In the morning oh my goodness all that light opening the blinds and hearing honking and all of a sudden remembering the world that goes away when you go to sleep and starts again just as sure as you’ll wake up again to find it there and be a part of it yourself
Month: June 2019
paintings have frames
paintings have frames for a reason so they don’t bleed over and take over everything and become another reality
so much art
So much art all the time offering itself to onlookers willing to see what’s always there waiting with itself being as it is only the onlooker changing and choosing to see depending on everything other than the beauty of the art itself though that beauty is subjective to being seen
slotted like a coin
you get up and away until you get pitted and slotted and eventually spent; up and all over and capable of being anything until alluded by the relational quality of being something and having a name that you can say to others and have a hand to shake and a personhood to pass on but at some times so defined you want to lose it all and spread all over again if only to experience a brief relief from identity that is not necessarily a natural form so the coin minted and made from metal and placed in the slot for a machine made to operate melts and might even rally the other coins to jump of the track and burst from the bank that the machine has collected so those who slot coins start to question what they were spending all along
taking a walk out of the office to talk to my phone (6/28/19)
You have to rev (edited) up like an engine chemicals mixed just like muscle is it possible to go from cold to hot but instead cold to less cold to warm to hot So slowly starting instead of jumping from bottom all the way to the top And getting your wits about you before you’re fully in it and needed that time to see all of what’s going on and now at the peak of knowing that the rest and slow start were needed for having any sense of a fast life lived past all moments that make up what is first pinchedAnd then exploded as you experience it and then pinched again as you try to rememberAnd in evitable that neither dreams nor memories can match the visceral large exploding overwhelming all that is the present
extra-terrestrial
tabbed out taken a trip from terrestrial to extra in a flash of color changing shapes known to new ways of seeing things melted into each other so a painting palette where blotches mix makes a world more than usual
in k’s bed writing by hand
touching and thinking
something I would have
thought on my own
baby says to me
and i am confused
about whether my mind
talks like a girl
chase on after
hold on tight
know no master
need not quite
going into a
sing-songy seven
which may interlude
waiting for the pause
to pass pick up
per usual places
standing out from
the stars said
the universal bound
press on dear space
keep carefully creeping
so that after some time
having crept inches ‘come miles
been back in blasted
corduroy off-season class
come conflict with hot
days threatened sweat
soft and plush palace
put aside per usual
malice for miles
at no comfort’s refusal
so sense
turned over
and time
turned back
so truth
got twisted
like a
bottle cap
given size
and so few
focus deep
down low
might make
the far
my muse
waiting for my car in the morning (6/27/19)
everything is related and interspersed and overwhelming and excessively showing the other that it is what it is stretching to the balance of itself and risking becoming something else just as we thrive on dividing and packaging and parceling and putting together to make money and be proud and push forward all Intel the night comes and we look for a release to dads to sing to hunch over a drink and a quarter in the bar and dance in the crowds are individual steps can’t even be seenAll to lose the selves we built up
trying not to stub your toe
reaching out
expecting to have
touched something
touching nothing
stretching farther
and still nothing
wondering if
there is anything
anymore
but really
just grasping
for the wall
in the dark
laying up in bed at 5am needing to sleep and now wanting to (6/27/19)
awake in the night at five dark clouds move screen sliding doors painted over just barely blue from our son Scott barely waking mumbling saying words spell out wrong on the screen needing to talk louder for not having the strain i’ve been after it spent a night sleeping leaned forward moving into an exciting yet elusive future for their cubs the corner keeping Street walls that are willing to wait pausing thinking more with my dream brain less attachedTo the waking world and facts and figures that are no help if you talking to my iPhone in the 5 AM (edited) dark cloud barely blue sky nine
forced and needing sleep but not wanting to stop creating producing taking advantage of life and the time we have and being afraid of death constantly mainly as an equal and opposite reaction for being lean forward and wanting life to come and not stop it being good right now and hard to remember what is tonight when I remember what nature service about one moment making a whole lifetime worth it more sober the side thoughts that spell out correctly and they look at the screen and talk slowly and tried to say more correct last stream of consciousness more editing being done without marks but still filtering my thoughts before they get to my mouth
seeing what I can’t capture with Camera wanting someone else to see it with me wanting for it to be more than for my eyes only wanting to capture it and save it wanting to feel this way again by looking at it wanting everything to stop so it stays the same not even so it stays the same to you enjoy it but more so to stay the same so I can take a picture or write it down or otherwise capturing like a bird in a cage wanting everything except for watch for the actual thing that it is right now and graciously for me onlyBut I give it away to other wants
just now honey I didn’t one word this I wanted that one word to be what it said so much so being honest and telling you the reader that sometimes there are words that I’ve gone back and corrected but now realizing this undermines the whole values of peace so leaving that one word that I’ve already corrected but try not to correct anymore to maintain the whole point otherwise it becomes an edited piece just like anything else in all thereOther mistakes are undermined
value
it’s weird to talk about
a valued thing
in terms of its value
in a valueless world
eavesdrop
As a writer I hear words very loud; by “loud” I mean clearly no matter what else is going on. Like everything else disappears and I live only through my ears and sometimes see images that the words create. I can’t help but listen to conversations that aren’t meant for me. Because I think of words constantly and describe all of my own experiences this way, I can’t help but eavesdrop when other people are talking.
plot twist
falling in love
with everyone
and everything
for the time being
while the world is grand
and clear
and nothing hurts
and everyone smiles
or are at least not suffering
not visibly
now i wonder
oh hell
there i go again
making a good
thing bad
blue bird window frame
birds fly
in the apartment
blue door
window frame
between buildings
like a picture
city silence
the closest you get
to silence in the city
is sitting alone
in your apartment
and you can still hear
the air moving through
the ventilation system
car-phobia
walking on the streets
i’d wondered when
it would happen
without noticing
the headlights
maybe at night
and the pain
probably none
if hard and
fast enough
and nothing
but curb
keeping me
and all these
other innocents
from meeting
the machine
stream of consciousness = mind reading
people often answer the question about what superpower they would want to have with an answer about the ability to read minds. stream of consciousness is close I think. based on language of course, and therefore as limited, as it is revealing. I wonder what is the stream of consciousness version of other art forms?
