car repair day

 birds in flock

over tree-lined street

auto-repair attendant

with endearing speech impediment

European man on bus

for 3 block ride

5 times repeats

he is going to the gas station

for "cigaretto"

breakfast at recurring deli

good eats, good reads

launch into his latest collection

sausage omelet with hash browns

all you can't leave behind

I don't want a thing

too bad I am stuck

with so much

giving stuff away

would be

just one more thing

to get rid of

blowing in the wind

 fuzzy wheat grasses

sway in the wind

hard rain's gonna fall

some bent to the ground

some stand tall

two days before an election

most important of our lifetime

besides the ones that follow

the times they are a-changing

all things mortal degrade

what ascends, falls

you either bend with it

or stand tall

this story is not about Paul McCartney

 no one does the Beatles

better than Paul McCartney

and his band of ringers

young'n's, sons of studio engines

and no one does Sir Paul

like we did

in Rodd's brother's car

the four of us listening to WMMS

Let It Be, rattling the hood

so drunk, so very high

my discovery -- when you try

just to imitate the singer

feel his words shape your mouth

roll out across your teeth

breathe out

with his breath

he has possessed you

and, though you know 

you probably sound terrible

you realize exactly 

what David Byrne meant

by his appropriated concept

"speaking in tongues"

dream journal #271

 extra rotund actor

fiend from 70's cinema

Victor Buono appears,

expertly killing off

my loved ones, one by one

my friend appears at my door

with a baby girl in his arms

I am terrified they may be killed, too

but we escape

and he tells me,

the girl is my daughter

and Victor shoots my friend

and we are on the lam

this little girl in my arms

but I know, 

in my dreamtime way of knowing

at least she 

will make it out of this

alive

the Dalai Lama goes to China

 the way he describes Mao --

like a poet,

paints a portrait 

of his speech

his hands, how he

turns his head slowly

from left to right

like the inexorable leap forward

"religion" the chairman leans over

to say to him

"reduces the population,

curbs progress"

Tenzin Gyatso feels a burning

sensation in his face

an intense fear

an answer

 we venerated gods

we venerated the One

worshiped trees, saints, and demons

ghosts, ancestors, the sun

we pleaded to the stars

"take us to where you are"

we lay down on the Earth

chest, belly, face-first

we went everywhere

a seeker could go

across the country, across the ocean

in wind and storm and snow

finally we gave up

the truth too hard to find

an answer arose 

so quietly, kindly

arose from inside

on fire

 

tear up your livelihood

from the roots, the money tree you watered

with scraped nickels and dimes

 

the storms and the aftermath

the incessant building and leveling

galaxies on fire

 

life, this breath

are enough to take you through

are sufficient, dayenu

Cause Because

 

I don’t know how it all began

A flash of lightning in pond-pocked lands

In an ocean floating like a child in a womb

Biomolecules woven on a nucleotide loom

 

Maybe there is nothing magical mystical or holy

Undone when it is done, in a future no one is controlling

And the Universe will leave no trail of love, hate, no mist

No bones, no trace, no record written like this

 

But, maybe there is some cause, that itself is also its own

That sees what is seen as it knows what is known

All of this occurring in an instant the same

As consciousness is conscious, speech speaks its own name

 

And here is my belief, or hope or faith

Because that’s the way I roll

Raised without much notion of a God

I found It in a furious hole

Saw a light or a dark or rainbow, or a grey

Chased it all down through the years

I cannot prove it beyond my own heart

But it’s empirical to me – it’s a miracle I’m here

Anansi's Story Collection

all these arachnaic fables

sticky, stringy, text woven round

globules of encased enchantment

 

creation myths, tragedies, dramas, tragicomedies, epics

 

a world of spoken and subliminal messages

meanings meander streams of knowing

we sit in silence, where you can hear an awful lot

of what arises in the moment, unheeded by most

 

spider insider boasts news of the now

holy cow, a Universe in a dusty corner

of the ceiling of a dream, whispers all that may be

 

listen...

 

the past flows through the present to beyond

fields where we may meet or fail to

in futures uncertain that pale to

the woozily unstructured story of here and wow

all you have dreamed and been driven to do

 

libraries without copyright

free as the sky

sharing of documents

between sympathetic minds

knowledge and wisdom

become one and the same

the names of all things

and the thing without name

 

a writer's Kaddish

 Whoever transforms himself, transforms the world.

