It's Weird, I Know

The Players, The Actors, The Despairing

In this scene:
Jeremiah the Criminal Negotiator
Maria the Teller, the Hostage
David the Artist, the Hostage Taker

From Act 1, Scene 2

A seeming robbery has taken place. David has taken Maria hostage behind the teller window but allowed everyone else to leave the bank. These people report to Jeremiah that David has remain silent, not asking for money or ransom. Jeremiah announces his presence.

Jeremiah: I see your arms shaking, and your leathered hands

Trembling: black gloves, black gun tracing eights

On her cheek. I watch you tuck her hair

behind her ear with your weapon’s muzzle.

Maria (Whispered): And this I feel, the caress of desperation,

The promise of cold annulment waiting

One corridor down, that metallic slug

Cued before fourteen others, hoping for a finger’s touch.

Jeremiah: I watch and beg you pause to breath. Muzzle

That maw by loosening your fingers.

Relax and speak – expel the poison of tension

Creeping through your straining muscles. Exhale.

For we will take your calming inhalation

As growing hope for life’s continuation.

David: Tension is nothing. Tension is water wrapped around a line broken

By a strong tug and a thousand ripples. By a fish

Driven by fear of capture to explosion.

If that fish, perhaps a carp, could speak a line in human

Tongue, I know what it would say,

“Tension is nothing. Tension is water wrapped around a line. Broken.”

Maria (Whispered): You know fish words, but I fish thoughts,

“Oh, to burst from pond to sea by way of some inland bay,

Driven by fear of capture to explosion.”

David: But enough. No carp chews a human tongue. You brazen,

You beg me speak with your needle in my mouth? Says your stitch,

“Tension is nothing. Tension is water wrapped around a line broken.

Relax and speak! Let thought and communication – Let reason

Stay your flustered mind, stay that swaying finger

Driven by fear of capture to explosion.”

I am caught and know it. I know the yank of a thousand strings

Set in my lips and tongue. Set in and ripping. Yes,

Tension is. Nothing is. Like water, like my words: fragile, broken,

Driven by fear of capture to fragmentation.

Maria (Whispered): Before, as he leaped the counter and caught my arms,

I caught his current meaning: the silence baited with fear.

Now we are married by rings of steel, by the same

Waiting death –

Its coming and present capture

Of our thoughts.

Jeremiah: An artist often speaks in repeated

Lines, one image cast many times,

Odysseus lost at sea, then stranded,

Now stranded by domestic crimes.

Mourning is buried in recurrence,

As each passing lends power to a phoenix’

Tears. Remembrance bursts like currants:

Red, sweet, and swiftly destroyed by bricks.

You were the artist who knows life’s weeping,

Who sat quietly, uncomfortably in

Hard wooden chairs at night, thinking, scribbling

About circumstance and freedom’s absence.

Now you are the artist who marries all to

Death, who uses our lives to make dead art new.

In Glorious Response

(Advice poster #3 in the writing center: "Always write – and read – with the ear, not the eye. You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken. If it does not sound nice, try again.")

What does it mean, “if it doesn’t sounds nice.”
Must it sound pretty and nice,
as sweet to the ear as chocolate is to the tongue?
What if a sentence is bitter, soured by death and pain and fear?
It shouldn’t play nicely on the ear
Like an over-sweet rhyme
“If it doesn’t sound right, try again,”
sounds nicer than “nice.”

Precision is obscurity’s doppelganger.
“A square is a square! I see it precisely.”
Geometry sits passenger-side, shotgun ready,
And shoots deer from a pickup truck near
The forest of semantics.
From the road, Geometry shouts,
“A tree is triangle not a cone! A deer, a square quadruped
Riddled with my cylindrical
(bang!)
Now circular
Slugs.”
Precision grasps the steering wheel,
Revs the engine
And turns
To laugh with Geometry as
They bumble along what mapmakers call
A perfect and straight country road.

