Well, we’ve had our dress rehersal for a night of fear and loathing. Tomorrow, we rest — Day of the Dead — and Tuesday’s the real deal. Ready? Got your sample ballot all filled out? Me neither. But tell you what, if you’re still undecided on the presidential race, just forget it. It’s alright. Just sit this one out. Maybe in four years, we can field a candidate with three elbows or something, some quality you can relate to.

If you’re still undecided, you’re probably also one of those folks who can’t speed up or slow down to merge into traffic. Just stare straight head, check your teeth for spinach in the rear view mirror, and don’t sweat it. We’ll make room.

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love the steady darkening toward Christmas. The world slows down and thinks about itself more deeply. And with the early darkness, we can see farther into lighted interiors as the night comes on. I’m sitting now in a coffee house in my little town. It’s getting dark, and the small shop across the street is a jack-o-lantern. But I don’t like Halloween. The little kids are cute in their costumes, but then they’re always cute. Beyond that, the holiday is shrill and vulgar, grotesque.

I like Dia de los Muertos. The Mexican Day of the Dead has a context. It’s not superfluous or rude. In its rhythm and mysticism, there is meaning, rooted not in fear but in loving memory. I’m glad it’s not an American thing because we ruin everything, strip and drain it of meaning and power, until it’s politically correct and fits the moral relativism and the most spiritually convenient common denominator of the Great Unwashed.

If Christmas is for presents and Easter is for candy, when do we celebrate the birth and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ? Have we forgotten Him? And the Eve of All Saints as well? We have. What will be the cost of that? The wasteland of our collective spirit will bring our barren culture crashing down around our ears.

Speaking of fall, here’s a poem I wrote about it a while back. I set out to do a poem for a co-worker who was leaving for greener ground. I wound up thinking of another woman entirely. I probably should have kept the poem to myself at that point. Emotional clouds. Story of my life.

Trouble with the Fall

I always write about autumn,

how the air changes becoming thinner,

how the crows gather in the thinning

trees, calling to something they must

see beyond life. Even blood is weaker,

opaque, but soup cures this.

I loved a woman once, and for many

years, but then one clear October night

we talked on a veranda overlooking

eucalyptus and the crows were quiet,

the moon was up and when I turned

to find her she was gone.

I blame the moon for making things

obvious, the crows for not defending me.

I love the season with leaves underfoot,

the first puddles and Dia de los Muertos

and see – the trouble with the fall

is just that someone always leaves.

Here’s another one from the hallowed vaults of Kyle’s Strange But True. Hold on to your wigs and keys. Before you read on, you need to click here for theme music appropriate to this post. (Wav file, opens best with Windows Media Player.)

I came home this evening, unlocked the door, set the doggie on the floor, turned on the kitchen light. I looked at the telephone on the counter, intending to check the voice mail. I noticed the phone was turned around backwards, and the cord was goofed up. Strange. Someone has been in here, thinks I. I thought maybe my folks – they have a key. Then I looked down and saw a Sheriff’s Department business card.

click to embiggen

There it was, sitting on the counter. I picked it up and held it. (Yes, I scrubbed his name; the guy maybe doesn’t need his name on the Net.) And it took a while for it to register in my mind — the cops have been in my place! I moved through the condo in half a good panic, checking my stuff: TV there, computer there, Papa’s shotgun, (It’s not real, and that’s another blog) furniture, piano … Arrgh. I picked up the phone and started to call the number on the card — what the hell!? — then noticed there was writing on the back.

click to embiggen

Well, what do you think about that? I did leave the front window open. I’m glad for that — they didn’t have to kick in the door. And they don’t seem to have busted anything. I’ll look more carefully in daylight. Anyway, I called them after I calmed down. It took a few minutes to figure it out. First, they suggested a passing airplace may have triggered a call from my cordless phone. But it turns out they got a real 911 call from a little kid who kept hanging up, and … wait for it … went to the wrong address.

Oh well, the way I look at it, it’s nice to know that if I was choking on a presidential pretzel or something, someone would come and find me before I started to pee-eww up the joint — assuming I was choking to death in my neighbor’s house, two doors down. My only regret is that I don’t work at the Sheriff’s Dept., so I won’t have the opportunity to give Dep. ______ a ration of s–t about this.

The Poets Against the War Web site now has 16872 poems against the war. One of them is mine. The other 16871 are not. Enjoy.

I started a new blog page for political and anti-war posts. It’s called Burning Daylight, and there’s a link on the right, under the photo. I really want Metaphor to concentrate on my writing and happier topics. Of course, in order for that to happen, I have to quit surfing the net and playing with my spam filtering software, and do some writing.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

A friend of mine has a problem. She and her husband bought some land and are building a house. It’s not on City water, and it turns out the well water isn’t potable. Somehow this didn’t show up in earlier tests. Their only option — besides losing their home – is to spend $38,000 to dig a deeper well. It got me thinking, it just never ends, does it? In the words of Roseann Roseanna Dana, “It’s always somethin.”

It seems like we spend our lives trying to become grownups with all the problems solved — at least the ones caused by dependence on other people who may not be competent. I’ve been working on it for years.

I thought I had it solved by buying a home — no more hassles with landlords, fear of getting kicked out or the rent being raised. I’m on my own, free and over 21. Nobody can give me shit; I own this place. Then the other day, I got a Rules Violation Slip from the principal’s office. I mean the condo homeowner’s association. There’s an oil spot (not quite the Exxon Valdez) in my garage, and they wanted me to appear in a hearing tonight.

Screw that noise. I’m not appearing for anything. I called them up — the management company. Said hey, I’ll clean it up. All you had to do was friggin’ ask nicely. No, they say, we’ve got 280 units here, we don’t have the time or inclination to be nice. This is how we communicate with each other; this is how we do it.

I don’t think I’m inclined to be nice to people who don’t want to be civilized and polite. If we can’t get along together, we can get along separately. Maybe I should sell out, buy a piece of land in the country, build my own damn house where I … won’t have to … um … answer …. ah, nuts.

I wave my hand over a pot of vegetable

soup to displace the steam

and the simmering house falls asleep.

All the gentle ghosts join hands

in the dimlit living room

listening to the furniture pray.

Burning the Midnight Oil, having spent the day Burning Daylight. It’s hard to face the journal, or the blog, to say what I’ve learned. I saw a dead dog – a beagle – on the freeway, but you don’t want to read about that. I called the authorities. All I could do. I console myself with the thought that she carried memories of love across the bridge.

The first endorsement in its 80-year history.

The magazine says the Bush administration’s record “has been one of failure, arrogance, and – strikingly for a team that prided itself on crisp professionalism – incompetence” and that Kerry “has demonstrated steadiness and sturdiness of character” throughout his career.

Are we keeping you awake?