R A N T

A gallery of renegade Lit

1999
You Move

You are born into world
and sit in exact same spot,
facing one direction,
for entire life.

You turn head - a little.
Sometime stand up - for stretch.
You get - shifted view,
What you see - same scenery.

You sit down - find comfort
This scenery you know - you are safe.
Everything you think,
you dream,
you hope,
you love,
all - from same place.

One day something happens - you forget..

You move.

You decide - to follow butterfly,
you stand up - too fast,
get dizzy,
fall over - in mud,
get mud - in eye,
get some - in ear,
acquire - some pain,
get wet - clothes,
get cold - you.

Night comes - get colder,
run away - find heat,
hit tree - with head,
fall again - this time harder,
wake up - next morning,
different place - hurting,
more cold,
more wet,
lying in poison ivy.
Whole new world.

Old world big lie.

2006
Posting

You are an artist, a poet,
a musician/composer - a philosopher.
You dive in deeper and travel out farther.
You see the world as a mere undefined particle
surrounded by countless waves of eternity,
and your life, in this world,
as a endless expanse of unlimited potential
ripe for your imagination to fill.

You live life one day at a time,
but know that one day is all days - past, present, future,
and when the wind hits your face it carries with it - antiquity,
and carries away - into the beyond - a piece of you.

You understand that there are many mountains -
rising up and resolving down;
many paths - in lines, in spirals, in waves and in shapes;
many heavens - in clouds and sand, in color and darkness,
in music and silence, in thoughts, ideas and in dreams.

You have come to know that everything is merely one thing -
one sound and one silence, one space, one purpose,
one order and one chaos - something whole and something vast.

You perceive the universe as something incomprehensibly perfect -
a singularity of such infinitesimal smallness
where all that was, all that is, and all that shall ever be,
will come together with you...

... scheming, once again.

1999
Anything

Thousands
millions
no, hundreds of millions of people
probably more
maybe billions
now at this moment and all moments
always
performing empty tasks
thinking empty thoughts
managing empty lives
stumbling about in mind-numbing ignorance
making no difference
knowing no difference
imagining no difference
sleeping
waking
consuming
polluting
lounging
eating
crapping
making a damned mess

waiting for something... anything.

anything.

1998
Walking That Edge

Walking that edge.
Feet raw - bleeding.
Arms waving like a duck - a mallard.
Fingers groping for a handle - any handle
perhaps theirs, but they haven't offered.

On one side you're a dazzling genius.
On the other side, a raging lunatic.
Who knows which is which,
or who is who.

If you lose your balance and fall left, you're one.
If you fall right, you're the other.
Either way - you lose.

So you keep real steady - walking that edge.
Better to keep them guessing.
Better to endure the pain - maybe enjoy it.

2002
Now

Just for fun, take a moment - for that is really all we have - a moment - and imagine something.
Take this moment and imagine sand. Why sand? Because it is there, and there is a lot of it.
Imagine not just a handful of sand, or a beachful of sand, but a vast, vast quantity of sand.

No, that's not quite enough. Get a map of the world and try this.....

Gather together every grain of sand from every ocean beach, sea shore,
lake bed, surrounding every continent and every island everywhere.
Then, add all the sand from every desert, dune, dry patch of land, playground,
and so on, down to a level of about 10 meters - no small task.

Now.....
you have a vast, vast quantity of sand. Take a moment and imagine it.
Let's pretend that every grain in our vast quantity of sand is equal to about a million years.
Add it up, then multiply the answer by one billion.
With something this incomprehensibly large, we'd better give it a name.....
Let's call it "forever."

Now.....
let's play in our sand. Take the whole of "forever" and divide it in half.
Place one half in a space previous to the moment you were born.
Place the remaining half of "forever" in a space after the time when you will cease to be.

Now.....
focus on this space between the two halves of forever - this infinitesimally tiny parcel of nanospace.
So small, in fact, that if you could possibly stand back and view the whole of this vast eternity,
this space between the halves would seemingly not even exist. But imagine it just the same, because
it is so very, very precious. It is this very space, in which, for this brief moment in eternity,
against impossible odds you came into being and do now exist.

So....
here and now, you can think, you can feel, and you can imagine.
What a strange and wondrous existence this is where you can say - I am.
This space in "forever" that is your life, a "speck" in that which we call eternity,
is your one and only chance to make a mark, to make a difference,
to polish one grain of eternal sand so it may cause even one small reflection,
one sparkle, one ripple in the waves of this "forever" in which we dwell.
It is your one chance - to be.

Now.....
put down your beer, get out of your chair, turn off your
television and pause for one moment and imagine.
Imagine how very, very special your life is in this impossible,
fantastical state of being we call "existence."

It is a space reserved especially for you - by chance,
by design, by a reality beyond our comprehension?
This space is at your service for your thoughts,
your dreams, your actions, your purpose, your life.
It is your one chance in the entirety of this vast "forever" to be.

How are you passing your time?

2007
So, Who Are You, Dude?

A reflection off a cheap piece of glass.

A fleeting thought of someone’s boredom.

A number with way too many digits.

A character in a dream that a looter is having in the back of an overturned bus.

A faceless, bundled wind walker performing an aerial ice
dance before landing "terra firma style" on his bum.

The buffoon who intentionally leapt into that snapshot of Uncle Lucky.

The punchline of a mean-spirited, poor-tasting joke - funnier than hell.

Some pinhead leisurely shuffling across the street against a red light.

Someone’s failed son.

The chump with chronic plumbing problems paying the rent in the
basement apartment, also with chronic plumbing problems.

The faultless recipient of Lisa's extended middle finger - guacamole still attached.

"Joe Lonely", with no donut, gazing into his coffee in an empty all night diner.

A guy whose phone number without a name on it
was on a matchbook that just got trashed.

Someone known by someone else who doesn’t matter now, nor will they matter later.

A carbon-based entity reclining in a chair, in a house, on a street, in a town,
in a country in the western hemisphere, on the third planet of a yellow dwarf
star, in a minor solar system, on a remote spiral arm of a galaxy that looks
like a million other galaxies in a universe within another universe, out there
or in there, somewhere.

The jerk whose ego is no match for his anus.

Some greasy corporation's bad debt.

Another recovering Roman Catholic.

The last bloke to wear the handcuffs before Rico.

The unfortunate "friendly-fire" recipient of a pie that was meant for the face of another.

The guy who originally owned the plastic statuette of
Jesus Christ that Amos now owns through no fault of his own.

The sorry sap that stepped deeply into Sparky's piping hot intestinal "lawn statement."

A name on another juicy piece of junk mail.

A foolish character cleverly woven into a philanderer's fabulous lie.

A "fashion-challenged" fellow waiting in line with everyone else.

Someone watching the clock move from Monday into Tuesday,
and again, that evening, from Tuesday into Wednesday.

The innocent chap being blamed for the rich and tangy fart unleashed by Wayne, the "methane bandit."

Someone who used to be someone else’s co-worker long, long ago in a job far, far away.

The dweeb being deftly cheated by Carl, the devout Christian businessman.

Some miserable hombre, with no coat and one shoe, in an ice storm at 4:00 a.m.

A blind date in May, 1966, that Deb no longer remembers.

Talent squandered, Imagination repressed, Potential unrealized.

Someone who can't shit no matter how much water he drinks.

A pimp's mark. Hey bro, you'all looking for some action?

 

Artist