rumorsofme: Entertainment

the kiss...

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 06:45:38 GMT

And think not you can direct the course of love,
for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night,
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Kahlil Gibran
1923

where is home?

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:19:55 GMT

I fear I have wandered too far from home
The space I inhabit is so all alone

Is there a connection I have missed?
Fumbling for sight I lost the precious kiss.

Now into a daring venture I am unguided
And must rely on those whose own direction is desperately divided.

But is LIFE not made of broken switchbacks?
Of formless nights and days swollen with lack?

My Will is bent as I move restless and spent,
Wandering treacherous Tides for a Journey somehow... meant?

Laughter and touch have long since disappeared
Until I have grown weary of the search for my mentor seer

Gather me up unto the Pillars of Creation
Perhaps therein I will find at last my secret destination.

~rom~

hollow reveries

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 01:25:23 GMT

hollow reveries

i looked at the wreckage
what could have caused such destruction?
what wind had torn through ?
was it too much water and might we salvage
some thing of what was not suctioned
back into the sea
out of memory

memory was becoming all there was
to living the life i called mine.
even as i strained my breath to find
another motion to make,
another dream i might wake

now there was a growing silence
and a hollow reverie
as it began to slip from me
this Ideal of Living and Love
it had been my little sail in thoughts above

the cruel and careless tokens
being passed for caring and truth
a sweet madness that brought me broken
into a light that grew dark
as I passed

breath seeped from my body, but
i could not fault its valiant company
through the years; it stood despite blows and thieves
meant to break the spell of mind,
the mystified story of a lonely climb

now there were no more chances
no more hoped for love or dances from mysterious glances
from here to there is not so very far after all
certain i am that love is unquenchable
in every way i have imparted the mirror of my fall

may there be found some solace
in a way now infinitely unclear
spending all my ending time in the presence
of those whose life gave meaning to mine
confident that we are ever near

even in the unknown of descending darkness
i can rest knowing i have loved and been loved
that i wrested some happiness from commotion;
despite curtains of separation...
that fell at the touching of sweet emotion

chances are not limitless
healing comes through Grace
and that is real
despite what you feel
with a body longing for escape

i want to peel the wreckage
from over me, be light and free
to wander the beach sands
and watch the violet bands of misty twilight
become the gathering of my long, long awaited flight

~rumorsofme~
3/30/07

promising

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 07:02:40 GMT

Promising I'dos invariably leads to I'dids

or didn'ts

The house of wrap-around glass

framing an Ocean of tides

Become the daily live-bys --

Did you find just the perfect spot

to lay the cable and set the chimmney

From high to higher, did you

live in common wellness and

riches of wealth which

long ago you outgrew?

Did you become the label of prizes that fade?

or ride the invisible shudders of fame's dismembered name?

Will Sunrise move quietly through your moody rooms

Lending softly the yellow of velvet roses

to uncover another not quiet like you

But still the same?

Did you ever have need to use all the bridges you built?

Or to wrestle the legions of ghostly treasons?

And what about all the friendships you turned away

Did they follow rightly your pre-judged frames

All you disguised and hid in the flames?

Who crowds your table so regally set for family

where all chairs ache with empied rest?

and whose to 'pass the salt' or put another

log on the fire...of your desire?

Can you still remember desire and her flames

dancing quietly to a melody never claimed?

Do you ever think of what it was you thought

would give oxygen to the air your breathe?

Remembering becomes the way of it

As the leaves fall and winter just barely

begins to show her power

Do you remember the pink baby roses

clothed in their own breath?

Their budds hold all Promise in the beauty

of a flower.

~rom~

September 19, 2006 long enough...

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 08:26:00 GMT

Have we waited long enough?

For that eternal begged and wished for once?

You sit on your side and I sit on mine.

I wish your heart could counter the time in my mind

While we meltdown and in our vision a storybook

page lets all the colors shine.

I want to see you reach and

lean into the kiss you were holding back.

To feel...to feel...is this real?

Can these two beings trust whatever

it is that makes their eyes sparkle

When the other enters a room?

To what will evolve this christening birth,

this ache of reckoning?

And should we toss our story

board back?

Did either of us know the trip we set out on,

And if so, would we backtrack ?

Herd our emotions stolen and cracked

along the rivers too deep to cross,

Too limp in loneliness to lift the other up...

Too much attached to cut the cord that

was never cut?

When we came in as one,

Then severed in two and nobody knew?

The lives we lived until we grew and remembered

the wealth of LOVE that had carried us through?

Entwined in roses, leafed in golden plumes of

velvet softly chosen

We could never covet enough to lessen the

passion that within us seemed always

just to begin.

But, you said, we had to leave our safe

and earthly bed

For some warrior's dance we would dwell

in a field we had come to know and dread.

Just for a nap, some food and then to wonder

and wander again.

Each of us lay in the arms of slumber.

Each of us lay in dreams of wonder.

Each of us wrestled away the sleep,

And broke the spell of Legion's reef.

The vision of sun was lazy in her daily parting...

You stroked my hair as I touched your cheek

And we thought to speak-- --but why?

in such

swirls of peaceful beauty we longed to lie.

