He's walking through the shopping center and in one of those kiosks off to the side, he sees a stand selling pearls straight from the shell. But it's not the jewels that caught his eye, it's the girl selling them. And he's reminded of the Chinese poet, Yuen Mei, who wrote:
My beautiful lady goes to see the flowers,
and a flower, she forgets, is she;
Would they not come to blossom in her bowers,
should flowers intelligent be?
But though she's pretty, with sadness shadowing her commercial smile, he continues walking by because his heart belongs to another. He turns, takes one last look then thinks, "now there's something you don't see everyday: a pearl selling pearls."
Monday, July 25, 2005
Friday, July 8, 2005
Tired of Talking
and she was tired of talking so he told her a story. . .
about a prince in gilded armor who stormed a mighty castle and fought his way to the top of a high tower. All along the way he traded bits of gold (a shield, a breastplate) for his life, leaving a trail of blood and amber in his wake. After he had vanquished his last foe, he opened the door to the room atop the spire only to find a frog who forgot how to turn back into a princess no matter how much he kissed her.
about a boy who gathered pebbles in his pockets along the long and windy path to an orphanage where the ungrateful cared for the unwanted. At night under his linen sheet he would care for his little stones, giving them names and histories and legacies. Stone nations clashed and warred - epic tales complete with subplots where topaz Romeos wooed pyrite Juliets. The boy grew into a man who manufactured the first marble and his son was the first to throw a taw, collecting a grand army of ducks, starting a fad along the way. The man died a millionaire and was burried under opals, glimmers, and rubies.
about a chimpanzee who, by feigning animal ignorance, tricked NASA into letting him man the first spacecraft launched into orbit. Once airborne he dismantled the computers, took control of the ship and flew to a planet populated by hamsters. He leveraged his superior intellect (and opposible thumbs) to organize the rodents and ruled over them. He used his power to teach them to grow and harvest bananas, but he was a benevolent anthropoid and didn't tax them too heavily.
"So?" he asks.
She smiles and kisses him on his cheek. She gets into her truck and drives away leaving him with these stories in his hands, barely able to contain them. Chapters, characters, and footnotes fall through the cracks between his fingers. They hit the ground and the sentences fragment into a meaningless jumble of words and letters and apostrophes before dissolving back into the ground.
about a prince in gilded armor who stormed a mighty castle and fought his way to the top of a high tower. All along the way he traded bits of gold (a shield, a breastplate) for his life, leaving a trail of blood and amber in his wake. After he had vanquished his last foe, he opened the door to the room atop the spire only to find a frog who forgot how to turn back into a princess no matter how much he kissed her.
about a boy who gathered pebbles in his pockets along the long and windy path to an orphanage where the ungrateful cared for the unwanted. At night under his linen sheet he would care for his little stones, giving them names and histories and legacies. Stone nations clashed and warred - epic tales complete with subplots where topaz Romeos wooed pyrite Juliets. The boy grew into a man who manufactured the first marble and his son was the first to throw a taw, collecting a grand army of ducks, starting a fad along the way. The man died a millionaire and was burried under opals, glimmers, and rubies.
about a chimpanzee who, by feigning animal ignorance, tricked NASA into letting him man the first spacecraft launched into orbit. Once airborne he dismantled the computers, took control of the ship and flew to a planet populated by hamsters. He leveraged his superior intellect (and opposible thumbs) to organize the rodents and ruled over them. He used his power to teach them to grow and harvest bananas, but he was a benevolent anthropoid and didn't tax them too heavily.
"So?" he asks.
She smiles and kisses him on his cheek. She gets into her truck and drives away leaving him with these stories in his hands, barely able to contain them. Chapters, characters, and footnotes fall through the cracks between his fingers. They hit the ground and the sentences fragment into a meaningless jumble of words and letters and apostrophes before dissolving back into the ground.
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
Echos Of Love
love runs through the corridors of our lives
it fills the once empty spaces
with a kind of chaos of light and sound,
beautiful sound.
there is no substance to love
yet it saturates us, fills us,
makes us more than whole.
and when love is gone
the hallways echo
echo away
the background radiation
does not decay
completely
it remains as the memorial reminder
of what once was there
but is there no more
it fills the once empty spaces
with a kind of chaos of light and sound,
beautiful sound.
there is no substance to love
yet it saturates us, fills us,
makes us more than whole.
and when love is gone
the hallways echo
echo away
the background radiation
does not decay
completely
it remains as the memorial reminder
of what once was there
but is there no more
Friday, October 8, 2004
Statues
He turns another corner but still has no idea where he is. He's running out of gas and it's getting dark. He started worrying an hour ago and is approaching panic zone - that old ache in his neck is flaring up. Nothing looks familiar. He's given up on trying to find his destination, he's just trying to find his way back to anything he can recognize but damn these one way streets! Peering down a cross street he sees a statue that looks familiar - a bronze bust, abstracted - but the street there is one way (the wrong way). So he tries the next cross street hoping to circle around but one way leads to another way and when he finds the statue it turns out to be different from the one he remembered.
