Here's a little bit of poetry from the past...
11 Feb 92.
Find your roar,
It is waiting for you,
There in the wind.
Where your fears will escape.
Let them go,
The wind is strong.
Thank a deity that I have kept a journal for most of the last 20 years. (Of course, Beatrix burned one up, but I think I've captured most of the salient creativity that I can muster in new volumes since.)
I've recently been making some major adjustments to my life, and like a wondrous ship coming into the harbor, an old friend and I have re-established contact. I've missed her over the years - she really knew me well - and losing touch with her back then was a major chink in my armor. A loose thread that was never tugged upon.
Until today.
Sometimes you forget that the souls you've encountered make you who you are in the end. So long ago, "S" taught me about being genuinely sweet, being nice in the face of meanness, and being comfortable in your own skin. She had a boldness to her character that was infinitely attractive. I'd forgotten some of our chats from 2 decades ago, but I am now reminded. When I was under threat of going off to war, she was a tremendous comfort to my sense of security, about friends and love, and enduring loyalty. (Almost the dialectical opposite of Beatrix, in retrospect.)
"XO, anything on COMMS."
"See'nix, Klargen. Social media only."
"I thought so. Very well."
I stared at the house where Beatrix spent her early childhood, in the shadows of pine, madrona and eucalyptus trees that had grown much over the decades. We were in a hover, and the sun was just down, but light hung on for a few minutes. A local hatch opened - they know I like that - and I could smell the open Pacific on the wind. Just below us, south of the house, a bonfire burned and I could hear a drum circle. Could almost smell the local Bolinas weed... and I sighed. (I knew I was finally saying goodbye. I made a mental note to ritually burn my last copy of the novel when we got back to Seattle, and start over.) The XO 'almost' smiled at me from the NAV console. He sensed my mood.
"NAV, set a new course. Wheel us away from here. Northwest."
"Issa blurn pen'cho brap, Klargen?" The local hatch closed with that now familiar 'fffip-smieeck"sound and my ears popped just a bit.
"Adjust for Mount Fuji, Japan. Summit, please. WEPS, configure for counter-interception and stealth. We don't want that X-radar catching a glimpse of the Tinglev's speed." Not like they'd have any idea 'who' we were, just being cautious.
"Blinx, Klargen." MAIN switched to pulse-defensive sub-radar, away from visual mode. It's better for us, defensively speaking. Dozens of human aircraft became visible in this mode, criss-crossing the skies ahead. Plotted trajectories made the screen appear like skews of multi-colored yarn had been carefully unraveled in airspace.
The Rotatey Chair sucked me in and we climbed to 48K. My crew was busy again. SCIENCE located several pods of whales well off the coast before we transitioned to supersonic flight, and they were busy with COMMS recording the songs. The XO meandered over to me and braced himself against the armrest as we accelerated. He pushed on our private frequency with a question.
"Klargen, are we revisiting some glorious memories, rather than bittersweet ones?"
"Aye, XO. I'm tired, so exhausted, of those wounding memories of Beatrix. I had hoped maybe we could reconcile our friendship, have a smile together, but it probably won't ever happen. She said "Not in this lifetime," remember?"
"Blinx, Klargen. I recall from the mem-share."
"MAIN to visual, please." Soft yellow light filled the bridge.
The endless Pacific rushed beneath us, we'd caught up with the sun in a few seconds. Soon we passed over the tsunami-damaged northeast coast of Honshu, and SCIENCE got very busy when they noted the ambient radiation levels. We could see Fuji-san already. It was spectacular, as it always was.
"NAV, position us to the north side of the caldera at 3 meters relative to summit."
"Gling brap blim, Klargen."
"XO, you have the conn. I'll be in my quarters for a few niptuks."
The Rotatey Chair eased its grip on me and the Tinglev had to adjust considerably to allow me to walk during our deceleration. I found and donned a heavy mylar-looking jacket and pants, and put on some bright red boots with, oddly, Vibram soles. Warm gloves, made of a material I have troubled describing - like conformal whitish felt, perhaps.
When I came back onto the bridge, MAIN was showing a group of Japanese climbers just a few yards off our 'bow.'
"XO, we have a drop-hatch, correct?"
"Aye, Klargen. In Powerplant sub-level 1."
