Fence Riding

It is difficult to stay on the fence.  The fear alone of falling to either side would effect judgements on either side.  If a man walked alone in this world, the path between eternal pleasure and annihilation would be an easy moral stroll.  But the depth of human experience requires straying from center as one interacts and makes choices.  Those choices pull at our moral compass.  The key is to make those choices that keep us in sight of the path as it meanders through life.  This practice allows for both seemingly extreme choices, Kama Sutra and asceticism.  As these are extremes difficult for the Western mind, a middle way becomes less desirable.  As choices are required of all actors in reality, fewer are taken to preserve a safe tread towards mediocrity.  Fence riding becomes the easy past time of those unwilling stray towards what the soul requires.  The wind is always changing, forcing the pilot to make course corrections regularly.  So to is the course of human life, those corrections being moral choices, that course ever-changing.  

Nemesis

Nobody in real life has an arch enemy.  This is not for lack of trying, we are said to be our own worst enemy and frequently have trouble getting out of our own ways.  A real person, who goes out of their way, plans diligently, ruthlessly to foil our every move, escapes the list of night stalking bumps.  Are we that self-consumed that we don't have time to make life difficult for some one else?  Sure, we are consumed in the other direction where love is concerned, but why not hate.  Why not a focused, all consuming hate?  It is a scenario played out in the pulps and comic mags, heroes and villains wrapped in mortal combat, pitting their minds and strength against each other.  If can be played out in our imaginations, why not in reality?  Have we not all done wrong or felt the need for revenge?  Is there not a bully or mean girl deserving of this kind of attention?  If I did have an arch enemy would not the converse then be that I am the hero?  What wherewithal I might have to sustain enmity surely would fall short of will to manage heroics.  The fiction requires a happy ending, one in which the hero wins and the villain loses.  Might reality have that same scenario and therefore a visible lack of villains.  Fiction affords the hero with a purpose to fight the villain.  His sole purpose, which without, the hero would have no other daily necessity other than to live happily ever after, yet one wonders.  Who is behind the curtain, pulling the strings, weaving the skein of our destinies?  Do our feet fail or does the sidewalk jump up to meet us?  In the fiction, a secret identity protects hero and villain or a life by extreme or nefarious means.  Most of our lives are modest, unencumbered by the trappings required to fund one or the other.  The collective thinks it can indemnify some things:  breast cancer, genocide, cholera, malaria.  This is not the same.  The mosquito is not mounting a single-minded attack on the human race, it is merely out surviving us within its habitat.  Isn't breast cancer a form of cell damage caused by environmental factors we create, free radicals we eat or subscribe to, faulty genes from progenitors?  Who is the enemy?  It has been all to easy for the collective, the axis of evil, Hitler, Stalin, the Cold War, the War on Terrorism.  The selection process seems political, another collective.  Without an enemy, we are responsible for our own actions, we are the captains of our own ships.  We sail at the mercy of the wind but she is not a tempest seeking to destroy us.  The world and the other species in it are benign to this kind of interaction.  We are only capable of such thought and therefore such behavior, so why don't we? Maybe we do, in a less dramatic form, played out over a life time of cruelty or indifference, neglect or abuse.  Our idea of evil will have the stamina for this, but then so to will the converse, good.  A pair of tights and a mask go a long way towards letting me know who's side you belong to.  So buck up, hike up those boots and tighten that mask, so I may know mine enemy.  And know that when you walk off the page I will be ready.

World Series

Maples turn to fire,
cool breezes race the colors,
a batter digs in.