-- Sofie Stril-Rever, translator for the Dalai Lama

I feel it in my nerves

in my breath

the sense of touch

that links feeling of flesh

to feeling emotions

I am okay, and so I know

the world is too, somehow

"We are the world," it's been said

the song is you

touch that pen 

let it feel the paper

watch as it writes

touches you, too

re-rights the world

infuses peace of heart

balance of just

source of light 

stars, eyes, mind

one shared thought

it must

adoption

I

 

the baby knows 

when it is the mother who is holding it

half conscious of this world

one inner eye straining back

peering into the world it came from

 

II

 

nothing was the same

no one was to blame

I must have been

the seal was broken

the vow, the bond

oxytocin, to be replaced

by glucose and orgasm

 

 

III

 

life is dis connection

non-intersection

the simplest things -- vexed

seeking outward

like some crazed fly

or an addict in a sober sky

something I cannot find

even after I find her,

hear her voice

 

IV

 

the inner 

is the August

of summer

beyond the bummer of all

that could go wrong,

that did –

a new kind of song

 

I shouldn't care, b/c

whoever else needed to be,

I am here

breathing

 the cloister of breathing

the only thing

I take refuge in now

dried leaves on sidewalk

dirt between cracks, a cigarette butt

I know its much more impossible for you

where there is no recourse

from the ugly words, the threats, the fists

between a rock

and a rock

and a leap of faith

that feels more like

a leap from a fifth-floor apartment

but take Her hand

that breathing might be

an oasis in the burning forest

believe me, soon

there will be ashes around you

grotesque, yes, but quiet

now-cathedral

future-glimmer

past, fuel and fertilizer

the quiet one

 

they say it takes

more muscles to frown

than to smile

how many does it take

to leave your face

alone?

salient features of a roaring breakdown

 the salient features

of a roaring breakdown --

loss of footing (a metaphor)

floating somewhere between

the ceiling and floor (a sensation)

the terror of not knowing

where my next thought

will come from, if it will come

at all, I am unsettled

in the unsettling, cling

to a nurse, to a mental health tech

to a fellow patient, find myself

drawing with crayon, do not understand 

where the table came from

the chair feels like the blessed savior

I scratch out a picture

of Hocking Hills park from a pamphlet

am gratified to wake

the next day and find

a masterpiece, of sorts

by the breakfast trays

and scattered citizens

of the psychiatric institute

yaneverknow

 

yaneverknow

 

so the end has come

and I, like everyone else

expected a miles-wide hammer to fall

or a dust whirlwind to fill our parched throats

 

instead, She enters with music of castanets

a constellation of smoldering jazz quartets

the perfume of red, garlic tomato sauce

and warm, olive oil with herbs

wafting on the winds 

of an unsurmised shift

 

the blinking of our hearts' eyes

wonder at the new world that appears

at the dawn following the final night

the morning after the sun broke down

to make way for a radiant, all-sustaining love

shining from below ground

INWARD

"I'm not interested 

in who suffered the most. 

I'm interested in people 

getting over it." 

  

      from "Jerusalem", Naomi Shihab Nye 

 these homespun ideas 

not new, just fashionable once again 

that justice is actually in human hands 

 "peace not war" 

pushed to the side 

for the engulfing rage 

we all feel 

for somebody now 

 better to turn that anger inward 

not to self-harm 

but to self-warn 

 the enemy is never out there 

it's in our heads 

the more real for being there 

grotesque vulture with timepiece in claw 

cackling, playing us for fools 

never at a loss, never misses a beat 

 when you hate 

it's too late, too deep 

no more time 

to keep

heart of hearts

the hole in the bottom
of the bottle
you want to fall through it
fall into the Great Mystery

some say of that hole
"It's full of stars"
it’s full of heart
the one you knew
when your mother held you
before she left you
the heart that sang harmonies
with the celestial ghandarvas
before your father chained it
to his wallet and to his belt
it's the heart of all that light
that outshines all the deities
of all possible religions

but those God's
are just kosher pickles
pickled turnips
pre-chutneyed peppers
Sunday communion
dipped in salsa

that your Friend, the clean-up guy
the janitor at the end of the Universe
uses to point out all those blinding stars
yea, those selfsame suns
that sit at the bottom
of your weepy beer

the slanting in

the scarf she sent me
draped over the back of my chair
dull, burnt orange
the color the swamis wear

this moment, chosen
for its veracity and razor clarity
pops like Escher's 4-D fish

and here with me
the new books and used CD's
that claw at the dust of the day
the caked on mud

my eyes decline a statement
smile, instead, at the slanting in
of the last of daylight

washed out

like so many washed out weeds
rained into the mud, blazed by the fire sun
I am one, thirsty and drowning

all the Metropark is one living being
trees, thicker than my body
ants, tiny, black, like marching raisins
crawl and tickle my wrist

I could have been a lover in another century
swooning over the natural world
a Muir or McKibben
but it is too late in this one

some process of change
hurtling us out of this existence
quicker than we can recycle starships
to carry us to another

where, morally wounded, we might plant ourselves
like so many washed out weeds
or germs escaping viruses
as if it was our good karma
or our pedigree, or our privilege

for all those Emmy Lou's

the VOCALS are NOT

the voice or the lyrics

not the tone or ability

range or ricochet

from guitar line to drumbeat

to pedal steel twang



the vocals are the little girl

who climbed the tree of the world

helped by spirits of artists and heroes

over the bones of those wrecked

by this insane business

where failure is a recurring honky tonk nightmare

clock strikes closing time over and over

drunks unable to fly safely home

let alone discern the gravy and the gold

in that "pretty, little songbird's" soul



but she sure as hell did not fail



she was starlight in a match

held to the cigar of a music exec

who tapped his feet and teared up at the sound

of her singing, 50 years ago

taking her one shot at breaking the back

of that Appalachian family devil called despair

the secret tantra II

I



she calls me to come for her

when a hook-up goes bad

I ride my crappy 3-speed bike

to meet her on the other side of town

she leaves her car

just wants to get away

to walk

to talk



so we foot the 1 1/2 miles to my apartment

gossiping, crying, mostly laughing



"this is better than sex" I tell her

I am not in any way thinking of sex

but of friendship, good buds, helping each other out

-- she rescued me from a night of boredom, after all



"this is NOT better than sex" she giggles



"yes it is. it's the secret tantra"





II



I don't know why I'm alive

and she is not

I've lived my life as stupidly as she



but we were both there for a moment

although she couldn't see it

she does now



"it's simple"

she whispers to me

from where she is

"stop fighting yourself.

enlightenment IS love”

no money down, for an unlimited time

absolutely no assembly required

this dark night

this dark of night
this bottomless cup of coffee
this black bean soup
this gravel of disinterested passion
inserting fat-heavy cream
or laughter over obscene jokes
into the space between
flashes of falling curtains
this dying with no despair
this warmth of comfort
in the panther's lair

I will enjoy this death
as I never did birth
with the moguls of soundless music
new gods of silent Earth

surrendered at Starbuck's

lines of potentialities
roads of realities
brought me here
reading a book on Zen healing
bearing witness
to wired people
happy chatter
tablets and phones
books and connections

and I am surrendered
at Starbuck's
to your mishegas
your inverted Universe

despair within
mercy without
"Please, Lord..."
and the mirror turns round
and I am the mercy now
not knowing
just being

"Please Lord...
whatever's best"
let it be
let it rest
let it go
make it so

The Overwhelmed

Please check out my latest book at Amazon. The Overwhelmed, by Marc Mannheimer. It is the story of my first episode of depression, followed by my first remission, "A year with depression and what happened next: Memoir in poetry and prose".
I am unable to get the link to post here. However, if you search the title and author while on Amazon, it will pop up.

Grandmother Magma (companion piece to "the cold")

Answering an ad I’d found on a community bulletin board, my bass guitar case in one hand, I ride my beat-up 6-speed bike across campus and north of town to Cathe’s house.
I chat with her after our greeting in her foyer, her calligraphy materials spread out in the adjacent living room. Single Mom of two grade schoolers, she writes the songs, while she and Neicie, whom I am about to meet, sing. Perky, up-beat, she reminds me of a young Doris Day. I will listen tonight, she tells me, and can fill in as I see fit.
The rest of the band files in within the hour, and we congregate in the basement, full of equipment and a sound system. Neicie, looking matronly in a long print dress, wears medium length dreads wrapped in a paisley rag. Jeff, the guitar player is a tall, young man with long, greasy hair. He is schizophrenic, I think, judging from his unintelligible, evasive patter. He riffs endlessly on his Stratocaster before, during, and after songs, heavy distortion making his licks somewhat indiscernible.
Quigsley Schmooze, the drummer, a diminutive man in crisp suit and tie, arrives late from his work as a CPA, his real name, undisclosed to me in the month during which I played with Grandmother Magma.
They take me through 4 or 5 of their original numbers. On the first, Neicie sings operatically, with her deep, round voice, “I can’t stop loving everybody…..” At each end of that refrain, I play a little one-note bass lick to emphasize. Bump-ba-bump-ba-ba.
Cathe shows me “Hard Drugs”, with her Hammond organ intro, in full Doris Day mode, she sings the ditty-like, “Done a bit of weed, a line or two of cocaine. But I promise you Momma, I’ll never get insane…” The whole band comes in loud as she sings the chorus, “I won’t do no hard drugs…hard drugs… Momma…no hard drugs….”
For “Motherlode of Love”, Neicie recites her own intro, “….In this room…tonight…is a rarity, one of an endangered species……. – A woman in love!” Once we are full flare into the song, Cathe growls the chorus, “I’m tellin ya boy…you hit the motherlode of love….”
They cite The Roches as their singular influence, but I hear shades of blues, 60’s pop, and a little Neil Young. Of course, with Jeff soloing nonstop, it sounds like 80’s big hair metal jam night at the local bar. When he drives me home, I found out that, in the absence of his axe, he has to talk nonstop to drown out the silence. It is kind of scary, how little sense he makes, especially because he is so animated, gesturing with his hands while driving.
There are only 2 or 3 more rehearsals for me. Other interests and a heavy workload at school lead me to quit the band I have just joined. A sweet regret, like breaking up with my first love, dogs me down the years. My bass, donated to a music school, my guitar, mostly fallow in a corner of my apartment, call to me in some low ebb tide of time and desire.
Maybe I will return to playing more regularly, get out to play at least a couple of open mics here and there. But this wistfulness over long ago choices may never amount to much. Responsibilities engulf the creative soul, arthritis begins to creep in. That’s okay. There are other people who can and have filled these abandoned shoes in a much more satisfying way.
I find a lot of quirky folk-rock bands on the web and in the CD bins these days, preaching about loving everybody. Maybe not in those words, certainly not with deep, operatic tones.
I am just grateful to have once seen something so odd, so rare, and so endangered from the inside out.

