Still Waters

Poetry and Prose by Christina Avila

“Sometimes the face betrays what the body conceals. But these moments, these betrayals, last no longer than an instant."

― Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Madeleine is Sleeping

Reel Time

In the mind’s minute crevices the movie reel rattles, permanently replicating horror-flicks in spasmodic jolts, the five senses extrapolated in a memory that dominates. Yield to the disturbance, then rapidly blink the film from your pupils. Scarred tissues will soon disintegrate into the mental cinema that resides in your core, no longer marring the soul. Past projectors circulate an oath: forgetting is impossible, but in real time the opening credits cue to play on.

2010

Living Limbo

When your limbo stick drops just how low will you go? Your life-line slowly sinking with each back-bending breath stolen by an invisible constrictor coiling its prey, knotting a lung-leash with pulsating pain. Its tourniquet twists, crushes as it wraps around to arc its transparent gaze with a fixed final warning… Your helpless stare pleads into the void, clenching hands grapple for an ally, hoping their grip will end the suction-cupped gulps that fight denied deflation – a steady suffocation. Reluctant white flags coat your pupils, mind gravity flees. Submit to anesthetic eyelids carrying the lungs’ weights and trembling hands balancing a feebly fueled body arched towards the floor. Lower and lower the limbo stick falls

2012

Temporary Green

My lawn is held in high prestige and many are impressed. They often stop and wonder how I keep it at its best. Foundation is a crucial seed so vibrant grass can sprout. Neglecting it will leave a wound and cause a fungal bout. Diligence is a dire deed, mostly a trainable trait. But slip up once, you run the risk - it just might be too late. For unseen vermin plague the yard preparing for their coup. The challenge is to plan defense despite a limited view. But gardening has flawed attempts - my grass is briefly green. The weeds have taken up the lawn and pests destroy the scene

The pesticides and poison sprays I’ve packed up in my shed, can try to minimize my threats but can’t block what’s ahead. My lawn, once held in high prestige, had many soon impressed. But there’s one thing they all must know: my lawn has since regressed. I plaster grass turf on the ground, to hide the damage done. It’s difficult to face defeat. I won’t admit they’ve won… "My lawn is doing well", I say, and give a timid smile. (I wonder if they'll detect the hints of my denial.) So don’t be fooled by what you’ve seen. Facades are what make sense. I live on grass that’s briefly green, just glance right through my fence.

2011

Avoidance

Crystallized shards inject her as she fights within the looking glass. She hammers frantic on the embankment, fists furious on the sound-proof barrier gulping suffocation beneath the muted transparency. Her hazel gaze limp by the weight of my reflection remaining composed on the edge. Muzzling her cries with hope’s hour-glass I force my view awry, fearing her tears will skitter to the outside.

2011

Mind Swap

Translucent pupils spiral down your expanding cornea, revealing the emptiness of a soul sullied by age. Are you in there somewhere? There’s a sadness in your stare. Your brain pulsates like a stopped watch as you search for the time. A vacant smile swallows my memories replacing them with your pseudo sanity. Are you in there somewhere? There’s frustration in your stare. My second-grandmother: A black and white Polaroid vaguely developing, split seconds of relief suspended, swapped by the stranger who dominates. Are you in there somewhere? There’s a coldness in your stare. Paralyzed by loss, your haunting gaze returns and I long for the exorcist to release your captivity. But are you in there somewhere…?

2010

“Pianos, unlike people, sing when you give them your every growl. They know how to dive into the pit of your stomach and harmonize with your roars when you’ve split yourself open. And when they see you, guts shining, brain pulsing, heart right there exposed in a rhythm that beats need need, need need, need need, pianos do not run. And so she plays.”

― Francesca Lia Block, Love Magick

Solitary Composer

I am the bass line of Pachelbel's Canon - the hum of solitude shifting in broken chords that cycle redundantly. Each note held in slight suspension, escaping the irony of its existence fading in the background. A desperate clutch to each quarter of a beat: liberating isolation. But four-four time taunts the bass line as melody bursts, blurring the background completely. My audience is tone-deaf and blind: Oblivious to the oblivion. Still… I live in a world of temporary pedals and fermatas attempting to savor the sound conscious of dominating duality. I am content with my function, needing not to burst with voice, convinced that language is a broken melody without a D.C. al coda. There is no other way. After all, I am a solitary composer. And I don't even need a piano.

