Knowing

Traced
I can see the faint outlines upon the shiny desk
The notes and hearts and wishes
I know well
the trappings the hints
made by hands over the years,
the simple curves of the letters positively bursting with the effort poured into them
are a reminder
still hear a sigh as a dream hits the floor, and
Then the one metallic shard of the mirror
        that still held hope
                 hurts you a little
I know well the wonder: does it matter?
I know well the wanting
Arching a broken back to hold onto residual dreams
though the gold stops glittering
I can still taste the longing, still see the last trace

Scattered

He
Writes
Words all across himself
Strews the alphabet painstakingly upon his skin
Lets the sentences fall from
His one ballpoint pen, a gift from a guard who needed to do some thought of good one day
This man
Sits, stands
Twists like a cyclone into any shape
Careful not to squander
His precious canvas
He gives each word, each syllable, a
Caressing attention as a mother gives a child
(He forgets what that is) 

He writes
Not as a man who needs to remember the milk
Nor as one who, bored, doodles upon their smooth skin
--Would he had that ink to waste--
But as himself, spilling his very soul onto his wrinkled, weary self
Pitch-black ink marching words the
Only thing to keep him chained and fettered here
In what may as well be Hell
He improbably longs for a staying, a purpose, a legacy
And he never goes out in the rain
He does not want to be washed away.

It's Time

Scent November in the wind, 

the darkness can envelop us now. 

Think back and further back, and 

to a different smile and a different thought 

what were 

we thinking 

and are we right now... 

Is right now right now? 

Wind swirls 

it has arrived, that certain sigh and certain caress 

and back into dim times we can hardly remember remembering

minds drift, buffeted back into the present

To the reality of retrospect and hindsight

And the warmth of today

Dynasty

Born on some faraway rugged shore
You cried and
harmonized with the shrieking birds
Fled to a tower monolith, locked in dark for a crime you couldn't explain with toys
And flourished there as you began to understand
Thanked your father on bended knee when he showed you
the deceit and lies and threatening flirtation
Shattering the innocence you never could have had anyway
You grew with an empire built on splintered principles and trying to be more
Grew into the glory and fanfare that was your inheritance
Took ahold
(when the leader could no longer stand that fateful morning)
Grasped the strength and power and bloodstained steel of your birthright
And rode,
Always forward
To satisfy the need for those things you never really understood
Looking for approval from some
god you didn't know how to believe in
And fulfilling a craving,
                   not your own
to keep the lines strong

Falls

Tired autumn clouds lie 

Underscoring the too-vibrant, don't-waste-a-minute sky 

As breezes with a familiar tang crumple another leaf corpse into 

Cracked asphalt, 

Suspended in auburn 

                              A wine-colored, brusque syrup of 

Waiting hunched in a halfway 

For the last piano key up-down fanfare of frost 

And no more of the matte-finished summer farewell 

We wait here, a poised kind of stable

Would you refute the irrefutable? 

Try to rebuild as the original Rome, stressed and stretched, finally falls? 

But as we wait for our empire-kingdom-russet

to drift to the ground and for the painters to retire to craving vibrancy once again 

Feast your eyes on this gleam, this harvest, this splendor,

and look out at how blue the ocean is 

Just Right

Argent pours like rain 

Remember your smile and 

I feel like lightning 

A Minority of One

Anyone can tell you--and trust me, they will--that a minority is a group of people smaller than the majority (the larger group). And yes, the minority generally loses because of sheer lack of numbers. Take elections, for example. Those who bother to vote sometimes do not get what they wish: they are in the minority, and the majority are the winners, simply because there are more of them. That is the point. 

HOWEVER. 

Anyone can tell you--and trust me, they will--that any large group of people who are oppressed, or who are not heard or recognized, are a minority. Because those people voting in their election? Yes, they are a minority. But their opinion is recognized. Again, this is the point. When a large group of people is downtrodden and cannot be heard, their opinion is not even recognized. They do not even have the opportunity to be a minority, because they are not counted. To not get what you wish, you have to wish for something. 

Roman women. Majority (yes, majority) victims of genocide. Any racial minority (yes, minority) anywhere. 

The word "minority" is not simply a way of counting. To many, it has connotations of oppression, of unfairness, and of dehumanization.

