solstice

snow covered the trees and headstones
in an old cemetery where time
became both present and past;
the winds whispered through pines
as souls of the dead passed by
unnoticed.
they are amongst the winds;
the heavens escape our moment.

it was the day of the year's renewal
where silence of long winter’s nights
breaks only momentarily
allowing dreams to subside
into the few waking hours
where we enter into the search
for an understanding of the circle
of the life-death continuum.

candles illuminate the night,
the wood of the floor reflecting
flames, flickering and dancing
in hope for a quick ending
to winter’s long night.
the flute and guitar
warm the soul with each note;
death holds the illusion
and life presents the solemnity.

but, the graveyard holds only silence
in this day of renewal.
in the midst of the headstones and graves,
where the snows blanket
the iniquities of the land,
and our souls chase those within the winds
searching for tomorrow. 

the evergreens outside
and inside the house
give us hope in the renewal of time.

-- EjG / 2005

------------------------------------

And both Solomon and the Scribe walked among the graves days before the winter’s solstice.

“Do you see the beauty of the graveyard?” asked Solomon.

“I do

“Where?”

“I see it in the trees, the snow, the clouds, the scurrying animals and the gravestones. When you cannot see the beauty in these things then life is at its end”

“Merry Christmas and warm solstice to you,” said Solomon. “May you find warmth and understanding upon this day of renewal.

“And to you, as well,” stated the Scribe.

A man by the name of Icarus introduced himself to them, he was the keeper of the dead, the sexton. The three of them prayed for silence solemnity, and peace in the coming time. Winter’s passage is nothing more than a sexton letting the souls be free, which is all Solomon and the Scribe searched for.

“Come with us, Icarus,” asked the Solomon.

Icarus hugged both Solomon and the Scribe, placed his responsibilities upon the ground, and left with the two. 

Life cannot be found within the headstones; nor can death be found within life.

One Lane Through Trees

The poet must decide if bird cries are cries of ecstasy or cries of despair. - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

-----------------------------------------

One Lane Through Trees

Sometimes the road is silent,
trees lining its perimeter.
And I look in my rear view mirror,
for her,
for where tomorrow has gone,
but imagining she is here.

Sometimes the road is silent,
bringing forth only dust,
and this truck carries me on.

There is an abyss to life
we do not know,
comprehend,
nor understand.

And I have lost my reality...

EjG

Untitled

Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven. Stairway to Heaven; Led Zeppelin

Untitled…

…there are twists to time,
she’s gone,
the essence of love
fades into twilight…

…this generation knows not
the love it has lost,
yet it seeks
the paths to heaven…

…the forevermore
offers little hope
to the damned
and the paranoid…

…yet her silence says everything,
while a chasm separates
the unity once existing,
echoes persist…

..there are twists to time,
this generation knows not
the forevermore,
yet her silence says everything…

…our souls are high.
the silent, the faithful,
and the cherished
know this…

EjG

Raw

There's a silence surrounding me
I can't seem to think straight
I'll sit in the corner
No one can bother me
I think I should speak now
I can't speak now
My words won't come out right...Keep Talking; Pink Floyd

-----------------------------------

Raw

Tonight I thought I would try to just place thoughts upon the page without major editing. So here goes...

My poetry seems to have taken over recently. I am trying to paint a picture, but not sure what that picture should be in the end. This is dangerous. You are always lost if you never know your destination, but sometimes being lost is the only way to find out who you are.

I ponder each word in my poems, to see if they are what belong on the page. As does the painter, as she drips color onto a canvas to show the world what she sees, even if it is skewed from the way most see reality. Art makes you question what we know.

Poetry makes you question what you know. I know I said poetry is my way of painting a picture. But, that may not be the entire story. Poetry is really my exploration into the intersection of language and thought. It is an exploration into the psyche for an attempt at drawing the reality I see and perceive.

That's it, I think, the reality I see and perceive. Because each of our realities are different, who is to say that my poetic explanation does not do some justification to what I think, feel, and experience. The mind is not simplistic thought; at least not mine. There is a complex machination of thoughts that intertwine to make a logical picture of abstract concepts.

For example, I cannot simply state that I love her. Rather, I have to explain the myriad of thoughts and feelings that surround my being as I tell her I love her. She sleeps among the night songs, to which I seek her sensuality. She is my soul. My existence. My song. My being.

