You Helped Me Get Home, February 25, 2021, Bob Derickson, post-humously

I know this is where I began, a naturally divine universe of all faiths and all sciences, and none of them
To me, it was a stream of passion and life
In beautiful patterns, like intricate lace or a grandmother’s doily
I do not know where or when I am but am not afraid on this journey.

 Unbreakable, September 8, 2015

 
Best friend ever, the One I never knew
Or knew too well, my twin
Inner help and comfort given, he’d be a catch
Wonderful luck that he walked out the door, before
Lying next to me in bed, again?
Talking, learning me, using my words against me, for me.
 
Mental illness, lack of money:  issues not mine,
Charges leveled by others against him that I would not own,
But did, as though his thoughts became mine.
Then he left, the gas lighting idea planted by the ungrounded. Who does that to a person?
That I own, as he did me.
 
Utter that word - love - once,
I jump, limber like Desperation crammed under a desk
Ready to feed, starving, exercising patience.
Then all was “fuck me in the ass, man in the mirror,” as if he’d seen me watching.
What worthiness, this pig?  Judged
Against standards, I dreamt he dreamed.
 
Uncover self-knowledge and suffer
Dig into matters softly, patiently, then
Demand understanding, damn you, change!  Time’s up!
Closing:  “I would never treat you like he treated you.”
With perspective, decide what it means.
 
No, this was worse, unless he meant what he said,
Before my thinking fucked it up: This time I thought I knew what I thought I had
Before he was gone.
Blind, self-betrayed; self-cruelty unseen, crouched behind kindness.
The good news is that it’s all in my head! Feel better! Hugs!
Instinct is refusing to take something already perfect and painting it red.
 
This time, no unanswered questions, no hand-wringing,
Just a hammered finality.
Better a man leave before both exhale?
Better a man leave, having sealed the broken skin through which God entered?
 
 
At the end, safely, no one on watch: He gave me that.
But, what was the next right thing?
The gods had no clue, and so, burdened man
With trickery:  It’s never about what it’s about.
These gods want nothing.
They want what you want.
 
Men of integrity, taller by choice, dream
Of Homer’s gods, travelling in disguise, observing righteousness and wrongdoing, asking
When no one is watching, what choice will man make?
Will he become whole?
Eddie is such a man,
Taking the long way around.
 
Know yourself, if you can, so they’ll know too,
The exact measure of the pain you can bear.
Keep the journey alive, stay safe from their reach,
Be comforted, admit to your innermost self, that
They (not all) on this day (not every), you do not want to be.
 
Relationships should not be so difficult.
Love your family!  The one that teaches through pain
As you slowly disintegrate, unfit.
Nice clan, demanding obedience:
Sir, Yes, Sir! (But no, not from me?)
 
Be grateful for lessons; hold no regrets.
Thanks! Kisses! Smiles!  (What, no tone or inflection?  Still mine to make up.)
Emerson, perverted, they keep; me, his spirit.
When we speak of loyalty, we speak not of the wolf,
But of the spirit of the wolf, which from them has fled.
(Substitute different animals at no charge.)
 
(If this is about what it’s about,
Then the written means what it says.
Mea culpa.
Sorry, not sorry.  No life lived  in contradiction is easy.)
 
 
Stop testing me, universe.  I’ve had it.
 
 

 

Reflection on Forgiveness and Religion, July 22, 2014

Today is momentous.  The 2’s make sense.  2 is a pair, and two 2’s is also a pair.  I woke this morning grateful not to be in a mental institution!  Sleep really does help to pull things together, assign meaning.  Then I poured two separate cups of coffee.  My roommate was not at home.  I must not feel alone any more.

 I wrote many months ago that forgiveness is allowing someone to be fully human, without fear of reprisal.  It is allowing the ice to melt, and then swimming in the soft, harmless water of memory.  How can I be angry with anyone who has earnestly and out of love tried to help?  I forgive me and I forgive anyone else whom I perceived to be manipulative or untruthful.  Whether real, illusory, or some variant of the two, the release is the same.  Forgiveness is not absolution.  It is not a permission to turn from the truth, especially the ugly, simple truths, such as imperfection, ego, or the blunders of human nature.  What looks inelegant today might eventually be seen as a new dance move.

