Thursday, July 7, 2011

I Wanted Rubies

I shall not flinch from any of it, I hope, this human life. I aspire to apotheosis, nothing less, really, though I cloak it in Buddhist terms, claiming I follow the Buddhist ideal of Bodhisattva. My stories are built around this yearning, this lifelong desire to ascend, to rise up into beneficence, into munificence just because love and mercy abound. I have done my part, too. I have done the work, the little bit that has come my way to do.

There is of course the rest of it and I have had my share, I suppose. I was born and raised in bewilderment. Along the way I discovered hatred and grief. I have been afraid to the cold door of death and even more afraid I would be found a coward. I know the tedium of bearable pain and the agony of mortality too. All this it would seem should be surmounted, but perhaps not. I know the arguments.

I Wanted Rubies

If I was just this
or if I was that, I say,
I say so insistently,
as if this one spell
would dispel the pain,
the dissipation

of my rootless life,
the roots ripped from me, snagged in
tangled balls of clinging
earth to drop and splash
upon the stony dry ground
of my ruthlessness.

July 7, 2011 9:50 AM
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11 comments:

  1. Ghost DansingJuly 7, 2011 at 2:43 PM

    i 2 halves
    aspYrations uv
    apotheotic ossifications

    ReplyDelete
  2. christopherJuly 7, 2011 at 2:47 PM

    It almost demands of us to make light of such things...

    Have I told you lately how much I appreciate the cold feather touch of your etheric fingers? I thought not...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ghost DansingJuly 7, 2011 at 4:24 PM

    "...secret is to not take all this too seriously." Christopher

    ReplyDelete
  4. christopherJuly 7, 2011 at 6:55 PM

    Of course not. The main thing in enlightenment is to lighten up. One of my masters pointed out that my heavy lack of humor comes from the accidental arrogance that orbits in the gravity of the self taught.

    So I have undertaken a discipline of poetry that permits for lightness of being along the way, poetry that has an O. Henry twist in it sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. erinJuly 7, 2011 at 6:56 PM

    another secret is to seek as much love as humanly possible. isn't that a secret? perhaps not so much. and if not, then why do we do it so poorly? as lovers. as parents. as children. as friends.

    r"ootless life." i have a great deal to think about this.

    xo
    erin

    ReplyDelete
  6. christopherJuly 7, 2011 at 9:14 PM

    Please remember that I am not nor do I necessarily agree with the characters who appear in my poems. This character mentions his rootless life, while I am rooted in my myth. It is that myth which offers me a chance to write such things. This can be a true thing without being my true thing.

    Most people are rooted in a people or a place. I am rooted in a myth. I was exiled from 21-23 and it burned my nationality off me. My family shattered in the pressures of modernity and my connection is tenuous at best. My friends have disappeared and new ones arrived several times. All that is left to me is my myth.

    ReplyDelete
  7. HarlequinJuly 7, 2011 at 9:48 PM

    what a beautiful poem; the mood is .... haunting. the words .... just work.

    i loved the line in the preface.. born in bewilderment.... lovely.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ghost DansingJuly 8, 2011 at 1:35 AM

    i'm sure i'm not the long sought after chocolate Buddha...

    ReplyDelete
  9. christopherJuly 8, 2011 at 4:45 AM

    Harlequin, you caught the key. Is that enigmatic enough?

    Ghost, I am sure I am not munching my way to enlightenment, though I am munching my way through this life, I do admit. I shall not lift off a piece of you to savor, even if you are the chocolate and jolly leader of the pack. I promise, if I swallow you, I shall swallow you whole. I am fairly sure it would be easy to swallow a ghost.

    I hope you see the lightness with which I offer my affection to you.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Ghost DansingJuly 8, 2011 at 5:05 PM

    angel baby...

    ReplyDelete
  11. christopherJuly 8, 2011 at 8:32 PM

    Ghost, I thank you for thinking of me, however, I have not solved the sound issues. Right now I have internet but I have to manually start the Windows network driver as the administrator three times before it takes. Something is screwed up. The other computer is completely dead. I have no idea really what to do about this personally and really don't have the time and money for either purchase or repair right now. So here I sit, utubeless... :(

    ReplyDelete

The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.

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