shuffleupagus

high on a wire
poised for an imminent fall
clowns always smile
greasepaint and lust in their pores
start to sway and i hold your hand
fall, the smile surrounds his head
hot ashes, clay
hot ashes, fade
to lean, to err, too far along for me
to wait around, to smile is to accept
in center ring
rolling in sawdust and hay
covered in paint
damn everything but the circus
damn the men and women who stare
at the freaks in the cages and snares
hot ashes, clay
hot ashes, fade
to win, to err, to fall too far for safety
to lean, to wait a while is too easy
to lean towards, to fall too far for me
to wait around a while is easy
to lean too long, to fall too far for safety
to seem to smile, to lie is to accept
scenes from a vinyl recliner - toad the wet sprocket


you and i we make a grand salute
stare at each other
like lost little birds
across the room
and i remember the way you looked
i learned how to dance
but i'd never shown it to you
my love
i know i was wrong
but you know that you'll always be
my love
stay for a while
while our leaves are still green
please
for me
i know i tried
but it's hard sometimes
the roots don't take
it takes a while
and you pull at the strings
but they're broken it seems
the dance isn't over for me
no
my love
i know i was wrong
but you know that you'll always be
my love
stay for a while
while our leaves are still green
please
for me
little waltz - basia bulat


all that is left is an empty shell
of my heart that is crushed
i don't never wanna see
what my mind has seen
when you loved me
every night, every night alone with you
every night alone now
when she sits on your lap
try to pretend to laugh
when she does stupid things
just like i used to do
do you hate her
don't you even try
for to leave her is to love her
the same as you and i
i love you
and i miss you too
i really do love you
and i really miss you too
but i don't know you
and i don't need you
and i don't want you anymore
every night, every night alone with you
every night alone now
empty shell - cat power


i know what i know, i know
on the car ride down
i hear it in my head real low
turn into
the only thing i ever
turn into
hope i do
turn into you
i know what i know, i know
that girl you found
keeps that window closed
she'll turn into
the only thing you ever
turn into
hope i do
turn into you
can't say why i kept this from you
my those quiet eyes become you
leave it where it can't remind us
turn all this around behind us
oh, well i know
i'd fall right in to keep you out
i'd like to tell you all about it
i know, what i know, i know
this last time around
i'll hear it in my head real low
turn into
the only thing you ever know
i know, what i know, i know
ah, yes
turn into - yeahyeahyeahs


a couple of glances is all it should take
to piece it together
but it's better to stare
keep looking forever
take something clean
and turn it into a simple mess
it's just like jerry said
it's all necks and legs
so keep it up
and we'll see how far we get
it's one big audition
simple mess - the end of the world

i who wait for myself

i who wait for myself

i who don't appear

again today i turn a page of the sea

throw away a tight-lipped dead calm

the day not quite dawn the beach white

a mothers barren womb

a broken oar

i who wait for myself

i who don't appear

again today i turn a page of the horizon

throw away a snake's too light slough

the day not quite dawn a useless parasol

a suspicious laugh

cold fried food

i who wait for myself

i who don't appear

again today i turn a page of the sky

sweep together and throw away all the sooty stardust

the day not quite dawn the grass full of hanging tears

i leaf and leaf through a calendar

yet i don't appear

i who wait for myself

world of imaginary numbers

love without arms

no danger - the delgados

off the album "the great eastern." oh man, i am in love with this song today. can't stop listening to it.

i may be drunk, krogan, but you're ugly. and tomorrow i'll be sober.

in other news, i do NOT like wednesdays. i ordered some new bras online that were supposed to get here yesterday but apparently they are stuck in louisiana or illinois or something and might not get here until tomorrow? stupid.
a t-shirt i ordered last friday (or thursday?) DID get here yesterday, though. i heart it. with many much hearting.

http://www.headlineshirts.net/wake-me-when-it-s-time-to-rock.html

isn't it cute? so cute. you wish you could be that cute. and cool. and condescending. i know i did. that's why i bought the damn thing. 

also, in lieu of saving the collective asses of the entire galaxy, twice, while i was embedded in the throes of a violent and insidious headcold, i am in surprisingly high spirits, given all that has not transpired in my life to lead to such an erroneous conclusion. everyone in the world should play mass effect. the world would be a better place. and not just because more guys would want to look like commander shepard. drool.

reality continues to ruin my life, so virtual reality has picked up the slack and my failed sense of actual accomplishment has led me down the path of faulty logic toward a completely foundationless sense of virtual accomplishment, which, while neither irrefutable or rational, leaves me with an actual warm glowy feeling that is better than turning to alcohol, or ben & jerry's (although i do have a pint or two of haägen dazs sorbet in my freezer, but that's not really ice cream, so it's neither here nor there what i do with said pints) or worse, world of warcraft. which thankfully i have not become re-addicted to, but i do admit to dabbling in on an occasional weeknight in a purely social context. i'm not addicted to video games. and, as the great calvin once said: "it's not denial,  i'm just very selective about the reality i accept." which is exactly where i was going with this rambly paragraph in the first place.

no, actually, i have been really good at keeping my new year's resolution of seriously doing things with REAL, ALIVE, TANGIBLE people on the weekends, barring of course this past weekend because i was bedridden and desperately diseased with what can only logically be diagnosed as an otorhinolaryngolocial form of ebola. which i only got because the previous weekend i was hanging out with real, alive, tangible people who gave the disease to me in the first place. 

this is why people become hermits. because it's safer for the entire galaxy as we know it to be fraught with peril by a giant million year-old race of sentient genocidal machines lurking in the dark space beyond the edge of the milky way hell-bent on harvesting the technological fruits of all organic life every 50,000 years, than it is to play with your best friend's baby girl for 6 hours because you don't want to be home while your teenage sister is hosting a pre-dance party slash dinner for her entire group of friends. and their dates.

surges

oh, i feel so rebellious today. i'm a feral cat in a burlap sac. barely contained, all sorts of scratchy violence.

