Vampire encrypt

“My life has been empty, 

my life has been untrue


And does she really know, who I really am?


Does she really know me at last?

And are you just like me?


Dead eyes, 

are you just like me?

Her eyes, her eyes 

were as vacant as the seas, yeah

Dead eyes, 

Dead eyes, 

are you just like me?”

— ‘By Starlight’ lyrics by Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins album “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness”

https://youtu.be/GYJfzw6gZx8

*************************************************************

as I wait for him at the airport I watch the sky .... and realize

looking up at the setting sun

I had the dream again ....last night

it was the one again where at first I don’t see my foot prints in the sand as I move across the shore

..... and I move like gossamer but this time, I see an image of a field of burning crosses and see the silent screams of dead empty skulls swinging from trees

I hear his music to the opera in my dream


And then I see him again for the first time 

the day at the market....like a moment eternally frozen in time

the way the wind swept back his hair, like shimmered gold against the beach of sand as he stood there at the market with his bag of swords,

the slate gray of his eyes of his eyes of possession that blended with the blue of the sea and the sky

and then it is another scene with the smeden on the beach through her eyes.... a ritual or ceremony

under a full moon

in the dream I walk around him on the wet sand and draw a circle around us and kneel before him and before I move to kiss his body, I hold up the moonstone and scry into the white-blue moonstone cabochon

and hear the foreign words spoken from my lips say,

“am byth....” as he repeats the words with me ....

and then I see too that.....

he is so young really....too young to look so old

 ....his eyes, like that of a vampire who lost his soul—sucked out by life—eyes of such wild beauty and hidden fragility that only a dove could actually see

and I become aware, as I have the dream, of this warrior’s heavy sense responsibility; of that life and its great burden on his soul, to trade for an artist’s soul and found myself wondering how he took it on and what or how it served his life’s need, if it kept his soul in shackles and defeated his greater purpose; the warlord; a prisoner of a life, was that why he was given the chance to try again and does the burden remain because it has become a comfort of baggage and all that he knows?

***************************************
It has gone quite chill in the mountains and there is sleet on the road on the way to the airport


Jörn is easy to spot from a distance, as he stands out tallest among the exiting passengers with his gold blond hair pulled back and carrying his cello. He wears a long, heavy, trench coat over a gray turtleneck with darker gray flannels.


He smells good when I reach up to him and kiss his neck; like wood and citrus. He fills my head and .... I catch my fingers into his hair to prolong the embrace.

it is always such a rush to see him and it occurs to me it is going on one year since the first day I wound up in his living room to retrieve my mail

“So what were you doing New Jersey?” I ask against his ear stretched on toes to reach him, “and what were you saying about a table and e-Bay?”

“I’ll tell you on the way,” he says and then, enigmatically, he says, “hidden keys, notes, codes, chords ....”

The raging sea

When we were little I nearly drown in the ocean but the sea spat me back. I swallowed whole gallons of sea and watched the sunlight dim through the wave as the current held me down

we had been walking on the shore, my aunt and my mother, my boy cousin Steve and my sister and all in a row until she pushed me down into the water as the big wave hit. I saw her laugh and walk away to follow them and as I sank into the ocean that was my last image before I was being pulled and pumped of the water .... I saw her just standing there watching me with no remorse

Electra’s dictionary; word for vampire soul

a meaning of ‘Wavegirl’

Because I think in pictures and scenes, ‘Wavegirl’ contains an encyclopedia

much like characters in a story are dialogue drawn as symbolic props as voice to speak the secrets whispered from an internal dialogue never uttered aloud


I did ‘Wavegirl’ on four pieces of cheap oaktag that I taped together on the floor of the apartment we lived at by JFK airport. I could not afford good materials so the paint I used was also cheap acrylic but.... this painting got me through so much and it contains a piece of my soul.....



I did this painting during the time of what I just wrote about; the date is 2000.

My divorce papers are dated September 2001 as the proceedings took a long time

and from the window there I used to watch the airplanes ....

My mother died in 2002

This painting faced so much

it hung on the wall of where I slept on the floor

and was next to Marissa’s playpen in the living room and I would climb into her playpen with her and lay down inside and stare up at the painting when she napped with her head against me

but it is now actually stored back in Michigan by courtesy of Ken’s garage.... along with all of my art, including the one I did of the ‘Vampire Pirate’ in 1999; all from around this time.... my art is part of my vocabulary; my personal documentary of a dissection of a Celf

and so I fear it has not fared too well

If you look inside you see the goddess and so, gutted, yes, she holds the goddess within which I did not notice until I had completed the painting and hung it up. Like the horse reflection .... that painted itself for me.... often art for me is something much more than art, it has often sent me more than just its vision 

Electra’s dictionary; word for Cinderella’s wicked sister

“If you see the wonder of a fairy tale,”
                       —lyrics from ABBA song ‘I Have a Dream’ by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvarus

****************************************

Layer 1 of the sister backstory

****************************************

“How did you lose custody?” Josef asks me

Jörn was suddenly called away last night on some secret mission but he tells everyone else the reason has to do with the philharmonic and Lisa uses the excuse to follow him to the city with Lorenzo

It is late afternoon

It seems Josef has decided to follow me down the hill to the mysterious ‘Farmer Granger’ which has turned out to be the farm attached to the property; once a major farm that eventually stopped running due to the mass competition of commercial farm industry

We heard the story, reluctantly, from Lisa as there was a hidden clause involved and part of the fight that was going on all around me in Swedish

Her client, Agneta, who had been a flight attendant for SAS, is a widow whose late husband’s family had once owned the property for generations. Agneta had met her husband, Theodore (Ted) Granger, then an architect, on board the plane to Sweden for a work project in Stockholm. And then met again on his return flight, which the two took as a sign for destiny and the rest —is history. Thirty years later with children grown and husband now deceased, Agneta wishes to join her family back in Sweden which is why her property is being rented, but

Lisa never bothered to explain about the horse

And the small plot of farm vegetables

nor the chickens

and the goat and sheep (just a handful)

Which was behind the sweet deal for the newly renovated barn house —yes it was also a sweet deal because Lisa was to be featured in an article for the interior renovations; Agneta wants to put the property on the market so, it was contrived for all around possible profit

The tomatoes that were left outside the door, I had worked it out now.... was left there by ‘Joey’ the person who was tending the farm and who had suddenly quit after some disagreement with Lisa (which has not really been examined, come to think of it)

Lisa’s sudden appearance with Lorenzo and Jörn’s parents had a two fold purpose and had something to do with what to do with the farm dilemma and apparently Andreas had humble dreams of filling Joey’s shoes which neither parent supports but Lisa blames on Jörn for his “foolish choice to leave the city” that I have heard her say more than once, in English, for my benefit

***

as we are now in the stable....

“You see....” I begin as I look back at Choklad, the old horse, as I brush him down, “I had been living away from the family in Michigan as ....I always tried to live my own life out of their shadow and so I moved away with someone I had been seeing for awhile who was from there who.... is the father of my daughter ....”

Choklad is a very affectionate horse who seems to like to nuzzle a lot; especially when I speak; he seems to like my voice

So for a moment I am stopped to enjoy the attentions of my suitor

and with relief because it allows me to go inside myself and wrap myself deep inside the inner well. I search there as I press my face into the coarse dark brown fur, touch his long face with the flat of my hand , close my eyes and breath

It is when Choklad gives me a shove that I find the courage to go on

“My mother had stage four cancer....” I explain

I hear Josef shoe scrape outside the stall door behind me and he hesitates before he asks,

“what kind?”

“It was breast cancer,” I say

and here I find myself touching and stroking the long mane with its strong, thick fibers and watch the strands fall from my fingers

“She lived a long time with it, considering.... it was so hard to see her that way....” I have to stop myself. I don’t ever go there. It is too painful .... and so many years now it has been; surly more than twenty ....? time is so strange.... and I am such a pro at cutting off feeling. I am a pro at going cold, I’ve had so much practice

just a blank page

I take a deep breath and grip a handful of the strong mane that absorbs a trace of my weakness

“I had my daughter in Traverse City, a little city tucked away in the snowy north of Michigan— less than a year after my mother’s first round of chemotherapy ..... you see, I knew she was dying, I had come to visit her —her eyes .... you know .... and it turned out that my husband did not love me because .... you know.... you sometimes only find these things out when real life hits ....”

I stop again and search for a different brush, finding some fresh hay too as I go around the tack room

I glance at Josef who leans on the stall door ledge watching me

After a few brush strokes I say,

“He said he did not love me.... but then it turned out I was pregnant. I never understood why he agreed to let us try for a baby if he didn’t love me and it happened right away. So.... he was not pleased....” I have to stop because it is such a tedious story with so many parts of a celf folded into tucked corners, hidden deep inside drawers long jammed shut to bursting. Those you never intend to wedge free

I walk around the tack room and Choklad follows me with more nudges

“At first he ignored all the obvious signs of my pregnancy hoping the home tests were wrong and that I had a stomach flu....” I look at Josef, “he did not want it.”

