wow

wow

overGROWN

I'm over it
hip hop
love 'n fire
desire.
what about
man off wire?

Collapse
into wreckage
her dark star soul
of who to ask.
Who to ask
of who to ask.
everywhere her she are grasped

numbers cascade
into borders fore-de-kay
humans intersperse distillate
overlayed, overthrough undertones / thoroughways of overthrow.
darkly underlined like unrestrained mascara
bylines with no reflection slather

They all overgrown.
Too big for your britches
16 bridges fan outward, alone
over cliff-lipped ridges
like world cologne
stoned, dodgy distance
playing favorites
for loose electron cannon distance

playing in her thorough-way
delicate dots of finger print whispered messages
how long have we got here?
Her,
riding down past your upward glancing escalator
air traffic congested bronchial passages
multifarious laughages
we, her, you are one big triangle bowl
of galapagos orange flavored lozenges

here we go
to fully overgrow again

I'm glad i have an ocean between us

I'm glad i have an ocean between us
protect me from your dismembering gaze
days left before ice breakers and white jackets
what would i do otherwise
unleashed beast wreckage (crimson carnage puddles)
dark cloud trails climbing
guarded ghost hearts haunt or wail
life goes on in the cold swells
hot flashes of undercurrents
some new little jonah
tide squealing fishes caught in
-your net, gaping, reaches-
i'm racing noah
what would we do with another chance
to assume it wouldn't work, wouldn't last
ice skating thru cracks of iceberg pasts

n y t

n y t:
a puzzle
mystery
three letters
& what is that Y?
inbetween
something you have that i need
to X mark the spot
buried treasure under feet
took years to meet
and come to this place
of peace
standing on the beach
in the stretching shadows of the pier
ships screaming in
on the wind
storms shudder the sound
don't cover your ears
stand tall and feel the pound
of the waves on your face
closer and closer
with each day
you, in the sand where the sun gives
me, in the pebbly take-away
where the sun will drag all daylight and me with it
playing house
guns
cowboys and indians
princesses and dragons
shadows and smoke
fire burning for what we already knew
way back when
we'd look up at that same
deep blue above
with no name
for us
all pulled out
in awe

The Golden Cow- Part 3: Into the Jungles

Part 3: Into the Jungles

Far from Argentina B.A., deep in the countryside of Paraguay, Tomas and Sarah awoke in an outpost town unsure of where they were. Everyone they had asked had a different place to point to for where they were on the map. Wherever they were they liked it. It didn’t seem like being lost when they were enjoying themselves so much.

They had arrived at 3am the night before by truck, car, and bus. Having overslept and missed their transfer by over an hour, they decided to get off at the next stop. The concerned bus driver warned them of danger and pointed them up the road to a small police station. They weren’t sure if his warning meant go to the police station or stay away from it. But they went to it anyway, as it was the only building on the road with a light on. The two officers, who had been fast. There were no vacancies, but the owner Don Josef rubbed his sleep-filled eyes until he could make an exception and give them his niece’s bedroom.

They slept quickly and before long a neighborly rooster, who may as well been in the room with them, sounded off his regular report on the progress of the sunrise. This continued until Tomas found an imaginary hatchet and Sarah tied the noose. But when they opened the curtains to spot their prey, the beauty of the young new day and lush countryside hit them. A golden light poured into their room and awakened their road weary eyes. Outside their window stretched a backyard with no fence. Big boned trees climbed the hills back as far as they could see. The morning’s laundry stretched a short dark skinned woman out on the clothesline. A longhorn bull sauntered through grazing on grass. The adjoining cobblestone tin-roofed house sat patiently awaiting the completion of its half finished repairs. Everything looked so peaceful and content. They couldn’t wait to get out and see what Paraguay life was like.

Tomas and Sarah poured out of their room revived after a quick jump in the shower. They were exhausted but excited to see where their midnight mission had led them. Walking up the main street they saw a different story in light than they imagined the night before.

The town that seemed so tranquil was now named with armed guards dotting the roads. Everywhere Tomas and Sarah went stood guards--on the street corners, in front of the businesses and every well-to-do house-- armed to their teeth, with old fashioned automatic rifles, bullets strung like necklaces, pistols and long machetes on their belts. They couldn’t imagine what degree of evil existed in this peaceful little village to warrant this kind of response. Even the guards who stood at ease, leaning leisurely against the rusted iron gates, seemed to share in their inoculating disbelief of the true presence of danger.

After a walk around the marketplace they returned to find Don Josef sitting in a rocking chair on the stoop, sipping mate. Don Josef invited them over, calling his guards to get them chairs. He invited Tomas and Sarah to share the special mate he called TÉ Re’ Re’, which was served cold with some kind of mint. They drank it together passing around the same cup and metal straw over and over again in the traditional fashion, but what was unusual was the cup they were drinking out of was made from a hollowed out bullhorn. With their broken Spanish and his marbley Guarani they managed to catch 3 words of particular interest: thieves- steal- danger. The rest of the conversation was a mystery conveyed with animated hand motions, body language, fun loving smiles and full lettered laughter.

