with arms

when i found out that; strength is an illusion
like everything else, only worse
i cried and i cried
and cried
it was a goddamn shame
i thought
like most things we lose
i became nervous at the prospect of it never coming back.

Chasing The Consequences of Inactivity

Tear down an ugly strip of neural pathways, adhere them to canvas. We can contribute growth or surrender to artistic negligence. A bit more. People doing the same thing, everyday, even as the dream weakens, the behaviors stay the same, so ingrained. Comforts are our weakness. Security is our plague. Uncertainty is closer to death and life, so the dilemma goes.

Right

The mind is much more resilient than we give it credit for, I know, I know. I was reading hundreds of pages I'd written years and years ag-- not that long ago - and there, smack dab in stone, were the traumas, wielding their billy clubs and battering rams and me. Strong young me, standing there for the tanks to destroy, holding my ground to be flattened, reading off a list of ironies and complaints. Protesting indignant, I never would've remembered more than a few sentences, but that had been, that had been my perspective of experience. That was everything I'd ever known and understood to reflect. Now, we go on, move about, run faster, something like confidence in our strides. Isn't that what happens? We take the years and assemble confidence, mighty, uncertain but confidence, yes confidence, welcome to the parade, we're already familiar with it all, most of it, like a well rehearsed dream or nightmare or all of it, right, thank you.

Control/Surrender

At night, down below, the lines of glowing traffic look like silver slugs, gushing their way along the intestines of the lit-up city, slowly, lit-up, slowly. In the morning, the sunrise comes onto the Earth's face. It's creation, not degradation, it's the beginning of a new life, a symbolic entrance to a new day. Warming, encouraging our sleeping souls from hibernation. The pigeons clapping their wings in applause. The skater flipping his board, active in the air, trusting the results of something happening within himself, beneath his feet, which he doesn't totally understand.

We're in a constant state of flux. The flux is in adjusting to and figuring out what we can control and what we must surrender to in this life, and others.

When realized it can be a blessed state.

Part 1

I'm wide awake to the glistening moment. We're given two spoonfuls of medicine. One is blue and contains all the cold solitude in the lovely world. The other is gold and guarantees you pain and connection to existence. So you nibble on the blue and then wish it well, seduced and perfected by it's silence, but already bored to death by it's vacancy. Next comes something for which you had no preperation, your impulses blaring from the massive gulp of gold. You're now inside the rushing train. And the bodies pack against one another like Tokyo rush hour or Indian panic. And your body is contorted by the crowds until it's not your own. But you recognize yourself somewhere else serene, even as you're experiencing the press of madness and the deluges of terror. Body to body. Wall to wall. Nose pressed to window until it bleeds red. The tears slide down the glass and thin the color. The sun is burning warmly on your panicked face and the landscape outside is enough to give some sliver of hope. All is not lost. All is not lost in this pain. All is not lost in this guttural agony and interrupted living.

Some Assembly Required

The swell fades. The lion eats it's prey. I was young once but now I'm washed away. I struggled to stay awake while the calm flooded my brain. I dreamed of bright lights, low windows, and a kitchen knife. I was riding a shared river of invasive current finding that my only salvation was action. Down into the layers I delved for a pearl of forbearance, a ticket to ride. The day begins cold. The sweat remains. An archaic reptilian brain meeting the demands of the devices to which it is enslaved. The computer. The stove. The toilet. The trash can rolled out to the street. The newspaper slamming the door. The front page promising grim while I live vicariously through the sports section.

Everywhere in Particular

Today I walked down the street, a hobble in my stride. A gnawing in my physical side. A man was working on an old car. The same one he's been working on for twenty-five years. I talked to him. Then an animal control officer and I spoke at length. She had crawled under a house to save a dog. Then there was that fucking Wine-O again. He's always there on the vacant days. I wonder if he knew how attentively the sun was following my skin as he sang his song. I wonder if that lady was joking about flying a helicopter to Mar Vista. I saw some airplanes and shot them down with my two fingers. Same with the Wine-O. I shot him his best wishes. Later, I thought about two people meeting on one of those airplanes. It was nothing original, as I speculated about what the young woman driving by me was doing to busy her mind in her black car. Before that, I had walked past my old friend's house and wondered if she and her sister still lived there and the sun kept following me.

There Is A Soul

Somewhere

Your Guess Is

There are some mornings where the buzzards have no shortage of dying energy to feed upon. I'm listening. I'm stammering. The blocks are stacked one by one within the next, abiding to the formations of the grid. Shuffling through street names and slinking between alleys and walkways. Dodging back and forth, trying to forget. We try and try again. Scraping metal to the cement rock bottom and scooping up enough dust to rise again. There have gotta be reasons to continue this childish pursuit of living. First, a meaningful breath and a view beyond wonder. Next, the expansiveness below and everywhere else, all fluid as the car spins and hugs every turn in slow motion, speakers blaring abstract tones. I had all these fucking movie ideas and my hands were consumed and my brain was a distinct form of useless and if it wasn't for that inner gravity, my slipping context would have lost pace with the earth's rotations.

Then you could've witnessed a man being thrown off the surface of the globe like a guy tossed out of a bar, obliterated by time, surrendering to the indifference of velocity through space.

But now I stand by the seashore bedevilled by the confusion of symbols and signs. I'm caught rejoicing in another matter, handing out crustaceans as offerings to the gods of order and pull. Meaning, the best I have is a free-found ancient shell of confounded hyperbole and articulate banter that can only exist because it recognizes the profound nature of things. Grounded in a peaceful awe and strong respect for this combination of wonders, I'm allowed to freely pursue grander notions in exchange for a humbled paranoia and semi-serious empathy. The wheel rolls, mountains crumble and apparently the sea drops are all different if we look closely enough.