Leila Allison

October Eve in SaragunSprings or Saragun Springs

Let us bid fair September a fond farewell till next year and examine the upcoming month of October. Aside from being the month in which most people finally clean their AC filters and begin wearing tees beneath the Hawaiian shirts that we are loath to eschew due to our hitting the mini candies (available since August) more often than the gym, it is also the time of year in which darkness reigns supreme. At no other time of the rolling annum does darkness cast a wider spectrum. ‘Tis found in, and between, the Kitty Kat costumes worn by chocolate crazed three-year-olds and the brutal doings of Robb Zombie’s Firefly “fambly” (although some of us note little difference between the two mentioned classes). It is always a matter of taste, and whether you get your sugar from an endless binge of Three Musketeers or off constant jugs of hobo muscatel, do remember, constancy is key in October.

The month in the Springs will be the same as it has except on Halloween we will be making a Big Announcement regarding the future of this site, an announcement that will become official on New Years Day, which we hope will not be the same day that Hell is closed due to over capacity.

The word “we” means two things in SaragunSprings. In the human, earth-business sense it refers to the two Co-Editors, Dr Dale Williams Barrigar PhD and, myself, Irene Leila Allison, who has used ph paper in the past but to no memorable result and certainly to no degree worth mentioning beyond this post.

The second meaning of we includes the great many Fictional Characters (FC’s) of in and about the realm, chiefly Renfield, Dame Daisy Kloverleaf and so forth. Funny thing about the FC’s is I do not know if they resulted from insanity (on my part) or if they have come to rescue me from madness. Sadly, since it is neither illegal nor advisable to go mad in the United States, the question is likely to go unanswered long after the data is tallied. We is a flexible concept and we hope to see it expand after Halloween.

(And there now comes to mind a third “we”–the monochrome Dog Pack: Boo, Colonel and Bandit along with their various whispering attendants.)

This month, as before, throughout the summer, will feature guest writers, beginning with two from David Henson who makes his site debut day after tomorrow and on Friday. Then we will be blessed by the continuing wise observations of The Drifter every Sunday. And there are the usual thisses and thats we use to fill the empty spaces. But in months to come, Dale (and/or The Drifter) will be doing these little monthly roundups as much or even more so than I (even though he is learning that right now).

Oh yes, the open invitation to readers to send poetry and such to saragunsprings.com is still open, but after October things will be much tougher for good reasons to be divulged on Halloween (this is what we writerly types call “fanning the flames” of obscure repetition in hopes of starting a rumor, then, maybe, we hope, a frenzy). So if you are seeking an audience of several dozen lookers for no more effort than it takes to give away money on the street, now would be a good time to accept the offer.

As you may have noticed I am toying with calling Saragun Springs SaragunSprings. For some reason that second one has attracted my eye.  No, that’s a lie. You see every time  I type Saragun my keypad changes it to Sargun. I keep resetting it but it always creeps back. Still, let’s just say both are correct and wait and see which one finally gets over.

Ever obscurely yours,

Leila

Saragun Verse: On the Plateau of Sphinxes and Finxes

i

It was the year of the Octopus bong

Stairway to Heaven was our favorite song

And when the past spoke of tomorrow it said

Never let the promising future go to your head

ii

We vowed to love till death’s last breath

But we were too young to hedge the bet

When forever came calling in ’93

No one wanted to write a new CD

iii

Statues of heroes missing their noses

Played out Sphinxes whom the future exposed

As blowhards who ruled for gold and by prick

Even those fey foals named Elizabeth

iv

It’s always the year of the powerchord

On which generations still light bowls

Forward not straight we go merrily along

Some wondering why Stairway is the greatest song

In Memory of 9-11-2001

Today we set aside the usual crash and thud of daily life in the Springs to remember the victims of 9-11, which, incredibly, happened twenty-four years ago today. Both myself and my friend and site co-Editor (no ranks here, we are both co-Editors) Dale have thoughts to share on this occasion. And we certainly invite everyone inclined to do so to contribute their own memories in the comments’ section.

(I took the image at Evergreen Rotary Park in Bremerton, Washington USA on the morning of 10 September. Those are actual pieces of the WTC. Below this article is a picture that stands as proof that there is beauty in the world, if you know where to seek it.)