When fingers danced with such grace

and Passion drew her reigns upon our face.

Why let even a little of this sweetening movement

slip through a passage of time?

That will not come back again, as late or before.

I guided your hands upon my skin and you let

my warming fingertips press lightly against your lips.

Parted they were and dry with thirst,

But of an easy comfort, for now we had time

And time was ours for some seeming kind.

Your lips were hot upon my neck and I pearled

an unseen Joy as your arms

pushed aside all the tide

that might unchallenged end and divide.

Mystery upon Mystery kept us in flight...

Kept us in night's true delight.

For I was as hungry for you as you for me,

Before the burning and uncharted turning.

We spoke not at all--we could not.

The furies of a nameless hurry

Were well gone into their play.

But in our eyes we saw

Each other....so fast that we were blinded

to the act,

deep with stirring we let ourselves

be given up

And trusted simple unknown quakes

beneath the garden of our escape.

Even the idle pores of sweating skin

seemed only to be wetted and rung

out of us time and time and time again.

And flesh became infused with some fire unatoned for

in the darkening day

Until we clung to the slippery wet of one another's

longing.

And I thought of this all along the way,

When work was hard and labors spent the day.

When I would lie alone and wonder where you lay

and were you alone?

When from some unknown chasm of riches won,

The ruby light struck our hearts and we were

again a Life

Two individuals...that was the worst of

all worthless labeled sins.

Hold me tighter than before.

We've waited longer than we know.

Time will not stop for we two

I want more time in and time with you

We lost more time than we even knew.

I can feel the ship moving...Will we ever

know the promises of a time

set outside the gates of forgetfulness?

Missing you when you are away, craving time lost

will not even out the day.

~rom~

...

a little longer...

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 02:40:49 GMT

Once upon a time...just a little while ago

I wrestled sleep for a dream

Of golden ships shining on agean water

White cropped houses shed the sun

It was there I think

we were begun...

Who could have guessed two troubled shell-like spirits

running endlessly through the sun could carry a dream of one another

and taste the discovery won?

If you touch me will I not cry? for the days and nights when idle

I would lie craving a witness

to my shadows thrown and cast in drifts all alone?

Just a little longer feeling lips nearing touch as breathing deepened the coming rush

Just a little longer for our before and after loving ways and dawning newly charted days

Just a little longer I would hope this bit of morning sunshine stroked

the night pressing for light in her bed of stars

reeling homeward...

from too far

Just a little longer I wanted to

curl and lay restful in colors glowing of

a morning golden and ripe with day

Just a little longer you nestled beside me

and in our warmness lay twin drawings carved by glints of diamonds

each cut to the warrior's way

Sweet and slow the kisses

weaved a web

of our long-ago

and I wondered

where had we been

day unto day

in that too-long

hidden piece of clay?

~rumorsofme~

cosmos

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 06:33:08 GMT

in my slumber

lost in dreams

i was left to wonder

and wander on light beams

the universe is dark

and strangely unseen

the beauty stark

while radiant colors swim between

mesmerized by the swirling

dusts and light passes

i unleashed the unfurling

tug of unknown masses

~rom~

stream of consciousness dried-up

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:24:31 GMT

In the early morning rain, please find me again. I have to leave soon by bus or plane, seagull or train. It's never too late until it's over and it's never over.

"I didn't want it to end this away...but it's in the way and I can't get away from it. They say to take it anyway. Which way should I go? The Way that opens out. But seems like I just came in. It's ok, the way out comes in again. Go ahead and make it that way. Nobody really cares anyway and who are you to say? But I wanted to stay on the way. Just take it today. Tomorrow is too late. The lights are going out. Are you out of your mind? I don't mind. This was going to be my time and now I have no time to make something outta time. I was gonna make time out of no way but some say I gotta end it anyway. Just the same, I'm gonna have my say and then another day. I get toomuchanuthin when what I want is morethananything. For ever is too long a way to go. How many evers are gonna be free. Free and then. Then one more time again. But take it anyway. Take it today. I am gonna cry and nobody can die. Go ahead and make it that way. But which way should I go? The way that opens out just opens in again. No you have to go and you have to take it anyway. At the end of the dream you get to go home. Which one? Nobody really cares and who stays there anyway? Let me go with you. I didn't want it to end this away. The end came and you weren't ready anyway. What day was that way? I missed it. It's coming in again. Be ready and come back. Who gets it that away? You can come back again. But I don't want to go that away. It's ok. You won't today. Tomorrow is too late for your way. Leave it anyway. Get it on the way. Just take it today. Today. Anyway. Go. They've all gone. All? Gone? Anyway.