And, the roses I give her are not just red. They are silky petals that offer a sensuous perfume within the vaginal bud, as the thorns remind us that there is a hurt that underlies the sustenance of this beauty. This flower offers no forgiveness nor emptiness.

That, my dear friends, is reality.

Furthermore, I cannot simply state that my generation wasted its existence on frivolous crap. It got high on materialism. But, to state it bluntly foregoes the complexity how this materialistic high caused many to overlook what is important; the generation focused solely on the triteness of a secular existence. It also takes away the imagination you bring to the poem as you read. Shape your own thoughts from the ideas spawned through the abstractness of a piece; it's all right to do so.

So, I may not have utilized this medium for the manner it was designed. It may have not been designed for poetry. I may push out too many poems. I may actually be too abstract at points.

At the end of the day, however, poetry is one way I can express what I perceive our world and existence to be. A complex machination of thought that places this generation into a deficit of attention.

The wind rustled the leaves and I picked roses. They can be red, pink, yellow, and white. You already had a color in mind when I mentioned them. Let your imagination tell you which color it was, not me.

Dream and explore...EjG

Continuum

The sweet smell of a great sorrow lies over the land
Plumes of smoke rise and merge into the leaden sky
A man lies and dreams of green fields and rivers
But awakens to a morning with no reason for waking. Sorrow; Pink Floyd

-----------------------------------------

Continuum
My generation got high
to experience elements
of the continuum.

It was both beautiful
and serene.

But, our minds
became a wasteland
for the triteness of reality.

So, into the forevermore
we stared,
searching
for the magnitude
of understanding,
only to realize
the latitude
of our awareness
was stifled
by limits of space,
mythology,
and thought.

But we stumbled
upon our own feet
while pondering
the greatness of nothing;
intelligence
sometimes opens a door
to an abyss.

Silence,
echoes,
and laughter
haunt the soul
in the presence
of solemnity.

The damned
cry out in fear,
and my generation
gnashed its teeth
in sorrow
as it circled dreams
into a brothel
of misnomers.

The Celtic circle
spins its desire
onto our peasants.

Yet, we blew our brains
onto the streets;
only to allow the vagrants
a chance to supersede
our misfortunes.

The circle has no end.
Infinity has no beginning.
Reality has no dreams.

And my generation
is no longer high.

We can no longer breathe,
nor can we contemplate
the philosophies
of yesterday.

A madness and an echo persists…

She knows only her generation;
the symbiotic understanding
between our souls
is lost in a reality
of the here and now.

Blessed are the damned;
the forevermore offers a hope
and an understanding
only the simple minded
can comprehend.

We define our existence by heaven
and the fear of hell…

The damned, stand in silence. – EjG

------------------------

Solomon asked the scribe, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, what are a thousand words worth?”

To which the Scribe replied, “A thousand words are worth a nanosecond of heaven. The musician, the poet, and the philosopher know this all too well.”

And Solomon replied, “I have written a thousand words, have I yet drawn a picture?”

To which the Scribe noted, “You have drawn what needs to be drawn. The mind comprehends nothing more than the reality it perceives in the here and now.”

“And that is knowledge, a picture?” asked Solomon.

“No, that’s understanding. Many have knowledge; few have understanding.” noted the Scribe.

With that said, the heavens opened and we cleansed ourselves within the early fall rains.

“Where will we be in the time of the rapture?” I asked.

Neither the Scribe nor Solomon knew the answer.

And at that we wept.

I think it was closing in on midnight about then.

Sunday Silence

There was a great silence and a sadness that covered the land.

And though I never knew anyone there, nor had I ever seen the Twin Towers in-person, I still hid the tears from my family as I silently wept while the family members read the names of those who died. A loss we all must remember, even if we never personally knew nor experienced the vibrance of these people and these structures.

May God give this world peace one day, and bless the souls and the families suffering from this tragedy.

