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Prickly Escape

I have just read somethingorother by soandso that has me thinking suchandsuch, and I wonder if it is worth writing about.
That which was read deals with the value of writing on topics of the prickly sort, while indicating way(s) of exit through gaps in the thorns – clearer yet: how one can cheat human obligation,
Life in Bolivia, no, better life in with poor Bolivia’s poor, has a tendency to slice at the conscience of the welltodo, like a double of té de sen before bed. The only way to avoid this uncomfort is to hide – in the non-reality-box, in like-unminded peerdum, in out.
So, to write here about this, or even that, I cannot help but painting a door on a wall offering up some illusion of exit, for me for us, just in case things get too hot. But this doorofpaint dop is, as noted, just illusive elusion, elusive illusion, a run at which would leave us with a bend nose and certainly confused reason.
So this is my inquiry:
1. Prickly Place with Escape
2. Prettily Place with Prick
3. Reality Unto Madness
?

Deep Pink Succulents

succulents

She is a flower that nobody wanted,
receiving more in her days of death
than the ten thousand in which she lived
hidden beneath the world’s most beautiful weeds.

We try, we do, to see the sun rise, the azaleas yawning against the new day, the waters gathering like cocaleros hovering over the valley’s rim, but eventually and always our eyes turn to the dry, cracked ground, and the deep pink succulents crawling from underneath the devouring centipedegrass.

Why did it take this woman’s death to give her a moment’s fleeting voice, already more dissipated than last nights dreams?

My Son The 6-Year Old Comic Book Artist

Click the link below for a full sized version. My son, Nehemiah, has taken to drawing comics of late, at least a new one every day. I am just amazed at the creativity of this little 6 year old – and I TOTALLY dig the ending. Enjoy!

Sample of Nehemiahs Comic Art

Sample of Nehemiah's Comic Art

The Draw of Pain

Where we find ourselves, this place, this land, this people, this suffering, this happiness, this revelry, this dying.

It makes us love and hate, whereas before, though leaning close to such an emotional precipice, we remained safe, untouched, untouchable.

We have tried throughout our brief history to act without being acted upon, yet this has kept us away.

Away from the violence, the painful words, the rape, the isolation, the disease, the emptiness, the hopelessness.

Even standing here, we are tempted to set around us walls of glass.

We want to see, but not feel.

We will feel enraged, feel violated, yet in truth we have felt nothing at all.

The most difficult part of living in the midst of such manifest suffering, is knowledge.

Knowing that there exists enough food, enough water, enough resources of all kinds, to offer freedom, but there does not exists enough Compassion; this knowledge tortures our mind, the only escape being the rest of ignorance, of selfish distraction, of turning away.

Each time we sit to write, we ponder first the beauty around us, that is so present is the constant song of the birds by day, the opening expanse of stars by night, yet we tend to turn away from this to the pain set in this ring of joy.

It is pain that draws our attention, that makes us such as we are.

Laurel’s Rose

Back to that place he walks to gaze upon the opening buds
Of Laurel’s rose whose nods in the wind to him talks
With words that no longer are meant for his aged ears.
Filling with salt-less tears, he feels himself stronger
Than this world has left him— brittle yet not enough

To break— and so arises, bitter to youth’s new flower,
Mustering all his power descends, rejects all guises
Of decline heaved upon his soul by the spinning
Rage which clips every wing born to flight ‘low the sun,
Amongst trees forbidden to those whose time has passed.

Fragrance as a green sprite makes drunk this now wasted
Man with memories tasted once upon a delight,
Imbibed by greyish thoughts dazzled in flowers’ pink
He cups his hands and drinks flowing sap in deep draughts
‘Til dark eyes, senescent seal, for youth’s poison drank.

despair.

Out of the valley
Up the green hillside
Down into the forsaken space
Stands a forest of skeletons
Whose deep roots
Whose deep roots
Came up dry.

I like to sit here
Under cracking bones
To hear them tell how they arrived
How they were awakened by man
Sowing them
Sowing them
Who knows why.

Digging deep deep down
They drank from the earth
Growing tall and strong as giants
Their leaves did dance in mountain wind
Reaching up
Reaching up
To the sky.

Then the men moved on
And the clouds shut up
Their leaves and beauty withering
As their smooth skin cracked in the sun
All alone
All alone
Did they die.

Out of the valley
Up the green hillside
Down into the forsaken space
Stands a forest of skeletons
Whose deep roots
Whose deep roots
Came up dry.

Maybe we can’t give hope. Maybe the most we can do is join the hopelessness of the hopeless and together try to arise from this Pit hand in bleeding hand.

From this steppe of dearth

From this steppe of dearth
parched earth
and playing spoons
she swoons
in his mirth

With a clatter falls
his calls
and too late sees
she knees
behind shawls

Where once she would sleep
she weeps
too late a cry
with sigh
moves to reap

A pool of stale dream
no gleam
for heavy loss
and toss
all that seems

pale under this firm
full term
lies upon earth
gives birth
to a worm.