This is the place I go to make bare my soul.
I light my candle and light my incense, bow my head in devotion.
I breathe.
Maybe for the first time all day.
I breathe, in the smoke, in the flame and exhale all that I have been holding in.
I breathe it out for devotion. For the purpose of growth, to honor.
With each breathe my heart lightens. My arms become soft, my neck releases, all because I have a place to bare my soul in devotion.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Day 18: Sleep
Light
hits my eyelids,
spidery patterns crisscross my vision
the space behind my eyes illuminated by the morning sun.
Toes curled, back stretched, body reminded of itself as I crawl hands and knees out of bed.
I start each day with my body upright. Straightened, lengthened, standing tall.
My heart pointed to the sky, opened and drunk on the heat.
As the day continues, my left shoulder pulls toward my chest hiding my heart, protecting my soul.
My right shoulder folds over as well, leaving me hunched, head bent, dark shadows hallowing my eyes. My feet become heavy and my back aches with weights too large and too invisible.
I stumble, broken backed, beat, bruised, darkened, desperate, hanging by a thread,
to fall, face first, into the comfort of sleep...only to repeat the same tomorrow.
Note:
Today I worked 14 hours, and tonight I feel beaten. My feet hurt, my mind is numb, and I can't imagine my life being any different. I feel a fraud and too tired to tear myself apart to share my soul and work on my art. All excuses, fallacies, but true tonight.
hits my eyelids,
spidery patterns crisscross my vision
the space behind my eyes illuminated by the morning sun.
Toes curled, back stretched, body reminded of itself as I crawl hands and knees out of bed.
I start each day with my body upright. Straightened, lengthened, standing tall.
My heart pointed to the sky, opened and drunk on the heat.
As the day continues, my left shoulder pulls toward my chest hiding my heart, protecting my soul.
My right shoulder folds over as well, leaving me hunched, head bent, dark shadows hallowing my eyes. My feet become heavy and my back aches with weights too large and too invisible.
I stumble, broken backed, beat, bruised, darkened, desperate, hanging by a thread,
to fall, face first, into the comfort of sleep...only to repeat the same tomorrow.
Note:
Today I worked 14 hours, and tonight I feel beaten. My feet hurt, my mind is numb, and I can't imagine my life being any different. I feel a fraud and too tired to tear myself apart to share my soul and work on my art. All excuses, fallacies, but true tonight.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Day 17: Enough
Not Enough
These words stalk me.
They shadows my every step and darkens my mind to future ventures.
They are the black cloud that rains on my parade, and it is the inhibitor of true happiness.
I let these words, literally, rule my life.
I am never good enough.
I am never smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, sexy enough, successful enough, happy enough, quiet enough, giving enough to satisfy the imaginary perceptions of the people around.
I am so worried about looking good that I let my parade be rained on. I let my love walk on by, because why could he possibly want someone like me, with my big, great shadow. And I let the "weight" of what I think people think of me drag me to the ground, nail me to the floor, and I look mournfully up at the people passing me by.
When will I be able to be enough...for me. Because it is a two way street. When I am not enough, neither is anyone else.
These words stalk me.
They shadows my every step and darkens my mind to future ventures.
They are the black cloud that rains on my parade, and it is the inhibitor of true happiness.
I let these words, literally, rule my life.
I am never good enough.
I am never smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, sexy enough, successful enough, happy enough, quiet enough, giving enough to satisfy the imaginary perceptions of the people around.
I am so worried about looking good that I let my parade be rained on. I let my love walk on by, because why could he possibly want someone like me, with my big, great shadow. And I let the "weight" of what I think people think of me drag me to the ground, nail me to the floor, and I look mournfully up at the people passing me by.
When will I be able to be enough...for me. Because it is a two way street. When I am not enough, neither is anyone else.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Day 17: That Deadly Sensation
I can feel it creeping up my spine.
Tip toed fingers caressing my back and I shiver.
Bubbles fizzle in my stomach and a smile touches my lips.
For a moment I feel I am falling backwards, taken in by that deadly sensation.
I can feel my heart getting tangled and I sigh a relief.
After so long I wasn't sure I remembered how to be twitterpated.
But I also remember that deadly sensation is of my own making, self-inflicted.
I thought you were all I had been waiting for.
All that I have prayed for day after day.
