The Penguin Poem

The Penguin Poem


I said to the person inside of me:
What is this connection you want to make?
There are no equals in the entire world, on any road I’ve yet travelled, and I’ve travelled many.
Do you see anyone moving, acting, likened to the father or
mother penguins, as on Magdalena Island (Chile), or Antarctica?
There are no written rules, or code of conduct, or ten-commandments, no oath to take, and no one to impress, no policeman at their door (and they live during child bearing, in the cold hard dirt holes of Patagonia; or in the cold winds hitting their backs, and no holes for shelter, only ice barcodes they might find, in the Antarctic). There is no warm skies, or ground, just cold waters nearby, all around (some far, some near), no time to bake bricks or trees to cut down for wooden homes, no money in the bank, no cars, just little feet, and little flippers, to get from here to there.

And there is nobody to help them, and no human mind to devise something that will make their lives
less burdensome.
In that great absence you will find them, doing what they’ve been doing a long time, ten-thousand years or more: the males and the females gather around a big meeting area, in the Antarctic cold and ferocious winds, look about for females as they look about for them, as they come and select their boa, hatch an egg, and then the husband, takes care of the egg, as the mother finds her way to find for them food! Then returns, and takes her newly born child, and after awhile, they go off, back to the—now—thawing sea, the opened ocean, leave them standing there to be on there own—which in time they’ll leap into the ice cold waters, and thus, start the 10,000-year cycle all over again. Thereafter, in all likelihood, they may never see one another again, but I’m sure if they do, they’ll be most grateful, and more than friends.

“Be strong,” they silently say to their offspring, “and enter into your own life, and leave something behind!” (Knowing they’ll do all they can, and in this new world of theirs they’ve got to be on their own, and strong.)
Think about this carefully!
Don’t go off and say big deal!

The Penguins say this: just throw away all the gifts in one’s life, all the
things your mind can imagine,
and stand firm in that which you were created for.

No: 2811 (11-6-2010)

Writing with Poetry and Prose

Writing Poetry, Prose
And Poetic Prose



In writing books of poetry mixed with prose, there are reasons I do what I do, more than a reason, a goal—let me explain: the poet is usually able to transcend the particularities of a story, without writing a story, which poetry being of many elements, one is that it is a story, in essence a very short story, one that I end up questioning and stretching out in my own personal life—and trying to find the human nature in that part of life: if that makes sense. In short, psychology and philosophy and economic conditions and political issues are all mingled with profound reflections, imaginations, sometimes to make a point with complexity as I write (although I try to simplify things, so I do it with poetry and prose, instead of density and complexity)—at the same time, poetry cannot do certain things, so we must depend on something else, lest we be helpless at sea.

In this respect the short story, notes, articles (or perhaps even a novelette, or novel—and in my novels I’ve used poetry, in this case, just the opposite) or the variety of one or the other, must be written to take some of the attributes poetry cannot give, which will give the relations of man—or fill the gap for man along with: fate, imagination and his dreams that poetry cannot fill in its present form. It will take the mould of this odd form—the conglomeration of all this to give what the modern mind wants to give to the reader, or what my mind wants to give in the case of a number of books I’ve written. Therefore, this is why in many of my books I use—the precious prerogatives of poetry and prose, its freedom and flexibility to get the minutest fragments of mass through the subtle labyrinths to the reader.

Depending on your goal, a third thought, on why I do what I do. Too much time is wasted—for the reader in trying to figure out what the poet is trying to say or do—too often in poetry. Every bone in my body tells me this, and days and hours are precious. I am not sure what the world thinks of this ejecting of old rules for new aloof poetry with prose—or for that matter, poetic prose, and I suppose to be honest, I don’t give a hoot, as long as my poetry can easily fit—and naturally blend, change the reaching into the goals (or story) I wish to grow on solid ground—if that makes sense.

Poetic prose is the middle ground, different than poetry, in that it being different makes it what it is, poetic prose. Looking at it from a different perspective—and people have fought the idea of what exactly is poetic prose—in my simple terms, and perhaps an over suggestion, what poetry cannot deliver, poetic prose can; what prose cannot deliver, poetic prose can. Prose often times uses too much description (and a writer can go in circles—lose the reader’s focus), no longer effecting the reader, whereas poetry can, and poetry often times leaves out too much description, explanations, and tries to get its effect directly out of the emotional part of man, thus—again, having the reader pause, and losing him: the short cut in-between both these writing tools to me is poetic prose. There is a rhythm to poetic prose usually, intensity also, and more clarity than what we may call traditional poetry, and if the poet can, motion. And we have no limit on words, description, explanations, and one can use all the tools in the toolbox, a poet may want to use, likewise a prose writer.

