24 Janusry 2025/Jm muse chron

Today I get a message from Josef asking me if I could remember to pack up some things he forgot to bring 

That is more than just one message; there are several in just that humble seemingly innocent request. 

I see it come up but I walk across the room. I think again of Manhattan —how long has it been …. 

The penthouse renovations would have been completed six months ago. Ilya has her hands full with three kids now. But all the carpentry and some interior details took the longest to complete. Historians had to be consulted to match colors and fixtures with the era 

So…. with the shadow Interpol director pretending to retire and wasn’t it Jörn who claimed he was his cover? Which poker face is not bluffing? They play off each other don’t they ….the sun on the longhouse from the dream ….i remember now.  The Folkmoot ….

It is usually only the boat and the hut from those dreams but ….there was the voyage and the stop at the ….island 

Everything though feels different now in such a way that lifts me and bathes everything in a brighter light…. I’ve been sketching again, and painted twelve hours straight on the mural …. I am me again or is it that I feel accepted fully for me? What peace this allows. Such flow of inspiration is renewed

e.d.& film noir/JMmuse/Thoughts before sleep

 

My thoughts are so wild after. It is hard to sleep. How does Jörn always immediately pass out after? —when I wish for just a little more of closeness after. It leaves me empty sometimes like tonight. Perhaps it was how much he stole out of me. I find …. I feel sort of used and it makes me sad. 

So I think afterwards as I listen to the sounds of him sleeping beside me. So strange to sleep beside someone again. After so long. I didn’t think I could again. But it was harder to stay awake the first night back with him. It’s always been so easy with him. I fit into the crook of his shoulder and his warm scent fills my dreams —and keeps the nightmares away I have found. There was only one other man I slept well with but …. he is long behind now, I suppose, as it is best.

Actions speak louder than words and those memories with him have a scar…. I do not want more of those. As he ultimately 

never made the time for me in his life

And then there was Jörn who began a new chapter in my life—is it because whatever how it occurred here was someone who finally noticed I existed 

That I exist. To feel at last significant is a new awareness. A new realization. So I suppose at last I am fulfilled and this is new; I must adjust—dare I say happy? Yes. I am 

 we begin to prepare for return to Manhattan I have started to realize

I am coming out of a thaw —Jörn has helped, but also time here in the mountains has healed me 

I begin to feel I am preparing to return back to ….the world ?

Perhaps soon—not yet…. I am liking these quiet times alone with Jörn. Our private covent just me and him —nobody else around ….for now 

I get sleepy now ….

Audio_01_24_2025_00_04_53.mp3



Of dungeons and bats noir cell

“Is that a new tie?” I say to him and walk over 

It is of shades of Nordic sea blues like a watercolor. Like his eyes. Like his kryptonite eyes that own me. I reach to touch it. The silk is like butter to touch….

in a strange sudden instant from his neck —like a flash of light 

he shocks me 

    he has pulled me into his tie like a trap and I 

am bound 

And looking at me,

“I think you actually do crave attention ….” he says 

    he looks at me as I am straight from the shower and —the towel all warm at my feet with my wrists caught in silk 

Suddenly and again I am reminded of dungeons and bats when 

He says as he looks at my body up and down with approval then— he mostly carries me but with a ….drag,

“why waste that beautiful body when,” and here he pauses because it is just that savage look that obliterates civilized thought  “—I can do this ….?”

the inflection of motion considerably spellbinding 

plus à dire plus tard

More ….from the walls that whispers

I say to him,

“you know, when you have a punisher— you know more about them than they do about you…. when he stood there—I mean….with the Bally belt…. the rage —you can sense it even befire it is there. You know it is coming. You know thst it is better barefoot to run—the prick of fear in the sweat gland —the warning to run!

“….you know when it it coming. You know the signs as it is building. It is present in the walls. As they shake. When he walks. It is present in his tone between the walls. It is ….present in my abdomen …. the sick feeling—the taste of fear….

“But you know him…. You study him. You watch. You stay up all night. You listen for everything. Every grunt. Every tv show choice ….every fake friendly phone call he makes ….the creek of the stair ….the footsteps …. 