Anyone can have an opinion, and as long as that opinion is recognized, they have the chance to be heard, however few their numbers are. It is groups, of any size, who are seen and not heard, obeying and uncomplaining, who are minorities. If one small person is heard, they have made a difference. And if an enormous, or tiny, group is not heard, they cannot make a difference, and are silenced, made inconsequential. They are a minority, in a deeper way that transcends the power of numbers. 

Enduring

Old man weary across the sand strides
Muddy up to his crusty waders
And one mournful seagull cry his face falls but
Wait
--There is more (Not the end)
Dull coughing engine in the distance coming close closer still he
     
       Leans his shoulders against the coming fog
Unconscious
He
Trudges deftly among the grime and listens
(Waiting, waiting) The sound of his dreams, the sound that
He does not dare (wants)
To believe even though like a fresh breeze in his cellar it is taking him back far back to an apple orchard (her, yes, her) and the light (yes, the way it looked when it hit her face) and (her laughter, her smile, just for him) the sound of warm wind in warm leaves, warm green

Crashing splashing waves he is tuned to the sea tuned to it now for many years (such a long time ago)
Look up!
Now the prow hits the strand and
Now there is a crunch of exhausted pebbles
And a greeting slow-spread grin (old friends)

Climb through the brine and the salt and
The improbable lucky accumulation of age and rime
Look to the east, look to the day (hope hope hope how familiar)

And as we face forward, follow a pointing finger
Back, back and straining eyes see (did you know it, did you trust it all the time?)
She is waving from the window.

Petrel

Saw her today
hunched
A grey fledgling against dull blue
And I thought she might be migrating
But then I saw there was no smile

And behind those grey walls the same color as her feathers
A wrench is heard
A deep crack
That thinks it is hopeless
The loss of hope that comes with
              forgetting

The fleeting moment
(And who remembers fleeting moments?)
The fleeting three moments she was alive
And her wings did not just flap
They pulsed with a gratitude and a sense of wonder
That the wings of her mother
        and her mother's mother
Are too tired to recall

Weak current
wafts as her wings just barely
keep her in the air, improbably suspended in the most natural way
And a song without words
                                       (nearly drowned out by the shrike of some predator)
Unwittingly keeps her afloat
Until the day when she is not just surviving,
But living
             --Until
she is flying.

Judging The Cover

Today I saw a black girl and a white boy. One was probably African-American, the other probably of European descent. I'll leave it to you to guess which one was which.
To me, it feels odd to identify people as "black" or "white" (or even "yellow," which nobody does). To me it seems wrong, somehow, to describe a human being firstly by the color of their skin. Because we all know there's much more to a person than the color of their skin. Shouldn't I say "Today I saw a girl wearing a green shirt" or "Today I saw a person carrying a large backpack?" Isn't that more accepting, somehow?
Or is it better to say "She will be waiting for you; she has a green shirt and she is black?" In a region or culture that is predominantly white (European? Of Caucasian descent?) it seems better to describe the person so they will be recognized; isn't that the point?
Somehow, though, I cannot reconcile myself to this. When I tell someone to meet a friend I don't describe them as "white" or even "Caucasian." They simply ARE, and then I go on to describe them ("They are carrying a large backpack...")
If I was in a planet inhabited by goblins, and there was one wooly mammoth, I would describe the wooly mammoth as different from the others, even if aforementioned mammoth lived exactly as the goblins did. For all that humans sometimes like to avoid differences, aesthetic ones are very often used as a primary way to judge a person.
Should we take the most obvious thing about a person, though it may be completely insignificant, and use that as a defining characteristic? Maybe we seem as though we are not recognizing that person as who they truly are, because we see what is only right in front of us. Whether it is shockingly perfect proportions, large amounts of orthodontia, or whatever ethnicities we happen to be, it's hard to figure out how to think of and describe someone when the human eye and brain are confronted by aesthetics that can, unfortunately, be hard to get around.
I don't know if people prefer not to be described by their ethnicities (I certainly don't) or if they like to be, and describe themselves proudly as  Brazilian, or Aboriginal, or German-Scottish-Cuban-Austrian.
Even if we all looked exactly the same, or if we all have varying hues of bright green skin, I know one thing: In almost every way, humans are perfectly identical on the inside.

Halfway to Blackness

If

at the quiet beginning of tomorrow 

we wake and there is nothing but blackness

what will we do?

because I don't think that even the druids with beards and prayers could

bring back the light 

the hot August light that we pray for all year

and you and I, together we make a spark but 

there's really nowhere for the spark to go without the sun and 

even if all the lovers in the world exploded in ecstasy like summer fireworks 

it wouldn't be enough 

even if we wake up and there's nowhere to go and we blunder like hypothermic bison through the night 

even if someone somewhere like makes a machine of warmth like da Vinci and 

even if we thought about it and someone told us it would be black would we listen 

even if we all stopped on the subway and faced Mecca or even if we all asked a wicked witch 

we would be wanting for 

a bigger light 

but we, you and I, can hope and 

half-guessed, divinely realized

maybe the sky will turn gold again. 

concentrating on the sun

it's really hot and sometimes
she just wants to lie down and look at the scorching light and
inhale the sharp air that isn't even summer anymore
it's just there now that she's used to it
and anything that moves is really lazy because
it's hard work laying here in the
sunshine
(it's the divine and perfect and therefore very annoying kind that makes you want to stare at it and run
            away at the same time)
anyway anything that moves really doesn't hold a candle to her
concentration on the sun
even though you or i would walk by and not look twice
and the beating blue sky and the tumble of the achingly bright leaves on those tall trees are lost on us
and we do not know
what we are seeing

Falling

We stand at the edge of the terrifying blade of rock. Woolly white clouds drift in the atmosphere below us. Chocolate-colored mud slips beneath my feet as I lean farther over the sheer drop. I don't even want to think about how high up we are. Then I see it: a small rock ledge jutting into space some ten feet beneath us, hollow and full of crystalline, still water.
"I'm going down there," and I stumble down, backward on all fours and carefully holding on to anything I can reach. But suddenly I can't reach anything at all. I'm holding on to a single outcropping with both hands, but there's nothing else. I try to haul myself up to another handhold. I'm too weak, though, and now I'm shaking and my fingers are flooded with adrenaline as the reality of this situation and my stupidity catches up to me.
"I can't hold on!" I'm panicking now. I want to look down, but I force myself not to. It'll only make things that much worse.
"Don't move," he says. "I'll be right there." I can't see him, just hear his voice, and I wonder if he's as terrified as I am.
After an eternity he's right above me, hanging on tight to the rocks. He stretches out a hand and somehow I grasp it, clutching myself to the outcropping with my elbows and shoulders. Our hands are slippery with sweat and fear, and I can feel my fingers sliding from his. I pull at his hand to get a stronger grip, and then he's next to me, not above me, and I am no longer clutching the rock, and I can't feel anything but wind in my ears. I see a chunk of rock--my rock--falling down, down. It dawns on me that I am following the piece of rock, and so is he, and we are falling, freefalling, through the woolly white clouds I never dreamed I'd see the inside of.
The wind rushes cold in my face and whistles in my ears. I hear a shout of tenor from somewhere and realize he's not next to me anymore just as I see a curled-up shape in his black and red jacket hurtle past me, downward. I try to shout something--an apology, a shriek of fear, a call for help--but the vicious wind rips the words from my lips and nothing can be heard except whistling cold all around me.
The initial shock dies away, and it seems as though I drift through the air aimlessly, gracefully swinging this way and that way in space. I look back on why I am here now, plunging through nothing, and sigh inwardly. What a foolish thing to do, I tell myself. What an idiotic, pigheaded way to die.
This brings a new idea to my mind: Will I die? I don't want to die.
I push that thought away and concentrate on now, on falling. His form is spreadeagled below me, and there is nothing but whirling grey and white. It is almost relaxing in a perverse way.
Until I see the green. A green so big I can't believe I didn't notice it before. But then it is the only thing I see and there's nowhere else to go and except the green and it is looming in front of me and I don't register what that means until it hits me.
And
        then
                I
                   am
                         floating. . . .

Awakenings

He woke up with a sort of glaze over his eyes and a bleary taste in his mouth. The brash sun cut into his eyes, and he shut them again, trying to remember the blissful night and escape today.

In his dream he was holding something—he did not know what it was—well, he had known, in the dream, but now in consciousness and daylight he could not remember. He wandered, aimlessly, through mazes of attic rooms and kitchens with women and angelic children and smells of meatloaf. He strode through towns, sleepy and idyllic and timeless.

He held this, this thing that was something, and he walked. He strolled through an emerald park and looked at ducks paddling in the fountain. Alone, he walked through the middle of the road and into another park, also emerald, but with two fountains and swans instead of ducks. He missed the ducks.

