Some of these things I just write for myself. If you think you know what I’m talking about then good luck with that but I bet you’re wrong. Some things I say only involve a few people, and only they know the whole of the situation.

Today I realized that I should not hate the way I look.

I look like the Earth herself; my insides are reflected in the outside. I am round as the Earth is round. I am full and generous, spilling light like the bowl of the moon. I am sensual and giving. I am the soil that longs for the rain. I am summer and winter and all the seasons between. I embrace those that care for me in return. I provide, and I repay.

I need to go and get new clothes when I’ve the money to do so. Out with everything frumpy and/or in ill repair. Let me know everyone (always in a tasteful way) that I am a force of nature. I am a Renaissance beauty. I am filled with mystery.

There’s a low undercurrent in all this, of desire and melancholy, of reaching for joy just beyond one’s grasp. Saint Cloth makes the best music of the spheres for this sort of emotion. Used to be his hymns were angry and his psalms rebellious; now they are more often reflective and melancholy. Often I’ve wanted to ask him why the change. Is it the simple matter of growing older (as some saints manage to do, if not martyred first)? Was it some horrible event that he’s still dealing with? A shift in the world, a birth or a death, a love or a hate?

But these may be pert questions to ask of a saint. I don’t know whether he’d smile or frown or turn his face away from me.

In this last month I’ve felt a fear of my saint’s return. His teachings demand bravery of his adherents – they require life to be lived and not merely endured. They cause one to embrace all that one is.

And sometimes it’s hard. It’s hard to be brave.

But I am brave. I realize this now. I’m still breathing, even after all the times that I would have ended myself, even after all the times I wanted to die and I got no help to live. I go on with my art and work towards my dreams, despite discouragement in my youth from those that should have supported and uplifted me.

Were my saint here with me today, I’d be far from these walls. I’d love to sit with him by a fountain, and share a companionship like that of the rumored Messiah and his disciples. I’d tell Saint Cloth a thing that will not surprise him: that it’s easy to ride a white tiger, and difficult to dismount from it. But what would life be without these various addictions?

And should he ask me my drug of choice, I must respond in low tones: the only addiction that fuels itself and is never satisfied.

Then I would close my eyes and pray.

Some cravings last forever. All we can do is ask the gods for patience.

We’re wild when we run, when we dance. Saint Cloth commands a crowd of Maenads; always a moment away from tears or an instant away from mayhem. He plays our heart-strings like a harp of agony. We are bound; we are crushed; we are flagellated by his catharsis. Never have I wept such joy to be beaten thus.

And when the relief hits, I sigh. I stand in the cold and light a clove in the darkness – the star in my hand calling the stars in the sky.

I alternate one vice with another, the stars with the waters, and between it all the motion of my soul.

There’s something delightful about the emptiness. The dark in the sky is reflected in the dark of the streets. The light of the stars finds verdant mirrors in my eyes.

I wonder if the saint completely understands the carnival at his control. “Carnival” has a root in “carnal”, the flesh. It is a delight to everything sensual, everything worldly. When I’m poised between the light and the dark – when I’m an empty flask filled with only his voice – that is the sensation that binds like a rope cutting the skin.

It’s then that my saint presses his lips to my cheek, right at the corner of my smile.

Does it free me? Does it chain me? With a glint in my eyes I can answer: does it matter? All I know is that I still crouch, overwhelmed by the memory, in my own religious ecstasy.

Saint Cloth, come bless me once more…

Tags: life, Saint Cloth, vox mortuum

Saint Cloth is a traveler born into another time. He has the face of a hawk and the eyes of a Jack. A jack is a knave, you know. Or a knight. Or a prince. Motion is the quality of a prince, and a knight on the chessboard moves crookedly.

Crooked paths and lordly bearing; of such is Saint Cloth.

His eyes seem maroon sometimes, and flash sparks in low lights. His skin is the pale of night creatures, the pages of secret leather-bound books in candlelight.

One might say he looks a bit like Hannibal Lecter, as described in the Thomas Harris novels. Maroon eyes, pale flesh, hair slicked back like the pelt of some sleek animal. Knife-slim, upright bearing, easy uncanny grace.