Except for the guns and guards the village felt peaceful and inviting to Tomas and Sarah. Everyone told them it wasn’t safe—there were thieves, but they never saw anything disturbing. The police said don’t trust the guards, the guards said don’t trust the police. It was a peaceful, friendly, generous village and whatever shady forces were out there kept their distance.

Instead of keeping to their plan of traveling north up the coastline through Montevideo towards the Brazilian beaches, Tomas and Sarah, via another spontaneous hunch, decided that adventure awaited inland. They skipped customs and skittered across the border on a backroad, sitting on bales of hay in the back of a pickup truck. They grinned beaming bright golden smiles at each other, astonished at their unending luck and the generosity and protection of everyone they had met.

After sharing tea and chatting, Tomas and Sarah went back out to explore. Stopping at a little art stand that caught their eye, they met a man named Senor Osito Oro. He was a beautiful old man who spoke a little English and understood Spanish. He was helpful, but as they learned more of thier common passions in life, the conversation became much more genuine and personal. He walked them to a nearby Brazilian restaurant that looked runned-down, but had the best food. They swapped stories about yoga, dance, drumming, traveling the world, the charkas, 2012, and beach friendly Caipirinhas. Senor Osito Oro shared about the essence of the rituals they held in their villaga, Jui Jui. He said the rituals were their lifeline to a constellation of forgotten ruins in the surrounding jungle. The ancient Energy Vortexes contained mysterious though measurable high frequency magnetic properties. They were profoundly healing and at times could present people with visions of either the past or the future. Senor Oro could tell they were interested and recommended a guide that could safely take them into the heart of the jungle to the ruins.

Like they had done their entire trip, they decided in the lapse of a heartbeat and off they went with no regrets. They knew this trip had some divine being’s blessing as they kept making the acquaintance of just the right man or woman at just the right moment to lead them off on another astounding adventure. Never in a million years could they have planned a better trip.

Having finished packing, they stood for a moment looking at each other. “You ready?” Tomas asked softly as he walked over to her. They pressed their bodies snug together. Having spent hours of endless nights dancing, lifting, throwing, pushing, pulling, rolling on the floor, bouncing on the ceilings, nights and mornings blurred together, music passing through one long dance, their bodies could track the changes of each other’s music. The short, shallow rise and fall of Tomas’ breath forewarned her, his touch short and sharp, a subtle staccoto grated her sensibilities.

He felt her body questioning him, looking for a clue, suspecting the worst. The glow of hope stretched over her like a balloon to pop. He tried to hold still under the searchlight gaze, but inside he squirmed from the impending accusation. She pulled away slightly and looked up at him again. Their bodies close, she tried to hold onto him. She looked up into his eyes and found it whatever she was looking for. Some unescapable violent emotion reached up inside and bit her. She felt its atomic weight and saw every minute detail down to its particle core. Through his eyes, a corridor: red, possibly heat, flame flickering. A blowtorch melting metal into a fluid golden glow.

She pushed him back, startled. “Will you hurt me?” she rebuked.
“What?”
“Would you hurt me?”
--“Ahora! You… Americanos! Go.” A call from downstairs was heard. The truck was loading.

“I don’t know--what do you mean? How can I answer that?” Tomas shifted the bags around from place to place and looked up at her readying the backpack for her back. “Here babe, we got to go.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said annoyed at being interrupted at this crucial moment. Tomas’ violence would unglue everything forever she thought as she took the backpack on like the weight of the world.

She turned and waited for him to get his pack on and look at her. “I saw a dark spark in your eyes. I swear, a violence snapped back at me. It gave me the chills. It’s not just…I’ve seen it before. I’m scared of-- what I saw.”

“C’mon,” he looked her squarely in the eyes and turned to the door. “Say goodbye to our lovely room.” He said without a glimpse of the sarcasm he so drearily felt saturating his bones.

“This isn’t done Tommy.” She said to his quick disappearing steps as she followed him down the stairs and outside.

“Uh, huh just wait a sec, okay.” They gave a quick kiss on the cheek to Don Josef and his woman and opened out into the busy street scene. From one moment to the next Tomas experienced the peace and calm of his inner world totally flip flop into strained confusion and heart broken disillusion. He kept himself steady as best he could. “We got to get on the truck.” Spanish and the local dialect was being flung about them. A dizzying storm of street chaos enveloped them-- vendors selling anything they had gotten their hands on, armed guards gaffing the breath of day, amateur taxi drivers whistling them their way, little old ladies carting groceries and grandchildren up the sidewalk.

He looked softly in her eyes, “I like you” he said with a heavy emphasis on the loving aspect of the word like. “I will never intentionally hurt you.” And kissed her on the lips and calmly said, “Will you help me find Camion Viente?”

