There are things I want to know...
things I want to know about you.

I don't mean to make you uncomfortable,
but what I want to know is,
how do you really look at someone?
How long do you hold a stare
before you blink and turn away?
Because I'm going to look into you
with the eyes inside my eyes
for as long and as far as you will allow,
maybe even farther,
happy, hungry pupils dilating into you,
all the way in,
beyond the bone.

And I don't mean to challenge you,
but what I want to know is,
how strong is the hand inside your hand;
how steady are the footholds inside your feet?
Because I'm going to lean way, way out
on the ends of your fingertips
and headstrong-play my self away
on the jagged, uncertain edge-of-the-edge
with only you as my guide and ground.
I've got a ravening to see the way down,
all the way down,
beyond the bone.

What I want to know about you is,
What has living done to you?
Keep your please and much obliged.
What I want to know is,
How much take have you still got?

We should meet blindfolded
and just feel each other’s faces

Your hands could survey
the plains of my cheeks
and the valleys of my eyes
the ridge of my nose
and my odd, pendant mouth
and all of my various
textures and adornments
like hairline and scars
and that one, crooked,
slightly chipped tooth

And as your fingers studiously
collected information
your mind’s eye would form
a thick, squishy picture
that's efficiently crafted
and insufficiently me
and you would believe
you'd come to know
the flesh and bone boundary
between me and the world
and more importantly the one
between you and me

And like a child whose arms
hold a gift that shines
with bright, crinkly promise
in your hands I would become
your package to open
and every touch
of your acquisitive fingertips
would telegraph
in buzzy and jagged
neon electric letters
nineteen stories tall
your misplaced overconfidence
that you know the way
to open me

(c) me

I do not love you as if you were brine-rose topaz, or barbed carnations thrown off by the fire. I love you as certain hidden things are loved, secretly, between night and soul. I love you like the flowerless plant carrying inside itself the light of those flowers, and graced by your love, a fierce perfume risen from earth, is alive, conceled in my flesh. I love you without knowing how or why. I love you truly, without doubts, without pride. I love you so, and know no other way to love. None but this mode of neither you or I. So close that your hand over my chest, is my hand. So close they are your eyes I shut when I sleep. - Pablo Neruda.

i have web. ...............i made link. ............................but.......i dont know.

"Then the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the dry, scaly skin was more painful than the risk it took to smash it apart nose first and scrape it off on a rock."

the glorious and splendid royal mirror masquerade:

It's for all you cans and bottles that wash up on the shore
And all the lonely churches and all the empty stores
And all the sinking lifeboats and the silent music halls
And all the hooks just begging for some art upon the walls
And all the empty cupboards and all the barren beds
And all the empty songs that fill up everybody’s heads

Come to the Mirror Masquerade, the Mirror Masquerade
Put on your red dress darling, for it's you I serenade
We’ll dance along together, until the music fades
At the glorious and splendid Royal Mirror Masquerade

Waltz right up to the mirror, raise your hand up to the pane
Your lover there will understand, there’s no need to explain
A knowing look from shining eyes, a graceful step and bow
Go to him in your brocade, he beckons to you now
Twirl around in two-four time, come join the grand parade
We’ll dance all through the shadows, at the Mirror Masquerade

And you will be my master, and I will be your slave
In the castles of ideas made from words upon a page
And I’ll teach you all my secrets and you’ll teach me how to bleed
And I’ll have all I ever hoped for and nothing that I need
But who'll sip from the chalice, and who will feel the blade?
At the banquet in the shadows of the Mirror Masquerade

Oh! The Mirror Masquerade, the Mirror Masquerade
Put on your red dress darling, cause it's you I serenade
We’ll dance along together, until the music fades
At the glorious and splendid Royal Mirror Masquerade

The whispers from the mirror tell you all you dare believe
The answers to those questions about what it means to live
And why we're here and what it’s worth and whether there is more
If you get what you deserve or if anyone’s keeping score
And what is truth and what is good and how it all got made
Into this comedy of tragedies, this Mirror Masquerade

But it’s all just cans and bottles that wash up on the shore
And a city with a million empty churches, schools, and stores
And ten million sinking lifeboats and silent music halls
And a hundred million hooks that beg for art upon the walls
And it's all those empty cupboards and it's all those barren beds
And all the empty songs that fill our empty, dancing heads

It’s the Mirror Masquerade, the Mirror Masquerade
Put on your red dress darling, there’s no need to be dismayed
No one will rise above it, and nobody gets saved
But you looked enchanting, princess, in your satin and brocade
And I couldn't help but love you, you're so exquisitely made
For the glorious and splendid Royal Mirror Masquerade

(c) me

"Also, you should message me if you want to make out and argue."

