Day 6
If it Smashes Down:
Chase Starlight
what is the use of screaming at a machine in frustration,
as it eats the music,
skipping streaming of consciousness?
it's only auto-pilot performing its purpose,
fulfilling its destiny dutifully.
Save your Breath,
instead,
for singing in the shower
[as kaleidoscopic bits of flower wilderness
are massaged into your sudsy head.]
If it Smashes Down:
Chase Starlight
what is the use of screaming at a machine in frustration,
as it eats the music,
skipping streaming of consciousness?
it's only auto-pilot performing its purpose,
fulfilling its destiny dutifully.
Save your Breath,
instead,
for singing in the shower
[as kaleidoscopic bits of flower wilderness
are massaged into your sudsy head.]
I was reading through old journal jottings from Europe, from the day my ex-roomie and I explored Dachau outside of Munich (the first concentration camp.)
What rose to the surface of my mind is itching under my fadedcopper (rusted helicopter) skin,
needing to be shed.
What we saw there, that day, could never truly be captured in words,
no matter how delightful (or stark&dark) the words, but I still wanted to soak in it awhile.
An except from my travel journal-
"Raw Truth in Exile:
I've been seeking it in everything
and now we chase the obsidian ghosts of history as we board the train to Dachau.
Kellen and I agree: these parts of history-
the black underbelly of the beast,
no matter how melancholy-
they should never be drowned or blocked out,
no eyes should be closed to it."
My eyes could scarcely comprehend and take everything in, being in the exact same places as thousands had suffered fiercely and died in.
There is so much to learn in such a place: weird to say, but I could have stayed for days, and still I would have been discovering useful knowledge and awareness of the past and its relevance in the world today, things I never gave nearly enough lingering thought to.
However, its about so much more than learning, this history.
I got a glimpse like I never have before at innumerable levels of the human condition:
how completely corrupt, cruel, and unrelenting humans can be (esp. in their quest for power/selfishness/greed) and yet also, how avidly courageous and strong they can be, even in the most extreme and debilitating conditions.
Can you imagine being so terrified by the threat of death-constant, filling your body with dread every waking hour of every day, that you ran into the borderline/edge of the no-go zone, knowing you would instantly be fired upon...ending the endless suffering and mistreatment you had been experiencing for far too long?
And yet- what stood out above the background-din [static rumble] of pain and haunting images was the discovery of all the ways the prisoners clung to the smallest signs of hope (through each other, writing, reading, music...the beat goes on).
Sometimes the prisoners were kept in barracks, chained to the walls, that let no light in. The only way they could tell it was day outside was through hearing the faint singing from outside from other prisoners. One man began to knock on the wall, reaching out to another prisoner, who soon figured out that he was knocking the ABCs,
and began to decode the message the other man was giving him.
They communicated this way, knocking was their way of speaking-about their background, who they were, where they came from. Prisoners did these things in order to salvage what was left of their state of being-
a way to preserve their faith and delay the psychological decay going on within them (since they couldn't do much to delay the physical decay brought on by malnutrition and mistreatment.)
The smallest bit of light filtering into their cells could bring such relief and joy...a few minutes in the library? They looked forward to for weeks.
These prisoners knew that if they even left a fingerprint on a locker, or had a button missing, they risked terrible punishment: even just an imperfectly made bed could lead to them getting beaten or put "on the pole" (hung from a pole for hours on end). And yet....so many of them kept seeking out methods of self assertion to help them grasp on to hope (clinging to solidarity).
One of the main ways they did this was through poetry- poetry was capable of giving back to them the sensitivity and remaining humanity they sought to preserve. I read a poem one of the men wrote in secrecy while at the camp, and it brought tears to my eyes, truly and poignantly moving me.
"In suffering lies the song of poetry, like a hymn that liberates and penetrates to the bottom of the truth....
I seek to express open wounds of the soul that no one can heal,
wounds that are much deeper than the ones that weaken our bodies."
The poetry I read did not only resonate with the agony of captivity, but with something banished from normal thoughts of youth and stemming from one of the hardest gifts to know and achieve that we are given:
forgiveness.
