*
*
is what I want to be
a hollow bamboo tube
with holes carefully placed
burnished by lifetimes
*
a pipe that channels
the eternal breath of Spirit
whose holes release
the wind of sacred song
*
Oh, my beloved,
play your tune through me
breath of love and light
holy golden melody
*
*
Alex has a secret. Sometimes he has a special power. He can use his eyes in a certain way and the girl he wants to fuck just slides toward him. The power gives Alex just the right words to say, and the golden rays shine out of his eyes. The power, when he has it, can illuminate the girl’s aura. It makes her glow and vibrate in a rainbow halo.
The problem with the power is that Alex can’t control it. He’s been working on this for a few years now. He knows that beer dulls the power but weed enhances it. He figures that’s why the Rastafarians use ganja as a religious rite. They must have a link to the same power. He’s read a lot about the Rastas, trying to suss out more but the answers he wanted weren’t there.
The power affects his speech and his eyes. When he has it, he can be so incredibly deep and eloquent that he astounds himself. Alex knows he’s intelligent. When he has the power, he’s brilliant. Like the time he was explaining the five levels of his dreams to Lisa and her friend Sandra. The way they looked at him, with such wide-eyed awe. He knocked their socks off.
Alex can feel the power when it comes on. It’s like a warm humming in his root chakra. At first he thought it was the kundalini energy awakening. He researched kundalini and decided that this power wasn’t the vital energy the Indian sages talked about. It was something different. Alex’s current theory is that he’s an Indigo child, part of a new, more evolved race on Earth.
*
*
I’ve met two roads
in woods and fields
and concrete paths diverging
A choice of two,
obscured by fog
may end in night submerging
*
One might be a stony way
slippery leaves a peril
or a flatter, smooth sashay
*
Frost ignored,
it’s taken decades
to ponder forks that challenge
*
With calm regard,
admit that easy roads
can disappoint or damage
*
Learn the thinly marked
with roots and rubble
are usually worth the trouble
*
*
Carolyn
She lives at the nursing home in a padded wheelchair, legs curled up, feet bare. Wiry gray hair, teeth worn down from grinding. All day she barks, “Eh, eh, eh, eh!” In bed, she continues. Does she sleep or keep barking? I don’t know; I’m not there at night.
Her name is Carolyn. The staff and the other residents ignore her noise. It is part of the day’s sounds, along with carts wheeling down the halls, announcements over the PA system, and the eternal beeping of call buttons.
The first time, on my way out, I asked her, “Are you singing?” “Singing,” she said, and after a pause, continued to bark.
The next time, I stopped and said, “Hello, Carolyn. I’ll sing you a song.” I sang, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.”
“Sunshine,” she said, and moved her lips with some of the lyrics.
After one chorus and a verse, I said, “I have to go now, but next time I’ll sing you another song.”
“Thank you,” she said. A conversation. An appropriate response.
I was surprised. And I wept as I waited for the elevator.
Tangled Magic 