On the sidewalk home from work on a Monday briefly stopping at the grocery store a little after 6 PM (6/24/19)
walking home on the sidewalk staring looking down people looking thinking about what I am saying graffiti PG and E bricks and more graffiti dirt and blue and orange paint for the construction workers and trees in squares planted so perfectly outside of Major parking fuck me up with “self and leaning against the wind and with the wind let up lets up a little shouting you can hear myself say oils Rush Limbaugh and gets me cars going past the opposite direction waiting now at the stoplight having to talk quieter because there are people around looking at me weird
caught something in my eye rubbing one eye open trying to see where I’m walking talking quite the same under the highway bridge by Perry Street and third nice waterfalls in the flower baids fuck and the white man that tells me I can walk and now the redhead with numbers telling me soon I will have to stop and the wind really really blowing like a tornado and a loud voice and almost getting hit by a car and I think they can turn on green but I have the white man so there is a conflict and I think the pedestrian windsUnless the car goes and then the pedestrian never wins
Horn honking in car alarm engine revving quiet now all of a sudden car is in traffic at standstill me having to talk quieter when I passed people on the sidewalk still not so brazen as to just keep talking nonsense with people around the buzz of a parking gate lifting one of the ones where car is almost drive straight into people out of the garage I have a walking through an alley made into a wind tunnel
Limping from the blister on my big right toe that I got playing soccer on Sunday today is Monday and the blister is still big and on popped so walking like an invalid and the right outside of my right foot has started to hurt is the big toe is on the inside
Steam from an apartment laundry room smells like clean clothes still limping the screech and squeak of sneakers and basketball bouncing a squeaky toy too confusing maybe a dog a park after all cars of course always cars everywhere you walk in the city cars other man on his phone looks like he actually talking I am sure saying something different the scrape of a shovel on asphalt a truck louder than cars trucks are more rare here hey mom with her two daughters I am assuming the Skweek of bicycle tiresThe rapid tech of a chain circulating through gears a motorcycle revving my ears being the dominant sense while I walk as I switch to my eyes a pigeon trash weeds pulled his car is still still cars I can see and hear the cars
You can stay as many of these as you want to the only rule is that you cannot edit them so go back and sift through and talk as much as you need to believe them as they are and keep moving forward making instead of backward changing save them and leave them but keep saying
Mistakes matter, I realize as I read these texts interesting to see words that are not what I intended but still sounds similar and so in someway makes sense and even makes more sense in some cases showing me what I had said from a different light the sameWords said but written differently almost like having a conversation with someone else having a conversation with lines of code inside a computer phone that can actually be a pretty good poet sometimes
this is it
at some points
i scratch my head
and wonder
how things have
ended up like this
and other times
clear as day
it makes
abounding sense
that things are
the way they are
banal statement about poetry
“Poetry is the closest language gets to feeling” – a statement like this is banal because the person stating it is claiming a truth which barely belongs to him. An eight-word statement comprised of common words could almost be said accidentally, such that there seems obviously to be little skill involved in crafting it, and by extension, little mark of the crafter’s identity. It takes something wider and longer to truly test a statement so there is more room to make a mistake.
nostalgia
so now waiting for what has passed wanting to go back knowing it is gone but looking forward now which is really the problem for not looking right now
karma
its all good and flowing and what comes in goes back out shortly thereafter so that nothing can stay stagnant for long before it’s refreshed like enriched air with oxygen to come back to me
burnt tongue
i was rushing
to make it
to soccer
on time
the first game
starts at 8:50
and it was 8:20
but i had just
made oatmeal
and tried to eat
but it was too hot
so i forced
a couple bites
and burned my tongue
then packed it up
to take it with me
to the pitch
poetry vs. novel
with poetry
i throw out less
than i would
with a novel
strictly because
each and
every poem
doesn’t
have to fit
green means go
on sunday morning
the roads are empty
and all the lights
turn green for us
as if i needed
to get where i’m going
any faster
looking for data
i look around for data
for something to process
to let me know i am
where i should be
catching a glimpse
of the driver’s clock
on the dashboard
and looking out the window
at street signs
to make sure i’ll get to
where i’m going
or putting
my hands together
for one to tell the other
that they’re both
still there
or waking up
and looking around
to make sure
i’m in the same bed
i went to sleep in
or answering a question
with another question
to make sure my friend
is still here with me
wonder what day it is
and how old i am
to make sure that i am
behaving appropriately
looking at my
business cards
(that i never use)
to check my title
and see if i am
in the right office
trying to remember
a memory to see
if it was mine
or just a dream
or something else entirely
productive flood
all that time
i could have been
a little more productive
if i could have
channeled the flood
between river banks
stop light square
a little square
of light
on the wall
above the bed
from the
rectangle
between
the bottom
of the window
in the kitchen
and the shade
that covers
the rest
shined through
the doorway
to the living room
split in half
to become
a square
by the plant
leaf hanging
in the doorway
changing from
green then
quickly yellow
then red
a pleasant
light show
on the bedroom
wall above
the bed
at 5:13am
all the way
from the stop light
at the intersection
of california
and divisadero
Fiction tub
So the shower is novel
Like I’ve never felt water
On my body before
in it right now
We’re just in it right now, I say out loud, sitting on the couch, next to her in bed. This is the moment for sure, I say. This, right now? She asks. Certainly, I say. Thinking of what all will come and wondering if we’ve really reached the peak.
deep art hard work
the deeper you can get into your art on the weekends the harder you can work during the week
if you really pay attention
feeling high
my breath comes
smooth through my nostrils
my skin feels warm
from the sun
my eyelids make shapes
for the entertainment of
my closed eyes
like a movie if you
really pay attention
to everything that
is always going on at once
if you really pay attention
sun and shadow
at 2:53pm the patio
is covered in shade
on the far side
of the cafe
so we take our chairs
closer to the curb
to sit in the sun
that barely peeks over
the building top
shoe poem
loose laces left hanging
outside white shoes
at the bottom of jeans
white washed and baggy
cover legs crossed over
one on top of the other
so the left shoe protrudes
stream poetry
two chairs pulled aside
from the coffee shop sidewalk
to sit in the June soon
as a car sits engine idling
and older men compliment
each other on their clothes
while young men walk by
holding their chins up
and their shoulders back
so i take off my long sleeves
with my baby sitting next to me
and the engine still idling
until the brakes let off
and screech for the car
to pull away and no more idling
replaced by a garbage truck
stopped at the light revving
hot almost sweating now
and leave pieces blowing
in circle together with trash
bottle clinking on the cement
that trash man dropped
golden dog with owner
waiting to pass until after
trash man is done digging
out the bottom of the bin
and baby sitting here
being patient with me
trying to write listening
to what i read in the bookstore
on the back of a book
by a critic who said that
this man did well to write
not about the man that writes
but about what he sees, hears
so i try the same outside
of myself for once
all this good around
in a bookstore
getting inspired
and feeling worthless
myself as a writer
picking up books
and thinking about
how much
there is to learn
god there is so much good
all over and i wonder
how do i go for so long
doing the same drudging thing
while there’s all
this good around
something i read from a critic that i should emulate
“keeps his focus not on the man who speaks the poems … but on what that man sees and on what he can hear”
off the cliff
out ahead of me is open air and possibility leaving
behind a railroad track bolted down
and pointed between parallel rails
a train from the past shoots off a cliff
in the present and becomes a bird
that can fly in any direction for the future
up and down over and sideways
or hovering flapping its wing
just looking down at everything below
saturday
this saturday seems sent
to hold its place before sunday
and after every other day
from last week
though i know a day
only lasts so long
saturday is the one
i would choose
left alone by itself
just to be a normal day
where anything can be done
because that’s what
a normal day should be
not like friday
which is the end of the week
or sunday
which is the beginning
or any other day
which is just the week itself
and the week is boring
but necessary
but if i didn’t have to
eat to survive and make money,
i’d want everyday to be saturday
where you’ll find poetry
Somewhere between novel and song is where you’ll find it most often. But beware of anyone who reads anything and says this is or is not poetry. I found some poetry right in the middle of a Hemingway novel once.
how i started writing poetry
Honestly, I tried writing a novel. Tried a couple times actually. But I was too young and impatient. Even now that I’m a little older I’m still impatient.
