there is an inability to speak honestly that has covered my mouth and eyes and hands. this dishonest veil is being lifted slowly and carefully, for though it has been unwanted and frustrating, its fragile dejected state must be respected and cared for tenderly. if it were to be removed too quickly or violently, its fragments could not explain the purpose it served for so long.
as i lay in undisturbed solitude i find my body is rupturing in anticipation of something inconceivable and unreachable while my mind is lucid and still. i look to the future for clarity and direction but can't see past the low and lofty clouds. no matter how infrequently i call upon it, the past can still visit and fill me like a match being lit. the only difference in its illuminations are their ability to be extinguished in a simple breath. what i have now is surrounding me at this moment. it is all right here and i can see it and taste it, however foul or sweet, i have it to know now, not later or prior to, it is it is and it is. i am returning home very soon, changed only slightly, still baring the same foolish heart. i barely recognize my own reflection at times but it is not because i am so different, it is myself that i can see now for the first time.
there are still words building up in my chest and i have no where else to put them but on the stale summer air. they are lost and surreal in the pulsating heat, but i know you are still finding them when you want to, and this does bring the same foolish smile and waves through my soul. i savour and cherish these moments as i would upon watching a stag and a doe contrasting against white white snow.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
who orbits who
lungs soft as moss
black thread and tired eyes
skin pulled tight across veins and weathered stones
warm mouths breathing softly and separate
bony fingers interlaced and sleeping
sour stomachs, frowns, jagged teeth
fractions and divisions, adding and subtracting
staring boldly then timid
inhaling the stars with raised arms holding nothing and everything
tangled and beautiful and missing and complete
dim light shattering through dense wood
if not now then never
it had to be so it goes on forever
black thread and tired eyes
skin pulled tight across veins and weathered stones
warm mouths breathing softly and separate
bony fingers interlaced and sleeping
sour stomachs, frowns, jagged teeth
fractions and divisions, adding and subtracting
staring boldly then timid
inhaling the stars with raised arms holding nothing and everything
tangled and beautiful and missing and complete
dim light shattering through dense wood
if not now then never
it had to be so it goes on forever
Sunday, May 30, 2010
this morning as i watched the sunrise:
i asked the chattering birds, the swifting clouds, the paling sky, the shadows, the damp air, the dying night "please come with me to bed, let us pause and dream for a while. there is no need to rush into today when we have already had so many days and have so many more days ahead..."
i wanted to reach out and grab everything and hold it and have it. but i soon realized, or more so remembered, there was not a bit of reality in my desires. today had already begun and parts of it were already gone, perhaps lost forever.
this week has sent my head spinning. i can't help but be reminded of life's ability to not only progress and digress down certain pathways very quickly, but also its tendency to hop onto other paths that we have never known before, often leaving us lost and frightened. there is a fragility in everything we are and do that we all tend to ignore, which always flashes before us in the most unexpected moments.
not everything always "works out" and hardly anything we expect to happen ever happens. never are the most horrible things that happen to us fair or anticipated, but we can endure so much more than we can imagine. we can watch a sunrise and a nightfade and remember the most amazing things. we can keep these things with us forever if we want to. we can not ask for the birds to pause in mid-flight, or ask a person to stay in our lives who is leaving or already gone. we can not pause a day or pretend the world stops while we dream. life is always moving, changing, fleeting, revolving. we can move with it and we can be a part of it. as long as we are living we can always smile, breath deep the air, taste the water, and fill our hearts with love.
as my own life advances and changes i can not help but see all of your lives moving so freely beside mine. you amaze me and give me the courage to smile and feel secure in my role as a living breathing loving thing.
i am absolutely sure that all of you know all of this, i just feel they are things that can always use some reiteration.
xo
i wanted to reach out and grab everything and hold it and have it. but i soon realized, or more so remembered, there was not a bit of reality in my desires. today had already begun and parts of it were already gone, perhaps lost forever.
