Checkmate

Fingering her Tibetan ivory prayer beads, death heads shook, rattled, and rolled.

The mother’s fingers caressed life’s thorns. Nothing happened completely by random chance, by accidental predetermined random fate in her life. Life for her in America or Amnesia if you will was free will versus determination confronting ambition, privacy, isolation, and community in a corrupt, violent cynical society.

People wanted to control their Fear. They believed in fear.

They worshiped fear and consumption.

They were afraid of being poor and lonely. They were willing victims of their fear, uncertainty and doubt. They switched on their amygdala — a small almond shaped brain structure — validated to be involved in fear and emotional response.

Manipulated by the insatiable invisible insolvent propaganda system, by socialization control mechanisms and the subtle power of right wing conservative propaganda persuasion, they either wanted control or approval facing daily choices.

They struggled, suffered, dancing discovering gratitude and forgiveness in their heart-mind. Living and dying. Dying once while you’re alive is necessary. Get’s it out of the way early.

You die twice. When you are born and when you face death. Inscribed on a Zippo lighter in a dusty Saigon museum case.

Were you born laughing or crying?

“Checkmate,” said Death.

Animist cemetary, Ratanakiri, Cambodia

skylight

Sky darkened. 
Ceremonial drum thunder sang vocal intensity.
Lonely lost suffering foreign tourists in Cambodia shuddered with fear.
What if I die here? 
How will my family and friends begin to realize my intention witnessing 1200 years of dancing Angkor laterite stoned history gnarling jungles revealed by natural strobes? 

Lightning flashed skies. Giant flashbulbs illuminated petrified children 
Buried inside cement cavern eyes eating cartoon images on a plasma scream.
Skies opened. 
Rain lashed humans. Some laughed, others cried. Tears dissolved fear.
Sweet dreams, baby.

Dawn. 
Two arrived. The boy is cutter. He carried rope, ladder, small axe and machete. 
Helper friend is coconut palm tree scout. 
Here and there, he said, pointing.

Go up.
The boy shinnied up a narrow palm.
Transferring to the towering 2’ diameter palm he climbed higher.
Roping his tools. 
How’s the view, asked helper.

Sublime. A wide brown river lined by cauliflower oaks reaches bamboo huts.
Orange sunrise severs cumulus wisps.
A market woman has her nails done in blue glitter.
A boy saws crystalized ice on a red dirt road.
Girls in white cotton pedal to school.
A woman grilling waffles along a road buys bundled forest kindling.
Saffron orange robed monks sit in meditation at naga wat.
One plays a drum.

Go up.

He climbed higher.

He chopped. Long thin heavy branches weighted by freedom danced free.
Helper dragged branches past advertisements for temples, orphanages, river trips.
He chopped. 
He dragged.
He chopped.
He dragged.
He secured rope to the top. Blossoming.
He chopped.
Coconuts, leaves, bark danced down.
White interior life dust snowed.
Tree crashed.
Light escaped. 
3 hours. $20.

42

In another incarnation I developed polio before Inactivated Polio Vaccines (IPV) and Mr. Jonas Salk arrived in 1955. 

An epidemic of polio in 1916 killed 6,000 people.

It paralyzed 27,000. In the early 1950’s there were 58,000 cases of polio each year. Salk’s determination in 1954 to conduct field trials resulted in 1.3 million children receiving the polio vaccine. He never patented the vaccine. The number of cases had dropped to 10 by 1979.

In 1955 I was flat on my back in an iron lung. I stared into a small horizontal mirror. I prepared to have my second son. 

He survived. Doctors proclaimed him a miracle baby. They thought I might die.

I was appointed to have him.

I controlled the process. He was small and sick. He recovered. He is strong and loving in his unique calibrated dysfunctional way.

I birthed a daughter three years later.

After the iron lung I spent 12 years in a wheelchair.

I died when I was 42.

exposure

after a lost time

in Tibet

animate and inanimate objects

focused their attention on a voice whispering

mindfulness

in the moment

because

living safely is dangerous

film grain

what did an exhausted lovergirl
on the back of a scooter
strapped, trapped cashed out
say after a night with a stranger 
to her memory of loss

why did laughter say
to silence

what did a blank page 
say to ink

what did fantasy
say to anger
near resilent bamboo

why did clouds
say to soil
during the dry season

what did shadows 
of feelings say
to dark and simple

why did bayon faces
cry to 1,200 years
of reflected light
sawing ice 
as sleeping roots
gathered strength
below the surface