trees this morning

1975 DIARY

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my 1975 diary...

Buckethead

 

                “Do you read me? Over.”

                “Loud and clear. Over.”

                She put her finger back on the message 

button, pressed it down and said, “What are you 

doing? Over.” She lay back on the bed, staring at 

the white ceiling, listening to the static against her 

ear, until the plastic talked again.

                “Not much. Over.” From inside the 

red house next door, her friend’s voice was 

traveling through the magic of walkie-talkies.

                Beulah held the machine back to her 

mouth. “We should do something. I’m going to 

pretend my bed is a boat. Over.” She sat up and 

stared out the window facing the ocean. The gray 

waves rolled out for thousands of miles towards 

Japan, a long way for the mattress to row.

                “I can see you out my window,” the 

voice in the toy said. “Over.”

                There was her neighbor, framed in 

Beulah’s other window, waving to her from another 

place.

                Beulah chopped up and down on the 

bed, springing back and forth, letting the invisible 

waves get really bad before she picked up the 

walkie-talkie again. “The storm’s hitting,” she 

warned. “Over.”

                A loud pirate voice crunched out of 

the little speaker, “What are you doing?” It hollered, 

“Get off this channel!”

                “Why should I?”  Beulah snapped and 

crouched, waiting for the reply.

                It didn’t take long. “Listen, Buckethead. 

Shut up!”

                “You shut up!” Beulah’s friend 

challenged, “Buckethead!”

                Beulah bounced and joined in, “You 

stupid Buckethead!”

                His answer was garbled with curses. 

From somewhere far out at sea he swore through 

their children yells. They were both laughing, 

cursing back at him, unleashing their vocabularies 

and inventing new words to get him.

                Beulah stared at the sea.

                Then the music began to play, spinning 

out of her walkie-talkie.

                Her feet started tingling, Beulah felt 

the sound filling her up inside like poured in water. 

The window facing the Pacific flew open and the 

drapes blew out like leaves disappearing fast 

across the ocean. She clawed at her walkie-talkie 

but couldn’t turn it off. The music got louder and 

louder, even with it jammed under the pillow. 

Screaming didn’t stop it either. The sound 

danced inside of her, freezing, rattling her bones, 

crawling tremors.

                Just like balloons, her feet rose off 

the covers, lifting her legs up. The blankets were 

dragging loose. She pinched the edge of the 

mattress, doing a headstand, struggling to hold 

onto the headboard. Her body tied itself in knots 

around the metal spokes, fighting the musical 

gravity.

                Looking over her shoulder, Beulah 

could see the frothing ocean, waves like hands 

pulling a line to her. And through all the loud, 

she could hear something else.

                With terrible kicking and shouting, 

Beulah’s friend levitated out of the red house, 

over the lawn, the picket fence and steep 

blackberried cliff and sailed out of sight.

                A mouth closing, the window shut 

slowly and all the hungry pull gave way to 

quietness as the music stopped, returning 

the room to stillness.

                Beulah fell back onto the softness, 

shot a hand under the pillow and smashed the 

walkie-talkie into pieces all over the wooden 

floor.

 

 

Annotated Buckethead:

This story was written in 1993

and appeared in my magazine

PIE IN THE SKY, #21.

It was inspired by a real life

episode in Maine when 

my cousin and I tuned into 

a lobster boat with our walkie-talkies.

For the past year I've been compiling 

a book of short stories, already 250 pages,

hopefully a publisher will soon appear.

 

(My friend Aaron Gunderson 

drew the scary title page tough, 

sad to say I made the cowboy cover,

1993 was a rough year.)

walking up a ladder

 

At the library today, I saw 
a guy walking a ladder up 
the stairs. Later (after drawing 
this) when I opened the door 
to leave, I ran the door into 
his ladder! He parked it 
right behind the door to 
change a lightbulb. It seemed
like a Laurel & Hardy routine.

