Making the Most of Shade: Verses Written in the Void

When the time stops leaning over the precipice of intrinsic loss
When the silvery polish of seconds turns to vastness of bearded rust

When the dinosaurs - complacent, sad -
start heading in a single file
toward the womb of their existence

Leafing through volumes of unrealized potential;
Shedding tears for collapsed novas and far-flung stellar matter
Drowning in their own inertia... Succumbing to the dumb density
of neutron mass...

When the space itself curls up to watch TV
and old reruns of Star Trek
When the Moon folds up and rolls to dance among the branches of asteroids
serenaded by all-knowing, glistening Saturn's rings -

...... Then will I find you
Unperturbed
Unchangeable
Unafraid
Swinging the megalithic slabs of darkness
Against the dead end of Finality,
Picking through the myriad bursting pieces, and laughing
As a Child.

@ Avi Abrams, 2011

Bits and Pieces

Summer, 2009

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

The Rain as a Stream of Individual Beings, Full of Life.
by Avi


Raindrops are solitary,
sad,
immense -

their sonorous staccato
searches the wind,
and the clouds,
for a fitting melody.

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

The Language of Ruins
by Avi and Rachel


A poet is -
a ruin

chosen for
the freedom of others

love
is the mirror

through which he escapes the pain-
rebuilt.

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

Silence Prevails
by Avi


You are a delicate mystery

shrouded in thoughts, doubts, analysis

blooming in silence, just outside of gaze - that's when your quiet strength reaches out

establishing noble gestures

destroying light-weight simplicity

swirling, congesting into a tentative feeling

- an emotion,

an empathy

....pain moves in, predilected, ferocious, explodes into utter resistance, ocean pressed down to a drop

the heart trembles, silent, inadequate

thus -

Silence prevails.

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

"Visitations"

(written by Avi Abrams, 2009)


Pale reminiscences of Grand Things
Cast shadows on a gray slab of reality
They linger... only long enough
For Wisdom to take notice;
She watches wistfully their childish play.

This space is not going to stay empty long.

Still grander things will move in, with their mountainous bulk,
Engraving better - harsher - words;
Supplanting
many crumpled sheets of wonders
That transpired before.

There is a place
In the sky
Where all unrequited love returns to.
Where it is known,
And sent out again
As fragile, shimmering visitations.

@2009

"Moments"

The present is a fire
licking at the edges of future
It slowly burns away
Red-hot, immediate
blackened, crumbling into
unreliable memory

The past is a crumpled sheet;
Skipping around the high points
Reality fades away
-- but returns, intense and startling

Moments of now
fall like snow
Innumerable; unique
Not even days of drudgery
are ever quite the same.
They pile into drifts until
the hot sun of passing time
fades and melts them.

...yet the Moment lasts longer;
Dwelling in memory, it lingers
in the afterimage of life,
reflecting watercolour of events
on it's smooth surface.
I look into a mirror
- next moment - it is me
looking at my own past.

There is an inertia of a passing moment.
"Slow time" is meant to help us, mortals
to consume intense eternity -
- a moment by softly-yielding moment

Mercy
tends to linger.

------------
"When God created time, He made lots of it"

Avi & Rachel Abrams
@ Feb 2005
Art is copyright Nicholas Rougeux
used by permission

"Vertical Clouds" _

This one is influenced by our recent trip to Europe, where many castles dot the landscape and bless our very soul, in some mysterious way.



"VERTICAL CLOUDS"
a verse by Avi Abrams

The castle grows out of the mountain rock
Does it have roots there
or does it belong to the clouds?

The towers answer with a
sparkling gleam of a setting sun
reflected on the stained-glass windows.

Is there a face there?
or is it just a smile, born of
a delicate thrust of archways and turrets
toward a melancholy sky.

No castle is ever alone among the scenery.
Whenever it plays host to
the inquisitive clouds, or
acts as a candlestick to the moon

-- your heart grows stronger
in an amber drop of Permanence
caught between the rock and the sky.

Is it a gate?
or is it a ghost of Heaven
trickling down
into the meadows below?





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

"Night"

Night

To the far shores of Day
The night is travelling,
Passing Delirium Bay,
Seeking the end of everything.

Numbly she suffers, as God
Wants to supply the dawn
But night is so proud
that she's night-
She'd rather be left alone.

