotus blossoms are? I will make you regret ever having to step behind the wheel, making you wish an opium den was within scrambling distance. All you meskins who live on the motherfucking horn regardless of the emergency of the situation, playing that fucker like a timbale fill? Now you got some competition jack. I am here to fuck you up. Tito Puente’ that! And all you jungle bunnies? Shit, I don’t have to worry about y’all at all. There is so much smoke in your cars from all that herb you’re smokin’ you can’t see dick, and that’s okay because you’ve been at the same intersection for a week! Y’all ain’t encroachin' on shit. Go buy some more overpriced jewelry.
Like I said. I’m armed. I’m ready. I finally got me a motherfuckin’ horn. I got two years of pent up shit under my belt just ready to crawl out and maul your ass. I pray, I wish, I hope that any of y'all out there just give me the slightest twinge of a motherfuckin’ reason. You see, I’m drivin’ around like a baby with a big dick... layin' in wait for your ass.
Don’t fuck with billy.

My Friend, The Odd Couple

I went to visit my friend, “The Odd Couple”, today. He greeted me with his usual rumpled, sardonic grin, which is his front, his defense mechanism for keeping the horseshit of the world at bay. He’s quite accomplished at it. When I stepped through his screen door, taking stock of the man’s normally spartan clean Felix homestead, I plainly saw that his alter ego, Oscar, had completely taken hold. His joint was bonafide. A mess. A work of art.
A hard drive that kept the mixes of the last artist he’d worked with lay in the middle of the den, on its back, unplugged, an island in the storm. His Christmas underwear lay in the hall. Hark the herald angels sing! A shirt and a pair of shorts were in the entrance to the studio. Reams of toilet paper lay on the floor.
When I pointed out to him the rock and rollness of the appearance of his pad, he laughed and opened the door to his bedroom. ....The sheets were torn from his mattress which sat deadpan on the floor. There were empty wine and beer bottles stood in various incongruous angles here and there amongst the remnants; clothes scattered about like a Hamas explosion.
Bottles and clothes strewn everywhere. Strategic even. A release I understood completely.
But yet, here stood a man to be reckoned with. A man with vision. Talent that is off the scale.
Could he be forgiven for the state of his abode?
Hell yes!
In fact, a standing ovation is in order! Long live Oscar! Give Felix some too! My friend. A good man. A talented man. The Odd Couple, on full display, living it. Like countless others only dream and wish, he is doing it. In cinematic living color. I love him. I love “The Odd Couple”.
He lives. He truly lives.

Time Has Arrived

There are days where you feel that life deserves not another nanoliter of energy. And if you manage to drag your ass through those chalky shit days, you eventually encounter the days of opposite composition. A day when traffic ebbs and flows perfectly, when breezes pick up at just the right moment, when the temperature is sublime, invigorating you with anticipation of change. Meals are tasty, reasonably priced. Flowers are blooming. And women are all sexy. . ...Today was one of those days.
The cool breeze was refreshing. The tiny Mexican man appreciated my business, the sun glinting off the water soothed, the wet grass pleased, and doors continued opening with blazing alacrity. Trust. Trust. Open vistas. Unknown manna at work.
Get down rhythm is in motion. Throw it away. Step on it. Sniff it. Suck it. Nurture it. Blow on it and make a wish.
Time has arrived. Put it in your back pocket and bark at the moon.

A Blue Million Miles

A sexy stranger pressed her young ass against my legs. She leaned into me. Her weight sweaty and heavy. Sexy. Her arm pushed on my shoulder. She ground her hips into my side. Her thick succulent body pressed against mine
She was laying into the man stood next to me. But she was so gone she was oblivious that there existed a mirror image. To my delight. Our shared pleasure. Removed.
I didn’t move for shit.
What was this woman? Besides drunk, an angel. A tipsy plus angel.
When the real thing hits, I will soar. A preview.
I didn’t say a word to her. And she didn’t know I was alive.
But I was.

