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My heart breaks every spring break
It breaks for kids like me who watch as others visit their home countries
While we cannot leave the USA
We have to sit and watch people butcher bachata
Watch how they're hips refuse to accept something other than Taylor swift
We listen when they come back with stories of how they thought our food was too different and not “Mexican” enough as if all Latin America is Mexico
We hear the laughs they make at our cousins back home for just being themselves
My heart cannot handle the privilege they wear on their sleeves when they come back
Knowing I might never see my own island
How I am thought it is ***** and dangerous
A place where girls should not be left alone
While they get the clean streets, they get to avoid the gangs
How they assault our girls
Don't tell me to just save my money and go next year
It is not that simple
We don't stay in your resorts
We live en el capital y los campos nunca los hoteles y la vida blanco
Aka the places you never set foot
You go to my island
You buy bracelets de mi bandera
You try to live my roots
But complain when I dare show pride for my people
The hypocrisy breaks my heart
It's blood pours onto my all American soil
Is my island nice?
Tell me do the trees sway as if they are dancing to Anthony Santos?
Do the branches act as the leading man guiding the leaves to swing their stems to beat?
Does the Dominican anthem ring in the hearts of the people
A pride that is new and vibrant radiating off their faces
How they have clear all their schedules to make sure you see the highlights of our land
When you eat do you feel as though each bite was made with the love of thousand of abuelas?
Can you envision the hours she spends over a hot gas stove stirring los habichuelas y arroz
Using what little food they have left over to feed you over their own blood?
Tell me does my island make you proud?
It makes my heart filled with joy
To know my people did something right that you would walk the same land as slaves
That somehow we got enough pride to make sure you had a good time that you were safe that you can have whatever you wanted
On my island
Tell me, what left is there to complain about?
Mi isla es mi corazón, mi sueño, es mi vida
Pero to you it is just another week out the calendar
My heart will break every march
Because when you come back you complain how in the Dominican Republic no one spoke to you in English
And I worry, how you think when Dominicans come here we should speak English
But when you come to our home you don't want us to speak our language
Your hypocrisy hurts
My island does all it can to make you happy
But you are never pleased
What more can we do
You take pieces of us and use them in your portrait of appropriation
You take our pride and use it as joke
My heart breaks
For the children like me
Never seeing their land
Except on Instagram in the middle of march

I met a man.
No, not just a man.
I met a gentle soul.
I met a knight hidden in the tropics,
I know he would fight for me if he could.

He is a man of kind words and promises,
He means what he says.
His eyes are dark,
They hide his beautiful heart.
His love is sincere.

His smile is fleeting in pictures,
But it lights up the world.
His voice is deep,
It moves me like thunder.
His intense gaze never makes me falter.

Souls like his are few and far between.
His words soothe my pain,
But they also make me laugh and cry.
He is a rock to support those he cares for.
He never gives up on them.

I met a man.
I met a strong, dark knight.
I met an incredible soul.
I found a love.
Or did I meet Eros in disguise?

He had been away. Just a few days, but long enough to feel coming home was necessary. He carried with him so many thoughts and plans, and the inevitable list had already formed itself. But the list was for Monday morning. He would enjoy now what he could of Sunday.

Everything can feel so different on a Sunday. Travel by train had been a relaxed affair for once, a hundred miles cross-country from the open skies of the Fens to the conurbations of South Yorkshire. Today, there was no urgency or deliberation. Passengers were families, groups of friends, sensible singles going home after the weekend away. No suits. He seemed the only one not fixated by a smart phone, tablet or computer. So he got to see the autumn skies, the mountain ranges of clouds, the vast fields, the still-harvesting. But his thoughts were full to the brim of traveling the previous November when together they had made a similar journey (though in reverse) under similar skies. They had escaped for two days one night into a time of being wholly together, inseparably together, joined in that joy of companionship that elated him to recall it. He was overcome with weakness in his body and a jolt of passion combined: to think of her quiet beauty, the tilt of her head, the brush of her hair against his cheek. He longed for her now to be in the seat opposite and to stroke the back of her calf with his foot, hold her small hand across the table, gaze and gaze again at her profile as she, always alert to every flicker of change, took in the passing landscape.

But these thoughts gradually subsided and he found himself recalling a poem he had commissioned. It was a text for a verse anthem, that so very English form beloved by cathedral and collegiate choral directors of the 16th C (and just that weekend he had been in such a building where this music had its home). He had been reading The Five Proofs for the Existence of God from the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas, knowing this scholar to have been a cornerstone of the work of Umberto Eco, an author he admired. He had also set a poem that mentioned these Five Proofs, and had set this poem without knowing exactly what they were. He recalled its ending:

They sit by a lake where dead leaves
Float and apples lie on a table. She
ignores him and his folder of papers

but I found later the picture was called
‘In Love’, which coloured love sepia.
Later still, by the time I sat with you,

Watched your arm on the back of a chair
And your hand at rest while you told me
Of Aquinas and his proofs for the existence

Of God I realised love was not always
Sepia, that these hands held invisible
Keys, were pale because the mind was aflame.

He remembered then the challenge of reading Aquinas, this Dominican friar of the 13C. It had stretched him, and he thought of asking his wordsmith of thirty years, the mother of his daughters, to bring these arguments together in a poetic form for him to set to music. She had delivered such a poem and it took him some while to grasp it wholly. He wondered for a moment if he actually had grasped it. But there was this connection with the landscape he was passing through. She had mentioned this, and now he saw it for his own eyes. She had been to Ely for the day, to walk the length of the great Cathedral, to stare at and be amongst the visible past, the past of Aquinas. He remembered the first verse as only a composer can who has laboured over the scheme of words and rhythms:

The Argument from Motion

Everything in the world changes.
A meadow of skewbald horses grazes
Beneath a pair of flying swans
And the universe is different again.

And no sooner is potency reduced to act,
By a whisker’s twitch or a word,
A word, that potent gobbet of air
Than smiles and tears change places.

And everything has changed. Back
Go the tracks beyond seen convergence
To a great self-sufficient terminus
Which terminus we might call God.

And so it was in such a spirit of reflection that his journey passed. He had joined the Edinburgh express at Peterborough to travel north, and the landscape had subsided into a different caste, still rural, but different, the fields smaller, the horizon closer.

Alighting from the train in his home city on a Sunday afternoon the station and surrounding streets were quiet and the few people about were not walking purposefully, they strolled. He climbed the flights of stairs to his third floor studio, unlocked the door and immediately walked across the room to open the window. Seagulls were swooping and diving below him, feeding off the detritus of the previous night’s partying in the clubs and pubs that occupied the city centre, its main shopping area removed to a mall off kilter with the historic city and its public buildings. What shops there were stood empty, boarded up, permanently lease for sale.

Sitting at his desk he surveyed the paper trail of his work in progress. Once so organised, every sketch and plan properly labelled and paginated, he had regressed it seemed to filling pages of his favoured graph paper in a random fashion. Some idea for the probably distant future would find its way into the midst of present work, only (sometimes) a different ink showing this to be the case. Notes from a radio talk jostled with rhythmic abstracts. He realised this was perhaps indicative of his mental state, a state of transience, of uncertainty, a temporariness even.

He was probably too tired to work effectively now, just off the train, but the sense and the relative peacefulness that was Sunday was so seductive. He didn’t want to lose the potential this time afforded. This was why for so many years Sunday had often been such a productive day. If he went to meeting, if he cooked the tea, if he ironed the children’s school clothes for the week, there was this still space in the day. It represented a kind of ideal state in which to think and compose. Now these obligations were more flexible and different, Sunday had even more ‘still’ space, and it continued to cast its spell over him.

He put his latest sketches into a sequential form, editing on the computer then printing them out, listening acutely, wholly absorbed. Only a text message from his beloved (picking blackberries) brought him back to the time and day. There was a photo: a cluster of this dark, late summer fruit, ripe for picking framed against a tree and a white sky. Barely a week ago they had picked blackberries together with friends, children and dogs and he had watched her purposely pick this fruit without the awkwardness that so often accompanied bending over brambles. He wondered at her, constantly. How was this so? He imagined her now in her parents’ garden, a garden glowing in the late afternoon light, as she too would glow in that late-afternoon light . . . he bought himself back to the problem in hand. How to make the next move? There was a join to deal with. He was working with the seven metrics of traditional poetry as the basis for a rhythmic scheme. He was being tempted towards committing an idea to paper. He kept reminding himself of the music’s lie of the land, the effectiveness of it so far. It was still early days he thought to commit to something that would mark the piece out, produce a different quality, would declare the movement he was working on to be a certain shape.

And suddenly he was back on the train, looking at the passing landscape and the next verse of that Aquinas poem insisted itself upon him with its apt description and tantalising argument:

The Argument from Efficient Causality

We are crossing managed washlands.
Pochards so carefully coloured swim
Where cows ruminated last summer
In a landscape fruit of human agency.

And I think of the heavenly aboriginal
Agent of all our doings in this material
Playground of earth I can pick up,
Hold and crumble and cultivate

And air that is mine for the breathing
And the inhabited waters that cling
As if by magic to a sphere. What cause
Sustains the effects we live among?

For there is no smoke without fire
And as we sow, thus we reap. Nihil
Ex nihil, therefore something Is,
Some being we might call God.

So ‘nothing out of nothing, therefore something is’.  Outside in the city the Cathedral bells were ringing in Evensong. The sounds only audible on a Sunday when the traffic abated a little and the sounds in the street below were sporadic. He thought of going out into the Cathedral precinct and listening to the bells roll and rhythm their sequences, those Plain-Bob-Majors and Grand-Sire-Triples. But he knew that would further break the spell, the train of thought that lay about him.

He sketched the next section, confidently, and when he had finished felt he could do know more. There it was: a starting point for tomorrow. He could now go towards home, walk for a while in the park and enjoy the movements of the wind-tossed trees, the late roses, the geese on the lake. He would think about his various children in their various lives. He would think about the woman he loved, and would one day assuage what he knew was a loneliness he could not quench with any music, and though he tried daily with words, would not be assuaged.

I am from VapoRub,
From Goya
And morisoñando.
I am from the traffic
And loud horns,
From the Caribbean heat,
And the city lights,
From the buildings
And the towers.
I am from the palm trees
And the coconut trees,
Dancing bachata
And merengue
In the beach,
From yaniqueque
Y plátano,
From tostones
And fish.
I am from Sunday gatherings
And loud family members,
From Jose, Maria, and Primos,
And the hardworking
Payamps clan.
I am from the
Madera’s baseball team,
From Canó, Sosa, y Ortiz,
From the long summer rides
To ***** Cana
And Samana’s beach.
From “work hard
Cause life is not easy”
And “family before friends.”
From Christianity
And Saturday morning sermons,
From God is good
And He brings joy.
I am from Santo Domingo
And Monción,
From Santiago
And Spanish ancestors,
From mangú con salami,
From rice and beans.
From the grandpa
Who owns the village
Surrounded by
Chickens, cows, and bulls,
From the business owner
And the well known uncles
In my hometown.
I am from the only flag
With a bible.
From the red, blue
And white.
From the most beautiful
Island in the Caribbean,
From Quisqueya y
Libertad.
I am from the
Dominican Republic,
The country that holds
The people I love and
Miss the most.
I am from the
Little Paris box
I keep next to my bed,
Filled with precious
Gifts and letters
That make me feel
A little closer
To them.

She's been next door
since my birth
and you may wonder how that
is even possible
when I am four or five years older than her.

I met her at a time
in my life
where my world changed,
and in this change
I tried to live--
to live for anything.

In my futile attempts
to find purpose
to conquer the beasts
of mental illness,
she's been at my window
to see this eternal struggle of mine.

She's wonderful
completely and utterly--
of course this doesn't mean she's perfect
and even more of course she's far from it.

But maybe it's that imperfection
that has allowed
her and I
to have open windows,
open hearts,
and open conversations--
no matter the
Time zones, languages, or illnesses
we always come back
understanding each other
just a little bit more.

Afghanistan needs hellopoetry
Albania needs hellopoetry
Algeria needs hellopoetry
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Angola needs hellopoetry
Antigua and Barbuda needs hellopoetry
Argentina needs hellopoetry
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Australia needs hellopoetry
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The Bahamas needs hellopoetry
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Congo, Republic is in need of hellopoetry  
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(PIANO DI SORRENTO.)

