All the writings on this page may be copied for personal use. If you wish to publish them, you must have my permission, especially if you're gonna make money off it, sound fair?

Love, 3singingeagles Ma'hinahinahina Grady
May 28th 1999  :)
singingeagles3@hotmail.com

Spanish Gravy is bizarre but (relativly) benign.

Martha Graham/Flashdance piece is an essay

And then there's............"THE KISS"

Added during the waxing gibbous moon, March 99':
Gypsy Wreath

Added 4/22/99: (for Paul):
WRITING IS A DAY AT THE BEACH

Okay, I'm possessed. Here's another story I swore I'd never publish (give them everything---- EVERYTHING I SAY !)
The Thanksgiving Of My Discontent

NEW!  and REALLY disturbing. No, I'm not kidding now. 5/17/99
"Rebound"

MEMORIAL WEEKEND SPECIAL:
GLORIA!
The ULTIMATE patriot!

"How My Mother Finally Slaughtered Me" (another one of those disturbing one-page stories)

"The Tale Of Kananaka and Kanaloa" , a love story, though you may suspect it could never be just  that with me, uh?

Lone Wolf # 117
IS the time of The Lone Wolf COMPLETLY over, we'all wonder? (Hopi prophesies always having the devient stitch of the Navajo blankets within them?)

The Tear

The Weeping Muse, written sometime in April or May 2000, added 6/3/00

NEW! Grampa In The Middle Of His Talking
 

6/28/00 Wrote this entire thing this morning in morning pages, did a little editing, not sure how to spell Pasaic yet or even if it's near the land of Icabod Crane..... but it came in so clear, and I cried when witing the last sentence. Quite a bit, too. I'll research the other stuff geological later... maybe..... perhaps the importance of the story is beyond such superficials!
"The Sleeping Hollow"

And now for something completly different:
"Work In Progress" (neither of us have any clue where it's going, do we?)
Help me write it? have some ideas where it's going and/or where you want it to go? e-me, baby.....let's co ab bor rate!

Enjoy!?!

       Much Love,
                            3singingeagles Ma'hinahinahina Grady :)

3 Hours Of Mental Calestenics At Charley's Bar and Grill

"That is a spicy Virgin down the throat, THAT'S for sure!"
                    - what she had thought if she had ordered her virgin mary extra hot

    She was looking for someone to take home. Well, okay, she had no home to go to. Someone to take her home.
    She was cute for her age, that was the general consenses. Cute. Teh. If they only knew what a complete sexual deviant she was.
    She blew 20 dollars easy on dinner. Almost half a days pay. She was famished. She wanted fish soup AND a burger AND fries AND the little package of crackers that came with it.
    Someone stopped at the little place, wanting to find an enigma. It did not take long.
    She wore black velvet in private and negligees in public. She wondered if she could get fucked even though she was cute. Why couldn't she look as dangerous as she was?!?!?
    She thought about the prospect of driving all alone from that little restrant- and having to stop somewhere on the way to the place she was crashin on the couch lately and pullin over to masterbate just cause she's SO SEXUALLY FRUSTRATED.........oooooo......
    It hurts. Inside. Owee. Owee doo dah day!

She COULD be rich. Hum. Then she could buy a fuck!!!

    She could buy anything. There'd be no more snubbing her NOW. OH no. They'd be bending down and taking it at HER command- they'd get on their knees to suck on HER for HER favors. She'd give them more than a moldy mattress on the floor for their...... uh..... "services". She may treat them like the whores they are, but more like call girls or treasured mistresses than street whores. She won't do unto others what she ABHORRED being done unto her. She'd treat them right, just as long as they fucked her just the way she said when she said it!

    Then she could be left alone when she felt like THAT. Ummy.

OH- and she could write, whenever she wanted, without being interrupted. Sigh. Sigh sigh sigh sigh SIGH. "I thought I told you NEVER to INTERRUPT me when I am WORKing!" -(Dr. Frankenstein, from Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein")

*                    *                    *                    *                    *                    *                *

    She looks across the room at three guys- 3 unlikely matches except that what they have in common- perhaps the only thing- is that they're all up to no good. The fact that they're even TOGETHER AT THE SAME TABLE raises (questions) suspicions by itself- they didn't even have to add the shifty eyes and passing and exchanging of money and questionable bundles across the table. They'd laugh together occassionally. One is a well groomed bald man in good modern sports clothes.Another is some kind of Aboriginal Pacific Islander or, maybe even Australia (though some would consider even THAT a Pacific Islander) with tangled curly loose mop of hair looking like it's about to fall off....... like some loose wig from a comedy movie. The third is a hippie in a baseball cap with a neatly trimmed beard.
    She thought of Tom Robbins, sitting there. Of him sitting here? Actually, the accidental slaughter of syntax is appropriate here when you look towards the end of the fantasy. Tom at her table. CAN do! Later.......... some adventure on the island? Take him down to the Pioneer Inn maybe, to show him how it's still intact and all. Take him down to a scary rock and tie him to it and MAKE him cum. All ideas. Good ones. Any idea of passion is a good one. Any idea with some ummmph behind it was good.
    Yet where was chivelry? Had it died an awful and slow and excruciating death? Had it died the death of 1,000 veils? Danced the dance of the 7 veils first? Hum? Hum? She had had to buy her 2nd drink. Was there no justice?
    She sat between the door, the bar, and the kitchen. The noise was outrageous only it was all tied together with a very hot blues tape in the backround. The musicians were really getting into it. It was almost like gospel. They FROLLICKED with their pain. "That was good frollicking" the guy at the beach park had said to her shortly before she came here this evening (upon noticing her generally frollicking ways, even while just seeming to be walking), she shoulduh siezed on THAT moment when she had the chance! She problee woulduh had better luck bedding him than anyone at this bar. What had bars come to? This was it? Woah. She couldn't even get picked up at a fucking BAR. Of course, she had never tried before tonight. Maybe she oughtuh be sitting at the ACTUAL bar instead of a side table. Maybe her marys oughttuh be bloody instead of virgin. But- well- unless someone grabbed her soon- she'd be driving herself "home" and she wasn't ABOUT to do so inebriated. She might think of it if someone was gonna drive HER. Might loosen her up- sex with a stranger.......... (?) Well, she was desperate.
    Yet, she was starting to get tired. Maybe she oughtta get her burger wrapped up. Take it with her. Stop at the beach on the way home, suck on a big fat joint, close her eyes for awhile, and cry.

It's a morning where I WANT to write, but nothing seems to want to come out and play. I've knocked at the door to my mind (I hear some activity there, so I know there's SOME playmates. Maybe they're stuck at the line to the bathroom)

What would the bathroom in your mind be?

Would it be like the recycle bin in your computer? The stuff you've just thrown away sits in there, no interfering with the speed of your operating system, your computer (brain) is ignoring whatever's in there (and if you've defragged recently, is runnin nice and smooth, an fast as it cin) but that junk is still in the toilet, still taking up space in your brain, still showin up as used disk space on that pie-wedge graphic that shows what space you're usin' an which is free on your hard drive. Guess it'll show ya on a floppy disk or zip drive or whatever too, but I ain't never had reason to try that.
    So, maybe that's why there's been so many "practices" throughout the ages- (especially numerous since the industrial age, yet, with a respectable prescence before then) that "flush that toilet". Baptisms,Tunglan, fire-walking, kiva and sweat lodge, going off alone into wilderness to scream and cry and scream and scream and scream
    Hey- I bet that's the explanation for the modern-day experiance so well known to all of us it's spoken about in a cavalier manner, and is even mentioned often by stand-up comedians and self-help gurus, getting in your car, driving fast down a highway or even preferably, a backroad, and
    Screaming screaming screaming. Shout shout let it all out, these are the things I can do without! Flush that toilet! Empty that recycle bin! Check the pie-chart of your hard drive! Wow! What're ya gonna do with all that extra space you got in there now?
    Maybe install some new, fun, programs. Yeah. May be.

She was still in her powder puff blue party dress. Her panties were still in her little blue vinyl "handbag" with the strap so short it forced you to clutch it all the time- which she guesses was done on purpose so all woman, adle-brained normally (so much ESPECIALLY all woman in party dresses, whose costume induces deepening of such) must be protected from the chance of their female, flighty, twittering, flirting, party-dress clad selves from being the cause of the loss of their purses. You might need your little 20 dollar bill of "mad money" for a cab in case your date gets "too frisky". Of course, that only works if your date starts to "get frisky" somewhere where you can hail or phone for a taxi. Usually they quickly pull off the main road while allegedly driving you home, park someplace where noone can hear you scream, and smear their dirty cum all over your little vinyl purse. You also will definitly need lipstick, a mirror, and a comb frequently throughout the night in your pretty blue party dress. That's about what there's room for , in the tiny clutched small handled blue fucking thing! Panties don't fit good! Not cotton ones anyway!
    She thinks these things while sitting on the edge of her bed, in her powder-puff blue party dress, and swinging her legs back and forth, and watching them in the mirror she yanked off her wall a few minutes ago and propped against the wall sideways across the floor from where she was plannin to sit on her bed in her powder puff blue party dress and no panties cause they were in her light blue vinyl "clutch" and anyways they were ripped so no use havin em on, no no use- silly anyway- propped the mirror up sideways- tilted it so she dissapeared from the waist up, swung her legs, pulled her dress up- hard- with her hands- bunched it up around her waist, and started calling herself by the name "whore" and the other new names she had been christened with on that very night, in her powder-puff blue party dress.

        "I hereby banish all you evil spirits! I send you out of here in the name of all that's holy! Go forth from here, and NEVER COME BACK!"
        I pronounced this, in front of my fellow acting students, while pacing nervously and powerfully around a crude (phallus) maypole I had rigged up, holy candles burning in their little cylinders at the eight directions. Good thing the candles were already burned down a little- since I had used them the day before when I blessed the ground with dancing, frivoloussinging, and some jester like walking and stances. A little November wind had whipped up, and it was always chilly during finals week anyway- like the chilly hearts of the testees- and, as we know in the world of Magic, to the testers as well- leaked out into the air. But there wasn't much snow yet, andthe big stone buildings of the ivy league campus did a good job of protecting us from the harsh slaps
of physical wind, if not that of life's.
        I had joked with them about this POSSIBLY being a real ceremony but MORE THAN LIKELY it was just a performance- my final one for the year. I said it in a way where most of them figured it was all for fun, yet I sensed a couple were a little worried and I knew that Paulie saw everything. Hewas a magician anyway, not practicing yet, but all Magicians are born as so already- you either, eventually, train or go crazy. Like all good Magi, he was camouflaged well- in fact- in Paulie's case,literally. He wore camouflage fatigues and nouveau military punk clothes, blending in with about 15-20% of the student body. Wait. Okay, I've just been informed it's actually, currently, 12.22042% of the University population. Thanks, akashic records voices!
        But I digress......  When I "cast the circle" around me, the last thing I saw was Paulie's eyes start to bulge out, then everyone disappeared. Nothing existed outside of the circle. At the end, after I passed my test(cheap shit thing to combine getting another badge in my Magician's training and doing my final, but, hey, a single mom with four kids has to time manage where she can) and the circle had come down (the spirits THANKED me at the end, and said they had left me a gift. THAT was cool. I  wonder whatit is) I was moved to bless everyone. "Blessed be" to all, something coming out of my mouth thatmust of been pertinent to each of them. I don't really recall, I was still in trance then.
        I DO remember one blessing being "that you may be whole" and I looked down, expecting to see the young lady whohad somehow latched herself to me. We'd meet 2 hours before acting class- this first happened by mistake cause she came in and saw me dancing. I practiced in the same room as the class was held-cause it had a great dance floor, showers, electrical outlets for my boombox, and- if I got zoned out
in the dance at least I wouldn't miss class. As it turned out, as the year went by, almost everyone started showing up earlier and earlier. We'd sit and talk and smoke and sometimes run scenes byeach other. We actually were becoming like a little family. But my Dancing Time got less and less as the year progressed. Oh well.
        But anyway, this young lady had many physical maladies- most of which she wanted for attention and excuses to simplify her life. The Yuppie parental generation did no small disservice totheir kids, pushing them to be in so many extra- curricular activities. They were tired. Of course as we of the Blessed way know, the parents weren't to blame either. They were nurturing a super-race,evolutionary progress is certainly a worthy motive. And it must of been tiring for them too, being chauffeurs, fundraisers, cheering squads, escort on buses trains and airplanes for long-distance games, meets, performances.....packing for all these......oh, gee, I'd better stop, I'm getting tired justthinking of it!
        Maybe that's why she latched to me like an infant to Mama's teat. She wanted a Momma-type that was as completely opposite to her mom as possible, maybe to balance out her archetype. What? Oh, definitely that was why? Well, thanks again, Akashic all-knowing voices! I was her detached mama. One time I had a meeting with someone during the time I was usually dancing, andshe roamed that big University till she found me. She came right up to us. I told her to go away. The musician I was meeting with to possibly include in my band, thought it was rude. I immediatelydismissed him in my mind, though we talked a little longer. When people make snap judgments likethat, and especially with name-calling attached, they generally make troublesome band embers,
although usually successful drill sergeants.
        So I thought, with all her bodily problems, both real and imagined, it was her that was being blessed with "wholeness". But it was a different girl, one that looked pretty healthy. Well, I don't know everything. What? Yes, of course, all memory is in the chemical codes of my DNA and can be accessed by a number of proper and successfully navigable paths. Thanks, Great Akashic-infusedVoices Of The Beyond. Clarification- I don't know what I don't butt into. And I rarely butt without direct permission (being asked) (respectfully) (yeah, sexual jokes could be inserted here. Forget it.)
        I got to Paulie at the end of the line (actually- crescent of students, on either side of a tree, natch). He was clearly trembling. OOooo-------I hope I get extra points on my grade for that. I was back in my body. The light was starting to shimmer off my body out into the ethers from whence itcame. He'd recently told me of a dream he'd had a few times- the day of the full moon and the two days (nights) abutting it. (Butting again?) (cut out the smart ass comments, okay?) (ass comments-as in butts?) (oh, quit already). There was a rider on a horse, both of them had no skin. Ridin' ridin' (I am the Lizard King! I can do ANYthing!) (Hey- butt out Jim, I'll channel you later tonight, alone in my bedroom, huh bad boy wink wink nudge nudge)  (Butt out?) (oh- enough with the butt jokes PLEASE)and, since he'd been afraid of getting too much into roles cause he was "prone to possession and didn't have his shields up real good yet", and had repeated this many times during our buddy-before
class- bull sessions, what- that + dream =  I started to bless him. he shook more.
        The shields were still pitiful. Gee, in my younger days I woulda taken this one as an apprentice in a minute. Well, I knew he didn't come from a Leo Buscalgia family, was definitely very far from touchy- feely, FORGET him doing any kinda love scene till he gets over THAT hang-up, but, it served my purpose well. I reached out my hands. He almost didn't take them. He trembled some more, rattling the rusty bolts of his shields, stiffened, engaging them, took my hands. Good. My motto is "do no harm" But I can give a great piercing look or shake of the hand
(shooting truth- a weapon of ignorance, quite formidable in itself. The good guys have to have SOME artillery) and I would'uh shown him the face of Hecate if he hadn't grasped them. Good boy.
        I drove a few of the other students home after the ceremony. Uh- performance (tee hee). Yeah, any stranded of my loose clan would be taken to their door by me after class. No, it wasn'tentirely altruistic. I loved stories, and you always got good stories from grateful passengers. In fact, if anyone asked my profession, I wouldn't tell them that I mow lawns, or am a student, or Mother, or musician, or even Magician. I'd say I'm a story- collector. But not too many people ask this anymore.Guess it's not the fashion. Just as well, how can you really define one person by one label when we're all so many things to so many people throughout the day.
        Getting home, I find a large lizard meeting it's death in the jaws of my cat, Diana. She'd told me early on, when she was a kitten, that she wanted to remain a virgin and be dedicated to the Goddess Diana, so, even though I'd always let my female cats have one litter before I neutered them, so they might experience Motherhood in all its deep and feminine aspects, I changed her name (I didn't really like Ophelia anyway) and I had her spayed as soon as she was old enough for
the knife. When she came home, she slept on my lap, purring, smiling.
        And since then, she's killed anything that moves. But I was bummed that she had Brian's Iguana. Oh, well, he must have left it unsecured. Weird, though- he usually AT LEAST closes his door, usually locks it, even. It must behard being the only man in the house. Oh, well. He'll have to deal.
        That lizard reminds me of Jim. Ummmm..............I would love a little psychic sex with his fine spirit later tonight! I'd go visit him physically if I could- but it's not like I'm goin all the way to Spain at
this point in my life. Maybe when the kids grow up. Would he recognize me? Hey, mister Morrison,it's your wild horse woman- come a callin'! Well, maybe I'd send a letter first, just to ease his mind that the tabloids haven't finally found him. Luckily they're more focused on the ridiculous Marilyn andElvis searches. No one (well- almost no one wink wink nudge nudge) thinks much of Jimmy anymore. Break on through to the other side. Or not.
        Boy, she's really got that Iguana spread across the floor, entrails everywhere. I heard they're considered quite a delicacy in some parts of the world. Hum, well- if she leaves a little, maybe I'll
tempura it. Before Brian gets home. Would probably be some kick ass power food.

