Our mouths are full of blood

You have a little something on your lips, right there at the corners of your mouth, and I think it might be blood.  If I mixed a bit of blood with these words would it be enough to color your thoughts?  Let us not exsanguinate our meaning.

What would change if sinners traded places for a day?  I would make gluttony the sexy sin instead of the sin of sex.  If I was writing the rules for this event one such that I'd pen would read thusly:

     If you are the same size, or larger than any three Somali refugees you are not allowed to comment          on anyone's choice of sexual partner.  

Here is another:  If you eat more calories than a poor Ethiopian family gets in a whole week you are subject to picketing.  Festively festooned men and women waiting for you to leave Old Country Buffet to greet you with signs such as, "Jesus hates fat people", or "Burn Bertha Burn", or the catchy yet poignant, "Gluttony is a sin (pertinent Bible verse)".  

What a ridiculous picture I have just painted.  Of course someone should tell that man in lavender yoga pants holding the sign with graphic pictures of liposuction procedures that he shouldn't be picking at the toothpick in that fat lady's jowls while he has a 2x4 stuck in his.... eye.  It's stuck in his eye.  This being a totally original idea I will have to give some thought to the best way to phrase this. I haven't worked out all the wording yet. It being an original idea and all.

Could we restrict hate from our diets?  Just cut back a bit on our ignorance and hypocrisy.  Could we do that?  Without honesty and humility there is no possibility for meaningful discourse.   

When one person eats as much as a village, while the village starves to death.  I can see this.  It is apparent. It is also apparent that how I buy my food, where I buy it from, how it is grown, and how hard it is to get it to me also have effects.  I can see these things.  My choices add food to or take food out of other people's mouths.  

No consensual sex act short of rape, incest, or pedophilia has ever caused another human being to starve that I know of.  

Here is today's creed.  I will fail to live up to it, but I must try anyways.  

1.  Tell the truth, about myself and everything.

2.  Be humble.

3.  Be mindful of the consequences of every choice.  A choice can be small, but it can never be insignificant.

This is enough for today.

Options

This is the life I have chosen,
And you won't hear me whine about it.

Yelling, sleepless, sunbeam smiles,
It's all of a one, and fuller and better than I deserve.

Sometimes it is a cage, but isn't all love a cage of sorts?
Heavy bars of responsibility.
This life is the whip that trains me into my best self.

I could leave of course.  Nothing is actually stopping me.
I am free to walk away and be utterly destroyed
While
Doing
Anything
I
Want

My appetites king, queen, judge, jury, and even god.

With great relief and a thankful countenance
I tuck the key back under my shirt.

Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream

I called my Dad from the top of the tree on beautiful sunny day in the middle of the afternoon. “I've been treed by a grizzly. I’m in Yellowstone. I just want you and Mom to know that I love you. Tell her for me will you? No, I don’t have a gun - just please tell her I love her. I love you too. Bye.” After making peace, I let go and rushed toward a sure end. As I drifted from the top of the tree to the back of the bear I wondered who was in the tree with me. As my hands clasped fistfuls of fur the angry bear transformed into a lion. Once it was a lion, I no longer clung to it, rather I wrestled. I wrestled for my life in the trenches of sure loss. We tumbled through the forest, the lion swatting and biting at me with the might of its ancestors while I held it’s neck while throwing hay-makers with tornado momentum. Soon the lion settled, and I tamed her. Tranquility had settled in the heart of beast and man.

I walked to a small, unassuming cabin deeper still in the forest. The timber that made the walls stretched out as wide arms welcoming me. I fell in. As I opened the door, inside awaited my friends and family. We celebrated with a jubilation so radiant no mistake would be made, this was a festival in honor of the gladiatorial bout that had passed moments ago. All in attendance, all of you, already knew. News traveled fast here. As we drank and feasted into the night, the only pause was to dance.

Soon I was called back outside. I left the warmth and comfort of my family and friends to meld with the peaceful void of the night air. I walked alone. In the darkest of nights I walked, where a horizon was nonexistent and up was only known by moon holding her, as it led me away and into the valley. It was here, at the center of the valley, in the grey snow of the night I heard my father yell in the same manner he would yell for me when I was a child playing in the woods and fields of my grandfather’s farm. “Tyler - WOLVES!”

And with that thunderous beckoning, my eyes lifted to see hundreds of wolves descend on all sides of the valley. As they approached I did nothing except fill my lungs with the silence. The silence cocooned in my throat before floating away as the beautiful song of the wolf. I howled, and howled until every last wolf was in the valley sitting or lying next to me. Soon three magnificent wolves came from the forest, and as they stood next to me they shed their fur to become human. The middle wolf became a middle aged man with grey hair in a ponytail, and a beard to match. He smiled and his eyes beamed a warm welcome towards me. The wolf to his right became a man my age; it was his son. He too had a ponytail and beard, only black and not as long. He approached me, smiled, and shook my hand. Finally the third wolf transformed into a beautiful blond woman. She was his daughter and her beauty left a radiance in every one of my five senses. She smiled at me, I howled, and we started sniffing one another’s butts. Not in a glorious imagined fashion but, in the same excited stupid circle dogs walk when neither one of them will stop as they sniff. This was my dream.

days gone by

i forgot you
in the refuse of
busy and idle
and trite
i tempted you
in willful playful
ire and dischord'nt
melodies
from my lips
until we longed
for the days gone by

one trilogy

i like to think of wisdom
as one trilogy
spewing from mouths
of the aged
at bingo nights and
nursing homes

and from richer men
with longer teeth
and wider girths
and fatter bank accounts

but i let them both fail
like an unsung
trilogy,
as one part
divided on itself
in eagerness
and error.