this week has sent my head spinning. i can't help but be reminded of life's ability to not only progress and digress down certain pathways very quickly, but also its tendency to hop onto other paths that we have never known before, often leaving us lost and frightened. there is a fragility in everything we are and do that we all tend to ignore, which always flashes before us in the most unexpected moments.
not everything always "works out" and hardly anything we expect to happen ever happens. never are the most horrible things that happen to us fair or anticipated, but we can endure so much more than we can imagine. we can watch a sunrise and a nightfade and remember the most amazing things. we can keep these things with us forever if we want to. we can not ask for the birds to pause in mid-flight, or ask a person to stay in our lives who is leaving or already gone. we can not pause a day or pretend the world stops while we dream. life is always moving, changing, fleeting, revolving. we can move with it and we can be a part of it. as long as we are living we can always smile, breath deep the air, taste the water, and fill our hearts with love.
as my own life advances and changes i can not help but see all of your lives moving so freely beside mine. you amaze me and give me the courage to smile and feel secure in my role as a living breathing loving thing.
i am absolutely sure that all of you know all of this, i just feel they are things that can always use some reiteration.
xo
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
what a little blood can do
bled to the point that your veins feel thin, they ache, they churn, they still seep
there has been a loss or a gain, you are not sure which
should you laugh madly or scream silently?
until you pass out
but you can't do either, any
no dear nothing, you are dry
you are too aware, too close to
and too many things too far from
there is a nothing that devours what is left of you
there is a nothing that still seeps scentless from you
you would be better off dead but this you are not
you would be better off without and so you are
you are dry, but you are, you are, you are, you are
see/say it again so this time you will believe it
then forget it again so this time you won't see it
there has been a loss or a gain, you are not sure which
should you laugh madly or scream silently?
until you pass out
but you can't do either, any
no dear nothing, you are dry
you are too aware, too close to
and too many things too far from
there is a nothing that devours what is left of you
there is a nothing that still seeps scentless from you
you would be better off dead but this you are not
you would be better off without and so you are
you are dry, but you are, you are, you are, you are
see/say it again so this time you will believe it
then forget it again so this time you won't see it
Thursday, May 13, 2010
my mouth has gone
the dark wound where sap dripped so constantly from has not healed at all. rather, there has been a sever at mid-trunk; only my uprooted legs and feet are left to wonder loosely through humid midnight. i am drawing letters in the dirt with my toes, but these are letters who won't associate with the frivolity of bright and astonishing words. these letters are bleak and without passion. they are vulgar in their simplicity. they are meant only for the other nocturnal beasts who roam separately, bound only to amnestic oblivion and to their own dim shadows. they are for the indifferent and illiterate. if you were to stumble upon this wood, and if you were to hesitate upon one of my letters scribbled in the dirt, you would not recognize it as mine. it would spell out nothing. you wouldn't care for it, it wouldn't care for you.
there isn't a word left to write to you, but here i am: still rambling. here i am atop this abandoned mound of words and punctuations, i am the ruler of beginnings and middles and ends which are as tangled/confused/useless as they were when they were living. there you are, the incessant empty space between every piece tangible. the dark matter not at hand. you touch nothing but surround it all. you are no longer among the stars, you are the clouds that blot them.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
linseed oil
it is always a scent, the more heavy and lingering, the deeper the memory ruptured.
i lay on my back, collapsed over the side of my bed with my head almost touching the floor. i let the blood rush in until i can hear nothing but my spinning heart. i stare vaguely at the shadows cast on my wall and press my palms flat to the cold oak floor. that goddamn old shadow box comes into focus like a stranger passing on a dark road. i close my eyes and fill my dead lungs with dank and humid air. the tears follow one another over my forehead and into my loose hair.
the news of the dead. always the same astonishment. the same sinking regret. the same question "why?" laying unanswered between the bodies.
my heart is still spinning. can you feel this?
his heavy dark brows clutch his eye sockets. his smile is rabid. i wish to taste his fever, i want it to rise in my upside down skull and boil the rot out of my belly. i want to vomit and chop what is left of your mania into a dust fine enough to be absorbed again through the skin and lungs.
i sit up fast. now i am all spinning.
i have turned into a something less that a wisher; a prayer. i pray for what is rotting and putrid. i have become a monk devoted to ego, asking for its judgement, begging for its rapture. i have alarmed myself to sin and embraced it with a choke hold. i have sought liberation and found myself tying myself naked to a stop sign, save the splintering rope tied about my waist. i have been there, here, for months, years. my body is crawling away from itself. my muscles have slipped from my tyrant bones, and my bones have managed to escape as well. my teeth have chewed through my mouth, and my tongue laps and twists, screaming violently like a trapped sea monster through the gaping holes left. i possess not a cell of what i was. i am drooling like a mad dog, frothing, gurgling, spitting profanities, praying to be beaten and choked, to be pushed in front of death to see alive.
everything is still, lucid. my life is calm and is as simple as the tides.
can you feel this?
i lay on my back, collapsed over the side of my bed with my head almost touching the floor. i let the blood rush in until i can hear nothing but my spinning heart. i stare vaguely at the shadows cast on my wall and press my palms flat to the cold oak floor. that goddamn old shadow box comes into focus like a stranger passing on a dark road. i close my eyes and fill my dead lungs with dank and humid air. the tears follow one another over my forehead and into my loose hair.
the news of the dead. always the same astonishment. the same sinking regret. the same question "why?" laying unanswered between the bodies.
my heart is still spinning. can you feel this?
his heavy dark brows clutch his eye sockets. his smile is rabid. i wish to taste his fever, i want it to rise in my upside down skull and boil the rot out of my belly. i want to vomit and chop what is left of your mania into a dust fine enough to be absorbed again through the skin and lungs.
i sit up fast. now i am all spinning.
i have turned into a something less that a wisher; a prayer. i pray for what is rotting and putrid. i have become a monk devoted to ego, asking for its judgement, begging for its rapture. i have alarmed myself to sin and embraced it with a choke hold. i have sought liberation and found myself tying myself naked to a stop sign, save the splintering rope tied about my waist. i have been there, here, for months, years. my body is crawling away from itself. my muscles have slipped from my tyrant bones, and my bones have managed to escape as well. my teeth have chewed through my mouth, and my tongue laps and twists, screaming violently like a trapped sea monster through the gaping holes left. i possess not a cell of what i was. i am drooling like a mad dog, frothing, gurgling, spitting profanities, praying to be beaten and choked, to be pushed in front of death to see alive.
everything is still, lucid. my life is calm and is as simple as the tides.
can you feel this?
Sunday, April 18, 2010
white flutterbys
she sits in a plastic chair on his front porch with her bare legs drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. she stares up at a blank damp and purple sky and shivers as a wind kicks the petals off of a redbud tree branching out before her. she hears his footsteps coming toward the front door and she takes a deep breath. with her senses filled with redbuds she turns to see him smiling through the night within the opened door behind him. he is wrapped in a quilt hand sewn by a mother, its squares of deep reds and blues and yellow ochre are muted in the dim glow of a distant street lamp. he stops just slightly past her and puts a cigarette in his mouth, lights it, and exhales into the night and over top the fragrant air. he extends the glowing cigarette out to her, still smiling, knowing she can't quite reach it if she tried. so she stands and takes a drag, and puts it back to his mouth. he lifts his arms and takes on the appearance of a strange and colorful vulture swooping down to wrap his technicolor wings about her. they stand this way until the cigarette is done burning, and a little while afterwards.
beneath the warm blanket their hearts ebb from cool satisfaction to vibrating uncertainty and back to calm clearness and then again to childish euphoria. each moment is as absolute as the one just past and the one rising before them. each caress without surprise, full of knowing and expectation wrought by too many years of contemplation & anticipation. in a moment of coolness they throw the blanket over the chair she was sitting in and begin to walk down to the river. they stumble through the dark, arms vaguely locked together, watching the shadows ahead of them fill and then dissipate beneath their matching strides. somehow they never make it to the river. they walk toward and then parallel to it for several hours, neither one seeming to notice this or anything else. their heads buzz with an anxious freedom which had been suddenly handed through the dark of four collective years which they had spent bound apart by their own heart tethers. night birds sing their familiar choruses over their heads, and frogs fill in as a choir to their rhythmic walking.
they awoke and slept and awoke again and then slept again until very late the next morning, and then reluctantly regained consciousness of what was left of the day ahead. they ate breakfast with their legs laced together and ignored the approaching inevitability of parting, making plans only for the moments immediately approaching. they wondered through a park of roses without roses and sat on the top of a short hill covered in thick clover beneath the shade of three crab apple trees. white flutterbys dancing between shadows and dappled sunlight seemed to remind her of a memory not yet come to pass.
the air sinks hot and unmoving as she is glaring up at a blank white ceiling, wishing its blankness would fill the rest of her. she knows that the week prior is already blurring and smudging the line between it and the memories of him formed 2 years before that. she knows this because it began and ended the same as it already had, and what happened in the midst of that begin and end is now and forever a part of what already was and is. she knows that in her old age she will see white flutterbys dancing between the dappling sunlight of that what was and could never be, and it will be a memory without needing.
beneath the warm blanket their hearts ebb from cool satisfaction to vibrating uncertainty and back to calm clearness and then again to childish euphoria. each moment is as absolute as the one just past and the one rising before them. each caress without surprise, full of knowing and expectation wrought by too many years of contemplation & anticipation. in a moment of coolness they throw the blanket over the chair she was sitting in and begin to walk down to the river. they stumble through the dark, arms vaguely locked together, watching the shadows ahead of them fill and then dissipate beneath their matching strides. somehow they never make it to the river. they walk toward and then parallel to it for several hours, neither one seeming to notice this or anything else. their heads buzz with an anxious freedom which had been suddenly handed through the dark of four collective years which they had spent bound apart by their own heart tethers. night birds sing their familiar choruses over their heads, and frogs fill in as a choir to their rhythmic walking.
they awoke and slept and awoke again and then slept again until very late the next morning, and then reluctantly regained consciousness of what was left of the day ahead. they ate breakfast with their legs laced together and ignored the approaching inevitability of parting, making plans only for the moments immediately approaching. they wondered through a park of roses without roses and sat on the top of a short hill covered in thick clover beneath the shade of three crab apple trees. white flutterbys dancing between shadows and dappled sunlight seemed to remind her of a memory not yet come to pass.
_________
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
drop me in the water
in a mist of mediocrity she had lost her barrings. she had no idea what was up or down because there really wasn't much of either. it was a calming of her mind and heart. during this time she mistook complacency for happiness and she thought the steadying of her heart was a sign of victory over two years of restless torment. she sunk deep into this mediocrity. as she sunk deeper, the brightness of the world dulled and the darkness lightened. she soon found herself in a vibrating grey abyss. one night as she lay silently in the arms of stability and routine, she was caught off guard as she saw the round white moon rising like a tidal wave over her grey horizon.
"i am happy for you," the full moon said, once he had risen high above her and was shining with bright confidence, bleaching her grey world.
she stared at him, bewildered. happy for what? she asked herself as she looked around her, searching for this happiness she thought she had just had beside her. she only found grey clouds. for what is all of this grey blankness? she asked. i am certainly not blank. why have i succumbed to a world where the dull and tamed dwell? why am i wasting my love on loveless things? she became very bored with herself and was appalled by what she had let herself become. she let her heart flood with memories of the many nights her and the moon had spent together. she thought about the awe she had felt when she first saw him singing above the trees. she laughed when she remembered the shadows he had cast beside her as they danced in a snow covered forest. his gravity, his light, his whole suddenly filled her with a completeness she had long forgotten. not only had he given her life beauty and love, but he had also shown her what it meant to be ugly and hateful. she recalled the sadness she used to feel when he would leave her at the end of each night. in his vacancy the sun would rise and give her terrible headaches and annoy her with noise. she blamed him for her pain. she recalled one night when they had an argument about his coming and going so often, after which she had said goodbye to him with an absolute coldness and wished she would never see him again. to her horror he did not come back the next night. in fact he did not come back for weeks, and not even the stars would come to see her during this time. on the 30th day he did indeed come back, but by then she had grown so weary from the pain it took to look up and not see him that she had begun to bury herself in daylight, blinding herself to his memory, and decided she could no longer look for him. she would force herself to sleep before the sun went out, and would not open her eyes again unless she was certain the world was fully illuminated. it was a time of absolute agony which lasted two years. this is when she met mediocrity. she indulged in its lack of highs or lows and dreamed quiet dreams that were filled with colours and numbers and everything else that did not hurt and what did not bring joy.