Rush

The coffee fountains in the little glass reservoir atop the ancient percolator, keys jangling, foot tapping, its a watched pot and I know it.  Finally it finishes and I can pour the morning's life blood into an insulated travel mug.  I rush out the door, down the steps into a misty fog that envelopes the neighborhood like a blanket.  The car is wet, but not in a clean way and I try not to brush against it as I negotiate the slope of wet grass and a quickly rising curb.  For the beauty the car inspires, I have no illusions about her origins.  All cars and boats are"She".  Mine is no different, set off by her temperamental attitude at start-ups.  She is a bitch and knows it.  I stroke her gently and she purrs to life, minus the rumble from a whole in the exhaust.  Clutch and shift, down and around the block towards the harbor.  The bell has already pealed twice, I had to beat the third.  The captain didn't wait, not even for drinking buddies.  He actually relished the idea of leaving his friends at the ferry dock, mouths agape, so he'd have something to brag about later.  I clipped a corner, drifting on the wet pavement in style and revved around the circle to the Rue-de-Rive.  The old brick pavers always promised to shake Carmen's chassis off the mounts.  I could see the lights of the ferry ahead in the distance, windshield wiper smearing dew, mist and road grime into a visual soup that mired my vision and goal.  Just as I pulled into the last parking spot, the third bell began to ring.  I could see him in the wheel house with a smile on his face.  He was gonna make me work for it, OK.  I grabbed my coffee, backpack and the large leather portfolio that was my life and made a mad dash for the gangplank.  The captain was calling all hands to lay off the mooring lines, the twin diesels started a fountain that washed onto the dock.  Someone started cranking up the gangway.  It wasn't so much the distance as the height, but I launched my self and elevated with ease to the steel-grated plank.  I walked it the end where the disappointed mate stood and I cordially asked to come aboard.  I put my things on a bench and took the steps up to the wheel house.  The captain asked how the mate looked at my arrival cause it meant a smooth sawbuck for the captain.  He successfully negotiated pulling away from the dock and made the turn to find the open channel that would take us across the river.  From the distance we heard a shouting.  We turned to the rear window to see a woman at the edge of the dock, trying desperately to relay some mystical semi-four with wild gesticulations of her arms.  I think she really believed the 100 ton ferry capable of swinging back around to pick her up on a whim.  But it was a sad truth, and it was sad in unison, each of with a wry smile, "she missed the boat."

Giggin

Each step is like finding a wet sponge in the darkness.  Sucking mud pulls at bare feet, unafraid of catfish whiskers or cottonmouth fangs.  High beams on, scanning the cat line at waters edge.  Gleaming yellow orbs reflect back like full moons on a clear night.  Holding a set, still of hand, sliding slowly, noiselessly.  Dark green beak above a white balloon, inflating, deflating, low rumbles answered from behind, ripples push from the sonorous bellowing.  Leaning in, elbow high, thrust, pith, stuff.  Turning to find the answered call, beam sweeps the cats falling on a moccasin sluicing through the dark glassy water.  Follow it out of sight for sure.  Easy to find, cats full of orbs.  Thrust, pith, stuff, repeat.  Beam falls on wide set orbs tinted green, orbs staring back, through my beam.  Time to leave, backing slowly, suck, step, squish, suck, step.  Turn to step up into cold grass, mud boots clinging to my legs.  Full sack, heavy with anticipation, perspiration, salivation.
Turn out the sack onto the clean grass, green mortous in a heap.  Pull from my sheath, a sharp gleam, passing through in one pull.  Pass, pull, pass, pull, separating mortous from repast.  Finish with a mound for sacrifice, wide set orbs anticipating my thoughts or smelling its due.  Encroachment deserves payment and hunters pay homage to their betters.  Backing away, turning into the night, looking back to see a feast commence.  A lighter sack, but more than enough.  Sweat through the shirt, mud still cloying, feet finding crushed shell.  Exhale relief, haft in hand, sack twisted in the other, a moon separates from the clouds.  The moon looks down and sees two orbs shining back, a hunters moon. 

Muse

She walks in step with me, foot falls vibrating to my spine, exciting my speed.
No plans before me, she takes my hand and guides my choices, unfettered, unconscious.
As I work, each stroke of her hand across my back beads sweat and spawns a new idea.
We tumble into the project, her influence pressing me into a timeless act of passion.
Spent from the throws of her direction I notice that time has gone missing, oblivion in her presence.
Before me a treasure, unique, uncommon, lines mirroring the curves and shapes of her mind.
Unattended I crave her touch, in her presence I am spent from her exertions upon me.
Oh that she lived within me, alas she comes on a whim, but she does come.

