The world is a tragic yet beautiful place,
While guns and shrapnel tear through every face,
Roses and carnations still have a place
In these torrents we call life.
While Hatred shrooms
Against that man that stole it all,
That made our lives crumble and fall,
That stole even our own downfall—
While we shout around the world,
Hating and thrusting,
Chasing and fleecing
All that would snatch our freedom—
While women cry for an exit—
Shrill voices moaning, tortured
By children drafted in militaries unknown,
Fighting for revolutions unknown
Eating each other into a heap of bones—
While we grasp up in the sky in vain
For a sign of god; for a release from the pain
Of standing so far frustratingly below
God, in this fallen earthly tomb
where Adam stole the apple—stole our divinity too—
Round the Earth goes as its
Inhabitants sweat and cry,
Round and round, up and down
The waves of revolution go.
Yet, there I see it:
A flower rising in decrepit
Rubble, dust blown up by arctic winds—
Winds that freeze and kill and bleeds what it wills—
There I see it:
A flower blooming in full color
Against the dull paleness that would smother
It, a ray of beauty—a sprout of divinity.
The prophet gives words
Enigmatic:
“Things are not as they are.”
It pokes a hole in my heart.
Days spent pondering—
Perplexing:
“What does he mean?”
I grope in darkness, arriving at
Nothing.
Nothing.
Oh!—What could he mean?
I run across the void:
Through doors upon doors,
Through floors upon floors,
Up down left right,
And nothing, nothing!
Oh!—It hurts!—don’t know why!
Undeciphered suffering,
Uninvited scorning
Plagues me like a virulence—
So much damnable experience!
Oh!—it rains! It thunders!
Soaking me sapping me
Of my soul; torrenting tormenting me—
A flurry of electrified water,
Electrifying me as I run run run—
A double entendre of pain and…
Fun?
Oh!—Run, run, run!
Keep on you worthless mutt!
Get off your fucking butt!!
Exhaustion sickens but quicken you must!
Fly through the blasting wind!—
And through the clapping lightning!—
Through bubbling molten tin!—
Through hells horrifying!—
Run cause you’ve never had anything more enlivening than
This.
Oh, I see what you mean.
T’was never to be found and seen—
Only felt.
Tears swelled,
A torrent in a torrent,
One melding in the other,
Two fusing into one
Sublimely abhorrent Great Torrent of Life.
“So you’ve found it,”
The prophet says outside the torrent.
“Yes, I’ve found it,”
I cry with teary eyes, nearly at journey’s end.
I escape the inescapable torrent.
Embrace the dying old prophet.
“Yes, yes, I’ve found it…
I’ve found it.”
Past selves echo within me:
A self weird and wacky,
A self shamefully horny,
A self shattered by rejection,
A self lacking in affection.
They swirl against my will,
They tell me who I am,
Yet I only want to be what
I am.
Oh, why do they grip me so?
I thought I’d gone past them, no?
Thought I left them in the back
In a “contraband”-labelled sack.
Yet, they keep coming back.
Oh, back! back! back! they come:
The corruption swirls up in the sun!—
Swirling, swirling sexuality—
Swirling, swirling sex-filled fantasies—
Swirling, swirling cringe profanities—
Swirling, swirling ugly vanities—
OH, I’M A MATURE, WELL-ADJUSTED GROWN-UP NOW SO STOP. SWIRLING. WITHIN ME!
please…
In the mirror I look:
I look ugly don’t I?
It’s like a dead carcass diseased with the past.
Oh… can I ever change myself?
Can I change my destiny?
Or am I forever chained to myself…
Condemned to this cage I call myself…
Banished to my prison—a hodgepodge of
Disgusting flesh and historical gel…
But…
What if I simply accept myself…?
After all, who said I had to grow up?
Wasn’t it those sad, sad grown-ups
Encaged by their own shame, their muck,
Projecting their failures onto young bucks?
