Honor Thy Father

by David H. Haight,  copywrite 2009

A tall stoop-shouldered figure climbed a ragged suburban street which ran uncompromisingly across a little hill at the south end of San Pablo Valley. Swirls of fog circled about him in flight from the rising west wind. His thinning hair was grey, his countenance saturnine, but his step, though not elastic, was firm and vigorous. It had need be, for sometimes the sidewalks were paved, sometimes a single plank, and sometimes simply rough earth.

Arrived near the top of the hill the man began to look about uncertainly as if to locate some well-known landmark. The fog was thinning a bit toward the south and an outcropping of rock came into view. Nearby a solitary carpenter was engaged in building a twentieth century bungalow with a worse than mediaeval technique.

Stepping hesitantly forward he stopped and gazed at the ledge of rock with a puzzled expression. “The old rock must have fallen into the hands of quarrymen to have shrunk to that size.” So he thought. Surely the light of other days, encased by time’s passage, could not magnify memory to shrink the rock to that extent,” he muttered. Then with more certainty he added, “It must be beyond and to the right.” Almost as he spoke a fresh, cool gust of wind cleared the top of the hill to his right and the object of his walk was before his eyes. A jagged outcropping of hard jasper boulders crowned the little hill. Poison oak bushes grew in the clefts between the rocks, and the whole area had the air of a tiny wilderness, very much out of keeping with its immediate surroundings. The man quickened his pace and was soon in the outskirts of the rocky citadel. As he went on, vivid memories loosened his tongue again to softly give voice to those many shadows tumbling forth from his mind.

His Eminence

by David H. Haight, copywrite 2009

Donna Maria Constanza, after carefully verifying his identity, admitted the thin, pale-faced envoy to a dark little room where he discovered a glowering male seated in a wheelchair at the dining room table before a rapidly cooling egg, ensconced in its dapper little white cup. A late breakfast had been interrupted at the cost of rising irritation.

The former CEO looked up from an aged, sagging face whose eyelids drooped deeply, exposing a sickly pink inner lining.  One’s impression was uncomfortably similar to that felt when emerging from sleep’s hidden dream world after a tortured shocker — remembering masses of tired flesh dropping away in slow motion.  The whole visage appeared as melting wax or sagging putty on a hot, humid day.  Little humanity showed in that mask, only a hard, cold intelligence glowing through large, pale, blue eyes faded by time — excessive sun leaving each socket bland with the warmth of a tepid bath.

The Summoning

by David H. Haight, copywrite 2009

Old, wrinkled, parchment-skinned Gundek sat by the lake twisting his fingers trying to remember the correct title for the venerable figure standing before him blocking his view of shimmering waters lapping the lakeshore so close by.  This saffron-robed figure watched Gundek with a ferocious intensity as he peered into the old man’s soul, stripping him naked, turning a merciless light upon every inner hiding place and its concealed treasures.  Such a relentless gaze allowed no escape, though a gentle smile wreathed the Lama’s weathered face.  Deeply held consideration for every living creature was his great gift, to what little he perceived of the outer world. His was a compassionate soul.

“Ah…Of course, it’s you isn’t it!” Gundek vaguely remembered, wrinkling his brow, curious as to the Lama’s presence and what it might have to do with him.  Yes, that’s right. Now he remembered this was the man of conscience whose compassion wrapped itself in silent waiting.  It was the Village Lama standing there whose duties included keeping the little village to its ritual schedule imprinted on the seasonal calendar. One must carefully attend such a holy person whenever he appeared to announce preparations for what was to come, be it a joyous celebration, a nuptial feast or a farewell ceremony for the recent departed. Many seasons ago he had shed his monk’s robes in order to take a wife whose gentle counsel kept him to the Middle Way.

Eggs an’ Bacon

by David H. Haight, copywrite 2009

Inland, late summer sun hunkered low upon the land savoring each last rising moisture droplet.  Seen through dancing heat waves, dust devils tickled alkaline flats, flowing ‘round ochre-splashed, beige-brown, hand-cupped hillocks, their clefts creased in dark green valley oak waiting upon November’s first rain.

