There is a space and a moment when everything that supposed to make sense does and what doesn't matter becomes a back-drop to that feeling of release. Where you look back and wonder why it consumed so much of you. I had that moment tonight and I really hope someone I care about can have the same release.
You see big issues become little when they are analyzed and seen for what they really are...ripples in the water of a painting replete with mountains, beautiful skies, streams and two souls in a boat. I spent years trying to figure things out that in the bigger picture didn't add or take away a thing from the value of the painting itself. I've been sedate for so long I've forgotten these things at times lol
Now I could go back and delete some rants but I will do no such thing as they are snapshots taken to understand what makes us tick on beat...and off. Besides, some of you may need rants like that because you may need to know that you're not alone in how you feel about a thing or two. Never regret an over-reaction if you know you can snap out of it and no one was hurt in the process. Stick with it, nurse it and act on it? Well then you're fucked and I can't do a thing for you lol
"You've been livin life it's a sequel and you're already bored with the plot..."
Conclusions are pretty nifty things when all the information is available. They help you move forward and bring comfort when everything seems scattered but how do you come to them? How do you reach the absolute thought process that gives you the moral license to act?
Do you trust in your misplaced anger? No, because that will taint your perception of motive. Do you trust your imagined misconceptions? No, because that will taint the criteria used to judge what will be considered evidence allowed to make your case. Some will say that they have a unique perspective and others will assume they have all the information needed when in both cases...they fall short. Unless everything is concrete a conclusion is always at best a hypothesis and nothing to really base a heartfelt decision on. Yet lest we obsess over this question let's examine the need for such a discussion. Some decisions are way more important than others and some questions that precipitate a need for a decision are nothing more than a passing curiosity held on for too long. So what the fuck am I really saying here? I try to do my very best not to take too much time with questions that drive me crazy because the truth is, we could all be full of shit in what we're obsessing about anyway lol On top of all that, at some point you begin to encounter diminishing returns. In other words, they get in the way of life. A wise man used to tell me many times "Moise, you either shit or get off the pot...". You takin a shit readin the paper? Finish your paper then get up and find out if the corn you ate last night made it's way through. Don't sacrifice the sports section for worry...
At this point, I have no answers to unknown questions but what inquisitiveness cannot help, time and patience always provides. I will wait as long as I need to. While I wait...I'll continue living and doing my best to put a smile on someone's face that may need it...
After a beautiful night the poet questions things a poet should not question. His drive, his lust, his passion and all directive behind them but you see it's not the poet that is questioning himself...but the man that houses him.
The man has been in charge so long and he has yet to fully let go. His environment demands his command and the poet becomes stifled but the poet is just as strong. Is this for anyone else's consumption? No, but I promised years ago that I would let it all out here and that as yet stands.
Remember the issue of Moses and Apollo? Well, they fightin again...but they'll work it out. This is a crises of existentialism and the greatness behind the answers are too damned important not to work it out. I bet you're thinkin "Oh how dramatic!!!" Yeah well if you are, then this post ain't for you. If you are an artist that desires to know beyond knowing...to feel beyond feeling. You know you can't fake this hunger or manufacture this need by wishful thinking or a change in perspective. You're either hungry for what you can't quantify or not...and very few are. As a result, very few will understand and as a result of that? My journey will have me become a man alone. Heh...ain't nothin new...
Oh fairest friend, hint me your heart and show me just enough. Grab me from within and take me to places you've only dreamed of showing another. Show me something greater than myself. Show me something that will satiate the memory in my heart for the rest of my life. Ethereal plains and fields littered with a species of rose that only grows in your garden. I will let you...
Sweet darling rose, hint me your lake and show me just enough. Grab me from within and take me to the stream that only comes from you. Guide me to bathe under the waterfall that flows between the most beautiful pillars I have ever seen. Saturate me in your essence and bring me life. I will let you...
Sweetest lake upon my body, hint me your home and show me nothing. Blindfold my eyes lest they should deceive me. Grab me from within through the experience only my other senses can provide. Allow me to smell the rose that grows in your garden upon your skin. Allow me to taste the waters I have bathed in as I prostrate between your pillars. Allow me to hear the sound of your sacred release from your supple lips and afford me the grace to touch the outer walls of your home with my own. All that I may keep to memory the fullness of all that you are. All that I may perfectly entreat when needed, wanted and desired. For passion, for love and for all that you are worthy of. I will let you...let me...
A centuries old cathedral encased in glass stood for but a few to visit. Yet one day, it was for but two alone...
They wandered in as strangers and shared in it's imagination. They tendered song and roses to it's beauty until their hearts were offered as well. Daily they came to admire it until they found themselves ignoring it all together. They met there daily still and instead of gazing at it's beauty, they now found each other's eyes even more worthy of gaze. He came to adore the smile she couldn't help. She became enamored by the foolish quirk he could not hold in. All this becoming more important than this place. They would soon feel the need to touch but the sanctity of this place was still too grand and now what had brought them together had become what was keeping them apart. They knew they didn't need the cathedral but as it became a staple in their new found love, they were afraid of leaving it behind lest their love would be left behind as well. Until one day...they found themselves having no choice but to do just that. The man became so ill that he could not meet his timely commitment anymore. Sadness and confusion overtook them...
