Initiative Redaction

Taken in from the top, everything else looks down and out, but the best way to get here from there is to wait until you catch up with yourself and see who arrives first. Tie goes to the rumor. I surround my ambitions with a yawn and prepare for the next available moment after this current one winds up its down time, pantemporal travel notwithstanding in the rain of my every day dreams for a better tomorrow in spite of yesterday’s misfunctions. The crowding hours keep my hesitation to broach anything more radical than a mid-morning snack, but I bite off the substance of freedom, chew over the implications of lateral intent, ruminate on a better way of strife, swallow my pride, digest what comes to my attention and generally get a belly full of short-changed inspiration just in time for lunch. Close call. Slow day at the okay corral. Round up your posse and ride like the dust that blows through the sweep of your mountain stone mind, like a rock. Here come the good guys and there goes the neighborhood out the back door, down the alley, into the streets of lost and found angels looking for a way to share a smile. All emotion is primal, all opinion is biased.


Writing as fast as you read, the images and words that flow from the fingertips of my every active mind to the walls of your never changing mend (substitutions abound) of the way you would like to see what it is that holds your breath between each and every distraction, come around and eventually trade sense for substance. I offer relief in the form of a cloud, you hold clouds in the arms of your clear blank eye, and between the motion found therein, the weather makes out just find in the loss of something else to lose. All reality is conditional, all perception is subjective.


One thing follows another until there is a whole series of confusion that only makes signs to point and ponder the way back to where you are going in any situational aspect of being lost without realizing it. Here you go there in the sunshine of the clear blue night, holding without touching and feeling without believing. All awareness is current, all actions change your future reality, ad infinitum.


Written by Michael Steven Platt 5-02-09

A Poetry Day Late and A Poem, Short

Okay, okay... I know what you’ll say:
I didn’t come through on Poetry Day.
Apologies, regrets, atonement, amends
My self recriminatory angst forefends…
I guess I’ll ameliorate this loss somehow
And offer a poem… so, how ‘bout right now?

Wrought Write Read

How much Writ
Can a Right Write Write
If a Wrought Write
Wrote Right Writ?


Wrap that around confusion’s find
Then plant it in your fertile mind,
And wonder if you were mislead
And wrote right write was left instead.
So with that read of wrought write fun
This Poetry Day is write right done!

Wrote right write wrought by Michael Steven Platt 5-1-09

Ivory Tower Dreams

Drive this disjointed day on. Redeem your coupons for more, take a number, stand in line: clamp down on my ivory tower dreams, they are getting too real to discern from what’s actually going on, the attraction of the fabricated fantasy looking more substantial, enticing and desirable than the factual alternatives. A golden door appears at the base of the tower, firm and stately with an aura of great power emanating from it, causing my heart to long to pass through its presence and realize the fulfillment of desires and needs that lies beyond. I see people lined and waiting to be able to enter, impatient and edgy, yet steadfast in their order and purpose, each knowing that the answers to their particulars are available within. Time takes a giant leap forward into the next moment, only to trip, stumble and staccato off to a steady infinity of others. Some might say it was worth the wait, others won’t notice (thus holding up the line for the rest of us). However, I’m interrupted among all this as other intricate stairways pull my wander mind to climb to a new view, only to have a lateral branching lead my steps in a variant direction, only to have a lateral branching lead my steps in a contrasting direction, only to have a lateral branching lead my steps in a different direction, only to have a lateral branching lead my steps in another direction, when I suddenly look back, wonder just where I am and see a lateral branching I hadn’t noticed before, so I think how interesting that way looks and I wander still further on ….um, what was I talking about? I am tumbled in my goals like a leaf in the wind, hurry scurry flurrying around and around and never catching a solid moment of peace, a stable foundation of belief and confidence, a basis to find cohesive function and balance in my creative pursuits, my inspired efforts, my labored offerings, my dreams come true. Like a bird bobbing around a bush looking for insects, a squirrel scritching upon the circumference of a tree trunk keeping away from potential predators or a bear climbing over a succession of mountains just to see what he could see, the situation is redundant in the fact that I look at each stepped moment of life and see an altered, lateral view of reality’s scope, my time catching stride and tangling in the infinite stairways thus revealed each and every step along the way…. Becoming excited, I run quickly to follow (lead) up on this new path only to lose my footing and fall bum dee bum bump in ominous music tuned to my sudden descent back down. I stop and ease to a sitting position, look around as I feel the bruising sure to be seen upon the morrow, scratch my head, stand back up, turn and find myself facing a long narrow hallway that leads into the dim of distance. Looking left and right at the endless stairs, I give a mental shrug and head on down the open hall. After a few dozen steps, a closed door marks its place on the left as I pass, and then another on the right, and then one on the left and another on the right as they become the norm, my steps taking me past them one after another in monotonous continuation. I finally tire of this and step to the next door on the left, grasp its handle, push it open and look inside: like an answer to subconscious prayers, it’s a bathroom. How convenient. I step in, close the door, unbuckle my belt and … (censored)… and buckle my belt, step to the sink and wash my hands, check my reflection in the mirror as I use a paper towel, throw the towel in the trash and open the door again to come face first with an angry looking man who says, “About time!” pushes past me and slams the door shut, cutting off his exclamation of, “Cripes! It stinks in…” leaving me standing facing the outside of the door. I notice that it is gold and that the hallway is gone and I am on the upper landing of a stairway, with a long line of people all frowning at me and muttering to themselves about time and consideration of the needs of others. I sheepishly step my way down on one side of the stairs, saying, “Sorry … sorry…” to the frowning people I pass, trying to be as quick and unobtrusive as I can. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I look back to once more see the ivory tower of my dreams, but it has somehow lost the aura of magic and wonder that it had held earlier. I purse my lips, put my hands into my pockets, shrug my shoulders around my hunched stance, shake my head in slow wonder as to what just happened, then turn and wander away into the next paragraph.

(Again) From my book Endless Shifting Sand... it’s nice to have a quick and easy source for postings when I get home too late to be able to be very creative.

Posted by Michael Steven Platt 4-18-09

Thought, The Train Ride and Happy Birthday

Thought for the Moment:
“Some people live a life of perambulated hodge-podge.”
I sometimes feel that way, like my life is a walking, chaotic mixed-up mess... but usually I keep my mess located in stationary places, like at home or in my locker at work. Now if we were talking about my thoughts, then yes, my mind is always churning and roiling, bouncing around from one thing to another through far-fetched , tenuously related tangents that keep moving and evolving. A busy and creative place that keeps me entertained!
I’ll stick a story in here and then head to bed. I played volleyball for a couple hours in open gym this evening and I’m tired. I’m trying to write everyday in this blog, and so far so good. As long as I can cut and paste I can keep it happening!

The Train Ride
There once was a man who lived in the city who one day took a train to the country. It was a long ride and he fell asleep, thinking that the conductor would wake him when they arrived at his stop. So he slept, and as he slept he dreamed. He dreamt that he lived in the country and one day he decided to go to the city on the train. So he did, and, since it was a long ride, he fell asleep, think that the conductor would wake him when they got there. He slept... and as he slept, he dreamed while the train traveled on and on and on...
“Hey! Wake up! This is your stop!” The conductor said, shaking the man, who woke with a start and quickly got off the train to find himself in the city. And to this day he gets confused quite easily.


And a Very Happy Birthday to both my Mother and my Brother. I Hope you had a good one!

Written by Michael Steven Platt 4-06-09