shore

white leaves shiver in
white branches that bend
and sway with unnatural
and discordant rhythm.

small dervishes of fog
move heavy, crowded
against the ground.

invisible arms
gather flotsam and
pull it back.

there is salt
in the opalescent air,
shimmering,
you can taste it when
you breathe.

it tingles at
the back of your
throat.

time is every
second tremble,
of every leaf;
the mealy squish
of wet sand
between your toes.

the retreat of
love, or affection
in the wet, white moments
of the morning.

rope chafes, hands
cling to a heavy line -
hold fast. waves slap
loud, unseen against
wood sides.

you caught the boat
just in time,
this time,
before other arms and hands
could pull it back, fast
out to sea.

impressions and impetus

a surprisingly good mood, for a monday. overcast, low clouds on the east horizon. by low, i mean they're skirting the mountaintops, so perhaps "low" is relative for those who don't live in a valley, but when the top of this giant bowl in the middle of the rockies is covered with clouds, i feel snug, blanketed. overcast grey days are a rarity in the summer, especially around here, and despite their stigma, are my favorite kind of days. the greens get deeper, everything's a little less yellow, a little less dry and baked feeling.

slept good, weird dreams, but good sleep. i remembered them when i woke up, but not anymore. it's all good, they weren't significant, just my brain spinning off. unwound. it's amazing what a three-day weekend can do sometimes.

i've been watching hell's kitchen, season 8, the last week or so, because it always fascinates me to watch the way other people cook, the way other people mesh. and despite his sailor-mouth (which, after all my years of gaming, i myself seem to have acquired) i actually quite like gordon ramsay. i've seen his softer side on kitchen nightmares, and i think he's actually a pretty great guy. doesn't hurt that he's a hottie, either.

anyway, the reason i share that is because i've been thinking a lot about life the last few days, my life specifically. the direction it's going. my manager wants me to go back to school this fall. he's one of those people who think that it doesn't matter what you get a degree in, as long as you have a degree, a piece of paper that says, i kicked four years' ass by jumping through more hoops than anyone should and made it out the other side. because apparently a degree makes you a better person. so, despite my own personal feelings to the contrary about this, everyone i've talked to seems to think it's time for me to go to school, or at least do something beside spend all day sitting in a warehouse doing mindless drone work and bitching about how discontented i am. because, let's face it, it's a pretty miserable job, and i DO do a lot of bitching these days.

so, i was looking around at graphic design classes at one of the local colleges, and it's like... i don't want to do that. drawing is boring to me lately. it's flat and you can't... get IN it, like i don't want a job where i'll be stuck in front of a computer tweaking crap in adobe all day - how is that fulfilling? maybe it is for some people, but not for me. i just want a career where i can do some of everything, as long as it's expressive and involved, right? but what kind of career would that be? i want a little art boutique/restaurant/music place. i want it to look good, i want to make things that look good, and taste good, and have everything sound good. i want expression and creativity and fun and i want people to be there interacting, enjoying, sharing ideas.

so what do i have to do to get that? culinary school? i know i've got the art down. i just need to practice it more consistently, and honestly, art classes drive me crazy, it's why i quit school in the first place. but then, maybe i need to just get my associates in something, so that i can have a job that i enjoy even a little, while i'm working on my crazy "career" dream.

iunno. i just have to go do something, because sitting around waiting for some great guy and all the "plans" that i thought would be in place already to fall in my lap isn't cutting it anymore. so what, if i'm not married? so what, i don't have a house or kids or a car or all those things i expected of myself at this stage of life? i feel like i've been hanging around hoping some magic door would open and that life would be there on the other side and it would be cut and dry, 1-2-3, simple, open, shut, done.

but that's not life. life never works like that, and if you think it does, then you're just lying to yourself. and i'm tired of lying to myself. life is dynamic and fluid and expressive, and when you're not willing to go with the flow and figure out the twists and turns, then it will keep going without you. it'll wash right past you, like a river. and you will be that stubborn rock stuck in the current, slowly eroding, wearing down smaller and smaller and smaller.

i'm tired of eroding, of feeling myself washing away in path of time and life that i'm too scared to let take me to all those places that i should be.

no more rock, it's time to roll.

a dream disinterred

from a letter written in october of '09

I dreamt I was back in Stamford. It was autumn, the trees had all turned, but the leaves hadn't dropped. Early evening. You were with me. We were walking. Walking along the side of a long, twisting and narrow road. One side walled up by huge boulders, that jutted out into the road... I remember walls like that in Stamford. Roads like that. The other side was a sharp drop into a ravine. Stamford is hilly, forested. Everywhere is trees. And every tree was yellow, orange and red. The wind was blowing, but the sun was still out, just setting. Just starting to set. Bright orange rays breaking through leaves and branches. The waving currents of the wind in the leaves, and the long glow of sunlight made it look like the trees were on fire, but it was cold.

