jingle bell jingle bell over the river and through the dell ain’t going to grandma’s no ain’t going to grandma’s she’s dead passed over into the hereafter so they say so it is written one and only favorite daughter she says sitting around with us sitting around the formica table in the restaurant in garberville she tearing at nibbling on her grilled cheese sandwich she says i wish i had got to know her i wish i had known her i bet i would have liked her yeah i know you would have sugar i wish we were going to grandma’s house we ain’t going to grandma’s we’re just headed north

not to alaska just up to the redwoods

we’re headed north me one and only favorite oldest son one and only favorite daughter one and only favorite youngest son it’s what it is it’s a new normal trying to find the new normal i’m afraid of being alone with them

with my kids

with my kids i love so goddamn much i don’t know how to tell them how much i fucking love them and i know that’s why it’s been so hard maybe i’m trying too hard i’m pushing too much they have to be themselves they’re real people too i can’t be afraid of my own kids goddamn i love them so much they’re not fragile they’re just people

i think that’s why i’m afraid

i mean ain’t i more than just people for them don’t i need to be perfect for them

shit i guess i fucked that up how do i tell them anything without fear of disappointing them

their mother and me we just broke each other’s hearts perfect people don’t do that kind of shit how do i tell them how much i loved their mother and how much i still love their mother and how sometimes all that love sometimes it just ain’t enough how do i tell them about demons how do i tell them about death and my own father how do i tell them that i tried so very hard without looking like some sappy fucking schmuck it’s a catch twenty two there’s no path to perfect

how do i be perfect

one and only oldest child with a broken collar bone and his own broken heart goddamn love is a fucked up thing he’s a beautiful man he’ll find so much love in the world he’ll see that love is a beautiful thing each and every one each love is so good i sat with him in an emergency room when he was thirteen a broken wrist snowboarding i held his hand and cried with him as they set the wrist he in such pain and i couldn’t do a thing about it but cry i walked with him fifty miles cross country over snow covered passes and saw him as a man

i can’t do a thing about it but cry

one and only oldest daughter with the sass and beauty and worldliness and smarts of a college freshman home from the holidays who loves everyone who includes everyone who on the cusp of her bat mitzvah when i asked her in honor of that most auspicious occasion i asked her if there was anything in the world that i could do for her she looked up at me knowing then that she already had me wrapped around her little finger she looked up at me and said daddy please cut your hair and shave that awful beard

and i did

and i would again and again and again and anything else that she asks i love her so

and because she is a woman a grown woman who can do anything in the world that she wants to do goddamn it it breaks my heart that she just doesn’t need to ask for anything the world is her oyster

and one and only favorite youngest son goddamn he breaks my heart and it’s because i let him it’s not because he wants to he has the biggest heart he is a leader among his friends his peers he writes poetry that melts my soul he is a wigger of the first degree he is loyal and brave and stubborn and won’t listen he’s sixteen he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing at sixteen fuck when i was sixteen i hated my old man too it’s what we’re supposed to do it’s how we become men he’s becoming a man a good man and i will always love him

i will always love him hard and soft

we drive north to the redwoods i am afraid i am nervous i know they are nervous too how fucked up is that i guess that’s just what it is just kind of fucked up we start with a book on tape

it sucks

we try another and it sucks

one and only favorite youngest son takes over after great debate becomes the dee jay every new song brings the same question from the old man

who is this

every question brings back the sarcastic answer polite and correct yet cloaked in a syrupy package of the old man don’t know shit but that’s oh kay that’s all right that’s the way it’s supposed to be we settle in i settle in they settle in i just want to enjoy them i just want to be in their midst breathe in their smell hear their banter wallow in their misery laugh at their jokes referee their fights

why do i always side with one and only favorite daughter

don’t know why

just the way it should be i guess just the way it should be

we stay in a hotel that is old and rustic and tries hard to be the grand old lady of the redwoods which is just a shorthand excuse for no television in the rooms which turns out oh kay in that the power is out let’s light candles and play games sort of way but we don’t play games i just soak it in as they banter and joke and then i go to bed

