3LV3N MYTH0L0G13S SP34K...

elven mythologies speak

of lavender-lighted sprites

screwing and chopping with time

RIVER ELVEN CYCLE OF 69 SONNETS SERIES: NUMBER TWO

FREELY FROM COLONIAL MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, 
NATION KNOWN AS MONACAN HAD BEEN EXISTING 
FOR MANY NEW MOONS, BUT THEN SETTLERS ARRIVED THERE 
AND STOMPED THE OLD WAYS INTO OPPRESSION, TWISTING 

A CONTINENT'S STORY INTO DEMOCRACY 
MYTH. BUT EVEN THAT SIMPLE BINARY GOOD/BAD 
DICHOTOMY IS BUILT UPON HYPOCRISY 
BECAUSE PRESENT AMIDST "NEW" WORLD SETTLERS GONE MAD 

WITH GREED AND INDIGENOUS PEEPS FORCED TOWARDS SUNSET 
WAS PIEDMONT WOODSLAND ELVEN CONGREGATIONS TUCKED 
LIKE MUSHROOMS INTO UNDERBRUSH, FERTILE SOIL WET 
WITH RIVER VEIN LIFE FORCE STILL PRIMORDIALLY MUCKED 

ENOUGH TO SUPPORT LIVES BUILT WITH MAGIC IN HEARTS... 
WITH THESE UNREAL PEOPLE IS WHERE OUR STORY STARTS.

1SL4M1C 3LV3N P30PL3S...

Islamic elven peoples

of the Piedmont woods steady

building mycelium mosques

3LV3NF0LK C3L3BR4T10NS...

elvenfolk celebrations

unseen by human eyeballs

because they are not stupid

SEVEN ISLANDS ELVEN MYTHOS - PART 1: CHUBB ROCK

(this elven mythology ties into our Bird Tribe attempts to acquire
land surrounding our current compound; please give if you are able)

Those who know me well enough know my meditative escape is to walk the railroad tracks along the James River, specifically the CSX Rivanna subdivision line between Gladstone and Columbia. I’ve been back-and-forth along most every mile of that 63-mile chunk of track multiple times; and about six miles either way of the 69 mile marker between Shores and the Strathmore yard is my definite home on Earth power zone. That is my dirtgod territory, staked by illegitimate arts galore, in the form of scattered railroad haiku spike prayer intentions as well as scribbling chicken scratch Rojonekku markings on resting freight cars with white and red  paint sticks. I have marked that area strongly with the piss from my heart, and though I have no legal claim over any inch of land (or river) there, it is heavy with my metaphysical mark.

Situated within the James River along this stretch are a few batches of tiny islands, including one cluster historically mentioned on maps as Seven Islands. On the south side of the river is Buckingham County, and the north side is Fluvanna County, and I’m not even sure which county the islands belong to (legally speaking), but there’s been no human development on these islands for over a century, and the most you ever see is packs of river kayakers camping there overnight in the summer months. I began to wade across and scatter railroad haiku spikes there just because it was abandoned to humanity (for the most part) and it made sense to me to do that. So I did it, for many months, now and then as the mood struck me. (Some would call this “the mood” inspiration, or a muse, or universal forces at play. Others would say none of that is provable by science so don’t speak of it.)

It was on one of these ventures to scatter railroad haiku spikes that I had my first encounter with the elven people, namely one of their sentry guards named Chubb. There had been times when I thought someone was lurking, or watching me while I tromped around the Seven Islands, but I figured that was just my natural human paranoia and fear, not anything real. But this one particular time, I was in one of my weird moods where I was “feeling” exactly where the universe wanted me to plant one of these railroad haiku spikes, using my human body as a divining rod of sorts, crouched down digging a narrow hole with my forefingers like a scrabbly raccoon, when I heard a voice say, “Why do you keep doing that?” I looked around startled, but didn’t see anybody, so crouched still for a few more seconds then slowly began digging again. I liked to plant the spikes, with the head being the only thing sticking out the ground, pointed in whatever direction I felt was important with that spike, imagining each haiku as a prayer intention, being sown into the Earth. That shit sounds kinda crazy as I type it out, which is why stuff like that I guess is better to just do than actually spell out for people, but then again, that’s not much different than mythology, and it was in doing that exact task – kinda crazy or not – that I again heard a voice say, “Why exactly do you put those things into the ground?”

