Wandering ramblings

Contemplate what motivates man

To live to die

to thrive to wither in the ennobling-degrading silence of peculiarity

A man walks down the street

choices led him there

he is there

alone

The pricks and prisms of everyday life drove him quietly to it

his choices led him there and there he stays

he will live and die on that obscure stage

body and soul, wandering

Wandering, whether this way or that

sometimes we think were headed somewhere

often we end up where we never thought we'd be.

Gems

Ironic, that the emerald could be packaged in such a way, that gleaming sparkling gem, dark and green, a cold capulation of summers fair bounties and yet is it not summer? It is not

Mysterious the sparks of steel and flint, the rough edges smoothed away, burned by fire, cut by steel, shined by a soft doe cloth until all is buffed, gleaming.

 The glint is alluring

Yet each gem lies in it's own deep chasm, which cannot be bridged.

Shift the Blame

On the edge of reason morally

Can't grasp hold of this reality

Inaction sends the spiral down

around

around

SEND JUSTIFICATION

Silence

All I can say is that it's ignorance

ignorance

and I didn't know what mattered

I couldn't grasp hold of it anyway.

What Life Gives You

It has to given me

and given

and given

Yet all I see is what I wish I had

and blast if it had only given what I had asked for

then

then I would have happiness, right?

Only then

I'm stubborn on this point, I'M MAD!! Life's so unfair...

Yet, I don't know what I want... I don't even remember what I was asking for

I've been drowning in the sea

the darkness and the depth so unfathomable

like the words to an aching soulful song

I've been resenting what I've been asked to do, I DON'T WANT TO DO IT ANYMORE

No MORE

No MORE

No MORE

WAIT!!

What can I do?

What?

I see it, the light so faint and distant... what I want right? Yeah, I see it

Then it comes to me... I've been scared... AH scared

Blast!

That's it

I've gotta create who I'm going to be, and hold myself accountable for it...

Well, who else is going to do it?

Coal To Ashes

Coal to ashes, flame to darkened pitch,
burned embers left charred unattended in my heart.

You were to me the radiant sun,
you were to me life, bounty, hope

Together a spark became a flame leaping,
joyously higher, such pure radiant light.

Our hearts were bound together, a link,
forged steel in the brightest flame.

Fate though would not leave the link to be,

If I hold my silence you must understand
that a fool I was and a fool I am!

My heart, soul, sorrows,
poured into the minute details of the past,
folded in a letter which I gave, an explanation.

Bound from the beginning to another.

Foolish attraction, we mixed our souls together,
laughing,
fate tossed us about, evil fate.

For all that I loved you I was mocked,
each word that was spoken a simple fools repetition,
a broken record,

we cannot be together, fate has not decreed it to be so,

endless sighs and goodbyes till I gaged on the words,
sour words in my mouth, bitter lexicon,
gall encompassed until the collapse of everything,
this endless guilt, penance for the audacity of tempting fate.

Silence, silence I have held, silence reigns.

You once so beautiful,
angry now at our broken connection,
reverberating silence in the hollows of your heart.

You are still trying to grasp the reality,
of broken links, links not sanctioned by fate.

So am I, I still cannot truly explain why
all I know is that,

Dust we are,
to dust we shall return, dust,

Once a fire burned,
coal to ashes, flame to darkened pitch.

Almost a Thing

Never fought, no we never fight, fold our hearts up, tuck them in, avoidance.

What does it signify, the praying Mantis? It stabbed me with its claw

Weakness, or is it self preservation, a front?
Can you see the sharp claws hidden?

There is no reason,
it just happened to begin that way,
a shivering of fantasies up my spine and down again.

So sly, a glance between moments
eyes that linger, savor, caress

Pinpoint the attraction, I cannot
fill in the meaning between the lines,
is it there?

Brush against me, scent of sanity,
taste the sweetness upon my lips.

Insane

Flowing freedom of silence,
does it mean anything to you?

The darkness and the moon,
snuff out the meaning, an illusion.