Neither the moon nor the stars
Are willing to shine on her worst
She's left to shadows, yet shadows mean light
is present to helm her course.

He's with her as a wish,
as a wind
Tacking a long-torn sail...
...Night has arrived,
and they both
Gracefully stayed till the day.

@1993, Avi Abrams

"European Lullaby"

The castles are laden with love
And spirits are suffering

The sky's everywhere crying down
With tears of blue offering

And meadows are soft
As a pillow of silk

So drink of God's mercy
Like baby drinks milk.

@1990, Avi Abrams

"Belonging"

Belonging

The wind is dear on branches,
though it's passing
The smell of newborn rain on wood
like matches, dried out for a purpose
waiting to be ignited -
by gentle breeze
or starry night,
or by a flight of fancy...

Passing -
Yet how much more it's glorious to stay!
To sail and come to shore
To be invited, glad at the wedding dinner, part of the family;

"Belonging"
Should be as dear as stay -

Knowing the moments,
And measuring the time
by droplets of eternity.


@ 1999, Avi Abrams



Photo @ A. Abrams (click to enlarge)

"The Music on the River"

The Music on the River

The music on the river
Opens quiet
With scent-united clouds,
tender wisps, lost seemingly
in thought and design
to soothe the dark-lit waters...

...trees
are dreaming to uphold
these sounds, and converge
with cello-bowed branches...

...this cathedral
is visited by two
unwoken souls, who
years and shores apart
have wondered once, if
bridges are forbidden,
and why they cannot even
see each other...
...quite.

They stay in wonder, watching closed gates,
but pushed to enter.
In a moment,
their trust is tested,
Doors are open wide, and look, inside-
- the mountains are dancing!

There -
they found that
Love breathes in crescendos,
waters die;
a self-made bridge
may crumble in His pause...

The music on the river
finally departs;
But those who heard it once, will never stop
their raptured applause.

@ 1998, Avi Abrams


(image credit: Tomasz Maronski)

"Night Like This"

"Night Like This"

Rachel in the night
The eyes are asking the sweeping wind
which knows more, perhaps, than we.
Yet our hearts are close.
We brave the wonder
Of creaking sounds in a hushed house,
As though it's a wooden pier
on pressure of a ship
That just arrived, or yet intent on sailing.
So the answer lies, perhaps, in what's ahead.
Eyes cannot look on past
without lenses of sanity and wisdom, otherwise
Emotions blur like fairy christmas lights
on nights like this.

This night is magic.
No wonder that we speak of snowballs
And witches, pastors, kings,
of times of this- and other-worldly fun.
If two sharp lights lose focus, they together
perhaps could blend as
evershining ONE.

@ 1998, Avi Abrams




Photo @ A.Abrams

"On the Origin of Black Holes and the Selfish Mind"

@ September, 2006

When the heart stops
taking medicine,
(as the enormous shafts of light
will sweep across the mind,
illuminating life, not sleep)

then I will know you,
unafraid

of rusty structures, clangy crashes
of the subtly vain.

Time slides

in and out of the niches of memory,
Some undisturbed, some projecting forward,
some dead and covered in plastic,
some eager that perhaps they'll live again
(not possible).

Time cheats the best sepulcher
with a tiny element of rot; pictures drift like snow,
the snow of death.

Images of lost,
lost lovers, lost unknowns,
friends and teachers (some spectacularly lost)
appear distorted, hazy on the edges -
they pass by columns, not in haste at all.

The obelisk of time has patience,
its finite blocks define oblivion
in sadness of detail

as memory falls silent.
Nothing matters,
Words fail, achievements falter...

And only shafts of light unmentionable, vast,
parade as slow flight of birds,
wings spread, innumerable.

Selah.

And as the heart stops taking medicine, it can't go further,
it cannot serve itself, it cannot love,
It dies, as nailed to the cross,
And lives again.
...

There is a galaxy that wants to hug you
with furry arms of stars, with
throbbing heart of singularity,
so heavy that you can not lift its burden.
- but it can suddenly lift yours, and does...

As their Creator, who died on a cross
while weighted down by the multitude of sins -
the stars, too, die -
inside their own radius, collapsing
but passing into further element,

as they shed light unseen,
progressing through the memories
and spiritual lives,
quite free
from entropy.
They shine
in spiritual dimension, realm of poets,
they give us dreams.

