Arthur Rimbaud

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud

 

20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891

Arthur was a French poet born in Charleville, Ardennes. He influenced modern literature and arts, inspired various musicians, and prefigured surrealism. He started writing poems at a very young age, while still in primary school, and stopped completely before he turned 21. He was mostly creative during the age of 17–20. His genius,  flowering, explosion and sudden extinction, still astonishes.
Rimbaud was known to have been a libertine and for being a restless soul. He traveled extensively on three continents before his death from cancer just after his thirty-seventh birthday. (From Wiki)

I find him to be beautifully wicked! What a shame he didn't continue to write and what a young age to perish! He feels reminiscent of my beloved Baudelaire!




Faun's Head

Among the foliage, green casket flecked with gold;
in the uncertain foliage that blossoms
with gorgeous flowers where sleeps the kiss,
vivid, and bursting through the sumptuous tapestry,
a startled faun shows his two eyes
and bites the crimson flowers with his white teeth.
Stained and ensanguined like mellow wine,
his mouth bursts out in laughter beneath the branches.
And when he has fled - like a squirrel -
his laughter still vibrates on every leaf,
and you can see, startled by a bullfinch,
the Golden Kiss of the Wood,
gathering itself together again.

A Winter Dream

In winter we’ll travel in a little pink carriage
With cushions of blue.
We’ll be fine. A nest of mad kisses waits
In each corner too.
You’ll shut your eyes, not to see, through the glass,
Grimacing shadows of evening,
Those snarling monsters, a crowd going past
Of black wolves and black demons.
Then you’ll feel your cheek tickled quite hard…
A little kiss, like a maddened spider,
Will run over your neck…
And you’ll say: “Catch it!” bowing your head,
– And we’ll take our time finding that creature
– Who travels so far…

Fairy

For Helen, in the virgin shadows and the
impassive radiance in astral silence,
ornamental saps conspired.
Summer's ardour was confided
to silent birds and due indolence
to a priceless mourning boat
through gulfs of dead loves
and fallen perfumes.
-After the moment of the woods women's song
to the rumble of the torrent in the ruin of the wood,
of the tinkle of the cowbells to the echo of the vales,
and the cries of the steppes.
- For Helen's childhood, furs and shadows trembled,
and the breast of the poor and the legends of heaven.
And her eyes and her dance superior
even to the precious radiance,
to cold influences, to the pleasure of the unique
setting and the unique hour.

Being Beauteous

Against a fall of snow, a Being Beautiful, and very tall.
Whistlings of death and circles of faint music
Make this adored body, swelling and trembling
Like a specter, rise...
Black and scarlet gashes burst in the gleaming flesh.
The true colors of life grow dark,
Shimmering and separate
In the scaffolding, around the Vision.
Shiverings mutter and rise,
And the furious taste of these effects is charged
With deadly whistlings and the raucous music
That the world, far behind us, hurls at our mother of beauty...
She retreats, she rises up...
Oh! Our bones have put on new flesh, for love.
Oh ash-white face
Oh tousled hair
O crystal arms!
On this cannot I mean to destroy myself
In a swirling of trees and soft air!

Sun and Flesh

Birth of Venus
I
The Sun, the hearth of affection and life,
Pours burning love on the delighted earth,
And when you lie down in the valley, you can smell
How the earth is nubile and very full-blooded;
How its huge breast, heaved up by a soul,
Is, like God, made of love, and, like woman, of flesh,
And that it contains, big with sap and with sunlight,
The vast pullulation of all embryos!
And everything grows, and everything rises!
- O Venus, O Goddess!
I long for the days of antique youth,
Of lascivious satyrs, and animal fauns,
Gods who bit, mad with love, the bark of the boughs,
And among water-lilies kissed the Nymph with fair hair!
I long for the time when the sap of the world,
River water, the rose-coloured blood of green trees
Put into the veins of Pan a whole universe!
When the earth trembled, green,beneath his goat-feet;
When, softly kissing the fair Syrinx, his lips formed
Under heaven the great hymn of love;
When, standing on the plain, he heard round about him
Living Nature answer his call;
When the silent trees cradling the singing bird,
Earth cradling mankind, and the whole blue Ocean,
And all living creatures loved, loved in God!
I long for the time of great Cybele,
Who was said to travel, gigantically lovely,
In a great bronze chariot, through splendid cities;
Her twin breasts poured, through the vast deeps,
The pure streams of infinite life.
Mankind sucked joyfully at her blessed nipple,
Like a small child playing on her knees.
- Because he was strong, Man was gentle and chaste.
Misfortune! Now he says: I understand things,
And goes about with eyes shut and ears closed.
- And again, no more gods! no more gods! Man is King,
Man is God! But the great faith is Love!
Oh! if only man still drew sustenance from your nipple,
Great mother of gods and of men, Cybele;
If only he had not forsaken immortal Astarte
Who long ago, rising in the tremendous brightness
Of blue waters, flower-flesh perfumed by the wave,
Showed her rosy navel, towards which the foam came snowing
And , being a goddess with the great conquering black eyes,
Made the nightingale sing in the woods and love in men's hearts!
The Birth of Venus

