Fallen Winter... Illustrations

Below are the illustrations that I've completed for my upcoming zine, Fallen Winter.  The illustrations will coincide with the works, all of which can be found on this blog.  So, I guess, in theory you could print out the entire zine from this blog and construct your own, but that wouldn't be fun.  And, in actuality, my close friend/editor/colleague, Chaz Oreshkov will be formatting the zine, and I'm sure he'll be doing it in a way that you will never be able to achieve on your own.  I'll keep you updated on a release date.

Also note that I kind of fucked around with the photos on Picasa to hide the highlights from my flash Kodak camera and sharpen the lines.  On one of the ducks, I obviously started playing with the different edit options.  Who knows how it will be finalized as...

ONE MORE NOTE: Back2Print is releasing a travel piece collection on June 16th (currently unnamed) and my "Blood in the Heart" Part I has been chosen for publication in it.  I will be working with Elizabeth S. Tieri on the editing and tightening of it.  **Exciting shit for Huron the next couple weeks with this and FW**  Stay tuned for more updates as we near the release date.  Alright, here goes:

Blood in the Heart pt. II of III (I didn't map this out well)

***LOOKING FOR A NEW TITLE***  I love "Blood in the Heart," but it doesn't really capture the message that I intended.  Maybe I'll use it for something else.  Suggestions being taken...

Hoyne and I rented a car at an Enterprise and he fronted the money.  We set out on that bright morning, giddy with excitement and a little fear because we hadn't mapped out our route or planned places to sleep or really prepared at all other than Hoyne bringing his tent from Chicago with a couple marijuana nugs tucked deep in its compact fabric.

            After a while, snaking through the greater Los Angeles concrete network, we finally hit the coast and saw that beautiful street sign, which read: "Pacific Coast Highway."  Pepperdine sat at the top of the overlook and I wondered how wonderful it would have been to be rich enough to go there.

            Hoyne wore shades and a cut off t-shirt, which showed his tattoos and the sharp angle of the Pacific sun reddened our arms.  We stared over the immense ocean and let our minds wander, sometimes not uttering a word for an hour.

            The 1 intertwined with the 101 at times, pulling the car off of the coast and through valleys of vineyards, which stretched for miles over rolling hills and Mexican workers with straw hats dotted in between the rows and they tossed grapes into the backs of pickup trucks.

            When we reached San Obispo, the 101 continued to stay straight and the 1 broke off northwest and trickled to a two-way road tucked and hidden in the enormous cliffs lining the ocean.  I remember thinking that I was in another world; a celestial world, when I saw those brilliant, intricate color schemes painted down the sides of those bluffs and how their ancient crags stuck out as the first defense against the pummeling ocean, protecting, yet coexisting in a beautiful symbiotic way.  Hoyne said that this is how he knew god existed.  And I thought to myself that this is how I knew he didn’t.

            It took us a few hours, but we winded around those rocky protrusions north until redwoods popped their bushy heads high toward the sun.  The first step out of the car was stiff, compressed bone and then I took that first big inhale of air and could smell nothing but fresh fern and the purest, sweet smell of vegetation just saturated in the air molecules.

            We went to a diner and drank a couple beers and our server let us know that all the campgrounds were full and the two motels within the Big Sur area were close to full occupancy and the price was close to six hundred a night. So, we drove a little further north toward Monterrey and searched for places to pitch the tent.  A lighthouse stood tall far in the distance, perched on a large boulder in the swelling foam and the land surrounding the shore was tall with grass and hundreds of cows grazed near the water way down the valley.  I expected to see Monsanto's cabin and that wandering goat with black lumps of shit in the white sand, but all that I saw were packs of cows and an endless greying sky. 

            We turned the car around and drove back past the diner, finally finding a wide part of the shoulder to park.  Hoyne really wanted to use his tent so he fumbled around with the stakes and the canvas, but could never drive them deep enough to hold, as the Earth was hard and dried, chipping like brick into crusty rectangular pieces.

