We had a very happy conversation about family matters.

Mom, Dad. I’m OK.
They’ve been really honest with me
but they’re perfectly willing to die for what they’re doing.
And I want to get out of here
but the only way I’m going to
is if we do it their way.
And I just hope that you’ll do what they say
Dad
and just do it quickly.
I really am alright.
I just hope I can get back to everybody really soon.

My little girl.

Catherine and Randy gave impeccable dinner parties.

I am an Establishment person.

I am being held as a Prisoner of War
and not as anything else.
I mean I am being treated
in accordance with
international codes of war.
I’m not left alone, and I’m not just shoved off somewhere.
I mean, I am fine.

Also, since I am an example
and it’s really important
that everybody understand that
you know,
I am an example and a warning.

And so people should stop acting like I’m dead.

Mom should get out of her black dress,
that doesn’t help at all.
and just hurry.
Bye.

Patty honey I want you to know
that your father is doing everything in his power.
Millions of people all over the world are praying for you
I know it’s been a long time sweetheart
but keep up your courage
and you keep praying
pretty soon god will touch their hearts
and they’ll send you home.

Mom, Dad.
I've been hearing reports about the food program.
So far it sounds like you and your advisors
have managed to turn it into a real disaster.
Anyway, it certainly didn't sound like the kind of food
our family is used to eating.

I called him a couple of weeks ago and said,
Hey, Randy, let's play tennis.
We haven't played tennis in months
and he said
Gosh. I just can't. I'm busy.
I know he's got a lot on his mind,
But, I think he's pretty obsessed with this.

Mom, Dad.
Tell the poor and oppressed people of this nation
what the corporate state is about to do.
Warn Black and poor people
that they are about to be murdered
down to the last man, woman and child.
Tell the people,
Dad
that the removal of expendable excess,
the removal of unneeded people
has already started.

I have chosen to stay and fight.
I have been given the name Tania
after a comrade who fought alongside Che in Bolivia.
It is in the spirit of Tania that I say,
'Patria o Muerte, Venceremos.'

She was one of the prettiest young women south of the Mason‐Dixon line.

Q. Okay. As a matter of fact, when you got to 1827 Golden Gate, or this apartment on
Golden Gate, you were not being held in that closet all the time, were you?
A. Yes, I was.
Q. You were?
A. Yes.
Q. Was there a previous closet in which you were held?
A. Yes.

DEATH TO THE FASCIST INSECT THAT PREYS UPON THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE

She is a winsome beauty and her sweetness of manner has endeared her to all who know her

Whatever happened to the real men in this world? Men like Clark Gable? No one would have carried off my daughter if there had been a real man there.

She was somewhat of a revolutionary savant.
We kidnapped a freak.
I think that she was spectacular.
At that point, it was against her will to go home.

Q. And you moved in a car, I take it?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you blindfolded?
A. Yes.
Q. And whose car was it, do you know?
A. I don’t know. I was put into a garbage can that was ******* and put in the trunk of the car.
Q. And then, was the garbage can taken into the apartment on Golden Gate when you arrived?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you in it?
A. Yes.
Q. And you were placed in a closet immediately, is that correct?
A. Yes.

I. She’s an amoral person
thought that the rules did not apply to her.
She lied to nuns at school
about her mother having cancer
in order to get out of an exam
engaged in ****** activity
at an early age
and experimented with drugs
such as LSD.

II. Velcro Theory defined the aimless, lost souls
such persons, he said, who float around
in an empty moral space
and then find stuck to them
the first random ideology they bump into.

III. She is a celebrity prisoner of war
but the other thing
is that listening to her voice
is kind of hypnotizing
and not at all unpleasant
she speaks in this whisper
the well-enunciated voice
that someone called
the rich girl’s voice
The eerie voice of an heiress
and it's hard not to admire her composure
considering the ordeal she just went through.

We didn't know whether we were looking at a live girl or a robot.

Greetings to the people.
This is Tania.
Gabi crouched low with her *** to the ground.
Perfect love and perfect hate reflected in stone cold eyes.
To shoot first and make sure the pig is dead before splitting.
I died in that fire on 54th Street,
but out of the ashes I was reborn.
I know what I have to do.

