Cherry Silence
Some moments in life are inexplicable. A Saturday evening, the night after Christmas, a summer-like rain shower and seventy-five degrees. Lightning strikes frequently with the humidity. Giant claps of thunder trail the electricity. You feel perfect and free, and nothing else matters but there – what’s in front of you, what you can see.
The sky is mauve lilac, with deep blues peaking through. The air slides on slick breezes, but the storm is still. It hovers above refusing to leave. The permanent porch light is out for some reason, leaving you in a dark corner of the courtyard. You are smoking a cigarette and smiling as the rocks tumble down shaking the ground.
Hung beneath the branches, the cherry lights your face. You blow red smoke. Everything rolls back, memories lying in silence when you didn’t know a thing. When you were a different person… but everything has changed. The lightning hit the transformer and evaporated history. The ashes swirl with the sirens. An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward, the raid sounds over and over.
Attention! This is not a test.
Motionless
A tornado hits
Circumstance & Self-Restraint
Time...time...
What is time?
Notion of moments in my mind
One hundred, one thousand
Doors
Leading to walls & beams of pale light
A cellar in the cracks
Lovely longing initiated
Bright, seamless pale light
Ether seeping
Traitorous truth
The speaker box sinking
Something is wrong
Nothing is working
Nervous sound
I only hear ringing
Then a -
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP
Emerges from the burrow beneath the planks
Words rhythmically practiced
My heartbeat racing
Drone in beat baritone
A sine wave replication
Turns the knob of the door
It opens
Pale light leaks through
Wafts like angel dust
Kissing my nose
Cellar door
Canonically dreadful
Solemn acceptance
A new year comes wishing
Detaches the past
Seeks forward thinking
Grabs at the future
Fakes feeling
To sleep assured
Slowly floating
Into uncharted waters
I am water
Trickling down
Forming basement puddles
Behind the cellar door
Then a -
DRIP, DRIP, DRIP
Emerges from the burrow beneath the planks
Words rhythmically practiced
My heartbeat racing
Drone in beat baritone
A sine wave replication
Turns the knob of the door
It opens
Pale shaky particles ooze
This sounds familiar
The selfish remember
Refuse to forget
Comfort is pleasing
I shoot up
It keeps coming
Wine, oh why?
Dear lord I'm devolving
Take away the pain away
Put your arms around me
Make it all okay
I say your name
Behind the cellar door
I am water
Trickling down
Forming basement puddles
Behind the cellar door
Then a -
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
Emerges from the burrow beneath the planks
Words rhythmically practiced
My heartbeat racing
Drone in beat baritone
A sine wave replication
Turns the knob of the door
It opens
Pale light glistening
Down by the wayside
A chill wind blows
Faith skin
Vulnerably exposed
I burrow hope beneath the cracks
In the planks that make the floor
Behind the cellar door
Name this:
What is life?
Notion of moments til I die
One million, one trillion
Doors
Closed
(RDF)- Reality Distortion Field
A bedroom window
6 in. cracked
Held up by wood
The springs won't lock
Rhythm of emotion
Edges slide on the tracks
It's raining & the rustling branches over the walkway
Adjacent, hanging just in view,
Waterfall patterns streaming
Dripping rhythm, apace with the storm
60% of me
I'm pouring from the clouds
A cycle of remembrance
Finishing the last page
Back against the fence
The grass begins to pool
Floating full of thoughts
Liquid
Drop
A car door locks
Everything is curious
Wondering, what's next -
Will the tea leaves unfold & rise?
Will the aching subside?
Fierce, the fables we create
To sedate
Emotions that bubble in our pores
Water pounding water
Repetitive absorption
Illusory images
Traitorous truth
Certainty runs shorts
Green light on the dock
Projection of a dream unlived
The past, present gone
Future ends won't tie the knot
No link
Just discontinuous threads
It's the ideal of hope we can't survive
The ringing phone unanswered
What is imagination but the distortion of reality?
