A moment between silence and the absence of deafness

(TODAY, June 12th, the morning before my Father's birthday and I do not know what to say yet)

This morning as I lay here, it is quiet.
Time...
Passes
And it is quiet.
A moment or an hour or many pass in silence as still memories.

And the silence has ended.
A bird chirps nervous and an engine whines lonesome on an empty road.
I must rush to fill in the space between when I realized all were gone, all sounds were absent and this moment.

Moments before the thud, the heavy thud of earth walls buried deep beneath me all was as it should be in deep night. Quiet, silent but not void of all sound.. 

When the quake hit sharp heavy and singular, I sat up. The cotton sheets, the ancient patchwork sewn by ancient hands did not rustle.

I listened for the next quake. I waited to bolt down the hall and out to the garden in front. I thought of saving the delicate thin wine glasses as they were treasures of my children, but I thought it best to head to the garden.

Nothing.

No further angry shakes of the earth, no mountains slipping toward the sea...nothing.

In a few moments I realized there was nothing. I was sitting in a void, a null. A space missing all sound and movement. Even beautiful movement had gone and trees stood painted and motionless.

No bird chirping singing happy sad nervous or hungry outside in the trees that lined the back.
No heavy leaden curl boom coming from the nearby waves I had watched the night before as the sunset and all around me hurried to prepare the evening meal.

No car creeping by, tires on roadway, eyes peering out dewy windshields. No birds.
No breathing of any of the others in this little cottage.

The air, the space was void of all sound. I thought I was deaf. I went to bed early not feeling well but I may have opened my eyes to the last sound, the sound of the earth groaning, slap hammer heavy below and then I went deaf. I replayed the last sound in my head and no one coughed or rolled restless and there were no birds and no cars and even the clouds must have stopped because there was no movement. There was no sound and I missed music and the hum of crowded coffee shops and even hipsters speaking of nothing but themselves.

And after what seemed hours, night hours when you lay there and wonder about tomorrow and the next day and the next, I heard a bird chirping nervous ( where is my next meal?) and a car heading south, heading to the city and the engine and the tires and maybe a radio a bit too loud.

And in a few minutes I was no longer deaf and I stepped into the sweetness of early morning sound.

The day I learned the Castanet faded

(First draft)

Down the road alone.

Yesterday I learned of the passing of the hand fashioner of the castanet. Another loss in evolution. Snap

Going going…soon gone, 

Castanets and flamenco.

The low pitch castanet clack of the seguirillas. Flemish themes of loves, Flemish themes of the mischievous, of the playful. Sung slow and sexy and somehow out of the fires of hell, it was borne in a Flemish hell, a Flemish Hell of Bruegel.

Seguirillas with Sentiment, Seguirillas sung in ancient folk tones in ancient poetic form…swirl of the tailed gown, swirl of the ruffled tail gown, songs sung in low pitch to the snap clatter snap of castanet. Arms move like waves deliberate. Eyes, like birds watching prey, never losing sight and pray, dance gypsy. Flamenco is like a gypsy, like our true selves, no boundaries. 

Just distinct deliberate movement. Movements with purpose. 

Arms moving like undulating waves, intentional, conscious.

Repeat.
Repeat like a replayed song on repeat and snap flash, snap flash, flash fire : 

Do not lose hope

In canto jondo

in ancient Flamenco song

from Lorca who heard

the rhythm of the birds.

To Falla

Who heard the ancient words as

gypsy
most pure

primitive and ancient
and pure and then snap

snap snap

Clap a vision

The purity of ancient song released my visions.

And it all came rushing. The rhythm of the castanets brought a memory of a little restaurant in dark street fog of North Beach. Crowded wood tables of their only dish of simple fish cluttered paella and full glasses of fruited Sangria were pushed back to the walls. Cooks became dancers, bartender set aside the bottela for a worn guitar, fingers snapping gut strings, hands shake clacking castanets and we were mesmerized and safe from the cool night fog wrapped in the now moment of the gypsy flamenco. The group assemble forgot all but the night and saw the swirl and the flash and all became exotic.

Vision of Hemingway rough drinking on cobbled Spanish alley streets while a war raged in burnt hills. Smash drunk, comrade battle drunk arm in arm and singing of Spanish women fighting alongside poet freedom brothers.

And the gypsy danced while they drank to forget the blood.

