by the Gothic Rangers
The M.D. he said, "Who beat you up?"
I said, "Nobody that I'm aware of."
He said, "Your eyes are sunken like you've been through the grinder."
I said, "Well, I don't feel quite right, that's why I have hired you.
Things seem askew and I'm hurting all over.
Won't you heat up that stethoscope, this room is gettin' colder.
Something is up, might be an Asian virus.
I Googled that diagnosis, now I'm runnin' it by ya."
He said, "I've poked all around and performed all the tests,
but nothing jumped out, let me phone someone else."
The psychiatrist said, "What is your gripe?"
I said, " Everything's wrong and I can't sleep at night."
He said, "Why don't you take some of my thorazine?"
I said, "Set me right up with a full magazine.
And if you've got time for some talkin' therapy,
Please analyse my condition, maybe hypnotize me.
Because I think I'm in a dissociative state.
All my colors seem to have lost their smell and their shape."
He said, "Sounds like something really deep in your head.
If your wiring's shorted out, you'll need a specialist."
One doctor, then two, now I'm shootin' for three.
All of these referrals are starting to worry me.
The neurosurgeon said, "Just lie there real still."
I said, "Go ahead and fire up your Black & Decker drill."
He said, "We're getting close to cerebral paydirt."
I said, "Good, and don't forget to cauterize the hurt.
And as long as you're in there, please remove my libido.
I suggest you wear lead-lined gloves for retrieval.
I'm pretty sure it's toxic, maybe radioactive.
Just ask that interesting woman I found attractive."
He said, "You might not want to hear it, but I found nothing amiss.
At least physical, I'll give my Rolodex some spins."
The medicine man said, "Here, chew these peyote buttons."
I said, "That might do the trick, I'm runnin' out of options."
He said, "Soon as it hits, let me know what you see."
I said, "It's workin' already, she's right in front of me.
I might be hallucinatin' but I'll take what I can get.
It's better than reality, I think this is time well spent.
She don't want me in real life, so this world is cool.
She's smiling at me right now in her spirit substitute.
He said, "Let me prescribe you a supplemental thing.
Here's Roy CD, three times a day queue up "In Dreams."
One doctor, then two, then three tried out their skills.
But it took referral number four to exorcize my ills.
Words and music by Robert T Buck
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
a new kind of art
The fate of an elusive section of reality depends on me today (yes, I sound like a preposterous megalomaniac, but sometimes a fact must be boldly stated). Something has happened in the world, its texture wrinkled wonderfully, its shape warped decisively. What we have here is a work of art by dreamer Kris Saknussemm. This dream shall not be interpreted (for the most part). As I said yesterday:
See...Kris needs no Freud or Jung. Those two chaps would be confused and just get in the way. The goings-on here need no silly interpretation, no filtering of the particulates. This is spirit-art...on soul-canvas. This is pure magic!
What can be done is an aesthetic evaluation. A commentary, as if I were discussing a canvas by a master painter or a film by a profound director.
Here is the text:
STONES FOR THE LION
Another anxiety dream. Very vivid. I was working for the American military--or more precisely, for a PR branch of the military that was run like a public utility. I had a desk in an awful cramped cubicle with four other people--and the tiniest computer screens. Our work involved disguising the number of military deaths and a rash of related murders of civilians around the world. The actual bosses were never around but there was a female manager who had a huge beehive hairdo and pointed cat glasses, but was two dimensionally flat like a paper cut out, so that you could only properly see her when looking at her face on. My immediate superior was a 9 foot tall blonde Swedish lifeguard type. Despite the dreadful work environment, we were allowed to bring our animals in. The dingo was still alive in the dream and some of the others would give her bones. But the giant Swede brought in really savage animals--in particular, an enormous brown and white spotted lion that was always threatening to eat her. It was a dreary place to be and I felt this utter sense of defeat in having to work there. At lunch, we'd adjourn to a cheap little Mexican restaurant with a concrete patio (not a plant in sight) where it was always overcast. On the way back to work, I'd collect stones from a small attempt at a landscaping bed in the parking lot. I had a very specific purpose in mind for the stones. When the lion would approach and threaten me or my dog, I'd bait it to roar--then pop a stone down its throat. The despair at the end of the lunch hour was always acute--but I'd make sure that I stopped to collect some stones for the lion.
