IN THE COURT OF THE SONG SLAYER
Characters:
Arianna Arabelle Erisyn Eros
Commander Rius Andros, Space Marines, Veryona
Planets: Veryona, Earth
The word “Marine” was generally inclined more towards that of distant oceans on the planet Earth, but, in relativity, the word was concocted to that of the planet Earth, and not of oceans in the universe in general. The term “Marine” derived from Old English; Middle English.
She was the song slayer, the woman from Veryona.
It was the world beyond worlds; the world beyond time and space. Or, rather, it was situated between the 32nd galaxy and the 43rd galaxy. Her mother said there were over three hundred thousand trillion galaxies in this universe alone, and it spun endlessly. Her father was Commander Rius Andros, of the 31st Space Marine Corps. “Marine” was a strange word. She didn’t know it could be applied to space, as well.
Her full name was Arianna Arabelle Erisyn Eros. She had flowing blonde hair, piercing purple eyes, and a ruby in the middle of her forehead. She demonstrated interesting abilities when she was five. She had the gift of telekinesis; and Cat-pathy, the ability to communicate with felines in space. She generally bent spoons; then, when she realized spoon-bending was an old art, she lifted entire tables off the air and sent them spinning out the window. She almost destroyed her neighbor’s backyard with a brown wooden table from Earth. Earth and Veryona were on good communication terms; they agreed to have skirmishes every three hundred million years, when Mars, the god of war, thought it was necessary to put the universe back on balance. Which was whenever he felt like it.
In the dictionary, war was described as “the ability to harness powers in an evil manner.”
Arianna smiled primly. She had been studying her primer. She was three hundred seventy four years old, and barely reached adulthood. Her hair was long and flowing and her best friend was a manitee. A manitee was an animal that had brown fur and bristly hair. The bear’s eyes were pools of blackness.
Arianna held the book out in front of her. The book was old and the pages were torn in two. The pages were torn in two and she couldn’t ask for another. Her Mentor, who was also called “William,” was a very stern teacher. He had seen a lot of battles and went to Tyn to fight in the wars. Tyn was a long ways away, and Arianna dreamt of leaving her castle. Did she forget to mention? She was a princess. She hated it. She was stuck inside all day and had nothing to do. She felt like crying all the time. The boys from her school came to visit her and played cricket and handball. She watched, sitting under the tree, reading a book. She wasn’t talking to any of the boys. They only played games. They were ordered to by her father; she wasn’t supposed to talk to boys, only girls. She could play with the boys, though, but she didn’t feel like playing.
One day, a young servant came to deliver a set of hand-washed clothes. He said his mother was a Ljnn, someone who could weave magic from nothing. Her father only hired the best. It was all he could do. He had so much money he didn’t know what to do with it. He had so much money, he was greedy and thoughtless and slept with woman after woman. Arianna was studying in the kitchen. She liked to study in the kitchen with the cook, a Khr Sa’in. She was not Earthling. She was from a planet called Iare. She said people lived on the world and they were very small, tiny. Their eyes were usually gold or purple and they lived their lives singing songs. Arianna didn’t believe her. The servant left, and Arianna paid no mind. She was used to people coming and going. She was used to people doing odd things in her presence. She was, after all, a princess. She collected her homework and went up to her room. Exhausted, she fell onto the bed, and her mouth hung open. She looked out the window and the clock tower was in the distance, shorn of silver and stone. She had never been to the clock tower. Old Man Niles lived in the clock tower. He was very cranky and had a big nose and narrowed eyes. She wanted to visit the clock tower one day.
The next morning the sun was a brilliant blue, and Arianna went outside to practice bow and arrow. The target was an apple in a tree. The leaves of the trees were very big, broad, and green. The sun shone through the branches. The sun was fierce and hot. A man wandered over to her. It was her teacher.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
He frowned at her. “I was studying astronomy!” he replied. “Looking at the stars. Don’t you ever wonder about the stars? Don’t you ever dream? Don’t you ever think, be? Are?”
She frowned. “You’re not making any sense.”
He spread his arms wide, as if to embrace the entire castle. In fact, he really hated the castle. He despised it. It wasn’t something he enjoyed, spending time in the castle. He was happy doing other things. Off having other adventures. Off doing things he wouldn’t normally be doing. Sometimes with her, more often by himself. She worried about him spending more time alone, by himself. “I found a book,” he said, his face brightening.
“What book?” she asked him. She was interested now. She put down her bow and arrow, and everyone complained. She made a face at their backs. So, let them complain. It would do them good. She knew about doing good and complaining. They were both among her favorite pastimes.
“What kind of book is this?” Arianna asked with interest, flipping through the pages.
He shrugged. His shoulders were small and bony. He had always been small for a teacher, and had big eyes and brown hair. He was born on a space station that orbited Earth, and confessed he felt out of place. He wasn’t happy with the way things were going in his life, and spent more and more time absorbed in his books-usually, magick books, or books about spells and sorcerers. Recently, he had come across an old book and had given it to Arianna for inspection. She found the pages were blank except for the last page. The words, “Iresyn Litte” was written across it in gold, bold ink. The lettering was like magic, but it wasn’t exactly so.
“What does it mean?” Arianna asked quizzically.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Damned if I know,” he replied. “Where do you think it came from?”
“I thought you bought this thing.”
“No, someone gave it to me. He said it belonged to the song slayer.”
“Who’s that?”
“Someone who can pen songs-songs from magic,” he reported. He frowned, and added: “I think.” He rubbed his temples warily. He hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep lately. He had been working all day and all night, his temper was flaring. He didn’t want to take it out in front of her. She was his buddy.
“I don’t know anyone like that,” she said, pursed her lips while she thought. She didn’t know why he was interested in such a book. She had better books in her father’s library, large books with large words and written in script. Men came from all over the world to give her father books. She was very proud of him. He had a large collection.
He cocked his head and winked at her. “Maybe you do,” he replied, and chuckled. “Maybe it’s you.”
She shoved him. “Or it’s you!” she said sarcastically. She made a face at him. “Always making fun of me, huh! I don’t like the turn of events!” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.
“It is you,” he said seriously, and shoved the book in her hands. He laughed and hurried away. She stared after him, and shoved the book into the pocket of her cloak. She had better things to do. It was time to go to the Midnight Ritual. The Midnight Ritual was a union, an elite, of a group of girls from the castle and they gathered around and paid homage to fairies. Lydia was the first one to think of it. She was her Uncle’s next door neighbor and was home schooled and her mother worked at the castle as a teacher. The city didn’t have a real school and they were trying to get her father the money to give the workers to build a school.
The four girls clustered around a large, silver tree. The sun was red, now; it only turned to blue once every full cycle. A cycle was a half a year on Veronya; they didn’t go by Earthtime. That’s was what they called a year on Earth, Earthtime. Veryona had no government; no intricate system of webbing sand from stone. The clouds hung in the sky, and it was a lazy, lazy day, and then midnight was an even darker night. Lydia crept closer and threw a flame into the fire. She was a flame-thrower. Most people shunned her. She was from Veryona, which was very curious, because Veryona did not possess the gift of magick. Magick was an old, ancient art. People did not have magick here. It was forbidden, and no one knew how to use it, besides, and decided to make it forbidden. The forbiddenness came from within the heart; the heart was where all Darkness and Light had lain. Her father told her this many times, after her mother died. She was the one who told her first. She missed her mother dreadfully, and life had become dreadfully dull and boring.
Lydia was a spot of bright sunshine in her otherwise dull life. She had black hair and blue skin. She was from Earth, but her mother was XCryick. A planet three thousand light years away from Earth, she was often lonely and desolate, until she discovered magick and other girls who harbored it. She was surprised Veryonians did not have magick, and Arianna explained women on Veryona were not gifted in magick, her abilities were flukes. She said William told her it was not so, that she was different, brilliant. Her magic was different. He called it “magic” without the “k.” She was surprised. Most of the time, he sounded like an Earthling and wondered about his parents.
The Midnight Ritual started out fine. Lydia chanted about the moon and the stars and Brooke talked of her mother, on the Other World, the Ghost World. Veryona had a real world and a ghost world. The ghost world was three hundred light years away, in the universe. The universe was vast and Brooke wanted to visit it one day. She planned on building a star shuttle to take her to the place.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Radio.
I found out you were not listening,
That the sound of you listening
Was the sound of the paper moving
In the doorway.
The sound of the coffee being made
In the other room.
I found out a lot of things.
I found out you like cell phones,
Especially the ring tones-
Your favorite is a song by Lady Gaga,
Whom I haven’t familiarized myself with.
I don’t fancy any particular musician.
I used to play the cello.
I don’t fancy anything other than the wind
And the movement of the trees,
And the smell of bacon frying in the oven.
I never thought I’d piece together things
Things that were in-between.
The in-between that was nothing
And seemed to fight with me,
The wings of movement,
Of destiny and the simple promise of
Dictating.
I never thought I’d find you with the phonograph
Machine,
Your back whirring.
Or the sound of the harp playing
In someone else’s backyard,
Or the sound of your voice in the silence.
I don’t fancy I’m good enough.
Good enough for anything other than making
Breakfast for strangers,
And the lilacs blooming on the porch.
That the sound of you listening
Was the sound of the paper moving
In the doorway.
The sound of the coffee being made
In the other room.
I found out a lot of things.
I found out you like cell phones,
Especially the ring tones-
Your favorite is a song by Lady Gaga,
Whom I haven’t familiarized myself with.
I don’t fancy any particular musician.
I used to play the cello.
I don’t fancy anything other than the wind
And the movement of the trees,
And the smell of bacon frying in the oven.
I never thought I’d piece together things
Things that were in-between.
The in-between that was nothing
And seemed to fight with me,
The wings of movement,
Of destiny and the simple promise of
Dictating.
I never thought I’d find you with the phonograph
Machine,
Your back whirring.
Or the sound of the harp playing
In someone else’s backyard,
Or the sound of your voice in the silence.
I don’t fancy I’m good enough.
Good enough for anything other than making
Breakfast for strangers,
And the lilacs blooming on the porch.
Monday, May 10, 2010
THE WOMAN LIVES FOR LEMON CAKE
THE WOMAN LIVES FOR LEMON CAKE
My mother loved to scrapbook. She had drawers full of scrapbooks, and they were all filled with pictures of cakes. It was funny because we never ate a lot of sweets. My mother said it was bad for our health, and she made us eat vegetables instead-usually boiled or chopped, whatever she preferred. We lived in a small apartment above a laundry mat, and we were lucky, because most apartments in those days didn’t have laundry mats. We lived in a small city in Kentucky, and a lot of cities back in those days were dirt poor. My mother dreamt of owning a garden. A garden or a farm, whatever we could afford. We couldn’t afford much. We got buy on bread and cabbage water and lettuce.
We got buy on little or nothing at all. We couldn’t find our way through the dirt-lined streets, the slowly crumbling democracy. The politicians didn’t have a clue. We listened to them on a radio. The radio was the only means of communication we had at the time. We didn’t even have a phone. We were far too poor for that. My mother said Johnny was going to go through college, and that was final. My mother said lots of things. Lots of things didn’t matter. Johnny got in trouble, sometimes. Usually, it was about a girl. He got in line with the bad guys and spent his days smoking behind bleachers at the high school, and getting chased away by the principal or Mr. McGreggar.
My mother was a superb cook. She subscribed to all the latest cooking magazines and happily watched all the cooking shows at my Aunt Rachel's. She was a fanatic about cooking. She loved Starbuck’s. It was her favorite place to eat. We ate mostly brownies and cakes and cookies, and of course coffee. I was working nine to five at my job in San Fernando, and it was hard to go out and see my mother and hear her heartbreak about how no one came to see her. She said the magazines kept her busy. She was forty-five and used to be a schoolteacher and now got Social Security.
She had a new boyfriend. His name was Sam Simmons and he worked at a catering company out in Alcapolco Drive. I met him and we didn’t hit it off right away; he suggested we go fishing together. I asked him what kind of fishing, and he said salmon. He loved salmon. It was his favorite fish. He had silver hair and blue eyes. They were bright as the sea, maybe even brighter, and my mother enjoyed talking to him, she said. His son died in Vietnam and he was lonely. He was fifty-nine and they hit it off very well. I wasn’t sure I liked it. I wasn’t sure about anything at that point.
In the summer of ’89, my father bought a boat. Things were going smoothly in the marriage. My oldest brother, Johnathan, loved fishing and my father won five thousand dollars from the lottery. Mom was outraged he bought a fishing boat with the money and he told her to relax. That was the last straw. Mom kicked him out and he was left on the porch, with one suitcase, the fishing boat, and the car. Johnathan went to help Mom. I went to help Dad. That was the summer of ’89. My sister wasn’t born, yet.
In ’91, I moved to Columbus, Ohio. My mother threw a fit. She whined and cried and had a big meltdown. Dad didn’t bother to care. He had a new girlfriend and was living in a trailer out in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He said he didn’t want to go back to her. They still had the boat and went out on it every day and watched the sun go down over the trees and he said he was real happy, for the very first time. Dad said Mom liked his cakes too much and should shove them up he knew where. I thought Mom should open up a bakery. She was living off of Social Security, too. She said she couldn’t work because her back hurts. She said some people talked about her behind her back where she used to work at the peanut factory and they said they always had a job for her. She insisted the boss secretly hated her and refused to go back. I never knew why. I didn’t really know what she was talking about and nodded and smiled in all the right places.
I lived in a nice little house. The house was white and had white trimmings and the grass was taller near the front door. I had a little car, a Volvo. It was blue. I got it for my graduation present from graduating from Stanford. I got a degree in law and child education-of course I chose neither. I don’t really know why I didn’t want to be a lawyer. Most lawyers were, at best, a mixed blessing, and nothing good could come of that.
It was nearing Thanksgiving and Mom said it was about time I met Johnathan. He was an avid golfer and a tennis player and the apartment he lived in had a tennis court and a volleyball court. Most of the apartments were empty; they built them in the early 90s and Johnathan said they were going to add on to them. Mom said she was getting along with his daughter-her name was Amanda and she had blonde hair and blue eyes and a daughter named Arabelle. Arabelle was bright-eyed and loved jokes. Her mother got one of those joke books from the mall and was telling jokes to everyone she met-even people on the streets. Amanda said she had to make Arabelle stop telling jokes.
“I think we should all have dinner one day,” Mom said one morning. I had come over to help fix her garbage disposal. It was always on the fritz. It had just rained and a nice shimmer of rain was on the grass. The grass was green and it was spring and they were growing.
I quirked an eyebrow at her. “With who?” I persisted. “Some rock star pop group?”
She giggled and blushed. Mom put her hair up in a bun and puttered about in her garden. The wind blew. It was cold for spring. “Johnathan and his family, of course,” she said. “I’d love for you to meet them.”
I shrugged. “I guess,” I replied. “Don’t we have to talk about politics? You know how avid you get about politics.”
She made a face at me. “The president is such a coot!” she declared. “I don’t know what Americans see in him.”
“We voted for him fair and square.”
“Don’t be silly, you never vote.”
“Right. Didn’t think about that one.” I snorted, and shook my head. I had a hard time keeping up with my mother. I agreed to come to dinner, and brought my wife with me. Her name was Anna. We met in our freshman year of college. She got a degree in biology and was a biologist at the local aquarium. She made sure the fish were fed. And the algae was kept at bay.
Johnathan came over to the house the next week. He brought Amanda and her daughter; Arabelle was only five. She had some bubble toys and was blowing bubbles with the bubble blower. I didn’t know what those things were called. I set her in the high chair and she blew bubbles in my face and giggled and laughed and squirmed, trying to get out of her high chair. Her mother gave her a cup of pudding and she laughed and banged her spoon on the tray.
“Charming child,” I muttered, and made a face at her.
She burst into tears.
“Isn’t she, though?” Johnathan banged me on the back and hacked another cough.
Good smells wafted from the kitchen.
I wasn’t sure how long I could stand these people another minute. Johnathan was okay if he didn’t talk. His daughter was okay if I didn’t see her. And his granddaughter was just a crazy nut.
“Guess what I’m serving!” Mom exclaimed.
She came in and put a pot of roast beef on the table.
Arabelle burst into tears Arabelle burst into tears and threw her spoon onto the floor.
* * *
Dinner was a terror. Arabelle cried the whole time. Johnathan argued with me about politics. He said Ross Perot should never have been elected; all I asked was for him to pass me the ketchup. Mom said I shouldn’t waste the ketchup, and wondered how she could make her own. I didn’t think you could make ketchup at home. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could make.
Mom brought out a store bought cake and Johnthan really had a fit. “You mean you didn’t make it yourself?” he asked. He sounded disappointed.
I stared at him incredulously. I couldn’t believe he would say such a thing to my mother. It was very rude and insensitive.
“I would have,” she said. “But, my recipe is gone.”
He looked startled. That really changed his tune. “Recipe?” he asked. “You have your own recipe?”
She made a face at him. “Yes, sweetheart,” she said in exasperation. “Don’t you remember how we met at the cookie bake-off and my cookies won third place? I had a whole stack of recipes. I don’t go anywhere without them. Then, I lost my cake recipe.”
“This changes everything,” he said. “We’re going to have to move heaven and earth to find it.” He glanced with me. “You with me on this, chubs?”
* * *
My mother loved to scrapbook. She had drawers full of scrapbooks, and they were all filled with pictures of cakes. It was funny because we never ate a lot of sweets. My mother said it was bad for our health, and she made us eat vegetables instead-usually boiled or chopped, whatever she preferred. We lived in a small apartment above a laundry mat, and we were lucky, because most apartments in those days didn’t have laundry mats. We lived in a small city in Kentucky, and a lot of cities back in those days were dirt poor. My mother dreamt of owning a garden. A garden or a farm, whatever we could afford. We couldn’t afford much. We got buy on bread and cabbage water and lettuce.
We got buy on little or nothing at all. We couldn’t find our way through the dirt-lined streets, the slowly crumbling democracy. The politicians didn’t have a clue. We listened to them on a radio. The radio was the only means of communication we had at the time. We didn’t even have a phone. We were far too poor for that. My mother said Johnny was going to go through college, and that was final. My mother said lots of things. Lots of things didn’t matter. Johnny got in trouble, sometimes. Usually, it was about a girl. He got in line with the bad guys and spent his days smoking behind bleachers at the high school, and getting chased away by the principal or Mr. McGreggar.
My mother was a superb cook. She subscribed to all the latest cooking magazines and happily watched all the cooking shows at my Aunt Rachel's. She was a fanatic about cooking. She loved Starbuck’s. It was her favorite place to eat. We ate mostly brownies and cakes and cookies, and of course coffee. I was working nine to five at my job in San Fernando, and it was hard to go out and see my mother and hear her heartbreak about how no one came to see her. She said the magazines kept her busy. She was forty-five and used to be a schoolteacher and now got Social Security.
She had a new boyfriend. His name was Sam Simmons and he worked at a catering company out in Alcapolco Drive. I met him and we didn’t hit it off right away; he suggested we go fishing together. I asked him what kind of fishing, and he said salmon. He loved salmon. It was his favorite fish. He had silver hair and blue eyes. They were bright as the sea, maybe even brighter, and my mother enjoyed talking to him, she said. His son died in Vietnam and he was lonely. He was fifty-nine and they hit it off very well. I wasn’t sure I liked it. I wasn’t sure about anything at that point.
In the summer of ’89, my father bought a boat. Things were going smoothly in the marriage. My oldest brother, Johnathan, loved fishing and my father won five thousand dollars from the lottery. Mom was outraged he bought a fishing boat with the money and he told her to relax. That was the last straw. Mom kicked him out and he was left on the porch, with one suitcase, the fishing boat, and the car. Johnathan went to help Mom. I went to help Dad. That was the summer of ’89. My sister wasn’t born, yet.
