FRANKIE VALINDA GHEE

Dear Spence,

It’s been a while since you first proved to me that you were not one of us. 

Don’t argue.  You are not one of us.  You are so far from being one of us that it’s not even funny. 

Don’t try to play this down, and don’t try to blame this on me. 

You wish you had never told me?  Well so do I.  I mean, my god, you control the weather! 

Did you really think that once you convinced me you were telling the truth about this that I would be able to look at you the same way?

Yeah sure, you are the same person you were before you told me, but I am not the same person I was.  Now, I am one big ball of bewilderment and fear. 

Of course I’m afraid. 

Not of you, not exactly.  It occurs to me that you could chose to strike me dead with a well-placed bolt of lightning or flood my neighborhood and knock me unconscious with giant hail, but I don’t believe that’s your nature.  You are kind and trusting.  You expect the best of people, and that’s what scares me.  The fact that you shared your secret with me after only knowing me for three months tells me that you are too trusting, and it’s not safe to be around you.  Some day you’re going to tell someone who doesn’t love you, and that person will want to own you.

Once your secret goes viral, everyone close to you will be shark food for journalists seeking exclusives, and the power hungry seeking leverage.  All of us will become commodities, and we will be consumed and discarded. You, on the other hand, will be destroyed, and I can’t have that on my head.

The really crappy part of this whole thing is that I really do love you. 

I’m going to miss you, but please…lose my number.

Don’t get me wrong.  I would love to have a gig where I got paid for singing what I am singing and playing my guitar, so hire me if you have a venue.  I’m just saying that freedom is fun.

I have been in bands and performed for both willing and unwilling audiences.  There have been times when I knew we would better serve the universe by off turning off the mics and going home, but the contract said we had to stay until 1 even if the only person listening to the band was that one regular who was going to be there every night no matter what horrible act was on the stage, or the hecklers who wanted to hear all hip-hop or all country.

I have played for appreciative audiences who wanted to here more, but I had to leave because the contract said I had to leave.

I love just sitting down with my guitar someplace knowing that if someone doesn’t want to listen, they can walk on or if I hate being there, I can simply pack up and go without explanation.  In reality, I have found that people here are extremely kind and seem to genuinely enjoy having a little live music in their day.

The other great thing about street music is that I can finish a song and have a conversation without having to stop the pay-clock.

The music I am providing is free.  You can listen if you want to, and you can hang out for a while.  Tips are appreciated but definitely not required.  I love the thumbs up and the smiling nod.  Both are as good as gold to me.

Okay, so if you see me somewhere with my guitar singing away, please stop by and let me know you’ve seen my site.  Hang out if you have time.

If you have a place you would like to have me play, let me know.

Thanks for listening

FVG

The Spirit of the Tree

There is a tree in the front yard of the house where I live.  It was small when I first moved in.  It looked like a branch planted in the earth by a child, but it grew quickly.  Within three years, the trunk had grown thick and tall, and it’s branches pressed onto the sky threatening to break the skin of the atmosphere and pop the world like a balloon.  It became a favorite of birds and squirrels and seemed to speak in the language of nature.  It told me to have faith, to be patient.  Spring was always on the way.

Like the tree, I grew during those early years.  I found my dream job, and my dream date.  I made commitments.  I joined a gym and got fit.  I started meditating and got Zen.  

The tree became “My Tree”  with shiny, large green leaves in the spring and summer, and oh my god, the colors in the fall! 

It was the same for me.  I blossomed.  I was creative.  We were brilliant.  We were enlightened.   I was more alive than I had ever been.  Even in the winter months, the tree and I played our roles with quiet dignity.  We were reflective and wise.  We were awake.  People paused to admire our contribution to the universe.  I was an inspiration, a model of inner peace.

I sat on the porch and sang songs of my own creation to the tree, about the tree…for the tree.  We were happy.

Then, some springs ago, I noticed a change.  The buds only made it about three quarters of the way up the tree. The top fourth of my soul’s sister was dead, and I died a little in sympathy.

Now, the tree and I are alone.  The birds didn’t come this year, and the squirrels no longer clamor for our company.  Our branches reach up to puncture the sky like the fingers of an angry skeleton.  I sit on the porch singing lamentations of death and waling in desperate fear of winter.  I feel brittle, and nothing warms me.

