Far away

Seven secrets slither, snakelike, binding into ego, vomiting vile venom. destroying self-worth. The ignorant knowledge of personal truth. The depths of our own dishonesty. Bleed as me, one drop at a time, red as the sky. Frontiers of untapped imagination wilting behind a desk. Snort your salvation, success. I'd kill you as long as I can believe you are different than me as the knife slides slowly between those ribs, parting the void behind where a heart like mine resides.

Let if fall

It doesn't have to be perfect the first time through, it just has to get the cursor moving. Productivity flames inspiration as well as the reverse. Punch the keys. Hack the cobwebs with a hand axe. Manage mischievous moments. Spill a little bit of life on the page. Buy a round.






I told this girl who moved my world, "Let's make a sound so loud it will shake the ground." So she found a way. Cracked me in two then became the glue to heal our soul through and though.


We parted ways, strayed, and rediscovered the other's pains. Came back around a time or two before we knew how to exist without each other's kiss. "Let it fall." she said, "the seed will sprawl and soon be a tree so tall it will touch the sky before we die once and for all."

parting shots

We're all culpable of the good we choose not to do in the world. You know the moment well, the decision to pick up the piece of trash on the beach or give a ride to a stranger.

Collective intolerance begins not in some distant place from a foreign entity but with you. It doesn't matter what you agree or disagree with. What matters is your ability to comprehend that you are not actually different from those you dissent from.
We are the culprit of our own immuring. With each decision a division. Insecurities run rampant, maiming potential and rippling forth, drowning standers by.

 

a thousand times

We're not so different, you and me. Parting paths with political platitudes.
Every human being is chasing what feels good to them. For some that's temperance. For others it's excess. Choose whiskey and be labeled an alcoholic. Choose faith and you're a zealot. Choose drugs and we call you an addict, love sports and you're a fanatic. Food a glutton, and money a success. What are you chasing? What's suppressed?
Vice? Virtue? I'll take mine by the gallon. Pour it down. I'm hollow.

My family lives in a different state

tick tick tick tick
It's leaving at a beautiful rate. All that time, that useless reminder of who we could have been. Drop stock, buy life. Soil and sound and breath it down 'till the last alveoli drown. Failure is your friend, reflecting your black-tooth grin. Sinew snaps while synapse collapse. Each toke burns a keystroke and whisky drowns an inhibition.
Pulse, rhythm, and beat. Another night beneath a cold sheet, alone.

A daunting task, stringing together a hundred-thousand anythings.

Watch it Burn

Charred, bloody resolve. Writing, like there’s something to prove. Clear, simple, plain. The shame and disdain of making a name. Etching lines with finger nails on concrete walls, fading before the thought concludes. A budding arm from an already crowded tree. A redundant thought squeezed between the branches of a fading breath. 

"Move on." He screams. "Your time here is up. Evolve into your next sophomore year." Bludgeon the senses, bleed mediocrity, believe. 

Simplicity at it's Finest

This is where the pain starts. This is where it ends. The finger stroke caress of the keys. The abrasive glow of the screen in an otherwise dark room, void of content. Here it finds me, desirous of everything and nothing all at once. An empty bottle of hope still present amidst the deteriorating flavor of life. 

She sleeps, shrouded in ease. Another warm evening spent strategically separated, the thin sheet keeping the monsters at bay. Thoughts of distant worlds dance in my head and collide in perfect violence with the monotony of living. Live less, write more. Or the opposite. 

When who we hope to be finally meets the person we’ve been all along, a desperation departs. It’s a magic moment. 

So now what? Where do we go from here? In all of time, it’s never been easier to make a living as a writer. “A living” … money. That isn’t what this is about though. Do I love this? That’s a romantic question. Am I good at it? That’s an honest one. I’d say I am, good at writing that is. What would happen if I dedicated my full self to this endeavor. I have never before committed myself to a profession for more than a couple of years. I’ve always been afraid to discover if my initial successes were flukes. Sure, I know how to punch a key, but am I that good? am I as good as I’ve been sweet talked into believing? Perhaps I don’t have to be. I read Hemingway and Kerouac and Thompson and it’s not because they’re the best writers. I read them because they interest me as human beings. Am I an interesting enough human being to add my name to a list like that? 

When will I know I succeeded in life? Will there be a feigned smile and gold watch on an arbitrary day announcing to the world I’ve effectively paid my dues? 

She wakes, upset. It’s well past two and the obnoxious glow of the screen combined with the intrusive nature of cat stirs her unrest. It’s all just a pile of words, until you can make someone feel something with them. That’s what real writing is. Tangible success in a world of emotion is a gracious review. Pretentious faux elevations from professional critics remain the high praise, self-stroke, glutinously fervent devouring ego, maintaining narcissistic motivations. 

Praise. Fulfillment. Finding a voice in the world. 

I awoke this morning, covered in sweat. I could still feel your presence, like a phantom limb.

The human condition

Which want pulls tight the ties of our internal tide? More questions than answers these days. Before I was me I was still who I was, it’s just that was different than who I am. Now in these redundant mediocre thoughts I drown. Where did it go, that spark, that divine pain that permeated and pushed creativity? In times of great joy, pain and intoxication that voice came to me. It spoke in hard words. It screamed. A curse, a gift, a dash of psychosis? This place, this quiet place isn’t serenity. The silence, the absence of that pain is a pain in and of itself.

I used to be such a burning example. I used to be so original. I used to care.

More questions than answers. More road ahead than behind. More love than hate. More mundane than exceptional. Not self doubt just here, just here like every other person. No more war dreams, no more screams, no more. 

A statue lives it's lifespan without pain but without pleasure. 

