SIDEWAYS EIGHT PROJECTS

Welcome to the darkness between morning and night, you think you have a hold on it, but it chokes out the light. You think you can identify it, but that isn’t right. You go to the edge of your precipice, but that isn’t quite enough. It’s more rough and jagged than you can imagine, and more seasoned than depravity itself. It cannot be contained in a nightmare, or the encyclopedia of demonology upon the shelf. It yearns for recognition, yet not to be found. It rests near the Angels upon hallowed ground.
Welcome to the darkness after the gloaming, roaming the fields for prey. They may beg for forgiveness or mercy, but it doesn’t weigh what they say. It only assesses the inner story, one that is flawed and suspect still. It awaits the shear look of terror at the realization that there is no imposing will. The thrill from seeing the living go lifeless, and the already dead come to life, from seeing the impeccable get pecked by a hammer or knife less honorable than continuous strife.
Welcome to the darkness that has only heard of light, and is angered by the stories we tell. Laughing at those who live in heaven reaching out to those living in hell. Our eyes and our hearts both beat and are beaten, they pulse, and yet they freeze all the same. You may think the player will cheat when the darkness first thought of the game. Walking alone home from the bar, sauced enough not to drive, but too gone to run. No moonlight to guide you right which reflects the ever present sun. This darkness has a different pitch. It punches the button that reads I don’t care. It smirks when you can’t find your keys, and bellows when you feel breath on your hair. It stands behind you when your hackles go up, and rubs the goose bumps across your chest. It keeps your cries to the skies firmly locked in its breast.
The flashlight goes out in the cave, the candle flickers into a wisp. Your breath goes so cold when you realize your its slave, that it doesn’t appear though it’s crisp. It lives in the gossip of teammates. It comes between couples afloat. It waits for you behind locked gates, and it could but doesn’t go for the throat. Not usually. Not truthfully. And these are merely the houers de oeuvres to the meal, that very few see let alone take a bite. We hope in vain that it cannot be real, The multiple courses give new meaning to pain. They remain to give new meaning to fright, our loss is their gain.
It’s the dark without stars that find fault in all else, for they know they are a dying breed. It will give you time to reassess want, and more yet to ponder need. Some of them want to use you, a cover is played near the end. And as much as you attempt to choose to, you won’t be able to phone a friend. It empties the accounts, and blurs the pictures that were held as sacred in past. It reminds you not much from one life amounts, and smaller still is a single place in this world vast. The die is cast but hasn’t come to stop. It turns over, and bounces off walls. It saves the paint from the etched quotes in the stalls. It whispers give up, and it won’t matter, just quiet enough to be ignored, but loud enough to be still among chatter.
It robs you of sleep and wakes you the same. It bobs up just to the water surface, then returns to the deep from whence it came. It helps with the echo in alleys, and moves below the heap of trash. It levels off peaks, and floods the valleys, and burns my stories to ash. It isn’t one thing or one place, or someone or an act. It is at the root of the cease in night sing, a smile swiped from a face, all things come undone, and it makes the forever pact.
You may flee but run into it, and jump to avoid it as it bumps your head. And just when you begin to quit, it lets you choose to be dead. This level of darkness has substance without form, has goal but not aim, leaves us anything but warm, and calls to us by name.
The only foe it truly cannot face, is the pure introduction of light. Even then it knows the best hiding place, and can remain buried until the moment is right.

