Can we go back?

In a dream,  where are we?  Some imaginary land on a cliff or some quiet little town, in a place of bliss and solicitude?  And when  we awaken,  we are safe from fatal flaws.   Theoretical physics suggest alternative universes.   Looking from different angles,  suggests that we see things differently from different places.

But potential physics aside,  I wonder sometimes,  if these dreams are less esoteric than we think?   Let me tell you a story, that seems to encapsulate more than just randomness and fleeting imagination.  So here goes.

I had a girlfriend who was 16 and  I just turned 18.   I remember going to where she lived with her parents.  Her dad was a barber and had a small room on the front side of house, complete with a barber’s  temporal pole and the secular contradiction,  that this pole represents.   Complete with a menu, inside the business and 5 cent steaks and a complete meal for 15 cents.   Changes!

The house was replete with an upstairs bedroom,  a place I regarded with reverence.  While waiting for her one day,   I heard the song,  ‘Sundown’  by Gordon Lightfoot.  I wondered about her dressing (the hormone thing).  She looked like angel coming down the stairs,  her long hair flowing and like a muse, in her habitat

She was breathtakingly beautiful,  with a pretty dress, but at the same time,  an allstar highschool basketball player.   Kind of a tomboy.  She was enamored of my athletic prowess and me,  showing off and wanting the attention that that br0ught.   And I got it.   We hung out,  like statues in motion, riding a flying carpet,  delving into Christ and happy.   It was fun and more fun than the old hymns.

One Christmas,  we cuddled in the living room,  her parents in their bedroom and we were watching the Christmas log on WWOR in NYC. We caressed each other,  mixed with kisses and mistle toe.    We were largely quiet,  knowing her parents were not far off anyhow.   But that was a seminal moment in my life.

Later in the following year,   I signed up for the Air Force and things began to change.   We were okay until the Senior Prom and that went off pretty well and this time,  she looked better than any other ,  I  often was reminded of the song,   ‘We may never pass this way again’ and I began to feel a creeping solitude and like the  snow on the TV, a lacrymose curtain signaling an ultimate,  and unhappy ending.

Ultimately,  we parted,  as my first real love,  we could not sustain this love,  over such a long distance.   Bit by bit,  like colored leaves falling and the misty mornings,  she was no longer there.   I remember the song, ‘Sorry little boy in love’.    “And every tree that I passed by, seemed to whisper, sorry little boy in love”.  The parting was an ephermal end,  but there were little teases,  where I just missed, like the Mighty Casey striking out,  with a flourish.  So close and yet so far.

But the last page,  was different.   Lately, in my dreams,  she reappears.  Like a magic wand that was waved and the tragedy that seemed to get a reprieve.     One time,  I am riding a bike,  I think,  and I see her house in a requiem and her waving at me.   I was puzzled but moved past.

And last night,  intially she resented me then, as we were stuck in a large flood in a high building, and when we could go out,  her furtive glances suggested the acrimony and hope ,  that she seemed to harbor.   Mixed messages came,  and when I came up from behind,  asked her to give me a ride on her back,  she ended on my back and the warmth of her breath and the melting ice.  We were both young again,  her with her long hair and me with a love that was unrestrained hope, and a chance to fulfill destiny.

The implied reality is couched by a seeming resentment of the changes that have ocurred to her.   Her hair now short and her body somewhat frumpy.   I don’t see her as 0ld, or ugly,  frumpy or whatever.  Regardless,  there is a pining,  that will never subside,  like a one-way  high tide.

Her pulchritude has not diminished.  Her outward self-concept has crippled her, both in dream and in reality,  I am not sure of what that reality really is.    But I know,   under the antic rug,  lies a golden chalice or bronze ring.   I will never-the-less continue in my own reality and if this comes,  all the better.

 

The Monsters Among us.

The sudden storm blew in.   The tumbleweeds rushed by and the howl of the wind pushed them like unwanted stepchildren.    I was one of those unfortunate souls,  who prayed for darkness and heavy rain.  The gloom seemed to cheer me up,  the low clouds compacted the world and the heavy snows further reduced the shrapnel of ugly words and harsher correction.

Even better was the icy and snowy weather that kept the devil at bay.    The whiteness like a signet made it official and angry ice cycles crashed from atop the roof of our house.   At night I would sleep walk,  perhaps to walk into the road or fall upon the broken glass.  One night in my dream state I decided the camper window should be a punching bag.   The echoes of anger that permeated my realm.

In my heart I cheered the removal of my anxiety.   The sound of the engine and in it’s wake a measure of relief.    On one occasion we had two cats.   For some reason that one day would harbor a death penalty for one of our cats.   With seventeen acres of land,  my father determined that one should die.

My brother took at him and with a thud,  my heart filled with pity,  anger and disillusionment.  Unbearable voices led me to the scene and the grave of soft ash an ethereal tomb.   Suddenly the Raven appeared and that poor cat with blood on it’s side to my astonishment that poor gray cat seemed to be begging,  hoping for some kind of reprieve and a tear or many fell.    My brother finished the task and that thought and an attempted or threatened murder of my mom at five,  congealed into an unholy miasma of doubt and uncertainty.

Like the gales of a winter,   this inclement weather was a well-timed respite.  Revenge against the Tsunami that always lain in wait.   A patient wraith with a two-edged bite and like a small warrior I tried to turn away that wrath,  especially for a mother whose esteem in our eyes was stunted.