-rumorsofme-

"I thought I died. No that was the other day! Now you are on your way again. Which way is that? Who can say now. I could still stay. But that was the other day. Now you must go. Today. It's the only way. Can I go back later? You haven't left yet! When is it over then? When you begin. That sounds alright. Am I going now. NO! But I thought I died. You didn't. That was the other way. Now you are here and have a new way. But it's not like the other way! Did you take it? I took it anyway. You have to take it everyday. But I want the other way. You can't have that way. Is that before or after the other day? There was a late fee. I missed it. You'll have to go out again. Go out the way that comes back in. I thought I died? No! You need a new tomorrow. What is that? It's always. Did you take it? You have to take it everday. Who said that? Where is it at? You missed it. But I felt it. You can go now. Really? Oh, mistake made. Only you get to stay. But I wanted to go. Go out and come in again. Now I don't have a way. I'll have to go somebody else's way. Can I do that? NO! You have to take it everyday. You are not flying now. But they said. There comes the answers. Did you miss it? Yes I missed it. You can catch it next time. There's no other times. How many times do I get? Time to do it all over from the beginning! NO! I want to go now. Not from the beginning. Too many people do that. I want another answer. We only have questions today. Answers are given only one day anyway. I wanted it anyway. I thought I died. You've already done that. Get your answers for the question. I don't have any answers. You have to have answers to go today. But I don't want to wait for tomorrow. NO! Tomorrow is too late. Get yours now or you won't go with anybody. Anyway all the anybodies already left and I am ready now. You have to get yours before everybody else does. But I don't want mine. We are busy. Come another day another way. You said that before. They have to go. It's their turn. When is my time? Where is it? What is it? I don't want to miss it. The IN in it. I've been out. Go away. Can I go today. I thought I died. Bye."

"She must be crazy. I am going tonight. No, you have to stay. We need your mind. I have a good mind to... We'll decide that. Who? They decide. But I want to go now. They're coming for your mind. Never mind. I have to go. You can't win. You have to lose now. When do I win? Not this time. And never again. Toomuchanuthin makes you crazy. No one can control that.They decide that. They are coming soon.But I have to go. They can't have my mind! It's mine. Give them my salary! They don't want that. They need minds. Won't that be hard? Won't that hurt? You know too much. Did you take it today? NO! You know you have to take it everyday. Understand. I won't. Then they will certainly take your mind. They have too much power. You will have to give up. Just follow the one with the knife.They will just pop it out. What? Your mind, you idiot! Why do they want an idiot's mind? That is not for you to decide. I have energy and can walk. Then walk that way.When do they put it back in? When you leave. When is that? When they put it back in. Now the time to leave is here. Just close your eyes it won't take long. NO! They will have to wait until I am ready. THEY do not wait. Your mind is already giving up. You drank your milk didn't you? You ate the chocolate cookies? Yes. I started to cry. Crying does not help you. But they have power. I still have power. No, it is slipping away. You cannot speak of your mind's thoughts to just anyone. Someone should have told you. Will you change your way? NO! I have my mind. IT is my time! Don't you realize you're in another place where your ideas are dangerous. They will bomb all day and burn all night. This you cannot fight.There is no way out now. Take away her clothes and sit her on the marble. It is very clean-you won't feel a thing! Now, isn't that better? NO! I grabbed my gown and held on tight and felt for it in my pocket. There it was! Now, I thought they will have to let me out. I am going out now. I have a weapon. Let US see. There, you don't want to frighten the others do you? Of course not. We are just here to help you. Help you give us your mind. I started to get sleepy. Oh no! Not now! It is not going to hurt. Just let go. No! I want my mind. Your mind has a problem in it. They are just going to fix it and then you can go. See, look out the window. All those were here before and they were afraid too. But you see now, now they are just sitting calming under the trees. See how peaceful it is. This really is a good home. Strangers were crowding in and all the lights and clocks were spinning. All of a sudden I felt I was not winning. Where was my rock? I had felt it. I know it is there. They cannot take my mind. It is a special kind. I won't get another one like it.

"Hello sweetie. Now, hon, we're just going to replace that ole worn out mind of yours and give you a new nice pretty one. Won't that be nice? Hear the nice music? It's your favorite.

But I won't like it later. How can I get out. We're not going to keep you here once we have your mind. You will be allowed out to play with the others. But I don't want to play with them! I want to keep my mind. My old one. It's all I've known. You won't learn anything. Besides if you take this one, I know how to grow another one right away! And I felt the rock on the tip of my shaking finger.

"Now don't be frightened, dear. OK? Just let us take you in here and make everything clear. OOps, someone forgot to clean this blood up!! This is intolerable here! They shouted among themselves. Trays were thrown and cutting instruments fell on the concrete floor. Someone said to use the room 3. I held onto my rock as long as they pulled and dragged to that one.

"You cannot do this, I pleaded. Remember the son? All activity ceased. Yes, we do, dear. It because of our hearing of this son that we are cleansing all minds to make room for more light. NO! I could still shout. The metal was gleaming and the stark lights of the ceiling were too much for me to see through. I closed my eyes and grabbed the rock and threw it as hard as I barely could and shattered one lamp in the ceiling above. Great commotion followed and voices were hard and angry. I slipped from the gown and began to crawl away. No, not today was all I could say. Soon they were looking for my mind again. I had found a hot spot to hide. And why was it so hot? I could hear the noises of searching through rooms and carts being overturned. The floor was cool and I curled up tightly into a ball and hoped to disappear in it. Then I would find the tunnel to the forest and I'd be safe once more. The milk and cookies and all their meds began to seep out. It was a green- ugly and stinking thing!

