Sunday, August 7, 2011

dark grey metal chocolate

All the brittle, shining facets of my life-lived past now gone-- these memories of fleeting exhilaration and brilliant truths that fuel my hope and faith of what’s to come-- at times feels only like a baroque-bludgeoning… an endless, recurring soul-bone bloodless death by bittersweet.  

I feel trapped within a file cabinet of perpetual possibility steeped solely from intuition’s eye, confused and distracted by the plausible machinations of my inner mind, driven wild by subtle vein-visions that can never be attracted or attained.   

And it saddens me, to think that my real life holds very few actual moments of poignant joyful substance, that the only tangible, rejuvenating happiness I feel is through an illusory dream-state, induced and seduced by something I feel and know exists but can never taste, yet somehow recall ingesting.  

 A dessert-ghost haunts the shell of my conceptual existence, reducing my experiential palate to nothing more than a muddled blur of dark grey metal chocolate.  An intoxicating cognitive bane...the blight of being...the dusk of becoming...the limpness of light in the lull of love.

Mere residue lines these licked-clean infinite storage capsules in my mind. Resin for inspiring the bow that loosely holds my chords of sanity intact, until the melody of the sirens' call begins again its dance. 

And I’m entranced.

Monday, June 27, 2011

The beginning of the end of The beginning

It was a brief affair.  That spring the weather was refreshing, a sudden and welcomed break from the torrid ice storm that shut down everything in the area for 2 weeks, forcing everyone into hotels, or into barrack semblances of their everyday leisurely existences.  I'd decided to meet a friend at a local bar after being holed up for over a week, had gone outside for a smoke, and turned around to see him-- an acquaintance from an ex of my past.  The contagious smile caught my attention, our eyes collided simultaneous with mutual recognition, and we spent the rest of the night inseparable, talking nonstop,  and danced and laughed until dawn, when we both fell down exhausted and slept finally overcame us.

There was some bumpy resistance on both our parts, but despite our good intentions to heed those cliched social mores regarding exes of friends and friends of exes, we fell hard and fast anyway.  There was a sweet naivety about it all, and a charged sexuality to even it out, and it took us both by surprise.  One evening, after dusk-- when the night is dark and clear and the stars are just lighting the sky with their brightest flames-- he leaned into my ear, as the wind whipped through the trees around us, and I drew in a deep breath.  "One day I'll teach you how to listen to the wind, to hear what it says..." I smiled and settled back into him, looking upwards back into his face and those deep blue eyes, and said " I'd like that."

Not too much later, we parted ways.  It was hard for me at the time, although I knew we had different priorities, knew I needed more than he could ever give, knew I had so much more to give than he could ever grasp or use.  I suppose it was rather hard for him too at the time.  But such is life.  Sure, a lot more fun could have been had, perhaps a few more lessons learned, or insights shared, but not enough to prolong the inevitable fork in the road calling our names, in divergent paths.

On the last night that we met, once again upon his back deck, I looked at him, filled with the bittersweet rue of things left undone.  "You never showed me how to listen to the wind," I said, and he pulled me back into him, wrapping me in his arms, a moment just as pure and strong as the first night he brought it up. Tucking a strand of my hair behind me ear, he turned me around to face him and looked into my eyes.  "Ah, Charity," he sighed tenderly with a bittersweet smile of his own.  "But you already know how, darling..." I looked back into those blue eyes rivaling the clear spring night sky, and smiled, realizing what he spoke was the truth-- and moreso-- one I had known all along.  There was nothing more he could show me, and he had not the scope to see all the many mores I could show him.

I looked back up into the sky, and we danced a little spin and twirl, just as we'd done the first night we became more than acquaintances.  And then he released his grasp, and I spread my arms wide, as the winds whipped and swirled around me, and twirled slowly, becoming one with the fluency of the breeze.  The trees whispered, as if in response and attuned to my breath, and I kept twirling, twirling, until I stopped and opened my eyes upward to take in the night sky, just in time to see the tail end of a star shooting across the dark blue unknown.  I smiled, accepting confirmation that the beginning of the end was indeed over.  Then I took his hand, and he lifted me up, as I wrapped my legs around his waist-- our signature routine-- and we went inside to bed. Before the sliding door closed, I heard the winds call to me: 'Good night, love, we'll see you in the dawn.'