            That was about two hours ago and now I sit, reclined as far back as the car seat will allow writing by moonlight, which illuminates thick fog rolling in from the never-ending water.  Hoyne breathes softly, chest rising and falling, and he has a Modelo can gripped firmly in his right hand.  The air's gotten cold and my phone hasn't had service for the last six hours.  Hoyne says there isn't a cell phone tower for one hundred miles.  It's kind of nice to be shrouded in fog, but also kind of scary when we hear random pickup trucks speeding around the bend in the road.  I wonder how in the world they don't just fly off the cliff into the steaming water below, but maybe they're used to it and know every dip and turn for the sixty-mile stretch.

            I close my eyes and my brain wanders, far back home to where my mother is curled in bed probably crying at the thought of me alone.  But, I don’t feel sad and I don’t feel scared.  I feel happy.  I hear the animals crying and I can feel that vast ocean churning beneath us and I think of Kerouac and of Nick Adams and wonder how different I am than both of them.  With one crutch on the civilization that raised me and the other dangling off of the side of this bottomless cliff, I feel safe and relaxed, away from the bullshit and alone at last.  Hoyne's lips flutter on the exhale.

Hoyne woke up hungry and we both wanted to get lost in the trees so we bought steaming coffee and some nutty muffins and headed toward the summit of Mt. Manuel.  The air was cool in the valley and hot on the side of the winding trail and we ascended at a brisk pace, facing the clock which limited our exploration.  The issue was that we had to have the car at San Francisco airport by 6:00 p.m. and we knew it would take a couple hours to drive there.  So, we climbed up high and fatigued our legs, gazing down the steep brush inclines with jagged rocks and a waterfall waiting, 3,000 feet below and it was tempting to jump at that white foamy water and we desperately wanted to take a cool swim, but time allowed nothing more than the climb, and it was as wonderful as I could have imagined. 

            The colors were so vivid and popped like blooming spring and it all seemed so foreign compared to the Chicago concrete and the Kentucky limestone that I was accustomed to.  It was a sad moment when we exited that mysterious and haunting cliffscape, but again excitement returned when I thought of San Francisco, the final stop of our adventure. 

            Golden rolling hills and hazy sky flooded through the window of my personal moving picture, when the highway signs became larger and more frequent alerting us of our proximity to the bay.  My arms burned in the sun and I hid them in the shade of the dashboard, massaging my roasting skin.

            We checked in the car and walked into the airport, which was as clean as a hotel, semi-empty aside from some Asian ladies waxing the floors.  We left our luggage at the airport in a locker for twenty-four dollars a night and asked the long dirty finger-nailed concierge where we could find a cheap motel in the city and he pulled out a map highlighting areas around Merchant Street, directly off the B.A.R.T. stop and told us where the hipsters were and where the douche bags were.  Meanwhile, all I could focus on was the thick brown line of muck stuck deep underneath his uncomfortably long fingernails. 

            My shoes and socks were soaked through with sweat and that powdery dirt of the Sur, which turned to mud and crystallized on my leg hairs and when we stepped into our lodging, I stripped down, eyes closed under the warm spray of the shower which washed the dirt down the drain, crusting around the edges of the linoleum.  When I had finished and dried, the remaining filth caked in long brown stripes on the fresh white towel.  After we were clean, we began cracking open the remaining Modelo cans and worked up an appetite.  Hoyne sat tranquil at the table by the balcony and stared into the dark building across the street, sucking at the small pipe in his fingers

Spring, an homage

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the
Starnbergersee
With a show of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt
deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the
archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened.  He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.


The Wasteland (lines 1 through 18)  T.S. Eliot

Moon in the morning hangs semi-transparent in the blue sky.  The trains flush in and flush out, getting all where they need to go and never a minute too late.  I watch as smoke billows from an exhaust vent on top of a rusting warehouse and it steams a moisture patch on the brick chimney next to it, long since dormant.
It's a normal spring day, pretty and cool, and I think of T.S. Eliot and his twisted vision of the so-called prosperous season; how the sun  melted and uncovered piles of mangled bodies decomposing like cow dung in the damp, muddy heaths all across Europe; how even without a world war, spring somehow brings me a sense of sadness, just inklings, of how another season has passed and we looked forward to the next, forgetting of the last.
However, it's hard to be sad in the sun and it's hard to be sad in the breeze, but when the rain comes and cries its eyes on the grey-lit Earth one of these April mornings, I'll revisit my thought and find a really sad one to share.