Perception is but a daydream of truth.
A black cloud, a bitter wind
That suddenly, sweetly, ruffles the hair
Of a child who ducks under a slick tire-swing
And spins, arms out, in a sort of wet rain
That drenches the rich black earth of an
Iowan cornfield,
That rusts the iron of a barbed, brush entangled fence.

Philosophical Problems

Formidable
My foe sits on cowls, cloaks
and confessional masks
naked
wasted, silent and frail.
Sits on grey cathedral steps.

Enticed
Doors open, they swirl and coalesce,
crowd and edge closer
to the beggar
naked
sitting on their chapel steps.

Defeat
I tear at their coats and scream
“your children, your homes!”
but trip on a cane and tumble
down their steps; I have lost
them.

Hope
The crowd parts. The beggar, my Foe,
naked
descends the chapel steps. Raises
my cowl, my cloak, my confessional
match.
I catch and burn.

Camp 2006

I attended Upper Peninsula Bible Camp's family camp this week. After two trains, one bus, a five mile walk, the movie "Miami Vice," and one four hour car-ride I happily arrived at camp tucked in pines and undergrowth by an aptly named "Little Lake." I spent the week either sitting by lake reading or swimming in its murky waters. Dead Souls by Gogol is hilarious and its genius characters would make a wonderful timepiece comedy. Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard is a profound piece of exposition on existence and faith, build on paradox, anguish, and honest inquiry. I haven't finished The Sound and The Fury by Faulkner and as of yet haven't grasped much of the plot hidden in Faulkner's stream of consciousness style, but perhaps the plot will become clearer later. I read in the shade on a wooden swing painted brown. I swam in cool water that smelled of fish and aquatic vegetation.

It has been four years since I last attended UPBC. Four years since I last talked to my friends there, and most of them have left camp themselves. Only two remain, both now on staff. One found his wife at camp, the other perhaps a sense of purpose. Regardless, when I arrived both were either busy re-roofing or were otherwise engaged. So I was left to my books, my family, and the lake. Later in the week a girl I once knew appeared at camp, but I never found the nerve to talk to her. I could never talk to her before. My hesitation was simply a carry over from the past. Strange how some places, some people inspire feelings, fears, and attitudes that don't dwindle with time.

But what good are northern forests and their lakes without their solitude? The weather shifts swiftly from warm to cool, from sun to rain. Creatures dash about ferns and trees, spew noxious perfumes, and buzz about with the sole purpose of raising welts on unsuspecting victims. Everything changes, everything seems chaotic, but patterns hide in plain sight like how dappled shadows overlay meshed pine needles and dirt. Nature is downright philosophical - concerned with life, death, and little else.

I enjoyed reading at camp and talking about literature with a middle aged South African woman who currently seeks her PhD in rhetoric at Northwestern and heads the English department at Trinity University in Chicago. Every morning before chapel we sat and talked about whatever was on her mind, be it Katrina, political language, South Africa, or what should constitute an English curriculum. No translations. Learn the French and read Camus and Sartre in the French department, for goodness sake. David Carruth, she salutes you. I suppose it makes sense though. Her father studied Chinese and Russian, only to settle on Zulu as his dominant second language.

Of course, it was a Bible camp and there were two chapels a day. The morning meetings concerned the Fruits of the Spirit. I must admit that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control are beautiful qualities. I still doubt the statement that only Christians exemplify these traits, but in some regards I agree with the doctrine of moral stagnancy outside of an external force. I cannot increase my love for others or self-control no matter how hard I try. Combine this series of lectures with Fear and Trembling, and perhaps I have an avenue to God and change. Time will tell.

I left a day early with my sister. The drive is long and she wanted company for the trip, so I obliged. I had no reason to stay. So now I’m back to my computer and a new anthology of contemporary poetry I hope browse in search of inspiration.

Evolution Has Painful Consequences

I went to the zoo Saturday. Lincoln Zoo in Chicago is small. It houses a few hundred animals from seals and bats to tigers and gorillas. My favorite exhibit was the primate house. Agile gibbons danced and flipped about fake vines, and a large baboon stalked proudly in his environment. One animal, however, scared me.