This is where the real courage comes into play, when even the most horrible of human suffering and loneliness occurs, and one can reach beyond the suffocating anger, pain, resentment, hatred, emptiness....and forgive (the things that hound us in the night).
This is why the writing I read struck me so deeply- it was not just a cry for help, an expression of soul-wrenching desperation,
it was an elegy of freedom.
We take freedom for granted.
Freedom to live, to let go, to love, to forgive, to give, to take, to grieve, to make...
Our suffering is what makes us so beautifully supreme: ferociously powerful in our unsurpassed fragility.
(And the alternative to feeling the pain of loss is having nothing to lose).
Flashback: Death was brought upon vast numbers of people with no hesitation, no sympathy, no mercy...bodies were taken away piled on one another, miles high, in backs of trucks,
taken to the crematorium then thrown aside, discarded like bits of gum wrappers in the summer wind. The dead were robbed of all dignity completely.
That broke me.
Would I have been one of the hundreds, if I had lived in that time and place?
I love the color green and all it represents, symbolizes, signifies to me...
but back then, it made certain people stand out as abnormal- a green triangle was the symbol associated with the "asocials", or people who demonstrated "asocial behavior" (prisoners who were taken into preventive custody.) So many groups of people were denounced, it was not just Jews...it was those who rebelled against the government, spies, prisoners of war, Austrians, emigrants, homosexuals, different religious groups, etc. All of them were punished without warning, at the slightest insubordination or order from others (as in, not just the Nazis- even someone like a kitchen worker.) And aforementioned "asocial behavior" could have been virtually anything the Nazis got a wild hair up their ass to arrest someone for:
"nigger jazz"
"degenerate art"
"gutter literature"
I'm fairly certain I would have been among the convicted:
I tap my feet and jig wildly to jazz,
am currently reading a number of sullied books (soaked in gutter water, think: "The Preverse Garden: Fairytales for Adults"....oh, such a hopeless romantic, har har)
and some of the twisted, progressive, obscure art I adore would fall far outside the category of "degenerate"
This realization is what made me realize I am one of those who takes their freedom for granted...
it is easy to thrash in the jade waters of cynicism when we aren't reminded,
even in little ways,
especially by ourselves,
of how lucky we truly are.
Each passing minute,
every liberation of mind, body, spirit allowed,
no matter how small and seemingly insignificant,
each delicious meal I eat,
the comfortable beds I sleep in (topped with liberal amounts of pillow goodness),
the souls I bathe in,
the love that lights my fire,
the abundance of (especially fleeting) beautiful light shed in my life,
everything I observe and soak up (no matter place, person, word, music note, taste, smell, caress, idea, dream, wish, ache,
blah blah hour long rant goes here)
it is all so valuable.
I seek to try my hardest to fully savor everything that surrounds me to the best of my ability,
to celebrate the elegantly evil universe in all its splendor
Yes, indeed-life is at best, brief
...maybe we are just biding our time until the black hole arrives
and swallows us, whole,
nothing but an airy belch existing as proof of our mark
or, quite possibly,
it is a mere shadow of what exists in the infinite abyss, the Unknown
There is a sinister, crawling shadow that beckons from behind every pretty thing
but does that mean we should compromise our pretty living,
question the fireworks? no, not enough time
(It could all be snatched from us in the blink of an eye)
What rose to the surface of my mind is itching under my fadedcopper (rusted helicopter) skin,
needing to be shed.
What we saw there, that day, could never truly be captured in words,
no matter how delightful (or stark&dark) the words, but I still wanted to soak in it awhile.
An except from my travel journal-
"Raw Truth in Exile:
I've been seeking it in everything
and now we chase the obsidian ghosts of history as we board the train to Dachau.
Kellen and I agree: these parts of history-
the black underbelly of the beast,
no matter how melancholy-
they should never be drowned or blocked out,
no eyes should be closed to it."
My eyes could scarcely comprehend and take everything in, being in the exact same places as thousands had suffered fiercely and died in.
