The Beginning of a Good Tale...

I stood in the gallery, surprised. The new “Rural Life” photo contest had caused me to leave my normally secluded life and travel to Charlotte, NC to view the collection of photography from across the state. I had been enjoying the various landscapes, pictures of freckled faced, overall clad youths and studies on various farm-life objects: plows, daisies growing in tin pots, wagon wheel sentinels on dirt drives. Then there it was; a black and white photograph of a too familiar road, that road. That road, eternally dark and damp, always leading out of town to the same house, the same now seldom remembered history. The story is all but gone as are those who where there, but I am thrown back tonight, to a time before. A time before I knew of malformed creatures and a darkness so completely void of light that it could seized your spirit in terror, a time when I was waiting beside that road...

Excerpt from Novel in Progress - eternally in progress...

After dinner, sitting in the expansive dinning room, I began to wish for some time alone. Angela had not left my side for days now. When we ate, we dined as royalty. My body had returned to a more normal appearance. I appeared now as if I had simply been successful in re-sculpting my body and adding a few pounds of muscle, and had grown accustomed to managing my new senses. With little effort I could balance my heightened sensitivities to dismiss any over stimulation. I could move through the tasks of each day with a high degree of normalcy. Yet, increasingly I was feeling restless. I began to think of my small country house, my familiar surroundings – the view from my den window, the smell of the smoldering fire in the morning, the beep of my answering machine – and my thoughts returned to Kelly.

I stood from my seat and walked over behind Angela. Silently I shared by thoughts, as had now become our way of talking,

I’m thinking of going home to look over my things.

Perhaps it would be a good idea, Angela replied. You should begin to let go of that life. Your new life is just beginning, but you will soon discover, as it was with me, that the life of normal people is too limited for you. It is good that we have each other.

Angela stood and turned to embrace me. I felt the wonderful warmth of her arms slide under mine and wrap around my waist. She leaned on me and sighed as she closed her eyes and rested her face on my chest. The gentle layers of her short hair felt soft against my chin. It was then that I sensed it. It was nothing more substantial than a passing aroma, as faint as the brush of a gentle breeze as the weather begins to change. It faded as soon as it came, but I knew then that it was there. Within her was something hidden, something much more. Up until this point I had simply told myself we had found in each other the passion and sensuality that we both needed. My mind had not been able to grasp the now haunting truth. The pieces fell in to place, locking together in an incomplete, but discernable image, an incomplete jig-saw. Somehow I knew, this had all been a carefully orchestrated plan. I had been hunted and captured. I had also been a willing captive. Yet, the truth beyond this had brushed my awareness. There was something else, a shadow of sorts that Angela held within her toward me. I knew that I needed to get away.

I will leave tomorrow. I need to arrange some of my affairs and tie up some loose ends; I shared my thoughts with her.

Her response was brief, I’ll go with you.

No. I think I would like to go alone. It won’t take me long, and there is no point in dragging you away. I know you and Charles have more work to do. No doubt I have kept you to myself too long.

I hugged her firmly and smiled. I gently bent my mind to hers. It had become our way, this bending, the invitation to the other to open and allow passage through feelings and thoughts into the deepest of connections. Every time the sensations where beyond words. The closest thing I had previously known to this is that illusive moment of creative bliss when the work of the artist finds form for creative passion - when the words inscribed upon the page, or the sculptured stone so precisely reflect the purest of human truth that the artist transcends the normal moment and touches the realm of the spirit. So, I paused and waited her response.

She giggled and kissed me. “Go ahead and go,” she spoke out load. “It is necessary for you. I can see that know. Go, Evan Palmer, go. I will be here when you return.”

She spoke this with complete certainty. She turned and walked out of the room, and as she left, so did all of her thoughts, feelings, and being. Nothing was open to me. She had closed me out, completely.

I felt strange instantly. I felt alone, truly alone. (to be continued)

On Hiking the Grand Canyon

I spent a few days hiking at the Grand Canyon a few years back. I penned these words from the experience.

These Walls

These walls, these cascading rocks of harden earth, earthen toned history revealing centuries of the never ending dance between water and stone, hold me in awe. Is not this chasm grand in span and even grander yet in spirit, for it calls not only for all that the body can give it while every muscle screams for relief and each sinew claims finality. This brilliant abyss wants for the release of more, the conquest of ones very being, the devouring of all spirit. Give to it this, this measure of your existence, all body and spirit and therein, perhaps therein, weary traveler of this land, you might just discover more of who you are, or more complete still, you and I may just become more, more complete, more wonder-full. These walls can caress the very earthen vessel of humanity and breathe again into us, a vital wisp of that delicate mixture of earth and water and their waltz through eternity.

Reflection on Imagination - Talons, Fist and Fur

My breath dances in and then out while I wait in the darkness of veiled eyes. Then it comes...