As for today, September 11, I treasure my family even more.EjG

seductress dance

"Mythology, philosophy, and theology all intertwine to define our dreams and our reality." Solomon
---------------------------------------------

seductress dance

time is only a measurement
between the vastness of dimensions,
there are no deviations
nor derivations
from the parallels
of our universe.

the expanse of constellations
places madness
within the minds of philosophers;
and the nakedness
of autumn trees
lends credibility
to the finiteness of time.

the seductress dances
amongst her gods (a fire burns),
and the exquisiteness of life
becomes lost between the here
and the forever.

her sensuality leads us
to the sins of adam
and a realization
that the soul and the flesh
have no symbiosis.

nor does heaven and earth.

her seductiveness is nothing more
than a partition of souls;

a dyad of then and now… EjG

Fresh Blueberries

Find the answers, ask the questions
Find the roots of an ancient tree
Take me dancing, take me singing
I'll ride on till the moon meets the sea
Loreena McKennitt; Night Ride Across the Caucasus

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fresh Blueberries

In amongst the blueberry bushes
philosophies dance within the mind;
as birds sing to their mates
and the winds make the leaves dance.
Our existence is defined only
by that which our hands can make;
and our lovers comfort us in silence
as we cry in fear from society.
The light dances in the flames
and our souls chase the sunset
only to discover that what is real
tends to be the imagination beyond
our philosophies,
and religion appears as a dream to the masses
while understanding illuminates
the few that choose to look
beyond the limitations of our presence.

EjG
--------------------------

There stands a row of blueberry bushes beyond my barn. In their midst I stand and pick the fruits while contemplating various thoughts within the silence of the countryside.

Thoughts of two unique experiences this week fill my mind as I quietly place the berries within my basket tonight: biking with a good friend and lunch with another long-time friend.

Biking took my friend and I into the State lands of Michigan; someplace outside of reality and society. She and I traveled in parallel amongst the trail. We spoke of life, trivialities, philosophies, and wonderment. And, sometimes, we spoke of nothing.

There is a symbiosis in our understanding that friendship and life are short and fragile; we both treat it in different degrees of respect and appreciation.

We are both looking for something more; something beyond here. There is much more beyond the limitations of central Michigan; and we both inherently know this, as we have both lived beyond the stifling confinement of the present.

She knows this. My wife knows this, And, I know this.

So she speaks eloquently of her travels; her experiences within the Canadian Rockies; the people she meets along the way. Her knowledge and love for life transcends beyond any limitations. That, in itself, deserves respect.

And I? Well, I can speak on the southern hills of Kentucky and Tennessee, my travels to the American Rockies, and my desires to take my family beyond the limits of Michigan. But, my depth is superseded by my fears. The crossroads are taking me beyond.

Now, today, I spoke with another friend over lunch—amongst body order ridden hip-bees of Freeland in a half-assed Italian restaurant—about literature, bikes, life, work, religion, and philosophies. He took my thoughts further beyond my bike trip.

A computer geek by trade, he told me today that he wished he could rid himself of technology and become a furniture maker. I think he will rid himself of technology and chase what is important in life; the satiation of the soul. There is something to be said about the fruits of labor of the hands.

You take away from those you meet and know that which would like to incorporate within your soul. Both of these acquaintances have traits and knowledge I wish to possess, not covet, but possess.

But there is something beyond all this. As I pick these berries, I realize there is a pure simplicity to life that transcends all the non-essential crap we deal with. Within my hand I hold blueberries, they feed you and treat your palate with nature’s sweetness.

My garden, just beyond, shows where the truth in existence may lie. A man without a home and land to grow fruits and vegetables is a man that relies on another. There is no sense in wrapping your being and soul in something that offers you nothing more than short-term successes and praise.

The mountains offer majesty and sustenance to the eco-system. Its glory is in its simplicity, as are the fruits on my blueberry bushes and the vegetables within my garden.

“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.”

Dudley Dee

Morning Fog

“We live in a world with wars, oil spills, pollution and rapid deforestation. Our generation is feeling the effects of global warming. And here in Kamloops, a handful of kids are building a few jumps and catching rides uphill. Is that really so bad?” Bike magazine; May 2005.

------------------------------------------------------------

My words are sporadic. My thoughts, scattered. Sometimes it is hard to step outside my front door. Life is a circle; day into night. Year into year. The rain drops make circles within the puddles, they are simple. And yet I bury my head in my hands when I try to comprehend infinity. Dudley Dee

---------------------------------------

Morning Fog

It was that moment in time
when a tranquility
passed over the earth
stilling the madness
into silence.

Apocalyptic winds
sent us to the hills.
But, it was in these very hills
we all discovered
the trivialities of the beast
and the madness
our souls generated
from greed and hatred.

We were all wrong.

