R. Leib's Blog: Dream State

My nephew, Jonathan Kroll, died this past week. His passing seems so surreal. He was so young (only 36) and had just gotten married. He died from a rare form of cancer. If you would like to know more or would like to help, I have set up a small web page at http://www.ckart.com/rich/jonkroll.html.

When the doctor said, "Cancer",
The phone call turned surreal,
And every moment became divided
Between before and after.

My life ceased centering around living
And metamorphosed into a schedule
Of doctor appointments and CT scans,
Uncomfortable procedures and surprise bills.

I bare a mark,
Not of Cain,
But of Abel.
Abhorrence is being a victim.

I look in the mirror,
And wonder why
Dorian Gray chose to hide
Inside one of my organs.

I am early,
Or so they say.
Then why do I feel
Like a later version of me?

Why do I feel obliged to find
The bright side
For those who
Feel obligated to care?

Is is that word?
"Cancer"
Even though I feel fine,
Is knowing too much?

The ultimate truth is that we are all victims of entropy.

Readers are not horses that need to be led to water. They already want to drink from your stream, or they would be in someone else's book. Show them the way to water, and they will quench their thirst without being told how or why.

Art exists, because every eye of the beholder is different.

Committee IQ expressed mathematically:

As I have gotten older, I endured a wide variety of time's insults to my body and mind. Many of them were anticipated. Others were not. Most I have taken in stride, amazed that I lasted this long.

I always thought of myself as being six feet tall, as measured in my youth and noted on my driver's license. Recently, I found out that I have shrunk two inches. Of all the things that aging has done to me, for some reason this one most of all makes me feel violated.

While I'm in the middle of several projects, an idea came to me and I wrote a vignette. It's called "Why Rainbows Lie". It starts with a poem:

Light finds its way into our lives.
It bends and splits
Into spectral ploy
Only to become blinding once again.

It carries the data of the stars
Across millennia of light years
To be underappreciated
In the blink of an eyelid.

In fire it is born.
On the solar wind it is borne
To blaze upon a summer's morn
And make public winter's mourn.

It delights the child
And plays the cat
Burns the flesh
And nourishes the soul.

What does it say about our culture that the word, chum, can mean either a close friend or a bucket of fish guts?

Cynicism isn't born it's nurtured.