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memory (40)

FORTY-ONE

Posted by dylan m on February 9, 2011 at 9:55pm
midwestern 50s libraries in the 70s
Her driveway under the streetlight a quarter past curfew
48 & O in 1982
Driving on state in a blizzard. all neon and script.
Solid gold at holly's house on harrison
The Creek
That country road where you thought: what if I just kept driving.
That CO gas station where I sneaked a peak at a hustler.

Blocks walked.
Towns driven through.
Lives flown over.

I remember that which I forgot.

It's just a desire now and again to have a completely different life. For maybe a month or so. Maybe banal. Maybe worse. Some other city. Some other country. Or maybe another era. Just: Flash. New. Different. Yes please
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THIRTY-TWO

Posted by dylan m on June 20, 2010 at 8:00am
(in progress)
Fire engines. 5th grade. Today.
What is reality?
Why do you believe what you believe. is it because you believe you are supposed to believe it or because you believe it. or.
I spent some time in a white pile on a blue plate. it still lives in me.
Dependable/corruptible.
Skinny arms and bendy elbows. Studded gloves and hands on shoulders. smack bam twang. repeat. burrow. repeat. tire. resist. ache. ache. ache.
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THIRTY-EIGHT

Posted by dylan m on November 10, 2010 at 2:45am
skin diseases.
body aches.
sour.
time loss lapse.
too much to do.
too much to distract.
where's the substance.
where's the real.
silly over thoughtful.
make it all go away.
get simple.
tired. all the time.
sorry.

no spark in her eye.
no quickening in my pulse.
come back. i miss you.
miss the nerves that come.
what do you smell like?
what do you taste like?
where are you ticklish?
will you hurt me?
will i care?
what do you think about when you're alone?
did you place that ad i never even saw?
did i miss my chance?

skinny limbs.
bouncy steps.
yellow hair shines in the sun.
energy.
cliche.
(sorry.)
really i am sorry.

move along.
nothing to see here.
nothing all that different here.

yearn for more.
old is not new.
old is old.

on a train.
fall weather.
telephone lines stretch twixt you and
me.
(telephone lines? extinction.)
passing towns.
pickup trucks.
dead leaves.
littered ditches.
stoplights.
dreams.
xmas lights in the lake.

work is work.
me spread thin.
time is running out.

waiting.weighty.waiting.

over.
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THIRTY-FOUR

Posted by dylan m on July 27, 2010 at 12:00am
8.15-8:30am. daily.

in a city of 8 million.

father and son (tricycle optional).
everyman.
tomkat doorman.
assorted firefighters.
older black homeless man. reading paper. off the clock.
young skinny white girl. long dark hair framing the face. looks away.
young not-so-skinny girl. intriguing unknown ethnicity. pulls hair back. meets gaze.
woman. waiting for the bus. same phone and case as me.
orange truck.
newmark porter.
driver in the black mercedes.
woman. walking beagle. sometimes frames. sometimes pulls back.
man smoking. folds paper into a makeshift cigarette holder. keeps the stink off.

and up i go.

repeat. repeat.repeat.



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THIRTY-SIX

Posted by dylan m on August 26, 2010 at 1:30am

My dad turned 64 yesterday.

When I'm 64 came out in 1967 when he was 21.

What he thought then. 1967. 21 years old. 64 seemed so so so far away. And now. He's there.

From here on out, 64 will be a recollection. What was so far away is now behind. Never to return.

Caught.

And that's the thing about When I'm 64. You think about it. Don't you. What it'll be like. Who you'll be. The future; so far away.

But it's not.

But it's not.



OR



I roamed the East Village last Friday evening. After a rock show. At a club where I have ingested many things. Many of them illegal. You'd never guess it to look at me but I have ingested many things. Many (sometimes) wonderful things. Back when the Village was mine. Ours. And now it's not anymore.

It's theirs. Walking at 1am on a hot August Friday evening.

The people were cardboard.

The spark was gone.

The light was out.

I could ask for more.

When I'm 64.

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THIRTY-SEVEN

Posted by dylan m on September 26, 2010 at 4:00am
i must admit things do seem to becoming into focus. or be coming. or in to.
yet. there's seems a death of something too. sure: it's been back there. lurking. ducking round the corner when i look.
something. past.
and that's just what it is. past.
it's hard to say goodbye. hard to see a you drift away.
but there's a new you a-coming.
and maybe. just maybe it's the you you're supposed to be.
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THIRTY-THREE

Posted by dylan m on July 11, 2010 at 1:40am
trying not to be a cliche.
trying not to be hypocrite.
trying to be honest.
straightforward.true.
what is all this?how did this all happen?
what now?
waves of time past crushing my head.
trying not to panic.
trying not to flee.
trying to stay me.

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TWENTY-EIGHT

Posted by dylan m on May 1, 2010 at 6:00pm
or.

a cabin outside of glenwood springs colorado. surrounded by the mountains in a little valley. 1989. a valley of tall grass. or short trees. cool summer's night. sitting in a flimsy plastic garden chair. the good son playing over and over again as i took it all in. missing her, a state and a timezone away. most likely repeating the ship and weeping songs. play. rewind. play.rewind.play. i don't think i had my nice aiwa portable cassette player yet but maybe i did. not sure.

g-d. all those portable cassette players i owned. auto reverse. little red battery lights. super bass. anti rolling mechanism. high bias. radio presets. digital. plastic. metal. i always wanted one of those yellow sport walkmans but there was no reason to. i'm not even a big fan of yellow. i'm sure somebody had one. somebody i wanted to be.

the night was quiet. the stars were out. the air was clean.

and i was removed. distant. somewhere else. in pain. in longing.in sadness.

but now: paradise.