So come, past self—
You whom I have oppressed for so long—
You whom I longed to escape from
As if our entire goal here on Earth was only to move on,
Ignorant of the intrinsic beauties right on our front lawn.
You, come and simply
Be yourself.
Laugh and dance away to your heart’s content.
Dream and fantasize just as we were meant
To be—
Even those sex fantasies, those
Cringe profanities.
Don’t mind those grown-ups caged by their years.
It’s okay to be yourself.
So roam free within me little one.
No longer will you be locked in a cage,
Kept down like the scum of the earth.
Come, let me embrace you for you are a core part of me and I am a core part of you.
We shall no longer be separated from each other.
We shall be unified.
We shall be one
Warm, loving family.
The end is here,
The point where we part ways,
Go our own ways,
After so long together here.
So long building a great edifice together:
Creating something magical for others
To see. For others
To listen to and feel in their soul.
Nights we built together:
Dancing and singing,
Joking and laughing,
Creating in camaraderie.
But now the edifice falls.
Sawing echoes the halls—
Sawing down the walls!—
Rich with our souls!—
Leaves us a barren plot…
Nostalgic airs resonating through…
Say, will you forget the airs?
These airs that we sang
Together?
Let’s sing them one last time—
One last time let’s feel the surge
Of memory
Envelop us in its bittersweet pangs—
One last time let’s remember
The tender love
We found for each other—
One last time let it flood us:
Our iridescent memories flashing before us
In the swelling strains of our air.
Oh my Trash, how did thou wind up here?
Carried by the wind from a far far place…
Tarrying here and there as you made it so far here.
Oh, who left thee by yourself?
Who threw thee on the ground,
As they laughed away with their friends,
Beer in hand, minds carried far away
To the country of fun—without you?
Who left thee on your own,
Told you, “I’ll come back for you,”
But other important matters pressing,
Were carried away to the country of bustle?
Who let thee fall out of their pockets,
Thought to themselves, “Crap,”
Searched for you a bit, but
Had to be carried away to the country of home.
Who paid no attention to thee,
When you didn’t make it into the truck,
Carrying your comrades to The Final Destination,
Leaving you alone to be carried away by the wind?
Out in the cold thou hast been,
For many days, for many months,
Wandering across hells and heavens,
Wandering across bomb shells and flowery glens,
Wandering across blizzardy fells and warm pig pens,
Wandering across funeral bells and marriages of women and men,
Wandering across blood and soldier-strewn dells and white flags at ten,
Wandering across abandoned, derelict motels that could have been and bustling, lively cities that never never end—
Oh the sights you must have seen.
But now you find yourself at my house,
Tired and weary of wandering aimlessly,
Only to never find a home.
Don’t worry my Trash, you will find a home.
You will soon be with your old comrades.
You will find your resting place with them.
So into the trashcan you go—
Wait there for a bit—
No need to be restless a bit.
For to The Final Destination you shall go.
On my umbrella sploshes the soft rain,
The gentle splish splash sound bringing relief
To my scorched, summery soul.
I hold out my hand in the moist air,
The droplets caressing softly,
Delivering my hand this feeling of cool.
All around me a spongy cool
Emanates from the little droplets of rain
Absorbing the scorching singes softly
Spreading to all worldly things certain relief.
This surrounding cool, moist air
Siphons some intensity from my soul.
In this street the familiar fervent souls
Sleep shielded away from the cool,
Afraid that the chilling air
And the passion siphoning rain
Might flow in their soul immense relief,
Sapping any will even to wake softly.
I gaze at the rain hugging softly
The bright and vibrant flowers whose souls
After suns of gritty, tense work find final relief,
Sighing out a certain smell among the cool,
Revealing their vulnerable selves to the rain,
Gifting a soft hue and mellowness to the air.
I breathe wholly in this earthy air.
It spreads through my body softly
The liveliness of fond droplets of rain.
It fills in the holes of my soul;
Warms it yet through the moist it cools;
Abates my high joy yet mends it to relief.
