Smooth Sailing Through the Rarefied Air of Our Own Reality by Jason Ryberg

Smooth Sailing Through the Rarified Air of Our Own Reality

Steering with one hand

at 12 o’clock and with the

other wrapped around

a long-neck bottle

of Stag, strangely caught up

in the net of a song

streaming from this old

AM / FM radio,

a song I know I’ve

heard a hundred times

before but never really

listened to, I guess,

and before I know

it, another one has come

along and taken

its place, spiriting

me away to some other

place and time, the way

the right song at the

right time and place can do, and

I wonder sometimes

if we are asleep

somewhere else while we’re awake

in the here and now

(and thereby, all of

us really being two (or

more) people)) with one

always entangled

in the frayed threads and wires and

roots of deep dreams, while

the other one is

seemingly free to move and

mingle about the

pressurized cabin

of this post-modern plane of

existence, always                        

sailing smoothly through           

the rarified air of our

own reality.

Jason Ryberg lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named Giuseppe, and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters.