Can you understand now why I have trouble sleeping?

I was deep in sleep, totally oblivious to the waking world and the empty household. Held in the black void that isn't, unaware of any dreams or sounds. Then suddenly….a body drops onto my chest! Oomph. I try to jackknife up, but the weight is too much. My arms are trapped and I am pinned to the bed. I hear scrambling on the floor next to the bed. Oh shit, what is this? I start twisting and turning frantically, trying to get out from underneath this person. They are clawing me, trying to hang on. There's something in their hand…a flashlight? I don't fucking care, its mine now and I grab it and start hitting them all about the head and torso with the one arm I've managed to wiggle free. I hear muffled cries and they let go. A slithering sound on the floor. What the fuck is this thing?, I jump up and lean hard into the wall next to my bed, making myself as small as possible in the corner formed by the head board and wall. The moonlight is filtering into the room in watery rays, and I see something…There! What??! It's a full size man shape, but there are no legs. Just a long tapering form. Wtf? It slithers off on its elbows into the far corner of the room, breathing hard with a rasping wheeze, whimpering. I can barely make out its form….it seems to be a blue-grey color, but that may be the effects of the moonlight. Hairless, flat face, bulbous eyes, slit nose, muscular arms and torso.

We are at an impasse, this creature and I. For I was not getting on the floor, and it was terrified of me…where the heck did this 'thing' come from?? And why did it jump on me? Jesus fuck, I really need this…. After a few minutes, we both stop panting. I am the first to move, inching my way to the end of the bed and the door out. The creature flinches, afraid I will rain down more blows. Oh yea, what was this thing in my hand? It would have to wait. I make a mad dash over the footboard for the door. I get out, howling the whole way. Yikes!

I slam the door on my way out, run all the way down the stairs. Shit shit. What now? That thing is still upstairs, in my room! Oh god, what do I do?? Who can I call? AnnaLee! I make a run for the phone…I don't care if its one in the morning, shit! She answers on the 2nd ring - oh thank god! I'm babbling incoherently, panic and hysteria in my voice. But that girl….she is awesome. She already knows what's going on. Shit! She didn't feel my panic, she felt that thing's! Oh good lord….

I'm trembling violently, trying to make sense of her words. He has slipped into this world accidentally she says, through a portal. He is as terrified as you are. He's not used to our atmosphere, our gravity. His is a gaseous world, where he swims through the air. He was confused and saw another sentient being, came to you for aid. "Well don't claw at me god damnit! Jesus, he fell on me! Woke me from a sound sleep!" "Just try to think from his perspective cha, he's in an unknown place, no bearings, a gravity…..what would you do?" Go loudly insane of course….

She tells me to go back upstairs, to see what I can do to help. Oh hell no, uh uh, not me. So she tells me she's on her way and I sit down on the couch to wait. I can hear things falling and being dragged and moved upstairs, right above my head. Oh, oh, you better get here fast girlie. After about 20 minutes there is a knock on the door and I rush over to open it. There stands this little dynamo of a woman, red hair flying, pjs and cowboy boots - yeehaw! My hero! We walk back into the living room and stand directly under my bedroom and listen…not a sound. We crawl slowly up the stairs like a pair of silent movie cops, me clasping the back of her shirt, she fearless. We walk down the suddenly long hallway, our anticipation and dread make the journey seem endless. The doorknob is turned with expectations of violence…..but we are met with silence. The light switch is flicked and we turn the corner….nada…no one. But the far corner of the bedroom is a shambles. The shelves emptied, clutter all over the floor.

"Was this the corner it ran too?" she asks. "Yes yes" I answer. "Oh, remember the last time I was here and the anomaly we encountered? You remember, the bent reality? Where I could push the wall in and you were able to slip your hand through?" AnnaLee asks. " Oh yea, now I remember. It was right there, at waist level on those shelves. Do you think that's where it came from? Where it went to?" "Yes hun, right there" is her answer.

So we proceeded to clean up the mess left behind by this creature in its mad haste to leave our world. I must have dropped the 'flashlight" in my wild dash for freedom, for it was never found. AnnaLee said it was some type of information gathering device, but we will never know. We erect a little safeguard in that corner, something to disperse any gathering of energy. And all is calm in my world again…..till the next time.

Delphic Ferine

cowl pulled over eyes
shamanic utterings levied
sitting lone on rutted throne
the trench of separation
eons deep

no loving kinship mine
for i am not to meet
no interjunctions sought
for i am not to seam
no lover's union spent
for i am not to reach
i am the gods' pariah

tallowed torches flame
drum and rattle roar
the blood of warriors drunk
with bone and stone tossed wide
savage profanes awed
primeval possession of rite
spontaneous cries uncontrolled
the pagans' whorls dance 'fore me

beseached yet disowned
entranced and repelled
i can only see....life's obliquities

One for the memoirs

My eyes open slowly….I feel like I'm encased in molasses. What is going on? Why did I wake up? I see out of the corner of my eye, because I can barely move my head, that there is a glow coming from the living room. Noises, shuffling. Are there people out there? Is someone in my house? A shadow crosses over my eyes….something is in the room with me. Then I hear a faint suggestion…..go back to sleep. Nothing is going on….nothing to see.

