The Battle For Words

The battle of language
For language
We are twisted
Searching
If only it could be one way, then we could rest
If only they could be one way, then I would understand.
The battle for language
It wraps me in its wheel, taking me, taking me
Not, I am not your lover
Raping me.
The wheel,
It does not ask if I can breathe
There is no consent
I am a body, plunging to earth, into the earth
The wheel
I see my eyes spinning, eyes spinning
Words
The battle for words, it comes through me and out.
If only there was one way to be, then I could know.
If only there was the word, the word, I search for the word.  What is this?
What are you?
Who are we together?
I fight for the answer
There Is no answer
The battle for the words,
Take me take me.  I am your slave.
Rape me with your contortions and I’ll search the world-grasping for the one thing- only one thing.
The battle for words, of words.
I struggle for the ways to be.  Definition, oh it would feel so fucking good.  If only I could define this, set it straight, keep it there for all eternity, there are plenty of me- those who would enjoy it.  oh predictability, you are my lover.

Take me, take me. There is no asking.  Born to struggle in this word game.
My eyes spin.
I see you in my eyes, you are me as she is me as we are all together.
Just as he said- they said - or me, we have no words for this and I am drawn into the pile of shit that would have us all be defined.  Oh, it would feel good on that corner of the white hospital shelf, but this is gritty and dark and the fight takes my heart- beating- it feels so good and hot tight in this hand.
This is the battle for words and we are drawn down in its tight embrace.  Give a kiss, won’t you love?
Give a kiss, for this is the battle.

The Unreasonable

The heart moves like a winged bird- white fluff that dances on the water of the lake.  A smooth wind takes it, transforming it into the magic of light and moistened clouds ready to spurt their seed. 
There is a man in the clouds, tall and dark and outlined in the golden rays of the sun nearing dusk. A bright burst moves across the sky, fervent in its need to explode outward.
End and beginning are the same. It goes without thought, without any implied intent. It is movement without rationality. Words without meaning. 
Their beauty is easy to read, the light easy to spot and wish upon, but there is no reason. No man in the clouds that makes the stars twinkle. 
The sand is a bad place for a head- take it out and behold the blackness of space, the limitless that cannot be understood. 
It is not for you to comprehend, it may not be for you to know. 
Shopping carts and diapers, packed stadiums of hungry onlookers, waiting for a preacher to deliver the message of god.  We are a pack of wolves and the body wants the taste of flesh. 
Each prayer is an invitation to death, open the book and begin to sing. 
What is it that you desire? Maybe the clouds will give it to you, maybe the idol of stone will speak, maybe the invisible which cannot be proven by any measure will dance. 
Is the stain on the tortilla enough?  The bush that burns?  The fluttering heart that can only be described as a whisper? 
Sit in the temples, rise and fall at the command of the man dressed in white. Do it because you are told, do it for the children.  Do it because everyone else does. 
They will mark your house with stones, the windows will be broken, the lawn dug for your grave.  There is no choice here, not in this country of laws, not in these places of worship. 
Thought is for the heathens, questions are for the devil. 
There is only one path and it has already been decided- not by you, but the people before you.  The way is cleared, swept by slaves and those already condemned to death, they wait in cages until the flames rise with the call of the chosen. 
Your dress will be torn when we arrive, your lips will be chapped, you will be thirsty, prepare for the voyage and bring the book.

