STONEYKNOB

And so here I sit at my favorite restaurant in the world tucked away in Woodfin, Western North Carolina. Yes in the donut hole of Liberalism. The black hole of New Yorkers seeking refuse from their strange hurry-up twisted world. Stoneyknob began serving in 1962, located along the old Asheville Weaverville Trolley Line route. In the lavishly garnished interior, are served the most tasty of cuisines.

But I quickly digressed. I come here often to mingle with a packed lunch hour crowd. It’s fish and chips Wednesday at Stoneyknob and having been unintentionally stood up by the famous modern impressionist artist, Ralston Fox, am having lunch alone. Fox like me is a  laid-back existential. Change of plans is our norm. But no problem Fox is my newest friend in my octogenarian days, liberal to the core from way back New England New Hampshire. Of course politics is off topic, and our friendship is the better for it. Besides I save all my rants that I can’t-do-a-damn-thing-about to my private late night rants - with animated gusto. I may publish them under my pseudo name someday. Sick? No healthy. Healthy as hell. Freud said “cathart!” Catharsis is healthy. Poetry, art, music, writing, journaling, yelling in the middle of the woods are all medicinal. Try it!

(Will be right back.) My secret desert joy tiramisu just arrived! And I need to celebrate my savory feast without distraction. My friend and associate, Ralph Carson, world renowned nutritional physiologist PhD, advises, “Yes. Go ahead and treat yourself. Savor every bite of your favorite desert. Don’t talk. Avoid distraction. Cleanse the palate between spoonfuls.” Sinful? Yes but Ummm!

Damn that’s was a mystical desert.

(I’m back) Well, alone, stood up, I am in a philosophical mood. Wondering, my mind wandering, pondering, searching my sixth sense. Inspiration blends with the air chatter around me as servers busy about. The Spirit Writer envelopes me, altering my mood to write, express myself. I know not yet what to write, but it’s coming.

At first I try dictating. Right away Siri (inventor, Dag Kitylehaus’ Devil in disguise) try’s to influence me indiscriminately turning tiny iPhone type into mismash. Then I try dictating but the foursome in the booth behind me from New York are conversing, megaphone loud like they were on the subway. Like, keep it to yourself, dudes, I’m channeling creativity here! Siri harped in interspersing my dictation with some NY gibberish talk of how they hope their sons become baseball stars. WTF? Their conversation is being displayed on my phone. Yikes. As I rein in my tongue, mumble raging quietly to myself a barrage of choice four-letter phrases aimed at, “forget it people. Your sons ain’t even friging gonna make the high school batboy team!!!” (But I did just discover how the spy agency gets its proximate info. Siri is a double agent spy!

Now! Now, hiding from Siri, I launch upon my philosophical pondering. What is life really all about? Do we have choices or is it a series of coincidences we live by? What is friendship, love, gathering? How high is the sky? What’s on the other side of the Universe? Is infinity real or just Sister Mary John’s fantasy math? Is death but an interruption, a glitch, in existence? All questions brought on by the void of Fox’s absence. Ahhh! The taramizu sugar with a splash of rum just kicked in. Here I come creativity. Another short tale is being born.

A poem came to mind about Fox. About where he descended from with palate in hand. About he went about creating creativity. Became famous. Then disappeared some say, one day, stepping into one of his paintings. Fox’s paintings being so illusive, how people would museum-bench sit and stare at his paintings hoping he might step back out for a chat. which occasionally does happen I’m told!

Another lesson on Building Character, camaraderie and the great scorekeeper in baseball. It’s was the sports psychologist coming out in me, about the real reason for this Nation’s greatest game (and it is a game after all) is character building. And how top to bottom talent how the game builds character.

And another on Anger. I’m guessing this popped out from the overshout from the yankee table in Stoneyknob. It’s just a short sweet one pager on the naaature of anger and how to get to know it’s gaaame.

They (the newly created prosaic poems) spew outta my soul brain. The Spirit Master is at work and I’m just the medium typing/writing/jotting down/dictating around Siri as fast as I can, just to keep up.

Five poetic/prose poems later, I’m interrupted kindly, carringly pleasantly, “Will there be any thing else, Sir? Sorry you’re artist friend didn’t show up?” And hour had gone by like that (snap!). The darling waitress sensed I was in a writing frenzy and just unobtrusively left me to feverishly write/tiny-type, all while keeping me in the the devil’s drink - coffee. I left a $50 tip on my $30 lunch tab. It was the price of undisturbed creativity.

“I’ll be back!”

Re-rigging my friggin oxygen cannulae, impossibly lifting my octa-degenerating legs outta that writing booth, I slowly moved toward the exit and my destiny. Yes people glanced but I’m used to it now.

God love you, people!

tom tenbrunsel

Carl Sandburg Writer 2025

Author’s Note: Some, no most people, don’t get poetry. They just read it like they read the The NY Times. Fine but poetry needs to be internalized, digested, experienced, recited, and stored away in an “ah ha” moment, revisited in the reader’s soulmind. Poetry blooms in the depth of it’s perception. I would urge you to absorb poetry, take mental notes (highlighter not included) own it, become one with the poem. Or perhaps just continue to wander aimlessly in the abyss of three dimensions.

tom tenbrunsel

Purveyor of the fifth dimension, creativity, serendipity and the sixth sense