Moonlit Notes Floating About

The moon sleeps above as the jazz player wails
Through the night and into the stars the notes send
Feelings and fears, loves and hates, but most of all a soul
A soul which is simply trying to escape
Escape this world

And on a balcony overlooking the sea, a woman stands
And with tears in her eyes she looks up above
Wanting to see
Something which is unseen to her, but she stares still

But the night moves on, and the world still turns, and the stars begin to fade
Into daylight, sunlight, human light
And the jazz singer still plays on
In the memories of those whose hearts and ears and eyes were touched
With notes of love and soul and hate and fate

And the moon has given way to the sun in the sky
And still all life goes by
Goes by
Goes by

posted by Pacer 12/27/2002

Saturday, December 14, 2002

Writers

We writers
We are the lesser artists
We are of the lesser art
We tie together our dreams and hopes
Our loves and losses
With strings of awkward letters
We paint our skies and landscapes
With words instead of colors
And we shape our feelings out of the images of the alphabet
We are the failures of the ears, of the eyes, and of the hands
And, the only place left, was the mind

posted by Pacer 12/14/2002

Friday, December 13, 2002

into the Darkness in Searching for Light

The thud thud my shoes make accompany me as I descend down into the bowels of the educational system of the world
And it is in this comfort that I steel my reserve and hold my head up high, if for but a second or two
And I stride down the stairs as they twist around and around and around
Pillars of knowledge, two deep for any one man to know
And it is then that I recall Borges' Library

I stop at a landing and gather my thoughts
My wit
My mind, doing its own little dance in a thousand rooms of thoughts
And it is space, not time, which I am acutely aware of
For the hours may go by slowly, or quickly, or not at all for me
I never see them, anyhow. They are in a dream

So I begin again, and down and down and down I go
Stopping to study only, nothing more -- no eating nor drinking nor sleeping
The staircase winds down into the abyss of knowledge,
Inky black like a night's sky with the clouds blotting out the stars and the light of mankind, of any kind, far distant, far away
But I shall journey on until I can journey no more
And so forth and so on and anon anon anon

She cries to me, trying to draw me back out of the abyss,
Back out into the light of freedom, of time, of non-intellectual pursuit
With brazier here, and string panties their, my thoughts waver beyond compare
With the great minds of those who came before, into this abyss, this river Styx, impending their own doom like nails on a wooden door in Wittenberg
But down I kept going, not even looking back, only pausing for breath, exhaling to let go
Of life and love and being so I might become something
Beyond the knowledge of man, and into the knowledge of all
And down I went, into the inky blackness

Tripsing over the traipsing words of fallen foes and comrades alike I went down
Stepping over the bodies of those who came before, standing on their heads so that I might not go up
But, rather, down
And down, in a winding descent into the depths of madness and genius and sense of senses and the rest
So that I might know it, the words, and feel them, have them heard through the mind's eye of peculiar thought and anxiety
Without all those secular proprieties
Without those distractions, without that society

But I descend still, to this day, locked away in a room with a book in my hand
And I can not stand
Still
Or write as I feel, or know what I feel, for all I have is a sense of loss and need to gain
Back something I tore away in an attempt for fame
But not really fame, only in my own mind
All I know is that, somehow, it is something I must find
Somewhere, down here, in this inky black abyss
Somewhere, down here, knowledge of life does, does, does exist

posted by Pacer 12/13/2002

Variations On A Sign

This morning Ants.
We found in our
Very messy kitchen.
The Cleaning staff was left.
To clean!! Please clean up.
After yourself.

-- Anonymous

This morning Ants
We found. In our
Very messy kitchen
The Cleaning staff was left.
To clean!! Please clean up.
After yourself.

-- Anonymous

This morning: Ants
We found. In our
Very messy kitchen.
The Cleaning staff was. Left
To clean!! Please clean. Up
After yourself.

-- Anonymous

This morning Ants
We found in our
Very messy kitchen.
The Cleaning staff was left
To clean!! Please clean up
After yourself.

-- Anonymous

posted by Pacer 12/13/2002