Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Seeing Through Ghosts by Carla Blaschka


        Owl hoots down from the hills agreed with Old John and so did the hangers on of the saloons and gambling places.
        But superstitious nonsense had no place in a rational mind and I rejected the notion that the recent string of murders were ghosts from the Ol'acanee massacre. While the townspeople may be terrified by their guilty consciences, I figured a living, breathing two-footed varmint was to blame.
        I had already talked with the families of the other two victims and now needed to talk to Renee's family.
        "The Edfu tradition, and so perhaps the traditions of many other temples evidently looked on the far-distant temple as the work of the gods themselves in which the creation of the earth was completed."
        Jacques Bournee Wang pontificated the last while looking gravely down at an ancient pile of stones. At this point the slow and very deliberate raps shook the panels of the door.
        "Jacks," came the screech of his landlady, Mrs. O'Flanagan. "You stop bothering that pretty lady with your nonsense and bring her in for a cup of tea."
        We exited the small enclosure surrounding Jacques' Temple of Edfu and walked across the lawn towards the two-story house. Wang saw two foxes standing on their hind legs and leaning against a tree and pointed them out to me, but I had other mysteries to solve.
        "Why do you think your sister was murdered?" I asked him over tea and biscuits.
        He shook his head sadly. "Had I known I'd be raising the ghosts of the priests of Edfu, angered at their massacre I would never have started the ritual."
        "How terrible," she said, shaking her head and wiped a tear away with a lace-edged hanky pulled from her bosom.
        I responded to Jacques comment, "So you think a ghost did it?"
        "Oh, yes. What else could it be?" He looked at me with guileless eyes. "The other two men were most responsible for the massacre and then my sister bought up the property where it happened, to make money, simply to make money...filthy lucre."
        "Really," I said. sipping my tea. "So your sister was wealthy?"
        "Oh yes. Our father choose to leave all his wealth to my sister. It was perfectly fine with me. I am a poet, a man of letters. I choose not to be tied down with the need to earn a living. I got to the park and write while the rest of the world slaves away."
        "But you need to eat, though," I offered this as a query with a plate of scones.
        "My sister gave me a pittance for my needs."
        "Hmm," I said. "And now that she's dead?"
        "I believe I inherit it all," he said stiffly.
        "So the doctor said the wound on Mr. Frazer's back was clearly made by a gun. Do you think your vengeful ghosts would use a gun?"
        "That's a lie," Jacques stood up and shouted at me. "Mr .Frazer fell atop a root and got injured. He wasn't shot, he was poisoned, just like my sister."
        I looked at him, Mrs. O'Flanagan looked at him and we knew. Mr. Frazer had been found quickly and his injuries and his cause of death had not been released yet.
        "Jacques red face and glaring eyes took in our expressions and he screamed, "I'm guilty, guilty, guilty, I did it," and sobbing he fumbled with his cup and took his last big draught of tea and then collapsed, gracefully, I would even say poetically, onto the floor.
        I finished by biscuit and cuppa. "Look at that, his cup didn't even break. At least he didn't leave you a mess."
        "First time for everything," she replied, and got up to clear the tea things away.




Written 8/20/11 at Cal Anderson Park with William Lindberg, Philip, PurpleMark Wirth, Priya Keefe and Shannon Kringen. We passed our books around and I choose Page 67, Paragraph 2 of each as my prompt (see italics). The others did modified cross-outs, but I was clueless and wrote a story instead. The books (in order) were: The Stranger in Boots by A. Scott Leslie, Heaven's Mirror by Hancock & Faiia, The Tomb by H.P. Lovecraft, The Chinese Fox in the Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges, Madeline is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

Random Poetry Found While Packing -- 2

 

A strange conversation with a deaf poet

Have you ever heard of the Italian writer Ignzzio Silone? I just finished Fontamara. It’s about the resistance to El Duce (Mussolini).

I’ve heard of Mussolini. I don’t seem to read all that much. My undergraduate was in Mathematics and Religious Studies. All the reading I do now is in Mythological and Theological Studies.

Don’t preachers set themselves up? They apologize for being human.

Preachers aren’t perfect. It is parishioners who assume their preachers are close to god, because of their job. Preachers are no more closer to god than are mechanics, technicians, or professionals are to their jobs.

Then you are the perfect man.

I am no where near perfect. If I were, I should have learned the folly of chasing after 20-25 year old women.


That’s your own mystique, reverend. This [other matter] must be resolved today.

Daddy got blamed by Bush for the loss of his plane in WW2. Afterwhich, I was given a nerve agent. (Look at me face; see how my lips quiver?) John Lennon’s murder papers were planted in my home. I investigated their source. I found a Jewish holocaust survivor community and found proof. AIDS is man-made. But was censored. I took it to US District Court.

