The sad love affair of an old grasshopper

Until I heard something different I was the same and came back again and again to where I was dying to be free. This was no mistake for I wanted my dreams so badly that I would not give up on them, no matter what came to distract me any other way.

I saved all my pennies upon the stairs I was standing on and counted my losses in between the breaths that came to save me to where I had nothing left but the understanding that I could choose which way to go to, pay my dues and escape to where I was just gone.
I took a deep breath and relaxed.
I grew up from this an awful long time and couldn’t be counted in anyone’s game; and so I was left to my own devices to crack the doom open all by myself.
Doom, what doom, said my wild side.
When the typewriter broke down I bought a new one and carried on until no one knew me at all from the virus in my head that was pounding.

The missionaries had a name for this that they kept in a box under their feet and would never let out to call their name no matter how much surrender they could muster. Until one day a quiet one opened the box and let the inside free. Standing back he watched it fly away, and grinned all over his face.
You know, you should write a book, said the ten wonders of the world standing by and commenting.
I had many grapes in my cup that were rattling around, so I stood on my head to see if I could see my feet, and was rewarded with a knock on the door that had come to explain everything.
I started cooking about this interruption, and so put some more sticks on the fire to kindle a little hope it wouldn’t find me where I could be found.

It must have had a mind of its own for it saw me; and who are you then, it said at me with its loud voice of doom.
I am not available for comment, I said, and turned the tables around to suit this idea’s best motive; and so began writing a book to take in that concern.

A moment later and I was searching for my glass of wine that I’d forgotten ages ago but knew I hadn’t finished yet.
I heard ghosts out in my hallway dragging their feet from where they came from and calling to me to go home.
The very next morning I couldn’t be found for anything and so took the day off in some kind of surrender where the chief thief was calling from that grave I wouldn’t go in to, to find out what was going on.
But it didn’t matter what was going on for I had my secret pathway that always took me home again whenever I got lost until I was a homing pigeon homing in until I was lost.
Many fires burned the lap of the gods until they were jumping up out of their seats to question the great mystery about this.

I was looking on from far away and so didn’t see the inside details and I knew that registering complaints was of no use and so offered up a prayer that no working man could refuse but was cursed as some kind of terrible ray of sunlight in their miserable lives.
Well, as I’ve said before, I was not going to die for anything; but I’m paralysed in all that I don’t trust and I’m feeling for my love to come rescue me, I said to the angels, and my pillow night after night.
No answer came; so I gave up that grave and tuned over until I was on my back falling in through all the darkness of where my eyes used to be.
I once was more than this I called out then, and rubbed my eyes to take away the strain.
If only I could see.
But ‘maybe I’m too lonely’ hounded me until I could think of nothing else.
And then came the grief to pull me over into the next sunrise where I woke up and got out of bed once again to carry on looking for abundance in the hidden places.

I’m almost there, I know it, If only I could remember that what goes up comes down, and there’s no need to panic: what goes around will come around in its own good time and meet me where I am, maybe somewhere in the middle.
Sometimes I wonder where I am to think of this, and how deep is the well? Perhaps I’ll come up for air soon; or perhaps I’ll just gurgle from the hidden places where I look for cheer and all is well or not depending on what I’m thinking.
If only I could see I would write a million poems; and each one better than the last, I said, to the blackboard I was staring at that was driving me mad.
A million poems later and I still hadn’t done enough, so I tried to carry on.
I scratched my neck then, and looked around, and saw a placard saying: ‘We want donuts.’
Crumbs, I thought, and sucked my thumb a little bit more.

You can always go back and start again, said the machine rather bluntly for my liking into what I was living.
The glass blower, who was my uncle, picked up his sandwich, and began to bite it.
I was but a newcomer here and so what would I know?
Ding, went a bell somewhere to remind me I was late.
What a peculiar habit, I thought, as I ran for it, to escape the rain that was blowing up the tourists everywhere I went; perhaps I should stay at home.
So I went, and went; until I was so went away I practiced tapping on my knees to pass the time like droplets in a cup of water oozing out the sides like, to put a shilling in the meter where the division was uncertain.
I didn’t know if I was asleep or not so I pinched myself and faded as far as I could go in the crazy circles of my mind; and then came back again and promised myself I’d never go there again; but I did, so many times more, until I was practicing myself for absolution from everything.

I lay back then on the pillow, and took stock of my heart, and knew that no matter what, I was saved in the arms of my love, if only I could find my love beyond the storms in my mind.
Well, I was a lonely sailor; and as I swore away to myself I began to lose weight and shrunk down until I was no bigger than the desire that came at me to be devoured down into my belly.
I pulled a stiff upper lip at this and made my way into the gym to jump about a bit until all the noise had gone away to party somewhere else and I was left alone again.
And strangely, I didn’t feel guilty at all about feeling this; for I’d gone through it every time I’d been challenged to resist what I was feeling as I rose up to bloom.

Man, I tell you, the sixties were a measure of grace that wallpapered our dreams any way we could make them; and as I said then I’ll say now: I think I’ll go to bed soon right between the clouds of all my dying.
And that’s where I am found these days, so long from where I started.
Memories are faint about back then so I don’t think much about that anymore, although I am always reminded again and again, that the spirit of truth is not in the memory but flies about somewhere in between and hands-out glasses of wine and sandwiches to ease the transition.
It is a known thing that no teenagers are allowed in here for their own good, so if there’s one logging in with your mother’s password then know this: it is long past your bed time and from here on we can only consider you a messenger of peace until after you’ve grown your beard.

Hands up everyone who agrees, said the frog princess from the bottom of her frozen pond.
Half a dozen red roses later and near to the bottom of the wine I found my-self back at the crossroads sticking pins into the ghosts that wouldn’t leave me alone.
Grrr, said one of the ghosts looking for abundance in the hidden places of my mind where it couldn’t get in.
My memory was beginning to fade at last, and I was sleeping more, like the baby that never wakes up to face the tune, and so stayed asleep for the duration.
This was alright with me and my electric guitar that stayed up all night practicing the blues towards the hangover, even after I’d yawned and gone to bed.
The neighbours had written many petitions about not being able to sleep through it until they’d exhausted all their options on that topic and put it out of their mind.
I have really good neighbours.
There are places I will never go to, not in this life, and maybe not in any other either; but as there is no next life, only this one I didn’t fancy my chances much about anything I couldn’t touch with my fingers or dream into being in the art of being magnetized.
Maybe I will wait then, in the rain; maybe I will watch the numbers going up and down; yes, maybe I will.
This seems to be the way of it here where I’m playing with my fingers some-time of taken where I’m never going back ever again where back is nowhere far away.

I’m a fifth later than this usually in my urgings, but whatever, the journey is ever onwards.
Everyone’s dying faster than Jupiter, and everyone’s got a last breath, said my dying breath beside me to my ear that was half open but closing down fast.
How many times can one go around in circles, I asked, as I whizzed on by around the circumference?
As many times as it takes to die, said all I must.
And now we shall dance ladies and gentlemen; please find your partners and make it clear who you want to dance with.
Graciously or otherwise I gathered up all I could muster at such a late time of night and turned back into dust before I could really learn how to whistle before I could sing.
I tried to gather up my mind then, from where it had fallen, but couldn’t keep awake any longer, and so fell asleep beneath all my dreaming.

Later, when I awoke, someone said to call for help, as if I hadn’t a clue what was going on and should listen to any damn fool giving orders;
I was thinking that Jupiter was faster than anything when something came by much faster and broke some kind of barrier inside of my mind.
It was here that I couldn’t help but glance out of my window to see all of my dreams going by the other way; so, giving my ear a scratch to see if it was still there I began to be attracted to the magnetism of the dawn again to practice the art of being magnetised.
Sometimes you just have to stand back and see what is going on where you put things away in case you lose anything; but mostly you have to by on your best guard in case the aliens take you away.
A little while over from this, where everyone was hiding in the bushes a small breeze came and told them all to go home.
Suddenly, without a rush, a happy man was created who chose to tidy up the shelf of his life and became a star over night.

Other planes of existence began to exist up from this to be experienced, but time finally runs out on all things, and that time for this is here where the end is.
After the end came and went I began to retire in all the losing in different directions like fireworks on the kaleidoscope tree until it felt like I was a winner; but it didn’t last very long, maybe a few moments, and then it was another day that came and went like the figment I found myself in of where I was.
It has been said that dust is all we return into after the end comes where we yearn to belong to so much. But perhaps what we are most afraid of is the end where there is no more.

So, perhaps it is time for the next story: Once upon a time there was a gang that would eat grape-fruit all night long down the way to their shoes where they’d fall, and fart pips at the stars; well, I was one of them, and I can say it was a jolly good time I had of it; and I’d do it all again if I had to; but there’s no way back; so come by Monday at eleven and I’ll see what I can do, said the next turning in all my hope. But the turning arrived too soon, and burning for the hour jumped upon all it could see and said: although I am something lost, I will be found soon, of that I am sure, and then wandered off in an echo of contemplation that was drawing blood in the mud of all the thoughts.
I was trying hard to see past this and got as far as an old song playing from radio Jupiter that caused me to pause until I couldn’t go on anymore as I listened to it.
There is a pain that can’t be dismantled no matter how much kindness you heap upon it; so thank you for understanding this and not making it worse, I said afterwards, to ease my pains.
The radio has stopped playing now; and so, that’s it ladies and gentlemen. This is all from radio Jupiter in the rain.
Sigh…
images from Pixabay