Next time you think of Universe,
remember that you can see it brightly lit,
with striding shafts of light
from black holes, singularities -
which die and live again.
The void is
- unafraid.

@2006, Avi Abrams

"Subliminal Distances of the West"

this one came from our recent trip through 4 Western States and Yellowstone...

"Subliminal Distances of the West"

story by Avi Abrams - copyright 2006

Steering with one hand, holding espresso cup with the other... vaguely entertained by the rhythmic monotony of phone poles, he was glad to see the mountains finally become something of a destination. They were still hardly a blur over the horizon, shimmering in a haze over the interstate and not coming any closer for a long, long time.

Empty miles stretched like a tortured, immense "rubber soul" of the highway (too much "Beatles" music on this trip?). Prairie around him looked like a beige blanket spread over some mysterious and vast skeletal mechanism of rock and earth. Mountains surged up from it like a naked revelation, and miles and miles before them seemed to cower and shrink, propelling his car faster ahead.

A hundred and eighty miles to the Yellowstone area, according to the road map... Bugs perished by the thousands on the windshield; wind gusts nabbed his car in a slight but persistent manner, not unlike the kicks of an unseen baby in the womb. With no visible clouds, the sky glared down - dry like a washed-out canvas; trees crowded closer to the foothills in an unanimous green mass. Time seemed to lay suspended over the highway like a stretched hammock, swinging his Jeep higher and higher, almost to the mountain tops...

"Tourists do not realize when visiting this area that they walk in the crater of the most powerful volcano on Earth". A mosquito is pretty certain that the hand on which it lands cannot squash him... then it suddenly discovers a presence of another hand.

The Yellowstone Mountains spell doom (volcanic), encouragement (spiritual) and indifference (of a haughty and inaccessible kind). Hazy hieroglyphs of clouds appear on their jagged tops, as to further underline the message. Glacial waterfalls reach like fingers to the arid land, consumed and propagated by mighty rivers to the outlying enormity. Harsh distances of time and hard work lay barren beneath the ephemeral skyscape, a sky more alluring and interesting than the necessary foundation of prairie. Car beetles single-mindedly gnaw the bark of far-strewn highways, and human construction fluff blows away across space and time like a bleached rolling stone - the mountains look down on all that and only open their treasured caverns to the world's examination once in a thousand years.

"Somebody has to roll up the carpet, kill the distances", he thought, finishing his espresso, "Make time shrivel into a more dynamic knot. Then we will see the landscape come alive, just like God sees it." But such vistas were not meant for men, who like moles, are destined to burrow through time and space to reach a desired destination. Our short-lived works and hopes wash against the mountains in a tide of faint "o-oh"s and "a-ah"s, not leaving any impression.

Another eighty miles to the Crazy Mountains Range, ensured the sign.
After an hour, he stopped to fill up the car, and then drove up to a funny looking espresso booth. It was in the shape of a mushroom and promised a "Fusion" coffee mix, enhanced with some secret ingredients. "Shave off a chunk off your boredom and the remaining miles" proclaimed the poster. A guy in a bright orange mushroom hat handed him the black frothy cup with a sparkle in his eyes and a mysterious wink.

A few miles down the road he drank it and again wished that all distances be rolled up into a knot and thrown into the junkyard of time. Then suddenly he knew that his wish was granted:

... Without even a moment to be amazed, he (and his car) underwent a startling transformation. Apparently kicked out of standard space and time, his mind was divided into two entities: one pierced the ground under the highway, going deeper and... wider... becoming one with the hot (sentient?) body of magma under the Montana/Idaho border. The other half grew very insubstantial and on the wings of clouds covered the sky of all the four Western states.

Mountains became his teeth, geysers - his eyes, lava flows - his neurons, and time itself became the air he was breathing.
His being now disregarded distances completely. There was nothing to delay or obstruct the carrying out of orders - of a booming marvelous Voice, which resounded in his caves and echoed in his lakes. All emotion was stripped from him, all choice and consideration. The only thing left was to precisely follow the instructions of the Voice. He felt a grandiose sense of glory and belonging... He was opening up springs of pure water, shifting tectonic plates, drawing patterns with different colored rocks and mud, herding streams and rivers - and all the while brooding over the ominous thoughts in the flaming magma chamber of his mind. There was an urgency in these thoughts, the need to act...

