TROUBLE AND DESIRE

As it so happens,
I’m tired of thinking about things,
tired of “mulling things over”
into a flavorless conceptual paste,
tired of “thinking things through”
to their logical, but otherwise,
less than satisfying conclusions.
I’ve decided from now on to live my life
in the blind spot of my own mind’s eye;
a compact car to a tanker
hauling liquid fertilizer
at 90-plus miles an hour.
I want to bungee from bridges
spanning unfathomable depths
of human depravity,
parachute from planes
in search of some zen-like nothingness
that comes only from risking everything
on, seemingly, nothing.
I want to conquer women
with a highly potent, yet imperceptible,
synthesis of slight of hand,
subtle hypnosis and positive/
negative re-enforcement via
their own masochistic tendencies
toward low self esteem.
I want to be a former member
of an elite, covert team
of... something or other.
I want to live a life on the run,
hitch-hike from mental state
to mental state, move from town
to no name town, always just
one step and one alias ahead of
the same mysterious (yet
oddly familiar) stranger.
I want to find the man
behind the man
behind the man.
I want to avenge the death of my master.
I want to reel myself in
through the winding wonderland
maze of the world on a string
I left for myself
countless past lives ago.
And when the great, cosmic
18-wheeler of eternity
finally comes for me
out on that lonely, moon-lit
two lane highway of Time,
will I be the lordly bull-moose
of a thousand campfire stories
suddenly appearing in the headlights,
refusing to give ground,
or a mere moth of a thought
caught in its gnarled grill,
for some higher power type character
to power-wash off later
without a second’s thought?


-Jason Ryberg, 2009