“Bourbon.”
She always ordered two fingers. Held up, slightly apart, although never a sign of peace or victory. The first times, I'd reached for the well and she'd shaken her head. Slowly, as if moving faster might be damaging to her fine, articulate, neck. Her long neck which pulsed as she swallowed her bourbon. Sometimes I saw her stroking it, her long fingers tightening around its ivory shaft. Her eyes would meet mine, turn hard and then look to her cigarette in the other hand. Those nights she came in, that is how it was. I poured her good bourbon, she smoked her expensive cigarettes and my stomach rumbled. Hungry on low pay, and an emptiness other than food.
In later years, with a fuller stomach, it was her neck by which I judged all others. Measuring them as they drank beer, and Jack Daniels by the gallon, smoking Camels. Their hands limp and numb, moving roughly. Thick fingers strangling the joy from anything they touched. Their eyes all too soft and wanton.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
No More Old Men
In darkness and pain he trembled. Unable to walk, to do more than stumble, his right foreleg hung useless and unbearing. In the headlight beams there was little to tell of his injuries, lost to shadow and his own darkness. The pain, still, was obvious. Horses get drawn with pain, an expressive clinging of skin to muscle and muscle to the bone. Nothing is lost in their large eyes, unless they want it to be. Approaching him, slowly, hand out, his eyes told stories I did not want to hear. He reached out with his head, and his lips nibbled at my fingers. He was soft, and sweet. And I had no help, no real comfort for him. It was late, and I was on the road.
That was then. Now in the cool morning, the extent of the shattered shoulder is obvious. The flies have begun to torment him, as he stands too weak to flick his tail. Too drawn and pained to twitch his skin. I approach again with my hand out, and he moves only a little. Brushing his face and neck I talk to him softly, and below his vision I pass the gun from my left hand to my right. I hold it against the back of my thigh, and pull the hammer to the rear where it clicks. He moves away from the metallic, mechanical, noise and I move with him. Stilling him, I touch and stroke with my left hand, as I whisper. The words are for me, their softness for him. I brush the hair of his mane from the top of his head, scratching softly at the fly bites. I can see the white blaze of his forehead clearly now and my fingers linger on it for a moment. He breathes steadily and lowers his head just slightly. There is no time but now, and any greater amount of now will only draw out his agony.
There is a stillness after gunfire as the world comes to life again. The moment after the shot nothing has moved save the hand in recoil. It too is frozen, for an instant in waiting, before sound and motion, like water drawn away from a shore, come rushing back. In that rush of birds cries and fluttering wings, he falls. He goes down straight, legs buckling to lay him into his own dragging tracks, a great weight upon the earth. The body, so many long milliseconds dead, tenses and convulses briefly and stops, then with the stillness comes blood. Everything relaxes and pours out, upon the dust etched with agony.
The strict facts are simple enough, but their meaning depends on things impossible to relate. Experience is the ancient flood, tearing new canyons and river bottoms, and like younger waters we are destined to run the course it shapes. This is no different. This story, as all killing stories do, runs deeper than the killing.
The horse had been ridden at a gallop through a rat den, his leg dropping into the pit, loading his shoulder until it came apart. His rider, a weekender in the backcountry, had left him near the water and gone back to town too much a coward to make it right. Three days the horse had stood, alone and without food, before I drove past and saw him.
The rider is the next generation of a family I've known all my life. The old men of the family, those who were old when I was born, helped raise me. In the silent teaching of action they gave me the gift of an older way. I came up among them tougher and better honed than their own sons and actual grandsons. Those younger man all products of towns and rejection of the old ways.
It is far too late for old men. The world moves on, and they begin to fail. There are only a few left, of all the good ones I've known. Those who are still alive so rarely come to the ranch country, leaving it for their descendants, who take it only for a playground. Those descendants who don't have what it takes. Whose macho falls away to cowardice when it really matters. Who commit evils and sins that their fathers would have found unthinkable. Their fathers who fought and killed, drank and whored, but never once shied away from a thing for the hardness of it.
If there is ever a final judgment, I'll stand with the old men I've known. We'll pass a bottle, and watch as it all goes down.
That was then. Now in the cool morning, the extent of the shattered shoulder is obvious. The flies have begun to torment him, as he stands too weak to flick his tail. Too drawn and pained to twitch his skin. I approach again with my hand out, and he moves only a little. Brushing his face and neck I talk to him softly, and below his vision I pass the gun from my left hand to my right. I hold it against the back of my thigh, and pull the hammer to the rear where it clicks. He moves away from the metallic, mechanical, noise and I move with him. Stilling him, I touch and stroke with my left hand, as I whisper. The words are for me, their softness for him. I brush the hair of his mane from the top of his head, scratching softly at the fly bites. I can see the white blaze of his forehead clearly now and my fingers linger on it for a moment. He breathes steadily and lowers his head just slightly. There is no time but now, and any greater amount of now will only draw out his agony.
