new year's day

a blank page
a fresh start 
anything is possible
anything we want
that ideal, that person,
we want to be

this year
this very first day
of this new year
it's different
we sense it
we know it 
in our very core
no looking back
no surrender
i got this
you got this
we all got this

not just me
not just you
all of us
all of mankind
    no matter 
    our differences
    all our hatreds
    and biases
    that have clutched
    with such passion
    'til this very day

it wasn't
until nine 
a of the m
that the very first
pristine cynical thought
of this newborn year
bloomed in my head
breaking my old record
of 2 am...
    i am encouraged
    by my progress 

 

 

on love

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all
                                        ~ Joni Mitchell

does anyone really know
what love really is?
many have tried to 
explain what is...
    unexplainable

poets and lyricists 
novelists, screenwriters
for the history of mankind
have tried and tried again
    all succeed in part and
    all have failed in the whole 

love evolves with age
it is personal 
it is part genetic 
and for certainly sure
forged by experience

it is everlasting 
and neverlasting
cynically clouded
or forever pending
it is storybookish
or unrequited, coveted 
carnal, platonic, filial
supportive, sarcastic
uplifting or berating
painful and healing
everything and nothing
the full gradient in between
it is none of the above
and all at the same time
    in the same person
    the same couple

in love,
we can be daring
stupid, cunning, dashing,
sly, reserved, timid, or
just our awkward selves 

it makes our lives
or ruins our days
it is liberating

love just is...

 

 

 

throwback winter day

it was another time
another time when we
all came of age 
a time of inflection
the world about to 
get much smaller
more populated
more hectic and
    just more...

it was the last time
when there was no grid
to wish we were off of.
the winters were bleaker
with darker nights and 
rawer days in that city
that seemed grim grittier
than it probably was

today was a day like
some of those days
i am recalling
and actually...
    miss
  

mining a vein of turquoise

i stumbled upon a piece 
of turquoise set in gold, 
the coppery kind,
mostly found near where
it was all crystalized

i admired the beauty of the
simple elegant presentation
and my guide, algor, noticed 
my mesermered fascination
and rhythmically guided me 
towards more without...
    missing a beat

these are not the finest pieces
like from a high end place 
from some famous jeweler
but, instead, from a 
much more humble craftsman
on some backstreet 
old world little storefront
in the bustle of the everyday
of common folks

i was in shops tourist never see
to a soundtrack i'll never hear again
but on those small streets 
in that  humble neighborhood
of a grand city i've never been 
and finding a few precious moments... 
    of contentment

while slowly sipping...

we never met, i never read you, though
i wrote what you wrote, after you died...
we never met, should we have?
there is a memory of you before the
very aroma wafted your words to my ears

in a small frothed cup of your sounds
i sipped your words sung by your sister
accompanied by your nephew and cousin
that plunged us all slowly into the murky
brown sweetly bitter depths of rebirth
able to see clearly but unable to tell anyone... 

being mused

having a muse
not anything i thought
i would ever have
i would ever need 
or ever really wanted

yet, here she is 
improbable and wondrous
passively active
amused and bemused
floating above it all
and in the thick of it
leaving me alone
whilst forever in my head
succeeding at making
creativity flow
with neither
plan nor agenda
leaving me
in short... inspired

actively arresting

you, i thought,
musingly used one 
of them there
oxidental dichotomous 
paradoxical thingys
when you told me 
you were going to 
'actively rest'

i was passively excited
there was a poem in this
until... it was 
ambiguously clear
it is a very real thing

all leaving me
happily dejected
stupidly smart
vigorously deflated

leaving no option
but to actively sleep
if that is a thing...