There Is No Mystery In Simple History

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icebox
Member Elite

since 2003-05-03

Posts 4383
in the shadows

0 posted 2004-10-09 11:09 PM

Like anyone who stays alive,
I am getting older
and I find the winds are getting colder,
blowing each day
bolder through the windows of my soul.
I have begun to realize
the memories on silent flicker,
back behind my eyes,
often drip with harsh emotions
I should have felt before,
before I realized I might live,
back when I'd take more
than I had to give,
back when I thought
the world was just a cosmic warehouse store
and that my credit
had a line that ran forever.

When I was nineteen,
in between contracts
for what I thought was honest work,
I rode a '55 panhead
hand painted yellow,
red,
then green,
finally purple sheen,
on the road I was fire
leather
sinew and razor mean;
life was just a carnival,
though I'd seen more than most my age,
and having learned survival well
I lived as clean as possible,
whenever I was where what passed for family
lived inside their shell.

My life had been hard
but not as hard as some;
I had come a long way
from the shelf of superficial civility
that had sheltered me,
until about the ripe old age of nine.
I learned real magic wasn't just a spell,
reality's boundaries formed by living
and capable of shifting
well within the range of random expectations;
this is today sometimes called
the chaos theory of physics.
On reflection I was doing well
on my own,
having learned to slip between the cracks
in other people's desperately contrived
over stressed concrete realities.

I was free
as long as I'd remember,
I was property and would cooperate
with blue serge suits,
not tempt fate by being cute
or by insisting I could walk away anytime I chose.
I was close to going under when I realized
all I needed was to play their game
exactly as I had been taught;
I realized I could with care
turn their dreams to naught,
and tear their world asunder.
That light,
that prime awareness,
was a real epiphany,
a thing of wonder;
all I had to do
was help them understand
I could catch the sleeping world’s attention
then make the world remember,
and so in that far away September
I was free to walk away.
I walk freely still today,
trying to repay the karmic debt I’m under.

©2004 by icebox

James_A_Fraser
Senior Member

since 2003-09-03

Posts 972
Out Making Anticlines

1 posted 2004-10-10 12:08 PM

All of which may (or may not) beg one simple question....

~~J

Martie

Moderator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-09-21

Posts 28049
California

2 posted 2004-10-10 12:17 PM

icebox

Not simple at all, your life.

"I learned real magic wasn't just a spell,
reality's boundaries formed by living
and capable of shifting
well within the range of random expectations;"

Intriguing, the things you knew when you were so young.  As for the karmic debt, I have a feeling that you repay it well.

It seems you may have found some degree of peace, or at least understanding, now that you are older.  I hope so.

Alicat
Member Elite

since 1999-05-23

Posts 4094
Coastal Texas

3 posted 2004-10-10 12:47 PM

I really liked this one, so deep and insightful, with a moral intertwined. Those karmic debts do weigh heavy at times, knowing, as the speaker in this piece has, that all things will and must balance in the end, that there is always a bill to pay after the fiddler lays down his bow at the end of our dance.

Stylistically, the internal and external rhymes and near-rhymes gave this a very Beat feel, flowing with liquid coolness when spoken aloud.

Roniece Dawson-Bruce
Member Ascendant

since 2000-01-29

Posts 5689
Sydney, Australia

4 posted 2004-10-10 02:20 AM

thanks for sharing a piece of your life with us - again an inspirational read

I think karma definitely surrounds our lives - it's about balance, living and loving and I think you do all of these and more very very well Bello!

Roniece Dawson-Bruce

inkedgoddess
Member Rara Avis

since 2002-11-19

Posts 7392
Ohio

5 posted 2004-10-10 11:44 PM

i guess no one really leaves this life
unscathed afterall, tho the charmed life
is hard to give up when its your time to
dance.
cool write

Pilgrimage
Member Elite

since 2001-12-04

Posts 3945
Texas, USA

6 posted 2004-10-11 04:32 PM

I love the rhymes and roundabouts in this one. Nicely done.

Nan (Pilgrim variety)

passing shadows
Member Empyrean

since 1999-08-26

Posts 45577
displaced

7 posted 2004-10-11 07:13 PM

I suppose one of the good things is that we get to leave eventually

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