An Ominous Sunset (a short story)

An Ominous Sunset
((or, “Eventide”) (Part one of II))




Chapter one
Eventide




“Fast falls the eventide—in the blood red twilight—the bleak night deepens, the demons creep closer—I go alone, no one to abide with me.”

—last spoken words of
Vargas the Seer



And so it was, this was the bleak weariness of the doomed man, bound for hopeless oblivion, in the underground continent called Amosodos—a land that come out of shrunken seas that had bound a forgotten race, for nearly ten-thousand years; the pre Adamic Race, that rebellious race that lived before and for a moment of time, alongside, that is: side by side with Adam’s Garden of Eden, so legend speculates, and in which it arises to this very day in select groups. And where time has little meaning, it is a land of nothingness, one of the 72-deaths, appointed to mankind, and the only one deemed for the sorcerer direct, where dishonor and abomination for him by the human race, is beyond understanding. Hence, this is the edge where the old man stood, and there after a short time, Amosodos appeared out of nowhere, and opened its crumbling gates for his departure, for eternal solitude, this was assigned him, this was the land of near total night, with only blood red twilights to entertain. A land of shadows and shapes, a land where just a few select went, a special group, the sorcerers, and necromancers. The most merciless and evil who practiced their art, which were incapable of not hurting mankind, obsessed, oppressed, with the art, addicted to its punishing whims. Vargas the Seer, devoted every God given minute to the practice of the art of magic, he had no peers, no equals. Here he could not hurt any human or earthly living thing—here he could use his art fully with no harness, his ebon wand could be used likened to loose cannons, here he would meet his equals, and those beings from before the advent of earthly time, the time.
These were not resurrected beings, nor quite demonic either, they had never died—death was not created until after the advent of Adam, and his expulsion from the Garden; nor were they ghosts, they were not of the same kind of soul of man; consequently, Vargas the Seer was assigned to a lawless land, a tomb in essence, a big tomb, that disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared, and there he stood on the edge of this platform, about to be pushed over onto this dark continent, with its ever swelling population. And then he used his magic wand…



Chapter two
Amosodos


As he took his first step onto the continent called Amosodos, his wand, turned into a snake that bit him, and he dropped it, then he looked at the pageant of faces, supposedly live captives like him, whom he had thought were dead emperors, and empresses, and war mongrels, and presidents and even holy men, did they survive their death to live among this immense judgment? The snake followed him like a pet dog.
The closer he got to these people, he could see their bodies looked more like plague-eaten corpses, evidently, their bodies dying, but they still had to live in them: their loose flesh, similar to rags piled one over the other, until another judgment of mankind came about; so he would soon discover. What little sun they had, it was pert near dead. Those who were fairest, were the newest, those most ravaged had lived here the longest, and perhaps overmuch necrophilia lust.


Chapter three
Vargas the Seer


By and large, it was a different kind of land; they all spoke one language, moved slow, ate and drank as in life, what they could find, even dirt, grass, and yes, insects and rats and all sorts of morbid looking creatures; it was that or starve to near death, endure the agonizing of hunger, but they could not die. They all looked water-drenched, sluggish, dreadfully so, from the rising and sinking of the continent, perhaps weekly. Everyone’s brain was enthralled with the possessiveness of magic, but it did them little good. What was evident, after a few days for Vargas the Seer, was that: people wished for eternal sleep, another of the 72-deaths assigned to mankind, or for their passion and desire and delight to be taken from them, their addiction, only to find out, no matter where you go after death, you carry with you your old habits and character, your nature. The other longing was to return to the wakening world, the earth mother, the surface. But Earth could no longer take them—deal with them, they were too destructive; nor could the human race, or the beastly species on her surface. Consequently, there was no other place for them.
He noticed among the spectators the spirits of: Updike, Monson, Van Gogh, C. Sibyl, and J. Smith. C.A. Smith, H.P.L., E.A. Poe., S. King, and Mrs. Oakes Smith, and Odin (among the others): somehow they had a window into this world, but where were they?
Vargas took resentment for whomever allowed these spirits into his new realm, to observe him like a rat, he was demanding his rights, of all things. His so called irretrievable rights he left beyond. For, nonetheless, he still had his pride. And he started to create a revolt, a ghostly one if anything, and created resentment against the observers. It was something new for the horde of seers. Perhaps it was a way to avoid the pain of his new earth-shattering state of affairs, to bring about mockery of those who allowed the spectators into the hidden window.
Day by day he watched those shadows behind this large window that allowed the observer to see all corners of the continent, “It is crudity,” proclaimed Vargas the Seer. He stood by the big window, and could hear them drinking, their drunkenness and gluttony, as he stumbled in his formidable spells that raised no more attention than a whisper among his comrades, or an eyebrow lift.

