Icy in the shadows,
You see in the light.
Icy fading rainbows,
You see only might.
Icy shoulders all so cold,
You see ever kindly.
Icy growing mold, I’m told,
You see love so blindly.
Am I missing something?
Tell me if you please.
Come remove this icy thing,
Help me fell this killing freeze.
-----*------
Icy sun on mountainside,
But can ne’er forget the other side.
What goes lurking there?
Hidden in those shadows?
Icy imagining creatures dear,
You see cleavers in the dark.
Cause things with horns are never fair,
Icy monster, faerie’s shark.
Plotting plans against the light.
Let’s escape sun’s fencing glare!
Am I missing something?
Tell me if you please.
Come remove this icy thing,
Help me fell this killing freeze.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
I Had The World By The Tail, a War Story
It was 1979 and I had the world by the tail. I was working at Russell Coil company making widgets, not really, but they might as well been. I had the fearful respect of most every person in the plant, and I liked it that way. It gave me some shred of credibility in the smoking ruin of my life.
I did say I had the world by the tail, didn’t I? That’s what I kept telling myself anyway. I awoke Saturday morning to the clanging in my head that told me once again that I had smoked, snorted and drank way too much the night before. My best friend’s couch, much to the chagrin and disapproval of his wife, was my home, a too short couch with a spot in the corner to hang my leathers and pile my few precious belongings. I had the world by the tail.
With the clanging in my head growing by the second, I found an unopened 16 ounce Budweiser in the door of the fridge and choked it down, the carbonation stinging the walls of my throat. As the golden liquid hit my gut, my clanging head began to quiet and my queasy gut started to settle down. I did say I had the world by the tail, didn’t I?
As the banging in my head subsided and my stomach stopped it’s middle of the ocean roll, I chomped down half a box of Captain Crunch while reading the paper. Throwing on my crusty, trusty old leathers, I was ready to chase the tail of this cruel world. I headed out the door with a nod of my head to my buddy’s wife, and she scowled back disapprovingly. In one of those little garages that come with low-level apartments, sat the love of my life, a 1956 Harley Davidson Panhead. It dripped oil, it’s paint was scratched and dull, but it always ran. And to the amazement of my chrome loving friends, whose rides, though clean and polished, were often carried around in oil dripping, fading, gray primer paint wearing, dependable old pickup trucks.
I had the world by the tail.
My ride wasn’t pretty but it ran consistently and after all, that’s what matters isn’t it? Unleashing it from its lock and chain, which merely kept honest people honest and was only slightly smaller than what secured a small warship to it’s dock, I threw my leg over it’s lovely low slung saddle. Sitting there in that seat, I felt as secure as a baby bird in it’s nest.
I had the world by the tail.
I loved starting “my” bike, and for those of you who haven’t a clue, there was no key, just a switch to turn on the electrics. One headlight, one taillight and ignition electrics is all that she had in the way of an electrical system. So, with a flick of the switch and a pump of the kick starter to get it up to the compression stroke, I jumped on it for all I was worth. And, for one split second, I am airborne and the bike is balanced on its two wheels as I come down hard on the starter, and the love of my life roars to life. Just like God breathing life into Adam, I am god, and I have breathed or rather, kicked life into my metal beast. There is no better sound in the universe than the sound of a Harley “firing up” in the morning, especially if it’s your own.
I had the world by the tail.
I don’t remember where I was headed that morning, it now being over thirty years ago, but it could have been a cruise by the beach or to go somewhere and drink beer, most likely the latter. Looking back now, it seems that’s all I or any of my “friends” really ever did , “ride somewhere and drink beer” or some other now unmentionable and nefarious activity. We were forever riding our bikes somewhere to drink beer, a ride through the canyon to Cook’s Corner to “drink beer”, a poker run to stop at as many bars as you could, drink beer, draw a card and come up with the winning hand at the end. I had the world by the tail.
All of these riding places to drink beer, and ever more nefarious activities was not without it’s casualties and costs, I have the scars to prove it. This story is about one of those scars, but I will never show it to you. I believe the only person in the world to ever see it was a too pretty blonde nurse in Anaheim Memorial Hospital’s emergency room.
What I do remember clearly is “tooling” down Euclid Ave about 45 miles per hour, when, all of a sudden, Miss Big Floppy Straw Hat, Cadillac Driving Old Lady decided for some unseen reason to stomp on her brakes, locking the wheels, grayish blue smoke pouring from where her rear tires met the road. Now, I wasn’t born yesterday, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to assess this situation in a hurry. And before I go on, one detail of the love of my life that I must share with you is that my stripped down version of the stock 1956 Harley, still weighed more than 500 pounds, and for the sake of being stylish it had a 21” spool wheel on the front, which means “NO front brake”, and believe it or not, this was intentional. Purposely removing 70 percent or more of the potential stopping power. I had the world by the tail, but one little shoe brake on the huge rear wheel.
When Miss Big Floppy Straw Hat, Cadillac Driving Old Lady stomped on the brakes, so did I. And when they say that in crisis situations everything moves in slow motion, it’s true, it’s true, it’s true. As I stomped on that one brake that I did have, my own rear wheel spewed grayish blue smoke from where my rear tire met the road. Problem being, I only had one rear wheel and I can fall down. In that timeless instant it seemed that I had all the time in the world to assess the situation. Time to calculate the distance and stopping probability before I was pasted, like a bug to a windshield, on the back of Miss Big Floppy Straw Hat, Cadillac Driving Old Lady’s huge Cadillac. The answer to my query, not enough time in eternity, not enough distance in the world, and I am dead meat. So, the logical conclusion was to ditch the bike and hope for a soft landing. I had visions dancing in my head of me smashing into the back end of that big Caddy. No way was that going to happen, so like an expert I abandoned the love of my life, in favor of my own life and pushed her off to the right as I dove to the left. I had the world by the tail, but one shoe brake on my rear wheel.
Still in slow-motion, my right cheek, not the one on my face, hit the asphalt, and I went skidding and bouncing down the road, taking a few head over cheek tumbles along the way. But, for the most part it seemed I was surfing on my right butt cheek. The elapsed time of the whole “incident” seemed like minutes instead of seconds, and during the ride down Euclid Avenue on my cheek, I had visions of flashing lights and ambulances dancing in my little head, which bounced off the pavement a couple of times during the ride. I had the world by the tail.
When everything came to rest, traffic had stopped, and proving that minutes had really passed, a crowd had gathered on the side of the street to watch the bad guy get smeared all over the asphalt. When I finally came up for air and the world stopped spinning, Miss Big Floppy Straw Hat, Cadillac Driving Old Lady was nowhere to be found, and why would she? She was oblivious to the fact that she had nearly obliterated me and the love of my life, but rested comfortably knowing she had saved some poor squirrel from becoming road kill. I had the world by the tail.
Odd as it may sound, like I had just tripped over the curb and taken a mild header, I walked over and picked up my turtle shell, horn-rimmed shades (sunglasses), placing them on my battered face like I had merely misplaced them for a moment. Walking over to where the love of my life was laying silently on her side, I picked her up, and jumped on the starter. Instantly, that beautiful, fire breathing roar assured me she was still alive. At the time, I didn’t feel any pain, and I learned later that is why God created shock and dopamine. I twisted the wick(throttle) on my bike and zoomed back the way I had come. I had the world by the tail.
On the way home, as I was pulling up to a stoplight, I looked over at some guy on a rice burner (Japanese motorcycle). I nodded a simple greeting to him and wondered why he had such a strange look on his face. Learning later, when I met a mirror face to face, that I had a good size stream of my own blood running down my face along with a few minor abrasions and shredded jeans. Isn’t it always fun to imagine what people are thinking? I still get some kind of thrill thinking about what he, or the crowd that had gathered must have thought as they watched the spectacle of my ordeal. “What a bad ass!” is what I hope went through their mind, and I also hope they are telling this story to their grandchildren.I had the world by the tail.
