falling sky

i don't mind if the sky chooses to fall, splutter, break, flutter
as long as I'm there to catch it

5 rivers

I wrote this a while back and have just re-visited it.

I drowned in five rivers, each one at my fingertip, stipend wit.
I felt rage at each damp page, my words revolving into a rampage.
The beginning of my sin ended in Phlegethon, seared skin speared in sorrow—Acheron
Reaching out limits at Cocytus, laminated by peels of lemon, to falsify the scent of the parched yet soaked skin, to satisfy lethally legalized weapons of mass, masculine ass, Lethe, please leave a message of peace behind, a mythological yet illogically divine, support the troops, support the pores, sport the poor, sport the moor, report demure, forgot to lock the doors behind, blame it on Alzheimer.
I experience an enigmatic catharsis, as I lay in Styx, syntax diluted, arsis’ secluded concentrated by pity, pity my petulant cries, pity my peasant rhyme, pity my palms inches away from my fingertips, clipped my body stripped, dipped into five rivers till I drowned.

...

There was something so condescending about his soft words, his premature smile that I had to bow down to listen.

the beginning

Every time I think of the beginning, I note its loneliness, fragility and foreignness. I can never pass past the beginning, but find myself re-territorializing it in my imagination; though it is muddy, yet soft, below my feet. It is mine, but never mine to mould or emancipate; it merely reminds me of my beginning and predicts my ending. I walk with tension, hesitation and a false sense of passing.

a moving thought

This flickering feeling of vitality was an accident, a trope, a metaphor, a failure. The stirring of hope under the blazing sun moved my thoughts to and fro—-a hammock. But, it was the sight of a funeral procession like a bread crumb on top an ant that reminded me that I, too, will have graffiti drawn on my grave.

closing

the illusion of rebellion is fraught with reality, thoughts, memories of you and me.

what is it to be whole?

to don midnight with nothing on your sleeves
but riddles on your lips,
murmured with razor-rage
because pain is worthy of speech
but only in pure, sweet darkness
where there are no shadows

is a fragile beast
ready to climb down the silent shadows like vines
spread out against
all odds

this thought

it’s minor, but so alive, this thought:
a thread whistling against the sinking leaves
weaving a cloud for a bit of rain
this thought

this pause

this pause begins to take shape in my mind— long and warm with damp brown edges — it must’ve fallen in a puddle somewhere beneath your window outside your bedroom. perhaps, this pause is half a dozen bottles sunken in a bathtub full of blank notes. or, a shadow meandering down a velvet highway at midnight seeking revenge. or, a figure revisiting a conjecture over a ruptured bridge overlooking nothing, but an estranged space on a blank screen. or, this pause is existence.

...

there must be a point to all these obscurities:
i think i glimpse it--it is in the form of a punctuation.

the switch

sometimes my thoughts are suddenly interrupted by speech, and then i realize it is my own voice speaking a language I sometimes forget i speak.

false demeanour

sometimes I feel that my heart is so full of weakness, as though it were a droplet suspended in my body by a diaphanous string suddenly set ablaze. a rant, a war, a comma, a whisper, awakened. sweat-escapes and riverbanks flow with censored content conceiving warm colours and a burst of siren lights. exposed. it, i, quiver. this fragility is bleak--an open space with lonely railroad tracks, cool eyes and no music. the heart is burning alive.
i replace my heart with a moon or a suitcase at the door.
it is only a feeling , but this feeling is oh so exhausting.

the obvious, sheltered

strung between us is the obvious suspended because, as you sit with your chin leaning onto your palms, you change directions sans transitions as though nothing is happening and all is static. it’s a game; a frustrating game and the rules unknown to me. the sun sinks, concealing its rays, and I wonder for a moment if you are not the sun controlling shadows and etching melancholy on bodies with your disappearance. the evening grows cold and the day dies. the familiar obviousness--silently luring above—widens the distance between us, turning us into strangers.

