MoonCat

Velvet City

August 19, 2024

Elvis can’t strum a note. 
Still, many look for him  
During a nighttime shanghai. 
But these ghost-like hijacks  
Excite only hipsters and bruisers 
And cute, off-hour barista users 
Wearing their best lattes  
To catch the ships of myth. 
  
Back on landlubber strip 
Alcoholics look like pimps. 
The 99 cent lady scratches 
Lottery tickets, chewing on mints. 
She yells at the gutter kids 
Who pee on sidewalk cracks. 
Children of insults and rip-offs  
Selling newspapers to news crews 
Their mouths askew with twisted views 
 
Crooked grin from the bookstore girl. 
Her windows bashed in for no reason. 
Sells last year’s calendars & rusty rock pins. 
The trattoria boils millions in noodles 
Hiring from art school purgatory 
Haloed waitresses with yoga mats 
Channeling their inner schmooze  
Living off deep-fried borrowed blues. 
  
The mayor rolls out sorted plans 
Sketches of the new Pantheon. 
City council sucks sugar tits 
From kiss-your-ass developments. 
While food carts form shanty towns 
For the visiting team’s hangovers. 
Their mascot yanking on his head 
Stuck  
In a permanent state of cheer. 
 
The old urchins on their last barnacle 
Live back in the glory days 
Of cheap chiva, bad Bud, & noses caked with coke 
Taking bus rides to fake desperation 
Basking in their burn out, dabbling in 
Dysfunction. (A national holiday) 
Celebrated with bogged down Bloody Marys 
And get-well cards with handwritten 
Apologies for nothing... that’s gone wrong.

17 comments

Memories of the Dancer

August 5, 2024

Art, Music

Simple melodies are the ones that are remembered. I offer one of mine. I hadn’t planned on releasing a composition so quickly following another, (July 15. It usually takes me a couple of months to complete an initial sketch) but I was rifling through old incomplete projects, when I stumbled upon this one that just needed slight editing. So, I decided to revisit it, think it over, and apply a narrative to it.

Instrumentation is two pianos, violin, cello, sample of a territory band from the twenties, Moog Spectravox, Behringer System 55 Modular Synthesizer.

“Power at her fingertips.” Made up of several found images taken by me and my two cameras.

11 comments on Memories of the Dancer
Deer Mouse

July 23, 2024

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He’s in the peripheral of your lantern’s light

As his jump crests the undergrowth.

His business, a serious endeavor

Risking the watchful eyes of owls

He’s intent upon finding your trail mix.

You sit silent as he approaches,

Trying to impart a feeling of friendship.

You offer a nut and a seed.

He takes one at a cautious distance

Then darts back to the safety of tall grass.

Your lantern’s propane hisses

As you catch a glimpse of another of his small hops.

He’s heading in the opposite direction towards tall trees

With a bit of disappointment, perhaps, to his jump

For you are packing up, securing all food

And shutting off your lantern.

A new silence.

It’s darker than you thought darkness could ever get.

But you know he’s still there as you fall asleep

To the rustle of branches and the sly movement of the wind.

The beginning of an alpine meadow on the north side of Mt. Adams

13 comments on Deer Mouse
Watching the Caribou

July 22, 2024

Poetry

Charles is in the twilight heat

Where summer rubs

Like tectonic plates on skin.

He tells me stories

Of shooting people in Vietnam

During the war.

–

The rifle he used is under his bed.

I saw it once when he asked me

To feed his cat Molly while on vacation.

He took his wife to Canada

To watch the caribou, migrate.

–

It’s such a plain rifle, worn.

Wood stain nearly rubbed off.

Barrel dull, black and textured.

He drives hundreds of miles

To watch the caribou.

–

Through his kitchen window

He mentions how hot it is.

The sun is an orange throb.

He tells me how he used to hunt

in southeast Oregon, Steens Mountain

Hauled back all the animal

Limb by limb, organ by organ

Buckets of blood and fat.

–

I don’t like it when the morning sun is hazy

Before the heat proves

It can take the night.

Charles throws seeds to blue jay parents.

They’re always uptight, worried.

Especially if Molly chews grass near them.

A grey squirrel gnaws on antlers

Nailed to a tree in his backyard.

The antlers are decades old.

–

The goal in Vietnam, he said, was to maim not kill.

It ties up resources, beds, hospitals

Doctors, systems, and puts stress on a country.

Killing just needs a burial or a burn.

–

He’s in a wheelchair now.

Sits in front of a television, volume turned up.

Still feeds the blue jays.

The seed is stolen by crows.

A bus picks him up once a week

To visit the VA hospital

Treating him for dementia and heart disease.

Talks about how he watches the caribou.

Molly doesn’t seem to notice.

Dichotomies are an interesting feature of the human condition. In of itself, dichotomy appears as a binary, representing a contrast. In “Watching the Caribou” I explore a version of dichotomy which becomes blurred. Charles, a vet and an ex-hunter, is somewhat of a hypocrite. In life, he shot, killed, and hurt, yet he celebrates nature and life, via watching caribou and makes sure his cat is well taken care of. In a twist of fate, he becomes the very thing he was ordered to do in Vietnam, becoming “tied” up in social services. Irony. In many ways, this reminded me of humanity as a whole, where there is a side of our institutions set up for violence (e.g. the military, police, etc.) and another side set up for peace (e.g. acceptance, love, etc.). Irony?

13 comments on Watching the Caribou
Representation of a Song

June 24, 2024

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We fight amongst ourselves because there is no one else to fight, though we believe there must be…others. Our footsteps, indeterminate, conflicting rhythms, as if we are cockroaches running towards transformation, a change, of no presence, no reality. As if it is locked away in a room one wished existed. Still, we hear a song seeping through that room’s walls.

It’s her song, the singer who disappeared long ago, and it is a bitter elixir for our pang. We investigate its lingering melody and words like hunting dogs, but we can’t keep up with the number of wounds she sings into us, and our doctors can’t cure us of its beauty.

And now through our longing, she reveals herself or we conjure her, a semblance of her body, made up of spirit. We can see her open her mouth as if to sing but there is no sound. So, we put on the recording, and she sings along with herself, a self that was once alive… enough to place vibrations upon a static piece of media. She looks sad as her spirit mouth moves in sync with a mere copy.

This didn’t stop us from crowding ‘round her. We’re sorry but we can’t be destitute, can’t pretend, even if that would make her words materialize into harmony. Our crowd becomes thick, and her image disappears somewhere inside our throng. It’s too easy to forget to look for her, but we still hear the song.

We must have its sound and we don’t know whether it’s the song that inspires us to fight or our reaction to it. Perhaps it’s both that creates a hum in our ears. There’s no such thing as silence, no simplicity of solitude, no singular thought. We fight as a group. We fight amongst ourselves because there is no one else to fight, though we believe there must be…

(This piece is in response to Burke and Kant’s theories pertaining to the sublime.)

I have a few of these little creations.

10 comments on Representation of a Song
Mountain Stream

June 3, 2024

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I recognize how she is carved

From the liquid that shapes her

Fashioned by countless tumbles & snow melts.

It as if her hair is combed constantly

For strands flow for miles, making a long tress.

This hair of hers comes in an assortment of

Twists, turns, reflections, textures

Tiny waves, pressed, and curled.

Her body, cool, cold at times

Always in transit, flux, liminal.

Her banks, like persistent suiters

Follow her everywhere

Only interrupted by the abrupt advances

Of cliffs that dive in, but lose her

While holding her at the same time

For she is a trickster, more so than the ravens

Dippers, and geese who tease.

She will let me stumble

Upon her rocks and boulders

Like a babe learning to walk

Like an adult…learning.

You can see her inner personality

In the form of falls

Which roll over a series

Of large stones and hills

Or fall like a skydiver from

A precipice, landing in a boom and roar.

There have been times I’ve heard this

Rumble, as if she shakes the ground

With a message I must listen to.

I am small then, in her presence

My feet soft on her sides, my breath slow.

But one turn around a cliff

Into a secluded ravine

And she becomes quiet

As if she doesn’t even exist.

It is within these areas of silence

Where she tells me secrets

Of everything and all, an endless epiphany

And I realize I already know these things and have

Known them, but, once I leave her whisper

I will remember them only by what they felt like

Recalling her faint rush of current

An echo of the river she will become.

Spring is the best time to visit a wild stream. You can see how alive they are.

24 comments on Mountain Stream
What Isn’t True

May 27, 2024

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Don’t sit and wonder why it’s gone

We did everything that’s wrong

Shades of black and white turn to color

Details of the reasons why we suffer

We don’t have to hold each other close

Those days are dead, like a ghost

We look like two (true) perfect lovers

But everything inside has been smothered

But I can’t shake…….

This love for you.

I don’t wanna lose……

What isn’t true.

Guitar Solo

I don’t have to sit and wonder why

I knew from the start this was gonna die

Things we thought we knew so well

Turned into reasons why we failed

Emptiness is a hollow thing to feel

Funny how nothing can be so real

It’s like the blue sky above us all

Gonna be the distance which we fall

But I can’t shake…….

