creative – Page 22 – three good words

February 2, 2015

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grasping, grasping
but there’s nothing
not even thin air

you can write about thin air
high up in the himalayas
the crisp cold shackling all
the masks needed
simply to survive
to where earth touches sky
so no, not even thin air
not that at all.

nothing, really
emptiness
words, words
where are the words
that form, congeal
to one sentence
one phrase
that one moment
vowel, consonant
that opens doors
to new spaces
new ways
to live, be, see, perceive…

but what are lists to this
out and out grey
where silence doesn’t live
but holds all reigns
to sensation, reason…

though it may be
just a matter of timidity,
the smaller brother to that
icy little feeling, cowardice

for how spell out everything
and break through that wall
that holds everything in,
that hesitates, just when
the words want to be written

no, it won’t do at all.

January 30, 2015

clarity

where do you draw the line?

now that your reading’s done
and you’re aware of lives
lived by codes outside and beyond
everything you know

the accepted nastiness lingering
behind the famed glory
the casual cruelty accepted
behind the ingenious order
praised since time untold

…

and yet, there is such a thing as reception

that old question
how much is too much
and what of honesty?
what of that which happened
often, far too often
and must be thought of
retold

clearly, without softening
without any lenses blurred
sharp contours of thought
and feeling

of all those grey areas in between
painful, upsetting
without clear lines from A to B

but that’s what it’s really about
or not?

exploring the edges
diving down into darker depths
drawing out the essence of storytelling
finding new ways to reach
what we all strive for

clarity.

January 24, 2015January 24, 2015

sum total

that sad laughter
shock in their eyes
that silence that asks
where are you?
where did you go?
that person
we once used to know?

that moment
of cold understanding
a stranger in your own home
speaking in a voice still known
cracking tired jokes
stealing away for another smoke
yet there’s still hope
that it’s all a really bad hoax
a stupid prank, a circus trick gone wrong.

only it’s not
it’s happening
too real, too clear
the scuttling despair
stunned, confused
indignant, silenced
by so much tranquility
all without special effects,
sudden hates, or hollywood flare.

of lives kept whole
through trials, tribulations
by effort, hard work
perseverance, devotion
and that little bothersome pea
piled deep under a comforting surface
that unrelenting pebble: decency,
the artist formerly known as morals.

but these are all unknown words
to the fugitive at the gates
searching for hasty rest
in nests and labyrinths
of snippets and illusions
of a life once spent
in anger and blissful contentment
which the patient forebearing eyes
start to suspect
was never the actual truth
but something close
interwoven with delusions and lies.

and yet, the shock, the surprise
that fortunes could be so drastic
so completely opposite
to everything hoped for, expected
but all eyes remain dry
some calamities are obvious
rising, growing, ominous
like darkness towering in the skies.

as to the moral of the shambles
of the hastily-told story:
it sneaks up on you, life.
it just happens
and suddenly, almost abruptly
a quarter of a hundred’s over
and the happy would-be wasp,
all flash and excitement,
knew not how
while the boring bees
went ahead and led
quiet industrious lives
buzzing away in their prosperous hives
bothering no one
generous with their produce
(what sweetness, what honey
what gold!)
seeing studiously to themselves and their own.

so make sure your life’s truly your own
and not borrowed, dictated,
delusional or loaned;
we are all bees of the same stock
human, from foot to forelock
(which needs no tugging, mind you)
we’re all working away
building, expressing
making, creating
with our personal pollen
in our private honeycombs
filling the expanse
hand to mouth, ear to heart, earth to sky
all that will combine, comprise
the sum total of our lives.

January 17, 2015

le télé

a moment of lapsed ~~sanity~~ concentration
pressing the button to move along
the virtual stories shown
and suddenly you’re watching the unwatchable
seeing what is unacceptably
embarrassingly
(kind-of-sort-o’) funny
hilarious (but really humiliating)
so awful it actually hurts
but they keep on
and on and on
for all to see
on so many innumerable
twelve-inch screens
and you wonder
what kind of modern
panem et circenses
this really is.

What happened?
What’s going on?
I’m not even confused anymore,
anger isn’t even possible.
Why do so many homo sapiens
enjoy humiliating themselves
down to the marrow of the bone?
Why do we even watch?
Why can’t anyone say:
Stop. Please, stop.
No, no, no, no
Stop right now
and no I’m not joking.
Who told you this was good,
that this would hold?
Stop. Stop right now
and please PLEASE
stop letting those cameras in
get off that imagined stage
and just go home.
Oh. My. God.

January 15, 2015January 16, 2015

terra nullius

I read and think
and admire
what others are willing to sink
into the blankness of the virtual page
like treasure chests
waiting to be opened
full of virtual word-gold
mined from the precious veins
of lives unknown
reams and reams of history
soundbites of the personal
notes on intimate spaces
all their own.

I read and think
and admire
but I know I do not know
how to lay my life on the written line
how to confess, confide
openly
aggressively at times
showing, telling
pursuing a presence that should be me
but what is ‘me’
in this sea of words and stories?

It is maybe not about not knowing
but more about not showing
not wanting to self-colonise
the wild, the life
the terra nullius inside
unknown only to others, outside.

For to present
it must be shaped,
to be told it
must be formed
– mapped –
turned from elements
earth, air, water, fire
to geography, weather, astronomy,
all things (wo)man aspires,
histories that can be traced
followed to the first word
explained to those
who do not know
the secrets hidden in holy waters
the powers whispered in sacred fires
the life living on unknown soils
that quiet, powerful magic
nascent in all
from arctic to jungle
from tundra to grasslands
together, all at once
landscapes galore
that place
unmapped, unwritten
spoken from mouth to ear
riddled in tales, held in rhythm
allowing those shifts of sight and sound
perception
obvious one day, intangible another
tumbling from skies above and below
swelling once, blooming twice
blossoming wide
showing what detail is possible
to the inner eye:
perfection.

It is not then, a not-knowing
but more the need for a closed garden
a pairidaēza,
a paradise
known so well to me, myself, and I
the firstborn trinity
that holy space
the home and solace
of what lives in blissful hiding
creating what is seen outside
an infinite space
one of the seven of the billion
in form, shape, and colour
that secret place within,
that which is my life.