/angel as for days marked as these I was not meant to see but there she was anyway a lamenting angel a casualty of war
just in her eyes – read like history so far down forlorn skies gather clouds as my mind crosses hers o’ ancient one, accursed how long should you be punished how long to be trapped to dwell here between death and dawn knowing neither knowing you were wrong
notes… so something caught my eye, the corner, like a fish hooked I suppose, I saw into the soul of an angel, a fallen one of course, I have to be dramatic right? but in all seriousness this is a blink, a wink, something that flicked the switch in my mind, there is a bunch of themes in there for you to digest, so… enjoy (and feel free to discuss, because you know, I encourage such things)… and I did see something… didn’t I??
now writing this after the event, I am unclear, was this a dream, a hallucination? something other? of that I am now unsure, but in the moment everything seemed as real as a pinch in a dream might, as best I recall, but this is the next morning after all so I can not be nailed down to the details, however they might seem… the scene: nearly 2am on a summer night, hazy, street lights suspended in the humid air, hanging there like diffused cones, not exactly romantic, I know, I had to venture out to my car to put a couple of things in so I would not forget in the whirlwind of morning when I am surely not at my sharpest, especially before the coffee kicks in, the whole street seems blurred, mired in the dampness and lingering heat, almost like the reception of my eyes was off a bit, I scanned around like I always would, sometimes I spot a fox, or other things that go hump in the night, but tonight, about three houses down, something, surely a four legged thing, as best I could discern a deer, perhaps with antlers, I’m not sure, the form is also hazy like the whole lot of the world right now, I raise my phone up, pop on the flashlight app so cleverly in there, held up like a torch but not as bright, at least not on this night, the damn light is trapped in the infernal mist that is shrouding my sure identification, I swear the thing is looking at me, is it a deer? by itself, this late? I see them all the time, the local pack I mean, I know their work hours… and this ain’t one, my mind races to identify for certain, some fear has snuck back stage, coyotes have been spotted in the area and who knows, at this distance roughly could be the size I suppose, probably I am over thinking, but what throws my mind, the color seems off, for any creature of this earth, aside from a polar bear, which this certainly is not, I approach slowly, with caution, my flashlight phone is really doing nothing to help, and still the ‘deer’ stares right at me locked, surely my stealth is anything but, I hear no sounds, not even my own breathing but the white deer is aware of me anyway, as I am aware of it, just staring, the only two beings of the hour in a standoff, except I am approaching, these are my broken-in shoes, worn down like thrift store blue jeans for sale, walking in velvet, no sound, and I inch forward, I swear the thing has a glow to it, I can not describe it, except it exists in a mist, in it’s own atmosphere, the haze that is an occupying force, this night, I sense it might take flight, so I slowly, surely, lower the phone, activate the camera, get ready for the shot, somehow it knows, it looks forward once, and then back at me as to signal, I press the button, FLASH, hah, I must have captured it, for it is gone from view in the next instant, I hurriedly check my photos, nothing… nothing? this was a long few minutes of pulse to come up without a fish, there was something there! I swear! I check again, and there is a faint outline perhaps, a phantom’s trace maybe, and the more I recollect the white deer, bounced like a light-beam pinball behind the neighbor’s house, so fast, grease lightning, a trick of the mind? a trap of the haze? there were rumors that these parts were a farm long ago, I remember seeing a ghost chicken run under the car as a small child, but that was so long ago as to seem like a made up memory, I begin to wonder, and I look at my phone again, there was something there, an aftermath, a remnant, so what were you? the white deer.
