Salamanders Green part 2B page 22

Self prescribed therapy or life prescribed. Only those willing to learn are able to teach. Only those willing to change can understand change in other, to make allowances so ones self as well as others can change. Freedom, self liberation - work at creating ones own soul - respect your dreams eventually all planes all levels of consciousness must balance.

“A dream two people dream together is a reality." Yoko Ono, Grapefruit. 

Perhaps but one must also learn to depend on oneself for dreams as well as companionship....

One must also learn how to write smaller so as to conserve paper and too, remember how to decipher ones own handwriting. Time to go in. Not much of a day this day, almost sunshine but the sky is still not free from last night’s thunder which woke me from a sound sleep. So loud and long I thought for sure the end of the world had come. Mumbling short breathed heart pounding Sanskrit while waiting for the big flash smashing apart every atom of my being into a bursting match stick made of my own flesh. But all that came was this almost day inevitably leading to this evening humidity thick like a piss soaked cotton diaper wrapped tight around my face. I'm upstairs in my brothers room some cool jazz on the stereo. I first began and did much of my own writing on this desk here (it was my mother's desk before she was married) in this room here (when it was my room). Now the desk cluttered with brother paper and a turn table. I sit on the bed, note book across my knees, fan humming, cigarette smoking.

Been feeling pretty down the last days, slacking off on my therapy, at times it's tuff to beat this loneliness, this physical loneliness combines with lack of freedom and sense of failure... it's tuff and no matter how much one tries to philosophise there's still no cure for loneliness like a lover.

Little things have been getting at me lately, things like it's difficult to write with out a table, or like should I try to contact someone, or should I or shouldn't I get out of bed, being irritated about everything!

Today I drove my mother to Hartford for a Doctors appointment. It's about an hour trip each way, she let me drive her '73 Riviera all eight cylinders of it. But the highways out here are a real drag, a series of frustration. I mean they sell you these monster cars that can fly, give you a wide open three lane interstate and then say but you can only go 55 miles per hour then to top it off they plant a bunch of state cops with nothing better to do than maintain their salary by issuing speeding tickets. Frustration. I mean I just wanted so bad to kick into that sucker and fly, if not for my Mother being with me I'd be going to court now for sure. It's just so damn typical American, give you all the power of freedom and then forbid its use. Some American dream.

 Don't think it's really a good time to write, just too damn tense. I thought writing would help me feel better but is just the opposite. I'm bored and really lonely, can't stop hating my ex- wife, can't stop being angry with myself for letting shit get to me and I just want to smash this fuckin' humidity. I just want to fuck some pretty little girl into being cross eyed for a least a week, I just want to get behind the wheel and punch it, smash it, rip it right up the ass of some fuckin' ass hole cop and smash through those American rip off speed limits. The fuckin' American dream, promise you everything and let you have shit, a fuckin' donkey busting ass for some carrot on a bloody string.

Angry, miserable, smoke too much, eat too little, too horny, too tired, too far from the place I want to be, too fuckin' young for these good ol' days blues - I am an angry young man, I am so mother fuckin' son of a bitchin' 

Tomorrow I'm gonna' paint. I will be up early tomorrow, borrow my mother's car, stop off for a real breakfast and be the first customer in that god damn art shop, come straight home and work I'll get at least two canvasses done. Gonna' check my paints right now, see what I need so tomorrow I'll be ready to go and work in the hopefully sunshine of the day.

salamanders green (part 2A) page 21

I have moved my self out side to the pinc nic table under the patio roof, hoping to be quick enough so as to not interrupt my grandmother thoughts. I've also just put some bread for the birds and a pile of unshelled peanuts for the squirrel. It's still a mellow pace nothing threatening rainy day. A pair of blue jays just flew in for an argument over a rye crust while the other birds just hang out of the rain like little discreet decorations placed in the shrubbery that surrounds my Mother's yard. I’m remembering a dream from last night, a dream about my sister well about her tomato plants as she wasn't really in it but I knew it was her who cut down all her five foot plants, cut them in half and then transplanted them to the other side of the tool shed and I thought to myself that it must be too late in the season to transplant and besides who ever heard of pruning tomato plants? And when I looked at the ground where they had been the grass had already covered where her garden used to be.

