Wall Of Words

Spiraling currents and walls of words met us at the other end of the tunnel.

We had walked, walked for so long that I had forgotten there were feet, arms, or thoughts attached to me. There had been darkness for so long that I forgot you were with me, that there was an action called “walking,” a thing such as breathing and experience. We had been in the tunnel for so long that there was no tunnel, no self, no other. 
And then we emerged, and I realized that you were with me, but we were different. Our skin was shiny, with new hands and muscles and thin lines of electricity that voyaged up and down our veins in eternal recurrence.
I could see the purple and yellow pulsing through your skin, through my own. And it went between us too, stopping not at the borders of biology, but traveled through the space between us, changing color. It was not distance between us, because we were connected, both through these colored currents and through the walls of words.
With each new discovery between us the words would slowly fade together, one replacing the other so slowly, so beautifully that I would sometimes get lost in the blurring lines and speckled palettes. We dabbled together, linking minds, smiling, fusing thoughts into cursive patterns.
We arranged our bodies in new ways, imitating the patterns on the chamber walls. I on top of you, you inside of me, connecting and mirroring, shadows becoming dances, a twisted oblique labyrinthine representation of conscious energy.
And the hidden channels, here we dove into them. Nakedness not just unabashed, but sacred. We gave ourselves as gifts. Golden and shiny, wet and smooth, buffered in hair and dancing dreams and shadowy thoughts. I could see the landscapes of purple places, where moons came out to light the way for traveling islands we glimpsed from moving trains.

I was looking away when a girl in a yellow shirt decided to look at me. Then I saw her reflected on your skin, could smell the jasmine and sun of the day in which she appeared. She jumped through a chain of daisies and came to us, bringing more voices and more strange boys and girls who sang in unison. They wore glasses and golden crowns and I could not quite make out their words and instead of singing, made up syllables to the melody and spun in circles.  Black and red birds descended upon the scene, some of them menace makers, adding to the chaos, to the flutter of leaves and eyelashes. They swirled and swooped, brushing some of us with their glitter tipped wings, and I laughed, despite myself.  It was a carnival of lights, a thousand elements blinking, lighting up the night, fireworks bursting, lovers in the bushes, covered in dirt and sticky leaves and kisses.

Spiraling currents, the walls of words held us close, hugged us deeply. I write and re-write, you who read and maybe re-read, we are bound through electric pulsing currents. Together in a sense, apart in yet another sense, I send bursts of this hot energy your way, and you let them come in through the eyes. They come out through your lips and I sense the words once again transformed. Shapes without definition, meaning as slippery as soap and water.

The Nature Of Pain

Pain demands remedy.  It demands attention, it creates an end.  Ends are found wandering down many paths. 

Little by little I felt like dying.  I drove home up the 15 degree incline that went on for seven miles from the ocean to the mountainous woods.
The late afternoon sun was bright and hit my shoulders, browning them slightly.  The heat came in through the window and he sat next to me, a 200 pound man with the potential for artistic expression and a capacity for miserable effort and run-ins with the law. 
As I began to reach the peak of the oak covered meadow before a curvy 2 mile long descent into wooded Felton, I felt overwhelmed. The man had a multitude of chemical addictions and twenty nine years of pain that needed to be dulled and a father that had just died.
The family would not wait to hold the funeral and as a result, the tattooed addict beside me would never, as my mother said, have closure.  She could see what was coming more than I could, that girl I was with firm round breasts and idealism that had somehow sucked her into a cave full of murky water.
My tattooed addict, sitting in the cushioned chair beside me had a history of minor crimes and outstanding warrants in a few states and credit debt that would haunt him until death.

Each one of his problems fell on my shoulders. I opened my arms to them and held them.
For a time I hoped that they would get better or change or that he would change or that his jail stays would alter him or that visiting the county hospital would at least provide him with methadone or some legal compound, but none of it changed.  He took the methadone and then went to the streets moment later.  Even after the doctors finally approved a physical therapist and a reason was identified for his unbearable back pain, he never stopped mixing and injecting, he never followed through on the recommended exercises. He was in a cave of his own.
He let me carry all his problems. I took him to the appointments and to the streets. I went to work and then handed over my cash to his open hands that were like magnets. I picked up his cigarettes and cringed every moment he stood at the doorway smoking, wasps of pungent odor coming right back towards me, covering my clothes and books with their stench so that one day I would have to throw them all away. 

His problems were my problems. And his problems where too big for me and I wanted it all to end.
I remember saying: “but I haven’t made my mark on the world yet.”  And he agreed.  And so there was no double suicide.
But every day he got worse and I felt the dark cloud grow bigger and thicker and so strong that I could not see light beyond it.  Every day his tolerance grew and he needed a little more black tar.  Every day he needed a little more money.  Every day he sunk deeper and I watched from the edge, teetering on the side, looking in and then beyond. 
I went to work, I went to school.  I brought him money and he took it to the beach flats and got small brown goo wrapped in pieces of plastic. After disappearing into the bathroom for hours and poking in every vein he remembered having he would emerge all sweaty and pink. 
For a precious moment he would be free of pain, he would forget about his dad and the mounting legal problems and his back and the mountain of darkness that hung over our heads. Then time would slip and we would remember and the rattle would begin once again.