i almost make it to double digits says one and only favorite oldest son

they stay up and fight and throw pillows and profanities and love and it’s the way it should be don’t you know they could be almost at double digits themselves still those little chirruns running around getting under my skin sliding into my heart they always will be but they’re not they’re real people with body hair and muscles and hips and attitude and big people thoughts about the world the way they think the world should be i so want their world to be good and kind and rosy but they are knowing the world as it is and i’m sorry that

i’m not perfect

that i couldn’t protect them from that

and we drive through the redwoods wind through the forest avenue of the giants and we stop and climb on trees take short walks over damp ground it is cold but their hearts warm and they throw profanities and love and it’s the way it should be don’t you know and we end up in eureka we walk through a mall the day after christmas and it is as foreign to us as hong kong probably more so we watch a stupid movie drive back down the one oh one in the dark eat burgers and chicken strips and ravioli and grilled cheese sandwiches in a restaurant identified only as

restaurant

in neon in garberville and they throw profanities and love and that’s the way it should be and we sleep and we drive through a tree we come out the other side and i feel like i’ve come out the other side i’m crying because this is all i ever wanted

to drive through a tree with my kids

come out the other side

and today i sit out on my redneck veranda in a chair in the chill afternoon air watching the waves break beneath the foggy horizon i’m still wrapped in their profanities and love i just let them stick i collected them all rubbed them all over i roll in them like cuda in the grass til i smell like their love and profanities

maybe i’m kidding myself maybe we’ll find this new normal maybe we won’t i’m thinking we will i just want to love my kids
that’s all

just a little love a few profanities and all that
 
 

It’s cold

cold as a well digger's ass cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey cold as a witch's tit it's cold here in the naked city

new york new york

i’m glad i don’t live here i’d miss my morning toss with girlfriend i’d miss that afternoon giggle in the pillows i’d miss the taste of her thighs after a long day at the factory i’m glad i don’t live here but fuck i kind of dig the energy i kind of dig the ebb and flo the larry curly and moe the belly floppin’ ho’s the elevator joes

new york new york

in the snow and christmas pagan commercialism all wrapped up with a ribbon and bow all coated with love and lust and the sweet puerto rican bubble butts wiggling up and down the sidewalk drunken businessmen stumbling across the cracks breaking their momma’s backs cigarette in one hand cell phone in the other i dig the heavy black overcoats i dig the cute little black rubber shoe condoms all uniform all stamford

new york new york

i don’t know you we’re just acquaintances after all these years we never fucked we never got naked together i don’t know the intimate you never poked around your pussy parts yeah we necked we had a moment or two but i don’t know you baby let me know you

new york new york

once knew a woman when i met her she said she lived in new york new york but she didn’t live here she just wanted to live here and we met here she came to town i came to town one winter night she had this big big room with a four poster bed in a sweet hotel near the park we had dinner we took a walk in the cold cold night she let me seduce her i think i fell in love with her in that frosty crisp romantic cloud she brought out the genteel cracker in me she my henry higgins me her henry miller

she was daddy’s girl from the virginia hunt country all blonde and wesleyan played hippie chick with northeastern deadheads married corporate and boring i had erotic dreams of her in espadrilles hell i still do i think i fell in love I do believe i did i did i loved her that night her all forty and gorgeous and sugary and sweet and delicious i licked her all over munched the cheese between her toes nibbled on her neck whispered dirty poems in her ear some i made up on the spot some i stole i’m not proud hey steal this fucking rant i don’t give a sorry shit she initially porn star mechanical studied and efficient an athlete trying to break through me murmuring measuring her soul reaching in crawling under her skin tickling her toes

my tongue clicked morse code on her clit wired her a message said baby let me fuck you the way you want to need to be fucked don’t you know i know oh

i do know just a bit and

she fucked me until i surrendered my heart

and she gave it back broken on the streets of new york many months later today she lives here

i still love her but that’s oh kay i gotta lot a love i gotta whole lotta love i needed to send her back to schoolin’ i hope she’s gotta whole lotta love out there too i’m sure she does hey baby you reading this hey