Here is my evaluation:
A PR branch of the military, run like a public utility. The background spreads in ambiguous focus. A sense of absurd milieu. And then people crammed in an office, twisting the truth. A heavy, conspiratorial shadow has quickly descended, dappling the background with an element of deepening plot. Of focused assimilation into components of a massive undertaking, a large deed. We are dealing here with a delightfully macabre census of death. Here, we have very serious dream-agents – an echelon of the wider corporate utility – who are probing the essence of doom as it leaks in from the waking world and interfaces with the marvelous one. This juxtaposition is conveyed skillfully by our dreamer. The jolt hits us without our being aware of it. We are propelled toward new complexity, without even stopping to consider the paradox of eternal creatures sweating it out over an aspect of mortal ones.
Enter stage left: a flat female manager, with a beehive hairdo and flared glasses. Kris does not specify this, but I envision her sort of occasionally curling up or warping in a long shimmy-scroll, like a thin sheet of aluminum being shaken out. She seems to be a floating, undulating presence. She seems to be very intense. You will not back-talk this one.
Next: a giant, svelte Swede. The “canvas” is now properly skewed toward asymmetry. Sheet-woman is balanced irregularly in our minds with Large-woman.
And then our dreamer correctly fills the environment with sufficient chaos – scampering, messy, duty-avoiding dogs. And then what? Our “director” layers into the proceedings a complementary death-and-doom panoply of threatening, savage creatures. The smaller, domesticated animals are now at risk from larger forces, as are we all out in the carnal world. A subtle compositional wizardry has been wrought here.
The Swede's own crazy lion wants to eat its “master.” Yes...the Nietzsche dialectic of master-slave. Just who is dominating who in this and in all the worlds of social relation? The atmosphere is saturated with existential and social futility, from all directions.
And the problem of time, of duration...of time's implacable, merciless pulse makes us very uneasy as we consider this dream. Things seem fixed, locked-in here, yet things are also moving the plot along. We suspect that nothing is going to really change, even as we observe shifts in the matrix of being – things are eventing, even as they are painted into unresolvable spaces.
An overcast Mexican patio. A choice move on the artist's part. An al fresco meal -- especially served in melancholy light -- is a perfect scene transition.
And then, as we move toward denouement, a particular, mystifying, and confident action is taken by our protagonist: the collecting of prophylactic stones (I picture them as smooth and polished, some dark brown and others whitish). The lion will roar, and vortexes of doom will spiral invisibly from its throat. Kris pops a stone in its mouth, interrupts the sonic pitch, changing it, pacifying it to a rumbling murmur. The incursion of outside forces – of tragic consequences – has been magically defeated by our stone-popper.
Death is not to be tolerated in this kingdom of wonder, even in this kingdom of frustration and sadness. This region has been set aside by nature and by the gods for deeper life. It is where unconscious frictions spark eternal fires of color and emotion and tragic beauty.
See...Kris needs no Freud or Jung. Those two chaps would be confused and just get in the way. The goings-on here need no silly interpretation, no filtering of the particulates. This is spirit-art...on soul-canvas. This is pure magic!
What can be done is an aesthetic evaluation. A commentary, as if I were discussing a canvas by a master painter or a film by a profound director.
Here is the text:
STONES FOR THE LION
Another anxiety dream. Very vivid. I was working for the American military--or more precisely, for a PR branch of the military that was run like a public utility. I had a desk in an awful cramped cubicle with four other people--and the tiniest computer screens. Our work involved disguising the number of military deaths and a rash of related murders of civilians around the world. The actual bosses were never around but there was a female manager who had a huge beehive hairdo and pointed cat glasses, but was two dimensionally flat like a paper cut out, so that you could only properly see her when looking at her face on. My immediate superior was a 9 foot tall blonde Swedish lifeguard type. Despite the dreadful work environment, we were allowed to bring our animals in. The dingo was still alive in the dream and some of the others would give her bones. But the giant Swede brought in really savage animals--in particular, an enormous brown and white spotted lion that was always threatening to eat her. It was a dreary place to be and I felt this utter sense of defeat in having to work there. At lunch, we'd adjourn to a cheap little Mexican restaurant with a concrete patio (not a plant in sight) where it was always overcast. On the way back to work, I'd collect stones from a small attempt at a landscaping bed in the parking lot. I had a very specific purpose in mind for the stones. When the lion would approach and threaten me or my dog, I'd bait it to roar--then pop a stone down its throat. The despair at the end of the lunch hour was always acute--but I'd make sure that I stopped to collect some stones for the lion.