And our separate gods came together,
as we all held a piece of knowledge,
to an understanding
of who our God is;
and we once fought wars
over the derivations of our understanding.

In the end the truth becomes known.
The silences passes
between the ubiquity of night
and day.

The poet,
the artist,
the dreamer,
the farmer,
and the blacksmith,
all knew the answer.
The others
did not,
and they cried into the night.

Simplicity,
the Celtic dance offers nothing more
than tranquility
in the midst of the morning fog
of summer. EjG

----------

And Solomon asked the scribe, “What do you say is beautiful?”

To which the Scribe replied, “A mother’s love, a father’s guidance, a summer rain, and all that comes forth from the earth. That is what is beautiful.”

So Solomon further asked, “What do you say is necessity?”

And the Scribe answered, “Air, water, food, art, and God. Our body is sustained on air, water, and food. Our soul is sustained on God and art.”

And at that they prayed over their meal.

The mountains outside the window stood in a majestic silence.

montani semper liberi

-----------

Dudley Dee

Requiem

We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That’s the way that lady luck dances
Roll the bones.
Neil Peart; taken from Roll the Bones

-----------------------------------------------------------

Requiem

Tonight I tried to write, but nothing came.
The silence of madness plagues the soul
as it continues to search for tomorrow.

And these words,
written here,
are not what I wanted on the page.

Why can’t I pour my soul
upon the page?
Is the soul’s complexity so great
the simplicity of words
cannot explain it?
I think not,
yet I cannot express
my inner most thoughts.

So I think of her,
of you
of them,
of me,
of us,
of today,
of yesterday,
of what was,
of what could have been,
and of what is not.

Solomon tells me nothing.

Are these pains in my chest fear
or the precursor of death?
Is this numbness in my mind insanity
or the instability of madness?
Is this sweat upon my face fear
or just a rendition of my insanity?

I think I am afraid to truly open
the door to my soul.

The fire dances among the logs tonight;
as the night air penetrates my senses.

My soul dances amongst the demons;
of which my grandfather once knew.
His photograph haunts me.

Our souls can no longer escape this existence.
And our souls are mixed with our grandparent’s;
their demons haunt us all.

Tonight’s damnation is nothing more
than the simplicity of the forevermore.

Requiem. – EjG

-----------------------------------------

This past weekend I realized I am not who I pretend to be; anxiety demeans the soul. I am not a worldly man; nor am I an overly educated, sophisticated man. I am of simple mind; of simple pleasures.

I can speak on the love of a guitar, the intrigue of language, the simplicity of the garden, and the beauty of the trail. I can even speak somewhat on poetry. But, I relegate myself to insignificance and focus on the triteness of my imperfections when in the presence of others. No more.

My crossroads.

I want to be a farmer, a poet, and writer of songs. A simple man; a respected man.

My crossroads, they’re taking me back to simplicity. – EjG

-------------------

Dudley Dee

The beautiful and the cherished

Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of the lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

-------------------------------------------------------------

The beautiful and the cherished

What is beautiful;
and what is not.

What is cherished;
and what is not.

She sleeps.

It is dawn of night,
when soft rains
cleanse the earth,
the trees,
and the soul.

Breathe, my dear maiden
breathe.

There is no difference
between the beautiful
and the cherished
when grandeur of night
is celebrated
among terms
of sexuality,
sensuality,
and endearment.

Her breast becomes my life.
Succulence.

Her body becomes my passion
Serendipity.

Thunder echoes,
once more,
through the forest,
as I breathe in the night air.
It is midnight.

She sleeps
among the night songs
to which I seek
her sensuality.
She is my soul.
My existence.
My song.
My being.

And her body lies
in sweet state
of my endless
desire.

A poet expresses this within written word.
A musician expresses this within music.
And a dreamer expresses this within thought.

And, in my soul
I am a poet,
a musician,
and a dreamer.

But, the night only offers silence,
soothing rains,
And a solemnity of her existence.

Kiss me, my dear,
the moon offers no consolation,
and the night
offers no repentance,
if the lovers dance no more
in the midst of the thunder
and rain.

Listen…

there is a soliloquy
playing among the
saints,
gods,
and the blessed.

See us no more,
lest we laugh in the face
of the moon,
stars,
and sun.

She is my silence.

My silence.

Our souls dance in the midst
of night winds.

