Cincinnati

I'll never be able to go
to Cincinnati again.
With all its hills and
sports teams and its
beautiful scenery overlooking
the Ohio river, it really
is a wonderful city.
It's not too big but
it has the energy to match
Chicago or Boston. There
are trendy places to eat
and to buy clothes
and places to work
where you feel like
you're making a difference.

There are times when
I would give anything to
be able to go back to
that place. To make the
drive down I-69 and on to
I-465 and then on to
I-74 basically all the way there.
And you come in looking
at these hills and when it's
fall you can see the amazing
colors of the trees
the goldens
the reds
the oranges
the browns
and gawd damn
it's good to be loved.
You wind yourself around
and then you're off to
the school ending up
on Victory Parkway
(If I remember correctly).

I remember the last time
I left that city. It might
sound like bullshitting but
I'll tell you the truth--
the moment
I was pulling out of that parking lot,
with her standing there---
tears in her eyes--
I thought,
"This is going to be the last time I ever see this place."
And so far I
have been right.
It was over
a week later.

Maybe I'm being
dramatic,
but all I know is
whenever I hear someone
talk about the
Bengals or
The Reds or
Skyline Chili or
Gold Star Chili or
Larosa's Pizza or
Graeter's Ice Cream or
United Dairy Farmers or
Findlay's Market or
The Newport Aquarium
(Even though it's in Newport) or
UC or
XU or
if anyone tells me they're
from Cincinnati or they
know someone in Cincinnati or
they'd really like to live in
Cincinnati
well I just about want
to go crawl in a hole.

Instead I just meet
Steve-O at the
29th Street Cafe.
We drink coffee.
We smoke cigarettes.
We reminisce about
lost loves and our
inability to move on.
Or I go meet
Levi at the
Waffle House and we
talk about
Faulkner
Whitman
Greene
Kerouac
Carlos Williams
Miller
Hemmingway
Fitzgerald
Bukowski
and Dylan.
Or I meet everybody
at Perkins and
we talk about everything
that nobody finds interesting
but ourselves.
And there's more coffee.
And more cigarettes.
And $.99 desserts.
And then I realize that
Anderson has more for me
than any other city
(even Cincinnati).
But it doesn't
have her.

Flies in the Sink

I guess
there are
two ways to
get over depressed
sorts of feelings.
One way
is to work yourself
out of it.
The other way is
voluntary paralyses and
hoping it goes away.
The first way gets you a
clean house
clean dishes
a mowed lawn.
The second one gets you
cans of spaghetti-o's
flies in the sink
tall grass.
The first way
takes your mind
off of it.
The other one
puts your mind
right in it.
I guess
the first way
makes more sense,
but I've always
been a fan
of the other one.

So I'll work
till four and
come home and
do nothing until
something happens
until things change.
I'll sit in front of the TV
with nothing on
and stay up late
thinking and occasionally
jotting things down
but less and less
for you
and more and more
for me.

I tried moving
on to someone
else once but
it bit me in
the ass and
hard. I won't
try that again for
a while.
Until then I'll just
keep looking
and wishing
and doing nothing
like I always do.

This goddamn
breakup still has
me by the balls
and I'm beginning
to think that maybe
it's never going to
let go.

Is this poetry?
probably not to most people
I just like the way
it looks.

isaac

july 11

i never thought
i'd be singing
happy birthday
to no one on
july 11, 2009.

I know,
depressing, right?
I thought so
too.

Here's a lighter one from Bukowski.

"the laughing heart"

your life is your life.
don't let it be clubbed into dank
submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the
darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you
chances.
know them, take them.
you can't beat death but
you can beat death
in life,
sometimes.
and the more often you
learn to do it,
the more light there will
be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have
it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in
you.

so here's to beating death in life in search of what small light is left in this world. over five months and there's been plenty of darkness, but some light too. i'll be on the watch.

isaac

The Fire Went Out

Dignan has a song called "Pillars & Pews" and in that song they sing:
The fire's been going out
Father save it......
I wish we burned
I wish we burned
I wish I burned

And I wish I could write a song like that. Anyway.

