PHIL DEMISE SMITH

from: MEMOIR OF THE NEXT MOMENT

 

AND JUMP TO:

 

the black river rages in the tunnel. So black that it is white. In the end both ends justify the middle. That’s when time hangs its head for the second time. This minute hesitation breaks the neck of speed and slowly the race crosses out the finish line. Trees return to their roots. The atmosphere becomes visible. Doors open their mouths and speak openly about the close finish that ties up traffic and continually closes with an argument.

 

Afterwards, after words, the silence takes the floor and raises hell. Nail by nail the emptiness fills the air with construction. It builds upon the absence with heaps of no things, things weightless and free from form and dimension. These nonentities take shape and obliterate it. When the crackle of obliteration is heard, the hidden answers emerge from the common ground and spring up in conversation. This is a renewal in a negative space, a sudden eruption that breaks tradition and buries the pieces in its own memory.

 

This is the up and coming return. The right-turn followed by the next right turn on its way to becoming background in formation; Rows of half memories under the scrutiny of darkness. To the naked I the full account disappears within the boundaries of its appearance. A presence based solely on absence. The deadpan remains of consciousness. The unknown hesitation pictured by a sleeping awareness; The abstraction with a twinge of figuration; Almost not human, almost almost, almost not.

 

On the verge of this perhaps, still, on the edge,  the rope shreds its dignity and gains ground as the sky grows up. Here the bones dust off their contention and their sudden attraction for dissolution and bleed more absence into the avoidance.

 

We wait with open arms to catch ourselves off guard.

 

I emerge from between the legs of this emptiness, pulled out of the air like magic is pulled out of the commonplace. My time had come and had taken the time to reach its big and little hand into my eternal avoidance and snatch me from my comfortable, wet abeyance, dragging me kicking and crying into this dry, tangible world filled with a lust for things of no importance. I am one of those things.

 

Disappearing from the landscape, Mt. Childhood buzzed with amnesty. It was partially forgiven for being a part of the whole. When youth cropped up, the body soared and the wounds dripped onto the tracks. Tongues slipped on the excretion and the misuse of language made the conclusions all wet.

 

From that point on, I was stuck with the idea that nothing matters except the moment. And each moment I had to remind myself of the idea that all that precedes and exceeds expectation was vapor disguised as condensation. The idea that no one told the truth because the moment it was uttered, it was utterly false.

 

It became quite difficult to keep up with the idea of this type of journey so I frequently fell behind and took refuge in the shadow of the forms that used to take my breath away.

 

In their place, I have made sketches with two characters. Each character says the opposite of the other which, in the end, adds up to a confusion that is whole, a hole that is empty, an emptiness that is complete, a bottom that is the top of the line, a line that is darkness personified,  a darkness that is light enough to carry in my eyes and a conjunction that is in balance.    

 

Beneath the surface, a typical conversation might go like this:

“Melodrama and melancholy used to spark my return.”

“Now, sadly, a slow motion follows the shadows that are behind the times.”

“Presently, It has become what was and this is what I now look forward to.”

 

It all has come down to a ridiculous itch. It is a constant annoyance that at the same time is a reminder that life is still unfair and flowing through my vanity. My friends and enemies no longer exist. In short, they never really did. I have been alone for as long as I remember that I alone can get under my skin. There in the darkness of self consciousness, I live alone with my relative uniqueness. And it is there that I will die after uttering my last words: “I am leaving to begin God knows what!”

 

And jump back to:

Mt. Childhood, before its disappearance, was immortal. It offered timeless revelations and peaks of joy and despair. Every now and then I would climb to the top, my heart in my throat trying to emerge from the dull percussion that would inconstantly beat it down. There, in that moment, I was not only alone, I was all there was. 

 

I am at my best when I, alone, in the expectation of someone’s arrival, feel safe. I sit in the middle of this puddle of diction, contrary to my silence, and wait for my revelations to break tradition and embrace my ideas. This holds my inevitable dissipation in abeyance and comforts my snoring conscience. It ignores my earthly complaints and rises above the cloudy pressure of atmosphere. It gives this gnawing, insubstantial substance a meaning beyond definition, and for the moment, immortality exists.

 

These singular epiphanies mount up as does Mt. Childhood and these thick, invisible manifestations of dreams, support the very foundation of the future collapse.

 

Problems are not about power but duration. Magic does tip its hat but its greetings are short and virtually to the point of no return.  The itch has another foothold and rarely disappears. It tends to vibrate and glow in the heat of an argument and shows its tendency for discomfort in the blink of an eye.

 

There is nowhere to turn except to the return of timidity, importance and reverence. To reach back for these things the sky gets in the way and the stoop is too high to rest on. After all, bending is not always a sign of flexibility, it sometimes means you’re broken.

 

So, in this condition, with no name but mine, I pointedly sit on the corner of a market waiting for the training period to end. I have come to recognize that comfort hinges on closed doors. Things hidden away, self-contained, don’t threaten my vision. What I can’t see can’t scare me unless I can imagine seeing it contained in my self. This gives each moment an edge that cuts through the wholeness. It is there, not there, not all there each time it comes up in conversation.

