Slice of Life

Immigrants, Migrants, Illegal, Aliens—-The Scourge of the World???

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Soundtrack “Alone” by Jesse Cook.

Immigrants, migrants, illegal aliens—-are they the life blood of the human specie, the pulsing life force that keeps the gene pool strong and indomitable, or are they as some politicians might ask you to believe, leaches and parasites?

These are the ones who choose to fight for a better future for themselves and their children——and willing to pay the price for this aspiration. They live in hope, walk by faith, they possess tenacity, they are the ones who refuse to accept things as they are and are willing to stake their life on this often dubious proposition. The weak give up and stay while strong get up and move on.

Ya see, I have a theory. When the weather changed and the crops failed, when wars raged bringing rape and death, when disease ravaged the young and the old, when home became inhospitable, there has always been a hybrid population in the human specie that would forsake all they once knew to seek a better life. Part dreamer, part head strong, part gambler, part self determining, part wild and crazy——these are the qualities that make up a surviver……no, a thriver!

They left the old country behind to seek their freedom. When the dust bowl blew in they packed up their jalopies and families and headed west to California, just like Tom Joad. When they couldn’t earn enough to support their family they swam the Rio Grand with only the shirt on their backs. They took their chances on death boats, trudged across burning desserts, they crowded into stuffy cattle cars and hid in hot trailers. They walked for hundreds of miles carrying their children and their meager belongings on their backs. They fled tyranny, wars, plagues, corrupt leaders, pestilence, droughts, floods, famine and persecution. And once they arrived they often found themselves unwelcome and mistreated.

From Moses to Neil Armstrong, we are a people of tough and courageous stock. Ever since we were kicked out of Eden, we have had to fight, kick and scratch to make a life in this turbulent and changing world. It is these dreamers, explores, adventures, and risk takers, who’s perseverance led them to peek over the horizon and search for a better tomorrow.

I further theorize, that the ones who lacked the vision, strength and fortitude to move on from an inhospitable environment, that these are the ones who’s genes died out. As natural selection has taught us, it is the strong who survive and propagate. Those that migrate aren’t looking for handouts, they are looking for a new start, a place to earn a decent living and a patch of land to call home.  These are the people who do some of the most labor intensive jobs.  They pick fruits and vegetables in the summer heat, they make beds and clean rooms, they wash dishes and buss tables, they sweep, mop and throw out the garbage, they toil and labor because they see the opportunities that we often take for granted.

Most people flee their home because they seek liberty, safety and a way to earn a living wage.  If politicians wanted to prevent individuals from entering their country all they need to do is financially fine the employers who hire these individuals.  That would not require the expense or symbolism of building a wall, but our dirty little secret is that this would leave many business in a financial bind.

“All those that wander are not lost.” We are all descendants of gypsies and once seeds in the wind. There is no “us and them”, no borders, no nations, no countries (can you imagine? Lennon reference). These human inventions were designed to create divisiveness. These arbitrary concepts are in flux, but it is the human irrepressible spirit that never changes and forges ever forward.

We are all more alike than different. We all want the same basic necessities. We are stronger by being inclusive rather than exclusive. Tolerance and acceptance breeds diversity. And, diversity is what keeps the human gene pool flexible and agile.

The next time you want to hate on someone who’s an immigrant, a migrant or someone “different” than you, remember that, “there but for fortune go you or I”. The person you are hating may be a father who’s seen his children die from lack of food, water or medicine, or a sister who’s seen her brother tortured and murdered, or a woman who had been raped and beaten. These individuals may be leaving everything behind to escape horrors that you and I can’t comprehend.  To be your brothers keeper is an inescapable responsibility we all share.

The universe abhors a vacuum. Lets fill that vacuum with cooperation, empathy and compassion.

Bad Decisions

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Soundtrack by Coldplay “Sky Full Of Stars”.

Stories and dreams. We all have them, but having someone to tell them to is as close as some of us may ever get to giving them form. Putting such flimsy notions into words and trusting someone with them is such a dangerous propositions. We’ve all been misunderstood and laughed at——-betrayed when least expected, hurt by those most trusted. So we retreat further into adulthood, into becoming conventional and bland. But I never felt that way towards you, cause you allowed me to believe in glory and grace——in fact, you encouraged my groping wishes to wake and be given life, with you I could be an astronaut, free to explore my outer and inner space. I could be a Zen warrior, or a pale version of a cool-ass bluesman, you gave me the swagger of a pirate, the bravado of a rodeo clown——with you, I became wide open and fearless, featureless….. liberated and limitless…….You offered a love that never expires, a timeless space where there is no room for regret or remorse….

