in flashing bulbs of light the prancing pretty ponies enveloped in vertigo silk
that circular song can not focus on a point in this orbit, I am bound
perpetual motion- steals my breath- this carnival, has teeth!
(edit: just now after posting…)
among glaring pulsing bulbs those prancing pretty ponies enveloped in vertigo silks hand painted, chipped from age white teeth grin wide
that circular song on and on can not focus on a single point as the closed loop is sewn in this orbit, I am bound
perpetual motion- up ! and the down- steals my breath- this carnival, (fear now) this carnival… has teeth!
notes: this one started out as an exercise in Haiku (5/7/5).. and then went somewhere else, much like Mr. Bungle this defies the norm of the genre but respects the core of it… well, at least that was the intention… I was thinking about how out of control my mind goes when wrapped up in the maelstrom of work.. did I seek out this chaos or am I just a fish biting the baited hook? with my age and experience I should not be so easily deceived… I think… but … it is a struggle, to know you are on a ride and hop off to sit on the picnic bench for a minute… and just breathe, you are not in charge of the world, the entire world is not crumbling, perspective and a deep breath goes a long way…
black umbrella;- and I fancy myself a zebra! but from above- just another pinwheel spokes poke out in the rain like anything else
notes… I love to think of myself as a unicorn, and maybe I am compared to the norm, to the masses, but alas, everything I can think of has already been done unless technology has not allowed it yet, but from a personal perspective I am not creating inter personal relationship canon, although I perceive it as such, such a shame that wisdom can not be downloaded and processed so much more in our youth, old soul I was once called, I guess because I was consumed in thought, it certainly was not running my deposit account of experience…
I would swear it if you asked, there was a scent in the air today, of winter, of an impending storm, or is this my mind influencing my senses? the slight gray haze of a pubescent frost on my lawn, the still, the stillness of it all, little birds puffed up and huddled under the solar panels perched on my neighbor’s roof, I can see my breath with a pause, but there is some undercurrent there, a scent, a hint, almost like the pleasant aroma of burning logs, or slight sweet rot, but more faint, an invitation to imagination, a thumbprint of the coming front, I might say I feel it in my bones, but I do not, but ‘something’ is tipping me off, can I perceive the genesis of the coming falling flake frost? I would swear on it if you asked, but if tasked I can not perfectly put my finger on it as it is more an experience in sense… I just know, snow is coming, variety and shape not withstanding, but the pervasive gray pervades the day, permeates it, seeping into all seeing, shading everything, dimming the light, there are no clouds, just a mass, a oneness, not fearsome, not daunting, but a oneness just the same, so I wait, and enjoy the anticipation, I have been here before, winter is knocking (upon my door).
Note: and yes, there is some of that white stuff out there right now… that first snow, especially on a saturday night is a welcome sight, it calls back childhood and frolic, of course if this was monday morning I would be cursing the powers that be and the moron in front of me wearing a mask alone in their car, driving 20 mph on the clean highway with their hazards on… but, today is not that day… so I kick back, listen to some sweet ambient, bass kickin’ up underneath, the dog lounging on the bed, which will smell like wet dog tomorrow, but again… let that be tomorrow…
we are made to screw up. so how do we aim to not screw up but know that we will screw up? this does not mean we abdicate to the worst of our nature, I suppose that could be one strategy, but that would not benefit humanity, so, what to do? Honestly I should have thought about this more years ago, or listened or read or … anything but carry on my own baggage like hooks in my flesh year to year. carrying guilt around does nothing for you, regret is a lighter cousin and perhaps a pool to reflect in, of course we all ‘know’ we can not change the past, but there is something about what is carved in stone that we can run our hands over, even aged by weather and years, those markers are still there, and will always be, but there is ever landscape evolving in front of us, so in this new year, go ahead and make some basic resolutions if you like, there is nor harm in that- but- forgive yourself for things you have done, if you can make amends to those affected, do so, whether they accept or not is up to them but make the effort, this does not absolve you but at least it opens the door to let light in, and that in the end is medicine for the soul…
in a dog’s shell the fly-by raven might I be the only mammal to drown in the earthen waters drawn to the four corners all in this world of wonders I could task buddha for another ride and never touch the grains in tide
somewhere on a wire lines across dunes tell- of stories of lives of loves some broken, some beautiful all strung and hung by human hands old and young here and gone as you walk along and absorb all the stories strung.