You were holding my hand. Our fingers folded between each other's, alternating, interlocked. I remember turning my head to watch you as you walked, watch your face as you looked at the trees, the leaves, the sunset. You looked happy, content, interesting, intrigued. You turned your head and smiled at me with the corner of your mouth and pulled me closer to you. Letting go of my hand, and wrapping your arm around my shoulders, I reached up and held your hand again, as it hung over my shoulder. I played with your fingers, turned my head to kiss your hand and leaned against you as we walked, grateful for how warm you were. Grateful for the way you held me close. I tilted my head back against your arm and looked up at the holes of sky between the trees, watched the way the top of the sky was turning purple, and the long arms of light reaching sideways through the tree trunks had turned red.

I heard a small laugh, noticed for the first time small skipping footsteps on the other side of you and leaned my head forward, craning my neck to see a small boy, 3 or 4, jumping over the rocks and leaves on the road as had his small hand wrapped tight around two of your fingers to hold on and keep from falling. The familiar brown, curly hair, and eyes pierced my heart when he looked up at my face and laughed as he jumped over a rock AND a leaf at the same time, the laugh a small squeal of delight. I smiled back at him, laughing softly, and looked back at you, your eyes moved over my face, watching me, beaming. That glow of your smile more fitting, more perfect than the setting sun behind you.

That moment felt so real, everything accentuated. Everything seemed to burn itself into my senses. The weight of your arm on my shoulder, the twist of your fingers in mine. The way the wind was whispering strands of hair against my cheek, the streaks of dirt on the white of Max's little black sneakers as he kicked and jumped, the warmth of you and your smile. The trees and sunset reflecting in the dark of your eyes as you looked at me like nothing made you happier than knowing that I was happy, that you'd given me everything that I wanted, and that everything that I wanted was there in that one small moment. None of us said anything, words were superfluous. All that mattered was there, your hand in mine. Our small son laughing, beside us.

And the dream faded, cut out and something else took its place, like my mind changed channels, and it was shapes and a situation that I knew was a dream, and I couldn't recall colors or people or whatever else happened when I woke up, but I remembered that dream of us, of you. I wish you could have seen it. I wish that it had been real. Perhaps it will be, one day. Maybe not exactly the same... but close. 

babysteps, i need...

a vacation.

you don't have to be backlit to be the villain

insistence gets you 70% of the way. 89% if no one really notices or cares. it's why you can't look people in the eye. too personal. it makes them notice, it makes them care.

tonight you've been thinking about what your dad said to you - two, three - years ago about not loving the wounded place. about how you can't ever be whole and happy if you use those soulholes to comfort yourself in some way.

the hole as a crutch, the hole as a means of separation, difference, distinction. the hole as some antagonistic gathering  place of artistic or passionate integrity. you can exist with a hole easily enough, people do it every day. you can't exist, truly, if you let the hole fill with gravity and suck the rest of you in some slow spiral draining.

if, as you say, who you are is based on the riding of your emotional waves, then the hole with gravity is your most dangerous foe. the emotions center on it, swirl and are swallowed. around and around and around until you're sucked in and still spiraling. is it any wonder you feel that your life has been lived in so many circles?

your wound can close around the bullet. skin returns to flat skin, heal but never be fully healed. you can carry the bullet inside secretly like some badge of honor or memory that you are solely cognizant of, but if you want to recover, you have to get the bullet out. there has to be some extrication or the memory will always be there, will always fester, no matter how things look on the outside.

this is obvious, this is what doesn't really need to be said. this isn't what you do.

what you do, actually instead of ideally, is rip the bullet out, identify it as a bullet and then frame the bullet and focus on the bullet and keep pulling the scab off where it was, keep slicing the stitches back open, to see if you're healed yet. and you can insist that you don't love the wounded place, but love was just a semantic. it's the obsession with the wounded place that will suck you in. it's the attention and the headspace you give it. sometimes - lots of times - emotionally, you have to slap a band-aid on it and keep on playing. or it will never heal, and you will never get anything done.

you'd be better off collecting scars and stories, than sitting on the bathroom counter examining the blood and the pain and the progress that will never come.

it's not an epiphany, and it's not supposed to be a lesson or a lecture. it's just the space you are in your head tonight, trying to glean tiny bits worth biting off the last scraps of leftover advice.

you always talk about more red, wanting the more red. the blood isn't more red. especially if it's your own.

you can't find new colors in yourself if you haven't spent enough time outside of yourself to gather any other colors in the first place.

you can trip over your favorite temptations, we all have them. those vices that we say no to all day, and then let in at night when it's dark and they're familiar and the familiarity and the habit are a comfort in their own way, regardless of the thing.

how hard is it to make a habit, a familiarity, out of a good thing? harmony is opposing tension. there is as much emotional truth, as much - if not more - artistic integrity, in making it all a good thing, or shone in a good light.

your life is hard, but it is not as hard as some. take heart, and whole, and pull in the edges. there is substance is the nothole. substance and discovery and the tiny-veined weavings of truth.

the lines are not always cracks. somewhere, and sometime, you will turn on again, in darkness, and the beauty will have been right there in front of you all along.

you can build as many good things with tiny stones, as bad ones. make the mountains of your molehills majestic, challenging; climb and overcome.

it's not the mountain that changes, it's you.

you have to trust yourself enough to say, i can't see it, but it's there. i expect to see it, therefore it is.

the cat in schrodinger's box is dead and not dead. stop beating the dead cat and pick the other side for once. it's just as real, just as valid, especially when the box is still closed.

even if you don't normally listen to the songs, listen to this one. 

waiting for the beat to kick in - dan le sac vs. scroobius pip

silently i step up with a subversive subtext
trying to feed the need for more than just remedial subjects
place my faith in the belief that the general public
will open up their minds to more than just an industry puppet
i ain't a preacher preaching doom and gloom
well, not just yet, 
but if there's something i feel strongly about then i'll discuss it
and if i only make one album before i kick the bucket
i'll hold that album to my heart in my grave and say fuck it


waiting for the beat to kick in, but it never does
waiting for my feet to grow wings that lift me above
all of these tiresome things that we know and love
waiting for the beat to kick in, but it never does


a lot of my poems i write seem start with me waking up
or being in a dream, or dream-like state
now this implies a certain level of abstraction in my work, 
you might say i'm keeping it surreal, but i'd rather you didn't
fact is, i sleep a lot, it's as simple as that
i like sleeping, man, it's a nice place to be


i was walking along through unfamiliar streets
and it felt strange because there didn't seem to be anyone else around
i don't know where i was but it had the feel of new york,
but not new york in real life, the new york you see in old films
i can't really explain why, it just had that vibe
every step i took felt somehow more dramatic
so i kept walking, and down an alley behind a bar sitting on some metal steps i saw a man
from the look and the smell of him it was clear he enjoyed the drink
but he wasn't in such a state that i felt him to be any kind of irrational threat
so i approached him, with due care


ah, mister pip, he said out loud
we've been awaiting you, my name is elwood p. dowd
now just what he meant by we i didn't really get
but all the same i took a seat next to him on the step
he said you'll meet a few people before this day is through
who will administer advice and guidelines to you
now what each of us says i'll tell you now is true
but whether or not you take that advice is for you to choose


at that point he acted like someone had whispered in his ear
which, since no one else was there, was pretty damn weird
awkwardly i looked away and kind of played with my beard
he cleared his throat for a second and then said listen here


in this life you can be oh-so-smart or oh-so-pleasant
for years i was smart, i recommend pleasant
being smart can make you rich and bring respect and reverence
but the rewards of being pleasant are far more incandescent


with this information i was encouraged to walk on
i continued along through these empty streets
thinking over what elwood had said,
but at the same time, thinking over how fucking strange the day had been so far
i was in my own little world when a hand was placed on my chest
and a man said look out, there's some broken glass on the floor there


i looked up


he said hi, pleased to meet you, my name is lloyd dobbler
i'll get straight to the point, won't take too much time from ya,
i'm probably the youngest person you'll get advice from today
and you may think a guy my age wouldn't have anything to say
but it's said that observation not old age brings wisdom
and i observe every single life lesson i'm given
i won't attempt to tell you how to love or be loved
because you get a different genie each time that lantern is rubbed
but i will offer you advice from dealing with life
it's ups and it's downs, it's trials and it's strife
and i'm sure you've had times you've felt down and angry
and you wanted to lash out and punch a wall and be manly
but the question i pose now will offer you a plan b
and maybe some peace and quiet for your friends and family
how hard is it to decide to be in a good mood, 
and then just be in a good mood?
that's all i have to say, because it's a straight-up fact
you control your emotions, it's as simple as that


