the sound of silence

at 13 i found myself making an odd decision: whether to be an artist or a writer. i'd been a bookworm since the 3rd grade, wrote for the school newspaper, couldn't draw, whatever made me think i could go completely visual? of course, i made the logical decision (why not, even at 13 i tended to be level-headed. well, maybe.) then i bought my first computer and digital camera in 2002. i'd always taken pictures, but got frustrated, foolishly not photographing in thailand, india, sri lanka, and nepal. my camera might get stolen. and the new digital age had just begun. to make a long story short, after 9/11 i felt nobody was listening. so i stopped writing. little did i realize i'd probably said everything i had to say in www.pbase.com/wwp/enigma the beginning of '02. (feeling a writer is usually remembered for a one-liner, i've always written a lot of them.) in 'the enigma variations (2002) a summing up' you'll hopefully find everything that's fit to print. after that i've tried out the artist's life. it's a lot more fun and just as frustrating!

the disappeared

what's not so strange is the impact on us of those close to us. say my friend sherry, www.pbase.com/wwp/sherry or my friend berta, www.pbase.com/wwp/berta . the truly bizarre is the disappearance of the man at my storage locker, the secretary of the accupuncturist, the seller at the bookstore, the people who give us a sense of community texture without being close friends. www.pbase.com/wwp/trans . stay in one place long enough, watching these gaps open and re-filled, and you begin to believe, as i have this week, 'all men are mortal. wayne is a man. therefore he is mortal.'

here's a passage from the second day of the cloudwatcher diary.

Last night I suffered death dreams. A Flamenco Master in Black handed me a deck of cards and a guitar. He said, "Study them thoroughly." I awaited a ferry on a dark river. Did I have the fee for Charon? Was this the change into something 'rich and strange'?

Last December, Isabella Nigrido, my personal psychic, said, "You were overly impressed with death when you were young." What did she envision? Was it my preacher father performing funerals, or my friend Max, shot down in the street, at home in his glass coffin the day after we played together? Gazing at his painted, waxen eleven-year-old body while old women in black whispered, I tingled with terror and raced from the room.

I seek to make death my friend, to die before I die as the wise advise, yet on this first day of the season I don't want to release the world. Memories of travels this winter - Sri Lankan civil-war road-blocks in the middle of the night - haunt me. Out of nowhere images of a dark street-corner in Madrid and the footsteps of a passerby in Berlin invade my brain. And I don't want to die. In March my friend Amy experienced the death or her twenty-three year-old daughter from cancer. She rose with her daughter's spirit into the next world before plunging back into her own body and she said, "There is no death." I wish I could believe it.

perhaps there are intimations of immortality in the rocks around the lookout, in some of the spirit pictures i've been adding: www.pbase.com/wwp/summer

the best revenge

my father used to stop in the middle of his sermons and silence me where i squirmed and cavorted in the front pew. (i also went thru a period of being the class clown in high school.) odd, that i wanted center stage when i finally found performing unsatisfying. instead, i got my revenge by writing this play: www.pbase.com/wwp/rite the humor may not be the most sophisticated, but i still get a chuckle whenever i look at it. only many, many years later did i learn most boys have issues with their fathers. may i be forgiven for writing this piece before realizing i'm not alone.

third time's a charm

does everyone want to write a musical? i suspect so. first time i had songs and tried to make a story. the second i had the story but no songs (and most of the action happened over the phone, a fatal flaw). since i usually do better doing more with less, i wrote something smaller, a three person pocket-musical: 'old man finding the desire to live' and that seems to me to have worked. at least, i like it. hopefully, you will too. www.pbase.com/wwp/finding

my only starring role

due to many misfortunes, only one of my film scripts actually made it to the silver screen (in black & white) 'mother thunder' directed by john lehmann, starring kathy martin, jeff shore, and yours truly. the original 16mm celluloid really lovely, but now 35 years later, sadly decayed. i just ran across a few rough and smudged grab-shots from the dvd. perhaps later i can post better ones. a time-capsule indeed. and the making-of a drama in itself. www.pbase.com/wwp/mother

strike while the iron's hot

the secret of both poetry and romance seems to be obsession, putting oneself totally at the service of the image. when these descended upon me, i couldn't sleep, i'd go to bed, get an idea, and be back at the table. i'd wake up in the middle of the night, no choice but to write. a memorable time, and a pain. yes, the muse can be very demanding. www.pbase.com/wwp/apple

they can be cranky

last night i posted prayers to things. however this discounted their kinks, which i describe in the following poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/candles and so you know what you're getting yourself in for...