In ’91, I moved to Columbus, Ohio. My mother threw a fit. She whined and cried and had a big meltdown. Dad didn’t bother to care. He had a new girlfriend and was living in a trailer out in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He said he didn’t want to go back to her. They still had the boat and went out on it every day and watched the sun go down over the trees and he said he was real happy, for the very first time. Dad said Mom liked his cakes too much and should shove them up he knew where. I thought Mom should open up a bakery. She was living off of Social Security, too. She said she couldn’t work because her back hurts. She said some people talked about her behind her back where she used to work at the peanut factory and they said they always had a job for her. She insisted the boss secretly hated her and refused to go back. I never knew why. I didn’t really know what she was talking about and nodded and smiled in all the right places.
I lived in a nice little house. The house was white and had white trimmings and the grass was taller near the front door. I had a little car, a Volvo. It was blue. I got it for my graduation present from graduating from Stanford. I got a degree in law and child education-of course I chose neither. I don’t really know why I didn’t want to be a lawyer. Most lawyers were, at best, a mixed blessing, and nothing good could come of that.
It was nearing Thanksgiving and Mom said it was about time I met Johnathan. He was an avid golfer and a tennis player and the apartment he lived in had a tennis court and a volleyball court. Most of the apartments were empty; they built them in the early 90s and Johnathan said they were going to add on to them. Mom said she was getting along with his daughter-her name was Amanda and she had blonde hair and blue eyes and a daughter named Arabelle. Arabelle was bright-eyed and loved jokes. Her mother got one of those joke books from the mall and was telling jokes to everyone she met-even people on the streets. Amanda said she had to make Arabelle stop telling jokes.
“I think we should all have dinner one day,” Mom said one morning. I had come over to help fix her garbage disposal. It was always on the fritz. It had just rained and a nice shimmer of rain was on the grass. The grass was green and it was spring and they were growing.
I quirked an eyebrow at her. “With who?” I persisted. “Some rock star pop group?”
She giggled and blushed. Mom put her hair up in a bun and puttered about in her garden. The wind blew. It was cold for spring. “Johnathan and his family, of course,” she said. “I’d love for you to meet them.”
I shrugged. “I guess,” I replied. “Don’t we have to talk about politics? You know how avid you get about politics.”
She made a face at me. “The president is such a coot!” she declared. “I don’t know what Americans see in him.”
“We voted for him fair and square.”
“Don’t be silly, you never vote.”
“Right. Didn’t think about that one.” I snorted, and shook my head. I had a hard time keeping up with my mother. I agreed to come to dinner, and brought my wife with me. Her name was Anna. We met in our freshman year of college. She got a degree in biology and was a biologist at the local aquarium. She made sure the fish were fed. And the algae was kept at bay.
Johnathan came over to the house the next week. He brought Amanda and her daughter; Arabelle was only five. She had some bubble toys and was blowing bubbles with the bubble blower. I didn’t know what those things were called. I set her in the high chair and she blew bubbles in my face and giggled and laughed and squirmed, trying to get out of her high chair. Her mother gave her a cup of pudding and she laughed and banged her spoon on the tray.
“Charming child,” I muttered, and made a face at her.
She burst into tears.
“Isn’t she, though?” Johnathan banged me on the back and hacked another cough.
Good smells wafted from the kitchen.
I wasn’t sure how long I could stand these people another minute. Johnathan was okay if he didn’t talk. His daughter was okay if I didn’t see her. And his granddaughter was just a crazy nut.
“Guess what I’m serving!” Mom exclaimed.
She came in and put a pot of roast beef on the table.
Arabelle burst into tears Arabelle burst into tears and threw her spoon onto the floor.
* * *
Dinner was a terror. Arabelle cried the whole time. Johnathan argued with me about politics. He said Ross Perot should never have been elected; all I asked was for him to pass me the ketchup. Mom said I shouldn’t waste the ketchup, and wondered how she could make her own. I didn’t think you could make ketchup at home. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could make.
Mom brought out a store bought cake and Johnthan really had a fit. “You mean you didn’t make it yourself?” he asked. He sounded disappointed.
I stared at him incredulously. I couldn’t believe he would say such a thing to my mother. It was very rude and insensitive.
“I would have,” she said. “But, my recipe is gone.”
He looked startled. That really changed his tune. “Recipe?” he asked. “You have your own recipe?”
She made a face at him. “Yes, sweetheart,” she said in exasperation. “Don’t you remember how we met at the cookie bake-off and my cookies won third place? I had a whole stack of recipes. I don’t go anywhere without them. Then, I lost my cake recipe.”
“This changes everything,” he said. “We’re going to have to move heaven and earth to find it.” He glanced with me. “You with me on this, chubs?”
* * *
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Creation.
The water is livid as the grass.
We don’t dawdle; we let it pass.
Before us on the waves that swell;
And the horse that will not dwell;
Forever, we are adorned by witching hour;
The pan is rinsed, it will not scour.
Shadows are torn and rotten at the planks.
We don’t know what we feel-we let it stank.
The night shines down like a burned moon.
Destiny settles gently down; we rise in June,
And set upon flowers in their flower beds,
Waves wash gently over sea shell heads.
Dawn is an array of color-
Something along those lines we cannot sever forever.
Your eyes are intelligent; they cross tides like dreams.
And gently fold at the seams.
The cloth is hand-washed,
And is dipped in wine;
We can’t find sixteen bottles to let them shine.
Happiness is weathered against the water.
We fill the void, and cross sons and daughters,
The night is barren, we force against the season,
It won’t go past for any reason.
We don’t dawdle; we let it pass.
Before us on the waves that swell;
And the horse that will not dwell;
Forever, we are adorned by witching hour;
The pan is rinsed, it will not scour.
Shadows are torn and rotten at the planks.
We don’t know what we feel-we let it stank.
The night shines down like a burned moon.
Destiny settles gently down; we rise in June,
And set upon flowers in their flower beds,
Waves wash gently over sea shell heads.
Dawn is an array of color-
Something along those lines we cannot sever forever.
Your eyes are intelligent; they cross tides like dreams.
And gently fold at the seams.
The cloth is hand-washed,
And is dipped in wine;
We can’t find sixteen bottles to let them shine.
Happiness is weathered against the water.
We fill the void, and cross sons and daughters,
The night is barren, we force against the season,
It won’t go past for any reason.
Poem.
Oh, the rivers that will flow-
And the faces that will go.
All the way pass the door,
And out into the void.
The void is in another room.
We tiptoe past the field of gloom.
I see your eyes, they light with grace,
As they move about any place.
The rainbow in the sky has grown;
Falling faster than we have known.
The weeds grow in the building lot,
A glass of lemonade will hit the spot.
The wind roars through the shade.
I look at all the art I have made,
A collage of words, a still of voice,
This is what I did, it is my choice.
The art is in mountains,
It is in fountains.
It is in the air-
Or walking down the stairs.
The colors of the void are dark,
We can’t begin to light a spark,
Of the night that surrounds us all,
And leaves again in the fall.
Oh, the rivers that will flow.
And time will stand still.
And the faces that will go.
All the way pass the door,
And out into the void.
The void is in another room.
We tiptoe past the field of gloom.
I see your eyes, they light with grace,
As they move about any place.
The rainbow in the sky has grown;
Falling faster than we have known.
The weeds grow in the building lot,
A glass of lemonade will hit the spot.
The wind roars through the shade.
I look at all the art I have made,
A collage of words, a still of voice,
This is what I did, it is my choice.
The art is in mountains,
It is in fountains.
It is in the air-
Or walking down the stairs.
The colors of the void are dark,
We can’t begin to light a spark,
Of the night that surrounds us all,
And leaves again in the fall.
Oh, the rivers that will flow.
And time will stand still.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Pages. Grew.
On the foliage, grew from great wisdom.
The tiptoe of a cat on forest water;
Blue boats shimmering in the sea.
Grief stricken, the man rowed to shore;
The salad was taken out,
Put back on a plate,
And surrendered again to the infinite.
The thinking sometimes takes
Many times to go over and over,
Without and within.
The period of everlastingness
Is not without seasons
That tiptoe through different seasons,
Different times,
Things that are different.
I experience things in your grief.
You experience things in mine.
The minotaur raises its claws
In surrender;
The wind refuses to shine.
His eyes are brown.
Brown as other worlds.
The other worlds tiptoe over
Other great things.
The greatness is vast.
It is all vast.
The vastness in it is rage-
The rage fills the page.
The tiptoe of a cat on forest water;
Blue boats shimmering in the sea.
Grief stricken, the man rowed to shore;
The salad was taken out,
Put back on a plate,
And surrendered again to the infinite.
The thinking sometimes takes
Many times to go over and over,
Without and within.
The period of everlastingness
Is not without seasons
That tiptoe through different seasons,
Different times,
Things that are different.
I experience things in your grief.
You experience things in mine.
The minotaur raises its claws
In surrender;
The wind refuses to shine.
His eyes are brown.
Brown as other worlds.
The other worlds tiptoe over
Other great things.
The greatness is vast.
It is all vast.
The vastness in it is rage-
The rage fills the page.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
KNIGHT LIFE.
The krying spider was a spider and lived in the mountains. The wind whistled and blew and everything was around it; and the wind was whistling and singing. He loved to eat and went to the river and fished in the river and the river was full of fish. The spider winced and dropped the pole into the river and tried to catch a fish. He could not catch anything. He did not want to go down to the city, for someone would see him and he did not want to be seen. Everything around him was deathly still. So still, he could not breathe-his eyes blinked, flashed madly. Everything was perfect. Perfect and still. The snow fell. The wind whistled. His mouth opened and he sang:
We are of mountain/of burdened snow,
We do not know where we go-
We haven’t found a way behind,
We push past darkness and deep we find,
Nervous now, nervous yet,
Look for the shadow of the silhouette.
The Power of the Six had been protecting Merlin for several thousand millennia-beyond the grain of sand, of wind and rain and lightning, the world spun and the magic spun with it; delved short of nothing of the cold that was in it. The magic delved further into the heart of things; further into the greatness that was the abyss, and made up of everything. Further than the eyes of Torn; the breath of speak; the light that wove through anything. Everything was shattered. Everything was in ruin. The man stood among the ruins, his hands stuffed deep in the pocket of his jeans. He looked ready to bolt from the spot at any minute. He grunted. The wind grunted back.
“Well, old gal,” he told the krying spider. “What are we to do with you?”
“Feed,” the spider said pitifully, and skittered under his feet. He forgot to mention he was terrified of spiders. Beyond terrified. He wanted to kill it. He remained calm. The spider’s eyes reflected sincerity; depthness; intelligence. He had seen spiders before. Spiders were not intelligent.
“Why do we call it krying, anyway?” he continued, his lips trying to part into an almost half smile, the smile of something that had never wavered, had never been worn-the danger was in it all, was in everything. The danger was everywhere. He could smell it. Could smell the way everything was. Everything could be. “Why not have a different spelling? A different sort of spelling in the name, the way the name is shaped. The way it is.”
“You’re babbling,” the spider reminded him.
The man laughed. His laughter rolled across the dust and the spider winced. He was afraid, he feared man, as well as everything else. Everything was to be feared. He did not know why he was afraid; only that it comforted him, and he wanted the man to go away. He said it aloud.
He rose to his feet and nodded. “I’ve come this far, and seen ghosts,” he told him. “I saw many ghosts.”
“They scare me.”
“So, leave, old man.”
“Why’d you call me that?” the spider asked sharply.
His name was Harper. He was a harpist. He was an orphan and had been living in the Red Plains his entire life; it was nowhere near the Great Plains, but the Red Plains were close by. Harper loved to sing. He loved to fiddle. He could do almost anything. He squinted down at the krying spider. “How many of you are there left?” he asked pleasantly enough.
The spider sniffed. “I don’t right know,” he apologized. “I only know of cold; of loneliness; of the mind and body. That is all.”
“What of your god?”
“God?” It laughed bitterly. “I don’t know about God. I know about magic.”
“Are you a magician?”
“Very funny.”
The krying spider rolled over on himself. And straightened.
“What was that for?” Harper couldn’t stop laughing. His insides were tickling. He hoped the krying spider hadn’t drugged him.
“Nothing,” the spider protested. “I was just…rolling over. I do that sometimes.” If the spider could blush, he sure would have.
The night was cold. The man went away and the spider crawled into its little home, and slept; and the stars broke out, full and beautiful, in the sky; and everything was bright. The color of brightness was everywhere. The color of brightness was inside everything. Everything was still. The man woke up in the middle of the night, his dreams sharp as a tack.
The dragon rose tall as the mountains-the mountains were tall above it, and the wind was sharp and whistled. The dragon’s name was Kustka and he snorted cold air. It was winter. He had no trouble finding shelter-caves were all over the place-but he wanted one that was close to a river. He scanned the landscape, the rolling hills that rose and fell against the sky, and the sky was breathtaking and the sun was falling, fell fast. It was going to be night soon.
We are of mountain/of burdened snow,
We do not know where we go-
We haven’t found a way behind,
We push past darkness and deep we find,
Nervous now, nervous yet,
Look for the shadow of the silhouette.
The Power of the Six had been protecting Merlin for several thousand millennia-beyond the grain of sand, of wind and rain and lightning, the world spun and the magic spun with it; delved short of nothing of the cold that was in it. The magic delved further into the heart of things; further into the greatness that was the abyss, and made up of everything. Further than the eyes of Torn; the breath of speak; the light that wove through anything. Everything was shattered. Everything was in ruin. The man stood among the ruins, his hands stuffed deep in the pocket of his jeans. He looked ready to bolt from the spot at any minute. He grunted. The wind grunted back.
“Well, old gal,” he told the krying spider. “What are we to do with you?”
“Feed,” the spider said pitifully, and skittered under his feet. He forgot to mention he was terrified of spiders. Beyond terrified. He wanted to kill it. He remained calm. The spider’s eyes reflected sincerity; depthness; intelligence. He had seen spiders before. Spiders were not intelligent.
“Why do we call it krying, anyway?” he continued, his lips trying to part into an almost half smile, the smile of something that had never wavered, had never been worn-the danger was in it all, was in everything. The danger was everywhere. He could smell it. Could smell the way everything was. Everything could be. “Why not have a different spelling? A different sort of spelling in the name, the way the name is shaped. The way it is.”
“You’re babbling,” the spider reminded him.
The man laughed. His laughter rolled across the dust and the spider winced. He was afraid, he feared man, as well as everything else. Everything was to be feared. He did not know why he was afraid; only that it comforted him, and he wanted the man to go away. He said it aloud.
He rose to his feet and nodded. “I’ve come this far, and seen ghosts,” he told him. “I saw many ghosts.”
“They scare me.”
“So, leave, old man.”
“Why’d you call me that?” the spider asked sharply.
His name was Harper. He was a harpist. He was an orphan and had been living in the Red Plains his entire life; it was nowhere near the Great Plains, but the Red Plains were close by. Harper loved to sing. He loved to fiddle. He could do almost anything. He squinted down at the krying spider. “How many of you are there left?” he asked pleasantly enough.
The spider sniffed. “I don’t right know,” he apologized. “I only know of cold; of loneliness; of the mind and body. That is all.”
“What of your god?”
“God?” It laughed bitterly. “I don’t know about God. I know about magic.”
“Are you a magician?”
“Very funny.”
The krying spider rolled over on himself. And straightened.
“What was that for?” Harper couldn’t stop laughing. His insides were tickling. He hoped the krying spider hadn’t drugged him.
“Nothing,” the spider protested. “I was just…rolling over. I do that sometimes.” If the spider could blush, he sure would have.
The night was cold. The man went away and the spider crawled into its little home, and slept; and the stars broke out, full and beautiful, in the sky; and everything was bright. The color of brightness was everywhere. The color of brightness was inside everything. Everything was still. The man woke up in the middle of the night, his dreams sharp as a tack.
The dragon rose tall as the mountains-the mountains were tall above it, and the wind was sharp and whistled. The dragon’s name was Kustka and he snorted cold air. It was winter. He had no trouble finding shelter-caves were all over the place-but he wanted one that was close to a river. He scanned the landscape, the rolling hills that rose and fell against the sky, and the sky was breathtaking and the sun was falling, fell fast. It was going to be night soon.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Blue.
Blue
The earthly nest swallows me whole-
It gulps me down, I’m bottom’s up,
I buy new pants at the store and refuse to wash them
For days.
You said you never had the chance to say goodbye
To the man you loved,
All those years ago, in late October,
And the sun was going down and the hearts were
Moist, and tears were moist, too-
Sometimes, the words get muddled and forgotten;
Sometimes, forbidden hearts are stilled,
And we drink down water in a cup,
And the cup is half-filled with water.
We pray that the time is right. When is the time ever right?
When is the hands of the clock forgotten,
And hands are not forgotten?
The bread is rising in the oven.
No one told me this would take awhile.
The birds chirp in the trees.
The wind has stilled; the cold shivers;
An airplane drones.
It is like being in a field of flowers.
It is like the silence is everywhere.
You are quiet in your waking.
You are quiet in your grief.
Never mind, you say. Never mind.
You shake your head. The sky does not bleed.
The earthly nest swallows me whole-
It gulps me down, I’m bottom’s up,
I buy new pants at the store and refuse to wash them
For days.
You said you never had the chance to say goodbye
To the man you loved,
All those years ago, in late October,
And the sun was going down and the hearts were
Moist, and tears were moist, too-
Sometimes, the words get muddled and forgotten;
Sometimes, forbidden hearts are stilled,
And we drink down water in a cup,
And the cup is half-filled with water.
We pray that the time is right. When is the time ever right?
When is the hands of the clock forgotten,
And hands are not forgotten?
The bread is rising in the oven.
No one told me this would take awhile.
The birds chirp in the trees.
The wind has stilled; the cold shivers;
An airplane drones.
It is like being in a field of flowers.
It is like the silence is everywhere.
You are quiet in your waking.
You are quiet in your grief.
Never mind, you say. Never mind.
You shake your head. The sky does not bleed.
To a woman that has the personality of an Angel, remix
To a woman that has the personality of an Angel
You walk the Earth so peaceful, so graceful
Your soul gives off warmth like fire on a cold winter’s night
You care so much for others, into your heart you invite
Heaven protrudes in the sparkle from your eyes
The light protects from darkness, trust it implies
The heart you possess gives off a radiance of love
Like the romance that is felt from the release of a white dove
In God’s graceful presence, we are heart adorned;
Love’s destiny’s reason is a night that is scorned.
The smile on your beautiful face lights up a room-
A breath of fresh air like spring roses abloom.
You walk the Earth so peaceful, so graceful
Your soul gives off warmth like fire on a cold winter’s night
You care so much for others, into your heart you invite
Heaven protrudes in the sparkle from your eyes
The light protects from darkness, trust it implies
The heart you possess gives off a radiance of love
Like the romance that is felt from the release of a white dove
In God’s graceful presence, we are heart adorned;
Love’s destiny’s reason is a night that is scorned.
The smile on your beautiful face lights up a room-
A breath of fresh air like spring roses abloom.
To a woman that has the personality of an Angel.
I found this on my computer...I don't know if I wrote it or if someone else wrote it, but I think it's probably mine, not sure! Sometimes I write something and then forget.
*******
To a woman that has the personality of an Angel
You walk the Earth so peaceful, so graceful
Your soul gives off warmth like fire on a cold winter’s night
You care so much for others, into your heart you invite
Heaven protrudes in the sparkle from your eyes
The light protects from darkness, trust it implies
The heart you possess gives off a radiance of love
Like the romance that is felt from the release of a white dove
The smile on your beautiful face lights up a room
A breath of fresh air like spring roses abloom
*******
To a woman that has the personality of an Angel
You walk the Earth so peaceful, so graceful
Your soul gives off warmth like fire on a cold winter’s night
You care so much for others, into your heart you invite
Heaven protrudes in the sparkle from your eyes
The light protects from darkness, trust it implies
The heart you possess gives off a radiance of love
Like the romance that is felt from the release of a white dove
The smile on your beautiful face lights up a room
A breath of fresh air like spring roses abloom
August Hue Thunderstorm.
Thunderstorm
The trees stand tall as skyscrapers,
Bow down gracefully under a thunderstorm.
Raindrops fall below; tears splatter the ground
Like unforgotten rain, thunder sounds
Like the beat of drums.
I am not here, I am not moved; my heart
Beats like drums, fast and steady.
Houses stand tall against the storm;
Bears and rabbits hop out of their hiding places,
Make beds behind old shrubs.
Nature is catastrophic, cataclysmic; a farmer
Shells out a truckload of eggs from the hen house,
Sells them to the county store.
A woman yells at her son, who is carrying home
A bushel of apples; an old maid tries on a new outfit.
She hates living in the country, hates being poor,
Misguided, and judged; but she loves country
In the wintertime, when the snow falls prettily
On the ground, and the old woman down the street
Gives her a ripe new plum and a basket of
Wash cloths she knitted herself.
The storm lessens; the wind heaves in and out,
In and out, sounding like a harmonica.
Clouds slowly melt from view, into the August hue.
The trees stand tall as skyscrapers,
Bow down gracefully under a thunderstorm.
Raindrops fall below; tears splatter the ground
Like unforgotten rain, thunder sounds
Like the beat of drums.
I am not here, I am not moved; my heart
Beats like drums, fast and steady.
Houses stand tall against the storm;
Bears and rabbits hop out of their hiding places,
Make beds behind old shrubs.
Nature is catastrophic, cataclysmic; a farmer
Shells out a truckload of eggs from the hen house,
Sells them to the county store.
A woman yells at her son, who is carrying home
A bushel of apples; an old maid tries on a new outfit.
She hates living in the country, hates being poor,
Misguided, and judged; but she loves country
In the wintertime, when the snow falls prettily
On the ground, and the old woman down the street
Gives her a ripe new plum and a basket of
Wash cloths she knitted herself.
The storm lessens; the wind heaves in and out,
In and out, sounding like a harmonica.
Clouds slowly melt from view, into the August hue.
Flowers.
I forgot the sound of the grandfather clock, the way it mesmerizes in small doses. The doctor came in today to check on Bradley Shaw, who broke his hip in two places; his mind revels at the flower that was stuck between two pages, the sadness imbedded in the dark. The sound of her voice is the only thing that will soothe him; the sound of madness fills his soul. It is a sickness, a journey of words that flits through the midnight air and drops down on peppermint oceans; a sickness that has no words or sound or color, an odorless gas that is forgotten in waves-sounds are outside of sounds; light flashes in a bit of color, a hatred that is putrid and moves like steel and flame. Someone forget me; please forget who I am; please forget I ever existed. A ghost calls to me from the depth of the dark, it is me, who I have become. The sunlight falls in through the window; makes gold bars on the floor of the cold room. The woman makes Kool-Aid for the old man. And brings it to him in a paper cup. The sound of flowers fills the room. And lights the world with its gloom.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Make the Canvas Bleed.
A torrid voices of imagery
A fresh green crown in the grass.
Dapples lightly in upturned voices;
The birds sing songs in summer
Cows low to the low red moon;
I walk solidly on ghost footsteps.
Old doorknobs bend in June;
A baby suckles on a mama’s breast.
The cattails select John’s choices,
We don’t know if it’s a bummer.
I try to rhyme; we won’t let it pass.
The meadow is green in the cold snow.
Volcanoes spout ash from below;
The cold wind blows.
You are the picture of a photograph.
We realize the still sound of the
Brownstown.
Tomorrow is not a bent spoon.
I am alone.
Birds flock on heels in June.
The wind is a sixteen bottles of symmetry;
You aren’t mad, but you aren’t walking quietly.
A torrid voices of imagery,
Talks to me and the cold wind blows.
You don’t know that I am angry.
You don’t know that cattails bleed.
A fresh green crown in the grass.
Dapples lightly in upturned voices;
The birds sing songs in summer
Cows low to the low red moon;
I walk solidly on ghost footsteps.
Old doorknobs bend in June;
A baby suckles on a mama’s breast.
The cattails select John’s choices,
We don’t know if it’s a bummer.
I try to rhyme; we won’t let it pass.
The meadow is green in the cold snow.
Volcanoes spout ash from below;
The cold wind blows.
You are the picture of a photograph.
We realize the still sound of the
Brownstown.
Tomorrow is not a bent spoon.
I am alone.
Birds flock on heels in June.
The wind is a sixteen bottles of symmetry;
You aren’t mad, but you aren’t walking quietly.
A torrid voices of imagery,
Talks to me and the cold wind blows.
You don’t know that I am angry.
You don’t know that cattails bleed.
Friday, April 23, 2010
OK.
I never had a father who bothered about me.
We whisper words of wisdom; and shelter where we speak.
I never had a family that wanted me,
Never had a shoe to wear, or anyone to care;
I found my way through the uncertainty,
And laid my head on the floor.
Whispering words of wisdom,
I can barely speak anymore.
All the meanness of the dark,
And the shadows of the dawn,
My head I still hold it high,
When life is overdrawn.
The birds speak gently to the sky;
There is no one who hears.
We force ourselves to live our lives,
Without knowing why or where.
The planet is a memory, of spinning voices
And doubt,
We try to speak the words are bleak,
And I can’t scream or shout.
All the roads we walk upon,
And all the greed,
Are turned out in a whirlabout,
And we don’t say what we need.
I lay my head upon your shoulder,
And we walk on the grass.
I don’t think what we speak,
And the crowds are rolling fast.
I never had a father and he never had one, too,
The sky is molted; the volcanoes erupted;
In a field of blue.
He never said what he didn’t say,
And then he went away-
I look outside and stars collide,
And we are all OK.
We whisper words of wisdom; and shelter where we speak.
I never had a family that wanted me,
Never had a shoe to wear, or anyone to care;
I found my way through the uncertainty,
And laid my head on the floor.
Whispering words of wisdom,
I can barely speak anymore.
All the meanness of the dark,
And the shadows of the dawn,
My head I still hold it high,
When life is overdrawn.
The birds speak gently to the sky;
There is no one who hears.
We force ourselves to live our lives,
Without knowing why or where.
The planet is a memory, of spinning voices
And doubt,
We try to speak the words are bleak,
And I can’t scream or shout.
All the roads we walk upon,
And all the greed,
Are turned out in a whirlabout,
And we don’t say what we need.
I lay my head upon your shoulder,
And we walk on the grass.
I don’t think what we speak,
And the crowds are rolling fast.
I never had a father and he never had one, too,
The sky is molted; the volcanoes erupted;
In a field of blue.
He never said what he didn’t say,
And then he went away-
I look outside and stars collide,
And we are all OK.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
I Am the Electric Guitar.
I am the electric guitar.
I strum you down a field of flowers.
I strum you when the harp has stilled.
I take you home and fill you with music;
The sound of your crying wakens my cat,
Shadow.
I found him in an abandoned lot late one
Afternoon,
And the sun was shining on a brick wall.
I am the electric guitar.
The words flow fast from my lips,
And the river flows and the sun shines
On the tabletop,
And my heart declares that I am in dire
Need of showering.
We are the news.
We are the apologetic.
I bought you at a pawn shop in Brooklyn,
You spewed songs from your lips.
You said you weren’t naïve.
I didn’t believe in naïveté.
I don’t believe in anything other than
My truthful words,
Burnt brown from ashes.
She said you would not melt.
That the cheese would melt the
Sandwiches,
That the landslides of commerce
Have not been broken into.
That our house was not put up for sale.
I am the electric guitar.
I speak words and worlds are tuned into shades.
We turn down the bright blankets
On the bed.
I strum you down a field of flowers.
I strum you when the harp has stilled.
I take you home and fill you with music;
The sound of your crying wakens my cat,
Shadow.
I found him in an abandoned lot late one
Afternoon,
And the sun was shining on a brick wall.
I am the electric guitar.
The words flow fast from my lips,
And the river flows and the sun shines
On the tabletop,
And my heart declares that I am in dire
Need of showering.
We are the news.
We are the apologetic.
I bought you at a pawn shop in Brooklyn,
You spewed songs from your lips.
You said you weren’t naïve.
I didn’t believe in naïveté.
I don’t believe in anything other than
My truthful words,
Burnt brown from ashes.
She said you would not melt.
That the cheese would melt the
Sandwiches,
That the landslides of commerce
Have not been broken into.
That our house was not put up for sale.
I am the electric guitar.
I speak words and worlds are tuned into shades.
We turn down the bright blankets
On the bed.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Don't Dwell.
A gazillion stars you said were words,
Wrapped in your arms, the flowers you picked
Strewn out into the relentless universe.
You said you would be home by noon.
You said you were not done working at Walmart’s,
Two women named Diane as cashiers.
You bought a package of cigarettes;
You spoke to the woman who spoke Spanish.
I called my mother on the telephone and she
Wrote down special names;
Specific dates and times related to Vietnam.
She said she didn’t like Vietnam War
Anymore,
Didn’t like the old ghosts living in her closet
And shooed them away.
She said it was long past their time.
She said nothing was more flushed than
The familiar face of rage,
Spilled out lonely and naked on dirt rags.
We bought a couple of washcloths at Walmart,
And everything was coming into place.
Her mind was good, and destiny was not done.
She knocked on the doors of nursing homes,
And told us we couldn’t walk,
Couldn’t talk, find things in a lily of the field.
My mind was made up.
I would work on Broadway. I would sing and act
And freshen myself up to live daily,
My mouth pursed slightly, singing
A bad song.
You said you would come to bed.
You said a lot of things.
You were working on your backswing.
You were pacing up and down the stairs.
The house was old and seemed to swallow people.
The house was old and it seemed to swallow horns.
A gazillion stars you said were words.
Broken and plucking on strings.
The stars are pinpoints of eyes.
They are of the old worlds.
The laughter that is beaten dead.
The man that could not find the time to make others
Laugh.
The calmness of it; the other side of the ice,
The earth that spoke to people who listened,
And sighed quietly as the world slept.
Wrapped in your arms, the flowers you picked
Strewn out into the relentless universe.
You said you would be home by noon.
You said you were not done working at Walmart’s,
Two women named Diane as cashiers.
You bought a package of cigarettes;
You spoke to the woman who spoke Spanish.
I called my mother on the telephone and she
Wrote down special names;
Specific dates and times related to Vietnam.
She said she didn’t like Vietnam War
Anymore,
Didn’t like the old ghosts living in her closet
And shooed them away.
She said it was long past their time.
She said nothing was more flushed than
The familiar face of rage,
Spilled out lonely and naked on dirt rags.
We bought a couple of washcloths at Walmart,
And everything was coming into place.
Her mind was good, and destiny was not done.
She knocked on the doors of nursing homes,
And told us we couldn’t walk,
Couldn’t talk, find things in a lily of the field.
My mind was made up.
I would work on Broadway. I would sing and act
And freshen myself up to live daily,
My mouth pursed slightly, singing
A bad song.
You said you would come to bed.
You said a lot of things.
You were working on your backswing.
You were pacing up and down the stairs.
The house was old and seemed to swallow people.
The house was old and it seemed to swallow horns.
A gazillion stars you said were words.
Broken and plucking on strings.
The stars are pinpoints of eyes.
They are of the old worlds.
The laughter that is beaten dead.
The man that could not find the time to make others
Laugh.
The calmness of it; the other side of the ice,
The earth that spoke to people who listened,
And sighed quietly as the world slept.
On Iceland.
She sighed and the still of her voice
Was a boom box on center stage.
Her words burn like torrid images,
Of sultry lanes and burning microfilm.
She spins through the galaxy;
The planets twirl and whirl
And we are walking on water.
I plant rhododendrons; geraniums;
White lilies and broken bells;
The cold is in the cold,
The wind hollow and we find our way
Through the nakedness.
You said you wouldn’t find me
Anywhere to sit;
Buildings sit like islands on crabgrass.
The wind is whispering,
Sad and lonely songs through the trees.
We cut the grass and the grass is watered daily;
We cut down trees and they wreck havoc
On Iceland.
The sun is shining on the shore, our shore,
The place where we met and dreamt
Big dreams-the place where we found
Inner turmoil and broke through the acid
Rain that flocked the clouds.
We talk to the clouds-
Sing and clouds are reborn,
In the bitterness, the simplistic
Time,
The houses were reborn and given
New names.
A new star was born in the sky,
Purple and veiled as a promise.
The still of her voice moved mountains,
And the West winds was stilled.
Was a boom box on center stage.
Her words burn like torrid images,
Of sultry lanes and burning microfilm.
She spins through the galaxy;
The planets twirl and whirl
And we are walking on water.
I plant rhododendrons; geraniums;
White lilies and broken bells;
The cold is in the cold,
The wind hollow and we find our way
Through the nakedness.
You said you wouldn’t find me
Anywhere to sit;
Buildings sit like islands on crabgrass.
The wind is whispering,
Sad and lonely songs through the trees.
We cut the grass and the grass is watered daily;
We cut down trees and they wreck havoc
On Iceland.
The sun is shining on the shore, our shore,
The place where we met and dreamt
Big dreams-the place where we found
Inner turmoil and broke through the acid
Rain that flocked the clouds.
We talk to the clouds-
Sing and clouds are reborn,
In the bitterness, the simplistic
Time,
The houses were reborn and given
New names.
A new star was born in the sky,
Purple and veiled as a promise.
The still of her voice moved mountains,
And the West winds was stilled.
Monday, April 12, 2010
First part, Dragonbane.
The light was bright.
The soldier wanted to be in it.
They left him alone and put his body in a big brown box. The soldier saw this from where he stood, swallowing hard and making sure his mind was ready to accept the consequences of his actions. Everything was so bright, it hurt his eyes.
A man walked into the room. This was not Death. Death did not wear robes; did not have purple eyes. Death was nobody’s business; nothing else was nobody’s business. His eyes were wide and afraid. His heart was lit with a gentleness that couldn’t be described. His mind was calm. He was forced to think about different things.
“You can’t leave,” the man said, weeping.
The soldier put his arm out to touch him. His hands went right through him. “Well,” he declared. “I’m dead.”
The man chuckled and nodded. “You were tortured when you were alive, forced to do something you didn’t want to,” he said. “Now, how do you feel?”
He was having conversations with a Shadow. One of the Shadowmen. They rose from the depths of the night and overtook the dawn; light spilling onto the grass. Gosh, the light was bright. Brighter than anything. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I want to yell. I want to run. I want to jump and play. I saw the light. There is much work to be done.”
“That is why I stay,” he replied. “I stay here, hoping for something else that isn’t what I am. Hoping for a glimpse of redemption; a glimmer of peace. I go around, and speak to others who have the Noise-this is what they call those who are wicked.”
“The ones who see the dead?” he asked patiently.
“Yes.”
“I have so many questions.”
“I know,” he replied, honestly.
“Are you always looking?”
He was startled. Shadowmen never got startled. They just were. “Looking for?” he pressed.
He shrugged. “Things, ideas,” he replied. “Nothing that I know about. Nothing tangible, nothing real.”
“What is real?”
“The sky. That is all.”
“Are you almost ready?”
The soldier smiled. His eyes crinkled. “Almost,” he answered harshly.
The white wizard stood over the soldier’s grave. His shadow overtook the entire length of it, and his mouth twisted in a snarl. “I tried,” he told him. “I tried, Harry Barrow, I really did. I tried to bring peace and prosperity; all I could bring was chaos.” His face was shiny with tears.
The wind picked up. He looked up at the sun, his eyes still shining, and something dark crawled across the sun and everything shimmered in a weird, shimmery haze. The white wizard had never seen anything like it before in all of his life.
A soldier appeared in front of him. He said, “It’s Harry.”
The white wizard swallowed hard and reached out to touch him. His hand went right through him. “Hello,” he said. He let his hands dangle to his sides. “Sorry, Harry, but you’re dead.”
“I know,” the soldier replied. “They told me after I went into the light.”
“How is it?” Ellerhynwyn asked. He cocked his head to look at him.
He shrugged, bored. “No difference from being alive,” he answered. “The only difference is, we don’t have to eat a damn thing-it’s not mandatory.” He chuckled. “I can make a pretty mean soufflé, though.”
Ellerhynwyn nodded. “I bet you can. You feel weird about death?”
“No. I felt more weird about life. Being a soldier taught me to appreciate life. To live again. I thought I would never live again.”
“Because of what?”
“Because of things I couldn’t change. Because of whatever was happening in the world. The darkness. The evil. I can see the relics from here. They’re not so tough; they were Merlin’s, that much is for certain.”
Ellerhynwyn smiled. “We wondered about that,” he said. “Goodbye, soldier.”
“Goodbye.”
The man shimmered once, again; and disappeared.
The sun was high in the sky. Everything had color around it. Everything was beautiful. Ellerhynwyn felt like magic.
The soldier wanted to be in it.
They left him alone and put his body in a big brown box. The soldier saw this from where he stood, swallowing hard and making sure his mind was ready to accept the consequences of his actions. Everything was so bright, it hurt his eyes.
A man walked into the room. This was not Death. Death did not wear robes; did not have purple eyes. Death was nobody’s business; nothing else was nobody’s business. His eyes were wide and afraid. His heart was lit with a gentleness that couldn’t be described. His mind was calm. He was forced to think about different things.
“You can’t leave,” the man said, weeping.
The soldier put his arm out to touch him. His hands went right through him. “Well,” he declared. “I’m dead.”
The man chuckled and nodded. “You were tortured when you were alive, forced to do something you didn’t want to,” he said. “Now, how do you feel?”
He was having conversations with a Shadow. One of the Shadowmen. They rose from the depths of the night and overtook the dawn; light spilling onto the grass. Gosh, the light was bright. Brighter than anything. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I want to yell. I want to run. I want to jump and play. I saw the light. There is much work to be done.”
“That is why I stay,” he replied. “I stay here, hoping for something else that isn’t what I am. Hoping for a glimpse of redemption; a glimmer of peace. I go around, and speak to others who have the Noise-this is what they call those who are wicked.”
“The ones who see the dead?” he asked patiently.
“Yes.”
“I have so many questions.”
“I know,” he replied, honestly.
“Are you always looking?”
He was startled. Shadowmen never got startled. They just were. “Looking for?” he pressed.
He shrugged. “Things, ideas,” he replied. “Nothing that I know about. Nothing tangible, nothing real.”
“What is real?”
“The sky. That is all.”
“Are you almost ready?”
The soldier smiled. His eyes crinkled. “Almost,” he answered harshly.
The white wizard stood over the soldier’s grave. His shadow overtook the entire length of it, and his mouth twisted in a snarl. “I tried,” he told him. “I tried, Harry Barrow, I really did. I tried to bring peace and prosperity; all I could bring was chaos.” His face was shiny with tears.
The wind picked up. He looked up at the sun, his eyes still shining, and something dark crawled across the sun and everything shimmered in a weird, shimmery haze. The white wizard had never seen anything like it before in all of his life.
A soldier appeared in front of him. He said, “It’s Harry.”
The white wizard swallowed hard and reached out to touch him. His hand went right through him. “Hello,” he said. He let his hands dangle to his sides. “Sorry, Harry, but you’re dead.”
“I know,” the soldier replied. “They told me after I went into the light.”
“How is it?” Ellerhynwyn asked. He cocked his head to look at him.
He shrugged, bored. “No difference from being alive,” he answered. “The only difference is, we don’t have to eat a damn thing-it’s not mandatory.” He chuckled. “I can make a pretty mean soufflé, though.”
Ellerhynwyn nodded. “I bet you can. You feel weird about death?”
“No. I felt more weird about life. Being a soldier taught me to appreciate life. To live again. I thought I would never live again.”
“Because of what?”
“Because of things I couldn’t change. Because of whatever was happening in the world. The darkness. The evil. I can see the relics from here. They’re not so tough; they were Merlin’s, that much is for certain.”
Ellerhynwyn smiled. “We wondered about that,” he said. “Goodbye, soldier.”
“Goodbye.”
The man shimmered once, again; and disappeared.
The sun was high in the sky. Everything had color around it. Everything was beautiful. Ellerhynwyn felt like magic.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Wasps and Clocks.
In tales of old worlds, we are strong and relentless-
A chord that struck the heart.
