The Wonderful World of Oliver Fontaine
These simple words cannot express
The joy he brought and happiness
That filled our lives and made us glad;
To all of us he was a dad
Who'd listen and then offer up
Nonjudgmental words of love.
With glasses perched upon his nose
He struck the perfect "wise man" pose,
For deep within that furrowed brow
He'd learned to live life here and now;
Short in stature but tall on life
He found the highs amidst the strife.
What would he say if he were here
To see on every face a tear?
Perhaps he'd put his arm around
Our burdened shoulders, then turn our frown
Into a smile of love that said
His love was from the heart, not head.
Although he's gone, he hasn't left,
For deep within each sorrowed breast
He placed an ever-burning light
That shows the knowledge and insight –
Unselfish, trusting giving love –
He knew we're blessed from One above.
So let's not mourn or fret for long
Or sing his praises in a song;
Let's take his joy, not our remorse,
And focus on a cheerful course;
Support logistics can, you see,
Live out our main man's legacy.
[from: "Of Friends, Neighbors, Lovers and Miscellaneous Passers-by", 1992, published by Tree Trunk Productions]
Showing posts with label Poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poem. Show all posts
19 April 2010
Are We [Only/Really Just] Background For Something Else?
One B.C. *
I climb down into the darkness while the water seeping from the cracks between bricks drips around me into the rushing wastewater below. Each step, every rung, I take, I grasp, leads, no, carries me away from Their realities. The snake I see in the mirror slithers deeper into the sewer where a feast of rats waits to be eaten.The bricks sweat under the strain of a torrential downpour.
Roaches, unsure of my intent, scatter into the shadows.
I reach the bottom of the manhole and peer into the upstream pipe to see your ego flooding toward me. I should have known the clouds of doubt hanging over my head earlier in the day formed not from my doubts but from yours of me.
My place of meditation, my Mecca, my manhole, takes a sepulchral form instead and the universe of realities that is you-and-me is no more as your ego washes over me and floods the chamber.
Moral: Friendships and eternity only last as long as someone remembers.
_______________________________________
* One year after knowing Brenda Craig.
[from: “Of Friends, Neighbors, Lovers and Miscellaneous Passers-by”, 1992, published by Tree Trunk Productions]
13 March 2010
Flashback, 19th May 1995 - The Farmer’s Almanac Guide to Shakespeare: A 1/2-Act Play
The Farmer’s Almanac Guide to Shakespeare: A 1/2-Act Play
To be performed in a casual setting; the performer should wear an old hat, dirty overalls, and a wornout pair of boots and be holding a large book, preferably the works of Shakespeare.
Hi folks, I was gonna tell y’all about the weather and how my farm was doin’ and all that but this morning I picked up this stack of tall tales that’s been holdin’ up one end of my kitchen table ever since my daughter got kicked outta eighth grade for chewin’ tobacco.
The fellow in this here book says that old psychiatrists have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes all yellowed-over, their gums are red from gnawin’ and that they lack their sanity, together with having weak legs, so they have to hang onto the toilet when they pee (kinda like some of them politicians after they’ve had a few sips of my moonshine...er, I mean cough medicine). I don’t mean to insult the bunch of you but that purty well describes the rest of us here today. But as I was sayin’, you can tell this fellow has a lot on his mind, and he uses some purty fancy words to say all what he’s got to say. I especially like this story, called...
The Good Ol’ Boy Hamlet
[The performer makes a sound, clearing the throat, thrusts the book out in an overdramatic fashion and then pulls the book in close as if the words are hard to see, bending down to study the page for a few seconds before saying the following paragraph slowly, as if getting used to reading out loud.]
I heard this speech once, but it was never acted; or if it was, not more’n once; it didn’t please a lot of folks; it was like fancy fish eggs to the people: but it was -- as I reckon, and others, whose judgments in such matters are much smarter’n mine -- an excellent speech, every sentence put together purty well and set down with as much modesty as a cunning politician.
[The performer stands up straight and holds the book back out, then loudly enunciates the following, overacting as much as possible.]
To seed or not to seed the fields: that is the question:
Whether this brain of mine can suffer
The Cadillacs and Pierce Arrows of winnin’ the lottery fortune,
Or take pesticides against a sea of boll weevils,
And by sprayin’ end them? To die: to sleep:
No more; and by sleep to say I end
The heartache and the thousand bumps to my butt
That a tractor’ll do to ya, it’s a sitiation
Definitely to be wished fer. To die, to sleep:
To sleep: perchance to dream : ah, there’s the rub of Ben Gay;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When I have taken off these dirty overalls,
Must give me pause: that’s the respect
That makes a calamity of this long life;
For who would bear the naggin’ and complainin’ of your spouse,
The government taxes, the businessman’s contempt for farmin’,
The pains of your ol’ sweetheart’s love, the delay of your farm loan approval,
The overbearin’ county commissioners and the free handouts
That lazy farmers whose crops fail take,
When I myself could quietly make
Out like a barefoot bandit? who would bear the burdens,
To grunt and sweat under this weary life,
But that the wonder of somethin’ after death,
The undiscovered country from whose boundaries
No traveller has returned, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we don’t know of?
Thus conscience does make Christians of us all;
And thus the natural-born worldly will
Is replaced with Jesus and his cast of angels,
And enterprises of great importance and in regards
to this moment our thoughts run to God
And lose the love for the world. -- Listen now!
My fair wife! She calls me back to the dinner table for some vittles.
Well, folks, I’d best be going afore she up and feeds my supper to the hogs.
- 19 May 1995
[from: http://web.archive.org/web/20080515162808/www.geocities.com/bigcove/homepage.html]
To be performed in a casual setting; the performer should wear an old hat, dirty overalls, and a wornout pair of boots and be holding a large book, preferably the works of Shakespeare.
