Ode to my Snot

O, snot of my nose! A glorious dose
Of NyQuil or Quil of the Day
And yet do I knows, O snot of my nose
You can’t be fully driven away

O, snot of my nose, I can smell no rose
Not flower nor Shakespeare’s small pun
Ambiguous goes all my thought on my nose
But I do rather wish he’d not run

O, snot of my nose, I pause and compose
A long serenade from my head
With tissue and throes, o snot of my nose
I’ll replace you with headache, instead

Persephonic

You rode forth from a crack in the earth

And drew me into your embrace

Of course, the parallel is imperfect

As the chariot was my own

And I was so much more than willing

 

You took me to your home

While wiles and strange liquors plied me

And my skittish fear faded

(without disappearing)

And left me yours

 

You brought me to your land

(For certain values)

And placed me in my chambers

And there you fed me pomegranate

Three. Six. Twelve.

I ate so many more seeds than there are months

And by rules as old as time I must here remain

 

But luckily

My mother likes you

So the world

Need not

Be fallow

All year long

Spacy Pay

The tired astronaut would love
To stay at home today
But if he doesn’t travel up
He’ll lose his spacy pay

Poor old cosmonaut, he’d like
If he’d not go away
His grandkids all have brand new toys
But he just cannot play

His ancient, elder spaceman suit
Fits unwell and astray
It once was tailored perfectly
This causes him dismay

He wants to be a normal man
And in his bed he’d lay
But he cannot afford his bills
And costs he must defray

Oh, tired astronaut, I wish
That you could have your day
But if you do, you know that you
Will lose your spacy pay

Absinth dancer

There’s a little absinth dancer at the corner club today
And the eyes are all upon her as she slowly, gently sways
She doesn’t see the staring as her mind is far away
Chasing chartreuse butterflies, she’s gently soft at play

The little absinth dancer likes to gyre away her time
On this, her dimly little floor, while listening to rhymes
And the men upon the stage will drum to help her keep her time
The blank look on her patient face is serenely sublime

No one knows the absinth dancer’s name or house or role
No one knows whence she arrived upon her languid little stroll
No one knows what ghastly thing she drinks her absinth to console
They know only that to dance upon a hardwood floor’s her goal

So let’s watch the little absinth dancer rotate as she sways
And we’ll view her as she sips and spins her little time away
Let’s disturb not her gyrations lest she not decide to stay
For her presence makes the lonely little corner club less gray

Firecracker

We are gradually losing my Grandma.

When I was a child, I identified with her more than anyone in my family. She had such power, I think she could have chewed nails and spit bullets. She was loving, and affectionate, and fiery enough that no one ever wanted to make her mad. I don’t know that I gainsaid her on anything until I was into my twenties. Fierce in love, fierce in anger, she was both frightening and comforting. Grandma told me once that if anyone ever hurt me, she would have them killed; she said she knew people. I’ve never once doubted that she’d have done it. She had – has – a qucksilver temper and a passion for everything. She has owned every room she’s ever been in as long as I’ve known her. She, as much as anyone, taught me that everything is worth knowing and that everyone is worth something.

Grandma’s always had health problems. When I was very young, they were like quirks. It was another reason for her to rail at the world, another thing that she could fight off tooth and nail. I’d tell stories to my friends: Oh, Grandma Zeigler doesn’t have any feeling in her feet. She stepped on a nail at the fair once, drove it all the way into her foot, and didn’t know until she came home. She just pulled it out and went to the doctor, as if it was nothing. Gradually things got worse, but it was never really scary. Surely, no ailment could scare her. If anything, disease should be terrified of her, like everything else.

Grandma Zeigler has always been old to me, of course, as long as I can remember, but now she’s elderly. She’s gone from firecracker to frail, and someone who could have tackled the world now needs assistance to tackle the stairs. She is beautiful, and powerful, but also sad and frightened, and my world shakes.

She’s going to go away from me. I don’t know that it will be soon, but it will be sooner than later, and I won’t be prepared. I don’t know how the world could exist without her. She’s such a weight upon this planet that part of me is convinced it will just float away into the sky when she is gone. I love her deeply, but more than that she is a part of my identity.  In her absence I don’t know who I will be.

I don’t see her enough. More than I used to, but less than I ought to. Less than I want to. In the moment, sometimes it’s hard to make the trip; it takes a whole day, and I often have other plans. I know, though, that I need to see her more often before those other choices become regrets. I do miss her when I don’t see her, but I know that’s barely a taste of what I’ll know when she’s not there to see.

I don’t want to eulogize her here, though. I just want to love her, and to record that love before it’s too late.

I love you, Grandma.

Nick’s Bourbon-Peach Pie

You will need:

• Two 9″ pie crusts. I made mine from scratch, but I don’t plan on dealing with that recipe here.
• 1/2 cup of your bourbon of choice. I used Jim Beam, which is not actually my bourbon of choice, but it’s fine for cooking.
• Two tablespoons of blackstrap molasses.
• 1/2 tablespoon of sugar. I use turbinado.
• Two chilled beers.
• Some cinnamon and nutmeg, and just a little ginger. How much? Hell, I don’t know. Who measures spices? Use, um, two teaspoons of each, half of that for the ginger? There you go.
• Four or five cups of peeled, sliced peaches that you picked in an orchard with someone you love very much.

