The Coffin's Full

Followed the road
Winding down dusty days
A trail of your memories met me there
Settling on my head
You called my name within
And I felt ashamed to answer
There’s too much I shouldn’t have said

You buried me away
A coffin full of regretful notes
Crumbled ideas and saddened words
That will never be unearthed
A revelation of unforgiving
Murdering the stark sanity of progress
That gives a man’s life worth.

I’m digging into a mystery
Sharing my skies with another
Thanking God that I have arrived
Where I can gather appreciation
Eyes like flashlight bulbs
Wide and brightened light
Escaping from midnight to illumination.

Starshine

This age of cell phone ring tones, celebrity envy and capitalism is slowly collapsing. Let anyone who has eyes read and take note, for what you think is important in this life has no value in the next. You can’t take it with you when you’re gone.

I was looking at the show “Fashion Police” with Joan Rivers yesterday. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black…

Here we have an old lady who has, to a very noticeable degree, destroyed her human face and strapped on something that seems to be a cross between a gecko and a mandrill. Yet she fixes her mouth to talk about other celebrities and the clothes they wear. Thinking back on it, seems like some twisted episode of the Twilight Zone where the real people are idolizing the horrible, disfigured personas of stardom, only to realize that their heroes are nothing but liars.

We are tweeting along with the famous, sycophantic drivel in barrels, bantering away when our spiritual lives are in decay. I believe it’s far gone by now. Shame on us.
I don’t want to excuse myself from this, for I am just as much to blame. Yet, at least I realize my folly. I am human enough to admit I need God and I can’t function in life without him to guide me. But those who are walking that dreamy line toward degradation, I hope you wake up long enough to deviate from the course.

A Glorious Path

The road to glory
Steps bemused with the network of movement captured
In the earth like travelers’ patchwork, connecting individual intricacies
Where they are left to sift through the changes marked in history
Like a hand pushing through sand hoping to find a unique enough grain
To call your own
But that’s a road too long and a way cut short on a glorious road
Encumbered pedestrian leaving home
Ragged personage propelled and stripped
Of loving arms and cherished ideals threaded throughout your austere
Bewilderment
Hopes caged, for misinterpretation’s sake
Knowing that skies cry blue and the sun is granting light
To you, on the road to glory.

Reason Enough

A market for the many
A wicker basket and five tomatoes unripe
picking for the plenty
and the poor eat good tonight
you whistling appartion, ghost take flight
bury my mind in my woes and bind my sight.

A life devoid of any
A ticker tape parade dragging the dust
Welcome and free entry
to indulge in your lust
you sorrowful dream, leave as you must
I sulk in my cage and I watch it rust.

A posted, watchful sentry
A somber cascade of meaningful hopes
the commoner's wishful gentry
marked with playful notes
remembering well those loving quotes
so he knows the reason why he wrote.

The Alchemist

I am always on the cusp of an answer; always looming over a clue to my next move. I am playing charades with my soul, I would say, fumbling over some gestures that only amount to more guesswork. Seems a bit insane, my unabashed references to my own mental knife fights, flipping through the pages of my dreams like they are comic books hoping to uncover the villain. But I already know the answer to this: I am the villain. Yet, I play hero as well. This is a conundrum that we all attempt to decipher, but some of us are no closer to a solution the day that we die than we were when or if we realized it.

I read The Alchemist yesterday. It is astounding what Coehlo accomplished in such bare, innocent prose. I found myself captivated by each word, drawn to the protagonist in such a hauntingly explicit way that I might have been him, which is probably what the author intended. The boy Santiago, finds himself following the advice of the great king Melchizedek, who tells him to seek his own “Personal Legend”. Santiago develops a sense about his life, following his heart by recognizing the signs that God places along his path. Though he is distracted and disheartened in some events, Santiago always finds himself facing his destiny: he can’t deny it and he can’t walk away. It is inexplicable in such a plain manner that the boy Santiago realizes that he is part of all and all is part of him. In the end, he says that everything is everything else because we originate from one source: The Hand Who Wrote It All.