My Peace

My peace is

The blue seen between the leaves of a tall tree

When looking up from the ground

It is a kind glance 

An unrolled eye

My peace is

The silence between sobs

The end of an exhale

Just before the next breath in

It is the beauty in one yellow rose

In the garden of the house across the street

My peace is

A pause between seconds

Between tic and tock

And the charged space between me

And everything else

The Sun

The Sun steps out

From behind the ornate, gray and white clouds

With fanfare and trumpet song

The bright, golden rays hit me

Like the warm water spray

Of my five am shower

I close my eyes

And gratefully soak it in

Clean, calming sunshine

I take a deep, satisfied breath

But on the exhale

My warped, disloyal brain

Fixes on my lack of sunscreen

And the ominous possibilities

UGLY VISION

I only wear my glasses to read and to drive. Sometimes, even then, I don’t bother with them. I can go days without putting them on. That’s why I’m not exactly sure when my glasses changed.
All I know is that this morning, after breakfast, I decided to do some research on the computer. I sat down at my desk and in one fluid motion took my gasses out of their case and brought my laptop back from slumber. Before the handles were resting on my ears, I knew something was wrong.
At first, I could still see my office, and everything was in its usual place, but all of it was bathed in a dingy bruise colored light.
I could make out other things in the room with me, and that vision grew more clear with time. It was like watching a movie, a horrible moving picture that was filmed using a deep purple lense.

I watched in stricken silence as alien, yet almost human creatures perpetrated acts of violence onto one another using sharp metal tools of unusual design.
I instinctively moved to take the glasses off. I brought both shaking hands up to my face, but when my fingers connected with plastic, I understood that things were even worse than I had imagined. My heart rate trippled and the beating organ seemed to drop into my stomach. I couldn’t get the glasses off. They were stuck to my face.
I tried but was unable to get out of my chair. I was hypnotized by the visions I was being forced to view. It was all cruelty, violence and shocking acts of deep purple gore.
I closed my eyes…and the visions were gone. There was only blessed blackness, and with my eyes closed, I was able to stand up. I stood in my own personal darkness with my eyelids squeezed shut and pulled the glasses from my face.
I opened my eyes, and let the glasses fall hard onto the keyboard of my laptop.
Since then I have been blinking and rubbing at my eyes, but nothing works anymore. Eyes opened or eyes closed, it doesn’t matter. When I reach out with my hands, I can feel my room, the chair the desk, the walls, everything, but all I can see is violence, death, rage and gore bathed in bruised purple light.

<strong>What if Your Cat is Like My Cat?
</strong> What if you wake up about two hours earlier than usual, and your cat is sitting on your chest staring down at you?  There is just enough light coming in from the slightly raised venetian blind that hangs over your bedroom window to allow you to see her clearly.  She doesn’t look like her usually loving and over affectionate self.  She looks like she is considering chewing your face off to fill her growling tummy.
 What if you whisper her name “Morgain” and she hisses your name back at you just as clearly?  Then she jumps off the bed and runs into the kitchen to stand in front of the cupboard where her canned food is kept. 
 What if instead of running passed the kitchen and out into the early morning darkness, curiosity overwhelms you, and you follow her?  She has her back to you, and you can see that her silky gray fur is bushed out the way it is when she is mounting an attack on the cat who lives downstairs and occasionally crosses her path on the front porch. 
 What if your normally mild-mannered kitty slowly turns her head around and looks up at you?  What if she says, “If you feed me right now, this will all end well,” so you walk carefully around her and get the can of Fancy Feast Ocean White-Fish? You manage to master your nerves and get the food into the bowl without making a mess.  What if Morgain snarfs down all the food without so much as blinking in your direction?
 What if when she finishes her food she smiles at you, literally smiles at you and then runs away to one of her hiding places? 
 What if you go back to your bedroom and sit on the bed in stunned silence for at least five minutes before you hear the familiar meow and yowl that you are used to hearing first thing in the morning, and then everything is the same as it was the day before?
 Will you tell your boyfriend?
 Will you call your mom?
 How hard will you try to get your cat to speak to you again?

Of Myth and Misery
By Frankie Valinda Ghee

I’ll tell you what I can
First, you should know
That none of this is planned
There was an alignment of the stars
Or a butterfly flapped its wings

Who knows?
But cosmically
There was not a single one of us
Who saw this coming

A person wakes up one morning
And swings her legs out of bed
Only to find herself sinking
Flailing
Beating at the liquid air

There is nothing she wouldn’t do
Nothing she would refuse
The one who offers up solid ground

The person who can end the panic
Is in that moment
The one true god of myth
And misery
She will worship him
Because she needs to believe