“would you allow me to patronize you with lies perhaps I might even tell you some truths”
I figure, what do I have to lose, but time, always the sand but there is no real point in paying attention to that until the end, and what can I do about that anyway, so perhaps a cup of tea, although I am more of a coffee wonk these days, years, how about a cup of earl grey, for bergomot is the most forgotten citrus, maybe, perhaps I can pull on a thread and work my own knots out or fashion a garment even in the process, I certainly have to bow to her experience but then again we all bring something unique to the arbitrary table, so let’s dance…
…and the hours pass on by, fantastical and intimate stories shared, in one direction, I never bothered to check her credentials at the door, and how would I go about that anyway, the tales seem somewhat legit, but who am I to say? I keep waiting for the reveal, the fortune nestled inside the cookie egg, or maybe I am missing the point of the entire exercise anyway, she controls me with her eyes even though the words are spun from her mouth, lips, lips that move hypnotically that is, I fear I am nearing a trance, scratch that, fear has gone, faded out like a shadow on a blank chalkboard moonless night, comforting darkness though, the soft kind right before you drift off to sweet slumber wrapped in your favorite blanket, to wander another world in your own dreams, is she planting seeds in those fields? how might I know, or even be aware when a spinster of such merit and age is playing with language so easily, are these stories that were ? or are to be? for me? or for…
Photo by freestocks.org on Pexels.com
orange blossoms and jasmine, or maybe it is the tea, her tea, sipped so perfectly without a sound, I see the ripples on the surface pond, the silence is a stark contrast like standing on a sheer faced cliff high above the surf, you can see the waves crash and imagine the sound they make hitting the rocks so damn violently but somehow romantically like a kiss, she sips again, just enough time to keep me from being fully mesmerized I think, of course she has had all this time to perfect her skills, like a linguistic surgeon, no, more like a veritable verbal ballerina, like watching a master paint a landscape effortlessly from the wrists on down, as if the very hand of the universe is drawing stars in motion right before me, all afternoon and into the night, the delight of her words is intoxication, is this love? or seduction, mental seduction as she penetrates my barriers with utter ease, doors open, my mind, and I am in rapture unable to decline her masterful invitations, invasions, all the while, somewhere before, I am trying to pull the pieces together, not sure of the whole outcome, like a puzzle- I start on the edges, a cloud piece to a cloud piece above the ground, but just the sound, I come to understand the yarn and draw of the pied piper’s lore, disarming, the stories flow…
at once swept up on a mighty ocean, the slick wet deck of an aged wooden galleon, rolling up and down in a violent storm, lightning flashes the night, I can taste the salt in the air on my mind, and then transferred to a conjured green wooded field ring, mixtures of pine and honey, a fawn on a sacred stump raising sweet lullabies from pan’s own flute, for even the butterflies pause to admire and sing along, their wings beat with the song, or perhaps in a desert, feeling the sun sap skin, coming upon an old sand ruin to know it’s story again, running my fingers along the edges and seams, where the mortar had been, and the hands of lives that shaped these rocks…
this is a transcendent tempest, a dream, a fever’s cradle, she pulls all the strings with my willing submission, truly I am smitten and drawn quartered in woven worlds, a web, a spider, a morsel wrapped up like a gift, for I am hers, so I succumb, she wins.
is the price of life forgetting your past existence
for memories are energy, and there is only a finite amount, sure, the universe is larger than what we can wrap our current head around but everything has bounds, everything has limits, what if there is only so much to go around, kind of a more physics way of approaching the idea of the Guf, a universal recycling program if you will, less ashes to ashes more us to us, obviously you were meant to be, you are here reading this, so that is proof positive, matter is not destroyed but relived or reworked, energy is the same, there is only a finite amount of material, and then pause on the cosmic odds, your life, my life, so strange to consider that stars actually did align for all this, the entirety of all existence is culminated in your consciousness, the grooming of billions of years, bodies in motion, the cosmos endless ocean, to produce that note, that wonderful sound of you, you were meant to be born and live right now.
“I pray to the sun – for guidance to the moon – to ease my mind to the stars – as a reminder of infinite possibility to all these – as all humanity once does once has once will may the light become my pathway until my heart beats still”
notes… not a religious thing, more of a spiritual thing, the more years I hang on this familiar mantle I try to just look out and observe all this around me, it is astounding, and yet so nothing compared to the everything, what a dilemma, but it teaches you to love what you have – not what you can never have, does it always hold? hey, I can only try, this is my first time at life (as far as I know), nothing is perfect, nothing is always 100% right, but damn there is beauty in this world I endeavor to enjoy…
morality religion not twins nor siblings often confused as lovers but they are quite something other
notes… just a thought, there are those that post on high moral standards using the crucible of religion. you do not need religion to have morality, I am not discounting religion, that is a personal choice, and I am good with that, but those of us who do not believe in said religions can still have solid morals, I used to be that snobby northeast agnostic who looked down on religious folks as dummies who believed in a voice in the sky (an easy position in retrospect, just a way to dismiss), I don’t claim to have the answers so who am I to think myself superior in some way to those who have found their answer, I don’t, I am not them, I am not you, I am me, and I respect our differences, I would love to have an answer, the big answer, that would really quiet the storm (and fear) in my mind, I do think I will die without the answers I seek until they confront me in that ultimate time, and maybe that will be to late, but I have to admit my fear, my panic, my scrambling, do I have faith? yes. because I try to live morally as best I can, if that is not good enough for my soul because I didn’t follow a book or a man? I have to be accountable for that, so I am….