the death of a belief, the murder of beliefs

there comes a time when all of our beliefs and ideologies come to a halt; when our foot, wild and clumsy, slips—an irrevocable act—only to fall onto the brakes, despite our attempt and desire to continue on the road carefully built by our ancestors as their cattle began to die; despite our knowledge of the devastating repercussions of such a slip: we will have no inheritors on this now empty and narrow road; despite the emotional eruptions within that will surely diminish all relationships and the promise of immortal love; the fall is planned.

crossing paths

i’m reminded of the silence that once spoke peripherally through our slight, subtle glances: glances always drawn like a child peering through a window, unnoticed, cautious, fearful, hiding behind the receding light. this is all pure as honey. from this i create a story that stirs the heart, sends my mind to pulsate with the thought of proximity and silk.
the glances propel a shackled memory: one tied to an open interpretation-- an open corridor where two figures sway endlessly, like lost shadows moving and colliding like a split self seeking to reunite, reassemble an imagined notion.
but, what is invoked is never confirmed.
it is in that brief flash that i lose myself.

...

but i should not waste my thoughts on the infidelity of hope
on the blurriness of past images
dying counterparts
the sinking of skin

the now, the ever emerging now, is what matters.

There's no denying it, I'm getting old but

guilty

Sometimes I have to be careful to draw a clear line between patience and inertia. Not to suggest that the two are easily conflated, but at times I’m guilty of doing just that. Many times I wait and wait and wait, to claim an act of patience, when in fact it’s disguised indolence: my refusal to act or to realise the pointlessness of waiting, whether it is of people to change, to finally get that paper published or simply to recognize that I will not receive an answer.

hope

hope has been etched at the end of every revelation—every diaphanous utterance or the lack of -- against all logic and sanity, I have hope even as time takes flight beneath my feet and I believe myself wiser, hope continues to be the cause of every recurring regret and the deepening of every line

A Reflection on Friendship

Recently I became someone’s “first foreign friend.” This statement from a former mature student of mine puzzled me. I knew for a fact that I’m not the first foreign person that he has come across, met or had some sort of relationship with (in my case, it was teacher/student relationship). He works for a company that consists of, what to him are foreigners. In addition, I was aware that he went on trips with his colleagues and boss, had barbeques and played golf. Yet, I am his first foreign friend. A bit of context may be necessary: I was teaching English as a Second Language in Calgary and he was a student from Japan that I taught in the evenings.
I, for one, highly value friendship, and believe that one must become friends before becoming lovers. But, what makes one a friend?
As I was reading an article by Todd May, “Friendship in an Age of Economics,” I began to reflect on my friendships. He argues that in today’s society we are encouraged to lead two types of relationships: consumer and entrepreneurial. He draws on Aristotle’s friendship taxonomy, who believes there are three types of friendships—those based on pleasure, on usefulness, and finally true friendship.
This “true friendship,” is non-economical and surpasses personal gain or pleasure. May writes:

Friendships worthy of the name are different. Their rhythm lies not in what they bring to us, but rather in what we immerse ourselves in. To be a friend is to step into the stream of another’s life. It is, while not neglecting my own life, to take pleasure in another’s pleasure, and to share their pain as partly my own.

I find myself agreeing with May, true friendship occurs when you not only values the other person, but can see and feel through his/her lens. When you choose to understand and respect someone, even if you happen to disagree. Friendship is also a process, and could emerge from an entrepreneurial relationship or one originally based on self-interest. It does not suddenly happen overnight. May further writes: “[a]nd while the time we spend with our friends and the favors we do for them are often reciprocated in an informal way, we do not spend that time or offer those favors in view of the reciprocation that might ensue.”
While friendships should be as natural as a rhythm, it does require an effort to maintain. Nor do they always flow as a stream, but may progress into a flood or regress to a trickle. But it is in those moments that true friendships are tested. And furthermore, they are often threatened by a lack of “reciprocation.” This act does not have to take a physical form, but it could be mere appreciation. And sometimes, true friendship does not always survive, but that doesn’t diminish the relationship. Without reciprocation the relationship can become enervating.
While I’m not entirely sure why that former student considers me his friend, but I am sure of, is that friendship defies a clear definition. I’m grateful to be considered a friend and hope to embody such a role. It’s only fitting to end with a wonderful quotation from Aristotle: "What is a friend? A single soul in two bodies." But, what is a soul?

