i.
we spent the autumn day wandering
above the great river the woodland
of the bluffs as dusk fell, shots echoed down the
river canyon, we had completely forgotten
the deer firearms season had opened
down the old logging trail,
a glorious stag eyes wide with confusion
lurched from the wood

ii.
despite our noise, he stumbled ahead
down the  road, and toward the hunters,
we could not turn him into the safety of the park

iii.
as the black night descended we
were surprised by a glow racing towards us
a man on  a bicycle, brightly lit, not with just a
headlamp, but a whole string of lights,
wrapped around the tubes of his
bike frame, like a Christmas tree,
he nodded at us and rode past

iv.
as we sat around the fire back at camp,
silent, pondering the odd events
we had witnessed that day,
and the stag we had maybe sent off
to be killed by some hunter,
i wondered at the strangeness
of it all, this day, and all the days
like it, and all the days to come,
would they have been strange
without my being there to see them,
or, was the strangeness my seeing
              them,
and my being, at all
              stag, still, i am so sorry

The phone rang in Red Lodge.  The sun had already faded behind the mountain, and the street outside where the bike was parked was covered in darkness. Only the glow from the quarter moon allowed the bike to be visible from my vantage point inside the Pollard’s Lobby.  The hotel manager told me I had a call coming in and it was from Cooke City.  By the time I got to the phone at the front desk, they had hung up. All that the manager had heard from the caller was that I was needed in Cooke City just before the line had gone dead.  Because of the weather, my cell phone reception was spotty, and the hotel’s phone had no caller I.D.

Cooke City was 69 miles to the West, a little more than an hour’s drive under normal circumstances.  The problem is that you can never apply the word normal to crossing Beartooth Pass even under the best of conditions, and certainly not this early in the season.  I wondered about the call and the caller, and what was summoning me to the other side.  There was 11,000 feet of mountain in between the towns of Red Lodge and Cooke City, and with a low front moving in from the West, all signals from the mountain were to stay put.

Beartooth Pass is the highest and most formidable mountain crossing in the lower 48 States.  It is a series of high switchback turns that crisscross the Montana and Wyoming borders, rising to an elevation of 10,947 ft.  If distance can normally be measured in time, this is one of nature’s timeless events.  This road is its own lord and master. It allows you across only with permission and demands your total respect as you travel its jagged heights either East or West.  Snow and rockslides are just two of the deadly hazards here, with the road itself trumping both of these dangers when traveled at night.

The Beartooth Highway, as gorgeous as it is during most summer days, is particularly treacherous in the dark.  Many times, and without warning, it will be totally covered in fog. Even worse, during the late spring and early fall, there is ice, and often black ice when you rise above 7000 feet. Black ice is hard enough to see during the daytime, but impossible to see at night and especially so when the mountain is covered in fog. At night, this road has gremlins and monsters hiding in its corners and along its periphery, ready to swallow you up with the first mistake or indiscretion that a momentary lack of attention can cause.

The word impossible is part of this mountains DNA.

: Impossible- Like the dreams I had been recently having.

: Impossible- Like all of the things I still had not done.

: Impossible- As the excuses ran like an electric current
                         through all that I hated.

: Impossible- Only in the failure of that yet to be conquered.

: Impossible- For only as long as I kept repeating the word.

Now it was my time to make a call.  I dialed the cell number of my friend Mitch who worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Cooke City. Mitch told me what I already knew and feared. There was snow on both sides of the road from Red Lodge to Cooke City, and with the dropping temperatures probably ice, and possibly black ice, at elevations above 7500 feet.

Mitch lived in Red Lodge and had just traveled the road two hours earlier on his way home.  He said there had been sporadic icy conditions on the Red Lodge side of the mountain, causing his Jeep Wagoneer to lose traction and his tires to spin when applying his brakes in the sharpest turns.  The sharpest corners were the most dangerous parts of this road, both going up and even more so when coming down. Mitch warned me against going at night and said: “Be sure to call me back if you decide to leave.”

The Red Lodge side of the mountain would be where I would begin my trip if I decided to go, with no telling how bad the Cooke City descent would be on the Western side.  This is assuming I was even able to make it over the top, before then starting the long downward spiral into Cooke City Montana.

The phone rang again!  This time I was able to get to the front desk before the caller got away.  In just ten seconds I was left with the words ringing in my ears — “Everything is ready, and we implore you to come, please come to Cooke City, and please come tonight.”  

Now, it was my time to choose.  I had to decide between staying where it was safe and dry, or answering the call and making the journey through the dark to where fate was now crying out to me. I put the phone down and walked out the front doors of the Pollard Hotel and into the dim moonlight that was shining through the clouds and onto the street.  The ‘Venture’ sat in its soft glow, parked horizontally to the sidewalk, with its back tire pressed up against the curb and its front tire pointed due North.  The bike was not showing any bias either East or West and was not going to help with this decision.  If I decided to go, this choice would have to be all mine.

The original plan had been to stay in Red Lodge for two more days, awaiting friends who still had not arrived from a trip to Mount Rushmore. Then together we had planned a short stopover in Cody, which was not more than ninety-minutes away. From there we planned to take the ‘Chief Joseph Highway’ to Cooke City, which is both a beautiful and safe way around Beartooth Pass. Safety drifted out of my consciousness like a distant mistress, and I looked North and heard the mountain call out to me again.

As much as I wanted to see my friends, the voice that was calling from inside was getting harder and harder to ignore.  With the second phone call, my time in Red Lodge grew short in its importance, and I knew in the next two minutes I would have to choose.

I also knew that if I stood in the clouded moonlight for more than two more minutes I would never decide.  Never deciding is the hallmark of all cowardly thought, and I hoped on this night that I would not be caught in its web as victim once again.  

                                         My Decision Was To Go

In ten short minutes, I emptied my room at the Pollard, checked out, and had the bike loaded and ready at the curb.  I put my warmest and most reflective riding gear on, all the while knowing that there was probably no one to see me. No one on that lonely road, except for the deer, coyote, or elk, that would undoubtedly question my sanity as they watched me ride by in the cold dark silence.  I stopped at the gas station at the end of town and topped off the tank --- just in case.  Just in case was something I hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with, as the ride would at most take less than a half a tank of gas. It made me feel better though, so I topped off, paid the attendant, and rode slowly out towards U.S. Highway # 212.  

As I headed West toward the pass, I noticed one thing conspicuous in its absence. In fifteen minutes of travel, I had not passed one other vehicle of any kind going in either direction.  I was really alone tonight and not only in my thoughts.  It was going to be a solitary ride as I tried to cross the mountain. I would be alone with only my trusted bike as my companion which in all honesty — I knew in my heart before leaving the hotel.  

Alone, meant there would be no help if I got into trouble and no one to find me until probably morning at the earliest.  Surviving exposed on the mountain for at least twelve hours is a gamble I hoped I wouldn’t have to take.

I kept moving West. As I arrived at the base of the pass I stopped, put the kickstand down and looked up.  What was visible of the mountain in the clouded moonlight was only the bottom third of the Beartooth Highway. The top two thirds disappeared into a clouded mist, not giving up what it might contain or what future it may have hidden inside of itself for me.  With the kickstand back up and my high beam on, I slowly started my ascent up Beartooth Pass.

For the first six or seven miles the road surface was clear with snow lining both sides of the highway.  The mountain above, and the ones off to my right and to the North were almost impossible to see.  What I could make out though, was that they were totally snow covered making this part of southern Montana look more like December or January, instead of early June.  The road had only opened a month ago and it was still closing at least three out of every seven days.  I remembered to myself how in years past this road never really opened permanently until almost the 4th of July.

When the road was closed, it made the trip from Red Lodge to Cooke City a long one for those who had to go around the mountain.  Many people who worked in Cooke City actually lived in Red Lodge.  They would ‘brave’ the pass every night when it was open, but usually only during the summer months. They would do this in trucks with 4-wheel drive and S.U.V.’s but never on a motorcycle with only two wheels.  Trying to cross this pass on a motorcycle with high performance tires, in the fog, and at night, was a horse of an entirely different color.  

At about the seven-mile mark in my ascent I again stopped the bike and looked behind me. I was about to enter the cloud barrier.  The sight below from where I had just come was breathtakingly beautiful.  If this was to be the last thing I would ever see before   entering the cloud, it would be a fitting photograph on my passport into eternity.

I looked East again, and it was as if the lights from Red Lodge were calling me back, saying “Not tonight Kurt, this trip is to be made another time and for a better reason.” I paused, but could think of no better reason, as I heard the voice on the phone say inside my mind, “Please come,” so I retracted the kickstand and entered the approaching fog.

There was nothing inviting as I entered the cloud.  The dampness and the moisture were immediate and all enveloping, as the visibility dropped to less than fifty feet.  It was so thick I could actually see rain droplets as it passed over my headlight.  The road was still clear though and although it was hard to see, its surface was still good.  The animals that would normally concern me at this time of night were a distant memory to me now. The road stayed like this for what seemed to be another two or three miles, while it trapped me in its continuing time warp of what I still had to overcome.

It then turned sharply right, and I heard a loud ‘wail’ from inside the bike’s motor.  My heart immediately started racing as I thought to myself, ‘What a place to have the engine break down.’  It only took a few more seconds though to see that what I thought was engine failure was actually the tachometer revving off the scale on the dash.  The rear tire had lost traction, and in an involuntary and automated response I had given it more throttle to maintain my speed. I now had the engine turning at over 5000 r.p.m.’s in an attempt to get the rear tire to again make contact with the road.  Slowing my speed helped a little, but I was now down to 10 MPH, and it was barely fast enough to allow me to continue my ascent without the rear tire spinning again.

                                  I Could Still Turn Around And Go Back    

I was now at an elevation above 8,000 ft, and it was here that I had to make my last decision.  I could still turn around and go back.

While the road surface was only semi-good, I could turn around and head back in the direction from which I had just come.  I could go back safely, but to what and to whom? I knew my spirit and my heart would not go with me, both choosing to stay on this hill tonight regardless of the cost.  “If I turn around and go back, my fear is that in my lack of commitment, I will lose both of them forever. The mountain will have then claimed what my soul cannot afford to lose.”  I looked away from Red Lodge for the last time, and once again my eyes were pointed toward the mountain’s top.

It was three more miles to the summit based on my best estimation.

From there it would be all down hill.  The fear grew deeper inside of me that the descent would be even more treacherous as I crested the top and pushed on to the mountain town of Cooke City below.  Cooke City and Red Lodge were both in Montana, but the crest of this mountain was in Wyoming, and it looked down on both towns as if to say … ‘All passage comes only through me.’      

This time I did not stop and look over my shoulder. Instead, I said a short prayer to the gods that protect and watch over this place and asked for only one dispensation — and just one pass through the dark.  My back wheel continued to spin but then somehow it would always regain traction, and I continued to pray as I slowly approached the top.  

As I arrived at the summit, the road flattened out, but the cloud cover grew even more dense with visibility now falling to less than ten feet.  I now couldn’t see past my front fender, as the light from my headlamp bounced off the water particles with most of its illumination reflected back onto me and not on the road ahead.

In conditions like this it is very hard to maintain equilibrium and balance. Balance is the most essential component of any two-wheeled form of travel. Without at least two fixed reference points, it’s hard to stay straight upright and vertical.  I’ve only experienced this once before when going through a mountain tunnel whose lights had been turned off. When you can’t see the road beneath you, your inner sense of stability becomes compromised, and it’s easier than you might think to get off track and crash.