days like this, i should be a drummer. or a boxer. or really into bondage. i want to just hit things till they fall apart and i pass out or claw someone's face off. not anyone in particular. cagey and hissing, all day.

i need charcoal and dark paper. i got a scanner/printer for christmas... i'll draw something and then scan it, once i get the printer set up. (it's still in the box, awaiting me to find a place for it in the mess on my desk.) i think it's time to relocate my cd collection. it's not like i ever use the cds, anyway. they're almost more like decor, at this point. maybe not charcoal, maybe i just need a sharpie and some red paper and some chalk. i'll go chill out on the couch downstairs and just draw, since my room is freezing and someone might have the fireplace going.

time for some real artwork. it's not a day for words. hasn't really been a week for words. i need to be in a band. i want to vent this with something loud.

next stop after the car, and vacation, i'm thinking drum lessons.

outside

waahaaayyyy

gettin' a car with my tax return. gonna be ridin' dirty soon, yo.

no words today. not gonna try. but here's some music to keep you busy.

chaos by new pony club



brave man's death by j. roddy walston & the business


swim until you can't see land by frightened rabbit


apply by glasser


i don't mind it by screaming females

scraps

there are days when

i hate you

or rather i hate

that you aren't there, 

waiting

like so many 

others 

have been.

hate that i feel

avoided, or

set aside and 

unnecessary.

but perhaps 

it is that reality 

of you, 

that truth

that allows me 

to keep in check

thoughts that might

surge 

like brushfire, 

sweep

beyond the small 

control of

my grasp, 

were i garnered

more attentions 

than the few you 

hand 

over my way. 

i wait like

dog or beggar 

for those

tablescraps, 

count crumbs

and save them, 

rationed for

the long 

spaces of silence

and the always 

scant supply

that comes. 

i can't

help but wait 

around, 

tho

i don't want it 

to seem like

i'm waiting. 

don't want

the stench of 

desperation

to hang
on these curtains.

in effort to be 

more present, 

more here

with my thoughts, 

have i 

shredded my
mystery 

and thrown it 

piecemeal 

at your feet?

why, then, do i 

marvel

at your not 

wanting it?

who can say 

these things.  

who can know 

the thought

without the sound 

of words

ringing with 

something 

other than the
echoes 

of one's own
head.

words, letters 

clatter 

around the page.

and perhaps 

there is more

wisdom 

in the maintenance 

of this

than my wanting 

gives,

whatever,

credit for.

dreams are also wounds

thus every dream secretly and small inscribes its letters
at dawn we search for scabs of ink in the glass
to store them away in safe archives

but the wounds never heal

the darkest blood continues to bloom
orchards of revolutions on the sheets
or the bubbling of love in gardens

of wounds that never heal

even the deaf are allowed to dream
as the mad are free to whisper their letters
and the blind to look at the wind

pain bruises us all to a more intimate shade--
how green were the birds in the gardens
of my youth, how ripe and painted the sun

and the snow never heals

the earth is a ruler rich in people
people are kings rich in trees
of fear or of hate, or trees of yearning

which can never heal the dreams

for this is our only unending paradise--
we are rich like a fisherman
sorting and counting his ultimate eggs

returning fish to the sea
in order to speak like eggs talk
to sing like waves bleeding for years

with blood that never heals

the soldiers have eyes like peas
the peasants have hands of earth
and they all dream messages and worlds

filled with flowers that can never heal

now even a parrot enters the poem, a yellow parrot
airing its complaints from verse
to line with a wail in the black sails of its tongue

so that its songs can never heal

so my nights will never learn to heal or read
for you have come to let the last drops of my blood
would you too be no more than a scar in my flesh?

without blood we cannot possibly bleed
and our dreams are the blood of the night
just as we are blood and dreamt in blood

and so i remain a bed-marshal
emptying my armies night after night
pressing the inkdrops from my heart

for you, dreamt up, who can never heal

our bodies are mere husks of flesh
destined to wither into walking sticks
when, finally, undreaming, we go to sleep

and only then will water turn to vinegar
and silence stretch its rainbows in the sky
and then our dreams will meet

and may these letters never heal
assuredly, these wounds will never heal


translated from the afrikaans by andre brink

john campbell, the sequel

so why are you standing there, she said

fallen angels

are like the open windows of a mortuary

like the eyes of cows

like the skeletons of birds

like falling airplanes

like flies on the lungs of fallen soldiers

like strings of autumn rain

that tie lips with a flight of birds

i go through cycles. too many ins and outs of faith and doubt. there are days when i almost believe, like i believed when i was a child, and the world had an order to it, and the nature of things made sense because everything could be explained by god or the lack of god. and now, the dance of faith and doubt is so much more than a straight line, so much harder than the past ease of one foot in front of the other.

|---------------|
|---knowledge---|
|---------------|
|-----belief----|
|---------------|
|--faith faith--|
|---------------|
|-doubt - faith-|
|---------------|
|-faith - doubt-|
|---------------|
|--doubt doubt--|
|---------------|
|---disbelief---|
|---------------|
|-----fear------|
|---------------|

and life is just a bounce around of up and down. so i waver, and the wavering becomes the rhythm of my days. some days it really is like i'm a wavelength, and can only be on one rung at a time, other days, i'm particular... and parts of me are all over the rungs at the same time. they say the glory of god is intelligence, in other words, light and truth. so intelligence is light and truth. so they say. perhaps that's why we can't decide on the nature of light. there's some subatomic consciousness that lets it discern itself, or exist differently, depending on circumstance. i don't know enough of these things to warrant discussing them.

What will happen to you now, she said,

they made you a burning dress.

They made me a burning dress, I said. I know.

So why are you standing there, she said,

you've got to be careful.

You know what a burning dress is, don't you?

I know, I said, but I don't know

how to be careful.

The smell of that perfume confuses me.

