The Lead Pipe

had to have been

2009-09-02T19:18:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

the path was but an eye
laid out in the enriched grass
and between the flowers
lovers standing still
or sitting down

we walked there mostly had to have
but not so much as i think about it now
miles away and years removed from us
the rocks God dropped that afternoon we were
in
love

through the holes in his pockets.

The Charlie Parker Festival, Kansas City, Missouri

2009-08-30T17:52:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-20T19:36:00.001-07:00

By Jeff M

"The villages and small towns of America are not dwindling and disappearing because their values are no longer meaningful, but because they no longer work economically, no longer provide the level of services and amenities that most of us demand. No dramatic violence is being done to rural America. It is withering away because it has little function in modern life."

Robert B. Biley, "New Mexico Villages in a Future Landscape" (1969), as cited in PrairyErth by William Least Heat-Moon.

*

"Prairies let us out...They aid to grow a roomy life."

William A. Quayle, The Prairie and the Sea (1905)

*

We now come to the end of what I began 20 days ago: a brief pictorial journey into an endless place. I'm looking forward to going out next year, but something tells me I'll journey further north --- to Manhattan, Kansas, to the Konza Prairie Preserve. Who knows. Perhaps I'll take an airplane and see and enjoy the expanse from the sky, much like the pilot in the above picture must have felt when he flew over the Red House Pasture.

A woman I found on the internet has a campground near the Konza.

"It's primitive," she said, "and you have to bring your own water. But the ground is soft in places. You can get a stake into it."

There's nothing special in those words, nothing symbolic or grand, but I like the sound of them.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-19T19:38:00.001-07:00

By Jeff M

Hobbling on my bad ankle, I took the bus out to Big Pasture and took these shots. The hike from the main barn to the scenic overlook is about 3.5 miles one way, or 7 miles round trip. My ankle couldn't take it. Nevertheless, I wanted to go and went, enduring the bounce and jaw-jaw-jaw of the guide. He had some interesting things to say, but I would have preferred to walk and experience the land and its silence alone. The scenic overlook affords visitors sweeping vistas of the land. Approximately 13,000 acres of prairie, touched only by bison and pioneer and the several tribes of Indian (certainly Kansa tribes) that passed through and hunted atop this ancient place. A good place to lie down and let the life pass out of you.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-18T20:57:00.001-07:00

By Jeff M

Near the bottom land of Lower Fox Creek. A few minutes before I snapped this photo, I had a confrontation with a barbed wire fence. The fence won, and I sprained my ankle pretty badly.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-17T21:03:00.001-07:00

By Jeff M

The Lower Fox Creek, the critical artery of the prairie's bottom land near Spring Hill Ranch. It is here where much of the prairie's wildlife can be seen, including wild turkey, fox, coyote, as well as deer. I found two wild turkey feathers along a path here. When I walked, a galaxy of grasshoppers took wing, snapping left and right into the high and low grasses. I would eventually venture into the deep undergrowth and follow the creek, where I saw ducks gliding along the green water, escaping the heat of the day.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-16T18:55:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

The following day, I decided to hang a right off Kansas 177 and follow U.S. 50, due west. While I would eventually find my way to Diamond Creek Road (and the unpaved road that would inevitably shake up my steering alignment), I found this old stone bridge first. It was closed to both vehicle and foot traffic, but what the hell; I simply stopped my car and crossed over it, wondering why the surface of the bridge was covered in rich soil. On the other side, from where I snapped this photograph, a large field stretched out. Across the street was a fully operational guest ranch, specializing in letting outsiders spend a week to see what ranchin' is all about. Maybe next year.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-15T18:05:00.001-07:00

By Jeff M

The musicians perform in front of the Emma Chase Cafe, Cottonwood Falls, Kansas.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-14T20:41:00.001-07:00

by Jeff M

They come from all points of Chase County to hear the musicians: Diamond Creek, Council Grove, Cedar Point, Cassoday, Strong City. They flip open their lawn chairs and set them on Main Street, facing the icy clean windows of Emma Chase Cafe. The musicians --- ranchers, teachers, students, mothers, fathers, children --- stand as straight as rakes and play guitars, banjos, fiddles, basses, pulling from their instruments a medley of sounds, from old country to new country to gospel to blue grass. A great time, and one you can depend on every Friday night at 7:30 p.m.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

After I wrestled my way out of the tall grasses, I stood and took this photograph, one of my favorites from my visit into the Red House Pasture. Perhaps it is the way in which living specimens, like this black walnut tree, grow alone in the immensity that attracts me so much. There is determination here and a striking display of destiny, as if this belongs here and no where else on earth.

Later that night I would visit the town of Cottonwood Falls, home of one of the oldest functioning courthouses in Kansas. It may even be the oldest. I would also discover what puts the "folk" in folks, the magic in chicken fried steak, the beauty of water served in mason jars and an assembly of musicians who get together each Friday night to play music on Main Street.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-12T19:45:00.001-07:00

By Jeff M

The Red House Pasture, Chase County, Kansas

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-11T21:05:00.001-07:00

By Jeff M

Photos taken from my sojourn into the Red House Pasture. Walking along the creek bed was a unique experience; the limestone was as smooth as ice, cracked by erosion, dry as bone. Later that night a strong storm would push across eastern Kansas, and I wonder how much of that water was retained in the creeks, within the infrequent watering holes. The bottom picture is a manufactured pond meant for cattle.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-10T20:50:00.001-07:00

by Jeff M

Jumping off the official path, I crossed over into the Red House Pasture. This is where the land, like the trusting lover, reveals itself. Soon the ground broke open and the limestone emerged, like spots on a leopard. I was pleased to discover that the National Park Service, accompanied by many other organizations, plan to reintroduce a herd of bison into this pasture in the next few years.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-09T17:53:00.001-07:00

by Jeff M

Leaving the Spring Hill Ranch and its barn behind me, I head westward into the emerging hills. I think of the Flint Hills, and the prairie in general, as an almost human shape in the disguise of physical geography. These are not hills so much as they are the human body itself --- naked, with its valleys, its crevices, its mounds, its hidden moisture, its skin the grasses. Shadows are rare except beneath the black walnut trees. When clouds move across the sky during a strong wind, like the palm of a lover's hand searching for a place to touch, the shapes of their shadows are easily traced and followed.

The above picture shows the road leading out of the West Traps Pasture. Once you reach that point where the road disappears at its crest, so does civilization. The horizon is smooth and sharp, like the demarcation line on a map. Like vanilla crashing into chocolate ice cream. The bottom picture shows that not all civilization is absent; the National Park Service bus tour approaches, with its belching motor, its talkative guide, its interior aisles crowded with walkers and purses and backpacks.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-08T17:00:00.001-07:00

By Jeff M

I'm hoping someone can identify this plant. They crowded the trail on my return trip to the Spring Hill Ranch.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-07T19:29:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

Photo 6 shows the collared lizard, a common sight on the prairie. This lizard wasn't shy; it posed on this limestone rock for a few moments before scuttling off into the grass.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-06T19:08:00.001-07:00

By Jeff M

Picture 5 shows the Lower Fox Creek School, built in the early 1880s. The following passage was taken from The National Park Service: "The Lower Fox Creek School was an example of the common school. The model of the common school proposed by Horace Mann was embraced by Kansans when it was time to organize schools in the new territory (and later the state) of Kansas. The model had become so widely accepted in the eastern states that as settlers from New England and the Ohio River valley moved into Kansas, they simply brought the model for school with them just as they brought their religion, their family customs, or their household goods. It was a model with which they were familiar. It made sense to them based on their experiences with it."

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-05T19:24:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

Picture 4 shows the Lower Fox Creek School getting closer. The land and its expanse is an illusion, an exercise in smoke and mirrors. What appears close is far; in Kansas, what appears far is further still.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

Photo 3: Within 12 hours, a hard rain would sweep across the prairie, restoring the land and invigorating the gamma and cord grasses, as well as the big blue stem. By mid-October, the grasses will reach as high as an adult waist. In the distance, black walnut trees indicate a water source --- in this case, an emerging spring that feeds the former Spring Hill Ranch in Chase County.

