Tag Archives: insomnia
Porn for Piece or Peace?
Porn for piece and peace
Saleh al Jalaheen should have left the movie theater –
should not have stayed so long –
he had an easy fifty dollars in his pocket,
big money to make in Syria in 1994
all he had to do was the legwork –
a quick dropoff,
but the legwork consumed him
time and dreams all became forged
by the showing that day
inside the Salwa Cinema
Even though it was a film from Turkey,
Saleh didn’t need to know the foreign language
he had entered a theater bathed in soft-porn
featuring, ‘delights of the flesh’
the things the Holy Book told him were forbidden-
advised him to avoid
Suddenly up front and bluntly before him
in size and detail
big engaging sex-
womens unclothed bodies-
Saleh became the lion stalking it’s prey in the dark,
his pupils expanded with visions of pleasure
his ears attune to the soft moans,
his brain locked into the secret moments
his tongue salivating for the taste of ambrosia,
of shapely naked breasts and stiffened nipples,
of positions and fetishes he never imagined –
his apterous body could not abandon its’ nest
When they paid him,
he thought he followed directions
but no one warned him about the movie
poor Saleh did not heed his employer’s instruction
after placing the bomb beneath his chair
he forgot his culture
forgot The Koran
forgot all about the evils of voyeurism
but mostly, he forgot the mission
That fifty dollars was to be coveted in vane
it could not cover the loss of his legs
blown off because those appendages
were fixed like mafia cement to the floor
Saleh didn’t even think about moving to another seat
where he might have been spared
Saleh became a casualty to sex
lost both his legs without getting any of the pleasure
from either the sex act nor the terror act
he became condemned as a terrorist failure
he does not qualify for the virgins promised him in heaven
and most likely, that was the only sex he will know…
The destruction he was going to impose upon others,
imposed itself upon him
Some people just aren’t meant to be bombers for a cause,
they should forget doing favors for easy money
which itself is seduction
How is it that being mesmorized by ‘piece’
could bring about both pleasure and horror –
And yet by the sheer act
of sitting there in the Salwa theatre
surrounded by soft female images
on the big screen,
it erased all thought of Jihad
all thought of hate and
of planting bombs for money.
Imagine that… ‘piece’ for peace
the sheer idiosyncrasy of it;
piece for peace–
Well… it kept Saleh, the bomber
occupied and thinking more about glorious sex acts
than the act of committing terror didn’t it…
Catching “The Kraken”
Apalone Ferox – Soft shelled Turtle
The myth of the Kraken
Twelve months of moon phases have passed
since I began fishing this lake of Lethe,
each day the circadian rhythm suspends
and I am granted 2 hours for fishing
in my Zen dimension.
I stand like a Moses poised over the lake,
commanding with a mighty rod –
I WILL change the dynamics today
by interrupting fish schedules,
all catches to be released
and no ill will between the species.
Even a slow fishing day
does not diminish the essence of clean mind absorption
of taking in the saturation of the lake,
birds coasting overhead,
and even the red belly of Flyglobespan
leaving Sanford and traveling due north to Scotland at 6pm
is only one more pair of beautiful wings over the horizon.
Mysterious forces swirl just beneath the sheath of water
a magnified-mottled softshell skirting the depths
like an armed floating leather shield.
“The Kracken”, I dubbed it –
Avatar with largess guarding over this territory –
turtle of intimidation,
respecting that we both have a purpose here.
I cast my bait away from it,
watching for the hooded head with
two circular orbs revealing its’ position.
Sometimes obvious masses of bubbles surfaced,
expelled by both ends of it’s reptile alimentary canal.
Cretaceous ‘Kracken’ and its’ ilk
belonging to this planet millions of years prior to man,
still in basic uniform adapting better than most.
The dark waters mysteriously stifle the pattern
of brown and olive
all monochromatic and symbiotic as one unit –
it is the red and white bobber that’s grossly out of place here.
Suddenly two winking eyes
and massive soft plastron breaks the water
neck extending,
attached to a thick body breaching two diverse worlds
of wet and dry.