He was looking for something, he knew. He was not searching in the frantic searching way of a man in desperate need of something, but in a suspended way, a way of searching where one is always walking and always looking and never stops. But he did not know what he was looking for—no, he did not know, although in the dream he was sure that the longing for it had permeated every fiber of his being and consumed him with this longing.

Again he walked through a park, devoid of both ducks and swans, but he did not mind anymore, or even notice. Maybe (he thought now, in waking, in hindsight) he had known he was getting closer, closer to this thing that had no name or purpose but the object of his search. But still his search was calm, his legs in their even stride were tempered.

Dreaming in a most un-dreamlike state, he crested a hill. Alone on this hill he stood, standing and surveying what should have been a vista but was instead a patchwork flatness that did not impress or repulse, it merely seemed to be. Here, in this dream, he looked down at the object in his hand—this object that now, in waking, had escaped him—he looked down at it. Here, above the patchwork flatness, in pink half-light, he saw it (whatever it was) and knew he had been looking for it the whole time. 

Stuck Here Now

Tumble down and down
Shatterglass breaks then the
Sun rises (praise be)
apricot and cerulean swirl of hello,
Filter lemon light
Low, low song
Rap rap and a building crescendo and a
High
Note
For
Them
Before descending back to the
Monotony of vim and verve
When we wonder why
Again and again
Ask and ask and
If the question is important then
Why do they only teach the answer

Born This Way

I'd like to think that most people have accepted the fact that homosexuality (or heterosexuality) is innate; being LGBT is not something that can be converted or beaten out of you. But then again, I'd like to think that people could just sit down and talk about their issues to solve them. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense...

But I digress. In my opinion, the idea that an individual has "changed" their sexual preference to irritate the government or just to "stick it to the man" is offensive and narrow-minded. For example, I cannot change my race. My genetic makeup dictates my ethnicity. I could act like an Inuit or an Italian, but I cannot BE an Inuit or Italian. Anyone who wanted to could act as though they enjoyed homosexual relations, but they are not a homosexual. Sexual preferences are not only a personality trait, they are an essential part of biological makeup. 

And so some ask: nature or nurture? Is a child raised away from all thoughts of homosexuality still going to be a homosexual? And conversely, would a child raised by gay parents become a homosexual automatically? 

Sexual preference is not contagious. Yes, a man raised by a minister and his wife may grow up, get married and have two children and a successful career and not discover his true sexual preference or come out for many years, but at some point he will become aware, publicly or privately, of his sexual orientation. For various reasons having to do with prejudice, stigma and religion, this man may choose to stay in the closet. But his preferences will not alter; they will merely be buried. 

At some point, people will wake up. They will realize that as long as there has been life, there has been sex. For as long as people have been on Earth, they have reproduced, and for as long as there have been men and women, there have been homosexuals, heterosexuals, bisexuals and transgendered persons. This is a fact of life. And marriage of two people who love each other should never be a question, whether it is religious or political. 

Any religion will say that love is essential to life. I doubt that God cares what sort of love it is.  

Here

Blue expanse

stretches yearning for the 

horizon, 

inconsequential sun specks dance on cerulean canvas 

and tangy salt coils wind around the clouds. 

Can you sleep now? 

Rocking melody waves are holding you.

Fixed here what if it was forever but 

why do we need forever when we have now and 

infinite gold pours down to kiss you and 

I rise up to meet you

for the first time. 

New Material...

Maybe, says the cynical part of my brain, materialism makes people want to make everything more complicated, more intricate, more involved. That’s why staring at “New Document” on my computer screen is frustrating—because I am innately materialistic, and therefore do not like blankness. I want something tangible, that screams “Color!” or “Love!” or “Blood and guts!” like a bad movie. Maybe my senses have been dulled and I need to have as much sensory input as possible, to keep my 21^st century, technological, beef-guzzling faculties interested. White is simply too subtle for my Westernized self.

                Humans are innately creatures of progress—we want more, and we want to produce. There are many things that prove the worth of humans and their ingenuity, although increasingly this need for production and the idea that “more is better” is proving to be diabolical and, some would say, humans’ downfall. Maybe it stems from this idea that humans need to produce and make better, but sometimes the things they—we—make or improve make hard work, and therefore this same ingenuity, a moot point. The decrease in demand for hard, especially manual, work, allows people to become lazier and put all their trust in some form of technology. And, as we all know, technology is not foolproof.