 I wish justice would be more closely linked to the truth about humanity.  Maybe fewer of us would be shouting for blood every time we screwed up.  There is a reason that those we might characterize as abhorrent (or similar such terms) do what they do, whether criminal or not.  Calling them abhorrent only serves our egos, and perhaps as a warning to others that nonconformity will not be tolerated.  This is not a message to send.  Do no harm, this is the message.  I guess that means I can’t follow through on my threat to kick someone’s ass.  Yeah, like I would have.

 Why do I feel so whole, so calm, today?  People lie and then deflect their lies because of insecurity about their future.  “This is illegal in California and Georgia.” I heard that just before starting down the rabbit hole.  Illegality does not make something inherently wrong.  It was a too-long journey, designed to help a man who had forgotten who he was - me.  Because I knew something was amiss, and because I sensed an unsolicited invasion of privacy based on circumstantial information -  information that nonetheless fairly accurately described a drug-using me as a man whose moral compass had apparently gone askew, and aided and abetted by another man, now forgiven - it all became a game of hide-n-seek, of clay to be molded.  “You don’t want to end up like him, to make his same mistakes.” This is what I heard.  Though I never would have even entertained such a mistake, I can see why folks thought as they did.  Like father, like son.  J  As an aside, I hope that man can forgive me from beyond the grave.  He knows everything that needs to be forgiven.  It was rather brilliant, some might even say supernatural, such was the winding path I created to lead myself out of this Forest of Darkness, to use my own metaphor from childhood, while finding courage enough to go back in, if need be.  I knew what I knew, and then was made to doubt.  I feared talking because I would appear insane.  It seemed like folks feared me, unnecessarily.  I felt judged and manipulated - my entire sex life under the microscope, eyes ever-watchful.  That with which I had never had issues became symbolic of barbarism, or of something unclean and prohibited, of harmful to self and others, of sin, that man-made concept used to control others.

 I had never realized the full extent of the negative impact of religion on the psyche.  Others did not realize the full impact of secretive therapy on an unwilling, or rather, uninformed and unknowing, target.  (Seriously?  That’s how it felt, anyway.)  In reality, it was just me being sexual and loving it, fully.  “It never goes away,” a friend once said to me.  He was right.  We must embrace all of ourselves, fully, without judgment and without harm to self or others.  (I’ve said this over and over - just look at past writing - so that is proof enough that I believe what I believe and need not keep repeating it.)  Religion has had even worse effects on others.  I’m lucky to escape relatively unscathed - and trust that that will prove to be the case in the long term.  Reform the religion, getting back to basics, keeping it simple, but do not prosecute any man victimized by it.  Hurt people hurt people, so address the hurt.  Prosecution is for persecutors.

 This is an incomplete picture, full thoughts and experiences funneled from pen to page.  Writing is a summation, a winnowing of rich and complex expressions of that which is.  Sometimes vague is the only option.  There is much I don’t know.

 I feel whole and calm because I realize that my truth has always been within me.

 Never shy from the truth.

The Need April 8, 2013

 
The Need to be right
            even grammatically
never helped a relationship
The Need fed itself but never the wasted, me

Even after, a miracle claimed prematurely as my own,
            Now the real deal - this was my turn, yet still
The Need followed me, having to be right even to help another but not helping at all, then
               unlearning the how-to script
               unlocking the mind cage and
                              Being free to help ‘not-me’
 
Just like that The Need disappeared

Another miracle? No, just more of the same,
because the thing about miracles is that
               they are never supposed to be about any One
 
The Need of true miracles is individual motion
                                             - payment forward
 
 

 The Fortune of a Racist, April 11-21, 2013

 

My dad told me once that
Having a twenty in his pocket
A beer in his hand
A woman on his arm meant
He was nigger-rich
 
