Liquor Mart
*
I drove down to the City of Angels to see my little broken-winged one. She shines like a bronze buddha that's been burnished by flames and rubbed smooth and hard by the ten thousand things.
You hope your child will gain wisdom, but you forget what kind of pain that entails.
*
Better to hope for a measure of peace.
*
The whole drive down, I couldn't stop thinking of how completely insane it is to get on the freeway with a million angelenos, hurtling down the road at eighty miles an hour, inches apart, every single one of them reading the newspaper or talking on the phone or texting or eating burritos or giving each other hand jobs or being on the nod or suicidal or homicidal, I don't know how any motherfucker makes it out of there alive on a daily basis.
The older I get the scareder I get.
I figure I already used up my good luck.
*
Here's the thing:
I only like the good people on this earth.
The rest of you?
I got no time for you.
*
I don't fucking understand it. I don't. I know I'm all kinds of fucked up, but I am one of the good guys. And it don't matter. You can be all fucked up and still be good. You can be goddamn miraculous.
But some of you fucks, you just don't get it. You won't be good no matter what. You just suck the life out of the rest of us, make us as miserable as you are all the time. You look out for yourself, you see the raw hand you got dealt, you do what you think you can get away with if no one's looking.
You don't never reach out a hand to someone else.
You don't let the beauty in for fear of your lockedup heart.
You squander all the goodwill and love that comes your way.
Out of your fear. Out of your ignorance.
Your greed for what you think is owed you.
*
Well, you can go fuck yourself.
*
The super power I wish I had was I can reach inside your head and rewire your network. Plug shit in the way it works the best for you. Not to turn you into someone else, just to turn you into who you were supposed to be. Before your shit got all miswired.
I guess I'd start with me.
*
I think that when you love someone you should just go ahead and love them damn the cost.
It's how you'd want to be loved.
*
Do you remember in City of Angels how those invisible angels would all the time be hanging around the fucked up humans, trying to hug them, or shield them from something, kind of crying and ineffective?
Like that.
*
Namaste.
***
posted by tearful dishwasher at 10:31 PM
13 Comments:
you are one of the good ones, no doubt about it.
there is something lonely and wistful in this, at least for me, at least at this hour, which is 2 am in New York and you put this up a minute ago just as I was about to sign off, and I saw it and said, "Ah, it's Scott," and you always give me so much to think about, so much.
pain can burnish a soul if we make it through to the other side and then it is breathtaking the wisdom such pain can impart but how it hurts as we wait and root for the soul we love to make it through. having someone like you can only help.
And the girls in their pinafores, dressed as innocents, but their faces say they know something more, that planes can fall out of the sky. But they are holding tight to each other because that's how we make it through. We hold tight.
Good night, dear Scott.
Angella-
So we're both up late, on opposite coasts of this big continent. Talking to each other in the depths of the night.
How wonderful and strange that we can do such a thing.
I'm always happy to see what I've written or created come back to me through your eyes, filtered through your wisdom and insight.
I am a lucky guy.
yrs-
tearful
Obviously one of the too few good guys. Yes.
Maybe shooting ranges should have cooking schools attached. Well, nearby.
Have you ever seen the real City of Angels movie? Wings of Desire? It's my favorite movie -- and I always interpreted the scene where the guy is crying in the subway and then is touched by one of the angels and immediately feels that weird sense of o.k. I can do this, it's going to be all right -- well - it was an explanation for that strange grace that descends on one for no apparent reason when all else feels lost
Your art is mesmerizing. The looks in the eyes of the girls is haunting. They look very displeased with the whole affair.
It's funny, I've always told my kids that they are among the good guys, that's who we are. We care because we were born to be that way, because that's how we've all been, both sides of the family, for generations back. It's a hard thing to try and teach a child to understand that some people are just rotten or dead or mean or stupid on the inside, and they walk among us looking like everyone else.
I feel like I used up my luck a long time ago too, and yet every day I get that little catch in my throat, thinking about how lucky I am, how lucky we are, so far.
I don't believe angels protect me, or watch out for my loved ones, but I sometimes feel the cord that connects me to all the good guys that came before me, like maybe they're cheering for us, or wishing us well. I guess I believe in wishes and fate and vigilance mostly. I wish for grace, but it eludes me yet.
You are one of the good guys. Gifted and smart too. Your posts and art are profound. Thanks for sharing and shining some light out into the dark.
My hub pretends he has a disintegrator gun in traffic. Sometimes I think he wants to point it at me!
Peace,
A-
Cooking and shooting. Sounds like heaven.
Elizabeth-
Yeah, that's one of my very favorites. I watch it once or twice a year.
I know no one is watching over us, but it's nice to imagine.
Mel-
Thanks a lot for your comment. It's good to know there are all kinds of good people out there. Like you.
PF-
I used to imagine I had a heat-seeking missile that would shoot up the tail pipe of the car in front of me.
But I'd never use it on my wife.
I read this last night and was too stunned to comment.
Came back this morning.
Same thing.
Stunned in a magnificent way.
Ms. Moon-
stunned is not the worst way to proceed in this world.
yrs-
tearful
what if they are supposed to be wired that way? the ones who seem mal-wired in need of re-wiring? I don't mean this in any sort of religious way...not implying who/what is in charge or does the wiring...but I do wonder sometimes...when I have a more coherent thought I'll return. But there is that idea that if one alters one thing, then it alters alot of other stuff...and maybe you wouldn't be who you are today...it's one of those tricky fairy tale mystical thoughts, like...oh, I'll come back when it's more coherent. You get the idea.
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