In My Darkness

Tags

introspection

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In my darkness

Words and concepts slither in shadows
Reality struggles against the bindings of fear
Love whimpers from pools of bitter damage

In my darkness

Goodness flees, skittish, traumatized
Truth searches jagged walls with bloody hands for escape
Light and hope bear no weight other than the meager soul languishing in death

In my darkness

Clever chameleons deceive the mind with temporal pleasures and distractions
Ghosts of atrocities passed and future call attention to themselves
There stands no forest…only trees

In my darkness

A gluttony of ego rises and falls as waves in a tempest
Maniacal illusions of answers to puzzles unknown spew the inner sanctum
Laughter and bravado create a false bravado of solutions to unanswerable questions

In my darkness

I lie in a pool of angst-driven sweat
Knowing truth will eventually glow and lead the way
Yet the intervals of clarity rain but isolated droplets into what remains of life

In my darkness

I dwell, wrestling with troubles more imagined than real
Or more real than imagined
Distinction elusive, evasive, eternal…

In my darkness

I search, desperate to define myself
Anxious of my inability to right my emotional ship
Until I slump in resignation-driven apathy

In my darkness

I find that which I often believe lost
Beaten into oblivion, never to be struck as a rallying chord again…
Strength

In my darkness

No matter how deep the well of doubt
No matter how lonely my crippled soul
No matter how dejected my loving heart

I reach a point of razor-thin ledges around the abyss
Falling off points where abject destruction must surely lie
I cease foolish, desperate grabs for purchase

I lie back into the blackness
Eyes neither open nor shut
Mind neither panicked or calm
Answers neither questioned or given

Then…

In my darkness

I rise to know…

…I own nothing but the breath I’m allotted
…I control nothing but the choices I make
…I love because my nature demands this
…I rise despite myself
…I cherish clarity’s kindly visits
…I realize truth never plays favorites
…I aspire once more in the pursuit of my truth
For that truth becomes all I require of a carrot, a light, a path

In my darkness

***

Periods of creative struggle never allows for easy living. At least for me. I know I’m down. I know I need to write. I know I need to get away and connect myself with my universe.

Yes, I own my universe. We all do. We simply allow others to define us rather than walking our own path. There’s an interesting “debate” I came across through a friend between the concept that we’re all the same and we’re all different. Both stand apparently true to me, but on far different levels.

Yes, we each exist as humans with emotions, rational thought, physical bodies, etc, yet each of us live completely different lives with different views and different reactions to experiences. We may hold strong similarities to individual experiences, but even in that infinitesimal difference between you and I on ANY experience, we are not the same. Nowhere near.

When you use general emotional reactions to situations, you may make argument for this “sameness,” but everything falls apart when you take into account the varying, impossible to calibrate, levels of pain, love, loneliness, anger, frustration, etc., added to the experiential truths we each gather within ourselves separate from others.

The complexities of life, individually stand impervious to homogenization. Governments, religions, corporations, all strive to herd us together to fit the molds they deem truth. Always, without fail, the efforts immediately fall prey to failure because the rifts and difference remain, most assuredly unseen for a time, but destined to fail.

Humpty Dumpty could never be more true a descriptor of the human race. We all search for answers in structure. I sense that path, time-honored and repeated for thousands of years, will never bring us one step closer to the questions we ask.

Ramblings. Just a peek at something I gleaned from the poem I just wrote. I’ve known this many times in my life, yet I constantly struggle, like everyone else in this world, to grasp it. Relaxing into the abyss, with a forfeiture of ability to manipulate anything, revitalizes strength. At least, that’s the way it is in my world, in my darkness…

 

We spend our time searching for security and hate it when we get it. ~John Steinbeck

Hello Lover…

Tags

abiding love, love, morning dream

Hello lover…

How are you doing?

I lie in bed
Awake and aware
I know who you are
Yet I don’t know you – but I do.

Did you know I’ve touched you in my heart?

I have.

