The soundtrack to this piece is “You & I” by One Direction. The post is to be read while listening to this tune.
Some will make you believe in love again, and cause you to hear bluebirds singing right outside your bedroom window and you’ll rise to crimson skies and smell the refreshing scent of lilacs floating on cool morning breezes. Love wakes you to life, and where there is love, there is no need for purpose, precautions or possessions, nor drama, pretense or pretending. When it makes no sense, that’s when it’s at its best. Give yourself to such moments, declare a union, commit to an alliance, scream it from behind your window blinds—-only fools limit themselves to those who are possessed by reason, logic and timid passions—— all their nothingness smothering their life force——what is love but the stepchild of fear—— a smoldering fuse waiting to ignite starbursts—-and if it should rain there will be rainbows, cause love is sappy and corny and ridiculous that way. It will cause you to use language in new ways, you will write love letters on unicorn stationary and sign off with X’s and O’s—— hearts——envelopes sealed with a kiss, embossed with burning red lipstick——dripping with honey…..
It’ll blind your eyes, like shiny shards of glass flashing and then suddenly exploding in tremendous balls of whiteness somewhere behind your eyes. I’m broken, I’m drained, but I’d know your face from past life dreams, a thousand lives deep, I wonder what’s beneath that skirt, cause I’m into that, I’d tell you lies if I thought they’d do the trick, to get you alone, to get you to discard your clothes and lay next to me, naked, damp and all a quiver—-and you’d only be wearing a perfect dirty smile—-
We won’t become like the rest of them. The ones bored to the touch of the other, forgetting how to hold, how to fall asleep in love and wake together in a tangle of sweat stained sheets.
This life is your story, nothing more, nothing less. Tell it with boldness, kiss no ones ass, go down swinging, don’t let anyone still your glory or run you ragged>>>>>>never waste time on the bland and the blind, cause you’ll never get that time back…..
Soundtrack “Fire”. Go to “View Original” and then press play before reading.
Trapped inside ourselves, this is it, the unsolved puzzle we must learn to live with, to struggle with and sometimes against, faith is encrypted with voodoo, the supernatural and magic are difficult to untwine, truth is temporary and dissolving, love like Atlantis lies hidden beneath myth and fantasy. Every love story is a ghost ship——a weary captain keeps night watch—–lost on rolling seas—-why do these tattered sails push us ever closer to the edge——towards oblivion. No matter how hard you may try, some worlds will always be flat.
All of that which is true, is what works for a moment, be it love, science or salvation. Allow love to find you——be in love with something or someone before you cease, before all that you are sails off the edge. That’s all I know, cause upon second glance everyone loses their battle with gravity.
So this is middle age, unexpected, unpredictable, with all those promised existential unanswered questions. With age has come the harsh realization that I will never fully know another, at least not in the way youth had once opened up friends and lovers to me. Does age make us cautious, suspicious——to many broken bones, careless wounds and loves left undone—-if she should read this, she’d hurt what I felt. She interpreted my words better than I, although the poetry came through me, it was born of her, such a mysterious muse, mi amore.
God plays tricks on us all, allowing the fictions of falling through time and occupying space, as we grapple with this thing called life. Come walk with me, and let us pretend our love goes on forever and ever——-beyond the map, and then together we’ll pass through to the other-side of oblivion*****
Soundtrack, These Days by Jackson Browne, go to “original post” press play and listen while reading—
Don’t ever let anyone tell you how to write poetry, not a teacher, not a book, a professor, a famous poet or some hip instructional manual touting “Poetry Made Easy”. Poetry is anything but easy, it’s floating to the surface in a bubble while praying that the pressure from the outside doesn’t become stronger than the pressure from within, it’s a tenuous balance——-in that stillness you’ll hear every creak and groan as you strain to hold yourself together….
There’s things deep down there that are bigger and wilder than you could ever possibly imagine. Its the stuff your conscious mind keeps chained and shackled and out of the reach of that prison we’ve come to accept as reality. There are frightening things down there—-bizarre things, sea monsters, demons, the eight armed Kracken reaching out for you, mountains of madness, deserts of despair, volcanoes spewing red rivers of woe. You may have convinced yourself that you’re in control, but mister let me tell ya, those reins are loose and easily snapped.
