(3) 120501 08:08

virginity returns supine
Annie cradled between head and shoulder
exhausted from Mouse a game we play before slumber
fingers creeping beneath the sheet blanket duvet clawed she pounces
enticing times to gnaw with kisses that is if i don't flinch then bleed laughing hilariously
sleep inseminated by dreams, images, symbols, omens and portents, the runes and ruination of heart’s shred returned unscarred reprise childhood innocence screaming steam locomotive and diesel horns blat cars rattling late on farther the moon glowing upon river silent punctuated by fish breaching or the quite splash of paddle wheels then now hum of towboat pushing barges like the cars rattle upon tracks moving past the dominion of death’s fear there is no end only blossoming in speckle the seed of me in her as she swam the height width breadth depth of Ohio’s stream to the tracks in Kentucky crossed by slaves bearing children born in captivity the way back Att’a Boy Att’a Girl summer stock afloat self propelled another carnival of delight seeking finding strings following threads to pearls downward cleavage to suckle nurtured mammalians
Ripley nights
slept echo
never fled
i
am
gossamer word web suspend

120501 10:33 “Inch by inch I conquered the inner terrain I was born with. Bit by bit I reclaimed the swamp in which I'd languished. I gave birth to my infinite being, but I had to wrench myself out of me with forceps.”
 ― Fernando Pessoa {annotated to demonstrate the interaction between self and The All: possible}

. . . it doesn’t matter what you call god if it does no harm, seek and ye shall find (be found) . . . the call answered a truth greater than ‘God’. Should, could, would, may, can i so touch the magnificence inherent in you, all, we as i then seek within The Author of Everything sans Institutional reference or boundaries.

--Ferdinand Foch
"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire."

photo caption: carina nebula:
A mountain of dust and gas rising in the Carina Nebula. The top of a three-light-year tall pillar of cool hydrogen is being worn away by the radiation of nearby stars, while stars within the pillar unleash jets of gas that stream from the peaks.

Job 31:32 "but no stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveler--" the image is not mine, stolen since it is fine. No. Best Blest.

120501 05:04
    Bully i was in youth for my name. During infancy I knew Hitler as a clarinet player, Joe I think, maybe Carl.
    Preceded through elementary school by Jack Frost I was frequently referred to, at first, as he not me. It is impossible among the literate, this shrinking minority oppressed by dreck and thought police, having the sir name Spratt not to be called Jack. Which is not a Christian name but a ‘nickname’ for Jacob or John. Pardon me while I weep for the what seems implicit in “John” the one Jesus said would remain.
    Oh well.
    Regrets I have for my behavior, not guilt or shame since like anger and fear, either, any or all: burdens too great to carry far in life. Worse to be so is to become possessed by them. Defining myself as other than a bully has been to acquire largess my father did not possess, at least as he would describe those who quoted, from “An Alphabet of Old Friends” what became both a Nursery Rhyme and political slander during the Tammany Hall days . . . he thought them idiots.
    Specifically. Indelibly. In a closed loop, replayed once-in-while, perchance too often, is the red headed boy whose two arms I broke in a hammer lock for his jabberer of me. Then my eternal memory the discovery he was adopted and weak regarding his own identity. In another moment of uncontrolled ferocity exploding, not for the same name calling and ridicule, I picked up a peer above my head and threw him to the ground. And wonder still as I wander towards death his consequent life afterwards. Broken? On the alter of my rage.
    Born in Cincinnati, swiftly moved to St. Louis during the beginnings of World War II the name Wolfgang Amadeus was pondered as to Germanic to use, the latter, from Latin love + god. After Mozart of course, thankfully it wasn't Jelly Roll, Satchmo or any of the other musicians and/or composers my life was suffused with then, and only now in private since I weep and dance crying for joy uncontrollable.
    The cat became Mozart and my crib partner.
    Of the many names for God I no favorites and while greeting the day, living it, internally prostrate in awe reverent.
    Faith is experience, belief is idea. . . . or thought/conceit?
    It is oddly wonderful, this writing business, since for me, though I don’t know how to do it, am presented with as many directions I could go--as in from ‘here’--as there are stars. Abiding internally is the knowing that “Christ” was applied afterwards and Jesus was is a friend brother perhaps we all are children of God? And in some sense must be the messiah to our selves, souls, what ever moves us through things that go bump in the night of our terror.
    What name does God give this tiny speck circling infinity, our nest befouled by greed upon which we reside tenant?
    Or we whose given names are a prayer of intention?

