there really is no choice.

if you love what you do,
you're very lucky.
neighbors,
i just do what i do.
it's not because of the joy it brings me,
or that it brings to others.
it's not for the respect or admiration or appreciation it inspires
on those occasions i'm not completely by myself.
it's not for the evolution of ideas,
or the satisfaction of seeing things to fruition.
i don't get a thrill from proving the hypothesis.
y'know?
i'm rarely surprised, and i'm even more rarely impressed.
no, duders,
it's not any of that.
i just do what i do.
even when i'd really rather not.
even when it's the last thing i'd like to get involved with.
i still just doo-doo that freaky sh!t.
it's never because i'd love to.....
...it's because i have to.
that's a thing.
listen, y'all-
it's the last day of july,
and i've sneaked in one last batch of expert treats.
it's NOT a labor of love, either.
it's a burdensome obligation.
battle-beast-mode in my brain means perseverating and persevering
through the impulse to get extra-makey,
long after the point has been made.
check the teleport:

one last double-dose of dozens of itty bitty baby bite tarts,
to send this month into history forever and ever.
cream-chee' pastry pockets,
with choco-coconut-cocoa creme,
and super smooth blops of brown and sugary chocolate frosting on top.
*
you guys think i'm psyched?
sure.
it's probably better to believe that's possible.
however, my really-realest peoples all know better.
in fact,
shawn and i commiserated on a synergistic summation
of my psyche's severe and savage situation.
he assessed it,
i put the shine to it-
it amounts to this:
when it comes to warrior poetry,
there is no passion, only compulsion.
we just be like we are,
and let the secret plans guide us to where we need to be.
as long as it's all always really happening,
then there is always a point.
this is what is;
never quiet, never soft.....

neapolitan.

tart tuesday was a success, as usual.
i repped those old time triple flavor cups of creme,
with two types of frosty icing and gooey glaze to help 'em out.
vanilla oh-snap cookie crusts,
because i've really figured out how to make 'em so expert.
and a classic italian pastry filling blopped down in the cavity.
and a squeezed-out swirl of custom cocoa chocolate-syrupy frosting.
and a slithery slathery slap of strawberry sauce.
that's that neapolitan blend,
and you know you remember that combo from the tub of ice cream
back in grandma's freezer.
i'm good for some retro reminiscence now and then.
anyway,
they're dope.
check the teleport:

c.v.s. tarts, neighbors.
right?
huh?
oh, c'mon.
chocolate vanilla and strawberry!
duh.
not like the consumer value stores.
ugh.
i can't hang out with that sh!t.
now,
i'm not saying that you shouldn't shop there,
i'm just saying that's what poor people do.
hahaha.
seriously, i laugh at that every single time.
but for serious,
these individual tarts are the best thing i've gotten myself into in a while.
which is exactly why i'm taking august off from tart tuesdays.
i wouldn't want to get trapped.
anybody remember the dolls?
hundreds of variations on one single theme.
i could've been doing other things, duders.
y'know?

i love making treats,
so i'm going to have to activate some new ideas.
any suggestions?
the new what's next is on it's way,
and i'm hoping you minky mutha-lickers have got something for me.
if not,
we may just end up surprised together!
real life is happening all over the place.
unfolding in an expanding spiral of perfect overlapped concentric circles;
never quiet, never soft.....

it's not always beautiful.

life can be amazing and ugly at the same time.
that's real.
i took monday night to activate the good time manly hang outs
that i perpetually enjoy with my main man todd.
that means dinner out on the town, teating ourselves to the best
that a tourist-trappin' downtown area in the mountains has to offer,
and then smoking stumps and eatin' treats with copious conversational
connoisseurship at the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
that's good times with good people,
and that's what's up.
but,
what about on a day off all alone,
with no plan of attack for interactive participation?
oh, MAN.
that's a whole different situation, for sure.
on the one hand, i could just waste the whole damn day,
and nobody would ever know.
except i would know,
and that's weak sauce waterbabyism.
i do not doo-doo that diapery lameness.
so instead i made myself another 'nother lonely sunovab!tchin' supper.
yeah.
i've got more stuff filling my fridge than i can feasibly feel good about
allowing to rot itself all away to waste,
and a big mouth that wants to be filled at all times-
preferably with kisses, or words, or hot fire, in that order of nutrient-rich
sustenance provision.
and failing to acquire those top three choices, i'll shovel in food instead.
awwwwww.
it seems as though the most likely candidate for my face-stuffing interface
these days is biting and chewing and swallowing...and wallowing.
surely, you see the way it's all really happening?
well,
at least i chose the wrench about it:

one bachelor bucket, with all the appropriate flair.
this is what it's like when you have no reason to be impressively fancy.
you go the opposite direction,
and be impressively gross.
that's is also a thing.
ugh,
a greasy bowl of dumps.
how F*ing nasty does that sound.
hahaha.
and a couple of plastic vats of sauce,
and a healthy dose of resigned self-loathing.
yup.
a filthy twenty one dump salute, straight down the tubes.
and when i say tubes, i mean, esophagus, obviously.
neighbors,
they were so sesame oily they just slid their way into my guts.
where they sat through 'the conjuring' with me last night.
my good buddy amber and i both hate scary movies.
the obvious wrench choosing solution?
uh-huh.
because when you've already got a haunted house,
why not take your supernatural anxiety to eleven?
right?
providing all sorts of scenes to fill my brains with probable and/or
eventual outcomes that my own edifice will attempt to oust me with!
yeah.
because what's the best thing to see before going back to your empty,
poorly lit, creaky, old, already-unsettlingly spooky house?
is it a demon PUKING BLOOD INTO YOUR MOUTH?
i hope that's the right answer, because that's what i saw.
cigars, cars, dumps, demons.....
it isn't all always the most beautiful,
but it is always the most;
never quiet, never soft.....

motivators.

so,
today is actually tart tuesday,
AND national cheesecake day.
that's real.
looks like there will be a whole lot of bakery-type activation today.
i mean,
it is two kinds of a thing, after all.
and honestly,
after a brutal week or barbaric battle-beasting through sleepless nights
and harder styles than normal with worse workplace work pace than usual
and nothing but on-point non-stop warrior poetic comedic tragedy as my
soliloquy's sole source of subject matter,
i'm looking forward to putting on my apron and getting really F*ing busy
with my cookie crumbs and pastry cremes and red-hot oven sh!t.
i need it.
freestyle creative participation in sugary savant format?
yeah.
the routine i rep is one of immediate action and few rewards.
why?
because i have to.
neighbors, i'm just sayin'-
rules is rules.
*
actually,
while i was not sleeping all week,
my head got a little clouded over with a temporal haze.
time stops mattering when light and dark are composed of exactly the same
acts and instances over and over and over and over.
it gets a little confused in my head after a few days of being awake.
shawn and amy came up from massachussetts for a sleepover party.
yeah, shawn, from minneapolis.
yeah, i thought it was next week.
yeah, his early morning message surprised me,
since it was presumably seven days early.
i could've let that week-early impromptu misdirected misconception derail me.
i could've let them pick up some groceries on their way up.
i could've just gone out to eat.
i could've done a whole lot of things.
and maybe i even should've,
but i didn't because that's what poor people do.
hahahaha.
i'm up-here rich in the first place,
and in the second,
i cannot ever let that weak sauce water down the funtimes i span.
like, at all.
y'know why?
because i go to eleven.
c'mon.
don't be dumb.
grocery shopping at 8:30 in the morning?
yuuuuuup.
prepping dinner at 9:30 a.m.?
yeah!
ripping into the cooking, immediatley upon arriving home at 7 p.m.?
F*ing right, y'all.
and still not eating until 9 at night?
sixty dumplings and two sauces doesn't afford us instant gratification,
but it does give us a trough of flavor grenades for our faces!!!
pre-game teleport:

