They called him "the Emperor of Pain," the they who didn't know his real name, a name that was comically disjointed to his reputation, a name that was to this man as that gentle lisping voice is to Mike Tyson, and so they gave him that ridiculous name, and he became both more and less than what he really was.
I vibrate wariness at the approach of strangers, and have a face within my Janus repertoire that is labeled: "off-putting." An approaching stranger, having passed by those cues, will -- at some point -- realize something is off, as if I'm holding my breath 'til the conversation's end - but not that, precisely At any rate, they will yield to whatever it is, in due time. [Maybe, I seem contagiously itchy.] Remarkably, I went decades without realizing any of this. To be fair, I never get a good look at myself at the moment I'm meeting a stranger. [And, if I did, I wouldn't have the brainpan bandwidth to do anything with the information.] Now, I'm training myself to behave elsewise, but the score is still 50 years to 1.
Where we born with an infinity of lives at our feet -- chosen by how one steers all the forks in one's road? Or, are all those alleged forks false gods?
In the lunatic asylum, it's quiet after the meds round. R's mind was in the madhouse, but his body was in a lifeboat, or maybe vice versa, he couldn't tell for sure. He only knew that he was floating, and, sometimes, it was too choppy, and if life got too happy, he felt that it was fake. The open sea 's a harsh place, but no worse than the where he carried everywhere he ventured inside his dense brainpan. A fatal, futile option was selected with a button that may -- or may not -- have resided within his very soul. So thirsty and so lonely -- side-effects of something. It might have been the meds, or, perhaps, the salty air. He chose to think he wasn't bounded by a nutshell; though his brand of crazy was quiet before the storm. One day his kidneys gave out. Who could've ever imagined that such a thing could happen in such a place as that.
I am not the fallen, but the falling -- he who never hit the ground. And you may hope to know my call, but I was never there at all. I was sitting on the tower. I was dropping to the ground. I never emitted a flash of light, and never emitted a peep of sound. I am the falling, not the fallen. The one who never hit the ground.
I roam the old city, gazing at Gothic gargoyles and touching stonework made by men long since dead, wondering how I ended up in this chunk of time, rather than one in which this land was all just forest or marshland, or one in which we all wait amid the rubble to blast off to some secondary hive of humanity.
Rain sidles up in a commanding cloud -- early -- And so it waits in its cloud, like the awkward party guest who sits in his car, waiting to be fashionably late, but - not having decoded what "on-time" really means - arrives early, nevertheless.
I stare at the flowing river, and, for a moment, it seems still, as the world whips into a wild ride of vertigo, leading me to question all I believe about the still & the moving. Everything that's still is spinning, orbiting, and expanding Everyone who's still is a seven-jetted space monkey on a rocket ride.
They say hands are the hardest human part to artistically render -- to draw or sculpt or paint, causing artists to hide hands, or at least to not replace them when an earthquake or inept movers break them off. I believe them. The perfect curve is not easily attained, all those random crenulations and creases, the lumps and knuckle nubs, the veins and blemishes, all that is necessary to convey life -- be it a hard, hammer-wielding hand, or the soft suppleness of an unworked hand. Straight digits can create an uncanny valley as surely as does a rubberized face. Emotion is expressed through hands, as through faces. I heard that the straightened fingers of Olympia's left hand caused quite a controversy when Manet presented the painting, causing almost as much of a stir as the fact that she was an ashen, syphilitic prostitute. In Dream Yoga, we do reality checks with our hands, looking at the hand, looking away, flipping it over, and then looking at it once more. Doing this whenever one sees anything strange or suspect. It trains the brain, which - in sleep - shuts down its suspicious bits, to take note of the nonsensical. If you're awake, you just see your same old [underestimated] hand. If you're asleep, you won't see five perfectly curved fingers, you might see an expansive fractal pattern, or a cloven, bifurcated, mitt. Even our sleeping brain can't keep track of five wriggling little digits. No wonder they give artists such fits.
In the early morning hours, a staggering drunk asked me if I were him, thinking he was looking at a mirror rather than through a glass door. I told him it was too early for such metaphysical inquiry.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 