I just lit a cigarette and about 25 birds went up with the smoke. The squirrel is still eating his peanuts; his tail laid up over his head umbrellaing him from the rain. He looks ridiculous. The Siamese cat I call Maggot watching from under the table, too lazy to risk the rain for either squirrel or bird. The rain harder now, the last few bits of bread aren't worth it for the birds but the squirrel is strung out on peanuts. As for me it's time for a fresh cup and a piss. Now even the squirrel is gone, maybe his umbrella got a cramp?

"It is only when we can believe that we are creating the soul that life has any meaning...." May Sarton. Journal of a Solitude

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End Part 2A, Salamanders Green.

salamanders green (part 2A) page 20

Pigeons remind me of my grandmother’s house. Her house was pigeon grey and shared the same flock of pigeons with the church right next door. The white clap board church with the black slate roof - every so often a bit of slate would slip off and smash to pieces on the cobble stone driveway; a friend of mine would gather these pieces and try to make arrow heads, spear points and other projectile weapons. Slate weapons to be used on the rats which inhabited the rubbish heap located in the far corner of our immediate world - where we were never supposed to go. The friend was the son of one of my grandmother's neighbours, the Flaherty’s. His mother had the mustard yellow house closest to the church driveway. I can not now remember his first name but he was my friend and we were true boys together - catching grasshoppers in coffee jars, making weapons and fighting wars, climbing in the branches of the huge forsythia patch in the middle of the back lot, playing with dead rats, being envious of each others toys, discovering that old bones tasted like salt, teasing black dogs chained to iron posts, exploring the abandoned house on the lot, trying to steal grapes from the fruit mans wagon, making fun of the rag man who came shouting "Rags, Rags, Rags" every Tuesday morning.

I'm stuck now. My memory races, there are so many things which haven't surfaced since so many years....

There was a woman down the back who taught dance to children out on her huge sun porch, I absolutely refused, I wouldn't even go "just to watch". There was Mrs. Macrey who lived next door to my grandmother’s house; she shared a wall with my grandmother a wall that if you sat in the kitchen and held a glass to your ear against that wall you could hear Mrs. Macrey talking to herself or to anyone else for that matter. She was my Grandmother's best friend and mine too. Was it her husband or her brother - named Red who lived with her? I used to sit outside with him, sometimes in his lap, he was in a wheel chair and he'd tell me stories and give me candies, hard sour candies sometimes flavours with sharp cinnamon. He was the first person I knew who "went to heaven". He was a good friend and loved him dearly and though I knew he was dead, I also knew that as a child they wanted me to say he went to heaven. I wanted to ask why did Red die? But instead I asked if I could go to heaven and visit Mrs. Macrey's Red.

There was another family who had the house on the corner of the main streets; they had this strange thing called daughters. Daughters were mysterious and odd, this I knew to be true from the way the grown-ups spoke about the matter - always in hushed and serious tones, whispering about the activities of these neighbours daughters as if frightened that some one would hear what they were saying.

These houses faced a main street and were separated from that street by a long bank of weedy grass and many steps of concrete steps railed with black iron pipes, steps that hardly any one ever used, even the post man would drive up the drive way that paned out into a dirt track which semi circled to each back door of the 5 houses. Down one end of Thomaston Ave., still criss crossed by silver trolley tracks were several mills and factories (Anaconda, Scoviles, The Buckle Shop etc.) the other direction lead to a main intersection leading into the centre of town or out to the interstate highways. My Grandmother and I would sometimes sit on the front porch or sometimes in her bedroom looking out the window - to watch the trucks for the mills go by. At my age they were as if some wondrous beasts, strange huge dinosauric animals which at times would screech and bellow as if calling out to each other or else hiss and whine like giant cats and some would belch out thick clouds of black smoke a mighty dragon angry with the traffic on Thomaston Ave. My Grandmother was also of the right age, hers being the age of horse drawn and trolley cars, so that she too could be amazed at the antics of these fabulous beasts. To go along with our ritual there were certain necessities: a box of Mr. Salty pretzel sticks, a few bottles of Hires Root Beer or Diamond Ginger Ale and of course a box of Dog Yummies for Tuffy the copper coloured canine who shared this all with us....