The Poetry Phenomenon

 

It began with an invitation from JGenius on Monday, 

May 14 to join him at the big poetry festival happening 

in the county south of here. “Let's scheme of a way to 

do that poetry reading and soak up some poetic beauty 

next weekend.” And later on, he repeated:

“Can you do the Saturday reading? We'd each read 2 

or 3 poems. 10:45-12:00 in a brilliant old giant haunted 

mansion. I even have 2 poems, maybe a 3rd. Then 

maybe some time to frolic La Conner or see a poet? 

What say you?”

On Friday, when I said I would, he returned:

“Let's plan tomorrow, eh?  Are you bringing the 

family or flying solo? And what time would you 

like to meet? The open mic thing is at 10:45 so we 

should get there no later than 10:30 -- but I'm up 

for meeting at any time you feel ready -- we could 

meet for biscuits and gravy at the diner in MV at 9. 

What are you thinking, logistician?”

So I agreed:

“Yeah the diner at 9! I’ll bring my ‘Northern Exposure’ 

script and we can practice.”

JGenius:

“Excellent. I'll start practicing my Maurice 

Minnifield-isms. That guy was pitch-perfect. 

Of course, I had him in class…If the class were 

marooned on an island, he'd be the first to secretly 

bring up the topic of cannibalism with me.”

Me:

“Can you give me the directions to that diner 

again? Exits and whatnot coming south on I-5. 

I think I remember but I could also end up like 

Amelia Earhart.”

 

JGenius:

“Right-o. Take the Kincaid Street exit, and 

turn right at the end of the off ramp. Go 

straight for three blocks (I think there are 

two sets of traffic lights) and take a right on 

1st street (it's kind of screwy, because if you 

go right, it's 1st, but if you go left it's Cleveland). 

Then you just stay on first street a few blocks 

until you see the good old Skagit Valley Co-op 

on your right -- the Mount Vernon Cafe 

(the diner) is across the street from the Co-op 

-- so it will be on your left. You can park in 

the Co-op parking lot, but there should be 

spaces around. Call in case you get Amelia'ed. 

I will be there in my derby and short pants 

at 8:57, grousing about like an expatriate.”

That morning, I left Bellingham at 8:30, 

first stopping to get gas. I couldn’t find 

anything good on the radio, even on A.M. 

where I hoped to find a 1950s oldies station. 

Finally I tuned to Spanish music just as I 

pulled off the highway. Driving down 1^st 

Street, I happened upon JGenius daydreaming 

along the sidewalk. I rolled down the window 

and bellowed, “Hey Dummy!” startling him 

out of his thoughts. Once I parked and met up 

with him, he told me he was thinking of a 

poem. We went into the diner, found a booth 

and caught up for it’s actually rare that I sit 

with friends and palaver. When it was time to 

move on to the poetry town, we took his 

truck, through the farms. 

Up on the hill, the ancient mansion loomed 

like a pair of wooden crooked praying hands 

gnarled together. We parked around the 

corner. There were clucks of people fluttering 

about on the tipped sidewalks. The houses 

all have gardens that lean out over. Up the 

 creaking stairs, we entered the mansion. 

A waxwork woman at the desk in the 

doorway pointed our way to the reading 

room. But before it started, JGenius took 

me upstairs to look for the ghost. We 

found a room with a spinning wheel and 

clouds painted on the ceiling. Outside, 

below, the town bent in the windows. 

JGenius tried to trick me by starting a 

rocking chair and pointing out the ghost. 

There was a door with a Staff Only sign 

on it.  A peek inside revealed boxes, 

shadows and sun motes and a mannequin 

draped in a sheet. It was 10:45, so we 

went back downstairs on those splintery 

steps and found our chairs. 

JGenius appraised the room and immediately 

said, “Everyone who’s here is going to read.” 

It was true. There was no audience, only 

fretting. 

I read ‘The Shepherd from Iran’ ‘Fox Subway’ 

and ‘Bellingham Coal Train.’ I have to say, 

I’m not much a fan of poetry readings. 

The 1891 room creaked with heavy time. 

I watched the tapestry rug with its dramatic 

rendering of a leopard ripping into a deer. 

