December 14, 2013 · 2:23 pm

Falling

He stepped to the edge, paused for 78 years, and then leaning forward, fell, off the cliff.

Below him, thousands of meters below, angled and jagged like the Alps, peaks, points, and particularized pro-frontal promontories rose to meet him; prior plans, past promenades and particularly attractive pouts, pips, pants and pie charts, familiar all, shot upward to meet him.

Falling fast, he looked to the sky above — nothing — then glanced down again at his fall. The jutting razor-sharp edges below were nearer now, and they seemed to be knifing up towards him as if alive, coming at him now like vicious sets of teeth, gnashing the air he would soon fall into and pass through.

He extended his arms, he closed his eyes, he relaxed his body, and swan-diving, he opened, and fell fast now, symmetrically, cutting through the hissing air, and then — as if his feet had exploded with fire — his trajectory altered, and he swooped, back up, began to ascend, and suddenly as if powered up, he rocketed back the way he’d fallen, shooting skyward like a small bottle rocket, flying upward now like a great space craft, charged now like a superman, he put his hands together in front of him and disappeared into the universe.

Leave a comment

Filed under Spirituality

Tagged as , , , , , ,

November 11, 2013 · 5:57 pm

Death Loses Again!

He ran his wheelbarrow down the center of the freeway.

It was night. Someone screamed, the barrow swerved, a body landed in it, and then the black-hooded, scythe-in-hand, fist-raised figure holding the handles laughed and disappeared, and then again was there and everywhere, on a million highways at once.

“What the hell? It was what today?”

“146,357.”

“Average, so madly average. I hate average!”

“Were on track. I’d say 50 to 60 million again this year. Heart disease is stable. Cancer is good, a real producer.”

“But we put out this week! I expected more!  Ah, we need something new, like tobacco. Love tobacco! So freakin’ effective.”

“Stop whining and get back out there! The guppies are winning!”

“Shut up!”

“Grass is winning!”

“No! Quiet!”

“Seeds are winning!”

“You better quit! I can’t take this from you!”

“Butterfly eggs — beating the crap out of you!”

“Stop it! Stop it!”

“One step ahead of the grim reaper … ever the exultant sower!”

And then all hell broke loose as the empty, dark hooded, machete wielding figures went at each other, in haste, frothing and sweating and cursing. And while they fought, seeds sprang from the soil and burst into flower, creatures from eggs sprang forth, flying and singing and praising, and babies — blushing, skin as soft as fluff — took their first triumphant breathes in a warm, watered, food-filled, life-washed world.

 

 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Death

Tagged as , , , , , ,

November 6, 2013 · 3:08 pm

Better!

“I’m done,” she said, “Get rid of him!”

“I don’t think so angel,” he said, “It’s too hot out there.”

“What, are you going to wait until he destroys something here?” she replied.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said.”It involves a saw — but no small pieces.”

The next day he was out back, with a sawzall, hooked up to an eight inch blade with big teeth. There was some screaming, bit of sawing, and some digging, and some more sawing.

He came back in the house.

“What?” she said.

“Done!” he answered.

“I don’t see a body,” she said looking out back.

“I cut off his legs,” he said.

“Hum,” she wondered, “Do you think that will do it?”

“Next week,” he said, ” I hired a guy to take off his head.”

“Who do you think you are, God?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” he said, “and anyway, he’ll still have a trunk.”

“Freakin’ Ficus!” she said.

“Like men,” he mused, “better pruned!”

Leave a comment

Filed under Reform

Tagged as , , , , , ,

October 23, 2013 · 8:27 pm

Click-a-Clique

Once upon a time there was a fin-a-kin. People joined. It wealthified. It shotted high into the sky-a-thon.

But, as things went along, the onlookers, the friends and the families of the devotathons developed concernifications, and eventually, as people are wank to do, they got together to mussify about it.

“What is this bunk-a-bank,” the concernicated asked each other.

“It’s a cult-a-bolt,” wanked one concernicant.

