Insomnia

Ok, it's about 5 in the morning here, and I can't sleep. It's not jet-lag, the timing is off for that. I've actually always had a problem with sleeping. When I was very little I hated to sleep because I knew while I was sleeping the adults would be off doing something likely cool and I would miss out on it entirely. This has never really gone away. On the other hand, I love to sleep, I love to dream, and in most of my dreams my life is more perfect than it could be in real life. Well, it's my fantasy, isn't it? In there I control all the details, even when I'm not aware of it.
Moving on... I can't sleep most of the time because I think too much. Any of my friends or family or aquiantences can tell you this about me. However, true as this may be, it doesn't make me think less. I'm a puzzle person. I love them. And I'm very good at them. Give me a puzzle, a mind-bender, a brain-teaser, and I'll focus on it entirely until I solve it; I'm a closet propeller head. Which leads me to do that other thing I hate... miss out on other things going on. So, at these times at night, as I'm lying in bed trying to clear my head to sleep, the day's worries forgotten... the overarching worries of my life flood in. I'm still hounded by the question, What do you want to be when you grow up? I don't know, I've never known. Well, that's not entirely true. I've had a wonderful father, a very unique person; and for all of his current problems, like dementia, he's still at his core the person I've admired for years. When I was a child I was convinced the entire reason to grow up, get a job, provide for your family, have a good and healthy relationship with your wife, was all for your children; to take care of them, to make them feel they are your purpose in living. So, my one overarching goal has been to be a good father, a good man, a good husband. However, this is putting the cart before the horse. I figured I'd be married and starting a family by now... that hasn't happened. As I said before, I'm a puzzle person. I work very well with closed systems, like machines. Life... is too open ended. I can't narrow down all the variables, which I think is the point, or else life would be stagnant. I think things in life must be like musical notes, a limited number of them, but an infinite amount of arrangments, tones, techniques, and so on. Language is much the same, and I've given up on knowing all the words... but not in my desire to learn all of them. I find if you learn the principles, then when you need the words, they come to you, and I often find myself using archiac words I have to check the dictionary to make sure I'm right about because Microsoft Word doesn't know it. Like I said... nerd.
So, here I am, trying to figure out what I should be doing with my life. I spoke before about closed systems... this life is mortal, that's about as closed as a system gets. And I have this fear that I'm running out of time. I hate clocks for this reason, each tick tick tick ticks off the seconds of my life I'll never get back, closes the opportunity I had to do something worthwhile. I feel I have a responsibility to be a good, fully functioning adult, and I'm not. I've spent the better part of a decade in college, I'm 27. 100 years ago that was about the average life expectancy, and I've wasted it doing nothing. Jack of all trades, master of none.
And, as it turns out, I can't type fast enough to keep up with the thoughts tumbling through my head. The problems keeping me awake have dissolved into my realization, once again, that life is more art than science, and the parts don't have to equal out symetrically. And, perhaps if I lose myself in today, and focus on it, being present enough of mind to enjoy it, then tomorrow will take care of itself, rather than trying to plan out my life like I imagine a politician does. I really must read more Nietsche, since I've found that he's beat me to my idea of living life as a form of art, and he would be a real time saver for me really.
And, yes, I realize this has really nothing to do with Germany and Europe... well, it does, but I neglected to write down the chain of thoughts. Short version, my year in Bremen got me to forget about tomorrow and allowed me to worry about today without thinking about the overarching life-plan I was failing; i.e. tomorrow or next year doesn't matter because today is what's important. Furthermore, I'm convinced that all the good advice about planning for the future is hogwash. Be sensible today, and tomrrow will build on that. Overall, more than anything, in your (my) life, be present.

Litmus

There is something unspeakably wonderful about you,
as if utterance would shatter
the crystalline essence I seek to bottle
from time. Perhaps it is better to remember
that I've forgotten, though I once knew.

~

They are the golden ones, those impressions
jotted down in rhyme or rhythm or meter
on parchment, the better to mis-remember,
gleaming as black iron ink

pulls empty white space into weight & gravity
greater than celestial bodies, capturing
the thoughts that revolve around the mind
nearer, then further, then near yet again...

while the paper curls & yellows,
lending color to remebrance
pickled, distilled. The details
congregate, intermix --

dissovle away, softly; like dreams,
leaving over their sentiment,
even as daylight bleaches
the remnants from conscious.

Forgotten words of the violent landscape

The fields and hills are strewn with the fallen
axioms; they tumble the waters and poison the fish.
Eventually the sun herself may be blotted
but for now the words merely lie
in thorny piles, competing
with the scrub-thicket.

Once, these words were carried
on the backs of men, cumbrous
& heavy
with good reason, they branded flesh
and man could carry few.
They held them firmly on the straight path.

Now, learned men,
men of letters,
navigate the heaps of serif-tangles--

through nettle-points
freeing crimson regret--
the men shrug, move onward;
search for water, for gold--
then silver.

They have replaced our burdened men
of words.

Stained-glass & vestigial wings

You can see him, there,
in the mirroriing eyes:
the fallen seraph,
hiding behind the smile.

He is umbillic-less;
he finds in the darkness,
the bright glass -- solace.
It is never enough;

his subsistence continues--
for melodies persist
even as lyrics evanesce
along vaulted angles.

Absent the close-tucked
memories, the layered tufts --
pinioned, he stalks this world
unbearably light; amnesic.

Of Rain & Umbrella Walks

As I drift off, you find me
with your manga eyes full
of innocence, tease, torment--

I've stolen your eyes to see the world
- addicted, I loathe giving them back.
Your eyes without you are spoiled,
they rot my existence; with them
I find enchantment in small secrets;

the fortune of bugs on apples,
the hidden stories of aged belongings,
the ephemeral of cobbled stones and musical notes....

My wander absent of tandem arms
and footfalls -- I have you in the formaldehyde
of remembrance -- in its weakness you deteriorate
still -- I hate the smallness of your confines,
I'll ransom your eyes back -- for you yourself.