Ascent to mania

ascent to mania

It is entirely all over everywhere
not at all nowhere anywhere
a paradox is a truth.

The fat melts off the bone
in the heat of the spit
too fast and scorching
to drip into dying mouths
As there is no net to catch
a butterfly moving so fast

But it is unbearable
to move so goddamn fast,
unnerving to wonder at its source,
where energy of this sort
is decidedly unnatural.

It is a herd of monkeys in a tizzy.
an alarm going off in the unreasonable hours of the morning
after a night of vodka tonics, one after another,
like lemmings lining up to leap to their untimely deaths.
It is a fluorescent lamp in the dead of a starless night at a haunted bus stop in a desolate prairie,
and it is the whine of the mosquitoes that flock to it.
It is the low hum of a whale call,
and the tinny ring if the high notes of a machete song were isolated, just so.

It is bungee jumping off of the highest height knowing that the cord will break,
and welcoming its break because that would truly be living..
and then just as swiftly it would be dying.
But to live so perfectly in that moment might overwhelm the senses to the point where maybe death would arrive before even the rendezvous of skull and pavement.
An all too punctual guest, death.

But these thoughts are only knocking
and the door is locked tight. So.
For now we can keep it together.
The ghost of the elephant is in the room.
Shhhh; don't. tell. anyone.

It is... not needing oxygen,
inhaling instead words or images
and exhaling whatever medium
haunts the mind.

It is the running of the bulls if it were December and snow flurried to hot summer concrete.
If hooves met slush there would be
frenzied haywired crash landings.
Some blood, too, to splash merrily into the slush.

It is the battle of every stalwart blood cell
in the body of a man shackled with AIDS.
Each cell fought, captured,
prisoners of war,
sentenced swiftly to torture,
a not so swift death.

It is a torrential swarm of locusts
and demon frogs from the cosmos
It is the roar of every Niagra
and the haunt of the spirits of those who've jumped.

It is not only seeing beauty but comprehending beauty,
the mechanics of it, its clockwork.
It is understanding every language ever spoken
every word ever written.

It whelms softly, on the cusp of whelming over.
But it sits there, on the edge, threatening, seducing..

It is an innocent sugar rush
making furious love
to a rampant crack binge,
a catholic schoolgirl seducing a meth addict..
she knows not what she does, only how to do it.
She sees nothing,
Feels nothing,
only this music,
only this song,
and she dances.

It is being kidnapped into the collective energy of every overworked honey bee.
It is decompression sickness,
A torpedo from the depths.

It is realizing that everything you see and smell and hear happens all at once
and that,
as an experience, 
life is,
living is,
rather overwhelming.
And with your thoughts racing along inside you, beside you,
a thousand yapping terriers scurrying alongside a mustang,
following all of it, the blinding light, the deafening sound,
the acrid pinch of it all whistling up your nostrils..

Einstein.
It was Einstein's atom bomb,
which was simply an idea before it was a reality.

Reviews

[Terpsichore]

A yapping, dunning avalanche of thought, a tumbling, hill climbing, Boreas capped, stygian based assault on the senses.

Overwhelming! But in such a good way; especially at 5 am in the morning, (woke up, can't get back to sleep, decided on a dose of Writer's cafe and glad I did.) :))

T

[M. Shepherd]

A rollercoaster of a review my friend, lucky to have readers like you :) glad to have overwhelmed you. thanks for the thoughts.

[Beccy]

This is as close to the truth of that 'huge incorrigible mess,' called life, that I have ever read.

At first reading, It seems to move with breakneck speed, but such is its power that it compels the reader to linger over each line, to absorb and fully appreciate the intellect that spawned such a fine piece of writing.

Ken is right when he says that to tighten this up, would lessen its impact, I would not change a word.

Beccy.

[M. Shepherd]

Thank you Beccy - appreciate the words :)

[jacob erin-cilberto]

all the craziness in the world, all the craziness in people and the things they do and say...

this is great in its scope, reminds me of the Beats...and of Hemingway a bit...
there is a White elephant in my mind...and hills feel like white walls closing me in....

[M. Shepherd]

Ah thanks Jacob, appreciate the thoughts

[W.k.kortas]

I was struck immediately by the notions of bungee jumping and lemmings and how they play of "ascent", as each would seem to involve descent. This is broad-ranging stuff, but the use of repetition helps to keep it tied together. There is wonderful juxtaposition of the big and small--mosquitos and bees and Niagaras and the whole of beauty. It's sprawling, even a bit messy, but I'm not sure how I would go about tightening it up, and I'm fairly sure that doing so would lessen the piece's impact--and it carries a damn big punch.

[M. Shepherd]

You're very right - I think it's been maybe 4 years I've had this on my computer with the temporary subtitle "a f*****g work in f*****g progress" for the very reason of its being a huge incorrigible mess, and I've slashed and burned and attempted tightening, but I think at this point it's just a wild animal resisting its cage. Hopefully it can exist not only as an attempt of an explanation of an experience but as a portrait of the very sprawling and scattered mind that conceived it.

[M. Shepherd]

Thank you for the thoughts :)

[. serah .]

-- for me, this is an unending array of overwhelming images... each shedding light on different realms of life, survival and even death... rendered as if in one breath... at break-neck speed... delving into the shadows of concepts and events... influences and interpretations... searching for that thread of clarity that runs like a river beneath the surface of the avalanche that life is... and discovering it... in the concluding lines... -- suddenly, the word "idea" has a new significance for me now... it's where so much history is birthed...

[M. Shepherd]

Thank you for the thoughts Serah - very much almost all in one breath though hoarded and torn apart for years.
Ideas yes, they are the true explosives.

[. serah .]

-- you're very welcome, Marcie... i really like reading your posts... you always give me something new to think about...