Tag Archives: self-exploration

Just Yesterday’s News

I don’t know the man that I’m supposed to be:
I’ve looked at his life like a documentary;
and with some of his choices I just can’t agree;
but it’s too late to start out again.

I’m tired of the man I’m supposed to become:
that you get where you’re going thanks to where you’re from,
and somehow, the pieces add up to the sum
’til it’s too late to start out again.

Help me out, anyone, throw me a line;
tell me again things will all be just fine.
Help me out, would you, we’re out here alone;
we don’t need to be stuck on our own.

I’m sick of the man I turned into a while:
that often unsteady and pathetic smile
who traded in substance and bartered with style,
but you can’t up and start out again.

I’m sure I don’t know who I’ll be in the end:
the lover, the fighter, the poet, the friend;
but at least in the mirror, I will not pretend
it’s not too late to start out again.

Help me out, anyone, throw me a bone,
some reassurance here in the unknown.
Help me out, please, and I’ll do you the same;
we don’t need to keep playing this game.

I’m just not quite clear who I’ll be in a year:
but some things are cloudy, and others quite clear;
there’s neither the past or the future to fear,
and there’s no starting over again.

Help me out, anyone, just take a chance.
Music is playing; we’ve paid for the dance.
Help me out, honestly, what can you lose?
We don’t always get what we choose,
but we’re neither just yesterday’s news.

22 DEC 2013

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On Dialogue with Self

When does a dialogue with self cease being a monologue?

At what precise moment does the epiphany conceived of self-deliberation end its foolish premeditation on some inner change of being and address itself to the self in others, recognizing in external, living beings that same life force that propels it along the path of least resistance to its indeterminate conclusion?

When does that personal philosophy (or love of knowledge) come into being that requires the death of philology (knowledge of love, one could propose) and must of its own accord stand naked, alone and shivering on the mountain of endless esoteric academic masturbation and let loose its seed to propagate the action of love?

On what basis is the foundation for living laid?

On the cold and calculating pillars of what we think wisdom, but is in reality mere logic and more of the same false illusion separating the observer from the observed?

Or on the fetid swamp, crawling with unseen slime-in-the-making that marks its time of evolution simply absorbing the dry coastline and turning it to scores of miniature Atlantis fragments?

When does the monologue, the endless harangue against unseen foes and perceived slings and arrows that pierce the wondering mind with necessary doubt and wavering conviction, cease to be a speech released to the waiting air alone, and listen, beyond the echo of its own Doppler castings, to the response in the ears (any ears — one’s own, or someone else’s) that comes back, like a Messiah encased in the triangulating pulse of myth’s strange sonar, like a quiet ripple lost in the cascade of the sea at high tide?

At what precise moment does the angle of the jaw when open start to close the portal of the ears?

When does a dialogue with self cease being a monologue?

18 AUG 2004

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Patti Smith

I will blaspheme to instruct
if those still listening can hear:
the pretense of this world is fucked
beyond repair; that much is clear.

I will replay classic moments
in a whirl of light and sound;
relive near death’s self-wrought torment
in my history’s chains, bound.

I will speak in words, in whispers
of potential still untapped
while you burn away to blisters
where our skins’ touch overlaps.

I will surrender to my vision
and in sonic sculpture rend
epiphanies to indecision
blank postcards I’ve yet to send

I will build a church to reason
in the metaphor of lies
so that thinking is not treason
and its lack, no alibi

I will lose myself in speaking
out against the endless wind
while the freaks go right on freaking
mindless of the world they’re in

I will curse the world’s foundation
built upon the backs of slaves
and in worship of sensation
find my own soul, free and brave.

17 JUN 2004

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Self-Similarity: an acrostic

I:

J ust give me a moment
O f your time, and together, we’ll try to
H onestly explore the taste of
N ew wine in old wineskins,
L ight cigarettes with old matches, and
I n the process, attempt to learn something about
T he way the world has shaped us. In the quiet
Z en of here and now, where
E verything, like Shroedinger’s Cat, both is and is
N ot, let us wander wide-eyed and amazed,
B oth expecting nothing, and
E verything, seeking for a new
R eality. Let understanding be our
G oal, this time around. On the next trip, who knows?

I again:

J ury’s still
O ut. Will they
H ang him, or
N ot?
L ikely they’ll call him
I nsane, either way.
T ruth is, the
Z eitgest that
E nvelopes this time will
N ot accept or
B elieve the possibility
E xists for a
R eality outside its chosen
G rail.

31 APR 2004

Well, it’s that time again. Time to revisit, in alphabetical order, the poetic forms as identified in Lewis Turco’s The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics. Starting with today’s poem, we’ll visit all the traditional verse forms, starting with lyric Poetry, then progressing to dramatic and narrative Poetry.

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