There is so much to learn in such a place: weird to say, but I could have stayed for days, and still I would have been discovering useful knowledge and awareness of the past and its relevance in the world today, things I never gave nearly enough lingering thought to.
However, its about so much more than learning, this history.
I got a glimpse like I never have before at innumerable levels of the human condition:
how completely corrupt, cruel, and unrelenting humans can be (esp. in their quest for power/selfishness/greed) and yet also, how avidly courageous and strong they can be, even in the most extreme and debilitating conditions.
Can you imagine being so terrified by the threat of death-constant, filling your body with dread every waking hour of every day, that you ran into the borderline/edge of the no-go zone, knowing you would instantly be fired upon...ending the endless suffering and mistreatment you had been experiencing for far too long?
And yet- what stood out above the background-din [static rumble] of pain and haunting images was the discovery of all the ways the prisoners clung to the smallest signs of hope (through each other, writing, reading, music...the beat goes on).
Sometimes the prisoners were kept in barracks, chained to the walls, that let no light in. The only way they could tell it was day outside was through hearing the faint singing from outside from other prisoners. One man began to knock on the wall, reaching out to another prisoner, who soon figured out that he was knocking the ABCs,
and began to decode the message the other man was giving him.
They communicated this way, knocking was their way of speaking-about their background, who they were, where they came from. Prisoners did these things in order to salvage what was left of their state of being-
a way to preserve their faith and delay the psychological decay going on within them (since they couldn't do much to delay the physical decay brought on by malnutrition and mistreatment.)
The smallest bit of light filtering into their cells could bring such relief and joy...a few minutes in the library? They looked forward to for weeks.
These prisoners knew that if they even left a fingerprint on a locker, or had a button missing, they risked terrible punishment: even just an imperfectly made bed could lead to them getting beaten or put "on the pole" (hung from a pole for hours on end). And yet....so many of them kept seeking out methods of self assertion to help them grasp on to hope (clinging to solidarity).
One of the main ways they did this was through poetry- poetry was capable of giving back to them the sensitivity and remaining humanity they sought to preserve. I read a poem one of the men wrote in secrecy while at the camp, and it brought tears to my eyes, truly and poignantly moving me.
"In suffering lies the song of poetry, like a hymn that liberates and penetrates to the bottom of the truth....
I seek to express open wounds of the soul that no one can heal,
wounds that are much deeper than the ones that weaken our bodies."
The poetry I read did not only resonate with the agony of captivity, but with something banished from normal thoughts of youth and stemming from one of the hardest gifts to know and achieve that we are given:
forgiveness.
This is where the real courage comes into play, when even the most horrible of human suffering and loneliness occurs, and one can reach beyond the suffocating anger, pain, resentment, hatred, emptiness....and forgive (the things that hound us in the night).
This is why the writing I read struck me so deeply- it was not just a cry for help, an expression of soul-wrenching desperation,
it was an elegy of freedom.
We take freedom for granted.
Freedom to live, to let go, to love, to forgive, to give, to take, to grieve, to make...
Our suffering is what makes us so beautifully supreme: ferociously powerful in our unsurpassed fragility.
(And the alternative to feeling the pain of loss is having nothing to lose).
Flashback: Death was brought upon vast numbers of people with no hesitation, no sympathy, no mercy...bodies were taken away piled on one another, miles high, in backs of trucks,
taken to the crematorium then thrown aside, discarded like bits of gum wrappers in the summer wind. The dead were robbed of all dignity completely.
That broke me.
Would I have been one of the hundreds, if I had lived in that time and place?
