pollock

when i was in...oh, i think it was...4th or 5th grade...a self-described "art docent" came down from on high ("on high" meaning her large, cranberry spice glade plug-ins-scented house) to teach ~us kids~ about art.

we were herded into a "multi-purpose" classroom with no windows and carpet the color of hamburger helper to stare at poster prints of matisse, van gogh (juicier details of the man's life not included) degas, picasso, and other greats who have unwittingly created a raison d'être for people they'll never meet and probably would object to being associated with. nevertheless, we were charged with creating mediocre imitation krab kopies of what these geniuses had mastered and introduced to humankind. the art docent played enya for us--to inspire us--and flitted about the room in her williams sonoma apron replete with vertical chambre stripes. she spoke in a minnie mouse voice, cajoling the boys into drawing tutus and encouraging them not to break the ballpoint pens and drink the ink. similar invitations were made not to stow beads up nostrils or ingest chalk pastels.

the day that we re-enacted the madness of jackson pollock, several students forgot to bring their token "painter's smock" aka their dad's old work shirt. these forgetters were not exempted from flipping paint and being the involuntary canvas for students with less than perfect aim. in practice, the whole thing looked like a fitting platform for a Tide commercial. thirty-two 9 year-olds were handed buckets of black industrial paint and a thick paint brush with flimsy bristles. the "canvas" was a broad roll of butcher paper, laid flat on the grass outside the classroom.

art, in the form of unintended consequences, ensued. the paper ended up relatively unscathed paintwise, with only a few deliberate drops here and there. mostly, it was the scene of a raucous and teacher-condoned kid crime. the canvas bore gaping holes where feet had perforated it and crumpled stamps where paint-drenched children had fallen and rolled like piggies in the mud. this being the last activity of the day, parents were rolling up in their pleasant worlds, lattes in hand, casually clad in vests and workout clothes to a battlefield of school children flipping, rolling, sloshing and conjuring pollock as they surreptitiously decorated the art docent with a few clumsy flips of the brush.

parents' jaws dropped, they rushed into the mayhem like soldiers on the frontline, a slow-mo "suuuuusie...nnnoooooooo!" bellowing from their horror-stricken mouths as they rushed to stop their kids' brand new school clothes from becoming prime candidates for goodwill. the finished product was a trove of pissed off pta members, a sheepish art docent, and 32 children with a new appreciation for modern art.

follow up to -spoons-

as a follow-up to my previous post "spoons" i am officially collecting aces (to coin my coincidences) now:

after writing about elegant emerald today, i ran into her at the checkstand at whole foods tonight. her long blonde mullet is gorgeous. yet another coincidence. tonight is the october FULL MOON--one that i've been looking forward to all month...and it tonight the sky is obscured by clouds and muck. nevertheless, it is doubly lucky because it is not only a full moon during harvest season, but it comes at the ripest moment in the witching month. click your heels, pull up your striped socks, pour another midnight margarita and make a double wish with double potency: there will be double returns.

oh! and another ace: i dreamt about a certain random personage from high school and, for the first time since graduation, i saw this personage at carlucci's this morning. i'm collecting these events and will, like a sleuth, lay them out on an evidence board at some point and connect all of the dots. for now, i'm just gleefully collecting aces.

emerald

i'm not one to wash dishes before i put them in the dishwasher. nor do i take the time to comb, let alone wash, my hair before i subject some poor, unsuspecting girl to my terrarium of a mop. blow-drying is a circus act that i reserve for overcast days when the mood strikes, and it rarely does. more often than not, i let it do an interpretive dance (aka "air dry") and wake up to one large, moldable dred lock. then i pick apart the front pieces, smoke them silly with a curling iron and hide the rest in a professionally disheveled bun. this is the kind of half-assery that defines my hair care routine.

so when i take myself to the hair vet to be thus tamed and de-clawed, i leave the heavy lifting to the person with the advantageous angles and 2200-volt, car wash-series blow-your-cheeks-back model blow dryer and round brush like a wac-a-mole mallet. then i have to stifle laughter when, after the 40th layer and fifth broken hair clip, the poor dear is sweetly swearing under her breath. that would be me, only the expletives would be audible and i'd be sweating like a wrestler. even the best intentions (starting at the base and moving my way up) often leads to a forced time-out, deep breaths, and lack of resolve to go the distance. that's when the elastic comes in and the hair goes up and i contemplate a buzz cut.

when i met emerald the salonista at landis aveda, i was in full-moon-calico-knotty-dred glory. this was my first visit with emerald--i was cheating on my usual veteran vet ruby, but i saw it as a harmless switch-up--the way one might try a new toothpaste. i wasn't expecting drastic differences. i mostly hoped to discover a worthy opponent for the sheer volume and gnar that is my hair.

emerald was wearing a *turban* that day, to hide her freshly-shorn, waist-length mullet...i didn't get to see it, but her description conjured images of my sister's abyssinian guinea pig. emerald had silver earrings like delicate moorish stencils and a jordanian boyfriend who recently moved to new york city to find himself. we talked about oprah. we talked about art galleries. and all the while, emerald gave me tips on how to brush my hair, how to smear 10-15 different serums in it to take it from a bozo to a bridget, and how to manipulate a curling iron.

throughout her tutorial on "tips and tricks" (read: hair 101) i listened attentively as if i really hadn't a clue how to manage my hereditary "broom straw, gnawed off the ends with my own teeth half crazed recently escaped from azkaban" look. i even assured her when i first sat down, that my current fuzz-a-thon was no indication of my capabilities with a brush and plenty of grease. but perhaps she thought it was just a cover up...a cry for help. so she kindly showed me how to hold and use a brush. how to position a blow dryer and trick my hair out with this multi-purpose multi-miracle invention called "the curling iron". i realized how i must have been like an eliza doolittle to her, a rough pebble in need of some preliminary polish...she couldn't imagine that i would know how to pull, yank and threaten my hair into submission and still go around letting my freak flag fly.

curly hair is one thing. some people celebrate it, others treat it like a shameful rash and offer tried-and-true remedies for such unfortunate genetics. emerald believed that no woman (or man) should leave the house without applying some kind of heated object to their hair. "the whole world would look better" she claimed. i thought of all the mornings that the heater in my car or the hot breath of the subway served as my impromptu drying source...

when we parted, my hair was big and weather-girlish. i expected this and feigned excitement at my new-found ability to brush and curl. emerald was beguiling, and she invited me to her sacred dances jingle-jangle shake your money maker classes on tuesday nights. i think i'll take her up on it...and i'll bring my incorrigible curls with me.

a poetry reading

William Ernest Henley's Life and Death (Echoes)

RAISE the generous gods for giving
In a world of wrath and strife,
With a little time for living,
Unto all the joy of life.

At whatever source we drink it,
Art or love or faith or wine,

In whatever terms we think it,
It is common and divine.

Praise the high gods, for in giving
This to man, and this alone,

They have made his chance of living
Shine the equal of their own.


VII

FILL a glass with golden wine,
And the while your lips are wet
Set their perfume unto mine,

And forget,
Every kiss we take and give
Leaves us less of life to live.

Yet again! Your whim and mine

In a happy while have met.
All your sweets to me resign,

Nor regret
That we press with every breath,
Sighed or singing, nearer death.

spoons

I realize this is the third blog post with a utensil as the title...which is purely coincidence and, coincidentally, frames the topic at hand:

at least 3-10 times per day (and often in my dreams as well, so tack on another 2-5) I encounter coincidences that, were they woven into a fantasy novel, would seem absurdly *convenient*. Out of the air magically falls a miracle and just like that, a crisis is averted. Money grows on trees and suddenly I have more than I imagine. I live in a Dickens novel, I often say. Not only because we (Charlie and I) have certain commonalities with regard to taxes, prison, and arbitrary confinement, but also because the aptly-named personae in my play and neatly braided coincidences permeate the literary fancies of daily life. I believe this is probably the case for most people, if they stopped to notice.

Many times I've had the idea and intention to start collecting these cosmic events like beercaps in jar--little memories of ghostly butterflies fluttering in a glass, reminding me of the seamless whimsy that punctuates the hours. Then I think, "So many have passed unrecorded, the vault is quite empty, why begin archiving little mysteries and miracles now?"