a damp conjecture

a pot of words and each is unveiled
the subtext uncovered
but, i speculate a misreading
your face closing in on the heat
stirring and re-reading
each letter boiling, no longer pulsating
you deconstruct what is not said:
a deadly clash between reality
and a starving imagination

I keep oscillating between diverging ideas, devoting my time to seeking truth, but what is more elusive than truth?



But, perhaps, that is the beauty of knowledge.

a note

i
spilled letters on your concrete balcony
on the 6th floor
with a light bulb sputtering above my head
streets shimmering with shadows
the road coming to an abrupt end
i scattered my words to share a self, a self self-moulded.
i contemplated brevity, honesty, solitude and love
but
my mind-- always a sinking ship--
i barely remember the colour of your eyes
whose obsession was of death
who won the war and
who wore a straitjacket
and
above all
I’m need of a response

history

consists of bodies--faces down--beneath a floating map in black water

Historians

revise gasps and mark graves with graffiti.

taken aback

our glances--like a stranger’s cigar-smoke in a distance rising to the warm azure sky--disperse
and a procession creases your forehead.

memories

have you ever swam to the bottom of a memory?
an unravelling song of sadness and sinking scripts amid seaweed
a scene of a hand slipping, struggling to find some solace
stones sliding down the spines of secret lovers
a cleansing of wounds washed ashore
summer brush-strokes on a wooden canoe under sparkling stars
a smiling figure swaying silently -– someone, somewhere that meant something
silver silhouettes sympathizing with dying souls

But, perhaps some memories are bottomless:
sudden flashes with no end

bystander

I watch a battle between a dream—unlit—sinking
and reality—narrow—bleeding :
Intimacy is always at the edge of an ache, a crack, a rupture
ready to leap over the edge of a rupturing crack

a ripple

This is the thing about old wounds — they are threads of bursting rivers winding and spiralling between the palms of a stranger whose persistent whispers form tidal waves.

to travel per chance to live

i yearn to travel with purposelessness to a feathery-clad heaven
and sleep on palm trees that bare freedom -- meandering
around the tips--
i carry the evening sky in a bottle, strawberry-flavoured
sweet as a shimmering romance on sparkling springs
echoing beethoven’s schicksal

a line

Let’s make it a bit more complicated, shall we: your soul, a pavement -- open, bare, concrete; my soul, a cloud —- translucent, light, intangible.

...

i have concluded that the centre of my life is not whole, but a self-disguised universe full of blurry stars and a hand-woven moon. this "centre" lies in the corner of the sleeping house of sleepy souls and sleepless nights. within in it, i’m nearly opened and as lucid as an opaque glass filled with fog.

at night

i have a pristine mind with memories growing like fungi, mossy. my cerebral twigs slightly detached, but stacked up on top of one another, like stairs. thoughts, like green leaves, spread out, until tinted with ashen gold.

questions

there are questions waiting, ready to jump off my tongue whenever you pass by. your warm smile, distant: a fairy tale. what makes you happy? do you think of the endless starry sky at night? will you bare your soul to me? what language do you own? do you shudder at some thoughts? what thoughts? do you ever plunge into nostalgia? what do you call home? a home? what makes you smile?
but there are some inconsistencies you see, or perhaps you don't. i hope you don’t mind, but i touched your heart, despite my hesitations and fears, as i’ve always wanted to, with some mumbling and fumbling in the dark, but it was ice cold.