They say that the starlight we see is millions of light years old and in fact, some of those stars we hold as real have long ago flamed out. They implode or explode or wink off into the blackness like a dream or story that never reaches its surface. As stars bleed light, so it is for the lonely who hemorrhage hope. You and I float hand in hand above this blue marble, wearing nothing but our smiles— and it’s all so beautiful from a distance.

Where you’re from, isn’t who ya are, but it shapes what you become.  And when we were young, all we wanted to do was get out of this place that we thought made us lonely and small (but we didn’t even know what loneliness could feel like—— as foolish as comparing a paper cut to a severed soul) and now we can only go back there in memory or dreams====and if you can still share a memory or a dream with someone——then you can understand that it’s not so bad losing this battle with time.

And don’t let them tell you that time is a river, no——-, it’s like that glassed in machine on the boardwalk where taffy is stretched, pulled and folded back into itself——It will pull the caps off your teeth, stick to the roof of your mouth like peanut butter, it will adhere to the sole of your shoe, eventually becoming a wad of molasses covered in dirt, making you limp, causing each step forward to feel more like a stumble……

I’d once heard it said that “Bad decisions make for great stories”. To me, that’s the most Christian thing ever spoken. Truer than any condemning bible quote, more real than any evangelic sermon intended to save my other gummed up soul. We’re here to make mistakes, to fuck up, to work it out and fuck it up all over again. So don’t feel so bad, it’s what were here to do—–

You’re the worst decision I ever made, but god we have such great stories to share————-

Second to Silence

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Jazz is night music. Its color is a warm dark hue of indigo or a buzzing red neon light filtered through a hazy blue smoke. Its unremitting solo’s meander above the cacophony of whispers, clinking glasses, hoots, hollers and howlin’ laughter. It smells musky and sweet like jasmine perfume on a women’s heated body, its flavor the mixture of Juicy Fruit gum and nicotine on her warm damp breath in my ear. It’s mysterious and sensual, fueled by the improvisation of a moment, that moment.

Jazz knows no age, unlike rock and roll with its youthful angst and rebel demeanor. Rock reincarnates itself every generation, its thundering three chord progression rattling the walls of the established rules of convention. Its devotees are dressed in black trench coats or multi colored tie-dye. Some wear skulls and cross bones, while others sport rainbows and peace signs. Its sound is loud and angry. It’s impatient and shockingly rude, and then it will suddenly render a tender love story about first love, lost love or no love at all. The lyric’s demand a change to the inequities of this sad life, its practitioners opening their chaste new eyes and ears to the atrocities of their parents, boldly pointing out their inexcusable mistakes and follies. And that drumbeat keeps thrashing away on beats two and four of each measure.

Gospel and blues come from the same place. They speak with the voice of the soul, from worship and praise to misery and sorrow. It can be heard in the rapturous choir shout of one slain in spirit, as well as the grave moan rising from deep in the throat of a sullen bluesman or a share cropper singing from his sagging paint chipped porch to a field of cotton that refuses to grow and to all the women who’ve wronged him and that boss man who don’t give a damn how he suffers in the dust and swelters under that blistering delta sun. Its angst distilled by that wretched dominate seventh chord and ladled from the devils caldron itself, then coaxed out of a bedraggled guitar by a merciful calloused hand. It’s in the god forsaken growl of a B-3 Hammond organ, the shake and rattle of a jubilant tambourine, and everything of heaven and hell, the sacred and the profane, choked on and spat out.

Classical is a concoction of swirling violins, sawed cellos, surging brass and woodwinds with the fracas of timpani, drum and cymbal in close tow. Its fragrance blows in the breeze like the scent of pine needles on a warm July Sunday afternoon. Classical is an extension of nature, its suits, chorales and movements seem to unfold from itself, like galaxies of stars that go off into infinity, breaching the void with unimaginable beauty, stretching across eternal light years, making time and distance meaningless . And the moment is always present, all is one, and one is all. Its color is the refraction of light through a prism. I don’t know how it works, but its miraculous to behold, like God or Zen thoughts, which are no thoughts at all, its composition is only second to silence.

Smoke Screen

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Soundtrack “A Light On A Hill” by Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s.