Hoodooed

The man is a vortex. He is encapsulated and protected from the chaos that swirls dangerously close. Perilously close. Dizzy from the onslaught of sight and sound he’s neither withered nor collapsed, but an island in the maelstrom. He’s patient. Sits slackjawed. Wanders aimlessly in maddening circles. He sleeps with one eye open. Food nor drink satisfies but a lethal hunger drives him. Libido on overdrive but without an outlet; a masturbating monkey on speed, he recounts and fantasizes days of yore. A yearning for more drives him to the toe-gripping brink. Stifled, unable to touch it, he knows it, he’s tasted it, therefore all progress depends upon the curious, unreasonable man, the man who wrestles with demons and gives not an inch, undeterred but bewildered, frothing, jabbering, stamping burdened feet for all to hear and take note, dust a perpetual cloud that mystifies and cloaks.
Due south north east and west, from every perimeter, all four dirt roads leading in every direction were flooded, rising with chocolate water and the two-story tin house sat on a grassy knoll offering safety and comfort. The man thankful. Composed. The hand-made bed was soft and inviting, sturdy, carved to a pitch, but the new clothes didn’t make the man, However, he felt relieved to be able to afford them, at the least, not to mention the fabrics were pleasing to the eye, soft to the touch, and even though the clothes fit perfectly he just didn’t feel the need in his heart to purchase them, remembering words of resolve, knowing in his heart that needs were meager, and procuring anything else just for the sake of being able seemed gluttonous, unnecessary, gaudy, tawdry. Stay focused, he told himself.
Freedom came with a suddenness, affording him opportunity to unleash anger and frustration, showing the world that despite his wrinkled ass dragging the hard packed earth he was far from done and he knew it ...so did others, even though they stood silent. The man growled and fingers contorted and sweat dripped from underneath fingernails. Hair grew angry but he was oblivious, the brown wool suit immaculately tailored, and yet he screeched, he wailed, crosseyed in the spotlight. All the while his audience grew nervous, uncomfortable, squirming in their seats, their fingers a ball of mating serpents, writhing and squeezing until bare knuckles cracked and meat caked joints creaked and moaned a sad song, loud enough for the girl buying popcorn at the concession stand to take notice where she began to cry uncontrollably, sobbing and drooling, wondering when wicked death would take her breath from her like a cat stealing milk, then pick her up by her armpits and shake her like a rag doll; shake her and shake her and shake her until every bone pulverized to green jelly, her once luscious skin torn paper.
The craggy, ancient man spilt his guts and tears flowed and smiles surrounding him exploded into light. He’d lived long. He’d lived hard. Benevolence guided his every move. A ragged, rawboned glory moved every muscle in his body, his mind a conduit to amazing grace. The invisible man who craved and desired was silent, but he partook. He absorbed. Inside he cried. He was joy.
The shy pained man disappeared before every eye in the house. His thoughts lingered and penetrated, yet he was gone. The old whiskered man grew confused but he learned. He adapted.
Then there was exquisite pasta and age old bread to decorate the house. Vivid magpie conversation and a cliff leapt from. Massive grins, peace and calm, drug under by a rip tide and deposited amongst the salmon and sea foam coral, flowing at light speed in the volcanic current. When was there dark, and how? How could it?
Screaming raging hate intervenes but the man stiff-arms it. A darkness one almost can’t comprehend, yet this red headed fool embraces it. The man cannot. So he doesn’t. He prays for her soul, but he knows it useless.
Palmetto trees and chicken skin puckered with raindrops. Exteriors belying interiors. Smoked meat and butcher paper that suspended the fragile weight and absorbed the juice. Gimme more. Gimme more. Gimme more flat land and thunderclouds. The sun poked its head through the clouds and the man’s skin bled. He was happy. He gorged. Freedom reigned once again. The man submersed, alive. The clouds beneath him, the stars his arms, his legs, his feet, his toes. A constellation oozed from his pores. Beyond. Well. As it should.
New voices entered the man’s sphere. He couldn’t believe his ears. Beats seduced him, sour mash seeped into his bloodstream, and melodies enraptured the air he breathed and lifted him higher, higher, higher. James Brown and his Fabulous Flames led the charge. Whiskey flowed like soda. A groove struck. Cackles and respect intertwined. A magic carpet ride. Shoulder blades and eyes that hung over her mouth. Love indominate.
A determined grace overrode. Faith at its peak.
How could a man not be invigorated by the input? Look at the big picture.
He did.

Zizz

Even as darkness overtakes this world, I still find reasons to smile.
Here in the south there isn’t anything more pleasing to the ear than the screel of cicadas at dusk. Nothing. I lay in the grass and submerse in the sound that washes over me in undulating sonic waves; nature giving me hope, giving me peace and tranquility where mankind only looks to plow me under, spit me out, crushed underfoot as if I never existed in the first place, or worse, wasn’t needed.
Ah, the simple pleasures which nature provides. Ones that cost not a dime. Ones that most don’t take the time to recognize as the world spins faster causing their human counterparts to lose their precarious balance and fall headfirst, tumbling into a empty maw of blank nothingness.
Screel on, little bugs. Zizz to your heart’s content. Your simplicity moves me while man and all his accomplishments pale; our progress only digging our graves deeper and faster than we can comprehend, nor want to. We as a race don’t even take the time to ponder what is all around us, refusing to even acknowledge or take responsibility for our folly and all the while their sound grows dim, dampened by the roar of man’s progress.
Mankind is lost
Lie down on the earth and feel the vibration. Learn from it. Respect it. Leave the world of man behind as that journey is the key to truth and awareness, giving you insight into our real purpose whilst here. Embrace the gift we've been given before it’s too late. Grasp our responsibility to that which supports us.
Verily I say unto you... stop, look, and listen, or die missing the point.