II

I believe! I believe in you! divine mother,
Sea-born Aphrodite! - Oh! the path is bitter
Since the other God harnessed us to his cross;
Flesh, Marble, Flower, Venus, in you I believe!
- yes, Man is sad and ugly, sad under the vast sky.
He possesses clothes, because he is no longer chaste,
Because he has defiled his proud, godlike head
And because he has bent, like an idol in the furnace,
His Olympian form towards base slaveries!
Yes, even after death, in the form of pale skeletons
He wishes to live and insult the original beauty!
- And the Idol in whom you placed such maidenhood,
Woman, in whom you rendered our clay divine,
So that Man might bring light into his poor soul
And slowly ascend, in unbounded love,
From the earthly prison to the beauty of day,
Woman no longer knows even how to be a Courtesan!
- It's a fine farce! and the world snickers
At the sweet and sacred name of great Venus!
III

If only the times which have come and gone might come again!
- For Man is finished! Man has played all the parts!
In the broad daylight, wearied with breaking idols
He will revive, free of all his gods,
And, since he is of heaven, he will scan the heavens!
The Ideal, that eternal, invincible thought, which is
All; The living god within his fleshly clay,
Will rise, mount, burn beneath his brow!
An when you see him plumbing the whole horizon,
Despising old yokes, and free from all fear,
You will come and give him holy Redemption!
- Resplendent, radiant, from the bosom of the huge seas
You will rise up and give to the vast Universe
Infinite Love with its eternal smile!
The World will vibrate like an immense lyre
In the trembling of an infinite kiss!
- The World thirsts for love: you will come and slake its thirst.
.................................. ..................
O! Man has raised his free, proud head!
And the sudden blaze of primordial beauty
Makes the god quiver in the altar of the flesh!
Happy in the present good, pale from the ill suffered,
Man wishes to plumb all depths, - and know all things! Thought,
So long a jade, and for so long oppressed,
Springs from his forehead! She will know Why!...
Let her but gallop free, and Man will find Faith!
- Why the blue silence, unfathomable space?
Why the golden stars, teeming like sands?
If one ascended forever, what would one see up there?
Does a sheperd drive this enormous flock
Of worlds on a journey through this horror of space?
And do all these worlds contained in the vast ether,
tremble at the tones of an eternal voice?
- And Man, can he see? can he say: I believe?
Is the langage of thought anymore than a dream?
If man is born so quickly, if life is so short
Whence does he come? Does he sink into the deep Ocean
Of Germs, of Foetuses, of Embryos, to the bottom
of the huge Crucible where Nature the Mother
Will resuscitate him, a living creature,
To love in the rose and to grow in the corn?...
We cannot know! - We are weighed down
With a cloak of ignorance, hemmed in by chimaeras!
Men like apes, dropped from our mothers' wombs,
Our feeble reason hides the infinite from us!
We wish to perceive: - and Doubt punishes us!
Doubt, dismal bird, beat us down with its wing...
- And the horizon rushes away in endless flight!...
............................... ........................
The vast heaven is open! the mysteries lie dead
Before erect Man, who folds his strong arms
Among the vast splendour of abundant Nature!
He sings... and the woods sing, the river murmurs
A song full of happiness which rises towards the light!...
- it is Redemption! it is love! it is love!...

