Kombi

☞

a first love...one rainy night in Japanhis friend saw the two of them walking in the rainwith their umbrellas.his friend thought the tall girl cute,he insisted on following them.they knew they were being followed but were not afraid,they knew they were being flirted with.they went into a coffee shop,we followed.his friend asked if we could join them,they giggled but said yes.his friend went home with the tall girl.he stayed with the other in the coffee shop and they talked until5 in the morning. they were together for nearly three years.she bore him a son. he had to leave, to go off to war.there was nothing to be done about it.he pledged to return for her.they wrote letters of longing and loneliness.hers on colored and scented paper,beautiful paper from Japan.she wrote how she missed his gentle touch on her back.he wrote how he missed her smile and her soft white skin. then abruptly her letters stopped.he did not know what happened.no way to communicate, he was in a panic.he was at war.there was nothing to be done about it. one month two months three months four monthsthen,the letter.not from her, but from an officer that knew them both.a terrible terrible tragedy.monstrous and unfathomable.both dead.killed in a jealous rage,racial and sexual fearsof the Gaijin.obsession that knew no bounds.he could not go see them.there was nothing to be done about it.   a lost love...by love obsessed.Proustian in its suffering.a last declaration of love, in a book on intellectual history.a handkerchief, so gentle.lost time, lost love, lost art.the bittersweet fruit of trust betrayed,of devotion lost.to walk down that path again... turn the corner again...cry, again.the first time, he could blame the gods.   a last love...the girl-woman, a muse.he would be her mentor.full circle. the irony is not lost on him.now far away,but this time,not forever

Man Overboard a poem by Crysta Casey Sweat dampens the pillow case, wets the sheets. He is caught in a bad dream, being a gunner on a Navy ship off the shores of Viet Nam. A little box. The only escape is overboard. He doesn't know how to swim. A girlfriend tried to teach him once in Spain, but he was too afraid of water. Now, he's caught in the cracks of the system, on Welfare; Social Security and V.A. Pension pending, deep depression and a desire to drown in Puget Sound. He surfs couches, as he calls it, or borrows a spare bedroom. He is tempted to take the first $6 an hour job that comes along, but his art calls. The shadow on a woman's thigh, her dark crotch, legs spread as she lies on the bed, her eyes a mystery of grown children, lost lovers, dreams and shaky hopes for an uncertain future. Her hair graces her forehead in wisps. He loves to paint all this. This is it when he isn't wandering the sidewalks, talking to a former crack addict who sells the homeless paper outside Starbucks. He thinks she is a sixteen year old runaway. She turns out to be 22, knows things. He would buy her coffee, but his pocket only has three pennies. He would throw these in the fountain in front of the insurance building on Sixth Avenue, make wishes for some other homeless person to wade in and pick out. He worries she has gone back, back to her crack friends when he doesn't see her with her pile of papers for two weeks. He likes looking at people: fat bodies, skinny bodies, sagging breasts and butts. Firm tits, tips cold from lying exposed on a blanket, perhaps in an open burgundy robe... he is dreaming. He isn't watching the traffic. He isn't even aware that he's crossing the street. He doesn't care if the cars keep coming. He hears the bell that rings in his ear to let the blind know it's safe to cross and wonders what round it is from his boxing days. He has no sense of direction, he is lost again. He only knows that if he finds the water he will know where West is. If he doesn't jump in this time, he may wind his way home.

☜

The Geisha on the street of that modern city neon lights flash on wet pavement on the street of that ancient city flames flicker on wet cobblestones her alabaster face and crimson lips glance back at me but just for a moment ... we both understand such a thing would bring her ruin