Then after his so called fit of protest and anger—and a month’s time, he went unheard—forward, with no glaring eyes, or clotted blood, forward, not looking back, he turned about into a tranquil silence, with no further need of words to his doom—he knew it, he went wearily to see the blood red sunset, it was the only entertainment left in this night labyrinth continent, except for its untarnished rising and sinking.

No 704 (10-31-2010)




The Virulent Vault
((or, “Zeedmev of Venus”) (Part II, to “An Ominous Sunset”))


Zeedmev of Venus, a great sorcerer who had been at Amosodos since the first Century A.D., who had claimed to have been abandoned on earth eons ago, had learned—remembered more like it, the foretold forbidden knowledge of the Old Ones, the angelic beings who were cast down from the clouds, in the time of Enoch, he learned of the 72-deaths, in particular, the 71st; he was now living in the seventy-second—Amosodos. The seventy-first, was that of eternal sleep. He had forgotten, but now remembered its formula, and that it had to be chanted during the orbital flight of Sedona, a comet—that circled two solar systems—while over Earth’s surface, adjoining the spell; it passed every twenty-years.
“Do not despair Vargas the Seer,” said Zeedmev, having seen him now for several months mopping about this hidden and ambiguous continent called Amosodos, “There is a way out for you.” Vargas’ eye-lids opened-up wide, stopped blinking, “With the aid of an old astrologer—friend of mine, Amanas of Glastonbury, I can estimate when the comet Sedona flight over the Earth and the Drake, where our submerged landmass resides, I will then promulgate my powers, to the 71st Death, with a spell so powerful, your body will release its soul, and it will go into eternal hibernation: an eternal sleep, it is called the Red Spell, although there is some ambiguities with my science, knowledge and spell enchantments that I may not be able to resolve, it is a chance for you, to have a new death—I prefer it here, but I know you don’t. And for this reason I give you the chance of death, I will request of you something although.”
“And what might that be?” asked Vargas.
“To be a devoted slave, servant to me, to use your magical art as I tell you to; in essence, I will be your ruler for twenty-years, when Sedona is upon us, I will release you and bestow my gift onto you.”

The deal was made, in the dark-ash colored oblong, Virulent Vault where all the poisonous snakes gathered, and where those who had secrets to tell, met, a meeting place of sorts.

It was with a sad heart Vargas accepted, and was quickly branded with Zeedmev’s initials on his forehead, to show one and all, he was purchased. And thus, he worked and waited anxiously those twenty-years: watching newly arriving seers and sorcerers making their homes into this realm-less, and sorrowful kingdom, of terrestrial lost souls. Too sorrowful for tears and constant mocking from the demonic beings, those idiotic wide nostril beasts from a time long lost to man’s memory.

Now the comet had set over Amosodos, over its submersion grave, in the deepwater’s of Antarctica— and as Zeedmev was midway into his chanting, and Vargas the Seer, was there spellbound awaiting his death to be, midway through the chanting, the essence, the soul of Zeedmev seeped slowly out of his fleshly frame, and what was left of his body, its corpse like body, had fallen like a rug on the ground, withered into a coil like form, and evaporated into nothingness. Who died? With mouth wide open Vargas was dumbfounded. Zeedmev had the last hurrah. And then slowly Vargas went on his way—knowing again, he was helpless.