There is a stillness after gunfire as the world comes to life again. The moment after the shot nothing has moved save the hand in recoil. It too is frozen, for an instant in waiting, before sound and motion, like water drawn away from a shore, come rushing back. In that rush of birds cries and fluttering wings, he falls. He goes down straight, legs buckling to lay him into his own dragging tracks, a great weight upon the earth. The body, so many long milliseconds dead, tenses and convulses briefly and stops, then with the stillness comes blood. Everything relaxes and pours out, upon the dust etched with agony.
The strict facts are simple enough, but their meaning depends on things impossible to relate. Experience is the ancient flood, tearing new canyons and river bottoms, and like younger waters we are destined to run the course it shapes. This is no different. This story, as all killing stories do, runs deeper than the killing.
The horse had been ridden at a gallop through a rat den, his leg dropping into the pit, loading his shoulder until it came apart. His rider, a weekender in the backcountry, had left him near the water and gone back to town too much a coward to make it right. Three days the horse had stood, alone and without food, before I drove past and saw him.
The rider is the next generation of a family I've known all my life. The old men of the family, those who were old when I was born, helped raise me. In the silent teaching of action they gave me the gift of an older way. I came up among them tougher and better honed than their own sons and actual grandsons. Those younger man all products of towns and rejection of the old ways.
It is far too late for old men. The world moves on, and they begin to fail. There are only a few left, of all the good ones I've known. Those who are still alive so rarely come to the ranch country, leaving it for their descendants, who take it only for a playground. Those descendants who don't have what it takes. Whose macho falls away to cowardice when it really matters. Who commit evils and sins that their fathers would have found unthinkable. Their fathers who fought and killed, drank and whored, but never once shied away from a thing for the hardness of it.
If there is ever a final judgment, I'll stand with the old men I've known. We'll pass a bottle, and watch as it all goes down.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Sleeping, Snorting, Fucking.
This is a bit delayed, as I was waiting for the last of them to run, but I've recently had three pieces published in the lovely journal Sleep.Snort.Fuck.
You may find all three of them here: Morgan Atwood, at Sleep, Snort, Fuck
Or, in order of publication:
Magnum
Measure of Ecstasy
Taste
Hopefully needless to say, given the name of the journal, some content may be considered Not Safe For Work (/Wife/Children).
I feel spoiled to, yet again, have somewhere I really like publish my work.
(These publications also mark an interesting point for me as a poet. I once said all my poetry was non-fiction and this is no longer true. These mark the first success I've had, both in personal feelings about them and publication, with fictional poetry. I say that not to disown the themes or any unpleasantness, but more because I find the revelation of my own process a wonderful ongoing mystery.)
You may find all three of them here: Morgan Atwood, at Sleep, Snort, Fuck
Or, in order of publication:
Magnum
Measure of Ecstasy
Taste
Hopefully needless to say, given the name of the journal, some content may be considered Not Safe For Work (/Wife/Children).
I feel spoiled to, yet again, have somewhere I really like publish my work.
(These publications also mark an interesting point for me as a poet. I once said all my poetry was non-fiction and this is no longer true. These mark the first success I've had, both in personal feelings about them and publication, with fictional poetry. I say that not to disown the themes or any unpleasantness, but more because I find the revelation of my own process a wonderful ongoing mystery.)
Monday, June 7, 2010
Solutions for Austerity and Hostility
I've been far too busy with other things recently, and have been neglecting my blog here. For those friends and readers who are interested in issues of and skills for wilderness survival, abandoned mine exploration, armed citizen/concealed carry, armed professions, individual medical skills and tactical medicine, and a related mish-mash there of, I'll invite you to where I have been busy: http://BFELabs.com is my “professional” home as something other than a writer/artist. Some of you may find it interesting. Some of you may find it appalling.
I'll admit some trepidation at linking these two halves of my life. While the one is rather accepting of the other, it doesn't always go both ways. The artsy, literary, side of the house is often not at all accepting of the gun carrying, wilderness capable, military/police friendly, war-on-terror supporting, knife fighting, mine exploring, MMA-training, type. Whereas the long fangs are often as artsy and literary as anyone else. This is a constant source of disappointment in my life, as folks from the supposedly kinder/gentler art and writing world are often so put-off by the other as to make friendship difficult. The professional costs may be as high as well. That is, however, just the way it is. I am who and what I am, and I'll never compromise that because I offend the delicate political sensibilities of my fellow artists and writers. It's not that I am politically incorrect – You are just ideologically sheltered.