IV
O splendour of flesh! O ideal splendour!
O renewal of love, triumphal dawn
When, prostrating the Gods and the Heroes,
White Callipyge and little Eros
Covered with the snow of rose petals, will caress
Women and flowers beneath their lovely outstretched feet!
- O great Ariadne who pour out your tears
On the shore, as you see, out there on the waves,
The sail of Theseus flying white under the sun,
O sweet virgin child whom a night has broken,
Be silent! On his golden chariot studded with black grapes,
Lysios, who has been drawn through Phrygian fields
By lascivious tigers and russet panthers,
Reddens the dark mosses along the blue rivers.
- Zeus, the Bull, cradles on his neck like a child
The nude body of Europa who throws her white arm
Round the God's muscular neck which shivers in the wave.
Slowly he turns his dreamy eye towards her;
She, droops her pale flowerlike cheek
On the brow of Zeus; her eyes are closed; she is dying
In a divine kiss, and the murmuring waters
Strew the flowers of their golden foam on her hair.
- Between the oleander and the gaudy lotus tree
Slips amorously the great dreaming Swan
Enfloding Leda in the whiteness of his wing;
- And while Cypris goes by, strangely beautiful,
And, arching the marvellous curves of her back,
Proudly displays the golden vision of her big breasts
And snowy belly embroidered with black moss,
- Hercules, Tamer of beasts, in his Strength,
Robes his huge body with the lion's skin as with glory
And faces the horizons, his brow terrible and sweet!
Vaguely lit by the summer moon,
Erect, naked, dreaming in her pallor of gold
Streaked by the heavy wave of her long blue hair,
In the shadowy glade whenre stars spring in the moss,
The Dryade gazes up at the silent sky...
- White Selene, timidly, lets her veil float,
Over the feet of beautiful Endymion,
And throws him a kiss in a pale beam...
- The Spring sobs far off in a long ectasy...
Ii is the nymph who dreams with one elbow on her urn,
Of the handsome white stripling her wave has pressed against.
- A soft wind of love has passed in the night,
And in the sacred woods, amid the standing hair of the great trees,
Erect in majesty, the shadowly Marbles,
The Gods, on whose brows the Bullfinch has his nest,
- the Gods listen to Men, and to the infinite World!


My Little Lovelies

A tearful tincture washes
Cabbage-green skies;
Beneath the dribbling bushes
Your raincoats lie;
Pale white in private moonlight,
Like round-eyed sores,
Flap your scabby kneecaps apart,
My ugly whores!
We loved each other in those days,
Ugly blue whore!
We ate boiled eggs
And weed.
One night you made me a poet,
Ugly blond whore.
Get between my legs,
I'll whip you.
I puked up your greasy hair,
Ugly black whore;
You tried to unstring
My guitar.
Blah! Some of my dried-up spit,
Ugly red whore,
Still stinks in the cracks
Of your breast.
O my little lovelies,
I hate your guts!
Go stick big blisters
On your ugly tits!
Break the cracked bottles and jars
Of my feelings;
Come on! Be my ballerinas
Just for a while!
Your shoulder blades are twisted back,
My masterpieces!
Stick stars in your snatches and shake
Them to bits!
And it was for you hunks of meat
I wrote my rhymes!
My love was sticky self-deceit
And dirty games!
Dumb bunch of burnt-out stars,
- Against the walls!
Go back to God, croak in corners
Like animals!
Pale white in private moonlight,
Like round-eyed sores,
Flap your scabby kneecaps apart,
My ugly whores!

Reincarnation: A grotesque short story by Victory

Reincarnation
 By Victory

I was first suffocated and then raped by a serial killer. I was his 23^rd Victim.  I was found in pieces along side the highway in a ditch. I was the 23^rd victim he hacked to pieces with a pickax found close nearby.  My body parts had been laying there for 5 straight days in the 105 degree August sun.  I didn’t find the scent of my own rotting carcass too pleasing. Occasionally; black crows would show up and begin to peck on my decomposing flesh, but even they didn’t find me too pleasurable.

After days of laying in pieces sizzling in this hazy heat; my mind became infused with straight delirium.  Am I dead? How am I aware of my surroundings? Over top of me a giant black portal unexpectedly appeared.  A large metal claw came down and grabbed the entire earth around my mutilated limbs. Up I went, and when I arrived inside this foreign unidentified craft, I was promptly thrown into a black garbage bag.

It was a frightening bumpy ride in which my head rolled from side to side. My severed toes kept lodging themselves into my nostrils and I was forced to inhale the putrefied remains.

The strange aircraft took me straight up through the hemisphere and soon entered a dark warehouse. I could hear the commotion of industrial sounds from outside of my garbage bag.  

So there I sat in my bag, merely just a pile of mutilated flesh, when I jerked forward and my remains toppled over.  I was finally able to peer out the drawstring opening of the bag.  I soon discovered I was sitting in a line on a conveyer belt with other human bodies that were severely disfigured.