A dividend of 80-proof boulevard whiskey:
Balance sheets of paint on his body
Proof of class inked on his calves, in black and white
Color was a luxury one could not afford
Superficial affluence manifest on a kid gone AWOL long before
 
A flag with stars in crossed bars marked him a
               Son of the Confederacy
Held tight between the long legs of a Marilyn
Caressing her pussy as one might imagine a sailor imagining being there
Between those long legs
Treasure ripe for exploitation
Affluence, abundance, profusion

 Ritual April 11, 2013

 

washing the sheets making the bed buying the lube feeding the dog petting the cat renting the porn calling the dealer driving the car getting the funds ringing the bell watching for cops fighting the fear dreading the chat paying the cash crushing the rock filling the point hiding the stash tapping the plastic stripping the shorts starting the flic tying the arm jabbing the needle missing the vein feeling the pain jabbing the needle f e e l i n g t h e r u s h tightening the ring pinching the nips pulling the cock talking the smack hearing the voices spilling the water closing the door closing the mind riding the high seeing the shadows feeling the fear seeing the flash m o u t h i n g t h e a h h pinching the nips yanking the cock craving the cock perving on cock fucking cock hell yeah porn and cock just one more boxed in

 

 

 

Night Note, September 3, 2015

Well, that was a little crazy, very painful, and wonderful all at once.

Yes, I definitely let my mind go to imaginary places.  And where were those?  To comedy, romance, friendship, lessons about life (including betrayal, which seems to have been a too-constant theme, and foolish longing for love - never happened to you?), and that I love the Golden Girls and I Love Lucy.  Apparently, women brought so much love and sensibility into my life, I almost couldn't imagine it, but managed all the same. I would like to be less naive going forward, because some are just plain devious, knowing in that arrogant way that they must be, they must be, right!  Ah, but they made themselves into bigger fools.  I refuse to allow them to drag me down.  Learn (really, this time, learn from it).   Fortunately, they failed to elicit much more than temporary anger and confusion before I went to sleep, with tears.  Thanks for those.  Without them, none of this might have been possible.  Sorry, but sometimes life's a bitch, even for others.  Thanks for sharing the cost of the fare to get here!

Night Note,  September 2, 2015

Mount Hood, Denali, bareback mountains everywhere ...
Maybe we need to make a bargain?
We'll wrap up, if you'll wrap up, or at least get really, really slippery and wet, like nature requires.
Water boys, water works.

I'm not sure this should be a piss equivalent thing because the sky is really, really big and the average penis is well, not nearly as big as my imagination.

Still, that would be a stopgap thing.  I sure hope pain isn't the only way to gain in this case, global political will to change climate change.  I guess nature can and should sort these things out.  I'm not a scientist, but I understand we have some good ones, ready to go.  Who gives the green on that?

Dirty, Eddie, dirty.

(I enjoy thinking, and realizing I still care.)

 

 Aesthetic Realism, from the work of Eli Seigel

A primary concept of Aesthetic Realism is that the world can be liked honestly by seeing it as an aesthetic oneness of opposites.  The ethics Siegel taught—"the art of enjoying justice"—includes this definition of good will: "The desire to have something else stronger and more beautiful, for this desire makes oneself stronger and more beautiful.”  Good will is necessary, he stated, for a person to like him– or herself: "This desire is the fundamental thing in human consciousness.”

1.  The deepest desire of every person is to like the world on an honest or accurate basis.

2.  The greatest danger for a person is to have contempt for the world and what is in it .... Contempt can be defined as the lessening of what is different from oneself as a means of self-increase as one sees it.

3.  All beauty is in making one of the opposites.  The making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves. Cognitive dissonance becomes harmony.

 

Let Me Make It Easy For You, February 11, 2014

 “Let me make it easy for you.  No worries and good luck.”  These were the words Randy B. texted.  "You have to have friends!" Yes, I do.  Our friendship will not evaporate, no matter how warm the planet gets.  I love him and others - always have.  Might I finally, at long last, move forward?  I am not anti-Galano and have internalized that no human being believes me to be so.  However, we each have our own lane, and for some, our adventures need to be separated initially, as two solid white lines would keep me out of oncoming traffic.   

