The Naked Angel in My Closet-Suzen JueL

The Bones were the simple words, scratched in pencil across a blank page.

Picking up the guitar awkwardly, so unfamiliar with this instrument I forced myself to love and to become familiar with...whispering out a melody,
afraid the dark would hear me,
hoping to keep silent and secluded...
it was as if I were watching something manifest from these bare lyrical bones,
as I plucked one string at a time, finding a melody, a skin to cover the lyrics with, something of substance, something more...it just would become, like that.
Lyrics seemed empty for too long and the music was like the beautiful chestnut hair that covered the face of what I was beginning to see.
It had a voice...
barely awkward anymore,
the whole beauty of it all came together one little stitch at a time.
Passing in a slow movement,
blending with everything around it, not knowing the identity in which to tie itself to,
it could change with the tip of my eraser,
or the black thick line of my pen,
scratching through it.
It could change simply when I tore the paper in half...as it fell to the ground, it's long legs broken.
I could write it's future,
I could write it's fate,
I could not change it's fate...
I could not even erase it's fate.
What i wrote, was nothing but the truth, as it stood before me,
waiting for me to color it in with the edges of my lips,
the push of my tongue toward the entrance of the world that let the words fall out of me,
as if someone were pouring me forward...fingers scratching on the 6 brass strings,
sliding along it's long and dark wooden neck,
pushing out whatever was inside...
losing it to the surface of the paper
I quickly scratched the surface of,
scratching with my ink, my pencil....
my finger rapidly moving in the dark across my pillow,
just so I could write the words somewhere...visually that is how I would remember them.
On the steering wheel of my car
writing the words
That first leaf that fell from the tree
scared me
it was like a paper bird, thin and burnt red
falling and fluttering
across the window of my car
and the voice that spoke quietly
she was pushed into the mattress
her words forgotten as I dreamt instead
trying to push all those words away
because they sometimes did not stop, the words didn't sleep
nor does the world sleep
only the people inside it do.
Writing in flight like, strayed and pale writing
that no one could understand...this is how I wanted it to be
people staring over my shoulder at what I wrote
my arm covering the words
as if protecting the naked angel before me
from being seen
she wasn't ready yet
the words were too vulnerable
she wasn't loud enough yet
her voice still hushed in the dark, afraid that the very thickness of night
would hear her
whisper.
.........................................
You can't keep naked angels in your closet forever
mine wasn't going to stay hidden forever either
there had to come a time when I would take her by the hand...right?
Lead her to my image, let her identify, teach her to speak
the voice could no longer be pushed
the words became tangible and eyes looked at the words
like they were looking at a naked body exposed before them
it made me shiver...it made me want to hide.
her wings were amazing and worn
she had already been thru the sky
she had already fallen across my window in brilliant blazing red
she had already known that she would be looked at
the same way you stare at what you are not used to seeing with your eyes
the way you listen to what you are not familiar with in your ears
the way you touch someone that you have never been to before
and she was willing...because her arms were wrapped around everyone who came near her
anyone who had been exposed to her.
She was every song that I scratched down on paper napkins and bathroom walls
she was every word I traced on my pillow at night so I would not forget
she was every blackbird that circled around my head as I moved, wings brushing my soul with words
and colors and sound....

Identify

I was looking at a photograph, that had been taken about a year ago...and without a thought, I imagined the same photograph, empty of the face...and I imagined what the story would be, if she were faceless. Now of course at this point, I had to find out... I believe we all go through moments in life, where we lose the ability to identify with things...perhaps it only happens once in our lives, perhaps life changes so quickly and we transition so quickly, that we momentarily have a melt down in our surroundings, things can be very different when going through major changes in life. Sometimes we ask ourselves 'What was I thinking? That wasn't anything like me!!!" What would the story be?

Kiss

Just saw this image in my mind, however there is a whole new idea I have with this
perhaps I'll work on that soon, but for now this is the foundation, I call it 'Kiss'.

Fat Belly of My Mind-Suzen JueL

if it weren't for the rain
my mind would be dry like the desert
do you hear me
i'm not eating your cake
if it were to rain more
i would be flooded
if the sun shone more
if the leaves changed every day
if butterflys and dragonflys left me
to head south west
i would be empty
those delays in time
those lapses in our season
feed me
like the sky fills the hawks need to fly
and to go
and to do
and to be
is filling me up
fat belly of my mind
fed again
to feed off the harvest for our winter change.

A Different Reality

So I had this idea, don't we all have ideas? I'm sure we do...so I have mine, and you have yours, and that's just fine and dandy with me. I doubt we all think the exact same thoughts, and I doubt 'everyone' fits into a 'general pool' of what is Abstract thinking, compared to the more common thinking. Some of us have our own ways of seeing things. This is a concept that sometimes crosses my mind, and well...gets the brain thinking about some odd things. This is a story...it is not necessarily 'about' any particular person, it is a Concept....

