My essay, Changency, is a meme
This meme has been growing inside of me
I've been a carrier
Many of us have been

I'm not a benevolent character though
I've been purposely placing the memetic material on blankets
And leaving the blankets in local trading posts
I call these 'trading posts' bookstores, universities, colleges, schools...coffee shops, pubs, restaurants, etcetera

The beautiful thing is that these memes aren't really on blankets
The memes are encoded on the backs of knowledge, truth, and authenticity
They come from a place of pain
Evolution can be painful (but does it have to be?)

Three dimensions are easy to comprehend
Four, sure just add time
What about spacetime?
And a fifth dimension...I don't really know what that means...but some do and they're watching, listening, waiting, and loving us

I am the poet
I have been whispering obscurities in dark corners for many years now
And I like it that way

I am dark and brooding
Obscure and abstract
And I like it that way

I am the craftsman
Allowing language to consume me
And I like it that way

I am impervious to permanence
And tire of fence sitting
And I like it that way

I am living the rhythm of symbolism so as to
Pawn it as wisdom
And I like it that way

I am the tactician step, step, stepping through
Through the abstract and on to you
And I like it that way

Having found that symbolism rhythm
I am weaning my way off words

Having found my addiction
And now feeling the friction

My addiction isn’t to words though
It’s to whispers

Through the journey from abstraction
And into the rhythm of this reality is
Where I consumed all of it
I even drank down the first person
With a perspective shift and a lime twist for garnish

Now it’s time to inspire
Let's put on our costumes because
Reconciling truths
Aggravates liars

And I like it that way

My tribe is a
mingling of adjacent hues
finding harmony
complementary

My tribe is a
facet of you and me
a mashup of science and art
an education of the heart

My tribe is a
wisdom bringer
a lighthouse singer
over crimson shoals

My tribe is a
ghost dance partner
a symphonies daughter
a shield for fodder

Cause my tribe is peace
like a captainless ship
like a philosophers quip
like a
"I don't know but I'd like to get it right"
kinda trip

My tribe is yearning
curious and learning
rumbling with vulnerability
spilling over with capability

And every time we think we are there
we go a little deeper
but it isn't complicated
because my tribe is love

The clock was smiling at us
as if it knew we were lost;
unable to see the path, we continued
along on the wrong side of the ones and zeroes

Tiring of our aimless float;
tiring and lost in the vacuum of our ignorance.
With all kinds of navigational aids to chart our path
we mostly relied upon the compass tattoos over our hearts

Lost in the chasm of our indecision
our bodies and minds listed.
Our attempts to unpack the endless
parcels of our unrest ... proved futile

While  carefully re-learning the ABCs
and re-interpreting the Western Canon
we found that it was only by closing our eyes
that we were able to see; were able to feel.

However, the cadence was off
which was immaterial  as
our feathers were ruffled and
the rhetoric was pluming

With the overture of the new day dawning
we turned our back
on the algorithm of our demise
and shucked off the self-imposed limitation

It was thirty seconds to midnight and
the world that never seemed to want us
needed us now.
Like anemic royalty, we took flight

breathing that rarefied air and
gulping down the nuances of our resilience
to swallow our intergenerational trauma
one last time

Its a sweetgrass serenade
singing up serotonin
through the cavalcades
and ramparts
that I have been using to
barricade my heart

It's a sweetgrass serenade
when I let those sweet words
slip off my tongue
just like syncopated honey
into the three-stranded braid
of me and you and Him
taking us into those outer places
where we can occupy other spaces

It's a sweetgrass serenade
on our journey to the moon
where I wonder who
is following me cause
on our way back

I'm feeling the exodus
of my past, you know
the part that
no longer serves me.

And in its place...

It's a sweetgrass serenade
singing up serotonin
filling up that empty pocket
with a force of positivity.

Looks like I found a Lifeway
time to let it shine and
step into deep play

Writing a poem is about locating self.
Every facet within what you’re about to create
blooms from your consciousness, your subconsciousness
your ego, your mind, your heart

But where are those elements planted?
Where are they rooted?

They are rooted within:

your ethnocentric illusions
your lived reality
your privilege, your pleasure, your pain
your abilities, your disabilities
your socioeconomic status: have and/or havenot
your fluency, your empathy, your sense of humour
your vices and your storytelling devices

Now we've got some roots, what are we going to grow?
Let’s begin by observing, using our senses
Maybe, let’s use our eyes
Consider, the reality of how we see and sense the world
Is different for each and every one of us

Everything is tempered by the lens we use
Which is informed through the roots of our synapses
Which empirically flow from the subjective ground
On which we stand

And what does this have to do with poetry?
What you describe in your poem,
Is an interpretation of what you see (and feel)

Interesting poetry comes when
there is exploring to do
It is a poet’s imperative to
Explore the edges
Out past the boundaries of the visual and audible spectrum

If we were fish poet’s
Would we write poetry about water?

I like to toy with my teenagers on occasion
So I asked my son the other day, what his worldview was?
And I have been enjoying the vacuous silence ever since
To be fair, I have been asking myself the same question for many years
And this might have been the inciting incident leading me to storytelling

As we began this journey together, it was stated that
Writing a poem is about locating self.
Can you describe your context?

Let me attempt to describe mine:

Here I am on the stage in this ocean of air
At the Owl Acoustic Lounge
On a Wednesday night in May
Popping air with rhythm, nuance, and a certain je ne ce quoi

Although this poem is not objectively true
Let me attempt to share that
this poem blooms from my developing cosmology
From the overtures of my Overself;
from the undercurrents of the Monomyth,
From my ***** and through my groans of intercession
This poem blooms from oblivion
Threading through philosophy, to worldview, and into a budding cosmology

For myself:
Worldview fell away when I found cosmology while reconnecting with the night sky
That night sky took me places while grounding me concurrently in inner spaces
Where locating self flows into meta-cognitive health,
Well ... that is something to write about

I realized today
Why I've been
So ******* angry

It took me quite
Some time to get here
Cause I was attempting to
Think it through

The thinking through process
Was exhausting
Every time I thought I was there
I realized I had barely begun

My reward for attempting the journey
Was a growing anger
Alive and festering
And a feeling in my heart

Rather than focus on rationality
I began to sit with the feeling
While trying not to take it out
On myself or
Lashing out on those around me
(especially my loved ones)

Trying was trying and
Sometimes it worked
And sometimes did not

While I sat in between
Waiting and wondering if
Maybe the answers could be
Found elsewhere.
The more I felt into this
In those quiet, reflective spaces
The more I was able to
Reorganize my emotions
Which brought me to the conclusion
That my source of anger
Was a feeling.

It did not take me long
Sitting within this
When I began to shift
Into the realization that
This needed to be
Unpacked:

My emotions of anger
Were rooted in the feelings of hurt

I tried to point my finger at a more direct
Source of this pain and
Many people came up
But I could see they were coming from
A place of hurt too
And our hurts were perpetrated on each
Other in a cyclic fashion

Now I was on a roll,
Unpacking the hurt continued to flow
Now I understood that
My feeling and the hurt
Are the product of cycles
That do not serve me

I was starting to embody
This understanding:

These cycles are rooted in
Unhealthy dynamics
Installed and instilled
Within a hierarchy
Infused and embedded
Within the power structures
Of today but
Moreso the power structures of yesterday

This was my call to action

Flowing further
Led me to the knowing that
To assist with restructuring
These dynamics might be the greatest gift
I could give to those I love

Within this knowing, I decided
An army of one
Would not do

So I got to work on building an army of two