DAY OF THE DEAD POEM

DAY OF THE DEAD POEM

by Aurelia Blue 11/2/14

It started last Friday night
All Hallow's Eve...
My sister came crashing through the door
Move that car! And you too came into Be
We laughed our special laugh
That your Otherworldliness does not occlude
As we remembered together her shrieking once at you
't'was so good to feel you near again
To know you are here too
In this space where our baby boy wears a fleece lamb suit
And Godfathers still sit down to family dinners as cold leaves rush by
The dog barking in the window seat

The Doppelganger stopped us dead
At least for the moment, our daughter and I forgot to breathe
How could you be standing there at Walmart?
In your Mt. Dew shirt
Holding hands with some other little boy
A stranger's wedding band ordaining that it really isn't you
But those eyes, that hair, that walk... even that stare
You're not really gone. You're still here.
Yes, you are still here
And later when you sent The Guy to my door
A warhead candy in his hand
His shoulder soft for loving more with my wet hair in moonlight shining

Another twin, the '88 Crown Vic passed us at the road
Where one direction, I once lived, the other leading back to your old home
We sat in the box seat they built after you were gone
But near the window sill from which on the Dawdi Bench we always watched the world go by
He would preach of who God says He is, but first a word of prayer
Those little precocious ones thanking Him for making little black bears
No words of Holy Saints and All Souls remembered
Yet stained glass portals reflecting the Trinity on the wall
Our boy pointing out into the sunshine waving to you as you pass by
You are the sun and rain and clouds and more as bows of color set in the skies
All the day the sunshine blazed as the fennels swayed
Prairie of Bones my Home once again

And as the darkness set in the earth in brilliant flamingo pink dissolved
Until total darkness came
But no fear as the moon's light lantern appeared
Like the Harvest Moon the modern troubadour unplugged sang
Driving across the grasslands as September turned October died
Fields are naked dark and swallow up the sky where snow will soon abide
Lights blazed on "The Circuit" as the Children of the Disenchantment came home
I was startled at first when I felt you come near
A lost daughter on each hand as his and my little twins clung shyly round your legs
Even the dog and our beloved yore cats; all your energy with me
My family full surrounding no breath unloved partake

This is The Day Of The Dead and we celebrate

CHUPACABRA

TODAY'S WEATHER: The Great Lakes are frozen over... kinda wondering what will be next, lol
TODAY'S EMOTIONAL BAROMETER: Just chillin' ;)
TODAY'S PLAYLIST: U2's INVISIBLE   (It's amazing how this band can transport you both forward and back at the same time. It makes me feel so safe, somehow...)

TODAY'S MYSTICAL CREATURE: The Chupacabra (special thanks to Peng Blue for her Paint Joy rendering below)

The chupacabra, or goat sucker as it is called in many cultures, has always been a special fascination of mine. (I have actually been known to whip my car around on a four lane highway just to check a roadside carcass for possible chupe identification purposes. It was unfortunately a really decomposing, leatherized deer. Sadly. My little Godniece was equally disappointed. Her mother still likes to trot the story out in group settings to point out (uselessly) my eccentricities.)  Perhaps this is due in part to so many remains of them being found, so there are a lot of stories to tell. this marvelous story was posted online by a news outlet in Southern Texas, just 4 hours ago... "my grandson shot it at 240 feet... and my grandkids said, "Oh that's a chupacabra.." Or perhaps it is simply that I have a certain affinity for doggies. I do not know.

Axl Blue was also quite indulgent of me in this search. Once, driving in the middle of the night, we nearly hit something that looked like a cross between an armadillo (which we do not have in the Great Lakes) and a round little rock found in Midwestern farmland (which we have an abundance of) known as a "ground biscuit." When I shouted out, "What the heck was that!" He calmly replied that it was probably a chupacabra egg. Its presence in the road demonstrated it was vibrating and rolling as the little chupie was trying to hatch. Furthermore, we should leave it alone so it could hatch naturally and help replenish the species. Of course this only made me want to set up some flares so that no oncoming traffic would hit it and disturb the process. But again, Axl was cool headed and reminded me that the flares could emit unnatural light that would also disturb the process, possibly ruining the animal. "Besides," he assured me, "chupacabra eggs are quite sturdy. Everyone knows this." I had to agree. After all, Axl was amazing with animals. If anyone could have tamed a chupacabra pup, it would have been him.

