find bliss reading a book in a roomfull of people eager to make your acquaintance
Ian M
Posts: 123
1a) Room only for those who can stand on their own two feet:
Theirs alone can be self-assurance in an asserted monopoly
Forcing the rest of us to spectate
Shifting a nervous weight from one foot to the other
Craning our necks to get a better view
Wearing glasses can really effect the way you see the world
The intellect becoming addicted to its own myopia?
My Opiates…
I used to pick up interesting things off the street
To adorn my dwellings with meaningful stories
Now I use my senses only to judge if something is amiss
Little more than timetables and the tang of carbon from burnt toast
I have few valuable things to say of myself
Even when pressed.
How foolish: the anonymous man
Desperately trying to run from his fame?
There’s a stampede
Dust rising from each hoof
And its direction is not haphazard
As it might at first seem:
No.
Each tail is a flail in the face of the core of being.
b) Sorrow will be your ticket to the other side
All will pass through its first portal
As for the other, none can tell
But it will be a necessary transition
For all who wish to continue
At the present time there are many who have made of the word a purgatory from which they can see no escape.
These cannot entirely be blamed for their misfortune.
As the cultural support for the adventure they would take
Is just not present.
And it is true to say that they are trapped, and for what (to them) must have seemed a long time
But it never was, nor could it ever be an Eternity.
There are the numerous and ever-swelling ranks of the Waiting
And not before long, the pressure they apply will combine with circumstance to unhinge the rusted gates that block their path.
Addiction never relinquishes its hold:
To cling on in desperate need is all it knows to do
We all have a hidden face that we do not acknowledge
And our addiction is to the turning away,
To the pretense that the masks we wear are the only true representations of who we really are
Well, as mister man at the towns’ end has sung it:
“Face the face, Got to face the face”
When will it be your turn?
2 Certainty intones in tones of Certainty
A question is the child in an adult reality…
of its own devising
How many more stories must a man of 40 have
Than one of a mere twenty?
And what will the difference be in their manner of relating?
One will guard his secrets more loosely than the other
But he may or may not reveal his reasons for doing so.
A man of half the age must listen more attentively
Than the man of double…
But this is often not the way
For neither knows any better;
Neither knows the difference or any different
Four tunes are hummed in awe of Fortune
All are made fools in the fullness of Time.
3a) and I haven’t stood resolute and tall since the age of four
and so tired of being polite in this land of loveable dinosaurs
truly the death of the spirit comes in the finality of one’s fixed abode
the only way to stay abreast of this life situation
is to be abroad at morning and evening, subject to the intelligent rhythms
of your falling feet, amused by your predatory understanding of the other creatures
in flight before you, yet humble in the role of conqueror
forfeit because that man you were would have become arrogant and complacent;
would have been unaware at the time of his undoing
with the undoers coming from beyond his sphere of usual influence
from over the hills, in other words.
so I traverse my path on the bicycle of a child with anger
at the frustrations of our modern modes of transport
these happy contours I feel beneath the regular bump
of a flattening rear wheel
riding away from the misery of a curse
that stagnates in the tepid ditties of comfort,
never asks an original question
(at best performing a show of tiresome irony)
and at the last comes to you begging for a little more of your essence to complement their stock
Theirs alone can be self-assurance in an asserted monopoly
Forcing the rest of us to spectate
Shifting a nervous weight from one foot to the other
Craning our necks to get a better view
Wearing glasses can really effect the way you see the world
The intellect becoming addicted to its own myopia?
My Opiates…
I used to pick up interesting things off the street
To adorn my dwellings with meaningful stories
Now I use my senses only to judge if something is amiss
Little more than timetables and the tang of carbon from burnt toast
I have few valuable things to say of myself
Even when pressed.
How foolish: the anonymous man
Desperately trying to run from his fame?
There’s a stampede
Dust rising from each hoof
And its direction is not haphazard
As it might at first seem:
No.
Each tail is a flail in the face of the core of being.
b) Sorrow will be your ticket to the other side
All will pass through its first portal
As for the other, none can tell
But it will be a necessary transition
For all who wish to continue
At the present time there are many who have made of the word a purgatory from which they can see no escape.
These cannot entirely be blamed for their misfortune.
As the cultural support for the adventure they would take
Is just not present.
And it is true to say that they are trapped, and for what (to them) must have seemed a long time
But it never was, nor could it ever be an Eternity.
There are the numerous and ever-swelling ranks of the Waiting
And not before long, the pressure they apply will combine with circumstance to unhinge the rusted gates that block their path.
Addiction never relinquishes its hold:
To cling on in desperate need is all it knows to do
We all have a hidden face that we do not acknowledge
And our addiction is to the turning away,
To the pretense that the masks we wear are the only true representations of who we really are
Well, as mister man at the towns’ end has sung it:
“Face the face, Got to face the face”
When will it be your turn?
2 Certainty intones in tones of Certainty
A question is the child in an adult reality…
of its own devising
How many more stories must a man of 40 have
Than one of a mere twenty?
And what will the difference be in their manner of relating?
