who is there that does not believe
who is there that shall believe
for in that belief
resides hope eternal
and all shall be
all shall come
from –
within.
source.
Tag: thoughts
a taste of spring…
(stream of consciousness posted prompted by a spike to 70 degrees today)
a taste of spring, a little bird on a twig, a series of chirps evolves into song, the sun, not quit strong enough to completely thaw, nor to make my face have the brooding fear of a tan, but a blue sky and a bright sun can lighten the disposition of gravity, still snow survives, around the edges, under the hedges, melting tides reveal masks strewn about in the gutters, a grim reminder of the times we are emerging from, less a tunnel and more a moratorium, a pause, a break in the norm, all holidays vanished along with those lost, a year seems gone, lost, like this never happened, but I do sense this, a taste of spring, seventy degrees seems like the last mile marker on the road to a vacation destination, a little finch, just inches above me, I swear he is dancing a jig, or at least bouncing around, and the snow’s retreat, even the dull green of the lawn is a treat, a feast for the eyes, lonely stark dirtied snow has a toll, like walls, the glow of the setting sun, behind the everyday house across the street, somehow looks more regal, so I will soak this in for now, into my skin, trigger memories of better days, of hope, of waves gently rolling over my toes as a I stroll down my favorite sandy venue soon enough, I have not come out of this time as whole as I once was, but I still am, so hope is resolve, in this – a taste of spring.
phases…
(a stream of consciousness post)
Is this really me, completely? I feel like a pilot, in a suit, in pursuit of… I’m not so sure anymore, more days, more time, for what? I speak of, I think of, lives past, no, not in the reincarnation sense, although it would seem I have had my cycles passed, I am in my current life, or phase, not defined by decades, no, more or less my surround, what is around, my circumstance, a stanza in time, in a sense, not clearly defined by lines, at least not as strict as haiku, but definitely with form, I have not learned, or grown to, or allowed myself to be myself completely without the forms of norm, does anyone? there were the early years, the carefree, the cage-free, the free range days, certainly, but, my memory is so sparse, was the freedom just a way to breeze through those times, not wanting to sit down in my mind and record such things? I barely remember anything prior to the age of ten, or maybe even twelve, a dozen or so things that stand the time, like perfect ruins, snapshots really, I recall my teens more well, but such a twisting-morphing-growing age, from day camp to college all in a daze, no… college was the third phase, maybe I am getting ahead of myself, that short span at rutgers, was definitely it’s own thing, as I remember those dorm days better than most prior, coed dorms the norm, cohosts at late night soirees, the grease trucks (specifically Mr C’s) near dawn, slapping together forty page papers in a storm of no-doze and jolt cola, one friend in particular whom I wished I maintained contact all these years, that was it’s own time, separate from the rest as I recall those moments best, even now, strangely, and then phase three, my florida years, the pinnacle of hope, early twenties when everything is there, so much fruit flowing that one could never imagine an orchard bare, or even such a place in winter, there was always sun, like some bad analogy or pun, christmas lights on palm trees, and her, my love, the anchor on my heart all these years, but also the picture of a perfect flower, smiling – undeterred by the cracked earth of a dessert planted, no, that much has not faded, a dualogy that haunts me to this day, some would say, don’t let it, for yes I have tried to travel that forgetful path, I have, but it has done me no good or lifted the cargo, now phase five, in life, just seems as if I am on a ride, just riding out the time, pushing forward in a circle, all advice on paper, print and speech says move on, and I have, as much as I can, but I can not shake the past, no matter what I do, sometimes I think why bother, and accept the way, I can refurnish the room, paint the walls, change the carpet, but the room remains, I just have to see if in the next phase things will change, I’m not so sure as this has been the longest phase to date, but one never knows, will I find the providence to lead me to elysian pastures, and they might just be around the next corner bend, so I go, so I go.
