First Flush of Spring

In the Spring when the weather warms
Kamela is wandering naked again
Amongst the tea plants
Grown on steep slopes
Under the shadow of Kanchenjuenga.
The sisters surround her
With bright red shawls
And together they inch down
The steep muddy goat trail
Past the broom reeds and cardamom shoots
Onto a small terrace
Where the rain collects
And a tethered goat
Stands guard on a rock
Bleating its hungered cry.

Kamela and the sisters
Enter a ramshackle hut
With no windows or doors
And three coughing babies
Tended by the oldest boy
Who will leave school at 10
If she can find him a job.
They look to see if Kamela
Brought a package of biscuits
To satiate the gnawing empty pit
“Not now my babies, maybe tomorrow.”
Her heart is filled with shame.

The sisters know they will be punished
And lose their daily wage
For half empty baskets
They must get back to the plants.
Quickly they help slip on
Kamela’s flower print skirt
Her apron
Her bright red sweater
They wrap the scarf around her head
Help her pull on rubber boots
Attach her basket to her back,
And together ascend the steep trail
Returning to the fields
To pick the first Darjeeling flush,
The finest cup in the world.

__


Plants groomed to perfect round,
Buds picked by crafty fingers
Thrown deftly over the shoulder
Into braided reed baskets
The throngs of giggling women
Pose in smiles for passing tourists
In Maruti vans. The smiles turn to curses
As the drive by shootings
Take the souls of the women
Leaving nothing to offer
To drip into empty coffers.
Kamela coughs and spits up blood
The fever is high today
But there will be no pay
If she goes home to rest.

Kamela is Brahmin, highest caste
Early the next morning,
She asks at the temple
What karma this?
As she takes the blessing,
At least I am not Adivasi, she thinks
Not dark skinned, like the sisters.
She smears red powder on her hair part
The sign of marriage,
Of a husband, yes, who can’t find work
He takes her meager wage
And drinks it away
Leaving bruises on her
Fair Brahmin skin
Now dark and leathered
From years in the sun.

She returns to the garden
To pick the first flush of Spring
One pound of which will bring from
Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly
Enough to pay Kamela
For the rest of her life.

The Dance

Swirling, twirling
Thrumming, drumming
Thrusting, grinding
Skirts are flying
Beads of sweat
Are dripping, slipping
Down my neck
Shirt sticking, wicking
There you are across the room
Your eyes are closed,
You’re praying, swaying
Things that bind
Are fast unfurling
Opened eyes
Now calling, pulling
In my chest
Heart’s beating, heating
Singing, luring, weaving, laughing
Drawn from far across the space
We’re inching, stepping, leaping, flying
Finally we’re face to face and
Flowing, rocking, holding, falling
Trusting, catching, joy unmatching
Rolling, riding, fast unlatching
Locks that formed from rigid stance
Have found their keys inside the dance

Maddening Hearts exposed

Dear Readers,

It seems obvious that my attempt to write this story as fiction is not going to fly with all you sharp folks. It is fiction, but based in a true story. Mine. I chose to write it on my blog because I was reading my journal and realized that it is a really interesting story, and might have broad appeal. However, I was hoping to explore it as a writing project, not as a therapy process. Now that it seems you've all figured out my master plan, I'm not going to bore you anymore with the details of one of the worst and devastating relationships I've ever known. Or to invite any therapizing on my process or choices.

Furthermore, I am frankly just not anywhere near there anymore, in my heart, and it was starting to feel like I was dredging up demons that really don't need to be aroused. What has been written already has served its purpose, and I value all of your feedback tremendously, and I thank you for it from the bottom of my heart.

Not a Bar Girl Anymore

This photo has nothing to do with the story. And yet, in an abstract and metaphorical way, it really does. This week a dear friend from my first days of traveling the world two years ago found me on Facebook. I met her at the hotel bar where I was staying in Bangkok, she was a bar girl. aka-Thai hooker. We became close and she confided much in me. Although this poem is partially about her, it is also about many of the girls I met there, often sent by their parents into the city to do this work in order to feed their families. Many of them have children, but not husbands. You would never know this unless you asked. Instead you will sit and feel loved and pampered and caressed and cared for. You can pretend that it is all about you when you are in Bangkok, the land of smiles, because these girls and their massage shop counterparts will make you feel amazing. And yet, they are real, with real souls, and real needs. I am happy that my friend is now working as a secretary and is no longer a bar girl. One up, thousands more to go… In the interest of protecting her identity, I am not using her real name, nor her picture.

