You
If one sweep of my hand across your brow could brush away all the pain from your past and childhood, my warm hands wouldn’t leave your beautiful face. But, I know life is not that simple and our memories become like scars from deep wounds that leave an anomaly forever on the skin. And rather than ever seeing me for who I am, you
will see me as the enemy from your past.
::::::::::::::::::::::::
Who am I
what was I thinking....?
who am I to give you back your innocence
when mine has been stolen too
who am I to offer you a drink
of fresh spring water
when my cup is
dry
from your point of view
my offering what I
didn't have may have
seemed cruel
but from my end
my intentions
were
pure
*****
Life
So much has changed in the passing
years. I've seen people rise and
fall, come and go, places, countries and things
change, some for the better, some for the worse.
And I am not immune from the process.
No one prepares us for the silent journey
of aging as it slowly invisibly creeps up on us. It's
a private affair that every human faces and each
handles differently. Some people remain like
children emotionally as their bodies age, others
minds age along with their bodies.
Memories are like scars, like a brake pad worn thin
where metal on metal has dug a deep groove in the drum.
Memories get etched in the mind that can either
haunt and torment us or enlighten our future up ahead.
However it happens, it happens so very fast,
when standing at the edge of the crumbing cliffs
of middle age and looking back at the vast canyons
of youth below able to view with some perspective
how we lived or did not live those precious
fleeting years.
If one could unravel his life like
a wounded soldier's cotton gauze to see how
many bloody stains reveal from their path,
from either their own wounds done by
others or those they've inflicted onto others,
we would have a visual gauge to know who's
lived their life without a stain to their conscience
from those who have pathologically climbed their way
into their futures unethically-immorally squashing those
in their path. Then we would not have to guess when looking
into a strangers eyes and wonder if their smooth
fresh and gentle faces hold secrets to
a darker path.
*******
Just another fantasy
If I could sit on a hillside covered in green grass
in the warm afternoon sun watching the view of the sea below,
wasting time, your hand next to mine, I would.
If I could pull the covers down below my chin
in the cool morning after we awoke and giggle
next to your shoulder, our cold toes touching, I would.
If I could dance in the palm of your hand
as a small gypsy princess, twisting and swaying,
uninhibited, like in our youth, our love the music, I would.
If I could capture your smile in a blue glass bottle
and
perch it in the kitchen window sill, saving it for a
rainy day, I would.
If I could tie a note to a red breasted robin
and
send him off to you confessing
my love as he
sang a sweet tune, I would.
If only I could see the outline of your face,
just for a second, or even through the
shadows cast by candle light,
or simply from the glow of the moon, I would.
Because, I would know then that you are real, that you exist.
*******
The Boogie Man
He watches and waits in broad daylight.
Not among the shadows or in our
nightmares, although he is
the boogieman.
He wants our innocence, our assets
and our freedom.
He's no stranger, he's our friend.
He's everywhere, the landlord, the farmer,
the politician, the policeman and
the businessman.
He's our father, our brother,
our husband and our son.
What is done in ill faith
has been done by each other
to one another and back
round again.
He is You, He is Me.
*****
Little Butterfly
Little butterfly
caught by the waves
your precious wings
shall never be the same.
Only in memories
will you dance along
the cool air
of the ocean shores.
And to dip
your gentle tongue
into sweet residues
of honeysuckle and rose.
Your travels have made
a tragic bend
bringing your life
unexpectedly to an end.
Left half buried
in the sand
to slowly fade away.
What horrors
could have done
a little butterfly
to deserve
such an agony.
You were a kiss
of a princess,
the living essence
of sweet perfumes,
a tickle of an eye.
I'll spare a tear
for the end
of your frail
little life.
:::::::::::::
The Cherry tree
When I was a kid I went to visit my cousin one summer. She lived in a small neighborhood near a park that was down the block from the big main dirty streets of Reno City where all the flashing bright lights blinded your eyes, calling you towards one cheap place after another. It was a place filled with people gambling and squandering their money and their souls away, of men getting quickie glances behind their wives backs of the young dancers and show girls' cleavages or slender belly buttons, or tight shiny luring panties.
