New Year-Old Ghosts 2.0

Updated 1/7/2012                                                  

NEXT !

                     

(For R.B)

The wonderful life Christmas is over

One tries not to be depressed.

Maybe re-read Brautigan’s piece

From 1963

Where he and his friend were

so devastated over Kennedy’s public execution

In Dallas at Thansgiving

that they took pictures

of discarded Christmas trees

abandoned in the gutter

and then proceeded to get drunk

while watching a slide show of them later

in the basement.

I get that.

All those rolls of left over wrapping paper

all about the place.

The lights that need to be taken down

before the neighbors start with

the “white trash” wisecracks

 

One thing you can say about Christmas

in this post modern area,

Once it’s over.

It’s dead.

 

A lot of build up.

A product orgy climax

 

And the day after ?

Forget about you

 

The day after Christmas

is like nailing a wood screw

into the back of an old friend

Who shows up once a year for a visit.

 

And as he walks out the door.

You slam and lock it on his heels

Hissing, “and don’t come back till next year,

You pain-in the-ass bastard.”

Thankful ?

Sure.

This year I was thankful I didn’t end up

in the paraplegic chair

in a nursing home in Baldwin

after that nasty fall

down the Cold War stairs

back in your hometown

that ended up with you

kissing some concrete.

Instead I made it back here on Christmas Eve.

Just in time to have a good cry

With Alastair Sims.

 

From Greetings From Gridville 12/03

*

*

Broken Ornaments

 

You are just a broken ornament now.

Something fragile that fell off the tree this past year

Or maybe that would be me

That’s been left on the hard wood floor

Maybe it was a mistake

Or just an accident

Does it really matter now ?

We are just wanting for the broom

And dust bin.

Sure.

Still there are few faint shimmers left somewhere

In the thinnest fragile glass

In the shattered shards to meekly shine

in a broken dust bunny smile.

But the reflection

Of all that once shown

Proudly on that tree limb

Swinging in the lights

Is fractured now.

 

There is nothing left to save

Or box up for next year

Just try and clean and pick up

And throw away

Without more

Cuts or slices.

 

You are just a broken ornament now

Something fragile that fell off the tree this past year

Or maybe that would be me.

Uncollected  12/11

*

Adult Toys

(are non- refundable)

Keep you receipt

It will do you no good now.

No one is taking anything back.

*

I was that adult toy

You got one year

vacuum packed in

The toughest molded plastic

hermetically sealed shrink wrap

 in the impossible to get at insides

without a very sharp object

and steady hands

and clear intent

to open the package.

*

And baby…how you used to dig that package.

*

You remember the

directions and warning label…?

Don’t you ?

*

You brake it…..

 

……you bought it.

 

Well.

You did.

 

Uncollected 1/12

*

 The Dybbuk Dreams

(live audio link right below -click on to hear)

The Dybbuk Dreams

when all promise and disaster were as unopened mail

that the past had a walk in his sleep.

The Dybbuk’s hands opened old draws

shuffled through forgotten pages

Pausing to repeat a line of a letter

here and there.

Ashes were stirred and long dormant old flames set free

to flicker. Then the night faces could dance once more.

Night faces coming back to visit shining

eyes to glow back into.

Another year rolling itself out like an immense black wing .

Your sleeping form swept along in this night flight,

those waking hours, now the specter, this was the soul

strolling hand in hand with the eternal freedom of

time asleep.

She walked once more upon the mores, in a chilly thick fog.

Here where she had always known that he waited for her

In between anger and consequences,

in this dreamscape of quicksand recall where mushroomed

marsh islands of what might have been.

They both returned to this shadow realm of still photographs

hung and propped in the endless stark arms of winter.

Here where the past stood naked and true.

Both came with small hands grasping deep into the heart’s

pocket. Each visited at different points

along the dream curve, with separate dependencies and

versions of the same story.

They left messages here for each other.

The last word over and over. The promises of reconciliation

and forgiveness. The sensation they shared of never being

able to meet face to face again, outside of this place

of half light sand deep grey pools. Always to return to

the same beaten path, in the corner of the dream.

This place where the images of each other’s faces

in those frozen photos snared arrested looks

and eyes of love and delight that once were shared.

They both returned to this place, every so often

to get a face full and

look down at the other’s footprints

left in the path

from the night before.

                                                         From Another Rubber Eden 1995

 

Special situations require a different approach to transmigration. The second form of transmigration is the Dybbuk, a disembodied spirit possessing a living body that belongs to another soul. There are various origins attributed to these spirits. The earliest description usually hinted that they may be nonhuman demons. Later it was assumed they were the spirits of persons who have died. The dybbuk may be the soul of a sinner, who wishes to escape the just punishment meted to it by the angels of the grave (see the article Afterlife) who seek to beat them, or to avoid another form of soul punishment, which is wandering the earth. A dybbuk may seek revenge for some evil that was done to it while it lived. Alternatively, it may be lost, and will enter a body simply to seek a rabbi who would be able to help it and send it on its way. The living person may or may not know that a dybbuk is occupying his or her body, or it may be tormented by it. This depends on the intent of the possessing soul.

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/d/dybbuk.html