the weeds and the vines

in my yard
where
wooden posts give lean
there grows a
beautiful botanical barrier
which gloats
unkempt
to passing gardeners

the holiday has left us
with it’s travelers and
it’s gifts

the four day week
end
gives way as the
keepers of the
carnival
sweep frantically
and pull steel down
in a race against the
dark and the rats
and the battle over what’s left behind.

---the weeds and
the vines.

end to an off season (memorial day 2010)

it is the end
of the beauty
found in
the cold and uncertain

there is one more to come after this one
i wrote it last night
it should appear in the
published
work

this morning began
like most of the summer
as i rolled past the speed limit signs
by the fire station in duck
and the movie theater in corolla
the limits are once again
fallen
to make safe the way of
the lost tourist
i push the
ford up behind the
slow ones
the ones with no
g p s
onlookers gather and roll as the
pretty things walk the streets again

fireworks blaze illegally
young boys will try again
along with
alcohol and displays of
bravado
mostly sweat and the showing of
skin
the wave has not yet crashed
though it builds
steady and capable of
destruction

hold that for now

but
this morning
two joggers
one carrying our
flag
reminded me early on that
it is memorial day
a day to honor our fallen
and
the end to the rest

we will have a few
more weeks before
the kids get out
and families roam free
and cope with
each other

months from now
labor day will return us
to grace
and peace
fitting
after the service and
the seas and the winds
have had their way

tonight the wind blows warm and
dry

the floor of my yard
crackles as the
breeze blows loose the
last acorns hanging
in my live oak
leaves shed through
march and april
crisp in the dry
death of may
leaves waxen
presented
ready to store the fast and fat
summer rains

we should wish to appear
as this steady

there is time to lose
money to make and
preparations
for
the coming of heat and
moisture is upon us
and i sit at this machine
wondering
over the hum and flash of
cars outside my window
will this be the season

and the bubbles in
the cheap cava
break in me and
carry tired thoughts
away
as this muscle
frustration and
mind
ready
to bear the weight of the show
once again

Driving Home from Collington Today

I went to Manteo earlier today to pick up a bookcase for my wife. I was going to do it last week, but a hurricane interrupted the plan. Little did I know that slight alteration would change my world forever, but not in the usual way a hurricane would. My friend Richie went along to help me with the heavy lifting. After finishing the job, I dropped Richie off at his house and continued on homeward. As I was pulling out of Collington Harbor I received some very sad news about a family member. Fighting back tears, I took a deep breath and turned up the low-fi. The old Ford may be weather beaten, ugly, and unsafe at any speed, but the sound system is ample, so I cranked up some thunderous dub, King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, and pulled out.

In need of fuel, I pulled into some the little shit can gas station right around the corner, followed closely by a Kill Devil Hills cop. As I pulled up to the pump and shut her off, he pulled up beside me. “Turn it back up.” he said smiling, which was slightly confusing, so I turned it back on. “What is that?” he asked, “and may I see your license and registration”, still acting somewhat normally. I produced what he asked for, and showed him the cover to the disc, to which he replied “Well Mister Butler, can I have this?” Sort of smiling, I said, “Well sir, I can’t let you have it, but if you have a pen and paper, feel free to write down the title, and I’m sure you can find it pretty cheap on line.” Almost before I got that out, he drew his weapon and smashed my drivers’ side view mirror. Not thinking, I quickly said “what the FUCK man?” as his next move sent the fisted handle of his gun across my jaw with a loud crack. “I don’t give a shit about your jungle music boy” he snarled, “and nobody around here wants to hear you blaring that shit either, don’t you have any respect for people?” he continued, more angrily now. Not knowing what else to do, I just sat there, silent, jaw throbbing, and I could taste blood. I was pissed, but he had a gun. “Cat got your tongue now smartass?” he said smiling. “No sir” I replied, slurring now, swelling. He dropped the cd cover on the asphalt and smashed it with his boot before walking back to his cruiser, looking over his shoulder briefly and finished with “I don’t guess you’ll be around here blaring that shit anymore, will you?” This seemed like a rhetorical question, so I sat, still, and silent. As he began to enter his vehicle, I got out with my phone to take a quick snapshot of his car; surely this asshole was going to pay. He saw me in action and quickly returned. As I slipped the phone back into my jacket pocket he got right up in my face, pressing me against the Ford like a High School senior trying to steal a kiss from a freshman. Almost doubled over backward, I watched his lips move as his teeth gritted. I could smell Marlboro and onions as he said quietly, closely “I thought we had an understanding boy” before doubling me over with a knee to my groin. I slumped back in the Ford, still in shock, and watched him drive away.