we do what we do because that's all there is.
conversation and cuisine and Folk Life & Liberty in the Fortress.
that's what i love the most.
well,
that and a couple fancy oatmeal waffles first thing in the morning.
indeed.
gratitude and generosity are the hallmarks of a good host,
and waking up to the wafting aroma of waffles is a good place to start.
i doo-doo that extra little somethin'-type sh!t.
i really appreciate the people who overlap all along and inside
the circles of spirit and memory with me,
helping hollow holes become whole.
thanks.
i mean it.
yeah,
it's all really happening,
but without all of y'all, it doesn't mean anything;
never quiet, never soft.....

national cheesecake day is the 30th.

yeah.
that's a thing.
but who's waiting that long?
not me,
because today is the day, duders.
and when it's a thing, 
and it's on the day that is the day of the thing?
c'mon.
the woodsly goodsly folks in this Folk life & Liberty Fortress-
which is to say: me-
get started on celebrating that sh!t with loud fresh hardness for your face!
yuuuuuuup.
i'm all alone, just like always,
and i'm getting busy getting expert in the poet's corner of my kitchen.
wordimus prime, princess-
i don't sleep anymore, again,
so while i'm riding this tidal wave of wide awakefulness,
i may as well put all this eye-opened lack of rest to use.
and today that means cheesecake.
i know, right?
it's still not cheese nor cake, but it is also still really happening.
so i guess we just have to see where the rest of these restless hours take us.
no?
oh.
yeah.
strawberry nouveau no-recipe no-bake indie insides for this one.
for realsies.
i chopped the heck out of some late-season strawberries,
and sauteed them in agave syrup and some essential oils,
and slid 'em inside the creamiest multi-starch thickened chee'
my imagination could conjure up.
i think it might be dope.
actually, neighbors, i never ever even wondered where it was headed.
i've got that savant-style fuego-infused regurgitating hottness
from right out of my toothy hands and i'm turning it into toothsome treats.
that's what i do, after all.
check the teleport:

that's it!
i like it. you love it. we all need it in our mouths.
bullsh!t holidays are invited to the party,
as long as they bring the dedicated dopeness of a site-specific situation
to the recesses and buttresses and princess dresses of these lonely mountains.
y'know?
uh-huh.
give me a good reason, a bad reason, a suggestion, whatever,
and i'm bringing some sort of intentional activation to bear on
the here and the now and probably even the later on.
***********
three days.
precisely.
that's how many dreamless, slumberless, lumbering rotations it takes.
no jokes.
then,
my warrior spirit and my accursed battle-beastly werewolf muscle memory
take over the controls on my stumbling skeleton and sunken sockets.
yeah.
today is also that day.
i've got the doo-doo butteriest tattbombs to suffer through,
and i've got the emptiest refrigerator i've had in years to sift through,
and the perpetual vacancy of an unmade bed to not-sleep in afterwards.
today, though, despite the chee'cake,
and disregarding the weak sauce of waterbabyish worktimes,
is still gonna be one raging berserker stormswept savage gypsy melee.
i'm drinking ALL the caffeine.
uh-huh.
my delicately calibrated defenses,
my finely-tuned bodily functions,
my sensitive instrumental calculations,
and my ability to take it sort of easy,
are going to be blown apart on purpose.
i'm drinking a giant vat of wrench-juice, kids.
hmm?
well, yes, it's going to be a spectacle-
but the terrible terrorism i talk out of my mouth
won't really be much different than usual...
but it's sure to start a spewing maelstrom of spit and piss and vinegar-
and it will all assuredly be coming out far faster,
a supercharged motormouthed auctioneer's prattle of prose and poetry,
true stories told in filibustery bluster-
with fewer pauses for breath between bellows and berations,
and with no regard whatsoever for the conventional filters of civil conversation.
i'm taking competent communication,
superheating it in the enamel-ringed crucible i call a mouth,
and converting it into calamitous caterwauling.
there will be hard styles aplenty for all whom i encounter.
real life is taking a turn around the smoke rings of infinity today,
and refreshments will be served immediately after the festivities;
never quiet, never soft.....

wrenching.

sleeping on the floor,
curled up in a little teeny tiny ball for warmth,
while the surprise temperature drop makes
normal people put on socks and get under the covers?
that's right, neighbors.
i doo-doo that colder and harder style floor sleepin' sh!t.
yeah.
now,
i could have easily gotten into a bed.
i could've closed a window, even.
i could've gotten a pillow, at the very least.
but that's not really how it goes, y'know?
c'mon. you do know.
once the decision to have a bad time is made,
no half-measure of compromise is ever gonna work.
so instead,
i shivered my way to morning,
with about four winks worth of unawake and unaware time-
uh-huh.
that's a decimated dose of rest.
you can guess what type of morning this is, right?
wrong!
there's no such thing as waking up on the wrong side of the floor.
all sides of the bottom of the room are the correct side.
it was hard?
it's supposed to be.
it was uncomfortable?
yep. mission accomplished.
it was terrible?
yes. it was terrible.
and that was exactly what i was going for:
by comparison,
everything that happens today will be either less sh!tty,
or failing that,
will seem like more of a victory based on my introductory awakening.
if it's bad, it's better than not-sleeping on the floor.
if it's good, it's because not-sleeping on the floor couldn't hinder me.
smart.
if only i could stop yawning-
i think i look pretty bored as it is,
in-your-face-yawning isn't going to make the people i meet today
feel any more interesting, that's for sure.
purple circles where my eye sockets are?
yeah.
drawn skin and wan complexion?
yeah.
bad hair and worse face?
hell yeah.
today is another day,
another chance,
another inescapable unavoidable opportunity
to stay ugly,
and hopefully also stay dope.
that's the best i've got for y'all on two days without sleep.
it's all really happening, in a fugue state,
on the floor, in a fetal foldover, shivering.
you know you like it;
never quiet, never soft.....

the hardest.

