joy?

duders,
i had a busy day!
i broke my lawnmower,
so i've got a half-mowed lawn;
i did the teentsiest tattoos,
but they took up half of my day off-
that's the price you pay for trying to be 'nice'.
(those ninjas finish last);
i hooked up some mexican magic at my favorite
ethnically-pretend atmospherically inclined
restaurant in the area.
i got up super early,
hit up the grossness of the grocery store,
at just-opened/mostly-empty o'clock,
and gathered the goodly 'gredients to greedily 
engage in some active participation that just
had to happen for everybody's future faces!
oh, yes, i did....
more pie, for your eyes?
yuuuuuuuuuuup.
teleport:

coconut, almond, chocolate, sugar.
that's almond joy, right?
right.
except, what the F* is joy, ninja?!
shut up.
a big fat crunchy-topped circle of treats, yo.
i'm luring all the hungry ladies to my lair with
fancy crumbs and fancier fire-kissed toasted
versions of the most nutty of those tasty nutrients.
toasted almonds?
dooooooooope.
toasted coconut?
expert.
neighbors,
there was no shortage of things to do on my
action-item list, y'all.
i still found the time to hang out after dark with some
good guys from the realm of soccer and situationally
appropriate young man interactive camaraderie.
teddy and thatcher, friends.
they know that sprankles are the answer:

c'mon.
i deserve it.
but that was just a blip on the timeline.
a bitty baby bright spot,
snuffed out as soon as the last bottom most tip
of that sweet sorbet sugarcone got bitten.
just sayin',
really real men do really real things.
like what else?
uhhh, like,
pack and organize ten years' worth of sh!t.
arrange and separate his from hers,
and laugh out loud at the idea of ours.
awwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
losing isn't the same as giving up,
is it?
lost time, lost wages, lost things, kids.
an infinite expanse of lost things.
i don't think that a slice, or even a whole entire pie
would or could be up to the challenge of
filling in the blanks between before and after.
the only thing left is the now.
and right now,
today is another 'nother day.
it's all really happening;
never quiet, never soft.....7x20!!!

keep-awaylienated.

druids?
i don't know, y'all.
i mean.
some sort of shamanic fire-spit sh!t
has definitely been on the morning's agenda,
but mostly just to get woodsly and goodsly
and activated with barbarian sentimentalism.
i don't think i'm summoning any sacred spirits,
or invoking the evocations that create protection
from the bad mojo, ju-ju, vibes and jinxes that
permeate the ephemeral ether in between
here an elsewhere.
more like,
i have a drill and some twine and an idea
about what represents that savage stormswept 
windcatching driftwoodsly decor-type jauns,
and i've got the nimble spindly spider-fingers to 
make that sort of thing happen.
y'know?
so, no, no druids are getting overlapped in burlap
while i get busy being a bearded weirdie all by my lonely.
yeah.
so anyway,
this is where the teleport gets checked:

nature makes it, water breaks it, 
we collect it from it's forsaken resting place at the river's edge,
and then activate it, neighbors.

speaking of,
i'm sure my neighbors love 'em.
who wouldn't want some sticks and vines dangling like
lead weighted anchors around their property values.
awwwwwwwww.
that's what happens when i haven't got a woman's touch to
temper the tempests of temptation when the feeling hits me.
uh-huh.
5am braiding bits of burl and beads?
i doo-doo that early bird's eye stuff.
and i like it.
***********
every day is the same.
it's THE day.
the big action bigshot crapshoot 
for worth and value and expertism.
it's always happening.
even now;
never quiet, never soft.....

skipping beats.

awwwwwwwww, man!
duders,
my big fun vacation week with my kids
is drawing to a close even as i type.
harvest and maple head back home,
courtesy of my livery services,
this very morning,
in just a few hours as a matter of fact.
lame.
we packed the week to the tippity-top
with super-fun family togetherness
and fatherly know-how,
and active participation.
...and fireworks, neighbors-yeah.
don't forget about those orchestrated, socially included,occluded,
clouded over bright spots in the rain.
that happened, after all.
an almost-expert expression of celebratory jubilation.
*
little-ish girls growing up and getting bigger,
spanning time in the woodsly goodness with
the spirits and memories of their whole short lives
as the overall atmosphere of the Fortress falls through,
like a jar with a lit candle being capped with a lid.
it uses up what's there,
and extinguishes itself for the effort.
no oxygen, no light, y'all.
a used-up and burnt-out smoke ring,
winding it's way inside a vacuum
like an opposite and unequal echo of what was.
5am, sunday.
how much does that suck?
i skipped yesterday,
and give y'all this as a consolation prize?
feel consoled?
i'll bet;
never quiet, never soft.....

'cakes II

panniecakes are pretty flippin' good
as a treat for your face in the morning,
but personal participation cakes are expert
doses of dopeness for when the sun goes down.
duders,
me and my two special girls got rad on some 'cakes.
doublecakes, even.
like,
our cups were half full....
of cake, y'heard?
then we beat down all the leftover pessimism
with leavening agents,
and our spirits and our crumb both rose.
and then,
in order to bring the thunder just a wee bit more,
we filled the other other half with frosting.
and now our cups runneth over, kids-
teleportational checking is in order:

yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
we doo-doo that fancy pantsy sh!t, y'all.
freeze-dried, powdered real raspberries
all up in the mixer with the sugar and flour?
yes.
we made purplish batter for our big action, b!tches.
that's that raspberry cake business!
with power-whipped white frosting from the future,
and double-boiler raspberry chocolate ganache
specifically for that black and white and double drizzle,
and then a boo-ya pinch of dried raspberries on top.
it's exactly that little touch of pink sparkle magic
twinkle-dusted across the tippity-topmost spots
that activates the expert nutrients we celebrate up here.
see?

why do we do it?
because we go to eleven as a matter of fact and action.
just sayin',
cakes are what's up, ninjas.
*
it matters.
the little something extra.
the from-scratch, by hand,
on purpose-with purpose stuff.
making pictures or making food or making moves.
we commit completely to the idea that eleven
on a scale of one-to-ten,
is the only level worth taking it to.
just being dope, morning to night,
with my daughters, with myself,
and with the express intention of taking something out
on everyone/thing/where else around me.
surround sound symbolism,
with sprankles and blops and drips and drabs.
we do it, because it's what we do.
***********
ugh.
it's a full day, today.
today is the day.
the fullest one, even.
tattbombing and zip-zapping on some fresh-ish jauns?
maybe.
working hard for the movie checks?
you know it, neighbors.
it's all really happening,
and it's powered by cakes;
never quiet, never soft.....

'cakes.

what fixes the furious hunger of
a moon-waning werewolfen breakfast situation?
well,
there's really only the one thing, neighbors-
what?
no,
not silver bullets, dumb-dumb....
check the teleport:

uh, yeah.
panniecakes!
those slabs of sexy, syrup-slathered morning
glory fresh from the griddle were exactly
what us worthy warriors and punch-drunk poets
of real life and woodsly goodness needed to
activate our day.
and as usual,
they were totally and completely delicious.
i mean, they're cakes in a pan!
and some even had little bitty baby chocolate chips.
y'know, for kids.
expert.
and then,
as is usually the case with a strong start,
the ensuing middling middle part drizzled the b!tch sap
out of the spigot and opened the seals so that
a bunch of weak sauce F*ed our A*s right off.
thanks, secret universal plan, for your infallible sense of
making sure the sweetness is followed by brutal bitterness!!
a long hard day of all black (no grey) words and spikes
tattbombed on a bunch of duders (no hot chicks)
whilst the temperature climbed and spirits plummeted.
the going got tough, kids,
so we got it going on.
fight back?
uh-huh.
we saw the cure as clear as glass,
and that cure was spicy brown blops!
yuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
we got fat on some indian food,
outside in the sunshine,
watching the rental scooters scoot past,
and the d.u.i. license-losers doo-doo their walk-of-shame
down main street on their way to the night shift.
it's all really happening.
summer vacation season,
in a summer vacation town.
the spirits and the memories unfold, friends.
that's a thing.
expanding outward like shocking waves of ghost-powered
participation and really real gobs of the good life.
i am grateful for the time i have been given,
and for these girls who have my blood coursing through the
obstacle course inside their hot fiery furnaces.
hard times and warm hearts and cold hands, with teeth.
today and everyday;
never quiet, never soft.....

