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.”

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Moments in My Head #10


Whitney Houston died.  Across Facebook and probably Twitter, some fans were mourning by posting digital tributes.  There are a lot of things in this world that I don't understand.  I don't understand how the Mayans could predict the end of the world, when they couldn't predict their own demise?   I don't understand how anyone can judge anyone's else life and choices until they he/she has done a stroll in their shoes DURING THE SAME TIME PERIOD.  Let's face it we are victims, in part, of the time period and its circumstances under which we live.  It isn't just who you are, but where you are and when you are.  Think of Ira Levin's "Boys From Brazil."  Each one of those little Hitler wannabes needed to have as many of the events and their timing as happened in Hitler's life as possible to be have any likelihood of recreating him.  Assuming that could even be possible, given the varieties of uniqueness that go into creating a human being.  
But I digress, the point was I don't understand a lot of things and you can tell that I think about them almost obsessively.  I've frequently compared my brain to a big rock tumbler, that simply tumbles and tumbles on the sharp projectiles my mind can't get past.  One of those things I've been tumbling has been why, within only hours of people posting digital tributes to Whitney Houston, there were people bad mouthing the people posting tributes to Whitney Houston.   Mostly it was reminders of other people's death who the complainer thought were somehow more important or noteworthy than a celebrity's or especially a celebrity who died because of drug abuse.  Sometimes it was one person, like one soldier, sometimes it was the whole Army or Navy.  
Really, explain the logic of that to me.  
Does the fact the person idolized Whitney Houston, who I must explain right now, of whom I WAS NOT a particular fan.  Yes, that's right, NOT, but just because the person loved Whitney Houston, how does their extra respect for someone they love in any way assume they have no respect for your mentioned dead?  What are you saying?  Each human only contains just enough empathy to grieve for or respect the death of a finite number of people?  Too much tribute to a celebrity wipes out respect for a thousand regular people?  Ten thousand?  
I say, "You want respect for your dead, give me respect for my dead."
Don't.  Don't say "they can't claim Whitney Houston for their dead."  
Yes, yes they can.  What you love is yours.  That little portion belongs to you and you grieve when it is lost.  
What is this society as parent mentality we have going on here?  Who are you to tell them who or what to love?   Isn't that what your parents would do?  Weren't you going to be different when you grew up?
I was thinking about vampires today.  I suppose given all the Twilight hoopla, it is sometimes unavoidable.  I see a "RUFKM?  He sparkles?" and my mind automatically clinks and clanks until I notice a good looking chunk of thought about the differences from the vampires of my childhood and my mother's childhood.  Maybe I had a lot of psychology classes in college (I did) or maybe it isn't that heavy of a lift on the psychological weight scale (probably not.)  It seems to me originally vampires were psychologically attractive to women because it was about "penetration" and since vampires could glamour their victims, it was sex without responsibility on the woman's part.  I didn't "want" to do it, he "made" me do it.  In a slower world with an uncertain boundary as to where a girl should turn off "good girl" or take responsibility for her own sexual desire or desperately bump and grind to keep her man, it was a fanciful way to have the lover of your dreams who did "whatever" you could dream up, but yet still claim "I would never have done that if he hadn't "made" me.  **insert finger in dimple** 
So your mother's vampire was a sort of "porn."  Team Jacob and Team Edward must mean the modern one is too.  But maybe that's the reason Edward sparkles, he isn't your mother's vampire.   Today's woman doesn't need to pretend to be a "good girl," we are much more sophisticated at realizing that woman also appreciate and are tempted by sex.  The interesting thing is, well, Edward and Dracula, lemme see, both have pointy fangs with which to bite you.  They both can glamour you, hmm maybe the lack of responsibility draw still applies.  I think they're both cold, Dracula does not appear in a mirror, I'm pretty sure Edward does.  He needs to, how else could he appreciate his sparkle?  Edward is hard, is he not?  Hard like he's made of granite?  I don't remember ever hearing that about Dracula.  
But there's one more difference, isn't there?  
Think a minute.  How about attitude?  Do Dracula and Edward have the same attitude?  Hell no.  Dracula wouldn't hesitate.  He's GOING to bite you.  Edward not only WOULDN'T bite you.  He'd drive you home and make you dinner.  
It is it me or does it suddenly seem like the emasculation of men by modern vampire?  
Hmm.  Are the females who love the Twilight series really fantasizing about something more on the road to being a dominatrix?  A little about the control and power of leashing a beast?  Makes me feel so so comfortable with my peers.  We were much more about stripping it off and joining the beast.  Don't tame him, jump on, hold on, and, apparently, plead ignorance later.  Honestly, other than whine that she wanted him to make her a vampire and that she eventually has his baby, I have no idea what Bella did with Edward.  Enough to get her pregnant, I guess.
Pregnant?  Your mother's vampire had something BETTER than a vasectomy.  Why would anybody want to have a baby with a vampire?
I just don't understand.  
Besides, if I had been on a team, it would have been Team Jacob.  You've got a boyfriend AND a pet.  There's no bad there.  Not to mention a provider of warmth and protection.  Edward Shmedward, I say.
Twilight has the same phenomenon going on as Whitney Houston.  We (and I'm part of this group) can't just let you have your different vampire, we have to mock your tastes and joke with memes about "still a better romance than Twilight."  
This internet just isn't big enough for your vampire AND my vampire.  
Truthfully, I can see an argument where men might instinctively hate Twilight since the goal seems to be, in the most PC of descriptions, to define what a man's manhood should be.  What's with the rest of us?  Why can't we just think they are idiots in private?  Why do we bond with other people who agree in a seemingly more active basis than the actual Twilight fans did in the first place?  Could it be seeing ourselves represented in what we assume is the majority, it feeds to our denial that the disagreement has anything to do with age.  
Maybe it was simply we were tired of hearing about Twilight.  Or maybe, like me, we read a book or two of Twilight and felt we had paid for a very different experience than the one we got.  When was the last time you got your money back from buying a book simply because you didn't like it.  
Yes yes, I'm being ridiculous.  Who would do that?  
Except books are essentially ideas.  
That book had bad ideas.  That book made me uncomfortable with its ideas.  
Little bit more than the $10 to $20 you thought I was complaining about, huh?  
An idea can change your perception of your world, of yourself, of your parents, your partner, your pets.  An idea can penetrate your subconsciousness and make you think.  So an idea can become a thought which can change you.  
Nobody embraces change.  It's scary and messy and unfamiliar.  Change is so uncomfortable to us that we often choose to stay with an already uncomfortable status quo rather than risk more discomfort for improvement.  
I don't understand that either.  
You could fill a bus station with all the things I don't understand.  
It's all the ideas.
My brain is riddled with them.   
I must not have been selective enough about what I chose to read.