At first I just stare at Josef’s eyes as my mind splinters off and as I lock onto his gaze his bright blue eyes encourage me to continue. I blink a few times as ....I am not experienced to what I find within his gaze..... I do not know how to respond at first.... so I am caught in a moment’s confusion. It is too late to turn back. But why does he want to know? is not my life such a boring bit of ‘Les Miserable’? ....how pathetic a picture I must be. Not at all how I would like to characterize myself.... but he stands there waiting and.... he is such a kind man and ....so kind to me.... only— in a way I am so ignorant of

I step out the stall and close the door and let Choklad nuzzle his goodbye as I say to Josef,

“I said I would walk him in the paddock again tomorrow....” and we start to walk out but I suddenly worry and say, “is that hill too hard for you?” looking up the path back to the house and consider the old family farmhouse we are nearer to

“The incline is not so bad,” he insists as we start up it, “I’d like to hear more if you wouldn’t mind,” he says, gently but his tone reminds me of a teacher reminding his student of the assignment

“Ohhh....”

“.....your daughter....” he prompts me

As we walk I search the view around us for wisdom to describe the cavernous secrets of my heart with as little attachment as I might summon

the colors of the leaves....

my favorite colors ..... the yellow gold, the deep burgundy .... the fading sage-green that blend with the sky’s sea foam green of a setting sun behind the mountains

“So, we were getting a divorce in Michigan—all the papers drawn..... it was very civilized, he wasn’t even fighting for custody back then—I guess because, it turned out Ken had met someone, some trainer at his work.... and because my mother wanted me to be near her during what remained of her time, we agreed to move back to New York. The plan was for me and my daughter to stay where my mother was living....”

I stop now.

I take a moment to ask if he is all right,

“do you want to rest a moment?” I ask

Josef smiles at me and slowly nods as he studies me and we stand at the incline by a tree

only I do get the feeling he does this somehow for me. He makes an act of wanting to lean on the tree but his eyes belie with a twinkle in that Yoda way that he has as he pretends not to study me but I feel his mental tentacles reaching with his own magical ‘Force’

“Well, one day everything changed....” I say in a fast gush just wanting to get it out and over with as there was obviously no turning back now; he’d never let it, I suddenly realize....

“So what happened?” he gently prods me

I lean on the tree now too, press my face into the texture of the trunk and touch the grooves with my hand. It is an old, dear tree that stands far taller than the house with a trunk so wide that it is impossible to put your arms around; a tree with an old soul

“My parents had moved onto the estate where my sister and her husband lived in a huge house..... they had an apartment below where my mother wanted me and my daughter to stay..... you see..... she wanted to have us near, you see.... “

I gather more strength,

“....My aunt was still alive too back then, so—one week before the move to New York.....” I look into Josef’s eyes and say, “I get a call from my aunt.... and she tells me .... she tells me I had to find other accommodations .....”

At first Josef just draws his white brows together as he searches my eyes with his

I finally say,
“you see.... my sister did not have the courage to tell me herself that she was not going to let me stay there so she asked our aunt to tell me.... and, to add insult on top of injury— I was forbidden to even visit there because our father did not want me there either.”

This is not made up. It is what really happened.

I say,
“Ken already had his new job to start in New York, he had an apartment secured in a town near JFK airport .... and in one week I had no where to go with my daughter to live....”

I turn away for a few seconds to watch the sun sink along the horizon and watching the sun I say,

“by then Ken’s love affair had ended .... and I guess he changed his mind about Marissa.... the divorce proceedings stopped instantly as he offered the only solution that I was forced to take.... and that is how I lost custody. I had no where to go and no means. His family raised money for a good New York lawyer.... and my father and sister got their revenge .... I stayed there as part of his deal—but as the babysitter; we were divorced so he could carry on as he wanted ....on and off with .... I got a night job and paid him rent but made sure to get her to school and fed and I felt at least lucky to be near my daughter .... my mother died about two years later.”

“So your sister ....?”


I finish his question,
“....is behind why and how I lost custody....”

the mystic sun

Jörn does not speak often about the strangeness of the bond between us. Almost as if he assumes it is something that is understood

 but I believe his opera is his way to express this

He is too rational a person to speak about these things but sometimes I wish he would. Life is so fleeting and moments go by in a blink. Some moments you never wish for again

but others are gone before they ever got to happen and then it is too late

I write from my phone from the gallery alcove above that faces diagonally to the wide, open, living-room, space below

But I face the window and watch the leaves fall with my headphones on to tune out the voices of conversation that trickle up from downstairs —between Lisa, Andreas and Jörn that I know I would likely not understand but I am sure the tones would tell me enough

So, again, I watch him from afar, it seems, absorbed in his world .... like an artist’s task, penning scenes of his life in my dictionary; occupied with the theater of my muse

Josef and Elsa have gone driving locally exploring the autumn foliage on an audio tour they discovered on some app. The Adirondacks are beautiful now; like a travel postcard; everything brilliantly yellow ochre and alizarin crimson



but I think of this morning.....

*****************************************

“I had to come back for you,” he says

only he says this to me in sleep or maybe it is half sleep

an early light seeps into the room with us. I am turned to him in sleep; pulled inside his warmth within the circle of long limbs and I find I cannot move, caught in his fingers that hold my skull, his fingers tangled in my hair. He unconsciously grips and then releases, creating a symphony within my head of his touch and by how he breaths I know he is not awake

I don’t know if he is aware of what he says but he says in a deep, soft voice,
“I was to late that time so .... I knew I had to follow you....”

if his words did not make sense to the dream I just awoke from I would not find the relevance

because I dreamed again of the little hut and the smeden .... the blood and the hides and watching the firelight die beneath the forge .... and....  he held my head this way.... the same way he does now

when I left him ..... when she died in his arms

I dreamed again

all the blood everywhere, all over his white hides .....how he never let go, and how he stayed that way long after going cold ....and remember how hard it was to go and to leave the sight of him, to long to be near him that lingered


You see, this dream —these dreams of the pirate, only ever seem to surface while in extreme duress of danger or emotion —when something in the present life is in deep turmoil

or— just triggered when we first met when it seemed like every night we had the dreams

  ....like some voice that recalls, it surfaces when it seems all hope is lost

“Follow me from where?” I ask him holding back a sudden sob

absently he caresses my hair, his fingers comb through, he says softly with heavy regret,

“I was too late....”

And the weight of remorse feels nearly oppressive; like a burden


And it reminds me more of other things.... details from somewhere.... like always watching for the sun, searching

and there just beyond .....the hut apart from the other houses with memories of the thought of his scent on the hides when he was away ....the hut beyond; a small shrublike grove that faced the sea....

But he was too late

he should not have gone .... I know from dreams.... because  of the fear for the maimed warrior lord

.... this dream we had tonight

that is when he said he would “be back before the midnight sun”

But he should not have gone

“I had to follow you....” Jörn says this again and breaths slowly, “....min lilla duva.... you were the angel that appeared like a dove.... I couldn’t let you go again.... why did you go?”

I try to look at him. Try to move my head. But I am caught in his grip; his fingers tangled close to the scalp and holding my skull caught and cupped in his hand

what does he mean?

“I could not let you go back to this place alone but —what was the chance I’d ever .....”

“What?” I ask confused

“What?” he asks in reply but still grips me

“Ever —what?”

“....find you.....!”


“....Find me?” I ask and now try to angle or move my body to turn to see his face but he is much stronger and keeps his hold on me as I struggle to free

which now is what seems to wake him and he releases his grip of my skull, his hands absently move down my body, as he sighs so deeply that it vibrates warmly as he pulls me to him,

Only I realize he’s still between dream because now he says,

“....I told you I’d be back before....”

but then now he wakes up

he takes another deep breath but it is more ..... like someone stabbed; like a kind of grunt and his arms go tight around me like a vise,

“.... the midnight sun.”

the desert of j’adore

“It’s you that I adore .....

lovely girl, you’re the murder in my world 

Drinking mercury 

To the mystery of all 

that you should ever leave behind 

in time 

you’ll always be my whore 

you’re the one that I adore....”