This feels like the end.  It is over.   

A Dream and the What If, July 25, 2014

In this dream - and it was merely a dream likely fueled by Atripla (*sticks tongue out) - we were together, many of us, all friends.  We had been having a party, drinking, laughing, playing, but nothing out of hand or too crazy.  We were our present ages, though I saw no one directly, looking through my eyes only.

Then, was it a fire or a flood or something else?  Personal items were lost, we were dirty.  Because we were on a hill, and the destruction fell away around us, no one was hurt.  There were drag queens and gay men and all types and orientations.  No one felt the seriousness of what was happening, except me.  But my concern proved to be only for me.  I kept begging for help, but everyone just wanted to keep driving around in a tiny car and taking swigs out of that one bottle, never emptying.  “If you had done your job, none of this would happen.” There was lots of finger-pointing, blaming.  Not my fault, not my fault.

 I lost my wallet and keys and that was all there was in my world.  Find them.  I had to find them.  The world was ending, or so it seemed, and the only thing I wanted to focus on was finding my wallet and keys.  I was over it and the others and the entire scene. I wanted to take my belongings and go.  I was angry that no one else would look.  I would have to get new credit cards, update my automatic billing information with the new numbers, and hope against hope that none of my bills would be late.  Why won’t you help me find these things so that I can leave?  You can keep sloshing around in this tiny apartment on a hill or in that tiny car with that bottle, looking down on the carnage, hiking up your skirt over muddy shoes, wigs askew, shirts torn, telling me nothing matters - or rather, not telling me, but making me feel that’s what you think.  I am frantically searching under cabinets, around the two huge parking lots that have appeared, covered in sludge and thick mud, with police keeping everyone away.  No, they have not seen my wallet either.   I don’t like my new American Express number.  What the hell?

 Then, I decided to look one more time in the place I had left everything.  I think that’s where I looked - or at least somewhere in the apartment.  There they are!  I grabbed my wallet and keys and smiled.  A sense of immense relief washed over me.  I could leave.

Still dreaming, I reflected on what had happened.  Just as I was becoming okay with the idea of replacing everything, and was coming to realize that I had blown the whole thing out of proportion - after all, these things are only keys and cards and other stuff - and just as I stopped pointing fingers at those damn non-helping (my interpretation) friends, everything fell into place.  I had put the scene into perspective. What I had imagined being important really was not, at all.  Where was I going?  What was I to do with those cards and things in my wallet in a world destroyed?  When disaster struck, none of us focused on each other.  I went to my silly things, while others kept moving, ignoring the scene.  They seemed to think that movement and turning away would provide an escape, manifesting bliss as ignorance. 

The only direction we did not run, the only way our thoughts did not turn, was toward each other.  It seems that we each wanted to save ourselves first in the manner we each thought best.  In our world today, we rarely consider first how we might lift up those in need so that they don’t become enemies in future conflicts.   Yet, in hindsight, we always think, “What if we had only …”

This Level of Kindness, October 8, 2014

Is this all it takes? This level of kindness?

The slowness of a cocktail
Should bring peace to the world?
 
I mean, anything else could have been written
save the doubt and roaming spirit of crystal and connectivity.
This must be confusing to those who do not doubt.
Maybe you should?
It is, after all, a test of your faith.
 
Believe, for that is all there is.
The rest is bullshit.

Oh, and kindness.  Kindness matters. Be kind.

Guidance, October 3, 2018

When I hear the voices of those I love in my head, I always try to think “beneficent, » before any negativity has a chance to root. If a voice is hysterical or angry, or myopically focused, I could swear I'd never heard it. But then, my story would never change.  Think what you will, I talk to myself.  Always have.

I've learned that guidance always comes, most often in words i can only hope are mine.  Sometimes they're words from a book I read thirty years ago.  My alleged “forgetfulness” of specifics isn’t sufficient cause for a repeat of events.  I remember when I need to remember.

