Ardatazand

As a hermit crab takes up residence in another creature's old shell, so the ascetic monks inhabit the desolate halls of Ardatazand, wedged high in the mountains where the holy river gushes forth, the offspring of ineffable glaciers. 

The monks know nothing of its former glory, but they dutifully fly bright pennants from its crumbling ramparts, and the tones of their great bronze bell echo drily off the mountain walls. 

The fabled city on the northern frontier of the ancient kingdom of Smaragdistan is now a far cry from the legends you hear when you pass among the peoples of Kapautakand, its southern counterpart. 

Long before he sees its gray stone walls, the rider from the south will catch the sun glinting off the high silver spires of Ardatazand. These are the towers where the wise (and the wealthy) ascend to die, that their souls may be born on the winds high into the sacred mountaintops.

Some of the towers house great silver pipes – flutes, powered by the rising mountain winds which are funneled in at the bottom. Other towers hide magnificent silver bells, gently rung by these same winds.

Blessed are they (it is said) who give their last breath as the pipes and the bells raise a mighty crescendo to the spirits of the silver-blue glaciers.

In Ardatazand it is forbidden to sing aught but the sargam. Thus the musicians of Ardatazand have become masters of wind instruments - ney, surney, and narmeney.

Ardatazand invites many questions, yet reveals the answers to few.

Starlight

(very much a work in progress) 

Hesitatingly, he moved closer, his right cheek 4, 3, 2 millimeters from hers... In that space he felt the heat of the compressed air -- quanta of energy leaping the gap between his skin and hers. And suddenly he became intensely aware of a scent -- something woody, yet sublime; otherwordly, yet somehow almost familar. He drew back to meet her gaze. She understood the question in his face, for she answered it: She made a 'W' of three fingers, and drew them down along her throat. "This," she said, "is sandalwood. And this," she said, drawing them across the same area, "is palo santo." And in that moment, he knew she was truly unique among women, a goddess - Athena and Aphrodite and all the muses in one incomprehensible cosmic incarnation. And he understood that he, to be in a room alone with her, and to be the object of her intent, was the most blessed of men. And he saw that his soul, and his life, were forever altered.

she said, "I love smelling my morning espresso on your junk."
she said, "I want to be the heroin in your story."

she took his alarm clock and turned it face down.
she said, "I want you to drive me over the mountains; there's a safe place on the other side where you can leave me."
he smiled as he reached across her to switch off the lamp. that was what he found most charming about her: her penchant for speaking in beatnik prose. 

she said, "you can rip all the written pages out of my book."

"I drove all night to be close to you," she sang at a whisper into his ear. "Now I'm going to need you to drive all night." "I'll do my best," he thought.

she said, "I brought you my special spiced latte."
he thought, "Steamed milk? Yeah, I could lick the froth off that."

he wanted to ask her name. "Starlite," he said out loud. "Huh?" she said. It was the loveliest thing he could think of.
"Starlite": a motel at the edge of paradise - a glowing pink googie sign out front, a shimmering sapphire pool out back...
A place he had stayed with his mother that one time on their way to Disneyland.

As he gently pulled her cowboy boots off, he realized that he had seen her at the coffeeshop for six weeks and hadn’t known until this moment what kind of footwear she wore.

he lay on the bed in the tangled sheets, his glistening skin gilded by the rising sun… He felt the motion of the mattress as she sat down on the edge, and in that, he felt a thrill of the presence tangible... to feel her body's gravity transmitted through the carnal ether of the mattress and sheets…

he looked at the ring on her finger - beautifully wrought silver setting, shaped like half of a sea turtle, with an oval opal and a fragment of turquoise. She said “I made this myself. I found the turquoise in the desert. My brother brought the opal from Australia. He was wearing its mate when he died.” "Oh... I'm so sorry," he said. "How...?" "He was helping deliver aid in Gaza." 

the words still echoed in his ears, like a sacring bell in a cavernous cathedral: "I love you, yes. But I love all mankind, and I must go and help."
each word felt like another blow of the mallet driving a holly stake deeper into his heart. they burned a hole in the bottom of his soul, and he felt his life draining out.

He grimaced as he gripped the wheel and drove on, a futile refugee from his wounding memories, flying up the I-10, toward the breaking dawn, and the dry blue desert which was to be a symbol of his future. And as the sun broke over the grey horizon, it transmuted his brimming tears into gold.

Starlight. You can't see it until you get out of your box, get out of the bowl, get out of the hazy cloud, cross over the mountains, enter the desert, turn your back to the earth.

