Week 1 songwriting challenge – phobia

The bat(s):

The cat leaped up to fireplace vents and pulled out a small bat.  It fluttered in her teeth as she brought it the ground. Her recent experience being only with mice, she let it go to watch it run and begin the game.  Unfortunately for her, the bat had wings and lifted off in flash. To my side, the shrieking begins; “Get it! Get it! Get it! o! o! o!”. I can see my wife reach up to cover the hair on the back of her neck. In some atavistic memory at work in her mind, bats and other beasts tangle themselves in her hair.

The gopher:

My  5 year old daughter and I were working in the yard, the Santa Cruz weather just right as always. If I remember correctly, we were picking the sweet Meyer lemons that grew just outside the living room window by the side of the house. Of course, some of the bight yellow fruit never made it into the basket. Our lips we tingling from the sharp, sweet taste of the still warm lemons.

Looking down I saw a gopher stick its head out of one of the many gopher holes that littered our yard. I quietly picked up a shovel and waited. My daughter looked over at me wondering what I was up to. The gopher then stuck its head out the hole to take its last look around. “Kill it! Kill it! my daughter shrieked again and again. I was almost laughing to hard to dispatch the hapless rodent. Where did that come from I wondered?

Can you make it this year?

Finally done with work; I would plop down on the couch, soft pillows wrapping around me…some time off..I get sleepy just thinking about it.

The last of the summer heat baked the layer of leaves on the lawn outside the picture windows…the afternoon light was golden through the turned leaves on the oaks and maples. The nights were getting cold. It had that crisp smell of the coming winter.

Visions of cold and snow would dance briefly through my mind; I looked forward to x-county skiing..the stillness of the woods with the new fallen snow, the rush of the downhill plunge, the hot, hot chocolate to warm my hands and hopefully not burn my tongue at the end of the trek.

Then of course there was the dinner …

Everyone had there favorite thing; for me it was the  pumpkin pie, lots of pumpkin pie! Golden and sweet but not too sweet.  I wanted to taste the squash underneath. Ysabel liked the mash potatoes with plenty of butter and salt. Susan liked the cranberry relish with orange zest. Of course, Nina was eating the turkey now that she was no longer a vegetarian. And Liam liked everything.

Of course, now it’s cold everyday…40 degrees in the morning most days but never really cold like Michigan….we are near the coast and the ocean cools everything down and keeps everything warm at the same time.

I like being in the warm kitchen when it is cold and rainy outside. I like the noise of the family when everyone is here; loud and competitive but still full of fun and admiration for each other, each wanting the other to succeed and do great things.

It will be really great to see everyone again. I hope they can make it this year.

I like country but I don’t love jesus

The email from my country writing mentor slaps me in the face. “A real man wouldn’t say that”, he says. I don’t care about being a real man; I just wanna be who I am.

When I fired up my songwriting application this morning, there it was, in my face again…a whole section on the Bible. I bristle at the expectation that I share in this fantasy.

But it’s worse than that…it is cultural to the core..

My waitress has an old fashion hairdo…in pile on top of her head…I ask for some hot sauce …she says in a polite southern way that they are almost out because a bunch of black people came through…wtf!

And when did trucks get hijacked for country use only? Ok, I drive a Prius but I have nothing against trucks. They are very useful if a bit expensive on gas.

And country music…damn…there is a theft if there ever was one. The lonesome wail across the Scottish highlands now belongs to the southern conservatives…fuck that I say…I am going to go all Jason on them and steal back the golden fleece…California Country here we come…wailing dobros and fiddles, not one mention of God or country, men with emotions…

Getting older

The only thing that bugs me is the waddle under my chin. My brothers, sister, and mother all had/have the same thing…the flesh hangs loose in a line from the back off my chin down past my adams apple.

The gray hair makes me feel like a silverback. Don’t fuck with me. The image in the mirror; big belly, what little muscle I had gone fat doesn’t bug me so much because there is still less of me than there was. Grey public hair though; ok now that looks old. A reminder that my time is brief.

My neck snaps crackles and pops when I turn my head; rice crispies in my vertebrae.

Going with the goatee was a good idea from my Canadian friends. I look at my aging peers with their full beards; it is hard to look groomed with all your hair is thickening up and getting patchy at the same time. Hair sprouts from my ears; I pinch it tight between my fingernails and pull it out…the same for the occasional rouge eyebrow hair..they seem to find a spot just far enough away from the rest of my eyebrow to make it really easy to find them and yank them out by the roots….though I would like to have big bushy hairy eyebrows…I think it is all the coffee I drink…nerves frayed and jittery…fingers go to pulling out hair or picking my nose.

I wonder when it will stop working… when standing up and walking around will be the day’s adventure..it makes me think of my brother when he had his brain tumor….falling down on the bathroom floor…his body surprising heavy and solid as I helped him onto the toilet.

