i've mentioned Bubastis before, but...

when i hear of ffolks, friends, losing pets, i go back to this.

i trace my finger across her name and remember the blessing she gave me in her tiny motorpurr, in her dancekneading on my chest, in her eyesmile and the shove of her tiny shoulders. love without boundaries without boundaries.


i wear her name on me, tattoo'd, and i'll carry her with me as long as i carry life.





Saladin is very personable in his own way, with his insistant meow, and undeniable presence; these remind me of the personality in our companions, as varied and relevant as in any human. maybe more so, cos that love is markedly unconditional, on levels that we will never achieve as humans, no matter how we wear love.

ever.




i think if i ever got those fabled 3 wishes, one would be to make sure that my cat knows how much i love him.














peace, Claudine. Know love, and know that she loved you how nothing else can.







.

right then,
no more anonymous emails, anonymous posts.

you obviously read here, and elsewhere.

your 'opinons' are neither substantiated nor valid, and certainly not insightful or welcome.

no one is stealing my lifethings, no one is twisting me,
everything here is in progression, and understanding, and evolution


my only regret is in giving you any attention, beyond this.

so i willnae open yr emails, should yeh persist, and i willnae accept anonymous posts here.

please take yer own 'advice' and move along.



---------


and today is fucked-up enough without feeling this aggravation, and feeling it's waves
which is what was intended, i suppose
and i mulled onnit for too much of my morning, when i shoulda been pondering corporate words and turns
staring a little blankly between coughs, i've found.
hn.


but the 'poster' doesnae take into account the subjects here: that (we) are bigger than.
tho the barbs sting, yeah. but there's nothing innem.


relationship = collabotarion, and
i collaborate in celebration, i songsmith in (for) understanding and insight
i write cos that's how i do it

i hunt, i howl, i live free
and i love hard




and i do not want what i have not got

i'll move with it, in it instead
if i've learned nothing else, it's that yeh cannae
force

yeh can be a force, and a rolling wave in a tide
but if yeh want your beach to hold footsteps, sand castles
yeh cannae crash into it


faith.
grace.
peace.



harmony.

this is me, ignoring tomorrow, and praying for it all at the same time.

it's storming in Jerusalem texas.
i'd pray storm in Babylon before wednesday next?


i've put thunder on the train, copper-railed on pennybacks freshly escap'd from fountains
rain like the drumsticks of mice, and the cool earth smells of dust kicked up by skyfingers
when your drapes move, it's me.

when your candle flickers, it's me.

when the moon takes the night off, napping behind the silverblack of rolling skyking chariots and stormhorse manes
holding the air in hugs of minutes on the way
damp on your freckles
( not wet. damp)


it's me.













"...write me a song," she said.

and i havenae stopped.



Starhead – waiting for the miracle

i painted her this song, and she painted the song





grace.
faith.
peace.






.

and today was long, and uncomfortable. madness in the AM, then work all day.

waaah. i know. whatever.
and i've no news, cept that the shadow was still there today, and i might get the big fucking needle thingy on Wednesday, or Thursday. They had given me 2 superdoses or something of antibiotics, t'see what it'd do to the shadow, if it were infection, or the like. all it did was make me poop. a lot.

i told em i just needed leeches & mead.

no go, tho.


good thing today:
starhead is on LastFM, if yeh have it, or if yeh feel the want t'DL a song or two.

http://www.last.fm/music/Starhead



i'm gonna take some pics t'morrow, and mebbe drag Ms Brittany to some lunch-type-thing. cos i hate a resturant alone, and she's good in my head, most times.
something.

practice t'morrow night, yeah.
gonna finish 'petal', and 'the ballad of some bourbon angel'


i got up early this AM more than i needed to to be at the DRMC Cancer Center, so i wove around both campus' lookin for a fountain to toss pennies in.

i woke to an imagin'd voice from a shadow on my pillow saying "Let's drive, baby. Let's go somewhere."