This time the voice was pretty close, just behind me, and I turned and saw a little bearded dude dressed in burlap Hammer pants and a tank top. He had a pretty thick bushy beard, and little bandana tied around his head. Obviously, it was disconcerting to see something so out of the ordinary, but then again I was the one fucking around on an island in the James River, poking haiku carved into railroad spikes into the ground like they were plants, so I wasn’t exactly in any position to be judging other motherfuckers.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I feel like perhaps that question is better asked of you, sir. This is where I belong. You do not belong to here.” His eyes were very old but face young. I was still squatting in the dirt, but he couldn’t have been more than 30 inches tall, max. “Again sir, I ask you, why are you doing that with those things, and who exactly are you? What is the cause of your affairs here?”

(Looking back, and knowing what I know about elven people now, it strikes me as to the casual interaction of his interrogation. Chubb was a sentry who guarded the elven islands, so essentially he was their culture’s version of a cop; yet he was nothing like any human cop I’d ever dealt with. No judgment, no predisposition to distrust or dislike you – just simple questions waiting for a simple answer.)

“I don’t know. I put little poems onto these things, and then poke them into the ground.”

“Yes, we have seen them. We enjoy poetry much here, though we don’t completely understand yours, as you are obviously burdened by the internal conflict of being a human. We have foun and read some of them though. But why do you stick them into the ground like so? What is the point of a poem if you do not share it with others and instead make it disappear? What if nobody knew?”

“I don’t know. I guess it makes me feel like if it’s meant to survive, it will. Somebody will come find it. Or it’ll just rust away in the ground if need be.”

The little dude looked at me askew. “That’s really complicated thinking, and yet kind of stupid, with all due respect. I do not mean to belittle what you are making a great undertaking of doing, but it is convoluted logic. These are not seeds. They are spikes from the railroad tracks over there.”

I didn’t really know what to say. Again, his demeanor was not antagonistic, so if a cop had said that to me, I would’ve become belligerent. But with this guy it wasn’t like that. He was right for the most part. I was kinda stupid, sticking railroad spikes that I carved haiku on into the dirt. Some of these spikes had taken me a significant afternoon’s worth of time and carving tool investment to do.

“Look sir, I would like to know why you are here, because, well forgive me. I am called Chubb. I am a guard for these islands where I make sure humans don’t wander too deeply or abundantly. You are, obviously, a human, and you are, again obviously, wandering fairly deeply here. Thus, I must know the nature of your affairs. Why are you here?”

“I don’t know. Just scattering these things around.”

“But why here? Why not over there? I have seen you walking those tracks before, and usually that seems to be enough for you. Why do you decide to wade through the waters and enter our islands?”

I wasn’t sure who “our” was at this point, because I’d only seen weekend campers who had been floating the river, and this little guy. “I didn’t know anybody owned it. I thought it was just an island.”

“Who said anyone owns this? And it is an island, a very just island, which is why I need to know your affairs here. As soon as possible, if you please.” The little guy made a shrieking yell. The low lying brush rustled heavily forty feet further onto the island, and a single crow started cawing overhead, high in one of the trees.

“What’s going on over there?”

“Who are you, and what are your affairs here?” the little guy said, rather sternly for the first time. “Tell me now, or else.”

“Or else what?” I laughed, standing up, chip on my shoulder. Chubb gave a quick yelp, and almost immediately I got pelted three or four times along the shoulders and chest.