“NEXT”

                There were hundreds of bodies in front of me and in back of me. Yet I appeared to be the only one that was dismembered and  crudely shoved inside a garbage bag. The man in front of me was clearly deceased with half his brain exposed and his jaw hanging on by a thread.  But somehow he still managed to stand upright, though he was swaying back and forth.  The conveyer belt alternated between creaking forward slowly and stopping abruptly until finally the man in front of me was first in the line.

From the cracks I watched as a team of surgeons sewed his face back together.  They then pressed his brains back inside his head and crudely stitched the cranium to one piece. He stood up and turned around to face me. He noticed me and smiled and I noticed his blood stained teeth. They swiftly sprayed him down with a high pressured water hose. The workers then placed him on a separate conveyer belt which sent him downwards along to the next terminal.

“NEXT”

It was finally my turn. A uniformed worker rushed forward and picked up the garbage bag that contained my remains. He handed the bag over to the team of surgeons. They all made a collective sigh and murmured amongst themselves. They tore open the bag and dumped out the contents. My eyes on my severed head flinched at the bright exposed light overhead of me.

“What the heck is this?”

“This must be the latest victim from The Jersey Torso murderer.”    

They spread my severed limbs across a steel table. Each one of my fingers was removed from my hand which was removed from my arm which was removed from my headless torso.

“UGGH! This is going to take forever!”  A masked surgeon exclaimed.

 “This body will take entirely too long to repair.” Another surgeon shook his head.

They hastily sewed my limbs and head back to my torso. They made a vertical clean slice along my spine and packed the wound full of menthol rub, healing bacitracin and bandages. There was a large hump where the packed medicine slowly leaked back into my body; I felt the cooling sensation begin coursing through my veins. I almost resembled a turtle from how much medicine was packed deep into the crevice of my back.

 My body was swollen and saggy and resembled the tumor ridden elephant man.  Dried blood was crusted along the sutures. There were jagged deep cuts across my face and my lips had been removed so they injected a bit of silicone to create new lips except my yellow teeth remained fully exposed when I attempted to close my mouth.

“Ok guys, this is as good as it gets, let the machine do the rest of the work.”

I slowly began moving my legs and brought myself to an upright position on the steel table.

“Ok lady, get a move on it!” the workers hoisted me off the table and shoved me onto another conveyer belt. The belt creaked downward at a faster pace.  I stood, swaying, dizzy and discombobulated feeling the blood oozing from my wounds. The pain was unbearable. It felt like every part of my body was in flames. My feet were ballooned to triple the size of normal with bloody sutures around my ankles.

When the belt finally came screeching to a halt I was deposited into a heap of crawling bodies. One by one the workers hastily grabbed us and connected us into the machine that had millions of tubes coming from each direction. The tubes holders protruded from my “turtle” back.  One tube was connected to a pain killer, the next was connected to the nutrients, and the next was connected to the “vitality” liquid.  

There I remained for the next few decades, slowly repairing from the inside out.

Here I remained for the next few decades, until I was fully restored and degenerated back into a miniature human embryo, in which they would at last thrust me back out into the world through a human vagina.

“What are your thoughts on God and Satan”

