Insufferable

It is there in all that I do,

A lingering odor,

A taste like to rust or to sulphur

Tainting all that I do with an ashen hue

Pale blue-grey sheen of defeat and loss

Time and weight and Duty drown me

Drawing and scraping against my flesh

And my bones,

Smearing me like ink across a page of mistakes

Like regret over the shoulder

I bathe in it

Naked

I clothe myself with nudity before Her ever shining eyes,

futile attempt to discard the mantle hanging leaden over my shoulders,

its rough texture worn smooth with labor and grime,

I hide myself behind transparent nothing,

fully awake and fully aware in the unveiled intensity of Her unyielding gaze.

 

Like ice beneath the flame,

the vestiges of emotion and strength and desire are shorn away,

running in rivulets to pool along my bare feet,

and to reflect once again those shining, terrible eyes

in small pools of disconnection puddling smooth in the windless afternoon.

 

It this all there is?

my beard ruffles and dances in Her hot breath,

before the unending stream of command and demand that pour from Her mind

as an uniterruptable torrent,

silent and true and strong against hope or reason or darkness.

 

I bathe in that current against my will,

for what is will before Her face?

I am neither tossed nor pushed along the streamlinee,

but rather pulled ever closer to Her embrace,

ever closer but always apart.

 

Drained.

I am empty and blown away,

an automaton marched by pulled strings

and unseen clockworks.

I would kneel or feint had I the choice.

 

I have waited her overlong,

and She comes now again,

angered that I have caused Her to turn Her head to find me.

 

Tongue that Spot

alas but for an egress,

some recess

from the excess

of success.

 

I wear thin this imposter’s veil of deity.

 

This spot strokes my mind,

flaming and fanning a smoldering of brokenness

of doubt

of the Sorrow that underlies the everything and the always.

It is a waiting beast,

lurking before tomorrow,

ravenous against satiety,

heedless of victory or achievement or the unlaureled appointments of Duty.

 

The success is a mask,

avatar and persona for someone else

for another ego.

 

There is nowhere to turn,

and the unraveling threads

manifest the tapestry.

 

There lies no buffer from the pain,

and Sorrow begins to lap at my ignorance.

Fall Wedding

I drank in the crisp air, thin and sharp like the bite of mint – the sting ran down my throat and lanced the belly of my lungs.  A soft wisp of steam poured from my mouth like the smoke from a train piping through a bright valley morning. I could feel the heat lighting from the back of my neck, and from the tips of my ears, covered though they were by my soft, brown wool hat.  I hugged my elbows closer to my ribs, squeezing the heat back into my core,  smiling beneath the ineffectual sun as she shone bright but cold upon my face and upon the water of the pond.

A soft breeze scattered a fleet of dried leaves across the nascent ripples birthed on the sheer surface of the glass-smooth water.  The sunlight bobbed and danced over the ridges, shooting crazed patterns like knives in the pumpkin and stone colored canopy above.

I stopped on the path, just before it ducked into the shade of the chattering maples and oaks.  I listened in the quiet to the playful chattering of beech leaves on slender, elephant-smooth trunks.  Those leaves would hang through the long, cold winter in fierce competition with the late oaks – the blissful ignorance of youth pitted against the reluctant willfulness of the ancient.  I would merit from them both, happy animal that I was – free to meander through the light and shade, open to thought and motion so quick as to be ephemeral.

That day I squinted my eyes against the radiance of an October sun on the umber-cobalt sheet of the pond but I gazed through sheaves of years, back into memories of greenest grass and pique of buzzing midge.  I looked not upon the gravel path, succumbing to the onslaught of falling leaves, but rather gazed into the shining eyes of a semicircle of storied faces, backlit with dreams and good intention.

My mind was not focused on the collective whispers of the forest leaves, nor on the mournful cry of walnut-gray geese resting before the continued push south.  Instead I heard the soft strum of string, the guitar ringing free in the outside air, looking for wall and floor to spring from in echo, but finding only shining air and distant cloud.  I no longer heard the soft lapping of frigid waves licking the edge of weathered hull, but instead my ears remembered the expectant hush of minds focused on myth and ceremony.

I stood complete and present in a time that was no longer present.  Fully self-aware in a memory whose mutability my probing thoughts enhanced, I swayed beneath a closer sun, years away and a season apart.  I could hear no words, nor see the detail of face nor of raiment. Yet I felt the mood, and bathed in the goodwill and expectation. We set aside there doubt and fear.  We cast anger from ourselves like empty cloaks – it was not needed in that place we had built.

I knew the sun waned through twilight to evening in the vision.  The untamable eye in the heavens replaced by man’s pet servant – fire, as she danced and kissed the sausages and vegetables, charring and caressing.  And in the darkness we feasted, dancing and singing and smoking and drinking. With feet bare, and hearts open, we revelled in the togetherness of celebration, and we forgot of yesterday and of tomorrow, and of those things to come later.  In that moment we were. Simple and fulfilled, we were.

A shiver ran through my toes, and I, as if from slumber awaking, became present again in the present.  I stood, short pillar of gray and green against the racing brush of time, painting the world before me in maroon and brown and yellow.  So slowly, and yet so very quickly, I counted year upon year stacking neatly behind me, ever pushing me wiser and older down the path towards rest and completion.  I looked upon my world, pastoral beauty framed in billowing trunk beneath cloudless cold sky.