her grey and timid world suddenly became very small in the wake of her recollections. the arms that were about her felt like the claws of death pulling her down into a grave of empty ignorant blissful dreams. she screamed and tore them from her. the mist came falling and crashing at her feet. after it had all fallen to pieces, still vibrating, she gazed upon the unrecognizable rubble. none of it meant anything to her.
she looked back up at the moon and asked "for what exactly are you happy for? as you can see, i have nothing."
he had already begun his descent toward her now blackened horizon as he frowned and replied "i thought you were happy."
"no, this is not what i want, please, you must understand..."
"but it is what you wanted" he said as he slipped away.
she cried to him "please for the love of god do not leave me alone in this darkness again!" but he was gone.
her eyes filled with regret. she looked down at where the mediocrity had fallen and was amazed to find that it had already taken up residence in a small box in an unreachable corner of her distant memory. she sat down on a shadowless ground and stared at the sky pleading with the stars to please bring him back. soon the sun came out, and she closed her eyes in the hopes of finding him in the darkness of her dreams. she woke up once night returned and waited for him until day came back again. her life consisted only of this for five nights and days without any sign of his return. she thought she would surely die from the pain which had not only been growing at an exponential rate for the past three years, but was still growing inside of each moment that passed. but to her surprise, she did not die. on the sixth night she found him beside her in a reflection mirrored on a puddle of her own tears. she looked up, and as he smiled down on her, she wept with an exploding joy at such a furious rate that a lake formed around her almost immediately, surrounding her with the reflection of his smile.
"i am happy for you," the full moon said, once he had risen high above her and was shining with bright confidence, bleaching her grey world.
she stared at him, bewildered. happy for what? she asked herself as she looked around her, searching for this happiness she thought she had just had beside her. she only found grey clouds. for what is all of this grey blankness? she asked. i am certainly not blank. why have i succumbed to a world where the dull and tamed dwell? why am i wasting my love on loveless things? she became very bored with herself and was appalled by what she had let herself become. she let her heart flood with memories of the many nights her and the moon had spent together. she thought about the awe she had felt when she first saw him singing above the trees. she laughed when she remembered the shadows he had cast beside her as they danced in a snow covered forest. his gravity, his light, his whole suddenly filled her with a completeness she had long forgotten. not only had he given her life beauty and love, but he had also shown her what it meant to be ugly and hateful. she recalled the sadness she used to feel when he would leave her at the end of each night. in his vacancy the sun would rise and give her terrible headaches and annoy her with noise. she blamed him for her pain. she recalled one night when they had an argument about his coming and going so often, after which she had said goodbye to him with an absolute coldness and wished she would never see him again. to her horror he did not come back the next night. in fact he did not come back for weeks, and not even the stars would come to see her during this time. on the 30th day he did indeed come back, but by then she had grown so weary from the pain it took to look up and not see him that she had begun to bury herself in daylight, blinding herself to his memory, and decided she could no longer look for him. she would force herself to sleep before the sun went out, and would not open her eyes again unless she was certain the world was fully illuminated. it was a time of absolute agony which lasted two years. this is when she met mediocrity. she indulged in its lack of highs or lows and dreamed quiet dreams that were filled with colours and numbers and everything else that did not hurt and what did not bring joy.
her grey and timid world suddenly became very small in the wake of her recollections. the arms that were about her felt like the claws of death pulling her down into a grave of empty ignorant blissful dreams. she screamed and tore them from her. the mist came falling and crashing at her feet. after it had all fallen to pieces, still vibrating, she gazed upon the unrecognizable rubble. none of it meant anything to her.
she looked back up at the moon and asked "for what exactly are you happy for? as you can see, i have nothing."
he had already begun his descent toward her now blackened horizon as he frowned and replied "i thought you were happy."
