Bury my ashes with the seed of a tree.
I'll become something more. I'll grow into a towering tree.
Me: inching high above the forest trails, the axe men come to cut me down.
They interfere with my heaven; high above the ground.
When I'm run through the factory, I
get ready to become your
loose leaf sheet where you sketch what
you believe after life should be.
(Never those men in the sky.
Never those verses that lie.
Never the resume of who has sined and yet to die.)
Sketch a bird in flight.
Sketch a forest of trees.
Sketch a spider weaving it's fabricated design.
After (a) life:
It's a life without thought.
A life with pure instinct.
A life with a purpose.
Yet the men who come along crushing roaches for it's ugly exterior.
Yet the men who cut me down to produce your sheet.
Yet these men are the wanderers of hell who interfere with out current state.
Hell is (being) human.
Hell is disattached instinct.
Hell is the atom bomb.
Hell is created in the chest of all men as they pollute the waters and crack open the very core of this world.
Hell is the devolution of man.
Oh this world will live on without us.
After (a) life, this is where you'll be.
Becoming something.
Becoming anything more than man.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Threads: A Story of Something Real
They were breathing, synchronized. A heartbeat to heartbeat, grunt to grunt. The only other sounds heard were the sound of the wind blowing trash past them on the concrete in the lobby of the abandoned train station. The holes in the street signs outside whistling. This was an abandoned city where everyone lived off the remnants left behind. The abandoned buildings, the stopped trains, the old homes collapsing in on themselves. People were sustaining off of everything left in the city.
He said push but it wasn’t necessary. She pushed but after about two pushes, threads, multicolored in vibrant blue, teal, aqua, gold, fuschia pink, they were all pushing out from his wife but she was silent and felt uncertain about the feeling she was undergoing.
Just one tiny thread held the baby and the mother together. She desired a baby girl. A delicate one. She once said, “I want a baby, delicate like threads.” This was far from what she envisioned, but close enough to her wants. Delicate and a creation of her own. The baby moved liked a slug in the mans arms. There was no blood, just black wet threads soaked in the women's bodily fluids. The man snipped the little black thread connecting the mother and the threaded baby. “Is she beautiful?” she asked.
Well maybe he thought. Or its delicate. Or its something else. Or it’s rare in it’s form. He said none of that.
She propped her body up off of the old spring mattress. Her mouth became a gaping hole. She already resented the thing she desired most.
Whether anyone would call it a child, one would care for it or one would disregard it. They did both. The mother disregarded it. The father cherished it.
He tried to hand the baby to the mother but she crossed her arms and locked them in place like a gate. It was evident that she resented a baby of such form. A baby only there to taunt her of something normal or of something she can consider real.
”Why couldn’t I be blessed with something real. Give me something real.” Her voice raised louder. “Give me something fucking real!”
He took the threaded baby in his arms and it squirmed slowly and sluggishly. The father held it with admiration and smirked lightly. Looking down at it he gently asked, “What should we name it?”
He knew this was a bad question but he didn’t seem to care. She was naked on the mattress, her body smeared with dried up mud and scented with oil. There was a tiny lump in her stomach from where the baby had stretched her stomach vaguely. They could only bath in the oily lakes around the train station. It was the only water left. In result they were filthy and wore dirty clothes they’d find around the train station. It hadn’t rained in years. So they continued to drink the toxic waters in the local streams, all muddied and polluted with metal and oil. She stood up from the mattress and walk away towards the old rusted stairwell holding the tiny lump in her stomach. Poison oak wrapped all around the railing and vines ran up the brick walls of the stair well.
He watched her walk up the stairwell, naked and dissatisfied.
He looked down at the baby in his arms and whispered, ‘Threads.’
There were four stories to the abandoned building. They lived on the top floor in a little room that over looked the dead city. Buildings out in the distances, some were halfway burnt and destroyed. Most of them, the windows were busted out. Graffiti covered the walls of the train station outside and in. Some of the walls were broken in and the wooden floors were all warped. Its structure was close to collapsing. When the wind blew the building moved with it.
In their room there was a dresser pressed against the wall underneath the one lone window. The drawers were all pulled out and clothes and filthy towels covered the floor. Old news paper and old pictures laid all around the floor of the room. They slept on a spring mattress that smelt of mildew from when it used to rain and soak them in their sleep. All of the others stories of the building have old rusty chairs and book shelves full of old books, most scattered on the floor and some still on the shelves. Everything in the train station once belonged to the old reverend who past the train station onto them after he past away.
They decided to have a ceremony to express their comintment to eachother when they were younger. When they decided to live in the abandoned train station. The old reverend lived on the second floor. He knew their parents when the city was still running. Before everyone left it behind to find a better place, to find something new. The old revernd said he would let them live in the bedroom on the fourth floor.
When they were younger they lived close by each other. They both lived in the abandoned trains on the east side of the city by the river. Their parents died around the same time. They were in their teens. They both made coffins out of old wood from boats they found on the shore of the oiled river and old fence post from abandoned houses. On the side of the train tracks that they grew up, they dug holes that fit the coffins for their parents. They individually lowered their coffins in. They made a little shack over the spot of their parents coffins. They found four wooden posts and set them evenly in the ground in the shape of a square. They wrapped barbed wire around the posts and stuck cardboard onto the wire until in made a wall. They laid long strips of sheet metal on top. In oil, they painted on the shack ‘Hollow Bodies of Our Past Creators.’ They glued pictures all over the cardboard walls. They laid dead flowers all around the outside of the shack and never returned.
They became lovers and wandered around the city to find a place to inhabit. Very few people still lived in the city. If they did, they were in hiding or they helped each other out with survival. They came upon the train station. They found the old reverend inside with his candles and empty chairs in the concrete lobby. There was a platform he stood on with a music stand he had a book laid on reading from it. When they entered, he stopped and slowly said, “Hello, how are you?”
The three of them conversed and they explained how they would like to get married. He agreed and said they were beautiful people and that he would love to see the two recreate.
