short:"Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" excerpt

...probably a few chapters in from my NaNoWriMo in November...

This is where I could go into an exposition of the details of the travel plans, but I am not that guy.  If I were the type of guy to keep both eyes open for the inevitability of a quirky event, I would at least touch on one of those to move the story along, meanwhile letting you know that we simply didn't launch forward on a tugboat from sunny San Pedro.

My father said his peace: 'I'll make it so you wouldn't want for anything'.

"Fine.  How should we pack for clothes?"

"You'll not want for anything."

"A map?  My pills?  A burner phone from CVS with international SIM card capability?"  Justin, the second youngest was a card.  He was incisive and abrasive, we got on best.  At one point he threatened to have an Excel grid with 100 items that anyone would need to take on a voyage around the world.  I never saw it, and didn't need to.  I'm sure he had it all in that fat head of his.  My brothers were as equally difficult.

There I go, making it quirky with a silly little aside.  It was all too true.  And, with two months to go, I sat with my father for lunch at Newport, restaurant name withheld, but one of many that offer pull up yacht parking.  I was asked to wrap sanity around the arrangements once and for all.

My father chewed through his Firepot Swordfish with amazing ease.  I gave him credit for eating something so spicy.

"Well, I'll pay for it later."  The couple next to us sat upright, visible through my periphery.  Aghast!  I can't say I liked the place for the clientele.  We didn't grow up where we could park our yacht on the landing dock outside and show up for lunch in a breezy Louis Vitton windbreaker.  This was the only place I could get my father to meet me now.  He was agreeable because he knew how much I loathed it.

"Your boys are no longer agreeable if they can at least bring something for the trip..." I paused because it sounded funny on the verge of my lips, "...around the world."  I explained the need for outside contact, the concerns of disengagement from the world, aid kits, satellite phone, special clothing and the whole boring lot.

My father, fully reticent, looked through the dark paneling and at the bright light upon the harbor.  It reflected twice in his glasses.  He quietly, but not slowly, ate his food and drank his IPA.  He was enjoying it.  He found comfort in his age, where he stopped caring what others thought.  I was still marred by it, even in mid-age.

"So, perhaps I should impart upon all of you that this trip, and my impending death..." More stiff backs around us and a slightly dropped salad fork off in the distance, "...that I want to assure you all that I have you taken care of.  There may have been thoughts in the past that I have been distant, aloof, uncaring...this trip is a way for me to make it up to all of you.  Be it known that I watched you, bathed you, read you stories before bed, changed diapers, fed you and the like.  That wicked woman that said otherwise has been nothing but misguided and unfair.

"Son, for you, I have packed a small carry-on for our first journey, as we head to the Galapagos then to Tahiti.  It has a toiletry package right from the Macy's counter, all from Harry's and better than anything you deem usable today.  You'll have a tweed travel suit, slacks, socks - all are designed for outdoor and turned inside out for dining in the evening.  Orvis shoes.  You'll each have a smart watch to track our journey, an appropriately appointed all-purpose DSLR, a Moleskine, swimsuit, pajamas, socks, underwear.  A book.  'Final Fridays' by John Barth.

"At various stops along the way you'll gain access to clothes for that trip.  If we have three nights in Udaipur, then there will be an adequately appropriated wardrobe and other items.  If we are snorkeling in the Maldives, then expect some fins and a snorkel.  I have been planning this trip for the better part of a year, and I am no stranger to travel, or to you."

I felt horrendous.  The combination of Dad's thoroughness and my lack of comfort in this restaurant and I didn't touch it.  I had them box it and gave it to my dad for dinner.  We said little after that as I drove him home.

Latter on Skype.  "Well?"

"He's got us covered, fellas.  Just show up."

And we did.  I may not have all the quirky details, but Dad sure did.

...

write:the Desert

Borrego Springs, 2016

Snippets from the road trip

It's always snippets

A blast of laughter, a verse from a song

An incomplete conversation

But never the full

Like the strand of a violin pull.

The road goes by.

The naked stone, the ancient stone

Piled high upon more and more

Triple digit heat doesn't hit

Until after the mount and coming

back through switchbacks.

The rocks barely care.

Nothing moves after 11

The shadows are gone

Except under rock and root

The sand is still, the air has stopped

As you move through the heat

It feels like your face to a furnace.

You are nothing in the heat

You are nothing to the desert.

The cicadas own the day.

abstract: lander in a land strange...

