missing

I got off the bus at West Genesee and West Fayette. A young mother with a toddler and an infant in a stroller struggled to navigate the steps down onto the sidewalk. I let them go and did my best neither to feel nor exude impatience. I stepped onto the sidewalk buffeted by a blast of December wind. Something on the ancient, rutted utility pole caught my eye. What? A Missing Persons poster was stapled on two sides of the pole. I moved closer. There, to my shock and horror, was an unmistakable image of me, under large block letters spelling MISSING with an exclamation point (fortunately, only one instead of the customary three). Below that was a photo of me in my Icelandic sweater, bought in Reykjavik in January 2016. It happens to be one of my favorite self images. My older glasses are bolder, my hair is longer and less gray, and I sport a sexy smirk, or so I've been told. So thanks for that. Anchoring the bottom of the poster "$5,000 Reward" is offered. How is that amount calculated? Is it based on the poster's (as in "one who posts") resources or my putative value? My name is provided. It is spelled correctly, with no middle initial. No information regarding age, reason for missinghood, potential danger to self or others is offered. The only other data provided is that I was last seen at the Solvay Post Office. Last seen, wait for it, today. Today? Is somebody trying to tell me something and what is it? I shook this off, having lingered for who knows how long at the corner absorbing all this. I proceeded west on Fayette toward home. Every utility pole, all eight, had two missing posters stapled onto it. Just me. Nobody else. I kept walking. Evening was descending, as it does so early in December. I quickened my pace. I keenly looked left and right, searching for something or someone, I didn't know what. At the end of the block, I paused and looked in back of me, where I had just traversed. Nothing. I turned left onto Williams Street, toward my apartment building. I decided I would not enter by the main door, at the lobby with the mailboxes. I somehow felt safer entering by the seldom-used back door. As I walked down the six steps to the door, key fob in hand, i halted. Another one on the door. I could have turned away. Turned away to go where? I summoned either courage or foolhardiness, waved the fob, and entered. now my heart was racing. I was sweating. I walked up the stairs to the third floor. I gingerly, and as quietly as I could, strode to apartment 312. Another poster.

next kiss

Female. My age range (meaning within fifteen or twenty years my junior; within, meaning potentially one year my junior, or seven, or six months; hate my shallow chronological standard if you must). Equal to my height or shorter or taller. Equal to my weight or less than, but not 100 pounds (cf. hatred disclaimer above and modify accordingly). Lips not striated, thin, or parched. Full. Supple. Soft. Lipsticked, possibly amply and possibly boldly red. Not arid yet not slobbery. Preceded by mutual visual, olfactory, tactile, and verbal cues, signals, codes, mutually deciphered on some primitive and inescapable level. Daytime. Not morning. Initiated by me (to atone to myself and the world for a lifetime of uninitiativeness). But an element of surprise not adorned with aggression. A dollop of serendipity. Tentative. A false start. The risk of failure. And then the at-first subtle though soon sure and unmistakable reprise and reboot of First Kiss (see preceding post), the sought-for though unexpected betrayal of the rules of the universe, allowing the participants a taste of sparkling history and young wonder. Crackling of burnt dendrites.

Bedtime Story, Act I

Can you give me a lift? I can pay you for gas.
Where to?
Over to the West Side, just over the city line.
People still hitchhike? And at your age?
You don't know my age.
Just saying. It was a Sixties and Seventies thing. But frowned upon. Because . . .
You gonna give me a ride or not?
Yeah, yeah. Calm down. Sure. How much for gas?
Ten.
Make it twelve.
Why twelve?
Cosmic.
Deal.
I need it now. Because, you know. Ya never know.
What's next, a "request" for a blowjob or get out and walk?
Too predictable.
True.
Let's dispense with the basic formalities. I'm Raoul. And you are . . .
Lefty.
Lefty? Not very feminine.
Not very feminine? Who the fuck are you to say?
No one. No one at all. "Fuck" ain't so feminine either, but I guess that depends on what you mean by "fuck" and what I mean by "feminine."
Here's twelve singles, one is a little ripped.
We're all damaged. Thank you. Appreciate it.
No prob.
What street we going to?
Hawthorne.
I prefer Emerson or Thoreau, with a dash of Melville.
Aren't you clever. 
I am that. What block?
1200 Hawthorne.
Got it. I hope this is nothing illegal.
Why do you say that, Raul?
Raoul. The French spelling.
Are you French?
I am not. Are you?
No, sir, if I may be so formal.
I like your voice. It's soothing. The voice a kid wants to hear for a bedtime story.
Do people still do that?
What? Speak with voices instead of texts?
No, tell bedtime stories.
Yes, I'm sure.
It's getting dark.
It's not dark yet but it's getting there.
Bob Dylan.
Excellent.
You're the second person in two days to talk about my voice.
Really? In a good way?
Yeah, what's your bedtime story?
What are you wearing?
What do you mean? That sounds naughty, especially for a so-called bedtime so-called story.
You know. Scent.
Chance. By Chanel.
As in, don't take chances?
The bedtime story, please.
Once upon a time...
Please.
Once upon a time an elderly man without any visible tattoos, a courtly fellow with a slight British accent, posh, wearing Tom Ford Ombre Leather, glided his 1957 Thunderbird convertible to a gentle stop on Strait Street as he saw a hitchhiker, an anomaly of the age, her thumb out, corny, as in an old movie, slightly sullen, not smiling but catching the driver's eye. The car stopped, but not the driver's mental ruminations. She was in her forties, likely, cut-off frayed blue jeans, hot August evening, Versace (maybe) shades atop her dirty blonde hair, tall, willowy, statuesque. Stately. Green eyes, but possibly blue or hazel from this distance. This spelled danger. Something out of a film noir that the film's backers chickened out on as a lousy financial risk. He rolled down the passenger-side window electronically. (The windows up on the convertible helped his hearing and didn't mess up his hair.) As he began to call out to her, he found himself yawning. She yawned.
Hey, it's right here. Stop. Here it is. 1200. Hawthorne.
I guess this is it.
I guess it is.
I guess so. 
See you.
Maybe see you again.
Thanks. Yeah. See ya.

