Early Spring

Lying in bed afraid to come out from under the blankets
I watch as the snow begins to fall,
my mind is full of images of yesterday.

Sunlight shines luminous on the water.

A cardinal alights on a tree branch.

The tender buds of spring.

Me, sitting on the riverbank, my coat tossed carelessly aside.

Relaxing on the bank immersed in tranquility.
Listening to the poignant music of the river.
I  glimpse into Nirvana through the bars of winter’s prison.

As I looked up at my love
all I can see is a silhouette of joy
surrounded by a radiant halo of warm sunlight.

It feels like the clutches of winter have released their grasp
and the world is ready to be born anew.
Alas, I know that is not yet so.

A break from death’s dress rehearsal is all we are experiencing.
As I glimpse at the buds on the trees and the songbirds in the air
I want to cry out a warning, but the peaceful beauty holds me mute.

It is too early for you fruits of summer to begin your journey to my table.

I dream of the future in this reverie of spring.
I feel the fits and starts as the cold grudgingly releases its grip
I feel myself become anxious for the thaw.

Yet I know that this brief respite is only a taste.
It is too soon to leave the comfort of our slumbers.
Death is not ready to liberate life, it is testing its powers.

For shall we enter the stage too early
the dress rehearsal can quickly become the main act
all too easily.

So for me, I will return to today
warmed by memories of yesterday
as I watch the snow fall outside my window.

Jay Luptak
Whitehall, MI
February 21, 2012

 

 

For My Valentine

Poetry or prose?
How best to convey
what I need to say?

security and fear
joy and sorrow
passion and apprehension

When I walk in the door
greeted by your dog’s happy dance
my heart takes flight.

Some days I put off
coming home
in fear that he won’t be there.

I fight illogical uncertainties.
Horrible dreams of losing
something that I never expected to have.

The reality driving my fear and confusion is beautiful
and makes the concept of home feel achievable;
no longer an ethereal unearthly ideal.

comfort and heartache
shelter and exposure
refuge and prison

So is this what I expected of love?
Absolutely not.
And for that I am so grateful!

My expectations were so limited
I was blind to the wonderful possibilities
Love has shown me.

Now I am able to see the perfection
in the joining of imperfect lives.
We are social creatures.

Community is a fancy word for pack.
Released into the wild
we find a way to come together.

We need to come together.
Alone we fade away.
I am so glad to no longer be alone.

companionship and solitude
serenity and distraction
tranquility and panic

I love to care for you.
I hope for your need.
I hope to be needed as I need you.

My voice freezes in my throat.
I have rehearsed the conversation
over and over.

You are not a mind reader.
I know I need to give voice to my needs.
I am so unused to seeing them filled.

I want so much more than to be needed.
I know that I am wanted,
but I need to feel wanted.

I fear that I need too much.
I know that I am desired,
but I need to feel desired.

desire and rejection
fulfillment and frustration
satisfaction and disenchantment

peace and chaos
laughter and tears
LOVE…

Jay Luptak
Whitehall, MI
February 13, 2012

Blood Ties

So, I had a bit of frustration Christmas Day and this is what came out. I considered not posting it because it shows a more negative side that I for the most part am working to get away from, but it does represent a big part of my journey these days. Thus I finally decided to throw it into the mix. My tag line is ramblings of a life being lived and this is part of life…

who was it that said blood is thicker than water?
whoever it was they were so wrong!
i do not mean to take away the power of blood.
i may not believe in its power to bind,
but i do believe in its power to divide, to hurt, to maim…

you want someone to love you unconditionally?
don’t kid yourself, get a dog.
mothers, daughters, sisters, brothers, fathers, sons
there will always be conditions and expectations.
sadly it seems in this day and age the price is rising.
at least it seems to be rising for those who try.

try so hard to be a family
try so hard to be there
try so hard to make them happy
try so hard to make them love me
try so hard for their acceptance
fail so miserably

but why try
why cry
why give
why love
why hate
why give a fuck?

they don’t even think twice
in their cozy plastic worlds
without blood
without love
without acceptance
all so easy to have…

no

my self worth does not come from my blood!
my blood is not who i am.
brothers, sisters, mother, daughters, fathers, sons
they do not define us,
nor is their acceptance worth a snit.
there is more than enough love inside myself.

i don’t need anyone to accept who i am.
i need only learn to accept myself,
to follow my own truth,
the only one that makes sense to me.
not anyone else’s perceptions or expectations.

who decided to create this media fallacy?
this fictitious perfect family that plays together
and they brazenly implies stays together?
maybe it used to be that way,
but more likely it has always been every one for themselves.
i think this image of the loving family has always been a fairy tale.