Yes,
the night winds,
my dear,
the night winds,
they call us…

silence -- EjG

-----------------------------------------

our voices echo in silence
our souls dance in unison
and our heads are filled with the madness
of infinity
may we dance to infinity. Solomon

--------------------

My wife is both beautiful and cherished. EjG

----------

Dudley Dee

Confessions

And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good—
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
Taken from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig.
---------------

The following is written in similar style to some of Jorie Graham’s poems in The End of Beauty. My metamorphosis.

------------------------
Confessions

1
There comes a point when you are faced with three options: suicide, mediocrity, or change. We all dismiss two of those options. Which are they?

2
My angel holds on for the soliloquy. Sing, my lady, sing, into the night winds. Operetta. Where is she? The violin plays softly into the sunset.

3
Suicide and mediocrity are virtually the same. Redemption is only man’s terminology; damnation is the demarcation between heaven and hell. Phaedrus and Solomon see it…

4
Relieve me, dear Solomon, of this madness. Relieve me of this incessant madness; to which I call for God, challenge my God, question our normality, and celebrate the winter solstice.

5
The winter solstice, it encapsulates the soul. Breathe in the breath of the dawn’s fair maiden, she knows no redemption (semantics). Brevity, the definition of man’s time, of which the soul knows no end and the conscience knows no lies.

6
Amidst white pines I smell the mountains. They call me, the mountains, dear Phaedrus, they call me. My soul searches for them; mediocrity nor suicide have caught my soul. Not yet, at least.

7
I fear death, but more from the perspective of damnation. My iniquities are my damnation, may my soul rest one day. The soliloquy continues…

8
At some point all love is lost. The dawn no longer offers a horizon for tomorrow, and paradise is an illusion for the artists, dreamers, and poets.

9
Do you not hear me? Our souls search for the evermore, and yet we negate the premise that damnation lies within the ignorance of our being. Silence encompasses us.

10
The simplicity of our silence stifles us. Our mediocrity kills us. And we can longer see beyond tomorrow, because today limits our imaginations.

11
There is no reality. All I see is black, all I hear is silence, and all I comprehend is my reality. We are all illusions.

12
Confessions. They tell nothing, and yet they tell everything. A dyadic anomaly. EjG

----------------------------------

Without a thought
Without a voice
Without a soul
Don’t let me die here
There must be something more
Bring me to life.
Taken from Bring Me To Life, Evanescence

-------------------------------------------------

Dudley Dee

Alive

----------------------------

By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
Socrates; as referenced in A Father’s Book of Wisdom; H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

--------------------------------

I have a good wife, but that was not always the case. EjG

----------------------------------------

There comes a point when one can no longer hold their tongue. And that time is tonight.

It’s amazing how bitter one soul can be. How miserable it must be to have daily bitterness, hatred, and paranoia. A shallow existence to which there is no fruitful outcome.

You never truly part in divorce when there are children. But, to dwell in hatred of perceived inequalities does nothing more then provide a futile existence. Let it go.

Her hatred comes straight from hell, and this evening, the devil incarnate itself spewed forth its sharp tongue. Amidst the statue of the Virgin Mary at my son’s school, she expressed profanity and proclaimed the hatred my son has for me. He does not.

But, he does have sadness. She cannot see this, nor is willing to tend to his expressions. Rather, she satiates her insecurities with madness and fear.

The wickedness of jealousy does nothing more than feed her demons. And yet the tragedy is the emptiness and pain my son must feel.

Though there would be some cathartic pleasure by continuing to write stories on this nonsense, I do not wish to take up much more space than this with her madness. Nor do I plan to waste my time further on her futility.

Turns out the gold at the end of the rainbow was fools gold. Infidelity and jealousy were her fools gold.

Yet, she is determined to make my son, my wife, my family, and me pay for her sins and sadness.

The more I try to piece together sensibility, the more illogical some souls come to be.

What a waste of life, time, and space she is...

--------------------------

Alive

Alive, but still searching for tomorrow.
Alive, yet running from today.
His imagination becomes his friend,
and his enemy.
He seeks the evermore,
while seeking you, seeking me,
seeking them, seeking us,
seeking the sunset, and seeking the rain.
The child cries for absolution,
absolution from this insanity.
You can hear it in the rains,
in the night,
in the echoes,
and in the silence.
Over and over,
he cries in the night.
He cries for relief
from her madness,
this insanity,
and she negotiates (negates) his existence.
So he seeks the freedom of his soul,
the freedom of his mind,
and yet only finds the echoes,
the deafening echoes,
Of silence.
He cries sanctuary. EjG

-------------

I now hold my tongue on this subject once more.