2010

Living in the Music Staff

The piano has always fascinated me. There’s something intriguing about its framework, its sound and its core. In order to fully understand the complexity of a piano, one must lift the cover, but it can be confusing because a labyrinth awaits; it’s hard to believe this maze of mechanisms is wholly responsible for making music: hammers wait to resonate the strings that layer the soundboard, dampers prepare to silence them, yet every component is temporarily paralyzed in a coffin-like case, its dormant sound imprisoned and waiting to be pardoned. At first, it’s hard to relate these morbid images to an instrument of such grace and beauty, but a piano cannot survive alone. It will die in solitary confinement. It needs someone to give it life, to extricate its sounds and end its silent existence. But breaking its silence doesn’t require mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, as wind-instruments do. As a pianist, I’ve learned that breathing life into this instrument, ultimately, requires much more: a soul-mate. One might say that each unplayed piano has a twin, separated at birth, in human form, also needing release from his/her silence. When a vacant piano is near, this person cannot help but bec...

2010

Sometimes things fall apart so better things can fall together

- Marilyn Monroe

Autumn Remains

I fell for you like autumn leaves fainting toward the ground, but winter came and killed it all – a snowstorm heartbreak bound. My winter tree stood cold and bare abandoned and with shame, no longer painted in the shades of Autumn’s colored fame. And there it stayed until the Spring, when flowers start to bloom, a mask I bore to hide the pain of heartache’s lonely tomb. Summer branches are the thorns that sting my memory Confusion clings, but truth remains we weren’t meant to be.

Still grasping dusty, auburn dreams with color-blinded eyes Autumn leaves a void within But leaves are meant to die. This winter tree through seasons past found love that had to wane Absurd to think I could glue back those Autumn leaf remains. But lots of painters are designed to coat each winter tree And so the quest goes on to find the one who’s right for me.

2012

Glimpse

Enchantment seized, you sink into the void: an elusive black hole distorting ideals. Corneas hide beneath hermetically crusted skin sealed by the Sandman - impervious to reality. Bed cover tourniquets vie for permanence. Neurons battle, begging solar allies to kill this quicksand curse. Lids lift. Emitted rays sting the sight but you thirst for luster parched in the Sandman’s lair. Adjusted blinks quench the pain, sun particles sweeping crevices clear. A fetal position unravels lying in the light - Extricated: A newly colored cornea, once blinded by a glimpse, greets the mourning.

2012

Insecurity spreads like contagion. So people crave stability and order.

― Tony Blair

Perception's Prism

Vulnerability is the interstate within the human race, a highway needing no direction crowded with emotional congestion. But perception's prism jolts out subconscious coups to a paralyzed ego dominated by yield signs: The reflex of fragmented fear.

2010

Forgotten

The day Salinger meets history we meet SOLITUDE - …we confront disconnection: our irises shuttering within eyelashed memories flapping between each blink. - Let him laugh in our face. The ducks in Central Park glide along ‘til… winter’s breath freezes eternity. Where will they go when the pond freezes over? I fear it will be NOWHERE…

Air particles beyond the naked eye DIFFUSE, DISSOLVE, DISINTEGRATE as the stopped watch pulsates within an oiled baseball glove. The pond is frozen - What I dreaded most Yet, at some point, do we become a Catcher in the Rye between the paralyzing cries that escape our infantile spasms? - I am bound to the nakedness of my molecular atoms. The ducks waddle aimless as the months roll down their sleeves. And Holden Caulfield can’t cross the street.

2000

Nobody

Nobody saw nobody knew nobody cared. Isolated and alone the door stayed shut. But somebody saw Somebody knew Somebody cared. Unlocking the door, somebody held the key. Nobody was seen Nobody anymore. But that door is closing again Nobody locks it and nobody knows But somebody leaves Will anybody return?

1998

Love to Dream, Long to See

Sometimes, I stare at the emptiness Silence... Solitude... I am that silence I am that solitude. The world is spinning tirelessly while souls scatter and I remain stationary. Sometimes I dream dreams of sleeping for only in sleep are we truly awake Awake to a shifted world where we know what it means to see...to believe...to be. That one moment where possibility is prominent Where we are no longer afraid of that devil derived in doubt. I love to dream... but reality misleads. My eyes are open, but when will I see?

1998

My Silent Sketch

With paintbrush in hand I am what you see. Silently I try to find the true me. My simple painting is what I hold dear. But beneath the paint... that is what I fear. I fear you won't like what's hidden inside, so under the paint is where I shall hide. There are many things that you may not know. Somehow the paint cracks, and things start to show. And if you still like the picture behind, you are a true friend - you're one of a kind. But please understand my sketch is still there. I'm scared to be left entirely bare. So silently I sketch the pure painting you see. I don't want to fool you, I just want to find me.

1998

The unexamined life is not worth living.

