I’m exhausted from these damn storms. Ugh. This one looks like it is going to make landfall well west of me, and slightly west of the mouth of the Mississippi. We’ll see. My son is en route to just outside of Jackson, MS to wait out the storm. I dunno about my grandparents that live on the west bank. I need to call my father and find out what’s going on.

It’s draining. The worry, the problems, the driving, the traffic, the assholes all along the entire miserable process. I’m just depressed about the whole damn mess.

Okay, I called him and found out that the ‘rents have evacuated already. That makes me feel better.

One problem with a motorcycle
poem is eventually you, the reader
arrive somewhere else even if it’s
accidentally—whether or not
the detours of line
breaks, roadside
attractions, & enjamb-
ment trip up the plan. This problem
is round and round empty

space and holes in
the road, the scent of dead
animals mixed with memory
and diesel, or semi-
trucks that cart chickens
to a kill plant. Everybody
here loves fried foods

and coop-raised chickens put
up the least fight. There we
go: we’ve reached the initial
stop. The middle of somewhere

without street signs or
compass, mid-day & cloudless
as an empty moleskine sweating
in a saddlebag. A bright nowhere
which means it is
time
…….for
…………another
……………………cigarette

break. Blackberries
cover the drainage ditch elbow
to elbow. The odometer reads
thirty-five miles when we
leave the black-top for
Kolomoki Mounds State
Park in Georgia. The cool
that comes from shade
trees. The wrists taut
with exhaustion. Blink

until the trance of riding
slips, the Purple Martins
that arc drunk or happy
on berries and in flight
above us. A visitation
to consider. Foreshadowing
or flash foward, we’re
here in the museum reading

of sacrifice and burial
mounds. And back to
the problem—the poem
could have started some-
where else but it
didn’t. Instead like smashed
glass it cuts you, embedded
under the skin. A strophe

is an infection no different
than wind in the hair
on a car-less road under
starlight when you’re on

the way to a lover’s
bed. You—I thought you

spoke Latin as you rushed
to the restroom and water
fountain. And if I weren’t
a ploughshare of ignorance
I’d have noticed this
morning or just now
you were running hot
and cold. This morning
the choke was open and
the motor ran lean. We gave

in to common sense and said
goodbye to history—your
splined arms tight against
my chest as your blood
pressure shrugged
off any unplanned

turns. Then, there we
were home & arrived in
a manner no different

than when we left, the
skinny rain oiling
the roads behind us.

I’m excited about going back later coming week. I’m hoping to hit it at least once a week. Not that you care but I’m rolling on a Krooked Mark Gonzales deck, Independent 9″ trucks, and Spitfire 53mm urethane. Exciting, huh? It is to me and that’s all that matters.

Me? I’ve been reading a bit and writing nothing unless signing credit card slips counts as writing. Summertime. Too hot to do anything in the middle of the day—I still went for a bike ride today. Going to tool around with the bicycles this afternoon, and hope that seeing G. ride his bike will get E. excited about learning to ride hers. We’re supposed to camp out tonight in the backyard also. That should be interesting.

Work has picked up (wipes sweat from brow) just when I needed it to. Dothan is still the same fun-loving group of toothless dipshits that southern Alabama is proud of. Git-er-done, yuck yuck yuck. I have NOT been making it to the gym and I’m depressed about that. Much of the work I did the first half of this year is eroding. I need the cardio and weight work on a regular basis otherwise my waist goes from 32 to 33 in a matter of two weeks. I guess gorging on bbq isn’t helping any.

I have made an ‘exercise’ decision though and arrived at it in a convoluted process. Last month I switched to DirecTV in the slim hope & chance that I’ll be able to afford Sunday Ticket (one day). Well one of the channels we get is FUEL and one of the shows on there is Mike Vallely’s Drive. Now if you’re unfamiliar with him I understand. I’m not though, and as somebody who skateboarded for over twenty years I was happy to see this show. It documents Mike’s travels and interaction with local skateboarders.

I guess I ‘grew up’ [whatever the fuck that means] about seven or eight years ago and stopped skateboarding. I never stopped thinking of it though. Watching the show made me realize that it is great exercise and contributed to my being in shape from 1984 to 2000.

And I’m going to start riding again.

UPDATE

No sooner than I blog it and two large limbs were sheared off of a tree along our backyard fence line; providing me all of the exercise I needed for the last two days.

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