But it never seems just right, but each day I can tell I am getting closer.
Closer to the moment when all that I am missing in life is you.
And yet tonight I lie awake thinking of you.
Of how you make me feel more like a woman.
Of how you make me feel less alone and more alone. Bittersweet and delicious
Of how you make me feel sexy and wanted.
I wonder if it is you making me feel these things or the possibility of you that spurns me to tossing and turning and a long sleepless night of introspective moments.
Tip toed fingers caressing my back and I shiver.
Bubbles fizzle in my stomach and a smile touches my lips.
For a moment I feel I am falling backwards, taken in by that deadly sensation.
I can feel my heart getting tangled and I sigh a relief.
After so long I wasn't sure I remembered how to be twitterpated.
But I also remember that deadly sensation is of my own making, self-inflicted.
I thought you were all I had been waiting for.
All that I have prayed for day after day.
But it never seems just right, but each day I can tell I am getting closer.
Closer to the moment when all that I am missing in life is you.
And yet tonight I lie awake thinking of you.
Of how you make me feel more like a woman.
Of how you make me feel less alone and more alone. Bittersweet and delicious
Of how you make me feel sexy and wanted.
I wonder if it is you making me feel these things or the possibility of you that spurns me to tossing and turning and a long sleepless night of introspective moments.
Day 16: We Are One.
The beat vibrates deep inside of me as I rest my hands on my ribs to feel them moving.
Side to side I pulse, making music motion.
The twinkle of a thousand lights burst behind my eyes as I float away.
Taken by the crowd, taken by the music, the strong hands cupping my hips.
I feel the sinew in my muscles tighten as I rock, and it strikes me as funny, that hundreds of strangers can gather and connect over something so innocent as music, while thousands die because they can't.
That is the allure of the music, it reconnects us as human to our fellow humans and we resonate together for a single moment, one organism with the same purpose, the same problems, the same joys and we all breath out a sigh of relief as we settle into that moment.
The moment we are one.
Side to side I pulse, making music motion.
The twinkle of a thousand lights burst behind my eyes as I float away.
Taken by the crowd, taken by the music, the strong hands cupping my hips.
I feel the sinew in my muscles tighten as I rock, and it strikes me as funny, that hundreds of strangers can gather and connect over something so innocent as music, while thousands die because they can't.
That is the allure of the music, it reconnects us as human to our fellow humans and we resonate together for a single moment, one organism with the same purpose, the same problems, the same joys and we all breath out a sigh of relief as we settle into that moment.
The moment we are one.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Day 16: To My Mirror
To My Mirror
It must be hard to be a mirror.
To always show only the truth and then to be blamed for the reflection.
It must be hard to remember that beneath that shiny surface there is a person there.
A person of depth and beauty. A person so obviously blind to their own reflection.
When we look into a mirror, we do not even see ourselves. We see our insecurities, our pasts written in lines upon our bodies, our emotions, our mind states. And somewhere beneath all that there is the person we really are. Naked, bare, exposed. We fear this so deeply that we cover ourselves with lies, crimes against our humanity. And we use those around us to support those lies, we use other's mirror, so we are secure in our knowledge that we are worthless pieces of shit that are neither capable of loving ourselves nor others. As we drown in our own insecurities, we are safe in knowing that everyone else is drowning with us. As a people we drown. Delighted by our united stupidity. Well...at least we are united.
It must be hard to be a mirror.
To always show only the truth and then to be blamed for the reflection.
It must be hard to remember that beneath that shiny surface there is a person there.
A person of depth and beauty. A person so obviously blind to their own reflection.
When we look into a mirror, we do not even see ourselves. We see our insecurities, our pasts written in lines upon our bodies, our emotions, our mind states. And somewhere beneath all that there is the person we really are. Naked, bare, exposed. We fear this so deeply that we cover ourselves with lies, crimes against our humanity. And we use those around us to support those lies, we use other's mirror, so we are secure in our knowledge that we are worthless pieces of shit that are neither capable of loving ourselves nor others. As we drown in our own insecurities, we are safe in knowing that everyone else is drowning with us. As a people we drown. Delighted by our united stupidity. Well...at least we are united.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Day 14: In Cold Hell, in Thicket
To assist in my process of learning to become a poet, I have decided that I will be reading a poem from a great poet once a day and using this blog not only as a place to write poetry but also as a journal to write reflections about what I am reading and what the poem effected in me.
