The Character I Played
These are from entries in my journals, which I have been writing since about 1976. Mostly poetry, but I’ll include some drawings and other writings and musings as I get to it. They are from various notebooks that I always carried around with me, to write my thoughts and sketch painting ideas or just express feelings. These are my days of playing the searcher, on the great stage of life, seeking to understand this wild universe . . .
August 25th, 1991 — Clarkdale, AZ
Has your mind ever shivered
At possible ways
Mused into the future
To miraculous days?
Mine has.
Has your mind ever swelled
Into limitless places
Expanded beyond
All conventional spaces
Mine does . . .
Has your mind ever trembled
At the edge of unknown
Searched the uncertain
For seeds yet unsown
Mine seems to . . .
Yet I am not my mind
Though it thinks it is me
And travels beyond
Its power to be . . .
“No man can, nor mind supreme,
envision ends of endless things . . .” — Qualium
“Dreams are like sweat, they have
a purpose, but no meaning.” — Qualium
October 25th, 1992 — Clarkdale, AZ
To Charity:
Gentle Woman, deep and caring
With an angel’s grace of sharing
For you showed me strength inside
Myself, that I had tried to hide
Your hand so kind upon my arm
Seemed to say there was no harm . . .
My fears were yours, we shared the sky
A Universe, a need to cry
But then a milky wave of light
Flowing thru the silky night
Dissolves the fearful inward sight
Faith grows out in crystal white
Designs of Love
and pure delight . . .
November 1st, 1992 — Clarkdale, AZ
I seek beauty and elegance
A lyrical form
I look for the mystery
In a sensual storm
To play with the forces
That live in this world
To listen to atoms
Whose voices be curled
Inside a dimension
That lives in my soul
To peek into silence
And see a bright whole . . .
Ah, Life, the Lovely
You are such a wind
Gentle you carry
To mystery you send . . .
“Music, man, it swells the mind thin . . .” — Qualium
January 1983 — Maywood, CA
Part I
I had traveled to the end of my mind, I told Twig, and back, and there was now no reason to go on. I was depressed, despair was just above me. She merely glanced at me as she said, but you haven’t traveled to the end of your heart. The truth of that struck me and I went on living.
Twig is my mirror. My soul mirror. Coincidence. I leaped across the curb down the grey sidewalks of Maywood, CA 97270. We walked on thru the hazy sunshine, warmness on our skin. Thru Our Universe of time, we slipped across the tapestry, weaving subthreads thru the Vermeer spots of color.
I hate to work, I am a player, a playman, a playist. Lazy, they (i) call me a bum. Now as I write, I don’t paint, my chosen work. I wished I were God and I would design a perfect Universe. Ha ha. Now I see thru the back of my head that I am God and this is what I have designed so far. Clambrain! So much to see.
Twig will read this and scoff in her offhand way. And love me so true. I love you too, Twig. You will smile in and out when you read that. Look up and see stars, Twig. The more you see, the more you will feel. Pick a star and that is where you can go. We don’t focus the light from a star, it focuses the light from us . . .
Part II
I had a dream as a child, now I was sick and I dreamed the dream again. I awoke and remembered. I had seen light from the moon at night coming thru the back door window which was broken. Cellophane taped over the hole refracted the light into Twig’s Vibgyor on the wall. I was fascinated. My mother explained the colors to me and I knew then that I loved light. Light. Lyte. Lite. Lighte . . .
Light and colors. Transparent pure colors. We walked on thru the particles of floating light, throwing colors around as we moved, the tiny bits of rainbow bouncing away into the air, Twig, a Van Gogh, me, a Vermeer, we both solidified sunlight moving in slo mo thru the ether, an amber syrup as the hydrogen exploded silently across the vacuum. We swam thru the golden ocean of light, holding hands, we vibrated, first one then the other, between us. She trembled and suffered, I jerked back and forth and became blind. She felt my eyes with little girl fingers and I could see a haze, a puzzle of Vincent spots, bursts of red yellow blue purple and white. I cried out, I pushed her hand away.The colors hurt. Vincent opened my eyes again and pushed his brush inside. I fell back insane. Unconscious. The spots of color orbited inside my eyes now full of the vibgyor. My feet lifted up til I was upside down floating above the ground. I flew backwards faster and faster. Soon I was traveling at the speed of light. I became a beam of light, reaching out into space. At one end, a star, at the other end, Twig’s hands cupped tenderly together. Liquid light pooled in the hollow of her palms. She lowered her milky face to drink the silver light. Golden hair flowed long in the wind, playing a harp song as I became her . . . Looking up at the moon, she smiled and the moonlight splashed a soft tear from her left eye . . .