Blood in the Heart part I of II

Broke and traveling to Los Angeles for work.  Missed my flight and now it's storming.  Could've been sunny by now.  The terminal lights reflect white tile floors and matte grey walls all sterile and clean except for a few rogue Starbucks cups and wadded wrappers. There's a kid, maybe twenty-two, with cowboy hat and electrical tape, which fastens little Styrofoam cubes to his forehead and forearms.  He rocks rhythmically to the incantation of his own voice.  He reads with eyes closed from pen-written Sanskrit, which looks to be a pocket Qur'an, four inches thick. Frayed hemp strings dangle from his pockets and I watch out of the corner of my eye. 

            Water speckles and streams down the windows and the sky is so grey that runway and buildings blend right in, blobbing in the distance.  A baby in a green tank and white shorts stares in amazement at the waves of precipitation blowing in, hands and cheek stuck to the glass.  Others, much older, watch out the window with legs crossed on the carpet, phone in hand; coffee in hand.  All transfixed and hypnotized by the ultimate magnet; the derailleur of sprockets lodged deep within their skulls, water is shifting the focus from what is now to what could become and what has been into what we want.  Storm doesn't worsen, but stays steady and true and shuttle buses break through, trailing spray past the window.  My friend rocks, to and fro, back and forth to the hum of his voice and they stare quizzically, searching for answers, but finding contempt and wrinkles for their foreheads. 

            The hub of America; the heart that pumps to more glamorous capillaries, Chicago has a pace attracting even those from the East and even those from the West, all stopping for a connecting flight, whether for work or for play, but to travel; to go; to leave; to depart. 

            Weird, rectangular and geometrically shaped objects pull wagons in the air yard.  And the water pools and ripples and reflects the dead, grey sky.  Big plane of blue and white with monochromatic shading scales in between has its cargo door flung open wide and water streams off the edges.  My mom is worried.  She's working tonight at six.  A big yellow gas line connects to the underside of the plane like an umbilical cord, fueling the machine for its big flight in this big world and only if they'd just put a little more.

            I'm starting to rock with my friend, but it's not to his voice, it's to the thought that I'll never come back; that I'll never speak to anyone again, but not because of a fear for death, rather, the fluttering excitement for the mystery of future.  The rain's letting up.

            And the sky's a little brighter.  LA's a different pace.  You can feel it just waiting to board, or, hoping to board. Most of the minds are in their own worlds living their own lives without any regard or care for the other minds sitting in the adjacent galaxies around them.  It's kind of refreshing.  And all I can care about right now is leaving Chicago. 

            A fat, younger-looking guy shovels three layers of pancakes into his mouth feverishly and without a pause even for air.  He has a guitar with him, but he doesn't look artistic.  He holds his biscuit tight between thumb and forefinger and chomps down on it with crumbs cascading off his lips.  It disappears after three.  Pathetic. I start rocking harder with my friend and he makes me comfortable because he's not afraid.  He's holding the electrical tape tight and it squeezes his hand, making it balloon around the black stripes in bubbles of white.

            Big grey plane crosses the air yard, must be going far.  Rain is streaming lightly now, but it's still somewhat speckled.  The men in the yard are wearing neon green-yellow jumpsuits and they scramble to throw luggage on rolling wheels of conveyor systems.  The baby in the green tank screams as the water lessens, but maybe that's not why.  In the distance, it looks like it has stopped raining, but up close you can tell it is still sprinkling.  Little brown girl with dark hair and black eyes stares and fingers at the speckles of water dotting the glass.  Her brother in the green tank stops screaming and does the same.  His eyes widen in fascination when he realizes that he can't touch what he sees and he smoothes over and over, every so often searching for moisture. Their mother comes over and picks up the boy.  She's a pretty mom with eyes that look deep into the distance and she rocks the tank and his curly head falls. 

