I think about life… and death. I have no memory of any life before mine so am I destined to be just a grain of sand… who disperses into the nothingness of the vast ocean of the universe ?
life began as a proton having a menage a trois with some electrons leading to a single cell organism living happily in a puddle of chemical muck of amino acid building blocks… and then that single thing decides to replicate (as we all want to do but amoebas did not believe in birth control apparently)… eventually pull itself from the slime (some millions of years later) and climb onto the land … and suddenly has the choice of a galaxy or an iphone.. truly evolution.
for this poem I am invoking a bunch of science… I am saying we could be ‘flat’ not referring to Flat earth belief… but that we think in 3D when there are other dimensions out there.. so we would appear flat to something in a 4D universe (I am also referencing string theory), I know, heady stuff… but I if we just live and die.. what is the point ? I want to believe there is more… we all do.. some have religion.. some have science… I have nothing… I am still looking, hoping, searching…
I was stuck at the same store for work pretty much all week. Not to complain (it was cool to be out of the office honestly). Red Bank NJ is a really nice town so that was a bonus. But working on computers in supermarkets does afford me the opportunity to people watch in the live zoo environment. I have been doing that but in a different way. I try to figure out what went into that person, literally meaning, all the circumstances of life and time that lead directly to the person standing there (the ingredients for that particular cake)… it is daunting to think about but… also fascinating, and then juxtapose that with me just being in my little corner of the earth and this concentration of events and experience that makes individuals goes on like a grand machine billions of times of day across this world which is so incredibly tiny against the backdrop of the cosmos… Hard to wrap your head around, but I try (or maybe that is the way my cookie head crumbles). Then I wondered what these people see… when they see me.. the posture, the body language (do I have a big dumb forehead? do they check out my butt?). Do we ever really look at ourselves the way other people do ? Can we ? I suppose social media helps that if you are honestly yourself in videos… but do people act the same (totally) when a camera is on ? (There is the scientific theory that something changes when it is under observation) I wonder if future generations will just have cameras all the time and just be… because that is all they will know (Truman Show?). These are the things that bounce around my mind. The following should have been part of my live poetry jam I did a couple weeks ago but I totally forgot I wrote it.. I am human after all (my co workers may have issues with that statement).
So science (at this time.. because real science changes all the time) tells us by observation that space is actually pretty empty (that’s why the little voyager probes will probably outlive our civilization… 70s tech will last a billion years! oh the power of hot stuff!). Of course there is the new grease in between the creases thing (see what I mean about science evolving). So there is immense space in between things but we feel so … connected in our tiny tiny corner of one galaxy in the vast immense insanely large universe… hard to wrap a primitive mind around… so that is what I was thinking about… the space within our space and how we fill our space within that space. Heady stuff… but… we only have one life, why not contemplate it all, even if it is much easier to just eat work sleep… I am no different, I’m trying to be, to focus on being a phoenix because I know I am, we all are (well, honestly not every one, I am talking to you, those reading this who have that spark), we choose normal (even our normal) because it takes constant effort to be the pinnacle… but we do owe it to ourselves, even though we will fail… but at least we can get some stuff done… my opinion.
music. super chill ambient. Seti “Pharos”, of course SETI is the project to try and detect alien life using the world’s best radio telescopes (like the amazing Arecibo array). This album is a total trip through the cosmos, you can almost imagine the stars as you travel past them (well, at least I can). draw the shades or curtains, lay back, turn up the bass a little and imagine flying through space passing stars, asteroids and planets… and contemplate what Frank Drake was trying to quantify… definitely some super food for thought. I appreciate all comments and feedback.. and criticism.. man I love complaints because how the hell am I supposed to see this through your eyes? hint: I can’t!
So, I suppose you were expecting something about July 4th, nope (I do love my country but I can post about that any old day). I was thinking about personal independence as we age. My folks are in their 80s/70s so things are starting to go the way things go for mostly everyone that age. Over the past year or so their herd has been thinning at an alarming rate. Various friends lose a husband and then they also walk off into the after not so long after. My parents (I do not know if it is a generational thing) have close bonds with friends going all the way back to high school… sort of the golden age of USA high school like you would see idolized in the movies… My father in his ray-bans with a pack of smokes rolled up in his white shirt sleeve… My mother part of one of those clubs The Dungaree Dolls (or something like that, I always screw that up .. but it was literally just like out of the movie Grease) with the matching jackets. To think what they have seen in their lifetime alone is astounding (and now they have trouble seeing, period). A whole life’s collection of events, experience and footsteps.. and now even that simple step comes with peril. I used to laugh at those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercials…OK, and I still do… BUT think about the reality of that happening, the helplessness, the sheer realization that you might not be able to take care of yourself anymore… after an entire lifetime of doing so (and raising seemingly ungrateful kids at times). And I worry about what people might think of my blog ? Totally moronic in that context… I suppose it is all perspective and I need to carry that around like a reminder, truly.
Slowly but surely life robs you of the simplest of things… your ability to move around freely now that you know more about the world than you surely did 40 years ago. I can not imagine what a cage that must feel like. I doubt most of us can even if we can get a handle on it philosophically/empathically. Only now are some of my razor sharp skills starting to just fail me on occasion… but I imagine this is just how it is… slowly the walls closing in to where you don’t notice until you are bed ridden… wondering what happened.