JGenius read a ray of sunshine, a truck ride 

with his son and The Beatles on the radio.  

Because it was so uncomfortable in that 

old house, it reminded me of the castles 

I visited long ago, where you could feel 

the ghosts watching you. It wasn’t hard 

to imagine a muse for every person, 

wandering the festival streets with them, 

some joyfully and skipping or floating, 

others dragging along this mortal plane 

like the ones in this room, harbingers of 

death. At the end, we both stared at each 

other after the podium crashed over and 

books flew. There really was a ghost!  

Once it was over, I needed the doorway 

outside. The street was very quiet. 

We were both wiped out. Across the 

channel I could see three shelters shaped 

like cedar hats on the Swinomish 

reservation shore. We needed to be 

near the water. “Is there any way of 

getting over there?” I asked. I followed 

JGenius, stumbling the town, half thinking 

we’d run into Tom Robbins in his Spam 

tshirt. He wasn’t around. You can’t even 

get to the water in this place, the dock 

has a No Trespassing sign. In not too long, 

we found the little white pickup truck, 

got in and crossed the red rainbow bridge 

to the other side. Past the cemetery with 

fresh cared for flowered graves, we 

parked in the asphalt lot. We went under 

the wide rim hat of the closest shelter 

and there were some plastic chairs. 

Maybe, we thought, we could borrow 

a couple and set them out on the sand? 

But all the chairs had been broken. 

So we walked to the beach and found 

a log to sit on. A crow watched us, 

made a sound then was gone. 

What is it about poetry readings? 

We couldn’t figure it out. (Still thinking 

about it later, here’s my idea: poems are 

a sort of spell, and when you use poetry 

for pain, like those flowers of Baudelaire, 

that’s what appears.) I wished I had read 

my short story ‘Bucket Head’ instead. 

I even brought it along just in case. 

Oh well. After a while, sitting on the log 

watching the riverlike flow, we felt better, 

it was time to go. Leaving Swinomish, 

a yellow dog tied by a rope, Jughead’s 

Fire Works, old trucks and boats buried 

in vines, a totem pole on top the hill. 

It was fun to drive around the farmland 

outside of town. The tulips have dropped 

their petals, there’s a purple crop of iris 

still, but I like the big farm trees, the 

poplars and those wide rhododendrons. 

JGenius pulled into a narrow road that 

took us to a field he wants to buy. 

It’s all filled in with tall green weeds. 

He wants to sell his house and move 

here and I can’t blame him. 

There’s Mt. Baker and all the hills 

of Skagit Valley. We crawled over the 

barbed wire fence and waded through 

the grass. There’s even a pond. It’s got 

a silver metal bridge connected to a 

rocky island. Taking steps out on it, 

a big frog hopped off into the thick 

water. JGenius wants to plant a stand 

of douglas fir and cedar, have his house 

facing south for the sunlight. It’s a 

good dream, a big open field and you 

can just picture the vast array of stars 

turning on at night. 

While he drove me back to Mt. Vernon 

where my car was waiting, he told me 

a joke about a man who ate a lot of 

dogfood. I sort of did a terrible thing 

and ruined the punchline. Actually, 

his punchline was ruder than what I 

predicted. We got out and strolled over 

to the bookstore. There was nobody else 

in the place, we were all alone. 

Somehow we were drawn, ending up 

at the back wall, looking at the poetry 

shelf. We both agreed those old Laurel 

pocket editions are great, but honestly 

by now I’m a bit poetry’ed out. 

 

today, I received this card with 

the frog that jumped into that pond

 

Thrown Out Down Beat

 

I found these thrown out 

in the recycle bin today.

each moment all

Larry Smith asked me to read the manuscript 

for his new book to be published by March 

Street Press next month. Here's what I said
for the back cover: 

“There’s a Buddha in Larry Smith’s Ohio garden. 

Peaceful, watchful and calm. Glide into these 

beautiful new poems like a bee, each one a petal 

of a bigger flower.”