Vision of old friends in Barcelona watching a turtle crawl, claws clacking on textured cool concrete, slow sliding under a bush as the heart fade feeling of a lost love moves back but is never gone,

Vision of Nazi teeth clattering in lonely nights, frightened by gypsies, frightened by their dance and clack snap of the castanet that lead gypsy spirit anywhere. Heil and no respect for the state, for the line, for the boundary, for ours, for theirs. Heil and no respect for anyone lifted to a god. They only followed the ancient song rhythms of the birds. Heil and boots marched unison empty. Nazis squirmed, and forced them singing, dancing, swirling red tail dresses, arms waving overhead into fires. And the Nazis died and the gypsy slap dances and fingers pluck taut strings

But they never died.

Visions, a mind rush of thoughts about the Las Ramblas in Barcelona and parrots in gilded cages lining the street, and drunken red wine afternoons fading with friends in green spaces.

 Along side the lap, lap, lap rhythms of summer slap waves, of mediterranean waters against crusted pier posts.

Today, the loss of the castanet man brought vision to me. Maybe it was the primal rhythms of birds. Maybe the next time we meet in the falling rain to the sss sss sss of the drops and splash of tires on asphalt.

The Story of a Man.

I have been a lucky man. I have met some wonderful spirits during my journey. They all accept or reject me but I remain a lucky man.

He once said to me as as we crossed over a simple bridge at a festival in the country that he had decided that life was a series of Focus and Distractions. He wasn't sure is at that point he was on a Focus or begining or end a Distraction.

Some things you never forget.

This is a short piece written in my words but as I would imagine his voice, the telling of his journey,
This is the Story of a Man.

********************************************


The country of my birth is passing slowly. It was crowded with the downcast frowns of the people who drudged through their lives until they were buried and they left nothing.

In the country of my birth, there were those that could smile and dance and they owned things. They thought they smiled because they had things and so I wanted things. I wanted to smile. I wanted to dance.
And then I met a woman. The woman taught me that there was more than just having things and singing and dancing. What made the song, what stirred the soul to truly dance wasn't things: it was joy.

And I learned Joy. I learned in all of the compelixity of having things (and I had many) nothing would lighten my foot or brighten my face like the feeling of Joy. It was one of the lessons shared from my mate, the sound I heard in the laughter of my children and it even flowed from the forests I wandered through. When I opened my heart, it filled with joy.

It was what had been missing.

I spread the joy to those around me. I spread the joy to my children. And in return, I was given more joy, more smiles and I witnessed many dancing, many singing. I heard a different sound than just the pounding of the drums. I heard joy of spirit. I learned from those around me and by my actions, just by being filled with the peace of joy, I changed the world I lived in and filled the spirits of those around me.

The people of the country of my birth were still there. Some had many things.Some had few things and still the light in their eyes and on their faces was muddied and dull. The wealthy ones still danced and sang and even smiled but they missed important ingredients to life: They had passed on joy, they waddled passed love, they never even found gratitude. And their drums just thudded, their music monotone and their smiles where simply thinly painted on the shallowest of forms made with the weakest of broth. They had failed to soar.

Today, I will dance, without even a whisper, the joy will stream from me and those around me will fill with the spirit that spills from my full goblet.

I still come from a crowded little country, a speck in the universe. I am still surrounded by those lost with much, or lost with nothing. My path is different. I seek the sparks and the fire

 —

Found scribbled on a scrap of paper: ”I am me above all else. You can accept that or bite me!”

 
     It is nothing really but someone asked what it would be like to be a laundry machine. It took me a few hours, but the laundry machine morphed into a sentient being that sat in it's place waiting to be fed the bits of life that it finds on our clothes. It know everything about us. Here is a thought. Not great, just a thought.




     Before I consumed the scrap, I knew the message was meant for me. I am in charge here. I am the power. My body powerful sucks the water like clean blood and violently churns and spins and digests and absorbs whatever life I find.
For a moment I rest in silent, still and my eyes half shut in doped saturation of gluttony.
And when that blood is ripe full with the debris of life brought in sacrifice to me, I squeeze frantic every insignificant scattered fragment and flavor and scent and I am complete. I discard like so much like useless detritus. Drained and sucked of any life and I see beyond this space I am in. 

     Unlike any other in this home, I see beyond these walls. I see beyond and eagerly suck any bit, any morsel of life found on what I am fed and I know what has happened beyond the place I stand. A vacuum sucks only what they roll over, knowing only whay has fallen useless to the floorpath. They are like some recumbent lazy Buddha only seeing a path carefully chosen. They do not see deep into where all have been.

     Like a mountain, I stand, but I am climbed. Like a river, I roar, but they cross me, swim me, let me guide them. And like a planet I spin and careen through the blackness, but I have seen all. I do not move, but it is brought to me, sacrificed and stuffed tight to my belly and I know. 

