Slowly, slowly returning from the depths-
a dark morass clogged with twigs and tangling
weeds that wind around your ankles and threaten
to take you down, down..
A dim corner of the soul where this image is the only thing
that could begin to express where my heart has been..

de profundis clamavi
I couldn’t possibly have survived this week, month, year
without the help and tenderness of my sweet sisters..

How lovely they are- these nymphs from the green hills, from the tangled wood..
I would no doubt be at the bottom of the deep blue sea
if they hadn’t fortuitously been gathered together for
the auspicious occasion of a union between
mme. and her dear fellow..
All the hub-bub of a wedding will do much to
distract one from even the deepest grief..
A happy occasion and the most premium company
of several girls galore- a veritable cat-house of
delectable and delightful ladies lounging bordello-style,
giving massages to each other on the balcony and hanging
their dainties and unmentionables from lines to dry
in the sweet summer wind..

All together now, we say..
Much wine, fancy chocolates, endless cups of strong coffee,
foie gras (surely we are going to hell) and purple vegetables
were consumed.. Oh yes, and a bottle of ng-ka-py (such an illicit libation!)
Accordions were wielded, tears shed, songs sung..
We bridesmaids processed with the whole far-flung family
singing an Albanian love song to wend the bridal pair on
their path to wedded bliss deep in the forest..
“O more bil-bil aman E,
O bil-bil aman aman o-E”
I only learned the chorus in an hour,
it’s something about a nightingale..

The lovely bride and dashing groom, flanked by priest and bodyguards (or best-men)..
And then, of course, there was an enormous and beautiful party
where we all devoured piles of delicious food, drank barrels of booze,
and danced wildly until 5 in the morning under the tin roof in the thunderstorm..

Honourable Forest shows you how we do here-
a wedding party in true what-the-fuck New Orleans style…
So now, I am alone in the house for the first time in weeks.
Truly, now that I think of it, for the first time ever,
for the only living thing here is me, and maybe the termites and fleas.
I am reading and dreaming and mending
and having my mind blown by this..
And wishing if only I could just be her..

You can’t see it, but her little goat is painted with coloured polka-dots.
Thank you everyone for all the thoughts and love.
It’s dark and quiet here and finally tranquil, so-

Goodnight.

In honor of Friday the 13th, and the absolutely
abhorrently shit day I’ve had, I bring you a little
blood-lust, gore and mayhem!
Such things always tend to
always make me feel more cheerful, anyway.
What follows is an exposition into the world of fear,
described in the (not so) faithful medium of film.
Some are subtle, some ham-hocked and heavy handed..
All are, in my opinion, fucking brilliant.
Firstly, we have a little gem called..

“Let it be known, sons and daughters, that Satan was an acidhead!
Drink from this cup, cleanse yourselves, and together we’ll all freak out!”
The premise is amazingly ridiculous, or ridiculously amazing,
depending on your taste, and how sleep-deprived you may
or may not be at the time of viewing..

Either way, it features the incredible looking Lynn Lowry,
who plays a deaf-mute hippie satanist (with rabies), and who looks
exactly like a gelfing.

Am I right?
Of Freaks and Men
is a wonderful Russian film that is less
horrifying than subtly distressing..

It is beautifully shot story that is like
an Edward Gorey story come to life,
with Victorian girls getting spanked,
devious villians, and adorable Siamese twins!

The next two films, strangely enough,
both win the prize for frightening me the most
as a child. Actually, they still really freak me out.
Laugh if you want, but aliens and creepy old preachers
are truly very upsetting and I don’t like them at all.
They stand up to the test of time.

Poltergeist II was the first horror film I ever saw.
I was at the age where Thriller was pretty scary.
The fact that the film centers around childhood fears
(Stranger/Danger, toys coming to get you,
your braces attacking you, skinless vomit-tequila worms etc.)
The weirdness about Heather O’ Rourke’s death,
the obvious connection to the Bell Witch (which I just made)
Native American ceremonies, and Tangina!
All serve to make this one of the most terrifying films, ever.

But Really. No lie.
I don’t really want to discuss why Communion
is so disturbing for me at the moment.

Waah. It just is.
Okay so, saving the best for last-
The Tenant (Le Locataire)
is my favorite Polanski film, and not only
because it features my wife.
(Damn, I just realized I need to mention Possession..)

Ignore the bad dubbing, and enjoy Roman Polanski in drag.

Okay, so honestly- this is it:

I can’t even tell you how important this film is to me.
It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen, and I adore it immensely.
It’s relatively difficult to find, and widely banned
(I think the original was burned in Poland,
where the director Zulawski is from).
Just don’t get it confused with this dreck.
It’s got Sam Neill, Isabelle Adjani, and a tentacled creature
completely losing their shit.

Fantastic.
Sorry this is so long- watch these and you’ll thank me later.
Promise.

