grey day runaway

six shots this morning -
and everything i listen to -
leave my mouth tasting bitter.
it was sent in a rush,
some desperate inner push
reached for reaching,
arms too short as always.

so you fall back, you know.
back into the things that hold you.
back from everything going on outside.
pwn noobs, hunter.
don't give a damn,
it only hurts till the pain stops,
the familiar gutwist
knifejab of all the
things you wish were more real.

plain old not enough red.

a call from the old australian
went straight to voicemail
because i screen
everything
and thought it was a telemarketer
even though i jumped
eagerly onto the do not
call list bandwagon
they still slip through.

i should get off again,
just because i want
people to call me.
some people. i need to specify.

anyway sorry, adam.
good luck in weipa.
it looks pretty in the
google images.
when you said poeser,
i thought you said bonza and i
was almost flattered.

as you were, gentlemen.

every day i wake up
alone because i'm not like
all the other boys.

i thought the net was
lifting me out of the sea.
it wasn't.
i'm stuck in an 800 lb crabpot and
it's dragging me down.
a lure for big boys
who like to grab things
in the dark.

freezing and trapped,
pull everything else down, is that it?
wait for the haul-in.

i'd blow my money on
some triumph
and break out
of this one-trick town.

drive north. to a no-trick town.
settle down.
marry a fisherman.
alaska alaska alaska
it's always been there in the back
of my mind.

i remember eighth grade.
who remembers eighth grade?
the guidance counselor asked
me what i wanted
to be when i grew up
i said a hermit who published
books through the mail for a living.
whaddaya know, i could
be halfway there.

i am halfway there.

twist and whisper the
wrong name, i don't care.
fists out. impotent ghostfighting.
all i want is
to punch holes into nothing.
bite something corporeal.
i'll run back and shake him
tightly. fight me.
miss your face like hell, but
refuse
to admit it.

a year from now we'll all be gone.
my family lives in a different state.
if you don't know what to make
of this, then we will not relate.

calloused fingers won't make you strong, edith wong.
something isn't right.
when you're kissing someone new
but you know your heart's not through
with the last boy
do you say to yourself 'this will do?'
practice all day long
till the notes are perfect
but your heart's all wrong.

doubledown the slow drown
more music, more riptide, more numb
sit in the window
but don't answer the door.
the phone rings and rings.
and rings and rings
and things.

split ends get straight
stuck at the gate
you'd run
but you missed the starting gun.

maybe we'll sing that song that we
liked the most.
maybe you'll forgive me.
maybe i'll forget.
i'll sing along to the national.

it's just these pieces that i give away.
straight cinnamon on my lips again.
i lied, it was cayenne.
not honey.

back from temporary leave, it's the monday music shuffle!

(p.s. since when can you not embed youtube videos anymore? that's bollocks.)

"Stay Close" by Delorean
each secret you keep
keeps me a bit far
but i want to know
burn down the mysteries
though i know i won't
i'll never know it
i could never stand not being closer
how come
we argued again?
you suggest i didn't grasp it
it got dark some time ago now
now i'm lost
where can i reach you?
get up get up get up

"Lipstick on Your Collar" by The Saints
when you left me all alone at the record hop
you said you were going out for a soda pop
but you were gone for quite a while, half an hour or more
you came back another girl and this is what i saw
lipstick on your collar told a tale on you yeah
lipstick on your collar says you and i are through
coz lipstick on your collar is coming down on you

(love that old school aussie punk. mm.)

"Il Cielo In Una Stanza" by Mondo Cane
quando sei qui con me
questa stanza non ha pi? pareti
ma alberi,
alberi infiniti
quando sei qui vicino a me
questo soffitto viola
no, non esiste pi?
lo vedo il cielo sopra noi
che restiamo qui
abbandonati
come se non ci fosse pi?
niente, pi? niente al mondo
suona un'armonica
mi sembra un organo
che vibra per te e per me
su nell'immensit? del cielo.
per te, per me:
nel cielo

"Welcome Home" by Idlewild
i go outside to find the middle of nowhere
everyone needs their own empty stage
just like the sky with no beginning or ending
or like reading a book without a last page
as we live our lives through a series of glances
and you smile without smiling for a whole 'nother year
i think we need a little bit more understanding
i think the future is already here
stop, turn around
and say it with your eyes closed
you don't need to welcome me home
stop, turn around
try looking with your eyes wide open
welcome home
welcome home

"La Gloria" by Gotan Project
una tarde espectacular
un partido impresionante
toma la pelota nini flores de corrientes
un verdadero duende
un mago del bandoneón,
hábil y musical, siempre inspirado
la va dejando para el ruso wasserman, gustavo wasserman
auténtico gaucho judio de venado tuerto
un sabio, quizás el músico argentino
más importante residente en europa
va dejando la pelota para lini cruz, 
la violinista danesa tanguera, 
dinamita en lose dedos y en el alma, bellisima
va tocando la pelota por el costado para el beto müller
beto müller se acerca al área, 
la va dejando para philippe cohen solal,
phillipe cohen toca para eduardo makaroff, 
que está frente al arquero, va a tirar, tiró,
GOOOOOOOOOOOOTAAAAN, 
GOOOOOOOOOOOOTAAAAN.

so much want!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im1iNq02Kz0

today i am in love with vincent van gogh

"What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum." 

 ~

"Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, ‘You can't do a thing’. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerizes some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of `you can't' once and for all." 

~

"One cannot always tell what it is that keeps us shut in, confines us, seems to bury us, but still one feels certain barriers, certain gates, certain walls. Is all this imagination, fantasy? I don not think so. And then one asks: My God! Is it for long, is it for ever, is it for eternity? Do you know what frees one from this captivity? it is very deep serious affection. Being friends, being brothers, love, that is what opens the prison by supreme power, by some magic force." 

~

"Quick work doesn't mean less serious work, it depends on one's self-confidence and experience. In the same way Jules Guérard, the lion hunter, says in his book that in the beginning young lions have a lot of trouble killing a horse or an ox, but that the old lions kill with a single blow of the paw or a well-placed bite, and that they are amazingly sure at the job... I must warn you that everyone will think that I work too fast. Don't you believe a word of it. Is it not emotion, the sincerity of one's feeling for nature, that draws us, and if the emotions are sometimes so strong that one works without knowing one works, when sometimes the strokes come with a continuity and coherence like words in a speech or a letter, then one must remember that it has not always been so, and that in time to come there will again be hard days, empty of inspiration. So one must strike while the iron is hot, and put the forged bars on one side." 

~ Vincent van Gogh 

tick tick tick tick tick tick tick away

my friends don't really get me, think i'm the only one. well, i sold my soul to jesus and since then i've had no fun. behind every tree's a cutting machine and a kite fallen from grace. inside every man is a heart of sand, you can see it in his face.

i was in an indoor forest, and there were spiders everywhere on the ground. like... real spiders. spiders the size of your foot. those giant bird-eating spiders, and those nasty funnelweb spiders. and i was with some other... ladies... i think? we were walking through and they were all freaking out, but i was trying to not be the littlest little girl screamer of the group, so whilst my mind was overwhelmed with highpitch hysteria, i wasn't making any noise. and then a man in black slacks, and a white button-down with black suspenders and a low black fedora came in to take us out of the forest. and when i looked at his face, he had no eyes. just empty sockets. black as black as black. but they weren't off-putting enough to distract me from his chiseled features, or how attractive his hands were. i was only going to walk behind him, why did it matter what his eyes did or didn't look like?

the wind and i, we speak the same, but he don't hear so well. you're gonna have to curse him, well you're gonna have to yell. the sky and i we've had our fights and i'm coming round to rain. if the rain come round and i don't go out i don't ever have to speak again.


such a rainy, grizzly grey month april has been! the weather report says we might be getting valley snow this friday. that's ridiculous. i remember my birthday, in 9th grade, when i turned 15, it snowed and that felt super late to me and i couldn't believe that it would snow in april. now, don't get me wrong, i love rain. i adore rain. the snow and the cold? not so much. but spring rain, when the rain finally turns warm and you can go play in it and run around and get soaked to the bone, but not frozen - that is some of my absolute favorite weather. and one of the multiple reasons i feel so drawn northwest these days. the weather up north is mah fraverite. i want the pacific coast, i just don't want california. everyone else can have california, it's never been the place for me. and if portland weren't the mecca for every pretentious indie hipster poser, portland would be the place for me. i thought it was gorgeous when i went. like someone stuck a city in the middle of a rainforest. but no - portland's too inland. coast coast coast - i need the coast. i remember sitting in the trees by the heceta head lighthouse. on the side of this coastal mountain thing, and i could hear the wind in the trees, and the waves at the same time, and smell the ocean, and i remember telling myself i could live in that one spot for the rest of my life and be completely content. my... all of me... yearns for the coast and the ocean. some soulpull riptide keeps trying to drag me further west. and i feel the need to succumb.

the captain's got his boots on and he's heading out the door. leaving his lady alone, thinking "he don't love me no more." he's done with all his bullshit, he's going back to war. if heaven is as heaven does, then this is hell for sure.


oh, it was a month for remembering and forgetting you. jamming straw in all the chinks of the walls that you tore down. torn down or... exploded. it seemed like a major detonation, really. other days it only felt like it was a minor collapse. every so often i see it for what we really were. a long, slow deflation. after all the hot air ballooning up in the sky is over, it's back to earth, a bit of a bumpy landing. and you have to lay it out in a huge flat open space and watch it fall into itself until there's no air left and then you fold it carefully, and roll it up, and cram it into something so much smaller than it was. and you drive off and the thing that's occupying that small space in the boot of the car seems impossibly different, wholly alien from the massive colorful slow grace that carried you in the sky. funny the things you can do, the places you can go, with a load of hot air. i will polish that metaphor and hang it on the blank wall in my mind to stare at for a while, and realize that's exactly what it was. i can live with that image. i can let that one go. i can come back to it and it will remind me of never, ever again.

the captain and the hourglass - laura marling