The Blue and White Umbrella

They have been friends for so long, they're like an old married couple, except that there's a certain tension she feels when they're together which he doesn't feel. This is a major inequity between them as she sees things. She sees too many things.

At a terrible juncture in his life, he lost nearly everything solid; his home, his son to a different family, a lot of money, business, self-esteem, confidence, and whatever else could be lost by one person. There was finally nowhere to go.

Knowing that being under the same roof would kill them, she still told him to come share her nest. It was that or almost the street, and she couldn't bear it. Because that's what friends do for each other. They stick.

So he came with bag and baggage, and in the very beginning it was possible that it could work out without too much hell to pay. But the very beginning lasted a brief time, an almost instant spontaneous combustion of good manners and consideration took place.

She felt the nest to be under attack. She ousted the newfound enemy that lay beneath the surface of her friend, unseen for almost twenty years. It was hard to decide which was worse, to finally know him too well, or to realize she had been friends with a stranger for so long. She gave it deep thought. And concluded little.

As the warm months slid by in too much rain and disappointment, her friend came to his conclusion though. It was time to move, and so he told her he was going somewhere worse. He was running blind.

On a storm beaten day, with rains threatening flash flooding, and enough dreary sky to reflect sadness that might have slept through it otherwise, he came to see her, and to collect some belongings he'd left with her.

He went back and forth, filling the car in the down pouring of sky water, carrying a big blue and white umbrella, his feet squishing in the saturated earth. When the work was done, they sat together in the kitchen, talking as though it was any day, in any week, in any month, in any year of their long time. They were so casual, a stranger would immediately know something was wrong if he happened upon them. They acted the way people do at funerals sometimes, as though burying a beloved were something they did every day.

He rose to leave. They said casual good-byes...see you later, drive carefully.... At the door though, when he was half out and still half in, he stopped, put himself in reverse, and stood before her, bent to her and embraced her. She kissed his neck and smelled his cologne, one of her favorites. He half laughed, and remarked on it, then drew himself upright. She saw his eyes with threatening tears, the whites reddened and saying so much.

Then he turned, and once again the casual good-byes....

She watched the top of his umbrella passing the small kitchen window, then, looking through the exposed full-length window of the front room, she saw the umbrella still moving along, this time in full view, completely hiding him as though he were already gone, and she wondered if she would ever see him again, or would her final memory of him be the blue and white stripes disappearing around the corner.

She was composed as she sat there, but soon enough the distress signal reached the heart, and she wanted to fall on her knees, rend her garments, throw ashes on her head, and wail in great lamentation.

Love knows no boundaries. It does not carry a card of identity that tells you, this love is for children, and this love is for marriage, and this one is for your parents, and this for friends. It is simply love, and it can break any heart in the world.

In Pennies or Gold Dollars?

Where shall I spend my heart, and how much of it? Shall it be on a prince across the mountains, or on a stray dog, or perhaps a goldfish?

Shall I spend it in pennies or gold dollars? Shall I bankrupt myself, or be cautious, conserving so that I might live a little longer in less poverty?

The unanswerable question rises and falls like a dangerous tide coming in during dark hours. Autumn has been announced. It is official; whether it pretends to be summer still, or turns on us like a savage wind shaking the soul as it does the dry leaves on the maple or oak.

Nature tells us we will need extra warmth now. We do not grow a winter coat over the summer months; we need a source of heat, but is that passion? Is passion a shelter against the inevitable blizzard snows that choke places into silent submission...?

Oh, for the reassuring carpet of violets to be spread before me again outside the window, the violet lawn of spring that tells me no decision need be made on the issue of spending that which is so unused and perhaps of lessened value since the shine is off the coin, as the bloom is off the rose.

Now the wind is up, and I hear the restless shurring sound of leaves considering whether to stay through the night, or to fall gracefully when there are no witnesses. There's a chill in the late air, and a certain restless quality to sleep that bespeaks the fact of need. And I needs must check my bank balance one day soon, and reach a conclusion.

But then, there's Indian Summer yet to come, and I will buy me some time with that I think.