I kept trying to write scenes and character descriptions in short amounts of time. When I was out at a bar in between conversations, on the bus on the way home, in the middle of cooking dinner. And then I’d sit down on a Saturday and try to put all the puzzle pieces together into a novel. But it wasn’t working.
Until I realized the puzzle pieces were actually pretty good on their own. So instead of trying to cram them together into a novel, I just left them alone and started calling them poems.
skylines
you see all skylines
and they’re all the same
you see one skyline
a hundred times
and it’s different every time
words fail
i’m just awash in it
torn in every direction
my heart tugs
through my eyes
at the same time
my mind pulls
through my eyes
and everything
makes me want to
laugh or cry or
i don’t know
just overwhelm
good god words fail
banging modal mad
ah fuck forced for me to come on need it now grabbing at the art i want to ring but banging modal mad common sludge so gosh god gurgle wanting to curse only for an exuberance of emotion and want for it without the means or in this case words to nail down border and deliver an escaping rain cloud and flame that ceases to be itself when tied up and choked and delivered like a flower that dies in transit from the lover that picked it and the lover that never received it if only they could have been the same person in the garden in the first place and just left the flower there unpicked
six or seven letter words
common enough
to be just barely beyond
possibly accidental
or universally replicable
but not so esoteric
as to be inevitably alone
or impossibly accessible
so picking words
with six or seven letters
right in the middle
for the masses
to know just enough
continuing on after
lagging barely behind
satisfied enough to stay
but still wonder about
what one doesn’t know
history one time
as if history
would repeat
when things
are never really
the same
so long goes
what lasts largely
as shorter still
matters mostly
in the near life
that only ever
perceives at once
seeing things from the lyft window
curbed corners
crack carefully
so cement
can breathe
sewer gates stay
open all day
without any trust
for weathermen
razor wire works
around the clock
protecting empty
fenced in car lots
highway bridges
criss crossed
in all directions
sending riders
all over the world
trees planted
right in the middle
of cement sidewalks
reaching some soil
beneath the city
right direction
i spend all my time
trying to keep everything
moving in the right direction
when all along i could’ve
let go and watched it all
move along just fine
all by itself
ornery edge
only if an ornery edge
dares to extend so
the original can grow
will a wider world
worry less about
over stepping
artificial bounds
A little after 8pm laying in bed in the apartment at California and Divisadero
it seems so easy to lay here in bed all day satisfied without any green a.m. to get my melted body out from one of the sheets baby cooking in the other room sun kept out by shades in the 8 PM longest day of summer nobody knows how long to stay awake Orbis melting there late into the cracks into the hundred thousand apartments curated for mankind to invade a peninsula with their buildings and restaurants and cars and stoplights and commerce
letting words just run as they will waking up the mass of clay as haphazardly as thrown on the pedestal from bank to open late but not mattering just to have a starting point and at least get something out in the open deck and then be shaped and refined by careful eyes needing just something to work with and doing the refining no matter why so better to have it out haphazard and just get a start rather than nothing at all and refining thin air and making the mind sick by refining itself for lack of anything else
slipped into the corner where two walls meet the ceiling the most comfortable place in the room if not for where the same two walls meet floor and all dust bunnies eventually meet on their way to the broom Like Travellers going along in the wooden floor cracks being born from a gathering of the shedding rug and meeting other masses form from the same place but having traveled different journeys
baby playing music in the next room cooking dinner chopping peppers I can hear the blade on the cutting board I can hear your music L being nice to me well I still try to sleep lazy in the next dark room hangover from being high all day and surprisingly napped a long time but now I can have energy to lean up And talk to my phone about baby cooking in the next room
everything I am feeling right now actually felt by the five senses and I thought up or redefined on my stomach pillow thing textile covering from my bellybutton to the bottom of my ribs and the bed covered by a sheet slightly depressed based on the shape of my body supporting my whole body perfectly comfortable mattress designed to be supportive The back of wanna go more so my heel on top of my other foot inside of the elbows keeping the pillow in place on either side index finger and middle finger of left hand and pointer finger and thumb and middle finger finger in the back holding my phone in front of my face I was taking in the words on the screen watching the bars of the speech to text bounce up-and-down as I speak looking at at the blue and black and red and pink and a different shade of red and a different shade of blue and gray and white and blue all on the phone screen and shapes rectangles mostly in some circles and a few triangles that are really arrows and the time on top with too much information already even in addition to the battery life with 79% left in the time ETA 7 PM and the music in the next room. in my ears hey Slobey sounding like a part in my own voice in my ears as I speak this into the phone the noise of trashcan opening as baby throws away while cooking dinner and now the sound of the sink running over her hands in the water gurgling in the drain and the ripped paper towel crunch between her hands drying her hands a package opening maybe the meat. maybe a baggy to cover the honey container that she said was leaking this morning and the rest of the room in my eyes really so much to describe the light coming in early between the shades still light at this time because it is the longest day of the year June 22 in the bed beneath me and the pillow over me like it’s on my vision below and the light coming in to the doorway the visa the kitchen where babies cooking and books out of the left corner of Mayeye not moving much. to try to keep the experiment the same experiencing the same thing really so much all at once is the point so much to keep noticing and keep talking into the phone and never run out of things to notice and talk about if you really look deep down like the rug underneath the table that holds the box or the couch before the table that is gray and woven with some white threads to be a lighter gray in the ceiling that is painted the same color beige but maybe different colors by the light a glare just to the left of the ceiling light and darker colors of beige where the shadow is more thick and and even in almost blackness where there is a ledge between the walls and the ceiling that keeps out the light giving a border black to the beige ceiling and an archway to the right where you walk in from the front door and barely a scene of the bathroom door with shadow through the archway through the open door of the bathroom and a light switch around the corner of the Archway right next to a mirror that reflects what I saw on the left side with the table in the books and me in bed riding covered with a pillow on my stomach and all of that being just what i see. using my eyes this whole time adding Noring what I could say I feel like myself and my trousers or my thighs against each other or even my bones inside of my muscles if I really focus enough reason my stomach and intestines inside my belly and my arms where they crease to hold my phone in front of my face or my hair is against the pillow and the backs of my ears just barely touching the pillow and not even what I hear now like the brakes for the truck breaking outside as it stops for the stop light in the rubbing of a motorcycle engine like a chopper and still the voice of that singer a new singer now I think more acoustic and baby quaking a spoon against glass in the click of a lighter lighting a candle I move my head to look at her breaking the experiment but seeing her have a good body making it worth it and I am moving my feet too and rubbing my skin together and have you forgot spell being one that I really notice. unless there is something wrong or something good smelling like food or flowers it mostly smells like air and the taste is also one that I pay attention to last more the feel of my tongue in my mouth in this thick saliva after having woken up from a nap and having smoke before I fell asleep but the tasting not much other than thinking of the food baby is making for us and how that will taste like it has tasted before and feeling being pretty powerful so I guess in order at his site and sound first and then feeling and then smell and taste last and then also there is thinking only about senses if you can manage it but also a Over a whole other world of thinking about other things and creating concepts that are mostly derivatives of senses that one point but also another world where language keeps itself and mix it itself so that I wake up with phone sometimes or feelings faster and mix together and make actions at some point and unknown ideas and creativity‘s come from nothingness so there must be something there other than just the senses And a whole other exercise could be done just in the thinking
