I wanted coffee.

So I decided to make a cup of coffee.

I use the pour over kind, don't ask me why,

      and not the machine, but it was dirty at the bottom of a full sink.

And the dishwasher was full of clean dishes that needed emptied

     before the dirty ones could go in.

So that I could put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher,

     and reach the pour over coffee maker,

          down at the bottom of a dirty sink,

              so I could make a cup of coffee.

I took the clean dishes out of the dishwasher one by one, and started to put them away.

     but then I heard my Facebook messaging notification ding.

         Oh I wonder what that could say?

It was a family who was coming today to get my son's old bassinet

      He had never even slept in it, but I was still sad,

           but they were giving me twenty dollars, so I was glad.

Back to the kitchen sink.

Emptying the clean dishes one by one.

Soon I would surely be done.

"Mom! The baby needs a diaper change!" my middle son shouts.

I continue emptying the dishes, hoping he would leave me be.

"Mom! He stinks! He's right next to me!"

Sigh. I'll just change him real quick, and it'll be done in no time.

Maybe instead of coffee, I should just skip to the glass of wine.

Back to the kitchen sink.

Emptying the clean dishes one by one.

Soon I would surely be done.

Oh, no. What if the family who is coming to get the bassinet can't find us? I thought, worriedly. I better send them more info in a hurry!

Back to the computer, where I also noticed I had an email.

Oh my goodness, I began to wail.

It was an important email from my sons' teacher who was assessing their homeschool portfolios and needed photos of them doing science projects, on field trips, and more.

Oh, my brain began to roar.

I spent the next fifteen minutes gathering up photos to send.

Oh, this was never going to end.

Back to the kitchen sink.

Emptying the clean dishes one by one.

Soon I would surely be done.

The clean dishes were put away

So I filled the dishwasher with the dirty ones

Soon I would surely be done.

At last, the dishes were nice and clean

And the pour over coffee maker no longer at the bottom of the sink.

The water was heating up in the tea kettle.

And my nerves began to settle.

Finally, coffee aroma filled the room

    and flowers all around me started to bloom

A symphony began to sing

    and no more facebook notifications pinged and dinged

I held the hot mug in my hands

    and did a little inner dance

I gobbled down the liquid fast.

    Coffee at last.

they'll paint you in the stars

that people glorify and explore

distant lanterns that will drift away

to places unseen to the naked eye

they'll write words that will make you feel old

use old language that you will not know

because they'll say your an interface to time

because time seems to fly when they're with you

they'll sing songs in your name for all to hear

their gorgeous voice crying out your name

through sweat and tears and content moans

never letting you go

never letting you go.

©SelfTitled, 2017

My poems are not real

     just pen marks on my palms

     glistening lips searching for another

     deep pools of turquoise eyes

     crescents of my soul

My poems are not real

     floating imperfections in halos

     tinges of colors mixed with lightning

     carved thoughts and trembling hands

     love within heartstrings

My poems are not real

     stairs of tumbling rapids

     racing without destination

     brutal partings and warm embraces

     forced tears and black tunnels

My poems are not real

     endless roads paved in water

     whirlpools of striking pain

     grains of sand on beaches

     skipped stones without weight.

My poems are not real

     swimming in wide motions

     empty train tracks

     poetry unveils my darkness

     hiding behind walls

My poems are not real

     dangling thoughts on paper

     doorway to my existence

     beckoning for you to enter

     to my world of unreality.

The hero stood before the summit of the worn and haggard old steps and let out a long, hard, resigned sigh. It was now time. She had thought about this moment for days now and the time had finally arrived.

She knew that the task she was about to endeavour upon would be hard and she wasn’t sure she would have the strength left inside her to complete it, but it had to be done – and she was running out of time, before they came back. With doubt in her mind and weariness in her legs, she took one last breath of fresh air before transcending the first of the steps.

Her clothes by now were dirty and loose and, in a couple of places, had been torn by the exploits and obstacles she had been forced to overcome since she started this journey just a short time ago, though it felt that several days had passed instead.

Once into a steady rhythm the hero found it easier to mount the steps, which were laden with many traps and pitfalls along the way. As she made her way upwards she noticed, from the corner of her eye, the walls were decorated with many strange and dusty old pictures that appeared to vibrate with the colour that was within them.

Finally she reached the top of the steps and, with a sharp turn to the right, was faced with a long dark passageway. Ahead of her, about ten yards away, she saw a chink of light. It was the entrance to the room she needed. The one she had struggled all day to overcome her fears about.

She stood there staring, wondering if she was doing the right thing, wishing now that she had not volunteered for this perilous task. Maybe if she stayed there long enough it would all fade away and not be real; but, alas, she knew it was and also what ultimately needed to be done.

With a huge combined effort from all her emotional senses she moved forward until she was at the door. She checked all her weapons – one in each hand and one tucked away in her belt ‘just in case’, and made sure they were ready and working.