Currently I am reading Charles Olson. Great American Poet of the 50's wrote in projective verse...which quite honestly I am still not sure what that means. I know that the structure of the poem has something to do with the breath. But it also has to do with the landscape inside of the human soul rather than just discussing the landscape around oneself. But that is the extent of my understanding of the Projective Verse and most importantly of Charles Olson's In Cold Hell, in Thicket written in 1953.
The structure of the poem is so chaotic that it literally alienates the reader from the deep emotions being divulged, what is the point then?
Currently I am reading Charles Olson. Great American Poet of the 50's wrote in projective verse...which quite honestly I am still not sure what that means. I know that the structure of the poem has something to do with the breath. But it also has to do with the landscape inside of the human soul rather than just discussing the landscape around oneself. But that is the extent of my understanding of the Projective Verse and most importantly of Charles Olson's In Cold Hell, in Thicket written in 1953.
The structure of the poem is so chaotic that it literally alienates the reader from the deep emotions being divulged, what is the point then?
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Day 10:
The world around me turns black and the anger burns in my gut.
Splashes of yellow, and puce. The shapes blur and all I can see if the object of my anger.
It churns inside me. Infecting my ribs and my womb with pus. It is an infection the eats me from the inside out. Tearing holes in my skin and shredding my soul into ribbons.
All so I can be right. Secure in my knowledge that I am right (self-righteous), secure in my knowledge that I am literally tearing out my own heart just so that I can be right.
Note:
I am three days behind, because Blogspot was down and I started to get judgmental about what I am writing. My writing takes little skill and requires more tutelage, as well as some fucking authenticity. All these things I write about are real for me, but are about being selfish. I am completely unobservant of the things going on around me. I have become complacent.
Day 9:
I am so eager to be loved.
I see it in the faces of strangers that pass me on the street.
Dreaming of that perfect love.
That is easy, solid and life changing.
And I am trying so hard. To be “right” so I can be lovable.
The thing is, I don’t even remember what it was like to be in love.
All the pain people feel for love is part of the process.
We, yes I, love this pain. Love this idea of love. It is so much easier than the real thing.
Love is devotion to the divine. To surrender completely to not another but to the divine. Love is something beyond the people "feeling" it. It is too great to be felt for one person. Relationship is about the people in it, but love is about everyone.
Day 8:
What I want to write is something meaningful,
But all that comes is the same story I have said before.
It is all egotisical crap spouted by pretty much everyone.
And still I feel flawed, humanly flawed.
Feel that no matter the work, I will always be flawed.
Day 7:
Even in the depths of this moment I feel alone, Restlessly alone.
All the nonsense about having it figured out is fake.
In the end I am alone. Left behind. As people’s lives travel on in a path already written for them I am stuck in the middle of my road too scared to go left or right or even make a deal with the devil. And all of it is lies. Lies to make myself feel little and alone. My privilege blinds me to the divine in my life. To the divine in me, and my divine purpose. The gift to be abundance.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Day 6:
I could be anywhere...in my little room.
Lost in space or stuck in a cave...none of it matters.
Because there is no connection to the outside.
I am the only one that matters.
And in my arrogance I think that I am the only one that matters.
The only one that is right, the only one who knows.
And in my arrogance I am left alone. I alienate everyone because I am the only one who knows.
I am right and everyone else is wrong.
And I am left alone, because I think I have done the work.
The most important work, and in my arrogance I realize that obviously I have not done the work.
That I am not just living in arrogance, self righteousness, but also in ignorance...
and my price is love.
Lost in space or stuck in a cave...none of it matters.
Because there is no connection to the outside.
I am the only one that matters.
And in my arrogance I think that I am the only one that matters.
The only one that is right, the only one who knows.
And in my arrogance I am left alone. I alienate everyone because I am the only one who knows.
I am right and everyone else is wrong.
And I am left alone, because I think I have done the work.
The most important work, and in my arrogance I realize that obviously I have not done the work.
That I am not just living in arrogance, self righteousness, but also in ignorance...
and my price is love.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Day 5:
I can feel myself melting away,
under the pressure of my ambition, I am compressing.
Smashed into a cubic square of my personality.