I’ve always wondered about the origin of the AIDS virus. How did it turn out in court?

If you evaluate the evidence you see immediately that I am right. There’s no other explanation. Who, in authority, did it is what is in dispute.

Have you ever considered telling your story to the world? I bet George Noory on Coast to Coast AM (formerly Art Bell Show) would like to interview you.

No, but I would if I could. The problem is that it was done through the Gurdjieff Cult. And since they killed Lennon, Fripp and [Peter] Gabriel claim it’s English property. They blame me and dispute my testimony, because they accomplished the guilty.

I’ll see that you get them and a summary of my testimony. It’s important that a few people other than me see what they are. The problem has been that I name Reagan.


Those who wish to see the New World Order realized? Who is the next anti-christ who has designs to rule the world?

The letters played me in a role like that. Apparently due to Daddy’s well know book, “Humanizing the School.” All libraries have it.

Is this a good or bad thing to do, humanize the schools? How old is the book? [He mouthed the word] 30 years?

Can I suggest you read him? They sabotaged it. I was kidnapped and gassed. The fact that I was gassed is what clued me to the Jewish role and led me to the letters.

The point is that I was genuinely hurt and ended up being in psychiatrist labs. I tried to protect myself from Erline and shared details. Those who I tried talking to didn’t want to hear it. They sided with men who tortured me and raped my retarded deaf “girlfriend,” in Pittsburg.

I’m sorry.

By the way it was David La Terre. The owner of Uncle Elizabeth’s saw the letters and semi-agreed with me about the situation. La Terre who I never met, told me to drop it or face serious rejection. I’m not torn as to what is real. But I’m diagnosed as delusional. It is not fair.

My mother followed some of what happened and conceded that I witnessed a laboratory bombing. She never comes right out and describes torture. La Terre’s point seems to be that I bring it up this way to people who don’t care.

I’ve been seeking a retort to John Cale. I never thought to turn it on its head. Bravo!

I gotta go. Do you want the paper (transcript of our conversation)?

No keep the explanation. I’ll tell you 3 more facts. The men who “gassed” me were: Ronnie ZZ “sin” Ski and Kasper “ow” ski. Ronnie and Kasper just like Regan and Weinberger. The letters are signed Gail Burstyn or “Gay-ill” Carolyn Brusting like a bomb. Carolling.

Are you gonna be at Homeland next week?

Yeah. See you next week Bill!




This was a conversation I found on Friday, August 26, 2011 dated to the fall of 2004, that I had with a crazy deaf poet. The print in italics are my words. I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I asked him for a conversation.


Monday, August 29, 2011

No More (A Video Poem)








I leave Seattle for Willamina, Oregon, on this day around this time. My land, my home is no more.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

A Letter to a Friend in McMinnville: My Fifth Day In Seattle

 

1/1/2004: I went out on the town last night. There are so many clubs around my new residence. Kirk played tour guide. "Now on the right is the house of debauchery (R-Place). Here are the three floors of increasing levels of mortal sin." When we strolled by the door the bouncers were giving a woman a spanking. I think it was her twenty-first birthday. It was fun to look in on these places. I felt like a window shopper. Kirk took me to a straight bar called Linda's. I had a pint of beer called, "Mack-n-Jack's." It had a smooth taste. It's texture poured down my throat like liquid children eying candy.

Now there's a tittle for a painting: Liquid Children. It may even make an interesting art card. Liquid Children. Can you imagine it? Abstract art like in the movie Fredida!"

I guess I'm feeling a little lonely today. Kirk took me to his banker friend Michelle's in Lynnwood. I think I mentioned her in the last letter. Where on Sunday, December 28, we helped her and her boyfriend move from Fremont to her new house in Lynnwood (which is approximately 10 miles north of where I am living on 15th & Spring.

Michelle bought a house that had been damaged by a few years of dogs pissing inside. It soaked through the carpet and into the floorboards and walls. She got it at a huge discount. The owner died from a diabetic episode when he was 31 years old. That's younger than I am now. It was a while before he was found. His dogs nibbled away at him in hunger.

I felt a little out of place with them. They were engrossed in a conversation about home improvements and building projects. I've always felt out of my element when people discuss ordinary things. Subjects such as these have an air of emptiness to them. I guess I am just too much of an oddball to fit in.


Saturday, 1/3/2004, 7:08 PM: I am having coffee in a cool shop a 1/2 block down Pike Street from Broadway Avenue (Cafe Vita). They play interesting music up here. {The place has an upstairs. I wonder what's up here?} It's funny, I don't miss McMinnville at all. Seattle is vibrant and pulses with a life force that doesn't exist in McMinnville or in any place in Oregon that I've ever lived. There are so many youthful people here. I think I am going to go coffee shop hoping on my walk home. Lets see, home is five blocks up and three blocks over to the right. I stayed up all evening last night playing video games while listening to books on tape. Thus far, I haven't found a coffee shop that has the same community that existed at the Cornerstone. People don't seem to hang out much here. At least not in coffee shops. It's not the coffee that makes the shop. It's the people. I guess that was what was special about the Cornerstone.