“No, it’s a clan-a-fan?” wuzzled another.

“I’ve seen this before,” another wombatted, “It’s a sect-a-fek.”

“Stuff-enough-unlike-us,” glocked another.

“What do we do?” someone funked.

A loud voice yezzled from the back, “Let’s get all the clique-a-miks to join it!”

“How will that help?” someone wonkered.

A fuzzle in the back yonked, “They’ll ruin it!”

“Holy shebang!’ snoozled the whole grock, “Click-a-clique!”

Leave a comment

Filed under Mindsets

Tagged as , , , , ,

October 14, 2013 · 8:37 pm

The Boy Who Ate a Bus

When he was only four years old he ate a box, and then went around sorting everything. His mother didn’t like it, and told him to eat his vegetables.

When he was ten, he ate a bicycle. It tasted good. At night he had dreams of going fast.

When he was fourteen, his mother took him into her bedroom and made him eat an improvised explosive device. She swore him to tell no one. He told no one.

When he was sixteen he ate a school bus. It was empty; it took a while. Afterward he thought about a career helping people.

When he was twenty-one his father made him eat a squirrel. After that he was prone to spite, very much like his father.

Then both of his parents died, of cancer. He inherited money, and a house.

When he was twenty-eight, he completed a Masters degree in sociology.

At thirty he was engaged to be married. It fell apart; he broke it off. Then he made several bad financial decisions and lost all of the money he had inherited from his father.

At thirty-two, with not prospects in sight for family or career, he concluded that he was a failure. He was angry, lost, alone.

He struggle along doing this and that, and then at thirty-five, unexpectedly, he found a bight star in the morning sky, and ate it.

After that, he immediately started a nonprofit for children. The vision, the theme, the driver — it was children helping children. He was good at this, at establishing vision, at setting up the infrastructure of the nonprofit, at putting the pieces in place, not at relationships, but he was smart enough to hire people for that. It went well. Children were helped.

Then at forty-one, stuggling with lonliness, he went to therapy and tried to make sense of everything that had happened to him.

He wasn’t able to actually figure it out, but one thing stood out, one moment with the therapist. It was just after he told her about his mom, about the IED, and his dad, about the squirrel, when she looked at him incredulously and said, “Amazing. You are amazing.”

“Why,” he asked.

“Because you” she said looking him intensely in the eyes, “You ate a bus!”

Leave a comment

Filed under Abuse

Tagged as , , , , , ,

October 10, 2013 · 4:45 pm

Good

Once there was a man who wanted everyone to be good.

He himself grew up in a good family. He went to good schools, and was a good student, and when he set out on his career, he founded an non-profit organization based on helping people to become good. He spoke publically about the value of good, wrote widely about the benefits of being good, and modeled with his life the way of the good.

He supported good laws, he teamed with good organizations, he  promoted the campaigns of good leaders and he gave away lots of money to fund good causes.

One day, after he had given an impassioned speech about “The Power of Good,” someone asked, “How do you help someone who wants to be bad?”

“There is no one way,” he said wisely, “to make someone who wants to be bad, good. We must fight the bad with multiple weapons. We must put in place good laws to show them what good and bad really are, we must discipline and punish them when they don’t do what is good, we must teach and train them in the process of becoming good and we must always be good ourselves, so that people can see that true goodness is possible.”

Upon hearing this, the listening crowd cheered.

A week later, when this good man was led away to prison for the embezzlement of his investors money he was asked by a reporter, “How is it that a good man like yourself could possibly have cheated the very people who trusted him?”

He responded confidently, “I did nothing wrong. I took the money so that I could do more good in a way that no one would know about.”

“Really?”  said the reporter, “It looks like from the evidence that you spent most of that money on homes, cars, trips and entertainments for yourself.”

“I only did that,” said the good man, “so that I could model the intrinsic benefits that come from being truly good.”

When the court case was over and the good man was sentenced to many years in prison, one of the investors who lost her life savings to his swindle, was given a chance to confront him.”

