Peach Memories

My palm holds the
Texture of security and
Sent of endless summers
And nectar squeezed from
Lips of passions past.

But now I hold the memory
Before I entered this
Flesh dance of destiny.
How about this peach, forever
One letter away from peace.

EMF
I am trapped in the hollows of incandescence.
The penetrating hums of air conditioners
This summer night, makes me feel
Cold in search of a healing space.
I stroll empty of my human silence.
The electricity numbing a humanity
Mesmerized by light, makes me forget
Of wisdom only legible by night.
I am blind in the fields of fluorescence

Much can be learned by listening. I fear we have placed too much emphasis on sight, that we are blind of our other senses. Are not they just as adequate at perceiving? Indeed we have overdeveloped our sense of eye sight as to practically neglect our other senses, and nearly loose our even finer ones. For is not everything just a vibration, a switching of on and off of nerves, this binary code that sends messages to the brain – 0 or 1? How else could we model our computers? Our senses are just developed to pick up different frequencies of these vibrations, and these vibrations may have infinite frequencies, for the breadth I can not know of. Science has found that the brain can only process one of our senses at a time. Though our neurons are quick, at any moment we limited to use only one of our senses. This theory I have found to be true, for when I deeply listen to music I seem to forget my surroundings, even when my eyes remain wide open. I have come back from a delightful symphony to recall I don’t remember seeing anything at all! Ask a blind person what do they perceive and they may tell a world of sounds and textures, a world alien to most of us sightseers. The Rishis of India are seers, though one can not compare our common sight with theirs. They see the divine in everything – a frequency lost unto the majority. Indeed it is yoga that teaches me to perceive the more subtle vibrations of life through blocking off the lower senses, and concentrating on a different channel of receptivity. So I say if you want to know the beauty of the world, shut your eyes and listen first. You may then be propelled to take deep breath in through the olfactory and learn what is afloat. Above all, follow your intuition, do not trust your eyes but your heart, for it is the greatest perceiver we have. When your heart is able to listen to the heart of all things, then it may speak as well. And when your heart speaks it can only sing of bliss; this is the only frequency that may befall the ears of Truth. So when we are ready to fully see our reality we need only to ask with the vibrations of our heart.
If we are to know sound, we must know the soundless.

The microwave scrolls “PRESS START” across its indigo screen. There was one second left before I stopped it from further radiating my oatmeal. What’s one second anyway? One second less of the bombarding waves. One second less agitating for my molecules. Would I miss one second of my life if it was taken from me? What would I do with one more second?
The BEEP.
Finished.
Done cooking.
STOP/CLEAR.
The plateau
Of motionless.

It is not the separation of states that divide countrymen; it is the multitude of churches that estrange us. For what need do we have to put a different church or temple on every corner, save to support our capitalistic desires, competition I say. Freedom of religion? but this phrase is rooted in our forefather’s freedom of economy; every man for himself – the richest men can make the laws. Name, if you will, any religion which is truly free, which one will not ask you to attend to it? It is only the naturalist which may claim nature as having such qualities, but it would be a misnomer to call Her a religion, for Nature asks naught of us. Which religion could survive without any human benefactors? Religion is but of Man, while Nature depends not on Man for Her survival, in fact, she implores Him to do nothing at all. One may point to the Native peoples as having a religion of the Earth, however, we must see that they know nothing of religion and everything of a way of living. If they merely believed, as one does in a religion, then we may not know of them at all, for faith in something suggests separation from it, and they lived only to hold no such thoughts. To be separated from such a power, indeed our source, is to die a slow, chilling death. Evidence of such a claim may be found in modern man, captive in his zoos, possibly in your mirror.
So why is it I was told I must go to church every Sunday? Does it matter not which church I choose? Oh, but it does – it must be the church of my fathers, else I will not be saved. Saved from what? Man creates his own poisons, undoubtedly, and I might be well enough to stay away from all that Man has constructed. I must claim it is only the James which can save me from thoughts of separation. It is Sunday and I take to my best Sunday clothes and hop on my bicycle. Riding through Richmond this morning, the churches are not without their custard. People gathering to enter their holy places spy me with a pity in their eyes as to suggest I might be a lost gorilla, but did they see the pity reflected in mine? The children’s energy speaks differently, their eyes ask if they could worship where I’m going today – “no, no child, you’re already here, you might as well go through with it,” the tall ones say. From one church to the next, as the road I take passes at least six of these medieval buildings, they feel the same to me - all of them splitting the city into race and class. Though I have known solace in a church before, it was only when nobody was around to tell me what to think, or how to pray. There is a peace that survives in the echoes of tall halls, but it all gets pushed out when too many bodies are forced in a place they wouldn’t rather be, with their minds in a place they ought not to be. So I take to the River James as both a place I want to be, and a place I ought to be, for gorillas have no life in the city.

