Séance

(Photo: Painting from the Philadelphia Museum of Art)


The five of them laughed at themselves as the gaslights relit the room. Nervous laughter. More than one face was ruddy from the fumes of brandy swirling in their glasses.

Eyes turned to Sonja, who laughed more than the others.

Laughter dancing at the very beginning fringes of hysteria.

"Did you actually see something?" the bearded man said.

They all fell silent.

Sonja's gaze avoided them and returned to the candle. The only thing lit during the séance.

"Actually, I did," she said.

"Your voice changed," one young woman said.

"Honestly, you scared the daylights out of me," said the other.

The last one to speak was an old woman. White hair and a severe face. The aunt of the bearded man. "Tell us what you saw," she said.

Sonja swallowed. "Well, I saw a young child. Nine years old. A girl."

"How do you know her age?" the bearded man asked.

"I know," Sonja said. "I know her age exactly."

One of the young women clicked her tongue. "There have never been reports of any child ghosts here. Certain no reports of anyone having died here at age nine."

"She didn't die here," Sonja said, smiling too thinly. "In fact, she didn't die at all."

The bearded man frowned. "I don't understand. How can you see a spirit of someone who isn't dead?"

"I don't know," Sonja said. "But I'm sure I know who it was. No one else would know what she told me."

"Could she have recently died, and you simply don't know it?"

Sonja shook her head.

The old woman stared, waiting for an explanation.

"But--" the bearded man started.

"No," Sonja said. "She didn't die. I'm quite sure of it." She tried to sip from her glass but found it empty. "Actually, you all can attest to that."

More confused faces.

"The little girl was me."


(On this Memorial Day, perhaps we can also remember our past selves--those lives within us who have passed out of reach and gone to a place not unlike death.)

Collecting

we collect
pieces
of each other
like
charm bracelets
or puzzle pieces
fashioned
into meadows
of blue skies
or parchment
or hurricane orgasms
wetting our
dry wheat plains

we collect
pieces
of each other
only pieces
because
we really
never wanted
the whole

Peaches

Moving to the country
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Moving to the country
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
--Presidents of the USA, Peaches

"Well. This didn't work out so well," she said.

He shook his head. "Nope."

"Any ideas?"

He looked under the hood of the car. Everything seemed to be there. Wires and hoses. The usual stuff.

He shook his head again. "Nope."

"Great. Just frigging great."

"Hey, it could be worse."

She raised an annoyed eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Sure. It could be raining." He scanned the sky just to be sure he didn't just jinx it. "The car could be on fire. We could be in the middle of Death Valley with nothing but a quickly melting popsicle."

"Great. I feel much better now."

He smiled and leaned back on the fender.

"Jesus. What are we going to do?" she said. "Look, still no service on my cell!"

He chuckled at how she held the phone as high as possible. "That's a pretty good impression of the Statue of Liberty."

But she obviously wasn't in a joking mood.

"Hey," he said. "Cheer up. Look at where we are." Orchards painted the hills around them for miles. Orchards with hanging fruit.

She didn't bother looking.

"Peaches!" he said.

"At least we won't starve after we're raped and murdered."

His footsteps shooshed in the dry grass alongside the lonely road.

"Wait! Where are you going?" she said.

He tested a couple peaches on the nearest tree. "They won't miss one or two."

They were just beginning to blush. But hard. "Not quite ripe yet," he said. "Do you mind?"

"No," she sighed. The yellow of the hazard-lights pulsed on her face. Daylight was fading.

He picked the two and tromped back.

"Okay," she said. "Now what?"

"What do you mean?"

"What are we going to do!?" she said, exasperated.

"We're going to get out of the car. We're going to set this ratty towel on the hill over there, and we're going to eat our crunchy peaches. That's what we're going to do."

He reached out his hand.

"Come on," he said.

Reluctantly, she took it.

On the hill of their little overlook, he smoothed everything out. She plopped down and forced a bite.

"Good?" he said.

"Not really."

"Have to agree with you there. Maybe we can come back and break down in two weeks or so."

"I'll pass."

As she chewed, he leaned in towards her neck with his lips, but she scrunched and blocked him.

"Hey!" she said.

"Sorry," he said. "Sorry. But your skin reminds me of peaches."

"Oh please...."

He went for it again, making it a little farther.

"Are you kidding?" she said, holding him off. "No way!"

