Daily Archives: September 20, 2005

18 posts

“The Power of Five” by Rachelle Arlin Credo

Do you ever fret? In today's materialistic age, sometimes fretting is inevitable. With so many goals to achieve and needs to meet, fretting has become the "official emotion of the generation."

A few weeks ago, I was having another fretting day. I had so many conflicts to deal with and personal affairs to attend to that I was eating my heart out the whole day I was moving around. I could almost hear the song playing in my head: "Fretty woman walking down the street, fretty woman... lalalala..."

That night, after retiring from the day's toil, I remembered the time when I was diagnosed with SLE (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus) a.k.a. Lupus, an incurable autoimmune disease. I started re-grieving over the part that SLE took away from me. I began to fret about all the things I used to do so well.

I thought about how I used to take the jeepney for an hour's trip to the city just to get to pre-Med school everyday. I remembered how neat and pretty I looked with my white college uniform and how all my male neighbors used to have a big crush on me. I lamented that because of SLE, my college days are over and I'm never going to fulfill my dream of becoming a neurologist... ever!

I also recounted those days where I used to bum around with my friends. All those shopping sprees and dating schemes with a pool of suitors not to mention the series of soirees in schools and dormitories and a string of sorority mischiefs. Again, I lay the blame on SLE for cutting my frolicsome moments abruptly.

But as I was pouring out my grief, a crazy question popped in my mind: "Rachelle, give me five reasons why you should be happy today."

At first, I took the idea for granted thinking it was utterly ridiculous to entertain. Nonetheless, it remained lodged in my brain that a moment after, I felt like I just couldn't give it up. I thought for a moment and then, I started reiterating.

"Well," I mumbled, "my first reason to be happy would have to be my life, I think. The fact that I am still breathing the air of life would be a good reason at that. I have knocked on Death's door several times in my life and yet he never took me in. With dengue fever at 9 years old, malaria at 10, dengue fever again at 12, severe UTI at 19 and cardiomegaly at 20, and recently SLE, i think it's a miracle that I'm still alive. Second, I have a beautiful family who loves me so much. When I was at the darkest hours of my life and felt like everybody turned their backs away from me, they were there, enduring every sadness and pain with me. Third, I have great friends who were always there through thick and thin and were willing to sacrifice just for me. Fourth, I have a loving boyfriend who, despite our distance, never ceases to send his cares through the distance and loves me more than life itself. And fifth, I have a god who unwaveringly shows his love and care for me if all else fails."

And before I realized it, I felt good again. My lost fervor was revitalized and I felt joy overflowing inside me. I just realized that everything I need to be happy is right before my eyes and I was just overlooking them all along. It dawned to me that joy does not reside "out there" but within each of us in our hearts. It worked so well that I decided to incorporate it in my daily routine. Each day after rolling out of bed, I would grope for five things in my life that I am most grateful about. It soon became a habit that my life gradually changed.

Three days after the experience, my brother came up to me and asked,"What's with you? What's making you so happy these days?"

I just told him, "It's because of the power of five". My brother furrowed his brows not knowing what I meant. I just smiled.

“A Cup of Coffee” by Rachelle Arlin Credo

A young girl grows up in a little barangay in Bogo, Cebu. Her name is Llianzareh but she is fondly called Leyan. She lives with her father in a little yellow house made of oak and narra just beside the road. Her mother who was only nineteen when she conceived Leyan, died of a heart attack right after giving birth. Since then, it was her father who shouldered the responsibility of rearing her up. Having only graduated highschool, her father had a difficult time finding a permanent job. He had to jump from one opportunity to the other and frequently changed jobs in order to provide for their growing needs. When Leyan reached five, their fiscal problems alleviate. Her father has found a job in the newly opened factory in the nearby town as a laborer. He only works during the day so after working hours they stroll in the park and sometimes play hide and seek when there are less visitors in the park. On weekends, they would tread the 2-km distance to get to the nearest beach to bathe under the sun and play sand-castle-building on the shore. It went on for years until Leyan crossed her adolescence. That's when things started to change. Being conservative and old-fashioned that her father is, they would often end up bickering on her nose ring, the music she listens to, and the length of her skirts. Not a day passes by when they would not argue about anything. Consequently, her love for her father eventually turned to hate. Consuming anger seethed inside her. "I hate you!" she screams at her father one time when he knocks on the door of her room after an argument. That night Leyan felt she couldn't take it anymore. She finally acts on a plan she has mentally rehearsed scores of times. She runs away.