Jay Luptak
Dec. 2011

Trapped by Language

As I look into the wood I dream of the past.
A past before history. A past before words.
A past when humanity, their needs, and nature were at one.

The idyllic winter wood before me now
Is beckoning to me.
Asking me to enter its canopy and throw off the shackles of communication,
To return to a time free of words.

The wood can easily support all of my physical needs.
It can provide a life unencumbered by the trappings of language.
It offers hard work and solitude, a quiet simplicity.

The wood holds no expectations.
There is no need to express needs as words.
Needs are simple and understood.

What do we gain from communication?
It seems to complicate more than simplify.
Needs are far more simple than communication allows.

We need to be loved.

We need to feel worthy of love.

We need to love in return.

Civilization creates an expectation that communication equals confirmation.
Our needs although fulfilled feel unvalidated without proper vocalization.
The wood promises a life free from the need to speak.

Oh how I yearn for the simplicity of the woods.
Yet so much more I yearn for that verbal validation of my love, my worth.
This paralyzing fear I am feeling can be abolished with three little words.

Jay Luptak

Jan. 2012

A Refuge from the Chaos

One of my favorite descriptions of what happens when two individuals come together comes from a poem, Rain in May, Cape Town by award winning South African Poet (who I had the fortune to study under at University of Cape Town), Rustum Kozain.

…where we lie down for one second against each other, staring over a cliff at the point where, I repeat, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic do not meet. Who can say where that exact point is? Or is not? How broad and wide must be the region where two such forces clash, then bleed into each other. exerpt from Rain in May, Cape Town This Carting Life Kwela Books/Snailpress page 79

Images and ideas inspired by this poem have knocked about in my head often since the first time I heard it read in 2002. Although the images/thoughts have been ever present they have only, over the last week or so, begun to change and grow into something personal. I used to hear the words and envision the Cape of Good Hope as it appears visually, what human eyes easily perceive when looking out over the water. When I think of the surface of the oceans at the Cape of Good Hope I think of awe inspiring beauty that cycles through the calm and violence of weather and seasons. And until lately that is also what I thought of relationships. I even avoided the potential beauty of letting someone else in out of the fear of the turbulence that it would create in my life. I was convinced that was what a relationship would inevitably be. Cycles of calm and storm, and lots of work during the calm battening down the hatches and building the tools that would be needed for the storm. Who would want to get involved in something that was nothing but fear of pending disaster and lots of disaster avoidance work in between? What I am finally realizing, and am starting to see in that poem, is that a relationship has little to do with what lies on the surface, be it calm or turbulence. A relationship between two people is better reflected in the quiet stillness that lies below the surface.

What I am coming to understand about both, the oceans and relationships, is that turmoil and turbulence are not inherent parts of either system. Turmoil and turbulence generally only arise when exterior forces act upon them. This hypothesis is being proven over and over to me as I step back and look at what I am actually responding to when I am feeling frightened or upset in this infancy of this relationship that I am hesitatingly moving into. In nearly every case my feelings are not being affected by the relationship or even by the other person that I am getting to know (although it is easy to see these emotions as his fault). I am responding to forces that are external to the relationship. For the most part I am responding to my own fears and expectations. So rather than blame the other person for the turbulence I am feeling I have been stepping back and looking at where these fears and expectations come from and more importantly separating them from the current reality. At first this was a painful, difficult process, but as I get more comfortable with just enjoying the reality of the moment and my certainty in the destructiveness of expectations grows it gets easier and easier to remove them from the equation.

