Yet Still, I Am

Wow!!! And then it was just another episode in confusion and deception. Or it could be life changing and intuitive. Or it could be the next spiral down the winding vortex of defeat.

Net-net, nada. Only the most minimal experience, barely risky, defeated by truth yet again. If only the truth were friendly and the lies ambivalent.

Coral sympathies surround rose passion. True intuitive introspection induces indirect idiosyncratic ideology. Genuinious incantication consecrating coincidentalous manifestocracies. Apros pos, no?

So here I am still searching this hostile island in hopes of having an experience. Sometimes I wonder if I am empty, condemned to forever go through the daily acts of social and economic maintenance yet somehow never quite experiencing the climactic moments which make the effort exquisite.

Is it all just so logical and homogenous that makes everything so tedious, or is there some fire or passion as yet unignited, still dormant, like a maiden awaiting heather and roses?

Still I struggle on, unpained, unburdened, fearless, and soft.

Joy, like tears, like terror, like hate, like dreams, like the past, like youth.

And it's just so pathetic to be introspectively defeatist in the shadow of wealth and unbounded opportunity.

Yet.

Is it a chemical imbalance? Is it pure reason? Is it the withering body? Is it seasonal? Is it inevitable? Is it weakness? Is it sorrow? Is it unrequited creativity? Is it solitude? Is it intolerance? Is it alcohol? Is it the residue of pharmaceutical indiscretions? Is it the threat of poverty? Is it the future, the past, or the now and here? Is it solar radiation? Is it environmental or just mental?

In so many ways I am exactly the same insecure soul of old. I have learned only the ways of the world but inside my dark perspective there remains a total lack of self awareness and so in these foggy times I am unprepared to assimilate the cold shroud and pierce the intense uncertainty.

Yet again.

Joy is just a thought away, just an image of unquestioned perfection, just a dance, a harmonization, a photograph, the spectrum of color, the visual sensation of architectural perfection arching through the overcast, the word, the perception, the awareness of new truth, the mechanical click of logical progressions, the total freedom of meditative black vision, the silence, the gratitude of a stranger, the opening of a new creation, the completion of a plan, the clarity of pure knowledge, the interpersonal telepathy visible in the steady lock of unchallenging eyes, the simplicity of humor, the memories, and hope.

Yet still.

I am.

Again I sit unchained in my wall-less prison of self. Twin expectations, each with opposing twin desires, entangled.

I am from the future looking back helplessly upon this barbarian time, unwilling or unable to influence their inevitable course of digression. They devour themselves and everything around them in a thrashing orgy of impulse and consumption. Who would they be and who would they wish to be? How can my future be derived from this incendiary convergence of souls and seekers. Wave after wave of personalities play intrinsic games of survival and temptation, seeking their goals oddly through unaffiliated compact. It remains simple yet incomprehensible except after initiation. Pawns play no part but to accentuate the queens, knights joust unreasonably, kings watch and ponder their fate. Fortunately, the rules are inconclusive and the risk undetected. Yet still they troll as seekers, too unpleasantly distracted to feel. Yet still, they yap joyously as if somehow they were happy.

I am from the past, undetected by youth. I peer into their fallow outlook and reflect insufferably. Was I so unmolested? Was I so self assured, or am I landed amidst some anomalous party of extra bountiful corsairs? They appear so unconcerned about sexuality as they pheromone each other so casually. In my time, not so long ago, we were alone in discos, not boisterously interoperating through formulaic destinations. Yet still, they glee in deprecation, like, whatever.

I am present now, among peers on the fringe of my formulaic generation, trancing along mindful of every stuttering footstep. Opening choice selections through random incantations, finally easing blithely toward yes. Unbeknownst of truth, naive of temperance, striding ever onwardly, tall despite its arrogance, victimized again with congestive impertinence, awkwardly patient and frozen while estuarine transitions interpose opportunity over tranquil ineptitude.

Yet still, I am.

2001 - St. Louis

...in a lifetime

There are times in a lifetime
when its OK to cry.
There are times in a lifetime
when times like that lie.

1996

Insecurity

I don't know how to act.
I don't know what to wear.
I don't know why some
people just don't like me.
I don't know why
I just can't cry,
I don't know why I try.
I don't know anything of value.
I don't know anything
I don't know.
I don't know,
I know I don't.

