Spring Fever

Wisdom and shark tanks

ate up

the twirling smoke

above my head,

as I stared at the

fateful ceiling,

reincarnating

apothecaries and

metaphysics,

colors pining

for the nighttime

when toads

croak their songs

in the summer,

heat smolders

you like a

chorus of

fireflies burning,
and you drink it all in.

The Witch Doctor Visions

I was born into the hands
of a laughing demon
in the back room of an apothecary
in New Orleans
circa 1617.

Let it be known that
when the witch doctor stared
into my red eyes,
the moment of my first cries,
he sucked air into his mouth fast,
held his breath for 45 seconds
and then let it out with a deep sigh
that rattled the very walls
of that establishment
and then he groaned in disillusion.

I knew what he was thinking
and thus I responded
with a haunted growl,
the flock of ravens
sitting on the tombstones
across the street
took flight in whispers
and soft hisses.

Meanwhile,
in a small village in
modern day Pakistan,
a rebel for the white knight
mounts his horse,
shouts into the sky
an old religious curse
on the land
and leads his soldiers
to the center of the town-
he was told to leave no survivors
and he is a man who follows directions.
I could hear the screams
from where I lay,
mass graves leave an energy imprint
on our DNA,
Templar fever is spreading.

Approximately one hour after the slaughter,
a 23 year old man awakes
from his nightmare sweating
and turns to his Russian wife:
"wake up,
that fucking bastard
killed even the children
in that little town
with the tip of his
thrusting sword,
into their chests,
drinking their blood.

Soar with me to the 21st century,
watch the goth teens
down that one alley in Brooklyn,
shooting up heroin again,
standing in the shadows,
waiting for hot legs to walk by and bother-
just because,
"hell, there's nothing else
to do in this fucking lame town."

Sitting in my shower,
taking crawlspace intuition
deeper into wonderland,
I fall into the rabbit hole
and wait for the secrets
to unfold in the basement
where my astral body lands:
Joan bennet Ramsey and her father,
painted faces,
sad eyebrows and dark horses
swarm around me.
I cough and the man
standing in the corner
by the window steps into view,
he laughs and disgusts me.

I jolt awake and vomit out the sinister maniac
with the wild beast hair
hanging in his face.
I watched him murder that poor child
with a plastic bag and a hair tie,
and after a night like this one,
I will never be the same.
All the visions I have,
I carry with me into the daytime,
but I won't tell you every image-
most I take with me to the sea
with the moon
shining and smiling on the water.

Dissociation in Wonderland

INTRODUCTION

There was a need for rescription: a “re-vamp”, if you will, of our thoughts on time and space and Christ figures. I think that some would say Christ is what he is due to his death, some to his life would say the same. Instruct the pentagram to turn on its head and begin to understand the world and its pursuits of the all too familiar and the reborn phoenix, a person no one understands. If this a memoir (how would I remember anyway) – why no. This trial work-out piece is a re-constellation of discourse, an exercise in only the profane and discreet. I shall discuss martyrdom and sandpaper, transgender awakenings and what I think “Apocalypse” really means. Death may just be a pre-freudian concept: a think tank, an ivy garden, a hole at the bottom of the ocean where the drain pipe leads us to our first chapter.

Chapter 1: un-learning fundamentals

Just for fun, let’s escape (if it were possible) thought of Freud and death complexes and scarecrow screamers. You know scarecrows are just straw, yes? Ok, moving on. As the temperature cools and the sky unearths herself to show us her third eye in the twilight hours- moon among dragons breathing fire- I will channel the mad hatter, as only I know how to take on this personality and write, produce, corrupt your minds away from flurescent lighting and cubicles.

Absurd prose- I hope to call this small dot on the pantheon of writing that has come before me. Just a little bit of odd me to tackle. You looked at me and pronounced that I had all answers to questions you had in the creases of your mind. Well, fortunately for you, I declare no such thing. I have seen my share of hauntings: little girl with long dark hair might be a ghost of a daughter I saw the first semester after my dad died. I was a freshman in college, and she had nothing else to do as a ghost in Ohio. She had things to say, people she wanted to see and talk to, and I was the only lone wolf who could see her, as I lay in my bed listening to the walls for weeks after the funeral.