            Dorsal fins of large planes stick over the dock extensions, which look like accordions.  Black man shovels pancakes in his mouth like his friend and coughs every two or three minutes.  Every grunt breaks my mood and I want to bury my fingers in my head.   Thankfully, after four minutes, the black man's fat white friend comes wobbling back to the gate with the large guitar case sprouting behind his head and he explains that their flight is ten gates down.  So, they gather their things and breathe hard down the hall and I exhale and let my shoulders fall.

            And I look at my friend who has tucked away his electrical tape and neatly closed and banded his important text and his eyes meet mine beneath the black brim of his hat and we exchange a half-smile and a quick look away and that was all that was needed to make the connection; to understand and to comfort.  As I stare at my feet, I feel relaxed and composed with the energy to do anything, like all restrictions have been dissolved.

            Just need to get on this plane.

            Rain still patters but the streamers are slower and speckles are hanging on for dear life.  The grey sky opens to show some blue and a tiny plane rises slowly to meet it.

Here, I sit in a cove of a Long Beach harbor, the sunset pink and orange, all palmy silhouettes and fishermen in casual clothes wipe down the cabins of their boats, carrying poles to the deck.  It must be night fishing.  An open condom wrapper sits next to me, half-buried in the sand… must be night fishing. 

            There are a lot of birds swooping around the sky with one grey pelican gliding softly over the water and another one curving high.  The water is smooth, but still ripples a bit.  Half of the boats have American flags hanging and the moon sits directly above a lighthouse.  A woman takes photos of it.  In the distance, a helicopter hangs motionless in the sky with a flaming red beacon for a tail, pulsating like the lights on a heart monitor.  And I resonate, feeling my chest rise and fall with the red gleam. 

            The harbor is pretty much empty and I'm in complete awe of its beauty.  No longer does it matter that my wallet is flat, but I guess you can attribute that to the fact that my company is paying for every meal that I devour in the dim lights of the hotel bar every night.  The other side of the harbor has many more masts and with all of the hanging white lines, it looks like a dead forest.  Not really, though, just a bunch of white poles and ropes hanging from them.  I think I like romanticizing sometimes. 

            The pelican flies low again and the helicopter hasn't moved in a good fifteen minutes.  I'm leaving for Big Sur in the morning so this will be my last night in the LAX area; an area that, much to my chagrin, I have actually enjoyed.  My dark-rimmed eyeglassed friends built this city up to be hell on Earth and despite the fact that the jeans are loose and the shirts and are even baggier, it has been anything but.  The hipness competition is nonexistent.  Thus, I don't have to listen to anyone preach about the cleanliness of the food industry or the atrocities on the other side of the world or the best hole in the wall bar in the coolest uncovered neighborhood in the city and it makes me breath easy to not see another soul in the entire three-mile square of the harbor.  Exhale.

            The sun is leaving and in its ever-growing absence, neon lights replace it; blue ones circling the edge of the water and red-orange-yellow ones lighting up restaurants and Ferris wheels.  There's a decent breeze and it hisses through the palm trees.  I love how still the harbor is and how quiet it feels.  Very relaxing.  Not like Chicago.  Less bustle.  More freedom of movement.  And as I look around, the helicopter hasn't moved and the boats sit still and the people have gone home and the birds and pelicans glide around effortlessly reflecting dimly off the smooth water.  The skyline is a series of hotel buildings and fishermen fumble, firing up their engines and the sky darkens as they retreat into it.  And I walk back home to the hotel, smiling at no one at all.  

Fallen Winter: Cover

Here's the cover to my zine of short stories.  Obviously, still on drawing paper, but I've decided and this will be it.

Spring Ukrainian and Things to Come

I'll be releasing a zine at Quimby's on North Avenue within the next few weeks, named Fallen Winter.  It will have some of the short stories from this blog as well as some of short snippets, accompanied by some personal illustration (still in progress).  The above is... right, Owl, and is just a prototype.