I love the color green and all it represents, symbolizes, signifies to me...
but back then, it made certain people stand out as abnormal- a green triangle was the symbol associated with the "asocials", or people who demonstrated "asocial behavior" (prisoners who were taken into preventive custody.) So many groups of people were denounced, it was not just Jews...it was those who rebelled against the government, spies, prisoners of war, Austrians, emigrants, homosexuals, different religious groups, etc. All of them were punished without warning, at the slightest insubordination or order from others (as in, not just the Nazis- even someone like a kitchen worker.) And aforementioned "asocial behavior" could have been virtually anything the Nazis got a wild hair up their ass to arrest someone for:
"nigger jazz"
"degenerate art"
"gutter literature"
I'm fairly certain I would have been among the convicted:
I tap my feet and jig wildly to jazz,
am currently reading a number of sullied books (soaked in gutter water, think: "The Preverse Garden: Fairytales for Adults"....oh, such a hopeless romantic, har har)
and some of the twisted, progressive, obscure art I adore would fall far outside the category of "degenerate"
This realization is what made me realize I am one of those who takes their freedom for granted...
it is easy to thrash in the jade waters of cynicism when we aren't reminded,
even in little ways,
especially by ourselves,
of how lucky we truly are.
Each passing minute,
every liberation of mind, body, spirit allowed,
no matter how small and seemingly insignificant,
each delicious meal I eat,
the comfortable beds I sleep in (topped with liberal amounts of pillow goodness),
the souls I bathe in,
the love that lights my fire,
the abundance of (especially fleeting) beautiful light shed in my life,
everything I observe and soak up (no matter place, person, word, music note, taste, smell, caress, idea, dream, wish, ache,
blah blah hour long rant goes here)
it is all so valuable.
I seek to try my hardest to fully savor everything that surrounds me to the best of my ability,
to celebrate the elegantly evil universe in all its splendor
Yes, indeed-life is at best, brief
...maybe we are just biding our time until the black hole arrives
and swallows us, whole,
nothing but an airy belch existing as proof of our mark
or, quite possibly,
it is a mere shadow of what exists in the infinite abyss, the Unknown
There is a sinister, crawling shadow that beckons from behind every pretty thing
but does that mean we should compromise our pretty living,
question the fireworks? no, not enough time
(It could all be snatched from us in the blink of an eye)
My favorite part was this:
learning of how the prisoners were so ravenously hungry- not only for food to nourish their body, but for hope to quench their devastated souls-
that they would secretly eat dandelions
It is when i am neck deep in the quicksand-moor
that I stumble across these lovely-ugly creatures (like sunflowers)
these yellow bits of hope
mere weeds- fierce beauty disguised as homeliness and simplicity
isolated and strong
how could one go through this life without tap-dancing along the tightrope edge
(fear of corners-losing oneself),
without feeling the thick ache of resignation?
It is when I feel myself sinking the quickest,
like Venice,
destined to be sucked down into the depths of murky nothingness,
that I remember the unspeakable beauty of the city-
and how,
although its life is simply slow death,
it holds light like no other.
paper cup fraying string connections sustain
for the time being-
when the firestorm settles, we will still remain
morbid gods holding hands,
the tightrope of what they call time
stretched tight between you and i,
mountains of magic rumble upwards from the spot where our worlds collide.
dandelions,
blossoming upon the golden nymph skin
the halo you put me in,
you see me for me
the free, roaming spirit that lies and glows beneath
the facade of weed.
learning of how the prisoners were so ravenously hungry- not only for food to nourish their body, but for hope to quench their devastated souls-
that they would secretly eat dandelions
It is when i am neck deep in the quicksand-moor
that I stumble across these lovely-ugly creatures (like sunflowers)
these yellow bits of hope
mere weeds- fierce beauty disguised as homeliness and simplicity
isolated and strong
how could one go through this life without tap-dancing along the tightrope edge
(fear of corners-losing oneself),
without feeling the thick ache of resignation?
It is when I feel myself sinking the quickest,
like Venice,
destined to be sucked down into the depths of murky nothingness,
that I remember the unspeakable beauty of the city-
and how,
although its life is simply slow death,
it holds light like no other.
paper cup fraying string connections sustain
for the time being-
when the firestorm settles, we will still remain
morbid gods holding hands,
the tightrope of what they call time
stretched tight between you and i,
mountains of magic rumble upwards from the spot where our worlds collide.
dandelions,
blossoming upon the golden nymph skin
the halo you put me in,
you see me for me
the free, roaming spirit that lies and glows beneath
the facade of weed.
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