The pelting droplets of life falling from the heavens make the grey granite face not cold or calm, the sun has no jubilee. The calm calescent ocean breeze or the gale force application of adversity. The sweet soft serenade of an infant’s inhalation heard over the clap of the not so distant thunder, the calamity of conformity and the heroism of retreat.

That spark, the spark that ignites the internal flame of what must be divine.

Which want pulls tight the ties of that internal tide? When we dip our pen, take only one example from the statue, stand the test of time. Be not grey, be not cold and without movement. Bring the hard chills from the root of your spine like a lightning bolt of life echoing explosive electric energy. Splash the canvas of life with your vibrant ink. Be the new word etched in tomorrow's dictionary. Be the graffiti on the face of that stone face bastard.

Sing to me ohh misery and tell me something new
Spread your word like the bird that's chirping till it's blue
Serve a Serpent's hate and capitulate to all they're selling you
Buy the brand and then demand that we all wear it too

Sell a story of love and glory then turn it into hate
Push the herd and Contort the word that wise men often state
Come sing it from the pulpit come dance and devastate
After all it's our own damn fault, too easy to manipulate

So sing to me ohh misery a drink, a dance Devine
Spread your filth across my floor until it's suppertime
I'll bow my head, repeat what's said and toe the fucking line
Sing to me ohh misery perhaps... another... time.

Don't read this... It's not for you!

"Rings and other jewels are not gifts but apologies for gifts.  The only gift is a portion of thyself... Therefore the poet brings his poem."

One of my favorite writers, a man named Emerson, wrote that.  He would go on to explain how cold and lifeless it is to go to a shop to purchase an object that tells of another persons talents.  Don't be fooled by the material, look instead to beauty of the soul that molds it, that nourishes it and gives it willingly to the world. Surround yourself with those whose value extends beyond accumulation of monetary gain and you will forever be rich beyond your own imagination.

Please take these opals as an apology, they are not my gift to you, this is...




I give to you, the two I knew, before you knew yourself,
A promise in a poem that I'll share with no one else.
These words are yours should you choose to share
They belong to you and have been scribed with care.

I give to you the sky of blue and all the earth beneath its view
The trees and stars, from here to Mars and the breeze that's blowing through.
A touch, a step, a secret kept, and the wondrous world awaiting too
This though, is just the start of the gift I give to you.

A tender kiss from wave to shore, a chance to breath and to explore.
A glance that's shared with passerby, a conversation for you to try
In foreign tongue, a myth undone and a mountain range so high.
This gift I give is knowing that life's limits leap beyond the sky.

No house or car or movies star will hold it's value long
No, the treasures sought by many will not prove to prolong
What's real is yours and mine, every bit Devine, and heard in every song.
The gift I give is knowing the best things in life, to you, already belong.

Jump from the platform of regret.  Live the life you deserve to love. Love the life you live.
How well do you know yourself?  Knowledge that doesn't die comes from the whispering of the soul. Propped up by the confines of sinking, stopping.

Dwell on yesterday and it will unravel the thread of your mind.  Live for tomorrow and it will never come.  A single moment only comes once in a lifetime yet it is where we spend eternity.  Swirling singing soft snow settles soothingly upon our shoulders.  The globe that confines is made of glass.  What a clever prison we reside in that gives the appearance of absolute freedom.  Make a man a slave and resistance is bound to ensue, convince him he is free and you will have a slave for life.
Passed by plastic princesses, dancing delighted at the beauty of their own globe.  Force applied to fingers, furiously finding freedom.  The act of shattering that globe, terrifying. We've been warmed for years by the fluid.  Seeking something beyond submerged security is scary.  



Movement is life.  Not even the water in the ocean can stay there forever.  We too must ascend to the heavens and be spread to the earth.  However, before we go, it's not a bad idea to wash up on a distant shore from time to time.

A stroll through the brightest parts of madness

Only by allowing the chaos of the world to enter the expansive landscape of the mind will we ever know the endless beauty it contains.  Fire parts the mountain and divides the bitter solitude of forever.




Tired is that mind that controls the legs that stand for nothing.

The greatest communicators in history have been misunderstood or overlooked by over 95% of the world.  If your voice causes just 5% of people passing by to feel your music or allow your art to touch them you have succeeded beyond measure.  If that moment sparks the creation, the inspiration or the causation of another's art, then you will be forever alive, immortalized in an endless chain of human experience.  Concern yourself not with the 95 percent.  Rather find strength in expression, find oil on canvas. 

Bobbing motionless in a sea of sharks.  Unseen by the busy eyes and frantic step of a generation on autopilot.  A minute, an hour, seems to drift.  Only two of a thousand drop coin in the cup of those in need.  

When we cease to halt and enjoy the art in front of us, when we refuse to help our fellow man our humanity dissapates.  We are once again the animal. 

After two hours 1 person stopped to view the art.  As soon as they did, three others followed suit.

Is it fear that keeps us from looking up? When one does it gives permission to others to follow. A species of followers, like fish in a flock. We buy certain brands in an effort to show others our originality.  We wear them while stepping in stride with the rest of the world.  Everyday we buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people that don't actually care.  There is one truth in life and many things that matter, none of which being the name on your blue jeans the cost of your car.  The less you want the more you have.

I sat for hours attempting to construct the perfect sentence.  All that came to mind was the vast expansive beauty of her eyes, galactic in innocent shine and size.... Perhaps I will try again tomorrow.

Tired is that mind that controls the legs that stand for nothing.

Trust

I felt the sound of the world and smelled the heat of the sun
Reached my hands to the stars and seized the life from one
I used a lariat to harness the body of an idea
then took a breath and with it exhaled out all my fear.

I found in truth that there is wine, a shifting paradigm
A loosed tongue, a life undone and lost a love Devine
I met my mistress Minerva toward the ending of a circle
She reassured me that nothing rhymes with circle