Goodbye

I. Before and After Dying

Yesterday a wasp landed on the rail to my back deck
and died.
Today a honey bee made a feeble attempt
to enter my car and join me
on the drive to work.
The last gasp in late fall
of bees looking for a warm place
to be before dying.
Believe me, I can relate.

About a month after my dad died,
my mother took me and Gail outside
to show us Sam’s star.
She said it suddenly appeared about
a week after his death and was proof
that he was watching out for her.
I told Gail I was worried about her,
Gail said, “Don’t, she’ll be alright.”

Those of us who have not, but need to
say goodbye;
twist in the breeze like the last
leaf on an oak, desperately clinging
to the known and familiar ways.
A wise man once said, “Make no changes for a year,”
and then he died, leaving his wise woman
in charge of the lost and grieving
left gasping for air in the vast vacuum
that followed his passing
from this presence to the other.


II. Pain

Goodbye hurts,
it hurts down to the marrow
of my bones
which someday will be
pulverized and returned to the sea.
The hurt blackens all
of the colors that used
to live in my life and
readies me for the deep, dark night
that leads somewhere, but
no one here can say for sure where.
No, don’t give me the surety
that you have no right
to give. You don’t really know
anything for sure, just as I.
I know that hurt can change
a rainbow into black and
like all other obstacles we face,
must be overcome before it
takes us down
below the ground.

III. Us


There have been 18,800 days
of me and
7,035 days of us.
When I say goodbye to you,
I say goodbye to us and
most of me.

It was late on a Thursday evening,
early November and I was down at
the gas station helping Sara with her
paperwork and you dropped by to say hello.
You were getting impatient with me by then;
your transfer had gone through and we had already
danced and kissed and you made sure I
had the chance to run my hand down
your leg and it would have happened
that Saturday night if Sara had not got drunk
and picked a fight that Bud had to finish and
we all ended up at the jail half the night,
but with another fun story to tell, but
I never told this one,
did I?

I asked you where you were going as
you started to wander off and you
replied that you were going to
the Holiday Inn to drink schnapps and beer and
I recalled what you had said about
what that leads to on the night I saw
you tie a knot in a cherry stem with your tongue.
I looked at Sara and calmly asked her
what I should do.
Sara, who besides having a Psych degree,
was in San Fran in the summer of ’67 and
on a farm in upstate New York in the summer of ’69.
From the moment I hired her,
we started teaching each other.
We certainly both got each other immediately.
Sara looked at me and uttered the immortal words;
“Shit or get off the pot.”
I ran into your arms and
all of our tomorrows.
We got schnapps and beer and took it
to my place and sat on the floor and starting watching
LA Law and
never made it anywhere near the
end.

IV. Beauty on the Balcony

On a cool winter’s evening,
long after midnight,
you stood on my balcony
naked to the world
and I waited for
my warm place to be
to return to me.

There are places, words and feelings
that never fade, no
matter how dark
it gets. I remember saying,
“I love you,” and your reply,
“Don’t say it unless you mean it.”
I wanted nothing else but
to share your space for
the rest of my life.
It was just one month later
that we both knew for sure.

“Will you take this woman…”

The moon and the stars were
shining down on us
“I could turn the air conditioner on…”

“It’s better this way…”

“To have and to hold…”

with a deep yellow glow
“I want to hold you for the rest of my life…”

“Promise?”

“I do.”

as we became one

“In sickness and in health…”

“Where did the stars go?”

“It’ll be alright.”

by candlelight.
“So very dark…”

“I’m here, dear.”

“Till death do you part?”

“I can’t feel you anymore…”

“I did.”

“Yes, we did!”

“Whisper to me, wet and wild…”

All of our tomorrows
belong to yesterday and
even the moonlight fades to black
after the stars are
hidden away and
the whispers die
in the late autumn breeze.

“Goodbye my love.”

MJ Carson
11-01-2009

The 17th August The 17th

Raging spirit,
furious words flung at
a brick wall,
only to reverberate
in silence.

It has been seventeen years
since your light went out.
Each year there are fewer
and fewer who
knew the glow.

We never played that game of golf,
but then again,
you never were that
tossing baseballs in the side yard
type of father.

You were the type that
drew corrections to the builder's plans
for our first house and
then re-plumbed the hot water yourself
after the idiot builder put it
in the attic and it burst
taking out the ceil heat.

You made them pay for it,
but did the work yourself
to make sure it was done right.
I watched your every move and
I decided somewhere along the way
to be an engineer, but I didn't
cope with life quite well enough and
I know I disappointed you as
well as so many others along the way,
but in the end I think;
you really understood.

Here I sit flinging words
at a brick wall.

You were a provider;
you provided strength and
humor,
the amount of
love and affection you could spare,
a home and hearth and
the power of words.

You taught me to
keep flinging the words until
the walls fall down.

17 years,
I started this journey at 17.

34 years,
two times seventeen and you were gone.

51 years,
I guess going for four
won't be so bad,
as long as I keep
writing the walls down.

I still rage about
the loss of light, but
I can see that by your
own standards;
you lived carpe diem
every day.

Drink up,
live well,
love well,
die well.
This I think,
you taught me well.


