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

Lola's Lament

Come on up, you're a regular right?

You're here to see Lola? Oh...
Which room is she in again, let's see

Have a seat, you can go in in a minute

She lies before you.  She carefully removes a piece of a much-handled piece of mauve paper from behind her back. She clears her throat.  She begins to read to you:


You might see me at the door, in the hall or on the floor,
lying about, sucking my thumb,
drinking tiny spoonful drinks of rum.
I'll be right in if I am out, to serve your whim's what I'm about:
for a dollar  I'll listen to your lies,
and  also your truths and your many-colored sighs.

Like Pirate Jenny I watch for the fleet
to swoop in some day:
to knock  you out,
to whisk me off my feet.

She carefully replaces the paper behind her pillow.

see you next time

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.

Tertiary the third

You know, I think it started the day I took my first breath of air.

I just wasn't used to the feeling of  it in my lungs after living for so long in that fluid, remember?

I thought I would like to be one of those people that  take a running jump at life -

 oh who am I kidding, I've always been lazy!

 I always thought I would be here forever and ever.

Ha ha! the joke's on me.

Children used to die much more often than they do today - 

I'm a product of the later half of the American 20th century, hallelujah!

Well, at least we can say we sometimes enjoyed being here!

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"

Opening Comments

The hardest thing is just to start.

 To say what's on your mind or truly in your heart.  Maybe we shouldn't go there.  Too painful, too personal.  I've been there before!  Better keep it superficial and friendly.  If we get too close you might break my heart - betray me in 1,000,000 different ways.  So I'll stay on this side, you stay over there.  No, over there.   Come on,  that's too  close! I said over there.

Whew.  That's better.  I feel safer when you stay on your side.  I can still see you.  Not very detailed, but I can tell who you are.  From your features.   Close enough, I can hear you fine.


No,  what're you doing?  What.... I didn't say you could talk like that.   Honestly, directly.  No stop that talking, your words make sense, they touch me, they're traveling straight into my soul.  I know what you're saying! Yes, I feel that way too! We both...I know what you're thinking.  No one has ever....I've always been....

Why are you touching me?  Stop.  I do mean it.  I-

 I feel your pulse.  I smell your skin.  Your breathing, it's just like mine, it goes in and out....in and out...I touch your hand.  Soft skin, electric connection.  I want everything.  Yes, this is different than before, than any other time.  Better, more special.  More real and immediate and and and-

You have to go?  You don't have to go.  Please stay.  Actually, don't ever leave me ok?  You can stay in my pocket/my bed/my heart, here I'll tuck you in.  We're all alone just me and you and we don't need anything or anyone anywhere.  No one could have what we have.

You did what? When? With her/him/them? How could you? Am I yelling?  I can't hear over the pounding of my passion.  I.  Hate. You.  I'm stuffing up my ears,  leave me alone my heart is bleeding.  I'm trying to staunch the flow,  but it will never stop, never,  ow ow owee.
I'll never do this again.   Come back.