From the day of birth
you may live to a hundred-plus
become the rustic
trust the anvil negate hate
all that time you were dying

𝕋𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕓𝕠𝕠𝕜 𝕨𝕖𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕖𝕕 𝕤𝕠 𝕝𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕓𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥..

                        𝕓𝕦𝕥 𝕓𝕖𝕔𝕒𝕞𝕖 𝕤𝕠 𝕙𝕖𝕒𝕧𝕪 , 𝕒𝕗𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕝𝕚𝕞𝕒𝕩..

There's Wishing it to be
       Wanting it to be
                 and Hoping it to be.
But instead
       Here's how it is...
                 It's REALITY.

It doesn't mean you should stop
wishing
       wanting
              hoping.
Because these are the desires
that keep us
      going
            flowing
                   forward.

Don't forsake it
       fake it
              or forget to take it
this striving in life for meaning.
        Remembering...

REALITY is what you make it!

DOWNPOUR

The rains came down in
The darkness before dawn.
Great thundering waterfalls
That beat tattoos on metal roofs
And sailed the gutter leaves like boats
In some fantastic competition
To make it to the storm drain first.

In this parched and arid state
It waked up sleepers with a start
Who rushed to roll up windows in the car.
And sent the teenaged paper boy
Rushing after plastic bags.
In thirty minutes it was gone
And you would never know it rained.

So thirsty is Nevada soil
That deluge never is enough.
The Monsoon didn’t come this year,
The floods all happened somewhere else,
And rocky landscape withers in the torrid sun
Trying to recall the **** feel
Of moisture seeping through its stones

And every drop is Holy Water.
ljm

Being useful
and
being valued
are. two. different. things.

One morning out cleaning drains and gutters around the house, doing manly things
Basically just messing about
Suddenly it hit me, yea! I had a moment of clarity
"There's still time y'know, Yea, there's still hope, you could still meet her/ find her
And she'll kiss you and suddenly your hair will start to grow again
And your eyes, they'll grow clearer and brighter
And the cherry trees they'll bloom again in your heart
Your whole world it'll be transformed....."
Then as I bent down to do something
Suddenly I jumped back with a start
Something had moved, just there, just then
Something had well...jumped out
Was it a mouse or worse still, a rat
I couldn't see anything,
As I looked closer though, suddenly there! well camouflaged
There was this big frog
Hell I thought, I hadn't seen a frog in years
Wasn't that strange, wasn't that a coincidence
I was just thinking those thoughts and suddenly this frog he jumps out
Maybe it was an omen
(Probably meant it was gonna rain),
But then I thought wasn't there a story once
Yea, The Frog Prince
A lovely princess kisses a frog and he turns into this beautiful handsome prince,
I wonder I thought, I wonder could there be such a thing as a Frog Princess
If I were to kiss you would you turn into a lovely beautiful Frog Princess,
So I bent down close to the frog and whispered
"Are you my little Frog Princess"
Suddenly the frog he takes off, starts hopping madly away from me
As if saying "Gotta get away quick from this feckin' ******"
Don't go! Please don't go!! I shouted after him
Come back! Come back to me, you are my destiny!
Finally he hops into a flowerbed full of weeds and is lost forever
Alas! I thought to myself, Adieu, adieu, sweet sweet adieu
Obviously I thought, obviously he must have been a Frog Prince and not a Frog Princess.
Then I thought, y'know at my age and with my luck
And I called after him 'I would have settled for a Frog Prince!".

It’s been a prolific day
David Berman and I spent it together:

Me on his Wikipedia page,
Wondering at his language
Broken hearted over his final great collection of art,
A self-titled album released under the moniker Purple Mountains;

Him a genius
And dead
Tortured by his inability to change the world
Self loathing and addicted,
The son of a gun and liquor lobbyist who is quoted as saying, “I will miss him more than he was able to realize.”

It’s the ultra absorbent ones who make the best artists
Walking around in a store somewhere and wanting to die for the brutality of it all
Nothing brings the raw desperate animalism out from where it’s buried in the Stone Age like good old fashioned American capitalism.

(Last week I ate a gummy before going Christmas shopping and had a panic attack in a cute little boutique while buying a puzzle for my niece.
My sister-in-law told me I looked like I was seeing things
But it was the loosening of the barriers,
the flood of conflict and dissonance,
every person a song and all the songs playing at once,
tidal wave,
a cacophony of primary and secondary emotions.
This is why I don’t eat gummies).

It isn’t fair
I guess
That the ability to be so penetrated by truth isn’t beautiful
It should be beautiful
Like that shrimp, right? That can see a whole universe of colors unreachable by any other animal in existence.
An elevated understanding of truth should be like that shrimp
-The mantis shrimp, I remember now-
Truth cones like with sight…every texture and flavor of enlightenment.

In David Berman’s case, he piled substances onto the fire of his brain to ***** it out
And haven’t we all lain in a dark room on a sunny day
Haven’t we all found our habits

Instead of lamenting the curse of the truth addicted artist, as I have done most of the day,
I will tell a story
(this is true)
of my 17 year old niece Sophie
Who, when she was 9, demanded to know the Real Truth about Santa Claus.
Her friends were insistent, and she didn’t want to be left behind.

My sister, not one to mince words, told her directly and plainly,
and when Sophie asked, who then? Do you buy all of our Christmas presents every year?
again my sister gave it to her straight.

Sophie’s eyes began to swim, just as my sister suspected they might,
But when she went to comfort her daughter,
to try to convince her that magic isn’t in the elusive but in the every day
She was met with simply,

“Oh, thank you, mommy. Thank you.”