Sometimes art isn’t the sort you can see from a cross the room.

It may seem scary, but sometimes you need to get close–up to understand.

This was a different type of day.

Prophecies will pass; as for waging tongues, they will cease; as for notorious knowledge, it will fade.

There were garments everywhere. Where did all this come from? I’ve not entered the Cave of Lost Children; these clothes all too large. At least up-side they have clothing. All I can make out are the elongated Boticelli figures looking as though crumpled at the bottom of a canvas. Sandro was certainly a frustrated fashion illustrator. I can’t tell who owns that arm, whose leg is sticking out over there, which has that unnaturally long neck. Eyes rape me. I divert more than stare, wanting to know just enough to ponder the questions. Shall I ask for a line-up? Would everyone begrudgingly amuse me? Not likely. Elbows and knees pointing up like Burma-shave signs, mimicking the way out. There are enough ruins and faded ghost signs here reminding them of the middle world above. Damn, I forgot the popcorn. Journeys are always a better movie with concessions, and not a stand in sight.

I’ve come searching for someone in particular. For some one specific. In the stream of consciousness the ‘I’ is the thing relevant. I really hate that. I; again.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be pissed away.

Proactive is not working so to have a sit. Dropping into the fetal/futile position, I form the ‘O’ in hope, or in pOssibility. The hole for them to jump through and escape into.

Hoping the sought soul will recognize a hero and leap at the chance to be saved. Hoping goes nowhere. Returning empty handed is defeat, however, and I would never pick up again this quest. Empty handed doesn’t pay the Bill. Mute souls scatter by to ask questions for unidentified reasons. Not enough to pay a visit, just borrowing?  Do I not look like a glimpse of news of the war overhead?  A torn piece that fluttered down the small shaft. Yes, they are unaware I am a broken off bit of the thundering, catastrophic, never decisive conflict. From here the Megiddo playing above ground is a soft roar that rocks and comforts and pulls.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child; I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

Strap onto my back and you can be recovered. Which soul dares?

Soul retrieval isn’t what it used to be. So many in the lost-to-be-found, so little time.

Go find yourselves. Ha! I should have worn that T-Shirt. I give you reasons when you ask for a yes-no.

I’m cold and dampish in this work. My garments wait, along with my power animal back at the entrance. Unless he has retreated. Perhaps humility is good for something.

Okay, someone steps up to the plate. ID is affirmed.

We see though a glass, darkly; the mirror dimly, but then face-to-face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully un/known.

Hey William, what ya got there? (Power animals can be annoying. If omniscient, why ask?)

What I came for. Have a look-see, no don’t look. I got it. Just lead the way.

Everyone’s thin neck has its own kilter.

Meaning?

Everyone has a unique point of view.

Soul retrieval has become soul searching. I guess it always has been.

 So now? Faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the great test of these is love.

 I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.

-Gertrude Stein

There is no absolute point of view from which real and ideal can be finally separated and labelled.

-T. S. Eliot

As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.

-Victor Hugo

Albeit not an easy task …. the universe has succeeded in temporarily overwhelming me. So, my retort is to face the corner, pencil in hand, and learn to draw.

 These images were taped together and stuck in an old sketchbook. I love the idea of triptych. I got to thinking what this one was about, or rather, what I was trying to say other than putting things together and seeing how they relate. I do remember this was the day that we costumed as gypsies and I was tied to a Metropolitan column. Screaming during the photo shoot until a crowd had gathered. We did, however,  disappear before the police showed up.

Quaint.

It had something to do with that evening’s wall installation for a nightclub. We made illustrations  of white dancing macabre figures on black plastic trash bags. Behind on deadline, we doubled the number of images in half the time by wet coping them Rorschach test style. Ugh, that reminds me of painting backdrops in an abandon house,  winching as we heard the rats chasing across the sagging sketchy roof.

Creepy.

Of course there were, and are, also the true quiet profound moments. Those just don’t seem as loud, or come forward as often.

Strange.

Hello up there stop

Supply and demand has flubbed gone awry as there is not any chocolate in the house to be found stop General time is standing still and specific time goes out of the window without being sent stop On my desk sits a dark oxblood leather attaché wallet stop It is soiled in the bottom edges with splattered bird droppings and the lock smashed and half missing stop So it seems I have in my possession the curious case stop But the brown shoes have now gone missing stop The moonlight over through you stop Alert all who may not care

Yours

L. Dangling

About three-thirty in the nighttime, I came across a makeshift temple with a handwritten sign.  Anyone that trespasses will be recruited.

The sky is alight with a form of distress signal I am unfamiliar with. The stars are not quite still, but alive with vibration as though the earth’s mounting energy obscures the clear deep space. Leaves close as com/radicals dart away into the greenery. Running along they trail fire with the ironic confidence of Hansel and Gretel.

I am drawn to this warming flame, it leads me. If the way out is unbound and clearly open then the way in is too clear. Without boarder crossing, without fence caging. No wall to leave messages for others to misinterpret, or to tell of a particular angle. Left unbound to play with fire’s emotion and the appropriate longing to inter/fear with the fire. All’s fair, so there is no need to qualify the hankering for the inner war of passion and the outer, too real. With eyes of fire no one can see. In this is confusion nothing is forgotten, only left behind.

I’m hit and assumption fills the being I am. Dropping my chin I see an arrow protruding from my breast the see the blood leak and rush into the earth in an anxious soaking to become one with the subtle energy that we all belong to in the end.

Looking up, I sway to an ancient internal rhythm and fall onto my knees. Eyes see vulture forms as ink spots above me, then twist and depart as if they were a mere thought flushed from the sky. Everywhere an echo of the outskirts of civilization.

I now long to take a partner by the hand. To follow and join with the parade I am slipstreaming into, but my mind turns and sees only one. Anteros is wiping his tears as he laughs at my shocked numbness. Not asking nor waiting for a reply he turns and haphazardly lets another arrow fly. It is shot into the sky power/full straight and at its far zenith levels, overcome by the earth’s pull of gravity. The weighty point leads a graceful arch down from the sky. Somewhere another is hit in the back. This victim’s victim wonders why, even as he knows the answer.

The moon fades to blackness and I am left alone without senses.  I hear no longer the breeze through the heavy flapping green. I see no longer the details of this plane, only three mutinous shining moons. Three romantic old men mocking each other. I feel no longer the heat of a burning heart. Only a low resonating hum that becomes deeper, stronger and overwhelms me. Aware of a nonexistent kingdom so close that the only wholei/ness is the roof of my mouth as it expands, extending to exist beyond.

Not seeing the possibilities can sometimes be a half Hallelujah. 

Compassion without emotion is the privilege of few vocations in life.