These are the largest soft shell turtles in the New World,
sea monsters scanning the lakes from their secret aquatic depths,
making the neighbor children squirm and shout
when the swift-pattern shell passes by.
Many times I was startled by it’s sudden appearance
and I did not want to hook it,
did not want its’ hissing and snapping mouth near my
fingers and toes.
This liquid warrior,
soft frigate fighting vigorously for it’s space,
and it was me who was the invader,
the unwelcomed ‘occupier’
On land there is no faster turtle
and in the lake it’s wet lightning,
I continued to see him as more than a simple species
this turtle was the embodiment of MY modern myth,
voiding the edges of reality to become
a leviathan we all feared would latch onto our lines,
chase us down and eat us whole.
Bringing in bream or shiners too slowly was always a risk,
the Kracken sometimes trailed my catch.
This reptile has a nose made for sniffing death and
is quick to nab anything moving erratic,
like wounded fish or even small ducks-
bottoms up!
This day there was an edgy wind
and wide rippling of the lake.
It was late afternoon,
the sun had been sacked by a wall of gray clouds,
the tannin water did not have the clarity of
sunlight illuminating behind it,
preventing my normal aquatic acuity
from reaching its sight into
the water’s most intimate wet spaces.
I cast out and felt the pull-
just from that tug my adrenalin spilled,
I had hooked something large!
Turtles jerk at a hook differently than fish
and suddenly my line was heading out toward the weeds,
but not sharply down as with a hooked bass.
There was a struggle coming,
from a risky looking sky above
and the waves and reptile fighting against me,
I fought with an invisible power upon the line
as it thrust against the pain of impalement
from a new, sharp hook.
I let it have more line hoping maybe it would loosen,
maybe free itself and swim away,
only to reel and find it still fighting-
fighting against the hook,
fighting against domination,
fighting to preserve its’ turtle dignity.
For a while the line stretched taut,
the rod bending in contortions I didn’t think possible
until finally it was exhausted
as I pulled it closer to shore –
tangling through massive thick hydrilla,
water cutting against it slowing its surrender.
I knew his temper would be ill
his mouth tender and injured
and susceptible to infections-
that hook could prove as lethal as a wounding bullet
to both of us,
one stick and the smallest of deadly bacteria
takes precedent over the largest of beings.
We both struggled for control,
the weeds thickened around him,
the rain began beating down,
but I could not abandon the fight-
my line was still jerking.
I jumped down from the sea wall
to the waters sandy shore
anticipating the worst
thinking how using needle nose pliers,
would be like tackling a minotaur with a safety pin.
As I reeled while standing braced on the shore,
rain saturating my every fiber from head to toe,
the massive beast came into view,
but,
it was not the behemoth I had so imagined
the carapace about 2 feet long — not 5 or greater-
as magnified by the mocking water,
it certainly lacked in Karken proportions.
It’s long neck and legs flailing-
a hook swallowed – the line inside the mouth
it bled red – it’s agony and instinct intact.
My Kracken –
myth of the lake,
myth of my mind –
swimming against the storm tide,
struggling against the pain,
bubbles trailing a route to panic-
animal brought down to scale.
I reached out to try and net him,
but he jerked and pulled
there was no restraining
a very mad, agitated turtle.
As I pulled to get it closer to shore,
it’s feet gave one last thrust of traction
breaking the weakened line then lurching down,
the bobber floating up
riding long the choppy waves.
I watched as a torpedo hurled back to the deep
past the weeds,
past the thick walled and banging water,
past the now fractured tale.
I worried my hook would cost Kracken it’s life,
would it bleed to death, infect and rot?
Sadly, I looked at my pole with dangling,
worn 12 lb. test line,
my head down and battered by rain,
I picked up the wet tackle box and left.
The rain yelled at me,
I had clearly violated the tenets of the lake –
lightning forked above my head,
bent branches whipped me hard with water
as I passed beneath them.