goddammit.
one last overcast breakfast with maple and harvest.
this is it for a bit-
and what's next is no flippin' prize.
i'm sayin'....
the drive to weak-sauce waterbaby 'assachussetts
is never ever any kind of looked-forward-to event.
and that's no jokes.
a whole dang day spent driving to a bad place to have a bad time?
yeah...that is a real lame situation.
but,
i guess that's what a week and more of worthy woodsly
goodsly family togetherness and active participation costs.
thing is,
that's not even the hardest part.
heck,
even the actual farewell isn't as bad as it might seem.
no way-
it's the before-we-leave times that REALLY eat sh!t.
because we all know the big fun and good feelings
are over and done with already until next time;
and there's just us, sitting here packed up and
waiting out the clock until we drive away from
the Folk life & Liberty Fortress to southerly climes
and harder, emptier, lonelier scenarios.
oh, wait.
the kids are actually headed to a brand new home,
and a whole new other family time back in the diaperbabyism
of their really real life in the heart of connecticut.
my mistake.
i'll be the only one headed home to the empty expanses
and hollow rooms of my up-here hermitage, alone and in the dark.
awwwwwwwwwwwwww.
that's one more hard style, for sure.
i have those.
neighbors,
i'm just saying that i hate goodbyes.
the cucch left under cover of clouds and sleepy eyes
before we even woke up.
for realsies,
the count started at minus one before Tea'N'Toast?
yikes.
i'm hemorrhaging peoples!
lucky for us,
what i lack in optimistic outlooks,
i more than make up for in tarts.
hahahaha.
i'm for serious, y'all.
check the sexy laced lattice of a blueberry-glazed-type teleport:

yuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
i've got those pastry creme jauns going to eleven.
that's a thing.
don't worry, duders-
it's really F*ing good.
like,
i outdid myself in expert tart activation, for sure.
i'll fill my guts with sugar and spice and everything nice.
there's always something to keep the pace for forward progress,
y'know?
we had our fun,
and now it's done.
there's probably going to be a next time,
but the rest of this time is a long road to nowhere good.
i suppose i'm always ready to pay my fair share of the tab.
it all costs something, kids.
and it's usually worth it;
never quiet, never soft.....

last days.

tart tuesday.
still going strong.
it's blueberry season in the woodsly goodness,
and to celebrate,
we're using nature's bounteous treats while the getting is good.
yeah.
neighbors,
i even got to use my tart shaper with expert efficacy.
check the teleport:

c'mon, duders.
we doo-doo that family-style kitchen collective hottness jauns.
me and harvest and maple and the cucch know what's up.
up like what?
really?
ok.
umm,
how about cream chee' puff pastry in teensy-weentsy tiny mini cup size?
yuuuuuuuup.
blueberry compote with crazy saucy soft purple magic?
hell yes.
blueberry frosting, extra butteryish and swirly?
F*ing right.
tart tuesdays have been a blast, kids-
but there may be a tuesday bakery switch-up starting in august.
i mean,
there's still another week's tart activation,
so don't shed a salt tear just yet.
***********
it's our last night together as a team for a while.
awwwwwww.
we're a helluva crew, too.
worthy warrior poets one and all.
plus,
the whole team spanned this most recent full-style moon,
waxed and stacked and attacked with lunatic rays from space
and all kinds of savage stormswept battle-beastly berserker fury.
yep.
we are one well-oiled wolfpack of active participants.
it's always a hard style lasting one last evening,
knowing that we're out of time, and headed towards weaker sauces
and waterbabyish-er places tomorrow.
real life unfolds, y'all.
like it or not and ready or not and willing or not.
it's all really happening.
i'm grateful for the time i have been given,
every moment has been worth a damn,
every minute has been what i needed,
every day was a little less awful than the one before it.
of course,
tomorrow night,
i'm all by my lonely all over again,
but hard times and long nights go together like tarts and tuesdays.
unfolding secret universal origami blueprints?
indeed;
never quiet, never soft.....

starting it off.

french toast-style panniecakes?
cinnamon, brown sugar, almonds, and coconut,
all inside a circled disc of butteryish fried breadcake?
uh-huh.
i mean,
how else would we start a totally expert day?
c'mon.
check the stack-'em-up-type teleport:

delicious is an understatement.
thing is,
they made the vegan fluffy pancakes at the seward cafe 
actually seem legitimately fluffy by comparison...
...and that's saying somethin'.
huh?
oh, well,
obviously it's because they're more like vegan dense bombers.
duh.
and these thickness-inducing gutbusters took that style to eleven.
lead weights in our bellyholes, to anchor us firmly,
and keep us from floating away into the firmament.
yeah.
heavy duty doo-doo.
it's good for us
*
the puppet barn and museum is as dope as ever, kids.
that's so a thing.
it's constantly evolving and being refined, reworked,
moved around and activated.
i love that.
and there are always so many things to look at.
even on the ceiling:

ghosts?
i dunno.
what about hands?
oh, yeah, y'all-
they GOT they.
teleport:

all kinds and colors and sizes,
but no teeth in any of 'em though.
awwwwww.
*
bread?
yuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
it's the last thing they give you,
but it's the first part of the name.
they're called Bread & Puppet, neighbors,
not Puppet & Bread.
the clay ovens, though?
yeah.
hottness in sand and stone-
all simplicity and primitive action in one place,
are impressive because they do not give any F*s.
check the cracked and smoke-scarred-type teleport:

holding it shut with weird wood to trap the heat and bake the wheat?
yeah.
these hippies know how to live according to vermont dogma.
use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.
that's it.
good times and good people,
good feelings and good bread.
there are a few kinds of times really worth having,
and this was one of them;
never quiet, never soft.....

indeed.

duders,
check the Bread & Puppet teleport:

yeah!!
ma nature being dope is what we witnessed.
uh huh.
perfect weather after a perfect drive with perfect people to a perfect place.
neighbors,
the fiftieth anniversary of all of that good vermonty puppet-style togetherness
was in full swing and in F*ing full effect for the full duration of our stay
in the natural amphitheater and farm-type hottness of the glover homestead.
so good.
sooooo good.
i mean it:

c'mon,
the total this and that circus.
total this. total that. total circus. totally expert.
me and my peoples tailgating in a field,
basking in the sunlight,
eating snacks an' that?
yup.
we doo-doo that not-actually-hippies-type sh!t.

word.
some days are better than others.
it just works out that way.
yesterday, in that place, was one of the best ones.
family togetherness, best friendliness, bread, puppets, nature.....
much needed and well deserved are what i'd call it.
that's right.
i am grateful for the times i get with the ones i want.
especially the good times with the right ones.
***********
vermont is it's own thing.
a place like nowhere else, full of well-intentioned individuals
all working together to produce a thing that makes sense.
it's good.
i need that piece of peace in my life, y'know?
it's true.
because the other other parts all stay the same, y'all.
huh?
which parts?
the really real life bits.

ain't that the truth?
hard styles can resume today, and i'm fine with it.
we all already know that without the bitter the sweet is just not as sweet.
so i'm ready to resume the regularly scheduled war within myself,
after a respite of peaceful protest and garlic'd up rye bread.
yeah;
never quiet, never soft.....

