Waves

when she stopped making art,

she became angry,

anxious, irritable, resentful.

she would watch him draw horned beasts,

using only red and black pen on a white canvas.

she would watch him outside a window

swirling acrylics on metal surfaces.

she would browse through her old drawings,

or find a stray red pencil in a drawer.

what had once moved through her?

and where did it go?

early on, when she had felt the first wave  

she got derailed

trapped by her own need for affection

for acceptance, for love.

she abandoned everything to move in with a stranger

she left for the ocean.

every warning was ridiculed,

she surrounded her thoughts with an iron fence.

her body was burdened,

her lungs were tight and closed,

and the thing that once moved through her

became so small as to be invisible.

she thought about it for years.

sometimes she attempted a small drawing,

but she had lost trust in her own hands.

she judged the lines before they were complete,

saw herself as another would see her,

as another might see her.

later she fled,

or was cast aside.

she escaped the narrow path

of needles and crime,

lies and delusion,

denial and fear.

she salvaged what lay just inside the dumpster

and left the rest

to become a vague memory.

and she found herself in a room,

staring out a window.

how long had it been since she drew?

he said to her:
'if you want to make art, make art.'

and she stared at him

with tears in her eyes.

she thought she had to wait

for something to happen,

for a burst,

for an explosion,

for shapes to break open the gates

and explode onto the page.

she watched him standing in the sun

just outside the window.

he never noticed her there,

just a few feet away.

the canvas was on the ground on a blue tarp.

he let the colors mingle,

then would occasionally move

one side of the canvas or another.

After a while

she went back to her room.

Rare Is The Moment

A little piece of paper with a name and a phone number written on it. Such proposals can lead to an unexpected degree of change in the self...

Right before waking I dreamed I heard the doorbell ring and saw her face. It startled me awake and I realized that it had been yet another dream.

What good is it to hold onto ghosts? A surge of light that emerges from the caves and not from the sky, from the depths and not from the heavens?

The old architect upstairs knew that this couldn't be good, but this was what would make her love me in that way that was so rare that I might as well make it happen any time I could.

The first time I saw the time machine I was skeptical.
I remember I asked:
"Does it work?"
and he answered:
"Kind of."

It worked where rare is the moment, where rare is the space, where rare is the mass that falls without making a sound, and rare is the sound itself... so rare that I might as well make it happen any time I could.

This was what would make her love me, the boy that played by himself in a dark garden full of mountains of sand and intricate structures of loose bricks. Elements of ground and blood and stone and wind, elements of word and phrase and symbol, elements of dream and myth and shadows that are only partly seen...
What good is it to hold onto ghosts?

A little piece of paper with a name and a phone number written on it.

The old architect upstairs knew that this couldn't be good. He developed vision complications in the left eye.

There were three circular tunnels that fed into a single cylindrical chamber. It was lined with a reflective silver insulation. The outside was all white plastic. At the top of the cylinder was a magnetic motor which resembled a giant fan with a crank to start it.

Right before waking I dreamed I heard the doorbell ring and saw her face. It startled me awake and I realized that it had been yet another dream. A surge of light that emerges from the caves and not from the sky, from the depths and not from the heavens.

"What if it works?" I asked.
"I don't know..." he confessed.

It worked where rare is the moment, where rare is the space, where rare is the mass that falls without making a sound, and rare is the sound itself... so rare that I might as well make it happen any time I can.

I wake with the lyrics to "You Only Live Twice" in my head, as if a part of me is reciting the words over and over as I sleep, like a mantra to pull me awake again.
I jolt awake and sit up in bed, the feeling that I am supposed to be somewhere else gnawing compellingly at my heart.

A little piece of paper with a name and a phone number written on it.

Such proposals, where rare is the moment, can lead to an unexpected degree of change, where rare is the space. Three circular tunnels, like a mantra, where rare is the mass. A surge of light  that falls without making a sound, elements of dream and myth, and rare is the sound itself...

So rare that I might as well make it happen any time I can.