Written between August 24th, 2021 and April 27th, 2022
OM…AHA! is a continuation of Good Morning Wednesday, and the process of finding magic in the mundane.
“These are the observations, meditations, and realizations from this new state of mine…Nebraska.”
– Rourke
April 27th, 2022
Absence Makes The Missing More Meaningful
It’s been six months since I moved out of the house on Fowler Avenue, and in some way I’ve been trying to get back there ever since…
April 19th, 2022
A Madman Has Been Loosed Upon the World Of Literature
Sometimes I wonder if I made him up, as if he were a figment of my imagination. Like some conjuring out of complacency in order to bring a little chaos into my world…
April 13th, 2022
Nature Is Within And Without . . . Change My Mind
A strange tapestry of light hangs over the western horizon. The sun a white circle of light cauterized through the veiling. Black clouds sweep in from the south that brood with brief flashes of light…
April 6th, 2022
Holy Moments Found In Everyday Life In Omaha
What if days weren’t measured by productivity but by the accumulation of instances we are enraptured within them, like holy lucid moments with the notion that everything connected is set apart for that union…
March 30th, 2022
Meditations During An Existential Emergency In A Midwest Cafe
At Lola’s. Again. Staring out at Dodge and the cars passing like metallic streams of green and grey and red, streams of blue white and black. They pass and disappear past the glass…
March 23rd, 2022
In And Out And Upside-down It’s All A Mess No Matter What
I was not. And then I was. Birthed out of nothing. A thing of two become one bathed in milky cream from the womb of my mother. Eyes lolling in my head. The tongue a loosed agent like a blind serpent on the head of a gorgon. Wailing into the light…
March 16th, 2022
Realistic Magicalism Is The Real Deal So Deal With It
What is realistic magicalism? It’s reality at its finest. That’s what it is. It’s the beauty and mystery of a moment, of instances.Of existence. It’s the realization that we are living, breathing, creating realities…
March 9th, 2022
It’s A Dog’s Life . . . After All
It’s strange to be in it. I mean, I knew it was possible. That it would probably happen someday. I just didn’t know when. Or how. Under what circumstances. Of all the place it could’ve happened I never would’ve guessed Omaha…
March 2nd, 2022
The Old Folk Song Has Found A New Voice In Willie Carlisle
I didn’t wanna go. No I did not. I wanted to stay home. Like I’d done the night before, and the night before that…
February 23rd, 2022
Nothing Is What It Seems Though We See Clear Enough
I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I wake up in the middle of the night with thoughts of preservation. My mind becomes a mathematician working on the equation to move me beyond this state of barely maintaining…
February 16th, 2022
Dead Ends Are A Second Chance At A One Way Street
Begin again.
These two words have become a mantra for me as I continue to fail to live up to my potential, as I have failed to grasp the ax of ill intent before it has been acted out, before it has cut down those in its path…
February 9th, 2022
Write My Epitaph Drunk On The Poems Of Neruda
They found his body near the entrance to the stable. His lungs had filled up with smoke and collapsed. In a catastrophic moment that was the end of it…
February 2nd, 2022
Who Is The Master That Calls The Grass Green, And Other Gardening Tips
I was blind, but now I see. And boy is it difficult to look at, even though I can’t seem to turn away…
January 26th, 2022
I Called For A Renaissance And Got The Wrong Number
Where do ideas come from?
