WOW... The closer I get to my birthday, the Scorpion's tale starts to uncurl.
"It may be difficult to tell if you are looking into your future or into your past as your personal history becomes jumbled with your dreams. Avoiding making any major decisions today is probably a good idea, since your perspective is a bit distorted by your subjectivity."
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
His mind was at it again, without defense. He didn't know where thoughts came from, whether they welled from some dark place in his subconscious, whether they were caused by chemicals that lurked in even darker recesses of his body. He could almost picture his liver making a hiccup and blurting a small stream of bile which eventually made its way to his brain, and coagulated there. End this, evade other things, disproportionate perspectives. If everything he knew about his condition was true, he had a disease of perception, meaning that he saw the world through a convex glass.
He knew he was no different from any man who ever walked the face of the planet... but some men knew their destiny without batting an eye. They never questioned it, some men never even looked into the glass of tomorrow. But, he had to wonder whether others had people around him, the females wanting to know what tomorrow would bring, or the next five years, the next three months and no sooner. Could we see each other together? How was he supposed to know in any respect? Just trying to make it through the day was the unanimous response, and it seemed always would be. It seemed. Like he could never make it past the end of the week. He'd plan to see shows. He'd plan vacations, but the filler... the filler was for the present...unfilled. You could color it in with crayons. He seldom made commitments ahead of time, because, well, you just never knew.
He remembered driving home from a friend's house during the late summer of 1994, the thought crossed his mind that he had the rest of his life yet to live, but nothing like what he had been through with 12 years of schooling would ever restrict him again. He could be who he wanted to be. But there was a sagging inward. Who else could he be but what he had always been? How could he proceed forward? How could he get Beyond... he didn't know, so when you don't know you start to think that the best option is to wait, wait until the answer finally came. Nothing about searching but waiting for the thing to just be placed into the plam of his hand. 15 years later, the philosophy hadn't totally changed. He'd been averted into believing that you had to reach out and take what you want to. Just don't be disappointed if it doesn't always yield. But he had to try. He had to put some mustard behind it.
So there's still an element of that befuddlement still in the way he thinks... he had a concept that worked for him for a while, a way of keeping his head about him, his wits... he imagines himself walking on the side of a country highway, the kind he was used to seeing in his early days visiting upstate New York. They wind around and get hidden by trees, but all that is of no consequence. Instead, it was the sensation of cars rushing by, the wind whipping in the back. See, the truth is that he has no more an idea of anything that's coming than anybody else. The smartest, most insightful people may be able to predict what will happen given a set of circumstances and maybe they can predict with some kind of accuracy, but they can't account for the right or wrong people showing up at the right or wrong time. You can never truly account for that and why would you? That would take all the pleasant surprises out of your life, and then you might as well perch on a wheel and start walking... So it is with watching the cars go by, you just have to let them go, without any warning, no matter which way you time the pattern, the cars just come by, but the only thing you can choose to do is watch them as they continue down the road... or not pay them any mind, just the red tail lights blend into the scenery and the sun continue to set and the cool breeze begin to pick up, the air dense, the crickets loud, the weeds rustling and the pines, and the pines....
He knew he was no different from any man who ever walked the face of the planet... but some men knew their destiny without batting an eye. They never questioned it, some men never even looked into the glass of tomorrow. But, he had to wonder whether others had people around him, the females wanting to know what tomorrow would bring, or the next five years, the next three months and no sooner. Could we see each other together? How was he supposed to know in any respect? Just trying to make it through the day was the unanimous response, and it seemed always would be. It seemed. Like he could never make it past the end of the week. He'd plan to see shows. He'd plan vacations, but the filler... the filler was for the present...unfilled. You could color it in with crayons. He seldom made commitments ahead of time, because, well, you just never knew.
He remembered driving home from a friend's house during the late summer of 1994, the thought crossed his mind that he had the rest of his life yet to live, but nothing like what he had been through with 12 years of schooling would ever restrict him again. He could be who he wanted to be. But there was a sagging inward. Who else could he be but what he had always been? How could he proceed forward? How could he get Beyond... he didn't know, so when you don't know you start to think that the best option is to wait, wait until the answer finally came. Nothing about searching but waiting for the thing to just be placed into the plam of his hand. 15 years later, the philosophy hadn't totally changed. He'd been averted into believing that you had to reach out and take what you want to. Just don't be disappointed if it doesn't always yield. But he had to try. He had to put some mustard behind it.
So there's still an element of that befuddlement still in the way he thinks... he had a concept that worked for him for a while, a way of keeping his head about him, his wits... he imagines himself walking on the side of a country highway, the kind he was used to seeing in his early days visiting upstate New York. They wind around and get hidden by trees, but all that is of no consequence. Instead, it was the sensation of cars rushing by, the wind whipping in the back. See, the truth is that he has no more an idea of anything that's coming than anybody else. The smartest, most insightful people may be able to predict what will happen given a set of circumstances and maybe they can predict with some kind of accuracy, but they can't account for the right or wrong people showing up at the right or wrong time. You can never truly account for that and why would you? That would take all the pleasant surprises out of your life, and then you might as well perch on a wheel and start walking... So it is with watching the cars go by, you just have to let them go, without any warning, no matter which way you time the pattern, the cars just come by, but the only thing you can choose to do is watch them as they continue down the road... or not pay them any mind, just the red tail lights blend into the scenery and the sun continue to set and the cool breeze begin to pick up, the air dense, the crickets loud, the weeds rustling and the pines, and the pines....
