Don’t Have To Sleepwalk The Exceptionist Dream

There really is different way but it just took so long for me to see that I could take it

I actually can get through a day without massive doses of factory-extruded sugar, fat and salt

Loud noises need not be a major part of every single goddamn thing I ever do

All those daily tasks I must perform plainly should not require gigajoules of energy

Need not take advantage of far off poverty for some new plastic baubles

Can listen to the flow of natural sound instead of modern carbon-based cacophony

Don’t have a need to go to extremes in coming-of-age displacement recreation

It’s really not necessary that I pack on a few more extra pounds, year after stressed-out year

I can walk as they drive by, pedal in their exhaust stream and meditate in their stalled traffic

Take my cotton bags to be used again and again, much to their sardonic laughter and scorn

Humbly find my clothes among their once-expensive castoffs at the crowded thrift stores

Refurbish, re-use and re-purpose without over-paying those ignorant, so-called, craftsmen

No law states I must spend a fortune to try and cosmetically hide my perpetual aging

There is no reason that I should not save a goodly portion of everything that I earn

Now I really believe that these long daily commutes are simply fool’s errands

Needn’t keep on acting out like I’m as rich and attractive as their media models

I just won’t consume this so-called meat they build with all the care of factory production

I found that there’s a different tour available of this vast and mysterious cosmos

We can cook and bake for ourselves with natural and maybe even organic ingredients

Won’t confuse comfort and efficiency with a lack of their boorishly faux luxury

There is another horse I can ride when I need to head off into the sunset

Staying off to the side, still swept along by their currents, but not completely hypnotized

No fad diets or best-seller of the month can raise my consciousness anymore

Let us instead whisper of those quiet, gentle voices which soothe our mortal wounds

No sense to leave behind a pile of shiny, unused and worthless, yet still unpaid-for toys

No point in over-compensating for my mass-produced and artificial shortcomings

Just seeking things that we’re all really looking for, in doses that I can handle

Simply staying in the shade when it’s hot, seeking out the sun when I’m cold

Worshiping over-inflated media sports heroes will not provide me with a guiding light

This specter of blinding patriotism they so frenetically raise will not sustain me

Their deadly bickering over worn out and irrelevant religions cannot soothe my soul

Happily I begin to see there is nothing in eternity from which we can be saved

There is another way and if you’re quiet they’ll ignore you as they speed on by

You can reduce your earthly footprint and they won’t even notice it at all

Striving peacefully for a sustainable lifestyle will not raise their ire

I can smile inside and be elsewhere, not amidst this foolish noise and choking dust

I signed the checks & credit cards

Went quite a long way but was not moving nearly fast enough to actually notice

Did not make a bazillion on the next financial fad like those Masters Of The Universe

Passing on my accumulated eco-debt thru to whatever dispossessed generations might follow

Did not file any patents or copyrights and no inventions are held in my name

Was unable to attain spiritual enlightenment or even enjoy any lasting peace of mind

Won’t find my name credited on any scientific research papers

Found it difficult to obey every order given by the great generals of the consumer field

Did not uncover any new and beautiful mathematical relations

Lost my senses and grew weak just like all those great ones from every field

Was not a member of the all-star team for many years in a row

But, I no longer remember their names just as well as they never heard of mine

Could not find it in me to produce even a single page of deathless prose

Signed the checks & credit cards and was OK always spending more than I earned

Held the spoonfed opinions of others quite strongly but never learned to think for myself

Walked with a proud independence as I navigated by the bobbing tails of the herd

Did not have a pop hit and then grow fat and doped up out in dusty-neon Las Vegas

Pretty sure I almost won the lotto at least once or twice

Was not ever elected to any office since I never had enough vanity to run

Had a couple surgeries that I would be happy to talk with you about for hours

Got a son who lives up by Portland and a daughter out in Phoenix

Did not save the bug-filled rainforest or protect whatever greasy salmon

Let the quiet lakes and rivers grow filthy, passing by them daily, on my way to work