Photo by Victor Uriz

The drone of the air conditioning system is what keeps me in a state of blah. The drivel coming from the facilitators voice would anger me if I let his words through and into my psyche. Occasionally, his cliche’s would seep in causing me to cringe. “When do you really start living? Yes, when we confront death.” The air conditioning thermostat had clicked off leaving an empty space for his words to slip into my stupefied ears. “Life; you have to want it, more than you fear it.” His voice had the melodic vibe of a preacher with the pensive drawl of a professor. The participants sat stoic as he gestured with his hands and paced back and forth.

The class is an odd mixture of middle aged folks and weathered senior citizens. A third of the individuals are hooked up to oxygen tanks with hoses plugged into their nostrils. There’s the incessant sound of wheezing, hacking and whistling bronchial sighs. The grim reaper is peering through the window blinds. This is the eight week class for those suffering from emphysema, COPD and respiratory related diseases. The topics to be covered included everything from smoking cessation to what the brochure defined as “wellness”. I suppose we are all somewhere on that bell shaped curve between sick and well. This class was skewed to the right side of that curve, we all knew it, and it bonded us. We all knew the score, we had our backs against the wall——mortality is the great equalizer——-living gasp to gasp…….

The class is taught in the basement of the old county hospital. The place reeks of Pinesole, cafeteria food and musty mold. The linage of life traverses within these walls, from pediatrics to geriatric’s, from mothers pushing life out, to the assisted living ward where others were being pulled out. There is a quiet seriousness that permeates the halls, examining rooms and the patients semi-private quarters. Visitors walk softly, talk in hushed voices and all emotion is stifled. I hated the place, as well as my instructor and my fellow classmates. I showed up every Tuesday and Thursday because the program is mandated by my insurance carrier. Without insurance coverage, my inhaler would be three-hundred dollars a month, now that’s enough to take my breath away.

They say that the first thing you forget about someone after they’ve passed away is the sound of their voice. But for me, it’s the life in their eyes. Age, illness and death carry pieces of us away, but the memory of the life in someones eyes is the first thing to flicker and then forever be extinguished. It can’t be captured in a photograph, or seen once the soul has vacated, perhaps this is why morticians close the eyes of those who have departed.

“Inhale slowly as you count to three, and then slowly exhale as you count to three.” There’s the sound of air being forced through a narrowed space, followed by a chorus of wet hacks. “Great job. Please do your reading and vision exercises before our next class. If you are feeling weak or a need to smoke, please call our 24 hour crisis line at “no smoke” 667-6653.”

I knew that the line to scale the staircase out of the basement would be slow, so I hustled to get to the stairs before the O2 tankers or the gaspers attempted their Everest push to the top. The August heat is stifling as I make my way to my car. As I open the car door the stale odor of tobacco fills my nose. The ashtray overflows with old butts, I inhale a deep breath of the hot air with its dank taste of ancient nicotine. I pick up an old butt and suck on the yellowed filter. Everywhere I go I seem to be drawn to old cigarette butts snubbed out on the ground, or stray singles in my junk drawer or in the pockets of my cowboy shirts. At night in my dreams, I smoke.

Buried in our basement we begin to resurrect our stories. Our tales like shadow puppets, a strange amalgamation of surreal dreams and vague snapshots shrouded by time. Confessions can be cathartic, but I trust few with my secrets—-I trust few with anything of mine. Our instructor repeatedly tells us that our blindspots are what keep us from evolving or——-transforming. For me, there is no making peace with myself, self loathing is my only friend.

The chairs are arranged in a circle with the facilitator sitting cross legged, legal pad and pen in his lap. I’ve attended a myriad of support groups, NA, AA, GA, anger management, bipolar, religious groups, pow wow’s, wounded child and such. God, were a sad, shameless bunch of unraveling fucked up losers. We cling to our prescriptions, lucky charms and technological gizmos, but we’re still unsatisfied, unfulfilled, lifeless, loveless, tripping over our own egos; frozen between a fight or flight response to our fears.

“The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom…for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.” I wonder if William Blake was an addict. Poe was, and his words ring true in my mind, “I become insane with long intervals of horrible sanity”. All of this thinking is making me crazy. I catch a glimpse of my troubled eyes in my rearview mirror. I drive in a daze, the city is a blur, I’m outside myself. It’s 9:00 am and the day is already to long.