'boli.

making fancy stuffed bread?
c'mon.
that's a thing
i mean,
i've got today off.
yeah. that's right.
i do.
a sunday in the summertimes and i'm not working.
that means getting expert is a mandatory action.
there is only ever more activation and participation,
not that it's ever all that easy;
no matter how easy i make it look-
just sayin'...
did i end up staying at work late to do a few extra tattbombs?
of course i did.
did that mean that i was even later going to the grocery store?
uh-huh.
and therefore even later still to preheat ovens and chop up vegetables?
you know it.
my peoples were here,
waiting patiently, and in some cases, sleeping fitfully.
what?
oh yes, y'all-
elsah and baby van took harvest and maple swimming
and boat-riding all dang day long.
all while i zip-zapped crap on the minkiest muthas that a sh!t-salad-style
saturday could summon from the sloppy swamps and bogs and
far flung reaches of the outskirts and borderlands of civilization.
ugh.
and the cucch came up to suffer from heatstroke in a sweatshirt,
cold-chillin' and shaking and soaking on the sofa.
(he was here, yes, but he missed dinner completely)
that's real.
and on top of that, dinner was taking for-flipping-ever to make,
but,
eventually,
even with sweaty and hungry homegirls, and a squinky squealing young man,
and a sleepy bestest friend, and a mom getting stressed out a little bitty bit,
it all worked out the way it was supposed to.
neighbors,
check the stromboli-style teleport:

yum4tum.
those're eleven-inch long pouches of pure hottness.
wordimus prime.
broccoli and caramelized sweet onions and bacony-type pinkish bits,
and blobs and globs of fake chee and nootch and all that sh!t.
dinner didn't happen until well after dark,
but we all joined forces to forge a path towards breaking bread and being a team
and experiencing family togetherness and overcoming the high heat and extra
flame-broiled brutality that a 425degree oven adds to the mix.
yuuuup.
we doo-doo those commitment and follow-through-type jauns when we can.
and i think we always can.
i said we'd have dope dinner,
and despite the inconveniences that really real life provided to prevent it,
we muscled through and found our feast waiting on the other side.
today is the day, duders.
i think it always is.
we DO get a choice, after all:
just be dope, or F* right off.
really,
that's a pretty easy one to decide.
*
glover, vermont is calling to us.
the northeast kingdom is beconing us with painted buses and barns.
yeah. that's right.
the hippies and the sourdough rye and the garlic aioli and the armpits.
all of it.
bread & puppet theater time is happening.
today, friends, is all there is.
more of the other other parts resume tomorrow.
and we'll burn that bridge when we get to it.
today is the one where we participate in something better;
never quiet, never soft.....

N.G.F.L.

duders,
it's been a boiling-point type of week.
yeah.
i've lost my cool, gotten hot under the collar, roasted in the heat,
burnt in the sun, boiled in the humidity, fried on the hot pavement,
seen red, redlined, and red-alerted......
but somehow never got the hottness to happen.
yelling, and sweating, and blowing fuses inside my haywired brain
are all great ways to ruin a perfectly salty summer cellar dweller's
haunted homesteading with harvest and maple.
y'know?
nobody likes an irritable and irascible rascally rapscallion....
do they?
well, i'm sure some people might.
just nobody i know.
awwwwwwwwwwww.
we slept in the living room.
the sunless shelter shielded from the day's rays of irradiated heat and light,
under the expansive eaves and sprawling trees that keep the great hall
of this Folk Life & Liberty Fortress from the prying eyes and rising mercury
of these werewolfen hell-furnace times and places in the woodsly goodness.
ugh.
that is no joke.
the supersummer wolfman flame job we're reppin' isn't making much easier
in terms of active participation and pack-mentality functions.
sure,
we've been outside in the gardens watching nature win,
but we've also been shedding clothes and manners and civility,
letting infinite nature win even harder and louder and hotter and sweatier than ever,
yuuuuuuuuup.
sleeping on the floor, on a questionably scented rug?
not expert.
i think olive the dog may have marked her territory for future reference
when she made her final lap through the lair she called home for so long.
great.
sorta peepee rug times, on a furrowed fir-planked floor?
i gave the kids the futons, y'all.
and chose the wrench.
i mean, c'mon...
what am i?
an A*-hole?
no way.
savage and stormswept i may be,
but fun vacation dad i remain as well.
i do what needs doing, and i deal with the sh!t-salad that entails.
***********
y'know somethin' kids?
these hard styles are getting to me.
i mean,
i fertilized it, and i pruned it, and i watered it,
and i rotated it in the sunlight, and i cared for it, and i nurtured it.
that's right neighbors.
huh?
oh!
...no,
i'm talking about my peach tree.
yeah.
she had two beautiful peaches on her boughs.
two succulent, juicy, perfect ripening fruits.
i was so looking forward to that rich reward-type jauns.
you know what that means don't you?
uh-huh.
check the teleport:

ugh.
real life prevails.
every day is the worst day, duders.
that's the way it goes.
all that good intention and concentrated effort to grow something good,
and in the blink of an eye, and a climbing thermometer,
they went from almost ready to totally rotten.
a bruised and busted brown-spot blarp, with a green-slimed pit.
is that or is that not an allegory for everything?
all the times, y'all.
before i even see it happening, it's too late.
the tipping point is forever parallel to my peripherals-
blindsides, i guess, are the sides i take in every situation.
it's all really happening,
off-camera and out of frame.
nature wins, folks;
never quiet, never soft.....

giant robots.

so,
there are savage stormswept lightning explosions,
and there are raging berserker barbarian gale-force thunderstorms,
and sometimes,
if you're really lucky,
there are both at the same time.
hundred degree days lend themselves to the static-activating
supercharged downpours that result in deluge-type calamities.
last night was one of those times.
hours of lightning and winds and rumbles and roars from the west?
yup.
a perfect accompaniment to pacific rim at the theater.
after watching huge bobotrons kick hybrid alien destroyer beasts in the butt,
walking outside to the end of the world is pretty much expert.
that's real.
the only downside to the epic rainfall and sky-'sploding storm attacks?
it stayed thirty hundred thousand degrees outside.
for realsies.
and extended periods of sweaty sticky sh!t-salad suckiness
on my skin and bones and mood has fried my brain right up.
scrambled synapses have allowed a whole lot of blurred boundaries
between berserker barbarian and fun vacation dad.
ugh.
the ornery obdurate old-time hard style albie rock fury and ferocity
are at the forefront.
some sort of muscle memory or hot fire heat-rising pyrolytic reveal?
i dunno.
but what i worry about is the temper-tantrum throwing terrorist that
i've kept buried for some time now digging his way out of my subconscious.
i can feel it, neighbors.
and i think it's contagious,
or it's a matter of genetic memory,
because we three warrior poets are composing battle hymns together,
against each other,
to the detriment of good times and cooler heads and reasonable temperatures.
that's a thing.
check the teleport:

uhhhhh.
there is only discontent.
we are all angry, and hungry, and overheated.
that's what's happening.
it can't all always be big fun,
but it can all always go to eleven;
never quiet, never soft,.....

tarts keep coming.