She has never really been away from her father that long. But with the frequent soirees with her friends, she got accustomed to places in the city. She's been to clubs, concerts and slumber parties and just about any get-together there is. The thought of Junquera immediately crossed her mind, the haven of flesh trading. With all the mobs and thugs abiding in that place and with all the newspapers reporting in lurid detail the drugs and violence in Junquera, she concludes that it's the perfect place for her refuge. Probably the last place Dad will ever look for me, she thought. Maybe Danao, Mandaue or Cebu City but not Junquera.

So she packed up her things and made her way to the big city. Daunted to make her escape known to her father, she refused to tell any of her friends about her whereabouts. She rode a bus on her own and made it to the heart of Junquera. There she meets a man driving a shiny yellow Honda. He offers her a ride, buys her food and arranges a place for her to stay. He also gives her some pills that make her feel better than she's ever felt before. She was right all along, she decides: her Dad was keeping her from all the fun.

The good life continues for a month, two months, a year. The man with the big car - she calls him "Bogard" - teaches her a few things to thrive. Since she's underage, Bogard taught her to lie about her age and made her dress like a woman - actually more like a tramp. He taught her how to flaunt her body in the streets and seduce men with words. She felt awkward at first but as time went by, she became familiar with what she's doing. She now lives in a penthouse, and men just give her a ring or drops by her place for her services. Occasionally she remembers her Dad, somehow missing him but she loves her life now and thought that her Dad maybe enjoying his life without her too- without someone to piss him off all the time.

One time while sauntering the cold streets, she saw her face on the headline of the newspaper. It read, "Have you seen this girl?" She felt her heart pound fast from fear of being noticed. She calmed down when she realized that no one would recognize her anymore. With her brown curly hair, thick makeup and jewelry all over, it was a perfect disguise. Not even her father will be able to identify her.

After three years, the first sallow signs of illness appear. Bogard who used to love her and take tender care of her suddenly turned mean and grumpy. Before she knows it, she's already out on the street without a penny to her name. She still turns a couple of tricks a night, but with her habit to support, her money usually just goes down the drain. When winter blows in she finds herself sleeping on metal grates outside the big department stores. With dark bands circling her eyes, her hair smelling like dregs, and her skin tingling against the cold, she looks like a bummer without a family and a home.

One night as she lies half-awake listening to footsteps, memories quickly flash in her mind and realizations came dawning in. She no longer feels like a woman of the world. She feels like a little girl, lost in a cold and frightening city. She begins to whimper. Her pockets are empty and she's hungry. She needs a fix. She pulls her legs tight underneath her and shivers under the newspapers she's piled atop her body now turned lanky and pale. Something jolts a synapse of memory and a single image fills her mind: her life at home in Bogo, where a million sampaguita bloom at once filling the morning air with such fragrance while she serves her Dad his favorite cup of coffee in the morning.

God, why did I leave, she says to herself, and a pang of guilt stabs her heart. She's sobbing, and she now realizes that more than anything else in the world she wants to go home. She thought about her father and how much she misses him. She wonders if he's missing her too.

She decided to make a call first before going home to give her Dad a chance to prepare for her arrival and in any case, allow his anger to subside before she makes it home. She goes to a phone booth and dials their home number.

Ring...ring..ring...ring...

She awaits patiently for her Dad's voice on the other line. Fifty rings but still no one picks up the phone.

"Oh, yea, it's still 2:00 pm. He must be at work." she relieves herself. She decided to surprise him instead. She was sure he'd be able to forgive her despite her shortcomings.

"I'm his only daughter and he loves me," she reassured herself. She thought of just letting the day go by without a word to her Dad in hope of making it a big surprise.