“Okay…” she said as the wild reluctance passed. “Vente, that’s 20, right?”

“Yup,” he said, biting the burgeoning smile on his bottom lip, while looking up the street for the right truck.

“We got to find our guide too,” she reminded him.
“Oh yeah. Hopefully he’s not still drunk. I’m gonna get some of those donut-things for the trip.” He said to her smiling. “Hungry?”

“Yeah!” she brightened up even more.
They found their guide waiting at Truck #20.

Their guide pointed them eagerly to the last empty seat on the truck. They were in the back row, their guide had to stand he told them it was okay. The guide met the stir of curiousity with a smile and said “Americanos”.

After eating the chipas. Sarah turned inward again as her thoughts gobbled her up.
“What’s up babe? You’re in your head.” he tried to tug her out from under it.
“I heard something in your voice before.”
“Maybe your hearing things!” He said as he started to nestle his nose into her underarm and tickle her side.
She betrayed her feelings with a scratch of a smile. “Serious.”
“I’m seeeerioooouss.” He said rolling his eyes mocking her and tickling her more.
“No, Tomas the Peking.” She said half serious, but with none of the heavy, self-flagellar dread. “I want to talk about this. There’s something I have to say.

“I saw your anger back there. Like a demon, smoldering back at me.”
Tomas couldn’t deny that he had felt something, maybe, but he wasn’t sure what. The anger was so feint he couldn’t grasp it fully, and as quickly as it had appeared it was gone again.

Oh shit, she realized. “My father had this anger too. It’s the same. What he did to me and my mom was inexcusable. His anger got worse and led to his dark, despairing depression—a star falling upon itself, pulling our whole family down into the black hole with him.”

He saw a whirl in her eyes, her mind racing, gnawing at something, calculating future parameters. Sarah, the oldest sister, bore the brunt of her father’s collapse. He was the lonely captain going down with his ship. How she picked up the pieces for her mother and held the family together, he could only imagine. It made her strong beyond her years, but Tomas saw the course she plumbed, still sailing that submerged ship with her papa.

“Hey,” he touched her arm. She jumped out of her busied, buzzing stare, scared, defeated and heartbroken.
He knew nothing he could say would reassure her, nor could he deny the blood that pushed through his veins, the elemental parts of who he had become--the alphabet that he had learned and from which created a language. “Anger is as natural part of who we are. It has to be expressed”—he paused, “in healthy ways or… it -it –it” another pause. “I mean you can’t suppress it. It just gets worse, like a cancer… like depression.”

“Nooo…” she says, twisting the vowel into a worried knot.
“Hey, I am here for you and you are here for me, right.”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you accept me for all of who I am?”
“I don’t know.”

“I have seen anger too, you know. I have seen it twist people up like they’re mangled in a barbed wire fence, living out their lives, trapped and bleeding- cutting everyone they touch. I’ve been caught in it, hanging midair, in a tanglebrush of barbwire. Trapped and bleeding. Every time I tried to move or say a word it cut deeper. The only way I could escape was to shrink and crawl away.

“We’re so clumsy to love.”
He pulled her towards him and held her tightly.
“There will always be anger, emotions it’s just energy. Can you trust me--can you trust what you feel?”
“I can’t handle it.”

“I’m afraid to lose you.” I’m afraid I am losing you, or may have already lost you, he thought as his hands trembled with the truth. “But I have to be honest with you and true to myself. I’m not perfect, but I’m trying everything I can. I hope you can accept that.”

“I know. I just feel bad that you’re disappointed with me.”
He didn’t think she was ready for a full-on relationship. Something was freaking her out. Hell, it freaked him out too, but she didn’t let her self feel the pain, the fear, the resentment, she only wanted the lighter side. Keep moving. She wanted to love, but every time she would get into any conflict she’d get pulled out in the current, floating out to sea in a wash of overwhelm, lost in a gutter of guilt. She wanted pure bliss iridescence, on her terms irrespective of the corresponding pain that would be triggered. She had no idea how to get beyond the guilt that anchored her to the same hotspot no matter what country she visited. Endless preparation and unavoidable folly-- Guilt claimed its place, as her master teacher, in the doorway to the lasting peace she desired. It would stick around as long as necessary.

This wasn’t the first time he’s had this sinking, doomed feeling, but watching her agonize like this, he knew or thought he knew that it would take time, maybe a lot of time and doubt crept in, “after all is said and done would she be able to handle a relationship? Is this really what I want? Can I put up with her disappearing act?”

He had been in her shoes, stuck, worried, overwhelmed, lost--not wanting to be alone but not knowing what to say. Looking back he had chosen to break off a relationship and try to work on his self alone. Now here he was on the other side of the fence and the grass wasn’t greener it was a black charred fever. He swooned loopy sea sick. He could feel this Carnival Cruiseliner sinking inch by inch and he wanted to puke.