musings from the window… (dreaming of gingerbread houses)
I might see the allure now, everything capped and framed in blankets of pure white, the tempest has gone out to sea, the world has settled teetering towards normalcy, the grit and dirt of the pace has not had a chance to corrupt the scene, the cold freezes the world or slows this down as much at least, enough to breathe and watch like chimneys slowly blowing smoke into the sky ceiling, there is a palpable silence to grip when the landscape has been dressed like this, when the local habitat endures the blunt instrument of winter, even the plowed remains, piled up against the curb seem like majestic sculpted berms, foot prints are deep and mark the paths, a distinct record of those who have passed just before you, you size up your shoe against theirs, like a game, filling the gaps with your own gate as you go, gingerbread houses, just make sense to me now, in this moment, covering flaws, making uniform the houses on the street regardless of style and year, I suppose I am dreaming, streaming in the land of rockwell, of sleds and mittens, of hot cocoa, piles of boots scattered in the front hall, sure, the world bounces back swift and the race is back on, shortly, but for a moment, transformed, a neighborhood of warm gingerbread houses is mine to adore…
notes… hey, we got 18 inches of snow here give or take, Edison NJ proper, well, at least to me, north Edison, just outside the donut that is Metuchen, just left of Iselin the Asian Indian capital of the region (damn I am spoiled food wise you can’t imagine, pizza and vindaloo to die for within 10 blocks)
the trojan horse, for therefore I am…
we are the masters of our own domain, we raise the walls, we setup the defenses, and yet we may be betrayed by our own voices and impulses, maybe this tale is true, men lying in wait inside a glorious now notorious gift, or perhaps it is one of the greatest metaphors of all, troy did not welcome the horse with open arms, so I’m told, or so is written, there were voices of dissent, and those who chose not to listen, so we are troy, perhaps easily repelling an overt invasion, but persuasion, the soft penetration of sophistry, seduction, the art of deception so you hang on your own noose, sounds preposterous, and so it is, on the face, but how many of our proclivities may overrun, maybe they do not open the gates all at once and let the enemy pounce on sudden corpse, but more like insipid poison, gladly taken in with wine filled glass-fulls, glad gulps of our own demise, all in the name of feast and compromise, for are we not beasts that reside in the cultivated fields of temptation, so far removed from plains and migrations, somewhere that lurks, we are not a patchwork of circuits, flesh and blood, no matter what we may think or elevate above the other species, flesh and blood begets the same, as virgil says (or so quoted) “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes” translated to: ‘I fear greeks, even those bearing gifts’, for greeks are merely the name of that day for the malady lying at their own feet, for many years I have always thought of the story as a great tale of war and beware, but more these days I fear I may have written this chapter on my own lair many a time, eager to hold up a trophy minor victory or none, hold my name up to the sun, or worse boast to fly closer like an icarus run, this all seems so clear, so obvious now, how fallible and foolable this form can be, me, how can I be my brother’s keeper with my own loose gate, so maybe that is the avatar, the symbol, the meme to remind me of fate, a hollow horse or not so hollow horse, to keep me on course and remember that I control the comings and goings of my castle, there is the one enemy out there that will surely flatten my walls, pierce my defenses, steal, no silence my last breath, witness as death plows this whole effort under the ground, but until then, I shall think of the trojan horse and question what I let happen within my own domain as to maximize the health of my inner hearth, heart, sanctum and mind.
notes… and you thought there wasn’t a thrash version of the Beatles classic “Eleanor Rigby”, silly rabbit, thrash is for kids…
a quick quip…
inspiration is
a wish
an itch
gone
in an instant
(the question is… what do you do with it?)
thoughts, from the porch…
the moon is in league
and so it descends, frozen invisible prison bars, a brisk cold, hints dropped like falling petals scattered earlier in these past weeks, the crisp bite of fall I called such, but now, full teeth bared gleaming white, the ring leader, the pied piper, reverse reflecting the sun’s light to dominate the sky of night, the stark dearth star, a cold dead desert hypnotizing our hemisphere into submission, sleep… a full moon, of course, conjured up’for hallow’s eve, just as the leaves have been stripped from many trees, that inescapable gaze blazes down on this landscape, no clouds, no shroud to hide in, no, open resistance, a brazen demonstration of barren isolation, Winter; that which slows life like a vice twisting in a thimble, at barely – a – pace, the feel has a beacon, a symbol, a scion, the brightest object in the sky as the world turns cold and colder, twist once more, snow, yes, snow, this morning there was snow, not the type to warm your heart on a christmas morning viewed from a cheery warm window sipping hot cocoa, no, dead falling, falling heavy wet white wolf pelts slapping on the windshield, letting you know the summer you once knew is quite gone, and certainly I did not outfit myself in the proper jacket to deal with this early assault, but no matter, I will not linger here, being stared at, examined, scrutinized, by that dead eye hanging in the sky, the cold isolation, the green of the world has peeled back in reflex, but I was watching, I swear I was watching this time, how did I miss this, the coming loud tide of the cold wave, my breath rises out up into space, drawn up by that nocturnal beaming thief, as I walk I feel the presence of being followed, stalked, tracked across the sky behind my shoulder, just over my shoulder, footstep by footstep by footstep, I notice my feet, the fallen, the fallen leaves are a patchwork quilt, in the day a beautiful sight, but night, now, wet and soaked, dank slippery wetness, the kind where you want to rush inside and peel off your drenched clothes, sit wrapped blanket by a fire, the brand of cold that turns skin blue, the body shrinks back into a shell, yes, the chills, run, run up the spine and through the teeth, chatter, I must devine that my ancestors were not of alpine stock, not if this is my evolved shock, even now, years worn down, years documented on my paycheck to this universe, still, some nights, the moon is a sinister beast, dead reveling in an earthly feast. (and so I retreat, cuddle up with my dog, and sleep)
a beach musing…
I wonder how many others have wandered here, how many other feet, how many years, generations, for I surely have
I was here
I have taken things from this beach, and perhaps this beach has taken things from me, time at least,
such little impact yet I feel
I feel some sense of ownership, pride I guess, ego
the wind churns, and the tide turns
the waves crash, the gulls hang there, standing in mid air
and I all I want
is to belong.
daggers for eyes (who am I?)
“this is who I am!”, how we have screamed into the face of the great abyss that is society at large, with great thrusting daggers in eyes I have raised the same tsunami sentiment in my mind, all in a rage against the factories of same-a-tude that dominate the landscape of this life, a perception at least, I wonder how much of the flock feels less than a part of said flock but does not speak up, but then again there is plenty that have no qualms with the calms that obedience and coherence provides, they are wired that way, maybe not you or I, and some more yet perhaps, that the modus operandi is terra firma, boy, is that arcane? maybe to say, there are plenty that are happy cruising forever in the middle lane, I suppose that is a simpler analogy, but there I am, modifying my own thought, among my own words, my own damn post, for whom? clearly I am not a super digested blog of the norm, I am not a franchise on every corner, a juicy burger or tasty spicy chicken sandwich to order (I am a fan of Chick-Fil-A, I must say, waffle fries… ya feel me?), anywho, even the guy labeled “he’ll say anything” at work guy (me) is not really that guy, at least not all the time, is it fear? or reality? that rejection in social morality will occur, or consequence will fall like a wrecking ball right to my balls, am I half-assing my own existence? I always say and actually think that my “filter”, as it were, is on the shrink, but to what extent (gone)? just enough to hold the waters of the dam back… just enough, just enough an arms length from vanquish, if I had all the money in the world (I would settle for 10% mind you, donations accepted) would I be the same jovial strange soul searching? or would the social context of being free of the complex allow my eccentricities to fully bloom into the garden of babylon I was meant to be? or at least thought myself to be? and would I need such resource to be one hundred percent anyway? is there not a niche, or a cavern, or a crevice I could wedge myself in, sheltered from the storm of the norm, to scratch out my own weird unicorn existence while still in the standard wilderness of the all… I suppose that is the line, the struggle, the game, mental and otherwise, am I really being myself? all the time? …are you?
thoughts, from the porch… (calendars be damned)
what day is this? Sunday you say? I suppose so, what’s the difference? some rogue could hold a gun to my head and I’d swear on Tuesday, I didn’t log my digital self into work today, I think, so I guess that squares that vote down, but everything else? the same.
the weather is vacillating, the atmosphere seems quite undecided in mind, sun filled hope has given way to rumors of storm, or maybe the trees are just finding their voice more, more green drapes, buds graduated into kindergarten leaves, every moment struck past one further down the rail line took, spikes driven in, for miles back, through this latest mountain pass, you never know quite where the end of the line will be, and always the questions, the doubts, am I doing this… right? starting over not being an option, as the only direction now and ever is forward, the only place to ever start is this foot right here, now, this step, this one that leads to the next, I must remember that little epithet, like a tattoo perhaps, no, that is voluntary (usually), something more, something with no outer choice, a scar, yes, a scar, something that will pull that next step into a different space, maybe for better, maybe for worse, but forward nonetheless, for lest we let fear stop us in perfect statuesque, to be admired by others in perfect pose, then, left behind, museum, forgotten in some room, or left to creeping moss watching a tomb, I wish to have the fire to live like a lightning bolt, so I might, so I may, I can, but only to turn on that first corner, and turn my back on where I began, a real place no more, a memory, lore, the time now is the journey, forward.
notes… so this is a strange time, especially here in the metro NYC area, or the tri-state area as we call it, kind of hubris, I know, there is many tri-states out there, I could google the results but nah, I get it, we east coaster’s have a bias, I used to be that guy before I started exploring the states, let alone the world, the coasts are biased… but honestly, I can not imagine living away from the ocean even I do not go there nearly enough, some things are a calling, what does this have to do with my post? well… nothing, just my thoughts, back to work, erm, again from home tomorrow, the days blend and are so long now… but yet, so not distinct, am I getting used to this? the supermarket runs twice a week, lining up with my mask (a n-95 type, how sheikh), making meals for my elderly folks so they do not venture out, social life discarded aside from phones and such, sitting out on the porch my only out, and this, some words, patience will win out.
Shades of My Garden 