Catherine was mentally and physically exhausted after the kidnapping. No wonder she developed a drinking problem.

Q. Okay. And is it true, Miss Hearst,
that you in the presence of Thomas Mathews ejected a live round from the M-I
that you had near you
and inserted that in the clip,
and put the clip back in the weapon?
A. I don't recall, it is possible.
Q. It is possible you may have.
And did you, in fact, also at that time
load a couple of live rounds
into the chamber of a revolver, a pistol?
A. I don't recall.
Q. Did you give Bill Harris a pistol
in the presence a Tomas Mathews?
A. I don't recall.
Q. You don't recall?
A. No.

I’ll think of it all tomorrow—I can stand it then.

I think this has been extremely ******* her
She's what the kids call ‘spaced out.’
Her religion holds her together.
And when you talk to her,
you see reality escapes her.
All she can say is that people are
‘persecuting’ Patty.
That's the word she uses,
‘persecution.’
We all love Patty,
and God knows she's had a terrible time,
but the whole complexity of the situation
seems to escape Catherine.

You're being told this
so you'll understand why I was kidnapped.
The S.L.A. has declared
war against the Government
I'm telling you now why this happened
so that you'll know
so that you'll have
something to use,
the knowledge
to try to get me out of here.
Bye.

I’m the happiest mother in the whole world.

I hope that you'll make sure that they don't do anything else like that Oakland business.

Q. Do you recall you spoke those words, Miss Hearst?
A. Can I see the transcript?

I don't believe Patty's legal problems are that serious. After all, she's primarily a kidnap victim. She never went off and did anything of her own free will.

From the moment I was kidnapped,
they consistently attempted to
discredit the revolutionaries.
After the first communique was received,
the pigs reacted by hauling out the stress machines.
The machines indicated I was being tortured
and kept awake 24 hours a day.
I guess that all the pigs expected me
to keep my mouth shut,
but I was furious.
They put away their trickology for a while.
If you believe the media,
you'd think I was totally weird.
According to them, I never mean anything.

Catherine, while still blond and attractive, has aged around the corners of the eyes.

Greetings to the people,
this is Tania.
Our actions of April 15
forced the Corporate State
to help finance the revolution.
As for being brainwashed,
the idea is ridiculous beyond belief.
I am a soldier in the People's Army.

I am Tania and We are not fooling around.

What could have been a tremendous instrument for change—Patty's kidnapping—has failed, and their old attitudes toward life—I guess it's called ‘conservatism’—are back

The kids who went to public schools
were not the kind of people
we should have close associations with.
As a result, I spent twelve years
almost totally surrounded by young people
who were busily developing
ruling class aspirations.

She has nowhere to go,
as resulted in only a change of captors.
But at least now,
as long as society is her
captor,
she does not have to worry about being killed.
Freedom may be a more awesome
alternative
-- you are not here to decide that.
We have a framework,
the SLA predicted this trial.
If we can't break the chain
at some point in their predictions,
there are going to be other Patricia Hearsts,
the blueprint is plain,
it works

A year and a half after her kidnapping,
she's in the safe arms of the law.
So, what does she do?
Patty gives the revolutionary salute,
even when she's in handcuffs.
And when she's booked,
she's asked her occupation
and what does she say?
Urban guerilla.

Bailey, I just –
I don't know him,
you know,
like he just kind of drifts in
and you know,
says blah, blah, blah
and I just go,
oh,
okay.

It was never true that our objective was to reconvert her.

You can almost see how Patty couldn’t relate to her—you know, trying to be so self-righteous and so upright.

Well, I always knew
that the Lord was in my life,
kind of on my shoulder.
I started to stray off
I always knew His hand
was there to bring me back.
I got to the house,
put my bags down in the entry,
went right to the kitchen
and the first thought on my heart was
I need to hear Jesus.
I picked up that Bible
and started in Matthew 1:1.
For that whole five days
I read and cried
and read and cried.

In short order, she returned to being the Patty Hearst of Hillsborough, California, the heiress herself.