A world derived from mental force
O. Gutter
Grinding
Squeak, squeak, squeeeeak - O. Gutter
My hair in disarray
Wind above
Clouds pace by
Lighted circle face
Stationary moonbeam down
Unmoving with November
Dogs howl in the distance
City street tires
Deaf absence
In the neighborhood
Illuminated pale
Whiteness of 1am
Gusts of dust
Blow across the yard
Like sprinklers cornered in morning
Grinding
Squeak, squeak, squeeeeak - O. Gutter
My mind led astray
Waiting for a future
Never to come
I wish for faith
Chase the steeple
Nothing there
(here or anywhere)
Dismal voices
Stake their claim,
"Those who sit alone on porches,
will always feel this way"
Grinding
Squeak, squeak, squeeeeak - O. Gutter
Solitary peace
I'm home
Great Tradition
Global
Age of mass production
Authenticity debated
Temperate & soft spoken
Bred indifferent
Void of living
Lies
T
R
I
C
K
L
I
N
G
Today
The streets are silent
Save the sound of scuffling feet
There they go,
Sleep walking
Will it collapse?
Stocks beneath the rubble
Everything is skewed
The box is wet
Tearing through
Leaky speaker reassurance
It will all be fine
The pit will sink in time
Prey to special interests
Hope is not enough
Cognitive blinders
Systematic censorship
Conspiracy dismissed
Parochial ignorance
Detached horror
Surreal reality
Nystagmus
Restless,
Dream-ridden
Dancing images
The floor moves out of place
A saccade
Limited vision
Involuntary loss of control
A series of unimagined events
Rattle into motion
Time is nothing but ticks
Contiguous individual moments -
A succession of experience
Flay to reveal
Macula bare
Crying aqueous humor
The
Desolate
Landscape
LED
Flickering blinds
Blue light
Unengaged night
Nonexistent screen
Window world of falsity
Talking
Telling nothing
Applied at will
Connective conforming
It is on
It knows someone is watching
Did you see?
Elicited eyes
Glossy, crossed-over
Panoramic picture
Embedded thumbprints
Rubber removal
Recording pleasure
Modern vapidity
Aimlessly wandering
In a limbo of channels
With yet disconnected
Independent
Isolated –
Threadbare culture
Obdurate, intractable
Woven interface incentive
Polluted integration
Faces! not-at-home
Doped medium
Voltage applied
Electrons recombine
Holes in the device
Semiconducting society
Clandestine control
It is on
It knows someone is watching
City Soundscape
It’s neighbors speaking Spanish across the walkway on the 1st floor
It’s a tow truck hooking chains to a bumper in the parking lot
It’s sirens wailing in the distance
It’s raindrops on the pavement
It’s scavenger coons rustling in the trash bin
It’s mutts of several breeds, barking
It’s passenger airliners descending toward Love Field
It’s a low train whistle on the DGNO
It’s the constant ding of text messages
It’s wheels screeching to a halt off East Grand
It’s frustrated hands on the horn in traffic
It’s wind through the tunnel beneath Klyde Warren Park
It’s the rumble of semis weighing down 30
It’s high-rise construction in Uptown
It’s the settling moan of historic buildings
It’s machinery
It’s technology
It’s history
It’s people in places I hear but can’t see
It’s the noise made by everything
It’s music in the streets
Bloodbath
It’s Friday evening in central Paris, an unusually warm night in November
The nightclubs, the concert hall, the stadium – all full
The streets are teeming with people out for a time on the town
Unreal city, today is not yesterday
Two by two, the poles snake the median in foggy yellow
It’s 7pm in Dallas and across the Atlantic Paris is under attack
Explosions amidst flashes of light
Sirens and gunshots echo in the silence
All Things Considered airs an extended coverage of updates
Driving home from work in traffic
Questioning America’s post-war influence on everyone else
There’s provocation behind the curtains and shadows
The whispers drip red as bodies emerge on stretchers
An act of terrorism, it is said
Strange, abrupt despite triangular warnings
The train that passes now is so loud we can’t evade the sound
In dark, in day, clenched fists are pounding against thighs
Yet, a cult of unknowing is growing in the land of the free
The house of the damned is there to keep it that way
Standing in solidarity, governed by the dead, the reports continue to channel in
We never know what is going on
Disillusioned by false disclosure
We shy away
Drool through the night
Drool in pain
On Saturday, Dallas mourns with a red, white, and blue skyline
The plank smells of drainage and exhaust
We march together off the edge
Upsettling
…like standing in the kitchen