It's like the card game "spoons" where three or more players pass the cards around in a circle, each player holding four randomly distributed cards in his or her hands and doing his or her damnedest to corral four of a kind before stealthily snatching up a spoon from the center of the table. Much like musical chairs, the spoon supply is always enough for all but one, slow, unobservant player who either fails to lasso four of a kind first or fails to notice when the spoons are snatched by fellow players. Collecting the four of a kind depends on deciding (early on) which card to collect. Usually, if one begins with more than one kind in hand, that is the best card to collect. Yet, as we spoons players have discovered, there are rounds where you'll choose your card, and within seconds, you'll pass up three or even four of a kind of a different card. And so you think, should I have started collecting X card a long time ago? Is it too late to start collecting a different one now? Does my neighbor HAVE the card I originally sought to collect? And then, you notice that the spoons have been snatched, and the game is up. The point is, does winning depend on choosing the right card from the outset and then randomly being favored by the deck or does it depend on perseverence and conviction: you chose the jack and you stick with the jack despite the two or three aces that you willingly passed along?

So you never know what's coming down the pipe, but you either stick with the plan or get ready to roll if something better comes along...and in terms of collecting coincidences...the debate is whether to begin collecting them now (now that so many have been caught and released) or to keep letting them pass by because they aren't what I'm after anyhow? is it better to be the first to gather the lot or sufficient to avoid being caught without a spoon?

$billions$

a friend of mine is obsessed with money. and being rich. this friend is not rich, but he likes to talk about being rich and what he would do with his wads of cash and bonds and stocks and 508c6 offshore accounts in zurich and colombia. in an effort to lure me into his whirlpool of desire, he often asks me what i'd do with a billion dollars, right now. he asks me this question often because my answer is never the same.

right now, i would probably go to gallenson's and buy a gun. with that gun, i would shoot things. whatever i felt like. knock figuringes off a wall and down a laundry chute or blast holes through rusty coke cans...i would shoot my gun on the salt flats or in my grandma's backyard. i think she'd borrow it and the neighbors over the back fence could cross "dog food" off of their monthly expenses (and probably add "lawyer").

i'd buy two guns. a big one and a small one, like a glock. i say glock because that is the only gun i have ever pulled the trigger on, and i enjoyed it far more than i thought i would. the big one would be a rifle. and maybe i'd buy a third to slip in my purse or wear on my thigh...one with a pearly handle.

with my guns in tow, i'd buy an airstream trailor traveling van thing--the ones that look like giant vintage toasters. i'd decorate the interior with lickable wallpaper and visit every state in the union, including hawaii because i'd have the damn thing shipped, overnight. i'd probably skip west virginia, unless i had plenty of ammo.

i would do nothing charitable with my new-found wealth. i would hoard it, and never tell my friends or family where my new pet cheetah came from or invite orphans to stay at my gaudy ranch. i'd spend it all in a year and then eBay every last knick knack i purchased along the way. drink myself into a stupor and then enlighten myself with lunch guests like tina turner.

one german on the rocks, please

This compilation comes from Germany. It's a form of persuasion. A soundtrack for the true fiction that came to pass for 72 hours on the mystical, purple coast of Morocco. The track list itself is a poetic testament--a haiku of magic, brown eyes, such lyrics as "your ex is dead and will remain so", etc.

One journey for you, but it's worth it. One life here with me and it's magic.

Coincidence? Imagination is powerful: I ordered it up like a Pizza Hut special with a side of Ipod, and it was delivered in less time than the typical 25-30 minute window. I was at the end of my rope, so like Matilda, I used my powers. I had just discovered them too. And I was being cheeky and irreverent when I said to the sea, "Send me a single, intelligent, well-spoken and intuitive cohort to watch the peachy sunset dance across the crashing waves of this ancient and achingly romantic Moroccan coastal town..." And you can imagine my surprise when I got exactly what I asked for.

Of course, every time I started feeling invincible and "at home" with my new powers, I got a rude reminder that I was a guest in magic territory. After a three hour conversation confirming such odd commonalities as our childhood hometowns, favorite and obscure musical artists and comparing general philosophies on life--I skipped merrily on my way to spruce up for dinner. Humming to myself, quite pleased with my amazingness in fact, I turned the corner to prance down the cobblestones when I got a swift stone to the head. Of course, this was the cold reminder (in impish, local trouble-maker juvenile street urchin form) that I was merely plugging in to the magical Moroccan wi-fi, and I could lose connection at any time. Ok, I thought, thanks for that. My temple was throbbing and I tried not to look like the confused, crying, injured, single, vulnerable and emotional American tourist stumbling through the twilight. Be brave, I told myself, literally, have a stiff upper lip if you've got any sense at all...crying right now would be like a fat, unsuspecting guinea hen parading through a field of salivating foxes. Look mean. Think bitter, acerbic, salty, vengeful thoughts..emit them on high heat. Look mildly irritated and like you've had enough of the "gazelle! amore! lady! hallo!" cat calls from each and every shop boy along Rue Lalouj.

I recovered, ducked into my little hotel that looked like a ride at DisneyLand (mirror tiles and intricate mosaics casually adorning the entire lobby--modestly fantastic) and climbed the stairs to my humble hideout. The room was the size of a flipflop box with a narrow bed, sink, mirror--even some bars on the window to complete the "Alcatraz Meets Morocco" theme.

Now, "sprucing up" was a whole different boardgame in Morocco..my inner she wolf had been kept strategically suppressed as a precautionary measure. I had loaded up on Old Navy cast-offs for the trip, in an effort to turn up the frump dial and minimize any smattering of feminine appeal. And I was hideously successful at it. The plan was to give it all to Goodwill when I got home, but Freulein Maria's voice kept playing in my head, "The poor didn't want this one" and that pretty much sums up my faux maternity collection in which I made my Moroccan debut.

I decided that I'd put in some dangerous effort that night, just to make sure I hadn't completely lost touch with self-expression. This didn't involve any serious primping...I reshaped my hair (notice, I didn't go so far as "brushing out" my fully-organic dreadlock that I'd had in a cleaning-the-catbox knot for 30+ days...that would have been far too suggestive) and felt vaguely reconnected with my feminine side, in the privacy of my own Moroccan cell/hotel room.

I then decided to really vamp it up and add some mascara, after the little crooked mirror told me I had some work to do. I was giddy, like I was digging in Mother's makeup bag--age 5 again--playing with pretty and stomping around in too-big high heels. A few strokes here, a little manipulation of the mop and I was in my old neighborhood again. I'd have to make a well-planned bee line for my designated dinner spot... I had a mental rehearsal to map out my route: left out the front door of the hotel, through the little midget archway, past the mumbling drunk on the corner, right at the mini-mosque on Rue Mohammed Something-abibi. I pranced down the stairs, past the front desk clerk who unsurprisingly inquired just where I thought I was going with my hair looking half decent. With my carefully-cultivated Stupid Smile that came in handy more than once, I breezed past him and out the door.

Then it was about walking fast but not so fast that I'd arouse attention. I finally understood why women are called gazelles by the local male omnivores--gazelles are hysterical animals of limited sense, treading cautiously through the African Savannah and enduring the bloodthirsty cries by their food chain superiors. Hence the gawking, the rubber-necking, the customary fascination and commentary, "Madamoiselle! Hello! Gazelle! Chica Guapa! So sexy!" I realized, of course, that I could be a tranny in gold platforms and fishnets and garner the same response.

Dinner with my conjured-up friend was the flower of my magical realism...a brief rescue from the hazards of femininity and fatal allure of baggy capris.

serpent

up the airy mountain, down the crooked lane...ahaha I was flipping channels the other day and heard a snippet of bible-thumping preachy speak from a man who looks like he just excaped from azkaban...he said something to the tune of "jesus can help you become a better fisherman of men's souls, or at least help you make up for your poor habits.." and i thought about "poor" as a habit.

on fridee i went on a sojourn up lambs canyon trail, and plucked sun-ripened rosehips from their treacherously thorn-ed branches. i also dodged epic piles of moose poo, elk prints the size of dinner plates (spaced at 7-foot intervals) and for the first hike this summer/fall, i did NOT encounter a slithering symbol of change on my path. the last time that happened was in tahoe on the trail to mt. tallac, when i saw a rather skin-colored and hence suggestive animal on the trail, with a nub of a tail and humanish skin. i was deterrrmined to enjoy myself but remained somewhat disturbed after sidestepping the creature as it glistened (moistly) in the sun. it paled (literally) in comparison to the dragon i bested on the grandeur peak trail a few days before. this thing had gills, a ridged/webbed forehead, jagged eyebrows, and a murderous disposition. i was running uncontrollably down the switchbacks--bored with the slow, downhill plodding--when i came ankle-to-fang with this beast of the desert, coiled and scheming when i rudely interrupted its flow...he (i believe it was male) hissed and stared deeeeep into the recesses of my fear faculties...i backed up, and it followed, jaws still gaping and eyes in turbo-kill mode, rattle on hi-vibe...S-ing his way toward me, debating on whether to strike...in a twist of accidental mercy, the creeper slinked off into the grass (traveling uphill). once spared, i skied down the gravelous mountain like charlie with his golden ticket.