An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me...It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, pride and superiority. The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside of you and every other person too." --Cherokee

. . . savage? no. barbarians; we
spreading still a school for terrorism our National Church The Federal Reserve

obverse vision mirror like reflecting backwards intercourse between i eye aye sir
object subject conjunction confluence collide begetting one or the other 

120429 13:12

120429 07:29
    Vast as consciousness may become is superseded by infinity and the origin of itself. Otherwise, for me, this life is Hell as in wasteland--a toxic dump.
"Man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" --Robert Browning
    Fear constrains us now as a psychological gulag or a stalag of consumption. Our lives expended for the shepherds of greed. The midway events of which are announced by carnival barkers shouting/screaming doom unless you do as I say not as I do . . . Peter & The Wolf . . . ate him eventually.
    Momentarily my sense is that I am a stylus upon something so vast that metaphors: a grain of sand or dust mote seem in compare terrifyingly overwhelming.
    Yet in this time and place, considering human history, all that is known, becoming and discovered, there is more. We collectively are like the life span of a fruit fly compared to the nest, our once pretty blue and while marble following and orderly course ancient before time was a thought . . .
“Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.” --Robert Frost
    My point dear friend, is that if you know how to die you will learn the value of life . . . love is a power and force that will vanquish everything eventually.
“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.” --Oscar Wilde
    . . . have i learned nothing save that ‘man’ equals Self/Soul/without gender?
    I’ve often thought, and still think, St. Francis’s recommendation to embrace a leaper meant me. Self acceptance opens horizons beyond the far one we see.

 12428 07:08
In passing . . .
    I remarked astonishment at the number of people I know, who as children had been raped; in most instances, by their parents.
    She raised her hand, two fingers parallel, pointing upward, emerald eyes, steady in gaze unsmiling. Our now reconciled lexicon equivalent are: sexual/emotional abuse.
    Violation is not exclusively physical it is also emotional. Extreme ideals, perceptions, prejudicial conclusions and interpretations lead to extreme aggression. To correct misbehavior assertion seems more appropriate, especially when using “I” messages versus ‘YOU!” for opening negotiation.
    Another friend who, unaccountably like me, garners intimacies unsolicited. While at a topless bar he said; “Most of the girls here were abused by their fathers. Sadly I know too many men with a comparable history.
    Proverbs 13:24 is open to interpretation. Judging by the generation preceding mine, it seems that a literal conclusion was drawn and applied. By penis, stick, fist, or in cases of what we now call ADHD: Ritalin. The consequences of either, or all of the above, are to inflect a lifetime of hurt--self-perpetrating. I am especially concerned at the current accusation of desertion or malingering applied to soldiers with PTSD trauma. Were the solution to this problem a new weapons system, no expense would be spared. With sorrow I hear the position taken by those in authority to accuse, judge and condemn the victim as a coward. . . . And it is not uncommon for the conviction to be make by, and at, vast remove from the cause.
    The Rod can equally be understood as device used to measure the distance or length of things. Think, please, of scepter and crown. In any and all cases it’s use in any regard should be considered after a time-out, lengthy soul searching and mercy for both the punisher and the punished . . . or simply being held accountable for disruptions.
    Measuring the runes and ruins of my life, now forgiven and healed, I remember best the worst punishment of all: silence. I am reminded of a friend whose father used her sexually first at six. By the age twelve when, she sought his attention in the only manor of affection he ever paid her, she was abandoned to silence. In her lifelong quest for love she always sought “BAD BOYS”. . . . And it is not she alone, for I spent a few long moments in the cell with a woman who’d burned her husband alive. She didn’t say a word to prove her innocence of the conviction, a lifetime imprisoned.
    It is usually around the age of forty that we begin to feel, regardless of any other measure “success” is not enough to hide the distress fearing another forty feeling distempered. Women reach this apogee sooner than men since they mature early and out pace us, we men, ad infinitum.
    If you are mentally ill, or think you are, or suffering in silence the humiliation of abuse, it is a good time, getting better, to be so. My transparency and potentially “inappropriate” self-revelation, once was seen as indicative, a diagnostic,  of being bipolar--manic depressive. Acquisition cost me tens of thousands of dollars in medication. In retrospect; alternative remedy is available through self-investigation and lasting healing, is within your grasp.
    I sift through the hair suit of my life and discover choices I regret triggered by the simplest thing, an attempt to do penance for a crime I, at twelve, did not commit against my sister. She equally maligned at six. The result was and endless effort to acquire acceptance and love set upon hair-triggered bear trap snapping shut at any sign of disapproval. I was wired that way disembodied slavery as a victim or runaway.
    I advocate for you. What I write is a faltering attempt to sell you the best franchise of all: yourself.