My meadow beneath me, again, welcomes me home. I raise my fist to the sky and he descends. I feel the familiar tearing of my flesh as he settles, talons slicing into my fist. With the agony, I welcome my ancient friend. Blood trails down my arm for a moment and as talon and flesh merge, I heal.

Breath in the darkness...

She strolls to my side, padding heavily upon the turf. She leans against my thigh. Lowering my free hand I find her -fur, thick. Kneeling, I wrap my arm around her and lower my face into hers, breathing deep her scent, scents of death, decay and blood. I so love her primitive cause.

Now we are one, us three. And there, hidden in darkness we know - I miss them when I cannot imagine.


NOTE: Do you value your dreams, your visions beyond reality? Do tell...

Relief - A Tale from the Seaside

Before the lightning flashes, clouds roll in bringing with them a promise of relief from the incessant heat and the potential of a light show over the sea. There is nothing so comforting as a summer evening thunder storm at the coast.

Their regular appearance with their own assembly of sound, light (amazing light) and a palpable embrace. It's the drop in barometric pressure, so they tell me, that creates the change in the air. the air seems to at once feel lighter and more dense with moisture as it brushes against you: an ascending wave of breeze upon breeze. The air smells of salt and sea just before the storm.

Perhaps the sensations are so powerful because of all bare skin; the taut, tanned skin of youthfulness, proclaiming would be eternal beauty and undaunted vigor, feeling every ray of sun, every grain of sand, every coming drop of rain.

Memory tells the story now... Here I felt the world, alive and full. I felt the storms. Here I would grab you by the hand and rush to the beach as the clouds darkened the sky and the breeze began to chase us. Sunbathers scattered for shelter and we would run against the current of people to the beach and scurry like sand fiddlers into the large wooden float box positioned with it's one open side facing the ocean. There we would settle in, giggling and shuffling into our place among the sandy floats, into each other's arms and wait for the show to begin.

Drops would fall, making small dimples in the sand and then give way to sheets of rain, blown sideways by the wind folding them like sheets - waving to us. The light would fade and burst in flashes. Then the moment would come when, framed by the window of our shelter we would see a jagged bolt of lightning descend in to the sea. We would shut our eyes and capture the image of that bolt now cut into the fabric of our souls as we felt the thunder - thunder into us. We would hold each other tightly as we shared the storm between us. I remember your bare back hot beneath my hands, the texture of your lips, and the taste of you.

Lightning flashes. Clouds roll in, bringing with them the promise of relief...

Note: image courtesy of Free Digital Photos

Beat the Reaper - A Killer of a Book

My son loaned me a innocent little yellow covered paperback book, "Beat The Reaper, " by Josh Bazell.

Turning to the opening chapter, I was smitten - in love I tell you - by the first line: "So, I'm on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me!"

The great news is the read gets even better. Carol Memmott, USA Today, is quoted on the cover "It's just what the doctor ordered...think House meets The Sopranos." She couldn't be more right!

Bazell wields wonderfully strong verbiage and a bouncing story line that darts between a clearly depicted real-world hospital environment and a fantastical realm of underworld brutality.

I'm finding the book disturbing (I even have nightmarish dreams). I find it engaging. I find the work mesmerizing.

Writing Prompt - Dolphin Musing

Dolphin Musing

Using a writers prompt, I penned these words and posted them elsewhere previously. May they bring you some of the peace that they brought me this day.

"Write a one-page description of what it would be like to swim with dolphins."

It seems like more than a few years ago. I stood on the bridge spanning the inlet at St. Augustine, Fl. Statuary of regal lions poised themselves as sentries guarding access, an access now in no need of guards, concrete or otherwise, a mere gateway from one tourist infested section of the town to another.

That evening, late, I stood on the crest of the low bridge and gazed blankly into the grey swirl of sea below. Small caps of sea foam occasionally formed and then faded, improbable punctuations, a writer's words quickly deleted returning the emptiness to the page. I had been unable to write for weeks. My mind blank, no, so filled with images and sensations falling over each other in chaos that no assembly of words could seem to contain my thoughts. So there the formless confusion of my mind was met by its reflection there in the dark sea.

The first one almost escaped my attention. A thin slice of light grey broke the ocean plain, a small twist of foam, and it was gone. I strained to see. I heard the song. At first I thought it was the wind carrying children's voices, softly to my ears. Then I saw them, dolphins. They swam below me, hiding just beneath the sea's veil, shadows, wisps of silver form. I leaned over the railing, dangerously far. They circled below me, entwining among themselves. There where three of them, two adults and a small one. They seemed unaware of anything but their own dance. What grace and poise they created with movements so fluid and quick; touches so gentle and tender.