But the moment of his action (that blessed moment of cataclysmic release of the accumulated tremendous pressure) was delayed... and delayed again. The Voice did not leave him any choice in this matter. In fact there is never a choice in this Kingdom... Never a journey, only a destination.

In a split moment, he came to his senses, staring dumbfoundedly into the empty espresso cup. "Some secret ingredient", he muttered, desperately trying to concentrate on his driving. The mountains were still thirty miles away.

"We are given Time and Distance as tools to shape our lives", he wrote later in his journal. "Just as we are given choice to determine our eternal destiny. We are entrusted with small things first, such as miles and minutes. What are we going to do with them?"
He finished writing, switched off the light and went soundly to sleep.

Ian Abrams' Story

For those of you who do not know, Ian Thomas Abrams is my son,
six years old - This story he told me on the banks of the mountain river, I wrote it down, so here goes:

"THE RIVER DRAGONS"
Story by Ian Thomas Abrams, arranged by Avi Abrams

The rocky cliffs flanking the lively, swift river were home to slim wonderful dragons, who dwelt at day inside the cracks of the cliffs. They were mostly dormant during the day, but at night...

The river swelled with deep water and large glass fish ponderously swam there, turning in the moonlight like a large glass bubbles. The dragons would come out to play, and their shrill cries would make the glass fish explode from time to time - the crystal shards rising over the river and settling over the rocks and among roots of the trees.

Then some interesting transformation will happen to the tree roots. They will turn into glass as well, and will start to climb up the rocks like an intricate crystal lacework. The tips of the roots would sparkle different colors, hiding inside numerous gems and rubies - and slowly the trees flanking the river will turn into delicate glass structures, from the roots up. The cliff dragons would then come out and happily swing and frolic over the night glimmering river.

They had enemies, too - the bad dragons dwelt in the nearby sandy cliffs, uncertain in shape, shifting in color and quite unpredictable. Rock cliff dragons would lure them into the emerald crystal caves, hiding there and blending skillfully with the walls. Sand dragons would come, attracted by the hot magma waterfall, which streams from the crystal roof of a cavern. Then the good dragons will make their move, pushing the bad ones into magma, turning them to slag. Outside the caves the crystal forest would shimmer and sigh in the light of the full moon.

Sometimes the pieces of the exploded crystals fish would fall over the river rocks, and they would start to shine in turn; and people would call them "Fire Rocks", unusual in color and shape at the river. When the morning comes, the sand and rock dragons would disappear from sight, the forest glass will melt back into green, and only the "fire rocks" will continue tp astonish the careful traveller with their strange appearance.

@ July, 2006 - at the Ghost River in the Devil's Head Country, Rocky Mountain Foothills log cabin.



(Click to enlarge the image)

Devotional - 2

Just a thought:

Christian "Symbol" (of sorts) is a fish. Why? Here is an idea:
Imagine the amazement and confusion of a fish, as it peeks out of the water at night (if a fish could feel all these emotions, of course).
Not only the fish sees a world of "air" - forbidden and alien world, in which it is a stranger, but it also glimpses STARS. The next world, a majestic starscape, which is profoundly beyond its comprehension. Now apply the same analogy to us, christians.
We come out at night, and gaze upon the stars - we see the forbidding and alien world of outer space, and we feel like strangers in this universe... but even more than that - we glimpse HEAVEN, behind the veil of this world, and then, as in example of a fish, we stand utterly amazed.

Devotional - 1

June 29, 2006
John 2:7-9

"Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water"; so they filled them to the brim; Then he told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. They did so..."

When the servants brought the water to the master of the banquet, they did it by faith, not really knowing if it turned into a wine yet or not. Their obedience speaks to us of "not being afraid of other people opinions", to bring what you have prepared according to His instructions, and let God (not you) to turn it into something valuable and amazing. In other words, this is an encouragement to the "creative types" - the Lord will add a miracle to your product, if you just make a move to bring it out in His time and will. And also, "fill your jars with water" - get everything ready and be prepared.


June 29, 2006

2 Kings 17:34 "You shall not fear other gods"
- pretty much summarizes the victory of Yeshua, and the "non-equality" of good vs. evil spiritual battle.