And the next morning, the sun was brighter and clearer than it had been the entire time of our affair. It was end of a new beginning.  A beginning long in the making, Atam, although it would yet be a few linear months until our official meeting in this world.  I just had to make a pit stop first. And you had to wake up and make the call.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

A Spell of Seconds

A spell of seconds,
sweet-sweet sweat,
the taste of skin, the smell of tongue,
his gaze consumed
- intent and will – his eyes,
a deep dark wet become
he starts out sweet then marks
his kill.

I may be dinner or his pet...
but either way we get our fill, though death,
may be our final thrill.

I know not,
what fuels this visceral silent rage--
what built this impermeable cage,
what kindles unspoken desire--
our inexplicable Fire smolders my will
to resist, and gives me
chills.

Our lyrics strike
odd harmony,
disjointed on a scale of harshly-soothing notes,
a melody of alligator daffodils and shredded pantyhose,
tangled sheets on broken glass,
arrhythmic rugburns,
scented sunshine and
a hint of ash.

We refrain--
in syncopated pulsing--
from Promises never made but
understood
Muting logic tossed
aside amidst the rush and throe of water-
falls,
anointing tall, moist, softly-
sharpened
blades of grass.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Dark Days, Light Waves

We've all thought about the enigma called life, it's purpose, its point(lessness.)  Perhaps we've even wallowed in ennui. And some of us have been carried away completely by the currents of our despair.

Some of us wash ashore, and awaken, with the grit of sand in our mouth, and the taste of blood on our tongue as a reminder.  For some it's a trip taken many times. And then there are those that never make it back to land, and instead relinguish their will to the ocean's refuge.  But I've no place or right or even knowledge to judge that decision or its outcome. 

Only one day can I remember being close to that point, but ironically the catalyst was not from any earthly plight, but rather from a detachment from it.  At the time-- aptly reduced to date-year 911 -- I was so far removed from 3rd dimensional perspective at the time, that I didn't see a difference in ending this lifegame to rejoin the universal energy, if this one-- given the enlightenment I'd reached-- offered no real outlet to play out the reason I knew I was supposed to be here. 

I won't forget that day, because I was without a car and a workmate drove me home.  Dark clouds were swirling in the sky, and I vaguely remember him telling me they were shelf clouds and could lead to tornadoes or other such disasters.  I half thought to myself- 'bring it on, then,' and took the picture above.  I got home as the wind started to blow hard and angry, uttered a genuine but weak appreciation for the ride, and stumbled into the house in a numb stupor ready for this existence to be over, and at peace with it. 

Truth be told, I was far too exhausted to remotely have been able to actually harm myself in a corporeal manner on that day, but my mental state and its spiritual attachment to earthly continuance was as far removed as my physical desire to breathe one breath more: moreso than I can recall it ever being before or since.  Hell, I may have been close to spontaneously combusting for all I know.  But something held me back. 

I could say it was a call I received almost immediately when I closed my front door.  A call, not surprisingly, from my cosmic twin/higher self-- or whatever the hell he is or I am to him, for we oscillate in purpose and roles-- and for that I suppose I graciously thank him.  Or I could say it was my inner light smacking some sense into me, or perhaps it was the antithesis... the sick dark side of me wondering just how much worse it could get, tempting my inner cat to extend one more paw into the cauldron of curiosity's lure.  I don't think I'll ever really know. 

I'm still here though, and thankfully more balanced and grounded between all dimensions.  I doubt I'll revisit that place again however, but I can say I've seen the edge, felt it blur, and almost became one with it.  Surprisingly without fear or regret or shame.

I think about that now, because recently I received news that an old schoolmate had died, purportedly of suicide, and it has deeply impacted myself and several people I consider my soul family-- as well as others.  These people, including myself, are artists of various trades, mostly poets and writers at the core, and we all admit to battling the black disease of thinking and feeling too much, teetering the high-wire between the dark and the light, compelled to understand the reason behind the seemingly irrational, and finally merge the duality that constantly threatens to drive us insane. 

For it is indeed a mystery zone we traverse throughout this life journey-- despite our (mostly) normal clothes and normal lives.  Yet we're slave to sleuthing it nonetheless, despite futility in finding any real solutions, the probability that there exists no answers to the unanswerable we seek, and even more frustrating, no tangible questions left to our disposal to ask.  Only silences.

And so, with these recent events, we've been discussing the poet's curse:  what it means to each of us, what it means in light of recent events, what relevance it has at all for that matter... in the grander scheme of things.  What is it that drives a person to the edge, and convinces them the best alternative is to succumb to its lure, bleed into it, become one with it?  Some may say disillusionment, others' claim freedom from pain, and I would posit, for some, it stems from achieving a certain state of enlightened objectivity regarding our corporeal existence in the cosmic whole. 

Regardless, we're trapped for now in our earthly minds and hearts, connected only through our spirits and energy to try and understand the impacts of the now, the then, the hereafter, and the complete inanity of time in general. I wish I had an answer to give them, not to mention to give myself. But I do know this in regards to my own version of the poet's curse.

I've indubitably had many dark, dark, thoughts throughout my days, and only one real compulsory occurrence to actually do something about it, but I think the sick curiousity of what the next day (or even moment) might bring keeps me from succumbing full-on to the thanatos urge. I'd like to call it hope, or faith in that complementary eros factor which comprises my very name and nature, and for the most part I'm sure all of those are strong drivers behind my tenacity to stick this life out no matter what nasty little shits, grins, and twists are thrown my way.  

But at times I think my persistence stems from a morbid fascination to see just how far down the abyss can go, whether there really is a rock bottom, and what resides there, if so. To see if I can flip that bottom upside down and make it top, like an hourglass.  And if I can't, to see if I can succeed in climbing out of that abominable pit stronger, wiser, purer, truer, and more attuned with all that is. To discover that perhaps heaven is hell and hell is heaven; or perhaps they are one and the same. I wish I had a lighter feel-good answer than that, but I can at least say at this point it's a sincere and authentic one.

Either way, it keeps me keeping on. If for no other reason, to tell more stories. And I guess I consider my inexplicable draw to the dark and to the light a twisted kind of blessing; one that allows me to understand the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful in the diverse spectrum we call human existence; and hopefully--someday, somewhere, somehow-- I can transcend the dichotomy through experiencing all of it, and help others reconcile their own.

So perhaps, ironically, my version of the poet's curse is also my saving grace.

5.7.1972 ~ 8.10.2009 ~ 6.29.2010
It’s not the outcomes that I’m scared of

But the truth that will not cease

There's no chance in the forgetting

Cause the truth don’t bring you peace

For how can you unknow it, when it’s there but doesn’t speak

And how can you unlove it, when you feel its every beat

The only remedy to memory

Is to pray to never think

The only hope to stop the knowing

Is to kill what you believe

No,

it’s not the answers that I’m scared of

But the truth that won’t un-be

And a million fears and wishes

Will not set the bastard free.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

what will

5.18.2010

Cows have 4 stomachs.
Or so I've been told, to aid in
the digestion process.

And I have four hearts,
maybe more, though
they all seem wanton
toward the same sweet palate.

Effin' cows.

Can you hear the rumble over all
these sounds of silence?
This prolonged muteness
non-linear digestion
is moot.

There wasn't enough time
at the moment
to appropriately answer
your question.
What are you looking for?

I'd ask the same.

Slaughterhouse 5'd,
2 showers all in one
day.
And what a second rain
it was!
Caught by surprise, I quite was,
still am

One snapshot, out-take,
mesmerized, two unawares
bely the mask.

I's to two eyes realize
the hiding truth
behind the curtained ruse.
Tell me what
you see.
perhaps i'm just confused.

To reduce it to mere
clandestine perusal causes pain,
Authentic beauty
makes me
ache.

Hearts beat, breathes breath,
unperceived, 'til something makes them
stop. and notice a
miracle at work
here.

How long has this been going on
I'd wonder, but care not
Now
for cow stomachs,
or hiding,
or the viceness of niceness,
or public disclosure regarding
my preference in
vegetables.

I'm far too lost in the forest, searching
where the marker meets
your trees, digging
to decipher apologies
from gratitude from pleas.
How purely obscure this meander
of mine, of yours
of ours may seem to be.

until Falling
Awake this morn
that dreaded seven lettered-word
sung if I
fell...

sanity, survival, or not
the can broke open,
and

i heard.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Musings from the Bottom of a Can with a Shovel.

I wonder why we call Tuna, Tuna Fish Salad? I mean we don't say Bass Fish or Red Snapper Fish. Or Halibut Fish, Flounder Fish, Perch Fish, or Trout Fish. 'Some types of fish need clarification if you make a casserole or salad out of them?


I mean Tuna Fish Salad already has 'salad' on the end to indicate it's oshkoshbygoshness. Why the fish distinction? Did it miraculously become NON-fish when it was mixed with other ingredients or something? People don’t know Tuna is a fish or some such nonsense like that? I mean Charlie the Tuna sitting on those tuna cans isn’t blatant enough for them? It’s a fucking fish sitting on the tuna can, man. What – do people think he was a major Marco Polo star and is supplementing his over-inflated income by pimping tuna in a can? Can’t tell he’s of the Fish race, Tuna gender?


And why the salad descriptor? I don’t see any damn lettuce in there. And why do we have to add yet another noun on the end if we put the shit on bread? Tuna Fish Salad Sandwich. OVERKILL. We don’t say Tuna Fish Salad Crackers. Hummus doesn’t need any kind of extra English appendages depending on whether it’s served with Pita bread or Lavosh crackers. Why does Tuna get all this special treatment, all this overuse of adjectives? Can people just not streamline it a little?


C’mon. Life is already complex already. The lace just isn’t enough. We need more bling. Bring out the glitter and sequins. Jesus loves fishsticks. That’s simple enough. Leave Elvis out of it. That's really why he left the building, after all. With Jesus. In sheer disgust over the mayonaisse-fish-bread-casserole complexity situation. That, and the inanity of driving around with the stickfish on the back of car bumpers with tacky little WWJD plastic bracelets on, not to MENTION the whole cross-and-fear hullaballo. Just so ya' know...


And please, please, chopstick hearts, please....CEASE AND DESIST in the making of those crappy little candies like 'Sixlets' and 'Chik O Stix.' No one likes them. NO ONE. NegaTRON buddy boy. So stop it already.


Ah, stupid questions always assaulting the brain… But according to the Reese's commercial 'Stupid is Nice.' Or something like that. Has anyone seen this bizarre advertisement yet? That gets my raving 'WTF' award of the month. How is stupid being nice, remotely persuasive to pushing someone to partake in what is already a perfect combination of peanut buttery goodness and chocolate? Other than plaguing me with completely unrelated mixed emotions of living in tardville with a smile on my face whilst I'm enjoying my cpb or pbc snacky treat, that is. Really. If I need to be confused, I'll go hit up my Uncle, Mr. Peanut, for some mixed nuts or something. Shit-hammocks.


And speaking of munch-buttocks... here's another inquiry designed for enlightenment of the soul. Did the US of A invent American cheese or something? And what about Farmer’s cheese? Farmers didn’t come up with cheddar or swiss or gouda too? Or the "Farmer’s" adjective was already taken by the time of those little tasty inventions? They spent all their initial time creating a bland piece of shit food called 'Farmer’s Cheese.' And so the good cheese-- the ones they might really want to be credited with discovering-- gets a different name. That was fucking stupid. Should have just crammed the craptastic Farmer’s Cheese on the backburner until they came up with something monsterifically good and attached their name to that creation instead. Marketing sense people! Or simply, just some real genuine taste would work migh-T-fine.