In need of medical attention, I started for the hospital. As I got up the road a few miles, approaching the light it dawned on me. I have a picture of his car, fuck him! I could turn right and head to Nags Head and the ER, or I could go left, to the KDH cop shop and report it. I chose left. I pulled in, and walked in the front door. My mouth was slowly filling with blood and I was continually spitting it out. Barely able to talk, I approached the officer on duty at the front desk. Apparently my assailant had already radioed his buddies at the station to brag about the white dread whose ass he’d just kicked. Not knowing this, I fumbled for my phone, as I tried to talk, painfully. I couldn’t move my mouth. Everything was all slurred. The magnitude of the situation became increasingly evident as the pig on the desk said “well, what do we have here? –what’s that you say boy? I can’t understand you, what are you drunk, high? You know this ain’t the soup kitchen boy.” He continued. About that time, another storm trooper appeared from the back, and they began to round the counter which divided us. Hell no, I thought, not again.

Now I am no bad ass by any stretch of the word, but I am clinically insane and sitting on a powder keg of memories of ass kicking’s from many years ago. I have also taken a few self defense courses. As they approached cuffs in hand, I knew what was happening. I slumped to the ground, feigning pain, faintness. One of them started to reach for my collar and I jumped up fast, ramming the top of my head into his chin, sending him down onto the floor. At the same moment, the first one from the desk reached for his weapon as I was reaching for it as well. This man was big, but fat, slower to move than the street boys, and a struggle for the Glock ensued. I managed to get off one shot into his thigh, which put him down. I screamed at him “ROLL OVER ON YOUR GOD DAMNED STOMACH, NOW!” and he did. “NOW, CUFF YOURSELF, HANDS BEHIND, YOU KNOW HOW!” and he did.

Suddenly, my assailant appeared in the doorway, unaware of what had transpired just seconds before. I took aim. He was startled to walk in and see me, bleeding, swollen, and pissed, as two of his boys lay on the marble between us, one unconscious and the other one bleeding and restrained. My tone turned calm now, almost sinister, I was entering a place in my mind I never thought I would be. “Kindly place your weapon on the ground SIR” I taunted, “or join your friends on the floor.” He removed his gun, and kicked it towards me, and began his rationalizing. “You know son, you don’t have to do”. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” I interrupted, and commanded slowly “and just lay down on the fucking floor, and I will just walk out of here, and then let the chase begin.” I smiled the smile of a crazy man, a man who had forgotten about the soul, and all sense of right or wrong. But he wouldn’t lie down. He took a knee. He tried to reason with me. “Alright now son, I’m trying to save you now, you don’t realize what it is you’re doing” He insisted, his voice now cracking. “LAY DOWN” I shouted once more. I wasn’t going to give up now, end up hanging in a cell, in this post Hurricane goat fuck, and especially not by my own belt, an apparent suicide.

He said more, maybe three words, maybe ten, I can’t remember now. It was all a blur. Ten minutes or an hour may have passed, but it seemed like one or two seconds to me. Suddenly the thought hit me; soon there would be more showing up, and I would have no chance. As he babbled, I took careful aim from three feet away and put one of his buddy’s bullets in his skull, and left the gun on the floor. As I walked out, I noticed several cans of gasoline there outside, extra provision left over from the storm. There were maybe two or three five gallon cans, full. I doused the cruisers and the front office in a fair amount of petrol, and still in pain, mouth swollen shut now, I jammed one of my cigarettes into my mouth, and lit it. For a moment I was terrified, as the reality of the previous hour slowly began to register. The feelings of shock were disappearing. As they lay on the floor before me, two of them moaning, and one gone forever, I took a good, painful drag of the smoke, and exhaling, spit smoke and blood into the fuel on the floor. Turning, I walked out the front door, entered, and started the Ford. I looked over the mess I had left there, and as the sound of sirens became increasingly loud in the distance, threw my smoke out the window, and lit the whole of it on fire. Three men, two cruisers, and a small town vampire cave went up like some scene out of a favorite old movie.

Thinking of the irony, I reached for Cheap Trick. I skipped a few tracks up to “downed”. It was always one of my favorites, since I first heard it on eight track, on the sound track to “Over The Edge.” I turned it up to a speaker cracking decibel. As I pulled out, I listened as those old familiar lyrics filled me with a sense of strange solace, and calm again. I didn’t care what would happen next. I suppose I knew. But nevertheless, I drove away, not fast, as the song began; “I’m gonna live on a mountain, way down under in Australia, it’s either that or suicide, it’s such a strange strain on you.” It sounded as good as it did when I was just ten, jumping around on my bed with a tennis racquet for a guitar and I thought, what a curious line, “it’s such a strange strain on you.” And yes, it is. Such is the nature of a life on the run.

“Super storm Sandy”; The New Norm?