"Wherever a dancer stands ready, that spot is holy ground"
              - Martha Graham, the Mother of modern dance

   When people ask me what I am, and I understand I am to give one answer, I say I am a dancer. Oh, I've been, and am, many other things- Disc Jockey, Mother, Shaman, cook, T.V. personality, Midwife's
assistant, Published writer, Grandma............and on and on. But the one thing I have always been, constant through my life, is a dancer.
     Some of us are almost born dancing, and we must dance- even if alone in our rooms for long stretching years. It's like a burning desire of the soul. It's like an addiction. It has felt that way for me, as it did for Ally- the archetypal dancer in the flashdance myth, and- it seems- for Martha Graham. It was said of her (by Agnes DeMille, close friend of Martha, in her book on the dancer): "One must recognize, I believe,
that certain few individuals are obsessed, that they believe they are, in effect, vessels of higher forces, that they recognize themselves as such, and that they have no choice in the matter, they are taken over and used
for life, for their art or vocation. Martha Graham believed she was such an instrument."
     Unfortunately for Martha, in her time, family life, or any other kindof life, was not compatible with the life of a dancer. Most performances were done in touring troupes, modes of transportation were not as
quick as today, most was done by rail in fact,and you were pretty much on the road all the time. In addition, dance schools were few and far between, and you were often sent from one teacher to another for furthur experience on little or no notice. Also, the academys were usually full-time live-in situations, the idea that the dancer must immerse themselves in the dance and be in constant physical training was the mindset of thetime. Martha herself reflected that when she often quoted Yeat's statement: "The individual is capable of either great art or great life, but not both."
     When I was a young dancer, "woman's lib" had just started to become popular, but (still) mostly as a joke. The 50's mindset of woman staying and home and men making the living and the 2.4 kids still clung- but I, much like a young Martha Graham, was a rebel. "I want to be a doctor, a dancer,a singer,and a writer" I boldly announced when I was seven. Growing up near Greenwich village in Manhattan, I was exposed toa lot of the sophisticated poetry, art, and drum playing, and dancing, of the "hip people", beatnicks. Beat poets. Beats and rhythms. Even the public schools were influenced, and so when I took dance, it was Modern, and- I came to understand this year through what I've learned in Dance class in college, that we were doing Martha Graham's style. Everytime the teacher would say "this is a Martha Graham move" or"this is a Martha Graham exercise", or even, occasionally, some of her philosophy and techniques (dancing barefoot, earth centered, aboriginal influences), I'd feel deja-vu'y or have out and out flashbacks. In the cutting-edge by acceptance only High School I went to, the techniques were also more radical, bringing in a lot of the techniques of choreographers influenced by Martha but who had spun off on their own. In particular, Bob Fosse's work was real popular then. In Sophomore year my choreographed piece was chosen for the final performance by the whole troupe, in front of the entire school. It was a story of freedomat birth, gradual entrapment (by "society") and eventually breaking the bonds of conformity, a final cage of dancers (it got closer and tighter through whole piece) to the theme music from 2001: A space Odyssey (a  movie which was popular then).
     But, in my time, cusping between the old order and the future for woman, I was told I could be a dancer/gymnast (gymnastics was my counter training) OR a doctor. I choose doctor, and my educational
career became more science oriented, and I no longer went to the special gymnastics school in the ancient building in Manhattan, but, instead, to the library, burying myself in volumes.
     And at night, alone in my room, when my eyes were too tired to read, I would turn on music- all kinds, classical, pop, Broadway musicals, and I WOULD DANCE.
     In the movie Flashdance, Ally is a worker in a factory, who dances at night in a bar. The bar is unique in that each dancer gets to create, choreograph, music, costumes, their own solos- it makes it real
interesting in the film because each dancer has her own style, each reflecting different blends/spin offs of modern-dance. There is a very Fosse- like sequence where the dancer wears white-face and starts in a
feathered full body costume with streamers attached and wind on her, a t.v. on to provide light, and a white screen behind her, so you can see her shadow (silhouette) dancing.- almost- well, with her! It was beautiful In the film they also showed how dance, and in particular Modern Dance movements, are common in all life movements and cultures, even in the inner cities, break-dancing sequences and a brilliant scene where sheimitates a traffic cop's movements and they end up doing it together for awhile- and even in different forms,such as skating.
    After realizing that Martha's techniques were the ones I'd learned in youth, and danced- even to this day- alone  in my room, various musics playing- throughout my life- and afterwards being curious to know more about her- I discovered that this dance-like movement of all humans, was somethingshe was very aware of. In fact, her father, a doctor of psychiatry at a local asylum, taught her early that bodies, especially most pronounced in the insane, never lied.
     Ally has her struggle with "deciding to be serious" about being a dancer, and entering an academy. But unlike Martha's, and, evenstill, my time- for Ally, in the 80's, she can work at the factory, have a serious
relationship with a man, AND dream of attending the academy.She is encouraged through all this by a very Martha-Graham like figure- Hannah, who happens to have pictures of Martha around her house, as well as various books about dancers such as Isadora Duncan. At one point they go to a beautiful performancetogether- a ballet- but done in a very Martha-Graham like mythical style, with some of her imfamous
strange-angled moves.
    Throughout this movie is dance. All the dancers at the club surround themselves with dance paraphnelia, books, watch dance on T.V., even their cross-training- weights, aerobics, skating, is done as dance. It gives a fine sense of the way the dance leaks into the dancer with persistent immersion in it- how it starts to infiltrate your whole life. How you even move like a dancer all the time after a while.
     One thing that it seems Martha was EXTREMELY strict about with herself and her students, was constant practice. This is something I usually did so I wouldn't be injured, but most of our dance-play in my
training was improv- and it wasn't until I was in the dance class in college this year, and also, funny enough, in another class- beginning drama- that I saw the magic of this principle. Faced with having to memorize (in drama) complicated monologues and (in Modern Dance) long exercise and movement routines- at first Iknew it was impossible, actually. The first few weeks, I wept. But as I hung in there- how I have no clue-through the very repetition of the movements, exercises, words, I did it!
     In Flashdance, as mentioned, Ally is portrayed as having a serious, monogamous relationship with her lover- spending many romantic times together. Basically "having a life".As previously mentioned, in
Martha's time it was not possible to make such a commitment AND be a dancer- except in the rare cases of husband/wife dance teams, that toured, performed, and taught together. She even said once, in reply to the question as to why she hadn't  married: "If I really give myself to any man, I shall stop being an artist".
    In my time, a woman was encouraged to eschew men altogether (Martha did have MANY lovers, as did mostdancers then) and boldly and even obsessively pursue her career in spite of "male oppression" and/or "patriarchal minimalist thinking". We were super-woman and were going to show them all! This leaked into my life, so that I have never danced in front of my husbands or lovers, or even, come to think of it, men.There was a male in our college class for awhile this year, and I felt a tug in my stomach, but I dancedthrough it. Persist persist persist. And now I'll be dancing in front of a bunch of men (and woman, but of course, that's not my psychological breakthrough) in my final performance for drama.
    I have grown in strength, beauty, and confidence through my experiences in Modern dance, and am very grateful to still be alive at a time when the dreams of obsessed dancers such as Martha and I have evolved through Ally's timeto where they are today. I, a woman, have become all four of the things I proclaimed I would be at the tender age of seven. It is truely joyous, as artists, to know we can still live "in the world", even marrying, having children, other careers, and- still- when someone asks us who we are- reply: "I am a Dancer".

Here's a one-act where our playwriting teacher gave us the assignment: I want an ansewering machine and a character retrieving their messages, tell a complete story.

So, I wrote my own death..................

"I wanted to thank you for       Uh well, for the kiss you gave me the other night. You know? When you said goodbye- you- um- you remember?"

Sure I remembered. I nodded my head. She looked out at the lake.

"I, I want to tell you what that kiss meant to me, but I don't want to be ELOQUENT like I ALWAYS am, I want to.................."
(Looking out at the lake, not really like she was looking for something but for some reason I imagined so)
"Okay, I DON'T want to give you all the words, all the outside, decorous things- clothes, jewelry, hair, flesh even- no, I want to give you............."

I hung..........

"I want to give you the bone of the feeling I had. The core. I do..............."

She closed her eyes, they were moving underneath her lids- I noticed- even in that flat light. She was scanning, searching, for what? For the bone? For some non-rich pastry word? Some flat, unimportant word? It was A word she was looking for, I knew that- she didn't say she was longing to present me with the SKELETON- wait- something's happening!

She, eyes still closed, reached out slowly, moved her arm up slowly, then- QUICK AS A WHIP- she snatched something and turned it sideways and opened her eyes. The bone I presumed. Held between two really small fingers. Small but powerful. She seems to have shrunk with age, but there was absolutely no doubt she was stronger. She proceeded to read the bone.

"It was- that kiss was-"
(Smile broke on her face) (not too wide, but wonderful. Sweet. Childlike. The crows feet and mouth lines crinkled enough but not into big, sloppy folds. Wow.)

"That kiss was--------good."

She looked at me now. Her smile widened a little.
Enough.

"That kiss was good."

 Bob sat in Sam's office, holding his head in his hands.
 "But she's got the soul of a gypsy, the mind of Einstein, and- eyes-
you'd think you were in the universe freefloating, looking in there long
enough, I swear!
 "But she's your student."
 "YES!" Bob breathes out, heavy, into his hands.
 Sam's gaze wanders over to the central display in his office, the
mask he'd made a few months ago, with the dried wreath hung over it.
He thought of the day she gave him the wreath. He wanted to go over
and finger it.
 "Sam?"
 Sam un then re crossed his legs, switching from one side to
another, turning away from the mask, none too subtly----- if Bob knew--
--- but he was really too wrapped up in his own thoughts, so he didn't
notice. "I don't know what to tell you" he said. He THOUGHT..........
"Yeah, and she is eccentric, and philosophical, and funny, and
outspoken, and emotional, and IMPOSSIBLE and................ "Can't you
just wait until the semester is over, and then get together?"
 "What if it's too late? What if she finds someone else? Or what if a
meteor hits the planet? I swear, Sam, if I can't have her soon I'm gonna
go OUT OF MY MIND!" (he sinks his head in his hands again)
 Sam's gaze wanders once again to the mask. She'd left a Christmas
gift by his office door over the winter break, a thin book of poetry called
"Gypsy Fire". Soul of a gypsy. Yes. She did have that. And it should be
illegal. A free and incredible spirit like hers is too much for the world, let
alone any man, to bear. Around the gift, encircled like a little hoop, or,
even, fancifully, a jaunty halo, was the wreath. Oh, how he had buried
his nose in it that day! Closed the door, and sat there rocking, holding
the wreath close, crushing it to him, and rocking back and forth, as if he
was rocking her body, he buried his nose into it as if it was her hair. He
could have swore he smelled her. He just knew she had done some
powerful gypsy ceremony with that wreath, mustof rubbed the
pinecones in every crevice of her body before she wove them in- yeah-
got em' good and wet. Wet like the clay on his hands, that night, at
home in his studio, while his wife sat in the living room, and he sweated
tears, trembling, as he fashioned her mask.
 Bob stood up. "I'm going to her. Right now. I'll drop her from the
class if I have to- give her a withdraw-pass grade or something----- I
want to take her to the top of the mountain and make love with her at
the summit, eagles crying overhead, expressing our joy for us, as it's so
intense it makes us mute.
 Sam turned and looked at the beautiful mask. It had slots for her
eyes, of course, oh god- those BEAUTIFUL eyes. Yet there was no slot
over the mouth.
 Oh, no. She would make no sound when he put the mask over her
face and took her and paid her back for POSSESSING HIS SPIRIT THE
WAY SHE HAS!

Sam's wife opened the door and found him, once again, slumped across the couch, passed out, a half finished bottle of cabernet on the magazine table nearby. The mask wasn't tied on this time, it was on the floor near his head, though, maybe it had rolled off. She walked over and picked it up, almost absentmindedly. Hum. He musta passed out quite recently, the tape was still on. She wasn't sure why he kept watching these tapes from the Drama department so much lately. She looked at the screen, there was some student dressed in gypsy-like garb. From what she could get from the set, it looked like some scene from Wagner's ring trilogy- she must be trying to be Brunhilda. Atrocious. Is NOTHING sacred? She shook herself into a pompous stance, unconsciously adjusting her business suit, and in fussing, caught a brief glimpse of the mask. She scrunched her face up. Looked at the screen. At the mask. Back at the screen. Paused a still of Brunhilda's face. Held the mask next to the televisions flickering screen. Red rose into her body, up from her feet. She threw the mask down on the floor, breaking it into many pieces. She spit on him in his sleep. She went in the kitchen to make dinner.
 
 

Sam didn't look good, but he had made it to Bob's office. He knew when he woke up and saw the broken mask on the floor, that he had been saved, that some supernatural being had come and wrenched the mask from his face, broken it, and the spell. He was sobering up, his mind was clearing, yes, he was even picturing them together no more than 2-3 times a day now, and even then, it wasn't destroying him......too much.......he just..........he just wanted to see that they were happy and all- you know- if- she, both of them, were, happy

Getting to Bobs door, he sees the familiar face of Joan Of Arc smiling fiercely from the photo he kept mounted on his door. Wondered what it was with her that he idolized her so?

Also on the door was a sign: "All of Bob Dietrichs classes will resume next Thursday. Anthropology test is moved to the following Tuesday"---Dean of Student Affairs.
 
 

It was cold in the Rockies this time of year, as Bob crossed the forest floor, his feet crunched on the frost. He got to the gate, and shut off the electric current with the remote, looking briefly to each side of the small clearing around the cabin, and quickly opened then closed the gate and turned it back on. He unlocked the cabin door. "Honey, I'm home!" and the keys tinkled, like distant bells in Tibetan winds, as he unlocked the cage.

I was never going to write another word again for the rest of my life. One year and four months of writing had been erased by one flip of a switch that had turned on power lines on the other side of the forest right outside my office door and directly through my computer. It had died, taking: a book, the notes on three novels, and seventeen completely edited poems. While I was on it. I would've died too, at the end of a gun barrel or, as many writers before me, through a bottle, if I didn't have these three kids that needed me. The Christmas miracle- a new computer that I could retype everything into (God, at least I had PRINTED everything!) was not listening to a word I said. I knew what the Universe was saying. Stop writing. 4eva. Give it up, girl.
    It had been weeks since I'd been to the beach, since the winter rains had come and my vehicle- a beautiful but lightweight bike- was hard to handle even on dry roads. After a night of periodic deluges, the sun dawned bright. Still- when the phone rang with my mother on it begging to kidnap me -n- the kids soz we could frolic in the waves, I reluctantly agreed. It was 10 AM already, and, tan faded, I didn't look forward to the noonday sun. Still, I needed to escape the room where my new persnickety computer was (still) refusing to bring up windows.
    So, knowing I’d have no fun in the sun, I brought: my writing book (no,duh. Goes everywhere anyway), latest copy of Writer's Digest (even though it had stung me with a computer article urging, too late for me now, backup backup backup), and a local paper whose chief columnist I loved almost more than Dave Barry (this is saying a lot). I was to lay in the sun and read, disappearing, while everybody else had funfunfun.
     Paul Wood, my new icon of prose, was unfolded on the beach blanket (so to speak) while the kids hit the waves running, screaming. His topic this week, stories are everywhere. Stories are all around you. “Human beings have stories the way birds have the air.” I drank it in and it made my mind tremble like a dry throat meeting a cold soda. My cheeks flushed and I felt alive. My mind was full and needed to rest while I digested. I rolled over, closed my eyes, and enjoyed the taste lingering in my brain.
     Then I started hearing things. No, not just the surf or the laughing children. The beach was crowded & the conversations in the immediate vicinity were radio stations doing a three-ring circus performance. Each was clear & crisp and my ears darted between them, trying to drink them all in at once- though in truth, sometimes the man was taming clowns and woman on horses swung from the trapeze, this was good too- almost better. Writers have permission- dare I say, a charge- to be voyeurs, and I was happier than a clam. These conversations were definitely, as aboriginal Australians would say, “good tucker”.
     Feeling I had to open my eyes and do the obligatory “glance at the kids”- even though they were safe with Grandma- I caught the serendipitous timing of a whole line of only men and boys- 15-20 of em’, not a female among them, in a line, waist deep, looking at the approaching waves. Their tanned and untanned bodies, of various shapes and sizes, backs to me, the line of ocean-gazing men, one my son- poetry. It was a moment of fierce disturbing beautiful archetypal unsettling power for me. I wasn't drinking anymore. I was guzzling.
     I caught my first wave on a boogie board that day. Rode it all the way to shore (thud) impossible- perfect- cheering! I splashed incredibly blue water into the air and whooped whooped whooped. I fluffed my long curly hair dry-in-the-sun like some sensual goddess.
     On the way to the car, I passed the house that was- fictionalized but still- the focal point of action in my latest series of stories. I noticed no one sitting outside, the cushions removed from the metal lawn chairs, no remnants of bird seed as usual. It gave me a creepy feeling. Now, where could I write that in? Few stories down the road? And why is the “party house” so silent? What's happened to ‘Grams an’ da boyz’ who lived there? What will I say happened? Glad I brought my notebook, I jotted some notes while hunkered down in the passenger seat on the way home.

Yes, I had been restored.

       Hell started about thirteen weeks before thanksgiving, I guess that gives more fuel to every triscadictaphobic out there- but- well, I just counted it on my fingers, and, thirteen it is- sorry! GOD-listen to me! I'm suffering here- laying here in bed, still in the black velvet dress I wore last night,typing with the keyboard in my lap so that each letter gives me a little stimulus, typing out my pain so I don't go crazy, treating myself like a sexualGoddess so I stay in my body- AND I'M FUCKING APOLOGIZING TO YOU! JE-----SUS!  I'd like to just dissolve like a puddle and dry up, rising, little water molecules. And I'm APOLOGIZING. Will it never end?
     The morning my Martyrdom started was a Sunday. The pig with a high IQ that was currently my best friend, even though he'd often interrupt even the most Philosophical discussions almost out of nowhere with desperate requests for a blow job, especially when he had a few beers in em, was over at my old house with me. We were waiting for the moving "truck"- he was there to help haul.
      It was my fault, really, that he developed this particular obsession. I gave him one once- I don't know, I was giving him a healing on his stomach, using the therapeutic touch techniques I'd learned in massage school. The energy was coming through my body into his- you transform visibly at those times- he must've opened his eyes and looked at me- and I felt close to him- I don't know. He was married and I liked his wife. It was just one of those things shared between friends. I really enjoyed it, too. But ever since then he's been obsessed with explaining to me how long he's lived, and how many woman he's had, and how many blow jobs, and how never- NEVER had he experienced ANYTHING like that. He's probably right- hey, I was manifesting the Goddess, had electrical energy surging through my body, and- more rare- was actually enjoying it instead of "just putting up with it cause my old man makes me do it".  Then again, it could just be a less-than-clever line to get me to do it again.
     But, anyway, I put up with his occasion obsessing cause I loved him and he talked with me about Gurjieff and Ouspensky and advanced Physics and all the things I missed talking about while hanging out with the intellectual crowd at the Universities of my past life. And at least it was early in the morning- 7:30 to be near exact, so he was still on coffee. The movers were going to come at eight- well- the movers, that was us. The guy with the pick up truck that would take 40 bucks to drive all my stuff up to my new place in one load. It was a big pick-up, but still, I had to give away pretty much everything I owned. But AT LEAST I was moving OUT of this crazy desert city and back into the country where you could hear the rain occasionally and where I could have a garden. I'm more sane when I have a garden. Well, a garden and regular sex, neither of which I had now- but- soon, a garden.
     The truck-guy  didn't come, didn't come. The phone had been switched up to the new place- so I had no way to call him to find out what was happening, and Bullwinkle (his secret name that only  I could call him) really wanted a beer, it was about 9:30 by then so I told him I'd drive to his place and  get him when the guy showed up and he apologized for not having a phone to call the guy with sincehis wife had throw the phone across the living room the week before and shattered it and I thought:  he could stop at a pay phone but I knew his beer was shouting at him from five blocks away so I said " see ya" and I did, later that night, about 8 P.M. I was waiting for the guys who were taking over for  the original guy (yeah, I finally left and called from the supermarket since all my food and drinks were at the new place- and I was hungry and thirsty- and he was in bed, watching TV., depressed for no  reason, and "couldn't face the day- I'm so sorry- I have some buddies that'll do it- yeah same price. Really sorry") they were to be here at 6:30 the latest and of course Bullwinkle was "well in his cups"  by the time he came over and he was crying this time, begging me. What would have happened if the guys had come and walked around the back and saw me on my knees doin' him- they'd want tips-  that's for sure! Jeez, Bullwinkle.
     He eventually left, and as he pulled out, they came around the corner, behind him. I ran after the car and yelled and screamed for him, waking many neighbors prepping for their dreaded Mondays- for which I am deeply sorry- but he didn't hear and I watched him speed away, turned around, took a deep breath, and walked back- trying to calculate in my mind exactly what I could  carry and what I'd have to leave or risk personal injury.
     The first introduction my new neighbors got to me was being awakened at midnight by a bunch of drunken yelling tow truck drivers just offa shift- I gotta admit, those boys were good though, didn't have to leave anything behind or even lift a box "It's okay, honey- hey- look- don't you lift ONE little finger now, you hear? They were cute, too. Mighta liked givin' em some tips if it wasn't so late. As it was, I told them to just leave everything on the front porch, and I'd move everything where it belonged tomorrow, and my friend would be up to help me with the big stuff.
      It's the day after Thanksgiving today and the big stuff's still on the porch. Well, Bullwinkle DID say he would probably never get "way out in the country (25 minutes from his house) to visit me- but helping me move was his part of a childcare barter with me, and I had already watched his kids for many hours when he was at his alchemical dance classes- so, well, guess people don't always pay up, do they? Anyway, his wife totaled their car a week after I moved and they haven't replaced it yet since they're on the welfare.
     Two weeks after I moved in, it was my first full day off, and I was outside weedwacking the first strip of land I was to put a garden in. The landlords drove up. They wanted the rent for next month, even though it wasn't due for another week. Well, I happened to have it, so I was okay with giving them the check then- one less bill to worry about, well- actually, I never worried about bills. My needs were real few and I always had enough for my bills and was fairly rganized and sent them all out on the first of every month even if it was early- but anyway, why not? As I leaned on the hood of my car writing out the check with The Old Man looking over my shoulder, The Old Lady started walking around and looking at things, opening draws on the furniture on the porch, peering through the windows, walking around the back.......
     So when I was done, I sauntered back there. She had her hands on her hips and was looking out at the backyard in a disapproving way. Yeah, it needed a mowing- but- that's what I was doing today- yard work- that was one of the things on my list, so I didn't feel bad. She turned around to walk up front to her car, and looked up at me as she passed by. Sure I was to get a lawn lecture, I braced myself with my ready response. "Dearie, if I were you I'd pay a little less attention to the OUTSIDE of the house and more to the INside!"
     "Oh- (I stammered)- I, I like to do yard work in the morning when it's cool, and the housework later- you know, usually a shower after to wash the dirt and grass away, then a quick lunch, then...........
     Yep. Apologizing. Explaining. People pleasing. I guess I've deserved this hellacious life. Good works, mostly right lifestyle, all merits erased by the massive clumps of spiritual demerits you get for wimpiness. Rates right up there with complaining- really. I dedicate my WHOLE FUCKING LIFE to GODDAMN HUMANITY  and a LIFE OF COMPLETE SERVICE and I don't get ANY SUPPORT HERE?  A BREAK here, please? But nooooo.... the spirits desert me because of the stinky spiritual aroma of my wimpiness, and I'm left alone when she, in reply to me, now, moving beyond wimpiness to ingratiating behavior, telling her how lovely these bushes that are starting to overgrow the path to the back, would look down by the azaleas, says:  "No, no! No no no no no no no no no. No.
     No? (I whimpered.)
 So that's when she said I BETTER not move any plants or change ANY thing in the landscape,that she wanted it to stay EXACTLY like it was WHEN SHE BOUGHT IT and
     So they drove off and I unplugged the weedwacker and went inside and sat on the couch and just stared awhile. Then the phone rang. It was 9:30 in the morning. It was my boyfriend. He was two states away in another desert town, pursuing his degree in Chemistry. I think he wanted to make LSD and be a dealer yet he claimed he wanted to find a curefor cancer (his dad had a mike strapped to his neck so he could talk with what was left after they took the tumors out).
 Why aren't you in school, babes (I asked). Weren't most of your classes in the morning? "Oh about that.........". then he told me he had dropped out the second week of the semester cause it was so LAME and anyway he'd gotten "in" with this troupe of traveling poets and they were gonna "tune in, turn on, and drop out" and I thought "am I really engaged to Austin Powers when I remembered that he has good teeth, and, though he was still talking I started to laugh uncontrollably and soon I noticed there was silence on the line so I composed myself long enough to hear him tell me that hewas sorry- I was a "good chick" and all- but- he couldn't be "owned" by anyone so............
     So I grabbed the car keys and drove to the local country store and got a large bottle of 90 proof peppermint schnapps, and two bottles of Cuervo (WITH the worm, thank you VERY much) and............
     I don't remember the next three days. Then I was waking up in a hospital. Ma'am? Ma'am? the nurse questioned. Well- seems like your gonna stay with us, huh? Bets were that you were a goner. I had fifty bucks on it myself.
     My car was a mess. One window was missing. The rear view mirror was broken off. I had
been found in a field full of soybeans. I'm sure there's a joke in there ( the fortune teller said "I see soybean futures"- I thought she meant stocks?!?) but somehow I hadn't screwed up the car too much cause she started right up. "That'll be a hunnerd an fife dollas- fer da towin an tree days'uh store" the fat, sweaty, pimply teenager with grease on his hands said. I was glad to drive away, "God, I hope I never see HIM again". Guess there is no God. I saw him just a week later when I got my car backafter someone had stolen it and taken it for a joyride. "Sorry, ma'am, we HAD to tow it, standard procedure, ya know" the officer had said on the phone.
    Well anyway, I drove home as fast as I could, because I had found a stray dog down at the John Deere place a few weeks earlier when I had BOUGHT THE BRAND NEW NOW MOOT ROTOTILLER for my GARDEN, and was worried how he'd fared these three days. I left the hose on trickle all the time in his little enclosure, so I knew he had water- but- had he starved to death? I could just see the headlines "Drunk Ditches, Dog Dies (humane society "outraged").
     But, I heard his happy bark as I pulled in, and breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe there WAS a God.
     I walked around back. He was jumping and frolicking, trying to get over the fence. "Hey boy? How you doing? Yeah, Toto- that's my boy- here comes momma! And I saw him leap, high, higher than ever before (man- he could clear the fence with a leap like that- I ought'tuh put a coupla feet ofchicken wire up there) and land directly on  A spike on the fence, that went right through his stomach, I heard a little "yelp" and then hecrumpled, impaled on the stake, blood pouring down the recently whitewashed posts.  Oh, shit- Toto!
     I ran to him. I put my hands on his wound, after popping him off his executioner, but stopping the bleeding was a moot point cause he was daid.
      I hadn't even opened the house, I was in the clothes they found me in when they admitted me- no one had even cleaned them- guess they must've scorned me. Why not? I scorned me. I was a piece of shit and I was burying my dog and my heart was breaking but I couldn't cry. When I made it inside I found the empty bottles in the garbage, unscrewed the caps, and inhaled the contents- liquor flavored air. I tilted the bottles for the drops at the bottom. Then I said "fuck it", took a shower, got dressed up, and went out to find a bar- hoping I wouldn't have to go all the way into the city again (Well, maybe I understand Bullwinkle's comment more now. Nah- forget it- I'll never understand him)and- well- what luck- a cowboy bar! And with music!
     So, I met a rich cowboy that night, who liked the way I sang (the music was Karaoke,
something I'd never tried before, and it was FUN) so he said: Hey, ahm' havin' a beeg SHIN dig down my SPREAD this turkey-day, and I would be MOSS pleezed iffin you'd come n' eat some grub with us- an- maybe sing some songs after dinner? I got a great system  And I thought "Well, I just BET you DO honey" and also "well, now that Sam's not comin' home for the holidays (hope his repast of bongo drums and bitter coffee tastes REAL good) (chokes him)" and- "jeez- I love to sing- I never sang in front of people till tonight and it was fun and I was good- it's scary- but- well- I could take a chance, get all dressed up, make it fun" and then I SAID: "Well, I don't really SING  but" "Why yes you DO honey! You got a voice that could stop traffic in heaven- I MEAN it darlin'"
     So, I spent the next few weeks preparing (only briefly interrupted by "The Car Kidnapping", my computer crashing, and some punk knocking my mailbox down with a baseball bat). The big night came, at last, yesterday. Dinner was over, and "Big Don" stood up at the head of the table, well, kinda wavered out of his seat. He was real drunk. Well, ever-one, sis't been a wunnerful evenin'- tanks for comin
     My mouth dropped open. I'd spent a small fortune on my outfit. I'd planned a one hour
performance- with intros to all the songs I had practiced and memorized- I'd rented a mixing board to refine and segway all the music- I shouted- WAIT!
     The room fell silent. Don gave me a questioning stare. "I- I- mmmmm-uhmmn- I'm supposed to- sing (?). Right?"
     Don's eyes turned to ice "This is MAH house an I say what's to HAPPin in my house, bitch!
     Shit, they gave me the wrong sized bullets! I'll have to go back and (swig) give that bozo a pieceuh my mi (swig) nd once I get done watching the Grinch. I just love it when his heart grows real big at the end.

