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| Tuesday, October 16, 2007 |
| IF |
It is the most meaningful word in the English Language.
The counter point to any issue.
IF I would have
IF I could have
IF I do
IF I did
IF I said
IF I didn't tell
IF
So much responsibility for two little letters.
So much weight for such a silly sounding word.
Say it. Out loud, I mean.
IHHFFFFFF.
The particular way you have to hold your mouth to say such a word,
it really is quite .. UN-becoming? distasteful?
The mouth is open, the uvula contracts and the vocal chords vibrate a hard EI sound.
The lips move forward over the teeth, the tongue lies flat.
Air pushes through the gap left behind.
What a dumb sound.
PH.
F.
Rather Ironic. I think. |
posted by katmandusuekookachoo @ 9:09 PM  |
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| Saturday, October 13, 2007 |
| Wild Berry Jam |
We used to pick them in my backyard, along the railroad tracks.
We would venture with little wooden weaved baskets lined with paper towels.
We would pick and sing, laugh, tell stories.
We rinsed them in glacier water.
Our fingers stained purple and red with the juice of berries.
They don't remember anymore.
They were but small boys.
But, they love the stories.
We venture along boardwalks framed by bushes.
We witness the splashing otter eating his lunch.
We eat our own lunches on blankets beneath the shade of a great pine tree.
Upon a cliff we can see far across the horizon, flat with ocean.
We hear the spouting of whales, and watch as they leave prints of their passing.
The air is crisp and clean.
Our baskets full, we wander home.
They don't remember now.
Only the stories. |
| posted by katmandusuekookachoo @ 9:02 PM |
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| Wednesday, October 03, 2007 |
| Journey Man |
He leans over her, pulling her seat belt across, clipping it into its holster at her hip. She can smell his freshly laundered shirt, soap, deodorant. He cut himself shaving, she picks the tiny blood-soaked square off his jaw. She displays it for him, answering his puzzled look. The Volkswagen sputters and jumps as he revs the engine. She steals a glance into the back at her sleeping baby, "Are you sure we are going to make it?" He reassures her.
Over a year ago he convinced her that she was destined to follow him. They had been experimenting with LSD. He had dropped it in her eyes. "Do you trust me with your life?" She remembered having said yes. Then her universe became foggy. Things she knew were real looked as though they were made in a toy factory. Houses constructed of Popsicle sticks. Her own body made of rubber. She could not make out their words, but was sure they were conspiring in their language to hurt her. Yet, she wasn't afraid. He was there. He had led her to this point.
She said she was scared, quite loudly, in fact. They all looked at her conspicuously. One had rusted nails in her ears, hanging there, as though they were meant to pierce the flesh. She intimidated her, made her antsy. She believed she could shrink, in her mind's eye she did. But then, she couldn't make herself stop. She told him to make it stop. He told her she was okay, he fed her a banana and some milk. He took her tongue piercing out for her safety. She began to sweat. He led her away, to their own nest. He made love to her, stirred her, brought her back home. She dubbed him her Journey Man.
So long ago, she mused. When she found out she was pregnant the drugs became obsolete. She wanted to bring a healthy child into the world. She had to be responsible. Suddenly he was scared. He was with out answers. He wanted to run. Run they did.
Thousands of miles from where they began, her journey man etched a new kind of life. He purchased an old pop-up Volkswagen bus they named Bernard. He worked two jobs, stocking shelves for the market, and organizing the warehouse for a large tour boat company. She just became more and more swollen with the coming of their first son.
They lived with his mother in a hostel ten miles out of town. The hostel owner had a pot-bellied pig that weighed three hundred pounds. It made the girl sick, and it didn't like her a bit. She feared it. It liked to rut against the shins of unsuspecting victim's legs. It's 'litter box' was next to the kitchenette where they stored and cooked their food. They slept on the second floor of the hostel. There was one bathroom on the bottom level. The hostel owner gave the girl a five gallon bucket to relieve herself in, so she wouldn't have to climb the stairs and contend with the pig. She didn't mind the hardship, her man would take care of her.
They all moved into a condo at the end of the road. By now she and the boy were married. His mother tried relentlessly to convince him that this thing growing inside his wife was not his creation. She tried relentlessly to convince him that his wife had continued to poison herself and the child with drugs. She was not in support of taking the wife to the doctor. She said all first born babies need to be ushered into the world as naturally as possible. The Journey man took his wife to the doctor in secret. His mother gave her dogs big bags of marijuana leaf that she claimed belonged to his wife. She called his wife's mother in the middle of the night and tried to conspire with her, for custody of their unborn grandchild that was shamefully not even a blood relation to her.
The journey man decided to uproot his little family. He and his wife packed their things away slowly into their bus. They left in the middle of the night. They embarked on their own adventure. They lived quietly in RV parks, at the edge of the ocean, deep in the forest. They drove Bernard into places he should never have braved. She hauled water, she bathed in icy streams, she cooked over a fire, she chopped wood. She did everything she could for Him.
However, right now, in the middle of this snow storm she is doubting him. She is frightened for her child. Bernard's tires are bald. There is a thick blanket of snow on top of the frozen road. They are in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness with no means for communication. No one knows they are here. No one knows. We are going to die here in this pop-up bus. The heater doesn't work, the engine is clanging and sputtering. He has dug us out twice. The wheels are spinning, black smoke and the smell of burnt rubber.
There's someone out there. There's a truck pulling up! With out a word two men hook Bernard's axle with chains, their wives exchange places with the girl and the baby in the frozen bus, ushering them into the heated cab of the truck. They tow the little family to the next town, accepting only heart felt thanks. The garage allows the family to stay inside the bus overnight within the heated confines of their shop. Repairs are made. Morning arrives. She blindly takes her seat as he navigates their journey, pulling her seat belt around her, she inhales him deeply, and wonders if he truly is her Journey man. |
| posted by katmandusuekookachoo @ 7:36 PM |
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