Drink Of Life

Drink of life- like my mother did once.
Not alone in the bedroom, she opened and took and the pungent seeds of time spilled into the darkness of space alight with imagination and moans and shrieks and luminous suns.
Let the blackness talk and whisper the secrets of life eternal, but do not mistake the body as its only source.  The sky is full and traveling is not done only in carbon and flesh.
Drink of life like my mother did once.
Then drink again.
Water like my father did once.
Again drink.
Like my father.
Forever is not the end.
End. 
There is only eternal
Return. Again.
Eternal return.
Again.
Eternal return.
Again.

An endless loop of purple and black, we sit in this circle and live out the revolution.
Time shifts as this carpet accepts our weight. As the walls hold us in and the black curtains postpone the sunlight from our eyes. 
We go back into the dream state and journey through darkness and quiet spaces while the walls melt like jelly. We walk through them, licking the paint until our tongues taste like ocean water. 
We circle back and flow in and out of the speckled windows, hearing the squeaks and moans of cars rounding the corner and delivery trucks halting by the door. The walls hold us in, ever intent on their quiet role, their shelter against the demanding brightness of day.  
Grinding and sliding through the maze of our consciousness- like a serpent, the circle comes back once again. It is my turn to speak. 
Cycle.
The ends are woven perfectly together and for once the ends of our fingertips flow out and back in like wisteria branches. Perfectly pungent and delicate- we glow imperceptibly in the darkness behind the curtains. Eventually the walls take in our vibration and the light between you and I starts to move like heat off a desert floor. Though my eyes are closed, I dance and dance, hoping over sand and the scent of old gun smoke and greased leather.
What is this space? I hear my mind ask. Never content to let the eyes talk for us, to let time shift and strain and begin to rewind and then leap forward in a spiraling dance around the circle of our words. And back again, receding into the darkness between the black curtains.
Endless circles as our fingers and toes merge back into roots and trees.

Eternal return.
Again.
Eternal return.
Again.

Distant Battles

There is a battle for power going on in the east.  Men in blue and gray.  Seduced by glory and the faint purple dream of gold and long-weaving tales that could twist and pull in even the most modest of girls. 
In the east the men fight, not just each other but the bugs and the cold that reaches in under their worn-out ratty wool blankets. 
Each one stinks and is darkened with grease and drops of blackened blood.  All blankets are futile attempts to stop cold or bleeding.  The rations are paltry; the young men, babyfaced and pale, hold the balled up blankets to their cavernous stomachs to blot out the noises of hunger, they press them tighter to drown out the needling pain. Older recruits warned of the hunger. It would crawl inside and start to eat and gnaw from the inside, hollowing out fingers and toes first, it would soon find the plentiful reserves of thick, purple organs. 
Just outside the camps made of canvas and dirt are the muskets and hastily made trenches, the mis-read maps that will lead to so many fallen lives on coming autumn days.
Out there in the fields and meadows and under the old trees they lay. Sometimes thousands in a week, sometimes hundreds in an hour. Too many to carry home, too many to bury in the soil and say a little prayer. They will have to be found by god, buried in snow and picked at by the animals of shadows. They will end up in the woods and meadows, spread out bit by bit by tiny squirrels and swallows.
Those gunshots are not even a faint ding on the horizon out in the yellow land of the west. This is the wasteland and the battle hymns and marches fall, losing their way between sand and stone.
In the desert and the old dusty towns there are other games to play. Gray and blue are just some of the colors, none are the desert dwellers' concern.  The wasteland is full of games, big and small and meaningless, depending on the player. Each rider and beast moves towards gold or glory or woman or the rare gem of purpose at the bottom of a deep flowing river, the great golden treasure that calls from the heart of an ever receding sea.