SCISSORS

Scissors

know no shame;

they cut up

in the classroom

with a keen,

sharp

wit.

Scissors

cut ribbons

at public functions,

collapsing pictures

into collages;

they like the irony

of me

half made of you.

Scissors

point themselves

like two bird-beaks

at everything

we've done;

they swoop down

from the ceiling,

chopping the bed to bits,

dropping us

back into offices,

where they sleep

like innocents

in drawers.

Scissors

smile

when we go wild

in wars,

acting like

them.

Yes, we need to be careful with things, defend ourselves against them.

we forget to thank them!

those wonderful objects like shoes, telephones, washing-machines. this is my way of celebrating them: www.pbase.com/wwp/prayers help me celebrate the unsung heroes helping us everywhere.

zen we went

so far i haven't mentioned theater. always thought i'd get rich and famous as a playwright. no such luck. but i've written a lot for it. and these short meditations pretty well sum up my conclusions. www.pbase.com/wwp/laughing and as an afterthought, i'll add a slight entertainment: 'henry & alexandra, the journey to cairo'. it's a piece that's never been done and that i'm fond of. www.pbase.com/wwp/cairo

fantasy loves

all my life i've suffered from fantasy loves and anima attacks! maybe this is what drove me to poetry: the muse. alas, this ended with my last collection dedicated to the unobtainable lady, 'bagatelles.' one of my few ventures into prose poems, i had an ecstatic time writing them.

MOONLIGHT

I met an old woman in the forest who asked me to carry her pack, puffing uphill like a grampus to her little cabin where spitting geese and her ugly daughter waited. How was I to know I'd hang out of a tree at midnight watching the daughter peel off her face and skin revealing the princess who'd been thrown out of the house for not saying she loved the king her father enough? In that moonlight I lost whatever innocence I had and I've been carrying the parcels of old women whenever I can, hoping they'll lead me to that same home.

you can read the progression of loss at www.pbase.com/wwp/bagatelles

more poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

the angora lake letters of rabbi niemann

my friends give much better advice than i do. read: 'my sister from the black lagoon' by laurie fox, 'foolsgold' by susan wooldridge, 'gentle vengeance' by charles lebaron, and 'a little book of forgiveness' by d. patrick miller. that said, i have tried my hand at the trade (many times). an example is the summer i worked at angora lookout and wrote to my friends, changing their names and my own. here's an example:

July 10, 198_

Dear Skeezix,

Hurry is the hidden enemy. I'm never safe from anxiety. When I begin bumping into things, watch out. I'm as likely to run you down as say good morning.

How is it I accomplish so much sometimes, not skipping a heartbeat, and other times do nothing, panting all the way? It must have to do with organizing my time, options for breakdowns.

My car broke down yesterday, as I was returning to the lake. I drove thirty miles in second gear. A simple, one-hour repair turned into a three-hour ordeal. Wondering, waiting, worrying, I banged into a railway barrier and bloodied my head. That finally slowed me down. I sat and meditated by a river. I watched two kids learning to kayak. I watched a young woman come home from work. She bent over a man stretched out on a backyard couch. She massaged his temples gently. I felt lonely.

Somehow, when we do the essential first, what is close to our heart, whether it be work, play, or love, we accomplish a lot, we do what we need most, and the rest is simply extra.

No wonder we need to sit by a river, let it wash our cares away. If love comes first, don't substitute bowling, or the rigors of the office. Seek out love, and be satisfied.

Love,

Neimann

read the rest at www.pbase.com/wwp/rabbi
poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems
pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

greek salad days

it's so strange to go back and look at all the stuff i've written. much of it seems like doggerel and preaching! on the other hand once in a while i'd escape into things much more fun, like the only novel i've written, "Visible", based on my eight months on a greek island in the sixties. i combined myself and other characters, so don't take this as strictly autobiographical!

5.

"You're very inexperienced," said Minaret.
She was leaning on her elbow, looking down at him. He had just opened his eyes. Sunlight streamed in a window. It was brutal. It was morning. "You really are," she said.