The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

Picture 2 shows the old Lower Fox Creek School in the distance, a white speck surrounded by a vista of green grasses and rolling hills. The picture was taken at the beginning of the Southwind Nature Trail, facing north. Kansas 177, a scenic byway, runs in front of the school; the highway is a near 30 mile jugular vein leading straight into the heart of an ancient, unspoiled land.

Welcome to The Flint Hills of Kansas

2009-08-02T18:24:00.001-07:00

by Jeff M

The Flint Hills of Kansas is quickly becoming an important place in my life. This past weekend, I journeyed there once again --- this time with more geographic familiarity and an understanding of what to expect.

I'm not yet ready to say what it is about this place that is so special to me. I've always trusted words to get the job done, but sometimes pictures do just as --- if not more --- good in conveying the true meaning of an ancient geography. And The Flint Hills is certainly ancient, the result of millions of years of steady erosion by way of wind, fire, moisture and grazing.

What you will be looking at over the next few weeks are pictures I took over the course of two and a half days, all of which will be presented in the order they were taken.

I hope you enjoy looking at them just as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Father and Son, July 4, 2009

2009-07-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

Photos by Us

Boys Will Be Boys

2009-06-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

Remember when the simple acting of throwing a rock against another rock could mesmerize you for an hour? My two boys, seen here at an Independence park, illustrated this point perfectly --- as well as the tradition of sibling rivalry and, to be honest, sibling nastiness. In the end, though, the two love each other and protect one another, which is all a father can hope for.

2009-06-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

For the sake of honoring American history, for celebrating what our forefathers encouraged and finally fought hard and violently for, I hope that everyone is paying close attention to what is unfolding in Tehran, Iran. I know I am.

It's difficult for me to know exactly when this demonstration captured my attention. Perhaps it was the mere mention of it on the news wires last week, that thousands of Iranians had amassed and began marching in the streets of Tehran in opposition to what they claim was a "bogus" election; or maybe it was that foreign journalists were forbidden to cover the events from the streets and had (and are still) depending on "citizen journalism" for unfolding events; or that the concept of citizen solidarity was being strengthened by a technological invention called Twitter. Yes, it's difficult to know.

All I know is that I'm enthralled. I'm checking news wires every hour, scanning YouTube for the latest image of fists held high, faces clad in mask, police running forward, backward, sideways, into and away from the clamoring crowd. The vehicles in conflagaration. And smiles --- oh, yes, every now and then, a man rushing by the camera (sometimes a woman), cracking a smile as he storms a barricade and throws a rock into a forest of batons.

Even President Barack Obama, in a statement issued Saturday, appears to support what's going on there. He has challenged Iran's government, ruled by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and, let's be honest, the acting Wizard of Oz, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, "to halt a 'violent and unjust' crackdown on dissenters,'" and instead recognize and affirm the voice of the people.

"We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people," Obama said in a written statement, as reported by the Associated Press. "The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights."

I'm especially interested in the developing reactions of the reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has maintained he won the election and is the victim of "widespread fraud." On Saturday, he has said he "is ready for martyrdom," an important declaration, I feel, because any leader who navigates a people, who steers them to a desired result, must first acknowledge his acceptance of the movement and do so with charasma and confidence.

What Mousavi must do now is communicate a specific vision for Iran and for its immediate and long term future. The demonstrators must know what they are fighting for --- beyond the obvious reasons. That will empower the cause. That will fill the tanks and keep the engines running.

And it's important for the demonstrators to keep demonstrating, for it is the general populace of any nation that keeps it functioning. If you want to collapse a society, take from it its gasoline, its oil, its gears and wheels --- or to put it more simply: take from it its blood, its sweat, its human limbs.

If the people remove themselves from their chains and their societal duties, the current system, created and enforced by the current leadership, will fall.

Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah, then, will have no choice but to recognize the people for what they are: Iran.

Jazz in the Woods

2009-06-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

Photos by Jeff M

I should have known that the word "jazz" and a city like Overland Park do not necessarily mesh. The pictures above were taken at the annual Jazz in the Woods event, a free concert event that is meant to raise money --- through food vendor sales --- for children's charities.

The music, as I hinted, was average, though I wouldn't call it jazz. More like Kenny G Jazz.

In any case, it was nice to take the children and let them run around. The tree above was worth the 30 mile trip: massive and majestic, beautifully expressive. The only troubling thing was the fact that the company who treats the grass left their small flags scattered throughout the median, flags that were attached to metal poles. I picked up a couple and discarded them; I didn't need my children impaling themselves on one of them.

2009-06-06T21:05:00.000-07:00

SUBMERGED
by Skip Martin

He would go alone winters
before light
cut holes in the lake ice
sit, wait; watch
the old visions curl away
in sculpted plumes of frozen breath.
Crappie, walleye, memory.

She never knew about the

molasses-colored bottle she leaned

her flour sack against every

night...

Hard men love hard.

Depression is withheld knowledge.

The heart was

attacked.

Silver-haired, uniformed men hats

squared, flag isoscelesed.

What secret swam
inside that icy cage of bone, dried
within the gristled shell of that pumped-out heart?

2009-06-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jeff M

Black Gum Tree in Missouri

2009-05-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jeff M
(I sure do)

Images: Downtown Kansas City

2009-05-10T05:45:00.000-07:00

Photos by Jeff M

Santa Fe Trail Park, Independence, Missouri

2009-05-09T05:37:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

If my good friend knows what he's talking about (and I suspect that he does, for he's published Civil War articles in a reputable Missouri magazine), then this photograph depicts a small pizza slice-sized area of the notable Santa Fe Trail --- one of three principle trails that started in the city which I now find myself living.

It was yet another area of Independence, Missouri, that I did not know existed. Actually, I did know that Independence was the "jumping off" point for America's three most famous trails ---the Santa Fe, Oregon and California --- but I was uncertain where the exact points were.

"In the winter," my friend said, crouching near the edge where the lush green grass ended and the thick undergrowth began (to the left of the picture), "you can see the wagon ruts. The trail was actually pretty big, a lot wider than what people thought. I love these types of places."

Begun in 1821, the Santa Fe Trail was a 900-mile foreign trade route. Until that point, America depended on seafaring commerce; the Santa Fe Trail, like its two siblings, would usher in the overland commerce component, opening the door for not only expansion but, eventually, the country's own fiscal autonomy.

On a clear crisp evening, I went to Santa Fe Trail Park and took a walk. I had with me the walking stick my oldest son had carved (his first attempt at wielding a pocket knife), my camera and a desire to capture some images.

Some Kind of Tropical Bird

2009-05-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jeff M

Niagara Falls

2009-05-02T05:38:00.000-07:00

Video by Jeff M

Niagara Falls: 18,000 Years in the Making

2009-04-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jeff M

#80

2009-04-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

only Noah now, and all else falls away,
but that's okay

Main Street, Kansas City, Missouri

2009-04-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jeff M

Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City, Missouri

2009-04-12T07:21:00.000-07:00

I snapped some photographs Saturday night during the Royals/Yankees game. I don't know what it is but every time I attend a night game, the Royals get smashed. Last night was no exception: C.C. found his arm and shut out the Royals 6-1. On a good note, the newly renovated Kauffman Stadium is quite nice, affording outfield seating and activities, as well as more shitters, wider concourses, and kiddie activities. It'd be nice to compliment all the improvements with a winning record.

