Persephone Abbott

Posts tagged “Persephone Abbott

Paradise

Posted on March 31, 2025

I had thought about it. The American Photography exhibition at the Rijksmuseum. Then my phone via Facebook or Instagram or Osmosis-Goo suggested that I seriously consider buying a ticket, like right now, click the link and chakka-gotcha! The Rijksmuseum sits just around the corner from my apartment, a five minute walk. Motivated, I took the bait. Walking through the exhibit at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, I thought about my age. From my memory bank I can understand the subject matter in the photographs, either because I was already born or my grandparents were alive during the early to mid 20th century era or because the historical photographs of locations were still somewhat recognizable to what I recall seeing when I lived in…

Worms Riding the Air Waves

Posted on March 26, 2025

He opened up a ledger book. The ledger book looked familiar. Somewhere at my grandmother’s house on the outskirts of Tacoma back in the 1970’s I’d seen one that, it seemed to me, now appeared to have been transported to Amsterdam. I was standing in a narrow and crooked building that had been constructed in the 17th century. It was presently a tourist shop and a UPS pick up point. It was my third attempt at collecting my parcel. “You must file a police report.” The instructions from the Amazon-Ready-Set-Answer department were clear.  My question had been, “Where is my package?” By this point I had already been to a designated pick up point twice.  After two attempts at the pick up point, I…

Pilgrimage

Posted on March 16, 2025

Reading Shakespeare and drinking tea are pleasant occupations. And drinking whiskey and reading Shakespeare are also pleasant occupations. A friend of mine and I meet up every so often and read a play together. We switch the parts freely. She’s a health care professional and during the break between transitioning from the tea to the whiskey part of the evening she said to me, “You know, living with a narcissist ages a person.” She meant literally ages a person physically, mentally and spiritually. I remembered  myself at the age of seventeen when I couldn’t recall what I had done an hour previously. I wasn’t taking medication, I wasn’t under the influence of any substances. In despair I dyed my hair grey for a period…

At the Circus

Posted on March 4, 2025

“Ah,” I thought to myself, sitting comfortably in my assigned seat at Le Carré in Amsterdam.  It was a very nice seat at the back of the royal “loge” section in what used to be the circus theatre. The theater is no longer the home of the circus.  * A few years ago I heard Mavis Staples at Le Carré and that was an exceptional experience. I signed up for a “We Are Public” seat (a subscription service to supplement an audience when sales are poor or the venue too big and Le Carré is huge) only to be told when I showed up to collect the ticket, that all the “plonk butts in seats”  tickets were taken. Quite a few disappointed and audibly…

Some things to be gone

Posted on February 28, 2025

I want some things to be gone like revoking a passport no more designated grace Just looking across the border the landscape appears about the same asthe acre I’m standing onThe guardnearest in a box and boredDoes it all have to make sense?the world I meandoes my trauma have to fityour trauma for either of usto haul a pad of ink out of a desk drawerstamp a visa and approve entry

Routine Apparitions: a fictional novel in blog form

Posted on December 25, 2024

Routine Apparitions (a fictional work and an online novel in blog form that is free of charge): Keith Abbott’s important notebooks and manuscripts have gone missing. But so is Keith because he died years ago. This doesn’t stop the ghost of the Soto Zen monk from wandering around Longmont Colorado looking for his stuff while busy solving crimes with his zany buddies. Of course he has the help of three teenage rebels. Meanwhile the city is in the grips of formidable conspiracy theory and oddball religious zealots, a few in the shape of Tirzah Pyrestone, Gator Matcha, El-Don Mast, Teary Filisteinsdatter Mast, Rabbi Dianne T. Lakein and so many more! Drawing on Rhino Ritz, An American Mystery Novel by Keith Abbott, of course the…

Thoughts on Richard Brautigan’s A Confederate General in Big Sur

Posted on October 20, 2024

“There was a ship going someplace. It was a Norwegian ship. Perhaps it was going back to Norway, carrying the hides of 163 cable cars, as part of the world commerce deal. Ah, trade: one country exchanging goods with another country, just like in grade school. They traded a rainy spring day in Oslo for 163 cable car hides from San Francisco.” (Excerpt from A Confederate General in Big Sur by Richard Brautigan, 1965.) I first read A Confederate General in Big Sur when I was a teenager and I just finished reading it for the second time. I would like to think that this novel has made the same impression upon me as forty something odd years ago, however I must say that…

Just Like a Good Single Middle-Aged Woman

Posted on October 19, 2024

Last job I got Ipromised myselfwhen the money began to stagger drunkenly through the door just like a man I’d be sure to getthat new pressure washerI even checked out the specs and – no fault of mine – pre-selected the price range Year and a half laterI couldn’t help but noticethe screws from the teak lawn chair routinely hitting the floorwhenever I sat down — my one good chairHanging out online I scouteda second-hand egg chair and a new job I said I’d come collect the suspended eggI had already gotten the next job

The Next Move

Posted on September 18, 2024

Spacing out in the airporton a toilet, almost no sleepwaiting for a connecting flightI think I might be hallucinatingA month quickly gone byvisiting family and friendstrying to put togetherwhat happened to my fatherThe duffle bag in front of my feet — never out of sight — filled with memorabilialovingly donated by hisfriends and familyI look up at my handbaghanging on a hook against the stall wallchecking if that too is movingThe duffle bag isrocking back and forthnot far from my toes