Someone recently asked me a generic question that could not be simply answered.
“What are your thoughts on God and Satan”
It seems they may put some value into what my opinion on this topic is. I told them I am considering writing them an essay if they were genuinely interested in my thoughts, as this can not be answered simply. I think they meandered away... hoping that I didn't bombard them with my heavy thoughts on such matters.
To be honest, I have been on a spiritual path ever since I was a kid. I have briefly spoken on this blog about my own spiritual experiences, and how I live a life full of symbolic hidden meanings and the constant reminder of synchronicity. Plainly put; I am an empath, with a vast amount of morals and a melting pot of beliefs, But you can not label me.
I have had enough of feeling shamed when I know in my heart I am a good person that does good deeds out of the goodness of my heart - even when I proudly proclaim I am a misanthrope. I do hate people in general, I deeply love the few and far between special people who will love and accept you regardless of your differences, whether it is sexuality, your culture or religious beliefs.
I don’t feel comfortable inside churches, unless OF COURSE, it is historic church with beautiful architecture, or a Greek orthodox church. Then I am simply enjoying the visual pleasantries of my surroundings, the art, the colors, the rituals, the history and the smells. A Greek orthodox church is a product of my youth, and I find the music calming, but, I have never known what they were saying. I can honestly admit, I was probably only there to appease my father. I will still go, perform the rituals, and sit in the pews with fond memories.
When I have attempted to go to regular Sunday mass , I felt shamed, outcast and judged. I felt heads swivel to eye me and what I am wearing. Afterwards; it is a fact that most of the members will go home to gossip and judge each other. Be honest! You are!
I decided, I want no parts of a church establishment. Too much greed, dishonesty, judgement; all things I personally find morally wrong. I can not help these feelings, feel free to judge me on them, in my age I have started to care less. I want to live a conscious free life, and feel no shame, and live my life in connection to my heart, and to reach spiritual enlightenment to its fullest.
I feel the modern religion is too violent, and has separated humans for far too long. I feel it is way too closeminded and judgemental.
Entirely too many people have died in the name of religion. Too many fiscal gains have been made out of the name of religion, and I find that entire thing disgusting. Religion is a franchise, a product of our culture. Everyone wants to argue on who is right and who shall be judged while a commercial for the latest church flashes on the screen… BUY OUR PRODUCT - SUPPORT OUR FAITH- DONATE TO OUR CAUSE-JOIN US IN RIGHTIOUSNESS.
On Christianity, I think it has been attempted to be forced down my throat, as I am an american and that is what our prominant religion is. A lot of my friends and family have used the bible as their guideline to life.
I simply can not. I have found too many inconsistencies in the bible. It makes me question the morale of the entire religion. I could NEVER follow a book that has such cruelty and violence in it. I am too sensitive and can't even stomach it to sit and read it... although I am sure there are many beautiful passages that I could instill in my life.... I can't get past the blatant cruelty. According to their guidelines, I would have been murdered- repeatedly. I would love for someone with patience to sit and calmly explain to me how they are able to look past this prominant theme. I am genuinely curious. it seems no one who follows the bible faithfully can even question these things without a distinct look of fear in their eye. I would love to get inside their brain to understand it. But - its so personal that simply a discussion of this nature will severe friendships and family members. It is so hostile, and cut and dry, black and white. The bible makes God out to be a villian! The God I know and love is kind and loving, more on this later.
Of course I will cite some bible passages for example:
Cruel God
“ I will fill your mountains with the dead. Your hills, your valleys, and your streams will be filled with people slaughtered by the sword. I will make you desolate forever. Your cities will never be rebuilt. Then you will know that I am God.” (Ezekiel 35 1 - God)
Directing man to murder innocent women and children
"Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple." So they began by killing the seventy leaders. "Defile the Temple!" the LORD commanded. "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!" So they went throughout the city and did as they were told." (Ezekiel 9:5-7 NLT)
Then direct man to murder everyone who is different
If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst.(Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)
Sexism
"But if [a girl wasn't a virgin on her wedding night] and evidence of the girl's virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father’s house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against God’s people by her unchasteness in her father's house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst."
(Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)
There are also quite a few passages where God directs man to sacrifice animals.
I’ve pretty much had enough of the violence and killing, the animal sacrifices, the mistreatment and murdering of women and children. No, I will not turn a blind eye to it.... I can't even swallow it. Like I said earlier, I am a true empath. The suffering of innocents? I feel that… and it hurts. I understand it was written a long time ago, and things have changed… and exactly that… THINGS HAVE CHANGED. I am free to have an open mind on my own personal spiritual path.
I am not here to judge you, or to change your mind. There is no persuasive techniques here, I am simply answering the generic  question with entirely too much depth, but it has turned to a complete dissection of my brain. I have been quiet and respectful of everyone else’s opinion far too long, its past due I set my mind free.
I’ve never been one to digest what people give me. In fact, I want to take everything apart and examine it before I blindly accept something into my routine. Which started my path on literature. There are so many beautiful books that you can use as a guide to live a happy fulfilled life.
I simply  do not belong in man made establishments when attempting to spiritually grow. My place of worship is outdoors. I like to go straight to the source to seek information. I like to go outdoors when I am feeling stressed and soak up all the good energies from the universe.  
Are you wondering what I do believe in? I don’t think people are very accepting of the things I believe in. I think you will try to force me into a label, and I will not fit perfectly.
I recently stumbled on ancient readings by Hermes/Thoth that spoke true to my soul. Apparently an ancient religion is something I have always subconsciously believed in. Followers of this beautiful belief system have been burned at the stake by catholic priests who attempted to exterminate ancient religion… (Giordano Bruno)
Ancient religions are now referred to as the occult, which leave a bit of a sour taste on the populations tongue- occult-/A CULT   think about why? Control, power, ego.
Really my beliefs are simple, and based on LOVE, and RESPECT. In my beliefs, God loves humans.  I feel God wants us to love the earth, and its creations. And if we  do this fully with our intention, we can receive more blessings.
I think Earth is God and should be worshipped, and respected. I think Sun is God, it keeps everything alive. I think the Moon is God, Water is God; I think the Universe is God, as it exists infinitely without explanation or constraints to time. I think we are all reflections of the all encompassing God. BUT,  I think man has been too curious and analyzed and murdered the simple beauty that is life and have been restrained from our full potential because of it. I think Man has so much potential to be better reflections of God, but we are constrained by the hands of time, controlled by our egos and hate, and have been a source of mass destruction to our planet.
 We should only be ashamed of ourselves in the way we treat our planet, our animals, our people, its time for a change.

