The Sadness

I am the happiest sad man you will ever meet.

I am happy and optimistic about almost everything

But in my heart is a seriousness

A sadness

A sharp-bladed truth

But the sadness is not something I do not want

It binds me to a purpose

It shows me a path of symmetrically methodical exuberance

Each step is meticulously paved and positioned

Very few can or want to follow it

Because it is not a follower's path

It opens up to be formed and led by the force of that sadness

The inner sadness that brings order and sensibility

It does not bring tears or pain or anguish

It brings stability and pragmatism to a world run amok in the fantastic

It is the sadness that allowed there to be a foundation to fantasy

It is true fantasy, and therefore is not fantasy

It is truth

And it is mine.

A burden, but a blessing

As it weighs down it teaches

As I struggle I am strengthened

I embrace the sadness

Truth

There is a point at the tip top of the tallest building

It means nothing.

There is a summit on the highest mountain

It means nothing.

There is a spot in the depths of the human heart that can only be found by true seekers

This is everything.

I float on clouds for days and weeks in an endless aurora

The peace, the calm, the progress never stops

There is no ceiling but the infinity of light and space

Continuity and complexity come from the simple, rawness of matter untouched

But it all has the same origin and goes to the same place

Only souls of men can choose this complexity or writhe in simplistic instability

The great perfection in this complexity is God, and we approach him or we balk in ignorance

For if it is done in pure knowledge, we deny our progression and our defiance destroys us

I cannot be taken from this path

The light and truth has penetrated my soul and filled my heart

It beats for life, love, and complexity

It beats for Godliness and charity

It cannot contain the glow

The fire burns and needs to fill the great expanse

A desire to love, teach, create, and grow into the everlasting

No bounds exist

I, we, all are limitless potential.

Giving in

He has taken you

You have no more control

You have been slowly coaxed into a tar pit

The sludge silently swallows your clean human skin, catapulting your spirit into a fiery chasm of ineptitude and dalliance.

You cannot feel anymore

It is all the same

You only notice ever so slightly the extremes

If there is too much noise it is garble and delicious debauchery to you

If there is too much laughter it is the tender kneading of a shiatzu massage

Your lasciviousness is frighteningly predatory

You are becoming a demon

You ooze an animal irrationality and feed it with raw meat

You see no need to turn

You cannot bear the sun

You do not see the sun

Only in fairy tales

The dark is real

The dark is palpable

The void and vacant nothingness is tantalizingly tacit in your request to rule it

You are your worst fears, doubts, pains, and nightmares

You feel no security and slide into the comfort of a momentary pleasure

It is all malleable, changing, shifting as the wind on the dunes of infinity

You are falling in a shaft, a chasm of endless futility

Suspended but falling

There is no hope for progression in your eyes

Just a faded reflection of a jaded pragmatism

It feeds your nothingness and soaks you to death a thousand times

Forever

I wish to trudge the mud

A distant rumble of a car engine
A whisk of wind
A bird chirping
The flip flop of my flip flops fittingly sounding off as I walk
The sun is high.
The day is hot.
Few leave their air-conditioned caves,
But I walk.

At night now I hear the dull roar of a plane overhead.
Those same cars whish by.
I hear the hum of the air-conditioners.
But otherwise still night
The birds have gone to sleep.
There are no crickets in this town.
Two young girls peddle by on bikes gossiping about the inane frivolities of a somewhat pointless life.
And then the sprinklers go off giving life to this desert.
The cool water makes the air thick and refreshing.

The day as always, has been full.
Full of work mostly, and little reprieve.
I hope to one day get a little and I think the day is vastly approaching.
I see the twilight of my summer work just as I see its promise emerge.
It has been interesting, consuming, and altogether a bittersweet symphony.
I don't want to think too much on it now because that is all I do.

I'd like to escape life for a while.
Run free from the restricting bonds of time to do anything or nothing and not feel guilt, pain, or pleasure.
To be free of everything with meaning would give way to nothingness.
It would be drowning.
It would suffocate life and make it worthless.
Oh worthlessness! I envy thee.
Well, we can't have that.
So onward I trudge.
Wishing it were through mud, but only sand in this desert.

Lost Art

It's not like I was some magical potion that was irresistible to all who tried.
But she was the only one who didn't seem to fall under my spell.
I suppose that's what made her all the more attractive.
She wasn't stunning or strong, but delicately nuanced.
A rouge flavor that escapes palatal description, but once tasted becomes all that one wants.
But it becomes a man to differentiate among a want, a need, and perhaps an obsession.
The former two are healthy, and the latter frightening.

I don't even really think on her anymore now.
As I look back I realize I only do so to understand a pattern.
I thought I had an art perfected to the hilt,
But she maintained a demeanor that made each brush stroke like painting on sand.
Not a sand that is static on paper, but a shifting dune that enveloped me, swallowing my art forever.
It was the dethroning of a system.
But 'why?' is the question that makes it all worthwhile.
An enigma that escapes me, just as she did.

Enough with Shooting Stars Already!

"Whatever dies, was not mixed equally."
--John Donne

Let foolish love, itself to immolate,
Trail fiery clouds below more stalwart hearts.
Unfit to stand, too volatile to wait,
It kindles blazes from discordant parts.
Celestial matter sundered from its source,
It clashes with telluric atmospheres.
Intent to run a self-consuming course,
The torrid sigh descends—and disappears.
The love that spans the sky illumines more
Than silly fancy with its streaking flares,
So let us make no specious metaphor
By which to justify inane affairs:
The foreign lamps we deem to be less bright
In truth burn brighter—but with distant light!

A Pauper's Plea

Make perfect tally of the debt I owe
for every kiss you rendered me,
and I will pay with interest.

What currency can so indemnify
love’s debtor for the pains accrued
except a kind repayment?

What's now the going price for ardent smiles?
I fear I trade in deficit,
so let me make requital.

In truth, I know the stumbling rites of love
cannot be quantified or priced,
though they may seem a trifle.

But we have fallen out of pure exchange,
and so, I pay—at least in part—
with hours spent on verses.

Make no allowance for this debt I bear;
I'll stay however long I may
within your debtor’s prison.