October 1949... Hannah Jane (Nancy) grunted and groaned and gushered, and introduced me to the world...and I ushered in the 50's.Kindergarden... how hard can this be I ask...nap time? Who needs that? And who are all these strangers? I hate this place...get me outta here!1st grade... Spot? Jane? This is a book? My Grandma already taught me to read. Can I skip this grade and go back to reading "Great Expectations"?2nd grade... I decide to pick Frank Evans to be my best friend. This kid is nothing but trouble, and always in trouble. I can join him staring at the wall in the corner of the classroom; at least I'll get to daydream all I want...and sneak under the playground fence during recess, and jump off the swing just as it reaches its maximum zenith...although I didn't much care for getting caught by the teacher and having her shake me so hard that I pee my pants! Lucky for me it was raining hard that day, so I avoided the embarrassment by falling in a puddle. By hanging out with Frank whatever trouble we get into will be blamed on him, as he clearly is from the wrong side of the tracks and I look sooo innocent.3rd grade... Mrs Long has us plant carrots in a garden and pretend to buy things from a pretend store. I pretend I like this.4th grade... My teacher, Miss Grow (she should have taught the 3rd grade), she likes us to express ourselves, so we have a lot of art time. Miss Grow catches me drawing a caricature of her doing something with the principal (with whom I have, by now, become very well acquainted). She takes it away and tells me it is very good but inappropriate, would I please draw something appropriate. I say OK, and I draw a lion. She hangs it on the wall. Often Miss Grow does not show up for class, I think she is sick or something and we have a substitute teacher, the P.E. teacher from a higher grade. This guy has it out for me. Maybe 'cause I said he smelled bad. He takes my art folder to the principal and tells him I appear to have mental problems. Lucky for me, nobody acts on this. Besides this is the same guy that found my first attempt at short story writing “overwrought".Well, maybe he had a point: The narrator-character (me) has jumped into the sea. He has decided life is not worth living. As he slowly sinks to the bottom of the ocean he thinks of his family and friends and of all the things he thought he was going to accomplish ( such as when he was completely convinced he was going to be selected as the photographer for an expedition to Peru, and was crushed when he found out he wasn't going)...but then, just as his feet touch the bottom of the sea, he is enveloped by a bright light and starts to struggle to the surface. As he breaks the surface of the sea, and, gasping for air, he realizes the bright light is from a light bulb, on the ceiling of his bathroom. He had fallen asleep in the tub!The 5th grade... I'm in love. Or something. I catch her staring at me in class, but I refuse to look back. She sends me Valentine cards; I send her: nothing...I think she's cute. But I am also in love with my teacher. She's beautiful, Marilyn Monroe beautiful...but I'm not about to let either one of them know how I feel. The quiet, goofy looking girl with glasses doesn't get any cards from anyone. I give her a Valentine card and some heart shaped candy.Dave, the school bully, chases my little sister home from school. He has a Zippo lighter and tries to catch her hair on fire. Every day he does this. He tells me he will beat me up and set my clothes on fire. I believe him. He chases me too, but I am too fast for him. The auditorium, (the one where they show "that movie" to the girls only) has a rather large window with heavy drapes. I assume the heavy drapes are to prevent us boys from sneaking a peak at the girl movie. We have a fire drill. The idea of the school being on fire makes me think of Dave. We are all marching single file past this window. We are all laughing and fooling around, and the teacher tells us to be quiet and to be orderly. During all this fooling around and commotion somehow Dave crashes through the big window. An ambulance takes him away, but the teacher says he will be fine in a few days. Thank God for the heavy drapes she says. And let that be a lesson to us all...be quiet and be orderly and be safe, she says. But Dave and I both know he won't be chasing me or anybody else in my family anymore.The teacher decides to put on a play, a musical. She has us all try to sing. I refuse but she is insistent. I try, but when I try to sing anything above a whisper my voice breaks. Then she asked everybody if any of us ever learned to play a musical instrument...I say "an accordion". I am chosen to play the part of a drunken Mexican. This guy never sings. There also doesn't appear to be much chance of him playing the accordion either.6th grade... we have to go around the corner, to the other side of the building to go to the 6th grade. It is separate from the other grades and has its own field for recess. I hardly ever talk to Frank any more. Except when the bread truck pulls up to the grocery store just beyond the chain link fence way at the end of the grass playing field. Frank always asks the driver for free bread. These miniature loaves of bread that the bakery uses as samples. The driver always gives us one each. Another truck pulls up...an Oscar Myer Weiner truck. Frank says...hey, give us a hot dog, the bread guy gives us free stuff. The driver says, get lost kid...I got your weiner right here...Junior High... my teacher was once a fan dancer...and a feather dancer. She told us this. And had pictures to prove it. Wow! There's no way this is the same person. And all the guys in the class walking around bent over like Groucho Marx. Now I understand why my dad loved Groucho so much.High School… missed far more than I ever went. hated every second of it too. My “new family” moved so much I was always the new kid in class. In the high dessert of Borrego, California, there was no high school; a 2 hour bus trip up the mountain to Julian was the solution. Often I took the bus to the foothills, got off and stayed with the Mexican family I made friends with, much to the consternation of the bus driver. Other towns, other schools, mostly a blur. I was so good at track and field and baseball that the school officials didn’t care if I ever showed up for class, as long as I was there for track meets and games. In those days there were truant officers and “juvie”.. our name for juvenile hall, and what were really just detention centers. Nothing to be learned there, nothing I wanted to learn anyway.And then…