—-‘Ava Adore’ lyrics by Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins album ‘Adore’


https://youtu.be/yzVQT5EgDpw


there is a moment when you try to reach through in dream to confront the bogey man

but sometimes another dream enters and the dreams overlap

Dr. Rothschild used to say it was a ‘defense mechanism’

the same reason why I have blocked memories ....because it is more than the waking mind is prepared for

But I have found that over the years the veils that kept me safe from their being recalled have worn away to thin and ....

suddenly in the middle of a day the awareness of what it hid is fully realized —and they seem —incomprehensible

....those moments when you stumble

     those moments when you understand why a tea kettle might suddenly combust

then crumble

My objects mean different things

      especially in dream —like blood

not always a purging; it is sometimes just more of the side affect of trying to dig it out


but more often than not, the manner to prove I am tougher than pain;I do not feel pain; I do not feel ..... I do not feel anything and nothing gets in

I do not feel

Nothing gets in—I do not feel

only I am never prepared for hypothermia

Such as now

I have wandered outside I realize and barefoot and cold whether I feel it or not —every part of me is shaking as I try to walk towards the house

sometimes you detach


The first memory, the first image of the memories.... I ever had of the pirate was on the beach.... the cold frozen ground and gray light with the wind and looking up at him. It was not the first memory but the first memory I realized..... but it was his eyes and how he narrowed them against the wind....

and exactly how he looked at me —with claim..... like how Jörn looks at me when no one is around; when he adorns me and dresses me —like the strange and erotic way he washes me

only....  it is the feeling like I have known it before—with him; have known him before ....like his fingers when he handed me coffee that day, now so long ago, in his kitchen

—I remember the way his fingers had brushed across my hand that caused me to look up at him suddenly and then I saw it there..... that first time because

I became aware of the den inside his mind, because it was familiar and had to be the reason why we became lovers before we even knew each other; because we already knew each other .... it seemed


“I’m going to put an alarm code on all the doors,” he says now, “—put your arms around me, min lilla duva.”

when I realize we are outside and that I have been dreaming

in between dreaming

....he wears a wool trench coat over warm flannels and he pulls me inside his coat with him

Virgil

Stain



It is because I dream a bad dream. It is a disturbing dream. Like one of many .... I fear sleep because of this

the dreams haunt me always



“I don’t want this....”

     ***

and so I go and search the closet

I look for something clean. And then pace back and forth to the sink in the bathroom to the medicine cabinet .... i search and search for something ..... because it never goes away


There is a loft gallery where the upper floor rooms face out and at night all the bare windows downstairs scare me. The windows are so dark. They have a million eyes. Their faces are skulls

Barefoot on the floor I am silent through to the kitchen where there is a door and so I go because they chase me

I seek the familiar; the earth and throw myself down

and as always the only place that I ever feel safe; next to the earth with the trees to watch over the water

to watch over the water .... to wait for him

the hands that pull her from the water because he brought her back.... and dried her hair with the hides and made her clean again

skulls & body language; shower conversations

I am still in the corner of the shower on the floor where the water hits; bent like wavegirl ....as hot as I can take it....seeking some intangible sense for safety

The warmth of the shower water, it is safe; it is like arms that hold and keeps the world away and melts the saline tears.... cleanses the shame and everything that I am —is removed; is void of this world

I don’t hear the bathroom door open; then the shower door, as the draft disturbs just before I hear his voice

“.... min lilla duva....” he says as some chill air enters with his intrusion “....it was a thoughtless joke,” he says

“What was....?”

“Lisa....”

“Oh..... “

I hear the movements he makes as he discards what he wears before he comes into to shower stall with me

“Please stand up from the floor,” he says as he crouches down to me on the bricks of stone tiles, “why are you down there like that?”

I shake my head and don’t want to move. I put my hands over my face

I say,
“no,” and shake my head

“Please stand up,” he says

“No—please let me alone,” I say this but not loud enough for him to hear over the water and shake my head

“Snälla....” he whispers against my ear and I feel his hand go around my shoulder as his other hand goes down my arm and finds the raw flesh from the pumice; it makes me bolt as he presses into the flesh. “What are you doing to yourself?” he asks me now and his voice belies his frustration along with something else I don’t recognize .... and he seems to become worn of his patience,

“get up off the floor,” he says this like a demand but I am not in the mood to listen. I block him out instead. Press my head into the shower wall with some impact like a bang. He shouts at me in Swedish but I don’t try to understand but then he says, as if pleading now, “the bear is gone as well as the deer skull.... duva! It was a stupid and childish thing for her to do. Everyone is angry at her now for it.”

“I don’t care,” I say and shake my head

“Yes you do.”

“No. I really don’t, Jörn—I am so used to people doing things that —maybe— are kind of mean but —it doesn’t even register with me. I don’t even think I notice any more.”

“Well.... you may say that but it is not ok with me.... I don’t think I understood before why the skull bothered you so much,” he says over the water that comes down over us

I think about his words but then instead say,

“Jörn.... she just doesn’t like me.... and I know they don’t either,” I say

“No, that’s not true—look at me, duva, I want to see your face,” he takes my hands from where I press against my eyes.

He makes me look at him when I try to avoid his direct gaze.... but I don’t like it; it makes me feel like an idiot. And I mumble something to him. Still he keeps me there and puts his hand around my jaw to hold me steady, “please stand up from the floor; I cannot watch you do this to yourself,” but it is the intensity within his eyes as he blinks away the water that clump his blond lashes together, an intensity that burns with that kind of supernatural kryptonite that he has that is like some superpower. That all-seeing, all-knowing ageless wisdom like that of a soul that has haunted for lifetimes.

But now he pulls me up off the floor, and lifts me to stand and presses me against the stone tile wall of the shower as he stares into my eyes. I watch his turn red around the gray/blue slate that can go from cool to hot with lightning speed

“Stand up,” he says this even as he lifts me, pressing me into the wall and holds me up,

he raises me up above him, raising me slowly until I am lifted high above him so that he is looking up at me....

he holds me there above him

it is blurry with the water and without any visual aid to see ....

only I see him clear.

I see him

and what his eyes say

he presses me into the wall and puts his mouth on me, and with the water and the mist he kisses my skin as the water runs down; he licks along the trail of water and where it goes

and I forget the nightmare from last night,

I forget the family chorus outside the bedroom and even the deer skull

and reach for him, and tangle my fingers in his hair and pull myself to wrap my arms around his neck, wrap my legs around his hips and move to grip him to take him to me as this need to join to his body washes over every other thought; I say into his ear, I say.....

but no.... this I will not say ....not here anyway

a day for the races; Electra’s dictionary (jm muse chronicles)

“Pushing through the darkness
Still another mile....

“I have a dream
A song to sing
To help me cope
With anything .....”

——lyrics from the song ‘I Have a Dream” by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaenus



—————————————————

It is in the morning, today that I get up before everyone to make coffee when I get a random text from Gerald asking
<how is Jörn’s opera going?>

<Have you had another dream?>I text him back

<They have been consistent the last few months but I have been getting other ....well—signs>

<wow, what kind?>

<It’s to do with his work... as it is to do with you... just know he has to .... it’s hard to say as I don’t want to read into anything and think it’s best just to say.... this work is about something else something bigger than just two people..... than.... well— that it seems more than just ....  art. It is about something necessary but I’m not sure why—only that I don’t usually get these kinds of signs so— I wanted to ask you if he is still working on—is it an opera?>

<Yes!!! Now his family is involved and they are working on it too..... He has been almost obsessed with it!>

“Oh, good....”

“Good?”

“Yes.”

*****************************************

when you deny yourself of an emotion

you start to question everything you feel and

are soon detached from ‘the self’ —and no longer trust yourself nor your gauge of reality

to live in denial of one’s own personal reality

You doubt your own observations

Every experience and emotion you ever have....

you question if it really happened

Along with the concept of having

The .....rights

that I was not entitled

that life

Forced to live

the lies; like fibers on a loom that ties and binds you

where does the anger get released..... where does the anger go..... what logical  choice of violence to resound and rebound upon the self that it already has beaten should it seduce to martyr its everlasting Celf?





“They had the dimensions wrong,” Lisa says when I ask about the furniture

I watch as a different crew of truck people arrive to remove half the furniture

“Some were in metric and some were ....” but she does not bother to finish her sentence

“I have an idea,” Elsa says suddenly coming over to where I am cleaning up the morning plates; she rests her hand on my arm and she says, “Josef and I noticed there is a nearby farmer’s market and they are having a harvest celebration with pumpkins.”

I find it odd somehow that she would want to tell me this, expecting a catch

“Lorenzo and Lisa will be doing their photo shoot all day here so we would like to explore,” she tells me.

“Oh that’s nice,” I tell her

“Oh, you are coming with us,” she says

“Oh good,” Lisa says, “this way Jörn can help with the furniture here without being distracted with D—“

“Oh he’s coming too!” Elsa laughs and tells me, “we need to pick up things because we are going to make jordgubb rabarber paj,” she goes on to say

“Where am I going?” Jörn asks when he hears his name and walks over from watching the furniture men get too close to his piano

But then Lisa starts a conversation in rapid svenska and I take it as a not so subtle hint to mind my own business ....and clean the kitchen.

