...live like you mean it

– Goo Goo Dolls

Gerhard Richter: Madrid, 1964

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embers of a dream, and firelight
the years slouch on, the world becomes shorter as we age
from the ground lifted, forgetting our yesterday’s weight
(did we even exist in that ambiguous time?)
faith in my inmost inmost fires
home to a thousand unnamed words, a vocabulary of silence
compelled by the illusion of time to accelerate my wondering
(imagine time, wrapped around itself: a rose)
we live our lives shrouded in sound
darkness slips from our grasping; we hold nothing at all
the transience of the dream, glances off our perceptions
(returned from nowhere, the moment is blank)

The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief.

In the dreaming, I stared at myself so intently that I burst into light.

In the dreaming, a hundred birds came together to form an angel in the air.

In the dreaming, a thousand candles hung in the air and flickered silently.

In the dreaming, I looked down a bottomless pit and saw the end of the world.

In the dreaming, water flowed through the skies in branches like trees.

In the dreaming, I screamed so loud that I cracked clouds open.

In the dreaming, I was alone in a vast darkness, yet hope would not die.

[More of that book I’m writing.]

Or am I no one?

Mornings walking through the false dawn Sunday, downtown: amazing how the city can be this quiet. Almost like time moved on without me, and I am the omega man stranded forever in the past. The daydream is too much like the outside world, and I am confused of whether the art of my mind is telling me something about that world, or that the world tells me this other place, inside me, exists somewhere in the commons of all dreaming. I know I speak too much about the dream. It is perhaps the condition of my misspent youth in the last part of the twentieth century, when all around seemed as if it were of a great dream that had been lost. We had to come up with our own; the collective unconscious had nothing to offer us…. And now I realize I don’t know what store it is that I am peering through the window of. A momentary blank.

There is no question, love is the answer.

all that we are ever promised is that life will go on
civilizations may fall, but always, the end is still not yet
the continuity of the stream flows its ceaseless logic

There has to be an invisible sun
It gives its heat to everyone
There has to be an invisible sun
That gives us hope when the whole day’s done

And they’re only going to change this place by
Killing everybody in the human race
And they would kill me for a cigarette
But I don’t even wanna die just yet

– The Police

Mordecai Ardon: The Red Dew

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The greatest proof of Christianity for others is not how far a man can logically analyze his reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life on his belief.

In the dreaming, light lifted me into the realms of thought.

In the dreaming, an eternity of quiet ended as stars fell from heaven.

In the dreaming, I wrestled the darkness till dawn’s dispel.

In the dreaming, a tree with leaves of fire lit the dark forest.

In the dreaming, night and day shared the sky, sun amid the stars.

In the dreaming, I lived a life in an hour, but this as life is.

In the dreaming, a girl with sapphire eyes stirred the elixir of destiny.

[The beginning of a book which on a whim I decided to start writing.]

What does it take to be an everyman?

I know I let another day slip by, the time floating through me and encroaching upon my skin, making it slowly, inevitably more like stone. This is all a dream. But I write things down, anyway, even if the paper will vanish come the end of night. I find the madness comes and goes, the thought that is not a thought leaving me twisted — if only for a moment. I have seen snakes in the fire. Seeing, too, that I have been alone for some time, now, occasionally happy in my own way: I have forgotten what is touch, what it is to feel someone breathing. Notions: another day has fallen, another cycle closed, a dream forgotten.

You can play by the rules and still change everything.

my dreaming drifted in the breezes, an aroma pleasing to the process
my thin breathing to exhale strands of words lighter than atmosphere

my wondering floated through the smog, emerging a dirty hope
my hands quivering from the desire, what we know of the universe

my eyes traveling into the infinite horizon, the epiphany of angels
my thought pouring into the world stream, wet with creation

my light is a poor candle, and cannot illuminate my reflection
my life is a curious leaf, descending from a tree that forgets

I wait for the convergence of all things. I do what I can to accelerate the process. For in me is the belief that time will resolve into a dew upon the light of a new dawn. That things will happen and people will act, that plans will come to fruition — if not in the common of occurrence, then in the rare instance of hope that comes to be fulfilled. I wait for the rain to fall, which will precursor the greenness of spring; I wait for the moon to be full, that I might see the color of your eyes in its pale glow. I remember to plant the seeds that the waters are drunk, and I remember to invite you out into the forest, out into the night, when the looking out will cast the proper magic. Anticipation may be a delicious thing. And the future not always to come to an end, or even then, that beginnings may sprout from the bleakest of aftermath, after the most final of ceasing.

There has to be an invisible sun
It gives its heat to everyone
There has to be an invisible sun
That gives us hope when the whole day’s done

It’s dark all day, and it glows all night
Factory smoke and acetylene light
I face the day with me head caved in
Looking like something that the cat brought in

– The Police

Adam Fuss: Untitled

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