The next day, she scrambled off her feet and headed towards the nearest bus station. She felt so excited. It's been years since she last saw her father and she wonders how he's been all these years. Her thoughts bounce back and forth between those worries and the speech she is preparing for her father. "Dad, I'm sorry. I know I was wrong. It's not your fault. It's all mine. Dad, can you please forgive me?" She says the words over and over, her throat tightening even as she rehearses them. She hasn't apologized to anyone in years.

The bus has been driving for four hours now. Her pulse races after every turn. She could hardly wait to hug her father and patch up with him. The world outside looks dark and dreary. It seems so dim but at the same time it was still and peaceful. Yes, peaceful, that's what she's been wanting all these years- some sense of peace. Junquera is such a clamorous place. She wished she could get home soon.

When the bus finally rolls into the station of Bogo, its air brakes hissing in protest, the driver announces in a crackly voice, "Abot nata! (We're here!)"

She immediately checks herself in a compact mirror, smoothes her hair with a fine-toothed brush and tangles it to a ponytail. She wipes her lipstick with a Kleenex and checks her nails for nail polish. "All right, I'm all set," she utters with a deep sigh.

She walks into the terminal for a tricycle en route to her barangay. Familiar faces greeted her with a smile. There's Manoy Alberto who was the frequent companion of her Dad in their drinking spree and there's Manang Cacang, still hollering and talking the passengers into purchasing her "bananacues". Everything's still the same and it made her heart wrench inside.

"Oh, how much I missed this place." she whispers to herself.

She finally rides on a battered 3-wheeled vehicle and gently slumps on a seat at the back. She felt worn to a frazzle but her excitement supersedes her physical depletion. The tricycle finally arrives in her hometown. She gets some coins and pounded the railing with a coin to make the vehicle stop. The tricycle screeches to a halt and Leyan extends her fare to the driver. She went down the vehicle and went straight to their house. But not one of the thousand scenes that have played out in her mind prepared her for what she sees when she walked through the yard. There, in the small frontyard of their house, were her aunts, uncles, cousins and a few neighbors seated in a row.
Out of the crowd breaks Aunt Maryjane, her Dad's older sister. She approached Leyan and hugged her tight.

"Auntie, what's this all about?" Leyan whines. "Where's Daddy?"

Aunt Maryjane smiled wryly and said, "He's inside. He's been waiting for..."

Without letting her Aunt finish her speech, she rushed inside to check on her Dad. Her thoughts filled her with fear and anxiety. As soon as she entered the door, she felt her world collapse into pieces. She moved towards the huge rectangular casket held in front of her. She stares out through the tears quivering in her eyes like hot mercury and begins the memorized speech, "Dad, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It's all my fault..."

Aunt Maryjane interrupts her from behind. "Hush, child. No need for apologies. It's not your fault. He's been having that cancer even before you ran away. He never told you because he didn't want you to worry." Leyan stood in disbelief. Her father had long been suffering from cancer and she didn't even know. She felt a twinge of guilt slowly sweeping her inside.

"Here's something he left you," Aunt Maryjane confided while extending Leyan's inheritance. "He said it will remind you of him and the love you shared for each other."

Leyan received the envelope and the cup of coffee. Her hands were quivering as she holds them with both hands. She didn't know what to say. She felt the one to blame. She felt like a criminal to her own father. She burst into tears and felt her chest exploding. She wanted him back. She badly wanted her father back. But there's nothing she can do to make him come back from the dead. If only she could turn back time, if only she could. She sobbed some more and wailed in pain. She realizes now how much her father really loved her and how much he means to her. But it's too late. She's only got the cup of coffee to remember him by.

“In the Eyes of a Child” by Rachelle Arlin Credo

It was way past 10:00 pm when I came home from a grueling day of schoolwork and extracurricular activities. The wind was rustling about overhead as I paced through the door of our humble abode. I moved towards the nearest couch and plumped myself to rest. Defeat and exhaustion filled my frame as I laid back against the soft cushions. But then I remembered our Hematology project which was due the next day. Galvanized, I scrambled off my feet and immediately headed towards the personal computer situated on the other side of the room. Just then, my little brother Michael dashed out of his room and came straight at me. He was holding a pen on his right hand and a piece of paper on the other.

