the banshee leading the wind. The screams don't scare me
at night behind the camellias. The wind though. It blows.
People don't believe in the banshee but they do demons.
It shouldn't surprise. The Bible talks about demons but not
banshees. Yeats does though. He was a believer. I'm a
believer. You are a believer. We are all believers. We
believe in rainbows but not in their meaning. We believe in
laughter but not in its medicine. We believe in beauty but
not that it's real. Colors aren't real, they say. Mental
constructs. Like the matrix. I have a mental construct of a
scientist being honest with the ancients. I have a mental
construct of a philosopher being open to religion. Storms
are distant and dark and beautiful and destructive, filled
with shades and gradations and heavy with the weight of
the earth, tough love for the growth and cleanliness of the
world. Sometimes I see animals in the sky. Trees like
people dancing a harvest dance, little pine arms turned
upward and sideways, swirling around in browns and reds
and greens and fifty shades of grey in between. I see a girl,
a beautiful blond-haired girl standing in fifty shades of grey.
Fifty beautiful shades of black and white and the half-light
of a charcoal morning. I want to take my eraser and wipe
away the words I said that made her stop twirling her hair
when we talked. Stop staring at me with dilated eyes.
I want to erase my eyes and my nose and my hairs, but
leave by big belly. My swelling belly reminds me that I am
in need of restraint. Unrestrained liberty is death to the
body and soul. Yes, give me unrestrained liberty and you
will give me death. My liberty is swallowing me, chewing
me like a bird being tossed about between various rocks
like in an alligators stomach - she stares and watches with
sympathetic eyes and a compassionate brow, while
laughing with her friends at my ridiculous confession from
the wet street, standing in the rain with a white shirt
plastered to my skin - no longer white. Her vintage round
sunglasses hang from her nose hovering over a smile that
says so much to anyone who has the ears to hear. I alas
am deaf to the incalcitrant sirenic songs of women. I am
deaf to the words coming out of her eyes and her smile,
her fingers and her hair. I am deaf even to the song of the
cardinal singing high in the bare tree in winter, snow
covering the land like a giant down comforter, soft and
silent and almost even warm looking. The cardinal sings a
song like something her eyes might sing if one knows the
way to look and listen. My left eye is empty. My right is
dying. I am trying to listen, to listen to the voices of my past
and my present to decipher my future. She hangs in the
balance. Any minute could mean bliss or torture,
depending on a language I don't speak or follow. The
language of eyes and brows and smiles and head tilts and
hair and leanings in and out. Crossed legs can say so
much. I want to break the wind and push the clouds back
into the sky, stop the swelling of the rain in the streets. I
want to end the storm that has crashed into my life,
spinning me round and around, saturating my soul with its
uncertainty and lack of direction and predicability. The
storm in my soul can have been the work of Eros only. You
may know of him as Cupid. He isn't a sweet cherub. He's a
demonic asshole. Ready to drop you in the eye of the
hurricane and laugh at you as you are ripped apart while
stuffing his mouth with popcorn. What can calm a storm?
Who? There is a story I've heard about peace and
stillness. Peace. Still. Dreams that visit at night and vanish
before you can wake up with a realized smile of still peace.
3.22.2015