I happened to be at work for fifteen minutes when reports of the first plane striking the WTC came over the radio. For twenty minutes we, like most others, were hoping that it was an extremely unlucky accident since the sky in New York was as clear and empty as the mind of Paris Hilton, but knew better. Only the very dullest clung to immense false hopes when the second plane struck. In fact there is tape of a somewhat vacuous Fox reporter cautioning people against using the “T-word” after the second plane struck. (One thing that morning did was expose what terrible “journalists” morning show people are–save for Katie Couric, who had news experience. For the most part, it was a relief when the real news people soon took over.)

I also just happened to be working at The Seattle Times. Ha! Not as a reporter, but as the grill cook in the cafeteria (I am, after all, a writer). Still, I was chummy with many of the reporters, therefore I was ahead of the curve information and misinformation wise. I recall the false reports of the “car bomb” in D.C. and a few other falsehoods that slowly withered away as the real events unfolded. Little thisses and thats that still exist on the sound tracks of the day.

People have filled reams and reels about the day. My most vivid in person memory (since I lived and still live three thousand miles from NYC and DC and Pennsylvania) was coming home on the ferry that night and clearly seeing heavily armed military police along the fence at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. For a day or two we looked like everyday in Bosnia. And since the tenth anniversary the image in the header (of two pieces of the towers) has stood in a park about a mile from where I type this.

Regardless, I think it is our duty to remember 9-11 and Pearl Harbor and the murders of JFK, Dr. King and RFK as well as the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the good things that still sometimes happen in the world. Instead of thinking “Oh, yeah, it’s 9-11” then return to googling Paris Hilton to see what middle age has done to her, it might be better to think about the victims and even send a prayer on their behalf, regardless of your personal feelings about doing such.

Leila

I now give the virtual mic to our friend The Drifter….

 The Song “On That Day” by Leonard Cohen

The song brings me to tears almost every time I revisit it.

This song is just over two minutes long, from Leonard Cohen’s 2004 album Dear Heather, an album that got slammed by many misunderstanding critics when it came out, but which for me is one of Leonard’s best works, something that proved Leonard was still at the very top of his artistic game at the age of 70 and which also presaged his amazing “comeback” that was still in the offing at that point, his epic, immortal late-years world tour of 2008 to 2013. 

(I saw Leonard live at the very beginning of that tour in Chicago in 2008, and again at the very end of that tour in Milwaukee in 2013, without knowing it would be the end. Both shows were equally stunning and one-of-a-kind Leonard.)  

“On That Day” by Leonard Cohen is a work against war.

Within the brief and compressed time frame of just over two minutes, Leonard creates an eternal-seeming, apolitical poem against all war told in his ancient voice, lifted up by angelic background singers, and taken aloft by the sounds of his timeless Wandering Jew’s harp. 

Leonard’s specific motive in creating this song was the memorializing of September 11, 2001, New York City.

9/11 is a scar within us all; even if we think it’s old news by now (and in America that is often the way we do think), we are wrong. Even those of us who weren’t alive at the time have been marked “forever” by that fateful day. 

At the time, a woman I was deeply in love with had recently informed me that we were over “forever” because she was pregnant with another man’s child.

My wife and I (who I also loved) were separated.

Another woman (who I also loved) and I were also separated, by 2,000 miles.

My mother had just been diagnosed with (incurable of course) dementia.

And a novel I’d spent years creating had been bombed out by every single agent and publisher it was sent to, even though it was sent under the recommendation/s of people who knew those agents and/or those publishers personally. (The number was around twenty.)

And then the Towers were taken down.

So for me, my love of women, my love for my mother, and my love for literature, somehow all connected, are connected in my mind, too, to this day.

Memorializing a public event should always have, within ourselves, a private element, a very personal and private element as strong, for us, as the public event itself.

It’s like how it used to be when everyone remembered where they were the day Kennedy was assassinated.

Remembering “where you were” is more than just what your physical location was.

It should also be about where you were mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in your life. 

You don’t need to go anywhere to do this; all you need is to become quiet within yourself wherever you are. 

