the end.

this is it.
the last day of august.
the big finale.
and it's been a scorcher.
and what could be better?
melting your flesh on contact with the arid air,
evaporating moisture into the searing atmosphere.
dehydrating, my ninjas.
dehumidifying, even.
withering.
one hundred degrees of blistering, brutal barbarian waves.
nothing makes a sweater-loving bearded weirdie like me
go completely cranky-pants furious and unpleasant faster
than a climbing thermometer.
the whole woodsly realm had a fever today.
y'know what else loves the oveny temperatures of late late summer?
the dump.
now,
all you public waste collection, trash day, garbage can-type
urban mutha-uckas have NO idea how really real us rural doo-duders
doo-doo that doo-doo disposal business.
there is no trash man, b!tches.
we're the trash men, i mean.
and we take all that really ripe, rancid, ruined and/or recyclable refuse
to a big square building in the woods.
and let me tell you, kids:
it F*ing stinks.
SO HARD.
worse than a thousand decomposing unwanted dumpster babies.
worse than all the spoiled spilt milk in the dairy.
worse than a hot dock covered in old oysters.
it's rough, neighbors,
and i suspect the vultures swarming overhead
aren't there for the festy leftovers.
they want whole human being bits,
from those unfortunate nose-huffers who succumb to the stench.
i'm just sayin',
if you pass out and puke a little bit,
you'd better hope you land face down...
because those birds will so fully peck out your eye, y'all.
that's just how it goes.
i spotted a couple of sweet macaronis for my hat, though.
and i stuck those feathers right in, too.
yankee doo-doo never sleeps on that hot decor.
believe it.
***********
since family day has been cancelled
on account of the kids being back in school,
we took a grown-ups-only day together to portland, maine.
just me and the wifey.
y'know,
like a date.
we ate heaps of green elephanty goodness,
shopped around a little bit,
and generally enjoyed each other's company.
that's some romantic-type sh!t, ninjas.
don't you be doubtin' it.
except for the sweat.
and the dead oceany aroma of seaside waterfront reality.
hard styles don't take days off.
even when i'm rockin' one of my own.
goodbye, august.
goodbye, summer vacation.
goodbye, weekend.
i'll miss you;
never quiet, never soft.....

money money money monday.

dang.
even tea and toast isn't going to rock my socks off this morning.
with the sunshine.
and the breeze.
and the breakfast table.
we've got moves to make, ninjas.
moves.
hard styles to enact, even.
and also things like 'brush hogging'.
that's real.
woodchips and tractors and sh!t are involved.
with hogging on the brush.
i'm serious.
they could've called it plant chopping,
or bush detroying (that's what SHE said)
or a whole bunch of other defoliating monikers....
but brush hogging is what is widely accepted as appropriate.
trees are getting chopped down over here,
and so many handy men are lined up to lend those hands.
summer is way over, over here.
and now,
in the hardy heatwaves,
we'll have sweaty sweepers swabbing the sauce off.
huh?
...of the chimneys, mutha-lickas.
oooooooh.
***********
our very good buddy,
and personal hair stylist,
ms. elsah davis,
turns another year older today.
but she's still little.
like a cool kid sister or somethin'.
happy berfday!
i can't believe i've known her for, like, eight years.
in a row.
already.
y'know,
it's important to shout-out to your peoples, neighbors.
especially when it's their scissors that are responsible
for the very tenuous grasp on humane unattractiveness i hold.
humane unattractiveness.
sure thing.
a bad haircut could render me unsanctioned
and nearly war-criminal in my mothlike, unhot visage.
i'm sayin'.
you just can't polish a turd,
but you sure can squish one and make it even worse.
i'm very grateful for her efforts to tame my dome
and it's ever dwindling follicles,
to make it marginally less offensive to the see-balls of others.
get it?
yeah.
i figured you'd catch on.
***********
sometimes, kids,
sometimes, it's hard to get psyched on
documenting all the daily doo-dooings.
the ins and the outs and the in-betweens of a
soft and secret Folk Life aren't really all that exciting.
even when they're all really happening.
writing it down just makes it worse.
i'm as surprised as you are.
it's not a non-stop rockin', hard, hot fire, lightning-streaked,
stormswept, savage, raging gypsy warpath all the time.
there are short gaps in the berserker barbarian battles.
to breathe in an' that.
huffin' and puffin' and blowin'.
so,
here's to those little minutes.
the easy ones.
without the lulled-down calm spots for comparison,
eleven just seems like a hard ten.
(that's what she said)
c'mon;
never quiet, never soft.....