-- kitchenlattice

"Tupperware ain't pretty from the inside."

-- Ben

"When I talk about colonizing, I'm saying we form ideas about reality and then live inside the idea we created for ourselves."

-- Via

"How about if you are given a free pass to influence other people however you want and we can view the result as the art that you are making with your life in that particular moment? Your art might be more effective and liberating if you let go of controlling your perspective or anyone else's."

-- Marpa

"...the point of view any of us is operating from at this moment may indeed transcend previous or comparative illusions, but if we have a "point" of view, then most certainly it is also illusionary. It may be wider and more open and more loving and wiser and accommodate deeper truths comparatively, which is good. Evolving one's understanding and practice is a natural progression. But absolute truth is when ALL points of view are incorporated/transcended, when ALL dreams are awoken from."

-- Marpa

"so many people are so worried about the cell phone call they just missed and they have had their spirits on ignore for years."

-- Merlin

"Beginning a conversation by addressing someone as "cupcake" or "motherfucker" is a great way to get their attention."

-- Medusa

On helping people: "i'm positing a hildegaard of bingen approach. compassion. it goes beyond rationalization into the realm of basic understanding. help a person live. help them die. in "help" situations, there is usually an internally appropriate answer hidden in the clouds of the immediate situation which may be hard to find. that answer will not go against a persons will, your will or the universal will. or maybe it will. that's why we can shrug our shoulders. positive action without lust of result is the quintessential "preventative maintenance".

And how do we look into those clouds? (I asked)

"we squint. until we realize that we should not love our own pain more than anyone elses pain. then we shut tight them eyelids because we realize they are not the right tool for the job"

-- LLLLDL

"Let's start a movement to convert all the army tanks to biodiesel."

-- The other me

Slow, but with a super-heavy back beat.

Tonight I’m gonna pack my bag
Gonna get up on that train
And ride those tracks down to that man
Who’s driving me insane
I don’t know what I’m doin’
I don’t know what I see
Can’t think can’t eat can’t sleep can’t breathe
Till he gets his hands on me

The day after tomorrow
That’s when we’re gonna see
That’s when I’m gonna figure out
Just what you are to me
Are to me
Are to me
That’s when I’m gonna figure out
Just what you are to me

It won’t be across a table
In some fancy restaurant
Where the pretty lady smiles and brings
You exactly what you want
It won’t be in front of no preacher
Walking up some aisle
Where everybody’s wearing phony
Go-to-heaven smiles

The day after tomorrow
That’s when we’re gonna see
That’s when I’m gonna figure out
Just what you are to me
Are to me
Are to me
That’s when I’m gonna figure out
Just what you are to me

Ain’t gonna get no vision
No message in a dream
Ain’t gonna get the low-down
From some tabloid magazine
Ain't gonna get no phone call
or no letter through the mail
He's a high and holy freight train
Rollin' thunder down my rails, oh!

The day after tomorrow
That’s when we’re gonna see
That’s when I’ll figure out
What you are to me
Are to me
Are to me
That’s when I’m gonna figure out
Just what you are to me

There’s places you can read about
But the travelin’s too far
There’s other places you can go
that will change you from who you are
And further down this crazy line
There's a station no one's seen
In room in a house on the shore of a lake
of fire and gasoline

The day after tomorrow
That’s when we’re gonna see
That’s when I’ll figure out
What you are to me
Are to me
Are to me
That’s when I’m gonna figure out
Just what you are to me

When you’ve got me on my knees
And you won’t give me no rest
Hard on the receiving end
Of what you think is best
That’s when I'll know down in my bones
That’s when I’ll know what's true
That’s when I will bear witness
To what I am to you
Am to you
Am to you
I'll shake when I see you testify
'bout what I am to you

Am to you
Am to you
That’s when you'll stand and testify
'bout what I am to you

(copyrighted by me)

Black Cat Trail
(hum something blusesy & slow in a minor key, as if the levee's gonna break, or you're thinking of moving in to the heartbreak hotel)

There's a man across from my house
Watching my front door
Another's by my window
And there probably are more.

And though I've said no thirteen times
They're calling out my name
I hear them in the bushes
Hunting me like game.

Ain't nothing bolted down, and everything's for sale
So watch your front and back, child
Out on the black cat trail.