Monday, September 07, 2009
Labor Day. Never aptly named in anyway whatsoever. I am laboring through my labor... this is hardly labor, and no, I am not just making a play on words. Dave Marty found an old poem of mine, Killing Roaches with Strunk & White's Elements of Style... a poem which grabbed its first readers mostly due to its title. You understand fundamentally that the title of a poem will always grab the reader the most, because every one who comes across will be interested in what it has to say. And whether or not you have had anything to say about the topic. Or what creative energy you have pooled to force people to think. So what was the deal behind Strunk & White, it was about my first true feelings of turmoil, about struggling as the common man struggles, about falling from grace into one's own questionable decisions. But there was always a controversy around whether roaches were either metaphorical or real, in which case, the autobiographical reality was that they were very real. I can still look back at those hours of dread, coming home to find those amber colored insects perched on table tops or loping their way along the carpet... and the book which allowed me the most flexibility in terms of range and (how else can you call it?) flappability... long and taut enough to create a window of impact that would obliterate the dirty, sandy creatures... But even heavier-looming was the collapse of a long wonderful relationship I had with my ex-girlfriend... a relationship I had single-handedly dismantled out of the selfish recesses of my mind...
having this new shell of an apartment, a place I was at once both proud of and equally terrified of living in, I wanted to enjoy my new-found freedom, devoid of any real drawbacks... it's startling to think that any women besides those thoroughly invested in me for the long-term would have dared to come into that place. The ones that did were brave... even so, the line "the rift wider & wiser" seemed to fascinate Dave just as much as it did me... the actual writing of the line from the beginning seemed to me a cop-out. the obvious connection was the growing rift I had created, one of a mild alienation between myself and Kate, but the "wiser" connection was that both of us knew exactly what was created there, even if we might have said otherwise, no matter what new oaths I seemed to try to create to make her think that it wasn't so. But while reading Paradise Lost over the winter, as I did so with pleasure, I made the connection of being forsaken by God due to my actions, and condemned into the land of Nod... that atmosphere might not have been mistaken for anything else, dark brown muddy walls, likely painted so to cover up the gaudiness of the place, so that everything blended in unassumingly.
Strunk & White was my shield from that unrest because I cared little for the book. It was my personal version of J. Everett Pritchard that Robin Williams character spoke of in Dead Poets Society, because I never once felt the need to refer to it in order to write scholarly essays... elements of style . The style was there maybe in form but without content. I made it eleven months in that rotten dungeon of a catacomb, with the cockroaches, the spiders, and eventually, the bats. That was the beginning of the end for me, when the bats showed up, no doubt rabid, but also fearless as the one that swooped down, likely disturbed by the "sound" of human beings, maybe the scent of a potential prey to them. But there was also the one on the grate which clicked its talons as it readjusted itself on the metal meshing inside the door... it was straight out of a horror novel and it would consume my waning hours with terror for the next few weeks, and to a lesser degree until the time when I departed some months later... the lease may have been for eleven months, but I turned over the apartment to Christine Gantz, who likely decided shortly after moving in, that she too needed to vacate the premises as soon as possible... One can hardly blame her. It was no place for a woman of her stature, solitary and fearful, to spend long days especially during the summer, no matter how great her desire to "rough it" in the same manner as I did. So she moved on, and no doubt, the place stayed the same... it certainly couldn't have been much more rectified than it already was.
The man upstairs from me listened, I think, to rap music with his wife/girlfriend and their child who cried not constantly but at inopportune moments it seems. One morning, as I got ready for "working the skinny tie" my door opened hastily and the man from that apartment ambled in as if he, in fact, might have lived there. He looked up after a couple steps into the door, and saw me standing there, in the middle of buttoning my shirt. He apologized for walking in, saying that "he didn't know anyone even lived there." I found his statement somewhat plagued by consternation because even if he didn't realize that anyone lived there, what might his purpose have been for walking into an abandoned basement aprtment except for bold curiosity. I only looked at him, mouth agape. Did I need to worry now about strangers passing into my zone unaware, or unthinking about any consequences aurrounding the simple act of walking in, unannounced and helping themselves to unclaimed space to do...precisely what?
At any rate, the humming Emerson was a symbol of the lone creature comforts about the place... I used the refridgerator but it possessed the tendency to overcool and sometimes freeze the items I had stored within... it was not uncommon to come in and find frozen milk cartons on the top shelf, ice shards having formed where the milk should be. I seldom used the shelves, because I was afraid of reaching for a plate only to find a bug attached to the bottom, which would incur me to throw it against the wall. So it went without saying that I kept plates and cups in plain sight, out of the path of hidden insects or so I thought... there was a closet toward the back of the kitchen for storage but I never used that at all... most of my groceries went on top of the refridgerator where I thought it might be safe from all impending intruders. So fear & loathing overcame me... a fear that I would be attacked or caught unaware by unwanted guests. That spine-tingling sensation that I was being watched or on the verge of being singled out. The more I tried not to think about the bear in the corner, the harder I prayed that it not be there should I dare to look. So that was the spawn of Struvk & White, the thick wood out of which the whittle came... a relic of the time when I fell in love with poetry again, as a means of transcendence. Pure experience made surefire again in the hinterlands of the page...the method by which I made sense of it all. By which I felt an inkling of control, immortalizing my plight of killing roaches with pleasure, with disdain, thrashing aging slices of paper through the air to thrust an impact on my world...
having this new shell of an apartment, a place I was at once both proud of and equally terrified of living in, I wanted to enjoy my new-found freedom, devoid of any real drawbacks... it's startling to think that any women besides those thoroughly invested in me for the long-term would have dared to come into that place. The ones that did were brave... even so, the line "the rift wider & wiser" seemed to fascinate Dave just as much as it did me... the actual writing of the line from the beginning seemed to me a cop-out. the obvious connection was the growing rift I had created, one of a mild alienation between myself and Kate, but the "wiser" connection was that both of us knew exactly what was created there, even if we might have said otherwise, no matter what new oaths I seemed to try to create to make her think that it wasn't so. But while reading Paradise Lost over the winter, as I did so with pleasure, I made the connection of being forsaken by God due to my actions, and condemned into the land of Nod... that atmosphere might not have been mistaken for anything else, dark brown muddy walls, likely painted so to cover up the gaudiness of the place, so that everything blended in unassumingly.
Strunk & White was my shield from that unrest because I cared little for the book. It was my personal version of J. Everett Pritchard that Robin Williams character spoke of in Dead Poets Society, because I never once felt the need to refer to it in order to write scholarly essays... elements of style . The style was there maybe in form but without content. I made it eleven months in that rotten dungeon of a catacomb, with the cockroaches, the spiders, and eventually, the bats. That was the beginning of the end for me, when the bats showed up, no doubt rabid, but also fearless as the one that swooped down, likely disturbed by the "sound" of human beings, maybe the scent of a potential prey to them. But there was also the one on the grate which clicked its talons as it readjusted itself on the metal meshing inside the door... it was straight out of a horror novel and it would consume my waning hours with terror for the next few weeks, and to a lesser degree until the time when I departed some months later... the lease may have been for eleven months, but I turned over the apartment to Christine Gantz, who likely decided shortly after moving in, that she too needed to vacate the premises as soon as possible... One can hardly blame her. It was no place for a woman of her stature, solitary and fearful, to spend long days especially during the summer, no matter how great her desire to "rough it" in the same manner as I did. So she moved on, and no doubt, the place stayed the same... it certainly couldn't have been much more rectified than it already was.
The man upstairs from me listened, I think, to rap music with his wife/girlfriend and their child who cried not constantly but at inopportune moments it seems. One morning, as I got ready for "working the skinny tie" my door opened hastily and the man from that apartment ambled in as if he, in fact, might have lived there. He looked up after a couple steps into the door, and saw me standing there, in the middle of buttoning my shirt. He apologized for walking in, saying that "he didn't know anyone even lived there." I found his statement somewhat plagued by consternation because even if he didn't realize that anyone lived there, what might his purpose have been for walking into an abandoned basement aprtment except for bold curiosity. I only looked at him, mouth agape. Did I need to worry now about strangers passing into my zone unaware, or unthinking about any consequences aurrounding the simple act of walking in, unannounced and helping themselves to unclaimed space to do...precisely what?
At any rate, the humming Emerson was a symbol of the lone creature comforts about the place... I used the refridgerator but it possessed the tendency to overcool and sometimes freeze the items I had stored within... it was not uncommon to come in and find frozen milk cartons on the top shelf, ice shards having formed where the milk should be. I seldom used the shelves, because I was afraid of reaching for a plate only to find a bug attached to the bottom, which would incur me to throw it against the wall. So it went without saying that I kept plates and cups in plain sight, out of the path of hidden insects or so I thought... there was a closet toward the back of the kitchen for storage but I never used that at all... most of my groceries went on top of the refridgerator where I thought it might be safe from all impending intruders. So fear & loathing overcame me... a fear that I would be attacked or caught unaware by unwanted guests. That spine-tingling sensation that I was being watched or on the verge of being singled out. The more I tried not to think about the bear in the corner, the harder I prayed that it not be there should I dare to look. So that was the spawn of Struvk & White, the thick wood out of which the whittle came... a relic of the time when I fell in love with poetry again, as a means of transcendence. Pure experience made surefire again in the hinterlands of the page...the method by which I made sense of it all. By which I felt an inkling of control, immortalizing my plight of killing roaches with pleasure, with disdain, thrashing aging slices of paper through the air to thrust an impact on my world...
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Short story seems to be coming but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag just yet. I have to avoid installments lest I run out of steam. Since, to my knowledge no one truly reads my blog, except that I caught Jason Bash reading my Son Volt review (it was all good- it's always good when someone catches your stuff somewhere and enjoys it), I can speak a little to the fact that an ex of mine wrote a few tidbits of her own on her myspace that pertained to our relationship which probably ended something like 2 1/2 years ago.
Immediately, I was shocked by what she had included there because I wondered how long she had held on to her little pearls, believing, of course, that water had gone uner the bridge there. But then you come back into the dark passageways of regret and frrustration that you thought you had neatly paddled away from. I had to pass instead through the stages of anger enough to realize that it was futile, that I was only going to get myself revved up with no chance at resolution. Better to let the water spill off the duck's back. Even so, I had to understand the natural progression of my own, at times, tendency to take the first response to a slight. It may have been a slight after all, but was it worth my time. Is it ever really worth my time? Has it not cost me already much in life that I might otherwise have been able to enjoy? I am Jack's raging bile duct.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
She sat in the room holding yarn, she had done herself up to look like a dedicated mother, knitting a sweater for him, only she had started a few days late. I driven him somewhere a thousand miles, he was chirping on & on about how he was going to see his mother. I had told him as much because it was the truth. She was his mother. Now for four years or something like it.
I gave him his birthday cake just three months prior to this. He had gleamed with a cone-shaped hat that was multi-colored, festive with craypaper-wrapped presents stacked neatly on the kitchen table. Happily, my friends took pictures while he smiled at the little candles on his chocolate cake.
I had asked him earlier that day what flavor he liked and he had said vanilla with chocolate frosting. It had been an easy feat: Teenage Ninja Turtles were his favorite and it wasn't hard to find plastic placards to mount all around on the chocolate. Of course, he didn't know what to do with the plastic when the candles were blown out, he smiled, but wavered when I began removing them. In fact, he started to whine as was customary now that I had gotten into the habit of giving him everything his heart desired. I could afford it but I was beginning to wonder about the trend I had set. I was not a spoiled brat but I had always known guys and girls who grew up that way, and they all ended up the same.
I wasn't making that judgment every time but I had to admit to myself that I couldn't afford the confrontation. I'd set up a boundary with him and would think I had made progress. Nevertheless, he always worked on that boundary until I caved, and I found myself doing just that more and more. Now, more often, there was no fight in me. Let the kid have whatever it was that he had fixated on and feed that fix temporarily. Until the next one came along.
So that was my story, what I was coming into this meeting with, but I knew she knew none of it. So let her knit away. I was cordial at greeting her. She didn't know me well. I was her uncle, and my sister, her mother, was an ATM for her. I know I had given money here and there, but that's where the connection dropped. I only heard thing she said from her mother, nothing directly from her mouth, so this was a first for a long time. She was modest but I suspected that was a front. She was acting, as she no doubt did when people were strictly watching her. She shook my hand and smiled a working class smile, no teeth, wan, streching of the lips. She looked down at her son, and looked him up and down, doting on him. Maybe that was legitimate.
The stars came out at midnight,
a faded milk blot in the sky like a fist,
by then we were three-fourths to the way drunk,
gathered on the hill behind the school,
shivering, chattering like mad thieves,
about how we had scored, carrying our egoes,
waiting for the apocalypse, we might have been
talking about Jesus, like apostles huddled in a room,
hiding like outlaws.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
"Anyone caught speaking Esperanto is thought crazy or headed for jail,
There'll be peace in the wilds of West Texas where the sun and the sky prevail."
It started off like a whimper, maybe not entirely for all involved but for the Son Volt/Tupelo purists, it was a head-scratcher. I never once expected Mr. Farrar to pull out a Tupelo classic but somewhere around the fifth or sixth song of the set, he plunged into "Grindstone," the lead track off the lesser known, March 15-22, 1992. My dates may be askew but the album remains intact in its obscurity. I say obscurity because it is seldom mentioned as being paramount to No Depression, Still Feel Gone or Anodyne. But the real story was that this show was a display of the landscape of his more recent frontiers, Okemah and The Search. So if you haven't been paying much attention, you felt a little out of sorts. But it was vintage Son Volt music, and that's ultimately what mattered on this particular night. Put down your ego, and let the oracle blow his breeze. Jay's not wisdomatic, no, I think he just writes about things he sees, and imagines from real life and the stuff which he might feel deserves homage. "Cocaine and Ashes" case in point.
But then you watch him stepping up to the microphone with his burnt brown acoustic and begin to moan out his lyrics like they were matter of fact. He doesn't smile, not once, mostly because he seems to always have to come back to himself to realize that there are other people in his vicinity. Then, there is an almost apologetic haste in moving on to the next song, the next time zone. Maybe we speak of these peculiarties too much, he's a musician, and all it takes is a few hours with him to know that he's a damn good musician.
I had forgotten just how spacey things could get with Son Volt music, how you couldn't really pen it into a country slot, or a rock slot or even an alt-country slot. None of that matters when they take the stage, because they seem to just play it how they feel it. Why I would even bother to critique their work has little to do now with my own preferential leanings toward Jay Farrar. I sometimes chuckle at his occasional (often occasional) lyrical pretensions, and his voice is a like a broken cuckoo clock behind unwound or an upright bass being unstrung. It's not that alone, though those conditions certainly do exist.
It was more a feeling that welled up in me, as I watched the bowl-cut headed maestro spinning his magic before a crowd of maybe 300-400, if that. This was a feeling of adoration on end, amazement on another, and a strange exception, which was pride. Pride because I was at last in the presence of an undeniable greatness. I'll never really fully understand his lyrics or creative process. But this adoration, pride at witness a true musician in his cups, comes from an insight that Mr. Farrar appears to be contributing to the library of folk tradition that continues to grow as the world of music turns. It seems inevitable that his songs will be sung by our children and our children will no doubt teach them to their children. Okemah & the melody of Riot, the name is ambitious, bold in its echoing connotations, but there it was right in front of us, as he slung guitars around his neck, strapped the harmonica shelf to his shoulders, and sang sometimes with the same intonations as Woody Guthrie. At least, with a sullenness the old horse would no doubt show appreciation for.
I've struggled at times with the strains of Guthrie, but it doesn't seem like Farrar ever has. I've always marvelled at his taste and ear for the beginnings of Americana music. And the aftermath thereof. I remember hearing an episode of the radio program, E-town where Son Volt performed several songs for the airwaves. Intermittently, the host, Nick Forester, asked Jay and some of the members of the band some leading questions regarding their understanding of the roots of the music which they played...it was all summed up when the band gathered together with Nick & Helen Forester and Josh Rouse, who was also featured that night and played Townes Van Zandt's "White Freight Liner Blues". It foolish to think, but I imgaine Mr. Farrar might have begun to think at a time like that that he had arrived. Any aspiring American rock star would have and should have.
There'll be peace in the wilds of West Texas where the sun and the sky prevail."
It started off like a whimper, maybe not entirely for all involved but for the Son Volt/Tupelo purists, it was a head-scratcher. I never once expected Mr. Farrar to pull out a Tupelo classic but somewhere around the fifth or sixth song of the set, he plunged into "Grindstone," the lead track off the lesser known, March 15-22, 1992. My dates may be askew but the album remains intact in its obscurity. I say obscurity because it is seldom mentioned as being paramount to No Depression, Still Feel Gone or Anodyne. But the real story was that this show was a display of the landscape of his more recent frontiers, Okemah and The Search. So if you haven't been paying much attention, you felt a little out of sorts. But it was vintage Son Volt music, and that's ultimately what mattered on this particular night. Put down your ego, and let the oracle blow his breeze. Jay's not wisdomatic, no, I think he just writes about things he sees, and imagines from real life and the stuff which he might feel deserves homage. "Cocaine and Ashes" case in point.
But then you watch him stepping up to the microphone with his burnt brown acoustic and begin to moan out his lyrics like they were matter of fact. He doesn't smile, not once, mostly because he seems to always have to come back to himself to realize that there are other people in his vicinity. Then, there is an almost apologetic haste in moving on to the next song, the next time zone. Maybe we speak of these peculiarties too much, he's a musician, and all it takes is a few hours with him to know that he's a damn good musician.
I had forgotten just how spacey things could get with Son Volt music, how you couldn't really pen it into a country slot, or a rock slot or even an alt-country slot. None of that matters when they take the stage, because they seem to just play it how they feel it. Why I would even bother to critique their work has little to do now with my own preferential leanings toward Jay Farrar. I sometimes chuckle at his occasional (often occasional) lyrical pretensions, and his voice is a like a broken cuckoo clock behind unwound or an upright bass being unstrung. It's not that alone, though those conditions certainly do exist.
It was more a feeling that welled up in me, as I watched the bowl-cut headed maestro spinning his magic before a crowd of maybe 300-400, if that. This was a feeling of adoration on end, amazement on another, and a strange exception, which was pride. Pride because I was at last in the presence of an undeniable greatness. I'll never really fully understand his lyrics or creative process. But this adoration, pride at witness a true musician in his cups, comes from an insight that Mr. Farrar appears to be contributing to the library of folk tradition that continues to grow as the world of music turns. It seems inevitable that his songs will be sung by our children and our children will no doubt teach them to their children. Okemah & the melody of Riot, the name is ambitious, bold in its echoing connotations, but there it was right in front of us, as he slung guitars around his neck, strapped the harmonica shelf to his shoulders, and sang sometimes with the same intonations as Woody Guthrie. At least, with a sullenness the old horse would no doubt show appreciation for.
I've struggled at times with the strains of Guthrie, but it doesn't seem like Farrar ever has. I've always marvelled at his taste and ear for the beginnings of Americana music. And the aftermath thereof. I remember hearing an episode of the radio program, E-town where Son Volt performed several songs for the airwaves. Intermittently, the host, Nick Forester, asked Jay and some of the members of the band some leading questions regarding their understanding of the roots of the music which they played...it was all summed up when the band gathered together with Nick & Helen Forester and Josh Rouse, who was also featured that night and played Townes Van Zandt's "White Freight Liner Blues". It foolish to think, but I imgaine Mr. Farrar might have begun to think at a time like that that he had arrived. Any aspiring American rock star would have and should have.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Single Vision
by Stanley Kunitz
Before I am completely shriven
I shall reject my inch of heaven.
Cancel my eyes, and, standing, sink
Into my deepest self; there drink
Memory down. The banner of
My blood, unfurled, will not be love,
Only the pity and the pride
Of it, pinned to my open side.
When I have utterly refined
The composition of my mind,
Shaped language of my marrow till
Its forms are instant to my will,
Suffered the leaf of my heart to fall
Under the wind, and, stripping all
The tender blanket from my bone,
Rise like a skeleton in the sun,
I shall have risen to disown
The good mortality I won.
Drectly risen with the stain
Of life upon my crested brain,
Which I shall shake against my ghost
To frighten him, when I am lost.
Gladly as any poison, yield
My halved conscience, brightly peeled;
Infect him, since we live but once,
With the unused evil in my bones.
I'll shed the tear of souls, the true
Sweat, Blake's intellectual dew,
Before I am resigned to slip
A dusty finger on my lip.
by Stanley Kunitz
Before I am completely shriven
I shall reject my inch of heaven.
Cancel my eyes, and, standing, sink
Into my deepest self; there drink
Memory down. The banner of
My blood, unfurled, will not be love,
Only the pity and the pride
Of it, pinned to my open side.
When I have utterly refined
The composition of my mind,
Shaped language of my marrow till
Its forms are instant to my will,
Suffered the leaf of my heart to fall
Under the wind, and, stripping all
The tender blanket from my bone,
Rise like a skeleton in the sun,
I shall have risen to disown
The good mortality I won.
Drectly risen with the stain
Of life upon my crested brain,
Which I shall shake against my ghost
To frighten him, when I am lost.
Gladly as any poison, yield
My halved conscience, brightly peeled;
Infect him, since we live but once,
With the unused evil in my bones.
I'll shed the tear of souls, the true
Sweat, Blake's intellectual dew,
Before I am resigned to slip
A dusty finger on my lip.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Today I am grateful that:
I have the opportunity to help in a way that others can't.
I have the choice to say No or I can't do that.
I have the day off tomorrow, to more or less do as I wish.
I have a place to work, then I have another place to work.
My teacher application is 'pending review'.
I have the ability to change my mind and open myself to alternative ideas.
I have someone in life that hugs me and let's me hug her.
My car started today. A house? You have a place to live?
I want to pray. I want to see as many parts of myself that can be useful.
I have a family that loves me, I have friends who care.
My hands are warm most of the time. My hands show the evidence of the life I've lived.
I have the opportunity to help in a way that others can't.
I have the choice to say No or I can't do that.
I have the day off tomorrow, to more or less do as I wish.
I have a place to work, then I have another place to work.
My teacher application is 'pending review'.
I have the ability to change my mind and open myself to alternative ideas.
I have someone in life that hugs me and let's me hug her.
My car started today. A house? You have a place to live?
I want to pray. I want to see as many parts of myself that can be useful.
I have a family that loves me, I have friends who care.
My hands are warm most of the time. My hands show the evidence of the life I've lived.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Everyone seems to have their own spin on Obama. He is now the 44th President of the United States and in good health. Didn't need the bulletproof glass and so far as we've heard Trav Bickle didn't show up with sunglasses and a mohawk to the inauguration. High hopes. Everyone seems to have high hopes great expectations. I should be hopeful too. And am. I believe this is a great man we have in our midst. More than just a politician but a great man. So help him God. WE say again and again. So help him God. Tonight he gets to glitz and glam above all the bright lights that shine his way but a tenacious task ahead of him. He admits it. He points to the probabilities of all that lies ahead. Time to deliver on the promise of change.
I was sitting at my phone job desk, hooked into the system when he was swon in to office. I saw quite clearly as he repeated the oath word for word. I was chewing over my own uncertainties, my own shortcomings and there was a man who had stepped into a place of greatness, an inspiration to all Americans that anything is possible. Anything is possible. So it's no coincidence that as I sat on my couch in my apartment, getting tired and thinking about sleep, that instead of watching more nightly news and other crap, I thought of all the innovators, people of change, who instead of doing what they always do so easily, I got off the couch and came back to this laptop and decided to write a little... out of the need to write. The freedom that it brings the soul to just think about what's really going on right now. What's going on right now is quite good. Options are still open status. I'm working my second job tomorrow, an orientation, but for which I get paid. I remember it being pretty much a snow job but that's okay. It's my second job on top of the one that I have lined up for overtime. My girlfriend made me good soup for dinner and expected very little in return. Just to cuddle a little while before we went to bed. I still have this roof over my head and I got a number from a guy at my Tuesday night group. A guy that I gthink wants to keep his head straight like mine.
Shawn talked about anger in a way that made me almost cry it was so close to my own story. One of the things he talked about was putting pen on the paper and talking things out with a friend, weighing the pros and cons of his situation and the importance of just trying to be nice. Just trying to be pleasant. I almsot lost that chance once because I was too tied up in my head to know that you could just be quiet, serene at the dinner table. Nothing had to mean anything. It just was what it was. Dinner. Eating. Unwinding fom the day. And my day needed unwinding for some reason. About 2:30 I realized how tense I was. Haven't really equated anything with not smoking at all for three days. I've had one bad day of it in about nine days. I always make sure to set the clock to zero if I have more than a few. You have to. You have to be rigorously honest about that very thing. Shawn stopped for a while I think, and so far as I know keeps going. But the emotions keep going with you and before you know it you're either not getting what you think you deserve or losing something you already have and don't want to. Then, suddenly, it's an outrage. Someone has made a major mistake and they should pay for what they've done. But did anyone have to die over what was done or what happened? Usually not. Usually it's nothing more than a minor infraction.
What would Obama do? There's a guy who can get downright fiery without completely losing his cool. He's a wonder to watch because he can't swear. He has to be a powerful rhetorician without getting terribly emotional. He just knows when to lay down the gavel and when to palm it in his hand, like Morgan Freeman in Lean On me. Forget that I just compared him to Morgan Freeman. Anyway, I think there is an importance to putting stuff down on paper as much as possible. To get it out of the cranial echo chamber. The echo chamber. It is late. Sometimes tthe answer is sit. Lie still. Sleep on it-- save the rest of what;s lingering for another day.
I was sitting at my phone job desk, hooked into the system when he was swon in to office. I saw quite clearly as he repeated the oath word for word. I was chewing over my own uncertainties, my own shortcomings and there was a man who had stepped into a place of greatness, an inspiration to all Americans that anything is possible. Anything is possible. So it's no coincidence that as I sat on my couch in my apartment, getting tired and thinking about sleep, that instead of watching more nightly news and other crap, I thought of all the innovators, people of change, who instead of doing what they always do so easily, I got off the couch and came back to this laptop and decided to write a little... out of the need to write. The freedom that it brings the soul to just think about what's really going on right now. What's going on right now is quite good. Options are still open status. I'm working my second job tomorrow, an orientation, but for which I get paid. I remember it being pretty much a snow job but that's okay. It's my second job on top of the one that I have lined up for overtime. My girlfriend made me good soup for dinner and expected very little in return. Just to cuddle a little while before we went to bed. I still have this roof over my head and I got a number from a guy at my Tuesday night group. A guy that I gthink wants to keep his head straight like mine.
Shawn talked about anger in a way that made me almost cry it was so close to my own story. One of the things he talked about was putting pen on the paper and talking things out with a friend, weighing the pros and cons of his situation and the importance of just trying to be nice. Just trying to be pleasant. I almsot lost that chance once because I was too tied up in my head to know that you could just be quiet, serene at the dinner table. Nothing had to mean anything. It just was what it was. Dinner. Eating. Unwinding fom the day. And my day needed unwinding for some reason. About 2:30 I realized how tense I was. Haven't really equated anything with not smoking at all for three days. I've had one bad day of it in about nine days. I always make sure to set the clock to zero if I have more than a few. You have to. You have to be rigorously honest about that very thing. Shawn stopped for a while I think, and so far as I know keeps going. But the emotions keep going with you and before you know it you're either not getting what you think you deserve or losing something you already have and don't want to. Then, suddenly, it's an outrage. Someone has made a major mistake and they should pay for what they've done. But did anyone have to die over what was done or what happened? Usually not. Usually it's nothing more than a minor infraction.
What would Obama do? There's a guy who can get downright fiery without completely losing his cool. He's a wonder to watch because he can't swear. He has to be a powerful rhetorician without getting terribly emotional. He just knows when to lay down the gavel and when to palm it in his hand, like Morgan Freeman in Lean On me. Forget that I just compared him to Morgan Freeman. Anyway, I think there is an importance to putting stuff down on paper as much as possible. To get it out of the cranial echo chamber. The echo chamber. It is late. Sometimes tthe answer is sit. Lie still. Sleep on it-- save the rest of what;s lingering for another day.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
He smelled like an old car. American. A Mercury Grand Marquis.
Or perhaps a Plymouth Valiant. I have ridden in both in more
desparate times. I am ashamed to admit that this is true.
I sometimes wonder if it is the truth to this date.
But this is not about me. I need to my own truths by saying anything.
He smelled like an old American car, once owned by a smoker,
someone who drove often, long distances. The upholstery
ground out by strange passengers, self-doubt, complacency.
The windows would seem to have never been opened,
the anger, self-depracation, held in, the years alone scarring the interior.
Friday, January 09, 2009
I dedicate this to the one who made me leave
one morning because she needed her juice.
I must have needed her warmth that badly,
but walking back, I began hating her the most,
the only one I can remember. May she live as she decides, though she’ll leave trails
of lust and possibility if she decides.
OK, Mother, I’ll say it so they’ll know:I did not have to freeze that winter.
Sickness did not have to enter those rooms.
-From "freezing" , Langan
Before you begin again, remember your last words to me
How light they were, spoken in weakness,
how they played the odds, how they always played the odds,
John said, the word was in the beginning, take it or leave it.
Off and on, for the rest of eternity. Pass the buck, though
we may like to do so, the word is still there, patient,
but immovable, even more so than an obelisk, statues,
thunderclouds, a seated devotee.
The last words spoken before the thunder,
which merely clapped like the judgement of reception
into heaven or hell, the champagne light or the wine, wicked.
I knew what was said, in that time, I wasn't dumb or deaf,
but the proof was stacked against me, you.
X would not be defined any other way than how the calculists
have always determined that X could be defined.
No regrets, no regrets, just a hope to be good again.
How light they were, spoken in weakness,
how they played the odds, how they always played the odds,
John said, the word was in the beginning, take it or leave it.
Off and on, for the rest of eternity. Pass the buck, though
we may like to do so, the word is still there, patient,
but immovable, even more so than an obelisk, statues,
thunderclouds, a seated devotee.
The last words spoken before the thunder,
which merely clapped like the judgement of reception
into heaven or hell, the champagne light or the wine, wicked.
I knew what was said, in that time, I wasn't dumb or deaf,
but the proof was stacked against me, you.
X would not be defined any other way than how the calculists
have always determined that X could be defined.
No regrets, no regrets, just a hope to be good again.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
My friend offered me wisdom about discipline
But I only half-heard
the way people---like me---do,
when we are distracted from the focus,
we are interested in so many other things aside
from the threat of the focus.
The color of our oxfords, the speed of our cars,
the weather, the financial report, robbery,
forging documents, the dog's hair, adultery,
picnics, lightning.
Discipline was the key to reopened doors , he said,
discipline was a portal to the cold glass of hope,
discipline was keeping the spine stacked one bone
upon the next corresponding bone.
discipline was steadying muscle, nerve & breath:
it is not parading with fire,
it is making a narrow entrance, unnanounced salvation.
For discipline to work, all that is necessary is:
assume the position. Fold hands.
Smile inwardly and wait for the image of something
to enter your heart and smile back.
There should be no gala, only contained celebration.
But I only half-heard
the way people---like me---do,
when we are distracted from the focus,
we are interested in so many other things aside
from the threat of the focus.
The color of our oxfords, the speed of our cars,
the weather, the financial report, robbery,
forging documents, the dog's hair, adultery,
picnics, lightning.
Discipline was the key to reopened doors , he said,
discipline was a portal to the cold glass of hope,
discipline was keeping the spine stacked one bone
upon the next corresponding bone.
discipline was steadying muscle, nerve & breath:
it is not parading with fire,
it is making a narrow entrance, unnanounced salvation.
For discipline to work, all that is necessary is:
assume the position. Fold hands.
Smile inwardly and wait for the image of something
to enter your heart and smile back.
There should be no gala, only contained celebration.
A quite conversation in the alley behind the building.
Because sometimes, upon further inspection,
disciplined work does not pass the eye of the judges.
Where does self-punishment fall within the gambit?
Other than consequences for poor choices,
waking up in the rain, underneath a capsized tent,
or the one thousand mornings I had to look at
myself over in the mirror, and wonder who looked back
Or is it more: shouting at the seagulls again,
their irreverence at our gravity, our being land-locked.
Because sometimes, upon further inspection,
disciplined work does not pass the eye of the judges.
Where does self-punishment fall within the gambit?
Other than consequences for poor choices,
waking up in the rain, underneath a capsized tent,
or the one thousand mornings I had to look at
myself over in the mirror, and wonder who looked back
Or is it more: shouting at the seagulls again,
their irreverence at our gravity, our being land-locked.
The questions come, they warm, they soothe, they adhere.
But they also bond to the many spirits which gather:
such as wormwood, Aziel, the bunch whom Milton met,
Mammon, Baal, hanging around the door waiting for your exit.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Getting on the right track Or The Choice is mine.
Or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.
I once encountered many blind alleys,
but today, as long as I have faith, my path is clear.
This has all been slow progress for me.
Like so many, I do not always surrender completely;
I allow the cares and worries of the day distort my thinking.
But as soon as I get back on the right track, I realize that I have everything I need.
Whatever problems confront me, large or small, they can be solved wisely.
Or they can be solved my way. The choice is mine.
Or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.
I once encountered many blind alleys,
but today, as long as I have faith, my path is clear.
This has all been slow progress for me.
Like so many, I do not always surrender completely;
I allow the cares and worries of the day distort my thinking.
But as soon as I get back on the right track, I realize that I have everything I need.
Whatever problems confront me, large or small, they can be solved wisely.
Or they can be solved my way. The choice is mine.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Seinfeld on George Burns...
George Burns was a master of enjoying life, which as you grow I think you find is a very rare quality amongst the human species, that we kind of go through this experience and we struggle with various things and we often times fail to stop and go - you know what, this is pretty great, just on a basic level. And George Burns was one of those people who just appreciated “Hey, I’m in show business, life is great…” One thing I did kind of get from him is like, if I get a really good cup of coffee, I like to just go — you know what, just hang on a second. This is a fantastic cup of coffee. Isn’t this a great, and I’ll ask everyone, isn’t this great coffee? Cos you know, it’s not always great. This one is great, you know... And that is one of the things that I really did learn from him. And why I had such respect for him is that I will stop and make that moment. You know, you will enjoy life more if you do that. You know, you get a great parking spot, just go… Hold it a second, I mean look at that spot. I mean it’s--we could have been blocks away and we’re right here.
Hang on a second... just hold on for a moment. And take in the moment- suck it in with a deep breath and just...notice. Become aware. The packages don't need to get there on time. Even if they were sent on time, they might not have gotten there. You will not be forgotten entirely. The message that you love these people will still be received, will still be heard. Just -slow- down-for- a- moment. Realize what is here now. Realize what is here. The cup of coffee. The ice cream. The sunset. The evening. The crunch of snow underfoot. The warmth of stepping inside from the blustery evening, getting warm... et cetera, et cetera.
George Burns was a master of enjoying life, which as you grow I think you find is a very rare quality amongst the human species, that we kind of go through this experience and we struggle with various things and we often times fail to stop and go - you know what, this is pretty great, just on a basic level. And George Burns was one of those people who just appreciated “Hey, I’m in show business, life is great…” One thing I did kind of get from him is like, if I get a really good cup of coffee, I like to just go — you know what, just hang on a second. This is a fantastic cup of coffee. Isn’t this a great, and I’ll ask everyone, isn’t this great coffee? Cos you know, it’s not always great. This one is great, you know... And that is one of the things that I really did learn from him. And why I had such respect for him is that I will stop and make that moment. You know, you will enjoy life more if you do that. You know, you get a great parking spot, just go… Hold it a second, I mean look at that spot. I mean it’s--we could have been blocks away and we’re right here.
Hang on a second... just hold on for a moment. And take in the moment- suck it in with a deep breath and just...notice. Become aware. The packages don't need to get there on time. Even if they were sent on time, they might not have gotten there. You will not be forgotten entirely. The message that you love these people will still be received, will still be heard. Just -slow- down-for- a- moment. Realize what is here now. Realize what is here. The cup of coffee. The ice cream. The sunset. The evening. The crunch of snow underfoot. The warmth of stepping inside from the blustery evening, getting warm... et cetera, et cetera.
I dug this post. I will try to read it more often. From the Milkman's Sobriety MSN Group Bully.
when you begin to realize that you have options about the thoughts that you activate and entertain — then you will be the Deliberate Creator of your own experience. As long as you think you don't have a choice about what you think because you don't have a choice about the circumstances that surround you, then you are like a cork bobbing on a raging sea, going wherever it bounces you. But when you understand that you have options, choices in every moment, on every subject, then you begin to make those choices because of the way those choices feel as you make them.
And now, you are using the Guidance that comes forth from within you to guide you to the Well-Being; to the prosperity; to the love of self and others; to the experience that you knew you would have — the experience that is possible for all — to the experience that really is only experienced by those who come to understand the Art of Allowing.
So, it is good for you to reach for some thoughts that give you some relief from the discord or resistance that you have presently going on, for with each attempt at reaching for a thought that feels better, you release more resistance. And as you release more resistance, you fill back up with who-you-are, and your thriving resumes. And we want to really emphasize the word "resumes," because thriving is always the dominant part of your experience. But, we will acknowledge that some of you are going to have to croak before you resume thriving, (Fun!) because some of you have pinched it off pretty good. Some of you have developed some powerful habits of thought. Some of you have developed some strong enemies that you take great delight in every day pushing very hard against.
And some of you thrive on some subjects and suffer on others. You have different vibrational frequencies, depending upon the subject at hand that is activated. But we want you to know that you have access to Guidance that will lead you always in the direction of your thriving on all subjects. But you've got to figure out which direction is going toward your objective, and which direction is going away from your objective. And before you can do that, you've got to figure out what your objective is.
when you begin to realize that you have options about the thoughts that you activate and entertain — then you will be the Deliberate Creator of your own experience. As long as you think you don't have a choice about what you think because you don't have a choice about the circumstances that surround you, then you are like a cork bobbing on a raging sea, going wherever it bounces you. But when you understand that you have options, choices in every moment, on every subject, then you begin to make those choices because of the way those choices feel as you make them.
And now, you are using the Guidance that comes forth from within you to guide you to the Well-Being; to the prosperity; to the love of self and others; to the experience that you knew you would have — the experience that is possible for all — to the experience that really is only experienced by those who come to understand the Art of Allowing.
So, it is good for you to reach for some thoughts that give you some relief from the discord or resistance that you have presently going on, for with each attempt at reaching for a thought that feels better, you release more resistance. And as you release more resistance, you fill back up with who-you-are, and your thriving resumes. And we want to really emphasize the word "resumes," because thriving is always the dominant part of your experience. But, we will acknowledge that some of you are going to have to croak before you resume thriving, (Fun!) because some of you have pinched it off pretty good. Some of you have developed some powerful habits of thought. Some of you have developed some strong enemies that you take great delight in every day pushing very hard against.
And some of you thrive on some subjects and suffer on others. You have different vibrational frequencies, depending upon the subject at hand that is activated. But we want you to know that you have access to Guidance that will lead you always in the direction of your thriving on all subjects. But you've got to figure out which direction is going toward your objective, and which direction is going away from your objective. And before you can do that, you've got to figure out what your objective is.
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