Fade to Quiet

It's a bit too much of a dream come true. I've had dreams about this place. I mean, really. However it is possible to geo-locate where dreams take place, I have woken knowing I dreamed about the darned Masonic Lodge at the corner of Woodfin and Broadway. Of course, in my dreams it has all these secret rooms and magical walls that disappear when you say certain words, and walls within walls, thin spaces revealing entire secret universes. So, when the mountain xpress published photographs of the interior hall--now available for rent for public events--naturally I was a little dismayed. Granted, the room with columns painted with scenes of King Solomon's activities is mighty cool, but in my dreams, well, they would have been holograms. But, here it is. The post-Masonic age. All the inside secrets have been let out in one way or another. Some books are weirder than others and some references stranger than others--from writings about Oumros, the strange black powder sought after...

It's Tuesday afternoon. The two labradors, Chloe (black and small) and Sir Isaac Newton (white and enormous) are napping next to the rabbit's cage (Brownie) while a storm brews outside. Wordfest is over as of 2 weeks ago and last night I read my writings about architecture for the first time in public, while Mike Oppenheim's amazing photographs of Asheville's architecture shone on the screen behind me. I shouldn't have read, I realized. I know it well enough to talk extemporaneously and there's some other kind of energy that comes from me when I do. It's because I've fallen in love with architecture. Hearing someone talk about what/whom they love is always better than hearing some read something from a page. I started writing about the architecture of Asheville in February. At first I was all clumsy, not knowing how to talk about buildings. There's something mysterious about learning the language of things, particularly the language of buildings. Thi...

ELEVATE Elevate me, O God, into what is highest within me. Bring me to the sky where loose clouds loosen more and show me what I cannot touch with my skin. Loosen me so I break open like the sky above a thirsty earth. Elevate me. O God, loosely, like clouds in their skin. Touch what I cannot thirst after on this earth. Loosen me until I cannot break and show me what is highest in me, bringing within what is more, what breaks ceaselessly open. Elevate me, O God, to the loosened earth where sky is a show of what I cannot touch and clouds break open against my skin. Break me open with thirst. Like the sky above the earth, bring me what is highest, loose and within. Elevate me, O God, within, where loose clouds show me how I break open like a thirsty earth. Into what is highest in me, bring your touch. Loosen me more, your cloud, this skin. What is highest, open within this earth. *** This is the poem that will appear in the paper tomorrow as the first of the Asheville...