"Ate, can you help me with my assignment? It's about the seven wonders of the world," he blurted out while staring at the paper in his grasp.

My brother's words didn't seem to filter through my mind at first. My attention was so riveted at the computer screen that my brother had to nudge me and pull the tip of my blouse just to get my attention.

"Look, not right now! I'm very busy," I yelled while ticking on the keyboard.

"You're always busy! You're always like that!" he wailed back as he turned on his heels and stomped back to his room.

For a moment, Michael's words fiddled in my mind. I felt a twinge of guilt as his words lingered in my thoughts. But the urgency of my work seemed more important to me than my brother's. I sighed a few times and continued to polish my school work.

The next day, I went home late again. I went straight to my room and quickly changed my clothes. When I was about to turn off the lights, I heard a pounding noise on the door. I went to see who it was. It was Michael.

"I know you are busy but there's something I wanna show you," he began. "I was just wondering if my classmate was right when he said that my assignment was wrong."

Without saying a word, I snatched the paper from him and pored over his written assignment. I really didn't care what he was saying. All I wanted was to get rid of him and finally get to rest. Suddenly, my eyes widened in surprise as soon as I saw what he'd written. There, he wrote in gothic letters:

The Seven Wonders of the World

1. Love
2. Friendship
3. Peace
4. Joy
5. Wisdom
6. Fun
7. Family

I froze dead on my tracks as the words registered in my brain. I could not believe what my brother just scribbled on paper. I was completely transfixed. How could such an innocent little child fathom such things in life, I thought to myself. As I was trying hard to push back my emotions to the farthest recesses of my mind, I didn't notice that tears were already swelling up in my eyes and started flowing down my cheeks.

"Ate why are you crying? Is it really wrong?"

"No, baby brother, it's not. This is the other set of answers most people don't know," I said as I whisked the trickling droplets from my cheeks.

That day, it dawned on me that the most valuable things in life are the ones that we often overlook and take for granted. These things don't take the form of towering buildings, gigantic houses, magnificent cars, material wealth or even high-paying jobs. What my little brother showed me was a gentle reminder that the most wondrous things in the world are immaterial, priceless and can never be developed by human art, skill or effort. As Dean Wilson of London once wrote, "As with most of the important things, we often take them for granted and forget we even have them..."

“Homeward” by Rachelle Arlin Credo

After swaying on the wings of dreams
In satisfaction of vaulting whims
I was finally headed back to our abode
Into the forgotten zone beside the road.

As I trotted the all-familiar path
I remembered my li'l bro - oh, that brat!
Yet my heart was wrenching down to my soul
I guess I did miss that brat after all.

Countless trees lined up the aisle
One after another, they ran for a mile
Reminding me of Little Miky, Fran and Camy
Queuing in line to wait for Daddy's candies.

The morning breeze blew against my face
Sending shivers through my spine to base
Oh, how I missed Mommy's delectable cuisine
Of chicken soup, meatballs and mmm, ch'ao mien!

Counting past five houses and one old bridge,
My anticipation grew and all excitement merged
A few more steps and a turn to the right
I'd finally be facing them all sound and bright.

I finally arrived and walked through the door
Then the lights went on and everyone roared
"We all miss'd you!" they bawled with cheer
I simply cried, I just couldn't be happier.

“Unrequited Love” by Rachelle Arlin Credo

So, there you were...
A zestful figure of flickering vibrations
Whispering enchanting hymns replete with passion
Like a soaring phoenix heralded by the tides
Relentlessly flying through the azure skies.

And there I was...
A searching shadow at sundown
A sojourner on a forlorn mound
Streamlined with ingenious fallible innocence
Only to submit with resisting acquiescence.

Then Cupid struck my heart...
Oh! My heart melted and liquified with fervor
Oblivious to the quibble of other people's rancor
Bearing and forbearing the torments of sullen reality
I was swept with the turbulence of a love fantasy.