the scene
Save the humanS

Bi-Cycles
The decomposing purple fructose
The battlefield of red stickyness
Stops me and my squeaky seventies bicycle
For a double take
Can it be true? What a rare treasure –
And where have all the pirates gone to plunder?
For surly I can not be the first to acknowledge
This scene
Yet, they float among the outstretched branches
Rubies in fruit form: Plums in the city!
The pavement explains the history of weeks –
The flesh of matured soldiers did their best to carry
Out their purpose
And now the others wait for their time
Following in the same fashion of their brothers
A shake of a branch and two drop into my sack
Another shake and more fall
I rescue what I can, but I can not save you all
It is rare when a city seed can serve its purpose
Even rarer still
Are those who stop their self constructed cycles
To participate in the one they were born into

Seeing
He said phrases like “let me dingle with it” and
“If you want to see God, look into a mirror”
It was a blur of speech, my mind didn’t have time to drink his gushing words
“When you’re asking three questions you know your dealing with a Hindu”
It was like opening your mouth in a snowstorm, with flakes flying all around,
You can see thousands of them, but it takes a while
Before you get just one flake on your tongue
He spoke with satire and a sandpaper Hindu accent
He was hairy too
Hair grew all over, and I could see it. I wasn’t looking for it
But it was almost all I could see, except for his squirrelly brown eyes
He wore a tight white tang top
“If someone came to you saying they could walk on water, you say: Ahh, that’s very nice my friend, now come with me and let’s get on this boat.”
He looked like a professional wrestler
Ready to throw me against the ropes of my own spirituality
He had running shorts that didn’t fit his body,
And a belly overlapping the leather fanny pack
The shorts were maroon and covered just enough to be legal
“When they come with exclamations of truth and dogma,
its ok, let the dog bite the dogma.”
His forested legs shot massive trunks into black high top army boots
“We are all allowed to have happiness in our dreams,
just don’t force your dreams on another.”
They were laced so tight that his calves were molting over the top of his boots.
“Under the soul of things, there’s always something more”
Like a scoop of ice cream on a mini cone
“There’s no Cielo out there, Cielo means heaven in Latin, we got telescopes that have seen as far as four hundred years into the past and future. You want to find heaven, look right here,” he taps the worn glass countertop, “look, oh, but you scratched it.”
His laugh turns into a cough that’s unnatural
“I’ve been meditating for thirty years.”
Out walks the wrestler self titled “the Hindu priest”
In walks the Man – photo badge says department of state
The kind that still thinks he’s a high school jock – calls this place a head shop
Makes jokes about drugs, he bets there’s drugs in the back
He won’t tell anyone
Questions the validity of the magnetic copper bracelets under the worn glass countertop
Conduct a scientifically controlled experiment and sue for false advertising
“I love bullshit like that just so I can prove it wrong”
Cynical – bullshitting, he calls Christian Science bullshit
“I want to see it”
Metaphysics is bullshit
“What are you doing working at a bullshit head shop like this?”
After he finds out I’m a VCU senior about to graduate in environmental studies
He gives me fatherly advice and admits he’s sounding like my father
He hopes he’s giving me wisdom
“I hope I’m giving you some wisdom here”
Oh he is – if he only knows the universe I see in him
“Religion is such bullshit, show me the proof, right? I mean, come on…”
When you have such a hard shell, there must me something you are trying to protect
So dearly
Something so vulnerable that you surround yourself with jagged overconfidence
“Why don’t you have any self hypnosis CD’s? You think you would at least have that”
I saw it peak out, checking if the coast was clear
“I gave him all these great opportunities. I talked with some people to get him a job with NATO. But he didn’t want to, now he works at a cleaners
Where the most intelligent thing he says all day is ‘um, that’s $1.75.’
When I was a kid no one gave me those opportunities, no one gave me anything”
You thought I was your son, you brought me up. I played along, because.
We talked about global warming, bullshit,
“I’m going to live till one hundred and twenty”
Seriously, with a straight face.
“I’m not that old now, but I remember Virginia Beach and how the beach houses
had more than fifty feet of beach, now its all gone to shit.”
The bullshitting made the air smell like Napoleon
Like a battle had been fought down to a drawl
Out walks the suit
In walks twenty something tattooed girl
She buys the magnetic copper bracelet under the worn glass countertop
“I love copper”
Next customer
“You look familiar, have I seen you before?”
God is everywhere
Am I looking into the mirror yet?