If It Feels Wrong

The night was cold.  The moment she stepped from the crowded dance floor and walked down the carpeted hall of dark and worn maroon carpet, the moist chill from outside hit her square in the face. The winter cold slithered quickly down her neck and spiraled counterclockwise around her unbound nipples and then traveled further, circling her hips and thighs covered only in pink and black stockings. 
She stepped into the white neon light of the women’s bathroom and was met by an open window, the night air smiling hello as she closed to door to the stall. Separated only by a metal barrier, she could hear the woman next to her on the phone- her voice was patient, slow, as she tried to explain driving directions to someone on the other end.
“You drive east on Harrison, you’ll see a light ahead of you as you approach Whole Foods. Right before the light there is a driveway on your left.  It’s a one-way driveway, but that’s ok, turn into it anyway.”
There was a pause as she listened.
“Yeah, turn into the one-way driveway.  It will feel wrong, but just do it, it’s ok. You just turn into it and continue on and turn left as soon as you can. I am just going to say goodbye to a few people and I will meet you out there. Just make sure to turn into the one-way driveway. It will feel wrong. If it feels wrong, then you are going the right way.”
The woman was silent again as she listened to the voice on the other end. Then she said goodbye, flushed the toilet and left. 
The words rung clear and true against the white walls and fluorescent lights of the bathroom. The night air rang and cried out. 
If it feels wrong, you’re going the right way. Mechanical feels right, something so smooth, without friction, without the uncomfortable anxiety pounding against muscle and bone and the very rules taught since birth.
Try walking uphill as the crowd goes down.  Try swimming against the current.  Try going against every institution perpetuated by family and state, it will feel wrong. 
It was late, well past midnight. As waves of weariness and sleep started to massage her eyes and shoulders she smiled, knowing for the moment that she was going against the signs.

Stinging Bits Of Doubt

Work through the stinging bits of doubt.
They nip at the beautiful sphere we create, puncturing it slowly until it collapses under its own weight. I stare at it, deflated and crumbled as candlelight still flickers- the glow reminding me of what we could have made. I see my reflection on its distorted shiny surface. 
Work through the stinging bit of doubt.
They come up like weeds and sometimes I confuse them for tiny flowers and I let them open. Only when their faces shine up at me do I realize my mistake and see the death skulls laughing. But by that time I am far away and lost, floating on my wooden canoe. 
Out to sea I remember shore. Far away there is a house and a garden. Far away a sage bush goes to seed. Far away is a protector, but I can no longer see him beyond the horizon.
My habits have carried me out here and water spills in over the side. Salt oozes up my leg and I begin to crack. 
But there you are, holding the door open once again. The pathways are slightly more narrow now and the flowers have lost their scent, but here we are again in the dim afternoon light. The present is open and wide and we look into it with wide glittering eyes.
Once again we had stood on the edge, once again we clawed our way back from the crashing waves. Here we are again, a circuit of energy between us tasting of love.
Try to remember to breathe you caution. Next time breathe into the stinging bits of doubt, send some air into the caves. 

Singing The War

As the music played, soft and sustaining, as the saxophone came in and out like lapping waves against the shore, as it mingled with the heart-grabbing bass and sustained rhythm which moved her to the wordless core, she closed her eyes. 
Inside where there was at first darkness, the shape of a jigsaw puzzle formed.  Hundreds of scattered pieces floated in space, some of them glinted with flecks of yellow and earth and trees blowing in the wind.  She heard a voice.
“Sing the war,” it urged. “Let it come out in sound.”
Her mouth opened and she found the root and from there she bounced up slowly gathering colors. There were large bonfires with orange flames forming great cones of sweeping embers, they scattered up into the twilight.  Looking down over the hillsides she could see half a dozen fires. 
The peasants were running. Barefoot and dressed in white, the soles of their feet almost as white as their dingy rags. They ran as a great horde down the hillside and out of view, children and thick women with bouncing breasts, young women holding their newborns in their arms. They ran leaving all they had in their piece-meal houses of wood and refuse, just a few old men thinking to grab machetes. 
She jumped up with her voice, going higher. She saw the great metal monsters of the American and Salvadoran army, huge helicopters painted a pale olive green. Men jumped from the open side of the metal birds with their guns in front of them like precious babies. Jaws locked and faces hard, they hit the ground running. They jumped onto the overgrown hillside, the whirlwind of the helicopter blades moving everything in a rush. They ran towards the jungle looking for targets. 
The sounds of her voice got louder, stronger, coming from a place of complete commitment, the story told in tone and quarter notes while the saxophone kept along, leaping like a faithful dog by her side.
And then the face of a pretty young woman, mocha skin and dark eyes and smiling for the camera.  The same girl, standing in a jungle clearing, sunlight illuminating her from behind, baggy pants and long sleeved shirt rolled up to her elbows.  She stood looking into the distance lost in thought.  The same girl, hands tied behind her back moments before the end. 
And then the singing stopped as a wave of emotion rushed forward like a giant sweeping in, coating not just her eyes, but her legs and arms and chest and back in chills and tears. She opened her eyes and looked around, seeing the same familiar collection of people and things, tables and chairs and an assortment of collected instruments on the shelves. 
No one was there to meet her eyes, no one had seen the fires or metal birds, no one had seen the girl but her.

