Burning DNA

We used to walk up this road holding hands.

See how it ends at the woods up there?
Back there, that's where we used to have our bonfires.

He was always the drunk guy that would climb
up into the old treehouse
and then jump down and land REALLY CLOSE,
or in the fire.  He thought it was hilarious,
all ninja-like.





I have dreams about him;
I'm wandering through a haunted house
 looking for him.
I know he's there, but I can't find him.
Shit.  I hate those dreams.

Once I had a sad dream;

 we were in a beautiful garden,

and I was holding his hand and we were smiling and

I said    Let's go explore   and 

he let go and said     I can't, I'm dead.

They actually found him out there,
by the old fire spot and the old tree house.
I haven't been back there for years.
There's condos there now!
Maybe in the dirt under the foundations,
there is a fossilized boot print, or
some of his DNA on a flattened and burned beer can.
(does DNA burn?

The only proof left that he was ever here in the first place.

Except for that elusive spirit of my dreams.

My little caged bird sings so sweetly for me.
He whistles while I sharpen my knives.
I keep him inside, sometimes his cage hangs in the sun.
The sun moves across the room, it is brightest at 3:05.

It falls across his cage.
He doesn't like the sun.
He prefers the shade.

I cover him at night, he doesn't need to see out into the dark anyway.
Bad things out there.

I found him in the forest, poked him with a stick.
I brought him home and locked him up.
I had the cage!
He likes it better here with me.  I know.
Sing for me! Sing! Sing!

Of places I'll never go.
Of those faces I'll never see.
So sweetly.
Ahhhhh.

I'll never let him go.


Thanks T.S. for the parakeet story

a New Adventure! part 1

It was thursday and the gang was antsy.  
What haven't we done yet?  We've seen it all.
ho hum.
Yeah, life was starting to feel predictable and grey.
That's why when the Mystery of the Cave came up,everyone got really excited.
"Whaddya mean mystery?"


It turns out that you know that cave down by the river? Its kind of a hollow that the river carved in the clay bank.

                                                                                             Ok so it's not even a cave, its a hollow                                                     allright, call it a "hollow".  

Well the other day, a boat showed up there. 

 Stay with me.  A boat showed up there and there were some...things in it. 

 Strange random, antique-y kind of things.  Mrs. Jonesy stepped out of the  crowd first and tugged it up onto shore, trying to investigate it and almost broke her back doing it.  She started handling everything that was in that boat, kind of cringing while she did but still grabbing things almost like she had to.
The boat?  a painted rowboat, that's all.  Let me finish about Mrs. Jonesy!
So she was touching stuff like crazy, picking it up and throwing it down practically, leaning so far into the boat that we could barely see her as she dipped.  It was creeeepy.  Some of us kind of yelled out "stop" and "settle down Mrs." but no one stepped forward to help her.  No one wanted to touch her.  Finally her little boy ran out to her and got her away, sobbing.  She was sobbing and sobbing.
So we got a branch out of the forest and pushed the boat back over the bank into the "hollow".  Wanna see it? It's probably still there.

no one moved.
"scary stuff in a painted boat?"

end of part 1

the Party

It all started in the usual way - alcohol, cigarettes, friends.  Gathering friends, hanging out.
      "I'm gonna get Fucked Up!"

And here are the drugs.  The last inhibitions float away, the party reaches for new heights. Oh, how much fun can we have?!









Experimentation.  Excess.  Ecstasy.

Invisibly the tone changes.  The friendliness dissipates into clouds of smelly, intoxicating smoke.


     "What do they want from me?"









Ensnare.  Excitable.  Evoke.

                                 The pitch climbs ever upward. 

 To heights seen and unseen.

  Acknowledgement is futile, how 

could you ever stop this train.  

Who has the straw/bill/pipe/light/etc.?  

  Personalities dissolve, faceless fun.

"Who are you again? Altho I don't really care! 

I just wanted to.."

Encircle.  Explosion.  Eruption.

Things happen so fast, sometimes you don't realize until it's over that something out of the ordinary has actually occurred.  No one intended it to happen.  That's not the point!  

Now we'll remember it with a hazy horror for the rest of our lives.

Eyeless.  Elusive.   Endless.




*thanks to Timmi Mikkel Harrop for the inspiration for "the Party" and for the "murder" pictures

Behold Ladies & Gentlemen!


the Circle.





Quite possibly our most potent and oft
encountered symbol, the circle is found
everywhere, created by us but also magically
appearing out there on it's own in the big bad world.
 We live in the center of this symbol
and also cling to its edges.

It is the beginning and the end without a beginning or an end.   It is the past, the present and the future occurring  simultaneously.  It is everything that has happened to you and everything that will happen to you.  Looking through it you can see farther and into other worlds.

We live in the seasons; 

they always change and then come around again. 

 It's almost spring again!

Our days turns into nights, into days, into nights..

Oh look it's

sundaymondaytuesdaywednesdaythursdayfridaysaturdaysunday

 again......

I just noticed it's 7:50 just like it was last night, just like it was this morning!  This is a meaningful
realization...







