16
The Bet
I made a bet on the
Other Side
that I would find my
way out of life
with nothing but my
wit, no mentor,
guru, or philosophy to
guide me
through the maze of
human misery,
forging my own path through
life
on the anvil of my blemished
soul,
a man in every way
the same as other
men but with one distinction:
an
unparalleled desire to
absolve myself
of my regretful life
which I returned
to live over again to
achieve a different
outcome, and I can’t
wait to pass over
to the Other Side to
claim my bet from
the soul of a man
called Pythagoras,
who was once my
teacher.
17
Birds of a Feather
Every moment of every day, year after year after year
they gather from every corner of the world—large
and small, fat and thin, black and white, brown
and yellow, and every shade in-between the races,
and plan their journey to the magical kingdom
of their deepest longing.
I gathered one day, seventeen years, five months, two days,
five hours, ten minutes, and seven seconds to the moment
when I read The Razor’s
Edge that called me to the gathering;
silently, pulling me through the rutted corridors of my life
despite bitter protestations, and I began my lonely journey
to the magical kingdom of my deepest longing.
All of us strangers with the same desire, we embarked upon
our separate ways, alone and frightened to the bone; and every
now and then we met along the way and compared our progress:
O, what dismay! O, what catastrophe! O, what simply joy!
And we continued with newfound wisdom, only to lose
our way again in life’s brambles; but I persisted—
And strewn along the byways of life, countless birds of a
feather
torn to shreds on the razor’s edge and beaten to dejection; but
I persevered, fearing to fail as I had done the last time I gathered
in the wild frontier of the new land of the Americas— Lord
Daniel Wellington, aka trapper Dan, who drowned in vain
trying to gain the kingdom of my deepest longing.
18
The In-between Days
37 years old, much too young
to face the dreaded divide
with nothing but naked fear
and wanton desire for the time
she had left to live, with little
thought of the Other Side—
absolute nullification of her
selfhood and vague rumors
passed on from generations of
desperate hope—and like a
fierce tornado of unlived dreams
she sucked the sweet marrow
out of life to satisfy her craving
for personal meaning, keeping
a memoir for posterity of the
in-between days of her vital
treatments: 137 soul-drenched
pages of precious living.
19
The Prize
If life is a game,
then what’s the
prize?
“The prize is to
open your eyes,”
said my partner Penny
Lynn,
playfully. “And see
what?” I replied.
But that’s the
mystery of the game
of life that we all
get caught up in,
by whatever name we
call it,
like
actress/director Jodie Foster
and her new game of Money Monster;
and not until we see
the hole in our
soul will our eyes be
wide open.
And then we stare wide-eyed
and ask
the dreaded question:
“Now what?”
And the game of life
is taken to new
levels of authenticity:
“Beauty is truth,
truth beauty,” and we
stop playing
the game of make-believe
and
start living life for
real.
20
New
Pastures
The valley no longer beckons,
and she ascends again sans the burden
of old thoughts. No more demands upon
unwary souls as they
graze on earthly longings;
and when the luscious grass has been eaten,
they climb to news pastures where she
will be waiting with new poems
for them to graze on.
