Coming into Focus

Let your beauty be seen, sister. Inside, and out.

Things He Said

from desert flight

he descended upon her nest
on a Taurus moonlit night,

dragging his broken, golden wings behind,

warning he may not stay long

yet engulfing every moment

awake and asleep, with his presence.

he said she was a stepping stone

and so he stepped on her threshold

she said she didn’t really mind

(except she did sort of mind )

but looked for a deeper voice

she caught a glimpse of in a dream…

and she was hungry
his lips were sweet,
a flavor she had known
somehow

It was nectar
to be near him.

something told her to let him stay

and he stayed

though he said he didn’t know why…

and she offered him water

and he drank and drank and drank

and they would laugh, and play, and he flooded her with attention 

and as soon as she felt in love

he said he felt nothing

nothing

no thing at all

she dreamed of poison snakes in the gemini moon...

the surface is hard

but surface cracks

the stepping breaks the stones

under the stones is the water

he longed for water

she let him drink

as she longed for water

so drank his tears

listening, patiently

to long dead stories that filled the air

with sound and sorrow

and longing

she touched his scaly wings

his steel clad armor skin

and tried to reach inside

feeling moments of melted metal

she sang to break the barriers

to feel the soft inside spaces

and heal the broken pieces

or at least try to soften the edges.

He drank with desert thirst,
offering hollow words to her hope

that almost, maybe, he might want her
if she just kept offering her tenderness...

he wondered why he stayed,
arguing that it was

convenient

for him

that their arrangement 
was simply a business arrangement
and needs should be negotiated

except they never were discussed

and she excused it.
wrote it off,
because who was she
to have needs that mattered?

and his kisses felt guarded

unless she worked to open them

to soften them

as though afraid to push open

the gates he held so closed

and it drew her in, 
that he was so willing to receive

...the allure of healing, 
(with a sound like being sucked into the void)
seduced her into a twisted hall of mirrors.

and he said he didn’t find her beautiful

while he raved about women all around him 
who wanted him, or (he imagined) wanted to taste him,

women who appeared and circled and reappeared

and wrapped themselves around his world,

while he said he longed for a stepford wife

that had all the inner qualities he found in her

and she would never have the outer qualities

he ordered from the menu

and was confused because she wasn’t that

(because he was supposed to be omnipotent)

she wasn’t there for that character  

she was there for the water she dreamed of

behind the dam of his devices,

and patience began to grow wings

his stream of unconsciousness

denting her armor

her body aching in pain

from his boots…and she questioned her willingness 

to receive the mental blows

while she longed to reach the shores

of the deeper waters

she questioned his intentions

as they walked and mingled, her floating on his arm

the world saw her beauty

and he saw glimpses in their eyes,

she could see him seeing them seeing

what he wouldn’t see

and he defended, deflected, mirrored her weaknesses
got mean on a dime
pushed her buttons on purpose
and attempted to undermine her insights

they slept,
(wrapped up and entwined)
in a sea of self doubt
she dreamed... 

of wasps destroying trees
of bees threatening to swarm
of trying to garden in a vast wasteland...

In the cancer moon’s light 

she knew that he had to step 

on his own stepping stones

to see above the mask

break the armor

that kept him blind

only then

could he see her beauty

hear her insights

touch her with longing fingers

to find the waters

inside of himself
to offer nectar
to their union

she knew

he would need to protect

and give back what he was drinking

or she would fix his wings 

with the bloody needle of his own shadow,

the one he couldn't see

the one he tried to make hers,

and she would send him flying

into the lonely desert

of his superficial existence.

before the roar of the Leo moon, 

a hurricane smashed the glass
in the hall of mirrors.

where she saw the truth lying in the shards,

pieces of her scattered on the ground 
in a heap.
A glimmer of reality echoed in blue,

fogs of awakening...

there would be no great healing,

that was a mirror of her narcissistic hope...

she had simply been Carrion food,

picked apart methodically, 
(as a raptor knows the most delectable parts),

Be gone! she said as she released him to the sky,
his great dark wingspan casting shadows over the nest,

silhouetted as they ascended

and disappeared into the morning.

Be quiet, Metaphor

The romance is dead

At the end of its rope

A fading flower

Its rock has sunk

Twisted into knots

Numb, without meaning, defunct.

My parade is rained on,

Just a grey cloudy sky.

Trying to be here now

Was the winter of my discontent

I couldn't see the forest

For the trees were dancing

Blowing in the wind...
So I had to leave you.

Why?

The romance is dead,

I don't love you anymore,

Metaphor,

You former key 

That unlocked an imaginary soul.

You were a line

To some sort of God, 

To wings, to dreams, to a new world,

To everything anyone ever wanted.