I dare ya to hold your breath and dive down into that murky deep. No one can stay down there for long—-some become entangled, confuse up with down—— they lose their way, they panic with eyes bulging, lungs bursting, blood streaming from ringing ears—- solitarily drowning in a sea of conceit. Down there you’ll come to know things that the faux world above could never teach you. But there’s a high price for trespassing into those depths——— “Enter at your own risk, Dangerous rip tides, No life guard on duty”.
Be advised: if ya poke around down there long enough you may bump into who you thought you were, maybe even a god or two—-and if you’r lucky, a kind familiar voice….These things that germinate in the dark are ironically impossible to see in the light—-it’s like the dark matter that comprises the majority of our universe—-these things are difficult to understand for simple creatures such as us, who are accustomed to composing reality from our puny five senses.
Some are contented to sit and stare at their reflection on the surface. But, if you’re a poet, then you need to take that perilous plunge. Leave behind your holy books, shots of whiskey, rosary, zen bells, mantras and slide rules, they have no power down here, in fact they’ll only camouflage your destiny.
Don’t let anyone tell you how to write poetry. Everyone has their own unique journey, you must find your own Dharma, your own Tao. The funny thing is—-as soon as you stop trying, it will flow through you——. Be still in that tiny bubble of yours, take the road less traveled, refuse to go gently into that dark night——find what you love and let it kill you, and burn, burn, burn, like a fabulous yellow roman candle that explodes like spiders across the stars———Pop*******
When I was young I met a girl, she said she’d take care of me, but she couldn’t even take care of herself—— She burned Top Ramen, bled pink on my favorite button down shirt in the wash and was always telling me to get a “real job”. When my band broke up things got even worse. We stopped forgiving one another. We stopped holding hands. We’d lay in bed back to back, facing those bare opposing walls. She taught me how to say things I didn’t mean. In the darkness it’s easy to confuse how things are with the way things once were—-or, with the way things could have been. Once we realized that we were pretending, this is when the white lies lost their power to hold things together.
The stuff that drew us together——music, laughter, defying a world of clocks, money and the wanting of more—-came to be the things that pulled us apart. I went home one day and she was gone. At first I couldn’t breathe. She took her stereo and I was alone in my silence. For the first time I was on my own and alone, no family, no school, no job, just me. Life made no sense, everything was hard and cold—-I no longer had anyone to look after me. No footsteps falling in the other rooms. I suppose she took the cat, knowing that I’d forget to feed it.
Then I met a girl and I told her that I’d take care of her, but she soon discovered that I couldn’t even take care of myself. I tried to rearrange everything, but I ended up making a mess of things. I pawned my guitar and sold my keyboard. Something had ransacked my soul and smashed all the things I valued. I never wanted to take care of anyone ever again. It’s too much trouble. I taught her how to say “Fuck Off”. I laughed when she first said it to me. It sounded strange coming from her, but she was a quick study.
Love is like believing in aliens, it’s a crazy idea, but its better than feeling we’re all alone in this big universe. Maybe love is having someone to look after—-someone to take out the garbage and mow the lawn, someone to make your supper and mend your shirts. You can’t see love, you can only see its shadows. For me, love is a practice, a discipline. It requires patience, attention, and most importantly compassion. I’m still learning these ways. I do know this, spooning with someone is better than staring at your blank walls.
a crazed woman cut my heart out of my chest, she then carelessly disassembled it and put it back together all wrong, it was slippery with blood and hard to handle, so she shoved it back inside me where the organ for caring and giving a shit use to be…..these days I compulsively check my pulse in search of a rhythm, but all I feel is an occasional spastic fluttering within my chest, like a bird beating its wings against hurricane winds—and when it gets dark, it stops all together—
come close and put your ear against my chest—-now be still and listen as I tell you how it is for me, at night those blues come stalking me, they peer through my blinds like some nefarious wide-eyed peeping Tom, leaving foggy predatory breath on the window pane——–the bleakness of it all tramples across the nothingness of another specter ridden midnight—I can feel my heart go still, like an unworn love left hanging in someones dusty closet, an addiction traded against a corrupted souls collateral, broken people warehoused like damaged goods, young kids with no fire in their eyes, an old guy going in circles on the metro for an as-semblance of company, the scent of morning rain on dirty pavement, damp leaves smoldering in the drizzle, the stench of alley piss—time is blurring by like a whirl-wind whooshing past my car window on a Sunday drive to nowhere in-particular—-once again I’m tired of me and how I get things all twisted up, I’m left staring into the futility of a gray weather beaten morning, realizing I’m no longer running from something, nor running to something—-I’m slowly being crushed under the ache that comes with knowing that there’s got to be something better than this—-someplace—–somewhere—-cause this life is way to long to be miserable and far to short to be boring—it’s time I set that lil caged bird free—
say something, I’m giving up on you—-
there’s too much pain in the world to believe I’m immune to it, or can hide from it—–or selfishly fear that I’m the only one being consumed by it—that would be a righteous sadness, the kind of sadness that beckons the lugubrious to replay a heartbreak love-song over and over again. Real sadness has no soundtrack, no words, no explanation—-it’s like tree sap that mysteriously shows up on your hands and can’t be washed off—-
people always ask me the same question “Was that story you told true or made-up?” To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure anymore. Most of the stuff I once thought was true, ends up being a lie or an illusion, and what I thought was fiction (made-up) is just an alternative version of truth or reality that I’ve failed to grasp. I’ve come to believe that what’s true, and what’s made up, is a predilection reserved for the teller of tales.
