On Ambition

What is it worth to be
so powerful that you
conquer happiness?
Conquer death
but let happiness be!
Let it be king!
Let it be
God!

"Dear Content,
Happy birthday, here's your
headstone, it reads

CONTENTMENT
Born Yesterday, Died Today
nothing gold can stay

Do you like it? I spent
so much on it! (not to
brag, but)
By the way, I got you a
cyanide cake,
dig in!

Love,
Ambition"

Meanwhile, Happiness doodles and
hums a little song it made.


Ambition is so
mature, so adult. But so
cynical.
Happiness is just
a monkey on a vine, swinging and eating a
banana.

Ambition throws its excrement and blames Happiness.
Happiness doesn't blame anyone. It just smiles.

happiness against power...
everyone loses to Power.
happiness is fragile

the heart against the mind...
everyone loses to Logic.
the heart is fragile

Wave

High is low,
sooner or later.
Drunk, then hungover.
Up, then down.
Low is high,
just wait, survive.
Calm before the storm.
Rainbows after.

Oscillations. One, zero, one.
0 to 255 in 60 seconds.

You
have an amplitude, a frequency, a phase --
but what are your units?
Where is the axis?
Where are the labels?
What do you
add up to?
What formula defines your existence?

Chaos. From similar initial conditions
come rapidly diverging trajectories,
A story written in blood, in invisible ink,
in black and white, in binary, in hex
Who knows what's next?
(The problem is that
somebody knows,
but nobody knows which
one of us that somebody
is.)

I give up!
White flag.
I drop my weapons
and simply
wave.

I Want

I want a color to fill me to the brim

so fast that it erupts from me and fills all the pots

for miles, miles

with a distilled hue

that bubbles knee-deep on the ground

so none may walk without being dyed with it

I want so badly to feel

some energy unimaginable bursting

inside of my rib cage,

To see it shining out as brightly as the sun

To hear it roaring in my ears like a waterfall

And to know, undoubtedly,

what is what, and 

what it would look like

for everything to be in its right place.

I want you

From Distant Futures

From distant futures:

i.

In the deeps

of an acid sea

lie chunks of metal, corroded slowly:

sunken ships,

fallen monuments,

lingering shells, empty, haunted--

lifeless steel ghosts--

no algae, no redemption--

the circle of life, stopped in its tracks--

no long blue songs, just perfect quiet

but for the dark, automatic swish

of the current,

slowly rolling, for as long 

as the sun lives, dead water on

a dead planet,

currents

slowly rolling

ii.

The world is orange on gray.

Only a dusted, finished tiger's colors,

without the plush

A dimming sun burns low through smog,

a humming glow, toxic, radiating

onto smoothed gray boulders, simple

as chalk drawings.

A volcanic plain, all basalt and ash--

no algae (prey to a molten red flow,

eons ago -- gone up in smoke)

So now, 

nothing moves...

only the barren wind with its dust, 

dry and lifeless, slowly rolling--

For millions of years,

slowly rolling

iii.

An asteroid drifts through cold space--

slowly rotating, a little momentum conserved

(why not?)

A blue nebula

Thousands of thousands of miles away

and otherwise, just the black of space

and the cold white perforations once known,

on a blue marble,

as Stars.

No day, no night,

no days or years or time -- 

slowly rolling, dry and isolate,

cosmic eternity, spent

slowly rolling

Joy

I'm going to try to describe

that feeling that I said

couldn't be described.

It is breathing deep on top of a green hill

where there is bluish morning mist hovering

It is sensing the blood pulsing along your cheekbones

and trying to keep your chest from bursting as it swells

It is smiling uncontrollably as your airways constrict

because you're just so happy to be alive

It is floating away as your head becomes a balloon

and laughing like a maniac at the stupidest jokes

It is swimming in the deep black sky, full of jeweled stars

and never, ever worrying about drowning in its depths

It is running down a hill as fast as you can go 

and it's effortless to speed up forever

It is dreaming that your wildest dreams have come true

and you're flying above every one of your problems

It is living forever in a place where white is all around

and there's nothing left between you and your destination

It is dancing eternally to a quiet rhythm

With bare feet and soft steps, soft steps 

It is amazing!

It is joy

December

I like it best like this
When a frigid blue tinges everything:
The newborn snow that blankets the hinterland
in the middle of December
under an icy moon, pale and serene as a queen in death
but much more ready to come alive again…
When that frosty cerulean, its tint like a steely iris—
never wavering or flinching—
lies like a cobweb over the untouched tundra,
and tiny crystals grip the brittle needles of the pines
while the weight of snowflakes fallen from retreating clouds
press the branches groundward--
When the kniving gusts are still miles away,
and haven’t yet disturbed the pristinity of it.
I wish I could stay here forever—
never having to search to find this cold beauty—
never wanting to escape from the heat that so sears me—
never needing someplace to sit
and just…
 
watch.. . . .

Day By Day

It’s hard, not knowing where to start
but that’s where life helps us out—we wake up each morning
The starting point, the diving board, the thunder crack
that sets us in motion again from sleep.
From there on out, we’re on our own
To do as we see best
But we don’t always see so well, do we?
We often lose sight of what is best,
and wander the world
with a mirror in front of us
seeing only what is
best for us
rather than what is
Best

Some days, some poems, are inspired,
drawn from an inner well of color, passion.
Some seem like drudgery,
Walked, written, from a sense of duty
Forced unhappily, unflowingly
and somehow subtly without our sincerest efforts,
although we finish them nonetheless.
Could we find inspiration in every sunrise? in every simple phrase?
Or is contrast
the very thing that defines passion?
If a hyacinth never wilted
Sustained its bloom through every paling winter
Would we notice it so much in May?
I think not…

And yet,
if that flower survived November in vibrant violet
never drooping through December and January,
never without heart, even when without sun,
Then could it not blossom more brilliantly each year?
Could it not rise higher each March and grow richer each April,
With burgeoning shoots and sprouting new buds,
Roots, tendrils expanding through the luscious soil,
and purple clusters filling ever more densely,
Growing in fragrance and beauty to become
more than a flower but a blooming shrub,
then with years more a delightful sapling,
And over the course of a lifetime, a great resplendent tree,
a supple green trunk with blossoms hanging from the branches like juicy plums!
What a sight it would be!

This because day by day,
it did not wax and wane like the moon,
come and go like the tide,
but rather, grow and sustain itself, never falling backwards but only climbing
until it reached
the ranks of greatness,
a wonder for the world to behold

day by day