This post is just about God, I will have to save the topic of Satan for another blog.

Crow and Wolf

 

Crow and Wolf

By Victoria Vassilious

 Sandy terrains,

Disintegrating remains;

A bloated carcass is displayed

Upon a barren pasture.

A long lost domestic set “free” by its master.

 

A crumbling wooden fence;

Long since dilapidated.

It has become a home to-

A solitary black widow;

Who swirls and spins;

Waiting for her next victim.

 

The dying red oak houses the single black Crow;

Sunrise… to sunset… he protests!

Desperate for his flock;

Who has long since gone for greener paddocks.

Encounter the solitary red wolf.

Who cries to the moon each night.

 

Racing through the woodlands,

Searching for his long lost pack.

He soon learns how to adapt,

Yet game is scarce, his amateur skills are inept.

Quickly the wolf has become gaunt,

Crimson coat grows unkempt.

 

Wild golden irises flash towards the shriek of the Crow

If only he might climb that ancient Oak,

Gnash his teeth against its throat;

And feast upon that dreadful croak.

 

A vivid black and blue blur soars overhead

Downward plummeting chunks of flesh, gore and bloodshed.

Wolf hurriedly grinds his canines into the dirt

Silently appeased to meet his new acquaintance in this wretched black Bird.

Black beady eyes regard him in admiration;

“Perhaps this unpleasant mutt could be of some use…

When his behavior becomes less obtuse.”

Detachment

 

 

I’ve longed for just a few moments alone;

To be enclosed within you…

To fall asleep locked in your gaze.

To hold you close on rainy days

The desire to remove my shield- and lay down my blade;

And for once; to feel safe and protected.

& Yet it appears to be impossible to reach you

Infinitely outside of my grasp;

Permanently walking on isolated paths.

Disintegrating the visions;

The everlasting detachment engulfing us.

The Most Beautiful Woman In Town - Charles Bukowski

I was inspired by this beautiful short story by the late great Charles Bukowski (1920 - 1994) Want to share with all of you, an epic tale from the nitty gritty mastermind.

The Most Beautiful Woman In Town

Cass was the youngest and most beautiful of 5 sisters. Cass was the most beautiful girl in town. 1/2 Indian with a supple and strange body, a snake-like and fiery body with eyes to go with it. Cass was fluid moving fire. She was like a spirit stuck into a form that would not hold her. Her hair was black and long and silken and whirled about as did her body. Her spirit was either very high or very low. There was no in between for Cass. Some said she was crazy. The dull ones said that. The dull ones would never understand Cass. To the men she was simply a sex machine and they didn't care whether she was crazy or not. And Cass danced and flirted, kissed the men, but except for an instance or two, when it came time to make it with Cass, Cass had somehow slipped away, eluded the men. Her sisters accused her of misusing her beauty, of not using her mind enough, but Cass had mind and spirit; she painted, she danced, she sang, she made things of clay, and when people were hurt either in the spirit or the flesh, Cass felt a deep grieving for them. Her mind was simply different; her mind was simply not practical. Her sisters were jealous of her because she attracted their men, and they were angry because they felt she didn't make the best use of them. She had a habit of being kind to the uglier ones; the so-called handsome men revolted her- "No guts," she said, "no zap. They are riding on their perfect little earlobes and well- shaped nostrils...all surface and no insides..." She had a temper that came close to insanity, she had a temper that some call insanity. Her father had died of alcohol and her mother had run off leaving the girls alone. The girls went to a relative who placed them in a convent. The convent had been an unhappy place, more for Cass than the sisters. The girls were jealous of Cass and Cass fought most of them. She had razor marks all along her left arm from defending herself in two fights. There was also a permanent scar along the left cheek but the scar rather than lessening her beauty only seemed to highlight it. I met her at the West End Bar several nights after her release from the convent. Being youngest, she was the last of the sisters to be released. She simply came in and sat next to me. I was probably the ugliest man in town and this might have had something to do with it. "Drink?" I asked.

