Sometimes me and the boys
like to go on jaunts.
Get outta’ the office.
Fact-finding missions
what we call ’em.
Get a handful of shirt,
press crumpled cotton fists
towards unsuspecting chins
and make eyes into accusatory coals.
Speak calmly while
turning the place upside down
to shake it for loose evidence.
This will only take a moment, sir.
See what coins fall out
and jangle to rest
on the pavement
like glaring statements
of the not quite hidden obvious.
Where’d that come from, sir?
That your only one? Yeah?
What about this one here?
Somethin’ you’re not
tellin’ us?
What’s this one for?
Did you think it
was gonna’ be a secret?
You’re all the same,
you people.
You know that?
evidence.
That’s what we’re after.
I walk down the middle
while my Dissatisfactions
fan out through the byways
and corridors, eyes peeled
like card-punchin’ gumshoes
scourin’ the scene:
note pads curled over,
pen behind the ear–
a quick dab on the tongue.
‘Zcuse me ma’am,
do you recognize this man?
What’s this here then?
Yeah? Who gave that to you?
Why?
My Dissatisfactions
never sleep.
They bring back
press-clippings,
web pages, journal articles,
works of fiction,
dim theories,
bar codes, soggy receipts,
concert tickets,
government statistics,
half-rusted beer cans, card keys,
license plate numbers and
anecdotal patchwork
machinations
scribbled on note pads,
fuzzy memories
and torn photos
of people I
can no longer trust,
a list of probable futures
I’m too good for,
compiled grievances
against the world
typed up and ready
for me to sign.
They’ll file on my behalf.
Always looking out
these guys are.
Then.
Just like that
one day
Hafiz walks in.
The door jingles jangle.
The blinds shake and crinkle.
Something big flies
by the outside window.
Whoooosshhhhhhh!!!!
One strange hombre
this Guy.
Got timing, I’ll give Him that.
And it’s Just Him.
No Dissatisfactions.
No yes or no men.
No briefcase or badge.
No photo ID.
Clean as a soap commercial.
Has this twinkle in his eye
like he just collected
on a friendly bet
with a mountain lion.
His other car
is a Singularity.
Hands me a pack
of pink slips.
You know what to do, he says gently.
When it’s time.
Checks his watch.
First straight talk
I’ve had in ages.
Makes me wish
I just cleaned up
after the concerts.
Just bathed in echoes
and dissolutions.
Thought about the color clear.
Just filled space,
fanning out
into the Evidence,
becoming more of it
than I ever knew existed.
Makes me want
to write notes
about how true Truth is–
how True it is from one end
all the way to the other–
complete with little diagrams
and tiny footnotes
that run off the page
and onto the back side.
A Dissatisfaction
comes bounding
up the stairs,
chest heaving,
a box of evidence
between both arms.
Backs his way in the door.
Got somethin’
interestin’ here, boss!
Before he can
even turn
I sign the topmost sheet,
tear it off the pad.
Hafiz, not even looking,
has one arm out waiting
behind him to receive my scrolled baton,
the other palm up to the intrepid,
one step ahead,
implying he should stop.
Just stop.
Gives the gumshoe
his early retirement plan.
Whispers in his ear.
Pats him on the back.
Just like that.
Zipbangboom.
(Bing!)
No one
does this alone
you see.
We all
have Friends.
Embracing Forever 
Hey M! – I So enjoyed the bluebird of K-PAX with my daughters last night – your notes on the trueness of truth remind me of Spacey’s light travel diagrams, scribbled with a tiny, gumshoe-like pencil. Your truths are always wrapped in such elaborate, fun paper, which makes the unveiling a play performance and cast party rolled into one. How wonderful to make light of those hard working dissatisfactions. As ever, smiling and grateful for my visit! m
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Excellent! I do so love scenes like that one you reference, where the experts are destabilized by an encounter with the inexplicable, their brows crinkled and their notions of the possible coming apart at the seams. And thank you for sharing the impressions of truths wrapped in fancy paper, of cast party and performance merging. Of means and ends reuniting. Thank you… just because.
Michael
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First thing is, ‘anecdotal patchwork machinations scribbled on note pads’ caused everything to skip a beat over here. A sense of awe, it’s like what Raymond Chandler could have said if he had known Hafiz… ‘something big flies by the outside window’, driver takes it away to find a parking place (and his other car is a Singularity). Powerful friends…
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Powerful friends, indeed. I think of our friends as being part of what’s below the tip of the iceberg of who we are. Our support staffs are legion, not as separate entities but as the larger pool of being into which we expand as we let go of narrow self-definitions… Those Verizon commercials are a funny take on this. I don’t know if you have them in Thailand. Here’s a good sample:
Thank you for the kind words.
Michael
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Great idea! I haven’t seen the Verizon commercials, we don’t have them in Thailand, anyway I’m in India now – don’t have them here either. It means a lot to me because for 30 years or so I’ve been living in other people’s countries in a kind of no-man’s land, limited contact and developed the Buddhist no-self to mean a kind of emptiness. Doesn’t have to be like that, what you’re saying here is there are many others like us. It all comes crashing in… this kind of companionship through the internet is really valuable these days, so we can all see the bigger picture. Thanks for the vid, it’s brilliant…
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I ADORE the list you highlight of souvenirs the ever awake dissatisfactions collect and bring home with an attempt to build the nest from!!!! I have a vaguely damp box of motley receipts in the corner of a dimly lit closet myself 🙂 -x.M
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Thanks, M. The way you put it, and upon further reflection, my car is a traveling birdhouse for nesting Disappointments apparently. They must sneak in when I’m not looking to deposit their evidence… 🙂
Michael
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