Fizzy Wisdom

Small Boy Fear

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I stand here and watch as you destroy your world for no good reason.

A caustic cackle splinters the hopeless pause before you launch your fist into the door.

You don’t want this deep down but it is all that you know and it keeps you safe.

Ensnared by fear. Diminished by shame. Burdened by doubt.

You resist the unclipping of your wings, as that would lead you to discoveries about yourself

That might bust the myths you thirstily imbibe about who you really are.

For then you would realise that your own reality has been a lie:

A well crafted work of elaborate self-deceit.

As I shine my light towards you

Your demons laugh in my face

And that makes my light burn brighter and stronger.

But like a startled animal

You run back underground,

Hiding once more from the truth of yourself

And the pain of being loved.

Copyright Fizzy Wisdom 2019

The City At Night

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Wandering the cityscape at night

I am the passenger with no ride

Passing by

Passive to the passers by

Let me be here

And the city says ‘yes’

Shadowy trees eerily extend gnarled branches

Like wizened wizards

Benevolent boughs of bonhomie:

A silhouetted sop to the anomie

(my soul’s familiar enemy)

Let me be here

And the city says ‘yes’

Figures scuttle rat-like and risky

Bin bags billow in the wind:

Black balloons

In chorus rustle;

‘Let me be here’

And the city says ‘yes’

Pimps and dealers

Cut deals on corners

On edge on the edge

With jagged intentions

Searing through

Serendipity

‘Let me be here’

And the city says ‘yes’

Girl meets boy

In temptation’s trist

Bodies entwined

Under sodium glare

Breathless they murmur

In heady unison

‘Let me be here’

And the city says ‘yes’

Copyright Fizzy Wisdom 2019

Packages

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We go around

in neatly folded packages.

Work-shaped, mall-shaped, party-shaped.

Sufficiently malleable to fit into each slot.

Still wrapped when we get home.

(Often tightly).

Tightly taped and parent-shaped for the kids.

Ribbon-tied and bug eyed for the spouse.

Always gifted

But never unwrapped.

What if one string were slowly pulled from the top

To reveal what was inside?

‘No!’ we protest,

‘For that would destroy the package:

the multi-version of me that is my

identity’.

(The ‘i’ in identity

is with a little ‘i’

for the little eye

does not want to have

the inner view).

Pull the string.

Because what you really are

is both inside and outside

of the parcel anyway.

Copyright Fizzy Wisdom 2018

The Shadow

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Impossible circles etched out on my heart

You are the toddler with the ballpoint pen

And I am the rice paper

Stoically I sit here in the dark

For I have no energy left to run

And no-one to turn on the light for me

So you loom large

But I know you from old

So I hold out my hand

And we wallow in this strangeness together

Copyright Fizzy Wisdom 2018

The march to the Pace of Life is quick, I think. It takes no prisoners. Those who march to the Pace of Life give the impression that all purpose has been knocked out of them: that they are reduced to a hollow rhythm. One-two, one-two to the beat; each foot a syncopated slave to the drum of their daily existence.

Mine is a rather different pace. I have no purpose to my walk at the moment but that’s ok. Sometimes I dither and sometimes I circle the same ground over and over again, as though I were looking for something I had lost. As I get older and my feet get heavier I wonder whether it is innocence that I left behind. Wearily I still look for the things that shine: old bits of copper, fun acquaintances, fallen pennies, new lovers, bits of treasure…..

……..but now I know that they will lose their sparkle in the half light.

This is the direction I chose to take and there is no turning back. I am on my own now, my path illuminated only by the light of the sun and moon. I am at the whim of my heels. The road forms itself; it becomes a path that opens up; a benevolent direction: an insurrection to the action, reaction and mindless distraction of everyday life.

‘Aren’t you a drifter?’the clockwork marchers say as they one-two, one-two to the beat of the Drum.

‘And you already have all the answers….’, I retort, ‘or will you look them up?’

They only rustle their planners and thumb their diaries in response, organising their lives to factor in every linear possibility from birth until death (and even that one’s on the calendar – Tuesday if possible, not a Monday so as to avoid bridge night).

The Pace of Life planner doesn’t allow for error. It doesn’t allow for eventualities or vicissitudes. Or winds of change. Or changes of heart. Or changes of lover. Or changes of direction. It maps the course with routine predictability to ensure there is absolutely no availability.

