THE HOLLYWOOD RAGE PAGE

I arrive at this age  gray as an   Amagansett beach  late December sky peering through the loupe of a crinkly eye  which allows me to  magnify my flaws and appraise my life. While the pinky-ringed experts of The Antiques Roadshow would say that at auction  I wouldn’t fetch much the truth is that no longer matters because I have become  a family heirloom  like the flint glass replicas that Parisian high society once coveted as did our daughters  when they loved to play dress up in nana’s night-out fascinator uncertain heels and  mahogany velvet gown that was topped off  by the extravagant flourish of her Victorian Amethyst Paste Rivière necklace  with its Cadbury purple hue which, now,  all these years later,  lie in the tomb of a pale yellow dowry box on a runner of rose-embroidered lace  alongside the remains of a Silver Paste bird brooch and a pair of Art Deco earrings which soon enough will be us, sleeping dia...

Think of the sun as the warmth you are aching for when everything feels like  the ruins of the rain Think of the moon as the maestro  of the tides conducting the rise and fall  of your shipwrecked heart Think of the stars as the Knights Templar of infinite possibilities  ready to ride into battle to defeat your doubts and uncertainty  Think of the air as the replenishment of memories Think of the passing clouds as a cargo full of dreams Think of the winter storms as a flurry of dispatches handwritten in the script of snow angels which in any language reads I understand. And think of tomorrow For what it always is: A ready to be delivered  tenderly whispered answered prayer.    

 LOSS Written By David Steven Simon It begins with the forecast of our disposition. which we depend on like the bedtime reading of Goodnight Moon. Then without warning the world betrays you like your friends did when they disappeared without explanation. Time reverses its course and you are suddenly hell-bent for the asylum of childhood. The Stargazer Lilies become unforgivable. Che gelida manina intolerable and your heart begins to suffocate like Desdemona at the hands of the one who loved her most Despite your cries of anguish and the last-ditch effort of Hail Mary prayers it starts to rain bricks like a biblical curse which like the early stages of Jenga seems manageable  until The Unforgiving decide to accelerate this  game of the Gods and entomb you beneath the stacks Like tomorrow when we will watch her fade away with no assurance from the moon as  the  snowflakes  fall like a flurry of epilogues which covers every name that are etched in stone.

I suppose I can succumb to defeat like a gazelle on the Serengeti and allow my fears to sink their razor-sharp teeth into the nape of my neck as I lie there motionless  and wait to slowly die just like my country is about to. I suppose I can watch my joy sail away like the incinerating corpse of a Viking pyre I suppose I can release my faith And cut off all contact to anyone who lives beyond the manifest heavens I suppose I can abandon all hope and wait for the floods to arrive I suppose I can erase my dreams and live with the torment of a blank canvas. I suppose I can divorce my soul and pretend that we’ve never met. I suppose we can cover our mirrors, recite the Kaddish and Howl like Ginsberg. hold an Irish wake perform a Buddhist sky burial march and lament  in a Jazz procession celebrate Dia de los Muertes and watch the ashes of our beloved dissolve in the wide open deep Or we can take a few days  to wobble back up onto our unsteady feet and shake off the deluge the s...

The last leaf rides the curlicue current wickedly defying gravity an unsupervised what the hell kid free at last as zig-zagging squirrels and merry prankster dogs  suddenly stop  and hold their breath like big top neck craners as the leaf refusing to pull the parachute cord dares to die like Kerouac  in his hellbound ‘49 Hudson. For the grand finale the leaf plummets tumbling and  somersaulting like Monk notes played in a seedy swan dive until    it makes touchdown landing  on the lunar surface of old friends who found  their final resting place amongst the reckless litter  and deadbeat acorns of this heaven on earth.