You’re Ninety
Once
-above the beginning-
there was
now.
I wondered
for three years
about what I should do.
You have to understand,
I wondered what
what to do meant.
It’s always the idea
that you are something
-other-
than what you are
that trips you up.
Usually a word happens
and you go to it
and you stick there
like some object
stuck to
a gluey wall.
You never know
if what you are going to do
-or say-
will matter in the end.
There are so many
examples
out there
of people
who have done well
and you should take it
as a good thing,
that they came through
and succeeded in the end,
but it is all about life
-ultimately-
and along the way
you always hear
that they had
-trouble-
They couldn’t do the thing
they wanted to do,
couldn’t move an inch
closer to it,
in no way, ever.
Lost, they were,
just like you are now.
-lost forever-
but ultimately successful,
like some story seeking
an ending
and finding itself.
I was born a seeker,
more a dreamer.
A lost cause
to anybody
who knew me,
but as you age
you learn
the code
and realize
that to be
a lost cause
is a found cause
in the game of
the eras.
The eras are all that matter
to people like me,
because when you have
something to say
to the eras
you feel as though you
came upon something
-true-
and that means
that there
can be
something
true,
that it is possible
at all,
and that life has meaning.
We like to think that this is the case,
that we are not just here
by chance,
another conglomeration of cells
coalescing
so that “life”
can make it
in a
biological sense,
Darwins “success.”
What is it all for?
Ask an intellectual
and he or she
will tell you
that it is in finding
-truth-
Ask a married man
or a married woman
with children
what the meaning of life is
and they will say
Life.
There is no arguing
with that
as every intellectual knows.
There is never a way
to better
the notions
of the biological
-victors-
the non-intellectual
masters,
the ones who
-reproduce-
the ones who know all
because they replicated
their terms,
gave themselves
a second chance
and therefore doubled
their wisdom quotient
just by doing so.
The others, the me, the we,
the others,
we all sit and sink
in the face of the wisdom
we will never know.
Money doesn’t come to us,
unless we’re shrewd
and often,
we delete our shrewdness
in favor of rightness.
We lose our ability
to have children.
Failed works,
minute wanderings of soul.
Finished stuff.
-blamphed!-
Whatever that means.
Doesn’t matter.
We are not the Gods and
we are not the fathers,
but merely the trustees
of the interstices,
the places where thoughts
were bid from higher powers
To never go.
Kerouac and Wolfe
and Whitman
were all streaming live
their hopes.
How many lost words
did they utter
to unlistening populations?
How many words of theirs
have never been heard,
but for a fleeting moment
in minds of people
who needed just that
useless moment?
Supreme wasters of time.
Monumental seekers of faith,
but failures all.
Never seeking rightly
that which could give them
sustenance.
A jazz play, by Kerouac.
A New York autumn’s glee by Wolfe.
A world praising by the great Whitman,
but all to feel,
to know, to feel, to know,
to feel, to learn to think
that we are more than just
something
dour,
so easily perturbed.
We seek in order to live.
But we are asked to die.
No way could this be
in such a short span
as the almighty God gives us,
but we are asked to do so
-anyway-
It is a turn we take.
When our beauty reigns
so do our words,
but the real writers know
the difference
and they never give in to
the hype.
It is the orchestration
of death
that devours us.
It is the need to rage deeply
one more time
when all of our needs are met.
Too old is nothing but
a lie.
Too old is nothing but
a moment
when others can win
and you can lose.
It is a manner
in which new can overtake
old,
but Thomas said it best,
do not give in,
for it is a matter important
to the usurpers also,
for if you do not give in
nor will they
and into old age such rage
-will ring-
and you will know that you
mattered,
not just that you mattered,
but all mattered,
that all within biological skin
mattered,
briefly, at least,
and it did not have to do
with your age
or your decrepitude,
but it had to do with
your soul, an ageless thing,
superior to all attackers
-always-
no matter the age.
You are a maverick
who cannot fly.
But you are a God, too,
a man or woman who can live forever.
You know but you do not tell.
The others don’t listen anymore,
because you are not beautiful,
but you know,
and the fire is like lightning
that streaks wide
across reality
and where not acknowledged,
all is lost.
-You’re ninety-
but you matter.
You matter like a son of a bitch.
The Fargo Kantrowitz'z Literary Campsite 