Transformation (An Odd Story of a Spacecraft)

Transformation

Mick and Me

It was back in 1963, or ’64, when my brother and I were up by Rice School had left his presence for a spell, and went over by the small grocery store, when I returned, my brother was staring, looking up into the sky. He’s about six foot one, I’m about five foot eight inches tall. I was at that time slim and muscular, my brother, somewhat, pleasingly plump. He said, “You know what I saw Lee?” And I said of course, “No, what?”
“You won’t believe me,” Mick commented.
“Try me, “I responded. And here is what he said: “I just saw a round space craft, it was held still in the atmosphere (he is at this time sixteen years old, I am fourteen),” then he sucked in his breath as if to let it all out at once and said, “It lit up, like the moon, light all around it,” and he looked about to see if he could find the craft or perhaps its silhouette, “It was descending, closer me, and then you showed up.”

Back in the ‘60s we young folk were doing many things, but our neighborhood was not into all those drugs, if I recall right, although who knows, but somehow I do feel his story was creditable. Now for another story which somehow I feel links into this one.


Transformation

Sid and Me

I knew the fellow, we went to school together, but he never wanted to go, he just would come and pick me up at the edge of the street that led into the school, and he’d take me off and we’d get drunk, and pick up girls. I was seventeen at the time, and he was nineteen. He always seemed older to me, I mean, as if he had the wisdom or insight, or foresight, whatever you are suppose to have in your later years (perhaps fifties), he had at nineteen years old, no questions asked, he did, simple as that. His first name was Sid, I will not tell you his last name, because he has passed on, some years ago, many years ago, to be truthful.
Here is the story he told me:

“I was walking, just walking, that’s all, and believe it or not, a spacecraft was following me. Yes, I said a spacecraft. Perhaps other folks saw it, or thought they saw it, because it was there, and gone as fast as a clap of an eye. But I saw it. I was…( he hesitates) you won’t believe this, but its true, I was 59-years old at the time this took place, I looked back then, as if I was sixteen or seventeen, yes, I proclaim to be nineteen now, but I’m really much older, if I told you, it would be hard to absorb. Anyhow, I was walking, and I saw this young boy, he was handsome, very good looking, built like you, several years ago, and it stayed in my head, and as the ship followed me, for the few minutes, it seemed to be extracting information from and of my thinking, thinking I say, of and at the moment. Even though I was spellbound of this spacecraft, I was thinking nonetheless, it was perhaps a delusion, illusion, something of that matter. And the boy came back into my mind.
“Well, as I turned the corner to walk a little further, I saw three lovely, shapely girls, in bikinis, lovely as three smooth looking sunflowers, and it was of course summer, and Elvis was of course popular and they were playing one of his records, in the backyard by their pool, resting on towels (this was of course in Minnesota). One of the girls, a blond, with shapely legs, and just the right curves, like a hard pear, she looked at me looking, and smiled, and went back to her friends. A black girl was there, and she turned around, she looked more Spanish Black, than black-black, and she also had a great pear shape as she twisted around to see what the blond was looking at, and there was a third girl, who paid no attention to me at all.
I turned around and walked away, I am old man, or at least getting old you know (so I told myself at that time), I was at that time, and I’m several years older now of course. But what took place in the following hour or so was amazing. I walked over to Como Park, it was but a few blocks away, there the lake was, and so I simply leaned against a tree, again I saw the disc, the sphere, spacecraft, it read my thinking process again. And this time there was some wishful thinking going on in my head. Here is what took place:
‘[the Voice said:] undress, standstill, and we will remold you, it is called a transformation, and you will look similar to that young boy….’ And I did what the voice said, and my body got red hot, something from the ship was hitting me. I couldn’t´ move if I wanted to. Then my skin bubbled, and I heard the voice again say “
‘Close your eyes’ and I did. And my skin got numb, and hot, and needle like pricks went through the skin, and a crust, like a casing came over me, except the inner eye sockets. And then I heard the voice again, “Jump into the water and wash yourself, we shall monitor you, see how you are doing with your new transformation.” The voice was more an echo through a machine it sounded like.
“I did wash myself, and when I came out from the lake, a few folks got mule-eyed at me, and turned their heads. But I put my cloths on quickly, went to the bathroom at the pavilion, by the lake, and to my amazement, I was that boy I saw, almost perfect, so my reflection showed in the mirrors of the bathroom. Then I heard the voice again say, “You will be old inside, but new on the outside.” And as I looked at myself in the mirror a second time, I couldn’t believe my eyes yet. I was that boy.
“I went back to that place where those girls were, and the one blond fancied me, and that was the beginning of different life for me. She was of course, forth some years younger than I, and my voice was deeper than a young chap, but it was never too deep even when I was young.”