peach melba.
believe it.
vanilla creme,
in the official formalized format of vegan cream chee',
with two kinds of sugar;
one caramelized, one powdered;
and a splash of vanilla-style soymilk;
and vanilla extractions by the teaspoonful,
with a little re-thickener added to it,
for a whipped wonderful texture and flavor for all our faces.
yeah.
i doo-doo that unsimplified overcomplication-type sh!t.
-
duders,
what's up with peaches?
i mean, sure, they're wet and fuzzy...
...and that's pretty much always dope.
but peeled and pitted and put in a pot,
to make a syrupy jammie-jam jamboree of juicy fruity hottness?
yes, neighbors,
that takes their infinite nature up a notch.
eleven is as eleven does.
too much makes it just right after all.
and with the newly-perfected pinch-pot pastry-makey packing
of cookie crumbs into muffin pans for ideal cups
of terrifyingly tartsy terrificness holding it down and filling it up?
yep.
but,
what could activate the whole thing just a little teeny tiny baby bit more?
how about homemade raspberry fruit blops on top,
between the creme and the peach and the cookie?
yuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
that's what peach melba is!
vanilla and peach and raspberry.
check the melba-is-a-funny-name-type teleport:

indeed.
i get busy up in this b!tch, kids.
Folk Life & Liberty knows no bounds,
and i'm just the type of fella who'll turn on the oven in ninety-nine degree heat.
hottness doesn't worry about hot weather and sweltering soaring temperatures.
it's not about being comfortable, ever.
it's only always about getting expert.
that's no jokes.
there is a purpose to all this treating.
entreaty, maybe?
a plea to the secret universal plan to give renewed purpose to my sweetness?
i've got sugar aplenty, like, for everyone....
...and no one.
awwwwwwwwwww.
hard styles abound, and hard times, too.
the heat may be affecting my lucidity,
and the humidity is adversely affecting my verses,
making it seem misspoken and broken,
words versus deeds  in an averse and subversive series
of adversarial advances chock full of missteps.
damn.
at least there will tarts at the end of the day.
bright spots appear in the darkest skies;
never quiet, never soft.....

empty nest, full house.

duders,
the mama robin made the big push yesterday.
yeah.
those greedy, hungry, chirping babies had too many feathers
and too big of an appetite,
so they had to get the F* out of the nest.
there's no such thing as free lunches forever.
to their mama's credit,
she lured them each, in turn,
with the promise of some pretty gross broken bug bits.
that's real.
the last reluctant hungry one hung out and held on for a good long while.
i know the feeling.
he kept staring at me like i was supposed to puke up a worm into his beak.
gross.
i mean it, though-
he really was just waiting for someone else to do all the work.
and that's not a sentiment we take kindly to in the woodsly goodness.
save that sh!t-salad for the city birds.
i'm not saying i can't understand the appeal-
why would he want to be by himself when having someone taking care
feels so darn good?
but waiting is just not gonna cut it in this instance, is it?
uh-uh...
he needed to activate those wings and let his natural and innate instincts
take him up and over to bigger and better places.
activation implies being active.
check the teleport:

awwwwwwwwwwww.
i don't even get it.
and yet,
my comings and goings, all loud and hard,
fresh from out of the gates of the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress
must've been more than his starving bellyhole could handle,
because he blasted past me and never once looked back.
expert.
nature wins and life expands.
***********
luckily,
despite the big exodus of life outside the house,
my two most favoritest preteen girls in the whole wide world
are keeping it molto real on the inside.
believe it-
within the sweaty humid seething rooms of this hot home,
harvest and maple are giving their very best effort
towards having the very best time.
family togetherness with my kids is like getting all the nutrients at once.
real talk.
these smaller upgraded and improved versions of warrior poet-type
spirit and memory are the kinds of kids i wish i'd been when i was their age.
that's not a statement to be taken lightly, either.
they're great,
beyond what i was ever even capable of at their age.
some things just evolve because they see a void and they fill it.
i needed some peoples to populate this place,
and to be some kind of understanding and amazing give-and-takers.
i GOT they.
and i take comfort in that.
*
i also take comfort in treats.
oh, c'mon.
deluxe rock bloxxx for everybody.
prepare your faces for drool and jaw drops.
view it all now via extra-delicious-type teleport:

that's right.
i figured a little fancy business was in order.
the famous recipe, original-style,
but dipped halfway in a double chocolate bath, that's dark choc',
and cocoa, with a few extra emulsifiers added in to keep it smooth and sexy.
and then those half-naked half-glazed goodies
get hit with those toasted coconut sprankles.
expert recognize expert, neighbors.
*
we're doing it.
a whole other 'nother day off is in effect.
anything could happen.
and it probably will.
there are three of us.
together.
a magic number exponentially more magnificent than the individual pieces.
lucky us, huh?
just sayin',
if you don't like synergy,
you've got less sense that that lazy robin-
because eventually, nature wins....
so pick the side that claims inevitable victory;
never quiet, never soft.....

the king beyond the wall.

guess who is coming up north?
yeah.
good guess.
today is the day, neighbors.
the day when me and mine get together to get it together all over again.
harvest and maple both, all at once,
occupying the same spaces in the wide open woodsly goodness,
inhabiting the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
spanning time, spelling trouble, spilling secrets,
and enjoying family togetherness and fun vacation scenarios,
all with that spirit of active participation poppin' off
for all the ensuing minutes and moments of the next few weeks.
ahhhhhh.
that's the way summer is s'posed to be.
...and it's gonna be like that-
because we do what we do in the mountains and forests of this fair vale.
uh-huh.
i have great expectations and even higher hopes
that i'll be seeing most of you guys at some point during their visit, too.
no jokes,
i want all the overlapping circles of spirit and memory
to fold in on each other like a rosette window of activated light and color.
a kaleidoscope of interwoven expertism;
women and children and warriors and poets,
fragments and fractals of muse-infused magic and mayhem.
everybody shows up, everybody gets to be a part of all of it.
and it's all really happening.
that's it.
where are all y'all at?
my family.
my friends.
my peoples.
there will be too much food, too many treats, more fun, all of it.
longest nights, earliest mornings, hardest styles,
and it will all of it, each and every piece, every single time,
go all the way to eleven, no less, not even once.
*
no pictures in this one.
awwwwwwwww.
there are just all these words.
bummer, huh?
get used to disappointment.
but don't get discouraged and give up.
ever.
reading is good for you sometimes;
and there are rock bloxxx in the oven for later;
and tarts on the slate for our homecoming.
we'll return and we'll get crackin'.
time is never wasted when you're doing it right.
this time right here is what i want;
never quiet, never soft.....

championship foodstuffs.