 

Who breaks this rhythm when it commingles with counterpoint? Who rides the moment at the moment of inception? Who reigns in the shadows from this pool of light? I am the answer. It is my particular presence as a particle of the magic, as a witness to the multiple choice. I am, for the moment, a second point of view in the vast clock that returns favors and circles the right answer.

 

(On second thought) Every now and then I ride the moment up Mt. Childhood and make a conscious effort to return. Unconscious efforts then document these moments and as they collect on the window, they approximate truth. In fact, we all take returns leading the chaos back into an orderly stream of consciousness.

 

The real questions lie in the black river where the poetry is imbedded, tucked in and absorbed.  That’s where the narrative begins to take shape.

 

And jump back to:

 

“Enough paraphrasing,” I say to myself as I walk through a closed door.

“But that is what makes my narrow point of view so expansive,” I answer myself as I continue going through the motions. “Reflection - Light jumping off shards of memory; Facets of opposition crisscrossing the boundaries of reason. Here is where I tell your story along side my own...the whole story. “

 

When you were born, I was born. There are no two ways about it, there are two ways about it.  We are all each other, a bouquet of inklings that blossom into massive waterways of electricity and chemistry. We are alive because of others and the dead are eaten by our food. My mother is the Mother and so is yours.  Everything that happens is incidental and beside the point. We travel next to each other and behind the times. We are historically personified and our present to each other is the future!

 

Breathe in, breathe out, breathless or gasping we are terminally eternal with second chances ticking off our primary concerns. The clock returns to its circumlocution without our presence and time goes by without a hitch. We are forever in debt to circumstance, that round faced youth who jumps out from each corner we paint ourselves into.

Our lives run parallel to a perpendicular wall. When we hit it we fall down and crawl back home. Eventually, in retrospect, our ancestors eat our chemicals and we are suddenly back in the picture.

 

Of course this is poetry not narration. Knowing that my I really cannot comprehend this causes tremors in Mt. Childhood’s stature. It literally makes mountains out of molehills and volcanoes out of thin air. This collapse of discernment allows for forgone conclusions to penetrate my spiritual armor and I become frightened of all shadows including my own. You are always next to me every now and then at different times.

 

What kind of time frame is this? What kind of narrative talks you into hugging the present imperfect before you can even catch your breath? The answer always lies in the next moment and that’s what keeps us going....

 

And jump to

 

when Constants leave (s) the altered nation rises up against the uncertainty. Back and forth like pummeling, the dream now buries its head in the open air. There is no chance, beside myself, for attention. It is too inconstant for focus. Love is a blur – a quick appearance that leaves its mark and scrambles for the exits. Each moment is a chip off the old eternal block.

 

But in the quiet of forgetfulness, in the country of pure abstraction, in the rippling nature of streams, in the facial expressions of trees, the stoned bridge leads back to the feelings of immortal awe. Peace caws at every edge. The leaves flap their blinding light and my nature weeps with nostalgia. In short, my temperament longs for nostalgia – it eats it to break the fast and slowly return to the present.

 

This is where you come in. You enter the picture through the door that is closed and keeps me from falling out. Your otherness casts a shadow that covers mine. I need you, I loathe you, I love you and when I make a mistake, it is your fault as well as mine. There is a split accountability, a split decision, a no win situation that is impossible to lose in the shuffle.

 

Everything goes both ways. This way or that. Now we remember, now we forget, now we remember not to count on memories and then we forget that. God knows what we’re doing or remembering!

 

We head toward discontinuance while continuance beckons us from the sidelines. We head toward dissolution with solutions swirling in our heads. We give in to Mr. I’s inevitability and as we search for the controls, our duality calls for at least two fences and a slew of swords each pointing in a different direction. When we bleed we tend to learn something tender. When we succeed our tenderness forgets its name. For some reason which might be chaos, we never truly get the point.

 

And jump to

 

I have spent my entire life moving from one house to another. Some have been private, some shared, some internal and some you can only imagine. You have always been my neighbor watching me from your window.

 

You know me better than you think but if you think about it all hope is lost. However, if you feel it, the momentum might carry you forward. I have always played games with myself so that I can win at least half the time and half time is a tempo I can keep up with.

 

I grew up in the backyard where you could hardly see me. I spoke to God and built contraptions and wrote poetry. Little did I know how little I knew but in my ignorance I always felt part of eternity. Now I only feel that way when I am out of my mind.

 

I am out of my mind often these days because of a bizarre sense of necessity that matches, word for word, the reflections of two mirrors. I repeat myself as I stand between them but this repetition is one of my only comforts. Each time I do it or write it again, I reassure myself that life goes on. It is my favorite poem because it is the only one I remember by heart.

 

I stand between two mirrors

I see my being become

a wing of bodies

passing through the sun

I ask myself

which one? which one?