sunday, sunny sunday.

ninety degrees of right angled hot hot heat.
yeah.
90.
of degrees.
outside.
where did that come from?
i didn't even realize it was a blistering doo-doo butter explosion
for almost the whole day.
why?
because i was tattooing concentric circles all flippin' day.
yep.
that's a double dose, neighbors.
circles inside circles.
that's the cost of living in the woods, i suppose;
the less-fun ideas of less-awesome getters.
tatblasting away on pain-in-the-A*-holes?
we got that.
in a few weeks,
i'll be thrilled to have those same turdsmashers spending loot.
but not today.
***********
stina and james and rowan.
y'know 'em?
we ate some tasty treats after work with those kids,
and despite the heroically awful service at the restaurant,
the company was great.
they do tattoos.
they think like tattooers.
so,
we don't really do anything the same way.
but still,
vegan, drug-free tattooed non-A*-holes should stick together.
or at least hang out once a year.
their little man, rowan,
is pretty flippin' adorable.
and y'all know i don't hang out with little legit diaper babies if i can help it.
that kid gets a free pass.
late night parking lot hangin',
with filled-up bellyholes,
and months worth of stories to swap.
that's a good night.
plus,
after a superheated day of brutal swelter,
the relative cool and calm of the dark dark dark nighttime
is what we all needed.
small doses, duders.
or at least short visits.
warrior poetry is best appreciated in concentrated bursts
of burly barbarian spitfire camaraderie;
never quiet, never soft.....

baby sat.

jeez.
i guess all the last minute not-ready-for-autumn-type ninjas
are all here for that last week of freedom.
it's like a carnival is in town.
without the rides,
or the food,
or the fun.
just the migrant weirdies who shill and huck.
they're here.
in droves.
the last minute push, mutha-lickas.
the last week or two of sweet sweet movie checks,
and fattie-boombattie swanky livin'.
that means that my grind is even gristlier.
and grislier.
and way more 'garious.
that's a vocab word that almost nobody knows.
but trust me.
it's flippin' 'garious.
at least there was a small bright spot of consideration, though.
my homeboy doug,
who happens to also be my propane representative,
brought me some hummus and pitas and taboulleh.
from somewhere in massachussetts.
'specially for me.
that's some sh!t.
it's always surprising to me when duders think of me,
of all people,
when they're out doo-dooing their own freaky sh!t.
i mean,
why ruin a perfectly good time,
or make a bad time worse,
with hot and fiery furious mental reference to me?
woodsly goodness as post-hypnotic suggestion?
does all my brutal butthole banter leave a seed of destruction
in your mutha-flippin' brains, kid?
i'll take it, don't get me wrong,
i'm just a little confused.
but,
those pitas are off the hinges.
chick pea power, mutha- b!tches!
i got that.
***********
chainsaw massacre.
those two words imply a lot.
like skin-wearing melt-faced murderers,
and body-snatching baby-eating texas mutants.
relax.
i'm not so down with all of that action.
but,
i will totally massacre the spruces that windbreak my northface.
not my jacket, jerks.
i don't hang out with that type of cracker-A* hiker apparel.
i mean at the fortress.
facing north, against the cold and blustery sh!t.
you get it.
we're on some living-roof timber pole-shed wood hut-type jauns...
it isn't going to construct itself,
and neither are the trees going to relocate their roots.
good thoughts and warm wishes for the photosynthetic conifers, for sure,
but we are woodsly warrior barbarians, b!tchbags.
we chop all kinds of stuff down.
and the chainsaw my father-in-law has supplied is gonna be the instrument of
creation and destruction over here.
like i said,
chainsaw.
massacre.
it's what has to happen.
if i get ten seconds to doo-doo anything before dark anytime soon.
busy-busy.
with my grisly, gristle-down grind.
hard work and hard styles and hard currency;
never quiet, never soft.....

