ghosts of television past floating through my brain

These two popped in my mind earlier. Connected by an SNL skit--the liar.
Morgan Fairchild was such a big deal--weird. Was it the hair?
"Yeah, that's the ticket." Forgot all about that.

Spousal observances

Sunday 24th of May 2009 around 4:00:
Husband observed a bee swarm the size of our house at the golf course near 70 Hwy and Woods Chapel Road (a road named for my ancestor and his chapel). The swarm was like a black cloud in the distance flying towards my husband. He backed up out from the path of the live mass of insects and was close enough to view individual bees in the "controlled chaos" rolling around each other. A swarm this size is imagined to be able to make it from Mexico to Canada.

Tuesday 26th of May 2009 all day:
Husband observed another swarm of bees on the corner of St. Louis Street and the alley between the Hobbs and Abernathy buildings. The swarm was half the size of our t.v. room and not as dense as the one at the golf course. The swarm was observed flying up towards the top of a building and turning the corner. The swarm eventually descended upon a fire hydrant and gave it a beard of bees.

Cornflower blue

A woman with a blonde bob adorned with a bronze flower clip barrett and horizontal oval glasses leans over to scrub the stain off the sky blue polyester golf shirt. She wants to stitch up her husband's tennis shoes with thick green thread so he can call them mocashoes.
She wishes for lavender bushes to cut and put in vinegar to make a cleaning solution. Will she ever try to make that parsley perfume?
Colors are magenta rose, lilac and cornflower blue. Ah, cornflower blue. She practically had an orgasm for this crayon. Oh and forest green. Yeah, forest green. She wanted to color that color so hard.
Her heart almost breaks because the pincushion flowers planted before she moved here, don't appear to be coming up this summer. She salivates over a dark leafy green weed growing along the gravel path. Are they those French lamb's ear greens she's been wanting to try? Oh please, god, make it so.
She decides to chop the volunteer mulberry tree she had been cultivating. Maybe it will grow back. Inside the columnar cut stem is light green. Not that verdant. She hopes the mulberry is as tough as it's known to be. She decides to make the little cut tree her wand. She will add it to her wand collection, which consists of a dogwood wand.
She has a small dried root collection too. Pods, seeds, nuts, feathers and rocks coveted and loved. Snail shells, piece of a bird skull, crow's feet, green june bug, weird irridescent blue fly, and a dragonfly in a jam jar that should never be opened unless one wants to unleash a scent to draw demons from the depths of putridity.
Remember the yard that summer on Wyoming where the wild garlic looked like fiddlehead ferns?
Remember when the yard was purple?
Oh, I loved that time too.
She wants to master the stove. She envisions four swirling pots spinning as she maneuvers over them like a dj.
She thinks a purple kitchen will make it her own.

Hold on to something still

I'm listening to this CD in my car and I can't get past this first song on the second disc.
Here's a webisode I found:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=671585759627
And his website (I like the invisible man image):
http://www.scottweiland.com/

Whose Beauty? (Zombieville) [In editing]

Now that the aesthetic movement has been in effect for a few years, the citizens of this country have torn down the ugly homes and buildings that shouldn't have been built in the first place.

The restoration of edifices that were begat of real craftsmanship have begun. The government plans to unveil a new campaign to reclaim green space. Most of the campaigns have progressed smoothly. Most city, town and village inhabitants of this country have decided on an aesthetic scheme for their dwellings that dignifies, sustains and appeals to the sense of sight belonging to the majority whom voted in the localized beautification election.

The folks of the town of Harkness, however, could not agree on a singular beauty. In a town so small, I never imagined how diverse it could be. We never knew the creativity hibernating in each Harknessian individual.

I was renting one of the ugly houses. The town leaders put me up in an old renovated Bed and Breakfast until a more beautiful abode was built for me, er, well, I can't lie, for any renter.

The town folk gathered at the Harkness town hall to deliberate on the Harkness beautification plan. Joshua Stangl, the director of the Harkness Museum, desired a historic aesthetic, Merry Tuttle, owner of the Harkness Nursery wanted an Olde English look, Turk Collins, proprietor of the local bar, Zoot, coveted a 1920s Art Nouveau visage, Harkness postmaster, Shill Kramph liked modern and clean lines. The Hamilton family, of the the Hamilton Family Farm, pined for edible landscapes as far as the eye could see. The Comic Book shopkeeper, Fitz Pringle, volleyed for a wooded glen dotted by Hobbit-style earth homes, The Harkness School District superintendent, Arlyle Mock, requested red brick for everything. Holly Mezner, the Harkness librarian, was keen on green, the color and the application. John Flax, the town drunk, envisioned a Scandinavian ski village to go with the Arkness mountains, which were ancient and nothing more than high plains.