I have hurt for too long, she thought to herself. I can’t take it anymore. He is too good for me. Smarter, faster, stronger, older, wiser. He is a thoroughbred, my teacher. I love him and so soon just as I asked for. But it’s too much. I don’t even know what I want…

What do we do when our parents don’t even know what to do? They got it all mucked up & then just ignored it, denied it, acted like everything’s okay. Are they really this out of it? This gone? Where’d they go? And leave me like this…

I can feel it in them, the despair, unease, broken-leaky heart beats. Right at the tipping point. So hungry. And they gorge on junk food tv. And try to stuff stuff where stuff doesn’t belong. Is it really that hard to look me in the eyes? Touch, hug, be face to face. With no deflection. When two people touch completely, raw, exposed with nothing in between. No protections. We’re all like untouchables in my family. This thing with Tomas is exactly what I have been asking God for.

“On my first flight,” she began to speak again after several elongated moments doused with fire-spinning, hurried thinking. “Leaving home to begin my year long journey, I sat in my seat and wrote out everything that I wanted to learn and experience on my trip. I wanted my freedom, wisdom, my childhood joy, my innocence. I wanted to know what to do with my life, to know my calling. I wanted to break free from my parents, to heal myself and I had to get out of that depressing relationship with my boyfriend. I wanted to live my life- not the monotony and misery all around me.

“What the fuck! I’m like a magnet for depressed people. My dad, then my boyfriend. My ex. He was my first. Somehow he’d give me all his sadness. I could feel it just seep into my body. I’d leave feeling nauseous for days afterwards. You know? I’d get this sick feeling every time we’d have sex. It felt like he was spreading his depression all over me curdling in my skin like off-dairy creamer. I wanted to help him. But…

“I don’t know, of all the things I wrote down, still something more remained, what I wanted most of all, but I wouldn’t let myself ask for it. I thought it without forming the words.

“Whatever I end up doing, all this I’m learning, all these magical places I am visiting, there’s still the face of this little Sarah, who’s eyes are shining back at me, reassuring me, reminding me…”

They walked to a small clearing in the jungle that lay at the foot of a steep canyon wall. Their guide stepped aside, pointing and mumbling something. He idled pensively at the edge of the trees as Tomas and Sarah headed in towards the stonework. They were told this set of ruins was the crown temple used sacred ceremonies of cosmic positioning. They saw a fallen obelisk and two large oblong stone blocks that could have been altars. A circle of smaller stones ran along the edge of the tree line. A stumbling stone staircase reached down the canyon wall like a giant tongue licking the stone circle.

“Man, I’m tuckered out,” Tomas said. It was the third day of their trek through the thick, steamy jungle. With their guide Juan De Juan Juan they had explored several sets of undiscovered ruins. They remarked how fortunate they had been to have met Senor Osito. “I can’t believe how our paths keep crossing with all these amazing people. They just pop into our lives and here we are!”

“Yeah,” Sarah replied, “We didn’t even know we needed them and then here we are in the middle of this magical, unbelievable adventure.” This final leg of their trip together was filled with so much beauty and discovery- flowers and birds… crawling creatures and tree hugger things and not a sign of the panther that is said to feast in this area.

Tomas bent down touching the grooves and circular markings in the stone. “We should make camp soon.” The moon started to rise above the canopy. “Yeah, should be easy with this big ol’ moon shining for us,” Sarah said as she knelt looking at the markings on the other side of the stone. Then suddenly she looked up startled, “Tomas!”

At the opposite end of the trees something stood glowing. An animal of some sort with its head down nibbling the grass. “Where’s Juan Juan?” Sarah asked tentatively as they scanned the tree line for their guide, but he was nowhere to be found. In a glowing edy of mist and soft radiant light stood an indistinct four-legged creature. They couldn’t make out what it was in the shroud.

After grazing for moment, it started to walk towards them, awkwardly ambling along. They gazed at the incandescent shape curiously and didn’t know what to make of it.

“Woh! What the fuck….? I think it’s a cow but its ass is glowing and shit.” Tomas asked. The long knobby legs, a rectangular body and big ears, “Tomas! This is serious. I mean, we don’t know. I think it’s a baby cow, but you know, it could be like, an alien,” she said. “But why is it glowing?“ The calf continued to walk casually in their direction, pausing to feed on grass. With each step its image morphed in light and bright blurs. It was shimmering, brighter than the moon, in silver and gold sequences. In the alternating pattern of lights, its shape flickered like a candle. Along with the stunning hypnotic array of lights the thing emanated the most sublime feeling that instantly affected their mood.

“Do you feel that?”
“Uh, huh.”
A grace and mercy overtook them. They sat down next to each other staring in awe at the calf as if they were watching a fireworks display. They wrapped their arms around each other and gazed into the gentle mesmerizing light. The dancing hues rippled outwards like the surface of syrupy lake. All their worries and resentments melted away.