o valued republic:

Valued Republic

Sifting through the shit storm of information in search of some truth, I found this:

Excerpts from "Making the Best of a Slow Apocalypse" by Joe Bageant.


"Our relationship with the physical/material world is not only holistic and ecologically interwoven… it is also the source of our spiritual essence. Which is why monolithic production, monetization, and commodity fetishism destroy our essence. We must think through that. We must look around us at its proof, and learn it for ourselves. If you don't pick up on that, you're screwed."

"Perhaps we should all "dialogue on this" a bit? Nope. This thing we are facing, this thing we must do, is not just another topic for more "dialogue."In any case, regardless of who's doing the dialoging, Earth First, the Dalai Lama or the ghost of Reinhold Niebuhr, let's not kid ourselves that if we only yak some more, the world and mankind will somehow heal themselves. It's easy for the wealthy of the earth such as you and I (especially if one has an Internet connection) to want to believe that. After all, we had breakfast this morning and we not only have clean potable water to drink -- which 2.2 billion people do not -- but also shit in the stuff. The real solution -- not to the problem, which is unsolvable in the long haul, but to balancing those eternal scales inside ourselves -- begins with a more contemplative and reflective life, and the care of the soul. Both of which are necessarily thwarted by the wasteful daily busyness of our materialism and technology. Jesus did not text message his truth, and the Buddha never had a single friend on Facebook. Yet we hear their truth across millenniums. They simply practiced compassion. Only by eliminating suffering among sentient beings, do we create the spiritual soil in which peace can flourish. That takes conviction. The real stuff."


"It will take an entire lifetime of commitment, and the world will continue to crumble around us even as we work. There will be not one ounce of public glory or reward during our lifetimes, not if we are doing it right. And if we turn a buck on it, we can be assured that we are playing the same game as this earth's wrecking crew. Which is called irony, I guess.
Yet the reward lies right there before us. Knowing and observing the spirit in all things... even above life itself. It is the first fearful step... the first stone on the path to liberation."

"Either we can feel, or can learn to feel the common soul … that essence coursing in all sentient things (and I for one, include trees, rivers, amoeba and the atmosphere in the count) and feel joy and unity in that, or we cannot. Either compassion enters our awareness and experiential reality through suffering and contemplation of the suffering of others … or it does not. Either way, it would seem incumbent upon each of us to try to bring about a world in which compassion occurs for the maximum number of our fellow men. Given that we all share a common grave, compassionate action may well be the only human action of any value. Compassion for all living things on a living planet. In that resides the equilibrium of the world."


AND...

From Jan Lundberg's "Why Losing Your Job Can Be a Good Thing Today"


• Monotonous work is unhealthy, dispiriting, and such employment is slavery.

• Employment takes time away from important survival tasks such as seed saving and seed sharing.

• U.S. society and its government have earned disdain by behaving as if they are fundamentally bad. We have a system of friendly fascism that white-washes issues of deadly pollution and toxicity. Supporting the system as a worker paying taxes is one thing, but being unable to bring about a better world is a killer."

"Hard-core urban activists admirably fight the system with all the brake dust, tire dust, ground-layer ozone, and particulate-matter soot that they can tolerate -- for a while. These are usually young people who think their health can withstand an unnatural lifestyle, and besides, there are more opportunities to get laid and enjoy whatever other jollies the larger cities have to offer. Nothing wrong with this, as the Babylon-based activists are indeed cheating the system and are inspiring others.

This must not be discounted. Joy welling up from the soul, as when people dance to a live primal beat, is a big part of our special animal power. People expressing themselves creatively without vested interest or authority is actually our normal condition that we have almost lost.
Lifestyle change that bleeds the corporate economy to death is a major part of the "solution" -- if there is any solution to our predicament. We need a break with the past, a culture change. What about going part way for now? It is possible to contribute to a project so beautifully radical and world-changing, yet simultaneously live a lifestyle that contradicts it. But not for long."




For more, visit http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=247&Itemid=1

prequel to world domination

The recession seems to be nothing more than an excuse by many to stifle their creative selves and play it safe and dull. Step away from that cubicle, fellow dreamer; the world awaits your genius. The risk is worth the reward and the reward has never tasted so sweet. --Andy Lovley

The term Walkabout comes from the Australian Aboriginal. The idea is that a person can get so caught up in one's work, obligations and duties that the truly important parts of one's self become lost. From there it is a downward spiral as one gets farther and farther from the true self. A crisis situation usually develops that awakens the wayward to the absent true self. It is at this time that one must go on walkabout. All possessions are left behind (except for essential items) and one starts walking. Metaphorically speaking, the journey goes on until you meet yourself. Once you find yourself, you sit down and have a long talk about what one has learned, felt and done in each other's absence. One talks until there is nothing left to say -- the truly important things cannot be said. If one is lucky, after everything has been said and unsaid, one looks up and sees only one person instead of the previous two.
-Source Unknown


Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail -Ralph Waldo Emerson

sept 17

goodthingsdohappenday

spork

wessa's spork
was in new york
until she brought it
home.

spoon

Today I'm picking at the rock with a spoon, plotting my escape from Chateau D'If. Not plotting per se, but finding relief in chipping at miles of stone with an unlikely tool...unearthing my freedom one spoonful at a time. What seems like a willful entrance into 14 years of labor that only madness can propel, is actually a test of dedication. How bad do I want to get out of here? And the spoon digs deeper, and faster, and the pile of earth beside me is mounting higher, and higher. Bury it at night, lest the guards catch wind of my lust for sunlight...start again tomorrow. Spend the nights with hummmmm still in my hands from a day's worth of digging, the sound of the metal against the stone, the progress on the pile and my plans to double it in the first hour of tomorrow's infinite struggle.

Better, is it, to listen to the sound of the water and let that salty memory be enough? To expel all hope for a return to the sea, to feel danger again and be crushed by the currents--an impossible escape--rather than slowly curl my spine into a nautilus swirl, a forgotten creature, forcibly vacated and empty.

No, I say. I'll keep digging. Even if today is only half a teaspoon--enough to hold in the palm and feel a teaspoon closer to warm raspberries, swaying fields, a masquerade in honor of the hell-bent. Dented and weary, my hands withering and resolve now stemming from some unknown pocket of will, I flip sand and gravel and rock and moss. Counting the mountains and mole hills I've created all around me...un, deux, trois, quatre....tiny models of where I long to be.

rival

once split apart in yellow leather, with green stripes,
it became a broader, deeper fuschia, possessively.
rising up to defend a twisted union, to punish treachery,
a flowered pupil, suspicious and enslaved, beneath a brightly feathered mane,
it devoured a former foe by request, trading roles and embracing conditional peace.
criss-crossed in a mobile watchtower, eyes behind for proportionate contenders,
i was the willing captive of a serpentine vice, a jealous guardian.
always automatic confessions in the morning
and shape-shifting at night.
kept close, it was an omen of a clear heart.
banished, allergic to spite, brought a cunning reaction.
Shifting, promising, enveloping, appeased,
Snuffed out.
remedied with charcoal and spit, to avert the poison and redirect it to the heart.
closing in and centering on a nerve, pleasant company.
jaws reading memory and stepping ahead with a soft glance,
the lilt of a perfect murder, overtures of an open mind
i put your picture high on a mantle
ashes and petals
temptation to knowledge, broken flesh cut from a forbidden tree,
limbless child of the earth.

baked

the edges burn faster than the middle, writhing inward before expanding again into an s-shape. in a pan used to bake sympathy bread flavored with prime candidates for compost, each letter is incinerated and flares up in protest.

letters may burn but their dough, needles, conspirators and recipes remain intact. the pages yawn into a mini-inferno...i drop the match through the metal slats and hear an inquisitive groan from the steps below. it lands between the lobe and the skull of our resident chainsmoker, and i realize that we're sharing vices...or at least, the aftermath of killer hobbies. in solidarity, here is a scorched emblem of my revenge.