Disappearing Girl

Althea hated her name, not because it was her Grandmother's, but because everyone shortened it to just, "Al".  It was like the rest of it didn't matter.  She had always wanted a more flamboyant name that couldn't be shortened, like Marina...these were her thoughts as she tied her shoes for school, cross, loop, around, loop, cross, pull.  She headed down stairs for breakfast, the stairs hardly expressing the passing of her eight years old gallop.  She tromped into the kitchen without ceremony.  Her mother faced the window, washing something in the sink, alone in her own reality.  Her father didn't even lower the paper, rapt in the world of the latest news.  She plopped down in her seat to face a plate of cold grits and a Pop-tart, cinnamon, with a bite out of it.  She stared at her mother, hoping for some sort of acknowledgement, a smile maybe.  She flicked the back of the newspaper trying to get her fathers attention but he just shook out the crinkle and kept reading.  They were trying so hard to ignore each other that a vacuum existed outside each of them that sucked life and joy.  Althea eyed her plate, scooped up the Pop-tart, grabbed her backpack and headed for the door.  She paused for the requisite goodbyes and well wishes for school but they didn't come.  She stepped into the cool, early, Fall day.  Groups of kids were also making their way to school like schools of fish, clumps of boys here and girls there, always another running to catch up.  Althea didn't rush to any group.  She was an odd fish out, not a solitary giant like sharks or whales, just an unnoticed species of plane markings and simple manner.  Althea skirted around these groups walking faster since she didn't have to socialize.  She also hated to be tardy.  Here school was a pleasant red brick building of common type, standard playground, flagpole, janitor hoisting the colors for Elizabeth Austen Elementary.  Althea liked that name too.  It reminded her of Jane Austen.  Althea liked the idea of being literary.  The halls were already full with the din of students trying to talk over each other and the teachers trying to talk over them.  They were all slowly being herded like sheep into the class rooms, doors closing like stock panels being pulled shut.  Althea found her way to homeroom, took her seat and proceeded to exist.  Althea followed the rules, made passing grades and never caused a ruckus.  School was just where she had to be till 3'oclock when she could go home.  She sat by herself for lunch, watching the melee of playground games float by, the last of her Poptart, a crumbled dusting on her blouse.  When the bell rang to go inside, Althea ran to the monkey bars and went hand over hand like a Colobus to the end, then ran back to her classroom.  As she found her seat, she felt light headed, no, just light, not heavy.  She maintained this feeling as she went home.  She clomped up the porch to find her mother in a rocker snapping beans, her eyes in the distance of some far away remembrance.  Althea stopped at the bowl and broke a few to help but received  no praise or even recognition.  Her father wasn't home yet from work, so she crept into his study to relax from such a  nonexaustive day.  There were family photos carefully turned this way or that on the shelves for better viewing of families and relatives Althea didn't know.  They all seemed happy, young, not much older than her.  She thought it must have been a happier time and fun.  When her dad came home, he would want the study for himself till dinner.  Althea went up to her room, Marjorie, also whose name was better, blocked he door like a ten pound sack of orange tabby fur.  Althea hoisted the cat and flung her onto the bed.  Marjorie landed afoot, circled and plopped down in the middle, a queen to be attended or left alone, depending on her  mood.  Althea flopped onto a used beanbag chair her father had gotten from a garage sale last year when he was still playing the part of dutiful father and husband.  It leaked alittle, those little Styrofoam balls that clung to everything like a magnet spilling out onto the floor.  Althea sank deeper into the chair, feeling ever lighter and weightlessness.  She awoke to a dimming sky and the smell of burnt mac and cheese.  As she got up and passed her closet mirror something was wrong.  Her lower half was gone.  Not a gory stump of torso dripping blood, just poof into thin air.  She still felt her legs and could touch them but they were simply not to be seen.  She ran downstairs trying to decide on a cacophony of shouts, screams and why me's?  She was greeted by a lesser Norman Rockwell, parents at either end, a table of food between, and a small place setting for he amongst the salads and bread.  They had started without her, had they called?  She didn't think so.  Could she sit down, could she eat?  Where would the food go?  It wasn't long before she was a floating head.  She tried to eat but was having trouble following her fork without a hand.  No reaction from her parents.  Did she exist, she must.  There was here room, pictures of her in the study.  She dismissed herself unceremoniously from the dinner table and went to the study.  She wanted so badly to appear in one of the happy photos on the wall, in the surf, in the forest, on a mountain but there was nothing, by the time she made it around to the mirror over the fireplace, all that was left were her eyes.  Eyes not full of fear or surprise but of resignation. 

