Whisperer

Solitarius

In the best of situations, we do not belong to each other. There is no tinge of ownership, of thralldom. Each is separate and apart. This is essential to clear thinking and rational relationships. It is also Utopian, and not easily achieved.

Convention has caused so many mismatches in marriage. They are the answer to an overabundance of heat in the loins. They are the avoidance tactic of the tribe that has no wish to raise children resulting from too much heat. Ergo, promote the family unit as desirable, and at times inevitable, lest scandal ensue. It is financially sound.

Humanity reproduces itself and an endless supply of mismatches.

Occasionally though, like a streak of light passing through the early leaves of spring…a minor miracle of life occurs. A good match comes to pass.

But because life tends not to be kind, things happen, pieces that do fit very well get broken. Important words fall into dark cracks and are muffled by disapproval, covered by small stones, and twigs dropped by birds. Lovers dissolve, and invisibility is the fate of the glowing vision of forevermore.

So, this had come to pass, it seemed, in her life.

Time moved like a balloon filled with water, incapable of speed. The cheap clock on the wall ticked away seconds.

Tick

Tick

Tick

Tick

She played Solitaire.

Have you any idea how long a game of Solitaire can last? Oh, you think you do. A few minutes, you say. There is a game that involves four suits of cards laid out in ten rows. Lunatics and widows play this game. And what a strangely non-apropos term. Play. It is not play, it is the second-to-second quest for oblivion, and were it possible, it should measure itself out in moments which are uncountable, therefore making it last forever.

When involved deeply in moments of Solitaire, it is almost impossible to think of anything else but the Red Queen seeking the Red King from so great a distance… resolution is very difficult. A difficult pastime dedicated to smoothing out hours. The removal of jagged hours being the ultimate goal. Many hours become days, although some get lost in the shuffle and are never found again.

The jagged hours come though. No matter how many Red Queens find a Red King, no matter how many black nines find their black ten, the one that fits perfectly…the jagged hour of that day will come.

This is the time of the rusted knife, the scimitar gone too dull to perform, that succeeds only in letting one know they will live in a mangled half state. No clean surgical assassination. It is full of blood and howling. It is performed in the secret places of the heart. It is life extended to massive proportions, to be plodded through one thick step at a time, via the process of thought.

The question that is not asked for fear of the answer rings like a bell.

What an incongruous sound.

The loss of a good match leaves one halved like an apple cut cleanly down the center, the perfect symmetry of seeds on either side of the core, beautiful, but irreparably altered, and soon corrupted by the inevitable oxidation that spells ruin.

Solitaire n. 1. a game played by one person alone, as a game with marbles or pegs on a board having hollows or holes, or any various card games. 2. a precious stone, esp a diamond, set by itself, as in a ring. [L. solitarius - alone]

My Captain

Oh my Captain, you went so quietly,
I never heard the sound of your
step as you crossed the threshold
to that door I left hanging open
in my idealist's distraction.

There's a mist of sadness
that clings to me like the fog
I got lost in that year, when
the world became a
precarious pile of teetering
bricks that I tried to catch
when they fell without
warning.

I miss you my Captain.

My Captain, my shipmate
of the long life sea we
cross over in our fragile
boats---separate, and
saying little in the
long run,
after saying so much.

Captain, I thought I
could change things,
I thought I could matter
somehow on this troubled
Earth. I thought some
word I spoke would
turn a tide, save a life,
make the lunacy stop.

It was futile Captain,
and I lost you in the trying,
and I fall silent now
beneath the swollen
waters of too long
a time wasted.


A. Murray
For Alan Bok
September 21, 2002

Flower in Winter

Flower - Brooklyn Botanical Garden - New York
Taken in a greenhouse during a very long cold winter.
Outside, there was deep snow.
Click image to enlarge.

The Mystery Solved

More or less…

I owe more than a passing explanation to those who cared enough to keep checking in, so here goes:

This is more blog-like than my usual posts, and it’s a thing I tend to avoid. At this time though, it seems appropriate, as I am still not really up to writing personal letters. Please bear with me here.