It was a place filled with losers, of broken hopes and dreams, of people who liked superficial vacations or honeymoons, of lonely and aging men and woman who were still chasing their youth and hiding from their wrinkled and aging bodies and faces behind the false illusion of feeling on the edge by inundating themselves with booze, drugs and sex, and living in the fast lane. Reno had the underlying sense of one big pickup scene. And there were those who were hooked on the hopes of making it ‘big', hitting the ‘jackpot'. And there were others who were unable to break the habit of buying or being a cheap woman or man, ushering se- crets, tricks and favors behind closed doors for ‘ADULTS ONLY'.
I was wide eyed and like a sponge taking in every little detail, excited by the noises and array of colored lights and signs flashing and twinkling. But there was a sense of fear directly behind the curiosity. On a deeper level, more than I understood, this adult world did not seem right. I saw the dirty sidewalks and liter in the streets and gutters next to the pretty young faces all made up with heavy make up and bleached hair. I saw the old women still in their nightgowns and slippers smoking cigarettes hunched over their cho- sen slot machine spending the last of their social security checks or welfare payments, hoping to beat the odds, addicted, unable to stop. I saw the old men in tattered over- coats and clothes that looked like they'd been worn more than a few days in a row, star- ing with vacant eyes, the texture of their noses looked like cauliflower florets, big red veined, gin or hard alcohol noses. There were heavy stories behind every face and every person that I watched with my young scrutinizing innocent eyes. It was a big and new place this adult world that I'd stumbled upon.
I came from a sweet and sheltered little paradise called Santa Barbara, located on the central coast of California, an hour and a half north of Los Angeles. While growing up I was sheltered from such sights as those seen on the main drag of Reno City. My small community took pride in its beauty. I grew up around nature, the ocean, the mountains, sunsets, lots of greenery and healthy habits like jogging, or surfing, and eating right. All of which were plenty reason for the celebration of life. My innocence had been spared much longer than most kids because of the close connection I had growing up so closely to nature.
When I first arrived at my cousin’s, I remember seeing the roof of the little rental shack standing straight up in the air, it was an A-frame roof, that seemed to compete with a giant cherry tree, both stretched high up in the sky. They both stood about the same height at their most top part places. The roof looked inviting.
Roofs were a secret passion of mine, at my young age, that nobody knew I ventured upon. Through most of my youth, I had restless sweaty nights filled with terrible insomnia.
My mind would not shut off. Nights were difficult to get through, as big thoughts more than I understood, would pass through my mind. After everyone in my family would go to sleep, I'd still be lying wide a wake in my bed. Sometimes I would silently creep out of my bed and climb quietly through the highest window in the house up onto the roof.
Once there upon the roof, I would find a perfect spot and lie back and face the scattered specs of twinkling diamonds. I would speak in mind to the universe. I felt so full, so connected to something bigger, yet so lost and little, while I lay there just a small, tiny, in- significant spec, myself, in the scope of the universe, against the big black sky full of trillions and trillions of stars and unknowns.
I struggled with my dichotomy. The vastness and eternity of it all was so profound. I'd try to put all of it into perspective at my young age and limited and inexperienced intellect. I'd imagine that I was just a cell on my arm and my body the universe. Or I'd see myself looking down instead of up into the dark sky. It was a strange feeling as though I could fall at any moment if gravity suddenly ceased to exist. I would imagine falling and falling down and down into the blackness forever. I had muted feelings of death and eternal darkness, of floating forever and ever and ever with no end. I realized time and size were distortions, temporaries and inter- exchangeable, not solid foundations like I was made to believe. I envisioned gasses, universes, moons, stars, suns clashing and exploding, merging and melding together, which bogged down my mind, and confused my rationality even further. I tried to fit it in with P.E., math, English, how to wear my hair, what clothes to wear.....Dittos or 501's? And thoughts of Doug Anderson, my first crush, where feelings arose in me that I had no control over.
The two realities collided in my young mind just as much as the galaxies a few million light years away were clashing, the microcosm paralleling the macrocosm. I'd lie there alone, knowing what I knew, which was just breaths beyond words and communication would allow me to express, knowing so clearly what ‘was' yet unable to utter or describe exactly ‘what it was’ that I knew.