"Stars as Human Souls, Separated by Time"

"ultimately the sheer size of things will defeat us", they say.
Well, this piece is contemplating -
on the immensity of this world...the immensity of loss...the victory
over death and time we have in Yeshua

When you travel,
you can not see space, you can only measure the distance.

Between two bright points in eternity - is there really a separation?

Solid blackness of the world...
Who sees us here,
placed amid the slabs of unyielding circumstances,
counting the clockwork vanity of a void -
- receding...

For time flows as neutrinos
and pierces our private worlds
with shattering recollections
or with just barely noticeable
yet confusing noise

Every soul has gravity.
It attracts; curves time around itself;
the memories are sometimes painfully obvious
in the eyes of the beloved.

And the eyes shine brightly -
when cosmos is dark,
when entropy and loss
envelop -
the shrill, unbearable brightness swims in time ...

...and we admire stars at sundown.

--------
Avi, November 2005

"Vertical Clouds"

This one is influenced by our recent trip to Europe, where many castles dot the landscape and bless our very soul, in some mysterious way.



"VERTICAL CLOUDS"
a verse by Avi Abrams

See a castle growing out of the mountain's rock -
Does it have roots there
or does it belong to the clouds?

Its towers answer with a
sparkling gleam of a setting sun
reflected on a stained-glass windows.

Is there a face there?
or is it just a smile, born of
a delicate thrust of archways and turrets
toward the melancholy sky.

No castle is ever alone among the scenery.
Whenever it plays host to
the inquisitive clouds,
or
acts as a candlestick to the moon

-- your heart grows stronger
in an amber drop of Permanence
caught between a rock and the sky.

Is it a gate?
or is it a reflection of Heaven
trickling down
into the meadows below?



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

"A week in November - an afterthought"

Monday
The echo of the previous week did not die, it went into a mirror image and cracked there, in silent wonderment.
I checked this image in the evening, but could not find myself to reflect into it. I guess, I got lost again in the grind.

Tuesday
The smell of burned coffee: something good, overwaited upon, considered lost, but still promising senses an ersatz refreshment.
Smell that goes together all too well with the cracked concrete.

Wednesday
I tried to find myself reflected in your eyes, but got lost again... maybe for the better. Flowers seem to remember the freshness, the purity of streams of water, they nod, but keep silent. The egg cracked all too early today, spilling the day's guts all over a big city grill. (the other me still counting the papers in the "in" tray)

Thursday
What constitutes creation, if creator is busy doubting his handiwork? The doubt is forever absent from pure creativity, it flows with the confidence of breathing, if it stops breathing - it dies. But my shrivelled whimperings would not go away - they crawl into the cracks, they are ... unafraid.

Friday
The greenery of a shrub is defiant enough to bring me to the senses. Coming back from the mirror cracks, I am remembering the week's echo.
Who is loving you?
Whom do you love back?

Saturday
Spent the day, contemplating these two questions.
(the resting body does not possess mass, but the world moves around it)

Sunday
"The collector of the echoes of the restless mind" - and I remember them all too well.

"A Pastor Who Would Not Believe"

_________________________
a vignette by Avi

A flower that refuses to break the ground - it heard the rumors of concrete at the surface.
An air balloon that dreams of reaching the center of the earth and hates the sky - it is so easy to get lost there.
A beetle that murmurs inside its shell, builds a carapace, makes plans for winter - and all the time does not notice that he is pierced by a collector's pin, displayed in a dusty case. Sometimes he wonders about the leering faces of huge children and booming noise outside.

Who remembers the things that matter? The world steals them from us. It hides them in a treasure cave and puts a dragon on top to hoard them - our most important recollections that would energize us and bring us back to our senses, to the road we are supposed to travel. And then a pastor would not believe; a hobbit would refuse to leave the Shire; and a knock would never be sounded because someone inside will get upset.

A sense of inadequacy, a fear of failure grips us like this world's other "gravity". We are held in one place, captivated by lies about the reality outside. Opportunities hide from us, misery actively seeks us out.

Faith turns all the tables and makes the effort worthwhile. It laughs in the face of the odds. And pastor who would not believe, SMILES.

Music / Verse improvisations

These pieces were written by Rachel while listening to the musical improvisations by Avi; such collaboration we are hoping will happen more often.

