tumblweeds

until because.

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vortex

i want to write a poem that starts with the word
vortex and have it end up being a story about how
i feel all this love but also a study of why still
so much sadness

vortex may not be the word i want to use though,
really, since it means something that resembles
a whirlpool according to the dictionary, and though i
really believed all this time it means a place of great energy
and mystery, what do i know compared to the forces of
definition?

so what are the words that mean the most to you
becomes a part of the story too,
and what do they mean when you mean them
some other way?

and so we go down the vortex mute or mumbling,
imagining stumbling together toward
light

and the reason why still so much sadness is because
you see
sadness never ends, and the meaning of all this love is
you see
you've found someone to share your sadness with

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photo credit: pyriet

everything they do is conscious

which is mastery of intent,
which is pure, and art,
which I respect for its clarity,
and admire for its beauty,

which I want you to respect
and admire too,
so we can share that feeling
each of us,
share in that groove,
so we can feel something
that is unlike anything else in this world

and for a moment
feel what is real.

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brave man with a sword

In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

— "Ballad of Reading Gaol," by Oscar Wilde, read by Mike Tyson

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passenger side

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nobody likes a sleepyface

someone so insomniacal
sullen and bleary, befuddled by noise and scents
they deem all action too intense
conversation confounding with humor
they do not want to laugh
the sun is too bright
these clothes don't fit right
and their back and their neck

nobody likes a sleepyface
because where is their mind

what to do, what to do
misery they look it
they cannot think of one thing
except to touch their head
and close their eyes

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happy america

eventually comfortably silent. a look. laughing. in love.

the highway.

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Michael Pangrazio
"Government Warehouse"
1981

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3333

people have come to this blog. strangers, most. most stay for less than five seconds. most have come because of this post. and most of the rest come because of this one.

three-thousand three-hundred thirty three. a lot of folks. someone from the Islamic Republic of Iran yesterday clicked a link that brought them here. what a time to be alive.

3333. what kind of a year will that be? seems like a long ways in the future. and yet, would someone from 700ish A.D. be so dumbstruck by our world, as we live today? what, in all of that time, has changed so much? sure, there are all the conveniences (contrivances?) of our technologically badass society. and yet, we still live in communities, still seek love, still fight wars, still are humbled by our own smallness, still search for answers that will never come, tell stories and work each day, eat and have sex and create new generations...

visions of the future always seem so foreign. still, while the world may change, and while we may reshape the world with our uncaring hubris and even destroy our place in it, humans will never change. all the good, all the bad, all the middle... as history has grown, as knowledge has expanded, as progress has been made... so too have the meaningful things become muddled, the important things become distant, the least valuable things given a price and the most valuable things deemed mysterious and unattainable...

anyway, thanks for stopping by. this blog is just an elaborate way for me to say hello.

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make believe tomorrow

need to get out the country
do something new
listen to Phish again
in a few days you

feeling restless
like it's all falling into place
kind of like the paradox of time travelers
in the past create themselves who

make believe a bright light see it
make believe nothing too

meantime some seagulls all standing
in a circle in a culdesac
one
silent as the next
kicks a pebble stops to think
of flying to

but how far when
tomorrow it may be nice here
nice
to stand in a circle warm asphalt
underfoot again
and to fly
where
and to wonder
why

and to wonder
is this poem about birds or feelings?

don't know what this is
about
or don't want to say

maybe both

maybe it's about traveling
through time
or how to make believe
tomorrow

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Kamrooz Aram
“Last Gleaming”
2006

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(via.)

eleven words

onymous
borborygmi
velutinous
haptodysphoria
Mamihlapinatapai
plenilune
karoshi
metempsychosis
pogonotrophy
xenodochial
lexiphanic

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the sound of thunder

In 1704, playwright John Dennis invented a new method of producing the sound of thunder during a play. Dennis's play was unsuccessful, but his thunder technique was soon borrowed by another production, leading Dennis to exclaim:

Damn them! They will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder.

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little chap

A careful man I want to be,
A little fellow follows me;
I know I dare not go astray,
For fear he'll go the self-same way.

I cannot once escape his eyes,
Whate’re he sees me do, he tries;
Like me he says he’s going to be,
This little chap who follows me.

He thinks that I am good and fine,
Believes in every word of mine;
The base in me he must not see,
This little chap who follows me.

I must be careful as I go,
Through summer’s sun and winter’s snow;
Because I am building for the years to be,
This little chap who follows me.

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dwight d. eisenhower is my homeboy

D-Day.

the highways.

laserbeams.

is he a supranatural intradimensional master of time and space???

i think so.