This evening, I went to the 5:30 Mass at the Cathedral. The pipe organ was enchanting. On the entrance and exit hymns, they didn't play traditional arrangements, rather (just like everything else in this city) it was brimming with creativity. However, every hymn in between was more traditional. It was so much easier to sing to the organ than to guitar and other instruments. It was such a blessing to be able to have so much noise on the bottom end. It was much easier to tune my voice to it. If they use organ every Mass, the Cathedral will become my home parish. However, I plan to visit two other parishes within walking distance of my new home before making a final decision.

It is so cold today. I am not looking forward to the walk home. If I include the wind chill factor, it must range between 28 - 32 degrees out perhaps even colder. Thus far we had twenty hours of snow fall over two adjacent days. Tuesday evening it snowed as well as last night too. My pen just died, but the nice coffee servers loaned me one of theirs.

I understand that your dad doesn't trust your driving in the snow. Has he been driving you back and forth to work? My parents never drove me to work or any place when it snowed. I did that for myself even as early as sixteen. You know, your parents are never going to let you go. I wonder if my parents were the same when I was in my twenties? I can understand. I hung onto my parents for support for a long time too. I am just going to check upstairs and then see if I can locate a new pen.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Carla is fishing to kill Mr Jeremy Fisher with a Gibran Conscience


Fishing to Kill

        Mr. Jeremy took a reed pole and pushed the boat into open water. “I know a good place for minnows,” said Mr. Jeremy Fisher.
        His neighbor merely smiled, keeping her irritation at his constant stream of ridiculous comments to herself. ‘What a windbag’, she thought. He’s lived here for a week and he acts like he knows everything. She fingered the pendant from her father. Given to her on her 21st birthday, it contained six diamonds set around a central opal.
        It was the last thing he ever gave her, her sole inheritance after the financial crash and his heart attack. He was at a gym doing pushups, competing with Jeremy when he croaked.
        She loved her dad; her loss a constant agony. Jeremy had pretended to be grief stricken and played the part of her friend, but she knew better. They gave him her father’s job, his office, his company car and even the memberships at all seven of her father’s clubs. Now Jeremy was trying to take her.
        A local prophet had played the cards for her and saw death all around her. He couldn’t be more right. They got to Jeremy’s spot, his precious minnow pool and threw the small anchor over the side, please with the day and her company.
        He fussed with the gear and burbled inconsequences. She asked him if he was thirsty. He flushed, delighted to have her attention, and wiped his brow, admitting he would love some of her homemade grape juice.
        She smiled, and offered the bottle, the purple bottle, to him.
        He toasted her and drank. She watched as his face turned white and he clutched his head. It was probably that extra nitroglycerin of her father’s. She’d heard too much could kill you, or maybe the prophet was correct: “and if you grudge the crushing of grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.”


---By Carla Blaschka, Saturday, August 13, 2011, at Cal Anderson Park



Prompts Chosen Almost Randomly:

1)        The 6 of Diamonds, the 7 of Clubs
2)        Jeremy Fisher by Beatrix Potter: “Mr. Jeremy took a reed pole and pushed the boat into open water. “I know a good place for minnows,” said Mr. Jeremy Fisher.”
3)        The Prophet by Kahil Gibran: “And if you grudge the crushing of grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.”

Other writers in attendance at the writers' circle were: Bill Lindberg, PurpleMark Wirth and Priya Keefe.


Friday, August 26, 2011

Random Poetry Found While Packing -- 1

 

Young At heart

Furious Velocity
and off-centered center
denatured nature,
the forces of May.

Unspontaneous eccentricity,
unhallowed electricity,
luminous hypocrisy,
a soul on display.

The unargent agent,
a black-suited Satan,
atone; for the tangential
heart has her sway.

Illumine my limits
O spendthrift soul-sheriff,
knight fortune belays;
the putrefied presence
is not of the essence,
acute adolescence
by Tutor betrayed.

Efflorescent feeling
the soul's on the ceiling,
the senses, unreeling,
won't get in the way.

Pubescent revealing
and fatal unveiling;
unasking, unbending,
the heart's final days.
Unmasking unending,
Psyche's at her mending,
the Furies are rending
a Soul lost at play.




