Castle Island

Castle Island

Maybe Next Time

I may know that life is precious.I may know that life is precious because it is all there is,and so little time to enjoy it.But I also am learning that there is no law of nature that promises happiness.No rose gardens in every yard,or food on every table.

****************
Given we have free will..or so we seem to think.... I am struck by the fact that we are not better than we are. We take the least common denominators,the basest of ideas,and the most self serving of policies...and put ourselves on pedestals.We accept that some must live in filth and poverty...that they should scrounge for food in the dirt while others live in palaces.Still.We make laws and act as though they can not be broken..even if to save a life..yet we break laws to take lives ...and to cause harm...we regress rather than evolve,and cling to faith in mythologies as though we were living in ancient Greece.

****************

We humans have taken the law of survival,and made our own beds of it. There is no community in our societies,and there is no safety in our numbers.
I fantasize that this life of mine is a practice run...like most people do,who know their life will never be what they hoped...and realized it too late.Life 101....the tutorial.How quaint. Next level....you get to try it for real.

****************
This scenario begs too many questions.Ha, logic annoys me.The truth is,there are no miracles,no second chances and no practice runs.I cant remember who first said that,but I believe it was John Lennon or Andy Warhol? who said Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.Oh indeed. Indeed , indeed.

Rockport,Ma

After the Funeral

This is a tough one
easier to calculate the dynamics of the universe
or raise a child ...I could easier dig my own grave and sleep in it tonight
than understand..

still,something told me long ago
being old could have it's reward..rest and relaxation and hours of contemplation..then I was too old to dream about that
and questioned not when or where
but how could I go on?

and I wondered did my father find
on the gurney/what he sought
answers from places impossibly far away....
on snowy beaches..anticipating gourmet food
his son by his side that day before Christmas eve.
packages heaped on the kitchen floor
waiting to be givent to grandchildren
our mother..solemn.. seemed to feel a need to explain

having lived and breathed so long
bruised ,broken too many times too even wonder what could have been besides vodka and orange juice
movies and endless talk of someday.
....and places never visited... never dreamed about..our lives caught in a maelstrom fates ..painstakingly paved...yet to be understood
as we sat in a row in a bar...across from the funeral home
a billion stars in the night sky..warm summer exhileration forgotten.

we dreamt of all things possible
while we drank the past away...as people dream of such things
spinning through barbecues and other times when life was .........

meanwhile,on other streets...life happened
people perched on stools... on patios and in dining rooms
they might as well be hot dogs and hamburgers...bug lights and laughter..the universal condiments

.....the bartender svelt and curious
took the tips we left behind..
and I found myself alone in the street
looking for a way home.
The traffic lights looked like angels
a lamp ,a baby,a one way ticket
advising me to swim in senses yet to be titilated
throw off these layers of reality that suffocate
the naked self....

...ever wonder about the long heavy sigh..of the passersby?

luck,success,failing...endless cycles of circumstance and choice.
regrets best embraced with passion
only the living are privileged to feel
though the sun lights begrudged days....
and cursed rainclouds and bitter winter haze
punish the weary heart
snowflakes fall..little beached and bleached whales
on the shores of the disenchanted.

slumped before the tube ..heads shaking and head aches brewing
for the turmoil that ebbs and flows
a tide a wave a wind
through us over us and in us

at the last hour...what thoughts we have of all this
and so much of that
not one less amazing than the last
is it all in vain but the heat we generated
which still warms the seats we occupied...and our bills unpaid?
this definitive heading
briefest of summaries
barely acknowleging..dreaded...inevitably honored
it was everything..and nothing
but a coveted barbecue and an eventual funeral.

The Cup Is Full

the dusk was littered

with pieces of lives

or only mine... stunned into submission

by april's gardens of annual dissapointments.
***
It rained so much ........

We grow used to grey

as though it were the meaning of life...

and I was not expecting You.

Standing on the stairs,

a collage.. deliberate and delivered

like sumptious frivolous shrimp...

theatre and contrived vibrance

pretentious and delightful showmanship
but if only I had not sworn to sobriety

and sacrificed the words!
***
YOU. raising your arms,a modern day Moses,

harking the beautifullness

of the day I had promised should be melancholic.
***
Sucking in air

with so much drama and lordliness..You...

me...a coward's shadows

twinned in the changing angles of enlightenment.

Hoping the mist would swallow you away...

Begging God to stop the world

so I could be trapped with you forever

...and so it was .
***
I am trying to speak lies that once were truths.
***
you levitate as I plummet

and I age thousands of years....
"..and then the cup is full"

was all I actually heard of your soliloquy
for I had been away...

chasing a moment

long since making a home

in a place alusive to purpose.
***
our brief exchange winding down...

an old dented metalic toy

toppling,rattling,diminishing

on the tile floor...

my lungs flexing

,recycling the essence

lingering ,by your leave.
***
from here I watch you

pass the massive windows,

never looking in to see me seeing you ...

that almost imperceptable cringe from the rain...

or something drearier...

I'd failed to notice.
***
i turn my gaze again

to the bland horizon..

soon...the grey bleeds down into darkness

and the windows become mirrors

with nothing more to say

than that the lessons offered on the meanings of life....

are so much more fleeting

than the days we spend in search of them ...
***

Ode to Crocs , Bears and Ruddy Faced Friends

it sure is quiet here
they both agreed with solemn nods
sitting on the wet and roughened rocks
above the wildly erupting ocean
by the fading green tangles of grass
under the oddly uncomforting setting sun....
the only sound the thrash of waves as though a hundred miles away....
where did you go
one blonde headed man asked the other
..........whose face was ruddy and worn like a thousand years of strife.........
when you knew it was time?
everyone has to go someplace..so i went to
the only place I could
the only home Id ever really known
back to the bears.
back to the chuckling brooks where bears feed.
that is amazing ,mate
the red faced fair haired man shook his head and cast his eyes
to the changing colors of the tide...a tear falls unhurriedly
into the foam
and you? the grizzly man asked
turning to the croc man
holding his gaze in anticipation
where did you go...i can imagine I know
crikey ,mate,I went to my wife and children
i did not believe that it was time
I was not ready for this....
id so much more to do..so much more to teach and learn
and the colors of the sea turned to one deep and spectacular gold
its not the same now
they said together
and swore each other a jinks...
and now that we understand it all..feels like cheating
one softly sighed.
funny how we lived to be on camara
yet our most dramatic moments will never be shown....
even funnier how our passions embarassed others
yet we are loved more in death than in life...............
funny stuff...curiously funny stuff.

could you afford me one laugh my friend
for our dastardly audacious lives?
for my bears and your crocs and our ill fated demise?
alright,then,cue me..he straightens his slumped shoulders and perks up his face
what a ride,eh mate?what a really awesome ride.
then from behind them,a voice spoke barely audible ,
a figure appeared barely there
a woman.whose sad eyes looked out over the expanses beyond them
i thought i might come back ..sit with you a while
its so rare..i ever smile...
they shared some memories....
her apes... his crocs.... his bears
till it was time again.....
the wind...... began erasing them..no not them exactly..just their lines
as though the old artist, unsatisfied was retouching his work.....
or searching for the perfection underneath...
and the sea turned once again,as the last light of the sun gave just a clue to its existance,
at once and with flair, only these souls could muster...a ruddy and passionate red.