The Geoffrey Tamarin has a stark black face flecked with white and a ruddy red mane. One tamarin looked remarkably human, and its beady black eyes stared out of the cage. This human resemblance continued as the tamarin moved, walked, and bounced around bushes and trees. The tamarin was a veritable mini-human with a flowing red cape and a tail! No wonder some people think we descended from these creatures. All they lack is some sort of language, and even that they might have, as no one has ever managed to interpret a primate's chirps and yells.

But what happened next may shock you. The tamarin I was watching jumped from the back of the habitat, dashed across a branch, and landed on the wire mesh directly in front of me.

"Quick, Quick, come here!" the tamarin whispered. I was shocked. The little primate's dash had startled me, but his speech nearly sent me into shock. Not the fact that he spoke, but the fact that he had an accent. A Spanish accent.

"Come here, man! Before they see me!" My tamarin glanced from side to side. He looked afraid, and began beckoning me closer with his hands. I took a few steps closer and bent down until I was looking into the tamarin's eyes.

"Uhh, you speak?" I knew the question was stupid, but what else do you say to a monkey?

"Stupid question," the monkey whispered and then muttered something about the quality of education these days.

"I need you to bring me something, man. I need a fresh banana. They only serve nuts and small crickets in this joint."

"And you couldn't ask your zookeeper?" I asked. I didn't want to be saddled with this mundane task, as it was getting late and I still hadn't visited the Bat and Snake House.

"You’re talking about the waiter, yeah? I asked him, but the guy fainted, man, and when he woke up he didn't remember my order! But this is necessary! I don't want my brothers to find out I talked to you. They get rough when anyone gets special treatment. I might get neutered!" The tamarin broke away from our conversation at this point.

"Don't forget, man, fresh bananas!" he shot back as he dashed up a tree.

"Aahh, a banana?" I thought. "Where am I going to get a banana?" I didn't want to leave the zoo. Luckily, as I turned to leave the exhibit, a tamarin bounced up and yelled at me.

"Hey, did I ask you for a banana?" I looked at the tamarin closely. I stared at his features, his freakishly human features, and couldn't tell if this tamarin was the one I spoke to before. He might be a vengeful brother seeking incriminating information. He might have a neutering tool hidden on his person. I didn't want to be responsible for neutering a talking monkey.

"A banana?" I feigned ignorance, hoping his next sentence might reveal some identifying bit of information.

"Yes, a fresh banana." the tamarin repeated, annoyed at the repetition. At this point I knew this was a different tamarin. His accent was Irish.

“No…no…you’re not the same monkey I talked to before!” I stammered in surprise. The Irish tamarin glared at me, as if I had betrayed vital evidence.

“He asked you for a banana, didn’t he? Diego, Diego, Diego. When will you learn that the pursuit of selfish favors can never be hidden from the community’s watchful eyes? When will you learn that actions have consequences? Dire consequences.” The Irish tamarin looked pointedly at me and slowly raised his tail. It held scissors. “It’s an offence a monkey could loose his manhood over,” the Irish monkey stated, and in an instant he turned and dashed, howling to the back of the cage with scissors.

I never looked back, and ever since that incident I’ve always know the humanity, and inhumanity, dwelling in every monkey’s heart.

Why I Don't Like Opinions

I was three months old
when my mother took me to the doctor.
I was dressed in blue pajamas,
and my mother wore frayed jean shorts
and a flowery pink top.
“He moves in his sleep,” my mother told
the doctor, who sat legs crossed,
his shiny black-rimmed glasses hanging
off his nose, his pencil hovering
over a pad of paper.
“He rocks back and forth,
waffling like that for an hour every night,” she explained.

The doctor repositioned his glasses
and scribbled a note. “He’ll grow out of it in time,”
intoned the doctor.
He stood up and sat down again. Small talk
and general inquiries filled
the final twenty five minutes of the visit.
That night, my mother placed my
blue pajama body in a bundle
of warm blankets, and
I waffled until sleep stole my waking moments.