I wasn't sure how to finish this story, then I remembered that all the energy created at the beginning of the universe exists and cannot go out of existence, merely change states or position.  As I remembered this a crinkle on the floor made me turn around.  There huddled in a ball, nighty pulled around her bare legs was Althea.  We stared a moment at each other, till she asked if I saw her.  I took her hand and led her to my daughters room, away at college, and pulled back the covers for Althea to climb in.  I covered and tucked her, looked into her eyes and said I see you and I will see you in the morning.  With this knowledge she smiled a self-satisfactory smile and went to sleep, invisible no more.

Death of a Salesman

The new guidelines from the American Heart Association are out for CPR.  One hundred compressions, no mouth to mouth.  The mouth to mouth part had been dwindling at every new certification period.  They felt like strangers would be more willing to jump in and do compressions without the ickyness of mouth to mouth.  If I ever fall out, someone please do both.  I do not wish to be a living vegetable.  I would prefer to give up a few compressions for some oxygenated blood to my brain and other vital organs.  I am certain that portable defibrillators will completely replace manual compressions, but not before I give you the kiss of life.  Whats that one story in the bible about the good Samaritan?  Anyway, no one should be afraid to come to the rescue of another human being, most states have a good Samaritan law that protects those who perform the deed or attempt to give aid.  Most states also have third party liability, wherein if you see someone in need and don't stop, you are culpable.  Sad that one would have to face criminal prosecution as an incentive for asking the question, "what would Jesus do?"

Axis of Ambivalence

I have a slow leak in my left front tire, which requires me to fill it every couple of days.  I could have the tire fixed, but right now the inconvenience of filling it isn't a bother, yet.  The only filling station with free air (a topic for another time) is a BP station.  I remember when the Exxon Valdez ran aground and caused, to date, one of the most devastating ecological disasters in a fragile ecosystem and fishery.  Exxon was immediately vilified, corporate headquarters picketed, Exxon gas stations vacant, the tanker captain became a household name.  Was it really that different a time?  Did we care more or was it such a new phenomena that it sparked some sacred earth gene in our psyche?  There are more fisherman from the gulf states out of work due to the BP spill than the entire population of the town I live in.  The BP station didn't skip a beat, lower its prices, offer any apology, nothing.  Business as usual.  Maybe its a Mid-west thing or maybe oil spills are so commonplace now, that it doesn't spark the same concern it once had.  We have more cultural awareness than ever before about what is happening to our planet.  Yet seemingly fewer and fewer willing to make a stand or go out of their way for our planet, our fellow species, point out the evils of a petroleum fueled culture, or general health in regard to increased toxins in the environment.  Am I as ambivalent?  I should  fix my tire and continue to drive past the BP.  I feel sick.