This love for you.

I don’t wanna lose……

What isn’t true.

But I can’t shake…….

This love for you.

I don’t wanna lose……

What isn’t true.

Slow Fade Out

This poem is lyrics to a non-existent song. If you are a singer songwriter, please feel free to borrow it and arrange it the way you like. I’d love to hear it. …….Perhaps (and this is just a thought) there is no complete healing. We are meant to wear our scars. (Ironic for me to say. I have keloid). Healing is found in how we live with pain instead of how we cover it up or attempt to banish it from our lives.

23 comments on What Isn’t True
Infinite String of Finites

May 20, 2024

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The rain became a light drizzle.

“Another story just started. You must think I’m weird.”

“Sure, I like it.”

“I’m weirder than that. I don’t feel anything, just everything. Or I don’t feel everything, just anything. Does that make sense?”

“Yes, kind of. I understand what you mean.”

The rain stopped. Only drips were heard, falling off gutters and tree limbs.

“It’s so humid. That’s not normal for around here. And it’s changing. It seems there’s nothing we can do about it—it’s like those stories. I can’t find an end to them. I want them to end, but I don’t.”

“You can try. That’s what you’ve always done. Don’t worry, it’ll work out.”

“They keep my interest, but somehow, they’re waiting for something. Or is it me that’s waiting? Look how fast the steam is rising from the streets. You know, I think we’re like steam. First, we hit the streets hard like rain, then we move on, lighter.”

The sun poked out from behind a cloud.

“Sometimes I want to touch you, like no one has ever touched you before, but I only have these hands and they’re like everyone else’s.”

“I like the way you touch me.”

“Are my hands warm? I know I can be cold sometimes. There are different ways to touch.”

A couple of heavy raindrops fell unevenly from the sky. As if another downpour was about to start.

“Is all rain alike? I swear each raindrop touches the ground differently. I notice stuff like that. It’s soothing to me to listen to each storm, how different they are from one another. Do you think it’s true, that each raindrop creates a new life?”

“I don’t know. I guess it could be like that.”

The clouds began to move further apart from one another, and spots of blue sky appeared.

“There’s a sound to the dry days. It’s like voices rubbing against one another. I can make one or two of them out, for a while. I write those ones down. Then, I come back to read them. It’s gibberish, all just a bunch of gibberish. I’m scared the rain will stop forever.”

A pause, slightly comfortable, slightly uncomfortable.

“Can I touch you now? I need to know.”

“Will it help?”

Underneath a “raining” fresh water spring.

15 comments on Infinite String of Finites
Images

May 13, 2024

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Climate

I create art with the images I collect. A few other blogs have asked me to share more of my images. The following are a few of them.

Abstracts

Cracked Nova

Wood & Water

Embedded

Golden Era

Nature

Standing at the top of Twister Falls (Taken last week)

Lost Highway

Snow, good. Snowing, bad.

Bridge to Nowhere

Launch into Emerald

Snow in the Gorge

People

A Solitary Question

Curious About Light

Boy Watching

Cell Phone Summer

Urban

Concrete Jungle

Dark Bridge

Twins

Way Through the Blur

Extras

Circulatory

Standing in a River

Pioneer Gravestone

Not So Subtle

34 comments on Images
Simply Heat

May 6, 2024

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Such were our soft hands.

We thought we spoke a new language

Of skin – untarnished, a sweet sweat

When our tongues touched

And our fingers found their old purpose

Sprawling out a blanket upon the beach

Where the sun (or was it the sand?)

Burned the soles of feet. Our love’s

Stern arm, heavy as tenderness. ——

There were specks, sand on our lips

Licking fresh words or wounds

None knew the difference, but they slipped,

Travelled unscathed.

The embrace welcomed, encouraged

As if we were simply heat.

Such are our hardened hands.

Unable to speak the old language.

Remnants written on paper, a poor papyrus of

Conjugated verbs, glittering adjectives

Slippery nouns, tucked between brittle envelopes

Placed underneath threads and sewing needles

Inside Mason Jars and old tobacco tins

On basement shelves, a form of containment

Where the stairway creaks, the furnace flickers. ——

So much fire, two feet, just a walk

To the vague haze of old words or wounds

None know the difference, but they slip,

Travel unscathed.

The embrace welcomed, unwelcomed

As if we were… simply heat.

Deconstruction. An abstract image I made from water, rain, and clouds.

13 comments on Simply Heat