Yes, I know corrosivity is not a word as far as you’ve heard. It is a novel combination of corrosive and acidity to me. Because I didn’t want to write ‘an ocean of acidity’ — it’s not right, not P.C., err, I mean it’s not P.H.! (Gee…) Simply equip and tip in a ton of tums to neutralize the acidic H-2-O blip; not the right video-clip. So, corrosivity it is…
And let’s get it clear: I’m here not to neutralize the seas by puffin’ calcium into the breeze. Creating a ton of anything is hard work for me, being a crab astrologically. So, what to do in a corrosive ocean? What’s the potion?
I see my buddy Pisces afloat and adrift, aloft and aloof in a fantasy of idea thrift. I know not to follow so as not to get lost. And I also can’t abandon my aqueous ship there, boss. The depths being so well-equipped to my elusive style of image-shift.
And a playful warping of the story verbosely is not the essence of this poetic trip. So I digress — unless… No. The real question is not how to rhyme this session, but how to stay solid in a corrosive ocean where you know-not-what-means-stolid.
When you live underwater, the world is heavy. Ideas are tempting but can drag you down fishy rabbit-holes quick. Mystery and deception, image and self-defense protection not a problem for the clawed-crawling-shelled-crusty creatures like me-myself and a few other watery-signed-types on the shelf. But with an ocean of emotive ideas at my finger-claw-tips, and the schools of benign-looking hook-hidden pips, the challenge remains to open-shell with the proper currents and down comrades at my hip.
Open too much and pure-essence is leaked.
Too little and neurotic claws begin to auto-collapse on the allied-peeps.
So, to flow or to swim is the question to let sink in. To roll in the under-tow or no?
And the best way for us, these crustaceans, not-to-crack, is to never let this very question stab us in the back.
— DANGER. Beyond here be dragons. —
“Shouldn’t we turn back?” begged a little voice.
The courage to continue into the unknown
comes from realizing, from seeing
that moving into the abyss
is more important than remaining in the light,
safely and in fear.
The future contains within it many dragons
so we imagine them to be:
Black-tar-slimy-poison-death,
Red-fire-blood-crimson-pain,
Blue-ghost-lonely-rainy-mist, and
Yellow-sick-fever-rotting-mold.
But it’s the imaginary dragons that are the nastiest…
What we know, all of what we know, we have seen.
And a purposeful life, a life of learning,
requires forward movement
into shadows that strangely gain illumination,
fading as we are almost upon them.
Feet falling swiftly onto ground — solid ground,
brown or grey or green,
and again we are suprised to find it not so full of darkness
as we had imagined it to be.
Beyond here be dragons?
The clearest sign of what we need to do.
Stomp out the unknown darkness.
Herein lie future-wise explanations
for why even though nothing I type here is reflected back into my eyes,
my fingers still move letters on up to the blanketed electrical opulent sky.
And I don’t have a clue why this has to be written
except that it helps me to fill in the space
between me and my greatest most creative pace.
But it will come through the years of hard work I believe in.
Something like this very piece I believe in.
Something like this that others will enjoy as peace within.
Because passion, when true, is a trustworthy guide.
And the passion is true and is turning the tide
And so, it says, to you, alongside,
“Will you please come with and join us my friend?”
And so you wonder if it is
so that together we can be as one in fact.
But no, it’s a bit more recent, with a little bit more tact,
that in the quoted lyrics of the splendid flaming lips
my passion grabs the mic of unison and shouts out just this:
Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize that we’re floating in space?
Do you realize that happiness makes you cry?
Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes
let them know you realize that life goes fast.
It’s hard to make the good things last.
You realize the sun doesn’t go down,
it’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round…
This too comes from the flaming lips. Enjoy the ever prescient glimpse.
I once tried to write a short story. It was a three-line dialog about a trip a long time ago that these two dudes went on. It went something like this:
“19 miles to midnight.”
“What?”
“Ok, 18.8.”
The only problem was it was too long. I needed a short story, and fast. Two lines would have been nice, but I couldn’t compact the interaction into such a small dialectal space. Surely I had to reverse my thinking and add a line. So I tried it with four:
“How much further, Jim?”
“19 miles.”
“19 miles to midnight…”
“Well, 18.8 to be exact.”
Unfortunately, it lacked a convincing conclusion. How would the story end? Would the passenger fall silent in satisfaction at the respecified 18.8-mile reply, or would there take place some kind of conflict at that? A discreet critique of Jim’s need to speak accurately perhaps? It certainly needed something — either a resolution or dissolution; at this point it was exceedingly flat. But nothing was coming to me…
At some point about a week later on it struck me to limit myself to three lines, as I had originally intended to do, but to sneak in a whole new character as well. So then I had Jim, the driver, the curious cat (to be known as ‘Frederíco’), and another whom I called ‘the old author’, a retired novelist. It went a little something like this:
“Man, I bet it would take you a month if you were gonna hike it.”, said Frederíco, trying with false appreciation to mask what was really impatience.
Jim gave a flat driver’s-grunt and laid out his ETA: “19 more miles to midnight, folks.”
The old author gazed out at the dim rolling dunes and chimed in to keep everyone aware of the stars that would spin and said: “Look!”
At least now the readers could grin knowing that: even outside of his books can the retired novelist write a new fact. And so, from the muse, it was this story I took.
☯: I used to be a taoist
but couldn’tfeel in black and white
✴: I used to be a buddhist
but symbolslabeled me at night
☆: I used to be a child
but biology chose me notto rest
♥: I used to be a somebody
but then ofjust-about-anyone Ithought the best
∆: I used to be a liberal
but had greatenergy to conserve
⚡: Then I saw solar and was green to convert
but knew pollution could not all beenvironmentally cured
♦: So now I write
because the words are not set tight
before my pen rolls over them
the linear gift of a gem of my choice
the present my thoughts of profound and deep voice
unrecognized labor, it’s like
diplomacy failing to reconcile greedy ego speed
and compassion filled wishing well deeds,
or one too many attempts at subtlety wrapped comically
big in philosophical arrangements, tenacious.
wishing it would all just
coalesce and acquiesce
in other words, gel
jam,
god damn,
it must be done just
work together,
recognize the dissolution of words
brought on by your reading me bland
like you puff away unwanted feathers above,
too lazy to use your hand.
maybe you know it but read on ever blindly, thus,
recognize the fact that i can’t help you all that much
you will mostly have to do it by yourself it seems
but you will do it,
and well, nonetheless,
for you are you, and i am me,
and we are together humanity, said so sardonically,
strained by scarcity propped up with patronizing animosity.
what makes it so hard to snap off the
clingy tendrils of dogma destined to
destroy those of us who look bleak?
let decaying vines crumble earthwise,
back down to base materialism not,
don’t let the wasted possibilities melt
in with our spent passion hot,
that which was meant
to be recovered, remade.
don’t back down to the base materialism we hate.
don’t back down at all.
answer the call – it’s for you…
i don’t want to hear you moan.
climb out of your fuzzy notions of hope of far-too-self-delimiting a scope.
let the curtains rest aside and the sunlight attest
to the fact that
we’re all doomed to
wear our best vest
on the day that we feel the worst,
but it’s no curse,
it’s just the first day we rehearse.
everyday should be this tangibly bitterly incomplete,
but not so much to
deplete that which keeps us up to
hear tales of grand folk
who smiled wide walking down empty wet streets.
Old man time just keeps on running.
You can try to run with him.
You can try to run ahead of him,
but you’ll almost definitely trip.
You may lag behind him,
but he’s got a chain on your leg,
and he’s unstoppable,
so you’re gonna get dragged through the dirt,
and get all bruised up,
and it’ll be a terrible mess.
So pick yourself up.
Start running.
You may find your optimal pace
is actually the same as the old man.
Old men don’t run too fast, after all.
It could be fun — I mean,
you can actually decide where to run.
You just gotta stick with the old guy…
Your intuition is the best direction,
whether it takes you through the forest,
to a friend’s house or yours,
to your enemy’s lair or the moon,
Follow it at a good pace.
It’ll be the best run of your life.