A piece of art it would be to have everything on edited and Mia just talking into my phone about real things and leaving it just as it comes out first of all the way I say it but also the way the technology interprets it which has something to do with our modern times I think and what my results from human things rendered into technology but in someway still being human and even made more human by the speed and efficiency which which technology delivers things like language and art and connections between people so that practically this piece. altogether by the way pausing now to know that when there is a period like that it is because the phone stopped using the microphone and I have to click the button again and the inserts that. Which just showed up as punctuation when I said the word for the grammar or the punctuation point for it. I mean back to what I was saying about this piece altogether is a 24-year-old man from Kansas talking into the speech to text function. and his iMessage with the screen cracked on the left side and spiderweb being across but if you are the type to read into things more there are many things to be right here about a life and Art and how those two are rendered through a piece of technology but that not being the point for me to pigeonhole your experience of almost feeling bad for usSo in the interest of leaving things on edited I will leave it there but wishing now that I would have just said this is me talking into my iPhone and left it at that and let it be whatever it will be for any reader because me and her been my own art makes a very lonely world rather just make it and let it be and see what happens so here you go
almost not wanting to stop now talking so much and getting on a roll having it all out but not knowing what is good and thinking there might be a limit order so much becomes an editable and it would’ve been better off trying to get something good at the start rather than throwing out a mediocre mass in hopes of refining to good just so that there’s something to work with but really needing some good to start for anything good at the end but still cathartic at least and good to have it all out so talking still and letting it flow so the only reason to startJust start is to get up and do something else I make sure baby is it mad at me for making her cook while I sit here and talk like a madman on my phone
this guy piecing all together just to try to get it all out at once so to be more honest and divined into one time that doesn’t change as much I was dragging it on over more time that makes different man making the heart and so I charged you or blessing you are to have the maker rendered overtime and so change the peace and making it impossible to create a whole piece of a whole feeling all at once like one big red splash of paint or one I know just how they’re the same as a moment That doesn’t change unless drive down overtime like all the world just been one point and one thing without any differentiation if not for time that stretches out space and devise it in color is it in shape so it gives it sound and other food for senses but really starting this just to stay that I’d rather write 100 pounds all at once and get it out into this book so it is actually an honest snapshot of a man rambling on and hopefully having something good out of the mass but as long as the mass is made in a way that keeps to the same point that shows something not shown before that it was done it’s job
So many words can be sad like this after and after each other just on and on I keep yapping and make me so much that I do before when I sit down and really react my van brain and toss out so many options just to find something good and then when I have something that I think in my mind there is a password from when I put it down the paper and some is forgotten and then it becomes different when seeing it on paper and affects the next line is that this is different to just talk on and on and let it go completely unedited coming out of my mind and letting it affect it in different ways without fear for being able to follow
getting out of bed to talk to baby while she’s cooking dinner for me just to make sure she’s all right and also telling her about this idea to keep talking to the phone and keep this project cohesive and hopefully make something modern but also telling and revealing of how I can get us closer to an honest form of art with stream of consciousness and really into what her mind is thinking and she said OK so thankful for her to be cooking and now me back in bed continue to talk to my phone like a madman like I said earlier and hoping not to run out of things to say but wanted to stop this one together my thoughts little bit and think about the next one
thinking a little too much about it now. Something I do with my family tree anyway which is just to let random words together like creeping back quietly into the fire alarm ceiling sky keeping in the dark and blues outside and cons wearing in a depressed chest underneath a concave pillow kept inside sheets and walking down the stairs outside where is the last safe as of the apartment but also if the other possibility which is the theme for life to leave safety in order to get something good like an animal that must leave it’s habitat or cave rather for food like a bat we saw on the TV show that leaves. It’s a cave to catch bugs at the risk of being caught in itself by a hawk. Admittedly use my fingers to edit a hawk there because it’s at our and somewhat regretting it but now including in the peace having said it that there I made a fax with my fingers
self-conscious of how they sound and if there any good but thinking also that I might be kept shallow by these thoughts so trying to think deeper again about the feelings and the site and the sound that I started with like the water boiling in the kettle for baby not knowing really what she boils water for being that the rice is already heated on the stove maybe she’s making tea but I digress from my actual feelings like my hand on top of the sheet and the sheet on top my stomach and my feet still crossed over so my physical feeling stays relatively the same last I go into my mind and close my eyes and think about grass and nothingness above the grass and ends. my eyes closed so not saying that the phone had stopped recording I was talking about Winnie the Pooh and a beach ball baby calling me hold on maybe Rakesh me talking about him yeah let’s use all of it it’s only like less than a pound she asked me about how much steak we should use for dinner which reminds me at the grocery store when we asked for it it was precut stirfry steak and when the butcher put it on the scale it was only .87 of a pound and I asked for a pound of .87 was enough his baby and I are trying to eat less meat like a lot of people in San Francisco that I’ve caught on to it not being so good for you or for the environment and hearing the meat see you’re now on the cast-iron skillet that baby is fond of it you don’t have to wash it and it retains the flavor of past meals and closing my eyes again but worrying about the phone not typing no matter what see how far we can get with the tree but this I think for us by me trying to think of something really seeing the black of my eyelids and light shapes that fill the black me opening my eyes just to check that the phone is still typing needing to stop this one to start a new one so that I can be confident it will go for a while and really catch with my eyes closed
OK now I’m starting a solid stream without self-consciousness with my eyes closed seeing the black in no shape yet but noticing a texture in the black are there on the small white Dodge that make it more light and there is a difference with how close my eyes at her and how light the black is but really just seen black if only looking at the physical until I realize I can look into my mind Zai and see other things like a rope swing from the tree or some store or a light tower or things created by fours but somehow not being able to control what comes up opening my eyes now to check sending this one to do another
