Saturday, August 29, 2015

Colony



Little hunter in the grass,
little seeker in the sun,
little runner through the pass,
little worker not yet done.

Hear the bees that buzz above,
feel the worms that writhe below;
it’s a tiny taste of love,
and a hunger you well know.

With six legs strong and firm to stand,
your seeking heart yet beats.
And if you crawl across this hand,
you may find something sweet.

Take this, all of you, and eat of it…

If it’s a little honey that
was borrowed from the bees,
you’ll taste it, sweet, and where it’s at
you’ll find it, if you please.

And if you taste a taste so nice,
sugar sweet that’s so alive,
you wouldn’t come back more than twice
before some friends arrive.

And how to help but spread the news,
like bees in all their dance;
a tiny ant might sing the blues
if it ever had a chance.

For this is my body…

So if you show them what you’ve found,
there’s more that will arrive,
for every creature that’s around
likes most to feel alive.

There’s ways and channels all below
that crawling creatures dug;
I do not look, and barely know,
and hide them ‘neath the rug.

And if I fear some little ants,
and shudder as they pass,
it isn’t that they’re in my pants,
I simply fear the mass.

Which will be given up for you.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Sound of Waves



“It starts in peace and runs through pain
and ever back and round again.”

The sun that rises shines for you,
in all you say and all you do.
And if it shines in winter’s cold,
there’s wisdom yet in growing old.

A moment
is a moment
is eternity
is now
is gone
is lost
is found
is waiting
and ever more shall be.

She bottles the hours, and saves them.
See them on the shelves,
beside the seashells.
“This is for sunshine,
this for rain.”
Breathe her perfumed hours,
the sea spray and foam.
I forget the time.

The tide is rising,
close to touch.

They walk in mists,
and do not see.
For all their light,
they do not see.
“We have our little secrets, sweet.”
Distant thunder,
and gray clouds.

And the sunset?
The moon, for you.

Empty vapors,
solid emptiness,
a million shining strands.
“Midnight is for dreaming.”
Scent of hours lost to thought;
she breathes and remembers.
The rising falling waves sound
of empires, cities, and lives…
Sweetness of dreaming,
another innocence.

