Guest writer Contributes a Poem: Altar

Altar

               Her trinkets and personal possessions scattered the

tattered chest

                Treasures brought back from her spiritual quest…

                Young Buddha heard the late night drums and the Ying Yang symbol draped her neck as she

wandered amidst songs to Hare Krishna

                Hippy Highway heard the gentle jingles from angels ‘round her ankle and the soothing

incense smells cradled her to sleep.

                And here I am enthralled by the story of her scattered altar

                This sister who I may have passed late at night looking for a warm fire and sweet sounds

of a lilting mandolin

                Who knew my heart was still floating freely in the magical bitter roots and an occasional, “We love you!” chorus

                As I vowed to nestle collected wares from my own spiritual adventure

                So sacred and divine as this carefully traded scarf that once adorned my dreaded hair whispers those memories

                Of the peace I longed for chanted in those rhythmic drums

                And soothing yoga over-looking the expansive valley

                As I delicately place the lotus and energetic rocks upon my tapestry of moons

and stars

                a top my own tattered chest that contently becomes the altar I bow to.

                                                                                                                                                                 

Copyright Heather Corbet 2006

New Sample for Memoirs of a Super Criminal

Here is a sample from my novel: Memoirs of a Super Criminal. This sample is not in the free sample down load, so it is a little extra something.

"There is just one more thing. I have to do this.” El Mag stated.

“One more thing? What thing? We are all set. We are in the clear. I have checked and double-checked. We are clear, or will be soon. It is over.” Dyna said exacerbated.

“It is not over, not yet. I learned something. And… and I did not tell you about it,” El Mag hung his head. “I did not want to keep it from you, but I did. I felt like I had to until we were clear, but now I have to deal with it.”

“With what? What the hell is it that you have been keeping from me?” Dyna was beginning to get mad.

“Armageddon. He has been hunting me. He wants to use me as an example. I am one of, no, the last one of, the old school of criminals. He has made it his mission to bring me down one way or another. He won’t stop until I am… well whatever he does to me.”

Concern creased the brow of Dyna. This was deep and he should have not kept it from her, but she tried to understand. “Why now? Why you and not Danny?”

“Why me? Because I have been at it for over thirty years. Danny is behind the scenes. If they caught him it would devastate the criminal community but the public would not care. But me? Thirty years of headlines. Armageddon wants to set an example. Eventually everyone gets caught. But I think I have it figured out. I can beat him.”

“You can beat him? All of a sudden you can beat him. No one can beat him. He will beat you and if you assault him then he will make sure you don’t get up. Ever!” Dyna had moved from mad to furious in seconds. She wanted to punch something, something big and hard.

“I know. But if I don’t then we will never have peace. Then all that we have done, our whole lives, is meaningless. I can do it.”

“Now you care about meaning. Now you want to stand on some principles.” Dyna nearly spat the words out.

“No, nothing like that. We have built a life together. A life that we wanted. I am not ready for that to end. I don’t want to go into hiding. I want to be clear of it all. We have the money to take care of what we have to. But that will not give us peace.”

“Our life is not about peace. Or meaning. You are right, we did create something out of the mainstream. We lived the life we wanted. And we almost lost it all. But we made it past that. Isn’t that enough? Let’s just go.”

“With Armageddon, there is no place to go. He will always be on the prowl. Hunting. I have to stand against him. I have to fight him for my life, our life, our way of living,” El Mag said, wanting Dyna to understand.

“Bullshit. Lets just go and he will always be busy with some criminal somewhere. You know how it is. Heroes are always sidetracked by the next crisis. They never follow up. Out of sight, out of mind. You always said that.”

“I know. So maybe he won’t get around to it. But, we will always have to live looking over our backs. I don’t want that life. I want to be free of it all.”

“Then fight him when he comes for you, for us. I will stand by your side and punch him until his head explodes.”

The passion in Dyna’s statements made El Mag laugh. She gave him that stern look, but then also smiled. She knew that he was determined. She read it in his eyes. They looked at each other for a few moments. They both knew it had to be this way. Not only for them to be free, but also for Armageddon, a sanctioned bully, to be taken down a notch.

“Ok. Ok. I assume you have a plan,” Dyna gave in.

Copyright 2011 David Corbet
Excerpt from Memoirs of a Super Criminal available on Kindle and Nook

On the Edge

I walk on the edge

of humanity

Masking my insanity

as normalcy.

Not giving in to

the whispering fears

Of voices in my head

            calling out "Don’t Fall."

I respond with a smile

and hold tighter to that edge.

I walk on the edge

of icy cliffs

Clinging with pickax

            as to life itself.

Not giving in to

the whispering fears

Of voices in my head

calling out "Don’t Fall."

I respond with a smile

and hold tighter to that edge.

I walk on the edge

of space

Sucking air in a helmet

            as the world spins below.

Not giving in to

the whispering fears

Of voices in my head

            calling out "Don’t Fall."

I respond with a smile

and hold tighter to that edge.

I walk on the edge

of words

Expressing without clarity

as I discover my rhythm.

Not giving in to

the whispering fears

Of voices in my head

calling out "Don’t Fall."

I respond with a smile

and release myself over the edge.


Poem is from "One Year in the Mountains"
Copyright David Corbet

Walking the Coast

The coast.