With one final step she moved up and, with the outside of her right hand, brushed away the dust on the old sign fixed to the wall. Wiping the streaky dirt away she revealed the mottled gold writing:

…..

‘John and Katie’s play room’

                                                             Prologue

This is the story of a trying to make a dream of having my screenplay produced come true and how it turned into a nightmare that would haunt me for decades.

A blink of an eye that seemed to last a lifetime and touched so many lives. It was an odyssey that traversed three continents. The array of friends, politicians, stars, police, wannabes and crooks came together without being aware of their participation in it. As bizarre as it may seem later, all those named herein did knowingly or unknowingly play a role. Some were totally innocent others intentionally not.

I started innocently on a path to make a dream come true. Destiny played a series of sick tricks diverting my original path in unimaginable ways. I still don't understand how or why any of this happened.

So much was lost on the way to this day. More than a quarter of a century has passed, yet I am unsure whether this is ending a chapter in my life or creating a new highway from a winding path.

Are these words and pages cathartic or reopening deep and old wounds? Being honest, I don't know the answer to this question. Only finishing the task at hand can lead there. We'll all learn together.

Let me assure you, everything you are about to read really did happen. It happened to me and around me. As unlikely as it will seem, it is so. I wish I could be creative enough to lay out such a complex novel. This is non-fiction. I wish to hell it wasn't.

I had to decide whether to clean up the language and make this prettier than it was or is. I can't do that.

This tale was lived by the seats of my pants Buckle up, it's not for the faint of heart. Hell, there are times Stephen King would have screamed like a little girl.

Thanks for becoming part of my story.

The clickety-clack of the Trans-Siberia Railway was equally hypnotic and torturous. I woke up half-naked in my compartment, with a throbbing, two-day, drug-induced headache and a note taped inside my briefcase that read, “If I can do this, think of what the FSB and CIA are capable of.” My thoughts ran to self-preservation rather than the mind-numbing sounds.

So much of my odyssey had been a living combination of Monty Python meets Dr. Strangelove that I had almost forgotten I was dealing with superpowers, real people, and telling a secret that would change the world. I entertained the notion that if I could concentrate, the migraine would dissipate.

I reached for my backpack and pulled out my notes. I spread them on the bed and tried to make some sense of what I learned on my journey thus far. After sorting through them aimlessly for a while, I decided there had to be a system: put each prong of the story in one pile rather than trying to make a single, convoluted epic from four diverse groups who had no idea any of what the others were trying to do. The participants sounded like a bad joke. What if the Soviet Union, the US, a small European prince and an angelic African leader were all trying to save their countries at the same time?

The first portion of the story came from the data I had collected about the Russians-Soviets, as they were known at the time. I’d uncovered a lot of information about the inner-circle of the Kremlin. I read it and re-read it, unable to believe what I knew from experience was true. There was no way these megalomaniacal buffoons and paranoid apparatchiks could have run an empire that spanned major parts of three continents.

As was always the case, the worker bees were the competent ones, brave and able to work under pressure. Much of my information had come from former KGB operatives who had been involved all those years ago,

Damn, I kept thinking during the five-thousand-mile journey each way from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, this can’t be true.

My piles of notes kept shifting with the movement of the train on antiquated tracks. I grumbled and stood, opening the door of my compartment to recapture the ones that slipped under the door.

A beautiful conductor bent over to help pick them up, and her skirt rode up to show spectacular legs. She smiled as she handed me the stack of papers. I struggled to remember my rudimentary Russian, finding her beauty distracting. “Are you writing a book?” she asked me with a brilliant smile.

Oh shit, had she read my notes? I swallowed against the sudden dryness in my throat. “No, I’m helping with some research for a university.”

“How interesting,” her eyes sparkled.

The train shimmied, and she fell into me. I wrapped an arm around her to steady her, or so I told myself. Her smile grew to almost feline proportions. Man, this was more of a test than any other I had thus far. I couldn’t cheat on my girlfriend. More importantly, no matter how cute she was, I couldn’t let this conductor see what I was doing. For all I knew, she could be FSB.

“Th-th-thanks. I need to get back to work,” I said, releasing her and clutching the notes to my chest.

“If I see your papers in the corridor again, I’ll knock on your door,” she smiled and walked away and into the next car.

I closed the door, sat on my small chair, and took a deep breath. Looking in the cabinet for water, I discovered only a bottle of vodka. I drank it straight from the bottle like a true Russian.

Fortified by the liquor, I returned to my review, starting on the next stack of notes: the scant of information referencing the United States. As I read through it, I couldn’t help but laugh. Doonesbury wasn’t a cartoon. It was a documentary.

I gagged on my next slug of cheap vodka. The idiots in charge of the United States were every bit as crazy as the Soviets.

I found that the American team left a land of Victoria’s Secret, Monday Night Football, and shopping malls for Russia, a country of perpetual gray skies, no hot water, and umbrella-wielding babushkas. The KGB was omnipresent, and the Americans could be shipped off to enjoy the Siberian winter if they were caught. Hell, if someone caught them, being sent to Siberia would have been downright lenient. I doubted any of the Americans would have made it to the next street corner. Stealing Soviet national secrets was understandable during the Cold War. But how could anyone have come up with this crazy plan?

I understood why the world’s superpowers were so frustrated and willing to try anything, but their plans weren’t what really ended the Cold War. In the geopolitical world, as in the real world, accidents often create the greatest results. I needed more vodka and sucked down a third of the bottle in one swig.

My notes blurred, and my head spun as I considered the two men central to my journey. The key players in this farce couldn’t be more different. No amount of vodka could possibly make this make any sense, but I had met them and knew all of this was real. Insane, wild, crazy, but real.

Of course, I had to change the names of countries other than America and the USSR. The names of the players had to change, also. For my own safety and the safety of everyone involved.

The next player in this mad story was President Mbangu of Madibu, who has often been considered a living saint. Hell, he’s known as The Great Man throughout the world. During a time when Africa suffered through brutal civil wars, dictatorships, corruption, and economic unrest, his idyllic island nation was poor and happy. He was a much better man than I ever could hope to be. However, his nation’s successes were waning and he had to come up with a way to turn Madibu’s fortunes quickly or chaos could ensue.

Although it was against his better angels, he tricked the U.S. and U.S.S.R., but no one lost, and his people benefitted greatly. How could he ever know that his beaches, hotels, a cargo/cruise ship port, rhesus monkeys and new-found libation production would help end the Cold War?

Mbangu’s friend, and polar opposite, was Prince Claude of Luxenstein. All anyone needed to know about him was his nickname: The Pied Piper of Pussy. As outrageous as it may sound, it was a gross understatement of his life. Casanova was a virgin compared to the Pied Piper, and the Pied Piper was real. He was a one-man good year for casinos around the world. But this time he had gone too far, he only had a short time to fix it or his fairytale nation would be gobbled up as a province of France or Belgium to protect the public from his excesses. His family’s five-century-old principality would be history. He couldn’t hold back. If he had to be dangerous and crazy, so be it. Who would take him seriously anyway? So, he jumped in full force, hoping he would succeed against all the odds.

The last notes I organized before putting them back in my briefcase for the evening were the perfect ending point for the night. They came from Petey, an eighty-five-year-old former pit boss in Vegas, who had seen the Pied Piper in his wildest days.

“You gotta promise me one thing,” Petey had told me.

“What’s that?”

“If you find out the real story before I die, you gotta tell me.”

“Absolutely.”

A huge smile lit his wrinkled, ancient face, “When you come to tell me, make sure I give you my will first.”

“Why?”

“Because when I hear what he did, I’ll probably laugh my ass into the big one. It’ll be a helluva way to go. Die with a smile on my face. Man, I haven’t been this excited since that hooker in ’83. You’ve made this old man very happy. I’ve got something to look forward to now. Thank the Pied Piper for me.”

“You’ve got it, Petey,” I said with a snicker.

Perfect. I let the vodka and clickety-clack of the train put me to sleep. I smiled to myself with that one last thought.

When your kid asks, “How did the Cold War really end, daddy?” You can tell him, “This is how. Don’t believe what you read in the history books. Sit back and read the real story.”

My lavender fields darken

As psalms burn from my eyes

She lights the dusk with

Soft preamble violet waves

My heart melts like

The autumnal spill above

The night harvest's her

Dimmed until day's dawn

Anointed by her scenting

mummification

When pruned she's ultraviolet

I wave goodbye

standing at the top of a building,

vultures gliding waiting for my morsels.

I skip ropes of my ambivalence,

rip off your crimson bandage of hatred,

throw it to the soaring currents.

I look down to see the damp rocks

in the onyx river of concrete,

pore over my life of closed zippers.

I take a running leap -

the toes of my shoes catch

on the edge of all I have lost.

Flashlight gripped tightly in my hand

spotlights the hopeless leap

of no tomorrow.

The elevator of my existence

wings downward in a spiral

as a little semblance of me

floats above rubbernecking

in abject fascination of

cutting edge flight of no return.

Inundated by contradictions

I can’t turn back from intimacy

of cancelling my reality.

I do it for you, I say!

If you were to see me

I would be

Just another

Face in the crowd.

If you tried to find me

It would be hard

Because I am just

Another face in the crowd.

If you wanted to 

Help me

It wouldn't work

Because I would still be

Just another face in the crowd.

I am invisible

Just like always

Just another 

Face in the crowd.

Vicious girl,

Stop following me.

You're not me,

I don't believe it.

Vicious girl,

Stop following me.

I don't want to

Become one with you.

Vicious girl,

Stop following me.

I know you want

Me to be cruel.

Vicious girl,

Stop following me.

My life isn't yours,

Leave me be!

Vicious girl,

Stop following me.

You and I are the same,

Are you happy now?