Far Off Songs

I could hear them fighting in the other room.  Every few seconds Jonas’ high pitch scream would pierce through the music I was listening to, it would crawl under my skin and make me shiver. 
I could hear them fighting over the tablet playing cartoons. As I listened to the vocal coaching on my computer and tried to sing along and practice, their constant bickering moved through the glass door and found me and pushed me away from my concentration. 
I could imagine Noah trying pull the computer more towards him and Jonas pulling back, finally strong enough now to defend himself against his older brother.
It was the endless struggle for property that would stay with them until death.  Territory and desire and anger, they were fully present even at three years old. They were even more evident than in adults, due to the lack of social flitters and niceties and the many disguises the adult world has devised to cloak those inner urges.  When those little boys wanted the computer, the cookie, the train they took it. Available responses of the other was tears, or a scream or to hit back.
I could not hear any response from Noah, so I assumed he was the perpetrator.  I had stopped trying to intervene.  I had grown tired of trying to make them share, or warning them, threatening to take it away, now I had just grown silent. I had other things to do.  I sunk back into the music and left them alone, it would be survival of the strongest.
Occasionally I heard Jonas’ weapon of choice: that scream. The high pitched wail irked me from the inside, one of those sounds which physically chilled me and made me shake and try and shrug off the noise.  I closed the door to the living room.  They were going to do what they were going to do.  There could be no reasoning, they were too young, they were little machines. 
The boys used to sit with me as I did my vocal work. When Jonas had just learned to sit up by himself I would put him on a chair next to me and he would look at me with huge, smiling eyes and laugh at some of the sounds.  Noah would sometimes sing along and then we would dance.
Just a few years later and fully human, they were more interested in Dora and Umizumi and their computers and ignored me as much as I tried to look past their fighting. The babies had recognized the work, they could sit with me, patiently waiting sometimes as I went through the things I wanted to do; these little people did not.
They had fallen.  It was only a matter of time, all beings must descend, become human, become mere machines.
Maybe one day they would stop fighting and hear me singing from the other room. Maybe they would remember some of our early nights together when we sat in three chairs in the living room and they would come out to join me once again: singing, dancing, laughing.

Dig In

Dig in with my feet. Dig in with those callused hands cracking and smelling of blood and iron.
Those hands of yours with the roses sprouting from below the white nails are leading to my bed where the sockets sizzle and burn, sometimes exploding like certain moments in a hot jungle with a stove nearby and a woman in a blue uniform caressing the colored light between us. Ouch, the fire of electricity snaps me up. Eyes, open. We know where we are.
Eyes open, we look out the window together and regard the little bird at the top of the tree. Ouch.  Another slap and yes, I am listening.  There is nothing that hurts more than a blind ear.  A deaf eye.  A mute look.
We stare out the window.  Stare.  Stare and state the purpose. Bird out on the tree, sitting on the tippy top, bending the last of that cypress flare.
What hurts more?  Out the window, looking in this bed and discovering the world beneath the covers.  Covers are for the modest and asses out- the narrow light coming through the window catches us, immodest and glaring white and covered with hair. 
The savages have come with urine scented hair and teeth, the shamans rarely stand on hilltops with white robes. No- the tribe has arrived, beautifully described with yellow teeth hanging from rope necklaces made of human hair- skulls used easily as drinking cups. All manner of earthly remains used for decorations and I was hoping to get one for the small altar.
Pain is my friend, without it I forget.  Without it I would forget myself in this warm house covered in sugar and red and white candies and the fluff of terrycloth and inertia. Pain is nothing my friend. Pain is everything.
I look into your eyes, share that spark once again.  The sockets will be jealous as will the memory of a story in my mind.
Can they see us now? Our colors pouring out the small shaft not always meant for light- grunting and brutal- the light hits us from behind, illuminating our forms on the white walls, casting a shadow that travels out and up- beating against the wall of the room, radiating out out out and up up up until we no longer recognize it, have forgotten what was done on the bed in the name of pain and practice and exchange. 
But the clouds are there and have been since we began, and they seize it all up and turn it into seed and send it back.