elongated sigh

inexplicable internal wounds sigh
after sigh after sigh after sigh after
birth
marks slight turbulence of half erected clichés—perhaps my worst sin—rise like barbed wires along the spine
less worships of half-emptied mutterings

emotional wreckage

mind befuddled by strange sightings of a heart colliding with sharp tongues applauding pale limps collapsing beneath a zooming train

doubt

Searching for the most condign word to describe my current sentiment, but I'm left without a semblance of a word or an imagined understanding. Consternation, perhaps. Loss, possibly. No word seems to suffice. This feeling comes and goes, like J Alfred Prufrock's women that "talk of Michelangelo."
Maybe it is doubt. Must be.
A glimmer of doubt, and I am emptied.

a thought

i stumbled across a thought. it was as light as a fingerprint that travelled the dust-infested leaves of Paradise Lost only to collapse in depth, deeper than the sleep of death. it has become an obsession of mine to play that thought like a piano note that blossoms in medias res . nothing is but what this thoughts is. i wanted to possess it, but it seems to have possessed me.

silent films

I’ve recently decided to use silent films in class, and I have to say, I’ve fallen in love with silent films, especially those directed by Fritz Lang. I’ve found that silent films speak to a much wider audience than any modern film can, which is most fitting when teaching EFL/ESL as these films will communicate to them beyond the sign. I plan to show them a scene from a silent film once a week, and will ask them to either summarize what they feel took place or write dialogue for the characters--to fill in the spaces, so to speak.

an abandoned thought

i’ve taken account of everything, so careful not to offend, not to tread the wrong ground. the edits, cuts, bruises and notes strained with brown tea -- staining a vacant lot-- sit in the cool darkness of your shadow. this is not because of your fragility but my own.

peripatetic observation

as I was rushing to catch the train, while putting on my gloves, an inebriated stranger said to me, “you walk the walk of love.” i ignored him as I searched for my transit ticket in order to validate it in time. then, i began to think of his ambulatory remark. what does it mean to walk the walk of love? does the season play a role? the bees buzzing or the snow skipping? how about the time of day? the sun soaring or the skyline submerging? or is it solely in the eyes of the observer, distant, speculative and under the influence of, um, some song in his head.
though i don’t think it was/is my style of walking, if anything i walk the walk of feigned urgency: always in a hurry to get nowhere.

Alzheimer

there’s a rope, motionless, tight as a snake, under the blanketed tree, though it’s spring

there’s a thought, skipping over seasons, keen to make you smile, though you are misty

there’s a light, sputtering, beneath your eyelids, that I’ve worshipped, though only in my sleep

there’s a scar, flawless, sharp, beating against my flesh, though the story is a fable I can’t remember

sometimes we must endure our own haunting silence, when words are held captive by waves that carry the carved notes of someone’s passing, now deteriorating in the shimmering waters, letters dissipate and clarity collapses against the pale, concrete walls without windows.

in a hurry

we’re always in an absurd hurry that we don’t take notice of love: pale, luminous and free, dipping into the glistening black water

sigh

i can imagine defeat tasting like warm rain
falling on words seized by a whirlwind
leaving your mouth dry in a battle field
filling the room with dim ghosts
echoing the past in a present sigh

irksome words

There are many words that I love, but a few that irritate me.

interesting: It doesn’t really tell me much. I want to hear something more descriptive; what exactly do you find interesting.
You betcha: Palin played a role there.
No offense 1. This doesn’t diminish the offensive remark which has been perpetrated . 2. Implies that I should be offended, even if the statement that followed wasn’t offensive.

Rural, vocabulary, thatched, thwart , thrice: I can’t seem to pronounce them correctly.

addicting (I don’t mind addictive though), Bush (the ou sounds makes the sh sound rather harsh and it carries unpleasant associations) , cockroach (I dislike them), dank (brings to mind a tank and mold, for some reason), Cheney (I imagine chains) , serendipity(why should we have the word pity when speaking about something pleasant) , terror/terrorize (seems to have lost all meaning)

Babe as a term of endearment.