In the lobby of the train station on their wedding day they stood on the reverends platform. He decorated the lobby for them. He hung thread from the ceiling and laid some old mildewed rugs down. There were metal bins all around with fire burning inside of them. He aligned old rusty copper seats and sat stuffed animals and mannequins he found around the train station in the chairs. The revernd was dressed in a washed out torn up burgandy suit that he wore everyday. He made a large cross from old maple tree banches and proped in behind the platform. He read out of an old nameless book. The reverend spoke in his outlandish voice. “Here we are in a dying world yet we strive to survive. We wonder like the fish in a ocean of decay and we still find a tide to follow.” He continued on with his philosophies and told them to slip the rings on each others fingers.
The man had carved the women a ring out of wood. She had found an old golden ring in a gutter. They slipped the rings onto each others fingers and the reverend pronounced them husband and wife. Wind and water. Sun and moon. But the problem was that the sun and the moon serve similar purposes but are always separated. Just light the wind and water. It just moves above but never becomes one. They are never united.
Shortly after they were married by the reverend they found him dead on the second floor. He had made a bed out of his ancient books that had been past down to him from all his generations of family. They found him peacefully asleep with his left hand over his right on his chest and his legs stiff like railing. The reverend would wake them ever morning for a quick reading from his journal of prayers. But that morning he laid peacefully while his soul drifted through the cracks of the building. They brought him out to the river close by the train station. Along the shore there were boats washed up everywhere. They collected all of the reverends journals and filled up a little wooden canoe. They placed his body on top of his journals. The man covered the reverend with old moss and dowsed him and the canoe with gasoline. They lit a match and pushed him down stream. They kept one journal of the reverends and read it while they watched his body in flames, drifting down the the oiled lake. The man read, “And we’ll find ourselves feeling as insignificant as threads blowing in the wind. We’ll feel a drought inside when we are incomplete. But if this is a dream, our surroundings are our insides and our insides are our perceptions. We’ll one day find ourselves floating down stream in search of something real.”
The man walked up the rusty stairwell with Threads in his arms, rocking it back and forth. He approached the bedroom but the door was locked. He knocked with one arm and Threads in the other but there was no answer. He knocked again. Still no answer.
“Why wont your answer me?”
He knew she wanted nothing to do with him or Threads. So the man went to the second floor where the reverend used to live and began residing there.
Months pasted yet he never saw the women. She remained locked away on the third floor. He never attempted to seek out to find her because he spent his time with Threads roaming through the streets and exploring buildings for food and clothes.
The man found ways of creating Threads emotions. On old stained pieces of paper from the old books of the reverend, he would draw eyes and lips. He would tape them over the crease where Threads eyes and lips should be. Everyday he would draw new eyes, new lips. He’d watch how Threads squirmed and based the emotions on his observation. The man was happy. He had found a friend. A friend he created. A friend who would never judge, only listen. Whether Threads heard him or not, he would continue to think Threads listened and that is all the man needed.
He tried teaching threads how to walk. He would prop Threads little stubs for legs upwards and try pushing him and moving his legs. Threads would just topple over and squirm sluggishly. Even though months had past Threads never grew. Threads remained the size of a newborn.
The man went up to the third floor and rummaged through the piles of trash and miscellaneous items. There were rusty horns and boxes full of glasses and silverware. Old telescopes and dressers toppled over. He came upon a little infant pouch. It was perfect size for Threads. He ran back down the the second floor where he left Threads on the bed of books. He strapped the pouch onto his chest and placed Threads inside.
That day, when night set into place and the moon set in it’s spot in the sky, the man and Threads walked over to the wall where the bedroom was. There was an old rusty ladder that man never noticed. It lead up to the rooftop that the bedroom was connected to. The man quietly placed his foot on the first step of the ladder. He felt a raindrop. All at once lightning struck and it began pouring down rain. He thought it couldn’t be. It hadn’t rained in years. He continued on climbing. He was gentle with his steps because he felt Threads squirming in his pouch. After a few minutes, he made it to the rooftop. In the one bedroom window the man saw a flickering glare from candles. He approached in the heavy rain and quietly glared through the window. There he saw the ground of the room was spotless. It was not like before. All over the walls he saw writings engraved into the wood. He squinted his eyes and made out the words.
‘Bless me with something real.’
‘We are Gods threaded puppets.’
‘We were never the sun and the moon.’
Every sentence scratched into the walls were pessimistic and cruel. He peaked in a little closer. He saw her crouched over on the ground painting a baby girl on the hardwood floor. He quietly crawled in though the window. She looked up and dropped her paint brush. She looks resentfully at his chest. Threads strapped in the pouch squirming in a slow tempo.
“Get the fuck out of here!”
She throws the paintbrush splattering the man and Threads. The man picks up a towel and whips Threads off quickly. “You only care about that joke of a thing. Throw is away. It is here to taunt me. I just wanted something real. A real baby. We’ll die alone, miserable and alone with a slug of a baby. More like a stuffed animal. We are Gods play toys. Look where we are.”
The man is frightened and holds Threads close to his chest.
“What happened to you? Who are you?”
She removes her ring and throws it out of the window. “I’m somewhere else. I’m the moon that sets in the west.”
The man cries and holds Threads closer.
“Oh stop it!” She screams.
She charges at the man and he topples over. She rips the pouch off of the mans chest. He tries to get a hold but she grabs Threads violently. “Stop it! Stop!”
On the ground she starts ripping the threads out of the baby. The man keeps trying to stop her but she keeps pushing him away. Thread by thread something is revealed. Skin starts to arise underneath all of the thread. There underneath it all lies a baby girl. She lies on top of the painting the women did. She is an exact replica lying in the same position with the same colored skin. In the moment of shock and silence, the baby went up in flames. The burning matter didn’t smell of human flesh. It smelt of burning logs. Like the scent of oak from a chimney in the winter.
In the moment of the man on his knees trying to put out the fire trying to help the baby, the mother caught a glimpse of herself in the puddle of spilt water from her cup. She noticed her skin was melting. She felt herself burning and her skin felt like wax dribbling down her face. The husband couldn’t stop the baby on fire. He helplessly toppled over and watched as the two collapsed into liquid. This was a horror, this was nothing he ever wanted. With the womens last breath as she became a puddle of wax, she whispered, “This is something real.”
He said push but it wasn’t necessary. She pushed but after about two pushes, threads, multicolored in vibrant blue, teal, aqua, gold, fuschia pink, they were all pushing out from his wife but she was silent and felt uncertain about the feeling she was undergoing.
Just one tiny thread held the baby and the mother together. She desired a baby girl. A delicate one. She once said, “I want a baby, delicate like threads.” This was far from what she envisioned, but close enough to her wants. Delicate and a creation of her own. The baby moved liked a slug in the mans arms. There was no blood, just black wet threads soaked in the women's bodily fluids. The man snipped the little black thread connecting the mother and the threaded baby. “Is she beautiful?” she asked.
Well maybe he thought. Or its delicate. Or its something else. Or it’s rare in it’s form. He said none of that.
She propped her body up off of the old spring mattress. Her mouth became a gaping hole. She already resented the thing she desired most.
Whether anyone would call it a child, one would care for it or one would disregard it. They did both. The mother disregarded it. The father cherished it.
He tried to hand the baby to the mother but she crossed her arms and locked them in place like a gate. It was evident that she resented a baby of such form. A baby only there to taunt her of something normal or of something she can consider real.
”Why couldn’t I be blessed with something real. Give me something real.” Her voice raised louder. “Give me something fucking real!”
He took the threaded baby in his arms and it squirmed slowly and sluggishly. The father held it with admiration and smirked lightly. Looking down at it he gently asked, “What should we name it?”
He knew this was a bad question but he didn’t seem to care. She was naked on the mattress, her body smeared with dried up mud and scented with oil. There was a tiny lump in her stomach from where the baby had stretched her stomach vaguely. They could only bath in the oily lakes around the train station. It was the only water left. In result they were filthy and wore dirty clothes they’d find around the train station. It hadn’t rained in years. So they continued to drink the toxic waters in the local streams, all muddied and polluted with metal and oil. She stood up from the mattress and walk away towards the old rusted stairwell holding the tiny lump in her stomach. Poison oak wrapped all around the railing and vines ran up the brick walls of the stair well.
He watched her walk up the stairwell, naked and dissatisfied.
He looked down at the baby in his arms and whispered, ‘Threads.’
There were four stories to the abandoned building. They lived on the top floor in a little room that over looked the dead city. Buildings out in the distances, some were halfway burnt and destroyed. Most of them, the windows were busted out. Graffiti covered the walls of the train station outside and in. Some of the walls were broken in and the wooden floors were all warped. Its structure was close to collapsing. When the wind blew the building moved with it.
In their room there was a dresser pressed against the wall underneath the one lone window. The drawers were all pulled out and clothes and filthy towels covered the floor. Old news paper and old pictures laid all around the floor of the room. They slept on a spring mattress that smelt of mildew from when it used to rain and soak them in their sleep. All of the others stories of the building have old rusty chairs and book shelves full of old books, most scattered on the floor and some still on the shelves. Everything in the train station once belonged to the old reverend who past the train station onto them after he past away.
They decided to have a ceremony to express their comintment to eachother when they were younger. When they decided to live in the abandoned train station. The old reverend lived on the second floor. He knew their parents when the city was still running. Before everyone left it behind to find a better place, to find something new. The old revernd said he would let them live in the bedroom on the fourth floor.
When they were younger they lived close by each other. They both lived in the abandoned trains on the east side of the city by the river. Their parents died around the same time. They were in their teens. They both made coffins out of old wood from boats they found on the shore of the oiled river and old fence post from abandoned houses. On the side of the train tracks that they grew up, they dug holes that fit the coffins for their parents. They individually lowered their coffins in. They made a little shack over the spot of their parents coffins. They found four wooden posts and set them evenly in the ground in the shape of a square. They wrapped barbed wire around the posts and stuck cardboard onto the wire until in made a wall. They laid long strips of sheet metal on top. In oil, they painted on the shack ‘Hollow Bodies of Our Past Creators.’ They glued pictures all over the cardboard walls. They laid dead flowers all around the outside of the shack and never returned.
They became lovers and wandered around the city to find a place to inhabit. Very few people still lived in the city. If they did, they were in hiding or they helped each other out with survival. They came upon the train station. They found the old reverend inside with his candles and empty chairs in the concrete lobby. There was a platform he stood on with a music stand he had a book laid on reading from it. When they entered, he stopped and slowly said, “Hello, how are you?”
The three of them conversed and they explained how they would like to get married. He agreed and said they were beautiful people and that he would love to see the two recreate.
In the lobby of the train station on their wedding day they stood on the reverends platform. He decorated the lobby for them. He hung thread from the ceiling and laid some old mildewed rugs down. There were metal bins all around with fire burning inside of them. He aligned old rusty copper seats and sat stuffed animals and mannequins he found around the train station in the chairs. The revernd was dressed in a washed out torn up burgandy suit that he wore everyday. He made a large cross from old maple tree banches and proped in behind the platform. He read out of an old nameless book. The reverend spoke in his outlandish voice. “Here we are in a dying world yet we strive to survive. We wonder like the fish in a ocean of decay and we still find a tide to follow.” He continued on with his philosophies and told them to slip the rings on each others fingers.
The man had carved the women a ring out of wood. She had found an old golden ring in a gutter. They slipped the rings onto each others fingers and the reverend pronounced them husband and wife. Wind and water. Sun and moon. But the problem was that the sun and the moon serve similar purposes but are always separated. Just light the wind and water. It just moves above but never becomes one. They are never united.
Shortly after they were married by the reverend they found him dead on the second floor. He had made a bed out of his ancient books that had been past down to him from all his generations of family. They found him peacefully asleep with his left hand over his right on his chest and his legs stiff like railing. The reverend would wake them ever morning for a quick reading from his journal of prayers. But that morning he laid peacefully while his soul drifted through the cracks of the building. They brought him out to the river close by the train station. Along the shore there were boats washed up everywhere. They collected all of the reverends journals and filled up a little wooden canoe. They placed his body on top of his journals. The man covered the reverend with old moss and dowsed him and the canoe with gasoline. They lit a match and pushed him down stream. They kept one journal of the reverends and read it while they watched his body in flames, drifting down the the oiled lake. The man read, “And we’ll find ourselves feeling as insignificant as threads blowing in the wind. We’ll feel a drought inside when we are incomplete. But if this is a dream, our surroundings are our insides and our insides are our perceptions. We’ll one day find ourselves floating down stream in search of something real.”
The man walked up the rusty stairwell with Threads in his arms, rocking it back and forth. He approached the bedroom but the door was locked. He knocked with one arm and Threads in the other but there was no answer. He knocked again. Still no answer.
“Why wont your answer me?”
He knew she wanted nothing to do with him or Threads. So the man went to the second floor where the reverend used to live and began residing there.
Months pasted yet he never saw the women. She remained locked away on the third floor. He never attempted to seek out to find her because he spent his time with Threads roaming through the streets and exploring buildings for food and clothes.
The man found ways of creating Threads emotions. On old stained pieces of paper from the old books of the reverend, he would draw eyes and lips. He would tape them over the crease where Threads eyes and lips should be. Everyday he would draw new eyes, new lips. He’d watch how Threads squirmed and based the emotions on his observation. The man was happy. He had found a friend. A friend he created. A friend who would never judge, only listen. Whether Threads heard him or not, he would continue to think Threads listened and that is all the man needed.
He tried teaching threads how to walk. He would prop Threads little stubs for legs upwards and try pushing him and moving his legs. Threads would just topple over and squirm sluggishly. Even though months had past Threads never grew. Threads remained the size of a newborn.
The man went up to the third floor and rummaged through the piles of trash and miscellaneous items. There were rusty horns and boxes full of glasses and silverware. Old telescopes and dressers toppled over. He came upon a little infant pouch. It was perfect size for Threads. He ran back down the the second floor where he left Threads on the bed of books. He strapped the pouch onto his chest and placed Threads inside.
That day, when night set into place and the moon set in it’s spot in the sky, the man and Threads walked over to the wall where the bedroom was. There was an old rusty ladder that man never noticed. It lead up to the rooftop that the bedroom was connected to. The man quietly placed his foot on the first step of the ladder. He felt a raindrop. All at once lightning struck and it began pouring down rain. He thought it couldn’t be. It hadn’t rained in years. He continued on climbing. He was gentle with his steps because he felt Threads squirming in his pouch. After a few minutes, he made it to the rooftop. In the one bedroom window the man saw a flickering glare from candles. He approached in the heavy rain and quietly glared through the window. There he saw the ground of the room was spotless. It was not like before. All over the walls he saw writings engraved into the wood. He squinted his eyes and made out the words.
‘Bless me with something real.’
‘We are Gods threaded puppets.’
‘We were never the sun and the moon.’
Every sentence scratched into the walls were pessimistic and cruel. He peaked in a little closer. He saw her crouched over on the ground painting a baby girl on the hardwood floor. He quietly crawled in though the window. She looked up and dropped her paint brush. She looks resentfully at his chest. Threads strapped in the pouch squirming in a slow tempo.
“Get the fuck out of here!”
She throws the paintbrush splattering the man and Threads. The man picks up a towel and whips Threads off quickly. “You only care about that joke of a thing. Throw is away. It is here to taunt me. I just wanted something real. A real baby. We’ll die alone, miserable and alone with a slug of a baby. More like a stuffed animal. We are Gods play toys. Look where we are.”
The man is frightened and holds Threads close to his chest.
“What happened to you? Who are you?”
She removes her ring and throws it out of the window. “I’m somewhere else. I’m the moon that sets in the west.”
The man cries and holds Threads closer.
“Oh stop it!” She screams.
She charges at the man and he topples over. She rips the pouch off of the mans chest. He tries to get a hold but she grabs Threads violently. “Stop it! Stop!”
On the ground she starts ripping the threads out of the baby. The man keeps trying to stop her but she keeps pushing him away. Thread by thread something is revealed. Skin starts to arise underneath all of the thread. There underneath it all lies a baby girl. She lies on top of the painting the women did. She is an exact replica lying in the same position with the same colored skin. In the moment of shock and silence, the baby went up in flames. The burning matter didn’t smell of human flesh. It smelt of burning logs. Like the scent of oak from a chimney in the winter.
In the moment of the man on his knees trying to put out the fire trying to help the baby, the mother caught a glimpse of herself in the puddle of spilt water from her cup. She noticed her skin was melting. She felt herself burning and her skin felt like wax dribbling down her face. The husband couldn’t stop the baby on fire. He helplessly toppled over and watched as the two collapsed into liquid. This was a horror, this was nothing he ever wanted. With the womens last breath as she became a puddle of wax, she whispered, “This is something real.”
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Sewn Inside
Direction sewed some design on your insides.
Then you discovered the patterns that consisted of roads and exits.
Where is the naturalistic side to your direction?
You noticed the force of the trees.
The tides moving forward, always moving to the shore.
The water always knows where it's going.
...where are you heading?
Oh the simple life of a tide, set with a sure purpose and direction.
But tides are contained within the water and the body becomes polluted.
...just like the body of you.
The patterns sewn inside you reveals a map.
Unravel that path sewn inside you.
Maybe that path isn't worth taking at all.
Then you discovered the patterns that consisted of roads and exits.
Where is the naturalistic side to your direction?
You noticed the force of the trees.
The tides moving forward, always moving to the shore.
The water always knows where it's going.
...where are you heading?
Oh the simple life of a tide, set with a sure purpose and direction.