Ill humor

What lies heaviest is your guess

The cruel, dust, gloom weather outside

Or the ebony, weary heart

A beaten drum in a fog war

Lost

Busted drumsticks; goatskin left torn

Yet lying, beating in the ghost

Still crashes in the mist of haunt

To remain there lies true, heavy

Cost

I find myself a conjoined twin

With the humor, who leads the dance

Was chance in the music as we

Two step on the frightened rhythmic

Frost

Courage spins hope, still unaware

Exits left to be, lucid dreams

The music falls deaf, except mine

Found in the weather, I remain

Exhaust

3 Minute Movie- The Snow.

          INT. BREAKFAST NOOK DAY

          HUSBAND, unshaven, early thirties wearing pajama bottoms.
          Juggles a plate of eggs, coffee cup and newspaper onto the
          table. He surveys his meal and digs in.

                              WIFE (Off Camera)
                    Y'know it's supposed to get cold
                    again tomorrow.

                              HUSBAND
                         (mouth full of eggs, reading
                         the paper)
                    uh huh.

          WIFE- early thirties, dressed and made up for the day.

                              WIFE
                         (adjusting the table
                         decorations)
                    And it snowed a bunch last night.

          Husband glances at the table settings.

                              WIFE
                    Oh did you get enough coffee?

                              HUSBAND
                         (back to his paper)
                    Yep, thanks.

                              WIFE
                    It's like forty degrees out there
                    now.

                              HUSBAND
                    Yeah. Forty.

                                                          CUT TO:

          EXT. SNOW COVERED SIDEWALK DAY

          HUSBAND in coat and sorrel boots but still wearing pajama
          pants, pushes the snow back with the door carving a large
          arc through the heavy wet snow. He pulls a snow covered
          plastic shovel out of a snow bank and shakes it off. He
          hurriedly scrapes the sidewalk with the shovel and grunts
          with every scoop. Three scoops in, the snow won't budge. He
          pushes the shovel along the sidewalk and it scrapes to a
          halt. He does it again. With a loud sigh, he picks up the
          shovel, raises it high over his head and bounces it off the
          icy snow. The ice patch is unfazed. He does it again.
          Nothing

                              HUSBAND
                         (reigning down blows with the
                         shovel)
                    erah! erah! erah! ahh...

          Little chunks have broken loose but not much more. He slides
          the shovel up against the ice and kicks the shovel. A chunk
          comes loose, he heaves it off. More ice. He kicks the shovel
          again. His boot cracks through the top of the shovel
          splintering the plastic.

          He pulling his boot free he inspects the shovel. Half the
          shovel hangs limp. He pulls the broken piece off and uses
          the half bladed shovel to scrape snow off of the ice on the
          sidewalk. Tossing the shovel on a snow bank, he ducks inside
          and emerges with an ice-cream pail of salt. He shakes it
          everywhere, surveys his work and nods.

          From inside, WIFE begins rapping on the window.

                              HUSBAND
                    What?!

                              WIFE
                         (muffled hrough the window)
                    The ice!

                              HUSBAND
                    Yeah, I know, I salted it, did you
                    see this?

          He fishes the shovel out of the snowbank and grins as he
          shows it to her.

                              HUSBAND
                         (amused)
                    Lookit that!

                              WIFE
                         (through the window)
                    No no. The ice!

                              HUSBAND
                    Huh?

          She points up. Husband follows the line of her demanding
          finger up, up, up, to:
          Colossal gutter Icicles.

                              HUSBAND
                         (looks back at her)
                    So?

          She mimes swinging the shovel.

                              WIFE
                    The ice!

          Husband looks at his shovel and looks back at his wife who
          stares back at him with folded arms. Husband looks around at
          the empty neighborhood.

                              HUSBAND
                         (to the shovel)
                    Ice!

          Starting above the door, he begins to whack icicles with the
          shovel. The first few shatter with one blow. At the end a
          giant icicle winds it's way down the gutter. He whacks it.
          Nothing. He whacks it again. Nothing. Shifting his grip he
          holds the shovel like an axe. Whack whack whack whack. On
          the final whack the icicle and gutter give way falling
          across the sidewalk and snow cascades down onto the
          sidewalk. Husband covers his head with the shovel as the
          snow pours down on him.

          INT. BREAKFAST NOOK DAY-MOMENTS LATER

          Husband sits down with his paper and a cup of coffee. His
          hair beaded with melting snow. He unfolds the paper and
          begins to read.

                              WIFE (O.C.)
                    Oh would you look at that, it's
                    snowing again.

                         PAN TOWARD THE WINDOW AND FADE TO WHITE.

          The End.