Virginia Breeze

I rewrote an older poem today and posted it earlier. I had actually been working on another poem but it wasn’t going anywhere fast so I took a look at this one again.

The one that won’t allow itself to be written quickly is about a more serious subject. It’s about why we allow ourselves to be born. Because I think we do. I think we have a choice and we decide to come here for various reasons. The poem goes into some of those reasons.

It’s really about reincarnation.

I happen to believe in this cycle of births and deaths. But the poem is going to take some real work. Maybe this weekend i can clear the desk and do it.

Today I was distracted by this other poem that I hid in my first blog Shooting The Virginia Breeze (a Wordpress dot com blog I don’t really know what to do with it so I hide things in it.)

I rewrote a bunch of lines in this poem and posted it here.

It’s an orphan poem. It never has received any comments. But I like some of the imagery. And we like to go out on a limb here at VB every once in awhile.

This poem originally came about because we often have dinner with the television on. We like to watch The Andy Griffith Show. I had never seen any of the episodes before and they are actually pretty good. There’s a reason this show is still on the air after forty years.

At some point during dinner a commercial comes on about Cialis and impotence. I am sitting there with my wife and often her parents when this thing comes on and they start talking about erectile dysfunction. I find it very strange to be listening to this over dinner with my mother-in-law.

But everybody seems to think it’s pretty funny. There’s a couple in the kitchen and all of a sudden the faucet explodes and water starts geysering towards the ceiling. What’s that all about?

That doesn’t sound like impotence to me. Maybe something else but not that. And then the couple start laughing.

I can just see my wife and i sharing a laugh if our kitchen sink exploded. “HAHAHAH look at that honey! The faucet is sticking in the ceiling and the water’s a foot deep on the floor. I bet there’s a waterfall over by the stairs there. HAHAHAHA.”

What do they put in this medicine. . . . some sort of hallucinogenic? But then I realized that I liked this couple. Because they were happy together and they wanted to work out all their problems together. It wasn’t just about sex. It was about home maintenance and probably a lot of other stuff.

They were not going off looking for thrills with other partners. They were not trying to escape the challenges they faced. They were going to work things out and get old together. And they were going to do it with a sense of humor.

I liked that a lot. So I wrote this poem.

I am also hoping the Cialis people will see it one day and decide they need it for one of their ads.

That way I won’t ever have to worry about home maintenance again. I will have my own live in maintenance guy plus a cook and a cleaning staff.

I really do have this whole thing worked out. And I am a very patient guy sometimes.

You can ask my wife.

*

Do you believe in reincarnation?  Have you ever felt like you knew someone from a past life or were in a place that maybe you knew from a past life?

*

***

There’s a news report on television about Heath Ledger. He was very much in love with someone named Michelle. They had a little girl whose name is Matilda. They had fame, wealth and good fortune.

But, unfortunately, Heath used drugs and he could not sleep. Possibly he was depressed. I don’t know. But I do know that inability to sleep and depression are partners in a very sad play.

And I know that it is a good idea to deal with the depression. Don’t just force yourself to sleep with some concoction of sleep inducing drugs. Because sometimes all those drugs can make the depression worse. And then you need more of them in order to sleep.

Do you see where this is leading?

I had no idea who this young man was when he died. But tonight as I sit here next to a television it seems like he was beloved by many others who admired his work. Shame on the media for turning this into the latest media buzzfest.

Family and friends mourn a young man’s death. A child has no father. A lover mourns.

Death by chemicals. Sometimes you can’t reach people who have “Everything”. You can’t share some simple advice with them. Everything is too easy for them. Even dying. Are you listening to anyone Britney? Could this be Your wakeup call?

I think Mr. Ledger was a very imaginative guy. And using his imagination won him a lot of praise, popularity and wealth in a short period of time. Maybe he started living in an imaginary world at some point. Drugs can help one do that. I imagine it would be pretty easy to “pass over” without even noticing under such circumstances. Especially if you did not want to deal with painful realities.

But there are no easy ways out. Listen to Sylvia Browne or Paramahansa Yogananda. There are no easy exits from our problems. There are just more doors.

I prefer the door I know to the one that leads to a big surprise. And I also believe in medication that helps us deal with our problems instead of avoiding them.

*

*

***