Summer Sets

He says he doesn't notice, but I don't believe him. The smell of sulpher is something you never stop noticing, like Bradford pear, or rancid meat coming out of the sink onto your dishes, out of the shower head onto your body, masking the smell of waste in the toilet bowl, overpowering any other aromatic sensation to the dull form of a purely nauseating smell. That's what comes out of the sinks in my grandparents 'summer ranch' house in far upstate New York. It's odd to me why they decided to relocate to somewhere so remote, not upstate New York in general, but this particular location. Perhaps they plan to die here. Perhaps they planned to die in Florida and it hasn't happened, so this is like a plan B, a safety net, just in case. Just as long as it doesn't happen in public. That's what matters. Keeping the furniture, floor, the counter tops, shower curtains totally spotless is what matters. It's always mattered. All dirt, grime, and unpleasantness kept as far away as possible. Maybe that's why they decided to settle on this house. No matter how clean it is, inside and out, whether it be body, or environment, there has to be a stench. Something ripe, organic, and powerful. Overwhelming, never to be gotten rid of. A kind of disembodied excrement that you wash things away with, like sweet vermouth, or bitters. Cheap vodka is also a good substitute. That's what He's taken to drinking for the past two years or so. I first noticed it in a half empty Gran Legacy bottle with the ominous type face, and the black label. Just like poison. Just like bad water, clear, odorless, but pungent. It's strange though. For as much as the water reeks when the dishes are soaking in it, and the smell takes only 5 seconds max to reach you no matter where you are, it doesn't taste bad. It's allegedly safe to drink. The drinkable water is too cold and hurts your teeth. The lake water, too filthy; pure and simple. Looking around at all the decorations they have (and like many octogenarians they have settled on a distinct aesthetic style that reached perfection sometime in the 1980's) everything is nautical. Clean, crisp, pastel, soft muted tones that play off each other. It's soothing and cool, especially on the water. But it doesn't make up for the lack of real, pure, potable water. Perhaps that's why they asked him to house sit while they were away, back in the world of plan A. Maybe they grew sick of his not having out grown his lust for their approval. He wonders why there aren't any pictures of us in the house. I've never thought of us, or me, as being black sheep, but I suppose if it's written all over your body, it's hard not to acknowledge it. Everywhere else, pictures of everyone else. Except for us. No brown pictures. Brown smelly water, but no brown boys in sweaters hanging on the wall. I think about this house. I think about him staying here. I think of their disgust with him, of their disgust for his need of love and approval from them. Their despising him for having placed them on such a high perch. I think that's why they asked him. It was either that or providence. They hoped perhaps, that with them gone, and all of their personal effects remaining, they would finally become just people, and be free. They hope he can see that they have had regrets, made mistakes, and done irreparable damage that they can't figure out how to stop perpetuating and now their being punished. That's why they let him stay here for so long. 'Look! This water smells like SHIT!!! Isn't that strange to you? Can't you see it?! We did it on purpose! It's penance, self sacrifice, and we want you to acknowledge that we have acknowledged our own regrets subtly. That we're sorry for inflicting hurt against you, turning you against yourself so that your greatest achievements can be undermined constantly with no effort on our part. We're the only ones who really know, and we're he only one's who can really release you, but we don't know how, or we don't really want to acknowledge the problem. So we'll just leave the house for a while. We threw you away, and now we're throwing ourselves away into the wide open corner of some rural little house by yet another managable lake. Don't drink our water, it's bad for you. You're too good for it. We're bad. We're just bad enough to deserve it. We dug a sink hole for you, and now we want to lie in it too. But not while you're around. Not while you're here. Not while the new neighbors can count how many times our cars are in the driveway together. We want to come back, and see you changed, so that we can finally be freed from our own guilt. Just as we were perfect on the outside as a family, on the inside there was something rotten. It smelled like booze, it smelled like bodies, and you didn't want to drink it. You didn't want to taste it, but we had no where to dump it, so we picked you, and now we acknowledge it.' It might be a rude prank, yet another time. It might be their attempt at subtle symbolism, but whatever the case, the water smells bad. I haven't showered since I've been here, and I won't before I leave. I will wait until I'm back at HIS house, where the bathroom is dirty, the stains are abundant, but the water is safe for drinking.

The Last Kiss

I once lived in fear for 10 days,
far from home,
waiting anxiously by the phone,
carrying it with me everywhere,
hoping, praying
that every gust,
every involuntary twitch
of my thigh,
was her reaching back to me.
Checking in, letting me hear
that sweetness in her voice
yet again.

I returned not satisfied,
not at ease,
until I saw her again,
and could hold her against me,
and sigh that we were safe and together.

We ran for a bus,
just made it.
I can remember feeling her sigh
with a feeling of safety
against my shoulder
so that I could put my arm
around her and kiss her head.

I remember, I spent the last of the
money I came back with on two movie tickets,
and a large dinner to split.

We came back to my apartment,
she made fun of the novelty
mask of polished stones that I'd
purchased in the desert, because
the vendor wouldn't leave me alone,
and I didn't have the heart
to tell him to go away.

We sat there together for a while,
only briefly in the semi-darkness,
spoke little, but smiled, both of us,
together.

And when she rose to leave, I let her go.
And she let me hold onto her for a moment,
I put my hands around her waist,
and she bent down politely
and kissed me once, and the walls were cracked.
Twice, and the stones all melted.
The third time, I died,
and hovered above my body
watching her walk toward the door
as I breathed a sigh of
relief.

Criss Cross

The children criss cross paths
around their grandmother in
the square on the 4th of July.

Sadie pretending to be hiding
behind her backside as if it
were as wide as a poplar or
an elm tree.

Hers is a buttocks that is
prolapsed, each hemisphere
is separated into two lobes
like lungs, which were made
even more discernable by the
panty lines visible through
her khaki shorts.

She squatted like a wrestler,
or an ancient japanese fish
monger, to lift the oblivious
toddler from the side walk.

The distended veins bulged
in her calves, flanked by
legions of thin blue ones,
that criss-crossed the
topography of her legs, like
veins of mold in bleu cheese,
or canals on the surface of
the moon.

But her veins were soft,
though the calves were still
hard and well defined.

Soft like her waist was,
coursing with oxygen rich
blood to a cavernous four-
chambered heart that would
still flutter like a surprised
canary when her youngest
would grab her around her waist,
and look up like she does,
when she says,

"I love you grandma"

And her heart would melt a little,
as her bottom clenched itself
back to equilibrium, and
she would bend over to defy gravity
one more time that day
and squeeze that child
as hard as she would allow,

draping those wizard sleeves
for arms across her bony
exposed back,
criss-crossing them,
and resting her soft manicured
hands against her shoulder blades,
and whisper just above her
head,

"Grandma loves you too precious."

And kiss the top of her head,
and pour a little more of
her heart into the child,
then let go,
relax,
and allow the earth to resume
it's tug of war yet again,
as they walked together
out of the heat,
to eat strawberry ice cream.

Cosmonaut Darling

She enters the room
as if she were only gone
for a second, and time
starts again.

She is small,
She is lithe.

She stops time among us to
stretch it out a little more
for herself.
So she can be oriented,
in time and space.
So she can be sure
no one is watching,
and breath and rest,
and stoke the fire unbothered,
at rest.

She doesn't tell us where she's from.

You have to just sort of...
put it together yourself.

An unexplained spare make-up kit,
a little drum, out of tune.
A broken gameboy,
two shoes with the toes
pointing together,
as if she had just slid out of them,
leaving it like a shed skin,
to go else where,
all shiny, sheeny, and fresh.

Some would say,
she crawled out of a leathery egg
somewhere, left to fend on her own,
like an ancient prehistoric reptile
still roaming the swamp, just trying
to be sure it's safe.

And it IS safe.

She makes her living,
spinning through hoops of fire.
Plucking out the oxygen in the smoke
like little bubbles in mid air,
grabbing as many as she can,
because she doesn't need that many.

She has survived so long
because she has been equipped for it.

She has been weaving her way through
centuries for millenia,
stopping time for a while as she enters.

Perhaps she was there from the start of it.

Perhaps that glean, and that
cool, soft, Saturday smile
is the last reflection from Paradise Lost.

I traveled for half a day
to see that smile again,
to feel that sense of relief
after waiting in a cornfield
outside of a McDonald's for
only 45 more little minutes
in the middle of nowhere,
to feel that sense of relief
at seeing a maroon nameless sedan,
with another marooned nameless driver

stop

to rescue me with an explosion of sunshine
bursting out of the front seat,
candy beads clanking, plastic cup in hand
pressed against my back.

She has weaved her way,
back into this world,
and when I see her,
I know her instantly.

Every fiber in me says love this child
though you know better, and I do at a distance,
and I let her come up close, and
I let her touch me and I know what it means,
and she knows I know and I know she knows I know
because she told me once in a somber, serene face,
"I knew we were similar the moment I met you,
but now, I know we're so similar it's scary."

It sticks with me.

Each word, each smile cuts through any and all B.S.
They cut through the flesh and its just Love that comes in.

And I'd make that trip again,
and take a witness to see this lost
ancient treasure. My own sutton hoo,
my own Coelocanth swimming through fire,
and smoke and crowds, carrying
time behind her-

Emerging into the room again
with a smile and sheen that's
fresh,

that's warm-cooler than a Saturday breeze.

Another earth-bound Bodhisattva like me,

Spinning in infinity,

unquestioned, unaccountable,
unexplained.

A hunter-gatherer goddess,

as timeless as she is
untamed.

Love's Uncertain Care

We seldom talk now,

But when she called last week,
I listened to her crying over the phone.

She had lost her granfather the week before,
not the one I had met,
but her other one.

She appologized for crying,
I told her it was alright
in soft baritone.

She said she felt justified,
after all the times she had
listened to me.

I asked her plainly why she
wanted to end our prolonged relations.

She replied just above the trim
of a little girl's pleading whisper,
'because you didn't make me feel special'
It startled her when I rolled
my eyes at the announcement
that she was going back to Collin.
'But I've always liked you more',
she says with a smile.

Somewhere between these conversations,
these hesitant, naked, proclamations
is the truth about love and the
viscosity of it's surface.
Why we reserve it only for
perfect strangers,
and hide it away when we come
to know them, to keep it fresh
and moist so that when we
talk a year later to see if
it's still there, we can be relieved.
We will know, that which we gladly
used to share is
forever as constant
as uncertain is it's care.

Let's talk about Racism!

Spencer

and I have gotten farther into producing electronic music for racial reasons as well
3:25pmJeremy

OK, but that's different than being called a nigger
3:25pmSpencer

one of my professors told me, "If you wanted to be an Abstract Painter 30 years ago, you wouldn't have a career/"

I'd rather be called a nigger

because then it makes the other person look stupid
3:26pmJeremy

That's true
3:26pmSpencer

now being called a nigger then hit in the back of the head and dragged behind a truck

or shot in the men's room is different
3:26pmJeremy

but the change, there is a change

it is different

it is not gone

at ALL

but beats lynching
3:26pmSpencer

well yeah, it beats lynching

things are certainly better

but I think they ware worse than they were 10 years ago
3:27pmJeremy

well, if it is better, than it can get better yet

really?

You think it's worse?

what makes you say that?

I"m no disagreeing necessarily

I'm not black, and therefore can't gauge
3:27pmSpencer

people began equating talking abourt racism with being PC
3:28pmJeremy

in the same way
3:28pmSpencer

which went out otf fashion

I was not raised in the 'black' way

I also ignored a lot of things that didn't fit with my world view
3:29pmJeremy

what sort of things?

(ps fb chat sucks)
3:29pmSpencer

to the rest of the white world, I'm a friendly approachable black guy, or not so approachable these days
3:30pmJeremy

and...
3:30pmSpencer

to a lot of black people, I'm an uncle tom and a sell out

well, here's an example

one of my TA's at SAIC said to me to my face

on my first second day of class as he was passing me in the hallway

"Oh no, not another one of THESE GUYS"
3:31pmJeremy

..what?
3:32pmSpencer

or, how white kids that want to be ghetto will immediately start talking to me about Rap and bullshit
3:32pmJeremy

it must be annoying as hell

to be talkinga bout racke constantly without talking about race directly

because you can't talk about race, becaus that would be "PC"
3:33pmSpencer

that's what I said

yes
3:33pmJeremy

I imagine lately you have been talkiung about race directly

whicyh makes you less approachable
3:34pmSpencer

and it discourages ppl from inviting u to the party
3:34pmJeremy

haha

you don't want to go to those vapid parties anyways

you shoudl come to dc and come to our parties
3:34pmSpencer

well, I'm not trying to grandstand
3:34pmJeremy

not tha it would necessarily be better on the racism front

not implying that

just that your set must be a little weak
3:35pmSpencer

meh

meh

see

I talk about racism as a meme

that everyone has been affected by

and I try to stress that me, and Jesse Jackson, and who ever else

has a strong component of racism against black people in them

the popular left over from the old days,
3:37pmJeremy

haha, bet that goes over like lead baloons
3:37pmSpencer

is that Black People are somehow cognitively deviant naturally from whites

and that instead of reviling and fearing it
3:37pmJeremy

i bet you get " you may be raciest, but not me" alot
3:37pmSpencer

we should laugh at it, and try to embrace it

well

yeah

i do

and it's bullshit

because they're doing what white people do when they talk to a person of color
3:37pmJeremy

spencer the racist nigger
3:37pmSpencer

and divert the topic

to what they want to hear themselves say

because the just assume that I'm going to heard something they've heard someone say on Law and Order

or some bull shit

white people don't understand that black people are really just like white people

who carry a different set of inherited cultural bagage

white folks have guilt

black folks of anger

I'm mixed, so I'm supposed to be joyfully oblivious to it

confused or misguided

or something

but not someone who is socially more similar to white people than black people
3:40pmJeremy

guilty about your anger, or angry about your guilt
3:40pmSpencer

who can enlighten you, and help you understand what's going on

well, it's both

Blacks don't feel guilty about being angry

and never have

white people are now feeling angry about feeling guilty

so it just comes back to the beginning

good ole racism like we started
3:41pmJeremy

care for another cycle?
3:41pmSpencer

NO

I thought it was over up until about 6 years ago

my dad even says stuff that implies that I should fall into some lock step way of making people comfortable

I'm not making people uncomfortable
3:42pmJeremy

dads will do that
3:42pmSpencer

they do, but...

well, I don't want to go there yet

all I'm saying, is that the race conversation has been so stagnant for so long

because that's all it was to center/center left white folks

a CONVERSATION TOPIC

not a serious social issue
3:44pmJeremy

but you are making people feel uncofmrtagble, but people's comfort is not sacrasanct, in fact it's the thing standing in real change
3:44pmSpencer

and psychological modus operendi

with a pathology
3:44pmJeremy

THey haven't read the statistics about prison and race
3:44pmSpencer

I just want people to acknowledge how it exists, so we don't go further backward

because it's a dirty little secret
3:44pmJeremy

the only thing to conclude is that the system is racist or black peoploe ar simply deviant
3:45pmSpencer

well in reality, it's a little bit of both
3:45pmJeremy

and when I push people, they nevber say that black people are deviant

they just say that the system isn't racists
3:45pmSpencer

if you have black people raised in in poverty witha tradition of disenfranchismeemtn and deviance

"m sorry, that's what you end up with

I don't go to gthose places or talk to those people
3:46pmJeremy

watching BET

I live in an all black neighborhood now

and they don't always like me there

it's a two way street
3:46pmSpencer

no, but you're safer than I am
3:46pmJeremy

the glorification of drug-dealer capitalisim and violence

ends in violence and capitalism
3:47pmSpencer

Black people in poor violent areas who are poor and violent look at white people the way abused angry dogs look at their masters
3:47pmJeremy

though the capitalism usually comes out of rthe DEA
3:47pmSpencer

with fear and disgust, but they will never bithe

they look at someone like me, and they see a dog that wants to be like the master

so might not think twice about instigating something

whichhas and does happen

which is why I stay away from gang bangers
Jeremy

I have been watching the whole 3 seasons of Boondocks lately

And I've thought of you

because of Huey

that show is amazing

and hilarious

have you seen it?
3:51pmSpencer

yeah it's pretty good
3:51pmJeremy

at least it talks about race in an interesting way

instead of all the bullshit

or silence

Do you have a critique?
3:53pmSpencer

yes
3:53pmJeremy

shoot
3:54pmSpencer

it pushes the envelope just far enough

it talks ab out race from a black perspective that black folks can't get mad about

and that appeals to white people's sense of perspective

in a playful humorous way

comedy is really the best way to talk about race

because laughter lowers people's defences
3:55pmJeremy

or science fiction
3:56pmSpencer

it depends, I wouldn't want Robert Heinlein for J.R.R. Tolkein Talking about race

but Ray Bradbury

Isaac Asimov

or Douglas Addams
3:57pmJeremy

there you go, full circle

I'm embezzling this time
3:57pmSpencer

he would be great
3:57pmJeremy

right now

from work

and I want to leave early today
4:00pmSpencer

k
4:01pmSpencer

I guess as a final note then
4:01pmJeremy

but you shoudl come and visit soon
4:01pmSpencer

If Barack Obama had run
4:02pmJeremy

in DC

what's your number?

mine is 317-966-2281
4:02pmSpencer

as a bi-racial candidate

812-606-0455
4:03pmJeremy

what would have happenede
4:03pmSpencer

black folks would have voted for him anyway

but they wouldn't feel a kinship with him

they would have voted for him because he's a democrat

not because he's black

if he was a bi-racial candidate running as a republican

the wouldn't vote for him at all

they would vote for hilary clinton

tell me I'm wrong

lol

l8r
4:05pmJeremy

how could I say you're wrong?

l8r g8tr
4:07pmSpencer

i dunno, I was just playing around