― Socrates

An Ode to the Poets

An ode to the poets who dig in their souls to visit the places that most dare not go to confront the feelings most difficult to explain hoping the attempt is not done in vain. They feed on the raw, a sentiment that sparks, producing a light to navigate the dark. Deliberate diction they juxtapose just right eases the commotion of our collective plight. They answer the questions that often go unsaid An ode to the poets whose emotions aren’t dead.

2012

Listen

Silence - Your sound seems to fade in the unobserved mockery. Too many know not your speech Too busy feeding the air that's already full of music. You are the key Yet no one wants to... Listen. They fear you, what they might actually hear. How fooled they are, The ignorant. How fooled they are.

1999

Nature's Wrath and Leasons Learned

After any type of trauma, we as humans basically try to regain equilibrium and return to normalcy, however long it may take. Forces beyond our control shake us, topple us down, stripping us down to our bare roots, and we’re left to pick up the pieces and make sense of it all. The resulting frustration about our own human limitations lingers. Man vs. The Forces of Nature, a never-ending, losing battle. Being as sensitive as I am to the weather, I know this struggle all too well. I have a love-hate relationship with Mother Nature, for she has taken my breath away on so many levels, both figuratively and literally. While I revel in thunderstorms, embracing the moment when the wind rustles the trees, and adore the visage and silence of a snowfall, my lungs scream for Mother Nature’s mercy. I recall what the Romantics term “the sublime” – a dual existence of both awe and fear when confronted with Nature. Quite apropos! But in the midst of her overwhelming victories are lessons to be learned. Before Sandy hit, one of my concerns was that the tree in the front yard would come crashing through my bedroom window. Aside from the fear of being crushed to death in my sleep, I worried about the...

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A week before Sandy, I experienced another first - being admitted to the hospital for a severe asthma attack. For 5 days, I lived in a room of blank-white walls, in a bed near a window that wouldn't open, on a floor I couldn't leave. Sleeping was impossible, thanks to the aggressive medicine circling my veins, causing insomnia and unbearable headaches that wouldn't go away. While I missed the freedom and ease of living and breathing, what I surprisingly missed most was fresh air and silence. Having to deal with the sounds of machines constantly beeping, snoring roommates, on top of the debilitating headaches, along with the incessant interruptions from nurses and doctors, who always forgot to close the door, I longed for the day where sound just stopped. Silence is golden, they say. Additionally, the stale air in the hospital was beginning to make me feel more and more imprisoned, surrounded by death and illness. I now truly understood Elie Wiesel's line from his memoir Night when he states, "My life turned into one long night." Time did not matter; in fact, it was non-existent, and I missed the concrete separation between each day where sleep, darkness and silence were a welcomed ...

2012

Unexpected Detour

April showers bring puddles, rain stained windows, and squinting eyes. On this particular stormy afternoon, I had to pick up a half pound of turkey and cheese on the way home from work. Being a dreary, rainy day, I wanted the trip to be short and quick so I could “take out my eyes”, get comfortable and relax, since my contact lenses were drying and my feet were aching. Wanting a short trip, I decided to go to Best Yet, rather than Stop and Shop, since it was right around the corner, had less lights and I could park right up to the door. But, for some reason, it seemed the whole town was there – ironic for a stormy day. Traffic getting into the lot was already thinning my patience. Cars were exiting in the entrance way, and no one was giving up their spot. Being in a lazy mood, I wanted to get the parking spot near the doorway, so I passed up the ones farthest away, only to find no closer ones were vacant. Leaving the parking lot to re-enter it, I must have circled about two times, when finally, I gave in and took the spot furthest away, giving me a more extensive walk in the rain with aching feet, in shoes that had to come off and contacts that needed to come out. Blood pressure in...

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As I continued to wait, another mother and daughter approached the counter to join the crowd’s anticipation for lunch meat. The first duo was called up, and the little girl noticed her peer, approached her, and vibrantly said, “Hi! My name’s Frankie! What’s your name?” Little girl number one, dressed in a pink leotard shirt, Hanna Montana jacket, and black pants, glanced at her mother for reassurance, eyebrows cautiously raised as she slightly fidgeted, her right hand nervously pinching her lip. Then, glancing back at Frankie, softly, almost inaudibly, said her name was Brittany. Child chit-chat ensued, and we adults glanced on as topics of dance and their bed-sets were highlighted. Brittany, obviously shy, continued to glance back at her mother in timidity. Frankie, not letting up, continued to chat enthusiastically. She noticed a ladybug on Brittany’s attire and painted nails, then energetically shared a story of when her mother saved a ladybug in their pool. One day, as they were swimming, Frankie had spotted a ladybug in the water, prompting her mother to save its life. “Right mom?!” she confirmed. Her mother, beaming with pride for her daughter’s compassion and memory, nodded....

2012

Copyright 2013

Pictures courtesy of Google Images