Mike Carson
8-17-2009

Life On Monday Night

It was Howard Cosell that told me

John Lennon was dead,

during the course of one of our

regular Monday Night sessions and

both of us wept at the senselessness

of such an act.

Even my father, my regular Monday Night session mate

from the beginning in 1970,

was moved. This was the same man who had sat in his chair

and scoffed in 1964 as his hormonal 12 year old daughters

and his amused 6 year old son

watched Ed Sullivan introduce The Beatles

to an adoring American audience, who in later years

admitted that yes, they were pretty good, and who was in fact

the same man who watched

Ronald Reagan explain American football to John

in the booth with Frank and Howard and Dandy Don

on Monday Night in 1973,

again during one of our regularly scheduled sessions.



Our lives didn’t revolve around football,

but it was our good common ground and Monday Night

became the pinnacle of the ritual.

It came pre-loaded with the best games

and biggest names,

a prime time jewel.



It was Monday Night that got us

a second color TV for mom’s bedroom.

Monday Night was the prime time

for father and son to bond. We didn’t miss

much of the first six years and when I returned home from the Navy,

we eased back into it whenever possible.



I did, however, take Monday Night to a higher level

while in San Diego, an NFL city

with a hot team in the late ‘70s.

National City had a bar where you could:

play Asteroids, drink beer and watch girls strip or

shoot pool, drink beer and watch girls strip or

watch the game on a big screen projected TV

(very rare in 1978), drink beer and watch girls strip or

go out back and supplement your beer drinking

with something a little stronger and then come in

and watch girls strip.

We went there for the big TV screen, of course.

On Monday Night, in California, the party started early and

finished late, but while in California I

didn’t have a car and

never drove anywhere.



I bought Big Blue from a friend of dad’s,

she was a 1973 Chevy Impala

and built like a tank, but much faster.

Big Blue and I set the world on fire

for five years until December 1st, 1986,

the Monday Night we both

went down in flames.



I worked and went to school with David,

he was from New Jersey and

his main claim to fame was

having his collarbone broken by Bill Bates.

Bill (not Bates, he played for Dallas)

hung with us frequently,

he had tried out for the Kansas City Royals and

was studying sports broadcasting.

Most of our activities were

sports and beer related;

we formed a city league softball team,

we went to UT football and basketball games,

played Sports Illustrated dice baseball,

and just basically got together

when we could.

The Giants were playing the 49’ers.

The Giants were on a roll and in fact,

won it all that year. They had Phil Simms and

Lawrence Taylor. The 49’ers had Joe and Jerry,

no last names needed.

This was a big Monday Night session,

this required a big screen.



Not as rare in 1986, Mr. Gaddi’s

had a big screen,

pizza and

pitchers of beer and

a party on Monday Night.

It was a good close game

up until Mark Bravo dragged

7 would be tacklers 20 yards down the field

on a simple play down the middle.

There was no stopping the Giant train then.

Mr. Gaddi’s closed up at eleven, but

the game played on.

Roger’s Place was two blocks away and

had a TV and pitchers of beer,

the train was back on track.



Roger’s Place closed at midnight and

the Giants won the game, but the train

was still rolling…

this was a mistake that found a place to happen.



Doodle’s shared the parking lot

with Roger’s Place.

Doodle’s was a full bar where

one could get lucky or

very unlucky.

It looked good to us at 12 am,

what could go wrong?



Two for one from 12 to 2?

Tequila sunrises, two at a time,

“This train is bound for glory, this train…”

Two hours of

heavy flirting and

laughing and

crying and

drunk dialing ex-girlfriends

(we used quarters back then) later and

it was 2 am,

time for the train to pull in to the station.

We said our good byes

and all headed for

the back roads to home.



I bet you are thinking you

know how this ends, but there

were no blue flashing lights or

great tragedy.

The moral perhaps as subtle

as a sledgehammer, but

this is actually a mystery,

one I have tried to unravel

for the last 23 years.



I made it safe and sound

back to my subdivision

and had only to maneuver 4 blocks

to arrive safe at home.

At the top of the hill

the road went straight down,

perhaps 4 football fields in length,

ending in a hard left

before an abrupt dead end

and after a gentle left at the bottom of the hill.

My Jenson speakers were blaring

“Highway To Hell” and

I floored it and

never let go and

never came close

to making even the gentle left turn,

driving straight through some rose bushes,

a mailbox,

a beautifully manicured lawn of

Kentucky Bluegrass

and being stopped only

by a fire hydrant.

In Hollywood they gush 20 feet,

in real life they bubble up

some water that wouldn’t

put out a campfire.

In Hollywood they take you off to jail and

madcap adventure ensues,

my night in jail was rather sobering

and boring.



I was three months away

from graduation and applying

for jobs in transportation.

I got off easy, but that was delusion.

The only job I got was managing

a gas station.

I lost my chance to make sure

the trains were running on time

in the blink of eye and

the inexplicable

press of a foot

on Monday Night or

early Tuesday morning,

if you prefer.



Big Blue was never the same again,

neither was Monday Night and

truthfully,

that was the night

the party ended.



Mike Carson

5-27-2009