My uncle Robby is so totally crazy, I mean completely certifiably insane.
Boundaries between worlds mean nothing to him, daily he travels the multiverse with ease. Lately he has been spending time in an ephemeral world of transparent beings.
So in the park he says to me,
“If I had a dollar for every asshole on the street who wants to sell me a Moulin-Rouge
coaster set, I could buy……. well an holographic fishing boat! Boy-oh-boy I’d sure
make a name for myself then!”
I can look around the house for a boat warming gift. It’s just too bad it can’t be a set of those goddam coasters (why do I keep buying things from Gypsies?). What would be nice is I could give him that enchanted road-and-reel I bought on ebay.alt-realms back when I wanted to catch an phantom imperceptible fish to impress that stupid invisible girl who never really loved me anyway. It’s around here, ……. well somewhere.

by – Doug Mathewson

National poetry month was a real eye-opener. Poets great and small threw wide their doors and invited us in. I had the opportunity to hear many people with whom I was not familiar read their work. Two that stand out are Yvonne Murphy with her insightful, scholarly examination of language and Laurelyn Whitt who writes of languages lost in her exploration of interstitial space. I also enjoyed the works of several
other people, but did not catch their names. An older man recalled the wildflowers that were his childhood companions, and a chance meeting in the town library with a young reader who explained whales. Another poet wrote passionately about the loss of a loved one, stolen from him by AIDs.
Among the anti-war poems was written by a Korean Veteran. The horror as fresh today was it was in 1953. The memories still so vivid he could only to sing his poem in faltering monotone to keep his tears at bay. I was impressed by these fine writers and by the community they share. I only wish those of us who write prose could have such a community as well. There seem to be any number of ongoing “slams” and “open mic poetry” events to be found. Theirs is not on-line social-network, just real people reading aloud to each other on a regular basis. In part it is envy I feel. That and impatience with my self for gaining three pounds over the month (dam you with your home-made cookies and imported cheeses). There were eighty seven listings of upcoming events for this month on the state wide poetry calender when I checked. “Google-stalk” as I might, I could not find one prose reading.
I offer a call to action to writers of prose, flash fiction authors especially, since our work lends itself so well to being read aloud, to promote a local reading series. Use any means available to get out the word. Flash Mob Flash Fiction? Ask your local book store or cafe which evening of the week is totally dead and If you were to bring in at least five friends who might, just might buy something could you have ninety minutes for a monthly short fiction extravaganza? Make it a contest, tell people lies, include yodeling or look-alike contests if that helps. Younger crowds seem to love break-up stories, worst boyfriend/girlfriend stories. Just do not make it sound like school. For an older crowd try memories, reminiscences,- finding god while walking on the beach is always popular – (did he wash up?). Make it themed! Let’s post our posters and fly our flyers. Local direct action is what we need to do.
There are a couple of poets in my area who write pretty good short fiction, they just have the punctuation all wrong and think it is poetry. Maybe we can rope them into it as well.

Peace – Doug Mathewson

When times were tough, pickings real slim, I’d invent a charity and go door-to-door soliciting funds. “Jovian Junipers”, the future of a green Jupiter is just beyond our reach.
What’s that you say, impossible… with the violent hydrogen gas oblate spheroid atmosphere surrounding the unimaginably dense radioactive liquid metal core?
That is why we need help ever so badly, you can see just how much there is to do.
Someday god willing, those trees will be tall enough to reach right up trough a thousand kilometers of ammonium sulfide clouds and all we need is a little help from you, you and others like you, who are farsighted enough share our vision!
Won’t you help?

by Doug Mathewson

Attending poetry readings, book store events and various art functions over the past few months has given me the opportunity to share the thoughts and opinions of many creative intelligent people. It will take me at least another month to sort through the untidy treasure trove that issued daily from my pockets and now overflows an old fashioned wicker laundry basket with notes, programs, business cards, gallery literature, poetry books, and crazy drawings that were my pocket’s daily issue. During the same period of time what I have been reading has been very thoughtful in nature. More serious writing, more introspective works than what I might usually consume
One observation, one conclusion, that should have been long apparent has finally now emerged. Depression, withdrawal, isolation and endless self inflicted emotional trauma are of less than no value. This mindset, this pattern of behavior is one of immaturity and self indulgence. Often enough we hear that an individual is responsible for their own happiness. I conclude the same goes for unhappiness. We are each responsible for that as well. This is not the same as failing in ones search for happiness
and satisfaction in life. Imagine taking in an injured stray cat or dog. You may not have created the situation, but the responsibility for what happens next falls to you.
Grief, pain, heart-break, and suffering are very real but accept them at their face value only and nothing more. Joy and sorrow, the love and hurt we dispense and receive should be not be weighed on the inflexible scales of blind Lady Justice. Our familiar neighborhood butcher would be better suited for the job. We find comfort in his greeting and easy smile. We have an awareness of his ever present thumb, always at the ready to influence the scale so a proper balance for us all may be achieved.
The personal touch, a thumbs worth at a time. We each have our own internal scales, no two alike, by which we judge our lives.
Live, love, prosper, steady others when they seem about to fall, and keep one hand free, your going to need your thumb.

Peace – Doug Mathewson

Thought I’d write a simple list poem.
Seeking inspiration in the side-bar of my home page I saw:
Heart-Pounding, Fast-Breaking, Wild-Eyed News that’s
absolutely crucial to you right now, it falsely screamed!
Hawaiian Chicken Kebob recipe ranks number three.
U.S. troops killed holds down last spot at number twelve.
No mention of African AIDs epidemic, genocide, and
famine – they just didn’t make the cut.
But not to worry, American Idol gossip still rates number one!

by Doug Mathewson

Thinking back through the years I marvel at the worlds of then, and of now. Intrigued by by the seemingly different universe we now occupy I wonder could “nothing changes as much as it remains the same” actually be true? We all have our foundations, our roots, those core beliefs we hold to so tightly. I become fearful that my grip may loosen as time goes on and suddenly I find they slipped-away. Would it be possible to weather the loss? If I could keep but one, one brick, one rock to anchor myself upon it would unquestionably be love. Love as I learned from my Mother long ago. Love that is rooted in respect and so eloquently entwined in every aspect of our daily dealings. By her word and deed I gained a respect, a love for her and my Father. What they had overcome to be together and keep us safe in our little house. I learned to love those around me for who they were. People, just people and nothing more, making due as best they can given their disposition and state. Not a church proclaimed theoretical love, not a holiday celebratory love, but an everyday love of one another that often requires a softer focus, a more forgiving eye. Love of one another, love between man and woman, and the love of children are all grown from these seeds of respect. Seeds my Mother taught me so long ago to sow and tend.

by – Doug Mathewson

In his humorous auto biography, “Lady, The Only Thing Chinese About Me Is My Mandarin Collar” Korean film star and urban philosopher Hyun-Shik “Walter” Fong said it best. “When we speak of wisdom, the knowledge may not be wise. When we speak of learning, these are things we have always known. When we speak of mother or father we may refer not to a person but to a sense of kindness and security, a great unconditional love that we all wish to embrace in our lives and cherish in our memories. Build your life on these three, wisdom, learning, and love and you shall never want.”
Walter’s first name Hyun-Shik translates as “clever”. I feel his words go far beyond that.
To be the object of unconditional love is ones greatest treasure. To give unconditional love is ones greatest gift.

Yours, Doug Mathewson

Precise and careful disarray gave the local antique shop a gentle charm.  A quiet grace from another time.  Among the artfully placed tiaras, inkwells, and hobo salt and pepper shakers was a lovely old purse.  Black silk from the early 1950s.  A clutch purse, intended for evenings. A hole was fashioned in the lower left corner, into which was sewn a watch.  A man’s watch, too large for  a woman’s wrist, and gold-toned like the tarnished asymmetrical clasp. Inside was imprinted “Majestic,” an interior pocket contained a bakelite comb unused still sealed in cellophane. The watch was askew, some of the stitching torn.