but I do know this, one day that little bird trapped inside my chest will be set free—-
When I was a kid we’d buy paper kites, they were relatively resilient but never intended to last—-their flimsy construction gave them the agility to fly but also made them vulnerable to a host of possible mishaps—they were as precious as they were mortal. A poorly tied tether knot and all may be lost, or should an unexpected gust of wind blow her into branches, then she’s snared and marooned, left there forever dangling from the sky like a monument to someones carelessness. I brought myself here, just like you did—-we’re all just holding on by a string, so I refuse to feel sorry for anybody—nobody!—except for maybe one of those kids with bald heads who haven’t been given much of a chance to survive the treatment, let alone the disease—I save my compassion for these cases.
Those mopey fuckers at the grocery stores asking me for spare change or the young dude with pleading eyes and his cardboard sign perched at the last stoplight before the climb to the freeway onramp, they piss me off—-they don’t seem to realize that we all have to make our own wind, running uphill like hell, never looking back until the string feels taunt, until god decides to lightly blow his breath on you, lifting your body above the ground into the void of space and torched stars, and below spins that beautiful blue ball of water and land—here in the ether, even the coldest of hearts will thaw.
I hand a crinkled dollar to a crumpled man, and for a solemn instance we are connected, we occupy the same moment, share the same world—-then without speaking I turn and walk away and return to my world—-as he returns to his—–
Kindest or cruelty—–which way will the wind blow
The older I get, the less I look into the mirror and the longer I stare at my hands
Craziness, madness the big crack up is a disease of bad thinking. My latest drinking escapade has left me with two options in regards to what it says about me and the rest of the world as a whole. Either I drink too much or the rest of the world is too sober. I wish it were the latter, but at night when there are no distractions and I am stuck with only myself to consort with, it’s then that the line of insomnia creeps ever closer towards lunacy. In the shadows of a 3:00 am quarter moon, there is no backtracking, no sidestepping, no skipping through the spotlight of truth. At this hour, when the music stops and there is no chair to be found, I find that there is no place to go but inward. The voices in my head mock my foolishness, they scoff at my big plans, calling them nothing more than pipe-dreams, they let the air escape from my inflated thoughts of becoming a better person. To have flaws is to be human, to be flawed is to be broken. Isn’t it strange—-that the things you think may save you, may very well kill you, and those things that you think will kill you, may very well save you. I appreciate the words written by Bukowski, “Find what you love and let it kill you.” I’d rather die of fatigue chasing my loves, than blindly sleepwalk into oblivion.
My heart flexes with a contraction and then spasms outward like the legs of a startled bullfrog. Am I having a heart attack, is this how a massive aneurysm feels as it bursts within my chest? My body is suddenly glazed over in a cold sweat. My mood flips from a sullen depression where nothing seems to matter, to an all-encompassing sense of dire anxiety and a fear of losing my foot hold on the slippery rocks of consciousness. God please absolve me of all my sins, save me, don’t take me now, not here, not all alone in these loveless sweat soaked bed sheets. Where does that piteous sun go when I need it most?