THE MYTHOLOGY: Chupacabra, is a Spanish word meaning "goat sucker." This wild dog, perhaps similar to, but majorly more vicious and insidious than a coyote, traipses about under cover of night, slaughtering grazing animals for their blood. Basically, it's a Vamp Dog. Also, when it screeches, it eyes glow red and the sound makes you puke. It's THAT horrible/awesome. (kinda puts the "brown note" to shame, doesn't it...)

 Stories of this beast have circulated in the Southwestern U.S. , Mexico, and China since the first sighting in the mid 1990's in Puerto Rico. But in Puerto Rico, the chupe was described as looking more bipedal and having spikes on its back... incidentally a certain little film called SPECIES was released in Puerto Rico in 1995. There was also a possible rhesus monkey colony that was being used for "blood" experiments, running loose on the island... whatever that means... There are also Grunches in "N'awlins," Louisiana, Peuchen in Chile, and Sigbin in the Philippines. The latter is more like a snake with wings. But then, chupacabras are supposedly mostly hairless and scaley, like a dog/ reptile cross.

THE SCIENTIST TALK: It's probably mange. Sarcopte Scabiei. Yep, dog scabies. You should wear gloves if you're going to touch it. Also, sick animals with mange would probably be very weak and unable to hunt forest prey, so they jump big old lazy cows instead.
Allegedly, this mange affects racoons and squirrels too... no word on whether or not they attempt to suck goats. Bunnicula? Are you out there?

JOLLY FUN SHORT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ARTICLE TO READ


AND IF YOU WANT SOME MORE PICS...

So what do we think? This topic is now open for discussion in the comments.

THE SOULMATE

Today's Weather: Snow! It will most definitely be a white Merry Solstikah (and it was. I started this blog entry last month... but life intervened.)
Today's Emotional Barometer: A mixture of melancholy and joy
Today's Playlist: MY LOVE by SIA , I DROVE ALL NIGHT by Roy Orbison , UNCHAINED MELODY by The Righteous Brothers , I DON'T WANNA MISS A THING by Aerosmith , CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU by Elvis Presley , MAY THIS BE LOVE (WATERFALL) by Jimi Hendrix , LOVE IS ALL AROUND by The Trogs , EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE by The Police , TAKE MY BREATH AWAY by Berlin
(RaleyBlueNote: every song listed above or in the text was a personal favorite shared by Axl and me.)

.

The word soulmate is thrown around a lot. There are so many definitions and descriptions. Some claim you only have one, as your other half was lost to you long before the days of a certain hemlock swilling philosophers. It's all very Jerry Maquire and "You complete me." Others say we have many, or that you can even become soulmates by choice with another. Other examples have sited that soulmates can indeed be simply kindred spirits and need not have any romantic or sexual component. I honestly have no words to describe what a soulmate is, but I know I had one. His name was Axl Blue.

He was an Aspie just like me and we spoke best through pictures and music...

The first time I ever saw Axl, he was driving a 1963 Mercury Monterey with the drop engine. I was walking down to the grain elevator (the same one Axl would work at the last few years of his life. Though when I met him, he worked on a horse ranch, breaking horses.) with my sister to buy some 50lb bags of dog food. We were walking slowly because it was hot outside and carying 100lbs of dogfood (50lbs on each shoulder) is hard work. So we were talking and taking in the scent of lilacs on the wind when this beautiful Merc cruises by. I have always liked vintage cars. I have always LOVED fast cars. I am a little embarrassed to say, but not too much so, as Axl loved a fast car too, that I noticed the car before I noticed the boy. He must have noticed me though, because in very UN-Axl-like fashion, he called out, "Like what ya, see?" And then he winked and and gunned the engine with a huge smile as he sped off down the road. My sister looked at me and said, "One of us is probably going to marry that boy." MERCURY BLUES by Alan Jackson