Here is my evaluation:
A PR branch of the military, run like a public utility. The background spreads in ambiguous focus. A sense of absurd milieu. And then people crammed in an office, twisting the truth. A heavy, conspiratorial shadow has quickly descended, dappling the background with an element of deepening plot. Of focused assimilation into components of a massive undertaking, a large deed. We are dealing here with a delightfully macabre census of death. Here, we have very serious dream-agents – an echelon of the wider corporate utility – who are probing the essence of doom as it leaks in from the waking world and interfaces with the marvelous one. This juxtaposition is conveyed skillfully by our dreamer. The jolt hits us without our being aware of it. We are propelled toward new complexity, without even stopping to consider the paradox of eternal creatures sweating it out over an aspect of mortal ones.
Enter stage left: a flat female manager, with a beehive hairdo and flared glasses. Kris does not specify this, but I envision her sort of occasionally curling up or warping in a long shimmy-scroll, like a thin sheet of aluminum being shaken out. She seems to be a floating, undulating presence. She seems to be very intense. You will not back-talk this one.
Next: a giant, svelte Swede. The “canvas” is now properly skewed toward asymmetry. Sheet-woman is balanced irregularly in our minds with Large-woman.
And then our dreamer correctly fills the environment with sufficient chaos – scampering, messy, duty-avoiding dogs. And then what? Our “director” layers into the proceedings a complementary death-and-doom panoply of threatening, savage creatures. The smaller, domesticated animals are now at risk from larger forces, as are we all out in the carnal world. A subtle compositional wizardry has been wrought here.
The Swede's own crazy lion wants to eat its “master.” Yes...the Nietzsche dialectic of master-slave. Just who is dominating who in this and in all the worlds of social relation? The atmosphere is saturated with existential and social futility, from all directions.
And the problem of time, of duration...of time's implacable, merciless pulse makes us very uneasy as we consider this dream. Things seem fixed, locked-in here, yet things are also moving the plot along. We suspect that nothing is going to really change, even as we observe shifts in the matrix of being – things are eventing, even as they are painted into unresolvable spaces.
An overcast Mexican patio. A choice move on the artist's part. An al fresco meal -- especially served in melancholy light -- is a perfect scene transition.
And then, as we move toward denouement, a particular, mystifying, and confident action is taken by our protagonist: the collecting of prophylactic stones (I picture them as smooth and polished, some dark brown and others whitish). The lion will roar, and vortexes of doom will spiral invisibly from its throat. Kris pops a stone in its mouth, interrupts the sonic pitch, changing it, pacifying it to a rumbling murmur. The incursion of outside forces – of tragic consequences – has been magically defeated by our stone-popper.
Death is not to be tolerated in this kingdom of wonder, even in this kingdom of frustration and sadness. This region has been set aside by nature and by the gods for deeper life. It is where unconscious frictions spark eternal fires of color and emotion and tragic beauty.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
morning thoughts about a friend
Sometimes in the morning while drinking coffee, I want to write something. If I can't think of a theme for a poem or a song, I usually pull a prose topic out of the air at random. I just like to write stuff sometimes. This morning, I thought I would write a little about a Facebook friend (well, friend...why qualify it with FB?). She fell into my head at random. Or did she? Who really knows the workings of one's own unconscious? Who knows what connective threads are weaving what kind of web? Or what associative neurons are pulsing with a subtle conspiracy?
