Monday, November 15, 2004

Fascination Street

The weight of my foot swung over the trolley track as the coffee shop music grew dim behind us. A gasp. Something eclipsed the ordinary view of one foot after another: a rattlesnake curled in the curve of asphalt & metal. So still…Limp…Dead. I squatted for closer examination, headlights swishing by, entrails leaking like yellow custard. All else intact. Head hidden. I reached out for the baby rattle. She screamed. I shrieked, surprised by my own voice, quickly calm again. Then charged & solid, some sensation of a wrong that must be righted, I picked up the rotting flesh between my fingers – head unfurled, dangling and torn – and took it to the base of a sidewalk mesquite. It crumpled into the dirt & I sniffed Death on my fingertips. Coffee-drinkers at the sidewalk tables took notice after the scream and followed me with slow-moving eyes as I went back in to wash my hands. A day later & I can still smell them.

A friend who barely knows me called. In the streets, he stumbled upon broken necklaces, “jewels” he called them: beads, crosses, smashed pearls. Recovering treasure close to home. The beauty of brokenness found & gathered. He didn’t need the king’s horses or men.

I told him of the snake. He replied with surprising confidence, “Sounds like you’re putting a relationship to rest. A good thing. Probably a man. They’re often snakes.” “Yes,” I said, “And I picked it up in all its stench & put it in a better place, a more friendly funeral pyre.” “Yah, a good thing.” Then, without knowing what he was saying, “His venom can’t touch you anymore.” And all of a sudden, my breath had more space to move. The mountains are shifting.

Fascination or fortitude? Internal strength or external seduction? Ability to transform or inability to let sleeping snakes lie? It’s not either/or anymore. The sentence breaks the rule and starts with “And.” It’s simply alive.

All this is to say: we live-dream-weave our biomythography. Let it be honest & true.

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Prickly Pear Fallout

Any addiction to sadness alludes me now, thankfully. The Northwest feels enmeshed, heartful, saturated. Even in the city, you know your bedroom lies in the lull between two forested hills, cradled by moss & fern.

In this dusty desert expanse, I lie on the bed & the entire universe drops off the edge of this room, like a distant memory of nuclear fallout. Survival, extremes, emptiness. Ghost towns of gas-masked experimenters. Sun-leathered beatniks with dirty feet. 40 days, 40 nights.

Yet the prickly pear gives fruit, magenta nectar fluorescent in the sunlight, brighter than any heartblood. And we drink it, a child's treasure, a promise of the rough diamond's rainbow. It is not a plump fruit, but a clarified splash. Might it touch these thirsty veins? A sweet kiss on my pulse? Maybe. But desert nectar distills our better parts from the less desirable so that we might observe from a distance. Not a cradling, but still a gift.

Sunday, September 05, 2004

Ladybugs and Laptops

Subtle delight in this scene of the play. On-stage. Off-stage. Curtain closes on the silent fields of mud paths walked by meditators & plantains traversed by ladybugs; the dear, the fawn, the lavender sky lingering above fir trees as the Dhamma hall rises from the tall grass. The unceasing stage of the body plays out the hours, breath by breath, thought by sensation.

Curtain opens. And now, light streams into the shadows of this Portland coffeeshop. The walls: burnt sienna & mustard. A vintage easychair. Paintings of the Oregon coast. Props of a familiar set. Quiet tapping of laptops... Music for the first time in days. The steaming hiss of the esspresso machine, this whirling hush of passing cars. And yet, the sound of my body hums through it all with the subtle, passing sensation of being awakened and soft like a baby bird.

The Silent Body Awakens

10 Days of Noble Silence: complete silence of speech, of body, of place. Here are the first written words... The floodgates change like everything else. Perhaps wordless communication would be most lovely. The first handshake. The first embrace. The first eye contact. The piercing exactitude of living life without affirmation, knowing the only condemnation arises within. Feeling your mind's conversation with apparent reality manifest in the body's sensations.