"And it can be opened even if we stay cloaked, right? We don't have to reveal ourselves?"
"Aye."
"Then let's do this. WEPS, prep for EMF suppression of any random cell phones or digital cameras."
"Blinx, Klargen."
The last time I was on the top of Mt Fuji was 15 years ago, almost to the day. I was so excited to climb it that I made the ascent from Kawaguchiko 5th Station to the summit in 4 hours and 25 minutes. I had seen depictions on stamps that I had collected as a small boy. It was in my 'bucket list' before there was a term for that.It was brutally cold in October that year, but I just didn't care. I was wearing insulated Carrhardts and a few layers underneath. Solar cells on my glove-tops kept my fingers warm. I had been entertained all the way up the mountain by a new friend - a Hong Kong policeman, an Irishman, of all things - revealing crazy, sometimes disturbing stories of his career in such a foreign place. We remained friends for a few years, I stayed in his lavish high-rise apartment when I visited HK, but we lost touch around the millennium. I'm sure we'll meet again someday. Maybe on a mountaintop.
The drop-hatch was aligned vertically, I noticed. Easier for exits and entrances. It opened quickly and I jumped out and landed kinda hard. I heard the hatch close behind me and an older Japanese man heard it and turned back at me, eyes wide. I hadn't been there a second before. I winked at him and he laughed.
"You not there, then there," he said in fairly good English. "How?"
"Magic."
He laughed and muttered "Usso." (You lie.) He pointed his climbing stick at me.
"A kind of magic, then."
He looked at my garb and smiled deeply. "No such thing as these clothings here in Nippon."
"Yeah, we don't have them in the US, either."
"More magic, then?"
"Hai. Something like that." We began walking to the weather station at the true peak, about a quarter-mile off, and he quizzed me about my sudden appearance at the top of the Yoshida Trail. I didn't let him know much, only that I'd climbed Fuji-san before, very quickly, in my younger days.
"Taisetsu na koto jah nakata," he mumbled under his breath, (Nothing of importance) but I could tell he was a little razzled. We finally introduced ourselves and made our way to the granite spire, past a giggling group of young ladies - looked like Tokyo office-ladies on a day tour - on their way down. Mr Ushimaya told me had been an engineer for a major car company, and was now retired. His wife had died years before, and he had never had children. He lived in his house with his younger sister and her family in the outskirts of Yokohama. I gave him a general background, but nothing recent, for obvious reasons.
I knew the Tinglev was very close, but I couldn't see it. My signal for the hatch to open would be a crisp military salute, so they were watching my every move. Maneuvering around the weather station and it's bristle of antennas had to be taxing on the NAV crew-members. I do trust them.
I touched the granite spire, and started backing off when Mr Ushimaya chided me with an "Ochiso!"
(It means 'something is on the edge and about to fall,' and implies someone has to do something about it.)
The 'something' was me, my body. As I fell, the drop hatched opened, and scooped me up. I had fallen, but got back up quickly. The hatch remained open.
Ushimaya-san peered into the Tinglev's sub-level, laughed very hard, knowing now what my magic was. We bowed deeply at each other, and the hatch closed. I never even had to do the salute.
Back on the bridge, in uniform again, the XO pressed that he thought that my exchange with Ushimaya-san was quite funny. So hard to read their laughter unless they tell me about it directly.
We accelerated away to the east, not even very quickly, and I nearly fell over from the acceleration before I could get to the Rotatey Chair.
"A dreamer of pictures,
He runs in the night.
You see us together
Chasing the moonlight (with)
My Cinnamon Girl."
Neil Young's impeccable 'Cinnamon Girl."
"NAV, let's get back to Archuleta Mesa Heavy Repair Facility (AMHRF). The Tinglev needs a check-up. Can't wait anymore."
"Blinx, Klargen. Any preferences?"
"None at all, XO. Keep us away from the Triangles, if possible."
"Aye, Klargen." The XO began pushing to NAV and WEPS and SCIENCE, letting them know the idiosyncracies of how to sneak in there unseen by even the reverse-engineered systems that the US Government had figured out.
We all knew what a mess we were in for at AMHRF. The stress level went up in the crew, and the XO relayed to me in private. I knew.
