The Individual

The mourning invades

my restless mind--

golden rays of sun

cutting through blinds--

A mirror--adjacent to my dreams.

Familiar eyes look back at me.

What is an individual?

Dare I ask?

The answer is always looking back.

In my meditation--

I lose myself

to the blankness of it all.

Sometimes, it is bleak.

Other times. Bliss.

Always, to pass with the wind's singing rift.

Why must Yesterday come?

I find myself, once more--

ah, this is the individual.

Not a thought; a state of understanding.

An espresso machine trembles,

and I find the walls crave their music.

The dawn of a day transcends.

String quartets take this awakening mind

on its first journey.

Thoughts are still stuck in mystery me.

The senses returning from the unconscious

to the metaphysical.

I stretch out like Schrodinger's cat--

in search of a lost pulse.

Time to write--

just to move the pen and see that the page

is nothing but flat.

Chiseling away at the dam of Yesterday,

wondering when the pen's compression--

my mental decompression--

will cause a crack.

But Wonder is in the way--

ah, this is the individual--

the ellusive desire to create

but creating so much that you hide yourself away--

the passing thought is the final blow--

the crack is created--

my disruptive thoughts spider web out--

crumbling the dam that previously barricaded

a flow of thoughts from getting out.

A gorge.

A running river.

To write the words is to let them go.

Ah, this is the individual.

The symphonies spew out.

The hand is unruly as it chases the words.

Smothered with ideas, we catch our breath just

to express a symbol of sound.

An anxious desire for each finger to be a pen,

an extension of unlimited expression.

One word at a time--

handcuff the heart

to the limitations of the mind.

Yet, the compulsion feels like

a repulsion away from doing anything else.

For it is only satisfactory in experience

and never in completion.

Upon completion,

it is never what it was.

Always could have been better.

Some days,

are dedicated to listening to the years.

A false reminder that passive self-deprecation

could be good.

Pushing the craft,

always to forget the way it dries out the pen.

Number one critic--

Number one fan--

The noble type

that holds those they admire

to the standards of greatness.

Don't ask me

who I compare myself to--

the answer will always be Yesterday.

Knowing that the literature I have read

no longer lives on pages, or

in the hearts of writer's now dead--

I have attained the words

the experiences and character development,

pawning the wisdom

to be returned upon epitaphs

that reads, "someone who tried--".

Moving on without movement.

Concentrated through the lack of it.

Moving the way time compels you.

The pen stops and I sit into myself.

There is a window, I struggle to open,

it reveals the tops of trees.

What is the individual?

Life is familiar as it looks back at me.

What is the individual?

Maybe it is movement--

not calculated and logical,

but spiritual and spontanteous.

Sweeping my apartment floors--

the brushing of each passing sweep

shows me

the truth in stillness;

the belief of movement.

Not with words,

but cause and effect.

What was once dirty,

is now clean.

The tulips in a crystal vase

hold on to the light.

They provide solidarity--

drooping and melancholic,

like the old man with humility

who states they wish they went to college.

This is when the real music begins--

the golden rays warm my skin--

headphones on

the lyrics dig in.

Chet Baker--

Nas--

HOV--

Baetoven--

Miles Davis--

Kendrick--

Marvin Gaye--

La Vela Puerca--

Soda Stereo--

No te va gustar--

Eric Clapton--

B.B. King--

The Stones--

The Beatles

(As a group and indvidually)

(Maybe not Ringo)

Just to list a few.

But it can be any artist or song.

Today, I heard the blues no matter what I played.

See now,

I am less myself

and more the song.

The puppet lapping the neighborhood

to the rhythm of it.

Maybe all songs are the same song?

Ah, this is the individual!

Less a knowing--

more an experience.

When I return I drink some tea

and hope the world will learn to live

without fear--

to be as free as the hummingbird that flutters

in the trees that look so different from up here.

There is a man and women in love--

they argue in the streets--

watching from my window

I am glad it isn't me,

but knowing one day, it might be.

The death of individuality--

the confusion--

guilt as empathy--

empathy as pity--

pity as weakness--

weakness as lesser--

to be lesser, there must be greater.

The sentiment resonates fundamentally.

The foundation of my dam is cracked--

it is all a blur of passing moments.

I am forced to ask--

What are you guilty of?

Caring for yourself?

Giving yourself a chance?

Believing you deserve love?

There is heart in your life.

There is belief in your passion.

A celeste blue butterfly emerges from a cacoon--

A willow tree where my soul used to be.

The rebel.

The outlaw.

The poet.

Maybe the sun will set.

Maybe the day will end.

Maybe my happiness will flee.

Maybe I will die.

Maybe I will bleed.

Sysphus, my heart,

screams that they will crucify me.

Maybe.

Maybe I will find prosperity.

All I have is hope--

Every day, relentless inquiry.

Ah, this is the individual,

but, then again,

who am I to say?