1970 Odysseus visits cousin Patsy in New York City she introduces him to her best friend Lauren’s older less attractive more reclusive sister Tanya Mulhaney extremely wealthy family father founded corporation manufactures pinball machines which years later develop to video games then casino empire he favors and spoils Tanya but dies suddenly her envious sisters and mother gang up on Tanya is pale skinny flat-chested copious brown bush Odysseus sits in bathtub with Tanya and he probes in a way they hits it off maybe no boy has ever touched her in that way her complexion is so fragile slightest fluster prompts pink blotches on her cheeks neck chest back he admires her book smarts he’s attracted to her refined strangeness he thinks her bush and flat-chest are **** she laughs shyly offers to take him around the world he accepts Odysseus tells his parents Mom goes crazy yells into telephone what are you a ******? you father and i work like fools to send you to the best schools so you can make something of yourself you’re going to throw everything away to be a ***? i tell you we’ll disown you you won’t have a home to come back to do you hear me? we’ll disown you! she sobs how can you just walk out after all we have done for you? you ******* kid! Odysseus takes leave of absence from art school he and Tanya take Iberia jet 12 hour flight with stopover in Iceland to Belgium Tanya sinks into one of her moods swallows several pills to help her rest sitting on other side of Odysseus is curly haired skinny talkative musician claims he has jammed with Miles Davis and other jazz greats Odysseus says yeah right and i’ve shown with Johns and Twombly where exactly are you heading in Europe? musician answers he is a scientologist on his way to visit L. Ron Hubbard in England Odysseus does not know what Dianetics are and wants explanation he asks many questions and musician talks for hours they enjoy each other’s rapport as jet descends in Brussels they exchange home addresses in the States 9 months later when Odysseus returns to America a friend notices scribbled address while skimming through his travel journals Odys! how did you get Chick Corea’s address? do you know him? do you realize how brilliant he is? he’s a keyboard virtuoso! Odysseus questions Chick Corea? who’s Chick Corea? he looks at journal page then says oh that guy i sat next to him on the jet to Europe so he really is a famous musician huh? wow!

in October 1970 Brussels is damp chilly Tanya wears hip-hugger jeans black turtle-neck top North Face shell she huddles her arms around her chest smokes cigarettes looks through hotel room window out into gray overcast sky speaks in defeatist voice i didn’t bring clothes for this weather she picks at her plate in hotel restaurant glumly vacillates later in bed after refusing *** decides they leave tomorrow fly to Canary Islands for several weeks to get tan before traveling through Morocco during winter months Canary Islands are laden with Swedish tourists including bikini clad young girls many not wearing tops Odysseus is thinking about how to swing some of that Swedish free love once Tanya gets drunk succumbs to Odysseus’s ****** overtures it is good  one day while returning to hotel from beach 2 Spanish police stop and question Tanya and Odysseus police order to see their passports then command them into squad car police bark in Spanish rifle through their daypacks point a finger Odysseus can smell alcohol on their breaths Tanya and Odysseus are terrified police drive off main road to remote location abandoned ruins no one is around police order them to step out police drive off laughing Tanya’s complexion is crimson she sobs they could have murdered us no one would know who we are or where to find us we’re lost where are we? Odysseus looks around replies don’t worry we’ll be all right i watched where the driver was going we’ll retrace their trail

they fly to Tangier travel south by train Tanya is irritable insisting Odysseus carry her backpack Casablanca is ***** 3 men peer from sunglasses act suspicious wear tattered trench coats Tanya and Odysseus snack at cafe which provides hookahs for smoking hashish Odysseus scores several grams Tanya laughs suggests they rent car drive south travel to sandy beaches of Diabet for 6 weeks in the morning she paces around French hotel room with cigarette in one hand ashtray in other like she is sultry 1940’s Hollywood actress she stays in room and devours Penguin Classics Tolstoy Stendhal Proust Huysmans Zola turns out Tanya is sexually frigid she buys Odysseus anything he wants but does not put out they take train Marrakech it is sun drenched with blue skies mountains in distance Odysseus wants to go out explore get ***** with the natives he visits Medina daily witnessing many bizarre scenes he does not understand a woman squatting over an egg a man with no legs dragging himself through marketplace holding up cigarette butts in his hand he meets a professor who is out of work because king of Morocco has closed the universities due to teachers’ strike professor explains woman squatting over egg is fortuneteller and man dragging himself has been offered crutches many times yet makes more money playing off pity of tourists cigarette butts are for sale the professor invites Odysseus to visit Berbers in mountains Odysseus persuades Tanya she reluctantly agrees the 3 travel by bus in first-class front row seats vehicle filled with lively families chickens pig bus driver has assistant who lugs people onto bus or shoves them out door at a midpoint bus stops in little town everyone exits bus then men women children urinate in street local venders sell trinkets snacks Odysseus buys nibbles shish-kabob that later professor informs is roasted cat and dog they reenter bus wait suddenly butchered lamb flank is flung onto Odysseus’s lap a man climbs aboard bus stairs then grabs large carcass and heedlessly walks to back seat Odysseus wipes blood and slime off his jeans Tanya demurely giggles bus climbs mountains arrives at small Berber village professor leads them along narrow winding street of shanty huts sheltering merchants open kitchens professor tastes from various steaming iron kettles finally decides on one they are directed to rickety roof where they sit wait a boy comes up with plastic bowl filled with water and small box of Tide following professor they wash their hands then minutes later proprietor brings up simmering *** of couscous serves it with scratched raw plastic bowls no eating utensils they eat with their fingers Tanya seems bothered declines to partake she withdraws into silence after meal she becomes irritable complains of headache says she needs to return to Marrakech she remains standoffish on bus all the way to French hotel

