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Timothy M. Leonard's books on Goodreads
A Century Is Nothing A Century Is Nothing
ratings: 4 (avg rating 4.50)

The Language Company The Language Company
ratings: 2 (avg rating 5.00)

Subject to Change Subject to Change
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Ice girl in Banlung Ice girl in Banlung
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Finch's Cage Finch's Cage
ratings: 2 (avg rating 3.50)

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Entries in story (467)

Tuesday
Jan072014

watch women work

sunday song

cambodia is a funny place. ha, ha, ha.

what do you see? i see a man carrying one red brick. he’s looking for a place to put it down. he is confused. he had no idea his day would involve carrying a brick AND making a decision.

he needs a woman to tell him what do. this is rare because men, in his culture, are the boss and tell women what to do. usually they tell them to lie down and get ready for the big thing.

he is confused about loss. his wife wears the pants. she is the now.

i see an exuberant extraordinary solid particle cow patty land-mine in the middle of sunday’s broken pot holed road. it’s a steaming green mountain.

it smells like an art project.

it will be discovered by a speeding SUV leaving a trace of aroma past sweeping weeping women. it will spread itself over the entire olfactory landscape.

it will create new tomorrows.

***

welcome to a new reality game show. it’s called “Watch Women Work.”

work to eat now OR evolution of the species and social organization (+-)

log on, log in, log the forest. yeah, yeah. i am mr. monosyllable, your creme filled hostess cupcake for this week’s exciting program. yeah, yeah.

contestant #1. a housewife in a rural village. her task is sweeping dust into piles of dust outside her bamboo shack. she has all day to complete this arduous task. repeat.

dust to dust. dawn to dusk. (poetic ramifications in the theatre of the absurd)

contestant #2. a housewife. she has a house. she is a wife. she has 10 children. having children is her DUTY. sex for her is nothing but a DUTY. she is a duty free outlet. her price tag has expired. everything must go.

many children gives her mother and extended family someone to love and play with and yell at. yelling at kids here is abNORMAL and healthy. it nurtures their self-esteem and neurotic adolescence with punctuation marks.

her husband is sleeping. he loves sleeping, eating and making babies, because he doesn’t have to carry them around for nine months and experience hormonal feelings. he sleeps forever dreaming of a hammock in a bamboo forest.

her, his, their children are naked. they play with trash. they set fire to the forest.

fire is their great fun and games besides Yelling and Whining.

contestant #3. a housewife. she is milling around. she has no focus, plan or direction. she is a teacher. she teaches by example. she hopes the lazy boys and men understand. she’s knows many won’t and don’t.

she pounds things like metal. all day. she is a tool. she is a worker. she is a tool of production in life’s assembly factory. she is a simple person. she spits out many children. this is her duty. children are tools.

contestant #4. a housewife. she works. her lazy adult son watches her. he is bored watching her. he wants to stare at the long and winding dirt road. he wants to feast his small beady rat eyes on dirt. his eyes are dirt. pure clean red dirt. she sweeps him into the river. swim, little fish. bye-bye baby, bye-bye. he floats away.

contestant #5. a housewife. she has a diamond in her mind. she is calm and focused. she exhales beauty, truth and love.

she sings all day long.

pick one to emulate. find one with incentive and initiative and win BIG prizes.

what’s the prize? a broom, a brick, an SUV smashing a green cow patty and a monster home shaped like a wedding cake surrounded by a moat, high walls, silver barb wire and iridescent colored candles.

anything else?

a year’s subscription to your favorite illustrated color glossy advertising magazine:

“Dreams, Lies, Wishes, Hopes, and Great Expectations While Driving a Blue Dismal Diesel Dump Truck Needing an Overhaul Loaded with Charcoal.”

cool prizes. let’s play. what’s the first question about the quality of life? said Socrates.

meanwhile: destiny’s child disguised as a black and vermillion butterfly nurtured red and orange exploding flowers above a cool brown flowing river.

see you next week on WWW.

 

Sunday
Dec222013

collecting dust

One day he climbed through the center of Bali inside magical light past an extinct sacred volcano at Lake Batur carrying spare ammunition, a small portable machine, a map carved on narwhal bone, a roll of scented four-ply toilet paper, codices or painted books and texts on bark paper called Amate, and cactus fiber including animal skins and dialogue of Mayan origin.