"Who is responsible for her getting away? I heard the threatening issue from a big one who promised much pain (on their very impressive pain machine). I could barely breathe and wondered if I'd win this one. They were going for another in my place. Well, this was a damn situation. How could I let another face what I would not. Perhaps they would fight and fly too. But sadder words felt in my mind. I thought of those outside as much as dead and no feeling. I would have to find a way not only for me now but for the one who was my replacement. I couldn't leave one behind. Not if it took all my strength and what there was of my mind. No, no one left behind. I moved the curtain just enough to see the one whose mind was now cast for. This one was most tired and perhaps did not want to fight the they who removed better minds in a world of growing meaness and times when blood bursts were a sport for the very intellectual. On who else could I call?

"I was wanting to get out too badly. They were as lions upon a rabbit. I shut the curtain and held fast to what might be my last. Breathing deeply and holding to my rock which now shined with the sweat of my hand. I was a long way from love and trust with no place to go. While I was here there could be no turning back regardless the way was cast. As I peered out I saw them all clamoring to bring the one down and suddenly there were bells and a ringing that had a familiar sound. I called to the within and clung to the promise I had made when I first came. While there was a frenzy of flesh and sound I slipped to the room wherein so much of living had been spilled. One by one, I took steps to bring me around the other side. I looked about the surfaces and tried to find some weapons on the walls or the tables or stacked behind. Bloody they were and dark stained flesh clung to the sharp sides. I could not make myself touch one. My mind was in disarray. I felt my rock, really wet with sweat. I could sit and watch and perhaps live; but I would not be able to do that. It already was cast. What matter if I lasted another day, or another second. It was all passing as I hesitated.

"We must hurry this one, someone shouted. There were only four of them now. I stepped behind a ladder and held my rock up into the light. The room began to spin just slowly and sparks of light danced upon the ceiling and fire shown about the group so intent that they missed the mystery of it. At once there shuttered and stuttered a block of great Lightning and they were caught and numbed. Unable to move their bodies, their eyes roamed the room for what had been done. This was not a moment to wonder but a moment to act and I ran and touched the one whose sight had moved me so.

"Let's go! " I shouted. Without a stumble he rose and his back arched so that a wing was to show. The lightning broke the circle and we were outside. One by one I watched the one who touched each with a feather from a shimmering wing. Startled by the power of my long held rock I looked down and saw that it had grown to a pebble, multicolored and very smooth. Streaks of dark and white edged within it. The clearing was alive again. I could see smiles and strength returning one by one. At the window that marked the room where we'd been broke into open flames and the consuming they melted into was an ether of fowl smelling air. The Wing tore round and brought the inn to ashes. Then in a calm that caught mine we were high above the green and foaming blue sea. A feather clung to my knee and I felt air fresh and smelling free. The Wing turned and I felt the smile. Not too long and after while I wondered about the magic and death I had just been through.

So much alike we were that I felt my face wet with the tears of one who is too broken or of a too rare unspoken. We sailed on into a Universe of unknown waiting.. and all to be found.

-rumorsofme-

then...

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 18:08:07 GMT

then I laid me down to sleep

in a colding winter

I did try

summer's sweet soft lie

snuggling beneath the

blanket of you

I closed my eyes

as the warm grew.

my treasure was full

where I lay

who can measure

nor words convey

the essences of passion

none too soon or late

that reveal the weaver's loom

and our way to Eternity's gate.

~rom~

then I laid me down to sleep

in cuddling spoons

across a room

upon a bed made sacred

by lovers too soon parted

mortal selves shed

as they watched their promises

unfulfilled, grow lonely, unfed.

in the spring of their youth

they were taken

kisses lay upon their lips

untouched and forsaken.

~rom~

which way did they go

does anyone know?

the friends who became

lovers so very long ago

~rom~

...then...

Oblivion opened and

She chose in a minute

To drop her life

Without hesitation

And all within it.

~rom~

back at the

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 17:53:06 GMT

Was it always thus I wondered. My thoughts were heavy and I began to think there must be somewhere some lightness of mind, if only for but a short tick in time; and where was I to find much humor in thousands of years of nothing changes.

"I heard that."

It was a statement with a grin in it.

"You back again?"

I looked up to see a mountain of aloneness staring back at me. He stood out. Just a plain and very small sight, though with a nod of his head he could be in too many heads, the essence people sought in meditation, a vapor of myrrh in a candlelit worship, a neon sign blinking out the moments of time.

"Yeah. Right here I am," I challenged his confounded ease.

"You thinking about staying here or you're going back for some more disaster, chaos and more pulls on the rack?"

"So happy to see you are in such a good spirit. I need some things."

I had promised myself no more crying.

Damn! He could be so dammingly trite! Knowing as he did the constant fear and terror that soaked a land (not even big as the hand he could play), driving too many to leave their only known place to be, echoing shells that rang to the sea. He could certainly see the small bones caught frozen in a forever twisted cry for anyone's help: Their mother or father, a sister or brother, a best friend -- no, none of this would see any good end.

