Sunday, January 11, 2009
Kryptonite & Cookies
I sit here at my desk watching the silver dollar moon turn the desert tundra into a shadowy, dusty blue that presages the earthshaking steps of giants. It also looks like the snowfields are an expanding inland sea that will lap at my windows, turning my house with its huge windows into an aquarium. And that is how I feel inside my head, water sloshing and soaking, dousing, suffocating. La luna, I love her, and she is also my kryponite. Triple fire I am, and she the moon, closer to me than she's ever been, has slipped me a mickey, shaken me when I needed stirring, dropped a depth charge in my super food. It happens every time, month-to-month, more and more, and, although I can fight it with the determination of the Man of Steel or Captain Kirk, really I am reduced to the desire to crawl on a padded floor, to some corner filled with pillows where I can burrow my head and wiggle my shoulders before sinking into the floor of a deep slumber. My feet are vibrating inside my boots, my lips loose and slightly opened, my ears ringing in a high C, my heart beating in my armpits. I am not heavy, but disintegrating, changing states, solid to liquid. I want to run out of myself and flow without effort, give up to my mistress who excites me with her grand entrance, the light preceding her behind Taos Mountain as if she has an army spread across the San Luis Valley holding up flood flights and pointing them south toward the Taos Range. I imagine the people of this vast valley, in the hills, mountains, out on the mesa like me, running to their east windows like trained mice and making noises, ooohs and ahhhhs, and then moving across their houses to other windows as La Luna climbs higher and turns the knock knock world into the realm of the stainless steel knights, blowtorch blue, riding their hard-snorting black steeds, trailing serpents of vapor from wet nostrils; ghosts of the old ways, of all the races that have spilled on this dirt. And we know this world, we know it, and some of us are drawn outside by a red thread pulling from just below the navel, into the snow, the temperature down to 10 deg., just as in a dream, when you're not sure you want to go, but your astral body is hitched to what is out there, the red thread upon touching the moonlight revealed as a silver lariat comprised of three interwoven strands that undulate into the dancing charcoal dust floating above the snow. A thundering is felt just above and below where you strain to hear, and in it are all of the things, the people, the hopes and strivings and, above all, the knowings, the wisdom, and the Great Need to bow to and embrace what is "out there" so that you can go back inside, the red thread returned, enter the bed and learn again to swim.
And I am going to do just that.
But before I crawl away, I want to say that a little girl, dark haired with gigantic round chestnut eyes, and a pearl button nose, maybe 4, maybe 5, came to my table at the Mondo Kultur Cafe. Her mom was just getting off of work, and the little girl and her redheaded, freckled friend were going to eat cookies. The place was packed, all tables filled, but many, like mine, with single people spreading out over a table for 2 or 4. This little one, without hesitation, pulled out the chair next to me, looked me in the eyes with the presence of a tree, and told me without words everything I needed to know. She sat on the chair (on her knees) and patted the seat of the chair next to her for her friend to come sit. I was madly in love with this little person treating me like a fellow tree exhaling oxygen into the world. Me and her, just trees hanging in the same forest. And then her mother called her, not angry, but with firmness and fear, looking at me with apology. And I said, "No, no, it's okay. They can sit here with me, I'm just reading." "No, no," she said, "we're going to go." The little tree got off of her chair and pushed it back in then looked at me and said in a froggy voice, "Thank you, we're going to eat the cookies in the car." And she smiled a little tree smile that made me happier than I've been in a long, long time.
Friday, January 9, 2009
The Show Goes On...
This is for my friend, X, a man of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, whose dad just passed away. It is meant to float up like smoke and disappear into the sky, as it is not something to talk directly about. This man, 6'4" of lankiness, fought 6 different bouts with cancer, and, back in the day, was a lawyer with his wife during the power days of the AIM, and saw some amazing and horrible things come to pass.
Bpae TuaaH
(deer meat)
There is no doubt
That we all belong to each other.
There is no doubt
That one day we will face off with ourselves.
Point cold, heartless handguns to the face.
As we both pull the tiny triggers, ever so slowly; I am you.
You can be me.
No doubt.
Like an old time, romantic, black and white movie playing
Across the screen;
The end credits are rolling on the plaintive theme,
"We are over;"
Progressing into curious, unknown,
Shadowy fragments of a decaying body,
Lying on sepia-toned melting snow,
A quaint picture show,
Walking together to the dead end.