This is for you, my MIA. Thank you for your words today. You are right, we can’t change the past, so why dwell in it?

Daw walks down Soi 18
Skirting between the changing shifts
Of food cart and hill tribe vendors
A white bag of offerings in her hand.
Arriving at The Rain Hut
She offers two rolls and a flower
Placing them lovingly
Into the birdhouse temple
She bows her head and says a prayer
Then kisses the golden Buddha
Hanging from her neck
Tomorrow, she thinks, will be better
If not this life then next.

She sits with the other girls
Combing mascara onto
Long dark lashes. An hour spent
Adept as Toulouse-Lautrec, they
Transform into their reputation
From village farm girl, to city bar girl
Ready for the long Bangkok night.

The evening shadows grow
As the city starts to cool
The sun and sweat have burned
Holes in the souls of those
Who come and fill the seats.
It’s the 50 baht per Chiang price tag
The cheapest on the Soi
That gets the crowd.

“Sohee, get me a Chiang.”
She brings him a cold beer.
Daw has another treat in store
POP. She slams her hands together
Extracting a cold wet towel
From the plastic enclosure
She dabs it lovingly over
His smelly sweating neck.

“Chokee!” He said, raising his bottle to the sky.
“Chokee!” Said the crowd in response.
They tip back their heads
Draining their bottles
“Another Chiang!” They cry in unison
Sohee doles them out and turns on the stereo
Blasting Thai rap out into the Soi
The crowd starts to dance.

A leering man twirls his fingers
In Daw’s straight black hair.
“Sohee, short time with Daw."
Sohee puts the cup on the table
The man deposits 500 baht
Taking Daw by the arm
They walk through glass doors
Up the stairs, and into a room
Filled with the scent of mold
And screaming with the songs
Of Malaria and the Dengue Fever
He pushes her onto the bed
And lives his fantasies
For half an hour,
Pretending she is there.

Grasping the Buddha between
Long painted nails
Daw closes her eyes
And thinks about the future.

Hours away in a small village
A little girl looks into her
Grandmother’s eyes
And doesn’t question
Why she gets to eat tonight.

The Catalyst

The catalyst’s eye
Forges a burning cleft
As the raptor feeds
On carrion lies

The crystalline gaze
Breaks placid serenity
Sinking through the battlegrounds
And blood stained festering scars

It falls

And falls

And falls

And lands

Smack into the middle of everything

The dam cannot keep the crows back

Rippling
From the center
Gentle waves become a tsunami
Forging rivers
In the long dried
Ancient cracks
That lie
Beneath the stone

Maddening Hearts in the Last Year of Innocence, pt 5

A serial piece exploring a year in the life of a woman who loved a mad man, as told through her journal entries. You can view the entire series (in reverse order) here.



Sept 19
Media conference begins.
Not at the beach.
I have blisters on my feet because I had to wear shoes and forgot socks. Didn’t have a chance to buy more. Blisters on my heals.

Sound and vision blasting me from all the booths. It’s overwhelming. I make the rounds, hoarding freebies and stashing them in my free conference loot bag.

Looking for enchantment.
Find the magic,
Seize the moment

Cease the moment
Now sell, now buy
Beach memories
Beach longings
A black cloud over Joel’s head
Barefoot on the beach
Miss Joel, he’s gone
Body here, he’s in some other place
Surfing the perfect wave
Where am I?

The day ended, now I’m here at Bea’s, she is making a fabulous feast for her daughter. It is good to see family. I can’t remember the names of the kids. I quietly asked Silvie the baby’s name. She won’t care that I had forgotten. I come inside and pour a glass of wine.
Call Gavin. Good to talk to Gavin, good to hear him moan in response to my telling him my feelings of longing, of how good it is just to hang with him, how much I like him, just like him.

Bea thinks I’m nuts to want to be with Gavin. Maybe I am. I can’t believe what I’m feeling…Gavin, are you my soulmate? Are you? Are you missing me? Longing me?
I feel these things. Your smile, the twinkle in your eye, mmmm….