My father had a friend who rocked like me.
He was charismatic. Conversations were his love
and humor his tool to make them alive.
“He would take over a room. It was amazing
how all eyes would follow him,” my father
would say, his eyes brightened
by the memory’s light.
My father loved this man
and would likely still call him
“best friend” if he hadn’t died from brain cancer
at the age of thirty-two.

“You will grow out of it,” my mother exclaimed
the morning my bedroom door inadvertently
swung open to reveal my body waffling back
and forth. I stepped over dirty,
black athletic shorts to shut the door
and went back to bed.
“You will grow out of it,” my father firmly insisted,
as he mentioned his friend who had
died of brain cancer caused by rocking.
I turn twenty-one today, and I still rock or waffle.

Only eleven years left.

Care’s Wrought Vine

A bag of wind, violence wrapped in canvas,
armoire brown and tall, antique as a distant solar wind
caught between one Castor, one Pollux searching for home,
is placed in the hands of a sailor, strong, tall,
tanned by Trundholm, and worn like fig leaves
bound by the sins of yesterday, the sins of April.
Shocks of twine bind the leather mouth, a mouth
caught by torments, the Tantalus, the tapeworm writhing,
all bought the mind of Hamlet and none of Macbeth.
A Stone’s Story extended by thesis, death extended by
wails and tears.

“He who measures life by coffee spoons has a basement
full of boxes.” And dances to the din of china, dances
to the din of china.

Violence wrapped in canvas, sheathed in stone,
dreams of beaten mares and chases buggies to the curb,
stings the whip of madness to the eyes, sings verses onto
yellow paper, inked notes from air. Dreams of
wrapping arms around the house’s head and fields
of blood to graze it. Betrayal is a perfect thing
which breaks the waves of doubt to help a hamlet
entertain Macbeth with bread and wine, a white wine
served chilled like the blood in my veins.

“He who measures life by coffee spoons has a basement
full of boxes.” And dances to the din of china, dances
to the din of china.

Death steals horses like an evening thief, leads them to villages
tucked in fog and hills behind the Himalayas.
My shoes are steel! My feet are gone! My chariot digs
its feet in mud and rocks, and I shall be buried in it.
My bag of wind has blown to the sun, that heel of a sun
who blinds Castor, hides Pollux and burns the canvas,
but the twine, ah, the twine is in my hand. It twists like
vines, now binds my hands and roots my feet in something
similar to silence.

“He who measures life by coffee spoons has a basement
full of boxes.” And dances to the din of china, dances
to the din of china.

Claymores

Whoever compared the pen to the sword
knew what they were doing. Seriously,
today it's been a battle just to hold
the pen. Claymores would be half as heavy,
tired even before the fight began.
This white page is innocent. Pull the pen
along and watch the page bleed and again
hear the screams pierce a now wounded silence.
On the battlefield, sadistically slash
the wounded again, tracing, retracing,
widening gaping wounds. Madly drive the
pen left or right to the center of things.
Silence dies on the edge of a pen. It's
a battle just to hold the pen today,
because when silence screams, it deafens;
silence reborn in the form of blotted ink.

Draw

Where does the imagination draw me?
Does it draw me over bridges ascending
to meanings stuffed in clouds? Does it
draw me wisdom dipped deep from wells
worn with time? Does it draw me a figure,
molded lines formed to fit a 3 or 9?

But if imagination draws me on and over
rising bridges, am I not the one who
unpacks the clouds? Am I not the one
who draws wisdom like water from echoing
holes? For in the end, I own the figure
imagination draws. I draw myself.

Madness Built A House Next Door

Madness built a house next door
and its windows are twisted and
shuttered. On the front door
a raging dragon is perched like
a sparrow. With each knock
the dragon's maelstrom mouth
bites wood like a thunderclap.

Madness built a house next door
and its porch is ancient and
cluttered. On the roof, shingles
simmer like scales and chimneys
line the ridge. With each gnawing
knock at the door, flame and smoke
bloom skyward like red flowers.

