Unwilling Sleep

It is still early, but my eyes are already weary, flickering with the final throes of zeal to bid you goodnight. Enough, enough of standing beneath a dripping icicle, of wading like a featherless duck in a bloodstream of false hope. Enough of scaling a slippery mountain with tattered moccasins, scrutinising the elusive northern star. Sooner would I take the plunge that we are too frightened, but nonetheless burn with desire to speak of. O summit, O venerable pinnacle where eternal fires burn, O happiness, would you melt the lenses of my impoverishment, that the finishing line may appear nearer to my sight? A wild beast retains its esteem by virtue of its inextinguishable passion, majestically expressed with the thrust of a claw, the heat of an intense embrace! How then is this present reflection vindicated? Shatter, glass, into a million pieces, that I may imagine the reflected body suffers the same. A stallion gallops for muddy waters, strident with the knowledge of what may satisfy its thirst. Yet a contrite spirit can only slither for what it can barely fathom as tomorrow...and dare to call it love, joy, hope and strength. Its only certainty...one laceration upon another, an unwanted joyride on the ferris wheel of samsara. Scream loudly if you dare, buffoon! The shell is far too hard, whoever you feel so much for, will simply depart. Pop goes the weasel, louder still your heart.

Dwarf

Dwarf picks up his pen with a forlorn countenance, for he is forced to dream again. Within the next four months, he will have to swipe the dust off a forgotten manuscript, and position his illusory cuboid into an unfitting sphere of reality. Four months...each day as torturous as the one before. What motivation can this be, a demanding price to pay for a potential temporary relief of Dwarf's dessicated spirit? And where to muster the resources to pay it? Not from the drying tip of his quill, nor from his dwindling coffers. Dwarf might while the days away, musing about the comedy of chasing after and glueing together fragmented pieces from the tomes of knowledge. Or even better, flinging laughable pieces of stones at the Goliath of his destiny, while other contemporaries and superiors effortlessly realise the same dream. Ultimately though, nothing probably matters, for that indeterminate spring of renewal in his heart, Chief creator of all processes anew, will eventually whirl him unto another arena of mortal combat.

Choosing the Gemstone

An unnerving profession, but one that I was compelled to undertake as the gunnysack was tossed in my direction. Faced with the task of looting the spoils from our tireless quest, will our eyes glimmer only at the sight of polished gemstones? Where has your original love gone for all things filthy and unrefined? A tender disgust fills me as I visualise my own soul licking algae off the cesspools of a twisted life. Oh, which gems do I collect, which paths do I tread? Does genuine spirituality embrace companionship and laughter, amidst occasional trickles of gut-wrenching blood? Or should I perpetually adorn myself with the sombre hood of presuppositonalist inquiry, through which irresistable love somehow still gropes its way? Surely I cannot exist forever, no matter how nutritious the algae can be. Yet if I knock and fondle and appraise the gemstones too hard, how then can I deal with my grief, when the demons of time, of rationality, of the cruel truth, eventually decide to reveal the cracks??

A Quarter of a Century Ago

A quarter of a century ago, which accursed villians navigated under these stars; the same stars that foretell the birth of an abomination? How their little sails must have flapped with the most tasteless irony, how their every swing and flutter sketch prophesies into the salty night air. The coming of one whose parlance is excessive and unsavoury! One who purloins the accessories of others! One who is enchanted by the carcass of a waylaid lizard! One who confounds and bamboozles himself with obtruse creeds and philosophies! One who vainly commands the spirits of the ouija, and eventually doubles over in mockery! Inopportune as it is, nothing has ever reversed the runes carved into celestial tablets. Thus, while a hapless parent longs for the manger, it was at a hospital instead, that our abomination was ejected from her womb, his shrill cries of devastation leaving an indelible mindprint....for how many more quarter centuries to come?

For Want Of

For want of companionship, we sacrifice our individuality. For want of security, we crush the ailing spirit of adventure. For want of happiness, we desensitize ourselves to the gentle carress of melancholy. For want of health and wealth, we turn away from the aroma of spirituality that drifts wistfully past our nostrils. Never can we root ourselves firmly on the zenith of authentic existence, restraining our tentacles from tincturing the forbidden fruits of desire. Then again, what authenticity is there to speak of, if no man has yet trodden there! Make a desperate plea to the strongest tenets of existentialism...or swivel in the intoxicating bottomlesness of one endless illusion after another. Feverish exhortations deserve no less a feverish response, peace will I experience if I know that the throbbing vibes in my head do not come to nothing after all.

Road Accidents

It is one matter when we congregate once every year, painting our jaded faces red and white, wildly waving our flags and feverishly making proclaimations of loyalty to our dwelling place. In the heat of the moment you might even mistaken your passion for a genuine brotherly or sisterly affection for the individual jumping next to you. It is quite another matter, however, to realise that when a fellow countryman, a fellow vessel of the blood of humanity lies devastated and wrecked on the side of the road, victim of unfortunate circumstances, bodily tissues and fluids oozing out of every pore, lungs perforated and cranium exposed, that some of us simply pause, emit an eerily laconic scoff, shrug a pair of guiltless shoulders, and drive on. In such moments the values upon which we are ostensibly grounded, the fundamental ethical sense that is assumed to abide in every human being, becomes a laughing stock, mercifully veiled behind the unforgiving public eye by a bloodstained cloth atop the purity of white, crescent and stars perhaps a mournful indication that night has fallen upon the beautiful conscience of our land.

Dreams and reality

Dreams always play the gentleman to the vindictive demoness called Reality, shadowing her every motion, ever lingering in her presence, yet never taking the bold stride forward, never parading the unreserved glory it so shamefully hides. Hence this courtship of asymmetry, two condemned lovers expelling each other to the furthest ends of the tundra wastelands. Which incarnation would you elect to possess your consciousness? Do you cherish the role of the pursuer, groping your way through the dust and wake of an unfeeling quarry? Do you idealise a universe of figments and shadows? Or do you reenact the solid and stolid, rehearse the parts of the stoic, and flutter beneath bright neon lights, flickering without but smothering within, waltzing with our fearsome demoness? Allow the choice to convict the deepest recesses of your heart. For inasmuch as night is separated from day, likewise must we root ourselves firmly on either side of the fence. Against this unholy romance, there is surely no defense.