Risk everything, upon the vision,
you, shimmering in the night.

Frustrations

I stand here at this crossroads and I can see so many ways to turn. In some ways I am bound, not because of physical chains but by limitations. If only I could somehow grasp everything that I need to do all at once, grasp and know it all and then rest, oh how I need to rest!

I'm on a cycle, study, stumble, walk a bit and then I fall down. How pathetic I feel sometimes... and yet that is not the entire story either, I'm determined... at least to keep going. Really, no one's going to be able to tell me how great I am, that's not what I want to hear. I want stare up at the stars at night and wonder, "what's out there?" When I am alone I want to be able to hear my own thoughts, be guided by the wisdom of the universe.

I want to feel new, excited and clean again!

I want to look at a beautiful painting and to say "I like that!" or not. To feel that life if mostly undiscovered and that I have time to discover it... yet I am trapped in the expediency of concentration, though I can't concentrate, and lamintation... though really, what is there to lament? Yet I do, and I wonder what next? If all I can do is wind around in circles trying to catch my tail than what good is all of this anyway?

Yet what else can I do? What else? Give up?

For the sake of all goodness, don't give me any advice... I already know that I can do it. I'm just tired...

Fleeting

There is a moment where in weariness you look out at the world and plead, plead for a taste of fresh forgotten youth. Or is it home that you are longing for?

Either way it comes to me in the midst of the night as I'm bumping about the house hoping to catch a moment of the past lurking in the corner.

I catch a bit of it here, a bit there

Sometimes though I wonder what happened to the wonder

Little potato bugs rolled up in a ball, water skeeters, the flow of a sudden stream in the gutter off into the unknown regions of tomorrow. 

Remember watching leaves and sticks flow away in the current? Life is like that

Swiftly passing by, headless of the obstacles

You cannot grasp onto the stationary semblances of the past, the current is too strong

Hopefully though, I will be like the rough cut stone, which when tossed about will become a shining gem.

The Beginning and The End

History of the world,

Streams of information formulating infinitely minute changes

changes gradually made over the course of a lifetime

a lifetime which never ends

reflections of a generation

an exploration of change

a melding molding morphing infinity

for one minute second

I breathed.

Microburst

Candles, the air had been pregnant with moisture for day's and now eairily the air felt dry, like the moisture had fled, retreated into the soft underbelly of the clouds. Now we sat in the dark, surrounded by candles and flashlights held up to our faces in jest. I don't know when the last time was that we all sat around on the living room floor in the dark, with the TV off. The mood is forcefully light, though we are all a bit nervous, for the winds are howling around us, you can hear the banging of the screen door, the crashing of the things left outside, left in haste. Then the rain starts, it comes in sheets, pouring out, lashing out. Then the angry sound of hail and we open the door to stare out in amazement and smell the scent of wet earth and perhaps nitrogen released from the lightening and thunder hitting the ground. Venturing out into the storm we somehow each need to feel the wildness a bit, the hail beats down and we try to catch it. Drenched, we all decide to get back in the house. A window shatters upstairs and the sound of branches hitting the house reverberates throughout. Running upstairs we find that the great old chinese elm tree that grew about 50 feet away had fallen on top of the house. My bed is ruined for the night...

That's as far as I have gotten...

Contending with Confusion

I feel pushed to the corner, the corner of what I know not and I hate it.

Yet where else could I go?

I had talent yes? No?

It slowly leaked out as I walked slowly dripping down into the cement

fueled by distraction it left

I felt ignorance enter like a stone

a weight

and there it stayed, a broken thing taking flight

who can contend with that?

So I retreated, to the corner, where it was safe.

Though the shadows crept over me, they couldn't hurt me there.

Yet in reality I was soaking up pain, hurts and frustration.

I couldn't say a word, they were snatched from my mouth

and rearranged

a bundle of confusion

I would speak

but the words had left me.

How could I contend with that?

Silent Answers

For Ajey

He never knew it would end this way with the present of friendly banter and comradarie, yet there he lay to rise no more, no more

a procession of days of years of minutes, the seconds passed by at that moment; helpless as the thick red blood slowly dripped from the wound, all in the name of hatred, of love.

