Archive for February 24th, 2011
Fire Me to Ash
Posted by Carl in Essays, Finding Purpose on February 24, 2011
After a long hiatus, this is more from the Who I Want to Be series.
This morning, a wonderfully wise man gave me information that helped me on my path. He wrote about fire in our spirit and when fire is done there is nothing but ash and ash is nothing. The fire should be going all of the time, the ash should be blowing away all of the time, and the forest should be thin in minimalist beauty.
In order for our spirit to have fire, we cannot be thinking of anything but what we are doing, and hopefully what we are doing does not require thinking (though we tend to think almost all of the time, life probably requires true thinking for less than 5% of the time we spend awake. So when I’m reading the paper, if I am thinking about the report that is due at work this morning, I am doing neither the reading nor the report and instead, I am basking in this incredible, hopefully temporary insanity. Some might name this as a disease of modernity, as a plague of our culture rather than insanity.
When my mind is disturbed, I am on my way to insanity. When I am 100% disturbed, which has happened a few times, I don’t do anything wacky like kill people (yet!) or streak naked through the neighborhood (yet!), but I clutch at my head, wanting all of the pain to go away, Read the rest of this entry »
A Lame Slum Bag
I’m not a fancy-dressed man.
In the days of ego, I wore the finest threads,
but they were baggy, never disco.
Long ago, I had a big boss often shout,
“Man! You look sharp!”
My ego loved this but he was always drunk.
We could not perform if not sharp.
But that was a lie.
People look at me like I’m a lame slum bag.
I don’t appear to care.
I love my eccentric, wild-ass ties.
My wife cringes in shivery embarrassment.
She tries to buy me plain, boring ties.
Nylon shit from Santa, but I am grateful.
I love my sharp shirts, cheap pants,
unpolished shoes and missing coat.
Really, I never want to dress up again.
I don’t care what is printed on my t-shirts.
Give me my dirty jeans,
tennis shoes, a tad dirty.
I’m not a fancy-dressed man.
I want to lounge in ugly soft clothes,
and steam hot in my spiritual desires.
I would love me without a tie!
Scaring the Cubicle Neighbors
Chicken arms.
Indian Chanting.
You’re all the way, baby!
Not Leonard Bernstein.
Air conducting through my life.
When I Am Mad at Life
I have hundreds of white socks
and hundreds of dress socks
but never a match.
I cuss. Usually, “Fuck!”
The dog tilts his head.
(My genes are in bad spiritual condition.)
On a good day,
still never a match.
I laugh and dribble at the madness of my life.
My hair bubbles and I breathe.
I’m not the worst human on earth.
(I prefer my genes in good spiritual condition.)
Alone but Not All Gone
A screen and people I know through words.
Sometimes magic.
Not farm-fresh when I crawl
away from my wife.
I’d love to share.
She has no gray.
She has crystal blues.
Wednesday Quintet for Failure Battles
I
The window shade was sealed shut.
Harry could not bark at black cats,
but I could not be cheered
by the arrival of a new day.
II
Evergreen needles poked at my lungs.
Frost shooed away the new heavens.
Mexico with guns and no map.
Stole a horse and bummed pop.
III
Full tank of gas,
stark desire to go nowhere,
but I went to work anyway.
The garage door was open.
IV
I rode like an elephant on my hospital bed.
Safe, but my bed was fast and unrestrainable.
I laid giant, orange turds in sharp and frigid pot holes.
The people loved me softly but didn’t follow me.
When I pulled in and parked at work, pulled sheets away,
my trunk meandered round and round,
praying gently for deliverance of love and water.
V
I dragged my brain in full, cavernous gutter.
Heater was plagued and polluted sanity.
Fresh tires loved the asphalt. My thinned hair hung
in murky, squalid water with floating Popsicle sticks.
stillfugue 