Off We Go Then

 

 

Wish more than ever there was a more perfect way

to mean everything I say. If I could

I'd certainly walk all my words right up

to your face now and give them over, hand to

hand so to speak. That's the point at which I'd

very much love to vanish and return  

to my cottage and collect all my cool

favorite things like books and go out the

front door forever. But we've got some more

living in front of us that demands we

take a few steps back inside the freeway first.

So all leaving the ground we danced upon  

in flying dreams will have to wait. Meanings shall be

more thoroughly discussed with a table

full of dirty strangers. And journeys will

always be started when they are at the

beginning. This isn't to say we can't

be having a good bit of fun with the

 

current story as it is being told

through our own small spinning out restless enough sparking lives. But

just remember this: dead friends don't return

to welcome us to our latest bout of

sick worry over whether or not we've

treated the sentences in our bloody  

veins with the real respect that they so lovingly deserve.

Take all the bees. They can't do their fancy

jobs unless we do ours. They make the rounds

only if we will let them, and if we

somehow prevent them, we're slowly ruining

ourselves. The box contains all life, not just  

some. Or then, thousands of whale lives. When we

slaughter them we murder whatever souls

depend on the chain of events as well.

This isn't anything new, nor is greed.

But a poet opens his mouth wide and

sings, he can't shut the hell up. What he sings about

 

is what the world sees. Still there may be several

ways of seeing that require many more

secret sets of words. These we put into

your hands like thieves in the night because our

business is to do our business,

any more is to step over boundaries  

clearly already established. Yet in these times

and ages a true and lasting poet

may have to swing the anvil and shoe the

new pony as well as plow the field and

mow the hay until midnight tomorrow morning.

There is no relief from what must be done,  

and there is no other, better doer

of deeds than you are right here and right now, my friend.

This should be obvious. However these

scars of markings before you are put in

timeless good shape and not to thwart your steps

at all, but to bid you welcome to the fight.

 

Sunday, September 29, 2013 

Bonus:2 early drafts

 

 

 

 

A Century of Art(draft version)

 

Everything in this chummy place talks

towards you without stopping, turns into

fruits and grains, filling the room

with definite color. Each color can

have a distance to it that

folds like a household of individual

hums. I've lived in several of

 

these exploding rooms myself because I

was lifted on the tip of

a possessed brush by someone who

loved me enough to touch me

down on their own afternoon canvas.

These lives we lead are so

much more than just for ourselves

 

to enjoy, but the pain and

problems are real. Still when you

see yourself represented as wheat or

clouds or even by invisible winds

blowing at the harbor you can't

help but be amazed at the

fertile mind of the creative life.

 

It obviously sits all around us

simply waiting to be turned on

by the right fingers at the

right time like the undulating wharves of

dawn with its many dreams of

illuminated, gliding fish. It's enough to

get you to the next light.

 

 

A Plea for a Different Color Sky

 

This one is making me feel particularly 

so numb. It frightens the someone inside

me who is already a little scared

of everything going. I know the obvious

choice is to wait and quietly return,

to listen and to always enjoy what

 

is on the present screen. Sometimes I

can do this with no more pain

than a small lump in the throat.

Other times like right now I wish

for a warm hand to press mine

to, with nothing more present than that

one simple act of pure, unselfish human faith.