But you're just a word, sometimes you're a few,

And you disappoint,

Just like all the other words,

Full of false promise, then hope, now despair

I want you to go now, Metaphor,

And leave me alone

To a silence beyond hope, beyond fear

Beyond flowery words

Beyond comparison and analogy

Beyond, Before, Between, Beneath

Be quiet.

The Dreams of Hammond Schuster

They lived in the shadows and fed on dreams of light seekers. From behind concrete boxes they watched and whittled, watched and whittled, until they had crafted a manuscript out of the cumulous dreams that billowed into thunderheads from humid brain clouds. And people bought and read the pilfered dreams, never realizing they were stolen from their very thoughts.

An entire society of shadow creatures formed, thrived even, and laughed raucously together over late night martinis while wallowing in tidbits from their swipings. They began to believe in the dreams they had stolen, as if they were original thoughts rather than lifted from the collective virga. With each martini, they anchored the belief that they were above the spidery truth of their existences.

All except one.

60269 rolled out of the bar at 1pm and covered his face with his hands while his eyes adjusted to the mid-day shine. The fog in his head was thick pea soup. All the dreams he had ever taken were swirling in a vortex and he was certain a vicious tornado was going to blow the top right off his head.

At the corner a few yards down a man with a giant bottle of helium was blowing up balloons. 60269 walked over to the man and gave him a buck for a balloon. A swirling vortex moved with the force of a hurricane as every dream he had ever stolen blew right out of his head, through the rubber and directly into the balloon. He felt something he had never, ever known in all the years of thievery — absolute emptiness. 60269 took a pen from his pocket and scribbled some words onto the balloon, released it, then stepped off the curb directly into the path of the 41 Union Express.
___

 Hammond Schuster knew something was off. He sensed the lack of memory. How do you put your finger on something missing when you can’t remember that something is missing? He couldn’t, and yet it bugged him — it ached, the not there/there thing. He began to search the rooms of his home for some kind of clue, something that would point him to beyond the empty cloud that had meaning with no meaning. All he found within his house were blank walls and minimal furniture. There was nothing that could give a clue to anything beyond the mundane and grey that was his life.

 As he walked through the empty halls, an orange object outside the glass wall that enclosed his living room caught his attention. Given that Hammond lived some 100 miles from civilization or neighbors, it was odd to see a foreign object in the yard. He stepped outside onto the cool grass and picked up what appeared to be a deflated balloon with the words “I can’t deal with it. 4Realz” written on the rubber. As he picked it up by the attached string he began to feel a flood of memories returning. Pianos, music, voices, poetry, dreams — so many dreams — he dropped the string in a shock of knowing.

Emptiness… he couldn’t remember what he had just remembered, he just felt so horrendously empty.

Again he picked up the string, again the memories began, but they were formless, clues without a strand. He needed a map to the there place in the stratus fractus of his mind. He brought the balloon into the house and set it down on the table.

Again, empty, and wondering how a balloon got onto the table, and why it said what it said.

He shrugged and went to lie down on the sofa, deciding that he would read rather than deal with this mystery that he had no hope of solving. Besides, his brain was thickening to a greenish fog, he couldn’t even remember his name.

The book on the coffee table had no title. Hammond picked it up and rifled through the empty pages, then resting the book on his chest, he fell asleep and began to dream — a canvas appeared in front of him...he picked up a brush and began painting... from out of a fog of strokes the piano he played as a boy began to play itself and he saw himself sitting on the bench struggling through the years of lessons, choirs of voices grew to a crescendo of glory then melted away and a poet appeared with a pen and poetry began to flow and the words were sumptuous and full of passion, metaphors which faded into fractured sense as garden after garden filled the canvas — so much color — the entire world was in front of him, so many strokes...each stroke was a lifetime of dreams... a wife, or was it two... children, friends, explorations, passions and desire... oh... and the women, and the choices, he could do anything he wanted to on the canvas of his dreams — and so Hammond Schuster never woke up.

The cops found him in a sea of flies with an open book on his chest. The bright orange words on the cover read The Dreams of Hammond Schuster by 60269.
Note: The balloon really did appear on my lawn the other day so it seemed appropriate to give a story to its possible circumstance.

Where did all the words go?

It’s not that my brain went silent

Seems the opposite is true

It’s not that I don’t have opinions

I have many, yet don’t have a clue.

I tire of ultra soapboxing rants

Get mired in shoulds and woulds and can’ts

What’s real flies by without a glance

As I watch the world dig itself blue.

If I turn it all off and imagine

I could wipe it all down with a glove

And surround the world in white lights

With my magical powers of love,

I’d submerge the pain of seeing

Obliterating being

Essentially fleeing

Into soft pink clouds above.