Have you ever drowned in ice water? Rather unpleasant. I don’t know why I bring this up- I just felt it worth mentioning. There are no hands to reach out for, no rescue boat, no voices to urge you to stay awake as you drift, frozen blackbird, in a sea that does not know or care what your name is.

Alice. Alice was my name for a time when I first met my little shadowy follower. I had seen whisps of people passed on before- but never so close, so real and so impatient. I never heard her story- my ears not yet open to sounds from another world. All I know is that I missed my dad too (as I think this ghost girl did too). Things are difficult in the midst of a sandstorm and drowning in ice water. There must have been some significance because a freshman I knew killed himself two days after I came back to Ohio after burning my dad to ashes- not pretty but that is the truth.

But really, my story ends and begins and ends again before my dad, the little girl, and the freshman. It starts more across the road from my house- a cute house that spoke up and loved to yell at me through the lanterns at the end of their driveway. “This house has been condemned by the state of TN” is what the sign should have said, instead, the sign read “sold”. My high school years were taken over by the alchemist that moved in next door. We did black magic, made rain pour down on those outside lanterns, had the whole neighborhood talking about Satan’s magic, rituals, and poltergeists. It was quite the dance, it was indeed.

I suppose that it is unfortunate that I did not notice the warning signs of mercury poisoning. I got mono my senior year- close enough. Lessons were learned, new potions were consumed and the little Alice in me was raped and I know not where that girl is anymore. Pain is an odd thing- a sense of red queen anger passed over me like the god of Death stealing away your first born son- just because he can.

This particular Aleister Crowley in my life was- unexpected- as it were. I had not forseen a knave of hearts so early on in my life- ah well, the things we give up to learn about the dark arts. It was quite an opening night for the circus, I can assure you. That is enough of taste testing on that particular tea party. On to more vamps and veiled curtains.

Chapter two: What is behind curtain number two?

I don’t know, maybe I should give up on writing a book. Too much time trying to find colloquial words to explain what I’ve seen. Try this image on for its profit and see where this veiled door takes you: Angry men whisper hatred to each other at the corner bar, the painted face in the window used to be a real woman- dead faced and licking her wounds she breaks out (gotta love high school acne and hormones) of her ugliness to be dolled and pasted on every teenage magazine in America. She works for someone famous now. I have often wished to just write while I sleep- easier process I would think than sitting at starbucks watching sport teams assembly and de-assemble.

My dreams, however, are a tinge bit macabre. I was offered a front row seat to watch a torture scene during the French revolution- the body was someone I might have known in ages past, or maybe it is me on that table. I shall never know. Never estimate how far you are ready to fall down the hole of rabbits- the unconscious will always surprise you.

Maybe this book will change, break, pierce, make someone cough, eat a fruit or vegetable, get your haircut: for that is all we can really hope for, am I right?

Now on the topic of hysterical women: I have met two or three in my clock ticking backwards part of my life. I felt haunted by a piece of myself that was hard to express in the binary times such as these. It was more of a labyrinth expression of masculinity in all of us that looked towards. A question for the insecure personalities reading this and writing this: how can androgyny work in a system that defies this word, much less its creative function.
If I can produce in myself, both masculine and feminine colors, then am I not doubling (at least) the binary means of propaganda?

There are then four categories of gender (well methinks many more than that... but who's counting the time down to zero) to watch for: the feminine, the masculine, the fusion of both and the absence of both- these last two being more interesting to me than the first two. Are there spaces (the width of butterfly wings) in which we can enjoy divine comedic relief, enlightenment in the erogenous zones and mad tea parties and perhaps my musings and shout outs to asylums (where more of our prophets end up).

A picturesque pity that we live in the move to Aquarius and I am still getting looks (even in the most liberal of spaces) for mouthing words to a song I hear in my head. Woah, happy unbirthday to me.

I frankly do not believe in long chapters because I can’t keep my attention and I know you can’t either. What is the time allotted for our generation of conservation and concentration: like 30 second attention span? We, the generation of big ideas, and no persistence longer than 30 seconds. It’s kind of a damn shame.

