A blink’s lapse in communication, and we miss the train.  Stuck in the fray of regret, the disarray of assumption.  I tend to understand this as a lacking sense of mutuality.  Intuition, perhaps.  Or a sensual rendveux of my blood and your blood. Or yours and mine.

The sun is high, day-dreaming the compass rose away…but it was Westbound, in all likelihood.  Would you chase possibilities? Quantity or quality? Or the flip: would you cherish what’s in front of you? I suppose, then, that the possibility is necessarily in the eyes of the beholder.

The winds blow from the shrinking steam engine, and leaves begin to dance, though it seems as if it is the dropping pitch of the horn, and the accelerating cogs building momentum ad infiinitum toward someone else’s home are the cause of these leaves dancing ‘cross my cheeks entranced.

There was never anyone else here waiting at these crossroads with me. They never approached this blink. And I was not waiting for anyone.  Except…perhaps just Hope. Dreams only become clearer now, arising from neon feigning phantoms that will soon light up somewhere in the distance behind me.

I enjoy the solace. It may not satiate that endless inspiration of life on a Möbius strip, but it certainly does allow some semblance of respite against the treasures of all that we experience.  

Ah, a moment of clarity.

And then, the periphery blurs, though it bears an all-too familiar feeling, not calm. No, nostalgia begins its creep into my conscious.  What to do.  No warmth.  But that’s the cue: Clarity has already left the scene.  The train tracks start rumbling again, and the fruits of this moment must soon come to an end.

Perfect timing.

We chase twilit horizon,
running stray as wolves alight in gold,
letting color fray the windshadows’ dance.

A lapse in lingering upsets the flow
when wand’ring eyes ebb the moons,
an oft’ less carefree ancillary wonder.

Yet,
prisms, carving rainbows into soundstreams:
weave ought from nought,
leave now for now.

We enter the playing fields where the groundwork had only been set up a day or two before.  We are newly experiencing something always searched for, ever desiring, though ignorant of which steps would eventually lead us there: Here.  Another stands opposite on the fields on which this journey will begin.  However, the cottonwood blooms and drifts with the same midsummer winds -  from a newly shared child’s play deja vu refrain getting down to the same beats echoing down the canyon, criss-crossing its weave to fall upon the same winding paths under my feet.

Entering into the fray of something so unabashedly unpredictable provided a magic that could not be ignored and refused to be complacent, letting go the sands of time that bound a life’s journey up until now.  It was here the spark formed its crysallis, drawing in a deja vu refrain from years and lifetimes past that projected brightly in the back of my skull, a memory that would not be ignored - not of any person or story already lived, but of a feeling.  Though the setting was amidst cliff faces and rocky mountains, I could feel that effervescent tide tickling my toes with a relentless undertow from this feeling, this fire.

Fade to black/next scene.

The weight of my presence reaches a climax and smaller, more easily overlooked locks must be unhinged from the doors they firmly, perhaps only due to a dreamer’s optimism, hold steady.  Perhaps it is a lack of strength that leads to this inability to confront that which does not seem to hold the gravity that the other’s shoulders clearly seem to bear, though I know it ultimately is only an artifact of misalignment.  Nothing more.  Conveying this is impossible, unless mutuality steps in to cover a role that is always always always needed, though unfortunately not acknowledged oft enough.  The misaligned dichotomy of presence and otherwise is consistently taken for granted and disrespected, if not already completely ignored.  

Only love remains.  Love is the only fucking reason.  All you need is…awareness.  Honesty, mostly to myself, I try to tell myself.  So if misaligned stigmas crop up, dusting off their weary eyes one last time, my rooting is in place, my honesty can’t be ignored, and if renegade understanding out-rationalizes logic with emotional undertows, enough to make me reconsider my own presence, sure, awareness may be out of check.  Or maybe not fucking in the least.

It is unfortunate, then, that in order to move past something deemed not beneficial, that something must be demonized to some degree by the perspective that wishes to grow.  Thus, enter: judgement.  Is it possible to maintain one’s own respect for inspiration, dreaming, euphoria, awareness, enlightenment…when the reflection in front of you is sharply out of focus?

“Let go,” she told me.  ”Someday I want to dance with the roses.”

Someday? Everyday.

Create your prose
Revel in repose
Unravel all you know
Discover the unknown
Follow your soul
Redefine your home
Love, learn and grow
Fight beside your own

Jesters’ Draw

[Based on true events.]

They came from all sides.  Ringing in my ears, echoing with the fury of restless ghosts.  

Their playful vibrancy did not easily mask the bittersweet evernow undertones pulsating and resonating in sync with each breath.  Echoes bellowed louder with each bounce in the narrow, dynamic hallways, even bounding up and down between a transparent ceiling that shown the great black nothingness above reflecting the empty space where hardwood creaked and opened upon a vast viridian valley’s vista that stood in stark contrast to the infinite daylit nightsky sharing their majesty with one another, untouched by the chaos of a more familiar world.

I looked up to see the first of many, or perhaps the most important, gesturing to follow, drawing me forward through the amorphous hallways that led through any manner of Imagination’s sandboxes.  His motions led him in and out of the walls that bound the narrow pathway.  He was not in this world; he was a part of it.  He was all of it, all of them.  I made no conscious choice, but I followed.  After seven steps, or maybe seven thousand steps, he turned, and he spoke.

“Another horizon awaits, gypsy.  Just past serendipity’s doorway.  You mustn’t falter, for this fire’s yarn has not yet found its beast of burden.”

He paused for a moment along the trail, standing alone inside the starscape of eccentricities, both those known to one another and those yet to cross paths, watching them weave and bob and stoking the fires along the plainscape, when another (drawn by simple curiosity) walked up to his side and stopped for a breath.

You’ve been staring into the distance for 100 years, my friend.  What is it that consumes your weary eyes?

My eyes are consumed, yes, but these are no weary eyes.  Distracted, perhaps…or steadfastly focused.  Something stirs in my gut I’ve been trying to understand for a long time now.  I will stare into the distance for as long as it takes to discover.  Though my eyes drift far and wide, I assure you my mind is here.  I am present, though my current introspection does prevent me from asking you a question other than this: what is it that consumes your curiosity?

Ah, I thank you for your honesty and for not overextending yourself.  I suppose I am simply curious as to what it is you see?

Before relinquishing an answer, can you please clarify: do you wish to know what my eyes are looking at, or is it the vision of the mind’s eyes you’d care to know?

Of course - the mind’s eye seems the obvious choice, if I were to pick something, though I’d be aghast if I weren’t curious how each of your senses is being tickled, and…well, if only for the sake of thoroughness: all of these do play into a core - please, where is the root of your focus?  What portrait would you care to impart…I care not to overextend my own self — what is the one thing you’d care to leave with this innocent passerby?

Hah!  That is the question indeed, friend!  Though I must apologize, for that is why I love.

…Alas, I do wish words would suffice, but I am reluctant to say they will not.  If you’d care to join me for the next mile or two, there is a precipice up ahead.  The hike is a hike, whether that means anything to you or not.  But the view at the top is magic, no matter which horizon upon which your eyes find their gaze.  As well…the sun will be setting in but an hour.

~

For the first time in a moment’s antithesis, the weaving dream opened to his side to see who’d crossed his path.  The trail was empty.  With a smile briefly parlaying a parable cross his cheeks, he turned to face the setting sun and ventured onward.

[a reflection; originally written nov 2011]

almost one year ago, a light left a life, left a picking-up-the-pieces not realized lost, left a wondering-of-light now seemingly fading, left a holding-onto-a-life-leftover to a now real and climactic confrontation with reality.

every word shared in violet moonlit whispers, every word chosen to share aside a photo or poetic undertone, every word meant millions, and every word was never meant for the other.  or maybe it was, just knowing that the expression in question would fall on ears that understood, no matter what, through and through.

the torrential current running beneath our connection was never about what we wanted to share, it was everything we wanted to express.  each blissfully abstract now that was enveloped together simply realized a moment for two souls to intertwine, spiral around, and dance — that, though gloriously connected with an energy almost too strong to bear, just so perfectly moved unhindered by the other…and was each ultimately independent.

the thank yous oft repeated echoed this sentiment for perhaps the parlaying echoes both knew that the paths were never meant to be the same, symmetric though they might be at the end of days.  it still baffles this wandering dream that, neglecting even the different places:events:specifics:perfection of being (and soul), the paths each chosen were above all, juxtaposed reflections of one another, in between and around and throughout the highs and the lows; tracking the energy trails, the footsteps were in some distant sync, despite a worn hiking boot’s tread and cross-hatched bottoms of ragged vans slip-ons only further accenting a contrast something fierce.

Everything was black and white and the greys in-between.  The hustle and bustle surrounding Le Petite Café stood frozen in time.  Those lingering, those leaving, those laughing, those loving — each and every soul no longer a part of the chaos.  I placed a foot onto a nearby seat at the entrance to the coffee shop, and pressed upward to stand atop the table, overlooking the mass of stagnancy.  Though I expected a calm serenity as I surveyed the freeze-frame, my stomach reacted to the abnormal nothingness, churning into a knot.  I longed for home.  I longed for color.