Mayor Vernon Kronon introduced his wife, Midge, to the discussion as she took over the podium. Lips too close to the microphone, she puffed, "Listen everyone. Your aesthetic is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! All wrong!," she darted her eyes around the room before she reasoned, "This town needs to move beyond the past and look towards the future." Pausing to pose an airless face stoppered by a fish mouth, she gathered untempered courage and proclaimed "I suggest the town of Harkness embrace our clean slate and create a masterpiece of old Rome--a better Rome!"

Instinctly, a few of us chuckled at Midge's foreward thinking plan.

"Better Roam home!," flew from the back of the crowded room; a comment which vibrated the congregation in stifled laughter.

"Yeah, real futuristic--an aesthetic that was dreamt thousands of years ago," flipped Harold the Funeral Home Director.

"I want lightrail!"

"I want cobblestone!"

"I want gaslights!"

"I want gothic!"

"Green roofs!"

The meeting adjourned in a frazzled state of incompetence. I went back to my room at the Bed and Breakfast. Gerry and Terry Marsh, my hosts, weren't going to let me stay forever. I had to find a place to rest my bones.

The next morning I went to my job at the Funeral Home. I'm a carpenter by trade and I can build a good box. Yeah, I make caskets for the deceased citizens of Harkness.

Harold approached me as soon as I turned the lights on in the shop.

"What did you think of last night's meeting?"

"Well, its a shame nothing came of it, but I heard some good ideas."

"Yeah, I kind of liked Superintendent Mock's red brick conception."

"I liked that one, and I'm rather fond of Holly Mezner's green plan."

"Oh, that green stuff. That will never last."

"I think that's the point, Harold, it's called Cradle to the Grave."

Harold searched my face to see my angle. Unanswered and still unsure, he turned his back and offered, "Hmph! Green! Doesn't have any business being in Harkness."

"Why's that, Harold?" I uncharacteristically taunted him further.

He mumbled something with expletives and wandered down the hall and up the stairway to his office.

I rolled my eyes and simultaneously turned toward my current project. It was a casket for Torly Striker. He is in his eighties and figured he better have himself a nice home for the thereafter. We designed it together.

As I added the small details for Torly's next home, his words came back to me..."a home for the thereafter." I smiled.

"Maybe even a home for the right now," I thought. A slight notion fogged my mind. I could sleep in here. After all, I just need a place to rest my bones. Click.

My thoughts churned and calculated. Yeah! That's all I need is a protected place to sleep. The rest of the world will be my living space. I can shower at the High school gymnasium or in the pristine Arkness creek. Eat at restaurants or on the go. Have my mail sent to the post office. Buy a plot of land in the cemetery and wake up to a solitary lifestyle.

I did this. Right between the headstones of Murray Castberger circa 1812 and Lorelei Chambers circa 1921, I slept in the grave yard in my personalized casket designed to hold a few belongings and influence a satisfying slumber. My approach to living was at first considered strange and macabre, but after the town leaders got ugly over beauty, many Harknessians were left without a beautiful home.

I was now considered a hero of sorts for the new homeless Harknessians. My portable sleeping quarters fulfilled a void in the town. Made to order, my caskets or casks, as I now call them, are customized for complete slumber comfort and satisfying minutia needs of the individual. The homeless needn't be bedless. Nor should they keep one eye open whilst engaging in rejuvenate sleep. The health of the down trodden improved. Not only did they get enough sleep, but they watched less television, became more physically active, and many were released by the nasty grip of pack-ratism.

At first there were only a few of us and the company was welcomed in a Hobo aesthetic kind of way. We had campfires next to the Pauling Mausoleum every Thursday and spoke like frontiersmen. I will report to you my journal entry from several months ago so that you may see where my mind was when I invented the new fad of Harkness:

More neighbors, I think I'm going to add wheels to my cask and try nomadic living for awhile. At least until I can once again wake into solitary enjoyment. Maybe I'll buy an orchard and rest my bones among the fruitful groves.

Now all the casks have wheels. Mobile portable sleeping quarters, are wildly popular in this region. Everyone is pulling them along with designer or creative, handmade ropes. Some casks are bedazzled, spray-painted, toled, decoupaged, Pollacked, big and little wheeled, hydraulic, and on and on. Everyone is expressing his and her creativity and displaying his and her version of beauty.

Most of the Harkness citizens sleep in the graveyard now. The town is known for its living dead. This acknowledgment was resurrected when weary travelers witnessed a mob of Harknessians groggily, weaving and lurching down through the cemetery gate in search for a cup of morning joe. We are also known as Zombieville.