The night arrives to chill the air, helping to drive out the sauna in the room. Fan whirls on the lowest setting, and light cascades in around the folded edge of the tie-dyed tapestry. I do not have the Q flag on my door yet, but it wouldn’t help to keep the heat at bay were it hanging. Over seven thousand feet in elevation can expect as much as ten inches of snow on Saturday, but my truck will not take me there as of yet. Tomorrow I need to vote, to change out the thermostat, to finish the motorcycle diaries, to make a list of interviews, to fill out at least one application, to interact with the birds outside, to read something uplifting, to eat, to drink, and to be thankful. But tonight, I just need to endure. I just need to remember not to roll out of bed because my mattress no longer sits on the floor. I might break my knee caps, or knock over my closet. My entire bookcase might fall off of my desk, and that would be tragic. I might become trapped beneath it, eternally mocked by the volumes that I never started, reaching out to the void, unable to move. These dreams of soft whispers from raspy voiced unknown females make me want to punch the wall until I cannot feel anything. Anything. Please sweat fall and do not return. Please cat do not jump in through my window in search of my sleeping birds. I might have to kill you. And that would be bad. Please chill come to my eyes. Please cool come to my bones. Please night let me rest. I have a to do list for tomorrow that is the size of Missouri, and my entirely self imposed deadlines make me feel as uncomfortable as the yet unpublished rags to riches story. I play the rag.

Say something hums in my head as the tears are still warm on my cheek. This cancer that affects Sean, and Scott, Sarah’s mother, and never to be forgot, my own Grandmother, cannot be reasoned with. Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters each found a way to be okay in their limited number of days. Because the life in their days was not limited. We search for meaning in the stars and find a deafening silence in return. This love we bare for one another cannot be written on the board in such a way that it is encapsulated or contained. It is without bounds. It is without limits, because it is not conquered. Not even by death. We each seek in life to cure what ails us. And it is written that if we seek, we shall find. But how do we know when we’ve found it. It all too often finds us when we least expect it. When we stop looking. When we have given enough of ourselves that we nearly cease to exist, and our ego feels like we do, that is when we are prepared to receive the cure for what ails us in our innermost. When perhaps we cease to dream, is exactly when our wildest dreams may, seemingly unintentionally come true. Our breath tightens in our chest as we uncontrollably weep. One hand visits the pane in the window to see if it matches. Our wings feel tattered and we ignore that they are even there. And then, someone smiles. Someone gives a word or three that is dripping with truth, and that warmth washes over us just as the tears start to collect at the base of our chin. What is loss? What is gain in the richest sense of the word? It is that idea that we belong to each other, and that collectively we belong to the source; to the authorship of all life and inspiration. The truth dripping from the words wets the ink, and blurs the page same as our vision when we can’t help but mourn the loss of a concept, principle, or individual. The former togetherness seems to taunt the present set of resentful entities. We can become snared in our own faults and darken another’s stars for brief moments that seem to echo across eternity. The sickness makes us aware of the healing. The fact that we are going to die makes us cling to life. The rain prepares the ground for the rays. The fall prepares us for the raise. When this love touches our hearts, we are forever changed. It becomes a part of who we are: an indelible mark left upon our soul. We call out to friends in the darkness, and there is one that cannot leave our side. We mourn the loss of the child in us that used to dream bigger, and ask why? These wrinkles across time create bends and folds that help us look forward in anticipation, and backward upon ourselves in regret. But the machine has not been invented yet, we are bound by time. At least for now. And, there is no button to push. These moments we have with each other, we may never get again. We may never again sit beside the greatest loves of our lives. And that must be okay for it is and will be as such no matter our kicking and screaming. We can choose to be at war with existence, or embrace the flow of the world which comes in waves, and resets our perspective. Breathe. Love. Speak the words as they come, and do not balk at the silence. Let it overwhelm us. Let it sit beside us and whisper that which we long to hear. Let the touch of autumn reverse the trend and cause us to lift. When the voice speaks from the innermost, it advocates for reconciliation, it begs for forgiveness, it speaks of love yet untarnished, and it sides with the playful children who trust and still dream big. And then the voice ceases to mince words and simply smiles. It touches the backs our necks. At the exact point that is the bottom of our brain, and the top of our spine. And, in that moment we can glimpse what it is to completely forget whatever it is that we thought was wrong. We can realize in an instant that this forever is all we have, that we are exactly where we are supposed to be, and that everything, somehow, is unfolding as it should. The boy in me still dares to dream big. Please help poke holes in the obsidian veil to reveal more stars along the way. Thank you.