The concrete slammed into my feet as I ran from the scene.  The solitude away from the freeze-frame and rhythmic bliss of the pavement was quickly shattered as I began turning corners, seeing the same sight everywhere my feet led.  The streets were filled with people, all manner of personality, emotion, interaction stood still in deathly silence.  There was no life.

The birds chirping in the distant anywhere-not-here led me out of the concrete jungle, past defunct rotting warehouses, past an endless abyss of somewhere stuck in time, and onto a familiar highway.  The once greyscale vista began to fade into the subtle golden hues of mirage stretching into the horizon.  I kept following my ears to sound of the birds, to the rhythm of my feet, to the possibilities ahead, running, listening, pausing for each next sliver of audible hope, before stubbornly venturing onward.  

After hours, I noticed the sun setting in front of me, clouds began to catch fire with color.  

After days, my venture West began to stretch into forever, drifting into a path, melting into my life, becoming all that I am.

After years, after decades, after another life, the world breathed in its natural chaos once more, sighed out into consciousness and stirred the oceans and mountains alike, overcome with a newborn vibrancy only seen in the stars.

Then I stopped, panting, resting my hands on my knees, letting my eyes rest on the ground below my feet for a breath.  It dropped far below, down to the Pacific Highway that casually brushed along the rocky coast.  A smile-hint quickly passed through my lips before I leaned off the precipice and scrambled down to the long lost wandering sand I’d crossed paths with in some fading, distant dreamscape.  The relentless tide began its retreat, steadily gathering itself for the morrow.

My toes began to dig in, gradually relaxing deeper and deeper, reaching to unearth their birthgiven roots in the most fickle sunlit setting of a youthful adventure.

Balance enters stage left, no spotlight, lingering in the dark, steadfast, but the stage hand never lets the light flood to reveal his face.  For those curious, it is deadpan, contented, docile.  Nothing more.  And the audience will never see it.  

A nameless teacher from the past, someone whom left enough an impression to become a role model at some point, echoes her words through your mind.  Lights be damned.  We must, of course, never underestimate the supporting roles.  The star can mend its own ways.  The star will be judged more harshly and seemingly draw the most attention…but it is those surrounding the star that bring life.  Lights be damned.  The lights are on the star, but the life…is on you.

The star of this particular musical is none other than you.  Those that stand beside you all play a role; they are you also.  But the lights are on you always.  How much those lights above flood outside the inner circle all depends on strength, stage presence.  Though…you are aware.  

You are aware that more than lights expose who you are.

And so the end of this act reaches a climax.  The elements sharing the aged, dance-scratched, hardwood below your feet all glance to the nearest eyes, and the lights go out.  The audience claps for a brief moment, but the sheer magnitude of appreciation is filtered out by the dark shadows backstage, shrouding your weave back through the corridors toward a couch, a mirror, and ideally just a brief moment of respite.

But as you turn the next corner, you find yourself on another stage, lights drowning out your sight, and the stage already filled with others, waiting for something, waiting for the next excitement, waiting for the next clash of personality to drive this story forward…waiting for the next line, waiting for you.

Line?

I stood calm (one breath) the tide beckoning me to follow my natural tendency wavering hesitating blinking if only twice (one breath) and the Gift that silver-eyed coryphée consumes all that floods these greyblue seers the eyes circling innocently curiously penetrating the restless ghosts all around always present uncontrollable forever hanging in a precarious balance (one breath) I dare not let loose though here they slip fading to a shade lighter than black and back to a curious presence unknown to my waking self consumed with all manner of weaving rainbows or distractions or carnivals of weight I dare not acknowledge for the weight of a world just past a brink that penultimately (in this moment) seems stagnant in a chronic caustic directionally-challenged queue for just a single plenitude breath of release admittedly is often (in this moment) too much for these casually intrigued shoulders to bear but then another distraction enters the room and adrift begets swept away and focus begets the precipice’ spark wherein (this moment unfolds) smile-hints are plentiful and awareness becomes an ecstasy flowing with newly defined vibrancy in newborn vibrations waves and oscillations not just sound but the underlying music and its twin sister dance (entrance) movement (release) weaving only (in this moment) purity love mutuality all overaroundaboutthroughout (every how) of yourself into each chosen truth your accept embodied in this you become this you must accept this you create [wanderlust].

We create for each our Dreams,
become vessels and catalysts to Inspire,
lost in battle overaroundaboutthroughout when we Realize.

A step or two, buoyant, perhaps,
with the weight of the playful wind,
toying, smiling, always alluring and entranced.
Her prowess, unparalleled, left his shoulders and ankles
rattled and shaken, unhinging his shield and his lance.

She spoke: “This is no mere lucid conscience,”
and his unexpecting hands opened, letting loose
useless defense not needed in this experience.
“Personifying the present, as you so choose,
may never foster your chosen path’s essence.”