This situation has caused many motorcyclists to fall over while seemingly doing nothing wrong. It creates a strange combination of panic and vertigo and is not something you would ever want to experience or deal with on even a dry road at sea level.  On an icy road at this elevation however, it could spell the end of everything!

My cure for this has always been to put both feet down and literally drag them on top of the road surface below. This allows my legs to act as two tripods, warning me of when the bike is leaning either too far to the left or to the right.  It’s also dangerous. If either leg comes in contact with something on the road or gets hung up, it could cause the very thing it’s trying to avoid. I’ve actually run over my own foot with the rear wheel and it’s not something you want to do twice.

                     Often Causing What It’s Trying To Avoid

At the top of the pass, the road is flat for at least a mile and gently twists and turns from left to right.  It is a giant plateau,10,000 feet above sea level. The mountain then starts to descend westward as it delivers its melting snow and rain to the Western States. Through mighty rivers, it carries its drainage to the Pacific Ocean far beyond.  As I got to the end of its level plain, a passing thought entered my consciousness.  With the temperature here at the top having risen a little, and only just below freezing, my Kevlar foul-weather gear would probably allow me to survive the night.  On this mountaintop, there is a lot of open space to get off the road, if I could then only find a place to get out of the wind.  

I let that thought exit my mind as quickly as it entered. The bike was easily handling the flat icy areas, and I knew that the both of us wanted to push on.  I tried to use my cell phone at the top to call Mitch at home.  I was sure that by now he would be sitting by the fire and drinking something warm.  This is something I should have done before I made the final decision to leave.  I didn’t, because I was sure he would have tried to talk me out of it, or worse, have forbidden me to go. This was well within his right and purview as the Superintendent of all who passed over this mountain.

My phone didn’t work!  This was strange because it had worked from the top last spring when I called my family and also sent cell-phone pictures from the great mountain’s summit.  I actually placed three calls from the top that day, two to Pennsylvania and one to suburban Boston.

                                         But Not Tonight!

As I started my descent down the western *****, I knew it would be in first gear only.  In first gear the engine would act as a brake or limiter affecting my speed, hopefully without causing my back tire to lose traction and break loose. With almost zero visibility, and both feet down and dragging in the wet snow and ice, I struggled to stay in the middle of the road.  It had been over an hour since leaving Red Lodge, and I still had seen no other travelers going either East or West. I had seen no animals either, and tonight I was at least thankful for that.

The drop off to my right (North) was several thousand feet straight down to the valley below and usually visible even at night when not covered in such cloud and mist.  To my left was the mountain’s face interspersed with open areas which also dropped several thousands of feet to the southern valley below.  Everything was uncertain as I left the summit, and any clear scenery had disappeared in the clouds. What was certain though was my death if I got too close to the edge and was unable to recover and get back on the road.

There were guardrails along many of the turns and that helped, because it told me that the direction of the road was changing.  In the straight flat areas however it was open on both sides with nothing but a several thousand-foot fall into the oblivion below.

Twice I ran over onto the apron and felt my foot lose contact with the road surface meaning I was at the very edge and within two feet of my doom.  Twice, I was sure that my time on this earth had ended, and that I was headed for a different and hopefully better place. Twice, I counter steered the bike to the left and both feet regained contact with the road as the front tire weaved back and forth with only the back tire digging in and allowing me to stay straight up.

As I continued my descent, I noticed something strange and peculiar.  After a minute or two it felt like I was going faster than you could ever go in first gear.  It took only another instant to realize what was happening.  The traction to the rear tire was gone, and my bike and I were now sliding down the Western ***** of Beartooth pass.  The weight of the bike and myself, combined with the gravity of the mountain’s descent, was causing us to go faster than we could ever go by gearing alone.  Trying to go straight seemed like my only option as the bike felt like it had lost any ability to control where it was going.  This was the next to last thing I could have feared happening on this hill.

The thing I feared most was having to use either the front or rear brakes in a situation like this.  That would only ensure that the bike would go out of control totally, causing the rear wheel to come around broadside and result in the bike falling over on its opposite side. Not good!  Not good at all!

Thoughts of sliding off the side of the mountain and into the canyons below started running through my mind.  Either falling off the mountain or being trapped under the bike while waiting for the next semi-truck to run over me as it crossed the summit in the darkened fog was not something I welcomed. Like I said before, not good, not good at all!

My mind flashed back to when I was a kid and how fast it seemed we were going when sledding down the hill in front of the local hospital.  I also remembered my disappointment when one of the fathers told me that although it seemed fast, we were really only going about ten or fifteen miles an hour.  I wondered to myself how fast the bike was really going now, as it slid down this tallest of all Montana mountains? It seemed very, very fast.  I reminded myself over and over, to keep my feet down and my hand off the brakes.

If I was going to crash, I was going to try and do it in the middle of the road. Wherever that was now though, I couldn’t be sure.  It was finally the time to find out what I had really learned after riding a motorcycle for over forty years.  I hoped and prayed that what I had learned in those many years of riding would tonight be enough.

As we continued down, the road had many more sharp turns, swerving from right to left and then back right again.  Many times, I was right at the edge of my strength. My legs battled to keep the bike upright, as I fought it as it wanted to lean deeper into the turns.  I almost thought I had the knack of all this down, when I instantaneously came out of the cloud.  I couldn’t believe, and more accurately didn’t want to believe, what I was seeing less than a half mile ahead.

The road in front of me was totally covered in black ice.  Black ice look’s almost like cinders at night and can sometimes deceive you into thinking it holds traction when exactly the opposite is true. This trail of black ice led a half mile down the mountain to where it looked like it ended under a guardrail at the end.  What I thought was the end was actually a switchback turn of at least 120 degrees.