Old Jim sat by the window overlooking cool Noyo Harbor ruminating upon his desolate childhood days, his mind percolating up a full range of buried memories to bubble into this misty morning.  Once captain of his own craft this “beached” fisherman often spoke of buying another boat as his last now sat on the harbor bottom, victim of a drunken deckhand whose clumsy errors ruined them both.  That sad day was over ten years ago, but it seemed like only yesterday.  Thing was he couldn’t remember the deckhand’s name and when questioned in depth and in detail he failed to come up with any precise information. After a time the village folk slowly came to believe that there never was a deckhand who could be blamed for the accident that landed Jim high and dry on shore for the rest of his life.  Maybe, just maybe, it was drunken Jim himself who left the bilge cock open that foggy morning when he puttered towards the outer bar heading to sea elated at the thought of bringing home a massive salmon haul, there being a great “run” in progress.  Oh, sure he enjoyed the drink, he did!  But he’d never admit to having been drunk and making a fool of himself.  Blessed Virgin, none o’ that!

Jody’s Story

by David H. Haight, copywrite 2009

Another sunrise questioned our fresh salt-laden ocean breeze sweeping up the Noyo River into my room across this narrow veranda.

I stand here — a quaking memory sprung naked upon a new day remembering last night’s harbor seals fishing the river just below our cantilevered deck — their playful lovemaking — the occasional gull flashing a white streak across light beams focused upon Noyo river water.

Now, here — quite alone — having released you at last after all your courageously endured pain has passed — seeing your gaunt face, the eyes turned up, then gently calling you back from your slippery passage halfway between here and there — the eyedropper-ed lemon water flowing across your lips — an event- weathered body relinquishing its hold, returning to earth a well-used husk — then that slight suggestion of a smile flickering at the wee corners of your mouth bringing from me a nodding smile allowing you to proceed upon your journey — letting you go …… quite O.K. to “split.”

A Night Promise

by David H. Haight, playwrite 2009

This Old One sat by the very edge of the never silent, chiding sea wondering with a shy, amazed smile that after so many years there were still all those unanswered, seamless questions . . . so encrusted with time’s detritus they appear as banal wisps of thought floating haphazardly upon a mental wind, i.e., “Who/what/where am I?” “Is there any essential purpose in my being here in this now time?”  Then seeping into consciousness he remembered that:

Deep in No Time a spark was lit,

From a nameless Unity a child was born.

Lifted to the surface of a frothy sea

Upon a broad carapace

The sleeping creation stirred — soon to awaken.

Gentled by soft moon glow

There upon hard-packed sand,

Along the edge of Knowing

He met his welcoming Devil

To search within Outer Experience

A return to Unity –

Discovered through a wandering shadow –

His ever trailing other half.

Homeward Bound

by David H. Haight, copywrite 2009

On a windy, cloud scudding day, a lone, middle-aged man can be seen plodding his way down a long beach, kicking up sand in front of him, his white locks blowing wildly in the wind, forming an undulating halo ‘round his pate.  Head bowed low, he slumps forward in his wind jacket murmuring apologies to the sand fleas he carelessly disturbs, so distracted and feeling out of place is he in trying to trap all wandering thoughts streaming through consciousness.

Always apologizing to humanity at large, liberally scattering many a “thank you” about day after day has worn him down.  Why did he do this, he wondered? Though it was against his nature to pointedly disagree with anyone, even if he thought he was right as to the facts or subtle surround. He always felt vulnerable if he took a firm position that he would then have to defend.  Being alone bulwarked a desire to remain uncommitted on most matters, since there was usually a series of significant alternatives hovering overhead or around the corner, each of which contained elements of objective truth. At least, so dictated his mind…wherever that was located in truth. Perhaps this sidestepping was his way to avoid taking responsibility for anything or anyone, even himself.  Obviously he detested confrontation with all its irrational emotionality. What a waste of energy and time, he thought.

Now, however, his resistance to firm commitment in the moment teetered, crumbling all about him, even as the Tao te Ching echoed solemnly from certain outer walls of consciousness that “The secret waits for the insight of eyes unclouded by longing. Those who are bound by desire see only the outward container.”

The Watcher

by David H. Haight, copywrite 2009 

 

Freddy was a nervous sparrow type, forever hopping about — her yearning, full mouth never quiet, alternating between loving remarks, followed by admonitory warnings — an endless stream of advice issuing forth as she perpetually “kept order”, organizing plans for the day and an occasional excursion for some of the older children.  She was always thinking ahead.  Often when naptime arrived Freddy sank into her comfy chair clutching her coffee cup filled with its usual murky black leaded happy juice, her small bit of comfort made all the better in the evenings with an added shot of brandy.  Indeed she was the loyal glue in the machine, keeping it all running, holding tenuous threads out to the children — her extended family — so sensitive to their social needs, yet coolly distant from them as she observed their comings and goings.

 

Dear, loyal Freddy, thought the Director, Miss Jenks, as she removed her galoshes. What would I do without her to manage all this controlled confusion, immediate wants, yearnings, little pleading eyes.  Actually, arrival time was the worst.  All those children being dumped so early in the morning while anxious parents offered a mish-mash of cautionary remarks as they paused briefly on their mad dash to work, steaming down packed freeways, counting the minutes to check-in time and their first liquid pick-me-up.  At times deep within she wondered if all this was worth the effort.  Was she after all just another aging human approaching the top of a ladder set against the wrong wall?  Then she would see a certain searching look in a child’s eyes and she knew she had to be there — for them all.  It was just – she never could figure out why exactly that was her need.  Of course, she realized with a shrug, the deeper, unstated truth.  Her consulting psychologist would point out with acidic professional certitude exuding a sort of Gertrude Stein flavor that since she was childless, living alone — no mate to share life’s drama, much less her bed, that — “Well, my dear, isn’t it obvious?”  Yet, far more deeply down her lonely well, safely enshrouded in unconscious folds, she longed to touch some ineffable truth that might throw open the doors to her inner cosmos to let light fall into all her dark corners. Good Lord, she giggled. Such thoughts reeked of inflated, romanticized amateur psychology – more psychobabble!

An Elfin Dream

 by David H. Haight, copywrite 2009

 

Still asleep as the first soft light of dawn dimly outlined the cypress trees surrounding our country home, I plunged down through all my dream images to land on a soft tuft of moss near the base of an immense sunflower plant.  Nearby, I noticed a wiggling cocoon-shaped mass with an arm sticking out here and a foot out there.  It seemed perfectly normal for me to be in a magical realm where anything might happen.  The world “up there” felt quite mad these days, indulging in a chaos I simply refused to share.  It was much better down here — away from my parents who were always shouting, arguing and throwing things at each other.  Verging upon something they called adolescence I resist knowing more about “adult problems.”  It’s enough to keep smarmy, touchy boys away, though quiet Terry seems nice enough.

 

Before I could examine my thoughts further, a little head popped out of the cocoon announcing, as if by rote, “I’m the Sun Flower Elf…The Sun Flower Elf… and WHO are you, pray tell?”

Lilly’s Imp

by David H. Haight, copywrite 2009

An English summer awaited Lilly this year following her somewhat pretentious graduation from the London “Institute of Cosmetic Design & Floral Happenings”.  That particular prospect barely set her flesh aquiver since weather projections indicated the island would be drenched more than usual and she ached for a dry expanse brimming with sun. Her Aaron thought she was acting a bit daft while using her school finish date as pretext to push forward his plea that they soon marry and set up their own nest.  That is, of course, just as soon as she located a position in a posh London Beauty Salon. Hardly an intriguing future she thought, though the “lolly” would be most welcome after all her scrimping just to make do.

[“Blessed Mary, quite contrary! -- it all sounds so rational, so organized and so -- so utterly boring!” screamed her inner Imp.  “Why don’t you jump the traces for once in your life – just once?  Follow your whimsy – digress from the plan. I dare you!” he shouted, rubbing his hairy palms in hopeful expectation she’d take the bait.]

Lilly shuddered at the idea.  All her conventional fears, preached from High Church pulpits, dictated she obey masculine rules — Aaron’s rules — and remain in the groove she had been digging for herself.  However the Imp wouldn’t cease his chatter, his incessant clamor.  That little bug-eyed, leering, almost salacious face tagged along in her dreams giving her no peace.  She was losing sleep resisting newly discovered anger, seen in her dream flashes as a shroud surrounding her bothersome Imp.  Lord, what to do!

Interlude

by David H. Haight, copywrite 2009

Sauntering down the boardwalk she approached the young men lounging about a hotdog/soft-drink stand seeing in a daydream flash her original old dark self slithering across the sand clicking her long green fingernails in lustful anticipation touched with just a hint of sadness since by this time she knew the scenario perfectly.  Her black witch exulted at every conquest, even though paid for with hard, cold cash.

Actually, she had only recently re-emerged into her boring routine after a complete facial redo, bust uplift and liposuction fat removal from her engulfing hips — a transformed Venus bearing scalpel scars — feeling once more that old lustful longing tingling through her lower being.  She thoroughly enjoyed the endless, ancient snatch and grab sex play enhanced by its all too brief climax, only to be repeated addictively when, as always, those terrifying fears threatened to swallow her.

Several aging males standing nearby openly wondered at her mask-like face, eyes hidden by two winged dark glassy orbs, mouth twisted into a slight red pucker, her nose sleekly honed to an aristocratic point and queried each other regarding this brittle, softly tanned female of some years whose essence lay well hidden behind her new blank mask — a real and dangerous challenge for any inquisitive male.

Outward Bound

by David Haight, copyright 2009

Old John sat naked in the sand by the very edge of our never silent, chiding sea wondering with a shy, amazed smile that after so many years there were still all those unanswerable, seamless questions lingering amongst his memories.  Encrusted with time’s detritus they appeared to him as banal wisps of thought floating haphazardly upon a mental wind, i.e., “Who am I, really?” and — “Is there any purpose in my being here in this tiny Now Time patch?”

He remembered that for most humankind there is an almost instantaneous rush upstairs to the “head” when circumstantially forced to face these questions.  Questions so laden with brittle, concrete forms, organized religious strangleholds buffered by intellectualized cultural certitudes that simple, intuitive answers coming straight from the heart, encapsulated within a feeling context, had little chance of recognition — much less acceptance.  Within Fear’s orb all those little rigidities seemed to be entirely correct — so very right.

How very, very sad all this is, he dreamily mused – while here it is that I commence lightening up my worldly baggage to bounce fitfully up and down tugging at these self-imposed bindings.  On occasion I celebrate an intermittent, joyous “letting go”, an inflation to ready myself for some as yet unknown adventure, perhaps the ultimate journey whose end is … never.

Harvest Moon

 

by David Haight, copyright 2009

Gathering, reaping, sorting,

Storing summer’s rich yield marked a change,

An unease sensed by every villager.

Men, women, children tensed for the coming event.

Women, especially, were seen suddenly to gather

In private huddles — whispering,

Preparing for their special night on the rise,

That clearing on the way up their sacred mountain.

 

Already a great oak wine cask had been removed

From its dark, cool cave and rolled to the

Center of the sacred precinct,

Soon to be drained, it stood ready

For what was to come during

Long harvest moonlit night hours.

The Dopester

by David Haight, copyright 2009

Tall, empty, passing shadows called men –- little men bodies, Small nine-year old preemies rattling around in a skin bag, fractured collage pieces drifting about disconnected — coming together in mind-bleeping formations.

Circumstantial creations crashing — circling a round, black hole where a man’s center should be!

But — nothing exists there – no there “there!”

An absent father, indifferent, unloving, denying his seed’s forceful throw, leaves a wake of despair floating behind — another burning body.

[It’s Christmas Eve, you see, and you are guests to a nightmare – enjoy!]

Adam’s End

by David Haight, copyright 2009

How he loathed ticking clocks, those mindless mechanical idiots whose measured clicking took no account of quality time or event.  There across the room, hung high on the wall, spun two ruthless red arms, so abstractly impersonal, ticking off moments he longed to linger over — to milk dry.

Then there were the milling figures just the other side from him — the other side of a great, dulled, plate glass window room divider.  He couldn’t hear what they were saying — thank God for that.   Who cared anyway. He certainly didn’t — feeling moment by moment ever more removed from this relentless happening.  His gradual withdrawal left him in an odd place, though he realized part of his reaction was due to the mildly heavy sedative they had administered to him mixed in his meal.  Clever of them, wasn’t it. No dramatic hysterics allowed at the end of the road.

Family Values

by David Haight, copyright 2009

My brother Peter sparkled as he told low key tales of our beloved eccentric grandmother, who lived quite alone in a little cottage at the edge of our Hippie invested coastal town.

She evidenced great pride in being an activist “ecologist” to the maximum, her style bringing to mind a figure in a tutu pirouetting across virginal meadows. So enraptured with Nature was she that every time toe touched ground a loud orgasmic “pop” thundered across the heavens, rendering to the world a new definition of ecstasy.

Truth to tell, the above image was somewhat blighted by the reality of her face; to wit, a beaklike nose hooked over tight lips sans lipstick hovering dangerously atop a small determined chin, the visage topped by mousey graying hair parted in the middle and gathered into a loose bun. To complete the picture, she wore the oddest pair of black-rimmed glasses to be seen in town.

Dear Gran had an absolute passion for food.  Nothing must be allowed to go to waste — ever!  She kept bags and bags of odd food items in her car trunk, passing out goodies to always hungry children as they perceived a jolly good thing at hand. There were times, though, when this obsession passed the limit.