All that I am pushed into this small shape, boring and geometric.
It is hard to complain though, when I have helped create my very own cage.
When I have painstakingly built every feature and surface to specific dimensions.
It is hard to complain when I realize that this is all my fault.
under the pressure of my ambition, I am compressing.
Smashed into a cubic square of my personality.
All that I am pushed into this small shape, boring and geometric.
It is hard to complain though, when I have helped create my very own cage.
When I have painstakingly built every feature and surface to specific dimensions.
It is hard to complain when I realize that this is all my fault.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Day 4: Untilted
Numb...
The tips of my fingers pulse with tiny bursts like firecrackers going off on concrete.
Numb...
My hips ache with complaint from exhaustion.
Numb...
My lids close closely and deeply.
Calming drifting into sleep...numb.
And then it starts, as if a movie is being switched on behind my eyes.
Images of running, floating, skipping, dipping...I fly in my dreams.
No limits there, and it is so easy and natural to be that free...alive, enlivened.
But when I open my eyes...numb.
The tips of my fingers pulse with tiny bursts like firecrackers going off on concrete.
Numb...
My hips ache with complaint from exhaustion.
Numb...
My lids close closely and deeply.
Calming drifting into sleep...numb.
And then it starts, as if a movie is being switched on behind my eyes.
Images of running, floating, skipping, dipping...I fly in my dreams.
No limits there, and it is so easy and natural to be that free...alive, enlivened.
But when I open my eyes...numb.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Day 3: Part 2
Why would love ever appear rational?
It is an irrational, clashing of titanic proportions, but sane.
It the spark before the bang and the deep, hot glow of a glass blower's kiln, uncontrollable, uncertain, chaotic display of socially unacceptable behavior.
All of these things often add up to insane in most people's books.
How can one hold on to this type of irrationality?
Why is there the idea that one must?
Perhaps love is not meant to be contained and carefully defined.
Perhaps it takes two incredibly HUMAN people to be just sane enough to attempt to be that irrational and succeed.
It evokes the same image of the glass blower bare armed reaching a metal pole into a bowl of molten, white hot lava to create something even more beautiful than what those little grains of sands started as...love is a mix of two people choosing to be two people in love. A constant state of uncontrollable, uncertain, chaotic display of socially unacceptable behavior.
If I were only so lucky.
It is an irrational, clashing of titanic proportions, but sane.
It the spark before the bang and the deep, hot glow of a glass blower's kiln, uncontrollable, uncertain, chaotic display of socially unacceptable behavior.
All of these things often add up to insane in most people's books.
How can one hold on to this type of irrationality?
Why is there the idea that one must?
Perhaps love is not meant to be contained and carefully defined.
Perhaps it takes two incredibly HUMAN people to be just sane enough to attempt to be that irrational and succeed.
It evokes the same image of the glass blower bare armed reaching a metal pole into a bowl of molten, white hot lava to create something even more beautiful than what those little grains of sands started as...love is a mix of two people choosing to be two people in love. A constant state of uncontrollable, uncertain, chaotic display of socially unacceptable behavior.
If I were only so lucky.
Day 3: The Right Now
I don't want to deal with this right now...
The "right now" is just the "looking good" statement we tack on
to assure people that we are working on it.
But what "right now" means is not now...not this, but in the future some day when I am...
Happier
Well Rested
Well Feed
Less Busy
Less Stressed
Less Confused
but all of those things are infinite if you choose to be that way.
We are, all of us, those things constantly, and when you choose the "not right now" statement you choose stagnation.
And we choose this "not right now" because we think it will be easier.
Easy Way Out.
But all it is creating is the Hard Way In...to further development of the soul.
The REAL easy way, is to choose, "yes, in this moment I choose yes."
The "right now" is just the "looking good" statement we tack on
to assure people that we are working on it.
But what "right now" means is not now...not this, but in the future some day when I am...
Happier
Well Rested
Well Feed
Less Busy
Less Stressed
Less Confused
but all of those things are infinite if you choose to be that way.
We are, all of us, those things constantly, and when you choose the "not right now" statement you choose stagnation.
And we choose this "not right now" because we think it will be easier.
Easy Way Out.
But all it is creating is the Hard Way In...to further development of the soul.
The REAL easy way, is to choose, "yes, in this moment I choose yes."
