Tuesday
Aug142018
The Language Company
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Entries in writing (441)
Wednesday
Aug082018
Floating
massage girls
wait with white sheets on brown tables
under red umbrellas
resting on golden sand
cuticle management women
tread sand looking for needy nails
lost fat Russians slather on UV 30+
stare inland at backpackers
young eyes down on phone fingers
TEXT ME lonely baby of my heart and soul
mind rapture
a lone swimmer backstrokes
in calm blue green water
a small boat engine hums
toward a green forested is-land
floating away
on the surface of reality
in a dream bubble
laughing in the divine comedy
Wednesday
Aug012018
Every August
“Tell us a story,” said kids.
"I’ll do my best,” said a Zen monk. "I heard this story from a friend in The Windy City and it’s stranger than creative nonfiction. Somebody said August is the cruelest month. The hottest. A local 15-year old girl killed herself yesterday with a single shot to the head. Makes you wonder who, when, where, how and big WHY.
“Last August it was M in Chicago. The perfusionist. She called a wrong number out of desperation and I inherited the inevitable task of talking her through the drama of her life. I answered the phone in Tacoma and kept her on the suicide hot line. It produced basic peace of mind for her. I created poems and an intense piece entitled The Last Several Pages about a book she was reading. She said was going to join a procrastinators club but kept putting it off. She settled down with an older divorced real estate salesman.”
"Walking through fire," said Omar the blind author of A Century is Nothing.
"It was a tough one. All about listening, recognizing faces of fear, seeing truth. Letting go. Moving on. Finding balance.
"Another August rolled around. Out of curiosity I called one of those 900 relationship toll-free numbers and left a message: Independent orphan seeks open-minded spirituality adept woman for casual relationship and friendship.
"Did you get any response?" said Omar.
"Three. The Relationship Express passed stations named Loneliness, Emptiness, Friendship, mid-life Crisis, Ticking Time Bombs, Rhapsody of the Disenchanted, Still Looking After All These Years, and Where’s The One? It zoomed past scenic views of Depression, Melancholy, Trust, Hope, Anxiety, Doubt, and Fear.
"I transited into the listening role with two women from Montana facing self-discovery, broken relationships and renewal. We’re riding the range, mending fences, and setting up new parameters. Now I love women, yes sirree, well all right then - this curious nature of heart-mind making new connections.
"I’m not saving anybody. All life stations have levels of becoming. Passengers on personal growth levels face illusions grasping their Gestalt, shattering mirrors and delusions. They work out in private emotional, physical, spiritual fitness centers. Levels replace levels. Each level has a center. The vortex is the equilibrium, the source."
"We are works in progress,” Omar said.
"I’m just doing my work.”
“That’s a powerful statement,” said Omar.
"Yes it is. Now I wouldn’t be the first person to say it’s healing work but I’ve learned to listen. Not all the clowns are in the circus. I make it perfectly clear to these kind ladies that I am not in the rescuing business anymore. Nope. No way.
"Honesty is the best policy. The emotional bottom line is they’re looking for a kind, sensitive man who won’t screw around and fuck up their lives. They’ve been cheated on, dumped on and left taking care of the kids. They need someone who will just listen to them without saying, ‘I can fix it.’ They know what’s what. They know how the world works, how the heart beats. They have their own toolbox. You’ve gotta have a good tool box."
"Tools. Couldn’t agree with you more, " said Omar.
"We’re all passengers on life’s train," said a Zen monk.
It’s the Circus Train!
A fall loon circles above schools of minnows. I stand in Puget Sound shallows as the Florida circus train rolls north. I yell and wave amid swirling dervishes. Rapid tides breathe in and out.
“It’s the circus people.”
“Step right up under the big Irish bog top.”
People wave from their moving life station. Tired eyed circus veterans stand next to clowns filming water lapping land. They reload memories into instamatics. Midgets peer over the edge of an abyss next to sturdy muscular mustached roustabouts.
Everything they need in their magic portable city is on rolling stock - water trucks, tents, buses and animal cages. A bright red ‘For Sale,’ sign shimmers in a train window. A rolling window displays a plant garden spilling into water vapor. Another has a toy elephant.
They live their dream life on rails. Caged people living with watered and fed animals. Routines: set it up, do the show with all the temerity of tenacious trainers, take it down, pack it up, load it up rolling miles this gleaming circus waving hello goodbye. Ocean waves a silver fish as one sparkles skyward.
