Journal – Page 4

Once I Was

May 30, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

I remembered this morning that there had been a life between us, holding us tightly as if a private gravity, personal and rollin’ steady, like ” a circle ’round the sun.”

Today breaks over the ridge, shadowing the valley road. Each morning is a gift these dwindling days, a 4/4 rhythm in the dancehall of runaway time. “Dance me outside.” a favorite local writer once said. Waltz me one more time under night bright western skies is what I say.

Listen close, hear the far off sounds of saxophones playin’ soft, of dinner dishes settlin’ in the sink, of sweet music in the kitchen. There are shadows dancin’, lighting up the wall.

Tarmac Meditations-It Ain’t Heaven…It’s Illinois.

May 29, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

I was riding in an ATV on my way to Memorial Stadium in Champaign-Urbana to get to the finish line of a 10K race event. In order to get there before the first finishers we scooted down a back road. I shot this from the back of the ATV, high shutter speed and ISO and a great deal of good luck. The sky wasn’t that precise blue and the shadows weren’t quite that long, but it felt like the end of day. The sunlight on the silo spoke of night coming and something special in the air. So that is how I processed it.

Writer’s Whine

May 28, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

I don’t want to write about brave Ulysses or Persephone unveiled or running through the town or any other such heroic fuckin’ thing.

I am sittin’ in my room, waitin’ for my ship to come in; I’m thinkin’ that I just want to get where I am going.

It’s not a lot to ask. Or is it?

Estimated Time of Departure

May 27, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

Shady dealin’, midnight trippin’ is my way of life. The dishwater dawn is my time of day. The next toke is my only friend. Total obedience is the price of admission. A faith born in terror, it ends in the relentless cold.

Tomorrow never comes. Innocence dies by inches as if to the raggedy beat of a breaking heart. Dreams die hard here. The dead are the lucky ones. Life is long but death is for fuckin’ ever.

So bring on the seizures and the shakes, the chest pounding jammers and the flat-out sick fear of shadows, windows, sunlight and the dark. It ain’t a choice to hit the pipe when I can’t stand up, when my heart is outside my body, when I’m pukin’ blood, even then, because I know the each and every toke takes me right…there.

Sometimes, like tonight, my best friend’s best friend walks through the door and tells me that I am hittin’ it too hard.

“No cuff, no front tonight, only cash. Keeps you honest.” he says. “Savin’ your life,” he says. Grinnin’.

I wonder if he realizes or cares that he is part the chain; that his profit pays for the giveaways in the schoolyards.

It is time to leave Hell well enough alone.

My time of leavin’ is at hand.

Passing Through

May 22, 2012 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

Passed through Wendover, Utah on my way to the Salt Flats to shoot a 100 mile race. Not much of anything on this side of town to speak of except for some broken down warehouses, what appeared to be a dock loading area and some shanty like structures that might have been houses and the town jail. Then I noticed the daycare center. What you can’t see is the strip of glitz casinos on the other side of the border in Nevada. Over here the wage earners from sin make a life. Bleak but apparently not without soul.