The Blackwood Press DUB 'log

well it’s so easy to do nothing
when you’ve got too much to do

I guess I waited so long finally
for this December snow

and the girls they wear me out,
and man it’s so far out
that there’ll be another one
Springin’ on the way
’round May

and well the hairline’s been receding since
the acne was in its prime

this long hair’s looking
pretty funny now

Back cramped sitting fetal
the flats and pudding hills
salts and death, sagebrush and sun
on our backs we continue
across the Mormon paradise

“God, could you imagine
just living out here!”
she said as I thought about
being beaten
by the sun all day and
no shadows in sight

Why when only alone
can I cease to be my own?

M&M’s took the brown color out
few years later
Eminem came out the spout shoutin’
I think about him
and the concepts of sin
government projects to prohibit
and inhibit not just speech
never knowing how close to the crease
cuff down to the sleeve
cuff to cuff down around the knees
never again expected to utter a please

how can there be so many roads
it seems there’s one road
for every person in America
some straight some crooked
some pavement some gravel
some with more signs than others
some with readable lines
some with but barely a few trotters
consistent old friends
and others like interstate dates
rushing rushing rushing
some expand across the continents
some never leave home

there just isn’t time
to get it all done
as I sit here, smoking
soot from the pipe
with a mug of too-strong
coffee, making
music

the band is off-key
my notes are off the beat
my mouth was too close to the
microphone, and nobody
took our picture

some other band sold
650,000 copies of
their first album
off their own
label

it would take me a lifetime to produce
that many of my own books, let alone
just that many of the first one

but what do I care? I’m doing it
and I’m working my ass off
and failing

it can’t get any better

it just can’t get any better
there just isn’t enough time
to call this one a practice and then
do it better again
I can’t do that, this is all I’ve got
I have a wife and a growing family
I’ve got to scrub the mold outta the bathroom, and
replace some tile in the kitchen, and shit first the dishes
feed the kids and take out the garbage, man
I’ve got other things, and not enough time, not enough
time to sing on Wild Horses; we are the wild horses
and there’s not enough time for perfection with us,
all I can do is show you my way
and keep moving

and that’s what I’m gonna do now,
I can see the coffee’s cold, and
I sense the coming of the late afternoon train,
I better finish this pipe and shake on with this
hunger, it doesn’t get any better than this, there’s
not time, no time, not enough time to get any
better

so carry on, work on my friends, and love it
because this is the life, and there’s such
little time to
live it

there’s nothing happening here, feeling so uninspired
even after watching old movies, there’s nothing
stirring in this heart

she called me out of the blue this morning, after living
another life for seven years
said she had a dream and the feeling’s been growing stronger
for three days
she’s been reading my poetry, she read a letter I wrote to her
when I was just a kid
she asked me how I was feeling, I told her it doesn’t matter
anyway

I woke up with that same feeling about a month ago, lost loves
and lives of different times
I wrote a couple songs about it, trying to find consolation
in words and rhymes
baby I just learned to disconnect my heart, long ago I
lost the connection
to my heart

I’ve been listening to old songs, I used to believe in them,
they were more real than my face
but I no longer feel the vibrations, enough distance
put me in another place

scraped together
enough soot
from all of my old
empty pipes
to pretend that
I’ve got something
to smoke

let this not be the song of the downtrodden
but rather the song of the worn and strong;
the leather sack beat into its prime

last night she
spoke about
kinuk inuk,
pulling apart,
crushing,
rolling

it feels good to be working, creating
something that can perhaps outlast its own physicality
though I don’t know that I am, life is so large

you want your bloody chapped hands to stand for something
you want your locked knees and knotting body to bring
some sort of return, you want everybody to know
you made your claim

that’s all a self-fulfilling thing there, the fight
the pain the loss the struggle the claims the victories, defeats,
all the same, there, in one big life, its trajectored path,
curling, and twisting and turning, whurling and burning
on its heels, and again knotting;

the losses are the victories, defeat is the victor, always the
champion, joy is always only found in defeat, the fight is the
life, to live is to fight, and death, the final, true celebration

nobody lives who is not fighting
and a claim is a win, and a loss;
sense your defeats and find joy

I could use another cup of coffee
and I’ll finish smoking this soot ash
lay down my knot of twine, rise, and return
to finish off this song, to turn through
to the other side of the door

we worked our asses off, that was how it had to be
we barely reached half our original ideas, time
just isn’t enough
and there was not, there never was, and there never will be
the magical million-dollar dream immediate payout;
but there was a small payout, there will always be the small
payouts, just about in proportion to the pain and skin of
your soul and ass that has been worked away

and that’s the way
it has to be

the fight is the life
all the fight is just the life
fight strong, fight proud, even in the dirt, with
blood on your brow, fight on for your beautiful life,
fight on, fight on

drove too far last night
there wasn’t a hotel in sight
400 miles of non-vacant spots
finally ending in Salt Lake rots

The Late Nighter Motel
El Royo Loco Pollo
owned by Koreans
we lucked out total
as a sex worker just got the boot
right as we pulled up
our last hope and try
a two bed smoking room
oven dirty filth

smoke hole sheets
so bad we brought our own
blanket and slept up top
after 17 hrs in the sauna of the car
I stank wanted to wash
but the caked tub
hosed head stopped my tracks
the only thing I thought upon rising
is that it’s lucky the car didn’t get
burgled or broken
$70 waste of poor sleep
but happy to be prostrate of some hours

she walked down to its shores
water
it almost evaporated as soon as it touched
her skin
a little hiss
sounded the four dominant layers
the horizon
now
besides here is there, further, even further
and farthest
consisting of concentric lines of elevation gain
all the way to jagged Wyoming peaks

Where the biggest display of
white trashed play
was through this state
four dilapidated houses
three houses living, not much better
count em’ 8 trailer rat palaces
on and on, rows and rows
on this 2 acre lot
stood thousands of parts
different cars
construction vehicles
and farming implements
all alone
all baking under the filament sun
thrusting themselves
almost heaving with escape
20 feet from a thousands passing

my neck is tense
contained by the car unrelenting
the jerky sticks in my teeth
and the windows rolled down masks
the music
just then a bird met its demise
hit the windshield, sad
but at least it hit in a way so
I don’t have to clean the glass

there is something about
arid lands
like a certain clarity from
lack of moisture in the air
100 miles seems a stones throw
water used to travel here
I see remnants of snake switchbacks
dry beds of meandering paths
If one should follow
where might it lead

to a source?

if stranded, would I die
it makes me wonder
about the homesteaders
not natives, nomadic with
a rich history of tribed families,
immigrants just had themselves
and their own ignorance
to depend, to fend against the bleak
awareness

living alone here where it barely rains
where it’s 90°+ most of the summer
and well below 0° in the winter
and naught to block
the incessant wind whipping
through the night and day
drawing attention to how far they’ve come

whistling
always whistling
I wonder if it drove some of them mad
or if it provided conversation intermittent with silence?