< awake .>
click generator, set to random variance '336'
is necessary in the absence of noise
to keep
to keep, sorry
< record .>< deviate .>
the plasma of a distant discharge is swimming around me
it is something new and strains like strings
in the cabin and a haze variate, like brown fog
pulls around me, only for an instant
enough plasma to pull me into a reverie
its much better
when there is unrestricted lucidity
it goes, and even as it goes and trails away to starboard
lit by the amber light, not the green
it glows even more in glorious brown
(I had almost forgotten it)
I watch it and it is gone as quickly as it came
from which star did it emanate, and how long ago?
< /record .>
was I alive then
did it shine on a world long gone, like the distant parent
I know nothing of
"It is in you."
< /deviate .>
so yes, '336' - it took me three years, but I found values above as unnecessary
values below would sear into your skull after six, seven days
and the clicking is necessary to prevent hardening of the synapses
< timed_manual_action .>
00 00 00 042613 alarm - double click the transponder, someone may hear you
00 00 01 071809 trill - clack on the filter to clear the air
< /timed_manual_action .>
check on the food, check on the water
read, exercise, learn, listen to the tapes
how I wished I hadn't broken the robot
03 01 30 050000 go into sleep again - 23 times now
on my way to Cere 56712, distinctly and statistically "9" - a sure bet
the seeds reproduce, the lamps have held up
the soil is replicated 23 times
I hold the seeds and smell them
they told me that is what I am
"falling from the tree, at the near speed of light, head first, toward the soil"
toward the soil, a space seed
"may you survive, for your sake, for we are now memories only of each other"
the oldest voice was choking on tears
what did he see?
< /awake .>
< play_request. . = 19410978013xtuASA .>

do: Love Letters on Valentine's Day

Stumped by what to get your loved one on Valentine's?  Look no further than a pen and a slip of paper.  There's little else beyond that.  And, there's little more than how you feel to contend with.  Sure you could still buy something, but supplant it with the letter.  But, I posit that a well crafted, well-intentioned letter will carry forward more than any gift.  How do we know this?  I've enclosed the 'Immortal Beloved' letter from Ludwig van Beethoven, from 1812.


Also, http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelwmiller/how-to-write-a-love-letter#.wwkbVMG1ED.

There are basic facets to a well-penned letter.  The first is that it reflects how you feel.  Use a language that you are comfortable with.  Use a voice that speaks to you, it will then translate to them.  The second is to pass over it a few times.  Write the first draft quickly and thoroughly.  Then, live with it for a few days.  You'll see what I mean over time.

Less is more.  Cut whatever you've written back by a half.  Ask questions of what you have left.  Is is immediate?  Is it about them?  Is it about what no one else would say?  Is it what you wouldn't say to another person?  Is it personal?

Whenever you are done, write it out one last time - write it out in one sitting.  Let it look contiguous - let it live as a collective whole.

Want to keep love letters alive?  Go to http://www.moreloveletters.com/.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Ludwig van Beethoven, to an unknown woman, 1812

6 July, morning

My angel, my all, my own self — only a few words today, and that too with pencil (with yours) — only till tomorrow is my lodging definitely fixed. What abominable waste of time in such things — why this deep grief, where necessity speaks?

Can our love persist otherwise than through sacrifices, than by not demanding everything? Canst thou change it, that thou are not entirely mine, I not entirely thine? Oh, God, look into beautiful Nature and compose your mind to the inevitable. Love demands everything and is quite right, so it is for me with you, for you with me — only you forget so easily, that I must live for you and for me — were we quite united, you would notice this painful feeling as little as I should…

…We shall probably soon meet, even today I cannot communicate my remarks to you, which during these days I made about my life — were our hearts close together, I should probably not make any such remarks. My bosom is full, to tell you much — there are moments when I find that speech is nothing at all. Brighten up — remain my true and only treasure, my all, as I to you. The rest the gods must send, what must be for us and shall.

Your faithful
Ludwig

Monday evening, 6 July

You suffer, you, my dearest creature. Just now I perceive that letters must be posted first thing early. Mondays — Thursdays — the only days, when the post goes from here to K. You suffer — oh! Where I am, you are with me, with me and you, I shall arrange that I may live with you. What a life!

So! Without you — pursued by the kindness of the people here and there, whom I mean — to desire to earn just as little as they earn — humility of man towards men — it pains me — and when I regard myself in connection with the Universe, what I am, and what he is — whom one calls the greatest — and yet — there lies herein again the godlike of man. I weep when I think you will probably only receive on Saturday the first news from me — as you too love — yet I love you stronger — but never hide yourself from me. Good night — as I am taking the waters, I must go to bed. Oh God — so near! so far! Is it not a real building of heaven, our Love — but as firm, too, as the citadel of heaven.

Good morning, on 7 July

Even in bed my ideas yearn towards you, my Immortal Beloved, here and there joyfully, then again sadly, awaiting from Fate, whether it will listen to us. I can only live, either altogether with you or not at all. Yes, I have determined to wander about for so long far away, until I can fly into your arms and call myself quite at home with you, can send my soul enveloped by yours into the realm of spirits — yes, I regret, it must be. You will get over it all the more as you know my faithfulness to you; never another one can own my heart, never — never! O God, why must one go away from what one loves so, and yet my life in W. as it is now is a miserable life. Your love made me the happiest and unhappiest at the same time. At my actual age I should need some continuity, sameness of life — can that exist under our circumstances? Angel, I just hear that the post goes out every day — and must close therefore, so that you get the L. at once. Be calm — love me — today — yesterday.

What longing in tears for you — You — my Life — my All — farewell. Oh, go on loving me — never doubt the faithfullest heart

Of your beloved
L
Ever thine.
Ever mine.
Ever ours.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

What to write on?  I am in love with this stationary, as it has become a bit of a commodity these days: https://www.papierplume.com/product-catalogue/stationery/kartos-station.html.  Kartos has beautiful paper with filigree and weight that is unmatched right now.  You can also find it at Barnes and Noble.

