Only You

for carl

When the calls and conversations
Accidents and accusations
Messages and misperceptions
Paralyze my mind

Busses, cars, and airplanes leaving
Burning fumes of gasoline
And everyone is running
And I come to find a refuge in the

Easy silence that you make for me
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
The way you keep the world at bay

Monkeys on the barricades
Are warning us to back away
They form commissions trying to find
The next one they can crucify

And anger plays on every station
Answers only make more questions
I need something to believe in
Breathe in sanctuary in the

Easy silence that you make for me
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
The way you keep the world at bay

Children lose their youth too soon
Watching war made us immune
And I've got all the world to lose
But I just want to hold on to the

Easy silence that you make for me
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me

The easy silence that you make for me
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
The way you keep the world at bay for me
The way you keep the world at bay

~Dixie Chicks

there is something putrid between the mountains. in the valley of the river that muddily snakes through the foothills of the appalachians there is something fecund, something dark and preternaturally fertile around the edges of my families ancient brick farm house. sorrow and discontent bloom there, something cultured and tended and harvested all the way down to the most gnarled roots of my family tree. certainly there is pride though. and glory.and blood. and money.my great grandfather was after all a united states marshal. judge jury and executioner murdered in some political intrigue that, though the details are blurry makes the hatfield-mccoy feud our region is so famous for seem civil. blown to bits by dynamite while overseeing a road construction he was, 500 feet in the air and carted back to a funeral that over five hundred people attended (very nearly the population of the river valley at the time) in pieces. some more sympathetic would say it was a high cause; abolition or his own brand of fundamental frontier piety. the truth probably lies between that and the extortion that seems obvious to me in that our fine home was suspiciously built out of the same bricks the grade school was. either way there are enough ghosts between those hills to haunt me and my family for all our lifetimes. my grandfather the eminent thropp wastes away in a stupor of rembering  his triumphs and tragedies. he wears a mask of casual dismissal and cares more about concentrating his gaze blankly at his big screen than he does his own incontinence or my fragile grandmother's failing health and spirit. i force myself to see them and little more than that that. there were some long hours of front porching, a practice that seems for too casual for this city street. i enjoyed it emensley and the breeze, even if it was only spreading the stink of everyone elses decay about. her eminence, the thropp third descending, was ever herself. i can see the trailer courtiers seething every time her shiny lexus speeds by to our private drive. there is little between poverty and luxury in eastern ky. what does exist strives desperately at appearing far better than it is. perhaps she needs it though. her silver charm protects from the harsh reality of herself, her own failings. poor mom; the girl that was in the mirror, the wicked witch of the east.

and perhaps i have been reading too much gregory macguire.

oz got me through the easter holiday. i ask my handsome c tonite why it obsesses me so. most adults forget the fairy tales of their childhood. this particular one sticks to me, invades my dreams and my waking with equal frequency. it is a story of otherness, a story of longing. a reflection of ourselves, our childhood anxieties spilt quietly into our carefully crafted adult securities. it is the first true american fairy tale. as true today as it was a century ago. see i've answered it myself?

c. waits dreamily in bed. p sleeps soundly in the floor, a guest in our home tonite. my neck and back hurt still from my harsh stepsister sentence to the tiny bed in the now nursery at home. much like 'wicked' and 'son of a witch' too there is no thropp, fourth ascending. just my luck.

it is actually warm in my room for once. more than that even, it's cozy, soft red lamp, rythmic hum of the fan, the creeking of this aged wooden chair against the aged wooden floor. it is home. my home, our home. it is an apartment in the city.

b says i've had too many, yet another ghost haunts me now. the metaphorical kind but more. i don't know that i can speak more about it just yet.

myspace is revolutinizing my life but i am staying true to xanga. this is my blog, i don't care if it's not the new trendy thing. everything else is social networking. these are my words.

cryptica cypticon. what is it with me? am i too sleepy for prose? prose isn't right or poetry either. just these sparse little lines. pecked out faster than thought. like this.