For Us The Living
Saturday, March 29, 2008
I am alive!
Oh I love you. I love you. I am alive.
Let us walk the sides of this endless mountain.
Let us lose our balance at the summit and tumble into the powdered snow.
Let us flee the setting sun into visions of the dawn, of waking
In this, this poetry of bright forever,
I would wear a thousand quills to dust in words of you.
Let me bring you to my place, that of sky blue and forest green.
Let us walk arm in arm down the long hills.
We shall savor the sunset, chase shadows among the stars.
We shall chase these children as they fly with the wind.
Let us live.
We must live.
I adore you.
You are mine and you have saved me.
I see no shadow alone, but with you, o my own.
We see the shades together, and we are each other’s.
I love these things,
these whispers that you and I share.
We have our paper screams, our own world’s attention.
We have our touch.
We. You, me.
Desire me as I desire you.
Touch me in return.
Bring about my sweet demise in your dark eyes.
You. I dream of.
I dreamed you.
I wrote of you.
I ran to you.
And you are here.
Alive.
I am so, right now.
Keep me.
Preserve me.
I last not long, for but a flame am I,
a matchstick with but moments of vitality.
Ere I fall to ash,
lift me to your lips and taste me.
Burn with me.
Lift this breath together with me.
In arms.
In vision.
In souls.
Shake this mortal cinder.
Chase me among the canyons.
Seek my voice.
Find me in the shadows.
Find me in the crystal clear pools.
Find me in the mirror of the night.
Take me.
Let this flight be our last.
Let it last forever.
Let our breath never die,
our gaze never fade,
our love never falter.
Come with me.
Come.
No Sacred Rest
Course the horizon
Dust in our memory
The setting sun
Shall burn through our rough robes
We speed in the wake
Of distance
The sand plumes
The whipping grass
Is pure sound
Whipping at our fleeing figures
We fly, we soar
Wind is nothing
We create it
We are wind
It howls in rage
As we Burst through this trail
On our quickened souls
To nowhere
To everywhere
We see no water
No sacred rest
It is the pounding
The sifting dream
Of desert in our ride
The dunes
The ridge
Ghostlike
We pass them all
For this is the ride
Ride of lifetimes
You’ve seen it
You’ve seen us pass
Did you join us
In our flight
Our passion
Our departure
We sailed upon the seas of sand
We savored the hard sweat
The span of the world
We touched the horizon
We touched the depths of the depths
And we seek them again
Ride with us
Ride beside
This caravan fleet
This fiery wake
Of dust
Passion
Ride
Begin
To the music of Enya, Book of Days. This would be #2 in honor of her ladyship.Into The RSS Age
I finally got tired of trying to figure out which of my surfing victims was actually worth checking.
I’ve never really figured out the RSS subscription thing, but really kinda needed it because of the pretty involved list of various victims I check regularly.
So I was on my Google page this morning and… Lo and Behold… I noticed Google Reader. I didn’t know what it was, never used anything but Gmail and Picasa. Clicking revealed a whole new world. Now all my favorite victims are right there on one page, and I can figure out which ones are newly painted, and also can find my way backward for a few posts, just in case I want to find something real quick.
No more cycling through all my bookmarks to find something! Yay! Now I’m going to have to find something else to do with all that time I just saved.
Write More Poetry! Or Draw Something! Er… Maybe not.
Aha! I’ll write more good stuff on my blogs. Love letters. Studies. Self-critique. Yay!
Judge and Jury
Friday, March 28, 2008
I meant only to know in my mind, and yet came across as the judge instead. I was high and you were low. I was far and afraid, and so I lied and made me strong. I wouldn’t admit the real truth, because the fake one was easier.
I did not take the information and compile it, but created my own impression instead. I judged subjectively. Subject to me, and I am hardly a trustworthy source.
That’s now how it works. One does not create a condition out of nothing. I did that. I didn’t think. I’m not good at that sort of thinking. My good thinking is in solving problems creatively. I do not fare well in the avoidance of problems or even making my views understood. I’ve enthroned myself in a sort of superiority complex based on my position. I have forgotten what I was to you. I have forgotten what I am to you. I’m me, not the guy in charge, but just me.
I do have authority, but it became used power, which kills things. I used to be afraid of it, power. I used to avoid its use, and somehow I got turned around and I began to think in terms of decision and authority. That doesn’t work. I cannot approach you, or you, or you when I am like this. I cannot answer you or guide you or love you from any position than humility, devotion, desire. My selfishness should consist of wanting to see you pleased, to see you with the best that can be given you. Selfishness should not be my self-preservation.