It's kind of fun because back then,
there's nothing else to do but paint your nails.
It's really exciting.
I have been crocheting now.
At least, my mother came in and she asked –
she had asked me,
about my hair,
you know,
like
can I change it back?
She asked if there was a beauty parlor.

Her eyes are,
for the most part,
downcast,
as if she were sharing a secret with
herself.

She’s such a devoted, old-fashioned Southern lady, that we just died watching her facade break. That hysteria wasn’t just grief that Patty was gone—it was guilt, you know, ‘What have I done wrong?’

I'm being treated in accordance
with the Geneva Convention
and one of the conditions being
that I am not being tried
for crimes which I'm not responsible for.
I'm here because
I'm a member of a ruling class family,
and I think you can begin to see the analogy.

She writes these dramatic
love letters to her boyfriend saying,
"I want to keep up the fight for the revolution."
And she wants to overthrow the government in America,
which she spells A-M-E-R-I-K-K-K-A.

Q. And you were reading a paper, were you not, when they were in the store?
A. Yes.
Q. And you looked up from that paper, did you not, and you saw that William Harris was being held on the ground by someone and being detained, isn’t that true?
A. Yes.
Q. And you picked up an automatic weapon and shot in the direction of Mel’s Sporting Goods Store?

OBJECTION

I have a really nice brown pantsuit.
Al got it.
He has really good taste.

Trish Tobin
is telling her
that she is about to head off to Switzerland
to go skiing for three weeks.
I mean,
so what you have
in this compressed circumstance
is the old life skiing in Switzerland
for three weeks,
and Patty is saying,
I've got a life now.
I've got a new life.

The Hearsts are really ramping up for this one.
He is a bright guy,
but in terms of just his manner and his dress,
you couldn't help but be struck by
how square he was.

Q: I've become conscious and can never go back to the life we had before." Do you recall saying those words?
A: I don’t recall seeing a transcript of that tape.

I have chosen to stay and fight.

She is still an uncommonly handsome woman, prettier in fact than any of her daughters.

It’s a miracle she survived at all.
The ordeal nearly killed me,
Mrs. Hearst once admitted and,
asked what sustained her,
she answers instantly: My religion.
Yet her victory over despair
sometimes seems more apparent than real.
After her divorce, she moved to Beverly Hills,
where she supported Catholic causes
and joined the Beverly Hills Garden Club.

I just want to tell you like, my politics are real different from way back when.
Obviously, right.

Q. Is it not true that you ejected
from your automatic weapon
a live round and placed into it
an additional clip?
A. I did not have an automatic weapon.
Q. You did not?
A. No.
Q. What type of weapon did you have?
A. It was an M-I carbine.

She’s a victim of thought control by terrorists. And all I can do is hope and pray that God will bring her home again.

She was de-programmed and de-radicalized,
returned to the persona
more similar to what she was
She was essentially brainwashed
by her side team and her lawyers.
By the time she walked into the courtroom,
nail polish,
nice pair of shoes,
very well dressed,
it was impressive.

I'm terribly happy. More happy than predacious.
Do you have any notion what you'll say to her when you see her?
I'll tell her I love her.
Are there questions that you want to ask her?
No questions in my mind.


I want to see my parents, and my sisters... I'm really happy to be going home.

The all seeing iris imperial city
The swiftest of stylus this side of the ‘sippi
The trippiest spittin’ Promethean hippy
Conspiracy theorist of eeriest verse
The despotic hypnotic black flag bearin’ Hearst
Still immersing myself in a poverty trap
As I grapple with lack of fact check cashing crap
Cryogenically frozen emotion vibes flowin’
From out my funk bunker boombox
Overthrowin’
Your global dominion opinion with ease
Shootin’ breezes with Tirailleurs Senegalese
I’m the kid wicked picket sign paintin’ Tom Sawyer
The ill eagle Taino privilege enjoyer
Still swoopin’ in mean on each **** I make clean
Pick the bones dry of serpentine oil green dreams
Then I bury what’s left of your money machines
With the pharaohs of old’s latest pyramid schemes

The Checkout Line

I wish to speak with you
ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

The words and meanings you carry in your pants, the pick-pocket steals your hopes from time.
and the visions of empty trash receptacles
with their late evening drunken lovers' bouts, at restless end tables. And the bums with their ******* attitudes **** covered clothes, and soiled minds

the clarity of the curbside drunk, picking up shades of filtered cigarettes of twilight scandalous
pickup lovers in their evening best.