staring at my feet
magnet scabs on the fridge
bananas split and spoiling
the bartender guide can make me
anything I need
the smell of chicken
loosens lucid memories
of my grandparent’s house
the last time I visited
I drove high the whole way there
smoked a joint on the deck
stared at the oak tree
scribbled, wrote nonsense
…like standing in the kitchen
staring at my feet
This Clonic Earth
ruminating
things come slowly
pass the time
stare
at nothing
suppurating
surface
⇝seizure⇜
abrupt convulsions
jittery
grand mal experience
it effects –
“electrical changes in the brain“
she read that on the Internet
somewhere
she thinks she is dying
debt compounding
she returns to normal
continues on
following day
purchases
a 10-year term
life insurance policy
conscience cleared
pellucid sky
waiting for death
meanwhile…
the sun sets on an indifferent landscape
Mnemonic
Everything was a wave
A storm
The brood again
Wallowing, weak reasoning
Catch myself
Release the knot
I really lost it this time
Gone too far
Gone too long
Worrying for nothing
I need some space
To check myself
Too much intake
Stalls the engine
Johnny all over
Prescient-minded Gibson
Now I clap my hands together
In front of the mirror
Get a grip
Plug in…
Download
The Gift
Instrument granted
Aiding memory
It’s in my hand
Click –
Enter the web
maybe we’re not meant to exceed capacity.
Healthy Snack
The yogurt-
Where does it come from?
Yoplait’s in Minnesota
Sprinkle the blueberries
North Bay Produce
They’re from Uruguay
I stir it up and eat it
Do I have a choice?
Save time
It’s called convenience
Is it natural?
One can never tell
when it comes to necessity
More than the Mountains
Onward, the way
Slip onto the DART
Unpleasant din
I don’t remember crying
Want to not want
Shaded shudders can’t see
Time is ticking
I don’t remember breathing
So good at romancing
Warped reality
There’s no one to witness
I don’t remember thinking
Coated with taglines
Attached & dragging
Pay-and-you-will-receive
I don’t remember living
Pi unfolds the trend
Cities burn alive
Walking, talking, moving people
I don’t remember dying
Dragon temple mouth agape
Pushed into the pit
Standing by to watch it all
I don’t remember it
Overlay
Unreal city
Where time meets
I see what they mean
Project my angst onto the people
(multitudinous fray)
Morphing landscape
Billboards & brands
Cosmopolis, cash clans
Green flow goes,
green goes
Deep down inside
Wires run
Connecting everyone
Coding –
Size
Shape
Feeling
Color
Bombarded by sensation
Oppression knows no better
Consumption is a disease
Led in haste, the walking dead
Intake
Intake
Intake
Til synapses begin to fail
As does perception
As does critical thinking
Visual stimulus,
Remaining detection
All around me
Shrouded strangers
Squawk beliefs
Pampered-life poison
I can’t escape ideology
THIS
RESSENTIMENT
Live from the stage
Sirens are wailing
Horns are honking
There’s a jingle in the air
Blood letting novelty
I can’t hear myself think
Still, the swarm stinks
Spews into the streets
Puddling at my feet
< 40hz
I'm thinking back on all that time
Well I...
I see colored music
Sprouting from the mire
Passion
Flush passion
Fortified desire
Lips wet with language
Dripping sound
Onto the pavement
Working up
A fever pitch of fiction
Vivid emotional realization
That in solitary meditation,
Intensely concentrating
Detaches the mind
From every day reality
A self-perception of love
Fixed idea of love
False ardor of love
Existing no where
Genuine Affection
All the rules
Go out
When she
Takes force
With her mouth
Sucks
My bottom lip
Her hand
Softly slips
Beneath my shirt
Grips my hip
My palm pinned
Helpless
To the kitchen cabinet
She sucks the air
Out of me
Chest palpitating
I’m sprung
The moment fades
Once
Never
Sigh, resigned wishes
Unfulfilled
Love is realizing
All you want
Is the best for her –
Everything
That she deserves
Dry Eyes
There is a part of her knotted in me
The worst part of her – bitter longing
After everything,
I chose the window for the view
Staring pensively
Mute the stubborn tongue
Windy autumn air
Welt warm
I convinced myself
She wasn’t cold
As she mounted the bench
Her back to the door
An hour passed
While I looked on
Not once did she turn
To steal a glance
Not once did I expect it
Wet Moon
12:04am
Argha Noa
Dripping
Waters of chaos
New life bound
In sound
Slippage, restless sky
Lathered ground
Dank puddles
Round the world
Spilled from clouds
Motherly tears
Weep for you
And me
Rain over golden light
Two months dry
One drop into millions
Who's counting?
