never eat alone at even the smallest table

[moseley]

if the world is ending, it may not be so for me
if all is falling apart, I may be together
doesn't mean I live through the fire,
that I don't drown, or like a goldfish in a dry bowl
I know what it is to need impossible water
what then fails, if everything is a success
but it isn't the way you chewed and swallowed
brushed the broom across the floor and got all the filings up
something fills the pinata, but, if the pinata is true
it's going to have to be beaten to shit and back
torn and ripped, and somehow, only then, is it realized
don't save yourself from an unhealthy breakfast
just because they say cereal will make you fat,
chew that fat, fry that fat, eat that fat
or not really, when was there anything to say
anything to write that needed to be read,
doubtful you can find one sentence, one word, one syllable
any metaphor will do certainly, hopefully
as if there are questions we just have to ask
only to assure ourselves it is the answer we already have
and sometimes, we want it to be so different
we nearly got the quilt pattern right and at that moment
we only want to be corrected, maybe distract or delay our sewing
we might not have even wanted to sew all this patch shit together
but it was someone's lark of an idea, some dandy thing that found
us giving ourselves the name, Jim, fancy that it finds acceptance
or familiarity, however succused, the dice are going to roll a certain way
and yeah, 13 sides or more, luck has nothing in the measure
as we get tired of counting and we just guess, maybe feel
oh we could push it out, run it down, run it over
that mull in the wine, that mullet in the tidal wave
some finality we know right at its course....
just to be distracted, from what is mostly coming
mostly boredom at the routine, the comfort of comforts
and folded hospital corners should we need to make circumstance of waking
when all hope might seem futile, it does not have to be for me
but, someone might hope so, might insist
never really sure of all that, but it happens in the periphery
just outside the reach of my fingertips
and yet, the best hug or comfort may be a punch in the face
and vulgarities spewed to the ends of everyone's hearing
should it stir, disturb or disrupt
factually, it never could, no matter the island we might become trapped in
we always carry our own lotuses, and somehow marvel that we have the know
when, in summation, we barely have punctuation to anything articulate
but to relate to now, as if the moment demands
and somehow, for this beseachment, we are to so willfully sing

[anirbas]

Well, well, well. I spy a Moseley. Welcome home, prodigal son.


"I know what it is to need impossible water"

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

The entire piece is a tour de force of automatic writing, well done.
But, that one line...Oh, my stars! That one line. It's so universal in its knowing.
All earthlings have felt that, at one time or another. It's like the lynch pin of the piece.
Myself, I would have made it the title, knowing me. LoL Though I do adore the title you chose.

However, I've often found, I quite enjoy eating alone at even the smallest table. We all have
to do it when we're single, if we grab a bite to eat out in public. I'd often take a book, a spiral and a pen,
and a sketch pad and pencil. I could turn a Pancho's all you can eat buffet meal, into a two to four hour delight
of doing my favorite things. Reading, eating, writing, eating, sketching, eating. LoL Anyway, I digress.

All I meant to say, was this is an excellent piece. And good to see you, mi compadre. Don't be such a stranger.

[moseley]

thank you Nir. I have eaten alone at a table and was at once cool with it, then I looked around at people, they looked at me, it felt like pity, like they sympathized with my lonliness and then I wondered if I was missing the point, I often am, and possibly, I was deeply alone...in so many ways, I always have been, I never chose it and at once, to have just one person to connect with, to lean on, to have them lean on me, real leaning, sitting side by side on some benchy seat in some overpriced toast peddling restaurant, and time goes glacial, no phones, no cell phones, no internet, just even the silence of someone with some level of interconnection, even if they are bored, even if they don't want to be there, even if they don't really like being with me...that company, is so wanted by me..even a small table is something else with just one person, to talk to or just be with...sometimes couples mark time together as they watch television because they are there in their orbits of each other while their trajectory is all over the place, but, in the bulk of the moment, prescence is there...somehow, I can start off eating out quite comfortable with being a table of one, but even sitting up at the bar, is a bit of a time for me, as there are people usually to interact with, but in that sphere, there is some level of force, of seek in them, for the same thing I am seeking, to be sure, but they have different words, definitions, customs and languages for it and there is expectation as currency, and there is some level of automatic behaviour that is just warranting the next word, phrase and custom as if it is just patently scripted...but when you have yourself, and you are in a very good place, a person can be exactly as you have said it and that state to me, would be nirvana. I don't like crowds, but I crave company too strongly....your entire reply just made me happy reading it, as, I understand it more now in terms of the feeling than the words, and many times, I have always felt I got the words, but not the temperature and color, and such a pallete is more welcome as even the simple idea of grabbing a handful of dirt has nuance to it, but, that dirt is damn old, and yet, it will never be older than it is older to me today, but to my hands, it is maybe a rare time I hold it in my hand, and who knows if this was recently decomposed dog shit, but surely, dogs do such much word to renew dirt and keep the worms well...and that is funny, like this meandering thing, I don't get lost, but I get there, and when it is an unknown forest, sometimes, it is nice to witness and report, in some metaphoric prosaic gas release, but often if I should trouser tuba a sulfur bomb, it motivates fast walking, further and deeper just to keep a bit ahead of my own shit....today, I miss this, I remember your and David's story, it's a good one, and I find myself here, lingering and bellowing maybe an overstuffed gantry of things, certainly there is some dry powder about somewhere, for then, or now, there is the spindrift and the ever wandering dreamtime...thank you.

[anirbas]

You are most welcome, my brother.

I read this piece out loud to David last night, by the way. He enjoyed it, as well.
Then, I also read him your comment when I found it a moment later on his 'If You Were a Tree'thread.
What poet doesn't enjoy praise of their work?

Yes, we are still the David and Sabrina story. We've known each other going on fifteen years, now.
And have lived together for ten of those years, to date.

Our lives are about to take an interesting turn. My daughter and I have decided to merge our one bedroom apartment households
into a three bedroom home with a front and back lawn. She is pregnant and due April 22nd. She has a roomie and I have my roomie,
haha, and Lydia Kaye (what she is naming her baby) will have a room of her own, starting out as a nursery. Moseley, we are all
so ecstatic at this point. We get the keys to our new cave tomorrow, Friday the 6th. New location on the map and a baby girl
on the way, life is grand in David and Sabrina Land.

Again, so good to see you around. We trust all is well in Jam Land?

You know who else will be excited to see you? Heartfelt the next time she pops in.

[moseley]

You get to be more than a family with that, kinda like a tribe more or less...I think the modern method of being a human is not right, but what you are doing is more meaningful and you get to share experience. Hopefully it is the best experiences yet to be done. As long as you never have the "been there done that" thing, and I doubt you do, then, every moment that may be new to Ivy, will have something new to you, because you are not who you were, then, and now, both you and David are something else altogether and it is work to build that, and you all have made it possible. That is beautiful. Because it is real, and real effort.

I have read alot of poets who are alive now and David has this way of just putting it straight and when I read his stuff, books are born in my mind and volumes come from it, it is like reading the fountain what he writes directly...many times, I witness and report and truly do just write it out as fast I can into words before it is gone...To read that David likes something I wrote, I would write more to try to please him back for what he has written than knocks me out. Thank you.

[phantasm]

In the PPP world (Pre-Pandemic Pause) I would occasionally go out to eat someplace, any of the restaurants in the vicinity more or less of where I live. I've never minded eating alone. Maybe, when I was first independent in the second half of my 20s, maybe I got looks from people or a sense of being weirded out. But honestly, if people still shoot me looks, I don't care anymore. I'm not picky about where I sit. It can be a window seat or a seat close to the kitchen. Honestly, I don't care. As long as they serve me in the time horizon expected by any of the other clients around me.

I am alone, and I'm more or less okay with that.

[moseley]

I would gladly sit in a table nearby, but I would shoot spitwads at you and blame flies....I work in a factory, we all have lunch in a lunchroom, most are distantly engaged in their cellphones, but there are conversations that crop up, I love those. Also, I see people pull back because they need alone "ness"....but, it is something when eating and having some level of connectedness, digestion goes better...we were not meant to be isolated and still, there are moments we need...but as for joy, it always seems to come with company, misery too, possibly, but I am hopeful people can work and move to hope and joy...sometimes, I feel "that" is my work to do