Tuesday, April 29, 2014

One Poem? Take 1.

Is there one poem?

One poem that can say it all?
that can stitch together the words everywhere,
and not just the words, but the everything?

--thoughts and feelings, infused with lyrics and poetry and sounds and smells,
and the taste of sea-salt caramels still in their mouths, with paper wrappers all over the floor - all over the bed - in a mound,
"chocolate candy, Jesus Christ"
the smell of a coffee shop in the morning, fresh scones out of the oven,
of shampooed hair, soft skin, a sweet familiar perfume,
"a little bit of everything..."
of midnight conversations and dreams, 
"if you dare, come a little closer,"
your heart's desire is searching for you, while you search for your heart's desire
"just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it,"
walking on the High Line, kissing in the streets below,
and on bridges and in the quiet woods and under waterfalls
dancing on the Boardwalk, with the scent of french fries in the air,
swimming in the icy ocean, alive and new, on top of The World, and ready to conquer it,
confident and shining and smiling,
and at night, a full-moon backed cityscape rises over treetops atop the starlight--

snippets of time,
   painted with bright colors that run outside the lines,
   by a messy schoolboy artist,
   coated with flavors that make it seem there wasn't such a thing as sweetness before

--in love, in lust, in laughter, in friendship
pressed together in a wild dance,
playful and funny and serious and passionate,
the curve of her lips he traces with his finger,
a dimple that smiles,
music,
sung to one another other,
first whispered sweetnesses,
and then spoken more loudly,
to make sure its not a dream--

[at the same time
The Strain lurks
it grows, the infection strengthening, chipping away at everything in its path

--at the same time

sobbing in the corner,

drenched in a sweat of deep pain and fear and self-loathing and self-doubt,

sad and alone, anxious and afraid,

the gray creeping steadily outwards, enveloping,
paralyzing,
steadily draining out everything else--

And this part doesn't feel like it should be here.
Like, "You're in the wrong poem, Buster."
I put it in square brackets. I thought about deleting it.
But I didn't.  I can't.
Because it's here.  And its been here all along.
Part of the story.  My story.]

See.  I got lost.  It got away from me.

So...
No.
There is no one poem.

There is no one vessel to pour it all into . . .
     so I can let it all wash over my soul, feel its power and beauty and depth,    
                                                              see it all at once before me.
                                                              gaze at its perfections and imperfections, the beauty,
                                                              the pain, the right, the wrong

There is no one poem.  At least not one I know how to write yet.

I'll have to try again.


Saturday, April 26, 2014

Words. Words....

"I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right."
                         
                                                                                               -- Markus Zusak



Friday, April 25, 2014

Writing - A Kinship With Strangers

Writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: 
   an intimate letter to a stranger.” 

                                                                                                     -- Pico Iyer



Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Daylight Savings 1.11

Time stitches together the moon and sun, the day and night.

He sleeps. Dreams dance through the moonlight.

He awakens. Awash in sun. It covers his legs, his arms, his face.
"I knew a man
who saved daylight...,” she said.
















Our Daylight Savings 1.1


Time stitches together the moon and sun, the day and night.

He sleeps. Dreams dance through the moonlight.

He awakens. Awash in sun. It covers his legs, his arms, his face.
"I knew a man
who saved daylight...,” she said.


















A smile softly crept from the inside out. 

             The secret discovered, how to save time.
So he reaches for his clock. And plucks the seconds. One by one by one.
And they slip backwards together. 
Just a bit at first. 

And then deeper still. 

And deeper.

Daylight Savings Time - Original

"I knew a man
who saved daylight...,” she said.
He sleeps.
The moon separates dreams from daily life. The sun restores them.
Time stitches together moon and sun, day and night.
He awoke. Awash in sun. It covered his legs, his arms, his face.
A smile softly crept from the inside out.
The secret discovered, how to save time.
"I'll save sunlight."
First, he reached for his clock. And plucked the seconds. One by one by one.
A bouquet for his love. A bouquet of time
And they slipped backwards together. Just a bit at first.



Sunday, April 20, 2014

From Nothingness

We come spinning out of nothingness, 
  scattering stars like dust.” 

                                                      ― Rumi



Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Soaring Nowhere Fast

They are soaring.
They are nowhere.
Time flexes and bends.
Asleep. Awake. Then both at the same time.
He looks up.
She’s gone.
Flying away.

Walkabout To Nowhere: Conclusion

"What the fuck had happened?" thinks The Man. "Why?"

Something had happened.  

Something had happened to him.  His life had changed.  And the Man could not explain it.

He re-read his journals from years ago. He looked back at the pictures. He was happy then.

But somehow the life he had constructed since - or the life that constructed him since - did not make him happy. Up early. Commuting for hours. Trudging to a job he did not like, empty and hollow. Spending all day at it. But accomplishing nothing. Always rushing to try and get home, see his children, play, be. No time. No time. No time. And all the while at home, feeling unconnected.

Wash-rinse-repeat. Wash-rinse-repeat.
Going through the motions of life, without life's emotions.
Like paper cuts on the soul.

So he had built other things; to feed himself on the beautiful parts. His passions - reading books, playing guitar, writing, music, poetry, thinking, talking and connecting with interesting friends about interesting things: technology, education, social issues, and how to change our changing world. 

But he crammed all these things into tiny spaces of time. 
It wasn't enough, and it also was too much. 
It was fine at first. Busy. Good. 
But then it wasn't. 
And then it overwhelmed, and collapsed upon itself, a black hole.

"But why? What changed? What's wrong with me?," thinks The Man.

Embarrassed and anguished, The Man would drop things one by one by one, withdraw from his friends, from the world. Alone in pain. Alone in frustration.

He stared at his life, at himself. And, like a small child resisting his vegetables, he firmly said "I don't want it." But this made him even more unhappy. Because he didn't know how to change it. And he was scared. That he couldn't change it.

When he tried to think about how to fix it, his unhappiness grew. His stress bubbled. His paralysis became more severe.

He wanted change, and he couldn't change.


* * *

"Maybe," he thought, "Maybe, I'm just not good at life."

* * *

And at the end, there were questions. 

Questions without answers. 

Literally, unanswerable questions.

Like, what do you do when you don't like who you are? 
Like, do you have to destroy your self to save you? 
And like, can you - should you - try to save yourself from the destruction? 
(And how?)



Walkabout To Nowhere 1.2


From city to city. He took trains. He walked. The Man smiled and joked and met people.

But he was not alive. Inside - all the while - he was shivering alone, scared, trapped.  On the inside, he churned, cutting himself to pieces with a million tiny razors - of doubt, of pain, of disgust. 

On the outside, he smiled all the while.

The Man had always been able to work quickly. He had a talent for handling many tasks in a short amount of time. But now the more he tried to focus, the more distracted he became. He brooded and worried. He was unable to act. Unable to make decisions. Moving through life, doing nothing. Avoiding. 

So. He stopped doing things. He let it all slide, so slippery, inevitably downward. 

And so it all stacked up. Undone. Basic tasks - his insurance paperwork, going shopping for new suits, getting a hair cut. And also complicated tasks at work. Things that, if undone, will come back to hurt the Man. 

Every day the pile grows. It sits on top of The Man, heavier and heavier each day.

He dulls himself. To try to stop from feeling sad, from being consumed by his thoughts, his fears. He could distract himself from himself for short bits of time, relieve himself for a while, by eating, by reading about sports, by skimming the news, by watching TV. And then doing those things again.

Every day makes him tired. The Man wants every day to just end. But when he wakes in the morning, there's another one waiting.


Monday, April 14, 2014

Walkabout To Nowhere 1.1



The Man had grown, but now he was smaller. 

The Man had built himself solid, stacking bricks, through experience and creativity and energy. Now fissures corrupt his foundation.

He was a peaceful friendly man, but now he is locked in a constant battle.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Walkabout to Nowhere: Prologue


The Man had come here, to the other side of the world, to do a walkabout through his own head.  

It was a familiar place, pregnant with memories, a place that had made him happy and filled him with a buzzing energy, a place where he was his best self. 



But that was years ago. 

Now he felt, not sad, no. 
Well, yes, sad. 

Like the happiness had been stolen away and the energy dripped down the drain, never to be found.  

The Man was left hollow and empty, alone in his thoughts.

Economy Class


They are soaring.
They are nowhere.

She hands him a small square white plastic tray.
He places it in front of him.
She forces out a smile.
He dies inside.

A cottony gauze drapes over him.

Time flexes and bends. 
Asleep. Awake. Then both at the same time.

The TV’s on. With no sound.
Commercials in grainy black and white,
Wordless frames of Tom & Jerry in slow motion.

Music pumps through his headphones.
But he’s not listening anymore.

He looks down and rubs his eyes. 
He looks up.

She’s gone.
Flying away.


Fragile Paradise...




"Life goes on.  It gets so heavy.
The wheel breaks the butterfly."

                         - Coldplay, Paradise

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Lost in the Music


"Just because I'm losing,
Doesn't mean I'm lost." 

                        - Coldplay, Lost


                           



No Throwing Pieces



"I'm gonna pick up the pieces,
and build a lego house
when things go wrong we can knock it down"

                           - Ed Sheeran, Lego House