For Candy, family and friends

Today a most formidable man
passed away.
The most formidable. 
Why is everything 
so merciless?
Why are we endowed with
such tremendous capacity 
for grief?
Why are the most ecstatic feelings 
so deeply intertwined with 
heartbreak?
How can one man 
be this important?
To so many.
To you.
And to someone 
as barren as me. 
If I add up the total amount 
of hours
that we actually spent together 
I will hardly get to 20. 
But from the first instant 
I knew. 
And the next hours 
only confirmed it. 
I had been touched 
by an energy beyond the range of others.
One of those very few people 
in a generation 
capable of transcending 
the barriers 
the prejudice 
the pettiness 
of us humans. 
Someone you instantly trust 
with your life.
Someone you instantly share 
your weakness with 
knowing you will not be betrayed. 
Someone who captures 
the essence of life, love and togetherness
better than most. 
Someone that has felt 
the way we are all connected 
and interdependent 
for his entire life. 
To whom it was the most natural 
of feelings. 
Who could make 
and help you 
forgive yourself. 
And make you feel like 
you truly want to change 
the somber thoughts you carry.
You have loosened the roots 
of my bitterness. 
And have given me the strength 
to pull them. 
One day at a time. 
But steadfast. 
What stronger beacon 
can anyone wish for?
But the one that emanates 
from the heart and soul of a laughter 
like yours. 
I will miss the hugs from a man 
that had enough love to inspire us all. 
To bring us closer together. 
And to show us a true spirituality 
that is only seen in those that understand 
the underlying balance.
Far, far greater than any word or gesture 
or life. 
We are all eternal 
but some lead the way. 
It’s great to see you, Terry. 
Without the delay of time zones. 
Without the distance of continents. 
Without any obstacles.

How people change

Their ideals
their dispositions
their minds
their opinions
their general outlook on things
the way they address people
at what times they drink their coffee
how they blink their eyes.
One day they are wide open
the next they close up completely.
They feel like they have to do it.
As a means of protection.
Categorically.
Drawing a line.
Setting a perimeter.
Fencing off
their own lack of
feeling.
Or the surplus of it.
That’s how people cope
with the unyielding progress
of change.
All the things we see
have already happened
since we see them only
as they reflect their light on a surface.
We see only the echo of what happened
after it happened.
The now
as we perceive it
is not even now
it comes to us from back when.
But too late.
Sounds are the same.
Feelings are the same.
They are a mere resonance
or replies to echoes.
Effects
not happenings.
It’s a strange thing to recognize
that we are only manifested
by a feedback from the past. 
We can never be here
by blending in with the outside world.
The now is only inside
in that part
where no impulse ever penetrates.
But there it is perpetual.
People don’t change.
They suffer change
and think they have a say in it.

Because I’m plain stupid

Sometimes you’ll do things

that you shouldn’t
but mostly
you don’t do
the things you should.
I once read that
we may not be
at the source of our faults
but we actually might very well be
the source of our frustrations.
They dangle at the end of
a chain of events
a path of half-chance choices
that we don’t make
when we were supposed to.
We go neither way
and that is always maddening.
It seems harsh
but everything is
an ‘either way’-moment.
A sharp edge
with steep slopes on both sides.
And we know we should pick a side.
But the prospect
of sliding down either side
is daunting.
So our solution is
that we prefer to overlook them.
A slip of the mind
becomes a slip of the soul.
We balance our way onwards
on the rim of the volcano.
Not living by fire
nor by transformation.
We take the safe route
that leads back to this same point.
In circles.
Long
tedious
circles.

The resistance

I was looking out the window
this morning
from the kitchen at the office.
Staring into the little open space
between buildings.
Smack in the middle of the city.
And I could only think:
this is not the life I want.
Far from it.
This is a substandard compromise.
This is too far away
from the place I wanted to end up.
And worse
it doesn’t seem like I’m going to that place
anytime soon
or ever.
I refuse to believe
that it’s the way of life.
That the only way to live
a balanced life, is
to live a prescribed life.
I don’t want the fears that were so
carefully instilled or
surgically inserted
by the ruling mechanisms
to actually govern my choices.
Society is nothing
without the excess of individuality.
Without divergence.
Don’t let anyone make you feel
less about yourself
only because you stray
from the path of average.
This was only outlined to serve
a purpose that is not yours.
While you are working your hard
and stressful
and mostly meaningless hours
on the job
only to keep yourself
and your family alive
for 80 odd years
someone else is getting
filthy rich.
And I mean
disturbingly so.
I don’t see what is fair
about that.
Or why this should be accepted
for the greater good.
Maybe this is the kind of social hierarchy
that will be considered
as barbaric in the future.
Much like we now look at
slavery, racism and genocide.
But then again
our official disdain for such matters
has not stop us from practicing
yet.
Things get juggled and rephrased
to better fit the administrative patois.
But nothing is truly abolished.
Should you one day decide
to leave your office
for good,
a variant of this thought
might linger at the bottom of it.
Why comply?
It is in every way
a good resolution.

The springs are not misconstrued

Everything breathes.
So do our elations
and desolations.
They recycle the energy
and find ways of seeping back into our life.
Without foreboding,
they reappear.
And so does the range of emotions
that accompanied them before.
Like they were imprinted
on your soul
forever.
As if nothing ever happened
in between.
But something did.
The coarse edges of time
shaved off some of your resistance.
Like a glacier inching forward.
Sanding you down to a smooth surface.
Dying in its course.
Carving and melting away.
Leaving you dry
and digested.

Change is the fabric of time
on its path to deconstruction.
We are the remains of the process.
The relics of refinement
of a structure in the making.
We are the deposits of adaptation.
The items that couldn’t make the cut.
This makes us
dead set against transformation.
Our reluctance has become
a second nature.

That is why we feel inadequate.
We were never meant to be
anything more than
leftovers.

Bust the union

It is really cold
isn’t it.
Some one percent 
is hauling it in. 
The rest dangles 
from the trees. 
Hanging out to dry 
or something. 
No stranger than 
southern fruit. 
No different from it. 
As color is no longer 
a discriminating component 
in this here dusk. 
This is all of 
an unprecedented blackness. 
The new weight 
is ownership. 
The heavier you are 
the harder to hang. 
Everybody has bought into it 
for the promise of a chance 
at the title.
This is a clever arrangement 
with a huge contingency of failure 
and an even larger circle of collateral. 
They will take it all 
and blame you for being 
so stupid and careless. 
For signing the contract. 
It almost seems devised 
to serve the purpose 
of scraping the flesh 
off the bones. 
Every single acquisition 
gets lost to the method. 
The family land too. 
You’d expect it to be normal 
for a human to work 
reasonable hours, 
buy a minimum 
of healthy foods, 
a minimal wardrobe 
and in the course of, 
let’s say 25 years, 
pay off a loan on a house. 
So that he would own it 
eventually 
and have at least 
some financial security 
for those days that no longer allow him 
to do the work anymore. 
This would demand 
a combination of 
fair wages for his work 
and fair markets of 
consumer goods, 
commodities 
and real estate. 
It doesn’t seem 
as if that one percent 
will be giving anything up 
anytime soon. 
It doesn’t seem 
as if those ninety-nine percent 
will be understanding 
anytime soon
that there is 
no chance 
at the title 
for them. 
There is no place 
you can look 
that isn’t 
either perished 
or infected. 
I think that is the most depressing thing. 
I think that is 
unworthy. 
Humanity 
as a system 
hasn’t worked yet. 
And by the looks of it 
it never will. 
On average, 
nobility is futile 
and love doesn’t stick. 
And I feel like 
a repulsive parasite 
for my faculty 
to even say this. 
We all have 
a disemboweled potential 
that excuses us from 
any real concern. 
Oh mercy me. 
And mercy on us all.