The Soloist

Art is magic.  In the practiced hand, things appear and disappear like a firefly or flash paper.  Whether a trick of nature or of the hand, there is a grace in the moment.  That grace is a love, a yearning we all share and seek.  A moment of awe or inspiration to greatness.  An artist can stretch those moments, excluding the rest of the world, and find that grace is not a fleeting thing but a place in which to dwell.  Outside of that place is a living hell, beyond the understanding of others or their capacity to stay within the moment that an artist offers up as a gift.  Outside that grace becomes overwhelming and consuming, whittling away at the solace, the awe, chipping away the edges until grace is a postage stamp with darkness all around.  For the artist, finding a way back to grace can be difficult.  Forced to concede to outside forces, the din of others waiting for a trickle from the once unfettered flow of magic, the artist balances upon the precipice of sanity.  There was time in practice and a place for the magic, and now, all that is gone.  Gone to what others see as the important features of the slow drudgery and eventual buy into a moment of grace, of magic.  Some struggle with this reality, falling prey to the same belief in a moment, leaving a state of grace for a corner of the market or a niche in their craft.  Then there are those who struggle with finding a balance, one foot in and the other out, faining a belief that being half in one world and half in the other offers the best solution.  Finally, there are those who cannot survive outside that grace, understanding that this world will only allow moments to  be bought and sold, magic as a commodity not of grace but of commerce.  This is the most damning of understandings, the most fatal of realities, knowing that when the hands cease, their magic, that grace is pulled out from under you.  What a horrible existence.  The artist copes in their own way within each model, finding a way to live or not, deciding moment to moment, waiting for a state of grace.

Lament of the Siren

Over the rail I went, following, splashing, diving into the wondrous sea.  Alive with colors and creatures beset with mystery, longing, not long for the surface, bursting, splashing and she was there.  She was not a dream, not a wraith or dolphin in the sun but a siren of gold.  To my lips she pressed, as we sank into the quiet, the deep down and down.  Longing, much longer to the surface, bursting, now splashing.  She beckons me from below.  Descending, diving, deeper, deeper, her happiness in home, deeper, her longing.  Much longer, too long, bursting not splashing, the light overhead, now deeper and deeper.  Come to rest in her arms, that place of longing.  Once, just over the rail, forever lost, forever tossed amidst wind and sail is the young seaman.  Alone on the watch, longing for the lowing of a siren.  Over the rail, following, splashing, deeper and deeper, her tail a warning.  Lost, lost to longing, over the rail, over the rail, into the deep, into her arms, the sirens lament.

Gap in Reality

The Gap clothing stores unveiled a new logo this week to a barrage of criticism and online disappointment.  This being an art related issue, I was ready to take on the merits, or lack thereof,  logo replacement, branding integrity and consumer expectations.  However, this is not the real issue involved.  This article was selected as news worthy for the online public.  Those who, with laptop in hand, shop the Gap or other online stores without any thought that this is a travesty of consumer confidence.  As the rate of unemployment rises, fewer Americans have children, get married and buy houses, the Gap between what is news and what is reality grows wider. 

I don't want to be the bearer of gloom and doom but the news agencies are not doing us any favors with fluff.  The few seconds we spend looking at fashion fax pas on the red carpet doesn't make up for the time spent dealing with debt, bills and the widening Gap of what the market can bear, in terms of offering a support net and failing Federal programs designed for the 1930s.  I want to believe that the fluff is important or that it will provide a distraction from the reality of ever encroaching doom and gloom.  At this point in my own life, the fluff is beginning to be an affront to my intelligence and have envious jealousy for those who have their act together and are making it all work.  As the Gap between what I think is newsworthy and how I choose to escape from the reality of my situation, I will stop visiting the blips of fluff and find a good book.

No Love in Loveland

Once again, a desecration in the art world has taken place.  According to several news sources, Kathleen Folden of Montana took a crowbar into the Loveland Museum Gallery and broke the glass on a multi-panel artwork by Enrique Chagoya.  After ripping one of the panels and yelling, "how can you desecrate my Lord!", she was stopped from making further damage to the work and later charged with criminal mischief.  The Community of Loveland Colorado, in support at a city council meeting, will not be removing any of the work in the Gallery.  Enrique Chagoya said of the incident, "....I'm not trying to offend anybody."

Sadly, this is an all to often occurrence.  Once artworks are admitted into an art world institution, no questions of authenticity or validity are raised; is this art?  All we can say, of already institutionalized works are if they are good art or bad, qualitatively.  As an art professor, Enrique Chagoya should be aware of the problems inherent with using religious symbols and icons.  One of the most fundamental of ethical concerns for an artist must be his or her respect for the viewer and all the possible responses their work will illicit.  It is not unreasonable to assume someone would be offended by a work depicting Jesus in a sex act with the word orgasm above his head. 