---Don Comfort (formerly from) Newberg Oregon
    (now a monk in a Russian Orthodox order)

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Poem Read Unknowingly Before A Lady's Prayer Group At An Open Mic in Everett

 


I read this poem at the interpretive dance specialty competition at the Seattle poetry Slam on Tuesday, August 23. Just as with my feature at the Book Worm Exchange in Columbia City, the reading of this garnished peals of laughter especially with Barton Jackson, a professional dancer, doing the interpretation. I wish I could have seen what he was doing. I had to stop several times in my reading to laugh, because every one was busting their guts over it. I heard his dance was even more raunchy than my poem.

My own dancing though funny scored the lowest of all the contestants. I did every funny thing I could think of in the moment. I might have done better if i had more beer. My last move was a Shakespearean comedic death. All-in-all, this was a fun slam to finish my Seattle career as a spoken word poet here.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Last Scrabble Poetry Match on Capitol Hill

 

On Monday, August 22, I played my last scrabble poetry match against Sonja. (As of today, I only have 5.5 days left as a Washington State resident). Sonja, a lady I met at Folklife 2011, happened to live in the same complex I did when I first relocated to Seattle. Our game got cut short due to a power outage. The proprietor of Porchlight Coffee closed up shop early to take the milk home before it spoiled. And thus kicked us out before we finished the game, but we did generate a few crunchy words.






boom, bag, wig, zoo, woe, lies, no / nip, up / luck, za / la, dick, moor, hi / had / od, live, not / hits, rap, ow / wax, ups / woes, row, xu / pus, say, dare, slay, slayer, reslayer, do, at / hot, rat, drat / nod, vent, talent



Sonja's Scrabble Poem

Talent woes vent
say lies
zoo xu say
dare not wax pus say
hot luck boom hits
live rat



My String of Scrabble

Dick Lies

woe
drat
vent
nod

Bag up rat

dare
say
wax
hot

Dick had luck

slay
reslay
live
rats

Moor had talent

wig
not
up
boom



Thursday, August 18, 2011

William James' Pen dots T's and crosses I's

 

The Minnow's Queen of Night


Green fire burnt in braziers at the base of each of the sight-line pillars just outside the circle marking the poles. They mapped the coming and the going of the enchanted wind that swept down form the stars to paint the sky. The wizard of the Minnows chanted rhythmic melodies as he added purple spades to a caldron bubbling and bowling on the sun throne.

Three eons ago, the Ladybird king chiseled into stone tablets the last time this phenomenon happened. It was in the age of the Frog. She dawned equal distance between the north and the south poles followed by twelve spades of the Night Queen. Now the Grasshopper is dawning as her Aces take to flight. In the south, the Frog looked on smiling while hovering over the Pole before she started to reverse course to rise again. Next time, if there is another age, the Minnow king will return.

This is a sacred event. The Night Queen upon her death twelve thousand years ago promised to come again and she has. Her green gown blankets the clouds in a glorious flourish that the whole world can see. The star gods have sent their cleansing fire down and much of the world has already been purified. And soon new life will appear where none was before.

Already the dancers of the Queen were ten-thirteenths of the way through the ritual. It is a beautiful treat that the average Minnow rarely ever sees. The knowledge is passed down to priestess and priest through the generations in the cavernous bowels under the temple. They learn in cave so removed from the swamp that no star shine has ever touched. The dancers hopped, bent, and stooped as the Minnows clapped, hooted, and hollered in appreciation of their intricate contortions.

According to the Ladybird king, this event lasted thirteen risings of the sun. The Wizzard reads the final stanza on the tablet:

“He grinds you to whiteness
He sets you free from your husks
He thrashes you to make you naked
He assigns you to his sacred fire.”

The tenth day was dawning. Smoke obscures the face of the sun. Green flares shimmer into streamers of orange in the sky. The hills in the east glowed red. “It wouldn’t be long now,” the Minnow wizard whispered in to the wind, “before I get to see the wonder of the Ladybird king…”




Prompts drawn almost randomly:

1) Ace of Spades, Queen of Spades, 13 / 31

2) “And instead of a nice dish of minnows, they had a roasted grasshopper with ladybird sauce, which frogs consider a beautiful treat; but I think it must have been nasty,” (The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher ).

3) “He thrashes to make you naked. He grinds you to whiteness. He gifts you to free you from your husks. And he assigns you to his sacred fire,”(The Prophet by Kahil Gibran).

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Purple Mark’s Pen Strikes Back at the Park

 

Heart Struck Jack


Five clubs were within a few blocks
of the heart-struck jack of selected trades.
Which one wouldn’t remind him
of what he sought to forget
or was it remember?

The words of Kahil Gibran were in his head
‘You were born together’, but they were apart,
‘And together you shall be forevermore’,
yet it was more like ‘Nevermore’.