I guess it was ten years ago when I first saw a story depicting a major hurricane impacting New York City. Last night, that prediction came to pass, as Sandy made landfall along the New Jersey coast with devastating force. Much of Atlantic City, NJ was severely damaged, including landmarks that have been a part of that area’s history for more than a century, which now lay in rubble. Much of lower Manhattan was flooded as well, crippling the mass transit systems, and causing hundreds of thousands of power outages. Although everyone saw this coming, days in advance, many thousands have lost everything, and several dozen have lost their lives.
As I watch the news now, the day after, I am also astounded by the damage to my home, the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Many people within the global scientific community are conceding to the fact that no matter what the root cause, the sea is warming and rising. This year, for instance, the Northern half of the Atlantic Ocean reached temperatures three degrees higher than ever in recorded history. In light of this fact and many other facts about of the effects of climate change on our daily lives, some are taking heed to warnings from the scientific community, and preparing for more of this weather, most likely for decades to come.
This change in our global weather system is not only responsible for stronger storms in our oceans, but the drought conditions much of our nation, and other world nations are facing. These conditions are not predicted to change for the better for decades at least. While some continue to ignore and mock these scientific predictions, a few are listening to the science, and seeing the proof in their neighborhoods right now, again.
The Governor of New Jersey has vowed to rebuild, and to go one step further, rebuild with a plan for enduring the future catastrophes that are sure to come. I have seen reports where he has pledged to base the plan for reconstruction on not just a one hundred year plan, based on current predictions for sea level rise, and temperature changes, but looking forward with a five hundred year plan. Many may find this approach “cavalier”, or wasteful, however, I have been beating my head against a wall of resistance to change for years now, calling for a similar plan for our coastal plain development and infrastructure. I find his plan to be that of a pioneer, a visionary that believes that the legacy left behind should not be more disasters and financial losses from continuing what I believe to be wasteful practices, such as are currently in place here at home. With only touching on two of the projects under current implementation here in Dare County, NC, one might find more than $2Billion in “wasteful spending”, potentially over the next fifty years. This is yet one more futile cry, to those of you that choose to believe in the predictions, and who do not want our State run by politicians who’s only goals are to think in four year increments, and getting re-elected by pandering to tourism dollars, mostly from our real estate moguls.
In closing, I just want to state that I will continue this fight to re-think the way we develop our area, not only for our continued enjoyment, lifestyle, and safety. But I think it is imperative that we immediately begin to heed these warnings, and implement a hundred year plan, starting with our coastal school boards, to get funds to our teachers and tools to our children. We need to inspire them in math, science, and engineering. We have a choice. We have Congressional candidates who have plans to develop green energy sources, and bring the businesses that will build the solar panels, and wind turbines to Eastern North Carolina. I am backing him, and I hope you should all choose to do so as well. We can not only rebuild our infrastructure more responsibly, but in doing so, create thousands of jobs over the coming decades, and attract companies such as Google and Siemens, among others to our area. We have a choice, in my opinion. We can continue to back those that want to keep up with business as usual, and continue to be ravaged by future storms, or we can demand a responsible approach to changing the very face of North Carolina’s coastal plain. We can, like New York, and New Jersey, serve as a beacon and an example to sea side towns worldwide that will be faced with the same challenges that we are sure to face as a community in the decades to come.

On “The Anatomy of Vines”

Every organism on the planet has but one basic instinct, and that is survival. The rate or frequency of adaptation of each organism dictates not only the survival of one species over the next, but also creates our global food chain.

In the case of the virus, we see seasonally how these adaptations affect our daily lives, from influenza to the common cold. Humans come up with vaccines to survive the attack of these organisms, and in turn, the organisms adapt to our efforts to control them. It is, and has been, a seemingly never ending story.

In the case of vines, they develop tendrils, to cling to existing structures, trees or buildings, in order to reach high into the air, above the canopy, to the sunlight. This displays a basic survival instinct to get to the energy source necessary for more growth and development.

In any case, this basic need of organisms interacting with one another seems to boil down to one thing; the competition for food. In the case of the human organism, however, we seem to be witnessing a global devolution, as we deplete and poison our food sources, or allow them to be poisoned through either our apathy or our ignorance.

I just wanted to see if anyone out there was awake. Vines are neat.

still chasing, but now for no reason i know

with eyes half open
and fists still clinched
and hoarse for no reason

something had bumped us

and gotten away
and i chased but
just screamed at
cracks in lined pavement
that ran away as
i woke.

The Truth about The Meek

thought on the quote
"the meek shall inherit the Earth." *

*this generation shall learn
the truth
about many things

one of the most troublesome
of lessons will come
when the "world"
learns
the origin of
the meek

they will be face to face with
the meek
as they roll
money and
war machines
over our homes, crops and
dreams

so what next ?
what shall
the meek actually
inherit?

-not that this writer
endorses nor denies the
validity of
the passage
in the first place

but
this is always up
for consideration
in his herded
head top

a
many-faceted
jewel of
s