notes from a comical space.
Drown and out. I washed up on this funny, winsome shore. There was a short, squat man-child that looked like a beautiful golden bear. He had a backpack filled with food and mason jars thick with delusion. I knew I would have to carry this pack for a while, for months and months perhaps. Farther along the curving embrace of the shore, I saw a tall, willowy woman stretching and breathing deeply in the shade of a coconut tree. She would be my lover. I did not know this in my mind but a feeling in my feet whispered it, directing their momentous beat. So the young golden bear boy and I continued on and I glanced back at the willowy woman as we passed her reclining figure. My heart was devoid of love. The cabin where love would live on the mountaintop of my chest had once again been sucked away by a hurricane of happenstance. Now I was simply a “heart Sherpa.” There was no cabin here in this chest. There was no “base camp.” There was only a perpetual walking. An incessant emptiness punctuated by the drumbeat of light feet. I walked on and on, the mountain of the island looming in the distance. The sun was approximately halfway through the theatre of the sky. I wanted a kiss, but only for the taste of it. As I stared more and more at the willowy woman, my golden bear friend became agitated and motioned toward the pack I carried, indicating that he wanted to cook food which we had grown accustomed to doing together in a spirit of empty humor. This cooking on the long beach was our only home and he was ready to rest, though I wanted a kiss for the taste of it. We paused and set up “camp” in the sand, two quiet geese ready to cook in this tropical desolation. I prayed quietly for “whatever was right” for I had no idea what right looked like anymore. All I could see was the mountain. All I could feel was the weight of the pack of food and the mason jars of delusion. The reality of the mountain was my religion and the lines of the willow woman’s body were the mysteries of religion and so I prayed and prayed as the first star erupted silently in the wide yawn of the sky. I prayed for “what was right” and secretly sipped the shine of the coming moon, because it helped.
Then I was nothing but a heartbeat that played the song “reveille.” I could not relax no matter where I went. There was a tree somewhere that was calling my name softly with the soft voice of green leaves, but I was too hungry for meat to hear it. Of course, the soothing song of the leaves of my true love tree were all I “needed”, but my “wants” were strong, vicious competitors, nailing fliers up all over the city. My eyes rolled into the back of my head and the sun began to go down in San Luis Obispo. I yearned for the emptiness of mountain caves. I found myself yearning for the emptiness of the mountain cave that is a still heart, beatless, floating upward like a buoyant machine that had been dragged beneathe the waves for no apparent reason. This was my inner story and a story worthy of being told, but not the story that I had been sent to tell.
The story I had been sent to tell was the story of a melody that could cut out away from the bars and lines of this heartbreaking order. I yearned like a maniac to be free of lines. To soar until gravity had no power over my face. I yearned to soar, untethered, above the cloud heights like some magical goose. I felt the most intense lust for the vacuous sex of space. What machine could I steal to take me there? My body was clearly not the proper vehicle. I breathed in all sorts of strange rhythmic techniques. I starved my flesh for days on end. I went without carnal favors until my bones were white as winter roses. Still, my body tethered me to the earth and to anchors of love. I did not know how to float away quite yet, though everyone was mad at me for doing just that. They said, “you are too floaty, Dennis. You must wear your heavy pack of food cans and jars of delusion. They will anchor you, and anchoring is what you need. How else will you live on Earth?” Though I found myself less and less preoccupied with that urgency to stay on Earth. All I wanted was heaven. I was willing to trade my final teeth for a halo. I forgot all about the golden bear boy and the willow woman. I dreamt of making final acts of love inside of satin coffins.
part 2.
Oh well. That was a medley of poems. An attempt at story. The truth though is that I am quite fine and alright. The other truth is that quite fine and alright feel like a waste of time. “Why can’t you just be satisfied, sir?” But I am unsatisfied because I think I am like a fleshy elevator and unless I am carrying to capacity throngs up and down, I will not feel at ease. But elevators also need elevators. In my spine I imagined there to be an elevator. The thirteenth floor was my heart chakra, the anahata, and I was/am stuck there now. Cannot decide if this story has already happened or is it happening now? Is this the past or the present? Am I living for the fruit of the future or may I please, please, please, be the rust on the plough that makes food for the babies. Let me be the rust on the plough that makes food for the babies. Let me be as mindless as rust. Let my little tiny heart drop silent into a box. I am the quiet rust heart, devoid of home and being carried to the highest mountaintop in the rucksack of big baby jesus. What a conundrum, cause I also just want to be a “regular guy” playing ski ball, or pool, or kicking soccer balls around with vague tenacity.
Then I was nothing but a heartbeat that played the song “reveille.” I could not relax no matter where I went. There was a tree somewhere that was calling my name softly with the soft voice of green leaves, but I was too hungry for meat to hear it. Of course, the soothing song of the leaves of my true love tree were all I “needed”, but my “wants” were strong, vicious competitors, nailing fliers up all over the city. My eyes rolled into the back of my head and the sun began to go down in San Luis Obispo. I yearned for the emptiness of mountain caves. I found myself yearning for the emptiness of the mountain cave that is a still heart, beatless, floating upward like a buoyant machine that had been dragged beneathe the waves for no apparent reason. This was my inner story and a story worthy of being told, but not the story that I had been sent to tell.
The story I had been sent to tell was the story of a melody that could cut out away from the bars and lines of this heartbreaking order. I yearned like a maniac to be free of lines. To soar until gravity had no power over my face. I yearned to soar, untethered, above the cloud heights like some magical goose. I felt the most intense lust for the vacuous sex of space. What machine could I steal to take me there? My body was clearly not the proper vehicle. I breathed in all sorts of strange rhythmic techniques. I starved my flesh for days on end. I went without carnal favors until my bones were white as winter roses. Still, my body tethered me to the earth and to anchors of love. I did not know how to float away quite yet, though everyone was mad at me for doing just that. They said, “you are too floaty, Dennis. You must wear your heavy pack of food cans and jars of delusion. They will anchor you, and anchoring is what you need. How else will you live on Earth?” Though I found myself less and less preoccupied with that urgency to stay on Earth. All I wanted was heaven. I was willing to trade my final teeth for a halo. I forgot all about the golden bear boy and the willow woman. I dreamt of making final acts of love inside of satin coffins.
part 2.
Oh well. That was a medley of poems. An attempt at story. The truth though is that I am quite fine and alright. The other truth is that quite fine and alright feel like a waste of time. “Why can’t you just be satisfied, sir?” But I am unsatisfied because I think I am like a fleshy elevator and unless I am carrying to capacity throngs up and down, I will not feel at ease. But elevators also need elevators. In my spine I imagined there to be an elevator. The thirteenth floor was my heart chakra, the anahata, and I was/am stuck there now. Cannot decide if this story has already happened or is it happening now? Is this the past or the present? Am I living for the fruit of the future or may I please, please, please, be the rust on the plough that makes food for the babies. Let me be the rust on the plough that makes food for the babies. Let me be as mindless as rust. Let my little tiny heart drop silent into a box. I am the quiet rust heart, devoid of home and being carried to the highest mountaintop in the rucksack of big baby jesus. What a conundrum, cause I also just want to be a “regular guy” playing ski ball, or pool, or kicking soccer balls around with vague tenacity.