Kansas House

2009-04-11T09:37:00.000-07:00

Photographer unknown

At the Crayola Store, Kansas City

2009-03-29T19:39:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jeff M

The Levee at Sugar Creek, Missouri

2009-03-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

Bellicose

2009-03-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

tis the season of the IRS when prior intentions are exposed for the onions they are ---
bellicose.
i thought it meant bloated, full, round with joy,
a most round word, full of bellicose

the boy has bellicose laughter

the man felt bellicose when he saw the deer in his backwoods

it means "eager to make war."

I saw the deer, though, from the back window of my home.
four of them.
a tribe of tight pelts
and caution
stiff bat ears
and teeth that pull the food hard but quiet, somehow,
making a war to feed their bellies

My oldest son is on the bed,
having returned from karate class. I
told him about the deer and...I don't know.

"One, two, three --- someone's dead."

What? What are you talking about?

"Every three seconds, someone dies."

I'm putting his bed together. I'm putting one sheet on top of the other, atop this camping cot,
Army cot, uncomfortable to his spine, but happy it makes me, him here, most dear

"One, two, three --- someone's dead."

He does not understand that I will make this bed as comfortable as I can, as I'm able, to define it for him in ways he otherwise would not understand.

"One, two --- "

Okay, stop. Just stop. I don't want to hear that anymore.

"...three, someone's born."

Yo! Yo Yo

2009-01-24T16:20:00.000-08:00

Photos by Jeff M

This Immovable Leaf

2009-01-17T20:33:00.001-08:00

This leaf outside my window has withstood the ferocity of Kansas wind, the steel-splinting Fargo snow. I should give it a name. At the very least, imbue it with a symbol, a coincidence of persona. I shall refer to it as all those who hang on, in whatever sector of society one finds him or herself in perpetual battle. Indeed, the battle goes on. We are all soldiers in the night.

2009

2009-01-17T16:57:00.000-08:00

by Jeff M

I've been waiting for the correct photograph with which to launch the new year, and I think I have discovered it. Or it discovered me --- depending on the way you look at it. Whatever way you want to look at it. Whatever way you need to look at it.

I find myself in a rather relaxed state of mind these days. The serpent has unfurled his lock-hold, I suppose, or some benevolent force above has decided to move onto the next forest and fell some trees there. The sun burns to burn someone else. The rainy rain rains 'round the corner.

The bed is made. The carpet is clean. There is some money in the bank. The books are in order. The speakers work. My lungs go-in, go-out. My legs walk. Muscles still there, firm and taut a lot. Food still tastes and drinks get drank so I can get drunk. My boys are happy and healthy. I'm happy, too.

What is there to complain about?

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T06:41:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Shitface

2008-12-16T18:35:00.000-08:00

by Jeff M

rhyme this you
DRUNKEN
cootbastard, you

cold here in Missouri.
some
bethany limestone and
soft
dreams, still not much under control

above or below the covers
i want to sleep
listen to music
petstroke a jackyl

strike sticks to start a pyre fire
get warm that way
and see something that's for real

why is that so much to ask for?

Stuart Hall Building, Kansas City, Missouri

2008-12-05T07:10:00.000-08:00

Photo by Jeff M

Union Station, Kansas City, Missouri

2008-12-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

Photo by Jeff M

Super Flea's Kansas City Jewish Cemetery

2008-12-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

Photo by Jeff M

2008-11-14T18:42:00.001-08:00

PUPILS
by Skip Martin

I
watch
her pupil
as she leans
to thread the eye.
I learn circle
as the needle
bends in her eye,
curves round her pupil. I hang on and ride the slender silver metal around,
looping, looping:
grand lessons learned
in this, her liquid smallness,
her pupil. I learn
about two together —
together and colossal
on the head of a
pin.

Autumn Leaves

2008-11-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

Photo by Jeff M

Everybody's Doin' What They Want To Be Doin'

2008-10-30T16:33:00.001-07:00

By Jeff M

i drink from a thick beer mug a married woman bought me in Columbia, Missouri, during a hometown Tiger football game, when it was raining, after i got some newspaper award. i drink from this mug my whiskey, my water, when i eat dinner, when i eat my broccoli. i put fruit juice in it and give it to my 3-year-old son, Noah, and he holds it tough between his small, play dough hands on the weekends he's with me. he's only doin' what he thinks he should be doin because his dad is showing him what he should be doin'.

i love boiling eggs. i love putting three medium sized eggs in an old pan on an autumn night, an old pan whose surface is chipped and shows a weird white aluminum. i like it when the eggs huddle close together when the water is hot. i love it when the eggs move away from each other when the water is cold. i love to hold the egg between my index finger and thumb and smack it against the sink side, unravel the white crust of its earthen covering, rinse the chips off under the water.

break of days you learn much, but i learned a lot about bill that night i came back to the Green Bay hotel and found all his clothes and stuff gone. you see, i only saw him most during the day. we were there to learn how to drive semi-trucks. i thought he was going to do great. he was a big guy. he was like a side of beef hanging in the cooler. he was tough. the kind of guy who was born to shake hands. i thought for sure this guy was going to make it, but he decided it wasn't what he wanted to do. the note he left me on the hotel table was one i'll never forget, and i forget things easy. it read: Jeff, they're lying to you. You won't make any money doing this. Go do something else. I miss my daughter. i quit three days later, and my wife was pissed.

i smoked for 11 years and loved every cigarette i ever smoked. non-smokers have no idea what they're missing. then i quit for three years because my wife said she didn't like the smell of smoke on me when we were lying in bed. then she left and i started smoking again. bitch.

my boys and me are standing in line at Wal-Mart and i notice there are two 10 dollar bills laying in the change compartment at the self-service station. i go over there with the boys wondering if anyone will see me if i snatch up those bills. after i paid for the items we were there to buy (a sickle and a dagger for my boy's costume), i turn to go, but my oldest boy grabs the bills, these bills laying there straight as sleeping Marines, and turns to go. i tell him to put the bills back, but my voice betrays me. he doesn't put them back. i take them from him and we stand in line at the service area. i tell him we should give the money back, that it's the right thing to do. it's not our money. my oldest boy looks at me like i farted. he said it didn't matter if we took it. mom would take the money, he said. then it occurred to me that he was right; that i would turn this money in and the woman would take it and she would feed her children or buy a magazine or go to a movie or buy a bookmark with an angel on it. meanwhile, i have no money and the kids are with me for the next two days. we take the money and i tell him outside that i hope he'd do different than his dad, but he said it wouldn't really matter what i told him, he would have taken it. don't worry about it, he said. later that night at dinner, he asked me to scoot over in the booth from where i sat across from him. he wanted to watch the news about Iraq.

her name became michelle bradford after it was first nicole. i met her online on a random day, a random sunny day. i found her by chance. actually, i met nicole first and wrote her a letter and told her hello my name is jeff and i live in Kansas City and i don't know why, not really, why i was writing, except that here i was writing her, you, maybe everyone who ever wanted a letter from no where. thing is, i got a letter back and it was from a girl name michelle bradford. she said to me that nicole left and that she thought we were a good fit, something like that. i wrote her back this long letter and put a picture in the letter and now i find myself checking the mailbox every day for this michelle lady, this girl in prison for forgery and B&E, this girl who wrote in her last letter: This could be the start of something beautiful.

i've been buying half-pint whiskeys every night for the past month. i've been getting drunk and low and high at the same time. been moving as far from being Jeff as close to. sometimes i'm lost and sometimes i'm found. i drift into situations like i drift into my newspaper dispatches --- long enough to know something to talk about but not long enough to know anything, not really, not completely.

i'm doing it because it's what i want to be doing.

you're the same way.

2008-10-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

QUITE
By Skip Martin

My wife Susan is quite liberal.
I may look as long as I
do not touch.
She is good to me. She's good.
Yes, I may peruse though not pursue.
But Susan has no sense of humor.
After the incident I tried to explain
"But darling the difference between
peruse and pursue
is only a swapping of vowels..."
And quite calmly she replied
"No, funny man,
the difference is between
a ruse and a Sue..."
Well.
Well, this apartment's quite nice.
Got a helluva view.