The pour will pass
Will come again
The trance
The feeling
The muse
The meaning
Will not come again
And we shall pass
And shall not come again1
[1] Wolfe, Thomas. Look Homeward, Angel. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929. Print.
Black Knot
Conté crayon on ivory paper
Gazing off into the distance
Silver dreams
Encircle her by day
I’m standing in the way
She’s a rigorous sketch
Pointillist painting
The endless dots slowly separating
What she wants
Cannot be found
She wonders
Where is it?
MAL
MAL
MAL
Loneliness leading her astray
Like the blackest balloon
Floating in a cloudy sky
Drifting higher
Out of touch
Profile of a woman
Outlined in mystery
I can’t give her what she needs
She’s a silent mnemonic
Pentimento painting
Remnant from some earlier time
[1] Seurat, Georges. Le noeud noir (The Black Bow). 1882. Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Musée d'Orsay. Web. 31 July 2007.
The Grid
Porch alone
Midnight weary
Whisper in the wind
Footsteps shuffle
Broke toe bent back
The one they’ll tag at death
Swollen cheeks
Redshot eyes
Arms like aloe vera
Soft flesh overwatered
Nightmares on wax
Boiler room set
Youtube my music
I dream…
But it’s not then
Quick redux won’t help
Things have changed drastically
Some say exponentially
Fierce and ruthless
5 years become 10
A matter of minutes
Stride to keep pace
Twitter chatter
Double click
Can’t type fast enough
Glowing apple screens
Clock the digital
Poets of the past had time
I dream…
But it’s not then
It moves
Pulses, convulsive vibrations
Universal soul in skin
Rand said we’re delusional
Obsessed with mysticism
Rationale torn a shred
Words out of 21st context
Post on vine
Updated status
Snapchat the seconds
Endless in the ether
Electric sleep
The wasteland
I dream…
But it’s not then
Piracy on principle
Free to those who take
Advertise my sex
Designed to look enticing
Bounce about
Uber drive
Dilated skyline
Crafted beer
Barrel full of sorrow
Public book of life
The glimpse effect
Smile for the photo
Late night upload
I dream…
But it’s not then
Tease me with a text
Never lift my head
Blue-faced babes
Virtual dimension
Hand it over, never
Built to break to buy
Can’t detach
Don’t disconnect
Fiber optic cable
Crisscross flat land
Streaming speakers
Microwave radiation
Only one option
I dream….
But it’s not then
Blasted ear buds
I tune in to hear
Shocking content
Forgotten next year
Invisible cities
Wireless underground
Unlisted to the masses
Exist without a sound
Pinpoint my location
Triangulate the spot
Here, there, nowhere
Tiny people dots
Flicker on and off
I dream…
But it’s not then
Skype across the world
Face so far away
Alters our perception
False reality
Transponder linked in
Find a job today
I am the résumé
Objective strategy
Make more money
Unbreakable banks
Too big to fail
Grace of Dodd Frank
Soiled legislation
I dream…
But it’s not then
Shake me steady
Dubstep the floor
Little love candy
World of pill forms
Tackle tall troubles
Swiss army apps
Bluetooth the data
Car to home computer
Podcast plug
Coded tech
Hackers push convention
Information overload
Too many contradictions
I dream…
But it’s not then
Frack the oil derrick
Renewable gas juice
Push it through the pipeline
Guzzle at the pump
Blow out open mouth
Run along the wires
Turn the channel
Flip the switch
Toothpick eyelids stretched
Tripped heartbeats
Robotic pressure gauge
Fact check headlines
Tales of talk tomorrow
I dream…
But it’s not then
Numb the punks
Belie the hippies
Jail the drug addicts
Downplay reports
Drowned by talking heads
NPR the news
CNN the crime
NYT the arts
FOX the lies
Lost trust in the self
Internet search browser
Download PDF
Secure passwords
I dream…
But it’s not then
Another day
Another dollar
Divisible by collars
Can’t tell in America
Population: Smart Phones
Fingertips drag
Planes fly overhead
GPS signals
Direct surface traffic
East-West-Texas
Network power grid
Never mind faulty lines
As long as it’s functional
I dream…
But it’s not then
2-0-1-5
Millennial overdrive
Preponderant journalist influence
Predict a grim future
Tethered beliefs
Subjective truth
Stardust everywhere
Iron blood flow
Phase coherence
Elemental confirmation
Waves of repetition
Sun dusted humans
Continue to ignore
I dream…
But it’s not then
Purr
Sacred
Sleep not together
Wait until the moment’s right
Skin beneath my nails
Softly in the night
Drifting with the ceiling fan
Quiet purring
Buzz my ears numb
Dark murmuring
Tingles down my spine
Fabric of blood body
Twisted through the vines
Waited so long
Flow from me
Meet halfway
Whispering
Turn on top
Come outside
Push me back down
Tell me with your eyes
Blind from looking
Anguish unleashed
Waves, always waves
Curling and crashing
Sky Wave Propagation
Yankee. Hotel. Foxtrot.
Yankee. Hotel. Foxtrot.
Group 1-0
Text. Text.
NLSVN
UHNFY
ZLNZF
NTUME
HOBZA
IFDAM
JHIGV
VZSZO
JHZGK
ZLPJC
End of message.
Repeat. Repeat.
It's rare we know ourselves. How can we know somebody else? I feel myself slipping into another realm. Turning into me, a hidden being, whom I was unaware of... newly decoded. Experience ciphered. Basement existence ear tuned to number stations, a spy amongst the population. Living alone. Won't be found out. Repetitively chanting the sequence.
Message. Message.
Record but don't connect.
Record but don't connect.
Text. Text.
End of message.
Casa Loma
Lie on my back
Just behind the fence
One knee propped up
Other leg outstretched
Cloud coagulation
Cigarette wind
Slow controlled breathing
I half expect the door to open
A little smile
Tiny bare feet
Take my necklace
Pull sunglasses from my face
How was your day?
Sun setting
Phantom bottle next to me
Painted table
Go put your shoes on
Cloud coagulation
Breeze away the memories
Tiki torches torn down
Unkempt backyard
Weeds, scattered bricks
Nothing left but remnants
Ghost garage
Makeshift stage
Stolen construction
Emptiness stings
31st of July
The lease is up
Someone else will move in
Decorate to taste
Live their lives
Come home from work
How was your day?
Walls don't talk
But they do absorb
Waves of feelings
Yours, mine, ours
Home is always fleeting
Things change
But to live in the hearts
Of the living is not to die
Constant movement of goodbyes
149612 Start
Remove my eyes
Take only what I need
Chasing
Makes men’s hearts weak
Cleanse it
Free thought from stain
Like sandstone rocks
Buffed by waves
If one is a no thing
Pain cannot penetrate
If one is a no thing
Patience develops
If one is a no thing
The world comes calling
If one is a no thing
Expectations dissolve
Achieve through modesty
To attain completion
Create the space
Relinquish the reigns
Be there and not there
Grim
I go across the bridge
To the house I once lived in
Sighed
Pushed the door open
At the table sat a man
Dressed in black
Staff in his hand
Said,
I've been waiting a long, long, long, long time
To see that face of yours
Wipe your feet
Shut the door
Sit with me awhile
I've got to tell you that you're dead
Here's a list of all your deeds
The good, the bad, and the ugly
There is no heaven
There is no hell
You'll remain conscious forever
It's neutral
As far as right and wrong go
I come for everyone in the end
No matter what
Glimpse Effect
So it begins
The waiting game
She'll never come around
Family in her head now
Society wound
Wishing it were different
Preserving the connection
It won't happen
Together, not so simple
There are too many factors
Road blocks in the brain
Saying no, you can't
Turn around the other way
Given time
She'll look back on today
Thinking to herself
I can't believe that was me
I'd never do that
I'm a different person
Like it never happened
That's the way life is
Moments become memories
Just a dream
A movie
Things seem real
Until they cease to be
The glimpse effect
Time disconnected
Love, subjective
Full of deception
Ctrl alt delete
Reset the narrative
Little Remnants
Rear window, my life
Lit by lightning
I could be anywhere
This could be anything
Waking up never easy
Shocked alive
Loss of control
Prescient dreams
Yours, mine, ours - the we
All subtly
Absorption spits memory
Passively teaching
Symbolic cues to better living
It's a dream world
A world of dreams
Bustling, noisy
Point away the taken night
Turn over in silent mind
Thunder claps
The stage awake
Storms that shake violently
Crumbling houses in the sky
Define the personal
Some tragic tale
You know the one
Mother - Daughter
Father - Son
