Edinburgh arrival

12/16
Hello there, do not think it will be easy to get in.
There’s a key on the other side,
Blocking your way.
It grows dark and you are confused.
Next door, the cemetery is silent and wet.
The shops are closed early.
At city center, where the bustle grows
Like a fungus, every language
Curls up the old stone walls.
But your pack is heavy,
2 days heavy with no sleep.
No change, the bus driver says smiling.
———————————-
Aberfeldy hitch

First hold a sign for Perth
A701 south to Edinburgh bypass (45 minute walk)
A720 west to fog at roundabout or straight on to the M8
M8 west to m9
M9 north to m90
M90 to A9 @ Perth
A9 to A827 @ Logierait
A827 to Aberfeldy
——————————————-

When I make it outside again
John Leslie wasn’t serving food
So I head to the old bell inn
All red leather and short wood tables.
Order a 15yr Scapa and fish n chips.
17 pounds. A bundled woman walks in
With a terrier, the two men beside me
Are incoherently drunk and clasping
Each other’s hands very close
To their red faces. It is 6pm.

Later I learn, only one
Was drunk. Tom. 68.
He says two or three words before throwing
The rest away with his hands. He’s 68.
Was in the hazy, now alone. 68. He says
He had 3 sisters, tears fill with eyes behind smudged glasses
How did his fingers get so big, too big to touch eyes.
He pounds his fist. I think he’ll hit me.
I’m sure he’d rather that than cry. After,
I think of where he’ll go. He was wearing
A wedding ring. Still. 68. But it
Was 6pm and he’s too sad for
Me to imagine him home
Anywhere but the old bell inn.
———————————————————
“And it seems like I’ll miss autumn in Edinburgh
That’s the one I should have spent with you—
With the rain lashing down, a fog on the meadows
As the festival lights, as the festival lights go dim”
——————————————————-
At the royal oak
We were joking
About her being a prostitute
Forward limbs in the holiday lights
Two foreigners on a piano bench
Bad teeth. Something about how the fog rises
Outside and the uncollard husky inside
Scratching at the door—
A splotchy man in a turtleneck
Hugging his guitar to his chin
Singing “city of immigrants”
And the whisper of sickness at my
Neck keeping me quiet and
The night could be forgotten one way
Or another but probably
This one.

She was the only sloppy nicotine
Kiss I didn’t want but sometimes
You’ve got a folk tune in there
That doesn’t quite
Fit.

——————
“What are you writing?” She asks —“I’m on
An adventure, look at me
Having feelings and being a pretty lad” then
She hit me in the mouth.
—————————————

Make a big deal about the purpose
Of the trip to a lot of women
A lot of sad women there
And in this room listening to
The pudgey man with the black guitar.
But first thing I do is always first,
Didn’t choose anything, just wanted
Is all. I was quiet enough for her
To project what she desired
And when I did choose 1 book of Scottish poetry
To bring, spent an hour sweating
With my pack in a crowded bookstore—
The poet I chose is from Iran
He never lived in this land
And neither shall I.
Hope is not circumstantial
But constant, not a rain,
But a well
Of purpose.
Here I am sick in the drizzle
Reading the poetry of a young alcoholic
Trying to let down so I can rise
Before dawn.
With the black travel

Day 1 Scotland— in the air

Sitting in Stewart airport 2 hours outside of NYC, I wonder what the fuck I’m doing. I’ve taken two weeks off of work to go to a place I do not know where I know no one and it is cold and I have no plan. I’ve got 20 minutes until my plane boards for another continent.

I got here on 2 buses and a shared cab with 3 people I met on the streets of New York sprinting as we were told there were no more seats on the last bus to the airport. I squeezed my phone with its eboarding pass in sweaty palms. So much for planning.

10 minutes before boarding and I break down and text her, my love, though we agreed we would not speak until February. I love her, she is in all beauty I see. And someday we will know nothing together again.

I am thinking about dying a lot these days. After the synagogue shooting,  butive also always been ready to be attacked. Since I can remember I daydreamed of passers by in the street suddenly turning on me. I’ve thought about what I would do and felt that adrenaline. How’s that for internalized generational trauma?!

I’m thinking about dying in the air, in a car, on a cliff. My ability to decide anything is more important than fear is key to my concept of self and strength. I refuse to be directed by fear alone.

What does this trip mean? 2 weeks in Scotland alone. Is it an escape? A journey closer to the heart? A seeking of distraction? I could go across the world and watch Netflix, could go and sleep with a bunch of women, could go live out of hotels or B&bs or hostels. It is all free and somewhat arbitrary.

I want to see myself, not look away— be nervous, be unsure, figure it out, listen to what my soul wants. I will not do things to not feel bad.

I wrote a few poems that first 36 hour day, here they are—

I’ve got a knack for missing buses,
Early dark nights of uncharted
Destinations, squinting to match.
I’m not the only one— when it’s cold
Our eyes close more than open, mouths
More open than ever to let in light we say,
Arms and legs open such that
They are closed to what we need at times.

What I mean is this:
Nobody has to be on this
180 seat airplane about to cross
The Atlantic at hundred of mph, we each
Made our way here on different flickering
Paths, but here is the same air recycled
Through or lungs, in all of us a glimmering,
That something about the world will be different
When we reach land again.

I’m in love with a kind of love that
Sticks and burns like ice
Spreading— I want a woman
With legs like the sun
And a mind like the churning moon
And lips like fall
And I love her human human eyes.

About to cross a world
Into wild abundance (I hope),
The throaty cry of winter in the highlands
Calling me. But it is her forehead
Against mine I feel, her words
In my hair.

Each morning as I sit in silence
Sometimes naked dripping from the shower
But usually rushed and barely dipped in day,
I release all I do not need,
All that is not me,
All that sorry,
All that pushes and pulls,
All I cannot breathe.

It’s shocking how often
When my breath and heart slow
When the whir of words quiets
Tothe dumb pulse of me—
How often I am left unalone,
With a thousand others who’ve touched
And been touched
We expand and flow with each other.
I feel it for a moment
As we begin to fly.

___________________

Goodnight lights over the Atlantic My grandmothers cousin crashed his plane Into your sharp deep when he was only a boy They found the machine 60 years later And had a ceremony, I’m not sure It was called a burial One Monday night at dinner she Pulls out the letter he wrote her— Young men will always be the same I think—all excitement and lithe bravado At the first taste of the mystery. My seat mate pulls out a half drunk bottle of Tito’s on the plane. We muffle our conversation and eat smuggled chocolates together As the lights grow fewer and The reality that I am on this journey alone Sets in. Tomorrow I will wake amidst the green- Shake of Ireland, and then The gravel led hills of Scotland And no women nor booze nor fight nor story Shall change the moment to moment The ebb and throb. There are practices for the heart But then there is the willingness To sit still To lower the heart down Into the grey chill of real anxiety For a few moments and then draw it out. To feel it, know it by choice, To be in readiness Not fooled by any quick boozy warmth or fantasy. Find a pride in Be ready for this to be it.