One will guard his secrets more loosely than the other
But he may or may not reveal his reasons for doing so.
A man of half the age must listen more attentively
Than the man of double…
But this is often not the way
For neither knows any better;
Neither knows the difference or any different
Four tunes are hummed in awe of Fortune
All are made fools in the fullness of Time.
3a) and I haven’t stood resolute and tall since the age of four
and so tired of being polite in this land of loveable dinosaurs
truly the death of the spirit comes in the finality of one’s fixed abode
the only way to stay abreast of this life situation
is to be abroad at morning and evening, subject to the intelligent rhythms
of your falling feet, amused by your predatory understanding of the other creatures
in flight before you, yet humble in the role of conqueror
forfeit because that man you were would have become arrogant and complacent;
would have been unaware at the time of his undoing
with the undoers coming from beyond his sphere of usual influence
from over the hills, in other words.
so I traverse my path on the bicycle of a child with anger
at the frustrations of our modern modes of transport
these happy contours I feel beneath the regular bump
of a flattening rear wheel
riding away from the misery of a curse
that stagnates in the tepid ditties of comfort,
never asks an original question
(at best performing a show of tiresome irony)
and at the last comes to you begging for a little more of your essence to complement their stock
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
We’ve lost so much of our youth to apathy and the preachings of regrettable inevitability that it no longer practically matters how old we are. We’re all the battle-weary, blearily sleep-deprived soldiers in someone else’s war – like Joseph Heller’s bomber pilots we are inches away from death every time we go up – the oldest we’ll ever be.
I had a strange conversation with a female duck in the park, on an impulsive late-night walk under heavy-laden grey.
She was one of a posse, and the only one not to take to noisy water upon my approach.
I stood there just watching her for a bit, and she did the motionless same in a black silhouette against the sky’s ripple between the willow-tree’s overhangings in the water. Twitching her head once in a while to get perspective on the passive-aggressive intruder. Now _that’s_ a strange meeting of two designs – one for an alpha predator straight forward with depth perception and sensitivity to movement in mind, the other, side on for the prey’s spatial awareness should the need for flight come apparent from any sudden corner.
In the assumption that I had no trust to gain, only relative distance to respect, I neared with confidence, first sitting on an intermediary bench, then moving to stand by her side at the edge of the bank.
Having at first limited my communication to the odd reassuring grunt or tuneless hum (as though to myself), I began talking of some things that had been doing their own preying on my mind for some time regarding the lack of humility of my own species in its own youth and arrogance: we don’t have any lumbering monsters thuddering down upon us whenever they feel like it, you see.
I spoke about the pride at our discovery that we could lord it over the rest, even to the extent of killing off our most notable enemies, or rivals in the predator’s role. How in the false name of security we had destroyed the wolves and the bears and the lions who would on occasion take advantage of the mouth-watering abundance of easy meat we had hoarded in herds for our exclusive use. How our most resonant myths were created around the image of an evil lurking over the hills and waiting to pounce on and undo us. A nightmare frame onto which the child recipients of these stories could project any distortion of their future life. A tale of demons who had no real place in the then and there, but through the constant re-telling now have a place in the here and now.
But here, the duck had decided that she had had enough, and without so much as a squawk to acknowledge the yarn I had begun to unravel before her, she leapt from the bank and flew dead straight just above the surface of the lake and off to her friends on its other side.
There were tiny bats swooping over my head. They must have been out for the twilit rains heralded by the mating insects.
Very soon the pitter-patter would caress my cheek to teach my muscles how to wince for to shake off the moisture in its droplet coagulations.
My monologue back to its own audience as before – grudgingly receptive to more talk on the enemy without, within.
4 Three walking down a street – a wavy-haired girl flanked by two guys leaning down to talk in turn, and there’s the wildest, most ecstatically delighted smile just _paved_ across her face. Her two chaperones are taking it in turns to engineer that smile and the sheer vitality bouncing from the one in their care.
And what a thankful task! As near as one could tell complete absence of self in the work undertaken as its own reward.
So beautiful.
5 courage is a dead word:
you either do or you don’t
and neither is particularly worthy of praise or blame
unless you’re singing the deeds of a dead man
I’ll give you that.
I pick up the phone once
Only to hang up immediately after the last number keyed in
This time, like so many before, didn’t make the grade
(But that doesn’t justify expulsion)
I pick up the phone a second time,
Still not sure what I intend to say to the afar-off party
But this time my fingers have decided to stay the course
And to hold firm the receiver to my ear once their duty is served
my words now:
dead to an answermachine
or alive to her surprised voice at the end of the line?
Lots of encounters with wildfowl and whatnot, on your travels. Good man.
Five little ones (well seven if you count the part b's which I stuck on to the a's because of repeating themes), not one big one. Thanks.
And also to fins, many thanks.
If I do ever get the publishers to see things my way, perhaps I could get them to put that fine marbley quote of yours on the blurb.
As for the water-fowl (are pigeons included in the category?), well once in a while one does get a little tired of the exhaustive focus on human issues and interests. Oh and the odd sunset here or there for good measure.
djernowotamine?