thoughts on being human

this morning i saw this headline at commondreams.org:

Pope Francis Keeps Insisting

On Recognizing the Palestinians

As Fully Human, Like Jesus

Maybe Would Have

...
would that even Americans,
befuddled by the panoply of corporate funded goons and propaganda outlets,
could find their way to grasping this concept.
it would be a relief to so many, here in "homeland", and abroad in "conquestland",
waiting to be recognised by the "exceptional", pigment-challenged folk
of the "sole unexpendable" nation as spirited siblings of the same species.

Sappy's Vision, an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons",
comprises the final stanzas from the 'night of dreams', wherein each of the
characters is visited in a single night.
*******

Sappy stepped sadly through the backlit forest,

wary and weary from a night scanning signs;

gravely shaken by unpromising portents

ominously twinkling in sinister trines.

the astral aspects were full of foreboding,

and the patterns formed by flocking folk were drear.

never before had leaves lost their luster

or berries been bitter so early in the year.

in an instant his surroundings were shifting;

constantly whirling in contrary motion.

countless particles shimmered in the air,

spinning the currents of a cellular ocean.

hues were suffusing in myriad directions;

a kaleidoscope escaping its frame;

gradually altering everything in sight,

save where he'd come from, which remained quite the same.

Sappy was confronting a vast living picture

composed of tinted light and rippling sound,

a bier in the midst of kneeling figures,

in a sea of pink flowers, reposed on a mound.

mammals and birds swelled overhanging branches,

and swallowed the sorrowful stretches between.

their heads were bowed and many were wailing.

a lachrymose wind lapped the edges of the scene.

though he stood on the brink he couldn't see faces.

so he leaned in closer, squinting his eyes.

and the vision vanished in that very moment,

trailing a whisper of wearying sighs.

he reeled and collapsed in the trampled clearing,

grasping at grass that had recently been burned;

and wondered if he'd witnessed the future.

it was then that he noticed the fog had returned.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)

Psychic Pastiches, an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"
references two of the other posted excerpts from the 'night of dreams'.
*******

the bay window was open in Sludge White's room

and billowing breezes were scurrying in

puffing the curtains and ruffling the feathers

of the sill-hugging birds that nestled therein.

in an image that was slowly receding

she saw herself waving and saying goodbye.

and someone was hushed by the thrushes and doves,

crushed with the embers beneath the garnet sky.

a rapid succession of snapshots followed.

in each her likeness was the constant focus;

leaping from ledges and spitting at soldiers,

relentlessly viewed from an unseen locus.

she couldn't recall such an obsession

in the psychic pastiches she'd hatched up before

and was baffled by the sheer consistency,

the bane of ploughed minds, and refuge of a bore.

but glimpsing the dazzling, quicksilver emotions

spraying like sparks from a sharpening knife

she grasped they had to be Sylvana's

who'd opened this window when she entered her life.

in the tart taunts tossed at thuggish sentries

she discerned the witty bite of Mock's waggish bent

and mused that she must be paying calls on dreams

as the deer by her side nodded their assent.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)

"heady words", an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem, "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

adds to the 'night of dreams', wherein each of the charactes is visited in the span
of a single night.  in this portion, we visit the spookhouse in the woods (the cottage
the Curmudgeons call home) to see what's stirring in the kitchen.
*******

Lumpy slumped limply on his clumped, bumpy mattress

further sleep stumped by a scratch in his throat,

resolving at last to head for the kitchen

to drum up a helping of honeyed compote.

he wobbled down the steps weaving passed Gramps,

a mournful ghost wielding a wavering candle;

weirdly contorted by trembling shadows,

lugging more sorrow than he could stand to handle.

a gilt candelabra glitzed up the kitchen,

brushing its glitter on fritters and truffles.

the swashbuckling knives had retired to their drawer,

though tempers still flared in trifling scuffles.

Weepy poured milk for the pendent otter,

curving round his shoulders and peering in the pail.

Sleazy waltzed in after gadding about the inn,

plastered and pickled yet lustily hale.

"all right me lovelies?  are the riffraff sawin' logs?"

he reeled and stumbled, landing in a chair.

Lumpy clattered a bowl on the cluttered table,

flashing to Weepy an eye-rolling glare.

the bearskin watchrug inched past the doorway,

snapping at conjecture deflected in the hall.

an errant draft played havoc with the candles

and shady grotesqueries danced on the wall.

"the wind is changing" Lumpy thickly remarked,

mumbling while shovelling his syrupy fruit.

"those are heady words" Sleazy tartly observed,

emptying his pockets of aces and loot.

the cards were sticking together like thieves,

their slick edges polished by his amply greased palms.

forged papers slipped out of a hidden lining,

stashed in a sampling of pornographic psalms.

he pitched a pamphlet hawking stagnant swampland

and unloaded a pair of lopsided dice.

then he plunked down a pouch packed with laced roaches,

spurious simoleons, and sizzling ice.

next came furtive flasks and spicy lubricants,

and the keys to unlock unsavory lairs.

though Weepy and the otter had started for bed,

they could feel Lumpy smirking from the stairs.

dropping from his tethers into deepest sleep

Weepy soared in the old familiar pattern.

he'd been making this journey in the darkness

ever since sentience first kindled his lantern.

he'd never been able to direct the path

for unnatural sway nulls natural law.

he simply accepted events as they happened

and felt with his heart whatever he saw.

he glided above the unattached ponies

as daylight streamed from a swollen salmon sun.

they'd not yet exhausted their blissful exertions,

blistered and bleary yet still having fun;

freshly engaging a burgeoning freedom

the cult of control ripped apart at its seams.

