The Chinese Rose
For a night and a day of beauty—
God created the Chinese Rose
It comes into a flower (a bud) and then is gone:
Like a blink of a star,
Like a kiss to set a heart on fire,
like a song
only to be remembered.
#2300 (2-29-2008)
Friday, February 29, 2008
Jaipur, India: Under the Boiling Moon (April, 1998)
(The Sleepers)
It was a still night, in Jaipur. No clocks ticking,
it is close to two in the morning. The sound of crickets,
dogs guarding, sleepers snoring, sleeping on cots
by the streets outside the hotel: half naked
light blankets over their lower bodies and heads;
dogs nearby, itching, lightly barking, no one wakes,
a hundred people under the boiling moon,
they have no sense of time, just bull snorts,
and dogs barking, of course. I’m the only one
babbling to myself in this empty night, watching
tranquil sleepers—breath in and breath out.
—I walk by them, three dogs corner me,
they look hungry, stained somehow,
with bitter mouths, saliva dribbling, their eyes
starving to attack, yet they hold back.
I’m sweating, my teeth grinding, and my belly’s tight;
the old Hindu by the hotel, the guard, he hears
the excitement in the dark, he’s coming, running
I have rocks in my hands, and so does he.
Crash! Crash! I throw, and he throws, its
sufficient to scare the dogs off. ((I have pain in my
kidney.) We, we finish up, at a Hindu shrine,
I’m thanking God, for his immortality
(had it not been, that he was on hand,
I’m not sure what then.)(I’m thankful for
The old Hindu Guard…! That he was alarmed.))
I’m not sure what the old Hindu man was saying,
but was doing what was doing, bowing, praying
and praising…!
#2287 ((1:59 AM)(2-27-2008)) Mark Twain once said in so many words: India was a most beautiful place, it is like a circus. I agree it is most beautiful, during the day, try the late hours of night 2:30 AM (or is it the wee hours of the morning), in any case, it is a different world then. In Agra, in the late night, cows and folks sleep on the streets, as they do in Jaipur, as in Delhi, women and children eat out of garbage piles by the hotels. Thus, things are not so beautiful, unless you hide inside the hotel, or go with the flow, on the tourist bus.
Under the boiling moon, are memories of India in general, a trip the author took in 1998, and would leave the hotels in the middle of the night to walk among the city, hire a bodyguard, that was more scared then he, and walked the streets at 2:30 AM. Talk to the people, drink some black tea, get sick, and go on and do it the next day again.
It was a still night, in Jaipur. No clocks ticking,
it is close to two in the morning. The sound of crickets,
dogs guarding, sleepers snoring, sleeping on cots
by the streets outside the hotel: half naked
light blankets over their lower bodies and heads;
dogs nearby, itching, lightly barking, no one wakes,
a hundred people under the boiling moon,
they have no sense of time, just bull snorts,
and dogs barking, of course. I’m the only one
babbling to myself in this empty night, watching
tranquil sleepers—breath in and breath out.
—I walk by them, three dogs corner me,
they look hungry, stained somehow,
with bitter mouths, saliva dribbling, their eyes
starving to attack, yet they hold back.
I’m sweating, my teeth grinding, and my belly’s tight;
the old Hindu by the hotel, the guard, he hears
the excitement in the dark, he’s coming, running
I have rocks in my hands, and so does he.
Crash! Crash! I throw, and he throws, its
sufficient to scare the dogs off. ((I have pain in my
kidney.) We, we finish up, at a Hindu shrine,
I’m thanking God, for his immortality
(had it not been, that he was on hand,
I’m not sure what then.)(I’m thankful for
The old Hindu Guard…! That he was alarmed.))
I’m not sure what the old Hindu man was saying,
but was doing what was doing, bowing, praying
and praising…!
#2287 ((1:59 AM)(2-27-2008)) Mark Twain once said in so many words: India was a most beautiful place, it is like a circus. I agree it is most beautiful, during the day, try the late hours of night 2:30 AM (or is it the wee hours of the morning), in any case, it is a different world then. In Agra, in the late night, cows and folks sleep on the streets, as they do in Jaipur, as in Delhi, women and children eat out of garbage piles by the hotels. Thus, things are not so beautiful, unless you hide inside the hotel, or go with the flow, on the tourist bus.
Under the boiling moon, are memories of India in general, a trip the author took in 1998, and would leave the hotels in the middle of the night to walk among the city, hire a bodyguard, that was more scared then he, and walked the streets at 2:30 AM. Talk to the people, drink some black tea, get sick, and go on and do it the next day again.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Four Poems: Vanity, Madness, Lazyness & Death
The Hornet’s Vanity
Ev’
poet,
ev’
writer,
ev’
singer,
ev’
artist,
has an immortality box—,
one as big as their coffin.
Here is where they lay-way
their past, present, for the
future…;
after they’re gone.
After the aspiration bird
has flew the cope, and they died,
(left them to rot as maggots
in there sarcophagus).
Even after death the:
poet,
writer,
singer,
and artist,
want to fly into the hands
of the mortal living
(dive like an eagle).
He dreams he is painted
on the walls of caves
(not yet discovered);
painted on canvas,
written in a book,
detailed in a poem,
made into a statue,
itched on street signs,
when in essence,
he’ll never know;
oh, yes, he wants to be
on coins also, and stamps
(like kings and presidents)—;
and he hopes to change
the world before he dies,
he wants to be known
that he came, he was,
once alive.
Where in the world
did he get such a notion?
Perhaps the bird is not
a bird…but a hornet
with big wings,
and a big silent sting!
#2294 (2-28-2008)
Written today at Starbucks, in Circle
In Lima, Peru (300 PM)
12
Lazy Boy
A lazy boy is like a hand full of dung,
the longer you hold on it, the more it
smells; the more it smells, the more
people end up looking at you, as if its
yours.
#2296 (2-28-2008)
13
Madness
My madness is under my scalp—;
if I had a wig, I’d have no trouble
getting rid of it….
I thought about laying in the snow
and freezing my madness:
and my wife said that was, “Insane…!”
O, I am empty for any more ideas,
witless, clueless!
Meanwhile, I simply endure, —
and point my finger, middle finger,
every which way.
#2295 (2-28-2008)
When I’m Dead
When I’m dead I’ll ask the Lord
if I can come back for a spell,
to make sure my wife, Rosa
is well…and I’m sure
He’ll say yes; and
to let her know,
she can go
on with
life…
I’ll see her later
beyond the tunnel's light.
#2297 ((11:30 PM)(2-28-2008))
Written at home, in Lima Peru, 11:30 PM
Ev’
poet,
ev’
writer,
ev’
singer,
ev’
artist,
has an immortality box—,
one as big as their coffin.
Here is where they lay-way
their past, present, for the
future…;
after they’re gone.
After the aspiration bird
has flew the cope, and they died,
(left them to rot as maggots
in there sarcophagus).
Even after death the:
poet,
writer,
singer,
and artist,
want to fly into the hands
of the mortal living
(dive like an eagle).
He dreams he is painted
on the walls of caves
(not yet discovered);
painted on canvas,
written in a book,
detailed in a poem,
made into a statue,
itched on street signs,
when in essence,
he’ll never know;
oh, yes, he wants to be
on coins also, and stamps
(like kings and presidents)—;
and he hopes to change
the world before he dies,
he wants to be known
that he came, he was,
once alive.
Where in the world
did he get such a notion?
Perhaps the bird is not
a bird…but a hornet
with big wings,
and a big silent sting!
#2294 (2-28-2008)
Written today at Starbucks, in Circle
In Lima, Peru (300 PM)
12
Lazy Boy
A lazy boy is like a hand full of dung,
the longer you hold on it, the more it
smells; the more it smells, the more
people end up looking at you, as if its
yours.
#2296 (2-28-2008)
13
Madness
My madness is under my scalp—;
if I had a wig, I’d have no trouble
getting rid of it….
I thought about laying in the snow
and freezing my madness:
and my wife said that was, “Insane…!”
O, I am empty for any more ideas,
witless, clueless!
Meanwhile, I simply endure, —
and point my finger, middle finger,
every which way.
#2295 (2-28-2008)
When I’m Dead
When I’m dead I’ll ask the Lord
if I can come back for a spell,
to make sure my wife, Rosa
is well…and I’m sure
He’ll say yes; and
to let her know,
she can go
on with
life…
I’ll see her later
beyond the tunnel's light.
#2297 ((11:30 PM)(2-28-2008))
Written at home, in Lima Peru, 11:30 PM
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The Bulls of Hemingway (a poem)
10
The Bulls of Hemingway
Roses are not always red, especially, if you have someone
else paint them blue. And sometimes it is better left un-
said: who is the hero of the bullring!
O yes my friend, bulls and bullfighters, are not always art-
less, especially when you celebrate them, with brass bands
and balloons.
Bulls and balloons, bulls and balloons, and Hemingway,
whom is for the bull or the matador, how much bull can he
feed us? I’m for the hero, whoever it may be, who puts
on the best show, man or beast, or neither.
The bull stands ready to charge, and the matador is saying:
go, go go, I’m ready. Hence, the bull gives him his horn in
his rib, and he flies in the air, falls on his butt, and the matador
goes: shit, shit, shit…I missed. And then someone comes and
takes his place, the bull is now tired, thought he had a chance,
and the bull goes: shit, shit, shit, and gets stuck with the sword
several times through his hump (between his neck and spine)
and whose the hero?
In such cases like this, there are no heroes, and thus, I’d prefer
the painted blue rose, instead—why waste my time.
#2289 (2-27-2008)
The Bulls of Hemingway
Roses are not always red, especially, if you have someone
else paint them blue. And sometimes it is better left un-
said: who is the hero of the bullring!
O yes my friend, bulls and bullfighters, are not always art-
less, especially when you celebrate them, with brass bands
and balloons.
Bulls and balloons, bulls and balloons, and Hemingway,
whom is for the bull or the matador, how much bull can he
feed us? I’m for the hero, whoever it may be, who puts
on the best show, man or beast, or neither.
The bull stands ready to charge, and the matador is saying:
go, go go, I’m ready. Hence, the bull gives him his horn in
his rib, and he flies in the air, falls on his butt, and the matador
goes: shit, shit, shit…I missed. And then someone comes and
takes his place, the bull is now tired, thought he had a chance,
and the bull goes: shit, shit, shit, and gets stuck with the sword
several times through his hump (between his neck and spine)
and whose the hero?
In such cases like this, there are no heroes, and thus, I’d prefer
the painted blue rose, instead—why waste my time.
#2289 (2-27-2008)
No Stomachs (Suicides)
9
No Stomachs (Suicides)
Hemingway, Sexton, Plath, George Sterling,
dead very dead, all successful suicides, wild eyed.
They lived in a dead world, and went back to one,
one where they needed no stomachs…; one
where there was no rescue; but they do have
a special rock, they can sit on and talk—ponder,
(and they do) on how it might have been?
#2294 (2-27-2008)
From: Ten-Drooled and Slobbering
Poems of: Dennis L. Siluk
No Stomachs (Suicides)
Hemingway, Sexton, Plath, George Sterling,
dead very dead, all successful suicides, wild eyed.
They lived in a dead world, and went back to one,
one where they needed no stomachs…; one
where there was no rescue; but they do have
a special rock, they can sit on and talk—ponder,
(and they do) on how it might have been?
#2294 (2-27-2008)
From: Ten-Drooled and Slobbering
Poems of: Dennis L. Siluk
Augsburg's Pig Alley (#7, Poem)
7
Augsburg’s Pig Alley
In Augsburg, West Germany, in 1970—
I went to Pig Alley, to visit the whorehouse
(more like a four story building, with a fence
at the end of he alley, to a dead-end).
Bristly faces, and youthful naked bodies
all about… on the second floor me and
my Army friends, scored…dirty hides, raw:
gray, cold, ready to ride, or be ridden.
#2293/ 2-27-2008; from the MS "Ten-Drooled and Slobbering
Poems of: Dennis L. Siluk"
Augsburg’s Pig Alley
In Augsburg, West Germany, in 1970—
I went to Pig Alley, to visit the whorehouse
(more like a four story building, with a fence
at the end of he alley, to a dead-end).
Bristly faces, and youthful naked bodies
all about… on the second floor me and
my Army friends, scored…dirty hides, raw:
gray, cold, ready to ride, or be ridden.
#2293/ 2-27-2008; from the MS "Ten-Drooled and Slobbering
Poems of: Dennis L. Siluk"
The Drooled and Slobbering Poems of D.L. Siluk (poems: 3 thru 6)
3
In My Times
In my times, it demanded we protest, cut away sin.
In my times, it demanded we go with flow, it was
hammered into us!
In my times, we invented free sex, with no regrets.
And in the end, my era, that demanded all this,
got shitty, and nasty kids.
#2289 (2-17-2008)
4
Last words
(Of the imprisoned Islamic Terrorists)
Islamic Terrorists never die well, they twitch
and cough, roar red and black words,
about everyone but themselves, going to hell;
even to the last breathe, before being thrown
into a ditch, they choke out those last words
saying, “Death to you all, by Allah!”
#2292 (2-27-2008)
5
Man-ship
Man is like a ship, on the sea—
throbbing with envy of it
(undulated envy),
for its long time existence…!
#2295 (2-27-2008)
6
In Haiti
(1986)
In Haiti—they serve one master in the day, and
another one in the night,
in-between, at twilight, they stand still, waiting
for the sounds of the voodoo drums.
#2296 (2-27-2008)(the author spent two weeks in Haiti, ten-days in the
mountains and four days in the city of Port de Prince, in the winter of 1986,
and recalls the voodoo drums in the small villages, and in the forests..
In My Times
In my times, it demanded we protest, cut away sin.
In my times, it demanded we go with flow, it was
hammered into us!
In my times, we invented free sex, with no regrets.
And in the end, my era, that demanded all this,
got shitty, and nasty kids.
#2289 (2-17-2008)
4
Last words
(Of the imprisoned Islamic Terrorists)
Islamic Terrorists never die well, they twitch
and cough, roar red and black words,
about everyone but themselves, going to hell;
even to the last breathe, before being thrown
into a ditch, they choke out those last words
saying, “Death to you all, by Allah!”
#2292 (2-27-2008)
5
Man-ship
Man is like a ship, on the sea—
throbbing with envy of it
(undulated envy),
for its long time existence…!
#2295 (2-27-2008)
6
In Haiti
(1986)
In Haiti—they serve one master in the day, and
another one in the night,
in-between, at twilight, they stand still, waiting
for the sounds of the voodoo drums.
#2296 (2-27-2008)(the author spent two weeks in Haiti, ten-days in the
mountains and four days in the city of Port de Prince, in the winter of 1986,
and recalls the voodoo drums in the small villages, and in the forests..
The Drooled and Slobbering Poems of D.L. Siluk (poems one and two of ten)
Ten-Drooled and Slobbering
Poems of:
Dennis L. Siluk
1
The Siluk’s Lament
(for: Hemingway)
I know E. Hemingway masturbated
in the mornings…;
that his pet cat screwed the dog
that some bulls kick and fart
and yet
what can I do…
it all seems so crappy normal?
#2287 ((2-27-2008)(written at Starbucks, in Circle, Lima, Peru))
2
Hemingway’s Best
He tried to spit out the truth,
from a salivating mouth—;
in the end, he drooled
and slobbered,
lies: from feet to chin.
#2288 (2-27-2008)
Poems of:
Dennis L. Siluk
1
The Siluk’s Lament
(for: Hemingway)
I know E. Hemingway masturbated
in the mornings…;
that his pet cat screwed the dog
that some bulls kick and fart
and yet
what can I do…
it all seems so crappy normal?
#2287 ((2-27-2008)(written at Starbucks, in Circle, Lima, Peru))
2
Hemingway’s Best
He tried to spit out the truth,
from a salivating mouth—;
in the end, he drooled
and slobbered,
lies: from feet to chin.
#2288 (2-27-2008)
Gabe and Sweet Chile--1846 ((in, Memories of Old Josh)(#44))
Gabe and Sweet Chile—1846
(In a wink of an Eye (in, Memories of Old Josh)
Episode #44, 2-25-2008
Advance: Well, the truth of the matter is, Josh had a wife, believe it or not. And her name was Marinutita Jefferson George, for short, she was called Sweet Chile. Her and her boyfriend, Gabe, visited Josh once (perhaps twice), and to Jordan’s surprise, met his mother. She saw at first her two boys from a distance, then came closer to get a better look, but she wasn’t really there to see the boys, she wanted money from old Josh, she was on her way down to New Orleans, and during that visit, Amos had been picking cotton over at the neighbors plantation, and stopped to see Josh, and got an eye full of Sweet Chile (and that was that), and she even winked at him, so he says. Sweet Chile has a different story of course, and Gabe, he is mad as a disturbed hornets nest. Josh, he don’t care one way or the other, to be honest, he just wants her gone, and the sooner the better. Mr. Charles Hightower, the owner of the plantation, has gone to New Orleans also, he often does, and only God knows what he does down there, but Josh kind of knows, he’s been down there before with him. In any case, he is due back tomorrow, and he’d take a liking to see Sweet Chile around, she can make a scene. So here we are, all in the back by the corral, where old Nelly the cow is, the boy’s are staring at their with wide open white eyes—like eggs, and their mouths open like hungry lions, and Gabe pushing Amos away from Sweet Chile, and Josh saying he hasn’t any money to go on back to where she came from (Silas is thirteen years old, about, and Jordon a few years younger).
(In actuality, Jordon is down in the grocery store in Ozark, in the backroom, where he has a cot, it is the year 1909, and he is in his seventies, he is daydreaming of that day he and his brother met his mother, kind of a sour day, because they really didn’t get to say much, and pa, he was in such a hurry to get rid of her because Gabe and Amos were going to duke it out, but this is how the dialogue went, how Jordon remembers it anyhow.)
Josh: “Sweet Chile, I done thought you flew da cope, you’d be down in New Orlean’ doin’ wuh you do da best, and we all knows wuh dat is?”
Sweet Chile: “Is you callen’ me a whore?”
Josh: “No, cuz my boys is her, but if da not, I’d be so doin’”
Gabe: “No cause for dat now, Mr. Josh, you done married dis woman, so you is not so hot!”
Josh: “I done married a mule, you is too good for her, but you is a fool to say, I is dumb, cuz yous git be dumber dan I, cuz you is still wid her, she done flew da cope long ago, I is da lucky one, you…hummm—still da dumb one!”
Gabe: Dat dare friend of you, Amos, he best keep his eye on da sun or da ground, cuz I is aiming to pluck dem big eye’ out of his head, fer lookin’ at me gal!