I'll admit some trepidation at linking these two halves of my life. While the one is rather accepting of the other, it doesn't always go both ways. The artsy, literary, side of the house is often not at all accepting of the gun carrying, wilderness capable, military/police friendly, war-on-terror supporting, knife fighting, mine exploring, MMA-training, type. Whereas the long fangs are often as artsy and literary as anyone else. This is a constant source of disappointment in my life, as folks from the supposedly kinder/gentler art and writing world are often so put-off by the other as to make friendship difficult. The professional costs may be as high as well. That is, however, just the way it is. I am who and what I am, and I'll never compromise that because I offend the delicate political sensibilities of my fellow artists and writers. It's not that I am politically incorrect – You are just ideologically sheltered.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Man in the Mirror
I am soaked. I feel the hot sweat dripping down, its sting in my eyes. Something inside wants to give way, to void my stomach of its burdens. My mind shuts it down. Everything unessential is suppressed, so that everything unwanted may be carved away.
Some young yuppie milling around behind me taking a breather from five minutes on the treadmill mutters to his friend about how much I am sweating. How I'm working out in boots and long pants. How rude it is. I breath, steady and in rhythm to my body and focus on self improvement.
The tide rises, the urge to vomit argues that it would be a phenomenal act of defiance against the yuppies in the gym with me. Lean sideways and puke on their carpet. Who carpets a gym anyway? They've probably never done anything until they vomited. Not worked out, not run, cried, fucked, or lived until their body couldn't take it and started shedding everything unnecessary. These yuppies, their lives are a monument to the unnecessary – It is their idol, and identity. I breath again, and let them fade away. Vomiting is unnecessary. They are unnecessary. All that matters is self improvement – If they were improving, they'd be too busy to even notice me. Each breath in, my focus returns to me. Each breath out carries something hateful.
Something screams quit. In the mirror I see myself, breathing, sweating. I am ample, and full looking. The man in the mirror snarls at himself. I snarl at him. That fullness must be reduced. I drive on, push harder, sweat more. I wish death upon the man I see: A fundamental stripping down, to sinew and bone, to sheer necessity, to existence alone. A tearing apart until he is worthy of that womans touch he's felt. Until he is worthy of his own goals. Because if I don't, if I cannot become unmade in this act of physical will, then I will succumb to pain, to fear, to neediness. I scream back at the quitting voice, tell it how much it sucks if it can't do these things. Another ten minutes of force is a small goal. Not a woman, not a mountain, not a complete act of deconstruction, much less rebuilding. It's just a few minutes. The man in the mirror can't do it, but I can. Staring him down, killing him a mile at a time, I keep going.
Someday, I will do this to maintain. I will look at the man in the mirror, and I'll keep going for preservation, rather than revelation.
Some young yuppie milling around behind me taking a breather from five minutes on the treadmill mutters to his friend about how much I am sweating. How I'm working out in boots and long pants. How rude it is. I breath, steady and in rhythm to my body and focus on self improvement.
The tide rises, the urge to vomit argues that it would be a phenomenal act of defiance against the yuppies in the gym with me. Lean sideways and puke on their carpet. Who carpets a gym anyway? They've probably never done anything until they vomited. Not worked out, not run, cried, fucked, or lived until their body couldn't take it and started shedding everything unnecessary. These yuppies, their lives are a monument to the unnecessary – It is their idol, and identity. I breath again, and let them fade away. Vomiting is unnecessary. They are unnecessary. All that matters is self improvement – If they were improving, they'd be too busy to even notice me. Each breath in, my focus returns to me. Each breath out carries something hateful.
Something screams quit. In the mirror I see myself, breathing, sweating. I am ample, and full looking. The man in the mirror snarls at himself. I snarl at him. That fullness must be reduced. I drive on, push harder, sweat more. I wish death upon the man I see: A fundamental stripping down, to sinew and bone, to sheer necessity, to existence alone. A tearing apart until he is worthy of that womans touch he's felt. Until he is worthy of his own goals. Because if I don't, if I cannot become unmade in this act of physical will, then I will succumb to pain, to fear, to neediness. I scream back at the quitting voice, tell it how much it sucks if it can't do these things. Another ten minutes of force is a small goal. Not a woman, not a mountain, not a complete act of deconstruction, much less rebuilding. It's just a few minutes. The man in the mirror can't do it, but I can. Staring him down, killing him a mile at a time, I keep going.