                But I digress. This need for production makes me subconsciously want to fill a paper, or something bigger, with ideas or marbles or whatever the receptacle was meant to hold. Is this want, or need, product of social materialism? Is it an innate craving that is part of being human? Or is it just me, accustomed to meeting deadlines and being frustrated when the words don’t automatically craft themselves into an essay before my eyes?

                Whatever the reason, I know that many people feel the need to complete things. However, my discussion of blankness is not yet complete. 

My Mind's A Blank

White pages are intimidating. The blankness is so… Blank. It longs for words to fill it, ideas to bring it to life. This blankness, this absence that confronts people, often when they wish to do away with it, makes putting pen to paper a little more difficult. Why would I adulterate this clean sheet with my thoughts, and then scratch them out when they don’t ring true?

Blankness is made to be filled. There is nothing more satisfying to me than seeing my printer spit out sheets covered in word-processed thoughts. Yes, part of the satisfaction comes from seeing the word processor make sense of my thoughts and then push them into physical being, but the sense of achievement is also that I have filled something, that this sheet which was once so uniform is now overflowing with ideas and words, or even just meaningless characters. 

                White is purity. Don’t think white supremacy, or some virgin chained to a rock, about to be devoured. But white is simple. It is blank. It is ready for something else to come and overshadow it, cover it with characters or colors or ketchup stains. A white piece of paper positively invites me: “Come on, this uniformity is so boring, let’s spice it up a bit.” White needs something of another color to make it white, a stark black line to make the remainder of the paper look cleaner. But that’s not why we fill it. We don’t cover something in black to make the rest of it appear white.

                Most people like to fill things. It gives a sense of, well, fulfillment. A white paper lying on a desk is not there so people can admire its whiteness. White house walls don’t look truly lived in until there is a painting or a chair or a five-year-old’s fingerprint to break up the blankness. Some might say that purity is there to be made impure, and others might say that they just feel nervous wearing a white shirt until they’ve spilt red wine on it. Whether it’s conscious or unconscious, people want to put more into the white, so it’s not just white, it’s writing or painting or the signal that once their child was five. Maybe it feels friendlier, or maybe people just like to fill up things so they feel more accomplished. And accomplishment is what we are all striving for. 

And I have more to say, but I think I'll say it later. 

Clean

This room is very white. The walls positively reek of purity, and the sunlight that streams in through my one small, high window seems ersatz, filtered. My bed against one wall is sparse, the covers perfectly taut over the one pillow. I look at it with a mixture of loathing and love. My haven, where I lie each night--and day--protects me from the looming evil that is the outside world. Only within its safe white boundaries do I feel truly safe. The rest of the room can offer me no comfort. There are no books, no instruments, no photographs, for they could trigger an unexpected episode. And that is why I am here. The prevention of episodes.
At the same time I detest my bed, hate its safe confines that make it so easy and comfortable to hide. When I look up and out toward the great unknown, and wonder why I am here, I can hide under a sheet. The longing goes away then, or at least it is dulled into submission. Then the guilt begins. Who am I to think I can hide, here in my safe white room, far away from those brave souls who venture out into society every day, take its sorrows and joys, make it their own? Who am I to think that I even deserve this, when I am too cowardly to step outside? Why am I sitting here on this perfect bed?
I long for imperfection. And then the thought of it makes me scream.
Death, and loss, and risk, and hate and war and all the things I know prevail outside my room, seep into my mind. I am safe here. I know I am. Protected by my bed and my nurses and the clean, beautiful white walls. There is nowhere better for me--the dirt and sweat and tears of reality are too much for me. Even the ones I loved are no more--I cannot escape the pain of that. Life is one big descent, and everyday I was spiraling deeper. Down and down, and the fear that I saw and foresaw nailed me to my bed, until I could not rise.
Even the nurses, accustomed as they are to dealing with people like me, are nervous. They do not speak, just offer me my unintimidating gruel and scuttle away. They are afraid of scaring me, and then listening to my sobs as I begin to recall the terror that every corner brings.
I look up toward the mysteriously filtered sunlight, and I long to feel the wind. Maybe a particle of dust will touch my eye, and I will embrace it. I want another human's touch, flawed and wonderful. I want to see an unmade bed and hear a baby cry, and I want to feel water that is icy cold and salty, not tepid and bland.
I want to feel alive again, not this colorless, moping half-life. I want to feel the joy of rushing down a dirty city street, feel the hum of emotions and the chaos--nothing is forever, but everything is for now.
Maybe, someday, by looking up at my window, I will feel alive again.

My Moment of the Day

Can you see God?
This one time I...
Like really see God, and recognize him, and say hello and ask how they slept last night.
No. 
Can you touch God?
I knew this person once...
I mean reach out and shake their hand and say you've always been a fan of their work, and admire their handshake.
No. 
So there is no God.
But...

Can you see love?
Well... 
I mean really see it. Like spot it across a busy street and wave like it's an old friend with your hat on.
No.
Can you touch love?
Uh...
Really touch it. Not like sex but can you pick it up and hold it in your hand and smile at it.
No.
So there is no love.
NO. That's not what I meant.
Well...

What do you call it, when you can't touch it and can't see it, but you know it's there? You trust it, you believe in it even when it fails you. We all know love is there. Even the worst cynics in the world think deep down there has to be someone out there. (Trust me. I know.) But we don't all think God is there.
Everyone says this, but I just realized there might be some truth to it.
What if they're both the same thing?
What if we're both the same thing?
What if we're all the same thing?

11:11

Why would I
Make a wish at 11:11
When in sixty seconds the magic minute will be gone?
What's the point of laughter
When at some point we'll have to stop?
When we say hello
You know soon we'll say goodbye.

When you shout and fight and throw that
Thunder word across the room
You feel like you're on top of the world
And then you're up at night
You want to cry and run across and take them all back
All back all back
Because someday it'll all be too late
No one will remember except the clouds
That are only passing by anyway.

Because summer's so nice
But it always has to end.
And at some point when you're telling me it's going to be okay
You'll have to let go
And we'll go face the music alone
It's all temporary
This respite that we call
Music love laughter sun
It won't last forever
You know.

And why would I wish for
It all to get better
When the magic minute is going to slip away like a drop of July
And I'll just be waiting waiting
For the next time to
Wish
And the things that are supposed to get me through the day
Their fleeting brightness
Just makes everything else a little more grey.

The Dreamer

I saw a dreamer in the sky once, hazel eyes a sharp contrast against the brilliant blue. There was only one cloud, a fleecy white rag that hovered above her head, and floated delicately in the breeze that ruffled the air. It looked as though it was nailed to the expanse of blue, as though it dangled in this hemisphere by only a wish and a bit of thread.
I knew she was a dreamer by the translucence of her skin--it was so clear, so pure, I could almost see the fantasies beneath it. A scroll of blue veins next to her temple pulsed thoughts, thoughts I could almost taste, they were so thick in the air. They seemed to roll out of her mind in great, invisible waves, keeping her afloat, away from the toils of the ground. On these billows she rested, although I could not see them--they were something you felt, something that didn't require eyes.
The dreamer was lazy, her lips curved in something that was too effortless to be a smile. I knew without trying that my lips would not do the same thing if I tried. The sun that I could not see caught the gold flecks in those hazel eyes and brought them dancing forward. Her lids opened fractionally, and the kaleidoscope golden eyes sparkled. The cloud was buffeted to the west and swung on its invisible thread. In the back of my mind, I thought that it must have been a truly great dream, to be strong enough to move that cloud.
I looked back at the dreamer, and her open eyes glimmered. She knew something I didn't.

It Was All Yellow

yellow 

lemon

yellowgolden

jaune

gelb 

amarillo 

giallo 
                                                                    yellow                         

Awmmmmm.

We are gathered here today to welcome this new Awm into the world....


He shall now become a member of this most honourable society of Awms.

He shalt carry on the Awm legacy proudly and with great.... Awm-ness.

And he shall pass this most honourable position down through the progeny of his peers...

And he shall never eat kiwifruit, for it is sacrilege.

Nor have an abnormal passion for iguanas, because he shalt know that penguins are da bomb.

And he shalt procreate with these penguins, yea, and he shalt create a superrace, known to all as the prenguins, and they shalt become the downfall of the iguana civilization, and shalt rule the earth. Meekly.

And then his prenguins, and they shalt become as one with the iguanas, so that the Earth may not be destroyed by their meek warfare.

Amen, and they shalt have glorious tea parties, and play croquet on the lawn, and yea, they shalt have spines.

And with their spines and at their tea parties, they shalt realize the most glorious of all items, that they might have: the toast points.

