Fat Man's Dream

It was not like this when I was young.

Physical clarity,
an invulnerability I thought would last forever
coupled with a tendency to be lazy, intellectually obscure,
like a kind of deep mindless sleep,
was then the order of it all for all of us.

Ideas were hatched as primal aching imperatives
absent reason, reasoning and concern for accountability.
The world was a size too small,
uncomfortable and out of touch with the burning priority of our teens.

Our passage into an early maturity was new, astonishing,
overwhelming and confusing
but we felt compelled to treat it all as ancient boring news.
This denial helped hide the rules from us;
it blurred the acceptable parameters of our existence.

There were many times during those virgin summers, when we were all, out there on the edge.

Fat Man's Dream

There is a tree,
a tree outside my window,
a tree absorbing the late day sun, its nude silvered surface standing alone in this day's first bitter chill,
a tree, at rest in a season that sends snow flurries into the air that swirl and dance with the wind but never fall to the ground.

Its leaves, a distant memory now,
its promised new growth,
its hope for the future.
It stands, simply waiting,
its luck, the weather and the place it takes root,
its girth and height, the measure of its courage,
its flexibility, the key to its longevity.

It needs only what it it given, and
it is enough.

It does not covet or envy as I do.
It has no need to see or be seen.
It bears its scars proudly even as I hide my own away in shame.
It moves with elegance and reason in the wind as my paths are often irrational, awkward and lacking in economy.
Its branches bend gracefully but seldom break, even with the weight of a fallen snow.

It is after all, safely planted, even as I cling to an ever more precarious foothold on this earth.
It is only a tree, and I am not.

Fat Man's Dream

I have a thirst for death.
I own this dim craving for permission to finally rest, safe and away, alone at the last.
In that private place,
gone is the pressure to perform, reproduce or even respond.
As I drift there, life seems a great and outrageous effort,
an ongoing act of cowardice,
a tragic fearful misstep,
a senseless campaign
against an impregnable wall of drama and confusion.



Don't read despair, read rehearsal;
preparation for life closer to its end.
I've lightened my load in this readiness.
I have fewer promises to keep.



I shuttle between diligence and obsession
producing a blessing or curse,
victory or defeat,
an act of genius or infirmity;
a man with a lifelong ticket to ride again and again
across that thin invisible line.



Reality marches in heavy boots outside my door,
knocks loudly
and runs swiftly away before I can fully confront it.
I hear only the humiliating laughter.
I see only the back of that retreating prankster.



Are these the thoughts of a sane identity?
Sanity seems, after all, to require a positive connection to the world,
not baseless suspicions,
those unworthy thoughts treading the hallowed ground of reality;
not pessimism,
the unlucky ideas of a marked man among marked men
who share the abiding faith that everything will certainly go wrong.



As I struggle to find my still distant place next to the rest of us,
aging, weakening as each moment passes,
I wonder why I should tread this water?


This morbidity,
an indulgence stolen from those truly in extremis,
those more deserving,
it is a luxury, safely hidden, treasured.

All that remains is crust,
I savor it, the soft easily digestible center long gone.
All ahead fades to precious little,
my perception enhanced,
as this rarity of days seasons my melancholy.

Beached, I navigate in the shallow tide pools from whence I came,
cognition in tact, physicality on the wane.
Age adds and subtracts, it threatens us.
Walk a clear, truer path.
Make the ledger balance or take terrible losses.

Even a wayward glance at the wall clock produces anxiety.
The second hand blithely sweeps away the remaining remnants of my life,
the minute hand gradually purges the world of my ilk,
the hours, they pulse by with undeniable power
as I am propelled toward the only possible end.

I remind myself that no thing of great value,
no good or noble work,
will stay or slow this vengeance.

Life and this world part company on a hard schedule mercifully
unknown to me.
I have no life plan, no map to circumvent it torments
as the seemingly endless uncertainty gradually becomes more trying than the final event.

Yet I cling to a selfish hapless hope for personal infinity
made possible by the missing surety of life's exact dimensions.
This desperate desolate prayer
somehow overwrites my reason.

I live on.
all

Fat Man's Dream

I am now in a cold damp cell and there is very little light. The walls are stained and scarred, mapped in memory of events that I do not want to imagine.

I wear faded denim pants and no belt, a blue cotton shirt with frayed short sleeves and I am alone and shivering from the cold. There is a bunk in one corner of the cell toped with a thin, deeply soiled mattress but I can not bring myself to even sit on it. The floor is wet with slime and I will not even lean on the filthy walls. There is no resting place.

