Life is but a walk-in... Shadows, slipping

into the darkened Play, players fall in...

Every earthly medium... Parts, gearing,

for a moment, with the rolls, as given...

Clay, dust and water, molded and fired,

seen in sun's light and its denial, of form;

What deteriorates, in hues, retired...

to the busyness of brushes that swarm

In chiaroscuro: precise, unreal...

our sleeping visions, emerging from dream

as substantive, yet immaterial...

with stage fright, and silent cinema scream

The dogged wandering, of worldly Soul...

The trail of apparitions, in our role...

01.21.2024

"Life's but a walking shadow..." @dctezcan

For some, it is a constant presence that follows them reliably as they traverse the unknown that is their future, like a friendly figure that paints the sidewalk behind you on a bright, summer day. It is an afterthought that you only come to recognize in moments of quiet acknowledgement; when you’re contorting your hands to make blobs that resemble dogs or frogs. Life is a friend who silently watches as you exist and grow, and it grows alongside you.

For others, it is a monster. The shadow in the corner of your eye as you walk around your house alone in the night. It is that dark spot across the room in the form of a man, or the form of a creature who could reach out and touch you. It is a source of fear, like a child being chased by their own dark figment for the first time. Their shadow is a constant presence that follows them reliably, constantly nagging at their brain as they wish for peace and pray for help. Their shadow carries a weight, and it blocks out the light of the sun until there is nothing but shadow and they can only blame the dark for every iniquity of the life befallen them until they wish for nothing. They wish for the shadow to be gone, even if there is no sun thereafter.

Life’s but a walking shadow.

It's been a while

since cold

broke the ice

of the morning

we swelter

love, in

daylight hours

down here

where the sun

rattles the cages

of every heart

as soon as it rises.

It's in the light that you see the shadows. And it's in the dark that you see the light...

Tonight, I sit in the dark. There's but the faintest of shadows from the light outside my window, and the lamp in the corner of my room. My shadow is stiller than a frosted lake but, perhaps, just as cold. It feels foreign to me, now. A stranger hiding amidst its kind in this grim room.

Despite its stillness I feel the length of my life, toiling beneath my skin; just as the water beneath the frozen lake. It rumbles, the endless cry of running water. Ever thirsty for more. The only dead water is still water.

I cannot bear myself to move. The weight of my years has settled upon me like the finest of dust layers. In my motionlessness is my shadow caught. It cannot but obey me. It hides now. Perhaps, so do I.

From what? The toil and froth? The unrelenting waterfall of life I've temporarily captured in my silence? My still serenity of the moment?

All of these things, I'm sure. For it's in this moment of motionless that I am free to hide, just as my shadow. The world turns outside these walls but, for now, until the desperate morning, they shield me. From the light. The shadow-giving light that demands I live. For even now, while the water flows heavy with current beneath the ice, it is thin ice.

Though I move not, my shadow ever creeps. On the morn my shadow will not be where I commanded it to stay. To hide with me. Instead it hides from me. It lurks amongst its brethren to circumvent the fury of its owner. Me.

Why do I cower from my own shadow?

Why do I cower from the roaring waters beneath my stilled ice?

Why do I cower from life, where my shadow doth walk?

Evermore it creeps along these walls, through the night. Carrying the burden of the life I've lived. For it is in the walking shadow that the past lies, and in the darkness my only asylum.

Life once told the god of spring,

Immense beauty suits you quite well,

To which she smiled and responded,

I touched death as the night fell.

In autumn, the wind was heavy,

it carried past me, notes of death.

but when the sun came out again,

the wind felt like a fresh breath.

Spring brushed a petal from my hair,

and handed me a wilting flower.

Do not confuse beauty with life, she said.

Giving the world beauty is not my power.

With my breath, I only can give life.

How you see it, is left up to you.

People miss beautiful things every day,

The most beautiful things are seen by few.

Life wrapped a hand around mine,

The signs of life surround you, my child.

When will you look up and see them?

Then Life closed its eyes and smiled.