It turned sharply to the right before going completely out of my sight into the descending blackness up ahead.

My options now seemed pretty straightforward while bleak.  I could lay the bike down and hope the guard rail would stop us before cascading off the mountain, or I could try to ride it out with the chances of making it slim at best.  I tried digging my feet into the black ice as brakes, as a kid would do on a soapbox car, but it did no good.  The bike kept pummeling toward the guardrail, and I was sure I was now going faster than ever.  As my feet kept bouncing off the ice, it caused the bike to wobble in the middle of its slide. This was now the last thing I needed as I struggled not to fall.

As I got close to the guardrail, and where the road turned sharply to the right, I felt like I was going 100 miles an hour.  I was now out of the cloud and even in the diffused moonlight I could see clearly both sides of the road.  With some visibility I could now try and stay in the middle, as my bike and I headed towards the guardrail not more than 500 feet ahead.  The valley’s below to the North and South were still thousands of feet below me, and I knew when I tried to make the turn that there would be no guardrail to protect me from going off the opposite right, or Northern side.

                   Time Was Running Out, And A Choice Had To Be Made

The choices ran before my eyes one more time — to be trapped under a guardrail or to run off a mountain into a several thousand foot abyss.  But then all at once my soul screamed NO, and that I did have one more choice … I could decide to just make it. I would try by ‘force of will’ to make it around that blind turn.  I became reborn once again in the faith of my new decision not to go down, and I visually saw myself coming out the other side in my mind’s eye.

                                        I Will Make That Turn

I remembered during this moment of epiphany what a great motorcycle racer named **** Mann had said over forty years ago.  

**** said “When you find yourself in trouble, and in situations like this, the bike is normally smarter than you are.  Don’t try and muscle or overpower the motorcycle.  It’s basically a gyroscope and wants to stay upright.  Listen to what the bike is telling you and go with that. It’s your best chance of survival, and in more cases than not, you’ll come out OK.”  With ****’s words fresh and breathing inside of me, I entered the right-hand turn.

As I slowly leaned the bike over to the right, I could feel the rear tire break loose and start to come around.  As it did, I let the handlebars point the front tire in the same direction as the rear tire was coming.  We were now doing what flat track motorcycle racers do in a turn — a controlled slide! With the handlebars totally pressed against the left side of the tank, the bike was fully ‘locked up’ and sliding with no traction to the right.  The only control I had was the angle I would allow the bike to lean over,which was controlled by my upper body and my right leg sliding below me on the road.

Miraculously, the bike slid from the right side of the turn to the left.  It wasn’t until I was on the left apron that the back tire bit into the soft snow and regained enough traction to set me upright. I was not more than three feet from the now open edge leading to a certain drop thousands of feet below.  The traction in the soft snow ****** the bike back upright and had me now pointed in a straight line diagonally back across the road.  Fighting the tendency to grab the brakes, I sat upright again and counter steered to the left. Just before running off the right apron, I was able to get the bike turned and headed once again straight down the mountain.  It was at this time that I took my first deep breath.

In two hundred more yards the ice disappeared, and I could see the lights of Cooke City shining ten miles out in the distance. The road was partially dry when I saw the sign welcoming me to this most unique of all Montana towns.  To commemorate what had just happened, I was compelled to stop and look back just one more time.  I put the kickstand down and got off the bike.  For a long minute I looked back up at the mountain. It was still almost totally hidden in the cloud that I had just come through.  I wondered to myself if any other motorcyclists had done what I had just done tonight — and survived.  I knew the stories of the many that had run off the mountain and were now just statistics in the Forest Service’s logbook, but I still wondered about those others who may had made it and where their stories would rank with mine.

I looked up for the last time and said thank you, knowing that the mountain offered neither forgiveness nor blame, and what I had done tonight was of my own choosing. Luck and whatever riding ability I possessed were what had seen me through. But was it just that, or was it something else? Was it something beyond my power to choose, and something still beyond my power to understand?  If the answer is yes, I hope it stays that way.  Until on a night like tonight, some distant mountain high above some future valley, finally claims me as its own.

                     Was Crossing Tonight Beyond My Power To Choose?

After I parked the bike in front of the Super 8 in Cooke City, I walked into the lobby and the desk clerk greeted me. “Mr Behm,

it’s good to see you again, I’m glad we were able to reach you with that second phone call.  We received a cancellation just before nine, and the only room we had left became available for the night.”

I have heard the calling in many voices and in many forms.  Tonight, it told me that my place was to be in Cooke City and my time in Red Lodge had come to an end.  Some may need more or better reasons to cross their mountain in the dark, but for me, the only thing necessary was for it to call.

                                               …  Until It Calls Again





Gardiner Montana- May, 1996

Even I, with scales on my eyes and large, heavy headphones pressed tightly against my ears, can see that this three week conversation has died out, although I have made every attempt to keep it burning.
Even I, with my nose bleeding, and my heart bleeding, and my soul dripping some strange, red liquid, know that this has run its course, which, coincidentally, was directly into an iceberg which I never saw. An iceburg that only exists in your eyes, yet this ship sailed, serene, into it, with no word of warning from your lips.
Even I, with guts spilled out, in the street, in front of your house, spelling your name, must aknowledge the fleeting nature of the situation. I guess.
Even I, with next to no knowledge of myself, know that I am lying.
But they are lies that I must eat with the eagerness of starving foxes - for that is what I am now. I am made of lies and paw-prints in the vacant lot, near the abandoned sugar factory, that place I still believe is haunted, to this day. Maybe it houses my ghosts.
But after my dinner of hollow lies, I am left famished still, even though I choked down one too many, coughing, and gasping for air, as if I were drowning in my own falsities. After my unsatisfying meal, I only want one dessert: A cigarette and an answer. But only one is possible, and I have already made my choice. The pull of Nicotine is much stronger than that of closure. So I don't really need it.
I am a blind man, who has wandered onto the train tracks, far outside of town, where the iron horses can really run. In the city (or something that may only resembe a city,) they prance. On display. "Look at my tall, graffitti-stained walls. See my beautiful face of cow-catcher grin and headlamp, cyclops eye."
I made my picnic on the tracks, thinking they were a bench. I guess that was a bad idea. And my reanimated corpse agrees, as it trusts that another train is still far away and stumbles about, picking up lost pieces.
I should build a house here. I really don't mind rebuilding, and the trainwrecks ain't so bad...
All in retrospect, friend.

