Seven Sages were spared the sickness
of perceiving the possibility of perfection,
a "perception" of the patently impossible --
in truth, just dim and flimsy imaginings of mind,
and, so, they didn't mind the inevitable
flaws of the human world.
language is liquid;
meaning meanders.
in the long-run,
meanings are meaningless,
untethered and adrift
in an ocean of possibility.
[political words' meanings
don't drift, but tumble with
whiplash violence through
a desert of the possible.
But, predictably, the first variation
of a political word is the exact
opposite of its original meaning.]
Be my god
and I'll be yours,
and we can make
each other miracles.
Are we Makers?
Yes. We are!
And damn good ones at that.
We can turn a planet
into plastic trinkets.
We can use every last morsel
to make stuff:
bright & shiny
or
loud & colorful.
We can even make ideas:
good or bad,
true or false,
but always 100% believable.
We're the ones who invented Evil.
Yes, that whole toxic notion
is brought to you by us.
And Left-Wing & Right-Wing...
It used to be just a bunch of people
trying their best to understand
and to get by.
But we built mental / conceptual corrals,
corrals good enough that we
could no longer recognize each other
as part of the same species.
We are Makers.
How is being hit by a hard word different from being hit by a brick or a bat? To burn, the spark of a hard word must find some kindling inside the recipient, elsewise it can't ignite. If someone points at me and screams: "YOU ARE SUBPAR AT ALGEBRA!" I remain unwounded. [I'd like to say that it doesn't burn simply because it's true, but the truth or falsity of hard words is -- perhaps sadly -- not a major ignition factor. The kindling is a thing that sits inside one -- something that makes one care, probably a complex mélange of factors. The truth of hard words? That is an outside factor.] Even if I were to discover that, to the person who issued the insult, there is no greater disparagement than to cast aspersions upon a person's middle school-level mathematics competency, I would remain unwounded. If I were to feel any sort of way about uncovering that knowledge, it would be to feel sort of bad for the person who issued the taunt. Now, how to burnproof one's soul, that is the question?
Scarecrow, n. - that which exists
solely to evoke fear.
There are so many scarecrows:
global - the end of the world
as we know it.
societal - the end of the tribe
as we know it.
individual - scarecrows of the soul.
Scarecrows lead us into the worst
versions of ourselves:
The one who's stressed, and mean
because of it.
The one who imagines conspiracy
around every corner.
The one who sees threat in every
change & in every difference.
The one who wants an orderly world
of people just like themselves -
familiar, cozy, and lacking surprises.
Scarecrows even march us off to war,
and war should be the scariest state
imaginable --
death doled out on a random basis.
War should be the scariest, but terrible certainties
spur less fear than any old uncertainty.
What tears away in leaving,
when one has grown into:
- a person?
- a place?
Can one grow into someone
(or somewhere) such that
one is fused in a way that
won't allow separation
without leaving a sacrifice?
Maybe one can't help but be
webbed into some wider world,
and can't help but leave
pieces of oneself littering the Earth.
"in the trenches" what a circuit that phrase has taken: from the Western Front of World War I, where the trenches were cold, claustrophobic places of mud and creeping mustard gas; harbor & prison for shell-shocked souls at wit's end to become used by businesspeople & politicians to describe metaphorical fights... but there are no metaphorical fights, they should be called metaphorical games games have winners & losers, but not the living & the dead & the dying & the disabled & the permanently disturbed it feels like a frivolous bit of linguistic creep as fighters now stand on cold, wet feet in muddy trenches in Eastern Ukraine talk of salespeople or grassroots political organizers as "in the trenches" misses the point that everyone in trenches is a soldier -- be they a salesperson in the metaphorical "trenches" of calmer days.
Read at the speed
of absorption,
(not consumption.)
Sit with the ephemera
that boils off upon
each read.
It will be different
the next time.
Don't memorize.
That hammers it into
some dark, heavy pit
that it was never meant to be --
a thing that sinks in water
and plummets from the air.
Hammering cleaves its wings,
and it becomes hopeless in the flow --
staggering like a deranged drunk
in the dark.
When you read it,
only read it.
Don't anticipate.
Be surprised.
The water churns --
no smooth laminar flow.
Each molecule fights its way
down the mountain.
Sloshing up into evaporation, or
dragged, swirling, across
the rocky bottom.
This is no mighty, muddy river
in a gentle glide.
It's pretty chaos;
just the kind I'm used to.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 