Generational blood flow
The same throughout
Entangled at the quantum level
Abstract until broken
Chemical history
Collective spirit in DNA
Born thinking symbolically
Born thinking death
Inflated lungs full of memory breath
Flipped inside-out again
Little remnants, shared senses
Knowing who you've never met
Speechless
Small in retrospect
Blow and it glows
We chirp whether we know
The search for perfect sound
Notes on the New Deal
Codes of fair competition
Everyone is picking everybody else's pockets
Anti-competition/controlled competition
Take the gold
Roll the dice to set the price
Inflate the currency to prevent individuals from protecting their purchasing power
NIRA modeled after Italian fascism
Mussolini's fascism was fashionable to American intellectuals in the 20s
Private ownership with government control
(Drawn in by funding, favors, and contracts)
Today, property seized under imminent domain to fulfill some government policy
Biggest source of federal revenue - excise taxes on cheap thrills
Alcohol, tobacco, radios, etc.
Government programs paid for by aforementioned taxes that hit lower income families (irony)
Behavioral modification through taxation
Interventionist policies - a favor here with a kickback there
TVA set up as a monopoly not subject to federal/state laws or taxes
Subsidized electricity but depended on congressional appropriations to cover losses
Supposed to help poor people
Cities not getting TVA power were growing faster
Use based on income not cost
No such thing as a free lunch
Can't fix a problem by making someone else pay for it
Samsara
In winter, life dies
Leaves fall away
Birds migrate
Seasonal tick to shorter sun rays
But winter goes as quickly as it comes
When spring blinks her eyes
The buds open up
Our sun stays awhile
Soaks into everything
This is the cycle
The way it has to be
Snow melts from the peaks
Flows down the stream
The water constantly changing
Can never step foot in the same river twice
The beauty of life
Cope, cope
Well adjusted tricks of trying
Cycle Son
I.
The beginning of everything starts nowhere
When things are happening all around you
In a whirlwind
Up and down are in the center
The edges blurred circular
Lungs inhale
Rose bush
Lungs exhale
Queen Anne’s
Lungs inhale
Burning bud
Lungs exhale
Pecan tree
Lungs inhale
Pepper sprouts
Lungs exhale
Aloe Vera
Eye move
Crawling ant
Eye move
Microbacteria
Lightning strike
Decaying log
Chemical life
Cycle Son
Fire fly
Blinding light
Determination through the night
Rhythmic land
Falling rain
Words repeated
No change – still same
of still frame
Photographic nature
Mind balance/stable
Enabling of positive/negative
That not without which
One without the other
No existence
Never do nobody wrong
Karma of Dharma of Tao of nothing –
II.
Writing is sex
The ultimate connection
Sparks alive
With heavy breathing
Eyes closed
Movement
Finger out the inside
Suffering seething
My moaning cry
Sticky on the mind
Of orgasmic memory
Chanting phrases
Words cumming
Physical flight
Circumference of the head
Cycle son
Bred in bed
Born dead
How is one to deal with life?
In an abstract way
The preoccupation with death kills me
Lake of Light
Barefoot against the pavement
Hair upon my leg
Nail atop a finger
Ink into my skin
Smoke inside my lungs
Beer within my stomach
Thoughts storm out of my head
The angels sound the trumpets
It was a dream, I'm waking
To see what has been found
Another blip lost on the radar
All memories forgotten
Rhythm of a heartbeat
Converges with the mass
Singing of the souls that
Come in and out too fast
Choking me, humidity
Bring the breeze somehow
God? Luck? Karma?
