Weird World

In The Depths

When I was a kid, I’d hop on my Stingray bike and ride it down to the city pool. I grew up in the Sacramento Valley where the summer temperatures could climb into the triple digits. 105, 108, Sometimes as high as 116. There would be a droning hum throughout  the suburbs of air conditioners struggling to keep the stucco track houses cool. The streets are vacant. No one dares walk barefoot on the scorching pavement. Occasionally I would hear a distant weed eater or lawn mower. Much of the yard work was done by Mexicans. All the Republicans wanted the Mexicans to be deported just as soon as they finished grooming their immaculate lawns. 

The only refuge for a kid like me was the city pool. Girls were screaming, boys had their water fights, kids would be doing flips and cannon balls off the high-board. All the commotion was unnerving to me. I’d dive in and swim to the deepest part of the pool and stay there for as long as I could hold my breath. Down there in the coolness, there was a tranquil silence, everything moved in slow motion. I’d sit at the bottom crossed legged Yoga style, looking like a red chlorine eyed Buddha. There’s a quietness there, a peaceful silence, like the deafening solitude found in the void of deep space, and there was a weightlessness like that felt while in the womb. With every birth the universe becomes renewed—-existence abhors a vacuum.

I’d burst through to the surface leaving my protective womb——body and soul colliding with the universe, I’m reborn into the madness—-Suddenly, inundated by the fracas of life with all its dissonance and chaos.  As I’d sink to the bottom, I’d become acutely aware of the sound of my heart beating in my ears.

I exist!

The Weather

I’d once thought I could tell her everything, anything—– and she’d be interested in me, she’d look me straight in the eye, She knew me, finding our common connection, a peak beneath the flesh

I don’t know to much about love, but I believe it does have something to do with being interested in the other person—-and that’s something that’s hard to fake

She use to make my coffee in the morning, and remind me to wear my jacket when it was cold out, and I suppose that’s a version of love, caring for someone is in the little things, something we don’t realize until we get old—– getting old is non negotiable—-kindness is a spiritual thing

At the kitchen table we struggle to feign interest In what the other has to say, we give up and settle on commenting about the days weather, enjoying the simplicity of sitting with someone, knowing the rhythm of their footsteps as they make their way down the hall, mesmerized by the sound of a familiar voice, it felt as if these days would stretch on forever—–nothing is forever, so cherish the moment, she once said

mourning and morning sound the same but are completely different things, they’re called Homophones

How can something once so fresh devolve into foggy memories, it’s like the morning fog as it fades away, late afternoons clouds wrap themselves around us. The sound of a distant fog horn breaks my heart

You can’t change the weather, yet people still want to know what it’s going to be

Pent Up Dream

There’s a few things I’ll never get over

Like those thousands of tomorrows that never came

The waiting, the wishing, searching and hoping for signs that I’m on the right track, am I getting somewhere, anywhere, or am I going in circles like a skipping record—-or am I moving full-steam-ahead towards an inevitable cliff?

There’s a belongingness in learning that we are all in a shared aloneness, and I once foolishly thought you knew me, I was wrong, my words were intended to be poetry, warm damp words whispered from my lips into your ear, tickling and sending shivers down your back, you said you always fell for the weird ones, poets, madmen, musicians, but I think I scared you away with my intensity, I so badly wanted to touch you, I accidentally called ya baby, suddenly your smile became a question mark, it left you bamboozled, you said you thought I put a hex on you

You came searching for pieces of yourself, lurking in the shadows between your light and my darkness—You too, felt the sadness in this world, and for a time, the sadness held us together, there was just you and I—and then all the rest of this nihilistic world against us

How many of our lost yesterdays gave birth to stillborn todays

And, how many todays do any of us have? who are you fated to spend your tomorrows with?

It’s a sin to squander once in a lifetime moments, but I did so, with you

Will this ache in my chest ever subside?

From some mystic place you conjured up your black magic

One part love and a hundred parts regret

I don’t believe in the concept of time

There’s only a greased and slippery “now”

I don’t try to hold on to things anymore, Because the Buddhist were right. The attachment to people and things is the root of all suffering, but I never could let go of you, I’ve choose to suffer

I mess things up, I say one thing and do the other

I’m a wandering contradiction, avoiding the lines on broken sidewalk cracks, tripping over forgotten promises, facing my inexcusable lies, living with all those pent up dreams of what might have been

I’m a victim of this relentless, aimless love

Soul Purpose

The only people for me are the ones walking in circles, silently struggling while getting nowhere. The ones who are not self assured, or at peace with themselves. These are the ones who are estranged from their soul purpose. It’s only through suffering that we find out what we’re made of. I wish it wasn’t true, but it takes troubled times to grasp the meaning behind this place in which I now have chosen to call home. I am the product of the choices I’ve intentionally or unintentionally made. Time silently rolls by, inherently taking no passengers.

I feel at home with the lost ones who are misunderstood, the ones fired from jobs, behind on their rent, fighting addictions, crippled by heartaches, tripping over broken dreams, the ones holding on by their last shreds of hope. These are the ones who’ve made bad decisions, foolish choices, and considered by most to be a lost causes. Sitting on a broken-down couch, empty bottles, empty dreams, full ashtrays, the sound of cars rolling by my sun streaked window. 

And there’s nothing as unsettling as knowing you are a lost cause. Make no mistake, we must all fight for whatever we want to get out of this life. Who’s to say who’s the winner.  When in the end I’m only shadow boxing. 

“Never cut what you can untie.” Robert Frost.  

Old Summers

Sound track by Down Like Silver, First Light

Its dangerous to want someone as much as I want you

I turned my back on the sun and let thoughts of you eclipse my fear

Waning moon now my only nighttime confidant 

I don’t sleep well any more, is it because of age or is it the ghosts of my past coming to haunt me, reminding me of people and things I no longer want to know

Weighing a lifetime of rights and wrongs, victories? defeats? regrets?

Who’s to to say, who wins, or who loses

Cause we’re all the same in the end

My heart feels the nooes tightening 

Cobwebs await unsuspecting flies

A beach bonfire, a primal smoke infiltrates our clothes 

Drink no longer soothes me, In fact, it makes mornings hurt worse

Worried, restless

Always lonesome for something, but for what or whom I no longer know

Where do old summers go to die?

The idea of time scars me

Maybe we’re all scared, some of us are just better at concealing it

For the crazy ones

There are many brands of mental illness.You’ve got your garden variety schizophrenia, Bi-polar, chronically depressed, OCD, PTSD, ADHD (not to be confused with LGBT). There’s Anxiety disorders, Mood disorders, Personality disorders, Alcoholism, Drug addiction, Paranoia, Narcism and insomnia. 

If you string all those psychobabble labels together and allow them to infest a soul, you’ll find the makings of a poet. Poets possess a menagerie of mental health disorders. They come with many of the same symptoms defined in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, often known as the “DSM,” To be a poet is to be demented, a lune, batshit crazy, fool-hearted, delusional, insane and a vessel of junkyard beauty. 

Poets hear voices, see visions, are paranoid of the demons and devils that chatter incessantly inside their echoey heads. Some are being channeled by Jesus or Lucifer. Some claim to have been abducted by UFO’s who’ve inserted micro chips under their skin. There’s the ones with tin foil caps covering their skulls to blockout the micro waves that control their thoughts. They possess super powers, they are the cursed, the blessed and the god forsaken chosen ones. 

As far fetched as this may sound, these poets believe they can inhabit your brain and silently transmit disembodied emotions into your flesh. They scribble little black markings, or what we call letters on paper, arranging them into words and sentences. If these markings are assembled with perfection, they have the power to unlock revelations hidden within the readers gray matter. These words; these poems exist only in the readers imagination. They can’t be seen or touched, they mysteriously seep from the subconscious to the conscious mind. The author may be dead, but their words carry on in the readers head, like the breath of gods, omniscient, immortal——omnipotent. 