For availability might mean being alone. Or time to think. Or time to change. Or time to grow. Or time to stop putting one foot in front of another in sync with the invisible metronome whose Stalinist presence monitors every second, every heartbeat and every heel strike of every footstep, counting one-two, one-two to the next chronological signpost. Easter. Christmas. Birthday. School holidays. Another Event with a capital E.

On the planner, there is no space to scrawl in a day for contemplation or silent contentment: no time to scrub out a week and spend it in timeless nihilism. Too busy, they say, too busy.

Too busy for connection, reflection, contemplation and wonder. Too busy for savouring or wondering; dreaming or envisioning. Too busy.

Too busy for touching, lingering, sensing and feeling.

Too busy for feeling the fullness of a moment: the sort of moment that has the power to cause the cogs in the clockwork to grind to a halt yet the sort that will last……

……forever.

New York

I lie here, cosily tucked away within the faded Art deco glamour of my big-city hideaway. My mind floats off to eras gone by as I imagine the years, the lives, the energy that this city breathed in and breathed out, each breath marking the start of a new wave in the relentless ebb and flow of metropolitan vogue.

From war rations to new fashions; Times Square with its battle of the brands: each billboard whispering in consumers’ ears to loosen the clammy grip around their wallets as they let their hard-earned money fall into the hands of the lucky profiteers; the colossal emperors and gateholders of the American Dream.

‘Everybody can be somebody in this city’they say. But isn’t somebody just another body as the hundreds march the sidewalk or the lunchtime rush subsumes the masses in the hustle and bustle, whirl and burl; the faceless swirl, soulless intersection – perhaps the odd two second connection. Exchanges are but brief sparks in the footfall: ‘how’s it going’; ‘what a fast city we need to slow down!’ or ‘why did that muppet win the election?’

This is a world bazaar: a melting pot of art, food, fashion and snacks-at-street-corners. In one day I can see Picasso at the Met, browse Stella McCartney on Madison Avenue and eat Quesadilla, eggs over-easy and a Reese’s peanut butter cup milkshake float. ‘Hey lady! You want pretzels?’. Marching fuel keeps me going from one street corner to the next. ‘Tacos till I get to the best restaurant this side of Fifth Avenue else I might be hungry on the way?’. You don’t say. I’m not losing weight this way.

Press a button and up up up 86 floors into the sky. It’s high but my head doesn’t spin. I take some facebook selfies with my cheesiest grin just to show the folks at home I’m a somebody in this town of somebodies who are nobodies. Riding high on the American Dream. Self-esteem. A necessary commodity (but one with a big dollar subsidy).

No dollar. Blue collar. Service sector. The invisible glue of this city. Chamber maids. Bell boys. Waiters. Newspaper sellers. Burger flippers. Immigration is what holds up this nation. Capitalism on steroids; an uncontrolled pyramid scheme promising a dream of freedom that they might have in the future some day. Who’s to say? A cruel promise or a fair contest? An unequal system which doesn’t evoke protest. For everyone a winner in this game of chance and romance.

The American dream. The reality or the fantasy on which this city survives? Any gripe is silenced by the illusion of one day we’ll make it big; make it big like the collosal greats of yesteryear and today; the billionaires and heroes who have gone before. Or there is always the lottery, we say. That hope is just a palliative to that fifteen-hour day.

What would it take?

What would it take this person here

To free themselves of pain and fear;

To feel so light upon their feet,

To watch the darkness fast retreat?

What would it take this being now

To lose control, to just allow;

To loosen the impassioned grip

And into freeing presence slip?

What would it take this heart of stone,

To castigate the ‘all alone’;

To feel the soul of one or more,

The essence of a global core?

What would it take this mind of steel

To ditch the doubt and just to feel

The air above, the ground below;

The sounds of breathing deep and slow….

Another day at work till late?

More social media saturate?

More likes and buys, more hits and wins?

More televised commercial grins?

More dramas, worries, lusts and fears?

More stress and self-defeating tears?

More stoking fires of wants and needs

Until the flame of lack recedes?

For now is not the time of ‘more’,

Of ‘fill-it-up’ to ease the gnaw,

Or crude desire or self-deceit

That lurks in every city street

The time has come to seize what’s less

To savour more with wise finesse

To own the depths of self and heart……

To jettison the shopping cart.

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