“you ….are. Ready!” and even now hold my breath 

wait ….the tink of his tobacco pipe hitting the ashtray ….calling the dog to his side ….

and the fear ….tastes like what you vomit up medicine with the metal shavings from your last tooth filling but with acid not crunch 

“You know your punisher and I saw him as weak —does that surprise, Jörn? I was so beyond caring of self that to test it I set off his rage by tendering the right button. Why? Was I just a masochist ….? well—a martyr —I did it to stop him hurting her—I let it be me instead ….the actual scapegoat 

“I had a power over him ….but I never enjoyed it.” 

gaps of mental proportions/ed noir jm chron

I walk the width of the room,

“….when we say ‘edit and go back….’ you know….my grandfather —“ I stop and just feel caught here somehow 

I walk the length of the room and the fugue within stirs —I am so dizzy always when this whirlpool unravels ….

I have to lean against the wall to steady the world 

    When parts of a memory 

      have been erased …..

    other memories …. are there but …. you know when you find the source of a pain it ….stuns 

Those little things. Those ties. You know—from the loose ends which had become undone 

You start to realize why 

    why did my grandfather take such an interest in me? Why did he hire detectives …. it is so strange to imagine what it must have felt for him….he was so unassuming —was my grandfather. But he was the silent power behind everything; even grandma—who was the spine of the Sunshines; after her that line was gone but now I realize why and for what reason people did and acted upon things and then behaved ….badly 

Aloud I say to Jörn with a heavy sigh,

“we lived in Halesite —a villege on Long Island when we got the news he passed away—my grandfather lived to be old like my aunt and the other grand dad ….but when he died—?that really is when the devil’s true face appeared and guess about when that happened?”

Jörn looks at me,

“about after you left Bard….”

I meet his eyes. 

Jörn says,

“your protector was gone.”

Noir jm chronicles…. The tape continues

The tape continues ….

“…. Jamaica …. we lived at the Half Moon Resort …. her best friend’s dad owned it, Jacques Cousteau was a friend and regular drop in— among others, and provided the perfect cover for everyone ….that was the period— interlude which determined everyone’s fate …. I should have been too young to remember that time but …. there are those odd things …. you know…. those strange images that come back to haunt you ….when you can’t sleep …. in your dreams …. how could I remember where from? I remember when Mattie ran me into the wire fence that day in Montego Bay…. that image of the pattern of the fence stapled into my mental vision for hours ….  like a beehive pattern ….on my leg….the shock of so much bright blood….she screamed….we went into a voo-doo shop—there were so many around. I remember the faces—the dark masks ….but we always went to this one specific shop with the lady who told fortunes ….Mattie knew her; they were friends ….there was an old man there too with a gold front tooth. He made faces to make me forget about the blood. The voo-doo  lady washed the blood off me

The voo-doo dolls hung from strings across the hut. It had a thatched roof—the smell of the hay I still remember —and the dung from the mule outside. 

There were the dolls with the strings. Made from dried gourd husks—they had painted faces like the fortune tellers. When you pull the strings the head spins 

The fortune teller lady liked me. She seemed to believe I was ordained with special powers.

The actual truth was …. understood now in retrospect; Mattie was hired by Ethan 

and on the island he was well known. But it was also a secret who hired her. And all the way until that fateful-from-the-door of-the-closet drunken revelation, it had been under the guise “the help” —the hired at home maids— had been employed by my grandfather…. in due course, they disappeared 

I spent hours spinning that head in the stroller to stay awake as Mattie wheeled me to be sure that she would not again run me into another wire fence  ….but the medallion ….why do I remember that in connection to that time —I was too young to know what it was. It looked like those giant sun-mirror boho faces with the golden rays hung on everyone’s walls back then ….it was the heat of the sun and the gleam caught on the sand….” 

 

The dove

She writes …..

    I look upon it all as would a monk in meditation 

        the cells we live inside 

                  the Cell

                             I ask —facing the light as daily I do need to know; what for ….and the silent answer loud is in reply …. You are upon it ! ….the words echo ever after ….worry not nuntius