They feared the loss of the love found in that place but as minutes felt like hours and hours felt like days...something else altogether happened. This love they found did not wane but instead began to suffer the pain of loss. The truest testament to something's value. They found they missed the stillness of their company and came to find something more to miss...the touch they had so longed for but already had. For even though they did not touch in flesh...they touched in spirit. Something very few could ever truly comprehend. The intimacy of souls was theirs now to keep in perpetuity. What of the cathedral? It's beauty stands but it had lost its power over the fate that was now theirs. They found the treasured confirmation they had been looking for in the discomfort of change. That all they ever needed to do was trust the love that they had found...was real. That yes, it did in fact transcend space, time, holiness and sin. Unlike the multitudes that met in that place and thought the same. They were the exception as they came seeking nothing for themselves and found each other instead...
Today they meet where they please. Sanctifying the very spaces they enter by the beauty of her smile and the quirk of the fool...
To understand: All that has value must be tested outside it's place of comfort. If it endures to flourish...so will it's value...
Words typed from beautifully tender tips on a screen got me thinkin on a truism...
A long time ago a woman I loved told me that she had shared one of my pieces with a friend of hers that just so happened to be an artist and what she told me she said moved me to near tears. I nervously chuckled instead...
"Oh my dear, I feel so very sorry for you. You are in love with an artist..." She was serious...
You see I knew what she meant. In order to be able to create true art one must become hollow to all facades. You have to be willing to wear your insides out and put them on display for all to see. The trick is...you have to see them first. Everything from the good to the bad. The light and the dark as well. Being this way produces mood swings and melancholy that most will not be able to relate to but doing this allows you the roadmap for a deeper understanding of "self" and by extension...everyone else. You see your darkness for what it is, listen to its music, dance to its tune and find that sweet spot of temperance that will transform it from something ugly...into something beautiful. Something under your command for timely need. The light in you finds purpose beyond shine. Real world purpose that would serve more than just your ego and in this lifelong painstaking confusing process, you become something no one has ever seen in reality...until you. They wonder how you got there. They mimic all you do. Not understanding that this is the work of a soul carving out a voice that requires sincerity and the willingness to become ugly for the sake of finding the truth in beauty.
This woman was correct in what she said as we would not last. There is no question that my past love played her part in our demise but my ways were not easy to live with. To see all I see, express as I do and emote as I choose is not an easy thing to endure unless I am fully understood. Yet what I was gifted outweigh the downsides by miles. Because I am able to hear the blood flow through my veins, I can feel the Grace of God in the wind. Because I can see behind my irises and see the artistic quality of the nerves that allow me to interpret shape and sound, I can find the artistry in a quiet room whose only sound is the whispered creak of a settling home. Where some read between the lines, I can read between the letters...finding purpose in the process. I see this in a few and am enamored by their likeness. I see all they've gone through and am impressed by their present day ability to not just function...but to thrive with hope, love, purpose and passion. If they've gleaned nothing from their life, their potential will forever dither in hidden places they are afraid to go. The artist endures the ugly to eventually come to see it evolve into something imperfectly perfect...and beautiful. They are easy to love but hard to live with. To hear "some of you is so much better than none of you but all of you? That's not so easy" Yeah...I "get" that...
So then what is MY confession?
For all that is truly beautiful in me today began as something I thought ugly, useless or unworthy of anyone's time or heart. Thank God for evolution...
"all these places had their moments...in my life, I've loved them all"
Emma always knew she was different growing up. Fueled by an inquisitive mind she devoured life at it's fullest. All those around her knew how special she was and as such, became naturally desired by them. Their only problem was that they understood her worth, even as she did not. They knew she was gold in a copper world. A world she would soon outgrow. How would they overcome such a hurdle? By keeping the fullness of her value unknown to her. Including this beautiful piece of gold into their world of copper until she eventually became ensnared by the ceiling they all knew so well. Yet, what they did not anticipate was the power of innate value. It's instinctive need to blossom would soon have them at a loss.
Emma decided it was time to do for herself because she began to see the traces of gold inside. Her desire for a better world was nothing more than the manifestation of the gold within her. Guiding her and directing her to seek out for more than she had known. For more that she had been exposed to. Yet all the years she spent in the copper world made her reluctant to let go completely lest she find herself feeling as though she was above her friends and family. You see as gold...she loved them. Yet she was better...but was afraid to fully accept it. She did her best to grow within the copper world and as she did, those around her would find subtle ways to remind her of the ceiling that they have come to accept. Slow was her growth but her determination was unwavering and little by little, all that she knew would soon turn against her for having the strength to leave them behind. Still wrestling with the idea that she could love them to the point of understanding without being pulled in to their world.
From a distance another gold piece watches. He wants nothing less than success for Emma because gold recognizes gold and real value only wants to see value have it's due. Deserving of all she's never known with passion and fire thrown in for good measure...he knows she will succeed with or without him. His real admiration and love for her continues to grow in the process. He will do anything he can to make sure that by the time her head hits that ceiling, there will be an opening for her to crawl through...
To seek the approval of another when doing what is right is not genuine righteousness but to expect appreciation? That is human and although it may be a weakness that leaves one vulnerable to disappointment and hurt...it will always remain an innate necessity.
I have trained myself to avoid such pratfalls but they can consume me nonetheless as my human nature would dictate. Yet in my heart of hearts there is only one whose appreciation is a requirement...the man that looks back at you in the mirror. Expect nothing from everyone else and keep doing what is right for you and yours. Retain your integrity by making sure that it is never at the expense of another. Keep pressing to do what's right. Never giving up on hope, life or love. Become the exception to the rule and see your value as it is.
I may not be magnificent to some but to me? Flaws and all, I know better...