speculation: did you kick the vanilla air freshener out of the socket in the hallway, down three flights, and shatter the innocent thing on the first floor? do we owe our scented mail to your momentary ebenezer strike on compromise? did our fragrant hint inspire a violent attack on a small votive of essential oils? now we live in a hookah lounge, the meshing and blending of strangers sharing living space, edging sideways, narrating prejudices, avoiding eye contact, but privy to private scents that tattle and reveal.

winnows

in a race, seven minnows pushed hard against a stampede of laces and sweat, opting for an easier route over the vertical hell of hayes street. papier mache helmets with sharpie-drawn scales and glossy eyes, team opposite, kegs in a shopping cart, joined together in pursuit of a deliberate and glorious loss.

what is winning, then, if the object is to outwit unoriginal opponents following bright orange markers in a frantic flurry to finish? why not refuse to win and instead, return to the starting line, taking an intentional detour, feeling no urgency other than a hasty escape from a more predictable end?

mo

i met a man named mohammed last saturday. he was wearing blue, the same color as the mini-styrofoam cartons with candy eggs. he stood on the fire escape, jack with his rose--her hair adding five inches to her height. behind him was a top-floor patio, spiked with hazardous lawn chairs, and a wall that matched the cartoon blue of his shirt. a stucco afterthought, the wall was probably born green and sponged over with smurf blue, reinvented. his blue was mesmerizing. but when he stood hovering eleven stories above orchard street, gazing wanly at a store owner perched in the sill of sheherezade, unfettered by the altitude, i saw the wall behind him ignite the contrast of his bluest blue and his blackest black.

mustard

at the intersection of church and liberty streets, was a large gathering of humans at twelve noon, in manhattan. what began as a tidy cluster of round-bellied jollies with sunburnt necks and vinyl banners, swiftly crescendoed into a hive of nationalist pride. iconic american wisdom echoed loudly from scarlet lips, through a cordless microphone, and out again from a large speaker propped in the heart of the mob.

remeber: several "m's" were missing on distressed poster boards--rage is a clumsy spell-check. the missing consonant seemed banished, curiously, as it begins and ends the name of the enemy. a symbolic omission perhaps...a letter eradicated in permanent ink, blood red.

the speaker quoted frank sinatra: it's up to you, new york, new york. not here, not now, not ever. we will never forget. go home. graves. gods. spit. sacred ground.

parallel weather: as the crowd thickened, sentiment boiled, and vocal chords strained, the park filled with agnostic dust devils, errant branches, rogue wrappers and the threat of rain.

paradis

the cure reminds me of purple glitter, asteroids and corduroy. pictures of you evokes white cinder block walls, duct tape, chalked hands and hanging plants with forbidden contents. gold rush in a bottle, thick syrup that burns the throat, and the first time i saw jupiter. it reminds me of the screen on my window, sliding glass panes, and a dripping parking lot. passersby, penitent love, intoxicated lust, furniture rearranged. kind green eyes and six bowls of lucky charms later, the purple still rises from the sound of the cure and seems to follow me like the chasing tail of a comet.

ironic lessons in knot-tying...

starboard blanc

a pause, and a cutting reflection of identity distorted by a mariner's curse. dripping gorgons rising from the water, whistling in the protestant wind, ballads of a brimming cappuccino sea. narrating, as it unfolds, the powered flight of accelerating wildfire and the dispersal of wings aloft. a familiar allegory, catered by the threadbare appeal of an invited guest, a breath of novelty, an emblem of the past.

pine and canvas, in chair-form, falling in line. carpet condemned, a polished set of musical memories lulled the sailors into submission, swallowing doubt. salt in the sinuses, a clarifying wish, a dismembered moth. spinning compass, the silence of the sea, guided only by the fear of irrelevance. white caps, windswept bluffs, hanging gables, steep rooflines and an insider handshake whitewashed by natural indifference. gray galaxy spiked with a hint of lime and terracotta shorts, reveals a secret republic, shrouded in favorable sun.

of kings, monopolized queens, propagated pawns and alliances with stone bishops + knights. strategy, percentage, a cool reduction of emeralds leached from dry gravel. carniverous worms, earning their meat and gnoshing on salted rants. granulated stars scattered over idyllic ponds, rarely used icons sharing shelves with evicted mollusks. white house countess sifting through appointments, whispering infidelities with tranquility, cocoavan, teaser, vixen and muse.