He mused for a mere three moments,
I know this, he surmised, though days had passed by in blinks.
I know this, repeated, as his body passed another entrance.
I know this, grasping, but her echo remained etched in a trinket:
The field that remained, caged by a lone feathered fence.

~

From time to time a breeze brushes past,
and the phantom Temptress still brushes a simple
fourth finger across one star he wished upon last,
back through his hair, stirring all his goose pimples:
a nostalgia, a treasure, poking a present from a past.

The weaving rainbows of eccentricity stand facing.  

Her lightning bolt hair struck a moment ahead of her thunderous smile, rumbling with laughter.  A simple tit-for-tat, before we begin to move  ·  to run.

The sulfur rainscent drowned out the concrete noise and screams of every emotion before the city was easily left for another. Steel to strut to axel to rim to rubber.  Arms spread wider, revealing locomotive hearts.  Wings erupt, feathers shaking off timeless dreams, stretching out high for sweet release  ·  for all five horizons.

Open your eyes, dreamer.

She may have asked, “A venture to the drift?” or maybe it was “Adventure’s never swift.”  It was hard to tell - a question, request or remark.  Her intonation was leveled  ·  steadfast.  The words didn’t matter.  The destination didn’t matter.  Only the intention  ·  the footsteps  ·  the fire.

The wanderlust gaze of four rainbow eyes, evercurious, everwanting, do not alter the path  ·  our slip  ·  our crash  ·  our bliss.

With grins blazing white fire, they chase every sunset, enrapture the mountains, and topple down the stars.

Accepting a life I never thought possible was the only chance for respite among the throes of abstraction that once calmed my nerves and stoked imagination, now settling home, at peace, with a torrent of winds that only grow stronger.  The Here and the Now echo past my ears as my nostalgic gaze hesitantly looks up to the horizon, blurry, distorted. Perhaps my vision was not ever as it seemed twisted by bias, and idealism - the only thing that speaks truth and the only thing I know to be false - but the spark of it, the catalyst, that screams for release (for realization) of the seed that plants the very dream we seek!

It must be for a reason, forever clouded, albeit dreams could not possibly be all we seek, though they are certainly all that push us forward into the abyss: off the edge of the precipice we so casually peered over with no fear, no turning back, maybe later we’ll look back before falling easily into the folds of a patchwork blanket next to another, holding hands sharing smiles, falling, drifting, fading into blissful memories, eventually to darkness where shadows are all we see, playing tricks, spark-spark-sparking imagination…

…infinitely living out the characters that twist in and out of revolving archetypes that define everything, that expose every abstraction, that strike every chord, reverberating through the freedom we breathe and the paths we take, the choices we make during the time that matters most, call it what you will, but for now, the Summerlight horizon melts into my eyes, while my ears hear the echo of the Here and Now, still whispering a familiar déjà vu refrain:

“Breathe deep for the world is alive.”

rehashing a solution to a second order derivative, more specifically. or a third.

a logic-emotive proof.

• 1.

(perhaps) we all change constantly beginning with the fire

not even knowing

steadily growing until everything seems right right right right before the fall, ideally not badly, or at least bad enough to learn something and still barely be able to pick up the pieces realizing nothing was right though seem as it may have we are all something smaller than we had hoped the dreams were sound no the dreams were sound and they still are they still are they still are maybe the ghosts feign their absence now and then but we all know they still lurk in those dark corners that we only struggle to make seem something lighter though always something wicked they always are always

understanding acceptance realization of all that changes always and how much you desire change and what that change is all intoxicating all encompasing all wonderful

and egostical

- tame the ego for it is a necessary dangerous toy that pleasures and destroys -

and here, reveals another question:

• 2.

how much does the World’s change, does your change, truly mean to you?  but really, ego-aside,

how much are you willing to let another change for you?

or maybe it’s fear and no one’s as weak as your instincts tell you. 

or maybe they actually are. 

or maybe most are.  how many of those is probably a crucial number to a heirarchy that really doesn’t even matter…unless it matters to you.

• 3.

priorities…no, some figure of importance that implies some figure of a second derivative (or if because it’s an external independent variable, is it a third or fourth) but its not just a derivative because then YOU are a derivative of IT. full-functioning continuity of consciousness, emotion, logic, nature, time, and all manner of derivations in such a human-conscious-space-time construct that we are, that we create, that we completely affect, that we are the subjects of and puppeteers to boot…that we are a part of something.  [something greater, i’d hope, though only glass-half-full-believe, the optimist that i can be most of the time.]

• 4.

the fury has returned, this time the search for inspiration embodied in the abstract that i fear, but inspiration it still is.

implication: the fires are not far behind.  until then, the ghosts…play.