after Marrakech they take boat trip to Italy while onboard Odysseus meets Italian Count who has an eye for him Odysseus wears Jim Morrison beat-up leather jeans Bruce Lee t-shirt scraggly whiskers Count wears thin manicured beard tiny red Speedo swim trunks Tanya grins amused Count offers Odysseus and Tanya to be guests at his villa in Milan city flourishes with stylish clothes loud lively restaurants classical sculptures covered in car pollution following several weeks of aristocratic wining and dining amazing 11 course elegant soiree Odysseus botches compliance with Count’s desires they are asked to leave Tanya laughs hysterically they board train to Germany based on Tanya’s tour book they find historic hotel with wind rattling windows coin operated hot water bath in Munich Tanya stays in room Odysseus goes to dance club meets brown-hared pale skinned German girl neither speak the other’s language he pays for hourly rated room they play German girl in animated gesturing warns him as he is going down on her but he does not understand until several days later scratching beard finds ***** seeks A-200 lice treatment German version leather pants disposed Tanya knows but says nothing she buys Volkswagen they drive through Black Forest Tanya wants to visit King Ludwig’s castles Odysseus does the driving mostly they listen to the Who’s “Who’s Next” and Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” he follows Tanya’s instructions not knowing who King Ludwig was eventually he learns Ludwig was colorful character built extravagant Disney like castles and friends Richard Wagner Bavaria is cold gray brown deep forest green scenic Swiss Alps visible in southern view they drive from Neuschwanstein to Linderhof to Herrenchiemsee then Freiburg lodge in bed and breakfasts Tanya grows restless by all the driving decides to ditch car along road in northern France as Odysseus unscrews car license by road side several cars stop French people concerned they need help Tanya is anxious hoping for clean get away from abandoning vehicle they board train to Paris Tanya speaks a little French in spring of 1971 they are backpacking in search of hotel on Left Bank it rains all morning sky is overcast Tanya reads “Pride and Prejudice” Odysseus draws in sketchbook at sidewalk café sitting next to them are older Parisian couple man detects they are Americans he turns to them expresses in English his contempt why can’t you Americans learn from France’s lessons in Vietnam? Tanya and Odysseus don’t look up they feel like dumb ugly Americans within days they leave Paris

cross English Channel by boat they find temporary apartment in Earl’s Court in London it is overcast almost every day within a month they move to larger place in Chelsea with backyard with run down English garden Odysseus weeds garden plants tomatoes lettuce carrots radishes flowers Tanya stays in her room smokes reads at night they go out to ethnic restaurants one night they visit Indian restaurant a very proper English woman sitting at next table orders exotic fruit for dessert Odysseus asks waiter what kind of fruit waiter answers mango Odysseus has never seen or tasted mango English woman delicately eats the fruit with fork and knife Odysseus orders mango for dessert he attempts to imitate how English lady proceeded fruit slips around on plate finally out of frustration he picks it up in his hands bites into it he is aroused by how luscious mango is sniffing with nose scraping fruit’s skin with front teeth then ******* the seed Tanya makes a face suddenly the seed slides from his grasp shoots across table Tanya’s cheeks neck turn scarlet voice raises stop it Odys! you’re disgusting! are you intentionally trying to embarrass me? why are you doing this? he replies i’m not doing anything to you i’m enjoying the most delicious fruit i’ve ever tasted who cares what it looks like? later she laughs about incident offers to buy more mangos promises to take him shopping at Harrods tomorrow he goes along with their arrangement until it all seems like pretty background scenery to an empty intimacy missing all his friends back at art school he writes about his loneliness he feels trapped in Tanya’s web several times he sneaks English girls into his room when Tanya jealously confronts him he admits he has had enough and wants to go back to Hartford she suggests at the least they fly to Bermuda for several weeks to get tan before returning he declines on June 30 1971 Odysseus returns to Hartford and Tanya moves to San Francisco on July 3 Jim Morrison overdoses in Paris

In the night, those shadows come alive. So little do i know about this heavy doubt.
Cold wind biting the heart. Trying to figure out where I've been.
Dark winter pulls me closer, now theres a place i'm thinking into the air.
A voice calling, "Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow?"