cloudworks.

atmospheric filthiness.
after one and a half explosions in the sky,
accompanied by rain and lightning,
as ma nature and the woodsly goodness
cooperated in concert with the concert
that competed for sound superiority
against thunder and that,
the fireworks were rendered all but invisible
by the smoke that had nowhere to go.
a smog cloud obscured the 'works,
a thundercloud obscured the moon,
and a crowd of rowdy 'mericans obscured
the fun parts of going to the village green
for a festive symbolic celebration of berfday hottness.
awwwwwwwwwww, man!
hard-styles, y'all.
they happen.
so,
getting soaked and choked on sulfuric stink
and sitting in the soggy saturated suckiness
was a small price to pay to sort of see some
'splosions as nebulous space-battle bursts from
deep within the milky mess of afterburst.
and the finale? more like finally...over!
rain wasn't going to stop us, though,
just dampen our spirit of '76 into a mushy mass of
middling enthusiasm and clammy skin.
but if the show goes on, the spectators show up.
that's what's up.
***********
it wasn't just wet nights and sweaty crowds.
neighbors,
i rarely let predictably weak-sauce win.
so,
as a preemptive counterattack to counteract the aftereffects,
this happened too-
teleport:

yum.
quadruple chocolate creme pie,
with vanilla oh-snap cookie crumble crust?
a dollopy blop of pretend whipped-type soybean cream?
heck yes, duders.
i outdid myself with the smooth, dreamlike consistency,
and the crunchy firm beige layer of bottom-most big action.
i can bake like nobody's business, b!tches.
no foolin'.
*
when the hot fire burns like an eternal flame
inside a normally hard heart,
when the sang-froid is set to boiling inside the fiery furnace,
and the hot-blooded lava of lust and passion
permeates the pipes and pumps of a warrior poet's being,
just how does one demote oneself to the tepid position
of friend?
since when is lukewarm the same as the hottness, ninjas?
just sayin'- what the F* is lukewarm?
settling?
quitting?
indifferent better-than-nothingness?
i sure as sh!t don't know how it happens.
i DO know everything costs something,
and that's a price tag beyond my pay grade, y'all.
...
documenting real life when it feels surreal?
it's all really happening.
disconnected, detached, drifting, dreamlike-
nature wins, but still we keep fighting it;
never quiet, never soft.....

choose.

we had a craft night.
we do stuff like that up here.
me and my girlie-girls like to read.
that's a thing.
the problem is,
we don't read just a little bit.
and that means we need to note our progress,
hold our spots,
and keep our leaves un-dog-eared-
so,
we decided to apply our philosophical flair
and measure our accomplishments at the same time.
check the teleport:

yuuuuuuuuuuup.
we choose the wrench,
and we use it to hold our spaces.
that's laminated, three-ply upcycled cardstock,
magical marky marker, and some weirdie yarn
for the tassel-tail pom-pom, b!tch.
they got one each, as well.
participation?
activate!
you can choose what you read,
but not how you read it.
righty-tighty?
sorta;
never quiet, never soft.....

fire. water. works.