The Wind is an emblem of Spirit
Destiny pervading reality
with a sweet breath
of desire

Reclusive longings
filling billows of dreams
tomorrows never tasted
I am waiting
You are surely coming.

---

Music in the wind
How can I harness it
Or color in the edges of what I hear?

I just want to take my watercolors
And gently stain the paths of the wind
Capture the swirls and
Eddies of the invisible rivers

But I guess I will have to rely
On the texture of the clouds
To betray the secrets
Of the wind.

---------

"Memory Wind"

a poem by Avi Abrams
@ October, 2005

What is wind?
Shards of memories,
woefully inadequate; pieces of heart
lost in eternity
blowing through it all

What is a photograph?
A shrine where love dwells still,
shining silently amid the cobwebs
of haunted time

What is hope?
Music,
Spanning years.
Like a single trembling note
it can shatter the sanctity
of a silent winter

What is renewal?
A tree
pushing through endless layers
of the earhly grind,
bringing fresh greenery
to this strangely un-green world.

Only to shed its leaves
only to utter its last golden prayer;
only to remember the "One and Only"
Who comes and stays
With the wind.

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

"Three Wild Geese Flying In The Dark" - poem

"Three Wild Geese, Flying in The Dark"
===================
by Avi & Rachel Abrams

Part 1

The "white noise" is gray today,
There is an imbalance -
The Saturn's rings are reeling to one side;
Trading places
with a stranded astronaut,
I 'm given to
contemplation of
various conundrums and
repeating circumstance
-- but when the grind gets too
obvious,
I escape into the night,
protected by the wing's shadow
of three wild geese
flying eastward.

Pride and singularity
hold me apart
But the sweep of rustling air
Brings me back into myself -
I know I was born for something more
What is it I cherish in my hidden rooms?
Bitter are my dreams
Except for a love we can hardly understand;
Can I share?

Part 2

What do "west" and "east" have in common?
Which part of the world can claim
independence from them both?
We are subliminally interconnected,
woven together in a tapestry,
in a streamlined pattern -
like east and west wings of the birds,
rushing forward,
to share
in the loving embrace
of the wind.

Can I share?
Can I fly also,
hinged together,
put in a quantum-knot singularity
with a "no-escape" radius
of heavy pride?

Gifts come to those who
never ask
and I am stuck with
what I cannot manage
Struggling, I stretch
and feel the air i know i can reach
but the wind doesn't care.

How can I rise up on wings -
my feathers are misformed, furled
Is this my only chance?
And so I wait -
I love- I hope-
How long?

Part 3

The trees will uphold me
We will reach in green agreement
together:
they fortuitously rooted,
and I capriciously
dislodged.

Then the forged strength of
our thrust
will bring us
where the other three birds
alight in a soft sunrise
- escaping heavy gravities
and yet guided by deeper instinct yet -
the one we can not
unfathom.

blistered fingers trying to play
You are under my mood
bags of brainworkings are
storming around under my bed
and a vanishing beauty
tugs at my heart
until my eyes find it.
so often i lose it altogether

Is that the meaning of life?
-trying so hard to make a living
that breathing gets lost?
keeping to schedules
so that a roaring, firey dawn
-awesome portent-
receives a distracted glance
and no more...
When i'd rather sit
on the cold, dead grass
and pretend i know what it means

and i like it the wrong way

--------------------
@ jan 31, 2005

"Time to Explore" - verse

"TIME TO EXPLORE"
--------------------
verse by Avi @ April, 2005

Unopened
Stand the books -
The questions are not voiced
For fear that there will be no time
To listen to the answers

Amazed,
we travel on
Through dizzy halls and gilded archways,
lost in the fragments and the universes
of a lovestruck mind.

Like on a Moebius Strip
we search and find
one side, one God, one Love -
and ... differences
to explore and treasure
in this encroaching,
"time-nivorous" world

The time with you is time, indeed,
unbound
by words "enough" or "later",
Time enriched
by love of two eternities,
or rather,
by love of two eternally blessed hearts.

for Rachel

Early Spring Poem

"The Springtime Citrus"
a poem by Avi Abrams


The lime of early spring air
is invigorating;
The mocha of the wet earth
is crawling up my ankles
responding to the vibration
of my cautious steps

The forest is slightly mad
with anticipation of greenery;
Nothing seems older than
a new-born molecule;
the atoms are jumping up and down
in their self-made playground zone

In this refreshed world
you are
bursting my thoughts apart with
tangerine streams of laughter,
trickles of whimsical charm,
new-born
swathed in lime
shining
smiling
little
wonder.

