Simply Right
To say
Our relationship is complex
seems simply trite,
that’s what I like about it.
Thoughts matter. What “I wish”
matters too. We don’t
have to explain it, not that we could.
Even WE, (or is it US?)
don’t understand it.
Look both ways and try to see all points of view. But mind the gaps.
The mature doctor who would begin residency
for Psychiatry in the morning
after 25 years as a surgeon,
a guy I liked but only saw
one time, turned to look at me
as he was walking out the door,
after I told him about me owning
a motorcycle and he said,
“Well, don’t ride it.”
Too dangerous? This,
after we had discussed
my heart disease with six stents,
and a severely wonky-donkey
heart valve, my high-grade,
lingering dangerous
sarcoma cancer, and my head
to toe clogged arteries holding
three more stents—strokesville?
oh,
and my good old age,
bad high blood pressure,
and the pending possibility of
dangerous surgery and
risky hospital stay.
Risk and danger have been
my companions
since childhood (we have
an understanding). A
motorcycle accident might kill me
faster than a mistake
by a doctor—a surgeon,
maybe.
He was giving up surgery
to be a shrink, so he “could
help people.”
Kind a makes ya wonder,
don’t it?
Look at risk and danger both ways,
but gamble not with the welfare of others.
How well we walk through the fire depends on the width of the gaps.
“Too often the people complain that they have done nothing with their lives and then they wait for somebody to tell them that this isn’t so.” ― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
You know who you are,
driving fast and weaving past
in your European model automobile
costing four to ten times
the worth of my car. I am so
sorry to have used your
private interstate highway
And set my cruise control
a mere smidgen over
the legal speed limit of eighty
fucking statute miles an hour.
I was foolish indeed,
to humbly assume such speed
would suffice to get you
to your Sunday morning
emergency appointment.
Trucks once had their speed limits
for safety. But, no longer. Perhaps
you can have limits removed
for drivers of a Beamer, Audi,
Benz, or a Lex.
Maybe even
your own lane forbidden
to the minions who believe
their thirty-dollar Timex
is as good with time
as your uptown Rolex.
My foolish economy has jaded
my vision since I struggled
to see life your way.
And finally, begging your pardon
one last time.
Fuck you, asshole.
***
Look both ways, these wankers pass on both sides.
Mind the gaps, they’re filled by saps.
Morphology
We are corrupted sons and daughters,
DNA mutated zygotes of morphological mystery,
victims of copy and editing errors
peppered by pinpoint mutation mistakes
riddled with repeated chromosome
rearrangement. We are human GMOs
hopelessly mutating and morphing,
naturally.
Look both ways, inside and out, for wonders and miseries of life.
Mind the evolutionary gaps in dividing cells.
Who said, “We’ll leave the light on for you?” Most adult Americans probably know who (Tom Bodett) and why (Motel 6 ad). It’s a famous advertising end tag.
I don’t advertise, sell, or profit from either of my blog sites. But I do use the static intro taglines feature of WordPress themes for both blogs. You can’t see the intro tagline on Our Literary Journey because this page is a clean and sanitized theme. While the menu icon brings up more info, it does not display the tag line (Driveling twaddle by an old flapdoodle). Maybe I should create something less self-effacing.
However, the intro tagline is front and center on the Dispassionate Doubt theme. I do not use an end tag there; usually it’s just a relevant meme or quotation.
On September 4, 2016, a few months after I started Our Literary Journey, I began using the Look both ways end tagline. I change it slightly each time to relate to the post. Seven weeks later, on October 21st, I added a second end tag, Mind the Gap (or gaps), also changeable.
Both end tags are philosophically metaphorical phrases for living life—staying alive and healthy. They suggest considering all sides (pro and con), hearing people out, looking for answers (or for questions), discerning danger, being careful and taking risk, learning and remembering lessons, and trying new and different things. Although, consistency and longevity are credible virtues.
Over the years, I’ve become more aware of the word gap (retail clothing notwithstanding) and how we use it. For a three-letter, one-syllable word, it can mean so many different things. To the degree that gap is synonymous with crack, I find much meaning in Cohen’s song verse.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
—Leonard Cohen, lyrics from his song, Anthem
Gap has several definitions. It could be a break in a barrier (such as a wall, hedge, or line of military defense), an assailable position, a mountain pass or ravine, a separation in space or an incomplete or deficient area. A gap can be a break in continuity, a hiatus, lack of balance, or a disparity such as the gap between imports and exports. It could mean a wide difference in character or attitude, such as the generation gap, or a problem caused by some disparity such as a communication or credibility gap.