They'll take you when you're riding high
and then they'll leave you low
They'll dog you all around the town
For reasons I don't know.

Don't cry about that mirror, child
It's just an old wives tale
But don't go walkin' barefoot
Out on the back cat trail.

Ain't nothing bolted down, and everything's for sale
So watch it if you're walkin'
Out on the black cat trail.

I got a good and strong man
who loves me heart and soul
And another who's the angel
of my midnight, all-night roll,

And I'm not a prideful woman
but I got myself one more
Who says he's gonna teach me
what the words 'get down' are for,

And all that I can say is
my aptitude is poor
Because we're up to lesson
One hundred seventy-four.

Yeah teacher come and teach me
What these lips are for
Cause I'm ready for my lesson
Down on the black cat floor.

Ain't nothing bolted down, and everything's for sale
So watch your back, my kitten
Out on the black cat trail.

So come on and give me something
I'm desperate not to lose
But remember where the door is
And where you left your shoes.

And if you think of leavin'
Well that would be the worst
So maybe I'll get my tall black boots
and do the walkin' first.

Oh yeah I'll do the walking first
That's what my feet are for
I'll get my boots and walk real slow
Out of my black cat door.

Ain't nothing bolted down, and everything's for sale
And trust no man to have your back
Out on the black cat trail.

(copyrighted by me)

Black Water

People listen to my story
Listen long and very well
Cause my time for singin’s over
I am headed straight to hell

I have drunk from the black waters
I have ripped the snow white veil
I have stolen from the altar
And I’ve bit the devil’s tail

I was never meant to mother
My heart’s made of river stone
Yet my body did betray me
And a child to me was born

Fair she was, but ever crying
Crying till I could not sleep
Crying through all comfort offered
Crying till I could not weep

I have drunk from the black waters
I have ripped the snow white veil
I have stolen from the altar
And I’ve bit the devil’s tail

Came a day that we were walking
By the shore of Angel Lake
Still she cried, though wanting nothing
And my hands began to shake

In my right hand was a handle
In my left there was a brake
In my hands there then was nothing
And she rolled into the lake

And I laid down by the water
And in peace, I had my rest
Drinking silence like a tonic
Loving silence, silence blessed

And I would have left next morning
But I made a small mistake
For a stranger saw me walking
With her carriage by the lake

I have drunk from the black waters
I have ripped the snow white veil
I have stolen from the altar
And I’ve bit the devil’s tail

Let them drag the cool dark water
Let them pull her to the shore
Now the water is her mother
She will never cry no more

Take me to your lake of fire
That is none of my concern
Stoke the flames and pump you bellows
Stone may melt, but will not burn

Drink with me the muddy water
Spit it on my snow white veil
Let me bleed upon your altar
Come and bite on the devil’s tail

(It's sort of a Carter Stanley homage. Vajra had the _nerve_ to ask me whether it was sung to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies's theme; he obviously does not take me seriously enough. It's slow & dirge-like; minor key; descending-note melody)

====================
rabbit grows roots

I want something
real bad
but I don't know
what it is

I am pacing
without moving
always late
for a show
that's never
been performed
in a cavernous hall
that never was built

And the
closest I can get
to the music
is to study
with my round, pink eyes
the rippled woodgrain
and fine lacquered lines
of instruments
that are waiting
to be invented
so they can
play songs
that have yet
to be written

The lettuces
and the waiters
are long gone so
ever hungry
I dine
on the memory
of the sound
of cutlery scraping
fine china plates
whose clay
has not yet
been dug
from the ground

Having paused
too long
I find I have
become a vine
rooted in the soil
in the garden
of seasons yet to come

My fur
shall never
turn to flower
I will have no
technicolored perfumed
petals to unfurl
all pointy and licking
at clouds and sky
but my fine new roots
will spread and know
the carroty secrets
deep within
the rocks
of this place
this place
that isn't here

Aboveground
unable and
unwilling to move
the incidental
days and nights
race around me
like a rushing
blinking river
blue
black

Belowground
where none can see
my roots keep pace
with the swirling
twirling flow of
days and nights
deeper growing
closer to knowing
whether the garden and I
belong to the gardener
or we both
belong to the
garden

I want something
real bad
but I don't know
what it is

I don't, I don't
I don't know
what it is

=======================
what you are to me

Can I follow you home?
Will you pet me on the head?
Can I sit on your lap?
Will you look good in red?
Can we drink framboise?
Can we dine by candlelight?
Can I have a sip?
Can I have a bite?

