Sadafuli

When does a house cease to be a home?
It is a mere shell, but it was much more
to me, to us, it was....
How do I say it?
How can words capture all the things it was?
But let me try, I will try because
I must
before the feeling is lost, and the dust
has settled on these tumbling thoughts.
That street we played in, those pebbles and potholes
Treasure map, field, playground, it played many roles
And many a day spent in breaking the rules
The laughter, the sleuthing, the vagaries of youth
Sitting by the door we whiled away the hours
protected from view by the leaves and the flowers
Bell flower white, I still see you in my dreams
I remember the climbers with fronds dusky green
I remember the dialogues we had on those steps
the gossip, the discourse, the disclosed secrets
The wandering fakir who stood there and spoke
of his world and ours and castles of smoke
In from the door to the wide white-floored hall
Every chip in the tiles, every crack I recall
I loved them all.
Ghosts in everything here, all the moments that were,
and a bed that will always belong to Her.
Four rooms where I talked and raged and
slept and cried and laughed my way through
eighteen years of my life.
What a time it has been!
It was our space, just ours, to live and breathe
To be without thinking, in joy and in grief
but now it's time to move on and away
Goodbye dear house, you will be missed,
You were home for years, a lovely one,
and you will be a memory for years to come.

To be Human

What does it mean to be human?
They asked themselves once
Long ago, and found
No answer, many answers,
and drowned
in more questions, all seeking
a sense of clarity
But this was a dusty place then,
with dusty things all around
Coherence was a rarity,
a luxury to grow into
And grow into it they did
spouting fire, spitting fear,
building love to the far frontier
In growing they forgot
the question
that once drove them onward
to the bounds of their cramped spaces,
out of dust and into space -
What does it mean to be human?

Look at them now,
gazing from the peaks they
thrashed and blasted and
gasped and clawed their way to.
They should sense it,
waiting
The long arm of Reason ready
to fan away the dust and,
finally,
really see the Universe
waiting,
arms outstretched to guide them through.
They don't see it, they don't look
They fan fires and shoot bullets and
dig their way down,
down the mountain they overtook.
Turn their back to the infinite
and huddle in the bounds of their bubbles
No longer wondering,
perhaps forgetting...

What should it mean to be human?
Not this.

Peak before plummet

I forget, at times,
how much I have already failed
I forget those obsidian depths
at the end
of plunges I thought would break me
Yet it is today and I am here
I climbed again and fell again
and felt again
momentarily weightless
as the world disappears
and certainty is lost
before the long descent begins
Yes, this has happened before
I have entered before
this manifold of dark whispering
bleak wanderings
of the mind unmoored from the
vicissitudes of chiseled time
There's a dreaminess about it all
and has been before
perhaps will be again?
There is comfort in this dawning,
that I was here and I suffered
and that I once lived to suffer
no more.

The Sky came calling

 










"Don't look up", they said
"Whatever's the point?
It's not like you'll get there,
it's bound to disappoint
you, so let go," they said
and then looked away.
I listened, I did,
and heeded for a day.

But everyday since
I can't tear away my gaze
There's a yearning to rise,
a constant malaise.
My feet they will falter
I'm blind to their course
I see only upward
There is no recourse

And I heard them, I did,
So I'll fail if I must
And I'll get there someday
or crumble to dust
It'll tear me apart, but I must.

Thoughts with pictures

 ~~~~1~~~~

I will walk these paths of green
with shades of bliss and sorrow
Answer summons unforseen
to inscrutable Tomorrow

 ~~~~2~~~~

Someday I shall fall
Roll away with a touch of air
Disappear into the earth
or burn in the morning glare
But, for now, I stand resplendent
Fleeting yet unrepentant

 ~~~~3~~~~

The world went still and silent
as if time were beginning anew
She raised her eyes to the cavernous void
And the sky came rushing through

 ~~~~4~~~~

Purdue by night

These imposing halls of wisdom
These kingdoms of gaiety
Monuments to discourse
Ensconced in longevity

 ~~~~5~~~~

If I must meet my end,
let me drown in a sea of light
Let me go in a blaze of glory
like the sun, into the long night

~~~~6~~~~

Said one, "O brother in arms, if you should fall,
I would shed tears of sap for thee."
Said the other "And I for thee, brother mine,
but alas! It's not in my biology."

 ~~~~7~~~~

Unproductive grad student: 

a haiku
Purdue's dressing up
for new students, but that means
Summer is over 😩

~~~~8~~~~

Hiding in plain sight
Sometimes the most unassuming flower
on a familiar path
catches my eye
And I wonder, if I miss
such beauty as this,
what other delights
have I gone blindly by

~~~~9~~~~

 

Roadside Rudbeckia
These lonely streets are thronging
with chattering empty faces
The storms of war are gathering
in some faraway places

And everyday seems closer
Closer to the End

But, for a moment, that feels distant
Banished by this happy display
A little spot of captured sunshine
 that gets me through everyday

Originally published via Instagram profile: eterno_mutato

Procrastination

The seconds tick
tock tick tock
on by
and the page is blank
with not a word.
It's absurd.
My roving eye catches
and I see myself
at the bottom of a cup
not a glass, a cup
of coffee.
I know what you were thinking
It's not as bad as that,
not yet;
though nothing's set
in stone.
Like a drumbeat of my being
the minutes tick
tock tick, and 
I feel I should be feeling
but there's nothing.
Not a worry,
tensions blurry,
though they should be
vehement, vivid, vibrant
in my eye
and in my mind,
but there is
nothing.
It's all slipping away
and I should be
chasing, choking, clawing
it back
instead I sit here
and I write
and I watch
the hours
tick tick tock.

A quest for singularity

Is there a more hopeless fate

than being a human mean?

Not lots or little gifted,

just somewhere in between

She is smart and capable,

passable, competent, fair

Never breached extraordinary,

and sadly is aware

of being merely average,

yet wanting so much more

Trapped in triviality,

for history to ignore

An unresistant speck in a surge,

lost in tide and time

No footprints in the sand for her,

just faceless pantomime

What is she but a footnote

on a swiftly turning page

A mute supernumerary 

in an unfortunate age

Born a century too early,

or a hundred years too late

To be, perhaps, exceptional 

but never truly great.

In a multitude of equals

she draws comfort from none

In a herd of trudging many, 
she but struggles to be One