I've spilled water,
and called it an ocean.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
In an Airport Terminal
I can spend hours alone these days. Time makes its way like an old friend. Confident, secure enough to know that a simple hello will suffice. No need to stay behind and talk about things we've both seen. Leaves me to think, to stare, to wonder.
I can watch the minute hand tick itself between numbers. I hear each mechanical click as the proof that life is measured by what we can accomplish before the sound stops. Because that's what it comes down to, right? How many steps you can take, how much money you can make, how many times you can fake a smile before it lands you where you want to be.
I can see right through it all. And through the transparency I see similarity. A mutual understanding that everybody is full of it.
Everybody is asking, "Is there really a true sincerity? A genuine kindness that exists for no reason other than being kind? None of this bullshit where people are nice because they know others are not; because they secretly hope that one day their altruism will pay off."
Everybody is answering, "I hope so."
I can answer, "I know so."
I see it as plainly as I see those who fake it. I see people who want it enough that they actually achieve it. I see it every day. I know that it's there and that I can see it, because nobody sees it.
That's the point.
I can watch the minute hand tick itself between numbers. I hear each mechanical click as the proof that life is measured by what we can accomplish before the sound stops. Because that's what it comes down to, right? How many steps you can take, how much money you can make, how many times you can fake a smile before it lands you where you want to be.
I can see right through it all. And through the transparency I see similarity. A mutual understanding that everybody is full of it.
Everybody is asking, "Is there really a true sincerity? A genuine kindness that exists for no reason other than being kind? None of this bullshit where people are nice because they know others are not; because they secretly hope that one day their altruism will pay off."
Everybody is answering, "I hope so."
I can answer, "I know so."
I see it as plainly as I see those who fake it. I see people who want it enough that they actually achieve it. I see it every day. I know that it's there and that I can see it, because nobody sees it.
That's the point.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Snippets
I'm a hopeless romantic who hopes that one day Romance goes back in style.
I'm a cynic who believes that mankind is actually kind of decent.
I'm skeptical of all things blatant, and make it blatantly obvious that I am.
I'm infuriated when people think their problems are baggage meant for two.
I get moody when people aren't as happy as I am.
I scoff at pretentious Indie fans and then drown them out with better music.
The time I spend analyzing things is indicative of how much I hate worrying about them.
I hate talking on the phone but get depressed when nobody calls me.
I'm afraid of rejection but always put myself in a position to be rejected.
I'm honest to a fault, and sometimes have to lie to myself about it
I dig up the past just long enough for it to become the present.
I spend way too much time trying to prove I have a quick wit...
I'm a cynic who believes that mankind is actually kind of decent.
I'm skeptical of all things blatant, and make it blatantly obvious that I am.
I'm infuriated when people think their problems are baggage meant for two.
I get moody when people aren't as happy as I am.
I scoff at pretentious Indie fans and then drown them out with better music.
The time I spend analyzing things is indicative of how much I hate worrying about them.
I hate talking on the phone but get depressed when nobody calls me.
I'm afraid of rejection but always put myself in a position to be rejected.
I'm honest to a fault, and sometimes have to lie to myself about it
I dig up the past just long enough for it to become the present.
I spend way too much time trying to prove I have a quick wit...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Written Aloud to "Row"
There are times when, for no reason at all
I cease to see anything: everything beyond me;
the visible breath that escapes my lips,
the panoramic world that shines as it sets,
the faces of people I know who smile in return,
the leaves that whisper as they're carried by the wind...
The pebbles that crunch under foot,
and remind me of summer;
Pulling into an unpaved driveway,
charmed by the sound of gravel between treads,
and stopping for ice cream after a day spent in the shade
of trees forever thankful for a friend.
It's times like these,
when the world around me ceases to be,
and I'm taken away to a place impossible to define.
It is a scene made perfect
by its very innocence;
By its love unsurpassed and,
its longing for those moments that bring tears,
simply because of the music they could write
to meet them.
written while listening to "Row" by Jon Brion
I cease to see anything: everything beyond me;
the visible breath that escapes my lips,
the panoramic world that shines as it sets,
the faces of people I know who smile in return,
the leaves that whisper as they're carried by the wind...
The pebbles that crunch under foot,
and remind me of summer;
Pulling into an unpaved driveway,
charmed by the sound of gravel between treads,
and stopping for ice cream after a day spent in the shade
of trees forever thankful for a friend.
It's times like these,
when the world around me ceases to be,
and I'm taken away to a place impossible to define.
It is a scene made perfect
by its very innocence;
By its love unsurpassed and,
its longing for those moments that bring tears,
simply because of the music they could write
to meet them.
written while listening to "Row" by Jon Brion
Friday, October 10, 2008
A Record?
Streamed consciousness: October 10th, 2008.
