Watching the squirrels fly
Through the air with ease
Effortlessly these flying
Critters on their limb trapezes.
The bushy-tailed critters love to steal
Every nut that can be heisted
Yet, come the cold wintertime
They become shortsighted.
The absent-minded rodent
Forgot where he stashed the nuts
Digging through the snow
Reckless and starving like a putz.
I just got back from Hell
And all is not well.
I drove my truck
Into bad luck,
Now, I'm fucked.
I sit here in Hell,
And all is not well.
I lost my faith in the Almighty
Loving Aphrodite
Now, it's good nighty.
I just got back from Hell
And all is not well.
As the bell tolled, resounding, it also told,
of the death of the fallen Hero. His last
quotidian day on earth and the detritus
of memories that light up the contemptuous
sorrow. The coward vacillates his gamble, yet
the Hero dies. His folie à deux: chasing freedom
and some feebled belief in an unanswering god.
We never know what nightmares lie curled
beneath comfort’s pillow. Killing in
the name of freedom with such
heinous acts and calling this
liberation is an alternative reality.
Conquering the weak only represses
the hold on the masses. Kings are not
mortal; they rule by necessity and
greed. A whipped horse obeys, yet
his eyes never forget the rack of
punishment he's endured. Revolt
will come, and then all kings will
bow unto the subservient soldier.
Chronology isn't kind to despots,
kings, queens, and czars; let it be
written for the common man
that no tyrant will ever control
the world.
With not a worry in the world, I headed out in my car
listening to Bob Seger’s Main Street,
Reclusive Tendencies
The boketto begins, no one is to blame.
Your meraki has fallen from your work.
You’ve travelled in silence to keep from
screaming, this fanaa eats away like cancer.
You’ve never reached for any hand or smiled, yet
your futifaction glares back in gruesome hollowness.
Life’s become something more than you bargained for, you’ve
squandered away all your hopes, and your last dream is vacated
by grief. Once an oriflamme for misery now the only embrace
of comfort is sunshine. This adoxography placates your need to be heard
or accepted. Still, this Orphic is all you desire, you’re seldom
enthusiastic about some fancy mention of trivial wares, for your
eudaimonia cannot be bought or secured by some shallow
penchant. This genie won’t return her gift; one must first
recognize one’s despair to begin to love what keeps you
willfully alive. Death owes no promise to you, but living
with the imperishable hope of retrieving this lost legitimacy
is all that is required of this loathsome penance. You’ve lengthened
your mind to vast catharsis, and worrying about death only shortened your life.
- John Hardesty
©️1/23/2020
Hello, I'm John Timothy Hardesty. Please don't get up or upset over me.
I'm currently battling Cancer with an egg noodle. Heading to the Cleveland Cancer
Center, where it’s like Hotel California, you can check in any time you like but you
can never leave unless you're on a gurney or in a coffin. I previously had several
tumors removed from my optic nerve and skull, one was so mammoth it cracked
my skull wide open like a nutshell. The doctor sealed me up, replugged me in, and
reprogrammed me back into society only to endure 33 bolted-down radiation
treatments. When you're in remission you're on top of the world, yet after two
years of clinic visits, doctor follow-ups, and scans after scans, they tell you
to have a seat, and then the oncologist screeches out almost like he enjoys to
say it, “your tumor is back in your skull.”
I go home and I immediately start hurting in my head, either from
psychosomatics or psycho-bananas. I'm Frankenstein with a new attitude.
I was nourished on Hemingway early in life, his stories connected me right
into the plot, he took me everywhere with his creative narratives. Hemingway
had some moledro or voodoo on me, I knew him well, so I thought. I suffered
through the poets of Lord Byron, Tennyson, Shelley, Poe, Dante, Keats, and
Shakespeare. I studied every great poet in every country over the span of forty
years, and many, many great novelists too.
Yet, L.E. Sissman had the most influential nexalune upon me.
Sissman was the class Poet at Harvard in 1949, yet, he was cursed with Hodgkin
Lymphoma at 37, yet produced some dark poetry that stands out to me.