We are older; stretched;
Strung like a new bow,
However with the same gut string;
Pulling, pulling; until the evil,
Heart-breaking crack.
In the distance a bald eagle is soaring,
Airborne above an outlying thicket of juniper trees,
Circling to see the remnants
Of a curious deathblow;
Dry blood, wet with the thawing snow.
I have no doubt.
Soar like the eagle.
Have no fear.
Die vivaciously.
Give way to the tumbling departure,
The degeneration.
Back to the most wet, moist, merciful earth.
I have no doubt. We will all end up there:
Uneventfully.
Our movie is one of pathetic, prophetic love.
- Reyes Kristina Wind
I climbed the foothill today, the snow on the south side melting into the slope, into the rocks and tenacious bushes, cholla plants, and willows. It was warmer than it has been in a while, the sun disappearing behind velvet gray and purple clouds. Slushy in the bottomlands, hard-skinned higher up with softness underneath. Hardness broken, something collapsing all around, tired, ready to give in. There was nobody on the trail today. The only humans I saw were at the bottom, a woman, Shira, with a silver nose ring, had backed her white Subaru into the deep snow of the parking lot at the trailhead. I pushed the back of her car while a craggy, dark-skinned man with the tell-tale Taoseno lilt hit reverse in his big, white pickup, and chained to the Subaru, pulled it out. She offered me a heaping salad in a plastic dish, pepperoncinis piled on top, but I said my fridge was full and maybe the truck guy needed it more. She thrust it out to him and he snatched it quickly, a brief smile passing his lips. She thanked us and he nodded holding out the salad like it was a prize and I rubbed her jacketed shoulder. "No problem."
With the lower light and thinking about X, I curved around the west side of the mountain and saw the sun setting in the clear slit on the horizon. It spread a peach and green light on a shelf of snow leaning up off the trail. This spot is well below where I do my prayers to the mountain, but I was feeling logy, and the snow looked too good to pass up, so I lay down, breaking the hard surface and forming the snow around my ass, legs, back, shoulders and head. I had to do it. No wind. No birds (birds don't stir at sunset here, they watch in reverence, too). My head looking straight up to the curve-tipped clouds sliding west to east. Mmmmmm, I felt in my chest, good breaths, deep ins and slow outs, pauses in between. Other than a creeping, cool wetness through my jeans into my butt cheeks, I felt disappeared. I closed my eyes thinking that I could easily spend the night right here and be woken with new snow on my nose and an elk bending over to lick my forehead. The icy granular snow woke me when I made a natural turnover move, flipping from my back to my right side, my right cheek looking to nuzzle the pillow and finding ice instead. It was still dusk, but barely. I didn't have my backpack with the headlamp, so I had to shake it off and boogie on down the trail. It wasn't hard as it was still warm, the clouds keeping the temperature from dropping, and I cut off large swaths of the trail by bushwacking through the switchbacks.
There's a knot in my center as I write. I'm drifting. I see green water and white caps spilling over the tops of waves. I listened to NPR on the way home when I should have listened to Radiohead, or nothing. Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, a terrible fire in Karachi, Pakistan. People killing, dying. It reminded me of being a little child and listening to the daily body counts from Vietnam on my Sony transistor radio and then on my mom's faux wood-paneled radio in the kitchen while eating my cereal and english muffin. Even then I couldn't understand why. Even then I wondered what was the use. One of my camp counselors left after the summer of '71 and did not come back the next summer. The flag was at half mast for the 3 or 4 years I went to this camp. It was normal, and it wasn't. Body counts on the radio. Not so different now.
Where am I my going with this? It's 8:58 and I'm sad. It was a good day, things are happening, being accomplished, being given and received. I have loving friends coming over tomorrow to hike down to the river and dip in the hot springs along the edge. Great projects are moving forward. My head is clear and I'm living in circadian rhythm. Yes, and I woke thinking of my friend, X, and his distant voice last night. This is not something to talk about. This is not something to dwell on.
Bpae TuaaH
(deer meat)
There is no doubt
That we all belong to each other.
There is no doubt
That one day we will face off with ourselves.
Point cold, heartless handguns to the face.
As we both pull the tiny triggers, ever so slowly; I am you.
You can be me.
No doubt.
Like an old time, romantic, black and white movie playing
Across the screen;
The end credits are rolling on the plaintive theme,
"We are over;"
Progressing into curious, unknown,
Shadowy fragments of a decaying body,
Lying on sepia-toned melting snow,
A quaint picture show,
Walking together to the dead end.
We are older; stretched;
Strung like a new bow,
However with the same gut string;
Pulling, pulling; until the evil,
Heart-breaking crack.
In the distance a bald eagle is soaring,
Airborne above an outlying thicket of juniper trees,
Circling to see the remnants
Of a curious deathblow;
Dry blood, wet with the thawing snow.
I have no doubt.
Soar like the eagle.
Have no fear.
Die vivaciously.
Give way to the tumbling departure,
The degeneration.
Back to the most wet, moist, merciful earth.
I have no doubt. We will all end up there:
Uneventfully.
Our movie is one of pathetic, prophetic love.
- Reyes Kristina Wind
I climbed the foothill today, the snow on the south side melting into the slope, into the rocks and tenacious bushes, cholla plants, and willows. It was warmer than it has been in a while, the sun disappearing behind velvet gray and purple clouds. Slushy in the bottomlands, hard-skinned higher up with softness underneath. Hardness broken, something collapsing all around, tired, ready to give in. There was nobody on the trail today. The only humans I saw were at the bottom, a woman, Shira, with a silver nose ring, had backed her white Subaru into the deep snow of the parking lot at the trailhead. I pushed the back of her car while a craggy, dark-skinned man with the tell-tale Taoseno lilt hit reverse in his big, white pickup, and chained to the Subaru, pulled it out. She offered me a heaping salad in a plastic dish, pepperoncinis piled on top, but I said my fridge was full and maybe the truck guy needed it more. She thrust it out to him and he snatched it quickly, a brief smile passing his lips. She thanked us and he nodded holding out the salad like it was a prize and I rubbed her jacketed shoulder. "No problem."
With the lower light and thinking about X, I curved around the west side of the mountain and saw the sun setting in the clear slit on the horizon. It spread a peach and green light on a shelf of snow leaning up off the trail. This spot is well below where I do my prayers to the mountain, but I was feeling logy, and the snow looked too good to pass up, so I lay down, breaking the hard surface and forming the snow around my ass, legs, back, shoulders and head. I had to do it. No wind. No birds (birds don't stir at sunset here, they watch in reverence, too). My head looking straight up to the curve-tipped clouds sliding west to east. Mmmmmm, I felt in my chest, good breaths, deep ins and slow outs, pauses in between. Other than a creeping, cool wetness through my jeans into my butt cheeks, I felt disappeared. I closed my eyes thinking that I could easily spend the night right here and be woken with new snow on my nose and an elk bending over to lick my forehead. The icy granular snow woke me when I made a natural turnover move, flipping from my back to my right side, my right cheek looking to nuzzle the pillow and finding ice instead. It was still dusk, but barely. I didn't have my backpack with the headlamp, so I had to shake it off and boogie on down the trail. It wasn't hard as it was still warm, the clouds keeping the temperature from dropping, and I cut off large swaths of the trail by bushwacking through the switchbacks.
There's a knot in my center as I write. I'm drifting. I see green water and white caps spilling over the tops of waves. I listened to NPR on the way home when I should have listened to Radiohead, or nothing. Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, a terrible fire in Karachi, Pakistan. People killing, dying. It reminded me of being a little child and listening to the daily body counts from Vietnam on my Sony transistor radio and then on my mom's faux wood-paneled radio in the kitchen while eating my cereal and english muffin. Even then I couldn't understand why. Even then I wondered what was the use. One of my camp counselors left after the summer of '71 and did not come back the next summer. The flag was at half mast for the 3 or 4 years I went to this camp. It was normal, and it wasn't. Body counts on the radio. Not so different now.
Where am I my going with this? It's 8:58 and I'm sad. It was a good day, things are happening, being accomplished, being given and received. I have loving friends coming over tomorrow to hike down to the river and dip in the hot springs along the edge. Great projects are moving forward. My head is clear and I'm living in circadian rhythm. Yes, and I woke thinking of my friend, X, and his distant voice last night. This is not something to talk about. This is not something to dwell on.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
For My Brothers and Sisters of the Ram
The first "super-moon" of 2009 takes place Saturday (Jan. 10) and strikes the match, lights the candle and illuminates a path of self-discipline, sacrifice and ultimate achievement for the Ram. Somewhat challenging but long overdue and actually welcome, this fortuitous opportunity comes from within and blossoms as a time of great potential progress and personal productivity. Embrace the change.AMEN!
MONEY
Today was a good day. I got up early; not as early as I intended, but that's something I'm working on. I can shave an hour off of when I get up and that hour is crucial to getting off to a dedicated start. What I didn't do today was hike, and that hurts. I was outside a bit, looked at the sky, marveled at the dawn, licked the feathery top layer of the snow glitter-balled by the first rays of the sun as it wobbled over the pueblo. For a few minutes, under the immensity of that cranberry aquamarine, standing in the snowmush driveway, I was visited first by three rabbits, inquisitive sniffers who, one by one, nosed the same sage plant tips sticking out of the snow like the tentative tentacles of an amphibian, and drunkenly lunge-hopped through the drifts, and then three dogs, the amigos, the ones that now know me (and know I have no pork chops - yet), who, one-at-a-time brushed their coats against my legs, and smiled up at me, waited 3 or 4 minutes, tails wagging, and then buttswung themselves back out to the road and trotted north toward the large quonset houses. That was my moment: cold but still, the sky drum much softer than in the dusk, a lower hue, watery, sounds traveling from miles away, tinks and tonks and sageward yelps, swooping hawks stirring the air, the curious rabbits and incredulous doggies, all moving on their way, greetings, departings, living and let living going on in all directions.
And I won the lottery...he almost hits the exclamation but stops. Yes, I won, $15, got the powerball number and the power play was 5x. Hey, I come from a gambler and have fought that dragon, trained and caressed her to be my friend cum companion, but I've been feeling lucky (the "cky" in the back of the throat, breathy at the end), and I've been seeing numbers, baby. This is my second "win" in two weeks, so I'm up $14. I'm rubbing my hands together and they feel like moneh...that's right M-O-N-E-H, Moneh. Seriously, though, I have that feeling. The moon is getting bigger, venus is winking at me, red ole mars, ruler my ruler, is sliding back over the mountains, and big bopper jupiter, too - say it ain't so red sisters! There's your exclamation. Big, big, big, that's what's happening. No biggie smalls, no smally balls, this is play time.
Speaking of dragons, all kinds of good things were going on today. My timing was slamming. Work situations, flirtations, Moneh, unasked for favors, good books to read on the can, a fridge full-to-burstin with goodness at home, what, what, what more can you want? Well, I'll tellya, first, 5pm hit and I was still talking to this lawyer woman who owns a building of offices (one of which I'm renting tomorrow). When I left, dusk already sprouting without me at my perch on the mountain, I knew that deal was done. So, with a crease in time, my mind, well, more my solar plexus, the dragon's lair, sent up a thought, well, more an urge, that had the clacking of phenolic resin balls in it, and the slide of smooth wood across the slot of skin between my left thumb and index finger. Pool, at the Alley, was in my solar plexus. I had some time, it was happy hour, I didn't need to drink but could hang around with the peeps in the back room and shoot some stick, you know? I got in the car with that intention, my trained dragon straining against its yoke, but a funny thing happened. I slid around the parking lot skating rink and rolled up to the muddy lip leading out to Paseo and instead of banging a louie, I leaned right and by the time I straightened her out passing the Taos Diner, I knew I was on my way home....but was I? Not quite. At the blinking light intersection - straight takes you to Questa and then the kingdoms of Colorado, right takes you up to Arroyo Seco and then up up and away to the Ski Valley, and left takes you toward the gorge where I live (and, if you go further, to the remote mad max outpost of Tres Piedras) - I compromised. Since I was wrestling my suddenly tongue-wagging dragon, Dixie, I decided to take her out for some pizza. So, we went right, toward the ski valley, but pulled off a couple hundred yards down the road at Pizanos, owned by some good friends. Me and Dixie got ourselves a personal pizza with mushrooms, green chile, onions, and black olives - upstate NY style - made some good time with the girls behind the counter while we waited, a lot of smiling and "where you been, honeys," and then busted out to gorgeville. And that we did. I gave Dixie a slice on the way to chill her the freak out, and when I got home, I plowed that thing down to one slice. Man, it was like I hadn't eaten in days. They use good ingredients and all, but still, this is pizza, heavy wheat, meat, tongue tickling spices, thick cheese, and garlicky tomato sauce (see fingers to the mouth in a kiss). So I ate Dixie and the pizza, too, and that was that. I've been a bobblehead Gman since. But, BUT, I'm good, you know? I ate 3 tangerines after the pizza and I am sated like a mofo. It's 9:27 and I'm ready for Mirabal in my bed (the book, ok).