It's a magnificent departure from the norm; abounding in vitality, cresting the breadth of passionate existence as it's freed from fetters found faithfully fallen to the ground (and filled with fiery alliteration), the greens and blues and whites and bricks of red, buildings and columns and lawns of immaculate care - bring it out, lay it upon sheets of its own grandeur; blossoming in showers of shimmering sunlit drops, euphoria inspired by merely breathing the crispness in the air! Steps and jumps and spins of a lighthearted touch - footfalls likened to the tip-tap-tapping of an accelerated analog clock, palpitating with infrequent fits of spontaneous changes in metronomic consistency...
It shouldn't be so difficult to feel like this every day. Maybe the chances of shaking the malignant melancholy of inactivity are spiked with every moment you spend thinking of something other than... what you've been thinking about for days. Talk to someone new, invite an acquaintance over with the intention of eventually being able to call it a friendship. Break barriers and leave them in piles of conquered rubble in the back alleys of your mind to be swept away into the repository of reminiscence - memories speckled with the sentimentality of time.
This is what it means to be alive....
At least right now.
It's a magnificent departure from the norm; abounding in vitality, cresting the breadth of passionate existence as it's freed from fetters found faithfully fallen to the ground (and filled with fiery alliteration), the greens and blues and whites and bricks of red, buildings and columns and lawns of immaculate care - bring it out, lay it upon sheets of its own grandeur; blossoming in showers of shimmering sunlit drops, euphoria inspired by merely breathing the crispness in the air! Steps and jumps and spins of a lighthearted touch - footfalls likened to the tip-tap-tapping of an accelerated analog clock, palpitating with infrequent fits of spontaneous changes in metronomic consistency...
It shouldn't be so difficult to feel like this every day. Maybe the chances of shaking the malignant melancholy of inactivity are spiked with every moment you spend thinking of something other than... what you've been thinking about for days. Talk to someone new, invite an acquaintance over with the intention of eventually being able to call it a friendship. Break barriers and leave them in piles of conquered rubble in the back alleys of your mind to be swept away into the repository of reminiscence - memories speckled with the sentimentality of time.
This is what it means to be alive....
At least right now.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Of Hours at the Wheel.... (23:15)
The radio kicks on, begins playing a song chosen at random amidst two thousand other possibilities, and gives the interior of his car a feeling of immutable charisma, an environment imminently sustained by his ironic silence...
"If the presentation speaks for itself, it speaks enough for both of us," he thinks absently.
He checks the road behind him and catches a glimpse of his own tired eyes in the rear-view mirror... they don't even look like his: patches of Distance, Aloofness, Coldness, and perhaps even a shade of Antagonism - they remind him of the looks he'd get from guard dogs as a kid when he would pass by just out of their range, a worthless target, but one that's fun to intimidate anyway...
As he drives on, the street lights glide over the thin corneal layer of each eye, reflected with an aqueous sheen into a sapphire-blue streak of momentary brilliance... unblinkingly driven forward, an insouciance between beams connected by threads of a celestial silk worm, effortless in their design; breaking conscious thought into a glittering web of light, just before the next passing bolt of electric azure...
The world exists as a pastiche, a parody of itself; these people living in it blithely enhancing the already comical display: awkwardness, forced amiability, a pretense rivaled only by the belief that it's genuine...
"And I'm supposed to talk to them?"
Jaded at age 19... just watch them turn up their noses like that... but this isn't jade, this is obsidian, volcanic glass, sharp enough to sever flesh and nerve, and with a reflective hide polished enough to show you your face as it happens... what happened in their lives to make them treat other people that way? What happened in the lives of their suitors to make them find that trait acceptable... even desirable? With each successive generation, the farce that is their superiority continues its profligate expansion into the norm, making the decency of the remnant few ever the exception...
The car crawls by this surfeit adolescence, barely making a sound and ignoring all attempts made to flag it down... he can't help but stare at their faces... desperate for the confirmation of privy counsel with the person who's going to take them on a jaunt to the ubiquitous - the experience of a lifetime that's to be had pretty much anywhere with a door. But not tonight. Tonight is his night to taunt them, prospecting a future to be had if only they had waited a little longer to so proudly display their... defining qualities... which are all he needs to validate his disappearance; a saccade from here to nowhere, matching his eyes as they flick back to the road, flashing in the lights once again as a resilient, auditory blue...
And thus, the children are left crestfallen in a current of traffic, their disappointment ringing with the sound of dying cells yet blissfully ignorant of it, concerned with one thing, and one thing only...
"Me."
"If the presentation speaks for itself, it speaks enough for both of us," he thinks absently.
He checks the road behind him and catches a glimpse of his own tired eyes in the rear-view mirror... they don't even look like his: patches of Distance, Aloofness, Coldness, and perhaps even a shade of Antagonism - they remind him of the looks he'd get from guard dogs as a kid when he would pass by just out of their range, a worthless target, but one that's fun to intimidate anyway...
As he drives on, the street lights glide over the thin corneal layer of each eye, reflected with an aqueous sheen into a sapphire-blue streak of momentary brilliance... unblinkingly driven forward, an insouciance between beams connected by threads of a celestial silk worm, effortless in their design; breaking conscious thought into a glittering web of light, just before the next passing bolt of electric azure...
