Departing DIA

Pardarar is Persian for storyteller. I am the Naqqal which means ‘the transmitter’ in Persian.

Our sky ride bus left at 1:07 which allowed time to walk around the parking lot soaking up ultraviolet rays of light across from Jose.

5 passengers zoomed down 6th and into central city. The skyline was approaching a space station terminus in the universe, Aurora campus, past construction sites for sports and Market street - lofts, renovations, old bricks painted with cowboys, tight parking out west these days...Wynkoop brew pubs, and the trendy LoDo or is it DoDo bird land? make over shift makers, shift shakers.

Construction crews of Black guys hauling metal beams, welding, pouring concrete as suited office workers wait for pedestrian walk permission lights to click and green them go. Then we left the open space and gradually were swallowed by looming skyscrapers touching blue sky and cold shadows in the remains of the day not with Sir Anthony Hopkins mind you, but with ghosts of the silver, cattle driving rustlers bygone eras, transporting ourselves into a tunnel leaving light behind and stopping at the bus market.

People got off and people got on. A man mopped swaths of wet glistening water in shadows as a woman's back pressed against hard glass wearily waiting as we rolled out and to the greyhound station, past courthouses where years ago a skinny 19 year old stood up and recited the pledge of allegiances in a room and Candy said goodbye and I started toward Ft. Leonard Wood Misery and the Latin on the building is still there speaking in tongues about honor and service, duty and loyalty and never coming back potentials from humid jungles full of land mines hovering choppers and rice paddies as we rolled into five points and the carnage of the homeless with a Black man on the corner and his shopping cart was silver and his carefully folded cardboard boxes were stacked on the lower level of his rolling life and bags of cans and various treasures were arranged in no particular order and his beard was black and he was in the shadow on the corner surveying his options toward new beginnings.

And the landscape was TS Elliot Where the Wasteland Ends and our spaceship turned into the Five Points and we were surrounded by home boxes with heavy metal bars on their windows, trash blowing in the wind, cracker jack shacks of homes crammed into lifeless vegetation crying children weeds prowling junked cars, trucks, alleys full of discarded tires, haphazard fences, narrow passageways between bricks and HUD estates with children playing and Black women beating carpets and watering patches of soil a zone of tolerance living on the edge, the periphery of America’s dream and it may have been 32nd ave a new east flying toward old Stapleton air fields full of bulldozers and plastic bags on barb wire and moire passengers -- Somalia woman and daughter, cowboy hatted traveler, and then to the DIA - gleaming tent city spires, the white needles -- a space station of proportions and checking through -- mid-day is the least busy and then frisked down by some guys at security -- they may have been from Ghana or Somalia, or Ethiopia but I suspect Congo or Zaire as their dialect was different enough and they were young and laughing at the never ending task of waving detector wands over people and the one doing me was young & angry and exasperated at having to do anything so far removed from his country, his family, his brothers and sisters carrying water on their heads in cracked plastic pails from distant valleys drying in the heat of perpetual summer’s drought and his tie was askew and his white shirt against his thin black neck was frayed and his blue blazer looked severely uncomfortable on his frame and the Asian woman came over to my small red bag and she is missing many teeth and smiling and asked about the harmonica in the bag and would like to see it and I am surprised and laughing and joking with her and she turns and points to the Hispanic woman watching the telepathic screen as bags convey their contents past her tired brown eyes and she’s lost her remote and the Asian woman says the other woman doesn’t know what a harmonica is and so I pull it out of the small pocket in the key of D and she holds it up and shows it to the woman who nods and I ask the Asian woman if she would like me to play her something and she says yes and so I play a few rifts of a Christmas carol on automatic pilot and she laughs and the passengers flow around us in their definite hurry and mothers manage baby carriages that look like three tired tiered birthday cakes with burning candles and their long lonely joyful responsibilities and then the music stops and I thank the Asian woman and she laughs and I put the harmonica back in the bag and take the escalator down

