This is something I guess. Whatever....

I can't sleep. I hardly ever sleep anymore. It's really bad and getting worse....forgive this post. I'm just passing time.

Walking on broken shoes through broken dreams
Looking for a miracle where there is none
She doesn't know it she can't see
She's got an angels wings but still she's falling

Catch her, hold her, keep her from the dark
let her breath meet yours before she turns to dust
Hear her calling

So much pain she is burning can't find her way
Like a child frighened in the night where is hope where is comfort
Love has vanished in the void of her nightmare

Catch her, hold her, keep her from the dark
Let her breath meet yours before she turns to ashes
She is calling, she is falling

Broken angel.

Caves, Rite of Passage

The following is slightly more of Caves, Rite of Passage. It's experimental (yes I am experimenting inside of the original concept for caves which is, in itself an experiment.

Rite of passage: Perhaps there was some sort of coming of age ritual, it could be.

By the fire

“On the night you were born a star fell from the sky; a blaze of fire that I rode as the final pains came. By the time you spilled from between my thighs the flame was gone and when you began to breathe and we had learned a little of each others scent I traveled through your eyes down into your soul and discovered that that you were that fallen light. This is the way it was.”

“I am One Less Star In The Sky and tonight my Mother sings me the story of my birth so that I will know who I am. From my sleeping place I hear her and my spirit reaches out to her for strength because tomorrow I will go alone to die.”

At the mouth of the cave

“Fear causes the limbs to tremble, it drives the body to submit, makes the feet like trees rooted to the ground. Fear makes the blood sing in your ears so that you can hear nothing else. Enough fear can save your life, too much can kill you. This is how it is.”

“These are the words my Father gives me to carry. He will not stay. His eyes no longer see me.”

Alone in the cave

“There is nothing here but damp and the sound of my heart. Mother! I cannot find you in this place. I cannot hear your voice!”

Feet stumble hands reach out to feel the Mother’s bones and meet air. A great draught rises up out of the passage, hot. Has some fiery beast heaved a sigh while sleeping?

“Is this you breathing? Are you with me?”

A solitary drop of water falls into an unseen pool, there is no other sound.

“I am bleeding.”

Waiting

“Hear me Mother. You have many children you do not need mine. I am waiting, watching through my tears. Do you hear this daughter’s cry?”

Alone in the cave

“Here is my fear take it from me. Here is my child's spirit take it from me. Are you listening? I've come walking backward. I am empty. Are you here?”

Water splashes down the cavern wall and turns the red packed dirt to mud. One small foot and then the other leave their mark.

“Mother I am here.”

Far below the path a she bear tastes the air, huffs and slaps the ground with monstrous paw…

Caves, Rite of Passage

“On the night you were born a star fell from the sky; a blaze of fire that I rode as the final pains came. By the time you spilled from between my thighs the flame was gone and when you began to breathe and we had learned a little of each others scent I traveled through your eyes down into your soul and discovered that that you were that fallen light. This is the way it was.”

“I am One Less Star In The Sky and tonight my Mother sings me the story of my birth so that I will know who I am. From my sleeping place I hear her and my spirit reaches out to her for strength because tomorrow I will go alone to die.”

Dreaming Again

We dream, every night whether we know it or not. Generally I am unaware of what mine are but the ones I do recall are vivid, so vivid that I have been on occasion, forced to reveal my dreams to learn whether or not a particular incident actually occurred. Some of my dreams are recorded in this blog. Today I shall add another.

I was alone, in the house, except that it was not my house and there were no other occupants. It was evening, or rather later, since the sun was already set. The night air was not cold although a strong wind was blowing through the open windows causing lamplight to flicker. There were kerosene lamps or candles at various places in the room.

As the last wick guttered and went out, the door to my room was wrenched violently open and in the space it took to re-gain my breath an unseen hand reached out and grabbed my hair, giving it such a tug that my head was pulled back so that if, there were someone behind me, I would have been looking directly into that person's eyes. Almost at the same instant I began to feel the pressure of another hand against my back compelling me to rush forward at an incredible speed. It felt as though a great and focused gust of air were driving me before it down the hallway and out into the street. And a rather dismal, dank street it was at that.

As quickly as it began it ended leaving me with an overwhelming urge to know what this thing was that rousted me from my nest in such a fashion. I felt no fear, only anger at being disturbed and so, cried out a challenge to my visitor to reveal both it's person and reason. There was no reply however, just the suck and slap of water thick with muck coming from some nearby shore and the furtive scuttling of rats in the gutters.


Note: I have had my hair cropped close to my head since that dream.

The Opening To Feet, A short Story

This is the opening to a short story that is going to be rather peculiar to say the least. It's been rattling around my head for ever such a long time and I couldn't figure out how to begin, as a result it's been driving me crazy and distracting me in all sorts of ways. This is what I ended up with out of desperation just so I could begin to unload it somewhere, somehow.


Feet

I came upon the house whilst wandering in a dream. It was the only place such a house could have existed. The fence that surrounded it was high, built of stone and wrought iron. The gate was locked; the building itself stood sullen behind it flanked by weathered trees grown twisted and hoary with age.

Who lived there? I had a dreamer’s inexplicable longing to know, for a light gleamed from a window high in the centre tower. Someone must call it home, or else all would have been dark at that hour. It was past midnight and no moon shone forth from the night sky, clouds obscured his face, it was a perfect time to set myself to keep vigil until daylight might teach me the answer.

The Strangeness of Writing

What a peculiar way to write, a word here, a sentence there, sometimes whole paragraphs. Days pass waiting for a name, a place, an event.

Their stories come incomplete, like skeletons tethered by tough-dried sinew, creeping into dreams, slipping in between the everyday mundane of wakefulness those bone- rattle voices searching for flesh to finish the form, they poke and pick, prod and tear; and the tales hang together, bare, raw, strung together only by the existence of the Cave and its paintings.

Caves, Bitter Berry

I am my Mother, I am the Mother of my Mother, I am every woman who lived and died before me; I am the eldest, by my knees sit my Daughters and the Daughters of my Sisters. I do not feel old.

"Watch now, watch how to lay the soft fur so it lies against the skin and keeps us warm, watch how to match the hides, watch how to make the holes so you can tie them together with good sinew. Make the clothing strong as the love you bear for your brothers, your men and your children, tie the knots well, tie them with care."

Strange the way my belly still burns when Spirit Talks looks at me, strange that my breasts and thighs remember him when I watch him knapping the flint. Muscle flexing beneath skin, his hands are hard and full of scars, they are beautiful... his wrists, his arms, imagine all the things those hands have done. I do not feel old.

My blood still runs hot, my heart still quickens at the thought of going out to hunt the bison with him by my side. Tonight, I will remind Spirit Talks that I am still young.

"So, we will finish this and begin the boots."

Writing Cave Stories Again But With Trepidation

Almost, I decided that this, the subject of cave paintings, was way beyond my scope and skill. A thousand times I have stopped and started now. A thousand times I have read and re-read online content and passages from books that have shown me how far off base I likely am with my theories and ideas. Was the Chauvet Cave painted, etched and drawn by one or many? Are they as old as claimed, or older? Are they younger than we think? Were Neanderthals capable of much more than they have been ever given credit for?

Then my eyes drift from written words to images. My hand lifts of it's own volition and for the thousandth time I am standing in the Mother's Womb tracing the lines that others have placed there, following the curve of haunch, the line of muzzles, ears and eyes, caressing the shadow and light defining muscle and paw or hoof. For the thousandth time I can feel the heartbeat of the earth and animals, hear the sound the sky and the stars make; again comes that sigh from tongues turned to dust: We were here, we drew breath, we lived, knew love and fear, listen to these stones they are our voice; and the people come to me, touch my face, my hands, my mouth.

I need one more book and can't get a copy, I've been trying, I think I really need it. I have questions, but today I received an un-looked for sign that told me to follow my heart with these stories and not always my head, don't over think, because, after all, they are only little vignettes of fiction.

Nikos and Me

"My entire soul is a cry, and all my work is a commentary on that cry"...Nikos Kazantzakis

I am beginning where I left off with my book of Chauvet Cave inspired stories and of course, being the person I am, became distracted. Yes, already!

In my distraction I came across this quote and as I read it, said, this is it! This is exactly it. This is how my soul is and this is how I could never express it so that anyone would understand: at least the part about the soul being a cry, as to the work, well I have to find a way to translate that into my writing; that longing, that cry....

Yuccky!

Winter has been stupid-weird, got a bug of sorts now but will be doing the posts here soon, honestly, I promise and my book is suffering right now too, it's wanting my attention: Soon I promise, soon.