This is about an actual place, I think I want to shoot a short movie here, “The Wishing Shells of Laurence Harbor”… great title right? (I like the play of wishing shells aka wishing wells… yeah, I think like that)
Well… back story, I travel around my much maligned state (New Jersey) in search of every little nook and cranny… and there are many… especially since we are one of the oldest states in the union (I know, not old compared to you people across the world… but I work with what I got). So… there is this almost non-descript, kind of beat up beach, but along the dunes, seemingly out of nowhere, you come upon them, a bunch of clam shells, written on, painted on, scribbled on… with messages, with names, with memorials, with all sorts of things… and I think it is pretty damn cool. Perhaps this is a copy of some other place in the world, I would probably guess that, maybe it is somewhere in a south american country as there is a large hispanic population in the area ? who knows… but either way it is a nice idea… just a few pics to give you the flavor…
I suppose I just never thought about it… the very names, words of the seasons (speaking purely as an english speaker here), the actual words have weight and meaning that makes perfect sense. Today is of course the first day of Winter in these parts, the word win-TER, so tense, so terse, so curt, so blunt, like the cold incarnate itself, there is no in-between, no hesitancy in this word, like a chunk of ice, “winter” stands there, like a pillar, no negotiations, “Summer”… also short and defined, but so much softer and warm in the middle “mmmm”, “summmmmmmmer” as the heat drags on and wears down, and only one letter from simmer, but that vowel swap does make the difference does it not? I also though about the affinity of these two months, the non in-betweens that share the same similarity in word structure and power… both “er”s. while the other twins are completely different animals, and as such, their names are more of a fit for them, “fall” and “spring”… looking at them seems so obvious, but such words are so ubiquitous to our daily experience that we might fail to take a look at them as something more than just a throw around term, they could not be less alike, opposites in fact, but they also contain energy (or the draining of), the terms are loaded indeed, “fall”, there is no happy connotation there although there is no inherent “bad” either, but to fall is to fall, top to bottom, up to down, you can not fall up (at least I don’t see how) so the word itself is loaded with weight to drag down, the word has no stop sign, no end, the end of the word is only “winter”, the same is true in the other direction with “spring”, the physical spring, a coiled one, is kinetic energy ready to be released and at some point has to but it is all expectation, once the spring has spring that burst of energy is spent and gone, the spring is uncoiled and becomes the straight line of summer until it falls then shrinks back due to the cold, compression, to be released once more in spring, words and weights and meaning-
I noticed the curb in a serpentine bend, an illusion, a simple matter of a natural prism on end, now to notice, when the rain has stopped flow, the street lights in the rain, like walking on a mirror, a mirror made of mirages that so closely command disguise, in a dream of dali might I find such sights, but noting that dramatic, or static on canvas lies, for right in front of me, I can walk on the moon, stroll among the lights, splash in the heavens with the delight of a spare seconds flight, flourish in the splendor of the thought as the reverse onto the street is broadcast, street lights in the rain –
I love words… is that apparent? Sometimes a word is just perfect, you don’t need anything to dress it up with silly accoutrements (another fabulous word), but such as the subject, I have a general malaise, I am not depressed, I am actually a an optimist by nature, but a realist by the gauntlet, a strange balance, but lately, I can’t quite put my finger on it, just a general blah, I take the time to observe nature and revel in such moments, lost in the splendor, but somehow, maybe the time of year, the amount of darkness (literal) of the sun setting at 4:30 in the afternoon, I keep looking at the page of hourly weather waiting for this to change, and watching the wane or wax of the moon, which usually I pay no attention to, I feel like I am waiting for something, waiting for a change, I’m not sure, just a general feeling of a cycle spinning, a rut, not bad in any way shape or form in comparison to some, you would think decades on this bicycle doing laps would achieve some sort of universal understanding, but I feel like I am standing, not sinking, not shrinking, just standing, waiting, like at a bus stop, but there is none, never had been, am I know this, but wait there anyway- as if, there is something different out there, or here, for me, just that feeling, usually I love the rain, today? just an annoyance of traffic building muss and puddles and floods… maybe I am reflecting the very day, malaise.
the passages of time the corridors of mine or a ship upon a river more and when my script ends to the bottom I descend a postcard a screenshot a bookmark an old scrolled map of a once vibrant town- now gone
I often ponder about the nature of time, I pictured tunneling through a tunnel of light in my one direction and how that might look like from the outside, like a burrow, my burrow, but then I always also think of time as a river, this churning mass of water ever moving forward, oddly, I never picture this as some serene winding creek, but more like a mass of raging waves against the back drop of stars, a river flowing through the universe itself, how we are carried along and then – just stop. but the river flows on, is there a bookmark there? it was a moment, which is now outside of time, stuck there, because it did happen, we are here, we happen so that can never be erased but there is a an end to this thread, and what if the universe bounces back, like a rubber band, from expansion to contraction, it would seem the nature of things, would my perception be reset and begin again? this is what was going through my brain today at various stops along the way…
Shades of My Garden 