*
*
Open
To open the heart, dig deep
take a sharp spade
cut through beliefs
thick and tangled as sod
find the pure, soft earth
of origin within you,
waiting
*
Available
A handful of seeds,
those that need to grow
forgiveness in a kernel,
trust inside a nutshell
compassion in a compact spore
all willing to sprout
watered by faith
*
Unattached
The greatest love
has open hands
plants, cultivates
and gives the harvest
away
*
*
Gram won’t let Alex sleep at her house. She says it’s because he smokes. Even if he smokes outside, he still stinks up the house. His dad lives there too, but ‘s Gram’s house and she calls the shots.
Alex remembers that there was a time he stayed in Gram’s house for almost a year. His dreams were loud in that house. Maybe because the house was so quiet. Except when he did something that pissed Gram off. Like the time he shaved his head and left hair all over the bathroom. He really believed he’d cleaned it up. Gram was so mad that after she cleaned it up, she dumped the whole trashcan full over his laptop. All those little bits of hair stuck between the keys.
And the time he lost his key to the front door. He came in through the basement window. Gram heard him thumping onto the floor. She almost called the police. Alex remembers how he looked up from the cold cement floor and saw Gram framed in the lit doorway. She was pointing her .22 right at him.
Alex smiles. He’s pretzeled up on a short sofa in a guy’s apartment. Alex can’t remember the guy’s name. They met earlier at the coffee bar. After a bit of friendly talk, Alex asked him if he knew a place where Alex could crash. So here he is. The apartment is pretty sleazy, but Alex has seen worse. And it’s warm, considering that outside it’s below freezing.
Alex thinks maybe he should try to stop smoking. Maybe he’ll tell Gram that he’s gonna quit and she’ll let him stay at the house. It’s nice there. The bathroom is always clean and Gram makes big pots of lentil soup.
The last time Alex asked to stay there, Gram said that the smoking was just one problem. She said she didn’t feel comfortable or even safe with Alex in the house. That he was unpredictable and he had a history of being violent.
Alex shifts his long legs and hangs them over the back of the sofa. Gram was talking about the time in the car, after he was released from the hospital. Dad was driving him down the Thruway to the City. But Alex didn’t want to go to his mom’s in the City. He wanted to get back on the street in town with his friends. He wanted to get back to the way things were before they got him picked up. So he grabbed the steering wheel.
Gram said Alex almost killed himself and his father. Alex doesn’t remember doing any of that. He was in the car and then he was back on the ward.
*
*
You belong to the universe in which you live, you are one with the Creative Genius back of this vast array of ceaseless motion, this original flow of life. You are as much a part of it as the sun, the earth and the air. There is something in you telling you this—like a voice echoing from some mountain top of inward vision, like a light whose origin no man has seen, like an impulse from an invisible source.
Your soul belongs to the universe. Your mind is an outlet through which the Creative Intelligence of the universe seeks fulfillment.
–Ernest Holmes, This Thing Called You, p. 4
*
*
Three Phases of Relationship
Yes, you became a desiccated, yellow frog
Yes, you turned inward as
the gates locked behind you
left me standing on the risers
in my ivory sheath with the cowl collar
mortarboard askew
*
2. Harvest the good
Books.
You savored them like cream soup
warm, rich, filling, coating the palate
You fed them to me, read them to me
gave me freedom:
checking account, contraception
gave me trust:
to wander across France
with my twenty-one-year-old cousin.
I was fifteen.
Sumptuous fruit
from a working mother
*
3. Forgive everything else
The distraction, empty eyes
endless phone calls
lessons you should have taught
about sex, mothering, marriage
lessons you modeled
about manipulation
your wordless departure
sounded like abandonment
since we never said
a proper goodbye
*
*
“But Dad, you don’t get it. Billy’s friend says that I have to call the judge. I can plead guilty and then we won’t be wasting his time in court.” Alex blows into the fingers that are not holding the iPhone. It’s really cold on the street corner.
“Alex, it’s Sunday. You can’t call anyone at court today. Besides, I don’t think that’s an acceptable procedure.”
“Dad, I have to talk to the judge. Do you have his number?”
“No, I don’t, Alex. It’s probably unlisted, and I’m sure the judge has a secretary who takes his calls.”
“Look, I get that I’m not innocent. I’ll just cop to driving with a suspended license and take the fine.”
“We’re hoping that the judge will be lenient, given your medical history. We talked about that, remember? I’d like to get that $500 fine reduced,” says Alex’s father.
“Jeez, Dad! All you care about is the money. You’re gonna let me go to jail for thirty days. That really sucks!”
“That’s not what I said, Alex.”
