This morning I decided to not get up right away
I chose instead to let the ideas sit,
to let the seeds germinate or ferment just a bit more
until either their sprouting leaves or gasses
forced upon my consciousness thoughts that compel
my getting up from the succulent repose.
I know there were gems lost, bubbling down into the muck
of my fertile mind’s deepest folds perhaps to resurface
unexpectedly while in the midst of some unrelated activity
that would cause me to run for a pen and paper or
curse my lack thereof and carry on relying on
its coming out again when its really needed.
If faith truly moves mountains it surely can handle
a small pile of mental excrement, even though it be
weighted with its core of glistening gold. And, like
a fast breaking wind it suddenly rears its head and
bellows for release against the restraints of serious
activities like eating, sleeping and balancing my feet.
I am an artist, a painter of shapes and colors that
make images of things as yet unseen. I create
and others wonder at the existence of such beauty
exposed on surfaces attached to their walls. I mess with
things that most consider ephemeral anyway, random
fluid edges defining amorphous entities and virtual environs.
But now I am moving into more serious messing with
the forces of our cohesive existence as social beings, as
I begin to create using not colorful ephemera but a medium
that is at the very center of our civility — words. They have
more meaning and power being the essence of our
thoughts that govern our conscious and subconscious.
This is some heavy shit man. I mean I could actually expose the
brilliant demon that lurks just below this thin skin of sanity I’ve felt
forced to retain. My thoughts painted as purple blobs flowing into
sharp-edged red polygons, punctuated by brilliant green shards
are seen as merely an artist’s play, hung safely on the wall behind
the couch. But words expressed in a similar fashion — that’s
something else. These creations could really do something more
serious, good or bad. That excites me and makes me wonder why
I have avoided this medium all these years. It matters not in fact
since there is only the present and I choose to make it filled with light
and let others interpret as they choose, my words and images
to enlighten or frighten, to love or to leave. My world, love it or heave it.
Immediately I see the other side, mine as creator, writer;
my responsibilities and the burdens I must carry to just get into
that frame of mind where simile and meaning mix and blend as layers of
color and light, where names and places are eluded to and defined
but the readers mind is the stage, the wall on which they hang
until their own winds blow them off to shatter into seeds for their own gestation.
So I’m glad I didn’t grope around for that paper and pen this
morning at first light, when the cat was scratching the chairs and bed,
mocking birds and doves sang their springtime songs and my thoughts
were just beginning to lay themselves out in the red glow of dawn
on my eyelids closed with the loving weight of pre-waking bliss. Glad
I let them settle into that fertile soil and fester, rot and burst on their own.