I sit on my patio,
Watch the man tug the leash,
The dog tug the man,
Both of them passing by
Faster than birdsong
Can shove a cloud
Across the sky.
Category: Self-Flourishing
The Meaning and Purpose of Defiance
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Paul offers his views on the meaning and purpose of life.
THE CRITICS EJACULATE! “The Grand Fraud of Blogging American, Paul Sunstone, excretes his opinions about the meaning and purpose of life in what can only be considered a shameless act of public urination. Life is fully terrifying enough without the addition of his muddled and confused vision for embracing it. I must insist upon the return of the guillotine. I must insist upon the return of justice to our world.” — Aloyse Leblanc, Le Critique Passionné de Blog, “La Tribune Linville”, Linville, France.
“Leave Me Wild or Die”
(About a 2 minute read)
I’ve got a promiscuous heart. It’s a nymphomaniac. It can’t stop itself from falling for people. Long ago, I tried long and hard to love “an only one”. The heart didn’t like that at all. It went on strike after about two years. It began making me die inside.
It’s a loyal heart. Once it decides to love you, it sticks with you no matter what you do just like a bad family name in a small town. It never falters in it’s love for more than the few minutes it takes you to forget one of my lectures on the epistemology of carnal knowledge. If you abuse me, it will still love you. It will only regret that now I myself have got to leave you. It’s as promiscuous as a cruise ship full of cats, but it’s as loyal as a kennel full of dogs.
But it’s picky too. Paradoxically, while it can’t just limit itself to an only one, it can be really picky about the dozen or so people it loves all at the same time. Sometimes it won’t even love people I like, esteem, and admire. People I would proudly be the first to pick as a roommate on a lonely two year rocket ride to Mars. Sometimes I think my heart is the pickiest heart I’ve heard tell of apart from hearts too scared, too confused, or too stuck up to love anyone at all.
I’ve tried — years ago I tried — to turn my heart into a nice, weedless, walled garden. It just came back to me with an ultimatum, “Leave me wild or die”.
I Will Sing Songs to the Ice
(About a 3 minute read)
i.
Something huge fell against my door last night.
Something crashed the silence of the night.
When I was calm enough to look through my window
I saw a tired stag with a broken leg
Struggling to rise.
It failed at first, but then, with horrendous effort,
At last gained its feet.
Last night I saw a tired stag with a broken leg
Slowly cross my yard, pausing every few feet,
Perhaps to ease the pain.
The fur on its back was tuffed up and disturbed
Like the stag had been pounced on and in a fight.
Last night I saw a tired stag with a broken leg.
Last night I saw a tired stag with a broken leg.
Last night I saw a tired stag.
ii.
You are comely and beautiful.
Your still-satin skin glows
In the grace of youth.
You are comely and beautiful.
Your life opens towards the future
Like petals spreading in the morning sun.
You are comely and beautiful.
Your mind roars over the rocks
Like a crystal cold mountain stream.
You are comely and beautiful.
Your heart yearns for the heights of love
Like an eagle for the sky.
You are comely and beautiful.
Your still-satin skin covers sleek muscles
Covers sleek muscles and unbroken bones.
You are comely and beautiful.
I watch you as you take my breath away.
iii.
Tonight, I can hear the cracking of the ice
Beneath my feet.
Tonight, I can hear the cracking of the ice.
My winter is half run.
At 62, my winter is half run
And my life now thaws
Into your spring.
Rushes over boulders into your spring.
I have loved you more purely and more passionately
Than you in your youth might know.
I have loved you with eyes that see well beyond yours.
I have loved you until my heart
Has broken and been reborn.
Tonight, I can hear the cracking of the ice.
Tonight, I can hear the cracking of the ice
Beneath my feet.
So tonight, I will sing songs to the spring.
“You can fly higher, my love,
You can fly further than you think.
“You can fly higher, my love,
You can fly more beautifully than you think.
“You can fly higher, my love,
You can fly to intimacy with the sky.”
Tonight, I can hear the cracking of the ice
Beneath my feet.
And so tonight, I will put on heavy skins
And sing songs to the ice
Before my fall.
Tonight, I will sing songs to the ice,
And I will put on heavy skins.
Curious readers might want to check out Sharon’s poem, Struggles on the Ground. It strikes me as having themes related to this poem’s themes.
Is the Difference Love?
Break yourself.
Or have someone else do it.
(It’s easy. You’re frail, you know.)Throw yourself into the ocean.
(Don’t be afraid.
It’s like baptism.)Grinding tides
…lullabies…
(with a bite)Don’t fight.
(Surrender.)Seasons scour, gales rend
Breakers crest,
And in the endYou are precious.
(A jewel.)How to Make Sea Glass, by the gifted Carla, Carla’s Corner.
“At least 99.9% of everything good in my life has come to me through the door of pain.” — Dr. Andrea Dinardo, Thriving Under Pressure.
(About a 3 minute read)
It’s curious to me how much truth there is to the notion exquisitely expressed in Carla’s poem that we can come to be better people through adversity and suffering.
It is equally curious to me how much truth there is to the notion insightfully expressed by Andrea that most — or perhaps almost all — of the good things in our lives are in one way or another born of our pain and suffering.
I think both ideas might seem at first to be counter-intuitive. Does not pain and suffering focus us on ourselves, make us self-centered — perhaps even bitter and cynical? If so, how can it turn us into jewels?
Again, how can good things come of bad things? How can blessings enter our lives through the door of pain and suffering?
The Feral Sexuality of Teenage Girls
(About a 6 minute read)
It is easy to fall for the cliché that ours is the most sexually liberated age in history. It might be actually closer to the truth if we were to think of ourselves as among the most sexually complicated ages in history.
Dreams Gained and Dreams Lost, Dreams Regained
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Paul offers his take on the difference between an enthusiasm for something and a passion for something, and on what the difference means to our dreams, ambitions, and visions of ourselves.
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THE CRITICS EXPLODE! “Paul Sunstone knows all about dreams. He knows how to mangle and crush the dreams of his readers. He is the terrifying juggernaut of blogging.” — Arun Ghani, India’s Blogs and Beyond, “The Herald and News”, Hyderabad, India.
Continue reading “Dreams Gained and Dreams Lost, Dreams Regained”