Most specifically to Ara, Don, Rich, and Rivi (Listed alphabetically.)

Directly after the earthquake/tsunami, I fell into a deep, almost fog-like depression. I believe it was also in a good part due to my reaction to the election results here in this country.

I have long held the belief that it is far better for me to cope with my depression without resorting to medications. This is for myself only. I do not think that all depressed people should follow that dictum. I realize that in many cases psychiatric/medical help saves sanity, and perhaps life itself.

In my case, I have viewed my depression as a time of rest and introspection, since withdrawal is the rather extreme symptom for me, and was the strongest symptom of the recently past bout.

Depression is a demon. I understand that. It is not poetic, or romantic. It is a good idea to avoid it when possible, but there are times, for me, when the overload on my mental circuits becomes so great, I have no clear way out but to remove myself from the cause(s), through the means of slipping into the mental void of depression. I don’t elect depression consciously. My subconscious does that. The causes themselves do not go away e.g. the tsunami victims are still suffering horribly although they now lack the glamour to attract the news media here in America, and the election results…oh well….

In order to flee the causes, I shut my life down. I stopped listening to newscasts, and I also stopped reading news on the web. I stopped reading any blogs because there was always the danger of too much reality hurling me deeper into my private abyss.

During this stage of my mental obliteration, I suffered from a physical condition that made it very difficult for me to sit for any length of time at the computer, or anywhere else for that matter. There was a lot of swelling and pain in my legs, and wisdom dictated that I stop all harmful activities, such as prolonged, almost obsessive computer devotion. (Computer devotion is a chronic disease.)

In defense of my body and soul, I left the world of the computer. It was only turned on briefly every couple of weeks, and the web barely accessed at all. This explains such deep silence on my part. I didn’t have a pen to write with.

In early May (the 2nd to be exact) I had an accident here in my home. I fell and hurt myself very severely. I injured my left knee so badly, I was unable to even think about walking, or sitting, or doing anything other than sleeping when I could. The pain involved was beyond description.

I injured my upper body also, and as a result of this, there were other very unpleasant physical situations that developed like dominoes falling, involving my shoulders and arms/wrists/hands that made typing unbearably painful.

I did not tell anyone of this, with the exception of Rich, who is a deeply personal friend, and who had a good working knowledge of my situation since I tend to complain to him about nearly everything. He is to be lauded for his infinite patience with my vapors. My notes to him were extremely brief because I could do no more than that.

It seemed ridiculous to burden others with this information. They could do nothing to help me. I was off the web. And please understand that depression distorts the process of thought to an astonishing degree. We believe we are irrelevant a lot of the time; that we could disappear without leaving a single ring on the surface of the water we sink into. There is a major obliteration of basic ego.

I am tired now. I want to state that I am recovering at last though, so that you will stop being injured by my silence, so that you will feel better knowing that all this was deeply personal, and that I was alone in it, as I needed to be.

I know I was very rude by being so silent, but when you’re crazy, you really don’t see anything too clearly, and depression is a form of madness for me.

I do not ask for forgiveness. That is a matter of personal choice for you. If I ever told you I loved you, I did, and I do today also.

More when I feel a little better. My arms are beginning to hurt now. I don’t want to start the problem(s) up again.

For Rivi - With My Heart Full of Hope

By one count, 22,000 are dead, by another, 23,700. Nature's fist slamming down on the earth, making a massive display of a point that will be lost in the shuffle of petty concerns, greedy enterprise, political wrangling and meanness.

We will memorialize September 11th, 2001 until we as a people, are so tired of the words, we will finally tune it out.

For this extraordinary display of power we have only tasted slightly through the hurricane season, we will have instant amnesia as long as our lives are not directly affected. What an infantile nation, full of self-indulgent children who don't want to learn any lessons from what life brings us.

When the towers fell, I had the thought that one slap from the planet could take entire countries out with a single event. And it has nearly done so.

Will we learn anything from this might, which in the eye of a rational beholder, reduces humanity to the importance of dust? Isn't it time to begin the long journey toward adulthood and perspective? Isn't it time for us to be a little bit kinder, a little less interfering with the happiness of others?