Synopsis A man and a woman, having lived in Madrid for a year and a half, make a fateful decision to save money and escape the coming bitter cold of winter and move to a small tourist town on the south coast of Spain. They know how to live in the city...but do they know how to live in a small town? This small town? Cast of Characters: The Woman A writer, trying to find herself, in Spain. The Man An artist, who got lost trying to find himself. Alfonso A gay man who teaches English to foreigners, the catalyst. Jessica A rabbit and part time practitioner of the black arts. Marco A guitar playing osteopath (and possible hermaphrodite). Two Argentinian exiles with a small son Theatre types still looking for their place in the sun. Manolo Former Guardia Civil (police) reduced to Village Idiot, still chasing women. Ricardo An authentic Andalusian catering to the tourist trade. Marie (not her real name) A self proclaimed "old dyke on the run”. Neil An Irish barman.

Obsession If you have your why? for life, then you can get along with almost any how? “Man does not strive for happiness; only the English do that.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche I am half English, on my mothers side. I can thank the English for a lifetime of various mental and physical illness, my mother for an uncanny intuition and an artistic bent, and the military for the icing on the cake. The English, imbued with a selfish petty morality, have often made my life a living hell. My father was Greek. This ancestral connection has filled my marrow with a darker vision of existence. Here lie imagination, illusion and philosophical flights of fancy. And not a small amount of delusion. Break from Reality The couch I am sitting on is total junk, the stuff the owners put in the rentals. Better than throwing it away, they think. I sit typing the translations that my friend Ana did for me. English to French. I don't speak or read French, so it is slow going, being careful not to make any typos, letter by letter. I don't know if it is a good translation or not, but it seems good. The smoke is curling around the computer, the smoke from the hashish cigarette. I feel bored so I switch on the TV. TV is crap the world over. Andalusian television is American television with the sex left in. But it is still bad. I watch the news...too depressing. I switch channels...the cotilla shows are following the same muy famosos ...always the same; same bullfighters, same aging Spanish actresses; a truly monstrous looking member of royalty, same over the hill singer. Following some poor victim as she tries to do her shopping...exposing her marital infidelity. I switch to the porn channel. Lots of porn on TV here in the South. Porn and Tarot card readings. Much more of this stuff than in Madrid. Makes sense somehow that it is this way. In Madrid people are busy living the lives the Tarot cards portray and having the sex that is shown on the TV; here in the South they are trapped in their traditions. I watch the couple, a man and a women...often it is two women. I find watching two women kind of tedious, at least on the TV. The producers of this stuff are obviously male. The women always do what men fantasize women do together...it seems very programmed and dull. This couple though seem to actually know each other. The sex is very real. I easily imagine myself as the man... I replace the man on the screen. In the darkened room, the flicker of the light from the television, the smell of the hashish and the sound of the rain… I am about to board the plane. I am headed for Seattle... I hear Bob Marley singing on the piped in music in the terminal. It is the third time I have heard these lyrics today, "baby don't worry, 'bout a thing. cause every little thing's, gonna be alright…" Two months later, I am sitting at a computer screen at 3 A.M. in Seattle. The room is dark and the brightness of the screen hurts my eyes.

