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pussy whipped
walking chatty smiling
seemingly happy
"with it" guy
middle-aged mama's boy
passive low esteem
romantic marty loser
clumsy borgnine bachelor
finally finding marrying
younger clara snyder
fat homely girl
"love my cat"
pet-picture t-shirt
"old rugged cross" "rock of ages"
strict pious upbringing
quickly making demands
no smoking drinking
recreational toking
missionary style only
without erotic sex play
friday nights
once a week
overeating excesses
delivery pizza dinners
colonel sander's buckets
taco bell menu spreads
fatties becoming obese
shopping tent and awning company
frequent clothings changes
birthing sons and daughter
raising nice proper kids
god mother country
boy scout truths
madd moralists
preaching family values
husband wife
never risking good life
mad wildass adventures
constant hot pursuit
society's trophies of success
new car
manicured lawn and shurbbery
house beautiful furnishings
suburban pasture lot
lockstep herd instincts
living like everyone else
worried "what neighbors say"
trapped lifer guy
daily self-diminishment
resigned to smallness of being
lacking cold brass cojones
jailbreak rush to freedom
joining huck finn
jack kerouac ghosts
heading out
on the highway
seeking new life
far territories
and beyond
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le metrops blues
waking early
existential slumber-z's over
warm foster's aftertaste
distant malty buzz
black sleety morning
sidwalk white dusting
thin icy veneer
light precip
soaking wool cap
dampening camo jacket
hiking fifth street bricks
evergreen cafe
orson welles booth coffee
just patrice and me
hopper "morning hawks"
doing literary triage
separating today's possibles
choosing maybes
shaping tomorrow's agenda
soon hiking back
art gallery bard loft
quiet warm sanctuary
time for doing it
suddenly telephone alarm
interrupting musings
silent breaths
someone disconnecting
distant hollow drone
receiver humming echo
left wondering "who"
rascal finnish girl
passionate trystings
munising years ago
wanting to ask
"do you still care
think about me ever"
estranged daughter casey
grown woman and mother
shy "i've missed you
how have you been"
beth an
recalling freda picnic
promising fresh charcoal
cooking brats right next time
timid mystery femme
possessing intriguing "plan x"
grand epiphany
endless keweenaw odyssey
olga-x
unexplained nursing home warp
mother margaret checking
ever little tommy
cyber-ethers far beyond
embarrassed wrong number
mute bailing out
"death" wanting to say
"running a little late
but wait
catch you later"
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a cait tree grows
in calumet
"what's the story behind the "cait" tree anyway? i'm guessing
there are many people who would enjoy this anecdote."
jay miner
i often remember cait in my hikes in and
climbing of the CLIFFS a few miles north of calumet in michigan's upper
peninsula. some early mornings it seems like only yesterday that
she left us, and on other CLIFFS treks it feels like i knew cait ages
ago.
the unlikelihood of us developing
a long distant relationship through an almost daily exchange of e-mail
missives reminds me of the very touching and romantic film, continental
divide. the movie was a love story between newspaper reporter
john belushi (ernie souchak) and bald eage conservationalist blair
brown (nell porter). their geographic separation between the
midwest and rocky mountains paralleled the distance between my remote
upper peninsula backwater and cait's deptford, new jersey home.
this summer, cait was planning on flying in to
calumet and spending a week visiting and filming dvd footage of a wide
variety of keweenaw peninsula historial and wilderness areas with
me. the plan called for cait to stay at the michigan house, a
recently refurbished old yooper hotel that was originally built in l905
by the bosch brewing company of lake linden, michigan.
i had posted a michigan house menu to cait in
deptford and we spectulated via e-mails just what would be her favorite
carte selections. some of the michigan house exotic entrees
included "brouschetta" "big annie's pasta," "cousin jack steak,"
"citrus-bourbon trout," "beer battered chocolate" dessert, and,
espresso made with twin-lakes roasted coffee beans.
then came cait's diagnosis and subsequent
treatment for breast cancer. right after the last christmas
holiday, it seemed that cait's rehabbing progress was looking good, and
we considered her paying a brief weekend visit to calumet to celebrate
the new year. however, woe and tres alas, the cancer returned in
force, and after a short and courageous struggle with the big c, cait
passed on.
cait was an angel, always supporting my
literary adventures, the most recent being the creation of a small
literary magazine CLIFFS SOUNDINGS, produced by the vertin press in
calumet. the vertin press operates out of the vertin historical
building an art gallery in calumet. upon learning of cait's
death, CLIFFS SOUNDINGS co-editor jikiwe suggested installing a "cait
tree" in the vertin gallery in memory of the
extraordinary woman that cait was.
the rest my fine the hold readers and
friends as they say "is history."
finis
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to write without a net
new yorker
subscription canceled
poets & writers
renewal slip in garbage
letting go
new york times
daily print edition
graybeard poet
edgy tension rising
deciding it's time
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world's biggest tit
stretches from the upstairs bedroom
along second floor carpet
down the stairs
through foyer space
past side door to garage
beyond hallway closets
down basements steps
into pine paneled den
huge erect nipple
teenage son
going on sixty years
smothering in sweet milk
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beyond autumn
chilly winds gusting
coleman lantern mantel
momentary bright glow
becoming pale yellow light
early winter storm
building in rockies
driving increasing intensity
like artist alone
capturing his creative muse
thinking of ed abbey
safe "long white" hideaway
green river outback
jack london
making do at wolf house remains
valley of half moon
graybeard splake
waiting snowy solitude
hunkering down
cobblestone smelter smokestack
distant CLIFFS summit
bardic sanctuary
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