Your black, silken hair has brushed my face
The slow smolder of your eyes
Your scent
your accent
Your intellect
Your heart
Your mind

All conspire to wrap me in attentive bliss
All conspire to deliver the Grecian Urn kiss
Yet in my heart, my mind, my soul
I’ve held you in my arms on a cool midnight’s sigh
I’ve wondered and  and dreamed of reasons why
Our time appears destined to never be nigh
But hope and love refuse to pass me by…

Therefore…

I stroll with you in my midnight mind
Marvel when you capture that which needs held
You embrace me despite circumstance
Distance
A world built to keep us apart
Both in our minds
And in our decisions

I do know this
A moment
A wisp of a summer blade of grass in a breeze
A rustling of an Autumn leaf swirled on a light wind
A midnight moon to cradle our love
A spring flower to tickle our noses
Winter’s ice which inspires our mutual warmth
they’re more than desires
More than dreams
More than grails for conquest and completion

Each embody love
Desire
Need
Essence of definitions pertaining to all which is right s world

And I know this…

I’ve never actually kissed you in my dreams
My mind
My heart
Because that mere act could only be revealed in your presence
For the meeting of our lips would only be desecrated by the dream act of imagination
And is only reserved for hope
That one day the Grecian spell be broken
And I could slip into my remaining breaths
With the fervor and gentle passion of deep abiding love
Propelling each finite kiss into a gratified experience
Allowing my soul the honor and exquisite beauty
Of repeating this minute transfer of love over years or days, whichever is granted –
soft
gentle
peaceful
reassuring
melded and melted into our worlds
where my own world intersects with your own world
to the point where the two mesh
and we smile
we know the other cannot feel anything less than love

Tis a dream my heart
A dream to cap all dreams
Slight moments scattered over time
Snippets of expression
To reassure you
And reassure me
That love does prevail
When its depth reveals
no end

Hello lover….

I do more than think of you…
I more than adore you for that is but candyfloss in the wind
I more than dream of you

I allow myself to hold you in my arms
To walk hand in hand after a troublesome day
To catch the scent of your hair
the glint in your eyes
to feel the warmth of your soul
for those actions stand as all I could possibly trace through the threads of experience
to fill my entire being with everything good and right
to go any further would only detract

Hello love,
For “lover” brings a defiled connotation in this world
yet in my heart I see myself brush back a strand of your hair with my fingers
I see a wan smile
I feel a knowing
and that’s all I need

So…

May the day arrive that the warmth of our breaths cross each other
The touch of our hands reveal each other
The warmth of our embrace reassure each other
and the unimagined kiss define itself for each other
as two who know those moments of being one in love

Should we ultimately merely retain that which we’ve urned,
KNOW that you are loved.

My musings within the remnants of my midnight air this night….

***

I awoke from a deep sleep with these thoughts on my mind. Much as I desired to lie back down and return to my slumber, I rose instead to seek out my laptop from the living room. Once settled back into bed, I wrote “Hello Lover.” Now, in the grogginess of the hour before I must leave for work, I ran one pass through to correct typos (I always hope to catch all of them, but often some slip through).

Whether this writing makes sense to anyone is almost immaterial. It made perfect sense when I wrote it and now on the quick read-through, I still connect with the content. The one area I WOULD work on if I had more time, would be to clear up the line beginning “Of repeating this minute transfer…”

I actually DID tweak that line by adding the word minute, and the phrase “over years or days, whichever is granted -” to somewhat clear up what I’m feeling about the lasting power of a tiny kiss. Hopefully the addition works toward that end. I must now become a whirling dervish and get ready for work.

My Little Boat

Tags

absence of love, loneliness, love, sadness

What once felt joyous and new morphed into pain, loneliness, suffering, fear, disappointment, sadness. No need for morbidity here, but sidestepping truth becomes a step toward acquiescence and surrender. Finding joy most often entails the worst action we may take. Joy never, ever owns roots without. The smile always, always emanates from within.

What mystic reference oozes out of the previous paragraph?

Life.

My love of life never wavers at its core. At times, all the surrounding camouflage wilts away. Other times all the pseudo-life decorations evaporate in a nanosecond as from ground zero at a nuclear blast.

Whether slow death or vaporization, my adoration of breathe and thought and love and beauty and many other wonderful aspects of living remains the foundational rock of my existence. In my pain, sorrow, suicidal thoughts and dejection, I remain true to my core.

I love life.

The pain of loneliness rose its devastating head these past couple years. A companion, a confidante, a compatriot, may, in the end, be nothing more than window dressings, but they’re quite real and their absence quite a wound on my soul at this time.

Yes, I know. I’ve heard it most of my life, and I’ve known it a little less than that amount of time – that love and happiness comes from within. I’m more secure within myself than ever before in my life. I know more of who I am and what makes me tick. I’ve come to love myself more than ever, which I realize is not saying a lot, but I do love me.