Slender as a needle
Bright as hunter's headlamp
Okpeke next door makes
My heart skip a beat

Like yellow rose lures the bee
The sound of her voice compels me
The market square gong beckons
Who dare ignore the king?

When the moonlight play is over
I will remember not to ever forget--
All that glitters is not gold

My hand.
My sweet hand, its long fingers, hold out for you. It feels for you, to guide you through this storm. I can feel you, just out of reach, your arms are turned away from me, crossed to protect you, shielding the darkness within from escaping, as if pushing back the rise of a storm, that your heart, can no longer contain.
There is a storm coming.
I can see it in your eyes, as they look behind me, unable to see me, unable to see, me. As if my very visage is a reminder that you can no longer be alone, as if my very eyes tell you that you are here with me, and all, will be, ok. And your very eyes, and your very chest and your very shoulders, they seem to die a thousand deaths before me, exuding defeat and terror and defense, and relief, all at the same time.
I. cannot. reach. you.
Hold. out. your. hand. My. Love.
You sit, you stand, you walk away, you ignore my hand. You want to do this alone. Alone, without me. With me, alone. But my heart beats only for you, you can hear the sound distantly, from the pulse inmy wrist by my hand, and it widens your eyes and stirs you. And, I can see, the very depths of your soul in each breath you release. In every expletive you throw at me, for being here, for making you realise that, I am not, her. I am not, her. I am not, them. Your soul, it unleashes hell, fire, ash and a deep darkness you cannot bear.
My love. My sweet sweet love. Hear me:
I am safety, i wear an orange vest and headlamp. I am clear skies, and sunshine. I am a long open road to nowhere. I am teenage butterflies. I am the chest with the ******* that you will lie your head on during the night and find security. I am the shore after the wreck. I am freedom, beauty, passion, laughter and forever after. I am shelter, with blankets. I am the fullness of your void. I am the full stop to the end of your questions.
There is a storm coming.
You have tied yourself to the rigging. You are stood ready for the hurracaine. You glance briefly at me, and in your eyes is a child that is lost, that is lost, that is longing, that is hollow and alone, and does.not.understand. Why?
There is a storm coming.
The dam in your heart broke and the arteries flood your brain with, life, fear, and belief.
Take my hand, my love. I will be here. I will  not be, moved.
I am, a rock, to cling to. I am a storm shelter. I am a end to your beginning.
I will not leave. I will not go.  I be here in the fall, the ruin, the despise, the bitterness, the anger, the rejection, and the destruction. I will be here, with my arm, hung out to dry amongst the linen and the memories you drew on them to protect yourself from me.
My hand, it can hold your world. My hand can protect you. My hand, we can conquer the world, my love. My hand is yours, my hand is yours, my hand, is, yours.
Take it.
Fall to your knees, place my hand on your face as you weep the storm in to my world, and release the whole hurracaine within you. I will take that storm and absolve it from itself.
My hand, your cheek
My pulse, your heart.
My love.
Take my hand, release your storm.

*(now read again, whilst listening to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uffjii1hXzU&feature;=share&list;=AL94UKMTqg-9Ay9pKcP7K4WLmlE_GjKuqE)

ONE CRISP NIGHT in mid October, we went down the old fisherman’s trail, where the mountains meet the lake. This was before the trail had been maintained and tossed with wood-chips and at the time, it was a narrow mangled dirt path sporting thick roots and fist sized rocks at every twist and turn. You’d be foolish to not carry a headlamp and flashlight, for the woods were nearly impassable without them. We knew this, and we came well prepared even thought stumbling at points on the trail was inevitable. When we came to the light clearing in the trees, which was brushed with pine and spruce, and the tallest oak tree I’d ever seen, we sat down on two logs. They were wet through, and covered in patches of lichen and moss. Insects crept through the rotted wood, and night moths fluttered in the still air. Though half the world was asleep in their beds, and would stay that way till morning, the forest was wide awake under the crunching maple leaves.

We marveled out at the round moon, bright and pale in the sky. It hung regally, while it’s light shone upon the lake’s dark waters, holding our faces, holding the mysteries of the universe and the answers to any question we might have. Cradled by the natural world, we were. I’ve never felt as protected, since then, as I did that one night. It was as if Mother Earth cradled me in her own ancient hands.

