Fear: Spoken Word of a Female Prisoner

"...the fear of prisons

The fear of strip searches leads to 

The fear of being naked in front of other women 

The fear of keys leads to

The fear of chains

The fear of small spaces it leads to

The fear of tears, the fear of dreams, the fear of loneliness

The fear of being forgotten, it leads to 

The fear of time, the fear of lies

The fear of metal doors leads to

The fear of dark empty corridors 

The fear of insanity leads to

The fear of separation, the fear of isolation, the fear of segregation, the fear of being a statistic." 

Spoken by a female prisoner at the final minute of short film, "Beautiful Sentence" 

Not until I wrote this did I understand the double meaning in the title...sentence. What phenomenal beauty there is in the regeneration of oral storytelling through writing. That is my key literary focus this past year, as I reflect on my greater literary ambitions. As I re-watch this humble documentary on an oft-recurring subject, the impact of poetry on prisoners, I think about the unique predicament I'm in this year, in relation to the subject of the above-quoted poem. I won't be departing or arriving in airports this holiday season. I'm staying far away. Although I am not incarcerated, I can feel the fear that this prisoner speaks of in her poem on the blatantly unjust quality of airports, and remain ever thankful that I have the option, and freedom, to not pass through, at least for now. 

_________

In light of not remembering the narrative arc of any dreams as of late, I am posting original photography from my waking life in relation to the initial topic instead of spontaneous prose and historical art

Crashland America by Rusty Kjarvik

Skeletal Cockpit by Rusty Kjarvik

No School by Rusty Kjarvik

Crash from the High Plains by Rusty Kjarvik

God-Awful Rhinoplasty by Rusty Kjarvik

__________

"An epic
of intention,
a bruised nation
and the stir-crazy polity,
struggling
with the sad gift
of only one humanity

a shipwreck beauty,
gleaming with the light of the ancients
over star-crossed paths
circulating through the veins
of an unbroken galaxial unity

evolving beyond one heartbeat to the infinite
blending of colorful awe
in the transitional being’s destiny
as wormhole wanderer
...

neck-tipped wheels edging naively on the backs of extinction,
Buffalo Confederacy of the western mage
playing tricks on white society beneath a rainbow cloak,
bundling rain and the boom of truth in our drum’s not-forgotten flower mask, straying now from pleasure and hate
in the unborn seat of quiet yearning

with English tongues of grotesque neighborly wick,
suffocated and pouring
over the tea-stained talk of elder medicine
healing beyond death
...

'knowledge in space,
as verbal structure,
passes beyond inert caution
to a stimulated dream-law,
intelligent yet nude'"

excerpts from "Epic of Intention"

Forest Flying Beyond Levitation

The Immaculate Conception of the Venerable Ones by Bartolome Esteban Murillo

Have you ever heard allusions to dream in your waking life that did not quite settle in your mind during moments of introspection and reflection on the actual experience of dreaming? 

When you hear such statements as, "In my ideal, dream world…” from executive management at high-end corporations or successful enterprises and organizations speaking to "subjects" of lesser value, what is your gut reaction? Why have we committed this double-speak on the importance and reality of dream? Or, have you ever asked a self-proclaimed starving artist or general creative type about their process of creation, to which they reply, “I don’t know…it’s like a dream”? Where does language become insufficient and mere impasse before honest reflection on dreaming? For dream is an involuntary force, which with mirror-like accuracy reflects onto the dreamer their deepest, darkest withdrawing from the eye light of each their own unique path to self-knowledge. 

_________

My wife lays to rest in the apartment building where she had first arrived from Vietnam to Canada. In her early childhood, she was a babysitter for many immigrant children in this Chinatown block, when the city was much different, more spacious, green and communal. In her dream, small children levitate above her, they take her hand but she does not levitate with them, she flies. Transcending the bounds of her childhood brick home, she soars out over the pine forests beyond the city limits.

Levitation Interpretation

To dream of levitating means that you are holding on to far-fetched and outlandish ideas. You need to be more realistic. You are feeling helpless and disconnected with those around you. To dream of someone levitating means your desire to be helpful and supportive to others.

Flying Interpretation


If you notice green trees and vegetation below you in flying, you will suffer temporary embarrassment, but will have a flood of prosperity upon you.


“To dream of flying means being able to control your dreams and project yourself astrally.” Posted in response to the dictionary interpretation by chmee

_________

On Monday’s staked rage, we drain and drain the followings of divinity
throughout pulses of grain and sweat
in the final drink

Before deciding, cross the impassioned switch
into non-being with our lifted sky

Come thunderous!
in the eyes and ears of a late transmigration
into a head of wires and a spotted flame that rises,
breaking in a silence of loss
and drown!
in the oxygen gush of utter perfection

excerpt from "Hawk over a Farmer's Field"

Envisioning the Unconscious From The Cusp of the Atmosphere

Rocky Landscape by Ludwig Richter

When I see my dream, I am being lifted. The vapors of an immense hot air balloon warm the cold ground, the icy supermarket lights dim with an apparent lifeless sickening that dies suddenly to the snow-felt covered pavement of a parking lot. I am outside a lowly bowling alley bar where my step-father is playing rock and roll covers from the 70s. I escape outside to the car and am suddenly approached vociferously by wild predators; jungle cats with voracious appetites in the bleak misery of a New England modernized by the corrupted spoils of war, domesticated, yet freed into the all-vanishing gore of human flesh petrified by a society stifled by the categorical satiation of a thankless search for Nothing to entertain nothing. I find my Love with me at my side, she transforms curiously in and out of being my Mother. As she nears the car, I find one of the jungle cats is eating her alive! Yet somehow, she emerges from the carnal End of human being, and steps with me into the car. A rope somehow dangles in front of the car window, the jungle cats swat at the window, breaking and creasing the exposed metal like paper. I grab onto the rope. I am pulled upwards at an incredible rate into the glowing cusp of the atmosphere. I find my loved ones are in the basket of this hot air balloon that is lifting me up to the edge of Earth's last point of life. I begin climbing the rope, however its length is endless. I fall. My chest fills with cool air, and I inhale deeply, surfacing to a waking state in a moment as if floating to air beneath water. Again, I am submerged, into what is now mere mystery.

Snowstorm Homesick Landing

Houses on the Hill (River Bank) by Paul Cezanne

Taking off, looking into front view of plane, seeing a man not so experienced in flying take off into a snowstorm, feel of the engine burning as we land in two different cities, and I appear in my driveway of coastal suburbia, Massachusetts, USA and find in a large cab car, friends from high school who I greet, and we drive off into the night

Fri, May 13, 2011