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TWENTY-ONE

Posted by dylan m on February 9, 2010 at 5:00pm
I had my hopes of how I would be
after living in exile, after closing your eyes to me
I even wrote scenes where I re-emerged boldly
and bearded alive with eskimo eyes
new baby on my back
but I didn't count the fact
that I have ghosts in my mind
stowaway great ghosts of my life
great ghosts of old wives
and they're howling
so I spent my wilderness time
rolling on the ground
pulling my hair
wrestling them off
yelling at no one
punching snow
I gathered ghosts and I gave them my lecture
bid them away
I pleaded and cried

there's no room in my life for you or your howling

let me undo these ropes
and go on living without you
not just change where I live
go on get, i said

I had my hopes of how I would be
after sending them off
after getting set free
but there's no such thing as living
without their prowling
as you can see, having descended the hill
I still look like me, I still wallow like Phil
and forever will

I'm teeming with ghosts
and I'm still whining for wives, unknitting my brow
but now I've surrendered
in fact i've joined in
you can hear us howling


Phil Elverum

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TWENTY-SIX

Posted by dylan m on April 29, 2010 at 1:00am
an insurance adjuster in sacramento in 1975 driving home at the end of a disappointing day. wearing a light green suit.

sitting next to me at a french restaurant in queens. first the voice then it comes clear. one night. in october. how does that happen.

with an open bottle of wine sitting canalside on a summer's night in venice. hot off the water. watching the boats go by. good bread and isnardi oil. talking talking talking as the wine takes hold.

at a warehouse somehwere in williamsburg late at night in 1999. where.

the new gallery. paris. 1958. the work's shit anyway.

waiting. anxious. awkward. backward. the shivers. the darkness. the collapsing of it all.

yes.
the emptiest of feelings.
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TWENTY-THREE

Posted by dylan m on April 1, 2010 at 12:30am
>2005 came and went. as did i. that was the time though. that's when I made my modern world. that was the point that shaped my modern life.
>i can't help but think back. cant help it. dont want to. but yet i do. happy now. but yet i do.
and i cant believe that it was 5 years ago. my brain hurts a lot. but i cant believe 7 years ago was 7 years ago either. time moves fast in the big city.
>theres a life you lead and a life you dont and its true that we make our own present daily. but there are those days (not like the days like this you're momma said momma said) or weeks or months or years or seconds that shape more of time than you ever could have imagined.
>i cant help it. i wanna go back sometimes and make the braver decision. the harder decision.
>the enormity of it all just rips you a-fucking-part somedays.
>today turns into tomorrow turns into something good turns into 2005.
>it all comes flooding back.
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TWENTY-TWO

Posted by dylan m on February 25, 2010 at 6:00pm
places i was once
a hotel on the highway. outside of denver co. kind of mission-style inside with warm beige stucco walls and some fountains and everything.
i was there with other people and i can't remember who they were.
we didn't stay long and i can't remember why we were there.
it was east of denver on the highway which was kind of a wasteland of storage rentals and shipping container yards and metal shops. big billboards advertising local radio and car dealerships. electrical wires everywhere and the faint outline of the mountains that lay just a few miles away but remained cloaked in the thick haze of denver industry.
we sat in a bar area with little tables reached through labyrinthine halls, past overgrown potted plants. no servers to be found. we just sat there for a while and moved on.
i remember the whole thing being odd. a weird (nice) hotel in a desolate industrial zone. not even near the airport to justify itself.
it was probably that summer of 91. i lived in denver for a time then.
i thought of all the times as i kid i would sit in the back of the family car on a trip to the mountains. we made a game out of when we could first see the mountains. every year we had to be close and closer to denver before we spotted them. the haze and smog got thick and thicker every year.
i would sit in the back, staring out at the vast industrial park that sat east of denver along 76. past barr lake. staring out at it all, thinking of who lived in this mess, who worked here, why stop if not for gas?

why stop indeed.
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TWENTY

Posted by dylan m on January 21, 2010 at 12:30am
it was almost that kind of day. like a day from before. something innocent and sweet and private and free and kinda dangerous can happen. any time. anywhere.
maybe it was because we were in a place like where i'm from. not where i'm from but like it. country roads. day bleeding into night. highway gas stations. small towns. being looked at. taking pictures in a field. the corn is that high, yes.
and with the sun roof open. and the ac on. and good music playing a little too loud. it all feels like a jeff buckley song. or that volkswagen commercial. actually that's what it feels like. and you're smitten. by the headlights bouncing off the trees and the macadam. by the smell of a humid country night. by all of it.
stars in the sky. eyes wide open. heart alla patter.

like you were before.

and you remember that don't you? through all the countless nights and missing parts and other forgotten stuff. you remember those certain days and places and smells and then things feel like that again. and it makes sense. how it all comes flooding back.

with the next thing.

___________________________________________________________=

twenty years ago i was just about to start my last semester in high school.

it was the dirty end of winter.

_______________________=
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