Yet they were mistaken,

every one

They knew not that they killed their brother

their brother, a friend

all out of hatred, of love

The numbing shock, the swallowing grief were emblems remaining of violence. The questions remained, the questions became the formless void unrelenting.

In the silence lay the answer, the stillness of the heart

who will reveal it? Who?

Only you

Grains of Sand

There is a certain frustration when running in sand

the progress when doing such is slow

each step you take is heavy

HEAVY with every little grain

each minisule bit

Yet the goal is to reach the top, isn't it?

So you try different things

taking large slow steps

picking up speed and trying to stay above the bits

the little bits, the grains of sand

Eventually you realize that going straight up the hill is futile.

What about approaching at an angle?

Surely going up the slope at an angle is better.

The summit is right there...

just out of grasp.

Futile steps

lie down

Then angrily you storm the hill, how dare it keep you there, you want to reach the top!

All of your energy! All of it!

Is spent fighting against those little bits

the little bits, the grains of sand.

As they go...

I'd better write now for time is fleeting, fleeting away like the day
around and around my thoughts are retreating, I forgot what I wanted to say

I've tried and I've tried, I've fought and I've died
yes I've died along the deep bay

The bay of confusion the bay of regret the bay of not knowing what needs to have met

and my words they keep drifting away and away, my words they keep drifting away.

Crows

Something I wrote a while ago but have never gotten around to again...

Crows
Alone on a clock tower stood a fine little crow scanning the ground below him, where a little stream flowed off of the main tributary. He was watching and listening with his head cocked, waiting for the signal. The tower on which he stood, a black metal framework with a clock on each of the four sides, chimed the midnight hour. A sudden caw, caw of another crow made him cock his head in the other direction. This he knew was not the signal, and was yet another sign of delay. So he closed his eyes and hunkered down, head into wings. The wind ruffled his feathers a bit so he shook them out and shifted his position. He was thinking of the last council, all of the bickering that had occurred. Many had left then, off to the high mountain pines, bah! Let them go and good riddance! That day had been oppressive, the seasons had been shifting from summer to fall. The air dusty here and there from the crackling dryness and the mischievous whirlwinds. The clouds up above were foreboding, gathering all of the moisture into their greedy depths, giving the earth an eerie incandescent glow. The leaves had been drifting on the ground aimlessly, like they were driven along by silent ghosts, held aloft by the spirits. That day, she had walked past. The crows, too numerous to count, all standing around in groups of varying sizes, were pecking at the ground and hopping around to jockey for position. He had looked into her eyes. She knew, he felt she must have been ashamed at their bickering, but had been too polite to reproach them. Instead she gazed at the dancing leaves and grabbed for her father’s hand. He lifted her up and she skipped along, glanced back at the crows as she passed.

A Different Kind of War - Circa 1995

The heat in the night was ruthless,

unforgiving.

As I felt the heavy tanks thundering across the land

I thought of how this bloody shed of life is to our mothers

who have made this miracle of life.

The war is not of nations and guns

but of hearts and souls.

The mothers tender heart breaks with each of her dying children,

she weeps a million tears until her heart is hard,

solid

and can weep no more.

Irony

Do you know what I'm guilty of?

Irony

Ha

Bitter Irony

and why?

Because of the cycle...

snatched from youth

to raise youth

to give it all...

though young still

to be considered old

and why?

Because my young are old

and I

I

am ironic

Some generally un-profound thoughts...

Interesting, how life ebbs and flows

a swirling, maniacal mass of information

drifting into your fuzzy awareness

as you awaken each day

to do just about the same thing that you did as the day before,

yet somehow each day

there is just a little shift

a change so minute that the passage of such an event goes unoticed

and one day you awaken to realise

that all of the minute details

are the essence of life

you may curse yourself for having let it all slip by

or

you may live in a nostalgic awareness of a life well lived

you may not even notice at all

until it's over

Observations

Are they aware?