As I returned to the apartment where my borrowed couch was, stepping through the door I realized something was more wrong than I initially felt. Looking at the looks on my friend and his wife’s face, I became a little worried. “What the F… happened to you?” they squawked. As I was relating my story, the pain began to creep in. What was most pronounced was a searing pain in the furthest and deepest parts of my skinny butt. Get the picture? It’s as gruesome as you can imagine. Starting a hot bath, I lowered myself in the water and soaked until the water began to chill. When I crawled out of the water, I noticed two things right off. The massive amount of black asphalt littered across the bottom of that white porcelain tub and the searing pain in my right knee. I managed to get my jeans on and standing in the doorway I looked at my friends and said “I think I need to go to the hospital”. I had the world by the tail.
At the hospital I went through the usual 2-3 hours of triage and x-rays before actually seeing a doctor. They wrapped my knee in an immobilizer, referred me to a clinic for Monday, and wearing only one of those thin hospital gowns, laid me on a gurney in an examination area with the little curtain on chains drawn around me, and told me to wait. When a very pretty blonde nurse came in flashing a sparkling white and toothy smile, I thought this just might be my lucky day. I had the world by the tail.
She gave me some basic instructions concerning the care and feeding of my wounded knee and then asked me this terrifying question that I will never forget.
“Do you have any other injuries?”
The next words are forever indelibly etched in my brain, “I don’t see anything”. “Well……………..” I stammered, “you have to look a little deeper”. Spreading my cheeks with her cold but soft hands, she obviously saw the damage to my rear orifice when she gasped “Oh my!” and in a shocking reaction to the sight, her hands went to her mouth as my cheeks slammed shut. Throwing the curtain aside she ran out in the hallway and I could hear her loudly announcing “You wouldn’t believe where this guy has road rash!”.
I had the world by the TAIL.
She came back in innocent as a lamb, poured some Novocain in the crack of my tail and began to scrub with a potato scrubber, digging down deep and removing every speck of asphalt. Novocain or no, I would rather have endured the wreck three times over than to go through that part of the ordeal. Thirty years later, my butt still winces. Worse yet, why couldn’t she have been big, fat and ugly? Or better yet, it could have been Miss Big Floppy Straw Hat, Cadillac Driving Old Lady getting her just desserts for causing all this pain and shame in the first place. Well, at least the love of my life was still in one piece.
I had the world by the TAIL.
I did say I had the world by the tail, didn’t I? That’s what I kept telling myself anyway. I awoke Saturday morning to the clanging in my head that told me once again that I had smoked, snorted and drank way too much the night before. My best friend’s couch, much to the chagrin and disapproval of his wife, was my home, a too short couch with a spot in the corner to hang my leathers and pile my few precious belongings. I had the world by the tail.
With the clanging in my head growing by the second, I found an unopened 16 ounce Budweiser in the door of the fridge and choked it down, the carbonation stinging the walls of my throat. As the golden liquid hit my gut, my clanging head began to quiet and my queasy gut started to settle down. I did say I had the world by the tail, didn’t I?
As the banging in my head subsided and my stomach stopped it’s middle of the ocean roll, I chomped down half a box of Captain Crunch while reading the paper. Throwing on my crusty, trusty old leathers, I was ready to chase the tail of this cruel world. I headed out the door with a nod of my head to my buddy’s wife, and she scowled back disapprovingly. In one of those little garages that come with low-level apartments, sat the love of my life, a 1956 Harley Davidson Panhead. It dripped oil, it’s paint was scratched and dull, but it always ran. And to the amazement of my chrome loving friends, whose rides, though clean and polished, were often carried around in oil dripping, fading, gray primer paint wearing, dependable old pickup trucks.
I had the world by the tail.
My ride wasn’t pretty but it ran consistently and after all, that’s what matters isn’t it? Unleashing it from its lock and chain, which merely kept honest people honest and was only slightly smaller than what secured a small warship to it’s dock, I threw my leg over it’s lovely low slung saddle. Sitting there in that seat, I felt as secure as a baby bird in it’s nest.