When they reach the Canadian border they reverse engines to roll east through Big Sky country toward winterized Florida.
Rare dawn light passes sleepy stations bathed in dew diamonds.
Riding the rails follows spirit journey.
“The simple way is to listen, be detached, share and establish levels of responsibility, limitations and boundaries remaining open to the big picture,” said a monk.
A shadow carrying a candle passed them in the dark.
"Not too much wisdom and not too much compassion, whispered a wandering monk climbing a Cold Mountain toward a bamboo cabin sanctuary.
"Who are you?" said a child.
"I am a wandering monk."
"Where are you going?"
"To gather medicinal herbs for tea."
"Would you care to join us later?"
"Yes. We all have (a) ways to go."
"That’s a powerful story. Your friend is onto something there. She touches people confronting their fears with formless form and emptiness. It’s not fiction. Or is it? Is it a lie layered with your imagination to make it true?” said a kid.
"Good question. Omar speaks and writes from the heart-mind. Some people don’t want to hear this stuff, but say hey kid, they can take it or leave it. I accept her word. It’s about the human condition."
"Well said. Life is something to be lived and not talked about. What say, shall we rest here awhile, enjoy some food, companionship and a siesta?"
Everyone gathered in a sacred circle. It was all light in their interior shamanistic landscape.
Thursday
Jul262018
Yangon, Burma
The English facilitating opportunity in Yangon met his needs for five months. He and four other teachers were downsized by Mr. Money, CEO when he lost a building lease.
Let’s have some language fun in Utopia. Open your head heart mouth. Dream big draw big.
Create a new photo book, entitled Street 21 documenting Yangon, Myanmar.
Until nationalism in 1962 English was taught in schools.
Bye-bye British. Now it’s Burmese. Many people here speak the language of noble barbarians. Hello, what’s your country? God bless you, said a smiling man.
Everyone is friendly gentle and kind. Buddhist nature.
Myanmar has seven states and 135 ethnic groups. 55-60 million.
His Yangon neighborhood reminded him of China in the 90’s. Tight narrow dwellings.
He lived 114 steps up from ground Zero. He salutes sunrise. Crows say hello. Caw-caw, look a stranger. Their wing music is soft. Feathers glide through air with the greatest of ease.
Train whistles, click-clack music street sellers sing dawn food wares, bird songs.
Two yellow bamboos, one green bamboo and a red and white flowering thick-stalked plant in green and blue containers absorb balcony sun.
Joy is growing, nurturing a small garden. The weather is cool and mild through March - then big heat for three months followed by the rainy season. Sky tears.
He takes a taxi to work/home for $1. Horrendous traffic jams. I’ll race you 10’. Ok. Creep and stop. No motorcycles are a quiet blessing. Banned after an assignation attempt.
Get to the verb. I am a camera. Hunt, freeze, shoot.
Have ink will travel.
Bleed words.
It’s not about you.
It’s ten claws scratching at twenty-six letters.
This is a letter.
He traverses 114 steps, open the large lock on the sliding gate, passes through life, slides it locks it and walks down the street passing men frying dough, tea drinkers eating noodles, women selling fruit and veggies from bamboo baskets, people staring at cheap phones asking relatives are you still alive, where are you, when are you coming home, I miss you as he passes through a narrow alley with 3-4 story apartments, balconies spilling flowers, grateful sliding gates, passive dogs and pedestrians.
The path leads past wooden and bamboo homes where people cook outside corrugated bamboo shacks, bath from large cisterns, kids play, women cook/sell street eats, people chat, walking to the large local market overflowing with colorful nutrition. Fresh cut flowers in 1001 varieties for sale are ubiquitous. Home décor. Bouquets say hello. Women wear sweet smelling white flowers in their hair.
He reaches the small local train station.
Red brick, oval shaped entrance. Barred ticket window. Friendly man helps negotiate a ticket into city center. 200 Khat (20¢).
Four tracks, discarded cars lie on abandoned ways. People burn trash along tracks. Bamboo shacks. PSP mansions. Women dry sardines on pavement.
Waiting seats are iron-rails glued to cement pedestals. Men spit out red betel nut juice. Betel sellers are everywhere. Big business. Cheap buzz. Cancer of the mouth.