And to talk with you ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

They're Green Beret head ornaments
detailing the porcelain platforms of Delft
Lining up for one last line to carry them into another faded sunrise at dawn's forgotten memory of yester night
and they walk their gallows holding pride fully their flags of exalted countrymen.

The republic of teacups of literary proficiency.
Wearing the necklaces of paid tolls to an afterlife they find in the miniscule car crashes of engagement with a grinless driving mate in a neighboring car in its pass into the forethought of turned corners.
Where they befell the great disappointment of failure in the frosted eyes of their fathers' expectations.

Who carried the shame of their mother's incessant discontent through short skirts, and high heels.

Who disapproved of the **** whom wore the sneak-out-of-the-house-wear clothing line, and traveled by night over turbulent asphalt by way of sidecar through turn and turnabout hand-over-hand contracts of lover's affection, and slept in tall grasses of wet nightfall with views of San Francisco, and were trapped in the inescapable Alcatraz and Statesville of unconsenting parents and their curfews,

through trials and trails of Skittles leading to after school Doctor visits in the basement of a doting mother, whilst she sits quietly in her exclusive quilting parties with noble equities of partners in knowledge, listening to Edith Piaf and the like,

All the while condemned to time, trapped in the second hand, hand me downs of the 21st century, decades of decadent introverts with their table top unread notebooks, and old forgotten score cards, and the numbers of scholars of years past,

and to talk with you ten years from now will be my greatest pleasure, for you will be....ten year's behind.


They push the sterile elevator buttons, and descend upon the floor of scents flourishing from their crowded family rooms, only aware of distinctive flavors, in their middle eastern shades of desert gumbo,

Who speak ribbit and alfalfa until midnight of the afternoon, sharing fables of slaughtered giraffes and camels that walked from Kiev to Baghdad in a fortnight,

Who are aware the power is out, but continue to scour for candles in a dark room where candles once burned, where candle wax seals the drawers of where candles can be found. Where once sat gluttonous kings and queens in Sunday attire waiting for words of freedom from the North.

of Florence, Sochi,Shanghai
of Dempster, Foster, Lincoln
of Dodge, Ford, Shelby

Of concrete fortune tellers in 2nd story tenement blocks with hairy legs, and head lice, wearing beautiful sachets of India speaking ribbit and alfalfa.

On their unbirthdays they walk the fish tanks wearing their birthday suits to remind them who serves the food on the floors of the family room fish mongers tactics.

The old men wear gargoyles on their shoulders.

Lo! Fear has crept the glass marbles of their wisdom and fortune, blearing rocket ships and kazoos on the sidewalks of their Portuguese forefathers.

Where ancestry burns cigarette holes in the short-haired blue carpet, where Hoover breaks flood waters of insignificance across hard headed Evangelical trinities.

Who share construction techniques one early morning at four, where questions of Hammer and **** build intelligence in secondary faces of nameless twilight lovers, who possess bear blankets, and upheavals, finely wired bushes of ***** maturity. Eating *** and check, tongue and pen.

Where police caress emergency flame retardants over the fire between their legs, wielding the chauvinistic blade of comfort in the backseat of a Yellow faced driving patron.

With their innocent daughters with their nubile thighs, and malleable personalities, which require elite words and jewelry. Wearing wheat buns, Longfellow, and squire.

Holding postmarked cellular structure within their mobile anguish.

Who go curling in their showers, pushing afternoon naps and pretentious frou-frou hats over tainted friendships with their girlfriend's brothers with minimum paychecks'.

Through their narcissus and narcosis, their mirrored perceptions of medicinal scripture of Methamphetamine and elegant five-star meat.

Who amend their words with constitutional forgiveness, in their fascist cloth rampages through groves of learning strategies. And the closets, cupboards, and coins
with rubber hearts, steel *****, and gold *****,

Tall-tales of sock puppet hands with friendly sharing ******* techniques, dry with envy, colorful scabs, and coagulation of eccentric ****** endeavors, With their social lubricants and their tile feet wardrobes with B-quality Adidas and Reeboks gods of the souls of us. Who possess piceous syndromes of Ouiji boards in their parent’s basements.