...original: "Free Gun Huntress", part ii...

Her story sort of started here, before.
...
The trilling pulled her out of sleep.  She had the blue ambient on tonight, it bathed the entirety of the cabin with its flat light.  She took a swig of the purple syrup.  She was sleeping hard, but the purple didn't allow for dreams.  The warm fuzziness was pulled all over her body, but no dreams.  She knew this as she slept and it nagged her.  The trilling was the last of the annoyances.  She gestured in a unique way that had the lights in the cabin go on and a flash of pure oxygen to help her wake.

She pulled off her covers, made from cerybian silk.  It was the only luxury she really ever bought outside of ships and guns.  Her body teetered as she made her way to the console.  Without being fully awake, her hands lumbered all over the screen, but she got there.  The trilling stopped and Gustiv popped on.  His eyes rolled over her body.  She was nude.

"Hey.  Never saw you like that before."

"I'm sure we can both be professional.  You called me out of sleep."

"I'll defer a joke to your memory about what I'll be dreaming of."  He paused for a laugh he knew he would've gotten with anyone else in this galaxy.  "Ok.  Right.  So, I have the data you requested for Cam.  The best I could muster was some holographic stills from a few ports.  A lot of security in other places is strictly local.  It'll take time."

"Where then?"

Gustiv was pushing packets as he spoke, "Last known was three days ago in Lopare.  It was transferring transports.  Had a lot of credits on it, letting everyone know.  It is desperate."  She mulled that over a bit.  That was good intel.  The more eyes on it, the more it thinks nothing will happen in the bright of day.

"Good.  I'll transfer what I owe you.  You get me something within a day or twelve cycles, and I'll transfer you four times the amount.  Also, don't have Ber sending anything anymore, we're done: she and I."

"20,000.  The bounty must be solid.  Affirmative on Ber.  Done for both of us then, I'll let her know."  She caught his eyes roll over her breasts for a twentieth time, rolling her eyes in response.  Grow up.  He shut down.

With the packets in her possession she spooled up the AI, Richie.  He hummed as he booted up, it increased until it was at a conversational level.  "Howdy, miss."

"Richie, have new data to correlate Cam Eyres location.  I need you to start chewing on this against where I left off six hours ago.  I would ignore the last two hours beyond that, my mind was drifting.  I'll be working in tandem."

"Yes, mum."  The AI pulsed to acknowledge that it was working, but offline.  It sounded to her like a bass-filled swallow.

In the meantime, she scrutinized the pattern of Cam's movements.  They were furtive, but meaningful.  The bounty was for alive, so she had to think ahead of it.  He was Artharian, so he was limited to very specific zones, necessarily amphibic.  A wet place, warm.  She highlighted those systems in a line of his trajectory.  There were three options.  The faster I close the gap between it's arrival and myself, the faster we close this.  Amphibics can lay at the bottom of some deep chasmic lake and stay there for years.  It was a racist comment, but it was a variable in this equation.

She paused.  There were two other worlds.  She thought of the macro view and the macro statistics.  There were two other worlds that had regions that could sustain it too.

Richie came back into her console as a blurry finger, as if he were raising it politely.  She couldn't get mad at him often.  She acknowledged his question.  "To the finer points of the bounty, I already understand that Cam Eyres is wanted alive to be called as a witness in the prosecution of the Ta'il Syndicate.  However, your report has not specified to what information he holds."

"Relevance?"

"I could then correlate what information it has and to the disposition of travel movements it may take next."

"Exampled?"

"...if it were physical evidence, it may look to a Gridrian Bank for safekeeping.  However, if all is non-physical, the more remote and quickest option will put it in regions that I have overlaid upon your work."  He did it and put a yellow blur on the further options.

"Non-physical."

Richie acknowledged and disappeared again.  *gulp*.  She straightened up and looked at how the transit map looked now.  Too many options.  She got that itch though.  It would do what it knew best, get to a deep pit of a warm, water source and hide.  Hide and disappear and hibernate until it got tired of doing it for decades.

She queried her options against any subterranean water sources that held a consistent ambient temperature of 50Ui.  There was only one.  Only a day and a half.  She culled up Richie from his work and told him of her findings.  "You could possibly get there as it is arriving."

"That's the plan, Richie.  Punch it to Tevaris, top line."

...were there but color in the center of his sorrow...

The winds, deadly, hit him at such a speed that he could hear its terrifying force shatter against the small ray shield.  It sheared and pitched, making an awful noise.  The equipment would hold, but it took all of his effort to remain upright.  He had to be tightly focused on every aspect of his movements.  The shield had thickened to create feet, his shoulder bore the weight of his forward momentum.  A misstep and he would propel himself, like a jack-in-the-box - over the chasm and to certain death.

The sweat was constant.  The shield was as confining as it was when he trained.  Russian burlap postal sacks, three at a time at fifty pounds each were wrapped around him.  His instructor, Vladamir, would kick him constantly.  It was to teach an invaluable lesson: if the shield should fail, even momentarily, his death would be as quick and complete as an explosion.  He would be an ice block in less than two seconds.

Not only did he have to exaggerate his movements to make any forward momentum, but the shield distorted his view.  It shimmered, inaccurately reflecting what was outside.  He strove along the flattest path he could, constantly figuring center mass.  He worked his way toward the dark blob of the cave ahead.

This went on for fifteen minutes and he felt he had moved about twenty feet.  Shift-E calculated about a minute per foot.  AI isn't always right.  Anytime Bar found a place where AI was not 100%, he made a mental notation.  Probably been seven times his whole life.  How many times have I've been wrong?  But, then again, I wasn't born to be perfect.  Human.  Being imperfect is how solutions are found.  An AI would...he stopped.  He knew the argument ended with him being wrong.

He turned to the ship behind him.  It too had a shield.  Somewhere beyond the gold glimmer of two shields, he could make the silhouettes of the crew facing him through the port glass.  It was a thin sliver of carbo-steel, like the fore.  Gunny called it the 'visual last resort'.

Bar adjusted his air.  Claustrophobia did that.  He needed more.  After some deep breaths he continued.  "You alright?" came that calm voice of the AI.

"Yep," Bar returned.  Shift-E was a bother.  But he was programmed to ask.  After 1.5 minutes.  That's the other problem with AI, it's too predictable.  It distracts me as I can anticipate what it will say next.

He moved another twenty feet and made it to the mouth of the cave.  The wind calmed considerably, a cross wind that seem to bypass the cave's threshold behind him.  He lowered the shield slightly to compensate.  He waited ten minutes to make sure there were no sudden gusts to push him back. Nothing.  He suffered another AI status request.

"Shift, I'm going to peer over the lip.  The probes seem to have stopped here for some reason."  The shiny metal skin of three of them were clumped in the same foot square.

"What do you think?  A pulse of some kind?"

"They are all stopped in the same place, virtually.  This means there is some threshold boundary or something."

"Don't walk into it?"

"I know I'm safe about two feet from the pile.  We know from the force of the probe for it to land here."  It was dangerous.  Whatever brought them down would be faster than he could react.  Plus, he had nothing but the shield to protect him.  I could take the shield down.  It was at a degree that his survival suit could take it.  Then he saw what looked like a light.  About two kilometers ahead.  Two amber lights.  Eyes?

"Shift, I see something ahead.  It looked as if it were turning."

"Go ahead and come back.  We know enough."

"I could speak to it."  Bar was half-joking to calm himself.  He edged panic for a second.  He increased the shield again.

"Feel like dying then?"  Bar didn't even answer, he picked up a probe by walking over it and then twisting it through, it was frozen solid.  Had he not been wearing his gloves, it would have destroyed his hands.  He started to walk back, a feeling of exposed dread upon him.

Then he heard the growl.  How does anything survive here?  He turned around and only saw dark.  His twenty feet in fifteen minutes would have to be much, much better..."Hey Shift, what's the standing record for a run of forty feet?"

...the Captain Upon the Unending Razor's Shore...

The Captain of the Stella Maris lost track of time weeks before.  The black shore the Maris had left him extended endlessly onward.  The very edge of the world, it was the threshold between earth and ether.  The black stone was pitted.  Its edge razor sharp.  The under soles of his boots were torn through in a matter of days.  He had to rely on the forgiving nature of his shirt, tied around his feet, to traverse the obsidian.

The nature of the sky changed little.  It was a cast of flat cloud, with no undulation in texture or contrast.  The light behind it ranged from a usual bright and only another cast slightly less so.  The Captain could only rest when extreme exhaustion settled him cold.  Sleep only lasted until he awoke by the crisp cutting while moving in his rest.

The lack of day and night made time irrelevant.  The lack of sleep became maddening.  After a time, he forgot himself and became more like an automaton.  Moving forward only by the initial instruction to find this shore's edge.  There was a star's light somewhere beyond the horizon on black and grey.  Even this, he forgot.

After many days a sharp pain from his side, from lack of drink, struck him awake.

His clothes had worn themselves away.  His kit was lost.  He did not remember where.  His body was cut in dozens of places.  His beard met his chest.

Why am I here?  He had forgotten.  He sat upon his haunches and wept.  His eyes had no tears, they burned with salt.  He looked to the heavens.  The heavens spoke to him.  It spoke to him in colors.  It said to him in gold.  It called to him in emerald fires.

Upon the ground he saw a thread that disappeared as he shifted his sight.  He put both hands down, one on either side of the thread.  He slowly pulled his hands together but came up empty.  The Captain breathed and tried again.  He came up empty again.  If there were a stranger about, they would be chilled by the lunacy of his laughter.

This time he focused his eyes, and not his hands, on the endeavor.  Once the line of gold was bright in his view he did not shift, but slowly moved his hands unto it.  It was grasped!

He kept both hands upon it, lest it fall from and lost forever.  He pulled it taunt and saw that it extended for some leagues ahead.  He stood and pulled it tighter.  With it, the rudderless landscape now had direction, he felt the thread was East.

He walked forward with it, wrapping it around his palm as he strode forward.  A golden thread saving his life.  A light wind, blessedly cool and new, flowed over his body and his senses came to him again.  He remembered the destination, he remembered the star.  The gold thread became a cocoon around his open palm, growing with each league.

On the horizon he saw the dappled tops of a massive forest.  It appeared blue.

He wept at the sight and help the gold cocoon to his bosom, as if it were a baby.

John Melhuish Strudwick

...Night Sounds, Thus Far...

Summer is winding down like a bad date.  However you can definitely still cruise about town listening to the soundtrack of the night.  Check it!

...let's talk...

...let us speak no longer of gossamer wings
of the prismatic hues and the light of air
feelings

...no more of sleepless nights and the fires
that burn on Parnassus and Elysium
homage fires to the Platonian locus

...of ancient warriors on winning steeds
that quake the earth in armor and steel
the lights of the day mingle with tears and anguish

...let us speak quietly
of love
of love
in unpracticed motions
or remembered lines
you
me
our bodies and lives
are undiscovered
and we strike
for love

...mercurial, yes
a genesis
that will
echo
over eons...

...palm trees, the passion of Lorenzo...short study...

The palms brushed one another in the wind like his mother's hands as she pulled the hojas together in preparation of tamales.  He paused as he thought of her, awaiting the hatred to rise in his chest, but it didn't come.  He continued his memory, the smell of the ingredients for atole, the cinnamon and vanilla, would mix with the brusque smells of pork.  He paused again as the memory came back to his mother.  She had large Mexican biceps, a product of cooking materials for hundreds of years, perhaps even longer.  The mashing, the rolling, the kneading.  Her hair was pulled back.  She wore a plain brown dress that he hated.  I hope I never see that again.

There was the hate again.  Lorenzo welcomed it in.  At 19, and high school becoming a memory, he pulled what was a primary drive in his heart.  With high school and all of its pain receding, and a year of working at the auto insurance office smoothing out his other passions, he enjoyed sitting still and taking in the passions of hate.  He hated her.  He wished he could bite her again like she said that he would do as an infant.  He loved hating her.  She never really did a thing to him, but he found her grossly stupid.

He found that the palm trees overhead had blurred from his sight.  He was looking beyond them for that moment, and only the blue of the sky was there.  As soon as he became conscious of this the palms came right back into view.  He took in a deep breath.  Let it go now.  He got what he needed from his undying hatred.

Lorenzo shifted his girth from his back to his side, propping his hand on his cheek.  His long, dirty hair falling in front of his face.  He looked out across the park and only saw a few families enjoying the last light of day.  Parents half-aware, heads buried in their phones.  The kids looking back for acknowledgement, approval.  They don't know how much better...to be disconnected.  He didn't have his phone out because he was mad at Lindsay, ignoring Carlos, while Beth and Laura were mad at Lorenzo.  Good.  The phone was an intruder today.

He pulled out his cigarettes from his front pocket.  He searched for a pack of matches he had taken the other night at the El Calor.  It was an old club on the west side.  He didn't know why Lindsay and Carlos went there.  It was a goof.  Carlos would laugh, but, when he wasn't laughing his face eased and there was something he was getting there.  Perhaps it was the men in cowboy hats and boots.  Carlos would never admit that.

Lorenzo swung his hair back and fumbled with dirty fingers at the matches and lit up.  He stared at the sun and told it to fuck off.  He let the beat from Celani's 'Over & Past' bump across his mind and had no more thoughts for a few minutes.  He wondered where he would go tonight.  Everyone's mad and he couldn't go back to mother's.  Not tonight anyway.

The car.  He'll sleep in the car again, but not here.  There was a park near Sunset that he found before, getting stuck in the area when he almost ran out of gas and had no money.  He searched his pockets for the fortieth time today.  Three dollars and fifteen cents.  There was a meal.  There was no gas.

He sighed and absently flicked his cigarette.  He could go back to work and search his co-workers desks for loose change again.  They were threatening to get a security system put in and Lorenzo felt bad when the memos went out.  If you leave money out...

Lorenzo could only get up by putting his weight on a knee and almost stumble upward.  He flipped up his black hoodie and took another smoke before flicking the butt out into the grass.  Maybe it'll catch fire.  He went to his car and put on Evoke & Bijou's 'Bittersweet' and a pair of $5 sunglasses that he got at Wal Mart.

...deviantart posts...faces...

Lake Skinner, 2014

SKULL .37 DeviantArt

FACE .62 DeviantArt

"It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe." - Edgar A Poe, Berenice
 

Self 2015

...light abounds, night holds...

"Night Abounds" Wallpaper

Light abounds, night holds
The remains of the best, of the worst.
The fierceness of breath
Softens to the dull weariness
Of fighting time.
Conversation are out done on the street
As voices hush to cars that
screech and scream
Impressive to no one.

The pace of my walk teeters
Between leisure and haste
The breeze stops and I await it again
Watching a missile burn atop the sun
Heading toward Vandenberg
A tight contrail to underline
silent Venus, facing south,
impassive.

"Red" Sonnet ~ In response to Frida Kahlo and on the occasion of being a fool ~

A Draft inspired by the art of Frida Kahlo.

The Matador

The flag extends, in arm outstretched, for sake of bold
His eye drops along its frame.  The cloth, a sign,
Draped on, in spite of sense, unfurled, it's lack of fold
An offense to the braying monster beyond.

The Barfly

They shadowed about the pate of varnished wood says
Little, thoughtful quiet, in the reflective glow
Are words enough.  For in the undulating buzz
Contemplation is found in the gloss of spilled drink.

The Revolutionary

On her lips the warning color, the warring one,
Revolt declared by the fierce eyes: ready, wet,
The masses now struggle, civil thoughts undone,
Smoke rose, the fire lit and she moves to the fore.

Couplet

Whatever the tone, its force is the same,
Colours of wanting make measures of claim.

Deviant Art "Red in Black" February 2015, Jon Edwards

...Stella Maris...The Star of the Sea...

In the rendition of Verdi's operatic Otello, Desdemona, the wife of Othello, sings a prayer to Mary, a departure from Shakespeare's play.  In Act 5, Scene II, Desdemona pleads for a stay from the death of the hands of her husband, and pleads further that she may say a prayer.  In Otello, it is realized in a resounding Ave Maria that is hauntingly punctuated on the 'amens' and the 'prega per noi' (pray for us).  Desdemona has her prayer by Verdi's composition before she is smothered by furied husband.



PLAY:
OTHELLO: "Ah balmy breath, that doest almost persuade Justice to break her sword!  One more, one more.  Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee.  And love thee after.  One more, and this the last: So sweet was ne'er so fatal.  I must weep, But they are cruel tears: this sorrow's heavenly: It strikes where it doth love.  She wakes." V, II

DESDEMONA: "...by this light of heaven, I know not how I lost him.  Here I kneel: If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love, Either in discourse of thought or actual deed....Comfort forswear me!...But never taint my love."  IV, II

As there are almost countless songs of the Ave, an early rendition of it has a foundation dating back to Saint Venantius Fortunatus, the Maris Stella:

Ave, Maris Stella, 
Dei Mater alma, 
Atque semper virgo, 
Felix coeli porta.

Sumens illud Ave 
Gabrielis ore, 
Funda nos in pace, 
Mutans Evae nomen.

Solve vincia reis 
Profer lumen caecis, 
Mala nostra pelle, 
Bona cuncta posce.

Monstra te esse Matrem, 
Sumat per te preces 
Qui pro nobis natus, 
Tulit esse tuus.

Virgo singularis, 
Inter omnes mitis, 
Nos culpis solutos 
Mites fac et castos.

Vitam praesta puram,
Iter para tutum; 
Ut videntes Jesum 
Semper collaetemur.

Sit laus Deo Patri, 
Summo Christo decus, 
Spiritui Sancto, 
Tribus honor unus.  Amen.

...Literary Gifts for Christmas, 2014...

My shopping done, my mind at ease (at least here), I offer these to your family and friends that uphold the literary and fantastical.  Play a mix of R&B Christmas and stroll on down.

642 Tiny Things to Write About

Have (and use) the full format version, mention this one because it is effective and it comes in a pocket sized edition for the holidays.  So cute.

Edgar Allen Poe Scarf

Wear your heart of darkness on your neck, not as a noose but as a lovely scarf.  This one is of "The Cask of Amontillado".  I spent a healthy part of high school memorizing the opening lines.

Barnes & Noble Solitaire Chess

These days playing chess by yourself is a normal part of a nerd's life.

Edgar Allen Poe Candle

Absinthe and sandalwood tones embue this candle.  Write whilst smelling Edgar's smoking jacket I suppose.

Demeter Fragrances:

Dramatic fragrances for a night of reading or writing.  I put a few drops behind my ears before sitting down with Sylvia Plath.  

Demeter Thunderstorm

Demeter Holy Smoke

Demeter Paperback

Demeter Russian Leather

Demeter This is Not a Pipe

Hope Necklace in Silver - Emily Dickinson 

"Hope is the thing with Feathers that perches in the Soul, and sings the tunes without the words, and never stops at all."  Oh Emily, you've enlivened my demeanor.

Charles Dickens Charm Bracelet

These charms are getting increasingly more ornate and specific.  Saw another today that is for those fond of zombies.

Jane Austen Coasters 

Wuthering Heights Bracelet

A very comprehensive bit of jewelry, with the opening paragraphs of one of my top five romantic novels.

Great First Lines Mugs

The Book Lover's Journal

I can't think of a better gift for the true purveyor of the written word.  It is 216 pages long and allows you over a hundred pages to log the books you've read, a section on books you'd like to read, where you buy your books, ones you've borrowed, ones you've lent.  OMG OCD.

Jane Austen Candle Tin

Gardenia, Tuberose and Jasmine.  As but I could rest on her bosom and smell these notes.

Those Barnes & Noble "Little Gifts"

You've seen these for years: small palm-sized boxes that house a bit of fun in all forms.

Amazon: Classic Playing Decks

Classic book covers and author photographs will call out as we play a game together.

...

poem: ...tempestuous night...from 30nov14...

NaNoWriMo "Freeway 1979"

Here's an excerpt from the novel I'm using as part of NaNoWriMo by 11/30, "Freeway 1979".  It was a script several years ago that was far from being fully fleshed out, so this has been a lesson in how to turn a script into narrative form.

The story follows an illegal street race on Highway 5 in California, extending from south LA to Tijuana Mexico.  Fourteen hopefuls vie for an opportunity in a time where gas and jobs are hard to come by.  Trevor Bogues puts his vagrant father's '69 GTO up in the race along with his friend Carey as his navigator.  It's a deadly race but with a substantial kitty for the winner.  It'll be the step for Trevor to turn his world of crap around, if he can out race and out think the competitors and the underworld organization that finds the race and the lives of its hopefuls mere toys.

...

                Carey keyed the radio again, “How do you copy for that Duster?”  Vincent was staying out of it, he must be loving watching the drivers squirm.  Carey was getting pissed at the crew.  He hated the boss and all of his minions for that reason: they’re waiting for them to fuck up for their own enjoyment.  “Haze, any idea on the pig chatter?  Anything we need to worry about?”  Make them do some fucking work.  He looked over at Trevor, “For all we know this could be some big fucking dragnet for their own pleasure.”  He shouldn’t have said it now, but he was lit like a torch.

                “You’re saying that now?”

                Carey put his finger up to answer so what.  He lit a cig and lit one for Trevor too, “One thing I kept in mind, and you can too, we can leave anytime.  This is a big freeway, we only need to pull off and go home.  Any sign of them dicking us in the ass, and trust me, I’ll call it before you.”  He handed over the cigarette and leaned back in his seat, "I know these guys too well."

                Trevor felt more confidence at this. They were in this together, that’s for sure.

                Pete came up on the radio [from the Duster], “We’re taking the Euros advice.”

                “Copy that,” Carey put the radio down.  “That’s good, we can’t have their stink on the rest of us.  It’s been smooth sailing so far.  Better for them to figure it out so we can continue."

                “I worry about [Cindy].”  Trevor squirmed in his seat, “She’s too reckless.”

                “That’s what makes the boys like her.”

                “Yeah, too many boys.  Too many toys.  Too many times she plays with fire.”

                “She’s a big girl.”
                “The bigger they are…”

                Trevor pushed the GTO forward once he was able to come around to civilians that were running neck and neck, well below the 55 mph speed limit.  Why be on the freeway if you can't go the bare minimum speed?

                "Stand-by for it, Trev.  That Camaro is up ahead there somewhere."

                But can I get the lead again?

...

A Most Curious Case of Folding [Story Extract]

Where the Doctor Scientist Conquered the Electrical Park at Menlo

1889.

Doctor Ida Bartholomew was forced to complete a fair amount of work to the structures around Menlo Park in the weeks prior to experiment No. 11.  Edison had abandoned the Park a year prior, but structures had already fallen into disrepair years before.  Squatters had overrun a few of the buildings.  She did not need the sheds or the main residence, she did insist on the main laboratory.  It was here that power still existed in a capacity to continue her experimentation.  To insure its security for the following weeks, she had purchased a questionably functioning shotgun so that a group of vagrants saw the need to vacant the premises and not return.

"This building is still the property of Edison and the National Government, so if you return, you will be duly persecuted [she realized the mistake later] and sent to Federal Prison!"

The Doctor felt no guilt for the escapade, only hating that she was forced to deal with the dregs of society.  This was not Allston/Brighton, the laboratory not Boston University.  She carried the shotgun on a sling when dusk came.

During the day, she worked feverishly, awaking at dawn after only a few hours of sleep.  She was building two transformers according to her colleague, Nikola's [Tesla] specifications.  The coil required was perfectly manufactured by a steel producer in Pittsburgh.  It was the coil threading that took the bulk of her energies.  She wanted the coil structure to maintain the appropriate tensile strength.  The electrical power that would flow through these would easily greater than any experiments that were performed here.

At night, she locked every door and window and shut herself into a room that allowed her protection.  She sat against the far wall from the door, shotgun in hand.  She awoke in the morning, having fallen over sometime over the night.  The lack of adequate grooming had taken its toll: Ida would have appeared to any person to be one of the very vagrants she expelled from the lab three weeks prior.  Her eyes twitched uncontrollably and she felt that spirits inhabited the structure.  They whispered at her while she focused on her work.

Then, without pomp or circumstance: completion.  Ida finished the last of the copper finery that induced energy according to the calculation she had made before.  The copper filament, the large iron coils, the ceramic capacitors that topped the towering structure: all were in place.  She walked around it with an introspection few of her gender possessed [at this time].

She walked about the building, closing up the windows and latching the doors.  She blew each candle out and fell against the caster-wheeled chair.

She swung the shotgun to the back of the chair and put her hands to her eyes.  They smelled of metal and scoring.  Her eyes burned from exhaustion, her body sore from hours and days slumped over the structure.  She took in a breath.  It felt as if she were born anew.

Moonlight fell through the slats of blinds.  She could hear a night bird singing, but from far away.  There was a world out there and five weeks had gone by without her in it.  She didn't remember the last time she ate.  Hunger fell upon her like a ravenous, black cloud.  But exhaustion ran the better of her and she fell into a deep sleep.
...
She dreams of Paris.  Nikola was there, as was Edison.  They were pulling conduit through the streets.  The black clouds roiled over the sky, promising a catastrophic lightening storm.  She reveled in it, but it did not come.  She wandered the dark streets.  Shadows whispered to her.  An orchestra played under the cobblestone of the Rue Laurent.  She stood in the middle of the Rue hoping for the electricity to come.  It never did.  A locomotive screeched instead, pounding out of the ground, thundering toward her and she awoke.

It took time to realize that two days had passed.  The danger of malnutrition threatened her: she had no energy and her body was convulsing from within.
...

...favored children's books on Halloween...05oct14...

The term 'vintage' for books falls woefully short, since good stories never go out of vogue.  Most of the time, they live up to their promise and are carried forward along with us.

As Halloween nears, there are few things as a child that we carry forward with the same emotional response than with horror.  Surely, we delight in it, we find exhilaration.  They give us a thrill like nothing else.  A good horror children's book will have a lasting impression upon our eager minds.  How many times did we hide a book, to hide from the sheer fear of its stories? Or, did you sneak them under the sheets, along with the all too critical flashlight, reading them in the unguarded shadow of night?

These are the stories I was lucky to fall into as a child, and have warped my senses since.

"In a Dark Dark Room" by Alvin Schwartz

"In a Dark Dark Room" is so evilly bent.  The horror I felt as a child (at what I thought was to be a benign book) today gives way to a twisted pleasure.  The stories are deceptively short.  There is an efficiency of words.  Yet, tied with the illustrations, where they outline the real terror, are tremendously effective.

"and Jenny's head..." Jenny's head! It fell off her body, only because Alfred was unwilling to let her be.  Oh, Alfred, could you just enjoy her loving attention otherwise?

With the Berenstain Bears' "Trick or Treat", "In the Dark" or "Berenstain Bear's and the Haunted House"there are some genuine scary moments, especially considering the amount of danger the kids were in.

Imagine escaping from one's room in the middle of the night and running through the country side and into the dark of the forest.  That's just cray.

Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbinders of Suspense"

The Alfred Hitchcock series, which I've blogged a few times now, will always delight.  In "Spellbinders of Suspense", there are stories by heavyweights of suspense.  The illustrations were moody, though not heavily detailed.  Stories included:
"The Chinese Puzzle Box" by Agatha Christie
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
"The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier "Man From The South" by Roald Dahl "Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper" by Robert Bloch "The Man Who Knew How" by Dorothy L. Sayers


Then there's Hitchcock's "Haunted Houseful", with stories like:
"The Red-Headed League" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Treasure in the Cave" by Mark Twain
"The Forgotton Island" by Elizabeth Coatsworth
"The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall"

There's the raw artisan nature of "Georgie".  It's just terribly cute.

One of my go-to books,
Scholastic's "FunFact Book of Ghosts" or
here.

A few definitive books that carried terrible visions for me for years of my childhood: the Scholastic books being one of the first.  I had checked it out of the Euclid Library so many times they actually stopped me from doing it for several months to allow other kid's to get nightmares.  I just couldn't put it down.

Then the Usborne Guides - holy criminy these were the worst
offenders!  The illustrations were just bloody,
malignant merzky messel.  This was my 'little black book' at
the time and one brought to the Boys and Girls Club.  There
were the headless, the poltergeists, the phantom warnings.
Damn you, Usborne and your twisted ways!

The Haunted Mansion 45, just fun!

The truly blood-curdling illustrations
of the Usborne Guides, this blogger
has more.

Five Little Pumpkins by Dan Yaccarino - it's the funnest song for
Halloween and pumpkins by far.

For full site, please visit edwardianjackal.com.

...measured...

How shall we measure it
Is it physicality?
The rush of blood through our members
The blush response
In tears then?
In long and languid sighs
When reciprocity is figured like an equation that ends falsely
An irregular sum
A null statement; the sum or product was false to begin with
Then what was this that was felt
Far to look backward, inward
If by feeling then how measured
For I felt and feel
In tears and sighs
My God how I apologize.  Measure it thusly?

Perhaps in works?
In poems and drafts and art
In sketches and of clay
How many to prove? 
Words as proof, as better parts where the whole may be lacking
I know I know
I know it like the song I capture in a sigh
The declarative made when ended in a tear stain
The ink run
But not far enough.

Is it time?
If it is not enough now, would a year suffice?
Is that how it can be proved.
Two or more.
Twenty?
If the sense of novelty can be stripped away in the nearness of now
Would then you see?
If, combined, I stack all these as a whole in two decades or more
And lay them at your feet and earnestly lie, a poorer comparison
would be proved
But the physical will pass as it should
But the art remains
But will it prove?  When I am gone?