And then...
A realization came to hit my deepest core
Staggering my brains out and shaking my soul
As pang slowly vanquishes all that's left in me
Captivating my unfulfilled dreams into a vain reality.

Then, bah!
My heart began to speak earnestly
"What must I do to open your eyes and make you see?
Till death must I struggle to make you love me?"
Then my spirit broke and my sepulchre laid lifeless of a broken heart
Realizing your love was never mine right from the very start...

“Torn” by Rachelle Arlin Credo

Pang vanquished all my emotions
Clutching my heart causing unbearable pain
Tearing my past behind desperation
Refusing to halt its wrath leaves me forsaken.

I struggled away from the sad reality
But I ended up distraught and desperate
As I wait for the old pomp to revive with victory
I was left in an ebbing crave's state.

With poignant memories casting a light of endless gloom
The incessant mourning eventually drives me insane
Only to break in a lonely ember's doom
I find myself cowering in so much pain.

“You” by Rachelle Arlin Credo

You are a silhouette, hazy and gray
But a vain creation of lover's memory
A fair illusive vision everywhere displace
With a shady luster away from my yearning embrace.

You are a lamplight glimmering with a flicker of surprise
A semblance of beauty that surpasses the azure skies
Endowed with a charm with a form of airy grace
Embellishing the black immensities in a peculiar maze.

You are an innocuous moonlight angel
With the loveliness exceptinally real
Across the cold and misty moonbeam
Where no twinge of conscience can deny in any theme.

Oh, you're but a being matchless to compare
A creature so alluring, how I love to touch your hair
But alas! You glided away and faded out from my vision
And only the whispers of your heart beats in slumbrous fashion.

In the nocturne rhythm of the night
Where my perception was deceived by my sight
I was swept by the waves of realization -
You are just a dream, a product of my imagination...

“Aurora” by Rachelle Arlin Credo

another wink of day creases
from the lofty dappled spaces
glowing in twilight's splendor
through the slightly opened door

the soft melancholy matures slowly
that once emblazed the black immensity
dainty streaks of light diffusing
the wild blue yonder smirking

the cold hazy light dissolves the stars
seeping in through the earth's reservoir
into the ocean of green of shrubs and tress
appeasing the mist-clad world in its cocoon

the hills are drenched with dew
raindrops taking flesh from the heavens
the blades of grass sways as the winged breeze blow
swirling over trees' leaves and boughs

sullen clouds exude their shady luster
then softly glow with flaming hue
when the first beams of dawn
repaint their fleecy gowns

quiescent peaks of the sleepy mountains
serenely swim out of blue mist
greeting the royal sun
with jolly bird's cheers

the morning beauty liquifies
before my thirsty eyes
catching me half a dream
as the splendid spectacle
embrace my captivated soul

“Loveless Night (To Nikkie)” by Tri Tran

She soared into the silent sky,
Flapping her glittering wings
As she watched the stars dance and the moon sway.

Her long hair, dishiveled as the wind hummed;
Calm like a statue, she let it carry her;
Her soul, about to departed from its nest, to taste the cold universe.

Her heart whispered to me as she rose hihgher and higher...
Each heart throb vibrated my tired organs,
Each musical note, gently rocked my red blood cells.

On the lawn, I sprawled, staring at the rising moon.

“Sad Song” by Tony Nesca

got jazzed all around livin' easy,
got jazzed man,
she says do it like this baby, just like this!
phone bill too heavy
brain gone missing
long slit vodka-orange
sinatra manhattan crazy,

maybe mind gone wild sharp-left like
secrets in the prairie sky bookstore
lights up happy living
she walks out of the dream straight
into blow-job trumpet like chet baker
high on shrooms, ain't nothing working man,
sun comes through torn blinds
coffee-can half empty
bird with crystal-white memory
whiskey-stain on the kitchen floor
black and white cartoons on the television
old dog howls
burnt toast flies through the air
half-empty marijuana bag vodka on the brain
her toenails painted dark purple
his beard lined with grey
hangover-morning settles into the room
"hello" she says,
"i love you" he says,
the sadness begins...