“Who are you, and what are your affairs here? Next time we aim for your head, human.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, hold on. My name is Raven, and I don’t have any affairs here other than fucking around. I thought it was an empty island and I was just fucking around, putting spikes over here. I didn’t mean to bother anybody.”

Chubb gave another quick call, almost like a birdcall, and the brush rustled backwards. “Sit down, the human they call Raven. Wait here while I send my comrades back.” He turned to walk towards the brush from whence the rustling had come, quickling turning back, “But if you try to do anything complicated, the rocks shall fly again. I am Chubb, Seven Islands sentry, and meister of the rocks. Do not challenge those titles, if you please.” And he walked. I laughed to myself thinking “Chubb Rock” and it would end up being exactly what I called him, and he called me “the human they call Raven” formally but Raven as we became friends.

When Chubb came back, he had some elfweed in a small pipe. (Upon later research, I realized elfweed was jimson weed, or datura, but when I tried to ask Chubb this later one time, he was like, “No, you silly complicated human. It is elfweed. It has always been called elfweed, and that is exactly what it is. Elfweed.”) He smoked without offering that day, but asked me all about why I chose the island, where I lived in relation to there, charting out my existence.

“Is there one of your mileposts where you live, like that 69 over there?”

“No. Those go along the railroad tracks mostly. But we have roads, and I live like three roads over, past Kidd’s Store.”

“In which direction? What quarry are you near?”

“Quarry? I don’t know. I’m not sure there are quarries over there.”

“Don’t be stupid, human Raven. There are quarries everywhere. How else do you find stones? Down river I know your people have been digging at the grey slate stone for centuries now. It’s quite sad what’s been done there really. What could you possibly be doing with all those beautiful slabs of slate? And up river, I know there are many quartz veins that emanate through this area, mostly off-white, but a few places of pure star white, and a few bursts of pink rose quartz, and even in the direction you point of a beautiful amber stone.”

“Oh yeah, I think there used to be an old rodonite mine by Kidd’s Store years ago. I’ve always meant to try and find it but it’s someone else’s property. I remember reading the stones there were golden brown like that.”

“Why does that stop you?”

“Well, you’re not supposed to go wandering through other people’s property,” which seemed like a really stupid thing for me to be saying as I was talking to the tiny sentry of this island which obviously did not belong to me, but I was here anyways, stabbing it with haiku. Chubb didn’t say this himself, but I could tell he had thunk the same string of thoughts.

“So you live in the region of the amber quarry, you think, but cannot be sure because of property limitations.” He took another puff of elfweed, and looked me over. His eyes were easier now, not so cutting. “Tell me of your poetry, the human they call Raven. What is it about?”

It was about five in the evening, early May when this happened, so we sat there and talked various philosophies of poesy until dusk. My explanations felt smart and superior when I started, but as he responded, and spoke of intimate knowledge of the poetry of crows and the poetry of the river ripples and holy fuck, the poetry of the heron. The poetry of the heron talk he gave, I was sitting there wishing I could remember every word, wishing I had recorded it, because it made so much fucking sense. And yet when I went home that night and tried to write it out on paper, it looked stupid. When hearing it, I thought it was the most brilliant thing I’d ever heard, like a mainline into my heart of pure concentrated literary knowledge. But filtered through my limited human English vocabulary, it wasn’t so amazing. I don’t put that on the poetry of the heron knowledge so much as my ability to relay it. Something definitely got lost in translation.

But we talked poetry until almost dark, when I waded back across. As I left, Chubb said, “I will ask of you, the human they call Raven, do not speak to your fellow humans of this place freely. I find you amusing in your pretentious superiority, yet so sweet of heart. But I will not relay that amusement easily to others. Let no one come with you to these islands, or you all shall catch rocks – sharp ugly rocks straight to your eyeballs. But if you come alone, now and then, not often, but now and then, and make yourself be known so as to not startle us who are here on this island, if I am able, I will talk with you. And I hope you will talk with me as well.”

