Postures of Prayer
He threw his hands up in the air, fingers stretched out in a posture of prayer.
His arms arched cradling the sun. He began to dance and chant, and laugh and hum.
His arms open in faith that there must be more, fingers trying to touch those he loved who’d passed before.
He’d danced and prayed in the fields, he’d danced and prayed in the woods, he’d danced and prayed on the Kaaterskill escarpment every time he could.
He was a bizarre vision to come across,
this madman in nature, speaking to those he’d lost.
Against the river valley as a backdrop, standing at the peaks of the mountaintops, from his mind he’d let life’s reel of scenes unwind, his whole journey screened flowing from his memory and patched with his dreams.
He’d dance and pray and sing knowing he could not change one damn thing.
He’d laugh, he’d pray and dance, he’d holler and cheer because he had breath and death was knocking, it was always near.
A Joel Hunter Borrelli Musing.
7/27/19
A Ranch Hand.
Joel Hunter Borrelli 08-13-20
I’ve been thinking about hiring myself out as a ranch hand.
Maybe working some big spread. Living in rough quarters in the back, off the barn, by the horses.
Where the roof leaks when it rains.
Drinking whiskey and beer around bonfires.
And when the mood hits, or the weather changes or I get “the calling” again, I’ll saddle up Rocinante and hit the trail ...again, searching for adventure.
I’ll ride through nights when the moon is full and sets a glow upon the darkness.
I’ll ride in morning mist as fog like smoke drifts towards the sky leaving the tall grass wet with dew.
Someday when I’m out for a ride maybe I’ll go listless upon her and she’ll know to drop me in a meadow.
And I’ll become the earth and the stars again.
Joel Hunter Borrelli
Entering the Ether
I was convinced it was only a matter of time before it happened. I just didn’t think it would be tonight. As I stepped onto the sidewalk bordering Madison Square Park, off 5th Avenue, I began to transition. Almost immediately I knew I was being pulled into the vortex.
I questioned myself. Was this just the strongest sense of deja vu you could go through? I took these same steps Sunday. As soon as I focused I realized the same people were posed on the same benches the same way as they were in the early hours of the day before.
The threesome, two guys in their early twenties looking straight ahead and talking, the girl twisted sideways towards them listening to their conversation while she focused on her phone. The homeless guy wearing the same hat bundled up on the same bench the same way. The Hasidic teens with the same animated actions giving me a rerun of what I’d already seen. The same people with the same posture planted in the same places I’d passed under a different phase of the moon.
I had entered the ether.
As I continued I started to recognize the faces of strangers. They all became familiar to me. As we passed each other their stories penetrated me. I felt their heartbreaks, heartaches, hopes and happiness. Their sorrows and sadness, failures and conquests, their dreams and disappointments became as real to me as my own.
All of a sudden I felt my energy ebb in empathy. It was like being an oyster of humanity filtering out the toxins of others experiences, cleansing the pollution from their purpose.
They all smiled as they passed as if they recognized me too.
My breathing slowed. A calmness set in.
It was all I could do to continue to stand. What do we sacrifice for salvation was the last thought I had before I succumbed.
Joel Hunter Borrelli
10/2/18
Perception
In a prison of a penthouse
From this perch the birds that I could see
Filled me with longing, envy and jealousy
Darting back and forth in front of my windows,
taunting me that they were free.
Joel Hunter Borrelli 7/7/18
Analogy of Reality
My Mistress Manhattan
My mistress, Manhattan, is the longest relationship I’ve ever had. We’ve been seeing each other since I was in my teens. I’ve put many miles on my feet courting her.
I admire that her curves are in all the right places. I enjoy her many moods. I appreciate her quiet hidden streets and alleys as well as her outspoken broad boulevards.
She is as comfortable dressed to the nines on the Upper East Side as she is dressed down in the Bowery.
I like that no matter what hour it is, if I want to go out, she’s ready and always has something new to show me.
She seduces me with her feminine fragility. She’s won my trust with her displays of maternal strength.
I’m drawn to the contrast of her maturity and the youthfulness she demonstrates constantly reinventing herself. Always evolving and growing while remaining true to her respected role.
Her bridges and tunnels are like fingers open on a hand, welcoming her relatives, neighbors and transient travelers.
She’s a democrat and at times a socialist. She’s blind to bias and bigotry. She accepts everybody. It’s her contagious warmth that welcomes those from around the world. Her reputation reverberates around the globe.
People have risked their lives to meet her.
I take pride in the intimacy of our special bond. She allows me to be a voyeur and an eavesdropper as I play audience to her street theatre. After all these years she’s finally instilled in me enough confidence to be an exhibitionist.
It is to this courage that I know I’ll owe her most.
Joel Hunter Borrelli
A Joel Hunter Borrelli Snippet
(more like a musing)
A Respite
In the mountains, in the carefree days of my youth, taking the elixir that loosens the tongue and frees the limbs, with every atom of oxygen and full of joy, I'm blowing into the trumpet of life to celebrate the moment and to call in the future.
In the mountains of my memories, having reached a certain age, taking the elixir that loosens the tongue and frees the limbs, with every atom of oxygen and full of melancholy, I'm blowing into the trumpet of life to preserve the moment and ask the world to pause.
Joel Hunter Borrelli 3/28/18
(I wrote and posted A Respite on 3/28/18, on 4/1/18 on my way to a reading, I came across the gentleman in this photo blowing into his trumpet on 7th Avenue in Chelsea. Though not in the mountains, it was a little sign. I have no idea who the gentleman is.)
10/22/18
My sisters ride came last night and she left this world.