And while I'm on a roll here [where's my butter?] --- I'd like to express my beef with the term 'Hamburger.' There is NO pork in the burger. Hence, ham is nowhere in the equation. It’s ground up, it’s meat, and it’s of the beef variety. If you have to juxtapose or concatenate words to understand what you’re eating, it should be called 'groundburger', which is just ambiguous enough to really describe a patty of that sort, since you never know what remnant pieces O' meat are actually in one. At least with my playdough bakery set I knew (know) I was (am) getting a salty red, blue, yellow, or green piece of flour rubber. Or if you just HAVE to disclose the intended origin of the grind, then call it 'cowburger.' But inaccurate smoke and mirrors BULLshit like 'hamburger' has no place in my language, and simply just pisses me off. Moo.


We used to call this guy in the fraternity "fishpig", because his last name was Bassham. That rant just made me remember that. Kinda funny. Which catapults me into another random memory, where we used to spurt out the saying 'slap a cold trout on it...' in awkward moments of silence during the early hours of a party when we were waiting on those old enough (or with viable enough fake id's) to bring the Alcohol. No one seemed to remember what that phrase referred to, or why in the hell they were saying it, but everyone laughed like they were in on the joke anyway. KINDA LIKE LIFE. I think it had some reference to some dude's bad intimate experience with a chick that didn't know how to wash up down under, a phenomenon I've never understood. It's called SOAP bitch. Learn to use it. Learn to spell it. OR just.... slap a cold trout on it. Hehe. Makes me giggle still. Now where's my Natural Light?


I think the open and close buttons on the elevator are made to torment people with Type A personality. Give them something to do, make them feel like they’re in control, while the elevator goes the SAME DAMN SPEED as it would if the buttons weren’t pressed. Takes its own sweet time, while the control freak is distracted and occupied with pressing those damn buttons over and over. The whole shenanigan conspiracy behind those rat-bastage buttons is just redamndiculous. Why? Because I don’t like being jacked around! It pisses me off. Now, every time I see one of those fucking buttons, I just want to punch it in the mouth. Condescending little smug bastards. If the elevator went faster I wouldn’t try to punch those fuckers in the first place.


I mean if I’m using the elevator then I usually need to get to where I’m going more quickly than I could take the stairs. Or I’m invalid, or fat, or fucking lazy. But they were installed to enable convenience, and to a type A -- or triple AAA in my case -- convenience means not having to wait the equivalent of walking 2 flights of stairs for the damn door to close, or open. Stupid little buttons. Fucking mockers. Now I just fuck with them to pretend I’m punching them in the mouth. I know what they’re up to. I got their number. Fucking buttons.


Church sign 1: “You can bury the truth, but it won’t stay there.”

Why? The Truth a grave digger or something? Carry around a shovel as its sidekick? So what about its nemesis-- The Lie? It just stay buried down there? Is it some mole burrowing necrophiliac, going ‘yeah baby I love me some underground!?’ So what about the Lie? If we bury it, and the truth always digs itself out, then it pops out and rats on the Lie anyway, right? Self appoints itself the fun police, while Lie’s underground minding his own bizness, partying it up, and up comes that damn truth yelling and pointing and shaking its ratty little finger- ‘Nah Nah Nah, everyone, the Lie’s underground. THE LIE IS UNDERGROUND, doing god knows what that little lie.’


Fucking Truth, that crap-faced little tattletale, never lets anyone have any fun eh? Lie should just streak around in the open, butt ass naked, pissing everyone off, pissing in the snow, talking gay, waving a rainbow flag, lifting up people’s skirts, giving wedgies, slapping people on the back, kicking out their knees, invigoratingly fondling and rearranging his genitals. Saying "Hellz yeah, look here, hey, I’m a fucking LIE, whatcha gonna do about it? Yeah. I’m raining on Truth’s parade! Pissing in his Post Toasties. Taking over his territory. See me? I’m a truthful lie. I ain’t hiding underground. Now what role do you have Mr. Truth? Nothing. You’re a fucking useless piece of shit now. Go hang out with your shovel, you brat, 'cuz you don’t need it anymore. We are all one and the same and separation is an illusion. *rasberry tongue noise and eye roll*"

Alright! Way to go Lie. You said it buddy. I didn’t have to.

But, now I have a question. Since the Lie came clean about being a lie, did it just become Truth? Well, indeedies, I do believe it did! Hand over that shovel you mother fucker Truth-LIE. You’re going underground to browntown. Hope you like earthworms.


Dichotomy merge complete.


Church sign 2: “You can’t always believe what you think.”

So now, what if I believe that what I think is what I believe?
1. I can’t believe what I think
2. I think that I believe what I think
3. Therefore, I can’t believe what I believe.

Wow, how’s that for utter fucking confusion, eh? My rhetoric and composition teacher in college would have loved that syllogism. Where’s the sand so I can go stick my head in it? Ah tastes great, and good for whitening the teeth too. Free Cheap Easy. Kinda dry though. And gritty.


Church sign 3: “We never get dizzy doing good turns.”

WTMammaJammaF? Has this church monopolized the ballet schools now? Teaching the dingle-berry congregation how to spot? I don’t even know where to start my smart-assical critique of this type of fluff-stuffing crap. It’s not even witty or insightful enough of a message to compete with that shitty pressed cotton candy knock off they sell at grocery and video stores in an aluminum sealed bag.

Here’s a tip churchie poo. Don’t fuck with either Dance or Cotton Candy, when you feel the need to impress Jesus with your witless-jisms. I need to take a meclizine before I puke all over my new shoes. Rock slobber fudgestdicks. There is NO point here. Just stop digging. Or you’re going in the ground with the truth-thats really a-lie. And I’ll personally shove the earthworms in your ears. Like that Star Trek movie that scarred me for life for which I still need to be vindicated, somehow. Thanks for the inspiration. The dilemma of how I would karmically purge my psyche of the fear of some sleazy little brain bug entered into my otic channels has plagued me for decades.


Now go spin your fart-yarn elsewhere, you spotless coyote ugly. I know a bar full of NSync and Fatnasty pseudo lesbian chicks in knock-off red striped tube socks, that are just dying to join ya. I’m sure you’ll get a real kick coming up with tooty little thought vomits to save their souls, since all they wanna do is fight, fuck, and cry. To really, incredibly horrific hip hop. Dog save us all.


By the way, I hate fucking church signs. Everyone has to have a fucking slogan.


Well, that's all the muckie-puck residing in the head tonight. Except the useless trivial tidbit about that tasty little snack-cake called 'Ding Dong' which used to be named 'King Dong' before some asshat demanded they change the name because of the sexual reference. Why, Why, WHY must sex be made into such a horrible thing? Because of the snot-tards who strive to smear their whippy cream around all whimsically and such, by being King Dongs of the jungle? Give my culturally-congested root chakra a break already!


I'm not sure being a dipshit is any better than being arrogant about your big dick, of which you'll never use the last 3 inches, and most likely get laid less often because you're the impetus of annoying cockiness (on multiple levels) and yeast/bladder infections. Better go buy some soap, 'cause she's gonna need it buddy.


I do know that calling someone a 'Tool' makes me kinda giggle, although that's a word that really deserves an adjective, since tools are supposed to assist with the efficiency of a task. I guess they got the adage confused with my rules for Tuna. Next time I place an order at the local deli, I'll be sure to ask for Tool Fish salad. But then I might get some strange composite of King Ding Dong meets Chick-no-licking-good, in which case I'll just politely hand them back the takeout bag, and go slap a cold trout on it.