The Secret

The room is condensed and square, it has the stuffiness of an old Soviet indoor pool that has grown stale and humid since the fall.  The air is stagnant and unmoving, the concrete walls and floor are moist and wet, a smell of musty water permeates the whole space. Though it is not immediately apparent, the stench creeps in, infecting clothing and skin so that not even a good scrub can cover its heavy perfume. 
For all the aura of still-standing water, there is no pool. One wonders just how many years the floors have been slick, and why is the concrete ceiling covered in small beads of moisture, like a blanket of hanging fruit, when there is no obvious water source?
Glenda can only see the sweating walls and the gleaming cement floor because of a few opaque glass covered bulbs attached to the wall behind her.  They give off just enough light for the room to look washed in a haze of gray. 
In fact, she’s not really paying much attention to the space, she’s aware of the dampness and the air which is hard to breath, but her attention is fixed on the paper bag.  The crumpled bag is wrapped up tight in plastic, like someone was trying to make sure the contents did not spill.
Glenda’s punching it, throwing it down as hard as she can, kicking it, stomping it, doing whatever she can to make sure the person she killed and stuffed into the bag is actually dead. Her thick black boot heel slams into the bag over and over.
She picks it up and hurls it towards the wall- the sound of it smashing into the wall is abrupt and ends without echo, like it has landed upon an already dead surface. Another kick.  She’s just got to make sure it’s dead, the fear of it somehow managing to escape the bag, coming insidiously to extract its revenge keeps her moving quickly, it provides the strength for another stomp and punch.
As she obliterates the bag, she can sense the shadow behind her, the friend she cannot see.  Even if she turned around there would be no shape or color. The dark shadow of her companion he could not describe even if needed, but it is there, filling up the corners with presence.

It is night and there are crickets out in the bushes adding a comforting sound to the darkness. Glenda is in a familiar front yard. This is suburbia, she has been here before, but she could never tell you when, she really doesn’t remember. 
The house is twenty feet away and dark, not even the porch light is on, but the moon is nearly full and she can see the carefully sculpted landscape- the trees and the low growing bushes, the decorative grasses close to the front door.  She has been here many times and she easily takes a few steps down into the dry landscaped creek that runs along the front side of the property. There is a small Monet-style bridge made of wood that crosses the creek. 
She takes the brown paper bag- covered in another plastic bag- and pushes it into a small black space where the earth and bridge meet. She can see the pink of her hand as it pushes the bag into the darkness.

The motel room is drenched in yellow light, looking somewhat elegant as the light plays off the textured wallpaper and the maroon carpet.  Glenda’s little white dog is sitting on a fabric covered chair and her dark shadow companion is once again filling in the corners of the room behind her. 
It takes her a moment to realize that the dog has found the bag – didn’t she leave it under a bridge?  The bag is chewed and torn, little bits of white plastic and crumpled brown paper are on the ground and on the chair seat. 
She can hear a voice in her mind: 
“The thing you try and hide is the thing that keeps popping up.”
She knows it's there, in the bag, the secret.

There is a central market in the middle of town.  Set up inside an old cement building that has survived two civil wars and a host of international conquests (all eventually unsuccessful) is a bustling scene. Instead of concrete, as one would expect of an indoor market, there is black water.  It is deep enough water to support all the canoes laden with fish and fresh produce and the giant mangoes that have just come into season.
Whether it is vendor or seller, everyone moves around in a canoe. The water is black with ripples of white reflected from the overhead florescent lights embedded in the ceiling over three stories up. The sound of the market is alive with bartering and the gravely voices of long-time smokers trying to get the best price for their hand-picked crops.  
Glenda and the shadow paddle out to the middle of the frenzy, knocking against the sides of other canoes as everyone tries to move around, like fish in a very small bowl limited to the surface. 
Glenda picks up the brown paper bag, bringing it out of the shadows by her feet.  She holds the bag in front of her, for the first time looking calmly at the folds, the crinkles in the paper now worn and dirty. 
Reaching in, she pulls out a long bone with some reddish brown muscle still attached.  She hands it to the shadow in front of her.  Reaching in once again, she pulls out a similar bone and takes a bite. Together they consume it all until what they hold is white and bare.  She takes both bones and tosses them overboard, she hears a splash and feels them descend into the black water beneath them.

The Change

I sit here, my mind playing, bouncing between two sides of a colored spectrum.  The question lingers, reverberating through every memory as I sift through the contents of three known decades in seconds and wonder about other lifetimes on the fringes of easily lost dreams. 
Did I make the decision to take it in, or did it chose me? I, an open vessel, lights blinking, looking for port.  Did I decide to take it in one day while peeling apples at the kitchen counter, old tiles all stacked full of fruits and old melons rescued from the bin?  Was it a choice? 
The thoughts roll though me as I stare at the moon.  A cool summer breeze full of jasmine and tangible teenage memories of long midnight walks flows past me, igniting the soft skin on my arms. I stare at the moon, awash in its pale calming glow.  The lights around blink as distant worlds do. 
Do choices begin or are they like stones tumbling in the ocean current, bumping off one red-haired mermaid and another until you find yourself in an unfamiliar house in a foggy city, surrounded by people you’ve known for years but seem like newly-acquainted strangers. 
I squint my eyes and look for the trail.  Just how did I get here and what is this?  I think back- when did the choice come?  When the doors opened with a small ding?  When I went down, skirting the equator by just a few hundred miles?
I was looking for something then.  I searched for it in the eyes of every person I saw, looked for it in unfamiliar cities and in the arms of strangers. When did the doors open?  Each choice begets the next and they lap against each other, altering the north wind so that orange butterflies can dance in the hurricane winds of time eternal. 
I think back to the night so long ago.  A night beside a house on the edge of a hill.  On the cemented patio, beside the blue sparkling pool, we looked down at the smog-covered city streets below and sucked on small pieces of tasteless paper. 
Those people with whom I attempted to travel, I thought I would always know them, carry their names and numbers with me as the years changed my skin and hair.  But that, as all things do, changed.  That night we sat in plastic lawn chairs in the summer twilight, watching as city lights turned on and started blinking, talking to us through the altered gray air. 
The house, I would later come to understand, was inspired by the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, but at the time, I just observed the clean angles, the lack of tightness, the open, flowing use of space.  We sucked on little pieces of tasteless paper and as the sky turned darker and the lights started to blink, as other worlds do, the familiar faces and words lost the meaning I once understood as inherent and fixed.
I think back to a day so long ago sitting on the bright grassy lawn of my junior high school, El Roble. We picked small white clover flowers and turned them into garlands.  We sat like children, so utterly content to lay in the field.  The grass, so much more green.  The grass, so much more soft.  The sky, so much more blue.  There was nothing else to do, nowhere to be, no one else to find.  It was utterly perfect, the moment without rush and obligation.  That day, so long ago.
When did I decide to take it in?  Was it a decision or a series of accidents?  Me, or it moving through me?  Paper, door, blinking lights, other worlds.  The open door, blinking lights, eyes I can no longer remember and black shadows.   It can be different.  It takes one tiny piece of paper, a little sugar cube, and worlds dissolve in your cup of water.  Did I decide to change, or did the change find me after one tiny, tasteless piece of paper?

Giant

The giant barks.
I bark back.
There is only one way for a giant to act. I know this.
I have read it in story rhymes,
so many stories, so many rhymes.
Then I finally encounter one, I am offended by what I see.

The giant barks, sitting on all fours. 
His sneakers chewed up and smelling of bile.
Where has this creature come from?
Not even the swamp down by Knott’s old road house could have produced such a dank creature.

This is not what I wanted to see this early in the morning.  Out for a morning stroll, thinking about a good breakfast, some sausage and black coffee, maybe a smile from Bettie. I wake from nightmares with visions like this, but to see it barking out on Upper West Tollridge like the full moon was out, like transformation is upon him- I must do something.

The giant barks and I bark back.  I release my savage dog.  The wild rascal I have tamed inside.  My skin starts to burn with the boil of hate.
Soon, the night is black, smelling of old rotten things and dark, still waters that have not moved in centuries.  I took him by surprise, myself, covered in the scent of fish, of old and new cigars.

When the giant barked, I barked back.

Before The Journey

There once was a magician who lived alone in a cave.  From time to time, other travelers and seekers would find the cave as it was next to a fresh water source and close to the dirt path that led all the way over mountains and forests and deserts to the land of spices and smoke.  Sometimes students came and brought him sacks of tea and paper and ink.  Sometimes the children of the nearest mountain village would leave sweets at the mouth of the cave and rice in burlap bundles.  Mostly, he was alone, left with the slow steady rhythm of his own breath and the restless occasional cracking of the rocks surrounding him, the sounds all houses make when they think they’re alone.
He had been there before his hair ever turned white, when his muscles had been firm, and though he had been there for decades, he was aware of how little time there really was, how birth seemed to have come just a few days before. Because of his acute awareness of time, he practiced his art with urgency and strict attention. He kept detailed notes about experiments, their results and the methods employed.  There were charts that outlined his emotions, his health, the weather and time of year.
In his dreams, he saw another world where there were tall buildings made of glass and steel.  He had dreamt of this place for many months. Upon waking, he felt the lingering desire to voyage deeper into the dream, to go so far in that there would be no memory of a cave.  The place in his dream was not better, it was only different, with smells and textures that did not exist where he sat.  He wanted to look into the eyes of the people and see what they had to share.
For months he tried various things.  He played in his dreams and covered himself in the smoke of local plants.  He chanted and organized and re-organized the order in which he set up the space around him and the methods in which he relaxed and let himself drift into dreams.  Sometimes, when the spell was working, it seemed like he could reach out and touch the glass of the tall buildings, but just as he stretched out his arm and moved his fingertips towards the glass, he would awake suddenly, aware that something had brought him back. He had not made full contact.
One night, he waited for the full moon to crest above him.  He could feel the light changing, growing stronger. Though he had no direct sight from the deep interior of the cave, the waters inside him vibrated in louder ripples as the moon rose over the mountain range. Sensations rippled over his skin, it felt lighter, smoother, stronger somehow. He waited, patiently breathing, allowing his body to move as slowly and calmly as the moon that gently rose. When the energy peaked, his body began to rock.  His eyes no longer perceived the clear lines of his world, they shifted like a color show and melted into each other.
He journeyed that night into the world of glass and steel, walking through streets that showed no signs of the earth, where the trees seemed planted as ornaments rather than mighty elements in the natural landscape. 
He wandered for hours, looking intently at the people that crossed his path.  They were women and men in bodies like his own, but their attention seemed taken, turned inward on earthly matters, squandered on abstractions and worries. He could sense their tension more acutely than ever, as though none could remember their true purpose. They walked past him like ghosts, never taking their eyes off the ground or off the objects in their palms. He noted their presence and posture.
He continued his walk, collecting his notes of the other world.  Soon he came upon a piece of paper that seemed misplaced on the sidewalk.  He stooped to pick it up and was startled to see his own writing on the paper.  He looked at it more and realized they were the instructions he had written to himself prior to the journey.  He looked at it with different eyes now.  Not the man that had thought of dreaming, the man that thought of going to other worlds, but this new man now, the man he was after touching glass and steel, the man that walked among ghosts.
He was struck by the second and third lines of his instructions.  Before every journey it was his habit to write out a list of directives, things we would need to remember while travelling, the incantations he would need in order to come back to the cave chamber.  He kept them in his right hand pocket always, a place he could easily remember to check when he felt the time was right. It was strange now to find it on the ground, easily lost or blown off by the wind. 
He looked at the writing, at his familiar script. But he felt a slight alarm as he noticed the extra embellishments on the curls of several script characters. It was a minor detail of handwriting, but he knew himself well enough to know what it meant. 
Over the years and countless hours of inner exploration, he had come to glimpse the many parts of himself, the light, the dark, the terrors another man would have hid away in fear.  The benevolent teacher and the raw animal.  There were a thousand faces in between the extremes of his machine and he had met with each one, he had come to know their habits and he knew the extra curls in his script indicated that several of his egos were active, manifesting themselves in his writing. 
Without realizing it at the time, back in the cave, he had begun his journey with them inside, active, unbeknownst to him, they had piggy-backed through his dreams, stepping with him through the door.  Had he known, had he paid enough attention, as he surely should have, he would have caught a glimpse of their presence.  It was a mistake, a dangerous one, bringing them along into this altered land, in this altered state, was a hazard. They could lead him to a very nasty place, a place dripping with identifications and worldly demons and monsters hard to defeat. 
He had not been careful enough. But he could begin again now. 
He stood on the sidewalk and placed himself in the center of a circle, imagining its firm golden walls.  He closed his eyes and began to breath rapidly, letting the palpitations in his stomach push those creatures to the surface of his flesh.  He felt them emerging and he saw their contorted faces in the awful visions before his eyes. Each breath pushed them further to the surface. 
He stood in place for many minutes, breathing rapidly with intense concentration, visualizing a clear, cleansed circle around him until finally he could feel that that his inner landscape had shifted.  He slowed his breathing and began to walk once again.  The sidewalk ahead was illuminated in the glare from a dozen mirrored buildings in the high sun. He walked through them, letting his intuition pull him forward.

Instructions

When the springs were longer and the earth was not covered in salt as it is now, you once asked me how to construct a talisman. At the time I told you to gather yellow crystals along the ridge of our mountain and construct a bag of fabric and twigs. At the time, I thought you were not ready for more complicated instructions. It was not just the degree of difficulty you might have had in procuring the substances and objects, but I also thought you were not ready for the power of a more sophisticated talisman.
As I said, the springs have gotten shorter, and there are many we could count and remember in the years we have spent together, so as I survey the white streaks in your hair, as I watch what was once a more impatient, angry man and see the slow, deliberate person before me at the fire, as I observe in simple detail the careful watch of a man that has grown into what will be a fine king, I see that you are ready. 
It has taken years, harder work than I am sure you initially thought, but as I have tried to show you through example, change is possible. As I have told you many times, kings are not made by riches, but by metaphor, and you, now, have developed the awareness necessary to hold your many facets in equal balance, at least much of the time. No gold or jewels could make a finer king.
I see now that more detailed instructions will be useful to you, perhaps not now or in the upcoming cool weather, but perhaps soon. I will impart what I have. 
As I have said many times, both to you and to others, there is no truth, just versions of it.  Each one will look different depending on the man who perceives it, and although it may be redundant, I much emphasize, there are many ways to make a talisman.  This is simply my way and the way of my teacher before me, it is not the only truth.  You are free, after careful thought and consideration, to alter the instructions if need be.  This mountain will change and the instructions may need to change with them. 
As I am sure you have understood, though I will emphasize it again now, it is not only the materials which are important (for indeed they are), but it is the way they are gathered, the calmness in you body as you design and construct, the even flow of breath as you move over the mountain.  So if you must change something, do so always maintaining your awareness.
When I am gone, as one of these days my body will return to the soil and a new journey will begin, you may look though the leather journals of my office and find other instructions, not just for various talismans but other things you may find useful. I must once again state that the world of magick is vast and deep, so do not hold onto the instructions like the habits and identity you once carried like a torch before your heart. These are instructions, not rules.  Look at them creatively, like you are creating something from the other worlds and bringing it to life (and indeed you are.) Life takes many forms and at some points, you may find it necessary to alter.  Use your careful and creative judgement.

Now for the instructions:

Take a piece of virgin parchment, made from the skin of a stillborn lamb.
It will probably be cold to the touch, warm it beside a low fire of hot coals.
Use your finger to draw blood, either yours or that of your female companion.
She will give to you, as she always does. 
Take what you need, she is willing. 
After the skin of the animal is cured and soft, (this I know you are capable of doing as I have seen you do it many times) take the parchment and lay it flat against a wooden surface.  Let the moonlight cleanse it of human touch, of animal remains, of anything that ever was before. 
Now it is something new. 
Draw a star in the center.
At the center of the star, trace the image of the sun in red ink and paint its center in gold.
Let the parchment rest in the moonlight for several hours.
Roll the parchment into a scroll, as tight as you can make it. Fold it in half.
Set it into a jar of water and let it sit until completely tender and pliable.
Form it into an oval and cover with the red sand at the mountain’s base.
Dry it in the sun. 
The entire process may take half a moon cycle.