How crazy is that?

This is more than an observation I’m sharing with you, it’s a warning. If you choose to go down that path of becoming a poet, then you’ll need to go all the way. You’ll have to fearlessly peer into the heart of the darkness. You’ll have to force yourself to see and feel the things that most avoid. And there you’ll find death threats, condemned love, contaminated truth, the meaninglessness of life, a fools complacency, naked truth and simmering nihilism. 

If you can get past the fear and madness, if you are willing to endure the song of the sirens, you will find your own voice. There will be peace and wholeness. In the sadness there is beauty, behind crumbling walls of the fortress there’s freedom. In this secret place, time means nothing, reality is malleable, love is forever sustained and a poet is ordained.   

For The Lonely

When it rains in the forest

I imagine you beside me

As Nightfall is coming down

In the dark gloom of December

A damp fog reclaims a wounded sky

I wonder what becomes of the likes of  you and me

Look how these years have blown thru us

Maybe we aren’t so young anymore 

I have a place I like to go

A bench overlooking an Andrew Wyeth meadow

All I want to say before it’s too late

I lose myself when I find myself in you

Branches sway, shadows dance

Winter is made for the lonely

It’s hard to wait on something new

To lose another day lost

Stranded behind our silent walls 

Between Love and Disaster

Soundtrack by Ruston Kelly “Hellfire”.

This is your life, take it or leave it

Thru your tears and laughter

Were’e all just finding our way

Ya never know what ya got

Till you find out what you’re not

And most the time there’s nothing

There’s nothing there at all

Make your choice between love and disaster 

This is your life, to use as you choose

There’s anger and there’s forgiveness 

They’re both out there waiting for you

Grab a hold with both hands

Sometimes ya win sometimes ya lose

It’s no good to go it alone

Inside your soul make a home 

Made of Glass and stone

Make your choice between love and disaster 

This is your dream, to awaken

Watching your life unfold

Some give in, some give up

Trust your heart, trust your gut

Search the edges of your thoughts

What’s illusion, what’s not

Be careful what you’re chasing after

Make your choice between love and disaster 

Don’t wish me a good night

I too suffer from insomnia. The night can be a prison for the over thinkers and senseless worriers of the world. So much empty time to recount all my failures, follies and faults. Things I should have said and done, opportunities missed, loves gone ill-requited. The red numbers on the bedside digital clock appear frozen in time. I consider taking a half of one of my Ambien sleeping aides, but the after effects often leave me drowsy for several hours the following morning. So, I’ll bravely stare down my meddling ghosts. 

Time is so precious but at this tortured hour time takes on a different meaning. I have what the Buddhist call monkey mind. This is when my thoughts jump from one unrelated thought to the next. What a silly ass thing to say “Good Night”. There is no such thing as a “Good Night”. there is only darkness and solitude awaiting me there. Night is where my demons and devils churn out boogiemen that hide under my bed or breathe loudly from behind my closet door. 

Are you a believer in ghosts? Do they come from within us like a dark psychoses? Or, are they materializing out of the night ether? Have you ever seen one? If god created all of the universe, then he/she (binary?) surely could include ghosts in this odd ball thing called reality. Reality is malleable, depending on whose version of reality you choose to subscribe too. There’s a fine line between reality and illusion. And, I don’t give up my illusions easily, they have sustained me up to this point. 

I hope my rants don’t scare you away my dear old friend. Maybe “scare” is too harsh of a word. Perhaps the way I connect my esoteric thoughts is too confounding.  I’ve even grown tired of my own ruminating thoughts. You’ve peaked under my covers and seen my nightmares. I didn’t formally invite you in, but now that you’re here, feel free to make yourself comfortable. I offer you my friendship and therein my condolences—–as this is a package deal.