Yet, part of who I am involves relationship. Touch. Interaction. I do not believe as a species we are meant to live alone. There is a compelling, deep-rooted desire for companionship and the other social interactions listed above. I yearn for that connection. I nearly would state I am not complete without that connection.

I hear the objective roar from those who claim we should be enough simply within ourselves. We do not need someone else to “complete” us. I beg to differ. If you grant me the above statement that we are not “meant to live alone,” then part of who I am is incomplete without the love of another which I desire.

Here, we may get into splitting hairs. My children love me. My mother over-adores me. My sisters love me. My father loved me while he was here, albeit in most un-observable ways.

I’m speaking of the need for the love of another. I possess a deep, deep ability to love. I do not desire to pour this love over many. Just one. As such, I desire the same in return.

There’s the rub. There’s the issue. Right? Most people long for this. I’m no more unique in this than all the homogenized crap fed to the masses by governments, corporations and religions. This is a near universal longing. Yet, when you’re down and out emotionally with the absence of love one of the main players on the emotional field, the pain feels isolated to just you, your heart, and the black-hole frigidity of life.

I know I’m not alone. I know she’s out there. Somewhere.

Age wearies us, doesn’t it? Apathy creeps in like a skulking phantom. Why a phantom would require the act of skulking is a mystery, but apathy does not suddenly bloom out of nowhere. Apathy grows roots deep, breaks the ground, and eventually blossoms into darkness. Foul black and gray petals of darkness. Kudzu of the heart. The battle against apathy robs strength and stamina and raises questions of surrender.

As stated, I love life.

When I become backed into emotional corners, my go-to salvation springs from that love. This entire post has blossomed from a thought which floated through my mind and heart this morning. My little boat is my love of life.

My little boat is unsinkable.
My little boat traverses the seas of life in all their raging torrents
My little boat saves me from myself.
My little boat allows me to heal from the wounds of others.
My little boat delivers me to island paradises every now and again.
My little boat takes the pure evil of this world and floats on its acid hate
My little boat feels everything.
My little boat weeps in its solitude.
My little boat should be loved.
My little boat will carry me to death’s door.
My little boat will hopefully carry me beyond.

All that is good and real and true in this life manifests itself as the sole cargo aboard my little boat…

As always, I write off the cuff on this site. I will do a quick once-over attempting to find typos, so please be forgiving should you find some. I’m always welcome to your discovery of said typos and will correct them if alerted. 🙂

 

Where is the Conscience of Mankind?

Tags

destruction, self-destruction

Liars.

News media. Politicians. Governments. Corporations. Used car salesmen.

Do you remember when car salesmen were considered the most untrustworthy collection of people? They once ran neck and neck with politicians for that ignominious position.

Welcome to the new millennia. News media cannot find truth anymore because they’ve long since ceased searching for it. Their agendas and propaganda serve only their nefarious purposes, most of which appears designed to divide people and instill fear and anger. Disgusting wretches who lost their soul somewhere along the propaganda path, paved subtly for decades by predecessors, now make an art of creating their own narratives to shove down an all too receptive audience’s throat.

Our schools have been dumbed down for decades. What identified once upon a time as a college degree, today would barely get you through high school fifty years ago. Yes, we own fancy digital technologies, but we use the bulk of the progressive gadgets for escapism, laziness, and war, many times with the three overlapping in incredulous ways.

Fear mongers.

I’ve written this before. They’re everywhere. Hell, watch The Weather Channel sometime. Most everything they present is fear based. Weathermen now have the masses in fear of thunderstorms. Oh my god, a thunderstorm is heading your way. It’s crossing 13th street! Hunker down! Protect yourself!

For all the good they like to point out, such as early warnings for tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards, they go to the extremes with aspects of life which have been weathered for eons by mankind. They lost their legitimacy when they began sensationalizing winds in a storm with “live feeds.” Most of those videos are beneath intelligence.

Fear controls many people. When you can instill enough fear, you can control – up to a point – masses of people. Fear is not enough, though. Another key component of control is division. Keep sections of society at war with each other and puppeteers may remain anonymous which allows them to manipulate the masses with all their machinated biases.