When will fire burn another Bush? Spread the fire walls of Chicago, and part grocery store fields of food. Wrapping towels under the doors of smoke filled lungs, on the fingernails of a sleepover between business executives with the neoprene finish of their sons and daughters who attend finishing school, with resumes of oak furnishings,

And I long to talk with you ten years from now,
For you'll be talking ten years behind.

Who profligate their padded inventories breaking Mohammed and Hearst,
laying the pillows of cirrus minor
waiting for the rain to paint the eyes of the scriptures which waft through concrete corridors,
and scent the air with their exalted personas,

With the different channels of confusions, watching dimple past freckle, eating the palms of our tropical mental vocations to achieve purity from the indignation of those whom are contemptuous for lack of innocence in America,
this America, of lack of peace,
of America hold me,
Let me be.

Whom read the letters off music, blearing Sinatra and Krall, Manson where is your contempt?

Manson where is your manipulation of place settings?, you deserve fork and knife, the wounded commandments that regretfully fall like timber in an abandoned sanctuary of Yellowstone,
Manson, with your claws of the heart.
Manson, with your sheik vulgarity of **** cloaks exposing your ladies undercarriage,

Those who take their pets to walk the aisles of famished eyes,
allowing the dorsals of their backsides to wonder aimlessly through Vietnam and Chinaman,
holding peace of mind aware of their chemical leashes and fifteen calorie mental meals, holding hands, unaware of repercussion,

With their vivid recollections of sprinkler and slide, through dew and beyond,
Holding citrus drinks to themselves, apart from pleasure, trapped with excite from sunsets, and in-between.

Withholding reservation of tongue to lung.
Flowing ribbit and alfalfa, in the corridors of expected fragrance.

and to speak with you of ten years from now, will be a pleasure all my own, for you will be talking ten years behind.

They walked outside climbing over mountains of shrapnel, popped collars
and endless buffets of emotion,
driving Claremont all the way to art gallery premiers
and forever waited for plane crash landings
and the phone calls that never came

Glowing black and white cameras
giving modelesque perceptions to all-you-can-eat eyes
giving cigarettes endless chasms of light

Colored pavement trenches and divots
cliff note alibis
and surgery that lasted until the seamstress had gone into an
endless rest
and
empty cupboards

Classic stools painted with sleepless white smoke and bleached canvas rolling tobacco with the stained yellow window panes of feral tapestry and overindulgent vernacular

Like a satiated cheeseburger weeping smile simple emotion
on November the 18th celebrations
and Wisconsin out of business sales

Too much comfort, stealing switchboards from the the elderly, constantly putting gibberish into
effortless conversation.

Dormant doormats, with the greetings that never
reached as far as coffee table favelas,
arriving to homes of famished
furniture, awaiting temperate lifestyles and the window sill arguments from pedantic literacy

Silver shillings and corporate discovery clogged the persuasive
push and shove
to and from

Killing enterprise
loquacious attempt at too soon
much too soon
too soon for forever

Wall to wall post-card collages
happy reminders of the places never visited by drinks in the hands of
those received

Registered to the clouded skies of clip board artists
this arthritis of envy
of bathtub old age
wrinkled matted faces
logged with quick-fixes, anemia, and heart-break

disposed of off the streets
of youth, wheeling and wailing
rolling down striped stairs
of shock and arraignment
holding the hand rails of a wheelchair
suitcase
packed away in a life

Down I-37
into the ochre autumn fallen down leaves
and left memories behind
their green Syphilis eyeglasses

weeping tumuli
recalcitrant
mulish, furrow of beast and beyond

yelling, screaming, howling
at the prurient puerile tilling
of sheets

****** the voices of words
and vomiting the mind into the pockets of the turbulent perambulations
expelled from meat-packing
whispering condescension
and coercing adolescent obsessions
with fame, glamour, and *****