Could not draw too much sustenance from my predigested holiday experiences

Wound up growing morally thin and drawn out on my half-baked and spoon-fed beliefs

Did not finish my masterpiece because I thought I kept on starting over

Never saw any great circle or felt some spirit in the sky from outside our modular

Once I took time to roll down the windows and smell the roses as we were driving by

Could not notice how, when I thought I paused, that I was still being swept right along

Appear to be finishing up now but I cannot step back far enough to really tell

That is, think I might be just awfully close to that Happily-Ever-After once again

Going to sum it all up and make my peace here in just a little while

Did not volunteer my time but I still like to think I most likely would have

Got no wisdom for my kids but they come sit by me sometimes, just the same

There’s that ex-wife out in Fresno and a brother in Denver who still hates my guts

They laid me off and defaulted on my pension so then I also pissed away all my 401K

But I’m making my peace and seeking forgiveness and just maybe I’ll get buried green

Swirling

I must be swirling through a blur

Staggering sideways after all the spinning

Things must be roiling all around me

Maybe I saw heaven from every side

Swimming strongly or is it the current?

Going crazy just making sense

Standing upright, floating upside down

Falling softly from all directions

Fading off in those cool shadows

Turning upwards with the school of fishes

I think I twirl as I am gliding

There is no real sense that I am falling

My mind is clear though we are whirling

Remaining focused on the past unfurling

Through it all in this gentle swirling

In eddy resting and vortex yearning

Bobbing calmly in their wakes

Building with the clouds to rain

Sliding down this swell that’s curling

Achieving much through simple swarming

I might be part of something bigger

But quite alone when at last it’s over

My thoughts merge with this cat’s purring

In snowfall patterns there can be no hurry

I no longer fear this constant blurring

Losing focus need not bring on hurting

I go on swirling through things moving

Holding on? Who can I be fooling?

Fractal Messenger

Filling the great galactic clusters with stars accounted for, but uncounted

Leaving copious evidence of this same message at the subatomic level

Unknowable and forever far outside any organic experiences

Saying more than we can ever grasp in the gurgling of each tiny creek

Incredibly obvious everywhere we look yet nowhere to be seen

Not alive as in our poor understanding nor dead as we can only witness

Talking to us without a voice in channels outside our senses

Caching the entire mystery complete in uncountable, infinitesimal clues

Bearing not the slightest resemblance to the deities of our childish fairytale afterlives

Hidden from us by our subconscious projections of ourselves upon it

Comporting in timescales and distances far beyond our imaginations

Wholly too ignorant to take part in scholarly debate with clever theologians

Filtering every bit of information through each raindrop in every rainbow

Revealing all its secrets in the moss that grows on the striations of a boulder

Utterly mute in terms of commandments, calls to belief and tests of faith

Dripping all wisdom from every icicle hanging in the late winter sunlight

Blasting forth all knowledge in each burst of radiation from every neutron star

Reciting not a single line of internal dialogs along with our personal saviors

Encrypting the entire message in each of an infinity of absolutely random packets

Perfectly reflected in my limitless ignorance and our greatest discoveries

Neither far away nor inside us, not with us, but never leaving us alone

Expressing everything we know in the change marked by our final breath

Showing its entirety in each brief twinkling of the firmament above

Invisible but for the endless forms of its shadows, echoes and reflections

Inscribing the full message in patterns on the birds, the reptiles and the fish

Completely occupying all the borders of each one of our zen-like contradictions

As indifferent to new life as to the struggles which lead inevitably to death

Playing the same countless variations with raindrops as falling leaves

Dancing briefly in morning sunlight, peeping out from under dark clouds

Simply as likely to grant an unearned forgiveness as to punish unfairly

Deeply underpinning our endless and hopeless but inescapable struggles

Forming foreground and background, past, present and future

Blind witness without memory, testifying only in insoluble riddles

 

Radiating uncountable variations of perfection on this infinitesimally small world