Hi folks, I was gonna tell y’all about the weather and how my farm was doin’ and all that but this morning I picked up this stack of tall tales that’s been holdin’ up one end of my kitchen table ever since my daughter got kicked outta eighth grade for chewin’ tobacco.
The fellow in this here book says that old psychiatrists have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes all yellowed-over, their gums are red from gnawin’ and that they lack their sanity, together with having weak legs, so they have to hang onto the toilet when they pee (kinda like some of them politicians after they’ve had a few sips of my moonshine...er, I mean cough medicine). I don’t mean to insult the bunch of you but that purty well describes the rest of us here today. But as I was sayin’, you can tell this fellow has a lot on his mind, and he uses some purty fancy words to say all what he’s got to say. I especially like this story, called...
The Good Ol’ Boy Hamlet
[The performer makes a sound, clearing the throat, thrusts the book out in an overdramatic fashion and then pulls the book in close as if the words are hard to see, bending down to study the page for a few seconds before saying the following paragraph slowly, as if getting used to reading out loud.]
I heard this speech once, but it was never acted; or if it was, not more’n once; it didn’t please a lot of folks; it was like fancy fish eggs to the people: but it was -- as I reckon, and others, whose judgments in such matters are much smarter’n mine -- an excellent speech, every sentence put together purty well and set down with as much modesty as a cunning politician.
[The performer stands up straight and holds the book back out, then loudly enunciates the following, overacting as much as possible.]
To seed or not to seed the fields: that is the question:
Whether this brain of mine can suffer
The Cadillacs and Pierce Arrows of winnin’ the lottery fortune,
Or take pesticides against a sea of boll weevils,
And by sprayin’ end them? To die: to sleep:
No more; and by sleep to say I end
The heartache and the thousand bumps to my butt
That a tractor’ll do to ya, it’s a sitiation
Definitely to be wished fer. To die, to sleep:
To sleep: perchance to dream : ah, there’s the rub of Ben Gay;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When I have taken off these dirty overalls,
Must give me pause: that’s the respect
That makes a calamity of this long life;
For who would bear the naggin’ and complainin’ of your spouse,
The government taxes, the businessman’s contempt for farmin’,
The pains of your ol’ sweetheart’s love, the delay of your farm loan approval,
The overbearin’ county commissioners and the free handouts
That lazy farmers whose crops fail take,
When I myself could quietly make
Out like a barefoot bandit? who would bear the burdens,
To grunt and sweat under this weary life,
But that the wonder of somethin’ after death,
The undiscovered country from whose boundaries
No traveller has returned, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we don’t know of?
Thus conscience does make Christians of us all;
And thus the natural-born worldly will
Is replaced with Jesus and his cast of angels,
And enterprises of great importance and in regards
to this moment our thoughts run to God
And lose the love for the world. -- Listen now!
My fair wife! She calls me back to the dinner table for some vittles.
Well, folks, I’d best be going afore she up and feeds my supper to the hogs.
- 19 May 1995
[from: http://web.archive.org/web/20080515162808/www.geocities.com/bigcove/homepage.html]
20 January 2010
The Collection Grows
A few more books to add to my library (courtesy of my parents), two of them beside me:
15th January 2010, 19:46
Shoulda What?
What should a person do with a futon?
What should a futon do with a baton?
What should a poem do with a peony?
What should a peony do with a poem?
Should a person, futon, baton, poem and peony be in the same space?
Should a space be provided?
Shoulda woulda coulda.
These are the questions one considers when looking at the garden,
Questions one considers when tending the garden,
Questions one garden tends to consider,
Considers the questions,
The question,
The tender shoots,
The roots,
The growth,
The winter rest,
The groundcover,
The, the, the...with nothing more than tea to drink,
A cup,
A ground leaf,
A tray,
A pot,
A drop to quench one's thirst.
- The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland, by Seumas MacManus
- The Schweitzer Album: A Portrait in Words and Pictures, by Erica Anderson
15th January 2010, 19:46
Shoulda What?
What should a person do with a futon?
What should a futon do with a baton?
What should a poem do with a peony?
What should a peony do with a poem?
Should a person, futon, baton, poem and peony be in the same space?
Should a space be provided?
Shoulda woulda coulda.
These are the questions one considers when looking at the garden,
Questions one considers when tending the garden,
Questions one garden tends to consider,
Considers the questions,
The question,
The tender shoots,
The roots,
The growth,
The winter rest,
The groundcover,
The, the, the...with nothing more than tea to drink,
A cup,
A ground leaf,
A tray,
A pot,
A drop to quench one's thirst.
08 January 2010
Lebanese Hindu Party Favours
While the thoughts and processes of my species wash over and through my stopped-up vessels, the flutter of feathers catches my attention. No, not a game of badminton on the front lawn. The neighbourhood avian population flies from backyard to backyard for kernels, morsels, seeds, anything nutritious, energy pills on this cold winter day.
The roadways dry, sublimation a situation in situ, people pedal their peddle carts full of leather-wrapped, multipositional seating arrangements for bodies in transit to parts unknown.
Neoclassical on the Internet radio, last.fm, preceded by post-industrial and ambient industrial and avantgarde. En garde!
Frozen water squeezed out of the sky, like gnats, flowing this way and that in the space between frozen tree stalks.
Desert spice fragrance oil bubbling in the glass bowl above a heat lamp.
The heat pump converting gas to liquid and liquid to gas in order to push warm air through subterranean vents.
Most days, a normal person sits here, asking if "why" or "why not" weighs more, tipping the scales, off-balance, off-kilter, on-time, inside or out, contemplating the value of the value of value, brain waves the only toys one has to play with.
Flocks of birds, every one fluffed up, taking off out of the wooded ditch at once. Where do they get fresh water today?