The soft fluffy clouds in high relief
Up at which I gaze through the lovely air
Gift this world the presence of a cool
Gauze which rests on a boiling patch softly,
Shielding all these sun-worn souls;
Shielding from the sun these droplets of rain.
The rain is truly nature’s gift of relief
For our souls in this equivocally loving air.
I stand softly in simple joy among the cool.
Say, tell me, is the grass searching for meaning too?
Does the grass we see everyday yearn for a meaning
To continue on growing?
Say, tell me, do the xenobots grown from frog skin search for meaning too?
Do these clumps of cells stranded from their native motherland,
Forced to use everything at their disposal to survive,
Yearn for something—
Yearn for a deeper reason to continue on surviving?
Say, tell me, why are we different?—
Why should we be different?
Why does this particular amalgamation of cells,
United in the purpose of fending off
The incessant wrecking ball of entropy
Suddenly desire a purpose—
A reason—
Something!—
To keep on fighting its unwinnable fight?
Why does this particular amalgamation of cells,
Each one seemingly mindless and unconscious,
Suddenly create a whole that is mindful and conscious—
That knows it desires its own survival,
That knows how meaningless desiring its own survival is,
That knows how stupid and absurd and funny it is thinking how meaningless desiring its own survival is!
No, I don’t think we’re different.
The grass yearns for a meaning too—
It just doesn’t know how to find it—
Doesn’t know any other path than to continue on growing
And coping with the deep meaninglessness gnawing
Underneath all the reproduction and division and growth.
The xenobots yearn for a meaning too—
It just thinks that maybe, just maybe
It’ll find its meaning if it continues on surviving—
It’ll find something physical and solid to grasp on
To be anchored in something deeper
To finally not be a wanderer but a
Rooted being.
In a sense, we’re all rooted in this search for meaning,
Human and grass and xenobot alike.
An alarm pulls me
into the world of
consciousness,
a world in darkness,
yet I feel lightness
and awake.
For there’s activity:
artificial light,
loud hum of
microwaving,
heating with might.
I languish in bed a little longer,
but still awake,
eyes wide open,
heart with wide
anticipation
(or is it dread?)
So I step into the light,
body movements go by
then I’m in the car
driving in the middle of the night.
I’m eating in the car—
it’s so odd—
to be crunching in the car,
to be digesting in the car,
to be reminded of those
cold times
fatigued times
war time
of munching in the car.
I’m finished,
several minutes before arrival,
so I wait…
wait…
wait…
…
sigh
I’m going back
to the nights without sleep
where click clacks ring in the ear
like gun cracks ring,
ring for eternity,
ringing aches into my head,
ringing pikes into my head,
ringing while I gulp down dry,
tasteless,
nauseating,
words while ringing.
But it wasn’t all bad!
There was still honey!
Sweet sweet honey!
Addicting honey for the mind! (and for the mouth)
Don’t you wanna feel how it feels
to soar in the sky and feel the wind blow and revere high peaks and smell the cool air and dive the sublime and discover life and see fluorescence and wonder at it and prospect the land and light the darkness and mine the golden truth?
…
Yes, there would be plenty of that,
there would be plenty of that—
plenty more things to be exited about
going into my senior year of high school.
And who says those
sleepless nights will be back?
Who says those
gun cracks will be back?
I can do it this year!
I’m different!
And better than before!
…
But I said that last year,
“Better than before!”—
those same words that I said
at the same time
on the same road
with the same pitch and tone
ringing into my ears,
constraining my fears—
an ethereal umbilical cord
tying me now and me then
into one thing.
The school gate approaches,
runs at me,
and I can’t go anywhere
tied to seat
immobile
frozen
can’t move—
and so the gate passes through me.
I go out the car with
something sagging on my shoulders—
what is this weight?—
oh, it’s my backpack.
People hidden by darkness—
unknown, maybe dangerous silhouettes—
who are these people?—
oh, it’s Tony, my friend.
I light up,
talk,
laugh,
sing and dance an
ode to the new year;
And so the sun rises again.