Perhaps I should take a small pill

A dose that would give me a smile

So I’d laugh off the drama around me

And pretend that I don’t taste the bile,

But then I wouldn’t see trees

That bring me to my knees

And so I’m praying, please…

Help us move beyond denial.

But praying involves belief

In what? I do not know

And hoping is a fairy tale

As rusted stories show.

What else to do but stop

Like fish from water, flop

Take sponge and then a mop

And let the water flow.

A flood, perhaps is needed

To purge the grime involved

To clean the slate and start again

Zipped up now, problem solved.

Ha, not my jurisdiction

My job’s to feel the friction

I have no inner witch-dom

To make this world evolve.

And so I’ve become silent

I watch as words go by

And feel my heart that’s breaking

While tears gone numb, run dry.

I take me to my tasks

Put on a loving mask

And hope this will not last

While clinging to the lie. 

©2011 Catherine Vibert

You Never Returned

It's been a long time since I posted in this blog...however, I'll be returning to the place that inspired this prose-poem next week, the land of the Cherokee, the rivers of the Tuckaseegee and Natahala. It made me think of this prose poem I wrote a couple of years ago and so I thought I'd bring it up to the top.

It was there in the misty mountains where my life began and ended. You left me at dawn, promising return by nightfall. I waited for years in the meadow of songs where we had built our love on pledges of golden sun and milky starlight.

You never returned.

Only the music of the storm was my solace. Shattered by the force of time and weather, I became blind. On my knees and with fingers numb from cold, I tried to find the path before me and stumbled into the dark echoes of the woods to seek shelter. Finding comfort on a bed of hemlock, I slept next to the gray wolf who consoled me as I wailed, holding me in his paws and licking my brow.

You never returned.

Only the laughing crows and battle cries of raptors could be heard in the forest. Songbirds fled to sing their cheerful melodies in less mournful places. My tears became the creek that flowed from the great mountains into the Tuckaseegee. Beyond an eternity of hope, shards of my crystalline heart can still be found.

You never returned.

__


Dedicated to those left behind on the Trail of Tears.

Cat of Arc on Power

Hi, Cat of Arc here.

Here's the thing, there's no point in harping on things that everyone knows already. As an entity from another dimension, it is clear to me that everyone actually does know the truth, they just look the other way. So why go into a big long discussion about nuclear power and how horrible it is in every way conceivable? This is obvious. The bottom line is all the plants need to be shut down now, and all nuclear things need to be disbanded and safely disposed of. (Good luck with that).

There is not a single being on Earth that doesn't know this at a cellular level. The issue of why it still occurs is the bigger nebulosity.  That's due to another kind of power altogether, but I didn't come here to talk about that either, because you already know that.

No, I came to discuss another kind of power. The kind of power that you use to activate your muscles, go out into your yard and plant food and the kind of power that gives you. But see, I don't even need to tell you that because from my all knowing perspective, it is clear to me that you already know that too.

I can already hear those voices in your head complaining that it is not possible in your particular circumstance for one reason or another.  Well here's my answer for that — know who your local farmers are and be their friend. Support their CSA, yes if you read my earlier posts, you'd have noticed this isn't the first time I've mentioned those letters while extolling the virtues of Community Sustained Agriculture.

Or help out at the local community garden. Find a way to be involved in the sustainable, organic and locally grown food chain. That is true power, and you know that I am right.  Because I'm an entity from another dimension and can go anywhere at any time and inhabit any body— animal, bird, sealife or human, even plants, rocks and the interior of a supernova — I am always right. But I really don't care whether I'm right usually, I just want to see you evolve to know the possibilities of your potential. In my quests through time I see different possibilities, many look quite bleak.  I hate to be so dire but what can I say?

Cukes, not nukes!

Cat of Arc, signing out.

PS, you really gotta get a new government, and I'm not talking about the other party.  You guys are toast with your lack of ability to sway the decisions toward a pro-geosophic and human evolutionary possibility. Yeah, Earth will be here for a long long, time, that is true in all the possibilities I've seen, but you? Not in very many...but it's still your choice, for now...