He pulled into a tiny mining town called Plomosa just as the mesquite smoke from its many chimineas began to invert, purplishly, over the pueblo houses...

On the weathered sign at the leading edge of the town, someone had spraypainted a 'U' over the first 'O'. Plumosa? That's a hell of a transmutation, he reflected.

The setting sun shone purpleishly on the tops of these looming mineral mountains, rendering them luminous like monstrous amethysts. 

He slowed the car to a crawl as he approached the first buildings -- a collection of RVs and mobile homes.  A few people, walking in the same direction, saw him and waved, smiling.  "What's going on here?" he thought.  Strings of christmas lights and chinese lanterns began to glow. Through the car window he caught whiffs of mesquite smoke, its rustic incense perfuming the evening air. There, off to the right, he saw people gathering... some sitting on lawn chairs, some sitting at small tables under makeshift awnings... he saw a woman doing some sort of expressive dance, barefoot on a persian rug. He caught the strains of music - gutars, tablas, a flute...

An attractive middle-aged woman in a kaftan approached his window. "Howdy, Stranger!" she cried, shoving a cold Corona into his hand. "Welcome!  You are among friends here."

He noticed the red silk butterflies in her long, tangled, sun-bleached hair, and several chains of silver and turquoise beads draped around her tanned neck... 

She led him by the hand toward the larger group. "Everyone, I'd like you to meet our new friend....... Lazuli!"  Immediately everyone smiled and nodded, a few said "howdy."  One man pulled the foil back on the top of a disposable brazing pan, pulled out a stick with something roasted on it, and handed it to him. "Rattlesnake," he said. "It's delicious."

"I'm sorry! I'm so rude," the woman blushed. "I am Rodocrosita," she said, placing her hand on her heart. "And this is Beryl, and Jade, and Gil.  That's short for Gila monster, don't ya know."

"Wanna know my secret ingredient?" Gil said. "Sage.  Not on it.  In in the smoke."

Someone just out of view began playing an accordian ... notes so soft and sweet, it took him completely by surprise.  Several people laughed and jumped up, prancing out into the sand, around the fire.  They did tangos and waltzes, not really caring whether they were in sync with the music.  He watched the sparks rise up into the night sky, and he suddenly became aware of the panoply of stars, the milky way blazing brightly from one horizon to the other... and he felt his heart burst into a bazillion pieces.

And then the sky reminded him of Starlite.  He hadn't thought about her in... how long? Hours? Years? 

And then he knew, and his heart took comfort, that she was no longer necessary. A beautiful, singular memory, yes, to be cherished, but not the end of all desire.

between them stood a menora fashioned from saguaro bones, several candles dripping wax onto the table. 

The green-haired girl called Jade lept up and headed toward the dancing circle. She spun around and, continuing to walk backwards, motioned to him with a sly grin. "Who, me?" he wanted to say, but not wanting to seem like a dork, he quickly followed her. She was dancing barefoot in the desert sand. He kicked off his docksiders.

in the morning, he was awakened by the loud clanging of metal on metal. Wincing in the sunlight, he smelled the delicious aroma of bacon from somewhere. He looked out from the backseat of his car, and saw the legs of a large man protruding from under a car which was up on jacks. that was the source of the clamor. The man crawled out from under and said, "top of the morning to you, lazuli! sleep OK? No scorpions?" he chuckled. "what are you doing?" the question was supposed to be about why he was making so much noise so early in the morning, but he answered it plainly: "Daisy's got a problem with her rotator cuff. Just trying to shake it loose. that’s what we do around here: help each other out."

"I'm Demon," the man said. "Name's actually Damon, but people call me Demon. That's my rig over there. What can you do, Lazuli?" He thought for a second, and realized that he had no fungible skills. "I can brew up a wicked website. Don’t suppose you have much need of that around here..."

"Naw. Well, you can help me figure out why my iPhone won’t connect." he chuckled again.

"So... Rodocrosita: is she, like, 'Mom' around here?" "Yeah. Well, not really. There is no 'mom'. She's just one of the more extroverted people. She's a sister. I'm your brother. See?"

he racked his brain: was there anything else he could do? any unique skills he could bring to the mix? "I can make cocktails. I build dozens of tiki drinks with my eyes closed..." "Hey, that's cool, man. tonight, why don't you hit me with your best shot."

as he lay there, watching the satellites swarm, he wondered: why had Rodocrosita christened him Lazuli? could she tell he was blue? Maybe it was meant to be a reference to Lazarus? he turned the word over in his head. Lazuli. Erzulie. This rhyme had never occurred to him before. Erzulie: the Divine Mother figure in some African theologies. Lapis lazuli. L'epice l'Erzulie. "Erzulie's spice"... perhaps a mix of sandalwood and palo santo? he realized that Starlite was the Erzulie in his cosmogony.

as he slid down in someone's macrame chair, he loosened his gaze to the wide scene. the multihued sky, the warm breeze, and the whirl of the fire-dancers transported him back to Hawaii and the beach at Waikiki. he had fallen in love with that place, and the dream of a simple life where everyone lived in tune with beautiful Mother Earth and in openheartedness with each other. he had never found that idyll. he wondered if these people here - sunburnt, ragtag, broken yet healing - might be closer to the dream that anything else he had ever found.

"Zul." a voice startled him out of his reverie. "Do you want to read that poem you’ve been working on?" what? He hadn’t said anything about a poem. "what poem?" "I don’t know; you look like you’ve been working on a poem."

the scent of frankincense from some unseen censer wafted past

Once a month, on the new moon, the men go out, away from the camp, and hold a fire ceremony. the women do something similar, on the full moon.

 

 

 

 

fever dream

bye bye, blackbird
have you any well

if I wanted to talk, I'd talk
if I wanted to sing, I'd sing
if I wanted to walk, I'd take a walk
if I wanted to sleep, I'd take a drug

and as I sleeped I dreamed of
honey in the jar
flowers between paper
Rebecca and the Well
a tansy tonic
intinctured saltines

sirens sing in the silence
calling me to calamity
lulling, culling
lulling, culling

someone sent standing waves of sand

to smash on the side of a placid sea

and divide the proprietal from the accipital

I can fear the sound of the underground trains
it heals like distant thunder

slift across seven centuries of dream

a futon afloat on the ocean
awash in the steaming brine
tossing about on a sunless sea
a sheet wound around me
like a story too long to tell

I hear bees drip honey straight into the jar
I have syrup for my bun, courtesy Mr Sun

you call to sleep, but sleep don't come
and when sleep come, it come like a freight train
heavy fraught with every little goddamned thing

you stand at the bottom of a vacant dry-dock
while sky-hooks maneuver great steel beams
into place above you

the sound of a klagson clanging in the hullen half of my head
the smell of something burning in the sullen side of my sinus
all of my joints joined together in rowdy rebellion against any possibility of comfort
cold wet rags burst into flames when they touch me
as if they're soaked in butane
and I am a glow plug

yessir, yessir
dream times cull 

Palms

As we lay in the shade by the whispering sea

We gazed at each other with puka shell eyes

Held each other in arms of maile

Kissed each other with plumeria skin

Loved each other with hearts of palm

Slonombifer

The inhabitants of Slonombifer go about their lives in a perpetual state of sleepfulness, never laughing, never dancing, never mourning.

When you visit Slonombifer, do not tell your story, for the discharge of your burden will dispose you to its lap of repose.

Some who read this will say: "Ah! My hometown. I have vague memories of grey skies and gauzy twilights."
Some will say: "I detest the place, for the water tastes like death."

Sapezabezit

Do you know Sapezabezit?

It has only two gates -- one east, one west. When you approach the east gate, you will be greeted by two children: a boy wearing red, and a girl in blue. The boy will smile, and the girl will wave.

Inside the city, you will find sellers of bread on the left, and traders of silk on the right.

The women do not speak, and the men do not dream.

This city was famous for its resident, the Mage of Sapezabezit, who was the first person ever to hypothesize that our language shapes our dreams. He would interview the merchants who passed through his city -- people from across the known world, from Mongolia to Gaul -- and ask them about their dreams. He found that, as a broad pattern, Greek speakers dreamed one way, Chinese speakers another, Ethiopic speakers yet another, and so on.

The Greeks interpreted the name thusly: sape = knowing; zabe = intuiting; zit = divided.

The Mongols say that the name refers to the city's iconic dish: a leaf of bread beside exactly two grilled cutlets of lamb.

When you leave Sapezabezit at the west gate, a boy will give you water, and a girl will give you a polished blue stone.

People will not believe you when you tell them about Sapezabezit, but you will dream about that city forever.

Death Notice

I regret to inform you that your son, John Porter, was killed whilst on active service. Reports indicate that he acted with marked gallantry in the execution of his duty, and fell in the endeavour to secure the safety of his comrades.