My Grandmother and Aunt taught me how to play cards and how to smoke, first corn silk then Pall Malls, they taught me not to play with the gas stove because if you turn it on without lighting it then the smell of the gas would make you throw up and die. From them I also learned to love dill pickles and ginger ale - that special kind of ginger ale - Diamond, the kind that was so sharp and bubbly it brought tears to my eyes and tickled my nose as I drank it. They also taught me how to transfer the grasshopper from the little coffee jars into the large pickle jars which they had set up for me on the back porch - and not let them escape! All these important things for a boy to learn I learned from them - like Superman, Rin Tin Tin, Popeye The Sailor Man, Rice-A-Roni, wagon wheel pasta, and what happens when you put the Silly Putty in your pants pocket rather than back into its little plastic egg like you're supposed to. I received instructions on the protocols for dealing with dogs, how dogs with bones from the butcher are definitely not the same dog that wrestles with you in the back yard - even though they look the same, each needed different handling and no matter what the dog under no circumstances was it considered good to pull its tail. I got my first cat from one of grandmother’s friends and I loved it! My mother as a bit nervous about it but I was very proud of the fact that despite my knee high years I already knew to not make a big fuss over it if the cat should scratch you in the activity of play. And more slate: - deep black slate basins cool black even in the hottest summer, I would just run my hands along them savouring the chill that seemed to tingle all the way down to my toes on those days of wash when my grandmother would remove the white enamelled metal covers preparing to do the laundry. Then there was the large slate black board on which I would "make fires" by rolling the chalk along it creating flames and then smoke until the whole board eventually covered by chalk dust....

The attic of her house that I can never forget, that attic filled with strange things. An attic of two landings and numerous rooms with things from my father’s childhood, and from the grandfather I never knew there were things from him up there too! Rooms, many rooms and shadows and yellow glass windows veined with black strings of dust some of which would break free and move under a power all its own as if waving as if reaching wanting to wrap itself around you.... I remember a slate back wooden chair angled by a gable window, a chipped in the handle pitcher sitting in a matching pale green bowl flecked with old gold paint bits, set there on the chair positioned to catch the drop by drop of roof water long sense over flowed from the pitcher into the bowl from the bowl a brown wormy liquid catching the pale sunlight as if a sleeping copper eel coiled all the way to the floor.

 

In the cellar  was a cask of fuel oil; I would sometimes go down with my grandmother as she took a little can to fill with the oil, oil for the space heater upstairs. I remember the red rail-road lantern which she used to see her way down into a cellar of no electricity and didn't she light that same lantern every night setting it out on the back porch rail and why?