Fortu, Frotu, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side,
On my knees put up both little feet!
I was sure, if I tried,
I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco;
Now, open your eyes—
Let me keep you amused till he vanish
In black from the skies,
With telling my memories over
As you tell your beads;
All the memories plucked at Sorrento
—The flowers, or the weeds,
Time for rain! for your long hot dry Autumn
Had net-worked with brown
The white skin of each grape on the bunches,
Marked like a quail’s crown,
Those creatures you make such account of,
Whose heads,—specked with white
Over brown like a great spider’s back,
As I told you last night,—
Your mother bites off for her supper;
Red-ripe as could be.
Pomegranates were chapping and splitting
In halves on the tree:
And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone,
Or in the thick dust
On the path, or straight out of the rock side,
Wherever could ******
Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower
Its yellow face up,
For the prize were great butterflies fighting,
Some five for one cup.
So, I guessed, ere I got up this morning,
What change was in store,
By the quick rustle-down of the quail-nets
Which woke me before
I could open my shutter, made fast
With a bough and a stone,
And look through the twisted dead vine-twigs,
Sole lattice that’s known!
Quick and sharp rang the rings down the net-poles,
While, busy beneath,
Your priest and his brother tugged at them,
The rain in their teeth:
And out upon all the flat house-roofs
Where split figs lay drying,
The girls took the frails under cover:
Nor use seemed in trying
To get out the boats and go fishing,
For, under the cliff,
Fierce the black water frothed o’er the blind-rock
No seeing our skiff
Arrive about noon from Amalfi,
—Our fisher arrive,
And pitch down his basket before us,
All trembling alive
With pink and grey jellies, your sea-fruit,
—You touch the strange lumps,
And mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner
Of horns and of humps.
Which only the fisher looks grave at,
While round him like imps
Cling screaming the children as naked
And brown as his shrimps;
Himself too as bare to the middle—
—You see round his neck
The string and its brass coin suspended,
That saves him from wreck.
But today not a boat reached Salerno,
So back to a man
Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards
Grape-harvest began:
In the vat, half-way up in our house-side,
Like blood the juice spins,
While your brother all bare-legged is dancing
Till breathless he grins
Dead-beaten, in effort on effort
To keep the grapes under,
Since still when he seems all but master,
In pours the fresh plunder
From girls who keep coming and going
With basket on shoulder,
And eyes shut against the rain’s driving,
Your girls that are older,—
For under the hedges of aloe,
And where, on its bed
Of the orchard’s black mould, the love-apple
Lies pulpy and red,
All the young ones are kneeling and filling
Their laps with the snails
Tempted out by this first rainy weather,—
Your best of regales,
As tonight will be proved to my sorrow,
When, supping in state,
We shall feast our grape-gleaners (two dozen,
Three over one plate)
With lasagne so tempting to swallow
In slippery ropes,
And gourds fried in great purple slices,
That colour of popes.
Meantime, see the grape-bunch they’ve brought you,—
The rain-water slips
O’er the heavy blue bloom on each globe
Which the wasp to your lips
Still follows with fretful persistence—
Nay, taste, while awake,
This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball,
That peels, flake by flake,
Like an onion’s, each smoother and whiter;
Next, sip this weak wine
From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper,
A leaf of the vine,—
And end with the prickly-pear’s red flesh
That leaves through its juice
The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth
…Scirocco is loose!
Hark! the quick, whistling pelt of the olives
Which, thick in one’s track,
Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them,
Though not yet half black!
How the old twisted olive trunks shudder!
The medlars let fall
Their hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees
Snap off, figs and all,—
For here comes the whole of the tempest
No refuge, but creep
Back again to my side and my shoulder,
And listen or sleep.

O how will your country show next week
When all the vine-boughs
Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture
The mules and the cows?
Last eve, I rode over the mountains;
Your brother, my guide,
Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles
That offered, each side,
Their fruit-*****, black, glossy and luscious,—
Or strip from the sorbs
A treasure, so rosy and wondrous,
Of hairy gold orbs!
But my mule picked his sure, sober path out,
Just stopping to neigh
When he recognized down in the valley
His mates on their way
With the *******, and barrels of water;
And soon we emerged
From the plain, where the woods could scarce follow
And still as we urged
Our way, the woods wondered, and left us,
As up still we trudged
Though the wild path grew wilder each instant,
And place was e’en grudged
’Mid the rock-chasms, and piles of loose stones
(Like the loose broken teeth
Of some monster, which climbed there to die
From the ocean beneath)
Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-****
That clung to the path,
And dark rosemary, ever a-dying,
That, ’spite the wind’s wrath,
So loves the salt rock’s face to seaward,—
And lentisks as staunch
To the stone where they root and bear berries,—
And… what shows a branch
Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets
Of pale seagreen leaves—
Over all trod my mule with the caution
Of gleaners o’er sheaves,
Still, foot after foot like a lady—
So, round after round,
He climbed to the top of Calvano,
And God’s own profound
Was above me, and round me the mountains,
And under, the sea,
And within me, my heart to bear witness
What was and shall be!
Oh Heaven, and the terrible crystal!
No rampart excludes
Your eye from the life to be lived
In the blue solitudes!
Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!
Still moving with you—
For, ever some new head and breast of them
Thrusts into view
To observe the intruder—you see it
If quickly you turn
And, before they escape you, surprise them—
They grudge you should learn
How the soft plains they look on, lean over,
And love (they pretend)
-Cower beneath them; the flat sea-pine crouches
The wild fruit-trees bend,
E’en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut—
All is silent and grave—
’Tis a sensual and timorous beauty—
How fair, but a slave!
So, I turned to the sea,—and there slumbered
As greenly as ever
Those isles of the siren, your Galli;
No ages can sever
The Three, nor enable their sister
To join them,—half-way
On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses—
No farther today;
Though the small one, just launched in the wave,
Watches breast-high and steady
From under the rock, her bold sister
Swum half-way already.
Fortu, shall we sail there together
And see from the sides
Quite new rocks show their faces—new haunts
Where the siren abides?
Shall we sail round and round them, close over
The rocks, though unseen,
That ruffle the grey glassy water
To glorious green?
Then scramble from splinter to splinter,
Reach land and explore,
On the largest, the strange square black turret
With never a door,
Just a loop to admit the quick lizards;
Then, stand there and hear
The birds’ quiet singing, that tells us
What life is, so clear!
The secret they sang to Ulysses,
When, ages ago,
He heard and he knew this life’s secret,
I hear and I know!

Ah, see! The sun breaks o’er Calvano—
He strikes the great gloom
And flutters it o’er the mount’s summit
In airy gold fume!
All is over! Look out, see the gipsy,
Our tinker and smith,
Has arrived, set up bellows and forge,
And down-squatted forthwith
To his hammering, under the wall there;
One eye keeps aloof
The urchins that itch to be putting
His jews’-harps to proof,
While the other, through locks of curled wire,
Is watching how sleek
Shines the hog, come to share in the windfalls
—An abbot’s own cheek!
All is over! Wake up and come out now,
And down let us go,
And see the fine things got in order
At Church for the show
Of the Sacrament, set forth this evening;
Tomorrow’s the Feast
Of the Rosary’s ******, by no means
Of Virgins the least—
As you’ll hear in the off-hand discourse
Which (all nature, no art)
The Dominican brother, these three weeks,
Was getting by heart.
Not a post nor a pillar but’s dizened
With red and blue papers;
All the roof waves with ribbons, each altar
A-blaze with long tapers;
But the great masterpiece is the scaffold
Rigged glorious to hold
All the fiddlers and fifers and drummers
And trumpeters bold,
Not afraid of Bellini nor Auber,
Who, when the priest’s hoarse,
Will strike us up something that’s brisk
For the feast’s second course.
And then will the flaxen-wigged Image
Be carried in pomp
Through the plain, while in gallant procession
The priests mean to stomp.
And all round the glad church lie old bottles
With gunpowder stopped,
Which will be, when the Image re-enters,
Religiously popped.
And at night from the crest of Calvano
Great bonfires will hang,
On the plain will the trumpets join chorus,
And more poppers bang!
At all events, come—to the garden,
As far as the wall,
See me tap with a *** on the plaster
Till out there shall fall
A scorpion with wide angry nippers!

…”Such trifles”—you say?
Fortu, in my England at home,
Men meet gravely today
And debate, if abolishing Corn-laws
Is righteous and wise
—If ’tis proper, Scirocco should vanish
In black from the skies!

i'm living on a solitary prayer
vandalized my ego to make it rare
with teeth stained with lies i've told
and promises lost in the cold

i tussle and taser to hide my lovers
and all that i am - a mess or tastemaker
sprinkling tersely on my mercy seat
will make my season go complete?

i pull the labrys & the throttle
artefact-sprites in uranium soil
declaring my truth atop of the flagpole
i'm the custodian of haute culture

a flotilla of judgment riding skyhigh
like dido's love-lachrymose down demise
they say "better rethink your useless vendetta"
but first we'd better get out of their siberia

where the masses doubt the angry fix
"ignore the (g/h)aze above the pyramid
if we only couldn't have any more
locked in dominican ****** wards

What's happening to hello poetry?
I don't need to know when the next soccer game is
And if I can watch for free.
Only football I know is American like the pride that's in me.
My blood doesn't boil the native sounds of my country.
Since my  motherland is the Dominican
But America my step motherland won custody and raised me, since the age of three.
Don't forget is not who made you but who you fed you, who clothed you, who saw your first shot to a basket, who saw your first catch, who kept your body warm when you got another cold, and so on.
This is "Breakfast for Champions"
Just ask Kurt Vonnegut

What's happening to hello Poetry?
Show your art
Get your due diligence
Don't sell us your dreams don't broadcast your business unless is a story, book signing or deal.
I don't need a spell to make a girl fall in love. I got these words
For and to whom I might propose
Love or an indecent occasion of lust.
Let my words be the for front on this site but they're second to my actions.
Since I don't speak much b'cause my Latin accent.

What is happening to hello poetry?
Private messages by strangers who don't write or speak words.
Claim is urgent and as a poet
You know kind hearted, love lost, And so on...
You just might want to message their Hotmail.
Sad story under prosecution
Sad story the relation is abusive
Mocking the painful truths of some of us artist.
Just wanting a piece of the pie
But when I order I even eat the crust and never leave crumbs.

Take offense or not I just don't give a ****.

Vernarth says: "Give me some milk, and I will be the son of Zeus, perhaps as a means in everything and not a whole of which I never thought...!"

Wonthelimar from the Boedromion brought the arrows that Zefian brought, they brought the sleeping bodies of winter to the lap of the spring Boedromion, crossing the lines from spring to winter in the cycle that went directly to the Mercurial Ambrosia of the Cinnabar. Were they discreet detached arrows that he had thrown into the sky and did not return? but if in the rooms, and in the animalism stages that made the duty of rejoicing at the ****** of the Telesterion.  Wonthelimar being once more re-looted, before starting the works of the temple of the Megaron Áullos Kósmos, he returns to the cavern of Chauvet Wonthelimar. It distanced itself from the contravention of Apollo and Artemis towards an olive tree, originating in the arrows of Zefian, to mark the new cardinal points of the zenith, starting with the first two arrows that are placed in the bowstring, each one belonging to trajectories from north to south and the other two that were again violated with the arc of the stormy East, to launch the arrows from east-west with limits of southern magnetism. He carried in his belongings "The Iberian Rings", which would be the migration to the cardinals and points where the Megaron of Vernarth would be exactly, arguing that the phalanges of Zefian would be ordered in Syntropia and organic chaos in Patmos, Pythagorean proportions would be made, in essences of numbers that idly advanced in the temporal steps of Wonthelimar that mobile became of religious arrows and of the Mercurial Ambrosia of the Cinnabar, to help him with the most insightful points of the Constellation of Capricornus.  Zefian's tendency was one of evident delight after the bowstring being pulled, for phantasmagoric existence; presuming that where they fell would be the beginning of the storms that would originate the Állos Kósmos Megarón, for late courts imposed from a cosmos, which was directed by committing itself to its will and from a doubtful Vestal god advocating to associate with hospitable Canephores, such as Vestal Virgins of Roman bilocation, and quantum parapsychology of the dreaded in-between-tale alive that boils back in the arrows that had not yet fallen, and did not know their whereabouts. Like plates or serial hosts that were evoked from where the origin of the Universe was broken, to open towards the Duoverso contravened organic, vigorous and in anti-scorch to the divine celestial origin as a parameter of *****-ovule, rather in eonic instances in the fireplace of Hestia, running in eternities to vast volumes of light-years.

From the medrones that grow in the Nyons massifs, the Seven Ibic Rings were established.

Ibic 1: "The first was from the initiation of Wonthelimar and brought purity, for all who needed him and were visiting in the dark, and then he would find the light when he left the cave alive if he was accepted."
Ibic 2:” He was guided by Vlad Strigoi in the priesthood center on his shelves with the Chiroptera, and in excess of the mercurial ambrosia for the purpose of energizing the Tsambika Cinnabar.  Having all the protocol of Transylvania and eternity with the waters of Antiphon Benedicts”.
Ibic 3: "From the Eygues, the waters evaporated for healings of the tormented initiatory processes of raising the four Arrows of Zefian, to indicate the zenith of the Megaron."
Ibic 4: “This ring was from the antlers of Wonthelimar, here they wore the oikos or threads of Gold from Orphi, for the Himation and investiture to anoint the body of Vernarth, bringing the aerial atmospheres of the Alps and Ida as a complement to Mycenae- Aldaine ”.
Ibic 5: "This piece of metal speaks of the fifth plasmic element that would contract the universe and the Hyperdisis galaxy, to elevate it to Vernarth's neurological and Duoversal hyper brain twinned to the Mashiach."
Ibic 6: "It is the sixth piece of crowns of Kafersesuh, bringing the pollinations of the Lepidoptera, for the central stage of the investiture under the gloom of Hellenika and Theoskepasti."
Ibic 7: “It is the grave voice of the Cinnabar and the Antiphon Benedictus, together with the Lenten fast of all the hoarse voices, which inquire about the true phoneme and photon of divine mass light, to build the Áullos Kósmos. From here the purification will go up in synchrony through the final growth medron, up to the millimeter shoulder of the square meters assembly, which will illustrate the Megaron´s Acrotera  "

Ellipsis - Parapsychological Regression Marielle Quentinnais year of the Lord 1617

Wonthelimar was transmigrating to Chauvet, but the Pontias wind carried him from Nyons to Avignon, encountering filigree by Raymond Bragasse; a Former Dominican priest of Cathar descent. He always drenched himself in the estuaries of the Rhone, which came from the Saint Gotthard massif; being master and lord of dreams and of the breaking curses of the despicable administrators of the house of God, and of the Antipopes in Avignon.
Wonthelimar heard voices from some parapets babbling in the parapsychological regression of Vetnarth, on August 4, 1617, when Klauss Ritkke was found cleaning the main stained glass window; he heard heated dialogues between a Friar and a Gentleman, who was once an assistant to the clergy. Klauss could come closer and hear his conversation more clearly, until Friar Andrés, muttering, demanded indulgence from Raymond Bragasse, one or the other.