And even more so to make my dilemma complex is that I knew that I would have no solace or comfort to wash away my fears and reality of my thoughts because not my mother nor my father could help me with these questions, for I knew that they wouldn't have the answers themselves. Their answers were the typical cookie cutter beliefs that most everyone had for the unknown. A nice safe non-scary thought simply to keep one away from thinking too hard because if they did think about ‘death’ or ‘space’ too in- tensely it might ‘scare’ them. They might have to develop a conscience. Because they just might end up with thinking the same contradictory thoughts too. And who wants to think that much?
If an adult did have answers I knew that it was the ego, or rather the fearful and false ego of the human adult to make up such profoundly ornate and enticingly believable stories about such things as ‘afterlife' that only humans enter into, leaving out all other life forms such as all the beautiful ripe fruit, vegetables or flowers that gave out pure health and pure beauty beyond any human’s best efforts. Or the unconditional loving family pet that wagged it’s tail profusely rolling over to show complete submission, even if it got wrongfully scolded time after time. Or the sweet innocence of an herbivore animal that never killed another living creature to keep itself alive and at the same time, living it's life in complete balance with nature, being part of the natural cycle. Because after all, these beings and life forms, (whether a blade of wheat grass or an mamenchisaurus), if any, they were, in my mind, truly the one’s who deserved to go to a heaven or ‘afterlife' before any human did.
Humans in my mind would be the last to enter the privileged ‘afterlife’, from the mere fact that even the most innocent and conscientious of humans walks in complete ignorance of their own complete awareness of being, and does nothing other than destroy, waste, and step out of line from harmony with nature purely by accident or ignorance. Those are simply the side effects of being human. They waste and deplete.
I understood life on that level at a very young age. I felt truly alone with the knowledge and thoughts that I had. It was a secret that was a huge burden to carry because at night when I was alone, sometimes the vastness was scary. Accepting that there may not be an answer to what life was all about, when the human brain demands answers, can be quite intense and scary. I knew that none of my adolescent girlfriends, or siblings, or parents, or any other adults would understand what I glimpsed on. So like other young and old mystics alike, not that I was a true mystic, but, I certainly felt that I knew something much larger than myself and the immediate world around me that most people were oblivious to. So, I kept the knowledge and thoughts to myself. It became my curse and my blessing that would steer me throughout my life.
Upon arriving at my cousin’s in Reno, NV, I waved good-by to my mother as she drove away immediately after dropping me off. As I entered the small house, I eyed the roof and knew that an adventure up on it would happen sometime on this visit. My cousin was always interesting to be around. She was promiscuous at a very early age and was always up for some kind of wild adventure. But, she also had a mean streak that I knew I’d have to endure eventually during my visit. She’d switched her personality on me many times before when we spent time together. I knew she’d be no different this time. This vacation was more for my mother than for myself. She wanted the freedom to sneak around behind my father’s back while he was away at work. And without kids around to care for, she could do it much easier than if I were there. Every summer she found a way to get rid of us.
My cousin was brave and not afraid to flirt with boys, like I was. I was horribly shy, but had curiosity like a lion and was always willing to be part of her escapades and adventures, even though when the time came to be in the limelight and actually talk with a boy, I'd clam up and not say a thing. But inside my body I'd be feeling firecrackers, my heart pounding, my palms hot and sweaty, but on the outside I'd be stiff and hard like a cold marble kitchen counter top on a wet winter day: rigid, frozen and unmoving. I'd act as though I could care less about such nonsense as boys.
In Reno, the boys were always a bit....well...different than California boys. In my mind, they some how just weren't as ‘cool' as California boys. They were funny looking. They parted their hair in the middle of their head and had shag hair cuts, which was a silly style back then. They drove around in their souped up cars like Trans Ams, Mustangs, Cameros, Firebirds, Cutlass Supremes and older Cadillacs, which were the less expensive cars. If you were a boy who came from affluence you'd drive around in your Corvette or Dad’s old Jaguar, Mercedes or Beamer. But at 13 and never been kissed, just talking with a boy.......any boy, whether he owned a car or not, was extremely wonderful and tantalizing even if he was just a “dork”, which was a word my sister used to call awkward funny looking boys.
After visiting with my aunt and cousin for a few days they both had to get back to their regular schedules of work and school. I found myself alone in their little house. The front door of the little rental faced the back alley way. My aunt had recently divorced her husband, my uncle. She moved out of her home with him and found the little A- frame only a couple blocks away from her work, a Mexican food restaurant and bar where she waitressed.
