"If we're gonna fly, we fly like eagles...arms out wide.
If we're gonna fear, we fear no evil...we will rise"
My name is strength...
I feel the need to clear up a few misconceptions people have about me. To start, people think that I cannot cry. Oh I can and I do, I just don't let the tears cloud my vision. People think I do not feel pain. I feel every blow received. I've just been hit so many times it's turned into lessons on pain management. People think I have no doubts. I do, but I have learned to answer them quickly enough to never let them slow me down. Yet the biggest misconception about me that people have is the worst one yet. People think I cannot fail. I will tell you the secret of my success. For the most part, I can only succeed after I have learned the trappings of failure. Why? This allows me on subsequent tries to identify and avoid those trappings altogether...demanding I stay clear and resolute. So you see, without failure, I cannot ever truly reach my full potential. Ever growing in the cyclical "rise and fall" until the "rising" takes hold.
Oh and one more thing. I am often confused with stubbornness. Don't buy into that. Pride is the
engine of stubbornness. I am at my best when I am vulnerable. Humility is the engine of vulnerability. Without it...my hosts will never truly come to "the end of themselves". The place
where course correction is finally realized towards the road to success...
"Summer carries Apollo home into a beaten down hotel room. The bed creaks as he sits to contemplate the night's fate. He take off his shirt as he gets up to open the window. The fan oscillating only hot air. The only source of light; a dim lamp and the clear moon coming through the window. Dry sweat on his skin as a hot breeze pushes forward the sheer curtains ever so slightly. His music is hypnotic. His groove is lucid...he's hungry and she wants to see him. It's gonna be a long night..."
Experience is the worn out reel and the well chewed meal. It's the night's nursed drink and exstacy's brink. Fixated and focused on the seconds that drip like hot wax on skin. Like slow deliberate raindrops fillin up a set of cups hand forged out of old pieces of tin...
There is nothing more tempting than "secret knowledge". To "know" what one does not know.
"How do you know?"
"They told me"...
"Then how is it a secret?"...
"I got one for you that you might not have heard yet"
There is a wizard behind a red curtain that stands hidden before the masses. Oh...he's something special and mysterious but seldom seen or known. It's eye opening to finally discover his existence but did you know? That behind him? There is another curtain...scarlet in hue, velvet in texture. Those behind this particular curtain have no "title" and are hardly ever seen. Born with names like "they" and "them"...they control the wizard. It's quite dangerous to find them so most would rather not. As this tale often goes, one would think to end here but alas...no. There is, in fact as yet...another curtain. This one is black, moldy and covered with ash. Inside that room...is something dark. A thing that carries ancient names, disguised as anything you want OR need it to be. Sly...slick and wise. In fact...wise enough to fool "them" and "they" into thinking that A) they can control it and B) that it has no match simply because behind it...there is no curtain. Oh...but there is "something". A thick rear wall littered with pinprick sized holes just behind it. Pinprick sized holes that allowed a blinding light to intermittently flash into that darkness...weakening it every time. A fact strategically kept obfuscated to anyone but itself and whomever the light that's shining behind that wall was emanating from. A light that shines by way of a universally constitutionalized law coming from the other side.
"Oh...you knew this already!!"
"Please excuse me..."
"Secrets!!...right!!"
"I'm not quite done..."
One day some in the masses revealed the wizard and he laughed at them...as another simply took his place. On another day, some in the masses revealed the "they" & "them" behind the scarlet curtain only to have "they" & "them" laugh at the masses because over time...they too would eventually be replaced. It took a season for a few in the masses to discover the "it"...and oh..."it" laughed in mockery. Why would it laugh? One would think it would thrive "unknown" so what such laughter? It knew that once the masses came to discover it...it could become whatever the people wanted or needed it to be. Basking in the total control it desired more than anything else...able to spin its yarn in any way, shape or form required. How so? Because by the time the masses went through all the mental and spiritual gymnastics to get to "it"...they would have been conditioned to believe anything. Directed and defined by an existential crisis in all the twisted realities that have infected their minds up to that point. No longer knowing who or what they are...strung along by some complex fix called..."secret knowledge". Slaves under bit and bridle by shock and surprise. Thinking the more they "know"...the greater in command they are. When just the opposite is true. Neat trick huh? Yeah...I thought so too...
