(poetic mind) high beams behind me on the highway like bright glaring eyes a predator’s eyes stalking a jaguar’s eyes blinding blinking, back down to the ground now back up upon the pack
(actual) why the f#@! does this f@#$%^g jagoff have his god*$*% brights on? this is the most well lit road in jerzee! this is the friggin GSP ya’ dumb mook!
(proceeds to slow down to put my brights on in retaliation)
no, I’m not proud of it, but sometimes the times get the best of me, this was one of those times, I admit it.
I can not explain the feeling, like living in a moment of infinity, maybe it is the season, maybe it is the reason, I was out walking the dog, not some euphemism, literally just letting samantha out to explore and defile the lawn somewhat, I walked, out to the sidewalk, in shorts, in the cold, on january twelth, nearly 2am, wind kicking up some, time seemed to slow down to a crawl, as I looked around, slowly, it felt like forever, like this moment should be everything and all things and was, -infinity-, for a second, it felt like that, nothing else was on this human plane, there was just this, this moment, existing in this space, the wind roaming all around, the moss on the one side of the tree in the streetlight, sort of glowing, or so it seemed, to my left, the sidewalk glistening beneath from some earlier rain, at a certain angle seen, then, I turn, a sudden jarring sound, a plastic water bottle has escaped my recycling bin, rattling down the driveway run away barrel, I stop it, I pick it up, put it back, the dog is there out on the lawn, roaming around with purpose, I feel the breeze, the trees are just lines against the moon now, no leaves, no sounds, just the breeze pure against my ears, around my ears, in my ears whispering things I can not understand, I embrace it, the breeze, strike a jesus pose to try and absorb it all in like a kite flying, I can not take a deep enough breath but I try none the less, to fly, this moment, this is an experience of infinity, of endless life, of life, of life itself, this is that, for a second, I call her back in, my dog, so we can return to the now, the routine, the continuum of the real life, the banal, but I feel as if I touched something else, tonight, even for just that moment.
not many a January night you can sit out, at least in this clime, in shorts, on the porch, ponder life, look up at the moon, take a moment or two, contemplate, deep breath, and just let the world talk to you, or perhaps the universe should it so be inclined, the moon is bright, but a bit diffused, and lower in the sky than usual, I’m sure there is a good reason, I just don’t care to know at this exact moment of flow, I sit down on my porch, well the steps to be honest, the weather is sliding back into the role as it grows colder and the weatherman is selling rumors of snow later in the week, but now? mild, just a chill, not enough to chase me in before I can take in this night, another night, I can hear a dull murmur of the four lane road not too far off my block, I imagine it is rather a mountain stream, it has that same quality of moving constant sound, but for the occasional sport who feels the need to test their throttle past my little grotto, or the angry driver jousting with another announced by trivial horns, and the occasional jet liner, another low roar you can trace across the sky with both eyes and ears, but mostly quiet…
Photo by Chris J Mitchell on Pexels.com
I look down at my hands, I do not think of myself as a skeleton, but I quite am, I hold my palms against my face and I can almost see the sockets, feel them back there, behind my hands, naked grey caves we inhabit with our flesh, for a time, we are tenants, I look down at my hands again, remembering I am a skeleton, seeing my fingers as bare bones like sticks, only as I examine them, and trying, with my mind to build up all the fleshy layers from there to here in my visual field, everything that makes this work, how often do I even think about what it takes just to make my hands move, my heart pump, my lungs breathe, my feet walk, all in concert, usually, but more often than not a symphony of the unconscious, thinking about it, really visualizing it now, the chassis, the frame, the architecture underneath all this, makes every movement feel different in that light, I imagine watching the electrical spark that travels from my mind down the neural highway, from my shoulder, down to my hand, for each of these thoughts to translate to the page, as if these words are a direct remnant of my machine, a printing press of my brain, just the idea of walking, inhaling, thinking about exactly what is going on, can be exhausting minute to minute, no wonder our bodies can not last forever, what could under such strain, that daily work with no rest, until again, we become once more bones at best.
Anyone reading me for the first time my thoughts from the porch is a thing… well, my thing, although I truly encourage you to do the same, sit out there, wherever, take it all in, write, don’t write, doesn’t matter, just take a moment, that moment, trust me, it is worth it.
and sometimes I am just an old school metal head… sue me…
the one and only last of the kind the singular leaf left on the branch of an evolutionary tree born to dive where there is no light no ink to blot the story right a true blue blood but not a king with the largest eyes in all the realms can invert one self into a crown of thorns or display luminous blasts from photophores perhaps a dash and a sprint but no marathons happen at these depths even so with fearsome name and look no drop of blood shall pass this denizen of the deepest ocean feeds on falling snow the leftovers cascading down of the lighted world so far removed
notes… so this is another I will annotate later when I can make all the cool footnotes and such as to what I was thinking and referencing, see if you can decode it all, I packed this one in, but as usual it is how I wrote it in one sitting, I’m strange that way, when inspiration takes over, that is, now onto the music, deep and heavy like the squids, unique and strange… so take a deep dive my friends….
