The Past-less, Living We

Sometimes we cling onto our past too tightly

But the past never becomes past within a person's lifetime

So keep building

Until that day when our past, present, and future

Finally pass into the realm of stones and fossils.

Change

I believe in change

And I have always believed in change

But what needs to change

Is for everyone in the world, each in his or her way,

To realize that the world may never change, for better or for worse

So that we can begin to hope

Over and over again: in cycles.

The world has always been changing

And the change is not getting any faster

Than what our faulty and ignorant histori-meter tells us.

What dealing with change means, at least for me,

Is coming to terms with the fact that we cannot change

And drawing a big picture in order to see that fact.

Remember: change is relative, and subject to whims of the skies.

A Snobbish Song

The Aha-moment comes and goes

Like carousel seats

Or the flashing silver in mirrors

O le trompe-l'oeil, time, and philosophy

(Courtesy of Art Effects)

(Photo by Compri in Iwate, Japan)

Morbid Dreams

Does art flourish particularly in times of collective crises, especially when the collective crises have psychological, non-empirical dimensions that are somehow more significant and pressing than the purely materialistic demands?

More unrelated than related to the above: I have been to Oslo and am shaken by the news of all the violence the city experienced on Friday.  All of us need to be confronting the violence within each of us - constantly.  (Ah, well, some of Munch's paintings may have lots to teach us.)  As much as I despise the perpetrators of any violent acts, we have an imperative to trace and understand, very carefully, why and how the perpetrators chose violence.  We do not need to sympathize with them, but we also do need to put ourselves into their shoes - because none of us are truly innocent.

Pigeons

I parted with humbleness a million years ago, when my fifth ancestor was born.  But tomorrow, I shall be reuniting with humbleness.  Will it forgive my very sporadic e-mails and my excuses for not writing?  O humbleness, I have missed you terribly, and yet I cannot believe I have lived for so long away from your side, in corners of the globe that are not particularly humbleness-friendly.   But o Earth, you are not a humble planet, are you?  Your skies are too clear, and your water too good to taste.  Tomorrow,  I shall return to the muddy pool and reunite with humbleness, but I know the muddy pool is only sold on Fifth Avenue, Ginza, and Orchard Road.  (Why, you may ask.  The muddy pool is a luxury!)  I will most likely be too lazy to head out to any of those places, and two of them are beyond my empirical, if not imaginative, reach in any case, at least for the time being.  So is my reunion with humbleness to be postponed to a day after tomorrow, or even later?  Only the pigeon knows.

Letters

A world filled with letters, just letters.  Letters as in letters in the alphabet, but also as in thank-you letters, love letters, and such.  Will there be envelopes, too?  No!  There shall not be any envelopes.  Only letters.  Just letters.

Puffs

At a later hour, at this late hour, as at any late hour, but no, at this particular late hour,

The quenching humor that meanness - o flashes of anger mixed with explosive laughter - can inspire

Fascinates me beyond measure.

Music can do that, but words, o stinging words, and violently waving arms

All combine to stage a theater after theater of cruel shows of verbal acrimony:

At this later hour, all combine to explode in a puff of sugar and salt.

Nachtmusik

In the blank corner of my eye, a feeling of doom resides

Helplessness without pain, choking without panic

A moon, the moon, creates a halo above the forest, a forest

As I face a baby, a cat, or both, and their moonlit eyes

Muddy Path

Fumbling for anger

I stop short:

My being teeters on a balance, and the balance keeps sliding

In favor of an almost unattainable ideal.

But this shall be how I live

And breathe, at least for the time being.

Solilo-kwayteow: Hunger at Midnight

O narratives, they do hate me so.  Or so I thought.  Memories, o memory, thou art in fragments, or even worse, in shards.  Rags and shreds: non-recyclable, except as rags and shreds.

Will you sustain me, o memory in shards and shreds, will you remember me?  You are not a person, though; you are a region in the universe where dust comes and goes, va et vient, o traffic!  No lights, please.  Only sounds, and only sounds of grass shaking, and of roots speaking underground, under the hills.

Hungry for memory, and memories, you do comfort me so.

Rain on Hold

Transformative light is all my muted vocal chords can pronounce

At this late hour

When flower petals sink to the bottom of a bottomless pit

And still they rise:

Mist and rain, wind and thunder.

We have forgotten to walk

Instead we speed past, we speed past

Ever more slowly than we can ever see