Honest Chaos: Recent Episodes
Mark Bonica
A poetry, fiction, and spoken word podcast. Completely irregular. Web site: https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/
It is only a little after dinner, but a womb-like darkness has laid down across the highway.This being the winter solstice,the sky is an endless blanket of blacknessas if the highway had slid down into the guts of the earthinstead of running the patch of Maine between Portland and Kittery.The only lights are cigarette red from the cars in front of meand dashing white from the cars northbound.We swim down the arteries in our compartments, containerized and separated.It has been years,but Bono still sings through the speakersabout how he still hasn’t found what he is looking for.None of us have, Bono,I say out loud to no onebecause I am alone on this journey.Not one of us.The darkness feels like it should be milkshake thick,perhaps even obsidian amber, with our headlights trappedand shining forever.But instead, the miles slip by like timeas we each push the gas pedal harderto get where we are already destined to be,all the colors bleeding into one.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com
The thing isyou don't realizethis is the last timeyou will close the windowsthis year.You close them on a daywhen the sun is sharplike angels' wingsand the air bites your cheeks.You're not thinkingyou should turn the stubborn locksto seal out the fingers of winter frost.You close them one afternoonand then it has been two weeksor fourbefore you noticeyou have been closed in,and closed off,and the long, gray time has begun.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com
Oh, Achilles, you were a suckeryou died and you were forgotten. Perhaps not your namebut who you actually were -the details that differentiated you from the other brutes on the beach - and who knows how much Homer just plain made upafter a glass or three,and he wasn’t one to disappoint the crowd. If they wanted a little more bloodor wanted you to be a little bigger and strongerand not actually have had to fight your fearwell then so be it. But that’s not you he’s singing about,let’s be clear. That’s Homer's Achilles,and people are remembering that Achilles,the one he made up to turn a little gold.They're not remembering what you actually did,not what you actually sacrificed -not the beautiful children you could have held,not the fields you would have tilled,not the sunsets you would have ponderedleaning on your plowin your old agethat you did not have.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com
Each of us is bornwith a key-shaped soul -we spend our liveslooking for the momentswe are meant to unlock,where only we are the right answerto a questionotherwise unanswerable.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com
I'm burning a candleas a metaphor for how short our human lives are,us all being poor actors strutting and fretting.But this one here is a three-wick spiced cardamom candlenot something extruded from pig fator gathered from hives.I won't be lighting a lampcourtesy of some whale's song cut shortby hard men on three year voyages out of Nantucket -though I may catch the ferry there this summerfor a day of rubbing elbows with the tourist elitenone of whom smell like fishor have salt plastered to their sun burned faces.Indeed, human life is a bit longerand a lot less cruel.And the candles are plentifulif you need oneto be reminded.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com
When you start your dayby stubbing your toeeven before you get to the bathroomand you know it's an insignificant injuryin the scope of world tragedybut in the momentthe pain occupies all of your brainexcept for the part still carrying onabout how you have to pee -this is a first glimmerthat the old gods are about today.But in case you're not ready to believe,you'll have cut yourself shavingand that tiny slice will bleedonto the first shirt you put onand so you'll go downstairshaving dressed yourself twice.You'll knock your coffee overwith a flick of your hand,then you'll forget your keys on your way to your carand then as you pull out of your neighborhood,you'll remember your walletis waiting patiently on the counter for you.And you will do a quick calculus - can I get through my day with no money? what's the chance the police will pull me over?and that last one, given the other signshas you turning around in some stranger's driveway.Now your ancestors in that Mediterranean village - no, not the ones with the copious crucifixes,before them.The ones who made the tiny shrines tucked into every nook and cornerwhere their descendants, closer to you, shoved little statues of Mary,but those older ancestors had other figures there first.They knew when a splash of wine was called for, or to place a slice of orangeor a few almonds.And they would tell you,based on the morning you are havingthat you have with the utmost certaintyoffended a god.A small god, most likely, but still, what are you?Not a god,they would tell you. And now you,having lost touch with the old ways,awkwardly pour a bit of your coffee from your travel mugonto the mulch by the garage door,the threshold of your home and the larger world.It's a small gesture,but it is noted.Somehow from thereyou find yourself moving more deliberatelyand all the lights are green when you roll up to themand all the cars seem to have other places to beother than in front of you,and thus somehow, you arrive on time.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com
So now you have left us,having run through the number of your dayswhich we did not know were ending,but we came uponlike a fallen tree blocking the roadjust after we rounded the bend.We slammed on the breaksand everything came to a stop - we could see our lives frozenin the ice of timeand we stood outside waiting for the sun to melt usback into a new reality - one without you.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com
The trees blush in reds and yellowsat the thought of undressing for winter -soon they will standbrazenly naked,gray,the color of acceptance and surrender.Boney arms are lifted in prayer - do not make the snowheavy like concrete,keep the ice storms away.Let the nor'easters go on out to seawhere the fish can look up and wonderat the whirling mysteryof the airy world.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com
My people
married their first cousins
and passed on crooked backs
and congenital deafness -
my people scraped desert island hills
into terraces
and pleaded with the earth -
my people gathered the rain
in cisterns hidden beneath their huts.
