Tuesday, November 26, 2013

IT'S YOUR JOB. WILL YOU DO IT?



OWN IT
Shed a tear and know it’s wasted for it’s gone.
Dreams are just that, elusive goals for fools
reality has a way to trampling underfoot.
Dry your eyes, why waste water and go.

Alone in the desert solitude
dreams with the right cactus
can become temporarily visionary, attainable,
but then reality rises from the parched cracked earth.

The one you aided in its destruction
slapping you back with the uncaring hardness of it.
Makes little difference when you come to know
dreams are for the sleeping or the dead.

You are neither. My guess is it be a better thing
to not cry but simply work the tools you have.
Clamp your reality tightly, mercilessly in a vise
and heat it, beat it, shape it until it is yours alone.

© M Durfee
11.26.2013

20 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Charles time for a Dremel tool and a sanding wheel then, soak 'em in oil afterwards spray with a degreaser and find some scrap steel and commence to beating it into a shape you can live with. I despise the look and feel of rust on my tools.

      Delete
  2. ah, i will keep my dreams and the futility that comes with them...
    i'd rather the fool than the automaton...those last couple lines...
    heck yeah...like a blacksmith.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I should be offended at the word automaton Brian, but it's cool. I am a realist and as long as my dwindling arm strength allows i will fight for reality to conform to me, Not because I am always right but I am the one who has to live in it, them unfortunate to come in and not be comfortable can always borrow my forge.

      Delete
  3. The last stanza sums up life perfectly, Mark. We have to do what we can with what we've got and whining or crying never has changed reality.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Damn straight Kim, car wouldn't start. I had not tools to fix it with but I knew what the problem was. Took me ten minutes of looking on the ground to find what I needed and didn't have to go around begging people for a jump. Soon as it warms up a little I'll fix it but my patch is holding and will hold until then.

      Delete
  4. "clamp your reality harshly..."
    How can we go on without our dreams? How can we continue to get up and look for that scintilla of hope?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rosaria my reality is different, if i allow for to much hope I know that reality will not allow the possible to blossom. If i need a flower i have to beat it out and shape it myself, with my own hands,

      Delete
  5. i love this one, mark! it might be my new favorite of your work. i don't think in terms of dreams too often: i seem to go after what appeals to me and rail against what offends.

    clamp reality tightly is damn good advice.

    happy thanksgiving!

    love
    kj

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One of the things i always liked about a tightly clamped piece I was getting ready to alter kj, was that I could walk all the way around it and look at it from many perspectives before i changed it.

      Delete
  6. Here's to heating beating and shaping. And in answer to your recent question about dubbing & sub-titles: "Hey WM / Mark ~~ usually DVDs will give choices, subtitles, dubbed. etc. With Nights of Cabiria, there's an English-dubbed version you can access on DVD. Usually more fun in the original languages with subtitles, but also more work. W/Cabiria the original is in Italian. Ciao ~!'

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Erik it would be a hell of a lot more work seeing as how I barely speak English, but I have wondered for awhile because you are such a foreign film fan.

      Delete
  7. "...dreams with the right cactus
    can become temporarily visionary, attainable,..."

    How oddly true.
    I was flat broke in Brownville, Texas, standing by a cactus, beside which, oddly, there was an ATM machine.
    I phoned my bank manager in Newmarket, Ontario, asked him for an emergency loan...It's a good thing he was a personal friend..."Give me some time to program your loan," he said.
    I waited a few hours and, voila! in came $400, right beside the cactus.

    Indeed,
    dreams with the right cactus
    can become temporarily visionary, attainable,...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great story Ivan too bad there were no peyote buttons on that cactus, it would have made the wait less stressful. But then on the other hand maybe the cactus was full of buttons and there was no phone or ATM only you and your visions,

      Delete
  8. love the concluding lines!


    ALOHA from Honolulu
    Comfort Spiral
    =^..^= <3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cloudia if one is living in a reality that doesn't suit them then they are either obligated to conform or beat it into a shape they are comfortable with.

      Delete
  9. This is so powerful, Mark. Still, I'm more inclined towards dreams...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Vesper I could say that everyone learns at their own pace but that wouldn't be right because it is conditional. What is true is the world needs them who tend towards dreams if for no other reason you are a wall against the tide of meanness.

      Delete
  10. I don't dream much anymore. I've come to realize that dreams are limited by time and what the body can do. My bucket list has become more realistic.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Mark, I love that last few lines. I think it applys to us all in our own way. xo

    ReplyDelete

So Walking Man I was thinking...