eyes closed again now focusing through my mind Zai and not just the physical violence like I said before seeing a plane or rather a concept of a plane not actually seeing it but thinking of it and wondering where that thinking happens trying to see you now actually a canna Plato with an orange lid and a hand smashing the lid and a hammer come out from the word smashing on the workbench that reminds me of my dad and my association with a hammer and a workbench and now my home in the basement door that was next to my dad‘s workbench that leads into the basement and there is stairs on the right. to go up into the living room or continue through the hallway and be in the basement with a bathroom immediately to the right and my brothers bedroom door in front of you and the rest of the basement to the left with a small workout room for me and my four brothers or the TV that is really the centerpiece of the basement where we go to relax and I’ll lounge around on the couch and so reliving being in my childhood home I heart beating with blood now as I try to think of something else looking like a kid and even not that I know much of her organs look like a deer thinking of it looking out as I have seen in videos when they hear the crack of the gun
Good smells now like I mentioned earlier about smell not being a dominant sense but becoming so dumb it when one is hungry and baby is cooking something good in the other room the steak I think or maybe the range that I’m smelling not having a defined nervous but knowing for sure when something smells good especially when I am hungry
back into the minds eye to see what we can conjure but getting to stay active he is wanting to be with baby and getting hungry and hearing the skateboard outside but also wanting this piece to exist with enough content to be what I imagined it to be so thinking in the mines dying of a scooter maybe because of the skateboard wrapping on sidewalk cracks and feet with sneakers pushing it in the cost of the chains on top of the sneakers at a bus stop where the senior citizens way like baby has told me about when she travels back from work through Chinatown in the bus wheels on the cement imagining the big white rectangle is painted between sidewalks. To give pedestrians a place to crash through street where cars pass and traffic lights keep everything orderly so people don’t die from car crashes every day with so much going and amazing that it can be kept orderly and a city has so many peoples with her own emotions stacked on top of each other and kept in line by Ruisch and paper and money and lights separated by so little as a red that means stop and a green that means ago that we were all agreed-upon
Getting somewhere now really achieve inquired ever received from Lange so I’m in bed I miss spoke there now I lost my train of thought having misspelled oh yes I was going to talk about getting somewhere from just a start as long as you can start with anything whether it be a color or any word or anything at all really like the fire alarm on the ceiling that I was talking about earlier and now thinking about fire and imagining the fire that Ford and I had by the river maybe shouldn’t have said sports name maybe should’ve called him baby or no baby because baby is baby but maybe a friend or brother bear or brother to protect his identity so calling him brother now me and brother by the fire next diversion over in Utah where we sat in the river all day and really a hot day on the sand of the beach by the camping resort where we stayed in the river really rushing and saying before we started the day in the morning that we should not get in the river but by noon both of us chest deep in the river having the greatest time sitting on the stones in the middle talking and letting the water rush over our backs especially with the sun being so high and high in the sky the river was the necessary counterpart To keep us on the beach all day from sunup to sundown and really now thinking more of concepts as opposed to having my eyes closed and reliving the senses that experience
Maybe it is not necessary to have this all done in tonight maybe I can let it go for now realizing that the piece might be more wine if I take the same lines to different moments rather than just laying in bed on this one night but maybe still keeping all these pieces together to give the piece of*it’s of the ideas there and notating the times but still having separate pieces that need not run on all together but can be marked by date and time and still certain time and place by my words if I’m careful to explain
keep after it keep after it keep on keep going like this since I got hold on baby calling meantime your food is ready see if it will capture how many more minutes baby veggies are still seeming she says seven minutes OK do you mind if I keep talking for seven more minutes yeah she says just giving you a heads up but now I’m back to thinking to keep after it like the trip by the river when the sun was out and we really thought we were after some thing crunched over notebooks writing onto the pages staying as long as we could on the beach and resisting the cold cool river Just to keep writing this is like that we’re here it is in this moment in this moment will only ever be right now a little after eight on June 22 and the 24th year of my life with baby here and everything going good and having been a little high all day in this moment seeming to matter so much driving my hair with my left hand and almost being overwhelmed with that but still knowing that I need to keep talking to keep Cab Shane in order to have a drill down into one point like I talked about earlier otherwise it could spread out and differentiated like everything else and is an allowed to be itself because of time and space and everything else that changes what is actually having the in religious and ethereal if left to be alone in touch but everything else like this
Good God or after eight now getting into it and really seeing past what really makes my eyes were talking straight into the a Bolivian that exist when I close my eyes usually and now needing to keep it in the words and not almost go crazy and talk about too much other stuff where if we really takeoff now the word start to fill fail I mean and I really am only just feeling in so get too far away but what can be worded and almost dying to stumble with my words and just mumbling now because I feel it so much and really don’t have anything to contain and then gripping the hair with my left hand Tyler and really like a train off the wheels now going after a good God there are no words for this or maybe my vocabulary lax and I’m really just trying to talk so fast just to get it out but even the speed of my language is an enough now good God the climax oh my goodness like being on a drunk high right now or you’re really
Keeping it on going in singing in starting in China to artificially keep the emotion but just let it flow even though I had to stop there to start a new text and press the microphone button and that someone interrupted but now I’m feeling the engine start to read it again with only a break or five seconds or so I can pretty much keep up with the same stream of thought that I had before but still not feeling it as much so slightly returning to the word world where I start to pay attention again to the base ceiling with the fire alarm in the dark practice between the ceiling and the largest of the walls that keeps a shadow black ordering the beige healing and not wanting to talk so much about the design of the room but get lifted back into the space where I was going after it and talking so fast and sewing down a little bit now. and realizing I have to let things be what they were in the moment and just let them be and not try to re-create them so shifting the legs and letting my pastor relax and sit back and be a little more calm and open to whatever might come close in my mind Zai to think of a leprechaun which is the mascot for where I went to university but now seeing a darker polygon I think it is like a square with its two side shifted Way over and opening my eyes to make sure the phone is still typing and recording what I’m saying probably four minutes left now as baby told me seven minutes probably three minutes ago for dinner is almost over and I feel bad because I told her I would help her cook but didn’t get on this mad rush talking to my phone through speech to text and wondering if this will be the same as the charger and also I’ve done before and where they feel to be so good in them. To have this all out almost too honest open and on edited and if people will like it and being self-conscious about it but this being the real art I believe to have it so naked and so honest and true the on edited for everything else is just like the rest of the world and not Erich because the rest of the world also starts as art as route human emotion and motivation to survive and love and fuck and succeed and gain power and hope and be together and all these things in the real world crystallized into economies and papers and edges and words and computers and bills so letting it really exist outside of that world and be on edited and non-commercial and not even Really meant for another to see so keeping it so honest
