dreaming...

I usually dream of buildings...
a place where I live...They are always older dwellings with endless and countless rooms.
strange collections of ittems in the rooms...

I wander around the spaces - each unique: for a different person...
always comfortable rooms - small and large - they go on forever.

I look at each room.
I hear voices...i never see the people who live there...

lakewood - california

Everything youll read between these pages is on the money - point blank true and yes some of it - no - most of it defies logic, or a coherant time frame or even the facts of our "reality" here: and still, it all happened. I was born to "normal" parents in 1960 into a sea of industrial chemicals and suburban fear: into a world where the main objective was to try to collect as much cash and "prizes" as you could before the cancer strikes, before the divorce, before anyone finds out, before the breakdown: A time when the white picket fence stood for the penultimate arrival - my parents at the time of my birth were awash in alcohol, diet pills and middle-class euphoria and dread... In a place called southern California in the 60s... I was born... before 911, before the world wide web, before dvds and plasma screen tvs - before MTV, 200 channel cable, computerized-wireless laptops-- before HIV, the grassy knoll, watergate and the Bushes, and the american psychic-consumer "buy it now" panic-riot...before cell phones --- and Prozac, pre-Madonna, the paranoid X-files conspiracy, the info-mercial-platic surgery panacea,, before the hyper-sexual 17 year olds owned multi-national conglomerates, before all the medication and meditation and over stimulation, before all this : I incarnated, or some version of me did. Growing up - We had one black and white television set and you had to change the channel by hand. At that time television programming actually went - "off the air" for a few hours each night. And you may find this hard to believe but... There were only seven channels of TV programming to choose from. We also had one phone, on the wall, in the (yellow) kitchen of our house. * * * I suppose who we are screams so loudly and dictates the circumstances and forward creation of our experiences here that a man - woman - person can neither destroy his destiny nor escape it - and It seems to be my destinny to tell you the tales I'am about to impart -- for "good" or for "bad" - be you witch or addict - gay or non gay - "muggel" or citizen - male or female, some representation of both - republican or democrat - black, white, brown, asian, jewish, latino, human, alien - or other... new yorker or not -- this is my story and stories - my poems and prison, my freedom and my thoughts - my loves and sometimes wishes about being born different... In this case "different" meant: a "medium": a "mystic psychic", alcoholic/addict. An empath - poet - preist-healer. A doctor of the soul -- A shaman --- and last but not least, also, a gay man.... in short - what I now refer to as simply: a "Gay Witch...." I have kept a diary or a journal and written poetry since around the age of ten years old. thats over 25 years of writing on napkins, in journals, school notebooks, legal pads, computers and now a lap top... My first poem - written around 1967 was actually a suicide note entitled: "Suicide - the Ultimate ride." if you continue to listen and read my tales and confessions - my writings and poetry contained herein youll soon see - there were forces - more powerful at work around me than simply my confused, volitile ten year old psyche - which began this project around 1970. thirty years later --- ... my Hells Kitchen studio apartment is awash in the actual paper containing the stories I'am about to tell -- all the stories - thoughts and poems and the ghosts, griefs and loves that accompany them are presented here and I'd like to share them with you. I'd like to take your hand, light a candle and whisper all the crazy, rommantic, terrifying, magical, miracles that I've lived through right into your ears, to excite you, convince you and persuade you that indeed our time here is a spinning dream, a hallucination, and favor from "God." * and that you have the power of the divine available to you and a connection and a destiny - like us all -- connected, insperable, moving - transforming. When I left college, never really graduating, my best friend at the time handed me a copy of Walt Whitman's, "Leaves of Grass." He put the copy in my hand and then winked and said: "Why don't you re-write this?" I nodded. "Promise?" I promised. (thanks Greg, I did my best.) At that time I did not know who Walt Whitman was nor did I dream that a "gay"* man could have written the best seller of his time, the early 1900s, traveling the country sides of the east coast and "geting it on" with farmers and "rough trade" and pretty boys alike....(Atleast it's obvious to this gay man thats what was going on with Whitman back then) or then that the entire country would make him famous and somewhat rich for celebrating it in a published version of his thoughts and life, but as I read and pondered Walt's loves and hopes and lyrical prose and poems and stared into his photo - his eyes specifically - from the dust cover, something seemed familair - hauntingly so - something I recoginized and thus inspired me to live as he had: homosexual or not -- he inspired me to fall in love with life...and live on the golden edge: near the greater vortex, swim in the rivers of the mystical and unknown. Allow my heart to be so filled with pain, life, sadness and joy that it could shatter into the cosmos forever only to be found and repaired by your favorite angels... Walt - had the eyes of a "witch" you see: and perhaps choose me in his gaze back to mine or perhaps I choose him as a template, a mentor, an "inspiration from beyond" pouring down his grace and guidance to seduce me to taste the forbidden and luscious and sing the "Song of Myself." to gaze into the orgasms of the universe, to touch death and run away: to return and survive and then live to tell the tale... * * * As I ran away to Europe looking for my destiny, in my early 20s, and contemplating Walt's work along the way I really didnt understand it - but it grew into me...became me... I felt it ...I lived it. I somehow knew that Walt and his spirit would guide me and my life - guide me to update his masterpiece or atleast aspire to create a newer version of it and so my inspiration thus explained, my task coming to a close, my hommage and thanks and debt to Walt are contained herein: To Walt: a fellow shaman - perhaps witch healer poet priest.... I present: In dedication to you and yours - "The Black Swimming Pool." Dirk Devon Parker Hells kitchen nyc - oct 05 So - here we are - at the beggining - eventhough eternity is surely a tedious certainty... the time is around 1967 ? in a place called southern California.... >>>>> Things to do in Lakewood when your bored....