happy birthday, 'merica!
here in the woodsly goodness,
we don't exactly get patriotic in the au courant sense.
no country music, no flag-waving, no barbecue and beer....
generalized patriotism seems to embody the worst aspects
or xenophobia and mediocre complacent catchall
case-studies in settling down
and then following that path right down the tubes
as such,
there's very little, or even nearly none,
of that kind of weak sauce here in the Fortress.
we don't aim for the middle and settle for the bottom,
we overdo it, shoot the full) moon,
and get busy with that high livin', high spirited
high-horsemanship that comes with going to eleven.
july 4th? add up the month and day, duders-
actual patriotic jauns are for the furious fusiliers of
worthy warrior poetry in motion-
yeah, neighbors,
we do get expert on some old-timey
real-talking revolution-style original betsy ross
thirteen colonies-type jauns.
y'know?
yeah.
Folk Life, Liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.
well,
two out of three, anyway.
chasing happiness happens to always be a losing race.
it flees at the same pace i run after it.
awwwwwwwww.
it's 'merica's party,
but i'll cry if i want to...
***********
fireworks bring the thunder to the sky
from the ground up, even.
however,
the cumulonimbus monsters hovering up above
threaten to reverse the position the thunder comes from.
is anybody surprised?
hard weather,
hard rain,
hard times,
hard styles.
it's always the case,
because it's all always really happening.
*
we spanned a righteous, revolutionary day
at the river's edge on a sandy shoal
getting tan and getting involved, actively,
in being part of it all.
big action and big pictures, kids;
never quiet, never soft.....

struck, stricken, striking.

i overdo it,
add the hot fire and explosions to it.
i doo-doo it, like freaky-diki sh!t,
but i do not do it this time, kids
for the very first time in ten long years,
there's no overwhelming onslaught
of appreciative generous gestures to commemorate
the active participant's worthy warrior poetic
interactive profit-sharing scenario.
ugh.
as hard a style as it is,
i fought against the nature of infinity,
and erased some schematic plots from the
secret universal plan.
do you know what that means?
it means a tornado of windy sh!ttiness blew through
the whole woodsly goodness,
but only metaphorically.
the winds of change blew in the answer, y'all.
basically,
it means i didn't do a F*ing thing for a change.
this time,
the right amount was a surgically precise,
correctly-measured amount of too much of not enough.
neighbors,
the tissue paper and metallic foil wrapping paper days
are over and out like a radio sign-off.
the gratitude and generosity of viking virtue and publicly
displayed affectations of affection are off the air,
and off the list.
yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.
today is the day, is the day, is the day.
all day, even.
a sh!t-hot batch of thanks for nothing,
spanned with a couple of kinds of giving the least F*s possible.
uh-huh.
the only thing not half empty around here is the full moon.
awwwww, MAN!
a luminous lantern in the firmament,
beaming in the lunacy,
and bouncing back the lengthy waves of wolfmannerism.
giving up isn't giving in?
i don't know, kids.
what do you guys think?
***********
marshalling my martial merits and marital demerits?
sounds serious.
i got a list,
i checked it twice,
and i noticed a few things.
in order, the weak sauce was sponged up
from it's sopping waterbabyish diaperpants,
and expunged like a placenta of dementia,
then outvoted, and subsequently vetoed, in absentia.
holy sh!tballs, y'all.
here or not, here or there,
and everywhere in between,
it's all really happening.
a convoluted locution of locomotive absolution.
get it?
no?
okay.
here:
i didn't buy any presents.
it killed me not to.
i fought through that sh!t.
word up.
now you get it, right?
right.
struck, like from the record, and like a shot in the mouth,
stricken like a heart sick, forlorn, and forsaken sucker puncher,
striking, like lightning and like handsome mutha-'uckers.
yeah.
that's right.
ugly is the new hottness.
believe it.
inside and over and out;
never quiet, never soft.....7x19

that's it.

ugh.

