Looking away from your eyes,

I realize the size of the rising situation.

In your eyes lie no lies

that give rise to despise or desperation.

I dare to compare anything unfair

with that glaring stare you wear.

Bright and full of wrong-less right,

their bright white glassiness contrasts the night.

Sincere fears rearing near tears

by the mere peering on clearly seen "dears" of yesteryear.

Eyes despising the realization of past situations.

Be bold and unfold your reservation.

Only good truths shall be told.

No lies spoken.

Old molds broken.

Sympathy and empathy and things causing the heart to flee.

Breathe.

One...two...three, lift your lids and see.

Hates once realized,

words you once despised,

glances once causing your very demise,

shall not be recognized in my own eyes.

If we again allow our eyes to close,

and the world around us slows,

and our instincts move us nose to nose,

we shall realize a sizable rising situation just arose.

by R. Craig David-Copyrighted 1998

The Professor drones on.
I glimpse at my phone...quick-link to trending news... "Grease thieves"  the headline reads.... Envirogeeks stealing french fry grease to run their old diesel tour bus. Willie's on the road again it seems.
I imagine 60's dressed high school girls stealing DVD's of the classic movie musical and every girl I every dated singing the part of Oliva Newton-John in all the songs.  The old love-crush imagined from my boyhood brain surfaces.
The long legs of the most beautiful fair-haired Australian beauty. In that last scene wearing those tight leather jeans... "Oh Sandy"....Don’t believe me, ask your girlfriend the first thing that pops in her head when you say the word “Grease”...it won’t be french fry.
Wait candy!...Freeing my ceased-up palm from the creases of my  deep-seated thesis folders, releases my pack’s last handful of Reese's Pieces. Nearly asleep, I study the candy's ingredients as Dr. ancient geek waxes eloquent about Theseus, redemption and ancient Greece. The very parallels rule my brain insanity.
The oil from Palm trees burned bright that night the ancient Greeks create a democratic state gathered in an ancient auditorium designed for debate or education or to tempt our fetes and fates with historical songs, love stories and tragedies of the day.
All so my present day brain could reference the social tragedy love songs of "Grease".... the unchanged, tour-bus-fueling power of oil and grease stolen in the name of freedom, a ancient Greek democratic freedom voted on in a auditorium the very design of this Greek History classroom copies.
******, why are they putting Palm Oil in my Reese's Pieces?!?!
11:34am starts.

Perception can raise the highest bars.
Tiny, large, indifferent or common,
We all fight to fill the jars.
Loss and fall, stumbles and awe fail us all, jails to the lowest bars....
Until we crawl
"Stuck, struck and dependent" set the bar.
"Shrunk, drunk and indifferent" closes The Bar.
A hole is dug cause we're "toast" or "below par"
or dug out of, cause we're "so close" or have "come so far"
We cross a path Just or justly taken and bare.
A cross to bare is just a path once taken we say, feel or swear.
We all fight the feeling of the cost,
Or the aftermath we all have to share, gain or is lost.
R.Craig David- July 2014

“Ten Life Lessons I Learned from My Mom, OK Eleven” by R. Craig David

(1) The truth is an absolute powerful force in the universe. It will remain so despite acknowledgement, understanding or respect for it. So be careful when you seek it, because you may not be prepared for the responsibility of knowing it.
(2.) A good chef always cooks as an expression of himself to others. We eat thousands of times a year, but when you share a meal that tastes amazing with people we know, we are forever influenced by the chef who made it, not the package it came in. Unrelated to when I once proclaimed to her "Best Bologna Sandwich I ever ate" at age 4, that was simply love.
(3.) You taught me that it takes more than creativity to yield great works. You have to respect the process and the amount of dedication required to get results.
(4.) You don’t always love what you do, even if you're good at it or do what you love, even if you're bad at it. You must balance this with hope and love or you will fail being good at either.
(5.) At some point in your life, you’ll need to reconcile your inability to control God, Death, Time and Love. Best to deal with these absolutes, and our powerless influence on them, early in life, though very few people do.
(6.) Unless you are self-aware, you will spend most of your life trying to make people proud of who you are, have respect for you, acknowledge your worth, and give your works value. Outside of family, fear of rejection often pushes us to spend this time on people we are not proud of, have no respect for, have little worth and whose works have no value, yet we seek their approval. Recognize this before you ask someone to rate the quality of anything you feel is a major accomplishment.
(7.) When your health is weak, one of three things is wrong with your body's systems internally:
You do not have enough of something.
There is too much of something.
Something is present that is not supposed to be in your system.
Determining which one it is takes time, hope, patience and a sense of self-preservation. Please note, building a foundation in these values is easier when we are strong, so stock up.
(8.) Choose a mate who encourages you to be a better human. Usually, a girl who only wants you to always pay attention to her and her alone in life, will rarely influence you to do anything else and ultimately you will become a stranger to your own heart.
(9.) Tons of high tech software, faster creative tools, new media outlets and new mediums are invented each year to communicate our ideas. However, you still have to have an actual, original idea to be communicated... as such, spend your time accordingly.
(10.) Learn to respect the time, energy and effort needed to take a thought provoking, complex, creative idea from inception to fruition before trying to gain an audience.
(11.) Also have respect for the patience, perseverance and commitment required to positively influence others to exchange something of value for this complex idea. This can be just as challenging as the energy it takes to create.