so i moved the mighty Saladin, showered and headed out in the hours that i was normally goin t'sleep in.
and i drove, with a little CD with a flower in it's jewel box, then Regina Spektor , then Joanna Newsom, then some U2 ( cos i hadnae listened t'them in a while...) then
well, then i'd nae found a fountain, so i went to my thingy.

there was a big ass fountain in front of the hospital-thingy, but it didnae feel right, somehow.

so all morning i held this stupid penny, rubbing it absently, with Beatles songs stuck in my head and random bits of Neruda in spanish that i was sure i was mangling, and Gibran, which stays in my head in the most personal cupboards there.
i've plenny of love, i can feel it. i dunno what the fuck is wrong with me that i feel the edges of it more than the palms sometimes.
and my hands smelled like copper, penny sweating in my pocketed hand
and i wanted to just toss it anywhere, like it'd catch a breeze and ride that random texas zephyr out across what's left of my praries to find a spot in the cold ocean of earth, gestating a wish until the magic of that sun stroked it to release it's blossom, like a shy dogwood in the first warm day of the year...

thinking that the sun wasnae even up where it would send it's mojo, if it had it t'send.
'Mojo Penny', i laughed, more than once. Sorry, Jeff.
He'd understand, i conjure. His heart's still here, even after alla that water.

water. hn.




so this was me, trying not to think of needle here, swab there, and having to pee & vomit constantly it seemed. drinkin something supposed t'be orange, but it tasted like it should have gravel at the bottom of it. scraping my cheeks, my tongue. giving me some lozenge that make me hafta spit like a fucking camel.
and how much breath can i hold? and measuring for smoke & particles in my lungs, and timing my blood flow beyond just my pulse. virry strange feelings. and on top of everything in the present, was that stupid buffet of possibilities being set for me.

strange sensations in that combination of bad TV and reality in tubes and bags and a flock of little pains

especially the headache on the sides of my head only, and/or the always pee feelin.
if i get the probe, they're gonna catheterize me, they say.
fuck that madness.
course the alternative is an actual hole, as in day surgery.



and the ammonia smellin salts once, cos i dun give blood so well. i tell em that, and they laugh, looking at my tats & holes.


"what's the key to?" i was asked about fiddy times.
"Everything. It's a skeleton key" i'd explain.
*blank*


and after, eating, i wasnae even so hongry, but i knew i needed the fuel, and Red Bull wasnae gonna cut it.

goin back on wednesday.

and this is screened, yeh better believe. but dun post with anything saccharine, k? i'm journalin, not fishing.

tomorrow i'm going to the Oncologist.
according to this flock of papers i got on Thursday ( great fucking birthday present, eh?), i'm having stuff, including computed tomography, sputum cytology, and hopefully not a fucking Bronchoscopy.
and theres a note of the possibility of what amounts to a huge fucking needle in my chest. It all goes on to say more pokey slicy stuff, in order of the stuff that gets done if the stuff before it on the list is inconclusive.

But, it also notes in one little line that shadows in x-rays may be nothing to worry about, basically.
However, i keep in mind that the GP i saw felt the need to refer me to the Oncologist, sequesterd in the very omnious-sounding cancer center.
crap.

and i dun post this, nor have i, for drama. i hate drama. i hate it when ffolks stub their toe and moan about it til someone asks 'waht's wrong?'. that ain't me. in spite of this firepit of a journal i indulge in sometimes, my private health stuff is just that.
tho i've mentioned to a few souls, in passing, i didne feel the need to toss it into the aether here.
but then again, i feel i owe it to this thing, this 8-year chronicle, to bring it here, at least for a moment.


plus.i'm hongry. i have t'keep my blood sugar even, and an empty stomach, cos i'm gonna get lit up with dye, too.

all of which is not only very annoying, but scary as well. i've shit do do. Bookstore to man, words to put here and here and here and here
hands to hold
skysailing and songsmithing



this
interloper
i do not want.
nor do i want the drama that occurs with htis.
i had similar once before, and i put it off, but

i have more love, now, i think. a reason to take a look. a responsibility to the peace i'm trying to cultivate within me.

tho i also think it'd be easier to just move along, to let it be in the most perverse sense of the phrase

and it'd be easy to

eh

"i'd give anything for true love" i used to pray. for years
and now, in these pondripples of twilight self-pity i think mebbe i have.



but i love
and i love so fucking hard
that i'd rather love
even like this
this sideways highlove so far over my head sometimes that it gives my poor heart vertigo

i'd rather be baffled in it
than have nothing

this hurts, but having nothing flies in the face of everything i feel for
and i've lost the desire to lie, even to myself it seems.


today was largely amazing. the show went well, a lot of friends came, and there were ffolks there that i didnae know who'd come to the show on the sounds from the myspace, and we were invited to play with The Baptist Generals ( a fucking Sub Pop band!!!), plus 2 other shows were booked: with Record Hop, with Pinebox Serenade.
( and i dun feel like linking: google em)

but i stood on the wood floor of Dan's with the hard vanilla and oak of bourbon on my mouth and

i sang to the sky, hoping she'd hear, somehow,

and my friends sat in rapt fascination that this beast could find hallelujah in his mouth and not spit it out like an errant bone.
and it was salve


and between songs i thot of endings, and frayed ends.
and between breaths i thot of the glory in making a sound that moves someone
not just a song: but in tiny words

and between words i thot of how this happened:
"build me a boat" she said, and i'm making a navy.

and between glances i caught understanding
and i felt doubly warm, from the setting Texas sun, and the souls around me

and i want to stay in it, i want to feel it again
i want my lips to feel song and lips and song and lips and song and lips again
and my fingertips to graze sharp edges of leaves and books and soft edges of the side of a breast
the line of a jaw
hipbones under edges of skirttops
buttons on my fingers like wrestling ladybugs
hair thru my fingers like creekwater, cool and melodic in it's elementalism
and the reward of
even
half
a breath on my arm
neck
lips



i've only found love,and the ability of it
i'm not fucking done yet.


you can't take the sky from me,
please?

"Sweet Pain" - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

saaqii kii har nigaah pe bal khaa ke pii gayaa
lehroN se kheltaa hu’aa lehraa ke pii gayaa

In awe of every glance of the cup-bearer, I drank
I drank playing with the waves of joy.

ai rahmat-e-tamaam merii har Khataa mu’aaf
maiN intihaa-e-shauq meN ghabraa ke pii gayaa

O all-merciful! Please forgive all my wrongs
I drank confounded by the extreme desire.

piitaa baGhair izn ye kab thii meri majaal
dar-pardaa chashm-e-yaar kii shah paa ke pii gayaa

I do not dare to drink without permission
but the patronage of veiled eyes of my beloved beckoned.

zaahid ye merii shoKhii-e-rindaanaa dekhnaa
rahmat ko baatoN baatoN meN bahlaa ke pii gayaa

O abstinent! Look at the mischievousness of my drinking
I drank by befriending the forgiveness [of God].

uudii uudii ghaataa’eN aatii haiN
mutriboN kii navaa’eN aatii haiN

Purple clouds are over-cast
and the sound of music is all around.

kis ke gesuu khule haiN saavan meN
mahkii mahkii havaa’eN aatii haiN

Whose tresses are open in the rains?
The winds are perfumed.

aao sah’n-e-chaman meN raqs kareN
saaz lekar ghaataa’eN aatii haiN

thanks for this reminder holeinthedonut

"I only have x amount of life in my body, only x number of days in my life, and I simply don't have the time to spend not being enriched."
- Harlan Ellison



no shit, mate.


and no quarter

i was listening to Mr Leonard Cohen talk, instead of sing, while walking tonight
texas is trying like hell to rain, but the sky will have none of it, instead we get a mist
needlecold drops pepper'd my face & hands outside my hoodie
( my mane, she called it)







and in that nightness, it occurred t'me that it's next month already on monday, or the like.














for my birthday, i would like a lighthouse.







barring that: away.