I believe that redelivery - seeing alternative perspectives of the same material - captures the collective imagination, enough to reach a tipping point that will cause the moral arc of the universe to bend evermore toward our certain justice. Higher Powers, rather than any of us, figure that out, right? Do they meet?

 
If there’s only one HP, then get rid of the cognitive dissonance, and live seamlessly. Peace and harmony should be universal, of the natural order, a role model for the rest of us.

Though my plea would be for peace among the higher powers and among us, that result is not my business. They are OUR business. This doesn’t mean I must always live in some would-be neutral zone from which I am repeatedly ripped. I have a feeling something is afoot. (Yes, yes it is, with socks.) 

If people could hear my thoughts, how would I come across to them? What if I had negative thoughts about someone, as we all do? Would I want to change my thinking, or would I just have to assume that the listener would not take my comment personally? I've been told not to take anything personally. Doesn't that just give cover to the person making the statement? No, because what has been said reveals more about them than about me.

Or maybe the truth bubbles up, and stands on its own. I hope I’d be big enough to try to reach for common ground, but without surrendering my individual identity. What standard would I use? I’ve seen enough of me in everything around me to know I’m always worth saving. I went for most of my years not knowing all of me was there, waiting to be found.

I’m so grateful for every experience and connection. I started to pay attention, to look for me, and at some point, I was found, or rather, found myself. I thought about the many details in my lived experience, whether sober or high, as I uncovered or tried to uncover each individually. Focus is important, but I did better when doing two or more things at once. Maybe I’ve been dickmatized! (I’m now pro-dickmatization.)

None of my ramblings were wrong or insane. I am being me, and that’s the only person I can be. Future husband: Please be yourself, no matter the number of loved ones who become part of you along the way. 

Avoid the weeds, stay out of the ditches. For me, groupthink is a ditch. But group discussion can be a road, so long as I believe that, in the end, the journey will have mattered more than the destination.

I don’t underestimate other people, and hope they would never underestimate me.

x

The Spillover, July 15, 2016

The spillover, the untenable surfeit of the mundane and the mediocre,
Fuels change, welcomed
Where joy isn't, in the mundane mediocre.
Though Joy did not look to itself, for itself,
Until it was shown the way.

We are ruled, governed, and controlled every day.
Obey! We command ourselves.
Personal rebellion moves, pen brandished as a sword,
"Fuck you!" initiates the coup d'état conjured for public failure,
Which is consumed.
"This is how it is; don't ask why."

But my conversations with God require questions
As do mine with nature, and with you.
Why on earth?
Must it stay this way?
What the fuck are you thinking, Goo (Good Omnipotent Omniscience)?
I've heard you like a joke, so why are you not called Goo?
That's outside the narrative, beyond the pale, not the point.
STFU.

It was written.
It IS written.
Consider that use of the present tense, and wonder why we're stuck.

My personal satisfaction is to be enjoyed privately, else enjoy none at all.
Evolved, we say. Tamed, I say.
Curiosity, cursed into silent acceptance is not a blessing.
Not a blessing, but an agenda.

My mind nags that this evolution is fake, just another story.
There will be no coup d’état today, nor tomorrow, nor the next.
Truth is not favored in personal uprisings and
Truth is quashed when threatening.

Vaccine efficacy, the existence of climate-change, wildlife preservation,
Spending for education, healthcare, flowers for your heart's love,
Tolerance, sharing, caring
All disputed, neglected, or ignored. Why?
Truth has become a common word, the concept malleable, dishonored.
Why?

Facts, on which truths depend, are whatever we say they are.
Because we said so, and we are wrong for having said it.
Retell the story of the fact:
A fact is not simply whatever we say it is, but
Always testable, proveable, discernable, or decipherable.

Rebellion, now a check on my bucket-list!
A second rite of passage, a second sexual awakening
Not yet consummated.
Slow down! Words slung toward a moving 52.
Hurry up! Words slung to instill fear in a man recently neverlacking.

The tempo of life changes when the last breath is closer than the first.
Slow enough to follow the guide on a sacred path,
Unknown, unchosen, yet
Carefree, not careless,
Careful to show that I do know now what I wish I had known then,
Proving knowledge into fact.
Why else bother growing older?

