Source: The Secret ~ Revisited
The Secret ~ Revisited
Source: The Secret ~ Revisited
Monthly Archives: September 2015
dedicated to Lou Reed
little satellite
There is a sadness in not wanting to know someone close to you, for they are close to you for a reason. There is a sadness in walking past the flowers reaching over and through the holes in the fence to greet you. When i have not eaten for some while i wanna stay there, to know this also, you see, otherwise i lose something. I lose a part of the world. the hunger and thirst of the world. You see how everything in our presence can move us? Even pain moves me and maybe away from myself. Undulations in the spirit. Unraveling of the controls. Spinning out of contact into space and disconnected. Stay there. Without notification. Without any sound except the sound of your own breathing. See how you can never be alone, little satellite? Breath is a tide and their are treasures in its wake, in the pools.
vapid
vapid
I forgot everything so I could remember. I forgot the world forgot what happened forgot my name just forgot. The dreams pushed my eyes across the oily undersides of my lids, the eye movement was rapid, the nightmares were vapid. No one could hurt me anymore and neither could I neither could I neither could I.
not a color exactly. a hue
not a color exactly. a hue
I found myself in a color, in a hue. We were driving away from it all. I gave him the keys to my car. He knew a place far down the river where we could get close to the water and sit in the shade. The river looked blue from above, and green when you came close. But it was neither of those. I had been in a room with friends, earlier, on a sunday morning. I drank decaf coffee and listened and began to smile. Not everyone had a story to share. I find great comfort in a spacious meeting hall, where you can say what you need to say and nobody will talk over you. Where you can say nothing and still be seen. Faraway, sitting on a riverbank, was the same. I lost myself in a color, in a hue. I wouldn’t call it green. I wouldn’t call it blue.
characters in my book
MAZE — THE PLAYERS
Here are the main characters in my book — Maze
Hendrix An apparition who blurs around the edges. He dresses like Jimi which is how he got his nickname. Nobody knows much about him, but he shows up rather mysteriously anywhere in Oakland, and Ame (the protagonist) has discovered that if she follows him he will lead her to human fear, which is the element she thirsts for. He has a cheshire cat smile and likes to walk backward. He is transparent so he can be hard to follow.
Bless She is Ame’s best friend. They wear each other’s clothes and do each other’s hair. They hang around Freddy and he protects them on the streets. All three are not exactly human. She has a crush on Ame which becomes more pronounced when her boyfriend dies. She is not happy when Ame begins dating Maze. She is practiced in the dark ways and could not care less for human kind. She gave an amulet to Ame for protection, a scarab of nephrite, in Book One after her first kill.
Everett Not a good man, Everett is Bless’ boyfriend. He was killed in Book One by his friend Freddy because he was physically abusive toward Bless and Ame. He was a junkie and out of control. He does not appear in Book Two. Freddy’s loyalty toward Ame and Bless was proven by doing away with his close friend.
Maze The title character and Ame’s love interest.. he appears briefly in Book One, in a fight which goes down at Uma’s apartment when one of the escorts suggests he was inappropriate with her. Ame gets hurt pulling an escort off of him. Maze remembers this kindness when he sees Ame at a burrito truck on Broadway, and shares his burrito with her. They hit it off right away and soon fall in love. He’s a punk and a skateboarder, and loves ice cream sandwiches. They share the dark gift and hunt together. She stays with him in a boarding house just off of Telegraph Avenue.
Uma An escort. Queen of the escorts, really. She is close to Freddy and mostly concerned with the business of finding men for her women. She has an apartment in West Oakland where Freddy goes sometimes to get the word on the street.
Kell A young woman whom Ame meets inadvertently while hunting fear near Lake Merritt. She is a junkie. She has the dark gift which is inaccessible due to her addiction. She shows up in Book Two and Ame immediately takes to her, wants to help her get out from under. Bless and Freddy are living at the Imperial on Telegraph Ave, and Ame convinces them to make room for Kell, who was living in squalor in a tenement building.
Black A malafide who features prominently in Book Two. He lives next to the boarding house where Ame and Maze take up residence. He sells drugs to anybody and everybody, and this is his front. However, it soon becomes apparent that those who get too close to him, disappear.
