“Brushstrokes, Duotonee,” ink on paper, by Erik Kaye copyright 2012, 2013

Editorial Note:  Chris Arcus’ poem “Giddy” makes a philosophical comment on modern life, here accompanied by Erik Kaye’s whimsical ink painting: “Brushstrokes, Duotonee” —  expressing  similar giddy feelings.

GIDDY
by Chris Arcus,
copyright 2013

The world requires things from me
I am not prepared to give
On my own schedule, my own path
Appointments come as interruptions
Yet I need them
The day is never prepared…planned
A look a the calendar shunned
The planner safely tucked away
The mail filling the mailbox
A home a way of shuttering out the outside
Reducing the torrent of demands
To a trickle

For a while the parties grow louder
A feeling of euphoria sweeps aside doubt
Money spent freely, possessions gambled
Vacations and parties and schemes
The world consumed with pleasure
A sort of drunken-minded happiness
Where the foolish becomes sublime
Imperceptibly the warm summer
Transforms to fall
The mood changes
A stale mustiness fills the air
The blaring excess turns to slow decay
Where once money flowed as freely as wine
The bottle is empty, dry

On this giddy hilly ride we go
Each one and many
One collective sigh we swoon
From easy living, to jobless acrimony
Fear and greed spread like disease
Infecting minds
Nothing changed outside
This amazing, inane, torpor
Settles on the mind
Like a hot desert wind bakes
Or a freezing mountain glacier numbs
Like plodding oxen
We trample the future before us
As if only on cool spring mornings
Did the bud of an idea
Flower from within our minds

Categories: painting by Erik Kaye, poem by Chris Arcus

Tags: painting by Erik Kaye, poem by Chris Arcus