Blisters on my feet are the opposite of what sand feels like.

Want to be back at the beach!

9/21/00

Today was the equinox, and this is the first time I realized this…I wonder if it had anything to do with the funk we were all in today. Tired now, focused a lot on Joel today. Didn’t want to talk to Gavin for some reason, probably because I feel so cranky, but I called him anyway. He was UP tonight, had a good chat but felt slightly strained. Probably because I felt cranky, and I am now worried about Gavin too. Finally managed to discover that he was about to walk into a bar. Maybe part of why conversation was strained was his reluctance to part with that tidbit, juxtaposed with him wanting to tell me, not hold back. So I’m glad he told me, and I hope he behaves, and I’d be lying if I tried to cover up thoughts of Joel, not sexual though I do find him very attractive, when I think of sex, my thoughts float to Gavin, but I’m in love with Joel too. He is just wonderful, supportive, thoughtful, generous, but…he’s not Gavin, BUT it’s the equinox isn’t it?

9/23/00

I’m leaving early. The thought of going back with Joel and Larry, especially Larry was so unappealing I cried at the thought of it. Larry just looks at me and I know I have failed in his eyes. I just can’t be around that for two whole days. I’ll miss Joel tho. Something magic happened with Joel this week. I wonder what will happen with all my feelings when I return to Gavin. It’s almost as if the more time I spend with Joel, the more Gavin drifts further from my thoughts. I also know that when Gavin seems to be getting manic, I feel a wall on my feelings for him. Self protection I think, he’s not so nice when he goes UP.

So I’m sitting at the airport with Gia and Penny, waiting for the Southwest 90, 4:15 to San Francisco. Really anxious to see what happens to my heart when I’m with Gavin again…

A funny note: Last night Joel and I went dancing with the cuzzins. We had a blast and tore up the dance floor. Joel is a WILD dancer, all that hair flying every which way. Bea grabbed me in the bathroom and confided to me that Joel would be a much better choice, that I should be with him!

Joel and I decided to go have one more walk on the beach, and so around midnight we were down at Pacific Beach walking in the sand. He started talking about communication and how it was so good with ours. Then he asked me if I thought of him like one of the girls. I said, yeah, it was kind of like that. He said, well, I’m very much a guy, and you’re very attractive. My heart fell out of my chest and landed on the sand. He said he had just broken up with Susan and the timing was weird considering I JUST got with Gavin. I agreed with him, part wishing he would just throw me down on the sand right then and have me, although a bigger part of me was withholding those kinds of thoughts. Then he said that he thought that if we got together, I’d suck him dry and he’d become an emotional wasteland. Something about me just told him that.

What is it about me that makes men have that reaction? Do I have
'Femme Fatale' written all over my face?

I’m so tired I need sticks to keep my eyes open. Hopefully I can take a nap on the plane.

The Night of The Weird Thing

Our Navajo guide was resting with his back against a tree while the students laughed and gossiped, exploring friendships and newly found low notes in their tents. Gathering a moment to myself I looked out over the plains from our high perch on the sacred mountain, and let my gaze lift up to the soft blue light still present on the western horizon and, what the heck is...

“Hey, Phil, what is that thing?” I pointed at the huge point of light hovering in the clear New Mexico sky. It was way too big to be a planet or a star.

“I’ve seen that before.” Phil knew what it was. Grabbing his binoculars from his knapsack he stepped out into the clearing and took a good long look.

“What is it?” I pleaded.

“Look,” He handed me the binoculars.

“Oh my God!” I stared for several minutes at what looked to me like a huge diamond shaped space station with bars of light that were moving in a line across its front section. It seemed to have much smaller objects flying around it but I could not tell if my eyes were playing tricks.

The kids came out of their tents and gathered to see. They passed the binoculars and as each one looked, a jaw would drop and the words, “Oh my God!” would emanate quietly from wonder filled lips. Wasted attempts to get a photograph were made and awe turned to laughter as the kids analyzed the possible meanings with jokes and giggles.

The weird thing stayed there, unmoving, for 45 minutes before retreating, turning red, and fading off into space.