But tides are contained within the water and the body becomes polluted.
...just like the body of you.
The patterns sewn inside you reveals a map.
Unravel that path sewn inside you.
Maybe that path isn't worth taking at all.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
The Back-Alley God
The sun lowered in the sky, creating a shadowy figure on the autumn leaves that Sue lay on. The shadow resembled a hand growing in size, reaching out the more the sun went down. Sue noticed these details. Sue noticed the patterns of the days. She sat in the park, in a pile of autumn leaves with the journal that her father had made for her. It’s cover was made from wood. It had an engraving of a dead tree snapped in half with orchid flowers growing from the trunk where the tree had broken. Above the orchid flowers was one lone dragonfly. Underneath the tree he had engraved a saying of his, Within the death of nature blooms something to accent the beauty that once was. Sue’s father had disappeared when she was eight. Still, there was no lead to his disappearance. He had vanished like wind after a storm. Every day, she would go to the park because the park is where he would bring her when she was younger. She remembered autumn the most because they would play in the leaves together. It was autumn now and she missed him more than ever.
Sue continued to watch the patterns of the clouds morph into horse like figures and break apart into the sky's population. She got eye level with the ground and watched the ants move through the grass. She dropped leaves in their paths, throwing off their senses. The ants stopped, then instinctively moved around them. Sue noticed little spiders moving around on the surface of the leaves. She started writing: These spiders are more than just spiders, they are artists. They will find their tree that they call home and weave their instinctive patterns from tree branch to tree branch. These spiders are the true artists of the world driven by the instinct of beauty. She noticed the pattern in the brown, yellow and orange leaves and wondered if God had planned these patterns out or if it was just her eyes that saw them.
It was sunset and Sue was losing light. She stood up from the pile of leaves and grabbed her bag from the grass and packed her journal inside. Dark clouds started to move through the sky. Sue had been helping run a late night service at the local church. Tonight, she knew she’d hear, God is the controller of everything. She often wondered what everything meant to everyone else. She wondered if God knew where her father had gone and if God did, did God really care at all? She wondered why she still bothered to go. Never had her time in church ever done anything for her. She thought about time if she wasn’t there. Life didn’t seem like it would be too much different.
Sue took the route she’d normally take to get to church. It began raining so Sue pulled her raincoat from the bag. She put it on, covering her bag and kept walking. People ran down the city sidewalk with their umbrellas in hand, all in a hurry, panting and muttering.
Sue liked the rain. She always noticed the the space in between each droplet. She thought of it like people. The space in between each individual person like there is space between the drops. They are all reaching their destination at different times, in different forms. Sue looked up at a large clock hanging on the side of the brick building. Church was starting soon, so she began pacing herself.
Sue cut through a nearby alleyway to try to get to church quicker. When she turned the corner she came upon a dragonfly fluttering in circles in the rain. This stopped her in her tracks. She thought about the journal her father had made and wondered if this was a sign. The dragonfly had a sincerity to its movement. Its wings fluttered fast but gracefully. Sue imagined what a melody in this creatures head would be like. It would be a calm rhythm accented with a wet melodic sounds. She approached the dragonfly slowly. It didn’t seem to notice her. It continued in its small circular rotation. When she got close enough she held her left hand out. The dragonfly landed softly like a silent and gentle helicopter on her index finger. With her skinny finger extended out, the dragonfly’s wings stopped fluttering and fell to its side. Sue watched the dragonfly with admiration. She lifted her right hand and stroked the back of the dragonfly with her index and middle finger. She wondered why her father had engraved that one dragonfly on her journal. What could any of this mean? It began fluttering away from her finger towards the sidewalk. Sue ran after it.
Sue ran through the rain down the sidewalk. The sidewalk was desolate. It was only her and the dragonfly. Sue kept her eye on the insect. After a few blocks, the dragonfly turned onto the street of the church. Sue saw the little white building with its’ dim lights. Suddenly, the dragonfly turned into an alleyway of an abandoned building.
The dragonfly flew behind a wall and landed on a dumpster. Sue turned the corner and came upon a man on his knees with blood trailing down his chin. There was a vile stench. Sue screamed and propped herself against the brick wall. The mans hands were covered in blood along with his shirt. Another man lay naked on his back covered in blood. Surrounding the two men were orchid flowers. The man on the ground had chunks of flesh missing from his arms and legs. He was obviously dead with the color of his pale complexion and his jaw hanging open. Sue stayed propped up against the wall with her hands over her mouth, panting. The rain was flushing the blood into a nearby drain on the ground. The man on his knees looked up at Sue. He made eye contact with her but continued on delicately eating a little chunk of flesh. Sue asked frightened, What have you done?
The man looked up again but continued on with his ritual. Something kept Sue there, glued against the wall, scared and helpless. She looked at the dragonfly calmly sitting on the dumpster and looked back at the man.
I have done no harm here.
A long silence grew between the two. The man remained on his knees and Sue against the wall. Their eyes locked.
This man now lives inside of me. The man spoke with a very convincing tone.
Sues’ eyes were stuck on the dead man lying on his back. His mouth had became a fountain of water. With his mouth open, the rain filled it up and slowly it drained out.
What have you done?
Sue placed her face in her hands and felt a pain in her stomach.
You see Sue, I’m God.
Sue couldn’t say a word.
Your eyes morph the world into the way you want to see inside. Inside me is a vast landscape. It’s where everything you’ve ever wanted...he paused and rose from his knees...comes true.
Sue’s muscles were frozen along with her stare.
In a frightened tone she asked, Who the hell are you?
God smiled while he paced back in forth around the man on the ground.
Your father writes about you a lot.
Sue’s mouth opened a little. Against the wall she sat in silence. She listened to the soothing sound of the rain hitting the ground. The thought of her father and God all overwhelmed her. She slid her body down the wall, resting on the wet ground. The rain beat down on her. Sue felt more weak and vulnerable than she had ever before.
God picked up an orchid flower and began skimming the dead man lying on the ground with the flower. He started from his feet and moved up his legs to the end of his nose.