Yea, and they shalt feast, and yea, the good Lord shalt provide for them with infinite numbers of toast points, for He is good.

And the race of Awms that shalt from then on be known as the prenguins, and also as the Iguanguins, will also discover the joy and happiness that is provided by the Great Lord in the Sky, who's name shalt go unmentioned, other than to call Him, Larry.

Yea, and this shall be a sign unto them, and the great, Unnamed Larry, in His great goodness, shalt provide, and yea, He shalt show them, by a light in the sky, the home of the race's fosterchild, the sloth." 

And from this glimpse back into the future, yea, they shalt realize their true purpose on Earth, relating to their relatives, the sloth. And the Great Unnamed Larry shalt say unto them...

'Yea, go forth, my children, and do my bidding, and honor my name and thy uncle Joe, and make lasagna.' 

And they shalt make such wonderous lasagna, that it shalt call forth from the Great Place Up There, a great and glorious being, who shalt be known as thy bestie, Charlie. And they shalt be so impressed by Charlie, that they make him many-fold of lasagna.

Yea, and the good Lord Larry be praised, they shalt create such a wholesome and good lasagna that it shalt make the fur on their chests grow to such stuff as is only found in the most luxurious sloths, and they shalt create from it a magical cloak in in it envelop Charlie.

And Charlie shalt see what glorious creatures these be, and he shalt give them their own land, as to make such glorious hybrid babies as have ever been seen. And to their offspring they shalt feed much of thy lasagna. And Charlie shalt call this cloak, his cloak of Invisibility.


Yea, and these offspring shalt frolic in this land of Lasagna, and Charlie shalt benevolently offer them shreds of his old jackets, and on these they shalt kneel, pray and supplicate to Larry for more marinara sauce.






NB: Credit for this post goes in part to Emma, who ingeniously thought up half the tale. Many thanks! 

A Thought

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.
--Nicole Krauss



That pretty much says it all.

Right...

When there was nothing
There had to have been something
Otherwise there would have been
No nothing to be nothing
Right?

When there was something
There had to have been nothing
So the something would feel
Like it was something
Right?

When there was me
There had to be a you
Or I wouldn't have felt
Like I was anything at all
Right?

I'm all right now.

Give Me The Strength....

In the US, and many other Western countries, obvious, heartfelt displays of emotion are not exactly frowned upon, but are generally saved for a more private setting. If a person (especially a man) cries in public, this makes people uncomfortable. Those of us involved in theatre or other performance know that "over-acting" is what many directors look for and praise, but it is hard to get people to overact because they subconsciously feel that a large display of emotion is "bad" or inappropriate. This is caused by our Western society's preconception that emotion, and the display of it, is a sign of weakness. This has changed more in the past century, but it is still subtly a part of daily life. 

This idea, of emotion being "bad" or incredibly private and not fit for public viewing, has been utilized for centuries: in countless civilizations, those who were strong were the people who displayed little or no emotion in public. Why, you ask? Because emotion is one of the basic human traits--humans feel and love so deeply that they have to show their feelings; it is how they communicate and thus form bonds, which are very important to the human psyche. Wherever this idea of emotion being a sign of weakness came from, it may have something to do with the fact that people are always searching for more. They do not want to be just human, and in ancient times especially, they wanted to be immortal or divine. And how do you show that you are not human? Why, you refuse to act human; you refuse to show the depth of feeling and emotion of which humans are capable. 

Humans are all about strength, but it is very odd (and a classic display of mankind's pigheadedness) that the only way we can be strong is if we appear to be something we are not. In this case, we hope to appear divine or immortal, or simply "better" than we are, by abandoning our humanity. One of the things that makes us great is our ability to feel. And we refuse to feel, or if we do feel, we do so in the dark of night. We are afraid that people will think worse of us for our displays of emotion. The Maori people of New Zealand, however, are exactly the opposite. Their haka dance and other religious and cultural rituals use emotion as a means of expression. This can actually make more Westernized people uncomfortable--it is our instinct to eschew those  who show all of their feelings. 

Anyone who has ever seen a haka, though, will tell you that although emotion is supposed to be a sign of weakness, the Maori are strong, and much more intimidating than their Western counterparts. This just proves that emotion, an essential human quality, does in fact make us stronger. The traits of humanity are not to be shunned in favor of divinity--they are to be embraced, because now more than ever, the human race needs strength. 

never thought this way before

silent winter sky
smoky grey suffocate
i start to shiver

then there was a smile
push impending clouds away
flicker and then more

in my mind is a
sharp scent of honesty
and a hint of sun

(did i mention the music?)