A Moment Alone

The sky is black with a few speckled stars. Isa’s black truck is parked twenty feet away in a row of 10 empty parking spots beside the sidewalk. The only thing separating the cars from the ocean is a wide sidewalk and a cliff side covered in ice plants and a few invasive species of grass. 
Isa is nestled in the thick coiling roots of a Monterrey Cypress. The roots are curved and exposed to the air like tentacles that emerge from the earth and then dive back into it after a series of loops.  The trunk of the tree is massive, the bark scratches against her back which is only covered in a thin cotton long-sleeved shirt. The roots hide her body from anyone that might be walking along the sidewalk or the occasional car that passes by, their headlights illuminating the tree for just a second before driving on. 
She is just a few steps and a leap from the ocean.  Fifteen feet below, the waves crash into the rocks, colliding not with violence, but with a persistent relaxed motion that moves forever without rest.  The sound is calming, like a nighttime lullaby.
Isa looks out into the black ocean sparkling with faint moonlight.  The air is crisp with approaching fall. The elements seem more alive, and she feels more real in it.  With acute clarity, she feels the coolness of the salty cliff covered in fine dust, the rough bark of the trunk, the breeze full of salt and moisture, the roar of elements as water and rock meet. 
Her left hand is in her pants, feeling the warmth of her bare skin.  Her thumb and pointer finger are expertly holding a vibrator to her clit while her others hold back the cotton of her panties.  She is hidden there, alone under the cloak of a dark sky, the protruding tree roots and the ocean sounds.
Her eyes are open, alternating her gaze from the sea to the cypress canopy above, barely visible against the dark sky, to her stomach and her legs.  Isa closes her eyes as she gets closer, clenches her abdomen and imagines tied-up young women on stage in front of a barely visible audience, women bent over metal contraptions, gagged, helpless.
The fantasies quicken her excitement and her clitoris swells with blood. She moves rhythmically and opens her eyes, watching the approach of foam-tipped waves and the serene rise and fall of salt water in the distance. 
She is alone out here, alone but accompanied by all the elements. She begins to ride the tide, pushes her breath out a little quicker, tightens her lower abdomen, and she soars over the edge.

The Spheres of Galia Part 6

The library was an inverted sphere tucked within an astral chamber located in Olslo’s former residence in Valance, in the Second Sphere. They found it in a marble room with a large window that overlooked the lake outside. The room contained no furniture, just a single marble pedestal with a small golden orb that rested upon it. Within the orb, the library glowed with an electric blue incandescence and was connected to not only the vast networks of the Lucen pools, but also to the great libraries of all Three Spheres. This was the haven Olslo had built for himself in Valance. Suk Arev, a Prince of Vitnu, accompanied by Rosh Sil, a scribe of Valance, explored the library within the inverted sphere which existed outside of space and time.

“My sense of self is very strange,” Suk communicated to Rosh. “I feel that I have no body, and yet I am aware of the concept ‘I.’ I find that I am feeling a certain degree of fear.”

“What do you fear?” Rosh asked as she raced through the liquid light, accessing pools and libraries in a simultaneous moment of understanding.

“That I will be unable to find my body again. Where is it?”

“It isn’t anymore. There is no place holder left in Valance and there is no place to hold here. You are not, at this juncture. But, there is no need for fear. You will be again soon, when we return to space. You will recreate yourself, much as you do each morning when you awaken.” Rosh told the Prince. “You may also release the concept 'I' at this juncture. You will create that again as well. It will be as convincing as it ever has been.”

“If I release ‘I,’ there will be no more Suk. I will not exist. What could I then accomplish?” the Prince asked with alarm, which both of them experienced as a terrible squeezing in their chest and limbs.

“You must relax and be unafraid or we will be expelled from this library. There is something that remains when you release ‘I.’ With it, you will be able to accomplish more here. Think of it as diving. For a moment you and I will dive, we will explore the pools here, leaving the concept of ‘I’ waiting for us on the bank. When we have finished our exploration we will surface and resume our individual identities. Will you come? As long as we continue this linguistic form of communication which is itself the separating force that reinforces the concept of ‘I,’ our search of this library and the pools it connects to will be ineffective. We must go deeper.”

There was a silence and the swirling blue light was punctuated by a final communication from the Prince, “Yes. I see. We will go deeper.”

The blue pulsing and swirling intensified and then blue bled into white and at last the shining clarity of empty water as Rosh and Suk dissolved. What remained raced through the pools connected to Olslo’s library in bright bursts of electric white energy.

When Prince Suk awoke, he was lying on the cool marble floor of the empty room in Valance with the warm golden orb in one hand. Rosh’s head was resting on his stomach. His other hand was in her hair and for a moment, he was aware of nothing other than its amazing silky texture. Rosh stirred and quickly opened her eyes, turning her face towards his. Their eyes met and love flowed easily between them.

“I have never felt like that,” the Prince said, beaming. “Not even in making love have I ever been so close to another human being.”

Rosh smiled at him. “That’s because we were no longer human. We found something. Do you remember?”