"Sure, why not?"
I don't suppose there was anything unusual in our conversation that night, it was simply in the feeling Cass gave. She had chosen me and it was as simple as that. No pressure. She liked her drinks and had a great number of them. She didn't seem quite of age but they served he anyhow. Perhaps she had forged i.d., I don't know. Anyhow, each time she came back from the restroom and sat down next to me, I did feel some pride. She was not only the most beautiful woman in town but also one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. I placed my arm about her waist and kissed her once. "Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked.
"Yes, of course, but there's something else... there's more than your looks..."
"People are always accusing me of being pretty. Do you really think I'm pretty?"
"Pretty isn't the word, it hardly does you fair."
Cass reached into her handbag. I thought she was reaching for her handkerchief. She came out with a long hatpin. Before I could stop her she had run this long hatpin through her nose, sideways, just above the nostrils. I felt disgust and horror. She looked at me and laughed, "Now do you think me pretty? What do you think now, man?" I pulled the hatpin out and held my handkerchief over the bleeding. Several people, including the bartender, had seen the act. The bartender came down:
"Look," he said to Cass, "you act up again and you're out. We don't need your dramatics here."
"Oh, fuck you, man!" she said.
"Better keep her straight," the bartender said to me.
"She'll be all right," I said.

"It's my nose, I can do what I want with my nose."
"No," I said, "it hurts me."
"You mean it hurts you when I stick a pin in my nose?"
"Yes, it does, I mean it."
"All right, I won't do it again. Cheer up."
She kissed me, rather grinning through the kiss and holding the handkerchief to her nose. We left for my place at closing time. I had some beer and we sat there talking. It was then that I got the perception of her as a person full of kindness and caring. She gave herself away without knowing it. At the same time she would leap back into areas of wildness and incoherence. Schitzi. A beautiful and spiritual schitzi. Perhaps some man, something, would ruin her forever. I hoped that it wouldn't be me. We went to bed and after I turned out the lights Cass asked me,
"When do you want it? Now or in the morning?"
"In the morning," I said and turned my back.
In the morning I got up and made a couple of coffees, brought her one in bed. She laughed.
"You're the first man who has turned it down at night."
"It's o.k.," I said, "we needn't do it at all."
"No, wait, I want to now. Let me freshen up a bit."
Cass went into the bathroom. She came out shortly, looking quite wonderful, her long black hair glistening, her eyes and lips glistening, her glistening... She displayed her body calmly, as a good thing. She got under the sheet.
"Come on, lover man."
I got in. She kissed with abandon but without haste. I let my hands run over her body, through her hair. I mounted. It was hot, and tight. I began to stroke slowly, wanting to make it last. Her eyes looked directly into mine.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"What the hell difference does it make?" she asked.
I laughed and went on ahead. Afterwards she dressed and I drove her back to the bar but she was difficult to forget. I wasn't working and I slept until 2 p.m. then got up and read the paper. I was in the bathtub when she came in with a large leaf- an elephant ear. "I knew you'd be in the bathtub," she said, "so I brought you something to cover that thing with, nature boy."
She threw the elephant leaf down on me in the bathtub.
"How did you know I'd be in the tub?"
"I knew."
Almost every day Cass arrived when I was in the tub. The times were different but she seldom missed, and there was the elephant leaf. And then we'd make love. One or two nights she phoned and I had to bail her out of jail for drunkenness and fighting.
"These sons of bitches," she said, "just because they buy you a few drinks they think they can get into your pants."
"Once you accept a drink you create your own trouble."
"I thought they were interested in me, not just my body."
"I'm interested in you and your body. I doubt, though, that most men can see beyond your body."
I left town for 6 months, bummed around, came back. I had never forgotten Cass, but we'd had some type of argument and I felt like moving anyhow, and when I got back i figured she'd be gone, but I had been sitting in the West End Bar about 30 minutes when she walked in and sat down next to me.
"Well, bastard, I see you've come back."
I ordered her a drink. Then I looked at her. She had on a high- necked dress. I had never seen her in one of those. And under each eye, driven in, were 2 pins with glass heads. All you could see were the heads of the pins, but the pins were driven down into her face.
"God damn you, still trying to destroy your beauty, eh?"
"No, it's the fad, you fool."
"You're crazy."
"I've missed you," she said.
"Is there anybody else?"