Controllers love dissension, fear, bias, and militant opinionism. These become cornerstones for news media, politicians, corporations, and…religions. Yes, religions. Many religions preach everything from hatred to exclusion. The Christians run the gamut of dislike to hatred for Muslims and vice versa. Jews are exclusionary in their own right. All fight, yes fighting, because their way is the only correct and true way to god. Doesn’t anyone else see how sick this is?

Of course, religious people immediately point at words like that and claim the person to be an “unbeliever” or an atheist (another group that tends to embrace hatred). Religion and money have murdered more people throughout history than any of the great diseases and plagues and pandemics. But are we now attempting to change that?

Ok, now we’re into the “disease” zone. Now we have lowered ourselves, ourselves being humanity, to manufacturing death through disease. Weren’t chemical and nuclear weapons bad enough? I won’t even address the pharmaceutical companies and their crimes against mankind.

Wait!

What if we could kill millions of people biologically! We could set up universities with top minds to create a biological means to kill those we don’t like and not those we do like. What the hell?!!

Humanity is no wiser today than we were a hundred hears ago, a thousand years ago, five thousand years ago. In many ways, the knowledge of “LIFE” and how precious it is, was stronger in days when most people died in their 50’s and 60’s. There was an appreciation for life on levels we rarely see today.

The masses are much more interested in the debaucheries and entertainments of the day. The instant access to anything and everything. So little time spent on life. Contemplating our souls. Learning about who we truly are and how magnificent the world presents itself through nature.

Petty squabbles have mushroomed throughout history into wars. It’s no different today. If humanity were to get a report card, or no, let’s label it a progress report, on where we are in relation to life, and living it well, from our earliest days to today, I’m convinced at best we would show is no improvement whatsoever, and more likely, we’ve regressed.

The big issue in all this comes down to our innate inability to live well with the differences of one another. Do we possess a solution to our own insanity? I’ve lost hope in humanity ever coming to a place of peacefulness worldwide. Our countries cannot find peacefulness within themselves.

Our religions cannot find peacefulness within themselves.

Our governments cannot find peacefulness within themselves.

Our corporations cannot find peacefulness within themselves.

We, as individuals cannot find peacefulness within ourselves.

Hate. Fear. Murder. Control. “I’m the only one with truth” syndrome. People in power today lost the ability to check themselves and their motivations and what they will do to force others to adopt their way of thinking.

With 7.5 billion people on this planet, you will not find one person exactly like another. Our dichotomy of life is this: We are all human and we are 100% different from each other. No matter how much a “controller” attempts to homogenize a population, the effort is doomed to failure because no two people are exactly alike.

Yes, people herd themselves into groups and these groups set their agendas, but there is never a 100% agreement within each group. Once a group gets too big, the divisions become evident, mostly because people point them out and debate and argue over the differing points of view. We do not learn well from our mistakes. Someone always believes the masses can be controlled and manipulated, only to eventually find their plans fall apart.

Don’t look for any answers here. The identification of the problem would be the first step to attaining answers. There’s so much more to write and say, yet none of those words and concepts will deter mankind’s headlong plunge into self-annihilation.  We’ve now graduated from dropping bombs on each other to killing on a global scale.

Where is the conscience of mankind?

Buried with the countless billions who’ve died in love with life, and people, at the hands of those who lie, cheat, maim, murder and control without conscience. This is a global issue. This is a conviction of mankind, not one single group.

Now, I ask myself, where is the poetry in all this? After all, this site’s tagline states: “Life’s Cares in words and art.” While all these words I’ve spilled onto my screen qualify as “words” in the tagline, the intent of every post is to present something poetic in context to whatever thoughts and concepts I bring to the page. I desire to create a new poem, but one I wrote in 1982 and included in the book, “Loves Lost and Found,” comes to mind. It goes as follows:

View from the Top

We are self-made egos.
Consciences devoid of consciousness.
Self-praising souls, absent from reality.
Fools, toying with our own minds.

We are egotists. Misrepresenting truth,
not only to others, but ourselves as well.
Liars in the land of make-believe,
where all is as said, and all is not truth.

We are ego-maniacal,
gawking from our universe-centered opinions.
We see everything but ourselves.
We see nothing…
…of importance.

I Cry Myself Awake

Tags

heart-broken, lost love, shattered dreams

Interesting.

I write so many pieces which never make it into the digital world of publication. On this site alone I have 105 “drafts” on which I never pulled the trigger. This one grabbed my attention because of the title. I wish I’d made notes on the “germ” of the creative muse whence sprung forth the writing. I know who, but this was written nearly four months before the annihilation.