A tingle in the pinky, a heaviness on the brow, a thick soup slurping across and through the limitless terrain of Body. Earthen weight sliding along sternocleidomastoid. The right hip is blank. Ah. There's the subtle blanket of cloth touching skin, the breath of cold on my forearm. My? Wait. Whose is this anyway? Then smashing into the laminal groove, a stabbing pain takes hold of my shoulder blade, right behind the pericardium, or what the Chinese call the "Heart Protector." My awareness searches for the epicenter of this heartquake, pulsing alongside the primal history of what we call "spine." Indeed, pain becomes broken into the unnamable. The magician's trick of pulse, heat, density shifts beneath my gaze & I can't pin the center. Why suffer my mind to something so ephemeral?

I move on, charting the chop of pulsing density into lighter waters. The tides of mind meet matter on a sparkly shore. And where is the Sun? Hanging fixed in the sky like the one in a child's drawing? Not to be found. I don't find the Earthbody's star, just the drownings of a spiral galaxy. Is it night or day? Rising heat makes wavelets of the atmosphere & then I realize it's moonlight on the water. I glance over as a bird takes flight from a treetop into morning sky. And then submerged again, nearing the ocean's floor, tremendous weight closing; but I can feel the subtle thinness of my skin, the flutter of bubbles float from my lips. So even as my flesh presses closer to bone, I know liquid light casts dusty rays near the surface. Not a smile, not a tear, yet I am bouyant. I could love from this place.

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

A Discreet Cherry

Tomorrow is my first day off in fourteen days. A kind of delirium overtakes me. I could have spent hours picking out produce at Aqua Vita... spreading swiss chard, plump cherries, snow peas like fallen leaves curled together... After languid lingering and a ginger cookie, I decided to visit the Olive Tree. My mind needed to wander freely in its branches, without the distraction of my refrigerator & things left undone & the objects of a particular life. So I swung up her trunk & she graciously held me as pages turned & turned within me, like a book left out in the breeze. And the full moon sprayed silver from behind wisps of cloud.

Scenes of our meeting drifted through my awareness: "I came to request that you retract your accusation." After a long silence, I said, "The alchemy that has transpired within me is beyond blame. I have no wish to rewrite anything." And ultimately, faces in hands, foreheads pressed together & silent, the moon blessed our well wishing.

Down from the tree and back to the fruit. Blood and cherry juice must be kindred spirits. The couch sucked me into a deluge of cherry flesh and slippery pits. One split open on my fingertip and I had to finish what I'd started, smearing cherryness all over my arms, watching the sugars glisten on my skin, juices dripping between fingers. A reminder of the possibilities hiding in each discreet moment.

Monday, July 26, 2004

Birthday Morning...some time ago

Woke with her in my arms, her lashes flashing, chocolate swirling eyes.  "You are the Charmed Ones," the woman said prophetically.  She & I, always on the edge of rocking out destiny.  Her hair falling, her skin softening on mine.  My lips slip against her forehead.  Still haven't opened my eyes, but I feel the morning light seeping into our pile of flesh & feathers.

Monday, July 19, 2004

Orange Peels

A piece of my breath is still jumping across river rocks.  Some liquid spray of sunshine threatens to leap from my belly and escape these velvet curtains into the night.
 
We basked under the Sycamore trees.  I didn't even notice the battlewounds of the boulder scramble.  These thighs, these hands, they love the granite, every crevice and slick slant into water below.  And his shoulders glistened & his feet gripped the edges.  And the others laughed, voices tumbling down the canyon.  Soon enough, we gathered under the rustling leaves & orange peels fell from the flesh.  A dusty white moon in azure sky rewarded our efforts.  The waterfall's mist mingled with my skin's sweat.  And I felt glad. 

Vagrant Angel

Lovely days.  Making licorice and ginger tinctures, a little drumming, a lot of wrestling and more laughter than I can remember.  He read me Mary Oliver poems & I admired the water filtration system on his van cooler.  A drunken, wise Creole spirit -  wandering from Bakersfield, CA - espoused the beauty of a good woman under the street lamp.  His eyes wide & bloodshot, his smile brightly weathered & knowing, like a vagrant angel reminding the Everydayers of the sacred essentials.  "If I had a woman like that, I'd follow her wherever she go.  I'd make sure I be by her side, boy.  Don't let a love like that slip you by."  We laughed.  What a romantic.  My mind can't follow that path again yet, but I reveled in every second of his passion pulpit.

Rubble

An embrace,
rainbow prisms on every cell wall,
structures
alighting on bliss,
dissolving with a slight kiss on the palm,
tumbling into dust in sunshine;
the rubble glitters golden.
 

Monday, July 12, 2004

Dust & Congas

Shall I enjoy the missing while I can still remember the tastes & smells & softness in the air between us? Will it fade? Will eight years of touch become a dust-covered epic in the attic of my mind? Can lives so-entwined unravel like that? They do. We have only the moment. Everything else is dead. Is that why I keep memories so close to my heart, why I visit them like old friends not to be left unattended for too long? The mind is so immense. So much lost in the corridors. Yet the heart can hardly tell waking from dreaming & these sensate memories of ripened affection and acceptance feel more real than a disjunct dinner conversation. Shall I be grateful that real love is close enough to mourn?

Have I always cried like this? At ease in my heart, some piece of Loss stirring. Soft light. My feet on the couch. Music. Black cat sleepily sinking into the wooden floor. The congas across the room know my joy will turn. They're not worried.

Olive Tree & Oleanders

Last night Matthew & I looked at pictures in the car under a street lamp. One year ago. Literally dancing in the rain (and later with the help of a garden hose). Clothes transparent, sticking to skin and thighs. Clumps of hair streaking faces. Dancing like dogs shaking off a swim; all captured in glossy. Those lovers gone now. On our way to see a period romance at Elcon Theater. I needed snapshots of someone else's glossies. "A sumptuous film" indeed. I'm always drawn to eyes so full and silent they need never speak. And I always wonder what they're saying. And what they're seeing in me. It's rare that I come across eyes like that, even in gelatin.

And so I couldn't sleep. Instead, I went to the Olive Tree. 2AM and hanging in the branches. Silent. Street lamp clicking on again, off again. Like you and I. And I told myself, "This is so rich here alone. Why give it away?" Just then a black cat crossed under. It didn't see me crouching, lounging up high. "Tsss." It stopped, looked at me startled and then bound up the trunk, ears & cheeks rubbing my legs, nuzzling my hands. We teased at each other a bit until he could tell I'd lost interest. He returned to the earth below. I was a little sad to see him go.

Then a 70s Bronco with huge tires and a lift pulled up at the edge of the park, engine roaring. Two women - stumbling and loud - clamored out. And like Maeve straddling the river, pulled down their pants between the Oleanders in a stream of laughter, profanity and piss. I could hear the puddles gushing, see the legs squatting. Me unnoticed, reclaiming the silence of deep space as they thundered off in deep bass.

Strawberry Fingertips

The strawberry skins were a bit leathery. Too long in the fridge, but still sweet enough for a smoothie. My most recent addiction: blended fruit. Singular delicacies deconstructed, with a dash of cinnamon. Always served best in a wine glass; the one I bought for 50 cents at Value Village. As the last puddle of liquid blossom streams from the bottom, I encourage it into my goblet, sliding  two fingers along the inside of the glass pitcher to the lip. Then lick my fingers. Everytime. Everytime I slide my fingertips along that last moment. And then rinse the pitcher clean, swishing the water to catch strawberry seeds. Those seeds love to linger. They don't know there will be a next time.

Friday, July 09, 2004


...it needs the metaphor of the body... Posted by Hello

Triste the Clown initiates Liquid Amber Posted by Hello