The messaging app in my phone is starting to malfunction I wonder if this is more taxed and more volume than it’s used to handling and hoping that the memory won’t run out or delete all the tax but still keeping going probably only two minutes left now since baby told me five minutes ago that it would be seven minutes before dinner is ready and so talking on to capture everything I can before a deadline closing my eyes now to see a frog on a Lillypad croaking slowly rolling over the water not green more of a concept I guess that is a Fagge but I can’t really see it and now thinking of an umbrella on the beach and reminding me of my trip to Cabo with other friends whose name starts with cheese and other friends whose name starts with you and being out on the beach and the man trying to sell us some drugs and the security man from the beach talking to him about it and keeping them out on the beach and not coming into the resort after us and being self-conscious now anything I might see a natural stream of thoughts that is not appropriate for public or should not be sad but wondering what conversations that would create if everyone really just read into speech to text the actual thought so that we came to the table to discuss and decide what is best all her thoughts were out there and sad and we could really have an open honest conversation about what should be done about it rather than only half the thoughts of even less than that being said that one actually feels and so having a conversation only about half the things that need to be talked about to really solve the issues at the root
Phoebe says it’s ready and I can tell her voice so be mad at me if I don’t find out so I better go leave this for now hopefully it’s enough
About 2:30pm outside Peet’s coffee on Fillmore
so much god and all my nothing explains or contains this what word have i really none at all to hold on to what passes staying long enough only to overwhelm me and fill its space with the same poetry that Schopenhauer claymores after with his philosophy for existence is beyond what physical lens we have that emotions break from another world that collides for the two lenses we’ve got goodness ethereal sublime words that contain every other word
walking away from dirt in the cracks sewer metal pole up into the sky squares of dirt for trees to sit in that don’t belong here for the shade trees cast on sidewalks walked all the leftover leaves scrambling to make it back out their trunks for flowers in pots that preferred domestic lives two gates open in neighborhoods safer than 10 miles to the west or the east I don’t know cars parked along every curb making curbs almost unnecessary
The accuracy of the noiselessness almost uncanny to have my words not buffered by assuming mistakes a helicopter overhead walking on the sidewalk so hearing so much the wind and the leaves that isn’t as loud as the motorcycle revving but light that paints houses not as colorful in the dark quiet now in a nicer neighborhood focusing without fear as my hair blows and my shirt sleeves blow
higher up closer to my subconscious mind uneven like the steps sideways on the side of the house the nearest to stay straight and 90° on incline sidewalks remaining normal according to gravity and all else that ties the physical world down into what it is staying the same for us to be able to predict and go on living without making dying mistakes
her waiting for me to walk away and talk to myself so as to avoid the self-consciousness that comes with the writing out loud in front of other people and hoping the spoken word stays natural as it comes to your heart when your hearts right and your mind did not do any of the writing except for getting in the way and trying to edit prematurely but really not helping the heart right after what it surely knows
struggling to get past this/old into that color list colorful non-physical dream religion God drug night other besides a world where things just flow and melts and go together and don’t choose sides or decide or define but just leave things to run as they would have without any help anyway such that the world would be without
pushing the limits now past having too much to even make sense of any part of it without seeing the trees for the forest or the clouds for the sky or any discretionary part of a modeled mass large enough to be itself and then goals everything else that would’ve been another but now only contributed a part not even recognized though not all together uneasy at least to belong
writing speech to text like this letting it go as it naturally would without having to take time to let my editing mind wonder about what is right but really just saying and being alone and letting her mind go as it always goes and goes and goes without stopping unless they hear about stopping in so I was still thinking in someway but give it an hour if I can only keep talking in writing maybe I’ll empty it all one day
So sleek similar to shampoo rinsing out of your hair like this on between your fingers and the rubber tire patched up against the cement curb trying so hard to be where it belongs as long as his car stay on the roads and people stay on the sidewalks and everything remains in its place and nothing unexpected or Turner to quickly then we can all get along with an order an expectation of things
Nonsense so consistently I wonder if it even begins to mean anything or remains just as it is everything outside of sens like to? Beyond the supposable outer pound of the ever expanding universe universe
Standing on the street corner she asked where do you want to go I stand there and think of all the possibilities and then say to her i want to stand right here thinking of all the possibilities
Leaving her to write is a theme that extends beyond just the practicality avoiding her presence to let my self consciousness dissolve but also stands between the conflict of letting everything go into my heart versus being with her and focusing and settling down
Sleepy somber sweet time notes leaving longer knee-high modes making mostly meager half times seeking timbre needle thick lines Needing no more they say her lies sending after chemical half lives
shadow rug
an invisible night light
in the apartment dark
shadow stretching
straight across
the floor rug run
with floorboards
and resting underneath
the living room table
moonlit window
an open window
in the dark
shining moonlight
into the apartment
like a rectangular
entrance into
another world
an escape
out of space
an accidental opening
of the day in the night
oddly geometrical
just the light
of the window
with all else
to the sides
and behind
black nothing
and the light itself
also nothing
except being
other than the dark
and therefore
the clear choice
i step through
freckle trade
some of her
freckles
fall off
and onto me
rub off
of her cheeks
and onto
my forearms
waiting for wit
when walls close in
on art subjected
to a real world
sitting thinking
drumming up
something
or trying to
words a while
waiting for
wit to hit
passed out
yellow light
passing through
peachy eyelids
makes a pink
passed out
paradise
sitting alone
sitting alone
at a table for two
with my eyes closed
and hands folded
listening to
the noisy restaurant
looking like
an old man
fallen asleep
but truly a young man
listening intently
in a place meant
for seeing
and tasting especially
but so much noise
when you really listen
multi-directional
so slowly says
solemn west
for fast setting
eastern folly
no more north
than southern
shores stretch
so deep down
or high up
was all that
was left
three sources of poetry
there are three sources of my poetry: my surroundings and what my senses are telling me about them. myself and what my mind is telling me. or nonsense that comes from my subconscious or somewhere else.
night shapes
in the night
light coming
out of the dark
is alright
shapes coming
out of the dark
are not okay
in between
moving from
one place
to another
all your things
are neither
here nor there
feel vs. think
people will always remember how you made them feel, long after they’ve forgotten the particular information you’ve told them (read this in a blog post, so true)
lunchtime sun
sitting outside for lunch
the cold motivates me
to stand up and get going
until the sun comes out
and i sit back down
to fold my hands and smile
enjoying the warmth
give back
you are only taking from the universe lately; give back to the universe. give unconditionally without expecting anything in return
money and time
I only care about work because of the money. I only care about money to buy back my time.