I was recently asked this question and the voice in my head jumped at the opportunity to pontificate. It made ethereal claims about humans being conduits of divinity. High falutin notions of a spiritual nature, things I cannot actually grasp at…
January 19th, 2022
Life Is Longer Than We’d Like To Think
How do I know? Because I’ve experienced it through the length of thirty-four years. I lived in the moments like small and large photographs framed on the plywood walls of Project Project in Omaha…
January 12th, 2022
If Time Paid The Bills I’d Live My Dreams By The Hour
Being jobless has its perks. The money isn’t great. But there’s plenty of time. And that’s got a value of its own…
January 5th, 2022
We Are What We Think And My Thoughts Are Like Shoes
New Years Day. The snow came down at a slant and covered Omaha in a white sheen. The streets. The trees. Below the eaves of houses. A wind storm white with a heavy dusting whirled the white dust on the shingles outside my window and blew it out over 50th Street…
December 29th, 2021
It starts with relapse. A victim in the driver’s seat. Then resolves towards my departure that begins the escapade that I will now relate to you…
December 22nd, 2021
Boredom Is A Bookmark If You Look At It Right
At Eppley with my head pressed against the window. Eyes closed. Waiting…
December 15th, 2021
Love Is All That Ever Will Be, Can Be
It’s a slow burn until it’s over. And then it seems to have happened all of a sudden…
December 8th, 2021
A Bibliophile With A Syncopated Footstep Walks Into A Midwest City
I take the needle in hand and push it through the pages. I grab the needle from the other side and pull the thread through, watching all the while as it sews the experiences of my life together…
December 1st, 2021
Christmas Time Is Here, There, And Everywhere
It’s December now and winter hasn’t quite crept in yet. But it’s on the way. I’m sure of it. As sure as the trees lay undressed in the midwest and little lights go up all over town, along rain gutters, around license plates…
November 24th, 2021
Seeing In Dreams Is The Only Color For Me
Before I woke I was in it. I had come out of delirium and into dream, going through the deep recesses of my unconscious…
November 17th, 2021
Life Is Like A Garbage Dump Where The Trash Is Always Treasured
The world is garbage. That’s what she said to me over the metallic tones of rage and syncopation ringing in my ears…
November 10th, 2021
This Is Part Of It And So Is That, And That Too
It starts slow . . . It starts with nothing, really. Nothing at all. Just the chair and being in it. Sitting. Waiting. Nothing else. Just waiting, or not waiting because nothing else matters. That’s all there is to it…
November 3rd, 2021
Three Fourths Is Not A Whole, But It’s A Whole Lot
Nine months. That’s how long it’s been. That’s how long I’ve been here on Fowler Avenue. Between these walls. Sitting in this room. Staring out the window at the bare limbs of the Ash tree, at the snow and the green things and now the fallen leaves covering the earth, the tree bare once more…
October 27th, 2021
Through The Looking-Glass There Is You And Me And Everything You See
It was on the corner of 50th and Radial Highway at the gas station there. He was standing outside the white van screaming at the top of his lungs to the woman behind the wheel…
October 20th, 2021
Silence Is Golden And I’ve Got Something To Say About It
Sometimes there’s nothing to say. Sure, there’s the want and need, perhaps, but nothing comes all the same. There is silence. A great torrent of nothingness sweeping through the mind. Why not…
October 12th, 2021
Who’s To Say Whether It’s Good Or Bad Or Something Else Entirely
The last time I saw her they were wheeling her down the white corridor to cut her open. Moments before that she was writing out her will…
October 6th, 2021
Crime Doesn’t Pay, Drunk Drivers Do . . . Eventually
He was sitting with his back against the white wall of the parking garage. Red and blue lights flashed across his face…
September 29th, 2021
Zorthian Ranch Is A Historic Wasteland For The Eccentrically Mad
The culmination of our experiences and emotions stack up like Southern California traffic. They get bottlenecked up to a point then explode out into open lanes, the pains and congestion assuaged in an instance of relief that spreads throughout and across the surface of our existence…
September 21st, 2021
Road Rage In A Relationship Explained
Our relationship almost ended before we arrived. One moment we were in complete understanding on the I-70 writing a new contract for our union, and the next it became fissured in a fit of fatigue somewhere in St. George, Utah…
September 15th, 2021
Sewing And Stamping And Binding Oh My!
The place is dark though well-lit. The light comes in through large windows facing Vinton Street and then dies out into a darker light that shines down from half-lit fluorescent lights tucked between ceiling tiles…
September 8th, 2021
What Happend Happened And That’s All There Is To It
I was going to tell you everything. How it all happened. I was going to tell you how I came to Omaha, about Guff and the road and how we came to be . . . I really was…
September 1st, 2021
Comparisons Are Odious And Onerous And Overrated
I was driving east on Cuming when it happened. How and from where, god only knows…
August 25th, 2021
Tour De Franzia With The Greasy Butts Of Benson
I’ve always been a late bloomer. I begin things when others are already on their way out. From career plan right down to growing hair on my undercarriage…