"An Hour And 20 Minutes..."

Format-Contests, word use, count OR time-constraint challenges... time limits - mind limits ~ people and self-imposed reach-for-a-brass-ring-through-the-cell-bars - to prove what?  Inadequacy-ability-mentality or the lack of just... humanity.  I guess when all-is-said-and-undone -Today I am 'something' that apparently yesterday or before the inquisition - I wasn't. 

I would guess you can see how I really feel about doing 'challenges' - just for the sake of another's aggrandizement... notice I didn't say I wouldn't - just how I FEEL about doing them.  Chuckling here.  OK, 90 minutes began with the first word on a blank page - go...

"An Hour And 20 Minutes..."

An hour and twenty minutes… sigh.  I’ve an hour and twenty minutes til what?  What will it all mean - then.  The sun might shine or it could be rain, snow, sheet ice.  The heat might kick on all by itself.  A light bulb may actually glow.  I’m listening to the ticks…

Tick…tick…tick - an hour and ten minutes now… Where does the time GO when you’re having such ‘fun’… even pins drop as if encased in molasses pools - soooooooo slowly, barely turning end-over-end-over-end.  It gives an entirely new meaning to a drip-brew coffee maker, and the mind!  The mind races - RACES, in circles yet spirals too… in and in and round and around… but the thoughts - fragments and incoherencies, lost and found then lost and found again and again… threads, so many, many threads - interweaving…weaving…fading into the next construct… tick… tick…

An hour.  Just an hour, another lifetime passed and past and yet to come… a whole damn hour…hour…6o more minutes… then 59… now 58…eventually 57?  57 more minutes… each a little eternity.  Light a cigarette… the flame doesn’t flicker; strange how flames don’t really flicker after all… it’s all in the eye’s sight, what we THINK we see.  Watching the smoke move, inhale and exhale… how does smoke dissipate - expanding and expanding into a universe, a growing ball - ever fading, fading, fading… do we expand and fade-and-fade as well?…

Is it 50 yet?  50, 50, 50… come on 50…will someone give me 50, 50, 50 50…SOLD! - to the young-ole man sitting there in the back row… yay me… 50 minutes… and counting, counting… down and up, and down, and up…

Electricity doesn’t hum you know… it’s the wires vibrating to the electrons racing within.  Some would say it’s the ‘holes’ that flow and electrons just keep falling and falling within… like watching the hubcaps on a moving car - seemingly turning in the opposite direction of the tires motion… like living on the edge of our own universe… like living at all… life at all… flowing, racing, following all the holes, falling within and falling over-and-over and all to get - where?  What was the actual direction of motion?  Where did we go?  Did we go at all?  Threads and threads and threads - weaving, coalescing, expanding, fading… fading…

Its so not easy to lose oneself and yet we try… and find… ourselves looking back from all the mirrors that never were… cascading from all the non-surfaces back and forth and back and forth til we realize the fractals we are… such a pretty design that captures imagination and goes on and on and on til… 35… 35 minutes… 35… then 34.

Strange how coffee too hot to drink is so damned cold the next instant of awareness… time isn’t linear to awareness ya know?  It has no set place to be or follow.  Awareness is NOW every moment you ARE aware, but not the one - the moments you weren’t.  I’m aware of being me - except when I’m not… threads and threads interweaving.  I CAN feel my fingertips… each ONE… and all of them at once… but not my toes… I can’t feel the smoke I exhale moving through my fingers… I can see it passing through but not feel it… but I AM aware of my fingertips and can still feel each one all at once… and I am aware of the smoke - moving… expanding… I’m thinking, am aware that I’m thinking I’m thinking…but what is it, what am I, in between moments of aware? Of unfeeling? 

Tick…tick… 22 minutes… 22… Roses are red, Violets are blue, eternities last just moments - who knew?  22… 21…White noise, echoes without awareness… what really counts? And why?  And to whom?  So many ‘whys’ we have… whys for everything and anything - some our own and some are other’s.  Wise whys, shy whys, lost whys, because whys… ‘it-doesn’t-matter’ whys that ‘mattered-after-all’ whys… and cold coffee… 18…17…

I wonder
at the emptiness
with each breath

because -
its what we do
its who we are
its all there is

its all I have -
just each breath...

to wonder with.

Chris

Author's Note

Feel free

Reviews

[Kathy Van Kurin]

Chris,
Meaning of life is within our seconds to minutes, like heartbeats midst our lifespan.Your collaboration shows a need to be aware of time here. So you did a format contest and so the minutes were your platform. Clever! Coffee grows cold in a matter of minutes, but was hot and appetizing moments before. Light a cigarette and it stays lit just for a while. The smoke was a great tool for the passing away of time; swirling, drifting away. Use of minutes stated and then simply counting your breaths toward the poems end.......Enjoyable and sobering like a reality check..........Thanks for this opportunity to read your fun and yet analytical opportunity.........Blessings to you.........Kathy

[Ruth]

This had a tear flow...easily...the counting down here is universal and I am full throttle in thoughts about this...just, so wonderful! xx

[Nestor Gonzalez]

i loved this simply loved it,you get a glimpse at your personality or at least the one you decided to project here,only someone with alot of wisdom gained through life could have written what you just wrote,it might be why you find it so easy to write free-form and execute as you are thinking you have a vast pool of resources to tap into,good stuff chris.

[olla]

my radio ads are just 30 seconds.. half a minute and I need to say enough to make YOU want ME.. I am not sure I could fill an hour and a twenty minutes.. you did well..

[Katherine Enma Pineappl..]

Amazing, the ideas you have presented were very clear and I like your choice of words and how everything came together. I thought of those things too and was surprised you managed to have your thoughts organized to an amazing piece :) I like how natural it feels and sounds

and another thing

As I was reading this I had this set image stuck in my head until the last paragraph. Very good. Means you've got me hooked from the start

I applaud this :)

[Robbie~xoxo~]

Bravo! Could be a monologue! Genius even!

[anne p. murray- LadeeAn..]

Wow...your mind and all the thoughts that flowed in this wonderous write are too many to mention. Very creative. Reminds me of Jim Croche "Time In A Bottle"

"If I had a box just for wishes and dreams that had never come true, the box would be empty except for the memory of how they were answered by you"

[roarke]

Tangents and pageants... streaming consciousness Jamaican Blue Mountain brew...
6/8 musical time in a bottle, going full-throttle...
stop watch words to chew....

boy to I get this on Chris. right there.

[Emily B]

I thought so many things all at once. My candle used to burn at both ends. I think maybe it just exploded in one big beautiful burst of fantastic light.

[Kat Collins]

Time passes unannounced until we become aware again, fading in and out of consciousness. Excellent capture of that feeling. I found myself counting with you. When you are so lost in something, does it count as not being aware?