For anyone who actually still remembers Carmen, Lilac Cotton and the like, this blog is exceptionally long, political and honest.  It does not reflect my current views or other views of people I know, necessarily.  However it might.  Anyhows.  Currently I am in the process of deciding whether or not to kill it forever after engaging in a massive archival process.  Forty plus years of poetry and this is just a smidgeon of what there is to archive.  Ugh.

Avoid the fall by missing the jump...refers to the notion of dream falling and how it is said that if you do fall and land, you'll die in your sleep.  Wow, just wow.  If this wasn't prophetic, I don't know what is, was or will be.  Geez.  So the person was saved from the Liberian....by a dream so this is a dream within another dream that was also recorded so that when the actual sky dive took place, that dream of the taxi ride through the Ouzai to save a certain son for the price of 20 bucks played a pivotal role.  This dream on the other hand...was unexamined at that time.  I return to it now and am blown away.

The Twisting Sleeps

Edna stated once as she sat
in the semicircular booth
at Sambo's drinking a cup of tea:
you don't want to dream anymore.
She meant, when you are old or wise
or like me, you get to that point.

After the hounds of Ha'wab they sent
a small envoy and then a second, how
many more would come into the fray,
how many more loose ends to tie up?
There are no reasons for these recurrent
troubles, recurrent themes. There
is no reason to be forced into para-
trooping fresh out of the boot camp
of dreams where the mess is
full of ice cream machines bowling alleys
and - Las Vegas lighting.
There is no reason for the envoy
to be buying trinkets to take home
(standing there as they did once before)
and certainly no reason the bus
accelerated like an F-15 but mostly,
there was no reason for the envoy
to pay a second visit at the end
to remind the dreamer there would be
no helmut nor any special lace-ups
for one of the jumpers. Sri Lanka
or wherever we would be landing
is certainly a jungle of the worst type
and we drove by the best forests on our way,
green and dry, beds of needles, familiar.
One last look before you head off.
It is the woman from Liberia who keeps
everything from descending. It is her lost
son and the memory of her slavery
which saves. Blink, wake up, get out.
Avoid the fall by missing the jump.

The Random

I've known some really famous people. I am not sure which who is the most famous but perhaps it is the one not yet and this, yes this, keeps me humble. It might be you or him or that one over there. It matters not. I'm in the olives now, thick in the olives and the pre winter, the knowledge that this might be my last one hurries me to finish, twist tight the last cap of this year's. Sealing up time like that and how about this...one of hers (full of old pasta) contained the odors of her home, the cat boxes, houseplants, old cheeses, forgotten shoes. It hit me like the lights do at dusk sometimes when they tell you, Galway Kinnell-style, it's time to go. I just stood there, fascinated and repulsed by the air in that jar. Since then I am careful not to tighten anything up too soon. I'm rather careful about locking doors, hiding valuables. I remind the children over and over to check into the book jackets, to take only what is theirs. I am not sure which who it is but indeed, it might be me. Oh sure they say, it is because you ran into so and so and they set you straight. As if these accidents are accidental.