120429 04:13
    Teachers who taught me best remembered, none definitive remain, yet she who ran bare foot at 11 emerald eyes seeking peaches and pears, for her persistence to encourage the deconstruction of self-contempt. Not me alone, thank The All, for such a work of art, and force of nature, it would be criminal to constrain, sequester, hoard or hide.
    Seen across the dog watch sea, a match struck glimmering become no scintillation but creation itself a shadowless light blinding amazement. The sea of loathing evaporated.
    Those who also saw an investment I can never repay though none was is expected. Taught the color of freedom saffron plumed. A Phoenix arising against restraints rent. Again, round and round about, to see those who cared as equally awesome more for their origins than their fact. Taught not the what but the why derived from only that we are unique, precious beyond the value of all measure. To be enabled passing along the gem an unfolding of more. A cosmology of no cat’s eye marbles, or pearls, so much as a milky way of them without boundaries.
    Dark mortality  be not vain.
    . . . love’s labor never deadly creating a world we would gladly give & leave behind

Candy
i should call her
after the first 2 pennies found and delivered upon the cold marble countertop of a Candy Store
like buttons endless in variety and leading beyond my childhood sight into the dark
my face reflected slavering in glass which would satisfy my hunger?
how to choose just one
all i could afford
being four
&
like she
of emerald eye
i soar ever upward in astonishment
her name is more mysterious, metaphysical, mystical
unutterable manifold like all those of God
To Have, and Have Not
in the meantime ladies and gents
Step this way
a feast
on http://www.brainpickings.org/
i can’t send them money
but give em’ a plug
120424 0444

120422 20:21d
    Never in winter, there, remembered. Save the one aside a kerosene heater, naked in a copper washtub. Abandoned at five. She on her knees hands washing me, the whispering heat hissing. Christmas?
    No.
    Forever afterward--always summer.
    Out of school, into the Packard buried under trunks, crumpled on the back seat. Or in a bus. Or trains. New York so hot it sucked off my shoes crossing tarmac to a terminal darkly looming . Pennsylvania mountain crossing, air conditioning broken; a tag upon my shirt, ‘Do This If Lost.’
    Or ‘Found?’
    Alone.
    My maternal grandmother’s house, an imposing edifice. Red painted brick and white trim. Second Street, National Highway  Route 52,  passing through the night village in rain; truck tires whooshing. Upscale for that end of town closest to Cincinnati.  Same distance as the designator showing the way up river from the Mississippi leading southerly into a starry night sea. Heart quickened in sweet agony approach knowing the inevitable annual divorce. Snatched back hurled forward again.
    Barefoot or in shoes. “Get ‘um quick, slip in the screen door quiet like.” Stomping in the dark. She’d reach in, turn on the kitchen light; beneath my feet cock roaches scurried. Our excursions were seldom ended in darkness. Except for prayer meetings Wednesday nights in the 12 over 12 Methodist Church faintly illume with bug lights snaking from the dark above.
    Upon the pew back enthroned.
    “GET DOWN!” Stage whispered she!
    “no”
    I fell off thumping resonant in the gloom echoing through the nearly empty plain windowed sanctuary. She, leaning over my prostrate form, forming the fatal word, spelling “I’m going to ‘M_U_R_D_E_R’ . . . There was no ‘you’ just her crooked forefinger like mine, then and now, pointed between shocked eyes glazed upward.
    That night I danced circles around her chanting, terrified what was to come upon arrival her home; “Oh Mama Lu I love you” over and over all the three blocks way; my execution site, darkly silent awaiting, our arrival. light turned on, she laughed and holding my shoulders, no higher than somewhere between her knees and waist, she boxing, like paint mixing back and forth between cans, pouring her love in my face smiling. I was King once more, the only male child of her body in a generation of women.
    Married at thirteen, she the last in a family of eight with seven brothers ‘farmed out.’ The father dead from cancer. The farm hand married and took her. First birth at fourteen, second at nineteen--my mother. Fatherless at four she’d say only he died in a hunting accident.
    Later inquisition, of all seven brothers, indicated it was a shotgun wound to the groin taking twenty days to bleed out, self-inflicted. Perry Hill was otherwise a circuit riding Methodist Minister and an expert hunter.
    There was a darkness shrouding my childhood. Not only the imagined nakedly snow covered stubble field flecked red beneath the barbed wire fence shot gun rested against my grandfather slumped. My beloved son would die on the same date: December 10th later on.
    Unspoken legend: to survive Christmas assured another year of life to face other sudden departures.
    There were others there, in Ripley, Ohio, death taken, accident, shot, fallen, mysteriously. Children roughed, men somber women with flowers. Wakes open caskets. Small wonder I wander stone gardens of memorials for peace in perpetual communion. Here, now, Las Cruces, New Mexico, finally home, the cemeteries littered with memorial toys; tiny forms sleeping beneath. Special is this boarder place melding  melting cultures. Christ Crucified  limp in anguish scourged; dripping blood. Not triumphant robed in glory resurrected. Both traditions reside here birth, life, death, life renewed.
120424 04:07 final-final