Monochromatic

Inspired by a pair of speeches:
"The Ballot or the Bullet" by Malcolm X
"A More Perfect Union" by Barack Obama

Off and on.
White and black.
The future seems distant
When looking back.
To be or not to be.
That is not the question
But simply an expression
Of eternal indecision.
Live and let live.
Tolerance is relief.
Or maybe just refusal to
Stand up for a belief.
Life is not duality
Nor is it as it seems.
In the gray, not the black or the white
Lie the colors of our dreams.

An essay on "The Catcher in the Rye" in the style of "The Catcher in the Rye"

I’ll just tell you about this madman Holden Caulfield a little bit. Not his whole damn autobiography or anything, but just what I told D.B. Anyway, Holden goes around to bars trying to give girls the time. That kills me. And he always talks about his dead brother and how great his goddam sister is and all. I think he's some big phony. He's always talking about how annoying everyone else is and how he wants to run away to live in the woods and save a buncha kids from falling off a damn cliff, but he does the same thing everyone else does. I really get a bang out of that. You take a guy like Holden, he never tells the truth to people. What a phony. He's probably flitty. I mean he can never get really sexy with a girl. You know, really sexy. I can be very sexy sometimes. I once kissed this girl Jane Gallagher all over her face and all, but she didn't let me kiss her lips. She damn near made me wanna give her the time and all. Women kill me. Anyway, Holden really drove me crazy while I was talking to him so I just left and I figured I’d call up old Jane Gallagher or something, but after a while I started to miss Holden. You know, how when you have to shoot the crap with some guy about how they want to run off and live in the woods, but then you don't see them for a few weeks and you start to think what a nice guy they are and all that crap. You probably don't understand. You're probably just some phony who never does nothing you say you're gonna do. Reminds me of a guy I once knew, some kid who just wrote blogs all day long that nobody really gave a damn about. It was a sad thing to see though, it really was. You know the part that really got me? The part that sometimes he thought he was actually clever. Stuff like that always kills me. It really does.

At Tip of Pen

poets

tiptoeing

on the edge

of their madness

produce the most

fluid verse, much more

than the sane man ever could.

life and death at the tip of a pen

of the lives and deaths of ignorant men

but you know it is not acclaim that I seek

no, my verse could never be so bleak.

staring down these rabbit's holes, I know with any animal I'd go

bounding down into a world unknown, that for a moment I might know

that wondrous land of cats and colors and hatters mad, of caterpillars on lily pad

those moments we long to have had, when eyes and ears and mind turn bad

turn ecstatic urges sad, bleeding life at tip of pen

a poet on the edge, a mind on the brink

a man that wishes to sit and think

all these things I never would

write about or say to you

if I simply wanted to

be the fellow on

the bus, and

never ever

make a

fuss

A Momentary Lapse of Concern

A man
Stands at a deserted corner
Squinting at a flickering light
Just above the empty street-
Longing for the past
He has never seen.

A man
Lies on a frozen field
Staring at a glowing star
Through the dim twilight-
Longing for the present
He can never find.

A man
Sits on an empty bed
Gazing at a pale corner
Above the empty walls-
Longing for the future
He has already lost.

A boy
Runs through the cool sand
Dodging the icy waves
Snapping at his feet-
Living for the moment
He forever knows.

Sit, Think.

Sometimes I sit and think.
I think about Life. Death. Evil. Good.
I think how the path beneath my feet seems to slip by unnoticed.
An infinite treadmill of ever-changing speeds.
I think I am close to understanding,
But at the same time I drift away from the answer.
Sometimes I just sit and think, evading time and space.
Earthly possessions, humanly concerns...nothing.
Seconds, ticking. Minutes, slipping. Hours, fading.
Moments, disappearing, reappearing.
Receding into the faint yellow haze crawling over the dust towards the light.
Days escaping through accidental cracks in the door.
Years passing through the darkness,
Only to shine momentarily in the faint flickering starlight.
Off again, on again, off again.
And still these questions lay unanswered.
I ask these questions to the world. To myself. To everything and nothing.
But the answer never appears.
Maybe they cannot be answered. Maybe they are not meant to be answered.
Maybe the wavelengths are too weak, the medium too vast, to reach me.
From here the air seems empty, a vacuum of infinite dimensions.
I suppose I should wait patiently for a sign,
Listening intently for an answer.
But until one arrives,
I guess I've nothing more to do.
So I will just sit and think.

Discontent

The world is content

Staggering and grinning

Whistling songs in the sunlight.

There is life

In every empty room.

Every dog resting by the fire.

All the smiling children in the park.

Every ant scrambling across the sidewalk.

There is no denying

That this desire

Intoxicates every fool.

But,

To scream at the night sky without a reason.

To write words senseless to a scholar.

To scribble on every blank page

Knowing none will see, but scribbling nonetheless.

Writing message after message

Without as much as glancing at a bottle.

To walk beneath every towering streetlight

Dimly spraying light upon the road.

Under the flickering traffic signals.

Beneath the ethereal light of the full moon.

Without even the lightest brush

Of daytime's breath brushing against your neck,

Or morning's cold finger drifting down your spine.

That is to love.

Dissipate

The dissipation
of a murky haze
and suddenly
everything is clear.

Listen
and the sound will echo.
Watch
and the light will reflect.
Think
and the idea will ignite.

I understand.
Do you?