"No there isn't anybody else. Just you. But I'm hustling. It costs ten bucks. But you get it free."
"Pull those pins out."
"No, it's the fad."
"It's making me very unhappy."
"Are you sure?"
"Hell yes, I'm sure."
Cass slowly pulled the pins out and put them back in her purse.
"Why do you haggle your beauty?" I asked. "Why don't you just live with it?"
"Because people think it's all I have. Beauty is nothing, beauty won't stay. You don't know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you you know it's for something else."
"O.k.," I said, "I'm lucky."
"I don't mean you're ugly. People just think you're ugly. You have a fascinating face."
"Thanks."
We had another drink.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Nothing. I can't get on to anything. No interest."
"Me neither. If you were a woman you could hustle."
"I don't think I could ever make contact with that many strangers, it's wearing."
"You're right, it's wearing, everything is wearing."
We left together. People still stared at Cass on the streets. She was a beautiful woman, perhaps more beautiful than ever. We made it to my place and I opened a bottle of wine and we talked. With Cass and I, it always came easy. She talked a while and I would listen and then i would talk. Our conversation simply went along without strain. We seemed to discover secrets together. When we discovered a good one Cass would laugh that laugh- only the way she could. It was like joy out of fire. Through the talking we kissed and moved closer together. We became quite heated and decided to go to bed. It was then that Cass took off her high -necked dress and I saw it- the ugly jagged scar across her throat.
It was large and thick.
"God damn you, woman," I said from the bed, "god damn you, what have you done?
"I tried it with a broken bottle one night. Don't you like me any more? Am I still beautiful?"
I pulled her down on the bed and kissed her. She pushed away and laughed, "Some men pay me ten and I undress and they don't want to do it. I keep the ten. It's very funny."
"Yes," I said, "I can't stop laughing... Cass, bitch, I love you...stop destroying yourself; you're the most alive woman I've ever met."
We kissed again. Cass was crying without sound. I could feel the tears. The long black hair lay beside me like a flag of death. We enjoined and made slow and somber and wonderful love. In the morning Cass was up making breakfast. She seemed quite calm and happy. She was singing. I stayed in bed and enjoyed her happiness. Finally she came over and shook me,
"Up, bastard! Throw some cold water on your face and pecker and come enjoy the feast!"
I drove her to the beach that day. It was a weekday and not yet summer so things were splendidly deserted. Beach bums in rags slept on the lawns above the sand. Others sat on stone benches sharing a lone bottle. The gulls whirled about, mindless yet distracted. Old ladies in their 70's and 80's sat on the benches and discussed selling real estate left behind by husbands long ago killed by the pace and stupidity of survival. For it all, there was peace in the air and we walked about and stretched on the lawns and didn't say much. It simply felt good being together. I bought a couple of sandwiches, some chips and drinks and we sat on the sand eating. Then I held Cass and we slept together about an hour. It was somehow better than lovemaking. There was flowing together without tension. When we awakened we drove back to my place and I cooked a dinner. After dinner I suggested to Cass that we shack together. She waited a long time, looking at me, then she slowly said, "No." I drove her back to the bar, bought her a drink and walked out. I found a job as a parker in a factory the next day and the rest of the week went to working. I was too tired to get about much but that Friday night I did get to the West End Bar. I sat and waited for Cass. Hours went by . After I was fairly drunk the bartender said to me, "I'm sorry about your girlfriend."
"What is it?" I asked.
"I'm sorry, didn't you know?"
"No."
"Suicide. She was buried yesterday."
"Buried?" I asked. It seemed as though she would walk through the doorway at any moment. How could she be gone?
"Her sisters buried her."
"A suicide? Mind telling me how?"
"She cut her throat."
"I see. Give me another drink."
I drank until closing time. Cass was the most beautiful of 5 sisters, the most beautiful in town. I managed to drive to my place and I kept thinking, I should have insisted she stay with me instead of accepting that "no." Everything about her had indicated that she had cared. I simply had been too offhand about it, lazy, too unconcerned. I deserved my death and hers. I was a dog. No, why blame the dogs? I got up and found a bottle of wine and drank from it heavily. Cass the most beautiful girl in town was dead at 20. Outside somebody honked their automobile horn. They were very loud and persistent. I sat the bottle down and screamed out: "GOD DAMN YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH ,SHUT UP!" The night kept coming and there was nothing I could do.