Dreaming of Potential
Let me dream. Let me leave the land of the living and exist in hypotheticals. Let me briefly escape the gravity of reality And find wells of potential.
There is no place for pragmatism here, No place for a slow decay over decades. To make a change you must first be able to first imagine it. So dream.
Listening Party
The thing I love about choirs and musicals is people coming together for music, Large groups just singing together in harmony, Finding ways to build something beautiful. Listening to music rarely feels similarly, With earphones not made for sharing And public spaces filled with the busy and uninterested.
And yet we throw a party and close our eyes and talk about songs we care about. We head out to the backyard and look up at the moon As we sit on the concrete and listen to Neil Young. We find the threads and connections and passions, And we weave. We spin and dance and jump until we fly. It feels like a hug.
Puzzling Whiteboards
There is a whiteboard in the office full of puzzles and riddles, Something nice to consider while grabbing a coffee. I have learned that people cannot follow instructions Nor solve a sudoku. Numbers are erased and chaos reigns Until what was once simple Becomes impossible to understand. I am no longer surprised about some emails I receive.
Beholding the Rain
It is raining, And it patters gently onto skylights, Streams trickling down onto concrete and wood. It is a grey storm that quickly ushers the blue from the sky, And soon lightning and hail grace our lives. It is mesmerising, It is soothing, It is common.
And with every bout of rain comes a group of poems, A group of people writing about the same thing. And every time someone dismisses them derisively, As if we are not inspired by our lives, As if everyone sees the same sky with the same eyes, As if novelty and uniqueness are the only things that matter. I find it comforting to know that somewhere, Someone else is also writing a poem about the rain. I find it comforting to know That I am not the only beholder of this beauty.
Aftermath
You can't live on adrenaline. You can't make every decision a matter of life and death. Fight or flight rarely leaves room for logistics and maintenance. In times of great stress it is possible for someone to lift a car, But muscles snap and tear off bone And it cannot be sustained without rapid self-destruction. It is not something to aspire to, No matter how much the image of breaking limits gets stuck in your head. Let your body relax. The emergency is over, Now you just need to clean up the wreckage.
Millstone
Things don't have to be perfect. Things don't have to be hard. You don't need to get it right on the first try. Sometimes expectations are a millstone you tie around your own neck, That nobody else notices or expects. Life is enough of a struggle as is. You don't need to punish yourself with a handicap.
Vaporwave Nostalgia
I float in the gentle embrace of vaporwave, Of neon 80s synths and low-poly highways, And I cannot stop thinking about nostalgia. Am I imagining an ideal world that never was? Or am I empathising with the imaginations of an older generation? There is a temptation to retreat to the past, To the place where tomorrow is known and the future is today, But ignorance has never solved anything. Better to face the scary things and our anxieties, With the dreams of generations in our hearts.
Experimental Taste
Give me the experimental stuff. Give me the out there concepts, The unpolished explorations, The dice rolls of an experience. It's not always good, Nor should it be, But failure is often the cost of progress. There is no safety nor familiarity in the new, But there is potential. So show me the drafts. Show me the prototypes. Show me the rough edges of a soul before it is worn smooth.
Vigilant Winds
We are well into spring but winter still haunts us, Still swings by occasionally to keep us on our toes. It is easy to be bowled over by the waves if you're not braced, So have a jacket on hand. Keep an eye on the horizon and the grey clouds in the sky. Don't wait until the storm arrives.
Plant Life
I remove weeds as I plant saplings, Uprooting in the same motion I prepare the soil. There is life here, Life that can grow.
I carve a pumpkin. I give it a cute smile And cheery eyes And understand how easy it is to anthropomorphise something that has a face. There is more than one way to bring something to life.
Ant Questions
A pizza box is shared at a picnic, Forgotten for a while between conversations and catching up And consequently it is found to be full of ants. They rejoice at the bounty of grease and wheat, And we relinquish our claim.
I wonder how the ants feel. Are they happy for the discovery? Are they mad at the quality? Are they aware of our hands in this circumstance? Are we aware of the impact we have on the world?
Broken Magic
A restaurant changes hands, And under new management the old disappears. It fades away slowly over time As the new covers the old in a layer of millennial beige paint, Until all the character has leeched from its face. You look at what it's become and can't recognise it. The things that made it special were the first to go, For magic is a fragile thing, And too much has been broken for that to survive.
Hidden Treasure
A sphere is unblemished and smooth, Perfect and the path of least resistance, Evenly spread surface area. It is easy to fall into that trap, To default to pizza for every takeaway, To ignore all the flashes of different things in your periphery. But there are secrets whispered on the grapevine, There are crags in the coastline that you would never see if you stuck to the streets you know. So let your eyes adjust to the dark. Let your feet wander where they may, And find the whalefalls in the stars.