Her voice was as the sirens of past, the lovely melodies that nearly entranced Homer to a treacherous fate upon the sea
Tucked deep in the mountains the ocean was far from reach, yet her voice still called out to me
Subtle at first, muffled by whipping winds full of snow coming from all directions
Yet amidst all the ambient noise her voice still garnered my inspection
Flakes of snow shone bright within the cloud that nestled upon us, my headlamp casting an eerie reflection
Her voice cut through the noise yet again, soothing beckoning me to return
Pressing on higher my legs ached and burned
I felt them beg and yearn
For the rest she had offered, a moment to reside upon this ***** steep and unsteady
My body craved the break, this pack seemed to grow heavy
I pressed on
Praying the metallic clang of my ice axe across the rocks buried deep in the snow would block out her song
The melodic thump of my boots sinking into the snow with every kick step
I could hear my breath
Straining the higher we'd climb
Her voice began to penetrate my mind
I felt uneasy, never ready to face her I always looked higher, finally I took a glimpse behind
There she was beckoning me to jettison into her cold embrace
She had no face, there was no physical form to be had, lost in the midst
I heard her calling out my name, begging for my soul, I hear her calling...I hear the abyss

in the cavern
stalactites & fireflys
illuminate
now
a library of theories

chasm cacophony
their massed odour
freshly damp
hanging in wait
for the moon's cue

headlamp highlights
campers' scraps
under earth & rock
a steady descent
strange treasures

He is the morning and I have turned into a walking cliché machine.
The sun could sap the day out of my skin and I wouldn’t feel it,
wouldn’t mind if I did.
I want to crack him open and curl up in his chest cavity,
exploring the dark corners with my headlamp and uncovering hidden majesties in geodes, making road maps.
~
Sometimes, I look at their hands,
moving in time to the beat or
engaging in some twisted alchemy,
making circles out of straight lines, or
coaxing the music out of guitar strings, or
painting the unknown like clockwork in due time,
and I wonder what they could do to me in bed.
~
And I still let him touch me when I'm drunk and he's drunk or when I'm sober and he's drunk-he doesn't want to touch me when he's not drinking-because he's like a cigarette and I've made a habit of inhaling deeply, to remind me that he’s cancer in my bones and I’m getting too old for this.
He treats me like the used tissues I crumple in my purse and pull out when my nose gets runny, there when he needs me, stroking my rib cage and covering me in a viscous slime.
He feels like a stubbed toe or a paper cut and mostly I'm a mouth to *** into.
His hands find the parts of my body that people have always told me to keep secret, but it's been a while since I started sending them out on postcards to strangers.
He can grab me with his eyes like a hand grabs the nape of a kittens neck, and I falter.
~
How can I unlove someone I used to love so much?
Mother may I-help me-stop loving all of them at once.

The moon glared above,
exposed solid ice
beneath headlamp-glow.

Winds whipped across the wall,
freezing warm breath-vapor
onto my stinging-face.

Chinks of my axe echoed
against the moraine,
crampons etched
my signature behind.

Slowly I moved up
into the pitch-void,
toward the twinkling stars.

Tethered
to my kindred-spirits,
together we found truth
on the summit-push.

night hiking:
pro:
-if you're at a steep part of the trail, your headlamp will only illuminate what's in front of you-there's no knowing when it will stop being so hard and so the leveling of the ground beneath your feet is more often that not a welcomed friend rather than a long anticipated and frustratingly far relief
con:
-while ignorance can be bliss, missing out on the view can be a ******

day hiking:
pro:
-the flood of light is intoxicatingly beautiful and you can see everything around you in the incandescent sunlight.  No illusions
con:
-no illusions

do not stand there with a bloodied blade in palm and deny your tectonic collisions-
perpetually convergent.

the cracks in our palms not products of birth,
but of rebirth,
of whirlpool concussion,
of night-time demon chants-
our stomachs both steel and starch.

i sense no longings for statues in your ambivalent pupils-
only condolences for the outcasted gargoyles.

you've taught me this value of illumunation in the moonlight of nights where the yellow center-lines were pale-hued and tear-stained.

in these fearful beds of cotton and thorn,
you are the blood and gauze,
the bent mirror and the authentic starlight,
the unknown cave and the trusted headlamp.

your feet are muddy as hell and you're giving your favorite meals to our darkest parts.

We rode on the deserted roads,
through the expanse of humble abodes
We rode by the huts and the sheds,
by disconcerting poverty and dreads
Dogs barked
Televisions barked
We rode onto darkness,
to silence
The huts thinned out
Now it was only the growling motor
and the hooting owls
and the chirping crickets
The beer had warmed
But it was a cold night
She sipped, I swigged
The headlamp needed some fixing
The beams kissed treetops as I rode
into blind bumps and corners
On the left was a pretty sight
and it was a lonely night
So I turned left
and rode as far into the beach as I could
but here it was mostly sand
and the riding got out a little out of hand
the tires didn’t bite
but it was alright
I could see the waves
We were only a few meters away
This was a perfect getaway
Behind the bushes and the vines
Abetted by the palms and pines
I killed the motor
and put it on the stand
but it sunk in the sand
I tried to lift but it was heavy
She dragged me to the waves
I dragged her to the bushes

Her eyes twinkled
and the edges crinkled
as she smiled
and it soon got wild
I unbuttoned her shirt
and we kissed till it hurt
I struggled with the clasps
between the kisses and gasps
She was very kind
She didn’t mind
helping a man blinded
by the darkness of the night
and of his depraved soul
She helped me with the clasp
and stripped bare
without concern or care
She yanked my pants
and we did a tribal dance
drunk out of our wits
in the moonless ritz
there was rhythm in the air
and we both sensed it
The gentle slush of the wave
nudged us to save
and treasure the last drops of love
that we could have now
As we made slow love in the breeze
the world dribbled to ease
and we mated in the dark night
with the moon still out of sight

The air is frosted with a scent of wet fall leaves, the darkness a rich abyss of espresso as we enter the forest of deer.

A mist from the swamp thickens as our headlamps cut through it.

My son passes me thinking I've lost the trail, he becomes the pathfinder, a smile appears on my face in the darkness, I'm happy.

Our steps are synchronized, as the steam from our breath becomes part of the mist.

We cross the stream and reach my stand, now we separate wishing each other Good Hunt, may our arrows be true.

I wait and watch his headlamp gently dim through the dense forest. I contemplate the gift I'm experiencing.