Mending the silk.  Polishing and freeing the clasp.  Finally repairing the watch, and sewing it tight only took an afternoon. I kept postcards in it. Postcards I had addressed to family and friends back home, only to find that I had nothing say.  But my thoughts returned to the woman who must have bought it new,  some fifty years ago. The woman who took one look and thought “that purse is me.  That little black purse says who I am. It speaks of exciting new places to be and important unimaginable things to do.” All in a stylishly elegant, confident way.

I pictured her hair and her dress, the small careful jewelry she wore and the gleam in her eyes as she saw the future. She knew the purchase was extravagant but that could not be allowed to stand in her way. The future, her future, was too important to be denied.

I purchased the little purse thinking about the future as well. A different future than the previous owner to be sure. We were separated by so many years, yet we both sought  inspiration and reassurance through this small hand bag with its built in wind-up watch. I started thinking of it as a prop. A visual clue to those around me as to my identity and outward intent.

It poked out of my laptop case, watch corner up, ticking confidently. The contents were a worthless mix. European coins I couldn’t spend. Expensive art pencils, when I could barely draw. My old lighter to remind me not to smoke. Le Sac Noir, as I called it, would inspire  me to articulate and pursue my erratic gusher of elusive dreams.  I planned writing stories that people would find memorable. Words that would stretch and weave our common humanity. Sentences that people would paraphrase for their friends to make a point. The words were all inside me. It was clarity and focus I needed to bring order to this mass of whirling thoughts.

I was keying on my Mac in the corner coffee shop, when I noticed a woman looking, then not looking, then looking at me. She had too short bangs and too square glasses. Smiling she motioned with a nod of her head and said.
“Hey, what’s with the purse?”
Before I could shrug or mumble, she had moved next to me.
“My names Giselle. So, that is a Majestic, right? Can I see? I love purses from the “50s. They were the right size,not like now.”
I tried to tell her my name was Victor, but by then she had moved closer and slid the purse from my case. Each of her fingers had at least two rings and not one
matched another. Neither the vending machine “Hello Kitty” ring nor the antique garnet on her left ring finger seemed a wedding band. By then she had the clasp open.
“Nice Korean War Zippo! You know, you shouldn’t smoke. Faber-Castell!  OhI love those pencils! I wish I could draw, I mean really draw. I barely can. And look at this! Yours still has the comb! Hmm, I see your watch had been running slow. Well, I’ll just fix all that.”

I was in love. Then and there. The purse had found me my subject, inspiration, and – though I did not know it then – but my writing partner as well.
Week by week, and month by month we argued, discovered and loved, as we learned each other. Giselle’s drawings were awkward and childlike. Her paintings were a completely different matter. Years later a critic would describe her work as being “like fire-crackers on a roller coaster which sways at volcano’s edge”. And he was discussing her more mature work, not the wild brilliance of her earlier paintings. I wrote, and she painted what I wrote. She painted, and I wrote what she painted. I had imagined a novel. She had imagined a gallery.  We did both get what we wanted, but certainly not what we had imagined.  Almost two years after our “Majestic meeting” – as we came to call it – just in time for Giselle’s twenty-fifth birthday, we published.

