“a prayer for belief so I might find the strength I already possess may you guide me to that inner sanctum that mountain pass to my own tibet to find that temple already built from your hands, so I might feel refuge in that reservoir and walk out on to the other side cleansed, and reborn enlightened and in my palms carrying purpose, let that spark rise into burning fire with endless light, as I lay me down to sleep let this belief guide my dreams in to this, closing night so all these days, will open to me”
notes… I am considering adding my ‘prayer’ poems to my collections page, (I have updated it this week) I suppose I will, especially since I just floated the idea, and I love organizing things as if I have power over them, well, I do, at least in my little corner,
there are these moments, tiny flakes of time space, hours of days, one of these, these times when I feel like I am living in past tense, moments that have happened before seem intensely ‘now’, or directly directing the now, overwhelmingly, a feeling floods me as if I have been running in place for years waiting for the past to change, or worse yet sitting in place as the world spins around me, past me, passing by, waiting for something, something that will never come, and the ability to rewrite – a wrong…
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the day started out so nicely, with the starch definitely taken out of summer, a cool morning, barely 70 degrees, mail order blue sky, someone must have paid to have all the clouds removed for there are none, at least for now, the sun is warming instead of broiling, a barely noticeable ball playing hide and seek in between the full taller trees behind the house, everything is green, with a little tired at the edges brown, I take a moment to look around, take it all in as it were, mornings like these, makes you want to be rich beyond your wildest dreams so you could just stop, stay in place and experience every ounce, then, with your hands squeeze-twist the very confines of time to get every last drop out, but, like most of us, most of any who have ever walked this earth, I have to take what I can take, in this fleeting passing moment, with a shallow deep breath I take in what I can, trying to commit to memory this little slice of near perfection for later recall, knowing soon enough I will be back in the reality of the race, the pace, cars lining up like ants in an artery, all with our destinations and routines, all under the umbrella of such a perfect day, bills to pay, obligations to meet.
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so I am driving, the traffic is a bit lighter today, you never know when a holiday approaches how said holiday will encroach on your day, so perhaps my mind is off in another place, not distracted by the constant foot race to my brakes and then go stop go stop base routine, I wonder about things, the circumstances of a life, if they would have changed, would I be right here now wondering the same? these are times I wish my memories were not so vivid or clear, or perhaps to be so vapid as to not care, maybe ignorance is bliss, but I can not know of this, I wish for amnesia, will I be happy… or just unaware? I try and tell myself, comfort myself, convince myself, that I would rather have full awareness, to have clarion clarity, but at once I might still want to be an ostrich, and bury my head in the sands of time, how my life might have been different if this or that, the mental exercise, the gymnastics of a foolish mind and lost heart, and her, would we have changed our opinion on having children, and where has all the time gone as that decision now seems past any comprehension or contemplation… from where I am situated I do not remember the sand escaping my palms, slipping from my grasp if I grasped at all, blown scattered by the winds to the four corners of no recompense, and my hands feel empty, youth is fullness, youth is an overgrown garden of possibility inculcated with weeds, and as the years go, some flowers die, others are planted, some bushes manicured, others upgraded to fancier exotics, and not so suddenly the once wild jungle of opportunity has been whittled down quite nicely, quite on purpose, with purpose, at least at the time, no longer allowed to grow wild, everything has order now, the paving stones, the path all neatly appointed, and I look back, am I satisfied with what I have? or who I am? but there is no magic elixir in the face of time, no amount of thought or determination can catch even a second in a bottle, or snare a minute in a net, my thoughts seem shackled by the past, tension on the chains, my own doing, but there is no instructions how to steer this ship, how to set the sails of life into the headwinds of success, for as I cross the trade-routes and circumnavigate, like the great explorers, I come to know, to sail around, this earthly globe, I arrive back here, in past tense, all the same, but years now spent.
Music to read by… (when will you just trust me and click the links?)
(1) death is for us forever at last this is the color of my endearment the light of perpetual machinery for within let all that remains let this purify my thoughts my enduring my love of you for you
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(2) I vacillate in this occupied space between wanting to never and begging forever if I had not known I would still be alone if I had not been I could not know tip toe on the edge of this black hole this close to light one step slight to all’s end this is the line on which I lay
notes… I have endless poems about her, the one, maybe the only one, I tell myself many things, I indulge in many things, I have fantasies, and dreams, and yet time just keeps passing, but I feel no difference, at times there is reprieve but always the return to the baseline… of her. I feel broken with no way to heal, I don’t want pity, or even sympathy, this is all for me, to work out, I imagine some people are the same, or at least I rationalize…
the clouds are like a perfectly aligned photograph of a still fire bloom set upon the dazzling supreme aqua of a pristine tropical ocean, maybe a cliche, maybe not, I’ll take it any day of the week, and three times today or tonight as the sun is slipping under the horizon, even though this is really just the earth’s rotation, such a large but understood concept, but do we stand here and admire that fact? or feel the spin, feel the ground whipping around at dizzying speeds, all with our terra firma feet planted well on this ground, the dirt, the thin skin layer of the molten apple we call earth, a seething ocean of fire just a few miles, under where we feel so safe, a thin layer of air all that separates us from space, how precarious we are, but do we perceive it, we worry more about the local buzzing about, unaware of some outer calamity that could end our little love affair with ourselves, the action of every breath of every being, an orchestra of the absurd chances of just being, being here, writing this, or reading these words, I am truly amazed in moments like this, I think nature is sneaky, or wise, or both quite combined, to show us glimpses, here and there, drops of reminders, breath taking visions, thundering falls, tiny bugs of imaginable stripe and scope, unimaginable combinations of dna in humans alone, the colors, of eyes, of hair, heights, and smiles, the buffet of laughter shared across global realms, all revealed in an evening sky, the signs are all there, they describe locations, the mile markers, more subtle than neon flashing colors but no less informative, all around, so train the mind, use your eyes, take in that precious breath, hold a loved one for just a moment to feel that warmth, that is the miracle of life, this is bounty, this is our corner of the universe, the only one we can possibly know but we are here in the face of impossibility, that rare bloom of existence, for a short while, stars have formed your very core, for once twilight is now your veins, once heavenly bodies are your precious thoughts, take a moment, absorb the world’s wonder, feel the universe in your bones as we are one, we all come from the most basic of elements, a recipe of those touched by a spark, and here you are.
sitting at a light, a familiar one, a common one, route one and nine, or maybe just route one at this point, a typical late summer afternoon, the sky bragging and flashing an amazing spectrum of colors, if you care to stop by, and I do, for a moment, collect up my consciousness off the floor, and look up to that sky, something I hope I never tire of, or at least remind myself to remember the sky by, on days that are more or mere gray, or perhaps when my outlook is under the weather, to remember, days such as this, windows down, sounds of my choosing caressing my ears, staring out into that sky, getting lost but not enough to piss off, those in traffic with me, waiting to make a left, and then – a burst across that sky, a flock of geese, candian probably, some other type, your guess, immediately I think to myself, for who else am I going to think to, that I enjoy geese more than other flocks, the lines, the patterns, the organization, the ultimate arrow point, perhaps this says more about me, on a psychological level, than I might care to admit, but in flight, the precision, the dynamic of coordination, the collaboration of individuals, appeals to me, at some base level, my base level, rather than the flocks that look like schools of fish darting in swirls back and forth like a whirlwind, no, I much prefer the geese, and there is a honk, not from them, for the light has turned green…
I did not even notice a light go out, sometimes whole lives are lived in the smallest of details, you expect things to happen, you know they will happen, but just the same they do not feel right when they do, beyond your control, maybe not even anything residing in your little orbit of daily life, but right there on the perimeter all the time, this is one of those nights, oddly, the temperature is much cooler tonight than it has been, coincidence? I don’t believe in them, a long time neighbor of mine, has passed away, he was not young, it was not sudden, perhaps expected, but neighbors can be a strange relationship at times, someone you see almost every day and almost always at certain times, I remember the ritual so well, rolling the garbage can to the street every sunday night, there are other assigned garbage nights, but sunday is more singular as most of us are not working, and certainly not my neighbor who was retired for years now, but seemingly we had the same routine, on sundays at least, roughly the same time to deploy the garbage to the route, as the years went by I noticed he was hunched over more, perhaps a bit more labored up and down his driveway, there was always the knowing nod, like “howdy neighbor”, how odd to be two houses away and yet know so little, but be totally comfortable with someone, such is the nature of familiarity and ritual, and a neighborhood such as this, I would see his kids visit with their kids, almost every sunday, I would rarely see his wife, on occasion he would get the mail for other neighbors directly across, well, at least before they moved, that is years ago now, the cars of his children are staying later this evening, later than most, at some point they will go home, and then all that will be left, a silent house, haunted by the one remnant left, a widowed spouse.