And that is how I first met Chubb Rock and learned of the elven people who lived on the islands in the James River, though I didn’t know anything more than Chubb Rock existed for certain at that point; at least Chubb and a couple others who were really good at throwing stones.

1N TH3 W00DS F0LL0W1NG P4THS...

in the woods, following paths

pre-ordained, demarcated

by plastic geometries

tie a ribbon round the old

mossy poplar; remember

all the elves who have fallen

James River's Seven Islands

elven chief instructed me

to never come back again

elven spirit homes sit near

cracked corn/raw peanuts in shell

combo left out for the crows

showed the elfen wrestlers old

tapes of Sabu & Van Dam

against Eliminators

elven spirits have battle

royals deep in abandoned

pine forest, at night, un-scene

elven moonsaults off upper

branches in twilight, leaving

confused humanoids so prone

magical scenes concealed where

human eyeballs rarely get

around to gazing upon

mushroom cap like feral mosque,

elven people performing

jihad against full-grown men

James River Seven Islands

elven tribe taught me how to

disappear brief forevers

elven wizard selfie style,

reflection of ego in

camper studio window

45s on 33 – #62: “Back To The Island”

I decided to go back to the Seven Islands of the elven peoples, hiding in plain sight along the James River in my home state of Virginia, but it was strangely quiet when I got there, and inflatable boat floated across. They keep it nomadic enough, to hide their existence from humanoids when necessary for peaceable survival, but I knew that, and they knew me. Generally, you’d run into one of their sentries at the edges before getting far onto the island, but not this time. There was no sign of them, not even up in the trees which you could usually still see elven trinkets made of driftwood if you knew what you were looking for. Nothing.

I poked around all the islands looking for them. It should be noted to you the reader that when I say “island” these are tiny places. You can cover the entirety of all Seven Islands in an hour. We’re not talking huge Pacific rim volcanic archipelagos or anything. It’s just land that chopped and screwed itself into the middle of the river instead of on either bank. But on the fifth island, one of the smaller ones, I found somebody finally – Chubb Rock (one of the main sentries… I’ve mentioned him before earlier in this thing). Chubb Rock’s beard was fucked up though, his beard heavily soaked in elven blood, and he was mumbling. I leaned down, talking to him, tried to lift him up like dramatic movie scene, but he just moaned in horrible pain an ungodly elven moan of impending death, so I didn’t try. In the attempt though, I could see the throat camouflaged by beard had been slit, not cleanly but in a rough and rusty serrated fashion, which is probably why he was not already dead, as the blood was a slow leak, not gusher.

“You are here finally. They left me for you to find.” His voice was gargled and meek, lacking all the jovial nature Chubb usually possessed. “I am supposed to tell you… nothing.”

“What? Who left you? You’re supposed to tell me nothing? That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Yeah. Nothing. These worlds don’t always make sense, do they?” And his eyes had a flicker of laughter to them before the moaning took back over, before a chuckle could make his voicebox.

“Who’s they? Where did everybody else go?”

“Nothing. I am telling you nothing. That is my dying duty.” He coughed up thick chunks of partially coagulated blood. “That is what you know. But it is suspected you think you know more than nothing. You don’t. So I am to tell you nothing, so that you can know nothing.”

The elven people loved riddles, especially with humans, because we think of ourselves as so logical and efficient, in a way that goes beyond actual nature of all things. I can’t say if the elven tribe was more in-tune with nature or not, but they certainly lived without forcing a dominion on all the surrounding real world. So having an elf riddle me some nonsense gibberish was not surprising in itself. But for Chubb Rock to be dying, beside me, no sign of any other of the elves, that was weird. It was all very confusing for the logic – albeit an alternative and non-traditional logic – that ruled my thinking somewhat oppressively.