I said to her, No one has to agree with me, 

I don't believe in Greek tragedies.

But the dress, she said, the dress is on fire.

What are you saying, I shouted,

what are you saying?

I'm not wearing a dress at all, 

what's burning is me.

this is just to say...

dear weekend,

please be better than the last one.
please get here yesterday.
you are not getting here fast enough.

love,
me

afloat

cold toes, but my nose is warm
so i can handle it.

got half of my backordered stock in,
not the SKU i wanted, but this SKU
will do.

sometimes we can be
too available,
sometimes it looks
desperate, or
like something we
should be pitied for.

there are better places
to be, than me.

these are hard, hard times.

my printer isn't working,
i've had to reset my computer
4 times now, and i'll go
to print a document and it will

just refuse. just
pretend like the document
doesn't exist.

sitting there
doing nothing is
better,
for a printer,

than doing what
i want it
to be doing.

wavelength

blurred edges opalescent
in twilight
i can half-see you,

i confirm what is unseen
with hands,
bare brush of lips

against sfumato white
shoulderblade,
divot of collarbone,
hidden in these last sips
of leftover sunspill.

goosebumps
against my lower lip
exist only a
gasp,

drawn by a breath,
erased by touch,
drawn again by tonguetip

now tracing
contours of your flinch
accompaniment.

and warm, this warmth
so... not white.
blue, red layer
blush in unnamed
hue,

my attention as
delicate as the split
and cycles
of those cells.

the smell is warm,
a subtle drink of skin
to caress each breath,
stow away on them,
request favors,
offer intoxication in
return.

i could never have staid
that tonguetip, too
impatient to tease,
my eyes insist--

for two beats,
the small throb
of blood pulsing against
the bridge
of your shoulder
and my mouth--

before confessing
long starvation,
a need to taste
the spice savour of you,

your skin, an enticement
craved with all
other senses

too long to warrant
timidity, but with enough
narcotic anticipation

to take time, to see it as
a ripple of these

instants.

strings in low hum,
a loose vibrato.

oh, harmony
made from our
opposing tension,

the rhythm of
declensions and
ascensions in
silence.

swirled colours,
become,
or exist also
as steady lines
of touch and string.

music.

largo,

then
poco crescendo

con fuoco.

seconds

here i am, waiting to write for my "at least an hour a day." filling a quota, a goal i set for myself, and now i'm scared to climb into my head and go fishing. it's a dark pool, turgid and cyclical and cold, and i am clinging to the rungs, afraid to let go. but perhaps i should face this fear, it's just in my head, after all. i'm not really going to get sucked into that whirlpool and never come out. and there are shiny things at the bottom, i just know. i want to get to those, to feel them glisten smooth and cool in my wet fingers.

i can do it. i can put on "funeral" and let its transcendence and perfection be a new wave to ride into this storm with. it's my own blog, i can ramble here. why do i worry what it's going to sound like before i even get it down? because i know too many writers, who are better at writing than i am, in such a seemingly effortless way that even trying seems silly and pathetic. i don't have metaphors good enough to shine a light on, i don't have casually clever enough bits and pieces. i have to stop reading jonathan's stuff before i start writing my own, because then i just feel kind of like, oh, a small pencil sketch after seeing starry night.

maybe i should set a new goal. no "i" anywhere in the rest of this post. and this is where it ends and "publish post" is clicked, just so it's something achieved. but i already know i can't do it. not tonight, anyway.

i was almost in a really bad car accident this morning, on the freeway. there was some idiot in a teal 4-door (i don't remember what kind of car it was, normally i would notice that detail, but i was thinking of other things, or drowning out thoughts with music, i can't remember) who was crossing over all three lanes. she did this 4 times, and then cut right in front of me, and tried to cut over to my left, but there was a car there, so she crushes his back right bumper and then slams on her brakes and flips around, luckily there was no one in the lane to my right, so i laid on my horn and swerved over. i was like 2 feet away from hitting her. it would have been awful, the front left corner of her car would have smashed right into the middle of the front of mine, but the thing was, i didn't panic. and for a split second, i almost didn't swerve, but i remembered that rear-ending someone means you're automatically responsible, and we'd just gotten this car a month ago and dad had nothing else to drive to work - i thought all of that in the split second, and then, because it would affect more people than just me, i swerved.

i spent a lot of time today, thinking about that moment, that second. about how i reasoned it out in my mind just that quick, and opted out of the selfish gruesome accident. and then i wondered what was wrong with me that i have such a hard time reasoning and swerving when dealing with everything else in my life.

bah. i didn't want to write this, i didn't want to write this kind of garbage, the same old self-process. i wanted to write something beautiful, and meaningful.

i should have written a poem. none of this would have come out. maybe i'll just post this, and then start over.

a mixtape (of sorts,) revised and relocated

There will be some happy endings
There'll be dreams that don't come true
But in the times ahead,
there's love and hate and hope and dread coming
All and all, in makes it that much harder for you
You'll push back against the sorrow
Wait for the sun, and we get through
And if the glare's too bright
We'll pull the shades, but it dims the lights
That's just the way it is, but it makes it that much harder for you
I know you're worried - I'm worried too
But if you're ready, I'm here to fall with you.
What else is there for us to do?