Thinking back feels like someone else’s life, penned in smudged ink on the back of a weathered postcard, on page 67 of a fiction novel purchased at Goodwill for a quarter.
Looking forward feels like the moment when waking from a vivid dream, in a cold sweat, rubbing eyes, and grasping at strings.
Seeking the authentic harmony in the flow of all life has yielded a series of intriguing experiences strewn over the hillsides of folklore and excessive emotion.
Holding out for the sense in the center of the eye has caused sleepless nights, a windfall of If, and an even greater appreciation for the deep, rich, meaningful connection in the world.
We beast it in a world that seems to revel in war and we fracture the earth at the same rate that we get in our own way of what was the version of our truest selves that we saw clearly as children. Losing touch and wasting talent eats away at the soul like an overly corrosive battery acid cures an orange peel of it’s vibrancy. This love we experience cannot be equaled when we truly live it without an agenda, but more so a shared plan.
Sleep! Sleep you crazy bald headed bastard! Dream of hotdog eating contests and tiger lilies and minor league baseball games and county fairs.
Quit taking everything in and attempting to pour it all back as though you knew at that time what you should have. It isn’t your fault that I’m deficient. It isn’t my fault that you never gave me a chance. Make some lavender soap, drink some hard cider, write down your soul, and laugh in the face of limitation as if in imitation of your truest self thriving and breathing just the same. Big hugs from the roots of the industry. I should have stuck by you. The marinade in life is confusing, and it’s application can be blurry. However, the heart can grow in the face of unforeseen events and lives to have a greater capacity of love than ever thought previously possible. I welcome you into my arms without judgment or direction of will. I welcome the adjustment of the ego to enjoy letting go and loving anyway.

Do we believe what we say when we whisper to ourselves?
Walking with our head down, eyes intent on an unknown prize,
Being our own best counselor although the intended audience may never hear this voice.
This place has made us all psychotic enough to believe its normal,
But the grit in our souls fights it.
We fight it with breath, with words,
And sometimes in a 24 hour laundromat with our fists at three in the morning.
Where are we headed? This comfort we seek in which everything troubling goes away, and joy overflows, and things just work, and some things don’t have to be said, is illusory. My appointment with destiny is overdue, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m anxious, but I’m pretty close to troubled, and pretty far from okay. Be still enough to hear the voice, even if it is just your own.

We want to be memorable; to matter. We want to be needed, but not too heavily to weigh down our dreams and ambitions. We want to belong and be loved. We want to be heard. It is the human condition I suppose. We fear extremely loud noises and falling as infants, so we don’t want those occurrences in life. We want to be a part of we. Somewhere. Somehow. We want what we can’t have. If we get what we thought we couldn’t have, we then want what we had. We want to breathe deeply, inspire, touch, be touched, and feel deeply. Unless it hurts too much. And then, we don’t want to feel anything. We want to crawl into a hole and die, or fight back, or flee, or lash out, or write, or blame, or make excuses, or remain silent and shut down. It is the human condition I suppose. We want to learn about what we want to learn about, and what we need to know. We want to spend and save, consume and conserve, talk and listen, help and be encouraged, dream and sleep. We want our children to be safe and sound in addition to having all of these things as well. We want to live forever, and never get sick. We want to close our eyes at night, feeling the trickle of the heartbeats we love the most nearby. We want to eat but not get fat, and be interesting to others. We want to hit a home run every at bat, and throw a strike every pitch. We want to have the perfect words to say, and know when to say nothing at all. We want. We need. We go on living our lives making everything as fast and complicated as we can, though we pretty much want the same things. Through this lens, what sense is there in conflict, violence, hatred, lack of forgiveness, and war? Through this lens, none at all. Through this lens, I see you. Through this lens YOU see me. We have this vision even with our eyes closed. We believe deep down in the better angels of our nature. Tis why we are hurt so when it doesn’t come out that way. Clean the lens without scratching it. Expand. Stretch. Listen. Begin to know the details that make me you, and make you we. It begins.