‘You shall be together when the white wings of Death
scatter your days’, however they were already parted.
They had just met and now he could not find her,
as though she had been but a brief tactile illusion.

Had she been just a dream
which had momentarily manifested in his madness?
Were there even any eyewitnesses
to give credence to his infatuation
or had he slipped over the edge of the abyss?

These thoughts plagued him,
did he so need to have another there
to prove his own existence?
It was not a comfort for him to realize this.


---Purple Mark 081311b



The prompts given were: 5 of ♣, Jack of ♥, and Kahil Gibran's lines:
'You were born together, and together you shall be forever'. and
'You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days'.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Sabbath Scrabble Poetry Revival

 
Clever Carla in action

Ba!

Early squads of
tax minks
seize and rend
kegs of beet beer.
Yuck.
Nine floor to roof
long lamps jam wider,
vex me.
I tug hat.
Clang, ting
a pied VIP owns
bad flora,
thus airs vice.

--Weird Carla, 8/13/2011

I think Carla's scrabble poem is on par if not better than a scrabble poem written by Elise the first time I played last September. I wish I could have thought to do that. String the words together, individually, so that they form a story. Clever Carla! If you want to see for yourself, make a comparison, the name of the post is "Ode to Pad Scrabble Poetry."



Flora was vexed by her taxes; she drank nine beers rendered from beets in wide mouthed jars.

Ting was on Flora’s roof when a squad of nine beet sized bees stung him.
Qat wore a beet colored hat that once was Ting's mink skin lamp shade.
Tug couldn’t help putting on airs when he ate beets at Qat’s house; he tinned taxing stories about being on E.D. vice squad.
Clang rendered nine beets into yuck on Tugs long floor.
Ting like to Jam with Clang early every Sunday morning while beet beer filtered into badly sized kegs.
Flora treated Ting like a V.I.P. in his squad car by giving him a tin of her beet jam pie.
--Wild Bill, 8/13/2011




Scrabble Words in order played:

wide, sized, bee, wider, vice, roof, flora, vex, thus, tax, tin, tug, qat, rend, squad, long, airs / squads, early, nine, bad, ba / ed / beer, pied, clang, vip, floor, yuck, beat / to, owns, lamps, jam, kegs, hat, mink, or, me


Carla: 244
Bill: 272

Feel free to write your own scrabble poem or story from the words generated.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Random Attacks Fall Like Clues from Eyes


Daniel stood in front of the mirror bowing and grimacing in his jail-cell sized apartment wearing a mustard yellow zuit suit, a tall red top hat, and purple shark skinned shoes. His satin waistcoat was etched in big golden paisleys crying down the lapels into pools of metaphor. He was back on the main stage again of the Grand Marx Theater.

Desire his death, which physic did except,” was the last line Daniel said before he plunged the dagger between the shoulder blades of his adversary.

The premise of the Cal's Folly production was insidious. Sir Cal Anderson was the banker responsible for the panic of 1907, which—according to the occult history of America— was devastating to future generations in that it led directly to a few individuals having dominion over an entire republic. Sir Cal, in a secret white house chamber, conspired with Igor Aldrich and Darwin Warburg to pull their fortunes out of the market. The resultant was instant financial collapse and economic chaos. Many people lost their lives. In the aftermath, President Wilson was swindled by these same international bankers into abandoning Franklin's wishes 'that our new world be indebted to no one' and allowed the creation of a new central bank. When the blinders were lifted from Wilson's eyes, he cried, “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” The irony still made Daniel give water to mad tears.

They got their pink slips in the middle of the eighteenth run. The venue manager's eyes were red from stinging waves of grief when she informed them that the Grand Marx would be torn down and a new Imperial Bank of America be built in its place. At the auction, Daniel wanted the doorknob to his dressing room, but when he opened his wallet dry weeds tumbled out. Daniel became a character in his own drama. A refugee in a war waged by the few against the many.

"Little people get punished for little things," Karl said, "Big people do big things. No one punishes them. The rulers of nations turn blind eyes, make excuses, create foreign scapegoats for crimes committed against their subjects by these giants." The mob loved seeing Daniel, a simple sharecropper from the south, triumph over banking bullies and industrial tycoons in Cal’s Folly.

Daniel, fell to his knees as random attacks fell from the sky. He pounded his fists into cold barren clay till his brown knuckles mashed into red. Daniel turned his moon face up to a beam of light shafting through the overcast and said, "I search for clues to the why. Why me I cry? What did I, a diminutive man, do to deserve to be punish’d by these bombs? What fell truths lie in the ill mechanism of a flashing rocket tail star bursting thorny roses into Independence Day? And what have we, pray I, been liberated from?"

“In mortal dealings,” Karl said to Daniel in Darwin’s den, “under the sun everyday still comes and goes. And we though many, have zero control of where these explosions land.”