Is this what it feels like to not be alive? Something is missing or broken. But what? I don’t know, but something isn’t right. I spend to much time outside myself, to much time with small talking strangers. I’ve been wasting my days chasing my cravings. I’ve allowed the small things to eluded me. I go to bed wondering about this——and that—- and everything at once.

Life—-It fills me, I fill it, it leaves me, then I’m emptied, in a flash everything connects……What a strange feeling——

Fresh bedsheets, laying next to someone in the stillness of a dark night, cool air being drawn into my lungs, breezes from an open window, scent of pines, hoot owls calling, moon shadows on the wall———-letting everything go——no longer outside myself, no seeking, no finding……..just being, being alive, on this first day of September. I feel summer losing it’s warm grip. Life is suddenly easier in the small things. And it doesn’t even matter if the sun packs up and leaves in search of a better sky.

Anatomy Of A Hug

Soundtrack, “Hello In There” by John Prine.

Hugging is a strange and awkward gesture. It’s a custom used both as a greeting and a farewell. Somewhere beneath the skin, the bones, the muscle and the surging blood vessels, we share a primal need to reach out to embrace one another. And in doing so, we become totally vulnerable to a huggers intentions. You may be exposing yourself to an emotional pick pocket, or a freeloading groper—not to mention a host of uninvited germs and viruses. There is no escaping a determined hugger, they’ll track you down and then attach themselves to you like a lonely depraved sea urchin.

Arm in arm and cheek to cheek, we appear to fit together as if by design. At birth we go from the womb to a mothers embrace, and as children we are mercilessly hugged by our immediate family, friends and relatives. But, as we grow older such signs of affection become fewer and far between. I’ve noticed that old folks tend to give longer hugs then younger folks. It’s as if they know they have to take full advantage of each hug they’ve been granted. You can see their eyes twinkle as their soul-ness battery is being charged.

If a baby is not held and loved it will fail to thrive. Such physical neglect will cause an infant to slowly wither away and die. In some ways, we humans are very durable and resilient, yet in other ways we are as fragile as gossamer threads.

Our bodies are very personal to us, they’re our fortress, our little vessel we captain throughout life. To splay ones arms open to another is a sign of unspoken trust. To afford someone this form of naive intimacy requires courage and at times a restrained tolerance. Some hugs are like dental appointments, you know its the right thing to do, but it’s a task you’d just as soon get over with as quickly as possible.

I wish I could hug better, but it really isn’t in my style. I freeze up when blitzed by a crazed bear hugging intruder. I feel my body go ridged when a hug is unexpectedly thrust upon me. In truth, I’d rather just give a hand shake or better yet, a knuckle bump then offer up my entire body for a casual squeeze. I don’t much care to be touched unless I feel extremely close to another person.

Some people are serial huggers. This includes those affection starved co-workers who feel compelled to hug you at the office potluck, or the new age neighbor who surprises you on a walk and embraces you as if you were their long lost sibling. Or, how bout the spine cracking dude-hug from that blundering sweat and beer stench-ed “bro”. It eludes me how any woman could find a fumbling, whisker burn of a man-hug, in anyway appealing. Then you have the weird old cologne drenched guy who gives long back rubbing hugs to any female he can stalk, corner and then smother with creepy-ness—-yuk…..

There are several kinds of hugs. There is the limp wimpy ones and then there’s the stern “I mean business” kind of hug. There’s the macho hug where guys grasp hands and bump shoulders, often used to fiend off any speculation of gayness. Grannies and little kids will sometimes slip in a sweet peck on the cheek. Hot chicks get tired of being hugged all the time, so they often discreetly lean into you maintaining their personal space and then making a hasty retreat.

A good hug comes from the heart. I don’t want one of those “have a nice day” hugs, or one of those cold obligated hugs that are offered up at weddings and funerals. A fake hug has a “one night stand” indifference to it. “Hey, here’s my number, maybe we can hug again sometime.” These are self serving desperate hugs that leave you feeling empty and used.

You’ll know a real hug when you’re lucky enough to receive one. They’re soft, warm and yielding, like chocolate melting in your mouth. In fact, once you are done hugging, you feel as if that person has left a little piece of their heart inside yours.

“I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.” —  Robin Williams

Sometimes the people who act like they don’t need hugs are the ones who need them the most. Even though hugs may be strange, awkward and weird, they convey a lot more than words ever could, I know this because I’m a writer. Words can express ones feelings, thoughts and emotions, but the human touch is nourishment for the heart.

“All humans are fragile, hugs help hold us together……” VU

The Checkout Line

Never fall in love with a girl in the checkout line. Actually, I’d fallen in love with her somewhere between the lentil beans and the egg noodles. I’d followed her down all the grocery isles from the bakery and deli case to the vegetable section. I knew it was creepy, but I just couldn’t stop myself as I watched her fondle the crooked neck squash and those fortunate cumquats.

Is it possible to fall for someone who buys tofu and then turns around and buys cheese whiz in the can——I can’t help but love a fellow conflicted soul. There was something irresistible in her smile, something undefinable about the way she moved——part graceful ballerina and part sensual pole dancer. Is it possible to fall in love with the way someone walks, their scent, the way they read the label on the box of Hamburger Helper? She elevated the rigors of shopping to a thing of eroticism. Oh my god, the way she sashayed behind that squeaky shopping cart was enough to make the bag boys split their sacks and spill their heavy cream.

I wanted to talk to her the way people talk in movies. I wanted to be funny and interesting, profound and witty—-but all that came out was some pathetic mumble about the weather. She responded with indifference, nonchalantly turning away to check her cell phone, a polite way of saying fuck off——- or code for “leave me alone you weirdo”.

I awkwardly looked down at my grocery cart with its random contents; two quarts of beer, generic toilet paper, a single banana and a can of refried beans,——my glum life summed up within a losers grocery list. I fidgeted for a minute, hoping to come up with a clever redemptive line——nope, not today. Feeling dejected, I exited the check outline and headed down the soup isle. In a world of grommet soup flavors, I felt like that dusty ole can of bland chicken stock. Now I know why they call it the “checkout” line.

Breaching Your Surface

Soundtrack, “Sideways” by Sheryl Crow

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So often we forget to live.  Instead we carry on as if life were a drudgery, as if love were mundane, as if our time were infinite. That is the gravest of sins; to forget to be alive, to neglect the sensation that comes with breathing. Sometimes when I feel my life being siphoned away, I think of you. I force myself to think of the first time I kissed you. I think of how you tasted, the scent of your perfume and how your body fit so well into mine. I think about it in the most minuet detail, the way the morning sunlight fell upon your bare skin, the smell of ocean in your hair, the way your eyes locked into mine, your childlike smile. I stay in this place until it hurts, until I think I might lose myself in the undertow of your memory. It’s like that reoccurring dream I have where I’m trapped deep underwater and I’m struggling to reach the surface. I look up and can only make out what appears to be a distant blurry surface. And, I know you are there waiting for me. My lungs feel as if they might burst, my mind and body are starved for oxygen. Every cell in my body screams out for a sip of air. My legs and arms strain as I flail and kick upward towards the shimmering surface of you. Time passes agonizingly slow, I am stymied by fear and panic, and then suddenly, like the flick of a switch, I sit up in my bed and suck in a huge gasp of air—but you still aren’t there. I’ve forgotten how to pray, or how to be alive without you near me. I toss and turn in my bed, a stray dog incessantly barks against the night.

What’s Your Story

 

The soundtrack to this piece is “You & I” by One Direction. The post is to be read while listening to this tune.

Some will make you believe in love again, and cause you to hear bluebirds singing right outside your bedroom window and you’ll rise to crimson skies and smell the refreshing scent of lilacs floating on cool morning breezes. Love wakes you to life, and where there is love, there is no need for purpose, precautions or possessions, nor drama, pretense or pretending. When it makes no sense, that’s when it’s at its best. Give yourself to such moments, declare a union, commit to an alliance, scream it from behind your window blinds—-only fools limit themselves to those who are possessed by reason, logic and timid passions—— all their nothingness smothering their life force——what is love but the stepchild of fear—— a smoldering fuse waiting to ignite starbursts—-and if it should rain there will be rainbows, cause love is sappy and corny and ridiculous that way. It will cause you to use language in new ways, you will write love letters on unicorn stationary and sign off with X’s and O’s—— hearts——envelopes sealed with a kiss, embossed with burning red lipstick——dripping with honey…..

It’ll blind your eyes, like shiny shards of glass flashing and then suddenly exploding in tremendous balls of whiteness somewhere behind your eyes. I’m broken, I’m drained, but I’d know your face from past life dreams, a thousand lives deep, I wonder what’s beneath that skirt, cause I’m into that, I’d tell you lies if I thought they’d do the trick, to get you alone, to get you to discard your clothes and lay next to me, naked, damp and all a quiver—-and you’d only be wearing a perfect dirty smile—-

We won’t become like the rest of them. The ones bored to the touch of the other, forgetting how to hold, how to fall asleep in love and wake together in a tangle of sweat stained sheets.