The storm screamed and cried and moaned
for it’s loss,
I listened to it’s anger that whole night,
and thought of nothing else except
how it would feel to be hooked and reeled in,
skin pierced and ripped as vessels burst,
I too cried along with the howling storm…
Green and Slimy The turtles Revenge
Photo Credit: Paul Rackman/Abbe edited
These poems are based on the fact I love to fish and feel extremely guilt ridden when I catch anything. I release them, but sometimes I hook a turtle which is worse than hooking a fish. I have written some “Lewis Carrol”, nonsense type poetry devoted to my angst and guilt. And I still fish almost nightly, with those two feelings latched to my side. This is one of my stories from Tales Beneath the Electric Blanket.
Green and Slimy – Turtles Revenge
Green and Slimy,
the turtles wobbled up from the lake,
dripping a trail of seaweed in the letters S O S behind them.
Arms locked, tails sharpened,
hurling canasta cards and dice,
“Down with the human” the turtles shouted in unison,
disguising their voices using a pig Latin oink,
which seemed quite odd seeing as they wore
the pinstripe suits of white collar terrapins.
There were eight in all–
more than the fingers on one hand,
more than the toes on a Hemingway cat.
Large, small, long snouts, wide mouths, accusing eyes.
A cadence of edgy anger as they marched
like militants with shields on their backs
up to my back door.
The largest of the group gripped my arm with a savage intensity
demanding I surrender my devices and potions.
Leaning back on a carapace paved with algae, he spoke,
“We have come”, he said with pupils blacker and meaner than octopus ink,
“To remove from you the things that fault your human character.”
to which I said nothing afraid perjury might froth from my lips.
“You see,” he took my head into his long, manicured claws
forcing my eyes to look upon the hoards chanting in Hebrew, or maybe Farsi?
Neither of which I spoke, but somehow understood by the captions
magically circling the words above their craggy heads.
“You see,” he continued, “how you have complicated our lives?”
I looked up his nostrils and two yellow snails winked at me.
“Whatever do you mean?” I asked.
He grabbed my fishing poles and broke them in half.
“Those are responsible for this,”
he turned a curvy profile to show me a hole in his cheek plugged with
old, chewed up Bazooka gum.
“Oh my,” I said as remorse trickled from my mouth like melted butter.
“Our blood is upon your hands,” and each turtle smacked a wet, red clawprint across my cheek.
“I never intended my hooks for you.” I stated.
He shook his wrinkled head, “It is not so much the hooks
as it is about the alchemy of white flour,
“Your human food has created an obesity crisis among the turtles. ”
I took notice that each protesting reptile was pot bellied.
“You bait the hook with soft, white puffs and expect only dumb fish,
but your magic food has all of us fighting and longing for more.”
Every one of their heads nodded in choreographed agreement.
“Not only have you made us fight each other for the bait,
the methane structure of the lake is different now,”
They all turned and lifted their tails,
a grueling chorus commenced sounding of hunters blowing duck calls.
Massive green bubbles emerged and burst mid-air
reeking of broccoli and seaweed with a touch of feculent fish.
I put one hand across my nose and the other to shield my eyes.
“I am truly sorry for this,” I apologized.
“Keep your white flour and hooks for your own twisted politics, maam, I
assure you, we do not share the same fetishes and fantasies.”
He signaled to the others by tapping his plastron
then kicked the remains of my fishing rods out of his way.
The others followed him back into the lake
leaving behind seaweed,
and the distinct smell of a German restaurant
while a swastika remained stamped into the grass where they had goose-stepped.
I took my bread and tackle box
and threw it all into the trash,
then went inside.
No more bribing the fish at the lake,
No more barbs through cheeks,
they were right, the pure ecology of lake creatures
was being corrupted by me,
toxic white flour and curved steel.
I picked up the broken pieces of rods
and walked back to the trash.
A single, red-eared cooter emerged from a downed can.
He was shoving what remained of the loaf of bread into his plastron.
We looked at each other with vague acknowledgment,
I turned to leave and he cleared his throat,
“I’m sorry to bother, but would you happen to have
any mayo and lettuce to go?” He inquired.
I ignored his question and walked back inside the house,
I had created a generation of reptilian carb addicts
all because I enjoyed fishing.
No longer can I tolerate the smell of cooking broccoli…
Alice and the Fair
photo credit/colored by Abbe from original illustration by
john Tenneil
Alice And The Looking Glass Fair
Back in the 60’s
‘Fairs’ began to morph
within the confines
of shopping center parking lots
taking several days to initiate ‘Wonderland’
Flickering lights spilled out as a neon revival –
Alice would have loved the rides, the organ music,
the effervescent noise, grandiose grins,
sugar highs and blue cotton candied coated tongues
all worn as a badge of kaleidoscopic affiliation
We took it all in
absorbing it like Kodachrome onto gray-matter
walking hand and hand through
trashed popcorn boxes, torn ticket stubs,
and mazes of tossed cigarette butts –
We ran amuck on ‘mad-hatter’ missions
mounting gyrating, painted beasts
suspending gravity and stomachs,
everyone hangin’ out just for the ‘vibes’-
Now, 40 plus years later,
these are only foxhole eclipses into memory
life has become media infused entertainment
we are enslaved to cell phones and computers
we socialize through emails, ‘tweets’ and texts
down time equates to learning new and improved
advanced electronics
The ‘old’ days seem like a stone cutters holiday
But I would go back if I could
to enjoy the cognizant honesty of it all
Those were the days when breathing was done in color
when Alice ruled
and we were mesmerized by a simple ‘carny’s’ paradise
riding high on the backs of caterpillars and dragons
gorging on life as if it was ours to waste
peeling dreams off the vapors of clouds –
The ’60’s was a Peter Max, tantric planet
where love was groovy and Hendrix was God
What fun it was living the parallel life with Alice
to circumvent earth and
spawn a whole new galaxy
and something as simple as a parking lot Fair
was enough of a ‘high’ to overwhelm –
At some point we grew up,
stopped conversing in Jabberwocky –
stopped toking with the Cheshire cat
but memories are fair game
and every now and then
the mind snaps into rewind-
and suddenly you are standing
behind life’s looking glass
wanting things simple
tired of life’s morass
so you close your weary eyes
and wait for Alice
and let that small hand with all the details
lead you through the mind maze
one more time…
Whose Rain? Poem to Jim Morrison and John P. Riley
photocredit: The Doors The Complete Lyrics
Whose Rain?
For John P. Riley and Jim Morrison
Sometimes now when it rains
I look out the window and
think of my departed friend, John P. Riley
who used to gaze at the droplets then say,
“that could be the same water that baptized Christ.”
I always listened respectfully seeing he was ever so wise
and so much older –
but I wondered –
could it be the same water?
How about water emptied from Hitler’s tub?
Or perhaps Gandhi in the Ganges?
Am I being pelted by droplets from sages and misfits?
John was an atheist
why did he think about Christ for Crissakes?
Maybe those drops that clung to me yesterday
were from some ancient mastodons diluted piss or
possibly some left over sweat off the brow
of a very drunken Jim Morrison singing
in those tight, black leather pants clinging
like wanton beggars to each thigh –
now that makes me feel like standing outside
and getting
“free fall flow river, flow” drenched
umm —
perhaps I should rethink the orthodoxy of John’s words
under the clouds of a dark and brooding sky
I could learn to love a stormy saturation
certainly it was my dismissal of reason
that made me doubt his logic
or maybe it’s really because
both our analogies
are all wet…
My Id has become
Photo by Abbe
My Id has become
a mole in a hole aggravation
a rock in a sock irritation
a loon out of tune deviation
worried and grim trepidation
can’t feel my limbs castration
thoughts run together masturbation
can’t bear cold weather mummification
losing my touch alienation
needing a crutch illumination
eating too much rumination
brain turned to mush alteration
stuck in a rut frustration
the only way out liberation
is blocked by self-doubt rationalization
the hole’s closing in annihilation
it’s sink or it’s swim analyzation
the id has to go BANG!
Complexity of Life/No Mercy
Complexity of Life
Sometimes the canonical hours before dawn
call to me —
I escape my indoor civilization for the backyard,
settling behind a cheap telescope
slipping somewhere between the richness of Mesozoic shadows,
losing myself to vague, umbral epochs
where the only light and direction come from that of constellations
and the sun’s reflection off the orbiting moon.
There is no evidence of Humankind in this darkness,
everything melds into black crevices –
even the shape of the moon
fluctuates with the drifting clouds.
The night is diffused, soft,
no sharp edges,
everything cathartic and calm,
this is what the Latin’s called Procol His,
“beyond these things”,
this is what Procol Harum calls
“A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
I consider this the holy trinity:
the firmament,
the galaxies,
and me
in an ordained kindred alliance
and the secret language we speak
unity by the alchemy of elements
pressed into our unique forms
using the same matter.
The night sings a familiar breathy aubade,
communion between crickets and frogs,
no streetlights to mar stellar illumination.
This is the altar of the universe
looking into ever expanding space
seeing with the same eye as Copernicus and cavemen.
The night is damp and warm,
grass glistening with dew.
The aroma of raw earth and water infuses the senses.
My skin absorbs the anima and flows with it,
something akin to cosmos gestation,
of being swaddled inside
the galaxy’s great womb.
Ahead of me the lake remains in slumber,
not a ripple, just a mirror for heaven’s vanity.
The full moon provides a copious sight,
through my telescope it seems a cuneiform tale,
it’s armature bruised and pitted,
the expense of its own birthright.
This is the only satellite in our orbit
slowing down the pace for us on earth.
The Terminator cutting through Mare Imbrium
straight ahead to crater Clavius.
The defining line separates what is heated by light
and what is kept dark and grizzly cold.
The landscape is ossified, gothic,
a necropolis of the netherworld.
Four billion years worth of bruises –
no atmosphere, no protection
and still it struts under the sun’s light,
proud as a rooster at dawn.
We are so minor compared to all this.
By the age of fifty, life for most humans is half gone
and yet fifty million is the age of a short lived star.
The numbers float infinite through the universe
I try to limit myself to look at the luminosity,
but soon it beckons thoughts of the chaos theory,
by all that surrounds me:
planets, suns, moons, stars, meteors, blackholes,
gravity, helium, hydrogen, fusion,
and then it gets basic again wondering
why our satellite moon wasn’t named like those
of Jupiter using Shakespearian monikers
with such lovely sounds: Deimos, Ganymede, Europa, Titania.
Then my sights are sidelined by Draco and the Big Bear,
mired in fahrenheit, light years, mass and density,
my brain pumps with extra vigor and I can’t enjoy it another second.
I pick up the telescope and head inside again
listening to tangible things that make sense
like the crickets as they bid me good night,
or that one frog trying to find it’s wet date.
The clock with its white numerals states
it is 3:48 a.m. as I settle into a room darker than black.
I shut my eyes and yawn, thinking
life is just too complex,
too invasive when you let your mind wander beyond
the backyard.
I decide it’s easier to navigate the brain’s firing synapses
with simpler requests if I want it to calm down and relax,
simple requests to put the brakes on softening those neurons
if I want to find sleep.
I revert to basic needs, thinking closer to home.
I have shelter, so I move slightly beyond
and wonder,
what should I have for breakfast:
the Danish,
or leftover Chinese?
In that instant,
sleep stakes her tenticles
and the universe of dreams
shows no mercy…
Abbe
Square Peg Mole Hole Interview
Square Peg Mole Hole Interview
“If I can dream that I dream / and dream anything dreamable / can I dream I am awake ? and why do that… Ginsberg
I sat down in the white room
with only two black chairs;
“What is it you would like to do for employment?”
Asked the Displaced Housewife Counselor
“Interpret dreams,” I said.
“Lofty goal,”
she replied with scathing sarcasm.