Note: 10-31-2010 (No: 705)

The Suicide Way-house ((A short story)(Parts I,II,& III))

The Suicide Way-house

((or, “Going On!”)(Part I of III))



“You can’t go back, no way, therefore you must go on, go on with pathetic eagerness, if you must, if that’s what it takes! But go on you must…” said Old Miss Wayfarer, giving the young woman a helpless look, a forever look on her face.
“I want to go back,” she said. “I left my little girl in the car all alone.” Annabelle Hague had seemingly stumbled upon the wayside motel (the sign read although ‘Way-house’), how she came upon it, she didn’t know, and Old Miss Wayfarer boldly and frankly said, “Mercy, suicides can’t go back, you all seem to travel alone, and your little girl will be taken care of, don’t worry about her, she’ll be fine, they always are. They all want to go back when they get here. They’re all waiting to go back, how insane. So many of you folks stop here on your way, and I tell them like I’m telling you, you can’t go back, you can only go on, although sometimes the other ones commit suicide, to catch up with their loved ones, like you but that’s far and in-between, in all the time I’ve been here I’ve only seen a few like that. That’s the plain truth in a nutshell.”
Annabelle thought for a moment about what the old proprietress had said, “I can wait,” she told the old woman—“yes, that’s it, my daughter will catch up with me. I know she’ll want to join me, and when she comes she’ll have to know where I am, and if I go on, I’ll miss her, this is the first motel I’ve seen on the road. She’s just like me.”
“But you can see over by the hearth in the other room Mrs. Annabelle, I have a full house, please don’t ask to stay here and wait, just go on, that’s better for everybody.”
Annabelle had been looking over at the dozen or so guests, or perhaps by now they were residents, pacing to and fro from the hearth to the windows, looking into and out of the windows perhaps for their loved ones—their faces to appear, a glimpse into the future or beyond, and in the red hot flames of the fire—they looked. All having long hair, haggard looking, as if they’d been there for years. Annabelle had had a forlorn look on her face for a moment—when she had first arrive that is, but an all new expression had filled it now, hope!
“There, there now!” cried one of the voices by the hearth, she had looked into the fire, and thought she had seen a loved one.
“Perhaps now and then,” said the old lady, “they think they see a loved one, so they stick around the fire, or look out the windows, but I doubt they really do, but they all think they do, and they are afraid if they go on, they’ll never see them again. The seasons never change around here much, it’s seems always windy and cold.”
Truth or fiction, it didn’t matter to Annabelle what the old woman was saying, if there was hope, then that was better than nothing. Annabelle had formed a new composure, a new outlook, the old woman noticed, likened to all the others when they first heard someone say they saw some loved one from the past.
“Well,” said Annabelle, “it’s settled, I’m staying. If only for a little while, then I’ll go on, as you say I should, if you don’t mind.”
The old lady nodded her head ‘yes,’ knowing if she didn’t she’d be pestering her for eternity, although she was not please one bit, but once hope got a hold of the passerby’s, and they got to missing their loved ones, and regretted what they had done, there was no way of convincing them to go on, to go forward, they were in-between, and that is where most wanted to remain.
“Is there anything you’d like, Miss Annabelle?” she asked.
“Nah!” she said, as she hurriedly went to join the group pacing about the fireplace.

No 707/ (11-01-2010)





Old Miss Wayfarer
(Part II, to the “The Suicide Way-house”)