His mouth tasted like ashes.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"What?"

"How old?"

"Old as Methusala."

"No," she laughed. "Not so young. Twenty-two, or three, I think."

"Twenty-three," he said, remembering.

"Amazing! Twenty-three, and never been bred."

"I have been...briefly."

"God, I'll bet it was brief! Minaret's bare breasts quivered before his eyes. Two pink pears tipped by tiny, grey-blue nipples. She must be cold, he thought. "Tell me something about yourself," said Minaret, stroking the hair on his chest.

How had this happened? He'd gotten drunk and gone to bed with a woman. He'd done something spontaneous, something human. It gave him a headache. "What about some coffee," he said.

"Oh, you poor boy." Minaret leaned down, kissed him on the chest. "You're getting brown."

Yes, his body less like a white slug every day. "Coffee?"

"Alright, alright." Minaret bounced out of bed. She threw on a robe, and disappeared from the room. A minute later, P. heard pans rattling and Minaret singing:

Barely, barley,
Whip it all up fairly.
Jennie's got a blue nose,
Judy ate a cankered rose.
Barley, barley,
Whip it all up fairly.

How had it happened? Astrology...Mozart... She was going to show him something. I guess, he thought, she's shown me.

there's the raciest part in the story! however, i think the rest is fun. www.pbase.com/wwp/greece you're welcome to read for free.
pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp
poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems
enjoy.

trial and error

when young, i dreamed about a beautiful, dark-haired witch with black eyes, who, everytime she kissed me, sapped my strength. i'm still living in that land, and this is one of my favorite collection of poems.

LUCK

The fool falls on his feet,
that's for sure, and the wise
man breaks his bones, that's
how it happens. For example,
a fool and a wise man decided
to go on the road. They bought
a cart. The wise man wanted
to put the horse before the cart.
"No," said the fool, "that way he'll
get tired, and besides, he might
fall in a hole." So they put the
horse behind the cart and began
their journey by going backwards.
They were halfway around the world
when the wise man said, "This
is getting me nowhere, I'm,
going home," and he set out
to follow their tracks back. Now
what he didn't know was the
Devil disguised as a huge worm
had eaten a hole in the road
somewhere between here and China,
so he fell in the hole and broke
his neck. The fool went ahead,
singing songs and having a good
time. He came home yesterday,
and I'm marrying him tomorrow.
Marry somebody lucky, I say,
and you'll never go hungry.
The Devil can't second-guess a fool.

read the rest of them at www.pbase.com/wwp/fairytales
more poems: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/poems
pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

escape

yes, leaving town is one of the best ways to escape chores! in 1992 i spent four months in europe, two of them with my travel partner, berta gardner www.pbase.com/wwp/berta (the picture from mexico on another of our trips)

here's a few notes i wrote after coming home.

3. Whatever makes the present everything makes us live: an accident, love, travel.

4. Because everything is strange when we travel, we look with children's eyes, hence renewal.

5. It's strange that what makes us comfortable also makes us miserable.

12. It's a fine line between feeling alien and feeling refreshed.

15. He searches the world for intimate spaces. The grand did nothing to comfort him.

17. All our lives it's a battle between buying a house and taking a trip.

19. We search and search for the place that feels like a mother to us.

20. Only when he knew the whole world would he feel safe at home.

32. In becoming spiritual we often desire to escape life.

33. More often we are in love with the idea of liberty than liberty itself.

47. We take ourselves seriously until confronted by the inevitable.

54. Just the motion itself, the rocking of the boat, the clicking of the wheels, it was enough. He'd returned to his mother's womb.

60. The only freedom is the love of change.

74. Travel grants us the freedom of ignorance. In a new culture we don't catch the subtle signals telling us what to do.

79. Why do I always end up having a cultural experience when all I want to really do is lie on the beach?

89. After being bewildered by people it's a relief to turn to books.

95. He ruined his body, but had a good time doing it.

108. Hidden from the world he could be what he wanted. As long as he could live without an audience he was free.

144. It's not that we don't know what we want. It's that we fear what we want.

160. When he took his past back from her he, at first, felt empty, for she had confirmed his existence, even as she seemed to steal it.