burying the dead, and others

this interment no death dirt tossed the blue yellow butterfly flowers curlicued on the tabled urn her hard-earned urn beside the appointed Book of Common Prayer petitions we recite in common we mouth to the wind her uncommon age virtues demeanor generosity laughter tears we leave these severed maternal ashes for others for strangers to plant no not ashes cremains into the ground it is not her and it is not the ground yet the table the surrogate altar and it is not her here not quite do not look here said the angels at the tomb the gardener a simple hole in the ground a pale rose on the table an alstroemeria bouquet on the gravestone ashes to ashes burying the dead burying this dead engraving her memory what remains

let the dead bury the dead let the dead bury their own dead Jesus snapped hurried harried not my problem as if to say more urgent matters burn at hand such as now and the living above the dirt those of us still born still breathing

bury as in hide conceal protect shelter preserve

others

as for others entomb their reckless ecstasies those exalted maelstroms we loved to call love singing o happy fault o happy day night

bury it all bury it cheap or dear bury it deep

where every singed seed 

stalks the grave ground's readiness

where watered ripeness raves

book list

I used to list the books I had read at the end of every year. I still do, handwritten, but I haven't posted such lists here in a while.

So, here goes. My 2018 reading list, sotto voce, in ejaculatio praecox form, if you will:

1.  Debriefing: Collected Stories by Susan Sontag, edited by Benjamin Taylor
2. Andrew's Brain by E.L. Doctorow 
3. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
4.  Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
5. A Live Coal in the Sea by Madeleine L'Engle
6. A Legacy of Spies by John le Carre
7. Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet's Journey by Stephen Kuusisto
8. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
9. Does It Fart? The Definitive Guide to Animal Flatulence by Nick Caruso and Dani Rabaiotti; illustrated by Ethan Kocak
10. The Informer by Craig Nova
11. While I Was Gone by Sue Miller
12. The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth
13. The Fig Eater by Jody Shields
14. My Ex-Life by Stephen McCauley
15. Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 by Francine Prose
16. This Is It by Alan Watts
17. Haiku: This Other World by Richard Wright
18. The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser
19. The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life by John le Carre

... and counting.

Book 'em: We Are Listing, But Not Listless

In what has become an annual rite, here is my list of books read in 2008, in the order of my having read them. I know the year is not over, but I won't finish Netherland by Joseph O'Neill until sometime in 2009. You are invited to share lists of your own, publicly or privately.

1. The Lay of the Land. Richard Ford. Fiction. I place it in the top ranks of any year. A journey through the modern American landscape, especially the interior landscape of the older American white male. Yes, he has a soul.

2. The Quick of It. Eamon Grennan. Poetry.

3. Born Standing Up. Steve Martin. Autobiography.

4. Returning to Earth. Jim Harrison. Fiction.

5. A Three Dog Life. Abigail Thomas. Memoir. (Yes, Mark Murphy, I would have added a hyphen to the title.)

6. What the Gospels Meant. Garry Wills. Nonfiction. Erudite and excellent. Readable.

7. Three Days to Never. Tim Powers. Fiction. (Powers is one of son's favorites.)

8. Then We Came to the End. Joshua Ferris. Fiction. Bought in paperback at a fine bookstore in Potsdam, Germany. Catch-22 goes to the office. A book about people losing their jobs, the right book at the right time, for me.

9. God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible. Adam Nicolson. Nonfiction. Scholarly and hugely entertaining.

10. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Kate Di Camillo. Fiction. It can be rewarding to share reading with your children (which is also true for numbers 7 and 3; or with one's spouse, number 5).

11. The Unknown Terrorist. Richard Flanagan. Fiction.

12. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Roddy Doyle. Fiction. Touching, and unbearably sad.

13. The Hidden Assassins. Robert Wilson. Fiction.

14. Once Upon a Fastball. Bob Mitchell. Fiction. Rewarding.

15. After Dark. Haruki Murakami. Fiction. Murakami. What else to say? (Read first by my daughter, who has become a fan.)

16. Skin Deep. E.M. Crane. Fiction.

17. Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini. Nonfiction.

18. A Step From Death. Larry Woiwode. Memoir.

19. One Good Turn. Kate Atkinson. Fiction.

20. Supreme Courtship. Christopher Buckley. Fiction. I met his dad, William F. Buckley Jr., when "Christo" was around 12, at his home. He surely does not remember.

21. What Jesus Meant. Garry Wills. Again, Wills is so great. Unconventional and intelligent.

22. Holidays on Ice. David Sedaris. Fiction (some say nonfiction, but depends on the piece). Fresh after seeing him and meeting him at the Landmark Theatre, Syracuse. My kind of humor, for the most part.