That place is a zoo. Literally. You really have to wonder why molecular biochemists live in a town as small as Dulce, NM. I know why.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
The Pleistocene, Black, and Trees
Stardate 7643. (You aren't reading this, right? Oh, you are. I so knew it. [clapclapclap])
We planted a skinny 'Charlie Brown' maple tree a few years back. Maybe 7-8 seasons ago. It took awhile, but it's now a 25-foot-plus monster. 4-5 foot uprights means it's goin' for it next spring. On this fall day, powdery leaf mildew gathers spackly white on its lower leaves, a pox that'll work it's way up before the first frost. The squirrels have used it as cover from my hound dogs, but those days and leaves are numbered as the nights get cooler and nippy. Downdraft winds spew cedar seeds from next door. A killdeer 'cheers' about 1/2 way up, above the crow perches. My crows finish off the brown rice leftovers atop the garden shed. Golden light filters through the neighborhood trees, kissing the plants it can. Layers of color grace the land, and we all sense the coming of late harvests.
"I was born a believer,
Played the fool.
Lonely dreamer,
Left to choose.
I don't know where the love is
There's a promise undone.
Someone's cryin'
In a room all alone."
Journey's 'Happy To Give.' It's worth listening to the whole song. Seriously.
I'm sure you've been paying attention to everything political. I know I have. It's almost exhausting.
The repulsive GOP is at their dirty tricks again, election season and all. They're so busy rigging Diebold's voting machines and denying Dems the right to vote that they're 'occupado' right now. They won't even mention their own foul scandal. So we can talk about them openly. Fuckin' fucks. "Money is Free Speech" is not a factual statement. Let's pause and give deliciously sarcastic thanks to Justice A. Scalia, for profoundly fucking over this republic twice now. (Bush v Gore, 2000 and the Citizens United case.) I can't imagine the lack of thought that goes on in that man's big mookish head. He can't even keep his conflicts of interest at bay. SCOTUS is now a puppet organization for the ultra-rich, minus a few reality-based thinkers, in the minority.
"NAV, come about to 168 degrees and take us to Norcal at 2g."
"Blinx, Klargen. Issa blurn pen'cho brap?"
"Bolinas, 3/4 mile west of the store, at the treeline on the hill. Red gabled house. That's close enough."
"Blinx, Klargen. N'Sol speruts." (Sun is setting.)
"Noted. Safe air, then."
"Blinx, Klargen."
The XO moved purposefully to oversee the NAV instructions. He knew where we were going. (I'd done a full memory share with him soon after the abduction. I've never shared that here. And I'm not now, right?)
The Rotatey Chair sucked me in good for the 2g run. Inertial dampening was still a bit questionable, it's still not permanently repaired. I'm just not in the mood for Archuleta Mesa Heavy Repair and all its BS and reptilian trickery. It'll have to wait. MAIN switched from search to front visual, and I could see Rainier go by off to the east.
"WEPS, configure for full stealth. Let's not run into the triangles. They do the S-4 to Santa Rosa run at times." They're hard to avoid in visual mode, and they have stealth beyond this ship's sensor capability. It's a good thing they don't run with that 'on' all the time. They like to be seen. Freaks people out.
"Blinx, Klargen. Prap glurb s'll nee lop glant, spin 'to nix glurg."
"Understood, WEPS." I knew that. He thinks I don't know that? "SCIENCE, let's get 4 co-ord osmics on the way, as much as is possible.
"Blinx, Klargen. "
"NAV, adjust for run past McMinnville, recompute if necessary."
"Klargen, lerp spat bing nop."
"We've already passed it? Understood." I often underestimate the speed this craft has, even in this configuration.
"SCIENCE, anything?" Shasta passed by. Crickets from the crew, they were very busy.
"COMMS, anything?"
"Klargen, social media has an update. Authored."
"Fuck that, I'm done for now."
The XO turned and eyed back at me from NAV, because he knew better. The Rotatey Chair eased up as we came in low, through a bit of fog over Point Reyes. The deceleration at 2g isn't much. Like hitting the brakes in a sports car. The XO was bracing himself against the NAV panel/screen.
He pushed at me, in our freq, that he had no idea what was going through my mind.