That's all I have. I wish I had more because one of the servers at Pizanos said to me, "I grew up down the street from 'Make Believe World.'" One of Walt Disney's buds built a house on 300 acres and then turned the place into a phantasmagorical town. And she lived a few houses down. There's something there. Right? No matter, buenos noches al mundo.
And I won the lottery...he almost hits the exclamation but stops. Yes, I won, $15, got the powerball number and the power play was 5x. Hey, I come from a gambler and have fought that dragon, trained and caressed her to be my friend cum companion, but I've been feeling lucky (the "cky" in the back of the throat, breathy at the end), and I've been seeing numbers, baby. This is my second "win" in two weeks, so I'm up $14. I'm rubbing my hands together and they feel like moneh...that's right M-O-N-E-H, Moneh. Seriously, though, I have that feeling. The moon is getting bigger, venus is winking at me, red ole mars, ruler my ruler, is sliding back over the mountains, and big bopper jupiter, too - say it ain't so red sisters! There's your exclamation. Big, big, big, that's what's happening. No biggie smalls, no smally balls, this is play time.
Speaking of dragons, all kinds of good things were going on today. My timing was slamming. Work situations, flirtations, Moneh, unasked for favors, good books to read on the can, a fridge full-to-burstin with goodness at home, what, what, what more can you want? Well, I'll tellya, first, 5pm hit and I was still talking to this lawyer woman who owns a building of offices (one of which I'm renting tomorrow). When I left, dusk already sprouting without me at my perch on the mountain, I knew that deal was done. So, with a crease in time, my mind, well, more my solar plexus, the dragon's lair, sent up a thought, well, more an urge, that had the clacking of phenolic resin balls in it, and the slide of smooth wood across the slot of skin between my left thumb and index finger. Pool, at the Alley, was in my solar plexus. I had some time, it was happy hour, I didn't need to drink but could hang around with the peeps in the back room and shoot some stick, you know? I got in the car with that intention, my trained dragon straining against its yoke, but a funny thing happened. I slid around the parking lot skating rink and rolled up to the muddy lip leading out to Paseo and instead of banging a louie, I leaned right and by the time I straightened her out passing the Taos Diner, I knew I was on my way home....but was I? Not quite. At the blinking light intersection - straight takes you to Questa and then the kingdoms of Colorado, right takes you up to Arroyo Seco and then up up and away to the Ski Valley, and left takes you toward the gorge where I live (and, if you go further, to the remote mad max outpost of Tres Piedras) - I compromised. Since I was wrestling my suddenly tongue-wagging dragon, Dixie, I decided to take her out for some pizza. So, we went right, toward the ski valley, but pulled off a couple hundred yards down the road at Pizanos, owned by some good friends. Me and Dixie got ourselves a personal pizza with mushrooms, green chile, onions, and black olives - upstate NY style - made some good time with the girls behind the counter while we waited, a lot of smiling and "where you been, honeys," and then busted out to gorgeville. And that we did. I gave Dixie a slice on the way to chill her the freak out, and when I got home, I plowed that thing down to one slice. Man, it was like I hadn't eaten in days. They use good ingredients and all, but still, this is pizza, heavy wheat, meat, tongue tickling spices, thick cheese, and garlicky tomato sauce (see fingers to the mouth in a kiss). So I ate Dixie and the pizza, too, and that was that. I've been a bobblehead Gman since. But, BUT, I'm good, you know? I ate 3 tangerines after the pizza and I am sated like a mofo. It's 9:27 and I'm ready for Mirabal in my bed (the book, ok).
That's all I have. I wish I had more because one of the servers at Pizanos said to me, "I grew up down the street from 'Make Believe World.'" One of Walt Disney's buds built a house on 300 acres and then turned the place into a phantasmagorical town. And she lived a few houses down. There's something there. Right? No matter, buenos noches al mundo.
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