by Giuseppe Chiaramonte

I need to make a switch. It is hard to imagine letting the stroke of a letter realize its true potential in each word. Words become sentences and those strings of thoughts brew and bubble into a paragraph; each ingredient layered to embody the fullness of of two paragraphs composing an essay, with the sole meaning of an original idea. What impact does this have on the world, on my nation, on my state, community, where I live? How about one person? Can I effectively poke a thought into the crevice of eternity to create a niche like a bothersome fly buzzing around your ear; I see my words flying about the cosmos landing softly on the cushions of soft eyes and stiff drums.

Listen and you will hear my call, look and you may see an element of you moving to and fro attempting to make sense of the senseless. There is a deep pool of unending eternal meaning to life which can only be expressed through one tap of the key followed by the rhythmic tone of purity. What would I be without this expression? Must the switch be accepted by the masses, by one, by two or is it enough to ride the magic carpet along the silk road? Questions abound in the visceral feeling of grasping for a straw that is red when you are seen as blue. I hold the black and white pictures of Ellison, Keats, Poe and Dickinson and envision their world, their viewpoint, their families, their struggles. I am not comparable and carry not one seed of their greatness but I contain a mustard seed of their passion. I must dare to venture a writing endeavor. There is only regret, lost stories, missed opportunity and ultimately a life not lived. Plant the seed in the rich black movement of crooked lines coupled with the free flow water of thought and wait…the seedling will transform because there is no “NO” and a yes is inconsequential for it is my beauty and not yours.

No one can take my story, because it lives and breathes on its own like a newborn baby and I will be the Father of many. I look over the precipice and I see nothing; there is no end as the possibilities are endless. I have made the ground, the baseline, the finish line and I will now remove the boundaries set in place by past and present expectations. Hear my whisper for the soft brush of moving wind will turn into a maelstrom bent on pushing over imposed walls. Watch, wait…Here it comes like a locomotive building steam there will be an unleashing of power through the only mechanism I understand.