the fiery state hotel

[thefierystatehotel]

Poem: early July

In the days following,

I know the difference

between firecrackers

and gunshots.

Kansas City was crackles

and smoke for that week,

the sounds & smell I would

forever associate

with the quilt,

where he spread my legs

and kept his mouth there

till the sun came up

and for the last time.

I step out onto

the back deck twice,

then once more

when the rain lifts.

there is a new web

along side my

grandmother’s

windchime

post storm,

are you thinking

I may be getting the

feeling no one

gives a shit?

the web takes on

scallop of dragonfly

wings, it’s artist a tiny red bead

of satisfaction at the center.

Hello, Red.

the “I don’t care what you think”

about this silver glowing

around her holds my gaze

as I shift from hip to hip,

my cigarette smoke trails

through and for a moment

it is the portal. I realize

I have every opportunity

to blot out a name.

A name and a word.

“You know a word?” he’d say

(it was always Red.)

no one appreciates a good

bloody leftover

steak anymore,

cold and salty, enriching

the blood or slowing the

pulse but

at least this storm hasn’t

asked for any real sacrifice.

at least that.

at least the waning

moon has no

want to get down

on her knees.

or will she? will she

take it

all away

from us, Ruby?

I can only hope

this moment finds

us both

half the women

we come from:

Mine a power-giver,

yours dead before

her time.

You with her narrow eyes,

Mine too large

and too dilated.

[thefierystatehotel]

poem: mythikos & her mouth

girl with the labradorite eyes stands on cool kitchen tile

before the stove, she lets me taste her fasolada from the cooking

spoon and then lick the dampness from the nape of her neck.

she takes me, in a soft layered bed on the floor of our stone house-- 

takes my breath from above, her hair veiling us from noonlight, 

takes my clothes outside to let the saltwater dry.

girl with the lyra hips places each dish as slow as the breeze joins us. 

there is one Cypress tree our table sits beneath. lemons hang dry in a 

mesh bag from a nail in its side.  always wear santal on your skin, 

it smells so nice. she takes my breath from above. she takes an over-

sized swearshirt over her head in a shadow of our room. we don’t 

recognize the smell of our own bodies anymore, or this island.

girl who can’t say no to me after two glasses of wine, when the stars 

develop above in a spattering that reveals the earth’s curvature 

and lets us know we are blessed by Demeter for a moment 

in her scrying ball, where she sees my death to a poor, pitiful 

heart one day in the market smelling lemons, thinking of her 

hands lightly at work. she has told me we are doomed 

to staggered deaths, as if there’s a thing I can do about it.

my girl who chooses to live alone with me in a little stone house 

on an island in the Cyclades and worship the Aegean sea-- 

girl with the creases at each mouth corner, lets me kiss them, one 

at a time before I take her hair in my hands, lets me read her palm

in bed. she lets me tell her stories as she wraps her trust around 

this room, darker and darker still with our desire, I see.

girl who whispers heavenly behind my ear before she falls asleep, 

let me take you with me when I go, down the ancient staircase of

loss and regret, into exquisite sleep again. And again. I won’t say 

neither of us can leave, but I will wink and call you Persephone from

time to time, to which your sleepy smile lifts right from your lips

and you barely reply then take me.

[thefierystatehotel]

I'M A FLORIDA. (at Fly PIA)

[thatsnotyourpurse-deactivated20]

Holy hell. This song still does funny things to me.

[kaiserwilhelm]

Woah. This is something special

[thefierystatehotel]

Going to Florida in two days to meet my Little Family and I really don’t have super high expectations or anything.