he walked off then, 
leaving me to contemplate this brief encounter
i barely had time to realize i was being taught something 
before he was
gone
and i was back on my way


on i walked and almost immediately i spotted the next guide
and he couldn't be clearer
this guy was standing on the street corner and pacing back and forth
skinny lookin' guy, leather jacket, tight jeans - retro look
i'd rarely seen someone look quite so uncomfortable in their own skin,
twitchin', smoothing his hair back, kicking the floor and looking up and a down the street
he clearly didn't enjoy waiting around so i approached him quickly
to put him out of his misery
and to let him start his
spiel


hi my name is billy brown,
i ain't gonna give you some quote
instead i'm gonna use some stuff that YOU wrote:
always had the feeling i could never be the villain
'cause the villain in the films is always backlit
now i find it pleasing
to defend myself with reason
but the clock is always sitting on my back
tick tick tick
then, no explosion but persistence brings erosion
like a picture overly exposed and
like a fox that's been run over in the road and


basically what i'm trying to say to you is
you don't achieve anything by letting the past rule within you
getting all pent-up and angry about stuff just eats away inside you, 
what's that other line of yours...


if you can't forgive and forget, how's this?
forget forgiving and just accept that that's it
see that's how it's gotta be
then you can fall in love, get on with life and be free


almost before he could even finish that sentence he was off down the street
hands in his pockets, hurrying away


now quite accepting of the total surreal time i was having 
i rounded a corner and continued on to my next encounter
resigned to the fact this was some dream or hallucination, 
i made my way through the now dark street, 
to the one window that had a light on,
i walked through the unlocked door which incidentally had blinds down
and a silhouetted figure like a film noir scene,
but sadly no sign saying private eye
as i entered a voice promptly said:


this journey's almost over, i'm the only one left 
allow me to introduce myself, my name is walter neff
the other guys have taught you things of great positive worth
but i'm afraid i'm here to bring you back down to earth
see you can live your life in control and be nice
but even that will not promise you a happy life
you may think yourself in general to be a nice guy
but i'm telling you now - that right there is a lie


even the nicest guys have some nasty within 'em
you don't have to be backlit to be the villain
whether it be greed, lust or just plain vindictiveness
there's a level of malevolence inside of all of us
you can paint yourself an image and live in your own little dream
but this ain't a dream, it's one big silver screen
so when you think you've got your happy ending don't ever forget it,
it ain't over till you hear the sound of your end credits


you'll be waiting for the beat to kick in, but it never does
waiting for your feet to grow wings that lift you above
all of these tiresome things that you know and love
waiting for the beat to kick in, but it never does

pyre

stepped on, ground underfoot,
the twist
of skin flayed by asphalt.
rock, hard place.

withdraw.

fingertips on edges,
walls were too hot.
outside the room, it burns.

tired.

of being ashes,
of being burnt-black
and blowaway.

of words
piles and piles
of words and wishes
of work and wanting...

nothing,

at the end
of these fingers
but more words
more black

more buried.

withdraw.

tiny stones build
an altar for this
holey heart.

a sacrifice:
self and
satisfaction.

by time,
with tiny hands
and tiny hammers.

so many tiny stones.

when the pyre
is complete,
there will be
no angel of god,
staying the knife
saying it was just

a test, a test
and you passed.
there will be

just
a mountain
made

of tiny stones
around a room
of tiny stones

around a tomb
of tiny stones
around a sarcophagus

of tiny stones
around tiny,
tiny stones,

and smoke

and nothing.

all my troubles

in a burning pile.

je sais, je sais que je sais jamais

you can't write lyrics for songs you don't sing
you sure can't keep track of every loose string
the wind will blow
notes come so slow
and holding on tight is how to lose everything

it's not just the good songs that get stuck in your head
and sometimes you're glad to sleep in a cold, empty bed
the catchiest tune
or the loneliest room
can both be full of words that no one should have said

what you never had will be what you miss most
it's easiest to be haunted by nobody's ghost
empty can ache
stillness will shake
what rips you wide open are those doors that stay closed