wound and winded.

wind up your gears,
and let the wind fill your sails,
it's friday,
it's flippin' raging and stormswept,
and that crisp swan-song sawn-spruce smell is in the air.
mountain tops, my ninjas.
that's where i dwell.
and reside.
ohhhh, sh!t.
perpetually looking down on those of lower elevation,
berserker barbarian battle beasts reach pinnacles, kids.
because not giving a flyin' mutha-uck is how we get busy.
at the top, i mean.
of the mountains.
where we dwell.
and reside.
those gusts and gales can't dislodge us from our spots, either.
the fortress is too strong to wear away from hard air flow.
cross-currents of breathable fluid and forceful, oxygen-rich atmosphere
can't hold a blow-hard huff'n'puff wolf-bellow to our spot.
that's word.
and that's not all;
i'm grinding, ninjas.
grrrrrinding.
work. work. work.
all work.
and no play.
if not for the wind,
and the blown-in answers,
i'd think that the secret universal plan was holding out on me.
there's a definite disturbance in the force.
if you can't feel it,
i can't feel YOU.
i'm sayin',
strange doings are afoot in the overlapping concentric social circles
of the woodsly warrior realm.
it blows.
and breaks.
like the wind.
c'mon;
never quiet, never soft.....

present. tense.

that's right.
i'm here,
and i'm feeling the pull and push of the polarized moonscape.
the punchy power, people.
it's happening.
right now.
in regards to my state of being;
my current status in the present tense,
i AM well past tense,
and all the way into the agitated spectrum.
true story.
that's the difference between impending berserker fury,
and occurring berserker fury.
like i said,
it's all really happening.
batsh!t crazy, lunar lycanthropic werewolf hairiness, even.
at least the lil' wane means we're past the prime freakout sessions.
oh, c'mon.
today's the day,
in the way that every day is.
a prime starring role in really-real reality.
even with cranky-pants on,
even as a warrior poet in the woodsly goodness
surrounded by sauce-suckin' sack-soldiers.
the big action is poppin'.
there will be push-ups, sit-ups, F*-ups,
and maybe even tofu pups.
yeah.
(wienery not-dogs are pretty good, y'all.)
the whole wet world of mountainous misery
is drying off and warming up.
that's good news.
i've got at least a couple of underquoted, underbooked appointments
to zippity-zap on,
and the whole thing is getting down under the auspices of the post-fullness.
...of the moon, my ninjas.
nice.
***********
now that my girlie-girls have gone back to the hard styles of
connecticut's weak-sauce waterbabyhood,
it's get-busy time again in new hampshire.
no, not like that.
get-busy home improvement time.
i need masons,
carpenters,
flooring specialists,
chimney sweepers,
and assorted technicians
to come by,
doo-doo that helpin' handful of stuff that they do,
and make this place the winter-safe, warm, welcoming
den of dopeness it's supposed to be.
woodstoves?
word up.
wood sheds?
double that.
brick hottnesses?
obviously.
decks,
living-rooftop lining,
and timber framing?
recognize the designs of an onslaught of opulence.
i'm just sayin',
stow that new bathtub, neighbors...
we're reinforcing the fortress,
with furious, facile, friendly freshness.
...for your face.
this is Folk Life,
all the way to eleven.
still here,
still happening;
never quiet, never soft.....

all wet.

so,
yesterday was family day.
at the polar caves.
a cascade of giant boulders fell off of a mountainside,
and when they piled up...