Amos: I is ready ole man, cuz I pick cotton, I gits a good right arm, and aiming to punch you in dat dere big snoot of yours, and Sweet Chile, she gits a good man like me, and gits rid of you once an fer all!
Josh: You-al dont know wuh you is saying pal, she is like dat moccasin snake, she kill ya wid one bit.
(Sweet Chile is just looking and laughing, at these men fighting for her, and giving Josh a smirking smile back, kind of saying, ‘Look, I still got what it takes,’ and Josh nodding his head, the boys looking at Josh and their mother.)(What happened after all this was simple, Mr. Hightower came back early, and saw Sweet Chile in the backyard by the cow fence, and when she got a look at him, and he just stood there like a stone statue, she and Gabe took off, because she knew Old Man Hightower from when she was married, he was no one to fool with, he would have called the sheriff, and she had no papers to show she was a free slave, and she wasn’t, Gabe was though, and that usually worked, because he’d show his papers, and say ‘this her is me wife,’ and that would usually work, if not, they’d run like hick into the nearest woods, or down the quicken ally in town to avoid any more trouble.)
(In a wink of an Eye (in, Memories of Old Josh)
Episode #44, 2-25-2008
Advance: Well, the truth of the matter is, Josh had a wife, believe it or not. And her name was Marinutita Jefferson George, for short, she was called Sweet Chile. Her and her boyfriend, Gabe, visited Josh once (perhaps twice), and to Jordan’s surprise, met his mother. She saw at first her two boys from a distance, then came closer to get a better look, but she wasn’t really there to see the boys, she wanted money from old Josh, she was on her way down to New Orleans, and during that visit, Amos had been picking cotton over at the neighbors plantation, and stopped to see Josh, and got an eye full of Sweet Chile (and that was that), and she even winked at him, so he says. Sweet Chile has a different story of course, and Gabe, he is mad as a disturbed hornets nest. Josh, he don’t care one way or the other, to be honest, he just wants her gone, and the sooner the better. Mr. Charles Hightower, the owner of the plantation, has gone to New Orleans also, he often does, and only God knows what he does down there, but Josh kind of knows, he’s been down there before with him. In any case, he is due back tomorrow, and he’d take a liking to see Sweet Chile around, she can make a scene. So here we are, all in the back by the corral, where old Nelly the cow is, the boy’s are staring at their with wide open white eyes—like eggs, and their mouths open like hungry lions, and Gabe pushing Amos away from Sweet Chile, and Josh saying he hasn’t any money to go on back to where she came from (Silas is thirteen years old, about, and Jordon a few years younger).
(In actuality, Jordon is down in the grocery store in Ozark, in the backroom, where he has a cot, it is the year 1909, and he is in his seventies, he is daydreaming of that day he and his brother met his mother, kind of a sour day, because they really didn’t get to say much, and pa, he was in such a hurry to get rid of her because Gabe and Amos were going to duke it out, but this is how the dialogue went, how Jordon remembers it anyhow.)
Josh: “Sweet Chile, I done thought you flew da cope, you’d be down in New Orlean’ doin’ wuh you do da best, and we all knows wuh dat is?”
Sweet Chile: “Is you callen’ me a whore?”
Josh: “No, cuz my boys is her, but if da not, I’d be so doin’”
Gabe: “No cause for dat now, Mr. Josh, you done married dis woman, so you is not so hot!”
Josh: “I done married a mule, you is too good for her, but you is a fool to say, I is dumb, cuz yous git be dumber dan I, cuz you is still wid her, she done flew da cope long ago, I is da lucky one, you…hummm—still da dumb one!”
Gabe: Dat dare friend of you, Amos, he best keep his eye on da sun or da ground, cuz I is aiming to pluck dem big eye’ out of his head, fer lookin’ at me gal!
Amos: I is ready ole man, cuz I pick cotton, I gits a good right arm, and aiming to punch you in dat dere big snoot of yours, and Sweet Chile, she gits a good man like me, and gits rid of you once an fer all!
Josh: You-al dont know wuh you is saying pal, she is like dat moccasin snake, she kill ya wid one bit.
(Sweet Chile is just looking and laughing, at these men fighting for her, and giving Josh a smirking smile back, kind of saying, ‘Look, I still got what it takes,’ and Josh nodding his head, the boys looking at Josh and their mother.)(What happened after all this was simple, Mr. Hightower came back early, and saw Sweet Chile in the backyard by the cow fence, and when she got a look at him, and he just stood there like a stone statue, she and Gabe took off, because she knew Old Man Hightower from when she was married, he was no one to fool with, he would have called the sheriff, and she had no papers to show she was a free slave, and she wasn’t, Gabe was though, and that usually worked, because he’d show his papers, and say ‘this her is me wife,’ and that would usually work, if not, they’d run like hick into the nearest woods, or down the quicken ally in town to avoid any more trouble.)
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Disappeared (Poetic Prose)
Disappeared
(Poetic Prose)
Part I
The Gratitude
I thought how good a student I was in the past, not sure anymore;
I’ve liked money and material things, in my life, perhaps too much
to a certain degree, that is, I have thrown them to the wind, also.
I believe in an afterlife, God, and all those things (Jesus).
I am a saved person, from the grips of Hell, I believe, but wonder
at times, how scattered are my sins? (Afraid God will see too many).
I am a little famous, not much, and my writings have done mankind
some good, not sure how greatly.
I feel lazy, and lucky, in my old age, that I don’t have to sell brooms
walking around my neighborhood, in Lima, Peru.
And that I don’t have to live in a hut, along the Rimac Rio; nor that I
have to sell cigarettes and telephone cards on street corners.
I can eat at the cafes almost any days…! In all, I’ve learned, it will
not be me, who changes the world, although a noble ambition; so
enjoy it while you can, but don’t hurt anyone in the process.
I even got a bald spot in the back of my head, now at sixty-years old;
it’s a telegram, I believe, telling everybody the comic truth of life,
Dennis L. Siluk is getting old, aging, not a bad thing, I’m surprised
I made it this far in life; and I am thankful for my glasses, my books,
my homes in Peru, my wife, the chicken farmers, and the sound
of the cows, I like steak (beef steak); and sleep, a God given gift.
Part II
The Dream
I dreamt last night, a friend and I (not ever seeing the face of the friend),
walked around a lake (I think we were in Minnesota), and we talked,
talked on how we might be, could be, better husbands, there was
apprehension in his eyes, I didn’t see his eyes, I felt them. And so, we
both decided to bring this bit of information up to our wives, and we
did just that; he to his wife, me to my wife (the following day).
Meeting the day after, to compare notes, on how our wives
responded to our declaration (not that we were bad husbands in
the beginning for we were to the contrary, good husbands).
Hence forward, he explained to me: I lost my wife in telling her this.
He was dumfounded, how could this be, he simply wanted to be a
better husband, not lose a wife in the process, he was hurt.
My general thoughts were, he lived in a poor kingdom, and thus, I
shifted my pillow back and forth, in hopes to fall back to sleep, and try to change my dream, to have it come out right for my friend; I think
I actually was inquiring in my mind on how to change things, trying
to backtrack, you could say, but I had already lived the dream (?) for there was, no going back. So I sat upon the edge of my bed, upright,
and asked myself: what did you learn from this dream?
Part III
The Message
Had he not (my friend) asked his wife what he asked her, he
would have lived in her secret, unknowing her pulse, in
the marriage, the one she did not want (some folks are
willing of course to live in a dead marriage; life beyond being
too fearful, thus for the sake of it they remain in it).
Through this awakening his wife crawled out from under her
pretense, it was now all out in the open, on the table.
The second question I asked myself was: how long could such a
marriage be sustained? (for me my wife had responded positively,
and I was as happy as a bear with a pool of honey under my feet.
With that same question came: how many more years would have been
fritter away, had he not asked this question? Five, six or seven?
To her perhaps, she was in jail, and the next step for her was to live
a life of immorality, or bury pretense, and face truth. Maybe
they both received a gift, a second chance before the grave.
Part IV
New World in the Making
My old world doesn’t exist anymore; a highway has been build over it,
a parking lot is where our old house use to be—everything
has changed, but the names remain the same, of the streets.
Even the old steel mill has gone, with the old ma and pa, grocery
stories; the train tracks are rusting, everything disappearing,
everything, and, soon me!
#2286/2-26-2008
(Poetic Prose)
Part I
The Gratitude
I thought how good a student I was in the past, not sure anymore;
I’ve liked money and material things, in my life, perhaps too much
to a certain degree, that is, I have thrown them to the wind, also.
I believe in an afterlife, God, and all those things (Jesus).
I am a saved person, from the grips of Hell, I believe, but wonder
at times, how scattered are my sins? (Afraid God will see too many).
I am a little famous, not much, and my writings have done mankind
some good, not sure how greatly.
I feel lazy, and lucky, in my old age, that I don’t have to sell brooms
walking around my neighborhood, in Lima, Peru.
And that I don’t have to live in a hut, along the Rimac Rio; nor that I
have to sell cigarettes and telephone cards on street corners.
I can eat at the cafes almost any days…! In all, I’ve learned, it will
not be me, who changes the world, although a noble ambition; so
enjoy it while you can, but don’t hurt anyone in the process.
I even got a bald spot in the back of my head, now at sixty-years old;
it’s a telegram, I believe, telling everybody the comic truth of life,
Dennis L. Siluk is getting old, aging, not a bad thing, I’m surprised
I made it this far in life; and I am thankful for my glasses, my books,
my homes in Peru, my wife, the chicken farmers, and the sound
of the cows, I like steak (beef steak); and sleep, a God given gift.
Part II
The Dream
I dreamt last night, a friend and I (not ever seeing the face of the friend),
walked around a lake (I think we were in Minnesota), and we talked,
talked on how we might be, could be, better husbands, there was
apprehension in his eyes, I didn’t see his eyes, I felt them. And so, we
both decided to bring this bit of information up to our wives, and we
did just that; he to his wife, me to my wife (the following day).
Meeting the day after, to compare notes, on how our wives
responded to our declaration (not that we were bad husbands in
the beginning for we were to the contrary, good husbands).
Hence forward, he explained to me: I lost my wife in telling her this.
He was dumfounded, how could this be, he simply wanted to be a
better husband, not lose a wife in the process, he was hurt.
My general thoughts were, he lived in a poor kingdom, and thus, I
shifted my pillow back and forth, in hopes to fall back to sleep, and try to change my dream, to have it come out right for my friend; I think
I actually was inquiring in my mind on how to change things, trying
to backtrack, you could say, but I had already lived the dream (?) for there was, no going back. So I sat upon the edge of my bed, upright,
and asked myself: what did you learn from this dream?
Part III
The Message
Had he not (my friend) asked his wife what he asked her, he
would have lived in her secret, unknowing her pulse, in
the marriage, the one she did not want (some folks are
willing of course to live in a dead marriage; life beyond being
too fearful, thus for the sake of it they remain in it).
Through this awakening his wife crawled out from under her
pretense, it was now all out in the open, on the table.
The second question I asked myself was: how long could such a
marriage be sustained? (for me my wife had responded positively,
and I was as happy as a bear with a pool of honey under my feet.
With that same question came: how many more years would have been
fritter away, had he not asked this question? Five, six or seven?
To her perhaps, she was in jail, and the next step for her was to live
a life of immorality, or bury pretense, and face truth. Maybe
they both received a gift, a second chance before the grave.
Part IV
New World in the Making
My old world doesn’t exist anymore; a highway has been build over it,
a parking lot is where our old house use to be—everything
has changed, but the names remain the same, of the streets.
Even the old steel mill has gone, with the old ma and pa, grocery
stories; the train tracks are rusting, everything disappearing,
everything, and, soon me!
#2286/2-26-2008
Poets & Poetry: A Liberating and Psychological View (by D.L. Siluk)
1) Anne Sexton & Sylvia Plath: poems come from the abyss, painfully, and a life obviously as scornful; literary (Sexton) could use some substance in her poetry other than nakedness, being free verse it allows more freedom to do this I believe. Her book, "The Book of Folly" seems to have been quickly written, and for her skill level, could have been done better; as her first two books (To Bedlam and All my Pretty Ones). Her friend, Sylvia Plath, whom they both went to classes with, both shared in the same style of confessional poetry, both suicidal in much of it. On the whole, Sylvia may be the better poet, but Sexton, whom perhaps pushed her family away to write poetry, did by all means, write and publish more of her poetry. In such cases I do believe, where mental illness is present, it is a way for the person to survive, it is too hard for them to live in the pot of crickets, and thus they find an escape.
2) Howard Nemerov: good lyricism, one of the poets I ran after in my early days in college to read and try to understand. He writes well, yet I find there is usually something missing, perhaps he (or poets like him) need to march to the end of the road (experience more, to fill the gaps in his poetry, when I say gaps, it is what I feel is missing between the lines, to him perhaps nothing, to me something, on the other hand, perhaps I expect too much).
3) Allen Ginsberg: when he was in his 20s, he wrote his best works (in particular "Empty Mirror" from there it was all down hill I do believe); he lost it to good taste, and good sense, which he had none of, and traded it for pleasure, and a warped mind, God help the reader. "Howl" and "Caddish" is some of his worse work, or I should say, is some of the worse poetry I've read to this day. He brings his reader into a circle that never ends. His book, and poems on Cambodia, comes from a fragmented mind, he shifts from where he starts out to be (Cambodia), and jumps off the road at ever comma, to get into some frenzy about something else, that means something to him perhaps, but the reader, it is far from where he originally taken the reader, and the reader expects him to finish what he started, but he never does. And most of his poetry involves his over obsession with homosexual dirty sex. He has to tell his public about it, he just can't overlook it; right up to his dying days.
4) E.E. Commings: Cummings poetry is Cummings! That is, more so than most poets; if you have read one of his poems, you’ve read most of them; a good and genuine poet indeed, perhaps uncompromising, but I get bored after a few of his poems, unfortunately.
5) Gary Snyder: Academic poetry, but in the middle (the beatniks era): he hugs Zen as so many did back then; I was at the end of that era. He used his techniques correctly, for who he is (or was): sharp, clear and detached poetry.
6) Walt Whitman: he was of course, Allen Ginsberg's hero, and perhaps because he shared the same sexual drives as he. I can see in Ginsberg's poetry, Whitman's style. Whitman perhaps was the father of modern free verse, and did it much better than Allen. The bad thing with Whitman was, he started out with a book for 12-poems, and ended up with a book of 400-poems, of which he spent a live time going over, and over, and over. When you got a good thing, leave it alone, who can go back 40-years and say: this is what I was thinking about then, and in consequence, change his book, "Leaves of Grass." If you read his poems, you got to read between the lines. When he talks of women often, he means men. You can see this by comparing old versions of his poems with newer ones. He is not a bad poet in my eyes, just a dirty old man.
7) William Blake: the mystery poet, and with a Macabre style. I like his poetry in general, not much to say about him, he came, he was, he always will be. I would call him a lighthearted Poe.
8) Robert Bly and Donald Hall, both good poets (I've met them both). Bly's best work is his first and second books "Silence in the Snowy Fields," and "The Light Around the Body." The only bad thing I can say about these books is, they got too long of a title. Yet I find starting in his second book, and never ending, is his quest for his political views to be heard, and it gets a tinge boring after fifty-years of reading it. His book "My Sentence was a Thousand Years of Joy," again a long title, but a good book to read none the less, and he delivers a more personal approach. Donald Hall on the other hand has short titles. His best book being (I feel) is "Without," a book written on grieving. His first book which I have signed by him also, “Exiles and Marriages (1955)" needs some of that older Donald Hall in it. He's written a dozen books or more, and I have not read them all, so I best stop here, whereas, I've read perhaps too much of Mr. Bly.
9) George Sterling: He was like Sexton and Plath in the since, he took his own life, he died in 1926, at the age of 58, Sexton in her late 40s, and Plath in her late 20s. Not many folks have heard of Sterling, but he was San Francisco's number one poet, and friends with Jack London. He perhaps is the best poet I read on imagery. Yet reading him, one can get lost. He gets so involved with his images, I think he gets lost, they are beautiful, strange but hard to hang on to. He wrote about 14-books, I think I have all of them but one. He was Clark A. Smith's teacher you might say, both Smith and he were from the "Weird Tales," period of writing, the 30s to the 50s, with Robert Howard.
10) Robert Jeffers and Tennessee Williams: Perhaps one of the best poetic prose writers of his day was Robert Jeffers, he was even acclaimed by George Sterling as a great poet, and rightfully. Perhaps even Mr. Sterling helped Jeffers in his imagery. I have several of his books, and one signed, so I am proud to have them, "Hungerfield and other Poems," is a good book, as well as his "Collected Poems." As for Tennessee Williams, one thinks he was just a play writer, but he was a poet, and wrote "In the Winter of Cities," a very good book indeed, I was surprised at the depth of his writing, but like Whitman, you must read between the lines, if you want to eliminate the pretense.
11) James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway: yes, they were both poets, or tried to be. Joyce was not only a bad writer in general, but not a very good poet also; had it not been for Ezra Pound, you would never have heard of James Joyce. As for Hemingway, his poetry was next to Allen Ginsberg’s, without dirty homosexual overtones. In core, his poetry was, depressing, more on the order of satirical disheartening poetry, with a touch of Plath and Sexton to it, but with less substance. But he was Hemingway, and could get away with garbage now and then.
Commentary on Poetry:
“Blessing of the Poem”:
There is nothing on earth that can equal the hard scraping profound labor and stirring of ones blood, and sense of sanctification that a good poem can offer (it is the highest quality of writing a writer can do).
That new promising poem, felt in the middle of silence, in the corner of the night, sticking to your mind and ribs until it finds its way out of your box and into the literature world; faint at first, then like the radiation of an atomic bomb.
The question asked: “Why indeed do people write poetry?”
A good question, and hard to answer, more subjective than otherwise, but let me give it a try, how I see it: imagines (dreams, seeing in your mind's eye, envisage), it is all under the same umbrella; such things come out of the unconscious, the mind, convicted, until written, then emancipated (and never to be lost in the vaults of humanity).
Note: Poets seem to have a once of vanity, if not several: for some it is hard to live in this world, and it is an escape. Many are highly intelligent, and skilled, some just have deep rooted emotions, and use poetry as a form of therapy, others like Ginsberg, simply need to feed their egos (he never said much unless there was a public view on him). It is all in the package though, you might say, it is all ok, as long as it is truthful and does not hurt the innocent, if you give it to the public that is, because it can influence minds, young minds, and we have a responsibility to write what will be useful, without pretense, otherwise, lock it up in the cellar and leave it there. I started writing poetry at 11-years old, I am 60-now. Funny, my first poem "Who" written in 1959, is more popular than most of all my writings and I've done 2300-poems, 350-short stories, 36-books, and 950-articles, I have two-million readers a year on over 400-sites, and this poem is on more sites than any other writings I have done to date. What does this say? It says to me, what everyone is looking for, what I just mentioned. And this one little poem stands out above them all, so simple.