21st Century Rally

2008-10-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

Photo by The Kansas City Star

by Jeff M
You know, if McCain would hold a public rally, as Mr. Barack Obama did Saturday evening in downtown Kansas City, I'd attend. I'd bring my children with me, too, as I did Saturday evening. Maybe we'd stand behind the number 8, as we did Saturday evening, and see what he's like, maybe change my mind, throw my support behind him.

Alas, McCain does not hold public rallies. He was here about two weeks ago, giving a speech before 300 people who had to be invited. It was indoors. In a dark room.

I'm not saying Obama will change the world, nor will many of his policy proposals see the light of day; but you can't dismiss the impressive sight of nearly 100,000 people crowded in a downtown setting, listening to a man who has a way of drawing people together and, yes, believing in something called change.

Whatever that word means.

Kansas City Monday Night Rain

2008-10-13T16:31:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M
I'd like to write something this rainy Kansas City evening, but I can't seem to tap the stream that runs in me. I think I will post yet another poem written by my dear brother, Skip. It's going on three years since his passing, and I miss him more and more each day. I can still remember being eight year's old and begging him to take me to Dairy Queen on his 10-speed bike. He'd grudgingly agree and I would stand in the doorway of the garage and watch him back out the bike from where it was parked alongside the car. It was a blue bike and I remember the way it leaned against the chimney bricks, the ones that came up from the earth, from where the opening opened in the basement room below our feet, where he would sit and read his books of Greek tragedy, play soldiers, watch his favorite football team, the Kansas City Chiefs. Where our mother drank. He would back the bike out and smack it with his hand and I'd come down the plank of wood that lay across the deep chasm that led down into the basement, this plank of wood that never gave way our weight, never broke, this plank that was metaphor for all us children growing up in that house, that house of rot, of booze, of money-stink, of words always thought but never said, of secrets we all held, secrets that made my mother rock back and forth in her chair almost 20 years later, the night I drove out to their home to tell them that their son, their 42-year old son was dead, her words thick and I'd like to think full of great remorse but just words, the words "You don't know, you don't know." But I knew then that he was my brother, and he would lean the bike over and let me climb on it and he'd get on and start pedaling and take us up the road and away from the house to the Dairy Queen, up Bellflower Avenue, beneath the dogwood trees and the blossoms and my arms holding his skinny waist hard, his bones I feel, holding him, smelling dryer sheet scents and maybe cigarettes and watching the trees go by and the cars and the world impossibly huge and frightening and I was in it and my brother was in it and it was hard to imagine him not being in it. We would eat our ice cream cones by the highway. I would always order a chocolate cone. We didn't talk much. We were silent most of the time. I just wanted the ice cream, and he wanted to be away from the house. We'd get back on the bike and head home and I'd hold on to his waist again for dear life, and as he leaned into the left hand curve, into the driveway, I always thought we'd crash and go falling but we never did and that was why I thought he was magical, my big brother. Why did you have to be alone when you died?

ODE ON A FRIEND
by Skip Martin

Slicing garlic. Last of the olive oil. Radio static.
Today the rain poured the clouds indoors.
I remember whole days, years ago, when weather
cloistered us together in your close attic room:
snow thawed our secrets; rained pooled laughter.
Yesterday I went downstairs to get the mail
and, between all that sun and those missing children,
it hardly seemed worth the climb back up.
Sharing these thoughts with my wife doesn't seem right.
Do you remember that little white cedar bridge in the park?
That irritable snapping turtle that owned its shade.
Remember the mossy rock that halved the stream; slipping
off and pulling ourselves back up by the pine branch, its
impossible, sweet glue?
That girl? Those big green eyes, small red shorts.
The aching hum of her fast metal skates.
How is your family? Do you have a family?
My wife's eyes are brown. She is quiet much of the time.
Tomorrow they're calling for even more rain.
Be well. I think of you often. Tell me your name.

A Model Train

2008-10-10T04:57:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jeff M

You Don't Know My Tuesdays

2008-10-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

When I was touring my house, the house I wanted to buy up the street in a working class neighborhood outside Kansas City, the house I wanted to give my weekend kids, the realtor said, The Neighbor Was Just Asking If Someone Was Going To Buy This House And I Said That Yes He's Thinking About It And Wouldn't That Be Nice For The Neighborhood Wouldn't That Be Nice A Nice Man Like That His Name Is Jeff And He Has Two Young Boys and To Have Two Young Boys In the Neighborhood Would Really Be A Nice Thing A Nice Addition To The Area Because It's Been So Long Since Kids Have Been Around Here...

She was speaking above the din and crack of a cloudy vision of mine, which I beheld in one of the two small bedrooms of the house. There was a crack in the ceiling. I asked what it was; I hadn't seen it during my first tour of the house. Rule One: Take at least three tours of the house you want to buy before you buy --- and make one tour in the rain.

"Oh, they just didn't put the plaster up correctly. That's easily fixed."

I toured, I cried inside. I wanted to give my kids a house --- even if they could only enjoy it every other weekend. They were outside already, ushering in a future we all dream: they were passing a football back and forth in the high wet grass, my oldest satisfying the dreams and desires of my youngest, my small young boy, Noah, the boy who loves his brother, the boy who loves his dad.

"I don't know," I said, shoving hands deep, a few weeks before the Bailout, before the rewriting of history books.

But I knew enough to follow the realtor back to her office and sign some preliminary papers. I gave her $200 in earnest money --- which basically means you're interested, you're serious. I left the office, my kids throwing action figures back and forth at each other, wanting something to eat.

And then the service engine light comes on. I'm two weeks beyond having paid the car off, two weeks from maybe closing the sale of a home I want to give my kids, and the engine light comes on. I have $100 in savings. I have $80 in checking, and there's $15 worth of dinner to be purchased for the evening. I can't fucking believe it. I can't but fucking not believe it.

I cancel the home purchase. I do it that night, on a Saturday. A Saturday night mission. I hang the idea of giving my children a backyard to play in on the wall and throw darts at it. I fold it in half as though the dream is an oil change cupon, a promise that someday I'll use it.

I get my money back a few days later from the realtor. She understands the email I send her, that I'm in the midst of unknown financial situations, that I have no money to purchase a home in spite of what the state of Missouri claims, what the banks says I can afford. I tell her that I need to concentrate on other matters before I make such a step.

What I want to tell her is this, but don't: You don't know my Tuesdays, my Wednesdays, my Thursdays, and the weekends without my kids. You don't want the neighbors to witness me on the days I don't have my children. You don't want to see that. Tell that to the neighbors. Tell them that it is awful. Tell them that it is awful to see a grown man surviving a week without his kids, trying to find meaning after losing his kids. Tell them that.

I See My Answers

2008-10-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

This photograph (which for the record was intentional, though I was uncertain of the quality) was taken while I was riding a small toy train with my children in North Kansas City. Located on an acre of land, the train delivers approximately 200 riders through a tunnel and over a bridge in under three minutes. As this photograph shows, we are halfway through the tunnel. My children's heads are immediately in front of me and the man sitting in front of them sits as if he is preparing for his answers to life. The light swallows us.

Indian Fest and Autumn, North Kansas City, Missouri

2008-10-04T20:39:00.001-07:00

(Photos by Jeff M)

2008-09-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

All Muscle and Eyes
by Skip Martin

Construction on the causeway
forced him to slow down.

Black men all muscle and eyes
dug ditches in white sand
and one hundred degree heat.

Don't stare she said.
It's impolite.

I could smell
salty waves flowing through
the car's air-conditioner. They looked at me hard.
Their broad flat shovels
shoveled loads of damp sand
from there to there.
That much sand must weigh
about one of me.

Don't stare she said.

And soon we were there.
I built a castle with a moat.
She applied more sunscreen
to my tender white back.
I cooled in a wave.
The sand stayed under my feet. At night I woke from a dream
of zebras running on a plain.
The condo's air-conditioner
was turned too cool.

