Magic Carpet

Magic Carpet

I got it from My Dad. Ozzie the rug merchant. It is not the only way to get from here to there, but it works as well as, say, the pons asinorum. Or wings. A carpet of the magic kind is dual-use.

The point is to achieve the impossible. It can be done, but you must have magical aids. Magical aids are fanciful but/and must be believed without stint or hesitation. In my case, I must believe that I am a genius and/or that the goddess/muse will speak through me. That I can, if I work faithfully, produce a magnificent monument: a real sparrow a-warbling on a golden bough. This is difficult since for all my life up to the age of 18 or 20, I was told that I was unworthy, if not beside the point.

Lucky I got that magic carpet. No, not from the rug-merchant (mechant) dad, but from my Cousin the witch. Now, if only I can make it work for Her. (Yogis use a rope.)

*

Today I actually picked up the phone when it rang. It was a man asking for Jocelyn. (I know it was really Fred.)

15^th Ave «Bux 4/7/04

Small Things

And easily overlooked. Like the statue of a woman holding a water jug with water upwelling & overspilling that I had walked by a hundred times on Harrison. But today I stopped to see a sparrow bathing in the brimming cup chased away by another one, and then up fluttered a goldfinch—bright yellow—but not fierce enough to displace the resident sparrow. Well, I’ll be, I said & one block later almost fell over Hilda.

I wrote a letter to JHY today but must go over it. A beautiful day (Good Friday) & I’m going now for a long walk.

Last night—vivid dreams. I was working as a temp for a developer (or? –anyway a very nicely dressed Jewish man) & his exec. asst. in a building half-finished—oh, probably they were remodeling…but as I went somewhere (wishing I’d gotten a cup of coffee before starting) & got into the other wings, then it was a hospital. And I wasn’t being given good instructions (from the snotty black woman)--& so on. Long, detailed, epic.

15^th Ave «B’s 4/9/04

Tell it, sister

One night of bus detour dreams (Seattle Metro buses going down the SF’s Sunset Highway) & me complimenting the driver on their dispatch. The night before, a crowd out on 119^th Street in the dark & when I called the sheriff to report it, they wouldn’t respond. Then I looked out again & it was lighter (early morning) & raining (oh good, that’ll discourage them) & I saw the crowd was coming from the direction of Marge Gidley’s & there were lots of families & well-dressed African Americans—probably a Jehovah’s Witness convention and family reunion. OK, good, not rioters, but they wanted to come into the house to get out of the rain. Uh…

*

Then I got to work on Part I of Matryoshka & it got hot outside. It’s still hot; 75º & I ran into Arlene P. again, in front of the Starbuck’s w/ 2 friends. Today, I talked to Mom—she won $12 gambling & wasn’t she pleased. Yesterday I talked to Lee, who was fine. Got some new medicine—pot in a pill. Says he’s planning to come back out here (but he also said he was never planning to move to Florida, so…)

And Friday, after I wrote, that large mannish woman, Sue, who’s always here (or all too often) asked me what I was writing. And when I told her, she asked, “Does it help?” I said, “Help what? What’s to help?” And she sputtered and I stomped off.

Now, some high clouds are stretching for the skytop. There’s lot of flesh on view.

I’m ready for the finale. Easter.

15^th Ave «Bux 4/11/04

What I Love

I stopped at the big white house on 16^th Ave E (at Prospect) where sometimes there is a Mas style cat & said “pss pss psss” & s/he came running out, & I said the usual things & looked up to see another, even more Mas-looking cat coming out. I broke out in a total goon, though I did not actually drool. I went & sat on the steps & the less Mas looking Mas rubbed against my legs & the more Mas looking Mas flopped over on the sidewalk right behind me so I could run his/her belly.

God, I was happy, I smiled all the way home. It was 75º, too.

*

Then last night I dreamed about diabolical machinery, including a murderous electric razor that I plunged into water to disable it, but it kept going—you could hear it buzzing. There may have been a possessed electric typewriter too.

*

Now it’s overcast. I poked at a lump on my lip so it bled, and all in all I feel depressed.

*

A father sat next to me w/ his 13 y.o. daughter & friend—they keep laughing in that 13 y.o. ♀ way. Father made lame jokes—about Grandma having amnesia. Didn’t sound too funny to me. Sounded like a stroke. But then I don’t know Grandma.