Nothing is as it seams, just as beauty leans from the earth in a sunset--a harp for the soul to sing.
But You are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at her self
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
And if you want to know truth retire of solving riddles.

We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way,
begin no day where we have ended another day;
and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
Even while the earth sleeps we travel,
back into dreams.

Ay, my bow rests on my chest.
There is the flame spirit among a starry mountainside.
Oh it was but yesterday we met in a dream. You watched as I built a ship towards your shore.

My spirit goes wandering upon the wind, off to the desert sands, deep beneath the ocean's sound.
I am the gypsey and the fortuneteller, liken an honest thief. No I'm the myth builder and dream master.

who laughs with me when I destroy,
the sand castles of my innocence. The
sun warming my back just as the wicked, and drawing my image locked in a shadow.

Here the soul a battlefield, where
reason and passion become one.
they are the sails of my seafaring soul.

There I found the naked body of my dreams, in silent sleep my spriit walked the path.
I am the star-gazer who feels the power of endlessness, Aware of timelessness and
neverending space. The love in me still
present amidst the scattered fires that
burn in black ink.

Just as the caveman draws his fears on lost walls, speaking of misfortune and
treasures gallore.  A fantom ghost in Hade's Fate.
Now my ship wanders forever on a pearlous course but never sinking.

Leave your hands to the begging of mine
and let me see them
Listen
the other side of love
are the ominous days of insanity
I see them
They are running on the paper of your hands
Black and white
They are running like tears and rimes
Like wet-paper poems
dark nights
dark days
My life
What's my life doing in your hands?

I see what your future holds, nothing new and nothing unknown. But you must swiftly act, or loose unwritten stories to the past. Your future is yours to unfold.

=========================
Like the heavy full Clouds rich with water
I emptied myself by showering upon you
but you never understood the value of precious gems
And thought it an useless advice from the ignorant

I never said that I will make a castle in the heaven
Or create a Palace of pearls for seven
Because pearls are useless in a desert
The dying man just needs a few drops of water

A harvest of peace grows from seeds of contentment
O my daughter, listen
When a crow is killed by a storm
The fortuneteller says, ''He died by my curse

Let us live together as fish live with crocodile
As fragrance lives with flower, warmth lives with sun
As stars live together with cool moon in the milky light
A house without children is a graveyard

Why be alone when we can live together my child
You can make my life worthwhile
And I can make you start to smile
So don't emit poison like snake, I have fed you milk
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced
Now, Live your life in such a manner that when you die,
The world cries and you rejoice.

Don't go away alone, turning your face from us
Remember ! Even a cat is a lion in her own lair

~~~Jawahar Gupta~~~

I was seventeen when they finally
found me walking barefoot into the ocean.
Hypnotic; with too much make-up and
not enough clothing, I
became the girl who forgot
the sound of her own voice.

I gave the fortuneteller forty truths
just to hear that we're all made of
stardust. Unrelenting, my heart
is a thing I wrote out on your skin,

One night, with chaste kisses,
while the future spoke to me in
broken synonyms--

I was far too young when
I heard you find the fictional
part of my affections.

My mind
In a constant spiral
Over him and
What he brings
To the checkered tablecloth
A jar of love
The king of wands
Heaven on ******
In the meadows
Full bloom when hes around
But hes constantly out of sight
Possesions include:
A fridge fully stalked
With toothpicks and paint cans
28+ half-read books
And me, if the fortuneteller
Proves Right
Signals from a flip phone
Love through powerlines
A memory
Of moments where
Red reaches tongue
Sticks play poker with my back
Bugs take over the throne
"I could live like this"
Or maybe I just don't want it to end
I wait for him
In uncomfortable chairs
Dressed in black leather
Oil on my hands
To slick to open the jar
Diamorphine gone rotten
Famine of song
Laying in a field
Of machinery and melancholy
Holy water
The presence
Of the 3rd state of matter
Black tulips look gorgeous on a screen
So does he.