To exercise the mind is the highest human endeavor
Scholars and saint alike have rejected the earthly
Disdained the mortal and secular
Jesus spoke of nothing but the world beyond this one
And any indulgence of the body was foolishness
Pandering to a transitory shadow of the eternal light and
truth
And while I find a certain pleasure in the interplay of
words and thoughts
And the debate between two opposed ideals and their
constituents
That cold joy pales in comparison to the tightly wound
spring of fire
That thrills at leaps and bounds and drives me to fly across
the grass
Wind caressing my skin ground thumping beneath my feet
Gravity threatening to transform the elegance of my motion
into the beauty of chaos
Or the hack and slash of the melee overreach and undermine
shove and twist
A vicious dance of intimate power and dominance also
inextricably collaborative
Grunt and pant and grab and twist each move linked to
another soul’s impulses
Base and bestial, they cry, incognizant of consequence and
ignorant of the ensuing
Enslaved to the senses, you become insensate to higher
truths and slave to greater minds
Our way alone holds security efficacy power through
knowledge and knowledge of power
Such words seem to come not from those who have
joyously wrestled with the meat of existence
Unless old and withered they look with bitterness on the
pulsing vibrant vitality in its prime
And see only the dissipated past of their own strength as
unreachable as the bottom of the sea
These words come from the weaker never-weres who view such
things as temptations
Tacitly admitting how strongly they wished to feel the maddening
joy of bending and being bent
Jealously watched as strength skill swiftness they lacked
was lauded in others
In response they turn to word, concepts, philosophies and
figures, bickering where others battle
Engaging in debates where, afterwards, both parties walk
away with little resolved or changed
With an intangible outcome, victor free to doubt into
defeat, loser priggishly stubborn of validity
No such shades in the bright bonfire of the physical realm
there is certainty and finality
Success is concrete failure is felt and sometimes final each
movement has reaction
And ability is determined by determination clear cut and
concise you have it or you do not
While the towers of the mind produce wonders untold and raise
the pinnacles of possibility
They are built on foundations of stone by strong backs
guarded by corded arms
Filled by the physics of physicality and the base biological
urges of all
Disdain not strength or engagement in the external for we
are still poised above the jungle
Ask the Romans where their grand schemes led and the Goths how
they triumphed
Civilization is but a bubble and beyond barbarism… embrace
the beast to best it
-D.M.D.M. 6-21-2013