pure magnolia
Save the humanS

Pure Offerings
They look like white mammoth butterflies,
Perched with nothing better to do than
Show off their metamorphosed beauty.
The magnolias are in bloom.
Born in bloom,
This towering, flowering tree is right
In the stern gaze of General Lee.
A living monument to behold
Where otherwise one would catch carved stone down
This historic Avenue
But today the rigid General has given
Up his pedestal to the pure offerings of blossoms
June stops her tears and clears her eyes
The pigeons dive for dinner

Greece under my converse
I did it with complete confidence that it could be done - a climb to the highest point with high top chucks, at one point they were the highest pair of black canvas high star shoes in all of Greece.
No reservations while others took minutes to strap up their waterproof, ice gouging, ultra hiker 6000 boots,
No hesitations when even our guide slipped and was injured, nope, not one when I stayed behind to assist him, carry his bags, and get snow to ice his injury.
Up and down in two days and all Chuck could say was “let me know when you need a break Mike cause we can run circles around those overweight Tims – come on let me at em” They did it too, boy they did. What? the water that did seep in provided some extra cool and cleansing to my sweaty toes, and the rubber that rubbed off a bit was just to carry the experience further, a trophy, a scar to be proud of - like a knife fight or wrestling crocodiles. And that’s Mt. Olympus – Zeus’ biceps, triceps, and pecks flexed with the snow capped curves and rocky ridges, his seat was taken over by a bunch of foreigners who gulped thinner air and carried digital cameras. Temporarily. For all who make it to the top respectfully hand over to its caretaker and only take back the pebbles that get stuck in between their toes. On the way down the pines patted us on the back because they also know only One can throw lightning bolts with the accuracy of justice.