I stand near the rusting iron bars. I wait and wonder what has happened to my wristwatch.

I am weary but too strong to be willing to rest or take any comfort from this dirty environment.

I call out. Strangely, I can not hear the sound of my own voice.

I do not want to touch anything and I don't want anything to touch me.

I am hungry, starving with nothing to eat.

I try to conjure up an image of another place, somewhere safer, more comfortable, clean, but I am unable to recall ever having been in such a place.

I wonder how long I've been and will have to be in this cell. If I could see or sense and end to it, it would be easier, but I can not.

I look through my despair and down at my hand. Laced between my fingers is a pen, a silvered writing instrument trimmed in gold. It gleams, even in this faint light and seems out of place in this horrific environment.

I grip it tightly as I walk across the tiny cell towards the bunk. On the edge of the bed is a pad of lined yellowed paper.

I pick it up and begin to write these words, taking care to conserve every inch of this treasured pallet. As I stand and write, it is as if I've been absorbed by the narrative. My anguish lifts and I become more spirit than substance, floating with the work, unsoiled, safe, comfortable and full of joy.

I've left this place, I realize, and all others, to try to find a home; a home built of words on paper.

Fat Man's Dream

I can see that the top half of the Dutch door is open.

I sit in an old chair, my head tilted, staring out at a lush emerald valley and the prodigious mountains beyond.

I look down at my hands. They are immobile and devoid of feeling.

I try to lift them up but they do not respond. My head hangs, my chin resting oddly on my breastbone.

I am powerless, frozen in place, able to see only a small part of the house and the idyllic scene outside the door.

I recognize this place. It is the west coast of Ireland, just a stone's throw from the Bay of Dingle and I am helpless and in Hell's fire.

I stare at my wrist to rest my eyes from the strain of trying to look forward. My watch is missing. The sun is bright and low in the blue and clouded sky, the air, cool with the distinctive smell of the ocean.

I taste the salt of my own tears through the corner of my mouth. The smell of the sea, the taste of tears; perhaps more is possible.

I concentrate hard on my hands. Finally, my fingers arch slowly, moving, but hardly at all. My body jolts reflexively from this effort as a sob escapes my lips.

I have been silent, immobile and possibly unconscious for some time, I think.

I try to move my neck. There is no movement but there is a twinge of pain.

I am now exhausted; spent from my efforts to replace my involuntary lethargy with signs of life. These simple movements, a taste, a smell, a touch of pain, the milestones of my moment, are something to hold on to in my attempt to ascend this daunting incline upon which I've been placed by God knows what mindless tragedy. Gravity moves more tears down my face and I am again able to revel in their flavor.

I think about the possibility of parlaying these few faint sensations into a life for myself, some sort of rebirth, but it seems somehow impossible, hopeless, too far off.

I notice a rose beetle creeping his way across my forearm. As I see him there, I realize that I can not feel his progress. He moves with purpose but seems in no particular hurry. He is the color of a pomegranate, bulbous and shiny, his legs jointed and hairy, his head green, held safe and close to his body. To him, I am no different than the insensible floor he has just crossed or the lifeless furniture he has ascended to reach my arm; a useful avenue perhaps but hardly worth notice. To me, he represents a damnable prophesy. I long to squash him viciously with the flat of my hand but sadly, he is safe for now.

I wonder at my solitude. I wonder who has fed and clothed me. I am surely incapable of doing these basic things for myself, I reason, but I can not remember ever having had anyone to take care of me. How could I have survived? How will I survive?

Fat Man's Dream

I am abuptly transported to a familiar darkened room.
I know instantly where I am and what is happening.

I am on the floor, on my knees, my head between the thighs of an old friend who is seated in front of me on a well worn leather couch. She is moaning with pleasure as I explore her with my mouth and tongue. Her response to my probing is ecstatic, like nothing I've ever experienced before. The memory of this moment, I know, will be indelible.

I try to speak to her but she does not respond. She is lost within herself. We are, each of us, alone in this moment together.

I am startled, as, without warning, she reaches out and puts her hands behind my head forcing me, with all her might, closer, deeper inside. I can hardly breathe but I keep moving my mouth and tongue, constantly refining my attentions, concentrating on the areas that generate the most intense responses.

She moans louder, her voice changing pitches, each moment now accentuated by a frantic suffocating thrust. She is like an unstoppable train heading for an unfinished bridge; perfectly perpared to crash in exchange for the privilege of leaving its tracks to soar through the air for just a few brief moments. Then she is suddenly in that flight, erupting, screaming again and again with delight.

Her voyage complete, she releases me. She is still quivering, now moaning softly, still deep within herself.