i would've guessed that a big and hearty
and totally expert breakfast would've been the correct
and most situationally-appropriate cooked-up thing i could do
to activate the most important meal of the day.
y'know,
like getting off on the right foot,
powering up and feeding all the innermost corners of cause-and-effect
with wheat and oats and fruit and nuts and all the good things,
for a day of properly fueled elite super hottness an' that.
uh-huh.
check the four-kinds-of-panniecake teleport:

yeah!!
a staggering and staggered stack of flapjack-of-all styles for your face.
what sort of treats are those flatcakes impregnated with?
hey-O!
how about cinnamon brown sugar breakfast?
yup.
coconut almond?
obviously.
chocolate chip?
classics never go out of style.
french caramel?
c'mon.
and then to make sure to take it to eleven and beyond-
fresh blueberry-raspberry fruit top blops,
and real maple syrup,
and a dusting of gut-busting powdered sugar,
and a  doo-doo swirly of whipped-style 'cream'??
duders,
i made fancy breakfast,
and i ate it all up,
and i even had company.
hmm?
yeah.
a real live young lady.
young being the adjective most applicable.
what?
no.
it was not in any kind of a weird way.
don't be like that, neighbors.
an audience is what i am always seeking out.
i mean it.
cooking for just myself because i deserve it is rarely a good enough reason
to activate the early morning pannieman magic.
pancake flippin' is reserved for a shared table experience.
it's the company that keeps me sharp.
storytelling and sauce-simmering and hot griddling.
i do what i do in order to maintain a perfect score on
the warrior poetry scale of activities and participation.
that's definitely a thing.
***********
there's deep moss here.
in the shady glades of the woodsly goodness,
in the shadows of the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
a springy, spongy, soft bed of green and gold.
i'm smothering myself in the depths.
i'm sinking into the soil.
i'm ready to sleep and creep and burrow and build barrows
and come back in eleven or so years from now.
cicada life.
stay ugly, stay dope
no matter how long, or how hard, or how dark it gets.
eventually there's flying and F*ing and dying.
all in short order and close proximity.
i can accept those terms;
never quiet, never soft.....

worsties.

ugh.
i'll tell you something-
i'm hanging out with my own worst enemy tonight.
yeah.
big surprise.
another 'nother saturday night spanned across the dark spots.
another 'nother weekend evening full of introspection.
i'd almost rather look in a mirror instead of inside myself.
y'know?
oh, stop it.
i said almost.
no sense in getting into a staring contest with a set of honeyed
soulless puppy-dogged medusa see-balls.
hard styles and hermit hideouts are how i'm holding it down.
the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress is where it all really happens.
all of it.
i talk to my plants.
yeah.
it supposedly helps them grow.
that's not why i do it.
i talk to the ghost who haunts my house.
it supposedly keeps them restful.
that's not why i do it.
i write these real life documents of true life for you guys.
it supposedly chronicles the saga of a skald in the north.
really,
i do it for the same reason i do the other stuff.
i pretty much just pretend we're having a conversation,
because talking to myself, and replying to myself,
would be totally crazy.
y'know?
right,
i thought so too.
*
have y'all ever heard of a tart crust tamper?!
no sh!t.
i hadn't either.
apparently, though, it's a thing.
and a friend of mine named jessica had an extra one just for me!
huh?
oh, no, not that jessica.
anyway,
it looks like a very light wooden dumbell designed especially
for very weak, very tiny people.
...but it's not.
teleport:

see?
you take your crusts, and one of those cute little mini muffin pans,
and you smash the ends onto the dough and into the cups and
then bask in the perfection of a confectionary gadget and it's results.
-
sorry,
but i'm sort of just phoning it in tonight, neighbors.
there's just so much not happening,
in so many different ways,
in every empty room,
with nobody around,
and i don't want to miss it;
never quiet, never soft.....

waste basket.

simple version:
i don't care about dinner when i'm not in a good mood,
but i'll cook anyway because i force myself to do 
things i don't want to every single day.
-
warrior poet version:
sometimes, friends,
you've just got to get into the spirit of the thing.
sort of an aggressive resignation to the reality of events.
how many nights do you not eat dinner because you don't feel like cooking?
really?
well,
i apparently can't hang out with doing less than i usually do-
after just one skipped dinnertime meal, i was back in the kitchen again.
ugh.
neighbors,
i had all the pans going at once.
why?
because i meet or exceed expectations.
yeah.
it's a holdover habit from forever feeling flawed and at fault, y'know?
i know you know....
overdoing it is the only way.
sure,
i could just defrost some sh!t and keep it simple.
i mean, i would if i was a total A*-hole.
c'mon.
no way.
once i'm committed to a cause,
it has to go to eleven.
that's the inescapable outcome of my invested time and energy.
the object is always MORE.
that said,
the dough was kneaded and rose on up;
the spices were blended together and mixed in with a corn meal breading;
the spinach and the arugala were sauteed;
the onions and basil and tomato were all sliced and spread;
the lettuce rested on the grilled homemade homestyle sexy bread,
and the tofu was dredged and fried and flipped back and forth.
that's about as simple as i'll allow,
regardless of how not feeling it i may be.
rules are rules after all.
check the long-way-to-go-type teleport:

yuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
all that effort for a few gigantic sandwiches i folded in half
and force-fed myself to spite my diminished appetite.

that's a thing.

my work is personal, i'm a working person, 

i put in work, i work with purpose.

yeah.

everything is the same as that sandwich, really.

holy sh!t-tons of effort and intention to create something superlatively beautiful

but equally unnecessary.

there is a way of doing things that gives life to the principles therein.

it applies to all the things at all the times and it defines worthiness

and qualifies as responsible adulthood.

doing what needs to be done, 

above and beyond the bare minimums,

like it or not, 

ready and willing, or not, 

every single time.

we do what we do, or we just aren't any good anymore.

***********

duders,

i'm not a flatterer.

no jokes.

-

i don't see any need to fabricate false feeling for anyone or anything.

my motives are outright and upright at the forefront 

of my embroidered heartstrings.

you know the ones-

the silver threads that sew my beating breaking pulse-pounding heart

onto my sleeve.

uh-huh. my heartstrings. my heart. my sleeve. 

that's what it is, and where i wear it, and how it's held in place.

'most men live lives of quiet desperation

and go to the grave with the song still in them'

thoreau knew it. you know it. we all know it.

there's just no way to put the perfectly pitched and well-honed harmony

of an in-tune and attuned tempo to the tempest of a savage stormswept 

sonnet of want and need and open-armed honesty.

it's impossible to correct cacophony without calamity.

pulling on those dissonant harpists chords around my fist-sized fossil-fueled 

blood furnace would only loosen it's bindings and let it fall.

if this is my song, it is not a good song.

a duet, perhaps, sung alone?

orchestrated with an open mouth and a wide open wound 

in the muscle and meat of an off-timed/ill-timed organ. 

out of tune and out of time, 

but with a whole long life still laying ahead.

damn.

that's actually maybe a little tiny bit sad. 

of course, 

i give off-key voice to the desperate and despairing locks and chains 

of this woodsly goodsly world i exist in.

i am a truth teller,

and we live lives of loud, fresh and hard desperation.

hearts, friends.

strings, sleeves, beats, aches, attacks, breaks......

it's all really happening,

and none of it is ever for no reason.

i am grateful for the time i have been given, however.

a better fate than death awaits us anywhere;

never quiet, never soft.....

cicada.