Alex clicks off the iPhone. His dad is such a jerk. Billy’s friend said to talk to the judge. And anyway, the new doctor gave Alex a clean bill of health. Alex can barely remember the first time they picked him up. He’d done something—ecstasy?—and he was out on the flats, in a cornfield, and the ball of light came down out of the sky and the aliens came and touched him. After that, he got back in town somehow, and his dad and Gram met him a restaurant. All the people he saw had three eyes, and Alex had this weird taste in his mouth, so he was spitting it out on the table. Dad got the cops to take him into the ER. Big guys, practically lifted him up like a suitcase and carried him to their car. Handcuffs and everything. It was terrifying.
Alex shakes his head. He touches the spot Jack Kerouac stabbed and erases the thought. It works to get rid of thoughts and dreams, too. It’s too damn cold outside so Alex heads for the coffee bar. He has his stuff stashed behind one of the couches. Maybe Deborah is still in town. She’s good for a coffee and a snack. He’ll give her a call.
The iPhone meows. It’s a text message from Gram: Job apps? Where R U staying 2nite? Alex frowns. He’s been looking—kind of. He talked to Jake who has a friend who works at the smoothie place. He even got an application from the music store, but he can’t remember where it is. Not in his pocket. Maybe it’s in the tent. He’ll look later. Meanwhile, he’ll call Deborah. It’d be great to get laid tonight.
*
*
Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations but rather on the rights of the other: irrespective of whether another person is a close friend or an enemy, as long as that person wishes for peace and happiness and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basis we develop a genuine concern for his or her problems. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
–His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Wisdom of Compassion, p. 1
*
*
Alex leans back on the stained sofa. The young woman opposite him leans forward. She is definitely interested.
“Yeah, I’m into a Kerouac life-style.” Alex nods, giving her his most sexy smile. “You know, keeping a journal, moving around.”
“You’re a writer? Gathering material?” she puts in, somewhat breathless.
He takes a sip of his coffee, thinks, ‘oh, have I got her.’ He asks, “You live around here?”
“Not really. I’m at NYU. I’m just visiting my parents during the winter break.”
Alex knows he has to be careful because she might ask to see his work. He did have a small pocket size notebook, but he lost it somewhere, maybe in the OWS tents. Like his hat, that fine fedora he was wearing. He can’t find the hat either. But this girl, what’s her name? Deborah. If he plays it right, he could have a warm place to stay tonight.
“The thing is, you know, it’s about getting out there and living, not sitting for hours in front of a screen,” Alex says.
Deborah loses her smile and sits back.
‘Uh-oh,’ Alex thinks. ‘She must be a techie.’
“I’m a comp sci major,” Deborah says, all prickly.
Alex pulls his iPhone out of his pocket. “Cool. Check out this new app.”
Deborah has to move next to him to see.
Alex awakens on a couch in a strange room. He is enmeshed in a dream in which a man who might have been Jack Kerouac took a huge knife and plunged it into Alex’s skull. The Kerouac type was telling Alex to forget his dreams. Alex touches the spot on his head above his left ear and the Kerouac dream is erased from his memory.
The room is a spare storage room in the house that belongs to Deborah’s parents. Alex didn’t hit the jackpot, but he did win a bed for the night. Plus the parents are kind of old hippie types who went to college here and never left. The house is outside of town, with no cell phone reception. Alex thinks he’ll maybe write a road book.
Deborah drops Alex back in town. He’s feeling good after coffee and a shower. He is out of smokes again, so he calls Gram on his iPhone.
“Hi, Gram. I’m fine, but I’m a little hungry.” That’s all he has to say. She meets him at the diner.
Gram is really his father’s stepmother, but she’s as good as a real one. Alex sees her sitting in a booth by a window. He slides onto the bench. She looks him over.
“You’re looking a lot cleaner than the last time I saw you,” she says.
“Yep. I got a shower this morning.”
“Where did you sleep last night?” Gram asks. “You weren’t at the park.”
“I slept at my friend’s house.”
“What friend is this?”
“Uh—I can’t tell you the name,” Alex says.
He orders a big breakfast: two eggs, sausage, and hash browns with toast.
“Alex, you’ve been here for three weeks. As far as I can tell, you’ve just been hanging out and couch-surfing. Did you make any job applications?”
“Yeah, well, I talked to my friend Marty, and he said he could hook me up with some guys at the computer depot.”
“And?”
“I’m going to call him today. He’s been out of town.”
Gram has those lines between her eyebrows. “Alex, this is not part of our agreement. You said you were going to fill out applications at some places in town.”
“God, Gram, I’m going to, OK?”
“But not wearing that outfit,” Gram says. Her mouth is sewed up tight. “And by the way, when was the last time you changed your clothes?”