This goes for all. I make claims and statements, and they are either all about me, or they are about someone else. I want to clear the ones that are all about me. I don’t want to be on a pedestal. I want to be the old me. Real. The old me was sensitive and thoughtful. I didn’t forget you, or become simply convenient.
Maybe that’s why you don’t believe me sometimes, or you don’t respond in kind to my advances. Maybe that’s why you’re distant sometimes. You lost me somewhere, and you can’t seem to get me back.
So here am I. I took a couple of steps toward the green hills. Help me reach them. Help me shed this pack filled with self-sufficiency, this cloak that blocks the light of all of you, these boots that walk on the fire of my own kindling. Help me lose these things and become Your Old Friend, Your True Love, Your Beloved.
Here is my love letter. But I didn’t just say I love you. I asked to. I’m asking to.
Together Better and Worse
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
So we think alike.
In the dark recesses of our solitary minds, our words are the same. I feel trapped, for I dare not risk hurting you. I am alone, for I do not trust myself. I am sad, for I am no longer free.
In the air between us, our words meet again. They proclaim dreams. I want to be released, to shrug free of these chains. I want to trust myself, with you, with me. I want to find joy, being free.
We have locked ourselves in closets, and must come out, or we will be conformed to the dusty boxes and forgotten treasures of dreams and thoughts within.
Free to love. Free to dance. Free to feel the wind which just blew our hair. Free to drink of that joy, and inhale the sweet incense of simple pleasures. Free to be.
For we’ve judged our actions based on the perception of the other’s judgment. And we judged wrong.
This I believe. Should I find nothing to condemn your desires, I will not, in my want for cookie-cutter life, deny you, by commission or omission. And I dream you can do the same. Let us be trusting and open, for we have not done so in far too long.
Perhaps this, for you desire your dreams and shadows as I do mine, will lift us back up to them. And shall we then be ourselves once more? O let it be. Let It Be.
Patchwork
Monday, March 24, 2008
I never want to come across as though I’m not satisfied with life, the universe and everything.
I love the Lord. I am absolutely in love with my girl. She’s still the light of my life. Sexy and smart (too much of both for lil’ ol’ me to deserve). I love my kids. I love writing. Sometimes I even love waking up in the morning and being alive.
I just feel like I’m failing. In a lot of ways. I don’t have that inside thing that used to be me. I want to be Gurp, Pooka, Amiel, Beloved. But those me just don’t seem to be here.
I always thought that, as I got older, my me would be distilled, refined into what I really am. Like a concentration of the qualities I had (both good and bad).
But I’m hard, now. Hard like intolerant sometimes, like stupid at other times.
And I’m soft, like weak and afraid of conflict now, like a chameleon, taking after the next thing and becoming it.
Like I didn’t grow or refine, but instead got pieces of me replaced over time with patches. A patch replacing my sensitivity with narrow vision. Another covered my quick understanding mind with soft perception that seems to miss the reality of things. My love of peace, breath, beauty seem replaced by this perpetual sense of order, isolation and un-creative thinking.
And lots of the stuffing leaked out. One eye got scratched off and now I’m tucked away in a hand-made bag somewhere, with all my accessories, the memories and dreams remaining as ghosts that cross the room behind me as I pass through.
And here’s the thing. I don’t want that stuff to be gone. I don’t want it to rule my life, that’s for sure, because I have grown older, and (barely) a little wiser. I at least know which objects shouldn’t go in the wall outlet (usually). But I don’t want to give in to the group-think that we outgrow our youth.
The reality of life is that we have to do things, and we have to take on roles. That doesn’t mean that we have to be these things, or live out these roles. The role of supervisor and leader are things I hate to be. I don’t want that job, but I do it, and I think I’m reasonably adept at it. But it’s built in my a hardness that just won’t leave me. Being a sailor has built that hardness, too. My “vast” experiences have opened my eyes and my skills so that I can create and think on several tracks at once, but they’ve diminished my desire for the intimate and beautiful. I think I’ve become jaded, powder-coated or something, and I want that layer removed.
The “therapies” advertised, that I can think of, are things like get away from it all or get some time alone to reset, rebuild your relationship, and those sound great. But on closer inspection, they seem fake. Impose an artificial setting to reconnect, or rebuild? It wasn’t an artificial setting that caused all this history, so how is a mockup going to fix stuff?
And time alone? I sure have it right now. 8 more months of it. I’ve had a few other time-out periods, and they’ve certainly given me the perspective to recognize my dreams and wishes, and realize them as what they are. But the solitude hasn’t fixed me. And by the time I get back to the people I want to share this with, it’s been worn out, stuffed back under the rug until next time. I don’t talk about it, don’t feel anymore, can’t find the words to put it in place. I guess that’s why I’m trying to blog it this time. Maybe the words will stick?