I defend Chagoya's right to explore his relationship with Catholicism in the myriad of forms and media available to him, as an artist.  As a teacher, he has validated the creation of work that is offensive.  The meaning of our work is the response we get from the viewer.  And while it is possible to veil or mislead the viewer, the use of text is only meant to cement the artist's true intent, and is sometimes the tool of those without the skills to produce meaning without misinterpretation.  Students should make mistakes in school, learn how to push the envelope and stretch the perimeter limits of what art is.  School is also the place to put ethics into practice and put empathy to the test.  We are the work we create, every work an example of what we believe and who we are.  It is a self-portrait.  On some level, I think Chagoya meant this work to offensive.  How could he not, using religion as a theme?  With this in mind, he should not be surprised with the reaction of Kathleen Folden.  I'm not.

Karma on Account

The idea of accountability was in my craw all day yesterday because of the supreme court case involving the 1st ammendment rights of the church that has been protesting at american soldier funerals.  To stay on point, I will not even speak to the church's premise that anyone in an american uniform condones gay rights and is deserved of god's wrath.  I'm pretty sure its invalidity is self-evident.  I will take issue with  protected speech, that on its face, meets the criteria of man's laws and is supported by numerous media agencies and civil rights groups.  As a society, we champion our rights and openly challenge the boundaries regularly.  On account, how can I possibly know how my speech will effect others and what kind of universal retribution may befall me for speaking ill.  Ill would be my generic term for what society would deem evil, mean, wrong, uncalled for, invalid and a host of other negative adjectives for speech.  We do not speak in a vacuum, even talking to ourselves can injure.  What we say always finds ears and the meaning of that speech is the response we get back from the listener.  Anyone who is not a sociopath has an internal measure of right and wrong, not under the law, nothing learned at home or on the playground in the form of a response to fair play, but an innate feeling of empathy for another's feelings.  How does speaking ill add up?  Do the number of people offended matter or the frequency of or voracity about the ills take a karmic toll on our lives or person?  The immediacy of that toll count can be felt and what person is able to let it accumulate?  I regret little comments, meant to harm or pick at a wound of another.  I apologize, in fact, for the wholesale ill that I have caused over my lifetime and accept the universal retribution that may befall me.  Mostly because I think that forgiveness and accountability are not related and that humans are the most fragile of species on this earth.  I am happy too be accountable to the law and appreciative for the rights I have in light of it, but cannot let that be the overriding factor of my speech or the ill that it might cause to another.  Stealing the last moments of a grieving father for his dead son is ill beyond measure.  To belittle and indemnify a soldier for his actions to maintain that right to speak freely is ill beyond measure.  I am not a fan of the military and even less a fan of organized religion.  In this regard, I still cannot fathom stealing that moment.  Those moments are who we are, free or not and the reverence paid to those is not and will never be a point of law but an accounting of karma and subject to the universe at large.

Accountable to the Muse

Accountability is the table cloth upon which the endeavor of the weeks perspiration rest, as characters are dissected and plots are tucked and pointed into a wall of integrity that only knows play, not law or the litigious ways into which one may be ensnared, called out to stand in recitation and be held accountable.  A cafe table only serves to expand the minds of others and diminish yours as the unaccounted for nuances of the characters fall prey to the whims of a new master.  One soon finds that tablecloth sweeping out the door in a mad rush to create or recreate the ideas of another.  Accountability is subtle yet profound in the law as it conjours intent, rights, property, culpability.  These are taken at face value and given lip service when aired by the brave or brandished by the weak, but usually more over by the envious who have bothered to study it.  In this, my inaugural utterance, questions can never be facts, facts must have valid citation, opinions carry only the weight of one and fiction as a tool to teach or infect others with ideas requires that most sought after of accountability clauses, the disclaimer.  While I may recognize the law of the land, I am first and foremost accountable to me and my muse, for it is she who instructs me to peril and into the jaws of chaos.