The day after tomorrow
That's when we're gonna see
That's when we're gonna figure out
Just what you are to me.

Can I sit on your bed?
Can I borrow your tools?
Can we play Go Fish
with a new set of rules?
Can I dress you in fur
and dayglo and plaid?
Will you lend me a shirt?
Will I drive you raging mad?

The day after tomorrow
That's when we're gonna see
That's when we're gonna figure out
Just what you are to me.

Can we both take a bath?
Can we watch Star Trek?
Will your knees make me laugh?
Can I lick you on the neck?
Will you hold my hand?
Would you give me a whack?
Will you draw a pretty map
of Boise on my back?

The day after tomorrow
That's when we're gonna see
That's when we're gonna figure out
Just what you are to me.

Can we dance at the party?
Can we climb up a tree?
Can we go to the beach
And the bottom of the sea?
Can you tumble my rocks?
Can we play in the dark?
Can you rub up against me
and make my sparklers spark?

Count up your yesses
And give them to me
And we'll both do the math
And then we shall see.

The day after tomorrow
That's when we're gonna see
That's when we're gonna figure out
Just what you are to me.

=========================
look at me

most of the time
we're small, tender
bits of food
sitting on the
plate of the world.
And ever-hungry,
the world
dines and diminishes us
bite by bite
with the cutlery
of days
that make up
our lives

and yet
there are times
when you say,
Look at me
and I look at you
and there are sharp
sparkling forks and knives
flying out of your eyes
and you look
back at me
and see teeth
like switchblades
springing out of my skin
and everything suddenly
runs so fast
like film in reverse

waves un-crash
on rocky shores
and sea birds
fly backwards
across clouds
that are contracting
towards the horizon
and everything turns
inside out
and suddenly
you are the sky
and everything outside
the two of us
is so small
and delicious-looking
together our bodies
form a great, hungry mouth
and we open it wide
and tear right in
and every shudder
is a great
gulp and swallow
and you and I together
voraciously devour
the world


========================

Better Run for Your Life!

Down by the river I laid in the grass
And I watched as the day and the time sorta passed
And I listened as everything sang its own tune
In a chorus of life in the afternoon

The bee said come on, we won’t waste an hour
Collect all the pollen from every flower
But the river said, no,
Better run for you life
Oh ho, better run for your life!

The tree said that life’s made to climb straight and high
And spread yourself out in the bright summer sky
But the river said, no, no,
Better run for you life
Oh, boy, better run for your life!

The mountain told me to stand my ground
Cause stone be my strength and light be my crown
But the river said, no, boy
Better run for your life
Oh, run, better run for your life!

And the sky she smiled and sighed down at me
And she told me to break myself open to be
But the river said, no,
Better run for your life
Come on, come on, and run for your life!

And the bee when she died fell into the flow
And the tree in decay chose the same way to go
And the water carried the mountain away
And the sky just smiled like she does every day

And the river it carried us down to the sea
And we sank and we settled into our own dream
And the river said, yeah, yeah, yeah
Better run for your life
Ah, ha! Let’s run for your life!

(I wrote this song while humming a reggae song that sounds suspiciously like The Israelites, by Desmond Decker - it's not plagarism, it's an *homage*. Hear a sample of *his* song in an NPR program about him here: www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php )

If you've never heard it, you should. The song has, as far as I can tell, a completely unique and delightful melody.

==========================

Reverence for the rain

I'm standin' in the open
feelin' reverence for the rain
but I don't pray to your god
he don't even know my name

With a mountain in her pocket
and an ocean on her knee
your god don't even know her
he's too far away to see

but she's underneath the river
and her shadow's on the crow
and she kisses every seed
and she licks the fire's glow
she's got the wheel and engine
that's the drive behind the flow

of yes and yes and once again
and nine times ninety-nine
she's the blood, the earth, the fire
she's the maker, and she's mine

so delight her with your little dance
and look her in the eye
and she'll eat you in elation
and she'll love you as you die

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||


some souls have clockworks needing winding
on wrists that always need reminding
some souls are hardened for the kill
with hearts to break and blood to spill
some souls are learning how to fly
some like to watch the others try
some seek horizon; some are hollow
some burn your insides when you swallow
some souls have petals like a rose
...but mine isn't one of those.

----------

Take the blue train at midnight, across the plateau
Through alluvial valleys of milky way snow
Catch the waystation wagon and star-bridled plow
To an outpost that sits between future and now.