I put a trash can by the road
and filled it up just to lighten my load
but oh, I got nowhere to go
someone alone fell asleep by the phone
waiting like a dog for a bone
how can it be that a fish in the sea
could feel like it's completely alone?
the world may never know
I know it hurt you, 'cause you cried
I know it killed you, but nobody died
and oh, the city ain't nothin’ but show
I found a needle in the hay
I found the sunshine at the end of the day
and oh, I found a pearl in the snow
someone alone fell asleep by the phone
waiting like a dog for a bone
how can it be that a fish in the sea
could feel like it's completely alone?
the world may never know


Spent a week in a dusty library
Waiting for some words to jump at me
We met by a trick of fate
We met by the moon on a silvery lake
You came my way
Said, "I want you to stay."
Said you loved me with a lot of conviction
I was waiting to be struck by lightning
Waiting for somebody exciting
Like you
I'll be criticized for lending out my art
I was criticized for letting you break my heart
Why would I stand for disappointed looks
Fooling all but I'm on tender hooks
Relationships were something I used to do
Convince me they are better for me and you
I wanted to control it
But love, I couldn't hold it



In all my life and all my years,
We’d take it till it hurts and wait until it heals
And watch the night dry up and take a lonely ride
Oh we’re not going into work if you’re right.
Oh, take my place
A stand up kid
I was thinking all about it
Cause I knew where we’d been
He shifted in his chair
With a sheer delight
It took me weeks for these words
Weeks to admit I was right
And there’s a lot of everything
March till you fall
And listen to it fade away
Fumble at the door
While the telephone rings, the telephone rings
And has it been a week yet? Fine.
Linger in the revelry
It happens to us all otherwise
Turn while we run but act like you need it
We said she’s got one foot out the door



I'm a modern guy
I don't care much for the go-go
or the retro image I see so often
telling me to keep trying
maybe you'll get here someday
keep up the work kid, okay
I close the book on them right there
I see myself change as the days changeover
I hear the songs and the words don't change
I write them out of the book right there
we've been had, you say it's over
sometimes I'm just happy I'm older
we've been had, I know it's over
somehow it got easy to laugh out loud
see me age nineteen
with some dumb haircut from 1960
moving to New York
sitting here with my friends
we're all taking the same steps
seems foolish now



You know this place,
you know this gloom?
We've been here before.
When life is a loop,
you're in a room
without a door.
"Trouble that
we've come
to know
will stay with us".
With every step
it slowly grows.
Rub off the rust.
Pick up the phone
and answer me at last.
Today I will
step out of your past.
Pick up the phone.



All I wanted was the chance to say
I would like to see you in the morning
Rolling over just to have you there
Would make it easy for a little bit longer
Hottest summer in a hundred years
But summer didn't bother
Getting up this morning
And so all the trees forgot to wake
They were dropping all their leaves
On the ground below them
But here
Closer every year
So near
The fear is coming clear
My dear
The fear is here
Make it easy for a little bit longer



My Baby's got the lonesome lows,
Don't quite go away overnight;
Dr. Blind just prescribe the blue ones.
If the the dizzying highs don't subside overnight,
Dr. Blind, just prescribe the red ones.
Hard to hold, cold to touch,
Fall to pieces, treat the rush,
In hindsight, with prime time talk.
All your pain will end here.
Let the doctor soothe your brain, dear.
My Baby's got the lonesome lows,
don't quite go away overnight;
Dr. Blind just prescribe the blue ones.
If the the dizzying highs don't subside overnight,
Dr. Blind just prescribe the red ones.



I live on a chain
And you share the same last name
As a joke
I sent a bottle of whiskey
As you choked
You said it made you feel dirty
And I was waiting over here for life to begin
I was looking for the new thing
And you were the sunshine
Headed my front-line
I was alone
You were just around the corner from me.



Now if you find yourself falling apart
then I’m sure I could stand on
the Great Salt Lake



How lovely a find
That's entered my mind along this mossy trail
How coyly it hides
The truth about how it is we can ask how
You're not expected to know why
In such a short time
And there are stanzas never meant to rhyme...
Far better a find
it is if we try to span the weird divide
With no real rationale
we step out of bounds and think we've escaped the lies
We've marched so long
But we've much farther than we've gone to go
Crowds jump to their deaths
From the bridges I drive by tonight
They missed out on it all
The whole gist there as they fall
You're not expected to know why
In such a short time
And there are things we never will define.



You were born with a heart that could never be filled
With a head like snow that could never be stilled
There are streets paved in gold that shine so bright
That you force yourself to look away
The words that fall from your mouth
They crystallize and break on the ground
And everything you want, you don't have
but you force yourself to look away
If we can't see now we might never see
We only kill ourselves more slowly
If you can't find love, then you will finally see
How we kill ourselves slowly
If you can't find me then you can't find love
If you close your eyes then you will finally see
That you're already here with me



Misery loves the cruel way that you speak to yourself
And I love the cool way you look at me
And we've got a lot of time to get this right
At least that's how I hope it's gonna be
When you go looking for a little light real late at night
And you don't like the things you see
I'll be right here waiting in the dark for your knock
Oh, I want you here with me
I want you here with me
I hold you close and whisper in your ear
"There's nothing to fear"
I know the things you want to be
I don't know if they will ever come for anyone
Oh, I want you here with me



I've been waiting all night long
I've been waiting to sing your song
Tonight, will you help me
Just help me find your key?
I run my hands down your neck
Across your back to another fret
I know you're fragile
You're bound to self-destruct
And I can see right through your skin
Your bones are hollow, they're paper-thin
Tonight, you're weightless
I know the way you feel
And my love is a lot like yours
It's been crippled by the wars we wage
We're hopeless
We're on the losing side
You never speak when we're making love
You never mean it when you come to me
With your arms stretched
Defenseless and alone
I taste you on my fingers
And I smell you on my lips
I don't know where you're going
But you're going to slip
Hey, honey, better save yourself
You're never gonna make it
So try, try lifting all your weight
For a man, a man gone wrong.
And try, try wasting all your days
On a man, a man like me.