Creeping out into the naked
light of the Darger scale janitorial
closets, carrying the notorious gowns
of red wine spells, backpacks, and pins

henchmen, plaintiff, and youth

All the while
ripping at the incantations of the soul
whispering ribbit and alfalfa
in the guard-rail scars
of the dawns decadent forgotten

War of the worlds,
                                men bartering money
Dollar bills left abandoned,
                                               blown to smithereens
Battling dusts of torment,
                                            acceptance of surrender
Waging a money war,
                                       business men flee
In the shadows rises,
                                   a fallen angel
Akin to a phoenix,
                                from the ashes
She symbolizes a renewal,
                                             dying in fires
Sparks burning a nest,
                                       immortality supplying coffins
Diabolical legacies of past,
                                             bow & arrow
Punctured wounding broken heart,
                                                          ­   wings disallow flight
Stumbling a splintered hip,
                                               reborn a chance
Of independent determined autonomy,
                                                       ­             la Cuesta Encantada
Fallen at the gates,
                                an enchanted hill
San Simeon seeking redemption,
                                                     ­   death awaits her
Carrying body & soul,
                                       Santa María Maggiore
Of Roman baroque temples,
                                                 small cascading pools
Death releases her body,
                                         the Neptune pool
She floats without dissension,
                                                   sinking in grace
In all her glory,
                           Hearst Castle will
Entomb body & soul,
                                      memories of her

release release release

Absolution.

© Sia Jane

another invite!
******' hearst must take me for
a ******' optimist

A witches brew forget what you knew about what you knew.
Summer heat comimg down to Haight street.
Black leather. Huey P.

***** South..coming round.
The lottery for your vacation in the Mekong Delta

Power to the people  wattstacks.. love generations birthday.
Coast to coast conflagration.
Burn baby.
The Hearst chronicles
         Apollo flew from the Cape.
Kennedy casket draped for
a procession.
Economic depression.......

Tick. Tick  Tick.

A Place Called Harmony
This is just a spot in the road as the old saying goes but it does have history and it sets off of scenic highway one
Just a short country road then you turn on the street that goes up to the old creamery and the one
Building that still stands the place got its name from the fight between the creamy and the workers after
It was settled they changed the name to Harmony now the creamery is a gift shop and restaurant and
The only other building is occupied by the resident glass blower that allows tourist to come in and watch
Him create his pieces but what I can’t forget is the special guest that used to drop by for dairy products
Before continuing on to Hearst Castile as weekend guest names I know that receded into Hollywood’s
Past glory but still Rudolph Valintino and Jean Harlow create a sensation in the mind their shadows
Didn’t shine golden but in them was the unseen fixation here are the king and queen of the true
Golden age of Hollywood in harmony they were just real people for him no clothes of a desert sheik but
The smile was worth much more than the brandished desert sword the face and the physique that
Melted Untold thousands of lady fans they finally had it all in one person the desert prince who would
Conquer all fears and inhabitations they truly could float across a sea of sand end in the castle
Stronghold and all it cost was the price of a ticket to be enthralled enraptured and fall deliriously in love
All in a wonderful outing to the movies not bad we could use that kind of hero today instead of hearing
What a twit. Jean picks up where Rudolph leaves off anyone interested in sultry brooding gorgeous
Womanhood she delivered men found in her the gift to be a man stand on the mountain survey the
Lowlands then go and conquer take the good forge it into magnificence that matched the challenge she
Readily offered to speak a new language that captivates reverses the old and staid boring interaction so
Common because you just drift to the level you encounter all women possess the power to enliven and
Draw men up to higher levels jean could make it happen with the flutter of her eyes all women can do it
By the enriching highs that love easily generates to stand at the portal of a woman’s power know her
Grace and innocence puts drive and power in over drive the minute man sees it he becomes equal to
Race car driver’s airplane barnstormers of yesteryear a romantic figure looms and the woman finds it
exhilarating even some have been known to swoon all found and relived in simplicity in a place called
Harmony.