Mind the gap comes from the warning on the British Underground/subway. So, when I say mind the gap or gaps, it is a cautionary plea to protect oneself. It is also a suggestion to be careful and pay attention to your environment, particularly what you might not see. Yet, it is more than that. There are gaps in our knowledge, gaps in scientific explanations, gaps or figurative holes in our lives, or maybe gaps growing in our relationships. There is even a god of the gaps.
In my opinion, the biggest gap is between human imagination and reality.
This TEDx talk is about minding the gap. It’s what sparked me to write this post.
And yes, look both ways, into your imagination and toward reality.
And mind the gaps, those eternal infernal spaces
where the light gets in and shines upon mystery.
I Hear You Died
Letting go of one you know,
or knew, reminders of a finite
life, is not easy as we
reminisce of times when
longevity was forever.
Another man down, life
brought to end before ending,
not here to listen to, no one
hears me talk about you.
When I heard you had died
My mind began to trip and bounce
over thoughts and memories
of our times past,
when we both were alive.
You taught me well.
When faced with loss, look both ways,
your past with them, your future alone.
Mind the gaps for hints of eternity.
***
My heart sank into deep depression when I saw
sitting in front of me, blocking my way,
between self, freedom, and happiness,
Draco, the symbol of inequity, of unfair
rule, of the man, of draconian reality,
life dulls when the dragon appears.
He has all the power. I have none.
Draco must be who and what Draco is,
a cancer, a deadly error of nature.
The dragon does no harm, it looks
without emotion or caring, without malice,
Draco kills from silent idleness.
Nature serves an onerous messenger—
truth, there is no life without death.
The dragon cares nothing about how I feel.
***
Look both ways and mind the gaps, but
if you see the dragon nothing else matters.
The Pall of Fear
Sometimes, when I lie down and relax
I feel senseless liminal fear stir inside me
until it gathers and settles
at my core. I become desperate to
deny the tension, or I will die.
Depressive mental illness is taking
control of my mind, filling my body
with this awful sadness.
What is left for me to do?
If you don’t look both ways, someone may die. Mind the liminal gaps.
I recall, eons ago, when I was neither adult nor child,
during a phase of life known as adolescence
or numerically, being a teenager.
I also recall later being
a male adult parent to three, at one point—
all three almost simultaneously fitting
the technical teenager definition.
We all age up, but teeny boppers, as was once
a more affectionate term, stay the same.
Someone is always oddly 13, 15, 17, or some
age of that hormonally unbalanced
and the musically misguided post-pubescence.
I recall that back then, I was often bored unless
in the midst of violent volcanic eruptions,
and even then, given time, I found them dreary.
Almost everything of interest
involved getting into trouble, things which
I confess to doing with reckless abandon.
Now I look around and see grandchildren,
mostly in some phase of teenage-ism,
some exhibiting familiar behavior, some not.
I see parents, once teens themselves, distraught
over viewing in their progeny reflections of
their former life, a past they seldom
confess or want to remember.
I have no solutions and few suggestions for
those raising difficult teen personalities, like me,
like them, maybe like my parents in the
years of the Great Depression or
WWI or II. But I smile slightly
and I sympathize greatly.
Two things in life are not for sissies:
raising teenagers and getting old. That,
having done both, I can swear to. But,
in the long run, they are worth it.
May we all live long, prosper,
and remember. “Tomorrow, and
Tomorrow, and So Forth.”
Look both ways as life transitions. Be mindful of the gaps in denial.
***
A Sip and a Nib
The poet sits and stares,
then doodles and sketches,
wondering where this will lead.
A sip from the cup of wisdom,
a wandering stare looks
through a window, searching
for worldly ineffable words
of brilliant order, expressing
the unspeakable, describing
all indescribable forbidden things.
A pen finds the artist’s hand,
familiar fingers hold its frame
and place the nib upon paper.
It begins: a poet’s search
for perfection and beauty.
***
Look both ways through the window of inspiration.
Mind the gaps for perfect words.
Our Literary Journey 