Writing Life
When nailing down eternity
two pieces of wood will do
bound together by dusty
centurions on shit duty.
Try also iron nails
in a bottle of piss with
fishhooks, sulfur,
and the dirt from a murderer’s
grief-less grave
dug from the dirt patch behind
the green cemetery
not good enough
for a proper fence but bound
by torn green tarp shrouds instead
tacked haphazardly to decayed
chain link.
-M. Ashley
When the angel comes
Will I know to step back
Will I have love
Or will I have lack?
-M. Ashley
“How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream.”
-Khalil Gibran, “The Prophet”
In my dream, I walked with my god through his sacred orange grove. The trees all had white bark. That was important somehow, the white bark coming off like ash, but healthy healthy. The trees were all so healthy.
Today, walking my puppy, I came across two lemons on the sidewalk. It was around the side of someone’s house, not near any trash cans. No wind had been blowing so they hadn’t come on the wind. There was no lemon tree leaning over the fence or anywhere nearby. It was as if someone had been walking that way and dropped these two lemons for me to see and follow like breadcrumbs, but sour and more vividly colored.
I thought of my god’s white barked orange grove and could this have been my god walking this corner, dropping these citrus fruits for me? Do oranges in the dream orchard become lemons on the waking dirty street? Dreams communicate this way in the sleeping and waking dream. Color color, symbol symbol, the promise of a taste. A god that walked that way before you. Mystery.
-M. Ashley
If you tell the truth
Knowing
No one will believe you
Thereby
Intentionally obscuring
The truth
Did you lie?
Is a lie a lie or
Does a lie have lie-ness?
Is truth on the lips
But a lie in your heart
Merely
A lie that can’t commit?
If the root is a lie
But the tree is true
Where do the limbs lie?
Is it the letter of the lie
Or the spirit?
Lie with me, Spirit–letter
Lips and limbs.
-M. Ashley
The Star is the center. All
Things revolve around it—the
Room, dimly lit—the flashing
Optics—gilded mirrors that
Turn on time—doors pulling
Themselves open and closed—
Gears, wheels, sprockets,
Springs—gods, humanity—
All dizzy things.
-M. Ashley
We are the gods of piss and bile—
dead skin that flakes from the body
mingles with dust and sweat
makes a sweet filthy paste
worn in the groin and under the breasts.
We are the gods of ashes—
rendered fat that drips from
a wide-eyed sacrifice,
pristine bone, survivor of the fire,
that glints and pings against
the grinder blade
makes the stuff for sausages.
-M. Ashley
Is he the black dog in the night when
it’s noon and all the lights are on,
or is he the star around which
noon and all the light revolves. To know
him with bare eyes is blindness. We see
him once, poorly, and never anything again
but the flash burned into our corneas—
the red, the lightening purple, the terrible
white. The half memory our only light.
And he would still not be
black dog in the night,
nor black dog at noon.
He would still be the light itself
and we irreversible, starless, dying.
-M. Ashley
The croupier god comped me a suite at The Palace, (offseason), and led me through the hallways personally, making smalltalk, explaining how the elevators work, keeping a steady pace while his scuffed rake dangled from a black elastic loop sewn custom into the lining of his white suit jacket. He opened the coded door for me, (first try), deciphered the thermostat, unstuck the drawers, programmed the remote to new, in-house channels, and turned the well-dressed bed down.
He said, “This luxury is where you lie.”
He handed me a gold card with my name embossed, black laurel in the upper right corner framing a female silhouette with an EZ-Read magnetic strip on the backside hovering over a hotlist of company-owned joints.
He said, “This is how we feed you for free.”
He strummed his swarthy fingers over an orderly row of three-score and ten play-worn purple checks arranged in an open, unfinished wooden box lined in remnant green felt and set on top of the empty honor bar.
He said, “And these? These are a very good start.”
-M. Ashley
As of today, this poem is ten years old. Crazy crazy crazy. Happy New Year everyone!
1. Being a Horrible Hose Beast to myself doesn’t accomplish anything.
2. Self-Compassion vanquishes the Horrible Hose Beast even if it does look like a big, long-haired sissy.
3. Cold showers are invigorating only in the summer when the “cold” water comes out pool water warm because it’s a million degrees outside.
4. I can wash my hair and my whole body with one stock pot full of stove-heated water. (Did I mention our water heater broke this year?)
5. I can still remember the classical piano pieces I learned last October even though, after I learned them, I didn’t practice again until this October. Muscle memory is righteous.
6. I am capable of injuring myself in my sleep. I am gifted like that and also middle-aged.
7. I can withstand hour long phone calls with narcissistic jerks.
8. Other people can stand hour long phone calls with this narcissistic jerk.
9. If I spot it, man oh man do I got it!
10. Eight million twelve step slogans.
11. That even I give in and say “god” when what I mean is “gods.” Stupid three letter words being easier to type. Stupid western world thinking polytheists are weirdos.
12. With all the progress I’ve made at not being a Horrible Hose Beast, the Horrible Hose Beast is still worried about other people thinking I’m a weirdo. Sissy Self-Compassion doesn’t care, but says it’s OK that Hose Beast cares and wants me to give myself a big hug. What a sissy!
13. Life without corn syrup is possible and even preferable. Who knew?
14. My psychiatrist is kind and conscientious enough not to strangle me.
15. I am capable of watching a three hour concert sitting on a hard wooden bench in the Southern California level freezing cold with a spasming back. I am a middle aged endurance hero.
16. I am capable of talking about myself for 25 straight minutes without being a narcissistic jerk. At least I hope I am. If not, I owe about forty people a big apology.
17. Doing service for others is magical. Like, seriously, pop pop pop! Magical. That’s also a sissy thing to say. No less true though.
18. I can keep commitments… most of the time.
19. Tasing yourself hurts like a son of a monkey. Good news! If I ever need to tase anybody, I want it to hurt like a son of a monkey.
20. Wine and lightning are an excellent way to get and stay in the presence of the gods.
21. Gratitude is a superpower. Legit.
And finally… truly worth of a drumroll…
22. Love is patient. Patience is love.
With Love,
This Long Haired Sissy
There is a guy on my street.
He has an orange muscle car.
He lives in a sky blue house.
He warned me once about mail
Thieves–a couple in a gold junker
Slinking from box to box at
Night, pilfering birthday money.
He is a nice fellow.
He keeps his lawn nice.
He takes his orange muscle car
Out once a week–rolls slow
Down the block. Our windows
Shake. My dog barks.
It’s Sunday.
The whole neighborhood
Knows it’s Sunday.
-M. Ashley
M. N. Ashley 