A 3,000 Year Old City

“Once upon a time,” Nino said one bright future day as the tribe rolled along, “and such a strange time it was, the gravity of thinking played music in a new century. There was a Spanish man with a hammer. At exactly 9 a.m. on an overcast Cadiz morning he began chipping away at unexplored caverns. The Alio modo Fugue a 2 Clavier by Bach drifted in the background.

“He was building an extension on a roof where housing was scarce and straight up. The only split-level ranch duplexes with multiple garages in sight were American reruns on old battered televisions. He hammered stone the sheltering sky. It was over 100 degrees. His hands bled. Blood seeped through an old Moorish roof splattering into a room where a writer in exile lived with a blind prophet. Hemoglobin landed on a keyboard. On the B. He let it dry. He treasured sudden rare immediate insights. Drops fell and congealed.”

“Fascinating,” Omar said turning a page. “And then?”

“Down below in deep morning shadows Rosario swept her front stoop on Benito Perez Galdos. Her white apron was clean and starched. She swept away yesterday’s accumulated debris and the fine mist of pedestrians coming and going. Old shit, dog urine and dust received her mop’s holy water. Their accumulated real and imaginary sins littered Galdos, heading for the gutter.”

“Let me guess,” said Omar, picking up the thread, “church bells pealed eternal melancholy songs of hope and redemption across from the Castelilo de Santa Catalina, the main citadel of Cadiz built in 1598.”

“Exactly,” Nino said. “Inside tight white oval corridors, an exhibition of black and white photographs depicted Nicaraguan people fishing, polling canoes through tangled jungles, chopping down forests, sitting for the camera, living and laughing. One room held beautiful black handmade fans in tribute to Federico Garcia Lorca.

"Considered the greatest poet and playwright of 20th century Spain, he was assassinated by members of the Escuadra Negra (Black Squadron) a Franco death squad in August 1936 for his left-wing sympathies and homosexuality. He belonged to the Generation of 1927 with Dali and Bunuel identifying with the marginalized Gitanos and woman chained to conventional social expectations in Andalucía.

"He wrote about entrapment, liberation, passion and repression. A long red scarf lay draped over a single rattan chair. Invisible wires held black fans decorated with peacock feathers and rainbow colors suspended in silence. Outside a dark window Atlantic waves smashed ramparts.”

Nino took a breath. Omar sacrificed an orange skin to enjoy the fruit.

Weaving A Life, V1

key

Ink whispers secrets of silent mystery where life is found in a desperate situation.

Young boys stare at a writer.

The blind lead the blind.

Everything is Under Construction at the Source.

The vast self.

Existential awareness.

Cessation of sensation and perception.

It's a walking meditation.

Rivers, like people, only know why they were born when they reach the end.

Poverty and illiteracy. I work, I breed, I get slaughtered.

Imagined or invented conversations and episodes.

Fiction is a tool for unveiling, not obscuring the truth.

Literary fiction expounds historical truth.

Necessity of choice.

Book of Amnesia, Volume 3

Gonzo journalism. Creative nonfiction. Jazz prose poetry.

Life experience. System analysis and social autopsy.

Genius kid friends share adventures and stories.

This is a flawed masterpiece.

Everything you need to know is in this book.

This work incorporates stories from Vietnam, Cambodia, Tibet, Morocco, Turkey, Indonesia and Utopia.

Book of Amnesia, Volume 3

ISBN: 9798859766413

Babble Fish

A Bursa schoolgirl waiting to be grilled maternal fish bait stood at a bus stop with a cell phone implanted in her cerebral cortex. Her mom connected, “Are you alive?”

“I dream I am a free person in a free country. I've escaped the tyranny of what if’s and maybes. I have grit.”

“Enough babble fish jack-o-lama-trauma,” said Zeynep the Director. “Cut to the chase singing songs with abundance, wonder and gratitude."

Ms. Linguist picked Mr. I Love History up. They screwed. She dropped him off. He never paid now. He always paid later.

“Life gives you test first and the lessons later,” said Zeynep. “Blind love with a little luck is a never ending adventure.”

Stressed out over-medicated Turkish kids carried bags of fresh brown bread, black olives and poisoned red apples home to mommy dearest here’s something from my secret garden.

Weaving A Life, V1

Poem

kick boxers attack mangoes

chop ice while shifting gears in the wind after school

six month infants wail at the hospital for a blue placebo pill

charcoal fires waffles

a boy pedals his bike

seeking recycled trash before wicker baskets say hello

spare change searches for user value collecting cardboard images in a squall

red ink meets onion paper at an intersection

whisper secrets with speaking sparrows

inside thematic variations Echo recalls speaking memory

hastening a chill dance with Cinematic expressionism

write in exile

write naked

write in blood

ink is too expensive

write like you will never see

your friends and family again

gestures of silence washes clothes by hand

family loss

personal joy

simple pleasures

mirrors

weight scale

mad blind whore in love jumps over the abyss

smell rain

hear leaves dance