Beginning to understand what truly drives someone to their knees in humility before an overwhelming wave of responsibility crushes them.
Beginning to understand pain at a new depth, within a new realm,
Aboard a new vessel, but attached to many of the same old habits.
Beginning to understand levels of distribution otherwise forgotten,
And usually overlooked. Innermost cravings become smothered, choked, denied, crushed, and, on occasion, laughed at. These days of effort and energy give way to languid walks in the park and rubbing the temples for relief. A heart so capable of love grows cold and eventually stops beating as fast altogether. When do we rotate? What guarantees do we have, if any? Sit and talk with me for a while. We will speak softly of authentic lives, the crack of the bat in spring, dreams fulfilled, and dreams denied. The sand is close. The trees here are said to collect secrets, and paint them across the sky.

I haven’t forgotten how to write,
It’s just that, at my advancing age,
I don’t feel like having my guts torn out as often,
Or as boldly as I seemed to enjoy in my late teens,
And early twenties.
I know it’s a process that takes discipline, and
A craft that takes time.
I know it takes a heart that seeks truth,
And a poet’s soul which has the courage to carry it forward,
When it is found,
To present it to the entire world,
Or no one at all,
From two hands, one imagination,
And the intuition of a storm cloud,
Hanging over a children’s birthday party,
Choosing to listen to them laugh,
And watch them dance,
Rather than rain and ruin
The mighty parade.
I am a farm boy.
I try to grow things.
I aim to be silent enough to hear that still small voice.
I write because I have to.
It is a part of me that grows inexplicably,
The more I take it out of me and throw it at the world.
Some pieces are a message in a bottle,
Some are a letter to a friend,
Some are meant to be shared,
And some are meant to mend.
Some have a grand epiphany,
Some have no point at all.

They all have one thing in common.
They are all a part of me.
They are waiting to grow,
Take form, be torn away,
Given away somehow,
Leaving a place for another to grow,
That will scream just as softly,
Usually at night,
Until I put it to rest,
And dream.

.

Print your words upon the landscape,
Hear your breath beneath the stars,
Feel the touch with mouth agape,
Though none of it is ours.
We cannot own what no one sells,
Neither can we reap the rewards,
We each and all have personal hells,
We either run from life or towards.
Else we sit still and hear and see,
What has been there from the start,
We become what we’re meant to be,
And, in turn, better play our part.

Part of something more than ego or pride,
Beyond acclaim, or riches, or feigning power,
Above accumulation of things outside,
And consumption that self devours.
Feeling our breath upon the stars,
Part of whole measuring the depth of soul,
Seizing each moment given as ours,
Before time takes its final toll.

Our souls have resonance,
Having met before in line,
Waiting to be born in this world,
A constant hum, and a constant mess,
But less is more and more is less.

This connection is beyond limiting words,
Beyond condescending stares from onlookers,
Beyond before and after,
Outside of time itself,
But
Nevertheless,
Running across time like a kid’s first bike ride
Through deep mud puddles.
It moves.
We smile.
We laugh, and slightly edge out the self that may have achieved pole
Position.
This resonance is palpable,
Inexplicable, pure, simple,
Anachronistic, atavistic,
Hyperbolic, and a noir flic
Mixed with Terry’s
Cinematography, and a hit or two
Of something nice.

Paddle the canal,
Take the hill,
Mow the field,
Irrigate the pasture,
Oil the bearings,
Hand out trick or treat candies,
Floss,
And remember,
That auld acquaintance may be forgot
But soul ties bind
And the Great Spirit knows what it is doing.
I can feel it in my bones.