In this room, I see a young man, he is sitting alone near a window. The walls are painted a muted olive green, the floors are smooth like ice, and deep grey. He sits in his chair. Staring at something you and I can't see. He is very still, but not so silent, he seems to mumble and hum, and that is when his eyes come so incredibly animated. He begins to move his arms in circular motions, humming louder now, those of us listening, can hear some words, but none of the words make any sense, to us. He doesn't see us, not this time...but he is obviously seeing someone, or many, or something. He turns his head a little more to the right, cocking it to his side, as if suddenly very interested in something very different now, and he is fixated on the texture of the wall. He turns slowly and appears to be looking directly at those of us watching, we know him, but we don't know him quite like you know him....because you, are understanding what he is doing, but we do not....see, you live in his world with him, and it fascinates us...that he is as real to you, as you are to him. He sees us, just for a second, his face goes pale, and he begins to look as if he might panic, then just as quickly as the expression slapped his face, it was gone, and now again he is looking at the wall, at you....
To us this is fascinating. To you, well you probably don't think about it anymore than he does, the young man in the empty room. As far as he knows, the world is functioning as it always has...he is on the streets, painting on buildings, playing his guitar on the street and at cafe's, he lives in a little apartment on a rainy street, alone. He doesn't talk to people much, but when he does we hear his mumbled attempt at what we try to understand as our language, the one We Taught Him, this World..but he didn't seem to understand us, and we couldn't understand him...so we had to bring him where others could help him understand how We think, Us, in the World...Not you...You are wrong, and we know this. We can not see the people he is talking to, you....so therefore he needs help, so he can talk to Us instead. I wonder if you would rather we be able to see you also, or would that shock you, like he shocks us?

And just who are you? He talks to you often, he sees you and at times speaks of you when he has what we think are breakthroughs. Last week he sat down and looked at all of us, asked how we were doing. He had his back to you then, to that wall. He asked how the family was and told us that 'the voices' told him we were all well and missed him. He explained how the people he sees are as real to him, as we are, but sometimes the voices say things that are wrong, and he knows this...and he knows why we put him in this room...and then he turns back to the wall, and begins to mumble, and laugh.
We tried to put our eyes on him, we tried to put our words in him, you didn't even have to, he seems to think you are home, for the most part. Sometimes it's like two seperate worlds, both real to him, one missing for us.
He turns to us and says "They said you have nothing to worry a bout, you don't see them? They're RIGHT THERE!!!! and points to you, whoever you are...and I don't know if you see us or not, he seems to think you do. Maybe you are simply the ones who's reality he lives in, perhaps he does not understand you are all imaginary...or perhaps we don't understand how to see you.

Dirty Sick Perversion

Awhile back, about a year ago or longer...
I was looking at a friend's tattoo picture, in Second Life,
it was on the back of the person that posed for the photo, very tribal.
At the time I am in 'sponge mode' meaning I am absorbing everything and anything around me,
This..Tattoo, somehow inspired the song Dirty Sick Perversion....
I grabbed my guitar and wrote this song.

I thought that you

might have stood true
you slide back to
un perv er ted

in the rare light
of pure en ig ma
my head spins out
i can't feel ya

Slide down my
broken stair way
feel me tie you
in my own way
FLY deep into
my deep perversion
you can't get there
you can't have this

i was un der
your dark liqued
swimming tattood
can't feel childhood

hold that thought in
side your dirty mind
hold this cold ink
on your hands and... (chorus)

Slide your hands in
to my stairway
tie me down in
to your sick ways
Find my sweet spot
stay in side me
i wanna feel those
things that bind me.....down.....

Autumn's Euphoria

the hummingbirds have left, they have been replaced by yellow jackets, the hornet. i miss them already.
the barn swallows are sparse, most have gone also, i miss their song, i miss the silvery black tongue of the ruby throated hummingbirds, dipping into the red nectar feeder outside my window.
it hits me like that...when the morning suddenly is darker, and breath i suck in and out of me, hangs like a puff of white smoke...the feeling of having a hot cup of java outside in the morning, because the air is crisp and it makes me love my coffee even more.
as i drive, the leaves are letting go and blowing aimlessly around, reminding me of the blustery day in the Winnie the Pooh stories...sky is a bit more grey, the brilliance of summer blues starts to fade, the beautiful fluff of the green grass, has gone a bit stiff...