“What the fuck do you mean, Chubb Rock!” I yelled dramatically, as if in a theatrical facsimile. But there was no answer other than finally a little bit of laugh coming out with the clotted chunks of bloody mucus from Chubb Rock’s mouth. He gave a little elven laugh, and then that fucker was dead. And I have no idea why.

the river elves been leaving

driftwood trinkets laying round

the Bremo yard railroad tracks

45s on 33 – #65: “I Just Want to Celebrate”

Fat, hog-jowled Chubb Rock still stood sentry at the edge of Seven Islands along the scenic, rolling, rambling James River artery of Virginia colony, and we what-upped each other like always. He was a good elf, pretty chill, which belied his role as fringe guard of the elven community, but luckily – according to Chubb – rarely did anybody venture into their territories anyways. Humans are bizarrely averse to crossing geographical barriers like a wide river, and yet we worry about arbitrary fence posts with frantic psychology.

Chief Blackberry Blossoms was in a somber mood as he greeted me. “Raven Mack, the human who lays claim to being some sort of ‘dirtgod’. I hear you have been wandering the Other Realms.”

“Yeah. Strange place.”

“You have no idea. We must go down river together, so I can show you something.”

Chief Blackberry Blossoms tended to be chill, as all elves are in my experiences. I mean, I’ve only experienced elves in my little location on this vast earth, and I guess I’ve been made aware of multiple realms just as vast within that singular vastness, so ultimately that means there may be infinite elven peoples, so it would be naïve for me to assume ALL elves are chill by nature from having met a small tribe of them. Reasoning from small part to the whole universe is one of man’s illest logics. But his somber bordering on unchill had me slightly concerned.

We took an elf canoe (these are regular human canoes that the elves steal from a place in the nearby town but then scuff the obscenely bright plastics with stones and mud into a more natural shade) and headed down river, past the freight siding I used to always scribble paint marker tags at. Chief Blackberry Blossoms wasn’t saying much. Neither was I. I’ve learned to mostly let him lead the conversation, even in normal circumstances, but especially when he was in elder motherfucker mode like now.

We went past Bremo, where they have signs saying to not eat any fish you catch or hang out in the water unprotected, due to the two power plants there, one on each side of the river. He guided the canoe to the river bank just past Bremo, near one of the power plants.

Power plants are always prison-like security zones, with high banks of earth built to hide whatever industrial tomfoolery is going on, and impenetrable fences topped with razor wire surrounding all that. I used to stop and want to take pictures, but even something as innocent as that is illegal in our post-toppled buildings terror watchlist American world. To just be standing around outside the wrong fence taking pictures is to ask to be fucked up by the system.

So as we got out the elf canoe and walked on land, I was kinda nervous about secure digital eyeballs seeing us, and coming out to enforce shit upon us. Chief Blackberry Blossoms gave no fucks though, walked through a hole in the gate that I’d never seen before, looking back to cajole me into following with elder eyeballs of authority not recognized by state but honored by me, no doubt, so I followed. We walked up the earth berm and it was a giant mucky nasty ass pond there. It stank and had all sorts of warning signs.

“This is ash pond, where they hold ash from burning coal for what you call ‘power’ or ‘energy’ but really it’s neither; it’s just electricity. Your people do this, to initiate a blazing false glory of electricity which gives you a sense of safety against the darkness. You are still afraid of the dark, even after thousands of years.”

It really stank.

“The problem with this is, in the process of doing this, toxic counter-reactions are created. That’s natural. You are not supposed to conquer the darkness, but learn to live with it. It is cyclical. It goes away. As the cycles turn, light will come back, but of course dark will too. Same with warmth, and cold. Same with black and white. Your people have trouble with this. You are stubbornly stuck to binary ways, and even when you attempt to open yourself, you only open your mind, which is an externally educated organ, trained by sensory inputs, thus a few centuries deep into binary thinking.”

“What’s the lesson for me from this?” I asked.