compassion the better half as decreed maps the path from wounded knee, is sin a birth mark not removed in forgiveness wash still imbued
notes… as usual sometimes I poke through my unpublished stuff and see if anything hits me, I sort of always liked this in the back of my mind, but time passes and you forget about things (I wrote this back in dec 2018), I thought it very lyrical at the time, and now… one minor tweak (the first line was one line with the second line but the cadence in my head read it as two after I wrote it).. so, there you have it… and there it is…
music: let’s rock, it’s the summer man, roll down the windows and get…
and don’t forget I also write Media reviews (TV, film and the like… and I would like to think I am good… or at least decent, come on now people I do work 6 days a week…)
I was perusing the fish section of my local Wegman’s supermarket today, and they had Fluke, now Fluke is often referred to as “summer flounder” and is a very east coast thing, especially this time of year as they migrate close to shore abandoning their deep ocean homes, because like everything in jersey, it flocks to the shore in the summer, even the damn fish… I haven’t seen Fluke in a while, maybe I wasn’t quite looking, or maybe happening upon it today was just a fluke… they remind me of summer, day boating, or as we more common in these parts referred to them as “party boats”, you can do the math, but suffice it to say they were quite lax on allowing libations as stowaways, hell, you could not even spell “fishing charter” without ‘beer’, I must say the night boat trips were rather interesting, so yeah, I used to fish for Fluke as a kid, one of those very summer memories even though you can fish for them year round surely, I recall the party boats were with friends, but I remember the times with my dad more vividly, on my uncle’s boat, I don’t even recall how old I was, but the whole routine, getting on the boat not falling in, untying the ropes and such, the shiny white surfaces, chugging out slowly out of the marina, stopping at the gas station dock for fuel, food and bait-fish, eventually picking up a little speed out of the harbor, passing sandy hook, then skipping along the water until whatever destination was chosen was met, casting out our lines, catching mostly sea robins, and the occasional fluke, large enough to keep and then consume, that feeling when as the smallest person on board and you catch the catch of the day, the biggest fish, not often but sometimes, following the seagulls around as they spot schools, casting out to catch some blues among the frenzy, spending the whole day on the water, hours not mattering, starting at sunrise and finishing near sunset, all in a blink, I so romanticize it now, forgetting the work, getting up before dawn (ahem, not my specialty, ever), scrubbing everything down on the boat, the slime of the fish on your hands, the gunk on your shirt and shorts, that time my brother was unloading the catch and picked up my fish (the champ, the trophy of the day) and dropped it… back into the water, right by the dock, my heart swam away with the fish I lost, the rank old dead fish odor of the fillet station on the dock, the errant old scales all about like shiny little plates on a tangled fishing line wind chime, gutting the fish, evisceration of organs, the seagulls and shore birds in a veritable orgy of gore that they found so tasty as we threw the scraps and bits into the water next to the moored boat, and then becoming the bearer of a proud ziploc of perfect triangles of fish, to be had later as a reward or frozen – never seen from again… but my immediate recollection was all the positive things, and maybe just maybe that should be my focus when experiencing life, as it seems that is what we most remember anyway, there must be a reason for this, some biological thing I suppose, I doubt that it is just… a fluke…
“H2one“ bodies of water so we are holding our ocean within, internal gravity we capture moisture from the outer-world, internal irrigation so our inner fauna can stave off extinction all that flows in our rivers and channels not just rafts of cells or the pulse of marrow but bolts of electric information memories, thoughts joys, pain the self, the self contained eco system one the only ocean we are masters of and yet still do not know nor have mapped all the depths and fathoms of our own.
music ? as usual my parade of under rated bands as I scream their names in the blog wind…
notes…. wrote this back in July (with a couple of tweaks tonight), man that feels like a long time ago… the summer is nearing an end, I feel like I missed something, but I do love the fall, not like face planting, I mean the season in general, it is when I vacation, when people go back to school I usually shoot off to somewhere for a couple of weeks… tomorrow? off to dig for fossils here in new jersey, yes, I typed that right… if all goes well I might report, and you can retort, or be a sport… and leave me a like, a comment, a question, a new and interesting way to deal with super hot chiles… I could write a blog on just that, but that would not be my voice alone, so I will let others handle that… but damn I love hot chiles….
Sometimes I see something and it is just a trigger for some lines, this would be one of those times, a simple thought, just spilled out of my gut, onto this page, how um, romantic, if not gross… but seriously this was just inspiration from a frame, some old wooden power lines stretched across the vast salt marshes of southern new jersey… which made me write this…
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wooden power lines make me think of the plains and open spaces stretching prairies golden rolling fields wide winding roads that inevitably lead to the feet of mountains and the gateway of the west
notes… tonight I was at my cousin’s house, one block from the beach in Monmouth Beach NJ… seemingly I was watching a life I left, or was supposed to have, it isn’t that I am unhappy, but it is strange to observe the changing of generations, the “kids” I knew are now all young 20 something party animals, my cool cousins are now almost the older generation, my uncles and aunts are all 80 plus… life is strange, I am glad to observe it, I must have looked like a weirdo to them, just kind of kicking back and taking it all in, a watcher, no need to fit in, comfortable in my own skin but content to stand by myself, I must admit that I thought about her… how she would have been right next to me and I would have brought the bell to the ball in my mind and heart, I would gladly have had the most beautiful girl in the room, because she always was, to me, but I am happy for the others, my brother who is on wife three, my cousin from philly who has gotten back with a great guy (as far as I could always tell, and I am a good judge of character), a cousin with a new beau, her older sister with the same old who seems a new man when wall street leads to ocean views, and my uncle who’s birthday this was all for, let me be that when I am 80 and I will claim victory, but to look out, and see three generations of your family…. that must be something, I saw it, but I am not of it… but somehow I do embrace it even if I feel outside it at times…
Shades of My Garden 