I have a friend whose family is in Sri Lanka, another whose family is in Malaysia. What can I say to these people? So much grief may await me in my mailbox one day in the near future. What consolation can be offered? This from only two friends, two individuals. Think of the hundred thousand lives that will have been so badly torn and damaged, and add a potent quantity of grief.

This is the world. America is not the world. It is merely a fortunate place.

We should be in mourning for the losses of others, but I doubt many of us will do that. It's far away, and we are safe...we think. We will turn to a TV station that amuses us, and we will still hate blacks, and gays, and whoever else has the nerve to disagree with our politics or religious views. Not one iota of open heartedness will result from watching a genuine tragedy of unthinkable immensity as it continues to unfold, hour by hour, day by day.

We will fight insane wars for the purpose of financial gain, we will call strangers enemies, and we will kill them. We will keep on keeping on.

Meanwhile, nature settles into a quiet phase, and builds up it's rage for the next time. Is it trying to teach us something? Ask yourself that question. I do.

Path - Dedicated to Ara

I do understand.

Click image to enlarge.

Blind Love - Tom Waits

Blind Love


Now you're gone, and it's hotels and whiskey and sad-luck dames
And I don't care if they miss me, I never remember their names
They say if you get far enough away, you'll be on your way back home
Well, I'm at the station, and I can't get on the train

Must be blind love, only kind of love is stone blind love
Blind love, the only kind of love is stone blind love
With your blind love, oh it's blind love, stone blind love
It's your stone blind love

Now the street's turning blue, the dogs are barking and the night has come
And there's tears that are falling from your blue eyes now
I wonder where you are and I whisper your name
The only way to find you is if I close my eyes

I'll find you with my blind love, the only kind of love is stone blind love
The only kind of love is stone blind love
The only kind of love is stone blind love
With your blind love, oh your blind love, your stone blind love

It's your blind love, the only kind of love is stone blind love
Stone blind love, the only kind of love is stone blind love
With your blind love, the only kind of love is stone blind love
Stone blind love, stone blind love
End

Were it not for blind love, some might never be loved at all. Is it because they are unlovable? Or because they are unseen, kept safely invisible to those who only see what they recognize as being proper to love? An eternal question in the game of life.

What?

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

The Razor

She has a black razor, a gift from a Prince who stands high in her estimation. The Prince arrived long ago, in the dead of night, bearing the gift. He laid it upon a small marble-topped table in her living room. He said little, since the gift was so laden with implications one might derive from past experience, or from dreams, or sometimes, from terrible realities.

Each morning she stands looking at it before starting the day. It is always close to her in thought, as though there were links of fine chain connecting them.

The black razor is mysterious. It speaks it's own language. It tells tales of nightmare landscapes, and of flying on wings that sprout from the shoulders of some who drink a secret potion, unafraid of the result. It speaks of escapes that are accomplished not by going outward, but going inward instead. Interior magic is heavy, dense and powerful. Its potency can not be diluted by exterior sound and fury.

She loves the black razor with a peculiar intellectual twist. The flame is not dampened by this, but fueled instead.

She is perverse.

At times, just after nightfall, she kisses the blade, imbuing it with her spirit, and breathes upon it, leaving a film resembling smoke. When it clears, the eyes of another look out at her.

Communion.

She loves the long sleek lines of it, and finds a deep, almost erotic pleasure in pressing the flat of the blade to her cheek, feeling it's cool surface warm to her own temperature. It becomes a part of her. Ever dangerous, ever mesmerizing, never sheathed.

It is the constant reminder of life as it might trickle away through a cut across a vein.

Or, of a close elegant shave, leaving a sensuous silken surface behind.

On certain nights, she is awakened by the presence of the moon. It sits squarely centered in the window.

There was a fine crescent moon in a dark sky. It was the colour of ivory. Small clouds moved slowly across it. It was the magic vehicle of witchery, which enables peculiar loves to fly toward each other soundlessly. Speaking in ancient tongues too arcane for others to know, thoughts are exchanged.