The days were long and hot that summer. After my cousin and aunt left the house for the day, I was left there alone. I began exploring the house. I saw they had a record player and thought I’d put a record on. I went through my aunt’s record collection. I found a record that had a song on it that had been a top hit and on the Casey Kasem’s top 40 count down list for a long time. I hadn’t learned the words to the song when I heard it on the radio. So, I decided that I’d play the song over and over until I learned every word since I had lone time, and lots of it, on my hands.
Stairway To Heaven, by Led Zepplin, was a magical song full of symbolism, metaphors and suggestions. Perfect for a young and eager 13 year old who saw the future full of possibilities and exciting adventures. The song came right in and took control of my imagination. It became the backdrop for the lazy summer days ahead. After putting the song on I crawled out the side window that met with a large firm branch from the cherry tree offering an easy pathway up into the middle of the tree where I found a solid spot to sit that gave just enough cover to shade me from the hot sun yet, still allowing me to soak up the warmth as I endlessly bit into one fat juicy plump sweet black cherry after another, all while I day dreamed and listened to Stairway To Heaven over and over. I spent day after day doing the same thing while I was home alone, enjoying every moment of it. No one knew I was up in the tree and I saw life take place all around me while I went unnoticed. It was a fun and strange feeling.
It was close to the final night at my cousin’s. The upstairs was an unfinished attic. We crawled up into the tight space to get away from my aunt and her company careful not to trip over the beams. Because the house was so tiny, we slept up in the attic to have our privacy, my aunt was happy about that. There was a window up there that allowed the moon to spill through. We talked about boys again, as that was the most dominant issue on hand in those years. I listened with eager intent as my cousin spoke of her experiences with boys that I’d not yet had. We talked until my cousin couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer which was close to midnight. I lay there wide awake as she drifted off to dreamland or where ever it was she went once asleep. I lay there awake and cautious as the moon beckoned lighting up the night sky. It was a big golden globe, full and bright. Tonight would be the night that I’d sneak up on to the roof. I waited until my I was absolutely certain my cousin was completely sound asleep before slipping out the window. I heard her breath deepened and her tonsils dragged a bit and that was the time to move.
The slant of the A-frame was very steep. It was tricky getting up on it. There wasn’t much to grab on to stabilize myself, eventually I pulled my legs up over the side of the rim of the roof from the window and finally got a grip on the ledge, eventually pulling myself up on top of the roof. I had to walk with my feet on either side of the tip of the roof. There was no flat area at all. I found a nice spot near the cherry tree about 3 three feet below the tip of the roof that hid me from view as the full moon lit the sky hiding most of the stars and casting a shadow from my side.
I lay back and felt the warmed tiles from the roof seep into my back from the day’s scorching sun. My feet would have been burnt if I tried doing this during the daytime, but now the tiles had cooled off enough to a perfect inviting warmth. The air was warm and smelled of a sweet perfume let off by a neighbor’s jasmine vine. I could hear the buzz of the busy night-life just a few blocks away. I thought of the things I’d seen during my walk downtown.
I was still left feeling perplexed. I didn’t understand the adult world and how some people could become so lost or caged in their own makings. It was compelling yet at the same time intimidating. But, I was young and had no idea how life’s paths divided into certain fates and destinies. Although, decades later, I would come to understand such things quite well. But, at 13, I lay there feeling content from the warmth all around me, letting my mind drift back over the last several days I’d had with my cousin, learning about the big city, the adult world and that warm feeling that ran through my body when meeting boys, combined with thoughts of the future that might lie up ahead for me, believing in the best, excited about the adventures and possibilities that might happen. I felt a little older and a little wiser from this visit to my cousin’s. I couldn’t wait to learn more. And what made it all the more thrilling was having a secret life where I spoke in heart and spirit to the great magical realm of the unknown like a great eye of life watching over me, when the sun went down and the stars came out. Knowing that my god was out there somewhere watching over me just beyond words and comprehension, yet so strongly felt. Could life get any better than this moment, I thought as I plopped a big warm juicy cherry into my mouth and lay back gazing at the stars above.