"The glamour, secrecy and delight of love lie hidden in the fact that life and death turn equal to those who are in love. One's own life and somebody else's life. You should look for the power and horror of love there. When facing love, all the voices become silent, except the mighty voice of desire that dazzles the sight with its excessive glitter, that alters souls, changes men and objects. Objects, once dear to you, turn worthless, but what was worthless, now becomes an unfathomable realm where men turn into gods and beasts, where they enter inhuman world of souls struggling, becoming reckless, sparkling, burning and crying, and for the first time living and seeing everything when falling in love with a body the same way as once Angels fell in love with Daughters of the Earth. Angels left Heaven for the sake of Earth, and thus they created a bond between the emerald green Earth and the infinity of the blue Heaven where everything is born. They doubled the world, and we live in between two mirror images. We feel eery in between those images. We are cold, we get numb and drown in the depth of reflections. However, we love, and in the name of love we perform daring exploits, commit crimes, and we live for a single moment of love and then crush it.
That is love.

Love is terrible and merciless; it is awful.
Love is gentle, inspiring, inexpressible and inexplicable.
Whatever we say about love, words fail in the attempt to describe it, the same way as we fail to describe music or to draw the Sun.
Still one thing is true: the secret of love is mightier than the secret of death, as the heart yearns to live and die for the sake of love, but it does not want to live without love."

-Konstantin Balmont

(private)

today at teh shop, my buddy Nick stopped by on his way to a meeting, and we discussed stuff.

he noted that because i had let light in, that i let it start in me, that it had opened me up to the possibilities of making music, falling in love, going a path of the least harm where i go -
and if i looked at it otherwise, it'd not hold up as well. that i couldnae just jump into something and expect my foundations to rearrainge to suit, that i had to have the ground to build on first.
that in matters of faith, there has to be ground, before there's feet to walk on it.

and it made sense, cos i'd said much the same thing a few posts back, but hearing it from someone who wasnae so aware of where i was was kind of nice

so i joked, i countered with a walking on water comment, and he noted that yeh cannae start with a miracle, yeh start with faith, and yeh step offa the ground to walk on water.

i'm light years from anything resembling walking on water, but i recognize the power of that thing.

after the band came together, and barely in love, i marked myslef with a water sign, to mark that i had moved into a space where things were possible again, and i was ready for new influence and light
again, because i could not have gone to those things before

and both have come to me - not just in love, but in how i move thru things without so much darkness
i've still darkness, but it's not my fuel.
tool, maybe? or is that naieve. it's just a thing, and it has use, and it's defined in degree by where i swing it, of course
but i like the light, the sun.
i like the warmth of it, and i like the ffolks i find in it
and i like that i'm able to enjoy it

it's little miracles that keep me innit, not the other way around.
i had to be there to be shined on.





Nick is in AA, that was the meeting he was headed to.

...and her violet to my black.

...her.




inspired
infinite

Yesterday, we had a guy come into the shop who was going door-to-door selling 'name brand' colognes and perfumes.
"This will make the women wonder who smells so good," he told me," and then they'll come to you..."
and instead of trying to explain Black Phoenix Alchemy, i found myself saying
"i have a girlfriend."
Then i kept those words in my mouth for a moment, like a butterscotch disc.
Sweet, and light but with some afterweight that only creamflavours can give.
salty on the sides of my tongue, sweet on the flat.

"i have a girlfriend," i said again, but to myself this time.

i've knocked down my walls to pave roads
alt(e)r the landscape
redraw the skyline



i am forever changed
i am forever grateful
and i believe in a God that would give
this



i am
s p e e c h l e s s

oceansized

she asks me
"when heaven breaks
can i lick god's blood
off yr paws?"

this.
this is why.

this is how i feel, these days.