I find myself in tears many times reading the book, just because it reminded me of something I knew already: I must follow the dreams that I have in my heart. Regardless of anything else, I must walk my path and create for myself the legend that belongs only to me. Essentially, Coehlo is saying we all have our choices to make in our lives, but those choices should reflect what is in our hearts, because we only have the dreams we set in our minds. This reminded me a lot of The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. In much the same way Don Juan instructs the author to “follow the path of his heart”.

These teachings, these words, echo throughout my soul, instructing me to follow my heart, and I am elated. Each time I think of them I feel God surging through me, rushing through my heart and mind and soul like a roaring river, and I am overflowed. There is a bounty of joy to be had as long as we keep following our dreams. As Coehlo put it, when we want something, the whole universe conspires to help us achieve it. He called it, “beginner’s luck”. However, I never believed in luck. Even though the word is used by me, I have faith in my Creator and his blessings. Since I know of Jesus and his love, I worry not about being lucky.

Read the book. It may change your life.

The Never Man: Forever

The grand madness feeds
gnawing at aspiration, chewing and biting bits
and wasting the rest, greasy pieces of fat
flicked away. So his head bangs a thunderous boom
shaking his mind like a bag of old nickels.
Maybe he's lost, looking for sanctuary in limbo
and there's no grace in hell.

He's colliding with variables of vintage wisdom,
finding hope in a cage, hints of honest care
that points toward The Way.
People calling out, shouting their hardened phrases
of semi-intellectual directives.
Misshapen glory-crushed impressions that curve
and crease and bend around the truth.

He's the Never-Man that never knew,
never understood the plan, cheapened religion
bought through a phony shake of hands
Walking a path without a clue, a hold
precarious at best, a brittle, mildewed rope
that will give way before long, forcing a long
way down.

Paths still sit at their zenith, waiting for walks
from mindless men that want to fill their heads with
need and truth, paths born for youth and their search
for never and nothing and forever and something
for wounds that cripple
or the itch of love, all, none
Never
a grand madness that feeds
into a spiraling pinch, them, never full
Forever.

The Never Man: Burn

(They paused, jests were made, his head swayed, tilting toward hers like he wanted a way in. Just let him come in and show you how it could/would/should be, possibly thinking…well he’s unworthy to even grace her presence, but his dreams show their souls touching like lovers on the silver screen. Draped casually on her couch, he was still confined to the dismal misfortune of being the one that follows the one before, so his possessive instinct bloomed and wilted simultaneously.)

Strange colors danced before his eyes like flames, and he was hypnotized by the moment, his admiration unrestrained. She was one with the fire, an image of heat and light and fantastic form warping itself through all four dimensions.

He lost himself, tangled in a web of time, gaining his love, losing his mind. He loved her or hated her or both or none. The flame was a ballerina and her dance was not done; his eyes were transfixed and he began to succumb.

He thought she said, “The Never-Man, never did, never can, he will wish to hold that which escapes his hand.”

He laughed like it was the finest joke, she must be playing with the words she spoke. The fire had a smile on her face; a look of satisfaction that doubled for shame and disgrace. But was it aimed at him, or something she fought inside? Surely it was something she was trying to hide.

He might have asked, “Why do you taunt me with this passionate flame? Why me? Why do you play this game?”

She who danced and burned with light, her colors so vibrant that they pulsed and throbbed with life, looked as if she formed the words: “You ask why I taunt, why I play this game, but you sit and watch and feed my flame? The Never-Man, never did, never can, thinks that dirt will not settle when he crosses the sands…”
At that he thought twice. “How could it be? To sit here and love her is all on me? A man with full vision but too blind to see, how I perceive and react is all on me.”

The Never-Man, who never cried, never ran, rose from the couch attempting to stand. The fire seemed brighter and her dance was insane, he could feel her heat growing but her rhythm had changed. He stood there for a moment, and she began to slow down, easing her tempo, quelling the sound. It was magic he dreamt or a vision he touched, either or both, it was too much. When she stopped his eyes met the flames in her own and they reached out to one another because they were both so alone. The Never-Man, never could understand as he put his hands in hers there was no burn to withstand. But the flames, the flames were like the sun as they embraced. They both burned bright as they danced with desire in that place. They burned through their lives in a fiery embrace.