Sue watched him. She watched how delicate he was. This could be the truth. The rain grew lighter and the dead man’s mouth became less full. After a long silence between them, in a soft tone she asked, What does he write about me?
Your hair. The way your curling burnt sienna hair rocked with the arms of autumns wind. The smile you gave when he told you a joke. He felt a wind blow through him every time.
This made Sue smile. She hadn’t smiled in a long time. And then a thought rose in her head.
Where did he go?
He told me he couldn’t swim any longer out in those waters. He was sick of work, sick of caring. So he went out to the cliff dressed in his business clothes, tossed his suitcase and jumped out into the waters. He told me it was all so beautiful. The moon was full and the clouds were illuminated but then the storm came. The tides got too big for him to handle and the water ate him. It had been dry that week so I had to send the rain.
She looked up at him and began crying.
Didn’t you know he was out there? You had to of known? You could have done something!
Sue and her father had gone out to that cliff. They would watch the stars glisten in the sky. She’d talk about how they were the crystals that kept the sky beautiful. He’d tell her people like her kept them glowing because her beauty brought light to everything.
Sue, He said as he walked over to her, still holding the flower. He got on his knees and placed his right hand on her back, I had to make a sacrifice. If only you could forgive me.
Sue was helplessly weak; sitting against the wall of the alleyway, she wept. She didn’t know what to make of anything. God began to stroke Sues' left cheek, smearing blood with the stroke of his right hand. Sue cried harder. It was the first time she felt that a cry meant anything. God rose from his knees in front of Sue and stuck out his left hand and the dragonfly landed on his index finger. Sue whimpered lightly. Sue picked up the orchid flower from her lap and smelt it. She looked up at God.
What happens now? What do I do?
God inched his hand into the direction of the sky and the dragonfly fluttered away.
He moved his face into hers. With their noses touching and the blood smeared across her face he said, Now Sue, it’s rather simple.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small mirror. He showed it to her and she saw the reflection of herself.
You start existing again.
Sue continued to watch the patterns of the clouds morph into horse like figures and break apart into the sky's population. She got eye level with the ground and watched the ants move through the grass. She dropped leaves in their paths, throwing off their senses. The ants stopped, then instinctively moved around them. Sue noticed little spiders moving around on the surface of the leaves. She started writing: These spiders are more than just spiders, they are artists. They will find their tree that they call home and weave their instinctive patterns from tree branch to tree branch. These spiders are the true artists of the world driven by the instinct of beauty. She noticed the pattern in the brown, yellow and orange leaves and wondered if God had planned these patterns out or if it was just her eyes that saw them.
It was sunset and Sue was losing light. She stood up from the pile of leaves and grabbed her bag from the grass and packed her journal inside. Dark clouds started to move through the sky. Sue had been helping run a late night service at the local church. Tonight, she knew she’d hear, God is the controller of everything. She often wondered what everything meant to everyone else. She wondered if God knew where her father had gone and if God did, did God really care at all? She wondered why she still bothered to go. Never had her time in church ever done anything for her. She thought about time if she wasn’t there. Life didn’t seem like it would be too much different.
Sue took the route she’d normally take to get to church. It began raining so Sue pulled her raincoat from the bag. She put it on, covering her bag and kept walking. People ran down the city sidewalk with their umbrellas in hand, all in a hurry, panting and muttering.
Sue liked the rain. She always noticed the the space in between each droplet. She thought of it like people. The space in between each individual person like there is space between the drops. They are all reaching their destination at different times, in different forms. Sue looked up at a large clock hanging on the side of the brick building. Church was starting soon, so she began pacing herself.
Sue cut through a nearby alleyway to try to get to church quicker. When she turned the corner she came upon a dragonfly fluttering in circles in the rain. This stopped her in her tracks. She thought about the journal her father had made and wondered if this was a sign. The dragonfly had a sincerity to its movement. Its wings fluttered fast but gracefully. Sue imagined what a melody in this creatures head would be like. It would be a calm rhythm accented with a wet melodic sounds. She approached the dragonfly slowly. It didn’t seem to notice her. It continued in its small circular rotation. When she got close enough she held her left hand out. The dragonfly landed softly like a silent and gentle helicopter on her index finger. With her skinny finger extended out, the dragonfly’s wings stopped fluttering and fell to its side. Sue watched the dragonfly with admiration. She lifted her right hand and stroked the back of the dragonfly with her index and middle finger. She wondered why her father had engraved that one dragonfly on her journal. What could any of this mean? It began fluttering away from her finger towards the sidewalk. Sue ran after it.
Sue ran through the rain down the sidewalk. The sidewalk was desolate. It was only her and the dragonfly. Sue kept her eye on the insect. After a few blocks, the dragonfly turned onto the street of the church. Sue saw the little white building with its’ dim lights. Suddenly, the dragonfly turned into an alleyway of an abandoned building.
The dragonfly flew behind a wall and landed on a dumpster. Sue turned the corner and came upon a man on his knees with blood trailing down his chin. There was a vile stench. Sue screamed and propped herself against the brick wall. The mans hands were covered in blood along with his shirt. Another man lay naked on his back covered in blood. Surrounding the two men were orchid flowers. The man on the ground had chunks of flesh missing from his arms and legs. He was obviously dead with the color of his pale complexion and his jaw hanging open. Sue stayed propped up against the wall with her hands over her mouth, panting. The rain was flushing the blood into a nearby drain on the ground. The man on his knees looked up at Sue. He made eye contact with her but continued on delicately eating a little chunk of flesh. Sue asked frightened, What have you done?
The man looked up again but continued on with his ritual. Something kept Sue there, glued against the wall, scared and helpless. She looked at the dragonfly calmly sitting on the dumpster and looked back at the man.
I have done no harm here.
A long silence grew between the two. The man remained on his knees and Sue against the wall. Their eyes locked.
This man now lives inside of me. The man spoke with a very convincing tone.
Sues’ eyes were stuck on the dead man lying on his back. His mouth had became a fountain of water. With his mouth open, the rain filled it up and slowly it drained out.
What have you done?
Sue placed her face in her hands and felt a pain in her stomach.
You see Sue, I’m God.
Sue couldn’t say a word.
Your eyes morph the world into the way you want to see inside. Inside me is a vast landscape. It’s where everything you’ve ever wanted...he paused and rose from his knees...comes true.
Sue’s muscles were frozen along with her stare.
In a frightened tone she asked, Who the hell are you?
God smiled while he paced back in forth around the man on the ground.
Your father writes about you a lot.
Sue’s mouth opened a little. Against the wall she sat in silence. She listened to the soothing sound of the rain hitting the ground. The thought of her father and God all overwhelmed her. She slid her body down the wall, resting on the wet ground. The rain beat down on her. Sue felt more weak and vulnerable than she had ever before.
God picked up an orchid flower and began skimming the dead man lying on the ground with the flower. He started from his feet and moved up his legs to the end of his nose.
Sue watched him. She watched how delicate he was. This could be the truth. The rain grew lighter and the dead man’s mouth became less full. After a long silence between them, in a soft tone she asked, What does he write about me?
Your hair. The way your curling burnt sienna hair rocked with the arms of autumns wind. The smile you gave when he told you a joke. He felt a wind blow through him every time.
This made Sue smile. She hadn’t smiled in a long time. And then a thought rose in her head.
Where did he go?
He told me he couldn’t swim any longer out in those waters. He was sick of work, sick of caring. So he went out to the cliff dressed in his business clothes, tossed his suitcase and jumped out into the waters. He told me it was all so beautiful. The moon was full and the clouds were illuminated but then the storm came. The tides got too big for him to handle and the water ate him. It had been dry that week so I had to send the rain.
She looked up at him and began crying.
Didn’t you know he was out there? You had to of known? You could have done something!
Sue and her father had gone out to that cliff. They would watch the stars glisten in the sky. She’d talk about how they were the crystals that kept the sky beautiful. He’d tell her people like her kept them glowing because her beauty brought light to everything.
Sue, He said as he walked over to her, still holding the flower. He got on his knees and placed his right hand on her back, I had to make a sacrifice. If only you could forgive me.
Sue was helplessly weak; sitting against the wall of the alleyway, she wept. She didn’t know what to make of anything. God began to stroke Sues' left cheek, smearing blood with the stroke of his right hand. Sue cried harder. It was the first time she felt that a cry meant anything. God rose from his knees in front of Sue and stuck out his left hand and the dragonfly landed on his index finger. Sue whimpered lightly. Sue picked up the orchid flower from her lap and smelt it. She looked up at God.
What happens now? What do I do?
God inched his hand into the direction of the sky and the dragonfly fluttered away.
He moved his face into hers. With their noses touching and the blood smeared across her face he said, Now Sue, it’s rather simple.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small mirror. He showed it to her and she saw the reflection of herself.
You start existing again.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Despising Soil: You Were Never the Wind
Inhale that shapeless form of the
air.
It's cold here and the dry
skin of my hands crack.
The wind blows the leaves,
moves all of the trees.
But you never see it. You don't see the wind and it doesn't see you.
It moves across your skin,
moving the tiny hairs of your arm.
It lets you know it is there. It's the effects you see.
A connection so delicate it almost doesn't exist.
You.
You were never the wind.
You were never the
whistling sound of the air
moving through holes of street signs.
That is too subtle.
That is just too kind.
A whisper in my ear from the soothing sounds of the clear sky.
With the stars all lit up in the gap between all of these
evergreen trees and the smoke rising like a slow,
disappearing wave; I understand.
I understand the brightness of the stars.
They want to be seen.
They want to be appreciated for the accent they bring to a desolate night, out in the woods, out where the days are cold and daylight disappears like dirt on your skin.
But you: the dark night with those prehistoric clouds, moving like the soul a shark.
You wouldn't know where to find the words to create a picture for us all.
You couldn't explain the reason of change and unfairness.
The reasons for repetition and greed.
But you condone.
You condone it all and I, yes I have the words to prove it.
A slow spinning carousel in the middle of the woods, rocking and creaking. It rusts and it sings. It sings a song that goes like this, "You, the despising soil, are underneath it all. What you feel is packed together. You were never the soothing sound that nature brings. You are the secret eyes of forest that never do anything."
Here we are, connected to life, but separated and all.
Here I am, breathing, making sense of everything.
air.
It's cold here and the dry
skin of my hands crack.
The wind blows the leaves,
moves all of the trees.
But you never see it. You don't see the wind and it doesn't see you.
It moves across your skin,
moving the tiny hairs of your arm.
It lets you know it is there. It's the effects you see.
A connection so delicate it almost doesn't exist.
You.
You were never the wind.
You were never the
whistling sound of the air
moving through holes of street signs.
That is too subtle.
That is just too kind.
A whisper in my ear from the soothing sounds of the clear sky.
With the stars all lit up in the gap between all of these
evergreen trees and the smoke rising like a slow,
disappearing wave; I understand.
I understand the brightness of the stars.
They want to be seen.
They want to be appreciated for the accent they bring to a desolate night, out in the woods, out where the days are cold and daylight disappears like dirt on your skin.
But you: the dark night with those prehistoric clouds, moving like the soul a shark.
You wouldn't know where to find the words to create a picture for us all.
You couldn't explain the reason of change and unfairness.
The reasons for repetition and greed.
But you condone.
You condone it all and I, yes I have the words to prove it.
A slow spinning carousel in the middle of the woods, rocking and creaking. It rusts and it sings. It sings a song that goes like this, "You, the despising soil, are underneath it all. What you feel is packed together. You were never the soothing sound that nature brings. You are the secret eyes of forest that never do anything."
Here we are, connected to life, but separated and all.