Are there any words, expressions, cliches that irritate you? Or words you love?

just awkward footsteps in the distance not too far off from the land of dreams that call on me,
but i want to write dreams rather than dream dreams or dream of dreams--i want to catch the sky and put it in my pockets, but i have no pockets, only a shadowy trace of an imagination, that catches you before you drift off into delicate sleep, searching for a reference, but it’s so far and so faint.

hyphen

it’s late night and there is
a hyphen — a tall building bending — in-between you
— the exhaust pipe — a cloud — a haze of clarity
— and I — a railroad extending a dash.

hyphen

it’s late night and there is
a hyphen—a tall building bending— in-between you
— the exhaust pipe—a cloud—a haze of clarity
–I— a railroad extending a dash.

convo: oppression

We discussed oppression and I argued that there are people (not everyone of course) that capitalize on their oppression and at times falsely declare they are or have been in this state. I wasn’t trying to devalue certain people’s oppressive experiences or the reality of oppression, because it DOES exist in ALL societies. But, notwithstanding, there are some individuals who abuse the term oppression. It is most irksome because there are people out there who are truly oppressed, whether due to politics, religion, society or the economy.

But, then again, are they oppressed by the fact that they want to experience oppression? I’m conflicted by my statement because what if my claim itself is of an oppressive nature; it could be the case that they don’t have the freedom to see clearly, and with this lack of freedom they are truly oppressed.

thoughts inspired by a conversation

So I’ve decided to introduce a series on conversations –whether in the form of a dialogue or ideas that spiralled from a conversation—that I’ve been having with people; conversations that seem to linger after silence.

My friend mentioned a question that has been on his mind, and frankly on mine, lately: it is the question that Martin Heidegger posed in his Introduction to Metaphysics, "Why are there beings [or something] at all, instead of Nothing?"
I’m wondering how to go about answering this question, while avoiding a purely theological answer that begins and ends with God, which isn’t necessarily problematic, but even with the existence of God, you wonder about existence. To begin to answer this question, we must define nothing. What is nothing? Well, nothing is the lack of something and it is nothing. It is an indefinite non-thing, empty, neutral—neither evil, nor good. Is something the opposite of nothing, or does it spring from nothing? My mind’s a bit inert, so I shall finish my thought when my mind’s back in motion.
Does my definition of nothing have any clout? Is the question a mere tautology and pointless to ask?

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another conversation, but with a stranger on the train

Auburn straw-like hair, a Western straw hat laying next to him on the blue leather seats, and a navy blue jumpsuit, soiled. A lesion on top of his right eye and another one protruding out near his left eye. He sits alone. A faint smile.
I dunno why?
You don’t know what?
Why people stare at me—so strange—I did nothing. No one talks to me. Orange residues of that day’s meal sit on his lips and teeth.
That is strange.
I’m waiting for them..
For who?
The Samaritans—the good people—but they don wan me.
Who are these people?
I believe in their lord and Holy spirit. I almost died ya know.
I’m sorry to hear that.
It’s nice up der.
Where do you mean…heaven?
Yeah, he tol me all about it. He tol me not to fight. To love one another. To live in peace.
Who..Jesus?
Yeah, he tol me it’s a beautiful place.
Was this in a dream?
No it’s real. he talked to me.
Oh, ok.
It’s strange I don wanna hurt nobody. I dunno why the good people won’t help me. I wan some help.
You’ve been through a lot.
I can’t work; my legs don work. Is dis my stop. I don wanna pay. Last time I was wearn that, what you call it, Mexican thing, very warm. I kept it there.
A poncho?
Yeah—I need help. I was in a hospital for four months—I have big scar next to my heart—almost died. it’s this far from my heart.
Less than an inch.
I’m so sorry to hear that, but glad you’re okay.
Hehe, been to…
Your stop is here, right?
Train comes to a halt at City Centre.
Ah, Yeah. bye.