It Doesn't Have Words

All I can compare it to is a chord
One of the piano ones that you think requires 11 fingers
With a bunch of notes (what are notes anyway) that
Wrap around you like something you can't explain
It doesn't keep you safe it
Makes you want to jump and sing and scream and cry
Run laughing through the proverbial meadow
But maybe the only reason you're running is to get closer to the chord
See if it sounds as good up close
As when you heard it all those years ago
From across the meadow.

Saturday Morning

Saturday morning

Taste of last night still in my mouth

Last night's mascara smudged around my eyelids 

Still dazed, I stumble 

Down into the world 

Outside echoes my mood 

The one green spot looks as though it is about to be overtaken by the all-encompassing gray that is late January

And the gray and green

The scent of coffee, bitter, hovers in the air

Like the green that is slowly fading 

The word "muster" comes to mind

And it, once so grand, so proud and brave and determined, seems tired and stale

It would have mustered, had it not already

Again it would have sallied forth

Had it not been tired out from a constant stiff upper lip

I would have mustered

Had I not already sallied forth

Not already been exhausted from that front, that stiff upper lip

Maybe I see a little green coming back from that tired tree

Maybe the gray might be receding

Maybe I can try to muster again

Looking For Love?

I think that what people are looking for is love. Yeah, sure, you say, we knew that. I know you did, and people talk about it all the time. This so-called acceptance of something so basic, beautiful and important in our society can actually have an opposite effect. Oh, sure, love, you say. Whatever. Been there, done that.
But the thing is, hearing so much about love and wisdom and everything actually seems to make us MORE cynical. We think, love is all around, it's so magical, it's all going to be okay. And then we live in a war-torn, poverty-stricken world with hatred and cynicism, and it's all well and good to trust in love, but sometimes we lack evidence of goodness and love.
So we think of it as something great, but at the same time a little too good to be true. And the more we see idealized love stories, we feel that OUR love (or lack thereof) is inadequate--we can never be scripted Hollywood stars with perfect lighting, hair and artfully smudged mascara. We can only read and watch and listen... And sometimes we see perfect (or what we view as perfect, but that's another post) love in pop culture (in the Titanic theme) or in everyday life (our grandparents, or the mother and child we see on the street). (Parentheses will now stop.)
But all in all, we think of love as some far and distant god, or planet, or an unexplored region that we will go to, someday. I guess. But only sort of, because we're very busy, and sometimes we don't really have time or energy to devote to love, because we have jobs and lives that are above--or below, depending on how you look at it--the quest for true love and meaning and the wisdom that allegedly comes with it.
And in the meantime, it makes us uncomfortable. We worry that it will never happen to us, that we are unworthy anyway, that if and when it does happen it will be a distraction from all we've worked for. And that scares us, and so we put it off with big talk and cynicism and pretend we don't care. And hope that eventually not caring will make someone care about us, or make us care about love.
So what can we do? Trapped in a cynical society steeped in fairytale endings and the contradictory hope that we shouldn't care too much, but love and caring is the only thing that can save us? This contradiction is the problem that faces us, but unfortunately it is all around us all the time, and so loses its meaning. When magic and wisdom are all around us, they become the norm, and we fail to recognize them.
I guess all we can really do is try; try to care, try to recognize love when we see it, and cherish it for what it is: simple and good. And we can try to believe, that among all of the other problems that we have to solve, we can solve ourselves, or at least figure out how to figure out ourselves, which might be the actual reason we're here.
And I think that however clichéd it may seem, we have to remind ourselves that among all of our searches and travels and early morning dashes to the supermarket, it's true. We are really only looking for love.

Smile

You would always tell me
That you loved my smile
And
You could live on my smile alone
(I saved the letter so I could see that black and white of your love)
And you didn't understand that
You were the reason for that smile
And I know you were always the
Logical one
I was the dreamer with my smiling face in the clouds
(Even if the clouds were only your shoulder)
So
My logical love
What would you say
If I told you
You're still the reason?
Would you still want to live on my smile
Because
What are you going to live on
Maybe I'm not the only one who's trying to find someone to live on
(Please say yes please say yes yes yes please yes say yes)
Do
You
(I have to ask)
Still want to live on
My smile
Or can you live without it now?