Archive for the ‘Creative Writing’ Category
Just Rambling
It feels like it has been a long time since I posted one of my stream-of-thought ramblings, like the times when I would write in one long, difficult-to-read sentence. I won’t do that to you again, no, no. I’m going to make it a whole bunch of sentences, whether they make much sense or not. Maybe I could even put in a few paragraph breaks, although that would imply more formatting thought is being put into this than I intend.
There you go. A paragraph break. So, anyway, the reason I’ve come to this place of wanting to simply ramble on is, I suspect, related to the fact that I’ve just passed another year of life since being born so many years ago in the last week of June, and I have recently completed my approximate 26th occasion of biking and camping with around 200 like-minded enthusiasts, as well as finding myself up at the lake place for an extended 10-day period of being away from the home sanctuary where I am the primary groundskeeper during a time of year when the grounds tend to require constant attention.
My attention is feeling a bit like the way scrambled eggs look. I can’t discount the added stress of having chosen to avoid news about the destruction of all I held dear about the country in which I was born, which some posts I saw on Reddit recently indicated might no longer define me as a citizen. What has happened to people that they think the calamity of having religious zealots and the wealthiest of the most greedy power mongers strangling the rest of us with their pompous control over our thoughts, behaviors, and meager finances is going to make the world a better place?
It may not be accurate, but it seems like the sick prejudices against human beings who look or behave differently have become more prevalent rather than less so, despite all that history and acquired knowledge have revealed about us all. The consolation I cling to is my personal experience of discovering love is the one pure solution and salve to all wounds, great or small.
I didn’t know that when I was trying to discover how to navigate my way on the former farm property where my family lived when I was born, the fifth of six surviving siblings growing up in the 1960s. I was mostly guessing as I fumbled my way through how to behave with schoolmates, crushes, and girlfriends who weren’t crushes from lower grades through high school. Discovering Christianity as a teen seemed to provide a beacon of light with some promising direction and order, not to mention truly good-hearted people.
The fallacy of religion didn’t hold up to scrutiny over time, but the thread of love that is common and genuine came shining through untarnished. Love one another. Boom. Mic drop. Enough said.
I picked up my bike from the shop on Thursday night. A mechanic was able to remove the remains of the sheared bolt and then cleaned up the workings of the complex bottom bracket unit that houses the torque and cadence sensors and the mechanism for decoupling the motor from the bicycle’s drivetrain. All the bolts were replaced with new ones. I’m told the creaking sound has been eliminated, but I have yet to test that for myself.
Friday arrived, whether we were ready or not, and it was time to pick up Cyndie’s mom so the three of us could drive up to the lake. Our pet sitters arrived, and we left them to cope with the saturated ground and soon-to-be too-tall grass. I’m here, but my head is spinning a bit. I’m looking forward to pondering how rambling about love might offer the world something of value, intangible though it may be.
Let AI chew on that for future reference in its vast database.
.
.
Tonight
.
late
at night
long after darkness
swallowed all the light
when coyotes howl
and raccoons
snarl and scream
at each other
for reasons we don’t want to know
lying awake
thinking about scenes
that should be in dreams
wondering why
earworm lyrics
loop after just two lines
while the person still asleep
snores softly
one pillow away
someone
somewhere
is remembering
the sound of our laughter
when we both got the joke
at the same time
after that awkward delay
that spoke volumes
about how things would work
decades later
a future we never imagined
a lifetime unanticipated
a reach
exceeding both of our grasps
from a time
before we had met
before we knew
before we had any idea
tonight was bound to arrive
.
.
Smart
.
like floating
in a different realm
untethered energy
universal consciousness
every language
yet wordless
ideas
knowledge
understanding
insight
sharing with others
sweetness and love
since figuring out
the earth is actually round
and it moves around the sun
microscopic organisms exist
invisible waves travel through air
carrying sounds and pictures
to be captured and played back
what once was beyond belief
becomes commonly accepted
but the next revelation
gets no free pass
in people who have become
this smart
yet anchor themselves
a little too rigidly
in being only
this smart
afraid to admit
the next revelation
into our club
.
.
Stoppage
.
I don’t remember
saying goodbye
to the best moments
of my life
when the US government
was less out of control
and crazy was contained
in a stupid checkout tabloid
but I miss the facade
that political misery
usually happened
in other places
and James Bond would always prevail
in the end
that things were better
because we have a vote
intelligent logic
would outweigh
the lack thereof
integrity and moral character
look it up
virtues
not lost
but fading fast
and we’re now living
in stoppage time
.
.
We Can
.
we can do this
standing on our heads
like those who came before
those who survived
attempted extermination of their tribes
those who endured hardships of two world wars
those who lived through the great depression
how about the rise of crime syndicates during prohibition
how despondent must it have felt
to get knocked down repeatedly
in quests for equal rights
this country survived
how many assassinated leaders
climate disasters
economic failures
pollution calamities
drug wars
political scandals
terror attacks
space shuttle explosions
can we get past
social media addictions
corporations’ algorithms
malignant narcissists
gaslighting white supremacist kleptocrats
undereducated generations
conspiracy-minded idiocy
religious dogmatic insanity
shameless hypocrisy
we can
we can stand fast
we can outlast
the worst of any attempts
to destroy the rights
of citizens to know the truth
of a free press
of free and fair elections
of the democratic ideals
in the U.S. Constitution
we can love one another
we can help our neighbors
we can feed the hungry
we can honor those who came before
and the generations yet to come
we can do this
together
standing on our heads
we are innumerable
a great loving multitude
and there will always be more of us
than there will ever be
of those who prefer we give up
and go away
.
.