“I remember elation. I remember bliss,” he said.

“If you do it more often, that experience will become more integrated with this one. You will remember more, which is the first step,” Rosh told him, moving slowly into a comfortable seated position.

“We retrieved something from Olslo’s private pool. We leaked it into all of the pools connected through his library. Everyone in the Three Spheres will know it soon. And there was something else, something that we kept hidden, something wonderful. Can you get us into the First Sphere? We need to visit Taurus.”

“The laboratories of the Seven Sisters?” the Prince asked. His face was dark and handsome and his smile refused to fade from it.

Rosh nodded at him slowly, her eyes were black pools of determination and clarity. The fingers of their hands laced together and they smiled as one.

The words from the leaked manuscript found their way beyond the reach of the pools and libraries of the Three Spheres. In the deserts of Vitnu, within a cave deep in the mountains, Stevash Khal read the manuscript to his tattered band of guerillas. In the prison mines where the first Olslo had toiled before his death, it was repeated by the new arrivals. In the Third Sphere, the Illuhuati arranged it to music. The High Priestess, in her secret lair in the underground ruins of Nurk, read it in the pools of the Lucen scribes before they sent it on to more remote pools deeper in the Sphere. Even the torturer who had administered Olslo’s last punishments three days prior read the disappeared man’s words from a wall where they had been written outside the Towers:

“There are no unarguable axioms of value or worth, there are only inclinations.
My inclinations have turned to an intense loathing of institutions, and most of the people in them; those spineless supplicants agape at the passing of other men's ideas, not drawn by desire, but driven by fear and ignorance, to the tepid hearth of institutionalism.
One may argue as to the qualities of a passing man's wife, but as a life philosophy, it can only appeal to self-loathing celibates. How much better the subjective stance which curls the mind around the lovely creature in one's embrace!”

The Hanged Man

He’s waiting to fall like a fruit that falls when it is ripe and ready to be eaten.
In this way he waits calmly for his moment to come, allowing his energy to accumulate in his head.
He waits to fall and the sensation of falling is all the time growing more and more intense.
The moment that he waits for is the moment of the fall.
The riper the fruit the more intense is the sensation of falling, until the fall becomes reality.

This is the man that is hanging.

We all have had that sensation when we sleep, that sense that we are falling (or that we are about to fall) but we avoid it. His message is to see things from another point of view and to allow ourselves to fall.

He is suspended in the air without touching the earth. His hair looks like the snakes of a medusa, his yellow arch is like the halo of the saints. The trunk that he’s hanging from is like the cross of Jesus, and his clothing is like that of a dancing buffoon. His face is serene and his eyes, which watch attentively, seem to invite you to establish visual contact with him. There is always the impulse to turn him around and see him from a different perspective, or one has to see him upside down..

The hanged man.
They tied his foot, because his foot was his head.

The natural fall.
As in birth, it’s the head that first comes out to see the light.
The rope that is tied around his foot is the maternal rope that comes from the navel.

Being hung up as he is, he doesn’t look down towards the ground, he looks forward without worrying about his situation. It seems that he is where he is by his own will, without resistance, without wanting to come down.

If he could speak, what would he say?
If I could ask him why he is there, what would he answer?
Was he at sometime in the past walking like any other man?
Did he climb up there for some reason and did he tie up his own foot?
And what is he doing there?
He doesn’t wait for anybody it seems.
And why does he have one leg folded and his arms at his back?
Are you the forbidden fruit of paradise?
If I were to stand in front of you and talk to you, where would I look, into your eyes or into your mouth?

The light that shines in you is a light that comes out of your head, but it’s a yellow light, as if it was lighting up your presence.

You appear to be a neutral being, neither good nor bad. You don’t smile, you don’t cry, you seem like a battery that is being charged.
How much longer are you going to be there charging?
And what will happen when you fall, will you feel that there is no further sense in living?

You will stop being what you are. Only hung up can you feel good, your feet don’t want to touch the ground.

You seem like the opposite of the crucified Jesus Christ. You are there without suffering, with your head facing down, alive and serene, without expecting anything.
Watching.

It is not in suffering that enlightenment is found.
It is in the other direction.

You are hung up and your blood runs from your feet to your head. In your head the energy accumulates and your folded leg has something to do with sexual energy. Perhaps you are holding it in with that foot, sending it from that place where it seeks to be released up to the head.

It appears that you have a certain kind of discipline to be there, straight, peaceful, and maintaining that strange position.

Love Song

You found me,

Alone,
With a camera,
Staring at the fields of train cars
and the colored boxes that sail the seas.

And I smiled at the clouds

You found me
And you saw me through the scratched glass
You saw me,
through the layers I had yet to scrub
There were doors
Heavy gates
Wooden posts and splinters

And with my camera
Staring at those buildings that passed
The signs
The espresso cup
that revolutionized the world

I saw you
Moving like a black haze through yellow lights
And woolen coats
and all those eyes that never looked

And that camera
The closed lens
The open lens that brought you
The stairs
The door
Open just a crack
That train, forever moving
Back and forth
Back and forth
Moving all of us

Moving me towards you
You towards me

And now the song plays
Now the tears flow like they never have
Now the song plays and the piano dances
And I wonder how
it could have ever been different
I never played
I never danced
I never sang
And now I play
And now I sing
And now I dance
Now there is music
Streaming right in
And your hands move
Through buttons and channels and
I listen
Dancing to your music
Watching as it flies towards me
in great gusts of red and blue
and black.