Madness built a house next door
and its siding smiles a worn and
tired smile. And I built a hedge to
hide the smiling, weary home from
wandering eyes; a green hedge
my children played in when the
knocker struck the door.

And now I bear the dragon’s teeth
and knock on Madness’ door. On
pains of glass, I see my children
walking within the walls. With
each knock the children laugh, and
so I enter an empty home to find
Reason and a Hope.

Valentines Day

I took a walk and stole a beat
from a languid tune.
My battered heart hummed
as my feet paced in pace with
a song.

"Love is in the air," she sang.
"Mist is in the air," I whispered.
Black trousers, black shoes,
a black suit-coat, and last
a rose in breast pocket.

Subdued, I walked to your house.
Your father greeted me and surprised me
with a hug. Your sister listened
to the falling rain. "She's sleeping now,"
your mother said.

In the mist and rain, we left
the house as ants in rank and file,
desperate not to drown. The car's engine
hummed. "Love is life!" it seemed
to sing.

February 14th and a party to
attend. People gathered round
as a gentleman raised a serpent's
cup and proposed a toast in
your honor.

Hearts accompanied you, not music
as you were lowered down.
Each beat bled because you were broken,
bled red like the rose in breast pocket
I placed upon your coffin.

Birthday

I hate this bookshelf
you made for me.
All beviled edges and smooth
like the day I met you,
dressed to impress.

You impressed me with
the beautiful designs.
The bookshelf was empty then
and no expectations. Only hopes
to fill the shelves.

I hate this bookshelf
you made for me.
Because
This year you made excuses
and now my bookshelf's walls
are bookends. The old
books fused between
the shelves.

The new lay
abandoned on the floor.

Throw Off the Worlds That Rest Upon Your Frame

Throw off the worlds that rest upon your frame
And shrug the atlas from your failing mind.
Weights, the Captives chained and weary, fully lame
As earthen are the links, the thoughts, that bind.
My house, its sleeping couches, is no longer home.
The street, its once sweet sounds, I hear no more.
I cease to read the words of ancient tome,
A book of hidden wisdom and dusty lore.
Who would not chase the scent of "I" in breeze
And walk descending path's identities,
For golden blood flows out, it slows and seize
A breath for freedom’s hopes and memories.
But bonds are safe and safety fast confines.
The Air, the Earth know meter and the rhymes.

Update On My Life

Nothing has changed. Seriously.

Update on my other vicarious lives:

The all knowing computer whipped my genetic code from its database. I no longer exist and miss myself already.

In a blizzard, a callous economic decision has placed my various troll identities into catatonic states. Revival any time soon is unlikely.

The Me inside my head turned into Sonic the hedgehog during a nap I took. I ran though an arching hall, much like the space station in 2001: A Space Oddyssey. However, the hall was filled with people meandering around like a sporting event was going on. I was dodging everyone really well. Then I woke up.

And there you have it. And entirely irrelevant post.

Dirt Roads

The boy wasn't very bright. The villagers always laughed at him when he chased chickens all the while calling them pettycoats. He refused to swim in still water because breaking mirrors brought bad luck. They laughed. When ornate carriagies bounced their way though town, the boy ran along side doing cartwheels in the mud. The villagers only laughed if the carriage didn't stop.

But one did stop. The villagers formed a semi-circle around the door in an effort to properly greet the dignitary who had graciously stopped. They also attempted to hide the boy, smothering him with arms and torsos. The carraige door opened and out came a lavously dressed man. One long red feather flourished from his hat and white frills encased his jewel encrusted hands. The dirt face villagers in aprons and jerkins lowered their heads in deference, and, in doing so thought, "How polished this man's shoes are!"

Only one head remained upright. The boy looked at the man and grinned. It was a silly grin fit for moments like grinning at grunting pigs, caught fish, or pretty girls behind their backs. It was not a grin fit for royalty.