No -
I saved me from myself
The Clouds, My Chestnut Tree
The clouds, my chestnut tree
One and the same thing
Forever changing
Morphing the stationary
Resembling at times
Something which they are not
Gone with the wind
The vapor is formless
Floating through airspace
Motion endlessness
White on the blue void
Under atmospheric pressures
Light on nothing
Near chemical dependence
The clouds, my chestnut tree
One and the same thing
There -
But disappearing
Twilight Speech
It's morning and the birds are chirping, sprinkler heads sprout from the ground to spray mist on fresh dew drawn lawns of Dallas. There's a constant rumble of jet engines up above, echoing through my ear drums as they prepare to land at Love Field or DFW. A year beneath the flight path and I've grown accustomed to the sound - noise I didn't have to deal with in Lawrence. But hear, in the attic, the roar of traffic. A motorcycle and a semi speeding down 30 off into the twilight distance. The crow caws and flies away but that constant thunder up above stays. I stare at my reflection in a black laptop screen, close my eyes for a moment, then start remembering:
There is no me
There is no me
There is no me
There is no me
I am nothing
Non-existent
Here one instant
Gone the next
Dying to flee -
Always dying slowly
I came into the world going
There is no me
There is no me
I relearn a lesson long forgotten
Sit and listen
To
The
Silence
La Condition Humaine
The Doppler Effect of the ambulance lifts up off the ground to my ears from miles away, carrying into the distance. I am sitting in the attic at my desk, drinking coffee, craving a cigarette because I quit. It becomes impossible to read because the sound from outside creeps in to distract me, and I swear I hear a witchy woman's voice, "Ah, the devil writer in the window." I swear to God I hear it. Where else would it come from, my subconscious? I peer down over my rosary, the one Myla gave me that her son had blessed by John Paul II when he visited the Vatican, but I can't see anything. Maybe it was Mary whispering to me, telling me to square my shit away and pray - but I keep writing anyway. I wonder what she said to St. Dominic when she handed him the beads. I imagine something like, "I am the Lady of the Rosary." Should I repent for my misdeeds? Bow before Jesus hanging on the cross before me? Question all possiblities? Say a few Hail Marys? My choice is made in fear and trembling.1
[1] Kaufmann, Walter. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. New York: Meridian, 1975. Print.
Beach Pain Center
All hearts fail
So let's go solar
Been running on a budget motor
Gotta have that energy insurance
Getting higher with a discount
(Not just for us, but for the Children)
Beach Pain Center
An island for the hurt
On this little ocean we call Earth
The tired mules at hunchback speed
Will all break down eventually
(The private grief of Beach Street)
Nova's next
I'm sure of it
No proof left of our existence
Tiny head electrical impulses
A million little human villages
Everyone, they've all gone wireless
So who says we gotta look our best?
I phrase the thought into a question
But I know there is no answer
There never was and never will be
(The uselessness of wondering)
No -
That's wrong
To wonder is to dream
A place to make thought into reality
And everything begins intangibly
That's gotta be the silver lining
iPhone Dreams
There was a boat, traveling at mid speed (25 mph) on the open ocean. It was a small sports boat resembling the one my aunt and uncle would take me out on Lake Ray Hubbard. I washed a load of clothes in the salty seawater once the engine was killed. Though we were not anchored, I neatly laid out each piece upon the back ass of the boat to dry. Sitting on a dead motor. My phone was situated on a flat ridge above the curved bow of the boat where my clothes were. Suddenly, the boat kick started and thrust forward like a spooked horse. In slow motion, I watched my phone slide down the curve, over my wet clothes that were glued to the boat as an advertisement, and PLOP! Into the ocean. Without thinking, I dove off and bottled-nosed down. A human torpedo after my phone – then close within reaching I kicked out desperately at a depth of 30 feet. The ocean water was illuminated by a pale blue twilight sky, pitch black crept on the horizon. Knowing it was now or never, I snatched the phone grasping it in my fingertips. Then frantically swimming with all my strength I finally resurfaced with phone in hand. The boat with unknown driver had circled round to get me and was waiting on the deck to pull me in and retrieve me. Once aboard I felt refreshed and sucked in a gulp of air – wondering why I dove into the ocean to save a piece of technology that was most sure to be broken because of water damage anyway?
Lassitude
Waking up -
My legs are sore
I didn't move the day before
Did I run inside my dreams?