Later, I walked through a dormant garden,

and like a tree, I planted myself in the grass.

Through the winter, I stayed there.

feeling like ice, transparent like glass.

There was warmth coming from the soil.

Where I touched the earth, the earth made room.

If I hadn’t looked up, I would have never noticed,

The flowers had already begin to bloom.

Flitting darkness and bullets lighting up the night sky like Christmas lights we used to hang before our safe microcosm blew to pieces. The air we breathe smells of destruction and the gunpowder of neighbors we once called enemies but now use all the oxygen in the room to pray for, lest God take us as sacrifice for being untrue to our words of thoughts and prayers. Moments of silence and salutes to a waving symbol of indolence and laziness. Blind eyes suddenly saw when the fire returned and turned the blue and red into bruises and blood. We carried a big stick, but they took it and knocked us at the knees and watched our bashed heads roll on roads paved with people underpaid and overlooked. But now we see them. We see each other and plead for each other like the world pled for us, but we didn't come just like no one will come now that the mighty have fallen.

“If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”

Romeo and Juliet

An endless, immortalized devotion

Didst fill my heart with steadfast, true felt love

A brimming, overwhelming emotion

Flying amidst skies like a soaring dove.

Canst thou not hear my deep, profound longing,

Carried on the wind in a fervent cry?

A new life awaits us, a pure dawning,

Thus, meet my rough, tender touch lest I die.

We pilgrims will meld with rapture divine

Lips will blush, colliding as only one

Whilst souls will combine, forever entwined

’Til twilight greets us and our time is spun.

Unworthy though I be, my heart is true

Come, my dear, spin love’s tale with me anew.

When I no longer was able to know who you are

When I started to question the image I had of you

When I thought that I was the illustrator of my own head

I started to look at your shadow

And that is when I realized for some;

“Life’s but a walking shadow”

Darren stood that night in the swelling black

That spilled like a ponderous throw carpet

All throughout his neighborhood,

And the mess of local and chain businesses

That jutted out of this once cherished;

Now maligned side of town...

Her lips had descended upon him like a hungry rat

Before she vanished into some crater somewhere,

While his head was still spinning,

Muttering that she just wanted to know what

It would feel like to kiss him...

It was like a sped up relationship in reverse...

He'd become like a bronzed legend in this city,

Like one of those statues of war generals that

The birds did their business on

In Central Park...

A lot of the old company had dispersed

Like windblown leaves in Autumn,

But here he was still planted firmly

Beneath the shadowy ballast of time...

Tonight he sat in Casey's, tasting the bitter coffee,

And basking in the ersatz 50's decor...

He was recalling Jennifer's kiss again,

And the way the streetlights bled into the river

When he had wandered out onto the

Downtown bridge in a daze after she fled...

Gazing off in a distance from his post

He saw the giant outline of his shadow snake up

The side of the Amway Grand Plaza

That stood impressively to the right of the bridge

That was peppered with a mosaic of brightly shining

Bulbs that further enhanced his darkened replica...

Darren waved at the shadow,

And the lofty shadow's arm waved back

With what seemed like almost a

Delayed reaction time that bordered on odd...

Tomorrow he planned to pull up stakes,

And take a trip outside the confines of this burg!...

Early that next morning, Darren awoke

With a newfound obligation, and appreciation

For the narcotic that was his city...

He couldn't imagine a move;

Not with all the memories and faces that he wore

Like a bandanna around his neck,

Long into the numberless starry nights

He plunged forever like a falling star...

1/18/23

Bunny Villaire

We haven't talked in years and yet, every January I will see the calendar and count out how old you are this year.

I hear you sing every time my favorite song comes on.

I will compare you to every friend I ever make and I wonder if anything will ever feel better than you.

I will tell myself that I won't screw up next time, but I wonder if the memory of you will ever allow a next time.

We haven't talked in years and yet- and yet.

You broke me and you fixed me and you echo from everything I do.

My shadow will forever be reaching out to hold your hand, but my body will never be willing to intertwine our fingers again.