They don’t notice when I slip out after to find my way to the shower

It is on my way as I walk through the bedroom to the en suite that I stop and look at the bed and jump with a start

It’s the deer skull propped on the pillow and below it is the severed hide of a bear with its giant head stretched across the length of the bed

I don’t hear Jörn come in but I hear him curse in Swedish, “skit,” and go right to the bed to grab both off (my side of) the bed, “Leeeeeesaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!” he bellows and drags björnen behind him

I just go and start the shower .... sit at the bottom and pull inward into a ball
*************************************************seep
let the water beat me....as I sink deep into thoughts

six cervical vertebra they line up like the strangulating width of a large hand’s grip; like a collapsed accordion; crushed herniated in a descriptive bulging line, portraying a crime

Like left fingerprints at the scene of a crime. If you measured it, the evidence would read like a confession by the murderer. Like a signature or autograph claiming a victim


.....and so I find myself turning inward and ....

   turning also to that vague and distant memory of a father I once knew.... but was told I must never recall

because it was always his conviction in my mind’s ear that I have heard through all these years.... because, father.... I think I have lost .... the power to believe ..... I beseech you to send your beacon for the light is fading fast
————————————————-

in my spine

seven bone spurs between

they are sharply progressing into the neural sack.

It claims the sensory reflexes and administers it’s pain ruthlessly with no expectations to ever let go its grip

It pervades and eternally breaks at the last lingering of daylight’s faith

out damn spot; out haunting

....I wash and I wash —

but it’s still under my skin.

I realize the thing I need I left outside. It was because I set it down when we looked for where the hose is outside —was it the bucket I need.... no

it was her game. And she was a bully. But what did they tell him?

Only it never comes off your skin. And then the spiders crawl in which is why it is so necessary to keep washing it out

“Oh shit!” because I realize I am outside and it is the middle of the night

I hear my name said from behind me

At first I can’t remember whose voice that is. I startle when I feel the water from the spout turned off

“What have you been doing?” this same voice asks me

It’s cold outside. I realize the bucket overflowed and that I am soaking wet

“Come into the light....” he says and pulls me to where the outdoor lights go on when you walk by them.

“What have you done?” he asks me

“What?” only now do I realize I’m dreaming because the tone of the man’s voice seems alien to my real life

But he says,
“we should put something on that right away.”

I look and notice I have been washing my skin with a pomace stone and at first I am more disappointed that the stains are still there than I am about the blood

“Why does it still show?” I ask because usually everyone understands your thoughts when you are dreaming

“Let’s go inside, I have something for that,” he tells me

 I wake up from the dream

“We should go inside,” he tells me

but I find I do not have the impetus to move


“Oh....” I sigh looking into the still pond

It is a moment where nothing is said.

But so much is said.



“Are you cold?” I ask him

He reaches for my arm,
“why don’t you help an old man inside?”

we start to walk but he stops for a minute

and whatever it is makes him scratch his head thoughtfully as he looks at me as if he is seeing me for the first time. But then he smiles and leads me back towards the house

Of a haunting pirate

“And she calls to him:

‘Let the waste
Cross the ancient trails to you
Far out
Beneath the sorrow clouds

Let them taste
The bitter, lost mistake of you
Let them cry out
Through your rusted scars....”

—lyrics by Billy Corgan from the song ‘the Tale of Dusty and Pistle Pete’ by the Smashing Pumpkins from the album ‘Adore’


As I watch the moon tonight I think of Raoul and the burden of his soul

why should it carry through life times.....

the day that the pirate killed her mother happened two summers before the day he saw Elan on the beach and followed her to the market

even though she had seen it happen that day she did not know it was the man who faced her that day at the market.... she had been up on the hill overlooking the beach because her mother told her to run

and then she saw it happen from the distance

he had seen the girl running .... but it was not Raoul who butchered Elan’s mother. It was because it made him remember what befell his own family, that he stepped in and killed the woman quick to end her slow torture by the men as she had fought back.

But it had been the heavy pendant crescent moon that she wore made of silver that made him later recall the woman he had killed because ....he took it from her. 

When he discovered on the boat that Elan wore the same kind of crescent moon that had been hidden within the folds of her woad blue robes, he knew a moment of guilt and shame

In this way we may begin to understand the weight of this burden he must have then felt. And how it must have been such a guilt to germinate within him such a heavy sense of anguish of responsibility; 

a kind of debt

which could carry within a soul long through many lifetimes 


https://youtu.be/X7Bnp_Znp9M

autumn

I did this years ago when we were living in Michigan. It was an old cemetery in Royal Oak near where we used to live. Autumn 

the deep morass; night terrors

I really don’t know how to get out of here.... this may have seemed to anyone who might stumble on my words on some random search through blogs.... as if it was only just a puzzle I made up with all the answers figured out.... but it’s not true. I mean, this was why I ever first wrote down my words in a dictionary ..... made up my own meanings


I don’t know how to get out of here

prequel to reprise smörgås family drama (more shifting props behind the scenes)

It is when I see one of the guys from the furniture truck carrying a deer skull with antlers that I run over,
“no, wait— please no animal carcasses,” I tell him

The guy looks at me and seems to see right through me,
“I just bring the paid inventory. It’s supposed to be dropped off. If you want to return it you have to arrange a bill of lading—“

“Can you just take it back to the truck?” I ask him and mumble, “I mean, it’s already dead. I can’t imagine why it’s considered inventory—or maybe we can bury it,” I feel my skin crawl looking at it and shudder, “please, can you just bring it back to the truck?”

But then it occurs to me because of how he looks at me that he thinks I’m just some brat

so instead I look for Jörn and wave at him. I see him talking to one of the other guys about how they should go around the back for something they’re bringing in because there’s a wider sliding door

“What’s wrong?” he comes over

“I can’t have any inventory left on the truck,” the guy tells him

“A dead skull?” I look at Jörn

He shakes his head at me and makes a frustrated hand gesture at me,
“I realize this stuff is neither of our tastes but what am I supposed to tell Lisa? She’s contracted to design the interior and Lorenzo is taking the photos....!” he seems frustrated I realize

“Ok but— no animal carcasses,” I say anyway

“Oh you saw the bear rug?” he asks me

“Oh my God!” I say in horror

“I guess not,” he mumbles and then tries to compromise with me. “What is your problem about it? Is it that they are animals?”

“Dead!”

He sighs heavily,
“what about your one thousand vintage Coach handbags you have everywhere?”

“Well, they’re vintage,” I say and back away from the dead animal head pointing at it, “that thing had a brain in it....”

“And what about your handbags?”

“Well, they’re vintage. They’ve already been dead for over twenty five years —I’m honoring their memory so —it’s ....different! plus they do not look at me—like, look at that thing, it has eye sockets, wouldn’t that give you nightmares?” I wave at the skull, and start gagging and then ask him, “what did you do with the bear?”

“I didn’t do anything with the bear! It’s somewhere in there!” he waves at the house

I look at the house and suddenly don’t want to go in there

“You mean it’s in there now?” I look at him. “Why is she putting dead animals everywhere? Does it have a head?”

Jörn chooses not to answer

He says,
“I’ll tell the guy to take the skull and bear somewhere, all right, how’s that? Anyway, I’ve had enough of this, I’m going for a run— “

“You’re going running? Now?!” I ask him watching things move across the lawn, “did she leave her tablet so we can figure out what to do with everything? I mean, are they just supposed to dump the stuff anywhere? Because that looks like what they’re doing!”

I just realize he is serious about running as ....he’s wearing his running clothes ....!

“Why are you so angry?” I ask him

He stares at the trucks and the furniture and the trees being dragged and says,
“Lisa....”


I look at all the stuff everywhere too and then at him

But he has this expression as if he has reached his limit

I don’t understand .... at first

only you can set your watch to his madness ....

as well, I realize it is not on his morning’s chosen plan A agenda, so now by default it seems it is mine

I watch him go over to the guy to discuss about the skull and carcass though before he takes off in a mad sprint across the front lawn

I watch him disappear ....

great....  then I go wedge inside through the door where there is a headboard still stuck in it....

the downside, I guess, to designing with a tablet

I look around now at what was once the huge main room. It was a huge open space ....before the truck arrived.

I see his beloved piano overshadowed in the middle of it all looking like an alien in an alien world. Poor thing. Only I really mean Jörn. It makes me go over to it as the poor thing looks like it needs a hug and ....then I find I touch the keys

then turn around to look at all the furniture everywhere. Rather daunting. Like some warehouse of crammed and oversized merchandise.