This was of course many years ago, perhaps (I was 17 years old in 1964, he was perhaps 65, if indeed he was 59, when he says he met the girls, he died I think in 1976, he would have been somewhere around 76 years old, and his wife, 27 or so, she never knew); he has long since been dead as I’ve mentioned. Folks couldn’t figure it out, especially his wife, whom was 40-years younger than he, and she thinking he was but three or four years her senior. And perhaps this was my first experience with what I call my adventures into the Cadaverous Planets series. Whatever, he enjoyed his marriage, if I recall, and his wife, whom was in the process of divorcing him anyhow, got $5000-dollars from his insurance. So you can’t beat that. True or not true, I will never know for certain, but I kind of miss his ramping about.
Written: 2-19-2007

"Softly Bends the Leaves" (Poetry on Imaging and Imageery)

Poems with: imaging… and
imagery

Softly Bends the Leaves

Softly bends the long thin—knifelike leaves
Through the curtains and glass
I can see—, Its green…

The Sun reflecting off its seams;
If I move the piano, just a tinge
I’d see the whole thing.

#1659 (2-2-2007)) Lima, Peru




God Told Me

God told me once,
“Dennis, you’re after my heart…”
“Oh!” I said (perhaps playing dumb)
“Is this not true?” He replied.
(I hesitated, not sure why)) Said :))
“Yes, this is true,” (I was no fool).

#1658 2-1-2007



Highways

We build highways where people go
No one seems to get off them
And so, no one really knows….

#1660 2/1-2/2007

Triggers

The Deepest thing in us is Memories,
which can, and will
find their way out, once triggered.

#1661


Rosa’s Newspaper

She turns the pages of the newspaper
Like a slap on a child’s wrist
(so it looks and so it sounds):
Trying to find the crossword puzzle…!

#1662 (Dedicated to my wife, Rosa Peñaloza de Siluk)


Commentary: Poetry’s Function (just a few words): I believe the nature of poetry, its function—for the most part, have attached meanings; in the physical world, it can be confusing, it is in fact about language, as it claims to be. For often it has no voice, theme or even recognizable form. We call this free Verse, which is the dominate form of Postmodernism; prior to this, we had of course, Modernism, where we reexamined what poetry is. The density of language and intensity of imaging… and imagery; put another way, mental images; and: descriptions, metaphors, similes. Language is a two-way street, embraced but unregulated for the most part.

Shapes and Heat in Lima´s Summer

Shapes and HEAT in Lima’s Summer

I can tell by the morning
After I get up, look out my windows
That heat will come, thus, I can bake
In the outside restaurant, in the afternoon—
Next, I hear the birds in the garden singing
I look at the shapes of them (everything)
In the park, doorways, the street
Like syllables in a poem; shapes, shapes
(I can almost count them))The shapes))
They have faces you know, and
Images, weight, color (dimensions)
Everything, every little thing, has shapes.
I let myself (for a moment) just a moment,
I let the shapes dominate me (by them)
And then, then the heat comes…
Souring is the sun (in Lima’s summer)
Then I rush down to El Parquecitos
A Restaurant in Miraflores…
(by: Taxi, Taxi, Taxi…more shapes)
—talk to:
Carmon, Ela, or Sarah … (usually);
Looking at more shapes: their
Sounds, colors, weights, dimensions.

#1657 2-1-2007


Comments on writing a poem: To write a poem, one must travel, study art, music, movements, the eyes, and body language of the individual, the colors and shapes of the landscape, you must see the fire flicker, hear the sound of it, smell the smoke, feel the heat of the fire, to the flesh (all from memory); thus, now we are ready to write a poem: flesh, fire and flickers, make for a great beginning.



Great Poems

“If you can’t write go to the Zoo,
And look at the panther,” said
The painter to the poet—and
He did just that, and wrote a
Book called: “New Poems,”
In 1908; and matter-of-fact,
History now calls them
“Great Poems” at that.

#1657 2/1-2/2007


In these two poems and comments, Dennis tries to deliver a message I think, he is trying to say: use all you have to put into the poem. If you travel, use it, if you play music, add it...yes, look at what is around you, this is life, write about it. And if you can't find it, to write it, go looking for it. Rosa

Elephants in the Sky [A Story about Timbuktu]

Elephants in the Sky
[A Story about Timbuktu]


[1980s, Lee Evens in Mali, Timbuktu/Africa]


Advance: Lee was discharged from the Army in 1980, whereupon, he traveled the world, one of those locations was in Mali, by the legendary city of Timbuktu; whereupon he found himself in the middle of a plague, a plague of locust.

[Diary-review]


There were swarms of locust over the top of my car, in front of me, in front of the car—swarms I say swarms: a dark shadow covering the sky, descending, descending onto the road—in front of me, behind me, it was locusts, locusts, locusts—locusts everywhere, everyplace: so thick, thick with layers that made my car slip, slipping and sliding as if on ice. They seemed like they walked, walked, walked among the sky, cluttered together like big oaks; akin to a druid dark sky, coeval with the leering sky. They looked like pools of ghouls embracing, embracing the hooded faded sky that looked like dusk, but weren’t. Good God, good God, good God, I cried!
My radiator was being blocked, plugged by these finger-sized carcasses. I had to pull over to the side of the road. It was but a moment thereafter when I saw some adolescents down the road a bit, not too far, just a little ways, three of them trying to beat them off, beat the locusts with their belts, pants belts. Then one resorted to a stick, a stick I say, would you use a stick? To be honest, I’d run I think, run like hell; anyhow, he took a stick to beating them off, while the other used their hats, hands; they were dropping down like hail onto them from all sides; ragged looking shadows of them, full-fledged shadows, throbbing against their bodies were these locusts: down and sideways: bombarding them like creatures from outer space, like in the bible, where it mentions such things happening back in those far off days, the days Moses: the plagues God bequeath upon the pharaoh.
I think these kids would have loved to have found a window anyplace to climb through, and nail shut about now, as I kept looking out of my car window, and these creatures stained my window dirty with their restless scribbled bodies.
This was bad, very bad; the large insects were in their hair, noses, ears, climbing up their pants legs, flying straight for their mouths. They tried to spit them out, but more would jump from ear to nose to mouth.
The whole area was becoming infested with them [them: being, those locust critters; huge grasshoppers]. They were becoming as thick as the walls of Troy—twenty feet thick. I turned the engine of my rented car off; it spit and sputtered a bit, then came to a dead stop, a burping stop. I could not see the boys anymore, only a cocoon of these creatures several inches thick around them—like mummies; they now rolled about on the ground like dying lions, screaming: it simply shivered me; it was as if hate and love coiled within my stomach.
For a hundred miles around I had heard they were eating up the crops before anyone had time to harvest them; catastrophic damage to all the crops, as the new generation of larvae appeared—thus, widening the dimensions of the one-hundred mile radius to possibly two-hundred miles (sooner than later). But now they were on top of my car: yes, yes, yes, on top of my car; under it, all over it, and in the fields beside me, on the road. I was but twenty-five miles outside of Timbuktu. Ah! What would you do?
As far as I knew, there was no means of spraying available to kill these creepy-crawlers, nor any other treatment, why that occurred to me, is beyond me, I mean who gives a shit, I’m in the middle of it; yes, yes, no equipment as supplies were of a minimum and vehicles were scarce—I was lucky to have secured a deal with this jeep. I was witnessing farmers beating the locust into trenches; what more could they do? Swatting them, whacking them, from all sides, and running: I mean running! Like the boys should have done, didn’t do, but should have done, could not do anymore.
(This was the moment I’d put forward to later, when I telling others they looked like elephants in the sky. But that was to be a little bit in the future yet; now they just kept coming and coming and coming, these locust-insects.)
Now I’m breathing in the hot air in the jeep, it seems to me I’m recycling my own air. In the five-mile area they covered most everything; there were at least, must have been at least, couldn’t be less than 250-million locust I figured (insects); hoppers, yellow winged hoppers—crazy and manic hoppers, as if they were on a sugar high. That would be a weight volume of 5000 elephants dropping from the sky. I had a lot of time to figure that out, for the most part, let’s say hours watching these hoppers fly and jump, and descend, trying to eat my tires—trying to get into the jeep and eat me.
‘Try, try, try,’ I said, ‘…fuck you all I said.’