His land is not his.

conversation with a student

Student: What [is the definition of] had?
Me: It is the past tense of the verb to have.
S: What[is the definition of] have?
Me: To have is to own something. For example, I own a pen means I have a pen.
S: What [is] own?
Me: When something belongs to you, like a car. You could say I own a car or I have a car or a car belongs to me. They all mean the samething.
S: What[is] belong?
Me: To have.

a step forward

we share a conversation down the stairwell, your voice a breeze against the damp yellow light
wandering wondering about the yellow flower under the sparkling rain
the echo of brave excuses seem to slip under my feet. memories lie
some where, deflated among the crevices.

absentmindedness

beneath the lamppost the thought lingered, curled, looped, moved with the light even as the light began to fall, descend into the deep, cold, familiar dark , now my theatre. it follows me, down the street—now my shadow— interspersing with my senses. flashes of happiness, drizzles of ecstasy, tremors of fear all run down as the winding road diverged and my thought travelled into the alley on the left.

"mauvaise foi"

a roar offshore
my faith is in a glass bottle
glistening in the Atlantic ocean
it travels from year to year,
waving, wavering, waiting
toward the sun
setting
a few questions
rising
the absence
falling
sometimes it gets thirsty

what is the colour of loneliness?

It must be a hue between dying and death –an elongated pain that seems to stretch beyond the clock on our walls and concrete wells from our childhood, full of unattended wishes. Or perhaps a damp brown leaf caught by the wind, twisting out of Eden only to come across an unkempt, untouched, unmarked grave. A rainbow in black and white on a monotonous shore. A torn picture with a missing face flung from a rooftop some time in the 60s, something about Vietnam. An azure sky in Baghdad, grown crooked from all the corpses rushing to get through. The crimson red hands of a Sabra and Shatila child looking for her mother. Or the colour of muted music.

beyond me

From the coffin-like basement, my imagination rises above the pale off-white walls, black rain and dying grey clouds and enters your mind. I keep going, brushing against history, intruding, walking past fallen statues and half-ripped pages, until I reach your soul—an enclosed path. In my thoughts you are saying a prayer and I the object of your prayer. Sweet, saccharine, comforting. The way you utter my name, slowly the letters dancing between your lips before they flow, putting me at peace. A smile. I chart your pronunciation and it seems so familiar, alive, eternal. Pause.

No sunlight. Your voice begins to scatter, break, split— a rupture. Backfire. Wildfire. Now you’re speaking a different language, spitting discordant words, acidic letters down my imagination—a blank void develops and memories rush in. I can’t control your speech; it slithers in different directions, eventually the weight of your tongue insurmountable against my desires, my naivety, my hopes. All false. This is real. Irrevocable. With the mask withdrawn, you begin cursing me, your words soaking every inch of my flesh. This performance leaves me scattered. I’m back in my basement with my imagination on fire, my body pale, my eyes darkening, my soul dying. It burns.

silence

millions of chords and every cord a thought
and every thought an illusion
and every illusion an absence
and every absence a speculation
and every speculation a shadow
and every shadow a prayer

and every prayer is lost in silence.

foolish

soft susurrus sighs
valorously vibrant, veil
lewd lies with lilacs
fragranced flattery foaming
tongues tease with tales
entrapping efflorescing emotions
whimsical wisdom wasted

It is what it is

Now is it, really?
When in distress, this is perhaps the least comforting explanation for what has occurred. A twist to saying that what happened indeed did happen, and not much can be done to reverse it. The vacuity of this statement comes from, not only the fact that it states the obvious, but also, the attempt to diminish the value of your apprehension, fretfulness over this something. The foremost issue is not to define the occurrence, but the consequences/solutions/problems of such an occurrence.
It is is undoubtedly what it is.

