Category: Success

The irony of advice

Once you’ve gotten good at something, it’s similar to how all the advice from your parents starts to make sense once you’ve grown older. All the advice from those who were already good at the thing only starts to make sense once you’ve gotten good at the thing yourself. The irony, of course, is that you needed the advice much more before you became good at the thing yourself.

I find this to be especially true with art. You must slog through it on your own, no matter what. It is not like science. There are no repeatable steps. You could put all the same ingredients into your beaker as the person next to you and still end up with something completely different.

There are at least certain themes that seem to be consistent between artists. But even these themes suffer from being difficult to understand for amateurs. They are not themes that you can proactively put into place. They can only be seen through your own solipsistic lens, looking backwards on your own artistic development.

Posted on by Cole

Dreams

Prose:

At night, I have a bunch of dreams and ideas for things that I want to work on. Most of them I forget soon after I’ve thought of them. Some I remember in the morning. I write down a list of the ideas that can be realistically achieved in a short amount of time. By the end of the day, I’ve completed less than half of the items on the list. Then the night comes, and I dream up a whole new list.

Poetry:

At night I have
A hundred dreams
Hoping for more
Than I could ever
Possibly achieve

In the morning I wake
With a heart full of hope
And a rested body
To go about
Making my dreams
Into reality

Around noontime
I have settled
On one, more realistic
Out of the hundred
Dreams to work on

Posted on by Cole

An object in motion

What speed goes so fast

As I head off

Hurtling downhill

Into the afternoon

And straight past 5

With my fingers in my hair

Trying to shampoo out

My thoughts in the shower

And wash them down the pipe

With hot tea to relax

I can’t stop going lately

And part of me loves it

Like an object in motion

Happy to stay moving

Having gotten to this speed

Seeming almost

Not to require energy

To maintain the breakneck

Though I fear the force

That will halt my hurtle

And possible break everything

At some point down

The non-now worry road

Posted on by Cole

rest

it all is

what it is

and will go

as it will

lying here

not there

trying to wonder

what i can do

while resting

there is nothing

and must rest

sometimes

and let go

Posted on by Cole

never enough (09/14/19)

it’ll never be enough i know now watching my friends make their money and remembering at one point in 2005 or earlier when i was about ten two dollars was a lot for what my brother and i could buy at the corner store but now in san francisco 2019 i believe more of the stories about greedy men seeing how more made is seamlessly spent and getting used to what can be afforded but not only that but more so seeing those around you (and especially those just slightly above you) forgetting that ten year old happy with a bag of candy

Posted on by Cole

not knowing what was at stake

days

when i should

have stayed

and did

in fact

but wondering

frightfully

if i hadn’t

and quit

up and left

and couldn’t

have ended up

here

where

i like it so

and would have

certainly

pressed on

had i known

but could have

just as easily

not

not knowing

what

was at stake

Posted on by Cole

leaving work in a car on the bridge on friday night

left after a week worked hard in the car and my shoulders starting to relax a little as they do at least until a gradual tightening come sunday evening but just happy now to be headed out of downtown and back to where i spend my nights and the city has somehow kept the building under control and so is more natural to see the sky and easier to forget about what is other than a mono blue or white or even grey at the worst but even the fog on a rainy night i prefer much more just to sit inside and take time to boil water for tea and eat then steam or otherwise relax and spend time without having to get a return on the investment

Posted on by Cole

productive

thinking

if i can just

put out

this much

and then

i don’t know

but at least

i’ll have

put out

that much

until now

i’m realizing

there’s no end

and you have

to keep

putting out

Posted on by Cole

trying not to think about work on the weekend (7/3/2019)

for a fifth of the time with which was spent watching clocks counting the first four so much that when the fifth started all the time was spent remembering the four anyway a shame for the four were spent expecting the first so the only time they’re really wise when they handed some small point crossed over the four

come on over as it wanted to be my poetry dries up work having been so much recently and wanting really only to write but knowing money is needed for everything I have and so feeling this conflict at times honestly but not wanting to speak so honestly is this when trying to write poetry knowing that world is different but not being able to write anything else because this is what I am thinking ofAnd just hoping it will only take a night to get into the artistic flow of the weekend especially this weekend on the eve of the Fourth of July when we have a long weekend to really get into life outside of work which is the reason why we work now baby going to bed

Posted on by Cole

give and take

You get taken a little too much

by the world that wants and wants

and never stops.

Without waiting to see

what will come to you anyway

and only going after it all the time

trying to grab what is there.

Some still to start

until less and then

eventually nothing

because you were only grabbing

and not putting any back.

So learning I get to stay still

and listen for the world

to be something again.

And then really realizing when

it is yourself that must

make the world what it is.

Posted on by Cole