[thefierystatehotel]

#bridgetbatetichenor

[thefierystatehotel]

I see you Kimber, hiding in the corner... ok I'm done with the selfies, sorry. (at Peoria, Illinois)

[thefierystatehotel]

I am officially the housemistress of a beautiful Victorian B&B and I think I may have been born for this haunted hospitality life. Check out Victrola House: https://abnb.me/EVmg/SCAslv9uaK (at Peoria, Illinois)

[thefierystatehotel]

Obsession of the day: Pamela “Pixie” Colman Smith was an enigmatic artist and occultist who illustrated the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck. Recently, my friend Morgan introduced me to her aura or spirit in a lovely conversation and I’ve been hooked ever since. There’s something truly timeless about her vision, her ideology and the look in her eye. I highly recommend reading up on her:

https://www.autostraddle.com/fools-journey-the-fascinating-life-of-pamela-colman-smith-267673/

https://hyperallergic.com/330790/the-unnamed-woman-artist-revealed-in-the-monogram-of-your-tarot-cards/

http://littleredtarot.com/ancestors-pamela-colman-smith/

[thefierystatehotel]

Visit Original Link

I wrote this song about a little situation back in Kansas City, MO with my Original Aquarius and the silly Aries he can’t seem to shake. Take a listen. 

[thefierystatehotel]

poem: portions for foxes

I have a light headache. I cannot summon you anymore, as you know. As you well know. As you know, I will die here, like I said the other night with my head over a bucket and your hand cold behind it. 

Every moment at the riverside, where we stared into the thrash of it? I am not far from there now. I might go back to the footbridge, just wanted you to know. I liked your consistent gait. Promising phase of moon that night.

I kept my body clean. I told you. I felt every pore open. I did not tell you, there was a candle lit here and there each evening before dinner. There was this side of my cheek stroked. But you won’t let me touch you,

no matter what oil I spill, resin I burn or goddess I implore. Bone, rock or herb I warm in my hands won’t supply: I am not allowed to touch you. Is this what you wanted? What does it feed itself on now as you pretend to sleep beside me?

I can hunt it down in sleep. I’ve been drowning my saints in an inch of water each night, just to be cruel. In the bathtub, I hear voices that do not sound like you, but I astral scurry, low like an animal, just to catch their names. And I do.

This one, she shook her coat because I submitted to the lonely snow, I think. She said: I knew your gut, raw and red and warm in wait for me. I knew your pluck, because a good Christian girl always believes she is precious. 

“I want a spirit that is calm!” Her eyes are much like mine. She says, “I locked you in this body. I meant it as a kind of trial.” My ears ring hard just then and she was gone, but maybe on account of the snow at hand. Maybe you woke.

                                              -----------------

And now do you come back to bring your prisoner wine and bread? Am I still with you on the bridge over cold river? Are the mayflies still around your head? This is awful. I suck. 

[thefierystatehotel]

🍷⛲😻🍃💡♀☄ (at Midtown - Westport, Kansas City, Missouri)

[thefierystatehotel]

Jenny Mae - Drapes

From “I Stayed Up All Night Listening to Records: A Collection of Field Recordings.” This album is a magical compilation of lo-fi 90s greats. I’d love to see this happen more with hobo camps of touring musicians today from either coast or anywhere inbetween. I think this particular motley crew holds a special place in my heart because they’re Midwestern legends. 

RIP Jenny Mae. The devil you know ended up doing you in. We’ll all join you soon enough. 

Know of any #fieldrecordings from other artist peer groups? Send them my way.

‘

[thefierystatehotel]

me sitting on the floor thinuking about probably cats or ghosts. pic by Marsha Satterfield (at The Art Garage Studio and Gallery)

[thefierystatehotel]

goofy ridge words, music & sounds by shannon moore shepherd

[thefierystatehotel]

Paris 2013.... I'd forgotten that this is the first time I saw one of the women in #carmine (at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise)

[sincerelyladymidnight]

Day Two //

I want to tell you about the Jean Baptiste parade as if I wasn’t there, both because I wasn’t– I was underwater. I was inside the struck bell of blood pressuring my ears, blotting out the jubilant crowd of onlookers, the pedal pub blaring Life is a Highway, the marching band – and because I don’t know how else to construct this emotional mural but by small strokes I can stand back and away from.

