Things not going well now
I'm ready to crack
Satan himself
Laughs at my back

Waiting and hoping
The pressure will take
I'll say something awful
Like God is a fake

That's how he gets started
How he gets in
Turns you against God
And welcomes you in

I'm not that foolish
Sometimes I'm bothered
But he'll never deny me
The love of my Father

I,m not poet ,not scholar , not perfect at all
I make mistakes often I stumble ,I fall
I read and I write , do the best that I can
But after all ,I'm only human.

Your picture I've seen
And admit nothing else
Just the thought of that picture
How my heart melts

I've known you forever
At least that's how I feel
Never have we met
Though it all seems so real

Someday I'd search
I'd walk every path
Swim 'cross the ocean
And find you at last

Delusions of happiness
Run through my head
I try to decipher
The cryptic messages

My mind tells me one thing
My heart says another
Which shall I follow
Is there another

Time they say heals all wounds
I say it creates them
I wish it would stop
Time for awhile

I need to get my bearings
Without them I'm lost
Adrift on a sea
From sunshine to frost

Extreme to extereme
How I wish she would say it
Then I would know
I'm not going insane

Summer 1986 Sunday 5:30AM

Misty morning in Malibu.
Seagulls stitch the sea to a subtle
silver sky. They sputter stridently.
Each elegant gull hovers effortlessly.
Entreating each other. Echos bounce
off the sound of the surf into eternity. The screeching of many a
soliloquy akin to silence.

I sit on the pier. The water before
me washes onto the staccato legs
of tiny waterbirds who wander
in and out of the surf. Little
windblown ***** of ecru and grey
wool. I worship in the womb of
the great goddess ~ nature. I wasn't to know the Creator was watching patiently...

6:30AM
I make my unhurried way up the
pier to my car. A cheap but
comfortable convertable. Nobody
walks in LA. I punch in a tape.
Don Henley. Boys of Summer.

I take PCH up to the incline that
takes you from the beach. Pushing
the pedal slightly as I slide by the
colossal bleached cliffs of
Palacades Park. There the homeless
sleep under the benches dedicated
by friends and family in
rememberance of loved ones.
Small plaques attatched for
posterity.

My hands are on the steering wheel
at 7 and 12 o'clock.I look at the cast
I wear on my right wrist. A token
of rememberance from an angry romance. He and I parted
respectively, if not at all
respectfully. I drive.

7:00AM
Venice beach. Not yet boysterous.
But never boring. The young people
(and old) still bundled together in bed. Saturday night hangovers will
be had by most of the denizens of
Venice beach boardwalk. A grainy
eyed few wander around abstractidly. Shopowners enter
their buildings, their storefronts
almost as small as booths. Graphitti
and giant works of art grace walls
everywhere ~ Jim Morrison and
Venus in workout leggings much
in evidence.

I smoke my cigarette and drink my
hot coffee carefully in the open cafe'.
I consider the eyefest of the crowd
that will congregate here to enjoy
the clement weather.
The cacophony and the clamor.
Touristas and Los Angelinos alike
drawn In by calculating vendors
and coyote souled street performers.
I look forward to seeing the
non conformity usually. But not
today. For now I sit in the quiet cafe'.

Venice beach. Vulpine. Vacuous.
A strangely vunerable venue. The
***** and the beautiful. The talented and the ******.

A street performance pianist trundles his acoustic piano on
casters out onto the boardwalk.
I ask him if I may play. He looks
at my cast doubtfully.
"I can still play..." I tell him.
He ascents and listens thoughtfully
as I play my compositions. He really
likes them. I ****** the ebony and
the ivory with insistant fingers.
The smile on his face is irrepressable. I smile back and we
flirt in self conceous, fitful fashion.
Time to leave.

9:00AM
Radio is on in my car now. A cut
from the musical Chess. One night
in Bangkok makes the hard man
humble... I like the driving beat.
I'm going up I-10, a single blood cell
in the main artery that brings life
to the flesh of this mamouth town.
Traffic is tenuous. A boon here in
this conjested city.

I drive to Fairfax and Sunset, where
I lived with in a tiny one-bedroom
apartment with my mom. An
ambitious actress. I an ambivalent
artist.

Sunset. The Roxy and Whiskey-a-
Go-Go. Cartoon characters Rocky
and Bullwinkle casually cavort on
the top of a building. Billboards
as tall as the Hollywood sign. The
street of broken hearts for many
an actress -slash-model. They
wander about on street corners
looking haughty and haunted.
Waiting for who knows who to
honk. Their dreams have flown
away like the exhailation of smoke
from the mechanical lungs of the
Marlboro Man. Schwab's drugstore
and diner. The place where some
famous starlet was discovered.
Delivered into the arms of the
Hollywood machine. I opt to go
to the Sunset Grill.

11:00AM
I'm walking down Hollywood Blvd.
Perusing shops and persuing
pedestrian pleasures. Everyone
talks of the star-studded sidewalks.
To me they look tarnished and
filthy. Stars from a sultry smog
laden sky come to earth. The names
of some of the folks honored on
them I don't recognise.

I'm here to view movies today.
I'm definitely not going to
Grauman's Chinese Theater.
Been there. Done that. Gave the
very expensive T shirt to
Goodwill. I look around at the
proud and the plebian. The pedantic
and the pathetic. No prostitutes
out yet that I could see. Probably
toppled into bed to sleep
(for once). Deposed kings
and queens of the monarchy of the
night. The homeless hobble along
with their hair matted and askew.
Shopping carts with stuttering
wheels de reguer.