Chapter 3: Time has a money face and so do monkeys.
What do you call yourself? I mean, not your name, but the place that you hold- your space. I’m not always an advocate for the “naming” of spaces. But in this case, I am striving to explain a multiple universe of intricate identities, tied one to another, by string or rope from the captain’s quarters on the east Indies trade company-

floss, cake mix, timed writing exercises, bats do fly into people’s hair, the Byzantine empire, the czar of Russia, cannibals, molasses, Ginsberg, fish in their respective ponds, meat on its rotisserie. All these things make up the surroundings of my space, but not an identity or word can express this actual spatial reality in which I live.

Let me try once to explain: aura migraines are to be expected, paranoia, screams from below that make me afraid of the dark, songs descend on me as if hookah smoke pours from the ceiling and slips down her face and runs down her body to the floor. Words that have no definition, broken dishes, smell of snow...

[insert alice set to a game of chess]

[insert second chorus: tik toc]

The mad hatter (being me of sound and body) and alice ( being him of sound and body) asks you once again to afford yourself to the chessboard for a match. It is time my friends, it is time to join in our solid pursuits...

The White Queen has many declarations she would like to inform you of: first off, who will fight the jaberwocky?

The mad hatter says I will indeed fight and go mad once again for the white queen.

and the cheshire says says I will fight for you and the hatter on his head....

and the doormouse says: I will fight in the the fight with the jaberwocky till death for your side..

and then Alice turns and runs away...

She then meets the capetillpar who is just now coming into her butterfyly-ness... she is all and one and one and all and everything and she is like a god set to music on fire...

this makes alice rethink his choices and decisions, with his friend and his dad about (there were six at that table honey) and joined forces to help you as you undergo the hardest task or trial yet. We, all your loyal subjects, will follow and fight with you to the end. We do it all for Alice: the white queen, the red queen, the cheshire cat, the mad hatter, the catepillar, the dodo, the father of alice, all of us together will fight for your cause, my friend

we will help you all the way and you can just take on the jaberwocky by yourself to prove to yourself that you can do it once again....

I can be whomever you need around, for I have many faces to choose from, and the rest are, ya know, that...

Fourth Mad Chorus:

fairytale come true- life- true story
I gave the white queen
a hand to hold
and kiss,
She gave me her
signature on ice
and wrestled the red queen
for me-
mad hatter and white queen
at last knighted and united,
chalice and blade:
together at last.

Death cards become us today,
criss-cross chessboard,
last we met,
gave me light in the darkness,
the only queen
in the sky,
I’ve ever seen.

Salem witches,
of all sizes and shapes,
virgins and whores,
slaves and free,
gave into magic
and beautiful horizons
yet unknown to them.
We burn together
my friends,
we will burn and unite
and change into beings
in the future times,
for now, just having a bit of fun.

Swapping Stories with the Showerhead

I took crucifixes off the shelves of the saints

and wore them around my neck,

catacombs also warn like red scarves in the snow.

Rock back and forth to keep the faith

that the earth still turns on its stomach,

24-7 bellyache in my opinion.

Oh my God, Oh my God

the house is on fire! The children are home!

The woman cries into the street,

the firefighters,

arrive on the scene,

only to find a pbs special of Jim Jones

and his kool aid transubstantiation.

The whores on bourbon street-

the same reincarnated Sabine Women,

the sphinxes of the Egyptians,

Mary Magdalene dies, again, alone and crying,

history can be unkind to those he does not understand.

....

It was early morning,

I left the Viper Room around 3 am,

possessed by the green fairy

I headed south as anyone in their left mind would do

to the corner where the sewer runs to the sea (rudely, and without apology).

I sat,

smoked a whiskey,

slurped down a cigarette

and headed home.

I swear she was awake

when I left her in the care of the piano,

to buy her a stiff cup of coffee,

and find her a cab

with a smiley disposition.

....

This lifestyle was disfiguring at best,

more time swapping stories with the shower head

than with the professors at the established universities,

the mercenaries for each new fad,

Gucci purses from snakeskin

psychological warfare and suicide bombers.

....

Times weren’t so bad,

every story has a sideline,

an excuse for profanity,

a fatal femme fatale flawed fall guy.

I’d give my right pocket of my favorite jeans

to sink back into my dreams

and go skinny dipping

for the pleasure of the howling moon.

....