Sometimes I just get plain sick and tired of everybody and everything; myself included. I swear—-nothing is ever good enough for anyone anyways, especially for someone with such a ruptured sense of wellbeing as me. I’m forever over-thinking things, over-feeling things and over-analyzing everything. People say, think like a buddhist and live in the present moment, but that’s so fucking clichéd and trite. I can’t keep pinching myself saying, “Now is now—-Now is now”. I need my past as an anchor to prevent me from being set adrift and left at the mercy of the currents. And, I need the future as my lighthouse to guide me through the fog keeping me clear of the treacherous rocks. I pop in and out of the present moment as it suits me. I prefer to fondle that illusive “now” in-between my daydreams and fantasies. Occasionally I catch a fleeting glimpses of that camouflaged illusion ironically known as reality. I prefer to say, “What is, is.” That way I can choose to surrender to it, or to do battle with it. “What is, is”, can be expressed as a statement or a question. The seeds of wisdom or madness always germinate within a question.
I’m better off alone. That way I don’t piss people off, or more honestly, they don’t piss me off. How is it, that everyone is so fucking calm, boring and self-assured. They plod along through life as if they’re going to live forever, as if the planet isn’t dying due to their own personal selfish excesses and abuses. They idly stare at the T.V. news as if they’re somehow exempt from all the calamity and misfortune that descends upon “those other poor souls”.
Life is not tidy, clean or simple—-it’s a madhouse, an asylum filled with desperate people running around seeking some form of refuge. Refuge means different things to different people. It might be a religious creed, a bottle of whiskey, a cause to defend, a love to possess, a dream to fulfill, a profit to be made——these concessions make up the tiny pieces of hope and faith strewn behind us, a trail of stale breadcrumbs to guide us back home. Beware of those thieving black-crows of time—as they steal away our paths, leaving each of us standing alone in the wilderness asking “What is—is???”
Tonight I’m drinking with Fitzgerald, Bukowski and Kerouac, those fuckers sure could spin a tale and drink like a school of drowning fish. I invited Hemingway to drop by, but he was busy playing nursemaid to a typewriter and polishing his guns. It’s just as well he couldn’t make it, as guns and alcohol make dangerous bedfellows. Although, spilling ink can be equally as painful as spilling blood.
These fellas had so many foibles and bad habits that it would be hypocritical for them to say a bad word about anybody else, that’s why I hangout with them, cause they don’t come at me sideways with their God-speak, patriotic-mumbo jumbo or self-righteous, sanctimonious finger wagging. The whole lot of them are serial liars and dexterous sinners. Ya see, writers don’t really lie, they just kind of bend the truth a bit—-and as for being sinners, a life without sin possesses no sustaining storyline. If ya don’t believe me, just ask God about his favorite protagonist—the devil. We all need our devils and our Gods to test our balance as we wobble across life’s tightrope. One misstep and you could end up in jail, or worse yet, a Mormon or a new-age vegan.
In the corner of the dark dank bar Waits meanders about the piano keys playing a melancholy jazz riff on an old battered upright piano. His whisker stubbled face is silhouetted in a smokey blue light, the derby on his head cocked forward and a cigarette dangles from his perturbing lips. A cat named Bird stares blankly into space as he lifts a shiny alto to his mouth. His improvisations are a soured marriage between black blues and leftover notes that fumble their way into dissonance—more or less a drunken lullaby. Vincent sits at a table near the musicians. He makes his childlike sketches and occasionally looks up at the band to lend them his ear (so to speak). The duo plays forlorn melodies that we slowly get sauced to, as we indulge our miseries, such is the sad yet beautiful futility of recounting a long-lost love-affair or friendships now withered and gone by the wayside. Most love affairs are doomed from the get-go, but friendships are all we really have to sustain us, someone to catch us should we fall. I miss my friends.
I only see my old pals now at weddings or funerals. I once unsuccessfully attempted to organize a Mens Retreat. I called a few of the old gang and emailed a couple of others. Most of them never got back to me and those that did offered up some slipshod excuses about how they were predisposed. They awkwardly mumbled on about work responsibilities, family responsibilities, money responsibilities and other middle-age obligations. This may sound crazy, but I miss my once young irresponsible friends—what they lacked in maturity they more than made up for in temerity.
To much time alone can cause a man to substitute regret for nostalgia. What is, “is”—- what ain’t—- “ain’t”—-and what never-was— “ain’t never gonna be”. Everybody changes, some for the better, others for the worse. Shockingly, some of my old buddies have even thrown their lot in with the right-wing conservatives—-go figure? I do my best to remember the good-times—And I’m fortunate to have absorbed so many fond memories.