“Moving Rapidly In and Out of Focus” by Gary Corbi

Sighting you in the crosshairs of my perception
I briefly glimpse a secret creature within you
If not so hidden with its habits
I might place among the hordes that roam my own crowded psyche.

What other features of myself
Remote aspects I'm unaware of even possessing
Would I find silently lurking
If I trained my eyes, with sheer discernment, upon you.

Inwardly weighing my will to pursue you
A steeper trail, perhaps
But one that might bridge the chasms within me
Allow me to safely traverse all my inner meanings.

Others show their many sides effortlessly
Peacocks fanning their tail feathers for each other
Teasing their wide range of character
From within in one brilliant burst.

Me, I long to learn how to focus myself
To end my choice of choosing by not choosing
Neither fixing only on one sheer peak of meaning
Nor wandering unseeing away from my own path.

“Susan” by Gary Corbi

I only wish to possess a secret
corner of your mind, a fevered haunt from which
to stalk the random turnings of your dreams.
The ordinary images of sleep
subside and sudden apprehension
for me awakens with you, suspending
further sleep with surprised, numbing impressions.
Other nights reveal more enticing scenes.
A fine, midnight display of fantasies
concealed by day down obscure, symbolic
passageways. It's not so much to ask.
I've given you as much unasked, sporadic
evidence that unrealized desires
are unconsciously pursued forever.

“Jeanne” by Gary Corbi

You used to sit on your front steps at night
smacking a baseball into the recess
of a worn leather glove. Each easy, light
flick of the wrist split the air with express
statement of friendship, budding the spring night
in spite of itself. I drove past your house
last evening, no trace of you came to sight
far removed now from every earthly house
snatched away by, what's the phrase, "an early frost?"
An early frost. If we must answer for sins
why not nature, for each double-cross?
Wrenching mothers from children, while old wither
slowly, alone. Nature knows no justice.
But I suppose you've already guessed this.

“Contradictions” by Gary Corbi

I don't mean to pry, but sometimes when I ponder your
behavior, its contradictions make me wonder who
you are. Are the qualities I grew to savor in
my mind (You appeared as gifted in adventure
as lacking in convention.) no more than a creation
of my pretentious imagination? Are you designed
on far different lines, composed of sharp curves and
manipulating angles, seduced more by the song
of success than by any man? I'm beginning to
believe, you're destined to be, forever elusive
to me. Perhaps the conflicts that I see within you
are but a reflection of my inner divisions.
Would this then make you a key to unlocking myself?

“Divergences” by Gary Corbi

The TV news showed a bus lying in a hollow; in Abu Ghosh.
A Palestinian grabbed the steering wheel and wrenched, hard.
Sheets covered shattered bodies as the grim scene yielded to a Kashmir firefight.
I spent a summer on a kibbutz just up the road from Abu Ghosh
and enjoyed it so I thought of staying.
The newscast brought it back and made me wonder - why there?
I having no obvious connection to the country.
Was it a wish for a more meaningful commitment
or a headlong flight from a life I felt unable to fully live?
It's no wonder we take strange turns; by the time we question our desires
they've already made us, or lie alone, abandoned.


“Acts of Loitery and Betrayal” by CarrieAnn Thunell

Living in a free-verse world,
my formal soul must needs learn
how to ad lib, not knowing anybody's lines.

I have to let go of my syncopation.
Set free my formal iambic pentameter,
and learn to improvise, free-associate.

How to jazz, to trill, and scat
without wrinkling my nose at the unbidden image
of a well-used litter box.

How to saxophone in riffs 'till my soul be-bops.
But what does it mean? I ask,
looking back at the long

of a relatively short half-life.
Hoping the second half will slow down
long enough for me to catch up.

I try to put the first half
into perspective, before I have to move on.
Eternity tends to come down hard

on the practice of loitery,
and I've heard rumors
that Mortality is even stricter.

When I was a child,
I had a best friend named Valerie.
Valerie, the number one Valley Girl, and bimbo wanna be.