And George; 80 years old, his body rigid, suppressing his panic as food stopped short in his dysfunctional esophagus…the relief on his face as the food moved on…

And the end of course…my mother’s labored breathing, nothing but breathing….then after the final grasp at life…nothing…gone…mouth open…the body empty and still.

Confidant

Exploration of the loss of a lover and confidant…..

I was so clueless. You sat up on the bed cross-legged and put your chin down on your palm. You were smiling at me as I lay back on the pillow. You were telling me that you didn’t really love me. Your head titled sideways, your beautiful blue eyes fixed on mine and you told me that someday I would find someone who really did love me.  Of course, I didn’t believe it; that you didn’t love me or that I would ever find anyone who would. And of course, I have and I want to tell you that you were right….like I have always wanted to tell you about everything good that has happened to me…I have no idea where you are of if you are even still alive.

The house is cold, colder than the warm spring morning outside. You didn’t come home last night and I wonder where you are. The warm water and soap distracts me as I clean last night’s dishes. I open the window and hear the conversations from the parking lot next door at the 7-Eleven as if they where taking place in the room next to me. I wonder how long I should wait before I call your parents to see if they have heard from you. I sit on the couch and pick up a book, read a sentence or two then stop to listen for your footsteps on stairs. I want to tell you how worried I am but you are not here to tell.

Now watcha want me to do?

It’s the weekend, no school, and a long day of fun ahead. The air is crisp yet warm like only a morning on the California coast could be. I grab the basketball from the closet and yell to my brother. We collide trying to get out the door. He does his special Judo move on me and leaves me laying face down on the porch while he runs off to Jimmy’s house. I grab the basketball from neighbors yard where it somehow ended up during our struggle yell after him, telling him that he is such an asshole.

He comes back with Jimmy; they are punching each other in the arm and laughing. Jimmy has his bike and drops in on the ground so he can land a better punch. My brother just manages to dodge it and runs up to carport to grab his Schwinn ten speed. I grab my souped-up Sting Ray with the banana seat and the high-rise handle bars, make sure the playing card is still hitting the spokes just right. It makes that cool slappy flappy motor noise as we head down the street to the top of Wisteria Way. Wisteria Way is really steep and straight down. He  and Jimmy daredevil down the hill, whooping. I am sure they are going to die. I follow more slowly using my brakes to slow myself down when my front wheel starts wobbling wildly.  They are driving around in circles at the bottom of the hill waiting for me.

When I arrive, they straighten up and head out onto the road the goes past the football field. I peddle like a maniac trying to keep up. We arrive at the high school outdoor courts and lay our bikes back behind the hoop. The court is empty but we feel like interlopers as it will be a few years before we will consider it our turf. Our game of “horse’ evolves into a mad affair mainly inspired by Jimmy’s insanity like the shot where we need to fart before we could shoot.

Halfway though our game, we see an older boy, a teenager, walking in our direction from the street. As he gets closer, he struts like he owns the place. He yells at us asking what the fuck we are doing on the court. I wanted to just take off but my brother and Jimmy told him that they were here first and that they should be able to keep playing.  The boy’s face twists in rage. He raises his fists and tells us to get moving.

Jimmy just grins and started shaking his body around, wiggling his hips and flapping he arms. After a few seconds, he turns to the older boy and says,

“I’m moving! I’m moving! Now watcha want me to do?”

The older boy’s eyes grow wide and he gets a very confused look on his face. After a moment or two he deflates,  waves his hand at us dismissively, and walks away.

Balloon ride

This is based on an early morning dream…..

I am filled with a vague disquiet. I look for you in the kitchen…a pot of water is boiling on the stove, drops of water from the steam cling to the glass of the kitchen window. I wander down the hall, longer and narrower then usual. The bed is empty and unmade, then pillow still shows a hollow where your head lay last night. I stop and listen ..only silence inside the house; faints sounds of life filter in through the closed windows.

I walk to the front door and turn the knob. The door will not open…I lean against it and push my feet slipping on on the polished wood floor. The door begins to open slowly, heavy, so much heavier than it should be. I lose my balance and fall onto front porch..I stand up, rubbing my forearms, achy from the impact of my fall.

The air outside is heavy and hot even though it is early morning. The cicadas start up their endless drone.

In the middle of the lawn, there is an air balloon, striped with red, yellow, orange and green. It is small, the basket only large enough for a small child. As I approach, it grows in size and rises off the ground. By the time I reach it, the basket is off the ground straining at the guy ropes. I look up and the balloon fills the sky above me.

I grab hold of the rope ladder hanging of the side of the basket and climb, the ladder swinging freely, the wooden rungs slippery in my hands. I heave my self up over the edge of the basket and fall to the bottom. Standing up, I grab the thick coarse rope attached to the edge of the basket and lift it off; the edge of the basket heaves up and I fall against the other side. I struggle to detach the remaining guy line. As the basket tips further, I managed to slip it off and the balloon lifts rapidly into the air. My legs buckle until my body has caught up with the rising balloon.

The air cools as the balloon rises; I look over the edge and can see our house below, small along with all the other houses, the streets making an uneven checker board at the edge of the city.

I look for you; the balloon looks for you; it takes us over the city.

We want to find you so badly…..

Minnesota Summer

The light outside is an light green, filtered in that special way that speaks loudly of ominous weather before the thunder arrives.  A darker sky descends low,  sky boils upside down, brown against tan, seething in beautiful patterns.  The first flash of lightning sears a tracing of light into my vision. A searing crackle follows, so close, and the following heavy thunders shakes the windows and walls. I can feel it resonate in my head and through my body. The fierce onslaught continues and I back away from the windows. As the thunder eases, a rat-ta-tat-tat begins on the roof. Hailstones the size of marbles and larger  pour like curtains of ice from the sky. The ground looks like it is covered with winter snow.

The pounding hail eases only to be replace by a deluge of rain so thick that I cannot see the other side of the street. Small rivers form quickly and carry away the hail. The street drains are unable to handle the huge volume of water and they back up. The intersections become small lakes. Drivers crazy enough to be out and about move with trepidation as the water comes up almost to the tops of their wheel wells.

As suddenly as it came, the rain vanishes. I step outside and find a large green mass of leaves at the end of a heavy fallen branch that crosses the sidewalk. It occurs to me that it is resting exactly where I parked my car. Looking closing I can see a little bit of the orange hood peeking out from under the leaves.

I turn and scan the whole horizon. In every direction I look I see forked lighting brushing against the silhouettes of houses in the distance. The faint rumbles of thunder vibrate the air.

To the west I see beams of sunlight filtering through the clouds at the back of the storm. Before long, the sky above me is blue and clear. The ground steams as the sun returns.

On the banks of the Thamalakane

The river runs deep, thick and steady next the the small hut we occupy. I round up the pellet gun and head out, a small but great white hunter on the banks of the Thamalakane. The road is outside of the camp is pounded into a fine dust by many feet and the few Land Rovers and trucks that pass though. It feels like waking on a soft cloud. The dust quickly turns my shoes a dusty red.

I turn to follow a small tributary to the river. I can see the crocodiles basking on the far bank. Heading into the brush, I start looking for small game that I can take with the small gun. Various birds take flight and I take aim but don’t shoot as they are too fast.

My eyes catch movement on a branch of tree that is growing wide, almost horizontal to the ground. A fat squirrel scampers up the branch and halts to gnaw on a found meal. I excitedly take a knee and raise the pellet gun, the squirrel now just above the tip of the rifle and line up with the sight. I am close enough to see its small jaws grinding away. Letting out my breath slowly, I squeeze the trigger. The squirrel topples off the branch to the ground. My first kill!

With great excitement I cover the few yards to the tree and find the animal laying on the ground, still moving slightly, the last responses of flight muscles. I reach down and pick it up. It fur is so soft on my palms, its body still warm.

I begin to cry and put the squirrel back down. Finding a small stick, I dig a small circular grave and lay the squirrel into it. Still weeping softly, I push the pile of dirt over its body. I make a marker of stones and sticks then head back to camp.

My family is still away when I return so I sit in a chair next to fire and lean back feeling the breeze and listening to the sound of the river. Doves coo over my head and I reach again for the pellet gun. Taking careful aim, I pop a dove off its perch and it falls on the other side of the fire pit. When I pick it up I see that I have hit it square in its beak, splitting it into four pieces. It must have been looking at me when I shot it.

Immensely satisfied with my marksmanship, I cut off its head and feet and pluck its feathers. There is not much bird left when I finish but it was sufficient to roast in the coals and share with my family when they returned. The smoky, fatty taste lingers in my nostrils to this day.

My teeth hurt

The sun has set..the screen provides the only light besides the small amount of grey twilight coming the patio doors. The top left of my mouth hurts where some dental work was done…needs more I guess…part of another tooth broke off when they were fixing a crown…crap.

The house is smoky from the fire..small wisps of smoke hang near the ceiling..the chimney must be somewhat blocked by the snow.  The smell of burning oak mostly covers the burnt popcorn smell from the microwave fiasco.

The teeny tiny bit of wine gave me a headache so I am making a pot of soothing tea…feeling restless…my teeth hurt.

The tea is sweet, a faint taste like licorice, minty, soothing. The stream rises of the cup into my face.

The stove beeps as Susan sets the timer on for the sweet potatoes. She sings and crinkles the the bag of nuts as she fishes out a few for a snack.

My teeth hurt.