Speaking of scouring, let's give thanks to the last of the cyclical Ice Ages! Huzzah! No more snowing and scraping and advancing every X-thousand years or whatever, trees and rocks and villages crunching asunder before the onslaughts of ice. We whupped that one forever, probably. That was a bitch. I don't look good in animal pelts, I'm pretty sure. No, I probably do.
Oh shit, WAIT! All those regular-ish ice ages occurred on a planet with 290 parts per million of our toxic fair-weather friend, carbon dioxide. (And woolly mammoths didn't use aerosol deodorant, but, by God, they needed it.) We're so far above that CO2 level it REALLY ISN'T FUNNY. Ok, you CAN make it funny.
Guy walks into a bar, says to a gal at the bar, "My penile tumescence is directly related to the CO2 level in the atmosphere. Nuthin' but way up!"
"Oh yeah? I got mace, asshole." (Proceeds to shoot said jokester with chemical irritant.)
So we won't be trying that again.
I see future sunsets tinged with oily reds and purples, deep smooth yellows, a whirl of toxic additives, and a heat that keeps the cities insulated, trapped in their own car exhaust, sewer gases, and myriad manufacturing wastes. (We all know places like this, if you've been to LA in the summertime.)
I have been in traffic jams in the LA area, and the last one involved George Clooney on the I-10 westbound in Riverside, May 2009. I'll just let your imagination run wild right there. Sea of cars. He was in a new black Porsche. Classy one. (Not even dealer's plates - they just let him take it to Palm Springs for a test run, I bet.) I was in a silver Dodge truck, loaded for the trip back to Washington with my Father. You can see where I'm going here, right? I was 'This' close to Ocean's Batman. One lane away, for 15 minutes or so. He was impatient, but I let him be, braking and accelerating as he was. I just kept moving, and looking. And then, not. Then it was just us, stopped together. I can't remember if we had a 'moment' or not. (Maybe he remembers.) He never calls.
The fat are getting so much fatter, the rich are getting so much richer, what's the deal? Can we not literally 'contain ourselves?' So many of our fellow Americans just spend their hard-earned bucks on the cheapest, the worst, Chinese manufactured crap products. ($1.19 flip-flops at Walmart come to mind.) We've become a nation that seeks 'low cost' and not ' good value.' What happened? Where did we go so wrong?
You already know I know that answer. Don't be silly.
We became a nation of 'smalls.' This goes back to Vietnam, friends.
First, take out the hope - they shot JFK, MLK and RFK. (Maybe some other acronyms, we don't know how far this shit went.) B) The military/industrial complex and corporate media basically demonized war protesters as hippie, pot-smoker, group-sexing . Maybe they know something, those patchoulied bastards. Warmongers love to have their wars, it's good business if you have no morality. The media marginalized those dissenting voices, just as they're squashing voices today. We didn't think our voice mattered then, so are we going to think our voice matters now?
Intelligentsia has been defeated. No more 'Earl Grey, hot.' We're back to Kirk. Polish those codpieces. Kiss the green women. Wrestle the Tribbles. Fight the rocks.
Hand-sanitizer. Need I say more? We're so fucking disconnected from nature. Not me. I live in it.
"Sheets of empty canvas,
Untouched sheets of clay.
Her legs spread out before me,
As her body lay still.
Oh, all five horizons
Revolved around the sun
As the earth to the sun
(But) Now the air I tasted and breathed
Has taken a turn..."
Pearl Jam's badass "Black" 1991 (which slayed me when it came out, in light of her and our epic erotic massage sessions)
I ran into Eddie Vedder once, at the Off-Ramp. Mid-late 90's.
No one else saw him come through he door in the plywood wall, because bassist Jeff Ament came through the front door at about the same time. Everyone was paying attention to something else. He was wearing a grey nondescript hoodie and noticed me recognize him and motioned to me to 'shush' about it with that familiar gesture. SO I did, and we watched a show two feet from each other. Never said a word between us, but we clapped and smiled and cheered the Park Boys together. I'm sure some of my awesomeness rubbed off on him.
My trees have outgrown my expectations of them. Smiles abound.
Beatrix, I'm done even being angry with you. It just isn't worth my energy anymore. You won't answer my questions, that was to be expected. I learned my lesson about BPD (or whatever it was that made you act that way.) Splitting WAS involved.