Holy Shed

This is where I worship.
I zero in on the blackness
imagine vibrating hands
healing and exorcising me
body surf style
the healers spit on the floor
and torpedo propel me
out of the blackness
to soak in the light
and once again
become entangled in
the beauty and thorns
of the roses

Scratchin'

The story that I'm writing has a Faust twist. My main character runs a drive-thru that serves anything desired. Here are the ways he obtains his customers' requests:
A horn of plenty, because I have always liked that image and I also have a weird thing about it (I was a dreamy kid).
An orchard, I always wanted an orchard and my mom's grandma had one. A wolf chased my mom and her sister up a fruit tree in that orchard. It was a terrifying tale. But I can't tell it--she has to.
The last way my character achieves in his business is by time travel.
He obtains the horn of plenty and the quantum power from Cecil the Devil whom only asks for one request. Not for my character's soul, but for something. That's all he knows of it. It could come out of nowhere, it could last forever.
A bargain for the power to satisfy customers.
The orchard provides my character's only means of self sufficiency.
Dr. Zorba a man of intimidating intellect finds my character and uses him to bring desired artifacts of our great mysteries. Tactfully pushing my character further and further towards the edges of time. He wants to know something. Is that him following my character through time? The doctor's constant thirst proves too much for my character's body which changes into a static magnetic opposite. Matter is flipped and he can't change it back. He floats through puzzles of familiar objects and finally finds a friend or a person just as crazed for the answers as Dr. Zorba.
Margot Brungardt is a bright, nervous daydreamer willing to sacrifice her life to reach the pinnacle of knowledge. She is intrigued by my character's plight. What kind of knowledge is the best knowledge? Everything or yourself?

This is for Tierney

(droney guitar: dun un dun un dun un tah)

ran away to the west
faxed my mom for the test
couldn't stay for the rest
then I met him Jess
he is just the best
we kissed right under a tree
I felt so salty free
I felt so salty free
I felt nothing like me

I felt so s-a-lty free



This doesn't make sense, but it does to me. Lyrics are from "Quest for the Cup" by SY. Feel s-a-lty free to give it a listen.

The May Girls

What is it about those

girls born in May?

Full of giddy life and smiles

Their party perfume

and floaty charms

Every organ filled with

Laughter

It's like every girl

wearing their best

colours took a 

trip around the

May pole.

Poison Ivy Awareness

I found two patches of poison ivy under my climbing rose. These plants are the culprit of last year's poison ivy debacle of 2008. Not used to this noxious weed in my yard, I merrily weeded the area around my rose bush. The next morning I woke to find something that looked like PRID on my wrist and hand. I tried to wipe it off, but it wouldn't budge. Then I rubbed the hell out of it to remove the tenacious resin. I nearly picked through my skin trying. Next came the familiar blisters and pain. Frickin' Poison Ivy. Well, it wasn't the Poison Ivy of the Fall of 2004. Because I dug into my skin trying to remove the plant goo, the poison ivy penetrated deeper into my wrist. I still have a scar; that looked weird yesterday when I Lucy Balled the Fix-A-Flat and ended up with foamy, nauseating chemical on my wrist (I will never buy this stuff again--goddamn chemicals!). I couldn't shake the plant's manifestations. I had to go to the doctor and got a shot. It was my mission after that miserable event to find my allergen foe. Alas! I found it. Now my non-allergic husband is going to wear long sleeves and spray some foam stuff (foam is in) that is told to have a half-life of 24 hours.

BEMIS

cat's out of the bag
CORRECTION: Cat's still in the bag.

Flowers for Algernon

The Encantadas

Steel,

Spring!

To the jungle summer

Dreams of singing encantadas

Floating on The Encantadas

Good Sailor

Hemp rope

Striped shirt arms

Heaving, tying knots

Sail towards the Sun

Never to touch it

Only the Rays on your face

This is how it is

Spheres are fixed

Yet mobile

This is our world

For Mothers

Eighty Year Old Granny

Baby, here's a five and dime,
Baby, now's about the time
For a string of pearls a la Woolworth.

Ev'ry pearl's a star above,
Wrapped in dreams, and filled with love -
That old string of pearls a la Woolworth.

'Til that happy day in Spring
When you buy the wedding ring,
Please, a string of pearls a la Woolworth.

Baby you made quite a start,
Found the way right to my heart
With a string of pearls a la Woolworth.

Wait til the stars peek-a-boo,
I've got something just for you -
It's a string of pearls a la Woolworth.

I found a love so sublime,
Right in that old five and dime
With a string of pearls a la Woolworth.

Sunday Softy

you can add this to your growing list
of heartfelt disappointment worn
like charms around your wrist
-the softies

Chain Link

Dr. Frank N. Furter Fridays Forever!