Words: clue, waistcoat, theater
Lines: Desire his death which physic did except —Shakespeare Sonnet #147
          Under the Sun Every Day Comes and Goes —Black Sabbath

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Found in the Mensroom at Rancho Bravo on Capitol Hill 2

 

The poet ran his fingers through his long black hair. It was dark as he pictured how she looked in the mirror. But how she looked in reality was far different. He didn't care. His hair was different. He wore his hair longer and more luxurious than her. He noted a flaring tint of jealously in her eyes.

The poet turned his back to her face. She raised her voice into a scream. It was a silent scream. He didn't even know until he saw her contorted face. On the poet's head one hair was out of place.

At the taco stand, the girl was all sexed up in low cut lace. The poet ran his fingers through his long black hair then looked up and said one smooth word to her, "Spain." The girl asked, "Is that the place with rain on the plane?"

"No, it's where you will feel my pain!" And he began to play the accordion. As he bellowed the box, the tears streamed down his face and the girls face too. Suddenly, she stuck her fingers down her pants and dipped her fingers into her wide mouthed pot and began painting this story on a wall by the apothecary.



This story was the second story written by TM, CI, and BJ on the other side of the notebook paper I found on Monday, August 8th in the restroom at Rancho Bravo's Mexican restaurant. When I first moved to Capitol Hill a sleazy Kentucky Fried Chicken occupied this space.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Princess Mad Dog by PurpleMark



Princess Mad Dog vainly expressed
the randomness of Truth, the blackness of Hell,
and Art as dark as the night.

Her audience was a dancing dog,
two finches searching for cheerios under the benches and a
drunk that might as well have been named Douche-bag.

She lived up to her appellation with her mismatched eyes of
brown and blue, a tiara perched in a nest of frazzled hair and a
powder-pink taffeta dress.

Her princessdom was the Park with its assortment of itinerants,
dog-walkers and the Dance/Meditation group du jour who were
building her a castle in the meadow.

While two runners with numbers on their shirts ducked into the
men’s room before running off on their unknown and somewhat
lackadaisical marathon.



--PurpleMark 080611

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Found in the Mensroom at Rancho Bravo on Capitol Hill 1

 

Hunger aches in my belly
like how crabs ate a layer of
skin off Rossie's round mound
it was red, red, red
and it spilled over
just like a sound

All I could do was look at
them crabs on a reddened mound
that was once much fun to pound.

I slapped her and called her a whore
she sucked me in and begged for more.
It was then I said,
"Hark! Is that someone
beating on your back Door?"

"I hope it is not my boss
checking up on you..."

"Nooo! It's Red Randy!
Come to get Rosie's
Crab infested candy.

"Don't let him in,"
but they forgot to lock the door.
So, Red Randy Barged in
and drank all the beer.
He fell fast asleep
with his butt against the door.

Rossie, who was a whore, rolled him
and took everything down to his last dime.
When he woke, he was in another state.

Again, Rossie, had fucked him
mind and money,
redefining the meaning
of American poverty.




This story (and a second one) was found in the mens restroom at Rancho Bravo on Capitol Hill. It was scribbled down on crumpled notebook paper in three distinctly different scrawls. They even initialed it TR, CM, BJ.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Weird Carla Writes: A Call to Freedom

 

A Call to Freedom

In the mirror I looked at a Super Freak, at least a Super Freak according to the so-called “good people” of this town. To go outside was to risk having their dogs set on us, from bowsers to schnauzers. We called ourselves the Sons of Freedom and call on people to think for themselves, to be unique, to wear an orange tiger striped fluffy fleece hat if you want. Currently we were fighting for the earth, to keep them from boring a tunnel through downtown and entombing us all, financially, certainly, and in an earthquake, maybe.

          But they claimed that where the Sons of Freedom made their home, leave the earth to Satan and his slaves. They claimed going along with the majority and community was heaven, and made you one with God and the angels. They claimed their attacks on us were justified by saying, “for that which longer nurseth the disease, spread the rot, and made them all tainted and unclean.”

          We still struggle, we hide, we protest, we run, each of us convinced of our purpose, and knowing freedom has no expiration date. It is an idea that will not die.