River

There is a woman with wide white shoulders. As a white bird soars across the field of her vision, her arms open as wide as they possibly can. She feels the pull of her muscles, straining under the weight of her will. She feels them, yet gives them no time. The radiance of her chest leaps out to meet the wind. She opens herself to the sun and moon. They linger, suspended next to each of her hands. Streaks of red clouds light the sky with a brilliant brush. Those long fibers of movement are the commandments of a civilization. Wisps of red move on the wind like ink in a glass of pure water. They move and move and move, there is no resting place for these long strokes of crimson. No place they will ever “be.” Their existence lays in the movement. Their life is the journey. From rain to ocean to sky. The cycle is the way, their process of being.
There is a woman with wide white shoulders and long dark hair. Long strands of black tangle behind her in the breeze. There comes a storm. There comes a fresh start. There comes a much needed fucking. Brilliant red clouds release their blood. A small spout opens up in the only way it knows how. The earth, without thought, without desire or disdain, the earth accepts the gift of the sky. It accepts what is given. It takes. Uses. Transforms.
There is a woman with a tangled mess of long dark hair. She stands upon the highest peak of the purple mountain. The earth below her is open. Open with fire, open with water. It is cracked and gushing. From the height of the mountain, she sees the river. The channel of blue that has carved itself into the porous land. It flows past the base of green and yellow peaks. It wraps itself along the edges of great boulders. Its existence is the movement, the process of constant flow and constant journey.

The river travels and moves up. It flows up the purple mountain, up and up until it reaches her feet. Then it disappears. At the tip of her toes it enters her, for she is the beginning and the end. The great blue river enters through her white toes. It travels past the muscles of her calves and the bones of her wide pelvis. Up and up, circling her chest, rising to her crown. She stands, an open vessel without thought. Without sentimentality or pride. She takes what comes through her. The water rises and at her peak, at the top of her head, the mist forms. Around her is a halo of blue mist. Pale vapors swirl like mini tornadoes and then they rise, higher and higher, into the great wide sky above.

Buried Treasure

It had drifted to them during the waning-hours of a beach party. Almost everyone had taken off, packing up their backpacks and heading back into the bright lights of the city. Only they had stayed because Kate insisted on beach-combing. Whenever they came to the water, she would take her little plastic bucket, one she had had since childhood and walk to the far ends of the beach. She would disappear for hours and come back with rocks and shells and things that most anyone would consider litter. Why she brought the lone sneaker, the lens-less sunglasses…he could never understand. He would just shake his head and laugh when she showed him her treasures. It was no surprise to him to find himself in the dim light of the setting sun, resting on a colorful beach towel and waiting for Kate. A wind blew in from the ocean, “a cold front,” he thought. He reached for his backpack to retrieve the hoodie inside.
“Max! Max!”
He looked up and to the north, running along the shore, small and white against the blue background of the ocean was Kate. He could see the white outline of her body in the even whiter bikini that came towards him. “I wonder what she found this time…” He got up, pulling the hoodie over his head. He started walking towards her.
“Max! Max! Look what I found.” She was carrying something large in one of her hands, the red plastic bucket was in the other. “Look,” she thrust an old bottle into his hands. It was worn and white. It was cold, cold from years of travelling the ocean currents.
“Wow, look at the glass, it’s all cloudy and milky-white, it must have been out there forever.,” he said with a slight hint of curiosity.
“Yeah, and you know, I think there’s something inside it, listen,” she held the bottle to his ear as she shook it slightly.
Max smiled slightly, “it’s like from a movie,”
He took the bottle from her hands, he gave it a little shake and then tried to unplug the cork. “ahh, I think it’s useless, the cork’s really in there, we’re gonna have to break it.”
“Oh, but the bottle is so pretty, I thought you’d be able to open it with some sort of tool.” Her eyes showed a bit of worry. This was her treasure, now he talked about destroying it.
“Well look, don’t you want to see what’s inside?”
She nodded her head.
“Well there’s a years worth of salt buildup along the cork, I’m not sure if I can get it out, if I push it in, it could destroy what’s inside. I think the only thing we can do is break it.”
“Really?” she said, still a little worried.
He nodded. He took her silence as consent and turned and started walking towards the cement bathrooms. There were lots of rocks near the bathrooms. He picked one that was slightly larger than his hand, he brought it down tentatively, striking the bottle. Nothing happened, the bottle was slick. He raised his hand higher, he brought it downward and closed his eyes upon impact. There was the sound of glass breaking.
“Max! you said you’d be careful!”
“It wasn’t going to work any other way, it needed some force.”
He carefully reached his finger among the pile of creamy-white broken glass. There was a small tube, a tube of paper. He brought his thumb and index finger to the edge of the paper and pulled it out, shaking the paper gently and letting the glass shards fall.
“Made a little mess,” he said with a devilish smile.
Kate shook her head, “you like destroying things, don’t you?”
He smiled. They turned their attention to the paper. Their fingers fumbled together as they tried to un-scroll it. “It’s a map,” she said in disbelief.