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staying up all night listening to Phish

ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulez

they are badass
modern technology is neat
i'm drunk & high
all is well

welllllllllll in the world
saw a tshirt today
said 'the point of art is to define
panic'
thought that was an interesting point
concept

point concept point
level-headed boy better bend
conceptualize the stratosphere smiling
a sky divided so far
piano deep thunder groove
dogmatagram fishmarket stew
so far smiling

smiling big
breathing
hear the voices flutter through
glistening

here
here in that happy place
inside deep inside somewhere
like what that guy in Bittersweet Motel with the harmonica
said

everybody is here and no one is
it's an amazing thing
being
here

the night expands
the night is long and she is meant to be

seize her
celebrate
come from the top top mountain baby

grow grow build build
where do you go
when the lights go out?
go on then
the night expands
a dream it's true

boy
man
gawd
aww, shiiiiieeeeeeeet...

gawdamm epik
so gawdamm epik you need a different spelling for the words
goddamn epic shit
yes you

you need to be
here

yes
you

i would love to spill the beans with you till dawn

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diamonds on my windshield

Diamonds on my windshield
And these tears from heaven
I'm pullin' into town on the Interstate
I got me a steel train in the rain
And the wind bites my cheek through the wing
And it's these late nights and this freeway flying
That always makes me sing
'Cuz lookee here
There's a duster tryin' to change my tune
He's pullin' up fast on the right
Rollin' restlessly by a twenty-four hour moon
And a Wisconsin hiker with a cue-ball head
Wishin' he's home in a Wisconsin bed
But there's fifteen feet of snow in the East
It's colder than a welldigger's ass
I said, it's colder than a welldigger's ass

And now Oceanside, she ends the ride,
With San Clemente coming up
And them Sunday desperadoes slip by
And cruise with a dry back
And the orange drive-in, and the neon billin',
And the theatre's fillin' to the brim,
You got slave girls and a hot spur and bucket full of sin
In that metropolitan area
With all them interchanging connections
And fly-by-nights from Riverside
And out-of-state plates, running a little late

Now the sailors jockey for the fast lane
So 101 don't miss it
You got rollin' hills and concrete fields
And that broken line's on your mind
And the 8s go east and the 5s go north
And the merging exits back and forth
You see your sign, you cross the line, you signal with a blink
'Cuz that radio's gone off the air,
Gonna give you time to think
And you hear the rumble as you're fumblin' for a cigarette
Go on blaze on through that midnight jungle
You remember someone and you can't forget

And one more block, that engine talks
And whispers: home at last
I said, one more block, that engine talks
And whispers: home at last

'Cuz you got diamonds on your windshield
And them tears from heaven
Pullin' into town on the Interstate
With a steel train in the rain
And the wind bites my cheek through the wing
It's these late nights and this freeway flying
That always makes me sing

- Tom Waits, "Diamonds On My Windshield"

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hippos on holiday

is not really the title of a movie
but if it was I would be sure to see it.
I love their short legs and big heads,
the whole hippo look.
Hundreds of them would frolic
in the mud of a wide, slow-moving river,
and I would eat my popcorn
in the dark of a neighborhood theater.
When they opened their enormous mouths
lined with big stubby teeth
I would drink my enormous Coke.

I would be both in my seat
and in the water playing with the hippos,
which is the way it is
with a truly great movie.
Only a mean-spirited reviewer
would ask on holiday from what?

- Billy Collins, "Hippos on Holiday"

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interpretation

          A film should stand on its own. It's absurd if a filmmaker needs to say what a film means in words. The world in the film is a created one, and people sometimes love going into that world. For them that world is real. And if people find out certain things about how something was done, or how this means this or that means that, the next time they see the film, these things enter into the experience. And then the film becomes different. I think it's so precious and important to maintain that world and not say certain things that could break the experience.
         You don't need anything outside of the work. There have been a lot of great books written, and the authors are long since dead, and you can't dig them up. But you've got that book, and a book can make you dream and make you think about things.
         People sometimes say they have trouble understanding a film, but I think they understand much more than they realize. Because we're all blessed with intuition -- we really have the gift of intuiting things.
         Someone might say, I don't understand music; but most people experience music emotionally and would agree that music is an abstraction. You don't need to put music into words right away -- you just listen.
         Cinema is a lot like music. It can be very abstract, but people have a yearning to make intellectual sense of it, to put it right into words. And when they can't do that, it feels frustrating. But they can come up with an explanation from within, if they just allow it. If they started talking to their friends, soon they would see things -- what something is and what something isn't. And they might agree with their friends or argue with their friends -- but how could they agree or argue if they don't already know? The interesting thing is, they really do know more than they think. And by voicing what they know, it becomes clearer. And when they see something, they could try to clarify that a little more and, again, go back and forth with a friend. And they would come to some conclusion. And that would be valid.

- David Lynch, "Interpretation," Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, pp. 19-20

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