The calf rubbed its nose up on both of them, sniffing curiously and nudging them, (go ahead tell her/tell him, reveal your deepest longings). The glowing golden calf’s voice, sounding just like one of Tomas’ own thoughts except brighter and more promising, reverberated in his head encouraging him to act on his wishes. The light emanating from the calf shimmered with the voice, (It’s okay, she/he will hear you.) “You know, I think this thing is trying to tell me something… I am eternally grateful for this time with you Sarah and whatever happens between us just know that I am changed and forever thankful. I know there’s a lot of pressure on you right now with your family, but … just know that, I want to say, let you know that I, uh love you.

“There is too much magic between us to just sluff it off as nothing. In whatever way you can after your trip I want to continue to stay connected. I know how people drift even though they say they will stay in touch.”

“Me too. Its hard for me I know this. Its like I’m too shaky inside can’t hold a measuring spoon for a teacup. I need my container to hold better. For you, for me, for us. I got a leak in this old building. Older than time. and I need a better…you know, I don’t know. I just don’t feel like me most of the time. I feel like the calf is telling me something.”

“Yeah right, its like our couples therapist or something,” Tomas said.
“For real!” They laughed and reached out to touch the calf’s neck. The calf coos rolling its head to the side, letting its tongue dangle, “Oooooewhhh!” (Forget about the past.)

“But I feel hopeful. This can work. I love yew-tew. There’s nothing means more. Just my family has plans for me. But I heard something click inside my heart.” She looked straight into his eyes, “as shaky as all get out, it’s going to work.”

Tomas pulled Sarah over to him and looked directly into her eyes, letting his eyes speak before issuing the words. “All we need to know is what we feel, what our heart desires most of all. The how it will work out is not as important, just that we know it will if we really want it.”

The lights of the calf defied the laws of nature. As if alive, they danced with a whimsical personality. The lights shifted and folded in patterns that spun and wrapped around shapes in the air that matched the markings on the obelisk. The calf’s image also strangely shifted and bent in a kalidescopic hall of mirrors. The light and symbols coalesced around them and started to weave in closer until they touched their bodies. As the ebullient luminosity moved through them bodies they giggled, “It feels like we are in a carwash, moving down the conveyor, getting washed by Mr. Rainbow.”

The calf rubbed against Tomas and then Sarah. Its hair felt delightful and danced in their fingertips. They both laughed. “It tickles,” Tomas said squirming. Tomas leaned into Sarah with his shoulder and she started laughing uncontrollably, “Your STONED!” he said and they laughed for what stretched into several minutes. The glow lit up their faces. They looked into each other’s eyes and saw each other’s beauty burning brighter than ever before.

The calf pushed deeper into their reaching hands, their last remaining reticence. They felt the calf shudder and steadied themselves focusing all their attention on the squirming calf. The intensity built a towering skyscraper of force up around them. The wind picked up and all the surrounding trees swayed in towards the center of the circle.

It cried softly “Ewwwhhhhwww!”
They all started to quake. Tree branches rattled. The obelisk came alive.
Something started to happen with the calf. The skin and the light pulsed more brightly.
The calf cried again and licked Sarah’s hand.
The calf leaned towards them and pushed its neck and shoulders against Sarah’s legs.
“I can feel the light,” Sarah cried in a shaky voice. “It’s vibrating up my legs, through my body!”

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna throw up--” Tomas shouted over the rumble of the jungle and looked up at the sky. He felt faint and realized, “no one would know if something happened to us.”

The moon stood over them at its zenith, practically covering the entire sky. His hand on the calf’s back stuttered with the vibration.

With all its weight the calf pressed its head against Sarah’s legs. The tension unfastened the jowls of its face and with one last push the rest of the skin on its body pealed back and away. Into the air, the skin ignited like sparks of fire crackling out into the darkness. The glowing embers drifted slowly, pulsing like electric snowflakes falling to the ground in a pile. “Uhm?” Tomas looked at Sarah for answers. She was standing, smiling like a proud parent, or someone knitting a precious scarf, or someone looking at a priceless work of art. She thought she may never see this unexplainable thing again except in the warehouse of her memory at the depths of her sleeping dreams. Not taking her eyes off of it, “Tomas its so beautiful!”

The calf translucent and dark like its own shadow stood calmly wobbling a bit, looking around unsure. The skin- its past form—laid discarded, unneeded, still emitting a lonely light, called out like the blinking beacon of a fog light. A loud ever present click sounded, giving way to a swirl of wind. The calf looked above itself, kicking its legs in wild anticipation. The sound of stone sliding against stone roared as light peered out from a doorway above the calf spilled downward, bathing the calf’s muted form with light. The calf took a few steps up as if it’s ascending an invisible staircase, first its nose, head, shoulders, and then body, with each step, disappeared up into the opening.