Can you convey what you've gone through to the clambering world, a world whose image of perfection is that of beautiful shells?

A shell, empty, devoid of life

Do they care that you have battled demons?

Do they know that behind your eyes you are observing, aware?

Aware of the fragrances, lilacs and pine,

aware of the birds that take flight as you walk.

The mourning dove sighs, alone in the farthest branches of the sturdy pine, calling out a song, hoping that it will reach another heart.

Her heart is touched, it responds to that sound...

The sound of one mourning for another to understand, that you are a rock in the river as the water rushes past, that you stay holding your place against the tide, that the wind is your friend because it holds you as you walk.

and you walk towards eternity...

hunger draft

(This was inspired by Charles Dickens "A Tale of Two Cities)

She was fair, had a certain air, walked every where, strove to care,

yet the hunger lay in the streets, yes the hunger lay in the streets.

New faces, new places, they travel each day, searching for redemption, revival, anything.

They have left the land of no hope, for the American dream so fair, a sure thing you bet, they have left, they have left with a hope and a dare.

yet the hunger lay in the streets, yes the hunger lay in the streets.

Onward citizens, onward, search for the elusive medal, nugget, hope, hope!

Faces of gaunt children, hair receding hope retreating. Down at the bank, down at the store, there is hunger.

hunger in the streets, yes the hunger that lay in the streets.

Then a cry, faint in its beginning faint who would have guessed the ignominy that they suffer, as their hopes fail them. Stark reality, freedoms tossed as they do what they must to survive.

Ho then congressman! Ho then tax man! We have no bread to tax, take pity!

They lay, corpses in their chairs, their lives have ceased as they stare out the window, glossy eyed.

Who will give them breath again? Breath, sigh, their children cry,

On you we rely!

Yet words and tears fall on deaf ears, silent fears, wasted years.

Yearning rising, yearning boom, fought for and paid on the backs of laborers, searching, searching for newer and better.

Onward upward bless this house. Stretch forth and cry, enemies of my heart!

I will fight for the freedom of singing in the streets.

Many generations have passed, they knew and took for granted upward progression.

Ignominy they thought could never last, all deserve 15 min. of fame, so they say.

Nameless faceless masses stand
crying hallelujah let us live!

But

How do you carry forward the waters of life, when it is slowly leaking away? Your shelter was built, your life was planned, yet now you have no place to stay.

You wander in hunger, for heaven to send, redemption for what you have done, your fears, your tears and all of the years, you have worked and you've bled on the throne.

The throne of deception, the throne of desire you added more to it and your hopes they rose higher. So you worked and you planned and all of your dreams, they were dashed in the sand on the streets,

where hunger lay in wait, yes the hunger lay there.

Hearts have stilled with the news,

In the streets there is a hunger, a preponderance of insanity as lies are told and swallowed, there is nothing to fear.

No one has listened, who knows what the silence means yet it lingers.

A presence is felt the grim reaper himself, Charon awaits, there is hunger in the streets it is there.

With each stone that falls from the foundation, unheeded, each step in the sand an illusion. Each stone that falls from the walls as you walk down the streets of desertion. Your grasping for something, grasping, grasping...

and the children they cry in the streets, yes their children they cry in the streets.

Cowboy Camelot

*One of my favorite pieces, my Great Grandpa was a "Cow Puncher" which I suppose meant that he broke in horses. Plus my Uncle Mo is a dyed in the wool cow boy, owns a cafe up the hill from here with his girlfriend.

There is a once upon a time, that exists in my heart.

I can see the daylight breaking over the horizon, crackling morning campfires, and blue hazy smoke curling lazily in the air.

Morning in a Cowboy's Camelot

Biscuits and bacon eaten with appreciation while sitting round the campfire balancing plates on knees.

Listening to the dawn chorus of the birds. How do's and mornin's spoken with drawling tongue and twinkling eye, amusement about life in general.

Cowboys with their leather and beads, their feathers and weaves, a tip of the hat, a bit of a tease.