Nonetheless, there’s something here with which I still connect…

I cry myself awake
Darkness enfolds my soul
A cold blanket which threatens existence
Distant memories of love falling from my grasp as I float aimlessly into space

I cry myself awake
Unlike all those hundreds of mornings
Days begun with hope, with wonder
Fascination with all the good life may offer

I cry myself awake
Because crying myself asleep only brings darker dreams
Dreams – the torturers of the soul with their promise
Wickedly turning to nightmares

I cry myself awake
Sobs wrack the foundations of my heart
A free-fall desolation left in their wake
No true place for the last years to reside

I cry myself awake…
Hello sadness my old friend
You’ve come to meet with me again
In my silence, I feel hollow as I weep
I feel the inevitable pain quietly seep
My heart is stabbed in its flesh by a dream gone sadly wrong
This ends our song
Which leaves nothing but the pain
Of loneliness

I cry myself awake
When the lure of hope explodes into dust
Hope, that cruelest of perpetual mirages
Serves only to amplify heartbreak

I cry myself awake
Confused as to where I go from here
No resolution available to my heart
No hand to assuage my bleeding soul
No hope for tomorrow’s dreams
Bleak. Heartless.

I cry myself awake
Writing as I once did
Knowing there is no cure for this
Knowing there is no peace to be won
Knowing I have nothing left me but the path of “move on”

I cry myself awake
Because the love I thought would save me
Cruelly becomes the knife which threatens my destruction
And the pain stems from my inability to equate the love I feel
With the loneliness tsunami I die beneath

I cry myself awake
In the knowledge that love has no true mate
That simply because I can offer my heart and soul
Means jack shit

I cry myself awake
Anger wells up
Directed my way for selling myself a bill of goods once again
That simply did not exist

I cry myself awake
Unable to be angry with the one I love
Angry at the one I love because I made up a scenario of happily-ever-after
Now I’m destroyed by my own heart once again
How do I pick up the pieces when they’re nothing but a vapor?
How do I breathe?
How do I even care about who I am and what I am and how I am
When everything which meant something dies within?

I cry myself awake
knowing nothing
Desperate not to feel
Frantic to pass this pain from me
knowing there will come no cavalry

I now cry myself awake
When once I woke with such hope
I woke with anticipation for a new day
I woke with her in my heart, my soul, my existence
What a fucking fool

I cry myself awake because there is no refuge in dreams…

And Now…This

Tags

live, loss, love, pain

Sounds like a lead-in to Covid-19, doesn’t it?

But, no. I truly do not care about the pandemic past a modicum of self-preservation surrounded by hype, hysteria, and the absolute hypocrisy of mankind. Our fear-mongering media, our absurd reactions to said propaganda outlets, and our governments’ and corporations’ power grabs.

Is there a conscience remaining in any government, corporation, or religion? By all indications the mere concept of conscience appears to have long since escaped our “controllers.”

Before I move into the more personal germ of the idea for this post, I must say a few things. Observing how totally controlled the overwhelming voices of hate have become, I am disgusted by the vacuum of intelligence among us. So many people worked into a froth by propaganda machines with not one ounce of recognition they are being puppeteered.

The media controls people who should know better. One quite sad note springs from the apparent fact that the media also keeps the masses cowered in fear. Fear lives as a natural response mechanism within each human for survival. Fear wielded, lives as an artificial control device, well-practiced and constantly used by media, governments, and religions. Disgusting…

And now…this.

Life. A series of peaks and valleys surrounded by a loosely cohesive fog of us convincing ourselves we know what path we walk each day. Oh yes, sometimes we each conjure up the cahonies  to veil our life as something we know how to fix. On the surface, we perceive others, and even at times ourselves, as owning answers.

In the end, all we accomplish becomes intricate castles built on the sands of time only to be washed away by memory’s temporary nature. Yes, we carry forth the memories of Plato, Socrates and Beyonce, yet they exist(ed) as nothing more than our own constructs of life. My definition of “life-writing” roots itself in the word “handwriting” which I would even shorten to the word “writing.”

We each pen our own scripts. Like Blowhard Politico, who spills and sprays his/her ilk over and on anyone who’ll listen, each of us create our legacies with most to falling into the abyss of the forgetfulness of time. The same goes for Crazed Corporate, he/she snatching every ounce of mass control available. Don’t get me started on Really Religious whose greed, power-mongering, and control knows no self-check.

