Journey of the Mind | Stories & Poems

  A shadow visited last night. Not dark and visceral but it radiated with a contradictory light. Its calling felt rather surreal.   I watched as it danced, played and even cried. From a distance I couldn’t help but stare. Its brilliant stature growing wide, living life as if on a dare.   I laughed and wept with this formidable sprite. this person I never met. A life lived outside of black and white, a courage to live without regret.

The echo of blossoms in bloom. Their pink florets - a fable’s genesis. I see them all – all in the rear view. The promise of summer and morning dew little lies that become so serious. Watch the sunrise setting in a lilac sky, Its splendor squandered by the western view. So quiet is the hour before the night, The familiar, changing - colored with a darker hue. Wine and saccharin - comfort in the twilight.

Digital screens light our way, narrow paths we tread. Enlightenment in the information age means not giving a fuck about what you said. ones and zeros streaming in a self-centered rage dark and furious thoughts, living on a thread. division distracts from our poor living wage while slander and bullshit feed the empty head. Biased priests hiding, on a binary stage.

Insults slice like cleavers carving into goose bumped flesh. Pieces fall in a soup du jour served nightly at the mess. Wounds treated with a smile, tears steeped in laughter. An auto-cannibalistic appetite an emaciated character. The stench assails the nostrils pretend not to care. Dreams and aspirations evaporate in the chilly air.

Model citizens they keep to themselves, like closed books on dusty and solitary shelves. I read Within their volumes of poverty and despair. A pauper’s dogma preached with a rich man’s flair. Heirs to the ghetto, they’re wide eyed and full of need. Nearly invisible when consumed by greed.  Eight hours a day I heard the raucous melody play a singular note plunked in rapid succession an arpeggio of lies and fabrication.  Downcast sweaty faces blistered hands clapping with dimwitted admiration, a pathetic charade, but one  of their own creation. The shrills of indignity echoed in my head, Placid silhouettes reflections of the dead. A solemn testament to a  downward progression inequity masquerading in  a history’s regression.  I watched as a thick haze blazed inside an angry red dawn. Tick tock, tick tock  another night gone. ailments like chains tethered to their beds impatient they listen a sinking feeling of dread. The maestro cue...

The spoils of heaven, kept safe in a soulless shell. Heaven's toil forever churning in a cyclic hell. A longing for perfection elusive and hard to find, out of frustration heaven becomes blind. Utopia is not borne on the wings of millennia, or even of days. But on moments so fleeting they burst, shimmer, and then fade. The measure of heaven is not in eternity, but in the burning of seconds that smolder in time. Lightning that flashes along the periphery. Delicate streaks so seldom seen, yet in their wake the thunder rumbles and rings. A subtle cacophony that disrupts our days, and a gentle discord that haunts our nights. It's a sincere smile, a heartfelt laugh, or a solemn tear drifting towards an empathetic ear. Within these unexpected glances therein Nirvana lies, lightning in a bottle if only we open our eyes.