She was trying to polish up the white-chalky stainless in the double sinks of the kitchen in the mostly empty little cottage. Mostly, cause in a little slanting beam of sunlight ..............

that was somehow making it through the mass of overgrown banana trees clumped on the south side of the little fenced once-upon-a-garden, mostly taken over by rosemary growing to rainy yet maritime Maui East-side bushlike proportions, and various mints crawling through each other, spindly really, along the ground

...............on the ledge above the kitchen sinks, the ledge of the big picture window, was the Queen-Mothers' sacred stones, now in her care. First thing to move in. Furniture will come later.
She saw him walk through the gate, from that vantage point, and he saw her too, and waved as he passed by the window on the way to the side door and entered.
He was her landlord now, though, he pretty much had begged her to move into the cottage, so she could "watch the property" while he was on the road touring with the different orchestras and bands he played violin- or fiddle (Don't you know, I can SWING BOTH WAYS BABY!) with- and was charging her nearly no rent- but, it was a little strange, since they had been lovers when they were younger. Well, that was many years ago.
He came in, swaggering his tall cow-boy attired frame into the (nearly) empty, run down cottage, and came up behind her at the sink, and grabbed her wrists, lightly, but tight somehow, anyway. Menacing with a smile.
He pressed against her. She thought of the last few months. She had met a man she had dreamed of, and recognized him, and, without any effort on her part they had been put together in a class on ceramic glazing, and she had more dreams, and had known that a luminous destiny had actually happened to her..... after all her years of graciousness and generosity and long-suffering and.....
Something good had come her way?
It never happened. Class ended and she never saw him again. And she was devastated. She had even lost her faith in her own magic, her power. Begun to forget that she was a Queen twice over- why- oh why had she gone into hiding and run from her pampered life- it seemed so noble- but it seemed she had lost the quiet power that her inner titled knowing had provided her, and she was slipping into a darkness, that, because of her lack of communication with her kingdoms, threatened to suck her in before anyone knew.
He reached down, and stuck his hand into the crack of her ass, tracing, hard, the line down, and started briskly rubbing the fabric of her dress against her. She never wore underwear in the house, so it hurt and felt good and she wanted to scream but nothing would come out of her throat. She wrenched her wrists from his now honestly tight grasp with one VERY quick flick of her hands------- oh, yes, she still had SOME of her mana left!
She faced him and quickly grabbed HIS wrists. Looked him straight in the eyes. "You wish for me to be your mistress, don't you? You want me to lay here in this little cottage legs open each time you return from your journeys, where you come to me to take me whenever you please, and as often as you please. Yes? Am I right? AM I?" It had suddenly become very clear to her. The stones were behind her head on the ledge, framed in sporatic sunlight.
He smiled an evil, self-satisfied grin. Yes, the years had changed him.
"Then, if you wish to be the Lord to a woman such as me, you'd better take me right now and show me what you're made of."
He paused.
"Okay! You will not have another chance. Go."
He grabbed her roughly, and started kissing her, and sucking on her tongue, and pulling off her clothes.

 She's sassy, she's sexy, she's Angelic, she's.....
                                       GLORIA!

1. Tequila Sunrise

 “Have you ever been to war”? She asked, almost casually. Of course, she knew he had. She saw the aura around him. That's why she'd decided to wander over to his table. It was easy to see auras in dark bars.
 He took another swig of his tequila, and passed the bottle. She tilted it up high, somehow sucking the misquite worm up from the bottom, along with an impossible quantity of the gold liquor. Then she tilted it only slightly down and slightly away from her lips when she was done, letting it hover, without even the slightest tremble from her steady hands. Her face was still tilted up. For just a moment. Paused, eyes closed. Then, she slowly licked her lips, made them ALMOST too wet, and in one SNAP kinda movement, slammed the bottle down and opened her fierce, spunky eyes.
 They happened to land at the exact angle and tilt so that, when the heavily lashed eyelids snapped open, they were staring directly into his. He was gone. Sucked in. Totally in Love with someone he just met. Every cell aroused, longing hard, almost calling for her- to her. Ummmmmmmmm.
 She got on the bus. Texas > (?). Who knows. It's the next bus is all she knows. And they'll be a warrior there. A wounded warrior who needs her help, her touch, her grace.

  2. Honey Spoon
   They were laying in bed, staring dreamily at the end table. He was smoking a cigarette. “Ey- lemme have a puff, huh? No bogarting allowed here” said Gloria, feisty edge on her voice. He passed her the cig and watched her put it in her mouth. Something moved under the blankets. Ummmmmmmm. In a few minutes, he’d be inside her again. They were gonna make love all night if he had anything to say about it. Yeah, make love- not fuck- though it got there a few times in the heat of it. She touched him lovingly. She touched his cheeks. She looked into his eyes. She stroked the stub of his once-upon-a-time right arm as lovingly as she stroked his back, or thighs, or……
 But they needed to take a break for a few minutes- even though he was, incredibly, already hard. Maybe it was because he hadn’t had sex in so long, but- jeez- he had NEVER, not once in his almost fifty years on this planet, cum this many times- not even when they went to Saigon to taste the woman there. Those ladies knew how to do good things, and he had been young and in his peak. But, Gloria- shit- she had no fancy techniques- wasn't built sexy, though she seemed to be the most beautiful woman on the whole planet to him right now. What was it? Who was this woman?
 She passed the cig back and he took two deep drags. Let them out. “Hey, what's that for?” he said- pointing to a jar of thick, crystallized honey that sat on the table. It had a tiny, pink spoon on top of it, like one of those you'd get samples on at the ice-cream shop. “Good coke spoon” (he thought).
 Oh, I eat it. Makes me sweeter.” He barrel-chested laughed out loud: “Darlin’, if you wuz any sweeter- well- you'd- you'd be a big old sugar cube. No- a sugar crystal- but not a tiny one. No, an enormous  one- a big, clear, light reflecting one so awesome they'd have to set it out somewheres open and public for people to look up and gawk at or maybe worship”.
 “You talk like a writer.”
 “Yeah? I wrote some things in college, but- shoots- haven't written anything since…….well……in a long long time”.
 “You haven't written anything since the bomb, huh”?
 “What”?
 “The one at some building. Your wife worked there. Your 3 year old son was in childcare. Hummmmm…..”
 He looked at her.
 “Hummmmm- bombs. You had stopped jumping at “all the sounds”. You'd even written a few articles for the VA Voice, had really gotten over it…..then…..”
 “How did you know?”
 “Because”- Gloria stated, looking him in the eyes as the cigarette burned, unattended, between his fingers. “Your time of suffering and emptiness is over. I've been sent to help you. I've been sent to tell you that you've gathered enough material. You've been through enough pain. That it's time to spill it out. I've come to tell you, to show you, that you're beautiful. That you're sexy and highly intelligent”.
 He stared at her.
 She took his hand, held it over the ashtray, spread the two fingers apart that held the cig, it dropped, she put them back together, and, enfolding his whole hand sideways with hers, squeezed gently. It started to tingle. It started to glow, thick yellow- white, pulsing. The color changed a few times. He knew that even though he was still gazing at her- cause she was glowing with the same spectrums. Then- poof! Everything looked normal.
 Normal. Right. Sure.
 He wiggled his fingers, looked down at them. He reached out and grabbed the spoon with them. He sat up and threw it towards the jar. It landed right on the lid. He looked back at her.
 His South Paw, now fully functional (he knew, somehow,) like his right hand had been before he left it behind in that rainy ditch so many years ago, reached for her. He wanted to try it out. He wanted to get as much practice as possible on her dove soft body, while he still could. He knew he wouldn't have long to worship this jewel. So he prayed, with his hand, on the first day of his new life. And she sighed, happy, and the sigh was a music anyone could appreciate.

3. Pounding
   Over and over again Stan had tried to write love songs, but- instead- he found himself pounding out his pain on his maroon stratocaster, much to the chagrin of his neighbors. In fact, that was probably one at the door right now. He was tempted to NOT answer it, but all he needed was another complaint to the landlord. He was already on shaky ground. Of course, if he had known who was there, he wouldn't of hesitated for even a minute. In fact, he would've bolted to the door and tore the locks off. Maybe that's why people aren't generally warned when their Luminous Future comes to call. They need to open the door slowly, tentatively, as if it were just another day, just another random knock. Then they could be surprised. And with Gloria assigned to your case, you DEFINITELY didn't want to break any locks. You'd need em’ later.

4. One Rose
 The San Francisco bay was nice at night. The old man leaned back into her arms, resting. The lights flashed on & off as if to a Tchikovsky symphony. He could hear it in his head, and he slowly closed his eyes. He felt at peace at last. He had been a general- in charge of great numbers of men & woman.. Many of them have found him over the years- well, their ghosts had- and had flanked him and crowded round bout him so he felt he couldn't breathe. They had formed a tight circle around him. No one could get near him, physically or otherwise. Not even Ellen and the kids. The grandchildren. His mom. Fred next door, his best friend since back in elementary school. Even Felix, the old tomcat his wife had found as a kitten downtown almost two decades ago. The legion of ghosts had formed a tight ring around him all those years and now- magically- they were gone! And he didn't even feel empty and lonely! I mean, gee, if ANYTHING is with you that long, even troublesome phantasms, you think you'd get used to them, you think you'd feel a vacuum or something when they disappeared. But he didn't- not at all. He felt so peaceful, and loved, and renewed, and……..
 Turning his head slightly, he kissed her full on the lips, and she responded. Then they got up, and walked to the car.
 “Thank you” he said, pulling one rose from the bouquet heed bought for Ellen, and giving it to her. He put the now-more-than-perfunctory bouquet in the front passenger seat and drove off, leaving her standing in front of the backdrop of city lights and endless sea.
 Ellen wouldn't mind the rose gift. She would've given a truckload to Gloria herself if she knew. But he wouldn't tell her. He'd go home, give her the flowers while she was putting dinner out, heed go upstairs and, as quietly as possible, move his bed into her room, right next to hers. He'd yank her quilt off her bed and lay it sideways across both of theirs. After he did the dinner dishes, heed calmly walk into the living room, pick up the remote, and turn off the TV. Then, heed take her upstairs and SHOW her the change. Yeah. Maybe he'll even pick up some catnip for Felix on the way home.

5. Snow Molecules
 It was starting to become day. “Hey, girl, wanna get up & hit the slopes again?” “Oh- is THAT what they're calling it nowadays?” “Smart ass!” He took her into his arms again. Yeah, why not? It was only a LITTLE light. When they finally emerged, it would be fully sunny. Totally bright.
 She liked the sweater, so he gave it to her before she left. She said the patterns reminded her of ice crystals- though it was actually a Navajo pattern- one his mom had given him last time he visited “The Res.”. “Come- come home Sky Feather” (it used to bother him when she called him by that name- now he thinks he'll like it) “be part of the tribal police force- you got a firearm license- you could be back with your People--- no--------- no boy--------- my son-------- you wouldn't be selling out. You could make sure we don't get bullied. You stand up for our people. You get up & up & up in ranks just like in the service, and the whole place could change causa you. I mean it, boy!”
 Yeah, he thought, staring out of the Jack Frost painted windows, staring at the expanse of snow. Maybe he HAD finished his term as an acid popping ski bum. He looked around his room, saw his Indian print and earth colored things scattered in the various rooms of the cabin. Except for his duffel bag (old and soft from the years) all his other luggage were zippered Indian print bundles he had bought at the tourist store on The Res. Yeah, his mama was right. There's a lot he could do there. And he WAS Indian at heart. He'd heard they were doing sweats there again. Some were learning the Old Language.
He sighed as he stuffed the bags with his possessions. It was a happy sigh.

6. Popovers
   “What are popovers?” Gloria asked, in her sincerest voice, even though she already knew. She wanted him to explain them. He nuzzled up to her breast and sucked it hard then popped his mouth off of it, grabbed her wrists, held her down, and looked in her eyes- laughing. “Let me show you, princess.”
 His house was meticulous. Sparkling. It would pass the most stringent military inspection. It felt like a honeycomb of chambers & anterooms in peoples’ imagined Heaven. Everything was white, tiled, clean, sparsely furnished, high ceilings, big windows letting in light. The kitchen was awesome- a little sienna brown on moldings, cabinets, tile borders, added to the white without soiling its purity.
 She had never seen anyone make popovers like this, though of course it was theoretically possible. Most people like to fill turnovers with jam or sweetened cheese or even cinnamon/sugar mix before baking- but ONE of those. He made all different kinds in the same pan. And the INGREDIENTS HE USED! He filled each muffin compartment ½ way with batter, then proceeded to make us breakfast. One held capers & mushrooms with a chunk of feta. In a couple he cracked open & plopped in: a whole egg. Some had broccoli and cheese, 2 with caviar- one black, one red, with a little black pepper & a few drops of lemon juice tossed in first, goat cheese with pistachios, and more. Then he topped them off with a big spoonful of batter.
 Putting that in the oven, he then made ‘the dessert tray’. Every single one was different. He opened the fridge door and went down the row of jams, sauces like chocolate and butterscotch and marshmallow, putting one dollop or squirt on each till that tray was filled too. Top ‘em off. He opened the oven, took out the main course which was perfectly done, and popped the dessert in. They both looked at each other, grinned, and grabbed for-
 The same popover. Gloria spoke up: “I'm not giving up this one without a fight.” “Oh, yeah?” said Peter. They looked at each other for one highly charged mock fierce moment. Then, the ripped the popover in two, bright red caviar flying all over the place, eggs bouncing off the counter, the walls, their heads. Laughing. Like newlyweds making mischief with their wedding cake, they shoved what was left of their hard-won ½’s into eachother’s mouths. Then, they each picked up a new one. And the fun REALLY began.
 The dessert ones made the prettier colors when dripping down the walls, especially when you throw them JUST RIGHT. Bavarian creme tasted better licked off a shoulder. They smeared the colors around the meticulous tiled floors, in the end, with their bodies. Laughing.

7. Platform Shoes
 The music blasted from the ten randomly placed speakers in the disco: “whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother you're staying alive, stayin’ alive!” Lights were flashing and pulsing everywhere.
 Gloria was DONE UP. She had on platforms, sequined tight pants, a different color & pattern altogether, seeming to clash, but…… it looked kinda good. Looked damn good to Brad- whose real name was Fern- but no one ever got an acting job with a name like Fern so……
 He ended up telling her his name was Fern. In fact, he ended up telling her pretty much everything. All his feelings, his complete life story. His nightmares. Every hidden fear and dream. All in a day. As long as she lived on earth somewhere, anywhere, he could no longer say there was one secret left in him, at least if he doesn't make any new ones. And-no. He wasn't afraid that she'd try to sabotage his career or make a cheap buck off the tabloids with any of it. She hadn't even heard of him, or the soap he was ‘a hunk’ on 5 days a week & an occasional prime time special. Anyways, he knew the totality of his soul, which he had spilled out, was safe in her hands. But it was strange to think that he- in the strictest sense of the word- had no secrets now. It felt like he had a big bowl full of shit and he dumped it out onto a well built compost pile (VERY well built, as he recalled. Ummmm. Memories.) then afterwards, heed rinsed it out himself with the garden hose before bringing it back into his house. At this point, it still had a little residue, it wasn't thoroughly washed, like with soap. But it was clean enough.
 He sat, leaning against a tree on the side of a hill, watching the other trees become black silhouettes against an almost opaque, thick, orange sky. Usually heed be watching the sunset from the balcony of his penthouse, leaning back on metal or plastic patio chairs, since it was North facing and he had to sit sideways to see West. He had taken a cab out to his little spot, quite a long trip, but- he wanted to be here. Where she'd took him. He laid down on the soft grass as twilight sunk down from the top of the sky, down, pushing the vibrant colors into the earth, down into the trunks and roots of the silhouetted trees, and remembered laying here with her. Then, he drifted off somewhere, and remembered dying, for nearly two immeasurably long days, on soft grass in a foreign land. Noonday sun. Sunset. Sunrise. Noonday sun. Sunset. Horrible rescue. No death. Shit. Life as a dream state. Fill it with noise so you don't hear the hollow echo.
 He didn't get nauseous! He thought about “it” and DIDN'T GET NAUSEOUS! PRAISE the LORD! Incredible! Oh thank God. Free. Thank God.
 Yes. Good idea.
 He walked down from the hill, and around the neighborhood that surrounded the little park, looking for a church. He heard the sound of some pretty gifted player practicing violin. It was wafting down the street from a front porch. The closer he got, the more he started to notice the other porches, lit by the soft deepening twilight. Then- he started to notice little things- flower boxes, smiles, old wooden cabinet radio being used to hold beer cans, on a powder puff blue porch.
 He even saw a hilarious sight. Two neighbors were stretching and hanging over the banisters of their porches. One was handing the other a glass of lemonade. They stopped, in the middle of this acrobatic maneuver, to wave hi to him. He waved back.
 Two blocks down was a little church. Three houses down from his future friends, the acrobats, (Jim and Porter) was the violin player, and the room for rent sign, and his peaceful future.

8.  Shoji Screens
 She sat, playing with butterflies in the garden. Gloria could see how woman could do this. Of course, she tries to understand everyone and everything- being an angel and all- but honestly, there were some things that were harder to understand. Why would a woman be okay with- in fact, happily content with- being owned by someone. But being a concubine in Taito's gardens, butterfly bedecked, midst soft sounds of fountains, fed by the springs of The Sacred Mountain itself- looming, properly placed in the North of the garden. The warm sun shone here all day in this East-West valley corridor. The north winds were blocked by the massive body of Fiji. They were protected from harsh winds of The Normal, sheltered in a sunny spot, fed and bathed and dressed in soft fabrics, their greatest concern of the day being: which general color they wished to emulate that day, before being wrapped and bejeweled, and- maybe later- whether to play soft music on some of the many stringed instruments, or to string flowers to put on Buddha's statue. Yes. She could see how they could actually really like this. And Taito- well, he was handsome, and a great lover. It was amazing that he actually felt love after seeing the massacres he'd seen during his years as a Rebel. But he did. He loved. These woman were very lucky.
 He smelled her on the silken scarf, pressed against his nose, one last deep inhale, then he threw it on the floor. Then, he busted up all the gates in the garden and around the spacious estate with a heavy, ornately decorated ax. He looked like a madman. He ran, dragging the heavy implement across carefully kept manicured paths, garden beds, tree groves, each time the next lock, hanging mockingly, became the only thing he saw, making a straight line towards it. He made a counterclockwise circle around the property till every last one was busted wide open- then he attacked the house. Every door, every window, broken open with the heavy end of the ax, a decoration for decades. Maybe centuries. Oh- how that blade must have sang when it made its first penetration of the North Gate. After all those decades, maybe centuries, hung on a wall, dusted occasionally, MAN that must've felt good!
 Done, he stumbled onto the verandah overlooking the garden. All his ladies were there amid the flowers. Well- all of them accept Gloria- who had somehow entered and escaped his sanctuary, even with all the former locks. They stared at him, waiting for something. He put his hands on his hips, legs spread in his carefully trained power stance, and shouted out: "You are all free! You are no longer owned by me! I love you all deeply! If even one of you leaves, I will have a deep, excruciating emptiness inside of me! But I cannot truly fully love you AND imprison you! It is a contradiction and I am not a contradictory man! And so, therefore, I release you!"
 The woman of The Butterfly Garden, sheltered by The Sacred Mountain to the North, looked at each other. Mei Lee was the one that stepped up. "Give me the ax" she said. The other ladies went inside, and took all of the tall, silk stretched, brightly painted screens that divided them from each other, forming separate rooms as it were in the Great Hall-
and heaped them in a pile in front of the Buddha statue. They smiled at each other, then at Taito, and then, Mei Lee, laughing, raised up towards the sky, the ancient ax of the Kuans.

9. Flame Red
 Size 11? A woman with size 11 feet? They were bigger than his! Mortimer Patterson knew that big feet were a sign of intelligence. Not just cause he was working at a shoe store- he'd only worked here a few weeks- and probably would last a few more. His Gramma had told him this when he was young, prob'lee to ease the sting of teasing.
 He goes through jobs. It's not like he's a bad worker, it's more like he gets bored at some point and, somehow, the universe feels that boredom. Lights start flashing in The Control Panel of The Central Operating Station Of The Universe, bells go off, and buzzers. Then, some old Clerk, smokin' cigarettes and drinkin coffee and readin cheap novels with his feet up on the panels edge- magazines and papers all strewn around-
 Well, he gets the message that Mort, one of the top 10 IQ scorers on earth, amazingly lucid and extremely powerful- is bored. Bored= low/no spiritual power...."mana". Waste of his presence there. Move the mana generator, Mortimer, to something new and stimulating! Then, a fire, a flood, an armed robbery etc. etc. etc. and- poof. Job gone. Move on. It had gotten to where he almost didn't want to say yes when he got offered a job, because he'd know there'd be an inevitable disaster.
 He looked at the curved foot in his hand. Wanted to run his hand over the arch, up the leg, to.......he was turned on by this woman. He'd taken his vow of celibacy by choice- and it was no big deal, he just gave his brain the message to turn off all systems in that sector, and its connected body parts, and it did. It was nice having an obedient brain. Sex brought distractions. It was better this way.
 Well, guess he oughta say that past tense, and mourn its passing. Cause it wasn't working now. His carefully built brain fort had tumbled. The chain of command has somehow fallen apart, and, slipping the large red pump onto her dove soft foot, he found himself afraid to stand up lest his erection show. He was excited and afraid all rolled up in one.
 He remembered what kind of disasters happened when The Chain Of Command broke down. Hunks of flesh, which had previously held souls with a whole life of manifesting in front of them, flying in flame. Flame like the red of the shoes. Maybe he could choose to leave the jobs! Yes! Maybe he's working all these jobs to gather experiences- knowledge- little details- for what? His art?
 Wouldn't that be a trip, do a portrait/collage on my computer- each the same picture of (me) yet with different uniforms, outfits, related graphics. Me as a cook at McDonalds. Me collecting tickets on a commuter train. Me rooting out threatening plants at a National park. Me........ well, on and on. I could do some collage stuff. Sounds good.
 Maybe- just maybe- the Universe  is forcing me to do this "fieldwork" because it's my mission! If this is true............
 Then I could be in tune with it. I can easily feel when I'm starting to "get bored" (absorbed all I needed from this experience), it's usually at least a week -n- a half till the incidents slam down- more than enough time for me to-
 Well, for instance (looks up in Gloria's eyes, hand still on 2nd calf, both hot little- well, large- but HOT- pumps- are on now) he could leave with her right now. Bye, Stan. I'm quitting. Sorry. Medical reasons. Yeah. Uncontrollable lust. Wouldn't want me walking around the store with erections here and there throughout the day.
 Hey- I bet I could get disability. Certainly it would be hard to get jobs with this disability- but, I guess a desk job where you're totally alone all the time could work. Right, as if.
 Well- actually- if I could sell my art- shit, enough people have been downloading it for free- the hits are almost excessive sometimes- I could sell my art through the net! My needs are simple, one room, a little box fridge and hot plate, a sink, a shower, a bed, a phone, a desk, & my computer. I'm pretty much down to those bones now.
 Hey- why get a static room? With The Universe having me on the move so much, why not have a moving home? I could put all this shit into a van- get a generator for the computer & stuff- a cell phone and portable modem setup- bracket everything into the walls- my little fridge and hot plate would be perfect for a little mobile home. I would have purchased them for it if I were to furnish it from scratch. Actually, it seems that everything I own was made to fit into a van. But not any van- it has to have style & character- maybe a little step van. Those are cool- how you can open both side doors when you're driving, kinda like a sideways convertible or a dune buggy or somethin. Cool. Then again, an old schoolbus would be cool too..........
 He took his hands away, sat cross legged at her feet, and looked up at her.
 "Hey- darlin'. Wanna go drivin with me to find somethin' I think is waitin' for me? Peruse the backroads outside town, moo at cows, keep our eyes peeled, see what comes?"
 "That sounds real good to me, lover" Gloria, in her red pumps, said.

10. Sun's Taste
 He stood alone inside the Arizona memorial. Plaques hung on the walls of this particular room. He was gazing at the special one, special to him anyway- cause he was well aware that each plaque, of course, had a connection for at least one, probably many, visitors who had ended up in the chamber over the years. His special one hung solemnly on the wall in front of him. The name of his fallen friend was on it.
 "We're closing sir" the 20-something pretty girl in Parks Dept. garb peeked in and informed him. She had seen him before, many times. "Just a minute- just a minute more, okay?" "Kay." She's gone.
 A beam of late afternoon sunlight comes in, skimming the ocean, bouncing off it,  and angling through the little glass window. It lands right on it. Barkow's plaque, as it's reposing serenely, as it has all these many years, sitting now in front of him on the wall, only now, different from ever before, it's emblazoned.
 "Eat the sunlight" she had said. He had moved here years ago, drawn by the memorial, by his memories, his recurring visions. Anyway, Hawaii was a good place to retire to. So- he'd come bout 15 years ago- and still lived in his little cottage on the rainy side- he liked the sound of rain- it was peaceful- and the Kealoha's, who lived nearby, were great landlords. They'd check in every so often, bring him some breadfruit and coconuts sometimes ("there's just SO many- they're falling off the trees. Please take some. Thank you Bernie. Yes. You fine? Good. Kay see you round den.") Then, give em' his space. They knew his check came every month, never pressed him for the rent, hadn't raised it in years, "Hey- you so temporary, knowing if any of our keikis (kids) wanna take the cottage you'd haf to move on short notice- not fair to ask any more rent. Fact, we're probably chargin' you too much." And yeah, they had even lowered the rent over the years. Their two kids both had homes and land of their own- they'd never move into his shack- it was just a game. He'd probably live in that little cottage till he died, he and the old lady and the old man deepening their friendship with each completed turning of the sun. They were good people. He has his own driveway, was set back past the banana forest so he didn't even see their house. Gentle sound of rain. It was really the end- of- his- life paradise, except for the misquitos. Oh, how he hated and dreaded the misquitos. He protected himself from them with carefully latched windows and doors..
 Yet she'd told him that raw sunbeams tasted better than those that have passed through glass or screening. It's like the difference in water's taste stored  in plastic or in glass or metal or fresh from a bubbling stream. She rose from the bed and opened the window. Then she licked her lips, over mischievously as he remembers- and opened the screen. And he wanted to scream: No! You'll let the misquitos in!
 The sunbeam, which had broken through the consistent periodic rain clouds and hit him square on the butt as he was riding on her- the one that had started this whole line of action, was streaming in. She started licking and sucking at the beam, as if it was a tangible thing. He, still shuddering from his recent orgasm, had bent over and given it a tentative lick. And he'd felt strange ever since.
 Bernie walked slowly over the museum floor, shuffling almost, and broke a rule- maybe for the first time in his life. He opened the little window wide. Then, he watched the raw beam hit the name of his once-upon-a-time friend. Then, he stuck his tongue out.

11. Chips
 They were facing a massive wall of fatty-salty snack foods when he quipped up: "Hey- get these chips, mom. They gotta be cool- look- they have a web site.." He knew it was dorky as soon as he said it, but he  wasn't self-conscious till he noticed her standing a little ways from them in the snack aisle. She looked just like that actress he liked- that blonde clever one that dressed good- she was in a series now playing Sabrina the Teenage Witch- a character he knew from his folks' old comic book collection- which they displayed prominently on a special table in the living room. What a childish thing. Like he should talk. He was down here in the keys during the wildest time of the year- spring break- with his parents, and he was almost 22 years old. Sure, they were nervous about him ever since that flip-out incident in boot camp- but- dishonorable discharge and all- he'd survived college- he only had a year and a half to go- but- 4.0, school soccer team, speech and debate team- they won 2nd place in individuals when he'd argued for neighborhood schools for neighborhoods, carefully dodging, darting, and attacking the whole segregation argument of his opponent and ending up- really- looking like the stabler of the two. but he knew his folks still didn't trust him. "Oh- that sounds lovely" mom said. When he mentioned his springtime plans at thanksgiving dinner "we should all go- make it a family thing". But he really knew why they wanted to go. They had enough money to breeze to any beach even the Caribbean, whenever they wanted. They were still nervous.
 Dad woulda gone to boot camp if he had been drafted, but he hadn't. His mom or sister hadn't had that LOVELY life experience either, obviously,  And so all of them had NO IDEA what happens there. And the movies don't tell it- not all anyway. And they definitely can't tell you about the feelings. The degradation. The cold. Being scared. Having crude cursing guys fingering dirty magazines in rows and rows of beds in dark undecorated rooms. Screaming- lots of screaming- being screamed at. ANYONE could go crazy there- SHOULD go crazy there- in fact- anyone who actually stayed all the way through boot camp, all the way to the bitter end,  and took that shit, especially those who then STAYED in the military for years and years- THEY were the crazy ones. Yeah, he didn't look at anyone the same after he found out they'd been to boot camp He'd move away a little. Then find a reason to leave their presence. Crazy. Crazy motherfuckers. HE was the sane one.
 She approached. "Too many choices, huh?" she said, toss of her hair. "It says a lot about our society". His professor of anthropology father said "Wonder what someone from Russia would think of this?" "Or whatever they're calling it these days" she quipped up. We all laughed.
 She extended her hand- "Hi- I'm Gloria" dad first- then mom, then Carrie, I waited. "Where do you go?" she asked, when she finally reached me. God- she looked so much like my fantasy actress-girl, the one I spent many nights with in my mind, she could pass for her at, like, one of those "I look like a celebrity" contests.
 "What'da ya mean?" I stammered out. "She MEANS - dorkus" (Carrie volunteered) "What COLLEGE" I wanted to give her a sharp elbow at that moment at that moment SO badly but I held it in.
 "Cal Tech- engineering. You?" "Oh, I went to college for awhile, anthropology major, but I decided to go out and do a little life-experience field work so- I dropped out for awhile." My parents looked nonplused. Wow.
 "Hey- what'd you say your name was- Ari?" I thought "Yeah- short for Aristotle- okay?" I said: "Yeah." (softly). "Well, Ari, there's a party down at my friends house tonight- you'd really like it- huh?" She pulled a pen out of her pocket. This was when I noticed she didn't have a purse. Why was she shopping without a purse. Actually, she had no cart or basket either, did she? Or groceries
 She took the bag of chips out of his hands, looking him in the eyes, and licking her lips seductively, as if only they were there. "Here's directions" she said, writing them in thick black permanate marker across the picture of a scrawny, smiling tiger having a bad hair day. She blew on it a coupla times to dry the ink, then turned to my mom, somehow knowing that she was the decision maker in the family, and handed her the chips. "He'll have a great time. There's plenty'uh beds in the house if he wants to crash, we'll take good care of him- believe me". Mom looked at Gloria and said, "Well, that sounds just lovely dear".

12. Mineral Soak
She looked out at the Seine from the little stone patio. "I'm to go soak in the Jacuzzi, mi amour" said Peleau. "want to join me?" "Sure, dearest. I'll be right there." She tucked the robe around her naked body, there was a little chill wind off the river. Then she picked up the Penthouse from the top of the pile on the breakfast table. One of the promised articles that was headlined on the front was "Touched By An Angel- Really!". She leafed through, and found it. There were pictures of him interspersed among the text. Him at the races near his sports car, at dinner with Hollywood stars- and a coupla starlets looking pretty cozy she noticed to her great delight, all with his non- prosthesis clad right arm stub proudly displayed for all to see. Sharply dressed too. Well, good for you! Front page!
 "Gloria- bring the mineral salts in, Cherie-" "Sure, Peleau, I'm coming."

13. Bad Sex
“I don't think good sex is a sin” he said, staring up at the ceiling, Gloria in the crook of his arm, his arm hooked loosely around her neck in kindof a boyish gesture really. “What do you mean” she murmured.  “There is bad sex. Of course- you must know that- being who you are and all- but my definition is much broader than the obvious one that comes to mind. Rape is certainly ‘bad sex’ in many ways- but- okay-like when a woman gives in just cause she feels she owes it to him for a dinner or after the prom or something- or, another one- if someone's about to split up with someone & doesn't tell them- the good-bye fuck is bad sex. If you're cheating on your partner and feel bad about it, every time till you come clean is bad sex. Oh- oh- married sex. Well, most married sex anyway- perfunctory sex- almost worse than rape. No feeling. Like machines. Not even like animals, the passion of the Wild Creatures is not there. Definitely a machine. A cold, hard, have to bang on the side of it with your fist to start it machine. You know, I know a guy that has sex with his wife once a month. And its scheduled no less. I imagine he red pens that day on his calendar. She says she doesn't like it. Now- this is what I wonder now- didn't he know that  BEFORE he married her? I mean- can we talk? And- also- by the way- does he get any pleasure in this? I mean does she just lay there like some blow-up doll while he pounds her, then rolls over and goes to sleep? Jeez. Hey- babes- you know, he's a vet too. Maybe you could help HIM out a little.

So I'm dead. At last. Happy, Mother? You fuckin pleased now? Now your usin all those flowery words like pleased since you started those hoity ballroom dancin lessons, betcha just so pleased you got rid of your little dissapointment of a daughter. A little Lazarus I've been, ey, laughing through my bitter tears each time you tried to fuck my life up right into the grave. Like that time you told Stan where the battered woman's shelter had moved me to. That was a good one. Wonder if the docs saw those two big scars from that lovely incident when they brought me in and looked at my medical records and shook their heads like a bunchuh perplexed owls. Tuh.
 A dissapointment. All in your mind, momma, I was really the best a' your brood. But yeah, nothing I did was right by you. Sure, it was easy to disc me when I was in the girl-gang, my only real family come to think of it. Or when I was drunk- not as disgustingly as Candy, who mixed it with her poppy powder, or as consistantly as Derrick, case a' day, but I was the one with all the kids, so I was a "horrible mother" and boy weren't you just pleased to tell all your friends, my friends, and just about anyone who would listen each time I went on a binge. Get a billboard mom, save your voice for your stupid Karaoke nights.
 Pathetic bitch. I couldn't have pleased you if I'd graduated from Harvard with honors. I couldn't have pleased you if I was the first woman to land on the fuckin moon, or become president, or fly around the world non-stop in a solar-powered plane I'd designed myself. Cause there's no pleasing a hard cold bitch like you less' I'm a devoted docile heroin addict like Candy, or a sleazy car dealer with a built Beverly of a wife like Derrick. No, givin you five grandkids wasn't enough to put me in your gallery of affection. Takin care of whiney Candy and big, lazy, spoiled Derrick when the old man left and you were always out "doin things" didn't earn me no domestic brownie points. You just hated me since I was born, or damn near. Maybe I bit your tittie too hard one day while you were nursing me or something and it pissed you off and you said "this is my hated child".
 Well, hope you're happy you stupid idiot. I am. Life sucks, till you die. This is pretty peaceful, actually. I don't even feel any pain. I wonder if the babies are okay. Guess if they aren't, I'll see them in heaven. Cause that's where I'm going. Cause I'm good. 97% of my whole entire life has been spent good. I WAS a good mother- you had no idea what I suffered through- the blows and pain I took that were aimed at the kids- how I'd throw my body in between "darling Stan" and them and take it instead. Do you know he used to tie me up and stick things in me to hurt me and then rape me for hours, tellin me if I ever left he'd kill the children right in front of me and make me watch and hear their screamin? Oh, yeah, that's right, you did know that, back from when I first got in the shelter and you read the records on the table and Lucille came in and caught you. But you didn't believe darling long suffering poor Stan did any of that BULLSHIT that your dissapointment of a daughter made up and told them just to get out of the house, probably so she could go sluttin around and fucking every dude in town. Like any guy would wanna fuck me when there were so many scar-free chicks who hadn't had five kids, well, six including the one he beat to death inside me when I was 6 months on.
 No matter. Now I'm goin to heaven or wherever good people go, and you can just go to hell.