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.” Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

-------------------
Dudley Dee

Celebrations of Mediocrity

---------------------
I may hear a sound
A whisper sacred & profound
But turn my head
Indifferent
Taken from I May Know The Word, Natalie Merchant
---------------------------------------

Celebrations of Mediocrity

This country road
seems to never end,
as houses and trees
pass by without reason.
Time slips past,
where’s the logic?
And yet we find ourselves
celebrating the triteness
of mediocrity.
Celebrating,
to the point
where mediocrity
is exulted,
individuality
is treated as a sin,
and tomorrow
is today,
yet once more.
Circle,
the drum beats on.
Day turns into night,
And our fears
Overcome our sensibility.
The conversation stops
once more. EjG
-----------
Dudley Dee

Celtic Wind Song

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don’t like your tragic sighs
as if your god has passed you by
well
hey Fool
that’s your deception.
Your angels speak with jilted tongue
the serpent’s tale has come undone
you have no
strength to squander.
Taken from Ice; Sarah McLachlan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Celtic Wind Song

The wind haunts my soul
as it passes silently though my window,
it is spring.
And the night songs offer no forgiveness
As evening solitude passes tranquility
while I contemplate my iniquities.
Can my God forgive me?
The wind
whispers silence and sadness,
and a Celtic wind song
sings of death and sadness.
There comes a time
when the soul,
search
though it might,
cannot retrieve
that which it has lost.
And the open window
allows my breath to pass
between the silence of lips,
which are no longer
able to speak
of truth, wisdom, and solemnity.
My angel sings her truth,
and tonight
she whispers silence among us.
But, the distance between our souls
seeks out tomorrow’s finality,
a deafening madness persists.
The wind tells no lies.
The silence tells no joy.
And the damned stand in silence. EjG
--------------
Dudley Dee

Hemispheres

May you be forty years in heaven
Before the devil knows you’re dead!
--Irish Toast

------------------------------

Tonight the nocturnal winds whisper silence between the hemispheres of existence: life and death converge.

And to that end, time sadly catches the soul. Oh how I fear the hour of my passing, and yet, pray for the serenity of the everafter. The winds show no mercy.

An old barn sits stoically outside my back window. Grey clouds shroud its existence, as does the whispers of the early spring wind. Naked trees, harboring life within them, etch the sky while their limbs bend with the whims of the wind’s solace and grace.

There seems to be a Celtic essence about.

It is difficult to describe this essence, just as it is difficult to describe infinity. Where did time begin and where does it end? How can heaven be boundless, yet there is an entry point? Can there really be an infinity, or are we lost in some undiscovered fallacy of logic?

The Celtic essence, it is in the mountains. They call my soul, relentlessly. The barren peaks of emptiness celebrate the serenity and simplicity of existence. It is where you discover God, discover your soul, and relinquish your madness. You cannot discover these in the emptiness of Michigan.

It is in the mountains that the hemispheres of existence become apparent and distinct; reality is only a temporary delusion. The search continues. Death becomes apparent.

I fear death.

It frightens me because I cannot see beyond my years. The darkness of this abyss encompasses me to the point that what seems like limitlessness, in reality, is nothing more than a cloak of finality.

Yet, my soul continues to roam. It is in my bike, it is in my guitar, it is in my poetry, it is in my books, and it is in my philosophy. Maybe it’s Solomon. But, the madness continues to plague me because the search continues in secular futility.

The mountains call to me for a passage of last rites. They bring me beyond the futility of secularism, allowing my soul to roam. At which point madness becomes the standard, and the fear of death is embraced.

The purity of the mountains bridge beyond the shallowness of my existence.

An echo persists…

EjG

-------------------

The piper’s calling you to join him
Dear lady can you hear the wind blow
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.
--Stairway to Heaven; Led Zeppelin

-------------------

Solomon asked the scribe, “Do you fear death?”

The scribe shook his head yes.

“As do I,” said Solomon. “As do I.”

And at that the scribe cried.

--------------------

Dudley Dee

Said Solomon...

