chocolate token
sweet
offering left at
enticing feet
humble in its
obscurity
it’s just a token
nothing more
taken
eaten
boundary redrawn
entitlement ensues
light shifts quality
boldness follows
access granted
protest ignored
touch unasked
protest ignored
contract completed
inevitable after consummation
of bait
That tempest beaten place
where water meets the land.
Winds blow unceasingly.
Words fight to be heard here.
Motion is hampered by terrain and the gale.
Ever in motion
Ever the same.
The bone embracing roar
The Earth’s unsubtle reminder
That she IS water and so much bigger than you.
You are just a puny creature of the land
Your experience not a witness to Her true majesty.
Your thoughts, your words, hunger
Are a footprint in the sand
Nature is not solid it’s fluid
Both above the surface and below
Flowing, going, churning
Longer than anyone can know.
Looking forward to the weekend of the soul
This time and place of ease
Where the off duty sign hangs swinging on the the garden gate
Where time ceases to matter in the few places it still exists
Like spring, or budding or first frost
Anchored into the spiral of time
Yet flexible in it’s specificity
Here but an unpinnable now
Animal time
Soul time
Lost in the space between
The individual and society
Focus is peace found in
Unfocusing
The clouds roll and the hands move
Each to rhythms beholden to no one
But themselves
Their patterns and workings create
The weather and the structure of what is to come
The solitude is essential
The safety of space
The crowded loud echoing
Hustle bustle never ending chaos
Of humanity bouncing painfully off itself
Leaves me hungry
Feeling detached
just a little held apart.
Not quite touching anything
not with my body
not with my mind
gently sliding past everything
not passing through
no phantasm this
but somehow slipping aside
static repulsion with a frictionless grace
but completely disabling
my ability to attach
or connect.
the magic didn’t happen
not this year
the fairy dust supplies have run dry
when told of the situation
the decision was made
to let the magic die
the seeds planted over all these years
never took root
when the efforts stopped the magic did too
even frogs will leave the dry well
there was no clapping
no cheering
and now the husk of all that dreaming
can blow away
disappear
You don’t owe me anything,
Though you left before I was ready.
My affection for you does not change,
My admiration of your accomplishments is steady and solid,
And some of your accomplishments are just being who you are.
Your work left unfinished,
Your house unattended,
Echoes where you once stood,
Hopes left as hope,
Dreams dissipated unanchored,
Somedays left for another life.
This chapter has ended and I go on and you do not.
You still don’t owe me anything.
Thank you for sharing the ride while you were here.
There is no smell like the nothing smell of freshly fallen snow
There is on sound like the muffled sound of freshly fallen snow
The only smell you smell
the only sound you hear
is the bullshit you brought with you
now you can see it for yourself
most of what you carry is someone else’s
put it down
Play in the snow
My depression is not depression
it’s anger.
Notice the difference now.
You can’t medicated away anger.
I Refuse to die for it, too.
Refuse to give up because I might hurt someone’s feelings or sensibilities.
Refuse to give up after coming so far.
Refuse to give ground on my truth.
If my truth is based in lies?
Why is that??
Certainly not for me.
Lies are never efficient.
People forget lies might change a story,
but not the evidence.
Lies leave evidence, too.
If you lied to me and I believed you,
you might have forgotten the truth.
Repurposed it,
built over everything that was
so no one would ever find it.
That’s not usually what happens though.
Now that I believe you,
you are left with that gap in our stories.
Two truths and a lie.
The burden of that gap lies with the liar.
The believer doesn’t know it’s there.
Though the evidence, the reality
affects them both.
This burden, this gap, becomes a place that can no longer stand
spotlight of scrutiny.
It grows stagnant, poisonous.
It’s directional existence will put a wedge between us.
A place we cannot go.
For a reason only the liar knows.
There will be evidence for the believer,
The changed subject,
change of mood, change of plan.
They will see the touchy subject,
and often avoid it out of convenience, too.
But it doesn’t go away.
Even if I believe you,
the lie is still a lie.
It will poison our relationship, but not me.
It will poison your wellbeing, but not mine,
except that your wellbeing affects mine.
Me wanting to help you deal with suffering you caused yourself,
by lying,
that compassion, that love,
that you have to keep at arms length to protect the lie.
The secret, I, who believes you cannot see,
but clearly you suffer from.
Your panic at my kindness will blindside me.
Your shift from adoration to contempt will become permanent.
You will blame me for believing you,
more than you blame yourself for lying.
And I will just witness. All. This. Pain.
Bridging the gap between what must be done and what is known
requires a leap of faith.
Belief in the Oracles while trusting that oracles have an impractical point of view.
Their worlds are vague and myopic.
They see what they see but they don’t always know how to talk about it.
They live life outside events so they can observe them.
Those that move through the world feel differently about it than that.
Oracles speak to us in a language that makes perfect sense to them,
but is unanchored in a doer’s experience.
Miscommunication is inevitable.
Oracles speak the truth, but it is their truth alone.
Wisdom and action lie in the overlap of their world and ours.
This calculation is not for everyone.
The prophesy may not be for you.
And what a lonely life to be the observer of ages.
Knower of patterns
Suggester of paths
Clear vision requires distance, patience.
Oracles can never be in the thick of things.
Life must pass them by.
Point of view held apart by its very nature.
Solitude a necessity of the role.
Remember that when you make the arduous climb to their outpost
when you think about scoffing at an offering at their feet
when you complain that the prophesy makes no sense
when you remind them,
often to their face,
that the visit there was a waste of time
They hold themselves apart so they can see what you cannot.
A thankless job
A lonely task
A sacred trust and vocation
It is their job to observe and speak their truth.
Making sense of your own perspective,
That’s your own job.
You say I’m spineless.
I agree.
I am an octopus.
I can fill in all the cracks.
Make you smooth if I want to
I can change my shape, change my appearance at will.
I can be what I need to be.
I am agile and flexible.
Curious and adventurous.
I am strong.
I am fast.
I am gentle or ruthless at my choosing.
I keep my own counsel.
If I’m here I want to be here.
I can distract you in a flash and be gone.
You see my cunning as deceit, but I am just me,
All the shapes of me.
My core is the same no matter what shape I appear.
You meant it as an insult.
Spineless
It is not.
It is just a different way of being.
You can look into my alien eyes and think I’m so different.
Just because you have a spine.
Big Thoughts in Our Little World 