Don't touch, can't sleep with the lights on
Touch, kid
Kid, how you surprise me now
Roll, kid, knock your body up
You're something like a phenomena
Something like an astronomer
Oh, kid, rock your body
Something like a phenomena, baby
You're something like a phenomena
Something like a phenomena, baby
Going to rock your body off
Don't fall asleep with the motor on
She'll make you sweat in the water
Oh
Hot time, kid
Hot time, kid
It's cold under the blanket
They loved it
Then shot it
The fastest went and got it
They stole it
They ease, ma
They hide it up their sleeves, mom
They hide it
They hide
They're never going to find it
Something like a phenomena, baby
You're something like a phenomena
Something like a phenomena, baby
You're going to rock your body off

don't read it. i'm just disemboweling myself.

being stocked out of stuff at work is so hard to deal with. i hate having orders pile up that i can't do anything about, i hate knowing that as soon as we do get stock, the sales guys are going to be riding me to get everything out that same day. i hate having panic attacks because i'm unable to stave off all the anxiety. (stave it off, one two three...and now we can count to three...) so i'm doing what i usually do, faking a good mood and acting like everything is great when anyone's around, cracking jokes, etc. but this stock-out and work anxiety, on top of everything else i'm trying to deal with is making me absolutely crazy. if other people didn't have a key and could come in here at any moment, i would be curled up under my desk and sobbing.

why do i always feel like i'm riding waves? why do i go through spurts of peaks and troughs and feel like i have absolutely no control over my life? i've always blamed it on just having an "artistic temperament" but i really think i've got at least some sort of issue. i have been completely miserable and trying to ignore it for the better part of three months. last week it got so bad, i tried to, well... the same thing i've tried before. and when the cops got there, i was going to jump out my third story window when they let me go change into some clothes they could take me down to the hospital with, but then they sent my mother in to keep an eye on me while i was changing. and then i just wrapped up in a big blanket and sobbed while some well-meaning but completely off the mark officer tried to convince me that everyone has the problems that i do, and that fixing it is easy.

it's not easy, it's not just depression. and now this week, i've been completely manic. i can't sleep, i can't sit still, i don't want to eat, i can't stop my mind from going a hundred miles and hour and i can't stop writing and i can't stop freaking out and i can't help but feel like a wind-up toy that is being overwound and overwound and overwound and i'm just going to explode - but just because i'm feeling so hyper and crazy doesn't mean that i'm not still miserable! and the misery just overwhelms everything so that every time i've tried to talk to someone all they do is slap a depression label on me and then tell me to go back on fluoxetine. the fluoxetine didn't help... i remember being on it. it just felt like my brain was glitching, it made my thoughts all clattery and disjointed, and like i was just supposed to look at them objectively and make a logical, rational decision about them... that's what it felt like, i remember writing about it, my thoughts rolling around my head like marbles, little balls of light, that i couldn't react to - how can you be an artist when you can't feel anything? i wasn't feeling anything. i wasn't happy, i just couldn't feel... i couldn't think... it was such an empty mess. i didn't care about anything, and i didn't care that i didn't care, and i couldn't handle that. maybe i am just depressed,  maybe that's how it's supposed to work? but if i'm supposed to just not feel anything and have that make me better, i don't want to be medicated, i don't want to be diagnosed, i don't want to talk to anyone... i don't know... i may be crazy, but i'm not stupid, and i know when something's not working.

i know when I'M not working. why does the only clear thing seem to be the fact that no one can help? and when i think someone can, they leave - everyone always leaves. and i get left with an empty heart and no hope. and it's that fucking gaping hole that comes from loving everything so damn much that nothing will ever fill it, and everytime i think that it's ok, that it will be different, i just get a bigger chunk ripped out of the edge of it, even more space that cannot be filled. god, why does it feel like i have to see and feel everything in a different way than everyone else does? why do i feel like i'm meant to do and make and be things that i too paralyzed and crippled and afraid of to do and make a be. i am tired of it. i'm tired of the churning, the gasping for air and there being none, feeling my lungs bursting all the time.

why does every feeling have to be so intense? i'm a ragdoll dropped into the surf, every day a riptide from another unseen direction dragging to another unseen destination, until all my colours have bled out into the pounding waves and i am torn apart at the seams. i drown in it, god i drown in it every day. and they'll tell me there's hope, that things will get better, but they just delude themselves, and i refuse to be so duped. i know how it ends, and it won't end well.

but... i can't say that. i've said it too often and everything i do and say now has ended up like me: hollow.

haha, just kidding, i'm having an awesome day, yep. fantastic.




i posted this. and then didn't want to, and then i figured if i was going to be honest about things, then i needed to stop picking and choosing and just be honest about it all, and so i should post this. *sigh*

it is always the same time everywhere

by john campbell

phobiophelia

so
snap off
brittle ends
of fingers
clamouring
their
frenzied dance
move
all the ways
nothing else
moves
live
in hands
live
in between
moments
in spaces
between words
too weak
to actually
speak
too
scared
too stupid
to be
easiest
thing
just
me

buries

sink a deep hole in hard soil:
postbox for invitations
at the house of the dead.

plant parchment with juniper,
rosemary - drenched and lit
flame into a smokestink so strong
the dead rise (they have to)

on the mountainside behind me.
asking me what my shadow is
once they see it.

the world, the products of
the world,

so soon forgotten.

inversion

always in clouds,
the hint of a storm
that might clear the smog
from this low, cold valley
buried beneath hot air,
trapped on all sides by
ragged peaks.

strike one

i'm listening to garbage this morning. no, not the band, just... actual crap music. so there goes that new year's resolution. well, maybe not technically, i like the music... the music is good, my friend is playing the drums, and those sound great, but the singer for this band is complete shit. they picked him because he has a british accent, i'm thinking, but man, he holds a tune as well as you can hold a greased two year-old who doesn't want to be held. if people like this can be in bands, why can't i? nevermind, i know that answer. oh man, this stuff is so bad. i want to punch this singer in the face. augh.

i guess i'm not listening to garbage after all, not anymore. i thought if i listened to something crap while i wrote that it would irk me enough to get out something new.

cherry coke doesn't taste so great the second time around.

thom yorke clones? really? not all my music sounds like that, and why does everyone seem to make thom yorke comparisons to everything? the only radiohead i own is one album - pablo honey - which i bought when i was 20, because i really liked the song "creep." that's all! it's not like the core of my musical preference and everything i listen to revolves around him - maybe it's just because all the lyrics i like happen to be sung by guys who sing like bitches. how is that my fault? i hate thom yorke.

