Scuds


It hits like scuds. Waves of sadness and remorse and loss.
But you can’t take cover, where? How?
Mortars. Intermitent, maddening, a good enemy strategy.
Don’t let them sleep, keep them guessing when the next bomb will come.
Terrorism of the heart.
The enemy is not my wife. It’s marriage, and it’s deadly. The death of a 17 year marriage is a formidable enemy indeed.
Rogue wave.
Hang on; here it comes, hang on.
Despair so complete you have to respect it, like a Vietnamese underground tunnel system. I can’t fight this and win, I can only hope to survive. O.K. then, so now I give in to exhaustion. Only to wake up to bombs bursting in air. They say there are no atheists in a fox hole, I disagree. Why would a God put me in a fox hole in the first place? Growth? I need a medivac to air lift me out of this war zone because of all the growing I’m doing.
Where is Hawkeye?
Put a red cross on my back, I’m shot. Don’t salute me, the sniper will see. Wait, there is no sniper, the war is over, and nobody gives a shit who’s on whose side anymore. We lost.




Chickahominy

When you separate someone has to leave the house. I volunteered. It’s move in day, but more appropriately move out day. I took a little house in Chickahominy which is a town within a town. Meaning Chickahominy is a town within the town of Greenwich. It is blue collar white trash, and I like it because no one in the finance industry would come within miles of this place. The house I left is in Old Greenwich, within Greenwich, where all the hedge fund dickheads exist. I pull in to my little driveway in my forty thousand dollar Volvo XC90 across the street from an ancient Gulf Stream, permanently relegated on what could barely be described as a lawn, so that their driveway can accommodate an old pickup, a decommissioned gas company van, and two jet skis on a trailer. I don’t think we’re in Old Greenwich anymore Toto. Down the dead end street, overlooking the train tracks and I95, is some kind of working Quarry. I don’t mind this overall, but I feel displaced, dislodged, and dislocated. The three D’s we call it in the trade. I moved in an extra sofa we had, an old desk my Grandmother willed to me, (it is one ugly motherfucker, but I like it), and a king size bed my buddy gave me, (I don’t know how much pleasure he had in it and I try not to think about it).
There is a kitchen table and some chairs I got from friends, a T.V. and my sons Sony PlayStation for visits, and the saddest thing of all, my four year old daughter’s plastic rocking horse, which I gently carried and lay on the basement floor. It is an open basement with a painted floor, and as I stood back and the little horsies eyes seemed to call to me, and say, what the fuck am I doing here? You’re gonna leave me alone in this strange slightly damp and cold battleship grey basement? My springs might rust, I’m all alone, and I’m scared. Did I do something wrong? Come back, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.
And as I climbed up the stairs I wondered if I imagined that the frightened horsy was

talking to me, or the other way around. I walked outside and had to stop and listen for a

peculiar sound. It was like a week doorbell going off intermittently. Turned out to be a

home made wind chime, crafted from some old metal pipes and Bud Light cans.

I guess I’m home.