Open a beer, and drink from it periodically while cooking. Combine all ingredients except the peaches, crust, and beer in a small bowl, and stir to combine. The molasses should dissolve rapidly into the bourbon. Once the mixture is fairly uniform, pour over the peaches in a large bowl and stir a bit to coat all of the fruit. Cover, and let sit in the fridge to marinate for a bit; a few hours would be good, overnight appears to be ideal.

Open the second beer, repeat beer process above. Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. Put one pie crust in the bottom of a 9″ pie pan, and fill with the peach mixture. Put the other crust on top, crimp it together with the one underneath, and then poke holes in it. Wrap the edges of your crust in foil, unless you’re using my beautiful homemade crust that just browns perfectly without burning. Bake for, um, 30-45 minutes? Bake it till it’s done, I dunno. The crust will firm up and turn brown, and then it’s ready. Remove from the oven, and let cool for at least ten minutes before slicing.

Serve to people that you want to owe you a favor.

Coming up volunteer

I lived the first seven years of my life in Greensburg, Indiana, where the great majority of my family members live, provided I’m not counting ex-, step-, and ex-step-family. It’s a sweet little place, although they did just put in a Honda plant so it’s rapidly growing up. It’s the very picture of small-town rust/grain belt, where almost everyone–myself included–is at least related to someone who owns a farm and many other people who work at a factory. It’s very pretty, and very sleepy, and it’s home to me in a weird way that’s actually a little uncomfortable whenever I go back. I have a strange relationship with nostalgia.

Greensburg’s claim to fame, and the genesis of its epithet “The Tree City”, is that one day, many years ago, a passing bird must have dropped some seeds on the courthouse tower, which happened to take root among the shingles. Several trees sprang up, and grew rather happily there. Many had to be removed, but a couple were left, and to this day there is always a tree growing from the top of the tower.

The tree is an aspen. The word “aspen” probably does not, to anyone except myself and about 10,000 conascents, evoke small-town Indiana. This particular species, Populus grandidentata, does occur in Indiana, but certainly doesn’t thrive here, and generally withers. This is not its climate. When it does appear here, it is normally well north of Greensburg.

By chance, a bird dropped a seed deep in small town southern Indiana, on a new courthouse. That seed, finding itself in an inhospitable climate and an almost impossible perch, put down roots anyway, and grew into something that simply shouldn’t be where it is. People come to stare at it, marveling a bit, and then they wander away, but the tree endures, and while it may be someplace it doesn’t belong that doesn’t make it any less an aspen tree.

On some level, I think I’ve always identified with that tree.

And at the End

I have been traveling for ages, past rolling hills and green woods, house and office, skyscraper and river, through tunnels, over bridges, past hill and mountain. I have been struck through eye by the beauty of my path, bemused and hypnotized by the sights before me. A copse of trees pushed through a cornfield behind a constellation of fireflies. A square of sunlight grew large as I traveled under a mountain. Woods blued in the distance, obscured by the very air between us. My trip showed me the wonders of nature and of human nature, our construction sideby hers, each blending into the other. The towers of New York, the fields of Ohio, the namesake woods of Pennsylvania, far more of New Jersey than I ever thought I’d see, some sliver of West Virginia’s mountains, and part of Connecticut unspoilt by forced quaintness. Even my Indiana home has its sights, though it can take a practiced eye to extract them. My trek seemed shortened by the things I saw.

And at the end was you, and thus the destination eclipsed all the eyewide wonder of the voyage. Had the trip been longer and the beauty less, it would be foolish to count the time anything but well spent. You, my love, were a sight most needed, and our love itself the greatest thing to strike my eye. We are of a piece, one kind, and it is nothing but tragedy that we are far apart for long.

The denouement is that I returned, trying and failing not to let the beauties passing by in reverse be tarnished by an unwelcome trip that was as much homeleaving as homecoming. To be back among the familiar is a blessing terribly mixed. Know this, though, as I know you do; I will come to you again, and again, as much and as many times as I am capable. I need to be where you are, love, and I will work toward that with all of me.

I never fail. I will return.

Vitesse

This is

Fast

So fast and

I don’t know if our leporid pace

Is dangerous

What I do know is this:

I need to know

And to know

I must move now

I must move fast

And I must move toward you

And so speed is not the question

But the answer to the question

Of you

And the only question left is not

“Am I moving too fast?”

It is

“Am I moving fast enough?”

I’ll know tomorrow.

Mixing a Nick

Pour an ounce of sweetness in the bottom of a tall fluted glass. Drop a hard candy shell on top of that.

Float dropwise on the back of a spoon, in order:

1/2 oz. self-consciousness

1 oz. empathy and concern

1/2 oz. starry-eyed idealism

1 oz. cynicism

2 oz. snarky eloquence

With the layers constructed, pour a shot of brazen ego. When presenting the drink to a new person, add the shot on top, and light it on fire.

To drink, first put out the fire, then sip carefully. You’ll get the flavors in the reverse of the order that they were added, but to get all the way to the bottom you’ll have to crack the shell.