2) Howard Nemerov: good lyricism, one of the poets I ran after in my early days in college to read and try to understand. He writes well, yet I find there is usually something missing, perhaps he (or poets like him) need to march to the end of the road (experience more, to fill the gaps in his poetry, when I say gaps, it is what I feel is missing between the lines, to him perhaps nothing, to me something, on the other hand, perhaps I expect too much).
3) Allen Ginsberg: when he was in his 20s, he wrote his best works (in particular "Empty Mirror" from there it was all down hill I do believe); he lost it to good taste, and good sense, which he had none of, and traded it for pleasure, and a warped mind, God help the reader. "Howl" and "Caddish" is some of his worse work, or I should say, is some of the worse poetry I've read to this day. He brings his reader into a circle that never ends. His book, and poems on Cambodia, comes from a fragmented mind, he shifts from where he starts out to be (Cambodia), and jumps off the road at ever comma, to get into some frenzy about something else, that means something to him perhaps, but the reader, it is far from where he originally taken the reader, and the reader expects him to finish what he started, but he never does. And most of his poetry involves his over obsession with homosexual dirty sex. He has to tell his public about it, he just can't overlook it; right up to his dying days.
4) E.E. Commings: Cummings poetry is Cummings! That is, more so than most poets; if you have read one of his poems, you’ve read most of them; a good and genuine poet indeed, perhaps uncompromising, but I get bored after a few of his poems, unfortunately.
5) Gary Snyder: Academic poetry, but in the middle (the beatniks era): he hugs Zen as so many did back then; I was at the end of that era. He used his techniques correctly, for who he is (or was): sharp, clear and detached poetry.
6) Walt Whitman: he was of course, Allen Ginsberg's hero, and perhaps because he shared the same sexual drives as he. I can see in Ginsberg's poetry, Whitman's style. Whitman perhaps was the father of modern free verse, and did it much better than Allen. The bad thing with Whitman was, he started out with a book for 12-poems, and ended up with a book of 400-poems, of which he spent a live time going over, and over, and over. When you got a good thing, leave it alone, who can go back 40-years and say: this is what I was thinking about then, and in consequence, change his book, "Leaves of Grass." If you read his poems, you got to read between the lines. When he talks of women often, he means men. You can see this by comparing old versions of his poems with newer ones. He is not a bad poet in my eyes, just a dirty old man.
7) William Blake: the mystery poet, and with a Macabre style. I like his poetry in general, not much to say about him, he came, he was, he always will be. I would call him a lighthearted Poe.
8) Robert Bly and Donald Hall, both good poets (I've met them both). Bly's best work is his first and second books "Silence in the Snowy Fields," and "The Light Around the Body." The only bad thing I can say about these books is, they got too long of a title. Yet I find starting in his second book, and never ending, is his quest for his political views to be heard, and it gets a tinge boring after fifty-years of reading it. His book "My Sentence was a Thousand Years of Joy," again a long title, but a good book to read none the less, and he delivers a more personal approach. Donald Hall on the other hand has short titles. His best book being (I feel) is "Without," a book written on grieving. His first book which I have signed by him also, “Exiles and Marriages (1955)" needs some of that older Donald Hall in it. He's written a dozen books or more, and I have not read them all, so I best stop here, whereas, I've read perhaps too much of Mr. Bly.
9) George Sterling: He was like Sexton and Plath in the since, he took his own life, he died in 1926, at the age of 58, Sexton in her late 40s, and Plath in her late 20s. Not many folks have heard of Sterling, but he was San Francisco's number one poet, and friends with Jack London. He perhaps is the best poet I read on imagery. Yet reading him, one can get lost. He gets so involved with his images, I think he gets lost, they are beautiful, strange but hard to hang on to. He wrote about 14-books, I think I have all of them but one. He was Clark A. Smith's teacher you might say, both Smith and he were from the "Weird Tales," period of writing, the 30s to the 50s, with Robert Howard.
10) Robert Jeffers and Tennessee Williams: Perhaps one of the best poetic prose writers of his day was Robert Jeffers, he was even acclaimed by George Sterling as a great poet, and rightfully. Perhaps even Mr. Sterling helped Jeffers in his imagery. I have several of his books, and one signed, so I am proud to have them, "Hungerfield and other Poems," is a good book, as well as his "Collected Poems." As for Tennessee Williams, one thinks he was just a play writer, but he was a poet, and wrote "In the Winter of Cities," a very good book indeed, I was surprised at the depth of his writing, but like Whitman, you must read between the lines, if you want to eliminate the pretense.
11) James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway: yes, they were both poets, or tried to be. Joyce was not only a bad writer in general, but not a very good poet also; had it not been for Ezra Pound, you would never have heard of James Joyce. As for Hemingway, his poetry was next to Allen Ginsberg’s, without dirty homosexual overtones. In core, his poetry was, depressing, more on the order of satirical disheartening poetry, with a touch of Plath and Sexton to it, but with less substance. But he was Hemingway, and could get away with garbage now and then.
Commentary on Poetry:
“Blessing of the Poem”:
There is nothing on earth that can equal the hard scraping profound labor and stirring of ones blood, and sense of sanctification that a good poem can offer (it is the highest quality of writing a writer can do).
That new promising poem, felt in the middle of silence, in the corner of the night, sticking to your mind and ribs until it finds its way out of your box and into the literature world; faint at first, then like the radiation of an atomic bomb.
The question asked: “Why indeed do people write poetry?”
A good question, and hard to answer, more subjective than otherwise, but let me give it a try, how I see it: imagines (dreams, seeing in your mind's eye, envisage), it is all under the same umbrella; such things come out of the unconscious, the mind, convicted, until written, then emancipated (and never to be lost in the vaults of humanity).
Note: Poets seem to have a once of vanity, if not several: for some it is hard to live in this world, and it is an escape. Many are highly intelligent, and skilled, some just have deep rooted emotions, and use poetry as a form of therapy, others like Ginsberg, simply need to feed their egos (he never said much unless there was a public view on him). It is all in the package though, you might say, it is all ok, as long as it is truthful and does not hurt the innocent, if you give it to the public that is, because it can influence minds, young minds, and we have a responsibility to write what will be useful, without pretense, otherwise, lock it up in the cellar and leave it there. I started writing poetry at 11-years old, I am 60-now. Funny, my first poem "Who" written in 1959, is more popular than most of all my writings and I've done 2300-poems, 350-short stories, 36-books, and 950-articles, I have two-million readers a year on over 400-sites, and this poem is on more sites than any other writings I have done to date. What does this say? It says to me, what everyone is looking for, what I just mentioned. And this one little poem stands out above them all, so simple.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Kenyans Hope (a poem)
Kenyans Hope
Memory droops among the Kenyans
for faces ponder a vanished peace;
a dream that wonders in the breeze,
an anger that remains in hidden faces.
#2286 2-23-2008
Memory droops among the Kenyans
for faces ponder a vanished peace;
a dream that wonders in the breeze,
an anger that remains in hidden faces.
#2286 2-23-2008
"Who" ((Dennis Siluk's First Poem)(put back into its original form; 2/2008))
"Who"
((Dennis Siluk's First Poem)
(put back into its original form; 2/2008))
By: Dennis Siluk Ed.D.
Who made the earth:
((Dennis Siluk's First Poem)
(put back into its original form; 2/2008))
By: Dennis Siluk Ed.D.
Who made the earth:
Who made the sky,
Who made the clouds,
Burst inside-?
Who made the moon
Who made the moon
And stars that glow-
He's my Lord
My love, my soul.
He gave us light
He gave us light
To live and see;
He gave us dark
For a silent sleep.
He gave us feelings
He gave us feelings
And choices as well,
And we can use them
As we please;
But most of all
But most of all
He gave simple laws,
Such simple things
With great cause!
For when the day comes
For when the day comes
And it surely will:
When flesh and bone
Meet gravestone—
Our heart and soul
Our heart and soul
Will be judged as one!
#1 (1959)
Note by the Author: "Here is the first poem I wrote, dating back to 1959. I discovered it after my mother had passed on, in 2003; I had seen it among some of my other notes in 1980, other than that, I had not seen it since 2003, some 23-years. My mother always read my poetry when it was simple and plain when I was young. I was eleven (11) years old, perhaps closer to twelve at the time. In this poem, it expresses I do believe my faith in God, Jesus Christ. It was written while I was living on Cayuga Street; I was sitting on some stairs leading up to our attic bedroom at the time of writing it I remember, where my brother and I slept; we lived in an extended family, with my mother and Grandfather. Perhaps it was my escape from the tough neighborhood I was living in at the time that brought me to writing poetry. In 1958, we had moved from 109 East Arch Street, St. Paul, Minnesota, to this new neighborhood, at 186 Cayuga Street, St. Paul, Minnesota (perhaps a few miles away). My brother was perhaps fourteen at the time, or going on that age I suppose. So for the first time ever published, here is my first poem, out of 2300."
Dennis (Brought back to its original form, 2/2008; some words corrected, other than that, it remains the same.)
#1 (1959)
Note by the Author: "Here is the first poem I wrote, dating back to 1959. I discovered it after my mother had passed on, in 2003; I had seen it among some of my other notes in 1980, other than that, I had not seen it since 2003, some 23-years. My mother always read my poetry when it was simple and plain when I was young. I was eleven (11) years old, perhaps closer to twelve at the time. In this poem, it expresses I do believe my faith in God, Jesus Christ. It was written while I was living on Cayuga Street; I was sitting on some stairs leading up to our attic bedroom at the time of writing it I remember, where my brother and I slept; we lived in an extended family, with my mother and Grandfather. Perhaps it was my escape from the tough neighborhood I was living in at the time that brought me to writing poetry. In 1958, we had moved from 109 East Arch Street, St. Paul, Minnesota, to this new neighborhood, at 186 Cayuga Street, St. Paul, Minnesota (perhaps a few miles away). My brother was perhaps fourteen at the time, or going on that age I suppose. So for the first time ever published, here is my first poem, out of 2300."
Dennis (Brought back to its original form, 2/2008; some words corrected, other than that, it remains the same.)
Friday, February 22, 2008
Alligator Moonshine ((in: Memories of Old Josh)(forth Series; episode #37))
Alligator Moonshine
((in: Memories of Old Josh) (forth Series; episode #37))
Silas was remembering when his father Josh had stepped off, and in the process, slipped from the last step of the porch in 1904, a year before his death (it was now 1909; he caught his pants leg onto the an edge of the end, or last wooden step (Old Josh, had made those steps, built those very same steps himself, he had to cut down a tree by the creek to make them, drag it up hill, across the cornfields, through the backwoods, back in the late 1880s, all that to make those stairs; thought Silas, on top of his other thoughts, of Josh falling flat on his face, he had made some homemade moonshine that evening and tried it out, it proved to be as good as ever, ah, he was thought to be dead though, and he was bruised for a week, Silas murmured out loud).
Old Josh liked his moonshine, and used to say, “I tell ya boys, it git da bite like da Alligator,” and so the country folk, all called his moonshine, ‘Josh’s Alligator Moonshine.
Sometimes, especially when Old Josh was broke, he’d have his son Jordon, who worked at the town grocery store in Ozark (Alabama), take a few bottles, and jugs down with him in the morning, sell some of it under the counter, or through the back door, so his boss would not notice, although he bought some of it himself, now and then.
Well, everyone had thought—even Jordon and Silas—Old Josh was dead on that warm dark soil that summer evening, in front of his shanty, in particular Silas. He looked dead as a door nail. Silas even told his brother, “Ole pa, he done git stiff as a frozen carp…go fetch me a priest Jordon!”
Jordon hesitated, thought about that request, then asked, “Wuh, a priest, why not a doc?”
Hesitating, Silas looked in Jordon’s squinty dark eyes, “Da doc he cant do a thing for pa, he’s too old, da priest, he can help pa into da pearl gates, he done talk ‘bout all his life.” Jordon shook his head, but did as his older brother told him to do.
—It was an hour later when the priest showed up, said, “Would you all like me to say a prayer for your pa, before you get the doctor, and sheriff out to witness this death?”
(Silas and Jordon were sitting on the steps and Josh laying flat on his face in the dirt.)
Said Old Josh, with a harsh rustic voice; “Forget da prayer, an’ gits me my moonshine son!” he demanded from Silas, trying to push himself upward.
The white priest said, “Absolutely not, you’re not in any condition to drink.”
Jordon whispered to the priest, “It’s kinda like his petrol.”
“Your pa just overindulged tonight, he’s ok.” Said the priest, and jumped on his horse to ride back down the road a spell to his little church, and pulled out a little bottle of corn whisky, to help him through the long and dusty ride back.
Written 2-19-2008 (Written at Starbucks, in Circle, Lima, Peru, 1:00 to 4:00 PM)
((in: Memories of Old Josh) (forth Series; episode #37))
Silas was remembering when his father Josh had stepped off, and in the process, slipped from the last step of the porch in 1904, a year before his death (it was now 1909; he caught his pants leg onto the an edge of the end, or last wooden step (Old Josh, had made those steps, built those very same steps himself, he had to cut down a tree by the creek to make them, drag it up hill, across the cornfields, through the backwoods, back in the late 1880s, all that to make those stairs; thought Silas, on top of his other thoughts, of Josh falling flat on his face, he had made some homemade moonshine that evening and tried it out, it proved to be as good as ever, ah, he was thought to be dead though, and he was bruised for a week, Silas murmured out loud).
Old Josh liked his moonshine, and used to say, “I tell ya boys, it git da bite like da Alligator,” and so the country folk, all called his moonshine, ‘Josh’s Alligator Moonshine.
Sometimes, especially when Old Josh was broke, he’d have his son Jordon, who worked at the town grocery store in Ozark (Alabama), take a few bottles, and jugs down with him in the morning, sell some of it under the counter, or through the back door, so his boss would not notice, although he bought some of it himself, now and then.
Well, everyone had thought—even Jordon and Silas—Old Josh was dead on that warm dark soil that summer evening, in front of his shanty, in particular Silas. He looked dead as a door nail. Silas even told his brother, “Ole pa, he done git stiff as a frozen carp…go fetch me a priest Jordon!”
Jordon hesitated, thought about that request, then asked, “Wuh, a priest, why not a doc?”
Hesitating, Silas looked in Jordon’s squinty dark eyes, “Da doc he cant do a thing for pa, he’s too old, da priest, he can help pa into da pearl gates, he done talk ‘bout all his life.” Jordon shook his head, but did as his older brother told him to do.
—It was an hour later when the priest showed up, said, “Would you all like me to say a prayer for your pa, before you get the doctor, and sheriff out to witness this death?”
(Silas and Jordon were sitting on the steps and Josh laying flat on his face in the dirt.)
Said Old Josh, with a harsh rustic voice; “Forget da prayer, an’ gits me my moonshine son!” he demanded from Silas, trying to push himself upward.
The white priest said, “Absolutely not, you’re not in any condition to drink.”
Jordon whispered to the priest, “It’s kinda like his petrol.”
“Your pa just overindulged tonight, he’s ok.” Said the priest, and jumped on his horse to ride back down the road a spell to his little church, and pulled out a little bottle of corn whisky, to help him through the long and dusty ride back.
Written 2-19-2008 (Written at Starbucks, in Circle, Lima, Peru, 1:00 to 4:00 PM)
Ghost Town ((I Once Lived There)(a poem))
Ghost Town (I Once Lived There)
I was once, like an old empty
ghost town; I alone, lingered in it,
as its guest—no warmth or light,
or life, just dust and death, and cold
ruin’d bricks, some stone and wood…
cold and ruin’d— but God let me live in it.
My throat got choked from the slum; iron
rimed wooden wheel tracks, once roamed there,
now left in the mud; somehow there’s a
friendly gloom about all this, so oozing with
joy over despair, in the chilled air.
Yes, oh yes, I once lived there.
#2285 (2-22-2008)
I was once, like an old empty
ghost town; I alone, lingered in it,
as its guest—no warmth or light,
or life, just dust and death, and cold
ruin’d bricks, some stone and wood…
cold and ruin’d— but God let me live in it.
My throat got choked from the slum; iron
rimed wooden wheel tracks, once roamed there,
now left in the mud; somehow there’s a
friendly gloom about all this, so oozing with
joy over despair, in the chilled air.
Yes, oh yes, I once lived there.
#2285 (2-22-2008)
An Afternoon with Rosa on the Roof (a poem)
An Afternoon with Rosa on the Roof
We sat free, three hours or so, together
(how long, I’m not sure) underneath an umbrella
that sizzled still, in the unruffled warm winded weather,
stirr’d by the sun’s beams, sole offer for the wind;
we sat, she dreamt, I read, those hours together
fill’d with the calm silence of the sky:
the gardens moaned for us in the gentle weather
we found no need to speak, just motionless love.
Now evening, that afternoon seems forgotten
cast out to sea, as if it was out of life, memory;
the calm motionless love, now swooned (faint):
sweet scarcity, we shall remember this afternoon.
As Rosa slept, I looked at her, friend from friend,
sidekick, and wife, deep minutes, hasting …
she in the silent distance, somewhere, —me, in
some irresistible melancholy of the sun:
so I welcomed in that calm silence, as one—
our minds, hearts and souls, in reverie
lost in the vast minutes of time, voiceless,
stirr’d by the sun’s beams, sole offer for the wind.
#2284 2-22-2008; written in Lima, Peru, after enjoying a lunch, a good nap, a good read under an umbrella, under the sun, on top of the roof of our home. We ate pork, with beans, and noodles with chili hamburger sauce, and a dark cookie, and a three shot latte, with orange juice. We ate, on a glass table, a few books to my side resting on a stool, to read after lunch. A few lovers were in the park across the street, one laying his head into the lap of his queen. The sun was over head, going west out towards the ocean.
Note #2: I don't usually write about my wife, unless it is hidden within my words, but here is a poem of a nice warm afternoon with my wife, to have a good wife is a gift from God, so many are worthless, lazy, and not worth the words. Ive been married four times, I know what I'm talking about. A good woman is worth her weight in gold. A bad one, is worth going to hell for, to get away from her. dlsiluk
We sat free, three hours or so, together
(how long, I’m not sure) underneath an umbrella
that sizzled still, in the unruffled warm winded weather,
stirr’d by the sun’s beams, sole offer for the wind;
we sat, she dreamt, I read, those hours together
fill’d with the calm silence of the sky:
the gardens moaned for us in the gentle weather
we found no need to speak, just motionless love.