As dense in empty space as in those songs that fill our entire hearts

Outlining a paradox whose purpose we can never approach deciphering

Neither concerned with cause nor aware of outcomes

Transforming hellish nuclear fission into warm winter sunlight

Source of no dogma but reflected in the maths we see underlying the cosmos

Bombarding from every direction with signals which travel unnoticed through us

Discerning each tiny peep in the vast white noise which fades back into entropy

Reabsorbing each droplet of consciousness without a conscious thought

Creating the music with the silence between the notes

Emitting fractal miracles regardless of magnification, size or distance

Incapable of any jealousy and unable to demand a fraction of our tiny faith

Possessed of no knowledge but without any questions

Filling the time and space outside of our universe

Making not a single promise to either sinner or sufferer

Backdrop to the background radiation of the Big Bang

Forever ungraspable but simultaneously inescapable

Undisturbed by the faint noise with which we try to hide it

Offering no consolation, bereft of mercy and unable to forgive

Totally accepting, endlessly patient and tolerant without comprehension

Filling everywhere to capacity with a mindless, insensate wisdom

Always within us but never really with us

Dancing with the shadows of the flickering firelight on the cave wall

Caring as much for our lives as shiny drops of dew on one tiny blade of grass

Grinning behind quantum dice as the clockwork universe unfolds

Unaware of our contemplations as part of itself

Holding men as responsible for their actions as it does the flowing rivers

Staring Off

Caught myself in a meeting with my eyes unfocused on any events outside my thoughts

Gazing emptily at a butt-littered curb someone honked at me as traffic moved on at last

Suddenly I realized I read each word but that I was comprehending something else

I saw the manicure, fine clothes and pampered face but I did not hear her spiel

Riffing out on a tangent from one thing he had said, I never even heard the rest

Lost in contemplation, an image I would not remember was burned into my past

As I dropped into that private space their monitors showed my brain waves changing

Staring off to unseen distances, the light in my eyes shown towards the inside

I lost myself somewhere between a dream and the foolishness surrounding me

Things were making more and better sense but then, someone called my name

I heard only the birds outside the classroom thanks to her endless droning

Plotting out the might-have-beens and maybe-could-haves often led me far afield

Walking in such reveries I commonly tripped on the most obvious of obstacles

As I stared off, some perhaps thought I pondered deeply but…I was simply somewhere else

My blank fixation perhaps the visible sign of an innocuous and dreamy epilepsy

But then again my quiet abstraction might have been simply a way to get attention

Sometimes I would relive many years in the space of but several minutes

Every so often as I returned I would confusedly try to rouse myself, as if from a sleep

There was no payoff in the real world for all my semi-comatose peregrinations

I did, however, wonder if this was where I spent all that time that I was always saving

I Left All These Tiny Ripples

Everything I do ripples outward, far beyond what I will ever see
Nowhere I have gone merely to look upon was unchanged by my coming

All the things I touch are altered in ways that I can never even notice

In turn, no one I have so much as spoken to did not change me just a bit

All the ways I tried to fix things keep changing other things as well

All the stuff you do interacts in unseen ways with all the things that I once did

Every time I replace one item I displace something else

When these two parts fit together that other one over there turns out to be a little short

Like a spaceman, stuff gets away from me and starts an existence all of its own

No one walks without their footprints changing the ocean even as it erases them

Anything I handle manipulates me with forces that I cannot see or feel

Tiny life I crushed unconsciously in my passing allowed other forms to prosper

Nothing that I toss aside has not left its ongoing trace before it more or less disappears

Every step I take turns the earth beneath my feet just the smallest fraction

A wake spreads out around me as I move through the infinite chop of others

Whenever I feel like I’m thinking for myself, it always comes from what they taught me

All their unseen co-operation make possible my rugged independence and self-reliance

Asking nothing from anyone, I still depend entirely upon others to simply live and breathe

I leave a little bit from everywhere I’ve ever been everywhere I go

Turns out my voice is but one little peep in a small frog chorus on a tiny pond

Influences my actions set in motion are continually reduced but never completely reach nothing

The sum of all my actions declines forever but only marginally reaches zero

Things others said so long ago that I never quite heard still guide me along this road

