December 28, 2023
Grace
I could have died a thousand ways
or not have lived at all.
I could have sold my happiness
for envy, rage, and gall.
I could have drowned in grief and tears
and given up my soul.
I could have followed on my fears
to falter, fail and fall.
Years back one mentioned off the cuff
I was a lucky brat
that someone up there cares enough
to keep me safe and sound.
So many ways to lose the fight
and only one way out.
I should be gone, but I am alright,
how wonderful is that!
November 10, 2023
At Ease
I guess I arrived at that time in my life
when people start questioning meaning.
They question their standing,
they question their worth,
they question their reason for being.
My life didn’t happen the way that I thought
and many would think it was tedious.
I stumbled on purpose a little too late,
confused by its methods and reasons.
I can’t say what happened that brightened my sight,
a light got turned on,
viewpoint shifted.
I can’t harbor sadness, misgivings or spite,
it feels like a weight has been lifted.
I don’t feed ambitions,
I don’t have regrets,
I don’t wish I were something other;
I celebrate life as it flows through my veins,
I like who I am without bother.
I could list the issues that don’t fit the mold,
but I don’t have room for their pittance.
Of all I’ve been given I’m grateful and full,
I don’t keep my soul at a distance.
October 7, 2023
Reality Can Never Disappoint Me
I touched the world lightly, to feel its heartbeat
the pulse of life beneath the things,
and I know this heart beats for me,
like I’m the only one it ever sees.
Through life’s ups and downs
I have asked myself a question,
and every time I do, that heart skips a beat.
It can’t bear the shadow I cast over it.
There is too much love and beauty to trample
under foot, and who am I to dump regrets into its dreams
when all it wants is love?
I look out to the world to see its beauty, its freedom, its resilience
I look inside myself to mind the seeds of my days yet to come.
So, to answer that question, the one life never likes me asking;
I breathe my soul into this world with every breath I take
and thus reality can never disappoint me.
September 22, 2023
Parameters
You wake up one day, just one day out of many, to find your world has shifted on its axis, not a lot, just enough, just enough to drive you mad.
We adapt, smart humans that we are, we adapt and it shifts again, unexpectedly, at the least convenient moment, just to spite us.
Like the strongest current on the bottom of the ocean life takes us, a convenient fast transportation system, the TGV of existence, so to speak. Incredibly fast highways these life shifts are, a huge tree whose infinite ramifications define time, a tree we can only climb looking backwards like an Orpheus opposite without a lyre.
As we advance in wisdom we define new parameters inside this stream we live in, knowing they will always be changing.
September 16, 2023
Angst
I haven’t written in a while and the words keep piling up inside my mind, and their essence builds up in layers that get thicker and denser with each passing day, heavier and heavier, and I fear that pretty soon they will be so heavy that they will start falling through my consciousness, and then through matter and time, all the way back to the beginning of the world, and when they get there, to that point of origin without precursor or dimension, I fear they will fall through that too, into the non-existence before eternity.
September 7, 2023
Filling the Space Between F and J
Little black symbols paint syncopated rhythms as my fingertips pause between sentences, returning faithfully to F and J, a force of habit gained from long practice.
I gaze at pictures of my mind and grasp at them with child-like awkwardness, dress them in words and send them to the patiently waiting fingers.
Wit is so tangled in my fingers that the brain can't isolate it, much like the feet don't disengage from the hearing of music in a complicated dance.
Gentle small scale acrobatics, if you think about it, so second nature it becomes, so second nature...
The backlit keys float over diminished light, enough light to guide me if I need it, but I don't, not anymore, not for a while now.
The slim bumps on F and J gently nudge the tips of my fingers as hands glide on the keyboard swiftly, assuredly, fluidly, free.
September 4, 2023
Echoes
I call for my soul inside the soaring chambers of my soul, and their tall walls and vaults reverberate and multiply my voice into thousands of new me’s, also lost, also searching.
“Where are you?” - “you” - “you” - “you” - “you”…
“I’m here” - “here” - “here” - “here” - “here”…
Which one is me, I wonder, which one is the real me in this gigantic echo chamber, and the question also bounces about endlessly between the walls and the ceilings.
I pick up the closest echo and go with it, a mirror of me which is also me, me ish or me enough.
So I speak and I answer, bouncing off sound boards, and I’m here, and I’m there, and I’m everywhere, a wave propagating with a slight, but noticeable time delay.
Ironic, isn’t it, not being able to find yourself among yourself. I wonder what wondrous symphonies I could create if I managed to master the tempos and echoes just right.