to the train and watch the Hispanic woman mop the floor and women in furs and designer jewelry waiting impatiently for the train to Concourse ABC...train zooms through tunnels as though amusement parks rides are free with silver spinning windmills in the cement walls whirling the wind tunnels as people get off and on and a white woman with her Black husband holds her child his black curly hair all ringed around small ears and he looks bored and she is not sure if she made the right decision and they are going east to see her folks and he never smiles and they share no words and the United Crew woman has a child in one of those gigantic baby things and her bags are utilitarian and she knows what she is doing and has the right lug-gage and is well organized and a man in a suit checks his watch and his family is far away and he is trying to catch a plane so he can get to another city another meeting, another cab another hotel and maybe, if he is lucky, get home to his family for xmas and at the concourse I eat some pasta with spinach watching the line grow at macdonald had a farm French fries, food to go go go and the Hispanic woman squeezes her mop out and slowly mops the area down collecting fragments of footprints dissolving in the yellow dirty water
as blond women in black yak their business calls on cell phones connecting with clients, customers and we board the metal canister and my window is on the left and we take off north and the turbulence hits us at 4000 feet through 11000 feet with the Silver City of Dreams skyline below us and Platte valley a silver streak of small Amazonian proportions east of orange skies sun sliding away and we bounce up and down and grit our teeth preparing for the fall to earth as Icarus or a Phoenix with wings of wax but somehow the metal rivets, bolts, nuts and slender wings hold as the pilots must be silently cursing the 125 headwinds of the heavens and mountains are a dream below us and then we are in the rolling gray clouds with tomato juice and an hour brings us south of Salt Lake and the great salt lake water is a silver reflecting pond and lights from human homes out of designer magazines glow through blackness and a single light on the end of the wind illuminates particles of snow flashing quick silver fish of water flying

we change planes in the LDS zone of polygamy listening to people complain about being stuck in Atlanta since dawn trying to get somewhere somehow, someday...and a rolling airport shuttle cart comes by driven by a young woman with passengers and there are two boys on the cart and a young boy, about 7 or so, looks like Harry Potter, with the big coke bottle glasses and his colorful day pack and he says, Do they have a bathroom at the gate? and she says it’s close by and they drop off a woman and because they stop the boy figures the ride is over and he says to the driver, Do you need some money? I have 5 dollars right here in my bag and he starts to reach for it and she smiles and says, no and she turns the cart around and they stop at the bathroom and he runs away smiling toward the mosaic tiles and she smiles....and on the flight to Pasco I sit next to a young student from Walla Walla who attends the university of Virginia majoring in French and pre-med and she calls her mother on the cell phone before they close the doors and asks her to get some muffins for breakfast because she hasn’t had any for four months and she is desperate for muffins and she doesn’t say I love you or I miss you or I’m looking forward to seeing you and her father is a dentist and her teeth are perfect for muffins and she talks to the woman next to her, a stout girl majoring in math and physics near Bakersfield who is going to Spokane and Idaho for a wedding as her mom is getting hitched to a man the girl in seat 28A has never met and she’s never been to Idaho and she wears a large brimmed straight black cowboy hat and they talk about cramming for finals and the stress of studies and eating pizza cramming for travel on standby and they have a break now and the woman from eastern Washington uses the word excellent a million times in her conversation and I read poems from Dogen in Japan about seasons

it’s cold in the Tri-Cities and a couple of my cactus plants on the balcony need CPR and so I go to the club and it’s quiet and I tend to mens’ night tennis listening to the men complain about the change in court reservation policy and how they are going to file a letter of complaint with the management and boycott classes and I listen and make notes and it’s nice to be back with the silence of the small flat cleaning up so yesterday I worked and did some errands, new library books including JUMP TIME about universal potentials and found a new fern, had the watch man check out Da’s watch and its the kind you wind as the internal mechanism is self contained and so I used the turtle magnifier to see the fine print and checked out the Girard-Perreqaux web site and the history is quite good from Jean Bautte in 1791 who started the watchmaking business when he was a young man and he sold the company to a man named Girard who married Marie Perreqaux in 1854 and both their families were in the business -- mergers and the brand was established in 1856 and in 1880 they invented the wristwatch with 32,7681 Hertz and a triple bridge mechanism and their company is a manufactory which means they make everything in one place, no parts form other suppliers and so, I’m guessing the watch is from the 30’s or 40’s so thanks very much for letting me have it and we put a new black band on it and the watch dealer at the store said it’s a fine piece with old glass and it keeps excellent time.

we have continuous snow now and I am a lone wolf again in my lair for the winter preparing to breed and go hunting on this the shortest day of the year and winter solstice is a blessing and you are beautiful and kind!

(end of transmission)

Heat and Serve

Tomorrow is a day of dread
in a sense
as people with good intentions
will ask “How was your Thanksgiving?”
and he'll be compelled
to answer out of politeness with one of the following quick options depending on his state of mind and their degree of receptivity....

a) He initially accepted a kind offer to join a family for dinner but declined at the last minute because he was writing and didn’t feel like facing anyone, especially a family of strangers.

