a memoir in ten parts by shaun lawton
in our house growing up we never kill
crickets its considered bad luck
today there are legion who wont harm
a spider and will carry them outside
to freedom theyve no idea the order
of Aranea keeps us under its thrall
But I am here to tell you we are prisoners
within its walls wondering about the turn
of events we are all bound up together
Some think time to be an illusion
they are not even close face it reality
is the illusion it makes no difference
Since we each create our own reality
these all become compounded together
and while we revel in the experience
sharing the moment our throbbing
collective species should not be
considered an organism but rather
more like a gathering storm
and every storm runs out of rain
In our house nestled amid the mist
wreathed pines of the Carbonales Valley
I had an owl named Zachary and two ocelots
Sir Ivanhoe & Lancelot I even had a deer
Bambi but alas A pack of starved feral dogs
all formerly domesticated breeds like Shepherds
and Cocker Spaniels fell in after dark and ripped
the deer family apart I remember the large
black tarantulas that would creep out from under
floor boards and doors I am done writing
to enrich the fortunes of no one the only living
nutrients breathed into the universe remain our own
broken down components long fated to decompose
into the compost heap of an ever thriving history
mystery her story your story its all the same damn story
We each grew up in a spaghetti can tossed aside from the window
of a moving van speeding up as it approaches the green lights
nevermind the analogies were being ushered into
a new century now its more important than ever to try
and wake up to civic duty and heres the catch if we dont
do it ourselves no one will In our house out in the woods
along the mountainside amid the thistle of the dreaming dragon
we slept out on the porch in the Caribbean wind and counted
the shooting stars across the Milky Way and the problem today
its the same old milky way we just cant see it anymore
but we know its there and everything so yeah I guess
its not quite the same now as it was before
Ordinary speech reflects the shortest distance
between two points a shortened and more rapid
path to death as pointed out by Antonio Porchias
aphorism "following straight lines shortens distances
and also life" So it is with the best music poetry
and art but for those to whom the point of the journey
never remains to arrive the song Im writing goes out
to the far and in between of you who seek out the deeper
plunges into the unknown requiring deeper held in breaths
and longer lungs to relax and expand with vasodilation
which goes hand in hand with more conscious breathing
and learning to live a long life it comes with the price
of your hearts desire which isnt a riddle at all
it simply means you have to want it yourself with
the trick being no one but you can help you stand tall
Once each individual figures it out they can relax and stand
firm on their pebble weve each got our own little world at our feet
whose scope is beyond incredible theres no end in sight to the hope
on our horizon unlike the rippling ribbon of laurence undulating into
a stream of mirages the hope that lies ahead like a fixed northern star
is not an illusion by far Its a beacon of light which serves as an anchor
a reminder of exactly why we are here It has to do with vision itself
and our eyes the infinitesimal organs which absorb our stars light
and refracts it through our telescopic centralized nervous system
inverting an image we process through our bicameral mind into
an objectively three dimensional space we can sense we move
through ourselves the ultimate first person viewpoint of reality
but this isnt a game
Its just you whos me of course
and now we can see how it is that our identities
may be interchanged or get mixed up and ultimately
not really matter at all in the grander scheme of things
which begs one question to mind that it brings
which aspect of the whole scheme has the grander design
the microscopic filament spicules forming into Fibonacci
spirals and expansive worlds zoomed in on within a droplet
of teeming infusoria or the vast strewn out spiraling arms
of galaxies seemingly scattered across a void of space
the complexity itself balances out in the wash of the great
equilibriums equation we might say the grand process of life
in constant development across the aeons may be rendered
as elegant simplicity or into mind bending harrowing complexity
depending on our perspective I don't know so let it be stated
we're just circumspeculating.