The last five months… Thank you for contacting the abyss. We have received your stare, please allow 90- 180 “abyssness” days for a response.
Guess who’s back, back again? Blaikie’s back, tell a friend. Good day, fellow travellers of consciousness! It has been an age and then some. Life. What can I say… Anyway, I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to have returned to your collective inboxes. Like, I could tell you, but it would certainly be gaudy and inept. Ostentatious, loquacious, but certainly gracious. Not to mention capacious, salacious, perhaps a tad vivacious. Ok, I can’t think of any more. Lucky you. Lies! Rapacious, tenacious, predacious, vexatious and sagacious- the longer this post takes to write, the more are getting added, sorry. Words are beginning to lose their meaning, so let us move on at last. That was fun though, toss your favourite, “ciouses” in the comments, a surprisingly deep pool. You may still want to crack your skull off the bottom regardless.
Moving on… today’s poem has (unsurprisingly) been sitting in my “to be published” file for quite some time. During said time, it has slowly grown on me, not dissimilar to a fungus, really. Let’s “enjoy” the piece and then discuss briefly. Sorry for the lack of commentary today, took too much time thinking up the “ciouses”. Mo ciouses mo problems. (It has two dates because I reworked an old, unpublished, half-poem earlier this year)
The Passed (July 25 2021, May 25, 2025)
Nostalgia’s a golden lie
Disguised lead below the shine
False burnish and useless dye
Truly a misguided sign
Yearning for these former days
Commonality for all
But exist few quicker ways
To formulate bruising pall
The reality of time
Forget less of joy than strife
Disregard arduous climb
And stroll down sheer edge’s knife
Nothing perfect’s ever been
Regardless of muddied now
Trials and ugly conflict seen
Faded mist enshrouding prow
This moment, precise second
All the life we’ll ever get
So don’t be lured or beckoned
By a past long ago set.
Historically, in this space, we’ve discussed these notions before. Perhaps because I’m personally so inept at living by the principle(s) just described. Constantly playing chess with Fear, thinking 15 moves ahead when most often the game never even starts.
How does one live entirely in the moment? Without the past, we’ve learned no lessons. Absent the future, no plans can be made. Balancing on a tri-secting high wire is no mean feat. Or is it super mean? Probably both. I was, however, finally presented with an agreeable “answer” to this longstanding conundrum. One must live emotionally in the present. Study the past analytically, look to the future strategically, but allow your emotional existence to be solely in whatever moment you may be experiencing. Those moments are all we will ever have, after all. And I have thoroughly enjoyed this moment with YOU.
Thank you so much for joining us today. It is, as always, a wonder to craft words and somehow have others appreciate those efforts. A blessing beyond comprehension.
Finally, to all the readers availing themselves of my back catalogue during the extended absence, I see you and am so grateful for your interest. You helped motivate my return. Thank you.
Be blessed, my friends. The world is what it is, but there will always be moments, and this is assuredly one of them.
Happy Trails and Waggy Tales.
-Alex Blaikie
Dread Poets Sobriety 
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