"no, this is not what i want, please, you must understand..."
"but it is what you wanted" he said as he slipped away.
she cried to him "please for the love of god do not leave me alone in this darkness again!" but he was gone.
her eyes filled with regret. she looked down at where the mediocrity had fallen and was amazed to find that it had already taken up residence in a small box in an unreachable corner of her distant memory. she sat down on a shadowless ground and stared at the sky pleading with the stars to please bring him back. soon the sun came out, and she closed her eyes in the hopes of finding him in the darkness of her dreams. she woke up once night returned and waited for him until day came back again. her life consisted only of this for five nights and days without any sign of his return. she thought she would surely die from the pain which had not only been growing at an exponential rate for the past three years, but was still growing inside of each moment that passed. but to her surprise, she did not die. on the sixth night she found him beside her in a reflection mirrored on a puddle of her own tears. she looked up, and as he smiled down on her, she wept with an exploding joy at such a furious rate that a lake formed around her almost immediately, surrounding her with the reflection of his smile.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
she said:
"sometimes i fear that you are nothing more than a reflection. no matter how deeply i can peer into your heart and soul, when i reach out for you a thousand ripples radiate extinguishing your image. when i try to comfort and encourage you my words and hands are blocked by cold and unresponsive surfaces. if i wasn't so afraid to lose sight of you i would smash all of the glass and stomp in every puddle all around the world, in hopes that all of the racket would force you out of hiding in plain view."
but the reflection did not respond. she sat and stared for a long time and then went to do her laundry.
"sometimes i fear that you are nothing more than a reflection. no matter how deeply i can peer into your heart and soul, when i reach out for you a thousand ripples radiate extinguishing your image. when i try to comfort and encourage you my words and hands are blocked by cold and unresponsive surfaces. if i wasn't so afraid to lose sight of you i would smash all of the glass and stomp in every puddle all around the world, in hopes that all of the racket would force you out of hiding in plain view."
but the reflection did not respond. she sat and stared for a long time and then went to do her laundry.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
this
she woke up to the singing of birds in the trees crisscrossing the bedroom window. the morning was damp and the air was blue. he was still asleep and facing away from her. she stared out of the window knowing there would be no more dreaming for the rest of the day. there simply was no need for it. she rolled to her side to gaze at his bare shoulders. she quietly ran her fingers over the curl formed by his dark hair behind his ear and then kissed his warm neck. being careful not to wake him, she slid out of the bed and walked quickly across a cold wood floor which she knew the placement of every creak and groan and carefully avoided them all. she wore a thin white cotton knee length night gown with a loose drawstring around her waist and embroidery crawling around her neck and running along side her long braid that hung loosely down her back. the sun was beginning to warm the light coming through the kitchen window as she fed their two animals, an old curly sad dog and a cheerful but solitary short haired cat. the sky turned a pale blue as she walked barefoot from the backdoor to their garden where she buried her face in lavender and rolled rosemary leaves between her palms and rubbed their scents into her bare shoulders. her feet were numb from the dew and wet earth between her toes. she put her tan hands on her hips and tilted her head up to the tops of the trees where the birds were becoming more and more chatty, discussing the dreams they had and what patch of grass they might go look for breakfast in. she heard the water in the kitchen run and then stop as he was filling a teapot with water. though she couldn't see him, she felt his gaze through the kitchen window, and still staring up at the trees her eyes swelled with the perfection that was breaking open inside of a new morning. she smiled. she broke off a tiny branch of chamomile and glided back up to their house as he was opening the screen door. she put the tiny white flowers behind his ear, his green eyes shining like the wet grass under her feet. he smiled and then kissed her smiling mouth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)