a soft goodnight, a misguided tour, ends with silver stones leading to the safety of sleep.

buddha

eyes closed, the temperature has just dropped...in a bright white room, with rain-stained skylights above and the sound of water weeping placidly around a granite cube. a stairway to tibetan heaven, saints like stalagmite lollipops are illuminated by yellow lamps. colder still, there are only three colors: the kind of green that kills cancer, ancient gray, and mahogany brown. the throngs are silent, echoes are heard from the greek hallways and the chime of the elevator, always going up. strolling through a refridgerated chapel, wondering how many eyes have rested on these sleeping figures, embellished with somber garnets pressed into paper leaves.

sacred women dancing [in public], revered, mothers in meditation, a silent smile and eyes gazing inward. supplanted from holier origins, unable to take root on their sturdy pedestals, they sleep--unaware of external change.

and then, a serendipitous discovery of a massive fort on the roof. thick bamboo shooting straight up, with wild leaves still drying at the tips. knots of rope, (blue, yellow, red, green) secured at the corners, suspending bridges, steps
and fluid corridors.

french seven

she has a steady hand, blue ink, a curly seven with two horizontal lines, on the back of a crisp business card...impressive penmanship...fine motorskills in a heap at the door.

taupe and gold, magenta and cobalt, like the lake where her heart has been scattered and collected for years

wolves approach, panting from behind tall cream columns, a vampire hangout. velvet lounge, tiled floor that seems to get farther and farther away as the night wears on.

a photo booth: the first is a blur; the second, awkward familiarity; the third, forced sobriety and a stolen kiss; the fourth, a tilted + sheepish grin.

montages arise like traces of smoke: hablas espanol? yes, i used to live in cuba, not in havana, in vinales. i'm a lawyer...criminal defense. i work with bankers. and criminals. i'm an artist. unoriginal. and framed. he's in australia. i'm visiting from london, love.

one foot on the table, and one on the floor. robin's egg blue lacquered toes, ivory lips, holding court. how tall are you? all reason is banished, caged for the evening.

the black-crow-and-plaid masquerade is snuffed out with a faded french seven and dwindling numbers. a green sunrise finds a waltzed-out cinderella sleeping in the soot with a bag full of clues.

shoes + other maladies

targeted. no spool of thread to find a way back, no woman in white to lead the way.

they were left out in the rain. once pristine: now salted and stained stoic gray. canvas withered and burdened with trips to the park, down the block, the post office, the yardsale, and finally resigned to the porch. unworn, but not forgotten. resting, velcro performing as required, dark shadows cast on a bed of dirty daisies. yellowed soles, peeling rubber and a nautical line dipping beneath the imprints of two products of china. trip over these orthotic guardians to get to the door, fall into this household, past the knobless entrance, a gray abyss, empress jadis: "who has broken the spell?"

an older lucy, tiptoes past hardened teaberrys, a wreath of better days, to a stony beach of smooth river stones and melted tension. southern rock. an audio heart left unturned, it lilts past the rubber bins filled with aging tools and trowels. objects for amusement, piled high, with a view of the picnic below and a lawn that is deemed sub-par--too wild as it grows thicker, unrecognized, unruly.

found

siphoned from private letters + casual correspondence are these headlines

meant to appear as serendipitous treasure, a sand dollar underfoot, unbroken and suspiciously hot pink....

placed aloft, are these innocent zap lamps enticing juicy forest dwellers to a cacophonous death.

and drifting in the wings, are the headlines that summarize our subconscious interests, returned to the owner as such:

the bridge between strategy and execution,
night, distance, changing the way people fly.
plus
free companion templates,
small groups, pants and tops,
featured here at aqua shop.

synthetic wilderness

central park in bloom: discovery of pink tutus on gnarled branches, natural stained glass chapels under bridges, and Escher-esque railway shadows on gravel pathways.

several artists were on a quest to capture this momentous beauty: painters in smocks on the bridal path, easels in tow, grasping at the synthetic wilderness.

also two rows of elegant Madeline school girls, red patent leather mary janes and matching ribbons, no jackets required.

a few contenders violated public dresscode in nothing but loincloth and coconut oil, desperate for some sunlight in nether regions. no photographic evidence of these improprieties but the sight cracked some pepper on an otherwise mild and idyllic scene.

finally...

an available blog title!