Mind Gardens: 2007

The Longest Dream

This is the longest dream I can recall.
It’s the main feature. The shorter ones inside
this one are the extra features – you know, like
they had in theaters back in the old days.

I wonder if I’m in your dream or you in mine?
Or? We know less than a little about these things,
or next to nothing, or to be more scrupulous:
nothing—though we don’t come clean too often.

Did my children dream of me first or vice versa?
We learn so much from each other, you see …
that is, when we pay attention, which isn’t something
we spend enough time doing ... in the big dream, anyway.

I am writing about this dream while I am in it.
It’s that kind of dream. Dreams imply an awake state,
or a higher thought-full place. That’s where things get
sticky … or tricky, depending on how you look at it.
Copyright 2007 Robert D. McKinley
All rights reserved

Ghosts

Where have they gone?

Ghost people.

Some who said hello

and kissed me

and said “I love you.”

– and said goodbye

... or did I, or did we?

and some died or perhaps

were never really here.

Yet, they seemed as real

as you, my dear,

before the losses and

the moribund sense

of how they felt

and smelled and,

oh God yes,

how they loved,

... made love.

Before the insidious

dissipation of all that was

vital and extraordinary

and ... adored,

before our hearts

began to die.

Will you become

a ghost, my dear?

A Double Ex-Husband

A monologue
By Robert Dixon McKinley

This was written to be performed by any actor who chose it for a showcase performance at a "blackbox" theater in New York City.

The thing is: I’ve been married twice. “So what?” you ask. Okay, here’s the problem and it’s a biggy: You see, if they have the slightest interest in you, women want to know this statistic real quick after they meet you. They want to know so they ask. They don’t hesitate for a cosmic nanosecond. If they’re single and looking for a husband and you look and sound like you might meet their criteria—you know, after you have met their "looks" test and they have decided you've done a fairly good job of dressing yourself and that you could fit into their social group and all that—they home right in on you. They start right at the top of their Marriage Candidate Questionnaire. Understand? They’re shopping for a husband and they don’t want to waste their time on some lump who doesn’t know the difference between “Yes, that dress makes you look fat.” and “Wow, you look great!” Let’s be clear here: When a woman asks, “Honey, does this dress make me look fat?” in the history of the world there can be found no fool-proof answer to that question, and don’t kid yourself; at that moment in time you are the fool. OK? Face it; your options are severely limited. But the second answer is a helluva lot better than the first—no matter what you’re thinking. Trust me on this.

But all that comes later. First, they put you on the stand and cross-examine you. “Are you married?” They just ask it and you are expected to answer with a yes or no and if you say no you’re expected to answer the next question automatically without it actually being asked. (pause) You know what that question is? (without waiting for an answer) It is: “Have you ever been married?” (pause)

This is serious business for them. They’re not screwing around and if you want the conversation to continue with anything more than boilerplate small talk, anything even slightly above banal, you’d better be real careful at this point. (pause) Okay, so the question is “Have you ever been married?” My friends, it gets real sticky here because you’re liking what you see and you want to get to know her better, but you’re not exactly wife hunting yet because you’re gun shy and you’re feeling as vulnerable as a deer in the headlights of an eighteen wheeler barreling down on it at seventy miles an hour. You probably look like it too. But you already struck out twice and you don’t know if you can trust your judgment anymore and that is the scariest thing of all.

Marriage? It hasn’t worked out for you. The first time neither one of you was very good at it, and the second time you got fooled. You really got fooled. She put on a good show for awhile—too long, it ate up a lot of years—but in the end she wasn’t who she said she was; not even close. While you grew up and learned what really matters in this strange world, she didn’t. She didn’t have a clue. You worked your ass off and tried your damnedest to be a good husband and a good father to your kids but she didn’t appreciate the value of all that.

So there you are; you’ve learned a lot and you’re a pretty solid guy where it counts, but you’re lonely and you’re thinking maybe, just maybe it’s time to get back in the game, so now you’re sitting there with this very attractive woman who you’re beginning to like and who just asked you, “Are you married?” And you know what the drill is and you’re beginning to squirm and twist inside because you know that you will have to tell her you’re a two-time loser and you’re thinking “Okay, just get up and leave before she formally banishes you to wherever double-ex-husbands get sent. Go back into your shell and forget this whole crazy idea that an attractive solid woman would see that you have real value now, that you’re a better man than you have ever been and that she would actually see that and would dismiss your dismal record as nothing of consequence. Just forget it and move on, now.” (pause)

But you don’t. You just sit there like a condemned criminal strapped into an electric chair waiting for her to hit the switch exactly one heartbeat after you utter your final last words, which of course are, “I’ve been married twice.” (long pause) Then you say it; you just say it and you hear the words echo a hundred times all around the room. "I've been married twice." "I've been married twice." "I've been married twice." "I've been married ..." and then there is silence and then ... and then (long pause) she said, “Oh, I’m sorry, that must have been so hard for you.” And I said, “You know, it really was. But I learned a lot in my second marriage and that’s a good thing.” And she said, “I know what you mean.” And I said, “Really? You do?” And … well … it was good, real good. Still is. (pause) (looks at audience with genuinely warm, happy smile while giving a “Hey, you never know shrug" and says …) Hey, you never know.

(The End)

Copyright 2007 Robert D. McKinley
All rights reserved

Eternally Unforgivable

Some wounds hate to be healed.

Some fester like obstinate,

petulant children standing firm

on some principle, reasonable or not.

Some worsen in time and become

permanent sores on a crippled

psyche—the victim of acts of aggression

that were so abusive, so socially odious

(their malicious nature so pure)

that they are eternally unforgivable.

How different lights the night

How different lights the night with stars

when we together call it ours.

It all seems to dance and sparkle more

than, I am sure, it ever did before!

Hmm ...

At first I thought she must be kidding.

Her tongue is firmly planted in her cheek!

This otherwise (apparently) self-sufficient woman,

wife to one, mother of many, mistress of repartee

and fearless actress, cannot possibly write such airy

words of despair, sincerely! But then, there it was,

another message of despondency and jealousy, and,

yes, it’s true, YET ANOTHER! Well, what is a man

of heartfelt sensitivity to do but write a simple

(though inadequate) ode to this dear broken woman.

And so this man of heartfelt sensitivity wrote …

An Ode To This Dear Broken Woman

How sad! This poor life-weary soul lives not,

lest she lives with him in her life! How delicate and

tenuous is the thread of life that binds her to his

alleged strength and meaning, to all things good and

whole in which she seeks comfort in her vacant days

and sees her through one more dark night. Despair, I ask

now that you neglect defense against this ardent wish

that somehow, some way, this dear soul will get a life!

And hmm ... again for good measure.

Yes, my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek.

Fields Of Hope

They advance across flowered fields of hope,
crushing the lovely, quivering, petals of life.
Compelled by their ancestral holy-warrior blood,
as ancient as the devil’s purpose, they follow
their grotesquely evil marching orders – their
narrow intention to make us theirs – or should that fail,
to murder us. It is their holy song of death.

But do not quake in their presence nor be enticed by
their glory words. For inside their tortured vision of hate
lay the seeds of their own destruction. Without sentient,
caring hearts, they cannot know us or measure our strength.
Feel strong in their presence for they advance toward
their inevitable defeat as they march toward the
seductive, open arms of death. For greater dreams than theirs
shall meet and defeat them on these lovely, innocent fields of hope
and they shall be turned away once more by greater warriors,
our courageous defenders of all free people, everywhere.

Copyright 2007 Robert McKinley
All rights reserved