Marry him, I did. Secretly. One day in April, twenty years ago. When I was only eighteen. Because he answered the question exactly right. I asked him one night, when we were out walking on the prairie in the moonlight, where he would go if he could anywhere back in time. He said, "Right here, this place. See what it looked like before man."  And thus LIFE began. WHAT IS A YOUTH from Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet
(The pic above of us in jeans was taken at about that time. It is strange to note that the house that pic was taken in, is also gone. The close friend who took it, no longer a close freind. I am the only piece of this picture left...)

GOING TO THE CHAPEL by The Dixie Cups

About a year and a half later we got "Church Married" to please the family and the community. Of course they still weren't very pleased. And some even remain displeased to this day. It's funny what people hold onto.

I held onto Axl. My dad stood with me downstairs in the Bride room until it was time, but then he put my hand in Axl's and told him I wasn't his to give. So we walked down that aisle hand in hand. To Paul Stookey's THE WEDDING SONG.

Axl had tears in his eyes when he told me how pretty I looked. The only other real memory I have is of the sunshine pouring into the stained glass shield of the trinity portal window. It had been raining all morning, but right as we walked into that sanctuary, the clouds parted. And the light danced on my veil along with all the light from the candles and made rainbows everywhere inside that chiffon world. I felt like I was living in a rainbow.

SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW-WONDERFUL WORLD by Israel Kamikawawiwo'Ole

WHITE WEDDING by Billy Idol

HOMETOWN HONEYMOON by Alabama

YOUNG TURKS By Rod Stewart

THE WORLD BEGAN...

 It was a MADNESS by Muse full of passion. We loved hard. We fought hard. We loved hard again. Sometimes we joked marriage had ruined a perfectly good friendship. Neither of us meant it.

I was especially smitten... MAYBE IT WAS MEMPHIS by Pam Tillis

This was our song:
LIVIN' ON LOVE by Alan Jackson I always think about riding along in that Chevy S10 when I hear it.

 

The pics with all of us, are the only two we ever took of our whole family. Guess we thought we had forever....
OUR HOUSE by Crosby, Stills and Nash

SHAKE IT UP by The Cars

We danced at EVERYONE'S wedding. I broke so many high heels and lost so many earrings... Axl used to joke to our hosts, "Well, Raley's starting to lose her clothes, so we better get home while the gettin's still good," and then he'd wink and add, "if ya know what I mean."

Handfasting in our Tenth Year of Celebrating Love and Family. WILD HONEY by U2

HARVEST MOON by Neil Young 

THEN HE KISSED ME by The Crystals

We touched all the time. Almost always walked hand in hand or so close, we moved as one. Axl had a way of kissing me that made the entire world melt away... as if we were the only two people in it.

FOREVER YOUNG by Rod Stewart

We were always hatching plans... the latest was to finally get serious about moving Up North where I'd spent some of my happiest younger years, and was quickly becoming a second home to our little family.

(Axl knew all the lyrics to Fergie's FERGALICIOUS and Icona Pop's I LOVE IT which he discovered on his fortieth birthday and ALWAYS sang along with as loudly as possible.)

This was our little piece of paradise. EL PARADISO by Hans and Ellen Kollmannsberger

Maria Callas singing AVE MARIA.... but sometimes other plans are held for us... I have no idea if he knew or not. Many little things have led me to believe he did.

Like this pic below... I was so irritated when I found it on the camera from the trip Up North we'd taken just three weeks before he died. When I confronted him about "full body butt shots," he smiled and kissed me so tenderly. Then he said, "I was sitting there on the beach and thinking, 'This. This is my family.' How could I not take a picture of that?"

DREAMS by The Cranberries ...Axl knew I had been questioning the faith for a long time before he passed. The night he was "Church Buried" or memorialized by his family, who are new to cremation without visitation, he sent me one final rainbow (below) over our childhood homes, and a special little faery ring (above) outside the church. While he may not be able to give me all the answers I seek, he has certainly given me all the signs that I could ask for to show the path we all journey leads to nothing but goodness, light and love.

The last songs we shared were Phillip Phillips's HOME and GONE GONE GONE. Our very last song was Rhianna's STAY . I was surprised to find him singing along to it with the radio when were traveling in Michigan for the last time. As was our custom, we started dissecting it, and I said I felt like it captured a lot of what I felt for him, but it was almost as if she was trying to say something more, something deeper. And he answered, "Honey, she's singing to God."

He would have loved Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's SAME LOVE , Imagine Dragon's RADIOACTIVE, Lorde's ROYALS, American Authors THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE and New Politics HARLEM . I so wish he was here to share them with us. But we just crank that radio and sing along even louder. We have to believe somehow, somewhere, he hears us.

People ask me all the time if I think Axl Blue was my one and only soulmate. I don't really know how to answer that. On the one hand, I hope not. I would love to have that kind of bond with another human being again. On the other... after all this... I wouldn't be surprised if I got it all and then some for this lifetime. So for now I am THE WANDERER by Johnny Cash and my only hope of being with Axl again is IN DREAMS by Roy Orbison. But what dreams they are...

YETI

Today's Weather: Great Lakes Gray, what else?

Emotional Barometer:  Two fronts coliding. Still finding the harsh light of a new day in a brave new
                                      world, hard to take. But on the other hand, a little more hopeful. Something
                                      has developed. I'll keep you posted. ;)

Today's Playlist: COLD NOVEMBER RAIN by Guns 'N' Roses
                        
                            HURRICANE by Neil Young

                            Dancing In The Dark by Bruce Springsteen


So that most abominable of snowdudes... THE YETI (special thanks to SonnyBoyBlue (Agent SB2) for his colored pencil drawing below)

Oh, where to even start with this one? My first encounter was actually on the ice planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. That infamous Wampa nearly had himself some Skywalker Steaks. Thank heavens for light sabers, right?

Then there is that toothache-ity creature in Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer... The Abominable Snow Monster of the North... "He's mean, he's nasty, and he hates everything to do with Christmas."

So they ripped his teeth out.

Makes perfect sense. Great lesson for the young folks there.

But could there really be intelligent furry hominids traipsing about in the mountains of planet Earth?

Since the dawn of the Twentieth Century, with more and more humans attempting climbs into the mountainous regions of Nepal and Tibet, many sightings of large ape-like/ humanesque creatures covered in white, red, or black fur, who flee immediately when sighted, have been reported.

The 1950's were a time period of prolific Yeti fascination. (But then, isn't that just so typical of that era?) And it was during this time that actor, Jimmy Stewart (Yes, Mr. Wonderful Life, himself... "now, now, see here, Maharrrry...) allegedly smuggled a Yeti hand out of India in his suitcase. You can Google the "Pangboche hand" for that story.

And then a few weeks ago, a British Science Dude said it was... a BEAR (click here to read)

So, Young Lovers, what do you think? The discussion is now open...

MERMAID

Today's Weather: Nothing but "September Blue" (Yeah, I wrote it last Friday. Just didn't want to miss another #AureliaBluesDayTuesday, ya know? ;) )for as far as the eye can see. A slight breeze. But temps may go as high as 80. That could mean after school swimming!!

Today's Emotional Barometer: Tears on my pillow, pain in my heart, missing my beloved Axl. Excited for the weekend and to have my favorite young people home and all to myself. :) (We did one last trip of the season to beach!)