I climb my stand, pull up my gear and settle in ancient weapon in hand truth in my heart all expectations gone.

Time passes and dawn breaks, birds feed, sunlight sweeps away the fog. I hear my son call for deer.

Hours pass, minds clear, time ceases.
You envision what you pursue,
the forest becomes your breath as you wait for your quarry.

As what some call barbarous an unnecessary endeavor in this day of supermarkets, internet and smart phones, lest we forget from which we came, I prefer the meditation of which I partake in and revel in its ability to keep me connected to the soul of the world with reverence and respect >>>====>

Nicholas Finocchio

you roared into the driveway of our southwestern ranch-style house
on a new Kawasaki, all yellow and black
fresh out of the showroom.
our house faced west,
so the big orange sun positioned at your back,
lit up your magnificent silhouette.
how much better?
how much better can my life get?
900 cubic centimeters of raw whining power.
no outstanding warrants for my arrest.
whoa-whoa. whoa whoa.
the pirate's life for me.

I hopped on back of the bike, wrapped my arms around you.
and I sank my face into your hair.
and then I inhaled as deeply as I possibly could.
you were as sweet and delicious as the warm desert air.
and you pointed your headlamp toward the horizon,
we were the one thing in the galaxy god didn't have his eyes on.
900 cc's of raw whining power,
no outstanding warrants for my arrest.
hi ****** dee dee.
*******!
the pirate's life for me!

I thought I had known stillness
But not like this

I thought I had known silence
But this was a sacred silence

Dusted off a rock
That lay against the side of the trail
It formed a relaxing chair

I ate my avocado
My popcorn
My apricots
And golden raisins

My headlamp on for a bit
The small moths fluttered in the air

I alone am dull
I alone am confused

I had thought about going to the summit
To see the sunrise

I was too tired
I was at ease
Sitting there

Not desiring
Content to sit
And listen to the Tao Te Ching

My clothes plain
My body a plain earth body

Alone and content
Tao Is Wise Mother

As I walked down the trail
A man with a wooden walking stick walked up

"HI" I said
I thought of my old friend

He has the eternal goodness

I remind myself to be kind in my dealings with others

Dig
Dig
Down

Feel the sweat on your brow
The dirt on your brown, brown hands

The shovel in your fists
The blisters an ugly bright red

Headlamp flickering
Back bending down

Down
Down
Down

Into the dark, damp earth

for Out magazine

I.
Footprints trailed behind us as we stumbled across the moon-bleached sand, watching driftwood float across the angry sea like rescue boats. The world around us was silent, except for the crash of waves tripping over themselves. Inside my head, it was anything but quiet. There was a tornado of sand spinning inside my skull, each grain of thought impaling my brain.

“Dad?”
He looked over to me, light from the headlamp obscuring his face from my vision.
“I’ve started dating someone.” I studied the stiff blades of grass, poking up from the sand like little swords. “She’s a girl.”
He stood up from the burrow he stooped over, “Okay.”

II.
After my parents separated, every life event suddenly required two different stories. When I went on a date, I would come home to mom’s house and throw off my bag. Its contents would spill over, coins lodging into the cracks in the wood floor. I’d sit on the countertop, knees folded in, recounting the events of the night as my mom eagerly listened. Days later, after the night had long since turned stale, I would tell my dad too. It continued like this for eight years.

III.
When mom and dad were married, dad used to work all the time and mom stayed home with my brother and me. I was a fashion designer and my brother was my muse. On one occasion, I dressed him up in my favorite ariel swimsuit and a pink tutu. We pranced around the neighborhood, mom speed-walking behind us like a dog walker who couldn’t keep up with her pets.
“You have such cute daughters.” said a Lady on the way home. Mom just laughed.

IV.
Sometimes, I wonder why I chose to tell Dad first. Mom and I were closer. She was the first person I told anything and everything. But, they were never together anymore. I didn’t just have to come out to my parents once, I had to do it twice.

V.
Maybe it was because I knew my dad wouldn’t ask questions. He would deal with it on his own.

VI.
My mom wasn’t afraid to ask questions, and she asked a lot of them. I told her a week after I told my dad. We were sitting in her car, outside the house. I studied the crack in the windshield. It had been there since I was ten. She nodded, and told me she loved me, and then turned her gaze to the side window.
“Do you want to have *** with a girl, then?” She asked me. Color flushed my cheeks and somehow I knew from the expression on her face that there was a right answer.
“No,” I said.
“Okay.”

VII.
Three years after I came out to him, dad and I were sitting in the car. I watched the lines on the highway fly by as if being eaten by the front of the car. He turned his head to face me, his eyes still occasionally flicking back to the road. He adjusted the wheel accordingly.
“I thought that it would be something we’d get through.” He paused as if his words were clinging on to his tongue, unable to come out.

“Grandpa always tells me how proud he is that I’ve supported you and I’m thinking, It was never a big deal. I never think about it.”

“Yeah, that’s the crazy thing. I didn’t think that’d happen either, honestly” I shifted in my seat uncomfortably.

“Yeah.” He said. “Mcdonalds for breakfast?”

VIII.
When I was younger, I liked to put on my mom’s clothes. I’d climb into my mother’s closet like it was a cave, pickaxe in hand. I’d stomp along the floors, my naked toes fumbling with carpet, my shadow dissolving in the surrounding dark. Along the walls draped shirts and dresses, sheathed in their suit bags like bats, hanging by their feet, sequin eyes glittering in the silent black. I’d show my mom my creations and when the fashion show was over I’d stare into the mirror, wondering “What woman would come to fit this dress?” I stared into the silence of the cave, at my reflection, draped in the clothing of a woman I wished to become.

