I Came Back Haunted (Eery Pennsylvania 2014)

(Photo from my personal files)

 Journal Entry 

Night One

I didn't look at a map. I ignored the GPS. I just did what I used to do as a kid. I took it all inside through my eyes and it was brilliant in a way that was monochromatically divine. Eerie. Eery. There is a reason they call it Pennsylvania–Eery? My American United States WTF is not very good. My spelling, that is. 

So, it was awesome. Amazing. Beautiful and sad. Sad like a baby's blue eyes under sepia wash. 

I felt an ill wind. A whisper to the dead. Of the dead. I saw a man with cancer and all I could think was how near the border he is. Thinking about crossing over into another land. The shadow of death. Muddied waters. Muddled and cold, but alluring I am sure. 

I don't know why I am not afraid. Angry. Wanting to help. Unable to help. On and on these things go. Everyone gangs up on me. Teases me. It's hard to let the things flow that need to flow. In dreams, everything flashes back and forth. Intensely, intensely. It grows. Flashes on and then off. Up and down. Swirling from image to image. 

Something is pulling through to something else. Pulling, pulling, pulling. 

My dreams are like the fingers on the strings of the guitar. Popping strings. 

I am scared of popping the strings. Strings strain and pop everywhere in my mind sometimes. So much to sift through, stalling. 

I am stalling. 

I saw the grey mist. I saw the colours. Not bright at all. 

Ghosts. Looking out windows. 

A million places to hide for a ghost. A spirit, looking out the window. Spooking. Peering eyes poking through the darkness with the piercing knife of fear. 

The questions remain. Who is more afraid? Us, or them? 

Burning hearts in hell? 

The slaves of heaven. 

The lurking guilty monsters. 

The things that go bump in the blood-pooled darkness. 

The winds of heaven seem to be drying up the land. It could become quite arid here. Acrid. Acidic. 

Seems for me the dream is shifting. 

So many questions to make sense out of life through the manifestation of what we consider living. In Penn State. It seems like a line is crossed or maybe the line is cleared and free. Free to roam. No, I think that theory is too stupid. Silly for me. 

Sally Mann is someone who I think about now. Asking questions through art. 

Sally Mann Photography 

Bring on the eyes through which we figure it all out. Searching. 

Always. Always. Always. 

Every conclusion a stretch of string, coiling around each other. 

Around and around and around. Tangles mate and beget more tangles. Baby tangles. The answers are like a ball of yarn. 

So much goodness can come from a ball of string. Also, it can choke you dead. 

That is Pennsylvania in a nutshell. I am not sure I like it, either. 

Flesh mortifies there and seems to enjoy it. Death. Grey death. 

It is like a mountain range, blocking all the light. 

Plucking the strings of a banjo. Banjo. 

Sexual stuntedness? When education dries up? Where what? What? What! 

These things I want to do. To share. 

I want to hide away from the world. I want to think about this for a while. 

It was beautiful, anyway. This dream. 

Pocono Mountains. Love the air mingled with the heat of peace. Soft breezes. Not taking anything seriously. Not taking everything seriously because the land commands your attention...

April, 2014

"... The throat is deep and the mouth is wide
Saw some things on the other side
Made me promise to never tell
But you know me, I can't help myself..."

Came Back Haunted

Nine Inch Nails