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Day 2: The Empty Space
There is an empty space...I roll over and it is next to me.
When I walk I can feel it just over my left shoulder, lurking.
Defining me.
It is the largest empty space and I believe, it defines me...to others.
When people see me, their eyes float conspicuously to that space to my left and depending on the person...a smile, a frown, a nod, an upturned nose.
This space defines me by how empty it is.
Defines me in my loneliness.
Defines me in my worthiness.
Defines me in my success.
to others...
But to me this empty space does not mean these things,
to me....it defines my triumph over loneliness, it defines my success in attention, and it defines my openness and willingness to have that space be filled when it is right....just simply by that space being empty and existing.
It is how we define things that change their...meaning.
And it is how we let these meanings define our lives.
Note:
I have a strong sense that someday very soon I will run out of important and interesting things to say and suddenly several poems about sunshine and flowers with tweeting birds with crop up and then you will all be sorry.
When I walk I can feel it just over my left shoulder, lurking.
Defining me.
It is the largest empty space and I believe, it defines me...to others.
When people see me, their eyes float conspicuously to that space to my left and depending on the person...a smile, a frown, a nod, an upturned nose.
This space defines me by how empty it is.
Defines me in my loneliness.
Defines me in my worthiness.
Defines me in my success.
to others...
But to me this empty space does not mean these things,
to me....it defines my triumph over loneliness, it defines my success in attention, and it defines my openness and willingness to have that space be filled when it is right....just simply by that space being empty and existing.
It is how we define things that change their...meaning.
And it is how we let these meanings define our lives.
Note:
I have a strong sense that someday very soon I will run out of important and interesting things to say and suddenly several poems about sunshine and flowers with tweeting birds with crop up and then you will all be sorry.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Old Poems
These are some other poems I have written recently that I wanted to share.
8/9/09
My hand trembles, another day goes by, another relationship floats into the past.
The world moves on around me while I recover, rediscover, and remember.
Remember that alone is ok
Alone is right, and maybe you were right.
Rediscover my life, my art, myself.
Recover my heart, my kindness, my values.
Remember that you are not the one.
"The One."
I am the one.
The one here in my life, enduring, changing, shaping, moving through my life with purpose and growing into the person I started out as.
8/16/09
Letting go of love is like
letting a piece of your heart die.
To have loved and lost is the gift you always wish at the end that could return.
To have TRULY loved and to have TRULY lost is to know need and sorrow, forgiveness and hate, pain and freedom, betrayal and loneliness.
Above all else, to love, is to grow.
To grow in forgiveness and servitude, compassion and depth of emotion.
And these are the growing pains of living in love, heart spread wide.
Some day, at the end of it all, I will appreciate the extra inch of height as I reach for my dreams.
3/25/10
I dream of running down the empty streets of Paris,
White silk trailing behind, red lips parted
breath steaming
rapture in my eyes.
Soaking in the dark, enormous beauty of this city.
Alone, singled out, but embraced by the strength in the bones of this city's history.
Everywhere you look ghosts of past lives haunt this city.
Strolling down the street, intermixed with the slang talking youth, dog shit, and picture snapping tourists. And no one sees them, these ghosts, they float by in silence.
In this you discover the beauty of the city.
New and Old, Grandeur and filth.
All contained in a glorious contrast, not seen by most, but certainly not to be taken lightly.
This city is a serious city...created on the starvation of budding artists, deep thinking philosophers, and the monument of human creation.
With a past like that, the cobbled streets make sense. Almost the dimpled scars left by the strong emotions of the past.
This city SHOULD evoke strong visions of the past. One must be aware of the fact that their lives are really only a part of a great lone of thinkers, feelers, and emoters.
WE are nothing in the grand scheme of things.
WE are but simple moving cogs in the machine of time.
Three Old Men
The sunlight glints off my finger nails and I bask.
In the glory of the day, the smells of fall, the joys of existing.
The smell of crushed fallen leaves and car exhaust fill my nostrils and Three Old Men sit.
Enjoying the last few days of bright sun floating through the leaves.
I imagine they sit discussing how much the world has changed since they were young.
How it was simpler or maybe more complicated.
How they traveled the world in their youth and learned things that their children and the children of today could never understand.