Budapest on My Mind

by David Haight, copyright 2009

At midnight I stand alone on the top deck of this odd riverboat, 37 feet above the fabled Blue Danube on the last day of a long river journey from Amsterdam up the Rhine, eastward on the Main and down the Danube to Budapest headed for the Black Sea.  Looking about the deck covered in green plastic matting, its deck chairs laid flat, I felt an overwhelming urge to return to my home village thousands of miles distant to the West on another continent where I might water my own metaphorical garden and sort out so many visual impressions locked in memory, not on reams of film.

Just enough light lingers to outline the wooded heights from which only a few hours earlier I had viewed the whole of Budapest dressed in sparkling pinpoints dancing to its own river song no sadness could destroy.  Graceful bridges spanned the river, the Chain Bridge, the Green Bridge and others in either direction under which endlessly flowed a muddy brown, hardly blue, Danube to its resting place through a marshy delta extending into the Black Sea. From late childhood days I remember Algernon Blackwood’s occult tale of the marshy reeds of the Danube Delta that came alive, blocking all passage to the sea. The sense of overwhelming threat coupled with raw fear seemed almost palpable to me and still sends chills down my spine when I view pictures of this region.

Aunty Junebug

by David Haight, copyright 2009

Dear Diary:

Here we are at the beginning of a New Year and I am opening you up for the first time, but I promise to keep you under lock and key.

Okay, so I’ll pretend you are an actual person and if I don’t like something I’ve written I’ll take it all back – I mean I will tear out a page or two from you.  You’re frighteningly thick!

 

You want to know who I am?  Well … looking into the mirror I see a kind-a tall, skinny girl, rather plain with a horrible case of acne.  My hair is one long problem.  Instead of being a deep, luxurious black like Mom’s, or golden yellow like a fairy princess, it’s a ratty brown, which I hassle with all the time.  So there!  Oh, my eyes?  No, I really don’t like mirrors.  When I look into one I see everything that I’ve already told you about and then come these stupid glasses with their thick lens.  Boys?  Yich! Why do you ask me about BOYS?  I’m only 13 and having to cope with Eric, my brother, who’s just turned twelve — makes me want to throw up at least three times a day.  I mean regularly.  He’s an impossible brat who’s just discovered he has interesting appendages.  Ugh!

Bardo the Redbeard

by David Haight, copyright 2009

Bardo the Redbeard lay upon his lump of straw gazing up with a sigh at the great pearl orb boldly shining down upon him this mid-summer night. He and his young companions had found shelter in the forest at the edge of a vibrant green meadow bordering upon a perfectly round lake somewhere near the middle of their dark windswept homeland.

Once again he found himself near the halfway mark of his never ending annual clockwise circling about his homeland — singing, chanting, storytelling his way through the countryside, listening for new tales emerging from some yesteryear or brought fresh from foreign lands over the seas.  He longed for a centered hearth of his own where a steady feminine presence might tend his needs and he hers, though that thought fast fled now that Cecilia, his soul companion over many a year, had given up her ghost to the great beyond.

MY SMILEN MASK

by David Haight, copyright 2009

Summer’s long humid heat seemed interminable — each day heaped on yet another yesterday compounded through autumn’s draggy dog days.

Our little town sat there squished against a low range of hills slapped across the plain and divided by the railroad tracks. Hard to tell which came first, but our Southern town lay scattered on the other side of the tracks away from what brief coolness that was to be had near Little Hill Range to the west.

Year in and year out nothing seemed to change. It was just another small town sitting and waiting for something to scramble up the picture — jiggle it around mixing everything all gollywumpus.  Not a chance, the boy thought.

We are so stuck in our ways, our habits, our customs — even though something called “School Integration” shook the community right down to its quivering roots.  Many local folk simply put their young’uns in private schools, and at considerable expense, a fact which only made them glare harder at the Blacks.  Not that the Blacks weren’t used to those silent, hateful stares.  Oh, no, they knew. It was part of where their energy went each day that they had to cross the railroad tracks to go to work in white man’s territory. Yet, they got used to puttin’ on their smile masks.  “Puttin’ on the smile – forever puttin’ on the smile.”  When in doubt, Yuk-Yuk it up!  Oh, it’s all so hi-lariously funny, though you be cryin’ inside. Just pre-tend you don’ unnerstan — tha’s right!  Tha’s the ticket!  Pre-tend!  Oh, yeah!  Have a good ‘un, Man!”