Raymond Bragasse Says: “My lord Wonthelimar; what grace has brought us together here in the middle of the Pontias, between hopes and reforms!”

Wonthelimar responds: "Your flight is a spell of the grace of André Panguiette, who will find us again. How many times with hope I fought to reform you Raymond... Oh Virga ac Diadema  sed Diabolus...!! Oh, ****** the devil smiled...!!

Raymond replies: “It is a major question to live if in something I have failed, take me to the sulfurous emanations of Hell. But my faith lies moldy at the bottom of the sea, a sacred myth of my truth..., and of my beloved Marielle...! There are fifteen thousand demons that possess my body... fifteen thousand demons for attacking the sacred mystery of the Holy Rosary...! Marielle was my light, my Edenic Eve, an admirable land. Now, she is my spell, my stubbornness or my constant sharp bleeding, without knowing where it has to pass...? I still remember that night, that gloomy night, renouncing my final vows of faith and the consecration of my soul. I broke my ties and ecclesiastical chores, all for Marielle, a noble descendant of the Quentinnais. I would never believe such regret in my destiny. I did love her, but her misfortune knew me. When I approached the edge of her house that night, I entered through the kitchen window. All were asleep, except for the albiceleste reflection of the last death throes of the deadly round of Quentinnais Mansion. I was thinking of rescuing her and saving something from those cheeks kissed by me, but her heart disease dried up his heart and her lungs. It is still possible to recall the last roses that I brought into her hands, they danced with her along with the hymn and the old dirge of the sleight of hand made by the monk, along with the cartomancy plays settling the minute of taking her into darkness, with her beautiful bare feet. What a pain, I could not rescue her from her, and death was dispossessing her! Her parents hated the mere fact of having her heart ruled by an impious priest, so I turned to the pagan and dark gods, to heal Marielle, and her heart to transplant it for mine. Since that day, I continue to burn in a polysatanic hell, to take out the little breath of goodness, and seize the transparent liquids that plague her existence and her serene metallic Diadem..."

Friar André Panguiette upon learning that his great friend possessed by the Devil would fall into some endemic evil infection...; Evil endemic to his love, he crossed himself when he saw that he became a horrible being. The jumbled leaves in the garden were transformed into Bible sheets torn from their bindings and fillings, the wrinkled ***** Saints slid down their columns, the sky proclaimed hemorrhages and the wind oozed foul gases, which in the firmament sprouted in clots of clots on the Papal House of Avignon. Fray Andrés, threw the rosary on the neck of the possessed person, and asked the Demons who were they most afraid of...? The demons answered this question, screaming and falling vertically down the central nave... they went down and flew!

Wonthelimar induces: “From that moment, you and Marielle would cross their gazes closely and love each other. In the following minutes of Pentecost, the two of them went alone to sit on the bench on the banks of the blessed wind that caressed their profiles, as if plotting to unite one with the other. Raymond effusively kissed her; he drew her to him, believing he sensed an eventual and sacrilegious separation from her. This is how it happened when François Quentinnais surprised them...:

François Quentinnais: With this example, you have provoked my anger Marielle...! Hundreds of men like me would react like this when they saw my daughter in the arms of whom until recently, she was hugging God!

Marielle: Father, I beg you for mercy, Raymond of precept sent a letter renouncing his vows!

When the soul of Marielle was entrusted, Raymond escaped seconds before shattered, he did not tolerate the nonexistence of Marielle; vegetating rotten grass of the estuary, emerald swallowed by fire. In a purely inorganic state, Raymond walked away from the mansion, walked through the leaden mountains, and on the cruise he walked through the walnut trees in whose scarlet pods the intense cold of the esplanade howled. The almond trees cracked a baritone muezzin, which one day he wanted to go there, but could never reach the east. His beard reddened, his nails were like ram's horns, and his also reddish hair at the ends of it had black tulips. His clothes turned gray just like his eyebrows, and his breath smelled of nurse sewers of the black plague, the dry flow of his voice announced monosyllables, thus he purged his pain from town to town, from house to house, everyone quarreled with him, and then they were exasperated by kicking him out. Until in June 1617, caravans of people started from the southern town of Avignon, escaping the flames of angry soldiers of the crusades. The fleeting townspeople carried on their banners the inscription... INRI. On the other side, they carried the cross and a colorful coat of arms that in the lower corner said Siccidemy. Then, there Raymond opened his bruised eyes, unable to contain the recovered memory of him, between gunshots, screams, sobs, and screams, the hundreds of steps that were heard around him, led him to tear and save his life. In an instant of stillness, he found himself surrounded by people until one of them took him into his arms to hydrate his mouth. We are Albigensian, and you... Who are you?

Raymond replied: “I fled in search of a miracle that could save a beloved being. I used to call myself Raymond, now I don't know what name to go by. I fled, but I had to face the situation, even having acted behind the back of the Church”. An Albigensian says: “The clergy have also believed that our sect has acted behind the back of the Church. However, his powers and his government have registered absolutism within Christendom”. Another Albigensian says; “We seek the establishment of ancient Christianity, we deny the existence of purgatory, the importance of rituals, clerical organizations and the possession of goods by the clergy. And for this reason, we have been expelled from our lands, from our homes, our children have paid for the Sacred Inquisition, in the hands of those who one day... baptized with blessed water”.

It was on June 18, 1617, the Albigensian fugitives were besieged in Montlimar. The Argentine crosses gleamed like dogs eager to bite the enemy. The open-minded Albigensians gathered together with Luzbel, who floated on a calypsigenic cloud. Raymond and the others piled up essences in the fuels to start the pact, after this event François Quentinnais answered negatively, and strongly took her daughter by her hand, pulling her sharply to the float. The horses slip their hooves before the sloping pastures carpeted by tiny Calypso flowers; the mayoral pressed his thin lips, also raising his shoulders, so as not to hear the despotic cries of Monsieur François. As for Reverend Raymond, he could be seen crying silently, accompanied by late halos of the luminosity of the final and sad day. Sorrows and regrets dislodged his bones that underwent violent arthrosis, populating his body in a sedentary lifestyle and irritation. I myself say Wonthelimar, I am the one who carries Marielle's love in me, I am your Raymond. Remember that night that...: "When the monk retired to pray, you stormed the bedroom, and uttered Marielle..., Marielle:," wake up, in vain I fear to leave without your divine voice. Marielle, what do you have...? I don't think your father's impure will blind your eyes to not see me, or he ripped your sweet voice to not name me...? ".

The Albigenses resigned to the spell, their adherents had largely been reduced, only ten or twelve remained. That later they fled from Montelimar escaping to the west, crossing the enchanted Rhone. The Siccidemy troops mutilated the last demonized Albigensians; nothing would help for their lives, everyone would bleed except the group that fled with Raymond. For several days they wandered the Cevennes plateau, provisioned themselves in Montpellier, and arrived in Carcassonne on July 20, 1617. Little could they remain here, since the congregation of Santo Domingo, without distinction, attacked the population decimated by the crusaders? What a regrettable exodus for Raymond with his black flock fleeing from where his feet laid hope! Twenty-two days of bitter flight, and everywhere the crosses, until Raymond decides to separate and go back to Avignon. He takes a  sailboat off the shores of Narbonne in the middle of a stormy gray day, in his bitter journey he dreams of being born again and having Bethlehem as a lineage, on July 23 of the same year, he lands in the waters of Marseille. When he was discharged from the port, he undertook a light journey to Avignon, near Arles, thousands of fellow citizens started from the hosts of King Godfred of Bouillon, the nobles cooperated by revealing the mobs that gathered in the city, the Hussites, and the Waldensians; Iconoclast heretics, fighting fierce battles. The crusaders took the offensive and tried to prevent them from burning their sacred images, which had already been torn to pieces throughout Gaul. Raymond, distant, helped the most serious, he was afraid of being confused by one of them, it was better to hide in the Cathedral of Arles. Upon entering, he felt a dizzy ***** that shone timidly in the hands of his performer... it was a little girl who, when looking at him, named him Dionysus..., demi-god, save us! Raymond fell into a daze, and falling into a dream that told him of barbaric actions, with masked fellow citizens lying neutral in their gestures, and suddenly angels revealed to him that they were looting the pantheons of Avignon, to burn the rosaries of the saints. Bereaved in their graves, some Albigenses exhumed the bodies of relatives related to the Clergy.

Raymond was sweating his hands and forehead, he struggled to get to the Quentinnais mausoleum, straining his precognition, he crossed the interdepartmental courtyard, he continued to haunt the packed pyramidal cypress trees and suddenly a lion-faced him dealing with a snake; with the symbolic image of the Quentinnais. He saw the slab desecrated, on whose horizon his Beloved Marielle slept. His skin prickled... it was the Iconoclasts avenging their own, with strong breaths he squeezed his hand, wanting to wake up... so it happened, he got up pushing the crowds that were holding him back, but his strength was growing. He rode a roan steed, in three bridles that he gave him he flew towards Avignon; his mount seemed to be a hot air balloon that flew with great dynamism. Raymond in his own painful station would moan his hand, his eyes; his legs creaked like the legs of the Pegasus that carried him fast.

Ellipsis Second Sequence Mausoleum Quentinnais

Finally, he arrives in the second parapsychological sequence, noting that Avignon was in ashes, takes the reins and immediately goes to the Quentinnais mausoleum, upon arrival, he appreciates several Albigenses committing crimes, dismounts, and runs screaming towards the defilers; he faced them with stakes, some demonized had to cut their throats, arriving in time to defend the remains of Marielle. For long hours he was with her alone, thinking about what to do, Raymond knew that he could not revive her, so he had no more redress than to invoke Luzbel, who this time revealed her true and evil personality as ruler of the evil spirits.

Raymond: Dear Luzbel, millions of Canaanites looked up at the altitude representing you; today I will do the same from here and beyond the solid roof of the mausoleum! Bring Marielle to life, come and twist her cheeks, since without her! I have had to live all this to protect myself from suffering. Since Pentecost, he hadn't been physically close to her. Now I need her... well, I lynched her...! Beelzebub making him believe that she was Luzbel, ordered him to extract her heart!

Beelzebub: “In Montlimar, I saw volcano crests arrive in such failure of my envoys. But it will not be repeated, and for it to be so, I entrust you to take out the heart of your beloved and tear the eyes from her that saw your gaze. Then open your chest with this dagger, I will draw your blood and heart, to moisten the heart of your Marielle. And finally, I ask you to bring a lip to me to enchant her lips in lilies. "

Raymond: “opinion accepted... that's the way I'll do it!
Being dominated by the spell, Raymond abided by every step dictated by the supposed that Luzbel lived difficult moments since he was a good day, but so many thousands of years of living in darkness, and in the midst of punishment that violently changed his mind. Justo Raymond carried the body in his arms so that the ritual would culminate. Luzbel snatched his beloved from him and with laughter he vanished.

Beelzebub says Mortal fool! Don't you see that I am Beelzebub; chief of the evil spirits and the guide of the Albigenses, Hussites, and Waldensians? Never invoke me in the Mausoleums, here betrayal triumphs. Now a Quentinnais will be my image on earth, giving her the doubt of doing well for many centuries.

Beelzebub took his beloved away, leaving the rosary wrapped in soft tulle next to the scapular in his hands. Raymond cringed in pain, and in an act of madness scratched his face. Poor Raymond, he told himself...!  That in himself he found no reason to live. He left the mausoleum at dawn looking around every corner in case he saw Marielle lost in his sight since recently. He was exhausted; he remained after the confession that was delayed too much because the events that took place in the Pantheon, in a way pretended to be the events that Raymond inexhaustibly narrated. And in a way, he feared for his life at that time unknown, by the mouth of some hidden place they documented his bitter inability to do well, and that he would fall under Raymond's curse. At this moment, Raymond lay lying on the banks of the Pantheon, from that day on, he did not know about the days, he only existed at night and he did not socialize with anyone, his madness sowed hatred for everything sacred and infernal, he dealt with the Holy Rosary found a magical find, until one day a new one reached her ears; she was referring to some crusaders who had intervened in Jerusalem when it was invaded by Saladin. A certain Frederick Barbarossa was drowned in Sicily by..., "Wonthelimar", who with the Diadem of a woman Seized the island of Iconium. This was the other new one that enlivened his spirit. This greatly surprised the worn Raymond, suspecting that the kidnapper of his beloved might be in cahoots. And as the news continued to hear her, it was said that her sacred beliefs allowed her to continue undercover, in order to continue for a long time, even in the other attacked city that would be Nice. He signed to the limit, for centuries that will serve us in future generations…, suffocating the iconoclasts.

The poppies moved from north to south through the Provencal regions. The oceanic eastern Gods Makara's in tumultuous pyramidal ships descended legions and escorts, to aid Raymond's farewell at Nice. At twelve o'clock at night, the prophetic edict of the Lord would be fulfilled, here the last words of that chimerical episode were received, and he feared that until then a first descendant of Raymond; he became a statue in ignitions of the reborn underworld. The Diadem will be transport and refuge, as for Wonthelimar he said doubtfully…; I think he is nothing more than the deviant Beelzebub, who with optical retractable eyes, in Montlimar disguised the initial in double V..., Wonthelimar, but I was wrong! Wonthelimar already transmigrated to Raymond, staying on the banks of a stream, with nausea he regurgitated his underlying spirit state from the lyrical crust. His mouth unsheathed the most diverse and heterogeneous chronolites; Parasitized dust in pieces of temporary stone, flowing in disciples, quarantine fragments, in marriages by sinuous water. Raymond slapped his thighs in anticipation of throwing up there. His blatant, incisive alienation took over his will, with inherent crickets singing to her in isolation from him, shining his conscience, and residing in the grace of the Holy Grail. The conquest of the earthly system amputated the Andromeda Amygdale; Constellation-illusion and spouse of Perseus, who is mysterious vehicles of the solvent Grail, kept him tied to Raymond. Deafening roars erupted from the earth pits, and the mass of the mountain hung above the trees, pseudo purple and violet rays bombarding sarcophagi all over Nice.

Wonthelimar: “Since this day I have been boiling in a polysatanic hell! The Ibex picked me up from the surroundings of the Pantheon and the Quentinnai mansion, where I have never been a human again, only an Ibex in the Chauvet cavern. Thanks to the herds of goats that adopted me that I have been able to bear their pain by taking refuge in the darkness of all times, which never transpires in the past, present, and future? Now I have come in this re-location, to reorder Vernarth's parapsychology, which you are too, and who has never been able to overcome the pains of love, even beyond pale death! "

From that moment, the shadow of Heracles is seen among them, encouraging them to be part of the gods, and of the feasts of the beautiful Ankles of Heba. Thus the words redecorated them both amid the thick fog, in Avignon. Afterward, Wonthelimar left and left Raymond to continue in Marielle's darkness to the end of the world. The blister day and the scorching night, thought one of the other in constant profit, for the good of finding them in the Kalijoron..., the well of the divine light of Eleusis, for those who rest in naive peace in the face of cunning, and the decorum of the gentle dialogues in the comedies of the exceptions, after crossing the Nile, with tributers collecting the faults of the gods, or else with horrific screams that would make them prey to an imaginary Gorgon.

Wonthelimar was now going after the “Íbics Ring”, which were left in the Chauvet cavern, by some Iberian tribes of the early Neolithic age, who were on their way out desecrated the cavern with ****** in the orbit of the Ortho Heliacal. From here, in the last goal, they reach the darkness where the vampire bats were terrified to see them with their eyes in mercurial ambrosia, which enveloped them with the gums in each one as they approached in the sound of night hunger arrests, next to the betrothal death brought by the darkness of the Strigoi, in lost wanderings of their wills following the search for the panescalm sheds, which carried human chiropterans for the regions of Transylvania, subjected to distinctions and exactions of Climate Changes. From here the bronze spear Dorus of Vernarth would go to the right hand of Wonthelimar, to shield him, and to put celery-foot feet on the ineffable Kanti steed, with certain renown of Eacid of Achilles stirring up hops and low bottoms of the mineral aquifer at the base of the den. In a quick figurative gesture of Achilles, Wonthelimar passes his right hand over his nose, noticing that lights trickled from the Auriga and the Automedon that came by order of Drestnia to provide aid to him, and to rescue the Iberian Ring Eagles, to transport them to the cove of the Mound of the Profitis Ilias.

In the eternity of the noise, Vlad Strigoi is in solidarity with him and gives him lightly from the bottom of the final flow of the bilges of his panescalm, condensing air of Gaseous Gold, in Pan-Hellenic regions, and in the Valdaine regions sixty-seven kilometers from that mountain area very close to Avignon. The infected zones of physical virtue were divided into micro-regions that were compressed before Wonthelimar merged into micro space within the cavern, to abandon the burning furnaces that came alongside his interpersonal goodness, in the metaphysical transfer of darkness, and of the wicked gentlemen drawing him towards the Parasha or Parashot of the Torah, so as not to be attracted as a human to ******-emotional implications or manipulations, who will snoop in growing voices in the voids of the cavern, and in the failing anxieties of the pompous and ancient effigy tarred from Hades. Wonthelimar limps superlatively with some nervous leave, but eager to apprehend the Ibic Rings. After the Benedictus antiphons were seen coming out of his chest, they were iridescent in magenta and mordoré for those who are ibex, always hiding under the goat epidermis, sponsoring happiness practices, one and the other after their vicissitudes in a cyclical mystery classroom. On the plains, you can only see haze and the experimental change when leaving everything in the hands of those who die without rainwater and bagel, in the most absolute solitude, amidst rocks that will never and never be reconverted, less into mid-plains giving terrifying compliments on flower baskets that stink of wandering Wonthelimar clones… not being!

Wonthelimar with Kanti, they emigrate from the cavern of Chauvet in their reminiscences, standing out from the voids and invocations of Raymond in unfinished by filling space in the hearts of both. Heading southeast towards Patmos with the Ibic Rings on his bracelets, wrapped in Vernarth's Himathion for his investiture!

I still remember her pinay almond eyes and peanut butter smile
even though she was a cracked nut.

I still remember chewing on her whiskey-sponged lips
her Koala cheeks and the Melbourne burn of her voice.

I still remember her throwing fits and things at me
we’ll chalk that up as the hazards of dating a Dominican woman.

I still remember her Grand Canyonized Salma Hayek thighs
as fat and meaty as her spicy Mexican tortas.

I still remember the coca leaf nature of her walk
and the precise coffee of her eyes that kept me up all night.

I still remember her catracha scent when escaping her man
just to lay the blue frosting of her clandestine mouth on mine.

I still remember her swiftly poetic like a Chico Barque song
the Brazilian beauty who netted in my heart a Pelé-size goal.

I still remember them.

I remember I was sixteen, and it was raining.
My father told me he was going to take me somewhere I'd never been before,
and I knew immediately where it was we were headed.

As we drove past used car dealerships all claiming to have the lowest rates,
and Dominican and Cuban restaurants painted in their vivid reds and whites and blues,
their reflections painted the roads in murky puddles of summer rain and gasoline.

Turning into the cemetery we were unsure of where to look for my grandfather's grave
as Jewish names cascaded by us;
and there it was.

It was thundering then, so we waited for the weather to calm a bit and then we hopped out of the car.
We walked over to my grandfather's tombstone, and placed our respective rocks atop it.
Then my dad and I stepped back, looking at my grandfather's grave.

And while smiling in the way that is appropriate in cemeteries,
when recalling a fond moment with a loved one,
the sun began to shine on our backs.

AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL?

Were you aware that our nation opposed Haiti's revolution for democracy in the early 1800s; that our nation's war against Mexico that began in 1846 resulted in our taking half of Mexico for ourselves; that our nation defeated Spain ostensibly to liberate Cuba, but actually established a military base on the island and furtively gained de facto control of its puppet government; that our nation seized Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Guam; that our nation had fought a brutal war to subjugate the Phillipines; that our nation had opened Japan for trade with us with threats and gunboats; that our nation created an "Open Door" policy with China to exploit it economically; that our nation engineered a revolution against Colombia to create the nation of Panama so we could build the canal through it; that our nation sent 5,000 Marines in 1926 to Nicaragua to counter their democratic revolution; that our nation in 1916 intervened in the Dominican Republic for the fourth time; that our nation in 1915 intervened in Haiti for the second time, and so on. Imperialism, not democracy, steered our nation's decisions and movements.

Did any of you learn about, let alone study extensively, any of these flagitious Ameican acts and policies as you sat and squirmed in your high school American history class? My surmise is that you did not. But I bet you were required in at least one of your classrooms sometime between 1st and 12th grade to stand at attention, as it were, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance as you saluted the flag in the corner. My riposte: What does it matter if our flags are waving, if our spirits are flagging?

Epilogue: Most importantly, never forget that it was the two evils of slavery and genocide that propelled our nation into what once was the most influential nation on Earth.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

His first love should've been basketball and his second, girls
because his name was Juan and he represented the white, red
and blue bandera, Dominicano puro cien porciento del capital
entiendes compai? understand homie?
and that label meant that he threw empty beer bottles
at abandoned houses and smoked second hand ****
because he was too broke to buy from the good dealers
and he hollered at girls with wide hips and short skirts that walked by
(oye mama tu si eres linda ven aquí!)
they would giggle and roll their eyes at him but of course
because he was one of those light skinned boys, the type
with light eyes and smooth brown hair that every girl dreamed
about, they would holler at him back the very next day
//
His first love was basketball and his second, was not
girls, his second love was words; it was the craziest ******* thing
in the world, to be a boy and not be crazy over women is one
thing, but to be Dominican and not in love with every muchacha
en el Barrio es una cosa de los maricones! as his best friend
would say as he shook his head disappointedly, muthafucka had
the finest beauties the Caribbean had to offer swooning as he
spoke, and he was in love with palabras de los gringos? but it didn’t
matter, he loved words like the junkies loved drugs and like
his best friend loved women, and while every other sin verguenza
on his block would dance to the hypnotizing beat of merengue and
bachata, he would watch by on the roof of the abandoned building
nearby and he would write it all down: how the lights of the neighborhood
had never seen more alive and how old man Victor looked youthful
dancing next to the neighborhood ***** and how his mother
looked happier than she had in a long time, swaying her body to the
calming voice of the old music she hadn't head in a while and
yes he was still the boy that threw beer bottles at abandoned windows
and smoked second hand **** because he was too broke
to afford the real stuff and he still hollered at girls who wore
shirts too low but in the shadow of all the happiness up on the roof,
he was not Juan, best basketball player on the team,
Dominicano cien porciento y no te lo olvides,
repping the white, red and blue bandera
instead he was Juan, the light skinned boy who liked the
palabras de los gringos because of the way they rolled off his tongue
and he had decided that he liked it better that way

(h.l.)

Here in the west borough, down three or four blocks from the epicenter, the shocks come to you in tides — little, electric, delightful in some alien way. Even the sounds of instant decay ring pleasant. The concrete, the bricks, the mortar, the Corinthian columns, the suspended ceiling tiles, the florescent bulbs, the coffee cups, the desktops, the family portraits all fall from their stations, screaming toward the cool pavement. It’s a temperate Thursday in January and the weathermen continue to talk in stunted disbelief. A car catches fire on Malcom X Boulevard, and weather is the wrong word, you think, for this phenomenon. It’s rage. It’s bitter. The violence of the sun-catching glass smacks of vengeance and this whole thing is man-made or, at the very least, god-made but not anything so indiscriminate as weather.

There’s still the pleasure of it though. The collapse of the old world. And there’s nothing but rubble on the corner of 9th and Dominican, and for the life of you, you can’t remember what stood there before. In your evergreen bones you know one thing: whatever anodyne brick institution reigned will be replaced by that glorious glass and that glorious steel, 100 towers impaling the sky. The future is now. A tremor. A cloud of dust.

For about ten seconds the windshield is worthless yet you speed up, hurling yourself through the fog of destruction into a **** world, feeling essential and brilliant and and and.

I never really knew what kind of man could find my heart. I never really knew what kind of man could ****** my soul. Make me start to dream. What kind of dream they would have that would inspire me. Until I met him. An aspiring rapper. From Pennsylvania. Dominican and Puerto Rican. Four years. Long-distance. Music was not my calling, but it had awakened me. To writing. Lies had broken us. Nearly 2 years later I fell for the next one. An aspiring rapper. Producer. Jamaican. From Pennsylvania. Close three years. Complicated as ****. Music was there again. And although it was not my calling and it wasn't as important to me as it was to the fellas I fell for, it was there. Linking people to me.

So I think I am just writing for the sake of writing tonight, and with that being said let me just say this.

As this ship pitches slowly but surely and we make our steam for the prospect ahead, I am overcome with an anxiousness and desire to leave the ocean and begin my work. I had a dream of going to Haiti the other night. It was a disturbing site to see. Crumbled buildings covering broken bodies, covered in the tears and blood, casting fear of the unknown into those that were unfortunate enough to be left behind. An already broken, already poverty stricken country now sent further into depths of disparity. Children sit on cracked side walks eating mud cakes lacking all nutritional value, only to fill their empty bellies with dirt and mud. Mothers are still in search of their children and loved ones.
I see the pain in their eyes, yet I know that at this moment only my prayers go out to them. I desire to go, to bring peace, hope, and if not any of the above, maybe just rest to their restless wandering.