The corn stocks shocked across the field,
and pointing to the sky,
like Indian teepees in a row,
watched the world go by.
The distant hilltops wrap themselves in robes of smoky haze.
Trees leaves painted,
red and gold.
These Indian summer days.


Comments:
(Driving through the Ozarks when the leaves are changing...well you just can't beat the feeling, especially when you're 9 years old)

Sparse in the chase,
for life, not death.
scar on my face,
lump in my throat.
gasp in your breath.
My breath, clasping chest, I
guess my last.
Thumps in your sweater, I hold together.
tingles in your clothes and toes,
a fever atop your head,
we swim away from where we should have tread.
The things I should have said.
The word "Love" too much..my best guess, I suppose.
Dreading words not said...but the response they spread...best left unsaid.
Money rents lust and fun, but not “True Love” and "the one" that comes on the cusp, off the cuff.
A true heart never captured, but on the run, is open and undone.
In the absence of sound,
you frown turns to the ground,
it drowns me.
Only fit to see my heart flambeed and fricasseed.
**** first dates...I survive. I proceed.


June 2013 By R. Craig David

Mom, at the behest of those you feel you failed to impress, let me digress.
You have accomplished more than you realize.  
You have seen the world around with your own two eyes.  
You got a Masters at the #1 Journalism Writing College in the US.  
And did so against the behest of doubters you once sought to impress.  
You survived  bouts with cancer and wrote a book about it.  
You did not waste a lifetime idolizing something worthless or unfit.  
I don’t know anyone else that has read as many pages of literary depth.  
I don’t know anyone else with which secrets are better kept.
I don’t know anyone else who can translate middle English  or drudge through the quantum physics, met the Dali Lama and mastered Ken Wilber.  
Who can cook an epic meal yet without a sprinkle of selfish?
Or effortlessly design, hand tie and smith 1000 jewelry pieces of stone and silver?  
You have contributed to and held influenced in every city and town you ever loved and lived within  
You’re paid fortunate to love someone who loves you both here and above.  
You were gifted with an old soul.  
You smile and liars fold.
You are positively inspired and influenced by the people, places and art you have witnessed.  
Their purpose, intent and why they exist.  
You raised a son who feels he won from all you’ve done but in return you asked none.

This next stage in your life will be your time to shine.  
It is your time to power back up.  
Things are about line up again.  
Before you attempt to quantify the sum of your contributions and accomplishments, look closely at the measure of the parts.
What are you gauging your accomplished-o-meter against.  
Before you answer, consider this:   This is a capitalist society.
The worth of stocks, bonds, even the paper money, all only have value because someone in power says they do so.  
Innovation is only funded based on potential profitability,
not encouraged to enrich mankind‘s forward go.  
Creating for the greater good is tougher than ever.  
It’s maddening to know hundreds of Americans win millions of lottery dollars every week, then we never hear about them again.
Or pull a slot machine level.  
They never surface a year later, having changed their community or town for the better.
I know money makes things more comfortable.
Yeah capitalism rewards margin first, I too am disgruntled.
Your season is coming again.  
Your reason to be and the how, why and when.  
You should see it out here in the Gen-X trenches.  
We are holding together the Gen-Y instant gratify on one end while maintaining morals of the World War II grinches.
There are so many media outlets now, spewing raw, unedited, shallow ideas meant only to capture my time and money.
Your noble intent, the quality of what you are trying to achieve and contribute, it has a place.  
Your cost you spent, the things you piled up, now in a storage space.  
It’s worth continues to increase.  
I want to help you during this next stage and make the last one cease.
I don’t want you to tape your hope up in a box in a storage unit for another 5 years.  
Your newest book will be revered, buy the Time to debunk Shakespeare
and prove it was Devere.