put your brain in the microwave!

'If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.'
@ http://www.brainpickings.org/
put your brain in the microwave!

responsibility @ Parabola

previously

Once thought of, or felt, self-love seemed, to me, furtive, masturbatory and shameful. Yet now realized, as all I am to myself. Otherwise a life lost in adaption to the expectations of culture; a greater shame have I for the latter.

I adore, so, these stolen hours before dawn; candle burnt both ends middle melting. The silence. No one stirs and nothing heaves but the sea slowly snoring; rippled mirror of eternity merging the stars within both. For a time I am both sailor and strider. A match briefly flicked & flown extinguished gasping, tssssing, cold submersion.

At the hour of awakening, played Aeolian, the threads of all that was, is and will be played upon the winds of creation. Woven a tapestry beyond my keen affirmed unfolding.

Robed in dawn, covered with stars, she, Mother Mary, invited me into her pulsing pink grotto home silently. Twice. I have yet to see her face beneath the hood shadowed seeing her in all women now.

I’m guessing here, between this and that site, 30,000 hits?! And what I said cannot be unsaid. Still wondering, wandering within, had I not written for me alone; notes of a life unfolding anonymously.

Goggle, ogle, gape remembering Can Can on Broadway at twelve, drowning in Vincent’s paintings, by the way Happy Birthday, retrospective at the Met and several prints haunting my adolescent bedroom by mom placed mementos graven

None of this is about me, but us, what holds the stars in their courses, for now at least. Creation is real, with or without: observation, discernment, judgment . . . The good, bad, grotesque, ecstatic of it all available; should only you ask, or knock upon the door of your unknowing.
Fear.
Terror, actually, for me was finding myself unworthy of life; merely that which we generally take for granted. Worse was the specter of insanity . . . add . . . and more true of me than I generally accept the knowing of; finding an excuse to live another day. In some sense longing for an authority to tell me that I was okay.

It works for me that I was in error seeking a woman to mirror me as well, whole, capable. Not a failure as male, father, lover, husband. More importantly -- as a person. Being that way left me owned, like a pet, or used as a convenience. Always subordinate, inferior; an inconvenience.

19:53

There is a point of expansion, departure, acceleration achieving exit speed; a voice of one’s own. My reverence for others, mostly women, slays me again and again . . . I cannot, I refuse to again be a wooden figure in someone else’s doll house.

. . . could it be, Mary that is, who I see when I look into a mirror?

130330 02:53 previously
© 2013 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

illusions illumined

Forgotten, until this moment, the waining of my enthusiasm, and ability, to love a woman as only a man could or should. Is the simple sense of how it never gave more than a fleeting pleasure for afterward was always the question; “did you put the garbage out?”

Women.

Astonishing!

So pragmatic . . . riddled with love’s darts and little swimmers, of need she must be.

. . . add, for me, it was never a thought to be warmed of a cold November night, clammy the sea enshrouded and I near death; at any contact, flesh to flesh, save for the frenzy, I sweat. Remembering my son’s head as I prayed that God take me instead of him, the wringing wet hair in my hands. 

So odd, no excuse nor rationalization, better I’d left than stayed, for eventually I would have fled, love expressed vital instead of rigamarole/rigor mortis, same same, silence. 

“The way of a man with a maid . . . “ 

REALLY!

I can count on the fingers of one hand the few who seemed to nourish nurture one another beneficially. At that I have met hundreds if not thousands of such wed . . . rarer than genius is love and of love best friends better.

As a child I sought the mirror of love in a woman’s eyes. Disremembering that in his own home a prophet is but a fool. Now a stranger in a strange land estranged I lurch forward to whatever is to be. No stranger to myself.

Jesus is generous while Exxon is Judas . . . just conjecture, a rogue thought as I arose this happy day, good tide.

Rampant, exultant, jubilant and surprised, endlessly, these Easter and Christmas Morns reprised daily. I love too ferociously and lust less for consummation, save in this, the better good for her than me.

04:34

Witnessing death, in my arms, my children, friends by choice or chance - disease, and those I loved, especially at hospice, leaves me without fear of it for myself. Lending a sure urgency to applaud those who live yet know it not but merely exist indifferent celebrate nothing but usury.

I can lend you nothing but my curiosity, lifelong, what does resurrection mean? If nothing I can see, sense, taste, touch it seems more in particle than whole, same as was? No. Different I think for the world turns faster towards its own demise. In itself usury smothers and the meek remain suffocated. But do they? 

die!

or live forever more as did He does . . . 

and for love I would comfort those about to die but denied I am left to wander painting my thoughts upon the night for those of us who remain oblivious equally sailing the solar winds;

be well and rejoice, again I say or suggest rejoice!

. . . far be it for/from me to inflict/impose upon your slumber those amongst the living dead

130331 02:58 illusions illumined

© 2013 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

be such

true to my nature: greedy for -- love, loveliness, woman -- she sat before me in a sleeveless blouse and I undressing her with my eyes. Licking her humid armpits and wandering about in imaginary lubricity. Beautiful? No! But a nubile young woman at the apogee of her reproductive potential. And I a lecher wondered what our children might be. Laughing now at my imaginary mating; as like that of mice, not exactly recreational.

An astrologist whose service stipulated by my gay, nudist, Episcopal Priest, friend and therapist - did I mention he was? Is? A Jungian? Giving Communion on “Clothing Optional Beaches”?! In retrospect I imagine it was only in summer; for in Rhode Island, starting in November, the leaden skies seemed predominate and chilly at that ending the Hurricane Season.

Somewhere amongst my tumid lust she remarked I might be a poet and i, at that time, was standing upon the platform, one foot upon the departing train, the other firmly rooted. implying or inferred, that change was inevitable. Apparently she was well regarded. Living in Rhode Island commuting to Washington, The District of Columbia to beguile and advise our fearless leaders.

