Saturday, October 27, 2012

Sleepy Puppies


some puppies, when they wake,
like to wag their tails and bound.
but other puppies like to snooze
and won't wake for any sound.

they'll sleep through earthquakes,
through wars and through rain.
and if they're shaken, open
one eye in disdain.

they'll shift a bit and grunt a tad
and make various puppy noises
they'll stretch their paws and rub their nose
and, while the waggy puppy rises,

find another comfy pillow
like a cushion or grass or your arm
and go back to happy sleepy land
where it's nice and safe and warm.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012


sometimes loss is
a huge wave of sorrow
that crashes to the shore
and destroys
everything in its path.
at other times, it is
little more than
a fleeting hope
an everyday desire
cut to pieces by
a sudden silent emptiness.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Dropping the Story?


There's a photograph on facebook with the caption "Who would you be without your story?". And I have all these thoughts.

What if one was to shed all the "what happened" and "which led to what" and "because of whom" and so on? What if one did that thing in which one "dropped the story"? Who would I be? ... it's almost liberating, as a thought, isn't it? What do you guys think?

In some ways then all stories are a form of madness, or an expression of madness; partly because they're an expression of a particular reality and limited, but also because they're speaking of all those hidden impulses that do not necessarily emerge in the everyday expression and experiences of things.

Someone once told me that there is only so much one can experience in one's own life, and reading is a way of experiencing more, seeing more, knowing more, learning about experiences otherwise denied to us. So is reading like a journey through someone else's neurosis? Is that why it's so intimate, almost, sometimes, to read a book?

Someone else told me, very recently, that the neurotic cycle really lies in the state where we relive the stories we tell ourselves. And in that there is the hope that when one "drops the story", one becomes more tangibly aware of the now, and can revel in the experience of the now. Can one really experience without stories?

Then there's the thing about how we learn through stories. It is not through experiences alone that children grow; it is also through imagination, stories, imaginary friends and pretend games. And those are crucial too. So could we exist without stories at all?

Saturday, October 6, 2012

longing


it takes no more than a touch,
a single instance of affection,
a passing wave, a casual hug.
my molecules remember.
they flip their mitochondrial beans
trying to align themselves magnetically
from north to south, from east to west,
from cheek to heart, and ear to chest.
every now and again they do
a bit of a tap dance on my nerves.
they're bounce and they fly
madly around in tiny circles
completely perplexed by
this oddness of wanting that which isn't here,
of knowing that there is
a south to the north, a west to the east,
and no way of bringing them together.