Lost

Lost!, originally uploaded by rehuxley.

Ouch I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
I've lost myself again and I feel unsafe

Bombs in the Dark

Bombs in the Dark, originally uploaded by premasagar.

The Blow


Who struck first and where, in what joint
of clock time never
matters. When so many of them come
everywhere thudding in, what's worst
is nothing's to be done about it

but swallow hard. Forget. Suffer
doer and done to both
sunk into a hissing pot, the hot metal
quickly smothered, oh quickly —

But the eerie way it vanished! Shot star
across the night blackened,
by day hardly noticed:
innocent minor excrescence, swollen
gland, tree burl
trapped in an irritated throat —

So self seals itself up
as it must, to keep itself whole.
Ignorant, in forced
necessary sleep, the healthy system digests
its own illness first, then others':
scabbed corpses covered,
pothole arteries clogged

with denial: all things blow over
eventually, the houses sit back up,
the cars go back to work as usual —

But the dropped stitch still simmers
heedless, under ground
in forests of acid rain, the slow seep
of wrinkles across fair cheeks,

the stock market clangs shut
at first closing and then again, for which market
when, around the timed world ticks
blow by blow, as the wind settles and shifts

in Delphic caves. In Stygian
wine cellars. In London. Hiroshima. Manhattan,
all poisonous growths encapsulated
only to be spat out

year after year, as each stifled madness,
each new wave finds itself
coming even as it's going, and vice versa,
at the stroke of Radioactive High Noon,

Surprise! Horror grabs us
stunned, in vicious gusts pummeled
from Cape to Cape, from ear to burning ear, tacking

back and forth, from one barricaded
safe harbor, one mass cover-up
to the next, never to rest
ever: how far a single shadow can reach
is not to be known by day, O mio bambino caro
as the world blows itself away.

Patricia Goedicke

Wisdom

So live your life so the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their views, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a stranger if in a lonely place. Show respect to all people, but grovel to none. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself. Touch not the poisonous firewater that makes wise ones turn to fools and robs them of their visions. When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

Tecumseh

Merry Christmas

Bat Christmas Magic!, originally uploaded by gwhughey.

Make sure to visit GWHughey, my favorite contemporary artist.

Belated Love For John Lennon

John Lennon 25th, originally uploaded by goleech.

Ah, people asking questions lost in confusion
Well I tell them there's no problem, only solutions
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind
I tell them there's no hurry
I'm just sitting here doing time

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go

Hesse Love

"I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams--like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves."

~H. Hesse, from Demian

This Love

"For this love you shall be requited a thousand and a thousand times over, no matter what turn your life will take. This love, I am sure of it, will weave itself through the tapestry of your evolving being as one of the most important threads of your experiences, your disappointments, and your joys."

- "Letters To A Young Poet" Rainer Maria Rilke.

This Way Or That Way, It's All Our Fault

gent with binoculars, originally uploaded by Eddie The Dub.

I've been listening to a certain mix of music today. I'm especially fond of Disgrace by Essie Jain.

Garbageman: The Man With The Orderly Mind

garbageman2, originally uploaded by storker.

What do you think of us in fuzzy endeavor, you whose directions are

sterling, whose lunge is straight?

Can you make a reason, how can you pardon us who memorize the rules and never score?

Who memorize the rules from your own text but never quite transfer them to the game,

Who never quite receive the whistling ball, who gawk, begin to absorb the crowd's own roar.


Is earnest enough, may earnest attract or lead to light;

Is light enough, if hands in clumsy frenzy, flimsy whimsically, enlist;

Is light enough when this bewilderment crying against the dark shuts down the shades?

Dilute confusion. Find and explode our mist.

Gwendolyn Brooks

What Survives

, originally uploaded by kunja.

Who says that all must vanish?
Who knows, perhaps the flight
of the bird you wound remains,
and perhaps flowers survive
caresses in us, in their ground.

It isn't the gesture that lasts,
but it dresses you again in gold
armor --from breast to knees--
and the battle was so pure
an Angel wears it after you.

~Rainer Maria Rilke