The oddest part about now compared to then: I have no identity. My name is meaningless, my history absurd, yet daily, if not hourly, I am subject to expansion becoming more transparent with each moment experienced . . . leaping light years, passing through mountains of stone, sober I become more so.

To me then and even now poetry was something out there beyond the beyond; an inconceivable icon, glorious like God unknowable and dense beyond steel . . . thinking ‘oh dear God, do I have to eat the whole thing?’

More laughter, I loved my mother so, she baked an Easter Cake in the shape of an Lamb; in a borrowed mold. The exterior was burnt to a crisp and ate the whole thing since it seemed to assuage her tears as she baked another.

Jesus! Or the idea/ideal of Him is the root of my being. And oddly seems, to not despise my rude and salacious self. The tree that I have become has many prophets of other definitions of God or the idea/ideal of “God” hopping randomly, flittering about, from limb to branch. Flapping off to far distant places returning with new definitions of what “God” is or is not: like or about.

If, as I have said of myself, I am too stupid to live, as ignorant as a stone. You might more readily identify with my sense of hopelessness. Despondent when confronted with what passed then, in my time, as an education . . . if you required me to diagram a simple sentence, you might as well have said; “I’m going to draw and quarter you between these four elephants and then eat whats left alive. When I speak of our fearless, lemming like, leaders chasing the illusion of wealth and/or wisdom I know the term “scatocephalic” by experience not conjecture. My vision/version is they are going in circles like greyhounds. And “Civilization” being a transparent veneer upon savage predation. As it was in the beginning it remains. . . “An eye for an eye,” and no mercy, compassion or empathy possible.

Oh well
. . . so what else is new?

My point being that poetry is impossible when I’m not in the mood. Yet I know the Why of it and requisite vision to incarnate it. Regarding Astrology, I have no faith in it. Add that M said; “You can put in a change request/order!” Accepted as Gospel I have begun to wonder what the nubile young very f. . . .able meant? I remember, only opposition, in the chart, now laying within the tomb of an landfill . . .

My thesis is that nothing, virtually, is ever lost in eternity. Regardless the idle pleasure of those who know nothing of war, save profit, who in the anticipation of glee and larger bank accounts, sacrifice other people’s children profligately.

I sense last things, end game, the leaves turning, then falling. Myself soon to be barren, dead falling into dust. What and why I write is merely to speak to others like myself who are intransigent; ignorant of their actual value to Creation . . . Reverting to my sense, dyslexic, that we are applauded by one hand clapping. Yet to me, the universe speaks and I know not why? But then this seems more true of poets than I.

Add, at best, I don’t want to be here in future time, short as it may be, given my lifelong seeking for an excuse to live another day. The force and power is in the hands of those incapable of empathy, making everything material for their greed. . . . I know what good is and it is seldom found; remaining as it was in the beginning will long last my departure and silence.

- Eric Idle
"If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted." 

130329 03:41 be such
© 2013 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Remember

i seek not to be remembered 
but remind your once and only 
precious self . . . sufficient being 
this you inhabit 
what was or will be 
irrelevant unknowable
be here now 
attend closely the magnificence 
within gratefully doing no harm 
all exit stage left eventually

130328 04:19 Remember
© 2013 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

enriched besotted not bewildered

Arisen from a death like sleep, wherein my initial dream was of incompetence, punctuated with astonishing insights. Not about myself but those I observed, two young boys in a track event in close competition. Their defiance of one another and potentially their demise in consequence. . . . It was then that I awoke remembering the otherwise drudgery of professional photography as I had practiced it.

Then too I visualized the sure homage I owe to those who chose, in their time, to write. Like refracting crystals the light dancing through them arrhythmical an exquisite dance. The light always transcendent.

Of and/or about myself, now, it could be said that I love, Love, knowing nothing of the end of it; the longest novel/poem in four letters infinite. And then it seems this must be the way all life is loved by the origin of everything.

I am thinking of M, my beloved hour glass, we passing through each other; endings and beginnings that is all. Gifting one another!? 

Belief or none, seems irrelevant since the creator has us either way, regardless of insular/parochial definitions of who, what, why, when, wherefore . . . is not faith indefinable but best known by experience not war. Could it be that before we render ourselves extinct we will agree we had it all and destroyed it?

At lunch, yesterday, in jest I offered to pay with my library card. To which it was suggested that I could wash dishes instead. Whereupon I said; “I’ve been washing dishes, professionally, since the age of thirteen; M chimed in stating she’d been at since four upon a stool. 

Brother Lawrence and Durer where are you when we need define creativity by the humble us all? Meek not proud. . . . that filmy sheen of perspiration making we glow! Inner light manifest.

. . . "To argue over who is the more noble is nothing more than to dispute whether dirt is better for making bricks or for making mortar." - Saint Teresa of Avila . . . Happy your birthday what you were and remain.

Mother once asked of me, close to the end of our relationship, why I, at two and one half years of age had touched her cheek and cried uncontrollably? As if I could then, at the time of act or fact stated, know. I offer, this being curious about curiosity, from slumber transiting this nation from infancy until now, I would awaken in odd conjunction with objects and thoughts. And now still wonder is it call and response, my vision/version of the occurrence?

The concept of conspiracy better said as conspire or co-creation or collaboration with that which we cannot control: Life. Creation. The time of birth, length of life, moment of death

Yes

She is, experientially, an hour glass. We the grains passing through, at some point in time still yet passed on to others that they may love as we do. I do reverence who turns us tumbling now.

“We never live, but we hope to live; and as we are always arranging to be happy, it must be that we never are so.” - Blaise Pascal

“We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.” - Voltaire

130328 01:25 enriched

© 2013 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved