biological initiative

Guilt.
Fear.
Anger.
...meet the men that rule the world.

They are so deeply entrenched in our primordial DNA that we don't have much chance fighting them hand.to.hand. We don't stand a chance trying to reason with them. They are part and parcel of our early evolutionary iterations and cannot, unfortunately, just be convinced away, out of their cozy first.class cabins, just over from Fight and Flight.

Instead of bashing skulls with our troglodytic instincts, we must boldly craft internal alternatives, related to the original instincts only in their completely antonymical qualities.

Of all the natural world, humans are the Kings and Queens of the Pendulum Swing. We have contradicted ourselves in almost every way possible, thereby adding to (and not destroying, as so many fear) our species' complexity and consequent ability to adapt. It is time, while we have a chance, to Step Up and Save Ourselves, to willfully shape our evolutionary progress. We must, without any dependence on outside forces, learn to Hope where we have feared, to acknowledge Joy where we have before seen only anger, and to holyholy most important replace our hideborne guilt with openarmed and openminded Love.

These changes require us to be active in our species' progress.
They require us to take initiative, take the first step, take a second to look around with open eyes and say, "What we've been doing for the last aeon hasn't worked, has given us ulcers, and has made us suspicious of anything that has tried to help us. We need Something Else."
This new evolution demands that we look at our current path with an unflinching eye toward its past and future misery, that we look at the possibilities before us and are open to their opportunities, and that we effectively say, "Ah, what the hell? What's it gonna hurt to not be frightened and pissed off, for a change?"
We need to plunge headlong, with the determination of centuries of our forebears, directly into the path of Something Better.

All the evil in our world is based upon perceptions rooted in Guilt, Fear, and Anger. While our countries' powerful may still believe themselves bound by these invectives (and even President Obama is talking continued militarism), we here at the Low End have got the leeway to make our lives, our leaders, our loves...Different.

We are not bound by pretension and protocol.

We are bound only by our biological initiative to survive.

Guilt, Fear, and Anger are no longer tools we need.
They are antiquated.
Backward.
Obtuse.

We need Hope, Joy, and Love.
We need em like we need fresh air.
Like we need sunshine.
Like we need real food.
Like we need to Live.

Shifty-Eyed Gustav

Okay, I'm starting to get a little nervous.
I can feel the atmospheric changes getting started.
Temperature's dropped from sweltering to "I need a long-sleeved shirt."
This does not look like it's veering westward.
It's headed right for us, which, for reasons I've stated before,
does not necessarily mean we're in for it.

Me and Otter, I mean.
Here.
In our specific abode.
Surrounded by 200+ year old brick, several feet thick,
here on the second and third storeys, above the carriageway,
with a generator,
propane and charcoal setups for afterstorm cooking,
with two refrigerators worth of food for ourselves +.
With gobs of water and plenty for the kitties.
I'm starting to really worry about everyone else that's still in town for Gustav.
I'm starting to get a little anxious about the aftermath.

Not so worried about the storm, really.

But the aftermath....



...Please don't let there be too many dead people.

Please don't let these beautiful people lose what they have left,
the birthright crafted so perfectly,
so magically,
from their own blood and history.




...please?

Wait.

I listen for your truck in the street outside our bedroom.
I wait for your footsteps
on the sidewalk,
the stairs,
the porch.
Wait for the crashing tiny tinkle of our front door's bells;
Wait for your keys & wallet & skull beads to impact the countertop tile;
To hear you in the toilet before bed, top hat set carefully aside.
I wait to hear moving air stop
as you walk between
the high-speed fan & our subtropic bed;
Wait for the metal-on-metal of your belt buckle releasing, of your pants hitting the floor,
The fabricskinfriction of shirt pulling over your head,
buttons & all.
I wait for your weight, trying not to wake me, as it shifts & shimmers in beside me.
I wait, anticipate your whiskertickle & soft lip-to-cheek whisper
"I love you"
before I let go & let sleep finally take me.

and galumphing and galorpfing in his tallshipwaders
he took my wordmaps to his long tweed pocket
_____
and i know those books his fingers read
and i felt the telling of his head
and i heard a little something in his voice.
_____
the thing, i felt, was distance
-not an esoteric kind,
but a long away voice of tracks once "v" now "1"
a voice with something in it that is
Gone.
_____
and i smelt of snow on mountains
and grew moss in my joined places
and earth was soft and damp to me
and warm lap whispered
"Go"
_____
stop too long the earth rejects me
home is heart and little else:
i am meant for motion
_____
i'm meant for many things
many things
far obscured
wondrous
unstill
lightninbug chances
_____
i'm meant for many things still, i suppose.

nightwriting.

In the interests of wresting my creative life back outta the hands of my beloved devil weed, I'm nightwriting again. Fumbling for flashlight and pen, scribbling just outside of vision, trying like hell not to edit not to edit not to edit.

To clarify, the devil weed doesn't kill my creativity. It actually allows me a convenient means of changing perspective, especially when I'm angry, frustrated, homicidal, and having a difficult time seeing any point of focus but my own...which is much more often than I care to admit. Unfortunately, it also changes my perspective on, say, just how much time I've spent taking in as opposed to putting out.
Creatively.

Ahem.

Keep an eye out for nightwritings.
They'll be a little closer to the nebulous bone centers.