     Sorted rags and chosen clothes fill my gut. And when I begin, I pull any crumb of life, any grain or smudge or splash of food and I know where they have been, I know sweat. I know tears. I taste the drips of blood and piss and speck of life they have offered willingly to me. I taste and my eyes glaze.

     I churn and lick and spin and soak any trace of life from what I am presented, leaving only the cotton or woven fabrics that they drape upon their soft and pungent bodies they take back to their lives.

     Their lives. It is pathetic to think of their lives. As I know all that has happened and I absorb every trace, there are no secrets from my belly. From dancing sweat and stains of cheap beer to perfume soaked rags and lust that wrapped them as they live silent in desperation. 

     They think they have no equal. But they do. They see no rhythm, but there is. They sense they are superior but are blind to their path. I know their path and they are pathos. Sometimes I am bored.

     I know where they have been. I taste their sadness and joy and contempt.
And when I am done and I sit full and silent, the offering is removed to another and it does nothing but blow warm air and fluff and dry and prepare them for their next adventure.
     And I will sit here waiting to capture the next step in their journey. I will know better than they know themselves, where they have sat, what they have done, where they have been

A few words tonite from Tree that I thought were worth capturing as a note

A few words tonight from Tree that I thought were worth capturing as a note

 

I don't often post other peoples work here, but I liked this Facebook post on Night Surfing from Tree Love. I think it is worth reading just has he wrote it.

July 24, 2009 at 9:59pm

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Tree Love 

I surfed from midnight until dawn last night and right before sunrise paddled into deeper water, for a vigil, laid back on my board and floated to and from consiousness in a heaven of stellar dreams. 

Saw several falling stars. 

Heard a friend yell and awoke in the perfect spot to catch my nights best ride all the way to shore. 

Doing it again tonight. This is what my life is right now :) 

I wish you guys were here with me. 

Really what I wish is that you could close your eyes tonight while you dream and just take a passenger seat in my head and lay back and drop in with me for the rides tonight. 

It's a rush committing to, chasing, and dropping into the blackness of rushing water over head high without so much as a glimmer of ... More moonlight in the sky. 

Just me, the milkyway of stars, and the rather impressive Great White shark that was filmed yesterday off the point we surf and broadcast on the news networks. Seriously, I absolutely love that fish. She bought my friend and I some very rare space and sweet serenity. 

Nearly nobody paddled out until dawn. Just us. 

That's what made it so amazing. I love the little space where dreams and waves collide :) 

Especially when my friends join me there, even in their thoughts. I love you guys 


I loved the way it rolled and flowed like the oceans roll and flow and the way Tree brings the enormity of the ocean to a cosmic sequence of events that are occuring in his mind and that he shares those moments with all who read. 

It came out smoothly and unconsidered and yet if Hemingway had been a hippie or danced at the boom wow of a mad slashing DJ charging and discharging flash in the night air, then he spoke with a voice through Tree tonight. 

But it didn't have to be a voice. It could have been a moment so clear so captured in his minds eye that translating it to a few dozen words on a screen just eased to the keys and happened and caused peoples around the globe to say Wow...I get it, I see it, I feel it 

And that is what it is all about!

 

written byTree Love

Everybody already node wah dem dawgs bark

    

Everybody already node wah dem dawgs bark

                        Everybody already node wah dem dawgs bark ‘round here.

                        Some sayin’ they a barkin’ cause the 5-0, the Guvermint, is getting to close and they’re justa lookin’ fer what we’re a doing. Snoopin’ ‘round awl sneaky ‘n stuff so’ins we can’t hear ‘em.  

                        Some say them dawgs is talkin, farm to farm, house to house. Maybe they’s justa lookin’ out fer ya or maybe dat girl got all dun up all purty en she snuck out agin to see her beau and now their jes makin’ ’to much noise and theys spookin’ the dawgs.

            Coon’s. Coon’s en varmints ‘l cause them dawgs to start a holler’n when dey start skittering near..

            But dem dawgs tain’t stupid like some of those folk hid up in the hills, dat nevah makes it past der fence n’ comes down to town justa once in awhile. People starts to laughin’ and then the strangers hi-tail it back to their holler, swear’n nevah ta come back to that town agin. Dem dawgs ain’t stupid like them. They nose what they’re barkin’ ‘bout. They nose just what they is sayin’n dawg to dawg.          