The world exists as a pastiche, a parody of itself; these people living in it blithely enhancing the already comical display: awkwardness, forced amiability, a pretense rivaled only by the belief that it's genuine...
"And I'm supposed to talk to them?"
Jaded at age 19... just watch them turn up their noses like that... but this isn't jade, this is obsidian, volcanic glass, sharp enough to sever flesh and nerve, and with a reflective hide polished enough to show you your face as it happens... what happened in their lives to make them treat other people that way? What happened in the lives of their suitors to make them find that trait acceptable... even desirable? With each successive generation, the farce that is their superiority continues its profligate expansion into the norm, making the decency of the remnant few ever the exception...
The car crawls by this surfeit adolescence, barely making a sound and ignoring all attempts made to flag it down... he can't help but stare at their faces... desperate for the confirmation of privy counsel with the person who's going to take them on a jaunt to the ubiquitous - the experience of a lifetime that's to be had pretty much anywhere with a door. But not tonight. Tonight is his night to taunt them, prospecting a future to be had if only they had waited a little longer to so proudly display their... defining qualities... which are all he needs to validate his disappearance; a saccade from here to nowhere, matching his eyes as they flick back to the road, flashing in the lights once again as a resilient, auditory blue...
And thus, the children are left crestfallen in a current of traffic, their disappointment ringing with the sound of dying cells yet blissfully ignorant of it, concerned with one thing, and one thing only...
"Me."
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Mae West in Foam
Of a fluid disclosure of self-contained rhetoric, borne from spaced out intervals yet likened to a flowing tap: write in phrases of indiscriminate intellectualism, forgo the bounds of audience and perceived retention, indulge in transient objectivism; shamelessly selfish; a fiend for the abstruse; markedly uninhibited by anything less than insulting.
Understand that you may not; yet know that its meaning finds you anyway: a sea of clarifying prose interrupted by the few flashes of reason, yet soon washed over by the next wave in a long series of tumultuous pretense. If the argosy ends in despair, look not far for the eventual rescue, an ellipsis that fills its void with words closely akin to those we hear so much more frequently.
"It's okay. I'm here to help you, you'll be fine..."
Understand that you may not; yet know that its meaning finds you anyway: a sea of clarifying prose interrupted by the few flashes of reason, yet soon washed over by the next wave in a long series of tumultuous pretense. If the argosy ends in despair, look not far for the eventual rescue, an ellipsis that fills its void with words closely akin to those we hear so much more frequently.
"It's okay. I'm here to help you, you'll be fine..."
Friday, September 5, 2008
When a Mirror Says Hello
Haven't shaved in days. It's a nice layer of stubble though - looks good. I feel like Clooney on a bad day, which is still pretty awesome. The salt and pepper would be nice too... as would the charm.
I've got it. I just need a haircut.
Actually, maybe just a hat, at least until it gets cut. That works. But now there's that annoying little flip that makes it look like a mullet. That doesn't work.
Well shit.
There are a couple options here. I could a.) throw a cursing tirade over something that's really a very small problem, b.) suck it up and look like a crudely afro-headed white kid, c.) drink a beer and commiserate with anybody desperate for a conversation, d.) write some pointless entry in my sparse, pretentious blog that nobody reads, e.) all of the above.
I'll write in on this ballot:
f.) Fuck
That's a good answer. Perfect. Lovely. Exact. Forthright.
If I could be half as honest with myself as the word "fuck" is with itself, I'd be pretty well off.
Living the high life as a bona fide renaissance man.
Because that's what I am and strive to be: a renaissance man with a chip on his shoulder that happens at this point to be a Pringle.
Let's all gather round now and laud. Yes, lots and lots of lauding. Here, I'll make it easy and move to the center... just a second... ah! yes! a grandiose effluvia of sputtering praise; let it rain down upon me for glorifying the utter reproach with which I approach the current bout with myself.
Is anyone keeping score?
No?
f.) Fuck
That's who's winning. Because he's still philandering around making everybody who uses him happy in some way.
What a piss ant.
I've got it. I just need a haircut.
Actually, maybe just a hat, at least until it gets cut. That works. But now there's that annoying little flip that makes it look like a mullet. That doesn't work.
Well shit.
There are a couple options here. I could a.) throw a cursing tirade over something that's really a very small problem, b.) suck it up and look like a crudely afro-headed white kid, c.) drink a beer and commiserate with anybody desperate for a conversation, d.) write some pointless entry in my sparse, pretentious blog that nobody reads, e.) all of the above.
I'll write in on this ballot:
f.) Fuck
That's a good answer. Perfect. Lovely. Exact. Forthright.
If I could be half as honest with myself as the word "fuck" is with itself, I'd be pretty well off.
Living the high life as a bona fide renaissance man.
Because that's what I am and strive to be: a renaissance man with a chip on his shoulder that happens at this point to be a Pringle.