the cold

short brother with a pork pie hat
bent, crone-like, over his upright piano
Monk's doppelganger
-- parallax --
in that tiny apartment in Ann Arbor
a chunky guitar player with grey beret
a slick jazz guitar slung close to his chest
a drummer I can barely remember
except that he is wild, all over the place
and me on electric bass

I have never played free jazz
lost, I pluck rapid, random notes
I think the whole thing is crazy
crazy

that summer I am on the Diag
a little art festival on the square
these guys appear, with an upright bass player
they have learned some standards
to which they add just a pinch of that crazy off kilter
they really have it together
and I, for the 2nd or 3rd time in my musical career
feel left out in the cold

Bearing Witness

voices cracking
broken hearts choking
throats with tears caught
in rivers flowing to a cold ocean
of grief and incidental healing

for exterminated babies
mothers, elders...

distant family, curious strangers
grandchildren of Nazis
all visit Auschwitz
to consume their own sorrow
to greet their own humanity
calling out the names
of those murdered

pledges of peace
summoning tikkun olam
a Zen priest, rabbis
Christians, an imam

the grey light falls
like wretched snow
on this gathering

the ember of essential flame
original nature, emergent Love
carries joy even here
to nourish spirits trapped in ashes
clamoring for release

writing anything

writing anything
anything but the honest thing
songs of you and me

Homing Signal, the Birth

When 22 years old, I returned to the agency that had handled my adoption.
At the Jewish Children’s Bureau, I was given a page and a half of “non-identifying” information about my birth parents, and the circumstance around my birth. I was eligible for this information in Ohio because I was over 21. It had taken a year for me to get to it, due to poor health.
My father had been a college student in New York. He traveled to Cleveland in 1965 with a friend from Cleveland on their holiday vacation. Clevelanders reading this might puzzle at the juxtaposition of their hometown with the word “vacation”. Nevertheless, this is where he met my mother, a high school girl.
They dated for a short while, but they did not remain together. When I was conceived, the decision was made for my mother to carry me to term, and then put me up for adoption. She stayed in an unwed mother’s home until my birth, on September 9th, 1966. I imagine her experience must have been awful, having to go through the pain of child-carrying and childbirth, and then, having no means to support her baby, relinquishing him. I also imagine I was awash in the chemicals and the energy of depression and anxiety during my entire gestation.

Homing Signal, the Conversation

“I have two thoughts about this,” Tom said, “It’s fascinating, an incredible story. And the second is – that’s life.”
My best friend from high school and I met for breakfast on Christmas Eve day. I told him about the circumstances surrounding my birth, my being given up for adoption, and finding my birth parents at age 22.
He asked what had prompted me to seek them out.
“Nothing outside of me. It came from inside, like a homing signal. I had to find them.”
And yet it hadn’t been an obsession. More of an adventure.
I asked him if he’d seen the movie, “A.I”, a Steven Spielberg film, directed by Stanley Kubrick.
“Is this the one? There’s a scene at the end, a boy android has been frozen for centuries. When he is brought out of stasis, he encounters a future race of androids. Humanity has long since been extinct. And then he is granted a wish, anything he can think of. He says, ‘I want a day with my mother.’”
It was an earlier scene I was thinking of, I tell my friend. The boy-android finds his creator, the human engineer who designed him.
Long story short, at 22, I was looking for my creator.