How about being at the highest point one day and the lowest point the very next – sea level, 2918 meters to 0. Sarti, the second peninsula in the north provided slim recuperation time – my legs needed it and my converse needed to air out. Yet hiking along the sidewinder roads along Greece’s ancient fingers provided a different kind of air – the kind men of the sea have multiple words for, they swear and sail by them. Our goal was in mind too – our very own private beach to lie out and camp for the night, and so my legs didn’t buckle but to carry the rest of my body to the sand we staked out. The radioactive quartz contrasted the ice sea – its one of those things you just have to jump into head first.
The night was ended with bread, beans and rice under the night’s sky – with billions of worlds watching us and us watching them and hopefully no one watching our illegal campfire.
See the barnacles and snails? The water was so clear that it turned blue, it’s like the sky doubling over on itself – for all infinite things carry a similar color. Wait, did you see that thing? – I think one touched me... it did. I didn’t know brine shrimp were so brave.
Nearing the afternoon we pack up and aim towards town along the path where our shadows give the dirt a chance to cool off. Bus leaves at 5:30 – its 5:10 now, yeah? You want a crepe? Is there chocolate on my face? That was the best banana chocolate crepe one could ask for sitting under the awning of a café. Across the street is his competition, and probably his uncle, selling exactly the same thing at the same price but with a different name tag – different colors. Sorry, the red and white had me sold. Wait a second, what time is it? We quickly pay, Ciao and a wink returned and we’re off. To the bus stop around the corner where we sit down on the bench and wait for the bus to come.
And wait for the bus to come.
I think we missed the bus. No we didn’t. we were only 4 minutes past 5:30. We didn’t. Those crepes were good. Is there chocolate on my face – why didn’t you tell me! I think we missed the bus. Go ask them...
I don’t want to, they’ve been staring at us since we got here. These guys with tight jeans and mustaches – drinking frappes and beer all day on the corner. You do it, no you do it….I DON’T SPEAK GREEK!
We go to some other lady and she informs that the bus came and went and evidently we were eating crepes. Oh well, next bus is tomorrow at 7am. YOU mean tomorrow as in after the sun goes down and back up again – that tomorrow where Omar has an exam at noon? Oh ok, thanks dear. This is expected when you decided to go backpacking without a watch, but we’re adaptable, right? The ATM is out of cash and all we have is enough money to pay for the bus ticket back to Thessaloniki – a 4 hour ride that cost us 13 euro each to get here.
Our food money is down to maybe a euro and a half – couldn’t even buy another crepe and its only 6 pm…..what to do, what to do…
I got it! lets go up to the main road see if we can hitch a ride
But they don’t do that here in Greece, I mean, its rare, especially with a bunch of sunburned foreigners – come on.
No, we’re going to try at least for an hour, then we can figure out what else we can do. I’m pretty sure someone will stop – in the back of a truck or whatever, we’ll get some place where we’ll have more options.
We throw down our gear at the top of the road – look both ways along the lined asphalt where we can see for miles on either side. Nobody. I grab a stalk of dried grass and start to chew on it while Omar is lying out in the middle of the road. Minutes later a car is coming and we’re waving – they wave back and keep going, no, they actually accelerate. We got a routine down, thumbs up, money in hand – Thessaloniki?
An old Greek native comes strolling up the road behind us. Silence. He has the aged skin and the sun worn shirt and pants, a mouth grown never tired of feta cheese and olives. The long eyes stared miles ahead, Thessaloniki?, I must be using the wrong accent, or maybe it’s the chocolate on my nose. What was funny was that we were pretending that we meant to be standing there at the top of the single lane road with all our bags, like this was our destination. Yet, it was that we were a bit ashamed of the whole thing, for his presence caught us up in deep reverence for the simplicity of old, as the experiences and wisdom floated before us - we were too ignorant to see past our situation as apparently left behind in a quite town which we perceived as having nothing we could use or want. We were nothing to him because we had already turned our back and our desires rushed to be anywhere but here, we weren’t there and he didn’t see us.
Fewer cars went by than minutes and even fewer gave any sign that they understood what we were doing.
Up pulls a four door fiat with a burly Greek from the same road behind us coming out of the town. Thessaloniki? – hop in
and we didn’t step twice about it
Introductions and pleasantries were due - all in Greek of course and then not much else to be said – he was going where we wanted to go and had 3 extra seats. Theres something satisfying in traveling 100mph in a car with a man you don’t know sitting next to you smoking cigarettes like they were after dinner mints. Minutes of uninterrupted silence – slowing to let the curves do what they do and slowing to let the goats do what they shouldn’t do.
A stop at a café: Frappe, Coke, Beera?
No, no, but thanks, ok?
Ok, coke then
The drivers buying – quite men are the most generous if not but to give the silence a turn to talk.
We continue on with smiles hurting our faces, the sunburn didn’t give it away? I’m American. More silence and wind banging on my window because its wants a ride – wouldn’t you get tired of chunks of metal flying through you at ridiculous speeds?
Thessaloniki in an hour and a half and I believe we beat the bus that never needed us anyway. The old man was Poseidon reminding us that what’s behind us is just as important as what’s in front.

To be continued…..