Native Soul

Native Soul

It’s clear, they warned us and we snickered. Snicker on my fellows even though hollow to you narrates the truth:

“Man proud man,

Ignorant of what he is most assured” etc

That was years ago and now the very essence of proof is upon us. We have betrayed the spirit of what brought us here.

“Have we come from elsewhere? By these instruments shall we go home?” Etc

I am old and will withstand the final grimace.

My children, I pray, will too.

But their children, my own grand-subsequence;

Theirs is a questionable consequence.

When water is fought for

When air is gasped

When thought no longer reaches for the possibility

Of the sublime

When minute-by-minute life is simply held on to

Without grace or cause for hope.

But because an ancient message still resonates from the time of crocodiles: “survive god damn you. Survive!"

What will these children of our children cry out?

“ Couldn’t you fucking work it out?

There has always been enough for everyone.

Couldn’t you share? Couldn’t you care?”

Mother was dying and you groveled for what you could hole up in your castle-keep.

Mother was dying…..

Tough Guy

Tough Guy

I want to be a tough guy. The kind of guy that walks into a bar and slaps people around if he doesn’t like the way they look at him. Yeah… eye contact with me means certain pain.

As my buddy says, “You pick your blond out neatly from the smoke”. And once I flash my smile and lower my eyes to scan her approvingly, my cigarette falls eloquently from my lips and I move closer to her yielding, slight spreading thighs. Women can’t say no to me once they brush close. There is danger in my pheromones. They must try me.

The whiskey and the cigarettes play duets in my mind as the very force of my being scares ordinary thugs and want-a-be bad Asses away from my glassy gaze.

I move into the back room having told my blond to wait.

My cards slide silently across the velvet and hoist their cunning victory. Rake in a few thousand. Bow out and skip the blond (too skinny).

Now the cool breeze from my speeding coverable freshens my resolve. I scream into third gear and snarl at the magnitude of my purpose. Frazier must die tonight.

(to be continued)

conections

I had a party today.

I was feeling bummed out. for a lot of of superficial reasons. People showed up from everywhere and every time. Grammar school to old age.. Many of us cried at having lost a connection that we missed without realizing it

When we feel lost or estranged it is because we allow those that have meaning to ourselves to somehow float away.

I went back to my journal 3/ 09:

"Connections with friends

"Connections to nature

" Connections to history

"Connections to and between my mental process and those of other beings .

These "connections" make possible a sane and acceptable existence.

Without such connections we flounder in a world of contradiction."

Secure is our love for one another. THAT is what ties us to the earth and allows us to pass beyond the nuts that run things.

But that we could corner one of them and ask a few simple questions.

Mark and Mick

In the end it does not matter what the words say,

nor what the man promised,

The end says it all.

And if the the man promised greatness, and he faltered,

Or if the man faltered and rose to excellence…

Who should care?

A man has only his own weight and bears it as best he can.

There are pivotal obstacles that no one outside can measure.

These make a great man lesser

And a leeser man seem great.

We learn through the lens that traffics constant effort.

A relentless effort.

A great untireless struggle. Yes I say yes! Bare the pain.

We win because we do it in love.

Give us each our time

And see us as the eager tendril

That once trampled on, has finally pushed through.

In the end it does not matter what the words say. nor what the man promised.

The end says it all.

And if the man promised greatness...and he faltered,

Or if the man faltered and rose to excellence,

Who should care? A man has only his weight and bears it as best he can.

There are pivotal obstacles that no one outside can measure.

These make a great man lesser

and a lesser men seem great.

We learn only through through the lens that traffics constant effort.

A grand solar tropic gamble.

Give us each our time and see us as the eager tendril

that once trampled on , has finally pushed through.

Betrayed ll

Ah, once this person showered me with praise and all thoughts lovely and with equality… called me Uncle as if we were family.

But then we entered into business and the terms of our discourse upset me greatly as negotiations were shaded with mistrust and questions as if we were not observant of those ties that bind a family into unwavering loyalty.

And now I know that blood is blood and everything else is a promise that may shatter with the next wind.

It is a pity, a great pity ……an even greater sorrow.

Glenn Gould and...

Notes

Entrusted to me were Garbo’s ‘notes’.

Years before they were published I came across this entry that I found rather peculiar in that I heard a voice I hadn’t heard before, a plaintive probing voice. Judge for yourself:

“Some time ago I saw an interview by ‘x’ with Glenn Gould. The interviewer asked him why he chose to re-record the Goldberg Variations. Remember that his original recording some twenty plus years earlier was what brought a heretofore unknown Canadian pianist to the forefront of the classical music’s world in terms of a profound musical interpretation of what had been considered Bach’s exercises for piano studies.

Gould’s foundation was therefore challenged by Gould himself. Those hearing the new recording were confused by the ostensible contradiction in interpretations. The two were said by some to be analogous to the physicist’s apparent quandary whether to describe light as wave or particle. So I was most fascinated by what Gould himself would say. I ask you to forgive my paraphrase but I believe it is close enough.

Gould said, ‘Ahh, There was a good deal of PIANO PLAYING on that early recording and I don’t mean that in a good way’.

I have puzzled over what Gould called piano playing and what he much later believed to be the very deepest expression.

Today I saw a painting show at the Getty Museum of some of the finest works by Jean-Leone Gerome. And I found his work most intoxicating, and as satisfying as many of us found in Gould’s first recording of the ‘Variations’.

The Gerome show was on loan at the Getty, but on this same day I saw, in the permanent collection at the Norton Simon Museum a Rembrandt self-portrait.

I spent some time this evening thinking about Gerome, Gould, Bach, Rembrandt and somehow without belittling Gerome I felt the difference between Great Painting and the depth of a great soul showing itself. Do you follow me?