December 11, 1976 — Huntington Park, Maywood CA
Searching down
upon the ground
for lovely leaves
to fill my dreams
and patch my schemes
So colors soft
do hold my eye
these forms so varied
by laughter carried
gently to the ground
with fragile care
that I might share
their beauty and their song.
But may I find
in my own mind
perfection there
to call my own
and be alone
no more?
Searching for you
darling soft
warmly colored
roundly shaped
brightly held against the sun
to throw your rainbows
in my eye . . .
And sing your colors
to the sky . . .
Your light design
is truly mine
forever . . .
But looking down
I have not found
that leaf apart
to lift my heart
and sail it weightless
to the sky.
Will I be searching
til I die . . . ?
But then i hear
the softest rustle
against the morning
pink and glow
and looking high
a spot is sailing
drifting from
the fading starlight winds.
It twirls and dances
sings and flashes
colors of exquisite beauty
down into my eye
to release a lilting sigh
This small and lovely leaf
a ballerina in the air
floating to me from somewhere
she must know
how much i care
flowing down
spinning round
into a pool
of liquid sunlight
spashing fragrant
hues to me
i slowly bent
to pick it up
and felt her hand
in mine . . .
(I’m a leaf collector, can’t help it. They don’t have leaves like Earth’s in the Pleiades)
Unknown date, Pobably in the early ’70s
That match you lit may be your last
Ignite the leaf which rips the cells
alive but dying
from the charred and darkened chambers
of your lungs
to swirl away in nimble clouds of smoke
Forgotten vapors of a life
cut short
( A little diatribe against smokers — I’m more tolerant now)
Unknown date, Pobably in the early ’70s
Boulders flying
through my mind
You were unkind
But only sorrow
Do I feel
Hate’s unreal
To my soul
Sadness trickles
Like a lake
For your sake
just your friendship
I desire
It’s like a fire
To my soul
I learned to love
When I forgot
What I had sought
And only thought
How it might be
If I could see
Through your soul
Instead
Of my head
Unknown date, Pobably in the early ’70s
I
Lucky thing my pants are striped
So my shredded legs can fit
The shirt I wear is always checkered
Makes the game of chance I play
Easier to win when I am losing
II
Scribble, scribble on the wall
Dribble, dribble down the fall
Graphite pencil, water falls
Both are atoms, both are balls
One to drink and one to think
One that trickles down the sink
And one that makes a scholar blink
I think
(the Kink)
III
God is nimble
God is quick
He made me healthy
Then made me sick
Ha!
He!
Hi!
Ho!
Hu!
And sometimes
Hy!
(I was in a humorous mood, I guess . . .)
Questions
What is at the end of time and space?
Will I ever know?
Will my mind exist 42 billion years from now?
What caused reality?
Why is there time?
Is there other life in the universe?
What controls matter?
What causes forces?
What is an atom?
Why are there stars?
Why is there reality?
What will I be 500 quadrillion years from now?
What existed 500 quadrillion years ago?
Where is the center of the universe?
Do I have to take out the garbage?
The journal entry from January 1983 was written at the end of a year long absence from my job as a civil engineering draftsman. I had quit in order to paint and had produced about 12 paintings, which all sold eventually.
Twig is the nickname I had given to Renette, who later became my wife and the mother of our daughter, Lyrica. Vibgyor is the name she had given to the colors of the rainbow, starting with violet, then indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.
I think I was despondent when I wrote this because I knew I had to go back to work and give up painting, at least for awhile. I am now back at it, see my Art Pages.
Qualium, Thank you for the beautiful posts. I remember the miraculous moments which we shared. Days and nights that formed philosophies and journeys to other realms. Isolated days at Salt Lake park, lying on the grass, holding each other in moments of disbelief of what was and what would come. Leaves that spoke, “when this leaf is dust again, my love for you shall still remain.” I remember this and more. Even though we are no longer a pair, I do love you and always will, father of my daughter, dear ol’ friend. Stay happy and true to your own divine self.
Hello Suzanne. Are you by any chance the daughter of Connie Marlene Bates? If not, my apologies, but otherwise, please let me know.
Michael