I need your help. I need you to desire a change. Not just in Haiti where the need is obvious, but in the Dominican, in Turkey, in Cambodia, in Mozambique. I need you to see that they need you. If you yourself are unwilling, or unable to go; if you yourself are not willing or not able to get on that plane, that boat, that horse, that bus, or whatever it takes, and go be with them physically, emotionally, and spiritually, then I need you to support this cause. We are a blessed nation, a blessed people and we take so much for granted. We have a choice of not just what we will eat, but where "want" to eat. We have the choice to buy our Ipods, our movies, our magazines, our make-ups, and our clothes. These people don't. They don't know what they will eat. They don't even know that they will eat. Their clothes are torn and in shambles. They might not even have a single pair of shoes to protect their feet, yet I know that some of us have more shoes than we know what to do with.
I need you to recognize that there are people in countries like china that will work 18 hours a day in order to make your clothing, your shoes, your toys, and at the end of that day not even be able to afford what they have just made for you with their tired hands.
Do you recognize the cost of our lifestyle?
Will you help me bring something back to those hands? Will you help bring a small light into their world? Will you choose to love someone you have never met? Will you choose to care?
Because I do. I choose to walk with love for people in this world. I choose to care about the people that I have never met, and I am ready to go and give back to the world that has given so much to me. I want to be part of the revolution in this world, and I will do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. I will walk by faith, with hope in my heart and a promise on my lips. I will feed those that I can, clothe the naked, and care for the sick. I need you to want to as well. And if you do, then you can help this race against time. Support me on this mission. I need your prayers, I need your gifts, I need you.
Will you choose to help this world?
Support me on the World Race at

WilliamDiefenbach.TheWorldRace.org

~William Diefenbach
Contact me @ WeDiefenbach@gmail.com

jan from the corner store doesn't understand me,
I told her I wasn't mixed; my parents are just different
shades of the same color but she doesn't believe me,
and the man behind the counter silently agrees.

the old white lady that always takes the 5 train
stares at me curiously, her eyes say they don't trust me
and I don't understand why. I never thought I had to
explain myself to strangers or that my race was the most
interesting thing about me but that's always the
first question everybody asks.

my aunt told me the other day that I was jabao,
in other words, nobody knows what to do with me.
I am unidentifiable. my skin screams the sun and
stars too small to recognize; it says I am the product
of a collision between the blackest sea and the whitest sand.
some parts of my body sing a ballad so dark only certain
people would ever want to listen to. maybe these are the
parts that the old white lady on the five train is scared to
listen to. maybe the curls I tried so hard to straighten are
what terrifies her, maybe the black in my kneecaps keeps
her up at night, maybe the sound of boisterous music in a
language she could never understand makes her skin jump,
sends shivers down her spine makes her think twice
about who I am.

jan from the corner store doesn't understand me,
I told her I was jabao, a mix of summer glow and
muted winter skin. but she doesn't believe me; says
she has never met a Dominican like me, that in some ways
I must be a mixed breed. and the man behind the counter
silently agrees.

(h.l.)

She used to write poetry,
what would make
Morrissey cry?
The one who left
with all his depth,
the holiest ghost
to ever stick
around his bed.

What would you give to me?
French press,
Japanese guitar,

Dominican cigar spark?

Hearts can grow colder
as they try to feel,
try to push it out.

Black haired
Italian marble,
darling,
we are nothing
to nobody now.

This tough front,
This altogether unlikeable first impression,
This mean, crude obnoxious scumbag,
This despicable misogynist,
This cynical misanthropic madman,
“Wassup wit dat?”
Enquiring fans of poetry want to know.
Simply stated, 'tis my oldest modus operandi,
Self-protective, learned street behavior;
My don’t-****-with–me first line of defense.
Surely some form of survival mechanism;
Meant in the narrow psychological sense.
Evidence of mental health or illness,
My cloaking device and shield,
Gift from Jove, my goombah father.
Dad: a powerful force in any child’s universe—
Be the patriarch dead, absent, retired on the job,
Out of the picture, just plain missing--or insane,
The latter, something you may not
Want to know about your gene pool.

So I’m really just a *****.
Forgive the expression, Germaine Greer.
A pussycat and big old teddy bear,
Mr. Sensitivity:
Wiping a warm washcloth between your legs.
Across puffed & pouted lips, gently.
After shooting a load of *** into you.
Or on your face: Spumante!

No, strike that last part.
Let’s start again.
I am a kind soul, a precious man.
The sort who likes animals;
Puppies, especially, and kittens too.
Savoring sunsets and flowers,
I serve you sweet gelato & Asti.
Sometimes I’ll spumante you with original love poetry.
My Muse: your gorgeous body delights me,
Your brilliant mind & noble spirit inspires.
Each night of the week I surprise you,
Prepare for you an exquisite home-cooked gourmet meal.
Served with your favorite Pinot Noir,
Brought to your elegant, candlelit dining room table,
By yours truly, wearing only a scarlet bow tie
And black silk jockstrap.
(Starting to get into this, Maureen Dowd?)
Later I’ll run you a relaxing bath,
So you’ll have something to do,
While I wash the dishes, scrub the pots,
Do a load of whites, clean your bidet,
And Swiffer®  (www.swiffer.com) the entire house.

By then, you are ready for your nightly spa treatment,
A 15-minute, deep tissue massage,
Followed by a hot oil treatment.
Next up is 30 nonstop delirious minutes,
Me, going down on you, without
Seeking any ****** gratification for myself.
In the morning I’ll make macadamia nut pancakes,
Your favorite, and brew you a fabulous cup of coffee,
From freshly ground beans, very rare beans
Salvaged from Karen Blixen’s last crop, before the fire
Completely destroyed her plantation in Kenya.
"I had a farm in Africa, Babaloo!

You can go shopping from dawn to dusk
With Ruth Madoff, while I go out & lose my soul,
Selling Dominican Republic timeshares all day and all night . . .  
(Cue West Indies Calypso: “All Day, All Night, Mary Ann!”)
Calypso-Harry Belafonte Songs, Reviews, Credits,
Awards www.allmusic.com/album/calypso. 1956.)
I’ll still find the time to open up for you
A line of credit at your favorite nail salon.
I’ll pay for weekly bikini waxes, hair and Botox treatments,
And the odd cosmetic surgery you may require.
I’ll pay your cell phone bill; I’ll pay off your college loans.
I’ll send money to your extended family in the Ukraine.
Yeah, that’s the kind of guy I am.
Your life with me will be every woman’s dream.

And, if you believe that,
You soulless Ukrainian ****,
Then monkeys will fly out of my Wayne’s World ****,
You stupid capital C for ****-*******,
Capital B for *****.
THIS JUST IN:
“Arms and the Woman,”
An article in Time Magazine, conveys a statistic:
Some 20 million women in the U.S. own guns.
As the NRA instructs:
Guns don’t **** people.
Women with Glocks **** people.

In my head
I am the Russian Roulatte
In a tee *** I beg for trust
When poured out
The foam becomes of your mouth
I do buisness in China
Shipped to Pueto Rico
Make tongues flip as sharp
as a Nurican Dominican
Jitter till hearts stop beating on top of Italian pool tables
I steal breathes from science who believe in what is not in the Bible
I am your Russian Roulette
Make a feline spray a *** spot in here ******
Make a King errect New Your late night star lights when they stu'n
Change the tune in your song
from spittin rap versus to singing to God that you was wrong
I beat the drugs
Put a end to your habbit
So when you feel you cant utter a verse I'll let you howl like a suffering rabbit
Because no one knows how to use me right
I am the only bullet tucked in to take away your life
As soon as I leap forward to your attention you will be adoment to a pension
Stire clear
I am here
No intentions but to terminate erosions
Respect what I may
Careful when you choose to play
You must reconsider the outcome
I am
The Russian Roulette.

© the Russian Roulette S.T. Rebel of Eden

A no-strings-attached thing is easy to arrange
It sounds exciting too, seems very straightforward
But sometimes you get caught up in things you don’t expect
Before you know it, you start caring
You develop feelings
You learn things about the other person
Her middle name, her favourite music, food
Her pet peeves, ambitions
You learn her innermost thoughts
Her insecurities, her ****** proclivities,
The little birthmark just above her mons *****
The one that she says looks like a map of the Dominican Republic
You lie in bed with her all day
She teaches you how to swear in Farsi.
You **** her every day.

One day she sees you making out with this random ****** and she flips
You say, but we said no strings attached or did we not?
It’s not as simple as that though, it never is
But this girl, she believes in you
She’s a paragon of patience
She sits you down and tells you to listen to her carefully
She explains to you that now you are sleeping with her on the regular
Your body is somehow her body too, partly, and vice versa
Says she understands that you are not together officially
But intimacy usually comes with an implied exclusiveness.
You say, Ok, I've heard you. And I understand where you’re coming from.
Then you tell her to *******.

Time passes
You begin to miss her.
But you’re pride won’t let you call her.
You have *** three times with two different girls in one weekend
One of those girls has a boyfriend, you **** her in a night club restroom.
The other one on the beach a day after
Then a few hours later in her bedroom.
In the morning her room is all sandy,
Going home you begin reflecting on things
You've learnt one thing for sure:
However much top-shelf ***** you get, it doesn't compare to the love of a good girl
So it doesn't matter how many lovers you have in this world
If none of them give you the world.

You swallow your pride and call her
She can’t make it, she says.
But she comes the next day in the evening.
You explain everything,
How it felt like she was tethering you to her
How you took it all too lightly.
You’re not too good at it, talking about your feelings
You say that what she’d told you that day had gone through one ear, out the other
So you had to learn it all by yourself, you had to go through it
Finally, you apologise.
You’re very sincere.
She asks you, so is this closure?
You don’t want it to be, but you don’t know if you actually deserve her
****, you don’t know if she’d even take you back.
If she does, you've still got a lot to prove.
You’ll be in luck, but you’ll be starting on nothing.
If she doesn't then you knew and blew a good thing.

I left the plantains you sent me
on the counter. Wiped
around them on cleaning days.

Eyed them as they sat there,
expectant and unwanted,
for hours into weeks.

Let them blacken and soften
until they resembled
the dental records of a corpse.

Were they lifted from the soil
of your Dominican hometown?
Did you farm them yourself?

The bruises speckled on its skin,
were they hand-picked? You always
had great aim with that sort of branding.

I'm awake at the birth of morning,
early enough to see dawn's rosy sun
crack onto the horizon like egg yolk.

From my bedroom window, I can also see
a garbage truck craning its rusty claw
towards the pile I set out last night.

Talk about a metaphor.

In the last year of Trujillo’s reign, the Dictator decided
to eliminate three sisters and then plausibly deny it.
Patria, Maria and Minerva were the victims of the plot.
Once the three were dead and gone, He‘d make sure folks forgot.
On a lonely country road, they were ambushed by his men.
They forced the sisters off the road. That’s how it began.
The girls must not seem martyrs; Trujillo had made it plain-
nothing quick and merciful, like a bullet to the brain.
The men used bats to knock them down and smashed their faces in
so they could not be recognized by their own next of kin.
They placed the bodies in the car and pushed it off the road.
“The butterflies are free!” they mocked; “Those girls reaped what they sowed.”
In the Dominican Republic, the wheel, if slowly, turned.
Trujillo met a ****** end and freedom was regained.
The truth was slowly brought to light, the murderers were named.
The Maribels were honored and their martyrdom proclaimed.





   h

Chapter One

He sat there looking over the edge alone and couldn’t remember how long he had been there. He thought it had been a very long time.

The drive from Oakland had taken the best part of a day, and although having traveled across some of the most scenic parts of the western United States, his mind was blank, he couldn’t remember anything.  He only knew what he had come here to do, and before the sun would set over his left shoulder, he strengthened his resolve to do it.

He thought about leaving a note, but then who would read it.  He was sure whoever did find it wouldn’t care. He couldn’t remember why he had picked the ‘Canyon’ as the place to end it all. He just knew he was drawn to the place, and in some strange way the Canyon understood.  He wasn’t sure what most men thought about knowing it was their last day on earth.  At this point he was having trouble thinking about anything at all.

He forced himself to try and think about his three failed marriages and his two sons from his first marriage.  One, his oldest son Robert, had recently died of a drug overdose. His younger son Hank was an Army Ranger who had recently been killed while serving a second deployment in Afghanistan.  Neither boy had spoken to him since he had deserted their mother when they were both very young (5 & 7).

He had been discharged from the Army in 1969 at Fort ***** New Jersey after serving 14 months in Vietnam.  He then spent three months hitchhiking across the country, from New Jersey to California, trying to get his head back on straight as he worked his way back home.

He would like to blame all of his bad luck on something that had happened to him over there, but he knew in his heart that he couldn’t.  He had been a supply sergeant at a large depot in downtown Saigon. His only experience with combat was listening to the stories from the grunts recently returned from the bush as they self-medicated themselves inside the many bars and clubs that overran the downtown streets and alleyways.  He often basked in the aftermath of their stories secretly wishing he were one of them. He had had a chance to volunteer for combat artillery but had turned it down.

