splash

the illusion is that you are simply
reading this poem.
the reality is that this is
more than a
poem.
this is a beggar’s knife.
this is a tulip.
this is a soldier marching
through Madrid.
this is you on your
death bed.
this is Li Po laughing
underground.
this is not a god-damned
poem.
this is a horse asleep.
a butterfly in
your brain.
this is the devil’s
circus.
you are not reading this
on a page.
the page is reading
you.
feel it?
it’s like a cobra. it’s a hungry eagle circling the room.

this is not a poem. poems are dull,
they make you sleep.

these words force you
to a new
madness.

you have been blessed, you have been pushed into a
blinding area of
light.

the elephant dreams
with you
now.
the curve of space
bends and
laughs.

you can die now.
you can die now as
people were meant to
die:
great,
victorious,
hearing the music,
being the music,
roaring,
roaring,
roaring.

Charles Bukowski

Landslide

As I drove to work this morning Fleetwood Mac's hit Landslide came on the radio. Stevie Nick's acknowledgment, "I'm getting older too," resonated in the truck cabin, the melancholy way she accepeted it, like a love that is over.

"I'm getting older too." It's the mantra of the schizophrenic age in which I find myself; over a quarter century old, caught between twin impulses. - to settle down, find stability and start a family, or flee, run, seek out the new and mysterious.

I sat at my desk and twin monitors stared back. Reports, quotes, orders, specs, configurations, skus blinked by. Each voice on the phone anxious, convinced their deal was of the utmost importance. I was struck with the absurdity of it all. Of the neatly lined hushed rows of souls transfixed by computers, locked to the phones. Could anything be as inconsequential?

It's not that I'm unhappy. It's the lack of anything significant - the feeling that days tick by and no movement is made, no hills conquered, no love burning.

I've had brief encounters with love and lust over the past two years. A fluttering of feelings quickly scorched to ash. Vagueness. I experienced a hint of something real that fizzled with inaction, miscommunication, and stupidity. It ended with her boarding a red-eye flight to Australia, someone else's kiss on her lips, while I sat at home and smoked another bowl while Townes Van Zandt played in my head.

I don't know if I'm propelled by the desire to flee what it is that I've created or simply to accept Fate's invitation for something new.

Life is plagued/blessed by dualism everywhere - so why not both?