That's all I've got.
That's all I feel.
The fire went out.
I couldn't save it.
She couldn't save it.
(and god didn't either)
oh well
I still don't know
why I keep thinking
about it now.
It's so far away
and so long ago
so much so that
now it's almost funny
to think about.
But I still ball
my eyes out
when I see a
picture of her.

isaac

Spirit of Memory

Spirit of memory
why do you haunt me?
You make painful
that which was once comforting and
tiresome that which gave me strength.
And though you take more than I have to give
I keep you close by.
Spirit of memory
you're playing tricks on me.

I never was one for poetry...

isaac

Facing Tomorrow

We go to sleep not knowing how we're going to face tomorrow. Maybe your friends are leaving or you're the friend leaving your friends--or you just lost your job and you have no idea what the fuck you'll say to your kids or your spouse, or you're going to bed alone because your wife has custody of the kids (or because you've never had a wife or kids)--and so you go to bed confused and tired and sad and alone (even if you're next to someone) and we think we'll never have any answers and that we'll always have that feeling in the pit of our stomach and pouring over our hearts.

I said goodbye to my friend tonight. When it happened there were people around and jokes were told and everyone felt generally happy although still somewhat sad to see him go. After everyone left I got in my car and drove around. I said I was going to McDonalds but once I sat in the car I lost my appetite. I pulled out of the driveway and immediately started crying--because I was sad to see him go and because I felt his anxiousness about being gone for the next six months. And then it hit me, my worst fear. I thought about her again. I thought about her leaving to go to Mexico and that she probably said goodbye to her friends too and that I wasn't one of them there saying goodbye to her. I wondered if she thought of me and I realized that she probably didn't, the same way I don't think about her as much anymore. I cried because of these things and then I cried because I was crying about them.

Things felt so right for awhile. I've moved on from a lot but there's a lot to move past. Six months. Half a year. A long time ago. Not that long ago. I thought I was past these thoughts. I guess, for those fifteen minutes or so in my car, they came back. I hope they stay away for awhile again, so that I can have some peace and quiet, and fall asleep not wondering if I'll feel the same way in the morning.

isaac

Away We Go

I wrote another movie review this weekend. It was for Sam Mendes' new film Away We Go. It was very good.

Here's a link.
Away We Go--Stereo Subversion

Summertime Sappiness

Sitting down to write now for the first time in ages (which I've now learned means at least a few weeks) and honestly my mind has no jewel center, so to speak, as Kerouac might say. I can't focus on what it is I'm trying to say. I have no thought-dream, no vision, no movie of the mind.

Summer now in full swing. Hot. Constant sweat. Sticky clothes. Cold showers. Sleeping in nothing but a sheet. Constant changes. Excitement and no longer regret. Joy and no longer meaninglessness. Out of much pain usually follows much happiness, whether in the form of friends or new relationships or new locations or new perspectives, or all four--many changes behind and many more to come--friends moving to central America for months while said friend's girlfriend (also a friend) moves to Europe for months, relationships end and new relationships start up, or they simply end and twirl around, figuring themselves out over long talks in rowdy bars fully equipped with the physically disabled and crashing beer glasses, hopefully one day reconciling and while some people move out of your life others move in, unexpectedly although not necessarily coincidentally--a surprise, yes, but a planned surprise, or a hoped-for and realized surprise.

We're all growing up, friends, and many of us are in different places than we may have at first expected to be and with people we did not expect to be with. Some of us are sort of dating while others are staring engagement in the face--all of us laughing and tearing up, sweating whether we're indoors or outdoors and not really caring.

What I'm getting at with all of this is simply this--I'm happy. To be in Anderson, surrounded by the people I want to be surrounded by. A band from around here once said, "What a miracle it is to be loved at all," and that's really how I feel for the first time in a long time--loved--and not necessarily in a romantic way but in a life-affirming way. Life feels good again, despite the pain of the past. I could not wish for a better feeling.

isaac