salamanders green part 2A page 13

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Put together some eggs and stuff for the kid. Used a paper towel to filter the coffee, worked well, a little anisette to sweeten and we have the perfect after dishes after feeding Sean his breakfast treat. Want to go somewhere today, don't care or know where but got some cash, got my son got the old lady's car and she's sleeping so - got the world on a string... everything I need well almost, Seany wants me to go back and get Duchess, our black Doberman. So OK Seany you’re right we have to take her with us so she won't cry. We drive up to the golf course where I work; we cut out off the main road on to a pot holed maintenance road and park along the edge of an abandoned fairway. I leave the car door open so we can hear the radio and me and the kid and the dog run around like mad until the rain gets there and we pack up ourselves into the old Cutlass Supreme head out to A&W burger joint. “Be sure and get extra pickles on the one for Duchess. She really likes them you know Dad.” That big scary black devil Doberman loves my son almost as much as I do. Dear old duchess with her red bandanna collar. Patience of a saint never growled at the kid even when he'd pull her eyelids out and twist them in his tiny little fists. Saint Duchess only whines a bit waiting for me to rescue her from the tyranny of toddlers. And when he was learning to walk? Wasn't it Duchess like some black devil mother hen following just behind as if to make sure no harm would come to her charge and when as he occasionally did, Sean fell? Wasn't it Duchess on the spot licking his face so that any thought of tears vanished into tickled laughter? There was a time when I'd always carry a pen and a wad of note paper where ever I went. I'd be writing poems in the woods, in the churches, the mens rooms, the bar, leaning up in a doorway out of the rain down-town the heavy smoke of damp cigarettes lace the perfume of cheap port wine like a brown paper bag coming up with ink stains from my coat pocket cold bricks against my neck leaning back out of the rain breathing deep the cold air that waits for snow...

It's been a long time since I've done that needless to say it's been a long time since I came up with a line of poetry. Today I was going through some things and found one of those wads of paper with some writing on it and also tucked in was an old Bic pen - still works! So how does one resist? What the fuck, why not write?

I've not been with my wife or son, been staying at my parents. I'm sitting here trying to sort out my feelings listening to my brother's stereo - Dylan, Don't Think Twice It's Alright, Neil Young, Oh Lonesome Me.... There is a large lump where my heart used to be and it's so cold it feels like pain.

Still what I am needing most is a place to live so Money! Money, money everywhere but not a cent for me. I think if I had enough money I could have kept my wife, she loves new cars and big houses and clothes and furniture and somewhere down the line maybe there used to be I'm going to take a walk up by the reservoir. The place where I "grew up", the place of first acid trips and parties, the place of good comrades and the first time I made love. There is a place I go there a place where my first lover and I sat by the little pond hidden by the red pines, a place of still remembering, a happy good remembering, a grateful remembering of you Mary.

Along, along... and here I am 24 years old smoking to many cigarettes, working my ass off for three dollars and fifty cents an hour, living at my parents, sleeping on the sofa in a house full of cat hair, and my wife has told me to leave her alone - to get the fuck out, she wants to go out with other guys to see if she can't be happier and if not well then maybe she'll take me back. My sons got no family. I got no friend to talk to, no woman to love - and they still ain't gonna keep me down 'cause somewhere there is a little bit of luck left and no matter what happens I'm gonna be around. Painful, yes but not fatal! I'll still be here for a while longer, here in this life, here on this planet and I suppose it doesn't really mean a thing. Pain is just another way of seeing how alive you are. So I'm gonna shake these lonesome blues get the fuck out and find someone new....

Sitting here reading through what I've written, it's been months since the last word.... and where does one start? How to get back into the groove? Lesson number one: You can never go back! Which is no solution to my problem - to write. I'm not living any where still the couch at Mom and Dad's. Haven't painted in about six months and its been almost as long since any poetry. It's crazy all the wasted time. Doing the bar scene, a few mid night escapades, girls who make me happy for a while, sell a little coke, make love to Suli once in a while afterwards feeling so achey because you can never really go back. I have dreams of telephone calls from women in big rooms full with blank canvasses and death and terrors. Dreams - these images are common in my dreams.

Looking for love among the ruins. Among the "friends" who fuck my wife, among the spilt stale beer blue fog across the bar room television light. Looking for love among the ruins the shell shocked soldier bleeds red from his eyes, from his heart and from underneath his finger nails. Big titted broads fresh vomit on their breath hungry for kisses, little girl giggles, teasers pleasers, playing card people flipping one game after the other, power plays just getting you to say OK. is enough, she never shows and when you call no one knows just who you are but she might be back tomorrow, and when you call no one knows just who you are but could you not call here anymore. I am some misguided saint, my lamp dull above the darkness - show me an honest person and I’ll call you a liar. A veteran on the battlefield ending up with scars that should but cannot be hidden, wounds that should but cannot be fatal.