Maybe the rain was a song of sadness reaching out for love,  surely such wrath would pass but never did.  As I grew up the mixed messages closed in around me.    I made my peace with that person I called dad and seeing his own tragedy I gained perspective about him.   Unable to justify he reached out.  Forgiveness?  Without a doubt and an unlocked toolshed seemed so unimportant now.

I did not glory in his sickness but I did look back and realized the good that was hidden from plain sight.   No one can justify abuse but a humble heart finds a way.  Gasping for breath all I could do is hold his hand.   This warrior who too late for himself never really enjoyed the fruits of his ambition until the very end.

He and my sister found a common ground and her fear was not being able to be loved by him.   In all that,  that is my special moment with Dad.   The cold aloofness and rage was dulled by the medication and softness of a pillow.     As he drew his last breath,   I felt release in him,  the devils vanished in a bright light and the shadows cowered.

The lesson is never give up.   As  bad as life can be,  we can survive.  I survived a certain hell which has led to my OCDs and fear of random violence.   I have several panic attacks every day but I am learning to get well and move on.   One rung at a time.

Wooden Monuments.

 

 

 

 

 

I am building a tower and it will be built upon by the hands of time.    It will be finessed and  the etchings carved into marbleized histories,  remnants left for consideration.   A bored scholar will scribe his articulations on paper and artists upon the heart  sometimes with words and other times shades of different colors.

 

Our passions darken as our own freedom gives us license.   To establish who we are and why we should matter.

 

The dimming lights provide sanctuary  for secrets held within,  while the new trees bear the same old fruit.   Replacing antiquity with green limbs envious.    Accounts will be altered,  values distorted like a warped window or a cracked mirror.    Only tiny shards indiscernible will collect dust.   The hammering thoughts of preservation are to no avail.  The ebb and flow of matter reconstitutes itself.    Aware of nothing but it’s new place,  neither the checkered foster homes of neglected souls or the random insects in their constabularies.    New kings and queens arise,  like heaving opportunists secure in that moment only.

Willingness gives way to wood,  brick and dust and from these new houses are made.   New conflicts arise and the sentient drama of conflicting self wills lay about and scattered by Zephyrs and Foehn.    Tears drip from random placements like lost toys of our youth,  neither material or a ether  just an unnoticed stroke of a pen and a purchase.

The final revolution spins to a stop and the cul-de-sac of expectancy gives way to a somber recollection.   Momentary gratitude and an appointment looming,  breaks the shadow of what once was and will never be again.

 

Code Blue Goodbye – Building a Mystery

The careworn strings of the Golden Harp

pinged and softly uttered silent tunes.

While a man hacked in his own second hand smoke

his ruddy fingers stained with history

pushed aside his last beer.

 

The whir of the fans and the stale fog of ale

covered the bar in a misty layer of melancholic dew.

Their problems lurked like angry trolls at a feast

and the bridge that creaked and moaned with

never a  holiday, sighed at the slow approach

of another broken man.

 

The man with his plans nears the crossing

and the clocks chime in a foreboding resonance.

wearily warning as the bell struck decisively.

His watch seemed to have shrunk and the once supple

arms now wilted and wrinkled,  protest implacably.

 

Assented to a journey to a place he did not want to go.

The cold Coliseum stood hauntingly bare.

 

In the eyes of someone who knew him less,

they may suppose a lot of things about him

and his well-traveled highway

but death is a period in a long paragraph

filled with memorials soon enough forgotten.

 

As he entered the bridge the troll grunted

and the vapors collected in the sky

and swallowed that passing man.

Stay In Touch my Friend – Crying for Me.

I was happy that I found you old friend.
It was great to hear your voice again.
Like a thousand years had come and gone
and I seldom looked behind me to notice

Amazingly I remember I called you and
hearing your voice as I did
in my youth and you treated me with
the same respect. Like a sentence
abruptly aborted and finished in warp time

You were a mentor, a friend and a musical muse,
you were my teacher teaching and
we clarified our memories in rarefied air.

I felt a breeze blow by one day,
as autumn leaves prepared to nest
and rest upon the earth.

Like impatient tenants going back home
for the winter they met the ground,
their lives like fodder for angry rakes
as winter was finally near,

and in-spite of your troubles, you seemed to thrive,
telling me this was the highlight of your day
when I called you each morning.

In a somber moment Leukemia was playing it’s
somber song and it’s death sentence hit like a gavel.
With no chance for an appeal
I felt your heart grow weaker and your
long life go slack.

but the harp was more insistent now.
with strains of comfort to aid your weary heart,
The skies stretched forth and down.

Like a rope or a chain that came loose
and your ship began to float dreamily by.

It was quite obvious that heaven’s gates
blew open, like a gale at sea
and the cares of this world could no longer
hold you

I saw death’s whirlpool up ahead.
I knew the end was close, I heard it
in the crashing waves, I heard it
in your voice.

Each day you were insistent,
telling me how you loved me,
your now raspy voice conceding.

When that call came, from your family
and mentioned your name. I asked how you
are doing and she said, “She was so sorry”,
my friend has passed away.

“To be certain – outside of belief in the sovereignty of God, we contend that true holiness in thought and in behavior cannot be wrought. The firmer the persuasion, the greater the consequent sanctification.”
The Desert Sun excerpt.