And I survived it.
Nothing but love left, then. And a bit of sorrow.
We planted a skinny 'Charlie Brown' maple tree a few years back. Maybe 7-8 seasons ago. It took awhile, but it's now a 25-foot-plus monster. 4-5 foot uprights means it's goin' for it next spring. On this fall day, powdery leaf mildew gathers spackly white on its lower leaves, a pox that'll work it's way up before the first frost. The squirrels have used it as cover from my hound dogs, but those days and leaves are numbered as the nights get cooler and nippy. Downdraft winds spew cedar seeds from next door. A killdeer 'cheers' about 1/2 way up, above the crow perches. My crows finish off the brown rice leftovers atop the garden shed. Golden light filters through the neighborhood trees, kissing the plants it can. Layers of color grace the land, and we all sense the coming of late harvests.
"I was born a believer,
Played the fool.
Lonely dreamer,
Left to choose.
I don't know where the love is
There's a promise undone.
Someone's cryin'
In a room all alone."
Journey's 'Happy To Give.' It's worth listening to the whole song. Seriously.
I'm sure you've been paying attention to everything political. I know I have. It's almost exhausting.
The repulsive GOP is at their dirty tricks again, election season and all. They're so busy rigging Diebold's voting machines and denying Dems the right to vote that they're 'occupado' right now. They won't even mention their own foul scandal. So we can talk about them openly. Fuckin' fucks. "Money is Free Speech" is not a factual statement. Let's pause and give deliciously sarcastic thanks to Justice A. Scalia, for profoundly fucking over this republic twice now. (Bush v Gore, 2000 and the Citizens United case.) I can't imagine the lack of thought that goes on in that man's big mookish head. He can't even keep his conflicts of interest at bay. SCOTUS is now a puppet organization for the ultra-rich, minus a few reality-based thinkers, in the minority.
"NAV, come about to 168 degrees and take us to Norcal at 2g."
"Blinx, Klargen. Issa blurn pen'cho brap?"
"Bolinas, 3/4 mile west of the store, at the treeline on the hill. Red gabled house. That's close enough."
"Blinx, Klargen. N'Sol speruts." (Sun is setting.)
"Noted. Safe air, then."
"Blinx, Klargen."
The XO moved purposefully to oversee the NAV instructions. He knew where we were going. (I'd done a full memory share with him soon after the abduction. I've never shared that here. And I'm not now, right?)
The Rotatey Chair sucked me in good for the 2g run. Inertial dampening was still a bit questionable, it's still not permanently repaired. I'm just not in the mood for Archuleta Mesa Heavy Repair and all its BS and reptilian trickery. It'll have to wait. MAIN switched from search to front visual, and I could see Rainier go by off to the east.
"WEPS, configure for full stealth. Let's not run into the triangles. They do the S-4 to Santa Rosa run at times." They're hard to avoid in visual mode, and they have stealth beyond this ship's sensor capability. It's a good thing they don't run with that 'on' all the time. They like to be seen. Freaks people out.
"Blinx, Klargen. Prap glurb s'll nee lop glant, spin 'to nix glurg."
"Understood, WEPS." I knew that. He thinks I don't know that? "SCIENCE, let's get 4 co-ord osmics on the way, as much as is possible.
"Blinx, Klargen. "
"NAV, adjust for run past McMinnville, recompute if necessary."
"Klargen, lerp spat bing nop."
"We've already passed it? Understood." I often underestimate the speed this craft has, even in this configuration.
"SCIENCE, anything?" Shasta passed by. Crickets from the crew, they were very busy.
"COMMS, anything?"
"Klargen, social media has an update. Authored."
"Fuck that, I'm done for now."
The XO turned and eyed back at me from NAV, because he knew better. The Rotatey Chair eased up as we came in low, through a bit of fog over Point Reyes. The deceleration at 2g isn't much. Like hitting the brakes in a sports car. The XO was bracing himself against the NAV panel/screen.
He pushed at me, in our freq, that he had no idea what was going through my mind.