“There is no lesson. An open heart would help you, but you are also innately human so I don’t know how possible that is. You are likely doomed to your binary thinking, either by enforcing what you believe to be true, or realizing that the one end of the binary thinking could not possibly be true, so you violently enforce the opposite. This is the way of your people. You think the pond will de-toxify the coal ash so that you can keep hiding from the dark with justification. But it won’t. You can’t. But you probably still will.”

45s on 33 – #66: “Take Me”

On the back part of our half-feral pasture, near where I used to raise pigs, blackberry vines spread to an immensity of pokey fruit yin-yang. (I consider good solid wild blackberry vines to be nature’s razor wire, and have done plenty of self-scientific studies on how much blackberry thorn poison can be tolerated by person who is normally highly resistant to bee and poison ivy poisons. Blackberry thorns give off an entirely different type of sting, almost vibratory and painful in a way similar to high-pitched noises, but for your skin not your ears.) They are ripe about now, so I’ve been spending time each day just picking, with last year’s popcorn bucket from the movie theater looped through my belt, pick and drop into bucket, pick and drop into bucket. You learn (at least when your brain is efficiency driven) how to hold with one hand the vine by fat part and pick off handful of berries, two at a time, with second hand, thump them into bucket, and move to another part. Blackberries grown in such large clusters vary their ripening stages too, so you have all these green and just barely red ones sitting there still, waiting to soak up more sun, and be ready next week.

The blackberry cluster we have is crazy large though, and if you’re picking each day, you’ll “cherry-pick” the easy ones on the outer loop, just like the deer and maybe even stray bears do, but you’ll also see these fat clusters of nice thick dark black berries not yet marked by insect effects just teasing you from further in the vine clusters, saying “take me, take me!” I am not one to ignore the near-sexual pleadings of ripe fruiting plants, so I tend to go in further.

Inside the blackberry clusters, you’ll find open spots to stand without having thorns rip at your flesh (I never pick fruit with a shirt on, ever; trust me, the trees appreciate this, regardless of your sex; they want you to be more naked, and perhaps this was the source of the Adam and Eve and accursed apple myth), and you’ll pick away, filling your plastic bucket higher and higher, but then you have to get back out. Except there are no more blackberries on the way out, and there are plenty more further in. This leads you (if you are like me) deeper into the viney chaos with plenty thorns to poke you into thinking you should’ve thought better (like “maybe I should’ve worn a shirt” but then you know that’s bullshit thinking from your brain, not your heart).

Eventually though, you gotta stop. You’re never gonna pick all those berries, ever. And if your feral berry clusterfuck has gotten as big as the one on our pasture overlooking the rock altar and field jukebox nestled underneath the red maple tree, you’re unlikely to work your way all the way through to the other side. You won’t reach the end of it – berries or clusterfuck of thorns, so you have to work your way back out.

I was in there yesterday picking berries meditatively, and I wondered if maybe the time tunnels underneath Buckingham might not be similar to that, especially factoring in the huge variable of timelessness’s fourth dimension to the grid of it all. Maybe this was an existential crisis within the larger existential crisis of there being a multiverse level of Raven Macks scattered outside the exits of those tunnels, where I’m not sure (meaning this Raven Mack, the dirtgod one, 1000 Feathers, me writing this – I think) it’s wise to keep pushing further into all those tunnels, into all that mess. Maybe I should recognize when I’ve gotten enough of a taste and just pull back out.

Not sure though, but all these blackberries of course reminded me of the wizened old leader of the elven people who lived on the Seven Islands scattered in the middle of the James River – Chief Blackberry Blossoms. I hadn’t thought of him originally until I questioned whether I should continue these time tunnel explorations with Rey-Rey and Railroad Time and all, but like a flash, in the middle of a bunch of blackberry fruit born from blossoms, I was like, “Oh yeah, Chief Blackberry Blossoms,” and figured I should pay my man a visit on the morrow.