            Dawgs’l start a wimpern’ late sum nights and there won’t be a sound in the holler. But they’ll be a laying flat ‘ganst the ground so you math miss ‘em an all. But deys there cuz you can hear the dawg wimpern soundin’ all sick ‘n skeered in their gut. And in a few minutes, a little time’l pass and then jes about 20 minutes pas the middul a nowhere, the sky will lath up an fer a few minutes it’ll look like there’s a carny in the naght shy, humming sounds an clouds a flashin’ in the naght. And it’ll look jest lahk yer down off the highway in the empty field by Jessups Dairy and its a Friday naght and peoples walkin’ round and everybody smellin real fine, causin’ they scrubbed off the week a field work and every light on the carny will be on an it’ll be a flashin’ and a flashin’.  

            An them dawg’s will jes be there a layin’ an a moanin low from their gut.

            They just ain’t dumb. They can hear stuff and smell stuff b’for we ever’d node it was there, lesson we stumbled on et. And we’d a stood there a starin’ at it and thinkin’ “What the hell is that?” Dawgs’ll know when they should be a barkin’ and a holler’n all mean and fierce lahk and when they should be a wimpern lahk a puppy. 

            Flat down of the ground as if they’s a prayin’.

            Sumtimes, in days er nahgts, the ground a starts to tremblin’. Ol sheds’l rattle n’ creak and birds’l jes take off lahk sumone dun fahred off a dubbel barrel at ‘em. Yew kin hear rumblin’s from a big ol train under da ground and there ain’t no tunnels neither. Justa trains a rumblin’ down deep. Like if they was takin’ a train from one parta hell to nuther.

            And the dawgs bark. De start der barkin’s b’for da birds fla off or the train starts a rumbling. Kes the dawgs know. They gotta secret deal with this here place and des know when thangs are about to be a happening. Dem dawgs ain’t dumb. Den dawgs ken tell whatsa happenin’, I reckon, jes b’for et starts up.

                        But everybody nodes wah they really all bark ‘round here. Ain’t much of a secret ‘round here…

 

Everybody already node wah dem dawgs bark (audio file)

This is a short piece of Flash Fiction I completed recently.

It was read by Jon Farrar who, I believe, has done a wonderful job interpreting my work.

I added the various pictures. It is just as good without the images! Thank you and please leave comments! I "borrowed" some pictures from the internet files and will replace the borrowed ones soon!

Little writing assignment.

Welcome me back to the desert:

     While I was away, there was a little writing assignment to write about 2 people doing nothing, It should not have been hard. Doing nothing is pretty much what we all do everyday. It just seems really important at the time.
Sometimes it is the doing something that really moves us along. I have a friend (no really I do) and she volunteers at food banks in the Bay area and she does "stuff."

But many of us spend time doing and saying little to move ourselves forward. Learning, I think is a good thing to move ourselves forward. Whatever it is.

Regardless, writing about nothing was hard, because even in nothing there is something. Seinfeld (the TV show) was supposed to be about a group of characters interacting but "nothing" happens. And yet, every week we watched them do nothing and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Her is my little attempt at nothing. These could have been more, there could have been less. I just wanted to paint a little picture:

      “Duh…Hi.” He was slouch-shouldered and never really looked up.

     “Hey.” The other responded like a tepid Tuesday afternoon.


     There was a pause. A bird flew over the two but couldn’t be

bothered to land.


     "Whatcha doing?”


     His eyes followed the bird’s flight
and you couldn’t tell who he was talking to.
 

     Eventually, sound smothered the silence…

“Nuthin…”

 
     “WhatCHA doing?” and for a moment there may have been a

 flicker in his eye. It faded quickly.

     He rubbed the dirt road with the toe of his dusty hightop.

.
“Not much...”

     It was not like anyone had to run off. There was really nowhere


 to go but escape the pause between them.


       Whatcha doin later?” It could have gone back and forth for

 hours, until maybe one dies or his heart just slowed and slowed and

stopped.


      “Don’t know. You?”


     It was even hard to look up or too watch them.

     There was more space then sound. They may have never

moved, saved a for the sound of a foot rubbing the gravel

brown dirt where there should have been sidewalk.


     “Oh, jes wundrin”


     He sighed and was waiting for more words to come. A streetlight

 overhead flickered on and then woke up full on for the rest of the dark.

Giving Up

            

            She gave up.

She doesn’t even stop to pick up a bug and leaves him on his back flailing his legs.

            He gave up soon after she did.

He has no reason to get up in the morning and even less reason to stay up.

            It just piles up around them while they wait sleepy for it to end.