And consider.... In one of my careers I was a retail merchandiser so ....I find all this is like déjàvu and start tearing off the cardboard to see what things are

and start shoving things across the floor

 ....and force the headboard out the front door

Soon after this, however, I lose my patients with Bob, the deer-skull ‘inventory’ guy from before —who I thought was not exactly nice and I see him carelessly toss a box but I hear it land with some kind of telling clamor and crash that does not sound altogether whole

he sees that I see this. So I decide to press the advantage and go over to the box that I realize has a lamp in it which he just tossed and so I shake it. It makes the very telling sound of shattered glass


and say,
“what about broken inventory?”

“Shit....” he whispers

“How ‘bout this..... I won’t say a word about this if .... you do me a little favor?”

“Okayyyy—what?”

“I just need you to get your buddies to come over here and—uhm...help me move a few things around ....or I can just call Lisa....?”

(More décàvu from my manager years)

After a little over an hour I see that it isn’t so bad without the dead zoo characters

 I realize Lisa has some kind of theme going on. It is all mostly neutral tones of gray, beige and natural woods and fibers and all mostly large pieces and by scale it should all somehow work or

maybe could —I mean

the wide interiors ....

except for a few misjudgments about the placements of light switches and electrical outlets which must not appear on her tablet, so there are some logistic problems, especially about opening some doors in the bedrooms, or closing them—depending on the choice


And I consider that maybe sawing some of the furniture would help to fit them better but there does not seem to be a saw anywhere around

and so just climb over the back of the loveseat to get out the doorway

It is when the guys and the trucks leave that I truly begin to worry

But it gets more worrisome when Jörn calls me from his jog

He says, what sounds like,
“they’re coming....!”

And the call gets dropped. Mobile phones don’t seem to work very well in the mountains.

I try to call him back and by third try I hear through the mountain static,
“they will be here in an hour!”

I have no idea who he means

And the call gets dropped. I call again.

“Who?” I ask

“They’ve decided to surprise us and come a few days early,” I hear his dry, crisp voice cut through the line and the sound of his breathing as he jogs

So it sinks in that he means his family

“Oh no....” I look around at the mess

Jörn says,
“so—can you find something to make for dinner?”

“Dinner? We don’t have anything, remember we were going to go get things tomorrow?” I start to look in the cabinets walking between odd angles of furniture to get to the kitchen area and find I am right as there’s nothing besides angel hair pasta

“They’re bringing wine and fika stuff—what about that crate of tomatoes the neighbors left?”

“When did you say they would be here?” I ask him

“Around four....” more static

“That’s like ..... soon! Where are you?”

“I’ll be back in twenty minutes, I promise!” he says and the call gets dropped

Electra’s dictionary film noir; shifting props between the scenes (jm chronicles)

it is over breakfast coffee I ask,

“how much are you renting the house for? I will split it with you.”

“How can you do that?” he asks me

“I’m editing the newsletter for Johnny and Joanie now— you know, for the Jones Historical Society. That’s what they called me about the other day.”

“How much are they paying you?—what kind of newsletter?”

“I don’t know; I forget.... it’s for like email subscribers and their Facebook page—and IG too.... because —look, Jörn, I know it’s because of me we are here, I can’t have you foot the bill.”

He acknowledges this last remark by just his eyes as he seems distracted by something in his thoughts

So I say,

“also, I have always paid my own way.”

He’s thoughtful as if thinking about something else, and instead of answering me he says
“you didn’t explain that Hannah’s photo shoot is at the penthouse.”

“Oh, didn’t I?”

“No.”

“Oh....”

But now he says,
“You know, I had been thinking about taking time off from the orchestra before this came up, duva—as you are aware, the opera has consumed my mind .... and it ....I cannot work on it full time if I am rushing off to concerts every night.....” he says by way of explanation for me, “and most of my income comes from .... the government job,” then he changes the subject suddenly,

“You know she is living there,”

“Oh, I know.”

“Then you should know about my daughter’s notorious parties.”

I laugh,

“she is keeping Ilya busy so I think your daughter is in safe hands,” I say because I’m not worried. “The photo shoot was her idea and Ilya loves the idea because it’ll bring more patrons to visit so, it really is a good thing. You don’t have to play the heavy even though I know you like to. Hannah is a good girl.”

He laughs when I say this in a way that communicates how erroneous he believes what I said is

But then I remember what I’d been wanting to ask him

“So what did you talk about with the art director the other day —was that who he was?”

“In Montreal? Chants Libres.... yes....” he gets lost in thought but then says, “it’s given me some ideas.... I want to try video taping some performances there and and overdub it which reminds me; my equipment is supposed to be arriving today —oh, and just to warn you: we will be going over some music to prepare for some recording so it’s bound to be pretty loud because of these high ceilings but so is the concert hall in Montreal so ..... Duva.... I’d invite you to come with us to Montreal when we go there to perform it to record but ....you’ve misplaced your passport.”

“Oh.... yeah.... hmm.”

“You really have no idea where you left it?”

I shake my head,
“um—pretty sure it’s nowhere I can find....” but I can see he sees right through me

He lets out a frustrated sigh before finishing his coffee and then walks towards the piano but he mumbles,
“you know exactly where it is.”

His remark suddenly makes me aware of something I had not really been until now; how close he really does pay attention to everything. And keeps the poker face.


And I find myself thinking about that conversation when he said all that about the safe master.....

this means he has known a great deal more than he pretends and for longer than he says. So I wonder how much he already knew about me before we even met. Yet, he seems unconcerned when he allows these tidbits of himself to let slide. I know he does this with intention —to test my reactions? Should it bother me? Or should it bother me more that I don’t care?


I spend the day cleaning deciding to leave Jörn to his opera as he has been struggling with a musical arrangement all morning

my way to be  preparing for the parents, I guess. But actually, I like cleaning as I find it’s good therapy in a zen kind of way —and even better than meditation because when you are all done everything is clean.

By afternoon I realize things are quiet in the house and notice Jörn has been cleaning too as I see him through the window to outside and see him washing the car. The car that he refers to as ‘a company car’; a white XC40 Volvo he has been driving which we drove up here in
*****

It is later when I’m cutting the big blooms of hydrangea pompoms that grow everywhere.... when two trucks pull up.

One carrying two topiary trees and the other furniture ....and so I think: she’s designing from her tablet?

A conscience from a stage scene from a theatre Part1

weird dream....

I am at Sissinghurst dressed like Oscar Wilde, writing scenes for a play that happen behind me:

there is like a royal stage, behind me as I write but split in three parts or —three separate stages all in a row that you can watch all happen at the same time and in my dream it is seen as if from a camera that pans around an audience then moves to watch from stage to stage as scenes are played out

One is all in black and white like a Hitchcock set in an artist’s studio

another is Elan with the smeden, Raoul and portrayed as in mime with gray and azure colors like a painting, projected from the gallery lights

the third stage I am sat writing with a feather quill pen writing the dictionary/diary ..... being narrated by Orpheus, portraying Virgil from the Underworld, who wields his power through his magical eyes and voice;

like weird alternate levels of the Devine Comedy


But it is when the dream changes that it becomes terrifying and sinks into a murky nightmare that originates from some terrible dark place inside and

where I get lost

....it is a darkness that keeps me under

like trying to shake off some strong anesthesia that feels so heavy; like tons of cotton balls clouding my head; this dark place is so terrifying;I don’t want to be here.... inside


because he finds me nearly exactly how he left me earlier today he is alarmed


“It has been over ten hours since I left!”

I am confused at first by what he means by this

“I’ve been to Quebec and back and you have not even moved! I’m calling a doctor—“ he exclaims with all the drama to do his family proud

“Quebec? I thought you said Montreal....?” I get confused

“Quick geography lesson— min lilla duva, Montreal is in Quebec! It’s a province!”

“You don’t have to be insulting about it,” I whisper it resentfully but I say in my defense, “I’m not an idiot I just got confused but anyway I have moved from here because I spoke to Ilya earlier to go over paperwork and also Johnny called before because now Hanna wants to do a photo shoot with— what’s his name again? Lisa’s boyfriend— Alphonso? Well, anyway.... “ but he’s looking at me as if I have two heads

I watch him pace back and forth a few times.

Now I do feel ashamed....? I guess. Is that what I feel? Because I don’t know how I feel these days.

I realize now I am at that crisis moment of my life.

The breaking point

How good that I am documenting this.... I am thinking .... writing this from my phone


half in and out of his conversation

“My parents are coming,” he says now

“What?!” I almost fall from the step I am sitting on at the base of the stairs

He looks at me and comes over,
“they know something is wrong, Duva and they think it is  because of them somehow. I tried to talk them out of this.”

“Shit....” I say

I can’t let them see me! I can’t be around people!