Observations versus imagination. One has the choice. Depression and inaction are not synonymous. Some days are like this, arms and legs caught in the floating mobile of words, tangled in sentence structures, prepositional phrases, dangling modifiers, the space between two musical chords. Trapped but free. Willing and unwilling. Thrilled and bored.
No place to go. No place to need to get away from. No place to be. No being to find. Just watching the birds and the automobiles dance in the snow.
Dishes and clothes to wash. Holiday decorations to take down and put away. Domesticity showing in the roots sprouting from the space rocket engines on one's feet. Physics and chemistry and psychology books showing off their dust-covered dust covers. A child's school creation by a child who's no longer a child fluttering childishly from a string.
Dreaming of Moskva, Flemish bicycle trips, skydiving over Australia, Italian villas, an Ennis inn...
Playing out-of-sync, unharmonious tunes on a portable Yamaha keyboard that one has always played, once played on uprights and baby grands, no sheet music required, disunity the theme, disconnected, free, expressive, extemporaneous, no capital letters, no commas, no periods, no paragraph breaks. Now with over 400 voices and rhythms to choose from! [Aah...technology.]
The birds don't care. They're focused on what's important ==> food. water. shelter from the cold. A bird-sized brain doesn't know self-actualisation or self-fulfillment or meditative stances or musical scores written for piano and laptop computer.
But I do. Happiness is a journey, with stopovers for depression, boredom, sadness, sorrow and introspection along the way. One can have one without the other but why? Why not?
The roadways dry, sublimation a situation in situ, people pedal their peddle carts full of leather-wrapped, multipositional seating arrangements for bodies in transit to parts unknown.
Neoclassical on the Internet radio, last.fm, preceded by post-industrial and ambient industrial and avantgarde. En garde!
Frozen water squeezed out of the sky, like gnats, flowing this way and that in the space between frozen tree stalks.
Desert spice fragrance oil bubbling in the glass bowl above a heat lamp.
The heat pump converting gas to liquid and liquid to gas in order to push warm air through subterranean vents.
Most days, a normal person sits here, asking if "why" or "why not" weighs more, tipping the scales, off-balance, off-kilter, on-time, inside or out, contemplating the value of the value of value, brain waves the only toys one has to play with.
Flocks of birds, every one fluffed up, taking off out of the wooded ditch at once. Where do they get fresh water today?
Observations versus imagination. One has the choice. Depression and inaction are not synonymous. Some days are like this, arms and legs caught in the floating mobile of words, tangled in sentence structures, prepositional phrases, dangling modifiers, the space between two musical chords. Trapped but free. Willing and unwilling. Thrilled and bored.
No place to go. No place to need to get away from. No place to be. No being to find. Just watching the birds and the automobiles dance in the snow.
Dishes and clothes to wash. Holiday decorations to take down and put away. Domesticity showing in the roots sprouting from the space rocket engines on one's feet. Physics and chemistry and psychology books showing off their dust-covered dust covers. A child's school creation by a child who's no longer a child fluttering childishly from a string.
Dreaming of Moskva, Flemish bicycle trips, skydiving over Australia, Italian villas, an Ennis inn...
Playing out-of-sync, unharmonious tunes on a portable Yamaha keyboard that one has always played, once played on uprights and baby grands, no sheet music required, disunity the theme, disconnected, free, expressive, extemporaneous, no capital letters, no commas, no periods, no paragraph breaks. Now with over 400 voices and rhythms to choose from! [Aah...technology.]
The birds don't care. They're focused on what's important ==> food. water. shelter from the cold. A bird-sized brain doesn't know self-actualisation or self-fulfillment or meditative stances or musical scores written for piano and laptop computer.
But I do. Happiness is a journey, with stopovers for depression, boredom, sadness, sorrow and introspection along the way. One can have one without the other but why? Why not?
09 December 2009
मौन है
मौन है
के सौंदर्य को शांत का सामना करना पडेगा
बाह्य रेखा दिखलानेवाला चित्र की
आपकी मुस्कान की
रहती
एक देखना चाहिए
कुल मिलाकर बिना बातचीत शब्दों में व्यक्त किया
Approximate translation:
Silence.
The beauty of a quiet face.
The silhouette.
The smile.
Knowing.
A look.
A whole conversation without words.
के सौंदर्य को शांत का सामना करना पडेगा
बाह्य रेखा दिखलानेवाला चित्र की
आपकी मुस्कान की
रहती
एक देखना चाहिए
कुल मिलाकर बिना बातचीत शब्दों में व्यक्त किया
Approximate translation:
Silence.
The beauty of a quiet face.
The silhouette.
The smile.
Knowing.
A look.
A whole conversation without words.
08 December 2009
Где же Пушкин?
Наш язык, старый, как время.
Минуту, вне времени.
Лидер стареет.
Страна крепнет.
Нет лагерей, ни тюрем без решеток.
Нет языка, который хорошо говорит по нашим врагом, а наши собственные.
Когда момент становится правом,
Право лидеры приведет нас правильно.
Минуту, вне времени.
Лидер стареет.
Страна крепнет.
Нет лагерей, ни тюрем без решеток.
Нет языка, который хорошо говорит по нашим врагом, а наши собственные.
Когда момент становится правом,
Право лидеры приведет нас правильно.
الإمبراطورية
صخرة. حجر. وهطول الأمطار من الزمن. جدار يصبح الرمل. الكثبان تنمو في الجبال. قوة تنمو من الصبر. الحقيقة يصبح حقيقة واقعة.
में एक विचार की आंखें.
एक औरत को जानते हैं कैसे?
एक औरत को देखता है कैसे?
एक औरत कहते हैं क्या?
खुशी खुशी और आँसू की एक नदी है.
कोहरे से शांति आती है.
एक औरत मुक्त, एक औरत मुक्त है स्वतंत्र होना,
एक औरत एक नया दृष्टिकोण देखता है.
प्यार एक सपना से अधिक है.
एक औरत को देखता है कैसे?