169. The child reaches for a glittering object. This is the history of humanity.

176. They loaded up the trucks. As Lenny Bruce said, when he died his precious possessions had become junk.

201. Too often we mistake changing the world for changing ourselves.

231. Love or coffee, take your pick. One or the other will give you inspiration.

if these have made you curious, you can browse the whole collection www.pbase.com/wwp/zen

pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

thanks for listening!

messiah

alas, sometimes the best of us can't resist the temptation to save the world. take the story of poor murphy.

THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTIONARY

Let's go back to the beginning. Way back. Before the bloody battles and terrible insights. Before the flag filled with bullet-holes and the demise of Murphy's machine.

It all began in an industrial town in the middle of the country. Work went on as usual. Black smoke poured into the sky. A hundred thousand hands punched a hundred thousand clocks. Steam-drills pounded in the mineshafts. Automobiles creaked down assembly-lines. Two old ladies walked along Main Street, looking for the perfect mushroom. And Murphy, in a blond wig, sat under a hairdryer, reading Karl Marx.

Murphy had had a hard day.

He had ridden into town on his high-level chopper. Stopped at a diner. Ordered ham and eggs. Had even reached for the relish - when he was recognized by the waitress. Luckily, he had finished his coffee when the police walked in.

Being a man of action, Murphy ran into the Men's Room. Locked the door. Climbed out through the skylight, grabbing some woman's clothes hanging on a line. He leaped onto the street, was on his chopper and gone before the police could get their pistols smoking.

Murphy felt oppressed. As the girl worked his nails over and added a bit of polish, he read the words, "Bikers unite, you've nothing to lose but your chains."

The woman sitting next to Murphy coughed nervously.

"Young woman," she asked, "why do you wear black boots?"

you can read the whole sad tale at: www.pbase.com/wwp/murphy

pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

unfortunately, even the best of us sometimes feel we were destined to save the world. take the story of poor murphy:

THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTIONARY

Let's go back to the beginning. Way back. Before the bloOdy battles and terrible insights. Before the flag filled with bullet-holes and the demise of Murphy's machine.

It all began in an industrial town in the middle of the country. Work went on as usual. Black smoke poured into the sky. A hundred thousand hands punched a hundred thousand clocks. Steam-drills pounded in the mineshafts. Automobiles creaked down assembly-lines. Two old ladies walked along Main Street looking for the perfect mushroom. And Murphy, in a blond wig, sat under a hairdryer, reading Karl Marx.

Murphy had had a hard day.

He had ridden into town on his high-level chopper. Stopped at a diner. Ordered ham and eggs. Had even reached for the relish - when he was recognized by the waitress. Luckily, he had finished his coffee when the police walked in.

Being a man of action, Murphy ran into the Men's Room. Locked the door. Climbed out through the skylight, grabbing some woman's clothes hanging on a line. He leaped into the street, was on his chopper and gone before the police could get their pistols smoking.

Murphy felt oppressed. As the girl worked his nails over and added a bit of polish, he read the words, "Bikers unite, you've nothing to lose but your chains."

The woman sitting next to Murphy coughed nervously.

"Young woman," she asked, "why do you wear black boots?"

you can read the whole sad tale at www.pbase.com/wwp/murphy

poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp

throwing stones

since i've spent most of my life living in glass houses on the top of mountains, my view's definitely skewed. here's a page from my diary created in the 90's.

THE EIGHTEENTH DAY

Nothing's right this morning. I've a crick in my neck. Even a pain-killer pill doesn't help. Hanging blankets to block the sun, I sprain my finger. I cry, "How will I support myself if I'm disabled" I shout, "Mama! Mama!" That's what happens when you make the organization your parent. Thirty-five years of paychecks have transformed me into a dependent, emotional cripple. I overhear an ad for my hometown radio-station, and I'm homesick for life in the Sacramento Valley.

Thunderheads loom in the southern part of the forest from Rainmaker Lake to Priam's Valley. Dry-lightning strikes outside the rain-shadow at Scott Summit. Flies tap at the window. Two red-tailed hawks circle in an updraft, mounting higher. Dispatch sends the recon-plane to canyons the lookouts cannot see.

Isabella Nigrido, my erstwhile psychic, maintained I'd been a Tibetan monk meditating on mountain-tops in a past life. Even today when a head lama succumbs, the remaining proselytes travel the land, peering into each newborn baby's eyes to discover the body into which the master has been reborn. As the chose tyke occupies the throne, does he feel like a fake, five thousand disciples falling to their knees, or does he feel ancient tears form in his eyes? I expect a bevy of anchorites to trudge up the road. Now, that would be an act of destiny, myself the head of monastery in the Himalayas! The question is: is that a job I would want?

Once at a youth hostel on the Island of Skye in the sixties, a fellow said, after I'd tendered a long-winded philosophical monologue, "Oh, no, not a child guru!" (I must have been all of twenty-five.) And concluding a class with Josephine Miles at Berkeley where I'd read a couple of poems, a professor's wife said, "You should publish a book." "Good God," I thought, 'you don't do that until you're past fifty." Now I'm fifty-nine, less capable, less knowledgable, than at nineteen. When I step up to the podium, I feel shallow, an imposter, ill-prepared. I've insights but no philosophy.

Silenced by my father as I squirmed in the front pew and disrupted his sermon, I've always gotten in trouble for talking - chastised in school as I played the class clown, easily embarrassed when overruled by a teacher. I prize my intellect above my heart, yet if someone thinks too much of me, I despise them. How can they be so wrong? Don't they see through me?

When Isabella explained I'm reluctant to accept a postion of authority, a scientist who once blew up Atlantis, I thought, "Whether actual or a metaphor, I find it only too true. Let those with thicker skins assume the savior role." So much for being the next Dali Lama!

have no fear, this manuscript "Cloud Watcher, a firelookout's book of days" remains unpublished.

Pictures: www.pbase.com/wwp
Poems: www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

evolution

i've a million theories. one is that as part of evolution human beings are learning to live on artificial substances in human-made environments. here's a poem on the subject.

SPACESHIPS

What a painful process, this
learning to live in spaceships.
Artificial food, flourescent light,
tiny rooms, video-games and other
such adolescent passions. We
have to become fascinated by
models of the world, weaning
ourselves away from grass, trees,
picnics, the steady influence
of the moon. We have to shake
up our body's timetable, punishing
it with clocks, drugs, passionate
thought instead of passionate
action, not to mention hypnotizing
ourselves with electronic dials
that glow in the dark. What a
frustration to live in such an
imperfect world! We have to
drive ourselves crazy with concrete,
riots, recessions, crime, all in
order to shake our love of this
existence, to seek a new
heaven far beyond the stars.
Alas, we have to raise our energy
level to mostrous heights beforee
we can blast off from our love
of each other, our love of mild
summer nights, baseball, icecream,
swimming in mountain lakes,
listening for the echoes to come back
from other human hearts. Going
to the stars is not for the faint-
hearted. You have to get used
to the infinite spaces in low
doses so they don't kill you with grief.

personally, i plan to be a doctor on a spaceship in my next lifetime!
see more pictures at www.pbase.com/wwp
and more poems www.pbase.com/wwp/poems

the sun's coming up

hi folks,

welcome!

this is the first day of smokysun's heaven. since it is a new adventure in an unknown universe, it will take awhile to establish the laws and design. i would like it, of course, to be joyous, a celebration, and fun. alas, my black humor's bound to come through, and i'll start with a poem, despite lao tzu's warning, "The wise one who values his/her life refuses to become famous".

When dancing, we try to
shake off our genitals and be-
come angels, that's what a char-
acter in the movie said last
night. And just the other day
I read, "I try not to make the
angels cry." I thought that the
right guide to a good life. But
I make the angels cry all the
time, probably as much out of
laughter as pain. They must
be saying to themselves, "Look
at this guy, he's almost fifty-
five. He's had thirty-five lovers,
he's travelled in almost as many
countries, he's never had to
break stones for the road, yet
he thinks there must be an
easier way. He envies the married,
he envies parents, he envies
the golfball when it's been hit
hard and true. Given the life
of a poet he wants to be a
singer, given a song he wants
to play the races, winning
at poker he wants to go home
and make love to his sister."
Yes, I try not to make the
angels cry but I do it all the
time, and as I dance, trying
to lose all lust, I watch the woman
next to me, knowing she's no
angel either.

welcome to smokysun's heaven, the dawn of a new/old day!