The Valley - A Story by Apollo

The wind howls in this wasteland. A group of us walk together but we are isolated from each other's plight. We just trudge along. We cover our faces with an old piece of cloth and push on through this days storm. Every day is something different but each time there's a scar left somehow...as well as a bit of extra strength along the way. Broken mirrors tell the tale of a soul transformed. Transformed by the valley...

Being forced to navigate through the sandstorm, our eyes now see clearer. Carrying around our gear for miles at a time, our grip is now firmer and our backs feel no pain. Enduring the beating sun, our skins are now thicker and with tasks fulfilled...our senses are as keen as they will ever get at this level. Yet this is no place to live. In this place...there is no life that can endure. Everything dies here in time...everything. There is no rest...

So when do we leave this God-forsaken place?

(whisper) "when the mirrors say so"...(whisper)

That's when the path to our mountain opens up. That place we can rest. That place we can feel renewed. Where we can no longer see the valley below. Where the air is clean and the breeze is just right. Where the sun doesn't scorch and the rain doesn't bruise. There is beauty, rest, peace and an abundance of love. It's home...the place we all belong.

A young boy in our group picked up one of the broken mirrors and smiled. He knew it was his time. Setting down the mirror, he saw a path form at his feet that led to his mountain. I held him tight for a long while...holding back tears. His care was one of the reasons I was there to begin with. I told him to run...that I would see him soon. The scars he carried would forever remind him why he was in that place to begin with and maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have to return. I knew better though. You see...we all come back. If there was ever a place for those that are meant to be more than they are...it is this wasteland.

The valley and the mountain serve their purpose well as two pieces in a cycle towards greatness. The valley takes us through treacherous terrain as a form of training creating all we must become. Stay too long and you risk injury, insanity or death. Shorten your stay and you will never be all you could've been. The mountain allows our muscles to rest and adapt to the valley's training. Stay too long, we become weak, lazy and fat. Shorten your stay and you risk injury at your next training session from not having rested enough. A circle of hard and soft...yin and yang. Good and evil working together creating a cycle of purpose, scheme...and providence.

I picked up a broken piece from the ground...

~Apollo

PS: Whenever you're ready...you know the way home.

My Moon - A Poem by Apollo

My moon has taken breath

She has sworn me to silence

Tales of lust and fire

A passion brewed from fleshly pain

The kind that hungers for skin

Soft and tender to devour

To gently kiss and taste the flower

Between all that is called beautiful

Here now glimpse the monster

Unrestricted and unleashed

That beast of tender tamed

To softly touch and fiercely rend

From the soft to the hard

From the pain to the pleasure

Yet quiet is the beast until unleashed

For she has sworn me to silence 

My moon has taken breath...

~Apollo

What You Choose To See...

I created this video on Thursday, March 6th 2014 from my workout the day before.  I then decided to send it out to certain people that might appreciate it.  When I showed it to my son, he asked me "What's the point of this?" and I proceeded to explain the lesson hidden in the video.  His response was "Yeah but not everybody's gonna get it".  He's right.

There are times that I will write a piece about one thing and hide a message "in plain sight".  Is it in the setting?  The song maybe?  This is the part that I like to leave to the observer.  They may not get it today or even next week but eventually...I do hope they "get" what it was meant for...

~Apollo

Temple - A Poem by Apollo

You are not a showpiece but a work of art
Created in the image of a perfect grace
An omnipotent made for omnipotence.
Housing the very nature of value
Encasing the complexities of order called an eternal chaos
To disregard it's value means death
To overindulge in it's attributes means detrimental excess...

And so drive quickens your tenure
Invigorating your hunger
Moving your anger to passion
Your nails grow sharper and your tongue is quickened
Your hunger is as that of a beast unfed in weeks
Your lust unbridled and chained awaiting a key
While your strength destroys and holds together by a thread
As all weariness and sunken eyes become your house-guest

...until you are complete...

~Apollo

The New World...

As many of you know, I have had my Facebook account deactivated for quite some time now.  Well, I decided to re-activate it.  Not for the sake of nostalgia nor to say hello to old friends but simply to look for an old buddy of mine that was deported to Ecuador when I was a teenager.  It was that or jail-time for him.  Shit, which would you choose?  My cause came back empty but I decided to hello to a few folks...

What I came away with as I reached out to some people I have not communed with in some time was interesting to me to say the least.  Almost to a tee, I read them all write "Wow, where were you?  You fell off the face of the earth".  Now read that again and tell me if that isn't an odd thing to say.  Did I?  Now keep in mind that most of these Facebook friends are all local.  They not only live in the same state I do but also the same borough.  Shit, for most it would take me about 20 minutes by train to reach them so how in God's name did I "fall off the face of the earth"?

Understand that this is not a criticism of my friends.  We are all just a part of this new normal that has brought us here willingly.  It's just the past comes to mind by comparison.  I remember the days when we would travel to see our friends on a daily basis.  We would hang out and seek new friends to join us.  We called this "chillin".  Now these are called "get togethers" and they require invites to be sent by one to many on some "friends list".  Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc, has become "the world".  Never mind that I'm in the next room.  Never mind that I live two blocks away.  If I'm not on some social network...I may as well have passed away lol  I just reminded them all..."Hey, I'm still here" lol  My seclusion was by choice and that's well understood but the reaction from people speaks to the state of the times we live in.  God help us all...

It's a sad thing to witness the deterioration of community through things that are meant to make life easier but that is, in fact what has wound up happening.  Can we stop this?  If we could, would we?  No, this my people is a wheel that has no stopper...except of course if there was a catastrophic power outage lol  Imagine that?  No cell phones, Facebook or Twitter.  Shit, people wouldn't know what to do with themselves lol  Anyway, that's my thought for the night.  I'll be deactivating again...until my next resurrection lol

~Apollo