rain all throughout the entire day?
oh, yes, please.
what better way to span a day off than under the eaves
and awnings of the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress?
i mean,
there's no place better suited to my being moody brooding.
and with the added bonuses of humidity and darkness,
it really becomes a solemn and somber sort of place.
yeah.
for as open and empty as it is,
it's awfully heavy in here.
and it's close, the air and the walls both,
that's for realsies.
-
despite the weather,
my homie todd crossed the mountain passes to this neck
of the woods and participated in activating some good times.
uh-huh.
we did all the sort of things you'd expect, too-
munchin' up on lunch; and desserting on two types of tarts;
and blazing up stumps with smoke rings and smog-clouds safe from the rain
under the cool tin roof of the woodsly goodshed;
and talking about every and anything we could imagine.
an afternoon of discussing the direction of dopeness,
and the intricacies of expertism is good for your brain,
and for mine.
storytellers are responsible for the shape and the color of ideas.
olive green is how i'm telling 'em, neighbors.
camouflaging the depths of depraved and perverted human frailty
in the hilarious hijinx of hard-styled warrior poetry.
and to their credit, my top-flippin'-notch friends are always game to
play detective against my narrative and find out more about who
or what the werewolfen wizardly wordsmithing actually means.
i'm grateful for the time i have been given to confound and confuse
and convolute the oral history of a semi-non-fictional fantasy.
that's the skillset i span time with.
*
nature wins.
yeah.
you know that's a thing.
now,
i'm just sayin' that a soggy-aired rainy day seems like
an inauspicious time to debut a brand new skin.
i mean,
especially if you're shedding your shell and trying to dry out,
toughen up, and spread out your wings for flying away.
emerging form a molten moulting into the raindrops that have
soaked and saturated the entire expanse of your once and future realm?
dang.
that's a hard style.
but,
i suppose if you've waited seventeen years to emerge,
when it's finally your big day,
you just can't possibly forfeit on account of weather.
that's nature, ya'll, finding a way by not giving a sh!t...
check the teleport:

cicada activation in F*ing full effect.
they look like district 9 prawn aliens, but with wings.
you know i like 'em.
i mean,
superfancy unnecessary insects that take forever, just because?
so good.
plus,
their gross brown husks are totally expert.
leaving behind an ugly old self,
only to blossom into an ugly new self?
i know what i like, kids,
and that's what it is;
never quiet, never soft.....

tardy.

tart tuesday may run late,
what with extra amounts of friendly togetherness taking precedence
as my days off become social gatherings for me and my peoples.
no worries, though,
they always show up eventually.
even if the final gelled-up pastry swell lasts overnight,
once it's all set,
it's a wednesday-style tart day.
belated is better than never ever.
obviously.
and what does the extra time and added effort amount to?
braggadocio, bravado, boastfulness....
i don't know that i'm necessarily wrong to gloat over my culinary prowess.
but even if i am, i just can't flippin' help myself.
i mean,
i'm basically just making up delicious ideas as i go along,
and they keep turning out totally expert,
despite the freestyle do-it-live mix-in-by-sight-and-feel savant sorcery
i invoke and enact inside my oven.
duders,
i'm just sayin',
not only do i take it to eleven,
but i'm pretty sure i make it look easy.
no?
oh really?
check the more-beautifully-than-you-might-expect-type teleport:

leeeeeeeeeeemon!
yuuuuuuup.
lemon pastry cream,
with two kinds of lemon juice, and zest, and extractives and oils, too;
and a dollop of lemon-infused frosting to make it so dang pretty;
and then, just to get super-fancily unnecessary with it-
candied lemon peels for garnish.
uh-huh.
citrus slivers, caramelized and sugared, as sprankles.
neighbors- want some real talk?
okay, here:
F* you if you aren't feelin' me on this one.
yeah, that's it.
i do what i do.
if it isn't active participation, then it's all just box-mix.
and we don't do that sort of lazy, entitled, mostly-done-for-you already sh!t.
it's from scratch, it's homemade, it's off the cuff, with nothing up my sleeve-
y'know?
involved and present, mindful masterwork practices that produce results.
that's the life i'm living, kids.
Folk Life.
a picture postcard paper cut-out of woodsly goodsly worthy warrior elan.
it's all really happening,
the intention, the focus, the principle, the will, the work....
it just shows up in the guise of baked goods.
i don't decide how these things work, y'all.
i mean. c'mon.
it's called a secret universal plan for a reason.
i just choose my own adventure from the available options.
if you pick getting expert, and dying alone anyway, turn to page 11;
never quiet, never soft.....

hot cocoa?

duders,
i have to do it.
or else i get edgy.
and when i get edgy, i get sh!tty.
and nobody wants a doo-doo buttery albie rock running around.
i mean, really.
c'mon now.
so instead,
i get up early and i get crackin' on some combination activation
in the Folk Life Experimental Test Kitchen Laboratory.
uh huh.
that's a thing.
chocolate graham cracker crusts are good for you.
something about melty butterishness and ground sweet chocolate
mixed in with that reddish-brownish sorta-orange graham hottness.
y'know?
yeah.
you do.
and when i start brainstorming about treats it gets pretty rad pretty quick.
and nevermind about how to make those brown fillings go to eleven...
word up.
i whisk and stir and add and melt and add and add and add and pour
all kinds of extra brown extra sugary extra sweet bits into my bowls,
and eventually onto the already-expert crust...
neighbors,
check the teleport:

word.
this mutha-'ucker tastes like cold super creamy smooth hot cocoa.
yeah.
for realsies.
and i couldn't resist those mini-baby chocolate chips.
they're too cute.
yeah, that's right.
they're too cute to resist.
so?
hot chocolate creme pie is just what i needed.
and if it's gonna be like a slice of a cup of that, (?!)
then it needs the other best part of that business too.
teleport:

yuuuuuuuup.
whipped 'cream'.
duh.
treats are good, chocolate is better, and both together is the way it has to be.
it's all really happening,
from the feats of fury and ferocious and atrocious barbarian behavior
to the gentle whipping of cremes and cocoas.
that's it.
***********
i span time with my peoples.
and it all goes by so quickly.
i spent hours upon hours just chatting with some of my favorites.
and damn it all,
i still talk to much.
a facilitator of conversant calamities.
that's me.
from the semi-scandalous scantily clad series of current events,
to the cruelties of a misspent youth's greatest hits and misses,
it all got covered as the hours unfurled into the air.
it could've been a whole lot lamer.
i mean,
i could've been talking to myself the whole time.
awwwwwwwwwww.
luckily,
the lovely ladies and lone gentleman that i shared food, drink,
and companionship with couldn't have been better at interactively participating.
i guess sometimes it all aligns the way it should.
besides,
true stories and truth tellers and trulu truthful storytellers never stop.
this is the way it's supposed to be;
never quiet, never soft.....

barking/biting.

all talk and no walk?
all bark and no bite?
all flash and no bang?
no way, neighbors.
warrior poetry is always in motion.
now,
there are lots of words out there in the world.
i happen to know a great many of them...
still,
for all my casual acquaintance with noun and verb,
and my risque encounters with adverb and adjective,
it's actions that always speak louder.
every time.
and that's precisely why i do what i do.
the crashing crescendo of my synced and syncopated
strong-armed stormchasing and simultaneous savoir faire
should be blowing out eardrums in every direction.
preaching is just fine as long as you wreak what you're speaking on.
there's just as much weight and value in making sure it all ties together-
true stories and right actions and events proceeding as promised.
in practice, in deed,
and in the folds and wolds of the woodsly goodness,
it's ALL really happening.
i just tell the stories well.
and i tell them loud fast and hard.
if the actions that created them had more volume,
well,
i don't even know how far past eleven we're capable of going-
but i'm willing to try.
*
i say what i mean and i do what i say.
that's important.
if i say i'm bad at girls,
watch and see my stiff-arms'-length way of interacting.
if i say i love plants,
come over and watch my thumbs hitchhike towards greener pastures
on the inner and outer sides of the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
so, if i say it's tart tuesday, and that's a thing now?
teleport:

yeah.
then that's a thing now.
i get up early and get going, guys.
....
so,
if i tell you i love you,
you'be better believe that spirit and memory and lightning
and gratitude and generosity are all headed your way.
anyone can just speak the words, after all.
it's how you enact the edicts, verdicts,
and sovereign decrees of your own free will and fiery furnaces
that determine if you're a weak-sauce waterbaby
or a berserker barbarian battle beast.
don't just talk about it, friends-
be about it.
......and if i say you're Off The List?
don't act surprised when you become invisible.
love and hate are never ever for no reason.
go ahead and ask why.
please.
i've got hot words and harsh language and passionate speech
in equal measure to open arms and closed fists.
word up, indeed.
oh, C'MON;
never quiet, never soft.....

butts.

do you guys like to see nature get expert?
word.
i do too.
neighbors,
i had SO many peaches at the start of the season.
little green nubs that held so much promise.
of course,
like so many many other promising parts of really real life,
most of them dried up, fell off, and were lost as time passed by.
lame.
but,
the focus of the tree;
bough and limb and leaf and root;
was, and is, now fully focused on those that remain.
that's good.
two succulent treats are far sweeter than none.
yuuuuup. math.
check the ripening-type teleport:

i can hardly wait,
but i also want the fruit to be ready for plucking.
time takes time.
and patience is what virtuous viking abide.
no sense in plundering half-grown goods after all.
***********
butt-hurt and butting heads-
i wonder.
am i more like the butt of a gun,
or the butt of a joke.
y'know?
one is the least important part of a lethal mechanism,
the other integral to the cruel mirth of others.
i mean,
the joke needs a butt, but the bullets don't.
damn.
i could add stability to function and accuracy,
or i could just as easily be the target for other kinds of shots.
or am i just being clever because i woke up on the downside
of the bed, and far too early, at that?
as it turns out,
more often than not, i'm neither.
uh-huh.
i'm actually just like the butt of a cigarette.
ugh.
the used-up and burnt-out remains of fairly-warned
and fully-filthy indulgence.
a remainder reminder of dirty things done that are bad for you.
awwwwwwww, man.
i rep a hard  style when it comes to self-perceptions.
it could be too much weakerthans and mountain goats.
wimpy-voiced smart and sad songs on my speakers activating
some kind of self-effacing/self-deprecating/self-immolating/self-loathing.
or,
maybe i'm just trying to be clever for it's own sake?
that could be just as true...
also,
i reeeeally like butts.
a lot.
that's a thing, too.
*
hey duders
real talk for your faces?
i just want to be of use.
otherwise,
what's the bigger picture we're looking at?
all these bits and pieces, part and parcel, scraps, shreds, orts, and pearls
i've amassed inside my head are being made into massive kaleidoscopic mosaics
of information and experience, spirit and memory, words and pictures.
it's the accumulation of all of it that i'd like to put to some function.
no jokes.
i've got a head full of true stories,
i've got two heavy hands full of teeth,
and i've got a heart beating bass-boosted hot fire.
all of it is leading somewhere, building towards something,
storing up to shower someone with every single spark...
it's been a weird day already.
and it's still morning.
it is all really happening;
never quiet, never soft.....

contained.

i like plants now.
uh-huh.
that's a true story.
i like 'em so much,
i want to put 'em everywhere.
no jokes.
yesterday,
i put a small and easily accomplished plan into action.
what?
yep.
obviously,
it involved plants.
oh, c'mon.
neighbors,
check the hanging ornamental-orb-of-awesome-type teleport:

yeah.
hens and chicks and sticks and stones and bark and moss?
expert.
i'm always down to hang sh!t up.
i mean,
i've already got hang-ups aplenty as it is.
so maybe some of them should at least be beautiful and thriving.
i think that's probably for the best.
no matter what,
at least one good thing happens every day.
maybe it's okay that i make it happen, too.
it's no good to wait around, anyway.
fortune favors the bold,
and active participation carries the day in the field.
the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress is full of life.
none of it can talk, but all of it is good.
nature wins every time.
***********
when the good parts are composed of hanging glass ornaments,
and that's the big action highlight for the cyclic circuit
of a sun-up-to-down circle of spirit and memory?
yeah.
some days just take forever to end.
i mean it.
morning drags on, and on, and on....
when you're up before the sun, lunch seems awfully far away.
and once the wait to get to work is over,
and you're done getting sweaty and tired from attempting greater flexibility?
there's that great big cavernous cadaverous middle section,
with it's responsible adult obligations
and vast tracts of time spent but not invested...
i'm sayin'-
work is also no fun when you already know the schedule,
and, in turn, know just how many hairy dudes you're tattooing.
by which i mean: ALL the hairy dudes are who i tattooed.
when the expected is predictably terrible, and lives up to it's hype,
there needs to be some sort of surprise activation of super-hottness.
get it?
well,
yesterday held no such surprises.
thank my lucky stars i'm a competent communicator, though, y'all.
or else my day would have had nothing but silence to accompany
the hard styles and bro-heavy generic masculinity of my work schedule.
and that's nothing against any of my clients, either-
i'm just not my usual charmingly socially-maladroit self when there's
no chance to cherchez la femme at the studio.
tattooing and drinking coffee and eating cupcakes are all part of the plan.
right?
sure,
if your plan is to feel a little stomach sick and a lot discouraged.
awwwwwwwww.
for all the sweat and sugar and body hair,
that just covers the light hours,
and it leaves the nighttimes on the spot to save the day, y'know?
but,
when you already know what the evening holds, too?
-and when i say hold,
i'm mostly saying it's coming up empty-handed-
there's no great big hurry to get there, either.
and all that coffee and sugar had me screaming wide-eyed and awake
well into the wee hours of this morning.
today, though.
today is the day.
saturday is gonna go to eleven even harder than ever.
even if i have to face-bite a chunk of cheek out of someone's head to do it.
i'm semi-comfortable biting heads,
and i'm semi-confident it won't come to that.
but if it has to happen?
so be it.
really real life can't be defused or derailed by human-meat-mouth aversions.
i'm pretty sure that's a thing.
i won't mow down on a burger, b!tches,
but i will incise my teeth into your skull.
huh?
i will spit it out after.
jeez.
what am i?
an A*-hole?
no matter the length of this day,
it is most certainly a good day to die hard.
and the hardest, loudest, and freshest is all there's gonna be all day.
this is it;
never quiet, never soft.....