His hair caught fire. Gathering flames he lit a piece of bark for guidance. He mixed volcanic ash with water, creating a thick paste of red ocher, a cosmetic balm rich with antioxidants. He applied this to his skin to gain entry and passage through the spirit world of ancestors.

To become clay he created clay. He needed dust. He collected dust and minute grains of mica. Teams of gravediggers, weavers, butchers and typists explored rain forests, jagged mountains and impenetrable jungles collecting dust.

Hunters dived into, under and through massive Columbia waterfalls near tributaries where the confluence of Northwest rivers gnashed their teeth, snaking past abandoned Hanford nuclear plants where fifty-five million gallons of radioactive waste in decaying drums left over from W.W. II slowly seeped 130 feet down into the ground toward water tables.

The waste approached 250 feet as multinational laboratories, corporations and Department of Energy think tanks vying for projects and energy contract extensions discussed glassification options and emergency evacuation procedures according to regulations and Robert’s Rules Of Order inside the chaos of their well ordered scientific communities.

Tribal survivors ate roots and plants garnished with entropy.

Survivors passed through civilizations seeking antiquities. They reported back with evidence sewn into their clothing to avoid detection at porous India-Tibetan borders. They severed small threads along hemlines, Chinese silk gowns and Japanese cotton kimonos. Their discoveries poured light rays into waterfalls rushing over Anasazi cliff dwellings into sage and pinion forests.

Survivors arrived at a mythopoeic part of their journey. They reflected on the unconscious residue of social, cultural, ethical and spiritual values.

They needed masks. They needed to understand the underlying mysteries inside death masks. They confronted the realm of spirit. They bought masks in open air markets on their pilgrimage. Masks signifying the dignity of their intention thwarted demons and ghosts. They became spirits dancing in light.

Everything was light in their shamanistic interior landscape. They let go of the ego, Ease-God-Out, detached from outcomes, eliminated the need for control or approval, trusted their spirit energies, and remained light about it.

Inside light with slow fingers and long thin ivory nails they turned clay into pots. Spinning spirals danced on a wheel of time. They finished throwing them, used them for tribal ceremonies and smashed delicate clay pots to earth. They exploded into the air creating volcanic ash coating everything in a fine dust. He dug into the soil of his soul. He scattered raw turquoise stones on a trail of sacrificial tears, on a long walk through seasons and countries.

A Century is NothingSubject to Change.

 

Thursday
Dec122013

kids speak truth

After a year and a half in a Wild West town,
Pounding Stick dragged his sorry angry alcoholic brilliant ass to Hanoi. 
Down a dusty road. Out of a dusty little town.
Past the Plain of Scars.
Past men and women de-mining, defining soil.
Harvesting ordinance.
To be recycled as garden planters, fences, restaurant fixtures, bracelets,
Spoons and impossible fragments explaining how the world works.
Going to get a life teaching spoiled rich kids, said Pounding Stick. $30 an hour.
He needed travel money for South America. 
A long way from England.
A long way from anywhere but here turning Earth.
Life is good.
Short, said a H'mong student.
It was the rainy season.
Tears ran down the street.
Yes, said another. He evaporated his limited patience here.
Yes, he did, said another kid. He absolved the dilemma of his loss. 
He projected his shadow, fear, and ignorance on us, said one.
It'd be nice if we had a more gentle teacher.
Accept loss forever, said a quiet kid. Happiness is small.
A small mansion.
A small fortune.
A small ____.
Smaller and smaller. Poof.

 

Sunday
Nov172013

sacred contracts

When she was ten she was forced to witness a relative torture her cat to death.

The cat was put in a bag and buried under her house.

She had never been under there.

One day she crawled under the house and found the soft dirt. She left it alone. 

Later, she was the victim of sexual abuse.

As a woman she dreamed where, as a child, she was surrounded by women in a sacred circle until she lost all her fear, all energy to them. 

She knew she chose her parents in this world. She carried their pain.

As a child she forgot by looking forward. 

Saturday
Oct262013

a new haruki murakami story

The New Yorker has published a new story, "Samsa in Love," by Haruki Murakami.

Read it here.