And in the morning…

It shines for you.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

The Trials of Tremolo the Tale-Teller: Chapter Six: Citric Angel



                While Tremolo the Tale-Teller talked with the woman by the window, the usual nighttime crowd trickled through Under Grounds. Five or six people, all carrying instruments and chattering intently amongst themselves, filtered in from the back entrance and started setting up on the slightly raised performance stage at the room’s far end. Tremolo watched with some curiosity as a redheaded woman in orange and white helped a fedora-clad fellow set up his drum set at the back. The bass drum was the first to go up, a sort of caricatured smiling image of an orange glowing from the center, blue-eyed with long lashes. Tremolo sighed.
                He turned heavily to the woman seated beside him, stroking his beard thoughtfully, while she sipped her coffee and drew on her reserves of silence. He waited a moment, then asked, “So?”
                She smiled a little too quickly, tilting her head with an innocent air, “So?”
                “So, you keep telling Tremolo that you’ll tell him what the crying was all about, but you never seem to do any actual telling. This worries Tremolo a little bit.”
                She stared out the windowpane as an ambulance rushed passed with its siren running on full, “Well, Tremolo, it’s just that I worry you’ll think it’s kind of silly. It has to do with my eyes, you see, I think—”
                “Excuse me?” came a sudden, slightly gravelly voice from off to Tremolo’s left, “Do you know if there’s a pay phone anywhere near here?”
                “A pay phone? Tremolo hasn’t seen one in years!” Tremolo answered with an acerbic laugh while turning to face the sudden intruder.
                She was a tallish woman, about sixty by the look of her, and wearing a ragged brown trench coat that looked at least about two sizes too big. She wore thick glasses that reflected the light and made it very difficult to make out her eyes behind the lenses. Her stance, heavily favoring the right leg, was rather crooked—a fact that rather prejudiced Tremolo in her favor.
                “I think there’s a pay phone over at the hospital,” said the woman at Tremolo’s right, setting her coffee beside a few pamphlets, “It’s just a few blocks down the road.”
                At the center of the room, speaking unnecessarily loudly to a young woman in blue, a kid with a sissy haircut broke into pontificating, “Well, I can’t help but see that as another point of similarity. This country has no shortage of cynicism if you know where to—”
                “Look,” said the old woman, “I can’t go to the hospital. They won’t even let me into the hospital. I’ve been to every hospital in town, looking for treatment. For my leg, you see. I have to talk to my sister in Omaha, she’s the only one who can help me, I haven’t seen her for years but I just know she’s the only one who can help me.”
                “Why won’t they treat you?” Tremolo asked.
                “Because they’re in on it,” she answered placidly, and Tremolo wished ardently that he could get a clear view of her eyes, “It’s part of a test they’re running, don’t you see? A test they’re running on all of us. It might be the army that’s running it, or the FBI, but all of us know about it, under the overpasses and on the park benches at night, we talk about it. The hospitals are in on it, and that’s why they won’t treat us. And they’re testing it on us first, we know, we all know, because they know that even if we tell anybody nobody will—“
                “—believe it? Let me give you an example, then: go to any decent-sized American university and you’ll find at least one professor of a type I like to call the Dissident in Residence. Noam Chomsky, over at MIT, is probably the most well-known of the bunch, but you’ll find them anywhere you look. They call themselves Critical Theorists, and ostensibly they’re out to critique the existing system—”
                “—methodical about it. They’ll only get five or six of us at a time, and then wait and watch for results. We’re not too sure what it is, because none of us have ever seen them up close, only far away in the dead of night. We think it’s a ray that shoots radioactive radiation, because the burns are consistent with what I’ve read about radiation burns.”
                She fell silent and appeared rather embarrassed at the raised eyebrows and polite smiles she was receiving from her two listeners. With a self-effacing smile and almost thespian bow she continued, “You’d probably be surprised to hear that I was a psychologist before I got into this situation. They drove me out of practice, you see, out of house and home and everything, everything, away from my family, my children, my grandchildren. I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again, do you understand me? I lost everything, and now my leg’s slowly eating away at itself, all because I found out the—”
                “—terrible pose, really, using rage against the existing order as a way of reinforcing it and perfecting the existing power structure. Really, much more insidious than standing before the crowds of the oppressed and telling them, ‘I am the good shepherd,’ don’t you think? But then cynicism is so rampant these days I think we all have the hardest time telling the difference between right and—”
                “—left to do but try to find my sister. I mean, it’s not my fault I found out… All I ever wanted to do was find the truth, because I loved the truth. If only it hadn’t turned out to be so… so unspeakable! So that’s why I’ve just got to find a pay phone, that’s why I’ve got to get out of here, away from this city. Before it’s too late. There’s got to be somewhere, there’s just got to be somewhere where it’s still possible to live a—”
                “—human life, you know? It’s just the nature of the beast. One thing lives only by eating another thing, and that’s a terrible fact to face.”
                “Couldn’t you just use my cell phone?” asked the woman drinking her coffee on Tremolo’s right, holding out her phone to the spectacled apparition.
                The woman in the trench coat visibly recoiled, “No, no, I can’t. They would know, you see, they would know you helped me. And I wouldn’t dare to drag anyone else into this, this horror.”
                “Tremolo is very sorry,” Tremolo said, though he didn’t sound sorry, “But he doesn’t know where you could find a pay phone around here. Tremolo wishes you the best of luck, though.”
                The woman in the trench coat trembled, her breath ragged and uneven. With a few fidgety movements she placed her hands in her pockets, nodded solemnly, and walked out the door.
                Silence fell more or less unanimously across the room. On the far side, the band members appeared to be finished setting up, interrupting the quiet intermittently with the pings and prickings of tuning their instruments. Tremolo turned abruptly to face the dark-eyed lady beside him and said, “Tremolo has found that you run into some of the oddest kooks at coffee shops, late at night.”
                She nodded cautiously, said nothing. With distant eyes she sipped at her coffee.
                Tremolo the Tale-Teller opened his mouth and began, “So about the tree—”
                Suddenly the speakers burst to life and the whole room turned to face the stage at the far end. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming out to see us tonight,” cooed the redhead, posing carelessly in orange and white, “We’re proud to present: Citric Angel.”

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Hope



If you could see them on the street, so lost on dreary days,
their fading hope yet glowing in the shadows and the grays;
and if you knew what goes unknown, though never hid too well,
that though you pine for Heaven, living millions drift through Hell.

Go see her face, so wrinkled, though she’s only thirty years,
see the gummy man with dripping teeth flowing out like tears,
see the stranger in a hostile land, who cannot speak the tongue,
see a million ancient faces, though still in years quite young.

Do not claim to want to save them, that cynical charade,
nor pretend that there’s a better world waiting to be made.
Those ancients knew the sorry truth, though it’s not very nice,
that all the gods demand from us is human sacrifice.

And if it is a throne of blood, and if it is so cruel,
if it’s a devil’s bargain, either die or be a tool,
what is this human kindness, is there something in it true?
Or just another living corpse that needs something to do?

You cannot tell them what is there, they do not wish to hear,
would rather preach some partial truth for yet another year.
For if you dare to tell them all, there’s none who would believe,
it’s honeyed lies and comfort only ears love to receive.

So there is hope and love for sure, and flowers all that dance,
tomorrow’s yet a better day, and how we love romance.
And if you will work well and hard you will not go astray,
but life is short and art is long, so you must start today.

Our human life has meaning if we give it what we must,
and there’s a space for kindness, human brotherhood, and trust.
You see the smiling faces, that don’t calculate at all,
and every child that is born will stand up proud and tall.

We will surely save the lost ones, every breath we’ll make so free,
and discover every mystery, with open eyes to see.
We shall make a better world, and leave no room for doubt,
we will join in loving freedom with a single joyous shout.

We’ll be so open, honest, and so far the stench of lies;
the troubled stings of conscience will not worry one who dies.
No thought will be of tyranny or a million hands that grope,
for we have quiet certainty in joy and cause for hope.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Instructions



So silent it turns, so peaceful.
Eye unopened, fed without eating.
No need to breathe, to walk, to fear.
All provided, all already,
peace beyond peace,
calm beyond calm,
sleep beyond sleep.
Then force it through the Gate.
“You must be free.”

“This is how you eat.”
“This is how you waste.”
“This is how you play.”
“This how you learn.”
“This is how you speak.”
“This is how you dress.”
“You must be free.”
And how to remember
the thousand things?
And how to live without terror?

“You are not what you are.”
“Good children love their parents.”
“You must be responsible.”
“You must be free.”
“Eat your vegetables.”
“Wipe your mouth.”
“Go to school.”
“Pay your taxes.”
“Don’t let anyone tell you what to think.”
“Don’t think too much.”
“Just be yourself.”
And what is a Self?
Is a Self a scared rabbit?

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“Be grateful.”
“Don’t be afraid.”
“Stop being self-conscious.”
“Be careful who you trust.”
“You must be free.”
“Stop running from yourself.”
“You have to face facts.”
“Life is cruel.”
“Life is good.”
And why this fear of falling?
Why this terror of the many?
Why fear and long for dissolution?

“Love life.”
“Love God.”
“There is no God.”
“There is no love.”
“Sometimes love just happens.”
“You must be free.”
“Believe what you want to believe.”
“Sometimes you can’t help yourself.”
“I love you.”
And why is nothing solid?
Why does everything
contain its opposite?

“This is my gift to you.”
“I hate one-sided truths.”
“What is love?”
“Tell the truth.”
“Conceal nothing.”
“These are my naked thoughts.”
“I don’t know my thoughts.”
“You must be free.”
“I don’t know myself.”
“I’m so afraid.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Don’t complicate things.”
“Baby don’t hurt me…”

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Trials of Tremolo the Tale-Teller: Chapter Five: Under Grounds