Tuesday = ARTCHURCH at Angel + Pandora’s
8pm – until.. we are tired of art and must have dance-party instead.
(It used to be on Sundays, once upon a time- hence the CHURCH part..)
Please bring:
A project to work on
(this can be mending, dye-ing, painting, drawing, writing,
editing, doll-making, sculpting, anything at all, really..)
If you bring a snacky thing or a drinky thing
you will win many extra points.
Think of it as a tithe.
For address/details email me – lelawah (at) hotmail (dot) com

I found this picture, randomly, of me sitting on the steps of
my beloved old crumbling abode. I wish I could remember who took it.
I don’t look particularly happy.

My mama, the lonesome cowgirl, at 15 or 16 years.
If she was alive today, I wonder.. So many things.
She doesn’t look particularly happy, either.

This is what my life has felt like lately,
Perhaps now the storm has passed (knock-knock)
and I will wake up in Oz, surrounded by poppies and emeralds.

A to-do list I also found, randomly.
Seems like good advice to me.

I am finding dead finches and wrens in the road and potting them in salt.
I am planting also basil, nasturtiums, apple-mint and rue.
I am learning Russian.
I am taking care of business.
I am heaving many heavy sighs.

And I am dreaming of going here,
with my grandfather in August,
to listen to this and dance and laugh and cry
until I fall down..

This is extremely vivid,
and begins as though I am watching a film
of an old Asian woman who lives alone
on a beautiful, yet remote island.
Only she’s not really all that old- maybe 60 years only,
and her hair reaches the ground and is so black and gray
that it’s almost violet. Beautiful hair.
And only, she doesn’t live alone, she lives with a man,
I think he’s British, about her age, but not half as wise..
And while the island is remote, there are a few small villages,
and she lives near enough one of them.
The island looks like the one where Battle Royale was filmed,
where Weston lives- very green, with soft rolling hills.
So this woman is a telling a story from her childhood,
and suddenly she is a child- shiny bobbed hair swinging
and a perpetual frown (of perplexity, not bad temper).
More of a forehead crease. Anyway.
Her best friend is her pet bulldog,
an ugly beast, black and white speckled
and not the cleanest, but sweet as can be.
But the village Sheriff decides for some reason
that the dog is a danger, and so comes to their house
on the hill to take the dog away. The little girl stands outside
and watches, powerless to do anything to stop it.
The Sheriff ties the dog to the hitch of the truck with a chain,
and proceeds to get in and take off, dragging the dog behind
for a short distance, just to torture it, before getting out and
shooting the dog in the heart. All in front of the girl.
She said next that after that, she never asked anybody
for anything ever again. Never held her hand out for
a few coins to buy candy with. Never again.
She made extra money selling necklaces
she beaded with stone beads and supported
herself and her family. That was a story from her childhood.
Then I woke up.
My brain is a strange place.
Please explain.
It’s far too early (far too late).
Get dressed.
Give cat four different kinds of medicine.
GO NOW.

And now..
I could be out here
flying a kite
over foggy fields
the pungent pines
the verdant vales
the vapid vines
and the thousand purple cups of wine..

I could find myself on a rainy night
in a beautiful stranger’s house,
wooed and tempered by the
relative luxury of a warm clawfoot,
of silken pillows scented with white ginger
and white cats swoon under my hands..
Soft light, bird’s nests and Beethoven.
A little piece of peace.

Instead I am here,
slowly stabilizing,
waking stiff from the nightmares
that have become an intricate
system of chinese boxes,
opening one into another-
and becoming commonplace reality.
A case of troubled friends,
seriously troubled indeed..
And if you know me, you know
that this is worse than any personal
ailment or tragedy. I’d rather have my
legs hacked off than see the creatures
I love in pain. And be helpless to fix them.
I’ve spent too many days in hospitals,
in sickrooms, at the veterinarian..
The late-night death watch
and the early morning panacea.
The waiting and the worrying.
I have to just keep going until
there is no more.

So tonight I eat mangos and drink sake.
I wear orchids in my hair and carry tendrils
of jasmine seeping luminescent milk blood
from ripped stems dripping white
sticky and fragrant on my wrists.
I will dance and sit still and pretend to be
this and this.

I will listen to my sister sing lilac wine.
And so should you:
Tonight, Dragon’s Den
Monin Insane
(Raising Nina Simone from the dead)
A Particularly Vicious Rumor
Ratty Scurvics
2 for 1 Sake.

The time is nigh.

I woke up Thursday, to find P.’s
bunny rabbit, Toby, on the balcony.
He was very still, gone all gray and flat
where he used to be round and orange,
like a pumpkin.

The death demons have found their way back here,
into our home, and taken away one of our
most beloved, unexpectedly
and for no goddamn reason.