एक औरत कहते हैं क्या?
खुशी खुशी और आँसू की एक नदी है.
कोहरे से शांति आती है.
एक औरत मुक्त, एक औरत मुक्त है स्वतंत्र होना,
एक औरत एक नया दृष्टिकोण देखता है.
प्यार एक सपना से अधिक है.
13 November 2009
Translation: How can I take that which is not mine...
How can I take that which is not mine, already in my possession, which owns the world and which owns me? We have but we do not own - our thoughts of the possibilities of tomorrow, always promising, never fulfilled.
12 November 2009
मैं कैसे ले जा सकते हैं, जो मेरा नहीं है
मैं कैसे ले जो कि पहले से ही मेरे पास है, जो दुनिया का मालिक है और जो मेरे मालिक में मेरा नहीं है, कर सकते हैं? हम है, लेकिन हम खुद नहीं - कल की संभावनाओं के हमारे विचार, हमेशा वादा कभी नहीं निभाया.
03 November 2009
C-ring
Freedom from the moment. The chemical smell of prêt-à-porter clothing. The slow crunch of plate tectonics. A friend's wishful kiss from 30 years ago. The kiss of a great-grandchild 30 years from now. Liver spots. Acne. Bald infant. Bald elder. The paunch of middle age. The pounce of an infant.
Love. Romance. A lingering look. A flirtatious glance. A flower petal. A secret note. A dance in moonlight. A sunlight stroll.
Fixing gutters. Inflating tyres. Reinstalling laptop software. Washing dirty clothes.
Everyday. Ordinary. Love hidden in the mundane. The ironed shirt. The polished minivan.
Exciting. Thrilling.
Burning. Passion.
Dinner for six. Party of one.
Brevity. Bravery. Bright. Brought. Breathless.
Soft. Velvet. Light touch.
The shape of a mouth by the turn of the teeth. Natural. Luminescent.
Serene. Quaint. Whispers.
A sentence of spaces. A plethora of periods.
Dot. Dot. Dot. Dote.
Zanzibar. Excalibur. Shangri La. Atlantis.
Insomnia. Ammonia. Onomatopoeia.
Those eyes. Those eyes. Those eyes. That smile. Those eyes.
Muscles. Tissue. Cells. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. That face. That look.
Your persona.
The equational linguistical equatorial linguiniful questionunfull believable. Sounds you hear.
One. Two. Two. One. One life. Two. Count. Days filled. Thoughts filled. Sepia toned. Dusty road. City. Country. Name a century. Set the mood. You and him. You and her. You and you. Her and him. You. Him. Her.
Waltz. Iambic pentameter. Carol of the Bells.
Flip-flop. OR. NOT. AND. Clock. UNIX epoch. Belle Époque.
And. Still. Only. Words.
Words are not the same as emotions. A wrinkle speaks louder than words.
Madame Curie. A. G. Bell. H. G. Wells. Chiang Kai-shek.
Can you remember your piano recital from fifth grade? Your best friend's favorite music at the time? Your favorite shirt? Your mother's favorite birthday present? Your father's shaving preference? The eye colour of the boy or girl who had a crush on you?
Do you see the future of transportation? Do you see the next stock you'll sell? The next deal you'll close? The average growth of your investment portfolio?
Do you preach what you practice? Do you sow what you reap? Do you take care of your combine? Do you safely store your seeds? Do you drink rice or eat it? Do you bake wheat or ferment it?
Do you count off for misspelled words or credit the student for creative sentence structure?
Do you swallow your food or take the bus? Do you find freedom from the moment?
Do you?
If a ring implies a circle, what is a C-ring?
An imagined, unfulfilled romance lasts longer than this poem. More elegant. More elastic. More elegiac. More mores. A perfect endless line drawn by a radius. A PNP transistor that never fails. Free of words. Free of the moment. Everlasting. Infinite.
Love. Romance. A lingering look. A flirtatious glance. A flower petal. A secret note. A dance in moonlight. A sunlight stroll.
Fixing gutters. Inflating tyres. Reinstalling laptop software. Washing dirty clothes.
Everyday. Ordinary. Love hidden in the mundane. The ironed shirt. The polished minivan.
Exciting. Thrilling.
Burning. Passion.
Dinner for six. Party of one.
Brevity. Bravery. Bright. Brought. Breathless.
Soft. Velvet. Light touch.
The shape of a mouth by the turn of the teeth. Natural. Luminescent.
Serene. Quaint. Whispers.
A sentence of spaces. A plethora of periods.
Dot. Dot. Dot. Dote.
Zanzibar. Excalibur. Shangri La. Atlantis.
Insomnia. Ammonia. Onomatopoeia.
Those eyes. Those eyes. Those eyes. That smile. Those eyes.
Muscles. Tissue. Cells. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. That face. That look.
Your persona.
The equational linguistical equatorial linguiniful questionunfull believable. Sounds you hear.
One. Two. Two. One. One life. Two. Count. Days filled. Thoughts filled. Sepia toned. Dusty road. City. Country. Name a century. Set the mood. You and him. You and her. You and you. Her and him. You. Him. Her.
Waltz. Iambic pentameter. Carol of the Bells.
Flip-flop. OR. NOT. AND. Clock. UNIX epoch. Belle Époque.
And. Still. Only. Words.
Words are not the same as emotions. A wrinkle speaks louder than words.
Madame Curie. A. G. Bell. H. G. Wells. Chiang Kai-shek.
Can you remember your piano recital from fifth grade? Your best friend's favorite music at the time? Your favorite shirt? Your mother's favorite birthday present? Your father's shaving preference? The eye colour of the boy or girl who had a crush on you?
Do you see the future of transportation? Do you see the next stock you'll sell? The next deal you'll close? The average growth of your investment portfolio?
Do you preach what you practice? Do you sow what you reap? Do you take care of your combine? Do you safely store your seeds? Do you drink rice or eat it? Do you bake wheat or ferment it?
Do you count off for misspelled words or credit the student for creative sentence structure?
Do you swallow your food or take the bus? Do you find freedom from the moment?
Do you?
If a ring implies a circle, what is a C-ring?
An imagined, unfulfilled romance lasts longer than this poem. More elegant. More elastic. More elegiac. More mores. A perfect endless line drawn by a radius. A PNP transistor that never fails. Free of words. Free of the moment. Everlasting. Infinite.
12 October 2009
Makes 12 oz (340 gm)
63 times the rock completed a circumference. Shedding. Melting. Leaving a trail. Unnamed. Edifice eschewing. No goals. No objectives. Existing.
Mix. Stir. Pour. Smoking or non-smoking. Standing in a vase. Clear.
Basic. Measurable. Analysis. Mass. Weight. Compound.
Mass equals knees on the lotus flower bowing to Mecca.
Helmet. Force. Acceleration. Score. Cheer. Groan.
Light reflection. Rotation. Omen. Tail. Named. Periodic.
Trail of tears. Suicide market bomber. Freedom fighting freedom. No deposit. No return.
Mix. Stir. Pour. Smoking or non-smoking. Standing in a vase. Clear.
Basic. Measurable. Analysis. Mass. Weight. Compound.
Mass equals knees on the lotus flower bowing to Mecca.
Helmet. Force. Acceleration. Score. Cheer. Groan.
Light reflection. Rotation. Omen. Tail. Named. Periodic.
Trail of tears. Suicide market bomber. Freedom fighting freedom. No deposit. No return.
02 September 2009
Space. Period.
Iron weed. Shepherd's hook. Winded copper vanes. Planter waters birds. Autumn light, no, drying, dying leaves. Bird feeder feeds doves fed hawks in deed. Jack and Jill and Dick and Jane spot Spot on the Hills' hill. Solar light after dark. Chickadee and titmouse at each other's throat. Stuffed recliner. Cat stand. Wheeled bar. Bamboo curtain. Mexican blanket. Chinese lantern. Paper crafty. Scrappy booking. Portable phone. Potable water. Solo deck. Outdoor furniture. Cedar's shaving. Larvae bathing. Brick menagerie. Glass buffoonery. Antique rocker. Folding card game. Rug. Tile. Ceiling fan. Time and temperature. Licorice coal. Dragonfly bulbs. Sun lights. Table lamp. Stamping pad. Logoed shirt. Barometer. Incandescent glow. Christmas LED. Tibetan flags. Celtic spirals. Ship's bottle. Balsa plane. Queen Anne sofa. Novel Pynchon. Otis and Betty's. Reversible. Finch. Cat. Fig tree. Flag slate. Dried-up pond. Japanese fern. California mum. Dogwood, kousa not florida corn. St. John's wort. Trumpet creeper. Lemon grass. Wild yam. Virginia creeper. Poison ivy. Termite. Oak. Shagback hickory. Slug trail. Iridescent marble. Afghan. Sofa cover. Pillow. Shelf. Cabinet. Candle. Incense. Bendable halogen. Plastic box. Glitter art. Sold-by-spool. Crayon. Eraser. Ribbon. Punch. Postal stamp. Mailing tube. Cardboard container. Priority shipping. Tissue coffin. Extension cord. Door frame. Seasonal room. Gas grill. Eaves hanger. Downspout. Gutter guard. Cardinal. Sparrow. Pennsylvania blue stone. Outcrop. Water hose. Bog. Rose. Mimosa. Princess tree. Oregano. Sedum. Sundial. Graveyard vine. Poster board. Scissors. Wasp. Chest. Carrier. Notebook. Molding. Wall. Wire. Umbrella. Basket. Glue. Long take. Phew!
26 August 2009
The Czech's In The Mail
If I give no credit to long-distance calls, if I scan my tissue for butterfly scales, if I watch echoes of voices, their shadows on the circus tent canvas, where did she go? Self-coefficient. Nebula. Quail creek.
Sewing buttons on tyres. Cutting logs for elbows.
Immersed in my entertainment center. The stage crushing my feet.
Drinking from tea bags under my eyes. Good to the last dropsy.
Mimosa leaves on the bonnet. A spoonful of Castrol in the morning.
A cat wearing a hula skirt. The bird nesting under my nose.
Sewing buttons on tyres. Cutting logs for elbows.
Immersed in my entertainment center. The stage crushing my feet.
Drinking from tea bags under my eyes. Good to the last dropsy.
Mimosa leaves on the bonnet. A spoonful of Castrol in the morning.
A cat wearing a hula skirt. The bird nesting under my nose.
20 August 2009
The Grotto
If you're going for a walk with the one who fills your thoughts, pick a day when it will rain in the morning but clear up in the afternoon.
Why?
Because the moment the sun breaks out from the clouds, the moment when the two of you are sitting on a bed of moss, memorizing each other's eyes, worrying about the other's health, wanting the moment to last forever, even though you know you'll get tired of sitting in that position for too long, that moment is the only moment that matters.
Have you ever sat back against a rock and watched water drip from trees?
Have you ever held your lover's hand in yours and watched a palm-sized cup of liquid write secret messages down each other's arms?
Have you ever lost track of time, not as the Earth spins round but as the watch displays, one with the one with you in the moment?
Don't look for words. Don't listen for songs. Let the moment be. Put aside your fears. The past and the future do not exist. You and the one with you are the universe. Timeless.
We are social beings. The spherical puzzle that is an individual is only completed when one finds another and puts the missing pieces together, erasing history, blotting out time, civilization and culture just a myth no longer perpetuated in your thoughts.
We fall asleep in each other's arms, the sun our blanket, the rock our pillow, the moss our mattress.