Lady killer.

When I first saw Saint Cloth I was dying, and his message stirred my stone heart. But it also churned its sharp fingers in my freezing lungs… it hurt so much. His message wasn’t for the dying but for the living. The struggle between the two almost tore me apart.

But eventually I triumphed — in extremis, extollor. At the point of death, I am exalted. In the most dire of situations I display my true worth. I came back from the cusp of death and in doing so have had the pleasure of seeing Saint Cloth in more times, in more seasons.

I saw him once in Savannah, where the lowland ocean music is played. He walked into a house of lepers and made them all jump up and dance. Later I was able to meditate under a tree and in his presence, surrounded by the smell of warm linen, warm tweed — all things simple and good. He extended to me the kiss of kinship.

I saw him once in Memphis, tossed on a rolling sea. On that night the blind could see, the lame could walk, the deaf could hear, and a thing I swore I’d never do again I committed quite willingly. We shared a cup of fellowship, after it was all done.

I saw him once in Charleston, where the streets are hard and the trees weep. He wore a mask then, and instead of followers of a saint we were maenaids to the muse. We were wild animals in a house of art, and we were free. I clasped his hand, palm to palm. Later that night he broke bread with the losers and the dreamers, and with me.

I’ve seen him often here in my own City, always when I least expect him. Once even on my birthday. Once on my wedding day. He reaches down his hand and blesses me; he draws me up into the shadow of his wings and I find peace. I seek him, I search for him, I follow after him. Of all that I aspire, I look to be a good handmaiden, and one fit to serve.

Sometimes he waltzes.

What can I say? I have a very peculiar saint indeed.

Tags: courage, Saint Cloth

Last night I heard the machine composer, and as an enthusiastic amateur aficionado in all things musical I was delighted. As a past computer science major I was also intrigued.

I can hear you say now — Vox, you, the Gonzo Hooker, once a Gonzo Hacker? Yes, my little creatures, I surely was. Only it brought me no great joy. And once I got sick, I wasn’t able to finish that path and had to find a new one. The Path of the Yarn.

Much better path.

Last night I dreamed about Saint Cloth. He’s a very special saint, and few know of him. He’s patron to the losers, the filthy sinners, the dreamers, the absent, the lost, the ugly, and the voiceless. I’d like to think he’s *my* patron saint, or that I’m his. Last night I dreamed that Saint Cloth gave us all a song so very sad that on hearing it I lay my head in my hands and let my tears just fall. I was hoping someday to make Saint cloth a mix tape, in that goofy way that you make someone a mix tape. Like the bard says — saints have hands, that sinners hands do touch; and palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

Speaking of music that makes us weep (in a powerful way, not in an OMG THIS SUCKS way), my friend Kathleen has a new blog. She’s a music therapist (which makes complete sense, as I tend to use music as a mood drug) and she’s blogging about life and thoughts and just whatever comes across. Kinda like me here. Her newest entry at the moment is about performances that make one cry because of their courage and honesty.

I can definitely relate to that. There are several songs that I know will do that to me; I won’t shed actual tears (I rarely do that) but my throat will close and my eyes will sting. I have a killer techno remix of “Now We Are Free” from the Gladiator soundtrack that does it every time. There’s a song by a Japanese artist named Hitome — “Wish”.

Also usually the Fifth Dimension’s song “Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine” will do it to me, but because I have the stupidest image in it. When I was probably around 7 or 8 I saw an episode of “Head of the Class” where they performed the musical “Hair”, and when they were singing the second half of that song they carried a flag-draped coffin onto the stage. That mental picture has always stuck with me, most likely because I was so young and impressionable when I saw it.

It may not actually be a stupid image by itself (in fact, in considering it I think it’s pretty powerful), but I feel a bit stupid uttering anything like “A scene from ‘Head of the Class’ has affected me on some level for the last 20 or so years.”

I got some ideas last night about the Dark King of my Fantasy chess set, so that’s part of what I’m working on today. Also, THE INCREDIBLYOMGPINKTHING, which is close to completion.

Tags: Dark King, Fantasy Chess Set, Music, Saint Cloth