no, the center of my musical preferences revolves around the longest-standing crush i have had (since i was 15) and the fact that he's the reason i even got into music as badly as i did in the first place. and i don't think he sounds anything like thom yorke, so there you go. well, it was a cross between ubercrushmensch and seeing school of rock. yeah... you read that right, school of rock is what made me decide that i needed to care more about rock music and not just the crap that played on the radio.

oh, tragedy, the foundations of my indiecred have just crumbled in this brandished sweep of truth.

ah, well, it was time to get it out. i'm not as cool as i think i am. or maybe admitting these things makes me even more cool? guess what? the coolness doesn't matter. and here we get to the thesis of this post:

fuck you, i'll listen to whatever i want. 

which means i have learned the spirit of rock music after all, despite the ridiculous beginnings. like those people who convert to a religion because of someone they want to marry and then later realize the religion was right all along and they believe it completely, and their spouse stops going to church and divorces them but they keep going anyway.

or it's not like that at all. i wouldn't know. i hate similes, too. they're just like thom yorke.

d-do the tarot shuffle...

once i was a big old bear reigning blows on sparkly snares
in the woods after the snow the white noise witch her hammers cold
rest beneath the pine and rose in our suits and sunday clothes
cheer up my brother, it's gonna be alright
i know your hearts are heavy as mountains
but we're gonna go back home one day
hang in there little winter star, tell me who you really are
up above the world so high like a diamond in the sky
born with honey in my hair once i was a big old bear
wore my dress up to my knees
there's ghosts of babies in the streams
- mountains by sparklehorse


it's been a hard day's night and i've been working like a dog
it's been a hard day's night, i should be sleeping like a log
but when i get home to you i find the things that you do
will make me feel alright
you know i work all day to get you  money to buy you things
and it's worth it just to hear you say you're gonna give me everything
so why on earth should i moan 'cause when i get you alone 
you know i feel okay
- hard day's night by the beatles


and if the dam breaks open many years too soon
and if there is no room upon the hill
and if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
i'll see you on the dark side of the moon
the lunatic is in my head
you raise the blade, you  make the change
you'll rearrange me till i'm sane
you lock the door
and throw away the key
there's someone in my head but it's not me
and if the cloud bursts thunder in your ear
you shout and no one seems to hear
and if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
we'll see you on the dark side of the moon
- brain damage by pink floyd


now whip it
into shape
shape it up
get straight
go forward
move ahead
try to detect it
it's not too late
to whip it
whip it good
when a good time turns around
you  must whip it
you'll never live it down
unless you whip it
no one gets away
until they whip it
i say whip it
whip it good
i say whip it
whip it good
- whip it by devo


the reception's gotten fuzzy
the delicate balance is shifted
put on your gloves and your black pumps
lets pretend the fog is lifted
now you see me
now you don't
now you say you love me
pretty soon you won't
if we get our full threescore and ten
we won't pass this way again
so kiss me with your mouth open
turn the tires toward the street
and stay sweet
all the chickens come on home to roost
plump bodies blocking out the sky
you know it breaks my heart in half, in half
when i see them try to fly
you know you just can't do
things your body wasn't meant to
hike up your fishnets
i know you
if we live to see the other side of this
i will remember your kiss
so do it with your mouth open
and take your foot off the brake
for chrissake
- dilaudid by the mountain goats

a poet is one who has told lies

though he knows already
he'll keep them built, into whole cities
specked with cement-block houses, useless.

shadow fruit is falling from their walls,
i pluck it, hold it in my hands;
for a second confusion rules over time.
i slowly bite into the neck.

we are the people. we are black,
every morning after killing
thousands of angels,
but we don't sleep.

my mornings--
giant rocks that have been
worn down.

it is easy to distract yourself,
so i'm going.

mr. cogito meditates on suffering

all attempts to remove
the so-called cup of bitterness--
by reflection
frenzied actions on behalf of homeless cats
deep breathing
religion--
failed


one must consent
gently bend the head
not wring the hands
make use of the suffering gently moderately
like an artificial limb
without false shame
but also without unnecessary pride


do not brandish the stump
over the heads of others
don't knock with the white cane
against the windows of the well-fed


drink the essence of bitter herbs
but not to the dregs
leave carefully
a few sip for the future


accept
but simultaneously
isolate within yourself
and if it is possible
create from the matter of suffering
a thing or a person


play
with it
of course
play
entertain it
very cautiously
like a sick child
forcing at last
with silly tricks
a faint
smile


- zbigniew herbert, translated from polish by john and bogdana carpenter

a few improvs

We looked up. The bird held it's beak.
held tighter
to a perch,
to his place in treetop.
he looked at me, down
the long periscope of
filtering branches.

flintsteel glint
in black eye, he
makes no noise.

quiet, reader,
if i can see the glint,
he can see these tears.

perhaps that's why
there is no
song for me.



rails pierce the forest
handrails?
fingernails.

handrails clung to
by fingernails.

i'd like to
fucking get to you

if it weren't for
all these

goddamn
trees.



