“Hydrant Philosophies” - circa 1998

“Hydrant Philosophies”

Women strutting in business
apparel; scurrying to an unmarked
destination of distant youth.

Dogs taking time to smell the roses
like no human can and redefining
the scent as they curiously slow down.

A moment of opportunity seizes me
overcome with city life and defective
thought, inspired by inescapable
literature. Trembling with shame
transforming. I see me 5 years ago-
unrecognizable.

Asserting myself, the voice of a shattered
lass speaks through my mouth
whispering wintry madness and lies-
I scream inside the canyon beyond my
ears- wishing desperately to be set free.

I wonder “where is Stephen?”
Creativity followed him everywhere
like a nervous tick. I latched on
for the wild ride, but alas, I fell
tumbling to the pavement when
we turned the corner.

My body quite jarred
by the whole experience. I process
and progress
to whatever adventures lye ahead.

The ebb of people brush back
against the edge of the sidewalk
as colors change and technology
is a tyrant to humanity.
“What hasn’t been done?”
Racking my brain-
convention has romanced me
and I am momentarily stunned
in its love. “Set yourself free”
“Set yourself free”- I’m talking and
I’m out there, physically eating the
shackles which locked me to insanity
for ever.

I turn inward, water unmistakably
condensing in my eye balls
feeling torn between comfort
and sobriety- subtlety-silently
engaging in dialogue with a young
me who I silenced long before I
knew she was right. Here I am
a product of every not so perfect
choice that perpetuated my myth
of perfection.

I ramble and rage with burning
emptiness - dying to be filled with
faith self-worth and reliance- knowing
that I can lean without falling-
stand without you- a future
promised never to exist- spawned
from unknowledge- sex with
the most intimate stranger of all-
myself- unrecognizable
in the mirror
which feign the unreal.
I know that I no longer can romp
in the Garden.
But do I even want to?

Spring has been conceived
and the life that once was
mortal and finding its resting
place among new thoughts
and Platonic fantasies of myself,
The Philosopher King
or the president void of conspiracy;
smile in one and a deceit in a bag
of gags. I know the world
of manifestation. Call her Aphrodite,
but wedded strangely enough with --
with Dionysus? Can that be a truth?

My leafs turn with anger as my hand
composes classical wrath and fury
silenced by knowing and invoked
by ignorance; a life too ordinary
not to stand out. I turn myself
outward again to observe as I
crawl back into the womb of the city
dark and yet filled with understanding.
-too black for shadows
only enlightenment

My 26 mile run of inspiration
feels infinite this morning
despite responsibility beckoning
my presence. The ideas must be awakened
perhaps kissed by a frog
who knows tomorrow’s wisdom
only I have no desire to learn
‘till tomorrow.

Do I blink? Stutter? Laugh uneasily
with maniacal remembrance? Cry
yet another acid tear tearing my
emotions into a ragdoll of faithless
envy? What? Who do I turn to when
what worked before doesn’t make the
cut anymore? Am I not human?

Once professing brilliance
I confess my severe lack
of crude revelation
cruel knowledge
emptied from books
and into my wonderful world of Oz-
where all men hide behind curtains
and dreams go unidentifiable.

Perceiving purple as an idea.
Rummaging through the unconscious
looking through the stage curtains
to the audience- performing my crisis
into an unreasonable drama-
living so much of life
in a melodramatic nightmare
at times, but such bliss
in even those moments-
Divinity
I bleed divinity.

Pushing the loose sand
off the top of my courage
awaking to Constance
consistency-stability
I don’t believe that’s my path either.

Caressing a tired me
somehow out of body
separate personalities- duality
I observe me like a distant lover
critical and shy to approach
the quintessential you,
but it’s me.

Do I measure up to the facade
created by the unnamable me?
To understand me?
For me?
A foreigner to the reflection
mirrored in the pond
stagnant and untrusting.

Moving into the flow of action
on the street, I contemplate
Marx, Aristotle and Freud
Government and gender-
I don’t know that these things
make me a better person,
it just complicates my simplicity
and destroys my idealism,
cynicism prevails
and I learn my greatest lessons
from experience not conventional knowledge