The villagers, who's eyes remained firmly on those shining shoes, were startled to hear a sword unsheathed. Afraid of feeling the sword sheathed in something so unpleasent as their bodies, the villagers huddled lower. "His shoes have little spikes!"

The boy kept on grinning. The man frowned. Usually a show of violence effectively restored a sense of propriety. And thus he spoke.

"Your name, boy," the man's frills shook as he spoke. Even so, the villagers couldn't take their eyes off the man's cleats.

"Einstein, sir!" the boy's grin grew brighter. The villagers never spoke to him. Who was this marvelous man?

"And what's your name, sir?"

"Sir Isaac Newton."

"What a fabulous name, sir! And what do you do? Shoot pheasants? Chase skirts?" the boy inquired with all the impertinence born in a stable.

Apparently the boy's grin and frank questions won the Sir Isaac Newton over. "Why, I am a great swordsman. The arc my weapon makes is...perfect."

"A swordsman, sir? I should have though you to be a scientist...Who would ever take to being skewered by a Newton? No no. You must give up weapons and count apples."

Sir Isaac Newton laughted. "A little kindness never hurt anybody," he thought as he flipped his fine sword over and presented it to the boy. "Besides, I have pleny of others."

The boy took the sword and gasped, "It's sharp!"

The villagers were right. He wasn't very bright.

The Gangway: A True Story

They won't let me in my spaceship. Two in the morning, my alarm's wail still ricocheting off the inside of my skull, and they won't open the hanger doors. Database malfunction and they're working on it. Bullshit. The port techie wouldn't be out here explaining the problem to me if it was. He'd be half buried in wires, talking to every data cluster in the system and sweating like an unplugged ICE runner.

Damn it's cold! The port techie says repairs to the database should be done soon but his polyfiber coat, authentic fur hat, temp-reg boots, and heavy mittens say otherwise. He's staying put. For a while. All I brought was my sweat towel; normally reserved for close encounters with neuron stars and sudden solar flares that over task my ship's temp-reg system. Wrapping it around my shoulders and neck doesn't do much but it's better nothing.

Wouldn't be so bad if the cold was natural. Icy winds and winter are nice when you're standing on real earth. But drafts in stations freeze every part of a man. The metallic echo of winds slashing around corners numbs ears and its processed bite could kill. I think I chipped a tooth. Jaws won't stop chattering. The port techie could hear them if his fur hat wasn't pulled down over his ears.

If I could get in the hanger everything would be alright. Ports strictly control hanger climates. With repairs going on and dismantled ships about, if the climate rises too much nav-chips begin to fry, pilots sue, and ports lose money. Too low a climate and pilots take their business elsewhere, so every hanger's temperature is fixed: nice, comfortable, and profitable.

But they won't let me in my spaceship. Can't be a grudge. I haven't stopped here enough. A mechanical problem, I guess. The port techie hands me a neural chip programmed to signal me when the problem is solved and suggests I find a warmer pasture to wait in. While I appreciate his begrudged honesty, I haven't seen a pasture in decades.

Home Again, But Always Home

I was born in the great country of Canada, a land of clean streets, low crime rates, and friendly diverse people. In Toronto, I made childhood friends and we played in a white wooded park near my house. I first learned to bike ride down my street who's length has dwindled with time.

I turned seven in the U.S.A. At the time my father attended Trinity College in Chicago, the same city where he received his undergraduate education. My parents met in Chicago, love bloomed, blossomed into marriage, and many years later returned to its native plot. I loved Chicago, its hustle, its schools, its parks, and the friendships it granted.

But Chicago lasted two years and served as a short, vibrant chapter in the story of my life. My father graduated and in the preceding job hunt the city of Champaign snared my father, for as the hunter chooses the deer the job chooses the man. Where the doe goes the fawn follows. I was destined for Champaign, my educator, my boss, my longest home.

Unfortunately, in Champaign I failed to replace the friends I had left in Toronto and Chicago. JBU, my college albeit at first not by choice, filled the void with the best people I’ve ever known. The character and love sown and shown breaks me. My friends are smart and caring. They enjoy life and still find the will to suffer through it. They are real, and because JBU is their home so it became mine.