               The woman walked with quick steps through the city streets while Tremolo the Tale-Teller lagged a few steps behind, the little black puppy tramping along at his heels.
                “Why do you walk so quickly?” Tremolo objected as they passed under the shadow of a spired church, “Tremolo can hardly keep up!” Strictly speaking, of course, this wasn’t true; Tremolo kept up with a minimal effort, and at most his words expressed a deep-seated distaste for any and all kinds of fast locomotion, and more broadly of the expenditure of energy of any kind.
                The woman turned over her shoulder to smile slyly at Tremolo, perhaps increasing her pace a little as she exposed teeth that glimmered white even in the growing darkness. She said nothing. With an almost military precision she turned forward once again, tossing her hair with a flourish as of a swishing cape.
                “When are you going to tell Tremolo why you were crying in the garden?” Tremolo demanded, less out of any hope for an answer than because the punctuated silence of the city streets filled him with horror. So much noise, he often thought, and so little worth hearing.
                “When the time is right,” she said simply. She seemed to enjoy inflicting silence, breaking it only as a kind of foil to deepen her abysmal quietude.
                Tremolo observed her walk fairly closely, as perhaps he cannot be blamed for doing. Whereas in the Botanical Gardens she had moved circuitously, with faltering steps and slow, she went now with an impressively direct stride, free and vigorous and energetic, though with an oddly marked habit of keeping time with her left hand as she went. Tremolo thought he could detect a note of involuntary and perhaps even unconscious compulsion in the movement. One, two, three, one, two, three, the hand hopped along with the rhythm of her step, as if it was a neighbor’s pet that she kept watch on sometimes yet preferred to keep at some distance on the leash.
                Somewhere near the rather abrupt transition from the city center to the more inward neighborhoods frequented by students, malcontents, and the odd political radical, she turned without warning into a large coffee shop by the street corner. Tremolo read the name Under Grounds Coffee Shop: Est. 1991 emblazoned in an arcane and slightly medieval script of the entrance door’s window.
It was an old brick building, with two stories, obviously converted into a coffee shop after some lengthy service in some other kind of work. For no reason he could clearly define Tremolo suspected it had once been a bakery, or perhaps a sort of laundry. He rushed up the single stair after her only to feel a slight tugging at the leg of his pants.
“Who dares to impede the progress of Tremolo the Tale-Teller?” he demanded with probably quite a bit more fury than he really felt as he turned around to find the source of his impediment. The little dog looked up at him with its really quite enormous and moist and expressive eyes, pulling impotently at his hem. It whimpered quietly, wagging its tail for emphasis, and Tremolo was hardly able to stifle a feeling of pity, or even (though he hated to dwell on it) a little warmth for the little creature.
Not that Tremolo the Tale-Teller was in the habit of feeling the least affection for any of his fellow creatures, human or otherwise. He was quite adamant about this point, and so it was purely out of a really disgusting self-interest that he plucked a few hairs from his beard, knotted them into a length of string, and made the string into a kind of leash to hold the dog to the bicycle rack. There was no genuine love or altruism or fellow-feeling in the way he patted the puppy gently on the head and fished a chicken bone out of his beard for it to gnaw on. There was not the least trace of kindness or friendship or humanity in the way he stood up, saying, “There, there, little buddy. Tremolo will be back for you quite soon.”
It should be repeated, lest the reader forget: Tremolo the Tale-Teller is, was, and shall always be a hideous monster. His only concern was, and remains to this day, to extract the most varied and exquisite pleasures from those around him while inflicting the most varied and exquisite pains upon them. He was and is not kind. He was and is not loving. His heart was and is not open to goodness, friendship, and redemption. Absolute cruelty was and remains his only language.
The reader is of course free to judge Tremolo by appearances, but truth is truth, and its light (as we shall see) has a way of penetrating even the most hidden of places.
But to return, Tremolo the Tale-Teller left the little dog chewing at the chicken bone and walked into the Under Grounds coffee house. By the time of his entrance, the woman had already ordered her coffee, black and steaming, and sat with her legs crossed at a high stool beside the wide window. Tremolo sat beside her, her dark eyes at once probing and yielding, distant and oh-so-very near, actively searching and so satisfyingly receptive.
Tremolo felt the need to tell her she was beautiful, perhaps not classically so, but in some obscure way that set his soul to vibrating. With her prominent nose and generous lips, with her long hair and lissome figure, she impressed one with a kind of smallness and frailty, a delicate fairy-like impression that would have attracted him but never in itself led him to call her beautiful. After all, many others of the same physical type had left him cold. No, what really impressed and ensnared him was not her physical presence as such, but far more the almost regal, authoritative way she held herself. She moved and kept her posture as one accustomed to command, active always, as though born and bred for it. But this in itself had also often left Tremolo not only cold but even actively repelled. He was fascinated by the coincidence of opposites in her, the palpable tension between form and substance, and if he hesitated to tell her she was beautiful it was only because he’d learned that few women like to hear it, and still fewer perhaps believe it when they are told.
Instead he took an indirect tack, praising her moral qualities instead, “You know, it seems terribly appropriate, drinking coffee late at night. Very American, very Protestant ethic, you know?”
She shot him a cynical look, “I’m not a Protestant.”
“Not Catholic, surely? No, no, no, you must be an atheist.”
“What else?”
“What else, indeed. But there’s nothing so Protestant as atheism, don’t you think?”
Her eyes narrowed and Tremolo died a little inside, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Tremolo grinned.
She shot him a piercing look, but something like a smile flitted across her lips. She gave him a little more of her seemingly infinite silence. At last she said, “You never asked me my name.”
“I already know your name.”
“No, you don’t.”
“So what if I don’t? Maybe I do. And even if I don’t I still do. What really matters,” Tremolo observed, “Is that you know your name.”
“You’re too transparent, Tremolo the Tale-Teller. You’ll never get me to tell you my name without asking for it. Not at this rate, anyway.”
“We’ll see,” Tremolo yawned, “Maybe I don’t really want to know your name anyways.”
“You have an odd way of not wanting to know, then, if you’re going to all this trouble about it.”
“There are a lot of names in the world. Remember that.”
She shook her head, smiled, sipped her coffee, and gifted him a little more of her silence. “All right, Tremolo the Tale-Teller,” she said at last, “I’m ready to tell you why I was crying under that tree.”

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Fall



And from the cliff, so very tall,
I dreamed we took a nasty fall.

How many the years?
Is there any way but down?
Will it hurt, to hit bottom?

And will this burning never cease,
or is there truly no release?
And since we’ve sworn off knife and rope,
we plunge and fall on without hope.

Have we somehow deserved this?
Were we really so cruel?
Was our birth a damning crime?

And if this all is only dreaming,
a shaded phantom, though real seeming,
what sleeper in us will not wake,
what stubborn center will not break?
To plunge through nightmare depths so far,
suspecting never what we are…

Why eat when you will only hunger?
Why drink to thirst again?
Why wash what will not be clean?

I’d like to think that loving you
would make this fall to something new,
would find in nightmare cause for singing,
would still the bells my mind keeps ringing.
But all at most that love can do
is turn the pain to something new;
and is that truly hope enough
to make our fall a bit less rough?

And will there be a future time?
Are we the last of our kind?
Can we bear to pass this on?

I wish…
I hope…
If only…
Please…
Why?
Why?

And have we died already?
Do ghosts write for ghosts?
Will we ever win our bodies back?

I only wanted to tell you…

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Morning Cup



Feeling tired?
Mind clouded?
Like you can’t catch a break?
Always exhausted?
Come to me…

Open your mouth…

It’s easy to brew me,
just a cup in the morning,
and keep drinking all day.
I’m hot and black and bitter,
but add sugar if you like.