“You harmed me,’ she said, “You took my life savings! Now I don’t have enough to live on and nothing to leave to my children. And the worse thing about you,  is what you won’t admit and don’t know.”

“And what doesn’t he know?” asked the judge for everyone in front of the packed courtroom, sitting on the edges of their seats and listening intently.

“He doesn’t know,” said the woman, “That none of us, including him, are good. At best, we are just honest, and perhaps forgiven.”

Leave a comment

Filed under Good

Tagged as , , , , , ,

September 26, 2013 · 4:49 pm

She’s Green!

“It as I’ve said before,” he said again,” she’s yellow.”

“That’s what you always say,” she said, “but I don’t think you know what you are taking about.”

“Then why does she go around acting like everything is fine when it’s not,’ he said. “She’s living in some kind of yellow-yellow land.”

“You forget where she came from,” she replied. “Her father had a lot of blue in him. She’s from that.”

“So, what are you saying?” he asked.

“Well, she doesn’t talk badly about people. Maybe she has some little yellow in her, but she also has a lot of blue in her.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, just because you think you know what color she is doesn’t mean you really do.”

“I don’t?”

“No, what you see as yellow is mixed with blue, and really, she’s a beautiful shade of green!”

Leave a comment

Filed under Mindsets

Tagged as , , , , , ,

September 26, 2013 · 1:55 pm

Consigned

Once, in the wooing season, a wise and beautiful girl fell in love with a handsome and foolish young man.

She pursued him; he pursued games. She asked if he would cavort with her and also sort with her, but all he wanted was sport, port, and snort, with toys, noise, and other fun boys.

“Let’s go out,” she said, “for coffee and talk.”

“Talk, squawk, ” he said. “Come gaming with me!”

“And there you have it,” she said to herself. “What does one do with silly boys who don’t know how to talk, feel, reel or deal, with life and wife and every emotion twice and thrice — or not.”

And then, with a pained heart, she consigned him to disobedience.

“What the hell is that?” He asked her. “What did you ever give to me that you could make rules about or take anything away from me? Who do you think you are, my mother?”

“I’m your brother!” she said.

“Your weird,” he said, “for a pretty girl.”

“I’ve given you everything,” she replied, “but you have given me nothing that you should expect anything in return.”

He quit calling her.

“Consigned,” she said.

“An odd girl,” he told his friends.

Then, over the next year, he got seriously bossed, crossed, lost and tossed. He called her.

“What have you got for me?” She asked over the phone.

“I’ve got nothin’,” he said and there was a long silence.

“Come see me,” she said. “Let’s talk.”

“What can come from nothing?” He asked.

“Actually,” she said, “Something, something can come of nothing.”

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 10, 2013 · 5:01 am

The French King In China

Once their was a French king who had three daughters. One was beautiful, one smart, one loving — all were his raison d’être.

When they were little, he braided their hair, practiced their alphabet and hugged them when they cried. When they were half-grown, he dressed them de rigueur, walked them to school and danced with them in the great room. When they became women, he told them they were wonderful, sent them each to a université.

With them he was bon vivant and  au courant. He loved being a father. When his daughters married, he lost them a little, but loved them still, pulled it off, accepted their husbands and delighted in their children. He got down on the floor with his grandchildren, as in the days of old and called them mon petit chou-fleurs.

And then he decided to pass on his inheritance to his daughters, early, before he was gone, to see their eyes bright, their banks full and love made safe.

There was several other reasons. He tired of state, of intrigue, of debt fatigue and of the stress of the big league.

It was a disaster.

His beautiful daughter feared he would prefer his loving daughter and sued him. His loving daughter believed he loved his smart daughter the most and refused to see him. His smart daughter believed that his beautiful daughter would get everything and arranged a meeting of all the daughters.

“I think he might be losing it,” the beautiful one said.

“I wonder if we could get him to see a doctor,” the loving one said.

“Let’s see if we might get him into a home,” said the smart one. “Then we could have our lawyers meet and work everything out so everyone is happy.”

