Category Archives: everyday words

2026, Day Book, everyday words, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, Prose Poem, psychogeography, the no-scape

birds of blind faith and chaos and memory

The red cardinal looks fat and unhappy, perched on top of the shepherd’s hook holding an empty bird feeder. We have broken faith, and the birds will remember. The grackles, at least, understand the chaotic nature of the world and have found other places to graze in a most anti-environmental fashion. Farmers don’t like grackles because they eat the corn when it’s green on the stalk and aren’t as sociable as crows to believe in crucified straw men. Farmers don’t like grackles for the same reason some people don’t like cats: grackles and cats act more like we are than we’d like to tell ourselves we are.  Thus, like the faithless in any culture, grackles are outlaws, but don’t take it personally, as one day the seed or suet will always be gone. The cardinal took off, but will return. They are birds of blind faith.

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2026, everyday words, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, the no-scape

The neanderthal finds scrap paper and loathing

Is this what a bird feels like remembering how to fly? Is this what a fish feels like remembering how to swim?

Jimi Hendrix on the cassette, pencil in hand, coffee and an apple. Organizing (or shuffling through distraction, depending on your point of view) I found the draft of an old story,  “Bump” based on a relationship that ended a long, long time ago, when I lived in Lexington, Kentucky. She once called me “a neanderthal with a college degree.” This was her way of getting in the last word before she went to find one of her long time fuck buddies who was also in a relationship. I remember thinking that since her version of culture included screwing all of my friends, I was fine with being a neanderthal. 

After a while wandering my mind’s geography turns sour and when I look outward, some shit bag has littered the landscape and left it to me to clean it up.

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2026, everyday words, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, the no-scape

all our stories, the ones worth memory

I find myself returning to old habits. The mornings blur, punctuated by the necessity to move. Away from the river the itchy foot kicks in and needs moving in spite of the new old man hip that moans when the rain knocks on the wind and the stairs keep going. The feet must keep going. Making sure I am present when I am home and finding ways to stretch this new old man hip out on the road. Must go and make use of the time. I have done the thing that frightened me, which is dig in and be in a single space, though that space turned out to be the land between the bridges, which opened up the river, that great world’s wound. And now, here I am, back on the road, riding different wounds and different currents. But they are not unfamiliar.

moments taken apart and cleaned within a millimeter
the surface must be clean and smooth to reduce friction
examined and repaired, each breath polished to a high shine
equipment checked and double-checked
firebox boots retooled, bring out the road hat
there are currents and islands to be found
mooncasts and sunrises to bask in
the stars make their own map
and tell all our stories, the ones worth memory

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