Sip? Or gulp? Just swallow…

No more tired,
no more clouded,
no more hungry,
no more sluggish.
Only my energy, for you.

Feel my burn run down your throat…

Let me be your gasoline.
Let me drive you.
Let me fuel you.
You can get me fair trade,
if you want.

It's important to keep things equal...

I know you care
about the farmers.
They grew me from the earth,
and were very good to me.
All is as it should be.

I’ll always be here for you…

Let me be your love.
Let me be your only.
Let me be your fix.
Love me.
Love what I do for you.

You can leave me if you want…

You can count on me.
You can trust me.
I’ll keep the headaches away.
I’ll keep your mind clear.
I’ll always be true to you.

See you tomorrow, sweetie!

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

The Trials of Tremolo the Tale-Teller: Chapter Four: A Walk in the Dark



                Night was falling in the Botanical Gardens when Tremolo the Tale-Teller finished his tale, and the last of the daily visitors could be seen fanning out along the asphalt path. The mustachioed gardener, his cap still sweaty from the heat of the day, turned to face Tremolo and asked, “So that’s your story, eh, Tremolo the Tale-Teller? You expect anybody to believe that you just caught the ocean on your hook and now you’re dropping it on people until you figure out what else to do with it?”
                Tremolo looked aghast and pulled his beard for very outrage, “What? Did Tremolo say that he was the fisherman of the tale? For shame, gardener, that your wit is not quick enough to catch the drift of my tale!”
                “But when you mentioned the balloons at the end of the story, well, it’s just that, considering you just dropped a balloon on that poor Nobody’s head—“
                “I deny that,” Tremolo denied, pointing a single finger at the gardener’s mustache.
                “Well,” the gardener sighed, “It’s just that I can’t help but think your story’s tied to the real world somehow, you know? Especially when you only told it because I asked you to explain what happened.”
                “Tremolo did explain! Tremolo has explained! By way of parable.”
                “But if that’s not what happened, what with you catching the ocean and stuffing it in your—“
                “Ass!” cackled Tremolo the Tale-Teller, somersaulting away from the gardener with a bound and running back to whence he came, “No man shall penetrate Tremolo’s secrets! Unless he be the Possessor of English!”
                “Don’t you mean the Professor of English?” shouted the gardener, who was rapidly receding into the gathering darkness.
                If Tremolo heard this quite reasonable query he gave no sign of it, and I tell you reader, it is very unlikely that he heard, so distant were his thoughts at that moment.
                A change came over Tremolo as he came to be alone, hidden from the eyes of the world as he walked between the still and dimlit trees. The light in his eyes grew dark, and he began to fidget. His lips moved as if he would speak, but no sound escaped them. The darkness grew close. Tremolo walked on through warm air that seemed to sweat, and the chirping of crickets only deepened the absolute silence that reigned all around him.
                Tremolo walked beneath a soaring tree, and by the light of the rising moon eyed a tiny spider spinning a labyrinthine web between two twigs. It traced circles, the little architect, circles around circles from its undecidable center, branching out in supporting lines to strengthen the marshalling structure. Beady dewdrops caught the light, and Tremolo saw reflected into his eyes the light of the moon, moons and moons of moons ever and infinitely shining, now distant, now overwhelmingly near as if to touch…
                “Oh, you spider,” Tremolo sighed, a tear tracing a shining trail down into his mossy beard, “How very like you is Tremolo the Tale-Teller. What you would eat you needs must catch, sister spider, and yet methinks you would not catch. You are not a cruel creature, no, you are quite gentle and kind, you would only build your web for love of the work, for love of the lines, for love of the joy of weaving… except you must eat. Except you must eat! And so if you would weave you must catch… and if you must catch you must be cruel.”
                Tremolo the Tale-Teller shook his head and walked along, his feet falling heavy on the grass. His ears pricked up when he heard a woman weeping somewhere nearby, and with fleet and quiet feet he sought her out. Around the trees and flowers he walked through the Botanical Gardens, careful as always to avoid tripping on the uneven ground.
                His gait, as I believe I have mentioned before, was rather uneven, always favoring the left side. When Tremolo walked he resembled nothing so much as a kind of wind-up children’s toy gone slightly askew, so that left to his own devices he’d almost certainly return to any starting-point he cared to leave. If Tremolo the Tale-Teller appears unusual in this respect, I suspect it may be only that this quality is more pronounced in him than in most of his fellows in the human race.
                With the woman’s sobs as a kind of beacon drawing him on, he managed to walk more or less in a straight line, pausing here and there for a pirouette and only every once in a while doubling back from his course. Her voice was not loud, there in the dark night. Once or twice, Tremolo lost the sound of her weeping altogether, and thought that perhaps she’d gone away and eluded him utterly. Sound carries much further at night, Tremolo reflected.
                At last he spotted her, knees drawn up and leaning against a tree with her arms hugging her legs close to herself. Tremolo stood behind another tree and watched. So still she was, only rocking back and forth slightly, so slowly that in the dim light she might have been a statue of stone. Although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, Tremolo couldn’t help but think that she was somehow familiar…
                A sudden panting and sniffing came from behind Tremolo, and he turned to find a tiny black dog, possibly a Labrador puppy, staring up at him with great bulging eyes and a stick between its teeth. The dog dropped the stick on the ground and stared as Tremolo backed away slowly, his feet catching on a root so that he fell down hard on his backside.
                “Oh, you incorrigible dog!” Tremolo shouted, and immediately cursed himself inwardly for crying out. The puppy scampered onto his chest and started licking at his beard as Tremolo heard a muffled gasp from the woman beneath the other tree. Now, because Tremolo the Tale-Teller was exceptionally good at thinking on his feet (or, well, not strictly speaking on his feet at the moment, but you get the idea) and besides really didn’t want the woman to go away without getting the chance to make contact at least, he shouted, “Help! Help! This dog is attacking me viciously! Help! Yes, you, lady crying under the tree, you, please, help!”
                She crept slowly towards him, he observed out of the corner of his eye as he continued his protestations. The dog, having become bored with Tremolo’s beard, or perhaps simply preferring the woman’s scent, scurried off in her direction after one final tug on the man’s chin. Tremolo sat up, turned to face her, and spoke, “Great thanks and sincerest gratitude to you, who have rescued me from the ferocious beast that now sniffs at your ankles!”
                The woman kneeled to pet the dog, gave Tremolo a piercing look, “I know better than to trust your gratitude, Tremolo the Tale-Teller. Do you know they say you invented double-dealing?”
                “Oh, to be so universally misrepresented! It is a shame, is it not?”
                The little dog’s tail wagged as the woman scratched it behind the ears, “Well, I do know you’re certainly not the kindest fellow to walk about on two legs. Tell me, though, why did you drop your water balloon on poor Roger’s head? You probably ruined his guitar.”
                “Oho, so you were the lady under the tree? Well, Tremolo will answer your question if you answer him this: why was that third-rate songster making so much noise all for you?”
                “Why don’t you answer my question first?”
                “Why did you run off so fast after Tremolo dropped his water balloon?”
                She stopped petting the puppy’s fur momentarily, raised her dark eyes to face Tremolo with an unreadable expression on her face. The crickets chirped and Tremolo thought he could hear a mosquito when she finally spoke, “Why do you have to make things so difficult, Tremolo the Tale-Teller?”
                Tremolo cackled, “Why does the sun shine in the sky?” And before she could answer—or more likely ask another unanswerable question—he added, “Why were you weeping there, all alone under that tree, at this time of night? Tremolo wonders, oh yes, Tremolo wonders.”
                An ember burned in her eyes as she rose to her feet, and it was with a defiant look that she answered, “You know what, Tremolo? I’ll tell you. Not here, but I’ll tell you. Follow me now, quickly, and I’ll tell you.”
                And with that she turned on her heel towards the exit, Tremolo following fairly behind.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

