Accepting other viewpoints has its downsides. Pride has no place there. You have to leave your own little window to see through someone else’s, and it takes moving away from that comfortable little nest and walking around. But what you can see, other vistas, make it worth so much more than just sitting still.
After all.
There isn’t much left. Fragments of dyed silver shards reflected and reflecting in a ice-broken haze. Cloudy thoughts, cloudier skys. Confusions, so many they overlap and reflect endlessly in the remains of the violence. Little crumbs of dirt still cling to my hands, held tight by the tenacious grip of oily sweat. They drop, everyone once in a while, onto the dusty ground, joining their brethren or crashing and forming even more brokenness, each one multiplied a thousand times over in razor edged precision. It looks as though I am joining the dust, again, and feel kindred for the powder that puffs in little mimics of the skies at the prodding of the wind. But always falls again.
Something Unknown
Where are the things we know to be true? Where are they? They have disappeared over the horizon with the last ship to give us hope. There is nothing left, no glimmer of light on the water, to bring us somewhere in comfort. Oh how I long for the bed of my youth, to relieve this nightmare as a dream of greatness, but we are not given that chance, are we? We are left to starve out our days living with the crumbs left to us by our shattered ambitions and self-destructive behaviour, limited and mindless beings driven by the cruel reality of fate. How can that great god, fate, be bound to our will? Even the best of us fall to your disease, your inevitability, your call to death. There is no royal flush for us, no gin, no 29 points that can take us away from you. Our race is lost, lost before we begin, lost before even we begin it! Your hand is felt in every action we take, A remorseless avenger are you, for sins of our past, accumulating on us like barnacles and sea grime on a ship, causing us to go slower, slower, slower until we eventually stop, driven idiotically by the currents, unable to choose a course, merciless before the might of the hungry seas. Is the only choice left the one of resignation? Do we have to submit to the inevitability of our own horrid nature? Is the true fate of humanity to die in the foetid odor of our wrongdoings, miserable and wasting, skeletons amidst a rampaging revenge of the messengers of our own making? Truly, as it has been written, woe to those who live in these days, and sadness even more to those who still have left to give up their hope. But still, to even remain alive, there is a still calm water that must drown the senses. It is comfort, those ripples, covering our mouths, our nostrils, until we breathe in the heavy fragrance of somnambulance, opiate, amphetamine all in one, that give us false courage to continue on into the dark night. What is that comfort? Must we all submit, if at last to give up examination of the forces that drive us, to forget? Lashes upon the backs of those who try to reason out why we cannot form within ourselves order, Lashes laying bare the emotions, the vulnerability of those who choose — nothing.
Bleak Outlook
I dreamt that I was looking at a great bright star in the sky.
It was a glorious sight, gleaming and sparking there amidst a field of black.
But it was the only one. And the darkess that surrounded it –
It wasn’t the safe, warm blackness of a warm bedroom,
Where one can lie snuggled in a blanket, comforted by the silence.
It was a terrifying blackness, filled with nameless shadows,
Horrors trying to keep me from seeing the star. But,
Despite the shadows, I knew I had to reach that star,
Hold on to it. Keep it. But as I reached out,
The shadows, horrors without shape, began to feint,
Move to cover the sparkling gem, but I kept reaching,
Grasping with all of the might that I had,
Scared that one of those crawling things would touch me.
The star began to fade. Slowly, then quickly.
I couldn’t see it anymore. But I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t. Stop. But then, I knew it was gone forever.
I look down in sadness, only to find out I was
Looking
Into
My
Hand.
Linux Mint hits 9…
Just installed and am updating the recently release Linux Mint 9… if you’ve thought about Linux but never tried it, this is the perfect distro to start at. Good job, LM Team!
Kallisti/Utopia
Something moves in the tall rushes, whistling softly
Something breaks the algae, sinuous trails of black
Something makes the glassy ripples part, and frogs leap away
Where are you, mysterious one?
Where have you gone,
To make sadness dissapear?
To cause sadness?
Come to me! Come to me!
I desire your mystery, to solve the mysteries
Let me be! Let me be!
I do not want the apple. I do not want to eat.
Why do you not bring purity with your power?
Why do you cleanse with your fire?
If you would only see us, what you do to us. Can you see?
You should let us live. Or not let any of us live.
But not take us in the night like you do.
Strange, that we have the choice of Paris.
But we don’t really choose – you do not let us.
Why aren’t you invisible, so we can live quietly.
Your uglyness is unbearable. But your beauty is captivating.
Leave. LEAVE!
A retrospective.
It seems a year ago already that I arrived in Africa, although only four short months have gone by. The change in myself and my worldview is dramatic. I came here in a state of confusion about my spirituality and, perhaps, even that question of eternal purpose. While these questions remain not completely answered, so very much has happened that has made me re-evaluate that possibilities inherent in our lives that I have regained a sense of perhaps naive optimism about what can be accomplished.
So proud!
I’m so proud of my wife! She has a new craft web site… very high tech for a craft-y person, so I think I’m rubbing off on her…
A single mind…
Very little of that which one thinks is communicated. Little secret thoughts, impressions, feelings; snippets of our beings are never shared with others. How wonderful it would be to know someone so well that they would share these thoughts, these inner dialogues, without the reservations and filters that the false importance of proper appearance seems to force upon us. What an annoyance these conditions of society are! What barriers to learning about each other! We share our condition; why give up what can be for something lesser? We’re scared, that’s why.
Los niños del miércoles.
By the Rivers of Babylon We Sat Down and Wept
1
We sat down and wept by the waters
Of Babel, and thought of the day
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem’s high places his prey;
And ye, oh her desolate daughters!
Were scattered all weeping away.
2
While sadly we gazed on the river
Which rolled on in freedom below,
They demanded the song; but, oh never
That triumph the stranger shall know!
May this right hand be withered for ever,
Ere it string our high harp for the foe!
3
On the willow that harp is suspended,
Oh Salem! its sound should be free;
And the hour when thy glories were
ended
But left me that token of thee:
And ne’er shall its soft tones be blended
With the voice of the spoiler by me!
Lord Byron, 1815