something so very common, yet when you look at them they are almost alien, I am not talking about your garden variety synthetic ones that are the ones in your sink, bath or wherever, the ones that are actually animals from the oceans of the world (and some fresh water ones as well), they are our cousins after all, how did that first transaction go I wonder, some brave spirit diving a coral reef, or a brief chance encounter washed up on the beach, from we mighty modern folk back to the roman toga crowd and before, I wonder, who was that first of our species to decide “hey, those things look useful, let me rub this on my skin, or soak up this spill due to my kids”, the irony, or not, is that sponges have been around far longer than us (around 640 million years ago give or take a mill), might I be a sponge, some can live hundreds or perhaps thousands of years, they are very stable, sitting anchored in the same place mostly, the same space happy with the rent control of evolution, just letting the breeze of tide provide everything they need, I wonder if sponges could or would, or maybe we need to listen real close, place an ear to the water, they might be heard laughing, knowing they will be around way past our expiration date as a species I bet, but I doubt they would waste an ounce of energy on something outside of the life pipeline like we, something about the brilliant design of simplicity, for we are on the opposite spectrum of that, or so we assume to think, perhaps there is something out there, you know, go look, that sky out there, preferably at night, all that space out there between the stars, perhaps some other form of life is looking down at us and wondering… ‘those things look useful, let me rub one on my skin’…
the coin sides heads evolution tails perception call it in the air…
taken from my car while moving (hey, I know, I know), garden state parkway, outerbridge to staten island exit (that line above is what popped into my head as I tried to take this picture, the sky has been so miserable lately this was a welcome change, and it was like seeing the horizon smile just for me)
Corrugated metal warehouse wall that bordered the parking lot I was in, 18th Avenue, Brooklyn NY, find beauty wherever you may be (trying to live by the mantra I laid out)… sure, this is not some arboreal forest, or cloud forest, or heck even a common maple tree, but it hit me, just walking to my car, a moment, take that moment, take that time, smile at the sky, smile at everyone, sure, there is some amorphous atmosphere out there, the sun is a huge sphere incalculable miles to our mind to really grab, but the sunshine is still there delayed or not, open up, absorb it as such, even just for a second, turn the ordinary into extraordinary, this is a day, this is a life, rejoice my friends, rejoice, embrace as much as you can, at least try, I fail at this as well, but just wake up and realize, every morning, the gift, your eyes, you are alive, I am alive, I am alive right. now. right. now.
waking up when the sun is not seems to add a layer, or blanket of foul mood on the day, cover that in a covering or a smothering of traffic winding down the GSP, for only two exits mind you, across the outer bridge, through Staten Island, cross the Narrows (for an admission fee of $18 that might even make Jim J. Braddock blush) and finally on to Bay Ridge (literally named so as it is a ridge above the bay) and the parts of Brooklyn past there, a solid hour plus to travel a meager 20 miles, get home after the sun, get up and do it all over again with glee on Tuesday, and tomorrow, the prospect, I came home tonight and collapsed, feeling like the lone survivor of a shipwreck, crashed on my mattress face first, first right into the bed, no pillow in reach, washed up like flotsam on to this shore, carried in the surf, I drift off imagining how these things are supposed to go, the high tide leaving me up the slight slope of beach, the gentle waves lapping at my feet, sand on my face scratch, too tired to care or move, seagulls circling above endlessly like vultures, little crabs scurry in my shadow knowing I am prime picking real estate, and in no state to swat them away like flies, the relief of surviving the wreck is not a wholly fulfilling experience, even if it should be, I wait for the part of the tale where that tropical sun bears down from dawn and lifts up my very soul, recharges my life force with wonderful unbroken sunlight beams, gently warming my skin as the day grows from begin, I imagine, I can hear the waves, the sounds of palms rustling in a soothing Caribbean breeze, the rise and soft crash of the waves, like a massage over my body deposited here on the shore, all care fades away, I feel I could lay here… forever, so I pretend…
my phone is not cruelly right over there, taunting me with the specter of some chosen gimmick alarm sound (just who let those dogs out?), counting the hours down, for soon enough this dream is spent on the morning’s break, dragged into the shower, hopefully my mind will have been away, on a little island holiday and re-energize this engine machine, to face the world with a true genuine smile, until it is worn down again, until I find another device, the recharge period of life, a dream… a dream…
notes.. not for nothing, but why do we always survive shipwrecks on to a desert island, romanticism I suppose… we never dream of waking on a beach of rock and steam… of cold and cliff… the video is what I sleep to, or try to sleep to, most nights…
putting bread into the bird feeder good enough for me good enough for them this is winter they should write me thank you letters by letting me watch their behaviors but so much more advanced am I I do not speak their languages and perhaps this is not the same bread I use this is more the leftovers turning stale but I deem this good enough for you you are certainly more studious you built your own house and raised a family even if through basic instincts I am here alone stuffing bread on a cold quiet night into an empty feeder swinging in the tree spinning left and right
notes… I do not post to show you brilliant poetry, I post what is going on in my mind at the time, at least that is the goal, I fail, as we all do, but that is what I am up to, I write like this naturally, always have, I was just afraid in the past (stupidly) to be me full on, full force, so here I am, better or worse, I like to think I am exploring perspective, well, I try…
“a whispered prayer to the affirmation of life for spirit to fill me up with the strength to leave the past behind shed molted skin so I may emerge renewed once again through that gate beyond that door so I may be one a child of the sun once more”
notes… I read this to myself like waves licking the coast, sort of that flow, rise and fall, up and down
“origins cruel perception the trick of life am I the culmination of thought of dream my parents decision cosmic reconciliation into being”
sometimes I have a strange view on life. is this all a dream? how would I know, how would I really perceive it, and conversely are dreams real, are they reality, we think of something so it does and did exist because of that thought, it did happen, at least somewhere, in some space, in our mind, but yet we may dismiss this as not reality, what is reality, what brought us forth, a thought? perhaps, it is all a circular firing squad from there, a never ending loop, are we in the act of creating merely by imagination, or is imagination the cauldron of truth, of life, all determined by perception, a house looks much different from the inside than from the out, a mountain looks different when staring at the base than when peering from the summit, and that is a matter of feet, not a cosmic mile like looking at earth from the moon or taking a ride on neptune’s 165 year orbit to look around the solar system from another view, these are the things swirling around my brain this day…
Shades of My Garden 