I can’t remember how many times I have been told that “relationships are hard work”, and yes, some of my past relationships have been A LOT of work. And this had always helped me to visualize/remember the turbulence seen on the surface. But Really?!  Let me clarify my new-found reluctance in this idea by including a definition of the word work; Work – exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.  Wow! I for one do not like the idea of defining what it takes to nurture an intimate relationship with another human being with words such as exertion, labor, effort or toil. Yuck!!! What I am now realizing, at least for myself, is that this idea of hard work does not come from the relationship itself, it comes from trying to fight these exterior forces and that at the end of the day the forces acting on the surface don’t matter. The storms of life will always be present, but just below the surface there is always a silence, a peace, to be found. That is the space in which relationships should dwell. There is no ‘work’ to be done in this place below the surface.  It is a place that we can go and escape, a refuge that lies below the turbulence.  A relationship should not add to the chaos of life, it should be the place that we can go to escape the storms. The place where we are open and trusting enough to just be.

These burgeoning ideas of relationships remind me of snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef. The world underneath the surface is so peaceful and deep. Yes, there are still predators, but down there a shark is just a shark, the veil of deception seems flimsier. Or at least seems that way to me. We all have our own perceptions and expectations I can only write about my own. None-the-less I am confident that we do have the ability to find the peace below the surface in our everyday lives and in our relationships with those around us. It is in our power (and our power alone) to keep the forces without from disturbing the peace within. We have the power to make a peaceful under sea refuge out of our lives and our relationships.

Dreaming of Eggs

So last night I had a VERY strange dream about fried eggs. I am not going to bore anyone with the description. Suffice it to say there was a duck bill poking out of my egg yolk. My personal interpretations didn’t have a lot to do with the interpretations found online, one of which I have included below. According to the “experts” the dream is far more fortuitous than I gave it credit for. If I thought they were right I might be glad. However, I have been a bit pessimistic lately and figure my bumbling interpretation is probably closer to the mark. After the little diddy about what the “experts” claim egg dreams mean is my own disturbing rambles about my dream. Pretty much non-sense and possibly offensive to some, but it seems I am getting pretty shameless about what I share these days so what the hell I am posting it. I am feeling somewhat disturbed and feel no shame in disturbing others. Well, at least not in this manner. I think next time someone asks me how I would like my eggs I’ll try them incubated.

If your dream featured eggs this symbolizes fertility, new changes, birth and creative ideas.  It indicates that a change is around the corner. According to old dream oracles from Egyptian times this dream is connected to life and spirituality and often represents our potential within – the meaning of this dream is to apply your knowledge and experiences that you have learnt in your life so far so that you can deal any problems in the future.

The general interpretation of having an egg featured within in your dream is an indication of all the possibilities in life that have yet to come to the surface, if your dream involves eating eggs then this indicates the need to segment certain aspects of your life and to approach these as separate entities – in order for you to move forward in a different ways and face your fears and doubts. It is important that you face your fears in order to achieve success. If your dream featured a black egg then this is often associated with Satan and the sinister forces within.  A black egg can also show fragility and may be connected to the family or perhaps a love relationship.

An egg can be taken as a symbol of spiritual development and awareness, this dream is often linked to progress life, you may need to escape a situation for a while as the situation is holding you back.
Dream Dictionary Online

Fuck!
Fuck a Duck.
What do you get when you cross a chicken and a duck?

What the hell are we possibly thinking when we decide to open up to someone else…
What the hell are we thinking when we don’t!

I had a dream of a duck in chicken egg.
What’s up with that?
Am I hiding behind a shell?
Or is someone else behind a shell that I need to break?
If I break that shell will it be something unexpected,
Lying beneath?

Lying beneath
Lying on top
Just plain lying
Am I kidding myself?
Kidding someone else?
Or having my leg pulled?

Have I cracked enough eggs?
Should I keep cracking?
Or am I just cracking up?
Fuck the duck!
But is a chicken what I want?
Or is a chicken what I’ve got?
If we are all chickens where did the duck come from?

What do you get when you cross a chicken and a duck?
Fuck a duck.
Fuck!

