A Galilean Transformation (Perspective), March 26,
2014
This is a record of an
imaginary and unsolicited intervention, not of the 12-step type.
It begs for a mirror,
with places for teacher/students on both sides of the glass,
Ready to leap god knows where,
Grateful that the
magic of chaos is that it resolves into order.
I was too sensitive, weak, spread thin by ideas and opinions
owned by others, for sale.
I was told I had split apart,
each side entrenched on opposite sides of the mirror, in a
family feud.
Two selves damaged, angered, and enraged, glowed red
with the
pain of a love assaulted,
or a delusion dissipated.
I was told these things about this epic sibling rivalry.
Then I was told that love can do what love does, bridging divides.
The problem and the solution came prepackaged, custom-fit not
included.
I went to bed eyes
strained
I had been unable to
blink from dry eyes
No water, no food, no
break
Mix Atripla with white
powder and print yourself a ticket to funky town.
That’s what they told
me, accurate by omission.
I look up at the ceiling at night
and romantically imagine star-spirits bouncing around, like
cutouts from Matisse’s Jazz,
pieces of memory, irregular, but
more alike than different.
The patterns appear inside closed eyelids,
doses of bright light having bombarded the retina for an unhealthy amount of time,
creating tiny dry rivers of blood ink that scratch designs
inside the thin membrane.
These cut-outs, these patterned spirits, must be more.
I need them to be.
They must be guides for the soul, in case of death.
I hold tight to this explanation to dam the madness pouring
into my eyes.
Instead they are an April Fool's reward for surviving
a make-shift reprogramming worthy of any successful ex-gay ministry.
Its words about wisdom (there are none about knowledge) seem
more selfish than wise,
taking all the idea-space, traumatically and bluntly
and relentlessly,
because a problem (they) created demands a solution and their track record speaks as eloquently as a mute.
Hindsight will have its turn if it isn't told to shut up.
The Navajo two-spirit is already on the
move, soul searching.
Not split apart like they said but rather two
wholes
separated by a physics that divides light from darkness,
two
equals forced apart by men playing the role of an absent god.
Seeing and truth-telling - both tasks befitting kings,
and writers.
Lies told become my truth, and you, a fool.
Do not get naked, leaving fear on my floor, pointing and calling it mine so that you will be right.
Being right has never helped a relationship.
I am a man and you can have neither my space nor my time, nor any
part of me,
though I do not own any of these as you claim to own many things
and people and
innocence,
which love can only know but never own.
Yet, this faggot (took back the word) is free while you are enslaved by chains
not always worn by you.
These chains are borne in secret, sub rosa.
This cock-sucking man-boy is chained only by choice,
never by the yellow gossip spread round by your many jaundiced lips.
Grasp at integrity in a process that feels like rape
if you want freedom from their doings and a dulling of the sharp edges of the remaining brokenness -
which their hubris keeps in focus, to keep me in line.
Oh! To be as perfect as they -
the great bearers of Inconvenient Spiritual Principles Ignored.
Speak of good and bad - that will distract from the pain of right decisions.
But the real pain was only to one person, over and over and over,
So, excuse yourselves.
Freedom, your Highnesses, is not yours to grant, or bestow, or reveal, to the poor, poor unenlightened.
It is mine to claim and exercise either peacefully or
ferociously,
as you wish and as I abide.
Keep your hands off this fierce feminist.
And do not label him with the ephemeral truths of a former boy who knew not his own person,
but knew only to fear and then to react, as would any series of chemical equations, subtracting from a greater good.
To all who play the game: Fuck you! I love you!
This is the anger the right-sized must endure.
I hired a friend to
take out a half wall
That was partially
hiding my living room.
With true craftsmanship, he replaced the wall:
Three metal poles
laced with two sets of five cables each, evenly spaced.
This created a grand
staff for music.
I plan to hang notes
and maybe clefs and time signatures, and keys
made of sheet metal or
card stock or magnets.
The interior wall felled,
I turned to music, which is trust,
and which would keep at bay those other protective, healing places
- monstrous for those who never get "it" and feel crushed into the you-fit-here-blue-box
that comes in only one size, with (mistaken) promises of stalking and eye-rolling.
They know this because they have time, while the others have not-yet success.
So be it - just more collateral damage from warring spirits.
The floating, empty staff reassured me that loneliness, like
music,
lives on a canvas of silence, anticipating melody.
I am alone, ready for an original tune
I write, and
rewrite, new melodies for each becoming.
Rules of composition be damned, this is ad lib, structured improv.
I no longer intend to hear forever the music of the now and here.
(Later)
Stars appear in multitude,
Endless, cut only by a waterfall of rich, dripping red.
This must be the physics of delusion, but of
old behaviors or new freedoms?
A liberated man choosing whether to fear or to love, or rather
How he would love.
His truth-quest painted in ambiguous red, just asking,
On which side of the mirror do you stand?
Where is the forgettable grey,
with its meek hello and quiet
presence,
stronger than all things black and white?
Grey, the equalizer of all decisions made freely out of love,
without coercion?
This would be the grey of both/and, not either/or,
the color of blessing and damnation,
depending upon the mirror and the man.
Yet there was only red.
Many reds.
Perspective changes imagination to a nightmare,
an invitation to a warning,
a Buddhist temple to a biohazard tattoo,
A Celtic cross to a demon,
fair skin to boils,
beauty to abuse -
these mostly in reverse.
Perspective colors all lives.
(The idea that one life is worth more than any other is everything that is wrong with the world.)
Old thought softened, made malleable, inviting
more shades, vibrancies, meanings, interpretations.
Red is sustaining, mindful love,
Red is intense physical connection.
Red is the color of a booty-call, the lipstick on a pig,
the twitching lust of a tweaker remembering cock and muttering what needs to be said and
using words you fed him in order to protect you.
Red is the color for sharing in groups, for spreading love like seed.
Red is intriguing and satisfactory
and full of adventure and promise and truth;
It invites companionship for a night and
elbows out loneliness.
Red is a wild weekend and
a lifelong romance.
Red drenches teacher/students on both sides of the mirror,
a force of mind, rich with perspective.
Red effortlessly spills over the furthest
horizon, creating spaces for new paths trudged.
Red offers affirmation after an anonymous fuck with a man also made for loving;
Cockfights do not preclude dates, nor love after sex,
as do lies and deceit, which rot all beauty.
Red quiets without killing the imperious urge, the beast that never
goes away, the life-force.
Red is a visionary third-eye giving a positive thumbs-up, sometimes without a faceful of scorn.
Red is a reminder to see truth, speak truth, and be truth.
Yours, mine, ours? Yes, if it is the one fluid truth.
Red is patient, undemanding, and forgiving,
but loathes a good heart being played a fool.
It is Sagan's star-stuff of
spirit, and of affectionately pursed, wet lips, ready
For You, and now, for Me,
Apart.
We are separated by perspective and by personal conviction.
I have never been any other man than the one you've always known,
though you may have seen my shadow when made to dance,
as puppeteers do.