"They yet suffer, mouths cooked with no water, bellies swollen with no food to eat. Help is their need and what can they plead to sustain your kind? All of you who came and promised a Way to Peace and Understanding, to answer their dreams and keep them from drowning in fire. What have you done to stop the killing, the gullets of bullets that even a baby must swallow?

When is the time coming for your processional of prophesies to come to pass? With all your predicting did any one of you leave a way out of a hard day's labor, an entry to some gilded favor? Did you not understand they would stand to a man to cover their beloved, to shorten the endless flurry of dark madness sprung in wars?

"Why do you come back again and again?" his look was unmistakable and severe.

"It has gone beyond anger." My breath came faster as memory would sweep me before the fall of desperate words. "I mean afterall, you are no stranger to the danger of weary beliefs, to panicked thousands swelling the streets, to families torn and left to grief. There's never been another way. Never any one to collect the winners and the lost, to summon some thunder for the tide of death they live under; and it never changes from one age to the next. You can provide a text supposed to bless and protect. Each one of you. Men have turned to creating seasons of reasons to collapse (some in delight!) their neighbor, to labor and tool the weapons of their day which will go on to fuel their own destination of destruction and decay.!"

"Alright. We have been together before and nothing changes. The messages of hate were fashioned from a spit of ink on paper that will crumble with tomorrow. This suffering will only change with the faces and names of another generation's game. It is nothing much changes and another good job (keeping the statistics of the safe and the killed) done. You want it better, then see it better. See it different."

"You know what you jerks miss? I do see it differently, intensely. Their faces are just like mine, their voices cry with the sound I know, their eyes see tragically what has become an engraved shrine. A shrine that can never shine. It only promises little known and ignorance of any kind. Within this rock I've cut out a place to live. I live as they not free. They live within every stuttering breath and take comfort in the silence of a day or a night where men stop to love instead of fight. Soon they pray, let us begin to walk in the sun, to gather for supper, to shake bountiful trees swelling with figs and dates, walnuts and apricots, vines heavy with sweet grapes for wines, deep wells of water to soothe and restore both body and mind. It is never soon enough, always it is too late for someone."

I shut my eyes to the tears that burned beneath . The light was now fading and the search for a candle or lamp would begin.

"It is all wrong. You made promises to the heart that we might win if we took the journey of saints; yet here it is again, the sin we live in."

The words choaked in my throat, my mind was dizzy and my head was heavy.

"Is it never enough that men must be lost and despair the only way? The shelter of a brushed and greening plat of trees, earth broke open with a token of coolness wet to dry lips, laughter carried by the winds...isn't this the peace and quieting home we all wish to make our own? Death has many faces. Some bring a fearsome unknown but too many are the faces of the one that looks back in the mirror at me. Give more than your words. All deaths do not bring any relief. Now we are all sick with the sight of too much grief."

"Then stay here," he reminded me. "All your guilt, your pain and search for justice cannot be won. Not now, not yet and not in the dawn of many suns will you find your Ideal won."

Desperation began to mutate and I stopped trying to understand.

"They will fight and kill and more will die until there is not one left to try keeping on...much less, win!" Without hope I knew I would stay on the other side of now. Cut-off and tired, my weariness threatened to defeat me.

"Can't and won't are a war. Will and can could win a little bit on which to stand. Tragedy begets tragedy and ignorance begets ignorance--where will friend find friend? Where and when is the end? This desert of no lines cut in the sand still harbors some silent push to begin again."

"You know there are no borders where you land. Just pieces and pieces of broken bands drifting aimlessly in search of a connection," he mused.

"I need some supplies," I stood to go.

"You know whatever is, is yours and all. You can carry more inside than you can on your back. That is the reason you keep this track, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yeah, I guess it is. I come with an anxiety so ignited by my life and living and want so much to take something back. I don't know where else to go. I am Solitary and Deep with too much feeling. Let me take some healing for the sick, some hope for the lost. Some freedom for the imprisoned and something to feed the hunger of living this human existence. Help me to find enough foraday and peaceful night. One way is not the way for everyone. I ask only that some love be given, some burdens uncast, some time be made for happy memories that will last -- at least before another woman's labor begins again.

"You've quite a story but then you insist on counting the ins with the outs and leave less and less room for doubt. Your appeal is recorded and definitely noted," incredibly he smiled. "Set the story again until it rhymes with peace and love and kind-- which all find. You know enough not to be told that ; we have everywhere and nowhere to be in. We are about the tidewaters you seek for your odd and crippling grief. Lay yourself beneath the ripening Olive trees. Watch their limbs swing heavy in the wind. Let the scent of roses and jasmine enfold your breaking, feel the wild indigo leaves and watch the sage brush shaking as it too is bowed down with the willow that weeps to the ground."

"Is this the Garden of longed-for sleep?" I asked.

"This is the Garden of Forgetfulness and Shadows. You are ever only a sigh from here where you can take out your sorrows and exchange all your grief and hidden beliefs; a common place without fear to be near. This is where your seeds lie when you no longer see them and hope has passed you by. Remember this place and let it be your new founding liberty. Indifference and apathy cannot survive here nor can bitter tears inside your ache reflect the water's birthing grace. It is for one such as you who are in a world of unwieldy sin but want the beautiful ideals of your youth to abide and take root and give in to the richness of your imaging mind."

