sew that shadow back on, peter pan

as mentioned, one summer above the casinos at lake tahoe, i read 44 books by and about Jung. i dipped into my shadow, attempting to recover the lost energy wrapped up in my denials. hard to do without becoming someone you don't like! and then your friends, what about them? can they swallow the change? (when he started crossing his legs like a girl, she had a fit. where was the macho man she married?) not everybody appreciates our dark side.

to advance myself - in honor of Jung or as a parody of - i wrote a collection of self-revelatory poems called 'the alchemist'.

Greta Garbo

slipped into my dream

last night.

"My, my," I said, "aren't you

a little old,

or am I young?

Your hands are cold."

Greta Garbo

opened her eyes last night

and invited me in.

I said,

"Greta, my dear,

I'm but a child,

anything else were sin."

Greta Garbo

drew blood last night,

her teeth upon my throat.

"Greta, dear Greta,"

I said,

"I have done so little of note."

come to think of it, just the other day i was thinking of 'the imposter syndrome'. do we always think we're faking it?

read and weep: www.pbase.com/wwp/alchemist

and i keep adding pictures to my summer diary: www.pbase.com/wwp/summer

the fountain of youth!!

yes, it does exist. lives have been wasted in the pursuit. drinks have been drunk. pills have been swallowed (more every day). illegal substances have been smoked. and all in vain.

now i will tell you where to find it. the answer resides in the question. what were you doing at five years old? before schools and ambition warped you. some built sandcastles. one fellow sat in the closet, waiting for god. he's now a monk. personally, i roamed the woods, finger-painted, and broke my nose several times.

ask your parents. your brothers and sisters. this is urgent. for this return to the actions of childhood bring you to the fountain. then you must imbibe it long and with gusto. as the indian guru ramana maharshi said, 'put one thing in practice.'

oh, yes. i was putting on plays for the neighborhood. here's one written much later about a lady who makes the return journey. www.pbase.com/wwp/grandma2 produced and directed by jan cohen in new york.

i hope you enjoy it. maybe it will be helpful in recovering the charm of time.

do it while you can

the bad news first: 'life's a gamble you lose.' then the good: 'you're free to take chances.'

today's post is in honor of http://www.chicorogue.com/ the first performances of the new group. and it's a bawdy one in bars. check it out and you'll see why i'm in the process of posting 'THE GAMBLER, or the zen of gambling.' a story in poems.

for six seasons i worked on fire towers above the casinos of lake tahoe.

ENERGY

"The energy of the earth,"

he said, "concentrates in

some places." He took off

his diamond studs and

put them on the dresser.

Sally lay naked on the

bed. "Everything in history

comes to this conclusion,

sooner or later. Look

at that sky." The sun

was rising over the Lake.

"The human race keeps

going because of moments

like this." They laid

their cards on the table.

Sally hoped for a

jackpot as she caressed

the one-armed bandit,

closing out the sounds

of the cars on the highway.

"History is a series of

accidents, or it has

a definite purpose. Who's

to say?" The sun came

up like a hydrogen-bomb

and the fires of eternity

consumed the bed and room.

Sally felt the golden rain,

and he cried like a child.

www.pbase.com/wwp/gambler

city vs country

down from the mountains today for four days off. the transition gets harder as the summer progresses. in honor, however, of the occasion, i post a sermon. still rivalling my father after all these years, i've given a few, though in the university context. (the subversive poet at work. a couple were on 'the anthropology of love', another in praise of vampires on halloween.) more standup comedy routines than lectures, i felt the audiences bewildered by my audacity. these notes for a talk on 'grid theory' don't really show the insanity of my approach, but at least you get the ideas. alas, i'm less sure of myself than in the past. the older i get the less i know. is that the way with all of us?

www.pbase.com/wwp/grid

forest queen

ah, love, sweet love. only, not always so sweet. probably we need it to progress in this lifetime, otherwise we wouldn't suffer enough, nor would we write poetry. 'all poetry is love poetry', even if it's about death and loss. love was the beginning. maybe the end? great romantics like edith piaf lived for it. i cast my bread on those waters for many years and miss the roller-coaster rides. (well, not that much.) the great thing about love is it takes you where angels fear to tread, the black hole of calcutta, the dungeons of devil's island. as a friend said, 'you've got to value those warm, fuzzy moments enough. and mostly you get them from your children.' no, no, i'm not cynical, but i am disillusioned. these poems rose from a desperate but ultimately unconsumated affair: www.pbase.com/wwp/judah looking at them, i feel i was wiser then than i am now. some wines you have to drink straight out of the vat.

magic

okay, i'll admit it, the truth had to come out sometime: i'm a lapsed shaman. yes, i used to drum and dance, taking part in winter and summer solstice ceremonies. it seemed to be part of my writing practice, and i even wrote a mini-epic on the subject. www.pbase.com/wwp/spirit you can see how it showed up in my graphic work www.pbase.com/wwp/indians_ghost_dance

yet when i began taking photographs and prozac after contracting asthma shortly after my mother's death, i must have felt more comfortable in the magical world, not needing mystical reassurance (one summer i read 44 books by and about c.g. jung). still, as i climb around the rocks and trees on my hours off, photographing the creatures inhabiting them, i must not have lost all faith! www.pbase.com/wwp/summer enjoy this vision from the past.

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!