This life is your story, nothing more, nothing less. Tell it with boldness, kiss no ones ass, go down swinging, don’t let anyone still your glory or run you ragged>>>>>>never waste time on the bland and the blind, cause you’ll never get that time back…..

Ghost ships

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Soundtrack “Fire”.  Go to “View Original” and then press play before reading.

Trapped inside ourselves, this is it, the unsolved puzzle we must learn to live with, to struggle with and sometimes against, faith is encrypted with voodoo, the supernatural and magic are difficult to untwine, truth is temporary and dissolving, love like Atlantis lies hidden beneath myth and fantasy. Every love story is a ghost ship——a weary captain keeps night watch—–lost on rolling seas—-why do these tattered sails push us ever closer to the edge——towards oblivion.  No matter how hard you may try, some worlds will always be flat.

All of that which is true, is what works for a moment, be it love, science or salvation. Allow love to find you——be in love with something or someone before you cease, before all that you are sails off the edge. That’s all I know, cause upon second glance everyone loses their battle with gravity.

So this is middle age, unexpected, unpredictable, with all those promised existential unanswered questions. With age has come the harsh realization that I will never fully know another, at least not in the way youth had once opened up friends and lovers to me. Does age make us cautious, suspicious——to many broken bones, careless wounds and loves left undone—-if she should read this, she’d hurt what I felt. She interpreted my words better than I, although the poetry came through me, it was born of her, such a mysterious muse, mi amore.

God plays tricks on us all, allowing the fictions of falling through time and occupying space, as we grapple with this thing called life. Come walk with me, and let us pretend our love goes on forever and ever——-beyond the map, and then together we’ll pass through to the other-side of oblivion*****

Don’t Let Anyone Tell You How To Write Poetry—POP!

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Soundtrack, These Days by Jackson Browne, go to “original post” press play and listen while reading—

Don’t ever let anyone tell you how to write poetry, not a teacher, not a book, a professor, a famous poet or some hip instructional manual touting “Poetry Made Easy”. Poetry is anything but easy, it’s floating to the surface in a bubble while praying that the pressure from the outside doesn’t become stronger than the pressure from within, it’s a tenuous balance——-in that stillness you’ll hear every creak and groan as you strain to hold yourself together….

There’s things deep down there that are bigger and wilder than you could ever possibly imagine. Its the stuff your conscious mind keeps chained and shackled and out of the reach of that prison we’ve come to accept as reality. There are frightening things down there—-bizarre things, sea monsters, demons, the eight armed Kracken reaching out for you, mountains of madness, deserts of despair, volcanoes spewing red rivers of woe. You may have convinced yourself that you’re in control, but mister let me tell ya, those reins are loose and easily snapped.

I dare ya to hold your breath and dive down into that murky deep. No one can stay down there for long—-some become entangled, confuse up with down—— they lose their way, they panic with eyes bulging, lungs bursting, blood streaming from ringing ears—- solitarily drowning in a sea of conceit. Down there you’ll come to know things that the faux world above could never teach you. But there’s a high price for trespassing into those depths——— “Enter at your own risk, Dangerous rip tides, No life guard on duty”.

Be advised: if ya poke around down there long enough you may bump into who you thought you were, maybe even a god or two—-and if you’r lucky, a kind familiar voice….These things that germinate in the dark are ironically impossible to see in the light—-it’s like the dark matter that comprises the majority of our universe—-these things are difficult to understand for simple creatures such as us, who are accustomed to composing reality from our puny five senses.

Some are contented to sit and stare at their reflection on the surface. But, if you’re a poet, then you need to take that perilous plunge. Leave behind your holy books, shots of whiskey, rosary, zen bells, mantras and slide rules, they have no power down here, in fact they’ll only camouflage your destiny.

Don’t let anyone tell you how to write poetry. Everyone has their own unique journey, you must find your own Dharma, your own Tao. The funny thing is—-as soon as you stop trying, it will flow through you——. Be still in that tiny bubble of yours, take the road less traveled, refuse to go gently into that dark night——find what you love and let it kill you, and burn, burn, burn, like a fabulous yellow roman candle that explodes like spiders across the stars———Pop*******

Referenced:Frost,Thomas, Bukowski and Kerouac.