Jay Luptak June 2011

Cape Town Taxis

http://www.cmt4austin.org/SharedTaxiPublicTransit.html

The excitement of the day was finally getting access to all of the documents that were on the laptop I used when I went to University in South Africa. I have known for some time that the stability of said computer was shaky at best. I finally got up the guts to give it a try, pulled the computer down from upstairs storage (mind you I had not even tried to boot the system for about 7 years) and hit the start button. Surprisingly the system started up, albeit very slowly. I held my breath as I popped in a USB to transfer everything I could. No go. The system claimed the USB needed to be formatted. So, I figured what the heck and let the computer format the USB. Horror of horrors! The system crashed. Would not re-boot no matter what I tried. This meant it looked like I was going to loose EVERYTHING I wrote while in Africa and the stuff from my final semester at UOP. Son-of-poppycock! Luckily I know who to call when I find myself in situations such as these. Dan to the resecue! Thank you, thank you thank you, Dan! So here I sit three days later, still have a dead computer, but all my goodies have been safely transferred to a flash drive. Yippee!

http://welcometosouthafrica.info/index.php?showimage=15

In honor of my new goodies I have decided to post a few here and there, and to even add a travel section to my blog for any other fond memories I decide are worth sharing. Today it is all about my favorite part of day-to-day life while I was living in Cape Town, Cape Town Taxis. The absolute cheapest way to get around town.

I am not even sure how to begin to describe them. They are mini-vans designed to carry 17 passengers, I have seen as many as 21. There is the driver and a second person who mans the sliding door, calls out to passengers, makes seating arrangements to assist in maximum occupancy, collects money and if necessary to fit all passengers will ride on the rear bumper. Children, grocery bags and luggage/backpacks do not count as passengers, I think I have had as many as six grocery bags perched precariously in my lap so as not to occupy more than my allotted space. I don’t know what it was about the atmosphere, maybe the jubilant yelling of the money guy, or maybe the anticipation of arriving at your destination, but nearly everyone in the taxis was always in a good mood and were helpful and kind to each other. Not to imply that people in South Africa are not kind, but Cape Town is a very big city and has the issues that all big cities have, so I always found it suprising that people that would not generally speak to each other on the streets were able to joke and jostle together down the road in Cape Town Taxis.

I totally miss Cape Town Taxis. So in memorial I am posting a little nothing I wrote about them while I was there to help me remember what it was like to hop a ride. The photos are not mine. I find it hard to believe, but I guess I didn’t take any taxi photos while I was there. I am including a link to the location I found these photos to give credit where credit is due.

Cape Town Taxis

Hey girlie girl
MowbrayClaremontWynberg
Hey girlie girl
The door to the Toyota mini-van opens,
I enter a metal can of human sardines.
At first glance there appears to be no room,
But with a quick shuffle of bundles and bodies
I squeeze into the spot that only a moment before
Was not visible to my untrained eyes.
There is a row of 8 knees fighting for room.
The door closes and we’re on our way
To MowbrayClaremontWynberg

That bizarre word that we have made up, race
Doesn’t seem to matter here.
The passengers seem more like
One than the many that they are
No longer the 18 different individuals they represent.
Is that my knee or the knee of the gentleman
Facing me?
I can’t be bothered to figure it out.
We’re all one as we make our way
To MowbrayClaremontWynberg

Money passes through the many hands of the beast
That is us as it makes its way to the front.
One part of the beast is yelling out the window
Trying to get others to join in;
To become a part of the beast that is us.
While we are in this tin can we are one.
The lines between individuals blur
There is no way to tell where one
Person begins and the other ends.
It seems to be just one creature making its way
To MowbrayClaremontWynberg.

It seems sad when I arrive at my destination.
I know when the tin can opens and I pour myself out
The lines that were blurred will return.
The body parts that were close enough at one time
That they seemed like an extension of my own
Will immediately become alien as soon as
I once again become an individual on the sidewalk.
I blindly do my shopping to supply my personal needs
And excitedly walk out to the street
To be greeted by
Hey girlie girl
MowbrayCapeTown
Hey girlie girl…..

J Luptak
May 2, 2002
Mowbray, South Africa

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/flolafol/1/1234644480/in-the-local-taxis.jpg/tpod.html