Now evening, that afternoon seems forgotten
cast out to sea, as if it was out of life, memory;
the calm motionless love, now swooned (faint):
sweet scarcity, we shall remember this afternoon.
As Rosa slept, I looked at her, friend from friend,
sidekick, and wife, deep minutes, hasting …
she in the silent distance, somewhere, —me, in
some irresistible melancholy of the sun:
so I welcomed in that calm silence, as one—
our minds, hearts and souls, in reverie
lost in the vast minutes of time, voiceless,
stirr’d by the sun’s beams, sole offer for the wind.
#2284 2-22-2008; written in Lima, Peru, after enjoying a lunch, a good nap, a good read under an umbrella, under the sun, on top of the roof of our home. We ate pork, with beans, and noodles with chili hamburger sauce, and a dark cookie, and a three shot latte, with orange juice. We ate, on a glass table, a few books to my side resting on a stool, to read after lunch. A few lovers were in the park across the street, one laying his head into the lap of his queen. The sun was over head, going west out towards the ocean.
Note #2: I don't usually write about my wife, unless it is hidden within my words, but here is a poem of a nice warm afternoon with my wife, to have a good wife is a gift from God, so many are worthless, lazy, and not worth the words. Ive been married four times, I know what I'm talking about. A good woman is worth her weight in gold. A bad one, is worth going to hell for, to get away from her. dlsiluk
"Pledge Uner the Tree" (From the Muhammad Papers, Ltr. 10)
Letter: X
“Pledge under the Tree”
(A Revelation from Muhammad Himself to Moss)
The Devil
While in the process of conquering the lands of Arabia (624 AD to 632 AD)
“I wanted everything, the houses, the dogs, hogs, ropes, and
jewels, even the souls, the family heritage, even the food, everything, and when the people who did not bend their wills,
I wanted to kill their wills; whoever was left, ate chicken
bones. My army, had pledged their lives to me, their souls,
to die for me, to kill, to kill to the very end of their days: to
battle, be it man, women, child, even virgins; they
died liked chickens or hens; twenty eyes like volcanoes
came and butchered them.
“There is never a silence in my head, only teeth and death. It comes each day, in shock waves, the vibrating twitching of muscles and swords clashing. I killed so many with no reason,
it was a season of red rain, in my days.
“I try to swallow my memory, but it keeps coming back,
chained down to oblivion, like a crucifixion; even
laughter does not help anymore, memory comes back,
luminous, like a clock.
“Once upon a time, I was a young man, and I died, for
no reason, like so many.”
#2272/ 2-16-2008 (11:15 PM)
Note: Muhammad, in the course of his battling with his enemies, he had his followers make a pledge to their death, called, “Pledge under the Tree,” perhaps this is where the suicide bombers got their credo, to the death.
“Pledge under the Tree”
(A Revelation from Muhammad Himself to Moss)
The Devil
While in the process of conquering the lands of Arabia (624 AD to 632 AD)
“I wanted everything, the houses, the dogs, hogs, ropes, and
jewels, even the souls, the family heritage, even the food, everything, and when the people who did not bend their wills,
I wanted to kill their wills; whoever was left, ate chicken
bones. My army, had pledged their lives to me, their souls,
to die for me, to kill, to kill to the very end of their days: to
battle, be it man, women, child, even virgins; they
died liked chickens or hens; twenty eyes like volcanoes
came and butchered them.
“There is never a silence in my head, only teeth and death. It comes each day, in shock waves, the vibrating twitching of muscles and swords clashing. I killed so many with no reason,
it was a season of red rain, in my days.
“I try to swallow my memory, but it keeps coming back,
chained down to oblivion, like a crucifixion; even
laughter does not help anymore, memory comes back,
luminous, like a clock.
“Once upon a time, I was a young man, and I died, for
no reason, like so many.”
#2272/ 2-16-2008 (11:15 PM)
Note: Muhammad, in the course of his battling with his enemies, he had his followers make a pledge to their death, called, “Pledge under the Tree,” perhaps this is where the suicide bombers got their credo, to the death.
Spirit of the Dark (From the Muhammad Papers, Ltr. #11)
Letter: XI
Spirit of the Dark
Amduscias and the Trees of Hell
Powerful Grand Duke of Hell
powerful demon, of 29-infernal legends in hell:
once a unicorn, once a human, you come in many forms:
thou bends to the music of heaven, commands
at will the trumpets of hell—yea plays
and the trees sway: who art thou
who comes in the form of
familiars (dogs and cats
bats and rats…) your
legend from hell?
so some say, one in the form
of Muhammad! Thus, a curse
to us, ordinary people of this thin world.
There is a Christian, belief, or call it folklore, that Muhammad was born on the day, year and month considered the Mark of the Beast, 666 AD, and not on 634 AD, as history has recorded it, and that he was the beast incarnate, the devil, or at best, a simply demon. #2264/2-17-2008
Spirit of the Dark
Amduscias and the Trees of Hell
Powerful Grand Duke of Hell
powerful demon, of 29-infernal legends in hell:
once a unicorn, once a human, you come in many forms:
thou bends to the music of heaven, commands
at will the trumpets of hell—yea plays
and the trees sway: who art thou
who comes in the form of
familiars (dogs and cats
bats and rats…) your
legend from hell?
so some say, one in the form
of Muhammad! Thus, a curse
to us, ordinary people of this thin world.
There is a Christian, belief, or call it folklore, that Muhammad was born on the day, year and month considered the Mark of the Beast, 666 AD, and not on 634 AD, as history has recorded it, and that he was the beast incarnate, the devil, or at best, a simply demon. #2264/2-17-2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Where Appear Red Clouds (A poem for: Burroughs and Ginsberg)
Where Appear Red Clouds
(a poem for: Burroughs and Ginsberg)
Because of Him, O Phantom, because of him, we shake in the flesh,
bow, yet see with the fleeting eye, listen for the inseparable Master
the unspeakable King of the air, for we are simply the unintelligible,
from the cradle, to the grave, from sunset to the dawn, an insect,
compared to the Giver, God! But the Adversary, whose blood burns, and
whom yearns, like a thousand animals, for revenge, laughs with no
mouth, is a worm of pure corruption, with no nostrils, infinite…
Thy tongue, is like an eyeless squid, it moves in many directions, to
seek endlessly the fault of man, he puts death and desire and orgasms
into their minds, infiltrated, like William Burroughs, and Allen
Ginsberg, their his kind, who speak of mankind as if they were toys;
we travel to hell but once, when there appears the Red Clouds, a
limb of death. God will disgrace thy in the eyes of the earth, for
you both have lived in constant disintegration, the devils work;
attack your hairy tongue, God will not have to deal with you a
second more, the insane in hell will devour your brain. Mock God
you have, but now it rains, volcanic flesh. Thus, you saw the red clouds
appear, and did not see the jeweled terraces, fade, rather, you saw
Satan’s best, dragging you by the limbs. Oh, if only I had a moment
of time, to see your nasty new rhymes’, now you write in hell, I’m sure
they would tell, that you are daily slain, through your own, mind;
that, you now vomit from breathing the air, croak daily from your
skeleton, that has no beard or jaw, or flesh. No stomach, just a vine, for
a soul, and in time, that also will fade and go, unknowable! Yes
indeed, Satan has done his homework on thee, now pulled into the
darkness, poor pitiable child, afraid of the dark, looking for the cross,
only to die over, and over and over, among the many strangers in despair.
I hope it was all worth it, it’s now to late to protest…!
#2281 2-22-2008
(a poem for: Burroughs and Ginsberg)
Because of Him, O Phantom, because of him, we shake in the flesh,
bow, yet see with the fleeting eye, listen for the inseparable Master
the unspeakable King of the air, for we are simply the unintelligible,
from the cradle, to the grave, from sunset to the dawn, an insect,
compared to the Giver, God! But the Adversary, whose blood burns, and
whom yearns, like a thousand animals, for revenge, laughs with no
mouth, is a worm of pure corruption, with no nostrils, infinite…
Thy tongue, is like an eyeless squid, it moves in many directions, to
seek endlessly the fault of man, he puts death and desire and orgasms
into their minds, infiltrated, like William Burroughs, and Allen
Ginsberg, their his kind, who speak of mankind as if they were toys;
we travel to hell but once, when there appears the Red Clouds, a
limb of death. God will disgrace thy in the eyes of the earth, for
you both have lived in constant disintegration, the devils work;
attack your hairy tongue, God will not have to deal with you a
second more, the insane in hell will devour your brain. Mock God
you have, but now it rains, volcanic flesh. Thus, you saw the red clouds
appear, and did not see the jeweled terraces, fade, rather, you saw
Satan’s best, dragging you by the limbs. Oh, if only I had a moment
of time, to see your nasty new rhymes’, now you write in hell, I’m sure
they would tell, that you are daily slain, through your own, mind;
that, you now vomit from breathing the air, croak daily from your
skeleton, that has no beard or jaw, or flesh. No stomach, just a vine, for
a soul, and in time, that also will fade and go, unknowable! Yes
indeed, Satan has done his homework on thee, now pulled into the
darkness, poor pitiable child, afraid of the dark, looking for the cross,
only to die over, and over and over, among the many strangers in despair.
I hope it was all worth it, it’s now to late to protest…!
#2281 2-22-2008
Mecca's Cry: The Year of Sorrow ((from the 'Muhammad Papers')(Ltr. 9))
Letter IX
Mecca’s Cry: the Year of Sorrow
(As remembered from the mouth of Moss the Prophet))
His heart beat like the sea
his anger was as if he had bees in his mouth;
Mecca became a dead city
after he killed them all
(10,000-soldiers strong, he conquered
them, butchered, like hogs).
The flies had a feast…, for
they tore open their bellies like beasts!
Their heads severed, rolled off,
down the streets—;
they would not listen,
they would not stop
they simply killed and killed,
as if, in a death dance.
#2271/2-16-2008 (10:50 PM)
Mecca’s Cry: the Year of Sorrow
(As remembered from the mouth of Moss the Prophet))
His heart beat like the sea
his anger was as if he had bees in his mouth;
Mecca became a dead city
after he killed them all
(10,000-soldiers strong, he conquered
them, butchered, like hogs).
The flies had a feast…, for
they tore open their bellies like beasts!
Their heads severed, rolled off,
down the streets—;
they would not listen,
they would not stop
they simply killed and killed,
as if, in a death dance.
#2271/2-16-2008 (10:50 PM)
"The Coffin Makers" (Poem, from the: Muhammad Papers)(Ltr. 4)
Letter: IV
The Coffin Makers
(Revelation given to Moss from Michael)
What Moss saw in the far off days?
We are Islam.
We are the coffin makers.
We are Death.
We hate Jews and Christians;
we pack them in carts
like potatoes.
The body fires like stars:
we use children,
women and the insane.
We are to them,
their savior.
We are the death makers.
We are Islam.
We have credentials.
#2263/2-16-2008
The Coffin Makers
(Revelation given to Moss from Michael)
What Moss saw in the far off days?
We are Islam.
We are the coffin makers.
We are Death.
We hate Jews and Christians;
we pack them in carts
like potatoes.
The body fires like stars:
we use children,
women and the insane.
We are to them,
their savior.
We are the death makers.
We are Islam.
We have credentials.
#2263/2-16-2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The Battle of Badr (a Poem, from the 'Muhammad Papers,' Ltr. #3)
Letter: III
The Battle of Badr
(A Revelation from the angel Uriel to Moss)
There will be blood in the sand tonight—
Like gravy over meat,
Dead bodies eating soil, vultures chewing
Hearts from corpuses’
Eyes plucked out, of their sockets, like
Candles in a twist—
And I see Muhammad hiding in a cave,
Safe, watching all this;
Yesterday, he walked tall, like a peacock,
Among men of the world;
Today, he’s evasive, hiding behind shadows,
Like a frightened little girl.
#2262/ 2-16-2008
The Battle of Badr
(A Revelation from the angel Uriel to Moss)
There will be blood in the sand tonight—
Like gravy over meat,
Dead bodies eating soil, vultures chewing
Hearts from corpuses’
Eyes plucked out, of their sockets, like
Candles in a twist—
And I see Muhammad hiding in a cave,
Safe, watching all this;
Yesterday, he walked tall, like a peacock,
Among men of the world;
Today, he’s evasive, hiding behind shadows,
Like a frightened little girl.
#2262/ 2-16-2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
"Oh," from the Grave of Muhammad (Letter #2) (and 'Haiku for Evil')
Haiku for Evil
No one goes, and
Does evil (or kills) in the Name of God;
That is Satan’s work.
#2276/2-17-2008
Letter: II
“Oh,” from the Grave of Muhammad
Inspired by Raguel (archangel)
“Oh!” Surprised by death
was—Muhammad?
He suffered from the anger and hate,
filaments he had inside his breast:
madness—; he lays now in his illness,
covered with sand…
his soul, in a washbasin.
His mouth calling “Oh!”
from the dead;
he was surprised
God did not let him into heaven.
Alas! Death came with no other
settlement!...
#2261/ 2-16-2008 (Revelation received, 3:00 PM)
From the 'Muhamad Papers,' No#3
No one goes, and
Does evil (or kills) in the Name of God;
That is Satan’s work.
#2276/2-17-2008
Letter: II
“Oh,” from the Grave of Muhammad
Inspired by Raguel (archangel)
“Oh!” Surprised by death
was—Muhammad?
He suffered from the anger and hate,
filaments he had inside his breast:
madness—; he lays now in his illness,
covered with sand…
his soul, in a washbasin.
His mouth calling “Oh!”
from the dead;
he was surprised
God did not let him into heaven.
Alas! Death came with no other
settlement!...
#2261/ 2-16-2008 (Revelation received, 3:00 PM)
From the 'Muhamad Papers,' No#3
Monday, February 18, 2008
City of the Opium Serpent (all three parts)
City of the Opium Serpent
((1926-27) (the Great Flood of ’26))
Advance: The nation’s newspapers read: “People died from Minnesota and Illinois in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. 27,000 square miles were flooded. From early September, 1926, through May, 1927; over a million people were victims of the tragedy. 650,000-700,000 people were displaced for many months, some for a full year. Over 300,000 of them were put up in tent encampments.” (And by the end of the flood, 1000-people would have died from the food.)
Part One
The Great Flood of ‘26
† Before he killed…, he licked butter off his fingers.
There was in progress a great flood, along the Mississippi (St. Paul, Minnesota), it had persisted from autumn 1926 (rain), and the winter of 1927 (snow), and its high point was now, in the month of April, 1927. It was the demon of all floods; it went from St. Paul, Minnesota, down to St. Louis, and onto New Orleans, and into the Gulf of Mexico (and soaked thirteen states in all). As one might expect, there were many causalities, and damage was on a paramount scale, along with social order being unmanageable, and the political scene, or issues unable to deal with this scope of disaster, and the consequences would be weighed and balanced way into the future. But at present the levees up and down the Mississippi, were mostly being covered over with water, and on the upper levee in St. Paul, there were five-hundred residences that lived on the levee underneath The High Bridge, as this mounting disaster was at hand. At one point, the Mississippi River was sixty-miles wide, wider than the widest part of the Amazon. Up and down the river, some 6000-boats and men were employed to assist in rescuing procedures; but in a little room, in the police station near Jackson and 10th Street sat the Captain of the Police, Captain Roger Schultz, whom this story is really about—he sat there, leaning back, a spittoon to his left side, he chewed tobacco, he was sixty-years old. As I was saying, or about to say, he chewed and drank, among other things, and right now he was tired, and leaned back to rest from the impeding flood waters, impeding I say, since the sandbags were holding some of the water back at present, yet it was an exacting flood.
Nonetheless, the waters were over the pier, the levee was under several feet of water some houses floating out into the center part of the river, others breaking up, and were boards floating down the river, and the river was rising to street level, up towards West Seventh Street, and filling the sewer system, and starting to drawn the downtown area—slowly. The stores were all closing: the Emporium, the Golden Rule, Woolworths, Grants, and the First National Bank. On East Seventh Street, the furniture stores were putting up their sofas on stilts, in fear the damp would ruin them, and in fear the dam of sandbags, would break and they’d have to hightail it out of there and not have a chance to secure their property.
Eighty percent of the folks on the levee were unaccounted for at this time: most of the folks who live on the levee were immigrants: Irish, Italian, some Germans and Polish, for the most part, the lower class of the city you might add.
The Captain had arranged one-hundred volunteers to sandbag the streets leading up to West Seventh Street and along West Seventh Street also; thus, stopping a high percentage of the water that would eventually, leak, or roll down hill to the inner city, but it wasn’t working too well.
Hundreds of bystanders were watching the rising river, the sandbaggers: mostly, old folks, children, dogs, women, and so forth.
Floods along the Mississippi were not uncommon, but this one was as if Noah himself was coming up out of the dead, like a ghost, up river out of deluge, 5000-years late, to preach the word of God. If anything, it made a lot of folks pray that never did before, it also made the church bells ring like they never did before (and all the churches were filled up with folks the clergy never saw before), and it was going to make the funeral parlors rich. God has His funny ways, that is for sure, for He got everyone’s attention, those who thought who needs God in the good times, thus, I think he took them away for a spell.
Part Two
Crisis and Emergency
Emergency procedures in the city were activated, as this crisis continued from day to day. The crowds gathered around the sandbagging and the cliffs overlooking the Mississippi, looking down upon the river from the upper cliffs that is, they all could see things were not getting better, that they would get worse first, before better, and hopefully, with prayer and wit and wisdom, they could ride out the flood, yet before it ended, there would be one-thousand dead.
Many of inner city folks, moved north, all the way towards Jim Hills Farm, a good seven miles outside of the inner city, some made tents, others stayed at the houses of relatives, and still others slept in barns and so forth. These were trying times, and one needed to be humble, if not creative, for some even slept onto of their roofs, with canvas over them, in fear their lightly built homes of wood and partly stone would crumble if and when the food might rich them.
In addition, the hospitals were becoming filled with patients; St. Joseph’s in the downtown area, and Anchor Hospital, the city’s main hospital, a little ways out of the downtown area. …
† And before he killed…he took a half gram of opium in hand, twice he repeated this, and licked butter off, his fingers.
Doctor Patricia Sowell, was in the police station, walking about the dead bodies being held in what was normally the garage area, connected onto the police station. The Captain knew the Doctor, and asked her what he was up to? The bodies were stacked on pallets, the good doctor could smell opium, smoke, accelerated, that is it permeated the area.
The Captained sensed the doctors interference was dangerous, and could be taxing, he was checking the bodies out pretty good, and objected, according to his face, how they were being stacked, there just had been sixty-people in the chilled large garage.
—The Doctor looked at the corpuses, it looked to him like a house of wax, the bodies wee full of bugs, looked like a mass of specks, specks of cinnamon, as one lays on top of the other, the bugs eating into the flesh, crowing into all the holes of the body . She was a young doctor, perhaps 35-years old. She noticed little bits of dried blood here and there on the faces of the dead, white sheets covered some of their body, soaked into the flesh like red kisses in the dark. On one of the pallets, the bodies were piled as high as haystacks. The arms and legs of the bodies were like cement, stiff as a yardstick, (paralysis). Some looked like frozen carp, chopped up with an ax.
“I smell opium, Captain, we could use some at the hospital, and we are completely out?”
It was better she felt to deal with the devil for the drugs to help the people that needed help, than to get involved in a long fight with what is right and wrong. The Captain, looking at her as if he was put into a corner, gave him enough to feed twenty people with the proper dosage for a few days, and then bid her farewell.
Part Three
The Opium
† Before he killed…he had coffee with his second dose of opium, and licked his fingers clean of butter.
The Doctor left, after she had made her completed rounds at Anchor Hospital, drove her Model T Ford to the police station. It was just before dusk. She had walked up a flights of stairs, she figured the Captain would be in his office still working, and perhaps she could hit him up for some more of his opium, the hospital was completely out again. She noticed, as she came towards his office door, through the adjacent window, he was eating his dinner. He had stewed fruit, it looked like, wheat bread, and it was highly buttered, he had a young Negro boy sitting in the corner with a locked box, under his chair, his feet dangled over the chair, didn’t touch the floor, but it seemed he was ready if need be to jump off the chair, unlock the large square box and do what he was suppose to do; that is where he kept his opium, she concluded. The boy could not have been over ten or eleven years old.
Everyone knew, but her I suppose, the old Captain, was using the opium for a third of his life, it was an open situation, but closed to talk about. Where he got it, is another question, and another story.
The boy measured the dosage for the Captain, and gave it to him, it was always the same (the boy had worked for him, going on several months now, he changed them ever so often), he never increased it or decreased it, nor did he mix (with alcohol) or for that matter, use other substances, such as morphine, a lesser evil, as a habit, or exchange. I suppose he did this to maintain some character, and his position.
“I see everyone has stopped with the sandbagging,” mentioned the Doctor, as she opened up his door, now standing in front of him, he is behind his desk, the boy has just given him another dosage, the Captain droopy eyed, more so than usual, looks at the doctor, shows a flat expression, of exasperation. She now looks towards the boy. He is smiling, for some odd reason, or perhaps he smiles a lot, the doctor concludes after a moment’s time of reflection, yet it is a weird smile.
“Weren’t you here a while ago,” asks the Captain, licking his fingers, barely licking his fingers.
He washes down a tablet with milk.
“How many of those have you had?” asked the Doctor.
“Two, as usually,” he looks towards the boy, “Right—boy?” he asks, a rhetorical question, because that is what he always has, and he turns back to Dr. Sowell. “Two doctor, just two, why do you ask, and matter-of-fact, what do you want, as if I don’t know?” (She smiles at that remark.)
You can see twilight seeping through the outside window, day is being covered up with night, and the Captain lights a kerosene lamp, barely lights it, and almost falls on top of it. He can now feel the opium flushed through his veins, like a race horse, through his neck, and his legs, and mind; his mind becomes foggy, dreamy.
“Are you here for something Doctor?” he asks again, “or do you simply want an update on the dead bodies we have in the garage?” (Ha ha, he laughs, because he knows she wants some opium.)
He now hastily sucks the butter off his fingers, looks at the boy, the black boy, he is smiling, he drinks a sip from his coffee cup, looks at the boy again, squints his eyes, says, “How many times did I ask for my second dose?”
The boy smiles, “Six, sir.”
“And did you give me a dosage, tablet each time I asked?” questioned the Captain.
“Yes sir, I did as you asked,” said the boy, with a smirk.
The boy starts to laugh, laugh so hard he has to hold his belly—actually pees in his pants in the process of laughing, he laughs so hard, it is like a donkey, as the Captain falls back into his chair—and I mean falls back. The Doctor dumfounded, looks at each of them, seriously looks, but is almost paralyzed, unknowing for the moment what to do, or say. The Captain had now figured it out, he was next to dead, he could hardly see, he pulls out of his drawer a 45-Webley Revolver, it has shells in it already, and he aims it at the boy, and licks the butter off his finger, says “And I passed you on your Boy Scout test…!” and pulls the hammer back, and the bullet is released from the chamber of the gun, smoke from its tip seep out of it, and the boy flies backward into his chair, dead, as the Captain also falls over his desk, dead; and the doctor, just shakes her head, as if to say, ‘what just took place here,’ and after a minute, getting her composure back, not wanting to be involved with the mess, simply takes the opium box, and leaves the scene, as she came, and no one was the wiser, and the hospital had enough opium for the next two weeks. And she never returned to that police station, never—ever, not even for the Boy Scouts.
Written in the afternoon at Starbucks, in Lima, Peru, 2-18-2007
((1926-27) (the Great Flood of ’26))
Advance: The nation’s newspapers read: “People died from Minnesota and Illinois in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. 27,000 square miles were flooded. From early September, 1926, through May, 1927; over a million people were victims of the tragedy. 650,000-700,000 people were displaced for many months, some for a full year. Over 300,000 of them were put up in tent encampments.” (And by the end of the flood, 1000-people would have died from the food.)
Part One
The Great Flood of ‘26
† Before he killed…, he licked butter off his fingers.
There was in progress a great flood, along the Mississippi (St. Paul, Minnesota), it had persisted from autumn 1926 (rain), and the winter of 1927 (snow), and its high point was now, in the month of April, 1927. It was the demon of all floods; it went from St. Paul, Minnesota, down to St. Louis, and onto New Orleans, and into the Gulf of Mexico (and soaked thirteen states in all). As one might expect, there were many causalities, and damage was on a paramount scale, along with social order being unmanageable, and the political scene, or issues unable to deal with this scope of disaster, and the consequences would be weighed and balanced way into the future. But at present the levees up and down the Mississippi, were mostly being covered over with water, and on the upper levee in St. Paul, there were five-hundred residences that lived on the levee underneath The High Bridge, as this mounting disaster was at hand. At one point, the Mississippi River was sixty-miles wide, wider than the widest part of the Amazon. Up and down the river, some 6000-boats and men were employed to assist in rescuing procedures; but in a little room, in the police station near Jackson and 10th Street sat the Captain of the Police, Captain Roger Schultz, whom this story is really about—he sat there, leaning back, a spittoon to his left side, he chewed tobacco, he was sixty-years old. As I was saying, or about to say, he chewed and drank, among other things, and right now he was tired, and leaned back to rest from the impeding flood waters, impeding I say, since the sandbags were holding some of the water back at present, yet it was an exacting flood.
Nonetheless, the waters were over the pier, the levee was under several feet of water some houses floating out into the center part of the river, others breaking up, and were boards floating down the river, and the river was rising to street level, up towards West Seventh Street, and filling the sewer system, and starting to drawn the downtown area—slowly. The stores were all closing: the Emporium, the Golden Rule, Woolworths, Grants, and the First National Bank. On East Seventh Street, the furniture stores were putting up their sofas on stilts, in fear the damp would ruin them, and in fear the dam of sandbags, would break and they’d have to hightail it out of there and not have a chance to secure their property.
Eighty percent of the folks on the levee were unaccounted for at this time: most of the folks who live on the levee were immigrants: Irish, Italian, some Germans and Polish, for the most part, the lower class of the city you might add.
The Captain had arranged one-hundred volunteers to sandbag the streets leading up to West Seventh Street and along West Seventh Street also; thus, stopping a high percentage of the water that would eventually, leak, or roll down hill to the inner city, but it wasn’t working too well.
Hundreds of bystanders were watching the rising river, the sandbaggers: mostly, old folks, children, dogs, women, and so forth.
Floods along the Mississippi were not uncommon, but this one was as if Noah himself was coming up out of the dead, like a ghost, up river out of deluge, 5000-years late, to preach the word of God. If anything, it made a lot of folks pray that never did before, it also made the church bells ring like they never did before (and all the churches were filled up with folks the clergy never saw before), and it was going to make the funeral parlors rich. God has His funny ways, that is for sure, for He got everyone’s attention, those who thought who needs God in the good times, thus, I think he took them away for a spell.
Part Two
Crisis and Emergency
Emergency procedures in the city were activated, as this crisis continued from day to day. The crowds gathered around the sandbagging and the cliffs overlooking the Mississippi, looking down upon the river from the upper cliffs that is, they all could see things were not getting better, that they would get worse first, before better, and hopefully, with prayer and wit and wisdom, they could ride out the flood, yet before it ended, there would be one-thousand dead.
Many of inner city folks, moved north, all the way towards Jim Hills Farm, a good seven miles outside of the inner city, some made tents, others stayed at the houses of relatives, and still others slept in barns and so forth. These were trying times, and one needed to be humble, if not creative, for some even slept onto of their roofs, with canvas over them, in fear their lightly built homes of wood and partly stone would crumble if and when the food might rich them.
In addition, the hospitals were becoming filled with patients; St. Joseph’s in the downtown area, and Anchor Hospital, the city’s main hospital, a little ways out of the downtown area. …
† And before he killed…he took a half gram of opium in hand, twice he repeated this, and licked butter off, his fingers.
Doctor Patricia Sowell, was in the police station, walking about the dead bodies being held in what was normally the garage area, connected onto the police station. The Captain knew the Doctor, and asked her what he was up to? The bodies were stacked on pallets, the good doctor could smell opium, smoke, accelerated, that is it permeated the area.
The Captained sensed the doctors interference was dangerous, and could be taxing, he was checking the bodies out pretty good, and objected, according to his face, how they were being stacked, there just had been sixty-people in the chilled large garage.
—The Doctor looked at the corpuses, it looked to him like a house of wax, the bodies wee full of bugs, looked like a mass of specks, specks of cinnamon, as one lays on top of the other, the bugs eating into the flesh, crowing into all the holes of the body . She was a young doctor, perhaps 35-years old. She noticed little bits of dried blood here and there on the faces of the dead, white sheets covered some of their body, soaked into the flesh like red kisses in the dark. On one of the pallets, the bodies were piled as high as haystacks. The arms and legs of the bodies were like cement, stiff as a yardstick, (paralysis). Some looked like frozen carp, chopped up with an ax.
“I smell opium, Captain, we could use some at the hospital, and we are completely out?”
It was better she felt to deal with the devil for the drugs to help the people that needed help, than to get involved in a long fight with what is right and wrong. The Captain, looking at her as if he was put into a corner, gave him enough to feed twenty people with the proper dosage for a few days, and then bid her farewell.
Part Three
The Opium
† Before he killed…he had coffee with his second dose of opium, and licked his fingers clean of butter.
The Doctor left, after she had made her completed rounds at Anchor Hospital, drove her Model T Ford to the police station. It was just before dusk. She had walked up a flights of stairs, she figured the Captain would be in his office still working, and perhaps she could hit him up for some more of his opium, the hospital was completely out again. She noticed, as she came towards his office door, through the adjacent window, he was eating his dinner. He had stewed fruit, it looked like, wheat bread, and it was highly buttered, he had a young Negro boy sitting in the corner with a locked box, under his chair, his feet dangled over the chair, didn’t touch the floor, but it seemed he was ready if need be to jump off the chair, unlock the large square box and do what he was suppose to do; that is where he kept his opium, she concluded. The boy could not have been over ten or eleven years old.
Everyone knew, but her I suppose, the old Captain, was using the opium for a third of his life, it was an open situation, but closed to talk about. Where he got it, is another question, and another story.
The boy measured the dosage for the Captain, and gave it to him, it was always the same (the boy had worked for him, going on several months now, he changed them ever so often), he never increased it or decreased it, nor did he mix (with alcohol) or for that matter, use other substances, such as morphine, a lesser evil, as a habit, or exchange. I suppose he did this to maintain some character, and his position.
“I see everyone has stopped with the sandbagging,” mentioned the Doctor, as she opened up his door, now standing in front of him, he is behind his desk, the boy has just given him another dosage, the Captain droopy eyed, more so than usual, looks at the doctor, shows a flat expression, of exasperation. She now looks towards the boy. He is smiling, for some odd reason, or perhaps he smiles a lot, the doctor concludes after a moment’s time of reflection, yet it is a weird smile.
“Weren’t you here a while ago,” asks the Captain, licking his fingers, barely licking his fingers.
He washes down a tablet with milk.
“How many of those have you had?” asked the Doctor.
“Two, as usually,” he looks towards the boy, “Right—boy?” he asks, a rhetorical question, because that is what he always has, and he turns back to Dr. Sowell. “Two doctor, just two, why do you ask, and matter-of-fact, what do you want, as if I don’t know?” (She smiles at that remark.)
You can see twilight seeping through the outside window, day is being covered up with night, and the Captain lights a kerosene lamp, barely lights it, and almost falls on top of it. He can now feel the opium flushed through his veins, like a race horse, through his neck, and his legs, and mind; his mind becomes foggy, dreamy.
“Are you here for something Doctor?” he asks again, “or do you simply want an update on the dead bodies we have in the garage?” (Ha ha, he laughs, because he knows she wants some opium.)
He now hastily sucks the butter off his fingers, looks at the boy, the black boy, he is smiling, he drinks a sip from his coffee cup, looks at the boy again, squints his eyes, says, “How many times did I ask for my second dose?”
The boy smiles, “Six, sir.”
“And did you give me a dosage, tablet each time I asked?” questioned the Captain.
“Yes sir, I did as you asked,” said the boy, with a smirk.
The boy starts to laugh, laugh so hard he has to hold his belly—actually pees in his pants in the process of laughing, he laughs so hard, it is like a donkey, as the Captain falls back into his chair—and I mean falls back. The Doctor dumfounded, looks at each of them, seriously looks, but is almost paralyzed, unknowing for the moment what to do, or say. The Captain had now figured it out, he was next to dead, he could hardly see, he pulls out of his drawer a 45-Webley Revolver, it has shells in it already, and he aims it at the boy, and licks the butter off his finger, says “And I passed you on your Boy Scout test…!” and pulls the hammer back, and the bullet is released from the chamber of the gun, smoke from its tip seep out of it, and the boy flies backward into his chair, dead, as the Captain also falls over his desk, dead; and the doctor, just shakes her head, as if to say, ‘what just took place here,’ and after a minute, getting her composure back, not wanting to be involved with the mess, simply takes the opium box, and leaves the scene, as she came, and no one was the wiser, and the hospital had enough opium for the next two weeks. And she never returned to that police station, never—ever, not even for the Boy Scouts.
Written in the afternoon at Starbucks, in Lima, Peru, 2-18-2007
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The Pest (a poem)
The Pest
Father me not, for whoever you were, you didn’t anyway
And I am happy just with that…
And I have a man, who claims to be my son, Mike,
And today there is doubt.
Today I see a fiend between us: me, and him.
They (he and his wife) both lurk in the wings
She wants something, not sure what, but she’s
Pushing him to get it…!
Now I am sixty-years old, time has come
And gone, and look where time has brought us.
A few days ago, his wife wrote, she’s been a
Knife to my throat, waiting for me to
choke, lay in my grave, dead as a washed
up, rag…she is like a toy ship
Sailing around my galley, calling out:
“Your son wants to talk to you (but he
Doesn’t ask, it is she…),
Mend fences,” but there were never fences
To mend, I never made them, and he, he
Never agreed to paint them, had I made them.
We didn’t do a thing together.
So much she doesn’t know, he was a drunk
And I helped him, like a bum on a road, and
I helped him, gave him a fin one day, and
A few other days, always begging, begging,
All he ever had to say was: I want more.
And his wife is the bee, wish they were like
My father, and just leave me alone…
Mike has for 41-years, and all of a sudden,
he wants to cuddle, as if I was his teddy bear,
An once of me, is not for sale, not an once,
and perhaps all the juices left, in me he’d like
to cut out, old dead things let them lay where
they are, we were never a thing.
You were a young fox, hiding under your booze
Like mole, dim, in a hole, I tried to befriend you,
and you Said, “Where is my gift for my birthday,”
and not once did you call me father, give me gifts,
You were like salt on a wound, a young pest.
To appear again and say, ‘Here I am!’ as if
You were an archangel, and a special gift to me,
Take your wife, and her broomstick, and knife,
And let me live my life, my final days, without
A stranger in my way…stranger, stranger,
Away, away, away, go away…far away.
#2277 (2-18-2008)
Father me not, for whoever you were, you didn’t anyway
And I am happy just with that…
And I have a man, who claims to be my son, Mike,
And today there is doubt.
Today I see a fiend between us: me, and him.
They (he and his wife) both lurk in the wings
She wants something, not sure what, but she’s
Pushing him to get it…!
Now I am sixty-years old, time has come
And gone, and look where time has brought us.
A few days ago, his wife wrote, she’s been a
Knife to my throat, waiting for me to
choke, lay in my grave, dead as a washed
up, rag…she is like a toy ship
Sailing around my galley, calling out:
“Your son wants to talk to you (but he
Doesn’t ask, it is she…),
Mend fences,” but there were never fences
To mend, I never made them, and he, he
Never agreed to paint them, had I made them.
We didn’t do a thing together.
So much she doesn’t know, he was a drunk
And I helped him, like a bum on a road, and
I helped him, gave him a fin one day, and
A few other days, always begging, begging,
All he ever had to say was: I want more.
And his wife is the bee, wish they were like
My father, and just leave me alone…
Mike has for 41-years, and all of a sudden,
he wants to cuddle, as if I was his teddy bear,
An once of me, is not for sale, not an once,
and perhaps all the juices left, in me he’d like
to cut out, old dead things let them lay where
they are, we were never a thing.
You were a young fox, hiding under your booze
Like mole, dim, in a hole, I tried to befriend you,
and you Said, “Where is my gift for my birthday,”
and not once did you call me father, give me gifts,
You were like salt on a wound, a young pest.
To appear again and say, ‘Here I am!’ as if
You were an archangel, and a special gift to me,
Take your wife, and her broomstick, and knife,
And let me live my life, my final days, without
A stranger in my way…stranger, stranger,
Away, away, away, go away…far away.
#2277 (2-18-2008)
Saturday, February 16, 2008
"Story of the Cranes" (Inspired from the spirit voice of Rufael, the Archangel)
“Story of the Cranes" (Inspired from the spirit voice of Rufael)
“Story of the Cranes"
(the Satanic Verse),
Muhammad’s involvement,
I lived through these times,
the account holds true,
that Muhammad pronounced
a verse, acknowledging the existence
of three Meccan goddesses
considered to be the daughters
of Allah—praising them he did,
and thereafter appealing for their
intercession. According to my
observations, Muhammad later
retracted his statements,
the verses, saying Gabriel
had instructed him to do so.
Just in time, I would guess?
Note: In the tenth century this was rejected as a false entry of his life, yet it stood the test of time, for 350-years, until one day, woops, it is no longer history. 2269 2-15-2008 (1:30 AM, received revelation). Taken from the "Muhammed Papers" Letter #9
“Story of the Cranes"
(the Satanic Verse),
Muhammad’s involvement,
I lived through these times,
the account holds true,
that Muhammad pronounced
a verse, acknowledging the existence
of three Meccan goddesses
considered to be the daughters
of Allah—praising them he did,
and thereafter appealing for their
intercession. According to my
observations, Muhammad later
retracted his statements,
the verses, saying Gabriel
had instructed him to do so.
Just in time, I would guess?
Note: In the tenth century this was rejected as a false entry of his life, yet it stood the test of time, for 350-years, until one day, woops, it is no longer history. 2269 2-15-2008 (1:30 AM, received revelation). Taken from the "Muhammed Papers" Letter #9
A Poetic Sketch on: A´isha Bint Abu Bakr (3rd wife to Mohammad)
A Poetic Sketch on:A´isha Bint Abu Bakr
(Wife of the Prophet)
To my understanding Muhammad the Prophet, had 13-wives.
Aisha was his 3rd, and very, very, very young; she was, said to
have been nine-years old, and the only virgin. Sawda, his second,
so it is said, yet there is a belief out there Aisha may have been his
second instead, but did not make love to her until after He wed Sawda,
being so very, very, very young ((`A´isha Bint Abu Bakr)(she who lives))
`A´isha Bint Abu Bakr: mother of believers: so it was, in older times,
one often married to strengthen ties, with families, clans, with other
armies, and kingdoms, and so it has been suggested, Muhammad did
just that, similar to Alexander the Great.
Aisha, lived with her parents to the age of nine, when the marriage
was consummated. Thus, after the wedding, it is said, Aisha continued
to play with her toys, in Median, in 622 AD.
It seems history records she was his most favoured wife, and he received
most of his revelations when she was in his presence. And even though
it might have been motivated for other reasons, they did become fond of
each other, and blessed by heaven.
It has been also said, Aisha had gone looking for her necklace, one
Morning, and her caravan had taken off, left her behind, unnoticed,
and soon after a stranger found her, brought her back to the caravan, and
was thereafter was called an adulater, until that is, until Muhammad
got a new revelation, from heaven, clearing her of any such charges.
After Muhammad’s death in 632 AD, at the age of 62, Aisha’s father became
the leader of the people, the new found religion, Islam, but his leadership
was to be a short run, only two years, and he gave it to Umar; whom ruled
for ten years, and was followed by another leader, thereafter.
End Note: It would seem, or at least it does to me, Aisha, was a learned woman, who—throughout her remaining years—gave stories to the Muslim world about her husband. Of her own time she must had been quite valuable as a historian. She is now of course, revered as a model for Islamic Woman. She also raised an Army, and fought against Ali, her step-son in-law. She was quite a woman indeed.
#2260 2-16-2008
(Wife of the Prophet)
To my understanding Muhammad the Prophet, had 13-wives.
Aisha was his 3rd, and very, very, very young; she was, said to
have been nine-years old, and the only virgin. Sawda, his second,
so it is said, yet there is a belief out there Aisha may have been his
second instead, but did not make love to her until after He wed Sawda,
being so very, very, very young ((`A´isha Bint Abu Bakr)(she who lives))
`A´isha Bint Abu Bakr: mother of believers: so it was, in older times,
one often married to strengthen ties, with families, clans, with other
armies, and kingdoms, and so it has been suggested, Muhammad did
just that, similar to Alexander the Great.
Aisha, lived with her parents to the age of nine, when the marriage
was consummated. Thus, after the wedding, it is said, Aisha continued
to play with her toys, in Median, in 622 AD.
It seems history records she was his most favoured wife, and he received
most of his revelations when she was in his presence. And even though
it might have been motivated for other reasons, they did become fond of
each other, and blessed by heaven.
It has been also said, Aisha had gone looking for her necklace, one
Morning, and her caravan had taken off, left her behind, unnoticed,
and soon after a stranger found her, brought her back to the caravan, and
was thereafter was called an adulater, until that is, until Muhammad
got a new revelation, from heaven, clearing her of any such charges.
After Muhammad’s death in 632 AD, at the age of 62, Aisha’s father became
the leader of the people, the new found religion, Islam, but his leadership
was to be a short run, only two years, and he gave it to Umar; whom ruled
for ten years, and was followed by another leader, thereafter.
End Note: It would seem, or at least it does to me, Aisha, was a learned woman, who—throughout her remaining years—gave stories to the Muslim world about her husband. Of her own time she must had been quite valuable as a historian. She is now of course, revered as a model for Islamic Woman. She also raised an Army, and fought against Ali, her step-son in-law. She was quite a woman indeed.
#2260 2-16-2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Three Poems: "Silent Love," "Dust!" & "Poet of the City"
Silent Love
To love
silently love
is painful
(raw
tender);
you feel like
your always
in a corner.
You want to
approach
or wish you
had…
the silent opposite
the unknowing
opposite.
Still holding
onto
that silent love
holding on,
with both
hands.
You don’t
even hear the
noises around
you
(coming in
or going out)!
There you are
with her—,
content
as a bear
with honey;
not even
a word said…
in this
romance.
A flat road
to nowhere!...
#2257 2-14-2008
Dust!
As I’ve traveled throughout the world and such
Now being in old age, I don’t remember much
Along the way, a few kind and mysterious faces
The rest has turned into shadows and dust!
#2256 2-14-2008
Poet of the City
(Haiku)
When the city loves you
then, and only then,
will you be written in stone
(as a poet)!
#2255 2-14-2008
To love
silently love
is painful
(raw
tender);
you feel like
your always
in a corner.
You want to
approach
or wish you
had…
the silent opposite
the unknowing
opposite.
Still holding
onto
that silent love
holding on,
with both
hands.
You don’t
even hear the
noises around
you
(coming in
or going out)!
There you are
with her—,
content
as a bear
with honey;
not even
a word said…
in this
romance.
A flat road
to nowhere!...
#2257 2-14-2008
Dust!
As I’ve traveled throughout the world and such
Now being in old age, I don’t remember much
Along the way, a few kind and mysterious faces
The rest has turned into shadows and dust!
#2256 2-14-2008
Poet of the City
(Haiku)
When the city loves you
then, and only then,
will you be written in stone
(as a poet)!
#2255 2-14-2008
Rotten Apples (a poem)
Rotten Apples
It is only wise to be with people you love
To share in, part of your life, it pleases the soul,
It will please the soul more staying close to them,
For the soul wishes it is long and longs for it.
I have perceived this to be true, true enough,
To be surrounded by breathing and laughing flesh
That holds me as enough, to be who I am.
Yet so often we choice less, and less we get. There
Is nothing greater than touch, and the soft call
Of ones name. I’ve known so many curved necks
Folks, who listen and hope, pause and joke, freely
Bring depression onto others with their gutters.
It is the knees, the joints that convey curiously
And make a man or woman stay, with a rotten
Apple, as if it was duty—thus passes the days,
And more days and more days, until you’re dead.
The body knows when it has had enough, enough
Corruptness, defilement; it expresses the accounts,
On the face, in the heart, in the limbs, hips and wrists,
In the walk, in the knees, it bends one like cotton.
It’s all in the rotten apples, I hope you know, the rotten
Apples you chose to be with, love, live, grow, and endure.
You see, quality does not strike even through the sweet talk,
The cotton, it gives the souls of another perfect harmony—
It just doesn’t render to them, their wills, for long; if one does
It is her or she, whom become the sick ones, the beguile
—nameless.
2-14-2008/ #2251
It is only wise to be with people you love
To share in, part of your life, it pleases the soul,
It will please the soul more staying close to them,
For the soul wishes it is long and longs for it.
I have perceived this to be true, true enough,
To be surrounded by breathing and laughing flesh
That holds me as enough, to be who I am.
Yet so often we choice less, and less we get. There
Is nothing greater than touch, and the soft call
Of ones name. I’ve known so many curved necks
Folks, who listen and hope, pause and joke, freely
Bring depression onto others with their gutters.
It is the knees, the joints that convey curiously
And make a man or woman stay, with a rotten
Apple, as if it was duty—thus passes the days,
And more days and more days, until you’re dead.
The body knows when it has had enough, enough
Corruptness, defilement; it expresses the accounts,
On the face, in the heart, in the limbs, hips and wrists,
In the walk, in the knees, it bends one like cotton.
It’s all in the rotten apples, I hope you know, the rotten
Apples you chose to be with, love, live, grow, and endure.
You see, quality does not strike even through the sweet talk,
The cotton, it gives the souls of another perfect harmony—
It just doesn’t render to them, their wills, for long; if one does
It is her or she, whom become the sick ones, the beguile
—nameless.
2-14-2008/ #2251
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The Mad Moche (the Baron)
The Mad Moche (the Baron)
(The Executioner from Chan Chan) He made ceramic replicas of all the men he executed, the Executioner of Chan Chan, in what is known now as Northern Peru, by Trujillo. His pottery has been found in the sands near and in the Valle of Sipan, Chan Chan, and in the Andes around Cusco, as well as in the Mantaro Valley of Peru, near Huancayo.
(The Executioner from Chan Chan) He made ceramic replicas of all the men he executed, the Executioner of Chan Chan, in what is known now as Northern Peru, by Trujillo. His pottery has been found in the sands near and in the Valle of Sipan, Chan Chan, and in the Andes around Cusco, as well as in the Mantaro Valley of Peru, near Huancayo.
The Executioner (or Moche, contracted Moche) was a great artist in his own right. The devil had his soul, and an angel had his spirit, and he lay in a place in-between called, ‘The Shadowlands,’ or as we might call it as Christians, purgatory, for he was neither bad nor good, he just liked what he did, execute the condemned, under the rulership of the kingdom, in the 2ND Century after Christ. I shall call this so called Mad Moche, (as he was known) El Baron (the Baron), for he was a magnet in watching the death of his condemned comrades, it was his high, his delight, his vice, his lust, his drug, wine, all these addictive things rolled in one.
Legend says, upon his death bed, the devil was fighting with Gabriel, the Archangel, for his soul. Gabriel wanted to bring him to paradise, and the Devil wanted to bring him to Hades, the land of the dead. Thus, God made a resolution, saying, if the Executioner could find each and every one of his carefully carved, sculptural faces on the ceramics he made of his sufferers, he would go to paradise, and of course destroy them once found, for it was out of some kind of lust he created these ceramics. Should he give up, or not find these relics, by the time of the New Age, which was to be ten-years past the Age of Aquarius, (or the turn of the 20th century, unto the 21st there about), he would be bound to the hip of the Devil, and his, the devil’s, to do with as he please.
And to every legend there is truth to some degree, wouldn’t you agree? It would commence after his death, and he lived to a ripe old age, of 103, years. Thus started his long and ghostly journey across the world, and in particular Peru, for the 103, relics he made and sold, each of a person he had executed, each for one of his years of life.
Let me enlighten you about the Baron, I have named him that simply because we must jump ahead of time now, and for him to be called an Executioner would be out of date, 1750-years out of date. But I must tell you why he was given that second chance, I mean besides his case being a tinge complicated, God wanted to rid the earth of those relics, and for a good reason. Now we all know God can do it with the click of a finger, but seldom does he do things that way, He normally uses the forces He has already put into focus. And this is no different.
Each face of the ceramics, or potter was of course different. People who owned them throughout the centuries have claimed they held some kind of supernatural cause and effect, on people who owned them. When the Baron created these pieces of art, he gave complete attention to their expressions. This of course produced feature of breath. He revealed such a life of force in his figures, it was astonishing; people felt his residue within them. Excavations have found some of these spectacular pieces; if anything, this was or is his legacy you could say.
The origin of this story really takes place, a decade or more, when I first had come to Peru, now being February, of 2008, when I first took a tip to Northern Peru, and to the grave site of Sipan, and visited Chan Chan, and other spots around Peru.
I had gotten my piece, my relic, my Moche ceramic by the Mad Moche, from the guide who knew an old lady, during my visit at the pyramids of Sipan, the old lady had a number of these so called aged ceramics in a bag underneath her vegetable stand; she really didn’t know what she had, sold it to me for fifty soles, or seventeen dollars, American money. These pieces are highly valued. Some go between $2500 to $8000 a piece, but one by the Executioner, would be, or could be (depending on its expressions) triple, if indeed you could find one and have it verified. I have several pieces of Moche ceramics in my home in Peru, and I know archeologists throughout the world, one who knows of the Chimu, and Moche cultures, who has authenticated this to be exactly what it is, a piece by the Mad Moche himself.
Putting this aside for the moment, the Mad Moche, as he was known in the 15th and 16th centuries, was himself, I would guess a warrior, or his family had been acquainted with this part of life, for he knew their expressions quite well. Each piece is said to evoke a most unsettling spell, aura (sensation of some kind) in and around it. I know mine does; I even get the chills when I’m staring at it—too long, as if it wants to devour me whole, execute me.
The pottery is so expressive, so fine, you can even see on one ceramic, the tattoos on a character’s face. The piece I have would cost $8,000-dollars, minimum, and perhaps more. There was a sale recently in San Francisco, and a few pieces of this style poetry went for $50,000-dollars.
But there was an owner of a certain piece of this pottery, in the year 1555 AD, he had found it buried in the sands at what is known as Chan Chan (so he told his comrades), an ancient site in Peru, thus making the legend more plausible. The face of the Moche was very realistic, its nose came to a peak, like a birds beak, its eyes wide like an owls, a hat firmly over its head, and around its chin was a strap, and on his shoulder, he carried an ape like creature, some say, it is, or was a replica of the devil himself, the one that made the deal with Gabriel. The piece is supposed to represent the Mad Moche himself, it was the only self portrait he did, or made. This piece was sold for $20,000, in San Francisco last year. The year of 2010, will be the end of the old age, and the beginning of the new era, hence, for the Mad Moche, yes, ten-years after the Age of Aquarius (his deadline), behind what man calls the new century which started in 2000 AD. And until the last piece of poetry is found, 103 pieces in all, and destroyed, the Mad Moche, walks a think line between the devil and Gabriel, he will not get that creature off his shoulder neither, it is watching him, keeping an eye on his investment, so it is said.
This relic was found and sold recently in this person’s house who bought it not long ago at the sale, or auction, he was found dead and the piece broken into a hundred pieces, and some pieces missing so that it cannot be rebuilt. My piece is hidden in my garden, so if the ghost of the Mad Moche visits me, he can simply dig it up, I will not get into his way. I think my piece may be the last piece.
But in 1555 AD, this piece that was broken up, or is broken up now, was among a collector’s items, in Trujillo, said to have been an astronomer and cartographer; upon his arrival home one evening, he noticed a monkey in his house (so it was described as in the court documents), trying to hide the ceramic, even told the owner, if he had a good hiding place because the ghost of the Mad Moche was coming. And in haste, the host, simply told the ape like creature to hide it himself, and went and drew a map. Upon the arrival of the Mad Moche, and the little devil on his shoulder, the Baron asked, “Where have you hid the ceramic I am looking for,” for he knew the astronomer had hid it, not sure how, perhaps the little devil told him. You know how these imps and devils, and demon lie all the time.
Well, the astronomer simply said, “Ask your little helper on your shoulder, and he will tell you, since he hid it.”
The little ape looked shocked at the statement, said to his companion,
“He’s out of his head, how on earth would I know? I was with you all the time (all in Spanish of course).”
Well, the truth is that a likeness of the creature, was left on the shoulder of the Mad Moche I would expect, for such creatures cannot be at two places at the same time, unless the Mad Moche fell to sleep, and I am not sure if ghosts can sleep, nonetheless, the Mad Moche, got very mad, and tore his house apart, brick by brick—and the last thing he did, by suggestion of the imp, was to reach down into the mouth of the astronomer, and pulled his heart from its pumps, and roots, and watched him shrink to jelly onto the extremely hot bricks that lay all about now—and this was of course done, which proves the mending soul of the Mad Moche, did not indeed mend, he simple hid his anger until that moment.
But where was the ceramic? It was wrapped inside a dead rat’s carcass, one the ape like evil spirit found under the brick floor of the house. He had dragged him out of his den by his teeth, and opened his insides like cutting open a watermelon with his long talons, and placed the ceramic tightly within the corpses frame, and quickly placed him back where he had come from.
Well, it goes without saying, but I shall say it anyway, he did not pass his test, fulfill his part of the deal, and so the devil won this battle, but I think Gabriel was happy he lost, in the long run, it was to his advantage, he would have simply had to throw him out of heaven sooner or later anyhow. I must also add, to my understanding, the Mad Moche immediately was taken down yonder, to Hades, in fear, a new deal might be struck.
Written at EP’s Café, in Miraflores, Lima, Peru, today, around 2:30 PM, while waiting for my Lasagna to be done, over a hot cup of coffee; dedicated to Ben Szumskyj. (Title inspired by Ben.)
He Is What He Writes: The Weird Tales of Dennis L. Siluk (by: Benjamin Szumskyj)
He Is What He Writes: The Weird Tales of Dennis L. Siluk
by: Benjamin Szumskyj
Embarking on the critical study of author Dennis L. Siluk might be an endeavour that would fall on deaf ears, rather than the applause of a receptive audience. I mean no disrespect by this comment. This is because, despite dozens of published books and thousands of copies sold, Dennis L. Siluk’s literary career has been virtually undetected by the community of the weird tale. However, being unknown is potentially more rewarding than being found and forgotten, or worse still, ignored altogether. And being that none of Siluk’s many readers have chosen to study his works of fiction, bar the flurry of positive reviews, any study of his work will be both deserved and enlightening.