Even so, when opportunity knocked and offered overseas travel and promised vistas to view, I embraced it, and luckily opportunity is an obliging fellow. Russia was my destination, a strange land with unknown people speaking unknown words. Three months I lived and breathed Russian air, words, and life. Russians are deeply hospitable people free with their food and open with their lives. And thus a place grows dear.

A wise sage once said, "Home is where the heart is," and he was right. But in every place my physical heart resides, my true heart leaves something of itself behind. In Canada I left roots deep within her soil, remnants of memories and deep sentiments. My heart melted in Chicago and in Champaign it firmed and found a lasting foundation. To my friends at JBU my heart I freely gave. Russia weaved its way in and as I left my ties to that troubled, beautiful country never released and force my own heart to tear itself free.

My heart is shattered and my homes are many, yet I am a more complete person for it.

Purely for Entertainment

For pure entertainment:

(Written in Class, or, more exactly, just after class.)

Oh, there once was a man named Stan.
Who lived in a rusty old van.
He hit his head, and now he's dead.
The end of an unknown man.

(Written now so the above catastrophe won't feel so lonely)

Poems are words made hearts.
Poems are emotions made flesh.
Poems think and feel as people do
Get lonely sometimes. Poems do.

(To add to the rapidly growing cesspool of literary incapability.)

Voices behind speak with unknown words
as the cue ball strikes eight,
Fingers strike keys. "Where am I?"
Voices beside speak with unknown words
clouded with thick cigarette smoke.
Fingers strike keys. "Where am I?"
Voices above speak with unknown words
Muffled by shuffling, sliding chairs.
Fingers strike keys. "Where am I?"
Voices in front speak with known words
Unknown clarity shatters a self.
So fingers strike keys. "Who am I?"

(This next on I'm actually rather proud of. Seriously.)

Roses are read.
Violence is blue.
Form is a prison.
But what else is new?

(I'll let you in on a secret. I said I was proud of the above poem BEFORE I wrote it.)

We Must Try, Eh?

Oh Long Forgotten World,

Hi. You're all expecting some explination of my time here in Russia. What I've been doing, what I've seen, who I'm talking to, how many times I've almosted died crossing the street. 198. But that's besides the point.

The point is, I can't bring myself to write such a post. I can't boil my experience down to simply, "Hi everyone, spent the afternoon looking at an Orthodox Church that was modified into a bread factory during Communism. Now we're returning the building to its original form. Oh, and I've learned some Russian. Read some wonderful books." While all those things are true, they only sketch out my experience in crude lines, marred by erasor marks. In simplifying, I'd be deleting vital parts of my experience.

"So why don't you try to explain the whole experience? Take some time and write about it," said one skeptical, theoretical reader. I don't try because the whole experiences is rather personal, emotional, and mostly undescribable to the uninitiated. Perhaps in words, face to face.

Who am I kidding. When I get back, paraphrases and shortened descriptions will flow freely from me. I'll have to say something, won't I? "Russia was awesome. I had a great time." True, but not entirely. "I saw churches with mosaics from the floor to its 350 foot high cupola." True, but I also saw emotions, thoughts, and heartbreak in that Cathedral. "I read Bulgakov's Master and Margarita" I did, but I fail to mention why it's a masterpiece, and what I didn't understand about it. "I like and enjoy everyone in my group." But each person carries an personality, hopes, dreams, different beliefs, and annoying habits/querks. "Yes, I missed home." But how much, who, and what did I miss? Can I explain it and why? No. Not here at least.

So to those dear ones at home, I'm experiencing stuff. Now there's a statement I can get behind.

Kyle

Curse: A Working Title

Part I

If one was to glance casually southward down Broadway Blvd. at approximately five o’clock one warm Friday evening, two facts would have settled deeply into the subconscious of the observer. Now facts have a tendency to settle differently according to a complex and varied set of rules most of which are dependant on how significant and shocking the observed fact is at the time. Significant but normal facts settle like an elderly gentleman lowering himself into an evening chair, and our first fact would have made the elderly gentleman’s chair creak only slightly.