@ 2003, Avi Abrams

"Too Close For Comfort" - Story

"TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT"
(one-person "cozy cataclysm" study)

short story by Avi Abrams
@ April, 2005

Published in the "Lost Sanctum" Magazine, No.1, 2006 -
ISFDB Entry

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

There is a loneliness you cannot ever dispel, there is a belonging you cannot quench, there is a wonder you cannot blot out, even by a gray monotony of days spent in a battered ship between planetfalls and hyperspace jumps... You can dull your mind and blanket your senses, but the heart knows that - when it is in space, it has to burn harder.

For days Nehemiah's thoughts resembled ruins, at once dark and alluring - as he sought to find comfort in their' apocalyptic content:

"When she spoke to me last, I did not answer"
( the shells of bombed-out buildings are screaming at the sky )
"Maybe the echo of unspoken words lasts longer than spoken..."
( a violin is teetering precariously on a ruined balcony's brink )
"A heart plays the music of loss best in the chamber of muted emotions..."
( he wanders alone there, not wanting, or rather afraid, to find another being )
"a cozy cataclysm is what humans may ultimately yearn for in the end."

He remembers Catherine. Her calm face ( notice vast shadows of desire and despair haunting her eyes, so tightly controlled ). Her taut whisper:

"You will leave, you will want to forget everything - but this is not the battle you can win. These walls you build around yourself are awfully good, but once in space you will not stand being in them. You love freedom more than a peace of mind. The moment you step out, it will all come to you, all of it at once - and then - I will find a way to follow you"

Not knowing exactly what she meant, he took his ship off the planet, trailing the shreds of their romance behind, not really concerned. After all, it was a spacer's custom to escape romantic commitments just as their ships are meant to escape gravitational pulls... No, he was not indifferent, you may say he was comfortably depressed.

He sits by a fireplace on the observation deck now, awfully quiet, devastated by a single thought - that this time "the love" he evaded was perhaps something he lost.

"A boy stomps over an ant-hill, and ant-queen's last days prophecy come to life in a most horrible way - can he be blamed for it, and does he know what he's doing?"
( wailing sirens are resonating over the city, bombs floating down slowly, as in a dance, measuring their exquisite explosions according to some baroque fugue parts )

... a peculiar clicking sound draws his attention, tiny like a hiccup of a mouse - it is nothing of course, since he is alone on this ship.

The servo robot brings him another drink, retreats into a niche close-by, and starts snoring (believe it or not) in his form of a "sleep" mode. Nehemiah nods to himself (that's where the mysterious sound comes from !), and lifts his glass of irish cream to the old fella...All must be well in the world. The fireplace' glow reflects on servo-robots' copper curves like some madly demented smile.

"I am a romantic cast adrift, a perfect vessel of selfish excess. Well, she must've known it, she must've been content to let me be, as if she had a choice?"

( when the leaf is falling from a tree, driven by a relentless force, does it have a choice in the matter? Nobody notices it, but the tree actually reaches after every leaf it loses, branches quivering and striving to catch a multi-colored treasure, borne in the wind, but it flies away, and the tree trembles in the loss )

...the strange sound grows louder, the starlight seems softer...he is mildly intrigued now.

"What did she say about coming after me? Even if it was possible (you can do a lot with matter transmitters nowadays), why would she think I'd want this? Why would SHE want this?"
The robot suddenly rumbles back to life and offers helpfully :
"Because she wants to have a choice?"
"Choice in what?"
"Departing...being left behind...feeling sorry for herself. That's what you've been doing all this time, feeling sorry for yourself, haven't you?"

...he's hoping he did not lose his love, maybe just H-bombed his selfishness.
But if he is in love, what can he do now?

"The closest way between two objects is a total annihilation of both"
(ship copy of "The Matter-transmitter Manual")

Wait, here it is again: what IS that knocking sound, after all?
The machinery is quiet, space must be empty for light years around.
Nehemiah puts down his drink, takes a look around.