Accessory Poem

I hold up a mirror
For that which longer nurseth the disease
Is reflected in my face, my hair, my clothes
I am called a Super Freak,
But Freedom has no expiration date
I long to fly away, find the place
Where the Sons of Freedom make their home,
Leave the earth to Satan and his slaves


By Carla Blaschka, August 6, 2011


An exercise. I was given 3 words and 2 lines and 20 minutes to write a story. The words: Mirror, Super Freak, and Expiration Date were drawn at random from one bag. The second bag contained lines from Sonnet #147 by William Shakespeare and lyrics from Into The Void and Under the Sun / Every Day Comes and Goes by Black Sabbath. And I happened to luck into a line from Black Sabbath's song Into the Void and one line from Sonnet #147.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Goodbye Seattle (I'll Always Love You)

 

Yesterday, I ran through a field of luscious uncut alfalfa hay
It swirled around my legs
banking this way and that way in unison
like a cloud of phosphorescent plankton
I was naked
Not alone
I conversed with the wind

Today, I stepped off a Greyhound
I strutted out a skyline of emerald towers
into a neighborhood
that has been my lover for eight years
I saw the Wizard of Oz for the first time
people mill around insane, high, straight, colorful, gay, lesbian, and transgendered
and I just now realized how astonishing this city is

It is summer, the rain showers down sideways, warm
I left my umbrella behind the door
in my apartment on Capitol Hill
but somehow my clothes are still dry

Tomorrow my life here will end
I will be born new
Reincarnated into a boot
that has seen too many miles of asphalt
On the right shoe
the big toe has been exposed to air laden with petro-pollen fumes
Newspaper is stuffed into the other,
it stops ground water from seeping through holes
A starving hermit retreats into a shell
stolen from the shadow of a tree snail
it drinks sand from the exiting tide
and reads fear on the front page

This new place I’ll be going is monocromatic
Batter ladled into a skillet bubbling as it fries into a hotcake
is bumpier as it crawls and sprawls from wall to mart

What will come next I do not know
I’ve been unhinged from this life
I call home

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Shannon Kringen’s Variation of and Exquisite Corpse


The first thing I saw when I walked up to the rubber mat was a molted yellow brown filling the screen.

It was obvious to me that I was going to miss my appointment and I would need to clean up the mess. 90 degree F heat and Rubber don't mix. The screen was torn and rusty with spider webs all over it. It had green metallic beetles all wrapped up in their silk spider web coffins ready to be eaten.

I wanted to take some close up macro photos but left my camera at the castle nearby. The accordion music played outside the door was perfect funeral music for beetles. I got out my spray paint.

All now begin to fade as I stare at yellow ground filling the screen.

Metallic green will now replace the yellow.

The screen must transform. In these chaos days where nothing makes sense you may as well use colors you enjoy the sight of. Wind chimes distracted me as I sniffed the hideous toxic fumes of the paint. I thought of my ex calling me a narcissist. Must cover that yellow brown I thought. ERASE THE PAST.

I sprayed it out with black paint

But then realized it's better to mostly stick with metallic green and layer the two colors. After all, the beetles are both green and black. It all matches and is a metaphor for something bigger. There are always repeating patterns that mirror and echo. The inner and outer life are connected but I wonder where it starts? Chicken or egg?

They pulled pranks between engine strokes and reminded me of dew.

Which also reminds me of “ranks” and hierarchies: the games people play with their false selves. What a game it is to be human on planet earth. Pros and cons to that! I wish I could turn my skin to metallic green and go live in the jungle. “Get back to nature” as they say.

His hands were now tainted with the blood of the undesirables’.

Just as mine were. Aren't we all tainted in some way I thought silently to myself? I ache to be free of these burdens. Can I learn to be more like a worm and ground myself in earth and absorb nutrients and let go of judging Self and others? Maybe I am a narcissist but at least I am aware of this possibility. I have been told that a true narcissist never questions whether they are a narcissist or not! Projections? Scapegoating? Live and learn.


—Shannon Kringen, Saturday, July 30, 2011

Shannon wrote: "here is the weird story i wrote with a group in the park. the lines in italic are from other writers who gave me a line and i added my own words after that. each other us ended up with totally different stories. very cool exercise!


Bio of the Artist

:

Multi Media Artist Shannon Kringen grew up in San Diego California and Whidbey Island Washington. She is a self-taught photographer with a background in Graphic Design. She works as a figure model and is designing her BA degree with a concentration on Photography. Shannon also paints onto shoes and creates fully abstract paintings on canvas. She recently began learning printmaking and plans to combine photography with monotype prints. She sees her creative expression as a tool to connect with community and a way of increasing self-awareness and tap into a deeper wisdom within.


http://www.shannonkringen.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shannonkringen/

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Weird Carla Blankovic's variation of an Exquisite Corpse


How Many Kills Can One Killer Claim?


     The first thing I saw when I walked up to the rubber mat was a molted yellow brown filling the screen.

     Andy had recommended the butcher to me and I was excited to pick up some fresh prosciutto. I hadn't realized just how fresh the meat would be as I gazed at chicken skin and unsaleable chicken parts; this wasn't the International District, after all, being washed down the drain.

     Fresh tongue laughed at me.