A beach, not the sandy vacation beach of suntans, bikinis and kids with sandcastles.

The beach with the cold water, rough rocks and seagulls that crap on everything and everyone, including the drift wood logs that some poor shmuck keeps trying to turn into bonfires. That beach, that coast.

A man walks, no, shuffles along. His feet prints are two long ruts dragged in the sand. Follow those ruts back and you will run out of time before you run out of rut.

On closer inspection it is evident that the man is old, aged, ancient and beyond. He moves one foot and then the other, and again and again and again. It is not a step as much as a plowing the fields, but no corn will grow here. He left the corn far behind and a long time ago. Maybe so long ago that is was not yet corn as we know it in the hundreds of varieties, but rather just the maize of the ancients. That is old, but not nearly as old as this poor individual who shuffles along. But don’t be deceived he is not the poor fool who tries to build bonfires out of water soaked logs. No, he is far wiser then that. He is the one who sees the future and the past and knows the prophecies, not those cheap bible house prophecies about Babylon and dragons and the end of it all with trumpets and hosannas, no the prophecies he knows are far more profound. They are the kind that the Farmers Almanac wishes they had. They are prophecies of knowing those things that no human mind should know. They are knowing the number of rain drops which fall in the Amazon every hour and the number of the grains of sands on the shores, which he is very thoroughly checking at this moment. The corn has been counted, the stars have been counted, the rain has been counted and now the sand will be counted. Good luck, ancient man. We await your verdict with apathy. 

Copyright Protected David Corbet 2012

Red With Delight

The tomato festival was a big hit with the local towns people. Of course they had never seen a tomato before, they had not even seen anything red before and to eat it was a pure satanic delight. For this was the land of the righteous and anything and everything that could be in some way related to the devil was strictly outlawed and abandoned centuries ago, including all shades of the color red. In fact the color wheels in High School art class had only two primaries and one secondary color, the color brown was nearly impossible to duplicate in the class, and orange and purple were relegate to nature alone. (In fact this lead to many disputes in later centuries about the exact nature of brown and some went so far as to hypothesizes a third primary that made orange and purple the two additional secondary colors which were often seen in nature but not in art. This line of reasoning then lead to an ironic twist, because those theorist were often burnt at the stake and as the red and orange flames rose up their feet it all began to make sense, this was one of the few times where fire (and red) were seen as a tool of righteousness and not one of the devil.)

But then one day a traveling sales man, with a surplus of tomatoes to move before they rotted in the trucks and docks of the co-op for which he worked, entered the town. He was a forward thinking and very modern type of man. The girls swooned at the sight of his black bolo hat. Women wanted him and men wanted to be him. He was slicker then a duck in a rain storm and all that other jazz which made him real cool. He could talk a good game and with the Bible in one hand and a plump tomato in another he was able to convince the great, great, great, great decedents of those original pietists that the tomato, although red, was still a creation by God and ordained as good, was great to eat and excellent to have with pasta (which had been rather stale of taste over the last few centuries). It brought much need vitamins and topped out a bacon and lettuce sandwich very well. 

The town nearly rioted because of the color red, some agreed with the salesman and wanted the tomatoes to pour into the town. Other, more zealous of tradition and right thinking and all that, people refused and wanted to run the man out of town. The frosting on the cake was the fact that a tomato began as green and turned yellow and then red by the rays of the sun. Here was the symbolic making of a theological shift. The trinity of colors of blue and yellow making green combined with the sun, the son, the light, the warmth of the heavens poured out to create this jewel. But others saw a different symbol, a crafty snake offering a tempting but forbidden fruit. The symbolism, either way, was too much. All wanted to partake. For to err, to fall, is human. It is the nature of the creature, even centuries of right living could not breed out the fact that humanity craved the passion of life, that which was forbidden. Now the full circle was complete: peace, warmth and passion; blue, yellow and red; the trinity was completed and every range of emotion and every shade of color became available to this imagine-less town. Riot was subdued but passion to created, to flourish, to build, to spring forth, was unleashed and the tomato festival captured that very essence. 

Copyright 2012 David Corbet

New Works, nearly complete.

                                                        Abstract Thirtythree
                                                 Oil and Acrylic on Canvas 14x14

                                                         Abstract Thirtysix
                                                   Acrylic on Canvas 24x36

                                                      Masks
                                                  Acrylic on Canvas 36x48

All Works Copyright 2012 David Corbet

That is Art

There is art and then there is art, and standing between them is art.

By this I mean there is art that is created by the artist and there is art that is perceived by the audience. And between those two, the created and the perceived, is the piece of artwork. It can stand alone but always takes on meaning through creation and perception. And the meaning may not be the same for the artist and the audience. The work itself may or may not have an inherent meaning. You would have to ask the piece what it meant, and until a piece of art becomes sentient that question will remain a mystery. Certainly an artist may create with an intention and that intention may come across to the audience, they may “get it.” Artist’s aides such at titles, descriptions, biographies and philosophical methodological ponderings can all help the audience to “get it.” But certainly the audience also has the option to ignore all that and find their own meaning in the piece that has nothing to do with the intention of the artist. The meaning is then derived from their own experiences and psychological profile. But if the piece was wrapped up, stored away for a hundred years, all the descriptors lost from memory and then the piece was rediscovered it would still have meaning for those that found it. That is art.