In In Memoriam A.H.H., Alfred, Lord Tennyson said, “In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me o’er, / Like coarsest clothes against the cold: / But that large grief which these enfold / Is given in outline and no more.”

(This image of beauty is of my Assistant at the park photo shoot. By name, Puck)

Leila and Dale and Puck

Saragun Verse Falstaff for God

(Today we honor old Fat Jack. The Drifter has kept him in my mind lately, so the old knight rates a poem. In fact I think that I can dedicate this to His High Rotundity as well as the co-Editor of Saragun Springs— LA)

(The Raccoon in the image is named Falstaff; a truly fitting individual)

i

Handmade gods do not laugh

Even when they employ a staff

Of dull scribes, Bob Hope funny,

He who bought bad jokes with Chrysler money

ii

Go through pages and seek jolly sages

And learn good Will penned the man for all ages

Tankards of ale, sack and wassails

Falstaff lives on after all else fails

iii

Prince Hal was a pal till power spread him nebulous

‘Twas crown and church made him lugubrious

Yet Jack kept laughing and blessed the saints of the doomed

Hallo Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, Drifter and Harold, may your keeness for-ever, Bloom

iv

Kings lose their humour when see good

In split heads, spilled guts and land by the rood

Yet Hal neither lived long nor richly

Nor was he guided home by gentle Dame Quickly

Saragun Verse: “That’s How Come”

(Image of the Messianic Squirrel, Manette, WA at sunrise)

i

On the tongues of angels devils dance

The right words are made but not by chance

If the truth and sound should ever meet

We’d hear “it’s cheaper to let them sleep on the street.”

ii

The keening of youth wears thin in time

Like hippy power ties sold in eighty-nine

The passion disease is easy to cure

With pots of gold and rainbow lures

iii

Sleep tidy in peace is the lucky sin

God loves you more is how it begins

Luxuriate in false security long and well

And but once heed the toll of the bell

iv

And as one hypocrite tells another

“The fault lies with our fathers and mothers”

Yet seldom do parents concede

When devils dance on the tongues of their seed

Versatur Circa Quid! Column Three, Courtesy of The Saragun Gazette by Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender

(Note–I wanted his Judgeship to appear five times this week, but he refuses to show more than once. Not much you can threaten a ghost with, so, well, so be it–LA)

Greetings dolts!

Today we will explore the pervicacity of the ever resilient, yet meek Shadowghost. Before we do, however, I have a feeling that I should explain that pervicacity means stubborn and does not have anything to do with perversion. I believe that the modern world would do well with a vocabulary sheet. “Awesome”; “iconic”; “brand”–and for the sake of all that is intelligent, “ginormous” are not all one needs to describe the world. Moreover one should know the difference between effect and affect and venial and venal, that and which as well as who and whom. Whilst applying my trade I feel more like a red pencil than a Quillemender!

Versatur Circa Quid!

Shadowghosts are of the First Order of Spirits. They date back to the original ghosts who came about shortly after the first people died, many are eons of longevity. Shadowghosts are the original visual phantom; they lurked the cave walls and stone houses of yore and were often interpreted as being gods instead of the ghost of Grandpa, who departed doltdom for something much finer.

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A several thousand year history combined with the standard for being a Shadowghost set not much higher than that for the Footfallfollower has resulted in a staggering amount of their kind. Any realm that hosts Shadowghosts has a supernumerary population of the Spirit because there are so terribly many of them. In the dolt idiom supernumerary means “a needless shitload.” Think of the situation in your pubs and ale houses in which males outnumber females ten to one, yet each fellow has drunk himself into an unsteady optimism, and you have something similar to the Shadowghost problem, which upon further reflection, is awfully similar to the dolt infestation.

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To locate a Shadowghost requires a wall. Any small shadow (usually an orb) that passes on the wall without cause is likely a Shadowghost. The Spirit is highly territorial and will not share a wall with another Shadowghost, which is somewhat idiotic because multiple moving shadows would have a greater haunt value. This is where, my learned self believes, their meekness comes in. Shadowghosts are notoriously shy and that does not mix with possessiveness. No Shadow would dare to intrude on another, yet they claim a peculiar fierce bravado.

Still, they are stubborn about their name. There have been movements to remove the “G-word” from Spirit titles. The Shadowghosts have been very Bartleby on this, constantly stating “We would rather not.” For many “ghost” more than infers an article inferior to the original, which, of course is a matter of interpretation. As far as I am concerned it matters not, yet I do prefer the wonderful Quillemender moniker over “Gallghost”–”gall” meant iron gall ink, which has fallen into the historical scrapyard. It was a clunky name that failed to capture the majesty of my Spirit class.

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If you locate a Shadowghost there is nothing to fear–in fact the tired axiom about him being more afraid of you holds truth. Still, it is kind to feign fright and avoid the room as much as possible. It gives them hope.

Until next week, dolts…

VCQ!

The Immortal Judge

Daisy versus Billgits: The Third Conflict

(Ed note–Instead of escalating the poetry bombs, the two sides agreed to meet in my office for peace talks–LA–oh, the image has nothing to do with anything; just one hell of a big Chicken I met on the street)

Keith Richards has a face that can hold a three day rain. My brain was every inch as craggy due to a conspicuous hangover. Fortunately, a judicious amount of soft narcotics and energy drinks not only take off the edge, they can make things rosy…

I was typing the above passage when one of the four billigits intruded on my muse. They were in my office for peace talks with Daisy, who had yet to show.

“Are you about through?” he asked, all shitty, snippy, snitty and snotty-like. Dunno which one he was–they all look alike and the boys stopped wearing their name-tags long ago.

I looked away from my screen and glowered at him. I was not feeling rosy enough to prevent me from suggesting he attempt a physically impossible task when, ten minutes late, Daisy Kloverleaf finally trotted into my office. I knew she had been around for ages, but it is a necessary part of her personality to make others wait.

“You’re late, Moving Hoof,” one of the other billigits said. Also shitty, snippy, snitty and snotty-like.

“I got as many hoofs as you four have a-holes,” said Daisy, making her feelings astonishingly clear. Something in her voice told me she was in her “Dorothy Dickinson” personality. Daisy has many mental faces. Lucky for her that one is a psychiatrist, so she is able to treat herself. Anyway, Dorothy Dickinson is a combination of Dorothy Parker and Emily D. I could go on about a symbiotic synthesis of cynical, wisecracking urban verse and keen natural observations, but smart-ass poetess works just as well.

“Now, now,” I said. “Let’s not ruin the goodwill I feel ready to spring from this meeting.” I actually managed to say it without vomiting.

“Goodwill?” said a billigit. “Daisy just threatened to sodomize us with her hooves.”

“Hmmm, interesting delusion,” I said. “Which one are you?”

“Flounder,” he sneered, like a thirteen-year-old having a bad day.

“Better turn that attitude frown upside down Master Flounder or I’ll let Daisy give you that colonoscopy.”

Things were off to a bad start. But since this was meant to only be a short little production I asked the sides what would make them happy. After listening in glowering silence to violent fantasies, the parties finally suggested something they’re going to have to live with.

“I will never stop usingly using adverbs,” said Daisy.

“We will never stop complaining about it,” said the second billigit from the left.

“Sounds goodly good to me,” I said. I considered clapping the table with the gold gilt gavel on my desk. It was presented to my Great to the fourth grandfather Judge Jasper P. Montague, but that would wake him and he does not go well with hangovers.

Daisy trotted out of the room beaming the smile of triumph.

The billigits were stunned. Their little faces were quite angry.

“Daisy out ranks you guys,” I said. “Anyway, she did not injure or debase you, Daisy was just being her little bad Daisy self. Shit rollingly rolls downhill, boys. Deal with it.”

They flew out of my office quite shittilly, snippilly, snittilly and snottilly.

I sighed, “Leadership is a lonely hangover,” and fetched a jar of the blue pills.

