a brief soft shoe shuffle for Emily Dickinson in 12/10 time . . .
nothing I say may I consider worthy lasting beyond the utterance
within the context of this life of little consequence as living an
eternity daily mindful the time before time became remembered
seeking the time after time forgotten from which words are minted
spoken through me not mine alone but the property of The Author
120517 05:52
International Chartreuse Distress wearing Life Vest a polar bear in The Salton Sea should I become rather than leave impossibly the company of God
And in the wandering and wondering leaving behind beloved's one after another through their death or mine to them through attrition triage or parse the final definition is key to who judges whom as worthy or not intimacy
In childhood as an inconvenient convenience to all and sundry loving them as a child or pet I came to sense myself in a Fun House Horror Mirror Maze Carnival of becoming what was said and expected of me faithfully Rubber Child disposable
Defining meaning of life changes moment by moment escaped the pressure cooker of dependence once begun the journey is its own goal since death’s democracy has no fear within it and the hammer blows of suffering forge the sword and plow shear of self become
What?
Whole participant in the collective consciousness that the old ways are too old the definitions worn thread bare institutional lies enslaving me no more becoming a we an us responsible
Suffering experiencing deeds become loves salvation through love in love with All Of Us
120518 01:44 family departures
A skip and drag routine intervenes between my times at La Posada and otherwise not there; referred to generally as just hospice.
"Death is not the worst that can happen to men.” --Plato
Of death there are degrees. Some live a life uninhabited and unknown, oblivious to beginnings and endings. Others fret and sweat the small stuff attempting to control what is beyond the ken of man. And of those in the glide path going Home I watch since it is my job to make sure they are not in other forms of jeopardy imperiled.
And in them I see, sometimes peace, other times distress, and then sometimes decline then the end.
In no particular order: on one hand birth the other death each in a natural order. Life long or short, really is a question of quality versus quantity. The nurse whose father was there last time was not there this time. And in the telling I was told by the one telling her father lost suddenly that day or the day before at forty. If you know the how and why of death life becomes precious beyond price.
By commission I was taught to inhabit and incarnate whatever I could know of Jesus who, to me at least, first vanquished death. Then I discovered Buddha who at the end said he longed never to return . . . and do it all over again. But that was five hundred years before AC/DC. . . . will any or all of us ever learn to walk away from our fear?
So in these closing days of my life I admire the people I’ve come to know as family those present and those absent. There is one volunteer aged eighty nine I am especially fond of. After a long absence he returned from convalescence--bladder cancer/a long dance. He was speaking to a friend who like me is close as we three are well aware. An aside, least I lead you astray: there are those very young adolescent who are part of our family who in losing their friends, pets, parents, et al, have realized a need to give comfort and succor too. Ideals impossible in an ‘ordinary’ hospital given all the political manipulations.
I called across the foyer to them both. “Curb your mouth she’s a friend.” He laughed, she giggled all three knowing his penchant and proclivity of being a curmudgeon. The “Catch 22” he was a bomber crew member flying Liberators in World War II. He, not alone, it is a privilege to be intimate with.
120518 02:41
Road Side Crosses & other markings passage
Odd this practice of remarking the place and time
Something like the crumpled wrapping paper and
ribbons littering the end of Christmas kids playing with
the boxes not the gifts
The baby pigeons beaks raised in expectation
eyes closed in sudden death first seen at four
The others friends, school mates, mothers
fathers young and old in repose open casket
Tree divided a man electrocuted by lightning
The friend crushed beneath a car on lookers gawked
blocking first responders a curiosity his eyes flashed to me
who he had introduced to the first sex worker who when I wanted
to talk said “Let’s Mount UP!” Oh well such is life glorious no shame or blame
120518 03:38
Intrigued by concepts pondered endlessly is the sense in which a child lives out the unlived life of their parent. Or. In my case the unlived lives of those of mine who lived and passed before me, the aborted brother/sister or other child or children also.
I am at times furious with my father or Father of All of us and would contend with either or both together that i finally know myself loved or wanted at all.
Recall a moment in bliss floating upon an inter tube oblivious that I was at vast distance upon Long Island Sound from safety. And he my Dad swam to me in peril of his own life drawing me back to safety in his black knit penis revealing swim suit. . . . Oh god, he was hung like a horse. And other times alone together when he sacrificed his time to mine. In the minority yet never complete recompense the times he stood silent by while mom beat me nearly to death. Wounds, contusions, broken bones, naked standing in winter locked out can and do heal but those slanders defamations and denigrations never really go away though forgiven for/from either of them.
Why me? I’ll never know fully save that in intimacy I’ve been told too many similar stories to remain silent forever oblivious the pain of others made Banzai Trees contorted.
Runes, ruins, myths, omens, portents signs upon walls and dreams crushed pennies saved from city pavements spied speckled like the stars above in night adored. I seek clues about their legacy to me as a bequest from their parents reaching back into prehistory. A place wherein the unknowing name given was passed on and on to me to finally lay at rest this heritage of suffering.
She said we are no more important than a grain of sand--thus found Blake.
He said read Kafka and I better know both he, myself and all others who purport to serve . . . and now weep for their gifts to me both the parents and The Parent(s) of us all. Rapture or rupture I’m ready to end this ecstasy of playing with words.
. . . there is no end to/of love everything is a portal to something else and death no end rites of passage journey on infinity
. . . perhaps not so odd the though he wanted me sans clothes when together in the end our travels together mom however loathed being a woman and would flame me when I ogled her--less the last time before the white gild handled refrigerator coffin buried
“Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.”--Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)
“This life of separateness may be compared to a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning.”
--Buddha
120518 07:21
in the best of times i say ‘nothing is for naught’
in the worst of times I ask “WHY ME?”
& maybe at the 10,000th incident i receive answers worthy of record maybe not
