The B-Side of Reality
The filthy and threadbare rug
still lies on the floor of the dust obscured attic,
in the old and dilapidated shed
where, with reckless abandonment, I lost my virginity.
The ramshackle shed still stands as a milestone monument
in the alley where it was built,
with no one knowing what soft-minded kids had done.
My life is a photo composite,
a mosaic of what I have seen, what I have felt,
what I have heard and what I have hidden.
My highlights and vistas all documented for eternity
with a slight nudge of my index finger and 100,000 photographs.
Images burnt into film, well before the age of digital files,
instant gratification and a finale delete.
Someday, someone, an unknowing person
will begin to rearrange the disarray of piled high images
unable to hear the screams, moans or laughter
that influenced each one during the moment of capture.
They will not care that each print was made by hand
or know that the faint smell comes from cheap tequila
used as a stop bath
on the ones printed in the ghettos of Mexico City.
They will not know life before a drive-through,
plastic razors, and microwavable dinners,
before life became fast paced and disposable.
Before we were taught,
use once and discard
with little or no concern
as if it was a blue plastic razor
or the blue-eyed girl that caught your eye.
Time is no longer ticks and tones.
It is just another digital file on your cell phone,
while a wristwatch is a fashion piece
used as status in a gaudy material world
where abundance is the highest judgment factor.
Time moves in intervals,
in my mind with fleeting moments of concentration,
rushed to explode and bloom into some type of reality
or to crawl deeper into the delusion of who I am.
The unexplainable portions that stay hidden,
frightened and ashamed to be known by the masses,
in their elusion of what yet others may deem as normal and real.
I close my eyes and look around to see squadrons of flying squirrels
gliding out of the neat folds of colorful silk kimonos,
while scorpions and cockroaches hold hands
as they cross the hot asphalt street.
I am slightly traumatized by what I see
and at the number of old rusty cars stopping for them,
while the flashy new ones speed by,
oblivious of the spectacle that is now taking place.
I hear the communication
to a cumulus cloud flouting care free and easy.
Words make them vaporize
and allows a tear to drop towards the landscape
I have spent so much time viewing.
All they really wanted was a little contrast,
some slight adornment,
an accentuation in a vast and wide open blue sky
making me remember the falling tears
of the blue eyed girl when she was discarded.
My hope makes me look back,
down, and away from my wonderment,
reflecting back to the folded red kimonos
while developing a craving for sushi.
I’ll have to settle for cold white rice and soy sauce,
And I hope I can find a corkscrew for my cheep bottle of Lambrusco.
I still shiver with remembering that the taste of Saki
resembles the smell of cat urine.
Nothing is the same and nothing is perfect.
I look and see each day turn in opposite directions,
into nothing that is perfect, only 1000 thoughts spliced together
to form an idea,
or an inspiration that someone else has already exploited.
So, as I stand in a field of harvested cranberries,
floating in fresh pond of rain water,
my feet swollen, wet and red.
I realize that the only safe place to stand,
is in the shadow of an open mind,
while I make sense of the vines
growing down the walls of ancient temples.
I see the mountains turn to free growing trees
because they have not been tarnished to do anything, but grow straight.
All I am looking for is the drive and commitment
to try and pound out a small fragment of logic and understanding
as we all wallow and turn, on the B-side of reality.
Dan Abernathy. Welcome to the chaotic and often strange life of a Quasi, Clumsy Spiritual Warrior, Dan Abernathy. This Renaissance man is known as an outlaw poet, artist and purveyor of words, a junkyard philosopher, and a vagabond searching for a pure hedonistic meaning for his of life.
His voice, be it in his words or in his art, is a collection of oddities, fascinations, desires and obsessions – a road map of sorts, tracking the life of a man that can’t and won’t fit in.
“His poems are a bit like a well fingered bowl of mixed treats in a dark bar – filled with some salty Charles Bukowski, some chewy Hunter S. Thompson, and a little zap-a-hooty sweetness ala Dr. Seuss (tossed in just for the kiddies…er, ah, not that I’d recommend this one for any mother’s son.” – David Vaughan, an artist, writer from the Pacific Northwest coast.
Abernathy makes available 98% of all his perspectives, be they fluid and random thoughts, or meandering and incomplete rants to the masses. They other 2% he keeps to himself, archived and a gift for the scholars and naysayers to decipher. Abernathy has published two books of poetry, Looking For Security While Wearing a Loincloth and I Don’t Shave on Sundays. He is also the Editor/Publisher of The Contributor, a monthly newspaper of free speech, art, travel, the spoken word and other oddities that should be revealed.