A poem I heard on the radio

What My Father Believed
by John Guzlowski

He didn't know about the Rock of Ages
or bringing in the sheaves or Jacob's ladder
or gathering at the beautiful river
that flows beneath the throne of God.
He'd never heard of the Baltimore Catechism
either, and didn't know the purpose of life
was to love and honor and serve God.

He'd been to the village church as a boy
in Poland, and knew he was Catholic
because his mother and father were buried
in a cemetery under wooden crosses.
His sister Catherine was buried there too.

The day their mother died Catherine took
to the kitchen corner where the stove sat,
and cried. She wouldn't eat or drink, just cried
until she died there, died of a broken heart.
She was three or four years old, he was five.

What he knew about the nature of God
and religion came from the sermons
the priests told at mass, and this got mixed up
with his own life. He knew living was hard,
and that even children are meant to suffer.
Sometimes, when he was drinking he'd ask,
"Didn't God send his own son here to suffer?"

My father believed we are here to lift logs
that can't be lifted, to hammer steel nails
so bent they crack when we hit them.
In the slave labor camps in Germany,
He'd seen men try the impossible and fail.

He believed life is hard, and we should
help each other. If you see someone
on a cross, his weight pulling him down
and breaking his muscles, you should try
to lift him, even if only for a minute,
even though you know lifting won't save him.

Lunch

The little circles of rice, seaweed, crab
Lay in perfect rows on a plate
A small culture of uniformity
Order
Cold

I mix brown liquid and green paste
In a small dish set aside
Dip
One bite

This is not the proper way to eat sushi
But it tastes good to me
And doesn't that count for something

What I Do

I drive with a little person in my back seat. I look in the rearview to watch her talking to a graham cracker. I hear her singing softly her own lyrical version of our favorite band. She sends her requests to the front seat, "Next song, Mommy. B-head, good one Mommy. My song."

I stand in my kitchen and peel an onion. If it makes my hands smell bad, if it makes me cry, I don't care. I chop it and throw it in a pan of sizzling butter. And the garlic next. Many ingredients later I stand over the stove and slowly stir, stir. When it is time to eat I am already full from the smells.

I sit in a chair and face a screen, hands on keys, each day. I edit and resize. I drink coffee, and I drink more coffee. I pick up my phone and a tiny man is taped to the inside of the handset. A prankfull of plastic army men litter my work space in various poses of combat. One stands on the back of a black and white cow. Charge!

I open a bottle of beer and walk down plaid shag steps to the basement. I sit and play drums. I am an advancing drummer. I am done with Medium and ready for Hard. I look over at my bandmate on the futon, already asleep and exhausted from his day. He is an Expert.

I peel the cellophane from the pack, open, pick one, strike a match and smoke. Just this one night, and then maybe again on the weekend, and possibly another night after that. I sit on a wooden bench for hours and never think about the discomfort, while I drink and laugh and listen. I watch my friends and soak in their sounds.

I drive alone. I write snapshots in my head, grip the wheel and try to remember where I'm going. I get desperate for the night sometimes when I go from here to there. And sometimes I am in the moment that I never want to end.

A Scratchy, Sleepy Itch

She sat up in bed, startled with the sudden realization--no.

In the middle of the day, after eating the best peach of her life, she knew for sure--no.

After two mid-week drinks in a smokey bar she cocked her head to the side and stared blankly to the right, revelation--no.

Unlike Einstein, she never experienced a moment of clarity and awareness, a flash image of how it all works. The changes were slowly creeping their way through her body and mind like a virus. Like a frog in boiling water. She never knew what was happening.

If she tries to pinpoint the main events, the first thing to come into focus is the book, the one about science and the history of everything. She never learned science in high school, just mythology and beautiful dreams. And she loved books, loved stories, fictions and fantasy. Facts never really mattered when her own reality was so believable. Hives of doubt may have existed below the surface before the book, but with the opening of those pages she scratched the itch. It felt good to scratch. Scratching spreads the itch though.

The real main event now, reality check. The problem with reality is that it always changes, with the days and seasons and with each human being. With the dissolution of an almost thirty-year marriage, her parents. Family was a game she played with them and her sister and dogs, one cat, many houses of cards they set up and rearranged. Life imitates art. Her life was built around fiction, carefully crafted lies, secrets and childhood pain. Again, her parents. She thought it was real enough. She didn't have childhood pain. And when the cards came fluttering down she blinked, opened her mouth and squeaked. What is this? She started reading non-fiction.

She would never blame the man and woman for the changes. It was a slow, inevitable awakening from a pleasant dream. But she still feels like it's one of those dreams within a dream. Is there more to wake up from? Will the itch go away? Will nothing be left unquestioned.

Just don't bother.

Dear Arron, Step, and Baby,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Love,
Aunt Seeyounextyear and Uncle WhydidIwastethispostagestamp.

An Open Letter

To the ugly, butch, socially awkward librarian at the the Kennedy (at Riley) Library:

I know that you and all of your co-workers are looking at that salutation wondering, "Which one does she mean?" Exactly. Listen up, all of you, and take note.

As much as I love labored interactions with you at the circulation desk, I love even more your painfully unpleasant tutorials on all things self-checkout. You have dutifully walked me through books--this bar code, not that. DVD's--removal of security case. Holds on my account--looks like you forgot to return this item. But today when I just needed to pay my fines and you said "Oh, that's usually done with self-checkout, have you ever paid a fine with self-checkout before, let me show you" it was the last straw. And so, my wrath is poured out.

1) You stink, like onions and curry, and not in a pleasant, that puts me in the mood for Indian food, kind of way.
2) Pushing the touch screen option buttons HARDER will do nothing but make you look like an idiot. That's why it's called a touch screen.
3) I do not need a step-by-step on how to feed money into a money-eating machine. Do I look like I'm from 1952? Yours is not the only one on the planet, there are others and when you feed them they generally give you something tasty or fizzy in return.
4) You are a public servant and lest you forget, next time I'm refusing to self-checkout. Sorry, no, I can't use the self-checkout. I have no sensitivity in my finger tips. I'm illiterate. I have that disorder where you neglect the right side of your body and I'm right handed. I'm blind and your touch screen has no braille. I'm allergic to lasers. Or, how's this for self-checkout? It's called putting the effing book in my bag and walking out, douche.

Very truly yours,
The feisty redhead who pays your salary in late fees.

P.s. And don't even think I'm going to be using your new self-check IN program when you spring that one next year. Yeah, I've read your Technology Plan.