 

You fit into this picture on a parallel infinity: two forevers, side by side, each approaching the same wall. When I move, you move too, though often it is in a different place and a different time. But we share the periphery of the same ripple. We mirror each other as the mirror reflects on the memories of its remarkable moments. Each image runs the gamut, bounces off the wall and returns the favor by reappearing in a different time and place. We zip along like fleshy electrons, side by side in a race to the beginning.

 

In the meantime I talk to myself.

“When I say I, I mean you, too,” I (you) say almost apologetically.

“How convenient for us,” you (I) reply tongue in cheek.

“This way we never have to worry about who’s right and who’s been left out,” I (you) quip.

“That sounds good but it’s hard for me to swallow,” you (I) declare.

“Just keep your mouth shut and listen!” I (you) yell.

“I am dying, for you,” you (I) say weakly.

“I can only imagine what you mean,” I (you) respond off-handishly.

“No, in fact you are dying, for me, too,” you (I) say quite seriously.

“Imagine that...it’s a double entendre,” I (you) conclude.

“Yes and no,” you (I) think.

And so on until we are absorbed into each other like yin and yang.

 

Because of my ability to absorb and to dream, I am often a good friend of Mr. Wishy Washy. Like him, I, too, am definitely not sure of anything. Being so definite about infinity takes quite an imagination and some nerve. I like to say that it is the Philip side of a mirror image but I am also not certain about that.

 

If I am sitting comfortably, I can consider taking a stand. "Yes, let's definitely talk on Thursday," I say with a pro and conviction. Then I think, unless for some reason I am silent and can’t!

 

Oddly, even today, on the anniversary of my father's death (I really meant to say birth) I'm not sure if he is really gone or just still here. His presence is always a part of my departures, which almost proves that I am only here when his departure is present (and that goes for all who have departed). It seems that I am almost always here when the world that is behind the world beyond, steps forward out of the shadows of doubt.

 

And jump to

 

my children, my wife, my friends, my dreams are all trapped in their own familiarity...they are wrapped up in their own present as I am with mine. Coincidentally, sometimes we coincide and share the same moment that, eventually, we each remember differently. But for the most part we are apart, struggling with the identity of our own memories.

 

Today I look down the throat of the black river and see a skyline of oddly shaped fingers pointing up at the sky's limit. I am a part of that handy gesture. I grasp things in my own way but they are still moments of the same time. They are still a part of a skyline of poetry where heaven meets earth and life sits on the brink of this or that, here or there, then and now and you and me.

 

I look at the dark figures along the water's edge. They are angry with me for sitting idly by, doing something so soft (writing poetry that is) while they work so hard. But deep inside their shadows they love my work as I love theirs.

 

In our bones we are aware that we have virtually all been born from the same bad egg. Our virtues and futures are chosen from the same chance meetings. We rise up into these choices from behind the same horizon.

 

As we age we lose sight of all this vision. I have noticed that the mountains that surround the future have receded back into the horizon and the holes in all my theories have opened wide. I often fall in and land on the balls of my soul. The impact causes another small crack in the interior, which further compromises my foundation and leaves me weak in the knees. Buckling is a momentary solution but once completely under the circumstance I see clearly that my only option is to accept the fleeting moments on their own terms - not before - not after - but right now!

 

There is still plenty not to do and still plenty of time not to do it. Look into my eyes and you will see what I mean. If you look deep enough you will see what you mean, too. What it all means is another story.

 

 

 

 

Reminiscing About the Future

 

I’m not jumping to conclusions

I’m walking slowly toward them

As I walk I’m trying to decide

whether I should give up

my sanity voluntarily

or wake up and jump

head first

my second thoughts intrude

and swallow intuition whole

language then coughs up its jibberish

like afterthoughts of a meal

leftovers that couldn’t be digested

half eaten half absorbed half rejected

the definition of truth

on the tip of my tongue

I am not a teacher,

I am a student who knows nothing

and knows it well enough

to make something of it

 

 

 

 

Misfortune Cookies

 

confusion say

some things never change

like the definition of chaos

like the simile

that is unlike a smile

 

confusion say

from where I stand

I understand

nothing

 

confusion say

feats of magic are dancing

on the head of opinions

 

confusion say

the end begins

with gravity

then grows up

underground

 

confusion say

don’t talk

don’t listen to me

listen to the vowels

spoken by the wind

 

confusion say

don’t be impressed

by the wrinkles

in time’s forehead

 

confusion say

age is getting older

in the age of quick

slowdowns

and disappearance

 

confusion say

what remains

of your remains

are unaware

that mistakes

are correct

 

confusion say

leave your self

alone

then leave the ashes

of loneliness

in the dust to dust

 

confusion say

join the loose ends

to a firm commitment

to flexible exits

 

confusion say

wake up

and smell the zigzag

then go to sleep

per chance

to wake up again

for the first time

 

confusion say

it’s not going to happen

because it has happened

it’s not going to become

because it has come and gone

and yet it is not gone

because it is still very becoming