I had the world by the tail.
I loved starting “my” bike, and for those of you who haven’t a clue, there was no key, just a switch to turn on the electrics. One headlight, one taillight and ignition electrics is all that she had in the way of an electrical system. So, with a flick of the switch and a pump of the kick starter to get it up to the compression stroke, I jumped on it for all I was worth. And, for one split second, I am airborne and the bike is balanced on its two wheels as I come down hard on the starter, and the love of my life roars to life. Just like God breathing life into Adam, I am god, and I have breathed or rather, kicked life into my metal beast. There is no better sound in the universe than the sound of a Harley “firing up” in the morning, especially if it’s your own.
I had the world by the tail.
I don’t remember where I was headed that morning, it now being over thirty years ago, but it could have been a cruise by the beach or to go somewhere and drink beer, most likely the latter. Looking back now, it seems that’s all I or any of my “friends” really ever did , “ride somewhere and drink beer” or some other now unmentionable and nefarious activity. We were forever riding our bikes somewhere to drink beer, a ride through the canyon to Cook’s Corner to “drink beer”, a poker run to stop at as many bars as you could, drink beer, draw a card and come up with the winning hand at the end. I had the world by the tail.
All of these riding places to drink beer, and ever more nefarious activities was not without it’s casualties and costs, I have the scars to prove it. This story is about one of those scars, but I will never show it to you. I believe the only person in the world to ever see it was a too pretty blonde nurse in Anaheim Memorial Hospital’s emergency room.
What I do remember clearly is “tooling” down Euclid Ave about 45 miles per hour, when, all of a sudden, Miss Big Floppy Straw Hat, Cadillac Driving Old Lady decided for some unseen reason to stomp on her brakes, locking the wheels, grayish blue smoke pouring from where her rear tires met the road. Now, I wasn’t born yesterday, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to assess this situation in a hurry. And before I go on, one detail of the love of my life that I must share with you is that my stripped down version of the stock 1956 Harley, still weighed more than 500 pounds, and for the sake of being stylish it had a 21” spool wheel on the front, which means “NO front brake”, and believe it or not, this was intentional. Purposely removing 70 percent or more of the potential stopping power. I had the world by the tail, but one little shoe brake on the huge rear wheel.
When Miss Big Floppy Straw Hat, Cadillac Driving Old Lady stomped on the brakes, so did I. And when they say that in crisis situations everything moves in slow motion, it’s true, it’s true, it’s true. As I stomped on that one brake that I did have, my own rear wheel spewed grayish blue smoke from where my rear tire met the road. Problem being, I only had one rear wheel and I can fall down. In that timeless instant it seemed that I had all the time in the world to assess the situation. Time to calculate the distance and stopping probability before I was pasted, like a bug to a windshield, on the back of Miss Big Floppy Straw Hat, Cadillac Driving Old Lady’s huge Cadillac. The answer to my query, not enough time in eternity, not enough distance in the world, and I am dead meat. So, the logical conclusion was to ditch the bike and hope for a soft landing. I had visions dancing in my head of me smashing into the back end of that big Caddy. No way was that going to happen, so like an expert I abandoned the love of my life, in favor of my own life and pushed her off to the right as I dove to the left. I had the world by the tail, but one shoe brake on my rear wheel.
Still in slow-motion, my right cheek, not the one on my face, hit the asphalt, and I went skidding and bouncing down the road, taking a few head over cheek tumbles along the way. But, for the most part it seemed I was surfing on my right butt cheek. The elapsed time of the whole “incident” seemed like minutes instead of seconds, and during the ride down Euclid Avenue on my cheek, I had visions of flashing lights and ambulances dancing in my little head, which bounced off the pavement a couple of times during the ride. I had the world by the tail.
When everything came to rest, traffic had stopped, and proving that minutes had really passed, a crowd had gathered on the side of the street to watch the bad guy get smeared all over the asphalt. When I finally came up for air and the world stopped spinning, Miss Big Floppy Straw Hat, Cadillac Driving Old Lady was nowhere to be found, and why would she? She was oblivious to the fact that she had nearly obliterated me and the love of my life, but rested comfortably knowing she had saved some poor squirrel from becoming road kill. I had the world by the tail.
