A Child's Tale
The cat didn't understand why it couldn't go sailing. It couldn't swim well but that was a skill a number of sailors lacked. It knew all about ships and it liked water well enough but every time it asked a captain if it could join the crew the man shook his head and nudged it aside. Their boats didn't have any rats, they were small vessels and were always kept exceptionally clean. The cat was becoming increasingly depressed and mewing at any passerby on the docks. "I just want to go sailing" it said. It was by a park and there were little toy sail boats gliding through the water. It glared in envy at the imaginary passengers under the fluttering white sails that looked so much like the wings of the dove it caught yesterday. The cat pounced. It fell into a downpour and slept shaking on someone's doorstep. In the morning it was sunny. A woman came out and chased it away. It was hungry. A little girl put out a can of tuna and watched it. The cat didn't let her come near. The can was only half finished when a mongrel appeared and chased the cat away. Then the cat remembered it wanted to go sailing. It sat at the dock as the last boat drifted away in the sunset. The cat curled up in the sky and left one eye open in case the dog returned. The crescent of the eye glowed in the reflection of the street lamps. The sailors blessed it for the light it brought into the night. The cat never got to go sailing.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The Original Blackbird Memory Letter
To go. To go away. To Break. To be broken. The words aren't as simple as they seem. Sometimes you need a little poison to clean the wounds. Or let the blood. Haven't you ever found it interesting how empty we are? You take all the fluid out and what's left? A shell. You put it in again. What happens then? There's nothing in that fluid. Except salt. Sea water without zooplankton. We calm down about then. Relax because we're all the same, swimming in our own enclosures. The sunlight likes to dance with me. Light and free. But slow sometimes, and gentle. Did you know Apollo? I remember his horses. Their hooves beat across my face. Left bruises. You ever tell anyone? Not a soul. You can't kick back without hooves. Remember how you used to try? I guess landing in snowbanks began to sting too much. Smoke knocks on the door and you shrug it off. There are plenty of cracks. And plenty of ghosts already. I'm not leaving. This and this alone is mine. There are darker things in this world than headaches and phone calls. I don't believe in either of those. We make them up. It's all in your head. Like when that silver horse won the Derby. Stuff like that never happens in real life. There's a porch somewhere and it's all cracked and weathered and all it's trying to do is move on and get away from abandoned dogs and stray cats. Splinters in your feet. They're just reminders that we are fragile. But they make you strong. I know, you've had a good number of them. I try not to think about the marks left behind or the chunks still stuck in me. It makes for tough conversation. Especially around meals. Food has no value all of a sudden. Funny how we notice value only when it is lost. Sometimes it's hard to imagine the light a fallen tree might let in. Little stars, not always wanted. Are we wanted? I want you and you want me. Does that not make it so? No, we never are. We're just here. No one asked you. No one asked me. No one asked us.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Blackbird Memory Letters 5
Dearest Blackbird,
How did May already get here? I thought April would swallow me and never let me go. Instead it put me on trial and gave me a white tulip verdict. After all those dried roses in glass bottles...There was a crash as the glass hit the pavement. No one was there to hear it. In the morning they walked past and never thought twice about the ground they trampled.
They're telling me to forget. To shut down my mind and duck my head and just get through the day. They don't believe me when I tell them there's more to this than what they see. My mind has no gender, no race, no age, no form. It is merely trapped in a body which possesses each of these features. I want to rip off my skin sometimes. Pull out my hair and slash through my curves so they stop staring at them and look me in the eye. Some shadows were meant to be taken off the page. Some wrists meant to be cut as if all that really mattered was digging out the malignant pit, a bone buried underneath. The veins and arteries could be twisted up and glued back together later. That was the plan at least. The skin there always looked so vulnerable, blue streams could be seen gliding just beneath the surface. It was like watching a disease take control over the body. It was fascinating. My shoulders shook. My skin grew transparent. I kept touching my elbows and wrists as if to see they were still there. Squeezing them to feel a pulse. Rubbing them with ice to cool the blood. I was an addict without a drug. Searching in vain for indifference.
In the silence that abandoned us we found a key to the feathers life gave us long ago when the world was ending and we were the only ones left to put it back together. I tremble because I hear the words so clearly now, languages I never understood are sending me messages too late. I crack the bottles over my head and collapse at the foot of a wave. Silver boomerangs spin through my peripheral vision, blades I want to duck away from, but can't. Beats fade. Shadows lengthen. I try not to think about the flowers I left on the window sill in a house I will never return to or the butterflies I never let out of their jars. We're wanderers sometimes, who get trapped on a circular path. Bricks passed over so often they turn into red chalk. Worship is a figure of speech. It floats in the conversation but never really sinks in. Tying clouds down is nearly impossible. But we did it once. It squirmed in the net and lashed out with static energy and sprays of water. It made such a mess. We took out the vacuum and took it all away. To squint. To cringe. To open up and say we lost another one.
Blackbird....
Hush my darling words will keep, slip away in endless sleep, if one day you should wake, It will be my soul you take.
How did May already get here? I thought April would swallow me and never let me go. Instead it put me on trial and gave me a white tulip verdict. After all those dried roses in glass bottles...There was a crash as the glass hit the pavement. No one was there to hear it. In the morning they walked past and never thought twice about the ground they trampled.
They're telling me to forget. To shut down my mind and duck my head and just get through the day. They don't believe me when I tell them there's more to this than what they see. My mind has no gender, no race, no age, no form. It is merely trapped in a body which possesses each of these features. I want to rip off my skin sometimes. Pull out my hair and slash through my curves so they stop staring at them and look me in the eye. Some shadows were meant to be taken off the page. Some wrists meant to be cut as if all that really mattered was digging out the malignant pit, a bone buried underneath. The veins and arteries could be twisted up and glued back together later. That was the plan at least. The skin there always looked so vulnerable, blue streams could be seen gliding just beneath the surface. It was like watching a disease take control over the body. It was fascinating. My shoulders shook. My skin grew transparent. I kept touching my elbows and wrists as if to see they were still there. Squeezing them to feel a pulse. Rubbing them with ice to cool the blood. I was an addict without a drug. Searching in vain for indifference.
In the silence that abandoned us we found a key to the feathers life gave us long ago when the world was ending and we were the only ones left to put it back together. I tremble because I hear the words so clearly now, languages I never understood are sending me messages too late. I crack the bottles over my head and collapse at the foot of a wave. Silver boomerangs spin through my peripheral vision, blades I want to duck away from, but can't. Beats fade. Shadows lengthen. I try not to think about the flowers I left on the window sill in a house I will never return to or the butterflies I never let out of their jars. We're wanderers sometimes, who get trapped on a circular path. Bricks passed over so often they turn into red chalk. Worship is a figure of speech. It floats in the conversation but never really sinks in. Tying clouds down is nearly impossible. But we did it once. It squirmed in the net and lashed out with static energy and sprays of water. It made such a mess. We took out the vacuum and took it all away. To squint. To cringe. To open up and say we lost another one.
Blackbird....
Hush my darling words will keep, slip away in endless sleep, if one day you should wake, It will be my soul you take.
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