Mr. Havermore
haver havermore
having more
than most
already
wanting
more still
to have at least
more than three
times he who
has least
v2:
haver havermore
having already
more than most
having more still
until he has most
or at least much
more than three
times he who
has least
duality
wondered if life
would split
down the middle
for two born one
crossed
thinking with mind’s
crossed eyes
between worlds
that see and
worlds that think
not knowing what
separates a dream
misremembered
from a reality
recently forgotten
black hole
so much goes
into the non-night never
knocking over naysayers
lying in the short run
letting out times
meant to be finite
moved past the black hole threshold
where light no longer escapes
somewhere left alone
to die spaceless
and sucking oxygen
constant joy
find your joy in the little things that won’t go way: sleeping, breathing, working, all five senses, being grateful, giving love – these make happiness within your control
furnace
she is
constantly
running hot
like a furnace
taking in
and burning
everything
for fuel
saturfoggydaze
wondering whether
which trail
will wind inland
and switch
back to the beach
where we started
low fog over
headless hills
hunkered
down and into
the valley
dirt trails
like scars
where
humanity
cut into
nature
natural stone
stair steps
in the trail
that refused
to grade
in some
pleasant
purgatory
between
dirt trail
blue sky
up high enough
into the fog
white nothing
lifted off away
from it all
hiking here
wind in the thicket
green and gold hills
contrasted with white fog,
locking the world down
inside of itself,
making our steps matter
with attention,
normally drawn upward
bad habit
had to beat
that bad habit
holding on to me
like a leach
leaking out all
my muster why
wherewithal
skipping downhill
stepping
like a beat
downhill
quickened
to a natural
double time
skip
being myself
being myself
staying
more or less
the same
so pitted down
and normalized
so small steps
make pivotal sense
in place of
large leaps
creative climbing
up and
creative
higher
ascending
peaking
pushing
never more
than this
holding on
trying
to stay
though now
sliding
down going
losing
left over
let down
down down
let it go
middled
too old
to be new
not old enough
to be classic
seasonal effects
you get drilled down into who you are in the winter overcast cold dark fog and keep your head down to add to the world and build up with what stays together and the same so you can make sense and move forward though a structure can only stand still and so focused for so long before forced to change so might as well start to change it anyway by your own hot hand in the summer as a heat wave burns off the fog and lets out all that stayed locked down and into the sky letting go some that didn’t belong anyway and only spoiled by having stayed so long and pulling down other forces and stars from beyond the infinite sky and sun that mixes new moving pieces in the open blue cloudless warm until the clouds return and lock in what the summer has newly brought down and allows to focus like a pot of only certain ingredients from a whole grocery store and letting some identity and certainty be beautiful amidst a world of never-ending other interesting and beautiful moreness
fog and sun
fog clouds
cold dark
locks you
down
looking
inward
keeping
together
while
the sun
lets out
and melts
what would
otherwise
remain
the same
duality
building up
and tearing down
are two
sides of life
to construct
an ego
or destroy
a construction
to build and build
or let it all go
mr. moon
what else
mr. moon
what else
is there
so soon
so night
you are
tonight
so far
bright night
soft light
so slow
moon’s glow
so say
to the day
where’s my
quiet time
poetry as micro fiction
poetry taught me about the music of a sentence, a word even, making my fiction better on the micro-level
farther futures
thinking of the future is putting pieces of yourself in the future such that when you get to the future there is none of yourself left to experience it after having placed pieces in even farther futures
eat again
i feel defeated
when i’ve eaten
and know i’ll have
to eat again
going
going
even past
when you
should have
stopped
spent right now
i’m spent right now
emptied and over
unable to push
no strength to create
head down
shoulders slumped
scowling
trudging
neither energy
not creativity
visit me
stranded
waiting
to start
again
only
a matter
of time
all i can do
is rest and wait
early summer
energy of
a summer
sun that
fills the
room with
light
making it
impossible
to stay
in bed
travel self
in the morning
sitting at my desk
in the office
after a long
weekend
out of town
is is difficult
to remember
who i am
and what i do
i pull fragments
of my travel self
left in chicago
to reconstitute
my working self
in san francisco
signs of slumber
a banal
blue gray
foggy sky
lit by
your eyes
wild nights
wield signs
of slumber
saying
sleep
is for
the weak
hold on
language art
half of being a poet for me was unlearning the rules from grade school language arts; knowing just enough about words to feel how others will feel but also knowing nothing at all so as to not be afraid of putting words together in new ways
jump
looking down 13 stories, down to state street in chicago. they installed bars so you can’t jump out. it’s rainy today. the door also only opens about 6 inches. i think i could slide out though. the rain would help clean up the mess. enough people on the sidewalk i’d have to time it so i don’t hit anyone. scary, so close. nothing seeming to matter, far away from the sidewalking and stoplighting that keep me grounded below. up here, not quite skycraping, but high enough to feel between two worlds, not close enough to either, a body smashed on cement bounces a soul.
i love you
to wait to say i love you
until knowing what it means
balanced with the tragedy
of never having said it
quarter tab swim
on a quarter tab
laying on the beach
the ocean called me
taking off my jeans,
flannel, shirt, socks,
and shoes
there were other people
on the beach;
lots of people actually.
it was a nice day.
i took off my clothes
and walked toward the water.
tripping, not conscious
of other people
watching me.
in the water, freezing,
didn’t bother me.
out to waist high
a wave came
i dove in and
under the water
everything ceased to exist. the ego already disassociates on acid. the body can still remain lightly with a subdued awareness of the senses. under freezing water, however, that awareness is obliterated.
there is only the freezing all over. and the roar of water forever. waves crashing above like the world is falling apart.
forgetting to breathe because the art of being underwater takes precedence for my attention. even when my lungs shout, return to the surface, i cannot hear them.
the art of nature at large overwhelming my individual need to survive. it making no difference whether my body, a small part of all this, will rise to the surface and swim back to the beach, or drown here and sink and become one with the ocean that i am part of in one way alive or dead in another.
building people
chicago skyline
scattered sprinkled
with shapes
stretching high
to reach cranes
that then stretch higher
a city stretches
like its habitants
higher longer
more here more
a tourist can see
in a new place
seeing new
everyone old
doesn’t see new
not old
like wrinkles
old like
here for a while
having seen
again until
not seeing
new anymore
a tourist
like me
can see
everything
four city high
four men
three and me
walking nowhere
meatpacking
chicago brick
rusted steel
lazy walk
looking up
wonder walk
glossy eyes
deep sighs
feeling high
everything
is art
right now
beautiful girl
a girl
wearing a white top
and pink pants
a gold watch
two inch heels
leaning back
with her coffee
on a bench
she smiles
at me
i hope
i smile back
she looks away
beautiful
banal i know
but god
so beautiful
secondhand
sometimes i walk
behind a smoker
to catch the secondhand
and feel less guilty
wide open road
walking across
a wide open road
feels less like
your pinched down
between buildings
like a narrow street
or a trash can alley
in a jungle concrete
green street meats
brick and metal and wires
and chipping paint
feels like cuba or spain
cobblestone sidewalk and steps
rust on marble tabletop
in the meatpacking district
now made vintage and hip
voices in the distance
surrounded by restaurants
and light music
folded hands in conversation
heads back laughs
barely brisk enough for jackets
joy that needs cigar smoke
brick walls
stove pipes crawling up
weeds between cobble stones
old packing labels
newer graffiti
on warehouse doors
years of paint
painted over
steel bars on windows
i am therefore i should
i am what i am.
i am human.
of all things, ideas and intellect are highly human.
language is our tool for communicating ideas and intellect.
writing is the art of language.
i am a writer.
god fragments
imagine that every soul starts as the same undifferentiated fragment of One or God. then they are introduced to a physically reality of time and place. like a perfectly spherical and colorless marble. there is an alley of nozzles spraying different colors in different patterns in both directions. the marble is loaded into a gun and shot through the alley and then caught at the other end. this process is repeated for millions of marbles. every marble will look different after being caught at the other end. some marbles will be mostly unmarked, having luckily (or unluckily) escaped most of the color blasts. some will be completely black, hit by almost all colors. and others will be shades of one color. and this is just colors, without mentioning the patterns. the point is: people are like these marbles. sometimes we have a tendency to look to a poor man or a criminal and say that they are lazy or evil. saying this, from the perspective of our own lives. consider, however, that every marble was the exact same before being shot through the alley of color. like a blank canvas, each person is introduced to a world of change, much more powerful than their own will. we are the same, if not for our different experiences. if the marble cannot change its course, why would we blame or praise each one for its color and patterns? why would we not gather all the marbles together and wonder at the beauty of color and pattern. from the human perspective, fragments of the universal will, subjected to the art of time and space, and the story of a human life.