Stacey Mangiaracina [Man--geeah--rah--seenah]
What a mystery this woman is! I don't mean “mystery” as in “veiled behind some dark, gauzy curtains.” Stacey emanates too much genuine light for that. I mean more like a paradox. It's how she keeps you slightly off-balance. Maybe even a little dizzy.
She seems like a living flower, a colorful blossom. Her words are fragrant with a smiling dew. And there is a seductive, fairy-like quality about her. I wonder if she shrinks herself down in the evenings and secretly rides dragonflies through the bayou cane fields? If she does, I hope she doesn't drink and drive. I'd hate for her to slip off and splash down into the water.
Stacey is a breath of fresh air in a world that is dulled with cynicism and self-absorptions. She is like a flute melody rising up distinctively from the general orchestral moan of souls.
But...the paradox. She is not all light and fairy mist. Something else occasionally moves through her words. A poetic sense of love's elusive weirdness and of death's residual effects is also part of her substance. And that makes me admire her so much. Stacey carries those secret soul-burdens with a stoicism that is not moody or even neutral. It is a smiling, forward momentum into life. And the light of her smiling words...the fire of her fairy eyes...those things touch all who are fortunate enough to be her friend.
Stacey's Facebook page
Stacey Mangiaracina [Man--geeah--rah--seenah]
What a mystery this woman is! I don't mean “mystery” as in “veiled behind some dark, gauzy curtains.” Stacey emanates too much genuine light for that. I mean more like a paradox. It's how she keeps you slightly off-balance. Maybe even a little dizzy.
She seems like a living flower, a colorful blossom. Her words are fragrant with a smiling dew. And there is a seductive, fairy-like quality about her. I wonder if she shrinks herself down in the evenings and secretly rides dragonflies through the bayou cane fields? If she does, I hope she doesn't drink and drive. I'd hate for her to slip off and splash down into the water.
Stacey is a breath of fresh air in a world that is dulled with cynicism and self-absorptions. She is like a flute melody rising up distinctively from the general orchestral moan of souls.
But...the paradox. She is not all light and fairy mist. Something else occasionally moves through her words. A poetic sense of love's elusive weirdness and of death's residual effects is also part of her substance. And that makes me admire her so much. Stacey carries those secret soul-burdens with a stoicism that is not moody or even neutral. It is a smiling, forward momentum into life. And the light of her smiling words...the fire of her fairy eyes...those things touch all who are fortunate enough to be her friend.
Stacey's Facebook page
Friday, March 12, 2010
carnival
Look...upon this night
of murmurs and drifting smoke
from ceremonial fires!
Costumed figures gesture
from under feathered hats,
wide-brimmed and pulled low --
shadowed countenances,
veiling conspiracies,
obscuring dark motives.
And there!...through this haze,
seven ravens slowly flying
backwards in single file.
Who is that blond woman?
Is it Monet's dead wife?
She's wearing a dragon
sewn on her gown,
full-length, aggressive
on quilted red silk.
She makes me uneasy.
She glances so coyly.
She has some old power
from the womb of time.
Bread loaves and dark wine
arrayed on long tables,
where small waiter monkeys,
tuxedoed and yawning,
are pouring from bottles
while moving round vases
of glowing nasturtiums.
And there, gleaming lights,
soft colors rotating --
a great Ferris wheel,
with pairs of young lovers,
men speaking in French,
women laughing in Navaho.
A black hippopotamus,
standing forlornly,
is lost in the vast marsh
on the carnival's outskirts.
So many years are breathing and heaving.
So many years dolorous, withdrawn.
So many years here, looking for someone.
So many years in this swirling pre-dawn.
One armored samurai
demands that I drive now
that small locomotive
attached to ten cars.
That train is filled up
with passengers rattling –
boisterous, chit-chatting,
top-hatted skeletons.
I curse that dire warrior
because I'm distracted
and have no intention
of driving this transport.
I curse him and walk off
toward lonely gardens
and whisper to roses
night-blooming with secrets.
Those roses know rumors
about certain letters
and what was unspoken
between all the lines.
Politicians on stumps
plead with such passion,
plead with such fury
for votes that mean nothing.
The band strikes up!...
a tango for gypsies,
and everyone knows
how to dance except me.