I looked and felt a stirring for the crafty peace of autumn, for smokey childhood days of heroism and timelessness.  I watched a small boat trail glacially slowly across the pond, piloted by a passive silhouette of detailless suggestion.  I felt the heat of the earth retreating slowly into the depths as if all of nature were drawing a hushed breath before slumber.  I knew a wistfulness for the unbridled possibility of youth, and for the slow, deliberate wisdom of age. Within me stirred some primordial duality – the hope for newness and creation, married perfectly to the restfulness of death and darkness.  I saw myself not as a part of the world, but rather as someone watching a world, a stranger catching a shadowy glimpse of a deeper truth that was so much larger and grander than I could comprehend. But I was so thankful for the symbolism, though I understood nothing of the meaning.  I stood in awe, a child behind the discussion of kings and gods, lost and adoring, alone and insignificant – but complete.

I pulled the boots from my feet, and tucked my socks neatly inside.  I placed the boots next to each other, resting to warm in the nearly cold rays of the sun.  The earth beneath my feet was distant and cold. I did not feel grounded. Heat and life fled from my toes, evaporating in the cool dry air, feeling carried away by the breeze.  The soles of my feet spoke of stones and twigs, but their voices were muted in the vacancy of my mind. I walked to the water’s edge, and felt the clear tongues of the waves as they lapped at my toes and ankles.

I drew a deep breath again, and closed my eyes.  I spread my arms and tumbled into the icy blackness of the pond, the flame of consciousness extinguished by the icily merciless bite of the cold, dark water.

Naked Snow

Alone I stand,

shaking.

Alone.

 

Insanity runs.

Insanity sweet and perfect.

None of you can touch me now.

 

Thew snow falls shallow,

yet the cold of the Earth affect me.

I twist,

I throttle,

Naked and alone –

my arms stretch out to my sides.

 

Run. Run away.

Run from the insanity that is within.

 

I am naked and alone in this snow,

and none of you

shall ever touch me.

Imprisoned

An old creak as the doors of the morning rattle from the sweet cover of unconscious dream.

The painful light of being bears down on me,

urging and pressing and warring.

In waking there is no repose,

Duty latches onto my first thought –

a schizophrenic voice,

maleficent and sharp.

There is no soft glow of morning here,

no quiet solitude before the dawn to prepare.

Here no sailors press the shoes of luck before the day begins,

for the night has been a brief pause only,

and yesterday’s burdens beat the dust of responsibility from their coattails

and into my sputtering,

coughing lungs.

Now the cold light drips down on me,

artificial and frigid,

it stings my eyes even as it reminds me that nature lies afar

just outside my reach,

just outside my sight.

I rot in this cage of the mind,

watching as each precious moment of being is traded for a morsel

and mortgaged for another sack of chores,

always waiting

always bearing down and pressing crushingdehumanizingdamningkilling.

There is no escape.

I have no metaphor,

no poetic analogy.

I am trapped.

This is Hell.

disgust

I see you there,

a glint in the periphery,

a flicker against the inane reality.

I see you there,

and I spit,

I have cursed my own blood,

discarded my own brother,

what do you think you hold

that I could ever value?

Be honored.

Celebrate,

for I see you there

and take note of the insignificance that is your life,

the banalities that are your thoughts,

blank unrecognition of truth,

blatant disregard for reality,

bold disdain for completeness.

I curse again,

claw at the scratch of the stench of your clothing,

vomit at the hint of your person.

Like the hiss of an angry cat,

I draw my shackles up against the social law

that protects the weakness that grows in your loins

and dilutes the strength of evolution,

stain upon the cloth of humanity.

Be gone.

Depart.

There should be no place for you here,

and I curse the ones that build

for you a house of woebegotten love,

misplaced

and displaced,

granting mercy to a mote

that should not be,

an unfortunate glitch

in the code of humanity.

I shiver and move on,

disgusted at the thought

of the taste of your mind.

union

It’s still there,
the ever-present roiling,
the ever gnawing
burning
devouring
consumption.
Oh, but I grow so weary,
I am spent
with so little left for tomorrow,
for being,
for myself.
Wave after wave after wave,
I flail beneath the encompassing crush.
Inhale.
It is so close,
a sweet reprieve through quiet bliss,
a mouthful of water,
a quick, merciful gulp of burning resolution,
it is so near,
my fingers touch that place,
chill and warmth and pain and acceptance.
With a sigh,
a breathy whisper I am gone,
forgotten and unknowing,
to sleep in undisturbed,
unknowing silence.

Stop.

Start again.

And here we are.
A meandering path from innocence to…
well,
to somewhere else.
Through torment and joy and fear and triumph,
to arrive at a place both ephemeral and permanent.
I am,
but I am becoming.
I am,
and I am not yet.
I am so weary of the trek,
and I no longer know how to justify the race,
how to envision the prize.

So,
I do nothing.
I think nothing.
I delay and obfuscate and deny.
Time is a healer,
and I cry into Her bosom,
waiting for healing,
waithing for health.

Solitude

With a sudden thump,

Heavy with finality,

The formless hand of time tosses another trowelful of soft,

Loamy earth atop a small box

Whose contents are forevermore hidden

To the eyes of consciousness. 

The gentle breath of forgetfulness stirs the soft wisps of moist steam

That curl in faint tendrils from the gash

In the rich,

Brown,

Soil. 

Rain falls. 

Now gentle,

Now torrential,

And the ground forgets the scar

Beneath the choking weeds of regret.  

In a whisper of time,

All is forgotten to dust

And loss. 

Mute Gloom – unfinished

Like a pervasive fog,

a bleak, white chill seeps into me,

into my bones and up into the small chamber of light

where meditators play,

damping the tiny flame

that sometimes there dances.

Memories stir,

quickly tamped down into a gnawing ache –

I wish not to remember,

yet I know not to forget –

some lessons are harder than others.