First Ave. The street people come out around 7:30, 8 o'clock in the evening. They are still visible in the early morning hours, 'til around 7 or so when they become invisible again. I have gone for many walks since my return to Seattle. I am staying in the Belltown neighborhood, one block west of First Avenue, north of the Pike Place Market. This Wednesday evening I walk south almost to Pine St. then turn around and start walking back. On the 2300 block of First, two police cruisers pull up in front of the Lewiston Apartments, a building that has been around since the 1900's, now populated primarily with low income residents, their rent subsidized by the city. Half a dozen people are standing around wondering what is happening. A blue van pulls up, a small red light affixed just above the driver's door. The blue van means only one thing, the street people inform me. A dead body. They say it happens all the time in this neighborhood. This time, an old man, alone, dead for more than a week. The neighbors thought the smell was from garbage piling up, their complaints to the off-site manager ignored. A black woman tells me "I think I might know him, but not sure. I think he was an alcoholic, no family.” A man in his late 50's tells me in his building they take out a body once a week. The last one was dead for two weeks. He tells me his name is Raven, he is a veteran, two tours in Vietnam. He has lived on this street for many years, knows everything and everybody. The dead man was tired of living he tells me. I tell him "yeah, we know how that feels, but we keep going don't we". He laughs and says "yeah, we do don't we." Now they bring the dead man out in a blue body bag. Raven says the building has no elevator and has narrow stairs, that is why the stretcher is on the sidewalk and they have to carry him down the stairs in the blue body bag. I watch them put the dead man on the stretcher and load him into the van. Together Raven and the black woman and I watch the blue van with the dead man in the blue body bag drive away...

The Encounter It is hot and muggy. My pocket watch says it is 7:30. I think it is Tuesday. Seattle changes quickly in the early evening, it is not like Madrid, what I am used to. Things close up early here, and like a changing of the guard the people in the street change as well. I am sitting on a bench near a restaurant, there are 4 or 5 patrons sitting outside in the restaurant's patio. There is another bench opposite and to right of the one I am sitting on. A middle aged man and woman are seated there, they appear to be tourists. I am reading my book, but occasionally I look up and watch people walk by. I see a young girl walking towards the man and woman, the couple seated on the bench who appear to be tourists. The girl approaches them and says something. I cannot hear what she says but the man shakes his head in a negative gesture. The girl is wearing a floppy hat that she has folded up in the front. She is very thin. Now she approaches a man sitting having a drink in the restaurant's outdoor patio. The girl speaks to him and he takes out his wallet and gives her money. I see her folding what appears to be two one dollar bills, and she tucks them into the pocket of her dress. Now she walks towards where I am sitting, my book sits open on my lap as I watch her approach. She looks straight at me. She seems so sad. I notice how young she is, very young. She continues to look at me but says nothing. She does not ask me for money. She then turns and walks off towards Post Alley. I close my book, get up and walk off in the opposite direction...

We all have many stories. They are only as true as we remember them.

“Human life, indeed all life, is poetry” ~Lou Andreas-Salomé, a very accomplished intellectual and self-directed woman. Powerful enough to have been the lover of both Friedreich Nietzsche, and Rainer-Maria Rilke. I search for knowledge from the ancients and the philosophers that have come before. I speak to the gods of my father, to Apollo, “most Greek of all gods”, god of prophecy. To Dionysus, beautiful and effeminate-looking, who reigns during the three winter months, while Apollo is away. To beautiful Ariadne, long suffering, abandoned on Naxos by her lover, echoed in art, literature, music; painted by Titian, alluded to by Keats; and Laetitia Elizabeth Landon, mixing art and poetry: The artist stands before his painting, patiently explaining the details to his lover, who finds fault with his theme. Ariadne is too ready to cast off the old love and put on the new. The Romans married her off and put her in the stars, but the Greeks who created her have a different story.