1996

Solitude Warm

Breathing gently
the warm quiet.
Listening without pondering
with subtle rapture.
Fragrant whispering
unwanting, awake.
Mind at rest, body idle,
harmony in solitude, warm.

August 1990, sitting on a surfboard in the sun

Violence is the reflection of impotence and fear

Violence is the reflection of impotence and fear. For the disempowered, emotions triumph over rationality. The chemistry of emotion burns the pain of fear in the echoes of memory. Terrified imaginations spring forth to justify hate. Hate breeds violence.

Secure independence provides its own momentum of acceptance. To one without fear, violence is fearful. Without impotence, trust invites acceptance. Empowered acceptance cools smoldering resentment.

In the face of violence, accept the fear, empower trust, heal the fearful.

2001

Seeking Among the Lost, Lost Among the Seekers

Seekers of ecstasy
finding partial fantasy
imaging
completeness bounded
by inebriated perceptions.
It is enough that
these young seekers
mingle among seekers
of similar fantastic
absolution bound by
the reality of transcendent
perceptions falling, falling,
falling,
upon the waves of
ineptitude in each
other and their brethren
foundering relationships.
Only to seek ascendancy from
the madness of loneliness
less to be found
than to be less perceived
as lost.

Tempering unsavory deterministic
fundamentals resounding
and rebounding
into each other's
misconceptions.
Testing theoretical
boundaries notwithstanding
temptational fundamentalities
breaking insignificant
boundaries traditionally
withheld.
Misinformed temperament
diagnosing
fatalistic similarities
unfaithful renditions to
miscreant sentimentalities
only falsely withheld.

2004, San Francisco

Absorption Disrupting

Subtle incredulity divides incessant dread
Sudden treachery infesting vile possibilities
Clarity conjured among shadows of wisdom

Pierced

Reluctantly screaming abolished expletives
Feverishly sanguine furrowed stance
Among the weak walk the stalkers of delight

Singed

Untrusting malignant factoids bought
Decomposed liberties instigating doubt

Cramped

Preposterous misinformation tagged as right
Utopia sold yet not in sight

Bound

Sonnets of bedlam posed in flight
Custodian heros castigating blight
Never alone in silence

still.

March 2006

Truth in the Realm of Darkness and Light

I prayed for luck and all I got was truth.
I asked for truth and all I got was silence.
I wept until eternity awakened.
I experienced another realm of darkness and light.
Light is better.

December 2006

Chance Dance Romance

The moon had risen over the peaceful straights on a comfortably still night. My fatigue from the long day's ride remained an undercurrent to the tide of desire for communion with the fellowship among whom I had journeyed that day through sun and hail and wind and rain to cross the northern coast and farmlands, an experience which now intertwined us all in safe comradery. Venturing out again just before midnight, I walked back to the bright and festive town without expectation, just feeling a necessity toward movement. The band beckoned at The Horn so even though the doorman rudely bounced me to queue, I waited, hoping to find someone with whom to dance. I was rewarded at once upon entering; within ten seconds a young vixen, three sheets to the wind, draped herself upon me. We danced, close, but she was not coherent and perilously unbalanced so I moved along through the pulsating tavern without destination. Fifteen seconds later I broke through the crowd into a corner and came face-to-face with another dancer, fit and much more my contemporary. We matched movements instantly and effortlessly, swaying and swinging then brushing against each other, whispering sentiments and exchanging sensibilities, first respecting a microscopic separation then finally giving in to the music and the freedom and the rising lust until eventually we were in a sexual parlay on the dance floor, erotically tucking and dipping, laughing and turning, moving together as one in a two hour embrace to the music, caressing discrete moments of skin, exchanging breath and exploring each other's sensuality, just past the limits of decency. Breathlessly, the clock struck 2:00. We crossed the street into the night, gently kissed, tender but now past passion, and I bid her farewell to watch her board the ferry and sail out into the shimmering moonlit water. I turned back to wander past the old fort and sing softly to the cool night air, content with the experience, without expectation.

Mackinac Island
After the Zoo-De-Mac 50 Mile Bike Ride ~ May 17, 2008