A Case for Speaking Out

There have been a number of occasions in my life when I have regretted not having spoken up about something that I had feelings about. I have always felt somewhat shy and prone to keep my own council but there are times when words were called for and in response to those times I have written the following as a way of reminding myself to speak out when the occasion calls for it.

Outspoken

Who is this

Who with politeness so exaggerated

Entertains with feigned expression

That which he disdains.

Who with discourse polite

Abhorrent feelings maintain.

Whose eyes hide

The lies his mouth describes

Eyes on whose inside

With loathing not apparent

Are inscribed

That exact opposite

Of what his tongue describes

Speak your truth, man

Or what you do speak

Shall encumber you with grief

Shall mock your ways

Disrupt your sleep

With grave disregard

Ignore your dying words

When finally, outcome free

The too-late truth sprouts

From soon rotten flesh

Takes no root,

Bears no fruit

For lack of a believing ear.

So offend who you must

If the offense given is just

The reward will be trust

Truth, witness to itself will bear

Every old cloth has a tear

That well mended

Makes it worthwhile to wear

Those will be few

That long begrudge you

The words your mouth spew

If the stanza is short

And the sharp notes you sing

Create discord

Let the offended party

Move it’s own notes

Up or down the scale

To create harmony again

If your song is well sung

If the deed is well done

Let your chorus repeat

And never repent the singing

And if the truth so offend

That men come to blows

So be it

Rather blood then compromise

Better to tell the truth

And walk alone in undeserved disgrace

Than display the alibi

And walk with false friends apace

Tell the truth

And disregard love? You say

How can that be righteous?

Better, I say, to seal your fate

With those that you hate

Than to your own heart

Be a traitor

Better to tread a straight forward path

And expose your disregard

For conventions

Than wander in diminished rings

Wishing what you might have said

Would have sprouted wings

And carried it’s own message

On your behalf.

Let us learn to despise

The lies we speak in dread

Of what a man may think

Than lie in our beds

With undelivered words

Ringing in our heads.

Better our tongue be a sword

Than a spade

To dig our grave truth a shallow hole.

This mouth

Uncaring womb of words

Better a tomb for lies unsprouted

Than a garden of indecent fruit

Breeder of half happy doubt

Giving rise to one-legged truth

Better barren of offspring.

Never despise

Words spoken wise

Harsh words

To tender hearts can be

Brought on a doves wing

Power Walking by Daniel Noll

Power walking

From what I’ve been able to surmise

Is a poor facsimile

Of running improvised

To the exclusion of movements

That might exercise.

From what I’ve seen

With my own eyes

It’s more about the gesture

Producing more sighs

Then heavy breathing

And made to fool the eyes

With fast pumping arms

On slowly moving thighs.

If I offend you

Not quite runners

I apologize.

While Jay and I were boating in Sea of Cortez we spent some time in Santa Rosalia, a town whose main industry is squid fishing. These were not your little guys like you would get if you ordered fried Calamari. These were extremely dangerous ten armed torpedoes called Humboldt Squid, whose tentacles were lined with suckers around each of which was a row of claws. They would rip the flesh right off your arm if they grabbed you.

Ricardo, the dock master, had been a squider and offered to take us out to show us the method of catching them. Pulling them in by hand on a 300lb line tipped with a lure or puppet, we ended up with six of the 4 to 6 foot long creatures on the deck. They vibrated emotional color and the huge black eye seemed to seemed to suck you into the recesses of another world in which you were an interloper.

The emotions I felt stuck with me and this poem is the result.

The Witness

by Daniel Noll

I stood as a witness

As the veil was torn

As the lure descended

Through azure transparent

Scarcely seen

Dancing blue-green

Obscene one-eyed seducer

Unblinking, unseeing, unseen

Searching for a partner

In light fractured black

Embraced times ten

The dance, in earnest, began

Ricardo and Squid

Thick line connected

Fate selected

Two arms against ten

I stood as a witness floating

On the ceiling

Of that salty world

A beholder intent on consumption

Of the reluctant partner

Scarcely seen

Rising dancing defiant

Through shadowed blue-green

Denying this bright realm

In watery surges

Tinting friendly aqua

Hostile black

Breaking water, boneless rage

Connected by line taut

Liquidly defying

Bone- stiffened foot- planted need

Geyser driven defiant at last

Through the silky veil pulled

Into this weightier thin liquid,

This ten-armed torpedo

My eyes listened to

Anger quivering in pulses electric

Glistening encrypted emotion

Color coded and slickly written

I stood as a witness

To this drowning inverted

Death wandering rust and black

Across this slack topoedo

My too curious finger pursues the bulging eye

To explore its slickness

It looks back! -undead

And I am seen, exposed, found out

Black-eyed reproached

No longer mere witness, anonymous

Despoiler of multiples

I am complicit destroyer of this one

I am unhooded

And life recedes deep into the pit

Of that great ball

And I follow till I am lost inside

It and my own hazy thoughts

Then I did as men are prone to do

When stirred to impractical feelings,

I bound my conflict in logic

I turned to other things.

ajijic photos

I live in Ajijic, a smallish pueblo on the shores of Lake Chapala, about 40 KM outside of Guadalajara, Mexico.
These photos and the slideshow on the bottom of the front page give you some idea of what the area is like.
The Lake Chapala Writers Group meets here twice a month to share and critique their creative output, inspiring and encouraging each other in the process.