Three months ago they had found the map, and now they were here, tromping along the south side of Tikam-sui, a small island in the Sampui Republic, which was really a collection of a dozen small islands in the South Pacific. The map had taken a hold of them, like a plague of the imagination.
“What if it’s really true?” Kate would wonder at night. “What if it was the last message sent from a sinking ship? What if a defector made a map and threw it overboard in the middle of the night?”
They came up with dozens of stories, they wanted it to be true. And now they were here, animated creatures following the lines of the map, looking for the buried treasure. Was it jewels that the map promised? There was no picture of a treasure box on the map, nothing that overt. But there were complicated lines indicating the ocean currents and this was the modern-day nation that the lines all pointed to. This was the place with the “X.” The “X” that promised nothing but mystery.
“So…I’m not sure how the topography has changed since the map was made, but if it’s still slightly close, then we’re on the right side of the island. This beach is big, how the hell are we supposed to find it? Whatever it is?” Max wondered out loud.
Kate shook her head, “just pick a place and start digging,” she said. “But you know,” she added, “don’t try to use your head, just walk ‘til it feels good and then start digging.”
They held the map between them, four hands held the corners open in the light of the setting sun.
“Well, we should probably make a nice fire and carve out a place to sleep…maybe eat some chocolate…we can start looking tomorrow, soon as the sun rises.”

They slept among a sparkling blanket of stars. They were at least a thousand miles away from any big-city noise and neon signs, here the night lights came out from hiding, they showed themselves to wondrous eyes in unabashed openness. Max and Kate lay together, in the double sleeping bag they had brought.
She nestled her head against his chest, “I can’t believe this all exists, it’s too beautiful.”

The sun came up against a layer of sinewy blue clouds that burned away quickly.
“Ok, remember, pick a place with your body, not your head,” Kate said with more confidence than she felt.
Max nodded. They each started walking, in slightly parallel lines and then, after a couple of steps, they diverged. Kate walked for forty more steps, then sunk to her knees and started digging with her small metal shovel. She dug until the sun was high overhead and her stomach was rumbling. She climbed out of the sandy hole and went to look for Max. She walked down the beach half a mile and saw three holes that were close together, each was a couple of feet deep. He was shoveling into the third hole.
“Ready for lunch?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, looking up and squinting, there was sand stuck to his cheeks. “You know, this is gonna be a big job.”
She nodded. “How come there are three different holes?”
“Well, I started and then, obviously, didn’t find anything, so I started digging in another spot.”
She nodded, vague memories rushed to her of all the things Max started and then stopped. The two hours of guitar lessons, the two weeks of Karate, the single lesson of sculpture. Nothing held his interest too long. She imagined a beach pocked with a thousand knee-high holes.
“I’m still working on mine, it’s pretty deep,” she said. “Cool, different styles, I guess.”

They ate their lunch and returned to their respective places on the beach. At night, they returned to their camp and made a fire and held each other in the soft confines of their sleeping bag.
“This is gonna be a lot of work,” Max said as he drifted to dreamland.
Kate knew Max would never find it, the mysterious “X.” He just never went far enough, he always stayed at the surface, giving up before making a committed effort. The only thing she had ever seen him commit to was her. She smiled a little and kissed his sleeping forehead. She thought to herself, “if there is anything here, it’s sure to be buried deep. Anything worth hiding is worth hiding well. They would have hid it thinking ahead, thinking of storms, of the ever-present sea, of the coming years, without the certain truth they would ever come back. Whatever it is, it is probably buried very deep.”

The next morning the sound of a small bird awoke them. It spoke in the rhythmic intervals of a metronome. Somewhere in the thicket of tropical trees behind them, a chorus of little birds answered.
“Time to get up,” Max said, kissing Kate on the forehead.
“Let’s find the mystery…” she said with sleepy eyes.
“You want to come over to my side of the beach to help me?” Max asked.
“No, I want to really make sure that it’s not there, or make sure it is. Either way, I need to keep digging.”
Max shrugged.

They dug for hours, they dug for days. The days turned into a week, the week transformed, moving out of the regimented intervals they had grown accustomed to. As she had seen with her mind’s eye, Max had indeed dug a hundred small holes over the beach. Time only had two designations for them now, light and dark. They dug when it was light, they made love when the sun moved away from them. Each morning, Kate went back to the same large hole she had started with. The one her heart had chosen. With each movement of her shovel, she thought of something precious she would want to hide and protect, she thought of how deep she would have struggled to protect it from unworthy hands. There was nothing else to do. There was the sun, the beach, the sand and the work. Sweat ran down her forehead as she came to realize that nothing else truly mattered anymore.

