Beth & Santiago

[the mingo]

Beth,

I see trees in single file, from here to where they disappear behind hills.
The shore, sand & exposed rocks, a river valley with moon above. Two
elephants, floating clouds, a leopard at rest. A tree grows surrounded by water,
you rest your chin on your fingers. I am a stone in water, only my above
part exposed to sight. I dream of sand dunes in a desert and an elevated path to
get there over grass.

Santiago

[the mingo]

Santiago,

I see buildings at river's edge, a carnival with Ferris wheel, bridges
over the river. Far off you told me of mountains, a cabin. My camera
wants to picture it. I'm a flower against black mind. I am land that
crumbles where it meets the sea. My tracks curve into fog. I am city on
both sides of the river and the water what passes beneath the bridge.
My birds swim offshore.

Beth

[the mingo]

Beth,

I am a bullseye painted on a fence, white/black, white/black.
Part wheel beneath sky. I am fast traffic through the city at night.
Did I tell you of the mountain lakes with everything reflected from
their depths? Or the stairs of your back alleys that are graced with
handrails? I found them by wandering. I found them in your eyes. I am
a boy surprised by graveyard mushrooms & windows up high. The white of
white things and the black of black things has their own order. Flowers
are creatures.

Santiago

[the mingo]

Santiago,

My face is a leopard with all else dark. Trees, birds, water, and
mountains. I look right at you, right down your tunnel where you
want the light to go. Even still I am moving with big eyes.
My pose in a hood will devastate you. The time will be the same for
both of us. Trees & roads. Birds & buildings. Gypsies making money
from their own bodies.

Beth

[the mingo]

Beth,

The dancer silhouettes her shadow to the curtain across the window.
Flowers in shadow hands. Tracks on sand.
plants grow from my spine in a room where I occupy the central point.
My table in the wilderness, a bottle of wine upon it. You lay on top of your many books.

My keyboard is a meadow surrounded by forest where the deer feed close to the trees.

Santiago

[the mingo]

Santiago,

I abandon my house in the desert by the dead tree
I play in the sea now
I push off of the bottom heading for the surface
when I get there where will you be?
I open my umbrella in the tunnel, you left your hat
on the old school desk in the corner on purpose
so the sun could make shadows of it on the unpainted walls
even as I see them I am half one person and half another
my hand reaching for a rose
fallen to the ground

I think of the budding of the flower to come

Beth

[the mingo]

Beth,

An angel sits on the floor of a bus, her wings making it impossible to use the seats. I watch her when she gets off to eat the man with the umbrella standing by a street that has become a river. It was biblical. A young homosexual passes before a background of dark leaves, he looks at me. The whole thing was moving fast enough to blur. A man uses his fingers to shape a heart in a bare room with paintings leaning against empty walls.

A single bird in the sky wings wide out & seen from beneath.

For this, I have come.

Santiago

[the mingo]

Santiago,

I live in your camera. You watch me move around. You watch me pose. You replay my every move. You can't call it a still life.

At first, you thought I was a girl but my mouth was obscured behind the flower in my hand, only a woman can do that. If I were a girl I would stand with a balloon leashed to my wrist and a ball cap on my head. That's how you would know. A broken piano with missing keys would be playing somewhere off and people would be calling me your Muse. You hate that word I know and you are always searching for me.

You don't have to anymore. I am always here.

Beth

[the mingo]

Beth,

My ghost has no glow in his globe this morning. No mountain in his goat. No smoke from the stove.
I think of how we all are presented naked coming from the womb. I think of your many faces, the light only on certain areas, your painted nails, your rings on certain fingers. The chain of your necklace where your fingertips touch it. Your skin at times so dark so jet-black and your face shielded - it reminds me to Rome with its rats & mice from the beginning and made a fool of itself on the dance floor at the end in true export facto fashion buying oats for its bread from that hot flaming whore the Queen of Egypt. Marc Anthony swore it was her tits and everything else about her what drove him crazy. But mostly her tits.

Am I underwater or in the sky? Directions don't help, only names. Names become other places.

It could be the bouquet of wild berries in your left hand or the open book on your lap, your right thumb about to stop the page from turning. You gather noodles with chopsticks and hold them above you. You tilt your head back slowly opening your mouth to receive them.
The photograph on the wall behind you shows other pilgrims going to other places.

You dress in mirrors. A cat and its shadow looking to mount the curb.


Santiago

[stilltrucking]

I want you to know I believe in your song
And rhythm and rhyme and harmony
You've helped me along, makin' me strong

[the mingo]

Thx, Jack, how you doing? Glad to see you yet grace this place.

[sasha]

This exchange of yours needs to be read aloud.

[the mingo]

Hang in there, sasha - ain't done yet with Beth & Santiago - and Thx

[sasha]

Well, okay - but while waiting for a female reader to volunteer, I may as well start tape rolling at my end (metaphorically, of course)

[the mingo]

Santiago,


I was looking for a beginning when I saw three stones stacked one atop the other on a stump with a flower between each one. You are a bonsai island tree just a few feet off the beach with rocks around it, your face in your hands - are you thinking of pulling a pose? with earrings maybe? As a single raindrop reflecting all on its way to the ground? I remember you as a wrecked car, the hood propped open with the branch of a tree, a 2-by-4 leaning on the right front fender, a set of stairs on wheels in the background and mountains beyond those. I asked you what you were doing, you said "just kidding" and I laughed. I'm laughing now remembering it.


Beth