All three move forward in self-propelled righteousness of action which none will ever see of themselves, much more even sense. They stroll their control, major or minor does not matter, as if on parade for all to acquiesce underneath their supreme wisdom.

My personal battles with all this become quite real as I know I am human as well. As a personality who constantly self-evaluates, I recognize I’m no different. That internal mirror becomes so difficult to simply peek at much more take a good look its direction.

Despite the popular modern ego’s belief that we achieve and prosper in our technologies and ingenuity, mankind’s intelligence, our internal grounded selves, reflects poorly when placed next to our ancestors. I believe Socrates once said something to the effect of: “the more I learn I realize the less I know…”

Modern man adopts the opposite view. The more I learn, the greater I am. We lose the ability to check ourselves with our honest introspection and fall prey to the propaganda machines of others.

Is it no wonder we become awash in confusion, depression, and everything positive becomes a major effort. None of this is new. Mankind has set ourselves up as “brilliant” since our inception no matter what you believe of our origins. None of us escape this.

And now…this. What do I do with such revelation? I realize I only catch glimpses. I see my fallacies. I feel them. I breathe them. Is it no wonder we struggle with positivity? The more negative the person, the more they’re running from their own inner truth of not knowing shit about life.

So, we strive for a positive nature and outlook which flies in the face of our base nature. We know quite young that death drives our lives. Our religions, corporations, and politicians prey on that ultimate negative knowledge, gaining horrifically flawed control over our lives.

I see no answers. I see no way out of the tailspin of mankind. We will slaughter millions with our man-made diseases, wars, pharmaceuticals, oh hell, the list goes on and on and on. The only thing I see to do is to ignore the machinations of propaganda as much as possible and focus on finding a path of life which brings us some modicum of sanity.

A good friend is writing a book conceptually based on living a sane life in the midst of insanity. Each of us struggle with this. Suicides have been a reality of mankind since our inception. These days, we’re headed to lemming style deaths, much like Guyana and the Jim Jones cult.

Someone, more likely some entity, desires population control and we’re too busy fighting among ourselves (stirred up by the never-ending, never-relenting propaganda machines) to notice. When we do notice, we frantically point accusing fingers at whomever our personal propaganda beliefs tell us are the culprits. The laughable aspect of this becomes the fact that so few actually knows anything resembling truth.

Media, government, and religion have so bastardized reality and truth, we hopelessly flail about as headless chickens, already dead and we don’t realize it yet.

And now…this. Writers. TRUE writers. We work to winnow out truths. We search for the elusive grail which will lead us home. Everything I’ve written thus far is an indictment of mankind…of which I belong. That is the “this” within the writing title on this post. I fall prey to the same crap.

All I know at this stage of life is that there remains, ever present, the opportunity for joy and happiness despite our fatally flawed lives. That can be my only answer at this point. I have no grand wisdom to pass on.

I will continue to keep my internal eyes open to the fear mongering and political hatred. I will also strive to recognize as many of the other control devices prevalent in our world as possible. I will strive to keep myself within the parameters of what I know to be true. My truth. I will not react to the provocations. I read political posts sometimes and the desire to respond gets overwhelming. I know these people spewing their ilk don’t know shit about what they’re posting. They’re caught up in the bravado of self-aggrandizement.

There is no peace, no joy, no happiness in following that line of living.

And now…this.

A woman in my life would be nice… 🙂

And now…this…

Precious days wither under the watchful eyes of control
Romantic nights denied by the watchful eyes of control
Carefree moments cut short by the watchful eyes of control
Cleansing sighs erased by the watchful eyes of control

Lemmings to the sea
Sheep to the slaughterhouse
Moths to the flame
We live only when we simply walk away

Fighting battles of someone else’s origin
We seldom see our own doom until its late
So much so that the answers my friend
Sill blow in the wind

Life is now and ever has been
A chasing after the wind
Knowledge a fools gold
in a world of no true answers

We build lives
Some immaculate and full of self-deception
Some chaotic and full of self-deception
All wrapped within the dream of life

Clarity
So rare
So nice
So freeing
So fleeting
So valuable

A new day rises with the sun
Fresh opportunities to strive for clarity
An anti-fight against our handlers
Our prolific controllers
Relaxing into clarity stands as the only portal
No forcing your way in

And now…this
The desire to craft my castle in time’s sands
Knowing full well its eventual destruction
Which holds within its conceptual knowledge
The fact of mankind
We perish into the obliteration of memory
Specks of dust dissolved into nothingness
Despite our best efforts.

We desire to be known
We desire to be remembered
We desire to be cherished
We desire to be loved

We may know ourselves
We may remember ourselves
We may cherish ourselves
We may love ourselves

We choose whether we realize this or not
We choose to be caught up in mankind’s insanities
We choose our path
Or we’re swept by the current of propaganda and control

We constantly must fight our way against the raging waters
We either retain the gumption to walk away or
We join the masses in the loss of our inner core
As for me I choose to step away from the “world” stating,

And now…this

Live

Mornings,
so amazing.
A new day arrives,
as time employs perfect patience,
primed for us to etch beauty upon its eternal sands…

 

 

Sometimes, more likely too often, we pass on recognition of our inner thoughts, lives, and beauty. We see, hear, feel, taste, and smell a corrupt world attempt to surround, invade, and poison our lives.

So many give in to hatred, apathy, and insensitivity, always wagging their fingers at others. They do not realize their own poison launched into the ever-growing sea, as contributions of hatred fueling the tornado winds of destruction.

Positivity comes more difficult to humans because a positive outlook is a choice, not a default. We all get overwhelmed by the hatred in politics, religions, corporations, and even the individuals.

This day I shall not fall prey to the evil of my heart and mind but overcome and thrive on the freeing breeze of love – love of life, love of spirit, love of my internal heart, mind, and soul.

You are, and will forever remain, the change this world needs. You won’t vote it in, pray it in, nor buy it in. You, whether you like it or not, must change first. Unwillingness to do so dooms you to the herd mentality of hate.

Every day delivers your opportunity to seize it, sculpt it, and cherish the good you’ve woven into the fabric of time. Negativity and hate remain worthless because the market of humanity is flooded with both. Goodness, kindness, and creating lives of beauty will forever be the only commodity of true value.

This begins and ends with you, not the person in the line of your pointing finger…

Frightened Little Boys and Girls…

I read daily, unfortunately, the words of grown men and women who lash out in the most embarrassing displays of hatred and closed-mindedness, rivaling any loathsome period in mankind’s sordid history. I read words spewing, dripping, sliming with excremental quality every single day. These people would thoroughly embarrass themselves if they only possessed the internal mirror which would reveal their horrid nature to themselves.

What a wonderful use of progress and technology. Spewing pathetic views and hatred like volcanic shit to splatter this digital world with their gutter thoughts, yet in their own eyes, these tainted and tattered thoughts support their exalted, all-knowing views of this world.

The most sad aspect of all this disgusting use of mass communication/manipulation, grows virulently from the core truth that each offender. when their hatred is revealed to their very eyes, witness nothing but an inner anger to not only defend but accelerate into fomentation and destruction.

I think of them as:

Each saunter around their prison rooms
Oblivious to their worth in life
Fear slashes and gnaws at their loveless lives
Frightened little boys and girls.

No parent sprints to save the day
Each breath squeezed in and rationed out
Lost innocence once again in the lives of
Frightened little boys and girls

Prayers resonate as meager, constrained and false
Despite their claims of final days
Nations seized like giant frozen motors, protecting
Frightened little boys and girls

Odd how life and human condition
Breeds panic, estrangement, name-calling vitriol
All in the name of creating more distance for
Frightened little boys and girls

Loud mouthed know-alls scream foul accusations
Blame rests on someone they claim to know
Yet they fail to find themselves each day as
Frightened little boys and girls

Many men and women sell their voices to lambaste,
Crazed in their zeal of hatred and self-righteous indignation
They cast aspersions at mere mention of a name, just like
Frightened little boys and girls

When all sense and propriety leave language
When all reason falls prey to hatred unbridled
When all emotions dance riled by mere mention of a name
A world in fear,
Lives in utter turmoil,
Good sense spewed away on tornado winds

Look around.
Read their pathetic ilk on Facebook and Twitter.
BOTH SIDES.
See their hatreds boil and froth

Understand.
Understand the sickness
Understand the plight
Understand the absence of wisdom
Understand the examples of pure folly
Understand the last resort in the tumult which surrounds them
The whimpering, simpering, cacophony of
Frightened little boys and girls which drowns the essence of love and hope

While our children observe and learn…

Dating During the Apocalypse

St. George St. Saint Augustine March 24, 2020

Apocalyptic Dating

Yes, this pandemic does not qualify as an apocalypse, at least not yet. The sense, the pervading emotions, however, lead me down an emotionally apocalyptic path. I realize I do tend to be “all-in” emotionally. I’ve been respected and reviled for this aspect of who I am.