Siluk has written several books outside the weird tale canon, such as of poetry (Sirens, The Macabre Poems: and other selected poems), children’s stories (The Tale of Willie the Humpback Whale, Two Modern Short Stories of Immigrant Life: The Little Russian Twins & Uni’s Street Car), travel (Chasing the Sun, Romancing San Francisco: Sketches of Life in the Late '60's), mainstream (Perhaps It’s Love, Cold Kindness), non-fiction (A Path to Sobriety, the Inside Passage: A Common Sense Book on Understanding Alcoholism and Addiction, A Path to Relapse Prevention), thriller (The Mumbler), and pseudotheological (The Last Trumpet and the Woodbridge Demon).
The fiction collection that best encapsulates the style, imagination and originality of Siluk is Death on Demand: Seven Stories of Suspense (2003, iUniverse Inc). Though a relatively recent publication, it collects several stories written over a period of years. In discussing the following stories, I may reveal the endings in order to illustrate a point.
Death on Demand opens with, what I believe not only to be one of Siluk’s best stories, but perhaps one of the most powerfully written stories of the last decade ‘The Rape of Angelina’, a story which showcases the author’s background in psychology and sociology within a historical context. The story begins with a well-read individual who has acquired a forgotten poem written in 1278 AD entitled ‘The Lioness of Glastonbury’, whilst conducting research at an undisclosed university in England. Upon arriving in Glastonbury, he meets a man named Arthur who is distantly related to Angelina and happens to possess a copy of her diary, written in 1199 AD at the end of the Crusades. As he states:
“At Chalice Well, you will see a Lion’s Head. Angelina was a lioness. Although people thought she was timid, and coy, she was far from it. When she died, in 1221 AD, she left her diary, and the story of the three soldiers who wanted to rape her; one did the other two… Well, that’s part of the story; no one ever found out what happened to them or for that matter, how they died. But I know I got the diary. I found it in 1984, hidden in the old Abbey Barn, that place has a magnificent roof, doesn’t it?” [DOD, p. 18]
The story then changes to Angelina’s point of view, directly from her diary, as she recounts the events of that fateful year. The third chapter is crisply written, particularly the first section, in which the 13-year-old details her dream of finding a beloved knight and being married, her developing body, and the attention young boys give her. It’s an authentic narrative, for Angelina comes across as a sensible, mature and honourable girl who idolizes the life of King Arthur, as well as looking up to her grandfather. Soon enough, she is confronted by three wandering knights, who she believes to be visiting King Arthur’s grave site. However, they advance on her and each of the men rape Angelina. After being raped by the third attacker, who falls asleep (whom Angelina thinks is either English or Islamic-Arab), she picks up his sword and decapitates him.
Taking his bag of coins (‘I took them for my torn dress’ [DOD, p. 41]), she buries him (‘about three feet deep, and I rolled him into it just like mom puts in the ham during winter’ [DOD, p. 41]) and returns home, telling no one what had happened. That night, she asks her grandfather about the Holy Wars and Islamic culture, particularly, towards women. The next day, Angelina uses the remainder of the deceased rapist’s silver to buy a wolf, which she locks in a cage and is determined to domesticate.
Angelina continues her plan of revenge when, upon seeing the other two in a tavern, she tells the soberer of the pair to meet her at a disclosed location soon after. He agrees and upon leaving, Angelina buys some wine and quickly makes a visit to the local herb dealer, buying strong sleeping narcotics. Later on, she meets up with the man, tricks him into drinking the drugged wine, then releases the hungry wolf and he is mauled to death. Consider the macabre nature of the following scene, through the innocence of Angelina:
‘He couldn’t talk or make anymore sounds the wolf had chewed his nose and throat off, and open. I thought people died easy, but it’s not true. Sometimes they die slow. The wolf looked at me then went and started eating again, paying me little attention; I think he was making sure his meal was secure.’ [DOD, p. 65]
The third and final rapist is led to Chalice Well, where after passing out from drinking the same drugged wine, Angelina ‘tied his hands over his head; then tied his two legs together’, then proceeded to chop off his hands with his own sword and cast him down the well. The final scene is worth quoting at length,
‘As I look down the well, the rope followed him like a snake. He has no hands to untie his feet, and he can not climb the 30-feet to the top. And I know the well is pretty deep. I cannot see him, only hear his cries.
‘Now I put the top of the well cover back on; I will lock it now, so the children will not fall into it. I can still hear his screams, barely, but I do hear them, he is begging me to open the well door, and at the same time cursing me. He is not sorry for what he did to me, only sorry I could get revenge on him; now his body will sink soon, and he will sober up, or wake up drunk in hell.
‘I hear water splashing, he is lucky he is thin, not like the huge one, for he would sink if he was that big. He will get exhausted soon. I must bury the rest of his things.
‘”See Mr. Knight, you are paying for your sins. But I will tell the world you were a great knight, for that is what knights are created for; they are special. Thus, I will save you from disgrace. What would you do if you lived, just get drunk and rape more girls like me. Now, that is not what a good knight should have to look forward to. GOOD NIGHT!!” I think he heard me, I tried to say it loud enough through the locked well cover. Matter of fact he did hear me, he is saying “Come back…come backkkkkk, ppppleaseeeeezzzzzzz.” [DOD, p. 73]
Thus finish Angelina’s diary entries. Angelina tried to subconsciously forget her rape and murderous revenge, distancing herself from the whole experience and erasing the whole series of events from her mind. The townsfolk don’t believe she did it, nor would they desire to trial her for such atrocious crimes despite the evidence. Soon after, the Arthurian Green Knight enters the town and when the two meet one another, they instantly fall in love. After marrying one another, Angelina sadly dies in childbirth.
The final chapter returns to the present, with a psychological explanation of how Angelina erased the rape and killings from her memory. In reading this passage, one can begin to see Siluk’s knowledge in this area of psychology (in addition to the ‘Other’ voice heard by Angelina, throughout the story). The narrator ends up leaving Glastonbury, but the story remains there, for in leaving, he is unable to take away the story and he begins to disremember Angelina’s tragic life.
What makes this story work is that unlike many female characters that are raped in literature and extract vengeance, Angelina does not become a masculine force. Rather, she remains feminine and does not adopt the traits or personality of a male. Like Michael Moorcock in Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen (1978), Siluk is careful in his writing of one of humanity’s worst forms of violence. Angelina is such a likeable character who is able to remain stable of mind through her horrible ordeal that her reaction of vengeance becomes more realistic.
‘Seventh Born Son’ is an intriguing story, surrounding the life of ‘Vlad Bran, otherwise know as Vlad Hoof’ [DOD, p. 92], for he was born with a tail and hooves. Narrated by a ‘friend’ of Vlad’s, the story begins in Transylvania. What starts as a potentially clichéd story evolves into a cleverly crafted life story of a figure cursed by his environment. The stigma of literature, in this case Bram Stoker’s Dracula, has constructed a world to believe that Vlad’s hometown is a place of evil and vampirism. In deciding to leave the place he once called home and travel to Wales, he soon begins to think evil thoughts on killing other people. As a result, Vlad’s true nature begins to emerge as detailed in the following passage,
‘As several months passed, he established himself as a serious manager in the food department, the headwaiter, with several under him. And would attend weekly meetings concerning improvements, in which he gave good advice; never showing his discontent for the world outside his mind, his damaged soul. It was justice he yearned for. When he walked by city hall, he spit at it. When he walked by the National Museum he stopped and would always wonder if there were any misunderstood freaks of nature like him in there. He liked walking the riverfront and watching the alcoholics get drunk sitting by the benches, overlooking the Millennium Stadium. He felt if anyone knew what he was thinking – which was killing – and if they were half sober, they would realize he could and would carry it out. And just what he was thinking was revenge. Yes, revenge on the world. Anyone would do. But he was not a vampire like people thought him as. He was just misunderstood. He didn’t need blood to cure him, only blood to wipe the dirt they threw on him away. And so, as spring came, he drew up his plan.’ [DOD, p. 94]
So begins Vlad’s vengeful campaign. His first victim is a female whom he decapitates, the second victim is a priest lured away from the police and stabbed in the back, the third victim is raped and then mauled by wild dogs, the fourth victim is an old man pushed down a well, the fifth victim is a homeless man that is buried alive, while the sixth and seventh victims…are Vlad himself. He commits suicide (the flesh), then rigs a trap that when the police break down his door (after being tipped off by his ‘friend’), drives a stake into his chest, thus destroying Vlad’s spirit. All up, seven victims are slain, just as Vlad had wanted it. It is a satisfactory ending to a story fuelled by bloody passion and the relentless hatred of being a social outcast.
Even at the end of the story, we are never told in words as to whether there is any real supernaturalism in the story. We are made to believe that this all happened, regardless of the preconceived belief that Vlad was a vampire. If we are to toy with the belief that Vlad is capable of supernatural feats, say hypnotism (after his third victim is raped and simultaneously attacked by dogs), then it the reader’s choice to do so, for the author has not indicated as such. ‘Seventh Born Son’ succeeds in being a suspenseful story in that it relies heavily on pseudo-supernaturalism, that being, the allusion of the supernatural to mask realism. It is easily one of Siluk’s best short stories(1).
‘The Dead Vault’ begins as a touching account of love and murder, set during the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, 1570-1293 BCE (New Kingdom period). It surrounds two lovers who partake in the murder of Tutankhamen,(2) but soon find themselves fleeing for their very lives, as ‘those who hired us, betrayed us, used us as an escape-goat, they are the ones who have sent the bone collectors to find us, and bring our bones back to them.’ [DOD, pp. 108-09] The lovers flee so far from their native Egypt they arrive in the Americas (!) and build an underground mound, where they await a peaceful death (Ohio to be exact).
This story is, perhaps, the poorest of the collection, due to the impractical choices Siluk constructs for his characters. Would a mound maker keep a diary? Why the Americas? Must they really die? Would an ancient Egyptian truly use the word ‘sidekick’? And being that Hesmaglig was a former teacher of Tutankhamen, why would he need to use his wife as a sexual distraction for the guards? Surely he would have access to the King’s chambers? Sadly, the story is full of weaknesses.
‘The Senator of Lima’ is a suspenseful story that on face value appears to be the author’s open discussion on the issue of terrorism in Peru. Like many of Siluk’s stories, the character of Chick Evans is semi-autobiographical, an innocent author who happens to be friends with the Senator of Lima. However, in his rise to power, the Senator had made a pact with the very real terrorist group Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA) and the Senator is aware that his life is in danger, as he has been unable to pay back his debts. Locking himself in his hotel room, the Senator asks his friend Evans for help, but no sooner is Evans confronted by members of MRTA and a verbal contract is made between them, in a game of cockfighting, Evans must win three out of six to save the Senator’s life, but if he loses, the Senator has to commit suicide. It’s a fulfilling ending and, I suspect, contains far more truths than Siluk is willing to admit.
‘The Old Man, and the Tides of Winter’ would have to be, for me, one of the most touching stories I have ever read. Set during a typical Minnesotan winter, an ageing man dwells on his life between his regular visits by his son. During a harsh storm one night, the old man comes across a young puppy and adopts it. However, soon after, the old man passes away and is found by his son, though the puppy is hesitant to leave his deceased master’s lap. His son takes the puppy and looks after it, on behalf of his father.
‘The Old Man of Chickamunga’ is set in Virginia, 1861, at the time of the Civil War. The story opens to a distressed old man, who is agonizing over the destruction of his land, property and death of his son-in-law. The Union soldiers are outside, preparing to burn down his house. History informs us that in January 1861, Virginia threatened secession from the union known as the United States of America. Due to the old man’s resistance to the Union soldiers, it would be safe to state that this is not West Virginia, for they did not wish to secede along with the rest of the state and were admitted into the Union on June 20, 1863. The union soldiers end up burning down the house with the old man inside, an action which later haunts Lieutenant Foremost. The story may have been written as a homage to Ambrose Bierce’s ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek’, when, towards the end of the story, Siluk has the Lieutenant say, ‘Let’s eat breakfast men…and then we got to go build a bridge at Owl Creek.’ [DOD, p. 153]
‘The Camel Market’ is a simple story, set in Troy (2900 BCE), in which a man reminisces of his childhood, working with his (now deceased) father in the camel market.
Thus ends Death on Demand: Seven Stories of Suspense. Siluk has crafted some powerfully written and imaginative stories here and continues the testament by many that small press is the true sanctuary of quality weird fiction. In a purely complimentary statement, Siluk shares the lust to write like the infamous Lin Carter, but I do wish he’d approach established markets and anthologies to showcase his work, rather than a print-on-demand publisher. Nevertheless, Siluk seemingly enters himself into every one of his characters, regardless of whether he has visited the locale of his story, or has experienced, in one form or another, the character’s life. This semi-autobiographical injection brings more life to each of his characters and narrators and builds Siluk up as being a Baron Munchausen-like character. Whether others feel Siluk’s work is deserved of study remains to be seen, though if one is to acknowledge that he has written and sold over 30 books, one could say that theoretically he must be doing something right as an author. Time will only tell.
ReferencesSiluk, Dennis (2003), Death on Demand: Seven Stories of Suspense (Lincoln, NE. iUniverse Inc).
Notes1 For some, what can only be described as bizarre reason, Siluk later expanded and retitled this story as ‘Dracula’s Ghost’. However, I feel that the story is weakened in this later version and do not recommend reading it prior to ‘Seventh Born Son’.
2 In the story, the narrator Hesmaglig stands by and watches his friend inflict a head wound to the young King’s skull. For decades, scientists and historians have believed this to be the sole cause of Tutankhamen’s death, but recently, debate has risen that the infamous pharaoh, in fact, died of a disease-infected wound on his leg.
by: Benjamin Szumskyj
Embarking on the critical study of author Dennis L. Siluk might be an endeavour that would fall on deaf ears, rather than the applause of a receptive audience. I mean no disrespect by this comment. This is because, despite dozens of published books and thousands of copies sold, Dennis L. Siluk’s literary career has been virtually undetected by the community of the weird tale. However, being unknown is potentially more rewarding than being found and forgotten, or worse still, ignored altogether. And being that none of Siluk’s many readers have chosen to study his works of fiction, bar the flurry of positive reviews, any study of his work will be both deserved and enlightening.
Siluk has written several books outside the weird tale canon, such as of poetry (Sirens, The Macabre Poems: and other selected poems), children’s stories (The Tale of Willie the Humpback Whale, Two Modern Short Stories of Immigrant Life: The Little Russian Twins & Uni’s Street Car), travel (Chasing the Sun, Romancing San Francisco: Sketches of Life in the Late '60's), mainstream (Perhaps It’s Love, Cold Kindness), non-fiction (A Path to Sobriety, the Inside Passage: A Common Sense Book on Understanding Alcoholism and Addiction, A Path to Relapse Prevention), thriller (The Mumbler), and pseudotheological (The Last Trumpet and the Woodbridge Demon).
The fiction collection that best encapsulates the style, imagination and originality of Siluk is Death on Demand: Seven Stories of Suspense (2003, iUniverse Inc). Though a relatively recent publication, it collects several stories written over a period of years. In discussing the following stories, I may reveal the endings in order to illustrate a point.
Death on Demand opens with, what I believe not only to be one of Siluk’s best stories, but perhaps one of the most powerfully written stories of the last decade ‘The Rape of Angelina’, a story which showcases the author’s background in psychology and sociology within a historical context. The story begins with a well-read individual who has acquired a forgotten poem written in 1278 AD entitled ‘The Lioness of Glastonbury’, whilst conducting research at an undisclosed university in England. Upon arriving in Glastonbury, he meets a man named Arthur who is distantly related to Angelina and happens to possess a copy of her diary, written in 1199 AD at the end of the Crusades. As he states:
“At Chalice Well, you will see a Lion’s Head. Angelina was a lioness. Although people thought she was timid, and coy, she was far from it. When she died, in 1221 AD, she left her diary, and the story of the three soldiers who wanted to rape her; one did the other two… Well, that’s part of the story; no one ever found out what happened to them or for that matter, how they died. But I know I got the diary. I found it in 1984, hidden in the old Abbey Barn, that place has a magnificent roof, doesn’t it?” [DOD, p. 18]
The story then changes to Angelina’s point of view, directly from her diary, as she recounts the events of that fateful year. The third chapter is crisply written, particularly the first section, in which the 13-year-old details her dream of finding a beloved knight and being married, her developing body, and the attention young boys give her. It’s an authentic narrative, for Angelina comes across as a sensible, mature and honourable girl who idolizes the life of King Arthur, as well as looking up to her grandfather. Soon enough, she is confronted by three wandering knights, who she believes to be visiting King Arthur’s grave site. However, they advance on her and each of the men rape Angelina. After being raped by the third attacker, who falls asleep (whom Angelina thinks is either English or Islamic-Arab), she picks up his sword and decapitates him.
Taking his bag of coins (‘I took them for my torn dress’ [DOD, p. 41]), she buries him (‘about three feet deep, and I rolled him into it just like mom puts in the ham during winter’ [DOD, p. 41]) and returns home, telling no one what had happened. That night, she asks her grandfather about the Holy Wars and Islamic culture, particularly, towards women. The next day, Angelina uses the remainder of the deceased rapist’s silver to buy a wolf, which she locks in a cage and is determined to domesticate.
Angelina continues her plan of revenge when, upon seeing the other two in a tavern, she tells the soberer of the pair to meet her at a disclosed location soon after. He agrees and upon leaving, Angelina buys some wine and quickly makes a visit to the local herb dealer, buying strong sleeping narcotics. Later on, she meets up with the man, tricks him into drinking the drugged wine, then releases the hungry wolf and he is mauled to death. Consider the macabre nature of the following scene, through the innocence of Angelina:
‘He couldn’t talk or make anymore sounds the wolf had chewed his nose and throat off, and open. I thought people died easy, but it’s not true. Sometimes they die slow. The wolf looked at me then went and started eating again, paying me little attention; I think he was making sure his meal was secure.’ [DOD, p. 65]
The third and final rapist is led to Chalice Well, where after passing out from drinking the same drugged wine, Angelina ‘tied his hands over his head; then tied his two legs together’, then proceeded to chop off his hands with his own sword and cast him down the well. The final scene is worth quoting at length,
‘As I look down the well, the rope followed him like a snake. He has no hands to untie his feet, and he can not climb the 30-feet to the top. And I know the well is pretty deep. I cannot see him, only hear his cries.
‘Now I put the top of the well cover back on; I will lock it now, so the children will not fall into it. I can still hear his screams, barely, but I do hear them, he is begging me to open the well door, and at the same time cursing me. He is not sorry for what he did to me, only sorry I could get revenge on him; now his body will sink soon, and he will sober up, or wake up drunk in hell.
‘I hear water splashing, he is lucky he is thin, not like the huge one, for he would sink if he was that big. He will get exhausted soon. I must bury the rest of his things.