I remember she was beautiful
the way that Raquel Welch was beautiful.
Long brown hair, dark brown eyes, full red lips

that practiced pouting. I was very envious of her.
She had a lot of very compact, soft, curves.
She could even make a short boy feel tall and manly.

I felt like a long-limbed tree in need of pruning.
Connected by knobby ends like tinker toy spools,
awkwardly holding all my scrawny sticks together.

It was years later, I found out
that she was envious of me,
that she always felt short and dumpy.

Next to her, I was slim and tall
with long golden honey hair
and wide river-blue agate opal eyes?

long and lean, limber as a willow.
I guess we were a little leery
of each other, each always wanting

to be the one chosen
by the boys.
I remember she committed

small daily acts of betrayal,
spreading vicious rumors designed to topple me
from whatever mountaintop

she imagined I commanded.
In growing up, we parted, uneasy
in each other's company.

Each seeking command of our own
small army of gawking, fantasizing boys.
Each wanting to be the only star

in their smelly nocturnal scenarios,
though we would never have dreamt
of actually letting them touch us.

It seems adulthood came upon me
like an uninvited solicitor, arriving far too early?
like arriving late to class, with daydreams scribbled

on my homework. I was unprepared...

“Perspectives of the Night” by CarrieAnn Thunell

Stories arise,
bubbling up
from under
the cover of darkness.
It is the seduction of hot cider
freely given on a street corner
on a cold, cobalt winter's night
that draws out recalcitrant passersby.

There is an unspoken invitation
to be listened to
and heard without judgment,
whilst remaining anonymously
marshmallowed
in the black and starless night.

A harvest of unique perspectives
is gathered together
from amongst strangers
who dispassionately live and move
among one another.

Sealed off by social position, and livelihood,
each has a separate
sphere of influence.

Among the throng are
the terrorist,
the devoted mother,
the atheist,
the catholic,
the honest blue collar worker,
the unscrupulous scammer and thief,
the murderer,
the saint,

the homeless woman,
the entrepreneur,
the Black,
the Hispanic,
the Asian,
the White,
the native-born
children of immigrants.

All live within
a hundred mile radius,
yet they never really see each other-
never imagine the reality
of each separate world,
never fathom
the pain, the motivations, the joys
of the other.

Yet on this night
a small knot forms
around the cups of golden cider
and the strange tales being woven.
The knot grows, expands
in concentric rings,
enough to barricade
the streets-

enough to clear a path
into each other's soul,
as each is caught
like a fly
in the seductive lure
of one another's
undreamt of slice of life,
raw, unvarnished, intense.

And when the voices
all are spent
and the cider barrel has run dry,
each wanders back into the night
forever changed-

less sure of oneself, one's truth
and the validity
of one isolated perspective-

deeply disturbed
by the universality
of a greater truth
just beyond the reach
of consciousness,
binding humanity
inexplicably together.

“Full Circle” by CarrieAnn Thunell

City of skyscrapers, you march in vanishing rows
with sunlight sparkling off thousands
of glittering windows.
City jigsaw of districts for hippies,
and districts for ethnic minorities
districts for gays, and districts for artists;
of café's, and restaurants, museums, and parks
recovery groups, and bars, literary clubs
and street gangs, college intellectuals
and bag ladies, poets, and engineers.

I lived out my first twenty years
in the shadow of the Space Needle.
At home as a river-rat in the U-district,
Wallingford, Ballard, and a narrow
slice of downtown called the Pike Place Market.
Never needed to own a car there.
Outside these few districts; if I were dropped
into some unknown pit of Seattle,
I'd have been as disoriented as a farm girl
dropped into the heart of New York.

I left Seattle, my shining birth-city,
at the world-wizened age of twenty
to live wild on Orcas island.
There I hung from trees slothfully
till I grew moss and flippers.
Dew beaded on my skin
in the early mists of turquoise dawn.

