Ice Girl

  Red dust Banlung town turned windy.

Swirling quality gem stone particles and degrees of indifference spiraled through air.

Redwood slats covered open sewer drains.

  Locals watched Leo with curiosity and suspicion.

They stared from a deep vacuum.

When he made eye contact they glanced away with fear, uncertainty and doubt.

They didn’t see many strangers here.

They listened at 49% or less saying yeah, yeah with panache.

  Leo's questions were constantly repeated.

  Questions grew tired of repeating themselves.

This is so fucking boring, said one question.

We are abused. We are manipulated and rendered mute. Useless.

It's a test, said another question. Patience is our great teacher.

I’ll try, said another question.

Yes, said a question, these non-listeners

have a distinct tendency to say more

and say it louder when they’re leaving,

when their back’s turned away from eye contact and potential real communication.

I’ve seen that too, said a question, who, until this moment had remained silent.

My theory is that it’s because of the genocide and fear. It’s also a delicate mixture of stupidity or indifference, said another question. Why is the most dangerous quest-ion, said one.

  Can you explain, asked a question.

Sure, people ran away to survive. People started running and others would ask them a question like

why are you running, who’s chasing you, where are you going

or what’s the matter or when

did you become afraid or why don’t you

stay longer and the one running would keep going

trailing abstract question words behind them

like memories or disembodied spirits or molecules of indifferent breath.

I see, said a question.

That explains it. Yes, said a question. Being correct is never the point. Tell me why oh my.

Ice Girl in Banlung

Performance Art

Glimmering cube of melting ice
Language of chopsticks
Incense smoke curls
Passing reflections
In death’s mirror

10

Street photographer works the image
 Subject - light- composition
 Move like a ninja
 Geometry angles
Follow the light
Performance art

Grow Your Soul

Writing Adventure

“’I did that,’ says my memory. ‘I can’t have done that,’ says my pride, and remains adamant. Finally memory gives way.” - Nietzsche.

The interpreter in the left brain strings experiences into narratives. A novelist in our heads. A novelist called memory ceaselessly redrafting the short story we call “My Life.”

Writing and telling a story is all about detail and realising the significance of the insignificant.

"Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public." - Goethe

...In both Irish and Welsh myth and saga, the art of foretelling the future is an essential part of the story. More often then not, it is to escape their fate, prophesied by the Druid, that leads the protagonists into adventures which inevitably lead them to the fate they seek to avoid. 

...At one point, the narrator irreverently criticizes the author and the book, saying: "You've slapped together travel notes, moralistic ramblings, feelings, notes, jottings, untheoretical discussions, unfable-like fables, copied out some folk songs, added some legend- like nonsense of your own, and are calling it fiction!" - Soul Mountain by Gao

"I want to know one thing. What is color?" - Picasso 

Mother's SHARP TONGUE

Inside Moleskine notes. Hiding under the bed. Slick. No answer. Locked door. Suspicious? More like stupid idiot. Pick up the remains. Tell me a story.

They hope for a lot. They get a little. She disappears. The tease does her job. Just enough desire and temporary distraction - stay down! - no getting down - just enough stimulation as the skinny dude hears her speak - now it's ok.

She's stacked everything on the floor at the end of the bed. This was a dream her uncle told her in the village. "Daughter, you need to be careful in the city. People will cheat you. They are clever. Don't let emotions control you - be reasonable - cold as ice when it comes to business. If you sleep with strangers, know where the exit is."

His scary story imagined a monster under the bed - whispering secrets to her before she fell fall feel asleep.

You have to love a stranger's stupidity, noise, sad face, confusion and chaos. Did he mention irony and entertainment value? So much for a fundamental shift in consciousness. Dying of boredom. Buried with boredom's memory.

Throw the sunset away with syntax. Treat silence with elegant love, respect and dignity.

The orange yellow moon rose.

Is a rose a moon?

How does the moon rise into a black voice of emptiness?

Into endless pyramids of joy with the beauty of simplicity?

Where do butterflies go at night?

Mandalay, Burma

Denver International Airport

mid-day is the least busy time 
frisked down by guys at security -  they may have been from Ghana or Somalia or Ethiopia

but I suspect Congo or Zaire as their dialect was distinct
they are young and laughing at the never ending task 
waving detector wands over people

and the one waving me is young & angry & exasperated

at having to do anything so far removed from his

land, culture, family, his brothers and sisters carrying water

on their heads in cracked plastic pails from deep distant wells 
drying in the heat of perpetual summer’s drought

his tie is askew and his white shirt 
against his thin black neck 
is frayed and his blue blazer looks severely uncomfortable on his frame

and the Asian security woman

says the woman screening bags

doesn’t know 
what a harmonica is so I pull it out in the key of D

ask if she would like me to play her something 
she says yes so I play a few blues riffs on automatic pilot

she laughs as passengers flow around 
mothers manage baby carriages - three tired tiered birthday cakes with burning candles 
their long lonely joyful responsibilities

the music stops 
I bag the harmonica and take the escalator down

to the train watching Hispanic woman mop the floor as 
women in furs and designer jewelry wait impatiently 
for the train to Concourse ABC...

the train zooms through tunnels like amusement park rides

with silver spinning windmills in cement walls

whirling wind tunnels

people get off and on 
a White woman with her Black husband holds her child 
his black curly hair all ringed around small ears

husband looks bored and she is not sure

in her heart
if she made the right decision 
they are flying east to see her folks
he never smiles and they share no words

The Garden #9

Yes, poetic words from Grow Your Soul, a self-published book of poems, ramblings and journal notes from Laos.

You can hear a taste of wisdom.

Thanks for listening.

The Garden #9