Our problem is one of blindness. We are constantly seeking for that which we have, that which have no need of, that which we think we need but cannot be certain.
If we limited our blindness to things life would be simpler, but our blindness carries over to our search for enlightenment, for redemption, for absolution, and we fail to realize that we have all of that already, if only we would stop looking for them.
I have gone by many names, some chosen, some inherited, some thrown at me in anger, in scorn, in friendship.
Names add nothing to who I am, who I choose to be, who I am seen to be by the those who throw around names as if they were magical incantations, elixirs with great power that fall at my feet like shattered icicles of my not caring.
He never imagined for a moment that he would be here, here of all places, on the precipice of an abyss the likes of which he only visited in nightmares.
And he knew, when he looked back he knew he would see the pack of Abyssinians heading for him, and that was another nightmare given his cat allergy and his intense Ailurophobia.
So there it was, on one hand the abyss, on the the other the Abyssinians, simply an abysmal Morton’s fork and he felt he had to face death, and in that moment the alarm went off and he was awake in a pool of sweat.
It is coming, a little over a week now and it will arrive, always too soon, never ready despite knowing its precise arrival day and time.
We will be ready, but only after a scramble, for that is how it must be, how it has always been.
And again this year we will be thankful, as all claim on this day, but why do so many forget the giving part of things, giving to those without, to those within who lack, to those who only want to come within to escape a without we dare not imagine for the nightmares and terror we would suddenly have to feel.
The meeting drags on. Time is frozen. The space between a smile and a grimace is the edge of a fine blade and the width of a canyon. And you maintain the smile hoping it is not seen as the rictus you feel. Politeness requires a smile, your heart requires a fast escape. So you stay and tweak all of the little facial muscles to maintain the semblance of a smile. You don’t watch the clock on the wall, for it is only a source of frustration. When you leave for home, your face feels almost sore around the lips.
I grant you cats can be peculiar but they have one significant advantage over all other pets, except maybe hamsters and gerbils, for when you need someone to talk to, to unload your problems on, to try and wrestle with a thorny issue of public policy or geopolitical intrigue and that night has swallowed everyone you know, anyone you might dare disturb in the hours after midnight, you may rest assured that a dog would be sleeping somewhere and will not be roused for heaven and earth, but a cat will be wide awake, willing to let you go on and on in exchange for a bit of play, but there is the risk that she or he will disagree with you using a claw for emphasis.
You said it was a lucky charm, but I know my cereals and it clearly wasn’t that, nor was it a faked foot of some leporidae sylvilagus, even you would never be that cruel, you are a vegan after all, even your shoes are some unholy man-made material.
And I don’t believe in luck, I’ve never had it, good or bad although I do admit I look forward to Friday the Thirteenths for things always seem to go well when they occur for some reason.
Reality is clearly something to be avoided to be dressed up in tattery, tied in ribbons, perfumed, yet its fetid stench is always lurking in the background waiting to pierce your nostrils in an incautious moment until you retch and bring up the bile that marks the darker moments of your life, the kind that lingers in the throat which no chocolate can erase. Reality is often ugly, so we ignore it or hide it behind masks, or offer it willingly to others, a gift in surfeit. It sneaks up on you, and sets its hook periodically, and thrashes you at will, the barb tears through new flesh, setting itself deeper, intractable. You and I are dying, as I write, as you read, an ugly thought particularly lying in bed staring into darkness, no motion or sound from your spouse, mate, paramour, friend, significant other or teddy bear, where God is too busy to respond at the moment and sleep is perched in the bleachers, held back by the usher for want of a ticket stub, content to watch the game from afar. I cast ink to paper, an offer of reality as though the divorce from the words will erase the little pains and anguishes of our ever distancing marriage, while holding vainly onto the warm and sweet, the far side of the Mobius of reality (the skunk is at once ugly and soft and caring). We write of pain, of ugliness, of anger at terrible lengths, or weave tapestries of words to cover the flawed, stained walls of our minds, like so many happy endings, requisite in the script. Basho knew only too well that truth of beauty should be captured in few syllables.
First Appeared in Chaminade Literary Review, Vols. 16-17, Fall 1995.
The city is a ghost town, the ghosts peering warily from windows they now wish they had taken the time to have cleaned, and now there is time and no one to clean.
They fear the silence, cannot fathom the smell of the air, something faintly like a cool morning from their suburban childhoods.
They have found pots, pans cast aside or used for any purpose other than cooking, and food created by their hands, from mother’s recipes recalled has now appeared.
They want the noise, the odors, the cheap take-out places and fine restaurants back, their lives, but pause and are thankful they are still here and able to want.
First Published in Adversity, Vol. 1, The Poet, 2021
It starts quickly and unexpectedly. You do not know when it will start, why, or what it will bring. There are times when even after it is done, you cannot be certain what it was, what it did, what it meant. Often, though, you forget it before you have time to capture it. It is evanescent, an intense glimmer that can quickly fade to a void, as though it was never there. You wish you could capture it, but you know well that dreams act under their own rules.