Branski
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1. The Death of Nathan Rueben (Vulnerability)
1. The Death of Nathan Rueben (Vulnerability) They moved into the state of Michigan in pairs, in groups of three or larger or significantly larger (less than 5% total of their estimated number arriving by themselves) from the earliest hours of the day of the event, arriving in personal transportation as varied as 2021 Forde Cavaliers and Polaris Sonatas to 1999 Harkomhans and similarly antiquated vehicles and more than a few (less than a thousand) bicycles, motorcycles and choppers traversing the border with busses and with trains from places as far-removed as Utah and Arizona and as local as Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, arriving with such staggering consistency as to suggest Rueben's funeral not only contained a psychological weight for each of them in their hearts, in their souls, but that every man, woman and child to the last were implanted with some indominable, irresistible magnet that demanded without exception for their presence and regardless of political or philosophical ...
hey, rube (or: no one listens to me) (or: I'll make it up to you)
ReplyDelete~
*according to neurologists, the parts of the brain
associated with dopamine distribution, associated
with the reward-circuits that draft, compose
the intention & promise of the individual
have the tendency to relent, in emotional/
cognitive respects, after one's 25th birthday
or so.*
intriguingly enough, I turned 26 in 2009,
when Barack Obama came forth to hold
the tired, racist hand of America in the
name of veteran civil rights activists
and a young generation high on hope
and giddy with purpose & expectation.
the Bush/Cheney years were swiftly
disposed to the used-to-be overnight
and the initial two or three New Year's
Eve celebrations enjoyed the sotic and
excited glow of crowded parties
full of the New Elite, with their own
hubris and team pride soaring towards
the moon and the clouds that'd recently
gaped with helpless horror at the bloody
western conquest of the previous administration.
I remember being acutely depressed during those years.
for reasons unrelated to politics (or at
least national politics) my geeky, eccentric
personality invited--then pushed--me towards
a tenebrous, isolated existence in my aunt's
and father's respective trailers in Dover Plains
and away from the last people I knew
in my teens & early-twenties.
the fun hadn't exactly died, to be fair.
but it was certainly wounded. suggesting
no serious hope of recovery as a girl
I'd had strong feelings for--someone
who's most recently made over a decade
of tacky, handheld porn for the dripping
eyes of the internet--and my then-friend
Casey spoke in the effortless conspiracy
of circumlocution in my presence, (at
Casey's apartment) either mending or
aimlessly reweighing their years as a couple
while I did my worthless best
to slip into the background
of the present and unregarded.
sorrow and agony were followed
by contempt and self-exile
and I lived out the first Obama term
mostly like that until I found some good
work in near-by Millerton and Lakeville,
Connecticut.
by that point, the wet, saturated anxiety
of my youth had been tidied away
like so much blood and dirt and I
rediscovered my creative little soul
in a public wastebin, imperfect
but begging to be test and examined
for new gyri & sulic hidden, obscured
in the trauma of expired friends.
*neurologists also claim that,
in seemingly direct opposition
to a midlife crisis, the psyche
might take purchase of
midlife rejuvenation.*
I'll be 42 this May.
****