Today's Playlist: Broken Arrow by Rod Stewart listen here, Dreams by The Cranberries listen here

Today's Mystical Creature: The Mermaid (special thanks to Peng Blue for her colored pencil drawing below)

 

 

So what do we know? There's a lot we could say, the Merm have been around for most of our written as well as oral history. There was Oann who is storied to have taught us Cuneiform and possibly bridged the Bering Strait for early man to cross. There are stories of Inuit Mother Sedna patrolling the Icelandic seas. And we can't overlook the plethora of ancient French Mythology, including Melusina who often appears as a feminine spirit of fresh waters and sacred springs and rivers (that's her picture on your Starbucks cup), as well as tales of Mary Magdalene being the first Merovingian queen and married to a "fish," in reference to Jesus Christ in certain gnostic gospels.  P.T. Barum gave us "The Fiji Mermaid" click here for images Yes, that's a monkey top sewn on a fish bottom.... Ahem, people are morbid, but I digress... but it's rumored Barnum might have had another "real" mermaid stashed away. He was even going to put it on display, but sadly a fire broke out in his museum the day before, and there went history... *sigh.*

 

There are a lot movies with mermaids in them. SPLASH, starring Daryl Hannah has always been a favorite of mine. But, I'm a child of the 80's, what can I say? There's also that somewhat dubious, but hilarious and even downright fun to watch Animal Planet documentary series. The best part about that one, in spite of the cheesy acting (Which. Is. Epic.) is that many of those pieces of evidence and proof are derived from so many different ancient tales and conspiracy theories that have been, pardon the pun, floating around, since practically forever. And aren't those cave drawings of fish tailed people, awesome? I'm especially fond of the dolphin theory, that demonstrates we aren't the only "culture" that remembers the mermaid. It's actually kind of a compelling thought, Young Lovers. And a nice one at that.

 

So what do you believe? The discussion is now open. Leave us a comment below?

 

Introducing Ariana Wood's DARKNESS LIES IN WINTER

This is a super exciting day, Young Lovers! Today, I get to introduce you to one of my very favorite people, Ariana Wood, and her amazing book new book, DARKNESS LIES IN WINTER. It's officially available NOW!! on Amazon. Click here to order... And here's a little bit about it:


"Though Victoria's life appears picture-perfect from the outside, no one knows what it's really like on the inside. Her father is a callous, yammering cad. Her mother grows more distant and ill with each passing day. When her older brother's attempt to be like their father begins to fail, he turns to drugs. And then there's her baby brother, Bradley. He's a sweet boy that can't help that he's just a little different.

Victoria seems to be getting a handle on things until the unthinkable happens: Her mother suddenly dies. Victoria is tossed into a world of survival for not only herself, but for her little brother as well. But, how high will the price of her sacrifices be? Will she ever be able to have a life of her own?"

As you can see, there is a lot to get excited about here. I mean, who doesn't have Daddy/Mommy issues/ tragedies and jack-ass brother drama? OK, maybe you don't, but it wont ruin your enjoyment of this book in the slightest. And Ariana's handling of Bradley is superb. As a parent of autistic children, I can't recommend this treatment any more highly.

But that little blurby up there doesn't even begin to cover my favorite part of this book, which is a dreamy man named, Shane. Yum, yum, yummy yum, YUM. That's all I'm gonna say... except that when it comes to love scenes, Ariana's writing is beyond bibliogasmic. Without even a hint of lasciviousness, she will leave you breathless for more!

And you know, Young Lovers, coming from a romance writer, herself, that is high praise. So what are you waiting for? Go get it!

BUT, BUT THERE'S A PICTURE AND EVERYTHING...

So, yeah, it's been a while...

Some sad news first. We lost our beloved husband and father, AxlBlue, very suddenly and very unexpectedly, this past month. So I've been taking some time off with the children. But since I'm up and it is AureliaBluesDayTuesday (every Tuesday is, right?), and I know he would have loved this little tidbit of recent news regarding the horned sea monster in Spain... read about it here and the subsequent, and admittedly, just plain sad explanation...you can read that here ...I must reopen our discussion on sea monsters.

So tell me, Young Lovers, what do you think it really is? A shark? Or something else...

The discussion is now open: