Blessed Ignorance

Hunting truth,
I should stop here
Balanced at the limit of my tolerance for
Revelation

Any further and I risk
Losing myself in clarity
Flawless visions of what
I don’t need to know
About myself

I fear that
Absolute and utter verity would
Rob me of my dreams
Freeze my capacity to act

At the fuzzy edge
Demarcating
Vision from delusion
Miracles can happen

Like bumblebees, I cling to the illusion I can fly
Hey, it works for them

Hooked

Be wary of
Fleeting waves of joy
Momentary triumph
Fugacious victory

Pleasure ebbs
Each perfect moment past
Caught in rip-time
Swept away

Pleasure holds us back
Snagged by memory
Fighting the flow
Exhausted by vain efforts to swim
Back through time

Trust the fleeting current
Confident it will carve channels
Cultivating new and different
Joy

Only by forgetting
Is there
Any chance the past may reoccur

Plan B

When your strongest game
Isn’t strong enough
Whatever reason:
Pits your strength against a
Stronger countermove
You’re being just a bit too
Obvious
Today, right now, it just doesn’t
Click

Cue Plan B

So what it isn’t quite your strongest move
Rough around the edges
Perhaps a little
Raw

You’re going down—why not give it a chance?

Maybe it’s a better
Fit
A weaker strength may find the armor’s chink
Might be a surprise
Perhaps a better rhythm for the day

But careful! Watch and see
Evaluate

Your own low expectations of the
Lesser move
May suck you in, keep you pushing launch when
It won't ignite

If it takes you even farther down, abort! Abort!

Your A game, falling short of your desire’s
Still a better bet…

Stalking Happiness

A most elusive beast
Easy to scare off
Hard to pin down
Adept at Esquive

Successful expeditions must be
Indirect
Oblique
Seemingly pursuing other prey:
Health, strength, skill
Dominance or victory

Thunder hell-bent in pursuit of other goals--
You may well find you’ve
Snared a rush of joy as
By catch
Lagniappe
Collateral

Don’t get cocky—happiness is never caught the same way twice
And never will stay caught

Negativity

Weak
Unfocused
Scared

Lazy
Ego-driven
Vain

Tense
Robotic
“Nice”

Fistful observations
Crumple me into a
Small, constricted version of myself

Would it hurt too much
For just one day
To throw the switch
Reverse polarity

Suddenly I’m

Strong
Attentive
Brave

Hardworking
Unselfconscious
Unassuming

Relaxed
Creative
Genuine

Maybe
With the pressure off I will
Expand
Swelling like a sponge, ready to absorb
Ideas, examples
Anything you teach

Words can shape reality

Gameful

You think you know the rules
Conventions
Handed down from high
Neatly sectioned, numbered
Sanctioned
Endlessly debated (on the strip, and off)

I've simply layered on
My own augmented reality
A game beneath the game

Hidden in this notebook is my
Secret score
Coded annotations --
You puzzle when I pump my arm in triumph
Having lost the touch?
I'm not trying to gull the ref*,
I'm gleefully amassing points
Epic wins that no one else can see, or seeing
Recognize the import of
The covert action-of-the-day
Snuck into a bout:
  Prime riposte
  Coupe into six
  Glissade
  Crossover flèche

Ingenious &
Unnecessary obstacles
Clandestine quests
Challenge me to level up in
perseverance
patience
courtesy
Expand my repertoire
Try new things that certainly will fail
The first few hundred times

You want to play? Leap down the rabbit hole
Petition for your first assignment here...

*o.k.—SOMETIMES I’m trying to gull the ref. You know, just to see if it works.