     I got out my spray paint. I waved it at the owner and he pointed to the back. I walked through hanging racks of beef and out the door. Detroit was pretty aggressive about cleaning up graffiti, but the butcher just wanted to go the cheap route and have me paint over it. This time someone had written "MURDERER" in day glo paint on the back alley wall. I sprayed it out with black paint.

     Wandering fingers at the fairway meant I had several more hours of community service to do and I needed to get this signed off. The butcher came out to see what I was doing and I handed him my form. He took it and pulled out a wax pencil with a blood-stained hand. He was about to sign when he glanced at the wall.

     "What the hell?" he said.

     I turned and stared. The phantom day glo paint had seeped through the black and was even more visible than ever.

     "MURDERER", it cried.

     "Bloody hippies," he growled, and grabbed the can of spray paint out of my hand.

     I watched as the mom and child slipped from sight. The ninth thing was the ground-score cupcakes, the homemade cookies and the ice cream walking by. I was counting the different things people had in their hands as they walked through the alley as I waited, crouched with my back against the wall. The butcher kept growing more and more angry as each coat of paint made the words go brighter. His big, red face was sweating and he was starting to shout incoherently. Phrases such as “Get a job, you lazy bums” and “a chicken in every pot, that’s what I provide, you think your pot tastes like chicken, ha!” drifted over my head.

     I rested my chin on her head and stroked the golden brown hair of the butcher’s daughter. I don't see that glow in her eyes and spark in her voice after all of this, I thought, and immediately berated myself for thinking that at a time like this. Susi was in my class at school and I had had a crush on her since 9th grade. After the EMT's pronounced her dad dead of a heart attack, she cried on my shoulder for an hour. The shop was closed; we were still in the alley staring at the wall and its message when I noticed something. I went over and lightly sprayed the last of the paint above and below the word "murderer" and waited. After a moment or two more became visible. Now against the black were the words "I AM A" and "I KILLED JIMMY H..."

     H what?

     I shook the can but there was no more paint to reveal the truth.

     "I AM A MURDERER. I KILLED JIMMY H..."

     "Is that next letter an "O" do you think?

     Susi just shook her head, full from fresh death and uninterested in dry, aged meat.



Written Saturday, July 30, 2011

At Cal Anderson Park. The words in italic were given to me by other members of my writing group during an exercise called "Exquisite Corpse."


I am clever. I figured out how to do a paragraph indent in html! I tried many fancy things including inserting a css code, but to no avail. The css code worked in part, but it ultimately failed to do what I wanted. The style code, instead of indenting the first line, indented all the lines in the paragraph. The more I work solely in html the less foreign code begins to look. It won't be long before I'll be able to modify templates. Now, if I can only figure out how to indent "5" spaces instead of three. I put in five of these characters "  & n b s p ;  " without spaces and it should have worked, but it didn't. If someone knows how to solve my problem, just leave the code as a comment. Thanks.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Purple Mark's variation of an Exquisite Corpse

 
Photo by Seattle PI


Things Seen: One Through Fourteen

The First Thing I saw was the mottled Yellow ground beyond the fiber mat. There were the fallen leaves of the approaching Autumn caught in its weave.

The Second Thing was a Rose that lay Browning after being filched from someone’s garden and abandoned on the uncaring sun-heated ground.

The Third Thing was a peculiar toy: a strange Chinese blend of Disney and San Rio of a baby/cat hybrid that crawled on the ground and mewed.

The Fourth was the gurgling laughter under the trees off the basketball court from the two mad scientists who had found the key to turning off Gravity by a Fifth Force which ran parallel to and repelled the ground.

The Sixth Thing were the bright Green tennis balls which hadn’t cleared the net and lay disregarded on the ground.

The Seventh Thing were the hoops of stone along the court’s grounds and of the dreams of Mayans anxious to not win the game and thus lose their hearts.

The Eighth Thing was the rumble of unmufflered motorcycles prowling Pine Street and the sound of bicycle tires on the gravel scattered over the ground.

The Ninth Thing were the tiny ground-score Lemon cupcakes, home-maid chocolate-chip cookies and the parade of ice-cream walkers.

There was a big ‘X’ or the number Ten where a “Bloody Hippy” had spray-painted the hot ground with a desperate need for attention: I was here!

There were Eleven bounces between attempts by the boy to make a basket: None of which went in and rebounded to the ground off the backboard.

The Twelve days of Summer were half over with park-goers eager to get their fill of Vitamin D before it rained and the ground turned to mud again.

The Thirteenth Thing were the metallic green sandals that looked more at home in the jungle than on this asphalted ground.

The fourteenth thing was the planes which drifted overhead as people walked on the walls instead of the ground as the writing exercise came to an end.



Purple Mark, Written at a writers circle that met Saturday at Cal Anderson Park, July 30, 2011