IX.
My mom would still ask me questions like the one she asked the day I came out to her. When I mentioned getting married and having a wife, she paused and leaned over the kitchen counter. “Do you think you’ll marry a woman?”
“I don’t know,”
“Are you going to have kids?”
“Yes.” I knew the correct answer to that one. She looked me up and down.
“Don’t you want kids with your DNA? With your husband’s DNA?”
“I guess.” I furrowed my brow “But I’d be okay with a ***** donor too.”

X.
My dad was right, My sexuality was never a big deal for me. When I sat in the park with a girl I liked, our legs dangling from the swing set, I never thought about how she was a girl. Some people think that the word “homosexual” is etched on the inside of your eyelids and that every time you close them, you come face to face with reality. In truth, I hardly thought about my sexuality. But, I got the impression that my mom thought about it much more than I did.

XI.
Both my mom and my dad were supportive of me. Dad supported me with his silence and indifference. While mom supported me with her constant reassurance. Sometimes it felt like she was reassuring herself more than me.
“I got you this magazine,” she said to me one morning. It was a copy of Out.
“Okay”
I tossed it into the paper organizer by my desk and continued tapping on my computer.

XII.
I wanted more than anything to feel like mom wasn’t disappointed in my coming out. Or that she didn’t think of me differently because of it. At times, when she’d ask me about it, my skin would bubble and boil in anger.
“Maybe your next date could be a boy?” She would say, and my heart would plummet like a faulty elevator. I’d be teleported back to that day inside the car, staring at the cracks in the front window, perfectly symmetrical to the spiderweb splayed across the driveway in front of us.

Smell the snow in a forest so quiet something seems wrong with your hearing.

Your forehead carries the permanent imprint of your headlamp.

Indirect light colors the sky, mountains blue, ocean blue, sky orange and yellow, night stripes of green.

Above the number of stars is beyond understanding.

Green lights roll over mountains and hit you in the head.

No one will see dust on your floor.

The full moon makes a movie-set feel bright enough to read by.

What darkness can do, make your mood dive.

Three moose and two eagles join your dayless days.

Children run around playing in the dark.

Build a snowcave, fill it with candlelight, everything just stops.

Life doesn’t stop.

Sounds of frost biting the corners, ice singing.

Footsteps on snow reflect smallest glimmers of light.

Headlamp illuminates glass, fear has passed like summer showers
Hours and hours of waiting for you, dandelions grew in pace
A face, name forgotten, incubating heartfelt goodbyes
Forever cries to the moment, forward movement, unconscious atonement
Blowing it, down and destroyed and dead, call it a solution
Solvents fluid, plastic, pollution, unscrewing the lid to the genie jar
Listed over to far, capsize a species,  man made atomic meteors
Empathy depleting like mana, ran out of blue potions
Just a ghost to a ghost most nights, smoking under bulb lights
Waiting for the moths to come by, fly in their drunkenness
What we miss is imagined bliss, dull dragging gravity
Tattooed skull on your soul, dagger piercing tragically
One day magically the lights come on, you hear the same song for the first time
And you slip into the sublime, now, now, now

Hothouse has no bed
Bare glass and empty bar
Haunted room for two
Old and lonely ghost
Vital flowers dead
Wilted heart and rose
The color of dry blood

Lonely light bulb naked
Just hanging by a hair
Put the shadows on the shade
Wallflowers standing bare
And whitewash on the face
Hardhat with a headlamp
Bright and diamond eye
Flick the instant switch

Never go out at night
Don’t live to see the stars
Seated at the dark bar
We’re locked indoors for life
Those who come to visit
Stay lonely forever

I raise my hands for
a toast to the void
to the big mouth no teeth emptied out colossus
casually stirring stars
here's to the ******* nothingness
THAT ******
that inthecloset underthebed undermyponytail question
cheers -
I don't know you
But I've been walking the plank for 27 years and I'm starting to think I've been in the sea all along so
cheers -
to the ugly fish
the ones on the sea floor
you're not ugly if you grew up in the dark.
wouldn’t you do the same?
attach a headlamp to your forehead?
wouldn't you sew it there yourself?
for a little bit of light?
Cheers -
to the mother who kneels to check under the bed for you and lies
to the unnamed hallelujah of a no-answer question
to the mouth that asks
to the fish
to me

In my fuzzy, tumbling mornings
You are still the light of day
Even if it’s only last night’s matches,
And I exaggerate the flame

If I’ve been ejected from the sky and shot through a forest canopy,
Only my torn clothes to hold as I walk the amazon, dehydrated for days,
Then you are the rain


When I wake wrapped in hot skin
Layers of itching ash, fallen paper-thin
Too frozen from the smoking door to reach the window
You are a headlamp
And a deep voice of salvation any trapped creature would know

I am the sea to your sky
I create your blue and you pull me

Moths tumbling into your headlamp like rain
Eyes on the waterline looking for snakes
It breaks a little piece in me, thinking about you
Get that feeling of migrating rooms in the same house
Twisting up sheets in the corner of choice
Don't know what came out, rejoice, something survived

Jackie? Is that you? ...Jackie, c'mon, that's not funny!* something rustles in the dark and my voice raises to a hoarse whispering yell.
Another mystery in the fog-soaked bushes creaks and moans and I jump to my feet, my headlamp flying out of my hand and into the somewhere.
All at once I realize how very dark it is in between these trees and i stumble backwards
something with wide dark wings swoops low over my head
everything is swallowed by the fog and you are swallowed and i am swallowed
suddenly i know this world is paper-thin
like that time when i got stabbed in the hand
and i had to accept all pain as relative
but if i accept pain as relative i have to accept happiness as relative and i have to accept you as relative

is there a way to die without leaving you behind without leaving behind humanity?

paper-thin fog and paper-thin trees **** and pull at my shaking white hands
and it draws me in
draws me away
from you away
away
away

and im gone

gone


gone.