He took his sunglasses off because it was almost time. He had forgotten to check-out of the Yavapi Motor Lodge before walking the half-mile to the rim where he now sat. The sun was dropping low in the Western sky as he stood up to move closer to the edge. It was just then that he heard a rustling sound coming from the bushes to his left that he had not heard before.  

Chapter Two

The motorcycle ride across the plains and high desert through the Dakota’s and Wyoming had been as idyllic as he ever imagined. He had spent almost a week in Yellowstone, having to force himself to leave on the seventh day. He was headed South, but he had one more great sight to see before working his way back East toward New Mexico.

He had promised himself before dedicating the rest of his life to the Dominicans that he would go and visit the Grand Canyon this one last time.  In many ways his life had been like the Canyon, overwhelming in its purpose and majestic in its beauty. His life had taken on a timeless quality that always left him feeling like everything he had done would somehow last forever.

He had lost his beloved wife Sarah last April after a long and debilitating illness.  They had been married for forty-one years and had traveled the world together. After all of the travel, Sarah’s two favorite spots on earth were Yellowstone and The Grand Canyon.  He always felt that she loved the Canyon the most, and he was saving it for last.  She had been his best friend and partner and had supported him in everything he had done, both at his work, but even more important to him, at his leisure.

He had been born with a restless adventurous spirit inside of him, and it was one of the things Sarah loved most about him and had always given him plenty of rope to roam.  He loved her all the more for it.  He now felt that the only way he could go on without her was to devote himself to a cause she had always been passionate about, the Dominican Mission in Pastura New Mexico.  The mission had been founded almost two hundred years ago to help and educate the many Native Tribes that lived in the area.

He needed to dedicate the remainder of his life to something bigger that just himself.  Because of all the good work his wife had done on their behalf, the Dominicans had accepted him into their order, and they were expecting him before the week was out.

He had recently sold his business for over 100 million dollars, and after securing his grandchildren’s education was going to use the bulk of the money to build a hospital in rural New Mexico to treat the poor and disenfranchised.  He wanted the hospital to specialize in treating diabetes and juvenile diabetes since so many of the Native Americans in the Southwest (and all over the U.S.) were suffering from this terrible disease.  It had been the disease that had finally claimed his beloved wife Sarah.

He was riding a vintage/antique BMW motorcycle that he had spent the last 20 years restoring.  Although it was over 50 years old, there was no part of this bike that you couldn’t eat off of.  Like everything else in his life, it was a reflection of him and the ‘midas’ effect he seemed to have on everything he touched. Everything in his life just seemed to ‘WORK’ !

After checking into his motel at the South Rim of the Canyon, he decided there was still time to get to his wife’s favorite spot along the rim to Watch the sun go completely down.  As he walked through the Pinyon Trees toward the rim, he thought he saw a figure standing close to the edge.  Whoever it was had heard him coming through the brush and was now looking his way.

“Hello,” he called out.  “Aren’t you standing a little too close to the rim?”  “What do you want,” he heard back in response, “I thought I was here alone.” “Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude, but like you, I just wanted to take one look over before the day ended. It’s nice to find someone else here to be able to share this magnificent view with.”
  
“I didn’t come here to share anything with anybody,” he heard back again, “And like I said before, I thought I was alone.”  As the man spoke, he walked slowly backwards and seated himself on the large rock where he had laid his sunglasses before. He put his sunglasses back on before speaking again.

“You know it’s unbelievable, no matter how many times I’ve seen the view from this rim, it’s always like seeing it for the first time again.  This was my wife’s favorite spot on earth.  It’s almost impossible to describe, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know, it’s my first time here, he heard the seated man say.  “Wow, first time huh.  I can still remember my first time, but then every time is like that first time to me, and that was over 35 years ago.”  “It may be special to you,” the man sitting down said, now without looking his way, “To me it’s just a big hole in the ground.”
As he emerged from the Pinyon Pines and approached the rim, he noticed something strange and out of place.  There was a large black handgun sitting with its barrel pointed out toward the canyon, in between the seated man’s two legs.  

He slowly walked off to his left and moved very cautiously toward the rim, being careful not to make any sudden moves.  He tried to act nonchalant and make it seem like he hadn’t noticed the gun.  The man on the rock knew that he had seen it as he tried to close both legs over the gun and hide it from further sight.

“Have you been here long,” he asked the seated man? “I don’t know --- I don’t know, it seems like long.”  ‘Well, it’s a great place to sit and reflect about life and think about where life’s journey goes next.”
“I know all about where my life has been and where it‘s going,”  

At this point the man stopped speaking and there was a very uncomfortable moment of silence — a silence that seemed to fill the surrounding canyon with a new emptiness that rivaled even its great depths.  “You look like you’re upset sitting there all alone, might I ask the reasons why.”  The seated man then finally turned his head his way and said, ‘Why would you care if I’m upset or not.”

“I can’t explain why I care, but I do, and if you’d like to tell me about it, I’d like to listen.”  “Why in the world would you want to listen to someone else’s problems when you seem not to have a care in the world.  Especially coming from someone that you don’t know and who you’ve just met at a spot like this that you so obviously love and have great affection for?” 
 
“Maybe for that very reason, because it is a beautiful day today and this is one of the world’s most magical spots.  I am having a hard time accepting how someone could seem so depressed and dejected in a place like this.  You may not believe me, but that’s exactly how I feel.  Why did you come to the Grand Canyon in a state like this. Were you hoping that the majesty of the canyon would lift your spirits and cheer you up?”

“I know that some like you have said that this is the most powerful place on earth.  I thought it would be a most appropriate place, or certainly as good as any,” as his voice trailed off again and silence intervened.

“As good as any to do what,” the standing man asked as he moved slightly closer.  The seated man didn’t answer as he stared out over the rim into the huge expanse of rock and sky.  Finally, he said, “Really, why would you even care, I’m nothing to you, and it’s really none of your business.”  “About that, you’re right, and if I’m intruding then I apologize, but I’m getting the strongest feeling that meeting you here today in this spot was no accident.  Do you think about things like that?”

The man stood up but did not answer.  ‘What are your plans today after the sun sets? I just checked into the motel a short ways down the road, the Yavapai Motor Lodge, ever heard of it.”  “Yeah, I’ve heard of it, maybe you should be heading back there before it starts to get dark.”  “Why don’t we walk back together, I’d enjoy the company.”
“Look, I don’t have any plans that go beyond this evening, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave, as I’d like to be alone to finish what I started.”  “I’d really like to hear all about that if you’d be willing to tell me. I’ve got nothing but time.”

The man now standing with his sunglasses back on in the approaching darkness was frozen by the words –'Nothing but time.’  He had made the decision earlier that for him, time was up and today would be the end.  Now he had some do-gooding stranger who had invaded his privacy unannounced and wouldn’t seem to back off.  

“Look, for the last time, you don’t want to hear my sad story, no one ever has, and no-one ever will.”  “Well, why don’t you just try me.  If I turn out to be like everyone else in your life after you’ve told me, you can always just get up and walk away --- end of story!”
“You look like someone whose life has turned out very well and never had a bad day in your life.”  

“Honestly, you’re making me feel guilty because when I look at my life in total, you’re pretty much correct.  I have had that kind of a life and feel very blessed because of it.  I’m going to assume that you have not.”

His honesty at admitting to having had a charmed life seemed to make an impression on the man as he answered back, “Nothing, absolutely nothing in my life has worked out, from my failed marriages, to my children who are now gone, and to all the nothing job’s. Everything has been a failure.  My life has been one great disappointment after another, and I can’t see the point in going on.”
The reality of the situation now became crystal clear.

“So, you were going to end it all here today at the South Rim of this Canyon?  It seems too beautiful a place for something so drastic.”
“I was, and I am going to end it all today in spite of everything you’ve said.”  “What is the gun for, if I might ask?”  The gun is just in case I don’t have guts enough to jump.  Guts is something I’ve always struggled with too.”

“Is there anything I can say, anything at all, that might make you change your mind, at least for a little while?”

“Nothing,” the man said.  “You don’t know me, and I’m sure there’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already said to myself.”  “If I could come up with one reason, just one, for you not to jump, would that make any difference at all?”  “Why would you even care to try when my mind is made up?”

“I’m glad you used the word ‘care’ when asking me that question.  Who is the last person in your life that you thought truly ‘cared’ for you?’  “I can’t remember, and I’m not sure anyone ever did.  My Parents split up when I was three and I was raised in one foster home after another before joining the army because I didn’t have guts enough to run away.  I’m not sure that word has any real meaning for me.”

“What if I was to tell you that I care about you, --- very much, and I don’t want to see you do what you’re getting ready to do in this most sacred of spots or anywhere for that matter.”“You just stumbled upon me by chance in my sorry state, and now feel pity for me and your conscience won’t let you leave well enough alone.”  

In a very strange way, he didn’t feel sorry for the man but felt guilty for the blessed life he had lived.  It all needed to make sense, or he couldn’t go back.  Why tonight, and why at this spot that he was looking so forward to.

He struggled for his next words before speaking again to the troubled man who had now gotten precariously close to the edge. The scene started to remind him of the movies he had seen where a man would be standing out on a building’s ledge, high above the street.  In the movies there was always a heroic detective or passerby who was able to talk the man down.  He knew he was running out of time, and he also knew this man he had just met could smell insincerity from a 100-miles away.

“I’d like to help you get through this in any way that I can.”  “There’s no getting through it. If you really want to do me a favor, just walk back to where you came from and let me finish what I came here to do.”

“I can’t explain this to you, but I know now that I was brought here today for a reason — a reason beyond a one last goodbye to this place.  I could have, and actually thought about, stopping at many of the rims my wife and I loved, but I picked this one because this was her favorite.  I know now that it had a higher purpose.  You may not want to hear this, but you came to this place today to end it all because of what has always been missing in your life only to find exactly that when I came walking through the trees.  In fact, to prove what I’m saying, I’d like to make you an offer.

“Suppose someone, in this case me, were to say that they would trade positions with you and that they would do what you are thinking about doing if you would do something very important for them.”  What do you mean,” the man said looking back from the edge.

‘What if I were to tell you that I would be willing to step off the edge of this canyon to show you how much I really care.  Would you be willing to fulfill a dream of mine in turn for my doing that.  You will then see that a total stranger is willing to give it all up for you if you will be willing to commit to something that is equally important to them.”

“You’re either crazy or you think that I am.  Nobody’s going to give up their life to prove to me that they care about saving my worthless life.  Your life seems to have a value beyond what I can describe.”
“You’re right about that, and my life has had a value beyond what even I can describe, but what I am telling you is that the deal I am making you is real. After hearing my terms and agreeing to what you will have to do, I will jump off this Canyon wall so you can find the happiness, peace, and contentment you deserve.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, all of this is crazy, sheer lunacy.  I think I’ve been joined on this cliff by a man who’s completely lost his own mind.”“All right then, let’s do this.  Would you agree to sleep on it overnight.  If you feel the same way in the morning, then I will carry out your plan if you will fulfill mine.  Are you staying at that same motel as I am.”  “Yeah, I checked in yesterday and forgot to check out, so I guess I still have a room.”  Maybe it was for a reason he thought to himself, as he stood there shaking his head in the darkness.

“Don’t shake your head, just tell me you’ll think about it.
If I don’t hear from you, and I’m in room #888, I’ll assume that our deal is set, and I’ll fulfill my part of our agreement.”  “OK, one more night,” the man said as he picked up his gun and tucked it into the small of his back.  “One more night, but I don’t really think anything is going to change.”

They walked back to the Yavapai Motor Lodge in silence together.  Both men felt at this point that they had known each other for a very long time — maybe an eternity.  Nighttime in the Canyon echoes a silence louder than anything that can be made with sound.
As they entered the lobby, they both went in different directions without saying goodnight.

The man who had come by motorcycle wondered: ‘Was I challenged by God before ever reaching the Dominicans? Will I ever see those peaceful hallways and gardens that my wife loved so much ever again?”


Chapter Three

Jack hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in over fifteen years.  His tortured mind and soul just seemed to never rest.  He woke to the sounds of birds and bright sunshine outside his window.  Last night he had truly slept for the first time in his adult life. He never needed an alarm, but it had sounded to him like one had been going off.  

All at once he realized what it was --- it was a siren.  Multiple sirens were going off and he wondered if the Motel was on fire.  Still slightly disoriented from the past two days, and the effects of so much sleep, he threw his pants and shoes on and headed down the hall toward the lobby.

He then remembered the strange conversation he had had with that man in the Canyon last night.  Cold sweat started to flow as he then remembered their agreement. “If I don’t hear differently by first thing tomorrow morning, I will go ahead with my part of our agreement.”  Jack tried to compose himself as he thought, “No way, no way anyone would be crazy enough to do what he said he would do last night.  If this place isn’t on fire, maybe he’s having breakfast in the coffee shop off the lobby.”

