Archive for March 28th, 2011
Another Difficult Day – Four More Pieces
I.
(Slowly)
Adaptability would allow me to live.
I’m frozen with guys who grow hair long.
They sing all day into the shells of the creations of man.
All of it is a river,
heading for dark silver soccer fields
with decades of dead players.
My fortress is gone too.
II.
(Moderately Fast, With Anxiety)
Sometimes it lies on me
like a large woman on a bus bench.
There is the sledgehammer to my temple.
Blinking tractor lights.
Trash trucks squeal
as if they are bringing personal defilement.
And even our most alluring inspector
cannot touch my heart.
There is a certain feel
that the car will hit the curb.
I will melt away.
III.
(Like a Light Dance)
Can you hear the bombs in the driveling sewer pipes?
Nothing outside is copacetic for the violence
of rapid death.
A vacant walk puffs here and there.
And you and I,
for the only delectation of the day,
laugh at the depth of my sickness.
IV.
(Fast)
My assignment is a commodity of happy.
I can feel all of you laughing.
Before any of the channels in my brain
begin to spark with dispatch of this rebellion,
I find I can lie just as well as all of you.
I had forgotten for a long while,
but now my trumpets with crooked faces
are blaring happiness.
Smart as Hell Revisited
Posted by Carl in Essays, Finding Purpose on March 28, 2011
Time goes by in a way that fools me and then it is not gone. It’s right in my fucking driveway.
Lately I have had a fatalistic feeling of being able to do nothing but wrong. People give me feedback that supports this evaluation. It is odd.
If I told you that I watch every step before my foot goes down, the exaggeration would not be too thick. This would be marvelous risk prevention if it worked. When I watch my steps today, it does not save me from stepping in the bad yesterday. The good I step in today might well be bad tomorrow. This brings on a full Alice-in-Wonderland feel. When time or learning do not matter, I become this massive, chaotic balloon with no chance of ever coming back to society, perhaps not flying into the sun but more flying so badly as to be permanently lost.
They tell me lately that I allow my emotions to wipe out the rational reactions to situations and events. It’s true that I am Read the rest of this entry »
Lost in the River on the Interstate Highway
Posted by Carl in Fiction, Finding Purpose on March 28, 2011
Eric drove the car on a barge of errands. His presence was not required, but there were red puffy clouds roaming through the house talking about a spring storm that might not miss the city and might just smash the front of his home into nothingness.
Earlier, Tommy told him that it is silly how our wives sometimes think that being married means being attached to each other as we go through all the strings of minor inconveniences that poke holes in the beauty of our days. Tommy explained that as we get older, we lose more and more of our independence until we no longer know who we are, which is okay because we need a loving partner who helps us get juiced on the major ups and helps us swim upstream against the travesties.
When Julie asked Eric if he wanted to go along on the burdensome list of errands, she knowing that of course he didn’t want to go along, he immediately consented to going along. As they circled the city as if spiraling down the drain of the dreaded lifelessness of duties, which are never much beneficial, Eric realized that whatever solitary activity which he had so richly planned was in the end the true nothingness compared to merely being present in the silent car that was circling the city.
On one of the errands, far away on the northern end of the city, practically in Iowa, he was able to see Julie do an immensely caring and compassionate thing for another human being who was hurting, and the emptiness of the errands started swimming with that floating stream of light purple waves that only come when fulfilling one’s purpose, those waves that seem to be singly responsible for keeping us alive.
Flying Inside of You
Stretching obstinately,
proving to you that I can manage flying powerfully
through the friendly universe,
listening to a spirit from tall balloons
telling me freedom allows me to travel anywhere,
and happiness might always lie there.
Dreaming of brooms with sharp Michigan tornadoes
rolling through steamy purple clouds running uphill
toward a castle made of velvety moss and soft stairs
in greens and pinks found only in South America,
allowing me to encase myself with the most
intense passion, compassion, kindness,
and love for you without any regard for anything else
in the whole bag of tricks, all of which being irrelevant.
I long for your forgiveness and I may be deserving.
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I thought this might be a good submission for One Shot Wednesday. Go check out all of the wonderful work happening over there.
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