Let's all gather round now and laud. Yes, lots and lots of lauding. Here, I'll make it easy and move to the center... just a second... ah! yes! a grandiose effluvia of sputtering praise; let it rain down upon me for glorifying the utter reproach with which I approach the current bout with myself.
Is anyone keeping score?
No?
f.) Fuck
That's who's winning. Because he's still philandering around making everybody who uses him happy in some way.
What a piss ant.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Avid: A Letter
I almost mailed a page from my journal today, I may still mail it; essentially written as a letter, torn from the binding, crinkling about with a rustic charm, it was one of the only pages I've written that has been so explicit as to actually bear the name of its intended audience at the top.
So... maybe I did write with the intention of sending. Maybe I was imagining the response it would receive... hoping it would be one along the lines of what I felt while writing it.
But when I finished, and when I looked at what inspired it... my confidence in my intentions faltered... was I trying to say something meaningful, or simply falling back on something that, now gone, I wish I had more than ever?
Was I expressing a true sentiment, one that would be mutually felt? Or was I imposing on something that followed its course when I was there and continued on without ever looking back once I left?
It's impossible to tell with these kinds of things, but when it's been several years since words were last exchanged... impossible is more of a jumping off point on the spectrum of predictability.
People change... I've felt it - in more ways than one. There are times when I look into a mirror and as soon as I leave the room I can't remember if I actually saw anyone looking back... and there are times when I look at pictures of things that were supposed to be memorable, yet are as possessing of memorability as the first three years of life: you know they happened, but you have no idea what it was like.
In some ways that may be a good thing... it leaves less room for painful memories... but it's pretty indiscriminate, because the good memories are gone too...
An holistic purging of years of one's life, and what's left but the husk of emotions that have hopefully shaped it for the better... it's--
"Oh great, he's been rambling for days and now he's probably going to pitch the movie."
"And what would be wrong with that? Isn't this right now the biggest reason why it is his favorite movie? Showing that even though some memories are brutally painful, it’s not worth getting rid of the good ones just to be free of them?”
“Yes yes yes, it’s all good in that sense, but for him I think it’s something different.”
“I wouldn’t be too quick to land on that conclusion, he lo-”
“Well I’ve already jumped and you’re just going to have to deal with it. What if -”
“I”m not playing this game, get over yoursel-”
“WHAT if, the memories that came before the ones he hypothetically erased, what if those are in fact the memories that truly make him happy?”
--like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind when he realizes he wants to call off the procedure--
"I don't think he's realized where this is going yet."
"Surely not."
"But... he couldn't really feel that way? I mean it's been a long time."
"I know... but first impressions are... well, they're tricky."
"So you think he'll decide to go through with it, just live, forget, and love what has long since run it's course?"
"It may be a vestige of feelings that are no longer there, but he knows they were real when they happened, he has proof. That's all he needs."
--except...--
"There it is..."
--I don't fall to my knees, I don't beg for the procedure to stop. Instead I beg for the happiest moments I can remember to be forever emblazoned in golden pictures, blown to the size of building facades so that I'll always remember them--
"He's found it."
--There are some that may fall along the way, but what's left was so sublime to begin with, that having an aged view of it makes it shimmer all the more... so maybe I won't send the letter. Maybe I'll keep it as a testament to the love I still have for her, but only as a complete validation of how good things can be if I let them, as a reminder to not let my worst enemy always be--
"Yep."
"Well, I gotta say, you know him best."
"Oh, come on, you know I can't let you say that. We're on the same team here."
"God... it's weird though. Sometimes I just feel like I'm talking to--"
myself.
So... maybe I did write with the intention of sending. Maybe I was imagining the response it would receive... hoping it would be one along the lines of what I felt while writing it.
But when I finished, and when I looked at what inspired it... my confidence in my intentions faltered... was I trying to say something meaningful, or simply falling back on something that, now gone, I wish I had more than ever?
Was I expressing a true sentiment, one that would be mutually felt? Or was I imposing on something that followed its course when I was there and continued on without ever looking back once I left?
It's impossible to tell with these kinds of things, but when it's been several years since words were last exchanged... impossible is more of a jumping off point on the spectrum of predictability.
People change... I've felt it - in more ways than one. There are times when I look into a mirror and as soon as I leave the room I can't remember if I actually saw anyone looking back... and there are times when I look at pictures of things that were supposed to be memorable, yet are as possessing of memorability as the first three years of life: you know they happened, but you have no idea what it was like.
In some ways that may be a good thing... it leaves less room for painful memories... but it's pretty indiscriminate, because the good memories are gone too...
An holistic purging of years of one's life, and what's left but the husk of emotions that have hopefully shaped it for the better... it's--
"Oh great, he's been rambling for days and now he's probably going to pitch the movie."
"And what would be wrong with that? Isn't this right now the biggest reason why it is his favorite movie? Showing that even though some memories are brutally painful, it’s not worth getting rid of the good ones just to be free of them?”
“Yes yes yes, it’s all good in that sense, but for him I think it’s something different.”
“I wouldn’t be too quick to land on that conclusion, he lo-”
“Well I’ve already jumped and you’re just going to have to deal with it. What if -”
“I”m not playing this game, get over yoursel-”
“WHAT if, the memories that came before the ones he hypothetically erased, what if those are in fact the memories that truly make him happy?”
--like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind when he realizes he wants to call off the procedure--
"I don't think he's realized where this is going yet."
"Surely not."
"But... he couldn't really feel that way? I mean it's been a long time."
"I know... but first impressions are... well, they're tricky."
"So you think he'll decide to go through with it, just live, forget, and love what has long since run it's course?"
"It may be a vestige of feelings that are no longer there, but he knows they were real when they happened, he has proof. That's all he needs."
--except...--
"There it is..."
--I don't fall to my knees, I don't beg for the procedure to stop. Instead I beg for the happiest moments I can remember to be forever emblazoned in golden pictures, blown to the size of building facades so that I'll always remember them--
"He's found it."
--There are some that may fall along the way, but what's left was so sublime to begin with, that having an aged view of it makes it shimmer all the more... so maybe I won't send the letter. Maybe I'll keep it as a testament to the love I still have for her, but only as a complete validation of how good things can be if I let them, as a reminder to not let my worst enemy always be--
"Yep."
"Well, I gotta say, you know him best."
"Oh, come on, you know I can't let you say that. We're on the same team here."
"God... it's weird though. Sometimes I just feel like I'm talking to--"
myself.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Avid: A Departure
Not far from here:
No - it's not too far from here at all, that day, a day I've been through before but under entirely different circumstances.
It's the jetting out of my life, and I'm excited. I can start for a second time without any loose ends, without anything pulling behind me.
It's kind of like a couple driving off in a limo with "Just Married" written on the back, but it's not, it's me driving a little car with "Just Me" written in big emphatic letters. A bumper sticker below it promising the world it's true.
Smiling; much more fun than pouting. Laughing; WAY better than sobbing. Excitement; infinitely more enjoyable to deal with than uncertainty.--
(It's with a smile)
"Kind of an unabashed look at the past wouldn't you say? Is he going to show any kind of discretion?"
"What do you mean discretion? He's not actually saying it is he?"
"No... but still, there's not much covering what he's talking about, you can't deny that."
"It's about as thin as a mosquito's wing, but who's to say that it even needs to be hidden?"
"I don't know, I just think it shows a lack of tact - he hasn't thought about that since... I can't even remember when, but bringing it up now just shows th-"
"Shows what? That he's still harping on it?"
"That's what it looks like to me."
"Then you and I are seeing two totally different pictures."
"How do you figure?"
(The dial turns)
--Push the postage to the courier and know
he'll get it to where it needs to go.
(The song changes)
--It was over before it began but where
did it go if it never made it home again?
(The wavelength finds its nocturne)
--And to whom is it owed if not once to the person
who wouldn't have ever thought it'd happen anyway?
(And all is left hanging from the hinges)
--And to the open roadway do the tires speed, vacationing from the unseen ends of green and trees towards living that's bound to be serene.--
(silence)
--So there it is: carefully sculpted upturned lips with naught but the hint of a sheer disposition to show their genesis.
No - it's not too far from here at all, that day, a day I've been through before but under entirely different circumstances.
It's the jetting out of my life, and I'm excited. I can start for a second time without any loose ends, without anything pulling behind me.
It's kind of like a couple driving off in a limo with "Just Married" written on the back, but it's not, it's me driving a little car with "Just Me" written in big emphatic letters. A bumper sticker below it promising the world it's true.
Smiling; much more fun than pouting. Laughing; WAY better than sobbing. Excitement; infinitely more enjoyable to deal with than uncertainty.--
(It's with a smile)
"Kind of an unabashed look at the past wouldn't you say? Is he going to show any kind of discretion?"
"What do you mean discretion? He's not actually saying it is he?"
"No... but still, there's not much covering what he's talking about, you can't deny that."
"It's about as thin as a mosquito's wing, but who's to say that it even needs to be hidden?"
"I don't know, I just think it shows a lack of tact - he hasn't thought about that since... I can't even remember when, but bringing it up now just shows th-"
"Shows what? That he's still harping on it?"
"That's what it looks like to me."
"Then you and I are seeing two totally different pictures."
"How do you figure?"
(The dial turns)
--Push the postage to the courier and know
he'll get it to where it needs to go.
(The song changes)
--It was over before it began but where
did it go if it never made it home again?
(The wavelength finds its nocturne)
--And to whom is it owed if not once to the person
who wouldn't have ever thought it'd happen anyway?