I can't remember anything
I blink from sleep
Stretch it out
My tongue is dry with cottonmouth
In darkness it don't matter
I can still smell the Trinity
Our entire water system
Is flowing on uncleanly
And I don't feel like drinking
But my body stirs so weakly
Sip or die choices
With one leading to the other
All leave me looking at late night Texas mirages
Staring down ineluctable decisions
The palliative movement in America
The palliative movement everywhere
It ain't gonna be what I want it to be
Nothing will quell the inner eidolon
So I'll slip back into sleep
Run my legs and roll-on
The View from Above
Writing by phone flashlight
Perched atop my roof
Full moon above horizon
And I’m a loving goof
What my eyes cannot see
I still pretend to know
Yet the day is done behind me
And my pen remains in flow
I’m puffing on a keef joint
Alone again somehow
My sister’s down in Dallas
But I’m still at the house
The one that I grew up in
The one that caused me grief
Though if not that, I’m sure another
Would have loosed my tongue to speak
I can’t shake off these feelings
Or the things that I have done
But holding on too tightly
Has shook the bottle up
The neck begins to bubble
Fizzing just behind the glass
Everyone can see it rising
But it happens way too fast
Eruption blows the top off
Spewing foam and gas
But like all things in this sad world
Nothing ever lasts
So sue me for my sobbing
For popping off the cap
But shit, I need to vent these feelings
Or that gas will drug my ass
Abaddon
It's the sulphur
It's the scent
It's the words inside my head
Good grace between my hands
Blown down by angel breath
Luck is light is Lucifer
Whisper when you hear it
Sitting in his chair
Dripping tar on all the spirits
Just Johnny 17
Written in the 12th
He is most unclean
Perdition unto itself
Contemporary Memory
It’s not easy living on your own, it’s hard.1
Moan and sigh, it’s a pretty hard thing.
Mick Jagger, how sweetly he sings.
That slick son of a bitch.
It’s a hard time, baby.
The words reverberating thru my head phones. I’ve fallen under a spell – intermittent bouts of nausea. Spinning head, my tiny little mind. I'm dizzy. Spastically, I try to calm it down… like a monk frozen in a chant-trance. Trying to make repetition the reality, the only thought. The first to the forefront. Epic fail. I’m still confused. Befuddled, muddled madness. Lost again, and again, only to find myself (rejoice!) then I lose it all once more, three sheets to the wind. Knocked on my ass, back at square one (rejoice!) Bam! The Big Kaboot. The ultimate epithet or one hell of an epitaph. Whichever comes first. Knock on wood… oh how I digress. To deal with the hand that I’ve been dealt, drowning out the noise while they kibitz amongst themselves.
“Shouldn’t you have used among instead of amongst in that instance?”
Shitty-static like that.
Enough. Among and amongst are both prepositions – either form is appropriate. They mean the same thing. Old English vs. Middle English… what does that say about us?It’s really none of my concern, nor do I have any room to say, but I can still think about it which enacts the domino effect of tangent thoughts (the neuron web head) of awareness.
Mindfulness breeds empathy.
Turning the inward outward stirring ideas in the core.
A cohabitation of energy, a symbiosis.
Hummmmmmm.
Hummmmmmm.
Synchronization, just like Jung said.
Well, whatever.
[1] The Rolling Stones. "It's Not Easy." Aftermath. Decca, 1966. MP3.
Brittany Griffiths
- Cherry Silence
- Circumstance & Self-Restraint
- (RDF)
- O. Gutter
- Great Tradition
- Nystagmus
- LED
- City Soundscape
- Bloodbath
- Upsettling
- This Clonic Earth
- Mnemonic
- Healthy Snack
- More than the Mountains
- Overlay
- < 40hz
- Genuine Affection
- Dry Eyes
- Wet Moon
- Black Knot
- The Grid
- Purr
- Sky Wave Propagation
- Casa Loma
- 149612 Start
- Grim
- Glimpse Effect
- Little Remnants
- Notes on the New Deal
- Samsara
- Cycle Son
- Lake of Light
- The Clouds, My Chestnut Tree
- Twilight Speech
- La Condition Humaine
- Beach Pain Center
- iPhone Dreams
- Lassitude
- The View from Above
- Abaddon
- Contemporary Memory