I'm back.

pizza and beer and good talks in ma's backyard with Lyli, Scarleht, Rika, Eamon, my mother, father, dog and open sky. Wine at 26 Brix, their bourge' spilling out of the gaudy stuccoed ceiling. Tales of ice in the urinals but I fail to investigate. Informal tours of the Walla Walla "historic" downtown. All these fucking wine snob tourists and their stinking money turn my fucking stomache. I'd rather the town was still poor and I was the only teen wandering the streets at night romancing the moon and fire escapes. I ran this town, or like to think I did those nights run wild with booze and daring escapades and young girls with loose morals. reputations were forged and then abandoned for the still wilder heights of college and that world outside our fields of dreams that stole us and will not give us back. so many of my friends have moved on down the road without a glance over their shoulder. some are stuck inside their shells in some rural gutter, lying where they fell, cartridges fired from a needless gun. I try to call them sometimes, to tell them I am here again and wanting them. to no avail.

i consider it my mission now to track back down the pages of that book we wrote together in those days of yore, glue back the binding I so callously, carelessly tore to shreds, and hand it back to that old friend turned man who hides from stories surrounded by his clocks. we all bear our wounds, the trick is sharing them. too many lick instead of sticking, tick instead of clicking. i ramble and the moose drool gets the best of me this late-fate night fallen down around my ankles. I read some Hemingway, some Charles Potts (that arrogant bastard), some of Joe's story of starting Microcosm in his underwear (inspiring for folks like me with no job save their heart's impassioned duty, which conveniently happens to make them money).

I fall in love again for the 42nd time this hour with the 24th girl (damn you myspace for aiding and abbeting my memory banks in this terrible recognition of the beauty of forgotten folk) and I miss her more than all the rest combined. This, among other things, I cannot tell her however, for fear... well, for fear. I'll drink to that. This moose will drool for that, for love, quiet love on her throne of thorns and rainbows.

I read 'zines to forget about love momentarily. My mind reels in slack line and recalls that Eamon just bought a boat! 21 foot fiberglass sailboat with no interior we will park in our driveway and slave over until she's seaworthy I'm sure and ready to glide us towards whatever Valhalla we can imagine. dreams come together as past lives move on into the dust. i gather both dust and dreams around me to tell a story with my feet, if anyone's watching me dance today to an utter lack of music.

A line from Ernest catches my attention, the smell of ionized air and moose drool heavy on the eastern washington air:

"Another brandy," he said, pointing to his glass. The waiter who was in a hurry came over.

"Finished," he said, speaking with that omission of syntax stupid people use when talking to drunken people or foreigners. "No more tonight. Close now."

The night is long and I am but a walker in its depths. Were it made of wood perhaps I could choose a road, pick a fork, pluck a string. Her busy name rings like a shot bell tolling its last loud peal out upon an ear too far away to hear in time, shallow time, this ebbing tide, this lark.

This morning I drank coffee from a mug with my childhood face emblazoned on its side and felt secure somehow in time's passage, my bad posture, poor manners and misguided ethics. Then the sun came up, as usual, and I reverted to my more cynical, natural self. All smiles, despite the heat or rain. For those of you who know me... I'm back.