I wake up with a start. What time is it? Did I really wake up earlier? I look out the doorway to the living room, and yes, there is a light on. I stagger up and out of bed, feeling like I have been hit by a truck. Weaving, grasping the door jam for support, I make my way out into the living area. Cyrus's tank light is on….what the heck? I reel over to the water dragon's 6 foot tall tank and draw his night time curtain aside. Boy, the glare I get! That tail goes to thrashing and he is spitting mad. What in the world is his light doing on? My head is foggy as hell, like I'm hung over big time. His heat lamp is on a timer, which is plugged into the wall behind the tank. I bend over to grasp the edge so I can wheel it aside and almost fall over……his tank has already been pulled out! What in the world? My head and eyes are so fractured I couldn't see this right away, but his tank has been pulled out a good 2 feet from the wall. And this tank is heavy! Made of old doors and a cast iron sink, it has to weigh a good 300 pounds. I reach down to check the timer, and it's been changed as well….wtf?!

I set things to right and try to sooth Cyrus, but he is very upset. He only gets this way when someone has invaded his territory. Was someone in here earlier? The questions keep mounting up…. I head back to bed, my mind a jumble. Oh, this will have to wait for morning and a clearer head.

The next morning I awaken sore for some reason. My arms and legs feel like lead. I inspect them for a reason for the ache and come across some bruises on my arm…..fingertip sized bruises. What in the world? As I have no earthly explanation, I put it down to wild thrashings of the night. I go about the next few days, the events of that night haunting and nibbling. WAS someone in my house? Did someone pull out Cyrus's tank to turn on his light and give him a look? These thoughts keep circling and landings are attempted, but no concrete answer is ever arrived at.

A week later I'm relaxing in my over stuffed lazyboy watching TV when a movie starts up….Communion. Now, I've always been a UFO buff and thought I knew all the scenarios, but when I saw those little squat grey men…..Jesus! What was flashing in front of my eyes was like a script from that night…….awakened by lights and noises, unable to move, feeling drugged, voices telling you to go back to sleep……..

Well, I guess this will be one for my memoirs….

Naga

Awaken…..

The klu disquieted
galled to forsake
littoral subterrane
full with understated dogma
and treasured fragments

through trogloxenic veins
glinted with auric rust
it wends its way
round fractured grottos,
karst and speleothems,
the scent of perverted order rank

Varuna….

from the west it eyes,
its thousand spies
peering into celestial ocean's
mirrored echo
ripe with
moral adjuration's
abandonment

dishonor reaped,
the noosed equivocators
flail in latticed web
while bale and bain
reign down on
atrophied souls
left drowning

Grey

clear your mind
unfocus the eyes
behold but don't heed
use the dimmed senses
do you see it now?
there….
in the
grey

an empty road
sitting atop blank field
in an atmosphere
of eternal glom
with trails of vapor
rising

thru the mist,
movement glimpsed
fantastic creatures progress
from one miasma
to another
but nothing stirs upon this road
for it is not a route to
anywhen

barren at all times
a beclouded vista
shifting fro and to
twixt change and wonder
with no apparent
intention

you can hear things
if you listen
without judgment
snatches of murmurs,
chimes, laughter,
unknown vibrations,
grunts and gears
but to the unsatisfied
it is just a fogged
panorama

you have to be
…grey
dusky as the road
indistinct as the air
obscured as time
with no color or enunciation
for you must vie with the
course

but where does it end?
to whence will it impel?
Oh, be assured
this is not an absolute avenue
just a patch of reality's
twining facsimile
hanging 'tween
shades of infinity
adrift in pointless
residence

for this is not a future,
past or now
this is simply….
grey

Thermals

It was a late fall afternoon, when the shadows are long and the air is crisp. The month was November, the mid point between seasons. I think I would have been better prepared for what happened next if it had been near one of the high points of the cycle. I was traveling down FM 1100 (how portentous). A trip I took every day for 10 months coming home from work, for I was staying with a friend and her family at the time. It was a long journey, an hour, hour and a half depending on the day of the week and the traffic patterns. Most of the journey was spent on highways fighting the angry Texas drivers. But every chance I got I would veer off the busy interstate, go down this country road and enter into another century. Farm Road 1100….. It meandered through old Swedish farmsteads, their churches' spires shooting up into the wide open sky, the only landmarks in an otherwise boring landscape. I only drove a little jog of about 10 miles, but the time spent there was a guilty pleasure I tried to gift myself with frequently.

On this day in question I was traveling down the road going east as usual. I looked up in the sky and saw rising columns….thermals, the type you would normally see buzzards lazily riding. But these helixes were different. Unlike the average ones these were filled with of hundreds upon hundreds of birds. But not just any birds….raptors. Of all shapes and sizes. Night birds as well as day hunters. There was one near the road I was traveling, and as I looked off into the distance, I saw 3 more. Same scenario….filled with raptors. Riding the warm winds up and down, circling round and down. Now, I have never heard of hawks riding thermals, let alone a mixed bag of these types of birds. And who had ever heard of raptors migrating? Or being in the company of their own kind, let alone others of that group? These birds were all solitary hunters….what would cause them to congregate?? They ranged in size all the way from the smallest night jar up to the majestic bald eagles. We do have the eagles here in Texas, they like to winter on the lakes. But this was in the middle of nowhere farmland - why were THEY here?