The most amazing sense of self for me is that I’ve reached a point where I truly enjoy and like who I am. The people who criticize and deride no longer hold sway over me. Yes, they still inflict pain, but life itself is pain. And joy. And love. And passion. And heartache. And heartbreak. (yes, they are two different experiences).

I’ve been “dating” online off and on for the past couple years. Most of the “dates” fell into two categories. One, the lady misrepresented herself. Two, the date felt like a job interview. Neither of those strike me as desirable.

I did mention “most” of the dates went those directions. There are two other directions, far fewer, as in only a couple each. One, I liked the lady and desired more time to get to know her. Two, I felt a connection and genuinity from the lady. The first category here met with no-goes. I get it, just because I liked the lady does not mean she connected with me.

The second. Ah, yes, the second. Let’s spend a moment on this one.

The pandemic and fear rages all around. I strike up a conversation with a woman who sound fascinating. She’s gung ho for meeting despite the closures of just about everything. My hopeless romantic/writer nature kicks in. I LOVE this! Now THAT’s dating in the apocalypse, or at least a peek at doing so.

We meet. At a place of her choosing. A secluded place, which surprised me. I’m thinking, “Wow! This woman is really cool!” We met, and immediately her bravado was tempered. Somewhere in my mind I had envisioned at least hugging or even a sanitized handshake. After all, she’s willing to meet a complete stranger in a pandemic. (I know. Give me all the grief you like about social distancing and the like. I’m not interested).

As we spoke, she revealed a much more disciplined, less outgoing personality. The meeting became a fact-finding, job interview type discourse. I could tell early on. I get it. We all desire who we desire. For my emotional currency, connection outweighs details and facts. Emotion and attraction do not grow from analytics. In fact, they fly in the face of that cold wasteland of judgment.

She offered “friendship” in a message a few hours after we parted. Clinically parted. While it was nice that I passed a certain level of the “test,” I have no need of a relationship like that.

Then, two days later, in a more heightened pandemic reality, I meet with a most genuine, fun, witty, intelligent woman. We strolled the abandoned streets of St. Augustine for hours. St. George Street on a gorgeous day totally devoid of crowds. Only a few dog-walkers, skate borders, and homeless people. The pic shows how surrealistically the Old Town was/is deserted.

We talked about many things. We cracked jokes. We enjoyed the time. In fact, mosquitoes finally chased us back to her car where we parted with a nice hug. So many enjoyable exchanges between us made the three or four hours we walked together feel like minutes. That’s what I’m searching for.

This woman is genuine. Honest. That word – honesty. I would say most of the women I have “dated” from the online site could be described, especially in their own minds, as honest. The honesty of which I write here, however is the honesty most of these women could not see. They were not honest with themselves on the whole. Most of them live in an emotional desperation which they actually cover with bravado.

That’s for another post someday. The point here is that after 15 dates, number 16 gave me hope and a glimpse that I was not mired in a pointless, fruitless endeavor. My challenge here is to collect my thoughts and feelings about the Apocalypse Date and place it poetically on this site since my goal when I post here is to create a poem from experience. Here goes…

Creaking Doors and Wind-blown Dreams

Your smile engaged
My interest piqued
You offered a hand
Soft. Sleek.

We strolled dead streets
Thirsty for life
No caution in the wind
No pursuit of strife

Two souls on a quest
Bucking the norm
Tendrils of connection
No threatening storm

Echoed footsteps
Creaking door
Rekindled dreams
Lie in wait and more

Hearts met in kind
Gentle and true
There existed no them
Simply me. And You.

Worth every minute
Worth every smile
Our journey successful
Each step of our miles

Embers so dormant
Feel long awaited sparks
A chance to billow to life
Explore oceans and parks

If for no reason
Save the knowledge of hope
Our time spent together
Delivers dreams to my scope

Wind-blown and tattered
As years held their sway
Still a hopeless romantic
Until my dying day.

Thank you Sherry…