The only specific, confounding image that made its way into cognition materialized as a question. It came calmly and quiety like the voice of god inside the eye of a shit storm. Maybe it came from Liam. It did. I can here it now:

”I’m miserable! You’re miserable!””You’re a bully!””I’m leaving, you can find your own way back.””You’ve broken my trust!””I want to die! I don’t care about anything anymore!”

“Why are there dancing ice cream cones leading this parade?”

”I’m done!”This is over!””If you walk away from me now, you just watch what happens!””Don’t threaten me!”

“I think they are waffle cones. Does that mean something?”

Possible significance through my consistently ridiculous and delusional lens, you ask?: Oh, well, soft serve ice cream is as pure, sweet and innocent as the baby Jean Baptiste, which is why the Holy Spirit chose him as a vessel. Or maybe this perfect summer breeze just doesn’t feel like home to the Quebecoise. They need the cold, even if just in their hand. I made Liam buy us ice cream cones because everyone around us had ice cream cones in their hand and I thought it was symbolic but apparently it is not. The line of choreographed dancing ice cream cones in this parade were just that: dancing ice cream cones.

Here is the story: 

Two lovers traveling light but heavy with mood and history between them search for a particular mural out of many, many beautiful murals on the Plateau. 

The Plateau is full of color and light and sound and happy, curious children. No one is hurting. Ne person pas est triste. There is so much laughter from all directions that maybe the lovers become disoriented. Their disorientation comes from overstimulation. (They regularly require sensory deprivation therapy.) The laughter starts to sound maniacal to them. (They only laugh at their own sardonic commentary.) So they get lost. Then they lose one another. Then there is nothing that can break them apart; like street cats growling. Large cafe windows slide and latch on both sides as they pass. The woman notices but doesn’t understand. The man suggests it’s the volume of their voices or the litany of curse words and personal insults volleying between them. Submersed in the swimming pool of her vascular system, she hadn’t even heard the things they were saying to one another.

They fall into silence of embarrassment and take a side street in shame. The mural they’re looking for is the largest mural but it remains elusive. The eyes of the mural follow the vexed and lonely lovers as they walk silently side by side. But every time they look up, the buildings are blank. So they wander down alleys and try to hold conversation but repeatedly grow weary of each other’s thought processes, each grasping for solutions to this problem of perpetual discombobulation…

Then, finally, he appears. Hat first on the nine story building (as promised by every source the lovers had continuously referenced and argued over) just off of St. Laurent, he is six stories of coyness and unmatched grace. He is early glowing with saintliness, so much so that the woman feels empty-handed. Why hadn’t they brought anything to lay at his feet?

Other people visit the mural. An old man aided by a young woman on his arm, both in all black, stand beneath the mural a long time. Other tourists take photos, of him, of other murals. Things are quieting down on the Plateau. Other lovers sigh and drape their arms around one another. They sit down at sidewalk cafes for un bierre ou un vin rouge to reflect upon their pleasant holiday. And now they are tired, these lovers carrying almost nothing but everything on their minds. And it’s getting late. And they haven’t eaten. So, they decide to climb a mountain.

Up they go towards the foot of the cross atop Mont Royal, saying nothing. Down come weary revelers and tipsy groups of teenagers. Down come families heading home for dinner. A little girl in a stroller waves her fleur-de-lis flag at the lovers, looking for their own flags. She receives a forced smile and a wave from the woman, which makes her scowl suspiciously, her happy flag signal frozen in place. Her eyes follow them. It’s as if she knows they have ruined Jean Baptiste day for themselves; the happiest goddamn day in this preternaturally happy city. This makes the weary lovers start smiling again. Then laughing. Then their fingers lace here and there as their arms swing. Then they sit side by side halfway up the mountain on a park bench and watch the sky bruise and glow over the loveliest city they’ve ever ruined for each other. The woman lays her head on the man’s shoulder and asks him if he could live here forever with her. 

Ozone rises to their nostrils though there is no rain in sight. It is perfectly clear. They fall into silence again. 

[thefierystatehotel]

this day...