Hamlet was wrong in his famous inquiry,
"to be or not to be,"
for being is only the precursor to
feeling.
"To feel, or not to feel",
that is the true question.
Is it better to submit to the cacophony,
the constant white noise that is
monotony,
just so in a rare moment,
the monotony will crescendo into
dynamic bliss?
Or, is it better to quiet your soul?
To burst the internal ear,
and lose both cruel agony and
rapturous joy.
To pass this short journey with
no injury,
to never be stifled by the everlasting
repetition-
would it not be worth the brief,
incandescent moments of beauty?
If but we could separate the two!
If but we could feel the sweetness of one,
lacking the sting of the other;
but no,
like the seasons, every autumn's glory
must give way to winter's wroth.
We must choose.
Is the reward worthy
of the sacrifices to be made?

What I want more than anything
is to live Nowhere.
To have no stakes set,
no roots-
just move with the wind
like a pioneer-
follow the sun as it sets,
and even knowing the futility,
try to find it.
I want to be a nomad,
both spiritually and physically.
To be finally and gloriously free
from all the ignoble trappings
of a world obsessed with neon
and gold trimming.

Instead of paintings I would have
the silver-braced sky and cold, green
mountains of Colorado;
instead of statues, the golden-clay
mesas of Arizona;
instead of fine crystal,
the emerald-clear waters of the Keys.
I will befriend every creature
and soak in the beauty of
self-creation that is our earth.

Instead of billionaires, I will count
the dirt-smudged, air burnt faces
of Tibetans as my compatriots;
their hearts are more open.
They are more at peace with
themselves living in huts
than the rich in their enclaves of
steel and stone.
Instead of a church, I will find my
worship in the temples, the
incense scented high-chambered rooms.
The steady sound of om is more
pleasing to the ears than hymns.

I will find joy in drinks and drugs,
in the wide variety of intoxication
provided to us not by chemists,
but by the earth itself.
I will complete that joy by sharing these
mediums with others-
experiencing new reality, new feeling.

And when it comes time to die,
I will rest somewhere open,
with the stars above and the earth below;
I will lay me down,
I will sleep,
untroubled, fulfilled.

Brilliant blue, swimming in an ocean black;
pinprick of light barely visible from distant planets,
the sweet, living dirt on which all our hopes,
dreams, plans, history, and future reside.
Fragile, but strong, older than time,
our home.
Swinging in wide ellipse around brilliant flame,
small yet full to brim,
our Earth.
When the men of the future finally bid goodbye
to this, our green oasis in the darkness,
will they shed tears?
Will they remember the violent history? the blood
and tainted soil? the tears of mothers?
the schemes of politicians?
the passing quandaries that envelop us now,
but will be meaningless then?
Will they cry to leave our home behind?

Small, little planet circling a sun,
solar system in the arms of a spiral,
one of millions in a galaxy that is
one of hundreds in a cluster that is
one of billions in a universe-
we are so small,
and it is beautiful to be so.
Product of billions of years of chance-
expansion from a single point, energy
bringing destruction and creation in
symbiotic, chaotic harmony.

In a few more billion years, our home will be gone,
and the universe will not be changed greatly
by the absence.
What will become of the Humans,
that precocious species that once inhabited
a starspeck, and thought they were
the center of the cosmos?
Will we have survived our self-destructive tendency
to **** our fellow man?
Will we be standing in gleaming vessels,
watching the sun expand and
consume our Mother whole?
Will we cry to see our old home burn?

I want to stand a patio in a city full of lights,
sharply dressed with wits half-dulled,
in a restaurant with black-tied maitre d's and
no prices on the menus.
There's a smokey-eyed blonde by my side-
a girl who's far too good for me, who has
that rich blood and
finer tastes-
her black dress and careless smiles leading me
deeper into temptation as
we both drink like we have
something to forget.
I want to sit there with her smoking the
high-class cigarettes with gold-leaf
embossed filters,
not talking, just absorbing
just enjoying.
I don't want to be rich.
I just want to be so much more than I am.
The most crushing reality of humanity isn't the
life you lead;
it's all the lives you aren't living.

I am at this place where sound is energy-
where color has mass and taste.
Every moment is a glorious adventure,
balanced on the fine line between joy and madness.
I may be insane.
I might have finally lost my mind.
I don't care.
I am bliss and freedom in this moment,
encapsulated by the rushing wind
of my own thoughts as they sail by
visceral, anthropomorphic.
As layer by layer all I know is taken
not by force, but gently,
I discover truth hidden beneath.
Obfuscated no longer,
I am god of this moment-
I am the All-Seeing Eye.
-for just a moment.
A moment that seems to stretch across
the history of the universe,
as I am blinded by the birth of a billion suns...

As waves of cigarette smoke waft
lazily into the form of tigers,
the fever pitch waves adieu-
like the distant memory of an ******,
it leaves me tired but fulfilled.
Time to reflect.
Time to absorb what I've found.
There are no adventures greater than those in your own mind.

Perfection: skewed over the years;
in our quest for longevity,
in our denial that good things do end,
we have tried to make perfection
into a permanence.
We chase it all our lives:
the perfect car,
the perfect lover,
the perfect relationship.
We've forgotten somehow that
perfection isn't a state of life.
Perfection isn't normal.
Perfection doesn't exist naturally.
Perfection is something we create,
and like all things humans make,
it is temporary.
Perfection is a moment to be lived in-
a glistening diamond moment that
we get to exist in for such a
precious little time.
We breath in and are filled
with satisfaction,
that most powerful ******.
We glow in our souls
until it radiates from our faces.
It is the second right after a first kiss,
when you draw back and look into your lover's eyes.
When all things are brimful of possibility and all
futures are open to you.
It is the moment after you achieve
something you worked for your entire life.
Something you bled for, lost sleep and friends
and years of your life over.
It is the second when your child
screams and draws breath for the first time.
When you see reflected in their tiny face everything you were
and everything they will be.
We are perfect in that one moment.
Of course all of it will end.
Your girlfriend may leave you behind after a time.
She may break your heart and carry it with her,
leaving you scarred and unable to love again.
You may lose everything you've worked for
in a single, capricious moment.
In one simple, thoughtless mistake.
Your child will be with you for a time,
but they will grow old and leave you,
never to speak to you until you are on death's door.
Still,
as we sit on our unbelievably vulnerable world,
one of billions in a universe full of singularities and solar flares,
comets and quasars,
evolution and extinction-
Shouldn't we just be glad that the moment happened,
instead of realizing it will end?
Life has so very few of these anomalies of perfection;
enjoy them while they are there,
do not miss them when they are gone.

The road of life is long, with few detours.
There are very few who will walk it with you until the end.
Most of the time you will be alone;
Even more of the time you will be lonely.
You will not want to walk on.
Many days, the first step from your bed
will be a battle.
Your dreams will almost certainly die.
Your hopes will almost certainly not be realized.
Your grand plans will be forgotten,
left forlornly on the wayside as you
plod on.
Your heart will close in time.
Love will rage through like a wildfire;
you'll be caught up in the glow,
the sheer energy,
but, in time, it will burn out,
and for miles, you'll be walking on embers.
Everyone you care for will eventually,
unavoidably let you down.
And many nights you will lie awake sleepless,
wondering
"Why?"
"Why am I here?"
"What reason is there to go on?"
"Is there an end to this?"
And you will answer yourself
"YES."
You will find that power, that spirit.
You will make that first step out of bed.
You will dream a better dream.
You will hope a brighter hope.
One day, you will follow a plan that
fulfills you in ways you cannot yet
imagine.
Your heart will reopen wider.
Love will recreate you, and you'll dance in the flames.
You will forgive and learn to trust again.
And many nights you'll fall into decadent sleep
thinking "How"
"How did I survive?"
"How did I get so lucky?"
"How could I ever be sad?"
"How could this ever end?"
Life is equal part suffering,
equal part bliss.
The key is to find the joy so clearly
hidden in hard times
to get you through the pain,
And remember the hurt in the good times,
to make you ready for the next struggle.