I can smell oiled leather and smoke in the western store. Hear boots on the wooden floors, bells tinkling on swinging doors.

See the barrels and bins full of horseshoes and pins. Rough hemp rope curled on the ground, sand and dust all around. Saddles and deer heads hanging, country music playing.

A cowboys haven

There is still something within me that recalls, swirling fires in the dessert, dusty tumble weeds over a hot trail, sand and sage, dry dessert air, nickering horses, snakes rustling through tall grasses, the coursing of streams down high mountain passes.

Out on the trail with the cowboy

Whisky and whiskers, old spice and pomade, reclining against a log as melancholy chords are strummed, the pick of the banjo, harmonicas drone, chaps and spurs golden in the firelight, comfortable as the red and azure blues fade from the sky in the west.

The cowboys evening salute to the stars

Dusty Tomes

It is the constant din that makes me lose myself

concentric circular staircase, winding towards heaven

winding into eternity

oblivion

a ruse

Ever, ever, ever I carry my soul

Searching

for release

an opening of my mind

buried in dusty tomes

touched lightly

by fear

I cry as I read

Awakening with the Sunrise

Tears

inevitable as a heartbeat

fall in silence, fall in waves

Ask me where I find the strength

It is gathered from burdens fought for, revealed

a path illuminated by the starlight

and answers gathered like the dew

hidden in the firelight

flickering in the darkness

answers

You kiss the corners of my heart, easing the tension in my face

gentle heartbeats sooth me as I awaken in the early dawn

sunbeams dispel the darkness

I blush with the sunrise

Hunger (Changed)

She was fair, had a certain air, walked every where, strove to care,

yet the hunger it lay in the streets, yes the hunger lay in the streets.

New faces, new places, they travel each day, searching for redemption, revival, anything.

They have left the land of no hope, the lands of lost hope so it seems, they have dreams.

yet the hunger it lay in the streets, yes the hunger lay in the streets.

Onward citizens, onward, search for the elusive medal, nugget, hope, hope!

Faces of gaunt children, hair receding hope retreating. Down at the bank, down at the store, there is hunger.

hunger in the streets, yes the hunger that lay in the streets.

Then a cry, faint in its beginning faint who would have guessed the ignominy that they suffer, as their hopes fail them. Stark reality, freedoms tossed as they do what they must to survive.

Ho then congressman! Ho then tax man! We have no bread to tax, take pity!

They lay, corpses in their chairs, their lives have ceased as they stare out the window, glossy eyed.

Who will give them breath again? Breath, sigh, their children cry,

On you we rely!

Yet words and tears fall deaf ears, silent fears, wasted years.

Yearning rising, yearning boom, fought for and paid on the backs of laborers, searching, searching for newer and better.

Onward upward bless this house. Stretch forth and cry, enemies of my heart!

I will fight for the freedom of singing in the streets.

Many generations have passed, they knew and took for granted upward progression.

Ignominy they thought could never last, all deserve 15 min. of fame, so they say.

Nameless faceless masses stand
crying hallelujah let us live!

But

How do you carry forward the waters of life, when it is slowly leaking away? Your shelter was built, your life was planned, yet now you have no place to stay.

You wander in hunger, for heaven to send, redemption for what you have done, your fears, your tears and all of the years, you have worked and you've bled on the throne.

The throne of deception, the throne of desire you added more to it and your hopes they rose higher. So you worked and you planned and all of your dreams, they were dashed in the sand on the streets,

where hunger lay in wait, yes the hunger lay there.

Hearts have stilled with the news,

In the streets there is a hunger, a preponderance of insanity as lies are told and swallowed, there is nothing to fear.

No one has listened, who knows what the silence means yet it lingers.

A presence is felt the grim reaper himself, Charon awaits, there is hunger in the streets it is there.

With each stone that falls from the foundation, unheeded, each step in the sand an illusion. Each stone that falls from the walls as you walk down the streets of desertion. Your grasping for something, grasping, grasping...

and the children they cry in the streets, yes their children they cry in the streets.