(And all is left hanging from the hinges)
--And to the open roadway do the tires speed, vacationing from the unseen ends of green and trees towards living that's bound to be serene.--
(silence)
--So there it is: carefully sculpted upturned lips with naught but the hint of a sheer disposition to show their genesis.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Keeping Abeyance at Bay
These footsteps fringe the unseen manacles, make known the fetters between his wrists and ankles, crossed, making an "X" about his waist, moving in intersected unison only when they drop from their meticulous fronts. Lowered through the lumbar, he strains his muscles to escape this shackled barrage of mentally emphatic friction, but with each push sends spittle jaunting to the baking pavement, his lungs plashing with inhaled phlegm, rasping, gnashing, heaving through their tortured use. His sight is limited to the mountain's approaching crest, a view tunneled by the sheer scarcity of function in his eyes - his heart pumping a crude blend of vitriol and the golden-red blood of the mythological gods, making him at once both on the verge of bodily submission and existential triumph.
His quads begin to sear the underside of his skin, making each hair stand up from the simple wish to be left alone, reticent to be burnt out of its solitary stance as the single dominant resident of that unprepossessing follicle. Stricken with a waking form of rigor mortis, every step is a struggle merely to extend and contract, making the same labored shapes a thousand times more difficult; his breathing so spasmodic that he imagines he's inhaling the detrital breath before it has a chance to disperse and become the beautifully oxygenated inhalation that naturally comes next.
And then he's there. All at once the climb has reached its zenith, its paramount ascent akin to the precipitous rock face one sees at what could only be described as the end of the earth, its peak... unlike anything he's ever been so fortunate as to arrive at. The trees form the canopy of what appears to be a tunnel made exclusively for him, extending infinitely into the distance as an expanse of greens and browns, painted so richly that impasto pales in comparison with itself. The light pierces the leaves with such minute vastness that the space not filled with life is lit up in spears of gold... the air has a crispness about it such that each movement of limb is met with the eager reply of a gentle caress, leaving each and every hair on his body standing on end, but from a much different motive than before. As he breathes it in he experiences a feeling of blissful rejuvenation and knows what purpose the grueling climb before had served: to eliminate all traces of bodily contamination in full preparation for the perfection that lay ahead. No impurity deserves the honor sharing the same body with something of this worth...
And as he stands there basking in elation and wonder, something stirs the leaves around him... a swirling that takes place without even the semblance of a wind to inspire it. The atmosphere becomes nearly palpable, and as he feels the massive weight of an interminable aura enveloping his body, he hears in whispers an inaudible resonance, seemingly making its birth from within the trees themselves... yet... unthreateningly so... it is as if this world, this oasis of celestial brilliance, was sounding its gratitude for being given the chance to heal another injured soul...
His quads begin to sear the underside of his skin, making each hair stand up from the simple wish to be left alone, reticent to be burnt out of its solitary stance as the single dominant resident of that unprepossessing follicle. Stricken with a waking form of rigor mortis, every step is a struggle merely to extend and contract, making the same labored shapes a thousand times more difficult; his breathing so spasmodic that he imagines he's inhaling the detrital breath before it has a chance to disperse and become the beautifully oxygenated inhalation that naturally comes next.
And then he's there. All at once the climb has reached its zenith, its paramount ascent akin to the precipitous rock face one sees at what could only be described as the end of the earth, its peak... unlike anything he's ever been so fortunate as to arrive at. The trees form the canopy of what appears to be a tunnel made exclusively for him, extending infinitely into the distance as an expanse of greens and browns, painted so richly that impasto pales in comparison with itself. The light pierces the leaves with such minute vastness that the space not filled with life is lit up in spears of gold... the air has a crispness about it such that each movement of limb is met with the eager reply of a gentle caress, leaving each and every hair on his body standing on end, but from a much different motive than before. As he breathes it in he experiences a feeling of blissful rejuvenation and knows what purpose the grueling climb before had served: to eliminate all traces of bodily contamination in full preparation for the perfection that lay ahead. No impurity deserves the honor sharing the same body with something of this worth...
And as he stands there basking in elation and wonder, something stirs the leaves around him... a swirling that takes place without even the semblance of a wind to inspire it. The atmosphere becomes nearly palpable, and as he feels the massive weight of an interminable aura enveloping his body, he hears in whispers an inaudible resonance, seemingly making its birth from within the trees themselves... yet... unthreateningly so... it is as if this world, this oasis of celestial brilliance, was sounding its gratitude for being given the chance to heal another injured soul...
Avid: A Dialogue
Waiting for inspiration to strike:
Described vicinity - surrounding desks, small gap for passing traffic,
unassuming hum from a myriad of electronic friends; computerized ecstasy in the form of plastic boxes pushed behind cabinets so as not to distract from the moneymaker: the eye into a soulless machine... I don't like to personify them, it gives me the creeps to think they have personalities. Kind of like some people you may meet. They have a name, a face, and a personable conduct, but to think that there's anything more than a mess of spitfire circuitry inside them is just weird.
I've been struck; I just caught onto it. It's like stopping in the middle
of a conversation to try like hell to figure out how you got
there.
"Wait. Why the hell are we talking about cave-aged cheese?"
