A BREEZE
And so begins the journey that goes from here (found near the orange tree) to there.
In between is the magic land of nowhere, the ultimate never-here of a Princess Line cruise, passengers sunning on the deck, no one speaking to Michelangelo, scanning the endless sea. One might search for a sorcerer, perhaps in vain, or scented soap. To put the matter bluntly, it is ballyhoo for selling doughnut holes.
Why is magic so unreliable? To fill the void, a flower flattened between pages, vapors of eucalyptus become inspirations on roller skates. Magic comes to them for lessons. Whole tracts of sunny days fall to their knees. To push hyperbole beyond recognition, it hypnotizes a sound stage nestled 'neath the oak trees, running brooks that will sneeze, shaking off a shower of crystal lights that ride the breeze.
These humble effigies are burnt offerings that have survived traffic jams.
Amidst the mad spasm of delirious growth farting a haze of smog, certain minds grow like tumors. The chaos of their description being more descriptive than chosen words, each such mind, intent upon its profit, adds a stubbled layer to urban suffrage, ad hoc towers, spires stretching to a needlework of scheming glass.
If only I could artfully transform it
The usual way is to normalize, using broad brush strokes, with appeals to the dream almost too good to be true. Watch the billboards. Be a commercial artist, but the thought is . . .
I think I'll take a nap. It'll come to me.
__0__
Moving through fields, here comes a double edged scythe. Snatched from its honored rack on the temple wall, wading through hordes, blowing like the North Wind, decapitating left and right, heads rolling into the depths of a dark well, others disintegrating in a flash of light.
Laughter pulls up alongside. I am the hummingbird's hum. The market place is racks of apples and oranges, potatoes and a traveling cricket, who also sings my song. It arrived in a dream, asking, who tried to set fire to those ideas? Can ideas burn?
All the shelves were emptied into the street, bonfire of the verities from which I sift mostly ash, a few fire engines, and a perch from which to spot charred bones. There is no urn for my remains.
I kiss the wind. It has come from before I was born. From the one who smelt it under a lady bug's wing, sleeping beneath a waterfall bringing water for the extra-hot tub at the bath house, all participating, and the dialog in steam. It's no place to discuss dragons, which shrink from the conversation like wolves circling a bonfire, started not by accident, but by lightning. Those ancestors that still lurk in shadows, wringing their hands.
I have stolen thunder. If only we knew how best to parlay the hoard, delegated to hordes who have forgotten how to ride bare back on the wind, long hair streaming out over the broad fields.
No need to dig up earthquakes for presentation on on a plate, however subtly dressed as clowns or vendors of mixed drinks. People have revolutions to tend, or the simple business of catching a chicken, escaping bandits and drug runners, avoiding psychopathic rulers, not to mention the entanglements of family and friends, however well meaning. The long tumble stretches through super markets, a patch of National Forest, coming out with perhaps a PhD, mountainous debt, and a return to swimming lessons. Everyone knows what this means, but hardly worth thinking about. Because – see? -- the crystal palace and glittering chandeliers, shiny Cadillacs and such, all get rolled up at night. Apartment dwellers, people bathing in the sacred river, displaced families that were farmers once and their robotic kin, all share just this trackless whatever. An earthquake on a plate might as well be jello. A mudslide. One dodges arrows, insults, drones depending on location, on whose plate is being served, and it seems hardly relevant.
So just skipping over midden mounds comes this dark sun shining over a sand castle, playing with snakes, writhing cityscapes on their way back to sand. There will be a coconut dance at The Bar and Grill and Bar.
Too late.
Condemned centuries of my ancestors, having reverted to emptiness, though they were indeed that all along, are now served up again on this plate. Dare I recall Salome's head? What was useful once, though empty, is now useful still, with full cognizance. Mountains are mountains again.
The structure of language this time around is my friend. And yours as well. Think of this, scholars and deconstructionists. The well is deep. The pun punctuates.
__0__
In winter's solitude, wrappings of civilization are sparse diversions. The autumn breeze is gone. Dormant branches trace a naked sky. From slumber comes spring, and the seed will be recalled. Is this all?
The fundament of time assumed is obvious, but suppose it doesn't always go as expected. If what comes next is suddenly known before it happens, sleep is disturbed. What moved? Now it's out of place. How did it move? But yes, it happened, not asking permission. It passes the test, but on some other grounds than usually understood. Civilization as presently in effect ignores this.
Nonetheless, the sound of falling leaves is heard by some. Solitude is not aloneness.