wink wink

new york new york

walking through the park i’m so the tourist i don’t care i dig it walking through the park it’s cold as ice willing to sacrifice our love cold wearing my expensive italian overcoat form over function it looks goddamn good it’s fucking useless for warmth back when i had long hair and dark glasses wearing this coat with my docs all black and punk i was rock star asshole baby probably still am the asshole but just try to look the other way i mean

fuck

i’m trying to change i mean just the other day girlfriend she says baby i need to go to church gotta change my ways i say sugar you perfect just the way you are but i’ll go dance with jesus if that whips your cream

walking through the park it’s cold as if i had swallowed snowballs he stands on a bench beneath the light hands in the pockets of his gangsta parka hood over his head he’s looking every which way but down where his girlfriend stands looking up hands waving arms spread beseeching him asking him how he would feel if if if how would he feel if she why can’t he love her like she loves him i want to look as i walk by i want to give them their privacy i’m bonding with him i’m loving her

i leave them though they don’t need me i’m dangerous i got love oozing out my pores i got bells on my fingers and rings on my toes i got a bad moon rising i got trouble on the way i am the walrus with a big old motherfucking walrus dick

i got a dinner to get to

and it’s all business baby i got purpose i got goals i have tales to spin yarns to unravel i make my way from columbus circle around the park up the east side into the seventies my man is late my target is tardy i slide into my chair back against the wall can’t take chances i mean hey it’s

new york new york

and we all know what happened to wild bill in deadwood the one time he didn’t sit with his back to the wall ol’ jack macall snuck up behind him shot him right in the back o’ the head until he was dead i’m not dead i slide into my chair order up a green tea some eddy’s momma all warm slightly salty i nibble them up your heart in my hands my grin scans the room

right next to me on my immediate left is a large jewish lesbian stuffing screaming shrimp into her gullet with two sticks speaking with an accent english and lilting her lovely african

friend

leaning over the table using her own sticks to point to make her points wide and varied

yes i do listen i dig her tales her secret safe with me this my own story not a retelling of hers

leaning over the table her short black afro cute and hot she long and lean in that shaka zulu sex on a rope sort of way an upper east side older couple to my right pecking at three pair of nigiri-zushi on a wooden platter i think i’m turning japanese i really think so in the middle of the room she is talking to a friend jet black hair bought but not in a bottle expensive corporate jewelry in all the appropriate places except the ring finger ruby red lips not thin but not full or voluptuous jimmy chu’s on toes so cute

she so wasabi

our eyes meet just as biz dinner guy shows up distracts disappoints yeah i do need to talk to him ah the paths we close off in the name of ambition i swing back into the mode hand shake smile with teeth gleaming eyes twinkling what can i do you out of tonight i might even talk you into buying me dinner let me put my hand in your pocket jiggle your balls you won’t even know it and you’ll wonder why you feel so goddamn good

our eyes meet again and the a little while later again and a little while later i toss her a smile she continues talking to gal pal floats back an affectionate glance i swoon like a queen at a doris day rock hudson film festival i admit it that’s just who i am i shoulda been gay probably would have been had i not discovered pussy now i’m just a one man posse for pussy goddamn lord please forgive me i just can’t help myself i just can’t i’m the little engine who can’t i know you can’t be angry with me i mean lawdy lawdy you did give pussy to us sorry human beings you can’t possibly be upset with us for loving your sacred creation

all creation is sacred

all we do though is create an aura of anticipation me my jet black haired tuna nibbling fantasy i think maybe we fell in love just those few minutes in a little sushi bar on the upper east side we fell in love

don’t love feel good yeah it do

the way i dig girlfriend the way i love her so yeah it do feel good she feel so good when i hold her in my arms

we shake hands we make plans to meet again in vegas we’ll always have vegas wink and grin i must walk him out it’s protocol i shrug she shrugs life don’t you know

i walk the thirty blocks back down to my hotel

new york new york i hardly know you and all that