I am left gasping for breath, wondering at the power of her explosive pleasure and feeling even more alone.

Fat Man's Dream

I am now lying on a bed in a room, alone; a room with bad florescent lighting and bare gray walls. Tubes of varying diameters flow from my arms, from my nose and from the backs of my hands. My arms are sore and stiff. There is a sleeve with a wire running from it clamped to the tip of one of my fingers. Bottles, plastic pouches and blue machines dangle like mobiles above my bed, swaying in concert with each small movement of my body. There are curtains, limp and lifeless, on the windows and around my bed but they are not drawn. The daylight in the room is sparse; a cloudy day or perhaps it is dusk or just before dawn.

My watch is gone from my wrist, replaced by a flat plastic identification bracelet that does not pretend to tell the time. There are a few shriveled plants on the window sill that will soon die without water.

I hear one of the blue boxes dangling above my head begin to beep loudly, an alarm I think.

I wait but no one comes.

I feel nothing. I can not speak or cry out. The alarm seems to grow louder but I am still alone.

Fat Man's Dream

I realize with a flash of excitement, that I am in a suite at the Hassler and that all of Rome, the pompous, exuberant, immortal city, lingers outside the windows. The large bed is soft, welcoming, wrapped in fine linen, the muraled ceilings and walls enticing.

I rise and walk slowly across the enormous bedchamber. These rooms are familiar, but I have no idea how I got here or when I arrived.

I open one of the doors to the narrow balcony and step out into the morning. A soft warm breeze envelops me.

I look down at the marble steps that descend gracefully to the cobbled Piazza Di Spagna, the worn smooth boat shaped fountain at its center, the streets radiating from its perimeter like the fingers from the palm of a golden hand in the early sunlight. The Piazza, the steps, a gathering place, are now strangely deserted. Perhaps it is the early hour.

I look down at my bare wrist and wonder what has happened to my watch. The delicate breeze continues to stir, charming and fragrant with the alluring aroma of baking bread and the too sweet smell of smoking meat. The huge sun is rising, insistent, placing the still darkened skyline on a canvas of blazing color. One can feel the promise of the mid-day heat that will surely follow.

I go back inside and wander aimlessly around the suite.
I am alone. The bed looks as if no one has slept in it.
I can't remember if anyone is, or ever has been with me. This frightens me.

I enter the large bathroom. Naked god-like figures adorned with precious metals and crimson flowers grace the walls above an enormous oval tub filled with steaming water.

I get in.

I am naked and now realize that I was naked out on the terrace. I am seeing things fully only after they happen, not as they happen. This frightens me more. The water is hot and my body seems to subside as I get into it, although my erection remains.

I have been erect, I realize, since I woke up.
I was naked and erect on the terrace.
I am naked, erect, alone and now, even more afraid.

Fat Man's Dream

We are in a field, together,

the oat stems bending, heavy with the fruit of this season's labor,

the sky dimming to the sounds that signal approaching dusk.



An old rooster is calling from a distant barnyard,

coal black crows cry out against the approaching darkness.

There is a large ominous cloud and rolling thunder in the distance.



Field mice skitter among dispersing shafts of fading light

rehearsing their roles as prey to barn owls and gray foxes

that will roam the advancing night.



The dog is old, sick and arthritic, as am I.

Together, we have struggled over the rutted ground

towards a massive solitary oak near the edge of the crop-laden farm.



Much of my companion's coat is now grayed,

his eyes once bright, intense and focused,

now seem to see

not what is before him

but something distant and beyond.



The pain has overcome me.

It pushes me down into the moist brown earth that was once beneath

my feet.

My long time companion lies down

and rests his head on my heaving chest to comfort me.



As I feel him there, my agony seems to lift.

I pick up my head and look out at the undulating dirt road,

a wavering brown ribbon through the perfect field

and watch it disappear as it greets the distant horizon.



I remember a time when I walked this land with a foolish pride,

when the black fertile ground and it's yield

were to my early mind, my own.



Now my kingdom is diminished by the unwelcomed wisdom of my years,

my persona finally molded to the reality of our fleeting foothold on this

earth.

I credit now only my anguish and my last taken labored breath.



A variable wind is suddenly visible,

as it leaves its' momentary imprint on a thousand swaying stalks

bound for the winter harvest.



I put my hand on the soft fur covering his broad head

as I have so many times before,

still trying to absorb some of the simplicity, clarity and wild spirit

of his mind into my own.



He has been my joy, my one certain pleasure in this life.

We share the last vivid colors of the dying sunset.

We take our last shallow breath,

together.