I cover my face and start to cry

He comes to sit beside me. He reaches for me. And by reflex I turn away. I try to keep the fortress bolted because I was not supposed to breakdown just there. He surprised me with his news. This panic that sweeps over me is like a wave; like Wavegirl’s wave from my painting

and as I fight him to release me, he fights me to accept him

he pins me to the stair and holds me firm. He says into my ear,
“let me in....”

a consciousness seen from a stage Part2

“Why do they think it’s them?” I ask him


“Do you want to know my version?” He asks with his mouth pressed to my ear. His voice that is smooth and dry like Jamaican sand with some sharp shells in it to stab you in the heart.

“What is your version?” I ask


“Mama feels guilty about.... “

“About?”

“You know.”

“The opera coat?”

“Nej, duva, it’s not about the stupid opera coat!”

“I know,” and laugh, “ because it never was. It is because I am half wild. Feral. Because I have no family; so some kind of crazy, runaway, stray-cat derelict.”

“Min Gud! Why would you think they would think that about you?”

“Seriously?”

Electra’s dictionary; through overlaps in time

between wake and sleep .... when memories overlap of now and then, long ago, like so many other times, so natural to turn to him in sleep, and fall under and through, between awake and dream,

 like through the veils of time

I dream of the hut .... smeden.... his back as he works and the moon outside .... the glow of light

 .... and in sleep I move over his body, and press my lips against his hair, and wrap around his hips ....and forget where I am, when I am, when we are; that way time overlaps; like the first time I saw him; like finding something so long in search of .... like something washed up from a shipwreck

Notes from the Celf

Notes from the Celf as I listen to Jörn* composing.....

[Trying to shake off the frozen state I have fallen into. 

I go from exhaustion to sudden emotional bankruptcy .....]

~ find a corner to write in & write into my phone~

It rained all day.....I start . And stop.... and stare at nothing infinitely 

************************************

I can see how the isolation may soon become too loud

the ghosts get louder

     as they leap from the attic


I don’t realize till now

how long it has been

since I noticed .... a reflective

.....reply

oh where have I been but in such a frenetic hurry and only now notice total exhaustion —what is happening to me, I wonder? I slip deep into thought and don’t notice

Jörn has been composing

The deep sounds of the piano that arrived Friday echo under the high ceiling of the empty, modern, renovated, barn house. I’m sure the sounds carry off for miles away, but we are far from any neighbors. The nearest is several miles down a hill


his music echoes through my thoughts .... his new works from the past few weeks have become more somber in tone. They seem to follow the course of dreams that lately have surfaced since the occurrence with .... what happened

those nightmares of deception .... deceit.... treachery

sometimes I have disturbed Jörn’s sleep when I call out from dreams suddenly in terror and he looks so shocked and worried among my fits of screams that wake me up


******************

Later:

Thoughts of DNA memory

....of course I have considered the DNA factor in respect to my  mother’s side. So I think about this a lot .... As they were all blond and mostly with blue eyes from the Russian side .... so it has often lead me to wonder if they had, indeed, descended from the Rus

I always find fascination with the secrets of the earth; like fossils and .... excavations —I should have been an archeologist but anyway..... 

I don’t know if my personal obsessions ....you know.... are behind the reason for these particular obsessions for me —as in my search to define in my dictionary, word for Celf; for identity .... to identify—with? To indentify with anyone; someone ..... (UFO’s?) And then as in origins because—I search everywhere..... as I have never belonged anywhere. Not to any name either ....the name on my birth certificate is a lie; denied by the namesake himself; disowned

this stigma of illegitimacy that before I even knew the words or their exact meanings.... I felt ....shame 

and for me unnameable as I could not fathom what he meant when he called me that....  “nigger-baby bastard!” 

I just knew it wasn’t good. And it made my skin feel filthy. All the way inside. 

And defeats me.

To not be able to wash off this shame ....

This obsession I have to be clean ....

**************************************************************

But there are times when I know and remember meeting him as a child. Him. My Agamemnon 

Like a memory I forced away and buried deep. But I do remember him.

I associated him with kindness and acceptance but something even more than that too. He spoke to me like s person not a child and he listened to what I said and I remember his smile ....and our Thursday telephone talks .... that my mother never spoke of after he died and told me things were not real that I knew had happened

this was how the two realities overlapped. Why I had to keep track of both

when to deny

when to pretend

when to lie and be it for good

when a lie was bad in someone else’s favor

I had to learn to keep track

to maneuver in this world I lived in

His music blends with his voice....

I watch him write on sheets of music paper but now as he plays he brings words to the notes —he sings in hesitant phrases at first as he composes ....then he writes it down

What did I call out to him in sleep? I suddenly fear because I remember his wife’s face in my dream .... and my sister’s and realize something about why his wife, Lisa had looked so familiar to me

Gerald once said about souls that they tend to reincarnate in clusters ...those we knew incarnate in time together ....to meet again in order to accomplish something necessary to their reason for existence; he said sometimes the years can be off by a few or by even decades because age is only relevant to the present meaning, but not in the infinite sense

And so, If the smeden left behind their twins how possible would it be for one of that line might have landed somewhere near Minsk? 

.....If you consider how small the human population was, it is no great stretch to know that who has survived came from that gene pool thanks to survival of the fittest







*happy birthday
  

my dictionary, my lost legend: keeping it together; jm muse chronicles

dear dictionary of codes,


because there is comfort in the past ....
    I seek it now

    and upon reflection recollect how I always look to history during my trials

    When I first began to research my alleged father’s background it had such a colorful and illustrious past through the pages of history, and this is where I first began my thoughts upon DNA memory theory— because, you see,
I have always been on the move; I seem always to be fleeing .... and, as well, my mother and her mother and father —and his mother from Russia (from Minsk)

but what about the father’s side....

?

The notorious playboy politician who was the vanguard to a huge change among social awareness and equality. When I first heard of who he was —i remember this day clearly; it was in the kitchen in Amsterdam when she first began her history lessons to me about who he was. When she told me all about this it was like some wild story from a romance novel. Her artist life in New York and then she just bumps into him at some party in Greenwich Villege.

Her stories were always so elaborate. Her photos stunning. My mother was quite a show stopper; blond, beautiful, a perfect figure and she knew how to dress. She was iconic....

a real mommy dearest

I remember watching her leave for an evening out from the crack of my bedroom door as a girl.

To me, she was a movie star....truly was bigger than life....

as I have already stated;

I loved her more than I should have

but then—I wanted —always— to save her


So imagine this man of power she caught the eye of — it is really no surprise to me.

Because my mother was the type who always got the most dangerous and the most powerful man in the room eating out of her hand. No one could resist her charm and charisma;and while she was a wild flirt she always ‘acted’ the perfect lady

But what of this notorious playboy beyond the recent decades if you consider and go back centuries

What hemisphere did his name’s lineage begin? This is never researched in connection to this man but I began a search of my own. It lead me to Jamestown and then I stumbled on a registry listing of some boy stowaway from the sixteenth century shipped out from Wales

I took it further and traced names close to or possibly alias names as the politics of those times had me noting the possibility of secret loyalties of the Crown; the religious politics and this reoccurring theme of religion and political defiance but seeming always to be spawned when faced with a life changing religious experience

Each generation I traced the people always seemed to fit these character traits

But also their other trait that is the yang to the yin that their defeat was always due to some sense of hot pride; pride cometh before the fall

Like I have said, I recognized this trait in him as in myself .... when one becomes their own worst enemy and destroys oneself with spite

a kind of insanity —almost like a Tourette Syndrome —like a compulsive self-destruction and taking everyone down with you..... in the psychological sense

It makes you wonder

how maybe just a little more reflection

could alter the outcome of people’s history

So I do....In these times of trials. You see— something has happened .... something very ugly.... that has triggered ....a flood

& memories .....

because this ‘something’ that happened only confirms all the rest I was never totally sure .... of

And now confirms also.... that you know some people that you knew as children .... yes, they really were born evil

it is a “something” too, that happened, to make me aware how absolute Electra’s dictionary has been ..... for my survival

The story tells the codes.... read the codes

And legend story comes from somewhere else beyond me.

The ‘legend’ is also the path back where all the puzzle pieces blew away ....as we sunk under the morass

I hear the thump and I jump staring outside the window

“Who’s out there?”

I don’t expect his voice

you know how it looks inside a kaleidoscope ....? If you went inside one and watched all the pieces fall down


that is how it looked when all the fragments flew away.... and even the knight walked away

his voice that is deep and dry makes the pieces rearrange

The look on his face causes me to feel concern hinged with another cause for concern that results with a terror.

I think I am starting

    to disintegrate .... melting like the wicked witch

“Tell me who is threatening you,” he finally asks me

The new place we are at echoes because there is almost nothing in it. Just an old Victorian antique bed and some tables

“I can’t —say,” I say this stammering

“You don’t have to, it is pretty obvious,” he says as he studies me. He then says, “what I want to know is how....? Is it with blackmail?”