Cat of Arc on Enlightenment

     Ok, here’s the thing…maybe some of you remember me, I’ve been here before — I’m an entity from another dimension and I have possessed the body of the owner of this blog in order to speak. Usually she doesn’t know what happened until the article is posted and then she might remember vaguely that she was used for my purposes, but in this case I don’t think she’ll mind.
     In fact, she has barely been using this blog at all so she shouldn’t mind. The truth is she hasn’t had anything to write about lately, nothing is personally troubling or upsetting to her which is usually what inspires her poems, her various relationships are all pretty much in good standing and life’s pretty good, so she hasn’t had anything to complain about. She writes for the paper, and she has her Facebook presence for her artwork, and she keeps busy doing other things like gardening and playing music so her blog suffers. Not that a blog has feelings, it doesn’t, it really doesn’t care whether it gets posted to. All this to say that I don’t think it matters that I am now usurping it in order to do my entity thing and tell you all the truth as I see it.
     And I see the truth from a different perspective than humans — because I am an entity I have the ability to go anywhere without the burden of the time concept and I can be in many dimensions simultaneously, all of them actually. This doesn’t mean I think I’m better then a human, it’s just that I remember what you forgot…in fact a day will come when you will all realize that you have this talent as well, but for now I know I have it and I’m going to share it with you. Essentially so you have the opportunity to evolve because currently, it’s not looking good on the evolution front for the humans. Or for many of their animal companions and fellow wild creatures and other living things on Earth, which is itself living and will continue to live, but quite possibly without you.
     See, the humans are still living in the dark. And because of this they have an insatiable need for light. Humans are capable of projecting their desires onto things that look like the real thing, but are actually a false thing.
     You’ll notice that most evolutionary rhetoric has to do with the word light:
“Seek enlightenment”
“Illuminate me”
“Love and Light”
“Come to the light”
“The darkest hour is before the dawn”
“Let there be light”
etc.
     And humans are all seeking that light, and looking for it so hard that they are completely blind by how bright it actually is all the time. And so, in their infinite capacity to look right past the obvious, they misplace what light actually is for something else. Something THEY created, a construct, a made up thing, they call it a Light Bulb, and in order to keep that thing shining, giving them the illusion of light, they created something else and they called it Power and they plugged into it and that’s pretty much when they completely forgot who they are. I say they because I hate to offend YOU in case you actually remember, but I do mean YOU.
     To the humans, power is a drug. I don’t think I need to explain exactly how you are all addicted. But you are so addicted that you have forgotten how to survive on the most basic of levels. Because the Earth is a garden you know, and gardens need tending, or at least basic understanding of what is food and what isn’t. And that’s important because when you become unplugged — and you will the time is coming for that, and soon — knowing about that tending will become far more important than any light bulb or plug in options.
     Yes, it’s ironic that I am usurping a plug in option right now in order to say what I have to say, laughably ironic, no doubt, but that’s the great thing, we entities can take what went wrong and use it for good, and all of you humans can do that too. You can use what you have now in order to prepare for what will be, and I strongly caution you to do that now, while you still can.
     I’ll leave you with those thoughts for now, but I will be back. Back to talk about specifics, I realize this article was a tad general and perhaps vague, but rather than bombard you with my opinion on how things should and shouldn’t be, I wanted to give you an opportunity to think about your own addictions, and why the humans have fallen to a level of complete complacency about this very dire situation. And what are you going to do about it? Think about it…I’ll be back.
Signing off,
Cat of Arc

Wedding Day

Self Portrait - Wedding Day Valentine's Day 1980

A nervous smile paints her face

Her hand grabs the folds

Of satin and lace

Dreams

Dreams

Of unicorns and white steeds

How much you thought you knew

Once upon a time

Dusted, rusted and yellowed

A photo in a box

Claire Claire Claire de lune

Riddle

Deep in the cave

In the hollow empty places

Stagnant air caresses the skin,

A thousand velvet tongues.

How long have …

It doesn’t matter, can’t remember.

Hands mingle with a shape

A box … a secret … rusted shut,

A key … washed away

Sometime long, long ago

In a tide of floods passed?

There is a path, a way out

But once this room is abandoned,

The secret may be lost forever

Is it worth it to stay

When tongues turn to flame?

Listen

Oh Listen to the cold wind howl

Through canyons of your shredded heart

Where branches rip the tangled soul

And lay you naked, bare

As wolves devour you whole inside

Just listen to the echoes there

(She’s gone, … gone) through canyons, wide

Submerged in silent grief

Where kindness kisses drip like tears

lift frozen wings on tufts of air

through inner walls that hold up mirrors

Tears flow from you to me

Yes wings, as Virgil’s guiding hand

Will keep you on the path through hell

Where labyrinths are sinking sands

And eyes, averted, blind you

But there, where tears and soul combine

The maze's path reveals a light

As river flows join ocean wine

You stand upon the edge

Oh listen to the ebb and tide

As ever passing winds subside

You watch the tears beside your guide

Where grief flows to the sea

Oh, be the tide, and be the wind

The blind, the guide, the tears, the slain,

Yes, be the kindness and the sin

On melted wings, fly free.

©2010 Cat Vibert