and he flushed like a lighthouse, brimming with mirth.

for tears never coursed through his nightseeing dreams.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)

Gropey's Dream - an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem, "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons",

continues the account of the 'night of dreams' (wherein each of the characters is
visited in the span of a single night).  here is Gropey's dream:
*******
scrapes, scuffs, and scratches from rough ragged edges;

scruffy toughened beards that grate on chafing chins.

leaching rusty hinges attached to their latches;

splintered shards and the prickly points of pins.

serrated nettles and sharpened incisors;

thorns that cling to roses in porous clay pots.

pliant spines consigned by riled porcupines;

spindly needles slung through tightly threaded slots.

squelching squishes made with sploshing galoshes

when pouring rains make drains puddle up with drops.

sopping socks, spongy mops, and dribbling noses;

sludgy snow melting in slushy sloppy plops.

slippery flippers and soft supple slippers;

smooth wet surfaces of gleaming polished rocks.

flimsy flat feathers inhabiting hats;

the gooey slimy jumble of cream cheese and lox.

obdurate itches that linger on fingers;

vague echoes of feelings where once there were rings.

barely breathing breezes that tickle prickled skin;

fleeting encounters with butterfly wings.

glossy satin finishes glazing confections;

the crunchy crumbles on gooseberry pie.

velvety linens and warm woolen mittens;

Gropey rolled over with a satisfied sigh.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)

the night of dreams begins - an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem, "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

begins the 'night of dreams', wherein each of the characters is visited in the

span of a single night.  it opens in the castle, where the queen has just shelved
her concocting efforts for the night, after the mirror interrupted the spell.  then
we visit the cottage of Guanyin and Sylvana, who were introduced in the excerpt
relating the aftermath of the drone attack on ByWater Landing.
*******

as she lay sleeping supposition surfaced,

skimming the stirring edge of recurring dreams,

where she restlessly wandered a bleak terrain

with its plundered and sundered, overmined seams.

but the dangling threads were superseded

in her fitful filtering of fussy detail;

by the need to sate her covetous hunger,

engulfing her senses like a toxic Grail.

her husband passed the night avoiding conflict,

staring past the omens glaring in the sky;

shying from silence, sidestepping reason,

and striving to recall just how it felt to cry.

when at last he lumbered into slumber

he found himself fêted by merchants from the town,

their fatted coffers flush with flashing coins;

but his eyes wept blood and he couldn't find his crown.

in the forested fringes of Fleagle's Fern,

in a cottage heaped with sleeping brooms and crows;

the hopeful dreams of Sylvana were sweetened

by diffident departures, scented with rose.

floral breezes floated in from the heather,

fluttering curtains, caressing curling toes;

redolent of their garden meanderings,

flirting with flowers in flaccid flaunting rows.

Guanyin sat serenely in spellbound silence,

contemplating space with wise and sightless eyes;

tenderly attended by the monkey,

a sorcerer's apprentice in simian guise.

all of a sudden a laugh escaped her lips,

and she nodded her head while the monkey grinned.

then he crept away so as not to intrude

on her intimate discussion with the wind.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)

a watch and three dreams - an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem, "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"
relates a portion of the mysterious 'night of dreams', wherein each of the characters
is visited in the span of a single night.  Gramps was discovered in the dungeons of
the castle when the Curmudgeons rescued Nate the Woodsman (on the way home
they experienced the drone attack on ByWater Landing).  Mock had been orphaned
by his grandfather's disappearance, decades ago.  the reason for Pally's angst is
explained in the excerpt that deals with the drone attack.
*******
Gramps kept watch in the spookhouse in the woods

haunting the hallways, treading trenches in the floors,

like a soldier whose horror lives inside him

forever ensnared in never-ending wars.

he couldn't bear to close his eyes in darkness

uncertain they'd open on daylight again.

he feared waking up in a formless, senseless void

beyond the compass of anyone's ken.

his grandson slept soundly, swathed in reverie

swaddled in irony and wound in his sheets,

unaware of his elder's unraveling woe

reviving his life as a stray on the streets.

springing from a hideout, Pasty at his side.

spitting at soldiers, then taking to their heels.

scavenging for crumbs with pigeons and sparrows.

pinching saucy tarts to spice up paltry meals.

Pally's muffled dreams teemed with flying children

a sinuous string of tiny trusting hands.

losing his grip, he clambered in a chasm

struggling and slipping in suffocating sands.

he leapt from the covers, his heartbeat thumping,

thrashing and shivering in a sweat soaked chill.

Nate pulled him close and stilled his soundless spasms,

blinking back the tears Pally's eyes wouldn't spill.

later when moonshine winked in the window

divulging the tale of an owl's gliding flight,

Nate drifted through themes lifted from childhood

drenched in dappled sunshine, splashed with wells of light.

he fashioned a pipe at his late father's side

eager for approval, brash with newfound skill.

but the stem recrafted into a cudgel

radiating hate, and hankering to kill.

he smashed it on the ground, and battered its pieces

but the scene scattered and spun like a top,

and flung him on a plank of a rickety bridge

spanning a daunting, precipitous drop.

pursuing sentries surged from either side

their arrows clattering and plunging in the gorge.

as he panicked the situation altered

to a clustered bluster round the blacksmith's forge.

he couldn't quite grasp the gist of the grievance

that roused the peasants to bristling high dudgeon;

but he glimpsed the weapons burnished on the wall,

which briskly recalled the brandishing bludgeon.

he pondered the source propelling its evil,

and the shrouded fright shouting in outraged eyes;

and woke with the notion that disavowed doubt

must be rife in a life where violence lies.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)