duders,
i have a hard time backing down,
easing off, letting go, and moving on.
i know you're surprised by that.
ummmm. sure.
i keep my intentions and my emotions red lined
at the beyond-maximum overflow and engine-blow level
of eleven or more at all times, kids.
so throwing 'em into neutral,
and giving up is against the established order of chronological biology.
huh?
oh, yeah-that's a thing, neighbors-
y'all have come know and love it as infinite nature;
some people call it genetic predestiny, or primitive inherited memory,
but whatever name you give to it, whatever you call it in the lonesome,
sleepless sections of lightless, heatless, vacuum-sealed voidance
of your own introspective voyeurism-
it's still just not my style to give the F* up.
why not?
because i'm not a quitter-pants weak sauce waterbaby, probably.
i can concede defeat, i can acknowledge failure,
but only when i've exhausted all the other actual options,
and have only hope left.
...that's an unrealistic underactive emotion, by the way.
i mean,
in real talk for the real world:
when the going gets tough?
obviously,
if you're a worthy, committed captain of your own soul,
you try harder, sing louder, get fresher, get busier,
and go down swinging until your worn-out soles,
leaden arms and heardened heart physically fail
the ever-loving everlasting warrior spirit
raging and rattling around inside the stormswept
barbarian hot fire furnace blazing inside of you...
or,
if you're not really into that whole just be dope theory
regarding active participation,
you maybe just F* right off?
i don't know, yo.
i presonally prefer the epic, heroic, legendary
main-character character assassination
and proactive protagonism of being a part of it, and not apart from it.
you feel me?
awwwwwwwwwww.
*
today is the day.
harvest and maple are here.
the woodsly goodness is better for their company.
the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress feels alive again.
...and i do too.
my darling daughters,
after being exposed to the raw nerves
of evolutionary overcompensation
are adapting to new situations, y'all.
that's right-
all in together now.
we doo-doo that.
because we're a team.
we don't just move, we make moves,
we don't just get busy, we do business,
we don't just get paid to lose,
we fight to win.
it's all really happening.
that's the whole goddamn point;
never quiet, never soft.....

rabbit rabbit.

yeah.
i said it:
rabbit rabbit.
i remembered to speak it out loud,
first thing at 12:01 am and again when i awoke.
the lucky charm, the magic mantra, the superstitious spell,
cast out into the secret universal ether as an ephemeral
lure for good fortune and positive vibes from the future,
for the future, in the here and now.....
i remembered the appropriate utterance,
inflection, intention, innuendo,
and all that pronounced polysyllabic sentence fragmentation.
i do what i'm supposed to, y'know?
and i only ever do more of it.
that's that expert additive active participation type jauns.
it's the way that worthy ninjas get involved.
subtractive subservient static is not invited to my makeout party,
y'know?
something as simple as a monthly magic word, or two,
or the same word, spoken twice,
is as good a place to start as any other.
do i think that there is any evidence to support it's efficacy?
is it working?
is anything lucky going on, at all?
is it likely the first of this month will be any different
than the following friday, or the next one,(the 13th)?
nope. it's not.
probability and odds and long shots on lagomorphology
generating spontaneous improvement are just a placebo,
but i'm not above investing a breath or two in
contingency plans based on mystery and magic.
it can't hurt.
and if it doesn't help, (and it doesn't help)
well,
at least i've proclaimed a genuine intention towards
the ghost rings and overlapping circles of spirit and memory
that comprise and never compromise and promise
to keep it all really happening here in the woodsly goodness.
you got any better ideas?
right.
it's a watership down watershed moment, my friends.
phantom bunnies and complete interactive social collapse?
yuuuuuuuuuuup.
today is the day.
awwwwwwwwww, man.
***********
harvest and maple arrive this evening.
that's great news.
we're gonna work, and have a fire, and have fireworks,
and work on spitting hot fire and all that sort of
warm weather interactive family-style togetherness.
me and my girls, neighbors.
a trifecta of terrific?
maybe.
a trio of temerity and trying hard to hurl hard-hearted
heavy-handed hard styles at the hard times that
compose this really real life we're living?
absolutely.
gratitude, ninjas.
i get lucky,
not in the ways i want,
but in precisely the ways i need;
never quiet, never soft.....