On Happiness

I can feel Aristotle's intellectual condescension singe across the twin curtains of Time and Death. Written on a lonely and beautiful September evening-night in Montreal, with a large rock (upon which I sat) as the only witness to my philosophical treason; the people of the City around me were too busy being happy.

...

I want to exist like a precipitated dew drop. Uncaring, and uncared for. Like a mote of music floating on this Fall-en, hollow breeze that toboggans through these inky streets; streets which meld together into an indeterminate crumbly canvas, upon which the ersatz electric sunlight splashes in discrete puddles.

Float.

Be borne like a seed on this callous wind, to settle in some fecund mind. Outside me, the dusking city whistles a long, low tone, absorbed in its Sisyphean pursuit of green derrieres. These distant stars, these

Imposter lambent rectangles, all vertically lined
Up like spectators at a play, that shine
And flicker so; spill their muted
Vivacity into the rattling night.

These faraway lighthouses on a beach
Of emerald gold;
Chase
emerald happiness.

Happy.

We’re all addicted to happiness. We’ve all got our methods of osmosis. Pure joy slips in and out like a dream, gone before we grasp her fleeting side-embrace; haunts us as we struggle to re-enslave her in the wake of the glare of the putrid afternoon sun.

She deigns to bestow her aquamarine kiss, some mellow evenings, on

A boy who spills
His creative load, moves from heaviness
To emptiness. Steals
A loving glance from her
In his fulfilled gasp; suspends time.

A girl who smokes
Shiva’s grassy essence; breathes of
His frothy beauty. Trades her
Lungs for an escaping infinity; suspends time.

A man who joins
His soul to the protoplasm of Life - through
Meditation, and mediation
Of his body’s fascinations. Smiles
For a second of Nirvana;
Suspends time.

…

Let’s all just exist. Uncaring. Uncared for. Caught in the split-second of the orgasm,
Or the numbing warmth of a green cigarette,
Or the dissolution of the yogi’s brain into the blackness of the back of our eyes.

We don’t need to be happy.
We just need to be.