As to the blinding light that shines through the pinprick sized holes? Well...that is the secret of all secrets. VERY few can stand the truth of it so it has remained hidden save for but a few. Yet how could something so powerful remain hidden? Well, you see...it's not behind a curtain & you've more than likely have been carrying it with you all your life. It's just too simple to find interesting & it's beauty is too common to stand out. Nurturing it...is unimpressive. I liken it best to a piece of coal you've carried in your pocket. Something simple you inherited at "birth"...deemed "renewal", "discovery" and "growth unto power" by those that know it's true value. Yet sadly, most pay no mind to it. They're usually too busy...out looking for diamonds...
Three movers do their best to get a couch up a flight of winding stairs:
1) The one that wants to be seen as at the top. He navigates & pulls.
2) The one at the bottom just cares about the job gettin done. He bears most of the weight...yet goes unseen.
3) The one that wants to be counted among them with less invested stays in the middle.
Which one are you? Measure your heart, not by position or status...but by it's truest intent. When you come to understand this simple truth, you will seldom be disappointed in choosing people in your circle or midst of real value. Or even...who has more to teach...
I've known & know a few & their worth has & is seldom celebrated but when crowns are counted among men & women according to the truest measure of a soul...I will be thankful to be able to recognize the names. I only pray to humbly be among them some day...their example has been worth a thousand lifetimes to me.
Their roles seemed thankless without praise but in time...the value of their hearts became clear to those with "eyes to see". I see some of you even now as you read this. Even though you never asked for it...your day will come. Wait for it...now smile. I'm out...
"...Hoy represento el pasado...no me puedo conformar..."
My father had me on weekend visitation rights. As a young buck, I went from a shared room with George Washington Bridge views to living in a one bedroom apartment. Sleeping on the couch from Friday night to Sunday I was more than just "OK".
Brooklyn...42nd Street, between 9th and 10th ave was what most today would call "a hot block". A place where gunshots rang almost nightly and where the majority of the block housed squatters getting high in the abandoned buildings adjacent to ours. I learned to smell it, to taste it...all while eventually not giving a sh*t. There was a natural simplicity about that place and I felt great so long as dad held my hand.
With my mother, I traveled to France, Great Britain and other exotic parts of the world. With my father, I enjoyed trips to Coney Island, Jones Beach, Great Adventures and eventually, Sunday service. In one world, I had Chinese food, Burger King, Filet Mignon and an alarm clock buzzing right next to my sister's Menudo posters. In another, I had a home cooked meal every night and a stepmother that would wake me up yelling at the cat..."Oye Chocho, ve y levanta tu hermano". The contrast was something a young man wouldn't notice unless he opened his eyes as an adult. I would find this difficult at the time. I found this near impossible as someone that just wanted to love the wholeness of his family, however disjointed they would seem. What lessons could I learn as a man from the totality of my experience? The simple.
The idea of brushing off the inconsequential to focus on the tiniest of details after you've absorbed the bigger picture. Where the type of rose mattered more than the dozen society expects. Understanding the totality of my experience and crystallizing it down to something that could fit in the palm of my hands. A simplicity that would make me a citizen of all the worlds I would soon encounter.
The trips, the cars, the house or lack thereof, would soon come to be no more than a backdrop to what was most important...the deep truth of all that's called "the moment". Those seconds where you can find deep meaning in "the best" as well as "the worst".
As a man, I listen to old Spanish music and I appreciate the smell of roasting pig beneath the fresh coal in Puerto Rico. Such music inspiring emerging memories of a child sliding on smooth, painted sidewalks under the pouring rains of Santo Domingo. El Gran Combo brings back memories of the lost souls that would sing and play guitar by a metal barrel lit up with lighter fluid. Burning newspaper under the gloomy street lights. While Julio Iglesias and Camilo Sesto would flood my soul with images of my mother sipping fine wine out of her expensive wine glass in our over-sized living room. These simple things mean so much more than the totality of my experience because they, in truth, bring out the essence of them all.
You remember what happiness is and just how fleeting it can be. Learning that it is found in moments immersed by the beauty of the second...where time doesn't exist. In that place where all that matters is that you're living. Exhaling a sigh of relief with a smile of gratitude. Where you come to ask..."is life really so bad?"