Daisy versus the billigits: The Second Battle

(As noted yesterday, I expected a reply to Daisy’s scathing message to the billigits. I wasn’t wrongly wrong–LA)

i

o moving hoof you are so quick to huff

o’er such inconsequential puffy stuff

you and adverbs are a mixed potpourri

that reeks of one little miss me me me

ii

billigits fly high and we think divine

we soar in the straightest of guidelines

to add to the story is silly bold

the realm would be best if you did as told

iii

mothball weasel pinto flounder we four

punctuation and caps we do ignore

adverbs are the weeds of the written word

you abuse them the way flies use a turd

iv

o moving hoof with a spirit so sweet

why must you say hoofally bout your feet

have you gone around the bendly bend

from reality to deep insane pretend

(Well, that should pissilly piss the Goatess off. I expect her reply tomorrow–LA)

VCQ! (The Spirit Guide of Saragun Springs) Saragun Gazette Column Number Two by Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender

(Ed. Note–Yes, the Judge keeps coming back–LA)

Versatur Circa Quid blinkers!

This week I examine the dipsomaniacal phantom known as the Tippleganger (aka, “Tips” for stumbling tongues). Until a dubious Feline named Rebecca Nurse “accidentally” toppled my gold gilt gavel on my pate from a luggage compartment in a train, which resulted in my infinite transformation, I’d never experienced ill health in my ninety-two years. I attribute that to my round the clock consumption of applejack (for medicinal purposes, mind you), two quarts a day from infancy on. I was born in 1810 (the last of twenty seven–the only to make adulthood), and the water in my home village of Hanged Crone contained so many amoebas that they were visible. My mother understood that applejack neither “moved” nor immediately killed you upon consumption. Therefore the Miracle of Me occurred, perhaps twenty-six instances later than it could have. (We did not know about microbiology, so, the elders–also jack imbibers–figured, naturally, that the moving slime was due to witchery and hanged the unpopular segment of the population.)

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Tipplegangers specialize in entering the alcohol weakened minds of the flagrantly fatuous for the purpose of the creation of Big Ideas that lead to “interesting” actions, acts whose attractions vanish upon completion. Tipplegangers prize what they call a heeding. The more heedings a Tip can accumulate the higher in esteem he is amongst his own kind. And yes Virginia, that is sexist language!

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Tipplegangers are usually pleased by their results, but really, where is the art equal to that of a phantom such as, say, a Quillemender? What degree of difficulty is accomplished when you convince a backwoods oaf, three days into “corn squeezins,” to strip naked and run inside a church on Sunday morn’ and shout “I’m here for the gang bang, Mister Jesus”? Nae, my underlings, that is poorman’s haunting and not up to the Quillish standard.

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“The mayor has announced that Saturday will be the first annual peasant shoot!”

There, my subordinates is subtle Quillemending; only the deletion of an H was needed to cause all kinds of turmoil. In my learned opinion (aka, factual) there is little subtlety in convincing a beer soaked dolt that singing “Endless Love” at three A.M. in the yard of the girl who placed a restraining order* on him earlier in the day is an excellent idea. He actually believed that life was an 80’s movie. And although I keep up on modern times, I plainly understand that people are just as idiotic now as they were then. Regardless, thanks to the dullard’s low tolerance for fermentation, that grave was already dug, the Tip simply rolled the corpse into it and claimed a heeding.

(*Whilst I sat on the bench, the only “restraining orders” involved stocks, rope and chains.)

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In summary, the next time you wake and immediately regret posting items such as wondering how Siamese Twins choose which one cleans their shared anus after defecation on your company’s workboard overnight, or similar gems likely to end your employment, rest assured you have heeded a Tippleganger. If a perfectly clean, soberly written, but poorly proofed missive is emended to read equally offensive, you have been blessed by the touch of the Quillemender. Perhaps the difference will not impress the HR department, but you will know.

Versatur Circa Quid!

The Judge

The Deer Watch

(All images taken by Leila)

The Deer are watching me

Marking my ways and taking notes

I have no idea what the game is (up to)

Am I good or bad by rote?

The Does and Fawns graze in silence

But I am up on their tricks

I am the subject of their science

Chloroform and needle sticks

The Elk are few in comparison

But they have a stake

Has the world had its fill of venison?

Are they done with being steak?

Yes, the Deer are watching me

From the woods they have come

The Deer have won the majority

Tis my turn to sniff, twitch and run