Speaking of scouring, let's give thanks to the last of the cyclical Ice Ages! Huzzah! No more snowing and scraping and advancing every X-thousand years or whatever, trees and rocks and villages crunching asunder before the onslaughts of ice. We whupped that one forever, probably. That was a bitch. I don't look good in animal pelts, I'm pretty sure. No, I probably do.
Oh shit, WAIT! All those regular-ish ice ages occurred on a planet with 290 parts per million of our toxic fair-weather friend, carbon dioxide. (And woolly mammoths didn't use aerosol deodorant, but, by God, they needed it.) We're so far above that CO2 level it REALLY ISN'T FUNNY. Ok, you CAN make it funny.
Guy walks into a bar, says to a gal at the bar, "My penile tumescence is directly related to the CO2 level in the atmosphere. Nuthin' but way up!"
"Oh yeah? I got mace, asshole." (Proceeds to shoot said jokester with chemical irritant.)
So we won't be trying that again.
I see future sunsets tinged with oily reds and purples, deep smooth yellows, a whirl of toxic additives, and a heat that keeps the cities insulated, trapped in their own car exhaust, sewer gases, and myriad manufacturing wastes. (We all know places like this, if you've been to LA in the summertime.)
I have been in traffic jams in the LA area, and the last one involved George Clooney on the I-10 westbound in Riverside, May 2009. I'll just let your imagination run wild right there. Sea of cars. He was in a new black Porsche. Classy one. (Not even dealer's plates - they just let him take it to Palm Springs for a test run, I bet.) I was in a silver Dodge truck, loaded for the trip back to Washington with my Father. You can see where I'm going here, right? I was 'This' close to Ocean's Batman. One lane away, for 15 minutes or so. He was impatient, but I let him be, braking and accelerating as he was. I just kept moving, and looking. And then, not. Then it was just us, stopped together. I can't remember if we had a 'moment' or not. (Maybe he remembers.) He never calls.
The fat are getting so much fatter, the rich are getting so much richer, what's the deal? Can we not literally 'contain ourselves?' So many of our fellow Americans just spend their hard-earned bucks on the cheapest, the worst, Chinese manufactured crap products. ($1.19 flip-flops at Walmart come to mind.) We've become a nation that seeks 'low cost' and not ' good value.' What happened? Where did we go so wrong?
You already know I know that answer. Don't be silly.
We became a nation of 'smalls.' This goes back to Vietnam, friends.
First, take out the hope - they shot JFK, MLK and RFK. (Maybe some other acronyms, we don't know how far this shit went.) B) The military/industrial complex and corporate media basically demonized war protesters as hippie, pot-smoker, group-sexing . Maybe they know something, those patchoulied bastards. Warmongers love to have their wars, it's good business if you have no morality. The media marginalized those dissenting voices, just as they're squashing voices today. We didn't think our voice mattered then, so are we going to think our voice matters now?
Intelligentsia has been defeated. No more 'Earl Grey, hot.' We're back to Kirk. Polish those codpieces. Kiss the green women. Wrestle the Tribbles. Fight the rocks.
Hand-sanitizer. Need I say more? We're so fucking disconnected from nature. Not me. I live in it.
"Sheets of empty canvas,
Untouched sheets of clay.
Her legs spread out before me,
As her body lay still.
Oh, all five horizons
Revolved around the sun
As the earth to the sun
(But) Now the air I tasted and breathed
Has taken a turn..."
Pearl Jam's badass "Black" 1991 (which slayed me when it came out, in light of her and our epic erotic massage sessions)
I ran into Eddie Vedder once, at the Off-Ramp. Mid-late 90's.
No one else saw him come through he door in the plywood wall, because bassist Jeff Ament came through the front door at about the same time. Everyone was paying attention to something else. He was wearing a grey nondescript hoodie and noticed me recognize him and motioned to me to 'shush' about it with that familiar gesture. SO I did, and we watched a show two feet from each other. Never said a word between us, but we clapped and smiled and cheered the Park Boys together. I'm sure some of my awesomeness rubbed off on him.
My trees have outgrown my expectations of them. Smiles abound.
Beatrix, I'm done even being angry with you. It just isn't worth my energy anymore. You won't answer my questions, that was to be expected. I learned my lesson about BPD (or whatever it was that made you act that way.) Splitting WAS involved.
And I survived it.
Nothing but love left, then. And a bit of sorrow.
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