The engine sputters, shudders to a stop. He puts the car in neutral and drifts to the side of the road. He wants to cry. He wants to scream. He wants to tear the fucking steering wheel off and bludgeon the first person who walks by. His face taut, he puts the car in park and stares out the window. The last bit of sun disapears behind the horizon.
He takes a deep breath. He hears a faint humming, buzzing sound and looks to the left where he sees the statue he had been looking for. He thinks for a moment and by his calculations it should be on the right side of the road. So he turns his head to the right and sees the exact same statue. He looks left again and now there are two of them, one in the middle of the road. There is a sudden explosion of sound and the front of his car lurches upwards. In his rear view mirror he sees that the top half of another statue has dented in his trunk and crashed through the rear window. Past his rear view he sees a blur of movement then a wall of statues at his front bumper. He tries to get out but they block the door. The buzzing sound has become an invasive, oppressive presence - a Wagnerian orchestra of hunter bees, tripple forte.
He is cowering now, too scared to be confused. They're everywhere, taller now and arching over him so that they block the twilight from the sky. He opens his mouth intending to yell but can only manage a trembling whispering, "who are you?"
A jolt runs through his body and he's sure he's been impaled by one of them but it's just the front end of his car crashing back to the ground. Sound fills his car but he realizes that it's just him screaming so he stops. The only sound left is Louis Armstrong singing "what a wonderful world." He switches off the radio and now everything is silent, still. His car, the street, the sky - all clear and free.
He closes his eyes and thinks, "that was a close one."
The engine sputters, shudders to a stop. He puts the car in neutral and drifts to the side of the road. He wants to cry. He wants to scream. He wants to tear the fucking steering wheel off and bludgeon the first person who walks by. His face taut, he puts the car in park and stares out the window. The last bit of sun disapears behind the horizon.
He takes a deep breath. He hears a faint humming, buzzing sound and looks to the left where he sees the statue he had been looking for. He thinks for a moment and by his calculations it should be on the right side of the road. So he turns his head to the right and sees the exact same statue. He looks left again and now there are two of them, one in the middle of the road. There is a sudden explosion of sound and the front of his car lurches upwards. In his rear view mirror he sees that the top half of another statue has dented in his trunk and crashed through the rear window. Past his rear view he sees a blur of movement then a wall of statues at his front bumper. He tries to get out but they block the door. The buzzing sound has become an invasive, oppressive presence - a Wagnerian orchestra of hunter bees, tripple forte.
He is cowering now, too scared to be confused. They're everywhere, taller now and arching over him so that they block the twilight from the sky. He opens his mouth intending to yell but can only manage a trembling whispering, "who are you?"
A jolt runs through his body and he's sure he's been impaled by one of them but it's just the front end of his car crashing back to the ground. Sound fills his car but he realizes that it's just him screaming so he stops. The only sound left is Louis Armstrong singing "what a wonderful world." He switches off the radio and now everything is silent, still. His car, the street, the sky - all clear and free.
He closes his eyes and thinks, "that was a close one."
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
A Flower Of Prose
And God asked me to write a little flower of prose, so I sat and I typed.
I had been feeling that slide, that melancholy that sticks to the skin like a humid day and I prayed for God's love to fill me and to make me whole. I wanted God's love to drift over my skin and evaporate the stickiness away. I want to be filled with God's love so I can share it with others, so I can stop focusing on myself, so I can write, so I can stop being bitter, so I can learn to love myself, so I can learn to love God. All this depends on God's love and I want to know this love before the slide sets in.
Is this a flower? No, it's a bud that wants to burst but it waits for rain, for God to take notice and to touch the skies. Send your rain Lord, send your rain.
I had been feeling that slide, that melancholy that sticks to the skin like a humid day and I prayed for God's love to fill me and to make me whole. I wanted God's love to drift over my skin and evaporate the stickiness away. I want to be filled with God's love so I can share it with others, so I can stop focusing on myself, so I can write, so I can stop being bitter, so I can learn to love myself, so I can learn to love God. All this depends on God's love and I want to know this love before the slide sets in.
Is this a flower? No, it's a bud that wants to burst but it waits for rain, for God to take notice and to touch the skies. Send your rain Lord, send your rain.