Time will find us, society will catch up with us. Later. Not now. Some other time. We're happily lost.
A butterfly tickles your nose. We both wake up with a sigh. We are not we. We are one. Two vines twisted together, reaching for the sky. Two trees leaning on each other in the forest. Two rocks locked together for eternity.
A hawk's shadow passes overhead, telling us the sun has moved a fourth of the way across the sky. Late afternoon. Time calls our names. We feel the magnetic pull of our species.
We wrap up this moment in a special box, hidden from view, stored in our thoughts, our bodies the keys and the lock. We'll have other moments but not this one. This moment no longer belongs to us. This moment calls the woods home, the insects the caretakers, the trees the walls, the sky the roof. Unaware of time, living in cycles.
Why?
Because the moment the sun breaks out from the clouds, the moment when the two of you are sitting on a bed of moss, memorizing each other's eyes, worrying about the other's health, wanting the moment to last forever, even though you know you'll get tired of sitting in that position for too long, that moment is the only moment that matters.
Have you ever sat back against a rock and watched water drip from trees?
Have you ever held your lover's hand in yours and watched a palm-sized cup of liquid write secret messages down each other's arms?
Have you ever lost track of time, not as the Earth spins round but as the watch displays, one with the one with you in the moment?
Don't look for words. Don't listen for songs. Let the moment be. Put aside your fears. The past and the future do not exist. You and the one with you are the universe. Timeless.
We are social beings. The spherical puzzle that is an individual is only completed when one finds another and puts the missing pieces together, erasing history, blotting out time, civilization and culture just a myth no longer perpetuated in your thoughts.
We fall asleep in each other's arms, the sun our blanket, the rock our pillow, the moss our mattress.
Time will find us, society will catch up with us. Later. Not now. Some other time. We're happily lost.
A butterfly tickles your nose. We both wake up with a sigh. We are not we. We are one. Two vines twisted together, reaching for the sky. Two trees leaning on each other in the forest. Two rocks locked together for eternity.
A hawk's shadow passes overhead, telling us the sun has moved a fourth of the way across the sky. Late afternoon. Time calls our names. We feel the magnetic pull of our species.
We wrap up this moment in a special box, hidden from view, stored in our thoughts, our bodies the keys and the lock. We'll have other moments but not this one. This moment no longer belongs to us. This moment calls the woods home, the insects the caretakers, the trees the walls, the sky the roof. Unaware of time, living in cycles.
16 August 2009
Howie Cheatham and Wynn Moore
I...she...he...we...us...them...they...it...
Letters of the alphabet.
Trapped by time with meaning.
And so I wait, doing what I've been told, directly, indirectly, by invisible and imaginary means.
I think I know the end.
I know better.
Better that I know, even when I don't.
Someone else has another idea.
In other words, no one knows.
We're trapped together in the cube, the sphere, the simple shapes that imply the existence of a labyrinth, spiraling yet squared, three-dimensional yet flat.
One told me it is an entity called Gaia, of which I'm but a drop. Gaia, then, is all the gods, the feelings, the itches, the intuitions. In other words, nothing.
Everything.
The letters of the alphabet.
Clues for the clueless, still deciphering Morse code on top of a Mayan temple.
Give them alliteration and anagrams, crossword puzzles and cartoon conspiracies. Beware the person(s) promoting ideas in the arena of vested interests, even tangentially. Gains equal costs. What are you willing to pay?
In childhood a marble with a strip of brass wrapped 'round. Inscribed like Sanskrit scrolls or Aboriginal codes, a saying, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule, as in "those who have the gold make the rules." All in all, a play toy, a game of jacks.
The moral of the story: the answer is outside these words, outside this species, outside this planet, outside this solar system, outside the galaxy. Thence, outside.
Letters of the alphabet.
Trapped by time with meaning.
And so I wait, doing what I've been told, directly, indirectly, by invisible and imaginary means.
I think I know the end.
I know better.
Better that I know, even when I don't.
Someone else has another idea.
In other words, no one knows.
We're trapped together in the cube, the sphere, the simple shapes that imply the existence of a labyrinth, spiraling yet squared, three-dimensional yet flat.
One told me it is an entity called Gaia, of which I'm but a drop. Gaia, then, is all the gods, the feelings, the itches, the intuitions. In other words, nothing.
Everything.
The letters of the alphabet.
Clues for the clueless, still deciphering Morse code on top of a Mayan temple.
Give them alliteration and anagrams, crossword puzzles and cartoon conspiracies. Beware the person(s) promoting ideas in the arena of vested interests, even tangentially. Gains equal costs. What are you willing to pay?
In childhood a marble with a strip of brass wrapped 'round. Inscribed like Sanskrit scrolls or Aboriginal codes, a saying, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule, as in "those who have the gold make the rules." All in all, a play toy, a game of jacks.
The moral of the story: the answer is outside these words, outside this species, outside this planet, outside this solar system, outside the galaxy. Thence, outside.
09 August 2009
The Souls of Folks Stomping on Thin Ice
I love you, more than any other, because I am you, selfishly so, in love with my reflection, Narcissus inviolate.
I love you like no other because we are one.
Because I love you, I bear you up when you are weak and you hold my weight when illness takes its toll.
I did not see the poll tax, feel the overseer's whip, drink from separate fountains or get an equal education. The veil that others lift between us is not my own.
Instead...
Instead, I am you. Thus, we are both the hunter and the hunted. The target and the invisible. Bamboozled while doing the right thing.
We rejoice in the moment, letting history pass us by. We are not them, those who went before us.
And yet...
And yet, here we are, wearing clothes, using language, designing new tools, caught in the web of social intercourse, all because of who we were.
An oppressed people does not define the individual. An individual has to choose to associate with oppression.
We pave the way for those who come after so every moment we live now is only the past that others will look back on in envy of a golden era.
That's right. We're the chosen ones, the Golden Children, the leaders for another time.
No longer is civil disobedience enough. Society belongs to all of us, responsibility the key to unlocking real freedom. The marketplace is yours. Let us seek not to let political movements sweep us up. Take the reins in your hand and own the means of production. Invest, don't spend. Plan, don't react.
We belong to each other. Your pressing need is my growth opportunity, neither one of us out of control of the situation, two kids on a see-saw, three kids skipping rope, double-dutch style, dancing by the river under the trees on a hot, summer day.
We are Atlas. We are Sisyphus. We are Chen Jinggu. We are Lakshmi. Our generation is already crumbling into ashes and dust, momentarily crashing on the shore, defining the line between land and water, one reflecting upon the other, separate but equal, the same to all who exist after us.
Change is. I am you is us. We hold each, arm-in-arm, changing imperceptibly. We numb the pain when we cling to one another during the storms of change, every moment a miracle, a joy to behold.
Our moment in the sun colors our view because our eyes make our visions visual. Don't be fooled by what you see. The layers we wear fade away like our hearing, teaching us to be weary with age-old wisdom.
Strength is not what you do to others but what you do for them. Act wisely. What you do with what you have makes you me to those who don't know better.
I am you. I have been you all along, scraping my knees and crawling up mountains, the view from the top just one more day away. And after that? Another mountain to climb, another planet to explore, one more hope for those we'll never know but who think they know us. They are us, today, tomorrow and two thousand years from now. Now you know why nothing keeps us apart. In the future, we are all the same.
I love you like no other because we are one.
Because I love you, I bear you up when you are weak and you hold my weight when illness takes its toll.
I did not see the poll tax, feel the overseer's whip, drink from separate fountains or get an equal education. The veil that others lift between us is not my own.
Instead...
Instead, I am you. Thus, we are both the hunter and the hunted. The target and the invisible. Bamboozled while doing the right thing.
We rejoice in the moment, letting history pass us by. We are not them, those who went before us.
And yet...
And yet, here we are, wearing clothes, using language, designing new tools, caught in the web of social intercourse, all because of who we were.
An oppressed people does not define the individual. An individual has to choose to associate with oppression.
We pave the way for those who come after so every moment we live now is only the past that others will look back on in envy of a golden era.
That's right. We're the chosen ones, the Golden Children, the leaders for another time.
No longer is civil disobedience enough. Society belongs to all of us, responsibility the key to unlocking real freedom. The marketplace is yours. Let us seek not to let political movements sweep us up. Take the reins in your hand and own the means of production. Invest, don't spend. Plan, don't react.
We belong to each other. Your pressing need is my growth opportunity, neither one of us out of control of the situation, two kids on a see-saw, three kids skipping rope, double-dutch style, dancing by the river under the trees on a hot, summer day.
We are Atlas. We are Sisyphus. We are Chen Jinggu. We are Lakshmi. Our generation is already crumbling into ashes and dust, momentarily crashing on the shore, defining the line between land and water, one reflecting upon the other, separate but equal, the same to all who exist after us.
Change is. I am you is us. We hold each, arm-in-arm, changing imperceptibly. We numb the pain when we cling to one another during the storms of change, every moment a miracle, a joy to behold.
Our moment in the sun colors our view because our eyes make our visions visual. Don't be fooled by what you see. The layers we wear fade away like our hearing, teaching us to be weary with age-old wisdom.
Strength is not what you do to others but what you do for them. Act wisely. What you do with what you have makes you me to those who don't know better.
I am you. I have been you all along, scraping my knees and crawling up mountains, the view from the top just one more day away. And after that? Another mountain to climb, another planet to explore, one more hope for those we'll never know but who think they know us. They are us, today, tomorrow and two thousand years from now. Now you know why nothing keeps us apart. In the future, we are all the same.
15 July 2009
At A Standstill
If nothing is permanent and I have nothing new or important to say, why am I here instead of walking the woods in the middle of the day?
I sit here because I couldn't sleep last night and stared up into the space between my head and the ceiling, realizing the moon shine even if I couldn't directly see it.
I felt myself floating like flotsam in the sea, tossed and turned with other trash in a temporary eddy, at the whim of nature.
Words. Formalism. Colloquialism. None of it mattered. I was lost at sea.
Later I slept. Eventually, I woke up again, exchanged positions with the cats and the wife, my nearly-constant companions, and slept some more.
Dot dot dot et cetera and so on finds me here, just after noon, thinking of eliminating commas once and for all from my written work letting readers figure out the pauses figures of speech and lyricalifragicality.
Money makes its way into my portfolio debt being not a problem only conspicuous whooping cough consumption. The hidden treasures in Chinese portfolios make my GM investment seem wiser than wise and dumber than dumb the Chinese getting pieceparts and leaving me the fortified and enriched crumbs. Hummm.
Rhythms and rhymes dog me today nipping at my heels and matching vocabularies against cultural cluelessness to show me I have my temporariness to myself today.
Systems theory plucks me from the ocean plucks chords in my brain attached to my body attached to the chair strung and tendrilled into universal frets.
We are all. We are none. We are one. Are we? Belief makes no difference between conception and death but others want to believe so. We are not these words. We did not exist before we existed and we don't exist after we don't exist. Don't we?
I have been here before caught in the sea swirling and free irregardless regardless everyone but me.
Punctuation makes no sense Capitalization is Capital at the Capitol what do A and O have to do with it like cemetery and cemetary make any meaning to the dead one letter more or less meaningless to green bottle flies maggots and earthworms
Paragraphically speaking I give you some indication of progress while I spin within these highs and lows hot and cold dense thick and thin air caught in sun's solar flares and flurries not caring who dances with me as long as the tune catches my fancy and tickles my feet lifts me grabs my hands and one two three one two three four five seven skips a beat thrilled that my heart stops occasionally glad I am alive to be dead and dead on my footpads swimming inches from shark teeth
Rising and falling. Cat on my chest. I am the cat riding the waves of the sea tide swaying my chest hairs like seaweed and kelp.
Nothing is temporary. All is one permanently changing. Interconnectedness just a bunch of letters tied together by electrons and lexicons conned into conning you kidding around convincing you you have meaning when no one knows who you really are.
I am here. I have no need to stop fooling myself so I et tu will let vous fool yourself. We're walking on thin air floating in the open sea nothing and everything between you and me.
I sit here because I couldn't sleep last night and stared up into the space between my head and the ceiling, realizing the moon shine even if I couldn't directly see it.
I felt myself floating like flotsam in the sea, tossed and turned with other trash in a temporary eddy, at the whim of nature.
Words. Formalism. Colloquialism. None of it mattered. I was lost at sea.
Later I slept. Eventually, I woke up again, exchanged positions with the cats and the wife, my nearly-constant companions, and slept some more.
Dot dot dot et cetera and so on finds me here, just after noon, thinking of eliminating commas once and for all from my written work letting readers figure out the pauses figures of speech and lyricalifragicality.
Money makes its way into my portfolio debt being not a problem only conspicuous whooping cough consumption. The hidden treasures in Chinese portfolios make my GM investment seem wiser than wise and dumber than dumb the Chinese getting pieceparts and leaving me the fortified and enriched crumbs. Hummm.
Rhythms and rhymes dog me today nipping at my heels and matching vocabularies against cultural cluelessness to show me I have my temporariness to myself today.
Systems theory plucks me from the ocean plucks chords in my brain attached to my body attached to the chair strung and tendrilled into universal frets.
We are all. We are none. We are one. Are we? Belief makes no difference between conception and death but others want to believe so. We are not these words. We did not exist before we existed and we don't exist after we don't exist. Don't we?
I have been here before caught in the sea swirling and free irregardless regardless everyone but me.
Punctuation makes no sense Capitalization is Capital at the Capitol what do A and O have to do with it like cemetery and cemetary make any meaning to the dead one letter more or less meaningless to green bottle flies maggots and earthworms
Paragraphically speaking I give you some indication of progress while I spin within these highs and lows hot and cold dense thick and thin air caught in sun's solar flares and flurries not caring who dances with me as long as the tune catches my fancy and tickles my feet lifts me grabs my hands and one two three one two three four five seven skips a beat thrilled that my heart stops occasionally glad I am alive to be dead and dead on my footpads swimming inches from shark teeth
Rising and falling. Cat on my chest. I am the cat riding the waves of the sea tide swaying my chest hairs like seaweed and kelp.
Nothing is temporary. All is one permanently changing. Interconnectedness just a bunch of letters tied together by electrons and lexicons conned into conning you kidding around convincing you you have meaning when no one knows who you really are.
I am here. I have no need to stop fooling myself so I et tu will let vous fool yourself. We're walking on thin air floating in the open sea nothing and everything between you and me.
10 July 2009
I Know Nothing
I have no understanding of the universe. I have only you, right? But I don't know what I look like through your eyes and you don't know what you look like through mine.
So why are we here? I don't know.
But I don't have to know.
I have only these words to describe you, my drawing, musical and sculpting skills lacking.
What is the difference between reality and art? Are either one real?
Are you real?
Am I real?
What matters? What is matter? What is the matter? What matters most, a smattering or a Matterhorn?
My face is faceless, my expression expressionless, my mouth is my ears and my nose my tongue.
I could attach four sets of eyes to my brain and see in all directions except inward toward my thoughts.
Knowing is nothing. Nothing is knowing. Doing and being are a pair of words. Quite a pair, at that. And yes, that makes me hungry for a pear that appears next to a paradoxical parakeet sitting on a pair of skates.
While you chase a meal by learning new tricks in a place called a job, your children chip away at a monolith shaping the future that'll eventually fall down and shut down your business.
Circles. Cycles. Unicycles. Bicycles. Tricycles. Triglycerides. Triumvirates. Bicarbonates. By golly. Unicellular. Cellular phones. Cellophane. Sell genetically modified crops. Crop circles. And around you go again.
What you seek, I cannot find. What you found, I do not want. What I want, you cannot seek.
That's the way it is, the way it's meant to be.
Never try to find something because you'll find what you want to find. Let something find you, instead.
I don't know what I think I know. I have no wisdom to share. These words mix together on their own.
I have you - that's all I know and all I need because you found me, I didn't find you.
So why are we here? I don't know.
But I don't have to know.
I have only these words to describe you, my drawing, musical and sculpting skills lacking.
What is the difference between reality and art? Are either one real?
Are you real?
Am I real?
What matters? What is matter? What is the matter? What matters most, a smattering or a Matterhorn?
My face is faceless, my expression expressionless, my mouth is my ears and my nose my tongue.
I could attach four sets of eyes to my brain and see in all directions except inward toward my thoughts.
Knowing is nothing. Nothing is knowing. Doing and being are a pair of words. Quite a pair, at that. And yes, that makes me hungry for a pear that appears next to a paradoxical parakeet sitting on a pair of skates.
While you chase a meal by learning new tricks in a place called a job, your children chip away at a monolith shaping the future that'll eventually fall down and shut down your business.
Circles. Cycles. Unicycles. Bicycles. Tricycles. Triglycerides. Triumvirates. Bicarbonates. By golly. Unicellular. Cellular phones. Cellophane. Sell genetically modified crops. Crop circles. And around you go again.
What you seek, I cannot find. What you found, I do not want. What I want, you cannot seek.
That's the way it is, the way it's meant to be.
Never try to find something because you'll find what you want to find. Let something find you, instead.
I don't know what I think I know. I have no wisdom to share. These words mix together on their own.
I have you - that's all I know and all I need because you found me, I didn't find you.
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