The old lady, Miss Wayfarer, dare not push Annabelle; she had been through a traumatic experience, and her existence would no longer be what she was accustomed to, this realization had to take place first, and sometimes it took baby steps with her fresh arrivals, sometimes it took years—meanwhile, you just wait for the adjustment…tell them to rest, especial for the child-like adults, who thought the sun followed them, or should. She knew this was different, that going on wasn’t necessary worse, but who’s to say it would ever get better for a person, for her, for Annabelle, I mean, she never talked about that, it wasn’t important for her—she didn’t know either, she always was careful to plan her words. Furthermore she know everybody, feared the unknown, and change was hard to adjust to. You know what I mean, people try to cling onto familiarity, and in the process create these new obsessions to linger about. But there she was, Annabelle, with the others now strolling about, scared of course, but she beamed, almost fatuously, as she looked deep around the fireplace. Then abruptly, Annabelle looked at the old lady, as the old lady was staring at her, just staring, feeling weightless, without force of any kind, no gravity to her body—it would have seemed to anyone else, the old woman was almost amused, that is, half in amusement, and half in disappointment, Annabelle accepted it as if she simply had too many guests, but the fact was, the old woman was not like her guests, and perhaps, if she could have, she would have, given an apology to Annabelle for that look, which was really a feebly laugh—no, not quite, perhaps something else, whatever, she broke off engagingly, that grin or feeble laugh—you see it all was a little upsetting for the old woman, there was something disarming about it all. And yet, obviously, she took on the responsibility—offering light, conversation, and shelter from the weather, to those passersby. You see they had been coming there for a long time, perhaps at first by accident, but now it was as if the once original road that went only one way, had a turnoff, at the Way-house. At first she hadn’t realized who these people were…what they were, the dead walking, looking, lost, the suicide-dead. By now, after all those years—stiffened by the reality of it all, and by the time they got to her place, having lost all their human substance, she just couldn’t say—“go on” and leave it at that, so that was how it came about, although she continued to tell them to “go on,” but she was one of those bleeding hearts you see, and just couldn’t slam the door in their faces. And since she lived alone, and no one else could see them, what harm would it do to lend a helping hand.

No 708/ (11-02-2010)




Going On!

(Part III, to the “The Suicide Way-house”)


Old Miss Wayfarer was never afraid of them, she knew they were harmless, why, they couldn’t move a thing, eat or sleep or for that matter, do much at all, and so to stick around was to her ridiculous! I suppose, that’s what bothered them the most, they were helpless to hurt themselves or anyone else, they were in essence no more than a puff of smoke, that sill held their past configuration of their bodies, but it was simple a picture, a loose form—that’s what she saw, that’s what they were, perhaps a little beyond a thought-form. She even came a few times to the conclusion, it was a lunacy of hers, but on the other hand, perhaps she was psychic…the other was too unbearable to live with, I mean, ill or feverish, that—was not something she wanted to come-in to play. People have a Sixth Sense, she told herself, and believed she had it. Anyhow, the rain and wind hit the windows, made a lot of noise, a wolf in the woods howled, the old lady started mumbling, uncanny like, “Poor things,” she said, “If only I could give them more information, they might up and leave.” She knew most had stayed—those over a year anyhow—stayed once they got over the shock of being dead—stayed because of the lack of information. The old lady smiled at her self, wondering if there were other Way-houses like hers. She looked complacently at the people by the fireplace, she was too old to keep this up she told herself. Between death and those haunting faces, and life on the other side of the coin, she often felt more dead than alive. Abruptly she opened up her door, glanced into the wild winds and snow that had started to fall onto the road, behind her looking at the assortment of people, hastily running from the window to the hearth, she started to walk out of the house and down the path, leaving her mansion, or the mansion, childlike, she turned looking back now and then, looking, saying to herself it was all an insane long, very long delusion, a mass psychodrama, by the ghosts—I mean, the suicide dead, she was for the most part exhausted from it all. She noticed that her guests, the guests, those folks in the assembly room, where the fireplace was, kept looking out the windows—not at her, only partially at her, but she had believed so firmly or perhaps she made herself believe, until it was natural, she was who she was. Her tone of voice turned to merriment, “What drew them all here?” she whispered to her second self, that hidden self deep in a person’s mind, then she giggled, she was no longer afraid of the cold, or the wind, or death, or anything, she was ‘going on…!’

No 709/ (11-03-2010)

The Minnesota Toad (or, The Rich Landord)

The Minnesota Toad

(The Rich Landlord)



I was told, in so many words, that the wisest if not slickest (perhaps cleverest) Landlords in the State of Minnesota was this man they called “The Toad”, bred and lived in the city of St. Paul, nearby where I lived. Not sure how that came about, but I’m still here to say I heard it: and that fellow said, “You can take your pick of fellow Landlords anyplace in the State, and bring him here and we’ll talk wisdom, and money, and I’ll back The Toad up, he’ll come out number one every time. This old Caretaker said—“I’ve told everyone who wants to become rich and have wisdom, to come here, this is where it’s at, he owns several places in town, he’ll tell you how he did it.”
He then, introduced me to this wise and rich Landlord, his first name was Oscar, I can’t tell you his last name, and it would be telling a secret. When I had met him, he pulled up in a big white automobile, and I asked, “Oscar how is it you’ve become so rich (I left out the wise part), in all your dealings here in Minnesota?”
And this is what he told me, “Friend,” he said in a mellow tone, his arm over my shoulder, as if I was his son (he was about sixty-five years old, white short hair, small man, round form, perhaps too round and too small, and he had a girl hanging on his shoulder as he pulled up, and told her to get lost and she went someplace, and that was that), “Friend, the secret of being wise and making money out of the Landlord business is: you bend all you can, let the whores have a room in the basement for the male tenants, and pay off the inspectors when they come around, and make false claims to the insurance company, and then you rent all your rooms to whomever you can, the niggers, and wops, and Mexicans, and Asians, and what you don’t rent, you rent out to the whores or drug users, and what they don’t rent, you live in! It has nothing to do with sweating, boy; you hire the people you rent to, and take them to bed when you can, or if they can’t pay, and in-between you make them dependent on you.” Then he started laughing, as I was looking at his gold rings and thick gold chain around his neck.
This was an old timer; I was the young buck back then. I don’t recall how long it took him to stop laughing and settle down, but it was a while, and I waited. He took a liking for me he said, and asked me to buy him a drink at the local saloon. And I did. Figuring he was a penny pincher, but only to find out he was broke. I asked the bartender, “What is it with this old coot, he’s rich, driving a big car, and I got to buy the drinks?” Oscar had gone to the bathroom.
“It’s those young fillies,” he said, “He wants every young thing he sees, wanting all the time, he only collects half his rent, he takes the rest out in trade.” I had noticed he was taking his good old time about going to the bathroom, and then I noticed he came out with two young fillies, one black and one Vietnamese. He left them at the end of the bar, and joined me at the other end. Then on his cellphone he called at this one woman’s house who was married, saying to me on the side, “She’s married, but suited for me, a young filly first-rate,” and he gave me that laugh, and put his funny looking hat on, it was gray but reminded me of those 1920s, Laurel and Hardy movies.

No: 700/ 10-29-2010)
(More truth than fiction)

Ebony Cameo (a short Macabre story)

Ebony Cameo
(or, “A Sinister Night in San Francisco”)






My stay in the city of San Francisco occurred during a period of my life no less faint and dubious, contrary to than the city itself, and the misty bay lying thereabout. I have little recollection of the long train ride to this locality—I had been drinking heavily—I only remember when I got to the place, got situated—(I was to be found: that is), I was perplexed, my mind disheveled (back in 1968), and when I sat that first evening by the fog-enfolded inlet that flowed out into the Ocean, its walls and wharf: now that I think of it, they were mortuary clanging sounds, I surmised that I was impending an eerie evening if not tantalizing—it was my first night in an international, cosmopolitan metropolis, I was a young lad from a Midwestern capital—thus, here I was situated, placed at the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge.
On reaching the Golden Gate, this colossal bridge that crosses the bay, from San Francisco to a sister city, I could have continued at will, on this road, leading out to a lesser troublesome city, to a remoter city, and I did set foot onto the bridge, and I saw a shadowy shape, a ebony cameo, silhouette, under the bridge was black waters flowing to and fro, joining the bay with the ocean, a silence as still as death engulfed me.
My past life at this point was dull, boring and perhaps dubious, as I have somewhat described already: all the more so, that I had to investigate this mystic silhouette—because of my need to live, be alive, perhaps for forgetfulness of those dull days, who’s to say, I mean, my perseverance, and persistence at this time, my search for oblivion, was unrecorded—only in time does one learns it is all vanity.
Anyhow, there I was, forgetting the death of my Midwestern soul, slain this very moment, I had sinned, and the deed was done within my mind, now only to be acted out with my body. And my erratic temper, my unruly tetchiness—was mild as a kitten; she was to be my lethal poison, she laid in the somber winds of the evening against an iron cool beam on the bridge, she tortured my mind, with her sleek body, I am uncertain of her age, I was twenty at the time, perhaps she was the same, or twenty-three or twenty-six, I never knew. For years afterward I had wondered lightly on this—heeding little value on it, and full of wine at the time, and she was full of agents of oblivion, and we were available, and usable, and thus, I came close to her, somewhere in this indefinite journey, San Francisco, dim as the evening was, it was well as she, had capture me.
The moon, if ever there was a moon, that evening, had been lost for I knew not how to find it, had been lost into my subconscious, but I could see every naked curve of her body, and the shadows and the mist that fell upon it. I felt that evening mist; I heard her heavy tolling, I gave her no shelter from the night—only the covering of my body, but it seemed to her to be more than enough.

So I never crossed that long bridge, and fell to sleep thereafter the act, entered the grimly yawning of dreams, and hearing the quickening of many footsteps the following morning, only to have waken me, alone on the edge of the bridge, pants unbuttoned, the noise of the city in progress, a few people were staring at me, and I brushed myself off and zipped up my pants up, in solemn haste, as if going to a funeral, an errand look, of no delay.

The streets seemed to be overhanging one another as I walked to and fro trying to get my second day in this city under control. As I plunged among the many, along the streets, sunrise in full blossom, the memory of the previous night, every step of it came back to me, but her face. For this reason, and this reason alone, I did not look for a hotel, or bar, but sat on a stool in park like area, content not wanting to lose the evening before I put it into a vault, trying to sort out the darkness and fog, dissolve the oblivion. Could I find her this day, I think my spirit, mind, my soul would be more tranquil if I could—so I told myself, less reiterate in its all clanging to seek her out.
I had no idea how far I had gone into the city, roamed among the buildings in the night, peopled by thousands of sleeping dead, then as I looked about, I became aware of how tired I really was, and felt I needed not only food and wine, but lodging. Nowhere had my mind picked up on anything of this nature the night before, so the next person that looked at me I waved too, and he came over, he was a thin man, looked like an accountant, and I asked him “Where sir can I find some lodging, and a respectable place to eat?” He pulled out a card, after checking me out, and said, “I’ll be home at four o’clock,” and walked away. He wasn’t my cup of tea, then I noticed—and it was to resolve my issue here—a sign over the head of the passer-by, it read, “Sleeping rooms!” And next door to it was a café.
Hurrying along with the crowd, my intentness to get a room at the hotel, I saw her, I think I saw her, I followed her through street after street in my futile search for her living face, but it was her body I had noticed most, at length I tried to catch up with her, actually I had made up my mind that was her, even if it wasn’t, as I bumped this person and that person, and pausing to get a better glimpse in what direction she was turning and now there was turning heads at me: scolding me for my abruptness. Then an unspeakable chill came over me, invaded my spirit, as I came a foot away from this person, a dreadful smote, breath of doom, putrid odor—emanated from her, it was as if the smell of death, a decayed body from a tomb, a smell that had escaped the rotting of death had encircled me, this all appeared to be a bad coincidence, if not a sinister psychodrama, she stopped and turned about: she was black as hell, and had an irrevocable fatality grin on her face, she said, “I’ve been dead a long time, move away, or join me in my coffin!”
The moment had evoked the vainly wish I had ever met that person, and I now was being pushed here and there by the crowd, feverishly trying to get around me, as I was frozen in my step. Nobody else seemed to see her, nobody bumped into her. Nobody inquired what the matter with me was, just told me to get out of their way, bewilderment had filled my cerebellum.
I made it to the hotel, the building looked very old, its upper floors had thin hallways, and few lights glowed indistinctly down the corridors, I found my room 302, and locked and bolted the door, that evening the odor of that very woman came back to me, a musty odor of antiquity, of the crypt, it mounted the hallways under the doorways, it didn’t seem to attract the attention of anyone but me. Then there was a silence, and after much delay, the doors down the hallway were being opened and shut—it was all a cadaverous moment, I opened the door and peered down the entry, and then there she was again, looking at me with that ugly frowning of hers, with pompous gravity as if the wind could pick her up and bring her forth like a flying demoness.
I slammed the door, “What do you desire?” she asked outside of my door, “for you,” she went on to say, adding: “just a room for the night!” Then it came to mind, she was a lost spirit of some sort, and she found no one drunk enough to bed her tonight; evidently, the night I met her, the night before, which I accommodated her, she couldn’t find an available room either, and thus, stood down by the bridge waiting for anybody male with a drunken spirit, and low morals, and perhaps female would also do.
I had slammed the door so hard and quickly, I heard someone coming up the steps—thank goodness I thought—although the person was grumbling “Who’s making that confounded noise up there!” It was the caretaker. I wouldn’t open the door, I didn’t say a word, I didn’t respond to him, or her, matter-of-fact, I pert near held my breath.