‘”See Mr. Knight, you are paying for your sins. But I will tell the world you were a great knight, for that is what knights are created for; they are special. Thus, I will save you from disgrace. What would you do if you lived, just get drunk and rape more girls like me. Now, that is not what a good knight should have to look forward to. GOOD NIGHT!!” I think he heard me, I tried to say it loud enough through the locked well cover. Matter of fact he did hear me, he is saying “Come back…come backkkkkk, ppppleaseeeeezzzzzzz.” [DOD, p. 73]
Thus finish Angelina’s diary entries. Angelina tried to subconsciously forget her rape and murderous revenge, distancing herself from the whole experience and erasing the whole series of events from her mind. The townsfolk don’t believe she did it, nor would they desire to trial her for such atrocious crimes despite the evidence. Soon after, the Arthurian Green Knight enters the town and when the two meet one another, they instantly fall in love. After marrying one another, Angelina sadly dies in childbirth.
The final chapter returns to the present, with a psychological explanation of how Angelina erased the rape and killings from her memory. In reading this passage, one can begin to see Siluk’s knowledge in this area of psychology (in addition to the ‘Other’ voice heard by Angelina, throughout the story). The narrator ends up leaving Glastonbury, but the story remains there, for in leaving, he is unable to take away the story and he begins to disremember Angelina’s tragic life.
What makes this story work is that unlike many female characters that are raped in literature and extract vengeance, Angelina does not become a masculine force. Rather, she remains feminine and does not adopt the traits or personality of a male. Like Michael Moorcock in Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen (1978), Siluk is careful in his writing of one of humanity’s worst forms of violence. Angelina is such a likeable character who is able to remain stable of mind through her horrible ordeal that her reaction of vengeance becomes more realistic.
‘Seventh Born Son’ is an intriguing story, surrounding the life of ‘Vlad Bran, otherwise know as Vlad Hoof’ [DOD, p. 92], for he was born with a tail and hooves. Narrated by a ‘friend’ of Vlad’s, the story begins in Transylvania. What starts as a potentially clichéd story evolves into a cleverly crafted life story of a figure cursed by his environment. The stigma of literature, in this case Bram Stoker’s Dracula, has constructed a world to believe that Vlad’s hometown is a place of evil and vampirism. In deciding to leave the place he once called home and travel to Wales, he soon begins to think evil thoughts on killing other people. As a result, Vlad’s true nature begins to emerge as detailed in the following passage,
‘As several months passed, he established himself as a serious manager in the food department, the headwaiter, with several under him. And would attend weekly meetings concerning improvements, in which he gave good advice; never showing his discontent for the world outside his mind, his damaged soul. It was justice he yearned for. When he walked by city hall, he spit at it. When he walked by the National Museum he stopped and would always wonder if there were any misunderstood freaks of nature like him in there. He liked walking the riverfront and watching the alcoholics get drunk sitting by the benches, overlooking the Millennium Stadium. He felt if anyone knew what he was thinking – which was killing – and if they were half sober, they would realize he could and would carry it out. And just what he was thinking was revenge. Yes, revenge on the world. Anyone would do. But he was not a vampire like people thought him as. He was just misunderstood. He didn’t need blood to cure him, only blood to wipe the dirt they threw on him away. And so, as spring came, he drew up his plan.’ [DOD, p. 94]
So begins Vlad’s vengeful campaign. His first victim is a female whom he decapitates, the second victim is a priest lured away from the police and stabbed in the back, the third victim is raped and then mauled by wild dogs, the fourth victim is an old man pushed down a well, the fifth victim is a homeless man that is buried alive, while the sixth and seventh victims…are Vlad himself. He commits suicide (the flesh), then rigs a trap that when the police break down his door (after being tipped off by his ‘friend’), drives a stake into his chest, thus destroying Vlad’s spirit. All up, seven victims are slain, just as Vlad had wanted it. It is a satisfactory ending to a story fuelled by bloody passion and the relentless hatred of being a social outcast.
Even at the end of the story, we are never told in words as to whether there is any real supernaturalism in the story. We are made to believe that this all happened, regardless of the preconceived belief that Vlad was a vampire. If we are to toy with the belief that Vlad is capable of supernatural feats, say hypnotism (after his third victim is raped and simultaneously attacked by dogs), then it the reader’s choice to do so, for the author has not indicated as such. ‘Seventh Born Son’ succeeds in being a suspenseful story in that it relies heavily on pseudo-supernaturalism, that being, the allusion of the supernatural to mask realism. It is easily one of Siluk’s best short stories(1).
‘The Dead Vault’ begins as a touching account of love and murder, set during the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, 1570-1293 BCE (New Kingdom period). It surrounds two lovers who partake in the murder of Tutankhamen,(2) but soon find themselves fleeing for their very lives, as ‘those who hired us, betrayed us, used us as an escape-goat, they are the ones who have sent the bone collectors to find us, and bring our bones back to them.’ [DOD, pp. 108-09] The lovers flee so far from their native Egypt they arrive in the Americas (!) and build an underground mound, where they await a peaceful death (Ohio to be exact).
This story is, perhaps, the poorest of the collection, due to the impractical choices Siluk constructs for his characters. Would a mound maker keep a diary? Why the Americas? Must they really die? Would an ancient Egyptian truly use the word ‘sidekick’? And being that Hesmaglig was a former teacher of Tutankhamen, why would he need to use his wife as a sexual distraction for the guards? Surely he would have access to the King’s chambers? Sadly, the story is full of weaknesses.
‘The Senator of Lima’ is a suspenseful story that on face value appears to be the author’s open discussion on the issue of terrorism in Peru. Like many of Siluk’s stories, the character of Chick Evans is semi-autobiographical, an innocent author who happens to be friends with the Senator of Lima. However, in his rise to power, the Senator had made a pact with the very real terrorist group Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA) and the Senator is aware that his life is in danger, as he has been unable to pay back his debts. Locking himself in his hotel room, the Senator asks his friend Evans for help, but no sooner is Evans confronted by members of MRTA and a verbal contract is made between them, in a game of cockfighting, Evans must win three out of six to save the Senator’s life, but if he loses, the Senator has to commit suicide. It’s a fulfilling ending and, I suspect, contains far more truths than Siluk is willing to admit.
‘The Old Man, and the Tides of Winter’ would have to be, for me, one of the most touching stories I have ever read. Set during a typical Minnesotan winter, an ageing man dwells on his life between his regular visits by his son. During a harsh storm one night, the old man comes across a young puppy and adopts it. However, soon after, the old man passes away and is found by his son, though the puppy is hesitant to leave his deceased master’s lap. His son takes the puppy and looks after it, on behalf of his father.
‘The Old Man of Chickamunga’ is set in Virginia, 1861, at the time of the Civil War. The story opens to a distressed old man, who is agonizing over the destruction of his land, property and death of his son-in-law. The Union soldiers are outside, preparing to burn down his house. History informs us that in January 1861, Virginia threatened secession from the union known as the United States of America. Due to the old man’s resistance to the Union soldiers, it would be safe to state that this is not West Virginia, for they did not wish to secede along with the rest of the state and were admitted into the Union on June 20, 1863. The union soldiers end up burning down the house with the old man inside, an action which later haunts Lieutenant Foremost. The story may have been written as a homage to Ambrose Bierce’s ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek’, when, towards the end of the story, Siluk has the Lieutenant say, ‘Let’s eat breakfast men…and then we got to go build a bridge at Owl Creek.’ [DOD, p. 153]
‘The Camel Market’ is a simple story, set in Troy (2900 BCE), in which a man reminisces of his childhood, working with his (now deceased) father in the camel market.
Thus ends Death on Demand: Seven Stories of Suspense. Siluk has crafted some powerfully written and imaginative stories here and continues the testament by many that small press is the true sanctuary of quality weird fiction. In a purely complimentary statement, Siluk shares the lust to write like the infamous Lin Carter, but I do wish he’d approach established markets and anthologies to showcase his work, rather than a print-on-demand publisher. Nevertheless, Siluk seemingly enters himself into every one of his characters, regardless of whether he has visited the locale of his story, or has experienced, in one form or another, the character’s life. This semi-autobiographical injection brings more life to each of his characters and narrators and builds Siluk up as being a Baron Munchausen-like character. Whether others feel Siluk’s work is deserved of study remains to be seen, though if one is to acknowledge that he has written and sold over 30 books, one could say that theoretically he must be doing something right as an author. Time will only tell.
ReferencesSiluk, Dennis (2003), Death on Demand: Seven Stories of Suspense (Lincoln, NE. iUniverse Inc).
Notes1 For some, what can only be described as bizarre reason, Siluk later expanded and retitled this story as ‘Dracula’s Ghost’. However, I feel that the story is weakened in this later version and do not recommend reading it prior to ‘Seventh Born Son’.
2 In the story, the narrator Hesmaglig stands by and watches his friend inflict a head wound to the young King’s skull. For decades, scientists and historians have believed this to be the sole cause of Tutankhamen’s death, but recently, debate has risen that the infamous pharaoh, in fact, died of a disease-infected wound on his leg.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Most Read Poet on the Internet?
Recently, I scanned the internet for who might be the most read poet on the internet today, and I found a few claims but only one can stand its ground, so I feel: Allen Jesson comes the closest but doesn’t quite make it, that is, he claims to being the most read poet (actually he claims to be the most popular, not sure if there is a difference here, but I can’t prove the popularity part of it, only the reading of Mr. Dennis Siluk’s poetry, three time Poet Laureate ( Poeta Laureado)); as do many others, but after checking it out, it was Dr. Dennis L. Siluk, with over 165,000-readers a month, minimum, which is really on the short end of the scale. He is on over 400-sites (over 3000-entries on the internet), one of his poems is on 34-sites alone another on 50. One of his poems has 16,000-hits or readers on one site alone. Dennis, by himself has 30-sites throughout the internet, and has written 36-books. Sorry Allen, but it doesn’t look like your claim can stand any longer. Dr. Siluk’s poetry only features his poetry, no one else’s. On one of his sites alone, he got last year, 250,000-visitors, and on that one now he actually gets between 6000 per month, or it should be 360,000 by the end of the year, perhaps because he has now, 30-sites he will be in the millions of readers by the end of the year, at that time, some years ago, he had only one site. On Ezinearticles, alone, he has about 560,000-visitors—with over 1400-articles and poems ((he has written 2260 poems to date)(and has over 300 short stories, and over 900 articles, and 20 or so novels)), and that is one of a countless number of sites to have his written word on. From Ezinearticles alone, around, 23,000-other folks have come to take his poetry off the site, to put it on theirs, all this can be reviewed of course simply by checking out the internet. So Mr. Jasson’s claim is a bit foggy I feel today—maybe yesterday it was ok, perhaps we can say he is number two at best, and again I say, this is my opinion, with all respect intended for the poet.
Incidentally, Mr. Siluk’s poetry can be read in English, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, German, French, and has been put into the schools in Peru, and Bosnia.
by Rosa Peñaloza
Monday, February 11, 2008
Slow Moving Moon over Vietnam (a poem)
Slow Moving Moon over Vietnam
(in the hills of Cam Ranh Bay)
(in May of’71)
The ocean roars,
as the rain poured
over Vietnam
(in this war)—;
and here, here I sit
in the middle of it
in a hooch
as a barracks,
singing songs
drinking beer
wine and vodka
all night long,
and
screwing
women…!
pretty as a peas,
it’s how it is
most of the time here
in Vietnam….
When, when, when
is this war
ever going to end
and blow its top?
Too many dark
marble-eyed rats,
scorpions, bull-mosquitoes,
lizards like ants.
Half the soldiers
here
are on dope,
under the slow
moving moon:
some have gone
to rehab, in Japan,
others are kept
in solitary, high metal
boxes, like sardines;
the other half
are under the strain of booze;
all are under a haze
from the rain,
and some are going crazy
from killing.
And I’m somewhere
between all this
trigger happy,
and I won’t miss!
Rockets inbound
coming from across
the bay
(it’s night time):
the Viet Cong
have been waiting
all day…
they’ve been
waiting, hiding
readying to kill,
in the surrounding hills,
here,
in Cam Ranh Bay
Vietnam.
Written in Vietnam, May 1971,
Revised and rewritten, 2-11-2008
Note: While in Vietnam in the month of May, 1971, we had waited for the Viet Cong to come out of the hills surrounding Cam Ranh bay, but they didn't they went to the other side and started to rocket the three ammo dumps we had, not sure why, it was where they got their ammo also, by dressing up to look like South Vietnam Soldiers, and often coming into the dumps and collecting tons of munitions, and us American soldiers not being the wiser who we were giving them to. Foolish as it was, it didn't stop, even after they bombed the Air Force dump one evening, killing one man in a horrid fired that shook all of Cam Ranh Bay. #2247
(in the hills of Cam Ranh Bay)
(in May of’71)
The ocean roars,
as the rain poured
over Vietnam
(in this war)—;
and here, here I sit
in the middle of it
in a hooch
as a barracks,
singing songs
drinking beer
wine and vodka
all night long,
and
screwing
women…!
pretty as a peas,
it’s how it is
most of the time here
in Vietnam….
When, when, when
is this war
ever going to end
and blow its top?
Too many dark
marble-eyed rats,
scorpions, bull-mosquitoes,
lizards like ants.
Half the soldiers
here
are on dope,
under the slow
moving moon:
some have gone
to rehab, in Japan,
others are kept
in solitary, high metal
boxes, like sardines;
the other half
are under the strain of booze;
all are under a haze
from the rain,
and some are going crazy
from killing.
And I’m somewhere
between all this
trigger happy,
and I won’t miss!
Rockets inbound
coming from across
the bay
(it’s night time):
the Viet Cong
have been waiting
all day…
they’ve been
waiting, hiding
readying to kill,
in the surrounding hills,
here,
in Cam Ranh Bay
Vietnam.
Written in Vietnam, May 1971,
Revised and rewritten, 2-11-2008
Note: While in Vietnam in the month of May, 1971, we had waited for the Viet Cong to come out of the hills surrounding Cam Ranh bay, but they didn't they went to the other side and started to rocket the three ammo dumps we had, not sure why, it was where they got their ammo also, by dressing up to look like South Vietnam Soldiers, and often coming into the dumps and collecting tons of munitions, and us American soldiers not being the wiser who we were giving them to. Foolish as it was, it didn't stop, even after they bombed the Air Force dump one evening, killing one man in a horrid fired that shook all of Cam Ranh Bay. #2247
The Arctic's Great Whiteout ((23,516 BC)(A Poem))
The Arctic‘s Great Whiteout
(23,516 BC)
Deep in the Arctic Ice,
one hundred and fifthly miles
from the North Pole, in the year
23,516 T-BC, end of the age
of the great tigers
(second period of man); deep
into the ice, within the ice-
glacier, the earth shifted like
a tree in the wind, exposed
ancient organisms, that lived
deep, deep within the earth’s
crust.
Then came the eternal storm
it swung in with a volcanic
roar, thus, from here on the land
was all blizzard, whiteout, nothing
not a thing more, with eyes could see.
Therewith in, all the oceans froze,
and the small organisms, swam in the
thick of the mist, to and fro, across
the icy lands and seas, froze and cold
they were, but bold they were,
and hence became primitive
phantoms.
#2245
Written 12/2006 AD: originally written out on a napkin, as a
Short chapter story, and recently found, never completed; written
in St. Paul, Minnesota. According to Aztec time, and epochs, there
was a period when the tiger, the great cats, the jaguar ruled the lands
of earth. Prior or near the period of 24,000 BC, they became extinct, no
one really knows why, and then we shift into a more broader age
of the new forthcoming, human. In the ice ages, which were more than
a few, Greenland has always kept the world in the North, a tinge colder
between the Americas and Europe, perhaps at one time, Greenland
was not Greenland, but under the sea, should this had been, the warm
winds between North America and Europe would have produced
a warmer climate, and should it abruptly have risen from the deep
sea, that would account for a disruption in that area. And so in this
poetic tale, or story, I have created simply a moment in time, without
of course naming the cause and effect, or the moment, all speculation.
(23,516 BC)
Deep in the Arctic Ice,
one hundred and fifthly miles
from the North Pole, in the year
23,516 T-BC, end of the age
of the great tigers
(second period of man); deep
into the ice, within the ice-
glacier, the earth shifted like
a tree in the wind, exposed
ancient organisms, that lived
deep, deep within the earth’s
crust.
Then came the eternal storm
it swung in with a volcanic
roar, thus, from here on the land
was all blizzard, whiteout, nothing
not a thing more, with eyes could see.
Therewith in, all the oceans froze,
and the small organisms, swam in the
thick of the mist, to and fro, across
the icy lands and seas, froze and cold
they were, but bold they were,
and hence became primitive
phantoms.
#2245
Written 12/2006 AD: originally written out on a napkin, as a
Short chapter story, and recently found, never completed; written
in St. Paul, Minnesota. According to Aztec time, and epochs, there
was a period when the tiger, the great cats, the jaguar ruled the lands
of earth. Prior or near the period of 24,000 BC, they became extinct, no
one really knows why, and then we shift into a more broader age
of the new forthcoming, human. In the ice ages, which were more than
a few, Greenland has always kept the world in the North, a tinge colder
between the Americas and Europe, perhaps at one time, Greenland
was not Greenland, but under the sea, should this had been, the warm
winds between North America and Europe would have produced
a warmer climate, and should it abruptly have risen from the deep
sea, that would account for a disruption in that area. And so in this
poetic tale, or story, I have created simply a moment in time, without
of course naming the cause and effect, or the moment, all speculation.
The Stones (Stonehenge)
I stood in front of its three monumental windows
(tons, and tons of stone)
their faces got into the moment
The dark clouds above
(like a canopy, a mystic crown)
Seeped into my bones.
It was like I was in the halls of Westminster
The silence of piety surrounded me
I could see expressions, on their faces,
Of these aged old stones…they whispered, with
Wisdom and arrogance, “I will your soul…”
I could feel them pull at my resolve, mind
As I breathlessly walked away!...
Written 3-24-99; (3:30 PM), written after visiting Stonehenge,
in England, three-hours later we were in Bath, England #384.
(tons, and tons of stone)
their faces got into the moment
The dark clouds above
(like a canopy, a mystic crown)
Seeped into my bones.
It was like I was in the halls of Westminster
The silence of piety surrounded me
I could see expressions, on their faces,
Of these aged old stones…they whispered, with
Wisdom and arrogance, “I will your soul…”
I could feel them pull at my resolve, mind
As I breathlessly walked away!...
Written 3-24-99; (3:30 PM), written after visiting Stonehenge,
in England, three-hours later we were in Bath, England #384.
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