That coy-smiling woman,
emblazoned in dragon,
sashays to the center
of all dancing couples.
She beckons to me
for one sultry tango,
then shows me the way
to move without thinking.
Soon disenchanted,
I go back to roses
to breathe in their wisdom,
to breathe in lost dreams.
Someone is missing,
someone important,
someone who knows me,
someone I love.
Here at this wild fair,
a subtext is pushing
like a tender new shoot
from the soil of old themes.
And here in these moments,
so heavy with meaning,
all of these characters
are in perfect place.
Here in this drifting,
pine-scented smoke fog,
something is leaking
out of my heart.
So many years are leaking and falling.
So many years of colors and lights.
So many years here, looking for someone.
So many years in this carnival night.
But let there be laughter
and moving absurdly!
Why wail and weep?...
it might wake the specter.
Carnivals are magic,
and moments are threadlike...
and time can be woven
as fabric for wishes.
Let dances go slower.
Let laughter now soften.
I'll drink unknown spirits
until she appears.
We'll hold hands for hours
and maybe forever.
We'll write living poems
on this smoke, in that fire.
Seven ravens flying
slowly and backwards...
who cares if that seems so
damn unusual?
of murmurs and drifting smoke
from ceremonial fires!
Costumed figures gesture
from under feathered hats,
wide-brimmed and pulled low --
shadowed countenances,
veiling conspiracies,
obscuring dark motives.
And there!...through this haze,
seven ravens slowly flying
backwards in single file.
Who is that blond woman?
Is it Monet's dead wife?
She's wearing a dragon
sewn on her gown,
full-length, aggressive
on quilted red silk.
She makes me uneasy.
She glances so coyly.
She has some old power
from the womb of time.
Bread loaves and dark wine
arrayed on long tables,
where small waiter monkeys,
tuxedoed and yawning,
are pouring from bottles
while moving round vases
of glowing nasturtiums.
And there, gleaming lights,
soft colors rotating --
a great Ferris wheel,
with pairs of young lovers,
men speaking in French,
women laughing in Navaho.
A black hippopotamus,
standing forlornly,
is lost in the vast marsh
on the carnival's outskirts.
So many years are breathing and heaving.
So many years dolorous, withdrawn.
So many years here, looking for someone.
So many years in this swirling pre-dawn.
One armored samurai
demands that I drive now
that small locomotive
attached to ten cars.
That train is filled up
with passengers rattling –
boisterous, chit-chatting,
top-hatted skeletons.
I curse that dire warrior
because I'm distracted
and have no intention
of driving this transport.
I curse him and walk off
toward lonely gardens
and whisper to roses
night-blooming with secrets.
Those roses know rumors
about certain letters
and what was unspoken
between all the lines.
Politicians on stumps
plead with such passion,
plead with such fury
for votes that mean nothing.
The band strikes up!...
a tango for gypsies,
and everyone knows
how to dance except me.
That coy-smiling woman,
emblazoned in dragon,
sashays to the center
of all dancing couples.
She beckons to me
for one sultry tango,
then shows me the way
to move without thinking.
Soon disenchanted,
I go back to roses
to breathe in their wisdom,
to breathe in lost dreams.
Someone is missing,
someone important,
someone who knows me,
someone I love.
Here at this wild fair,
a subtext is pushing
like a tender new shoot
from the soil of old themes.
And here in these moments,
so heavy with meaning,
all of these characters
are in perfect place.
Here in this drifting,
pine-scented smoke fog,
something is leaking
out of my heart.
So many years are leaking and falling.
So many years of colors and lights.
So many years here, looking for someone.
So many years in this carnival night.
But let there be laughter
and moving absurdly!
Why wail and weep?...
it might wake the specter.
Carnivals are magic,
and moments are threadlike...
and time can be woven
as fabric for wishes.
Let dances go slower.
Let laughter now soften.
I'll drink unknown spirits
until she appears.
We'll hold hands for hours
and maybe forever.
We'll write living poems
on this smoke, in that fire.
Seven ravens flying
slowly and backwards...
who cares if that seems so
damn unusual?
Copyright 2010, Tim Buck
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