"Well... the conversation started with me asking you why you got home
at at 3:00 AM this morning."
"Oh yeah!"
And we're enthralled to see where it goes from there. Or where it's been for that matter. The going and coming of flighty ideas, bubbles floating around waiting to be popped by an unwary needle.
Pop. No...
That's not what I was hoping to find, wh- no not this way again, not thi-- Oh come on! Why do you always have to act like such a fucking victim! You're-- NOT going down that road again... I don't want to remember any of that, at least not in a way that's so flippantly public.
Because yes - despite my personal reservations, I am writing for a public audience. Aren't we all?
Please broadcast me to millions and millions of potential viewers just to see how many change the channel.
"Disgusting isn't it?"
"Quite. So blatant. So uncouth and unrefined. It reeks of rusticity doesn't it?"
That's a new one.
And what the FUCK is going on up there? Not there - THERE, all that rumbling around in the ceiling. No seriously, it's like someone's moving a desk or something...
Bubble's gone. Should I pop another? Do I even need to? The aether from this one has worn off now, but I don't think a high like that should be had more than once--
What do you know about high? You've ne-- NOT going there.
Ugh... being distracted from your current distraction is a major killjoy...
Described vicinity - surrounding desks, small gap for passing traffic,
unassuming hum from a myriad of electronic friends; computerized ecstasy in the form of plastic boxes pushed behind cabinets so as not to distract from the moneymaker: the eye into a soulless machine... I don't like to personify them, it gives me the creeps to think they have personalities. Kind of like some people you may meet. They have a name, a face, and a personable conduct, but to think that there's anything more than a mess of spitfire circuitry inside them is just weird.
I've been struck; I just caught onto it. It's like stopping in the middle
of a conversation to try like hell to figure out how you got
there.
"Wait. Why the hell are we talking about cave-aged cheese?"
"Well... the conversation started with me asking you why you got home
at at 3:00 AM this morning."
"Oh yeah!"
And we're enthralled to see where it goes from there. Or where it's been for that matter. The going and coming of flighty ideas, bubbles floating around waiting to be popped by an unwary needle.
Pop. No...
That's not what I was hoping to find, wh- no not this way again, not thi-- Oh come on! Why do you always have to act like such a fucking victim! You're-- NOT going down that road again... I don't want to remember any of that, at least not in a way that's so flippantly public.
Because yes - despite my personal reservations, I am writing for a public audience. Aren't we all?
Please broadcast me to millions and millions of potential viewers just to see how many change the channel.
"Disgusting isn't it?"
"Quite. So blatant. So uncouth and unrefined. It reeks of rusticity doesn't it?"
That's a new one.
And what the FUCK is going on up there? Not there - THERE, all that rumbling around in the ceiling. No seriously, it's like someone's moving a desk or something...
Bubble's gone. Should I pop another? Do I even need to? The aether from this one has worn off now, but I don't think a high like that should be had more than once--
What do you know about high? You've ne-- NOT going there.
Ugh... being distracted from your current distraction is a major killjoy...
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Out of Tune
There is a resonance.
Like the shudder that trickles down your spine,
causing its prickles to extend as far as the tips of your fingers,
making known so very well the pins and needles
burning lightly in the recesses of your skin.
There is a resonance.
Plucked by hands of a deft conviction,
assured beyond reckoning of their own savoir faire,
as an instinctive tribute to the esoteric philharmonic in us all.
We hear it when we look into the sky at night;
Overwhelmed by the enormity of what's beyond our comprehension,
But we know it well.
It has found its way to our ears our entire lives,
and we cannot live without it.
This humming of the stars,
all vibrating with the tonality of pure harmony,
chords to our souls,
they resonate in our hearts.
You can hear the songs of the cosmic lyre,
with strings of divine creation,
playing in sublime euphony,
subtly moving through the inner sanctions of your ethereal substance...
It sings without voice.
Like the shudder that trickles down your spine,
causing its prickles to extend as far as the tips of your fingers,
making known so very well the pins and needles
burning lightly in the recesses of your skin.
There is a resonance.
Plucked by hands of a deft conviction,
assured beyond reckoning of their own savoir faire,
as an instinctive tribute to the esoteric philharmonic in us all.
We hear it when we look into the sky at night;
Overwhelmed by the enormity of what's beyond our comprehension,
But we know it well.
It has found its way to our ears our entire lives,
and we cannot live without it.
This humming of the stars,
all vibrating with the tonality of pure harmony,
chords to our souls,
they resonate in our hearts.
You can hear the songs of the cosmic lyre,
with strings of divine creation,
playing in sublime euphony,
subtly moving through the inner sanctions of your ethereal substance...
It sings without voice.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Words left to the undecided...
I can't quite figure it out, can't quite grasp what it is and why most of the time it exists around me in a miasma of veiled misconceptions, of lightly flicked charades of the self deprecating, forgotten morbidness, not unlike a general's last thoughts as his defense falls to its knees. Like little plastic infantry left unguarded by the cavalry even though the backup was never there to begin with. The calls for help merely echoing through the vacancy, shunned by a complete lack of reception. The line doesn't even read busy, it simply says "Not interested."