No one that has ever lived has not affected me in many ways

There is this melody in my head that is all the songs that they are ever singing

My happiness and contentment is somehow based in part upon their sadness and their suffering

Although I have no past before this life, it seems it has always lead up to this

Nothing I can imagine can ever come from outside what any of us has known

You can see me in one instant’s snapshot of the vast family tree formed by the life force

Every moment of the present I exchange a bit of my future into my disappearing past

Everything I do is very small yet so much more than what I can remember

I would be traveling in circles but time has converted them to rippling spirals

Though we make identical journeys, I cross your footprints heading the other way

I can even calculate the proportion of the sun’s energy that is falling upon my fingertip

Setting this thing in place I turn around and bump another which falls, out-of-reach, once again

Circling My Drain

I lay struggling and kicking on my mother’s breast unable to tolerate her good milk

even as they rolled my wrinkled, speckled body over to change the soiled sheets once again

I waited in a red jacket for the yellow bus on that first sunny day of kindergarten

simultaneously, at last I could no longer grasp the wriggling glyphs on any printed page

The older generations slipped away continuously in front of my children’s eyes

but, they too touched bottom at last, stood up and began slowly to emerge

I asked him of his plans and he recounted some of his more vivid memories

they were, as it turned out, actually willing to sacrifice for a future they would never see

Voices on the airwaves mingled with the live stream inside my head

in the land of dreams at least, I accepted these things without their having to make sense

I always felt I was growing nearer the happily that came just before the ever after

putting him in the ground I watched from a huge leafless oak as others lowered me as well

The times tables were like rhymes to me so I learned to sing them all quite well

he asked me how many fingers he held up but I could not really be too sure

I spent a lot more time with the people who had left me behind, the older that I got

no, I never returned to the homeland where they still walk me in the medieval courtyard

Later on I found it much more difficult when I tried to learn how to crawl once again

my chubby bow legs did not yet effectively support me so I waddled with uncertainty

I know that I am totally invisible in the purple lilac bushes of that sunny garden

as a starched nurse approaches I pull the stiff, rough sheets up and think that I am hiding

I have a recurring nightmare where I wake from a good dream that I can’t quite remember

awakened again that night, for the first time I understand when Mom tells me it’s not real

My life seemed as short as the years now seem after now having seen so many

in third grade I was sure that June would never come but that summer would last forever

For many years I returned with worms I had dug for the trout flashing under the old bridge

my uncle showed me how to bait the hook and told me I must intently watch the bobber

When I was 4, one day I thought back as far as I could and finally came to nothing

the older I got the more I saw how fast the void rushed at me, from all directions

I finally realized that things whirled around me much more quickly than I ran

holding my thoughts, I can take a long cool dive down into the dim, green past

After breakfast, we just stayed out by the lake for long summer days on end

I should apologize to many I no longer remember and thank the many more I never noticed

Sometimes my father disappoints me with an unexpected glance from an unseen mirror

I remember her dirty flip-flops and how she cried when she could not see the eye chart

I keep crossing my own tracks but it looks like they all lead off to nowhere

They got me cleaned up and just well enough to go and spend the night at grandma’s

All things were possible as I set off with my dad early on those Saturday mornings

often I hope we have enough time for the sun and snow to bleach our bones together

We wrestled savagely for what seemed like an hour in the side yard by his house

looking back now there is no way to recover that path I took to get here

I gave thanks that god had made me a boy and not an old lady or even an adult

groping in the darkness for direction, we did not describe straight lines

Staying below the superheated smoke we dragged the heavy firehose

the doctors found it difficult to treat the burns on an infant as small as myself

They could understand my words but we could no longer have a real conversation

I kept on trying as they helped me to evolve my first attempts at language

They performed an elaborate Christmas ritual which I have completely forgotten

they carefully placed the birthday cake on my chest after managing to sit me up

I floated like an astronaut with a lifeline plugged into my belly button

as my consciousness slipped away I felt myself rising at last, far up into the stars