October 1949... Hannah Jane (Nancy) grunted and groaned and gushered, and introduced me to the world...and I ushered in the 50’s. Kindergarden... how hard can this be I ask...nap time? Who needs that? And who are all these strangers? I hate this place...get me outta here! 1st grade... Spot? Jane? This is a book? My Grandma already taught me to read. Can I skip this grade and go back to reading "Great Expectations"? 2nd grade... I decide to pick Frank Evans to be my best friend. This kid is nothing but trouble, and always in trouble. I can join him staring at the wall in the corner of the classroom; at least I'll get to daydream all I want...and sneak under the playground fence during recess, and jump off the swing just as it reaches its maximum zenith...although I didn't much care for getting caught by the teacher and having her shake me so hard that I pee my pants! Lucky for me it was raining hard that day, so I avoided the embarrassment by falling in a puddle. By hanging out with Frank whatever trouble we get into will be blamed on him, as he clearly is from the wrong side of the tracks and I look sooo innocent. 3rd grade... Mrs Long has us plant carrots in a garden and pretend to buy things from a pretend store. I pretend I like this. 4th grade... My teacher, Miss Grow (she should have taught the 3rd grade), she likes us to express ourselves, so we have a lot of art time. Miss Grow catches me drawing a caricature of her doing something with the principal (with whom I have, by now, become very well acquainted). She takes it away and tells me it is very good but inappropriate, would I please draw something appropriate. I say OK, and I draw a lion. She hangs it on the wall. Often Miss Grow does not show up for class, I think she is sick or something and we have a substitute teacher, the P.E. teacher from a higher grade. This guy has it out for me. Maybe 'cause I said he smelled bad. He takes my art folder to the principal and tells him I appear to have mental problems. Lucky for me, nobody acts on this. Besides this is the same guy that found my first attempt at short story writing "overwrought". Well, maybe he had a point: The narrator-character (me) has jumped into the sea. He has decided life is not worth living. As he slowly sinks to the bottom of the ocean he thinks of his family and friends and of all the things he thought he was going to accomplish ( such as when he was completely convinced he was going to be selected as the photographer for an expedition to Peru, and was crushed when he found out he wasn't going)...but then, just as his feet touch the bottom of the sea, he is enveloped by a bright light and starts to struggle to the surface. As he breaks the surface of the sea, and, gasping for air, he realizes the bright light is from a light bulb, on the ceiling of his bathroom. He had fallen asleep in the tub! The 5th grade... I'm in love. Or something. I catch her staring at me in class, but I refuse to look back. She sends me Valentine cards; I send her: nothing...I think she's cute. But I am also in love with my teacher. She's beautiful, Marilyn Monroe beautiful...but I'm not about to let either one of them know how I feel. The quiet, goofy looking girl with glasses doesn't get any cards from anyone. I give her a Valentine card and some heart shaped candy. Dave, the school bully, chases my little sister home from school. He has a Zippo lighter and tries to catch her hair on fire. Every day he does this. He tells me he will beat me up and set my clothes on fire. I believe him. He chases me too, but I am too fast for him. The auditorium, (the one where they show "that movie" to the girls only) has a rather large window with heavy drapes. I assume the heavy drapes are to prevent us boys from sneaking a peak at the girl movie. We have a fire drill. The idea of the school being on fire makes me think of Dave. We are all marching single file past this window. We are all laughing and fooling around, and the teacher tells us to be quiet and to be orderly. During all this fooling around and commotion somehow Dave crashes through the big window. An ambulance takes him away, but the teacher says he will be fine in a few days. Thank God for the heavy drapes she says. And let that be a lesson to us all...be quiet and be orderly and be safe, she says. But Dave and I both know he won't be chasing me or anybody else in my family anymore. The teacher decides to put on a play, a musical. She has us all try to sing. I refuse but she is insistent. I try, but when I try to sing anything above a whisper my voice breaks. Then she asked everybody if any of us ever learned to play a musical instrument...I say "an accordion". I am chosen to play the part of a drunken Mexican. This guy never sings. There also doesn't appear to be much chance of him playing the accordion either. 6th grade... we have to go around the corner, to the other side of the building to go to the 6th grade. It is separate from the other grades and has its own field for recess. I hardly ever talk to Frank any more. Except when the bread truck pulls up to the grocery store just beyond the chain link fence way at the end of the grass playing field. Frank always asks the driver for free bread. These miniature loaves of bread that the bakery uses as samples. The driver always gives us one each. Another truck pulls up...an Oscar Myer Weiner truck. Frank says...hey, give us a hot dog, the bread guy gives us free stuff. The driver says, get lost kid...I got your weiner right here... Junior High... my teacher was once a fan dancer...and a feather dancer. She told us this. And had pictures to prove it. Wow! There's no way this is the same person. And all the guys in the class walking around bent over like Groucho Marx. Now I understand why my dad loved Groucho so much. High School… missed far more than I ever went. hated every second of it too. My “new family” moved so much I was always the new kid in class. In the high dessert of Borrego, California, there was no high school; a 2 hour bus trip up the mountain to Julian was the solution. Often I took the bus to the foothills, got off and stayed with the Mexican family I made friends with, much to the consternation of the bus driver. Other towns, other schools, mostly a blur. I was so good at track and field and baseball that the school officials didn’t care if I ever showed up for class, as long as I was there for track meets and games. In those days there were truant officers and “juvie”.. our name for juvenile hall, and what were really just detention centers. Nothing to be learned there, nothing I wanted to learn anyway. And then…

