Sunday, February 26, 2012

VII



Sometimes the simplest of unplanned things, have the most beauty.  My favorite song right now, an ear worm in my head, is a simple a capella song I discovered because of facebook.  I think the girl singing is more of an actress than a singer.  The song is supposed to be a cover, but when the first time you hear it, you hear it by the cover artist and you've never heard the original AND love the cover - guess which version becomes the song for YOU?
A girl walks onto a stage to perform, after much dragging of feet and procrastinational delaying tactics, the music starts and the solo female performs ......... the doo wop background of a scarcely known song.  The audience stares, confused.
Sometimes you may only be a background singer to the choir.
The sound of an isolated piano key 
Tap tap tapping
You can taste the ivory in your fingertips
One repeated note that has a temperature
Suddenly I realize everything is reflection.  Everything.  Everything you project is what is reflected back to you.  
Harpo Marx's famous mirror gag IS the meaning of life!
Go figure.
That wildfire I was talking about the other day?  That's how it spreads like reflection.  As if each of us has a special mirror, imbedded in us, hidden to the outward viewing eye, that picks up another's light and transmits it to yet another.
In the background, Anthony Hopkins voice speaks, a character from the movie Hearts in Atlantis, 
“And then we grow up
And our hearts break in two”
(and I suddenly I see everything so clearly - our hearts break in two at the loss of the ones who don't reflect)
You should have heard him just now
my father, 
Saying, “I opened a savings account?” In absolute disgust 
There are signs everywhere.
Reflection.
Everything.
Where your mind is, is another thing.
Graduated light reflected in a mirror.
Rich undeniably unfocused beauty
The inescapable truth of those who see cockeyed 
Oblique to the truth
The questions we ask
The doubts
Reflected
A mirror darkly
We seek 
Always looking for
That one companionable rhythm
Life 
With its beautiful potential
Blocked 
Hidden
Lost
Little bombs 
Going off in our good intentions
No wonder
We walk with a blind man's stick
Waving wildly
Are you there?
Are you there?
What if we are not here to save our parents?
What if the one sheltering home
Available upon our arrival
Was less than sheltering
Not our job to post groom the incubator
Focus
Direct
Your focus
All is reflection
Choose then
What shines off from you
So cheesy
So rich
The truest trues expose themselves 
In bright light
In the background 
Billy Joel
“And in the darkness
I see your light turn on
I need your inspiration tonight”
Piggy back 
We cling
Light drawn to light
Nature's lite brite set 
Exposed
Those who try
Never know
They cannot hide
Exposed
Left behind
Like hitting 
Yourself with a hammer
And saying 
This feels good
Instinct
Like riding 
A really good wave
You feel the rightness
Through your feet
And your legs
Your torso
Your lungs
It seeps from your pores
Surrender
No need to label
No gods to thank
Or blame
Inside
Is primal
Pre -language
Guttural
Immediate
The cum blast of this moment
And this moment
Back to back
Each
Those 
Left behind 
Would think to die
From such joy
Unfathomable
Too much
It hurts
Rhythm
All is rhythm
And reflection
Get the rhythm wrong
The next layer fails to happen
Life 
A Rube Goldberg experiment
Left on auto play
The larger universe
Encapsulating our universe
A dead and deserted world
Of automatons
Unthinkingly
Nudging
Loss ball bearings
That 
Bump into
Our intentions
Nothing personal
Sometimes life flows 
So perfectly
It is as if you have
God's hand up your ass
Blasphemy
That one isolated color
For me 
Red
For you
Blue
But still
We see what we see
Together
United in our
Common interpretation
Beautiful
Our link
Inescapable rhythm
And the tingle 
Of connection
Electric
At our best it is us 
who powers the universe
pistons pump 
drive the little ball bearing 
to the next domino drop
synchronicity
beauty 
simplicity
why things never happen
when set into place
things must fall
an airborne moment of trust
flight 
the second between 
the known 
and the known
freedom
not forced 
or begged
not fought for 
or won
nothing that can be taken from us 
by anyone 
but 
honestly . . .
does the last domino to fall
question the hand that started the motion?
or does it simply skid and slide as momentum carries it
across the table
I read the other day that the signs of the big bang are disappearing.  Cosmology is going away because there is nothing left to study.  Who is to say, then, of the sciences that never were because man’s brain was not yet large enough to perform the act, to study?  
All the answers of the universe, there at your fingertips and you, just, not prepared.  Not ready.  
The most brilliant of people, reduced to Rain Men, when their intellect is aimed in the wrong direction.  
So much beauty.
Never seen.
All of the sorrows of existence 
at the feet of those dampened 
their beautiful reflective lamps 
as if painted with mud
but you and I 
we shine
here in our special and private corner
a child’s special fort 
we have everything we want 
everything we need
my warmth 
your warmth
your love
my love
together
one
yet two
a special gift 
ours alone
beautiful
that inescapable 
contrast 
separateness
we crave
we need 
to feel
whole
Why is it so hard for some?  Why so hard to realize that beauty and art and passion can be light?  Can be joy?  Why the persistence in seeing the cold blue shaft of icy pain as truth and beauty?  
Must work be hard?
Why not effortless?
Why not what simply what extends outward naturally, with ease?
Why is what comes simply and easily, assumed to be crap?
This is shit.  This is shinola. 
Learn the difference.  
Humans the most discriminating of creatures
Hold still so I can slip on your label 
and put you on your shelf 
with the others like you 
Why is it good to have company and be in a bad neighborhood 
rather than be brilliant in a room by yourself?
Prefer to slip your label on yourself?
Rather than to remain uncategorized?
Alone
and in the background . ..   Black Eyed Peas
“pump it 
louder 
pump it 
louder”
demanding attention
look at me look at me
I will not be ignored
the cries of those who do not reflect
but only absorb
take
and 
take
you know them, they’ve sucked your breath from your mouth while the world burned around you, they push you down like you’re their handrail
brace me
support me
help me 
and you try
you are the very best handrail money can buy
stainless steel
rigid with purpose and intention
and
Bobby Darin . .
“the world delights 
in magical sights
beautiful days
when I can gaze 
in beautiful eyes 
like yours
life is full of beautiful things . . .. “
so much beauty
surrender
open up 
and expose 
the tender bits you hide
release them to the light
air out the mildew and lack of use
saving your best for the right time
as if you’re a precious, limited commodity 
you’d rather waste than misuse
bewildered by the lessons taught to you by those who could only teach 
what they had learned
limited limitlessness
Boundaries penciled in by cowards
afraid to use felt tipped pen
assuming they know
assuming there is nothing more to know
than what they know
such comfort
such ease
no fear
the very large fish in the very small bowl
nothing to challenge
better in that crowd in the very very good part of town
with no surprises and nothing to think
everything planned and simple 
a pageantry of synchronized living 
Did you know humans tend to find agreement in things they have already seen? 
“This must be good.  I’ve seen it before.”
All growth.  All expansion.  
Slips in those mis-steps between your steps 
the things slipping in 
and yet those are what we would prune
label as weeds and throw 
in the brown yard waste bin
while trying not to feel guilty 
for including a weed
into what is sure to be next years compost
An optimist and a pessimistic walk into a bar
sit at an undersized round table
a glass in the center between them 
the dead center 
the glass
that glass
a waitress walks up 
she looks at the two of them
the optimist
the pessimist
locked
she picks up the glass 
jerks her hand 
tossing the water 
to fall 
a shower of individual drops
spray
without meaning 
without form
free
before she walks away she says,
“I give up.”