Tinkering with the Karma Machine

 

Tenaciously tinkering with the Karma Machine,

making some adjustments, mostly small.

—

Actually listening when daydreaming

comes more natural, making eye contact.

Maybe smiling to not burden others 

with my burning melancholy concerns.

Filling bird feeders in the bitter cold and

giving the dog a few more minutes outside.

Agreeing to do the little extra, at work or at 

home, when inclinations are saying otherwise.

—

Tenaciously tinkering with the Karma Machine,

a sincere investment with the hope of return.

***

Creativity is a Flow

 

1

Floating.

2

Paddling over

an abyss.

3

Creativity is a flow 

that you can ride,

an ever-cresting wave.  

4

Until the wave crashes 

and throws you 

wet and dejected 

onto the beach.  

5

Where you sit 

on the sand, 

knees to chest,

looking longingly 

out over the ocean.

6

Wondering when 

a wave will

find you again

to rediscover 

the exhilaration 

of creating.

***

The Red Snapper

 
The Captain of the Red Snapper
is trapped, though once the trapper.

Peering through a translucent eye
ice upon ice is all he does spy.

Dive! Dive! rings the bell in its belly.
It is warm inside, but also smelly.

“I don’t want to die
in this monstrously large fish!”
he can’t help but cry
as he makes this last wish.

Dive! Dive! in the belly of the snapper.
He is trapped who once was the trapper.

***

Hearts Shine Through

Seeing Kevin in a dream

but Vincent is there too.

The world transformed

by their vision

nearly blind - mentally ill

but somehow 

their hearts shine through.

***

Gifts from Greta

 

Some time in the recent past Elias has discovered Greta Van Fleet and come to enjoy their music which really surprises me.  He is not much of a Rock music fan and my attempts to get him to listen to King’s X over the years has not borne fruit (Dogman, Black the Sky, Groove Machine, etc), but here he is playing Rock via GVF over my car speakers since being home on break.

I’ve heard of Greta Van Fleet but I could not have told you any of their songs or even what their sound was like.   Elias played “Heat Above” in my car yesterday and I immediately heard the influences of RUSH and Led Zeppelin.  Some of the songs are uncanny in this regard.  I had him pull up RUSH’s “Fly by Night” and he immediately saw the similarities with Geddy Lee.

I guess that is one of the pleasures of being the father of a growing and developing human being.  He not infrequently surprises me with some new insight or developmental milestone that I was not expecting.  I objectively know he is an independent and unique human being but the parent’s temptation is to think we fully know them or nearly so.  It’s fun to be proven wrong!

***

The Dreaming Tree

 

Inside the heart of the dreaming tree

wondering at what is revealed to me.

To feel the tilting and spin of the earth.

To know being buried allows for rebirth.

To perceive lack of love as a real dearth.

To welcome the weight of infinite worth.

Inside the heart of the dreaming tree

many mysteries were made known to me.

***

The Wisdom of Clocks & Glasses

 

Time to see 

what is to be seen.

To experience

what has ever been.

To know it truly 

when sight is keen.

Wisdom is full

but foolishness lean.

***

My Desolation

Sitting in the comfort
of my desolation.

A cushioned couch
for my consolation.

An inner world springs
forth, my creation.

Offered in awed silence
as my oblation.

***

Doodles and Korea

Prior to our current state of easily accessible art-making technology I was a frequent doodler.  It was something to pass the time in meetings or serve as mnemonic devices in my voluminous medical school notes.  Prior to that I had filled my Bible with little pictures in the margins as illustrations.

This week I was thinking about my time in Korea and trying to track down some of the groups I enjoyed while living there in 91’ through 93’ but could not find any on Apple Music or even Youtube.  It was probably a search problem with my Romanization of the Korean names not being recognized.

In this process of reminiscing I thought about the mixtapes I would make for Korean friends and a doodle came to mind.  It was my idea of a nonexistent record company that I created a variety of designs for to draw on those mixtapes called “호기심 RECORDS” which means “curiosity” in Korean.  

In my internet search I was at least able to find Kim Hyun Sik who was a tragic figure in Korean Pop culture of the time.  He sang melancholy tunes with a strained and gravely voice that projected emotional pain.  My Korean friends told me he died by drinking himself to death.  I listened and doodled.   

***

Shannon, Friend of Kevin, Artist

She is an artist, a friend of a friend who was also an artist and also happened to be my godson.  I met her through him back in my college days and after he died we shared stories of Kevin.  He was missed.  He was loved.  His heart and artistic vision were appreciated.

We continued on as friends through Facebook over the years.  I appreciated her insightful comments, especially when it had to do with my attempts at doing something artistic.  She became a single Mom of teenaged kids and worked hard to make a home for them.  

I admired her from afar as she struggled in a distant town, but then I realized just this past week that she had not commented on any of my posts in quite awhile and vice versa.  It was a Facebook memory with one of her comments that alerted me to the gap in communication.

I started reading the most recent posts on her account and a creeping dread mixed with sadness began to take hold.  Friends posting about missing her, about praying for her kids.  I messaged one of those friends who informed me Shannon had died in her sleep in February.

February!  I felt bad I hadn’t figured it out sooner.  She had gone to the ER not feeling well and was evaluated but then sent home.  Her kids found her in the morning, dead of an apparent heart attack, the subtle signs of female cardiac symptoms lost on a night shift ER staff.

But then today in the blue garage at work I noticed a peculiar sight.  Someone with a baby blue Lincoln Continental had custom-attached a blue-winged angel ornament on their hood.  It made me think of Shannon and her quirky artistic nature detaching itself from corporality.

***

The Magical Dobie Pad

 

A dream:

I handled the dirty dobie pad rotating it gingerly in my hand.  Someone had thrown it out, ignorant of its import.  What I had found was a mundane household object on the ground that inexplicably contained the power to grant one wish.

I suddenly had a very profound decision to make but would I make the right one?  Was I mature enough, smart enough, WISE enough to handle this magnitude of responsibility?  I seriously doubted it but then an idea came to me.

I would destroy this prickly sponge in a fire so that it would not fall into the wrong hands.  It was too much for me to think through how to utilize it.  I was somewhere in the country near a barn and a scrap pile where a trash fire was burning.

As I walked towards that fire I made a last-ditch effort to find some noble use for the one wish by wracking my brain but without success.  It made me mad, actually, and as I went to drop the sponge in the fire I blurted out, “I want to fly”!

So selfish, but too late to change it now.  I tested it out by floating straight up in the air about ten feet and then around the corner of the barn to where I found a country road.  I leaned forward to a horizontal position and rocketed off.

***

The Blues

 

The Blues sing to the soul

in deep emotional hues.

A transcendent force like 

taking the stairs by twos.

It is a melancholy medicine

healing with tragic trues.

A magnificent temple of 

worshipers empty of pews

(there can be no sitting 

when there’s so much to lose).

***

Fearful Symmetry

 My heart stays hidden 

in a small brick tower 

of fearful symmetry…

…afraid to face a world

that ignores my wishes 

even if they are selfish.

***

The Ultimate Measure

Who can truly fathom the
circumstances of life?
With so many branching
paths and soaring

sorrows that appear to 

accumulate and, sadly, 

self-perpetuate, too late?

Why am I here and he 

is there standing on the

graveled shoulder while

I sit secure in my ride?

Why must I decide what

he is to receive? Will I

gain a spiritual reprieve?

But can we simply agree

that nothing is free and 

love is a boundless 

treasure, the ultimate

measure of what is 

and what should be

to the greatest degree?

Commuting in the City

Commuting in the city

is a repetitive dream,

a circle of stop and go,

merge and diverge,

wish and wait.

A necessary evil

when you don’t 

live on the farm

or in an apartment

over your store.

Every day is a metaphor

of leaving and returning,

escaping but relating

to the desire to 

find your way home.

***