A wolf and lamb sewn end-to-end,
thrashing down a river.
Too distracted to flee or snap,
scrambling and aquiver.
But at the bend, they wash ashore,
gasping and shivering.
A tiny pause and wolf lunges,
sheep bleating, blithering.
The writhing and the scrambling,
rolls them back in water.
Bobbing, sputtering, too panicked
to flee or to slaughter.
I bumped my knee,
and got angry.
But, oh, my word,
it seemed absurd
to be enraged
as war I waged
on the kindling I made of that table.
Go ahead, run your hand over the surface.
Stroke reality to get your bearings.
But don’t name things.
Don’t categorize.
Don’t think that because you can label and box a thing that you have it contained.
— That you’ve sealed in its essence —
You’ve just locked it in a deeper strain of darkness.
I don’t want to turn your world on its head,
let out all the lunatics and lock away the normals.
I just want to poke holes in your boxes.
Epictetus asked a man if he was free.
“I own land, can vote, and am deemed gentry.”
“But are you free?” the stoic repeated.
“Are you daft?” the man’s words came out heated.
And in that outburst the truth was revealed.
I looked through a hole in the world
to the lands that lay near beyond.
I saw the salmon glow of clouds,
and what the soot and dust had spawned —
a mighty sunset at mid-day,
a world betrayed by tides and time,
no light to feed the greens or blues,
but a bold palette from sky grime.
The boy sat upon temple steps counting mysteries,
but he lost count upon discovering that one mystery is all mystery,
and all mysteries are but one mystery.
They are the word on the tip of one’s tongue.
They are the dream unremembered that leaves a flavor in one’s brain.
They are movement glanced out the corner of an eye,
vanishing when one focuses one’s mind or eye upon it.
They are the unknown, but vaguely felt.
They are an itch amid thoughts, offering nothing to scratch.
faintly jingling anklet bells
jarred by lightly padding feet
accompanied by the jangle
of arms bejeweled in bangles
can’t silence be trusted?
each movement must be accounted for?
bells are put on cats to track their mischief
bells are strapped to livestock
so shepherds can track rogues & runaways down the valley
but why bedeck oneself in bells?
is silence more dread than sound?
silence is stillness is potential energy winding tighter
perhaps lost potential is a sacred tragedy,
begging one question:
while squirrel away nuts never to be consumed?
A schism ripped inside my mind.
You could picture a tear in a piece of paper.
But, that would be a lie.
The message on either side of torn paper can be reconciled.
Two halves of a page = one message —
disrupted but not beyond restoration.
When the tear is in the mind,
the further down the page one reads,
the more disjointed the message becomes,
until transformation becomes inversion,
and what one side of the page says is opposite the other.
“You must be reasonable!”
“Reason be damned!”
“It will be your down fall!”
“I have no further left to fall!”
Oh, they sang about the world’s end —
felt it must be around the bend,
but the world, itself, was a stinkin’ lie.
False choices: live free and do or die.
Dying was always one option,
but like birthing or adoption,
choice assumed life and death could be controlled
like alchemists turning lead into gold.
eyelid weight
like snow accumulates
to avalanche
what world is this
where doors are portals
through space-time?
sleepless, and
processing drops to
dial-up speed
your meeting
is more sedating
than telling
the world blurs
walking insomniac
slows to zero