“Infinite dreams I can’t deny them, infinity is hard to comprehend…”
Taken from Infinite Dreams; Iron Maiden.
-------------
…Somehow
The earth moves in grandeur,
Yet, I cannot step over the rain puddle
Outside my front door.
Taken from Concentric Images of Reality; EjG
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Said Solomon to the scribe, “show me your definition of infinity, and I will show you the limitations of your brain that trivializes incomprehension down to a miniscule thought of completeness. You cannot show, nor fully describe, infinity.”

And the scribe said, “infinity is nothing but a theoretical concept set forth by man’s god. The universe has an end, it has to, as it is expanding. In order to expand, you have to have an end. This cannot be infinity.”

“Man’s god?” shouted Solomon. “Man can no more describe God, as he can describe air. They both exist, unable to see either does not disprove their existence. The contents of a vacuum and a balloon are identical in appearance, and yet you cannot see either of them.”

“And yet one has substance and the other does not,” noted the scribe.

Solomon went on, “Religion is a philosophy, we all hold a piece of understanding to this philosophy. We all hold onto a piece of the puzzle that defines existence as we know it. At the intersection of all theological debate comes truth and understanding.”

At this the scribe became irritated, “You closed-minded, educated fool, you are avoiding the concept of infinity. Your theological dissertations on God and theology do not prove infinity. The universe has an end, as I said, it is expanding. It is finite, though in a broader sense than we have come to understand.”

“Yes, as you stated, it is expanding, but into what?” said Solomon, questioning as a professor should question. “There has to be an emptiness, a void, for the universe to expand. It is expanding into infinity, and infinity has no limits, nothing. If the universe could not expand, I could accept your arguments, but this is not the case. There is a vastness, an infinity, into which all enter.”

Solomon went on to explain, “The limitlessness of infinity drives madness into the sane, as they spew inane attempts of explanation. You cannot explain the endlessness of time, the limitlessness of numbers, nor can you explain infinity.”

The scribe, noting frustrations, exclaimed, “There is a philosophical component of logic that notes that ‘to explain what something is, is to explain what it is not.’ I can explain what infinity is not. Do you disagree that I can explain what it is not?”

“No, I do not disagree,” said Solomon.

“Exactly,” stated the scribe, “death teaches us where a piece of time ends, a cave teaches us the limits space can have imposed upon it, eternal love dies, and the scientists have both theorized and calculated the end of the universe. These are all ends, of which infinity cannot have. So, knowing these, I know they are not infinity, therefore, the opposite is what infinity can be. The opposite has described what infinity is by what it is not.”

“And yet your examples are trite, and infinity is anything but trite,” said Solomon. “I can tell you that a tree is not water, but I have done no more to explain the tree, than I have done to disprove water. We are not arguing over the existence of infinity, but rather the ability to explain it so mankind can conceptualize. We cannot, which is what drives the madness to the sane.”

“Infinity reaches beyond the universe,” Solomon further explained. “It describes the heavens, it describes our philosophy, it examines our limitations, and it exposes us for the fools we are.”

And at that, they both sat and stared at each other in silence. The impasse was not only deafening, but futile. EjG

-------

Dudley Dee

The Road

The road is nothing
but a dream now.
And I wake
to the silence
of morning,
and a curiosity
of today’s reality.
There is nothing
but mindless drivel
of wasted discussions
from a period
of waking hours
that should have been spent
chasing the end of the rainbow,
chasing God,
and chasing the sunset.

EjG

Kerouac...he didn't mention Saginaw

Not sure if I’ve lost my tongue. It has been over a week since I first began this project, and I already lost my words. Oh, they’re floating around in my head in non-systematic orders of confusion, but I lost the ability to harness them. At least for a while. Here it goes, once again…

---

I really dislike Saginaw. That’s not a revelation to anyone who knows me. The whole area is stifling, at points. Though I should not cast blame for my loss of words, I do think it’s this area. People are often shallow here, they have to be, in order to survive.

Midwestern sensibility combined with no frills sense of being. Good people, we Midwesterners are, but we’re boring. God-fearing, hard workers that see no reason to waste time on the arts and frivolities of free expression.

And I am struggling with this boredom. Overcoming the monotony of late winter/early spring is a mind draining experimentation in self-reliant psychotherapy. It’s early April, so the seasons go back and forth between winter and spring.

