Written By Moonlight

I don't know the name of this beach. All I'd have to do is look it up I'm sure. But really the name is meaningless. it's just a thing man has tried to attach to this place. Just like man tries to attach things to all places. Things of his own making. Rather like he attached those monstrous hotels to this island. Paradise, indeed this was. Still is, out here by the sea. In there though, it's not like this. A casino? Little men and little women, going frantic over little (no matter how large in sum) money. They should be out here, living.


I'm writing by moonlight for the first (and I pray not only) time in my life. The clearness of the sky here is astounding. The night sky actually has form and detail here, just like daylight. I don't think I've ever truly understood the sea until today. or I did but didn't realize I did. Very alike, the sky and the sea. Not for nothing were pirates drawn to its seemingly boundless surface. Truly freedom is to be had at sea, and the shores are its gateway. It's a beautiful place in the day, but for me, it truly speaks for my inner soul at night. 


Tolkien wrote truth when he aligned the elves with nighttime and the stars,with Ithil, the moon. For only at night does memory truly come alive, memory and imagination. One does feel ever so truly insignificant and trivial when faced with the heavens, the stars, Ithil, and the sea simultaneously. What is there but the smell of the sea, the feel of the breeze, the white sand under the silver moon? All the trials of life are fully worthwhile for this. That this moment, this ethereal, ever-flowing, effervescent moment should be, however fleeting. I wouldn't have thought I'd find a holy place of nature at a resort. Of course I'm also far away from where the resort people intended I should be at this time. They'd rather I was off on the marina spending money. Or making money for them rather. The beach is closed after all. I should be gambling or drinking. Or watching some fucking movie with famous fucking people in it, about some irrelevant garbage. Don't get me wrong here, there have been some great movies. 


But Even the great ones, what are they in comparison to the rolling sapphire waves, topped in quicksilver that currently surround me? What are they to the immortal breath of the sea flowing into my body? Sitting here, pen and notebook in hand is doing more for my soul than 1000 movies ever could. Makes me think about love. I've been caught up, for months now, over the loss of my love, once my best friend. The failure of something that was once the most certain thing in my life...

This sea was rolling in then, it's rolling in now, and it will continue to roll in after my death, a mere drop in the bucket from now. Many have been born, lived, loved, and died, and still the sea rolls on, the moon reflects sunlight and somewhere, someone is smiling at it. I believe I will find love again. Whether far or soon is nothing. The sea rolls on.

The ethereal everflowing effervescent moment.

Turquoise waves whipped to white froth

Land upon stones, weathered and aged

beneath the moon and stars.

Deep indigo sky, moon of pearl.

The roar and whispers of the sae, the feathering touch of the wind,

billowing around my solitary promontory

Here am I

Saying to it all

welcome.

We still remember, we who dwell beneath the trees, the starlight on the western seas.

Ithil melloneva Ulmo

Ithil melloneva Ulmo

12/20/10

What are your vaunted towers, 

Your noise, your rushing

Your vast brightly lit bowers?

What indeed is your comparative worth?

Little

To the terror and beauty of the cresting waves.

Less

To the smell of gods in the rushing wind.

Nothing

To the whispers upon the silvering seas.

You may build your monumental palace

Fill it with noise, with light, with echoes and crashes.

Create and create until you've o'ertopped them all,

These titanic fortifications you've raised against Divines

and lesser men.

You are yet nothing

Chaff

Ashes

Returning to dust.

You are yet outdone by life as it is.

You turn your back on Her

But she is there

Waiting.

-David Atchison

A Moment Under The Moon

A Moment Under The Moon

12/21/10

Nassau, Bahamas

    The ethereal, ever-flowing, effervescent moment...

Turquoise waves, whipped to white foam

    Crash down upon gray and black stones

Weathered and aged

   Through the years that fled.

Depths of indigo sky hold aloft the pearlescent moon.

   The throaty roars and silken whispers of the sea,

And the feathered fingers of the wind caress me,

   Billowing around my lonely stone

That countless men and ages have known.

So here am I

   A passing phantom, or a sigh

Crying out before it all

   Hail and welcome.

-David Atchison

Limos

Limos

My gut so neglected

It devours the air.

I feel as a star about to nova

Empty to bursting

Full with nothing

When not gulping air

it gnaws itself

Turning inward for sustenance

I am unable to give.

The Serpent writhes

Rampant in my system

dulling my mind

weakening my limbs

Punishing failure

To provide.

Passing On

Passing On 10/24

(in memoriam, Evelyn Josephine McDonald Simmons) 

9/10/1922-10/23/10

10

A life is but a process of passing on gifts.

23

Passing on colds

Passing on coughdrops

Passing on humor

Passing on knowledge

Passing on love

Passing on life

Passing on kindness

Passing on.

10

And finally, in the end, we too must pass on.

We give back what has been gifted to us

for it is all only in passing, fleeting as snow.

In the end, if we've lived life well

If we've lived our lives sharing

We've little to give back, 

and so we pass on

Willing,

Peaceful,

Beautiful.

finis.

Sometimes

Sometimes

10/23

A single in a room of doubles.

A desert of precious liquid

Locked away. 

Sometimes,

everything you want is taken

so you're left

wanting

nothing.

nothing.

nothing.

Sometimes, it doesn't matter anymore and

you're alone,

reaching.

failing.

falling.

falling.

Sometimes,

every breath is dying,

every tree is falling,

every animal is roadkill and you just don't fucking want to deal with any of it anymore.

Sometimes,

Help is just around the corner,

but the corner just keeps moving.

faster.

faster.

faster.

Sometimes, 

You want to run away,

Get an instrument 

and live a short and painful but meaningful life

and fuck the consequences.

Sometimes, you hate who you are

what you're doing,

what you're not doing.

all of it can burn.

Friends.

They're supposed to be there.

for sometimes.

but what if they're not?

what if?

What if the what if's just keep piling on

and piling

on and 

on and 

on.

What then?

What should happen

Sometimes?

Careful With Your Machines, Please

Upon the accidental death of a chipmunk...

Careful With Your Machines, Please

A streak of brown in the morning light

No time to swerve, bad timing.

Bump.

What have I done, what chance is this?

Looking back, crazed motion

The coming night.

Neurons firing spastically

Beyond control.

No one’s home anymore.

I return on foot to the final scene

No more a spasm; a small brown

Lump.

Surrounded by a spray of life’s blood,

Forever frozen in its final act:

Trying to cross to the other side.

Truly we must fear what we can become.

Without even meaning to, we are capable of taking life.

Our machines grind away, and sometimes a life

Is seized by the gears, and without purpose.

Without meaning

Death.