Face Full of Truth

I am a dreamer. I can not help it! I always have been and I probably always will. I dream of a minimalist life, living outside society's norms, living outside consumerism, hurting the earth as little as possible and hopefully healing more than I hurt. And I have made steps along this peaceful path. But I mostly cling to dreaming of a future in which I practice all these things and live happily in some quiet cottage, surrounded by forest and a babbling brook, or what have you. But the truth is, that is not going to happen tomorrow, or in the next year, and depending on where this path of life takes me, I may not ever get there. I am not living out my own beliefs and ideals because I am waiting for some picture perfect life to fall into my lap first. But really, my life is crazy, chaotic and not calming down anytime soon. I work a physically demanding job, I am moving back to my home state in 11 days, I am currently living with 7 people in a four bedroom house, and mostly, my mind is racing. All.the.time.

So, because my life is an unpredictable chaos ball, I don't have time to waste on waiting. I need to start practicing my ideals now. I need to get rid of all these excess possessions, I need to make my own soaps and remedy products as opposed to buying chemicals and supporting the corrupt medical system. I need to buy healthy, local, and organic foods. I need to stop giving money to companies whose values and actions I do not support at all. I need to stop eating meat. Seriously. I need to do work that is meaningful to me, that I am passionate about. I need to let go of my little comforts and really practice what I know to be true for my life. I need to stop the little voice that says "Well, you are way better than 99% of America, you don't own a huge t.v. or a snazzy car, you meditate and focus on positive energy, you are patient and compassionate and you write poetry and all that cool stuff."

I am never going to heal this Earth by dreaming, or wishing, or waiting around, or feeling high and mighty at accomplishing the bare minimum. I am never going to create the life I wish for all beings if I do not create it for myself first. I can not heal another spirit until I have sucked society's poison of comfort and complacency from my own veins.

I need to get radical. I need to get weird. I need to get extreme. People will get annoyed, people will get weirded out, and people will get a face full of truth.

But I need a face full of truth first. And instead of just dreaming for it, I am going to run towards it, noodle arming it and screaming like a banshee from hell. I'm not quite sure why, but it feels really right.

some new poems

"an empty house"

stretched upwards down and falling fast,

spiraled wrought in eternal light

her bones are only used for dust these days

dust upon the books, upon the rickety chair

held solid by long closed eyes,

washed away from wooden floors by late summer rains,

rinsing ripples on stain glass windows

of once upon a time,

for crying out loud to whisper softly in the spider's ear

what designs to falter into splendor

crisscrossing lights, bending morning dew into fragments

of filtered possibilities 

the quiet of the uncanny house settled deeply on the southern soil

creeping forth the wicked green of winding vines

valiantly raising their existence

with breath broken into vapor

resting on your lips, held limp

in your ragged hands

curtains hung stagnant in forgotten breezes 

of broken lullabies, stuttered goodbyes

and the fading dusk of leaving shadows on your desk. 

"a cold hallway"

unpaled by retracting footfalls 

who spoke you so silently to make you shake so deep?

shedding paper thing hymns from your feet, 

washed clean as freshly fallen snow

catching on your eye lashes,

mounting cities out of frozen flakes,

beckoning out icy awes of reverence

for the defeat of ancient skies 

from whence the words once came

aching smoke to just be still awhile, 

for our skin to settle down

with all our thrashing around

to forget that we're still sinking in the earth's deep black

reserved for beings to disappear to their own liking

so swiftly that the space they once inhabited 

never seemed that empty at all

or so hauntingly slow that their breath

lingers at the edge of our ears,

their footsteps still fall with some folly

on the persistent cold of the hallway's wooden quiet.

"a rainy graveyard"

damp wild, trodden and soggy 

from the sky's fallen grace

but keep up the pace, 

i'm trying to say something here.

peachy florals rising to the surface of your skin

to brush the steely coolness of the passing gun

to pass the time

to pass the vibrations of your rhyme 

played out by bony fingers

ringing out bells for every lost

buried deep, but not deep enough

to keep the rain from washing the worms away

from wasting flesh and worn out wanderings

amongst these burial grounds, 

collecting dharma in leaflet pages

spread out across your southern sky, 

to realize the whole of nature, 

the throbbing of reality, 

thunderous and utterly alone

spoken suddenly to the edges of what our eyes fathom, 

no less than yesterday.