Shortness of Breath

Built up breath stopped short not LET go from the get-go asthma stopped me speaking. Condemned instead to reading, writing. Earlier even than that (just) drawing, dreaming hoping (but) not screaming. Reams of paper computer-printed out brought home by Abba on which for me to work my feelings out.

Lady Ice

Almost half a pint of frozen cream stirred in with dreamy things sits patiently in my way-too-cold freezer. Undaunted, this icy cream maintains herself with dignity. The delicacy of flavours await awakening, pierced through by the heat of my tongue which will bring us both together, alive and alert in sweet summer surrender.

Not-So-Empty Sky

Outside of myself, in this whole wide deep chasm of a world I find nothing. Pure nothing, which I love. Sometimes it turns to something, crushing me. I have to turn on my own nothing, making it something. I have to super-nova myself back into existence. My world is worlds of stars shining, birthing, burning out. Glowing inwards, glowing out.

Unplugged.

Four-track, twelve-string, first day of nineties. Two in intensive care, one stares into the air, three-hundred people at a funeral after four days in coma. How many plugs unplugged? Zero pictures worth MBZillions of words. Nano-seconds, light-speed -- carried right out of this world. To how many ashes was your body reduced? One covered jar buried deep in the Earth. Pushin' up daisies, for what it's worth.

Acknowledge The Edge; Act Now, No Ledge, Hedge.

He knows I know he knows things that I don't know and because he knows I know he knows things that I don't know and wish to learn he chose to go because he knows I can't say "no" to knowledge, especially that which I feel I've earned. So, tonight when we all drove right by his work as he was counting out cash, cashing out, getting out just about done when we pulled up and past that window I know so well I chose silence and not to wave, chose not to love to be enslaved even if I saw him before us on the pavement walking towards bus-stop, home. Alone.

Inky-Smoky Blackened Gate

Hovering, unwaveringly BLACK cloud of death descended upon me during 4 days of exed-out boyfriend in a coma drawn out into 14 years of freeze-frame snap-shot sound-bite purgatory-hell. Black sumi ink the gateway, thick Raku smoke the evidence of another world beyond, within this one.

Shabbat-Way To Nature-Closeness-Achievement

Time now is Saturday night, official start of the Jewish week. Stars have emerged in the skies to start clock-ticking, worldly temporal time-keeping, profanity, everydayness...regularity, work. In our lives we tend as humans to control much. Shabbat by contrast is a time to let go and allow the body to folow its own natural rhythms. Without effort they bring us in touch with eternal and earthly sources. This beauty and sensitivity becomes more and more necessary, profound with each passing second in this time of so much crammed into every tiny crevice of our individual and collective consciounesses. Memories of computer and human brains surge to over-capacity, need to be reduced in every possible way. Setting aside one seventh of the week to reduce to essence our very selves is doing a favour for more than only oneself; this space of quietude and relative inactivity becomes a service which flows out first to those closest and sound wave by sound wave, farthest from the practitioner of the ancient, sacred, holy practice of Shabbat.

Rest-Possibilities

I want to lead you, all of you -- both Y'ALL and every part of who you are -- into a dark, SAFE place not at all far from where we are now. It's just UNDER your skin I want to SING you in like the Pied Piper stealing the children ONLY I am not fooling anyone nor asking for ransom. I just want to HANG OUT while you all lay about, relaxing. Excitation expanding, excitement unnecessary. Sleep deep. I will sit SENTRY for centuries: cooking enveloping massaging warm oil into your thirsty top layer. Slide down -- hot lava contracting, retracting, cooling back down along canals created by your own old eruptions. LET the emotions underflow, GO back into storage. This too-narrow pathway falls away, gives way to a brand NEW way, embracing effortlessness that is NOT without tension. It is direction opposite to a pointing arrow. It is your navel -- the only part of your body which leads SO directly IN and OUT at the same time. Slipping, sliding, your own dream-nature abiding. Want to be Citizens of Mystery? Fear is a DRIVE to stay alive. Unafraid of DEATH, delving into your DARK side, there is no need to hide. COME with me. NOW, stay. Right here. THIS is where we become CLEAR.

a beginning

What am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to say? I remember very well, remember very well that day.... Sitting with Natalie on the mountain-top of Lama in New Mexico where rain collects before it d r o p p s, P l o p, p l o p, p l o p! She'd said: Never let the hand stop moving; writing is like sex, always improving. Years after reading her book, only one instruction stuck with me: free-writing, the zen of poetry. By: me.