The row the plow turns closes up as you race
The blade of it can’t rend the matter or space
But its metal forms stitches; its wheels craft seams
On a coat you could wear to the edge of your dreams.

Hold tight as it passes an icy, dark lake
Whose slumbering surface is cracking awake
And events of tomorrow are seething between
And they crawl towards the shore through unknowable means.

Each drop of its spray forms a breathtaking Yes
A promise the seeds of tomorrow will bless
Each grain on its shore has been shed from the eyes
Of yesterday's sorrows and lasting good-byes.

So hold your coat tight and observe as the plow
Sews its delicate bridge between future and now
And the ice underneath slowly shudders and breaks
And recall what you can when at last you awake.

----------
Thank God for the wain to wash the twash off the sidewalk. I think someone should take this cawtoon and just... just fwush it down the fuckin' toiwet.

June twenty-ninth. I gotta get in shape fow hunting season. Too much sitting has wooined my body. I can’t sweep at night; confused... can’t weemembew… is it duck season or wabbit season…?

Juwy fifth. I weealize now that Daffy's just like the othews, cowd, unfwendwy, and distant…

You tawkin' to me? You tawkin' to me? Then who the heww ewse are you tawkin' to? Weww, I'm the onwy one heewe.

----------
You think *I* have it bad? Check out this guy:

www.samorbaum.com/BS/BSmisc...aking.html


-----------
land, ho

Something called me to you
a brightness your eyes
but half of everything in light
has shadowed othersides

First you built yourself a tower
then you built yourself a lock
then you built yourself an island
out of yesterdays and rocks

So I tried to build a ladder
then I tried to forge a key
then I built a boat of skin and bones
and set out on the sea

and I brought along a candle
and a hundred bells to ring
and the words to songs I've never heard
so you could hear me sing

and I crashed upon your island
and I managed not to drown
and I dragged myself up on the beach
and I choked the ocean down

Now I'm sitting on the shoreline
waiting for the tide to rise
and the waves are coming to my neck
and the spray is in my eyes

but I'm holding up my candle
and I'm ringing on my bells
and I'm singing songs that no one's heard
to the sea birds and the shells

=================================

===============


Shadow artist drawing near
I know you well and why you’re here
so bend your head and bite your lip
and with a surgeon’s heart and care
dip your penknife, pull your ink
across this tired, dusty day

And in the time before the next
bold stroke of your ten thousand pens
call all the little dancing motes
and molecules and twists of thread
startled from their boulevards
and nowhere-going Ferris wheels
jolted off their feeder routes
with presupposed velocity
relative to who can say
what cause and gray effect?

A memory of being brushed
to skyfields by a latticed wing
before the long delicious sweep
along the storm cloud’s seething edge
before the vertigo of rise
from sleepy root to quaking leaf
before the long and swinging fall
to richly rotting ground?

Draw your line and call to them
of how with luck they might
through perfect choreography
like children jumping singsong rope
find narrow interstice between
anticipated cleansing breath
and emanate of glad relief
and find themselves sucked past your lips
and up into the flow

To merge with rivers of their kind
and fall in small chaotic grace
and land in sighing drifting swells
of sea where feelings have no tone
but Color sings a different name
to every rainbow drop of feeling
neither white nor green nor teal
nor any colorword that came
by way of mouth or tongue or ear
each hue one atom wide and deep
kissed twice before its nightly sleep
where dreams of past and present mix
remembrance with the magic trick
of riding the enchanted back
of photons laying waste to black.

===============
Have you ever gone walking till dark came along,
Straight into the sun till your vision's near gone?
At sunset the glass makes a bright diamond trail
And it twinkles with the effort each step will entail.

And the diamonds hold symbols that dance in our eyes
And we know we can read them if only we try and
keep walking and reading and learning the code
And they'll teach us to dance in the shards on the road.

=============

Ghosts in the mountain keep calling my name
Always they called me and always I came
Not long ago, but a world away
I saw stars round the sun in the light of the day.

Look for the place between rock and the blue
Step back from yourself to get into her view
Head for the woman dressed in green and grey
With stars shining round her in the light of the day.

What could I tell you that would bring you along?
What would you leave on the advice of my song?
Would you come with me to a place that wild,
Where having no memory's like a gift from a child?

One who would lead you, one who won't come along
One who would leave you if you're not strong.
Don't look back, not for love or pride
One may return and we'll walk side by side.

===============

(all content copyrighted)