a meeting

our meeting was so brief,
a flicker between the blades of a whirring fan.
I hear you marching in the back of my mind
across meadows and in between dreams:
dim dreams and muted mumblings

let's imagine life

as a silky, sweet, soundless
rose
always in love
forever aiming for the sky.

soft caresses leave petals behind

Insomnia and Death

Sleep has long been perceived as a metaphor for death. Just as Hamlet blurs the lines between death and sleep while describing his anguish over his father’s murder:
To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause
When contemplating suicide, Hamlet conflates sleep and death.
I recently read the article “failing to fall” by Siri Hustvedt, that led me to trace back my first pseudo-insomniac fit—conscious and somnolent. I was perhaps seven years old, when hanging clothes rustled in the dark, which triggered images of shadows with twisted faces emerging out of the dim light creeping out of the closet door. My imagination ran and I could not catch it until the break of dawn and the cock-a-doodlings came alive. Thankfully, my imagination decided to rest in my dreams. My next encounter with insomnia occurred when my family and I arrived to Canada; I was around the age of nine, almost ten. What triggered my insomnia then was a fear of death, albeit not my own death, but that of a family member. I had to ensure that everyone was asleep before me. But once they had fallen asleep, I would fear that they were sleeping without dreams. I would listen carefully for a sign of life. At that age, I aware that sleep resembled death so closely, that I would embark on a search for that seemingly lost consciousness of those asleep. This became a deadly habit.

As the dark spaces of night unfold, my mind’s eye flickers with images. My hands clasp the end of my memory, the end of my pillow.

those eyes

among the hysterically bland crowd, there are those eyes
armed with quick, broken – violin strings unstrung — glances
they glisten with phantoms of a distant emotion — mysterious, melancholic, metaphysical—
things are left unsaid, but your soul is touched with assumptions.
they dance and dance until feverish
then collapse into your memory — dead lovers, barren music, twisted plots-
and you cling to those eyes.

dream

it was right in front of me--loud, captivating and irreducibly mine.
it crept out of the broken mirror
i tried to touch it, but it became a cloud between my bleeding palms
i know the rules, inside out--they go in circles in my mind
viciously intact, instransigently real.
now the dream's behind me,
blanketed by fog

subsequent painting to former post

It's difficult to be cleansed by rain when we're carrying umbrellas.
The following is the painting "Rain Storm, Union Square," by American impressionist painter Frederick Childe Hassam, that I feel is fitting to my former post.

an imagined cleansing

I thought growing up meant a sort of cleansing
no more clinging to the bones of our ancestors
more cleansing
we can break an entry into heaven
more cleansing
we can let ideas fall, rise like tides, and crash against walls
more cleansing
we can speak of history’s eternal flame that challenged man
more cleansing
but, today it is raining
and no one is dancing.

Hope in a cocoon

It’s time to move beyond my facticity and acknowledge the possibility of any thing which, ipso facto, radically includes absolute nothingness. In other words, I exist, and it’s time to move beyond the now what. I want to push myself beyond the shadows that faintly stroke my conscious mind and beyond questioning the purpose of being and beyond reason—and unto the steps that lead to the moon. It’s time to allow for the irrational spirals that dot my unconsciousness to breach the gap between no thing and every thing. I want to believe that hope is indeed in a cocoon—silky, soft, safe and silent.

facticity of life

There are always moments when the facticity of life strikes me as strange, meaningless and, ultimately absurd. We buy mnemonic devices to remind us that life is... life is ...life is full of fragments or fragrances or figments or narrow arrows or dismembered membranes or ... Our facticity is book ended with facts, insurmountable conditions, but even the fluid in-betweenness can be full of loss, wrecked promises and dull forgivenesses. In those moments—-mud sinking moments--cruel memories taunt and assault us and remind us that life is dying and, if anything, full of doubt.

The best dreams are dreams in which you retrieve lost dreams.

secrets

saliently slopping against silent slips that savagely stroke sound surfaces where
soft sins speak with shattered sincerity.