_____

I wouldn’t have believed it either if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

Back at school a couple of weeks later we all met again and I asked the kids to draw what they remembered. The image at the top was the most detailed version.

Have you ever seen anything that can't be explained?

Maddening Hearts in the Last Year of Innocence, pt 4

A serial piece exploring a year in the life of a woman who loved a mad man, as told through her journal entries. You can view the entire series (in reverse order) here.


9/17/00

Driving to the conference with Joel, his surfboard on the top of the car. We’re on the long and horrible highway 5 and just got back on the road after a bowl of split pea soup at Anderson’s. Joel picked me up from Gavin’s this morning and it was interesting seeing the two of them standing next to each other. Joel seems so bright, his eyes alight with fire and passion for life, and Gavin is like the dark horse, seeming calm but some kind of mischievous darkness lurking under the surface. I just wonder when it will explode.

I just love talking to Joel, it is so easy to communicate, there are no eggshells, the conversation just flows with no threatening overtones. I’m glad we decided to go to the beach, and I’m glad that Gavin doesn’t seem to be jealous and supports it. I doubt if I will be able to read this later, moving cars don’t make for legible writing, I guess I’ll stop.

9/18/00

A little sleepy today because of camping insomnia. We got to the beach last night and immediately dove into the water, soul refreshing! So good after an 8 hour ride in the grueling central valley sun. God, I didn’t realize how much I have missed the beach! Something about these Southern California waters that’s like coming home to the womb. It’s too bad I don’t like SoCal more than 20 yards inland. But the beach, oh such an aching longing to never leave the beach…

Joel and I stopped at VG's Donuts a few minutes ago and bought a huge bag full of heart attacks to munch on, and now we are down at Black’s Beach and Joel is surfing. He wants me to be his witness so I’ll make a feeble attempt at recording what I see as I see it:

Joel’s Witness:

Warm fog obscures the clarity
Sand plovers, pelicans
Misty cliffs in a U
Surround pounding waves
Joel paddles through the rough shore
Finds a calm patch beyond the surf
And waits
Like a string on a fine tuned instrument
He senses the coming of the wave
This is it!
His spirit flares as he turns and faces me
He raises his arms as if to say
“Totally Tubular!”
And turns back to the horizon
Other surfers all facing to the West
Heads bobbing up and down
What’s this?
Joel in a tube!
He dives off the board
Into the drink
He becomes a slinky dolphin
Rising up and out of the water
And in a split second, mounted
Facing the horizon
A true Pisces.
Fog thickens, he is a misty silhouette
In a golden white backdrop.
I watch
He waits
His inner strings vibrate
Again, he senses The One!
He begins to rise on the wave
Alas, not this one…
Back through the wave
He faces West again
And waits

Near me, small birds flock
Running across the sand
In little minute feet.
They stop to stick their pointy
Sharp beaks into sand crab palaces
And run off into the mist
To loot some other unsuspecting home.
The cliffs are shadowy figures
Sloughing off shrouds
As the glow through the fog
Shines to bright gold
And the sun makes its ascension
Over the Eastern hills.
The birds come running back
They are one in their motions
Until all leave and one is
Left behind, but
The three turn back
To collect the one that was left…

I catch a glimpse of Joel
He is riding a wave!
He rides for a long time
Then dives into the tunnel
He turns to me
“See? BITCHEN!”
I respond with my arm
“Totally Rad!”
A lone seagull walks by
Picking up a scrap of sandwich
Left yesterday on the beach
I drift off to sleep on the sandy bed.
Pleasant dreams of Gavin
Tingling sensations through my body
Warm and glowing from an inner
Warmth, tingling on my skin…
Awakening suddenly, I am chilled
Goosebumps on my arms and legs
The fog is lifting on the breeze
Things around me are vivid and clear
A road, a pier, the tops of the cliffs
I take a bite of my VG donut
Noticing the exponential growth
Of surfers facing West.
A seaweed covered form arrives on the shore
Dragging his board behind him.

___
Yeah, that’s Doggerel with a capital D but it was what I saw!

What an incredible day, beach beach and more beach. Fish tacos at Rubios, Gavin called, he sounds a little distant, I’m ignoring it, more beach, all day beach. Calling, calling…Me calling my soul back to life that is timeless.

