Cold like hibernation

Grey like smoke

Quiet like blackness

Braced with a gulls bark

Wind like warmth

Earth like the storage of everything

Questions like barbs

And answers like lies

Maybe the world wakes up

Or maybe it’s just me

It can be hard, sometimes

When all around are suffering.

It makes me want to suffer.

It makes me want to give up.

It makes me feel like suffering

is the water to my fish.

But it’s not.

To feel badly about something

Simply identifies it for you,

something to look at.

It’s not necessary to then

suffer, because you feel bad,

to celebrate, encourage and enroll

others in feeling bad too.

Today in our culture

feeling badly is considered a virtue,

a necessity, a responsibility,

an expectation.

If you don’t feel badly today,

you are not considered human.

And so, this competition of feeling badly,

of making sure you feel the worst

of promoting your bad feelings

with the gusto and vigor and effectiveness

of Madison Avenue.

What a world.

What a time to be alive,

face to face with the true evil

(if there is such a thing, it is here)

and confront it directly, with love

and only love.

There are few warriors

but there are warriors

And our numbers grow as

first world suffering spreads

like a wild fire

and it will burn like a wild fire,

Hot and fast and it will raise

everything in it’s path

it will destroy everything on the surface

and we will be back to fundamentals

And reminded, for those who are left sane and alive,

of the joy of the world and of living,

Because suffering, like we do, is only

The dried grass and dead trees of life

And joy is the root.

Suffering the way we do is an indication of our health and our disease.

Life is correcting itself.

The meek will inherit the Earth.

Are you the meek?

Or are you dried grass and dead trees?

I don’t kill flies,

If I can help it.

But it’s hard,

To help it.

I think they exist, the flies

To test me

And the image I have of myself

Of a loving, caring, non violent man.

But when the fly lands on me

I’m Lord of The Flies

Savage and grinning destruction

Of life

Righteous destruction

I avenge the assault

On my comfort

And dare the worst of

God’s creatures

To come around me.

I am the Lord of Crushing

Flies.

That’s why I try to help it.

Fall rain

And liquor

Smiling, I don’t know

Is beauty a mistake

The result of preference

I can’t get the girl

Because I don’t really want to

I’m a little bit blue.

It’s not the money

It the time

Or the absence of the rhyme

I’m good not knowing what

I should do

I’m a little bit blue

There’s no one here

Foggy windshield, radio, rain

There’s no one here

And I don’t mind

I’m writing from me to you

Will you read it, what will you say,

I’m a little bit blue.

Are you right, about your hate

Are you correct about your fear

Can you believe your certainty

And trust your indignation

Is your righteousness infallible

Or does it just feel that way.

Are you willing to bet the life

of your son

on the infallibility of your righteousness.

If not, what are you willing to do?

What are you willing to give up

Who are you willing to give up

What part of yourself are you willing to give up

For your hatred and fury

What are you willing to give up

Who are you willing to give up

For your fury and hatred.

And

What if you are wrong.

A little boy fishes

Through the tackle box

Small, new hands

Big, new mind

He cares for the tools

Because they intimidate him

And he watches

Because he wants to know

Tackle box and rod

“No fish tonight, dad”

And up he goes

It’s everything.