"Can't I kiss your neck?" he said.

"No!"

"Just one little one?"

But she fought less hard when he tried again.

"You're not smiling, are you?" he said. And his lips finally landed where he wanted. "Mmmm. That's better."

"You're crazy," she said, half laughing.

"Definitely."

He laid back and took a big breath.

Pollen-rich air. A blush of red-orange on the clouds.

"You know this is a pretty good spot," he said.

She laid back too. "Why?"

"Just think of the infinite little actions and reactions to land us in this very spot at this very moment. All those infinite things leading to something so pretty."

She thought about it. "I think I'd prefer the infinite actions and reactions to land us where we were supposed to be going," she said.

"But maybe we were going here," he said. "Or here."

He turned and his kiss found willing lips.

When he pulled away, his hand lingered along a rise at her low neckline. "You know, we should move to the country."

"There's nothing to do out here," she said.

"Oh?"

As he proved her wrong, a mockingbird spooked from a nearby tree and beat wings across the canvas sky.


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The Wait Too Long

I'm like magma
pulsing
pulsing with heights
and long long earthquakes
and incineration
like magma
pulsing
under the weight
of a cold ocean
turning
swelling
pushing hot fault lines
and majestic
carved mountains
like magma
bulging
under a boiling ocean
and you breathe
your fast breaths
in the steam

Game Friday: Busey Knows Best

The Prophet*

Welcome to another fun filled Friday!! Tough week? Same here.

Have you all seen Gary Busey in action? On the one hand, it makes me sad, because his delicious bizarreness is most certainly from his motorcycle head injury. But on the other hand, Busey transcends the time-space continuum, and today's game is in his honor.

Busey is known for free-form acronyms (aka Buseyisms) to impart his unique brand of wisdom. We're going to create some of our own today. Here's an example.

Don't take your fellow man for GRANTED. Because when you do, we Get Ripped And Not Taught Every Day. Yes, it's a SHAME, and that's Such Heavy And Mistaken Energy.

Get it??? You make up crap for the acronym.

So let's see what you GOT in comments. And yes, that's Great Online Talk.


(*Photography on this blog is 99.99% mine. Not this one.)

What About This One?

"Geez. What about this one?"

"Which one?"

"This poem. The one called 'Uni-verse?'"

He chuckled. "I don't remember titles." He gestured at the size of the stack. "I've written a lot of poetry."

"Here. I'll read it to you:

in my dead world place
with inverted stars
I find you

the creator is underfoot
toying with plans of inflation
but this universe smokes and smolders small
and sometimes I walk there

cinders sing
and stardust mingles
in my dead world place
where I killed you

She put it down.

"Oh. That one," he said.

"Yeah. Wow."

He shrugged.

"But what does it mean?"

"I guess it means whatever you think it means."

"It's pretty dark. Disturbing."

He nodded. Contemplating. "Yes."

"Chilling."

He stopped stirring the vegetables. They sizzled in anticipation of dinner. "But it's good to be chilled once in a while," he said.

"Why?"

"Because it reminds us that what we do matters."

The Passions of Bryn

A couple of years ago, I met the character Bryn, a beautiful vampire living mostly isolated and in the shadows of Philadelphia.

Born in the 1700's, she has experienced amazing and breathtaking things, but her immortality has darkened to a deep bitterness. Her desire to possess the rare men she loved has always ended in their death. She cannot resist joining with them, and they cannot resist giving themselves to her. (I thought of this story before I heard of Twilight. She's kind of the anti-Edward.)

I first wrote about Bryn in Winter Wind as she enchanted a random man to feed her hunger. Then, despite all her efforts never to love again, she crossed paths with another rare one in Requiem I. She stalks him in a theater to the music of Mozart's Requiem. Requiem II was an experimental piece blending writing and music in a video format.

In Dreams, Bryn later visits this man as he sleeps and manages to taste him without taking his life. Finally, I returned to Bryn's birth in my mega-narrative poem Under the Willows, where I also explained the origin of the burgundy primrose.

Okay, so why am I telling you all of this? Because I've rewritten and tightened my video piece Requiem II in anticipation of the new final installment, which will again be a music/writing/video fusion. This time, however, the music will be Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, 1st movement, and this time I am the musician! Yes, I wanted to play it and record it myself, so this one will be a real treat for me.

For now, to get you back into Bryn's world for the soon-to-be-posted finale, here is the reworked scene when Bryn senses a new, mesmerizing presence at night in the theater.

Never Surrender

Just a little uncertainty
Can bring you down
And nobody wants to know you now
And nobody wants to show you how
So if you're lost and on your own
You can never surrender
--Corey Hart, Never Surrender

"Surrender is the answer."

"I don't think so."

"When you kneel down to things greater than you, you know true peace."

"And why does kneeling equate with peace?"

"It's the letting go. The rest. The not-having-to-fight. You can't do it on your own. You must know that. You need someone to carry you in the end. And you can only get picked up when you surrender."

"So, when you surrender, the burdens go away."

"Yes!"

"I see. But don't you lose a lot more than burdens when you kneel?"

"Nothing that you need. Nothing that you miss."

"That's only true if your pain is so huge that it totally eclipses everything else."

"What else? There's only confusion and self-destruction. Who needs those? When you let go of those, you have only rest."

"But having full responsibility for your life is not just a burden. You have the power to create your own world, your own reality."

"You don't create reality."

"We create reality all the time. Computers are real, aren't they? They have fundamentally changed how we experience life."

"I suppose."

"But it can be hard to follow your heart. You can get all sorts of push-back."

"Push-back?"

"Sure. It might come from others. They may judge you. They may try to knock you down for following your own path instead of theirs. Or, it might come from yourself. You might harbor traumas, self-hatred. Or you might deeply doubt yourself."

"You don't know the power of surrender."

"No, I think I do. It's the perfect state of the known. The certain. The predictable. But the price is control over your own life."

"You're just being stubborn. I understand. You're not ready to let go."

"Or, maybe you're frustrated that I'm not doing what you're telling me to do. Or that you want me to stop doing what's bad for you."

"Some day you'll choose to be truly happy. You'll choose to accept your place in the world."

"I sincerely hope I don't."

"But you will."

"I'm a person who needs to make my place in the world. Not accept the one handed to me. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it really hurts. But I wouldn't have it any other way."

(*For you personality type aficionados out there, this is an imagined conversation between a rational and a guardian, two types which can be polar opposites.)

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Combat Fishing

(From the true adventure files.)

Last Friday, a friend from work and I treated ourselves to a fishing trip. We even hired a guide. A float trip down a remote section of the Pennsylvania Lehigh River.... Lovely! Part fishing and part white water rafting.

Not too long into the trip, our guide was deftly navigating the small, inflatable pontoon boat through the first serious rapid. He paddled while we sat on either end on fishing chairs (fly fishing, BTW). He had it made in the shade until the speed got away from him just enough to catch a boulder. We got rammed against it. Stuck.

Now, moving water is serious business. The immense pressure immediately sank half the boat.

Nice.

So there we were, flowing water rushing over our feet, and the boat is crunched against a rock in deep water. Time to put the thinking caps on, no?

The guide asked me to climb out, and after some careful maneuvering, we were perched like two goofy birds on a rock in the middle of the river.

Here's where some communication might have been helpful.

Without too much trouble, we pushed the boat off the rock. But I didn't know what he was planning. Since his body was basically the fulcrum, the boat began swinging away from me.

In the next 1.0 seconds, the following thoughts shot through my head:

1. This water is dangerous. I don't want to go in wearing gear. With or without a meager life vest, drowning is not out of the question.

2. If the boat leaves without me (and the guide), we have no real choice but to go into the water.

3. See #1.

So what was my solution when the buzzer rang?

Jump!

I did a do-or-die leap for the promised land. And I made it.

I had a split second to enjoy my landing before my momentum smashed my nose into a piece of frame designed to brace you when standing up.

Wham.

I collapsed back into the chair pretty fogged out and in a substantial amount of pain.

But, it wasn't over. The guide now had his own decision to make. My leap pushed the boat even farther away from him.

He jumped.

And he made it too. For a second.

Then, he slipped in.

Later, he thanked me for my lunge to grab him. It really didn't do much good, because despite my handful of his life jacket, the damage was already done. He was swimming at the side of the boat. But it was the spirit of the thing, I guess. Pain or not, you can't just let the guy fall in, right??

He told me to let go, and he began to swim to the back of the boat to climb up.