Adoration

The white spaces between words
pulse with heat

they melt into moans of adoration
shouting with their force
screaming their silent vowels of seduction.
The electrical flow rebounds
and moves in,
adjusting
to mounds of flesh,
molding itself from love
grinding itself into compassion.
Emotion tumbles like a gentle river of blood
moving with grace
though its many flaws,
winding its way past white bones of identity
it searches for the true self
it seeks the silent light that hides in shadows,
the attentive stare that watches with no eyes,
the lover that cries without tears.
Love is consumptive,
it spreads with the force of a wild fire,
crackling
and breaking sticks in its paths
winding around the mountain like a ring from hell.
Sparks break free and rise to the night,
the ceremony of adoration is complete
and breaks through
the white between worlds.

The Fire

The fire comes in the night, but this fire is not the kind with orange flames that bite or the flickering light with blue tips that seeks out flesh and wood and hair to eat. This fire is a storm of the mind. A rampage of heat and sparks where surely every firefighter in the state would rush to with their hoses drawn and their red hats glistening under the moon, if only their sirens would blare, if only the operators were alerted and the trucks sent on their way, if only they could feel her inner heat, the inner flames, the house consumed and crumbling, the tall-as-tree flames that course through her body like a forest fire without limits, as though the wind itself where the conspirator, the ally of the wild with only one goal, the hope for conquest, land, and blackened earth. The flames move to devour, to travel far and wide, before the helicopters come with their retardant powders, before the husky men show up with hard cocks and heavy jackets. And she wishes she could rely on some saviors in hardhats, but all that comes is the sound of owl wings bating in the night and the tree leaves that rustle in the glory of minute feathered vibrations.
Beneath lenses of red and orange, she watches the black cloaked trees. The floor under her feet is cold, and as she stands, staring out the tall window beside her bed, she simultaneously soaks in the silence of the night and hears the crinkling of flesh turning to ash. The tree limbs sway softly in the cold hours before dawn. She, in her long white nightgown, she looks out the open blinds, as though watching a lit spectacle, the flames inside cover the irises of her eyeballs and even though she stands perfectly still, her body stiff as a statue, inside she is ablaze, watching the forest outside like a prisoner watches cars speeding past a barred window.
The thought jabs, she feels it prickling the stillness of her pose. She feels the knife poking through the flames. Cutting through the moving blades of red, orange, and blue. Like thunder in the middle of a calm night, she looks to her right, to the man asleep on the bed, his arms cradling a soft pillow. She looks at him, at the only home she knows, the castle comprised of human flesh, the guardian of her life. He is without armor, without a metal helmet or even a sword by his side. He sleeps, unguarded, his thoughts lost in a dream of sugar and death, watching as flowers blossom into stiff armies advancing upon the gates of a desert. He, her home. Softly breathing, his heat almost strong enough to arm her cold feet and chilled shoulders.
And the thunder roars, and it rips her attention, takes it from his sleeping body and she turns again to the dark night, just outside the thin pane of glass and just beyond her hands’ ability to reach. Like a jab to her love, her eyes wander to the branches, swaying to unfelt wind that began in the arctic, began while they were still sunbathing and barbecuing. Her body feels the cold, her feet are numb against the wooden floor, but still, inside, it comes and the flames stay with her. Her body is cold and shivering, soon, it may collapse beneath the strain, but the fire inside mounts, the flames in her heart crackle in the night.

Quiet Afternoon

The young boy looked out the window, spreading the thick heavy curtains open with his sweaty palms, looking past the little balcony and out onto the building parking lot and the street beyond, for the second or third time that afternoon. It was sunny outside, just the perfect day to take the bicycle out and ride around the park like he used to do. But that would involve pulling the bike into the house, from the balcony where it sat, walking it through the living room, walking it out of the apartment while holding the door open, making sure the front door was closed tightly and double locked, walking to the little elevator and riding it all the way down to the street level, which was only two floors below, then walking it to the sidewalk and then finally sitting on it and beginning to ride, then he would have to do the whole process in reverse when he came back and maybe somewhere in there he would have to call his mother to let her know that he was going out, or that he would be back soon, or that he was ok, or something, just anything to record in her voice mail in case she checked it before he came back, which was probably unlikely, but he would have to do it, just in case. The thought of riding around, out there in the wide open green and brown park, seemed like a distant promise, something that could happen in other days, maybe in the past, maybe in the future, just not something that happened today, because today he walked back to the couch and turned on the TV with the remote control, and sipped at the large glass full of Coke on the side table and glanced sideways at the books on the little bookshelf his father had given him so many years ago, back when things seemed newer and sunny days were precious and unique. Maybe he could read today, and maybe then he would be someone else, somewhere else, in India, in the desert, in the mountains, in outer space, in the depths of an ancient castle, in a dark forest, anywhere but here, just a block away from the park, the green and brown park which spread like a living labyrinth away from his window, now once again covered by heavy curtains which only barely moved with the breeze.
But that one block was just too far, the effort involved seemed too insurmountable, and right this very moment, on the TV screen, there were some women dancing in short skirts to a loud thumping music full of bass and guttural grunts, and the park was even further away and the TV screen was right here, right in front of his eyes. He looked up at the clock to make sure his mother wouldn’t be arriving any time soon. He unzipped his pants and pulled them down slightly and he started to masturbate slowly as he watched the women dancing to the syncopated beat. Sometimes the camera would zoom underneath them and he could almost see their panties and their ass cheeks or just higher up their full smooth thighs and in one of those moments of close revelation, when it seemed that a particular girl was just too beautiful for his mind to comprehend, he started to orgasm and he had to stand up to make sure he didn’t stain his own pants, and the warm semen fell all over the dark rug, in tiny white drops that mostly disappeared into the rug’s thick texture. Soon, sooner than expected, the moment of ecstasy was over and he shrugged his shoulders and then pulled up his pants and buttoned them up, and he went to the kitchen to get a paper towel and he came back and cleaned the small mess on the rug. On the TV screen, the women were still dancing, as intensely as they had before. He felt like maybe he could masturbate again, and reach that fleeting moment of blind joy once again, and let it wash over him like a wave of silence that took away the endless white noise of the quiet apartment.
He walked once more towards the curtains and stared for a moment at the bike that rested against the metal bars of the balcony and he thought that it really was a perfect day to go out and ride but now it was too late, now the afternoon was getting old and he was feeling very tired, maybe if he hadn’t masturbated, then maybe he would have gone out, maybe just a moment ago it was still possible to open the glass doors and bring out the bike, but now the time for that had definitely passed and there was no way to recover it. So he walked back to the couch and sipped at the coke some more and soon he had unzipped his pants once again, thinking that he might as well, since he definitely was not going out, not anymore, and maybe he could read afterwards, and the women kept on dancing, and one of them stared at the camera in a way that made the boy picture her mouth right around his penis and he could only barely imagine how good that would feel. In a flash of pleasure, he exploded once again, and there was a lot less sperm this time, but he still stood up and he still cleaned it afterwards, at least as much as he could. Then he turned off the TV for a moment and he walked to the bookshelf and grabbed a book at random, and it was one that he had started to read several months ago, but he had never finished, in fact, he never got past the first chapter, so he brought it to the couch and leaned back and started to read. The first paragraph was good and then there was some description and then a bit of dialogue and it was all good but he was getting sleepy and the words were starting to dance before his eyes. His eyes closed and he let the book fall on his chest and that’s where he found it, a few hours later, when he woke up. He stood up, put the book away and walked back to the glass doors of the balcony and stared at the bicycle leaning against the rail, and out at the sunlit afternoon that was already getting very cool and very dark, and he knew that now it was definitely too late and maybe he could have still gone after the first time he had masturbated and maybe then he would have had enough strength but now it was definitely too late, and it was getting too cold and dark to be out riding around, and in a couple of hours his mom would be home and then he would eat and soon it would be time to sleep. Maybe another afternoon like this, maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, maybe in a moment of clear decision in a day that wasn’t so quiet, or so noisy, or so gray, or so bright, maybe he would open the curtains early, and see the bicycle outside and maybe he would go out and ride and let the sun shower him with golden warmth and maybe then he would not even call his mother because there was no need to, since she wouldn’t hear his message anyway, and then the shower of ecstasy would last for hours, and it would soak into his flesh and deep into his dreams, like invisible tentacles of heat that reach into places of unsuspected depth. Maybe that would happen soon. But today it was too late. He pulled the thick heavy curtains closed and he came back to the couch and turned on the TV with the remote control. New women were dancing, with even shorter skirts, but the song sounded the same. He looked up at the clock to see how soon his mother would be home. Maybe there was still time for another flash of blinding pleasure. It was too late to go out anyway.