and all the Crows sit together in one bare naked black tree, penciled in black against that white sky..there is something beautiful about it, something eerie and discorded.
the world even sounds different, like a certain 'thickness' of summer humidity has left, and the world is a little louder. it's euphoric, every year it touches me, whispering sickly "i'm back" and i shiver with a certain tinge of excitement. yeah i know what's coming for me, it is my dear friend, my favorite nightmare, the one thing i can't stand, the one thing i crave, and that is the sound of my pen on paper, the sound of a dry brilliantly colored leaf making that scratch against the pavement, the way apple cider smells while listening to someone play the guitar around a campfire, That.
my lack of 'normalacy' is suddenly replaced by manic euphoric inspiration riding thru me like cold hard waves, picking me up in a murky warmth and comfort, tossing me thru different channels like someone else is holding the remote control, turning, changing, turning, changing never stopping, or never knowing just where...i will end up...i only know that wherever i end up, i will not know what to expect, it's just the simpleness of accepting, and it's easy.
all the words in the world pile up in my head as if seeking shelter from everyone else's mind, storing themselves and taking up residence in my head...stuffed fully...head feeling bloated with words, emotions, colors, senses all magnified like the sun just landed on my body, burning.......til it pours itself out like cool water, empty...that temporary relief doesn't last long, before the cycle pours on me again
and it's always beautiful
and it's always painful
and it's always worth everything that happened to get there...because it's mine, it's my 'birth' that comes out, it's my 'life' that comes out, somehow...so i can see it.

Flowers Against My Dress-Seven Sacred Secrets.

Originally Titled "Cover Me Red"...this is Flowers Against My Dress.

This song is about a certain loss of innocense. Not the teenage stuff, or the first love stuff, nooo not that. More like the kind where you have already bent yourself into the mold of your chosen path, and perhaps for a moment, you bent in a new way, a way that is unfamiliar, a way that makes you stronger, because you moved in a different direction.
So after an amazing visit to Georgia, and one of the most amazing Music Fests I've ever heard or participated in....I wrote Flowers.

I sat under the sun, under the stars
and i strummed on the strings of my guitar
i sat barefoot on the grass, under the moon
singing wooden knowledge, just a little out of tune.
*when i was younger, about 21, I used to have long acoustic jams on my rooftop, in wisconsin. i didn't sing much, if at all, i was terribly shy. The guys I played with, would sit there with their guitars, 3am in the morning, playing their originals and covers...one was called "Wooden Knowledge"...one of their own songs. I clearly remember that song, ...that is where that phrase comes from.

I held my candle high, higher than the rest
and i stood in the garden with your flowers against my dress
i looked high, high, higher than the sky
beyond the beauty of the watercolor in your eyes.
* i hold my candle higher than the rest, because i have a desire to be noticed for what I present inside that light that I shine....and the 'flowers against y dress' is symbolic of taking something that does not belong to me, and holding it against what i am identifying myself with..my dress, dress is symbolic of a sort of 'female persuasion' an innocent, yet powerful borderline religious and sinful type emotion...that is what that part represents.
I looked HIGH, because this song represents looking beyond the present..beyond the 'art' beyond what the 'artist' is representing....more into what is not being said, just known.

I saw great White Wings fly high across the sky
and i thought about the color that colored you and i
i stood barefoot on the ground,naked in the wind
i said Mother Nature, Lets Get Together Again
I said Hey...Hey Hey...Help me please, i got 7 sacred secrets that will bury me....
*this is an intrusion into 'Mother Nature" what is natural. Great White Wings, is the Great White Eagle, which in the Native American roots (which I am)...it means Father, God.
Standing barefoot and naked.....is vulnerability, Exposure. Daring Mother Nature to mess with my fate.

I get down like a child on my knees
I speak to no one that has no name, not to me
I say Lord, oh Lord,make it clear please
wash me in the river, make my spirit shiver, rain on me.
* i pray when i'm scared...I don't believe in anything, just something...it has no name. "Wash me in the river"....simply meaning 'clean me of my sin, makeme new,make me feel'.

Forgive me Lord, I did not tell the truth
I was layin int eh water, i was prayin on the roof
let me see, let me see a light,
something i can feel, something that is real, in my life.
I said Hey...Hey Hey...Help me please, i got 7 sacred secrets that will bury me....
* We often....being the humans we are, deny things that happen in our lives, that line.....forgive me....is about sheltering oneself from truth.......Layin in the water...............is baptisim of transition...we all enter new phases, every day of our life, some bigger than others. Let me see a light.......is asking to see a lil directino, a lil guidance, some hope....it's asking....and "Something i can feel.........
i believe sometimes we all lack the emotions we so crave....sometimes we need those lil wake up calls.

Web of Indra-Missing GeM

i have missed you,
intense flirtations of our psychology
the way the "Web" moved with you,
into deep grooves of the universe
i have missed the way you humoured my world
coloured it with strong words
with bold honesty,
with falling curiousity
as i hung in a circle holding on
you said death
is where we have been before we were born
i have missed you
the way i miss water when i'm thirsty
the way i've missed sand between my toes
the way i've missed sea spray, from places i've only been, not seen.

i have missed late night fingers tapping on the keyboard
as random ideas flowed like air between us
the ocean, the sea, the sky, the time
were between the reality,
keeping everything safely seperated
i have not been
i have not seen
i only lie, safe, and deep in the center of that web
and no matter what the world does
it's the only spot I've ever had
and what moves near me, will move me
and what trickles down, will fall into my mouth
and what falls between my fingers, will feed another
as you have fed me....as I have fed you
so if you shake, tremble or shiver,
if you laugh, stumble or slide
I wn't be too far away...and when you shine
i might bask blindly
in a bit in that warmth....
-suzen juel
---sometimes someone enters our life, though short, though brief...the connection never fails...just the human aspect of ourselves. We learn the most amazing things, from the most simple of minds, the complexity of our souls goes far beyond our Human error---life will always move on, with or without us, but the souls will always know, what depth there is, in that one drop of water, that slides down that web...

Untitled

This is part of a Whole picture. Often as I paint, I will photograph as I go along. So when the painting is finished, it often looks quite different than some of the photos taken during the process...the reason I often do this, is to document my own progress, as well as to see what happens as the process goes along.
Most of my paintings can be seen at Artropolis, In Second Life (tm). Or at Blue Fusions' Main Gallery on the adjoining Blue Fusion sim, owned by Holli Hollwood.
Filthy Fluno, the manager of Artropolis is also an amazing artist. Do check out the many pieces of art found on both these sims....

Summer Heat-2007

you all are Awesome for filling out those POLLS! ok so you want more ART, more PERSONAL INSIghTS and more lyrics, in that order......This is a painting i did in Aug of 2007 when I was in Wisconsin. I was going thru a Major Change at this point in my life, and as you know AUGUST in the Midwest is HAWT! so this is what came out ....Hope you enjoy and if you would like more INFO, let me know :)

Here comes the Grips of Bipolar-personal

Many of you know, and many of you do not know...and there are LINKS posted on the side of this blog about Bipolar. When I first found out I had it, back in 1992...I struggled with this Knowledge, a new knowledge and being the Inquisitive soul that I am, the first thing I did was HIT The Library and filled my mind with as much information as possible. Back then it was spoken of more as a 'disorder' which NOW, i choose not to accept. It's a Chemical Imbalance to those who are considered what is called "Normal" but I don't believe in 'normal'.
After studying psychology for well over 16 years, and all the studies I did with regular lil courses in psychology prior to finding out about BiPolar...I choose to call it a gift...and the reason...it IS. Look at the LINKS.
Take away the Bipolar Gene out of the Human Population, and you'll take away a Large Majority of your Writers, Thinkers, Musicians, Artists and more....
I do not take medicine. I tried that for many years only to find out I'm med Intolerant...they don't work for me, OR they take away my creativity, this is how they effect ME, some people are very fortunate to have them work very well with their 'chemical imbalance'. There are also many NON Creative Bipolars, who I fear...struggle More without the release of that gift....however I believe we ALL have a gift.
There are two times of the year that Bipolar usually has it's Peak Runs...SPRING and FALL....I'm what Psychologists call and 'early swinger' .. meaning about a month prior to spring and fall, it hits me hard. I sleep MUCH less, I write MUCH more, the art, the songs, the creative flow opens up like a hurricane pushing open the doors of my mind....feeding off ALL the senses that invade me from the world around me.
I do call it a gift.
I would not know life without it.
I embrace it, because without it......well, life certainly would be quite different...and if someone took it away from me RIGHT NOW, i really don't know how the hell i would get thru this life without being able to write, create and experience the things I do.
one of the symptoms of Bipolar is HEIGHTENED sensitivity, to light, sound, smell, touch, taste....this is not an exaggeration, it IS truly an ability to sense more intensely.
I might laugh louder and more often, I might feel those emotions of sadness more intensely....i may feel what others feel, more so ...Just imagine a Giant magnifying glass on everything around you. It doesn't make you see what is NOT there, it makes you see waht IS there....more closely...THUS the writers, the creators....the lyrical bliss....and of course...the overwhelming emotions can hinder a bit...but the beauty is once the 'ride' slows down, what a Vision one has had of life speeding past us as we fly thru it quickly, grabbing all our experiences....
There is MUCH more to this 'disorder' this 'chemical imbalance'' so DO read about it, Knowledge is power.
2% of the population has it...but immerse yourself in a community of artists and you'll find it damn near everywhere you look.
Much Peace :)