[Entry] “I was in Timbuktu a few days ago, on my way back to Timbuktu now, I had been in the countryside—where theses critters were breeding, I am not sure where it was in particular, but it was in Mali where they had breed I do believe—first, someplace in Mali. I was doing what I love to do, checking out some old writings that were found in one of the old mud houses in Timbuktu; realizing at one time Timbuktu was a Mecca for learning for the Muslims, or better put, Islamic cultured; on the old Silk Road you could say. I was eager, the phenomenon would move east, away from me, to Sudan or Chad, or all the way to Egypt; move away to anyplace, but out of Mali and for sure, away from Timbuktu in particular. I was surprised there was not a humanitarian crisis alert, or if there was it didn’t look like it where I was; yes, were the United Nation’s vehicles? A good question I figured, and never to be answered.
The trick is to kill them before new generations developed, thus stopping them in their tracks from breaking into other places—countries, and a new cycle starting. The crops I knew would be gone soon in the south and now in this area as well, if they were not yet, and should they go east—well, let them worry about that.”

They leaped like little elephants on the hood now, hood of, of my car; they looked, looked into my windows, deep into my windows, nose against the glass (smutches all over the glass like a disease; voracious little dispositions all over their faces, like fairies stuck together) as if I was eatable, somehow I got the sense (they had the scent, my scent I expect) they knew I was trapped in the car, and I was for sure. But I remember what Solomon told me in Egypt, Cairo a few months back, should something like this occur—so it was somewhat forecasted almost—and it was now developing: anyhow he said,
“(‘…should this occur…’) Try to make it till morning, when everything cools down.”
I figured the wingless ‘hoppers’ the new breed, were developing now in the fields around me as the adult yellow ones could be seen flying about eating, and killed by whomever (the farmers and gosh, that was about it for now).

[The Big Hopper: diary entry] One big hopper gazed through my window, must be the size of a sparrow—(I’m writing this down as he’s looking at me). At its sight I saw its milky eyes, they followed me, then I realized it was somewhat blind, I mean, its eyes gave out a yellowness to it, as if it had cataracts, its lips trembled from old age, it mumbled something, as if talking to itself, then it stood aside to let the younger ones peer in on me.
“Come…súh!” (Note: the author translates for the bug) the big one said (smiling an amiable grin). Thus, with apprehensiveness my eyebrows were quivering with my nervous system was wacky. Panting like a dog, I was. I was so bewildered…! I ended up looking out the window for the longest time…blankly; then turning my head demurely to see if any of those hoppers where in back of me—sneaking up on me; were getting inside the jeep. My eyes could not relax from this insidious invading force, if anything was quite disarming…this was, but then what would you expect, harmony in the middle of an earthquake? What would you expect? I found myself drifting at times, but I knew I couldn’t go to sleep. I mean who could?
There I sat behind the wheel, crouched forward to peer through the blinding storm of locust; these hoppers were like rain sheets hitting the windshield quicker than the wipers could fan it clean. My palm and forehead had a glossy mist to it.


It was now mid-afternoon, and they were hot, it was hot, I was hot, everything, even the car was hot, and thus, morning would be my best time to make my move, when they’d be cooled down, down in the crops around me—quiet. Hence, I had turned my car off and I’d leave my car off, the suspense would come in the morning when I’d have to try and start it again.