Slipping amphibiously into ice water,
I frog-paddled to tiny islands without names.
Cut tender flesh, to scale jagged cliffs
for the thrill of watching creatures unknown
to the rest of the world
mate, mutate, and evolve.
Returning subaqueously to the main island,
I tickled salmon's underbellies.
Flipped them onto dry sands,
wrapped them in seaweed, smoked them in hot coals.
Ate them with goose pimples sprouting
out of my cut-offs and sand-encrusted toes.

After summer, I would wait
for the sun to roll and splash into the sea
in it's time-lapse photography slowness.
A hot ball of butter
riding the waves of blueberry syrup.

Dusk would arrive, scattering the stars
shaking them out of his glistening fishing net,
impossibly bright, luminous, and numerous.
Every June, without warning, they would cascade
down from the sky; a meteor shower
dense and cold as hail.
The shock of it reduced me to the Chicken-little, sky-is-falling
big city bumpkin that I was.
Afterwards, the inky sky appeared
unnaturally blank, devoid of light.

Other nights, the animated phosphorescence
enveloped within the waters
could be stirred to the surface
in ripples of luminous silver.
Ribbons of liquid mercury quivering,
ghosting, trailing, behind undulating trout
or splashing up like sparklers
scattering from my canoe paddle.

At summer's end, I bargained
for a seat on a private plane
that bucked every light breeze
with the ungainly grace
of a pregnant hippo in flight.

My breath caught
on the ridge between
terror and mortality,
and the naked awe
of sighting diminutive land masses
through collage tares
in the tie-died sunset clouds.

The pilot tumbled me down briskly
onto another unknown landscape.
A small town back then, called Bellingham.
I stayed long enough to give birth to
what the locals proudly called, a Belling-hamster.
From the elite university on the hill,
I added B.S. to my name,
and began work in the strange field
of psychotherapy until,
washing dishes for minimum wage
started to look good.

Somehow, I misplaced eleven years
in that small town.
Then the ferry terminal set up business,
and the Bellis Fair Mall
scooped out downtown
like a man-eating tyrannosaurus
backhoe from a B-grade
Japanese monster movie.
Nothing was left behind,
but rubble and street bums.

It was time to move on.
I stuck a push-pin in a map
and landed in some little town
called Olympia, where I seem to have
misplaced another thirteen years
before I met
my destiny, who married me.

He had to learn to ride bare back,
because I'd never been broken in,
being untamable and wild
as a Seattle cityscape at night
with Orcas island twigs
still caught in my tangled hair.

His calm, unwavering patience
provided ballast and rudder
anchoring my excessive helium,
balancing my skew.
Proof that the matron saint
of artists, and poets,
sweet Catherine of Bologna,
still practices her gentle arts.

My Belling-hamster son
was fourteen years young
and a superlative violinist
though his brain was brimming
with dungeons and dragons
and international computer hacker schemes.


In my nine lives, I had been
a bus-person, waitress, lobster cook,
shrink, consumer of shrinks, factory worker,
office drone, green-house laborer, mom,
construction crew temp, low-bottom lush, and bum.

My corrugated roundness never
fit into any established square holes.
In between employment disasters,
I avoided Hairy-Carrie
by practicing tai chi, and haiku.
I tried my hand and heart
at art, and lyric poetry.

Past poetry readings brought to mind
Seattle all-night espresso houses,
and college campuses
collaged with such misfits as myself;
twenty-first century bohemian bards in blue jeans.

My loving husband, Mr. Destiny,
escorted me, full circle
back to Seattle. We explored the University District
on a kaleidoscopic odyssey
to see if perchance, my past
was still where I misplaced it.

Seattle had taken massive steroids
behind my back, and become an L.A. clone.
A hideous, gray, columnar maze
whizzing at high speeds, with trailing headlights.

Yet within this labyrinth,
were cozy, time-forgotten pockets.
Districts and neighborhoods left nearly untouched
by the tornado of time.
I burrowed gleefully into each
spring-hay scented nest,
pulling my bemused but enchanted husband
in after me.

I clapped my hands in time-warped delight
at a remembered face or two
among the masses.
A glint of recognition
in time-worn eyes
and me knowing well and full
that you can never really go back.

And yet...