The worm is made from flesh and flesh is spoken
From strings like balloons. In the old death,
My heart is made from corn melted from flesh-
The words are spoken in tales spun from old
Wives,
The hearts beat like gilded black wings.
A cloud of angry wasps.
A tourniquet that is spun from old dials.
We hear the world, the whispers of words;
Our eyes lock, and the bell bangs twice.
I am waiting, forever waiting.
Sentinels bleak and relentless.
Follow sad rhymes, ancient as anything.
We creep across the marsh of old hands.
I can’t do anything.
I can’t say anything.
We locked eyes and couldn’t find anything hidden
In the shadows,
The shadows marched from strands of wool.
This is not the age of redemption.
This is not the age of old worlds.
Crossed out, we move on-
Old ghosts are hung from silver doors.
The windows are spoken of anything,
Anything is derived from flesh.
You told me we wouldn’t go back.
You told me you were tossing and turning
In your bed,
That your tears were not fresh and burning.
The wildflowers burned.
Everything was burning from shadows and
Spots of shadows.
I looked at the sky and a rainbow appeared,
Stark and naked and full of wings.
The grace was not in anything.
A chord that struck the heart.
The worm is made from flesh and flesh is spoken
From strings like balloons. In the old death,
My heart is made from corn melted from flesh-
The words are spoken in tales spun from old
Wives,
The hearts beat like gilded black wings.
A cloud of angry wasps.
A tourniquet that is spun from old dials.
We hear the world, the whispers of words;
Our eyes lock, and the bell bangs twice.
I am waiting, forever waiting.
Sentinels bleak and relentless.
Follow sad rhymes, ancient as anything.
We creep across the marsh of old hands.
I can’t do anything.
I can’t say anything.
We locked eyes and couldn’t find anything hidden
In the shadows,
The shadows marched from strands of wool.
This is not the age of redemption.
This is not the age of old worlds.
Crossed out, we move on-
Old ghosts are hung from silver doors.
The windows are spoken of anything,
Anything is derived from flesh.
You told me we wouldn’t go back.
You told me you were tossing and turning
In your bed,
That your tears were not fresh and burning.
The wildflowers burned.
Everything was burning from shadows and
Spots of shadows.
I looked at the sky and a rainbow appeared,
Stark and naked and full of wings.
The grace was not in anything.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Things Etched in Stone.
Hunger is not my middle name
You are not my face, my brother-
You are etched in my dreams
Eyes are burdened by colors
You tell tales and spin wreckless dreams
I fear not the face of anger
I fear not the face of redemption
Torn apart by weathered hands,
Hands are aching and bleeding,
Red and golden as dreams.
We fear not, the corn,
The hunger is temptation.
The temptation is greed.
Greed is unified.
Unified in our grace.
The stem from the rosebud
Glows downward,
Empties out into the world.
Hunger is not me.
I followed the woman down
The stairs,
She hisses at me like a snake-
Her eyes are bloodred,
Mouth is twisted.
I model myself after JFK,
The man who was destroyed.
He said, Fear not the temptation;
The eating of chicken.
Fear not destruction.
The commerce of it.
The letting down of it.
The letting down is easy.
Everything is destroyed.
We were all in the middle.
You are not my face, my brother-
You are etched in my dreams
Eyes are burdened by colors
You tell tales and spin wreckless dreams
I fear not the face of anger
I fear not the face of redemption
Torn apart by weathered hands,
Hands are aching and bleeding,
Red and golden as dreams.
We fear not, the corn,
The hunger is temptation.
The temptation is greed.
Greed is unified.
Unified in our grace.
The stem from the rosebud
Glows downward,
Empties out into the world.
Hunger is not me.
I followed the woman down
The stairs,
She hisses at me like a snake-
Her eyes are bloodred,
Mouth is twisted.
I model myself after JFK,
The man who was destroyed.
He said, Fear not the temptation;
The eating of chicken.
Fear not destruction.
The commerce of it.
The letting down of it.
The letting down is easy.
Everything is destroyed.
We were all in the middle.
Resorted to Something.
I pick myself up and dust myself off.
The poem is in the oven.
It is about to be taken out.
You tell me the bow looks pretty in
My hair; you tell me you are here for me.
The ghost snakes around closed doors and
Old windows,
The flower blooms bright on the windowsill.
The silence is in it all.
The way you walk. Your heart moves in
And out, painstakingly slow;
I look at you and time slows to a
Screeching halt,
I look at you and I can’t speak any words.
The words are not my words.
They are the words of the wind;
The light and the dark,
The sunrise and sunset;
The last man did not appreciate me,
Would not tell me I was beautiful;
I don’t like to speak in past tense.
I didn’t want to speak to him at all.
The worlds in old houses say goodbye
And transcend upon, up on slow mountains.
The hills and goldenrods are made pretty.
The doorway to heaven reaches up the stairs.
The beat of my heart heats up the
Night,
Achingly slow and the moon shines down.
His face is smiling like a penny;
His heart swells like a balloon.
I don’t want to make you breakfast.
The poem is in the oven.
It is about to be taken out.
You tell me the bow looks pretty in
My hair; you tell me you are here for me.
The ghost snakes around closed doors and
Old windows,
The flower blooms bright on the windowsill.
The silence is in it all.
The way you walk. Your heart moves in
And out, painstakingly slow;
I look at you and time slows to a
Screeching halt,
I look at you and I can’t speak any words.
The words are not my words.
They are the words of the wind;
The light and the dark,
The sunrise and sunset;
The last man did not appreciate me,
Would not tell me I was beautiful;
I don’t like to speak in past tense.
I didn’t want to speak to him at all.
The worlds in old houses say goodbye
And transcend upon, up on slow mountains.
The hills and goldenrods are made pretty.
The doorway to heaven reaches up the stairs.
The beat of my heart heats up the
Night,
Achingly slow and the moon shines down.
His face is smiling like a penny;
His heart swells like a balloon.
I don’t want to make you breakfast.
Friday, April 02, 2010
Overtakes The Sky.
I am the last. The wildflower runeth.
The dawn overtakes the sky.
The clouds rush sad as rivers,
And the cold is deep in things.
I wish I wasn’t the rushing tide.
The wind moans still in autumn.
You told me you wouldn’t speak
To me of mountains, rivers-
Blessings run coarsely through
Matted hair.
People are jealous of
Things that I say,
Jealous of my written words.
I can’t climb inside and outside,
Back and forth-
Your friendship means nothing
To me now. I never learned how
To speak. We don’t know what
Words are spoken,
In the language of suffering,
The commerce of suffering-
We yell at everyone,
And speak in songs,
Words too broken to be heard.
People are envious of my scars.
They bear the burdens of passion,
Of Zeus and his wings.
The light is heavenly in the sky.
We are aching in our words.
My thoughts are flightless.
My mother sleeps in her bedroom,
And a cat yowls outside.
No one hears me screaming.
No one hears the words, like blood,
Pouring from my echoed
Soul,
The long-lost soul of someone
Who says goodbye.
Goodbye to this world.
Everyone wants to fight, anyway.
The dawn overtakes the sky.
The clouds rush sad as rivers,
And the cold is deep in things.
I wish I wasn’t the rushing tide.
The wind moans still in autumn.
You told me you wouldn’t speak
To me of mountains, rivers-
Blessings run coarsely through
Matted hair.
People are jealous of
Things that I say,
Jealous of my written words.
I can’t climb inside and outside,
Back and forth-
Your friendship means nothing
To me now. I never learned how
To speak. We don’t know what
Words are spoken,
In the language of suffering,
The commerce of suffering-
We yell at everyone,
And speak in songs,
Words too broken to be heard.
People are envious of my scars.
They bear the burdens of passion,
Of Zeus and his wings.
The light is heavenly in the sky.
We are aching in our words.
My thoughts are flightless.
My mother sleeps in her bedroom,
And a cat yowls outside.
No one hears me screaming.
No one hears the words, like blood,
Pouring from my echoed
Soul,
The long-lost soul of someone
Who says goodbye.
Goodbye to this world.
Everyone wants to fight, anyway.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
The Woman Has Flabby Arms.
I told my teacher what all the
Fuss was about.
She mentioned climbing stairs.
She mentioned stirring potatoes in big pots.
She mentioned old homes,
Withered weather vanes.
Knocking on closed doors.
The woman has flabby arms.
Her hair is gray, wild, shattered from
Rocks and hard veins.
Blue veins swim like rivers.
It is not a hard thing to comprehend.
She told me she liked to walk on the water.
That noises were too much for her.
She couldn’t take the criticism.
The mouth is open into a song.
A sob, the wind moans.
She walks on happiness.
Her friends move the world.
The world is movement.
She sees noise.
The movement is in the noise.
She is not an old woman.
The house belongs to her.
Sometimes, I sat out on the patio,
And looked at the mountain behind
The backyard.
My mother’s voice comes in my mind
Sometimes.
My Uncle Stan, a teacher, said
The river lacks movement.
Everything lacks movement.
The movement is everything.
Her words are sharp; they carry no momentum.
Everything is white in the quiet night.
Her heart is a microwave.
Fuss was about.
She mentioned climbing stairs.
She mentioned stirring potatoes in big pots.
She mentioned old homes,
Withered weather vanes.
Knocking on closed doors.
The woman has flabby arms.
Her hair is gray, wild, shattered from
Rocks and hard veins.
Blue veins swim like rivers.
It is not a hard thing to comprehend.
She told me she liked to walk on the water.
That noises were too much for her.
She couldn’t take the criticism.
The mouth is open into a song.
A sob, the wind moans.
She walks on happiness.
Her friends move the world.
The world is movement.
She sees noise.
The movement is in the noise.
She is not an old woman.
The house belongs to her.
Sometimes, I sat out on the patio,
And looked at the mountain behind
The backyard.
My mother’s voice comes in my mind
Sometimes.
My Uncle Stan, a teacher, said
The river lacks movement.
Everything lacks movement.
The movement is everything.
Her words are sharp; they carry no momentum.
Everything is white in the quiet night.
Her heart is a microwave.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Lilacs Are Old.
My face has grown, tattered and old-
The skates are inline and washed in the kitchen sink.
My friend, Jasmine,
Sprays herself with perfume and gets ready for a date-
The lilacs curl on the ground.
The ground is white with snow.
The snow has melted in.
The snow is in everything.
My face is old.
My lines are wrinkled.
My grandmother has been withered like
A flower,
She has Alzheimer’s
And cannot get out of bed.
Her charm is simple.
She is simple in her charm.
Her face contorts into a smile.
Her smile is stilled.
She wills herself to sit up and take a drink.
The lake outside is glowing.
The garden is shattered with ice.
The ice moves mountains.
Mountains are exhausted full of sun,
The bark from the wood is torn down.
The skates are inline and washed in the kitchen sink.
My friend, Jasmine,
Sprays herself with perfume and gets ready for a date-
The lilacs curl on the ground.
The ground is white with snow.
The snow has melted in.
The snow is in everything.
My face is old.
My lines are wrinkled.
My grandmother has been withered like
A flower,
She has Alzheimer’s
And cannot get out of bed.
Her charm is simple.
She is simple in her charm.
Her face contorts into a smile.
Her smile is stilled.
She wills herself to sit up and take a drink.
The lake outside is glowing.
The garden is shattered with ice.
The ice moves mountains.
Mountains are exhausted full of sun,
The bark from the wood is torn down.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
From the Flesh of Tomorrow.
You told me you would come see me tomorrow.
The shop had to be closed up.
You were a mechanic and had been one for three years,
Your eyes spin like tarnished coins in an antique shop.
Don’t act like you care about me.
You carve your way to grief-
Grief is in the folding of the flower,
The doorway that is always open.
I take shelter in your eyes.
The eyes that glare and glimmer over me,
Your body is transcendent,
Your eyes are pure as bones.
In this house, there are field mice;
My mother is making banana bread
For my father,
My sister is cruel, waiting for the mail-
The old man walks up the stairs with
Bended back,
Eyes glittering steely behind glass bars.
I am not a criminal.
Your hatred is from flesh,
Derived of flesh-
The bones are aching and tainted.
The shop had to be closed up.
You were a mechanic and had been one for three years,
Your eyes spin like tarnished coins in an antique shop.
Don’t act like you care about me.
You carve your way to grief-
Grief is in the folding of the flower,
The doorway that is always open.
I take shelter in your eyes.
The eyes that glare and glimmer over me,
Your body is transcendent,
Your eyes are pure as bones.
In this house, there are field mice;
My mother is making banana bread
For my father,
My sister is cruel, waiting for the mail-
The old man walks up the stairs with
Bended back,
Eyes glittering steely behind glass bars.
I am not a criminal.
Your hatred is from flesh,
Derived of flesh-
The bones are aching and tainted.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
THE DISTANCE IT TAKES TO ZEUS.
THE DISTANCE IT TAKES TO ZEUS
The two moons were strange and distant.
Professor Heglic Mangdogulas studied them through his telescope, and frowned. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The robot, Radical, spun around and around in circles and went over to him, tugging on the end of his lab coat. “Sir,” he sputtered, shaking his head. “Sir, what are you doing?”
He got up. “Looking,” he replied shortly, shaking his head.
“Looking, for what?”
“Stars,” he said, smiling.
“Stars? What stars?”
He scowled. “Didn’t I teach you this already?” he demanded, shaking his head. “They are big balls of burning gas.”
“How big?”
He spread his hands. “This big,” he answered. He smiled, cocked his head to look at him. “Bigger than the Moon. Bigger than the sun. I think it shines in June.”
“Or smaller than the sun,” the robot said, he shook his head and clicked his tongue.
“The sun is cold,” said the professor.
“The stars are colder,” a familiar voice replied. It was the same “person” as before. The robot.
The professor smiled at the computer on his desk. “Contessa, my love,” he purred, blinking. “How are your lug nuts today?” He patted the computer. It was a large computer. The window of the computer was a black face.
“Fine,” the computer answered. “I’m a little tired, though. I was chatting all night in some stupid chat room, and this man called me a Dreamer.” He chuckled. “It was funny. We had a good laugh about it. He thought I was a woman.” He laughed again.
“You’re weird,” the professor said, ignoring him.
He shut off the computer and lumbered out of the lab.
The computer sighed and shut himself off. He drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, the professor returned to the lab and looked through his telescope again. The stars were bright in the sky; but were brighter during the day. He saw something in the sky. It was coming increasingly closer. Closer, still, until it was right in front of the lens. He thought it was a bug at first, and reached out to swat it, but realized it was a star. He reached for the phone on the desk-the computer giggled-and called NASA. “Shut up, everybody!” he hollered.
The computer quieted.
“Dang,” he said.
“NASA, this is Professor Heglic Mangdogulas,” he reported. “I’m at 54; 51; B12, in the Eastern sky. Time is four-oh-clock. What is it?”
“It’s a new star,” the operator sounded surprised. “Good God, man, it’s a large one, too! Do you want to name it?”
The professor nodded. “Sure,” he said. “I want to call it Zeus.”
He snorted. “That’s a dumb name,” he said.
“Should I pick out another one?” he asked.
“Not really. I just penciled it in.”
“But, you’re using a pencil.” He frowned in confusion.
“I said, not really. Good day, sir.”
He hung up the phone and resumed looking out of the telescope.
The two moons were strange and distant.
Professor Heglic Mangdogulas studied them through his telescope, and frowned. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The robot, Radical, spun around and around in circles and went over to him, tugging on the end of his lab coat. “Sir,” he sputtered, shaking his head. “Sir, what are you doing?”
He got up. “Looking,” he replied shortly, shaking his head.
“Looking, for what?”
“Stars,” he said, smiling.
“Stars? What stars?”
He scowled. “Didn’t I teach you this already?” he demanded, shaking his head. “They are big balls of burning gas.”
“How big?”
He spread his hands. “This big,” he answered. He smiled, cocked his head to look at him. “Bigger than the Moon. Bigger than the sun. I think it shines in June.”
“Or smaller than the sun,” the robot said, he shook his head and clicked his tongue.
“The sun is cold,” said the professor.
“The stars are colder,” a familiar voice replied. It was the same “person” as before. The robot.
The professor smiled at the computer on his desk. “Contessa, my love,” he purred, blinking. “How are your lug nuts today?” He patted the computer. It was a large computer. The window of the computer was a black face.
“Fine,” the computer answered. “I’m a little tired, though. I was chatting all night in some stupid chat room, and this man called me a Dreamer.” He chuckled. “It was funny. We had a good laugh about it. He thought I was a woman.” He laughed again.
“You’re weird,” the professor said, ignoring him.
He shut off the computer and lumbered out of the lab.
The computer sighed and shut himself off. He drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, the professor returned to the lab and looked through his telescope again. The stars were bright in the sky; but were brighter during the day. He saw something in the sky. It was coming increasingly closer. Closer, still, until it was right in front of the lens. He thought it was a bug at first, and reached out to swat it, but realized it was a star. He reached for the phone on the desk-the computer giggled-and called NASA. “Shut up, everybody!” he hollered.
The computer quieted.
“Dang,” he said.
“NASA, this is Professor Heglic Mangdogulas,” he reported. “I’m at 54; 51; B12, in the Eastern sky. Time is four-oh-clock. What is it?”
“It’s a new star,” the operator sounded surprised. “Good God, man, it’s a large one, too! Do you want to name it?”
The professor nodded. “Sure,” he said. “I want to call it Zeus.”
He snorted. “That’s a dumb name,” he said.
“Should I pick out another one?” he asked.
“Not really. I just penciled it in.”
“But, you’re using a pencil.” He frowned in confusion.
“I said, not really. Good day, sir.”
He hung up the phone and resumed looking out of the telescope.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
i pick myself up
I pick myself up and dust myself off.
The poem is in the oven.
It is about to be taken out.
You tell me the bow looks pretty in
My hair; you tell me you are here for me.
The ghost snakes around closed doors and
Old windows,
The flower blooms bright on the windowsill.
The silence is in it all.
The way you walk. Your heart moves in
And out, painstakingly slow;
I look at you and time slows to a
Screeching halt,
I look at you and I can’t speak any words.
The words are not my words.
They are the words of the wind;
The light and the dark,
The sunrise and sunset;
The last man did not appreciate me,
Would not tell me I was beautiful;
I don’t like to speak in past tense.
I didn’t want to speak to him at all.
The worlds in old houses say goodbye
And transcend upon, up on slow mountains.
The hills and goldenrods are made pretty.
The doorway to heaven reaches up the stairs.
The beat of my heart heats up the
Night,
Achingly slow and the moon shines down.
His face is smiling like a penny;
His heart swells like a balloon.
I don’t want to make you breakfast.
The poem is in the oven.
It is about to be taken out.
You tell me the bow looks pretty in
My hair; you tell me you are here for me.
The ghost snakes around closed doors and
Old windows,
The flower blooms bright on the windowsill.
The silence is in it all.
The way you walk. Your heart moves in
And out, painstakingly slow;
I look at you and time slows to a
Screeching halt,
I look at you and I can’t speak any words.
The words are not my words.
They are the words of the wind;
The light and the dark,
The sunrise and sunset;
The last man did not appreciate me,
Would not tell me I was beautiful;
I don’t like to speak in past tense.
I didn’t want to speak to him at all.
The worlds in old houses say goodbye
And transcend upon, up on slow mountains.
The hills and goldenrods are made pretty.
The doorway to heaven reaches up the stairs.
The beat of my heart heats up the
Night,
Achingly slow and the moon shines down.
His face is smiling like a penny;
His heart swells like a balloon.
I don’t want to make you breakfast.
THE ROBED ONE.
THE ROBED ONE
The man was not a machine.
He started out as a machine, a long time ago before the Robed One came and freed the Freeman from the destruction of themselves; he remembered being a machine, heard the grinding of his gears while he pondered and stared out the classroom window at the flowers and the flowers sang their song, their mouths tipping open, their white faces nodding and scowling. He did not find out he was a machine until his 117th year being Awake, searching through the trash near an abandoned hospital, tirelessly searching for something he couldn’t even remember thinking about in the first place, when an old man approached him, mumbling something under his breath.
The man who was a Machine, wanted to be a Rogue Warrior. The Rogue Warriors were the ones who stole in the depth of the night and fought the werewolves, the gnomes, the globetrotters, the men who bashed bones and came straight from Africa. His thoughts were muddled. He ate a breakfast of orange juice and scrambled eggs; his chompers grinding them. His teeth were his best feature; the white bone glistened in the moonlight. Did he tell people this? He liked the night best. The stars shone bright, and the wild wind cried out at the injustices of the world.
“What are you going on and on about, old man?” he demanded.
“Things,” he muttered. “Things.”
He eyed him critically. “You Freeborn, or Freeman?”
He raised an eyebrow at him. “Is there a difference?” he asked harshly.
The man shrugged. “Yes, and no. A Freeman was born in a Test Tube, a lab; a Freeman is a human who was once Machine. I am Freeman. What are you?”
“Democrat,” he muttered. “Democrat.” His eyes whirred rapidly.
“Dumbass,” he said, scowling. His name was…well, he forgot his real name, and adopted the name of Eric Freeman. He didn’t know why he chose that as a last name. Most people didn’t have last names, not anymore. A long time ago, they did, before the Apocolyptic War broke out in ’75, and nearly one half of the world was destroyed or lost, depending on your perspective.
“Dumbass,” he repeated, scowling. “I call myself Dumbass, now.” He grinned crookedly, his eyes sparkling.
He shuffled off, his right leg limping. Most people were genetic mutations of some sort; the sun had become enormously close to the planet, and everything became increasingly hotter. Antarctica was now another ocean.
The world Eric lived on was called Earth.
Some of the Freeborn went out into the universe to explore other worlds; some of them stayed in their own solar system, the solar system they were born in. Most humans were born on Earth, their names were stamped in their genetic code at the hospital, left in the blood sample they left behind for others to use in case it was needed. Most government laws were based on ancient Laws of Physics, before Galileo Galilei, before Newton’s Law or Some Such Nonsense.
The Freeborn were an interesting breed of humans.
They were going to go to the Moon for the Ten Thousandth Time.
Eric was not going to go to the Moon. Freeman were given free passes to get from Earth to the Moon on a star shuttle; the star shuttles were enormously large, and had windows like wide, staring eyes.
They were blank faces. Eric returned to his apartment and grasped the knob and turned it and stood in the doorway of his kitchen, looking thoughtful and quite put-out. He went to his refrigerator and opened the door, and it was stuffed full of food. Shadows climbed up and down the walls and everything moved painstakingly slow, and his back and knees creaked and he heard the sound of the clock ticking in the kitchen. He was not thinking about anything other than having lunch or dinner, maybe a little of both; it was only four-oh-clock in the afternoon. He got a can of spaghettios out of the cupboard and poured them in a saucepan and let it heat to boil; then he carried the food into the living room and watched his big, flatscreen television he purchased three months ago from Costco. Stores were all computerized now; run by Machines. Machines ran everything, it seemed.
Eric could not find the remote.
He picked up the cushion on the couch and went through the whole thing and put the cushions down and shook his head. He crossed the room and placed himself in front of the television and turned on the television set…with the television knob! No remote, can you imagine! His mind must be going crazy. He watched tv for a half an hour and climbed up the long stairwell to bed. He was very sleepy. Morning opened, he lumbered down the stairs to the kitchen and sat at the table and ate a breakfast of cereal and cold toast; it was hard getting food now, most of the third world countries were angry with the United States of America, and refused to barter with them. Instead, they got most of their food from Mars or the Moon, because they claimed territory there first. Claiming territory was the most important thing to Freeborn, now, at least it made them think about other things besides wars and killing people and drowning machines in oil and lug nuts and rudeness. Truth be told, the end of the world was not imminent; although many prophets talked about it years and years ago. Some new prophets, idiots, talked about them still and it irritated him. Most people were stupid. Eric didn’t want to talk to most people. They were idiots.
The next day he found the remote in the flower pot.
He picked it up and changed the channel and the pot holders disappeared.
Eric stared at it, a shocked expression on his face.
The man was not a machine.
He started out as a machine, a long time ago before the Robed One came and freed the Freeman from the destruction of themselves; he remembered being a machine, heard the grinding of his gears while he pondered and stared out the classroom window at the flowers and the flowers sang their song, their mouths tipping open, their white faces nodding and scowling. He did not find out he was a machine until his 117th year being Awake, searching through the trash near an abandoned hospital, tirelessly searching for something he couldn’t even remember thinking about in the first place, when an old man approached him, mumbling something under his breath.
The man who was a Machine, wanted to be a Rogue Warrior. The Rogue Warriors were the ones who stole in the depth of the night and fought the werewolves, the gnomes, the globetrotters, the men who bashed bones and came straight from Africa. His thoughts were muddled. He ate a breakfast of orange juice and scrambled eggs; his chompers grinding them. His teeth were his best feature; the white bone glistened in the moonlight. Did he tell people this? He liked the night best. The stars shone bright, and the wild wind cried out at the injustices of the world.
“What are you going on and on about, old man?” he demanded.
“Things,” he muttered. “Things.”
He eyed him critically. “You Freeborn, or Freeman?”
He raised an eyebrow at him. “Is there a difference?” he asked harshly.
The man shrugged. “Yes, and no. A Freeman was born in a Test Tube, a lab; a Freeman is a human who was once Machine. I am Freeman. What are you?”
“Democrat,” he muttered. “Democrat.” His eyes whirred rapidly.
“Dumbass,” he said, scowling. His name was…well, he forgot his real name, and adopted the name of Eric Freeman. He didn’t know why he chose that as a last name. Most people didn’t have last names, not anymore. A long time ago, they did, before the Apocolyptic War broke out in ’75, and nearly one half of the world was destroyed or lost, depending on your perspective.
“Dumbass,” he repeated, scowling. “I call myself Dumbass, now.” He grinned crookedly, his eyes sparkling.
He shuffled off, his right leg limping. Most people were genetic mutations of some sort; the sun had become enormously close to the planet, and everything became increasingly hotter. Antarctica was now another ocean.
The world Eric lived on was called Earth.
Some of the Freeborn went out into the universe to explore other worlds; some of them stayed in their own solar system, the solar system they were born in. Most humans were born on Earth, their names were stamped in their genetic code at the hospital, left in the blood sample they left behind for others to use in case it was needed. Most government laws were based on ancient Laws of Physics, before Galileo Galilei, before Newton’s Law or Some Such Nonsense.
The Freeborn were an interesting breed of humans.
They were going to go to the Moon for the Ten Thousandth Time.
Eric was not going to go to the Moon. Freeman were given free passes to get from Earth to the Moon on a star shuttle; the star shuttles were enormously large, and had windows like wide, staring eyes.
They were blank faces. Eric returned to his apartment and grasped the knob and turned it and stood in the doorway of his kitchen, looking thoughtful and quite put-out. He went to his refrigerator and opened the door, and it was stuffed full of food. Shadows climbed up and down the walls and everything moved painstakingly slow, and his back and knees creaked and he heard the sound of the clock ticking in the kitchen. He was not thinking about anything other than having lunch or dinner, maybe a little of both; it was only four-oh-clock in the afternoon. He got a can of spaghettios out of the cupboard and poured them in a saucepan and let it heat to boil; then he carried the food into the living room and watched his big, flatscreen television he purchased three months ago from Costco. Stores were all computerized now; run by Machines. Machines ran everything, it seemed.
Eric could not find the remote.
He picked up the cushion on the couch and went through the whole thing and put the cushions down and shook his head. He crossed the room and placed himself in front of the television and turned on the television set…with the television knob! No remote, can you imagine! His mind must be going crazy. He watched tv for a half an hour and climbed up the long stairwell to bed. He was very sleepy. Morning opened, he lumbered down the stairs to the kitchen and sat at the table and ate a breakfast of cereal and cold toast; it was hard getting food now, most of the third world countries were angry with the United States of America, and refused to barter with them. Instead, they got most of their food from Mars or the Moon, because they claimed territory there first. Claiming territory was the most important thing to Freeborn, now, at least it made them think about other things besides wars and killing people and drowning machines in oil and lug nuts and rudeness. Truth be told, the end of the world was not imminent; although many prophets talked about it years and years ago. Some new prophets, idiots, talked about them still and it irritated him. Most people were stupid. Eric didn’t want to talk to most people. They were idiots.
The next day he found the remote in the flower pot.
He picked it up and changed the channel and the pot holders disappeared.
Eric stared at it, a shocked expression on his face.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
DRAGONBANE, beginning.
Alchemy’s Encyclopedia:
Dark Knight (n)-one of four branches of government that exists in the world of Merlin; the Gray Branch; the Blue Branch; the Red Branch; the Orange Branch. Three branches consist of humans; the fourth branch, the Orange Branch, consists of magical creatures and the like. The Dark Knight is a human turned mutant with the abilities of sleight-of-hand; dark foresight; and a flair for adventure. Most humans never go back. Most aren’t able to return to their normal life, whether they drop the knight title or not.
* * *
CHAPTER ONE.
Alchemy’s Encyclopedia:
Dark Knight (n)-one of four branches of government that exists in the world of Merlin; the Gray Branch; the Blue Branch; the Red Branch; the Orange Branch. Three branches consist of humans; the fourth branch, the Orange Branch, consists of magical creatures and the like. The Dark Knight is a human turned mutant with the abilities of sleight-of-hand; dark foresight; and a flair for adventure. Most humans never go back. Most aren’t able to return to their normal life, whether they drop the knight title or not.
* * *
CHAPTER ONE.
The White Raven clan moved through the inner part of the kingdom of Hanover. The white robed men shuffled through dirt and mud and snow; the snow fell from the sky in sheets and everything sparkled and was white, whiter than anything, and the ground was white and they shuffled in the cold and the ground was cold, too. The night was cold. They huddled inside their fur coats and stared up at the dark sky, a strange, benevolent expression on their faces.
“Food,” Patric Conner grunted.
The woman, Wilma Rogers, smiled and offered him grapes and he popped three into his mouth. The White Raven clan were an interesting breed. They did not have homes to live in; they shunned money of all kinds; they were not brave in battle and ran away, screaming, afraid of trauma to the head-they were very particular about the head injuries, especially, and didn’t like not knowing what was going on. They lived in caves and huts, mostly, sometimes on the beach. They were mostly cold-blooded creatures, and Merlin didn’t take kindly on humans who were cold-blooded. The night glared over them. Everything was stark and white and naked to the bone. The whiteness was seen all around them and the cold snaked through them and everything was discolored and strange. The universe was a strange place and they often talked about getting on a spaceship and returning to Earth, but they did not know how and scientists were not brilliant in that regards; they did not know how to build a spaceship.
The sky was an endless blackness.
Endless and ash gray.
Everything was ash gray.
They felt very sorry for themselves. They wanted to live in a home and could not. They wanted to breed and were afraid of contracting diseases. They were afraid; wary; helpless; their conversation was hushed and muted.
One day, they came upon a small hut.
The hut was made from mud.
The mud was caked into hardpacked soil and it could house the entire clan, of which there were ten people. The ten clan members could all fit inside the hut and they built a fire in the firepit and warmed their hands. It was warm. The clan found a corn field behind the hut and made corn mush and the wind cried and moaned and the house was built from mud; and the cold was inside of it. The wind was sad and lonely and the clan ate their corn mush and talked amongst themselves. The leader was Don Whittley. He was thirty-nine and used to be a contractor in Na until he was tried as a witch and sent away. He was very deep; his words were deep and still and he couldn’t find himself thinking about anything other than rest. He used to stay up all night long, back when he was a young troll and lived with his parents. Now, his parents lived in the kingdom of Storm, and he visited them very rarely. He had been stuck in the attic for awhile, but he was too bored to leave it himself. Apparently, Andrea was amused by the whole thing. He was, too, kinda. Not really, he guessed she lived in the Tower along with the other Elders. Some of them went stag, and had their own place. Some of them were virtually homeless, and went from one country to another. He looked out of the Watch Tower. One small yellow light blinked on the roof and everything blinked and flickered and moved; it was stiller than the quietest night, and the wind cried and was sad and lonely. The troll hummed a tune under his breath. He liked to make up songs while he was waiting in the attic. He liked to make up songs; they were good enough for his own ears.
The silence of the night was all around.
Even in the silence, the night was all around.
Everything was still. Shadows were everywhere. Shadows fell over everything and the night was still. It was cold. He pulled his jacket tighter around himself; and he went into the kitchen and made himself a hamburger. The refrigerator was stuffed with food. Magic refilled it. There were only two refrigerators in all of Merlin that could do that; the one at the Tower of Light (aka the Tower of High Sorcery), and the one at the Watch Tower. It was midnight. After midnight. He heard whispers in the dark; whispers from the ghosts who dwelled in the Tower, the ghosts that cried and spoke about nothing. The language of the dead. He was not fluent in the language of the dead, but it was much like the Harhishians. It started to snow. The troll went out of the front door and into the yard. The yard was so bright it was spotless and the night was calm and cold and everything was calm; colder than cold. The coldness was everywhere.
*
Jenny Biggins was nine-years-old. She had red hair and blue eyes. She was three foot one and very skinny for her age and she loved to read books, especially the big, thick ones she could get lost in. She had knobby knees. She hated gym class and liked her teacher, Mr. Babbage. He had wavy brown hair and brown eyes and a wife named Laura. Laura had white hair. Jenny hated gym class. She always sucked at gym class and was always picked last for volleyball. Her best friend, Clark Jesken, was always picked first. He was good at games and had a basketball court in his backyard. He said it was a present from his father for his ninth birthday. His father was always excited about the sports Clark played. He was going to be a basketball player when he grew up. It was his dream. Clark knocked on the door of her house. He had his backpack slung over his arm, and a sandwich in the other, and was eating the sandwich. “Come on,” he told her. “Let’s go.”
She laughed. “What are you eating the sandwich for?” she asked him. “You know it's breakfast!”
Clark shrugged. “I’m hungry,” he said, frowning at her. “Besides, Mom gave me a dollar. I can buy a hot lunch today.” He grinned. He had been wanting to get his mother to buy him a hot lunch for awhile now. She finally caved in. It was one small victory, he said.
“You’re going to have to bring a sandwich tomorrow,” she informed him.
He made a face. “I know. I hope it’s tuna fish.” He shook his head and they walked down the sidewalk to the street. It was a warm day outside. The sun was in the sky. It was very hot. They walked down the street and to the elementary school at the end of the street. Clark and Jenny pushed open the big double doors and went inside together. Their class room was on the first floor. Jenny put her lunch in the cubby hole and sat down in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. Mr. Babbage had not come in yet. Yettle Ewelender, the new kid, showed everyone his pet frog. He brought it for Show-and-Tell. Clark said Show-and-Tell was for babies and said Mr. Babbage was having a marital crisis at home. Whatever that meant. But Jenny agreed with him, anyway. He was a little weird. He always wore brown pants and a white shirt and his hair slicked back until it shone. He wore glasses. Jenny thought he was kind of cute except for the glasses. She thought Clark was cute but not in a boyfriend way. Her other friend, Martha Rhodes, had a boyfriend. His name was Cliff Trend. He was in the fourth grade. Jenny met Cliff during lunch once. He was a very bubbly sort of person.
“What are you doing today?” Jenny asked Tyrone Wells. He was a blonde-haired boy and had glasses and dark eyes. Jenny heard he was part Elven, that his parents were part of the Council of Elders that worked at the Tower of High Sorcery in Bromwell.
“I don’t really know,” Tyrone replied, shaking his head. “I was going to go to the river and hunt for tadpoles. I like to watch them grow into frogs.”
“You can’t cage tadpoles!” she protested.
Tyrone scowled. “They won’t be caged,” he replied. “They’ll find a nice home.”
Jenny shrugged. “Whatever,” she replied. She sat down.
The classroom door opened and Mr. Babbage entered and sat down at his desk. His desk was very neat. A notebook was placed on it; along with a coffee cup; a calculator; and two planners, a school planner and his own planner. Mr. Babbage was fond of planners. Jenny didn’t use them. Her parents were poor, and besides, she didn’t have time to use a planner.
“Today,” he said. “Today we’re going to learn about the history of Orkshire.”
Jenny made a face. She didn’t want to learn about the city she lived in. It was stupid. “I want to learn about Earth,” she informed him.
Mr. Babbage looked surprised. “Who told you about such things?” he demanded, making a face at her. Mr. Babbage started making a bunch of goofy faces and she glared back at him.
“You’re such a weirdo,” she snorted.
“You’re a weirdo!” he replied. “You’re not to learn about Earth until the Council wishes you to.” With that, he started telling a story about how an Elf came into Orkshire one day and stole a bag of apples. She dropped her pencil and bent over to pick it up to tie her shoes. She glanced around. No one had noticed she dropped it. She put her head on her desk and noticed a piece of thread rested on the edge of the desk and she glared at the piece of thread, too. She reached out to pick it up and throw it on the floor. Suddenly, a burst of lightning tore through her fingers and streaked across the desk and the piece of cloth turned to metal. She yelped, “Ow!” and sucked on her finger.
Everyone laughed. “Jenny’s sucking her thumb!” Matthew Winters cried, pointing at her.
Mr. Babbage looked annoyed. “All of you, shut up!” he scowled. “Sucking your thumb is not a terrible problem. I do it on occasion.” He glared at everyone and told them to be quiet and concentrate on learning about Elves. Elves was a prime topic nowadays because of the Great Elf War in Bromwell, at the Tower, and other places around the world of Merlin. War was a terrible, terrible thing. War was never-ending.
Dark Knight (n)-one of four branches of government that exists in the world of Merlin; the Gray Branch; the Blue Branch; the Red Branch; the Orange Branch. Three branches consist of humans; the fourth branch, the Orange Branch, consists of magical creatures and the like. The Dark Knight is a human turned mutant with the abilities of sleight-of-hand; dark foresight; and a flair for adventure. Most humans never go back. Most aren’t able to return to their normal life, whether they drop the knight title or not.
* * *
CHAPTER ONE.
Alchemy’s Encyclopedia:
Dark Knight (n)-one of four branches of government that exists in the world of Merlin; the Gray Branch; the Blue Branch; the Red Branch; the Orange Branch. Three branches consist of humans; the fourth branch, the Orange Branch, consists of magical creatures and the like. The Dark Knight is a human turned mutant with the abilities of sleight-of-hand; dark foresight; and a flair for adventure. Most humans never go back. Most aren’t able to return to their normal life, whether they drop the knight title or not.
* * *
CHAPTER ONE.
The White Raven clan moved through the inner part of the kingdom of Hanover. The white robed men shuffled through dirt and mud and snow; the snow fell from the sky in sheets and everything sparkled and was white, whiter than anything, and the ground was white and they shuffled in the cold and the ground was cold, too. The night was cold. They huddled inside their fur coats and stared up at the dark sky, a strange, benevolent expression on their faces.
“Food,” Patric Conner grunted.
The woman, Wilma Rogers, smiled and offered him grapes and he popped three into his mouth. The White Raven clan were an interesting breed. They did not have homes to live in; they shunned money of all kinds; they were not brave in battle and ran away, screaming, afraid of trauma to the head-they were very particular about the head injuries, especially, and didn’t like not knowing what was going on. They lived in caves and huts, mostly, sometimes on the beach. They were mostly cold-blooded creatures, and Merlin didn’t take kindly on humans who were cold-blooded. The night glared over them. Everything was stark and white and naked to the bone. The whiteness was seen all around them and the cold snaked through them and everything was discolored and strange. The universe was a strange place and they often talked about getting on a spaceship and returning to Earth, but they did not know how and scientists were not brilliant in that regards; they did not know how to build a spaceship.
The sky was an endless blackness.
Endless and ash gray.
Everything was ash gray.
They felt very sorry for themselves. They wanted to live in a home and could not. They wanted to breed and were afraid of contracting diseases. They were afraid; wary; helpless; their conversation was hushed and muted.
One day, they came upon a small hut.
The hut was made from mud.