Our first book was a graphic novel. There would be five more in the next  four years. Then the movies which spun from the universe we had created, which was so densely populated by the role-playing game community. Time wove its net of magic in our lives.  I remember the summer our kids started playing with the old purse. They used it for dress-up play at first, then it in tree-house tea-parties. At dinner one warm summer evening Giselle asked,
“So what do you have in Daddy’s old purse these days? A million ladybugs or just a big green frog”?
They just laughed, missing baby teeth made more obvious by mouths full of food.
“Mom! Its full of The Fey. Its full of The Faerie. Nothing a grown-up could ever possibly see.”
We both smiled, Giselle and I. The old purse still seemed to work just fine.

by Doug Mathewson

The best summer of my life was when I lived on a couch in the Divinity School lounge.
Long haired and bearded I appeared more spiritual than Ivy League, but maybe that’s  why my presence went unquestioned. It was easy to swipe a “dog-collar” and head out to any of the Irish bars. Bartenders called me “Faadaa” and gave me free beer, to pave  the way towards the great hereafter. Barmaids tried to fatten me up, and maybe take me home just to teach me a thing or two before my final vows.
Tired and happy I would make my way back to the sofa, dropping off my wrinkled and stained clerical collar at the front desk in  “Lost and Found”.

by – Doug Mathewson

Jodie always had a story or a trick, or maybe just a joke to
tell. He started doing this thing where he would turn his two front pants pockets inside out and yell “kiss the bunny”. The pockets being ears, his “bunny” thrust forward. We all laughed, the way he said it, the look on his face. It was funny. Funny at first, then funny when it was so wrong.
Between logging work, pipeline work, and any fool other kind of work we were scattered over three states that summer and fall. Winter remembered who we were and started bring us home. I was sitting in O’Roukes Diner at the west end of Main Street talking to these two girls, them being friends of my sister, and me wishing they were friends of mine. We were catching up on local disasters and gossip. I hadn’t noticed but Jodie’s old car was parked on the side. Working or not he’d live in that car. Only the longest of winters could get him back staying with that Aunt of his. He stumbles and mumbles his way in to wash up and wake up. One of the girls, Lynn it was, looking to make her
girlfriend laugh sings out with “Hey Jodie how’s that bunny of yours?”.
Another place or another time would have made the difference. With job sites closing down, crews breaking up for the season and moving on strangers, even strange strangers were common enough. I didn’t notice the two of them in the booth till I saw their ears go up. Way up. Now everybody’s people but not all people are human people you could say.
They were hard, weathered, scarred up bad old jack rabbits. Prison tattoos and real “on the edge of someplace bad attitudes”. They had pay in their pockets and were looking for fun or trouble, seems to be the same thing to them.
The first one grabbed Jodie’s shoulder and spun him around. The second reaching for something tucked down the back of his belt.
“You got something to say about bunnies, asshole?” the bigger one said.
They were big old boys with hard flat eyes, big yellow teeth, and real twitchy whiskers. Jodie was scared, we all were. As bad as things were, it all turned around when old Beatrix walked in.
One look from her, just one look and it was all “yes Ms. Potter” and “no Ms. Potter” and “ We weren’t really goin’ hurt him Ms. Potter” and “But what he said Ms. Potter!” Now she’s been keeping the peace between the tribes, as they say, around here for probably better than a hundred years, so there’s no back talk to her. Those two old rabbits were scuffing their big feet, looking down and shifting their weight. Jodie was doing no better.
Her voice carried clear when she said “I had my two bad mice, my foolish hedgehogs, my dear scamp Peter and his cousin Benjamin. I have endured all manor of nonsense concerning brocks and tods, but I shall not have this.”
She had Jodie apologize, and told the hares to hit the road and quit looking for trouble. It all shook out pretty quick considering. Beatrix Potter got her watercress sandwich and ginger beer to go (she paid the rabbits tab too, I noticed) and was out the door.
We were pretty quiet, but after a bit Lynn says to Jodie “maybe you do the one about the duck instead.” I had to laugh at that.

by – Doug Mathewson

Burberry signature pattern check scarves are despicable and as ugly as can be.
What I find to be amazing is their seemly universal appeal. Women visiting the city for the day sport the ones they got for Christmas three years ago when they were all the rage. Motivated middle-managers wear them midday in Midtown! Teens borrow Mom’s, not knowing that she looks like a dog (be she spaniel, hound, or waddling suburban lab). But as a group I expected more from younger gay men, of all people you guys should honestly know better.

by – Doug Mathewson