Dread Poets Sobriety

Good day, wanderers. We start with story time… Yesterday I was listening to music. Side note; it’s too rare that I/ we(?) use music exclusively as background noise, never fully focusing in on tremendous art that goes so far beyond the sounds themselves. So for once, I was actually attentive, revisiting old favourites from a distantly perished youth. “Born of a Broken Man” by Rage Against the Machine is far better than I thought and it was already held in extremely high esteem. The music aside, which is transcendent, the lyrics, the same ones which I had listened to a hundred times finally broke through my inestimably thick skull. Specifically this segment from the second verse,

“His thoughts like a thousand moths

Trapped in a lampshade

Somewhere within

Their wings banging and burning

On through endless night

Forever awake he lies shaking and starving

Praying for someone to turn out the light”

Exceptional. I believe there is a lesson here as well, while RATM is hardly everyone’s cup, there is beauty to be found in all musical styles independent of personal tastes. I could certainly be less musically xenophobic. I’m not a fan of country and inarguably the Taylor Swift saga is beyond me but there is obviously something there for so many people to feel so profoundly affected. How many other beautiful things reside well within our reach that our baseless assumptions, diffidence, fear and/ or caustic indifference prevent reaching?

It reminds me of a surprisingly adult thought I considered as a child. Which sport or activity that you never tried could you have potentially been the world’s best? Whether it be baseball, chess, needlepoint… anything. All of that unrecognized and hidden potential from every human aggregated amounts to a terrific sum. The myriad things we could have been, may still be, or doors now forever to remain closed. In which activity could you have been a world-tier competitor but never tried? We don’t know and that’s the extremely shakey, nonsensical point I’m failing to make here. I guess I’m saying is that I wish more people could find their “sacred activity”. I wish everyone could be happier. But beggars have yet to ride thus fishes stubbornly remain instead of wishes, rendering the sentiment entirely moot.

Let’s take a deep breath. I have no idea what just happened. The intended “sentence or two” became a sentence of a rather different kind but for you. It feels almost sacrilegious to post my own poetry below Rage’s perfection. But it’s kind of what we do here so let’s go…   

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“(He Who) Walks Behind the Rows”, Feb. 10, 2024.

An insipid evil stalks 

Any attempt to excise 

Assuredly proving fatal 

So fragile stability prevails 

Venom behind delicately convincing mask

A bracing lie amid such horrid truths  

These petulant walking undead

Their emptiness overflowing 

Festooned inelegance

Self-trivialized and repressed 

While just beneath most tranquil surface 

The maker of ruin and sorrow. 

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I think that’s probably a good place to leave things. Well, perhaps not a “good place” but an appropriately artistic one. Let’s bring it back a bit real quick though with a less unenlightened view. Strangely, it’s not more enlightened but is less unenlightened. According to informal word math axioms that is not possible but let’s not get bogged down again. I don’t want to go all “American Beauty” on you but there really IS elegance and joy all around us. Not being able to see the answers yet does NOT mean they are not there. You are loved.

Happy Trails and Waggy Tales,

Alex