The Geisha on the street of that modern cityneon lights flash on wet pavementon the street of that ancient cityflames flicker on wet cobblestones her alabaster face and crimson lipsglance back at mebut just for a moment ...we both understandsuch a thing would bring her ruin

a first love... one rainy night in Japan his friend saw the two of them walking in the rain with their umbrellas. his friend thought the tall girl cute, he insisted on following them. they knew they were being followed but were not afraid, they knew they were being flirted with. they went into a coffee shop, we followed. his friend asked if we could join them, they giggled but said yes. his friend went home with the tall girl. he stayed with the other in the coffee shop and they talked until 5 in the morning. they were together for nearly three years. she bore him a son. he had to leave, to go off to war. there was nothing to be done about it. he pledged to return for her. they wrote letters of longing and loneliness. hers on colored and scented paper, beautiful paper from Japan. she wrote how she missed his gentle touch on her back. he wrote how he missed her smile and her soft white skin. then abruptly her letters stopped. he did not know what happened. no way to communicate, he was in a panic. he was at war. there was nothing to be done about it. one month two months three months four months then, the letter. not from her, but from an officer that knew them both. a terrible terrible tragedy. monstrous and unfathomable. both dead. killed in a jealous rage, racial and sexual fears of the Gaijin. obsession that knew no bounds. he could not go see them. there was nothing to be done about it.    a lost love... by love obsessed. Proustian in its suffering. a last declaration of love, in a book on intellectual history. a handkerchief, so gentle. lost time, lost love, lost art. the bittersweet fruit of trust betrayed, of devotion lost. to walk down that path again... turn the corner again... cry, again. the first time, he could blame the gods.    a last love... the girl-woman, a muse. he would be her mentor. full circle. the irony is not lost on him. now far away, but this time, not forever

To be continued...

We all have many stories. They are only as true as we remember them.

Past as Prologue From being to nothing and back again... A child sees reality. An artist endeavors to see as a child. Literature is a well crafted lie, built on a foundation of experience. It is the stepchild of philosophy. A never-ending search for love and wisdom.

I search for knowledge from the ancients and the philosophers that have come before. I speak to the gods of my father, to Apollo, “most Greek of all gods”, god of prophecy. To Dionysus, beautiful and effeminate-looking, who reigns during the three winter months, while Apollo is away. To beautiful Ariadne, long suffering, abandoned on Naxos by her lover, echoed in art, literature, music; painted by Titian, alluded to by Keats; and Laetitia Elizabeth Landon, mixing art and poetry: The artist stands before his painting, patiently explaining the details to his lover, who finds fault with his theme. Ariadne is too ready to cast off the old love and put on the new. The Romans married her off and put her in the stars, but the Greeks who created her have a different story. In the words of Lou Andreas-Salomé, a very accomplished intellectual and self-directed woman. Powerful enough to have been the lover of both Friedreich Nietzsche, and Rainer-Maria Rilke. “Human life, indeed all life, is poetry.”