I fell. Somehow my foothold failed and although I grabbed hold of the rail, my body already hung over the side and my one handed grip wasn't enough. I tumbled the few feet and into the surf. I felt the sting of the water's chill. It had barely warmed from these early spring days. Something brushed my side and I felt myself being pushed toward the surface. I lifted my head to the night air, rubbed the salt water from my eyes, and as I began to tread water, was astonished to see the smallest of the trio of dolphins floating just inches from my face. It rolled onto one side, exposing one eye to the surface and lifting a fin as if to wave. I laughed. I heard them sing again. A gentle high note that seemed to hang in the air and settle in my soul, even more, it settled my soul.

The two adults were on each side of me now, and as I shifted my weight and began floating on my back, I could feel them moving around me. Soon, there dance included me. I joined them. I swam gently, rolling my body with the shift of the currents, allowing my hands to touch them and then the sea. I closed my eyes and listened to their song and swam with them.

Perhaps it was the caress of the sea, or the magic of the moment, or maybe just the release of my daily constraints, but, my head spun in delight and I felt a drug-like euphoria rise within my being. I was at once lost in bliss and fully present with myself.

Later, they bid me farewell and I felt a bit of sadness as they vanished into the darkness of the night and the vastness of the sea. I know that I found something that night. For even now, years later, I can close my eyes, breathe in the smell of the sea, and hear their song, the song I learned the night I swam with the dolphins.

Amusing Myself - Critical Conversing

Amusing Myself

Me: You are dancing again.

Muse: Yes.

Me: Have you missed it?

Muse: The dancing?

Me: Yes, the dancing.

Muse: Yes, but I have missed other things more.

Me: Really? What?

Muse: I have missed the attentive look on your face as you treasure me.

Me: Treasure you? That is a bit assumptive of you.

Muse: Perhaps, but I see it tonight in your eyes.

Me: You annoy me sometimes with you self assurance.

Muse: I'm not so assured, so confident about most things. But, I know you.

Me: Indeed you do.

Muse: Dance with me.

Me: I already am.

Muse: Do you love me?

Me: Always.

Muse: I'm glad.

Me: So am I, eventhough it keeps me forever troubled.

Muse: Troubled?

Me: Perhaps unsettled would be a better word.

Muse: If you were not unsettled by me, you would be worthless, you know.

Me: Yes, and sometimes I get tired of the desire, the longing, the...

Muse: Amusement?

Me: You make me smile.

Muse: I make you laugh.

Me: And dance.

Muse: I dance for you.

Me: Thank you.

Muse: You make me laugh.

Me: I know. I know. Shut up and dance.

Writing Prompt - Spider's Web

Write for ten minutes, beginning with the following sentence: “I’d often thought I’d like to watch a spider spin his web from start to finish; now I had little choice.”

I’d often thought I’d like to watch a spider spin his web from start to finish; now I had little choice. I could feel the throbbing in my leg, and as I shifted my weight was reminded of the restraints that held me here, bound in this bed, tilted on my left side, staring out of the window. The spider had arrived a few moments ago and begun his web.

“Why me,” the thought came to me again as my mind drifted back to the events of last week.

“Kim, come here,” Erin’s voice called from the base of the old oak tree.

Erin and I were best friends. We had been since elementary school, and here we were, now in our twenties wandering the old wooded lots behind what remained of Beachwood Elementary.

“I still can’t believe they are going to tear down the school, Erin. I mean Beachwood has always been there,” I commented as I arrived beside her at the foot of the old oak tree.

“I can’t believe it is still here,” Erin remarked.

“I know. Look up there,” I pointed to the gnarled branched above our heads.

The planks of wood still spanned the distance between the branches. I remembered the many times we came running through these woods and scampered up the tree to our “fort.” There we had talked about all of life’s great topics: girls, boys, teachers, parents, and high school.

Erin put her hands on one of the short boards that still remained nailed to the tree, making a ladder up to the fort. She took hold of the board and pulled. It held. Erin looked over her shoulder at me and smiled.

“Come on,” she teased, and began scampering up the side of the tree.

“No way!,” I exclaimed and continued, “I am twice your size. We aren't kids anymore, Pixie!”

I always called her Pixie when I wanted to point out that I was about twice her size. Erin was always a small, thin girl. Today was no different, although, she had shaped up nicely over the years. It is amazing what breasts and a firm butt can do to transform a twig of a girl into a beautiful woman. She laughed from her lofty position in the branches overhead.

--ten minutes up--

Another Stranger I'll Never Know

Her head turned and she gazed over her shoulder, across the red silk of her blouse, rippled by the tilt of her head, the pivot of her neck. Her jade eyes, clear and moist, seemed to find mine and I felt a stirring of hope, a long absent curiosity. I wondered about speaking to her, just a word to break the translucent expectations that divided us, that had always divided us and made us strangers. My mind raced to summon the right words. My legs flexed to stand, to walk.

She turned, her hair sliding back into place along her back, bouncing, as if swaying to the final measure of some distant rhythm, and she was gone – again.