They arranged a meeting with him.

“My dearest little girls,” he cried out. “Whatever in all the wide and crazy world has happened to us? I’m your père. I will never be anything more. I am not your master. I am not your malfaiteur. I am not merely your bienfaiteur. I am your daddy! I love you each one of you with all my heart. Different as you are, yet you are each one to me the crème de la crème, the very sweetness of life itself.”

And with a cri de coeur he fell down before them. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

“You aren’t well,” they cried.

“You aren’t,” he shouted back at them. “En garde!”

“What?” screamed the smart one. “Will you threaten us?”

And with that the king rushed from them, out of the great palace. It was raining. He ran out into it. He tore off his clothes.

“Beauty comes of beauty,” he shouted at the sky,” and love comes of love. Smart come of smart, but what comes of greed, of jealousy and rivalry? Nothing,” he shouted, “nothing comes of that yapping, clawing, scrapping quintessence of nothing.”

“It is in a father and a mother to give their daughters faces, and to put some eyes and ears and mouths on them. It is ours also to give them legs, feet, arms, hands — to give to them of our own fingers and our toes. We give them these great things with but a moments passion, and with nothing more than love’s embrace, we also give them minds and souls and wills with which to love us back, or to turn us out. Terrible power of choice! It is in a father to give his daughters more than this. And when he does, when he has given them the greatest gift he has, his heart and all his amour, having given them so much, it is his tragedy to fall on the aching, empty, airless side of getting it all back.”

His daughters found him in the storm, raving as he went, and wrapping a tarp around him, they led him home and put him in his house.

He cried out as he went, “When parents die, their children howl and blow like these great winds; we had rather in the storm of life that they cried those tears of love before our deaths, while we could yet see and hug each other safe again.”

The next day they sent their avocats to his house.

He wasn’t there.

A few weeks later, each of his daughters received a letter from him expressing his love and asking if they would visit him soon at his new home.

It was in China.

Leave a comment

Filed under Families

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 29, 2013 · 4:17 pm

Hierarchy Malarkey

Once there was a hierarchy who lived a life of malarkey.

The essence of the malarkey was found in his conviction that all people were either in or out; saved or damned; chosen or not; called or snot; loved or rot. It was a lot of woe and foe, and because of that, he couldn’t just put it out there.

He knew that it wouldn’t work to say what you really thought when you thought so many people were below you.

So he lived in his own upper layer with care, and he kept quite mum about his in-or-out, either-or, odd-or-like- me, rich-or-poor.

Instead, he was so nice he’d greet you twice, if you looked good or had the lice.

Everyone was his best friend.

He loved the kids and their jokes and especially loved a freakin’ hoax.

He’d publicly agree with what he privately hated, that people said, not in red, but in his head, in bed — later.

It was a snarky, larky, malarkey hierarchy.

When he picked a wife — he picked one less accomplished than himself.

When he hired a partner — he hired one less qualified than himself.

When he met a wealthy man, he made him his best friend.

When he met a poor men, he made him his project.

It looked good, went well, for a while, crocodile — his woman, his compliment; his people, his success; his workers, his underlings; his rich and poor men, his rank-makers, his world, two-part, sweet and secretly tart.

And then it blew up.

His partner proved to be more competent than expected, his family less happy than required, his poor men less needy, his rich men too greedy, his saved too damned, his out, too freakin’ unacceptably in.

Things simply wouldn’t stay on the shelves he’d put them on. People got off of their leashes.They stopped minding. They exited their stations; they left their boxes. They rebelled!

So, he pulled rank.

It stank.

He wrote it down.

It left the ground, and sailed — away.

In the end, even amends couldn’t save his long tossed friends that always were, his hidden ends.

Hier-arcing-ly, with lock-and-key, and you and me, snorklingly, he proved basically, just to be — a bunch of mal-lark-eeeeee!

.

Leave a comment

Filed under Mindsets

Tagged as , , , , , , ,