Journal 24 - Yellow Crusted Sleepies

To think under the same light as the so-called
Keepers of the Ancient Light – to watch the
rising and changing of the same colorful moon
waltzing in the same exploding remnants in the
night sky, trying to recapture Beauty after her
desiccation by more erudite foes – it is indeed
difficult. Pound knew out the ways of words;
Eliot searched the torpid paths of grinding thought -
I am left to waddle in my still-born intellectual
infancy wiping the yellow crusted sleepies out of my
alien eyes. Translation of thought tempered or
sautéed with feeling into a well grown poem is
a job for someone else. Someone who knows
the intimate ingredients of his cabinet along with the
cabinets of other nationalities. Perhaps I should
resign myself to surfing or shrimping, even trapped
in front of the computer all day – with gusto.
Instead I am being quartered and split among
opposing realms of thought. Today it is theology
or the philosophy of religion – the life of a
pedestrian academic. Tomorrow it is the computer
programmer – lost in logic and flow-charts pacing
the carpeted concrete halls for the perfect 'algo.'
Then it will be the writer – abandoning all
attempts at survival and home and food for my
demanding family. Perhaps today I will learn a
language – Greek or French; C++ or Java?
My intellectual focus is blurred by indecision and
alcohol, as I pause for another sip of Marcus
James wine. Cheap and grape-y. A mind split
is mediocre and ambivalent – unable to surprise
and elevate itself to a new step on the ladder
of mindful growth. Plateaus are for the tourists.
I'm a tourist looking in on the ideas of the past
shivering in the cold – oblivious to the snow
and sun and breaths around me. Intellectual pres-
byopia is settling in upon my mind – calloused
and hardened with responsibilities and roofs and
air and gas and clothes [TV internet too] – I stare
at people with intoxicated souls crying - mon semblable.

3.22.09