—[2:00 AM] I must had fallen to sleep, and an automatic clock in my head woke me up, it was inky dark out there, outside my windows, hence, I started my car up, it choked a bit, but it started, and I noticed my water gage going up, as if a water hose was plugged or ripped. I turned the car off. I didn’t want to make too much noise, just get out of here and get back to Timbuktu: I figured they’d follow the crops, and bypass the city; oh possibly a few million might divert themselves to the city, but that is not bad; I mean, what is a million when you got 249-million more. I knew they were all on the cool ground and in a few hours they’d be in the air again—over me again; and should they decide to stick around I’d die of a heat stroke I figured, sooner than later that is, sooner than they’d get a chance to eat me. I opened my car door slowly, pacifying the moment; shinned a flashlight on the road beside me, there were many about—sleeping, quiet, almost stone-still—could I have hummed them to oblivion, I would have; but I could walk around them for the most part I figured, and I did, did just that, then I opened the hood of the car, slowly, quietly, with more gentleness then I ever knew I had, as if it was a woman, looked at the hose, and several hoppers flew in my face, I had glasses on, they poked at my eyes nonetheless, I said nothing, nothing at all, just swatted them away with the rag I had in my hand—and I didn’t use much force in doing that. One hose had a small crack in it. I knew I’d lose water, all the water I had in the car in about five miles should I not prepare it, with twenty miles left to go should I not fix it—I’d be worse off than now, I’d be stranded right in their pathway. The engine was covered with the winged hoppers, I wanted to say to these hoppers a few gruesome swear words, but I can’t, I’d wake them creatures up surely; I had waked them up—a few of them up already, and they started to fly out and about clearing a passage to my hose.
They were not jumping on me, just a few, trying to crawl up my pants legs—tickling me here and there: still attacking my glasses; I think they liked glass—but just a few attacked me half in a fog out of some instinct and automatic reflex: nothing to get alarmed about I told myself. I tried not to open my mouth, a few seemed to spot it when I took in a deep breathe of air—as if they had radar, consequently, they zoomed right at it, I had to spit them out as when they hit my face their legs seemed to have found their way into the crevice of my mouth. Then I got an idea, I opened my trunk up, took out a five gallon can of gasoline, in this country you always carry extra gas, water and food, always—lest you find yourself in some deserted location, as I have at this very moment; I poured it on the side of the road, up about two-hundred-feet leading into the fields, then on my way back I took my First Aid kit, put the white tape—normally used for bandaging wounds—put it around the hole in the hose (not making a sound), and started my car up, at the same time I lit the gasoline by throwing a match out of the window onto the road, and I hit the accelerator to fifty-miles an hour (it’s as fast as my jeep would go ((it was an old US Army jeep they must had purchased it from some Army surplus garage)) and I watched the road and fields explode with lightening-like fire behind me.
Yes, yes, yes, behind me was a windless fire breeding into the fields, eating hoppers while sleeping, roasted grasshoppers: yes, yes, yes they woke up, this horde of hoppers woke up in a French-fired position I’m sure; to them I expect it was their ‘Pompeii,’ and shall talk about it for a thousand years to come in this region of the world; to me it was salvation; oh yes, it is what legends are made out of in the hopper-world, I’m sure—I got a mouth full of toxic fumes which was the only curse of the predicament for me, and a bonfire galore as I raced to Timbuktu.

When I got to the city, it was locked up tight, everyone afraid to come out of their mud huts. I knew I couldn’t tell them I had lit the fire—for my sake; they’d make me pay for the corps I suppose (after the crisis was over I’m sure; for humanity has a short memory when it comes to thank-you’s and money). But I think they were happy to see it was all over, and a few heard my jeep motor, for slowly one by one, a few came out of their shops until the whole main street was out looking about with their doors open, ready to run back in a moments notice. I had expected them to invade the city somewhat—somewhat expected this to happen, as did the residents, but none did; and they did head east. Hence, had I told them about me lighting the fire, they’d have roasted me in it, so my silence, or intuition was right on.

Written 3/26/2005, while at the BN, Café in Roseville, Minnesota