A DIRECT SUMMARY OF A STUDENT, FALLEN ILLUSION, AND THE NOT-SO-HARD REALITY OF SUCCESS IN HIGHER EDUCATION; CONTAINING A NOT SO DIRECT TITLE, BUT A DIRECT BODY WHICH IS,
IN AND OF ITSELF,
A SIGN OF PROGRESS…
Or, just simply, Re-Surfacing
How do you un-live 35 years?
How does one catch a bowl of air?
Can reality be redefined infinitely for a master of nothing special
Can life be bowled over with strikes of eureka, instead of mediocrity in a spare?
How do you move on from nights of chess and satellite signaled history;
is there really a balance to be found?
Or, will it ever be shrouded in mystery.
Was there a way back then not to find sanity in a bottled plot,
in the pressed, compacted world of powders,
the mind bends and leaves naught,
The soul of a muse,
and the devil with a heart of gold;
blink thirty times,
find out there are few rhymes
and quite suddenly,
you’re old.
Yes, Mariner, there is a Sainted Clause,
take your foot off the brake, and your skull off pause.
Go out and live,
sounds trite I know;
but there’s little reason,
for a long season,
in a boat that doesn’t row.
Reality isn’t much what you thought,
it’s not about what you can be, but about what you are,
you pill-headed sot.
Sometimes digging deep is all you can do.
Like Dolores, being a bitch may be all you hang onto.i
Reality can be a hell-driven descent in to depths of the mad,
but here, lifetimes and moons later,
it doesn’t seem that bad.
Truth defined can make balance free,
that’s where I’ve found it,
with their wisdom,
within me.
From a golden-haired Sage Muse with ice tinkling eyes,
And a Queen of ‘Kernels’ whose ‘less traveled road’ made her wise.
Woven outward through a modern-day Ganelon,
an Abelard with a smile.
The Kenyan Medicine Man, whose words bring memories of gongs,
And a ‘don’t-give-me-that-shit’ Biko, whose heart, elsewhere belongs.
THESE are my muses, and I am the last.
Pointing at myself, the mirrored image brings nothing but a gasp.
With a sound like a foot planted in crystal, all shatters
and what’s left, is true . . .
What we seek is already within, maybe just not so neat,
But if you aren’t completely enough,
you’ll never be enough when you’re complete.
G.
Originally written 6 March 2009
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i Quote inspired by the movie, Dolores Claiborne. (1995), Taylor Hackford, Director; Stephen King, book; Tony Gilroy, screenplay. Released by Castle Rock Entertainment. Original line by the character Vera Donovan, played by Judy Parfitt. “Sometimes you have to be a high-riding bitch to survive. Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.”