The rectangular light of the door started to seal shut in sequential squares that gobbled each other up, forming into a tiny glowing dot that whisked off as daybreak dismantled the night sky.

Tomas and Sarah in a mix of shock and elation stood next to each other holding hands, their bodies shook as they peered into the vastness of the dawn. They looked into each other’s eyes and felt a soft warmth. Tears streamed down their faces. Tomas cupped her cheek in his hand and caught her tears on his chin. She moved closer and let down her last, long-held reservation.

They looked over to the glowing light where they expected to see the skin aglow, but instead saw a simple campfire burning. Juan de Juan Juan was bundled up in his sleeping bag next to the fire. Not a sign of what just happened had remained. Knowing they couldn’t have both just dreamt that, Tomas said, “This is it!” Golden flames lapped at the morning air, swallowing the silence and consuming any remaining distance between them.


“Reassuring me, reminding me… deep down where I’m afraid to look, there’s a voice. I still hear it whispering back to me… ‘for Love.’

“I remember what you said to me Tomas, ‘This journey, life, is irreducible from love.’

“I am… and know I’ve already found it. But I still have 6 more months to go. I don’t know what to do. Tom, I’m scared…” her voice trailed off into the unfathomable distance, through an encoding and decoding communications thresher.

Time, twinged into a timelock, clasped around the moment standing still, was it 6 months more or 6 months ago. “Hello?” He looked at the vidscreen, “Fuckin’ Skype!” And again checks the earpiece for sound.

From his empty eardrum, the seed of his curiosity chased the signal back to Source, through the earpiece, through the high-speed lines and telecommunication relay towers, toward the night’s sky, along satellites, busying through space and returned bouncing back to some distant continent on the other side of the planet. Love raced after the signal through the open line like a plow ripping thru the hard clodded soil. The signal ghost, traveling faster than the speed of light, loyally initiated the disconnection, allaying the worries and distractions of her family.

But even had the signal’s backtracking ghost outpaced his unwavering pitch and closed the line in time, his reaching cry and her pleading scream, might still have met and punched a doorway through space, eliminating all concepts of linear time and distance forever. The moon too might have still tilted and the tide shifted with the gravity compensation. They had seen this possibility in that warm, reflected golden light. Now with courage and renewed urgency the prescient seeds awaken to their choice. With the future’s present in clear relief they step thru the doorway into each other’s arms.

Up at Night

I am
remembering
at night,
when there’s time
and quiet.
I let myself feel
what it
would be like
To let myself
be well and full
with you
again

I’ve seen you before

I have felt all of this, every conversation
languishing in the lushness surrounding me,
Unaware
like unworn clothing

It’s natural
by day
normal at best
as best can
At night I let myself feel
you

Forbidden
love
tread my breath

Kept under
lids
My lungs
in little jars
hid
on a shelf
in a cinderblock cellar

I want to delve deep
and breathe bright

I am learning
not to wait
for you to join me
but to head on in
and let you come
when you are
morning

The Golden Cow- Part 2

Part 2: Wrestling with the Gods

Sarah placed their 4th alfajor pastry on the bench and sat next to Tomas. This was their favorite cafe in Buenos Aires. It was a tiny place with no tables and a huge glass pastry display that shined as if it contained gold. The regulars would pick up their pastries to go, but it was cold out and Tomas and Sarah needed to rest and fill their bellies.

They preferred to sit next to each other at restaurants because the width of the table always felt too distant. They liked to feel they were up close-personal, not sitting across, opposing each other like dueling debaters, but rather enroute, heading to their destination together.

“Is that what you mean? Whatever happens, happens--”
“Let’s not talk about this now,” she cut him off.
“Okay. Well then when?”
“We can talk about it on the way to the ruins.”
“Why not now?

She said, “Right now, I can’t. It’s just that I don’t want to think about it. I mean, it tears me up inside,” like the ground is caving her into a landslide, “every time I say goodbye and now you are leaving soon and I don’t know what to do. Man, at least Sasha’s coming; there’s so much to see. I have ‘ta keep going.

“I’m sorry. Is this okay. It’s just too much.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” he said holding back for a minute. “But I know. I know we can make this work if we really want to. We know how we feel about each other, right? That’s the only for sure thing. If we focus on that all the how’s and where’s and everything else will fall into place.”

“Yeah but…” she pauses. “I know. I‘ve never felt this clear about anything before and it’s so confusing.” Her eyes turned down into her lap filling with tears. She looked at their hands holding. She took a deep sigh. The inhale stuttered like the air was sticking, catching on the way in, clawing not to go there and get stuck, anywhere but there—in dark the light. “I can’t keep thinking about this, I’m making things worse,” she thought. “I got to get up,” she said restlessly. “I’m going to the loo.”