The sun peeks from behind a fork in a tree and I imagine sitting with my own friends bemoaning the eccentricities of our youth and curiosity. Extolling the great wisdom we have amassed in our long, full, lives and how we hope and pray that our children, and the children of the day have learned from what we have shared with them.
2/23/11
Phoenix through the Divine
I live in desolation
inside
Everything bulldozed over
Raw
constantly bleeding...everything broken down
and replaced
by something NEW.
I grasp at the vapors of memory of what I was told one day, only to find that my hands are empty
and blackened, rubbed red skin peeks through the soot.
I am reminded that I am trying to get some where so...I stumble.
One...toe...at...a..time.
Painfully lifting the charred flesh from the ground to place it again on the steaming earth.
I know that someday...I will be burned away and I will be fresh, clean, free, and I will start again.
4/25/11
Brendan
The lines cut the sky in sections of colors: lightening-purple, pain-yellow. The sky drips salt down my back for you. Tears of a sort for our goodbye. The lightening rips through the clouds, my world shakes. I grab for something to steady my trembling body and find an out stretched hand. I look around and see the lines cutting the sky are only in my head.
5/4/11
I lay desolate
my bones picked over by a thousand grains of white sand in the moon light.
I am content.
Everything that I am I have surrendered to feed this earth. This moment.
I have given my body that had taken in love, passion, hatred, sadness, confusion, disappointment, longing, and creativity.
And I have surrendered it to this soil.
My sadness fuels the rain.
My passion ignites the animals
and I am relieved.
Relieved that I no longer have to hold these concepts inside my body anymore.
All that is left, all I contain, is compassion.
A concept to large to be held anyways.
So it is something that is all.
All around, inside and out.
And needs no boundaries to be shared.
8/9/09
My hand trembles, another day goes by, another relationship floats into the past.
The world moves on around me while I recover, rediscover, and remember.
Remember that alone is ok
Alone is right, and maybe you were right.
Rediscover my life, my art, myself.
Recover my heart, my kindness, my values.
Remember that you are not the one.
"The One."
I am the one.
The one here in my life, enduring, changing, shaping, moving through my life with purpose and growing into the person I started out as.
8/16/09
Letting go of love is like
letting a piece of your heart die.
To have loved and lost is the gift you always wish at the end that could return.
To have TRULY loved and to have TRULY lost is to know need and sorrow, forgiveness and hate, pain and freedom, betrayal and loneliness.
Above all else, to love, is to grow.
To grow in forgiveness and servitude, compassion and depth of emotion.
And these are the growing pains of living in love, heart spread wide.
Some day, at the end of it all, I will appreciate the extra inch of height as I reach for my dreams.
3/25/10
I dream of running down the empty streets of Paris,
White silk trailing behind, red lips parted
breath steaming
rapture in my eyes.
Soaking in the dark, enormous beauty of this city.
Alone, singled out, but embraced by the strength in the bones of this city's history.
Everywhere you look ghosts of past lives haunt this city.
Strolling down the street, intermixed with the slang talking youth, dog shit, and picture snapping tourists. And no one sees them, these ghosts, they float by in silence.
In this you discover the beauty of the city.
New and Old, Grandeur and filth.
All contained in a glorious contrast, not seen by most, but certainly not to be taken lightly.
This city is a serious city...created on the starvation of budding artists, deep thinking philosophers, and the monument of human creation.
With a past like that, the cobbled streets make sense. Almost the dimpled scars left by the strong emotions of the past.
This city SHOULD evoke strong visions of the past. One must be aware of the fact that their lives are really only a part of a great lone of thinkers, feelers, and emoters.
WE are nothing in the grand scheme of things.
WE are but simple moving cogs in the machine of time.
Three Old Men
The sunlight glints off my finger nails and I bask.
In the glory of the day, the smells of fall, the joys of existing.
The smell of crushed fallen leaves and car exhaust fill my nostrils and Three Old Men sit.
Enjoying the last few days of bright sun floating through the leaves.
I imagine they sit discussing how much the world has changed since they were young.
How it was simpler or maybe more complicated.
How they traveled the world in their youth and learned things that their children and the children of today could never understand.
The sun peeks from behind a fork in a tree and I imagine sitting with my own friends bemoaning the eccentricities of our youth and curiosity. Extolling the great wisdom we have amassed in our long, full, lives and how we hope and pray that our children, and the children of the day have learned from what we have shared with them.