There was never enough,
and poverty only begets beauty
and generosity
in the movies.
It's only true children are fear
and jealousy.
And that is why my people
set sail
and did not
return.
Spoken word.
See text at https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-first-day-of-spring.html
Friend from Childhood's Last Days
Would I recognize you
all these years later
friend from childhood's last days?
From bottomless time playing Atari
and banana seat bicycles
riding over cracked sidewalks
late into summer nights?
How have you aged, with a
dad-bod belly and a receding hairline?
or are you just divorce-worn,
living alone
except every other weekend?
What have you become,
what with your skills at Space Invaders
and your facility with the Rubic's Cube?
If you saw me,
would you know me?
Would we pull out two Huffy's
from behind the shed of memory
and pedal off together once more
by the blue glow glory of the street lamps?
Spoken word. Text here: https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2023/01/leonardos-first-flight.html
Spoken word piece about running out of time.
see written piece here: https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2022/05/us-who-are-lucky.html
Spoken word piece - some days you can't be.
words: https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2022/04/i-am-only-fool.html
A spoken word piece about gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins
Written here: https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2022/03/gluttony.html
A spoken word piece about Envy, the worst of the 7 deadly sins
written: https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2022/03/banishment.html
A spoken word piece about the thinness between reality and the mystical
More at:
https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-path-between-worlds.html
Spoken word piece about the damn cat and his morning howling.
Text here: https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-cat-is-awake.html
a spoken word piece
text at https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2022/02/office-of-days.html
A spoken word piece about winter.
For text, see https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2022/01/collective-action.html
A spoken word piece about the frustrations of being young and not knowing better.
See https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2022/01/youth.html
At the end of a semester, saying goodbye. The class vs. the students.
Text: https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2021/05/empty-classroom.html
what the devil wants
https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2021/05/bargaining-with-devil.html
A meditation on letting go of desire.
https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-meditation-by-tree-upon-noble-truth.html
A poem about adjusting to having an adult child.
https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2019/07/cooking-for-my-daughter.html
When we read, we bridge time and mind.
https://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2019/03/reading-aristotles-politics.html
In some traditions, Lilith was actually the first woman, and rejected by Adam when she would not submit to him. Hence the two versions of the creation of humans in Genesis. Lilith was Adam's equal and created at the same time, Eve was created from Adam.
All poetry is political. I'm not sure if this is a Bernie Sanders poem or a Donald Trump poem. But it is concerned with the plight of laborers whom no one seems to think much of.
A poem with penguins, a slip and slide, martinis, and Fred Astaire. What else could you ask for?
A poem challenging the assumptions of others. Inspired by a WSJ article about how the Bronx Zoo was going to start showing chickens in a barn yard because inner city kids had supposedly never seen real chickens in their expected environment.
An invitation from Virgil, or is it the other way around?
http://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2016/04/1452-invitation-and-virgil.html
Do you hate actors acting about acting? I hate poems about writing poetry even more. It's the height of pretentiousness to (try to) make art about making art.
Multi-track recording. Definitely want to listen to it with headphones to get the full effect.
A little fun with the pagan idea that everything has a spirit - imagine if they were all pissed off at you.
a poem contemplating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or rather, why we no longer contemplate such questions.
http://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2016/03/952-angel.html
spoken word/poem
http://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2016/01/152-heart-is-relative-instrument.html
poem in memory of a colleague
http://honestchaos.blogspot.com/2015/09/2452-for-barbara.html
A meditation on the choice to step off the corporate ladder and choose something else. It is not without cost.