“Shit,” he thought. “Did I just fuck it up? Why do I have to say everything I am thinking? Fuck!“ He was thinking about the book he read before the trip, The Microscopic Truth. “It said I was supposed to say everything I am thinking and feeling, but what if it’s wrong? Are there some things that shouldn’t be shared? What about my doubts? My fears? My thoughts? I’m 33 and I haven’t had a willingly stayed in a relationship this long before in my life. The only thing I know is it feels so much better to get the shit off my chest. Merrily, merrily, merrily. For years I have been holding it all in and it hurts so bad. Do I have to trudge it along with me everywhere I go? The caution is rusting my boat. I row, row, row wearily, but is she going to be able to handle my honesty? Will she turnoff? from “her man”? What if it makes her more worried? Or she finds a better man who’s not all sad.”

He tried to feel grateful for whatever of herself she chose to share with him, but when he left Argentina she would be darting off again. It took Herculean Might to not let the jealousy and envy and all the looming unknowns taint what few precious moments they had together. Argentina felt like their anchor pulling the ocean of possibility in around them warm and tight. Everywhere else was a probability, dim and dispersed.

Their feet had taken them everywhere. Tested by time’s curiosity, the new language, bus schedules, unmarked detours, dark villages on the edge of nowhere and stretches of days off the map. They had one last trip and this one too led off the map. She still had six months to go and who knows where she will end up when her money ran out.

He needed this time alone while she was in the bathroom. He felt himself spiraling out of control. He tried to hold his composure, but he was lost in the bush with nothing with which to orient himself. Home was 100000000000000000000000000s miles away, not even a background thought, but he was reaching for something. He just wanted to be good for her. Say the right things. Be honest. Kind. And love her the best he could. Sometimes he would muff the balls she so gingerly tossed him. He wanted to soar, but his wings looked sour, shrunken and deformed. All the cues he missed, chances to listen instead of speak, all his advice, some long imaginary list in his head for which he harangued himself. This list, like a scorecard, he worried was building up against him so that soon some morning he would wake up in some strange bed in some forgotten place with no one and no way back home.

He reminded himself how he had gotten past her metal detector. Every guard, defense, 100 mile fence, tense obstructions, and dense constructions, all that she held up against the world he had slipped thru, past somehow, deep into her confidence. She let him pass through where she didn’t expect anyone again. Past the cordial, merry, conjoining face of grace that was so warm and agreeable to everyone into the place of genuine concern where the dawn considers the light. Now she didn’t know what to do.

She returned from the loo and sat down next to him at the table sitting sideways facing him. After a long silence with them looking into each other’s eyes, he said, “I’m trying not to be obtuse. I just need to know more, but I don’t know what, how to--”

“Ask! You don’t ask me anything.”

“I know, but…” He pauses. “Part of me thinks I should just get to know you better by letting the conversation happen naturally, instead of interrogating each other trying to hurry up and figure out if we are each others soul mate, besides if I ask something I just start judging you. I don’t know… uh, oh- I am thinking out loud again.”

“If you want to ask, ask. Don’t worry. If it’s important to you then-,” Sarah said.

“What do you think is going to happen with us. I mean, what?…” He paused. “I want to be with you after you finish your trip and I know you don’t know what will happen during these next 6 months but what’s… Do you want to be with me? Do you think it’s possible? For us?”

At times Sara said stuff that Tomas didn’t know if it was really some deep ass shit or if she’s just pulling shit outta her ass. Either way it left his head spinning. 6 months later and the words will still reverberate in his head.

“Do you trust me?” Her 4-worded response to his worry and impatient tasking her premonitionary powers. Into my dazed silence she struck, “Deep down You know.”

His mind was stuck in between the imaginary world and the real world. It tried to conjure his perception of his ideal of her at violent odds with what reality was so directly screaming. In these moments there was little fusion. Everything stuck out.

“Wait, what? Wait,” he thought. He needed her to slow down and explain. His mind rolled it around, “Another fucking 4 words.” No, he didn’t know, “What are you saying?” his head screamed 4 words back. But she said it with such conviction, such ferocious knowing, that it sent shivers down his spine. He had to know and he had to trust her.

He excused himself to visit the restroom, but now that he was there, safe shutted in his stall he doubted he take those steps back. His fears, insecurities, protections, all came forward in a storm. He must to know what she meant by that. “Trust me? What did she do to me? What is going to happen. Uh- Oh… I. I, I need to know. I’m falling apart. Where am I?” He washed his face and looked in the mirror. He looked exhausted, pasty white, opaque. It was noticeable again. He was not comfortable in his skin; he was sweating and he knew she could see right thru him.