Push and shove to get on. Get going. Get real. Get out.
Get is the joker word in English.
The southbound engine pulls six yellow and brown cars packed with humans going to work, school and town.
Women balance watermelon slices on heads selling red juicy slices, men hawk DEMOCRACY newspapers and boys proffer water.
Down the line they jump off and grab a train going north. The majority of passengers stare at cell phones. The real world is boring enough as it is.
Traveler hits the bricks doing documentary street photography, exploring narrow streets filled with Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Chinese, Burmese, street stall food smells, buyers and sellers, meat, fruits, vegetables, hard survival jingle-jangle life. Pulsating vibrancy.
He feels alive here.
Every week he visits a new barber in town for a head shave. Indian. Chinese. Burmese. Travel taught him to trust a man holding a straight razor against his throat.
Sitting meditation.
This is the perfect place to gather raw poetics about the human condition.
A lapidary man has an extensive operation cutting/polishing stones from a jade quarry. He explains qualities and examples of mounted ruby, blue sapphire and jade pieces. A huge business considering northern slave mines, Chinese demand and international markets.
+
Traveler smells like garlic after preparing his lunch of sardines, broccoli, spinach, pasta, carrots, tomato, avocado, garnished with oregano, curry spice, saffron and olive oil.
Teak chopsticks will travel.
He eats in the upstairs staff dining area with female Customer Service Officers. They bring rice, small bags of spicy add-on juices and portions of pork or fish in shiny round aluminum stacked containers. Mommy makes my lunch, they murmur.
They shovel it in with aluminum spoons. They talk with their mouths full. Traveler shares veggies. Hot green Nara tea is delicious. Leaves float on the surface.
One CSO girl said, the CEO is mean and selfish. Yes, said traveler.
The other native teachers devour fast food from the hamburger joint at the nearby shopping center while sitting at their desks staring at computers or yakking. Exciting.
Teachers fly to Bangkok every seventy days on a visa run. HR provides holding company business documents for re-entry into the gravitational field. Forms, a smiling photo and a clean $50. Old money is not accepted. No creased, folded currency. So it goes.
Longyi is the traditional sarong-like apparel for men. He discovered a fine silk cotton blend in Mandalay at a weaving village way back when. Ventilation.
Needle leads thread. Threads lead a conversation.
Sunday
Jul222018
Happy Meals
Immediately after 9/11 world children scrambling through dust pawed soil looking for energy cells. Emergency air raid sirens exploded. Everyone scrambled into bombed out buildings.
"Hey, check this out," said a hungry refugee, "I found a case of Democracy. The Republican label says it spreads easily."
"Is it crunchy or plain?"
"How do I know? It’s just plain old Democracy."
"I hope it’s better than that old rancid Freedom Sauce. Let’s give it a go. Democracy is a good idea, in theory."
They opened the box, took out a jar, unscrewed the top, grabbed sharp knives, broke bread and slathered on Democracy.
"Wow! This is yummy."
"Yeah, well I got some stuck in my throat. It tastes like sand."
"It’s protein."
World tribes collected their Democracy.
"We need more energy," someone said. "We need music, news, a weather forecast. We need to know what’s happened."
"Need a clue? Take a look around you," said an illiterate person. Twin Towers, Iraqi and Syrian villages, and Afghan mountains smoldered on the immediate horizon.
"It looks desperate," said one.
"Eye, it does," said another. "It’s always darker before the dawn."
Sirens stopped and they emerged from darkness.
"We need shelter," said a family gathering leftovers from the World Bank. 65 million internally displaced people struggled toward hopeful futures. They sang, “Give me shelter. Shelter from the storm.”
"Beware those who live on dreams," said a rationalist.
"We need a committee," said a company man. "We need order."
"May I take your order?" requested a disembodied voice from a black box in a drive-thru combat zone.
"One happy meal to go," cried a distraught family trapped in a massive traffic jam. It was bumper to bumper on the highway of death between the airport and Baghdad.
Where the rubber met the road.
Their digestive systems were backed up for miles with sugar, fat, grease and carbohydrates.
"Consider the essentials will you," pleaded a small voice from the back seat trying to get a dial tone, trying to get through, trying to find a rhythm inside swirling chaos.
It threatened to swallow everyone into a black hole sucking everything into a parallel universe.