Man Overboard

Stories

Cul-de-sac is just a nicer word for dead end...

Burque

Spain

Skool Daze

Home is where?

PNW

Military Option

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Home is where...

We all have them

And a daze it was

Hobson's choice

Crazy

Are you famous?

A respite

Where’s Waldo?

WHEN IN SPAIN

..or Portugal

Whether it’s Jamon Serrano or Presunto, ham is big in Iberia. Be sure to visit Los Museo Del Jamon. Yes, that’s correct, The Museum Of Ham.

Sometimes the best you can do is stay afloat.

Madrid

…if I go real slow maybe they won’t notice me..

Pacific Northwest

Man Overboard by Crysta E. Casey Sweat dampens the pillow case, wets the sheets. He is caught in a bad dream, being a gunner on a Navy ship off the shores of Viet Nam. A little box. The only escape is overboard. He doesn't know how to swim. A girlfriend tried to teach him once in Spain, but he was too afraid of water. Now, he's caught in the cracks of the system, on Welfare; Social Security and V.A. Pension pending, deep depression and a desire to drown in Puget Sound. He surfs couches, as he calls it, or borrows a spare bedroom. He is tempted to take the first $6 an hour job that comes along, but his art calls. The shadow on a woman's thigh, her dark crotch, legs spread as she lies on the bed, her eyes a mystery of grown children, lost lovers, dreams and shaky hopes for an uncertain future. Her hair graces her forehead in wisps. He loves to paint all this. This is it when he isn't wandering the sidewalks, talking to a former crack addict who sells the homeless paper outside Starbucks. He thinks she is a sixteen year old runaway. She turns out to be 22, knows things. He would buy her coffee, but his pocket only has three pennies. He would throw these in the fountain in front of the insurance building on Sixth Avenue, make wishes for some other homeless person to wade in and pick out. He worries she has gone back, back to her crack friends when he doesn't see her with her pile of papers for two weeks. He likes looking at people: fat bodies, skinny bodies, sagging breasts and butts. Firm tits, tips cold from lying exposed on a blanket, perhaps in an open burgundy robe... he is dreaming. He isn't watching the traffic. He isn't even aware that he's crossing the street. He doesn't care if the cars keep coming. He hears the bell that rings in his ear to let the blind know it's safe to cross and wonders what round it is from his boxing days. He has no sense of direction, he is lost again. He only knows that if he finds the water he will know where West is. If he doesn't jump in this time, he may wind his way home. ©The Estate of Crysta E. Casey

Man Overboard by Crysta E. Casey Sweat dampens the pillow case, wets the sheets. He is caught in a bad dream, being a gunner on a Navy ship off the shores of Viet Nam. A little box. The only escape is overboard. He doesn't know how to swim. A girlfriend tried to teach him once in Spain, but he was too afraid of water. Now, he's caught in the cracks of the system, on Welfare; Social Security and V.A. Pension pending, deep depression and a desire to drown in Puget Sound. He surfs couches, as he calls it, or borrows a spare bedroom. He is tempted to take the first $6 an hour job that comes along, but his art calls. The shadow on a woman's thigh, her dark crotch, legs spread as she lies on the bed, her eyes a mystery of grown children, lost lovers, dreams and shaky hopes for an uncertain future. Her hair graces her forehead in wisps. He loves to paint all this. This is it when he isn't wandering the sidewalks, talking to a former crack addict who sells the homeless paper outside Starbucks. He thinks she is a sixteen year old runaway. She turns out to be 22, knows things. He would buy her coffee, but his pocket only has three pennies. He would throw these in the fountain in front of the insurance building on Sixth Avenue, make wishes for some other homeless person to wade in and pick out. He worries she has gone back, back to her crack friends when he doesn't see her with her pile of papers for two weeks. He likes looking at people: fat bodies, skinny bodies, sagging breasts and butts. Firm tits, tips cold from lying exposed on a blanket, perhaps in an open burgundy robe ... he is dreaming. He isn't watching the traffic. He isn't even aware that he's crossing the street. He doesn't care if the cars keep coming. He hears the bell that rings in his ear to let the blind know it's safe to cross and wonders what round it is from his boxing days. He has no sense of direction, he is lost again. He only knows that if he finds the water he will know where West is. If he doesn't jump in this time, he may wind his way home. ©The Estate of Crysta E. Casey