2/23/11
Phoenix through the Divine
I live in desolation
inside
Everything bulldozed over
Raw
constantly bleeding...everything broken down
and replaced
by something NEW.
I grasp at the vapors of memory of what I was told one day, only to find that my hands are empty
and blackened, rubbed red skin peeks through the soot.
I am reminded that I am trying to get some where so...I stumble.
One...toe...at...a..time.
Painfully lifting the charred flesh from the ground to place it again on the steaming earth.
I know that someday...I will be burned away and I will be fresh, clean, free, and I will start again.
4/25/11
Brendan
The lines cut the sky in sections of colors: lightening-purple, pain-yellow. The sky drips salt down my back for you. Tears of a sort for our goodbye. The lightening rips through the clouds, my world shakes. I grab for something to steady my trembling body and find an out stretched hand. I look around and see the lines cutting the sky are only in my head.
5/4/11
I lay desolate
my bones picked over by a thousand grains of white sand in the moon light.
I am content.
Everything that I am I have surrendered to feed this earth. This moment.
I have given my body that had taken in love, passion, hatred, sadness, confusion, disappointment, longing, and creativity.
And I have surrendered it to this soil.
My sadness fuels the rain.
My passion ignites the animals
and I am relieved.
Relieved that I no longer have to hold these concepts inside my body anymore.
All that is left, all I contain, is compassion.
A concept to large to be held anyways.
So it is something that is all.
All around, inside and out.
And needs no boundaries to be shared.
A Poem A Day For A Year: Day 1
Ok here is the deal. I have been writing poetry since I was around the age of 9 and had always dismissed it as just something to help me stay sane and work through my emotions. But as I have gotten older and begun to analyze my life in terms of "what I want to do for the rest of my life" the only thing that has legitimately come up is being a poet, being a writer. I know there are a lot of talented people out there and I have no illusions of getting famous or even making money off of writing, though that would be nice of course, more it is the commitment to not compromise what it is that I truly want to do with my life in the face of needing to succeed according to someone else's standards. So the challenge is this: I will write a poem once a day and post it here, regardless of how bad it is to get in to the practice of writing constantly. The issues are that most days I work 12-14 hours and often get home exhausted and spent. But this may be how life is if I have chosen the path of a writer...so I better get used to it.
Poem 1:
I feel I am a boiling pot
bubbling away, close to overflowing
with a boiling pot you must be careful of the hot water, but mostly you must be wary of the steam
The steam will burn you if you are too close and there is the possibility that suddenly,
with no apparent cause the water will burst forth and spray you in an angry blister inducing torrent that leaves one red, and sore.
This is my state, with no apparent cause I boil over, on whom ever happens to be standing next to me and I burn them.
But there is cause. That is the thing with boiling water, to get it to boil you must turn up the heat and contain the space by covering it with an air tight apparatus. This creates the perfect environment for explosion.
See it is the concealing, the covering that makes the environment possible.
It is the denial, and the self- righteousness that makes up this covering and the process then leads to an erupting, dangerous cataclysm of sadness, hurt, indignation, and lack of integrity.
The key to avoid this, is to not cover the pot, but to gently let it simmer, casting beautiful swirls of steam creating patterns in the air, only adding beauty to the world.
Poem 1:
I feel I am a boiling pot
bubbling away, close to overflowing
with a boiling pot you must be careful of the hot water, but mostly you must be wary of the steam
The steam will burn you if you are too close and there is the possibility that suddenly,
with no apparent cause the water will burst forth and spray you in an angry blister inducing torrent that leaves one red, and sore.
This is my state, with no apparent cause I boil over, on whom ever happens to be standing next to me and I burn them.
But there is cause. That is the thing with boiling water, to get it to boil you must turn up the heat and contain the space by covering it with an air tight apparatus. This creates the perfect environment for explosion.
See it is the concealing, the covering that makes the environment possible.
It is the denial, and the self- righteousness that makes up this covering and the process then leads to an erupting, dangerous cataclysm of sadness, hurt, indignation, and lack of integrity.
The key to avoid this, is to not cover the pot, but to gently let it simmer, casting beautiful swirls of steam creating patterns in the air, only adding beauty to the world.
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