Second Fiddle

And when the West was won, it was left behind.

A Beeline to the Northeast, the trophy obtained.

E.E. Cummings, perhaps no longer second fiddle to my beloved T.S.

Those musings will have to wait greater dissection.

The inflammatory reality of this same Unit after these many years

Damn near indigestible. And yet, the thing is

I can feel that thin layer of dust-coated forearms,

A high desert spice which gives cause for giddy knees.

That place I tucked beneath every single speck of cell

To patiently await the final anchor- dropped.

Those days when we first met, are clutched close even now

They have never waned in the twilight of any last gleaming

Instead, the effortless patience of delayed gratification

Remains the constant, steady, backstroke of my life.

"Who am I, darlin' to ya...? Who am I?"

Is what I sing to that beloved Southwest Muse.

Perpetual lyrics that have married their meaning to my own.

Power

We are tired

And in our fatigue, 

We mangle potential. 

Driven by responsibility 

Motivated with goodness

To shoulder through the granite 

Of difficulty

The straight road becomes narrow. 

A precarious underling

My toolbox now, 

Shifting the crowbar to

Center stage

For my ample hands to yield. 

The fog of my pause, clearing

This latest plateau

Must be reduced

Shuffle

The consummate Self

Ever transforming.

As the eldest jovially spills

I tune to brighter tones.

This sidewalk is unfamiliar to me

These birds and the uneven pavement

They welcome  this tourist's soles.

I flow through my gate in breathless admonition

Those trips must be taken

The dusted path of Boholano styling, and

Welsh meandering.

From lovingly tended gardens to 

The sea of Visayan kayo

I am called to action.

While joints and muscles still push for progress

The mental soul needs feeding.

The luster of crossing borders glows ambient 

Ascending to higher rungs

My ladder,

Reformatting.

Verb

Indentation, the invitation

to begin.

Ignorant, built-in layers

Squeegee themselves without hesitation

To the context of dialogue

A stripping tool, now required

to enter into the arena of blunt.

Those 3 modes of communication

rotating in perpetuity

The body knows the mind, and yet the mouth

it wants to project a stymied version

On how to manage the constraints 

Of what may need 'saying'.

To this, honesty must abide

Or transgressions will form around the default compulsion

Of all we suspect in ill-informed error.

I am willing to rub away the layers that destruct.

Situational awareness clings to sight

Gutteral verbs launch themselves 

Out of the catacomb of insecurities

To lie in wait for the lips to throw forth their names

As pessimism attempts to claim its victory.

There need not be a portent to every point

And understanding can float nearby

willing to be defined by something greater.

As old mores fry in the heat of their rejection,

I will choose to break the stiff joints of my mental, survivalist default

Bringing the process of something greater

To all I encounter, forthcoming. 

Inflation....

The riddle is me.

To myself, I am often the unknown.

Quibble, chide, internalize

Grafting formula from thin air.

Analysis of the sometimes 'nothing'

Pervades every cell

Undue influence,

Annihilating.

What form of badassery is this?

Where oversensitive antennae 

Inflate the mundane

Somatic

What did it mean

To store memory hidden in joints?

Who knows the code to crack into fissures

Dispelling lost abuse. 

Who, even, is aware

They walk with trauma triggered by movement?

The lost, I'm certain, so lost and unaware. 

And oh to be aware...

Of footfalls and lost focus

To sniff the aroma-less curdling 

That rots inside the now

Keeping racy hearts racing 

A full speed gallup, to match anxious ankles. 

Awareness beware

Reach out to idle lumbering

Snapping the neck of inactivity in half. 

Acknowledgement of the ignored lasts for only so long

Until long nights rob rest, and red eyes swell.

I am hunting again for North Star direction 

Tying knots to sturdy the sail as Starboard deck is freshly scrubbed. 

Scrubbed of distraction and stagnancy

Of superstition and foul weather. 

Of indefinable idioms that I alone

Embed....

For singular clarity

And critical steering.

Into deep waters I push. 

To delve into all that I am.

Known.

We know who we are

Who we've been

Who we came from. 

The core be known to none

So much as to ourselves.