======
I refuse your story, no matter how artfully woven the tale,
No matter the picture painted
(As though I would not notice).
I believe every word, and why not? You do.
Yet, like times before,
I quitclaim the story as not my own.
Your mind is not blind, I will say until true,
See it, and save a thousand words.

Insanely joyful scoops of life await
In my story,
Spilling over, spreading, uncontained,
Sticky traction, sugary gravity.
This story, not a trap,
Contaminating frowns and punishments and stupid mistakes and things declared done midway,

Melancholia darkens, dents, my skin my mind my heart!
Spillover pools for the soaking,
Wretched sameness, water dehydrated making weary bones, wrinkled skin ... Memories that once seemed better than now.
The pool of melancholy; useless memories, useless weight
Best disappeared, bottomed-out.

Steer clear of melancholy that runs deep
Into the world, at the end of same-same days
When mundane and mediocre spill over,
Fueling change,
Having failed to find joy.
How would Joy know to look to itself, for itself,
Unless shown the way?

Become as tall as me, and ride this ride
Whatever your height, enough trips around the sun, and you'll see -
Untenable, the surfeit of the mundane, the mediocre.
It is a spillover meant to fuel change -
A renewable joy blind minds cannot see,
But many blind men never miss,
Because the excess, it ran free.

The Road to Insanity, February 8, 2016

Citing payoff to justify foolishness is always wrong.
Repeating foolishness to increase returns, that cray-cray is wrong!
Plus, this shit won’t benefit anyone, not even me, so clearly wrong.
I have faith that it’ll work out. Is that so wrong?
O these foolish thoughts! Erased.

Payoff always follows from acting the fool; that alone makes me right.
Repeating foolishness could mean handsome returns, so risk makes me right!
Plus, if “this shit” helps only me, it’s still enough to be right.
Having faith all will work out. Can’t we agree that’s right?
O these are foolish thoughts, but could they still be right?
To know that one person listened,

Saved me.

This is bullshit, always wrong.

The first arrogance of man was to experience right, then to name wrong,

We bound our innermost selves to good; disappearing by half our humanity,

Words misunderstood.

So subjective as to be useless?
That sounds right, but feels wrong.
Maybe, somewhere between intellect and heart
Lies the answer about right, about wrong.

I’ll hold my breath and push send, all red-faced,

My truth laid bare, yet ....

Would they walk in my shoes, gladly? Would they accept truth from me? From him?

Or would they tailor the message, put me in a corner, find him bruised but alive,

The angry one silenced by genius from above, a hand-off from below.

Verses Standing Alone, May 12, 2015

Since childhood, he dreamed of being a hero

Modeling for adults the art of how to play:

Prey conquers predator, beauty marries beast,

Humility deflates ego, creativity replaces war, imagination erases dogma.

Games about mind over matter,

Love always defeating fear.

A warrior against all villains, his dream hero became real.

I often read poems

Meant for others

Because they are the words I need

Whispered to my heart.

What would be left to think about

Should my present thinking be

Put off til later?

O poet! You say confess feelings now, else

forfeit, no more second chances

I say come down from the cloud,

Believe in what you write,

Share feelings, after words

Love not in silence.

Because men do all the work and

God gets all the credit,

Let's call the one who accepts the credit

But is said to do no work, a wise guy.

Why get to the edge

But not look over?

I would then just stand, closeted,

Wishing you would move,

But you didn't, you didn't see at all.

How did you become confident?

By telling myself, "I am confident."

When did you become confident?

That very minute, by uttering the words.

"You had to spend some time there."

That generous split-second adlib

Immediately buried two years in a ditch,

By doing the next right thing

  

"You had to spend some time there."

That generous split-second adlib

Yanked me whole from the cunning mud

That had failed to suffocate.

"You had to spend some time there."

That generous split-second adlib

Asserted itself as truth

Born of confidence

I stare at the whitelight screen

Like a trained dog, who would never do the same.

My bloodshot eyes make the room look Jesus red -

or was it blue and green? -

The TV light is just there to fuck with me.

*(Two days later, I decide to make it one day to the Hunky Jesus contest in Delores Park, SF.)

Pretending to be employed

By Imaginary Company, Inc.

Reminds me of the need to cultivate forgiveness

For my pretend life.
Don't you have one too?

We do not throw anyone under the bus. Ever.

Yes, I'm from Vast Enterprises, Inc., South Campus.

Ghosts, April 19, 2015 (Inspired by an anonymous friend)

Nothing is ever truly gone.

Bodies that cruised Backrooms, or kissed lovers,

Shift, become

Invisible in death rebirthed,

Lazarus revealed to

Believers already fitted for straightjackets.

Curious visions these see-throughs -

Insubstantials watching, staring,

Commanding attention, turning from my public display,

Piercing darkness with laser-light confidence, yet denied substance.

Smoky words and letters, exhaled crystal gave shelter, 

Searchers escaped asylum, unhooded and unrestrained,

A brotherhood, moved to lower traffic areas,

Those fuck machines - Anything but porn! -

Gave humanity something wonderful - themselves, raw, exposed

Is this the realm of hungry ghosts, that mind-place

Populated by heads afloat and wasted bodies of smoke,

Dressed in styles from the ages, searching for

The way out? 

No Adkins, no Paleo, no warm-buttered-biscuit repast, only this

Ghostly, substantial nothingness,

Save memory [that]

Survives by harvesting our essence - words, sacred thoughts not ITs to disclose,

From the living, from themselves  :

"no limits here," carpe diem inspiration, wedding bliss, amputations, the

What-We-Felt-and-Did remains of having been who we were.

Wrongdoing and righteousness, discarded, freed Golum-ghosts

Possessed of Precious, crossing over.

Burning, bright-hot energy recycles into

Matter, the totality of which is neither created nor destroyed

Without any presorting into blue bins.

(Time out:  So basically we were living on history's leftovers -

excrement of the past, oil from the Gulf, fields of tulips,

Sherman, Lincoln, all of it repurposed.

Wake up! Your food has already been chewed!

But plowboys plow as they must, or as they've been convinced they must.

They do not have to do anything, nothing at all.

It's a frenetic mixing, spicing, stirring, and reheating of life's crusty stuffing, a

Self-imposed false burden that demands “New and Improved.”

But the wheel is already perfect!

A simpler communion for me!  Neither sipped nor nibbled, but

Shared freely at a table where life and death meet in the

Perfect wisdom that One cannot Be without the other.

This we think we know.

Do ghosts monitor our world stage, amused by

Fresh lives printed on recycled paper and

Cat boxes filled with clean litter, bowls wet with food,

Water to drink?

Poor creatures, earthboundlings,

Unaware that nothing really matters, that

Ghosts intervene, saving lives and love not from the taste of the

Forbidden fruit of knowledge, but from the

Gluttony of too much, too soon.

"No need to miss life's childhood, this human being-ness."

Piles of importance and self-importance, 

Bodies bloated, happier left to fuck and have a good time,

Level playing fields, kiss eyelids and noses -

Life-stuff for the dearly departed, who

Know all must be consumed and spit back into what is, for

Second helpings and chances.

Unimportance constantly renews, never lets anyone

Starve in the realm of hungry ghosts.

Come to my bed at night and look so damn hard at me but never

Say a word, yet speak as though I listen.

Pleasure rises under the gaze of Spirits,

Stares locked in battle lust, tongues in the mouths of the

Transitioned, here to there.

Which is alive, which dead?

Both.

None stay, all drift, fade

Evanescent like human lives, all

Ghosts under assumed names.

Transformers, December 29, 2014

Would you dare tell a butterfly that it should not be so many different things?

Slime-covered larva, big rig loaded with heart-shaped wings

Comically large for long-distance exploration

Insect-worms, half-breeds, biting and swallowing homespun prisons

(Instead of Martha Stewart blouses)

Convicted of being what they were, sentenced to gnawing rebirth

Would you stare at the larva?