I think there’s an answer to this mess. So I have hope. I don’t believe, refuse to believe that I have to continue missing that me by a whisper. Give me back my shadows, my love of someone else’s shadows. Give me back my mountains and sweet grass plains, and the ghosts that flicker in full view. God, that stuff hurt sometimes. I really hurt, died inside, really cared and felt and wanted to give. Now it’s just not the same. I’ll take the hurt back, if I can get the rest as well.
Postcard From There
Sunday, March 23, 2008
And too afraid to make sense of this
That would probably come out as nonsense.
To say how much I miss
That sense of you
Where I could feel through walls,
See your thoughts through your eyes.
You see I lost parts of me.
And I can’t bring them back.
But I can’t explain to you how much it means to me,
For maybe you don’t see the loss so hard
And how much I die
When I recall what I cannot.
I trundle about
On my peg-leg of reality,
Shuffling my fingers across the shuttle,
Weaving the means to scratch by.
And it seems sometimes
That this is all I have,
All else scattered to four winds.
No passion.
None of what I was.
Just gray morass of breathing.
Of peering from apprehensive eyes.
Fine on the skin, real and tangible,
But empty as a dried pomegranate,
And hard.
And if that is real life?
I want to be fake.
Louder Poetry Day
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Thought I’d try my hand at reading my own writing. Probably could have picked a few cheerier experiment subjects, but this is what I’m into right now. If you don’t like ‘em, no worries. I think they’re better read than heard too.
Maybe if I had a voice-fixerator and a real recording studio (maybe that guy who did Darth Vader’s voice!), these would be cool.
If you don’t like that, you need to check out these: My moves and witticism are classic.
From FarFarAway
Friday, March 21, 2008
Do we grow out of our fairy tales? Does that dreaming and feeling go when we move off to our work and our families, our routine and process?
It’s still in my head. In my heart. But why isn’t it coming out any more? Is there a taboo, once you hit an age or an epoch, that the personal stays just that, the personal? Can we only get angry, or get happy, or react to a specific event, rather than sustain or draw upon what is within us?
We used to write long letters. Letters that didn’t even necessarily say anything. But they had much that was US in them. Maybe I’m romanticizing the past. Lending too much weight to what was a children’s game. But it seemed real and heartfelt then. Can’t see why it would’ve changed.
Is there a way to rebuild that fantastic castle? Is that horizon merely a mirage now? Is it worth it, or should practical replace pretty?
Poetry, not sufficient, is code. It’ll probably never be read for what it is (and I doubt I want all of it to, for the trial that lurks within).
I think I want it. I don’t know how to define it. I don’t think. I’m not sure. It’s something that still casts a shadow, persistently returning over and over. So I don’t believe all this is waste, or silliness. Turn off the romance? What? That’s insane. Kill our hearts? Focus them on driving? Where is the wonder of Creation, if not between us? Can one look at a span of blue sky, the clouds, and not catch their breath? Or do we just have to settle down and remark upon the nice shade of blue and the warm weather?
I haven’t asked you in ages. Where are your shadows now? Do you have memories that still lurk in the corners, memories that don’t fade? Do you still have that light from 14 years ago? Do you want to bang your fists against the stones as I do, against the things that keep you inside you? I never let all that out. I failed my attempts. In many ways. What do we do with this? Or am I speaking to ghosts who were banished long ago.
They haven’t left me.
Wisdom, faded, as smoke from an altar
Of stones and water there is no memory
Beyond simple words on sheets shredded
No faint hint, no whisper of hands falling
That, so, in moments gone, were clutched
White pressed, to each other
Wisdom twinkling, seething under its breath
To return, falling upwards, stumbling onward
Upon the stones as mists, clear, lingering
For one way is found not through but into
Something elusive as if a mirror in a pool
Rippling, solid words unscratched, unmarred
In travel, touch or love
Breath soft, of fog on moonlight and elusive
Tracks floating on sand, grain by grain
Turning back, and forth uncertainly, devilishly
Close to another sheen, a shard of mirror
Clouded at its edge, smoothed in the sand
Reflecting years, children under a sun
Eyes darkened by the closeness of a face
To earth on knees and hands, begging release
Or filling of a void left by the shattered altar.
Happy Birthday Heather!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
YOU’RE OLD! Woohoo! Happy Birthday! I LOVE my sister.
From Big Brother + 5!
My favorite sister in the whole world. Me an’ Anika and Molly and Bo and Gwennie and Bunky all agree that you are the best!
From Greg in Cali!
From Steve +2
From Yer Daddy (and Mom!)
W E L O V E Y O U ! ! ! !