Simply put, the first significant but not shocking fact noticed when gazing down Broadway was this: Broadway St. had far to many billboards, electric lights, and store signs. The combine energy output required to light Broadway could have powered a small island. Britain, perhaps. As a very large cities main commercial and cultural drag, Broadway Blvd enjoyed celebrity status which, for streets, typically means being mentioned constantly in traffic reports. At all hours, and especially at five on a warm Friday night when couples dined at sidewalk café’s, when hipsters began to wait for their concerts nine o’clock opening, when taxi’s lined the street waiting, honking, and generally scrambling to find the next fare, Broadway was crammed with people of all kinds.

Another kind of fact comes as shocking but insignificant and can be described as small children: loud, self-centered, sometimes adorable, sometimes not, but ultimately leaving one wondering when they will grow up and contribute to society. The second fact could be classified as loud, self-centered and probably not adorable nor hideous. But that small child apparently grew to be a Nobel prize winner. It’s resounding shock could have fried entire colonies of chickens and supplied KFC and Popeye’s Fried Chicken for years.

On this beautiful Friday evening, only one person walked down Broadway Blvd. One, single, solitary, lonesome figure. The figure was cursed, so it makes sense that if one took more than a cursory glance down Broadway Blvd and watched this man make his weary way north up the street, a third fact made itself evident. Get of the street. Everyone else did. So can you.

The man wore a light jacket colored black, faded jeans, and white shoes. He was young, thin, pale, and his wispy black hair hung just above his eyes as if swept by the wind. Had the hipsters been out he would have fit right in. His appearance was vaguely attractive. Perfectly normal. And cursed.

Evidently, his curse transcended the modern conceptions of curses. Current wisdom, informed by science, defines curses as socially unacceptable words and therefore finds curses a nebulous, unfixed concept. Or at least as nebulous and undefined as societies are. This man wasn’t cursed because someone swore at him, which if we hold to conservative standards had probably happened at some point. No, this man’s curse was on par with whatever happened to the Cubs baseball team, the Titanic, and the United States efforts to depose Fidel Castro from his dictatorship and his life.

He couldn’t remember how he became cursed. If witches had brewed some devilish potion or chanted incantations over him then it hadn’t been very exciting, because he apparently sleep through it. What he does remember was one morning waking up in his bedroom, shuffling sleepily downstairs, and finding his house devoid of all life. It had not been a good morning.

And now he walked deserted streets. Survival was not a problem. Nobody came close enough to stop him from taking what he needed from stores and he only had to find a home with a door unlocked to get a bed. Heck, if every door was lock he just broke a window. No one ever tried to stop him. They were to far away.

So by the time the man with pale skin and black hair walked up the brightly colored and cluttered street of Broadway Blvd, he was conditioned to a cursed silence. As he walked, he paused to look in shops, lingered over pictures of people especially young ladies, and generally wore a resigned, sad expression. He came to the corner of Broadway and 5^th, where our hypothetical observer of facts had long deserted their post, and walked calmly across the street through the Don’t Walk sign. He stopped on the north west side of the intersection in front of a corner tea shop called Olde Towne Tea and took a folded note from his jeans pockets. He stood with note in hand for ten minutes, fidgeting with the edges of the letter. Finally he bent and placed it under the door. When he stood, his back seem more hunched, and his gait quickened as walked purposefully west on 5^th St towards a setting sun.

In fifteen minutes, people began to return to Broadway, oblivious to why they had suddenly gotten up and left. Residue of terror oozed on the boarder of nearly everyone’s consciousness. Further south, the owners of The Bitter Palace, evening home of hipsters and audiophiles alike, struggled to reassure a band who had just arrived that, yes, this was the right street and, yes, there would be a crowd. Don’t judge the band to harshly. When they had arrived the street had been nearly empty.