A couple of tourists with Izod shirts,
plaid shorts to the knee and deck
shoes sans socks gaze in a shop
window. It's borded by tarnished
and faded silver garlands... tinsel
Christmas tree.
"Want to buy a mood ring today?"
One of them querys his buddy,
laughingly.

I find my small theater and enter
the air conditioned lobby. I purchase
a soda and pass on the popcorn.
As I enter the theater's modestly
plush, dimly lit cocoon sanctuary
I notice very few patrons are here
for the matinee. GOOD. I finally
watch the premiere product of
Los Angeles. Movie after movie
slides across the screen. The callus
morally corrosive corporations
conspire with the creative to produce
the culmination of many art forms
in one. Cinema.

LA. Languid. Luxurious. Legendary.
Rollicking, raunchy rodeo.
Seaside city. Sophisticated. Spurious.

SPECTACULAR.

8:00PM
I wend my way up Mulholland Dr.
Another tape is playing in the deck.
One of my favorites. David + David.
Welcome to the Boomtown.

I pull over at a deserted vista. From
this viewpoint I can see the city
spread out like a blanketfof brilliance. The gridiron of LA.
Glitzy and glamorous. Generating
little gods and goddesses. A gigantic
gamble for the disingenuous and
gouache. Tinsel town. Titillating.
Tempestuous. Only the very brave
bring their dreams here... or fools
rush in where angels fear to tread.
All but the fallen angels. They thrive.

Oh! If this place could be bottled it
would be such sweet poison. I
look up at the auburn sky and back
down at the breathtaking panorama
The metropolis that is LA with awe
and angst. I carefully stub out my
cigarette and flip it irreverantly
toward the lagoon of lights.

I get in my car to drive home.
Home?
Could this imposing, inspiring,
impossible place be called home?

Well. Home is where the heart is.
And I live in the heart of a dream.
This is the city of dreams...

CITY OF ANGELS.

Soul Survivor
Catherine E Jarvis
(C) 2005

I must confess
As I undress
The sins I carry
I cannot bury

They haunt in the night
And even in the light
They follow close
But never are they seen

Save for me in my nightmares
And every time between

Will they ever leave me
There's only one who can say
I'm hopeful To meet him
On my last day

Are like books.
Some are autobiographies...

... some pure fiction!


10W
Soul Survivor

The Love of God is greater far
Than tounge or pen can ever tell,
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.

The guilty pair,
Bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win,
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

When time on earth
shall pass away,
And worldly thrones
And kingdoms fall,
When all men here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills,
And mountains call,

God's love so sure will yet endure,
All measureless and strong,
Redeeming grace to Adam's race
The saint's and angel's song.

Were all the oceans with ink filled
And the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above
Would drain the oceans dry,
Nor could the scroll
Contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky.

O love of God, so rich and pure,
So measureless and strong,
It shall forevermore endure
The saint's and angel's song.

Lucifer, Lucifer
Black, rotting mind,
How can you live
With the lies that you wind?

Lucifer, Lucifer
You claim to destroy
But need God's permission
For what you deploy.

Black Lily of old,
Wrecker of worlds,
Mover of mountains,
Oil slick pearl,

The whorls on your forehead,
The horns on your head,
The eyes in your hands
As you dress your dead.

You desolate valleys
You eat up the land,
You grind a man's bones
To Sahara sand.

In my eye a beam
In your eye a mote,
The rampant *****
Of a rutting goat.

They grow in your belly
The flies that you spawn,
Maggots in multitudes
10 trillion strong.

Yes, out they spew
Through your spittle and teeth,
The lies propigated
From way underneith.

O, putrid rose,
Who has duplicate skill
To create "beauty"
To dazzle man's will.

But nothing you "make"
Is good on this earth,
No, nothing you "make"
Has any WORTH.

O, blighted star,
Constellation of hate,
Galaxy ghoul
Your strength is FINITE.

Who runs the show,
You aborted SOW?
When all's said and done
To whom will you BOW?

More sooner than late
Your end will come
In the pit ALONE.
With no one to ***.

Who'll put you there,
Bound in your chains?
Why! GOD! Of course...

... for Jesus Christ REIGNS.


Soul Survivor
Catherine Jarvis
(C) February 2014

I am burning inside.
My anger is a tiger,
A tiger burning in the forest
Of the night... dark as
Aged blood on a
Midnight shroud.

I must accept the truth of
My life. And find complete
Forgiveness for those who
Have done their level best
To destroy it.

The ones who have taken
The blood from my veins
And ripped out my heart.
Who killed my dreams
Now, once again, stillborn
In my arms.

I won't allow self pity to
Replace that sweet child.
A poison changeling
To suckle my bossom
And bite the ******.

I'm angry.
But it could be worse.

I could have a
Body wracked with cancer.

I could have been born
In a body stunted and
Wizened... with a
Conciousness to
Understand my
Predicament...
A quadrepalegic.

I could have been born
In a sewer in Calcutta.

From dawn of day
Til day's begun
Count your blessings

One

By

One.

One day
forgiveness
Will come.

sometimes you just can't stop crying
and you don't know why
but you know the river runs deep
hence the tears never seem to dry
you wait for a break in the clouds
and you pray to see the sun
even beneath the dying rainbow
your work is never done

all you know is the river runs deep
and you pray to see the sun

Lie and die.
Swear and perish.
Truth's not real.

Ask and seek
But answers never known,
Forever unknown.