At the end of August I went to visit my sister, who’s been suffering from pancreatic cancer, in the hospital. She related to me a dream she had about my brother Roger when he was catatonic after one of his amputations. Still the older sister she was worried about my brother while she faced a likely terminal disease.
I took a little artistic license with the dream my sister shared that afternoon and immediately after leaving her wrote the following:
The Army Jacket on the Bridge
The first time she met him on the bridge in her dream she couldn’t understand why he was wearing an army jacket.
Another night she dreamt the same dream but this time he was also wearing fatigue
pants. She was so caught up in catching up with him she didn’t bother to ask.
The next time the dream returned, he was wearing the army jacket, the fatigue pants and now a combat helmet. She couldn’t help but ask “Why?” “Why are you dressed like a soldier?” He looked at her as if he thought she should have known. “I’ve been to war” he said.
Soon after the dream came back. She was prepared for his appearance. As she began the bridges ramp she smiled as she saw him midspan. Then a sudden gasp of shock stopped her. She caught the reflection of herself in the water below, she noticed she was dressed like a soldier too.
Joel Hunter Borrelli 08/28/18
Based on and influenced by a dream shared by Rebecca Rivkah Borrelli Brown.
My sister was a warrior.
Superman’s Ride Came Today.
12/5/18
My brother Roger, aka Superman, passed today. Roger had ten lives in the past two years.
The disease came for his sight first. Within months he experienced blindness.
Roger belonged to the car culture as long as anyone who knows him can remember. Hot Rods, Muscle Cars, Classics, Corvettes, Classic Corvettes, Cadillacs, Classic Cadillacs, Chevelles Junkers, ..etc.. Many dozens if not hundreds of cars passed through his hands. Along with boats, dune buggies, golf carts , anything with a motor that moved attracted him so that he had to own it or at least sell it for more. He’d go anywhere in the country to pick up a car. Losing his ability to drive, when he spent decades building and rotating his car and toy collection, with many projects left to complete, was and remains heartbreaking.
The first amputation took part of his foot.The others took more.
After they amputated his leg 7 inches beneath the knee he came out of surgery catatonic. When I went to see him he was suffering and in so much agony I could’ve killed him because I loved him so much.
He came back to himself after several weeks making me glad I hadn’t acted as rashly as I had been inclined.
Dialysis, of course, began to become a necessary additive to his routine. Every other day for four hours.
Then he got an ulcer on his toe on the other foot. While they were looking, examining and poking around they found some lung cancer too. What was too close to what which meant they couldn’t do whatever so they only did what they could.
Ultimately they took the other foot too til he’d require two prosthetics that would be aligned at the same distance beneath the knees.
Roger spent the better part of two years in and out of the hospital. I can’t tell you the whole time he was happy-go-lucky; he wasn’t. At the same time, as many of his family and vast network of friends could attest, he was capable of a lot of humor and a lot of reminiscing.
The past few weeks have been hard and maybe Monday, after returning home harshest, but yesterday, on the phone, my brother was the old Roger, he’d eaten a hearty breakfast, was in full voice for my conversation my sharing news, laughing and in conversations with others he was the same way.
Last night, I fell into an exhaustive, semiconscious state.I felt my energy drain. The state of my being wasn’t reflective or a result of anything in particular. I’d rested well after Saturday’s show. I thought to myself, my brothers getting ready to transition.
He left this world this afternoon.
His wife Dawn has been the Superwoman to his Superman, going beyond what most mere mortals do caring for each other. For this I’ll always be beyond thankful and beyond grateful.
His bravery made him Superman, his sadness human. His friendship made him loved.
Joel Hunter Borrelli 12/5/18
When I Submit
I wrote this for myself and then used it as a tribute to my brother.
When I Submit...
When I submit and leave this world of grit remember me with prose and wit.
Memories of our days will yet stay. Memories of our nights; close your eyes they’ll remain in sight.
But most of all my loves, know that I’ll be with the stars above. When you want to touch me, walk into a field in spring, see me in the blossoms, the new life of everything.
This journey has taken all my strength. I’ll have lived my mortal length. Do not mourn me for I have passed. The love I have for you is what will last.
I’ve been broken here. The fix wasn’t on this sphere. I’ll be amongst the globes in space, where time is different and there is no haste.
I’ve only believed in love and dogs and they are quite the same, in the way that my agnosticism might they both have tamed.
If you lose the light and have lost your trust, turn your eyes towards the sky and remember we are all just stardust.
Joel Hunter Borrelli
09/18/18
Bleeding in Words
A poem by Joel Hunter Borrelli
Writing my wounds
Seasoned in sorrow
My mind absorbed with too many yesterday’s and not enough with tomorrow’s.
Bleeding in words
Hemorrhaging in phrases that were heard
Filling passages with regret.
Life’s full of questions
No answers yet.
Love, the strongest emotion
Is the easiest to break
It fractures and scars
It takes what it takes.
Leaving me in pieces
An assemblage of parts
Less light in life’s aperture
When you have a broken heart.
Joel Hunter Borrelli 10/26/18
The Weight of Emptiness
The weight of emptiness is the heaviest burden to carry.
There is a density to nothingness.
It’s the voids in love and life that become a crushing mass to shoulder.
The gravity of loss can cripple you.
The laws of physics are inverse when it comes to emotions.
Joel Hunter Borrelli
08/24/18
Fumes
On fumes I pulled in to the last service station before the exit. I found it ironic I couldn't even make it off the highway without having to add fuel. I had never been good at coasting. I imagine I'd have been worse at gliding. I wouldn't even know how to move forward if I wasn't facing the current.
Joel Hunter Borrelli 03-06-18