In our one bedroom apartment my father had a small kitchen. Beside the stove, hung up on the wall, there adorned a small plate. Something purchased simply because someone said..."This would look great on our wall". It had a saying I came to apply throughout my life. A saying that would unknowingly impact me for years to come and would truly define who I am today...
"Thank God for dirty dishes, they have a tale to tell. While others may go hungry...we're eating very well".
Beauty's moon shines in mist to breathe life into death, light into darkness & even love into hate. To shine upon all that's passed. Revealing all hidden memory to see pain, heartache & struggle as silent road signs stationed for all the sacred paths we were designed & destined to walk. Once endured...now rewarded with experience that filters its lifeblood into the very nature of all that we are. Manifest in gratitude...the prelude to peace. Breathe my people...
"If you stop, close your eyes & listen...you might be able to hear the words as well..." ;-)
Silence loves me. She loves me in the tender sigh everytime she reads something I wrote. Even now, reading this, she smiles a rosey blush...knowing I speak of her.
She loves me in the memory she has of me holding her in the twilight of a daydream...as she walks by a beautifully misplaced garden. She loves me when she says nothing...thinking I might find her odd for reaching out. Silence loves me and we never met...or have we?
For me...her love is enough. Maybe I'll find her neath my moon...when stars are clear enough to see as well as we can hear. With nothing. For nothing...but silence.
"As an artificial light gleams off my computer screen, there is
a candle doing it's very best to remain relevant."
It burns hotter as it dances to Satie gently playing in the background. Peripherally grabbing my attention. Asking that I should hold it close to my heart. As it's shadow sways behind, my gaze is set on holding onto it's gift to me for the night.
In a beautiful whisper I am reminded that no matter where I go or what I do, it must always burn true. Fueling all hunger & desire. Reminding me to appreciate the sight of heaven within both the art of God and man. For in this I find an artistic design to my humanity. The beauty of frailty lost in power. Touch, taste, pain & pleasure...ready, willing & able to be expressed in divine release across light years of existence. Candles burn so time & space can hold no place as deep ever so gently...calls unto deep.
Just another day in the life of a man that has done his best to live his life in truth, by faith...in love. A man that has understood that the value of love is best expressed in time given. As time is the only thing man cannot replace and he is blessed to have shared his with so many but most of all...those he has loved the most. Something his father has left him as a priceless legacy. You see he may have never had the best things money could buy but he knew he always had his father. He was always close. Always ready to impart wisdom or just "be there" in any way he could. While this age places value in success expressed in money, it has created beings without care, love, honor or integrity. Time requires these things...doled out money does not. So he has chosen to live out his fathers legacy and this has made him...a true king.
And so this day, February 10th, came and went without fanfare, pomp and circumstance for this king. It was a sweet day on his forty fifth birthday. Though sadly incomplete by one, yet made special by two. Quiet, easy and tender. With a knowledge of what is about to unfold kept safe in his heart. A fifteen year wait in faith is now a time of manifest expectation. Only because God has made his heart ready through his father's legacy. As such, his kingdom is at the precipice of abundance. All now replete and ready for change...without changing who he has become. It's a strange feeling...but a welcome one.
Yeah...I'm more than ready. I thank my Lord...
~Moses Apollo Apolinaris
PS: Don't you ever forget one thing: Every day, every second is a God given opportunity to become better...to change into the best "you" that you can be. Does you no good to have full pockets if your soul is empty...much love.
"...cause when I say I love you...that's forever..."
When love is not madness, it is not love. ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca
Interesting quote to say the least. It was posted as the status of one of my Facebook friends. Reminded me of something I wrote well over a year ago about passion:
"Holding back your heart is a tough thing to do. We do it out of fear and we do it out of pride. Fear of getting hurt and for the sake of pride...not to look foolish. As a young man, I always thought that real love transcended all these things. That it was endearing to play the fool for the sake of the one you love and that the risk of getting hurt or looking stupid was well worth it. To stand out in the rain for an hr just to catch a 5 min glimpse of her and a hello was once considered romantic. Not so today. Today in this "me society" no one is willing to take the chance to look foolish anymore. Everyone wants to play it safe. Reading the poets of old, you would think these men desperate or foolish for professing all they did...but it was all for love. There was passion...real passion. Yet sadly, today that is missing and those that show such passion are looked down upon. Today, its no longer who I love but what can they do for me because I have to "look out for number one". Now I am not advocating the pursuit of a destructive relationship because in it's pure form, real love is not destructive. It's just that I've seen love taking a back seat to convenience too many times to count. That may seem fine in the beginning but what it creates is a long term compatibility lacking in any real passion. Its a form of settling. One can tell the difference even in a kiss. One passionate kiss can create a moment that lasts for an eternity. Those moments you never forget. Sadly some have never experienced this love and for others, if they have, it scared them. It scared them because they finally got what they wanted but didn't really ever realize how intense it would be. The heaviness of it, the work to keep it and the confusion it can bring. For within the same passion your love springs out of, so can other emotions...including hate, anger and jealousy. How can you want to be with someone you cant stand or just had a serious argument with?...Passion. That confusion will cause sides of you to appear you never knew you had...especially if you are one prone to need answers. I had relinquished all notions of this love when I decided to stabilize my life. Such unpredictability might've been disastrous in my growth. I let it go and became more mechanical in my approach until it hit me square in the eyes one day. I couldn't do anything about it and the road it led me on would've been great had it not been for the timing of its arrival. Instead of a great experience, I suffered loss. In its short time, when it was good, it was REALLY good but when it was bad...it was REALLY bad. The pain of it was more than anyone should ever bear which leads me to the reason for this missive. My perspective was skewed do to my bitterness, anger and pain. To see through their prism will distort your reality and all your conclusions will be wrong. Bitterness and anger had caused me to create images of people that they didn't deserve. Yes they have failed me but there were reasons (not excuses) behind that failure. Accepting those reasons didn't excuse behavior, it just gave way for a change in perspective and my change in perspective gave way to real understanding. Understanding gave way to real forgiveness and real forgiveness gave way to healing for me. Healing that allowed me to see things for what they truly were, not what my bitterness had dictated. My anger had caused me to dismiss love and passion as something to avoid and I was fully prepared to live that empty role everyone figured I'd live anyway. Yet with my healing came the understanding that love and passion were in fact something to cherish...something to shoot for and something never to take lightly. I don't care how much pain I was in or how foolish I looked throughout this process, I was true to my feelings. Like the poets of old, I stood willing to be the fool and endure the pain for the sake of another. I trusted and became vulnerable. I surrendered myself to it because I wanted more and that is never something to feel ashamed of. Even though it seems my passions' target has broadened, I refuse to give up on these notions. I am alive...in my pain, in my hurt and in my elation...I AM ALIVE. Passion...without it, I die a slow death."
I re-read this today and wow. I have since learned the difference between this intense crazy passion for someone that was real and a toxic relationship that may have been passionate...but had become too harmful to stay in. For the latter, I still hold to that passion and love with the exception that the relationship must be done away with for the sake of those involved. You see I posted this on facebook Monday, July 13, 2009 at 7:50am but it was written a bit earlier. The quote posted today dates back to the 1600's. People, truth spans generations. It remains relevant throughout time. Re-reading this and looking at my condition today...damn this still fits like a glove.
I struggle between being angry at things I see that make me want to burn every bridge imaginable and moments of the purest desire to relive and create new moments exclusive to one. It is the hardest thing to write about because it is madness. It makes no sense. It has no logic. All sense tells you this person is no good for you but you insist. All sense tells you to run the other way but you cant. It takes a lot to wake one up out of such a thing. It usually takes something really f**ked up to happen and sometimes not even that will do it. Passion is sometimes like an uncontrollable fire. You don't know how it began...you just know you're burning. Even in times of anger, it can manifest itself in ways where you just want to thrash the object of your passion in complete sexual abandon. Sounds awesome right? It is...the only problem is that it's volatile. Folks talk about "happy love" and "happy happy joy joy" comfort but there is this "thing" where talk of marriage, future, family...all these things just fade in the background of moments together. Its all background noise in the presence of the one you're passionate about. It just doesn't rank as high in priority as just feeling that person's breath on you as you lay next to them. Wanting to bring them pleasure with all that you have as you make love to them. It's all I ever wanted and the truth is...it is madness. Real life gets in the way of that and the problem is that without "real life" there is no "life".
I've decided that I'm gonna fix life. I'm gonna fix it so that it does not get in the way of my passion. I will take this pursuit to my death as I will not relinquish what my fire has lead me to...ever again. ~Moses Apollo