He was just a tiny, he did no wrong.
He was the sweetest and the smartest.
He was her baby, her rock- and now he’s gone
and our little family is torn apart.
The kitty walks around looking for him
in all their old spots, crying forlornly.
They were very good friends, the cat and the rabbit.
The funeral is tomorrow, on the balcony.
And I’m tired of funerals, I’m done with death-
I’ve had enough, we’ve had plenty thank you.
No more grieving process, no more whiskey bottle.
WE DON’T WANT IT.
No more loved ones in pain.
No more mouth of madness.
No more annihilation of all we hold dear.
It has got to fucking stop.
I know that some of you are experiencing
a world of death and destruction as well-
and surely there must be an explanation
for this constant cosmic barrage of battering?
Eclipses notwithstanding, ya’ll-
this is fucking ridiculous.
I don’t understand.
I keep asking why why why?
Why should all of these hideous,
horrible things be occurring
in the world, in my world?
The only thing to give me even the
most minute amount of solace,
or at least pause, is the following
words from a Sufi Mystic:
I prostrate myself to your drawn sword.
O, the wonder of your kindness.
O, the wonder of my surrender.
In the very spasm of death I see your face.
O, the wonder of your protection.
O, the wonder of my surrender.
Do not reveal the Truth in a
world where blasphemy prevails.
O, wondrous Source of Mystery.
O, Knower of Secrets.
I bare my neck to your naked blade
O, the wonder of your guidance.
O, the wonder of my surrender.
It made me angry when I first read it-
but it made me think also- quite a bit..
Being very near to rock-bottom, as I am,
I realize that there is very little point
in asking why anymore, and that
I must accept these horrors somehow..
Somehow.
Lay me down on the ground softly softly
Don’t remove my head hurts much too much

I’ve been dreaming nightly
of tigers and of mothwings.
I wake and remember fragments,
and then recall the words that roused them:
“I kneel in the nights
before tigers
that will not let me be
in this room
the hours of love
still make shadows
what you were
will not happen again
the tigers have found me
and I do not care.”
On the surface, an intelligible lie;
underneath, the unintelligible truth.

Here’s a little broken tiger ditty for you.
And a book about a tiger that I waited far too long to read:

I’ve also been reading Chatterton
(the novel, not the actual poet.)
It’s quite excellent and exciting me in a few ways,
i.e. the following image and passage:

“Chatterton knew that original genius consists
in forming new and happy combinations,
rather than searching after thoughts and ideas
which had never occurred before.”
There are no souls; only faces.

This one, apparently, is mine- smeared and weary
after a bit of mad Grande Guignol
at the Hi-Ho Lounge. A while ago.
So, yes. Other than that, everything else shall
remain secret for the time being.
Because I can.

1. Smoked opium in grass huts with Burmese hill-tribes in the Golden Triangle. I was too nauseous and nervous about the possibility of barfing in their grass hut to enjoy it much, though.But at least I didn’t hurl on the elephant we employed as transportation later, as my traveling companion did. Major hill-tribe faux-pas, non?
2. Was run down by a taxi-cab in Amsterdam, in the pouring rain. And then was yelled at by the driver for messing up his cab, even though he had run me down. The people in the taxi were so disgusted that they got out in the rain miles from their destination and walked to the squat with us. I was fine, mostly- although my bicycle was very muchly not.
3. Was licked enthusiastically by a herd of kinkajous. And also an okapi, on the same day. Both are renowned for their extremely long and prehensile tongues. And I had accidentally spilled Fruitopia on myself, so.
4. Climbed a Mayan pyramid in eel-skin cowboy boots. Didn’t fall off the edge, somehow.
5. Had intent conversations about carrots with John Waters and Blixa Bargeld, on different occasions.
6. Was asked (not very politely) to leave a Dairy Queen in Midland, Texas for not donning proper DQ attire (I was wearing a very opaque and modest slip). I then did an impromptu nudie dance, swinging said slip over my head, on top of the car for the shocked families eating their chicken tenders. I was pissed– and I didn’t get my peach cobbler blizzard, dammit.
7. Was stranded overnight in Taipei by accident when I was seventeen, and not a soul in the world knew where I was. And the soldiers in the airport were all too young for their machine guns.
8. Licked a plaster effigy of the infant Jesus proffered by the Portuguese priest during midnight mass on Christmas Eve in Macau. He didn’t seem to notice. The priest, not the plaster Jesus.
9. Walked around Lamma Island (Hong Kong) with two Thai swords strapped at my hips, underneath my coat night after night. Mostly I just walked across the island, to the lighthouse and back. It wasn’t really very dangerous there, I don’t think- it just felt good and right.
10. I’ve owned seven automobiles (Car-melita, Snail-a-rella, Bug-let-tina, Es-car-go! and three vans) and never drove a single one of them. I still don’t know how to drive.
11. I moved out of the house when I was 16, and rode my bicycle eleven miles to school every morning. And eleven miles back. And then to work. And then to sleep- repeat ad nauseam.. I also didn’t learn to ride a bike until around that time.
12. Performed marriage rites, as an ordained minister. Once for two transvestite rubber chickens on top of a picnic table in my underwear. And once for a dead squirrel in a jar and a horrible doll. In a sheep’s mask and priest’s robes. And my underwear. The bride and groom caught on fire at one point, because formaldehyde is flammable. Neither of these unions were my idea- I was asked to solemnize them, and did so- to the best of my ability. They were blackmetal weddings. You know.
13. Traveled extensively (by train mostly, all over Europe) with my 90 year old grandfather. And when we visited the Vatican, I accidentally said a really bad thing about Jesus, and the nuns made moves like they were going to end my life.
THE END.