 Once upon a time a great ship sank in the ocean.  A little girl survived.  A beautiful little blonde haired, blue-eyed girl, head full of wavy curls, in her night shirt, in a small boat.  Drifting through the ocean.
A current seemed to curve her away from Tahiti, where there were many people and much food and multitudes of warm fires.  She was instead driven by an insistent yet calm ocean-hand towards a chain of empty, yet beautiful, islands.
She had almost reached the Island that would someday be named Kauai when the ocean swallowed her.
It’s true that Kanaloa fell in love with her at first sight.  After all, he had seen her in his dreams and remembered her love as if somewhere, somehow, it had happened many times before.  His kingdom was peaceful at this time in the earth’s history.  There were some ships, some killing of creatures, but not much and usually respectfully.  He had time to personally go to hold the small boat steady, to guide it until his friend, current, responded to his command.  He pulled her down to the kingdom-under-the-sea himself with his powerful hands, too.  Yet, knowing he did not want to feel like a father since in his dream they were lovers - he let his many daughters, most of them very ancient, (yet looking young and beautiful because of the love they were always infused with) care for her.  She grew into a beautiful woman.  On the day she was to meet Kanaloa again, one of the beautiful Kupuna sisters stepped forward, and took her hands.
“It would be good if we name you now, before the King comes,” she said.
“Yes!” chimed in another, “Beware - from this day forward remember what we say.  If ever a man gives you a name and calls you by it, he will be saying he owns you; he will be putting his hooks in. He desires to own your soul.
Another spoke up, almost interrupting, though of course the sisters were always in perfect rhythm with each other. Must have been the comfort born of living so long together, waking together, playing together, singing and laughing and spending long, dependable nights curled up in their large shell beds dreaming near each other, hearing each other’s breath.  They were one body, one mind.
“As soon as anyone tries to name you, male or female or even the Kupuas and such who are both, as soon as anyone tries to give you a new name, or to change your true name in anyway, get away fast.  There can only be trouble ahead.”
They heard Kanaloa approaching.
“We need a name that is uniquely yours, yet still one that joins you to him, since you two are destined, in love before, during, after.  He brought you here so you may live, be nurtured, ‘till you were old enough to live on your own.  He saved your life.  Wherever you go, at each moment, no matter what you’re doing, you are of him, yet separate.”
“You shall be called Kananaka”, they all said at once, and though their voices were always soft and never loud, all weaving together, they pulsed, and Kanaloa, approaching, felt the pulses through his body and came to understand all the hidden meanings of her name by the time he reached her.
Of course, when Kanaloa and Kananaka faced each other, all the love they had felt through time backward and forward. Flooded into their souls.  He called her by her NAME.  She called him by his NAME.  They embraced, and they were happy.

II
Kananaka sat in the cave set low near the frothy surf.  She waited for him.  On land she was a woman, yes, but only when she swam down to him and passed the 30,000 foot depth did she really feel whole.  But he insisted she spend some time on land.  He said it was ‘cause the earth needed her, and she needed it.  He explained that she had been born in this lifetime as a creature of the above-world and truly she must spend some time there so she may remember that, gain skills of land-living, and have the best of both worlds.  Kanaloa himself could only come out of the great ocean for short periods of time.  Yet he did sometimes, to visit her, to LOVE her. Yes, she was lucky…. But still she was lonely for him. She had been surprised when her bones started vibrating inside her, interrupting her sleep with the knowledge he was on his way, since it had only been a couple of days since his last visit.  She could literally feel him getting closer. So she laid in the cave and waited.
It was really his own excessive desire for her that made him “banish” her to the world above for long stretches of time.  She knew he could do no work when he was near her - for always his desire would grow and he would need her and then it would seem that just a few minutes would pass and he would need her again.  Of course, she didn’t mind, for truly she needed him too.  Her body longed to have him fill her empty spaces, and they certainly played creatively in the art of love, and she was happy.
Yet, she understood that his kingdom was vast - and needed much care.  So she, reluctantly, swam up to the surface every so often, curling up, cold and empty, in whatever cave was near where she popped up.  She’d found herself on many strange shores.  It felt that there was no end to the exploring she could do in these islands - even if she lived here for hundreds of thousands of years.  She would someday know every shore-hugging cavern in the island chain, though such a long period of time would pass between times she’d happen to pop up in the same area - the rock house would have already changed - often dramatically - through the crash of surf and rumbling of earth - and - sometimes even - the coating with the inner fire of the earth - so it was really as if each cave was new.
She readied for his embrace by laying on her back and spreading her moonlight colored legs apart.  He soon emerged from the churning brine and sunk himself into her and she was filled and then he was gone with parting kisses and tears.  She had tears too, flooding for days and days sometimes, but the ti leaf helped with the soreness.
She had lonely days.  She would emerge at sunrise, or a little later if she was in a west facing crevice, for until the sun hit her skin she’d be in deep uninterruptable (except by him, of course) dreams.  Pictures from past times and times to come flashed through her brain, and clung to her as she opened her eyes.  Then, she’d rouse herself and get to know some of the plants that lived on the cliffs, and in the open fields, and in the deep valleys.  She didn’t know the mountain plants, though.  She was afraid to go there.
There was something about the rising of the various mountains that both frightened and attracted her.  Of course, she had a practical reason not to ascent - she didn’t want to be too far from shore should she feel him rattling her bones, and need to quickly return to the cave so not to miss him.  But it was a common sight to see her sitting in a valley, bedecked with flowers, knees hugged up to her soft and beautiful breasts, ti leaf juice dried on her hands and in little drops on her belly and lap and Kohe twisting leis - her habit every morning over the past centuries, and she had actually gotten quite good at it.  She’s walk with ti leaves tucked under her arm, and every time she found one of her favorite flower bushes, or some choice ferns, or even a new plant just ‘cause it was new, she would sit down for awhile, and according to the amount she could gather, would weave her prizes into a ti strand until there were no more left.  The length it ended up determined where she would tie it.
Today in the mists floating through the Ko’o’laus’ (she had dreamed many of the future-names of the places by now and taken to calling them by those names) she was adorned around the waist with bright red feather-flowers and small sharp fern leaves with maroon undersides twice wrapped and tied in a loose knot.  She had two wrist bracelets, one with wilting yellow flowers, the other another red flowered one, without the ferns.  She wore nothing else.  She stared up at the mountains around her.  Little did she know her feelings of aloneness were false.  She was being watched, too.  Soon she would know.

III
He followed her to the cave and hid while she fell into her deep sleep.  The harried dream seemed to be real ‘till the sun hit her in the morning, and she saw that indeed it had been.  She had been fastened tight to the body of the cave, rough cordage seeming to have been fashioned - perhaps by coconut husk strands - securing her through every puka and crevice in the hard black walls.  She still wore the wrist leis, though they were pressed hard against her skin by the cordage.  The long beautiful lei that has been tied loosely around her waist, twice wrapped, was now wound over and over across her mouth.  She tried to speak - but having lived with the soft-spoken Kupuna sisters all her life - well, all of it she could remember clearly, she did not know what a scream was.  Even if she had known, it wouldn’t have done any good.  No sound could penetrate the expertly twisted lei.  The lighter it got, the more bruises and scratches were revealed to her swollen eyes.  Finally, she closed them, and lay there, and wept, and waited, and unfortunately her wait was not too long.  She felt the cave shake with his footsteps and looked up, only to see the enormous dark silhouette of her tormentor.  Now that she was awake, she saw exactly what was headed into her body, and was both horrified, and, somehow, also, aroused.  He tore into her flesh, pumped his seed into her, then left.  This was repeated many times over the days and weeks to follow.  She was hungry, and thirsty, and dirty, and - she felt - she saw in her mind - especially each time the silhouette would appear, filling the doorways with its massive bulk - that she was drifting away.  She was herself - only young, a curly haired child drifting alone and hungry and thirsty in a little boat at the mercy of some intelligent, insistent tide.
Somewhere, below 30,000 fathoms at least, a drumbeat thumped once or twice inside the chest of the immortal yet aged Kanaloa - slim body and long streaming beard, and hair, white/gray/silver with streaks of dark fuzzy green when algae would sometimes grow there. At times like these, when he had not moved from his throne once in weeks, many green streaks adorned his flowing mane.  There was still a long line of petitioners.  There were multiple terrible bad happenings in the six of the seven seas, and all the oceans, ones he must address immediately and certainly could not put off without risking further disasters.  It was hard for him to visualize humans doing so many terrible things to the oceans, since the only human he had ever known was Kananaka, and she was not like that.  She was gentle, and soft, and far removed from any hateful, stupid or angry actions, words (feels the drumbeats inside his heart again) or .... any ... thing.
The various representatives of the six sectors of Na Kai and all of “Na Moana” that had been bombed, poisoned, trashed, confined by walls and pierced by poles and...
Looked up at the wake of rushing bubbly as Kanaloa shot up to the surface quickly and like an arrow.
In a cave bones started to tremble.  A large form appeared in the entranceway.  A little girl drifted out to sea in her boat.

 IV
He tore the man off of his Kananaka.  He crushed the bones of the giant with his bare hands, throwing them quickly into the ocean with tufts of hair and hunks of flesh still clinging.  Then he called on a wave or two to jump up and wash him and they obliged.  While he was inside, freeing his beautiful Love from the rough cordage, the pieces and tufts and bones churned.  Each cell held the feeling of a man in the heat of pumping, ready to explode his seed to impregnate, interrupted.  The yearning, the urge, the craving for release and progeny and more ... pulsing in the cells ... that’s what must have done it.  In the cave, as Kanaloa lovingly and gently unwrapped the wet, slimy lei matted down with time, from around Kananaka’s mouth, the unrestful body parts of the giant had ample time to churn and tumble and transform.  As Kanaloa stroked the cheek of Kananaka, cried salty tears onto her swollen eyes while nuzzling, took her full into his arms of comfort, holding her close but not close enough to hurt, they churned into something new.  She was dying.  He had to get her back to the sea, back to the sanctuary, back to his daughters full of love, to heal her.  He lifted her up with his strong yet soft arms, and carried her to the edge of the cliff.  He was ready to jump back into his kingdom, holding her close to him, when he saw them swarm out of the sea and walk up onto the land.  They were all colors, shapes, sizes, sexes, dispositions, and they walked on to the land and Kanaloa realized in one desperate moment that the problems he had been solving for weeks in all the scattered parts of his kingdom, had now come here.  Soon the bombs would drop, the ships would scurry, the ocean creatures would be slaughtered.  He’d have to get her to the sanctuary immediately if there was even enough time left - before they had to move.  He tried not to think too hard about where they could possibly move to - where, indeed, an ocean sanctuary could be found in this confusing world where one over-populating species, having taken over and sucked up the land, had spilled into his waters.  ‘Cause as he thought of this, on the cliff, watching the throng move into the valleys, meadows, beaches - and even the forbidding mountains - he was frozen.  He could not move.  It was with a will that could only come from a god that he pushed these visions away - and found his knees again, and held Kananaka tight next to his breast, and jumped.

 V
The clam shells were glued together.  They moved quickly and quietly across the floor of the ocean.  In them, the daughters of Kanaloa, each in their own shell craft, roaming the waters of the earth, watching, protecting, guarding.  Sometimes a sister would go up on land, to try and influence history, to (possibly) save another piece of ocean.  Every so often, at least a few times in their lives, folks would meet them, women who looked excruciatingly beautiful and possibly ancient.  Sometimes, to ease the pain of being away from each other - nestling, breathing, playing - they’d take a lover.  These became the poets, forever staring off into the water, dreaming, longing, but never finding all the words to express every last feeling before they died and their bodies became dust.  They were unexpressed thoughts raging, reborn as prophets, seers, and musicians, all branches of the same work.  From the time these ones were born, it seemed, they were screaming for radical change.  They also always remembered the words of their long gone loves, and spoke loudly for radical change and also for Love.  The earth spun around and around.
Kanaloa, relieved of his duties, and Kananaka, healed completely except for her voice which never returned, sailed the world.  Out of respect he remained silent too.  They never really needed words to talk anyway.
They glide under the oceans to this day.  They slip through the depths, talking to each other with their touch, laying in each other’s arms, always (gently) inside each other, making love without end in their little pod under the churning seas.

