Common Ground
Of the ground that I have walked, there is little in the middle and certainly no shortage of irony. Thoughtful souls in quiet places nurture harmless little secrets and inhale with the living, while 60 dead in a Baghdad marketplace beg to differ, their severed limbs disputing that our world is in balance, with no hand long the upper.
The Politics of Leaving
The dead convene in orderly rows of curbside fashion, while he and she who put them to rest cannot for themselves do the same. Conducting low-down seminars on high-speed death games, they know their redemption and have not the energy for it. Praise the wayward soul who has the grace to pay the rent, hide the key and leave town.
Selling the Truth
I had almost forgotten how it can be out here. Over by the graveyard, the rain lends Friday night it's clean. The pavement is an endless stage with uninspired lighting, and the audience does most of the acting. We've all searched for promises in the middle of the road--we had longer hair and less discretion, but we knew the value of a promise. Almost as many years later, though, we learn that the keeping is in the breaking.
Seven Days Down the Tracks
I have often sought to raise a shelter by driving nails with my hands and splitting wood with my head, somehow surprised when the wind brought it down. Today I am blessed with hammer and saw, and the wind holds aloft as much as it calls to the ground. We all have streets and yesterdays, but the nature of their sum gives me pause. Too often, my crises didn't turn the world as much as you away, and I am compelled to tread more gently. I was sick--not sick like death or cancer, but sick like a razor, forged in a likeness less itself. At some misleadingly random juncture, I stumbled upon the presence of mind to ask for a small glass of breath. To my great surprise, I inherited an entire lung. For this I freely admit that silent gestures in the dark nevertheless cast shadows, and some things are better left undead.
Soul Squeak
My personal videographer has developed a stutter and a habit for stranding himself at the altar of all that is sequential, linear and uninterrupted. His recent clips are imbued with an intermittent brooding not apparent in early films, manifested in the morbid bloating of certain unbidden moments, complete with melodramatic end-of-time voiceovers. The commentary gains urgency in the translation, and my steps are unintentionally hurried as I slip away.
Enigma
We are a people who seek to be free of what we cherish most; who cherish most the thing from which we need to be freed. Who among us has not been driven into the fires of morning with makers of smoke at our heels? How many of us have called god that which takes from us our shadows, only to have them reinstated a day later and a shade darker? Have none of us embraced death that we would not die, only to be stranded somewhere between? In this manner, any man can be understood by what he steadfastly avoids.
Dancing with One Foot
Many things from my memory have fled, so to be sure of anything is sweetest by far. The mirror has become a lesser foe, and I search only for sleep behind my eyes. A hint of spice in the air seems to suggest a dinner guest--someone to put me in need of convincing--but the heat of the moment will not keep me warm all winter. I will trade these little acts of saying for acts of saying little.
Cat's Eye
Today is a glittering cat's eye: the marble I once favored, even as it fled down the drain. This morning, though, it is nestled on my lawn; as if it had never been gone; as if I need only bend over and claim it. This is not to say that drains are no longer a problem, or that I no longer lose my grip. It is to say that I've come to grasp the value of a marble.
Mile-High
In the thick of the journey, my tires sang dutifully on the wet pavement, and mile markers accumulated in orderly green rows behind me. Now that I've arrived, my plan is to park in an obscure, multi-level garage and proceed to lose my claim ticket. I will work at this altitude in the candle shop with the owner's dog. I will browse in the bookstore on break and cheerfully spend the better share of my night's wages. I will chat in the shop with the smelling and the non-smelling types and walk home slowly after close. I will pass the hotel valets, the hot-and-cold eleventh-floor patrons, without noticing.
Moss Grows Fat
I like to mix my greens until they shout, introduce to one another the hues that surely clash, and step back to observe while they hash it out. But mine are not soul shoes; not breathing shoes or filling-the-page shoes. Mine are out-of-ink shoes; little-to-say shoes. In fact, I have become a useful green; a complementary green; a salad-when-I’m-hungry green. I know that before autumn descends I must become a lush green; a custom green; a laughing-in-the-rain green, and my toes wiggle at the thought of being bare.
Retreating from Plaid
In the midst of all this maximum and minimum, I find myself desperately avoiding the median and the mean; fantasizing ways to part them like an ugly curtain; fascinated with anything that is out. I suppose it is possible that the place in which I’m currently rotting will develop a nostalgic allure once abandoned, but not likely. Surely if there are more stairs going up, then at some point I got off on the wrong floor. If stepping out of this skin exposes a few nerves, at least I’ll be able to feel the breath of the world around me; to feel the grace of his fingerprint, not cower under his thumb. In truth, the question is not whether there will be flight, but if feathers will be lost.
Preparing to Junct
This mood has a throat, as sure as the sun has a curfew. My quest is to bind the fingers that would choke it; to open the ears to the sounds of its gentleness without entirely disabling the beast. After sunrise, a shadow is a shadow; a plagiaristic mime with gray face paint. After sunrise, a shadow has no season; no pockets to empty for the price of subsequence. At 4 a.m., however, the streets are tenuous; intolerant of small thoughts; exuding the raw. It is here that sleep is a yellow car, cruising slowly by.
Verscosity
Busyness is a thief, and I am a forgetful husband, repeatedly leaving the back door ajar. Instead of venting in a semi-controlled manner the byproduct created by lumbering through each day, I allow the muck to escape around the edges, spawning little demons that must be chased down and quickly euthanized at great personal expense. Despite the unpleasant rabbit-trails, though, I am here now not to wallow or spew, but to quietly lead the herd toward home.
Sabbatical
The nature of this trip cannot be found in the rudder, or in the pattern of the sail, but rather in the craft as a whole. I am filled in turn by the wind; the lapping of the waves; the night sounds; the morning light. What today holds little or unbearable beauty is tomorrow’s doom and salvation. The cycles are benevolent while there is yet forward motion. Though it is often in my blood to stand alone at the rail, a shoulder and a hand sweeten the journey.
Exorcising Liberties
Sometimes I think that I will just quit: stop pondering; stop envisioning; stop creating. I will walk out the door like a disenchanted lover and go…somewhere-- maybe a lifeguard stand or Vincent's café and just sit, trying to keep my hands still. I will write myself reminders on little scraps of napkin: "Don’t answer rhetorical questions"; "Wave at people"; "Smell things". Then I realize, usually within the same mental breath and with no little relief, that I am engineering the demise of my craft with characteristic vigor and design. So I give up the idea of giving up. I have to ask myself, though: is it better to risk a double standard, or to double the standard risk?
Ignoring the Recipe
Some meals are exquisite simply for their timing and appear less savory in a once-sated but newly-hungry state. What the yesterday in my pocket cannot remember, the today on my plate will not concede. The usual utensils have fled the table, and if I am to continue mixing my metaphors, I will have to use my fingers.
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About the Author
Born in Kansas City and currently enjoying Colorado's magnificent Front Range, Brett Clay Miller is a locksmith by trade, the father of
three, and a lover of words and motorcycles.
The Moody Historian Page 2