I got up
and turned it down.

I caught my reflection
in the dresser mirror
and stopped and stared
at my moonbeamed face.

Though not for long. Impolite to stare.

Knuckleheads Saloon, Kansas City, Missouri

2008-09-28T09:17:00.001-07:00

by Jeff M

Okay, look --- if anyone out there in The Lead Pipe reading public is in Kansas City anytime soon, make it a point to stop by Knuckleheads Saloon, a honkey tonk/blues/country bar that has been voted as the Best Blues Bar in the Nation by the American Blues Association.

I can't say enough good things about the place. From the $3 charge for PBR 24 oz. to the eight hour free Saturday afternoon jam session to the friendly people and the way in which you can wander to and fro uninhibited both outside and inside as you take in all the framed photographs and listen to the eclectic array of instruments both traditional and new --- a great time all around.

The place used to be a biker bar, and the bikers still keep coming. And then some. I've always found the myth of biker bars being a nasty zone to be just that --- a myth. This place confirms it. They're the nicest people --- down to earth and ready for raunch of laughter.

You meet some really fantastic people here. I started a conversation with Mo Paul, a wheelchair- bound man of a hefty weight, sunglassed, sporting crazy mop hair and a beard. He played a harp like he was eating contest pie with his hands behind his back. Among other things. I may even take him up on harp lessons if I ever find some extra money.

Anyhow, get down to this place if you're in town. If you're needing someone to tag along, you know who to ask.

Paul Newman, 1925-2008

2008-09-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

Today sucks.

Paul Newman, the man a movie critic once dared anyone to dislike, is dead. Today sucks. Below is a quote cited today in The New York Times, which offers a massive portrait of a man and an actor whom I admired for many, many years.

Today sucks.

“We are such spendthrifts with our lives,” Mr. Newman once told a reporter. “The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”

Bethany Falls Limestone

2008-09-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

Stumbled on this trail a few weeks back. Located at Burr Oak Woods in Blue Springs, the Bethany Falls Trail is a gem. A quarter mile of the trail runs alongside limestone outcroppings, full of fossils and places in which to hide. In fact, a marker at the beginning of the trail tells how Jesse James and his gang, as well as the Kansa Indians, used these outcroppings to hide their valuables --- and themselves while on the run.

Post-script: My kids were with me the afternoon I took these shots. And, yeah, they loved it.

Until We Figure it Out, Baby, Let's Just Sit Down

2008-09-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

Inside the car, you know, we couldn't breathe. What happened? What the fuck happened? Are you okay? Let me see your head, huh. Jesus Christ --- it's so hot out, it's not making this any easier --- here, right here. Sit down. No, just sit down. Sit down, baby. We sit. How's it feel now? Yeah, shit, sorry --- I was...I was just trying to look, okay? Even now you're difficult. Jesus. You always were difficult...Come on, just sit down, don't move. Not until we figure out what to do...What happened? No...yeah, it won't help us, I know, but I just want to know what the hell happened. A person wants to know what happened, what led to something. What? Yeah, here, press this against your head. We'll wait here until someone comes along. Shit, I'm sorry, I...Don't close your eyes, baby. You can lay your head on me, though. Do that okay... She does that. You still there? Just hum something to let me know...so I can feel your voice on my shoulder. I have to keep an eye out, watch out for someone... A long time passes. The first time I wrote you a letter, I leaned the picture you sent me against a reference book I had. It was The Dictionary of Imaginary Places.

Baby, What Happened?

2008-09-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

...

2008-09-16T17:15:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

now drums start the beating pounding drums the truths inherent; don't leave this message it is for you you cannot ignore the truth that pounds its way into your porch into your shower into your kitchen into your backyard into your work place office. a nightly night screams yes, you hear it and you decide if it will be effective if it will find an ear a listener to whom it sings to. a drum. i have a drum and it beats nightly it beats a truth into my mind into my skin into my self a self unto the world entire and always then a truth for everyone for all for me.

are you you?

Into

2008-09-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jeff M

Okay, A Plane

2008-08-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

Kansas City Air Show

2008-08-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

Screw The Zoo

2008-08-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jeff M

Go USA

2008-08-09T08:52:00.000-07:00

Turn off the crap and tune in to where it's at: 2008 Beijing Olympics

Gentleman Swede

2008-08-03T17:01:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

I decided to sit in the bookstore this afternoon for a change. From my home to the car, the heat reaffirmed my belief in the existence of hell: the nails that bind my porch together have begun to push their heads above the dry, ancient boards of maroon, and the dashboard is of molten lava.

Inside the store I sit in a striped armchair and look over a book on William Blake and Charles Bukowski, as well as the recent addition of The American Poetry Review. There is a young and handsome looking man across from me reading some book about Star Wars, of all things. In the chair next to me is a woman reading a book about Switzerland; the man across from her, her husband, also reads from a book about Switzerland. As I can gather from the whispered words they speak, they are planning a trip there and are looking for the best book about Switzerland.

I have nothing to say about this couple. My experience sitting among them revealed nothing to me about human nature, except perhaps that people enjoy the idea of going somewhere else. This is nothing new. This observation is nothing new.

I will now give pause and floss my teeth.

And now I will attempt to transcribe one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite films, Beowulf and Grendel.

"Dooooom, dooo, dooo...! Ah, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na..."

"You're going to have to save yourself," said Charles Bukowski.

Help

Smashed Glass, Alas

2008-08-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jeff M

Sculptures That Make No Sense

2008-07-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

We were sitting at the big oak booth, talking about our company's stocks when my nachos came. A massive shit-pile of beef scattered like pulverized gizzards at Shiloh. Sour cream spilled upon a mountain range of twisting chips --- smooth, smooth cream as if it had been dumped from a dragon's lingham minutes before.

"You heard the news, didn't you?"

I hadn't heard the news; I'm the reporter who's the last to know. I shoved one loaded chip into my mouth as if it were a bullet in a chamber. Well, here's the news.

"Company's stock fell over fifty cents, it's something like sixty-six cents now," he said --- he, my good friend, this writer of extraordinary enthusiasm and solid moral code. This guy tips waitresses --- any waitress --- ten bucks minimum.

This guy, who I'll name Sandman, he's a devout Christian and loves his Jesus; thing is, though, he once went with me to a Buddhist temple, slapped down $40 bucks for a six week class he had no intention of finishing. He did it, I'm convinced, just to be nice to me. To show me some Midwest kindness. To hang out.

"That's bad news, man," he said. "You heard the boss. She said it during the meeting."

Sandman was worried like all 25-year olds are worried. He's worried even though he has nothing to worry about; the one's with nothing to worry about are the one's who worry. He lives at home and he's about to go back to school in the fall, get his teaching license. His parents are cool and that's all that really matters. I'm the one who should be worrying, but I'm not worrying. Not about that, anyway.

"You heard the report --- all that shit about anticipation about assets, shit like that," he said. He hadn't even touched his food. I could never understand people who, when they worry, don't eat. You gotta eat. What the fuck? "We're the assets. The building, too."

"Eat," I say, and Stephanie, our waitress, comes over. God, she's gorgeous. I'd really like to ask her on a date, but I'm worried she'd say no, laugh, whatever. Rejection is something to worry about.

"You could get a job if you want," I say. "You'll be fine."

"I couldn't get a job in my field," he said. "There's nothing out there. Believe me. I know. I have people all though the city, and they say it's all fucked up out there."

"Then you'll have to get something that's not in your field," I say --- so incredibly simple, really, that he looks at me as if what I had just said makes absolutely no sense and all the sense in the world at the same time. That's what life is --- a pinch and pull between what makes sense and what doesn't. Always the battle, scenarios indescribable, like a strange sculpture made of iron that, even after you look at it for an hour, defies explanation. He looked at me, then, as if I'd asked him to sacrifice a small bird to a God.

"I could, yeah," he said, his voice thinning. He finally bites into his food. "I could get a job with the city's maintenance crew. They pay more anyway. It's good honest work. I'd be tired as shit but it's honest."

I waved that away. "Find a better reason than that. There's no one in the world who comes home exhausted, beat all to shit, from their job who's happy about it. That's just some ideal that looks good on paper. Poets believe that because it sounds good, that's all."

We eat for a while and I'm wishing Stephanie would come back so I could get a look at her face, the smoothness of her skin, that smile, bright like a gem caught in the rain. And she has a fine ass, too. When she skims by her table, I look over at Sandman and console him the best I can, tell him to just be positive, that situations always present themselves at just the right moment. He leans back and beckons Stephanie and he asks for ketchup and she runs over to the kitchen and brings back the bottle and she looks at his turkey sandwich and asks him if he's really going to put ketchup on a turkey sandwich and he said he is, yeah, it's something he likes to do.

"To each his own," she said --- nothing brilliant but goddamn perfect in its own way.

We start talking about music. We watch one of the three televisions on the wall and we talk a bit about sports. We get on the topic of compact discs and somehow I get around to telling him that he should own this album and that, and he looks excited. He always looks excited at the idea of something new. That's why I don't worry about him.

Romance in the Yard

2008-07-28T18:16:00.000-07:00

Photo by Jeff M

Poetry of Smash

2008-07-27T16:25:00.001-07:00

Photo by Jeff M

Along Came A Memory

2008-07-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

When the storm arrived, I turned off the television and pulled the chair close to the window. When the hard rain starts, it falls straight before it slants against the window for a brief moment, filling up all the small squares of the screen mesh; and when the rain stops, I watch the water inside those small squares pop, one after the other, liking very much that I noticed that, waiting for a pair of arms to come from behind and wrap themselves around me.

I spent the day alone. When I woke that morning I thought, I will go to the water park and float around in a circle on a large cheerio-raft and feel the hot sun on my skin and the cool water around my legs. And I did. I went. I sat in a pool chair and waited until I was hot enough so that the water would not feel so cold, and when I got in it was warm. It smelled of chlorine and sun tan lotion. I floated and I looked up at the sky and at the pretty lifeguards pacing back and forth along the cement wall like lions, their tanned legs, their dark manes of hair, their arms holding the life preserver. I think one of the pretty girls waved at me, but I'm not sure. Probably she did; probably she didn't.

I didn't stay long. Once I floated around a few times, I decided to leave. I had read the introduction to Fernando Pessoa's collection of poems there by the pool and decided that I was ready to get out of the sun and go home and eat some lunch and decide the next thing to do.

When I got home, I heat up a bowl of brown rice and stew meat. I ate that in my chair near the window and lay on the floor in front of my futon and fell asleep. I woke up a half hour later and decided that I wanted to find an abandoned factory near Kansas City and look at it, maybe take a picture or two. I don't know why I wanted to look at an abandoned factory; I've stopped asking why I come up with these thoughts.

I drove west along Truman Avenue, past Harry's house, to the unincorporated section of the metro area where all the homeless panhandle. Then I head due north on 435 and took the Front Street exit, approximately 15 miles south of the airport and 10 miles south of Worlds of Fun. I head west again, driving near the industrial park, then the Kansas City Southern Railroad home office and the Power and Light District, twisting south at one point and entering the city market area where everyone was dismantling tents and packing up cars and vans. I was detoured and I eventually found my way again due west, passing a bike path that ran beneath a steel bridge. I drove a little while longer and decided to turn around and I went back to the bike path and I parked my car and I walked the length under the bridge and took some pictures and it was a humid afternoon suddenly and the pictures felt like they would be good --- especially the iron and steel sculpture of what appeared to be a human being lifting a dragon baby into the sky.

I got in the car and drove due east and found the warehouse district. There was no one around. Phantom signs and old bricks. A VW bug with a smashed windshield and two flat tires. I wanted to get out and walk but I was afraid to because I was thinking about the car that passed me on the way here, the one with the little fellow driving and the good looking girl in the passenger seat with her bare feet propped on the dash, her hair whipping around her head. She looked happy and I think he did, too. That whole thing, what I saw there in the car passing me, happened to me once a long time ago.

I drove around in circles, much the same way I floated around in circles. It was a day of circles, I guess. I stopped at a gas station and got some gas and I saw another pretty girl with blonde hair and I intentionally held the door for her and she said thank you and maybe I said you're welcome but maybe I didn't. I walked around the store, made an oval, looking for something to catch my eye and instead of finding something I just paid for $23 in gas and pumped it and for the first time in my life I had found a gas station with a windshield scrubber with a long handle so I didn't have to go around on the other side. That pretty girl --- she was from Kansas.

When I got home, I sat down and looked out the window. The storm was approaching from the west. I poured myself a drink and it didn't go in circles; it went down straight. And the rain came down straight, too.

Mutual Musicians Foundation, Kansas City, Mo

2008-07-25T17:29:00.000-07:00

Photos by Jeff M

Hammer

2008-07-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

For as soon as your reasoning begins to proclaim the nature of things...away flee the mind's terrors, the walls of the world open out...

I'm reading Lucretius, specifically his work On the Nature of Things (cited above), and I can't get out of my head an image I just witnessed: that of a photograph taken of me when I was 20-years old, standing in a friend's apartment at Cedar Point Amusement Park where we worked.

I am quite thinner and my hair is as black and thick as a stallion. I can see my wrist bone plainly, my hand like a claw as it grasped the beer bottle. I'm not holding a cigarette because I didn't smoke back then. I'm standing with four other fellows whose names come easily --- Joe, Scott, Jim, and Paul. We all looked so happy, a happiness that is easily recognized when you stumble over old pictures. The happiness, as if it were a tangible thing, comes at you as if it were a bullet. You simply cannot deny it.

Then I stumble over an old notebook of mine. It's a small Mead notebook and the black words scribbled inside have bled with age, yellowed. This was a notebook that I bought and filled about 7 years following the photograph. I glimpse I've always followed the rules, even when I was breaking them and She says it's always about your writing with you always and I can't tell her but I do that it was there first that it was my first love and that such an alliance is not easily forgotten.

Then, unmistakably, clearly, a portent to the past, a past that is the now and the now that is most likely the future:

I couldn't tell you when I was happiest, and I suppose that's a betrayal: this miracle of wife and son is miraculous --- but when I was most happy...was when I wasn't sure what to be happy about, unlike now when I know I should be happy but feel somehow not here, as though some great piece of me has been marooned and left to wander for itself when it is here --- right here --- waiting for an explanation: when I was happiest was when I was young and writing.

I was writing when that photograph was taken. I wasn't writing anything particularly good or memorable, but I was writing. I was sitting down each day at a Smith Corona typewriter and putting words to thought and reasoning them out on paper. I don't remember any specific horrors in my life back then. I held the universe in my hand and made of it a hammer that I swung through nine to five.

We all get so far from where we once started, don't we? How do we get there? I suppose --- no, I know --- it's the way we reason, how we convert thought to action. As we age, matters become more complicated. Some entity --- usually ourselves --- throws a spoon in the garbage disposal; a tree gets in the way of our kite.

I still write, but maybe now it's better or worse than before. That remains unclear. I sometimes think that I put the tree in the way of the kite, that I've secretly sabotaged myself.

My reasoning is this, then, and it's a statement that is not new to me but is nevertheless surprising when I hear it reconfirmed: You have to find whatever it is in your life that makes you swing the hammer.

Dispatches From A Ford

2008-07-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

Stopped at Taco Bell this afternoon. I ordered two regular tacos and a grilled stuffed burrito, and I waited 15 minutes to get the order.

The girl, a beautiful Lolita who wore her loins in her expression, apologized to me.

"It's been like this all day," she said, arching her brows and leaning on the fold-out window. She looked back into the kitchen and whispered to me, "All they speak is Spanish."

I made out, though: got an apple turnover the size of a throw pillow, some twists that looked like burnt rope and a free freezy.

You know, I guess my fast food experience made perfect sense; I'd just gotten out of a noon showing of The Dark Knight, a wonderful and boisterous romp within the arena of madness, philosophy and just plain old mean deeds. Heath Ledger went deep, and that's all we as passive observers can ask for when the lights go dark.

"The thing about chaos," The Joker says, "is that...it's fair."

All we commoners can think to ask for is fast fast-food.

Aquwater

2008-07-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

near divorced now and the children become like spies, emissaries, roadside bombs, grenades beneath your goose down. You're now separate from your spouse, split like dried wood, a shared past as lifeless as an index. You do not speak to each other except when you have to and now the children speak for you, exentions of your self, your sadness, your regret, your anger, your rage.

i ask my son what he thinks his mother is up to today and he shrugs his shoulders and says something about Mindy and her, they're going somewhere, and I ask who Mindy is, does she come over a lot and he says sometimes, I don't know, sometimes she does. I don't care who Mindy is, but I don't tell him this. I don't know if he realizes that or not.

i tell him, Tell her to tell Dan I said hello. Who's Dan? An old friend from high school, I tell him. That's true. He's an old friend she stitched a pair of wool socks for and, later, choked him with. My oldest does not know this. He does not know Dan, but I don't think there is anything especially wrong with him knowing that a man named Dan exists and that one time he and his mother were good friends before she choked him with a pair of wool socks she stitched for him one cold winter's night while she thought of him, thought about him being the one, the one who would love her forever, unconditionally, care and provide for her. Dan may even still have the socks; we all have socks like those in our drawers.

my youngest son is learning the language and sometimes he says "water" in Spanish, which I think is "aqua." He's with us now, listening to us talk about Mindy and Dan and high school and that kind of stuff. My youngest --- well, both of my kids --- attend a Montessori School and there are a lot of Mexican teachers and they are very committed to teaching all the younglings Spanish. I hate it. I think he should learn English first and supplement it with Spanish.

my youngest says suddenly, Aqua...

say water, I say. Say water.

water...Slowly he says this word, this strange alien nugget he has pulled from the earth...He forms the word slowly, much slower than he forms the Spanish word. This concerns me. It's another moment for my index.

do they teach him English...? I ask my oldest. He shrugs. Yeah --- well, they talk mostly in Spanish. Most of the time.

water, I say. Say water more, okay? He nods his gentle little head, the fairness of his hair simply heartbreaking. Try it again.

water...Water...Aqua ---

no, water. That's the word we use here.

my oldest says, Mom's been trying to get him to say aqua more.

i look very seriously at my youngest, ruffle his hair, say "water" again, watch him say "water" and everything, for the moment, is fine. He's mine again. And I know that when he says "water" later that evening, he will have become a grenade. He will have given her a pair of wool socks.

It Feels Good to Feel A Happening

2008-07-15T18:44:00.000-07:00

by Jeff M

While the country high-balls it to recession and my freelance work has dried and died like a turd on a Fort Lauderdale sidewalk, I am shooting a gun. I'm pivoting due east against a rising morning sun. I am in Missouri, standing firm on the earth's axis, holding this God-loved instrument of steel and wood in my arm, cradling it like a glistening infant Jesus, waiting, oh yes, waiting for that beautiful man with the camo shirt to come behind me like a silken lover in the night, coming to fill the chamber of this shotgun, this over-and-under break 12 gauge, with a shell stuffed full of steel balls, saying You're good to go, and the expectant click, the reassuring snap of a bent shotgun made straight. And now to my shoulder, against the shoulder bone, the bone they say is there to support the butt of the stock, there as in there because it was meant to be there since the beginning, since God above fused bone and blood and sinew together to make man erect, to make man designed of incisor to shred meat, shoulder to support gun. My elbows point outward like a bird preparing for flight, and I say Pull and the red disc archs into the field, it runs from my shell, my expulsion. The shotgun, when it explodes, is like a God thought, like lightning in a studio apartment, a pending revolution among a crowd of midgets gone wild. Like a wild horse beneath me. The small orange disc hasn't a chance. It shatters into rice crispies. I see this and I can't believe it because to believe it is to accept a miracle in the sky --- a result, a visible result in a world of recession, lies, disappointment, illusions, divorce. Something has happend and I made it happen. I can see that I made it happen. It feels good to finally hit a target.

Philospher's Stone

2008-07-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

"Before the children of Europe took these hills, the people who walked (in western Missouri and eastern Kansas) believed stones to be alive because they carried heat, changed their forms, and moved if you watched long enough. To them, rocks were concentrations of power and life...Yet, to think of rock can be to dream origins and be reminded of the old search for the philosopher's stone, that elixir basic to all substance." (Photo by Jeff M)

William Least Heat-Moon

PrairyErth

Wood, Thus Fire

2008-07-11T22:14:00.000-07:00

Sky Gods, Lawn Chairs, Fish Heads

2008-07-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

By Jeff M

It appears as if I'm leaving in or near The Garden of Eden. No, really. The building above is a building inspired by the prophet Joseph Smith, the Mormon fellow who was driven out of the great state of Missouri and into Illinios because, well, because he called himself a prophet.

Before he left, however, he made sure to inform all of his ardent followers that Independence, Missouri, is the spot were Jesus will descend from the sky, flip out his lawn chair, and start answering some serious questions.

The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia, our world's most respected encyclopedia.

"In 1831, members of the Latter Day Saint movement began moving to the Jackson County, Missouri area. Shortly thereafter, Joseph Smith, Jr., their prophet, declared a spot just west of Courthouse Square to be the place for a prophesied temple of the New Jerusalem in expectation of the Second Coming of Christ. Tension grew with local Missourians until finally the Latter-Day Saints were expelled from the area. Many branches of Latter Day Saint movement gradually returned to the city, often making Independence their headquarters, including the Community of Christ, the Restoration Branches and the Church of Christ (Temple Lot).

Independence continues to be of great importance to branches of the Latter Day Saint movement and is the headquarters of the Community of Christ. The Community of Christ has built a large and striking temple in Independence (see Independence Temple), and also operates other buildings nearby, including a large auditorium. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) operates a large visitors center nearby to these buildings, all of which are nearby to the original Temple Lot, which still remains empty."

Like I said --- no shit. Rumor has it the Mormons in St. Lake City are buying up huge tracts of land in and around the city just in time for The Big A. Well, people, that means I have a front row seat to hell-fire festivities. When I lived in Ohio, I always thought that hiding in a fruit cellar in the wilds of Salineville would make it darn hard for Jehovah to find me; now I don't have a chance.

But...Independence...Has anyone who visits this site ever been here? It has character (a jaunt down to the city-operated water park confirms all that his horrid and hellish with humanity, a water park as only Hieronymus Bosch could have envisioned it) and some of the people certainly need saving. Mama Glass, as I call her, lives downstairs from me. She needs the kind of help that only a Sky God with a lawn chair could give. I once spied her in the afternoon, clothed in a massive shirt the size of an infield cover, smoking a thin cigar, talking to herself, her eyes like tiny slits, walking across glass shards in the parking lot. In her bare feet.

She coaxed me over to the trash bin and asked if I had a tow truck. Why? I asked. To get the girl out of the dumpster, that's why. I peeked in. Nothing. Only shredded garbage and fish heads. She isn't there now. Shoosh, shoosh, she said, leaning toward the interior, speaking in tongues.

She looks at me.

You got a cigarette? she asks, this woman who, up to this point, I'd never met.

Nope.

You always say that.

Green

2008-06-08T06:45:00.000-07:00

Happy 9th Birthday, Deven L. Martin

2008-06-06T20:29:00.001-07:00

Dear Philip Morris USA

2008-06-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

Dear Phil,

My name is Jeff, Jeff Martin, and I'm writing this to tell you how much I hate you. I want you to know that you are Satan. I want you to know that I swim in your liquid hell each day and I cannot stop.

