Smoke

The white sky is flat and finite. After decades you are shocked by the amount of delusions running rampant. The waste of distractions keeping reality at bay persist. You are grateful for a cleaned sidewalk after snowstorm or the brown creek running wild among clumps of grass where mallards feed. The air is clean and crisp. The sun may show itself. You lessened the time staring at the tiny screen of forgetfulness. With each turn of a page, the book on your lap suffices. Philanthropists save the day. The walk will be beneficial. Making is limited but thinking is not. You analyze the curves of your life thinking it can always be harsher, colder, hotter, less provided for and thank the smell of pine trees for your lack of gluttony for attention. Your internal gifts outweigh the hurrahs. They are as fickle as the moon in winter.

Above you, a lost man flushes his toilet incessantly. His psychosis will disappear sooner than the greedy trolls where you lost your hand as they survey the land for more. They invade the day and night. You see trees and south hill. The joy is worth the effort. A worktable given freely is coming today. It will be a holding place for unfinished business or the snail-paced terrain of physical recovery.

You lost everything before. Something new always appears if you look for it. Typing is hard but writing near impossible. You look to the future. You survived the earthquake of vile actions and heartless mornings. You did not break although it felt like every molecule would burst as if a wooden bat hit while emotionless ghouls snicker in the background. Where are they now? Causing havoc elsewhere. It never ends. You adapt and withdraw from bent scenarios blocking progress. A funny word that may have no meaning at all. Hope is like smoke. It rises and disappears.

You gave up the horizon of ancient cities for upstate beauty and focused possibilities. You thank the gods and goddesses old and new for your final luck. It is not perfect but relatively safe. You are not overwhelmed by insects and foul smells, trash obscuring natural lushness with the addiction of acquisition. It is everywhere. Too many want everything. Too many think things will change. Civilizations come and go. Still, there is nothing new under the sun. A gadget here, a gadget there may transform behavior but not culture. The lies remain the same. The human condition is eternal. Goodness and mercy have their power. They hide behind taking.

On certain days, all is right with the world. On others, destruction is close at hand. They are illusions made by emotion, images, random events as the earth turns without notice. The spine can tingle or go numb. To continue is what matters. What do we know in the end? That we are here and perplexed as hell or sure as a signed document. A good cup of coffee and buttered scone can save the day. Eat and move on.

Where are you?

Photo taken at The Metropolitan Museum in NYC

Oh my muse, where have you gone? Sing to me. Dispel the depletion of spirit. Stop the flashing surrealness of events gone before. Sing my muse. Let me tell the story of brave souls who walk alone as if they are invisible, few seeing them and what potential is held within their shattered lives. Sing with honeyed lips so close to the ear, an erotic wind rushes like an electric current. Sing, for you are believed in by the multitude of Cassandra's standing in pantry lines. Who are they who disrespect us so, we who do not fit neatly into prefabricated slots? So much of their discourse is repetitious and dull. Save us from such persecution and affliction. Soothe the mind with aesthetic traces of capabilities that disappear in the night. The smell of ammonia spells darkness voiding itself into the molecular structure as siblings laugh at your vertigo. They, like others, took everything so you took back. It hurt the spirit but you continued, pain being good for the art, bad for the day. Announce your ailments; watch them scatter as if someone threw a Molotov cocktail into the street. Win the award, they all gather to congratulate. Anger seeps through veins that almost killed you. The relentlessness of it complicates nightmares. Who’s to know but combat veterans. You all sing the song of terror, violence, deceit, courage, survival. The offending judger of prodigious weight puffs himself up like a bunting on a Louisiana road. Reruns of his blessed self repeat endlessly. Halos sweep two anointed heads as if Cerberus, the multi-headed guard dog stands at attention. Kudos burn with fast food gluttony. A little Dexedrine to slice off the pounds. Your harried thinness, though, fools the doctors and caretakers. When you are upright, all is well. When you fall, no one is there to see or believe the tortuous days and nights. You fall too often so they slide the knife into the most tender places. You portray the villain, the pointless person in the midst of righteous blindness. Only sparrows understand, fending for themselves in the wilderness next to lush creeks as receding hairlines demand gratitude for their barbs. And here is the sun. Here is the work. Here is the dowry paid for exuberance. No matter what the price, the cost does not matter. The longing breaches deadly spasms of lies you tell yourself when engulfed in madness. When it is over and you lived another day, the yardage makes sense, the blood-stained thoughts disappear. The room is filled with creation from the ashes of your discontent. You sing to the muse. She released you from forethought’s eagle. Your flesh stayed the course. You did go on.

Macrocosm

You stopped. So many meanings to that phrase. Tales evolve from stopping. From being. Strip away the exterior of self to look closely. Be carried away from the waves of daily occurrences. Nothing in and of itself. Bubbling in the generation of thoughts. Emotions come and go. Supposed realities appear and disappear. In the stream of time, all shrink on the evolutionary scale as big as you think you are. Beliefs vanish in moonlight; alter with the break of day. Who you are is called into question. No one is carved in stone. 

Our nature and world changes at the bat of an eye. Often staunchly denied by experts and fools alike. You distance yourself from what is since it is too hard to define. Many try such feats of courage. Search any library or set of circumstances. You say it begins here and ends there. Does it now? Interpretations all. You say you know. You say you have it. A jumble of words corner you in this effervescent thing known as truth. You have nothing. Impressions moving like clouds through an untouchable sky. Blue or gray, it does not matter. The air is as boundless as you are. 

Pinpointing is a game – a fool’s errand. Happiness. Disappointment. A turning world. Pain. Elation. Delight in the incomprehensible, such as it is. Be sure when you can. Assumptions abound but deceive. Expectations pop up but don’t suffice. You walk miles to pass the time. Distractions line every life. Enjoy what is and what is not when possible. Now is the only bit you can hold as it flutters away like smoke or waves on the sand. 

I am

Greek bronze circa 100 BCE

I am from the ocean. The waves pass through my veins as I wallow through the sludge of unending obstacles. Still I continue. Sick. Brave. Tired of that which I do not understand. I heave to the sky with a magnet on my sleeve to keep me where I must be. Not on this land, which I do not know, but back to the place that I know better because of this land. History comes alive with suffering. The pages of the west. Our greed, determination, thievery, intentions good and bad become much clearer through privation and lack of understanding. Hygiene, safety laws, legislation, money making, diversity, addressing of issues. They are there in a new light. The Atlantic and Pacific and all between beat in my heart. Imagine a land lit up by leaving. We learn through experience, observation. It’s all relative. Words do not cover it. Even the monster at the helm cannot tarnish the dream that is American democracy. It is a wisp of a thing in reality but mammothly present as ideology. Can we make our home free? We have been trying since its founding. Failing. Sometimes failing well, sometimes famously false. The school bell rings. 

Greek bronze circa 100 BCE

I am from the crowded room called humanity. My wings flap even though I have none. My vocal cords shake the earth like a lion. I sing like a nightingale; am treacherous and kind as a dedicated nun. Beware the turnstile of the human heart. It strives to be light but is often as heavy as the earth. I will knock on your door, knock about your garden, see the beauty and spit at the indifferent. There lays the matter of the big world turning. Unpredictable, genuine, unreliable, worthy. Can you pin it down? Never. Not now, not ever. It is an illusion to think so. It will flutter past your eyes without leaving a trail. It will drag you to the bottom, then pull you up to the heights. Jesters all, that thing called failure and success. A deluded populace searches for answers hoping to nail them down on the desert floor, sinking, sinking. Faster and faster only to face itself where it started. Yes. The journey, the journey. Angels whisper at the attempt. The devils laugh over their indigestion. Bleep. Blap. Blob. A speck in the universe. So absurdly self-involved. Righteous. Raucous. Revealed. Rewound. There they go. Have after them. They will slip through your fingers faster than you can say JP Rocks. 

I am the searched for air. Freedom of movement. Labored breath. Surly mouths sucking on the tap of life. Desperate. Elated. Lost in a dwindling wilderness dreaming of polished six shooters. Violence becomes a picture show. Flickers. Saturday night specials, three for a dollar if you’re under 12 years old. Oh, Loews of my youth. Where did it go? It stayed in the mind as reality. So hard to dispel. Please for it to be that way. But no, it had to be brutish, didn’t it? It had to bring a light to see with. It had to be too complex to figure out although many have tried. In the end, it’s entertainment for the mind. A star for the collar. A gentle reminder that we must amuse ourselves or go mad.