When you study wolves, you find, often, most often, okay- almost a hundred percent of the time- that the lone wolf is the aberrant one. The one that is ill. The one that “doesn’t fit in with the pack”, (their family) or, even, ANY pack. The Human lone wolf, which we will study here, doesn’t fit in with “surrogate” families either: not gangs or churches or 12-step programs or THE WORLD AT LARGE but
 Every so often, there’s that special lone wolf. Often in legends, sometimes actually observed in Nature. Yes- the wolf that stories are made of, that songs are sung of, that totemic symbols are created of- and painted with careful hands on tipis and wooden pole-statues and cave walls and
 Yes- this could be a story of such a wolf. Right now she’s sitting (alone) in her car in a parking lot outside her favorite bookstore/café where, on a Saturday night, the place was too packed for someone ALL ALONE TO TAKE UP ONE WHOLE TABLE so she’s writing this story in her car, sipping her “Amore’ Special” coffee, designed by the Employee Currently Known As Hope. The coffee Hope made. Hope. Hope allows that fraction of one- percent chance that she will be a lone wolf that has a constellation named after her, whose songs may someday be sung around campfires. That lone wolf is me.
 Coincidentally, perhaps, this story starts in a car. Specifically, a cab. And, come to think of it, hope IS actually involved. For I find myself hoping that what was revealed to a twelve year old me in a cab on a chilly November day was indeed perceived right. Imagine if, all these years, I thought that one hundred and seventeen was my lucky number and it was actually my UNLUCKY number! Boy, there has to be a stronger word than fo-pah to describe such a thing!
 November seventeenth, and New York City was a dirty slush stain on the world. The metallic smell of dust was everywhere! I was waiting for the cab in my apartment. It was 11:07 on the digital clock when the buzzer rang: finally! The luncheon started at noon- and the damned clinic I worked at where it was to be held was just west of the Bowery! At least it was a Manhattan Cabbie. "Step on it, Jack, and see the sidewalks as your own personal thoroughfares if you must! I’m the goddamed volunteer of the year and the lovely mayor with the blue eyes even a hardened old spinster could melt under at one glance from them, melt into undirty water running down the city streets and cleaning and blessing and purifying everything it runs over, is waiting for me. Go!
 I enter the elevator and start the dreaded descent, 11 flights of hell- lord- how many times had I- the only white girl in this black and Puerto-Rican neighborhood- had the shit kicked out of me in this very elevator. Oh, God, if you exist, hear me? Please? Not today? Please please please please please please please please please?
 I was in my candy-striper outfit, pink and white striped smock over short sleeved white blouse all ironed carefully and little white socks and white laced dependable shoes. Key to the house on a string around my neck, carefully hid under the costume (as all uniforms are). Was the string white? Probubly. But out of sight. No, I didn’t want anyone to see it and ask questions and find out that I pretty much lived alone in apartment # 7, on the 11th floor.
 There was a stomach-tightening moment. I would have thrown up all over the elevator floor, pooling around my clean, white shoes, some dripping on my stiff clothing mask, if I hadn’t been too nervous to eat breakfast. The numbers went down smooth, almost there- 4, 3, then shivered------ hovered------ stopped------ the potential doom shown from the dirty yellow light of that 3. Door sliding open.
 Whew! It’s an old woman with an empty oversized canvas bag- the kind they carried groceries in back then- talking hurriedly in Spanish to no one I could see and shaking her head back and forth and it took two more floors for me to let the air out and then the light went from “one” to “L” and I flew down the lobby hall and out the door to enter cab
 Number 117. And Jack stepped on it. We almost flew to the edges of the Bowery. There, you could see, if you chose to look, as I did on that day, winos passed out in the wet slush. People stepped over them as if they were parking meters that had been knocked over once again by hoodlums or as if they were garbage bags thrown down from tenement windows by a woman alone with 16 children and afraid to leave them for even a minute to take it down by hand or as if they were an empty handbag cast aside after the contents had been gutted, any old obstacle of your choice. You were only a human being in the Bowery when you were upright, and even then, only to the other desperate souls. Otherwise you were trash-in-the-way.
 And then, suddenly, the bus was in front of us. Stopped for some reason, on one of the only narrow one way streets on our journey. Bus driver out on the sidewalk shoutin at someone, wavin the arms emphatically, bus doors open, bus idling with that humhumhumhumhum noise. Smell of diesel exhaust burning like high-grade cocaine to the nostrils, yet without the benefit of the buzz afterwards. It don’t mean a thing, if it, ain’t got that
 Sting of sight sound smell, in an excruciating pause in my journey. And there I was left alone with my thoughts, my self, staring at the back of the bus in hypnotic trance- at first, to avoid looking directly at either the altercation on the street OR the frustrated animal caged almost raged cabbie. Stare right between them, stare at the back of the bus that’s there, stare at the number emblazoned in cold and dirty silver on the back woah look it is
 110117.
 Where was the bus going? Where was I going? These questions briefly whooshed through my brain, drugging me into fog of the brain eyes glazed over trance of emptiness. A deep heat comes over my heart, slowly but spreading, as if injected through a syringe by a sadistic dealer. Alone. I am here in the stinging smell of the filth that is what we have done with our stinking little fucking lives on this tiny planet, going to make a stinkingly sweet speech in a usually stinking understaffed clinic (cleaned up for the occasion) to a buncha stinkingly hypocritical pseudo-do gooders over ½ of whom wished I hadn’t discovered the open-cans-of-tomatillos-in-the-fridges connection to the lead poisoning/mild malnutrition cause wouldn’t it be better if the blight of these ten to a room “Spics” would just be gone so they could knock down the buildings and put up some nice gentrifying high-rises and
 See, the lone wolf is crazy. 100% of all lone wolves. BUT- the small fraction of that one percent that are the stuff of legends are like the geniuses whose names we recognize----- rather than those that end up dead or in asylums.
 The day I realized that 117 was my lucky number was the day I realized I was all alone in this stinking world was the day my parents didn’t “find time” to come to my glory was the day I looked at the bus driver and willed him to immediately stop in mid-sentence and get on the bus and pull out lil’ doggie (wolfie?) was the day I went and read my sweet poem that drept candy pre speech was the day I threw the speech itself, written on two nice clean sheets of paper, out to the crowded room of spectators, was
 The day the face of the Wolf poked out of a starch-like ironed  pink and white striped costume, and Wolfie told everyone how it REALLY was------ red in faces, some walking out, the rest cheering me at the end----- though many, uncomfortably. Today they’d say: “You Go Girl!” Crazy wolf barking truth.
 Now, the old lady sits in her car, alone of course. A few weeks earlier, on 1/17/00, her children decided to fly away from her….. she will see them again after awhile, of course, yet that won’t make her less alone.

She spent her life howling out the raw words that burned.
 Many of the clan ran away.
  Some bared their teeth.
Mist is up. It falls down to the ground. There are some wolves still hanging around, circling, pacing, checkin her out. They, at once, as if carefully planned, raise their soft nozzles and croon their approval in varying tones. She turns and walks into the mist with no parting comment. She is sung in the stars- the constellation of Searing Truth- 4th to the left when the North Star is dependable, which is always, that’s her home…. she’s one of the lights that seem small from where you can see, but if you got really close would be large, hot, almost too bright to imagine.

Look close now……… you’ll find her there.

I wept last night.
In the kitchen I wept.
Was waiting for a baked potato at the time-

I think it actually started in bed a few minutes before that. I was layin in bed, lights off, waiting for the potato. I had just been on the net searchin for The King's Road- but hadn't been able to stay on long, my eyes- and, it seems, my brain- were tired.

So I'm cuddled/rolled in a blanket waiting for a potato whose over on the other side of the room in a toaster oven TRYIN   to bake, oh, yes, rah----lee it is, and one little tear formed in the corner of my eye. I didn't even know it till I got up!

When it unexpectedly rolled down from that corner, as I rose from the bed in MY corner, on the floor of the living room. I rose from there to go check on the baked potato in the little "oven" ooooo it was starting to smell good which was a good sign and DOWN IT ROLLED making (what seemed like) an excruciatingly slow journey down and over the mound of my cheek and then it went a little further on the underside of those nice Cherokee/Viking cheekbones of mine and, then, I guess. it just felt like stopping there.
 

I felt it, as if it was foreign, as if it was a visitor from another planet (where I
had been one of those who had seen a few sci fi flicks but never read any books or short stories in that genre so I wasn't scared or happy or thinking there was some language I ought to be speaking to this foreign unexpected visitor): it was just there, and I was just there, and we stood together in the kitchen.

Finally, I touched it. I couldn't help it! And, as I touched it, and its perfect large
oval-tapered-at-one-end shape sucked into my finger, merged and made the shape not that anymore (and maybe the event even changed my FINGER), there was a pause- for just a second surely (though, truth be known, it seemed more like 3)

And, then the rest of it's clan came to join it in this world. Well, or, perhaps they were "just friends"- though- truth be known- friends can sometimes be more "clan" than family. They rolled out of the caves (my eyes) they had been in- they didn't march, (or saunter perhaps) like the first one- like the Alpha tear- no, they rolled and bounced and cascaded and jumped out- but not loudly like boisterous children

More like adults after an apocalypse, happy to be out in the light again.

    "OH SHIT! I did it! He wrote his book! I DID it! He's writing like never before! Mission fulfilled! Well, except for the kiss. Not on cheeks or neck either, the official one. On the lips.
    Why am I so afraid. I really have to, it's part of the muse's role, I mean, I won't get in REAL big trouble if I don't- yet- JEEZ what have I got to lose? Will he yell at me? Push me away? What? WHAT? How can he hurt me any more than he already has?
    And, to address the probable REAL reason, what could REALLY happen- that ( we both) fear- imagining and unimagining to varying degrees? Hum? That one of us will close and lock the door? That, as we do the ceremonial kiss, we will breathe together for a second, and remember everything? ( I already know much, I believe he's had dream and vision remembrances too). On remembering, on breathing, to gather each other close, forgetting the kiss goes on, then lost in it, then?
    See, I'm weeping now! If I got to hold him, the tears of joy would flow down- without end perhaps- it is so intense- WHY HAS THIS HAPPENED? I hate you- fucking "fates"- WHY- WHY have you put him so close- let me see him again in this lifetime- and make it so I COULD NOT EVEN TOUCH HIS SWEET AND WONDERFUL FACE- to keep, and, also, to make, this love so powerful that there is no cure for me.
    Luckily I am so well loved by the MANY MEN WHO WORSHIP ME THOUGH "GOD" KNOWS WHY, because those Magi could have really punished me for the times I closed my eyes and made their hands, their bodies, their sweat, their tears and gasps his. And sometimes I get a break- a whole time- or even two or three- where his face is not there pressed against mine- where his fingers are not the ones roughly grabbing my hair- and then

    I see him or dream him or even just something reminds me of him like everything and I'm FUCKING CRYING AGAIN NOW you know, I don't believe I'll ever stop loving him, and I have this fucking ridiculous immortal's kine lifeline and NOTHING HAS FUCKING WORKED TO KILL ME AND NOTHING PROBABLY WILL EVER and all I want now is to be put out of this misery!
    One kiss? ONE kiss? I am lost in him whether we kiss or not! I am a hopeless case! FATES- what the fuck is wrong with you? You could have chosen ANY OTHER WOMAN OF POWER, LOVE, AND BREATHING CREATIVITY TO BE HIS FUCKING MUSE- WHY ME?!?!?
    If only I could wipe away him from my mind! I will not kiss him. I cannot. I am too afraid. Of what? If he did enter The Whirlwind with me, slipping surrendered into it- I would grieve no more! If I could have his breath inside me, I would no longer cry the way I do !!!!!!
    Yes. But if he pushed me away, I would want to die, but since I cannot (well, cannot and STAY dead) there would be no relief ever for me. I don't know what to do! This beautiful, powerful woman, is at a loss. In all the meanings.
    Oh, please, some Power more clever than I, take this unending intense Love from me!

    The old man crinkled his wise eyes, sparkling them around the circle of children that spread out from him, as if they were a sheild-hoop, bent into a circle from a branch, and he was the place where the two ends of the twig met, and were tied together with rawhide. He was the binding place.
    If I had been Abraham----- (he continued) and heard that "voice" tellin me to kill my son, I first off woulduh asked it to IDENTIFY itself. They seemed to think back then that all voices they heard were their "great spirit" their "Yaweh" god, I guess, cause even though their god had told them not to kill and had punished folks for killin and all, they say a few sentences from those places where that same god tells them to kill, and then they do it! Sounds like different gods to ME all'rite.
    Wells, anyway, I would know right off that this voice wazn't the Great Spirit- cause you are never to kill anything you aren't gonna eat, and definitely never hurt anyone- specially one of your tribe or clan- more specially a CHILD- more specially your OWN child so I'd say
    "Identify yourself, spirit"- and after it did, I would offer it food, drink, hospitality, ask if it needs anything else I could provide, and then hold council with it.
    I'd explain to it that I could not..... WOULD not...... kill any child for it. Then I would listen. Maybe it would try to tell me why it wants this thing. Maybe it will unload its problems, take a little fry bread and Spring Water, thank me for listening, and bless me and the clan as it left. ho knows? It is a great mystery. Yet I DO know that if I was Abraham, thinkin it was the great spirit askin for my son to go join the Great Ghost Dance, I would say "If you want him, you could easily take him yourself at any time! He could fall off a Butte, be thrown from his horse, choke on the bone of a bird he'd been eating, be attacked by an animal..... If you truly are (God) then you wouldn't need ME to do this!"
    "PLUS------ you wouldn't WANT me to, God said: 'thou shall not kill' and you say 'kill', so I say you're not God."
    And- PLUS- It'll piss off my old woman, Sarah, and the Great Spirit would NEVER wish that trouble on my head!"
    The children laugh, and the Grandfather smiles.

She has died
    What a sad thing.
        Somewhere forgotten, in Florida.

No one knew that she had secretly married the alcoholic
    20 days before she died
He received
The rest of her trust fund.

Oh, what he told her he would do if ever he got money
"I'd whore around and show YOU that I can fuck other people too, he said
Even though they'd been living together for years
(If you could call it living)
And she had never "fucked" anyone else
In all that time- she was beautiful
And many guys wanted to
And he could see it
And she got blamed
And her tiny frame, beaten
And now he has her money

"Some people, what they need in life, is to be dead"
The wise man, former activist, said on the phone
To the TV interviewer

The drunk used the first thousand
To drink alone for
 couple of weeks
Fingering her things

He didn't ever take a whore
He hired a natural foods cook
And bought a farm, a small one, by Pasaic, he liked the hills there, and the thoughts of little elves putting people to sleep after magical bowling games
And of those folks eventually waking, and returning, years and years later, looking the same age they did when they "disappeared."
    "Missing presumed dead in the hillocks of sleepy hollow"
Yeah- he'd keep the cottage up
Make it into a pretty little farm
And wait for her
To come back.

The sunrise formed a halo around her expectations that morning, though she new expectations weren't a good breakfast. But, as she sat there on the porch smokin her stogey she just enjoyed and appreciated the halo and didn't take to judging it.
    Well, might's'well not put this off she thought to herself as she pulled her still-weary frame from the wooden bench. Better to do this kinda magic when you're half asleep. She started up over the little hill nearby, to the shade of the 7 oak trees where she would sit and call him without a phone.
    Hank was lumbering around the shed-yard. He was always lumbering, cause'in he was lanky. The hairs on his armes started to rise up a little, from the back of his hand, slowly sweeping up, like a gentle prairie-burn 'crost the field. He dropped his chains, abandoned hitching up the trailer, got into the still free pick-up and tore out of the driveway.
    Oaks sure are pretty this time of year, she thought. She liked the contrast of the leaves in various stages of maturity and their corresponding subtle difference in the shades of their colors, especially contrasted with the little acorns, slender, green, little clitoral sheaths emerging to be squirrel food or another tree or the treasure inside of a child's pocket some day.
 

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