There are omens:

Special Weather Statement - SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR KINGS (BROOKLYN) VALID FROM FRI SEP 24 2004 09:07 PM EDT UNTIL SAT SEP 25 2004 06:00 AM EDT. KINGS (BROOKLYN) NY-NASSAU NY-QUEENS NY-RICHMOND (STATEN IS.) NY- SOUTHEAST SUFFOLK NY-SOUTHWEST SUFFOLK NY- 907 PM EDT FRI SEP 24 2004 ...DANGEROUS RIP CURRENTS ALONG ATLANTIC FACING BEACHES... SOUTHEASTERLY SWELLS BEING GENERATED BY DISTANT HURRICANE JEANNE HAVE ALREADY ARRIVED IN OUR AREA. IT IS EXPECTED THAT THESE SWELLS WILL CREATE AN INCREASINGLY ROUGH SURF AND RIP CURRENTS ALONG ALL SOUTH FACING BEACHES. THESE CONDITIONS WILL LIKELY CONTINUE THROUGH THE WEEKEND AND QUITE POSSIBLY INTO EARLY NEXT WEEK. HURRICANE JEANNE IS CURRENTLY TAKING AIM ON THE BAHAMAS AND THEN FLORIDA THIS WEEKEND. DURING SUNDAY IT IS EXPECTED TO CURVE NORTHWARD...MARCHING UP THE ATLANTIC COAST THROUGH THE EARLY AND MID WEEK PERIOD. IF THIS TRACK PROVES CORRECT...WE CAN EXPECT THE ROUGH SURF CONDITIONS TO CONTINUE ALONG WITH THE THREAT OF RIP CURRENTS. REMEMBER...A RIP CURRENT IS A STRONG BUT NARROW CURRENT OF WATER FLOWING OUTWARD FROM THE BEACH. IT CAN RAPIDLY CARRY A SWIMMER INTO DEEPER WATER AND EXHAUST ANYONE TRYING TO SWIM AGAINST IT. IF YOU ARE CAUGHT IN A RIP CURRENT...SWIM PARALLEL TO THE BEACH UNTIL OUT OF ITS PULL. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SWIM BACK TO SHORE DIRECTLY AGAINST THE CURRENT. IT CAN EXHAUST AND DROWN EVEN THE STRONGEST SWIMMER. DUE TO THE TIME OF YEAR...IT MAY BE DIFFICULT TO FIND A BEACH WHERE LIFEGUARDS ARE PRESENT. NEVER SWIM ALONE AND ALWAYS HEED THE ADVICE OF BEACH PATROLS. WATCH YOUR CHILDREN. BE ESPECIALLY CAUTIOUS NEAR PIERS AND JETTIES WHERE RIP CURRENTS CAN BE ENHANCED.

What's In A Name?

Thinking about men in general inevitably led her to think of all the men in her life. Too many men; too many boys costumed as men, and men, conversely, costumed as boys.

There were men who were women at heart, and men who prized their testosterone above all else, who would have drunk it at breakfast instead of coffee if it were possible. These were her least favorite ones. Bunk, bulk, and bullshit, was how she thought of them.

The favored men were the softer ones who had intelligence, and sensitivity, who never stepped on her toes because she was female, and they could have. She was kind toward them; listening to their tales, troubles, and dreams. They were the men she smoked grass with, while they talked and played music on the stereo that carried her far away and sometimes into bed with them.

Making love with close friends was taboo. Nothing could wreck a friendship faster than the one eyed mouse visiting the forbidden chamber.

The tumble might be fine, even extravagantly good in fact, but the morning after found them awkward, as though something more should happen now, or more awkwardly, that not only should the night before never have happened, but no other night, afternoon, morning, and all that might lie in between those time slots, should ever happen again.

Paranoia. The horror of expected expectations on the part of one or the other. A realization that this was one the other could never fall in love with "that way". "That way", being, a visit to an altar one day down the line, or at least, an introduction to Mummy Dearest at some point.

Enduring such a visit would have been tantamount to getting dragged home like a slightly disreputable pedigree-free stray mutt that had been found by the roadside, cleaned up a bit and brought to the family fold for feeding.

A loss of friendship that had some merit, because of capitulation to a whim, a twinge in the nether regions, and a hit on the peaceful pipe was a grim thought. She knew this from experience. She should never have slept with Italian Joey. After she slept with him, he was terrified of her, and she never got to wear his cap, which she loved, ever again.

Sex with friendly acquaintances? Oh, by all means! A good way to get nicely tussled, with the distinct possibility of falling in infatuation, or lust, or both. A fine summer diversion or, a nice capper to the holiday season when letdown is likely to bring one down. What better antidote to the blues, than a healthy toss in the hay? So good for the complexion too.

So, she thought of the men that had crossed the threshold, sometimes thinking with a distinctly jaundiced attitude. For example, why did so many men name their penises? And why such inane names? If you're going to tag the thing, do it with style! But no...they'd stand there wagging it coyly at her, saying something like, "look Junior, there's a nice_____ (fill in the blank) for you", or words to that effect. (OR worse. There are no limits to cutesy in the human race. Unfortunately.)

"Junior". And the perfect retort. If this is "Junior", does that make you "Mister Dickhead" then?
 

She dreamed in color.

She dreamed in color. Many don't. The recall of the dreams had always been accepted as normal until she read in some learned tome that it was in fact, not so. This set her apart from the herd on yet another count. She thought that was a nice idea.

The dreams, more than a little laden with peculiar scenes...brought on the sense of colliding with Hironymous Bosch in the land of nod.

War always brought images of intensity and doom, leaving her tired at the break of dawn. The pink pearl light of the sky did little to dispel the sense she was still caught in the clutch of a Svengali who instilled these visions in her because it amused him.

They served no purpose.

As a child it was commonplace to dream of her mother. One dream was of her mother being killed by an atomic bomb.

She awakened one morning to find her mother gone. She was very young, and struggled with her clothes, unaccustomed to dressing without help; a tug on a strap of her overalls that slipped her shoulder, or being supplied with a pair of socks so there was no need to climb on a chair to reach the drawer. The absence of the friendly hand brushing her hair, and fastening a barrette to keep it out of her eyes....

She prepared herself purposefully, and making sure to lock the door behind her with the key that hung on a pink ribbon around her neck, she headed for the cellar.

Pulling open the heavy door, she felt the unease that the cellar always evoked, but went down the stairs regardless of it. There her mother lay, perfect in death, on the floor in her underwear. It seemed very strange. She appeared to be sleeping.

With that deep sense of dread strangulating her, she squatted down and shook her mother. She knew there was no hope of awakening her. The atom bomb definitely killed anyone who got hit by it.

She began to cry, soon becoming so full of loss that she screamed like a wounded animal, choking on mucous and hysteria, gasping for air as the sound of her voice twisted, turned, and echoed through the labyrinthine catacomb maze of the cellar that bound together the buildings of the housing project where they lived.

Ah, she was suffocating from grief. The loss of love, so acute, so infinite, so devastating.... Oh, and the fear of the next bomb, as she crouched there trying to hear if there were sirens wailing, but the sound was her own keening.

And then the voice from far away..."what's the matter dear, what is it, did you have a dream?"

Oh, those sea colored, beloved eyes, so full of concern, was there ever anything so precious as that moment of her short sharp life? That good kind hand pushing back the copper colored hair from her wet, flushed face.

Would that she could place a kiss on that hand just one more time, so many years later....

Click image to enlarge.

Some things have no name.

The seer is supine upon her sofa, eating chocolates. She especially likes the ones with a cherry inside.

In a ritual full of sexual undertones, she bites through the top, sucks slowly at the liquid center, finally eating the candied cherry, then the gutted chocolate shell. Afterward, she licks her fingers, and reaches for another, as she reads a crime filled pulp novel.

Her numerous, sometimes discordant with each other pleasures are: chocolate covered cherries, barbed remarks, fiendish gossip, Puccini's operas, filthy French post cards, pulp fiction full of criminals, but notable for an absence of romance, sexual and/or mayhem glutted fantasies spun out while she lounges in her bathtub filled with bubbles and scented green waters of peculiar origin, arguments with the cat over whom she towers in height though not in intelligence, casting spells (which rarely work properly), being idle, seerhood, having tea and a bagel for breakfast, and falling in love.

Though not necessarily in that order.

*********

The princess paces the corridors of the castle in a state of agitation. She has heard the voice of the king whispering of conspiracies; promising the guillotine to those who betray.

She had spoken too long in the night to her lover, who stood outside her window with a lute, serenading her as he caught the words she said in a tiny basket attached at his waist by a fine silver chain.

*********

The cartomancer sits in her darkened room, thinking. It has been a quiet day with no distressed foolish young things, looking for signs of love that will eventually torture them, in the spread of her cards.

The princess hasn’t been seen in quite a while, and there is talk of blood spilling across rough dungeon floors. And more guarded talk, of great lamentations emanating from the King’s private chambers, but no word on whose voice it is that does the crying out.

The cartomancer reaches for her glass of absinthe and sips at it, her glance moving across the room until it meets with the eye sockets of the skull staring back at her from the bookshelf.

Now, what was his name?

*

The anaconda of words is present. No one ever promised you anything else.
*fic*

Full Moon Night

New York City
This was taken along Eighth Avenue from a
bus window on my way home from the work.

The art was done with the permission of city
officials who figured it would be done one
way or the other, so why not legitimatize it?
Click image to enlarge.