"Yes," I mumbled at last. "I am tired but want to make one more trip for plenty's sake. The watch has made me older and yet I've crossed the saddening bridge. We all fight and then give it up, give back our win. Isn't all this hollow within? It feels so empty, the win."

"Tread lightly for our seeds are but slightly in and the beauty and bounty they contain must render all for the prolonged and violent struggle to become one who has sought within and found a Way that bends to the silence of the physical destruction that melts the outside carrying an ether of solemn duty."

Again, too much of nothing I thought. But I kept the winding thoughts that gave me the comfort of a joy well hidden, a purposeless way of my own making. I turned in my solitude to hear a wild coyote cry and felt myself a lucky one to have entered such a Sun that could hold out nothing but return all and everyone a dancer laughing, a musical tapping, a voice beside me whispering love while all about became blind to our time. I would take the track back to where I'd been giving what was to hope and the sea of a promise I'd made to me...the promise for you and the darkening Universe of stars. See there! It's not so far~

~rumorsofme~

A Mystery in Apt. 9

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 02:06:23 GMT

"And the last time you saw her she was swimming in the pool?"

"Yes, officer. Right there in that pool near the entryway."

Mrs. Hannah seemed all afright when she tried to explain any thing unusual. She thought the woman who lived downstairs from her was not feeling well and she had gone to check on her; but as she began to walk downstairs she noticed she must be feeling better as she was swimming in the pool.

"I thought she was feeling very ill again so I was going to see if there was anything I could do. Oh my, I do hope she is alright."

"My name is Officer Jeno and I'll be starting a search and we'll let you know the results of what we find as soon as we can. Does she have any friends or family nearby?"

Mrs. Hannah rubbed her forehead as she often did when she was deeply troubled and afraid -- as she was now.

"No, not really. She was always quiet, always kind, just a real sweet woman; but she had this disease which was not responding as well as she had been promised it would. The doctors had her on a new therapy and to be honest, I don't think it was going well. She came by here last evening and asked me to check on her cat tonight if her light was not on."

"Ok, Mrs. Hannah, we'll be in touch and be sure to let us know if anything else comes to mind. I see that the door has been opened to her apartment so I'll go see what can be found there. Good night."

Mrs. Hannah always had a sense of dread about apartment number 9. In the past, everyone who had lived there either had to leave due to increasingly bad health, or they were injured in some kind of accident or other and could not maintain their own individual lifestyle. Just last year there was an older woman who worked part-time at the bakery and had come home for lunch and had a heart attack. A fatal one. She so hoped that she would receive some positive news from the officers. Better to go to my own place, she thought. Better to be close by in case further information or help was needed of her.

Inside apartment 9 the scene left no doubt what had happened to the missing swimmer.

"Hey, Joe!" came a familiar Bronx voice. "Come in here! We're calling the M.E.'s office right now. The CSI people are on the way. It looks like what it is, I'm afraid."

Joe Jeno had responded to many reports such as this one. It remained a puzzle to him each time and got no easier to deal with. Joe Jeno and Officer Frank White had been in the Academy together and a bond of trust and friendship had developed over the years that had them overlapping their personal obstacles and professional responsibilities. They had planned on taking both of their families on a joint week's retreat in one of the National Parks just North of Los Angeles. From the looks of the woman in the bed, they felt it was pretty much a done case. Of course they had to wait for forensics and the ME's report.

"No doubt about her?" Officer Jeno asked.

"No, I was the first in here and nothing has been moved or touched. CSI should clear this soon. You noteing anything I didn't see?"

Jeno gave the small room a quick glance and observed that the woman lived alone, appeared to be an orderly minded person as everything was neatly arranged and then some. Book shelves were of special interest for Jeno personally, believing as he did that they offered up remarkable clues as to the mind that once resided in the body of their subject.

"Frank, you read some of these book titles over here? Seem very metaphysical, and then there's a whole series of leather bound Diaries."

"Well, don't touch anything!" You know those CSI people go bezerk when you do." Frank reminded him.

Sgt. Patterson had been standing in the doorway while the two detectives took pictures and made notes. Now he was watching some older people congregating in the driveway of the apartment complex. Probably knew her or of her, was his thought.

"Sir, I think we got some citizens out here. Some really curious ones. How do you want to handle this?" Sgt Patterson called back to the detectives.

"Well," Jeno was first to speak. "I did tell the lady upstairs that I'd let her know something as soon as we did."

Officer Frank White was a real stickler for details and observation of even the most minute particle caught his eye. This was his crime scene and that's how it would be handled and written up and he didn't want his good record to get even the slightest smudge.

"I think we better hold off on giving out any details about what we've seen here." Officer White reiterated.

"My God, Frank! The woman's dead. We do know that much."

"But the hows and whys and all the other waiting evidence must be explained before we can go leaking out little bits of exposure here and there. Let's get the nearest of kin thing first. Go ahead and tell the woman, what's her name?"

"Mrs. Hannah," Jeno replied.

"Ok, then just let her know that we've found the reported missing person here and she is deceased; and that is all we know now. Do try to get more information on who we can call. You know, the family or f riends...that whole bag."