He sees an angelic glow spreading against the observation dome' diamond-hard glass...
becomes a winged shape of a woman he knows so well...
He welcomes her -
maybe too close for comfort, but still in perfect time.

SHE SMILES AT HIM GENTLY, FLUTTERING OUTSIDE THE DOME, AND KNOCKS.

The glass dissolves.

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

CHECK OUT THE OTHER SCIENCE FICTION STORY:
"Subliminal Distances of the West" - Click Here

@ 2005, Avi Abrams - IAN MEDIA - all rights reserved.

Valentine Poem

composed on a Valentine Day:

The Cave Of In-Being
==========================
a poem by Avi Abrams


The smooth, vibrant flow of stalagmites,
piercing my life with
measured, unrelenting intrusion;

the pool of half-forgotten blunders,
shimmering and lurking -
unapproached in ages,
in the secret middle place
of the cave, where I spend my being;

the shattered openings in a roof
- alluring with the brightest flashes -
and threatening to collapse
upon me...

...unexpected,
she enters.

Never did I invite anyone inside,
silence was my expression;
did I invent even her presence?
(my self is a culprit in a most
multitude of situations)

she approaches.
she whispers / cave replies with righteous
thunder, resonates with big, logical,
entirely scientific waves.

(and yet I know, she is a miracle.
'cause there is no entryway to my cave)

She admires the smooth flow of stalactites
and takes a dip in my pool...
she is unafraid.

Perhaps I should go forward and meet her,
because she is present in my future,
in my life in the glorious future - she is inside there already.
And nothing matters any more.

...the shape of the heart is the indented circle,
the bland, smooth ideal
violated
by the persistent influence
of
love.

@ February, 2005

"Moments"

Avi & Rachel Abrams
@ Feb 2005

The present is a fire
licking at the edges of future
It slowly burns away
Red-hot, immediate
blackened, crumbling into
unreliable memory

The past is a crumpled sheet;
Skipping around the high points
Reality fades away
-- but returns, intense and startling

Moments of now
fall like snow
Innumerable; unique
Not even days of drudgery
are ever quite the same.
They pile into drifts until
the hot sun of passing time
fades and melts them.

...yet the Moment lasts longer;
Dwelling in memory, it lingers
in the afterimage of life,
reflecting watercolour of events
on it's smooth surface.
I look into a mirror
- next moment - it is me
looking at my own past.

There is an inertia of a passing moment.
"Slow time" is meant to help us, mortals
to consume intense eternity -
- a moment by softly-yielding moment

Mercy
tends to linger.

------------
"When God created time, He made lots of it"

"The Thirsty Cup"

"The Thirsty Cup"
short story by Avi Abrams

Coffee was not the only "high" sold in this coffee-shop.

They also pumped feel-good and memory enhancement mixtures into the air, promising custom-made experience for everybody inside. "Ambience Bar "Cathechisis" - Come feel the earth go round" proclaimed the sign.

Dale ran fingers over his empty cup...The cup felt heavy and rough to the touch, as though carved from some archeological strata, from layers of the espresso-colored fine dust. Same old grind, he thought, so nothing particular comes to mind. Dale leaned back, watching the girl behind the counter... as she began to shimmer in a dry air.

The corners of her dress were fluttering slightly; her face was round and nice, not unlike the full moon, and as he watched, it suddenly blurred, detached and began to float over the counter and the tables, ponderously, impossibly, always expanding. Her "have-a-nice-day" kind of a smile was aimless and bleak. She was drifting closer, trying to serve the customer; her smile was growing wider. Big puffy letters appeared from inside of her face -"Order, sir? ..."-- Letter blocks rising and then slowly dropping on the floor in quantomized heaps. Dale swiped some of them from the table, not answering, though feeling better somehow.

The bare eye of the sunset outside, stripped of all the clouds, rubbed against the window like a pink alien slug. "Have a nice...nice..." - Girl's letters trailed off in a whipped cream wisps. If she was grasping for something, it was lost to her now, and she with it.

It grew darker; the sunset outside burned a hole in itself and collapsed. The girl was hovering at the ceiling, lit up with dry electricity.

Dale left the bar and went home. Once there, he realized he took his empty cup with him.
It felt even heaver, neutron star-like mass of abandoned emptiness.
He peered inside -

The cup was thirsty.


@ November, 2004