Woman in Terminal-Staten Island Ferry 1977

I saw this woman frequently in the terminal of the Staten Island Ferry. I believe she was homeless. If not homeless, then terribly down on her luck. I felt bad in a sense, taking her picture. I was invading her privacy. But the desperate have been an obsession with me since I was sixteen years old. I think she was a desperate person, as I define them.
Click image to enlarge.

The quiescent moth suddenly spreads its wings...

The quiescent moth suddenly spreads its wings as it rests on the windowpane. The design it creates would be loved by my friend R. who would stare at it with reverence were he here. In homage to my friend and the moth, I will stare at it in reverence, for its symmetry is almost a fearful thing to behold in its perfection, and we are but chunks of flawed humanity.

When folded, the moth is near invisible, attracting no more attention than a burnt match would in a filled ashtray.

*

Perspective is everything, or so my father, the artist, told me. Others, older ladies for instance, declared, "position is everything". Each believed they were right.

*********

Signs of competence in a male sometimes poetically and erotically awakened her. This was caused perhaps, by the fact her mother alone had raised her. The male of the species became mysterious by default. In the eyes of other females she was an absurd woman, placing far too much romantic expectation on the shoulders of men, whom the other women knew to be clods and dunder-headed idiots most of the time.

She was an oddly perverse and often dreamy type who seldom dared to give voice to her fantasies regarding anything. She harbored within, a secret desire never spoken to a lover, to be bound at the wrists occasionally with red silk scarves, and now and again, spanked lightly during sex.

*

There are many opportunities lost in the course a lifetime.

*

All that sashaying about in rustling taffeta gone to waste. But then, she was too young at the time to recognize the extraordinary value of seduction through lowered eyes, restless whispering fabrics worn with the face of innocence, and vaguely smoke scented floral colognes.

Of course she learned eventually, but by then, taffeta had gone out of style, and flirtation was a game played for keeps, often with bad results.

The only thing worse...

NOTE: This series has been rearranged to read consecutively.
******
The only thing worse than being too well understood, is recognizing unequivocally you are undesired.

One might become known for being undesirable, but there is another thing, possibly even worse, to be known for.

It is the ownership of a Litany of Complaint.

Being undesired (therefore, obviously undesirable, in our own eyes...this is called the double whammy) is often a fleeting stage of life, altered eventually by the motion of the stars, or sometimes a new deodorant.

The Litany of Complaint has staying power, and resists nearly everything designed to render it gone.

I have a grand Litany of Complaint.

Many people avoid me because I am capable of reciting from it at the drop of a hat, or at the drop of one of those repulsive baseball caps nearly everyone has adopted.

The only legitimate wearers of those ugly things are baseball players, and farmers. To all others, including the military, and the various departments of intimidation: Invent your own gear. You all look ugly in those caps.

Major chunks of population wander around dressed horrifically, joyfully adopting those absurd lids. They are absolutely lacking in dignity, and an insult to the wearer, since no one looks even reasonably attractive in them, whether they know it or not. Though judging from the styles of the times, it is safe to say that since reasonable taste and even moderate flair have flown the coop, they don’t know diddily.

The military has never been known for making a decent fashion statement, though you’d be hard-pressed to realize it since military costume is so relentlessly affected by so many these days.

There! You see? It’s like an anaconda of words. It will surround you and choke your life away. It has the ability to hold you in its grip merely because it’s hard to imagine that you were so stupid as to get caught by a madwoman with a Litany of Complaint in the first place.

You keep checking, through means of sidelong glances at a shop window reflection to see if indeed it did happen, but you don’t struggle against the grip, because your reflected image is indistinct (as such images are intended to be according to divine edict) and therefore untrustworthy.
So you’re never certain, you see.

That may be what happened to Sindbad.

*********

In the course of dream dancing, I saw my neighbors who had both developed beaks where their mouths had been before. They each had their most precious possession in their beak. Their possessions were of a shoddy quality, and had nothing to commend them. This speaks loudly of the state of affairs all around.

*********

A good dream is one you recall for all of your life.

*

My mother and I were sitting at the kitchen table in a house I knew to be ours, though I didn’t recognize it. I was telling her very urgently, that a man was coming to kill us. We tried to get away, but as we were rising from the table, I saw the man get out of a car. He walked casually up the path to the house. I watched him through the picture window. He saw me watching him. Our eyes met.

He was wearing a taupe gabardine overcoat. He had red hair. He was a large man, with a competent air about him. Casual but alert. Business-like.

I ran into the bathroom, and tried to lock the door. I heard gunshots from the kitchen, and knew my mother was dead. I stood there in the bathroom. My mind was racing. The door was still unlocked. Then there was no time to lock it. He opened the door, pointed the gun at me, and fired.

