Notes on Funnel Cloud:

I saw a video tape by two men trying to capture a tornado for the news when they realized they were in its path. They drove rapidly down the highway, tornado in pursuit, until they reached an overpass. Minimally protected, they kept the camera on and recorded what it is to be inside such a beast and live.

It was easy for me to understand why they were out there, in harm's way, instead of hiding in a storm cellar somewhere. It's the same attraction that pulls the giant wave riders to Wiamea bay. It's related to Big Game hunting, but with no chance of besting your opponent, only surviving it.

The attraction to potentially destructive forces is a part of our psychological makeup. It probably stems from an innate desire to ally oneself with the best and the strongest. Generalized further, it can lead to an "Identification with the Aggressor", to get close to things that intend to destroy you.

So what initially seems a wish for destruction can simultaneously be a safety mechanism, depending on your perspective.

The second feature of this attraction is its high sexual charge, embodied by the femme fatale: A woman who becomes increasingly dangerous as you get closer, who is survivable only by piercing her heart, and staying there.

Funnel Cloud

I used to long for thunderstorms
the way others awaited birthdays.
Sit in the garage, watching it rain.

Predators excited me;
soft coats with long, sharp teeth.
Ride on a blue shark
to keep her mouth at a distance.

I now understand my core fascination-
the passionate calm
of surrounding destruction.
Build a nest in the eye
of a hurricane.

Now I'm hunting a dead spot
in the wind;
the place of acoustic clarity,
where I'll feel the caress
of my own perspiration.

I knew your sister
who's wetter
and sideways.
She licked my nipples
and spanked my feet.
Left me with my head in the sand.

Sashay
across my field
of vision
and I'll want inside you,
dead center,
where it's safe.

You'll wear a fur coat
of shingles and lamp posts,
crack a power line whip
while you scar the terrain.

I'll hide under the overpass
while you suck water from the concrete,
make a shock fog river
as quick as sound.
Steal my breath in consolation.

Only you could want me that badly.