a prayer for those in the face of disease
for they are the faces we see
when life is most precarious
or stretched out on a bare thread
we look, to them
an army of the courageous
stewards of duty bound
to put aside the self
for the betterment of we
a prayer for you
for strength
for purpose
for divine providence
in these times of great need.
notes… my thanks to those I know in the field, and those I do not. Sports, a multibillion dollar industry has gone silently and quickly into hibernation, that might be all you need to know about what is important to all nations…
there is something about that first drop of true spring rain landing upon your bottom lip, strangely, the top lip impact is just not the same, kind of a drop hanging off a rooftop edge, or sliding off an umbrella’s side like a slug, there is something mystical about that one first kiss on the lower lip drop serenaded by the conversations of the spring birds that abound, such an up-swell of renewal that even ponce would be jealous of, this is not even proper rain, more like a hard drizzle, and then the inevitable patter of cloud siblings as they hit your outer wear, that distinct acoustic sound, a singular drum tone you know so well, no tune you can recall but a beat and rhythm you know so, so well, and then to the eyes, you can see the physical drops racing by, more like bolts and lines than drops really, the word ‘drop’ has such a specific look to the conjuration, rarely do you see actual drops of rain if you care to think about it, I desperately want this to be a pure baptism of spring, wash away the winter and all the dire darkness shrouding the world in the now, the subtle reminder, the tap on the shoulder, the realization, this is April, a gateway, there is a corridor and an ending lest we lose view of it at times, there is a spring, be it a metaphor or a tangible fruit to bear and then pick for sustinence forward, be sure, spring is there, pushing ever up against the dam of this damn winter, gathering such weight behind the barrier until winter can only relent and burst, this is the way of things, regardless of our cares, cars, cities, quibbles, arguments, tv shows, sports teams, skyscrapers, all of it, just window dressing against the never ending machine of this small earth confined to the laws of the expanding universe, size and scope is all perspective, and sometimes the little details need to realign your vision or perception, to bring you back to actual reality, the way of the world and as it will be, when the winter is undone as it always will be.
notes… inspiration is a tease, a master, a slave, all these, I am trying my best to bend to the wind in those sails and write everything as it is… to me, that is, if you expect someone else, well, that’s silly, I am just trying to be the me, feeling better these days amongst the forest of deadly disease that has surrounded my whole existence, today was not my day to go, hopefully not soon either, but you never know, I am trying to encapsulate my thoughts here… on this little blog, and I would be remiss, without thanks, to whatever god there is or not, but I would lean towards “is” because why do all this if there is nothing, there could be nothing, yes, there could be, but there could be more, so I would rather plant my flag in that land without colors on that flag, just the flag that says I am here, I was here, I am…
“the nights of twyner-by-lot a land that time has not once forgot for on this site many circle a stone for on this ground sacrificed of bone and all the more the landscape shed grass and greens o’er the swept torrents hath bent and snow that slept moons on by and sunlight spent the generations they came and went all in the nights of twyner-by-lot”
notes… OK, I was thinking of stonehenge and also Fiddler’s Green, and also Danny the Street, c’mon now, are you keeping up folks? Mythical places, magical places, all the faces that have passed through them, the lives, the rituals, the stories, why not “twyner-by-lot”, now that I made that up, it exists just the same as any other plot of land, does transference occur? There is innumerable places on the earth of worship both old and new, has the actions of man changed the turn of the earthworm thus in such… just a consideration, and that is what I am asking with this work (and yes the name just came to me in pure thought, in case you were asking).
and let me be remiss to say, all thoughts, comments, likes, and hay bales are appreciated… I especially love hot chile recipes, if you know me, and if you read me, you know me probably more than you know… but thanks for the eyes, if any and all…
Shades of My Garden 