Someday, I will do this to maintain. I will look at the man in the mirror, and I'll keep going for preservation, rather than revelation.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Rules for Writing
The more I write, interact with other writers, and attempt to get published, the more observations I have on my craft. I have begun keeping a running list of some of my observations that have become personal rules (albeit flippant) for my writing. At some point this will be a longer list, and worth putting out in its entirety. For now, however, my first five rules will have to suffice. Will add more over time.
1. Turn token and poetry pay into beer. (Turn no pay into beer; Look in the couch cushions for money.)
2. Turn every six pack into poetry, every bottle into a story.
3. Earn acceptances that make all your rejections turn to regret in the pit of the rejecting editors stomach.
4. Get back in the saddle. Now.
5. Commit to the shape of things, and embrace the "attitude of the knife"; When editing is finalized, divorce yourself from any desire for the work, cut it off, say “now it's complete, because it's ended here", and send it in.
1. Turn token and poetry pay into beer. (Turn no pay into beer; Look in the couch cushions for money.)
2. Turn every six pack into poetry, every bottle into a story.
3. Earn acceptances that make all your rejections turn to regret in the pit of the rejecting editors stomach.
4. Get back in the saddle. Now.
5. Commit to the shape of things, and embrace the "attitude of the knife"; When editing is finalized, divorce yourself from any desire for the work, cut it off, say “now it's complete, because it's ended here", and send it in.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Those Who Are About to Die
Fortuna Audaces Iuvat - "Fortune Favors the Bold"
Twenty four years ago today, in the Florida sunshine the space shuttle Challenger roared to the cold sky, its solid rocket boosters burning rapidly towards a failing joint and O-Ring seal that had cracked in the cold. Seventy-three seconds into the flight when the fire reached the joint it blew out the side, and hit the fuel tanks - A fiery blow as if from an angry and fearful god, selfish of his skies. The explosion and resultant fall to sea took the lives of the seven crewmembers, six astronauts and one civilian, who were daring to follow mankind's dream of the stars. Astronauts Ellison Onizuka, Mike Smith, Dick Scobee, Greg Jarvis, Ron McNair and Judy Resnick, and schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe experienced one minute and thirteen seconds of the dream before their lives were cut short in a fireball and they took the bigger journey into the greater unknown. They were not the first to die, finger tips brushing at the black, and they would not be the last.
On January 27th 1967 Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee died aboard Apollo 1, still on the launch pad, when a spark ignited the pure oxygen atmosphere of the sealed capsule during pre-flight tests.
On April 24th 1964 Vladimir Komarov reentered the earths atmosphere in the malfunctioning Soyuz 1 capsule and died when the parachute lines tangled plummeting Soyuz 1 into the earth at two hundred miles an hour.
In May of 1967 the crew of Soyuz 11, Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov, died when a malfunctioning valve caused the capsule to depressurize just prior to reentry.
Between then and the morning of January 28th 1986 no astronaut or cosmonaut would die engaged in a mission. Then following that cold January, it would be fifteen years before sacrifice was once more demanded. On February 1st 2003 the crew of the space shuttle Columbia - Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Dr. Kalpana Chawla, Laurel B. Clark and Ilan Ramon - died when the shuttle, suffering damage to its protective tiles, blew up over the western United States during reentry. It is quite possible that these seven people knew or at least suspected they were going to die and proceeded ahead, chasing the dream to infinity.
This is not taking account of, but in no way to discount, the sacrifices of test pilots, engineers and others who have died in explosions, plane crashes or as a result of other accidents associated with the various space programs. They are many, and their sacrifice is as great.
We live in a world of sports heroes, movie stars and rock gods. People who, on whole, are shallow, fatuous, and often as not disgusting and disagreeable individuals, more concerned with image, money and whatever “cause of the month” will get them the most attention. Among them are rapists, thieves, murderers, and narcissists of the highest order who have no greater dream or vision. No desire to live for something greater, and certainly, perhaps most certainly of all, no strength to die for something greater.
While those people are made heroes, there are quieter, smarter, stronger men and women who dare to brave the unknown, the unknowable, and the dangerous to chase down what may be the greatest dream of the human race: The secrets of the heavens - The glittering and shimmering unknowns of that great expanse of possibility and hope.
In the end, it will not be the movie gods and rock stars who will carry mankind into the future, into new hope, new worlds. It will not be the sports heroes who open the doors for us all. It will be such quiet people willing to serve a dream, and if necessary, die for it.
It is my prayer, whispered desperately to those heavens, that we will hold on long enough, that they may deliver that dream to us before it is lost to the murky depths of forgotten consciousness.
”Go! at throttle up” the stars are ahead.
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