*

This dream is more than forty years old.

For a dream to be a good dream, it does not have to be pleasant.
I was told we never dream of being dead.

Who are the experts?

*********

The only thing worse, cont'd.

Her hair flowed like a copper river coursing down her back. She was inclined toward twisted ankles, and spates of depression.

*

One day, after shopping relentlessly for clothes to take away on vacation, she lay on her bed, still wearing the black, gray, and white finely checked, perfectly circular taffeta skirt with the hem that measured nine yards around, which rustled seductively when she walked, as taffeta does. There was magic when she spun around and around like a dervish in front of a mirror, making the skirt stand straight out from her body, holding her in a ring of silver.

The pink organdy blouse she wore showed lace covered immature breasts through a haze of fabric, and her skin was pale, like milk. She was quite young.

The bathing suit she had bought was a firm and serious deep tone of aquamarine. It too rustled seductively. That was the year of taffeta.

Her new sunglasses had pale pink pearlized frames, and very dark lenses. She was mysterious behind them.

She lay on her bed with the new things spread all around her.

She wanted to be loved. She believed in love and was sure she would one day have some, like cookies along with the teacup filled with life she was drinking.

*

A storm came up suddenly. The room was gloomy and all the light went out of the swimsuit, the skirt, the painting above the bed….

The rain was torrential; a mid spring shower that soaked through the earth, and brought out that sharp smell of wet concrete she liked so much because she was a city girl. Wind battered the world.

Then it was over.

*

The doorknob rattled, causing a stopped heart, a withheld breath, and a clutch of that terror which makes adrenaline fly through the system. The knob turned infinite slow, and life seemed to be near the final moment. The door opened just a crack, slowly, slowly. The entire universe went about its business while her time stood still.

*

The crack widened only enough to admit the narrow form of the cat that had taught herself the art of breaking into places she’d been shut out of. With that cat triumph sound in her throat, and the greeting of erect tail quivering at the tip, she jumped onto the bed, and settled down amid the yards of taffeta, purring in her pleased accomplished cat way.

In the silent apartment, she made the only sound.

*

Sudden sun broke through the gray clouds, and it’s light was caught in hundreds of droplets of rainwater on the window panes, which in turn spilled onto the glass wind chimes hanging there, moving slightly in the draft. The room filled with flying prismatic diamonds. They were everywhere: on her skin, her skirt, the walls, the ceiling. This was to be one of the most beautiful moments of her long life.

*

She knew that even then.

*********

The only thing worse...End

She lost her maidenhead. It fell into a box of conjurer's tricks, and was never seen again though all in the kingdom searched and searched for it.

A prize of gold was offered.

No one ever got rich that way.

*

In her early thirties; after love had walked away with a beautiful wealthy young woman, whose hair hung like a straight shining black river down her back, and whose skin was Oriental ivory in color, and whose triumph at the capture of her friend’s wild husband was unmistakable; a man named George, who loved her well, came by to commiserate, and to cut off her long hair.

The hair fell soundlessly in thick wavy coppery clusters onto the wood floor, while she waited in silence, not looking down, as instructed by George, who was wiser than many.

*********

In the time it takes a glistening fish to leap from the water, arc gracefully, and plunge into the sea again, many terrible things can happen.

Or, a water lily can begin to open.

It’s the luck of the draw.

*********

Algunas Bestias
(Some Beasts)

*

By Pablo Neruda

*

It was early twilight of the iguana.

*

From his rainbow-crested ridge
his tongue sank like a dart

into the verdant land,

the monastic ant-heap was melodiously

teeming in the undergrowth,

the guanaco, rarified as oxygen

up among the cloud-plains,

while the llama opened candid

wide eyes in the delicacy

of a world filled with dew.

The monkeys wove a thread

interminably erotic

along the banks of dawn,

demolishing walls of pollen

and causing the violet flight

of the butterflies from Muzo.

It was the night of the alligators,

pure and pullulating night

of snouts above the ooze

and from over the sleep-drenched bogs

a dull sound of armor

fell back upon the original earth.

The jaguar touches the leaves

with his phosphorescent absence,

the puma runs on the foliage

like all consuming flame

and in him burn

the alcoholic eyes of the jungle.

The badgers scratch the river's

feet, scenting out the nest

whose throbbing delight

they'll assail red-toothed.

And in the depths of great water

the giant anaconda lies

like the circle of the earth,

covered in ritual mud,

devouring and religious.

*********

Beware the anaconda.
A. Murray—August 26, 2004