So, I grabbed last month’s edition of Bike magazine off the coffee table and read about Virgin, Utah; thumbing through some other articles as well.

Guess it’s a search for something beyond here. A search beyond the monotony of flat land, beyond people without the sense of individuality, beyond the knuckle-dragging kids who are too afraid to leave home for fear they’d be less then their pitiful existence is today.

I miss Kentucky, I miss Tennessee, and I miss Colorado. Bike, it made me think beyond here, biking does this.

Mountain biking offers you a chance to become one with a machine, and nature. It offers you a chance to experience love and fear. It takes you beyond the comfort of normalcy.

Becoming one with the machine is knowing how you handle it, and how it handles you. Unless you ride, this may not make sense. Most Midwesterners cannot understand this. My bike is a part of me when I ride. So much so that I fear replacing my friend of 14-plus years (that’s over 140 people years).

It’s a no frills, no suspension, Trek that has taken me through the single tracks in several states, down the Rockies, through the Midwest ravines, and along the Gulf shoreline (the salt and sand really mess with the drivetrain). But, its simplicity is its beauty and intrigue. It’s like Willie Nelson’s or Stevie Ray Vaughn’s guitar: beaten, old, true, and yet a part of them. My bike is a part of me when on the trail.

Now the purists would degrade this machine, overlooking its purpose, that purpose being to connect my soul to nature. Not by taming the trails with high speeds and daring jumps (though I like a bit of speed periodically), but by allowing me to experience the trail, the beauty, and the serenity. We can at least obtain serenity in this part of the country.

Maybe you can’t in Saginaw proper, but what city can you find serenity within? I have no love for cities. Respect and fear, yes, but not love. They engulf your soul, they enhance the Mega Mart mentality, they force conformity, and they fuel the struggle for power.

So tonight, amidst cool temperatures, I opened my front window to let both the night air and the night sounds within.

Secretly, I think it was to let my soul roam for a bit.

It searches for God, poetry, the understanding of philosophy, nature, the trail, and the bike that allows you to chase all the above.

When your soul is restless, there is only so much time you can quell it’s freedom. My wife longs for California, and I for Colorado. Interestingly enough, neither of us longs for Saginaw. Only Simon and Garfunkel wrote seriously of Saginaw; and they were leaving it.

The trail calls me, the bike calls me, the water calls me. Crossroads: “the road less traveled” calls my soul. And, it puts “A Little Mud on the Tires.”

Kerouac’s Book of Blues, partially read, sits by my side, as does this month’s edition of Bike, not yet read. I’m searching for Kerouac's San Francisco (fear and respect, not love), searching for the mountains, and searching for my soul.

Delusions of a nomad never seeks out forgiveness, only truth, silence, and serenity. EjG

Country Song

Country Song
The road, it travels into infinity,
and I long to seek out its end.
There are so many ways to travel home,
yet I lost the path to get there.
Country song,
the melody signifies the

The crossroads...the beginning

I once read a book called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The author, whether knowingly or not, challenged the reader to question their own reality. And I did.

It was not long after reading this that I left a job and a state (and my wife eventually left me, making this a country song) to find something better. That something better came along. Both personally and professionally.

However, I think that piece of my life has now ended, and I am back on the search again. Not saying I am leaving this part of my life, nor the elements of it, because I am not. But, the results of that search have completed. It is time for a new search. Trouble is, I am not sure what it is I need to find, nor do I fully know what it is I have lost.

The things I do know that I have lost are my creativity, my spontaneity, my philosophy, and my writing. The culmination of these lost pieces of my being probably is my search. However, it's the loss of my writing, of which I probably miss the most, that has caused me to lose the other aspects of my life.

So here it is, the beginning, a new endeavor, to write once more. To challenge what is in my mind; to challenge what is in my soul; to examine the crossroads.

I am bridging to my new writing project from a poem I wrote several years past. Not because it is one of my stronger pieces, but because of the meaning it has to this search.

Clouds
I looked
through the clouds.
One eye
saw the sun,
the other
was blind.
One eye
saw tomorrow,
the other
saw the bitter end.
The fear,
yet the anticipation.
The end,
yet the beginning.
And I looked
through the clouds
once more
and there was hope.
One eye
saw the sun.
The other
saw the brilliance.

I'm seeking out the brilliance. Yes, that is what I am looking to discover. The brilliance...EjG