you guessed it.
caves.
they're deep, they're dark, they're damp,
and they are F*n' awesome, too.
over in rumney, new hampshire,
they've certainly got rocks.
heaps and heaps of 'em.
plus, fallow deer.
they look like baby deer,
but with antlers.
that's the answer, i guess.
and apparently,
hasidic duders love touristy new hampshire sh!t.
i'm for real on this one.
everywhere we go,
every time we get there,
there's a whole posse in effect rockin' matzo madness.
creepin' with us in the caves,
climbing the stairs,
checking out the international pheasant zoo.
huh?
no,
really.
if you've heard of a kind of pheasant,
from bavaria to brazil,
the polar caves has one.
in a polar cage, even.
you know i got a few stray feathers,
stuck 'em in my hat,
and called 'em macaroni and everything.
yankee doodoo, my ninjas.
c'mon.
we had 'mexican' food for dinner,
at the local mexi-faux spot,
and played soccer until dark.
hard styles, long hikes, far drives, and tofutti treats.
a full day for all of us.
the last one for a while.
summer's done,
and as if to punctuate that point of peril,
it's colder and wetter and greyer and suckier than ever.
the woodsly goodness is depressed.
i'm sayin',
no lovely light-bringing little ladies,
and the next thing you know,
it's lugubrious as a mutha-ucka.
ouch.
harvest and maple are home.
again.
after a whole day in the car,
behind the misty moisture
and meat-headed massholes clogging the roads.
no more family days.
just days.
and plenty to do, too.
if only this horrorshow of hard rain fallin' would stop for a second.
it's too grey, kids.
there's plenty more life happening,
but i'm sitting the rest of today out.

i'm all about mushin' in my room;
never quiet, never soft.....

family day.

whoah.
i thought the Folk Life Fortress was a moving castle for a second.
huh?
no,
no earthquakes or tragedies of tectonic tremoring were influencing my confusion.
mostly, it was because of the howls.
howl's moving castle? y'know?
oh, c'mon.
howlin' wolves is more like it.
i've got a nephew named harlen.
that's like the deep-south-accented way of pronouncing howling.
umm, yeah.
it's a full moon,
and the cubs and i are all revved up and raring to rage.
the rain stopped.
ma nature wants us to burn a blazing barbarian bonfire, i guess.
that's cool with us.
***********
it's family day in the woodsly goodness.

that means muff's with blueberr's in 'em,
and with coconut/cinnamon/oatmeal/brown sugar streusel on top.
y'know,
so we've got nutrients to power-up our A*s for all the big fun.
...obviously.
canis lupus lupus.
the wolfen.
the woodsly goodness wouldn't have as much hot fire,
or loud thunder,
or fresh hardness for your face,
without the lunar influence of wolf-man warrior poetics.
and we've got the will,
and the wood,
and the matches,
to sing out our scalding skaldic stanzas all F*n' night.
that's right, mutha-b!tches.
it's werewolf family day.
fat moms and ugly kids had better be careful.
they're considered prey,
especially in the natural world.
we've got caves to explore, ninjas.
deep, steep steps,
big rocks,
and glacial action.
another family day,
another series of underground canyons.
we take it to eleven,
with just the four of us.
it's the last one, y'all.
the last day we're all together for a while.
school is starting,
weak-sauce connecticut is waiting,
and in the meantime,
while we've still got the strength and the will,
we're gonna live this last one.
so hard.
i'm grateful for the time i have been given.
i just wish there were more of it;
never quiet, never soft.....

monday, almost full moon, rain.

huh?
you're kidding.
...aren't you?
well, you should be.
it's the weekend for warrior woodsmen,
and it's a doo-doo buttery chocolate rain in the sky.
crap-ola.
our last two nights,
and all-together family day,
under the cover of clouds.
boooooooooooo.
***********
what's that smell?
i blame the cucch.
for what, you ask?
for that extra serving sitting in my fridge,
going bad,
after every single meal.
there's food a-wasting,
and it's all because my number one homeboy,
and notorious snacker/grazer/professional eater,
isn't here to pick up the slack.
i make so much food.
and before you even suggest it,
NO, i can't make any less.
what am i?
an A*-hole?
nope.
i'm a vegan gourmet making family dinnertime treats,
but with one less family mouth to feed.
and it sucks.
see a need, fill a need.
i need a wingman to munch up his share of the eats.
where you at?
***********
hey-o!
there's a whole holy heckuva lot of good times over here.
in the woods,
in the rain,
with my main ninjas,
and doo-doo-that duders.
tonight's the night,
just like every night.
return of the jedi?
yes.
indeed;
never quiet, never soft.....

ill-conceived and poorly executed.

VACATION!!!
the last dregs of summer are filtering in.
those few, proud epic A*-blasters who take their paid leave after everybody else.
post-season rates, y'all.
savin' bucks and not givin' 'ucks.
craaa-aaazy.
*
dear drunk guy with the sunburn-
you're right,
that's probably 150 proof chewing gum i smell on your breath,
and you're boiled lobster red because you're 1/800th cherokee.
my mistake.
of course i'll tattoo you.
and,
when you come back in to complain
about your melted-off scabby tattoo under the blistered skin lesions?
yeah, i know.
no one told you it was a bad idea to get tattooed,
and then rub your arm on a dead bird carcass down by the lake,
what with that flaking third-degree scalding cherry red leather hide you call your skin.
it probably wasn't even mentioned. at all.
i'm sure your hearing and judgement aren't impaired
by the seven simultaneous shots of strychnine
that you sucked down seconds before driving here.
(maybe one should've been a shot of penicillin, hmm?)
after all,
you're not drunk.
or belligerent.
or smelly.
or stupid.
right?
yeah.
so thank you,
inebriated plumber/vacationer/tattoo aftercare expert,
for letting me know what a failure i truly am,
for not having the good sense to listen to your inestimable insights,
and for brushing my teeth, washing my armpits, being literate, and using sunscreen.
if not for you,
i might have gone the rest of my life in ignorance.
nice.
***********
it's a sh!t-salad sunday of overcast weak sauce.
what makes a day go by slower,
whilst simultaneously always looking much later than it is?
gray skies.
what a psych out.
it looks like tonight all morning and all afternoon.
time doesn't span like it should without that glowing circle in the sky.
there is no such thing as a cloud-dial now, is there?
i'm just sayin'.
no rocks,
no soccer,
no fires.
we're gonna have to hope for stormswept thunder
and lightning-striking  berserker fury before the day is done.
*
anyways,
what do you duders know about THIS?
yeah.
fungi perfecti, b!tchbags...
crazy mushroom people.
crazy mushroom growers.
crazy mushroom internet customers.
i'm so into it.
we're cutting a couple of spruces down,
and we'll be inoculating both of 'em
with plug after plug of laetiporus conifericola.
that's evergreen-friendly chicken-of-the-woods.
i may even harsh up some old oak logs,
and grow a whole slew of shiitakes,
and maitakes,
and phoenix fir oysters like a regular crazy mushroom gourmet.
you like it.
we like it.
you will eat it.
with us.
it may be the end of summer,
but it is the beginning of worthy really real life.
every day.
especially today.
gray skies and all;
never quiet, never soft.....

s'turd'y.

^ no A*s, my ninjas.
...you get it.
it's that time of day again.
morning time.
y'know what other other time it is too?
oh yes it is:

panniecakes time.
that's a good time.
they're cakes that you don't bake.
and that's cakesmade out of dopeness.
...and if you don't like panniecakes?
F* you.
discs of delicious are what's for breakfast.
i need those flapjack frisbees to power-up.
there's a long, slow, strange day ahead of me,
tatblastin' clowns (the image not the client)
and some robert frost-type jauns, too.
maybe, it will be great.
regardless of the quotients of greatness quantity,
i will at least have all the energy i need.
why?
because of those mutha-flippin' griddle treats, y'all.
recognize.
panniecakes, pannicakes-baker-man!!
nutrients, for my face.
***********
hey, neighbors,
what do you know about books?
i know, i know, i KNOW.
books are for dorks.
and reading is for the queers...
but,
are these books for queer dorks?

no way.
c'mon.
these books are clearly the super-smartie, turbo-cool
monster manuals for woodsly goodsly warrior poetry.
...and i have 'em.
y'heard?
i did NOT take a photo of the half dozen fantasy novels
about dragons, dungeons, and dwarves that arrived in the mail.
now that'd be dorky.
-
so,
if you're visiting,
and you're also wondering about viking saxes
or plug spawn fungi,
or what type of weird mushroom is growing
all up on that tree stump in the woods out back,
i've got you covered.
you should schedule some time to hang out, strangers;
it's good for you up here.
that's the truth.
***********
it's s'turd'y.
most folks have the whole day to doo-doo what they want to.
but not us.
we're grindin' away.
workin' hard and hangin' tough.
as usual.
there's soccer playing on the schedule this evening.
bicycle kicks, duders.
that's somethin'.
savage stormswept raging gypsy physical exercises.
it's all really happening;
never quiet, never soft.....