My heart beat a hundredfold that night, and she is a menace of memory for me now. A live dream from the tombs—or better yet, a nightmare, poured out into reality; I have cursed the hour I have met her a thousand times over, and now at sixty-three years old, yes, forty-three years later, she has kept this sinister circle alive, she has somewhat entombed me—she shows up sporadically, in the frightful vitality of present things in my life—during events; always as a shadow or shape in the crowd, a outline in the side of a window: the reason always, or the reason I think she shows up is always for preparation for me to go back to that bridge, and duplicate our first meeting—god forbid if she thinks she’s found a soul mate, and I’ve stopped drinking.

No 702 (10-30-2010)

The Third Kind of Sparrow (a short story)

The Third Kind of Sparrow

(or, “The Yellow Sparrow”)


The briskly, yellow sparrow had not been born in Mr. Evens’ garden like so many other of the sparrows that patronized his little patch of land he personally made for them, but he was there as if he had been, and perhaps lingered about more so than many of the other forty sparrows and doves that lived there, or thought they lived there, and the old man, thought it was about time for the one and only Yellow Sparrow to eat something, I mean he had been there going on eighteen months, God forbid, he came and he left and he never ate. I mean, here was a small house garden, with no roof to enclose them, so they could come freely to and fro and even go over to the nearby park and when hungry and thirsty, come back for fresh water in a clean ceramic container, five weekly cleaned out birdhouses that they seemed to go in and out of like a busy metropolis, and all the fast food you could eat—the best seeds this side of Alaska, all the greenery, tall and short, a bird could play in, and a clean—weekly cleaned out, freshly watered birdbath one could swim in or just float, take a bath or shower anytime of the day, and no crows, or pigeons to eat you up in-between, and he wanted to know, why he came only to take a bath, and chitchat with his fellow birds.
I mean the bird always smiled, and for a bird to smile it was difficult, with those short faces and tiny beaks, but they can: they puff up those side cheeks, and curve up those muscles under their eyes, and those feathers appear to squeeze together, and that is there smile, in a nutshell.
But let me describe him and his tiptoeing to the birdbath: first of all he’s (I think he is a he—he could be a she) a clutching little fat yellow breasted sparrow (perhaps more wide than fat), when I say clutching, I mean he hangs onto things tightly—(perhaps all birds do) or at least he appears to, as onto the branches of the greenery in the garden, or onto the edge of the birdbath, and so forth, tightly. After his bath, he flaps those little wings to adjust whatever he’s adjusting, rigorously, and like a little wrench tightening himself up, tidy like, he’s got to be the cleanest sparrow this side of the Gulf of Mexico, and I’m in Lima, Peru. Furthermore, who is ever around, this yellow bird when he takes a bath, gets a shower free, as he briskly dries those wings of his off; funny, every sparrow around seems to automatically create a distance from him, after his birdbath, and many during his bath. But I’m not absented-minded, the premise of this story is, “Why does he not eat?”
We all have our own ideas of why this is one way and why something else is that way, and I’ve come to my conclusion of why the Yellow Sparrow does what he does, or in this case doesn’t do, what I think he should do, meaning ‘eat,’ perhaps the only one conclusion I could come up with that makes any sense to me: there are not only two kinds of sparrows in the world, such as to say, those everlasting hungry sparrows who seem to eat and fly and play about constantly, or the sparrows who like to find a peaceful place to chitchat, live and sleep— there is a third kind, a select kind, one who could careless about the peacefulness or the availability of food, he is the Yellow Sparrow kind, he is the third kind, the one I could never have told you about unless I saw it with my own eyes, the birdbath sparrow, the addicted sparrow to cleanliness (like my wife, Rosa), instead of all that other stuff—which I ‘m sure he likes the peacefulness of the garden, and perhaps when I’m not around he may find a seed or two to eat on the ground, but I’m convinced, if you gave him the choice, he’d pick that birdbath every time over eating or sleeping.

No 706/ (11-01-2010)
Dedicated to the Yellow Sparrow, Rosa Peñaloza and Enrique H.