Now we were free and whisking down the river. I returned to my chair and concentrated again on my face. That's when I noticed the thick, massive red drops splashing on my legs. Oh great. I was bleeding like a mutha.

"Do you have a towel or something?" I said politely as I held the bridge of my nose.

The guide flopped back in the boat not knowing that I had just bled all down his back while I stood over him.

His face was priceless as he turned and saw me doing my Carrie impression.

It was a gusher.

A handful of soaked tissues later, my friend observed, "combat fishing."

Yes, indeed. It was a pretty good day.

I'm ready for my next adventure. At least I didn't break anything.

What If, Would You?

"What if you just got paid. Would you spend your paycheck on fireworks?"

"Yes."

"Would you shoot them off that same night?"

"No."

"Would you invite me over?"

"Yes."

"Do you have matches?"

"No."

"Do you smell matches before you strike them?"

"No."

"After?"

"Yes."

"Do you like red wine or white?"

"Red."

"Is red wine sweet?"

"No."

"Must you drink table wine on a table?"

"No."

"Would you drink wine when you shoot off your fireworks?"

"Yes."

"If one of the fireworks landed in my hair and it was smoldering, would you tell me?"

"Yes."

"Would you put it out with your bare hands?"

"No."

"Would you pour the wine over it?"

"No."

"Would you swat it out with your paycheck?"

"No."

"Would you light off more fireworks?"

"Yes."

The Tavernier Stones

I'm breaking out of my normal weekend blackout period to let you in on a guarded secret. There is a diamond hidden on the internet, and it could be yours.

Do you love puzzles, adventure, mysteries, and mayhem? (Okay, maybe I'm over-the-top on the mayhem.) Blog friend, and now ubercool debut author Stephen Parrish, is hosting a contest to promote his book, The Tavernier Stones, a thriller that encompasses gems, a race against the clock, and yes, Amish. The winner gets a one-caret diamond. (Seriously.) Hop over to THE TAVERNIER STONES for all of the info and a book review.

And above all, buy the book!!

21 Things

I was tagged by Dani aka Oddyoddy013, to do a little self-revelation. Always juicy material for a blog post, no?

My task is to list 12 things I like, 1 thing I love, and 8 things I hate. Then, if I dare, I am to tag 3 people.

Here goes.

My Likes
1. Sleeping in.
2. Staying up late.
3. The sound of a breeze in the forest, but not wind.
4. The color and glow of moonlight.
5. Old cemeteries.
6. Squaring off with someone and having a delving conversation.
7. Mustard. Alone if necessary.
8. Hot/spicy food.
9. The challenge.
10. Hot tubs.
11. The power of revealing yourself.
12. When you drop a buffalo wing and it hits your napkin, not your pants.

A Love
1. Eyes. Intense ones. (The first thing I saw when I met Aine.)

My Hates
1. Disregard for logic.
2. Noise and chaos.
3. People who choose to be threats and do harm.
4. Nervousness.
5. Loss.
6. Liver. (Cooked, not operational.)
7. Being impeded or restrained.
8. My mistakes.

So there you go. Anything interesting? Do you want to offer a few of your own?

I tag Loveable Homebody, Mona, and Karen. If they want to.

Rain is my Bosom

rain is my bosom
washed miserable and deep
waking plump new days

Have You Ever Seen the Rain

Someone told me long ago
There's a calm before the storm
     --Credence Clearwater Revival, Have You Ever Seen the Rain

"Why are you whispering?" he said.

She laid on the ground with her hands folded beneath her head. "I don't know."

"Seriously. There's no one around."

"I know."

"For miles. Miles and miles."

"It's too quiet to talk."

The haze in the night sky dissolved a little.

More stars emerged. But still not clear like winter. Two months ago the contellations draped the sky like moon sprinkles and ice.

"I think I hear a train," he said.

"You can hear them far away in the night."

"I wonder where's its going."

She shrugged. "Here. And then away."

"Are you sleepy yet?"

"No."

"I wonder what your parents are doing."

"Arguing."

"Really?"

"No. I don't know. Happy that I'm not there."

The train whistle echoed in the charcoal grey hills. The clacking wheels sounded so close. Like the screeching rails were bearing down on them.

She felt him watching her by her side. Through the early dew on the grass.

"You know I love you, don't you," he said.

"Yes."

"I feel like I could love you forever."

"I know," she said, dropping her voice to the edge of hearing. "I know."


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