I’m reminded of one of my old favorite tunes by Simon and Garfunkel, “Bookends”.
Time it was and what a time it was it was,
A time of innocence a time of confidences.
Long ago it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you
Unexpectedly, Twain, Steinbeck, Armstrong and Columbus drop by. They’re all excited about heading out west to explore some uncharted territories. They claim to have some rough draft maps and charts they got from a couple of fellas named Lewis and Clark. They came by to ask if we might like to throw in with them. We all looked at one another with that singular writers eye. Most stories don’t come to you, on the contrary, you have to seek them out. Ah yes, only through adventure do we discover new worlds and in the process come to better know what we’re made of. The decision is unanimous, we’ll all head out west come first dawn.
To often adventure is perceived as a young man’s game. But I say, attitude will always trump age. Adventure demands an odd mixture of risk, courage, stamina and as some might see it—-a shit load of irresponsibility. George Mallory expressed it so concisely when asked, “Why climb Everest?” George responded, “Because it’s there.” Now isn’t that a Goddamn foolish and irresponsible reason for doing anything—-”Because it’s there?” But as for me, those three words sparkle with a stark and eloquent truth, to evolve and grow the heart must be pierced with a curiosity to see what’s over that next horizon.
What I love about adventurers, artists and writers is how they peer at the world through the eyes of a child. They never seem to lose that youthful sense of wonder and imagination. They may come off as brash, irresponsible and even a bit mad, but perhaps that’s why they aren’t afraid to perform without a net—–. So Adios mi amigos, I’m off to see what lies out west. Hey, why don’t you saddle up and come on along as well.
This piece is dedicated to my life long brothers—Steve, Django, Mike, Chris, Pat, Danny and Norm.
From a God’s eye view it all must seem so silly. Lines drawn separating one person or place from another, borders, boundaries, the yours and mine of desire and regret—the willing, the wasted, the reluctant and those forgetting that we all end up old, ugly and woeful, but hey, ugly ain’t so bad once you accept that at best we’re all sideshow attractions in a traveling freak-show in this two-bit carnival life. Oddballs, freaks and outcasts have always been my companions of choice—-so if you’re still my pal, buddy or sweetheart, then yeah, I’m talking bout you buster. We all have our own personal measure of beauty, but baby you give me that sweetest ache deep in my chest, just like that feeling I get when I awake to a clear snow-covered mountain morning. You make growing old not such a bad prospect when I know I have you as my mirrored companion—-you pump collagen into this weary heart of mine. I’ll always follow you down.
Everybody’s scuttling about to secure their share of food and shelter, maybe even love scraps or its ghostly shadow locked within ones own pleading soul. Down here, it’s a macro playhouse of clogged freeways, early morning skyscrapers blooming above the yellowish haze, the broken, the woebegone, those lucky few with the taste of a new kiss still on their damp lips, old creepy guys in shiny new cars, commuters waiting on meaningless buses taking them to meaningless jobs, lonely guys on desolate Nevada desert roads seeking something just over that next ridge, plain Jane looking girls clutching romance novels with their ragged dog-eared dreams, a dog pissing on someones perfectly manicured rose garden, mountain thunderstorms, salty sea scented beaches, coconut smelling sun tanned bitches, grimy unshaven bums on skid row, blue birds on telephone wires joyfully singing above a gated community, breached levee’s drowning someones hard-earned promise land, someones first breath, another’s last—-uh-hum? Mister, most are gonna lie to ya, but not me—no sir!
All the wise ones, like the giggling Dali Lama, chubby Buddha, rabble rousing Jesus wear that same smug lil grin. They’re like a pack of good ole boys sharing some private inside joke. They know the jokes on us as we do our twisted dance with Maya. I feel my time slipping away, what will you do with your time here. I do know this, that regardless of my foolish carrying on’s, I’m a lucky guy, to be chosen, to be alive, to be wandering this blue spinning sphere—-a temporary oasis for those trapped by space and time, a far-flung and forgotten Eden set against a backdrop of flickering lights and mumbled prayers. I try not to forget this within each dissolving moment. I stare up at the night sky and I can’t tell the satellites from twinkling stars, but they’re all oh so pretty—and I wonder what becomes of my satellite wishes?
Like.fm for Safari (click to dismiss)
Rants, Raves and Random Thoughts 