Beneath the securities of good nights and safe houses, lived fear. Fear dressed in Existential fangs always sat at the outside waiting to get in. The sweet smell of apple pie and coffee seemed a good enough shield to the elephant that sat in at the edge of the room, flicker of flame and wax. Shadows have always lurked beneath the savory light of ‘everything’s fine if you send hopes and prayers.’ Then one day, everything changed. Not the flash of atomic light we dreamt of in cold war beds, terrified with nightmare, and the comfort of mothers floor. No, it changed the way you would expect a tad pole to become a frog, unseen but heard for miles across platforms of social distancing. The veil became thin, and the emperor ran across abandoned golf courses, naked and scared.
Photo: Patricia Halleran
This had always been the dream, the liminal birthing canals connected to the ethernets of the universe, tearing illusion from its perch.. the Eagle remembered it was an Eagle and tore apart his jingoist ways, for a chance to taste the flesh of Salmon once again. The metaphors painted slow motion chrysalises, sparked from the time outside of time, where dream and awake fancy dance on early morning vistas.. or perhaps, it is the prayers of Ghost Dancers awaking the Ancestors for aid. The realist thing about this, is that it is not real. It is not matter. It can not cast shadow, or shine light, yet sits on the edge of hills, threading and weaving, a silent killer. A silent reminder….
Pay attention to what the frogs have to say, they may have all the answers we need.
The maker of rain sits in front of a forgotten sun
spilling forth its solemn tears it cries-
the rhythm of it’s sorrows sings sad songs
lamenting the long day in sheets of gray hues.
the echoes of thunderous choirs
and winds that chant through forests halls-
in these shadows-
the maker of rain summons.
these veins of fire do smolder
beneath ash and flesh-
our eyes glow red-
and lips spit rocks-
we morph and quake
and shimmer and shake
and burn it all again.
in the dust the sun does bake
the ash to caked earth-
and a seed finds
its way to grow.
now our arms do shake as we begin to awake
and reach for the sky we fly….
and as storms do come,
and as mountains do cry-
-silent-
in their shadow-
we call home.
If not for flesh’s pretty paint, we’re just a bunch of skeletons, working hard to deny the fact of bones. Teeth remind me that we die. That’s why I never smile, except when looking at a picture of a ghost, captured by a camera lens, in a book about the paranormal. When someone takes a picture of a spirit, it gives me hope. I admire the ones who refuse to go away. Lovers scorned and criminals burned. I love the dead little girl who plays in her yard, a spectral game of hide and seek. It’s the fact they don’t know they’re dead that appeals to me most. Like a man once said to me, Do you ever feel like you’re a ghost? Sure, I answered, every day. He laughed at that and disappeared. All I could think was he beat me to it.
- Christopher Kennedy
I.
She who keeps on watching immortalized from a stone
window along the banks of the mighty Columbia.
She who has watched men walk on the backs of a million
Salmon & then fall in.
She who has seen the mighty river get fat & overflow
her banks behind pale dams.
She who has seen children grow under the glow of the moon
& the new glow of hanford.
She who has seen a people cry in silent tolling for the old ways
demolished beneath the feet of a civilization determined & arrogant.
She who has seen Coyote play many tricks in his sinister loving way.
She who has seen canoes morph to steam & barges
carrying hope up river.
She who has seen fires turn to street lamps.
She who has seen the battles of Pah-toe & Wy’east
& their long eerie silence.
She who has seen a river run red with blood of the lost.
II.
(They say that one who has seen too much with no way to let it go
will more likely suffer from Post- Traumatic -Stress-Disorder which
manifests in different forms; from anxiety to unstoppable tears.)
A place of neither time or space-
Where you hear the teenagers song
& smell them getting pregnant-
Around the alley on Poke St.-
Next to the local pawn shop.
A place where the cats eat the meat
of last night’s decadence-
Morality of a scavenger
Feasting on forgotten values
in man’s wasteful church.
A place where the homeless eat metaphors
of others good intent-
Around burning barrels the dance
the dance of lost dreams
to the drums of empty bottles & schizophrenia.
A place where wet pavement smokes dry ice
steaming like a dragon in Chinatown-
On side streets that are paved but never plowed
stands castrated angels in the mist of cold smokey air-
Grounded til the fog clears.
A place where shadows play hide-n-seek with the eyes
then are lost forever behind concrete.
& underneath the skyscraper canopy
that blocks out the sun-
You can see the yuppie in his Lexus car.
A place where the bombs of absurdity
explode in the ears of scabbed medicine men,.
In a land converted to asphalt (distant from ancestors)-
& medicine bags that carry rigs
to ride a black tarred hi-way to nowhere-
but somewhere I remember.
I remember the smell of rain after a storm-
I remember the winds that howl-
and I always knew I would end up here somehow
with hope on my tongue
and years on my feet-
Grandmother was born on the threshold of a new age.
Assuming the role of a Father’s neglect
and a savior of a generation left with no shrine
So I build this altar of memory.
I remember her smell
Of prime rib and perfume-
Chasing me around with sinister dentures
And telling Skookum stories-
Scaring me from flesh
And finding my heart.
She dreamt and had visions
But kept them to herself-
Yet I could see them
In her eyes.
Her wrinkles ran like Gorges-
Where the tears would
Often flow.
She struggled-
And the struggle
Was her life
That she would
Roam.
Rites of passage transformed
In cigarettes and Patsy Cline
And looking for love
In all the wrong places.
We are all children
Of a
Reconciled apocalypse.
I lay a feather on this altar
And hear the wind sing-
“Fall to pieces.”