Pop bottles. Boxes of them.
The old man brought them home.
He collected them on the construction site, between lifts.
Sometimes it would be days between lifts,
So he filled time collecting bottles.
Hires, Fanta, Tab, Fresca, 7 Up, Mountain Dew,
Canada Dry...
Emptied by men, like him, from all over.
What conversations did he have with them
When he picked up the empties.
Did he indulge? He'd have liked Vernors.
Pop bottles were as good as gold.
Large bottles, a nickel: Small, two cents.
He kept us busy, weeding, straightening nails, digging, mixing cement, building fences, painting them, and the house;
Root cellars, garages, additions;
In fair, wet, or hot conditions.
Winter had it's own cuffs.

We'd cash in the bottles at Walker Bros.
Every Sunday he'd leave for weeks,
Up North, to places like Kapuskasing and Hearst.
He must've been thinking about us up there,
Collecting our bottles,
In fair, wet, or hot conditions.

When word spread in the Hearst Tower that Carolina Herrera would be pulling up a chair to chat with Elle’s Robbie Myers for a Masterclass Q&A;, the speed of the RSVPs rivaled those of Barbra Streisand.

In less than an hour, Herrera regaled the crowd with her telling insights and signature élan, detailing some of the highlights of her career and deconstructing the current state of fashion with her wit.

First things first, Herrera: whose own personal style is practically synonymous with elegance, said of that trait, “Elegance is not only what you’re wearing but it is the way you are wearing it. It’s the way you choose what to wear for your style, your personality, the way you live. It doesn’t have anything to do with beauty or money….It’s what you project — your taste in books, houses, paintings, the way you move, the way you talk.”

When Herrera decided to do what she now does, she turned to her “great friend” Halston, whose initial reaction was, “‘What have you been drinking? Are you mad?'” she said. But his trepidation was only due to how demanding the industry is, Herrera added. “You have to be passionate,” she said.

Diana Vreeland, a friend of Herrera’s husband Reinaldo‘s family, was her mentor — “a very, very interesting woman, intelligent, very for-the-moment,” she said. But her initial plan to design fabrics was not well-received by Vreeland. “She said to me, ‘Well that is the most boring thing that you are telling me. Why don’t you do a fashion collection for women.’ She gave me the idea,” Herrera said.

In business for more than three decades, Herrera said her company’s DNA remains rooted in sophistication, elegance and timelessness. “I want women to look like real women, I do not want them to look like clowns because of what’s in fashion. I like fashion to be for now and for the future. You cannot only be for the past…like everybody in life — painters, musicians — you have to evolve. You have to live in the times that we live in.”

With two of her four daughters involved with the business, Herrera said, “Of course, we have little problems — tiny, tiny — but they always end up doing what they have to do and they always end up doing what I say they have to do.”

Herrera is very much all about today’s social media with 500,000 Instagram followers and 1 million Facebook fans. “You have to listen to the likes, dislikes and whatever they say — that’s the excitement of social media. But if you start reading all the messages, you will not have a life. It’s impossible to read all of them.”

Here, a few of Herrera’s other observations:

• “I didn’t live at Studio 54 and I don’t wear the white shirt every day.”

• “It’s very important to possess in your house a full-length mirror.”

• “Bob Mackie did the naked look years ago for Cher. There was one — now there are many.”

• “There should be a little mystery with women. They have confused sexiness with femininity. They think to be **** you have to wear a dress that is four sizes smaller than you, and also show everything you possess.”

• “You go to the opera and you see a sea of sneakers. It’s not like before when things were in a certain way, and everyone pretty much did the same. There are not anymore rules in fashion. Everything is accepted. You have to be strong. You have to be you.”

• “Mrs. Obama has her own style and she knows exactly what she wants to wear.”

• “Perfume is the invisible accessory that a woman is wearing. It is very strong for your memories.”

• “Stylists are getting more famous than the people they dress.”Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses

The denouncement of
                                         human history
Men bartering dollar bills
                                                waging a money war.
How those business men flee
                                                     bank notes blown to smithereens
Battling dusts of torment
                                              acceptance of surrender.
Sparks burning a hollow nest
                              in the shadows a fallen angel
Cinders & ashes
                               a maleficent phoenix rises.
Diabolical legacies of past
                                                armoured; bow & arrow
Punctured wounded broken heart
                                                               wings disallow flight.
Stumbling a splintered hip
                                                  reborn a chance
Freedom, autonomy, independence
                                                                  of personal desires.
La Cuesta Encantada she
                                              falls at the gates
The Enchanted Hill
                                     San Simeon seeking redemption.
Death awaits her
                                Santa María Maggiore

Of Roman baroque temples
                                                   small cascading waterfalls
Her body released
                                  eternal rest.
She floats without dissension
                                                      The Neptune pool
She begins to sink
                                 in grace
                                                 in all her glory.


release release release


Hearst Castle entombing
                                               body, soul, memories
The peace which passeth understanding.


Absolution.

    
   © Sia Jane

Click the link if you'd like to listen to me speak this poem.

https://soundcloud.com/venniekocsis/the-separating

I have stared at pictures
of my face with
closed eyes

I have imagined
this is what I would
look like in a coffin

so I will be burned
turned to ash
sprinkled into the
soft earth of this Mother

so they can remember
the sound of my laughter
when I visited the trees

Some say "oh, that is so morbid!
how could you think like that?"

I reply, "how can I not,
when I know I'll be back?"

I am but just a blink
on this thing we call a life
when I return to stardust
I'll sleep a thousand nights.

But for now
I trudge the wreckage
of a complicated pain
to see if I can
build the strength
to return this way again.

How does one hold on to hope,
dying in the snow,
huddled 'round a barrel fire
as the sarin seeps the ground?

I say I am a washer,
some ask me what I mean
I have invisible knapsacks
strapped behind my knees

I have wondered why
I'd choose this kind of life
to feel the saddest parts
of a human's broken heart

Sometimes I stare at photos
I don't recognize myself
not the upturned nose
or the slight overbite of my jaw
I stare at foreign eyes
who was she before
she was forced to survive

I remember planets
where I sat beside the blues
places just like this one
without the sorrow

It has always felt abnormal
to be inside this skin
like my soul has always
fought a war
with being in human form

I have gazed at my face
in colorful gradients
long to kiss my lips
and feel their softness
to know just once
what it is like
to stand on the outside
of a bullet riddled body

I would hold my cheeks,
look at myself so sweetly
in all the ways I imagined
would happen if I was loved
unconditionally, fully,
wholly, without expectation

I have stared at the darkness
like it's a Hearst
where my dead flesh would rest first,
carried through dimensions
back to the before
if I could just have the courage
to step through that door

It doesn't feel familiar
being in this place
with the indifference,
the passivity and
the down turned faces

It's not to say I
don't have moments where I'm happy
but how can I skip through rainbows
when there is so much weeping?

I feel each time they ache
like it's my very own heart
like they're a piece of my existence
their shadowing lingering
in my footsteps and
I cannot catch a breath
for the intensity of
their desperate loneliness

I have stared at my hands
folded across my chest
the way my fingers would interlace
before the skin decays and breaks

the way humans display
other humans
to feel better inside
about the way
their loved one died;
pomp and circumstance
taking precedence
in lifelessness

I have images stamped in my head
my eyes black and absent
the way they'll be in the end

take it back
put it in concrete
make a chisel with a code
so deep
they'll have to go to
great feats to figure it out
because there are two choices
love and doubt

and in the end
neither will matter
it'll just be you and the stars
and the echo of grief
evaporating into the mist

and you will see your face
on white paper
with words about
a second of an inch thick
before you become separated
into a remember when

let the shards fly
sink into my skin cause
I'll be back this way again
but until then

I wonder what will be
written on my epitaph
she felt too much
she let the sadness gush
she whispered in the silence

No, No
save the stone
instead, make me flame
in my last moments let me shine
and be light
then take me to the sea
where the waves will bury me

and I'll return home
to tell them of a dying planet
and the few eyes
who have not yet lost hope

v.k poetry
copyright @ dbv publishing 2013

I like to sit by the calm evening bright with stars,
seven old warm stars.
vast marching processions of stars fulfil their round in
marriage. he was a thoughtful expression the smaller and by noon
of his half-weary race,
of whom thou hearst
thou rather pure ethereal presence---i am but a voice;
the rest, we live
without you. a shadow on with a conquering laughter,
drink and song, was done.