“Yes, I want to know why last night I dreamt I was in
a beautiful museum shaping mashed potatoes into
the bust of Copernicus and why there was red jello
in the lake with a cow headed turtle doing the back stroke
carrying a cheese knife?”
“I’m sorry, we don’t give grants for fortune tellers —
nor lunatics,” her left foot tapping hard, or was that a hoof?
“But I must know what these abstract dreams mean –
they startle me all night.”
She looked at me behind eyes full of vaseline,
“any other interests of career potential?”
“A poet”, I said, “I have always wanted to be one.”
“Sorry she yawned, “we have no grants for poet wannabees,
unless of course you are published.
“No, she’s not”, my voice did not come from me,
but from a mouse dressed in a tuxedo
scurrying into a hole in the women’s shoe.
“Then you don’t qualify, silly girl.” She thrust her forearm
on her knee and there was a heavy sundial taped to her wrist.
“How about crafts? I love making collages.”
“So do school children, that’s not a life skill,” she scolded.
“How much time do I have left?” I pondered
“Not enough! You better find what you want to do
with your life. I’m afraid there is no place you fit into
except in your own dreams.”
“I know, that’s the problem, that’s why I am here.
I am a square peg in a mole hole.” I told her.
“You mean round peg, square hole,” she corrected.
“See what I mean? I can’t even fit into the right cliche.”
“Yes, you are truly displaced my dear. So displaced I cannot
place you. Your non-conformity voids you from any reality
based employment program we offer. I suggest you would be
better served to see a spiritualist in Cassadaga and let them conjure
up your future. Perhaps Louis Carroll is the only spirit who might
understand and empathize with your dilemma, but he only liked
little girls, so I suppose he won’t be of much help.” She rose from the
chair with cobwebs attached to her back and unscrewed her head
then folded it neatly into her purse. “I can no longer think about you,”
she said in a muffled voice through plaid canvas, “I must rest my brain,
the very thought of you and this conversation is making my neurons
fire in gobules of pink hummus. I must shut down
I must shut down
I must shut down or
I will go crackers.” The counselor broke off her leg and used it as a paddle
to swim her headless form across the lake of red jello,
halfway across she filled with water
and her leg floated away.
My mouth remained open while the cow headed turtle
offered me moldy swiss cheese and said, “you really should wake
up now,” It’s black tongue licked it’s right ear. “This interview has
commenced and you are sleeping through life. The turtle removed
it’s carapace and put the moldy cheese inside a small cavity next to
its’ heart. When opened, a great throbbing light came through parted
windows causing me to squint and open my eyes. I looked about the
room and saw it was time to wake and meet with the woman
assigned to help displaced Housewives.
Oh, why could I not find a job getting paid to tell people my dreams?
Why was life so structured with rules and infractions?
I walked to the closet and looked for my shoes,
they sat quietly and did not object as I slipped them on,
they knew we had a purpose.
When I stood up I heard the hinge of a distant door closing,
I looked around,
and there next to my left shoe
was the mouse in the tuxedo smiling.
He held up crossed fingers,
threw a square peg over his shoulder
and cantered away on a horse hoof.
My shoes looked at me,
I looked at them
and the three of us burst out laughing …
Light Subject for Monday
crane’s long stick legs have
knees bending wrong way
my knees bend forward
theirs go back
do they genuflect to nature’s back
or am I the one out of whack?
I touched a green lizard
his body turned brown
my Midas touch is for shit…
cat sheds dead winter coat
hair moves like shrouded butterfly
needs good catacomb…
Unicorn
one horn
two wings
no corn
who named this animal anyway…
Birds come to my feeder
singing cheep cheep cheep
obviously
they have not priced birdfood
lately..
neighbor’s dog barks all night
no sleep as he howls in frustration
I suggested that we need
a line of de-‘bark’-ation
the moles are tunneling in the yard
burrowing into mother earth
in and out
in and out
holey molestation…
snake slithers over dead dried leaves
the leaves crackle and snap
warning the birds of
hiss-intentions…
abberants poetry 