Odd as it may sound, like I had just tripped over the curb and taken a mild header, I walked over and picked up my turtle shell, horn-rimmed shades (sunglasses), placing them on my battered face like I had merely misplaced them for a moment. Walking over to where the love of my life was laying silently on her side, I picked her up, and jumped on the starter. Instantly, that beautiful, fire breathing roar assured me she was still alive. At the time, I didn’t feel any pain, and I learned later that is why God created shock and dopamine. I twisted the wick(throttle) on my bike and zoomed back the way I had come. I had the world by the tail.
On the way home, as I was pulling up to a stoplight, I looked over at some guy on a rice burner (Japanese motorcycle). I nodded a simple greeting to him and wondered why he had such a strange look on his face. Learning later, when I met a mirror face to face, that I had a good size stream of my own blood running down my face along with a few minor abrasions and shredded jeans. Isn’t it always fun to imagine what people are thinking? I still get some kind of thrill thinking about what he, or the crowd that had gathered must have thought as they watched the spectacle of my ordeal. “What a bad ass!” is what I hope went through their mind, and I also hope they are telling this story to their grandchildren.I had the world by the tail.
As I returned to the apartment where my borrowed couch was, stepping through the door I realized something was more wrong than I initially felt. Looking at the looks on my friend and his wife’s face, I became a little worried. “What the F… happened to you?” they squawked. As I was relating my story, the pain began to creep in. What was most pronounced was a searing pain in the furthest and deepest parts of my skinny butt. Get the picture? It’s as gruesome as you can imagine. Starting a hot bath, I lowered myself in the water and soaked until the water began to chill. When I crawled out of the water, I noticed two things right off. The massive amount of black asphalt littered across the bottom of that white porcelain tub and the searing pain in my right knee. I managed to get my jeans on and standing in the doorway I looked at my friends and said “I think I need to go to the hospital”. I had the world by the tail.
At the hospital I went through the usual 2-3 hours of triage and x-rays before actually seeing a doctor. They wrapped my knee in an immobilizer, referred me to a clinic for Monday, and wearing only one of those thin hospital gowns, laid me on a gurney in an examination area with the little curtain on chains drawn around me, and told me to wait. When a very pretty blonde nurse came in flashing a sparkling white and toothy smile, I thought this just might be my lucky day. I had the world by the tail.
She gave me some basic instructions concerning the care and feeding of my wounded knee and then asked me this terrifying question that I will never forget.
“Do you have any other injuries?”
I gulped as my throat dried, and feeling like an embarrASSed eight year old, I said with a shaky voice, “I have some road rash on my “back side”” censoring my normally crude language that I usually took such great delight in. She nonchalantly said “roll over let’s see”.
I had the world by the TAIL.
The next words are forever indelibly etched in my brain, “I don’t see anything”. “Well……………..” I stammered, “you have to look a little deeper”. Spreading my cheeks with her cold but soft hands, she obviously saw the damage to my rear orifice when she gasped “Oh my!” and in a shocking reaction to the sight, her hands went to her mouth as my cheeks slammed shut. Throwing the curtain aside she ran out in the hallway and I could hear her loudly announcing “You wouldn’t believe where this guy has road rash!”.
I had the world by the TAIL.
She came back in innocent as a lamb, poured some Novocain in the crack of my tail and began to scrub with a potato scrubber, digging down deep and removing every speck of asphalt. Novocain or no, I would rather have endured the wreck three times over than to go through that part of the ordeal. Thirty years later, my butt still winces. Worse yet, why couldn’t she have been big, fat and ugly? Or better yet, it could have been Miss Big Floppy Straw Hat, Cadillac Driving Old Lady getting her just desserts for causing all this pain and shame in the first place. Well, at least the love of my life was still in one piece.
I had the world by the TAIL.
This story is 98.5% true, it really happened.
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