Freddy A complicated character, Freddy figures to be at times violent and protective. Ame was abducted by Freddy in Book One and taken from the Green Mountains where she was raised by humans, and brought to Oakland, California to be with her people, Delux. She soon learns that Freddy is not out to harm her, and she can trust him with her life. He is a mechanic and he thrives on the streets. He can communicate with Bless and Ame telepathically. He is calm amidst chaos, like the eye of a hurricane.
Ame Our protagonist and first person narrator. She has come of age and been introduced to her kind and the dark arts they practice. She is independent and likes to hunt alone. But she also loves to be with her friend Bless and Freddy, who is like a father to her. She is conflicted about humans. On one hand, they raised her and sheltered her as a child. But it is in her nature to thirst for human fear. In Book Two she finds herself falling in love with Maze.
Delux Humans once tried to destroy her kind, Delux, hundreds of years ago on the continent. Fear drove them to hunt down the divergent kind, anyone not like themselves. But the Delux adapted quickly and learned how to extract human fear in order to save themselves. Alchemy. The same fear that would have destroyed them all, soon became their sustenance. They followed the humans in the great migration to America, and now live side by side in the underbelly of any city, blending in.
the moon was super
the moon is super
My dreams were full of life, i found myself resting when i got out of bed. i coulda done nothing and felt accomplished, i mean, much had happened in a few minutes of dreaming. i put on the radio and the drip on the coffee grounds. i brushed my hair then combed it. my medallion was hanging off of the bathroom light fixture, so i took it and dropped it over my head. it was warm on my neck from the heat of the bulb on the glass of the light fixture into the metal of the chain. in my sandals half-awake i sliced my toe on an old chest i am using for a coffee table. i watched the blood drip over my toe it was tomato red and made me feel good and healthy. i cleaned my toe and wrapped a bandaid around it, then fed and encouraged my tomcat out back. looking up i saw the brilliance of the almost full harvest moon. turn off your porch light. you won’t need it tonight.
writing process… self-publishing
writing process — random thoughts
In this video I am talking to you about my writing process and what it feels like to ‘hit the button’ as a self-published independent author. Some other topics include ‘setting a deadline for yourself’ and what it feels like to have ‘character-driven’ creations in our modern literary age of ‘plot fiends’ and plot snobbery…
Goodreads Giveaway
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Catcher in the Rye – book review
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I made a reading room out of my back room the other day. I put that big old chair that’s been getting decimated by the weather these past two years inside, and a blanket over it, and a light over it, and the first book I read in there was Catcher in the Rye. The same copy with the 1985 cover, you know, the maroon one with the yellow title. I got it from my family and now the pages are yellow and the cover fell off a long time ago and I pinned it to my wall behind my desk. I like to think my dad gave it to me in a really gorgeous way, like he told me some kinda sentimental thing with his eyes gone watery. I know that’s not really how it happened, though, because that’s what he did with his copy of Nine Stories. I’d rather he gave me Catcher than Nine Stories. Even if I liked eight of them. I don’t even know I still have Nine Stories, anyway, if you know what I mean. I think I may have just seen Catcher on his book shelf and just wanted it so bad I just took it. Stole it from my dad. Really madman. I feel so honored that Holden Caufield shared his thoughts with me, I would never go and kill anybody and blame it on the book. How come so many people did that? Way back before it was published, JD Salinger went to New York and read his book to an editor there. Up in some skyscraper office. He got so upset when the guy told him Holden was really crazy and they could not publish a goddam book with a goddam crazy narrator. They say he ran out of the office and was crying. They say that’s because Salinger was Holden. That’s what they say. People have a funny way of saying things as though they were truth, when it’s really guesswork… anyway, I know I’m talking about things you probably could care less about. You know what happens when I get to talking. I want you to know I thought of you today. Only for a little while, you know what can happen when I think for too long. I wanted all the thoughts to be good ones, but some of the not so good ones approached me too. I told them go away. They sorta edged up and stayed, and I realized I would be wrong to tell them go away when they had a right to be there, too. But I think you should read this book. It might not make you feel better, but it’s will make you feel. I think it’s very honest. I know it took me a long time to get there. But I got there, didn’t I?
reading from ‘Maze’
I recorded my first reading of an excerpt of my new book,
‘Maze’. A literary fiction. Here is the video…
K IS SILENT 