Did send them a card, however, - a beautiful woodcut by Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858) - thanking them and apologizing for his lack of initiative. He'd like to sleep with their daughter, but he also understands she's finishing an old affair and processing her emotional feelings so she doesn’t need complications. Unfinished symphonies about lust, attraction and attachment.

b) Traveled to Cambodia and removed land mines from rice paddies in the north near the Burma border where ruby smugglers laid low with their 16 year old concubines reliving a glorious past in jungles of desire before custom forms were invented. We dined on wild rice served with succulent snake. It was a long hard refreshing journey of heart and spirit. Made copious notes and detailed maps for the villagers before returning to "civilization."

c) Took off his watch and unplugged the phone. Enjoyed a hot bath, turned the hourglass over, worked on projects - including a piece about a woman who speaks every language in the world and also clearly knows a language on the planet dies every two weeks so she's busy collecting and organizing various tongues; did some minor editing on a travel piece about the Naxi matriarchal society in northern Yunnan - also some playful work creating fantastic digital images using a dragonfly as the central motif - placing it inside a Japanese meditation garden, on a plate full of leftovers with gleaming utensils and flying over the Sierra Nevada mountains. Read three books. Bought a book at an independent bookstore down the street and a copy of Plato’s Dialogues from the used section of the library for 25¢.

“It just came in yesterday,” the white haired woman said handing him change and the Dialogues.

Took a long walk in 25 year old heavy European hiking boots through mud and ice reminding him of wandering foreign countries at high altitudes in the dead of winter; sent out a poem to a web site incorporating realities about five women aid workers who committed suicide at Paradise Prison outside_______in 1997 for refusing to sing regime songs after being beaten with clubs, belts and rubber hoses filled with sand. They killed themselves with honorable intentions to end their suffering.

Made a fire, drank green tea, listened to music - Blues, Mozart, Bach. Got off the wheel sitting very still watching snowflakes fall into silence.

Lhasa meditation

This is an auspicious time to be here. Still, one needs to be aware of the energies and practice discernment especially when dealing with and recognizing sensitivities and realities on the ground. This is vital.

Be wise and prudent in your actions and behaviors. You are a guest here with responsibilities for your remaining open, vulnerable, receptive and authentic.

It is essential for you to refresh, reinforce and renew your calm warrior nature. Keep a diamond in your mind. Foster and allow the creative instincts to guide your journey with clarity, insight and wisdom. Remain open and receptive to all the spiritual forces around you now. Cultivate, nourish and manifest your inner strength and focus to accept and acknowledge lessons and their deeper meaning.

Practice dignity and restraint. Conduct yourself with the mindfulness of realizing your divine essence. Meditate on the process of death.

It's All A Myth!

“Its all a myth!” a wheelchair woman screamed rolling herself out of anger and fear Shadows into blazing Denver fried egg sunlight on Broadway passing Hispanic family sitting on suitcases in brief shade, joining thousands of devout Tibetan pilgrims singing praying laughing on dusty roads leading to Lhasa, throwing rocks at ravens at sky crystals making prostrations.

She rolled her chair past itinerant land locked terra-cotta warriors crashed on bags at Beijing and Shanghai train station crossroads at invisible terminal destinations.

She rolled past Elmore James standing at the crossroads treated like a slave sliding callused fingers on metal frets in selfless agony trading his soul to the devil, passing Balinese wood carvers etching delicate faces, jungle painters creating butterfly corporate murals, passing villagers harvesting rice in green highlands, passing outlawed Irish tinkers wandering village to village pounding pans, passing homeless people sleeping on a mattress in usa alleys facing the wall.

Passing naked evangelist on downtown street corner wailing wall forecasting human lust past devil myth propaganda nature’s unrestrained power, as unconscious forces internalize/externalize projecting guilty feelings on others the snake phallus symbol delights for envy, for quicksilver messenger service cycles spoke passing tanned cellular talkers waiting for bus to financial heaven, passing her white haired aunt in a nursing home painting her last vision, passing Ashiakawa loom weavers creating wool seasons, passing Himalayan sherpas brewing tea at 17,000 feet for expeditions paying hard currency to totalitarian emperors suffering altitude sickness, high blood pressure rolling past 31 flavors dining out making quick money honey living on plastic, riding scarred ranges in 4×4 drive where cockroaches ride roller blades devouring land, leftover 'develop-meants' hearing mutants scream "where is the water for God's sake? we paid for our thirst!"