I stopped my car because I couldn't drive and look at the curling birds at the same time. The pillars marched down the county line road, spaced out about half a mile apart. I sat there watching the birds traveling up and down the warm drafts, completely mesmerized by the sight. And then my eyes came down to ground level because I was going to drive off. I noticed there was a red tailed hawk sitting on the top of the telephone pole next to my car. And as I looked down the road, I noticed that every pole had a guardian, as far as I could see. I started the car moving again and all heads turned as I passed slowly. Can you imagine how that felt? To be the focus of so many keen, riveting eyes, in unison? Oh….

I came up on the county line road, which just happens to be on a ley line (interesting, no?). The road crossed FM 1100, which at this point also ran the lines….hmmmm. I looked off down that road, to the south, and saw a red tailed hawk sitting on every cedar post that ran the fence line. Oh, I could not pass this up. I slowly turned onto the small one-lane road, inching the car along until I was over the hill and away from the sight of any travelers on FM 1100. Those eyes, omg. The birds sat at eye level with me, and those eyes burrowed into my soul. I would pass one bird, his head swiveling as I drove by, then the next bird would concentrate on me and the pattern was repeated. Chills were running up and down my spine - I thought I was going to blow a gasket the thrill was so intense….

I finally brought my car to a standstill, right across from one of those hawks. I turned the car off and sat there with all windows down, me and the bird completly still. I spoke softly to it, saying that I was getting out of the car. No reaction, not even a blink. I opened the door and slowly slithered out, afraid of the reception I would receive in their proximity….but nothing. All the birds up and down the fence line were now concentrating on me, but no fear was shown, no indication of flight. This was so strange…….

As if cued, the birds took their collective focus off of me and gazed to the east, which was on the driver's side of my car where I was standing. So I moved my line of sight and - omg!!

The field was dotted with bald eagles! All facing east, as the fence sitting birds were. The direction of the mind, of air, of eagles and high-flying birds. Hmmm Their shadows stretching out in front of them a good 10 feet or more. None of the birds in the field paid heed to me, their focus completely on……..what? I walked away from the car, towards the fence, trying to see what the eagles were so intent on. Their scrutiny was not directed at the ground as I would have expected. But why should it be? This field had been fallow for weeks, no rodent population explosions in sight. No, their sights were trained on the air in front of them. So why were they here? And what were they doing? The field, a good 20 acres, was filled with these sentries, all spaced evenly about 10 feet apart. All standing at attention, as if in communion, as if entranced. But by what?

I decided I had to find out what was going on. As no one had reacted badly to my presence I moved closer to the fence, actually laid my arms on the wire. The eagle closest to me finally turned his head and snagged my gaze. I cleared my mind and tried a connection……~~~ what?

The answer came to me on the wind, in many voices, hundreds of voices………….

~~~Chaos……

And nothing else.

I waited for many heartbeats, hoping to hear more. But nothing else was forthcoming. My mind snapped back into my body. What?! What does this mean? They were here because of a rip in the fabric of space? They were feeding? Or were they trying to repair…..

~~~Yes…..

So I stood there with the birds, lending my energy as best I could, facing the east as was shown to me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the thermals shimmering now, the individual wavelets each bird was riding, coasting on, healing. I could not see these before because my vision was not attuned to the boundless circle of infant life-force. I stayed there until almost night fall, the raptors and I in complete alignment.

I finally, reluctantly, got back into my car. But this time when I began to move I was ignored. It was as if I was one of them now, no threat or suspicion to fall on my actions. I went home and told my friends about this rare occurrence. They too had never heard of such an event. They suggested I call the park service or university to find out more. The next day I made several phone calls, and was rebuffed each time. Raptors do not migrate, nor congregate, nor ride thermals. Especially not a varied cross section as I described. Hmmmm

I went the same route home that day, but all evidence of my encounter was gone. Not a single raptor was in sight, which was in itself unusual. Surely there should be at least one red tailed hawk hunting for his dinner that time of day….

A rare occurrence indeed.

Shores

there is a terrain
so unlike our own
submarined rivers
beneath the surface
of Oceana's
spiraling densed
currents

what would we see
along those
sulfured shores?
life as it was
begun?
phantasmagoric
creatures,
waves,
beached ridges,
and the pseudo breezes
caused by life's struggles

to run from the
water's edge
through it's
mimicked medium
would be an intimacy
unimaginable
to we deficient
mammalian
paramors

and what lies
at the bottom
of the bottom
of the brine?
another lagoon?
with gossamered shores
and finned hawks
seen through
tentacled light?

how many
reverberations
of life's primeval
runes
are multiplied
within those depths?
ahh
the endless shores
immemorial....