As he hustled through the lobby, the desk clerk shouted to him but he didn’t stop.  He saw fire engines and ambulances outside, and he wanted to see what was going on.  He was immediately relieved when he saw Fred’s motorcycle parked in the same spot as last night.
Something else didn’t look right though.  There were at least three fire engines and two ambulances outside but nothing was on fire and there was no car accident to be seen.  Obviously, something was afoot, but everyone seemed too busy to talk to him. He walked back into the Motel and through the lobby…

This time the desk clerk came out from behind the desk and said, “Hey, I was shouting to you as you ran out the door.  There’s an envelope for you here from the guy who jumped.  The police are looking to talk to you as they have no clues as to why or what drove him to step off the edge.  We get a couple of jumpers every year, but this guy seemed totally different.  He was one of the most upbeat people to come in here in a long time.”

JUMP!  It seemed impossible.  Jack couldn’t wrap his mind around it as he opened the envelope.  In a very neat handwriting, it said --- ‘I’ve left something for you under the seat of my motorcycle.” As he started back outside the desk clerk asked, “Did you know him very well?”  “No, not really, I just met him late yesterday afternoon for the first time.” 
 
Jack's knees weakened as the desk clerk went on.  “It’s really weird.  He was actually whistling when he walked through the lobby this morning at about 7:15.”  “Who, Jack asked.”  “Why the Jumper, the guy who jumped.  He was smiling and commenting on what a beautiful day it was, and how he hoped we all were going to have a great day.  I guess it just goes to show --- you never know.
At 7:42, the police got a call from the Havasupai Indians that live along the bottom saying that a full set of clothes had fallen to the floor of the canyon, shirt, shoes, socks, underwear, the whole deal.  Everything, but a body.  The police are having the hardest time making any sense of it at all.”

The words ‘you never know’ kept repeating in Jack’s ears as he walked outside. As he unlatched the seat and lifted it up on the old BMW, he found a two-page note folded over and neatly placed between the frame. It went on to say …

Dear Jack
I don’t know and can hardly imagine what your life must have been like up until now.  I wish I had the power to go back and change the bad things that happened to you, but I don’t.

The only power that I have, the one that all of us have, is to change what happens now.  I hope you will believe me now when I say I really do care about you more than you know, and I am happy and willing to live up to my promise.  I am now counting on you to live up to yours.

The only thing extra I ask, and I’ve put this in writing to the head Abbott, is for you to be allowed to ride the motorcycle back to this spot once every year.  Once here, I would like you to say a Rosary for the souls of my family and for all the faithful departed.  If you put in a good word for me that would be all the better. If you do this, I know your new life will be joyous and take on a deeper meaning, and more than make up for any troubles that you’ve experienced up until now.
If you choose not to keep your promise and go through with ending your life, then I forgive you and still love you, but I don’t think you’re going to do that.

May God Bless and keep you.

Fred

Underneath the note there was a folded-up roadmap with a line drawn in magic marker pointing the way to the monastery in New Mexico. Jack sat down on the curb in front of the motorcycle in disbelief.  There was one more slip of paper folded up in the map.  It was the title to the old BMW.  It had been signed over to Jack.

“He couldn’t have, he couldn’t have, he just wouldn’t have,” Jack kept saying over and over to himself.  Just then a large Park Policeman tapped Jack on the shoulder and asked him if he would mind answering a few questions.  Jack agreed but then told the officer that after speaking with him he just might be even more confused.  The officer went on to tell Jack that none of their suspicions panned out.  This man hadn’t jumped for insurance money (he was very wealthy), or out of a history of depression, he just jumped.
And none of the usual reasons seemed to apply.

After thirty-five minutes of polite questioning the police officer walked away scratching his head.  On the margin of the map was a scribbled note, “Don’t delay out of any concern for me, get to the monastery as quickly as you can.”  Jack had told the police officer about Fred wanting him to have the bike and showed him the title that had been left for him.  He did not show the police officer the letter Fred had left and was in fact surprised that they hadn’t checked the bike.  Then it all started to make sense.  If Jack hadn’t read the note Fred left with the desk clerk, he would never have known the seat to the motorcycle opened up.  He was sure the police didn’t know that either.  He was glad no-one was looking when he opened up the seat and took out the letter.  In all the commotion, everyone else was just looking the other way.

Jack wanted to go back to the spot where Fred jumped and where they first had met, but the police had it roped off. He decided to leave for New Mexico right away because that’s what Fred would have wanted.  The news stations were now calling it a ‘Mystery In The Canyon’ because only clothes, and no body was found.

Jack had never ridden a motorcycle before but had often fantasized about it.  Like most things in his life he had always come up with excuses as to why he couldn’t ride, while secretly envying those who did.  He took to the old bike immediately, and with every hour that passed on Rt #40 he enjoyed the ride more and more. A new type of guilt started to set in because he was actually enjoying his new life with every new twist of the throttle and turn of the handlebars.

Chapter Four

Jack pulled up in front of the Old Dominican Monastery with its Spanish Adobe Walls at 2:30 the following afternoon.  He had spent the previous night in Gallup and had actually been able to volunteer at the Dominican Soup Kitchen that was housed in the old Post Office in the center of downtown.  

Gallup was very depressed and except for a flourishing Indian Jewelry Industry had very little in the way of jobs and opportunity.  The Friar who ran the soup kitchen listened to Jacks story and then put his arm around him and led him inside.  Jack was astonished that the story seemed to make perfect sense to this selfless Padre.

Jack spent the night on a cot behind the soup kitchen and after having an early breakfast with Padre Nick, headed on his way east toward the Monastery in the New Mexico desert.   It reminded Jack of the pictures he had seen of an oasis in the middle of the Arabian desert.  There were palm trees and many varieties of flowers surrounded by what looked like an eternity of sand.  Jack loved the sparseness of his new surroundings, but he still didn’t know why.
The Monastery sat atop a sandy hill at the end of a long unpaved road.  He parked the bike outside the two large, padlocked, doors and began to knock.  

Before he could make contact with the old wooden door on the right a smaller door within it began to open. He stepped through the door as a monk whose hood was completely covering his head lead him inside.  The monastery had a quiet about it that would rival that of the Canyon.  There were three old Spanish Buildings side by side, and the main door to the one in the middle was already open.

He asked the monk where they were going and heard back nothing in return. The hooded monk led Jack down a long hallway to another open door on the left.  He knocked on the door three times as he led jack through and motioned for him to sit down on one of the two chairs in front of the large stone fireplace.  I wonder where they get stone in a desert like this Jack wondered to himself.

Jack looked up slightly and saw the image of two large and heavily tanned feet in sandals walking toward him at a lively pace.  As he looked even higher, he saw a stocky and athletically built man who looked to be in his mid-sixties with a smile that could have come from an angelic two-year old child.

My name is Abbott Estefan, and I have been expecting you all day.  Early this morning I got a letter from our beloved Fred, telling the details of your meeting.  Before we do anything else, we must pray together to him that your mission here will be successful.  I am certain in my heart that Fred now sits with the Saints in heaven and is at this very moment looking down on us both --- with love !

I read Fred’s words, and I am still in partial disbelief.  Would you like to tell me in your words what happened yesterday, Jack?  Soon Abbott, but not right now, I hope you can understand.”  “I do totally my son. Let’s get you settled and then you can start to feel like one of us.  I know that is what Fred would have wanted.

“When’s the last time you’ve eaten,” Abbott Estefan asked.  “This morning, in Gallup with Padre Nick,” Jack answered.  “Ah, Padre Nick, one of our very finest.  Half Pueblo and half Navajo but all Dominican.  Once you walk through those front doors, all ‘divisions’ of ethnicity and nationality fade away like the shifting sands.”
“First the body, then the mind.  It’s time to get something into your stomach.  We are only humble servants of the poor around here Jack, but we eat like Roman Emperors.  It’s one of the perks of our particular order.”  “Sounds great to me Abbot, when it comes to food, I’m not picky.”

They laughed together at Jacks comment as they walked down another long hallway around a corner and into the biggest kitchen Jack had even seen.  Padre Francisco was the head cook, and he started to ladle out an array of Mexican food onto a plate the likes of which Jack had never seen.  He decided to eat every drop so as not to disappoint the good Padre.  Once finished ,Abbott Estefan led Jack to his new room on the second floor.

It was very well lit and like all of the Monk’s rooms it faced East to meet the rising sun.  “Get some rest now Jack, morning prayers are at 5a.m. and breakfast is at 6.  I’ll have someone put your motorcycle in one of the stables. You do intend to keep your promise, don’t you Jack, Abbott Estefan asked as he closed the door.”  YES, Jack said to himself as he sat down in the bed.  But then he knew the Abbott already knew his answer.

Jack had never heard anyone laugh with the gusto of Abbott Estefan.  He liked it here already as he could feel his old life peeling away like layers coming off an old onion. Two days later, Jack and Abbott Estefan took a walk around the grounds as Jack told the Abbott the whole story about Fred and their chance meeting at the Grand Canyon.  “Ah yes, the police have contacted us because they found out through Fred’s family that he was coming to be one of us.  I pray that they will someday know more about his passing than they do today. In his letter, Fred asked us not to say anything.  

Two Havasupai elders who were meditating at dawn that morning high among the rocks said they both saw an eagle swoop through the bottom of the canyon just before Fred’s clothing hit the ground.  They then looked up and saw two hands reaching out of the clouds which grabbed the eagle right out of the sky.

WE ARE BUILDING A GROTTO TO FRED IN THIS VERY SPOT WHERE YOU ARE STANDING NOW!

The Monastery was almost totally cloistered, and voices were only used when absolutely necessary.  Over the next several months Jack would come to find out how overrated ‘talking’ really is.

Chapter Five

The next few months were an adjustment for Jack as he settled into a life of contemplation and prayer.  Slowly, yet surely, a fundamental change was taking place inside of him.  It was a change unlike anything he had ever felt before.  The empty places inside of him, some of them over fifty years old, he could feel being filled.  Things that he couldn’t explain and things that he had never felt before were rapidly becoming things he could no longer live without.

Almost a year had gone by when Abbott Estefan knocked on his door one quiet afternoon.  Jack was deep in contemplative prayer, having just finished his daily Rosary and he didn’t hear the first knocks, so the good Abbott knocked harder.  He always prayed to Fred at the end of every Rosary, who the Monks were now referring to with extreme reverence as Patron.  Fred was pronounced the same in Spanish as it was in English, only with a slightly different inflection.  The Grotto in Fred’s honor had only recently been finished.

Jack had a direct view of the Grotto from the window in his room.
Jack opened the door to that wide-eyed smile he had come to love.  ‘May I come in Gato,” the Abbott asked. “Absolutely,” Jack said.  He always loved it when any of the Monks referred to the Spanish pronunciation of his name.  “How can I be of service Father Estefan? It is always an honor when you choose to visit my humble room.”

“In one week’s time it will be the one year anniversary since you decided to become one of us.  It will also be the one-year anniversary of our dear Fred’s passing and his ascension into heaven.  No one else dared refer to Fred’s passing in that way, but the Abbott was heard on more than one occasion to say that Fred had been welcomed into heaven by none other than Jesus, the Son of God Himself.  It was his hands that the two Havasupai Elders saw reaching out of the clouds that day. 
 
Abbott Estefan was sure of that in his heart. He told Jack that it was much easier to live with what you knew in your heart, rather than what you could prove.  The Church still required proof for Sainthood, but the Abbott told Jack that he was living proof and the only proof his order would ever need that Fred was sitting next to Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

“Are you planning on keeping your promise Gato?” the Abbott asked him no longer smiling.  “I hope that you are, and if so, I would like you to start making plans right away.  I will have my personal secretary call that Motel and make you a reservation for two nights.  You need to spend the first night at the canyon isolated and by yourself in prayer.  The second day and night are a celebration to Fred, and you need to keep an open mind, and open heart, to anything that might happen.”

The Abbott thought he saw a small tinge of uncertainty in Jack’s eyes.  “You must not hesitate or be doubtful my son.  Remember only that the man who gave his life up for you, a stranger, will be with you in the canyon.  Our Native American Brothers like to refer to this experience as a Vision Quest.  You should fast and sleep little while you are there. And with enough time, the Patrons message will take over you and show you the way.”

After speaking, Abbott Estefan turned and quietly started to walk down the hall.  After only three steps, he turned, looked at Jack one more time and said:  “My dear Gato, please ask the Patron to smile down on this poor Dominican Monk who thinks of him daily.  Ask him to watch over our Mission and all of the poor and suffering souls that we try and help.

Jack hadn’t looked at the BMW for almost a year.  In fact, he had thought about it very little.  The Monk who acted as head groundskeeper had stored it in a stable near the very back of the mission.  He had it wheeled up to the front of the Main Building on the day Jack was getting ready to leave.  It started on the very first kick.

Jack was taking very little with him as he headed to Arizona.  Just the old civilian clothes he had been wearing when arriving a year ago, a road map of the Southwest, and the Rosary Beads he had found draped across the handlebars when he went to get on the bike.
The bikes gas tank was full, and Jack marveled at how clean and well maintained it looked.  ‘Unbelievable, he thought to himself.  “I know if I was to ask, the Monks would tell me it was all a result of the power of prayer — prayer, and a siphon to remove fuel from the Abbots old School Bus.” 