Yes, she rolled past her only son, a soldier, waiting for NAM dustoff toward SF/CO and exile, state side rejection no sympathy for the devil - baby killers writing final letters home abbreviated napalm fire fight survival instincts remembering the horror etched on a screaming eagle black granite

wall 493 feet long rising from the ground to a height of 10.1 feet bending at the center at exactly a 125.12 degree angle - holding 58,235 NAMES as chopper blades reverberate - cut air, cut down stiff stale wind bloodstream vanities dive around jungle artifacts, lifting veils of cautious surrender.

Rolled past Arabic nomads exchanging goats/camels for pearls as oil desert-ed sand slowly envelops silk encrusted carpets passing refugees floating Asian marriage seas discovering family geological strata broken Chinese shipwrecks shifting divorce paradigms passing itinerant independent traveling hermits freezing eye/brain/muscles inside parabola boundaries extending imagination's independent practice - freeing unknown potentials squeezing, blinking eye blinded shutters B&W documentation art/reality/illusions of women in whirling 3rd world poverty wearing exploitation's cloth wrapped in solitude as economic fate breaks malnourished rocks along everlasting lonesome highway passages blasting, building capitalistic roads living in river reed hovels.

And she was gathering speed rolling her Greater Wheel passing university perspiration business mergers evaporating celestial horizontal degrees as hemispheric tropic of cancer eats bran for break down fast rivers flowing native tribal dialogues tongues speaking sky earth water fire languages of crow raven coyote ancient turtle islands mark of the king tattoo sailing water’s prison islands surrounded confounded by blue eyed Europeans full of commercial disease inventing, discovering cultural annihilation assimilation accommodation regaining indigenous cost - profit - past patience solitude-nature-silence just sitting - the doing nothing poem - storytelling, a vein in earth sky water pulse blood lava flows among dzongs chants flags sacrificing herself hard black wheels dancing Tao circles rolling herself past myth and maya into blazing wisdom free from bardo breath.

The Girl On The Train

The Moroccan girl with wild brown hair tied back is not on the train as it leaves a white station.

She sits on her haunches. Her bare feet dig soil, grip small earth pebbles as exposed root structures dance with her toes.

Her toes are her extended connection where her shadow lies forgotten. It spreads upon vegetables. They wait below her. They prowl toward late winter light.

She is not on the red and brown train that zooms past green fields where her sheep in long woolen coats eat their way through pastures after a two year drought.

She is inside green the girl with her wild brown hair pulled tight. She is not on the train hearing music, eating dates, reading a book, talking with friends or strangers, sleeping along her passage or dreaming of a lover.

She does not scan faces of tired, trapped people in their orange seats impatiently waiting for time to deliver them to a Red City in the desert. Her history’s desert is full of potentates sharpening their swords, inventing icon free art, alphabets, practicing equality, creating five pillars of Islam and navigation star map tools, breaking wild stallions, building tiled adobe fortresses, selling spices and writing language.

She is not on the train drinking fresh mint tea or consulting a pocket sized edition of the Qur'an. She does not kneel on her Berber carpet five times a day facing Mecca in the east.

She does not wear stereo earphones or listen to music imported from another world, a world where people treasure their watches. Where controlling time is their passion for being prompt and responsible citizens to give their lives meaning.

She is not on the train and not in this language the girl with her wild brown hair tied back with straw or leather or stems of wild flowers surrounding her with fragrances.

She is surrounded by orange blossom perfume beyond rolling hills, cut by wet canyons along yellow and green fields, where her black eyes penetrate white clouds in her blue sky. In her open heart she hears her breath explore her long shadow, causing it to ripple with her shift. Her toes caress soil and she is lighter than air, lighter than a feather of a wild eagle in the High Atlas mountains far away.

She smells the Berber tribal fire heating tea for the festival where someone wears a goatskin cape and skull below the stars.

It is cold outside. Flames leap from branches like shooting stars into her eyes and someone plays music. It is the music of her ancestors, her nomadic people and she sways inside the gradual hypnotic rhythm of her ancestral memory.

She is not on the train. She is inside a goat skull moving her hoofs through soil.
She moves through fields where she danced as a child seeing red and yellow fire calling all the stars to her dance and she is not on the train.