Alex throws down his fork. “I can’t have this conversation right now.” He picks up his coat. “Can I have a few bucks?”
“I told you last time that I’ll buy you things you need, but I’m not handing you cash,” Gram says.
Alex shoves his arms into his coat. “You and Dad, you stole four years of my life,” he says. He picks up the four halves of toast and wraps them in a napkin.
“Alex, you wouldn’t have been admitted if you had been healthy,” she says, but the words land on Alex’s back.
He strides down the street in angry boots, looking for someone who will bum him a cigarette. He really needs a smoke.
There’s Jack Kerouac coming out of the music store. He stops to light a cigarette.
“Hey, Jack!” Alex says. “Can I bum a smoke?”
The man looks at Alex, eyebrows up. “Sorry, bud. My name’s not Jack. But you can have this one.” He hands the lit cigarette to Alex.
“Thanks, man.” Alex takes a long drag off the Marlboro.
*
*
talking to the Mad Hatter
who’s wearing a backward baseball cap
and headphones
peering into the empty, locked car
who says, “Don’t make me a third.”
meaning the guy he sees in the reflection
himself
is…who? Come inside. Please.
“Go away,” he says.
“Leave me alone.”
*
being a Dalit
who cleans toilets
with bleach water
several times a day
knowing that put the seat up first
or
stand closer
if understood,
won’t be remembered
*
Hand him the tissue
say, wipe your butt
to the blank stare
Your ass! Wipe your ass!
Sometimes he does
sometimes doesn’t
left to me to clean up
two-hundred-pound baby
*
*
Braids weave a wax design
Winding turquoise, teal and pearl
Amethyst and marigold
Vines to emerald leaves unfurl
*
Waves make points, curving curl
Into petals, roses fully blown
Striped by saffron sunlight
Cobalt tone on tone
*
Braids of souls connected
Ancestors woven chain
head homeward together
Until none remain
*
Waves into particles whirl
Condensed illumination
When souls afire triumph
In the light of all creation
Chapter One
Agatha Flees Hawk Hill
Agatha strapped her dagger around her hips, preparing to escape from her childhood home. At fifteen, she refused to be married off against her will. Her uncle Chaucey may have considered Santer, his counselor, an acceptable husband, but she did not.
Santer was half-warlock. He had left his apprenticeship early to manage Sir Chaucey’s lands. Fifteen years younger than Chaucey, the counselor was still old in Agatha’s eyes. He was a slim cobra of a man, given to wearing hooded tunics and sliding soundlessly through the stone hallways.
Agatha had always avoided his company. His slitted gaze made her uneasy. Everything about the older man repulsed her, from his yellowed teeth to the way he flicked his tongue like a snake.
She would not stay in the manse another day. Instead she would run away to seek her twin brother, Malcolm.
Until today, Agatha believed her twin brother had drowned, along with their parents. But after a surprise visit from Aunt Viola, news of her brother set her head spinning.
Her twin brother could still be alive.
Agatha descended the spiral stairs in her soft boots. No one intercepted her. Chaucey and Santer were snoring at the oak table, their heads resting on their arms, legs flung out and loose. The strong sleeping potion she had dropped into their goblets after supper had done its work.
Sliding past them, Agatha paused for one last look at Chaucey, her guardian for the past three years. His beard, once reddish-brown, was now dull and threaded with gray. His eyes, even in rest, were wreathed in wrinkles.
“He was not unkind to me,” Agatha thought, “but he did not care for me. He only cared for his dogs and his birds.”
She didn’t spare a glance for Santer, the counselor. Good at his job of managing the estate, the man was a snake in all other respects.
Agatha left through the scullery door.
By the light of the moon, she crept out to the stable of Hawk Hill Manse, and hastily tightened the girth on the saddle of her gray mare, Manakshi–a gift from Aunt Viola for Agatha’s fifteenth birthday.
Manakshi nuzzled Agatha’s cloak looking for a treat while she fixed the saddlebags. She froze when the horse knocked into a wooden bucket. The clatter it made on the cobbles disturbed the birds in the mews.
She began to lead Manakshi past the mews to the stable door when there was a rush of beating wings.
Archer, her uncle’s prize gyrfalcon, left her perch and landed on the grille. Agatha stifled a squeak of surprise. She stared nervously at the bird who stared back with unblinking onyx eyes.”Take me with you,” said Archer.
Agatha soon learns that Archer is a valuable companion on her quest. She also discovers that Santer is pursuing her. Meanwhile, Malcolm records his harrowing adventures in a journal. Will Agatha reach Malcolm before Santer succeeds in destroying them both?
Tangled in Magic is also available at www.handersenpublishing.com
Tangled Magic 