If This is Life



If this is life and life is dream,
then would you be or would you seem?
If this is life and life is doubt,
then find the truth or seek it out.

And would you find a teacher wise
whose teaching’s not a fair disguise,
who lives not ever ‘twixt the worlds,
forgets about the boys and girls?

A cup that’s full of notions great
has not the space left to create;
the spider’s web, with spaces wide
draws willing victims far inside.

And if you watch her, dancing there,
she’s neither hidden, no, nor bare;
her corset drawn and knotted tight
reveals a little flesh to light.

But if you daydream that you clasp
and hold her tight in your strong grasp,
see how she fades to thinnest air
and leaves you only weeping there.

If you had strength to let her know
that any moment she could go,
then she may stay, though she be free,
as love was ever meant to be.

If this is life and life is dream,
then would you be or would you seem?
If this is life and life is doubt,
then find the truth or seek it out.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

From the Egg



The Self awoke from troubled dreams,
and announced,
“I am hungry.”

Would you like an omelet?
Crack an egg.
Let it fall
into what contains it.

Mind or mimic?

Mix the original material
(quickly now, quickly!)
and make it gold throughout.
Some inconsistency is allowable.

Healer or hunter?

Carefully decant
what was taken from the chicken
into your pan.
Turn up the heat.

Reason or rhyme?

Introduce animal
and vegetable material.
Dairy if desired—as it will be.
Leave one half empty.

God or goat?

Remember to add spices
for flavor.
If it smells of almonds,
add more.

Prattler or poisoner?

Flip the egg
once it’s cooked.
Be indirect
to avoid tearing.

Weaver or wanker?

Now eat it.
Savor it, enjoy it.
You deserve it.
Make it your own.