Jeno started out of the white stucco apartment unit and climbed up the stairs. He took his usual deep breath and then pushed the button to let Mrs. Hannah know she had a visitor.

"Oh Officer Jeno, please do come in. I'm so worried about Annie. Have you found anything of what happened to her? I put in a telephone call to her sister in another state but the sister had not arrived from work yet.I left a message.

"The woman reported missing is in her apartment. She is in her bed and she is dead." Jeno finished.

"Oh my! What will Erin do without her big sister to help her. Officer Jeno knew this must be carefully, precisely formatted.

"Mrs. Hannah, we just don't have enough information now to determine how or why or when she died. I know this is a shock to you. Is there someone you'd like me to call to come over and be with you?"

"No, Officer, I'm going to be ok. I just see her everyday and and first she was missing and now she is dead. I'm going to lie down for a bit. But you be sure to let me know of any new information or any further developments. You will won't you?"

"Yes...Mrs. Hannah, you need not overly-concern your self with this news. All that can be done is being done."

And with that he left the apartment and walked around the outside perimeter. All the time wondering to himself what had occurred to this fragile woman , what was so awful that she could not accept? Just what disease did she live with ?

"Joe! Hey Joe! You out here?" Frank's voice rose with his impatience.

"Yeah, over here, Frank."

"I think this is most likely suicide. There were some notes on her computer detailing how depressed she was, how hopeless she felt her living had become. But I still haven't seen any evidence as to the how of her death, " Frank began to wind down.

"There's the CSI people and the M.E.'s office staff are right behind them. Let's let them take over awhile so they can get what evidence may be around the apartment. There's a coffee house not far from here. What say we go get a cup. It's going to be a busy shift this one."

Joe stopped and was suddenly quiet and still. A look of disbelief passed through his face.

"There was a picture in her bedroom that resembled someone I once knew. Now I remember who it is."

Officer Juno began to sprint across the green and lushly landscaped grounds to what he expected to bring more interest and curiosity and ultimately someone's downfall. He knew that guy in the photo. Strong, tanned , young and rugged spelled out a family member to him.

"Come on Frank. We've got some work tonight before all the families involved in this get torn apart."

Frank could barely keep up the long legged sprinting of his partner. He knew he needed to be working out more but always there seemed to be something more important than him or his mental and emotional wellbeing. He didn't slow down for the details. If Joe had picked up a brain-swizzle at the scene then he was just as anxious to find the last few drops of truth that might yet exist.

"Hey, Joe, you plan on letting me in on the details here?" Frank began to sweat and breath came hard to his tight lungs.

"Frank, just stay up with me. This is going to throw a lot of of those little wiry guys down at City Hall. Come on and ride with me!"

(to be continued)

--rumorsofme-

Coon-fusion 2

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 06:48:29 GMT

I wondered why I told him anything at all. Didn't my wounds show? Was he so much of the light that he could no longer see that there yet remained a darkness?

"It's lonely," I slowly began again.

"I know." he stated.

"Just that. You know. How convenient for you. You walk in the calm perches of heights no one can ever hope to attain. You are purposeful and you lend more than anyone can ever repay. "

Still he was, to the raw anger growing within me. Neither prosecutor or judge would he be, but a fair witness to the charge handed down to me. He was awake and keeping careful attention to the progress of my lonely spirited wandering. I was of him.

"You always choose to go. I will not detain your journey through this or any other discovery of what you seek. That you are alone is of your choosing. Is it not? Tell me it is not or else let your stubborn bothersome pitying of the lives you do not understand and cannot heal, stop."

" I know I chose. Because I chose does not mean I am spared any less the suffering. That I go and return so often is an obvious weakness that I want to be done with. You tell me that you do not understand that and I will stop," I begged.

"There is no one here but me now. The others will be along soon and you would do well to offer some thought to their journeys and partings. They have given and lost as much as you and do not come to me with their wailings. These souls are beyond the witness or comprehension of ordinary life-liners such as you. They have brought you light and comfort, added depth and meaning to your ways and yet you would forget them in a moment of denial, in a fit of fear."

There was a motion from the fluid horizon; a fluttering of emotions stuttered through me. I so wanted to close my eyes and be somewhere, anywhere there might be some peace. Some distance between my burning zeal to do and the bubblings of a promised happiness that threatened my whole concept of life and the living of it. I wanted to know more of what he could teach me, yet I was feeling that there grew within me a darkness through which I might at last see the who of what I was and at last be free. Free from the ceaseless hunger of wanting. Alive to death. Though I no longer explored death for it no longer existed for me. I was in some unbounded harborland where I did not fit in any more than I fit in on the unsheltered island of that small tier of water below.

"Your way is the only way I've ever known. Now that is lost to me and I must stop the ache and weakness that bleeding for your way has caused me. And I would stop it for others but I know they do not want to look up and see the truth of the lies they have accepted as their way. As the only way. Why do you let this perpetual ignorance, and passage of hate from one mind to the next, continue?"