Just some background on me. I am adopted. Somehow when I say that to a bunch of faces there is a reaction like “we didn’t know”, that there should be some crimson letter pulsating on my forehead when in fact being adopted is just something I have always known to be (kudos to my folks for never hiding it, in fact I can only remember that I only ever remember knowing). The only odd part, I guess, is that the adoption was arranged by my mother’s OBGYN with one of his other clients (in vitro was not an option in the early 70s)… so I was literally born in my hometown (JFK Hospital, Edison NJ)… so… I could have literally run into my “birth” mother at the local Starbucks 1000 times and would have never known. I assume that it was some young woman out of wedlock who did not want an abortion. I really don’t know the circumstances.. I honestly never cared. Note that I did not use the term my “real” mother, because my real mother will always be Beverly Lynn Koblentz, she raised me, she gets the credit (or blame as it were…).
So… what does it all mean? I don’t honestly know. I am open for review. I think we just need to remember we will all be weak at some point. What do we do about that? I suppose that is what defines us. Maybe it doesn’t really mean anything in the long run, because the long run ends the same for all of us. But if someone finds the document of my life many years from now… I would like to think I did my best even if I failed many times.
I often ponder the comfort of things… I am eminently guilty of this as most of us most be. I look at what once had great personal value and now seems worthless. I suppose moments (thoughts, feelings, emotions) are harder to warehouse than hardware… but why do we cling to things? Comfort, familiarity… should we chase her? spontaneity…
What holds us back? Mostly ourselves. I am not claiming to be better or an authority on how to live. In fact the more I think about life the more confused I get. How in the ever loving world am I supposed to understand another person? We are all an amalgamation of very specific ingredients and experience coalesced into this singular experience. That is of course why we gravitate to our own tribes. Nothing spectacular there… so the question becomes how to break these walls? I could say it takes courage… but does it really? We all find our comfortable couch and love the familiarity… I am just as guilty but I see it, I see me… I want to burn like a hot stick of dynamite in the world, I am sure I have it in me… but what holds me back? or you ?
Here is something I wrote today… as is my usual jaunt this is a one take piece (literally, I thought about live posting the writing which I may do in the future)… I wonder if I should work on my work or just keep throwing out what I pen immediate. I know I could improve some words, some rhythm for sure… but should my poems be perfect … as I am surely not? I should let go of the fear.
“grounded” 6.19.18
I am a bird
grounded
shattered bones
feathers burned
scarred
torn
lying in a broken pile
of my own filth
dying-
-reflection
cast glint
glassy eyes
penetrated by the sadness
deadened by the masses.
Music? Yeah.. I got that… Paradise Lost “As I Die” … PL has been one of my faves for .. damn, that long now? I always thought this is the direction Metallica should have gone.. not the crappy one they have… I love Paradise Lost because of the name (obviously you poetic Milton freaks).. and they change sounds almost every album (even an electronic one! the awesome “Host“). I swear they should hire me as a publicist… well, maybe not.
Sometimes less is more (or so I have heard). I have a busy mind which runs and races. There was a time I tried to subdue this engine and be “like everyone else”… but I am tired of that and willing to release the reins to see where it goes. I used to have strict things in mind when it came to poetry… what exactly is it ? Is there a pure definition? I imagine it is alive, like people, and diverse, like the community of minds here (and throughout the known world). So even a simple form of simple words can hold the spark of imagination, the fire of inspiration, and capture the heart or light a thought… I wonder.
I really did not plan on posting this the day before the Belmont Stakes (really, I swear). I wonder where inspiration really comes from. Divine spark ? (as it were). I have always sort of written poems in these veins… sort of like Ozymandias (one of the first poems I really remember striking me). This is another work that is word for word (sans punctuation) exactly what I jotted down in an instance (inspiration – Divine Equine?).
“once a stallion” 3/28/2018
I was once a glorious Stallion.
thundering through fertile fields,
as carved in stone
from the Roman age
power , engraved
in a glance
my mere stance falls tall
cast of my shadow confidence upon
in the noon sun hour
glistening to behold.
DMK note: R.I.P. to Anthony Bourdain, I suppose we have all contemplated suicide but it still comes as a shock when we see someone who seemingly “has it all” go that way. Take happiness where you can get it… and hold on to it… as long as you have breath you have hope.
A little science mixed in with poetry might seem like an odd couple. Sometimes (OK, often) I find myself pondering the universe and such so I suppose it is not that odd a stretch of fabric at all. Maybe I should spend some time untangling string theory … (and I don’t mean cat’s cradle).
“pointless” 3/2018
is this pointless?
I am sure the words
upon the mouths
of babes and hoards
ladies and lords,
circadian time slots met,
the sun never rises
nor truly sets,
until the mad rash,
dash of a giant red expansion –
explosion!
super nova wink, expulsion
of light
becomes the horizon
of observers or no eyes,
just the same
light dissipates
divergent space.
I hope this post finds you well my friend. How are you? Glad to hear it.
some groovy tunes to lighten the mood… Thievery Corp. “Air Batucada”
Shades of My Garden 