So pluck the strings of melancholy embodied - play your zither to the tune of wasted time without ever noting the irony of its hold, because perhaps this time its rosy cheeks wont be from where your plectrum last played. Varnish and shine, all that ever shows is light quick stepping from nerve to nerve to make the visceral idea that something was even there to begin with, so take a deep breath and ask, "What am I really seeing here?"
From the puzzled look on your face one can surmise the thoughts going through your mind. "Uh, I'm not sure I understand. Could you repeat the question?" Keeping true to the nature of my discourse, allow me to respond. "Yes, but not in the way you'd expect. Over the past several minutes, while you've been reading this, I've been spinning a web to catch your subconscious thoughts, making for an unsteady feeling to creep its way through your mind. Under your skin you'll feel it tingling like the invisible feet of microscopic ants, right until it dawns on you."
And that's when, if you're able to stop thinking about me, you'll see quite clearly what I think of you... yet you still may find yourself asking, "What am I really seeing here?"
So pluck the strings of melancholy embodied - play your zither to the tune of wasted time without ever noting the irony of its hold, because perhaps this time its rosy cheeks wont be from where your plectrum last played. Varnish and shine, all that ever shows is light quick stepping from nerve to nerve to make the visceral idea that something was even there to begin with, so take a deep breath and ask, "What am I really seeing here?"
From the puzzled look on your face one can surmise the thoughts going through your mind. "Uh, I'm not sure I understand. Could you repeat the question?" Keeping true to the nature of my discourse, allow me to respond. "Yes, but not in the way you'd expect. Over the past several minutes, while you've been reading this, I've been spinning a web to catch your subconscious thoughts, making for an unsteady feeling to creep its way through your mind. Under your skin you'll feel it tingling like the invisible feet of microscopic ants, right until it dawns on you."
And that's when, if you're able to stop thinking about me, you'll see quite clearly what I think of you... yet you still may find yourself asking, "What am I really seeing here?"
Monday, March 3, 2008
March 3, 2008
It seems as though I've taken a strong fondness to the unexpected and misplaced occurrences in life. The ones that exist in veils of what's supposed to happen - ones besmirched by the gilding of falseness - the betrayed honesty of people who have no idea what they're doing. I've tried to capture what it feels like in this world of the ill-advised, the cadavers of thoughts with no home to call their own but the wasted pile of ideas like themselves. The simple passing of time left unguarded by conservatism in shrouds - the light that shows us what we really are rather than shining on the path of where we should finally go. I'm helpless on this road with nothing to guide me but the knowledge that someone is waiting - not even that - the hope that that someone actually exists. Whither down the road I tread leaves its mark upon my legs - the thorns of briars jousting forth into my skin. And it's not until I know for sure that this quagmire of impulsive gaffes and guffaws is not where I'm meant to end, but rather the genesis of how I'm to begin, that I'll abandon any belief of how it wouldn't be better. How do I wash this filth from my hands, how do I remove its trace from my mind and the minds of everyone who's heard of it. I fall to my knees in a despondent incandescence - my shining - the scarlet rebuke of timeless mistakes - folly to thy follied heart - farce by then to my horribly misconstrued world of laughter far apart. Fie then to thee that never really felt near to me - that to your forgotten ways I've never paid my respects, act not like the carrion we've found with our arms wrapped around - blasted to the sky - make it rain when the sun shines his rays into my heart. Ominously serene this beauty lives not for me but for those I've never felt the desire to see. Blinding as it were - half as such what to the stars is an object of envy. Let the drops fall down acidic to my eyes and while I'm closed to the idea I've said my words to the apologetic night.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Inspired by D. Moriarty
It's infectious, reading about living life like it's set to end at any minute; seeing the worlds of people who're prepared to at a moment's notice throw down whatever they're doing for the sake of experiencing something new. It's an infinite withdrawal from countless reservoirs of exuberance and bliss - loving the very fact that your lungs are drawing breath; it's this passion with which I want to live my life. To never let the petty impede on my happiness, to never let the worries of others derail me from my immediate love, to learn everything I can about everything I see; to be an adventurer of the infinite, a friend of the ceaseless, a chauffeur of the breadth of my own desires and dreams; I want it all and I want all of it to know me and who I am; I want to be the name spoken in circles of friends, mentioned in words of reverence and worldly awe; I want it all, and I want to give it to every person I see so that they too may become betrothed to it's effervescent glory...
In my heart I'm a hopeless romantic, but in my mind I'm a masquerading "intellect" - it is between these two that I strive to find my balance, and if by chance I find that footing, may the world bathe in anticipation for what I hope to achieve...
In my heart I'm a hopeless romantic, but in my mind I'm a masquerading "intellect" - it is between these two that I strive to find my balance, and if by chance I find that footing, may the world bathe in anticipation for what I hope to achieve...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)