Twenty-Five Things….
Since I have been tagged numerous times on Facebook with this Meme I thought I would do a serious version in answer-though don’t expect a totally straight face. The beauty of a meme like this is its ability to tilt you away from the events of the day and give you a reason to take a meta-view, as unobstructed as memory will allow, of paths in shadows and ahead, in the gathering light.
25 Things about me….
- I see myself as a combination of two Jungian Archetypes: The Lover and the Magician. The lover in me is the guiding force in my poetry: dialectical and unquenchable desire, immediate sorrow and regret, and a notebook full of “portable kisses.” The Magician in me looks for ways to explain, guide and tempt people into learning and to give voice through art to the good in Kings, Magicians, Warriors and Lovers so people might cherish both calloused hands and unprotected hearts; to seek the laws that make me, the lover, so sensitive that there are days I feel like lying down because I am dizzied by an earth I can feel rotating on its axis.
- I have been physically tortured with the consent of friends–ones I belayed to safety, but who left me un-anchored and unprotected. But, despite that my world view still pardons the days for ending too soon and pities the men who never turned to see their shadows disappear; hence, I am quicker to forgive a murdering stranger than a disloyal friend.
- I should have left her sooner.
- I should have married her when I had the chance.
- I love the outdoors. I never want to draw a bowstring or pull a trigger ever again but I want to always see bright stars, even in the dark pools of evening waters. I secretly want an hermitage on a mountain, but with plenty of guest rooms for the people I love.
- I almost died of a ruptured gall bladder so I long ago said my goodbyes. I have had a perfect daydream (and occasional nightmare) of a life: archer, writer, actor, father, soldier, businessman, teacher, healer….My life is a billfold of foreign currency spent wisely as well as in proportion to my foolishness…
- I never opened a book during school. I couldn’t afford one.
- I talk too much, I praise too little, and I am as forgetful as the tide: sometimes leaving without thanks…
- I could live on fried chicken, boiled shrimp and garlic-buttered broccoli in perpetuity.
- I wish the kisses given by adoring students to philandering colleagues, priests and teachers in my life would re-appear and show themselves like cancer.
- I miss my mother.
- I have lost or broken every watch I have ever owned: It is a metaphor for my disdain for time.
- I am spiritual, but have grown weary of the religious calisthenics of the west and am too attached to beauty to imagine a bowl to be broken in advance of its demise to be a devotee of eastern thought….
- I have a secret crush on Yang, Li Ping that is now not a secret anymore.
- I believe that vengeance is in reality an act of regret.
- I forget #15 to be a truth too often and fail to forgive myself in time enough to spare an ambush.
- I teach in the same voice that speaks from my poetry. It is fearlessly loud enough to carry past 10,000 ears, but I am shy and at parties I end up making make sounds resembling uncomfortable wings below tattered eaves.
- I think I have was passed some secret gay fashion gene meant for critique, but not personal styling.
- I cry every time I attend the theater because it is where I wish I could have spent more of my adult life.
- I believe that too many policeman and statesman are costumed, gutless criminals.
- I once believed that if I could write just one poem, like a Mark Doty or a Robert Bly, that could empty you of sorrow or turn into itself into a shutter that could bang life through an abandoned memory that I could die happy. Now that I am older I have amended that to two, or three or….
- I think most artists, like myself, are afraid of going mad; great artists revel in their lunacy.
- I believe we should restore the draft, but only to put teens to work in charities not war zones. Station them with NGOs or in citizen media training, as bloggers/micro-bloggers while living in homeless shelters or prisons.
- I blame religion and government for imprisoning, with laws and rituals, the spiritual gifts that built the great cathedrals and carved gentle, giant Buddhas out of rock.
6 responses so far
I am with you on #11 I miss my mom to don’t know if it is for the same reason but missing someone is missing someone.
Beautiful things, beautifully said, with just the right seasoning of reality and humor…
and I miss my father, though it’s probable that he never missed me.
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Loved your list Lonnie….
Perhaps the experiences with the watches are due to your magicial abiities…you seem to possess a precise contol over time. (You accomplish so much!)
As a lover your words flow as smoothly and sweetly as the mouth of a maple tree spills out its syrup so that those who know can enjoy it with a passion.
Although we’ve never met, your words consistently bring emotions to the surface and always tell what a beautiful and gifted human being you are.
Thank you for sharing Lonnie, one cannot help but to love you.
It is not often I am rendered mute…
You managed to do it with great heart and kindness…
Thank You…