From the Life I Now Live

Mostly poetry now. Snippets of thoughts. But this should catch us up from the end of my Rexburg time to present.



And the Library burns
And the ashes rise
From the ghosts of each
Slip of paper--
Simply words,
Not meaning lost
In the suffocating
Vapor.

The green, the black and
The red-spined novel
Simply products of
The game--
Such Precious Knowledge,
Such Humble papers
Gone up with the
Golden flame.

But though they be lost
For the minds of new
A slate: grey, cold and clean--
The ashes hold the
Knowledge still,
They show what those
Books mean.

__________


The pathway of grey
Has memory’s shadow altered.
The shadow sees the sun
Beyond stupefied gaze.

But lo, what happens to memory
When shadows are gone
And color returns
To that directionless mind.

The path to color
Has no memory
But only existences found,
And yet to be known.

__________

A blade of grass
changes from one day to the next
The first day it is thin
short and small
The next day
Due to light and life
it grows and changes
no longer thin
no longer small
It now is a part of the whole

__________

People expect you to have a good story. When pen is put to paper they expect magic. They expect to be moved. They expect miracles. When they read a book, a story, a poem, they expect an effect. No one reads to have a refresher course on their ABCs.
But what happens when the author runs dry? What happens when there is nothing left in the wrinkled soul to fill the space between the lines? The pictures and childish fantasies escape in the paragraph break.
A journalist is taught early in her career to be frank, concise and to the point. Straying from the main focus to relate one’s own personal views is not desired by the readers of USA Today or Time. Facts. That is what is necessary. That is what sells papers. Hard, cold and impersonal. That’s what you become with a story.
When conducting an interview you must be witty but benign. Captivating, but only as a supporting detail in the background.
I have nothing. But I’m expected to have everything. This is what I’ve been taught. But, alas, I’m captured by my own monotonous living. How can I expect to escape? How can I expect to move beyond this dreaded phase of boredom… and, in the process, move others?

___________

I am but a pawn
In the game of life—
But can a pawn win
The prize as well as the queen?
Is destiny something of
My control, or of the other players’?
A pawn’s true virtue shines in his moment
Of glory.
And yet, I find myself pushed around by other’s
Influence.
For I am but a pawn
In this game of life.

__________


Look not to be remembered, but to make a memory.
Look not to be heared but to listen.
Look not to be seen but to view.
There you will find the contented desires of your heart.

__________


I think that sometimes we work too hard to remember the grievances against us that we forget to see the recompense which is boiling to the surface. We see the injustices and the problems in the world without having the thought of it being our responsibility, because of notice, to answer with the solution.

____________

Not so much in
Reading but in Superstition.
Not so much in
Superstition but in Love.

____________

I don't know which would be the worst: To be oversimplified and prejudiced or to be mollified and coerced?

____________

It's funny how the people we meet in this life influence us. Each contact in our life leaves a bit of a flavor--a slight residue. The people who we surround ourselves with make up the bar for which we are willing or unwilling to overcome.