Splitting Wood on a Cold Day

He had buried the dog as deep as the frozen ground would allow three days prior, twenty five yards west of a silver pond.  He stared down the snowy canyon at crystal reflections of powdery evergreens illuminating off the surface and he tried hard not to feel remorse.  In fact, he felt kind of silly for feeling anything at all when he thought of how his father shuffled through dog after dog during his childhood, never allowing himself any emotional connection; merely enjoying their company for the time that they had to breath and run and shit on this earth. 

            The wispy winds echoed throughout the canyon and, alone, he stood with black and red flannel, staring through cold brown eyes, as flakes fell slow, catching on his beard.  That image of a black-bagged mass with glossy moonlit reflections disappearing into the broken earth intertwined with the white draped coffin of his father and the heavy weight on his shoulders as he, too, dropped and disappeared beneath shovelfuls of moist clumpy dirt. He followed a bird circling in the sky and remembered the hot tears slowly streaming down his brother's puffy red face, mad at the world; mad at the weight on his shoulders; mad at him; mad at everything; mad.  And there, at the edge of that cold canyon, he stood, shrouded in white emptiness.

              The stiff canvas of his jacket purred when he walked into a snowy meadow off the back of his house.  He carried a smooth handled ax, which rested on his shoulder and a heavy iron wedge whose imperfect surface caught the threads of his brown cotton gloves and barbed out a few strands.  He glanced behind, almost expecting her to be trotting in his wake, but the deep boot imprints were lonely and filling with flakes, which fell slow and steady, the size of golf balls. 

             Ahead lay a fallen tree, fresh and uncovered aside from little mounding lines trailing across the frozen, antler-like branches.   He rested the ax against the trunk and looked back at the house, which was barely discernible through the speckled snow.  One golden window glowed bright at the back corner of the house where their bathroom was.  His eyes watered in the wind and he breathed deep lung-filled hot air into his gloves, warming the tips of his fingers. 

             He had sectioned the tree with a chainsaw earlier in bright morning, cutting the trunk into three-foot parts.  The saw dust was already lost in the snow.  He bent down and rolled the heavy trunk out of its comfortable sinking placement in the earth and, gripping the rim of its strong bark, he hoisted it upright and with one hand he buried the shimmering blade tip in the middle of the trunk.  Far to the left where he had just walked from, a snowy top heavy tree bowed to the canyon and he kind of smiled at it because it symbolized how he felt, but then, in the same moment, he let his dry-lipped frown return and disregarded it because it was just a projection from his own thoughts begging to be construed in the natural world. 

            Refocusing on the task before him, he removed the blade of the ax and replaced it with the wedge, tamping it in a bit with the blunt side of the cold iron.  And he thought why he must always be alone and why it seemed everything escaped him.  His father had disintegrated and his brother was away and his lover lived in another city and his dog died and his mom cried for him in hot summer nights and in cold winter days and he looked around that snowy canyon again with squinted eyes.  This burning feeling began torching his heart and blazed low, but hot, working itself up his esophagus, getting lodged in his throat, finally heating his brain and with a grunt he raised the blunt head of the ax and slammed with all his might on the tiny wedge, splitting the salmon colored, healthy wood in two.  The wood splintered and the wedge fell out of sight in the snow.  He fished it out, knocking the snow off on one of the split pieces and placed it back in his pocket.  Then, repositioning one of the halves, he quartered it with the sharp edge of the blade, swinging like he was trying to bury the stump rather than split it in two. 

            After he split three of the logs a steady drip of sweat beaded and fell from his nose.  He walked to the edge of the canyon and bent down, resting on the backs of his calves and he took a deep breath, staring still at the pond. 

            Fantastic golden memories began flooding his brain and the landscape changed from its icy desolation into a warm, fresh summer day with flies buzzing and cicadas screaming.  Bright green shoots of new growth swayed in the breeze across the mountainous valley, reaching for the sun, and in a path that weaves through the rocky crags, he saw a shirtless man with a glistening back, red bandana tied around his sweaty head, followed by a tank-topped girl whose shoulders were pink and whose white shorts were dusted a redden brown.  Finally, after the two had disappeared back into the shade of an evergreen, a brown and black dog came gliding past, accelerating to catch up to the man and woman, and they finally popped out of the shade and into the flat brush by the pond. 

            He closed his eyes and breathed deeper and deeper.  He forgot about the cold air stinging his cheeks and when he reopened his eyes, a grey-eyed girl with little amber halos around her pupils was standing in front of him with a slender smile and a sweating red forehead.  He pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and dabbed her forehead, grasping the back of her neck and kissing her deep.  Her body leaned into his and he wrapped her tight, holding on like it was the last time he'd ever see her.  They sat in front of the pond, the surface glimmering gold, and the dog nosed under his dirty hand waiting for him to rub her ears, which he did in slow circles. 

            Never did they speak and never did he feel like they had to because everything was simple and everything was digestible in that one moment. And she leaned her head on his damp shoulder and closed her eyes and he watched as she breathed softly and smiled like there was nothing in the world more that she needed other than his shoulder and the sun which beamed bright on her tanned legs. 

            His heart was full and his throat was kinked when he reopened his eyes and saw that barren canyon and that still frozen pond.  The snow fell steady and the sun was clouded grey and his hands were frozen solid, buried deep and clinched on the cement-hard ground.  He stood up again and wobbled, trying to find his footing in the snow and once he did he turned around, hoping that that beautiful comfortable image would return, but it howled silence and filled slowly, like a dripping bathtub with the plug stuck deep.  That burning feeling torched his heart and ran up through his throat and for the first time in what seemed forever he bent over and cried, sobbing grunts and dripping mucous, soaking his gloves, which were stuck to his face. 

            Pulling his head up, he turned and ran back to the ax and picked it up with his right hand, high on the neck, close to the blade, and he swung like a railworker into the side of the trunk, burying the blade deep enough to get stuck. And he continued to cry and pulled with all his strength to remove the blade, but it wouldn't budge.  He plopped his boot on the trunk and pulled again, feeling the muscles in his arms tense and close to tearing, and letting go he fell back into the snow and lay still for a while, staring at the sky.  Breathing as deep as his lungs would allow, sucking flakes with every few breaths he closed his eyes as hard as he could hoping to get his mind back to that image of the grey-eyed girl with little amber halos around her pupils.  But the harder he tried, the only image he produced, was that glimmering black mass of a garbage bag in the moonlight of a subzero night. 

            Pulling himself off of the ground and brushing off the snow that stuck to his canvas jacket, he walked back toward the house, leaving the ax sticking out of the trunk at a forty-five degree angle, pointing toward the hidden sun.

            When he opened the door and felt the warmth flush his face, he saw on the counter, a sweating low ball glass of amber liquid.  It had long been poured and was warm to the touch, with a sweaty reflection pooling toward the edge of the stainless steel counter.  He took off his jacket and removed his gloves, stripping all the way down to his cream colored long johns, which were sticking to his back and legs.  Pounding down the hall toward the bathroom, he opened the door and steamy warmth released from the swing. 

            She sat low in the tub with her hair wet behind her ears and didn’t look up when he sat on the edge.  She mechanically grabbed her glass and pulled it to her lips, sloshing cubes ringing as she drained the last sip, setting the glass back on the floor next to the tub.  He pulled off the last layer of his clothing, balling the long johns and tossing them on the floor.  Then, dipping his frozen toes in the warm water he sank deeper and deeper until the wet heat touched his chest.  He breathed in the longest breath of his life and exhaled slow, with eyes closed, and his face red.  The room was lit by candle and was golden on the backs of his eyelids and he tried once again for that comfortable image to reappear, but it evaded his conscious and the harder his mind ran toward it the faster it seemed to escape.

            As he was looking at the girl, lying in between his legs, she finally opened her grey colored eyes and closed them slowly once again.  Then, sighing on the exhale, she stood out of the water; dripping drops cascading over the curves of her body, and grabbed a towel next to the tub and began drying.  She whispered that she was pruning and left the bathroom shortly with a towel wrapped over the top of her head and another around the top of her chest.  When she pounded down the hall, getting softer with each step, he submersed his head in the water and screamed.