THE AUGHTS:

"The contract was for building rooms,
not walls & ceilings, the kickbacks were for credit
for those now fallen into debt, now falling
out of buildings taller than 100 stories.

The stories were of little girls
abandoned in a lunar landscape,
palm trees poised, disappointment huge
just over the border.

The stories were long and tortuous,
the grain was rancid and infested;
dust settled on a green light--
unsettling the driver,
the unregulated operator of the bus."

08-10-08

From "Random Reports 3", Harsimus Press, 2008, copyright Barbara Henry

Stumble It!

He said: "I couldn't walk away fast enough from those people called my parents; the clueless, the stupid, the slow and confused. I couldn't wait until it was time for me to go. The world was waiting for me and I rushed into its arms ready to take what was rightly mine, for I had courage and focus and without a map I jumped over the edge and was swept away by the wind and the waters and I became all that was around me. I became the earth. And all else became silence."

Stumble It!

She said: "This is how it happens: a small stone finds its way into your bed at night and in digs itself into your heart without your knowing it. It feasts on your heart and little by little you begin to feel old and tired and without love. You hardly know what has become of you, but the longer the stone stays within you the stronger it becomes. And the stronger it becomes, the weaker you get. The stone turns your heart into sorrow at first and later into stone itself. On day you will wake and you will fall and you will break into a million tiny little pieces, splinters of stone that will hide themselves between the floor boards of your house where they will wait for the next one to come and call to them.

Stumble It!

She said: "I've always liked to see the sun set at the end of the day. Ever since I was a little girl, I liked to pull out a chair and sit on a porch or on a lawn somewhere and watch the last light of the day drift away, like running water. It's better even when there are clouds to watch as well. The clouds move from fluffy white to gray and then to an inky black as the light fails. I like it best in the fall or winter when the leaves are off the trees. Then you see everything. Sometimes there will be a group of bird flying somewhere is a line or in a V shape. Sometimes on the water you can just make out a ship gliding by in the darkness. When the last light is gone and I can't see much anymore, I pull my sweater around me and move my chair back to the porch and I go in to where it is warm and bright. But I still can feel the darkness that is just outside my door, and I know that I will go back again tomorrow evening when the sun is just getting ready to set."

Stumble It!

He said: "It's a cool place to work, I guess. I mean, I have a lot of fun showing people around the place and explaining to them things about what they're looking at. It IS kinda amazing that someone who go to all that effort to make these things and stuff. Mostly, I guess, it's families that come through, although there are a fare number of, you know, just plain folks that come through too. It's fun and its interesting and there are worse things that you could do on Summer Break. I like, myself, some of the more far out stuff. There are whole collections of flea circus tents with little, tiny people being shot out of little tiny cannons; and tiny tigers being made to sit up on a tiny little stand. The lion tamer has a little tiny whip that I think is made out of a piece of horse hair. Then there are of the religious stuff, mostly about Jesus and stuff, and that's pretty cool too. But, you know, once you've seen it, you've seen it, and we all know those stories by heart. But the circus stuff is cool, because you can make up a story for yourself right there. You can be in the circus yourself if you want to. It's harder to imagine yourself as part of the Jesus story. Do you know what I mean? Its not like the circus stuff at all."

Stumble It!

She said: "I always, always go for a swim on New Year's. I haven't missed it in 25 years or more. It is like a baptism. I swim no matter where I am at the time. I've taken my New Years swim in California, in Florida, in Maryland, in Maine (Oh, my God was that ever cold), in Spain, in Hawai'i, all over. The trick is, of course, is to make sure that you are in a place where taking a swim in January won't endanger your health. If you are going to do something like this on a yearly basis, its best to make certain that the odds are in your favor. For example, I don't think I want to swim in Maine again. Once was OK with me. Once was enough

Stumble It!