I smoke. I smoke about a pack a day. I am a slave to you, Phil. You ass fuck me each day, Phil. You are an ass fucker.

I started smoking 15 years ago. I don't remember why. I remember my father coming into the basement and looking at me and say, "You're smoking, aren't you?" I said that I was. He did not punish me. He did not lecture me, this man who stopped smoking when he was 26 years old and had never so much as touched another hell stick since.

My father said this to me: "There will come a day when you will want to quit, and it will be the hardest thing you ever do."

I hate you, Phil. I hate you because you pump your love joy into my ass and lungs each day, and I hate you because I love the way it feels. I hate you because I love you.

I stopped last Friday night. I had not had a cigarette in three days, but today I wanted some ass loving so I stopped at the store and bought a pack and went home and opened the pack and stood on the porch and smoked a cigarette. It's hot here in Missouri, but your love is hotter. It burns me, but it cradles me, too, Phil, you lovely gimp from the netherworld.

I will try again. I will try and stop smoking again. This much is true. I may win someday. I will wake up and realize I don't want to be fucked in the ass and lungs anymore. I will beat you, Phil.

I will beat Satan.

A Tree Guards the Missouri Dead and the Number 3

2008-06-01T06:48:00.000-07:00

Chase County Courthouse in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas

2008-05-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

Where Are You?

2008-05-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

by Jeff Martin

There won't be any good food served or gossip shared at the Cassoday Cafe. As explained to me by a neighboring antique salesman (who coincidentally built nearly all of the west facing buildings on the thoroughfare), the current owner's home burned down not long ago. Then a short time later, she contracted lung cancer.

"We all buried her just last week," the old man said, his whispered words lost in the maze of ancient farm tools and antique furniture, all of which he'd restored himself.

I located this man as any lost child would encounter a soothsayer. When I walked into the building, a frog's croak sounded my entrance. Eventually he emerged, never once looking up at me. His fingers were as thich as sausages, yet they remained nimble enough as he picked through a bucket of brass fastenings, as a person might pick through the bottom of popcorn bag.

"Any place to stay around here?" I asked.

"Mmm, no. There's some rooms down the street. I don't know if anyone's there. They might be. They might be home from school."

I walked down there, but there was a picnic table shoved against the front door. A neighboring door approved my entrance, but a sign informed me to call a specific number if I wanted service. Perhaps I could have used the pay phone across the street, since my cell phone had no reception. In fact, the screen read: WHERE ARE YOU?

I'm in Cassoday, Kansas, home of the prairie chicken. That's where I am. Why, dear phone, don't you ask me that question while I'm home, in Independence? I need the company, dear phone. Everyone needs a lot of things.

I walked back to the soothsayer and asked him, again, where there was a place to eat. He didn't look up at me.

"It's where I told you it was," he said.

I left. I told him to have a good day, and I meant it.

There are people you meet in life that you know you will never see again, and sometimes it's hard not knowing how to feel about that. He was one of them.

Kansas is Kansas is Kansas

2008-05-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

by Jeff Martin

What can you say about Kansas?

After having spent an entire day in the state, specifically western Kansas, I can safely say that Kansas is Kansas is Kansas.

1) Kansas, at least Western Kansas, is not entirely flat. In fact, my travels south from I-70 along I-177 from Council Grove to Cassoday, was anything but flat. The road is the Flint Hills Scenic Byway, a 48-mile asphalt journey that sends drivers through the Flint Hills, a 4.5 million acre miracle of rolling grassland and prairie. It is the last remaining unspoiled prairie in the United States --- certainly not because Americans appreciated the beauty and declined to manipulate the land; no, it remains so because of the cobbles of flintlike rock just below the surface, which made it impossible for early pioneers to plow. Now it is mostly private pasture land upon which literally thousands of stocky cattle feed.

The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, located approximately 20 miles from Council Grove, is the only opportunity travelers will get to walk and experience this landscape. Do it. I walked a good four miles, and the views were breathtaking and peaceful. The flora and soil is beautiful and ancient; you can literally sense the ancient voices of the Plains Indians, the trampling thunder of bison.

2) The town of Cottonwood Falls is certainly the manifestation of all Kansas stereotype: businesses close early, and some businesses inform visitors, by sign and magic marker, to call a specific phone number if desiring service; there are working payphones scattered throughout the thoroughfare; there are hitches for horses; the Post Office in Cassoday, known as the Prairie Chicken Capital of the World, is without a sign, and one carrier could be seen delivering mail on a four-wheeler; the food is hearty, evidence which could be found at the Grand Hotel and Grill in Cottonwood Falls, which serves hamburgers as wide as a manhole cover and over an inch thick; the newspapers average about six pages, and one front page story told the tale of Brooke Cunningham, an unfortunate soul who lost control of his vehicle and drove it into a ditch.

So indeed, what can you say about Kansas that can't be described accurately and simply by its unique landscape, its stoic souls clothed in denim and suspenders and cowboy hats and boots; by its winding roads and abandoned farmhouses, some of which had been swallowed by riotous wild grass and whose eaves and gutters buzzed with bumblebees the size of B-52 bombers?

Landscape reigns here; residents and travelers are but meek witnesses.

For more information about Flint Hills, check this out: http://flinthillsofkansas.blogspot.com/

Kansas Abandoned

2008-05-23T06:36:00.000-07:00

Flint Hills, Kansas

2008-05-22T19:56:00.001-07:00

Fort Osage, Sibley, Missouri

2008-05-20T08:37:00.000-07:00

First-Degree Murder and a Game of Chess

2008-05-18T11:51:00.000-07:00

(photo by JM)

by Jeff Martin

When Saturday afternoon came, I surely needed it. I'd been stuffed in a Jackson County courtroom for four days, listening and reporting on what had to be the most horrifying story I'd ever heard --- or, at least, was part of.

Sixteen year old Eddie George one night tried to cut his best friend's dad's throat. When he failed, he ran upstairs and, within 56 seconds, managed to stab the man's wife, his friend's mother, seven times in the chest. He broke the knife off inside her, with one puncture nearly four inches deep. The two, who had planned this for over a year, then fled the house to Colorado, where they were picked up by cops.

Well, the kid got life without parole. Had they been adults when they hatched this plan, the defense attorney said, they would have received the death penalty, too. Too bad: they deserved the death penalty. Some souls are not of this earth and should not be here. These are two of them.

Anyhow, spent Saturday in downtown Kansas City at the Literary Festival, which was basically crap. Writers should not host festivals; they are simply not social creatures who can accomodate all people, only their own kind. I should know. I have a hard and fast rule usually and that is not to hang out with other writers unless 1) they know how to talk about something else and 2) they know how to talk about something else.

Then the boys and me went the KC library, and on the top floor in a garden outside, we found a lifesize chess set. We spent ten minutes moving the pieces around and then commenced to play. It was a great time. Very surreal. No one won the game, however, mainly because the black pieces became too hot from the sun and 2) we started forgetting where we moved our pieces because we were looking over the roof and, well, because one cannot achieve a necessary and elevated perspective of the playing board.

That and my youngest, Noah, kept rolling a pawn in circles.

The Photographer, Deven L. Martin, at Fort Osage

2008-05-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

George Owens Nature Park, Independence, Missouri

2008-05-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

Photo by Deven L. Martin

Harry Truman Memorial in Independence, Missouri

2008-05-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

Photo by JM

Fort Osage at Sibley, Missouri

2008-05-05T15:05:00.001-07:00

photo by JM

Hunger

2008-04-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

HUNGER

by Skip Martin

twilit moon

honey-dew melon

halved, askew

stars

shower of rice

iron sky
through silver
bellies
of apple tree leaves

hazelnut's armor

artichoke's secret

where are you this evening?