"You think I can stop that? You have every wealth of knowing to do it and you chose not. I chose not. They will be as they are until they are anniliated or of a strength so depleted, so weak that they cannot continue. Their imaginings that there is some difference between them ...let simmer an anger that propels them onward in riddles, in puzzles that entertain their earthbound souls. What else is there for you now? Where would you go? Who would you tell? Who wants to hear that which only encases their hopefulness in a shaft of unlit, eternal decay that shifts from one grave to another?"

"Enough! I am done with this. I am done with you. I have already died to the cryings of needy innocents. What more may you do to me? Oh, I know you can always find something. I am suffocating in my own breath. I have to turn loose the ties you have bound me with in your teachings."

"My teachings are just that. My teachings. That I am stuck with. Where can I go anymore? You have a strength that I did not have. You have not yet relinquished your passage back to that tier of water and land.

And I don't think you are ready to do that now, are you?"

"I know there is no TRUTH. The truth is that the TRUTH does not exist. And I have lived just to see that last veil fall away. Naked I am to the hot dry winds that seek and scar my soul. The flesh that is needed for tomorrow's living is barely maintaining form. The bones that hold this body together are themselves brittle, twisting and painfully thin. And, no, I am not ready to go back again. I do not want to go back ever. It is time that you let me in here...let me be asleep so that I may wake and find all tracings of this past time disappearing with the blowing of the winds. That is not so much. Is it?"

Being conscious in another's thought-mind would usually find me in great discomfort; and sometimes, I will agree to let go that which I wanted, just to have the curl of time out of the tunnel of his vision and repair. I was beginning to feel the thinness of air that lived there. Sweet with fragrance and ripe with beauty, I could almost feel a dizzyness that was seduction enough and real for me.

The horizon began to take a shape and form that moved from light to light. They were yet strange to me. Though the garments they wore, their laughter and a kind of kindness I'd sought -- almost desperately, frequently and fiercely, gave me an intuitive knowing they would be of the gracious, compassionate and passionate warrior tribe. A tribe lost to me throughout many eternities. I felt I belonged but was so intimidated by the stories of them and the deeds of their secret treasure that I observed my own self move from the place where I stood. No where was there to hide, not even a shadow cast itself in protest of my growing smallness.

When I looked up again, I saw they were very near. So near I heard someone say. "I am Abraham."

Then spontaneously the sound of many voices, unbound and filled with a light joy, were bouncing off the lowering sky. I know them I thought. I deeply wanted to touch an arm, feel a hand in mine and all were here...here at this odd mark of time.

~rumorsofme~

(to be continued)

Coon-fusion

Sat, 27 May 2006 17:42:37 GMT

The quiet hung in my ears. My body ached to empty itself of the time I'd spent down there, again. The confusion was still near. I had been questing much too much. My mind was stiring in the juices of my escape and the story I had to tell...well, afterall, didn't they already know well? From their own voyage, from their own delivery when...

"You back again?" he called.

My eyes had not resolved the intensity of the advancing light. But I knew the voice. Knew it well. Forever it promised. A promise I'd not wanted to count on. Wouldn't he one day be gone?

"How was your journey?" he asked.

He knew quite thoroughly how my journey was and all I had to tell, all I'd seen and heard; and hoped soon to forget. But I'd noticed here, that the Spirit didn't ever forget.

I looked to see the garment he was standing in for he was always in a garment of one kind or another. I remembered when he was a brother, or somebody's sister, their cat or mother. As I slimmed my gaze, I realized that each time I came back, I saw less and less of him. Where was that strength of body and firmly grounded footing? And I wondered how I was faring as my Self diminished in bones wrapped in skins. He was moving towards me now. I tried to remain passive.

"Let's see, I can not remember your name?" he smiled too cheerily for me.

"You know I don't have a name," I spoke at last.

"Oh, well I thought the others had givien you a name."

His eyes were positively mischievous in teasing delight. He appeared to sit down.

"You want to talk now?" He always seemed to know everything. I got annoyed at his games sometimes but always played them nonethless.

"I really think I'm done down there," I responded.

"Humm. You sure about that?" he asked. "Why don't you begin to tell me some of it."

"Alright."

(to be continued)

Questions...Questions...

Wed, 24 May 2006 19:26:16 GMT

Now I lay me down to sleep

In Dreams of pleasures

Can I keep?

The day from night?

The stars and moon

In the light?

Reassuring quiet?

Where rest my burdens

Out of sight?

~rumorsofme~

I rose in stillness

to watch the pink begin

to feel the rose

upon my skin.

velvet touched me

through the clouds

mists were lighting

what might yet

be.

fir trees regal

in cold white

fog

laid a path

before my

wonder and

sleep turned loose

its slumber;

so I might know

the way of

my long ago.

When my skin shone

a differnt tightness

of color and I knew

the truth of

choice I drew.

Immortal I walked

thru ashes growing.

gray spoke

of sin

and restless knowing.

(All balanced

to break

the thinness

within)

"Call upon me"

The voice came again.

with flesh you

may find your answers.

the questions of all

living

that breathe

stale air.

Who no longer may

conceive

lateness of time.

when promises

passed

one another

and grieved.

For the moment

dark, full

with despair

and I wondered

will I even

care?

~rumorsofme~