Joel said he was happy to have a babe witnessing his joy from back on the shore. I am dreading the confines of the media conference tomorrow. I want to spend weeks and weeks of todays. I want to walk on the beach forever.

Gavin, you like the beach don’t you?

When Moons Fall Out of Orbit

(Image of Eagle Nebula from Hubble Space Telescope)

Adrift
A moon in a nebulae sea

Cast off
From a thousand suns

Revolves
No more around dark matter forces

Pulled
To the black hole’s edge

Vacuumed
Into a field of opposing gravitations

Reduced
To elemental atoms

Ejected
Into vast ethers of undefined space

Carried
By the waves
Of a massive
Galactic radio
Jet
Far
Into
The

F
l
o
a
t
i
n
g

N
o
t
h
i
n
g

Fission
Ignition of a virgin
Protosun glows in soft brown
Eyes of an almost stranger
Vision of unseen magnetic
Forces captive a binary system
Of glowing singularities
In a random universe
That doesn’t know
What orbit
Is

Valentine's Special: When Muses Laughed, a poem cycle

When Muses Laughed
A Cycle of Poems

1. Sonnet: The Invitation

What muse has touched the lash upon your eye?
What tender thoughts has she provoked within?
A deeper ocean there within resides,
Where muses bathe in waters warm as sin.
It’s there I saw a ghost of you swim by,
T’was just a glimpse, a play within a play,
I asked the muses then if they would lie?
And with a laugh, “Indeed we do!” said they.
With this, mistrusting everything alike,
As muses fraught with arrows leap and bound,
I’ll set the veil upon a pointy spike,
And utter hence to you in gentle sounds;
If whispered soft my pleas could warm your skin,
Let tender fingers touch where muses reign.


2. Limerick: The Answer

I sent a poor man a love sonnet
And let him set down there upon it.
He struggled for hours,
To say his not nowers,
For there on his head was a bonnet.

3. Senryu: The Resolve

Therein lies the cat,
Revealing the knead, a claw
Soft purring soothes heart

Notes on inspiration: a thank you to master sonnet writer Scott Ennis, (and let us not forget The Bard himself) for the tutelage on sonnet writing, to the memory of Dorothy Parker for the humor in cynical response, and to my cat, Marlow, with whom I am passionately in love.

Maddening Hearts in the Last Year of Innocence, pt 3

A serial piece exploring a year in the life of a woman who loved a mad man, as told through her journal entries. You can view the entire series (in reverse order) here.


ee cummings-somewhere i have never traveled. Performance and slide show by Catherine Vibert.
____

9/8/00

Today I was listening to the ee cummings poem improvisation I made for you. I remember giving you that for Valentine’s Day a few years ago. I always had the feeling ee cummings was speaking of something spiritual when he wrote that poem, but when I made that rendition, I thought of you. The power of your eyes on me…like when you walked into class that day, and sat down next to me and just looked at me for what seemed like an eternity. My blood turned to treacle and I knew then that I was hooked on you, and completely powerless. It has been like that for so many years. That poem for me explains perfectly the effect you had on me then, and still have on me now. I don’t know if that is good or bad. I think I was angry at you at the moment I made it, something about it seems angry…

I watched you from the kitchen window as you focused on your work and puffed away on that silly clove cigarette… Just seeing a look of satisfaction in your face, what a funny juxtaposition against the ever-present wildness.

I wonder what it is about you (that closes and opens) that I am so very drawn to (whose texture compels me with the color of its countries) that brings out all the sweetness I’ve ever felt for anyone (rendering death and forever in each breathing) and multiplies it by thousands…

(Nobody, not even the rain has such small hands…)


9/9/00

Oh jesus, such romantic crap. I simply don’t understand why it is that whenever you look at me, still, I forgive whatever trouble you have caused in my life, and in the lives of all the other hundreds of women you have devastated with that stupid gaze of yours. Why do I do this? There must be something terribly wrong with me. Why did God pick me to be the whole world of second chances? I don’t get it.

A thin veil of glass
Sleep,
Sleep,
It will be gone when you wake,
Love knows no separation…

9/10/00

Joel called today to talk about our upcoming camping trip at the beach before the media conference. I get the feeling he and Susan broke up. Bad timing!