 Jack wondered if anyone not directly connected to all that had happened would ever believe him if he told them his story.  The Abbott had told him it was of no consequence, --- as the truth needed no audience!

Jack rode all day and arrived at the South Rim of the Canyon just after six in the evening.  He checked into the same Motel —The Yavapai Motor Lodge — and parked the Motorcycle in exactly the same spot that it had been in on exactly this day a year ago.  The same desk clerk was working in the lobby who had been there last year.  
“How are you doing?  I NEVER expected to see you back here again.  That was really something that happened last year.  None of us can believe an entire year has gone by already.

“Yes, it was really something,” said Jack.  I made a promise to come back and honor his memory, so I’ll be staying with you for the next two days.  It would mean a lot to me, and to him, if you keep my being here quiet.  I don’t want any publicity, especially from the press.  This is a very private matter and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“No problem, mums the word as far as I’m concerned.  It’s good to see you and that you’re doing well.  Just one thing though before I go home for the evening.”  “What’s that,” Jack said.  “Did they ever figure out why he did it? I never read anything in the papers about why he jumped.”

“No, I don’t think they ever did.  Some things, maybe the most important things in life, tend to remain a mystery from all but the few who are directly involved.  I think in Fred’s case, that mystery will remain intact.”  “That’s right his name was Fred, I haven’t heard anyone use his name in almost a year.  Around here he’s just referred to as the ‘Naked Jumper.”’ Jack smiled to himself at the terminology.  He knew that somewhere high above, Fred was looking down and smiling too.

‘One more thing though,” the desk clerk said as Jack was turning to go to his room.  “What’s that, I’m kind of in a hurry, I want to get into the restaurant before it closes and then over to the canyon before the sun is completely down.”  “Well, it’s like this.  Every morning at exactly 7:00 a.m. the phone rings at the front desk and it’s someone asking for the number of Jack’s room.  When we tell the caller that we are not allowed to give out any information regarding our guests, they immediately hang up and the call ends.  The very next morning they call back again and ask once more for the number of Jack’s room. This has happened now every day for a year.  Your name’s Jack, isn’t it?”

‘Yep, must be a co-incidence. Didn’t they ask for Jack by his last name.”  “No, only Jack, just plain old Jack every time they called.”
Jack knew that Fred had never asked him about his last name, and he was sure that he had never offered the information.  “It’s really funny,” the desk clerk went on, “the caller never stays on long enough for the police to trace the call.  After the tenth or eleventh time we were called we forwarded the information about the calls to the Park Police who tapped into our line and tried to put a trace on the calls.  

Our receptionist, Daphne, who almost always takes the call, has tried to keep the caller on the line, but when she doesn’t give the caller the information they request, the line always goes dead.” Jack said goodnight to the desk clerk, whose name he now knew was Roy, and checked into his room.  It was the same room, #888, that he had been in a year ago.  He picked up the phone and dialed 0 for the Front Desk.

“Roy, this is Jack in Room #888.  Did someone request this specific room for me when making the reservation?”  “Let me check …. Nope, just says Non-Smoking King, on the reservation slip.  Why is something wrong with Room #888?”  “No, everything’s fine, good night, Roy.”

Jack quickly said a Rosary before ordering takeout from the restaurant. He then hurried across and down the road to the Rim where he had met Fred on that fateful day a year ago.  As he sat there quietly eating and staring out over the rim, he felt a peacefulness descend and overtake him both in body and spirit.  As the sun went completely down, he prayed for over three hours for the saving deliverance of Fred’s soul.

Suicide, a word no-one except the police and newspapers had used in his presence, was still a grievous sin in the Catholic Church.  Publicly, the church would admit to no justification that would allow one to take their own life. Jack thought silently about Jesus, --- and wasn’t that exactly what he had done by offering himself up as a sacrifice so all could be saved.  Jesus knew what was going to happen on Calvary that afternoon, just as Fred knew what was going to happen if he didn’t receive a phone call from Jack that morning saying that he had changed his mind.

When the stars had finally filled the sky, Jack got up and walked back to the Motel. As he walked past the front desk he asked Roy, “What time does that call come in in the morning asking for a Jack?”  “At exactly 7:00 a.m. every morning.”

Jack thanked Roy and walked back to his room.  He set his alarm for 6:00 a.m. the next morning. He was in the lobby standing at the front desk at ten minutes before seven waiting, waiting to see if the caller would call again.


Chapter Six

“Nothing,” said Daphne.  “Every morning for a year a call has come in at exactly 7:00 a.m. asking for Jack.  Are you sure it hasn’t been you that’s been making those phone calls?”  “What, call and ask for myself,” Jack said. “What would be the reasoning behind that?”
‘It’s really unbelievable. We’re open 365 days a year and the only property inside the park that is.  This caller has called every day for a solid year and hasn’t missed a holiday, weekend, nothing.  Every morning, and I mean EVERY morning that phone rings --- but not today!”

Jack spent the next day in quiet contemplation on the edge of the rim.  He thought about Sarah and how she had loved this place and said a prayer to Fred to please watch over his beloved wife until he could be with her again.  That night he slept like he had never slept before.

There was a night owl just outside his window and it spoke to him in a language he felt but could not understand.  He could feel it saying to him, --- UNTIL NEXT YEAR, UNTIL NEXT YEAR !!!

Jack got up early the next morning and was in the lobby again before seven.  Once again, no phone call asking for Jack.  After having breakfast and visiting the rim one more time, he rode non-stop back to the monastery, carrying a new part of the Great Mystery.
The Abbott had always been very respectful, and not in a condescending way, of the terms the Indians used to refer to God and Revelation. Jack had heard the Abbott use the term ‘The Great Mystery’ when referring to their religious beliefs many times.  He couldn’t come up with a better term for what he felt had happened back at the Canyon.

For twenty-four more years Jack repeated this same yearly ritual to the South Rim.  The Motel was eventually sold and torn down, and a new Holiday Inn express was built where the old Yavapai Motor Lodge used to stand.  Jack always stayed at the Holiday Inn Express with a room facing East like the one he had at the old Motel.  He was now in his early seventies and each year the trip took longer to get to the Canyon.  

The bike was still properly maintained and running well, but the effort it took to ride it all the way tired Jack out, and every year it seemed like the Canyon got further and further away. Abbott Estefan had died several years ago and Father Jack, or Abbott Gato, as he was now called, was in charge of the Monastery.  Jack had been ordained in a very private ceremony almost fifteen years before. Fred’s children and grandchildren had proudly attended the event in their Father’s honor, each of them placing a wreath at the base of their fathers statue, the Patron, in the garden around back.

As he promised he would every year, Jack checked into the hotel at the South Rim.  It had recently changed its name again to a Best Western.  Including the first time he had stayed here, the time he met Fred, this was the 25th Anniversary of his visiting the Canyon in Fred’s honor. He said “Hi Tammy,” to the pretty young girl working at the front desk.  “So, you’re still riding that old motorcycle all the way from New Mexico?”  “I am, and God willing, I’ll get back there to resume my duties in a couple of days.’  “Well, my dad said to remind you again that you have a standing offer for the Motorcycle if ever, and whenever you decide to sell.”

“Sorry Tammy, but like I told your Dad last year, this motorcycle is going to take me all the way thru the pearly gates.” “Oh Father, you’re such a kidder, but if you do change your mind, my Dad will drive over to the Monastery and pick it up.”  “Thanks Tammy, and thank your Dad again for the kind offer. Are those phone calls still coming in every morning?”

“Every morning at seven a.m. like clockwork Father, except on the mornings you’re here.  It’s old hat around here now and part of the DNA of this place.  I don’t know what we’d do if they ever stopped.”  “I don’t think you need to worry about that Tammy, tell that caller that I said Hi every time he calls.”  “I will Father, he seems to get a real kick out of that.  Two days ago, we weren’t sure what was going on because at exactly seven a.m the phone rang and in the same voice as always, the caller asked for Gato.  When we acted confused, he immediately corrected himself and said ‘Jack,’ could you please tell me the room number of ‘Jack.’

“We’ve got you in #888 as always Father, and it always amuses me that we don’t have any other rooms that start with the number eight.  Do you know why we have one room in this hotel out of sequence with all the others, that is numbered #888, when all the other rooms start with a letter followed by three numbers.
The rooms on this floor go from A100 to A165.”

“No, I really don’t know why that is Tammy, I just know that I’ve always been in Room #888 and I like it that way.  Nothing like tradition right …”

Jack went back to his room and as was his habit said the Rosary before getting into bed.  The next morning, he was outside the restaurant when it opened for breakfast at six.  He liked talking to all the vacationers coming to the Grand Canyon, especially those visiting for the first time.  “God’s greatest creation on earth he would tell all those he met.  He had also become something of a local celebrity, and several local orders of both priests and nuns would come by the south rim during his yearly visit and ask for his blessing.

No-one ever asked him specifically why he was there, but everyone knew, and it was now local legend, that it had something to do with that ‘Jumper’ that had gone over the edge so many years ago. Today was the actual 25th Anniversary of Fred’s taking his place and stepping off into the Canyon.

After breakfast Jack walked the short distance down the canyon road to the rim behind the Pinyon Trees that he had visited so many times before.  He sat on the same rock that he was sitting on twenty-five years before when Fred came walking through the trees.  He began to pray.

He looked down into the loose dirt at the base of the rock and thought that he could still see the impression that his handgun had made in the soft canyon silt. He wondered at his advanced age if his mind not be starting to play tricks on him.  Two of his closest friends at the monastery had been stricken with Alzheimers this year and as he watched them slowly drift away, he prayed more than anything, that it would never happen to him. 
 
Every memory he had had of and in this place seemed to come rushing back at once.  Everything seemed so real.  Not surreal, but really real! He closed his eyes again and prayed.  He wasn’t sure how long he had been praying but when he opened his eyes, he saw that it was now dark.  “Could an entire day have slipped away that fast he wondered, or maybe I really am losing my mind.”

He looked into the sky for any trace of the sun. It was all the way back over his left shoulder, in the direction of California, the land he had come from, the place where everything that happened to him had been so bad.

As he got up to leave, he heard a rustling in the bushes.  He thought maybe it was a black bear, or perhaps a couple of honeymooners coming to the rim to profess undying love.  He called out to the noise in the bushes, but nothing answered back.  He walked deeper in the direction that the sound had come from but it was now so dark that his aging eyes were failing him. 

 It was then that he remembered that he had forgotten his Rosary Beads and had left them back on the rock. As Jack turned around to go back and get his Rosary his eyes went completely blind.  There was a light that he had never seen before coming from the Canyon’s edge and it seemed to be shining only on him.  To the right and the left he could still see darkness, but the brilliant beam of light that he couldn’t understand was following him as he walked blindly back toward the rock.

As bright as the light was it did not hurt his eyes, and it seemed to be drawing him closer and into its light.  As he got near the edge, he could feel the light totally envelop him, both body and soul.  As he got to the Canyon’s edge, he could see the light take shape as it drifted level with his view.  In the middle of the flashing brilliance was the face of Fred who was now smiling at him in the way he had remembered from so long ago.  Fred’s arms were now opening wide as he said through the light …

“Father Jack, you have kept your promise when all I had to give you that day was love.  You have returned that love to me twenty-five fold.  I now release you from your promise so you may go back and live peacefully the rest of your days.  What we did here together will forever be understood, by those willing to give freely and totally of themselves.”

With that the light was gone, and Jack’s body was filled with a new warmth of understanding and love.  It was if someone or something had climbed inside him, someone who needed to reassure him one last time that he would never, ever, be alone again.

On the very next day a message appeared heavily inscribed on the rock.  It read — "He who sacrifices himself in my name shall never die, and my name is love"

Kurt Philip Behm
April, 2012

Dominican and Bipolar what a combination to be
Always hiding what I felt deep deep inside of me
No one will understand the feeling or thoughts that I go through
So its best if I do what I do and just switch moods
From the highest to lowest I can do it all
but I must say  and I pray that I do not fall
Into those nasty moods that I can not control
I think of my family and wish I do not lose them all

As if on cue, on my second step out,
one bell rang; that of the sorbetero's cart
and on my sixteenth,
that of the bell by Dominican.
I sighed "yes, I know, I'm going."
I appreciate the practice.
I appreciate the background music.

I read a spanish word and teared up because I knew I was feeling a feeling my mom felt when she was twenty. I mean-- she went to the dominican republic and she studied a foreign language in college. She was curious
and I am curious.
When people show me unexpected kindnesses, it makes me tear up.  
What did I do to deserve this? and then I remember a little bit.  

I wrote down a few notes for a paper:
the setting implies the corruptibility of female bodies.
I walked down the packed streets at night and applied that rough thesis
and it felt sad to be in what Steven calls a world of abstraction
and even now I sound like a liberal-arts university program ***** (I’m not).

I heard and just missed something fall from a tall tree.
I caught the tail end of the leaf debris, and wondered while
I read Ali Smith’s Hotel World, how many squirrels died in freak uppermost tree branch
falling incidents, and if it made a noticeable difference.  

The scene, the scene is happening through temporality and that makes it seem empty
Sitting outside alone it is okay I am not the most important person in the universe

Now I’m working on holding all my adolescent memories in a loving embrace.
My ears also perk up at the sound of little kid voices.