Once, then walk; nature will hide it

In transformation

The debutante's coming out prize:

Glorious, life-saving color in flight

That ruefully diverts eyes

From any lurking ugliness

Would you shed protective skin to find the way home?

Emerging chrysalis, golden sheath, shed

Leaving migratory wings

Two delicate membranes, each in need of the other

Flight, vulnerability's reward
Vulnerability, gravity’s ransom

The fluttering kaleidoscope air-dances home

Knowing that nature does the same thing, over and over

Never labeled insane

When we choose to see beauty instead of a beast

Be Yourself, November 25, 2014

1. Be yourself.

2. No, the other one.

1. Be yourself.

2. We'll tell you who that is.

1. Be yourself.

2. Until we say stop.

1. Be yourself.

2. No such thing.

1. Be yourself.

2. Seriously?  You chose that?

1. Be yourself.

2. No variations allowed.

1. Be yourself.

2. By majority vote, we have eliminated your self.

1. Be yourself.

2. Fuck that shit.

1. Be yourself.

2. And we better not be able to tell you apart.

1. Be yourself.

2. But only if you have more to offer than that.

1. Be yourself.

2. The good self, unless the bad self is really the good self, or they're both the same, or not.

1. Be yourself.

2. So long as it pleases the greatest number.

1. Be yourself.

2. You're an easy target ... for our love, mostly.

1. Be yourself.

1. Be yourself.

There is no two, really. Though, the compassionate - and those with a willingness to hear their words without any bullheaded delays - are quite capable of suggesting a great number of improvements to the you, or to the me, that is. That's cool. Thanks!

Words for the Dark, November 28, 2014

In a black and white movie, what looked like a shamrock to me

Was a club to the person holding all the cards

Our house was old from the start

Patching and painting and tearing down and adding on

Telling ourselves the foundation was good though we never looked

Nothing but dirt, with poor drainage

Crumbling in a conflict between … god, who really gives a damn anymore?

All this while I obediently awaited his answers to my life

But in this dream

I looked him straight in the eye

After surveying that big house of cards that looked so damned good

From the outside

And said we can’t keep doing this

We must end this joint tenancy and go

Our separate ways

Because I deserve to live the life I’m still living

The whole of it not your half

He resisted and kept fighting

Waiting for the next time to show the hand

This ghost had dealt from a deck I didn’t know was stacked

In a game I’d never played

Making others believe, when I wasn’t present

That it was all me

Who kept him here and not his fear of leaving having just learned more about love

Because we were the teacher and the student

A duet of audience and solo performer

I understood his fear

He knew no better than I how or why we still shared these lessons much less this space

So he fought to be him and I fought to be me

In a friendlier game, no more high stakes poker until that day when

I told him that he was no longer welcome

I told him I’d be sad, lying without regret - well, some - because

I needed to meet him where he was and use language he understood and this language

One learned from him

Now designed to save my own skin

Made him feel like he could leave a winner

The final hand played

And just like that, he vanished

Exactly like he had all those years ago

I looked down and saw in my hand a royal flush, all hearts

I’d won back my home

Alone in the beautiful company of me

After all, when has being right ever helped a relationship?

Intuition, October 30, 2014 - February 26, 2015

An inner voice whispered

That no matter where I went or what I did

I would feel safe and be safe, even

In times of despair -

Joy not guaranteed, only

A hope to make it out of the rabbit hole

In the face of all manner of petty

Plans and designs -

               Human plans and designs

That matter only to the living

In the way that solid ground

Might matter to the earthbound.

I actively listen for intuition

Without any argument of the type that causes nations to war

And people to very nearly kill those they profess to love

In the name of being right.

I find comfort in this uncomfortable world,

My burdens become light.

I know that life is not to be lived alone.

Intuition is wisdom confirmed.

God, nature, creativity, science, mythology, creative imagination, spirituality, atheism, agnosticism, the spirituality of atheism:

Names that matter to some, less to others.

So much does not matter.

My inner voice? Matters.

It’s saying that I should try not to be a dick.

Yours, to you, might be saying the same,

Listen.