Ever have that losing your head feeling?

His Self-Portrait a poem by Crysta Casey A self-portrait hangsabove him as he sleepsrestlessly on the mattress.His legs kick like a horse’spawing the dirt, clump, clump.In the portrait, his face glows orange,the background purple,the complimentary colorsof a sunset in Vietnam.But the eyes, the eyes(and the heart he paintedblack below the left breast),suffer the sorrowof a drafted manwho didn’t want to killand later met the refugees,strung electric wirefor the relatives of thosehe bombed. His legs run awaywith his dreams, tangledin the blue quilt of night. I woke once to my husbandbare ass naked on all fours,pawing the wooden floorwith his bowie knife.I called himout of sleep as he foughtthe dreamed enemy,and later, fully awake,he walked into the woodswith a bottle of whiskeyand all his pills.After three months, a fatherand his son were lookingfor fossils and found his bones. My lover’s eyesare closed tonightbeneath blankets,and though he is not at peace,I will let him sleep. ©The Estate of Crysta E. Casey

Self Portrait for the VA This was painted around 2003, 2004.. I was staying with my Poet friend Crysta Casey while I was being treated by the VA for various mental and physical problems. The VA had an annual art exhibit by veterans, and one of the categories was Vietnam War service. I entered this painting along with the required artist statement (since lost) and it was runner-up in the category.

I have lived in many places, where to now?

Chapter

I have lived in many places, where to now?

The first Spanish explorers arrived in Albuquerque in around 1540 under General Francisco de Coronado. In 1706, a group of colonists were granted permission by King Philip of Spain to establish a new villa on the banks of the Rio Grande at the foot of the mountains where the river provided irrigation for crops and a source of wood from the bosque. The colony’s governor, Francisco Cuervo y Valdés, wrote a letter to the Duke of Alburquerque back in Spain to announce the new village, La Villa de Alburquerque. The first building erected was a small adobe chapel where today’s San Felipe de Neri Church stands, in Old Town, Albuquerque (now short one R). And this is now home.

"A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life.” That is the dictionary definition. It is that, but it is also this: “One’s options in this world are as vast as the horizon, which is technically a circle and thus infinitely broad. Yet we must choose each step we take with utmost caution, for the footprints we leave behind are as important as the path we will follow. They’re part of the same journey — our story.” ― Lori R. Lopez, Dance of the Chupacabras

Three times in my life I have lived in the desert. First time was in Oceanside, the one in Southern California, not the one in N.Y. It is a beach community, bordering the Pacific Ocean. Go east and you quickly see that artificial irrigation is responsible for it not looking like a desert. I also lived in the high desert of Borrego Springs, Ca. At that time (I was about 14), it was obviously a desert. Very few people lived there, the nearest high school was in Julian, a long bus ride up the mountain. Dinosaurs once roamed there, plenty of fossilized evidence can still be found. Like the rest of California, it has probably grown substantially. So, here we are in New Mexico now. Most people know it is a desert, funny though how many think it is a foreign country, not a U.S. state.

Keep moving It’s how to know we are alive... “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” ― anaïs nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 7: 1966-1974 It’s been a long road to here. I am still on that road, only the names change. This period of time has been marked by chaos, division, and a plague. Historians will write many books about it. We are living it. If someone were to ask me how I ended up in NM, I probably will simply say, “I turned left at Albuquerque."

Goodbye Albuquerque

Hello Pacific Northwest (Again)

Once again, back to The Land of Enchantment