Sarah communicated from her deep place of knowing. Not from her head, but rather her heart. She communicated so overwhelmingly directly in an open-ended language, speaking at multiple levels with feeling and intuition, subtlety, touching him like cascading chords on a piano. The messages were but clues, pointing at truth- his, their chained circumferences. Suggesting something more and challenging her lover to meet her where she stood. Neither here nor there. Everywhere, all the 6 senses & then some. In her feminine power, her 6 senses joined with an additional 6 more. All activated. 4 triads of senses that formed their own language, speaking in tonal harmonies. Mesmerizing initiates. And what could he do, but take it in. He listened and heard what he could and even tried to hear what he didn’t.

More than anything Sarah wanted Tomas to get her. Even if he didn’t get her he got her in that he got to be with her in ways that no one else would. And he got to be in her. Beyond the physical because she could have sex with anyone, but what they had, the chemistry, the deep knowing, the common understanding, the speaking what the other was thinking—that wonder and awe was only theirs. What he had in him, mixed with what she had in her, combined into a powerful solution that soothed and healed and brought all life to center stage. They became active participants in their lives, aware of the stage, the light, one with the enthralled audience, the dramatic orchestra, feeling the biochemistry of destiny pulsing thru their DNA. They immersed themselves in the play, forgetting their roles as actors, letting go of games, beyond the reach of both ands or buts, colluding with the antagonist and emboldening the protagonist, becoming so much more, in essential relevancy with the world. He did get her.

Ka. He calmed myself, took a deep breath, washed his face again and felt his feet more on the ground. He let his roots burrow in and went to get her.

He dove into a new world for joy, for love, for life. His safety, security, sameness passed him up. Knowing that that mysterious whisper would have kept calling him, he never could have stayed put eking miserably, without extinguishing that bright part of his being. This shake up, hissed an unknown destiny. He called himself forward out from under the rippling covers. Into a new home he slipped out the safe and into the wilderness of his love, swallowing him forever. He realized he could never have fully prepared for this deciding moment. This choice from which he could never really return.

“Life is a risk”, she thought. She wondered if she should have stayed home. She felt changed, if not transformed. She hovered over the thought ravenously doubting the change was for the better. So different, so alone. No footholds, no safehouse—Rolling stone or spinning alone? An Unknown. What’s next if tomorrow didn’t promise a next place to go? All the excitement was in the newness. Her life, this trip, spilled out so much wonder, but nothing stuck. She hated the word: but. She swore off taking photos, “Everything’s in here,” she fingered her forehead. “It’s still all the same shit, traversing me, fussing after me like a sad line of servants,” she thought. Just more intense and perverse. Some big, glad avalanche looked down at her, parenthetically, arms folded, “ALL THIS GALLAVANTING AROUND and NOW WHAT?”

Slow on the day, her face shown the ravages of the last couple of day’s indecision.

Where was the safe constant? The mathematical equation balanced to keep on churning out the same answers. With the same inputs one was assured the same outputs. Stability. Status quo. Mother’s wounded womb, exacted control. The steam engine and its conductor traveled along the same tracks with the same predictable destination. An orchestra and her conductor generated a million variations in tone, tunings, keys, and tempos. Together they swirled and tumbled through the piece into new heights and depths. And a jazz ensemble, with but a general idea of where they wanted to go, played off each other, improvising endlessly. They could play for hours and never tire or grow bored. They bridged known and unknown. The delight confounded and outgrew its own breath.

“Are we just interchangeable parts,” he thought, “passengers on a train getting off at our stops, just the latest occupants to check into this soft, glowing room,” he thought while watching her fiddle about the room like a hummingbird.

Sarah couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation she had last night on the phone with her mom, Electra. Afterwards she squirmed about anxiously, her skin crawling. Starkly driven, her eyes drowning, but she wouldn’t talk about it to Tomas. Her eyes doused silent warpaths.

She started itching in her sleep late that night after the call. He laid awake holding her. Eventually the itching woke her from another doomed sleep. She looked over at him, “I’m… sorry. Did I wake you?”

“Nah, I just woke up.” he tried to downplay it.

“Its just… I can’t handle it right now. I’m sorry Tomas. I don’t want to be downer.” But she couldn’t stop.

“Its okay,” he said sweetly, softly brushing through her hair. “Really, you can make it up to me tomorrow by buying mis alfojores, no?” He spoke the Spanish with a goofy French accent and a darling smile. “Try to get some sleep.”

“I can’t. Hold me will you? Please? I feel like I’m floating away.” Tomas knew Electra saw the high stakes involved in their trip together and had cranked back the blinds and pulled her up short.

Electra’s words, “DON’T START WHAT YOU CAN’T FINISH” whittled at Sarah’s mind. She felt so much guilt her stomach churned into a twisted wiry frame that contorted endless lists of weakness.

Sarah could make people go ape shit with one carousel step, one dash of eyelash, and that one wink stung for weeks. How her wings, when wrapped around the sun, could carouse lost perimeters and purse people’s hearts. She was a body snatcher, seat taker, leave you standing-room-only, floating for her dance floor. No further had you come forever. But not since from whence she was nowhere near that her.