And since this circle never goes away, never breaks apart, can we assume that our cycles are all still here, happening over and over again?

The Windy Day

The crows are flying to their meeting place again. 

 They used to meet in a tree across the street.

I'm not kidding,  a thousand crows would congregate and caw and err at each other. 

It was great!

I don't know what they were saying.

So now they've moved the meetings, but

      maybe it's just a seasonal change?

Maybe they'll change back.

I think there was something wrong with the tree across the street.

It just didn't suit their purpose anymore, I guess.

I think it has to do with the electricity from the telephone wires.  

It might be leaking out and messing with the crow's flight navigation.  

What if they mean to go the old meeting place but they're just so messed up 

(navigationally challenged)

 that they end up somewhere different than where they intended to be?

There they go, there's the last of them.
Flying V's.

I wish someone could tell me where they moved it to.

the Dream

  

I had a dream that I was standing in front of people while I was naked.  They were looking at me critically, as if I were composed of separate parts; lights and darks, shadows, highlights. I felt as elegant as a queen and as important as a delicious piece of meat.  They scrawled shapes and lines meant to designate me on books of paper.  They were intent in their purpose.
Sometimes they scowled at me, but I didn't really mind at all.  "I can only do the best I can do with this body that is just like any body why don't YOU get up here then" I scream, maybe  No one reacts as if I said anything at all so ....maybe I didn't.




I start rehearsing my Phebe monologue to the captive audience:


Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?
Think not I love him! tho I ask for him
Tis but a peevish boy

and as I blink I'm somewhere else, (damn, still naked).  There is a STUFFED RACCOON sitting at my feet.  I am a little chilly here but the music is good.  Same engrossed faces, I feel like I have to hold absolutely still.   Soon I get bored with this task and begin to work on my Portia monologue quietly:

The quality of mercy is not strained;
it droppeth as a gentle rain from heaven
upon the place beneath


I shiver and suddenly,

Oh god will this dream never stop?? I'm somewhere else but I'm wearing chain mail over my bare skin and it is killing me, I mean it really hurts!

 so i begin yelling my Cleopatra monologue:

Sir I'll eat no meat
I'll not drink sir.
If idle talk at once be necessary
I'll not speak neither
this mortal house I'll ruin
do Caesar what he can


and then-

No one is there.  Weird.  And I'm now standing barefoot on the floor and looking out over a giant empty hall.  Is that a pipe organ above the clock?  I think I see someone sitting at the other end, but I'm not sure.  All of a sudden, I'm cold and embarrassed.  There is a wind blowing through the space.





And then I woke up! I felt as if I had been working all night instead of sleeping.  My back hurt and my skin felt weird, it made me think of that chain mail.
I thought about that empty hall again with the strange
yellow patterns on the floor.




                     We are such stuff
as dreams are made on; and our little life
 is rounded with a sleep   -Prospero from The Tempest

the Television

The T.V. is always on, I make sure of that.  I like it best when it's  playing some really inane noise, such as sounds of people that I can't really decipher into words.  The  babble is reassuring.  My T.V. is like a many faceted electronic human caught in a  friendly box shape just for me.  Sounds like friendly friends in the next room.   I always have it playing (it's "playing"!),  just to keep that comforting layer of sound buffering my reality. 

 As I stare transfixed I wonder that  this squawking box should give me any kind of comfort.  It doesn't respond to me, unless it's just to shut up when I mute it or to go away when I end it's life.   It tells me things I don't want to hear, like I need more moisturizer and less hair here, more BETTER hair there.  It tells me everyone is better/happier more successful than I will ever be.   It tries to scare me with vicious reports about bad people (like me) doing bad things (to me).  

Maybe this thing is not my friend at all, it doesn't care about comforting me.  Maybe it's more of a monster crouching in the corner ready to devour my soul the minute I willingly bring it into life!

But look at my T.V.,  it's sitting there, silent and grey, ready, waiting..... It wants me, I can tell.  I can't stand the patient waiting that that electronic picture box is doing,  nonchalantly sitting there expecting   me to acknowledge it,  just waiting for my desire to hear it's voice peak and then I will have no choice...  It is slowly drawing me to it with it's revelatory potential.
 How will it posses me today?

Soon I will break down, I will press the button, I will free the demon.   It will control me again and I will become it's adoring slave.

Secondary - Wake up!

 I remember looking around the corner and not really remembering where I was or why I was even there.  When things start to look too familiar I take them for granted, but now everything is a little....


I feel unsafe and strangely unreal.

For one thing,  I'm sick of doing what's  right even when I don't believe in it.  Am I that malleable? What am I for, anyway? I just get disgusted with my waver-ability.  

 I decided to  wait and see, maybe the universe would tell me what to do?
 But you know, I kept waiting and waiting and that got a little boring.  I still felt  stuck.  I wasn't doing, seeing or hearing anything at all.  I considered just taking a leap and striking out on my own.

But I guess I still felt a little unsure about how to proceed.  So I finally decided to stay where I was. 
 I'm happier now that I've finally made a decision.  












thank you to Jennette Nielsen for letting me photograph her amazing treasures.  Her blog is called "Smashing Rubbish"