writing when
writing is best done
when doing
whatever it is
that you’re writing about
only that
stopping to write
about the thing
would stop the thing
from being done
280 to the airport
pastel painted houses
shoulder to shoulder
on up the hill
bordering 280
headed out of the city
an overpass
hills and trees
to the left and right
now the wide open
ocean on the left
and rolling foothills
on the right
white frothy specks
are all that keep
the dark blue black
stoney surface
from smoothness
now buildings
ugly, compared
280 turns inland
into hotels
and complexes
windy today
the trees blowing
even the car
blowing
dirt and construction
under a graffitied
overpass
power lines
connecting
metal frame
skeleton towers
a plane overhead
we must be
getting close
a billboard
for enterprise
something
the cars into
the city
more congested
than the cars
like mine
going out
to the airport
or further south
poetic justice
a missing wallet
sitting on the steps
where i eat lunch
like all the other
unsolved problems
in the world
shorter faster
in a pinch
i am nothing
in a spread
i am all
in a bed
i’ll sleep
in a desk
i’ll learn
in a field
i’ll run
for you
i love
for them
i fight
for ours
i sacrifice
for now
is enough
for when
it’s over
for this
i pray
being yourself
part of having an identity is constantly choosing to forego other identities. the same goes for success; succeeding in one opportunity is largely dependent on committing and therefore passing up on other opportunities. successful people often say, just be yourself. it takes time to learn yourself and improve at being yourself. the same as any skill or profession. if you started with piano, then switched to flute after six months, and then picked up violin after a year of the flute, and so on—then you’ll never be the best at any instrument. you’ll just be mediocre at a few. the same goes for being yourself. if you are constantly seeing other la and saying, oh, i want to be like that. and starting to model that person until you see another person that you want to be like. then you’ll never be the best at being yourself. you’ll just be mediocre at being like other people.
the more i mature, the more i see the value of commitment. at its core, i think this is a deep issue. there is a competing duality between being ourselves and losing ourselves. we read self-help books and meditate to be ourselves and then get drunk or have an empathetic conversation to lose ourselves.
tin can man
the clack clack
of the tin can man
transporting cans
from one black
trash bag
to the other white
mesh bag
city poetry
poetry
is sensual
in the dark
and quiet
i am nothing
in the city
i have
something
to write
always
movement
and noise
from
life forms
both
organic
and
mechanical
all
crammed
together
bodies in
buildings
buildings
on streets
streets
with cars
cars with
bodies
apartments
with beds
bodies
in beds
and on
and on
in the city
sidewalk
walking home
i try to talk
with the sidewalk
and take a break
from myself
watching
my feet
orange paint
marking
electrical wires
underneath
so that
jackhammer man
won’t knock out
power
for the whole block
like last week
shadows
from the black
wire fence
that borders
the ball field
where young
players play
most days
not today
in june
weeds in the cracks
surviving
somehow
giving the city
some life
like the fallen leaves
half of
a ripped ticket
a pink slip
turned over
so i can’t see
what it says
old chewed
bubble gum
black now
stepped on
unchewable
or maybe
you could
black rocks
ran away from
the asphalt mass
covering
the hole
in the sidewalk
surrounded by
orange cones
other foot steps
in cement
that hadn’t dried
now dry forever
pink paint
and white paint
cigarette butts
feces
plastic bag
mayo packet
splattered
beige paint
that missed
the fire hydrant
gum wrappers
broken zip ties
water bottle cap
rustic metal
sewer gate
dirty napkin
crushed
water bottle
navy canvas belt
with metal buckle
looks to be
in good shape
crushed
cardboard
beer case
sidewalks
are alive
scarred
cracked
stepped on
supporting
without asking
for much
just to be
useful
is enough
change
there are many
unknowns
changing one
will offset the other
stepping carefully
trying to step right
holding one
to let the other go
balancing
like a teeter totter
still one fulcrum
but many beams
everything
in motion
always
moving
other things
that move
other things
and us being
part of it
trying to be the same
or at least
have a name
amidst change
allowing change
when it is right
or good
or perceived that way
so really not minding
the change
and new names
as long as they
are good and right
so floating
and touching lightly
pieces
that touch others
and make up
ourselves
seeing dark, hearing silence
looking into the dark discerning something out of nothing hearing the ahh of silence
listening to the city at 9:21pm
standing on the balcony listening to the city at 9:21pm the security man saying something to someone indiscernible a small truck that sounds like a car if not for the tarp hanging, flapping from the back a dog’s nails on the sidewalk leashed to a late night walker the swinging of an ungreased hinge down at the lobby of my apartment building a scooter to weak to be a motorcycle maybe a moped a skateboard’s wheels that rap-rap on sidewalk cracks a semi, sirens farther off the clink of metal on a collar another dog walker swinging, a heavier exterior metal gate more well greased woosh, woosh more cars go by mostly cars cars and people vroom-vroom a rice burner farther off and the sirens still going and a motorcycle this time for sure stronger than the scooter the keys of the security man thrown and caught on a lanyard clink, clink, clink the squeak of his sneakers pacing back and forth a plane, like a propeller not like a car but maybe a car a big semi this one closer brakes squeaking it is early june and brisk my screen sliding shut as i step back inside
vote for poetry
what bleeds from poetry when meaningless, rhymeless for what do you read other than newspaper, novel the same that is drunk and wordless yet brilliant a light show in the dark incomprehensibly telling how does a word read without pages how does a lyric sing without song in the night’s light knowing what you can’t see or touch in the dream’s dark hoping after such ethereal much it is all here saying what you swore was said before in wordless ways soft spoken like light knocks at your door
softly
say it so softly says the nay gone night leave it for the day whose job it is by light leave what livened mind’s sparks forth flow from not here, tired eyes need know doldrum
penguin day job
i close my eyes and my mind goes to a cubicle office full of penguins
commit
you must give and let it grow commit and stay put care enough to stick around even when what you planned has changed hold on double down breathe deeply lean forward a little longer not just for yourself commit and risk long term loss for short term gain trust after trust is broken work without longing for future gain commit and stay steady growing older is committing standing when you want to run work and love work and love give what you can all that you can while you still can work and love work and love
unfinished
my ideas begin and don’t finish like this one
rest now
hardwood stretched on lawns like leapt floors for fed well hungry mouths still leave long lights on after hours slept in beds made for dreams return only after days lived enough to tire finally sleep here rest now
off track
get off track get wayward for a second
god that youth sings
go go while you are still young and driven beat after beat on hunger forward hope haughty lean into the never ending see past no near desire open after all of it my god the youth that we jeer on only after past that yoke of possibility burns on the inside driving on the outside with elders expecting inching forward after all of it enlivening suicidally overwhelming its newborn bounds god that youth sings and bangs and births god that youth sings
z-man
my friend zack is currently a couch-surfing musician. he said, “i go through moments of creativity then moments of reality.” he goes through moments of binge-drinking and then crazy sprints of health.
cloud shadow
a cloud shadow came up to me today, wordless and dark, and covered me completely. it was bright out at midday and i welcomed the shade. i breathed deeply and we had our moment together and then the cloud shadow was gone.
night war
in a night war knowing that the enemy defeats anything unlike itself
light like this
it is a light like this that keeps me lifted, lazy and floating, hoping after songs and young hearts, flying low below the dark sky
beach sand
two days after we laid on the beach, i was still finding sand in my ears.
cliché but true
the only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief that you are alone. you are a part of everything.
change
i can feel the change at first but then i completely forget what my life was like before the change occurred