I want a new life.

Will it get better?

Will it get worse before it gets better?

Or will it get worse until it just ends?

15^th Ave «B’s 4/13/04

Circus

So I looked outside & there was an animal, a big one, running up 119^th Street. It looked like a trunkless baby elephant. Well, you know me, I called the sheriff & asked them to contact animal control. They wouldn’t do anything—they never do. Then I looked out the front window & over by the mailboxes, there was a baby elephant lying on its side & an animal keeper with him/it. (You can always tell the circus animal keepers. They look like Cockneys in their shirtsleeves. Like carnies.) So I knew/remembered the circus was in town — I think staying down by Katie Arntsen’s house. Woke up pleased.

Bway «Bux 4/14/04

Don’t Tell Me

It feels as if, as if….

unbeknownst to us, our ruling planet rolled into watery Scorpio.

or as if turning a corner I find myself in an alley. It’s not a dead end, it seems to turn a ways down, but what’s past the turning?

No, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like the plotters are plotting & the bad cells are dividing & six committees voted “No” on my submission and I’m going to get a bill I’m not expecting. Is it my ill-wishes? Out infecting the chickens & the pigs & the mosquitoes & the crows & the horses?

Why are those women talking about pregnancy?

Ans: Because they are young.

Actually, what it feels like here is that my faith died. I still hope but I know I hope in vain.

If I ask for a sign, somebody else will try to run me over. I know.

This is the opposite of the moment when the 2^nd Mas cat appeared.

I won’t ask for a sign.

15^th Ave «Bucks 4/14/04

Prescriptive

I go home & yodel along with Eddie Vedder & immediately think I should email Jean & tell her she should do it too. Now why do I think I need to tell Jean ways to be happy? She doesn’t want to be happy, she wants to whine.

I think she may take some small pleasure in refuting my suggestions. (Maybe that’s why I bother?) (I don’t bother.)

*

There’s sun dust on the tables outside & on that sickly bush, and all I really want is to make pictures. Pictures of old pumps, and weathered benches & scenic bums &… pigeons? Pictures of rock doves?

Pictures of Lily.

Instead I have the pug-nosed aging blonde whom I hate (she’s limping – good) from stifled…not affection, oh all right, self-assertion. I can’t bear to be ignored. A nod is as good as a wink. Willy B. used to chant to the trees & the children thought him cracked. So, maybe I need to use my voice for something besides singing Eddie Vedder’s songs—or (like now) Bob Dylan’s. “Tangled up in Blue.”

Trouble is, I can still hate to be laughed at. Laughed at, ignored. Who did we forget to invite to my christening?

15^th Ave «B 4/15/04

Terminal Annoyance in EveryDay Life

1) Twenty-four messages in my Junk email-box

2) The self-complacent man yakking on his cell-phone at the Cap. Hill library who, when a woman (patron) asked him to go outside, conveyed the whole thing to whoever he was yakking to.

3) The wispy librarian who didn’t tell him to go outside in the first place, as she should have. (I stayed out of it.)

The guy kept saying (when I was on the computer) “Animal Control” – which was odd because I had another dream in which I called (or wanted to call) Animal Control:

I had gone to bed telling myself to dream of FSP. I dreamed a big black dog (cross between a Lab & Great Dane?) was running around 119th St. & left a big pile of shit in the side yard. And as I considered uncoiling the hose & washing it away, I noticed big piles all over the yard. Well, ugh—somebody should call animal control.

Then it was today & I rewrote Dave, not happy w/ it.

So I walked to Swedish w/ my resume & found out they don’t take resumes, but you can paste it in on the computer there—but I hadn’t brought my disk.

On the way back I stopped at the faux 7-11 & bought a $1 mega ticket, but the computer “read” 2 empty panels, so I had to buy a $3 one.

And I didn’t have any emails except one from JHY that didn’t say anything. (I’d asked him for a word & he won’t give it & won’t refuse—just answers not. Most annoying.)

God, another cell-phone yeller. Time to go.

[But it was, all told a beautiful day. Everything in bloom. Lilacs and all. No rain. Big blue & white clouds.]

15th Ave«Bux 4/16/04