And land I used to till,
or, land i was,
tilled until the tilling
chilled.

too bad
new tilling can't be
willed.




to disappear, the red carpet, the brown
scab it will become

over time. we rot blissfully
slow into our future selves.

make ignorant
make merry
we're on our way.

don't need to worry
today, anyway.

oh absolution

i watch the clear trickle
of my thoughts distill, glaze your chin, 
pearl in the corners of your mouth.


you have eaten it for weeks, 
my curled center, each fetal fear.


the contours of your face 
ache in my empty fingertips,
and i, i go back - reread, find
oh, only everything. 


missed those first times,
when you tried to bless me
in the baptism of those waters: 
confession, truth, self.


the dream, do you remember it?
meaningful, many-layered.
a friendly visit, an overhang of ice,
baseball game...


so, selfish, unbelieving.
too caught in my own petty
problems not to see


the depth of this pool, the
edges long skirted. i toedipped.
now every pore of parched skin
an open mouth, crying
for full immersion.


am i too far back, now? tide
out, i smell my regrets in damp 
stretches of long beach between us, 
watching edges of you ebb,
a listless lapping at the shore.


i realized you were sending dreams to me
but they were overloading my senses like acid - 
images were crowding into me, 
thematic strands from every dream fragment coalescing,
riffing on each other, extraordinarily powerful in being 
literal fractals at amazing depth/resolution/speed of changing iterations -
more than just fractals however, 
fiendishly clever patterns that were
ten steps ahead of my brain, sly, 
socially conscious patterns, metaphors - 
i tried to tell you telepathically that it felt invasive,
to intentionally set off these cascades 
of images in my brain, to see what would happen, 
if my head would pop off... oh the irony - 
unsui irony, like wild geese lost in the clouds


oh god i try to write of you
it pours out, and i weep.
i can't encapsulate this in my
small words, my usually tidy
boxed stanzas stack so weakly, 


the tape, the packing
all done wrong. i couldn't 
ship you this, the sorry state of me.
sore and sunburnt 


you were asleep, as well as your visiting mother,
father, and brother - i was amazed 
at how soundly asleep you were - 
i could see your head and shoulders 
in some twist of bedsheets, dark hair - 
the house was serene, there was an easy summer vibe - 
the house was shaped strangely, designed 
more for aesthetics than functionality,
but beautifully textured with odd angles, 
shiny surfaces, wood and stone, elemental


and repentant;
if it were longer, i would 
trail my hair over 
your tear-bathed feet,


kiss them and atone.










so there, today, one for the void. 
that void we love so well. 
that embraces when nothing else does.

i dream

i watch the son of atlas crest
the curve
of the horizon
of the world which rests

upon his father's
long back.

he, too, hunches;
stooped shoulders slung,
his two arm
stretch, bear other

burdens, the weight
of the fear of man.

he smears a cynic's
smile at me
strikes out a hand.

it holds one quick second.

the other, so taxed,
or full, can only drag
bloodied knuckles, bones
bare from one
eternal scraping.

his teeth glisten in my ear,
he tells its contents:

the sound
of the setting sun.

distance

now that all your distance surrounds me

i stand unarmed inside a lone evening

the honey is fragrant on the table

and there is thunder in the valley,

much anxiety between the one and the other

i am frequented space

deserted by your sun.

come. ask me where

shout solitude at me

and this sky tainted with dismay

with mountain lights

has learned me by heart forever.

- andrea zanzotto, translated from italian by ruth feldman and brian swann.

oh, it's always more important in the morning

what with it being 4:30ish when i posted that, i'd forgotten about my dream blog, hence the 4:21 post has been moved to there.

i need to decide to either conglomerate all my blogs into this one, or do a better job of maintaining their specific purposes and allocating my posts accordingly.

oh music, music you are my solace and my comfort this thirsty thursday.

i need a better line on things more soul-sustaining. i feel like painting, or drawing, for real - not digitally. something big and bold and brimful of meaning.


this my excavation today is come and gone
everything that happens is from now on
this is pouring rain
this is paralyzed


i'll keep throwing down two
hundred at a time


and it's hard to find it when you knew it
when your money's gone
and you're drunk as hell


and your back cracks
as the stacks you load
in the back with the racks
in stacks you unload
on your back with the racks 
and you're unstacking your load


i've been twisting to the sun
i needed to replace
and the fountain in your front yard is rusted out
all my love was down in a frozen ground


there's a black crow sitting across from me
his wiry legs are crossed
and he's dangling my keys, he even fakes a toss


whatever could it be
that has brought me to this loss?


and your back cracks

as the stacks you load

in the back with the racks

in stacks you unload

on your back with the racks 

and you're unstacking your load


this is not the sound of a new man

or a crispy realization
it's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away
your love will be
safe with me

4:21 am

either it's from falling asleep to a mazzy star album on repeat, or it's from spending several hours talking to you before that, that caused me to wake up at 4:21 this morning (7 minutes ago from when i'm writing this) from an extremely vivid, strange dream about you.

you came to visit, or i came to visit? my family, my grandparents, at my house, or my grandma's house (sometimes it was both? i think it was even a walmart for part of the time.) but that wasn't the first thing, the first thing i can remember is that i was up in a loft of some sort, like a loft in my cousin's old barn, open to the ground below. i was laying up in it on a blanket, with a pillow, talking to you - maybe it was on the phone or the computer, but it wasn't typing, it was actually talking. we were talking about music of course, sharing songs. you were saying things and they were showing up in my head like type, and i was saying things back like i was typing them back at you in my head. it was kind of dark, cold outside, but not freezing, just a nice evening. i was showing you some songs you didn't know, and you were telling me about them from a new perspective, and they felt like new songs. i went to find more.

i left you and forgot to tell you where i was going. i walked to nelson, because that's where the music was, only it was a shoe store, or a hat store? it was a shoe music store that also sold hats. i had to find a hat with ear flaps to cover my earbuds. there were strange people in the store, kept staring at me, like i didn't belong there, like i was trying to hard to be meaningful and they could tell, or they didn't like my music, or they didn't like that i was paying more attention to the music than i was to them. i was looking for albums to get for you, only they were boots, each boot played music somehow. i pulled the hat, a knit one with black and white stripes, down further over my ears and chose... six... six boots, i think. one was small, dark grey with black laces, one was black and scrunched up. one was blue, somewhere between sky and robin's egg blue, one was also grey like the first, only lighter, and it had white bird silhouettes all over it. then another black one - not really a boot, more of a bootie - it folded down, with a zipper. and an old one, like a combat boot. thick sole.

i went back to the barn with my prizes. you were there on the blanket, laying on your back looking up at the sky, talking like i hadn't left, i felt bad. i apologized, and showed you the music i'd gotten. you liked it, you wanted to talk about it. i was disarmed by the fact that you were actually there, and wasn't paying as much attention to what you were saying as i was just watching you. i kept looking at your hands, the way you were holding the boots, talking about them like they were important, like they meant things, and i was embarrassed because they weren't better. you wanted to know where i got them - i heard that part, i was listening - and i told you. you got mad at me, that i had gone all that way and hadn't told you, upset that i hadn't taken you with me, you said it would have saved me from the difficult stares of the strange people at the store. we went back together, to look for pairs for the music i'd brought you, but they were gone. we were sad that the music was gone.

there was a couple there, with a little girl with red hair, it was curly. you were off looking at music down one of the aisles, and i was talking to the girl, telling her about the time that i had red hair just like hers, i was dancing and twirling for her, she was laughing. her mom made some comment about how she was finally old enough for her hair, or for the dance, or something that i can't quite remember anymore. you came and took my arm, pulling me toward the door. we were done at the store and you wanted to talk to me some more, about the music. i followed you, i was watching you talk to me as you walked, mesmerized by the way your mouth was moving. i was so glad you were there, glad you'd consented to come visit my family with me, but not sure how to explain your presence.

when we got to my house, i told my mother and grandma that we were old friends. we were trying to find you room, a place to stay, i wanted you to stay by me but no one would have that. we laid out old blankets and pillows on the landing of the stairs, you left to shower, i left to, pull myself together, to explain something? to change and hide - i can kind of see all those situations in my head still, from the dream, but i can't remember - my grandpa was there, but he was actually one of my coworkers, telling me something about charles schultze, how he was one of three people who were saved by charlie brown.

you were showering in my grandma's bathroom, i put in a load of laundry in the washing machine in the basement. i saw grandma go into her room and i panicked - not that she would see you naked, but that she'd see your long hair and beard - scruff? i think it was just scruff, it wasn't a beard. I had to stop her and explain that you were a friend who was visiting and needed a place to stay. she wanted to make sure we weren't sleeping together in the same room. you came out fully dressed and i introduced you, and you were so gracious and genteel, it made me feel awkward and clumsy.

i took you down the hall to the kitchen to meet my mother and sisters, they were making dinner, something with lobster and something else with chocolate, they needed my help. you stood in the doorway, just kind of watching me interact with them, and i felt like my sister was being ridiculous, trying to tell you all my embarrassing childhood storie. i was helping mom make soup, in a big dutch oven on a giant copper stove - old fashioned, the kind with the little lids over the holes into the fire below, i thought i dropped the soup into the oven, but i didn't, i told mom we had to leave. she said to get more lobster - i apologized to you for my strange family and we left in one of the cars. you were laughing at me, watching me. amused at how flustered i was because of my family, how over-apologetic i was.

we were driving in a small car, more of a golf cart, really, only without a top, and i was driving, but i was on the right-hand side of the car. you were quiet, watching me, almost panicking, i think. something about the way i was driving was making you panic. we kept having to drive through these patches of water, murky water - like we were driving through the avenues of some fancy english garden and there was magically going to be a lobster at the end of one of them, and parts of them were overflowing with water. the car almost overturned, but i stopped it just in time. we drove past my dog.

i think that was how we ended up at the walmart, anyway, they didn't have an lobster, but they did have a christmas tree, and we decided to get one, or my grandma decided to get one? some old mexican lady who looked like grandma, but wasn't, decided we should get one. and then she wanted us to find ornaments for it, but they were all sold out. it was christmas tree after-christmas clearance, and everything was picked over. i was wearing flip flops, there was something in my shoe irritating me and i flicked it out as we were looking through the trashy, broken ornaments left over on the clearance shelves, and you stopped and went to pick it up, but i wouldn't let you. i picked it up and threw it away, surprised that you were so anti-litter, it was just a pebble. you left and came back with a bucket and a mop, you mopped the floor which turned back into my house or something - we ran into my brothers who we thought were playing video games at first, but it turned out they were building a racetrack.

you watched, bemused, while i helped them figure out part of it, and then i apologized for making you stand there with a bucket of cleaning supplies, you told me not to worry about it, you liked watching me like that. we went to put them back away in grandma's bathroom, under the cupboard, where they went, and she caught us (which was apparently a bad thing?) she told us we couldn't sleep at the top of the stairs, that we'd need to find you a room. i took you down to the basement, and you were teasing me about my blanket (it was a care bears blanket? i don't have one in real life) good-natured teasing, not at all malicious. i went to find a new one, and when i came back, you had folded all of my laundry, and i couldn't find you anywhere.

i went on a hunt, anxious about which of my family members had cornered you and were lecturing you on something or other and embarrassing me (it seemed to be a theme for the evening, although the tone of the dream wasn't like that. the whole dream was set during dusk, or twilight, it was actually strikingly beautiful) i went outside and you were out there with work gloves on, getting a shovel! i was appalled that my family had somehow conned you into yard work, and i told grandma that you were probably exhausted from an already busy day and that you were NOT going to do any yard work, regardless of the circumstances and even if you had offered to.

i pulled you away a safe distance from my crazy family, but my little brother was filming something - the moon, it was a huge moon, low, waning - and he couldn't situate the picture right, kept getting glare. we helped him, well, you helped him, get some amazing shots of it, and then handed me the camera.

i was replaying what we'd recorded, as we were recording it? suddenly the cul-de-sac was filled with high-piled bookshelves, it was a book store, but there was no roof, just a purple sky, there were twinkling red lights - no, not red, in fact, i don't think they were lights at all. they were fireflies. fireflies luminescing in the book stacks that you were pulling me through. there was music playing, i was watching the sparkles of the fireflies in the small screen on the camcorder and then in real life and laughing, amazed.

i woke up, and it felt like one of those dreams i needed to write down. my earbuds were still in, i hadn't moved the whole night, and this song was playing, half over...