Here I am, breathing, making sense of everything.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
(frequencies) / Human Inconsistancies: A View From the Top
(frequencies)
all of the black birds
sit on telephone wires
absorbing voices
/////////////////////////
We drove down the avenue. I could see the mountain from the car window in the grey skies. It's snow shines and sits upright like a God with perfect posture. Lining down the avenue were big sign's marketing cheap sales, fast food places on each side of the street, trailer park graveyards in fading colors with broken in walls and mildew growing all over, broken down gas stations, used car dealers, abandoned cars in empty lots with weeds taking over, trash in the crease of the street and the sidewalk. No trees were in sight within the first few miles. I saw black birds flocking to the telephone wires because no trees were around in the town. The skies were growing darker, building up rain. 'They send us messages and most of the time we never notice' I thought. The birds, those animals we ignore. They sit on telephone wires, absorbing our fears and conversation. Think about vultures, circling you in a desert. The burnt sand blowing all around, getting caught in the creases of your ear. The vultures feel your fear. They know you are close to dying. They circle and circle until they've become your predator. These birds know something nature. It's instinct. James and I drive and I watch the little townie black birds observe cars as they pass by on light post and telephone wires. They judge our ignorance. We make it out of the town and come upon large acres of grass and small houses. The mountains grow bigger and bigger. We go through winding roads all through tiny cliffs. We make it to the base of the three Godly mountains. Looking up I see snow covering trees. For miles, it inches up, becoming part of the fog. Looking up I only see two colors: grey and white. We drive for miles find where the winding roads end. No trace of a sun or a moon. They were buried in the fog. The world was grey and white. We begin walking through the snow. Tree inch up for miles. Tree branches bending from the weight of the snow. There was a dead silence in the mountains. You couldn't hear the motors muffing on highways. You couldn't hear the construction of buildings and street work. All you could hear was the wind, the frozen rain hitting you jacket and the steadiness of your breathing. When you can't find the sun or the moon, your only direction is your instinct. Like a falcon, we roamed. The desolation of the cold mountains made me realize that it doesn't need me. It doesn't need us. I then saw a spider roaming through the snow. That's what we are. Spiders roaming through the snow. An aimless wonder, without a path driven by instinct. We stayed and watch the fog darken and the snow glisten. The undefiled silence was nature's complexity with disruption. We left with slipping tires on ice. We found a cliff to stop on and tunred off the headlights. The fog moved like an ancient creature and revealed its true pride; the moon. It illuminated the fog and left the snow gleaming. All together, they accent each others beauty. We drove through the mountain and again, we hit the avenue. I saw those orange lights glowing like horrid embers and industrial smoke like the hot breath of a spirit. I think, 'This is living?' This is our inconsistencies. We view vertical buildings as mountains. They are replaced in our eyes. We find that view, up above the city and admire those orange lights glistening, becoming our stars. The world's sky is filled with our smoke so stars can't see us and we can't them. I got a view from the top of everything and saw nothing. There were no stars, no sun, no moon, no buildings. Just the color of my skin. Just the color of my blood. Just the color of my breath. Just the color of my soul in the center of the luminous snow.
all of the black birds
sit on telephone wires
absorbing voices
/////////////////////////
We drove down the avenue. I could see the mountain from the car window in the grey skies. It's snow shines and sits upright like a God with perfect posture. Lining down the avenue were big sign's marketing cheap sales, fast food places on each side of the street, trailer park graveyards in fading colors with broken in walls and mildew growing all over, broken down gas stations, used car dealers, abandoned cars in empty lots with weeds taking over, trash in the crease of the street and the sidewalk. No trees were in sight within the first few miles. I saw black birds flocking to the telephone wires because no trees were around in the town. The skies were growing darker, building up rain. 'They send us messages and most of the time we never notice' I thought. The birds, those animals we ignore. They sit on telephone wires, absorbing our fears and conversation. Think about vultures, circling you in a desert. The burnt sand blowing all around, getting caught in the creases of your ear. The vultures feel your fear. They know you are close to dying. They circle and circle until they've become your predator. These birds know something nature. It's instinct. James and I drive and I watch the little townie black birds observe cars as they pass by on light post and telephone wires. They judge our ignorance. We make it out of the town and come upon large acres of grass and small houses. The mountains grow bigger and bigger. We go through winding roads all through tiny cliffs. We make it to the base of the three Godly mountains. Looking up I see snow covering trees. For miles, it inches up, becoming part of the fog. Looking up I only see two colors: grey and white. We drive for miles find where the winding roads end. No trace of a sun or a moon. They were buried in the fog. The world was grey and white. We begin walking through the snow. Tree inch up for miles. Tree branches bending from the weight of the snow. There was a dead silence in the mountains. You couldn't hear the motors muffing on highways. You couldn't hear the construction of buildings and street work. All you could hear was the wind, the frozen rain hitting you jacket and the steadiness of your breathing. When you can't find the sun or the moon, your only direction is your instinct. Like a falcon, we roamed. The desolation of the cold mountains made me realize that it doesn't need me. It doesn't need us. I then saw a spider roaming through the snow. That's what we are. Spiders roaming through the snow. An aimless wonder, without a path driven by instinct. We stayed and watch the fog darken and the snow glisten. The undefiled silence was nature's complexity with disruption. We left with slipping tires on ice. We found a cliff to stop on and tunred off the headlights. The fog moved like an ancient creature and revealed its true pride; the moon. It illuminated the fog and left the snow gleaming. All together, they accent each others beauty. We drove through the mountain and again, we hit the avenue. I saw those orange lights glowing like horrid embers and industrial smoke like the hot breath of a spirit. I think, 'This is living?' This is our inconsistencies. We view vertical buildings as mountains. They are replaced in our eyes. We find that view, up above the city and admire those orange lights glistening, becoming our stars. The world's sky is filled with our smoke so stars can't see us and we can't them. I got a view from the top of everything and saw nothing. There were no stars, no sun, no moon, no buildings. Just the color of my skin. Just the color of my blood. Just the color of my breath. Just the color of my soul in the center of the luminous snow.
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