04-06-2012, 03:32 AM
I danced ballet starting in the third grade. I never had a tree house or a dog.
Saturdays after lessons I sold lemonade with two girl-friend sisters who lived
next door. I knew Nijinski before I knew Michael Jordan--
but, there were problems.
The first time I tried to jump off a bridge was back in 79'. I had returned from
Munich, having taken my Cecchetti exams. I was seventeen and my hometown
made quite a fuss over my dancing accomplishments, plastering me all over
the newspapers.
Girls in town noticed me too and soon Michella came along. She was a golden
goddess. Every boy in school was ga-ga over her long legs and suspected
naughtiness. Michella started buzzing me like a fast saw and soon I was down
in a field of grass. Later, I found out I was only a bet around town-- could she bag
the virgin ballerina boy?
Soon after we graduated Michella split for California without a howdie-doo. I was
devastated. I stole about a hundred of my aunt's Valium, swallowed them and ran
out of the house. I hid in the local cemetery. Someone found me behind statue of
Mary—
and I never danced again.
I left for college and dove into architecture and still-life painting. I dove into history
and the college swimming pool, as a break from the rigors of college life. That's
when Tiffany, my future wife showed up. She was the first girl to really care about
nothing besides sex. I suppose that should have clued me in to my future, but after
having gone through Michella, what the hell?-- she asked me to marry.
I said, damn straight!
Tiffany would allow me to have vaginal sex with her about three times a year. Her
thing was oral-- hers. I figured I'd better keep her temper in line by complying as she
had a hell of a temper. She trained me well. After fifteen years of this kind of crap, I
got chapped lips. I also found a lover, but then the real games began. Kerry Anne
was a British Airlines Pilot and liked to fly high, drive fast and wind me up like a toy.
She was single, brilliant and knew my buttons-- knew well that my dog's death eight
years earlier was a heavy weight on my mind.
When the scotch and soda made her too crazy, she'd be the mean ol' school marm
and I would be the little dirty boy she caught in the cloakroom with my hands inside
my pants. Yeah, she had me wound up tighter, as they say, than a drum. But it was
Tiffany all over again. Kerry Anne ran off with an airline stewardess based out of
Dallas.
Linda Lou, my wife now, and I got an invitation to the wedding and then things start-
ed going haywire inside my head. Soon after I landed in Charter House on Valentine
night screaming "Mommy …" naked as a Jaybird, playing Debussy on my baby grand
piano. It took four cops to wrestle me down and carry me away in cuffs.
After a month in the looney bin, they tagged me with manic depression, sent me home
with a bag of pills that retired me from my position as midwest branch manager of the
Tire and Auto Service Department at Sears. I quit the world. I quit the thought of sex.
For a couple years I sat on my back porch barefoot, fed birds and smoked weed.
In 96' I read a book called Go Ahead, Ask Her If She Wants To Make Love, by Dr.Tom
Granfield, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University. He's also is manic-
depressive. His book deals with the relation between manic-depressive illness and the
artistic temperament and how to understanding the creative process. In the book I dis-
covered artists and poets-- too many to name here.
What I was searching for was the elemental human desire to add meaning and perma-
nence to life that can be found in writing. And as Anne Sexton once wrote, "Poetry led
me by the hand out of madness." I first wrote as not only as a means of escape from pain,
but also as a way of structuring chaotic emotions and thoughts, numbing pain through
abstraction and the rigors of disciplined thought, and creating a distance from that dis-
content as far as my house to the bus stop.
I suppose it was a cheap man's therapy-- and so it continues ...
Then came Annabel.
I was alarmed reading her poem, How A Girl Poet Grooms Her Pussy Until Its Per-
fect. The sexual nature of the lines sucked me like a hummingbird’s tongue sucks the
juice from deep inside flower petals. I couldn't help but write her.
So began our years of dialog, my opening up to the realization that I could bare my-
self honestly and deeply with a woman without shame or fear of rejection. I told her I
masturbated in the shower several times a week. She wrote back and said she did
too. And then, gaining confidence, I I told her other, more personal stuff.
I kissed her ... by email. Yeah, on the net kisses aren't contracts, and you learn the
subtle difference between holding your breath and chaining the soul. Annabel helped
me understand fun, how fantastic life could be and what freedom is.
However, depression is a snake.
It clings
like ivy
around my shoulders-- from time to time.
This summer my wife took me to Nags Head, North Carolina. We went to a restaurant and
lounge called Windmill Point overlooking Roanoke Sound. The décor of the place held the
largest collection of memorabilia from the S.S. United States. The barstools were all mark-
ed with plaques of famous people who had once sat their ass in them. I found Marilyn Mon-
roe's barstool and ordered a rum and coke with a cherry in it. Next to her spot was Jack
Kennedy's and I wondered what he had ( a hard-on probably).
Of course my wife drank too much and I had to drive us us back to our beach condo. She
was on the bed snoring before I even had my clothes off. Somehow the beach seemed ripe
for me, so I went out on the balcony to smell the wind that came off the ocean. Balconies
always made me think of Lorca. I always imagined diving off some balcony, my long white
silk scarf flowing against the air, my hair cutting through like a Chinese kite.
And for that moment, that one moment, I leaned over as far as my torso could extend, still
looking at the moon which was bent like a half smile.--- and I thought about going over.
The moon seduces, especially on bridges and balconies.
Fireworks exploded from the far side of beach past the pier. The sight and sound jolted my
thoughts and I pulled back. My hands started trembling and I sat down in a plastic chair,
moist from the sea breeze.
My wife's left over cigar was there, in the ashtray.
I lit it and tried to blow rings.
##
rh
Saturdays after lessons I sold lemonade with two girl-friend sisters who lived
next door. I knew Nijinski before I knew Michael Jordan--
but, there were problems.
The first time I tried to jump off a bridge was back in 79'. I had returned from
Munich, having taken my Cecchetti exams. I was seventeen and my hometown
made quite a fuss over my dancing accomplishments, plastering me all over
the newspapers.
Girls in town noticed me too and soon Michella came along. She was a golden
goddess. Every boy in school was ga-ga over her long legs and suspected
naughtiness. Michella started buzzing me like a fast saw and soon I was down
in a field of grass. Later, I found out I was only a bet around town-- could she bag
the virgin ballerina boy?
Soon after we graduated Michella split for California without a howdie-doo. I was
devastated. I stole about a hundred of my aunt's Valium, swallowed them and ran
out of the house. I hid in the local cemetery. Someone found me behind statue of
Mary—
and I never danced again.
I left for college and dove into architecture and still-life painting. I dove into history
and the college swimming pool, as a break from the rigors of college life. That's
when Tiffany, my future wife showed up. She was the first girl to really care about
nothing besides sex. I suppose that should have clued me in to my future, but after
having gone through Michella, what the hell?-- she asked me to marry.
I said, damn straight!
Tiffany would allow me to have vaginal sex with her about three times a year. Her
thing was oral-- hers. I figured I'd better keep her temper in line by complying as she
had a hell of a temper. She trained me well. After fifteen years of this kind of crap, I
got chapped lips. I also found a lover, but then the real games began. Kerry Anne
was a British Airlines Pilot and liked to fly high, drive fast and wind me up like a toy.
She was single, brilliant and knew my buttons-- knew well that my dog's death eight
years earlier was a heavy weight on my mind.
When the scotch and soda made her too crazy, she'd be the mean ol' school marm
and I would be the little dirty boy she caught in the cloakroom with my hands inside
my pants. Yeah, she had me wound up tighter, as they say, than a drum. But it was
Tiffany all over again. Kerry Anne ran off with an airline stewardess based out of
Dallas.
Linda Lou, my wife now, and I got an invitation to the wedding and then things start-
ed going haywire inside my head. Soon after I landed in Charter House on Valentine
night screaming "Mommy …" naked as a Jaybird, playing Debussy on my baby grand
piano. It took four cops to wrestle me down and carry me away in cuffs.
After a month in the looney bin, they tagged me with manic depression, sent me home
with a bag of pills that retired me from my position as midwest branch manager of the
Tire and Auto Service Department at Sears. I quit the world. I quit the thought of sex.
For a couple years I sat on my back porch barefoot, fed birds and smoked weed.
In 96' I read a book called Go Ahead, Ask Her If She Wants To Make Love, by Dr.Tom
Granfield, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University. He's also is manic-
depressive. His book deals with the relation between manic-depressive illness and the
artistic temperament and how to understanding the creative process. In the book I dis-
covered artists and poets-- too many to name here.
What I was searching for was the elemental human desire to add meaning and perma-
nence to life that can be found in writing. And as Anne Sexton once wrote, "Poetry led
me by the hand out of madness." I first wrote as not only as a means of escape from pain,
but also as a way of structuring chaotic emotions and thoughts, numbing pain through
abstraction and the rigors of disciplined thought, and creating a distance from that dis-
content as far as my house to the bus stop.
I suppose it was a cheap man's therapy-- and so it continues ...
Then came Annabel.
I was alarmed reading her poem, How A Girl Poet Grooms Her Pussy Until Its Per-
fect. The sexual nature of the lines sucked me like a hummingbird’s tongue sucks the
juice from deep inside flower petals. I couldn't help but write her.
So began our years of dialog, my opening up to the realization that I could bare my-
self honestly and deeply with a woman without shame or fear of rejection. I told her I
masturbated in the shower several times a week. She wrote back and said she did
too. And then, gaining confidence, I I told her other, more personal stuff.
I kissed her ... by email. Yeah, on the net kisses aren't contracts, and you learn the
subtle difference between holding your breath and chaining the soul. Annabel helped
me understand fun, how fantastic life could be and what freedom is.
However, depression is a snake.
It clings
like ivy
around my shoulders-- from time to time.
This summer my wife took me to Nags Head, North Carolina. We went to a restaurant and
lounge called Windmill Point overlooking Roanoke Sound. The décor of the place held the
largest collection of memorabilia from the S.S. United States. The barstools were all mark-
ed with plaques of famous people who had once sat their ass in them. I found Marilyn Mon-
roe's barstool and ordered a rum and coke with a cherry in it. Next to her spot was Jack
Kennedy's and I wondered what he had ( a hard-on probably).
Of course my wife drank too much and I had to drive us us back to our beach condo. She
was on the bed snoring before I even had my clothes off. Somehow the beach seemed ripe
for me, so I went out on the balcony to smell the wind that came off the ocean. Balconies
always made me think of Lorca. I always imagined diving off some balcony, my long white
silk scarf flowing against the air, my hair cutting through like a Chinese kite.
And for that moment, that one moment, I leaned over as far as my torso could extend, still
looking at the moon which was bent like a half smile.--- and I thought about going over.
The moon seduces, especially on bridges and balconies.
Fireworks exploded from the far side of beach past the pier. The sight and sound jolted my
thoughts and I pulled back. My hands started trembling and I sat down in a plastic chair,
moist from the sea breeze.
My wife's left over cigar was there, in the ashtray.
I lit it and tried to blow rings.
##
rh