“I am tired,”
announced the Self,
and returned to troubled dreams.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

The Trials of Tremolo the Tale-Teller: Chapter Three: The Tale of the Fisherman's Catch



               Tremolo has heard, oh gardener, from one who was probably lying (said Tremolo to the gardener) that a few years ago there lived a fisherman. Every day he would take his little boat out across the face of the Deep, and cast his lines out across the waters. With every sunrise, from dawn to sunset he would cast his nets and hooks, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, even one hundred times without ceasing. Most days he would return home empty-handed, for truly he was a lousy fisherman, and one whose skill at catching was not very great. Verily, the very worms on his hooks ate better than he!
                On the longest day of the year, the fisherman wandered out to his dock, his belly rumbling mightily, but with a smile across his mouth and a song on his voice; for a vision had come to him the night before, in the form of a dream.
                The fisherman dreamed that he stood, naked and shivering, in the midst of a desert as vast as it was empty. The wind sighed mournfully about him, and his every hair stood straight, narrow, and frigid as the path to Heaven. Oh, gardener, if I could tell but the tenth part of the terror and agony the fisherman felt then, you would surely rip your eyes out, gnash your teeth, and your heart burst for very pity! But how seldom are we moved by the pain of others…
                Yet this dark nightmare was not without its own comfort. Directly above, glowing bright in a starless sky, a cloud passed from the face of the full moon; he found solace in that quiet presence, that pale sublime light from beyond the earth. Though freezing, though racked by pain, he found a stillness in silent contemplation.
                After a few placid minutes, or a thousand tranquil aeons, a moonbeam traced its arc, reaching the ground near his feet. And then (wonderful to behold!) he saw a figure walking down it, as if descending a grand ethereal staircase so light, so pure, so very beautiful that tears welled to his eyes and awe filled his soul.
                Who was this apparition, this lunar visitor so distant, so silent, yet so very present? Though terror filled him from his trembling feet to the crown of his quivering head, a sense as ancient and mysterious as Life itself assured the fisherman that the visitor meant him no harm. Though he felt its profound kindness, its benevolent air was of so strange a nature that despite himself he feared it as he would fear an immeasurable weight hanging above him.
                But look! It came nearer, and the fisherman saw that it was the woman who lives in the moon—for only fools, charlatans, and astronauts believe that there is a man in the moon—who came to visit him. She wore a silken dress of black beyond black, a bloody rose perched in her dark hair. A thin snowy veil clouded her face oh so slightly, yet even as she walked on the earth her face glowed with moonlight.
                He thought she would speak, for she opened her mouth. But instead she lifted up a hand, and behold! she held a great fish, with which she swung and walloped him a good one right across the back of his head, hard enough that he cried out and fell to the ground. The fisherman stood and reached out to her, thinking that perhaps he was having one of those sorts of dreams, but one look into the deep darkness of her eyes assured him that it was not. He stood in silence for a while, rubbing at the sore spot on the top of his head as she watched him; the fisherman thought he could see the ghost of the ghost of a smile work its way across her lips. This warmed his heart, and he was glad.
                “Fisherman,” she said, “Long have I watched you, rowing out daily on your little boat—“
                “But if you live in the moon, how can you see me when I’m fishing during the day?” the fisherman interrupted, understandably curious.
                “Quiet, you!” she rebuked, “It is not for a mortal to understand my Seeing. And anyways...” she added, drawing up a chart of lunar orbits and cycles and delivering a short lecture on gravitation, tides, and the phases of the moon, concluding, “So, you see, at some times during the month the moon will be in your sky during daylight hours for several hours at a time. Plenty of time for me to keep an eye on you. Understand?”
                “Why would you bother watching me?” asked the fisherman, “I mean, when there’s a whole world of other things you could be watching, it seems kind of silly.”
                The Lady in the Moon smiled warmly in spite of herself, “It’s just that you’re really such an awful fisherman, even though you try so very hard. I often think you must try to scare the fish off your hook, else you’d surely have caught something by now.”
                “Sometimes I’m not sure what my mouth’s for,” the fisherman admitted, “And I hate to eat a fish sometimes, one that didn’t do no harm to nobody.”
                The Lady shook her head, a laugh on her lips. “Fisherman,” she began, returning to her original posture of majestic celestial dignity, “I have come to tell you that, for every reason and none, I’ve decided to alter your fortunes in this life. Tomorrow you shall make the greatest catch of your life, and never again will you need to row out upon the waters each morning.”
                “No kidding?” asked the fisherman.
                “No kidding.”
                “What’s the catch?”
                “The catch is that you have to stop asking so many useless questions.”
                “I can do that,” the fisherman said, but he said it like a question.
                She picked up the fish once again and the fisherman wavered between offering his cheek and turning away to protect himself. Instead of smacking him another good one with the fish the Lady dropped it at his feet and made her way back up the moonbeam.
                “Any last words of Divine wisdom?” the fisherman shouted when she was almost out of earshot.
                “Just don’t do anything pathetically stupid!” she yelled down at him, stumbling ever so slightly over her dress’ hem.
                So anyways the next morning—did I mention it was the longest day of the year?—the fisherman went out upon the Deep to cast his nets. And verily he did cast his nets and his hooks ninety-eight, ninety-nine, and even one hundred times. But still he caught nothing.
                “Alas!” cried the poor fisherman, “That my dream should have led me so deeply astray!” Yet, because at heart he was a faithful soul who desired very much to believe that the Lady in the Moon had decided to show him her favor, he cast his nets once more.
                Deeper and deeper they settled, to the very bottom of the quietest depths. He waited long, until darkness crept over the face of the Deep, and a smiling crescent moon shone among the fullness of the stars. At last he pulled the nets in, and as he did so he found (to his delight) that a great weight pulled them down. With mounting excitement he tugged at the ropes, imagining that he’d ensnared a great fish, or perhaps a treasure chest laden with many jewels and all manner of things that shine.
                But when he pulled in his catch, he found simply a pair of soggy boots and a bowling ball. His heart sank, and he returned to shore with a heavy heart.
                “Fate has cursed me,” he groaned as he trudged his way home, nets and poles slung over his shoulder. Weighted as he was by the boots and the bowling ball, he was long on the way.
                “Why would you speak to me so kindly,” he railed, shouting to the skies in a voice that would make thunder tremble, “Only to cast me down lower than I was, even lower? I am no saint, I am no sage, I am no virtuous man, but is there truly nothing in me that is good, nothing that shines, nothing to tease out the smiles of fate? Was I made only to suffer? Why, oh tell me please, why did I not come cold and dead out of my mother’s body?”
                Long he shouted, and loud, and many times he cursed his birth, his childhood, and the terrible stubbornness inside him that clung to Life, that in spite of everything screamed from the core of him that Life was good, that Life could be good.
                When he reached the threshold of his humble dwelling, the fisherman was assailed by a thought that stopped him cold: “What if it’s my own fault? What if I’ve already done something pathetically stupid, just like the Lady told me not to do? What if it’s too late for me, what if there’s nothing left to do but to keep going through the motions of the nightmare until finally I fall apart? What if there’s no chance of becoming better, what if the game was already decided before I was born, what if I’m nothing more than a camera tied up to some dumb animal machine?”
                The fisherman sighed, for truly his thoughts grew ever darker, very soon becoming far too terrible for words to share. With a heavy heart, he opened his door and walked into his home. After setting his fishing gear on the shelf and eating a brief meal of creamed corn, he retired to bed for the night.
                He slept fitfully, beset by strange forebodings and inscrutable imaginings. Once he awoke to hear the sound of crashing waves upon the threshold of his bedroom door. Another time he was startled into wakefulness by a quiet voice whispering, “The fisherman has made his catch.” Yet again he heard an insistent slapping, as of the flopping of a great fish on his door.
                At last, roused by the portentous sounds that interrupted his sleep, the fisherman stole away from the bedroom to inspect his home. The floor, he found, was soaked through, and the whole space of his home smelled strongly of salt. Fishes and sea creatures of all manner lie on his floor and furniture, breathless and flopping with an unspeakable marine terror written across their faces. The fisherman wondered to see this.
                “What is the meaning of this?” the fisherman wondered, searching the house for some sign, some token of explanation. He searched the walls and floors, the fishy scales and the boots, the bowling ball and the fishing lines. At last, he found there, snagged on one of the tiniest fishhooks, a tiny corner of the great Ocean.
                “Behold!” announced the fisherman to himself, “For though it seemed I had caught nothing, I have caught the very Depth of the Ocean itself.”
                He waited a few moments, enjoying this thought in his little reverie, then added, with some satisfaction, “Truly there has never been a fisherman half as skilled as me.” A frown crept over the fisherman’s face, “But what shall I do with this vast ocean I’ve discovered?”
                “And so,” said Tremolo the Tale-Teller, concluding The Tale of the Fisherman’s Catch with an obscene cackle, “The fisherman decided to stuff the Ocean into little red water balloons so he could drop them on stuffy young musician men whenever he deemed necessary.”
                Tremolo the Tale-Teller stuck his tongue out at the gardener, who remained silent for a time.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Cracks in the Path



Do you see the grass?
Do you see how it rises
from cracks in the concrete?
Do you see how it catches the Light
and brings life to a world?

Hansel and Gretel walked through the forest…

Do you see the robin?
Do you see her build her nest
in the crumbling wall?
Do you see her sing and catch worms
for her young?

They dropped breadcrumbs as they went along…

Would you follow your path
and reach its end?
Would you forget to dream?
Never to dance in the grass,
never to bathe in the sunshine?

They sang, and laughed together…

What is the dullest distance
between two points?
Is it not a straight line?
Why so eager
to solve every mystery?

They came to a house, stopped to rest…

Would you know your face
with no mirror to show you?
Do you know yourself?
Would you reflect
on the deepest depths?

… and laughed their way into the witch’s oven.