Dead people don't dream
Dead people don't walk about
Yet, ghosts speak loudly
Chucky Mardis
Chapter 11
Chuck Mardis was many characters. He was short in stature and frame yet was tall in laughter and loyalty. We called him many names, unashamedly: Leprechaun, Mayor of Munchkinville, and James Cagney. Chucky was a die-hard Notre Dame fan. He absolutely loved them. In 2001, right after the terrible 911 incident, my aging Uncle Mac Hardesty sold me two USC/Notre Dame tickets at South Bend; he was nearing 90, and couldn’t attend anymore. I called Chucky, the very first one, expecting him to go, all expenses paid for, but he declined, and this upset me. Before he died, he still never fulfilled his bucket list of seeing a great rival game, and you just can't walk in and get Notre Dame tickets to watch the Irish- impossible. When he died, I felt good about myself, inviting him, the very first person.
Chucky was very funny. A constant cut- up. Chucky wasn't a very well-read man, even though his family was very intelligent; Chuck preferred to work outside; he was a welder for Jeff Boat, a big shipbuilding company located in Louisville. Chuck, like all of us, got several weeks off during the year, and we all would head to Joe’s for a cold beer or two. We would either sit on a stool or shoot a game of pool. Chucky was a very quiet person; if he didn't know you well, he wouldn't speak to you, but his laugh could calm a rabid dog. Chuck worked many hard hours, often coming home with welder burns and countless welding flashes(photokeratitis), and years later caused him vision loss and lung cancer from breathing in all those welding fumes of nickel, magnesium, cadmium, and chromium. Sad to lose my best friend from this, and he received very little compensation too. I still want to call him at noon every day.
Chucky was a solitary man, lived alone in a run-down trailer, and he wasn't ashamed of it either. Gary Walker, another lost dear friend of ours, and I, on a Friday night, often would drift down where Chucky lived, a nice parcel of land with a well-stocked lake down in the woods, we would pull 5-pound bass and endless bluegills out of that lake, always catching and releasing, and the lake had an island equipped with two diving boards, a gas grill, and a picnic table, all in the center of the lake. We three would carry on down there until dark and then head up to Chucky’s dilapidated trailer. Chucky and Gary both loved their whiskey too, and the night would soon drift into way past midnight. I'd crash on Chuck’s couch, and Gary usually left or would lie on the floor, yet one time, Gary ventured out to his truck and brought out an air compressor and a blow-up bed, Chucky, and I rolled with laughter watching him blow up this air-bed, it took over half the living room, this balloon bed was huge, it looked like a kids' toy. Gary laid there in his blown up bouncing bed while discussing that his bed was a state-of-the-art apparatus, blah, blah, blah. I fell asleep, Chucky hit his bedroom, and I woke up right at dawn, and I saw Gary lying there on the floor on top of his deflated balloon bed. I busted out laughing, and I awoke Gary, and he thought I stuck a pin in it, which I vehemently denied. Chucky rose out of bed and saw Gary’s dilemma and burst out in that Irish cackle. We both talked about this for decades. I miss them both so much.
1. Hart to Hart: Freeway(Lowchen-Shelter Dog)
2. The Waltons: Reckless(Golden Lab)
3. Adolf Hitler: Blondi(German Shepherd)
4. Our Gang: Petey(American Pit Bull)
5. Married With Children: Buck(Briard, French Shepherd) & Lucky(Cocker Spaniel Mix)
6. Baa Baa Black Sheep: Meatball(Bull Terrier)
7. Blondi(film series): Daisy(mixed Cocker Spaniel, Poodle, and Terrier)
8. Hazel(1960s sitcom): Smiley(Airedale Terrier)
9. The Dukes of Hazzard: Flash(Basset Hound)
10. Little House on the Prairie: Jack(Brindle Bulldog)
11. Humphrey Bogart: Harvey(Boxer), Baby(Boxer), George(Boxer); Zero(Scottish Terrier, played in the 1941 Classic movie, High Sierra); Cappy(Newfoundland), Sluggy(Scottish Terrier), Stinky(Scottish Terrier), and Mac(Scottish Terrier).
12.
Tommy Cecil
Chapter 10
Joe Lawrence loved music, all kinds too, and I admired that about him. He often had bands from our local area come to play on the weekends. My first intervention with Tommy Cecil was on a Friday Night, playing an Eagles’ song, James Dean, then he followed up with David Bowie’s Suffragette City. Damn, this blew me and the whole audience there away! Tommy had a gift that few could ever master in twenty lifetimes.
Tommy wasn't educated at Harvard or Princeton, yet you could certainly say his erudition was an innate musical phenomenon. An idiot wanders; the smart man travels. Wisdom often comes with suffering. Solitude is a prescription for wisdom. Youth is the very first season of disappointment. I conjecture that Tommy’s French ancestry runs deep with Gallic euphonious minstrels. Tommy utilized this gift to perfection; one might even say he had a pact with the devil, or delved deep into the Codex Gigas, because he was a master.
Tommy was a reserved man of few words, yet when he sang, the women hovered around him like ancient elders around a campfire. How could a person like Tommy conjure up so much talent from modest surroundings? Tommy was quiet as a ghost in a monastery, yet patient as a marble bust. Tommy’s music is his universal gift, he's a profound musician who always thought his sound was superficial when haggling over the right magical chord. Like Tommy, we both received our knowledge from the same God-lit candle at St. Thomas. His conscience was as stark as Gabriel's, he could sleep through a hurricane; he had no enemies!
He played that mandolin magnificently, he was adroit as an octopus, and yes, I envied him, and for whom myself, was as adroit as a sloth-I'm no musician. Tommy was kind to everyone and very respectful of all who entered his charmed circle. Ignorance never won any battles, yet kindness wins every contest.
Tommy had brothers too, and I think all of them played music very well. The Cecil Family endured hardships like every Catholic family, yet never lost their faith in God. Tommy had that Adonis mysticism that served his profession well. Tommy handled many people’s egos like a psychiatrist, and he dealt with Joe’s obduracy better than anyone. He defused any misunderstanding with ease-ego decombustion! Tommy’s ethics and facon de vivre or art de vivre were his defining traits.
Tommy lived his entire life in Balltown, a small town just a few miles from Bardstown with his wife Melissa. Tommy kept to himself and with his family, I never saw him drunk or wasted. He wore his honor through his musical prowess, and that was enough for the world. If a Heaven exists, I'm quite sure the angels reserved a seat for him near the band. Memories are but captured moments lived in this sorrowful life; Tommy may pass away one day but through his music, his, ‘non omnis moriar’ echoes forever in the hall of fame at The Bluegrass Tavern.
Are we but a speck in this vast spectrum of existence?
We pass the time like it’s abundant as the sunlight above us.
Always dreaming of the next nexalune that only comes
In the distant liminal color of black.
Husband: Honey, can you please make my oatmeal less lumpy this morning? It is hard to swallow!
Wife: She looks at him and grins. She continues to stir the oatmeal. Then drops a huge clump into his bowl.
Husband: Honey, it’s still lumpy! Didn’t you hear me?
Wife: She grabs a skillet and knocks him upside his head!
Husband: Honey, can you hand me a straw?
- John Hardesty
The Sun never shines out of fashion, always
holding on to its fiducial light. Our Sun’s
immortal stare is clinched there for time
immemorial, never blinking, and solemnly and
steadfast blared through every Chinese and
Egyptian Dynasty’s demise, never wavered in
its glorious gleam whilst the Romans slaughtered
the Holy Jew, and never surrendered its glare
when Fascism soared beneath the Sun’s breath.
The Sun engulfed five mass extinctions, and
charred the Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, and
the Tyrannosaurus. Watched the deluge cool
the Earth into the Ice Age.
Jim Morrison was the Reptilian King,
Upon the highway an Indian’s spirit
Commandeered your fragile soul.
The Bohemian shrug,
We have all entered a dark room
Scared, fearless, and young
Of what monsters we’ll exhume.
How can I act normally insane?
When death has taken everyone
And everything that I'll never regain.
Lo, kept this pain within
Neither God nor the River Jordan
Could wash away my sin.
This dark room has no windows
To gaze out upon the refuge
Of these silent innuendos.
The coincidences of chance
And the universal of mistakes
That led to romance.
Those who offer condolences
With their synthetic smiles
And parapet fences.
The last pursuit
Of angling and dangling
For irrevocable and irretrievable fruit.
How many years
Upon this unforgiving earth
Man wastes with useless tears?
We travel from one place to another-
the huddle-fuddle of life
going from one frame of Hell
into another frame of Hell.
Where is the mythical charmer?
The one who holds all Truths and
Answers, yet hides away forever
never rewarding or listening.
The Jesus’ imprint of ignorance
walks upon the millennium.
Still, people are molested by the lies.
Life eventually corrupts morality,
disappointment the redeeming and
ending answer.