This question causes me to hyperventilate but not because he’s right. He isn’t right. It is because to answer this question would be like resurecting Satan

Like pages of a note book blown across a subway floor

I need to search within to find why this is happening . It seems it all has come full circle

from the beginning    I have been missing something —some element —no.... some fundamental piece of the puzzle .... what is it?

for me, it is always the obvious that I miss

what is it?

I have to go away. Far away. Literally now to retreat. Not even by my own choice this time

just to survive

so I wonder why.... why must I survive? What is the point? Just like I ask my lord Agamemnon why.... why was I sent back to my body that day when I saw my own body dead? I reached the gate and was told it was not my time. I saw my killer leave my dead body there. This broken little mashed bit of road kill I was. I saw myself —he left me for dead and walked to the dorm room door.

How did he know I was even there?

Is that the piece I have never fully examined?

You see, I did not go back to my dorm that night because I knew he was after me. I told my sister I had to hide from him. She gave me the key to her dorm room. It happened in her dorm room. That window in the picture

How did he know I was there?

I should be dead.

Even the surgeons I’ve gone to have told me this. Based on the damage of my vertebrae as he crushed my throat and waited until I breathed no more. Watched me and laughed at me as he squeezed the air from my lungs, bending my fingers back as I struggled, breaking them and bargaining with me his mercy for something to trade for a quicker end

How did he know I was there? South Hall, across campus by the old gym

The phone call? Who was it?

Who indeed.... my worst enemy from childhood wanting to finish the job begun by the belt wielder

I have been so scared and now I don’t think I care anymore because I’m too tired to keep up the energy required for this fear. I’m getting sloppy leaving my clues around as if I tempt fate because I’m so tired of running. And hiding. So tired of hiding

Why was my life spared? He left me for dead and when that all mighty energy told me to go back, sending me back with a vehemence and a message to fight for my life and I hesitated in that moment of confusion .... no please not back there. Not back. Not to that crumpled little bit of road kill. Not to go back to the demons who wait there for me. Not for more torture only.... the choice wasn’t mine to be made and when I gasped and heard my lungs fill with air.... my killer turned in shock from the door, his noir skin going ghost pale

I don’t understand, dictionary.... please define it for me....

I am to go north

where I can’t be found

I am told

retreat.... to my cave

Write on my caveman walls. I think I am glade in a way. Only— to be spared for that?

This book of codes left in a blog. Like pages of a note book blown across a subway floor. All scattered at random .... whatever .... to be found? Maybe never. Maybe just my small voice from the dark cave reaches just the right pitch for.... some necessary mind to one day discover ....one day. Maybe long after I am gone

I leave in about a week or so.... by my birthday to start a new hidden life ....just a mutated voice from inside a cave

Electra's dictionary; Noir, follow the codes (jmmuse)

“Mariamne” John William Waterhouse

the story hides the codes

……

“I need to go away,” I tell Jörn

I have begun to pack a few things. We are outside the apartment building. It is raining

“Where? What is going on?” he places his hand on my arm, “Why are you trembling?” he goes pale

“I’m in danger,” I tell him

“Who is it?”

“That’s all I can say....” I look away because I can’t bear his eyes today. To leave such eyes again ....and yet to stay would only result in something close to that parallel life’s end

“Where are you going?” he asks me

I look around with a sense of paranoia,
“I don’t know..... can you help me?” I suddenly ask and look up at him, “I need to get out of the city. Away from anywhere I can be found....”

He draws his brows and thinks. He takes a deep breath,
“I know a place way up north ....it’s by Quebec .... no one would find you there.... let me see what I can do— when do you need to leave?”

“Now!” but my voice breaks and have to remind myself to keep it together. I consciously force myself to breath slow then say, “as soon as possible.”

“Let me see what I can do.... come upstairs, I’ll make some calls.....”

Electra’s dictionary....

dear dictionary,

I am in danger. And becoming exhausted....I cannot write what but something is happening and I cannot say .... and it is part of the purpose of why I ever began the dictionary.... I m so scared....it is getting in the way of thinking clearly.... I may not write for awhile.... or if I do it will be in code.... it’s part of the past come again. I’m so scared

(JM muse chronicles continue) Electra’s dictionary; or weed be best friends

Because Ilya seems to have taken full control of running the historical aspect connected to the penthouse’s history, I start to consider this as the green light to hit the road, so to speak

I have not stayed anywhere lately longer than one year and before last year it seemed it was every six months; first from Michigan to Oregon then back to Michigan and then New York which had been an impulse decision to move. And the impulse seems to be returning.

Before last year I never imagined I would ever return to New York

after so many years away and

the fermentation of those memories of those initial very bad ....first New York experiences years ago

like Jörn says, I must be used to flight or fight, because my reflex is to take flight at the first sign of danger

It is walking back to where I live when I see someone watching me from across the street and it is not the same kind of watching as how it felt the other time when that kid gave me the death threat. Instead, I somehow realize, he has been following me for a few days 

because I kept noticing him in the crowd but then I shrugged it off

But it has been since the penthouse museum event that Ilya held because.... I start to realize I recognize him from 

He said he was with The Times, I remember now

I don’t know why it never occurred to me till now that ....people might be curious about who I am seeing me there at the penthouse

I should have thought it through better when they started coming for the museum events that Ilya has been running. You know? I should have thought of this

as my name is on the mailbox and only now I realize how slow on the take I am. Obtuse once again.

In fact I realize a few things now in hindsight

He took a picture the day of the event when he visited, it was after the little tour and lecture that Ilya did.... is currently doing, actually. It was her idea because she’s raising money for a charity that is connected to one of his causes so it is a very good idea actually —so it’s an event she is hosting herself which is now being shown by appointment to the public

and I saw this guy .... he was taking notes and kept looking at me and then later, after —when everyone was looking at the historical documents he separated from the group and seemed interested in the large, framed photograph of Ethan Rhys-Jones behind me

and then I realized he was pointing his phone to take a picture of it but.... it seemed to me he was holding his phone at me —with me in his picture

and I realize too .... standing there as it slowly dawns on me.... in the photograph I am standing under of him— that he wore the same style glasses as I wear. As strange as it may seem, I never really noticed this before

and now too I realize as I stand there that I am in the shot he is taking .... with me ? ....standing under the photo

At the time I did have that moment of spider sense. But I didn’t trust it; I told myself to ignore the feeling but.... I got that weird uncomfortable feeling at the back of my neck.

But was I just paranoid?

Like the way he was looking at me and that I was in his shot or.... was it that I don’t generally like strangers taking my picture and so—maybe I really was just being paranoid

I mean....

One would not automatically guess my connection to Ethan Rhys-Jones —as it has been quite a long time since his face was in the papers. He is not exactly relevant now. Yet, all my life people have stared at me ....you know, over the years and they always say,

“you look so familiar....” and then stare too long to the point of discomfort  .... as if.... because.... they would start to suspect I must be someone —or related to someone they should know

When I grew up my mother did everything she could to camouflage me or to play down my awkwardly hard to blend looks and features. Sometimes I think that was partly behind why we moved to the Netherlands; as a way to hide things about us;  this —because as I grew up my unusual, odd, physical features became more obvious. And people had started to ask my mother about my different bone structure and eyes. Both not like either parent. My eyes are a little like my mother’s were but not as much actually and a lot more like.... Ethan Rhys-Jones. Although usually most tend to think I’m Irish which no one in my family were even close to being

—I think because I’m red-headed, mostly and no one else is that either and I remember wondering too about the other ....different and more telling—and very obvious features that —I always got uncomfortable comments about at school. I was different and I stood out uncomfortably

as a kid as I still didn’t know who I was

and one day it was I was looking in the mirror and I said to my mother, “don’t you think I look kind of Cherokee?” 

Of course she was furious and appalled and angrily reminded me of our Russian ancestry. She started tweezing my eye brows when I was thirteen removing the distinctive arch that was a feature hard not to notice —and cut my hair in a way that also distracted the shape of my face.

I don’t touch the shape of my brows anymore, although I still hide my face from years of habit but if anyone does look close enough it is pretty obvious how much I do resemble that man —who had extremely distinctive features. I noticed the resemblance strongly in my daughter too even when she was first born because she looked exactly like him as a baby! Exactly! and as she gets older ....more and more .... last I noticed from a picture her father sent to me

So noticing this now as I am being followed by the guy from the Times.... I get a bad feeling about this

and feeling I must be putting myself ....too much out there

It’s something I think I must avoid. I need my anonymity

I know about how someone can take something like that and run—decide to make a buck off an old scandal and then the next thing that would happen would be they would make me some kind of tabloid flash-in-the-pan story which ....

would be worse than a living nightmare to me. I detest pop media and I detest being stared at

So it must be time to retreat

which I decide as I walk, ducking into the nearest store in hopes of losing the guy

I wait from inside the store looking out across the street

So I stand inside waiting but I see him on his phone and watching the store where I am

It’s a coffee place and the guy behind the counter wants me to buy something —so I ask for coffee

“What kind?” he points to a menu over his head behind him

I shrug,

“Whatever is your favorite.”

“Rocky and Bullwinkle,” he says

“Great,” I hand him my card as it’s not a self serve transaction and wait as I watch the window

I get a text from Jörn:

<Where are you?>

I reply:

<Snookies>

The guy hands me back my card

I see the guy across the street start to cross over and now I begin to panic

Another text:

<?>

Instead I press voice call and he answers

“Where are you?” he asks

but the guy comes in!

I move to the back of the place and hide behind the refrigerated beverages and whisper into the phone

“Snookies!”

“Why are you whispering? Who’s Snookie?”

“No.... it’s the shop down the street.... you know, next to the bodega....”

“What bodega?” he asks

“Jörn! You know the place— you got a cinnamon bun that time.”

“Oh, that helps—what’s wrong, should I come get you?”

“Someone is following me!”

“Ok, don’t move I’ll be there in five minutes—don’t move,” he says.

I discover there is a hidden back part to the place where a few tables are and most of the tables are occupied but I find one in the back corner where I can see out the store front

It is actually about five minutes when I notice the door swing open and see Jörn breathless and sweaty, wearing his jog clothes

I wave at him and he looks around trying to figure out what guy I’m talking about

He comes right over,

“who’s the guy? Which one is it? I can get the van here in five minutes—“

“No no no, don’t Jörn—he’s from museum night!”

He shakes his head at me and draws his brows,

“What are you talking about?”

“The event at the penthouse Ilya did last Tuesday—he’s been following me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” and he moves as if he’s ready to bash the guy’s head in

“He’s with the New York Times!” I say and grab his arms to pull him from doing anything

This stops Jörn’s intent but he still looks like he wants to bash the person’s head

“What is going on, Duva? Why were you whispering into the phone— do you think he’s dangerous?”

“I think he believes he has figured out who I am!”

Jörn suddenly goes completely limp and pulls out a chair to sit down. I realize now how much he’s sweating as it is such a hot day

The coffee guy comes over with the coffee drink. Rocky and Bullwinkle turns out to be an iced mocha with crumpled chunks of truffles,

“here, drink this,” I tell him

“What is it?” he asks me

“Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

He looks at it and then at me,

“Ok— so I just sprinted three blocks because of some journalist from museum night....?”

I decide then to taste the coffee, then look back at him,

“Wow! You know—this is really good!”

There is a moment where he seems not sure if he wants to yell at me or laugh and then .... reaches for Rocky and Bullwinkle

He drinks half of it in a matter of seconds.... sadly.... but I notice at least he seems less annoyed and not as sweaty

“Lets go— why don’t you finish Rocky Stallone—“

“It’s Rocky and Bullwinkle—“

He takes it from me and drinks almost all of it,

“finish it and let’s go—“

“Is he still here?”

He stands up,

“what does he look like?”

“He looks like a hipster,” I tell him, whispering,“green tie and pinstripes.”

So I wait and watch as Jörn walks through. I see him open the door to the refrigerated beverages and grab a water and go up to pay but as he does this I see the guy— who looks right at him. Jörn says something to him and I see the guy look back at him awkwardly. And then go white as a sheet. After Jörn gets his change the hipster journalist leaves suddenly and Jörn comes back over to me,

“you ready?” he asks me

“So.... what did you say?”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s not going to follow you anymore.”

“What did you say?”

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

It is about a block later when I ask again and he says,

“I told him that if I ever find out he’s writing a story about you I’d have him arrested for illegally buying weed.”

“How did you know he bought weed?”

But he just laughs at me as his answer

Knots inside a pattern; truth blends with myths; it’s all there, written on the mural walls

Wake up disturbed, dear dictionary, and find I cannot sleep


....In dreams I always see the cold frozen ground and the gray sky but he was not there in time, he came too late

and he stands there over me staring at me with those eyes....how long I’ve searched for those eyes; they have haunted me all my life



“Gone in a flash, unreal
But you knew all along.....

“.....To watch you numb

“I saw you there
You were on your way
You held the rain....

“You kissed me cold.....

“And for the first time
Heaven seemed insane
'Cause heaven is to blame
For taking you away

“I cry the wound
In gray afternoons— “

~quoted from ‘Tear,’ song by the Smashing Pumpkins from the album “Adore”

https://youtu.be/av_2DlLeaC0


.... so the surgeons tell me they cannot fix me

this is nothing new to me; I have known this for many years

it was always their opinion but even if they did not know how to fix me I was always determined to prove them wrong

and I have


The thing that made me different from Dr. Rothschild’s statistics was that I was born stubborn and I have my own way,

call it willful or rebellious

I survived the statistics approximation for the kind of early fucked up shit that happened to me; both physical and emotional both sexual and ....sexual violence

I saw it all, had it visited upon me; violated in every possible way by not just one demon, nor one demon parent nor only those two family members, it was more than two

Only it was him that I defied

One day the man I believed to be my father went to go strike me as he always did across the table at me

But I had by then heard at school that what he did was a crime which I had not known and so instead of flinching away and letting myself be afraid I forced myself to laugh!

I laughed in his face

I was so scared but I remember thinking that I already knew the worst of what he did with his cruel hands and a strong arm with the belt that I realized I was sick of being afraid

I did not want him to win. You see

I was shaking in that moment. I lived in such fear of him but ..... I laughed ....

..... because I swore he would never see me cry again

I dared him

I was by then nine. After years of this and so sick of it. It was soon after Pat had died and I was somehow fearless


but he was like Hitler to me; so cruel and evil, so ugly when he went to take out his fury on me. His face went red as a beet. So ugly

Pat made me make this promise to her and it was just before she overdosed.... she was crying and she grabbed hold my arm and she said, with red eyes pouring down her beautiful face .... she said,
“Dawn, don’t do what I did..... promise me you won’t waste your life. Don’t do drugs, be tough— win for me, do it for me, don’t let the assholes win!”

And she was dead two weeks later

I was devastated as she was my idol and I was young to lose someone and well.... that is when .... that is when we put her in the cell inside and I put on the costume that was once my idol’s

I shut that me away. The one who got squashed by everyone. The one I did not want to be.... and I created a new one and sometimes we visited.... we.... the sides of a me that split. Not different people, a one just split, the one who just could not face the world and live up to this promise that I made Pat

statistics say that most kill themselves. I dislike numbers especially statistics— I always want to prove the numbers don’t rule over the power of the mind .... but what is mind? Is it soul? Is it self? Is it some eternal self? I know it does not end in death. This much I do know. I know because I tripped past that live fantastic the night I was raped and left for dead.... Dr. Rothschild wanted to know why I was not a drug addict; why I did not kill myself and she could not offer me any help on how to be released from the darkness that is inside; my real demons but she said,

“you have made it further than any known case, you’re trail blazing — maybe you have a message that you are meant to share.”

I would have preferred she had some prescription for inner peace but now she was asking me to create world peace; what irony

About ten years after my assault the injuries began to show those indelible fingerprints and doctor after doctor only told me my doom. One said my hands would be useless in ten years another said I would not be walking

but I’m a rebel, you see and I made this promise not to let the assholes win. I had to do it for her. And maybe too the one in that cell. The Celf inside, the one we left there with the codes ..... the notes

It is only because I am stubborn they were all wrong. I learned to be my own doctor and now I look twenty years younger than I should only because I’m stubborn and a bit obsessive about it.... a bit neurotic and certainly stark, raving, mad but— what other solution did I have

This code is like a combination to a safe. The pins line up




It is in the penthouse office that Jörn has taken over, apparently, the next time Willem stops by I ask him,
“why did you approach me that day at the Dugout?” I guess I want to see his eyes

“Well you know the neurosurgeon you went to when you were fifteen saw you had de damage on your vertebrae and he reported it— ve vere already vatching you—“

“Why me? Why would anyone bother with a fifteen year old American?”

“Haf you vorgotten about how seriously de Dutch take crimes against humanity? And ve vere looking vor enathing to get yur fadder on. Dere vas a dentist who lift under yur vloor an’ he sed dat he alvays heard the loud shouting an’ de hard footsteps—he vas sure you vere in danger zo.... i vas sent to meet you dat night to mek my report about you.”

“You made a report about me? What kind?”

“To send a henchman to your vader—I had to mek s report to proof ve had reason to threaten him....Your demeanor.... an’ de vay I could tell dat you had been abused by someone. It vasn’t hard to figure out who did it. Men like dat pick on children dat can’t fight back .... dat code you haf buried .... you know, I dink you should consider de hypnosis.... it might actually free you of dat monkey on yer bek....”

https://youtu.be/av_2DlLeaC0

.