The palm of her hand promises either genius or madness. Is there a difference between them?

Hagfish straight up...

...no water, no ice, no twist. First person singular. No artifice.

Time to talk. My house. I do the talking.

Link Policy: Links from this site exist because I have found some merit in the places they lead to. The meritorious are things perceived as funny; profound; poetic; of intriguing content not necessarily understood by me, but recognized as good stuff; brilliant minds reflected; fine photography; great graphics-non photographic-as in fractals etc; or the deep and tortured-which I am qualified to recognize. This is the spice that gives me life without terminal ennui.

I do not like stupidity, self-congratulatory puffery, reliance on dumb sleaze and/or profanity to attract/keep an audience, or hearing about the new pink sweater someone just bought. I will not link to these sites. I cannot promise you the links I have will lead you to Wonderland, in fact, some of them might just lead you into hell. One man's Hell is another man's sweet spot.

I do not suffer fools well. It is my hope, that I don't send you to the house of a fool. All of life is subjective. So is taste.

If a site I've linked to starts to bore me, I will delete it. A piece of advice--if you use a link from this page, bookmark it for yourself. My level of tolerance may be different from yours. This advice is given as a courtesy.

Reciprocal links are appreciated, but not required.

Anonymous Comments: While your input is appreciated because it shows you've taken an interest in my work, there is something sorely lacking. It is personalization. A name would be the acceptably polite thing to attach. A first name would do nicely. (Not looking for the strawberry birthmark here.)

Content: Please bear in mind that I am a writer first and foremost. No writer worth his or her salt will deliberately bore the reader. Embroidery makes the cloth more interesting. I have the intention of doing that. If I fail you...what can I say? Nada. If you want meat and potatoes I suggest a cooking site. They can be loads of fun and full of horny innuendo too.

Here you get nepenthe, hemlock, sensuality, the occasional aphrodesiac, sarcasm, and sometimes, stiletto sharp nastiness..maybe like today. Plus, horny innuendo. In the mood for "lite"? A word I hate incidentally--trip on over to Hagfish Lite, a name chosen in sarcasm. Stupid (but not always stupid) humor is another facet.

It is appreciated that some of you would like to advise me. If I show distress and angst, it is part of the process of my life. Please understand, you do not know me. You don't know anything about me.

You only know of me, that which I choose to tell you. Take it with as many grains of salt as you need or wish. Above all, don't let me bring you down.

This is a book, slow in the crafting. It will never be published anywhere but here. You are in a gondola, lying back on the cushions. I am the gondolier and the storyteller.

Sometimes I weave, sometimes I spin. There is always a center of truth in what I tell you, but whether the truth is mine or not, is only for me to know. Your perception may be based on your own imagination, not mine.

Storytellers carry you away on their breath. If you open your eyes and look down to realize only a breath is holding you, you might fall on your head. You wouldn't want that, would you? Drift, I won't land you someplace unfriendly. Maybe.

New Places: It is with pleasure that I introduce you to some new places I've found. Starting at the top -
World Through My Eyes
This is some of the most beautiful photography I've seen . The photographer is sensitive, but also very much aware of line. A combination of inherent mathematical consciousness, and soul-beauty. Visit. You won't be disappointed.

In alphabetical order...new minds to explore.

blacktooth
Within the layers of this place, if you look carefully, you will see struggle, honesty, intelligence, striving, nobility, sorrow.... One human being making the best of some of the hardest days. A musician, a writer, a worker...a man self-described as, "a wormfood man applying unaccepted philosophy to this crapshoot called life - or something." Walk gently here with good intention. You may come away humbled. You won't be the same, as you leave, closing the door softly behind you. Remember...there are layers. You must seek.

The Vault of Buncheness
Oh my, how I love this guy. This is a man one would find described as killingly funny. The description would be true. And he's a food maven. Better yet. He's irreverent, so smart he makes my toes curl, because I'm an intelligence junkie, and he's living in my old home town, well...almost. Close enough for me to smell the "dirty hot-dog man" wagons. And I can hear the screech of the subway.... He would ask why I wanted to hear that. I would tell him, try this place for a while, friend.

To the invisible man, C. W.

You did not enter my life. I entered yours. You are twenty-five years old, and you are almost as cynical as I am. Almost as cynical as S. J. Almost, only because it takes time to perfect that patina which is a sign of longevity.

I sniff at you, and the scent is too familiar to walk away from. You remind me of someone I love. You are beautiful and frightening in your reality. You are terrible in your reality. You cause me to cringe in your reality. Your reality is a honed razor poised at the jugular.

I have maintained for many years that I do not fear death, only the means through which I achieve it. Am I lying to myself? I believe death is the surcease of all pain, and that it brings with it absolute termination of consciousness. The burning...heh...fizzling question that floats ectoplasm-like through my atmospheres is then...do I fear obliteration?

Answer: No.

Reason: Obliteration ends comprehension. Comprehension is required to allow fear to exist.

And you? You speak of dying. Do you fear it? I do not think you fear it. Not at the intellectual level. Perhaps at the cultural level you might. But you are intellectual first.

You hold life in a death grip. You continue to breathe in, breathe out, even on the worst days.

Through words, you are immensely powerful and provocative.

My greedy indulgent side says, stay, live, write more. I am already addicted to the recounting of your harsh life, and your contradictory self that speaks a million languages.

Live. Who am I to request that?

I said you remind me of someone I love. He is a tree filled with dark flowers. I hunger for the blossoms he sheds, that fall upon this strange virtual paper, and leave their indelible mark and scent on my life. And you are like him. You both tell true and naked horror stories.

Yellow Moon

Yellow moon like butter
Sitting on a dark plate.
Warm moon says love
Who ever pleases you,
And even some that don't
But love, because I am
Followed by cold skies
Distant and unattainable,
And you are a distressed
Bitch goddess who needs
A little softening up, like
Butter on a dark plate
Resting beside the sun.

Novemberata

High-tension-wire days and nights. Sleep is more fitful than ever and silence seems an odd course to take, but it is taken. Against whom or what, to protect whom or what?

Unanswerable.

If we are silent we do not inflict too many deep wounds, only the wound of silence itself. If we practice silence, we inflict the wound upon ourselves also, and so it goes, round and round.

The moon hangs in clear skies, and the same moon covers all the silent ones with the same light. Is this communion? Is this the kiss in the dark?

A breath is caught in the cold of night, hangs as visible mist, then is gone. An exhalation that says the word "sigh", but if there is no one to hear it, did it really happen?

When the eyes are closed, darkness covers all things except reality.

She kisses the arch of a certain distant foot. Not in humility, for she is never humble, unless it's part of the worst game in town.

She displays the palm of her hand.

Evening Descends Over Hanover, PA

Click photo to enlarge.

Dream Tigers

Dream Tigers

The Dream Tigers came again last night.
They breathed on my face, taking my air away.

Their feet are so huge, they never sink
into the featherbed.

Some nights I don't know they're there,
but on the nights when they feel hungry
they nibble at my fingers, swallowing
the tips like cherries. I can't ignore them then.

I smell them when the air is heavy with fog or mist,
and I try to lie so still they'll pass me by as they
prowl, searching for something new to eat.

My cherry fingertips grow back. The Dream Tigers
know this, timing their voracious night walks to
coincide with a fresh crop. I tried sleeping in a tree,
but they climbed better than I, and knocked me to the
ground to teach me a lesson. They reminded me then
of my evil stepmother, who beat me black and blue,
but never where it showed.

The Dream Tigers know the cherry tips of my fingers
are ignored by others, and laugh at me for caring
so much whether I can push a button to light the room;
or write a letter asking to be rescued from them.
They know they are supreme in the Land of Night,
where Anything can happen, and sometimes does.

I want to run away from the Dream Tigers, but
they're faster than I am, and I fear that if I annoy
them too much, they'll eat my legs instead, and I'll
be there, smelling them, and listening to them
rumbling as their appetites sharpen, finally eating
until I never grow back again.

A. Murray
Based on a dream told to me by Richard Sellers.