Crux

Feel free to experience the soul’s consciousness for as long as you can possibly bear it; don’t make excuses to avoid or replace it with cheap thrills designed to siphon thought into a tawdry funnel of spent emotion. You’re better than that, Deandre. I’ve known you since you were a budding young talent. Don’t get me wrong, I’m your biggest fan. I can only imagine the potential you hold in your incisors and between five to ten fingers, depending on your level of ambidextrousness. Do not fret! Fretting will get you absolutely nowhere. I’m saying no man’s land, ya dig? Many people have been in your position plenty of times in recorded history, and the issue lies in their penchant to alienate themselves until their perception of life comes from an internal gyration that’s out of tune with the common perception of just what it is that seems to make life so special in the first place. If you can answer me why it is that life is at all special (with a nod to my unflappable inner cynic, mind you), I will reward you with the knowledge that comes along with the essence that could be construed as the crux of Johnny Cash’s “A Satisfied Mind”. Just listen to good music, dear, and don’t worry about forming your own tastes and possibly offending others with your assertion of the importance of personal expression.

Are you going to eat that applesauce?

Waking Lives

Informally wedged between a significant mile of alterations and a limitless power of inventory tallying, my golf ball’s normally-understated carryover floundered briefly–the northern lights had obscured my vision, rendering my lie-finding skills ineffectual on this particular fairway (perhaps I shouldn’t have made a habit of getting in a tight nine after midnight, but free golf is free golf).

At least I got the chance to gawp at the Canada geese flapping over the course, wings beating black against the nuclear waste green, a cacophony outmatched only by their aggressive calls to each other, expressing–what I intuitively deemed to be–awe at the display they rarely see. Though you know, travelers of their caliber get many more opportunities than your typical vertebrates, having inhabited the skies every year of their waking lives.

——

First draft posted on 9/26/11,
originally entitled #20

Poignant Pen: Person of Interest

The biggest, most poignant pen
writes the antithesis of the expected,
the unadmired,
the people with lives expressed
as a

religious
or
spiritual
experience, embarked upon

out of necessity
to insulate from the severe
segregation
and
disintegration
of a marginalized people

that
fucked up our entire species,
ethically and genetically.

***

Speaking truth is necessary;
we can’t worry about
transcending race or gender,
there is only
a singular consciousness,
lived at all moments of our lives.
We are merely its witnesses.

Thank you for sharing
your visions of truth
and illuminating my perception.
You are my teacher, my ally,
my person of interest.

***

Don’t we all take for granted
the stag’s leaps or the hyena’s skips
as perpetual representations of a group
that denigrates the works of mankind?

Too many toads take too much time
to throw titillated molotov cocktails
betwixt the orthogenetic felons
of our once-forgotten past,
whistled between a shar-o-ise
and a heart.

The chamber solvent
has a triumphant shield
quite unlike the present-minded
earth warbler, unmade
as a man of science and marked
as a man of knowledge
in the community that really matters–
the one that brings us
to a crater of conscience
that may easily be sustained
if pursued in earnest.

Pretzels and Applesauce

All right class, let me just jot some things down on the chalkboard here…

What am I hoping to achieve through the the synthesis of words in this particular manner? It would appear as though I’m looking for the special key that was crafted for the sole purpose of conveying the cosmic Truth as I see it. The nice thing about this hypothetical key is the almost-negligible cost to gain access to whatever happens to lie behind the lock–that is to say, the lack of necessity for lavish expenditures in order to reach the same island of internal artistic fulfillment as anyone else who’s choosing to express themselves on this particular plane. That’s not to say that this medium of words on a page or board is inherently superior to any other form of creative expression, it’s just obviously much cheaper (which appeals to my frugal sensibilities).

Now! Who’s ready to start learning the alphabet?

Oh come on, nobody’s excited about exploring the 26 letters of our language? When I was your age, I already knew what a silent E was. Trust me, you’re going to want to know these principles as you get bigger and need to concisely present your thoughts to the world around you.

Okay, okay. I can see that I’ve lost you guys. That’s okay; I’ve been teaching kindergarten for 25 years, and this is par for the course. I think you all have definitely earned your snack and nap through how attentive you’re being today, so good for you! Now remind me, who among you are vegetarian/vegan/lactose intolerant? Anybody know? Okay, pretzels and applesauce for everyone! Yippee!!