A year later.

Oh how it has languished
a year later I find myself here again

so much has passed since then
elections, oh dear god how much politics has happened between now and then

and Then I Walked Away again
skull on a glass of beer woven in flowers
ride ride ride hard and fast
but neither be the fastest or the slowest
if you find yourself in the lead
you are only at the tail end of the next wave
or a sitting duck for the radar gun

so many things to say
so much water down the river
things I used to do that I don't do now
so it has been a year

are there any new pictures to share perhaps?

Why yes! Yes! I have pictures of this world we live in
There is hope and fear.
Rage and peace.
 born about the time that picture was taken
 into a world at war with itself
I am starting to think it was ever this way

Grandfathers pray for me
when you were a child and a young man we were at war with ourselves
leaving Tennessee to go to Texas after it was done
here I am today
a war of ideas as it ever was
we can be the good if we choose to
but what is the good is no longer agreed upon
greed is not good
and therein lies the rub

The barn of the rich man's son

I am sorely tempted to tell stories.
 I have a big account that is a problem.
 oh it has a host of problems.
too many cooks. way way too many cooks
with too many hats to wear
there is no clear line of demarcation
s between who does what and why
a 20 million dollar barn
there used to be magic mushrooms that grew there
and now I have to try to figure out how to kill the fairy ring
so they can trod down the Event Lawn
so I can regrow it again

a thousand dollars here and a thousand dollars there
who's counting?
i read of growing orchids in the desert
the hanging gardens of Babylon
what sorry bastard had to make them grow?
what wizards of green had to muster up their best spells to make trees grow
where they throw all manner of BS at them
the event lawn of Central Park gets a lot of traffic and trash too
man, quit your bitching

dialect:what we say and how we say it and where we came from

How do you hear it?
This meme. Well get to vocabulary later, but the sound of the voice in your head that read this picture of a muddy kid, what did it sound like?















I don't remember the first time I realized that people did all not sound the same. The words they used to describe their world were not the same as mine. Was it the first time I heard the language of the Latin? Was it when I heard it in my family? I do not really know. It is like gravy. I do not remember the first slurp of gravy on taters.

I have a dialect. I revel in it. I have cultivated it at the dismay of my father and paternal grandmother. I have had to suppress it to pass muster with the Fathers that graded papers. My idioms and folkways were not acceptable in a formal paper. I managed to disguise myself sufficiently that it was disregarded or overlooked.

I'll never forget when he brought back Crime and Punishment and put it in my hand.
Said, "somebody might need this for the final."
sheepishly I took it. shame and misery upon me.
the protestant owes another penance
it will probably involve being on my knees in the dirt
rooting out the worst parts of myself

I meant this to be about dialects and the myriad of ways we speak to say what we want
the vocabulary unique to regions, the forgotten and isolated bits of history that still exist

but i got distracted
and it is too big way way way too big
an hour of well produced video is insufficient
I keep wandering down the trail over on youtube
I go look around on Google
would Bing have something different?
it is never ending. There is a mine of epic proportions of people talking about how we talk!
look, just point that mouse over there to that search bar and get after it.
it is too big for me
it is too much.
all i can do is skip across the surface
i have too many plants and chemicals up in the gray matter to devote the necessary neurons
to this study. it is vast.
all i did was look at those of us that came from a few islands on the western end of Europe
and that goes on forever!
having to tie in the ones on the other side of the channel
or the ones that were here before Europe arrived
and the mix of those cultures together to result in something totally different but having parts of both
TOO MUCH

all i can tell you friends and neighbors
is we all talk the same
and we talk differently
we are still trying to express the deepest feelings
and most shallow chit chat
because that is what we do as humans
and the words we use and where we got them
are as varied as the winds
oh it is a big panoply of words and humans wrestling with them
and it fascinates me

here there be words

This was me.
Not so very long ago.
That hat is not nearly so white now.


Chuck Berry passed
so did James Cotton
and not so very long ago
there was David Bowie

and 2016 took far more than I want to remember right now
time brings me here again
wandering in the garden of Destiny
flipping pages in the book to find myself again

I was there. Now I am here.
Was it very long ago? I am not sure.

I wonder if I still have this cactus.
Maybe. As much as I like them they are
difficult and stubborn
and some winters do not see them survive
I am not terribly convinced it was the cold
but I digress in this musing of time and time after

I have given them away
some of them are still living in places I no longer go
left a bit of them here and there I suppose
I do not give them freely
I do not trust you always
If I know you are the sort of person that will
give a damn about it
i might consider it.

she asked me to rescue roses yesterday
i think I will be watering them every day
until they are standing tall when I get home
I know. I could have said no.
Was I going to refuse the kitten found in the vacant lot?
Didn't I get up in the middle of the night and feed it a bottle from a syringe?
yes and it sleeps on my face too sometimes
if i let her. which isn't very often
she is far too loud

sleeping now in the arms of tomorrow
so many minutes to make up a life time
choose them well my fried ns
we only get so many
and then we are done

i have dollars to give
I have time
and I have blood, sweat, and tears
they are not enough
this life requires all of me
the last bit of me left
and then I am done
but that day is not yet
no, that day is not today
or I sure hope not
i still got shit to do

Wheels spinning

Human wheels spinning in our orbits
Each of us a hub of life extending

I'm going to have to admit
My spin and sparkle don't always have the desired results.
But what can one do but keep rolling the stone?
We roll the bones.
We pays our money.
We takes our chances.

I can hope for you.
It's my job.
I have a gift of encouragement!
Be brave. Fear not.
Do it. Give it your all.
Whatever you turn your hands to do.

I am my own little wheel.
Spinning in the silent crash
Trading electrons in a shared orbit
The chemical equation persists

Post Debate #3 2016

Very nerdy guys everywhere are thankful that Nate Silver and Bill Gates
exist. oh let's not forget Einstein and Oppenheimer, they were uber strange cats too

Twenty days until the election. Twenty.
This is another watershed event. Monday we go vote early in Texas.
Game on. Spin the wheel and see what happens.
I

am just one I
tomorrow comes like a hope of a cooler breeze
after the sweaty gritty day of today

each of us spinning in our own circuits.

in this framework of what we call Now
can we find some common ground?

is there too much hate
wAs there ever enough?
is any too much?
can I reconcile myself with the Klan?
shall I own the trail of tears?

that was then and this is now
there is time and it goes forward
I know not where this wheel stopping comes
it keeps on rolling
I am here and now
in a moment of time
what shall be tomorrow I do not know
i am hoping it is better than today

as the night unwinds

well sure it is shopped!
He can pray over the thin white duke too
while he feels for Bethlehem
I like this friend of mine from far away
i really really do

did he watch the game too?
did he see the prematurely bald man calling for beers and kisses
did he see the petulant child leave the press
I doubt it. He was probably making his guard
double time it again as he went out
in the street
that's where you find him restless
looking for another soul to save
never quit fishing

i love him

I was there
and she was with me
I only get so many seconds in this life
so many drips of time in the glass
falling on my and where was I then? I was there! I was and then we were gone
I was someone then. I had me and there i was. Leaves in the wind
caught in the foam of the flowering water
smokes of yesterday on the wind
we go there often and it is never there again

wordlessly watching the time as it happens

i sat there and the thoughts were there

when and if the moment comes

I shall try to remember to move

we only get so many days

so very few it seems

considering I shall never live to see 

the seedlings of the bristlecone or the eggs of the tortoise

but i do get this

i do have this much of me to invest

despite my failings and bad behaviour

she still wants to be near me
I can't explain it

i want a girl with a mind like diamonds
with eyes that burn like cigarettes
and she found me

i am such a lucky man
I do not kmno w=========
what should attribute such
God? he loves me he said
so there ya go.

all i know

and there I am
if i say this or that
I shall pay or reap
oh well, rollllll the bones

one thing leads to another
and so I find myself right there in the midst of it all
i can open a vein and pour it out
if you want blood you got it
blood., sweat and tears was all he promised us
and we did it
and here we are

I saw me
out of the side of me eye

wherein I ramble wide and far

she was bound and determined to go with me
i tried repeated times to talk her out of it
she was having none of it

"You are going to go away."
days she said. I know it's hours
scars on her back from a dog that was bound to die
another rescue says she
so be it. bring it home if they are willing
I can't bear to see it in a cage
ought to have to go to a class and get a license before you can
buy another living creature to bring home
or a gun to kill it
but that is for another nightday

Pope Frank had a birthday today
Donald Trump said something demonstrably false
and the sun came up
and the sun went round the sky
then I had a drink
did anything change while I was working?

posted up something today from
the Accidental Talmudist
not sure if Sgt. Edmonds was Baptist or Methodist
but that day he said We are all Jews
all of us. in the Stalag
maybe I should remember the German In Charge
he holstered his pistol
he kept it back
what would it have taken to wave the men down?
the machine gun is a grim reaper
cut like a cord ripped from the seams
but he didn't, some force of will or mercy or love or respect
it stayed that day
and they all walked in together, holding hands in hell

we are all in this together
there are no sidelines
there is no gallery,
each of us an audience in another's passion play

clicked on a thread that I should have avoided

Fighting it. I want to go over there and rant so hard. 
O it don't make one iota of difference!
release the bitter bile 
or relent. 


Hi. My name is cactusflinthead and I am a political junkie. 
I read entirely too much. 
I engage in debates that have no meaning and go no where. 
I try to stop, but I keep doing it. 
Maybe the one or two independent, mythical, legendary even 
swing voters
do they still exist? 

I want that picture of Hunter S. 
aiming his big .44 at the Chinese gongs
right here. 

Fucking ginkgo is going to outlive me 
and it gives not one fuck about politics;

But he is my friend

Many moons ago in a state of consciously awareness
not so very far from you
my father's friend had a dream
he was in a trench with a rifle
they were telling him to shoot the men across the way
he said. " I cannot. Those are my friends over there."
He saw the face of my father and my uncle in the trench
over there on the other side of no man's land


I do not expect you to be like me
nor do i think very much
that your experiences are mine
but i do know there are the same requirements for life
same bunch of elements that give spin and whirl to our lives
the same things that make us cry and laugh
smile of a dog and a wag of a tail
the smell of coffee and tea in the morning
the sharp air of a frosty morning

now there is there are the gaseous windbags

feeding and emanating from the id of fears

do I care if I am a political animal?

why yes

yes, I do

Does the time bend towards justice?

Have I come thus far to question it?

what is required of you O man

What doth God require of you?

To love justice, to do mercy

and to keep one's self from being polluted

ArmisticeRememberingVeteransDay of the eleventh day of the eleventh month

 Originally Posted by FCHorn 

Weird to think that some soldiers were killed right before or after the Armistice was announced...after enduring all that bullshit...

Random chaos happens. 
I posted up a ton of stuff yesterday. 

A small girl bending over the gravestone
two young boys wearing sailor's hats waiting for dad to return from England
only to die in the flu outbreak

a year ago an ocean of 800 something thousand poppies outside the Tower 
and John Prine singing about the last balloon and the needle and the spoon of Sam Stone
it is a hard day
it is a hopeful day
every year I seek out one person to thank
I know so many veterans
Santa Claus, Uncle Dave, Jerry's Dad
so much family everywhere and then they want to tell me these tales
and I have to listen. who among you would turn them away?

it is a hard day
to remember, to think about 
all that stuff. 
I think the cartoon from the Guelph might still be the most arresting
old man wearing his poppy, hobbling down the park
going to hear fife and drum one more time
maybe they will have bagpipes this year
I hope they don't muck it up again

See ya next year pops
or next week down at the domino hall
might slip in for lunch

Being Dad

14 years ago today.
I watched a football game with a burrito baby in my arms.
Tonight she wanted me to make fried chicken. Honored to be deemed worthy.

We worry over them and wonder if they are gonna be ok
when we let them toddle off across the yard
but eventually we let go of the handlebars and let them roll on their own power
kinda gotta.
 we have to pick them up off the ground.
we have to hug the tears and be the hankie when
there is a snot walrus tusk hanging off their 3 year old face

teen between here and there
dreams of tomorrow and memories of yesterdays not so long ago
i am grayer and the days get shorter
I have to remember these days as long as I can
eventually all I have left are the deeds I have done, good and bad
memories fade in the gray matter. dry cells firing intermittently
but whilst what wits still abide me
seize every chance I get, jump the fire
we might only be here once

My own share of demons and angels

Everybody I love you
my heart expands each day

unless I get in traffic of your making in which case
i want a warrant to shoot you

this is how it is. each day I am presented with this new set of
programs, problems, situations and circumstances
beyond my control
this is called life
rolling a big stone up this slight incline
only to have it teeter and wobble  back upon me
chasing me back down
i better run faster
seems to be gaining on me
sooner or later
that was done last week, we are all good on them

I was over there a while back
trying to sort through the future
of where i wanted to be
so many moving parts
best i can do is keep moving forward

Pope Frank was around here last week
I was glad to see it
something existential about the Vicar of Christ
come to see you
made the Speaker of the House
cry in his hankie
and leave behind all the BS that has become the day to day

i didnt start off being political
at 13 I was trying to figure out girl X
not how to get a bill passed to be a law
but somehow I knew
when they asked me what I wanted to be
I said Federal Judge
and that was the picture I drew
many moons later the cockfighter said to me
that was because you figured out the system mijo

there was a day when I was unsullied by the sweat and grit of life
it might have lasted ten seconds
oh i had a childhood. didn't you?
wasn't there the moments of when we saw a lightning flash?
the structure of our lives
we gleam it out in another's eye

Crushing now every day.

I live in a moment in time
the seconds add up to the sum of me

I only get so many
carpe diem they said to me
this day is not like others i said
mark it, is there time?
play to the whistle and then make them make you stop

some of us only have a bent stick on a barn

flinging cold hard rocks or rubber

hit it every day

it is the only chance we get

he's not what you call a very glamorous man
dr feelgood.
to stare at the abyss of the ending of life
the yawning bored face of yet another ending it so sadly
do not go there to that plain
it is a hard place
to sleep in the arms of morpheus is to weep


i have only these small words to defend me.
they are not much
but it is what I had at hand

in a moment

there is the magic bus
we all ride on it
do you fear it?

one hundred English pounds!
too much!

Hang on Boudreaux
this might be a bumpy ride
loaded for bear
seen some pig too





I dont care how much I pay
the counting is done at the end

I told my woman how much I love her
for a clean kitchen
and clothes done and folded
a swept floor
chicken in the fridge
goddamit that counts for a lot
You ain't ever hollered because you didn't have coffee and a cup?

Ten years. I count them in tens these days.
I have the me I was then and the Me I am Now.
He keeps changing. Them I knew then are not here now.
But I still am. some are still here. threads in the tapestry.

joking with the Creator has its risks
I do it because I want my answers
I will do just like that minor prophet
stand upon my watch and ask the questions
awaiting my run at the gauntlet

Fr. Jim and Pope Francis
i wish there were more
and I hope more than I know
I can feel it
the compelling urge that drives us forward
the undeniable moment
decide to do the good
that you know
do it
never ever turn away
one tear
one dollar
one second in time

words on a grecian urn

he had that assignment
tell us about that grecian urn
what it meant
this is stupid. what goddamn bullshit is this
some drunken motherfuckers a couple thousand years ago
and i am supposed to figure it out?
fuck a whole lot of that.

show me the machine shop
that is where I belong
and thirty or forty years later
there he still is
mastering the mastery of numbers.
still adrift in an ocean of words

does it matter how we are wired?
can i in ten thousand hours master that which is no part of me?
no. I can do well. I can deal with it as much as they can measure
but it is not me
and nebber ever will be
come on Pete

magic bus
give me a hundred
too much

how we arrive at our goal
that is on you boudreaux
aint got no map
talk to the dali
him and old jesuits might get you there
up to you though
nobody says you have to go
kinda gotta want to
sort of requisite

i sort of think the old man
had it right on some parts of it
i really don't hae to curse the catfish
not wanting to get caught

urgency of now

Bear with me while the words rattle around
I see things and the thoughts roll
what am i to do with them all after a while?
dead bodies in a church
collapsing buildings in downtown and flood waters
if a bikini wearing bae in the suburbs is sat upon by a cop does she still have sass?
sensitivity training all around

I want art and beauty
I want the finest chords of the strings to describe how I feel
i want a fine day and roses in the sun
i get coal in the mountains
i get mud in the ditch
wade in son
he never left harlan county alive

is the hope for tomorrow a defense against the uncertainty of it?
maybe. i can still hope for better
for me and mine
and them I dont even know
there has to be somethin better than hating. on each an other
the blood that is in me
the piece of flesh that is me
it is the same all over

and yet here i am
digging coal out of the bottom of my grave
pieces of me I left behind
passing them up the flue
smoke and cinders of me flinging
away  in the wind

Hub of Earth

I heard Dr Tom one day or was it Madame Susan
i heard this artist of words from both. sift the sand of time

I stood at the hub of my wheel wrestling with the earth
death and life surrounded me. shotgun and the poison rain
seeds of life springing under my feet
the spider web of life before my eyes

and i was there, dammit I saw it with my own eyes!
the gleam of a spark in my woman's eye
i saw it
the moment I got a good tackle
flying like superman
there is day when we stand at the hub of the earth
we are in our moment
let it be not to shoot another man
been a lot of those in our past. I had
rather not that be me

fleeting moments we get in our lives
critical junctures when things happen
a fork in the road
I have been on that less traveled road so long
i can still see the highway over there
somewhere over the hill. This dirt road gets me there.
I got a big bunch to haul. I gotta avoid that 18 wheeler.
He gives even less fucks than I do.

today was going to be the day.
and another comes tomorrow

but I am still here and there she is and
tomorrow is another day

i go to serve the machine
salute and wave to the officer as he stands at the ready
to take your ass down
after all. it is just a wonder on the wall

 stopped trying to make sense of the concrete jungle long ago
 trying to navigate my way through the waves
 hands on the tiller, there comes the day
prayers and hopes. light a candle for me baby

lake street dive, 'bad self portraits'

Time and Miles

Half a dozen comments I typed and deleted
half a life time spent wondering where I was

Never expected this, not a bit of it.
Seems we never do. If your life turned out just like you planned it.
Be sure to share the recipe.
Mine sure didn't turned out like I thought it would and I don't think I am finished yet.
Miles to go yet and time
well it isn't on my side any more. On the back side of forty I can at least imagine
the finish line.
seen some go before me
some well before their time
hearts I hope to see again
Some old and gray and some in the fullness of life
strange as it may seem
feels like I just started

I see a father running hard for memories and life
I see a father walking in halls of power
trying to do the right thing
and me a father
trying to be what I figure I am supposed to be

I didn't know, I am not sure I do now.
Broken windows. Eyes of stars.
Cistercians on an island across a sea of sand
mine were certainly not silent
1500 Years. Why yes.

A long time ago I wrote another line
of a green tree and vine
again I find myself entwined
I welcome it. Please wrap yourself on me.
Carry on. The miles and time unwind.
I do not not think there is an end to them.