A Couple On The Edge

The woman looked into the man’s eyes, feeling the desire in them, the need in them, their vibrant burning state of unsatisfied possibility. She was on her knees on the wet grass, just a few feet away from the concrete path that made its way around the lake. Her body was bent forward, so that her breasts and her shoulders were only inches from the man’s chest. She wore a loose beige sleeveless top, tied together with slim brown cords that left most of her belly exposed, along with her shoulders and her arms. Her pants were a light maroon with black adornments, slim cords and ruffles. They were very tight and they had open circular holes where the flesh of her tanned legs was exposed and outlined to create a clear contrast to the maroon fabric. As she leaned forward, the pants were pulled back, exposing the full round mounds of her wide buttocks, left completely uncovered by a thin white thong that ran up from the edge of the pants to the bony edge of her spine. Her hair was curly and wild, and it fell in great waves of blackness over her face and onto the man’s shoulders and head. She wore no shoes and the soles of her feet were very white and they reflected the light of the sun like tiny mirrors of pink flesh.
The man was laying on his side, his legs together and pulled up. He was wearing long light brown shorts that extended down to his knees butt left his hairy lower legs exposed. His shirt was tie dyed and it hung loose around his arms, pulled up and leaving his hairy belly out in the open. He had a short trimmed beard and long dirty blonde hair, tied in a loose pony tail. His face was turned upwards towards the woman, protected from the sun by her intimate shadow. His knees were bent and oscillated back and forth on the wet surface of grass and soil.
Just above them, on the concrete path and on the muddy shore of the lake, a group of little girls was having a party and the couple could hear the high squeals of celebration and the urgent requests for cake and more cake. Cars passed by every so often, moving slowly around the curve that led to the little parking lot behind the wooden building at the edge of the water, where the boats were rented and people ate candy and ice cream. There were several tall trees that towered over the couple like giant guardians that looked down upon them in quiet and solemn approval. The breeze passed through the branches, making them tremble, and dry leaves fell in graceful dances of death every few minutes, choosing this gentle afternoon to end their quiet lives. The branches of the tall trees were not long enough to create a full shadow over the couple, so the sunlight from the south fell on them directly like a ray of liquid light that covered them in a thin layer of shiny sweat.
Their faces were close together and their eyes were glued upon each other, forming an invisible sphere of stillness and silence that simply willed away all extraneous sounds and movement, leaving them pressed together in a warm loose embrace of sunlight, open, vulnerable, sweaty and alone. The woman’s lips came down to his and there they stayed for a moment. The man reached up and pressed his mouth onto hers. She responded by opening her mouth a bit further, kissing him with a lightness that could barely hide the intensity that roamed through her skin like tiny flares exploding on the hot surface of her solar body. Her body moved forward and she pressed into him more tightly, her breasts lightly touching his arm.
Then she pulled back her mouth and he smiled slightly and she smiled as well, in a subtle message of understanding and common aim. She moved sideways along his face and kissed his cheek and the edge of his ear. The man sighed with pleasure and his right arm reached up to caress her naked shoulder. She extended her tongue and drew a narrow line of saliva from his ear to the edge of his mouth. Then she kissed his lips again and he responded by raising his body from the grass and curling his fingers tightly around her shoulder. She licked at his lower lip and let the tip of her tongue travel down to his chin where she drew little circles at the edge of his beard. He pulled himself up slightly and ran his left hand over her lower back, feeling the protruding vertebrae as they traveled down to the edge of her slim underwear. Her tongue made its way back to his mouth and there it met his tongue, and they licked each other in slim caresses of saliva, flesh and hunger.
She pulled up and away once again, her eyes like narrow slits as she looked down at his chest and his exposed belly. She slid down the grass and licked at the hairy flesh around his belly button. His stomach responded by shaking with soft laughter and his left hand traveled to the back of her neck, feeling the soft skin under the back of her head. His hand then traveled into the wildness of her curly hair, trailing the edges of soft blackness between his extended fingers. Her breasts were now pressed against his thigh and her tongue was drawing wider circles around his belly button, reaching down to the edge of his pants. Her hands caressed at the sides of his torso and he turned onto his back, his knees raised and slightly apart. She pulled up her body over him and kissed his upper abdomen, pulling up his shirt to feel his naked skin against her lips, and he responded by lifting his lower body towards her, pressing his growing erection against the side of her chest. She looked up at him and smiled full of lust and pleasure and he responded with a full smile of his own. She pulled her whole body over his and came to rest on top of him, straddling his stomach with her crotch, pressing her breasts against his chest and leaning over his face, to lick once again at his lips. He draped his arms around her and pulled her tight into him, as if he could swallow her whole body into his. She offered no resistance and their tongues intertwined once again in the shared space between their lips and in the strange wet open wound of their hungry mouths. She slid down his body softly, feeling his erection pressing up against her crotch, sliding back and forth over it, ever so slowly, ever so subtly. He pulled on her again and their faces were like one as they both closed their eyes, swimming in a vastness of clouds of color against oceans of black.
She slid off to the side and once again she was on her knees, pressing up against his side, kissing his cheek and licking at his right ear. She could taste the salty texture of his sweat like a gift of vulnerable softness that escaped from his rough male skin. She relished it and licked further up to his temple and up to his forehead while his hands caressed the softness of her tanned brown shoulders and her smooth moist neck. She slid down and wiggled her whole body against his and he laughed and held her face between his hands and kissed her fully on the lips again and she kissed him back, both of them laughing as their tongues made circles around each other.
The lake was only a few feet away and their hot skin yearned for the cool touch of soothing water and caressing waves. Their van was a few feet away in the other direction and their hot skin yearned for the welcoming embrace of its darkness and the sealed finality of its locked doors and walls. But they were now a couple on the edge, on the edge of release, on the edge of madness, on the edge of a cliff that fell onto the dark shadows of sleep, of sensibility and carefulness, of thoughts of other people and their possible reactions, of the past and the future, of consequences and causes, of reasons, of faults and of blame.
Here on the edge there was no such thing. They floated gently together on a bubble of potential and every move they made lifted them higher onto clouds of possibility. Flying together as they were, there was no need for finality, there was no need for release. The cooling kisses of the water could wait, the closed doors and darkness could wait. Here on the edge was the dance that had no purpose, the song that had no cadence, the poem that held no hidden meaning, the kiss that had no end. Their bodies would shift and slide and vibrate and sigh on the edge for as long as they could manage, maybe another minute, maybe ten, maybe even an hour. Eventually their bodies would surrender and they would stumble over the edge like dry leaves falling to their death on a warm afternoon. But for now, they would fly together, a kiss here, a touch there, a gentle drawing of circles with the salty substance of life over eager pink skin. For now, they would dance on the edge, just a little longer.