what would I give?

To myself I seem, ofttimes, too pompous or not substantial enough: insubstantial. Then supercilious, a scrivener, scribbler, dilettante, defacer of public toilet stalls; furtive, fervid, fetid, frivolously fanatic secrets boldly told.

Absent playing with words, I'd simply die of boredom, having no resources to go forth and continue photographing the world at large. Which, oddly now, I consider poetry all by itself: wordless. And at that I am ready moment by moment to step off the stage becoming dust in the surrounding high mountain desert here.

So this is a sincere thanksgiving for those who read my wanderings.

There is within me a balance between joyous laughter and grief, crossing the chasm of unending chaos, without balance pole or thin wire, nothing but air. This, the time we mutually inhabit. The Ark of Earth with no trustworthy leadership visible; no captain--all crew.

Dearly beloved, hear me clearly, I seek no sympathy; or memory of anything, save yourselves. Or. Better. More Better Yet. Savior yourselves.

Accustomed to silence I did not trust it as praise for prayer until The Gettysburg Address. Add, I do pray, not for me now, but all of us. As Horace said; "He has not lived badly whose birth and death has been unnoticed by the world."

Sensate in all things sensual; especially those erotic. In converse with my male mentor regarding iced coffee, I mentioned in passing that the wonder of having it delivered by Big Brown were those nubile young women whose posteriors I'd love to fondle given they were wearing nylon or satin panties. Well. I lie I'd take them any way they'd allow, just the sight alone is sufficient once in a while.

My point? Merely it is well that so few, if any I know, read me and slap me silly. Imagining had mom caught me with her panties I'd been long dead before now. . . . However that was in the “Good Old Days” before clothes dryers. She'd send me out to retrieve them occasionally from the backyard clothes tree. Did she notice me slavering, eyes spinning like cherries in a slot machine?

Despite my depravity, fetishes, celibacy, all things feminine, these remain the very best days and years of my life.

130424 01:53 MDT

I seem to be wandering randomly in the penny arcade of literature trying this game and that voice. Awoke thinking finally that nothing is all one or the other but both in varying degrees; wonders never cease.

I adore vernacular speech: zoot suits, a child of my time, branded by dad's references to his youth and Big Band Days. Wondering betimes, now and then, did my birth abort his. In his best moments recounting those he admired, if not actually envied, ambition seemed his fall. For in all he told me was measured “Good, Better, Best.” By that rule I did hear and see life for decades afterwards. Until now, when in all voices, good or ill, I hear a longing for something greater than the self who speaks, or acts, painting a self-portrait for this moment, a blink, considering all of creation.

We seem woven into a single tapestry of stories, all who I meet, yet more so, some within my neighborhood. She asked that I take her for pie, being her favorite; her son is a published poet of some reputation. I said yes and when returning home she looked at the stars above and said; “in 40 Million years our solar system will merge with that one” pointing.

Early in John 8 Jesus is described writing in the sand with a finger. I weep now as I did upon first reading now more affirmed my truth: love is preemptive while laws are remedial and only temporary. All things and people in their time and no other?

I hear music differently now with my own heart's hearing. So too the faces and places I traverse sensing being written upon air; we the dust of creation and stars mixed with water as mud coming from and returning home always.

I know nothing of how this came to pass, the journey from placental sea to placental stars, knowing an unspeakable peace; joy everlasting.

Being by nature eclectic, gloriously so, I will wander from pinball to fortune teller eying the posteriors of passing women wondering cotton or satin? Laughing always with my eyes. An old toad croaking.

What incites me most, is not the exterior but interior of a woman; her mind and heart.

At birth I was expelled from the placental sea of tranquility? into chaos. Of mother I can only say, from then forward, exiled, the only thing I could touch of her were her panties; absent of herself--of course. She was until quite recently a mystery, volatile, mercurial; confessing, later on, wonder that at two and a half I touched her cheek and wept inconsolably. My fetish, common amongst men, like most fetishes incurable. Worse is distrust.

Leering between worsted thighs around skirts I thought him only a painter describing the starry night starry skies . . .

“If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done.” - Vincent Van Gogh (The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to his Brother, Theo 1872-1886)

. . . fancy that, I still have both ears and unlike Beethoven at the end can still hear, no longer thinking Anais Nin and Henry Miller merely pornographers.

Dear God! Why does it take so long to become fully alive?

. . . born of the stars returning

Home at last

free

130423 11:52 MDT what would I give?

© 2013 by Jack Spratt – All Rights Reserved