The mud was caked into hardpacked soil and it could house the entire clan, of which there were ten people. The ten clan members could all fit inside the hut and they built a fire in the firepit and warmed their hands. It was warm. The clan found a corn field behind the hut and made corn mush and the wind cried and moaned and the house was built from mud; and the cold was inside of it. The wind was sad and lonely and the clan ate their corn mush and talked amongst themselves. The leader was Don Whittley. He was thirty-nine and used to be a contractor in Na until he was tried as a witch and sent away. He was very deep; his words were deep and still and he couldn’t find himself thinking about anything other than rest. He used to stay up all night long, back when he was a young troll and lived with his parents. Now, his parents lived in the kingdom of Storm, and he visited them very rarely. He had been stuck in the attic for awhile, but he was too bored to leave it himself. Apparently, Andrea was amused by the whole thing. He was, too, kinda. Not really, he guessed she lived in the Tower along with the other Elders. Some of them went stag, and had their own place. Some of them were virtually homeless, and went from one country to another. He looked out of the Watch Tower. One small yellow light blinked on the roof and everything blinked and flickered and moved; it was stiller than the quietest night, and the wind cried and was sad and lonely. The troll hummed a tune under his breath. He liked to make up songs while he was waiting in the attic. He liked to make up songs; they were good enough for his own ears.
The silence of the night was all around.
Even in the silence, the night was all around.
Everything was still. Shadows were everywhere. Shadows fell over everything and the night was still. It was cold. He pulled his jacket tighter around himself; and he went into the kitchen and made himself a hamburger. The refrigerator was stuffed with food. Magic refilled it. There were only two refrigerators in all of Merlin that could do that; the one at the Tower of Light (aka the Tower of High Sorcery), and the one at the Watch Tower. It was midnight. After midnight. He heard whispers in the dark; whispers from the ghosts who dwelled in the Tower, the ghosts that cried and spoke about nothing. The language of the dead. He was not fluent in the language of the dead, but it was much like the Harhishians. It started to snow. The troll went out of the front door and into the yard. The yard was so bright it was spotless and the night was calm and cold and everything was calm; colder than cold. The coldness was everywhere.
*
Jenny Biggins was nine-years-old. She had red hair and blue eyes. She was three foot one and very skinny for her age and she loved to read books, especially the big, thick ones she could get lost in. She had knobby knees. She hated gym class and liked her teacher, Mr. Babbage. He had wavy brown hair and brown eyes and a wife named Laura. Laura had white hair. Jenny hated gym class. She always sucked at gym class and was always picked last for volleyball. Her best friend, Clark Jesken, was always picked first. He was good at games and had a basketball court in his backyard. He said it was a present from his father for his ninth birthday. His father was always excited about the sports Clark played. He was going to be a basketball player when he grew up. It was his dream. Clark knocked on the door of her house. He had his backpack slung over his arm, and a sandwich in the other, and was eating the sandwich. “Come on,” he told her. “Let’s go.”
She laughed. “What are you eating the sandwich for?” she asked him. “You know it's breakfast!”
Clark shrugged. “I’m hungry,” he said, frowning at her. “Besides, Mom gave me a dollar. I can buy a hot lunch today.” He grinned. He had been wanting to get his mother to buy him a hot lunch for awhile now. She finally caved in. It was one small victory, he said.
“You’re going to have to bring a sandwich tomorrow,” she informed him.
He made a face. “I know. I hope it’s tuna fish.” He shook his head and they walked down the sidewalk to the street. It was a warm day outside. The sun was in the sky. It was very hot. They walked down the street and to the elementary school at the end of the street. Clark and Jenny pushed open the big double doors and went inside together. Their class room was on the first floor. Jenny put her lunch in the cubby hole and sat down in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. Mr. Babbage had not come in yet. Yettle Ewelender, the new kid, showed everyone his pet frog. He brought it for Show-and-Tell. Clark said Show-and-Tell was for babies and said Mr. Babbage was having a marital crisis at home. Whatever that meant. But Jenny agreed with him, anyway. He was a little weird. He always wore brown pants and a white shirt and his hair slicked back until it shone. He wore glasses. Jenny thought he was kind of cute except for the glasses. She thought Clark was cute but not in a boyfriend way. Her other friend, Martha Rhodes, had a boyfriend. His name was Cliff Trend. He was in the fourth grade. Jenny met Cliff during lunch once. He was a very bubbly sort of person.
“What are you doing today?” Jenny asked Tyrone Wells. He was a blonde-haired boy and had glasses and dark eyes. Jenny heard he was part Elven, that his parents were part of the Council of Elders that worked at the Tower of High Sorcery in Bromwell.
“I don’t really know,” Tyrone replied, shaking his head. “I was going to go to the river and hunt for tadpoles. I like to watch them grow into frogs.”
“You can’t cage tadpoles!” she protested.
Tyrone scowled. “They won’t be caged,” he replied. “They’ll find a nice home.”
Jenny shrugged. “Whatever,” she replied. She sat down.
The classroom door opened and Mr. Babbage entered and sat down at his desk. His desk was very neat. A notebook was placed on it; along with a coffee cup; a calculator; and two planners, a school planner and his own planner. Mr. Babbage was fond of planners. Jenny didn’t use them. Her parents were poor, and besides, she didn’t have time to use a planner.
“Today,” he said. “Today we’re going to learn about the history of Orkshire.”
Jenny made a face. She didn’t want to learn about the city she lived in. It was stupid. “I want to learn about Earth,” she informed him.
Mr. Babbage looked surprised. “Who told you about such things?” he demanded, making a face at her. Mr. Babbage started making a bunch of goofy faces and she glared back at him.
“You’re such a weirdo,” she snorted.
“You’re a weirdo!” he replied. “You’re not to learn about Earth until the Council wishes you to.” With that, he started telling a story about how an Elf came into Orkshire one day and stole a bag of apples. She dropped her pencil and bent over to pick it up to tie her shoes. She glanced around. No one had noticed she dropped it. She put her head on her desk and noticed a piece of thread rested on the edge of the desk and she glared at the piece of thread, too. She reached out to pick it up and throw it on the floor. Suddenly, a burst of lightning tore through her fingers and streaked across the desk and the piece of cloth turned to metal. She yelped, “Ow!” and sucked on her finger.
Everyone laughed. “Jenny’s sucking her thumb!” Matthew Winters cried, pointing at her.
Mr. Babbage looked annoyed. “All of you, shut up!” he scowled. “Sucking your thumb is not a terrible problem. I do it on occasion.” He glared at everyone and told them to be quiet and concentrate on learning about Elves. Elves was a prime topic nowadays because of the Great Elf War in Bromwell, at the Tower, and other places around the world of Merlin. War was a terrible, terrible thing. War was never-ending.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
According To us.
According to us, the sun was destroyed
In a ball of fire.
A ring around Saturn.
The planets are all aflame.
I am not the one to blame.
The river is a torrent of voices.
It spins to us in many different choices.
You are the river.
The void of night.
You are the dying of the light.
I seek but do not find.
I fight but do not climb.
I hear but do not see.
It is just me.
I find rivers.
I find cold forests;
Beer is in the cold forest.
I seek to blame.
I am one without a name.
I am not forgiven.
My light is not a flame.
I care to stay alive.
My heart is not of floods and waters.
We are tired.
We bury bones.
We are tired of stillness,
The water is cold.
The wind is timeless.
We are the river.
We are tired.
I find rivers.
According to us, the moon was in motion-
The water was fluid in movement.
The memory is still inside of me.
Still. I can’t see.
Boxes are in cornflowers.
I write a riddle down on a piece of paper.
The riddle is myself.
In a ball of fire.
A ring around Saturn.
The planets are all aflame.
I am not the one to blame.
The river is a torrent of voices.
It spins to us in many different choices.
You are the river.
The void of night.
You are the dying of the light.
I seek but do not find.
I fight but do not climb.
I hear but do not see.
It is just me.
I find rivers.
I find cold forests;
Beer is in the cold forest.
I seek to blame.
I am one without a name.
I am not forgiven.
My light is not a flame.
I care to stay alive.
My heart is not of floods and waters.
We are tired.
We bury bones.
We are tired of stillness,
The water is cold.
The wind is timeless.
We are the river.
We are tired.
I find rivers.
According to us, the moon was in motion-
The water was fluid in movement.
The memory is still inside of me.
Still. I can’t see.
Boxes are in cornflowers.
I write a riddle down on a piece of paper.
The riddle is myself.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
MISTER GREY
MISTER GREY
Xi Krode-captain
Ryan Grey-secretary aboard the lightship (unnamed)
Gloria Chance (blonde)
Chann C. Erik
Joe Dude
Anna San (Elf)
The strange man stood in the doorway of the lightship, looking out at the vastness of space. Space was everywhere, of course; space was in everything, and it looked massive and dark against the sky filled with stars. The strange man was human. The others on the ship were not human; they were Ulranian, Uversian, and Kerian, from worlds far beyond what the Earthman had ever known himself. He had been aboardship for several months, filing paperwork, doing other odds and ends. He was not the captain. The captain was an Xi Krode, an invisible being who had crossed dimensions to the other side and reported for duty, due to a glitch in the Universe Patch on Stellar 5-8. That was the crossing point from this world to the Other Side, the place where beings were without bodies. He glanced down at the starboard, and moved several knobs with his mind. The ship shuddered; an image of Earth appeared above the computer-the computer was white, and it ticked and tocked and shuddered, heaved, as if it were tectonic plates moving in the center of a planet. The man missed home. He missed home and everywhere else. Mister Grey’s first name was Ryan. He supposed it was an Earth name. Ryan reminded him of better days, playing in the yard with his sister, Gretchen, now long dead because she was Earthwoman; Ryan had been going from planet to planet, stocking up his ship, talking to the locals and asking about the weather, asking about things he absent-mindedly forgot about later. There were no days and nights in space. Only the blackness. The veil of space that was cold; bitterly lonely. He wanted to go into space if not to avoid humankind, the people that had twice decided to shun him for his malpractice; for the nights that were graceful and dark and they blamed him for the bad weather; the darkness; the viruses that spread like flies. Everything was spread; everything was absent from his mind, everything was voidless, everything was depthness, the everything was within and the night was veiled.
His name was Ryan.
He was an Earthman.
On a lightship.
He did not remember day from night. He did not remember everything. He did not remember the seasons of Earth; he did not remember those sleepless night, lying naked and alone, and cold; or how he felt when he looked at a woman. The captain walked towards him. Ryan could see him shimmering against the veiled night. “Sir,” the captain said (he called everyone “Sir,” even the women-it was a joke among the crewmembers, now.) “What is the time?” His voice was gruff. Like the wind. Ryan missed the wind. He could experience it in the virtual tank. It wasn’t the same thing. He missed the wind. The wind missed him. That was all.
“Fifteen hundred,” he replied, his smile quickening. “Why do you ask?”
“Ah,” he replied. “It is time for my morning run.” He smiled at Ryan and jogged away, his legs shimmering just a little bit more than usual. He turned to the viewscreen. The stars shone brightly.
It was time to work on the map.
They were supposed to locate Sector V-4; Ryan’s eyes were purple-they had changed color after he decided to Orbit; after he decided to stop being a human being and start being a Universalian, or whatever they called People of the Stars now. Being in space was different from being on Earth. It was much deeper. Much colder. Everything was something new. Everything was something else, the stars were deep; space was deep. Ryan was afraid of space when he first started out in the world. When he first rose from the depths of his Trenton, New Jersey home; the hurt was deep in his heart, of having to leave home and no one being the least bit worried or fearful of his safety; it was all like, “Goodbye, good luck, see you soon.” Ryan dimly remembered Earth. He did not miss it so much. He did not mind the aloneness. Every day was the same. Every day was exactly like the other. The days were not days. The nights were not nights. The cold was very cold. Everything around him was cold. His mind grasped the dimness of space. The everything that was around him, solid and real and the everything inside of him.
The captain returned.
Ryan was working on his log. “Yes?” he queried, looking up from it.
“What,” he heaved.
“Yes?” The repeat.
“Jogging. Hungry. Food.” He puffed his chest with pride. His pride was in the way he walked; the way he spoke; the captain was the captain and nothing else was what it appeared, moving and unmovement, the movement of himself. The shift in the dark. What was the shift in the dark? The strangeness of it. His mind grasped at straws. His mind saw things…the how; where he lived; the dimness of his mind was sacred; dwindling; he was fearful in his reverie. The strangeness of the nothing. He had been on the lightship for several months, and it felt like years. Light years were different in space. Actually, they were the same in space or somewhere else. He couldn’t feel it. His vision was different from Ryan’s. In all his years as captain, he had never met a being quite like that of Ryan.
Something dinged far above him, in the walls-it was like a doorbell. Ryan remembered doorbells. They were supposed to be for houses.
“We’re docking,” he told Ryan.
Ryan was surprised. “So soon?” he said. “Where are we docking?”
“I thought Anna told you. We’re on Flin 7.”
“That’s a dumb name,” he remarked, shaking his head. “Whoever came up with that…”
The captain smiled. His head shimmered. “The computers came up with the name,” he replied. “Did I ever tell you the story about how the computers came up with all the names of the worlds that were discovered?”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he snapped. He thought about it for a minute. “Oh, wait. No.” He shook his head. “What computer came up with it? When?”
Xi Krode-captain
Ryan Grey-secretary aboard the lightship (unnamed)
Gloria Chance (blonde)
Chann C. Erik
Joe Dude
Anna San (Elf)
The strange man stood in the doorway of the lightship, looking out at the vastness of space. Space was everywhere, of course; space was in everything, and it looked massive and dark against the sky filled with stars. The strange man was human. The others on the ship were not human; they were Ulranian, Uversian, and Kerian, from worlds far beyond what the Earthman had ever known himself. He had been aboardship for several months, filing paperwork, doing other odds and ends. He was not the captain. The captain was an Xi Krode, an invisible being who had crossed dimensions to the other side and reported for duty, due to a glitch in the Universe Patch on Stellar 5-8. That was the crossing point from this world to the Other Side, the place where beings were without bodies. He glanced down at the starboard, and moved several knobs with his mind. The ship shuddered; an image of Earth appeared above the computer-the computer was white, and it ticked and tocked and shuddered, heaved, as if it were tectonic plates moving in the center of a planet. The man missed home. He missed home and everywhere else. Mister Grey’s first name was Ryan. He supposed it was an Earth name. Ryan reminded him of better days, playing in the yard with his sister, Gretchen, now long dead because she was Earthwoman; Ryan had been going from planet to planet, stocking up his ship, talking to the locals and asking about the weather, asking about things he absent-mindedly forgot about later. There were no days and nights in space. Only the blackness. The veil of space that was cold; bitterly lonely. He wanted to go into space if not to avoid humankind, the people that had twice decided to shun him for his malpractice; for the nights that were graceful and dark and they blamed him for the bad weather; the darkness; the viruses that spread like flies. Everything was spread; everything was absent from his mind, everything was voidless, everything was depthness, the everything was within and the night was veiled.
His name was Ryan.
He was an Earthman.
On a lightship.
He did not remember day from night. He did not remember everything. He did not remember the seasons of Earth; he did not remember those sleepless night, lying naked and alone, and cold; or how he felt when he looked at a woman. The captain walked towards him. Ryan could see him shimmering against the veiled night. “Sir,” the captain said (he called everyone “Sir,” even the women-it was a joke among the crewmembers, now.) “What is the time?” His voice was gruff. Like the wind. Ryan missed the wind. He could experience it in the virtual tank. It wasn’t the same thing. He missed the wind. The wind missed him. That was all.
“Fifteen hundred,” he replied, his smile quickening. “Why do you ask?”
“Ah,” he replied. “It is time for my morning run.” He smiled at Ryan and jogged away, his legs shimmering just a little bit more than usual. He turned to the viewscreen. The stars shone brightly.
It was time to work on the map.
They were supposed to locate Sector V-4; Ryan’s eyes were purple-they had changed color after he decided to Orbit; after he decided to stop being a human being and start being a Universalian, or whatever they called People of the Stars now. Being in space was different from being on Earth. It was much deeper. Much colder. Everything was something new. Everything was something else, the stars were deep; space was deep. Ryan was afraid of space when he first started out in the world. When he first rose from the depths of his Trenton, New Jersey home; the hurt was deep in his heart, of having to leave home and no one being the least bit worried or fearful of his safety; it was all like, “Goodbye, good luck, see you soon.” Ryan dimly remembered Earth. He did not miss it so much. He did not mind the aloneness. Every day was the same. Every day was exactly like the other. The days were not days. The nights were not nights. The cold was very cold. Everything around him was cold. His mind grasped the dimness of space. The everything that was around him, solid and real and the everything inside of him.
The captain returned.
Ryan was working on his log. “Yes?” he queried, looking up from it.
“What,” he heaved.
“Yes?” The repeat.
“Jogging. Hungry. Food.” He puffed his chest with pride. His pride was in the way he walked; the way he spoke; the captain was the captain and nothing else was what it appeared, moving and unmovement, the movement of himself. The shift in the dark. What was the shift in the dark? The strangeness of it. His mind grasped at straws. His mind saw things…the how; where he lived; the dimness of his mind was sacred; dwindling; he was fearful in his reverie. The strangeness of the nothing. He had been on the lightship for several months, and it felt like years. Light years were different in space. Actually, they were the same in space or somewhere else. He couldn’t feel it. His vision was different from Ryan’s. In all his years as captain, he had never met a being quite like that of Ryan.
Something dinged far above him, in the walls-it was like a doorbell. Ryan remembered doorbells. They were supposed to be for houses.
“We’re docking,” he told Ryan.
Ryan was surprised. “So soon?” he said. “Where are we docking?”
“I thought Anna told you. We’re on Flin 7.”
“That’s a dumb name,” he remarked, shaking his head. “Whoever came up with that…”
The captain smiled. His head shimmered. “The computers came up with the name,” he replied. “Did I ever tell you the story about how the computers came up with all the names of the worlds that were discovered?”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he snapped. He thought about it for a minute. “Oh, wait. No.” He shook his head. “What computer came up with it? When?”
Saturday, March 06, 2010
The Cancer is the Moonlight.
Moonlight
I walked in moonlight,
Holding the check tightly in the palm of my
Hand.
Holding the check in front of me like a shield.
His best friend has cancer.
The doctor says it is a disease.
The words aren’t the ones people want
To hear.
He was not depressed,
He told himself.
He was not depressed.
He played checkers
In
His den,
Then moved to the attic.
Light spilled in through the window onto the
Floor.
The floor was polished.
Glittered until it shone.
He was not depressed about anything.
He was not depressed about the way the
Light shone, stiller than the moon at night,
Stiller than the cold and the dark and
The attics waking in walls.
The cold is in his bones.
The cold drifts through him.
He is shadowed at the heart of it all,
Shadowed at the heart that drifts and
Fades and the feathers come falling
Down, down-
Down into the nothingness that
Is everything.
Into the nothingness that is new.
Newer than what we believe is to be seen.
In the dusk of anything,
We strive for Alaskan wilderness-
We strive for the wind that moans,
And hearts beat at glass doors.
We open them and shut them,
Again and again,
Whispering words your mother can’t
Understand.
We speak languages.
I walked in moonlight,
Holding the check tightly in the palm of my
Hand.
Holding the check in front of me like a shield.
His best friend has cancer.
The doctor says it is a disease.
The words aren’t the ones people want
To hear.
He was not depressed,
He told himself.
He was not depressed.
He played checkers
In
His den,
Then moved to the attic.
Light spilled in through the window onto the
Floor.
The floor was polished.
Glittered until it shone.
He was not depressed about anything.
He was not depressed about the way the
Light shone, stiller than the moon at night,
Stiller than the cold and the dark and
The attics waking in walls.
The cold is in his bones.
The cold drifts through him.
He is shadowed at the heart of it all,
Shadowed at the heart that drifts and
Fades and the feathers come falling
Down, down-
Down into the nothingness that
Is everything.
Into the nothingness that is new.
Newer than what we believe is to be seen.
In the dusk of anything,
We strive for Alaskan wilderness-
We strive for the wind that moans,
And hearts beat at glass doors.
We open them and shut them,
Again and again,
Whispering words your mother can’t
Understand.
We speak languages.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Falls In Snow.
The trust falls in the snow.
The trust is not in anything.
The trust is in him-he sees, but does not
See. Do not try to climb your way out of
Trust. Do not block yourself from the stairs.
The stars are bright tonight.
Above us, the stars shine, sparkle,
Twinkle-
Night becomes nothing. Night is not
Anything.
Fierce realization. Fierce persistence.
Nothing to do. Nothing that can be done.
Homeward bound, I am caught in
The rhythm of the different shades-
The shades of sunglasses.
The words are spread on tarp paper.
I am glass wrapped in glass.
I am shaken and stirred.
Something happened that was outside of
Us.
Broken and marred, the mirrors are
Thrown over us.
Shake the pillow, the feathers fall
To the ground.
You talk about ghosts.
You talk about ghosts and smoky mirrors,
Glasses dropped from the sky.
The trust is broken in two.
The windows fall out of buildings,
And onto the sand-
We aren’t home yet.
The trust is not in anything.
The trust is in him-he sees, but does not
See. Do not try to climb your way out of
Trust. Do not block yourself from the stairs.
The stars are bright tonight.
Above us, the stars shine, sparkle,
Twinkle-
Night becomes nothing. Night is not
Anything.
Fierce realization. Fierce persistence.
Nothing to do. Nothing that can be done.
Homeward bound, I am caught in
The rhythm of the different shades-
The shades of sunglasses.
The words are spread on tarp paper.
I am glass wrapped in glass.
I am shaken and stirred.
Something happened that was outside of
Us.
Broken and marred, the mirrors are
Thrown over us.
Shake the pillow, the feathers fall
To the ground.
You talk about ghosts.
You talk about ghosts and smoky mirrors,
Glasses dropped from the sky.
The trust is broken in two.
The windows fall out of buildings,
And onto the sand-
We aren’t home yet.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
My Uncle Stan.
My Uncle Stan
My Uncle Stan-
Paints the room upstairs blue.
His hands are torn like wildflowers;
He calmly paints and it is storming outside.
My Uncle Stan-
Has a blue truck. It sits in the driveway,
Humming quietly.
The neighbors wonder what my uncle is
Doing.
I tell them proudly,
Gesturing with my hands-
Using wide arcs, using dance methods
I was taught at dance class.
My Uncle Stan-
He was a new man after he got
Married.
He is not depressed.
He enjoys smoking cigarettes and
Long walks on the beach,
And baking cookies for his grandchildren.
He is eating lunch on the porch,
Thinking about the woman he met
At the grocery store.
He thinks she is poetry.
She would not come back.
He wishes his wife would not come back.
She was stubborn as a mule and
Ugly; a large mole on her chin.
Sometimes, he told himself she had a double
Chin to make himself feel better after
They fought, after they made love and fought
Again, trying to fix their broken…thingy.
The thingy wasn’t broken.
They were broken.
My Uncle Stan-
Paints the room upstairs blue.
His hands are torn like wildflowers;
He calmly paints and it is storming outside.
My Uncle Stan-
Has a blue truck. It sits in the driveway,
Humming quietly.
The neighbors wonder what my uncle is
Doing.
I tell them proudly,
Gesturing with my hands-
Using wide arcs, using dance methods
I was taught at dance class.
My Uncle Stan-
He was a new man after he got
Married.
He is not depressed.
He enjoys smoking cigarettes and
Long walks on the beach,
And baking cookies for his grandchildren.
He is eating lunch on the porch,
Thinking about the woman he met
At the grocery store.
He thinks she is poetry.
She would not come back.
He wishes his wife would not come back.
She was stubborn as a mule and
Ugly; a large mole on her chin.
Sometimes, he told himself she had a double
Chin to make himself feel better after
They fought, after they made love and fought
Again, trying to fix their broken…thingy.
The thingy wasn’t broken.
They were broken.
The Rocking Chair Was Sold.
It was sold.
The rocking chair was sold to a poor Vietnam veteran.
He clashed. His eyes were brown. He was born of something
Better than anything. His mind was shallow. He was shallow.
The wind is cold.
I was not happy about the color of the clouds-
The ash color of the sky.
We fought tighter temptation,
The land mines were broken on broken soil.
My mother’s old cow lifted his ears and mooed
And chewed the grass around his feet.
He was not an it. He was my mother’s favorite,
He liked him better than anyone else,
Better, even, than the doorframe.
The books taught me better than the professors
At Brooklyn College or Mott,
Where famous professors haunt piles of old
Rocks.
Rock sold. Rocking chair.
You took your rest for too long, and now your ears are dumb-
They wove in and out of highways,
Anything within reach.
Oh rocking chair, I fear you-
You are farther away than anyone.
My mother climbs over walls to reach new heights.
I was bored, I carved my name in old cellos.
I was burdened by the flowers in the vase.
I was burdened by my flyaway hair.
I didn’t understand the English language.
I didn’t understand the words that crawled outside of
Tiger’s mouth.
The rocking chair was sold to a poor Vietnam veteran.
He clashed. His eyes were brown. He was born of something
Better than anything. His mind was shallow. He was shallow.
The wind is cold.
I was not happy about the color of the clouds-
The ash color of the sky.
We fought tighter temptation,
The land mines were broken on broken soil.
My mother’s old cow lifted his ears and mooed
And chewed the grass around his feet.
He was not an it. He was my mother’s favorite,
He liked him better than anyone else,
Better, even, than the doorframe.
The books taught me better than the professors
At Brooklyn College or Mott,
Where famous professors haunt piles of old
Rocks.
Rock sold. Rocking chair.
You took your rest for too long, and now your ears are dumb-
They wove in and out of highways,
Anything within reach.
Oh rocking chair, I fear you-
You are farther away than anyone.
My mother climbs over walls to reach new heights.
I was bored, I carved my name in old cellos.
I was burdened by the flowers in the vase.
I was burdened by my flyaway hair.
I didn’t understand the English language.
I didn’t understand the words that crawled outside of
Tiger’s mouth.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Adore.
The noise of the motor is running.
My car sits in the driveway, humming.
I don’t fear what isn’t there.
When things get in the way of-
Shattered stained glass windows.
Flowers stain the glass walls.
My eyes stare up at cornflower skies.
I look up at you.
I adore you.
Your face is marred with stars.
Time is etched in your memories.
Whispers speak to me from dusk-
Your words are peeled back on old clocks.
The clock looks at me, you protest laughingly.
You stare at me from across the room.
Your heart is beating against the floorboards.
You are my poetry.
The water is fluid in motion.
Water is motion.
Water is fluid.
Scientists sit in old chairs in ancient
Buildings called buildings or maybe they’re
Called something else,
Like decimal points or campuses.
I took an Essay writing class at the local
Community college.
I don’t talk about anything.
I write things and shadows open their mouths
Wide, wider-the words are not mine. They are
Someone else’s.
You are kind. Your hurt is showing.
I am sorry, sorry-
Words cannot express how the church bell
Chimes,
In the midnight of the dark and you look back at me
And we’re here, here-
Tomorrow is clear. Rings clearer than any doorbell.
The ringing is ancient.
Ancient as anything.
My car sits in the driveway, humming.
I don’t fear what isn’t there.
When things get in the way of-
Shattered stained glass windows.
Flowers stain the glass walls.
My eyes stare up at cornflower skies.
I look up at you.
I adore you.
Your face is marred with stars.
Time is etched in your memories.
Whispers speak to me from dusk-
Your words are peeled back on old clocks.
The clock looks at me, you protest laughingly.
You stare at me from across the room.
Your heart is beating against the floorboards.
You are my poetry.
The water is fluid in motion.
Water is motion.
Water is fluid.
Scientists sit in old chairs in ancient
Buildings called buildings or maybe they’re
Called something else,
Like decimal points or campuses.
I took an Essay writing class at the local
Community college.
I don’t talk about anything.
I write things and shadows open their mouths
Wide, wider-the words are not mine. They are
Someone else’s.
You are kind. Your hurt is showing.
I am sorry, sorry-
Words cannot express how the church bell
Chimes,
In the midnight of the dark and you look back at me
And we’re here, here-
Tomorrow is clear. Rings clearer than any doorbell.
The ringing is ancient.
Ancient as anything.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Little Sea.
Little sea, you are red and full of light-
Little sea, you glow from Beijing, China,
Your hand is atop your head. Fixated on the
Chandelier in the living room, you glare at me instead.
Little sea, you rest on walls in pictures. You are here;
You are gone. Oh ancient heart, o still mind,
We walk here and come to Chinatown. In Illinois,
We are shy of movie posters; we are fond of people
Saying things. Back and forth, we grumble; we howl
Gruesome words atop our lungs. An author admires
A lowly writer. I walk down the street, swinging grocery
Bags, hum to myself. A famous actor dies in the streets of
Chicago; a wounded warrior bears the tattoo of a bartender
On his chest, not knowing why he has it-knowing he has
No direct age. The thoughts are of the flesh. The thoughts
Are rotten still. Stiller than a photograph, he breathes life
Into it-
Sadness permeates him, he is not aware.
Little sea, you glow from Beijing, China,
Your hand is atop your head. Fixated on the
Chandelier in the living room, you glare at me instead.
Little sea, you rest on walls in pictures. You are here;
You are gone. Oh ancient heart, o still mind,
We walk here and come to Chinatown. In Illinois,
We are shy of movie posters; we are fond of people
Saying things. Back and forth, we grumble; we howl
Gruesome words atop our lungs. An author admires
A lowly writer. I walk down the street, swinging grocery
Bags, hum to myself. A famous actor dies in the streets of
Chicago; a wounded warrior bears the tattoo of a bartender
On his chest, not knowing why he has it-knowing he has
No direct age. The thoughts are of the flesh. The thoughts
Are rotten still. Stiller than a photograph, he breathes life
Into it-
Sadness permeates him, he is not aware.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Dreams Are Straight Lines.
My life is a straight line.
My life has changed.
From one day to the next.
Nothing is broken.
Nothing is faded.
We care about what is between trees.
We care about what is between water.
Water is faded from the mist.
We are mad hatters.
The mad hatters are this:
Turning like spinning wheels,
Turning like things are broken,
The hand is eschewed on broken
Lines.
We dream dreams.
We speak dreams when nothing
Is a dream.
We are not a dream that is not
Circumvented.
We are awake and nothing
Is sleeping.
Pour the water into the well.
Pour the water into the gravel.
We let men wear top hats.
We sing songs to sad rainforests.
I stick up for stick people.
I draw them on desks in classrooms.
People force us to speak to classrooms.
Men are drawing lines
On gravel roads.
My life is a straight line.
Don’t stick up for me.
Don’t draw stick people.
What it’s gotta be,
Is what we see after we see.
We dream dreams.
We walk on straight lines.
We are broken when things are mended.
We catapult into the air and onto
Dead grass.
The grass is dead at my feet.
The shoes are worn and faded.
I wake up tomorrow, and talk about the
Negative.
My life has changed.
From one day to the next.
Nothing is broken.
Nothing is faded.
We care about what is between trees.
We care about what is between water.
Water is faded from the mist.
We are mad hatters.
The mad hatters are this:
Turning like spinning wheels,
Turning like things are broken,
The hand is eschewed on broken
Lines.
We dream dreams.
We speak dreams when nothing
Is a dream.
We are not a dream that is not
Circumvented.
We are awake and nothing
Is sleeping.
Pour the water into the well.
Pour the water into the gravel.
We let men wear top hats.
We sing songs to sad rainforests.
I stick up for stick people.
I draw them on desks in classrooms.
People force us to speak to classrooms.
Men are drawing lines
On gravel roads.
My life is a straight line.
Don’t stick up for me.
Don’t draw stick people.
What it’s gotta be,
Is what we see after we see.
We dream dreams.
We walk on straight lines.
We are broken when things are mended.
We catapult into the air and onto
Dead grass.
The grass is dead at my feet.
The shoes are worn and faded.
I wake up tomorrow, and talk about the
Negative.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Making Us Go Nowhere, Finding Nothing.
Which shadow is strongest?
Which shadow mocks darker shades?
His eyes see inner worlds.
His eyes see cooks making things.
The sun clouds over; the sun clouds over
Bigger than anything. No time to get back
At people. No time to stop mourning the
Turning of the clock,
The turning of the time that has stilled.
In my deepest despair,
I linger here,
Forcing myself to gaze into the haze
Of a burning sunset.
Trying to stop myself from wandering down-
Down the streets, back to the basics,
Back to the turning of the clock,
The darkness has stilled, willed,
We speak in meadows and meadows
Are gone.
Which shadow is strongest?
Shadows are nothing compared to
The nothingness of time,
The fertility of what we are.
The banging of doors closing.
The banging of doors opening.
The silence. The loudness.
The moon overhanging a monsoon.
Too hard on me; too hard on you;
Mothers and daughters live near rivers.
The rivers run into the ocean.
Sometimes, the oceans go nowhere.
Which shadow mocks darker shades?
His eyes see inner worlds.
His eyes see cooks making things.
The sun clouds over; the sun clouds over
Bigger than anything. No time to get back
At people. No time to stop mourning the
Turning of the clock,
The turning of the time that has stilled.
In my deepest despair,
I linger here,
Forcing myself to gaze into the haze
Of a burning sunset.
Trying to stop myself from wandering down-
Down the streets, back to the basics,
Back to the turning of the clock,
The darkness has stilled, willed,
We speak in meadows and meadows
Are gone.
Which shadow is strongest?
Shadows are nothing compared to
The nothingness of time,
The fertility of what we are.
The banging of doors closing.
The banging of doors opening.
The silence. The loudness.
The moon overhanging a monsoon.
Too hard on me; too hard on you;
Mothers and daughters live near rivers.
The rivers run into the ocean.
Sometimes, the oceans go nowhere.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The Little Volvo.
The little Volvo sits in the driveway.
My husband opens his newspaper.
It is Sunday. Time for him to see, to know,
To experience, the ways of the world.
Time for him to ponder the ways of things-
The ways of darkness;
The ways of reason. Without the us,
There is no void, there is no reason to speak in the void.
The color of his shirt changes from day to day.
He looks more handsome in a blue shirt,
He bought it at an Internet café.
My mind is caught between awake and sleeping.
He is me. He is the face within my soul,
The spirit that moves gracefully across the veil of stars.
The stars is the promised land,
Nelson Mandela wrote late one night in November,
While the wind crashed noisily outside the house.
My husband is like Mandela.
He knows. He speaks. He digs up graves.
He used to live in a house in Mississippi,
His mind torrential as waterfalls. He glistens when he sees.
The color of his shirt changes from day to day.
He speaks reason. There isn’t reason inside anything.
His mind is bitter waters-
He is cold, his mind is bitter,
He lives in cities that are bitter.
He tastes of salt.
I drink him down.
My husband opens his newspaper.
It is Sunday. Time for him to see, to know,
To experience, the ways of the world.
Time for him to ponder the ways of things-
The ways of darkness;
The ways of reason. Without the us,
There is no void, there is no reason to speak in the void.
The color of his shirt changes from day to day.
He looks more handsome in a blue shirt,
He bought it at an Internet café.
My mind is caught between awake and sleeping.
He is me. He is the face within my soul,
The spirit that moves gracefully across the veil of stars.
The stars is the promised land,
Nelson Mandela wrote late one night in November,
While the wind crashed noisily outside the house.
My husband is like Mandela.
He knows. He speaks. He digs up graves.
He used to live in a house in Mississippi,
His mind torrential as waterfalls. He glistens when he sees.
The color of his shirt changes from day to day.
He speaks reason. There isn’t reason inside anything.
His mind is bitter waters-
He is cold, his mind is bitter,
He lives in cities that are bitter.
He tastes of salt.
I drink him down.
Thoughts of the Human. Thoughts of the Bold.
I am human.
I am the thoughts of human.
I am the flesh. The warbled voice speaks.
Coocoo, coocoo,
Over and under,
Barren as folded lands.
Paper is rotten like flesh is rotten.
Over steel hands, his fingers wave and bend,
An array of colors.
In the distance, sky moves,
A voice-
In the stillness of us,
Nothing speaks,
Heartbroken, shadows spoken,
Of movement and time has stilled.
I speak to you.
You are the wind.
You are the wind that moves.
You listen. You see. You fold gently.
The trees. They bring me into it.
They bring me into the void.
The flesh is the void.
The sound is silence.
All wind moves in the silence.
The silence hears your voice.
It whispers, and speaks of shadows-
In the heart of silence,
The dusk of mildew.
We wave and bend. Time is translucent.
I am the thoughts of human.
I am the flesh. The warbled voice speaks.
Coocoo, coocoo,
Over and under,
Barren as folded lands.
Paper is rotten like flesh is rotten.
Over steel hands, his fingers wave and bend,
An array of colors.
In the distance, sky moves,
A voice-
In the stillness of us,
Nothing speaks,
Heartbroken, shadows spoken,
Of movement and time has stilled.
I speak to you.
You are the wind.
You are the wind that moves.
You listen. You see. You fold gently.
The trees. They bring me into it.
They bring me into the void.
The flesh is the void.
The sound is silence.
All wind moves in the silence.
The silence hears your voice.
It whispers, and speaks of shadows-
In the heart of silence,
The dusk of mildew.
We wave and bend. Time is translucent.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Incognito.
Incognito
You
You are
You are myself.
I am the ghost in the twilight forest.
I am the advice you seek for your job.
Desperately seeking resolution.
Desperately seeking the voice in the hills.
You seek temptation.
You are temptation.
You rise out of the temptation of it all.
The color of noise.
The rudeness, the awakening, on the back of old
Tampons,
The back of old wildflowers.
Goodness, you seek. Old sordid news.
Borrowed and faded.
Times will not bend.
My ears have been slammed against the window.
The window opens and shuts.
I am the opening and shutting of the window.
I am the sordid tears.
The widow who keeps forgetting nothing.
I am the forgetter.
I am insolent. A dumbwaiter.
We are the thinkers. We are the whisperers.
The wanderers of shadows becoming,
Unknowing-
The feeling of it. The righteousness. I am myself.
I am the hood of myself. Thoughts flood tender gates.
Gates move the wind. The wind is water. The ocean
Flows, flows-
Doesn’t know where it ends, its polar opposites.
My mother said not to take me back.
The boat flies out of the shore. The shore of the mouth.
He thinks he is not home.
His mind is somewhere else. He forgets. He is always forgetting.
His words are round and sheltered things,
He is an ocean of voice, of truth-
We are books and books live on forever.
Forever we speak. Forever we glean, sheen, disappear-
Fade forever from wandering dreams.
You think you are lost.
You think the dark is lost. That I am nothing. That humans are nothing.
The race is nothing but splendid colors.
None sees. We do not see. Nothing sees anyone,
But ourselves wrapped in ourselves. We carry a package
Up the stairs and place it at the foot of the stairs.
You
You are
You are myself.
I am the ghost in the twilight forest.
I am the advice you seek for your job.
Desperately seeking resolution.
Desperately seeking the voice in the hills.
You seek temptation.
You are temptation.
You rise out of the temptation of it all.
The color of noise.
The rudeness, the awakening, on the back of old
Tampons,
The back of old wildflowers.
Goodness, you seek. Old sordid news.
Borrowed and faded.
Times will not bend.
My ears have been slammed against the window.
The window opens and shuts.
I am the opening and shutting of the window.
I am the sordid tears.
The widow who keeps forgetting nothing.
I am the forgetter.
I am insolent. A dumbwaiter.
We are the thinkers. We are the whisperers.
The wanderers of shadows becoming,
Unknowing-
The feeling of it. The righteousness. I am myself.
I am the hood of myself. Thoughts flood tender gates.
Gates move the wind. The wind is water. The ocean
Flows, flows-
Doesn’t know where it ends, its polar opposites.
My mother said not to take me back.
The boat flies out of the shore. The shore of the mouth.
He thinks he is not home.
His mind is somewhere else. He forgets. He is always forgetting.
His words are round and sheltered things,
He is an ocean of voice, of truth-
We are books and books live on forever.
Forever we speak. Forever we glean, sheen, disappear-
Fade forever from wandering dreams.
You think you are lost.
You think the dark is lost. That I am nothing. That humans are nothing.
The race is nothing but splendid colors.
None sees. We do not see. Nothing sees anyone,
But ourselves wrapped in ourselves. We carry a package
Up the stairs and place it at the foot of the stairs.
Stars
We see stars in the hills.
The hills are filled with snow.
We don’t know where they go.
They sing sad songs of daffodils.
We know of light where light doesn’t know.
The hills are filled with snow.
We don’t know where they go.
They sing sad songs of daffodils.
We know of light where light doesn’t know.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Where I Go
Where I Go
Zebras in Africa form triangles
And make movies and mountains
On different doors.
We are bright with
Colors, bright with the madness,
Bright with the darkness inside of me.
The words are a spark of brightness;
The wholeness inside of me bears
The fruit of redemption,
The fruit of colossal colors, we dream of beasts
Hidden inside of nothing.
We are the nothing.
We glare and the shadows move and fade
And time is not still. We are autumn leaves turning. We bear the fruit of
Goodness. Eve and Adam; barren of the world. We trip over polar
Bears, icebergs. We can go anywhere. Anywhere we go
Is fine.
Zebras in Africa form triangles
Over smooth lands.
The landscape is ever changing. The landscape is mine.
You are mine; forever, my love, you whisper sad songs
To the trees and the trees giggle and laugh and energy overflows
Me. The sadness inside of me is translucent;
The energy is whole. We take borrowed things.
We take movies
And place them on stone steps.
We force ourselves
To sit and stare and glare at the stars, burning fiercely in the heavens.
Our words are naked.
Our words are hollow.
You show me the world and the world is reborn;
Again and again,
You are reborn, love.
Zebras in Africa form triangles
And make movies and mountains
On different doors.
We are bright with
Colors, bright with the madness,
Bright with the darkness inside of me.
The words are a spark of brightness;
The wholeness inside of me bears
The fruit of redemption,
The fruit of colossal colors, we dream of beasts
Hidden inside of nothing.
We are the nothing.
We glare and the shadows move and fade
And time is not still. We are autumn leaves turning. We bear the fruit of
Goodness. Eve and Adam; barren of the world. We trip over polar
Bears, icebergs. We can go anywhere. Anywhere we go
Is fine.
Zebras in Africa form triangles
Over smooth lands.
The landscape is ever changing. The landscape is mine.
You are mine; forever, my love, you whisper sad songs
To the trees and the trees giggle and laugh and energy overflows
Me. The sadness inside of me is translucent;
The energy is whole. We take borrowed things.
We take movies
And place them on stone steps.
We force ourselves
To sit and stare and glare at the stars, burning fiercely in the heavens.
Our words are naked.
Our words are hollow.
You show me the world and the world is reborn;
Again and again,
You are reborn, love.
Hoping For.
Hoping For
He is the hint of love.
He is the hint of sacrifice.
The plainness of his eyes; the breathtaking beauty of them.
He is not here to make mistakes. His solid arms,
Protecting me, holding me against the stark brightness
Of the universe-the world is forever in flight.
I am hoping for a miracle.
I am praying for something transient like a motorbike.
I am hoping for darkness. The steeple jumps off
The platform. The learnness of it. The yearnness of it.
We are the tides of the clouds,
The shifts moving and folding-
The open of the doorway,
The light in the sky shoves forth in the night.
We are the. Nothing else moves.
You take my heart; fold it in two. I am emotional this,
Emotional that, nothing lasts forever.
He is silence. The silence of memory. The lost forever
Etched in time.
He is etched forever-
The sorrow of it. The sordid seats of the bus.
The blue, the green. Daffodils fold. I wrote for him.
On blackboards, on ancient works of stone.
He is the old one. The fabled one. The tired one.
His heart aches.
His heart moves. He moves.
The wind sighs, sad and lonely as thunderclouds.
He sighs.
The world sighs with it.
We sit on the world and look down at it and the gladness is wrapped;
His heart moves. The wind sighs, sad and lonely
As thunderclouds.
I say to him, “I don’t know much about those answering machines.”
He laughs and spews raspberry from poured lips.
His eyes like thunder. Thunder burns. He is bright as sunshine.
His mind whispers in the dark.
He is the hint of love.
He is the hint of sacrifice.
The plainness of his eyes; the breathtaking beauty of them.
He is not here to make mistakes. His solid arms,
Protecting me, holding me against the stark brightness
Of the universe-the world is forever in flight.
I am hoping for a miracle.
I am praying for something transient like a motorbike.
I am hoping for darkness. The steeple jumps off
The platform. The learnness of it. The yearnness of it.
We are the tides of the clouds,
The shifts moving and folding-
The open of the doorway,
The light in the sky shoves forth in the night.
We are the. Nothing else moves.
You take my heart; fold it in two. I am emotional this,
Emotional that, nothing lasts forever.
He is silence. The silence of memory. The lost forever
Etched in time.
He is etched forever-
The sorrow of it. The sordid seats of the bus.
The blue, the green. Daffodils fold. I wrote for him.
On blackboards, on ancient works of stone.
He is the old one. The fabled one. The tired one.
His heart aches.
His heart moves. He moves.
The wind sighs, sad and lonely as thunderclouds.
He sighs.
The world sighs with it.
We sit on the world and look down at it and the gladness is wrapped;
His heart moves. The wind sighs, sad and lonely
As thunderclouds.
I say to him, “I don’t know much about those answering machines.”
He laughs and spews raspberry from poured lips.
His eyes like thunder. Thunder burns. He is bright as sunshine.
His mind whispers in the dark.
Starship.
The city was a dome.
The last man on Earth lived in a dome in the ocean. The ocean was vast and wide. The man’s name was Wilderec Dandor and he was a Martian. He had flown over a million miles to land on a rock and found no one left alive. Wilderec’s starship crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico. He had found their movies; their archives; had seen their last moments on Earth before the starship crumbled from exhaustion, the exhaustion of seeing far too many nights alone, afraid, and ashamed. The shame burned inside of him. It was the year 3000, according to a computer calendar on the wall in someone’s office in Roswell. He had seen their last moments and it was a sad, fiendish thing that rose up from the deepest darkest fears of the midnight sky and the midnight sky roared and flesh changed to gold and red as well as the sunsets. The man’s name was Wilderec and he was alone, tired and alone, tired and alone. He abandoned Roswell, and walked a long time. Sought refuge in an abandoned villa off the coast of Miami; Miami was one of the first to go; dust and dust had turned to rubble. Rubble turned to nothing, the flesh turned to fire and fire burned and the fire was of flesh and nothing was left. He was exhausted. The exhaustion came from gathering firewood to warm the house and he dropped the firewood by the front door and trooped inside, his mind pondering over what happened. He had gotten a message from Earth from a space station near Jupiter. His people had gone past Jupiter and Neptune and Terra Firma. They had gone past those planets and had never returned-Wilderec decided not to follow them. He sighed and rubbed his face warily. He was exhausted and the exhaustion was his alone. He puttered about the house, fixing things; made pottery from clay in the backyard. He had thought about making a garden-the garden would be full of radishes; carrots; onions; peppers. The peppers were the most difficult to hoe. The garden was going to be plentiful. It was spring. Wilderec had been living here for three weeks. End over end, he had lived here, walking up and down the streets, trying to find someone left alive. No one. The houses were abandoned. No dogs barked anywhere. The abandonment came from somewhere deep within the core of the earth and the core of the earth was bitter and filled with venom and the animals were gone except for the birds. The birds flew in the sky and it was a mystery they survived he didn’t understand how the birds survived and none of the other animals did. Wilderec pondered how he was going to survive. His starship was crashed. It was burned to smithereens after he went through the Earth’s atmosphere and was ejected from his starship and the starship was dead.
The last man on Earth lived in a dome in the ocean. The ocean was vast and wide. The man’s name was Wilderec Dandor and he was a Martian. He had flown over a million miles to land on a rock and found no one left alive. Wilderec’s starship crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico. He had found their movies; their archives; had seen their last moments on Earth before the starship crumbled from exhaustion, the exhaustion of seeing far too many nights alone, afraid, and ashamed. The shame burned inside of him. It was the year 3000, according to a computer calendar on the wall in someone’s office in Roswell. He had seen their last moments and it was a sad, fiendish thing that rose up from the deepest darkest fears of the midnight sky and the midnight sky roared and flesh changed to gold and red as well as the sunsets. The man’s name was Wilderec and he was alone, tired and alone, tired and alone. He abandoned Roswell, and walked a long time. Sought refuge in an abandoned villa off the coast of Miami; Miami was one of the first to go; dust and dust had turned to rubble. Rubble turned to nothing, the flesh turned to fire and fire burned and the fire was of flesh and nothing was left. He was exhausted. The exhaustion came from gathering firewood to warm the house and he dropped the firewood by the front door and trooped inside, his mind pondering over what happened. He had gotten a message from Earth from a space station near Jupiter. His people had gone past Jupiter and Neptune and Terra Firma. They had gone past those planets and had never returned-Wilderec decided not to follow them. He sighed and rubbed his face warily. He was exhausted and the exhaustion was his alone. He puttered about the house, fixing things; made pottery from clay in the backyard. He had thought about making a garden-the garden would be full of radishes; carrots; onions; peppers. The peppers were the most difficult to hoe. The garden was going to be plentiful. It was spring. Wilderec had been living here for three weeks. End over end, he had lived here, walking up and down the streets, trying to find someone left alive. No one. The houses were abandoned. No dogs barked anywhere. The abandonment came from somewhere deep within the core of the earth and the core of the earth was bitter and filled with venom and the animals were gone except for the birds. The birds flew in the sky and it was a mystery they survived he didn’t understand how the birds survived and none of the other animals did. Wilderec pondered how he was going to survive. His starship was crashed. It was burned to smithereens after he went through the Earth’s atmosphere and was ejected from his starship and the starship was dead.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Renaissance Man.
Renaissance Man
In the course of our history,
Nothing has ever been as remarkable as the
Feat of
Self-recognition. Self-reliance. At the foot,
At the top of it all,
The temptation of burdening clouds
Shines down upon the world.
Light is self-resilience.
The secret is life’s
Temptation,
The bitter feud,
The encumbrance of it.
The sore spot on the groin.
She went to the bottle house late one night.
Her eyes are fiercely burning.
They spin midnight oils in dark
Spaces;
They spin darkness in rags.
I cry solidly in stones.
I break myself.
I am broken. My heart is
Turned to stone.
We fear nothing.
Old as time.
Old as time in continuum.
Old as rivers that beat,
Supportive,
The heart and dusk of. Night.
We speak-
Turn dials on old clocks.
We jump docks. We steal clocks.
The music whispers from sad spinning tales,
Mood has turned sour.
The cheese.
Is.
Forever
Into it.
In the course of our history,
Nothing has ever been as remarkable as the
Feat of
Self-recognition. Self-reliance. At the foot,
At the top of it all,
The temptation of burdening clouds
Shines down upon the world.
Light is self-resilience.
The secret is life’s
Temptation,
The bitter feud,
The encumbrance of it.
The sore spot on the groin.
She went to the bottle house late one night.
Her eyes are fiercely burning.
They spin midnight oils in dark
Spaces;
They spin darkness in rags.
I cry solidly in stones.
I break myself.
I am broken. My heart is
Turned to stone.
We fear nothing.
Old as time.
Old as time in continuum.
Old as rivers that beat,
Supportive,
The heart and dusk of. Night.
We speak-
Turn dials on old clocks.
We jump docks. We steal clocks.
The music whispers from sad spinning tales,
Mood has turned sour.
The cheese.
Is.
Forever
Into it.
Monday, February 01, 2010
The Still of the Mountains.
The tall sycamore tree
Pierces through the veil of summer-winter months;
Exhausted out of old breathing sounds.
Sounds thrum. Hum. The wind moans;
It is my mother. The wind is a guest at my house.
Outside my house, the wind mutters and moans
And my baby sister enjoys baby-sitting,
Making me look bad in front of people my age.
I am better off alone.
I am better off not seeing anything. Not driving. Or climbing.
Better off not seeing anything but the river
Gurgling and chuckling to itself. The darkness permeates the world
And the world is whole with its noise,
The world is whole and ripe and the fruit are ripe and thoughts
Trickle like water, trickle through dark things and the darkness
Wans and the moon is bright and full and sometimes
I stare and think about wolves running through the woods,
Running naked and not being able to climb over walls.
The flowers open in spring.
The mood of the spring runs dry and the dryness runs
To the sun and the sun is a great, big ball of rock,
Fierce and hot,
And the sun is spit back out.
I am better off alone.
I am better than the stillest mountain.
I am better breathing what is deep inside of me,
Oxygen fills my lungs and I can see, see the dark things
That wave, move, bend-
Colors flock across the sad, sorry sky.
I am worthless.
The whole of the world is a coin that is tossed on
The bending note of all the oceans-and the oceans are bright
With noise and the noise of the wind moans, cries,
The world is exhausted of its breath.
I can’t see. I am better off alone. I am better
as an illiterate.
Pierces through the veil of summer-winter months;
Exhausted out of old breathing sounds.
Sounds thrum. Hum. The wind moans;
It is my mother. The wind is a guest at my house.
Outside my house, the wind mutters and moans
And my baby sister enjoys baby-sitting,
Making me look bad in front of people my age.
I am better off alone.
I am better off not seeing anything. Not driving. Or climbing.
Better off not seeing anything but the river
Gurgling and chuckling to itself. The darkness permeates the world
And the world is whole with its noise,
The world is whole and ripe and the fruit are ripe and thoughts
Trickle like water, trickle through dark things and the darkness
Wans and the moon is bright and full and sometimes
I stare and think about wolves running through the woods,
Running naked and not being able to climb over walls.
The flowers open in spring.
The mood of the spring runs dry and the dryness runs
To the sun and the sun is a great, big ball of rock,
Fierce and hot,
And the sun is spit back out.
I am better off alone.
I am better than the stillest mountain.
I am better breathing what is deep inside of me,
Oxygen fills my lungs and I can see, see the dark things
That wave, move, bend-
Colors flock across the sad, sorry sky.
I am worthless.
The whole of the world is a coin that is tossed on
The bending note of all the oceans-and the oceans are bright
With noise and the noise of the wind moans, cries,
The world is exhausted of its breath.
I can’t see. I am better off alone. I am better
as an illiterate.
DNA
DNA
It is the memory of the folding chair.
The lily bursting open in a song.
It is the memory of who you are.
It is the memory of myself.
I am not forgotten.
I have not been forgotten.
All of mankind holds grudges-
China, Germany, England, France,
Old women wear top hats and
Laugh uproariously at nothing.
We are not in Nottingham.
You speak when none speaks.
I glimmer down sad mountains.
The mountains is made up of water,
Water is the core of our DNA.
We speak truth.
We are truth.
Truth is etched, carved in the doorways of time.
Carved in the doorways of nothing.
Some people hate.
Dr. King, Malcolm X, Gandhi,
Except Gandhi roared at lions.
Hatred burns the flesh.
It tears the flesh in two.
Sometimes, the flowers are withered
And we can’t find ourselves without looking
Backwards, without glancing outside of time.
Sometimes, golden mountains rise out of nothing.
Sometimes, we are dead when we are alive.
I chose to be neither.
I am the neither.
We break bones over sad mountains.
The fir tree glistens in the sun.
The sun is a diamond.
Mommy, are we there yet?
Mommy, are we in cars?
Father this; Daddy that;
No time to ourselves.
I am sitting in a chair, reading the newspaper-
My teacher, Mr. Allen,
The man who breaks cars,
Stole Haiti and gave it back.
He is enraged his child is ill.
He is enraged about a lot of things.
Only a flower can calm him down.
Only the folding of a flower and the opening of it.
We are flowers folding inward and outward.
He feels he is forgotten.
I never spoke the word that lingers
In me, of stardust and words-
We speak of bones. We dream of bones. He can’t find me.
It tears him down like the moon is torn down.
His child is ill because she does not speak.
He is angry about a lot of things.
Haiti falls on his lips.
Here is the hatred of himself, the flower opening
And closing.
And the hatred of Haiti.
It is the memory of the folding chair.
The lily bursting open in a song.
It is the memory of who you are.
It is the memory of myself.
I am not forgotten.
I have not been forgotten.
All of mankind holds grudges-
China, Germany, England, France,
Old women wear top hats and
Laugh uproariously at nothing.
We are not in Nottingham.
You speak when none speaks.
I glimmer down sad mountains.
The mountains is made up of water,
Water is the core of our DNA.
We speak truth.
We are truth.
Truth is etched, carved in the doorways of time.
Carved in the doorways of nothing.
Some people hate.
Dr. King, Malcolm X, Gandhi,
Except Gandhi roared at lions.
Hatred burns the flesh.
It tears the flesh in two.
Sometimes, the flowers are withered
And we can’t find ourselves without looking
Backwards, without glancing outside of time.
Sometimes, golden mountains rise out of nothing.
Sometimes, we are dead when we are alive.
I chose to be neither.
I am the neither.
We break bones over sad mountains.
The fir tree glistens in the sun.
The sun is a diamond.
Mommy, are we there yet?
Mommy, are we in cars?
Father this; Daddy that;
No time to ourselves.
I am sitting in a chair, reading the newspaper-
My teacher, Mr. Allen,
The man who breaks cars,
Stole Haiti and gave it back.
He is enraged his child is ill.
He is enraged about a lot of things.
Only a flower can calm him down.
Only the folding of a flower and the opening of it.
We are flowers folding inward and outward.
He feels he is forgotten.
I never spoke the word that lingers
In me, of stardust and words-
We speak of bones. We dream of bones. He can’t find me.
It tears him down like the moon is torn down.
His child is ill because she does not speak.
He is angry about a lot of things.
Haiti falls on his lips.
Here is the hatred of himself, the flower opening
And closing.
And the hatred of Haiti.
Night Soldiers.
Night drifts in from all sides.
Sounds pour from all sides.
Speakers are in the walls.
The sound of winter enters from all sides.
The sound of winter is in my veins.
I walk on prose. Prose is gray.
It drifts through a stormy day.
Frogs walk on goodbye sticks.
Stones move over solid mountains.
He is a stalworthy soldier,
A sentinel in sheep clothing-
He eats macaroni and cheese,
He sings songs to the ocean.
Night drifts from all sides.
I can’t speak reason without breaking
Reason. My heart, o glorious wind,
You dry your tears and the tears are still.
I perchance. I perchance miracles, perchance
The doorman, he sat on a foot stool,
Whispered melodies to sorry green rivers.
I am free.
My worries are bothersome. They make
My mother, my brother. They scout
Across deserted landscapes;
Wave crests drift, naked, on the desert floor.
The rose was left in a mudbank.
A man in a dark suit walks across the mudbank,
His eyes stare blindly into the flower.
He is the flower. The flower stills. Stiller than breath.
Sounds pour from all sides.
Speakers are in the walls.
The sound of winter enters from all sides.
The sound of winter is in my veins.
I walk on prose. Prose is gray.
It drifts through a stormy day.
Frogs walk on goodbye sticks.
Stones move over solid mountains.
He is a stalworthy soldier,
A sentinel in sheep clothing-
He eats macaroni and cheese,
He sings songs to the ocean.
Night drifts from all sides.
I can’t speak reason without breaking
Reason. My heart, o glorious wind,
You dry your tears and the tears are still.
I perchance. I perchance miracles, perchance
The doorman, he sat on a foot stool,
Whispered melodies to sorry green rivers.
I am free.
My worries are bothersome. They make
My mother, my brother. They scout
Across deserted landscapes;
Wave crests drift, naked, on the desert floor.
The rose was left in a mudbank.
A man in a dark suit walks across the mudbank,
His eyes stare blindly into the flower.
He is the flower. The flower stills. Stiller than breath.
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