PHOENIX...RISING

I am the phoenix rising,
charred
bleeding
--flesh sloughs off--
bone is brilliant White
beneath

the fire that encapsulated
encompassed
energized
enjoyed
me--ME--me
is smoldering

it sits, like a tiger
it waits
it stares
it caresses
me--ME--me
it waits.

the rise from the ashes
was not so bad
i got burned like a motherfucker
and, yet, i was glad
far be it for me to screach "fire."
i'd rather prefer to lay--LAY--in my mire
i'm the one who opened the door
I'M the one who became a true whore
whatever the bastard Boozie says
i'll do it (willingly)...pretend that it's Pez

"the rise from the ashes"
what fucking rise?
i may have wings but they're
burned to me
i may have a desire to fly
--far above, like a dove--
but i'm planted, man
my wings are charred bloody pieces of
Nothingness
my long-range view is
a 40 at one o'clock aye-em
confused?
so am i
but i am hardly a phoenix

"The Rise From the Ashes"
sounds like a movie, right?
we'll have pre-moron Charleton Heston play
"the suffering addict"
i can just imagine: his booming voice:
"Why, oh why, Lord, does this plague consume me?!"
[quick-shot to a silhouette of C. Heston in his best "Thinking Man" pose]
chin in hand
nekkid as a baby
"Why?! Lord? Why?!"
--booming voice--
the Lord says:

a bird never had so many damned ideas scrim-scramming through its "brain"

i am the phoenix
"I am the phoenix rising"
i am the phoenix
"I am the phoenix rising"
i am the phoenix rising
"I am the phoenix rising"
i am the phoenix rising
"I am the phoenix rising"
i am the phoenix rising, and i ain't colorful
i have no sharp oranges and bleeding yellows and deepest reds
i am the phoenix rising
i am the phoenix rising
i am the phoenix rising
i am the phoenix rising
and my skinny feathers are charred and
bleeding

i am the phoenix.
charred pieces of bloody human flesh are
affixed to my feathery shoulders
blood is the Order

oh! i Love
i do


i am too charred
i can never fly in the kingdom, man
i can try.

SUNDAY DOG DAY

Dogs....

Even though you love 'em and you want the best for them and you want them to feel better and be better, sometimes they'll just drive you up a wall.

I knew that the kitchen garbage smelled a little--how to say?--ripe. And I thought about changing the bag last night, before I went to bed, but I was tired and so I said, "Fuggit, I'll do it tomorrow."

I guess that's what procrastination gets me.

And I can just imagine how it went down:

Louie probably knocked the lid off, as it most likely was not sealed the way it should have been and then he got up on his back legs to scavenge for the "good smell." Down goes the can! Down goes the can! [Said to the cadence of the boxing call, "Down goes Fra-zhuh! Down goes Fra-zhuh!"]

And then it was game on. Ollie probably crawled into the garbage can, the dirty little mofo. Lou probably just pawed through the wreckage. However they did it, the scene was not one that one wants see on a Sunday morning when one walks into the kitchen/dining room, groggy with sleep.

And, to add insult to injury, Oliver left his little calling card right next to the sprawl of coffee grounds and dog food cans and wet paper towels and cigarette ashes and all the rest of the virtual cornucopia of crap. Not only was there garbage all over the floor, but there was also a pee-circle?! Gimme a fucking break. (And I think Louie might have voided near the back door; but if he did, at least he has an excuse. Ollie's just a dolt.)

It is tough to be angry when the dog whom you love is sick and exiting stage left in the near future, but I managed to still get a little hot under the collar at the both of them. What was done was done, so I didn't scold them or physically disabuse them of their garbage-picking notion, but I sure as hell wasn't giving out any treats, either.

Blimey.

All together, now: "The world, it is a-crumblin'/Through it, I feel I'm stumblin'/Each day it brings a brand-new Sun/But where oh where did I put that gun?"

Joking. (Kind of.)

SEPTEMBER 16TH, 2010

My doggy is dying.

He's full of cancer, lymphoma to be specific. I worry about his level of pain; I worry about his quality of Life. The vet said that he had, like, one or two months to live, given that his disease was high-caliber. Intense. Uber-degreed. Metastatic. I forget exactly what the vet said--the terms that he used--but I know what he meant; I catch his drift.

Louie's doing pretty okay, right now. He eats, he barks (he farts like no one's business). He is okay, right now. I just dread what is to come. Because I love him, you know. I have soooo much love for the little kid, the skinny kid, the sick kid. I--well, it doesn't even register, to me. On too many fucking levels.

[As I kiss him on his snout...] He and I have been inseparable for six-and-a-half years. He's been here, with me, as a Constant.

That is one of the myriad things that tugs at me about this. And but one also has to deal with end-of-life issues ($136.85 from the Rochester branch of the Michigan Humane Society, but then I have to take his body and bury it. Otherwise, three hundred extra dollars will be added--'cause they have to outsource, don'tcha know, to the Burners.) I'll tell you this: I wanted his ashes to spread as I would want, but I'll be got-damned if I'm going to spend another three bills on his death. But, this too: If I don't take his body or pay for the outsourced Burning, what in the hell will they do with his body?! Uh-uh.

I ain't having it. I'll bury the sweet boy myself. I will. I will. I will.

He deserves Respect. He is not some piece of biological garbage. He ain't. He's Louie.

The Best Dog Evah.

My boy.

And it is fucking killing me.

Oh, fuck.

Damn it.

Like I said, he's doing okay, right now.

(I fucking miss him already, damn it.)

***

hot tears dot the page

such Good cannot be equaled

Love is like taffy

***

It keeps pulling you back.

I. Just. Don't. Know.

I think that I have been dealing with my best friend's demise in a detached, clinical manner. No. Uh-uh. It don't work that way, motherfucker. Try to hide from the emotions. Just fucking try. It can't be done. I'll have to face it--them, the emotions--eventually. I cry, but they are tears of angst, they are tears of frustration. Fuck that. They're also tears of loss and tears of Love and tears of what-coulda-beens and tears of recognition.

I know this: I love Louie sooo damned much. Sooo damned much.

To me, he is not just a "dog". (And, by the way? What dog is "just" a dog? Very very few. They're God's gift to us, for sure.) No, Lou is not just a dog. He is Memory. He is a slice of my (hopefully long) life. He is a lighthouse seen from the stormy sea. He is a beacon of Hope and Love. He is....

He is just a dog.

Bullshit.

He. Is. Louie.

He. Is--

LOVE

502 AND THREE TOUCHDOWNS?!

I am impressed, man. Just flat-out impressed.

You always hear, "Oh, he's good, but he's just a 'running quarterback.'" As in, sure, the kid can run, but he lacks football acumen and his arm is less-than.

I saw Denard Robinson, number 16, the quarterback from the University of Michigan, play today and he just dazzled. The quarterback rushed for 258 yards. Swallow that. 258 yards?! Gimme a fucking break; outstanding. Not only that, though, but he also showed a high football IQ and made good decisions and damned good passes. If not for the stone hands of a wide-out, Robinson would have had another passing touchdown.

I am just flat-out impressed.

A (NEW) UPDATE ON LOUIE

Well, so I took Louie to the animal hospital last night, and he stayed the night and had his biopsy done today on his swollen lymph nodes. I picked him up after work and was told to wait in a room so that the technician could speak with me before I took him home.

You know the drill: Keep the sutures clean, don't feed or water the dog too much in the first couple of days after surgery, keep an eye on him outside (in fact, walk him to do his business like you used to do when he was a puppy), excise the horseplay if you have more than one dog, etcetra, etcetera.

Just...when I was waiting for Jackie the Tech to come and talk with me, I kept eyeing Louie's stuff that another worker there had left in the room with me, on the table, in a little plastic purple-bone-ringed bag. His Zip-Loc bag of food that I had brought, had he been hungry the night before. His red leather collar, with the little metal tag that says "Louie," and then, below it, my telephone number. The red bandanna that I've been tying around his neck. I'd taken them out of the plastic bag and they'd just lain there, on the metal examining table...and I'd just felt such a powerful sense of loss, I could hardly hold back the burgeoning tears. I'd known that they were just fragments of, not him, but, still, I couldn't help my thoughts.

I'm not going to dive off into MemoryLand, right now--that's a post for a different day--but, oh man, dem were some tough thoughts.

Jackie the Tech came in and explained to me what they'd done. They'd biopsied the nodes below the nodes that we had all noticed and that the results would be known in about five to seven days. The vet, who was off that afternoon, would call me with the results. Jackie told me that not just the nodes we noticed were swollen, but all of Lou's lymph nodes were found to be swollen. She also imparted that, during the chest x-ray I'd agreed to, they'd not found "quarter-sized dots," which would imply lung cancer, but that they had found what they reckon are bronchial lesions. The heartworm test came back good, but his liver count was elevated--not alcoholically-elevated, but elevated, like 15 to 20 points too high. "Wow," I'd said, half-joking, "sometimes I give him a little beer; would that elevate his counts?" She'd politely laughed. "Not unless he drinks like a fish." I'd smiled. And had thought, And what rambling wreck shall I call my King Louie?

And she'd left and brought him back into the room, and I had seen nothing but My Louie. A little drug-drunk, with a shaved and sutured area on the left side of his neck, but My Louie. Adorable and inquisitive, little puppy face still peering, bright-eyed, from the whitened muzzle. And my heart melted. With pack-pride. With love. Just. As. It. Always. Does.

And always will.

So the new and abridged update on Louie is this: I'll wait, for five to seven days for the biopsy results, and thus the chess game will enter another stage.

One thing changes, though. Per the doctor's orders, I'll have to keep the two dogs separated for a spell--maybe two or three days, maybe longer. No horseplay, you see. That could screw up the sutures.

Okay, then. Louie sleeps upstairs. With me.